Free Republic

The Obama administration has released an economic report that claims everything is coming up roses, and it is making the rounds of the MSM's news outlets. Truth is, when you look into the numbers, it's rather easy to come to the conclusion that the economic reports are as screwy as the administration's employment numbers. In order to convince Americans that his economic measures are working, Obama is claiming there has been an increase in retail sales from December to January by a seasonally adjusted .4%. The administration goes on to explain that while the economy is moving in a positive...

Let's think about the kind of mess that we're in. Federal 2010 Medicare and Medicaid expenditures totaled $800 billion. The projected annual growth of both programs is about 7 percent. Social Security expenditures are more than $700 billion a year. According to the 2009 Social Security and Medicare trustees reports, by 2030, 49 percent of federal revenues will go for Social Security and Medicare payments. The unfunded liability of both programs is already $106 trillion.But not to worry. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that it's possible to sustain today's level of federal spending and even achieve a balanced budget. All...

The Occupy Wall Street movement is almost five months old and although some vow not to abandon their posts throughout the country, HBO’s Bill Maher says the protest has ran its course. On Friday night’s airing of “Real Time with Bill Maher,” Maher likened the Occupy movement to the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan, which according to him has gone on too long. “Let me ask about another occupation because this is, and you would be good on this, too, panel — the Occupy Wall Street,” Maher said. “Because similar to Afghanistan, when you occupy anything too long, people do get...

BILL GROSS: 'We Are Witnessing The Death Of Abundance' Joe Weisenthal Febuary 1, 2012 In his latest monthly letter, PIMCO's Bill Gross has a long philosophical-sounding discussion about credit, delevering, and the difficult task facing Bernanke. The money line is this paragraph at the end: Where does credit go when it dies? It goes back to where it came from. It delevers, it slows and inhibits economic growth, and it turns economic theory upside down, ultimately challenging the wisdom of policymakers. We’ll all be making this up as we go along for what may seem like an eternity. A 30-50...

John TaylorÂ’s new economic treatise would make helpful reading for our political leaders.First Principles: Five Keys to Restoring AmericaÂ’s Prosperity, by John B. Taylor (Norton, 240 pp., $24.95) Millions of Americans, reeling from the slumping economy, have become skeptical about the free market and inclined to listen to proponents of discretionary economic intervention. In election years, in which all political candidates must pledge to create jobs (and pretend that theyÂ’ve done so in their former positions), even pro-market candidates cannot entirely avoid advocating government policies to boost employment. They should read Stanford University economist John TaylorÂ’s new book, First Principles....

A pair of articles by Austrian economist professor Antal E. Fekete just might have one wondering who is more in the loony bin, mainstream economists like Krugman or those consistently chanting about the death of the dollar coupled with hyperinflation. Premature Obituaries Please consider Premature Obituaries It is open season for wild monetary prognostications. More premature obituaries on the dollar have been posted on the Internet. For example, see Jim Willie’s The US Dollar Paper Tiger (Gold-Eagle, January 11) with epitaphs like “the U.S. dollar rising to the cemetery”, or “dollar death dance”. Or see another article, Jeff Nielsen’s entitled...

Eleven Stunning Revelations From Larry Summers’s Secret Economics Memo To Barack Obama By James Pethokoukis January 23, 2012, 3:08 pm A lengthy piece in The New Yorker looks at policymaking in the Obama White House. A key source for writer Ryan Lizza is a 57-page, “Sensitive & Confidential” memo written by economist Larry Summers—eventually to be head of Obama’s National Economic Council—to Obama in December 2008. Here’s some of what I learned about Team Obama’s thinking as the financial crisis was exploding, followed by quotes from the memo itself: 1. The stimulus was about implementing the Obama agenda The short-run...

What might an imaginary trillionaire do with what Uncle Sam leaves him? He can buy something, give to charity, bury it or (re-)invest seeking greater gains. Clearly these are better conducted by those outlaying their property versus government bureaucrats squandering what others create. Maybe our nascent trillionaire will donate to worthy causes. Rockefeller reportedly gave over half a billion dollars away. Andrew Carnegie was similarly generous. Worthwhile charity is subjective, but the one who created wealth can better evaluate this than those bestowing others’ taxes to boost their reelection chances. Few philanthropists would condone massive vote buying welfare schemes where...

