Tag Archives: Economics

Economy Tanks … and Stocks Soar?

Posted on by

“Negative 1 percent.  That’s how much the U.S. economy managed to ‘grow’ in the first quarter, according to the government’s revised estimate.  After more than $800 billion in stimulus spending from Washington.  After more than $3 trillion of QE from the Federal Reserve.  After six-plus years of record-low interest rates … record levels of monetary intervention in the U.K., Japan and Europe … and the biggest bailouts in the history of the world.  It’s much worse than the 0.1 percent gain the Commerce Department originally reported. It was twice as bad as the 0.5 percent decline economists were expecting. And it’s the worst reading since the first quarter of 2011.”

http://www.moneyandmarkets.com/economy-tanks-and-stocks-soar-61680

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

Bill Bonner: Why I Sued Washington 28 Years Ago

Posted on by

Bill-Bonner2

“When the Spanish conquered South America, their encomienda system of slavery typically required only 40 days of work from their victims. The French conquered Madagascar; they forced male Hovas between 16 and 60 to work 50 days a year.  The US example is closer to that of Russia – where Emperor Paul I, in 1797, declared that three days a week was enough for serfs to give their lords and masters. That works out to nearly 150 days a year.  A 50% tax rate – federal, state and local – is the equivalent of about 125 days of forced labor a year. Pretty steep. But that’s just the beginning. In our system of crony democracy, all the major industries have whips in their hands.”

http://www.bonnerandpartners.com/why-i-sued-washington-28-years-ago/

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

Bill Bonner, To the Class of 2014: You’re “Screwed”

Posted on by

Bill-Bonner2

“Government is merely a way one group of people – the insiders – take advantage of other people – the outsiders.  You can call it democracy or dictatorship; it hardly matters. It can be gentle and broadly tolerable… or brutal and widely detested. What makes it a government is it has a monopoly on the use of violence; ultimately, the insiders use it to get what they want. [..]  When everything is rigged, the riggers have the money and the power. Lobbyists, lawyers, accountants, administrators: Whether you want to take a business public… or just build a house… you come face to face with someone who can stop you, with paperwork, legal razzmatazz and nauseating administration.”

http://www.bonnerandpartners.com/to-the-class-of-2014-youre-screwed/

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

Mexican pot farmers give up, switch to supplying heroin to pill addicts

Posted on by

“With the wholesale price of marijuana falling — driven in part by decriminalization in sections of the United States — Mexican drug farmers are turning away from cannabis and filling their fields with opium poppies.  Mexican heroin is flooding north as U.S. authorities trying to contain an epidemic of prescription painkiller abuse have tightened controls on synthetic opiates such as hydrocodone and OxyContin. As the pills become more costly and difficult to obtain, Mexican trafficking organizations have found new markets for heroin in places such as Winchester, Va., and Brattleboro, Vt., where, until recently, needle use for narcotics was rare or unknown.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/tracing-the-us-heroin-surge-back-south-of-the-border-as-mexican-cannabis-output-falls/2014/04/06/58dfc590-2123-4cc6-b664-1e5948960576_story.html

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

Bill Bonner: College is a con

Posted on by

Bill-Bonner2

“Gradually, making things in the US became less and less profitable. So, if you wanted to earn a good salary you had to go somewhere else. Finance, administration, accounting, law, education, or health care. The good jobs in these industries required college. That’s why you’re here.  But wait, there’s more to the story. Unlimited credit also made it easier to support zombies and parasites. Government connived with industry to create quasi-monopolies, cartels, subsidies, guarantees and price supports. And the feds could add bureaucracy, controls, rules and regulations.  For example, the education industry added few teachers, but lots of ‘educators’ and policy coordinators.”

http://moneyweek.com/college-is-a-con/

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

Bill Bonner: This Hugely Popular Investment Is About to Blow Up

Posted on by

Bill-Bonner2

“In a normal world, savers have the choice of staying in cash or quasi-cash and receiving a fair rate of interest. No more. The interest they receive on a 10-year Treasury note is barely over 2.5%. But the real rate of consumer price inflation – according to the most exhaustive survey, done by the MIT, the Billion Prices Project – is 3.91%.  What kind of world is it where an honest householder loses nearly 1.5% a year on his savings? It is an odd, rigged-up and dangerously windy one.   Investors are stretching out their sails to get higher yields. As a result, bond prices have gone up, reducing yields on bonds rated CCC – below investment grade – to the lowest levels ever recorded.”

http://www.bonnerandpartners.com/this-hugely-popular-investment-is-about-to-blow-up/

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

Bailout Banks Made Riskier Loans: Study [2011]

Posted on by

“The government bailout made banks appear safer but actually caused them to take on more credit risk, according to a University of Michigan study released Wednesday. According to a working paper by finance professors Ran Duchin and Denis Sosyura of the university of Michigan’s Ross School of Business entitled Safer Ratios, Riskier Portfolios: Banks’ Response to Government Aid, banks participating in the government’s Capital Purchase Program as part of the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP, ‘significantly increased their investments in risky securities,’ by 10%, ‘displacing safer assets, such as Treasury bonds, short-term paper, and cash equivalents.'”

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Bailout-Banks-Made-Riskier-tsmf-3581730230.html

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

That Was the GDR – A History of the Other Germany (1993)

Posted on by

“This astonishing chronicle of the German Democratic Republic (or as we called it, East Germany) features illuminating interviews complimented by rare archival materials from film, photographs, posters, caricatures, popular songs and speeches. Former citizens both prominent and unknown reflect on cultural, economic, and political developments from the founding of the GDR in 1949 to German unification in 1990. This is the ultimate film history of events such as the suppression of the Prague Spring in 1968, the rise and fall of the Berlin Wall, economic stagnation, Stasi activity, and the popular upheavals that finally brought down the state.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fwQv5h7Lq8&index=1&list=PLzwtC7Sq85Jt7W__FrlDhLt-0-cgg8KIJ

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

Hong Kong Brokers Drive Cabs as Competition Forces Locals Out [2013]

Posted on by

“Fees have dropped since bourse operator Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd. in 2003 removed a brokerage commission floor of 0.25 percent of the value of transactions, squeezing profits for brokers as mainland Chinese rivals expand operations.  Eleven brokerages have ceased trading this year, according to filings posted on the website of the Hong Kong stock exchange.  The number of local broking firms may decline to 300 from about 400 in the next five years, Mofiz Chan, a spokesman of the Hong Kong Securities & Futures Professionals Association, said. ‘There are many people taking part-time jobs or completely moving out of the industry,” Chan said.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-22/hong-kong-brokers-drive-cabs-as-competition-forces-locals-out.html

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

Jacob Hornberger: A Glimmer of Light from Switzerland

Posted on by

hornberger2

“What about the Swiss unemployment rate? It ranges from 2-3 percent. Compare that to a permanent unemployment rate of 40 percent for black teenagers in the United States, who are locked out of the labor market by the federal government’s minimum-wage laws.  America is mired in a debate over how much the minimum wage should be raised. That’s the wrong debate. The debate should be over whether the minimum wage should be abolished entirely. And it should be! Perhaps the Swiss defeat of a national minimum wage for their country will shed some light on the direction the United States should take.”

http://fff.org/2014/05/20/a-glimmer-of-light-from-switzerland/

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet