sound money

Georgia congressman complains: ‘I’m stuck here making $172,000 a year’

"A Georgia Republican congressman was caught complaining about what he described as a low salary in a closed-door meeting with fellow party members concerning the Affordable Care Act. During a discussion concerning a possible exemption for lawmakers and staff members from taking part in the state health exchanges mandated by the new law, Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) reportedly lamented that aides can become lobbyists 'and make 500,000 a year. Meanwhile I’m stuck here making $172,000 a year.' USA Today reported that Gingrey’s net worth is estimated to be between $3 million and $7.6 million, while the median household income in Georgia is $49,736." Continue reading →

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Surprise, Surprise: Consumers Do Not Believe the Fed’s Inflation Projections

"Caroline Baum of Bloomberg addresses the question of why consumers have ignored the Fed’s widely ballyhooed inflation target of 2 percent and the fact that CPI inflation has averaged only 1.5 percent over the past five years. Her answer is enlightening: 'Consumers either don’t listen, don’t care or derive their expectations from their own shopping cart. Food and gas comprise a big part of the household budget, and energy prices, at least, have been rising much faster than inflation. Just as consumers vote their pocketbook, they use their pocketbook to make judgments on where inflation is today and where prices are headed.'" Continue reading →

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Krugman: “The Employment Story is Highly Unimpressive”

"Even Paul Krugman gets it. He writes: 'The measured unemployment rate is down a lot — in fact, at 7.3 percent it’s almost exactly the same as it was in November 1982 1984, when Ronald Reagan won big on claims of restored prosperity. But most of the fall in unemployment reflects lower labor force participation rather than job growth. Even if we focus on prime-age workers, so as to net out demographic effects, the employment story is highly unimpressive.'" Continue reading →

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All Government Policies Succeed in the Long Run

"Many people, for good reason, have concluded that the surest test of whether a politician or public official is lying is to ask, Are his lips moving? An equally simple test may be proposed to determine whether a seemingly failed policy is actually a success for the movers and shakers of the political class. This test requires only that we ask, Does the policy remain in effect? If it does, we can be sure that it continues to serve the interests of those who are actually decisive in determining the sorts of policy the government establishes and implements." Continue reading →

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California Approves $10 Minimum Wage; What Will Become Automated Now?

"The next time you pump gas for yourself ask yourself what happened to the gas station attendants that used to pump gas and wash your windshields. The same thing when you can't find a department store clerk. It's the same thing with those damn automated phone answering services that most firms now use, it's just too expensive to hire human operators. And its the same with grocery store baggers from days of old. Thank you minimum wage. The damage of minimum wage isn't some theoretical, you have just gotten so use to it that you have forgotten what things were like, or you are too young to know the good old days." Continue reading →

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Swiss Fund Centralway Invests $250k In Bitcoin Exchange Buttercoin

"Swiss company builder Centralway is opening a new seed and early stage investment arm that will invest $50 million per year into 20 to 30 startups — including both small seed-stage investment and larger Series A rounds. It said its 'preferred case' will be to do a smaller investment at the seed stage, followed by larger investment into the same company at a later round. Buttercoin‘s model is to open a local Bitcoin exchange in each country where it operates — starting with Europe (where it’s due to launch in around two months’ time) — and then partner with local money transfer businesses to gain legal compliance in the country." Continue reading →

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Canadian billionaire predicts end of US Dollar as world’s reserve currency

"Canadian billionaire businessman Ned Goodman predicts the end of the U.S. Dollar as the world's reserve currency. He predicts the transition out of the U.S. Dollar will become, '...quite ugly.' He delivered the lecture at Cambridge House's Toronto Resource Investment Conference 2013 on Thursday, September 12, 2013." Continue reading →

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Everything’s Fixed, Everything’s Great

"Much to the amazement of doom-and-gloomers, everything's been fixed and as a result, everything's great. The list is impressive: China: fixed. Japan: fixed. Europe: fixed. U.S. healthcare: fixed. Africa: fixed. Mideast: well, not fixed, but no worse than a month ago, and that qualifies as fixed. Everything's fixed, because everybody that can create their own money can do so without limit or consequence. It's a perpetual money machine, and that fuels a perpetual growth machine. No limits on credit and debt means no limit on spending. Free money for everyone and everything--it's unbelievably easy. The solution to every problem is at hand: create more money and credit, in ever larger sums." Continue reading →

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A Rare Sign of Fiscal Sanity in France

"France’s state auditor urged the government Tuesday to redouble efforts to limit spending rather than increases taxes… He said 'the spiraling welfare debt was particularly abnormal and particularly dangerous.' During his first year in power, President François Hollande relied on large tax increases to plug holes in public finances, including social programs such as pensions, unemployment benefits and health care. But economic stagnation in 2012, coupled with a mild recession at the start of 2013, has waylaid the plan, while both companies and households are crying foul over what some have called 'a tax overdose.'" Continue reading →

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Muslim beauty pageant challenges Miss World

"Muslim women in headscarves and elaborately embroidered dresses took to the stage Wednesday for the finale of an Islamic beauty pageant in Indonesia, a riposte to the Miss World contest that has sparked hardline anger. 'We’re just trying to show the world that Islam is beautiful,' Obabiyi Aishah Ajibola, a 21-year-old contestant from Nigeria, told AFP backstage in the capital, Jakarta, before the final got under way. 'We are free and the hijab (Muslim headscarf) is our pride,' she said, adding that the pageant was 'nothing like Miss World, where women expose their bodies'." Continue reading →

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