Tag Archives: Money/Economy/Taxes
Austrian Economics and the Financial Markets | Kevin Duffy
Schiff: Market correction, inflation, gold standard
Southern Avenger on Gingrich
From the Southern Avenger via Facebook: 
I give props to Paul Ryan for going further than most Republicans in his budget proposal, though I agree with Rand Paul that Ryan’s cuts don’t go far enough (Ryan’s plan still leaves us with a $23 trillion debt). Newt Gingrich not only finds Ryan’s plan too radical but supports Obama’s health insurance mandate. I repeat: Gingrich is not, and never has been, a conservative.
Philosoraptor on Ron Paul, free markets and big coorporations
Peter Schiff: Market correction, inflation, gold standard
Captialism vs. Bureaucracy — very entertaining lecture
Jeff Tucker found phosphorus that he can add to his dishwasher!!!! W00t!!!!
“Buy American” mass email
Here’s the mass email I received. My response is below:
Did you see that Diane Sawyer has a special report coming up this week? They removed ALL items from a typical, middle class family’s home that were not made in the USA . There was hardly anything left besides the kitchen sink. Literally. During the special they are going to show truckloads of items – USA made – being brought in to replace everything and will be talking about how to find these items and the difference in price etc.. It was interesting that Diane said that if every American spent just $64 more than normal on USA made items this year, it would create something like 200,000 new jobs! WAS BUYING FOOD THE OTHER DAY AT WALMART and ON THE LABEL OF SOME PRODUCTS IT SAID ‘FROM CHINA ’
FOR EXAMPLE THE “OUR FAMILY” BRAND OF THE MANDARIN ORANGES SAYS RIGHT ON THE CAN ‘FROM CHINA ‘
I WAS SHOCKED SO FOR A FEW MORE CENTS I BOUGHT THE LIBERTY GOLD BRAND OR THE DOLE SINCE IT’S FROM CALIF.
Are we Americans as dumb as we appear — or — is it that we just do not think while the Chinese, knowingly and intentionally, export inferior and even toxic products and dangerous toys and goods to be sold in American markets?
70% of Americans believe that the trading privileges afforded to the Chinese should be suspended.
Why do you need the government to suspend trading privileges? DO IT YOURSELF, AMERICA !!
Simply look on the bottom of every product you buy, and if it says ‘Made in China ‘ or ‘PRC’ (and that now includes Hong Kong ), simply choose another product, or none at all. You will be amazed at how dependent you are on Chinese products, and you will be equally amazed at what you can do without.
Who needs plastic eggs to celebrate Easter? If you must have eggs, use real ones and benefit some American farmer. Easter is just an example. The point is do not wait for the government to act. Just go ahead and assume control on your own.
THINK ABOUT THIS: If 200 million Americans refuse to buy just $20 each of Chinese goods, that’s a billion dollar trade imbalance resolved in our favor…fast!!
Most of the people who have been reading about this matter are planning on implementing this on May 1st and continue it until June 1st. That is only one month of trading losses, but it will hit the Chinese for 1/12th of the total, or 8%, of their American exports. Then they might have to ask themselves if the benefits of their arrogance and
lawlessness were worth it.
Remember, MAY 1 TO JUNE 1st !!!!!!
START NOW.
Send this to everybody you know. Let’s show them that we are Americans and NOBODY can take us for granted.
If we can’t live without cheap Chinese goods for one month out of our lives, WE DESERVE WHAT WE GET!
Pass it on, America …… BUY AMERICAN !!!!!
My response:
I’d like to briefly point out two of the several economic fallacies evident in this mass email.
1) The idea of a trade deficit is mostly nonsense. The whole discussion of trade deficits serves only to employ government economists. If I buy bread from the baker across the street, he is profits because of the value he puts on my money, and I profit because of the value I place on his bread. Replace the street with an international border and the example should be identical with both of us enriched by the exchange, however there will suddenly be a $4.99 trade deficit (or whatever the cost of bread). Government economists will write lengthy articles. Opportunistic politicians will make courageous speeches about the controls which need to be placed over the economy. It’s nonsense. Governments don’t trade. People trade. The more they’re allowed to do so, the better.
2) Paying more money for identical goods will not create “something like 200,000 jobs,” regardless of what Diane Sawyer says. It will destroy jobs. Rather than repeating the argument (which I’ve done more often that I thought possible), I would refer anyone who’s interested to chapter 11 of Henry Hazlitt’s classic “Economics in One Lesson.” It’s available for free here: www.hacer.org/pdf/Hazlitt00.pdf
In fact, if you’ve been learning economics from Diane Sawyer, I recommend the whole book — for everybody’s sake.