Accumulated budget deficits of $15.2 trillion and unfunded entitlement liabilities of $117 trillion cannot dissuade Paul Krugman, New York Times columnist and Princeton University professor, from his belief that government must go many trillions more into debt immediately to rescue Barack Obama's presidency. In his latest column extolling the virtues of the late British economist John Maynard Keynes, Mr. Krugman asserts anew that the nearly $800 billion Obama stimulus of 2009 failed to produce 4 million new jobs and keep unemployment under 8 percent simply because it was too small. (He has argued $2.9 trillion of government pump-priming was the...

The markets were on a roll. New companies were being listed every few days. Germany had a new currency, and its mighty exporters were doing business around the world. Greece had merged its currency with that of France and Italy in a bold experiment in monetary union. A massive new continental economy was flooding the world with cheap goods, disrupting old industries. And new technologies were creating global markets, where money and information zipped from bourse to bank virtually instantaneously. Until the crash came, it seemed as if everyone would keep on getting richer and richer forever. You could be...

With unemployment at record levels, guess what academic economists from coast to coast are devoting their energies to studying? In The Chronicle Review on December 11, 2011, Rachel Shteir, an associate professor at the Theatre School at DePaul University, helpfully separates the scholars from the crackpots in the burgeoning field of sexonomics. “In the law corner is Daniel S. Hamermesh’s Beauty Pays: Why Attractive People Are More Successful, which calls people who aren’t beautiful ‘The Ugly’ or ‘Looks-Challenged’ and argues that they merit affirmative action,” Shteir wrote. “In the exploit-the-marketplace corner is Catherine Hakim’s Erotic Capital: The Power of Attraction...

Clint Bolick looks like any other high-powered lawyer, for the most part. But glance down at his index finger, which sports a scorpion tattoo, for first-hand evidence of his unconventional streak.Mr. Bolick has fought for the right of Arizonans to have their toes nibbled. After successfully defending a tattoo artist, he celebrated by having himself inked. From his perch here at the Goldwater Institute, a high-powered libertarian think tank, Mr. Bolick has even picked a fight with an entire professional hockey team.From a conservative point of view, there is no end to the government interference in individual liberties going on...

At Christmas families celebrate a Savior descending to redeem fallen man. Gifts get no bigger, but for holiday fun, let’s right some nagging worldly wrongs. Without claiming to have been good, here’s my Christmas wish list: the world’s first trillionaire. I’d eliminate poverty too, but capitalism in many ways already has. Modern Shepherds and stable boys fare better today materially than anyone except perhaps tax collectors when Christ came. Caesar continues taxing us onerously and decreeing silly burdens, yet despite these barriers to prosperity the luxuries of not long ago continue to become necessities for rich and poor alike. The...

One of the fascinating little oddities of academic research is the amount of intellectual capital that the best and the brightest spend in order to catch up with the rest of us. “We consider the relationship between collegiate-football success and non-athlete student performance,” three economists from the University of Oregon write in a recent study. “We find that the team’s success significantly reduces male grades relative to female grades.” “This phenomenon is only present in fall quarters, which coincides with the football season. Using survey data, we find that males are more likely than females to increase alcohol consumption, decrease...

At Christmas families celebrate a Savior descending to redeem fallen man. Gifts get no bigger, but for holiday fun, let’s right some nagging worldly wrongs. Without claiming to have been good, here’s my Christmas list: •More Inequality •Less Government I’d eliminate poverty too, but capitalism already has. Shepherds and stable boys fare better materially than anyone except perhaps tax collectors when Christ came. The lingering poor are primarily recent immigrants or fresh graduates only beginning to savor the fruits of market bounty; people enslaved to addictions or those Washington pays to remain perpetually destitute. Caesar continues taxing us onerously and...

Oh my: Obama ready to cave on veto threat over Keystone pipeline provision?

Jim Puplava: Joining me as my special guest on the program today is Ann Barnhardt, formerly of Barnhardt Capital Management. And Ann, you were a commodity broker for eight years and then you formed your own independent brokerage for six years. A couple of weeks ago you made the painful decision to shut your doors because you felt your clients’ money and positions were no longer safe. What led you to draw those conclusions?Ann Barnhardt: Well, obviously, it was the MF global collapse and more specifically the fall out after the MF Global collapse and the reaction by the CFTC, the SEC...

Why The UK Trail Of The MF Global Collapse May Have "Apocalyptic" Consequences For The Eurozone, Canadian Banks, Jefferies And Everyone Else In an oddly prescient turn of events, yesterday we penned a post titled "Has The Imploding European Shadow Banking System Forced The Bundesbank To Prepare For Plan B?" in which we explained how it was not only the repo market, but the far broader and massively unregulated shadow banking system in Europe that was becoming thoroughly unhinged, and was manifesting itself in a complete "lock up in interbank liquidity" and which, we speculated, is pressuring the Bundesbank, which...

