Essays

Paul Craig Roberts: It Has Happened Here

"Some Americans claim that we have had police states during other wartimes and that once the war on terror is won, the police state will be dismantled. Others claim that government will be judicious in its use of the power and that if you are doing nothing wrong you have nothing to fear. These are reassurances from the deluded. The Bush/Obama police state is far more comprehensive than Lincoln’s, Wilson’s, or Roosevelt’s, and the war on terror is open-ended and is already three times longer than World War II. The Police State is acquiring 'squatter’s rights.' Moreover, the government needs the police state in order to protect itself from accountability." Continue reading →

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Bob Higgs: The Relentless March of the U.S. Police State

"The question is: how much farther must we travel down this road before people will be compelled to admit that 'the land of the free' is more a reassuring myth than a description of the land in which we actually live—to recognize that the freedoms to go shopping and browse the Web are not enough to make a society genuinely free?" Continue reading →

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Investing In a World of Make Believe

"In recent years, a high degree of economic, financial, and political uncertainty has resulted in acute volatility in stocks, real estate, commodities and precious metals. I believe that another aggravating factor has been the increasing skepticism through which the investing public views government statistics and statements. To make prudent decisions, investors need to know key economic indicators such as economic growth, inflation rates, unemployment levels and the real cost and value of money. For the past 20 years or so, the key assumptions behind the calculation of these figures have been distorted in favor of government image." Continue reading →

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Depreciating Dollar Not Good For People, But Good for ‘the Economy’?

"All the nations are inflating, so that their exporters will not suffer from an appreciating currency. Central bankers regard appreciating currency as a disaster. They are mercantilists. Yet we know that, as individuals, to hold on to an appreciating currency is a great thing. Why is it a great thing for individuals to hold an appreciating currency, yet it is also a good policy for a central bank to expand the money supply, so as to decrease the international value of the currency? There seems to be something wrong here. There seems to be cognitive dissonance." Continue reading →

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The Fed’s Asset-Inflation Machine

"Winners on stocks or land holdings should happily accept their gains as the best to be expected in a very unsettled financial environment. But they should also remember the 2000s, when so many people thought their newfound riches were real and cashed them in for yet more debt, such as home-equity loans. They later had a rude awakening. The 'wealth illusion' of asset inflation is seductive, which is why central banks in charge of a fiat currency and subject to no external disciplines so often drift in that direction. Politicians smile in satisfaction and powerful Washington lobbies cry for more. But an economy built on an illusion is hardly a sound structure." Continue reading →

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Disarm the police, not the citizens

"Every response by law enforcement seems to resemble a wartime situation these days, something one would think that Americans would be concerned about. Yet, for a nation that was born with a suspicion of standing armies and that wouldn’t tolerate the existence of one during peacetime, virtually no one objects to the increasingly aggressive tactics of local, state and federal police, often acting jointly to address routine local crimes. One can already imagine the response by apologists for the all-powerful state. 'If that’s what it takes to keep our children safe, then it’s worth it.'" Continue reading →

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Elite Description Problem – Why the System Needs a Full Explanation

"The reason to create the modern nation-state is because the top power elites hide behind it, controlling society and economics and their will via mercantilism, the secret exercise of public rule to abet private interests. Modern citizens work for THEM even though they don't realize it. And they are not supposed to realize it. If we project this nation-state rule far enough, we begin to see the emergence of true neo-feudalism where a tiny group of globally recognized leaders run the world." Continue reading →

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Who Was the Richest Person Ever?

"The fabulously rich triumvir Marcus Crassus’s fortune was estimated around the year 50 BCE at some 200 million sesterces (HS). Crassus’s annual income could be estimated at 12 million HS. Thus expressed, Crassus’s income was equal to the annual incomes of about 32,000 people, a crowd that would fill about half of the Colosseum. Let us fast-forward more closely to the present and apply the same reasoning to three American wealth icons: Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller and Bill Gates." Continue reading →

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Peter Schiff: The Biggest Loser

"For the past few generations Switzerland has enjoyed some of the strongest economic fundamentals in the world. The country boasts a high savings rate, low taxes, strong exports, low debt-to-GDP, balanced government budgets, and prior to a few years ago one of the most responsible monetary policies in the world. These attributes made the Swiss franc one of the world's 'safe haven' currencies. Despite the fact that Switzerland was an island of economic health amidst a sea of problems, the reigning economic orthodoxy convinced Swiss leaders that their strong currency was a burden rather than a blessing." Continue reading →

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The Echo Boom in Housing-Recovery Stocks

"Speculative bubbles often produce an 'echo boom' a few years after the bubble has burst, as the cultural/institutional memories of the asset's spectacular gains remain operative long after the initial boom/bust. Is the much-hyped housing recovery an organic, sustainable trend, or is it merely a speculation-driven echo boom that is doomed to fade?" Continue reading →

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