MONEY: The dollar as the world’s reserve currency

Saturday, May 2, 2009

http://www.garynorth.com/public/4879.cfm

The Emperor’s New Tools
Gary North
April 25, 2009

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Bernanke assured his listeners that the FED has lots of ways to deal with this threat — painless, politically acceptable ways, he implied.

We have a number of tools we can use to reduce bank reserves or increase short-term interest rates when that becomes necessary. First, many of our lending programs extend credit primarily on a short-term basis and thus could be wound down relatively quickly. In addition, since the lending rates in these programs are typically set above the rates that prevail in normal market conditions, borrower demand for these facilities should wane as conditions improve.

Translation: “The money we have created to bail out the financial system will return to the FED and be mopped up. It will not be lent out again.” The word “many” means “we aren’t saying how much, and we will not tell you if you ask.”

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They have no tools. Only the ability to pull the wool over the sheep’s eyes using their own wool.

I don’t understand: (1) Why the Chinese will hold more dollars? (2) Who’s going to buy Obama’s trillion dollar deficits? (3) What’s going to become of those on fixed income when inflation takes off? (4) What’s going to happen to the American economy when foreigners what to get paid with real money for the stuff they are sending us?

Argh!

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MONEY: The dollar is a figment of your imagination

Friday, May 1, 2009

http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=59

The Fed and the Golden Fleece
By William Anderson
Published 04/22/09

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When I teach my economics classes about money, I pass around a $10 gold coin that is a replica of those that were in circulation around 1913, the year Congress created the Federal Reserve System. The coin is made from one-half of an ounce of gold, dating from the time when the dollar was based upon a standard of $20 an ounce.

If I were to value that coin today, according to current gold prices, it would sell for more than $400, which means that according to this way of measuring the value of money, the dollar is worth about 1/40 of what it was when the Fed came into being. Now, this is not necessarily the best or most accurate measure of the decline of the dollar, but it is good enough for the purposes of this article.

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Regardless of how you calculate it or the timeframe you use, the dollar is NOT a store of value.

In my book Church (page 113),  “Money is a matter of functions four, a medium, a measure, a standard, a store.”

The dollar, after the 1913 creation of the Fed, was no longer a measure, standard, or store.

As a youth, reading the Count of Monte Cristo, I dreamt of someday finding a pirate’s treasure. (Hard to imagine anyone not dreaming to find that chest, win the lotto, or such.)

Imagine instead of a chest of gold, finding a chest of dollars. When they were put in, they were valuable. Now they’re worth a fraction.

I often remember my now deceased father-in-law carrying a fifty dollar bill in his wallet ever since he was a young man. He always said: “With that, I’m never poor!” Sad to say, that each year, the value that fifty represented was inflated away. Stolen by the govenrment!

Gold is the only defense.

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GOVEROTRAGEOUS: Company alerted on the Mexican Swine flu two weeks before

Friday, May 1, 2009

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/67283.html

Posted on Thursday, April 30, 2009
Company warned officials of flu 18 days before alert was issued
By Les Blumenthal | McClatchy Newspapers

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WASHINGTON — A Washington state biosurveillance firm raised the first warning about a possible outbreak of swine flu in Mexico more than two weeks before the World Health Organization offered its initial alert about a public health emergency of international concern.

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Anyone care to argue that gooferment is useless!

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TECHNOLOGY: Who data is it?

Friday, May 1, 2009

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/21/mivitals-cant-find-pulse-for-online-health-records/

Can’t Find Pulse For Online Health Records

by Leena Rao on April 21, 2009

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Online health records is a rapidly growing segment of the health 2.0 world—Google Health, Microsoft’s HealthVault, WebMD, Aetna’s SmartSource (via a partnership with Healthline), and Revolution Health (now part of Waterfront Media), are just a few of the many online platforms that let consumers organize their health records online in a secure portal.

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RANT: Pelosi seeks to divert attention!

Thursday, April 30, 2009

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aE68O.jaWO4E&refer=home

Pelosi Wall Street Probe Follows Pecora After Crash (Update1)
By Mark Pittman and Laura Litvan

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April 21 (Bloomberg) — Wall Street may be heading for the deepest investigation of its practices since a congressional panel’s probe of abuses following the 1929 stock market crash.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans to push for a comprehensive inquiry, saying that three-quarters of Americans want to know what led to the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and the collapse of Bear Stearns Cos. and Merrill Lynch & Co. She favors one patterned after Senate Banking Committee hearings led by Ferdinand Pecora starting in 1933, according to her spokesman, Nadeam Elshami.

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And who investigates Congress?

Because, imho, “their fingerprints” are all over this mess — Dodd, Franks, Pelosi, and Reid!

Bush doesn’t escape clean, but they did block him.

The SEC, FTC, FDIC, and the Justice Department could have “blown the whistle”.

There’s enough blame to go around, but Pelosi is seeking to once again divert attention from her own troubles and that of her fellow congress critters.

Throw them all out!

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PRODUCTIVITY: Differentiating between REAL and imaginary

Thursday, April 30, 2009

http://c4ss.org/content/388

The Law Isn’t Worth the Paper It’s Written On
Posted by Kevin Carson on Apr 18, 2009 in Commentary • 2 comments

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As Barney Fife said, “Rule Number One: Obey all the rules!” Here in Arkansas, gas pumps bear signs with the stern visage of a state trooper warning potential scofflaws that driving off without paying for gas will cause their drivers’ licenses to be revoked. The assumption, apparently, is that someone who will steal gas without any moral qualm or fear of getting caught, will nevertheless be afraid to drive without a license.

