Archive for the ‘economics’ Category

jobs programs

Sunday, June 13th, 2010

ribbon-cuttingJob creation, government style, is a splashy, photo-op filled, nice-sounding program that makes politicians sound clever and seem proactive. The Boise Valley Economic Partnership is a taxpayer and private money example of the process. They are now four years into this five-year, $5,000,000 government program.

The planned $650,000,000 private/taxpayer investment has fallen short of the goal, but only by $530,000,000. The planned 5,000 new jobs has fallen short by 3,194 jobs. But the Boise area did get 1,806 new jobs (… while losing 10,000 – oops). Those new jobs only cost $66,445 each!
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mercantilists

Saturday, June 12th, 2010

Mercantilism is where the merchants own the power in government. It protects the merchants from competition and increases the costs to customers of their goods and services. It comes about because a handful of people have a great deal to gain from investment in legislation while society’s individuals have little to gain or lose with each law. In extreme examples, governments go to war to protect and foster merchants’ interests.
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sucked into an insurance scam

Sunday, May 23rd, 2010

One of my insurance companies just sent my annual statement. I can see the thousands of dollars I paid in, and the thousands my employers sent them instead of paying me more for my labors. The pretty little charts show how much I should expect to get paid back, in monthly installments, if I decide to ask for it a few years from now.

The bad news is that those with even the most crude understanding of accounting have discovered this insurance company is bankrupt. Yep, their liabilities far exceed their income. They spent my money instead of investing it safely to insure repayment as contracted.
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The farmer and the financial analyst

Monday, May 17th, 2010

The farmer learns to read nature from nature herself. Similarly, his knowledge of economics, society, politics and current events comes from self-directed study that led him to Mises .org, Lew Rockwell .com, The Daily Reckoning .com, The Mental Militia .com, Rational Review Digest .com and an extensive library of economics, history, politics and sociology books.
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Interview with Doug Casey

Friday, May 14th, 2010

While quite startling to those who haven’t spent a great deal of time studying and understanding real (Austrian school) economics, the following quote out of the middle of a Doug Casey interview states the best of two unsettling choices very well.

“…back to the present global economy: do you think Greece will default?

Doug: First, you shouldn’t talk about “Greece” like that. We’re talking about the Greek government’s debt. And my view is that not only will they default, but that they should default. Generations of future Greek taxpayers should not be turned into serfs in order to pay for the excess of today’s Greek politicians. And the people who lent the Greek government all that money to do stupid things with should be punished for both their lack of foresight and their collusion with corruption. And it would be doubly good if this happened, because it would greatly hamper the ability of the Greek government to borrow money in the future, which would limit how much it could spend on all the disastrously stupid things governments spend money on.

I’ll go further and say that all of these struggling governments, including the U.S. government, should default on their debts and punish the people foolish enough to lend them money. The world would be a better place if governments around the globe were unable to borrow money.”

That tidbit, of course, is not a complete argument, nor is it done justice standing here alone. Please go read the whole interview on this page of LewRockwell.com

Fix it already

Sunday, January 31st, 2010

The popular argument between the Republican faithful and the Democratic faithful rages on. The elephant fans gleefully point out Obama’s failure to fix everything like he promised. The donkey fans respond that it took eight years to create the financial mess.

The correct response is that the path to this point where destruction of our economy is all but assured began in the 1860s where the Rs and Ds agreed that four, five or more somewhat equal political parties was inferior in meeting their needs than two. With a monopoly power-sharing agreement worked out, they then went for the money.
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the line in the sand

Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009

Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made
-Otto von Bismarck
By advertising economics as “the dismal science”, they are hoping you won’t bother watching. But you should.

A picture representing our money prior to the 1914 federal reserve takeover:
grains-of-sand

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provisioning three teens

Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009

I work with three smart, active, ambitious and industrious young adults. I like them a lot. I see a lot of me at their age. I understand many of the influences that got them where they are. I sometimes ponder where I may have gone if someone had been able to reach me with some key bits of information. How many stupid moves could I have avoided? I wonder if anyone from the older generation could have reached me at all. That they didn’t could mean nobody tried or that I wasn’t reachable. I’ll never know.

Yesterday I took a chance and loaned these three some books out of my personal library. In their cases, I can at lest know that one person tried.
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watching the lights go out

Thursday, November 26th, 2009

Today I direct your attention to a U-tube video. While discussion of “the economy” is now part of popular culture, they don’t even hint at the seriousness of the problem.

First off, ever since Slick Willey developed a fondness for White House china, the published unemployment numbers have been significantly cooked … omitting those who found part time jobs, those who took dramatic wage cuts to avoid complete starvation, those whose unemployment insurance terms have run out and, well, everybody who is not currently collecting a government unemployment check. The real numbers can be found at Shadow Government Statistics dot com.

real vs published unemployment

real vs published unemployment

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rising flood of dollars

Monday, November 9th, 2009

The direction is obvious. The end is clear. You would have to be squeezing your eyes shut tight to not see it … that, or getting your thoughts from politicians and mainstream media.
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