I don't usually fuss over the New York Times because they've been dead to me ever since they sided with Robert Moses about the Cross Bronx Expressway. But JammieWearingFool offers a classic observation on New York's Progressive Propaganda sheet (that favors estate taxes on all and everyone with the exception of family trusts that own newspapers) (h/t Larwyn):
Shocker: 'Paper of Record' Discovers Fraudulent Obama Donations
The New York Times is playing a little CYA here by actually reporting on the massive campaign fraud by the Obama campaign in accepting donations from thousands of suspect sources. It would be nice if this were front page news rather than being buried on page A24. When they made up the story about John McCain supposedly having an affair with a lobbyist, that was front and center on page 1.
Read the whole thing here.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Federal Reserve Bank as Archaic Fetish
In the past seven decades the field of economics has claimed to be able to "manage the money supply" to prevent booms and busts. As well, the questionable institution of fractional reserve banking has relied on repeated government support and bailouts. These include the lending fiasco surrounding commercial banks' support of the Hunt Brothers' attempt to corner the silver market in 1980 (which ended not because of the threat of regulation as I have heard on television but because the Hunt brothers defaulted on a 650 million dollar futures contract with Englehard Mining, resulting in massive defaults on the commercial bank loans that were supporting their frivolous effort) as well as the Long Term Capital Management fiasco. Much worse than either of these has been the Fed's ongoing subsidization of the financial sector of the economy through monetary expansion and the working of destructive political deals with foreign governments that will cause grievous harm to these developing countries. Hedge fund managers and Wall Street executives have contributed no value to the economy, have extracted large salaries and have used the edifice of the liberal media to justify themselves.
The economics profession has claimed expertise that it does not have. The economics of public policy is a smoke screen to justify providing bankers who destroy rather than create value with enormously bloated salaries, to falsely boost the stock market and allow hedge fund managers to extract wealth from a naive public.
The economists who for seven decades have claimed that the gold standard is an antiquated relic have to face the failure of their policies. The elegant edifice of macroeconomic planning has turned out to be a chimera. The Federal Reserve Bank is a failed institution. It is an archaic fetish.
The fetishizers of central banking, the very interests that have benefited from the bamboozling of the American public, will undoubtedly argue that a 68% increase in the monetary base over one month and a trillion dollar bailout of institutions that have been extracting Americans' wealth and perverting economic incentives for seven decades are necessary.
We would do well to recall that the most fertile economic period was the one from 1830 to 1913, when there was no central bank. Real wages increased, innovation occurred at a fever pitch, much greater than in the declining twentieth century, and there was deflation. Yes, deflation. While employment levels were skyrocketing, unemployment was low and innovation was exploding, businessmen and real estate speculators complained endlessly about "depression". What they meant by depression was that profits were too low. Today's historians, reading the frequent discussions of "depression" in the 1870s, 1880s and 1890s conclude that there were low wages. They are wrong. Wages were escalating and unemployment was low in the gold standard/no central bank period. But profits were "depressed" and firms kept complaining about profits. Remarkably, immigration exploded during the late nineteenth century, yet there were enough jobs for the immigrants at wages that were much, much higher than 40 years previous (say 1889 versus 1849).
The economist David Ames Wells discusses all this in his book "Recent Economic Changes" published in 1889. Historians know about the book, but they either ignore it or don't bother to read it, because it contradicts everything they tell you about laissez-faire America. Wells, incidentally, was commissioner of revenue under Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson.
Thus, the gold standard made real estate speculators, stock speculators and bankers poorer than they have been under the Fed. But it made workers richer. Fraudulent quacks like Paul Krugman go around saying that taxes are necessary for lower income inequality. But income inequality was declining in the late nineteenth century, about which today's historically ignorant economists are unaware.
It is time for the American people to wake up to the fact that there is no legitimate field of "macroeconomics" and that the entire edifice of government-subsidized finance is a scam that has been instituted to steal money.