“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they know about what they imagine they can design.” ~ F.A. Hayek
Have a good day and please don’t trespass on my property.
Schiff on the Silver Sell-off, t-bills
GRAPHIC: 10 Years, 10 Broken U.S. Debt Ceilings
From National Journal:
Congress has raised the federal debt ceiling limit 10times in the past 10 years, and Treasury officials say the government will hit the current $14.3 trillion limit no later than May 16. Without another increase, the government will either default on its bonds or have to slash spending by about 40 percent. Republicans say they won’t vote for an increase without big additional cuts in spending.
Good advice from Progressive Cat!
Economist Article on Government Spending
“IF SOMETHING cannot go on for ever, it will stop,” Herb Stein once observed caustically. The American economist’s aphorism has proved apt of late—as applicable to Hosni Mubarak’s regime as it was to America’s rising property prices. Could it apply to the growth of the state? (Read more from economist.com)
CBO Says Budget Deal Will Cut Spending by Only $352 Million This Year
Ha!
A Congressional Budget Office analysis of the fiscal 2011 spending deal that Congress will vote on Thursday concludes that it would cut spending this year by less than one-one hundredth of what both Republicans or Democrats have claimed.
A comparison prepared by the CBO shows that the omnibus spending bill, advertised as containing some $38.5 billion in cuts, will only reduce federal outlays by $352 million below 2010 spending rates. The nonpartisan budget agency also projects that total outlays are actually some $3.3 billion more than in 2010, if emergency spending is included in the total.
The astonishing result, according to CBO, is the result of several factors: increases in spending included in the deal, especially at the Defense Department; decisions to draw over half of the savings from recissions, cuts to reserve funds, and mandatory-spending programs; and writing off cuts from funding that might never have been spent. (Read more from nationaljournal.com)
The People’s Cube!
Brilliant anti-socialist website by a former professional propaganda artist from Soviet Ukraine. Check it out: thepeoplescube.com/ |
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Here’s one of Oleg Atbashian’s lectures:
Iceland remains free from international banks.
Iceland is free. And it will remain so, so long as her people wish to remain autonomous of the foreign domination of her would-be masters — in this case, international bankers.
On April 9, the fiercely independent people of island-nation defeated a referendum that would have bailed out the UK and the Netherlands who had covered the deposits of British and Dutch investors who had lost funds in Icesave bank in 2008.
At the time of the bank’s failure, Iceland refused to cover the losses. But the UK and Netherlands nonetheless have demanded that Iceland repay them for the “loan” as a condition for admission into the European Union.
In response, the Icelandic people have told Europe to go pound sand. The final vote was 103,207 to 69,462, or 58.9 percent to 39.7 percent. “Taxpayers should not be responsible for paying the debts of a private institution,” said Sigriur Andersen, a spokeswoman for the Advice group that opposed the bailout.
A similar referendum in 2009 on the issue, although with harsher terms, found 93.2 percent of the Icelandic electorate rejecting a proposal to guarantee the deposits of foreign investors who had funds in the Icelandic bank.
. . . .
Under the terms of the agreement, Iceland would have had to pay £2.35 billion to the UK, and €1.32 billion to the Netherlands by 2046 at a 3 percent interest rate. Its rejection for the second time by Iceland is a testament to its people, who feel they should bear no responsibility for the losses of foreigners endured in the financial crisis.
That opposition to bailouts led to Iceland’s decision to allow the bank to fail in 2008. Not that the taxpayers there could have afforded to. As noted by Bloomberg News, at the time the crisis hit in 2008, “the banks had debts equal to 10 times Iceland’s $12 billion GDP.”
“These were private banks and we didn’t pump money into them in order to keep them going; the state did not shoulder the responsibility of the failed private banks,” Iceland President Olafur Grimsson told Bloomberg Television.
The voters’ rejection came despite threats to isolate Iceland from funding in international financial institutions. Iceland’s national debt has already been downgraded by credit rating agencies, and now those same agencies have promised to do so once again as punishment for defying the will of international bankers.
This is just the latest in the long drama since 2008 of global institutions refusing to take losses in the financial crisis. Threats of a global economic depression and claims of being “too big to fail” have equated to a loaded gun to the heads of representative governments in the U.S. and Europe. Iceland is of particular interest because it did not bail out its banks like Ireland did, or foreign ones like the U.S. did.
If that fervor catches on amongst taxpayers worldwide, as it has in Iceland and with the tea party movement in America, the banks would have something to fear; that is, the inability to draw from limitless amounts of funding from gullible government officials and central banks. It appears that the root cause is government guarantees, whether explicit or implicit, on risk-taking by the banks. (Read more from netrightdaily.com)