Mad Statists

Bill Bonner: The worst candidate to replace Ben Bernanke

"Ben Bernanke is leaving the Fed at the end of the year. The leading candidates to replace him are all fully committed to continuing his policies, which consist of providing as much credit rope as you need to hang yourself. People come to think what they need to think when they need to think it. When they approach the 'end of their rope' phase of a financial catastrophe they need to believe that they have no choice but to play out a little more line. Doubts give way to desperate faith. Reflection is abandoned for action. All of the announced candidates for Bernanke's job -- Yellen, Summers and Kohn - are believers." Continue reading →

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Bernanke: A Tenure of Failure

"Can Fed policy get worse under the leadership of either Dr. Yellen or Dr. Summers? Most definitely YES. Unfortunately leadership of the Fed is not the only problem. An institution that relies on good leadership to avoid harm to the economy and the nation is not a good institution. If banks and other financial institutions should not be too big to fail, neither should the Fed. While in the perception of too many, the Fed is both too big and too important to fail, it is an institution that not only could be, but has been, a complete failure." Continue reading →

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Ruinous Inflation Proposals

"In this day and age, one should never assume that 'educated' persons, especially those who have “earned” advanced degrees in economics, know the least bit of economics or possess the least bit of sense that might steer them away from the refuse that passes for economic thought. I speak specifically of Biagio Bossone and Richard Wood. Their ruinously inflationary ideas, if adopted, will destroy the economies that they think will be saved. The lofty positions they have held in such institutions as the World Bank, the IMF, the OECD, the Paris Club, and the Australian Treasury make them all the more dangerous." Continue reading →

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Archived papers reveal Queen Elizabeth’s ‘World War Three’ speech

"Relations between the Soviet Union and the West had become so tense 30 years ago that British officials drew up a speech for Queen Elizabeth to deliver to the nation in the event of a nuclear war, newly released archives showed on Thursday. In the speech, the monarch was to urge Britons to remain united and resolute in the face of the 'madness of war.' Written by government officials, the hypothetical speech was part of a secret exercise designed to prepare Britain for the threat of a possible World War Three, but was never broadcast." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingArchived papers reveal Queen Elizabeth’s ‘World War Three’ speech

‘Nut-free’ school zone decision upheld by Michigan Court of Appeals

"Michigan Court of Appeals panel upheld a decision Tuesday dismissing a lawsuit over a Romeo-area elementary school's policy creating a nut-free school. The unpublished opinion addresses a lawsuit filed by the parent of a student at Hevel Elementary School challenging the decision of Romeo Community Schools to make the elementary school a nut-free zone because of a student with life-threatening nut allergies. The ban prohibited all peanuts and tree nuts from the building, and school officials periodically searched lunch boxes and backpacks, according to the opinion." Continue reading →

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Last Hurrah of the Interventionists?

"In what a Washington Post columnist describes as a rout of Rand Paul isolationism, the Senate just voted overwhelmingly to send another $1.5 billion in foreign aid to Egypt. The House voted 400-20 to impose new sanctions on Iran’s oil exports, two days before Iran’s new president, elected on a pledge to re-engage the West on the nuclear issue, takes his oath. Do these triumphs of AIPAC and the War Party, of neocons and liberal internationalists, tell us where we are going? Or are they the last hurrahs of the interventionists, as America’s long retreat proceeds apace." Continue reading →

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McCain Declares War on Russia

"He continued by calling for the listing of as many Russians as possible under the Magnitsky legislation in the US, which allows those considered – under dubious criteria – to be human rights violators to be prevented from entering the US and to have their assets seized by the US government. Then, reprising his subsequently discredited position during the short 2008 Russian/Georgian conflict that 'we are all Georgians now,' McCain all but called for the US to foment another Georgian war against Russia — this time with NATO providing back-up." Continue reading →

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More than 1,000 Iraqis killed in July, highest monthly toll since 2008

"More than 1,000 Iraqis were killed in sectarian violence in July, the highest monthly death toll since 2008, the United Nations said, as Sunni Islamist groups stepped up their insurgency against Iraq’s Shi’ite-led government. Most of the 1,057 victims were civilians, killed in a relentless campaign of bombings and shootings that some Iraqis fear could drag the country into another war. July’s toll brought the number of people killed in militant attacks since the start of the year to 4,137. Last week hundreds of convicts ran free after simultaneous attacks on two high-security prisons, raising questions about the ability of the security services to combat al Qaeda." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingMore than 1,000 Iraqis killed in July, highest monthly toll since 2008

Ron Paul: Iraq Collapse Shows Bankruptcy of Interventionism

"Millions live in constant fear, refugees do not return home, and the economy is destroyed. The Christian community, some 1.2 million persons before 2003, has been nearly wiped off the Iraqi map. Other minorities have likewise disappeared. U.S. support for the Syrian rebels next door has drawn the Shi’ite-led Iraqi government into the spreading regional unrest. The invasion of Iraq opened the door to al-Qaeda in Iraq, which did not exist beforehand, while simultaneously strengthening the hand of Iran in the region. Were the 'experts' who planned for and advocated the U.S. attack really this incompetent?" Continue reading →

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UN narcotics body warns Uruguay over marijuana bill

"The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) says it is concerned by the approval by Uruguayan MPs of a bill which would legalise marijuana. The INCB says the law would 'be in complete contravention to the provisions of the international drug treaties to which Uruguay is party'. The INCB is an independent body of experts established by the United Nations to monitor countries' compliance with international drug treaties. It says that, if adopted, it 'might have serious consequences for the health and welfare of the population and for the prevention of cannabis abuse among the youth'." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingUN narcotics body warns Uruguay over marijuana bill