…Calmly observing the changing world

In a world full of constant and seemingly endless information, we may take comfort in reminding ourselves that we don’t have to follow it all.  Not just because most of it isn’t important, but also because a lot of it isn’t true anyway. Most recently, the media has droned on about how the US will [...]

Stephen Stanley had an interesting thought.  What makes this surprising is that he is an economist, so, no matter interesting it might seem, we can be pretty sure that it doesn’t make as much sense. He wonders, that since Keynesian theories have so completely failed in the last few years, that maybe some good will [...]

The citizens of the UK are struggling.  Their internal political system has been completely unable to cope with two seemingly opposite forces which erode what is left of the ancient empire. One is the fight to remain free from the ever expanding and intrusive EU bureacracy that eminates from Brussels. Her majesty’s subjects were never [...]

While the press core is enthralled at the prospect of the Obama administration’s renaissance (no matter how unlikely), and statiticians pour over census data, most normal Americans are making last-minute preparations for Christmas gatherings. Not the number crunchers over at Moody’s though. While admittedly it was a dud, they fired a shot across the political [...]

“Germany cannot keep paying for bail-outs without going bankrupt itself,” said Professor Wilhelm Hankel, of Frankfurt University. Daily Telegraph (Ottowa Citizen) Well, I guess we’ll find out.  Despite significant opposition from the actual citizens of Germany, the bailouts seem unlikely to stop for the time being.  You see, the bailout-proponents wisely set aside a lump [...]

As the trick-or-treaters darted from house to house under a waning crescent, seeking to mount up chocolate treasure, the markets have bided their time – seemingly for ages.  In all likelihood, the market is done treading water and (perhaps after a false start) will again pick its direction. Dial L for Landslide With likely voters overwhelmingly [...]

William F Buckley, Jr. usually casts an unseen and unmentioned shadow upon the American political landscape.  So when he is invoked by name to reinforce an argument, we should perhaps all listen a bit more closely – but certainly skeptically.  In this case, it’s Charles Krauthammer who calls forth the invocation: Unfortunately for Krauthammer, invoking [...]

More often than not, the Federal Reserve presents a united front in as many of their statements as possible.  So we should take notice when – like now – there is a high profile departure from the consensus opinion. “Monetary policy is a useful tool, but it cannot solve every problem faced by the United [...]

Modern economics’s ongoing failure in Japan is an especially intriguing spectacle to behold.  The country has an enormous debt – more than it could ever hope to pay off, and all efforts to revive the Japanese economy by the intellectual class have failed to do anything besides creating more debt. You might expect that after [...]

If your weather hasn’t cast a pall over June as it has here in the Pacific Northwest, the news and the economy surely have.  The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico highlights governmental incompetence, the G20 lacks unified economic policy, some place called Kyrgyzstan is a complete basket case, and currencies and markets gyrate [...]