Paul Krugman has made a tongue-in-cheek proposal that has set tongues wagging--having the U.S. Treasury Department mint a $1 trillion platinum coin in order to circumvent the federal debt ceiling. Actually, Krugman was not the first to propose this solution he himself calls "silly" but he has given it wider exposure.
In these weird monetary and fiscal times, no proposal is so craz... (more)
This would amount to a trillion dollar heist of purchasing power in the blink of an eye. It's so criminal it sounds just like something they might do. - Chris
Less than 1% of the world’s gold is mined in India. The rest comes from somewhere else. Still, India can’t get enough. It is the largest consumer of gold in the world, buying nearly a third of production in recent years. Some estimates say that 10% of all gold is held in India.
Indians save roughly 30% of their income, as opposed Americans, who save 5%. Plus, Indians are getting richer all the time. Once a very poor country, the rich and middle classes now outnumber th... (more)
When one speaks of a concept it is important that it is properly qualified so as to be correctly understood. Failure to accomplish that makes impossible for either the problem to be identified or a desired solution to be found. Perhaps this is why politicians have a tendency to speak of ill-defined and oft muddled concepts, like "social justice," "a living wage" or "fair share." These concepts are impossible to define in a way consistent with how they are represented, since their proponents repr... (more)
What the home and mortgage market needs — and it will not recover until then — is a rebooting to current values. To do that, principal amounts must be reset. They need to be reset not by government force, but by letting the market work. Let bankrupt mortgage holders fail.
The housing market has gone nowhere since the meltdown. Some 14 million homeowners are underwater on their mortgages. A good percentage of those people have stopped making their monthly payments. ... (more)
Over several decades of employment, French actor Gerard Depardieu has paid more than one hundred million dollars in taxes. Several weeks ago, facing tax rates that would have cost him 75 percent of all earnings in excess of one million euros, Depardieu fled the country that considers him a national treasure. He relocated 800 yards across the border into a tiny Belgi... (more)
Real estate, and the careers that depend upon it, is a boom-bust business in the age of inflation. The illusion of wealth is everywhere..until it is snatched away.
That’s why it’s a great time for David Mamet’s Pulitzer Prize winning “Glengarry Glen Ross” to make its third appearance on the Broadway stage. It’s a show about Chicago real estate salesmen selling Florida properties through deception and intimidation.
In a disgraceful show of political expediency, Congress put its own political self-interest ahead of the national interest. They "saved" us from a contrived crisis of their own making, only to condem us to a far more horrific fate when the real crisis arrives. This one will come not because we went over the fiscal cliff, but because we avoided doing so. Going over the ... (more)
At least two members-only recreational marijuana clubs opened in Colorado Monday, one in Denver and one in the small southern Colorado town of Del Norte, according to the Associated Press. The club openings come less than a month after Gov. John Hickenlooper certified the results of the November vote on Amendment 64, which legalized for adults 21 and over the possession of up to an ounce and the culti... (more)
America is rapidly becoming a nation of takers. An increasing number of Americans expect the government to take care of them from the cradle to the grave, and they expect the government to dig into the pockets of others in order to pay for it all. This philosophy can be very seductive, but what happens when the number of takers eventually outnumbers the number of producers? In 11 different U.S. states, the number of government dependents exceeds the number of private sector... (more)
A Cassandra is a hopelessly honest person, while a Pollyanna is an incredibly hopeful person, the incurable optimist. Cassandras are often disparaged as "nattering nabobs of negativism/negativity," instead of being looked upon as prophetic realists, while Pollyannas are deservedly dismissed as the "pandering puppies of positivity/positivism."... (more)
