50 minute video of Tom Woods.
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ECONOMICS: Why a free market
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Leave a Comment » | 
ECONOMICS | Tagged: free market, gold coins, money | 
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Posted by reinkefj
Econmics: The recent IRA grab
Tuesday, April 9, 2013Interesting discussion with my “financial” about the 3m$ cap on IRA/401Ks … …
… stupidity. Basically at that level, the poor befuddled individual is turning what could be captial gains — taxed at 15 or 20% — into ordinary income.
Not that the rich need advice from me!
But bullion — gold, silver, or even nickels — have a tendency to “disappear” off the radar.
Unfortunately, “Uncle” extracts every pound of flesh from IRAs and 401Ks.
Up to you, bit I prefer “magic”!
–30–
Leave a Comment » | ECONOMICS | Tagged: bullion, deferred tax accounts, money | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
ECONOMICS: No free lunch
Monday, April 8, 2013“Mr Stockman’s new book, The Great Deformation , highlights the enduring conservative appeal of a kind of economic primitivism that harks back to the days when laisser-faire ruled and macroeconomics had not been invented.“The modern Keynesian state is broke, paralysed and mired in empty ritual incantations about stimulating “demand”, even as it fosters a mutant crony capitalism that periodically lavishes the top one per cent with speculative windfalls,” wrote Mr Stockman in the New York Times article that set off a minor furore in Washington this week.”
Seems like he has nailed it! They might not like it but it accurately describes the hole we are in. Getting out of it is going to be painful for the young, old, and not-rich. But we’ve been scammed with “free lunch”. Now there is a very ugle chicken coming home to roost!
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1 Comment | ECONOMICS | Tagged: debt crisis, gold coins, inflation rate | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
ECONOMICS: No safe store of wealth
Sunday, April 7, 2013http://www.deviantinvestor.com/3506/3506/
A Tipping Point In The Financial System
Posted by Deviant Investor on April 4th, 2013
*** begin quote ***
In my opinion, the sign that a tipping point has occurred in the financial system is the real story:
* The veil of banker honesty has been lifted. The EU/IMF/ECB will do whatever is necessary to support the banks, even if it means they will confiscate (tax, steal, bail-in) customer deposits.
* Customer deposits are NOT assets held in the bank for safe-keeping, but are liabilities of the bank and are not guaranteed to be made whole.
* Billions of dollars were removed prior to the Cyprus freeze, so insiders clearly knew in advance of the ordinary depositors (see below). There is no “level playing field” when billions of dollars/euros are in play.
* According to Jeroen Dijsselbloem, Dutch finance minister and Euro Group President, this is “the template for any future bank bailouts.” In other words, your deposits are considerably less safe than you thought. Your bank could fail, and your deposits might be used to compensate for derivative losses or other losses that the bank incurred.
* The FDIC in the US, as well as England, Canada, and New Zealand, has announced similar policies, agreements, and plans to confiscate deposits in the case of an emergency. Is this a sign that an emergency is not only possible but probable and imminent?
* Confidence in the banking and financial system has been seriously damaged, perhaps irreversibly.
*** end quote ***
So a new definition of “counterparty risk” has appeared.
There is no safe store of wealth.
(There really never was, but there was an illusion.)
One has to think very carefully about keeping balances in banks.
imho
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Leave a Comment » | ECONOMICS | Tagged: counterparty risk, deposit insurance, FRAUD, theft | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
ECONOMICS: The “ugly chicken” of unfunded liabilities
Tuesday, April 2, 2013http://www.survivalblog.com/2013/03/become-your-own-central-banker-by-lbg.html
*** begin quote ***
Today the U.S. has spent the nation’s blood and treasure as well as our emotional capital on the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have become involved in Libya, Egypt, and Syria. Potential issues with Iran and North Korea loom large. There are 47 million people on food stamps. Unreported millions are unemployed. Spending on social programs has exploded. The housing market collapsed and has never fully recovered. The banking system is on life support. The Federal Reserve is purchasing $85 billion dollars each month (a trillion dollars a year) in U.S. Treasury issues because no one else is willing to do so. Despite government statistics and reports Inflation has driven prices on energy, food, clothing, health insurance, and everyday items beyond reason. Expenditures outstrip tax revenues. Government spending is out of control and we are approaching $17 trillion dollars in national debt with untold (and unfathomable) amounts in promised future benefits, entitlements, mandates, and promissory notes. By some estimates the U.S. has 238 TRILLION DOLLARS in unfunded liabilities. We can’t cover it. We are flat busted. And if our leadership refuses to address and fix the problem, the rest of the world will fix it for us.