In the short span of a century and a half, the US went from a government famously described by Abraham Lincoln as "of the people, by the people, for the people" to one "of the Elites, by the Elites, for the Elites." Albert J. Nock referenced Lincoln's phrase as "probably the most effective single stroke of propaganda ever made in behalf of republican State prestige." Perhaps, but when Lincoln said it our country had at least some resemblance to Lincoln's description. This country, founded on personal liberty, freedom and limited government, has morphed into a massive Social Welfare State rivaling...

President Obama's much-ballyhooed speech in Osawatomie, Kan., was his best effort to put a happy face on class warfare. Though some were elated, fantasizing that he might be getting his messianic mojo back, even his reliable cheerleaders recognize there's no substance beneath the hot air rising. Liberals get all dewy-eyed when Obama reverts to idealistic tones, as they are saps for perfect-world scenarios that never materialize. They love it when he co-opts history in service to their cause. So he traveled to Kansas seeking to identify with Teddy Roosevelt, the icon of rugged individualism, to lambast the evils of rugged...

Thomas Sowell is that rarest of things among serious academics: plainspoken. This characteristic, a by-product of both his innate temperament and the intellectual courage for which nature does not deserve the credit, surely has been bad for his career. (Intellectual courage tends to impede the career path of an intellectual.) If he were the obfuscating sort, he might have made Harvard don; if he were the cheaply poetical sort, he might have made U.S. president. His plain speaking also makes him dangerous, and that danger is intensified by the fact that Sowell is black. And not just black, but unassailably...

Our economic problems rightfully dominate the news. However, they are merely symptoms of a bigger, underlying problem: government. For many, the previous paragraph is heresy. They "know" that government is necessary and good. They "know" that government solves problems and brings order to the chaos that would prevail in its absence. "They" are wrong! Government has become little more than a carefully crafted myth based on propaganda disseminated by government itself. It has devolved into a scheme of plunder whereby the elites plunder the masses. It did not start that way, at least not so egregiously. Government transmogrified into a...

All too often people who are well-meaning and have good intentions end up creating results which are the opposite of the very thing they are trying to fix. Milton Friedman discusses the efficacy of "affecting to trade for the public good," as Adam Smith put it.

The U.S. Federal Reserve, acting with five other central banks, took steps Wednesday to boost the troubled global financial system by making it cheaper for banks to trade in U.S. dollars. The Fed -- along with central banks of the eurozone, England, Japan, Switzerland and Canada -- announced a coordinated plan to lower prices on dollar liquidity swaps beginning on December 5, and extending these swap arrangements to February 1, 2013.

Such was the title of a debate held at the Asia Society, sponsored by Thomson Reuters, which I attended several weeks ago. Coming at a time of agonizing societal fissures arising from debates over austerity, stimulus, and the wisdom of government intervention into the economy, this event pitting the backers of a Hayekian view of economics against those who espoused a Keynesian model seemed incredibly timely. After explaining to the audience the general structure of the debate and how it would be judged-spectators were given gadgets similar to those distributed at IQ2 debates, which they were to use to vote...

The folks at Liberal Conspiracy have asked people to put together “info-graphics and bits of information about inequality”, so I thought I’d help out a bit with this neat little graph (the little blue dots represent American states). Citing New Economics Foundation, Resolution Foundation and Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Sunny Hundal points out that:

A chain of three stores that sells survival food and gear reports a jump in sales to people who are getting prepared for the “possible collapse” of society. “We had to order fifty cases of the meals ready to eat to keep up with the demand in the past three months,” said manager Steve Dorsey at Uncle Sam’s Safari Outfitters Inc. in Webster Groves. “That’s not normal. Usually we sell 20 to 30 cases in a whole year.”

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. Everything demanded by the Occupy Wall Streeters -- whether "free" health care, a "world-class education" or a "guaranteed living-wage income regardless of employment" status -- costs money. When a CEO makes a lot of money in the private sector, it is because his company -- rightly or wrongly -- values that CEO's services at that price. To say it is "not right" that a CEO makes (fill in the blank) times more than the janitor is to say it is not right for the marketplace to set wages. If the marketplace...