The economics profession has claimed expertise that it does not have. The economics of public policy is a smoke screen to justify providing bankers who destroy rather than create value with enormously bloated salaries, to falsely boost the stock market and allow hedge fund managers to extract wealth from a naive public.
The economists who for seven decades have claimed that the gold standard is an antiquated relic have to face the failure of their policies. The elegant edifice of macroeconomic planning has turned out to be a chimera. The Federal Reserve Bank is a failed institution. It is an archaic fetish.
The fetishizers of central banking, the very interests that have benefited from the bamboozling of the American public, will undoubtedly argue that a 68% increase in the monetary base over one month and a trillion dollar bailout of institutions that have been extracting Americans' wealth and perverting economic incentives for seven decades are necessary.
We would do well to recall that the most fertile economic period was the one from 1830 to 1913, when there was no central bank. Real wages increased, innovation occurred at a fever pitch, much greater than in the declining twentieth century, and there was deflation. Yes, deflation. While employment levels were skyrocketing, unemployment was low and innovation was exploding, businessmen and real estate speculators complained endlessly about "depression". What they meant by depression was that profits were too low. Today's historians, reading the frequent discussions of "depression" in the 1870s, 1880s and 1890s conclude that there were low wages. They are wrong. Wages were escalating and unemployment was low in the gold standard/no central bank period. But profits were "depressed" and firms kept complaining about profits. Remarkably, immigration exploded during the late nineteenth century, yet there were enough jobs for the immigrants at wages that were much, much higher than 40 years previous (say 1889 versus 1849).
The economist David Ames Wells discusses all this in his book "Recent Economic Changes" published in 1889. Historians know about the book, but they either ignore it or don't bother to read it, because it contradicts everything they tell you about laissez-faire America. Wells, incidentally, was commissioner of revenue under Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson.
Thus, the gold standard made real estate speculators, stock speculators and bankers poorer than they have been under the Fed. But it made workers richer. Fraudulent quacks like Paul Krugman go around saying that taxes are necessary for lower income inequality. But income inequality was declining in the late nineteenth century, about which today's historically ignorant economists are unaware.
It is time for the American people to wake up to the fact that there is no legitimate field of "macroeconomics" and that the entire edifice of government-subsidized finance is a scam that has been instituted to steal money.
Phil Orenstein's "Barack Obama Is Herbert Hoover"
Phil Orenstein posts a first-rate blog at Democracy Project, my previous blog home. Phil makes the point that Herbert Hoover raised taxes, regulation and public works in response to the stock market crash, and he is concerned that if Obama gets elected, he will do the same thing. Phil is right that increased socialism, taxes and government intervention would prolong the psychological malaise and harm the country in the long run. Those who feel that Senator Obama cares about humanity might consider that Herbert Hoover, who oversaw the birth of the Great Depression, had similar policies to Obama and, like Obama, saw himself as a "progressive" who loved humanity. Hoover's successor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, prolonged the deprivation caused by Hoover's socialistic policies. By the commencement of World War II, 11 years after the stock market crash of 1929, the depression was not over.
At this point in time, the country has painted itself into a corner. We can choose among (i) a major correction, unemployment and firm bankruptcies followed by a new round of inflation, (ii) hyper-inflation and the dislocation that it would cause and (iii) long term stabilization of monetary growth via a gold standard.
The source of the current problem is the Federal Reserve Bank and big government. Inflation has been causing a decline in innovation, a decline in real wages and transfers of wealth from production to Wall Street and banking for the past 75 years.
Ultimately, the field of economics and "economists" are responsible for this in the sense that they have provided the ideological cover for the looting of the public purse in which the banking system has engaged. Economists claimed that they knew how to manage the economy via the Fed, and now they have turned out not to have known. A banking system that requires massive subsidies and monetary inflation does not function. This is the product of the economists who run the Fed.