*** end quote ***
And why are the Sheeple and Clovers happy? Dancing Idol is on TV!
Fools.
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Leave a Comment » | ECONOMICS | Tagged: debt crisis, deficit, inflation rate, unfunded liabilities | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
ECONOMICS: “Mattresses” money?
Monday, April 1, 2013http://www.deviantinvestor.com/3444/its-head-for-the-mattresses-time-for-savers-worldwide/
It’s head for “the mattresses” time for savers worldwide
Posted by Deviant Investor on March 28th, 2013
Guest Post from Liberty Gold and Silver
*** begin quote ***
Well, there is another turf war going on, a worldwide one, one that threatens the entire economic and political landscape of the planet. It is between all the hard working savers on the planet and the ever greedy criminal bankers and their cohorts in government. The real big canary singing out an extreme danger warning to all traditional savers who wish to entrust their wealth to banks and other paper vehicles – stocks, bonds, etc., is the incredible emergency banking shutdown in the tiny island nation of Cyprus. Granted, Cyprus represents only .02% of the population of the European Union. Yet what is occurring there is the harbinger of great risk to traditional savers on every continent; and equally important, there are many more scary danger signs raising their ugly heads as well.
*** end quote ***
Of course, Sheeple, it can’t happen here.
Why not?
Do you think that our politicians and bureaucrats are more “trustworthy” than theirs?
I keep looking back to the unfunded liabilities that the politicians have created in our names and the IRA/401k savings balances.
I’m sure that they are looking at the fact that they only have to strong arm about 3k “custodians” and it’s all theirs.
And what are the Sheeple and Clovers going to do about it?
When they are putting people in the camps, it’ll be too late.
Can’t happen here?
Talk to the Japanese Americans, the American Indians, the follower of David Koresh!
In a heartbeat.
Argh!
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Leave a Comment » | ECONOMICS | Tagged: bank fraud, counterparty tisk, inflation rate, insolvent | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
ECONOMICS: Why is the taxpayer the “bank” for the Bankers?
Saturday, March 16, 2013http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-15/why-we-should-rip-the-banks-in-two.html
Why We Should Rip the Banks in Two
Equity-capital ratios in the range of 20 percent to 30 percent would make banks safer, so you’d expect the return on bank equity to fall. That’s a feature not a bug. Bankers who have been feasting on profits from excessive risk-taking will see their pay fall too. Count that as a further benefit. It might do a little something to slow the 30-year trend toward greater income inequality.
Bankers might call these proposals radical, but in fact they’re moderate. The structure of the banking system wouldn’t change. Banks would still operate two essentially different businesses: selling short-term debt and making loans. The potential for a mismatch would remain. More capital would certainly help, and taxpayers would be less on the hook, but the risk of bank failure wouldn’t disappear. The same goes for making banks smaller, so that more of them could be left to fail on their own. It would help, but it doesn’t address the underlying problem.
There’s a way to do that. Divide the banking business in two. Deposit-takers don’t have to be credit-creators — they can be told to hold entirely safe assets. Credit-creators don’t need to take deposits — they can fund their operations by borrowing in financial markets. As renowned Yale economist James Tobin once said, “The linking of deposit money and commercial banking is an accident of history.” He and other thoughtful scholars have been discussing how to correct this “accident” for many years.
*** end quote ***
Why does the taxpayer get stiffed?
That’s not supposed to be the way it works.
You fail; you go bankrupt.
I understand that we don’t want the poorest saving their pennies to be wiped out.
But they are being wiped out by inflation. Even the middle class is being screwed royally.
So why can’t we figure out a compromise?
“Crony capitalism”!
It’s the illusion of a “free market”. But it’s one where the politicians, lobbyists, and the “rich” can’t lose.
Kill the Federal Reserve. Andrew Jackson was ABSOLUTELY correct.
Restore GOLD as the basis for the monetary unit. (OK, if you don’t like gold, how about a loaf of bread, gallon of milk, barrel of oil? Or a basket of them?)
Economists are fond of mental experiments. Let’s try this one: “If money grew on trees, then it wouldn’t be very valuable.”
What is a dollar anyway?
Dammed if I know.
I know what it used to be.
Then Govenrments like Abe lincoln and FDR and … wanted to spend more than they dare take in in taxes.
Sorry!
I’d deny them the printing press and the debt window.’
Yeah, a road may need to be financed over it life. But our congress critters can’t be trusts.
Privatize everything!
Argh!
