Economics

Cognitive Dissonance of Ben Bernanke?

"The aggrandizement of 'leaders' who preside over massive price-fixing facilities such as central banks and legislatures ought to be identified as the hype that it is. There is no possible way that even the most sophisticated analysis of previous indicators can yield up legitimate and accurate projections. Those internationalists who have constructed the current system know that. Hence, the almost obsessive concentration on academic degrees and 'expert' appellations. The idea is to fool people into believing the 'best-of-the-best' have 'expert' powers that allow them to peer into the future using the indicators at hand. But they can't any more than you can." Continue reading →

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Being an Austrian Is Easier Than Ever

"In April 2011, two years shy of its 100th birthday, the Fed held its first press conference in history in response to mounting criticism of its lack of transparency. In other words, the Fed felt that it had to walk out into the sunshine and defend itself. And, as no doubt part of the same public relations effort, recent Fed publications reveal a concerted effort to perpetuate the myth that the Federal Reserve System is not a central bank at all, but a system of banks that serve 'our local communities.' What’s different this time is that, with the help of the web, Ron Paul’s 2012 campaign, and of course, the Mises Institute, the Austrian School of economics is no longer an obscure and ignored minority." Continue reading →

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Ron Paul: After 100 Years Of Failure, It’s Time To End The Fed

"A week from now, the Federal Reserve System will celebrate the 100th anniversary of its founding. Resulting from secret negotiations between bankers and politicians at Jekyll Island, the Fed's creation established a banking cartel and a board of government overseers that has grown ever stronger through the years. One would think this anniversary would elicit some sort of public recognition of the Fed's growth from a quasi-agent of the Treasury Department intended to provide an elastic currency, to a de facto independent institution that has taken complete control of the economy through its central monetary planning." Continue reading →

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G. Edward Griffin on Globalism, Collectivism and the ‘Right Principles’

"I think the most important thing we can do today is to recognize that our opponents are not evil because of their political party affiliation. They're not our opponents because they're evil or because they have this, that or the other thing. It's because they have an ideal, a philosophy that they're following. People mistakenly often just attack them because of the party labels – 'Get rid of him. He's a Democrat!' or 'He's a Republican. Get rid of him!' Who's going to replace him? Somebody just exactly the same, with the same mindset. So it does no good to focus on personalities and names. We have to rise above that and focus on the ideas these individuals are pursuing." Continue reading →

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Money for Nothing: Inside the Federal Reserve (2013)

"Nearly 100 years after its creation, the power of the U.S. Federal Reserve has never been greater. Markets and governments around the world hold their breath in anticipation of the Fed Chairman's every word. Yet the average person knows very little about the most powerful - and least understood - financial institution on earth. Money For Nothing is the first film to take viewers inside the Fed and reveal the impact of Fed policies - past, present, and future - on our lives. Join current and former Fed officials as they debate the critics, and each other, about the decisions that helped lead the global financial system to the brink of collapse in 2008. And why we might be headed there again." Continue reading →

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How the Paper Money Experiment Will End

"We are now in a situation that looks like a dead end for the paper money system. After the last cycle, governments have bailed out malinvestments in the private sector and boosted their public welfare spending. Deficits and debts skyrocketed. Central banks printed money to buy public debts (or accept them as collateral in loans to the banking system) in unprecedented amounts. Will money printing be a constant with interest rates close to zero until people lose their confidence in the paper currencies? Can the paper money system be maintained or will we necessarily get a hyperinflation sooner or later? There are at least seven possibilities." Continue reading →

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Barbados PM: Central bank ‘indulgence’ a threat to economic stability

"Former Barbados prime minister Owen Arthur said that the Central Bank had printed BDS$370 million to purchase Government Treasury Bills, which had caused the country’s foreign exchange reserves to plunge. 'The printing of money on this scale to accommodate government’s fiscal deficit is the chief factor that has triggered the dramatic plunge downward in the country’s foreign exchange reserves. If this plunge downward is not immediately checked, the economic affairs of Barbados will enter a new and very dangerous territory,' he warned, reminding of the economic and social problems of Guyana and Jamaica as a result of excessive increases in money supply and inflation." Continue reading →

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The Dialectical Pomposity of the Tapering Promotion

"We might taper, he tells us, if the economy seems strong. We might not if the economy seems less strong. Maybe we will, maybe we won't. And to ascertain the strength of the economy, Bullard and his noobs will parse notoriously unreliable government data. They will make decisions on how much money to print at what price. This is price fixing and price fixing never works. They will use the loony-tune statistics provided to them by the US government. Good luck. They will make determinations about the level of the price fix they shall levy based on these flawed numbers. This is YOUR economy. This is YOUR money." Continue reading →

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Revolutionary France’s Road to Hyperinflation

"The current Federal Reserve strategy is apparently to wait for significant price inflation to show up in the consumer price index before tapering. Yet history tells us that you treat inflation like a sunburn. You don’t wait for your skin to turn red to take action. You protect yourself before leaving home. Once inflation really picks up steam, it becomes almost impossible to control as the politics and economics of the situation combine to make the urge to print irresistible. The hyperinflation of 1790s France illustrates inflationary monetary policy becoming unmanageable in an environment of economic stagnation and debt, and in the face of special interests who benefit from, and demand, easy money." Continue reading →

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Central Banking: Sterile as the Grave

"Central banking is a modern religion, a technocratic one. The world's top men, the ones who control banking, want to present central banking as a science. Any sense of spontaneity, gaiety or eccentricity is to be drained from the process. What is left is a dutiful acknowledgement that those minding the money store are the best of the best – and chosen for their fealty to honesty and their honest resoluteness in the face of the temptations of corruption. A straight-shooter, fearless, well-meaning, earnest ... even a bit nebbish. That's how the central banker is basically presented to the world. You don't usually see them in relaxed environments. You hardly ever see them at barbecues." Continue reading →

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