Keep the Saudi dollar peg to fight terror
I don’t know what to make of this ridiculous article from the Guardian. Are we really supposed to believe the Saudi government will make a decision of such magnitude just to stick-it to Bin Laden? Are they making their policy decisions simply by opposing the recordings of an invisible man from a mythical cave far far away? Is America preparing to fight every nation on earth simultaneously?
American military spending far exceeds the total of every other nation on earth combined. Does any country really need to be concerned that every nation on earth will attack in a mass coordinated strike? Does this monstrous budget actually make anyone safer? The great gold standard debate
What follows is a fantastic debate between Ron Paul and the Federal Reserve bank of New York governor Charles Partee from 1983. It’s quite long, but I highly recommend watching all the way to the end, including the rebuttals and Q&A. Evidence capitalism works
I recently came across the following entrepreneurship ranking which I found quite interesting. The list is produced by amalgamating the World Bank’s Doing Business Report and the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor produced by Babson College and the London Business School to create an entirely new ranking referred to simply as the “FSB score”. Combining both these sources with equal weighting creates a new figure that takes many things into account, including: starting a business, operating a business and something called high-expectation entrepreneurship. The savior of western civilization?
Expect to hear a lot about “sovereign funds” in the near future The financial industry is on the verge of collapse. Losses from sub-prime loans could exceed the entire American banking industry’s capital base. With such a terrifying prospect looming on the horizon, it’s no surprise bankers have their eyes on the world’s last pot of gold — sovereign wealth funds. 2008: The year gold goes mainstream?
Those of us who invest in gold may already consider it to be mainstream, but if you ask most casual investors, more likely than not, they have never really considered buying gold. They may not even know it’s a serious option. For them, perhaps the ubiquitous cartoon image of a bag and big black printed dollar sign comes to mind. But now that ETF’s are beginning to enter the language of typical mutual fund investors, gold bullion has become more accessible than ever. CNBC Marc Faber interview
Here is a somewhat dated but still relevant interview with everybody’s favorite bear. The Bank Bubble
Financial institutions are supposed to help connect people who need capital with those who have excess capital for the purpose of generating economic activity. Banks don’t create wealth, they don’t produce anything of value to the world. They are middlemen, and when they take too large a piece of the pie the system fails because those who actually work and produce are not being properly compensated for their labor. Our bubble is not in real estate, it’s in banking. Everytime you give a Christmas gift, a child dies from hunger
What would the world be like without Christmas gifts? Would the economy collapse? Is Christmas responsible for conditioning children to live a life of rampant consumerism? Is giving really better than receiving? |

