Pause
I’m backing off tumblr for a while. You can read about it here.
Time Out
I’m taking a pause in posting here while I evaluate this activity. Year end reflections include considering what this actually accomplishes and what does it cost. I’ll document my conclusions.
In other words, no matter how much the Fed and the Administration try to flog the economy, nothing has really worked. As much as Bernanke boasted about being able to prevent another depression, he and the Bush-Obama Administrations have done everything they could to make things worse. And the classic indicators of a depression are still playing out and reminding us of the inefficacy and incompetence of conventional economic wisdom.
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Making Sense Of 2011 | The Daily Capitalist Good year end analysis. |
Comparing between countries we see that the poorest 5% of Americans are among the richest people in the world (richer than nearly 70% of other people in the world). The poorest 5% of Americans, for example, are richer than the richest 5% of Indians.
Why do so many conservatives distrust Uncle Sam when it meddles at home, but trust it when it meddles abroad? Why do so many “progressives” trust Uncle Sam when it meddles at home, but distrust it when it meddles abroad?
In 1776 the feeding of every 100 Americans required the work of 90 Americans. Today the feeding of every 100 Americans requires the work of only 2 Americans. And yet we are today more abundantly fed than at any time in the past.
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| — | Farm Foolishness |
There are those who argue that now is not the time to cut government deficits, because that would be contractionary. My reaction on cutting back both bloated banking and bloated deficits: if not now, when?
It is true that Congress often seems ineffective in dealing with modern affairs, but this is what we should expect. The contemporary American government intervenes into nearly every aspect of our lives. How can any senator or congressman comprehend all of the interests at stake in all of the matters that the government tries to regulate? We live in an extraordinarily complex society. There are literally millions of businesses in America, and a larger number of households. These organizations deal in countless products and services, each of which is produced in complicated ways. Legislators have staffs to help manage their affairs, but the fact of the matter is that modern economies are complex beyond the comprehension of any staff or committee.
That banks get ever bigger, that they routinely hand out multi-million dollar bonuses, and that they frequently get bailed out, is not a result of the greed of the bankers – a stupid explanation anyway, only satisfactory to the intellectually challenged and perennially envious – but is integral to the fiat money system.
…why hasn’t the economy recovered in light of all the money poured into the economy by the government and the Fed? Why is the economy stagnating and not swinging back into positive territory? Perhaps you might wish to consider that the policies advocated by all the economics experts have been implemented and have failed and thus perhaps their policies are wrong. Or perhaps you would like them to continue doing the same things to the same results.
Once again, our political “leaders” are looking to foist the blame for problems they created onto someone else. Bankers are a pretty convenient and unpopular target.
Capitalism vigorously pursued might produce trade cycles and long periods of high unemployment; it might produce anxiety in yesterday’s successful entrepreneurs who now face competition from today’s upstart entrepreneurs; it might cause too many people to become obese; it might kill off animal species in unusually high numbers; it might cause the earth’s climate to change; it might create asset bubbles; it might spark envy and over-work in the Smiths who are trying to keep up with their neighbors, the Joneses. It might do these things and others that reasonable people might regard as unfortunate in comparison with some imaginable paradise. But we must never lose sight of this important asymmetry: complete or near-complete state control of the economy is proven to generate deep impoverishment and tyranny
