Category Archives: Inflation

Schiff’s Sad, Sound, Song

Debt, Economy, Federal Reserve Bank, Inflation, Political Economy

The only thing you want to take away from this condescending Time magazine “piece” about libertarian financial analyst Peter Schiff’s prognostications is this:

“over longer periods, Schiff’s decade-old strategy of steering clients out of U.S. securities and into commodities and overseas stocks has been a big winner. His investment record surely can’t be the reason for his fall from media grace.”

Much to the consternation of the Times “writer,” the reason Schiff “hasn’t changed his tune” on the imperative of escaping the phony US economy is because the tune is in the right key!.

Justin Fox’s column is so pointless, so full of non sequiturs. This guys doesn’t even attempt to make sense, and I imagine he gets a bundle for the epistolary offal he produces.

I mean, on the one hand, Fox concedes that Schiff’s investments have proven prudent. But on the other hand, he insists that Schiff got to bask only briefly “in the glory of his spectacular call,” because he has fallen out of grace with the menagerie of morons on mainstream media.

As though you “bask in the glory of [your] spectacular call” only so long as you’re invited on the Keynesian “Kudlow and Cretins” show. Perhaps saving your clients a bundle and safeguarding your own assets is enough to make an honest man “bask.”

Schiff's Sad, Sound, Song

Debt, Federal Reserve Bank, Inflation, Political Economy

The only thing you want to take away from this condescending Time magazine “piece” about libertarian financial analyst Peter Schiff’s prognostications is this:

Much to the consternation of the Times “writer,” the reason Schiff “hasn’t changed his tune” on the imperative of escaping the phony US economy is because the tune is in the right key!.

Justin Fox’s column is so pointless, so full of non sequiturs. This guys doesn’t even attempt to make sense, and I imagine he gets a bundle for the epistolary offal he produces.

Updated: Arnold Issuing IOUs

Classical Liberalism, Debt, Economy, Federalism, Government, Inflation, Political Economy, Republicans, The State

For a long time, “moderate” Republicans considered California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger a member of the “saner” Republican guard. Arnold drove his state to insolvency, and insolvency, you see, can shore up a moderate’s credentials.

Schwarzenegger has pumped up his state’s bloated bureaucracy and ballooning parasitical class. Now, in a referendum, California voters have rejected milquetoast measures that would allow The Terminator to continue to hobble along with his $21 billion deficit.

The Republican governor made sure he was out of town during the vote. “He was not the public face of the effort,” reports the New York Times. But rather, Arnold “let teachers and firefighters do his talking for him in advertisements, and indeed was not even in the state the day of the vote.”

“Representative democracy,” wrote Ludwig von Mises in Bureaucracy, “cannot subsist if a great part of the voters are on the government pay roll. If the members of parliament no longer consider themselves mandatories of the taxpayers but deputies of those receiving salaries, wages, subsidies, doles, and other benefits from the treasury, democracy is done for.”

One of the causes of inflation and debt is the public sector—with its capacity to hire while the public sector must fire—and award its members with inflated wages and benefits, the kind we can only dream of.

Update (May 20): Arnold gave it a bash; he tried to peddle a “package of budget-balancing measures that he promised would temporarily fix the state’s financial crisis.”

MSNBC: “Schwarzenegger said the state’s residents have had to sell off motorcycles, second cars and hold garage sales to make ends meet in recent months. Now, they’re telling state officials that the government has to shrink, too.

“Don’t come to us for extra help. That was the message.”

Me: Moocher-in-chief, however, knows how to try and prolong the party, with some leverage against the moochers he governs:

“Still, Schwarzenegger said the budget cuts to come may be more painful than California voters realize. While they may not want to pay more for services, they can’t say specifically which services they would pare, he said.

He said cuts will certainly come in education, health care and in prisons by transferring undocumented immigrants to federal facilities and transferring more non-violent offenders to local jails. He plans to meet with state lawmakers in the afternoon to discuss the state’s options.”

BREAKING: China Cancels US Credit Card

China, Debt, Economy, Federal Reserve Bank, Inflation, Republicans

We’ve been saying this on BAB for quite sometime: China has been a good sport about bearing the brunt of the American debt. Now a Republican admits the same:

“Representative Mark Kirk, a member of the House Appropriations Committee and co-chair of a group of lawmakers promoting relations with Beijing, said China had ‘very legitimate’ concerns about its investments.”

“‘It would appear, quietly and with deference and politeness, that China has canceled America’s credit card,’ Kirk told the Committee of 100, a Chinese-American group.” By which he meant that “investors in China have sharply curtailed their purchases of bonds.” [My emphasis]

“The Republican lawmaker said that China was justified in concerns about returns from finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which were bailed out by the US government due to the financial crisis.”

Yes, it takes a change of fortunes for Republicans to quit dissing the patient Asians for their democratic deficits, and begin to be thankful that they’ve continued to finance America’s non-stop spending and consumption.

I suspect that were Bush at the helm, republicans would be cussing and carrying on in their usual sinophobic manner.

The patient Asians took what we dished–the dissing, the spending, and the exported inflation.

No more.