Have you heard the good news? Financial armageddon has been averted. The economic collapse in Europe has been cancelled. Everything is going to be okay. Well, actually none of those statements is true, but news of the "debt deal" in Europe has set off a frenzy of irrational exuberance throughout the financial world anyway. Newspapers all over the globe are declaring that the financial crisis in Europe is over. Stock markets all over the world are soaring. ... (more)
Last week, I spent the afternoon visiting the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations in lower Manhattan. I brought a film crew and a sign that said "I Am The 1%, Let's Talk." The purpose was to understand what was motivating these protesters and try to educate them about what caused the financial crisis. I went down there with the feeling that much of their anger was justified, but broadly misdirected.
Indeed, there were plenty of heated discussions. I did little more than ask how muc... (more)
Defense giant Lockheed Martin had a totally sweet quarter, raking in $700 million and looking forward to the same this time next year. So it raises eyebrows when Lockheed’s anointed mouthpieces predict mass economic disaster if Congress touches the defense budget.
On Tuesday, the aerospace industry put out a report saying that chopping the defense budget would put over a million Americans out of work. Cuts that could total up t... (more)
Last week, Reason.tv followed investment guru, radio show host, and unflappable defender of capitalism Peter Schiff as he spent three hours among the Occupy Wall Street protesters in Manhattan's Zuccotti Park.
An unapologetic member of "the 1 Percent," Schiff argued with all comers for the better part of an afternoon.
It was maybe third grade when the schoolyard was abuzz with a terrible thing. It was called the "permanent record." If you did something bad enough, it would go on the permanent record. And then a one-day slip up would turn into a deep scar, a mortal sin that would last forever and permanently reduce your chances to make it in life.
We imagined some suited committee reaching deep into the file and discovering that we had loosened someone's fingers as they tried to climb the monkey... (more)
Then you must read this story about a New York coffee shop, and how it is an impossible proposition to try to run something like this. The story doesn’t even go into taxes and employment mandates. It’s a wonder that any business exists at all. And so what do we do toward the entrepreneurial class? We hate them, blame them for all the world’s problems, attack them as parasites and vultu... (more)
Wynn Resorts CEO Steve Wynn slams President Obama and congressional Democrats on health care and the economy.
"The policies of this administration have destroyed the living standard of the working class in America. What is ostensibly the base of the Democratic Party is taking the worst hit in history because of these unbelievably uninformed policies of t... (more)
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — Donald Trump sees money — lots of it — flowing away from him. That, he said, needs to change.
The real estate mogul and founder of an Atlantic City casino company says the United States should legalize Internet gambling. The company that bears his name, Trump Entertainment Resorts, is moving forward with plans to establish an online betting venture as soon as it's legal.
The company says it wants to get in on the ground f... (more)
Lecture presented by Hans-Hermann Hoppe at the Mises Institute Brasil's 2nd Austrian School of Economics seminar on April 10, 2011.
Hans-Hermann Hoppe is an Austrian school economist of the anarcho-capitalist tradition, a senior fellow of the Ludwig von Mises Institute and a former economics professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He is the aut... (more)
Excellent talk with a 30 minute Q&A session. A must watch.
If you were asked to guess, what area of the United States would you say has the highest average income? New York City? Los Angeles? Silicon Valley? Well, would you believe that it is actually the Washington D.C. area? Median household income in the region is $84,523, which is the highest in the nation. One of the biggest reasons for this ar... (more)
There has been a lot of speculation recently on whether or not gold is in a bubble. With Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke announcing "Operation Twist" last month, gold and other commodity prices have fluctuated erratically. Immediately following the "Twist" announcement, prices of both plummeted. Gold then stabiliz... (more)
On the matter of great disparities of income and wealth in a society, the manner in which people become wealthy is of great importance.
In a society based largely on socialism and crony capitalism, which is the system under which the United States operates today, lots of people get wealthy by using the government to plunder and loot their fellow citizens.
In a system based on libertarian principles, people get wealthy by producing goods and services that other p... (more)
To hear the latest batch of political salesmen tell it, China is a drug pusher in a schoolyard full of American schoolkids. The cheap goods the Chinese export market provides the American consumers may feel good, initially, but they are surely destroying America…causing manufacturers to shut down in the U.S. or relocate to China. Americans are, supposedly, trading jobs and long-term economic health to get their consumer goods at a great price.
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York claimed in a published report Wednesday that student loan debt in the U.S. has now surpassed $1 trillion, for the first time ever exceeding the total amount of credit card debt held by Americans.
Due to the rising cost of education across the board, students are being forced to borrow almost twice as much as they were just 10 years ago, the College Board told USA Today.
That’s what led to a spike in student loan amounts... (more)
Think life is not as good as it used to be, at least in terms of your wallet? You'd be right about that. The standard of living for Americans has fallen longer and more steeply over the past three years than at any time since the US government began recording it five decades ago.
Bottom line: The average individual now has $1,315 less in disposable income than he or she did three years ago at the onset of the Great Recession – even though the recession ended, technically spe... (more)
Federal employees whose compensation averages more than $126,000 and the nation’s greatest concentration of lawyers helped Washington edge out San Jose as the wealthiest U.S. metropolitan area, government data show.
The U.S. capital has swapped top spots with Silicon Valley, according to recent Census Bureau figures, with the typical household in the Washington metro area earning $84,523 last year. The national median income for 2010 was $50,046.
While this is hugely objectionable and certain economic suicide, it should be noted the problem in this situation is the government guaranteeing bank deposits. It creates a situation where the economic incentive is for the banks to engage in all sorts of risky behavior in order to maximize profits because if they lose money they know the government will just bail them (and their depositors) out. See this clip from Peter Schiff. - Chris
Alec Baldwin showed up Tuesday night at Occupy Wall Street and talked to Luke Rudkowski, Rob, and Matt of We Are Change about Ending the Federal Reserve Banking System.
Interesting video, he's clearly pro-capitalism but wrongly thinks the Fed is needed to provide money to markets. All that does is distort markets and exasperate the business cycle. See Austrian Business Cycle Theory.
