Easy Money, Soaring Stocks & A Stagnant Economy

Business, Debt, Federal Reserve Bank, Inflation, Middle East

Some in mainstream media are making good progress in connecting Ben Bernanke’s non-stop monetary stimulus to a rise in all prices, stock-market prices included.

The Fed’s monthly confetti of funny-money stands at “$85 billion total every month.” The Fed’s balance sheet reflects “more than $3 trillion.”

The Fed, explains Elizabeth MacDonald (Fox Business News), purchases mortgage-backed and Treasury securities from Fed dealers.”

You can see how hooked the market is to the central bank’s money printing — the correlation in fact is rather astonishing. It shows the government and the central bank’s power to create money, manipulate market prices, and transfer wealth. The market is powered ahead by a growing strength in corporate profits, too.

Richard Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, is more than hip to the “monetary Ritalin” scam:

…And, for some, there is a deeply imbedded worry that the Fed’s contortion of the yield curve and cost of money cannot last forever, or, if it lasts too long, will eventually result in financial bubbles and/or uncontrollable inflation, adding another uncertainty to the plethora of uncertain factors that already plague them. “Credit is super-abundant and stock market behavior is conditioned not so much by the fundamental performance of its underlying companies but by increasing doses of monetary Ritalin.

Then again, if you listen to the likes of Shepard Smith (also on Fox News) or Brooke Baldwin (CNN) expatiate on the topic of a stagnant economy against the backdrop of soaring stocks—you’ll hear their extra curricula exhortation for The Ben Bernanke to keep those interest rates low. Lovely!

UPDATE III: Margaret Thatcher: An Individualist, Not A Feminist (Republican Teletwits R Feminists)

Britain, EU, Europe, Feminism, Human Accomplishment, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Intellectualism, Intelligence, Reason

“Margaret Thatcher: An Individualist, Not A Feminist” is the new column, now on WND. Here is an excerpt. Read the rest on WND:

“Feminism is a form of collectivism. The sludge of feminist thought was as foreign to Margaret Thatcher’s supple mind as originality is in the collective consciousness of Dana Perino and Kimberly Guilfoyle.

Big hair, an overbite, botox and mind-numbing banalities: These best describe the female hosts on Fox News’ ‘The Five,’ a current-affairs panel, on which Lady Thatcher’s achievements were being claimed for womanhood.

To be fair to the pair from ‘The Five,’ a procession of equally vacuous panelists, plonked on other God-awful, dual-perspective chat forums—now multiplying on TV—had all rattled on about Margaret Thatcher qua woman.

The solipsistic sorority known as feminism was alien to Mrs. Thatcher, who was a methodological individualist, if ever there was one. The ‘Iron Lady’ would have had nothing but contempt for the mediocrities claiming her achievements for their communal sisterhood.

The causes of the late Mrs. Thatcher—who served as the United Kingdom’s prime minister from 1979 to 1990, and passed away this week—were those of “individual men and women” and their families.

As Lady Thatcher famously averred, feminism was poison. ‘No! No! No!’ The Lady was not for feminism. Within parliament, Prime Minister Thatcher had disavowed “little sir echo’s” acquiescence to the colossal collective of the European superstate. From without parliament, she would have extended the same scorn to little miss echo’s campaigns for gender-driven sectional interests.

The force of Mrs. Thatcher’s thinking and leadership flowed from a fierce independence of mind that precluded an affinity for the black hole of feminist thought—the collapse of which becomes increasingly likely as its center of gravity grows heavier. (Yes, women—especially feminists—risk vanishing into self-centeredness and self-preoccupation.) A bona fide feminist at the Guardian got it right. Mrs. Thatcher, she fumed, had no empathy for woman-centric whining, preferring the company of men.

Such was Lady Thatcher’s individualism that she even hand-bagged Thomas Jefferson for what she perceived as his flawed expression of the American Mind …”

The complete column, “Margaret Thatcher: An Individualist, Not A Feminist,” is on WND.

If you’d like to feature this column, WND’s longest-standing, exclusive paleolibertarian column, in or on your publication (paper or pixels), contact ilana@ilanamercer.com.

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UPDATE I: No To The EU. It says a lot about collectivism’s historic, unstoppable momentum that Margaret Thatcher was ousted as prime minister of Britain, in 1990, because of one of her most prophetic and patriotic insights: that against the European superstate. She famously insisted that, “We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain only to see them re-imposed at a European level, with a European superstate exercising a new dominance from Brussels.”