THOUGHTS ON URBAN SURVIVAL Life in Post-Collapse Argentina, Oct. 2005 My brother visited Argentina a few weeks ago. He’s been living in Spain for a few years now. Within the first week, he got sick, some kind of strong flu, even though the climate isn’t that cold and he took care of himself. Without a doubt he got sick because there are lots of new viruses in my country that can’t be found in 1st world countries. The misery and famine lead us to a situation where, even though you have food, shelter and health care, most others don’t, and...

For the second time in two years, European debt troubles threaten to slow the momentum of the fragile recovery in the United States.

HONG KONG — Chinese political and business leaders are increasingly triumphant after two decades of rapid economic growth that lifted unprecedented millions of people out of poverty and turned the nation into an economic superpower, saying their success proves its political and economic system is superior to the Western model. In extensive talks with a series of Chinese leaders, an oft-cited point of criticism is the gridlock and “dysfunction” they see in Washington. They say fawning by U.S. political leaders seeking re-election has created an “entitlement culture” where the public has grown dependent on government largesse. Now, with the United...

German and French officials have discussed plans for a radical overhaul of the European Union that would involve establishing a more integrated and potentially smaller euro zone, EU sources say. French President Nicolas Sarkozy gave some flavor of his thinking during an address to students in the eastern French city of Strasbourg on Tuesday, when he said a two-speed Europe -- the euro zone moving ahead more rapidly than all 27 countries in the EU -- was the only model for the future. The discussions among senior policymakers in Paris, Berlin and Brussels go further, raising the possibility of one...

No matter your thoughts about the Occupy Wall Street movement, the protesters are right in at least one respect: The rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer.” Variations on this statement have been repeated in dozens of blogs, commentaries and even news reports over the past several weeks. The claim comes via a Congressional Budget Office analysis showing that incomes for the top 1 percent of Americans grew by 275 percent between 1979 and 2007, while the lowest 20 percent saw their inflation-adjusted incomes grow by “only” 18 percent. The numbers from the report are correct, but...

EVERYONE knows that something is wrong. What they do not realize is that this has ALWAYS been a global game. What are the implications of a global economy? As bizarre as this may sound, everything in economic theory that supports government manipulation and intervention into the domestic economy rests upon theories that the economy is exclusively domestic and takes NOTHING into consideration affecting local events from an external source. Why is this important to understand? The Sovereign Debt Crisis began in Austria in 1931. Once one country goes, capital looks around and then attacks the next country perceived to be...

“No matter your thoughts about the Occupy Wall Street movement, the protesters are right in at least one respect: The rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer.” Variations on this statement have been repeated in dozens of blogs, commentaries and even news reports over the past several weeks. The claim comes via a Congressional Budget Office analysis showing that incomes for the top 1 percent of Americans grew by 275 percent between 1979 and 2007, while the lowest 20 percent saw their inflation-adjusted incomes grow by “only” 18 percent. ... The actual empirical evidence cited has been...

***2nd Revision***Even our brightest may be deceived! ~Anonymous -By: Larry Walker, Jr. -Continued from: 3rd Concern with the 9-9-9 Plan -Mr. Cain’s main argument against the fact that his plan redistributes wealth from the poor to the rich is that, “it does no such thing.” But what does that mean? Simply stating “it does no such thing” doesn’t satisfy the anxiety. The real concern is that since the top 1% of income earners pay 38% of all income taxes, and because the 9-9-9 Plan reduces their tax rate by 74%, while at the same time exempting empowerment zone residents, that...

NewsHour anchor Jeffrey Brown explained that in the segment correspondent Paul Solman "gets a contrarian view, suggesting inequality in a free market system may not be as bad as advertised." The guest was New York University law school professor Richard Epstein.

JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES and Friedrich Hayek. The names conjure opposing poles of thought about making economic policy: Keynes is often held up as the flag bearer of vigorous government intervention in the markets, while Hayek is regarded as the champion of laissez-faire capitalism. What these men actually thought — about the economy and each other — is more complicated, as Nicholas Wapshott demonstrates in “Keynes Hayek: The Clash That Defined Modern Economics” (W. W. Norton, $28.95). This lively book explores one of the most pressing economic questions of our time: To what extent should government intervene in markets? And in...

Full Text of Article (less graphics) follows: Laffer Shoots Down Critics on Cain 999 for WSJ In an Opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal, Supply Side economist and Reagan advisor, Art Laffer, looks at the number and concludes it is real stimulus for the American economy. Cain's plan will bring in the same revenue as the current tax code on a "static basis." This means that given no assumptions for extra "dynamic" growth, the 999 Plan will meet revenue needs. But, Laffer strongly believes that the Cain Plan will bring in more due to the intrinsic economic positives of...

