What I am saying is this: this time it’s different. This time, the fractional reserve banking system has shot its wad. It is begging for ever-larger handouts from the Treasury Department, which needs central bank fiat money to bail out the economy. The public is accepting this grudgingly, and the academic economists are cheering, but the reality is this: this time it’s different. You had better adjust your portfolio, your career plans, and your retirement plans accordingly.  FULL ARTICLE

The Government TARP and stimulus packages now add up to some $3 trillion. Already, they have caused political consternation and pose serious challenges to America’s credit rating and ability to extend further its towering debts, without crowding out viable corporate borrowing. What will happen when all of the private bank liabilities get thrown on top? FULL ARTICLE

The only way fiscal stimulus could “work” is if the flow of real savings (i.e., real funding) is large enough to support (i.e., fund) government activities while still permitting a positive rate of growth in the activities of the private sector. (Note that the overall increase in real economic activity is, in this case, erroneously attributed to the government’s loose fiscal policy.) FULL ARTICLE

The financial damage inflicted on Americans by their own government is as great as would be expected from foreign conquest.  While Washington “protected” us from terrorists by fighting pointless wars abroad, the US economy collapsed.  FULL ARTICLE

With a private property-based economy, each person is ultimately the judge of the truth. Particular newspapers and other information services, particular schools and universities, and even particular artists and entertainers are supported or not supported depending on their ability to secure an audience. To be sure, one’s “audience” need not constitute a majority and might only be a few. As John Stuart Mill taught, consideration of alternative ideas should neither be limited by the tyranny of the government nor by the tyranny of an overly orthodox social majority. FULL ARTICLE

There are those who call the financial leaders who got us into this Bailout mess “Idiots”. I disagree with that. I don’t think they were idiots at all. The “idiots” who built that house of cards didn’t care if the house collapsed, they knew it would. They planned to profit from the collapse just as they planned to profit from the building. Can anyone deny that they have profited both ways? I call it fraud. By the way, fraud is a criminal activity, no matter who does it, even if our Government that does it.

But see, I know who are those that help “Idiots” defraud us. It is those Party loyalists who put Party first. These are also bad guys. See they’ll vote for their crook “because he’s their crook”. They think that when he stops robbing them, and them includes us, it’s because he has found compassion. The real truth is that the “Party” will quit stealing when there is nothing of value left to steal. Continue reading →

I hereby propose a $300,000,000,000,000 bailout.  Let’s not waste time bickering over what’s necessary and what’s fair.  Lots of people are having financial troubles, but with a wave of Congress’ magic wand, we can have utopia on earth. FULL ARTICLE

There is still time for Obama to decide that unlike the second Bush, he is not going to follow King John in taking money from everyone else for the benefit of the well connected. He can still refuse to follow Bush in exploiting others’ misery for his own ideological ends. The signs are not promising. FULL ARTICLE

Why did the Fed intervene? What is the nature of this intervention? Why did AIG agree to this? Why did it not seek protection under the bankruptcy code? How did the eventual course of action come about? Whom is the Fed helping? Whom is it harming? What has the Fed revealed about all of this? What has AIG revealed about this? What can we learn from press reports and leaks?  FULL ARTICLE

It is regrettable that we keep forgetting what history has shown over and over to be true, because truly, it is a hard and destructive lesson to keep learning.  Perhaps it is just something that every generation has to learn for itself.  The political and cultural changes that come from these economic transitions will be key to the direction and quality of life for future generations. FULL ARTICLE