Tag Archive: On Politics

The Recline and Flail of Western Civilization and Other 2019 Predictions

2018-12-31

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2018-12-31

The Recline and Flail of Western Civilization and Other 2019 Predictions. “I think it’s a tremendous opportunity to buy.  Really a great opportunity to buy.” – President Donald Trump, Christmas Day 2018. Darts in a Blizzard. Today, as we prepare to close out the old, we offer a vast array of tidings.

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How Faux Capitalism Works in America

2018-12-17

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2018-12-17

The Short Squeeze Tweet
Stars in the Night Sky. The U.S. stock market’s recent zigs and zags have provoked much squawking and screeching.  Wall Street pros, private money managers, and Millennial index fund enthusiasts all find themselves on the wrong side of the market’s swift movements.  Even the best and brightest can’t escape President Trump’s tweet precipitated short squeezes.

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The Big Picture: Paper Money vs. Gold

2018-12-12

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2018-12-12

PBoC balance sheet
Numbers from Bizarro-World. The past few months have been really challenging for anyone invested in gold or silver; for me personally as well. Despite serious warning signs in the economy, staggering debt levels and a multitude of significant geopolitical threats at play, the rally in risk assets seemed to continue unabated.

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Pushing Past the Breaking Point

2018-11-06

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2018-11-06

Schemes and Shams. Man’s willful determination to resist the natural order are in vain.  Still, he pushes onward, always grasping for the big breakthrough. The allure of something for nothing is too enticing to pass up.

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Eastern Monetary Drought

2018-10-26

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2018-10-26

Looking back at the past decade, it would be easy to conclude that central planners have good reason to be smug. After all, the Earth is still turning. The “GFC” did not sink us, instead we were promptly gifted the biggest bubble of all time –  in everything, to boot. We like to refer to it as the GBEB (“Great Bernanke Echo Bubble”) in order to make sure its chief architect is not forgotten.

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Switzerland, Model of Freedom & Wealth Moving East – Interviews with Claudio Grass

2018-10-07

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2018-10-07

Last month our friend Claudio Grass, roving Mises Institute Ambassador and a Switzerland-based investment advisor specializing in precious metals, was interviewed by Sarah Westall for her Business Game Changers channel.

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Jayant Bhandari – The US Dollar vs. Other Currencies and Gold

2018-09-07

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2018-09-07

Maurice Jackson Speaks with Jayant Bhandari About Emerging Market Currencies, the Trade War, US Foreign Policy and More. Maurice Jackson of Proven & Probable has recently conducted a new interview with our friend and occasional contributor to this site, Jayant Bhandari, who is inter alia the host of the annual Capitalism and Morality seminar.

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A Fake Brexit and the “Noble Dream” – Claudio Grass Speaks With Godfrey Bloom

2018-08-30

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2018-08-30

Introductory Remarks: The “Anti-Politician” Godfrey Bloom, by PT Most of our readers will probably remember former UKIP chief whip and European Parliament representative Godfrey Bloom. As far as we know, he is the only politician who ever raised the issue of the workings of the fractionally reserved central bank-directed monetary system in the EU parliament. This system is of course central to the phenomenon of the recurring boom-bust sequences...

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An Inquiry into Austrian Investing: Profits, Protection and Pitfalls

2018-08-11

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2018-08-11

Kevin-Duffy
“From a marketing perspective it pays to be overconfident, especially in the short term. The higher your conviction the easier it will be to market your investment ideas. I think the Austrian School is at a disadvantage here because it’s more difficult to be confident about your qualitative predictions and even in terms of investment advice it is particularly difficult to be confident in these times because we don’t really have any historical...

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Is Political Decentralization the Only Hope for Western Civilization?

2018-05-25

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2018-05-25

Fracture lines
A couple of recent articles have once more made the case, at least implicitly, for political decentralization as the only viable path which will begin to solve the seemingly insurmountable political, economic, and social crises which the Western world now faces.

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The Capital Structure as a Mirror of the Bubble Era

2018-05-09

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2018-05-09

Richard Nixon
As long time readers know, we are looking at the economy through the lens of Austrian capital and monetary theory (see here for a backgrounder on capital theory and the production structure). In a nutshell: Monetary pumping falsifies interest rate signals by pushing gross market rates below the rate that reflects society-wide time preferences.

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The Oil Curse Comes to Washington

2018-05-05

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2018-05-05

Supply and Demand
Prices rise and prices fall. So, too, they fall and rise. This is how the supply and demand sweet spot is continually discovered – and rediscovered. When supply exceeds demand for a good or service, prices fall. Conversely, when demand exceeds supply, prices rise.

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From Fake Boom to Real Bust

2018-04-27

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2018-04-27

Judgment day
More is revealed with each passing day. You can count on it. But what exactly the ‘more is of’ requires careful discrimination. Is the ‘more’ merely more noise? Or is it something of actual substance? Today we endeavor to pass judgment, on your behalf.

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Getting High on Bubbles

2018-04-26

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2018-04-26

GoodBuzz
Back in the drug-soaked, if not halcyon, days known at the sexual and drug revolution—the 1960’s—many people were on a quest for the “perfect trip”, and the “perfect hit of acid” (the drug lysergic acid diethylamide, LSD). We will no doubt generate some hate mail for saying this, but we don’t believe that anyone ever attained that goal.

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Trade War Game On!

2018-04-09

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2018-04-09

Ancient Chinese
“Things sure are getting exciting again, ain’t they?” The remark was made by a colleague on Tuesday morning, as we stepped off the elevator to grab a cup of coffee.

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Socialism and Capital Consumption

2018-03-02

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2018-03-02

A Soviet Propaganda Poster
We have been promising to get back to the topic of capital destruction, which we put on hiatus for the last several weeks to make our case that the interest rate remains in a falling trend. Today, we have a different way of looking at capital destruction.

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Why I Own Gold and Gold Mining Companies – An Interview With Jayant Bandari

2018-02-16

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2018-02-16

Jayant Bandari
Maurice Jackson of Proven and Probable has recently interviewed Jayant Bandari, the publisher of Capitalism and Morality and a frequent contributor to this site. The topics discussed include currencies, bitcoin, gold and above all junior gold stocks (i.e., small producers and explorers). Jayant shares some of his best ideas in the segment, including arbitrage opportunities currently offered by pending takeovers – which is an area that generally...

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When Budget Deficits Will Really Go Vertical

2018-02-12

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2018-02-12

US Treasury Yield Index, Jan 2017 - 2018
United States Secretary of Treasury Steven Mnuchin has a sweet gig. He writes rubber checks to pay the nation’s bills. Yet, somehow, the rubber checks don’t bounce. Instead, like magic, they clear. How this all works, considering the nation’s technically insolvent, we don’t quite understand. But Mnuchin gets it. He knows exactly how full faith and credit works – and he knows plenty more.

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The Donald Saves the Dollar

2018-02-01

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2018-02-01

US Dollar Index, Nov 2016 - Feb 2018
The world is full of bad ideas. Just look around. One can hardly blink without a multitude of bad ideas coming into view. What’s more, the worse an idea is, the more popular it becomes. Take Mickey’s Fine Malt Liquor. It’s nearly as destructive as prescription pain killers. Yet people chug it down with reckless abandon.

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Tax Reform and Trump’s Chinese Trade Deficit Conundrum

2018-01-26

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2018-01-26

Trump
Most things come easier said than done. Take President Trump’s posture on trade with China. Trump doesn’t want a bigger trade deficit with China. He wants a smaller trade deficit with China. In fact, reducing the trade deficit with China is one of Trump’s promises to Make America Great Again.

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