The Randian concept of a Galt Strike is that if the elite slack off, the masses will be impoverished – that countries are rich or poor according to whether the elite is productive, while the masses and resources do not matter much, except in extreme cases such as oil rich sheikdoms. There has been a large fall in GDP over the past six months: The Keynesian explanation of this fall is inadequate aggregate demand – the economy could easily produce more, …
Category: economics
Trillion missing, top accountant dead
David Kellerman, the acting Chief Financial Officer and Senior VP at Freddie Mac, was found dead early this morning from at his home in Virginia. It is described as an apparent suicide. The press is rightly comparing this with the very similar “suicide†of Enron’s top accountant. When large sums of money disappear, the person who knows most about where the money went often, by an interesting coincidence, winds up with his mouth permanently closed. Freddy Mac and Fannie May …
Government pisses away the entire GDP in five months
Bloomberg reports that since November, the government has spent, loaned, or guaranteed 12.8 trillion, an amount very close to one year’s GDP – one year of everyone’s income, or $42,105 for every man, woman, and child in America.
Smashing capitalism
President Barack Hussein Obama tells us: Your warranty will be safe. In fact, it will be safer than it has ever been. Because starting today, the United States will stand behind your warranty. This reads like something out of “Atlas Shruggedâ€. I predict fifty percent inflation or so over the next three or four years – and that is if we eventually turn back from this course, or at least stop walking along it. If, on the other hand, this …
Geithner’s plan explained
President Barack Hussein Obama tells us: Your warranty will be safe. In fact, it will be safer than it has ever been. Because starting today, the United States will stand behind your warranty. This reads like something out of “Atlas Shruggedâ€. I predict disturbing inflation or so over the next three or four years – and that is if we eventually turn back from this course, or at least stop walking along it. If, on the other hand, this goes …
The crisis explained
I have been seeing a lot of references to “a speculative bubble†Nope. They were not speculating. The crisis consisted of people, mostly members of protected minorities with nothing to lose, buying houses they could not afford with borrowed money in the expectation that they would go up, and if they went down, it was the bank’s problem. So the people who bought houses were taking no risk, since mostly they bought them with 100% loans, had no credit rating …
The problems with Laissez Faire sexuality
In traditional society, women were strongly encouraged to refrain from sex before marriage, and marry responsible men with good jobs who were able and willing to support a family. Today, women are encouraged to follow their hormones, which tends to result in them have offspring with a long succession of sexy males who disappear, often into jail or dying violently, and who often rough them up and steal their money before leaving. Bryan Caplan correctly argues that the non traditional …
The crisis has barely begun
“Naked capitalism†explains what has happened, and observes that the Bush-Obama policies caused it, are causing it, and are likely to cause a lot more of it. Government guarantees will be abused – and the broader the guarantees, and more chaotic the situation the more they will be abused. The solution is that existing guarantees must be reduced, and existing government initiatives curtailed or at least allowed to expire.  Extensive state intervention is extremely difficult to do right, easy to …
Obama plans massive permanent reduction in US standard of living
Under current USA nuclear regulations, you cannot launch any new nuclear projects unless the waste is going to go to a federally approved repository, and Obama has announced there is not going to be a federally approved repository. Hence no new nuclear projects. Obama has also announced that carbon emissions are going to be reduced sometime soon, though not yet. If less carbon, then less coal and oil. If no new nukes, and less coal and oil, then less energy …
The Stimulus bill
Bryan Caplan wonders why Brad Delong cannot comprehend those who doubt the effectiveness of the stimulus bill. Assume that creating value is easy, any brainless fool can do it, even the brainless fools at Washington Mutual. It is then immediately obvious that the government can make everything lovely by printing money and giving it to the morally worthy. Are car production lines shut down while unemployed workers idle? Just print money and give it to bureaucrats in government schools, or …