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Leave a Comment » | ECONOMICS | Tagged: money in politics, mortgage guarantees, risk | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
ECONOMICS: Rebuilding in Flood Zones
Saturday, March 16, 2013Rebuilding in Flood Zones
By Barry Ritholtz – March 10th, 2013, 3:00PM
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Isn’t this the definition of insanity?
And as a taxpayer, why am I on the hook?
Argh!
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Leave a Comment » | ECONOMICS | Tagged: Insurance | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
ECONOMICS: Understating inflation systematically
Tuesday, November 6, 2012http://lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts374.html
The Virtual Recovery
by Paul Craig Roberts
*** begin quote ***
Statistician John Williams (shadowstats.com), who closely follows the collecting and reporting of official US economic statistics, reports that consumer inflation, as measured by the 1990 official government methodology has been running at about 5%. If the 1980 official methodology for measuring the CPI is used, John Williams reports that the current rate of US inflation is about 9%.
The 9% figure is more consistent with people’s experience in grocery stores.
Officially the recession that began in 2007 ended in June 2009 after 18 months, making the Bush Recession the longest recession since World War II. However, John Williams says that the recession has not ended. He says that only the GDP reporting, distorted by an erroneous measurement of inflation, shows a recovery. Other, more reliable measures of economic activity, show no recovery.
Williams reports that the economy began turning down in 2006, falling lower in 2008 and 2009, and bottom-bouncing ever since. Not only is there no sign of any recovery, but “the economic downturn now is intensifying once again.” The absence of an economic recovery “is evident in the [official] reporting of nearly all major economic series. Not one of these series shows a pattern of activity that confirms the recovery [shown] in the GDP series.”
Williams concludes that “the official recovery simply is a statistical illusion created by the government’s use of understated inflation in deflating the GDP.” In other words, the reported gains in GDP are accounted for by price increases, not increases in real output.
*** end quote ***
This says it all. The Gooferment’s politicians and bureaucrats want to fool us.
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1 Comment | ECONOMICS | Tagged: inflation rate | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
ECONOMICS: Tweedle dee and Tweedle dumber!
Monday, October 22, 2012http://cafehayek.com/2012/10/no-debate-both-are-economically-ignorant.html
No Debate: Both Men are Economically Ignorant
by DON BOUDREAUX on OCTOBER 17, 2012
in SEEN AND UNSEEN, TRADE
*** begin quote ***
Each man insists that America’s economy can be harmed by inexpensive imports – in other words, harmed by opportunities for voluntary exchanges that lower Americans’ cost of living.
By promising to raise taxes on Americans who buy Chinese-made goods, Mr. Romney again promised to break his campaign promise to not raise taxes. That he is unaware of the contradiction isn’t promising.
Mr. Obama is no better. He bragged that he “saved a thousand jobs” with his “tough” trade action that – by raising taxes on Americans who buy Chinese-made tires – ensured “that China was not flooding our domestic market with cheap tires.”
By this logic, the President’s policy is inexcusably lame. If creating more jobs in U.S. tire factories justifies forcing consumers to pay higher prices for tires, the Obama administration should also outlaw the sale of used tires (which, like low-priced imports, are “flooding our domestic market”). Indeed, the president should seek legislation mandating that all rubber used to make tires be non-vulcanized. The resulting decline in tire durability will create even more jobs in U.S. tire factories by “protecting” our market from being “flooded” with cheap tire durability – that is, with tires that last for tens of thousands of miles before needing to be replaced.
*** end quote ***
It’s hard to imagine that there is any rationale for restrictions?
Do we want to be a nation of tire makers?
In the Sixties were more expensive for a poorer quality. Now they are “cheaper” and more durable.
(Remember that the value of money has been inflated away. Gas is up by a multiple of 100 in dollars but about 50% cheaper in silver. Tires in the Sixties ran about $20 each; some more some less. Priced in gold a tire was 20/35 = 4/7 = 0.57 oz. So today, just recently I paid over 100$ per tire; where as I should have paid over a 1k$ each. SO tires have gotten 90% cheaper. It’s the value of money that obscures our vision.)
I want Americans to have cheap tires so they can spend their money on other needs and wants.
If it means the tire industry has to go to China, all well and good.
If the Chinese are so dumb as to give us tires for worthless green pieces of paper, great!
The market will peacefully decide what gives us the most bang for our buck. With out a politician “helping”.
Argh!
—30—
Leave a Comment » | ECONOMICS | Tagged: Common Sense, economic freedom, freedom, Inflation, Obama, SEEN AND UNSEEN, TRADE | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
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