NEW YORK — Can an Anglican theologian from Britain revive an 80-year-old Catholic social justice theory and provide a solution to America’s economic woes and political polarization? Philosopher and political thinker Phillip Blond thinks so, and he’s giving it everything he’s got. Blond, who has been a counselor to British Prime Minister David Cameron, just wrapped up a two-week U.S. tour to pitch his retooled version of “distributism,” a theory that argues that both capitalism and government are out of control. In that sense, the thinking goes, both Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party are right...

<p>The number is out, and it's HOT!</p> <p>PPI hs jumped 0.8%, well above the 0.2% analysts had expected.</p> <p>Core PPI, which excludes food and energy, was only up 0.2%, which is still above the 0.1% that analysts had expected.</p> <p>The culprit? Blame food and energy.</p>

On Meet the Press today, Herman Cain explained to David Gregory why he believes that liberals in the United States are invested in seeing the country fail and would do anything to see its destruction. Cain argued that if the economic situation was to get any worse, “it would destroy our economic capability,” and from that the United States would have to look at making cuts in defense spending, which Cain seemed to imply were not on the table for him. Gregory asked the candidate to clarify if he truly meant liberals would be implicit in the destruction of America,...

No matter how skeptical one is of the authority of “experts,” it’s hard to avoid paying at least some attention to the people who award the Nobel prize — especially when they give one to someone who tends to support some things one tended to believe already. So it is in the case of Thomas Sargent, the New York University professor who was announced Monday as a winner of the Nobel in economics. An interview of Professor Sargent by the Minneapolis Fed in August 2010 summed up some of his contributions succinctly: “policymakers can’t manipulate the economy by systematically ‘tricking’...

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for 2011 to Thomas J. Sargent New York University, New York, NY, USA and Christopher A. Sims Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA "for their empirical research on cause and effect in the macroeconomy"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWsx1X8PV_ASo clear and cogent, Freidman demolishes Phil Donahue. Greed and the lies of politicians who claim they are not greedy but are above it

Presidential candidate Herman Cain said Sunday that he didn’t believe racism was a major factor holding minorities back in America, asserting instead that African Americans had a level playing field on which to advance economically. “I don't believe racism in this country today holds anybody back in a big way,” Cain said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “Are there some elements of racism? Yes. It gets back to if we don't grow this economy, that is a ripple effect for every economic level, and because blacks are more disproportionately unemployed, they get hit the worst when economic policies don't...

TOKYO—The Japanese government and ruling party agreed plans on Tuesday to spend 12 trillion yen ($156 billion) through the forthcoming new stimulus package and to rely less on tax increases than initially envisioned to cover the cost of post-quake reconstruction.... ...The stimulus package is slightly bigger than the government's initial estimate. It would pay for steps to rebuild areas hurt by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami as well as measures to soften the impact of the yen's recent rise on the country's export-reliant economy. Separately, the government now plans to raise ¥7 trillion, instead of an initially planned ¥5...

See yesterday's post for a refutation of the "rich don't pay their fair share" fallacy. Today, I'd like to address the economic philosophy behind that statement and why it is also wrong. The unstated, underlying economic assumption that many leftists make is that the rich have to pay their "fair share," because the rich are wealthy only because they have taken from society or the poor and that government must right that wrong through taxes or "spreading the wealth around." Nothing could be further from the truth. What's amazing about free-market capitalism is that the way you get rich is...

The parent of the Chicago Board Options Exchange has held talks with a number of governors and state officials about a possible move of its headquarters to another state after Illinois raised its tax rate, providing another challenge to the city's status as the self-styled "derivatives capital of the world." January's tax increase is seen increasing CBOE Holdings Inc.'s (CBOE) state tax bill by a quarter. Chicago-based CME Group Inc. (CME), the world's largest futures exchange operator, is also talking about relocating its headquarters. "We've had a series of meetings with people in this state and outside this state," said...

She's Baaaaack! No sooner does Noman think he's done with Elizabeth Warren than she leaps into the fray with yet more provocative material. This woman is a living, breathing blog-op. It's worth taking time to address her for several reasons. First, she's a walking compendium of Liberal certitudes whose cocksure righteousness causes her to effuse pristine formulations of Statist credal beliefs. Secondly, she's a Chaired Harvard Law Professor, which attests to her position at the top of the profession's food chain, and highlights the beliefs that animate the nation's preeminent reservoir of legal wisdom. Finally, she's a perpetual menace to...