The stimulus is finally taking effect. As Zimbabwe and the Wiemar Republic demonstrate, one thing that governments armed with the ability to print fiat money really can do is stimulate.
From 2009 May to 2011 November total business sales in dollars rose twenty six percent, ten percent a year, which to me, though not to Bernanke, looks like good reason to scream panic and hit the brakes, to raise real interest rates to at least normal levels, and arguably higher. (more…)
Bernanke pledges to keep interest rates low for at least the next two years – meaning real interest are several percent negative. Large negative interest rates rapidly lead to economic crisis.
“The low level of inflation is a validation,” Bernanke said. “There are some who were very concerned that our balance-sheet policies and the like would lead to high inflation. There’s certainly no sign of that yet.”
Really? Sales have gone up ten percent in nominal value, which only makes sense if the real rate of inflation is seven to ten percent. The US economy is on fire, and Bernanke pledges to continue throwing gasoline on the flames. (more…)
According to the US census, estimated monthly sales have gone up ten percent in dollars between 2010 November and 2011 November. Have living standards gone up? Clearly living standards are falling. Total physical volume of goods shipped by rail has been falling over the past year, consistent with the general experience of falling living standards. Can anyone explain what is going on? This looks to me like slightly worse than ten percent year on year inflation, which is the inflation rate at which a significant risk of panicked flight from paper money sets in. Am I misreading these numbers in some silly way?
There is a lot of ruin in a nation. I have been predicting that we will probably not see hyperinflationary collapse for several years. I find this data surprising and confusing. Either we are booming, or we are inflating, and it does not feel like we are booming.
Google has recently been nailed in two more scandals: cold calling ignorant Kenyans with a scam offer and scary lies about Google’s competitor, and vandalizing open source maps which competes with Google Maps.
While Google is wonderfully politically correct, and would never dream of suggesting that black people are stupid, the scam service they are selling in Kenya is predicated on the assumption that black people are stupid.
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In the general election I’ll be pointing out that the president took the reins at General Motors and Chrysler – closed factories, closed dealerships laid off thousands and thousands of workers – he did it to try to save the business.
Now that is an unusual strategy for winning elections. (more…)
The BLS is arguably understating inflation and unemployment. (more…)
The three major candidates are Governor Romneycare, the man who provided the model for Obamacare, Ron Paul, and Rick Santorum.
Rick Santorum’s nephew tells us:
When Republicans were spending so much money under President Bush, my uncle was right there along with them
I found the 2005 and 2010 values for nominal gross state product of US states. I looked up Wikipedia for which states were right to work states. Over the five years, right to work states grew ten percent relative to non right to work states (more…)
A lot of people complain about my use, and Mencius’s use, of the word theocracy, to refer both to past systems were God endorsed Caesar, and Caesar endorsed God, and the present system where Political Correctness endorses the state, and the State endorses Political Correctness.
So I am trying to crowdsource some less confusing terminology. (more…)
MF Global did worse than embezzle client funds. They embezzled client funds legally
Very large numbers of investors may be in the same position as MF Global’s investors, who thought they were investing in gold, businesses, and suchlike, but were in fact investing in Greek rioters, Italians on welfare, and public servants taking early retirement.