Back in July, I sent letters to Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein urging them to support or even cosponsor S.604, the Audit-The-Fed bill. I received the typical mealy-mouthed responses (posted below after the fold), and like a bad blogger I never actually mentioned the responses here. How mealy-mouthed was Boxer’s response? Well, THIS was the [...]

The Fed is tasked with the dual goals of price stability and restraining inflation. Folks like myself would suggest it hasn’t done a very good job of either, but that’s not crucial to the question of whether we should be able to determine how they’re attempting to fulfill their mission. Particularly irksome when we’re talking [...]

Obama says that he won’t sign a healthcare bill that adds one dime to the deficit. I hope he’s right about that, because the people who are financing that deficit are a tad bit worried about the prospect: And yet, there was budget director Peter Orszag rushing to a lunch with Chinese bureaucrats on a [...]

The spike in car buying has caused automakers to ramp up production (via John Stossel): Many auto industry analysts and dealers expect sales volumes to fall now that the program is over. They worry that many people who took advantage of the program were merely accelerating purchases they would have made later in the year. [...]

Continuing his George Costanzaesque presidency, Obama has decided to reappoint Ben “Helicopter” Bernanke to another term on the Fed. Here’s what Obama had to say: Ben approached a financial system on the verge of collapse with calm and wisdom; with bold action and outside-the-box thinking that has helped put the brakes on our economic freefall [...]

I’m at a loss. I don’t know what world can justify this, and can only hope that my readers will be just as appalled as I am, because I have nothing to add. WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson testified on Thursday that he pressured Bank of America Corp. last year to go [...]

Below is the text of a letter I’ve sent to Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein. H.R. 1207 (introduced by Ron Paul) and S. 604 (introduced by Bernie Sanders) is a bill that requires the Comptroller General to audit the Fed and report back to Congress within the next 18 months. Given that the only [...]

Pope Benedict XVI has decided to wade into territory which he has no understanding or expertise: the global economy. The New York Times reports that the pope is now calling for a “New World Economic Order”* VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday called for a radical rethinking of the global economy, criticizing a [...]

While I’ve not had enough time to take a comprehensive look at Tea Parties held around the nation on or around Independence Day, here are some quick observations from this full-time Tea Party enthusiast and part-time skeptic. First of all, Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) was booed when he spoke in Austin, Texas.  The key reason [...]

Since Barack Obama has decided to continue down the path George Bush started down,  the path of Robert Mugabe and Friedrich Ebert, the United States economy will soon be facing all the problems associated with inflation. Unfortunately, the effects of inflation are poorly popularized, meaning that most people have a very limited understanding of inflation.  [...]

California’s in a world of hurt, exacerbated by the fact that we didn’t offer to give the state a whole bunch more money during our ballot propositions yesterday. There are a lot of reasons for our pain, but it really comes down to a state that never quite understood TANSTAAFL. They’ve been sold the lie [...]

I disagree with Schiff on hyperinflation; but we’re DEFINITELY going to be seeing significant inflation. I’m thinking 1979 levels or so. Note: Schiff is also a firm believer in the inherent value fallacy; which is just that, a fallacy. There is no such thing as a stable currency, because nothing has inherent value. All value [...]

As Stephen noted last night, Ron Paul has introduced a bill that would require the Federal Reserve to open it’s books to Congress. According to Thomas, that bill now has 79 co-sponsors. I agree with Stephen that this is an issue that all libertarians, all Americans indeed, need to pay more attention to and, in [...]

For years, a lot of libertarians and paleoconservatives have focused a lot of attention on the Federal Reserve.  Some have gone overboard, blaming the Fed on virtually every lost freedom in America.  Others have focused too hard at the wrong time; I remember one person speaking at a gun show looking pretty foolish because he [...]

The furor over the Tea Party movement has been quite exciting.  While I love watching government officials and their sycophantic propagandists energetically denounce people for daring to suggest that people should be permitted to keep their earnings,  I, like others, think the protests – in and of themselves – are insufficient to meaningfully change the [...]

In watching the MSM coverage of the Tea Party protests, the following arguments are used to try and debase the factual arguments of the protests: Obama plans to lower taxes on the majority of Americans while raising them on the rich. Obama’s budget cuts the deficit in half over the next 10 years. Right now [...]

Here’s some irony for you. Perhaps Obama, Reid and Pelosi might consider following Russia’s lead: Arkady Dvorkevich, the Kremlin’s chief economic adviser, said Russia would favour the inclusion of gold bullion in the basket-weighting of a new world currency based on Special Drawing Rights issued by the International Monetary Fund.[...] [...]Mr Dvorkevich said it was [...]

So we’re supposed to trust the people who didn’t see it coming to make sure they stop their intervention before they’ve over-intervened? Fed Pres Lockhart in a speech a few hours ago in Paris is summing up well what is the growing angst in the markets that the Fed is sowing the seeds for big [...]

Governments, ready to spend boatloads cruiseliner-loads of money they don’t have, are trying to borrow it — to the extent possible — from the markets. I mentioned yesterday that the US was starting to print our own money to lend to ourselves. Britain is facing a similar problem — they were auctioning off some bonds, [...]

Just over two years ago, I offered a worst-case prediction of where this economic crisis could lead. Wait, though, it gets worse. America isn’t an empire in the conventional sense of the word, but we are an economic empire. The dollar is the currency of the world, from middle eastern oil to the reserve currencies [...]