QE2 was supposed to end, and it has. However, as it ends, the federal reserve opens up open ended dollar lending to foreign central banks. Supposedly there is no risk, since these are central banks, and we all know central banks always repay their debts.
Month: June 2011
More fake violence in Greece
A little of the violence is real, indeed more and more of it is real, but the vast majority of it is still imitation violence by astroturf, which I conjecture is imitation riot theater instigated by the government against itself to dramatize its imitation austerity theater. Observe the trash fires at 0:14. Real rioters burn …
You can’t trust bankers
“You can’t trust bankers†says Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of “The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable†Taleb is an econometrician and trader – meaning he makes his money betting on financial instruments, like a professional poker player.
real inflation
There is precision, and there is accuracy. It is unwise to attain more precision than accuracy, for one is apt to fool oneself, and worse still to attain precision at the cost of accuracy. You cannot measure inflation on goods that are changing, without making questionable subjective judgements. Goods that are not changing are stuff …
billion prices inflation estimate
The billion prices project spiders prices off the internet, and gets results broadly similar to the BLS, about thee percent per year, which surprises me, since over the last three years the BLS has been applying “hedonic adjustments†to all manner of goods where hedonic adjustment is impossible or implausible. Today’s supposedly three percent inflation …
Philips curve, stimulus
If stimulus works, if Keynesianism is a good enough approximation to the modern American economy, there should be a relationship between unemployment and inflation, the Philips curve. Higher unemployment should lead to lower inflation, and vice versa. There is no relationship.
McConnell tells Obama he can stick it in a little bit
House Republican leader McConnell tells Obama he can stick it into the Republicans just a little bit, but not all the way, and must stop if it starts to hurt.
Actual Greek riots
Last year the riots were entirely fake, astroturf government rioters theatrically engaging in pretend conflict with government police. This time, there was some fake violence, and some quite real violence.
Entryism goes public
The SEIU is a far left organization, far far further to the left than any elected Democrat will admit to being.  It is the voice of the state organized as political interest group. It has always been a major force backing “moderate†Republicans.
Probability of fiat collapse
I observe that people are still buying and selling long term corporate bonds at prices that indicate low inflationary expectations. On the other hand, total value of world gold is about fifteen trillion dollars, which indicates a lot of people expecting partial or total collapse of fiat money