Tag Archives: Money/Economy/Taxes

The Dutch Ask Their Central Bank: “Where Is Our Gold?”

open quoteThink Ron Paul is the only person asking questions about the actual gold supposedly backing the currency in circulation. Think again: the “ask your central banker where his gold is” tour just went global after the Dutch the Dutch Socialists Party (SP)’s spokesman for financial affairs, Mr. Ewout Irrgang, asked the Dutch Secretary of the Treasury 10 detailed questions about the gold supposedly held by the Dutch Central Bank. Questions vary from: where is the gold? why are gold and gold receivables one line item? how much gold is loaned out? As Dutch website Vrijspreker.nl points out, “This is potentially a big breakthrough for global awareness on how central banks hide crucial info from the public and the disastrous effects central banks have on society.” Is Belgium next to ask the same question in a vain attempt to understand just how much of its gold is permanently “lent out”? And after Belgium, everyone else with a central bank perhaps?

The Questions:

1 Did the Dutch Central Bank (DNB) loan part of their gold? If yes, how much and to whom?

2 Why are gold and gold loans stated as one line item in the annual report 2010 instead of mentioned as 2 separate items?

3 Can you give an overview of the yearly yields of the gold loans during the past years?

4 Where IS the physical gold of DNB? At which locations and how much is where? What is the reason that the gold is still at these locations?

5 What was the most important reason for DNB to sell the gold in the past? Are the storage costs a reason? What are the actual costs to store the gold?

6 Can you confirm that since 1991 of the 1700 tons of gold about 1100 tons have been sold? Is the remark of journalist Peter de Waard correct that because of these historic sales there is a loss of about 30 billion euro? If not correct, what is the right amount?

7 How much of the National Debt has during the past 20 years been paid off with the proceeds of the gold sales? Are you of opinion that the sustainability of the national debt will be improved by paying off the debt and at the same time selling the gold?

8 What is in your opinion the present function of the gold stock?

9 What is the relation between the size of the market of the gold stock and the size of the market of gold derivates? What are the possible consequences of this?

10 Can you confirm that recently a number of countries have even enlarged their physical gold stock? Do you have an explanation for this development?close quote (Read more from zerohedge.com)

bloomberg article in praise of Marx

open quotePolicy makers struggling to understand the barrage of financial panics, protests and other ills afflicting the world would do well to study the works of a long-dead economist: Karl Marx. The sooner they recognize we’re facing a once-in-a-lifetime crisis of capitalism, the better equipped they will be to manage a way out of it.close quote (more on bloomberg.com)

. . . . because economics is just an opinion, and all opinions are equally valid.

Hurricane strikes our Moscow on the Hudson

Moscow on the Hudson because people are surrounded by impressive monuments and incompetent government.

open quotePraise God that Hurricane Irene didn’t pound New York City nearly as severely as the State and its media threatened it would!

No church this morning: since the City shut down the subways and buses, congregants can’t assemble. Mayor “Nanny” Bloomberg advised us all to sleep late, as if neither the Lord nor His day of worship exist. And yet Christians support the State.

Meanwhile, the storm graphically proved the superiority of freedom and the market: while Our silly Rulers cowered and quavered, bars and restaurants posted placards: “Pre-Hurricane Party! C’mon in!” The tax-supported library didn’t even bother opening yesterday though we enjoyed a fine lunch of shrimp chow fon and chicken with cashews right next door. The City ordered everyone to stay home, and tried to force obedience by pulling the plug on public transit, but workers valiantly struggled to reach their jobs. A friend told me over our chow fon that he’d gone to his office that morning without knowing whether he’d gain access to the building or not: the staff that unlocks its doors might have stayed home since the subways were closing before their shift ended. In fact, when he arrived, not only did the porter admit him, he was on the phone with his replacement, asking whether he should pull a double shift or if the guy would find a way in from Brooklyn to Manhattan. Yep, Mr. Replacement said, he’d be there.

The State: utterly useless. The market: brave, inspiring, dedicated, dependable — and even providing delicious dinners and open offices despite impending rain.close quote (Read more from lewrockwell.com)

No, Paul Krugman, WWII Did Not End The Great Depression

Wow! Can’t believe this is making it into mainstream publications!

open quoteIt’s a recurring fantasy for left wing academics fascinated by central planning that in cyclical downturns government should act decisively on a scale equivalent to war. Nobel Prize recipient Paul Krugman exemplifies this intellectual longing to steer our lives.

Krugman effortlessly slides into a war footing espousing intervention comparable to America’s crusade against Hitler, who, take note, centrally planned an economy himself:

“World War II is the great natural experiment in the effects of large increases in government spending, and as such has always served as an important positive example for those of us who favor an activist approach to a depressed economy.”

After WWII until its glaring failures manifest in the Seventies, Keynesianism inundated economic thought. Paul Samuelson’s textbooks became mainstays across the academy. Samuelson championed mathematical analysis, which transformed macroeconomics into a pseudo science spawning waves of budding planners infatuated with statistics.

From this basis the myth prevails that WWII finally overcame the Great Depression. History has revised Hoover, easily the most meddlesome peacetime president before FDR, into a laissez-faire reactionary. The New Deal – a disastrous example of everything not to do during downturns became beneficial, only it supposedly wasn’t aggressive enough.close quote (Read more from forbes.com)

Wall Street Aristocracy Got $1.2 Trillion From Fed

open quoteFed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s unprecedented effort to keep the economy from plunging into depression included lending banks and other companies as much as $1.2 trillion of public money, about the same amount U.S. homeowners currently owe on 6.5 million delinquent and foreclosed mortgages. The largest borrower, Morgan Stanley (MS), got as much as $107.3 billion, while Citigroup took $99.5 billion and Bank of America $91.4 billion, according to a Bloomberg News compilation of data obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, months of litigation and an act of Congress.

“These are all whopping numbers,” said Robert Litan, a former Justice Department official who in the 1990s served on a commission probing the causes of the savings and loan crisis. “You’re talking about the aristocracy of American finance going down the tubes without the federal money.”

(View the Bloomberg interactive graphic to chart the Fed’s financial bailout.)
Foreign Borrowers

It wasn’t just American finance. Almost half of the Fed’s top 30 borrowers, measured by peak balances, were European firms. They included Edinburgh-based Royal Bank of Scotland Plc, which took $84.5 billion, the most of any non-U.S. lender, and Zurich-based UBS AG (UBSN), which got $77.2 billion. Germany’s Hypo Real Estate Holding AG borrowed $28.7 billion, an average of $21 million for each of its 1,366 employees. close quote (Read more from bloomberg.com)