UPDATE II: Libertarians will and should continue to debate whether Margaret Thatcher truly reduced overall government outlays. While economic growth outpaced government growth during the Thatcher years, as The Spectator’s Jonathan Jones observed, “Government spending actually rose by 17.6 percent in real terms under Thatcher.”
We might, in addition to all else, ponder why, given the privatization Thatcher accomplished—National Freight, steel, gas, telecoms and water—Mrs. Thatcher failed to tackle Britain’s National Health Service. Alas, there is so much one woman can do. To ignore her towering intellect and her patriotism, so unusual today among the Anglo-American traitor class, is worse than stupid.

UPDATE III: “Milton on Maggie.”

UPDATE IV (4/12): The Republican Teletwits are Feminists. Jeff P writes:

Ilana,
Very well written piece capturing so many of the essentials of Lady Thatcher. However as regards the two ladies of The Five, I didn’t at all sense that they were/are leftist feminist supporters and am of the belief or at least the impression that they would agree with your statements about Lady Thatcher vs liberal feminism. I do want to tell you however, that I believe you do the quality of your essay a disservice with the ad hominems of “botox, big hair, and overbite.” I think it is within bounds to draw the analogy of the feminist sludge to Thatcher’s supple mind as originality to the collective consciousness of Perino and Guilfoyle. Just my thoughts.

Sincerely,
Jeff P.

Reply:

Dear J.,

Never said they were leftist; but they are neocon-Republican feminists. Which, I suppose, is left, in my book. All Republican TV tarts (bar Malkin and Coulter who are serious commentators, but are not invited on panels b/c too smart for their hosts) are feminist lightweights. Think about what individualism versus feminism involves. The constructs deployed by the many Dana Perinos and Kimberly Guilfoyles, festooning panels all over the networks, are invariably gender-centric.
The two were incapable of addressing Mrs. Thatcher’s thinking, other than to chirp on about her contribution to making them feel better as women; brightening their prospects as females. Well, she should not have, because Mrs. Thatcher was nothing like them.
In any case, their discourse is feminist, not individualist.
As to the bite. Writing has to be biting and sharp, not boring and agreeable. If you back up the bite with facts, and I do my best—then one should have some fun. Those two broads are thick. Why are they there speaking to the nation? Why are all these panels bedecked with such silly sorts? Because these women will never say anything remotely provocative or original. Never have, never will.

Here is another one.

Some Economic Fundamentals

Barack Obama, Business, Debt, Economy, Inflation

Against the backdrop of the White House’s budget, a “$3.778 trillion spending plan for the year that begins in October, which called for about $1 trillion in tax increases over 10 years and higher spending on programs such as education, transportation and mental-health services” (WSJ), consider the following:

* “The top 1 percent of Americans in income pays 37 percent of all income taxes. The top half of wage earners pays 98 percent of all income taxes” (Pat Buchanan).

* “9 million Americans ages 20 to 64 years old – nearly 5 percent of the working-age population – is receiving disability pay (Pat Buchanan). 81,000 Americans went on disability just last month. The government is spending $260 billion a year on disability programs, more than it spends on food stamps and welfare combined (Lou Dobbs).

* 47.8 million Americans receive food stamps, “at a cost of $80 billion” (Pat Buchanan). The percentage of Americans on food stamps has risen by 70 percent since 2008.

* 90 million Americans have dropped out of the labor force (Here).

* 50 million Americans are living below the poverty line (Lou Dobbs).

* And who can forget the national debt? It’s $16.8 trillion.

UPDATED: ‘See a Shrink, Lose Your Guns’ (And To Hell With HIPAA)

Government, Individual Rights, Law, Psychiatry, Regulation

“Expect a reduction in the use of counseling services among gun owners,” BAB warned on December 24, 2012. If he thinks that his doctor is likely to pass on information about his mental state to federal or state authorities, how likely is a gun owner to seek help for psychological/marital/familial problems? Not very likely.”

And indeed a troika of traitors—Senators Pat Toomey (R) and Joe Manchin (D), with Chuck Schumer working behind the scenes—are seeking “an amendment in the bill to HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act),” caution the Gun Owners of America.

“…you could have your guns taken away because your private shrink thinks you’re ‘dangerous’ and could send your name directly to the FBI Instant Check system. Did you think it was terrible that 150,000 military veterans had been added into the NICS system because they’d seen a VA shrink about their PTSD? Well guess what? Now it’s going to happen to the rest of the population … by the millions!”

As with all government regulation, there will be unintended consequences that’ll immeasurably compound the problem the proposed, new gun legislation is intended to “remedy.”

Fearing the loss of a natural right to self defense, individuals will avoid seeking help for life’s stressors.

UPDATE: TO HELL WITH HIPAA. “HIPAA Laws,” reports The Blaze, “are likely being compromised and the 4th and 5th Amendments violated,” as New York gestapo proceed to confiscate “weapons and permits where someone has been prescribed psychotropic drugs.”