The economists who are responsible for the current situation have scoffed at the gold standard, calling it a fetish or nonsense. Alan Greenspan started out in life supporting the gold standard, but then realized that he could become more famous and successful by advocating Keynesianism, and he did so.
Is a trillion dollar subsidy to the banking system superior to a gold standard? Might we not conclude that the Federal Reserve Bank is an antiquated fetish?
At this point in time, the country has painted itself into a corner. We can choose among (i) a major correction, unemployment and firm bankruptcies followed by a new round of inflation, (ii) hyper-inflation and the dislocation that it would cause and (iii) long term stabilization of monetary growth via a gold standard.
The source of the current problem is the Federal Reserve Bank and big government. Inflation has been causing a decline in innovation, a decline in real wages and transfers of wealth from production to Wall Street and banking for the past 75 years.
Ultimately, the field of economics and "economists" are responsible for this in the sense that they have provided the ideological cover for the looting of the public purse in which the banking system has engaged. Economists claimed that they knew how to manage the economy via the Fed, and now they have turned out not to have known. A banking system that requires massive subsidies and monetary inflation does not function. This is the product of the economists who run the Fed.
The economists who are responsible for the current situation have scoffed at the gold standard, calling it a fetish or nonsense. Alan Greenspan started out in life supporting the gold standard, but then realized that he could become more famous and successful by advocating Keynesianism, and he did so.
Is a trillion dollar subsidy to the banking system superior to a gold standard? Might we not conclude that the Federal Reserve Bank is an antiquated fetish?
David Abramsky Responds to "Sarah Palin, Anti-Semitism and Jewish Prejudice"
I just received the following e-mail from David Abramsky:
Dear Mr. Langbert:
re: Your 10/9/08 blog post: "Sarah Palin, Anti-Semitism and Jewish Prejudice"
I'm not sure who your sources were for the bit about the comments from "an executive" from Jews for Jesus (it was Executive Director, David Brickner). You simply wrote that he said that, " the Jews' refusal to convert to Christianity causes terrorism." A read of Mr. Brickner's ACTUAL sermon would be worthwhile. Go to:
http://www.jewsforjesus.org/blog/20080817
By just printing that one little sentence--without giving it the context it was really in--you have distorted the words (really the meaning) of someone you're reporting about. Yes, you summed up a 30-minute sermon with just one sentence! Unfortunately this is why many people have trouble trusting what they read these days. I wish you had put the Brickner quote in its true context: He paints a picture of his belief that God's love and forgiveness for all people have been offered over and over for centuries. But the world does what it wants. The results we experience are not PUNISHMENT (which is the way you portrayed it) but just that we reap what we sow.
Once again, I was disappointed by how you portrayed the meaning of Mr. Brickner's beliefs.
Sincerely,
- David Abramsky
Richmond CA 94804
Dear Mr. Langbert:
re: Your 10/9/08 blog post: "Sarah Palin, Anti-Semitism and Jewish Prejudice"
I'm not sure who your sources were for the bit about the comments from "an executive" from Jews for Jesus (it was Executive Director, David Brickner). You simply wrote that he said that, " the Jews' refusal to convert to Christianity causes terrorism." A read of Mr. Brickner's ACTUAL sermon would be worthwhile. Go to:
http://www.jewsforjesus.org/blog/20080817
By just printing that one little sentence--without giving it the context it was really in--you have distorted the words (really the meaning) of someone you're reporting about. Yes, you summed up a 30-minute sermon with just one sentence! Unfortunately this is why many people have trouble trusting what they read these days. I wish you had put the Brickner quote in its true context: He paints a picture of his belief that God's love and forgiveness for all people have been offered over and over for centuries. But the world does what it wants. The results we experience are not PUNISHMENT (which is the way you portrayed it) but just that we reap what we sow.
Once again, I was disappointed by how you portrayed the meaning of Mr. Brickner's beliefs.
Sincerely,
- David Abramsky
Richmond CA 94804
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