Archive for October 2010
Why the US economy is floundering and where it is going
Gerard Jackson Monday 18 October 2010
Last year I explained that there would no recovery and that manufacturing was heading for a slowdown. Both of these predictions came to pass. I am forever stressing that the boom-bust cycle is caused by monetary expansion largely consisting of phony bank deposits. In plain English, we call this credit expansion.
Posted in Bernanke, deficits, Federal Reserve (USA), Gerard Jackson, interest rates, Keynesianism, Obama, Recession, taxes, Unemployment, US economy
How the rising dollar could hollow out the Australian economy
Gerard Jackson Monday 18 October 2010
The Australian dollar’s parity with the US dollar is causing considerable concern. Andrew Robb, Liberal Party shadow treasurer, is arguing that the rising dollar could hollow out the economy. (Dollar’s rise makes mini-budget essential, Andrew Robb, The Australian 15 October 2010).
Obama’s leftwing beliefs created current conditions
Gerard Jackson 18 October 2010
I warned from day one that an Obama presidency would be a disaster for the US economy (not that it’s doing the body politic any good). Let us first clear the air about who is to blame for starting the recession. The culprit is lousy economics. If it were not for the central banks’ appalling lack of genuine monetary and capital theory the boom-bust cycle would be a thing of the past. (The early classical economists had a better understanding of the banking system and it affect on the economy than any central bank’s ‘research’ department.)
Deficits, taxes and the Democrats’ hypocrisy
Gerard Jackson Monday 18 October 2010
Raising taxes to eliminate the Obama’s deficit would be thoroughly destructive. But when it comes to taxes the Americans have been there before, along with everyone else. A look at the 2004 election tells us that the Democrats have learnt nothing from history, nor do they want to.
Posted in deficits, Democratic Party, Democrats, Economic growth, Gerard Jackson, Investment, Obama, taxes, US economy
Progressives and Communists: Out of the Closet — Together
Paul Kengor Monday 18 October 2010
A close look at the Saturday “One Nation” rally in Washington reveals something quite telling. It was a major gathering of the “progressive” left, highly billed, vigorously promoted. And it happened to include — in fact, it warmly accepted — the endorsement of Communist Party USA.
Green propaganda forces renown physicist to resign in disgust
Harold Lewis, Emeritus Professor of Physics Monday 18 October 2010
Editor: The resignation of Professor Lewis is a significant blow against the greens’ man-made global warming hysteria and their fanatical drive to impose policies that would savage living standards. It is only a matter of time before more and more members of the media will be forced to admit that the greens have been lying and that there has also been a great deal of financial corruption.
Posted in Greens
Che Guevara: Guerrilla Doofus and Murdering Coward
Humberto Fontova Monday 18 October 2010
Forty three years ago Ernesto “Che” Guevara got a major dose of his own medicine. Without trial he was declared a murderer, stood against a wall and shot. Historically speaking, justice has rarely been better served. If the saying “What goes around comes around” ever fit, it’s here.
Perplexed supporters of Israel
Steven Shamrak Monday 18 October 2010
It might surprise some Jews, considering the disproportional anti-Israel coverage in the media and from international pressure the on Israeli government, that there are many non-Jews who strongly support the State of Israel. What even more surprising is, that many of them enthusiastically approve the idea of the reunification of Jewish land, the creation of Eretz-Israel (Land of Israel), as it was designated by the League of Nations in July 1922, – even more than most of Jews.
Will ‘technological unemployment’ be Obama and the Democrats latest defense?
Gerard Jackson Monday 11 October 2010
The news is out: things ain’t getting better, which means America’s phony media will have to start digging up more excuses for the Democrats’ failed economic policies. Alana Semuels, Harvard graduate and a ‘reporter” for the Los Angeles Times has come up with a real old chestnut: technological unemployment. (She gets an A for effort and an F minus for lack of imagination.)
Posted in Economic growth, Gerard Jackson, Investment, Recession, Unemployment, US economy, US unemployment
The Reserve Bank puts a hold on rates as manufacturing declines
Gerard Jackson Monday 11 October 2010
While a number of commentators thought it likely that the mining boom would force Glenn Stevens, governor of the Reserve Bank of Australian, to raise interest rates I took the opposite view. So far I have been proved right. I reasoned that one would have to be an idiot to focus entirely on the mining boom at the expense of other factors. And Glenn Stevens is no idiot, even though his economic reasoning is deeply flawed.