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Make all the laws you want.

It’s really a misnomer to call what legislators produce as “laws”. Now the “Law” of Gravity; that’s a real LAW! You can’t break it in most human frames of reference.

We need a new meme that differentiates between: LAWS like gravity and laws like come form Congress.

And, let’s not even get started on “regulations”, which I call diktats.

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GOVEROTRAGEOUS: What is Obama hiding and why hasn’t the “press” found it?

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=95460

Why I care about Obama eligibility issue
Posted: April 20, 2009 1:00 am Eastern
David Kupelian

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First: Barack Obama is hiding something. About that statement, there can be no dispute. Despite dozens of lawsuits, with plaintiffs including a former presidential candidate, a former deputy attorney general, many legislators, active-duty U.S. military and other serious people, Obama simply refuses to release his original, long-form birth certificate. That’s the one that could actually prove he was born in Hawaii. What is posted on Obama’s “Fight the Smears” website as well as FactCheck.org is the abbreviated short-form “certification of live birth” that could have been issued for a child born overseas, and thus does not prove he was born in Hawaii. What is so difficult about this to understand?

As I said, he’s hiding something. I want to know what it is. And I want the world to know what it is.

Where’s the proof Barack Obama was born in the U.S. or that he fulfills the “natural-born citizen” clause in the Constitution? If you still want to see it, join more than 355,000 others and sign up now!

Ask yourself: Why would Obama have a team of high-priced lawyers fighting to stop his Occidental College records from being released? If I were elected president, don’t you think my college records would be made public? Similarly, he has lawyers fighting all the eligibility lawsuits, many of which are simply demanding proof – which Obama could easily provide – of the specifics of his birth time and place, something the U.S. Constitution unequivocally and unapologetically demands of presidential candidates.

The lawsuits started well before Obama won the election. You’d think that after he won the November popular vote, after the Electoral College confirmed him in December, after he was inaugurated in January, the lawsuits would fade away. After all, he won – get over it. But the legal challenges attempting to compel Obama to prove his natural born citizenship are increasing, not decreasing, with each passing month. Perhaps the realization that he’s damaging the country in unimaginable ways is imparting urgency to those who hope he can be removed from office if it’s proven he obtained it by fraud.

All I know is, Obama is hiding something. After all, he has it totally within his power to make all these lawsuits and “birthers” look foolish with a simple, 30-second phone call to the Hawaii Department of Health, saying, “I authorize you to release to the public and press a certified copy of my complete, long-form birth certificate.”

{Extraneous Deleted}

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OK, I’ll adjust my tin foil hat and say it: “I’m a birther”.

There is no possible explanation for Obama’s reluctance; other than he has something to hide.

It must bear on his ability to satisfy Constitutional muster as President.

Anything less, just doesn’t make sense.

Not nice to say, but he has pulled the wool over our eyes.

Will we have to wait for History’s verdict?

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GOLDBUG: 10K Gold?

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

http://www.garynorth.com/public/4857.cfm

Why Gold Owners Are Targets of the Government
Gary North

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At some point, the number of investors who figure out that they had better buy gold is going to go from less than 1% of the public to 5%. When that happens, the supply of gold will not increase, and the price of gold will skyrocket. If as many as 10% of the investing public tries to put 10% of their assets in gold, I suspect the price of gold would go to $10,000 an ounce. The gold market is so marginal in the overall commodities market that the attempted 10% of investors to increase their holdings of gold to 10% of their assets would make today’s holders of gold very rich and very happy. I think at some point this is going to happen, but I think it is going to happen in a time of price inflation so bad that the purchasing power of the currencies will decline so fast and so far that the fact that you can get rich in fiat money by selling your gold will not persuade you to sell your gold.

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Like musical chairs, when the music stops, will you be left with worthless paper?

OH, I forgot, it can’t happen here!

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LIBERTY: Imaginary property sparks a bloggers revolt

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

There is a new comment on the post “Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway (or, the Privatization of the English Language)”.

http://zenhabits.net/2009/04/feel-the-fear-and-do-it-anyway-or-the-privatization-of-the-english-language/

Author: James

“Riling the blogosphere is akin to poking a hungover tiger with a sharp stick, except instead of mauling you, it will leave thousands of negative reviews against your products on Amazon.”

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At risk of some type of infringement, (read the post and you’ll understand), this is a great realization!

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FUN: outsouring — disaster minus a c for most working folks!

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

http://www.urbandictionary.com/author.php?author=reinkefj

May I please have your “thumbs up” to an entry I made in the Urban Dictionary?

outsouring

The reaction to outsourcing IT work to a foreign country that turns out badly. For example, a big global bank sends its IT development work to India saving grazillions, but finds that the users can’t get it exactly like they want and don’t have the developers at arm’s length to beat up.

“We’re outsouring the application back to the USA from India to get what we want.”

“Delta Airlines is outsouring its call centers back to the USA in response to customer complaints about understanding agents and being understood by them.”

Amazing how much difference a “C” can make!

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