Category Archive: 6b.) Debt and the Fallacies of Paper Money

Jailing Banksters Will Not Resolve the Economic Crisis

Meet the scapegoats! Three Irish bankers sent to jail: former finance director at the failed Anglo Irish Bank, Willie McAteer (42 months); former Irish Life and Permanent Bank Chief Executive Denis Casey (33 months); and former head of capital markets at the Anglo Irish Bank, John Bowe (24 months).

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Why Americans Get Poorer

OUZILLY, France – Both our daughters have now arrived at our place in the French countryside. One brought a grandson, James, now 14 months old. He walks along unsteadily, big blue eyes studying everything around him. He adjusted quickly to the change in time zones. And he has adjusted to the French culture, too – he likes gnawing on a piece of tough local bread. But when she has trouble getting the little boy to sleep, our daughter asks Grandpa for...

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Should the Government Give Us Infrastructure?

“Bad” Monopolies? An argument against absolutely free markets comes up often. What about so-called natural monopolies? So-called infrastructure projects (e.g. sewage plants) have high barriers to entry, and are a challenge to true competition.

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Visions of Tomorrow from the Permanently High Plateau

Mad as a Hatter. Somewhere, someone first said “bull markets don’t die of old age.” We suppose this throwaway phrase was first uttered in a time and place much like today. That is, in the midst of a protracted bull market where stock prices had detached from the assets and earnings of companies their shares represent claim to.

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Props to Armani!

Champion of the Downtrodden? “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” – H.L. Mencken. A mass e-mail has been making the rounds lately, and it is quite possible that many of our readers have already seen this. For those who haven’t, we wanted to share this moment of hilarity provided to us by Deep State candidate Hillary Clinton.

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A Fully Automated Stock Market Blow-Off?

About one month ago we read that risk parity and volatility targeting funds had record exposure to US equities. It seems unlikely that this has changed – what is likely though is that the exposure of CTAs has in the meantime increased as well, as the recent breakout in the SPX and the Dow Jones Industrial Average to new highs should be delivering the required technical signals.

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The Real Reason the “Rich Get Richer”

  Time the Taskmaster DUBLIN – “Today’s money,” says economist George Gilder, “tries to cheat time. And you can’t do that.” It may not cheat time, but it cheats far easier marks – consumers, investors, and entrepreneurs.   Tempus fugit – every action...

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US To Seize $1 Billion In Embezzled Malaysian Assets Which Goldman Sachs Helped Buy

The last time we wrote about the long-running saga of the scandalous collapse and constant corruption at the Malaysian state wealth fund, 1MDB, which also happened to be an unconfirmed slush fund for president Najib, was a month ago when we learned that the NY bank regulator was looking into fundraising by the fund's favorite bank, Goldman Sachs.

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The Day They Killed the Dollar

LAS VEGAS – It was 113 degrees outside when we rolled through Baker, California, a few days ago. We drove along in comfort, but our sympathies turned to the poor pilgrims who made their way to California in covered wagons. How they must have suffered!

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The World’s Central Banks Are Making A Big Mistake

While everyone was talking about Brexit last month, the Bank for International Settlements released its 86th annual report. Based in Basel, Switzerland, the BIS functions as a master hub for all the world’s central banks. It settles transactions among central banks and other international organizations. It doesn’t serve private individuals, businesses, or national governments.

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Hans-Hermann Hoppe: “Put Your Hope In Radical Decentralization”

All major political parties in Western Europe, regardless of their different names and party programs, are nowadays committed to the same fundamental idea of democratic socialism. They use democratic elections to legitimize the taxing of productive people for the benefit of unproductive people. They tax people, who have earned their income and accumulated their wealth by producing goods or services purchased voluntarily by consumers (and of course...

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Bank of Japan: Destination Mars

Asset Price Levitation One of the more preposterous deeds of modern central banking involves creating digital monetary credits from nothing and then using the faux money to purchase stocks. If you’re unfamiliar with this erudite form of monetary policy this may sound rather fantastical.

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Three-Ring Circus

Speculator’s Market LOS ANGELES – Stocks were up again… Whoa! Hold on just a cotton-picking minute. Honest investors are getting out of the stock market. There have been net withdrawals of $80 billion from U.S. equity funds so far this year. Who’s buying?

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Helping Robots Find Jobs…

When the cost of capital goes down to zero, a company with access to that cheap – or even free – money can afford to pay almost an infinite amount of money to get rid of its employees and hire robots. “Zero-interest-rate policy is really a full robot employment program.”

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Central Bank Wonderland is Complete and Now Open for Business — The Epocalypse Has Fully Begun

Summer vacation is here, and the whole global family has arrived at Central-Bank Wonderland, the upside-down, inside-out world that banksters and their puppet politicians call “recovery.” Everyone is talking about it as wizened traders puzzle over how stocks and bonds soared, hand-in-hand, in face of the following list of economic thrills:

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Germany Sells First Ever Negative-Yielding 10Y Treasury, Corporate Bonds

Overnight, we previewed what was about to be a historic for the eurozone bond auction, when this morning Germany sold its first ever 10Y bonds with a zero coupon.

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EU Sends Obsolete Industries Mission to China

The European press informs us that a delegation of EU Commission minions, including Mr. JC Juncker (who according to a euphemistically worded description by one of his critics at the Commission “seems often befuddled and tired, not really quite present”) and European Council president Donald Tusk, has made landfall in Beijing.

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Why Profitability Matters and Market Forces Are Not Random

The tenets of the Efficient Market Hypothesis and Modern Portfolio Theory. It is widely held that financial asset markets always fully reflect all available and relevant information, and that adjustment to new information is virtually instantaneous.

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Fat People for Trump!

BALTIMORE – One of the delights of being an American is that it is so easy to feel superior to your fellow countrymen. All you have to do is stand up straight and smile. Or if you really need an ego boost, just go to a local supermarket. Better yet, go to a supermarket with a Trump poster in the parking lot.

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Larry Summers Wants to Give You a Free Lunch

Consequences of Central Bank Policies The existing capital stock continues to be frittered away at the expense of savers and retirees. Nonetheless, central bankers don’t give a doggone about it. This, after all, is one consequence of roughly eight years of near zero interest rate policy.

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