ferguson

Obama Summarizes Economic Policies, Misses Several Key Points

College student thinks Peter Schiff should be president. I agree he should be president of something. Just like George Bush, he should be the permanent president of his college fraternity where the power of the president to do damage to the nation and the world is suitably contained.

Rough Economic Seas Toss Many Boats, Including Oil Price

Greed is the essential problem. Stock options are just a way of disguising greed and implementing it. Perhaps even more egregious than stock options for executives are stock options for corporation directors, who come to meetings 4-10 times a year, get paid six figures and have stock options to boot, obliterating all obligations to protect stockholder interests. Management proposes stock options for the board, the board approves stock options for management and the result is not greatly different from insider theft from ordinary stockholders and a complete fracture of the relationship between compensation and the value of work.

People will invent all sorts of schemes to satisfy greed. That is the original, fundamental bubble. JK is right.

Why Are Oil Prices So High? Gold Solves the Riddle

The American economic system has always been a magic show. Value is created and destroyed every minute, right before our eyes, even, as in the case of the mortgage securitization business, if there was more than a little wool pulled over those eyes. In the short term, a minority made outlandish profits. In the long term we will all pay. The gold standard is not sufficient to restore honesty to the system. A little moral fibre in the backbone of our so-called representatives in Washington would help.