Keynes’ dangerous fallacies and errors
Gerard Jackson Monday 11 October 2010
Now that Keynesianism is being promoted with renewed enthusiasm (clear evidence that economic fallacies never really die) we should take a look at Keynes’ dangerous fallacies and errors. Some years ago Alex Millmow, a Keynesian and senior lecturer in economics at Charles Sturt University at the time, wrote enthusiastically in the Australian Financial Review of Geoff Harcourt and Peter Riach’s commissioning of a two-volume set written by Keynesians that was intended as a ‘rewrite’ of Keynes’ General Theory of Employment Interest and Money. According to Millmow, this work would put an end to arguments about “what Keynes really meant”. Well the works were published and, as expected, they did not put an end to “what Keynes really meant”.
Recessions and so-called “debt deflation”
Frank Shostak Monday 11 October
Following the view of Irving Fisher some economists argue that deflation and the following depression is the result of over indebtedness. Fisher regarded over-indebtedness as a situation where the debt is out of line i.e. too big relatively to other economic factors. He held that
Some questions for Time Magazine re Cuba
Humberto Fontova Monday 11 October 2010
Time Magazine ran an article on U.S.-Cuba relations which employs the word embargo (as in big, bad bully U.S. against innocent little free-health-care provider Castro) eight times. The term travel ban figures in the article’s very title.
The Nazi connection to Islamic terrorism
Review Monday 11 October 2010
The Nazi Connection to Islamic Terrorism establishes the strong link between Adolf Hitler’s Nazi movement and the roots of modern Islamic jihadists. Morse plumbs the ideology of al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and a key Nazi collaborator, and shows how Nazi teachings infected Arab politics in the 20th century — and guide radical Islam today.
Kate Zernike’s stupid Outrage
Tibor R. Machan Monday 11 October 2010
In a news report on October 2nd, 2010, titled Movement of the Moment Looks to Long-Ago Texts , New York Times reporter Kate Zernike tells us that books like Frederick Bastiat’s The Law, from 1850, and F. A Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom from 1944, are selling like hotcakes among Tea Party members.
US economy: demand deficiency is not the problem and Keynesianism is not the solution
Gerard Jackson Monday 4 October 2010
In trying to explain the state of the American economy the commentariat is still blaming the lack of consumer demand. But as the classical economists always pointed out when presented with this fallacy, consumption is never a problem but production is.
Wages, inflation and the Great Depression: The Reserve still does not get it
Gerard Jackson Monday 4 October 2010
The mining boom is making it very clear that the Reserve Bank and our commentariat are unlikely to ever grasp the relationship between inflation and wages. Whenever it appears that wages are rising ‘too’ fast and that a shortage of skilled labour is emerging we are invariably warned that the RBA could be forced to raise interest rates to counter the inflationary effects of wages increases. This is nonsense. The view that rising wages in themselves can have an inflationary impact seems to have its roots in the discredited cost-of-production theory of prices.
The deflation myth and why Americans should welcome falling prices
Gerard Jackson Monday 4 October 2010
Some economic pundits are warning — again — that deflation poses a severe threat to the US economy, despite the fact that Bernanke is desperately trying to create an inflationary-driven recovery. Now back in November 2001 the same siren voices were singing the same seductive tune, even though the Fed was rapidly expanding the money supply.
Another member of our right stuffs it up on spending, jobs and recessions
Gerard Jackson Monday 4 October 2010
Dr Steven Kates rightly took issue with the Labor Government’s spending policy to counter the recession. This was too much for James Guest, who piously calls himself a “dry” (a self-styled “economic rationalist” who, to my knowledge, has contributed absolutely nothing to the advancement of the free market).
Greens v. the car and people’s wants
Gerard Jackson Monday 4 October 2010
Now that the fanatical green Senator Senator Bob Brown is in a position to influence government decision-making perhaps we should take another look at the greens’ hatred of the humble car and ask ourselves why this boon causes social engineers, would-planners and environmentalist fanatics such anguish? After all, the car has been a great liberator for the masses, giving them the kind of freedom that was once the exclusive preserve of the wealthier classes.