Posted on
August 11, 2008 at 3:15 AM
So how much paper money is out there anyway. Does it matter that every time The Wizard of Oz (The Fed/government) decides to bailout a financial institution like Bear Stearns, Lehman, Fannie or Freddie, they have to print more and more money. What is behind this printing of money and how do they do it? Continued »
Posted on
July 22, 2008 at 9:36 PM
Starting to get a lot more optimistic about the economic opportunity that lies ahead. The economy’s assets and liabilities are shifting perspective and ownership. It will be forced to act more efficiently. It may feel like it will happen super fast, but it has been a long time in the making. For those who embrace it, it will be fun, but for those who don’t, it won’t. Continued »
Posted on
July 11, 2008 at 2:14 AM
The real reason that oil consumption has slowed down is once again – the housing market. Think about how much less oil is needed to move all those materials (wood, steel, concrete, appliances, etc.) as well as construction laborers for all those houses and condos we were building. All that consumption from our housing construction has come to a stop, and with it the end of a major consumer of oil. The next oil demand decrease is on its way from both China and India. Continued »
Posted on
May 11, 2008 at 3:17 AM
The larger the supply of a particular paper currency the more inefficient such trading capital inevitably becomes (i.e. trade regulations, bureaucracy, taxes, big goverment, armed forces, etc.). On the flip side, pure or liquid barter is the most efficient way of trade as the cost of “money” remains current with the actual trade, and debt levels remain linked to real assets (Schumpeter and Walrus describe such debt to asset links in their vision of Economic Equilibrium). As the Euro makes its way into Eastern European countries, those countries local economies will inevitably inflate and get more inefficeint; as rents and wages will increase proportionately as a function of the Euro’s relatively inflated value. Continued »
Posted on
April 13, 2008 at 9:40 PM
The word “balance” has significant meaning here. When you take something “off-balance,” you are doing just that. In other words, balance is good (think yoga or buddhism), off-balance (think checkbook) is not good. On that note, what do you call Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Sallie Mae. Do they qualify as “off-balance sheet financing?” How about the Bear Stearns portfolio. The U.S. government did about 36 hours of due diligence on that one, is that one off-balance sheet too? Continued »
Posted on
March 10, 2008 at 10:48 AM
Dramatic unemployment increases in financial services, construction and autos will be the real shoe to drop. Who will pay for all these billions of dollars of writedowns? Oh, I forgot, the Fed has the ability to actually print more food and oil – yeah right, was Bernanke ever taught the first rule of Economics: Land is Scarce.
So how much of our newly printed paper is currently being bought by our social security system – talk about drinking your own blood. The welfare state will inevitably be forced to solve their huge inefficient costs of entitlements and armed forces. Continued »
Posted on
February 21, 2008 at 3:47 PM
Given the energy transportation costs, nasty petroleum-based containers, and cost of waste, it is inevitable that well-filtered municipal water distributed out of locally recycled glass (e.g. wine bottles from local restaurants) is a gold mine waiting to happen. Continued »
