CanadianInvestor

Copper's View of the Recovery: No Real Growth This Year

Also consider to that a lot of manufacturing has also been shifted to China, resulting in the copper still coming back in a finished product.

I would think the pex pipe example by ArizonaGlen could have a larger effect than many would believe. I have seen the transition in the last 10 years, and construction is a major part of the economy.

The Hypocrisy and High Stakes of Healthcare Reform

Plenty of cookies for all??!! I live in the birthplace of medicare and have seen those cookies get smaller and smaller every year, and have seen not only my tax bill but government debt growing to pay for all these cookies.....and the costs are still not under control. Our system will be broke unless cuts are undertaken, and fees are added, a point even made in a study conducted by a former politician belonging to the very party that introduced it.....however the report was conveniently forgotten about.

The problem is healthcare coverage should be an open and free market, which it isn't. Employer provided health coverage such as in the US, and a fully public medicare system are both unsustainable models, primarily because of the government intervention in both systems. There is plenty of evidence to support this fact, but no evidence indicating that a free market system would be bad, yet no one wants to even consider it. People are greedy and it for nothing, and what happens to demand when a valuable resource is given away for free??

20 years from now, after the politicians have finally destroyed the health care business, those who can afford it will be going to foreign countries for treatment.

I won't be surprised to see some small countries start catering to foreigners, after all the same thing happened when taxation became too oppressive.


On Oct 22 06:58 AM Moon Kil Woong wrote:

> The health insurers have pretty much dropped out of the support column.
> Perhaps that's why the general public is becoming increasingly favorable
> towards a public option. If we just got rid of the heath insurers
> there would be planty of cookies for all of us since they are the
> biggest cookie monsters out there.
>
> I'd rather suffer an overpaid doctor than an overpaid insurer, an
> overpaid administrator, an overpaid claims ajuster, and an overpaid
> lawyer each using my own money to find some way to prevent me from
> getting the coverage I already paid for. Do we need some sort of
> health reform? Most definately!

You Can Spend Your Way Out of a Recession

Why is Keynes so popular? Consider what use does the politician or bureaucrat has for a free market economist when the only advice they give is to do is nothing?

And if an economist want's fame and glory, do you think they will agree with government intervention or go against it?

Venezuela: How to Ruin an Economy

Excellent short article hinting at the directions of our governments as well. Like Venezuela, Canada has resource riches to squirrel away on social engineering experiments and programs. Fortunately our economy still benefits from a quasi free market system enabling the wealth to truly benefit people, although more and more is being expropriated by the politicians and bureaucrats for socialist bailouts (want privileged status.....join a union)!

More Taxes to Support the Financial System, Anyone?

The free markets can accomplish the same, without taxes going to government bureaucrats to waste on programs that encourage personal irresponsibility.

Take garbage, packaging, and waste taxes. Socializing those services created our wastefulness. If governments stuck only to enforcing environmental and waste regulation (ie. holding people personally responsible for their waste), people would be more motivated to reduce their consumption of waste producing goods, and waste collection companies could compete not only on collection rates but value added recycling, reducing collection rates. Consumer product companies would also have to compete based on packaging since consumers will prefer less packaging, also resulting in new packaging and recycling technologies.

Note that the free market method continually results in technological progress, not so much so with taxation where politicians and bureaucrats end up trying to dictate the progress of technology, resulting in less efficiencies than free markets offer.

'First-Time Homebuyer' Credit May Cost Government up to $96,000 Per Home

Excellent article!

Unfortunately most people (taxpayers/voters) are incapable of such rational thinking having been deluded by their governments for too long. If only more people would learn some basic economics we would not be in this mess.

Forget 'Cash for Clunkers': Try 'Dough for Dumps'

That means the government would have to take the bad loans on their book, which I doubt they want to do considering their deficits. Keeping Fannie and Freddie alive give the government a place to hide their liabilities.


On Aug 24 03:16 AM Econ 101 wrote:

> Why not just take all those loans held by Freddie and Fannie and
> forgive them? That would give 25% of all mortgage holders a boost
> and increase their free cash flow significantly.
>
> FNE and FRE are going to go bankrupt anyway so why not give back
> some of that cash?
>
> Oh, sorry it cant happen because GS doesnt get a piece of it up front.
>
>
> Where is it that Chelsea Clinton works on wall street????

FDIC's New Rules on Bank Acquisition Sound Like Socialism

That's a problem with the fractional government controlled banking system; they will always get saddled with the obligations no matter who buys it (although I assume the FDIC, which is supposed to be bank funded, takes on the obligations).

Either way, under the current system someone has to take on the good assets. I would rather have rational private equity, who specialize in what they do, than a bunch of irrational government bureaucrats or government sponsored bank bureaucrats. Not to mention that the big banks would use government money to buy out a bad bank, where as private equity uses investor money, to whom they are accountable. And as the earlier comment eludes to, private equity includes money from pension plans and other institutional investors managing the money of many taxpayers....so if private equity wins it's the people who's money their managing that also win.


On Aug 20 11:21 AM formygrandkids wrote:

> Nothing against PE firms, but they also profit at the taxpayer's
> expense. They buy the firm, gut it of anything of value and dump
> any obligations on the gov't. That is where their profit comes from.
> If the company is bankrupt, owing more than can be sold, why else
> would they buy it. Politicians help their donors. both rob the average
> taxpayer.

Cash for Clunkers May Cost Up to $45,354 Per Vehicle

If Obama and the socialists cares so much about people suffering why not spend the money on more social housing, resulting in higher living standards for the poor, increased construction jobs (many of which are union), and therefore higher consumer spending on such things as cars. I'm pretty sure that construction is a bigger economic driver than the auto industry, and results in a longer lasting and more important product than new autos.

Cash for Clunkers also favors people who can both afford and are willing to "responsibly" spend money on a new car right now. Not only that but the most popular clunkers are from the 1990's; leaving the worst polluting and least reliable vehicles on the road (driven by the poor)!

In the end, just a political handout that favors a privileged few at the expense of everyone else, and will add to the mess of problems!

Let's Not Bar Goldman Sachs from Carbon Trading Just Yet

They are trying to replicate the benefits of a free market by creating a phony one; I can't think of any examples of where this worked....create a phony asset, then create a pretend market. They'd be better off taxing the consumer directly since the money will come from the consumer anyway, cap and trade will just introduce more imbalances into what's left of the free markets. And ounce again this government intervention will favour large companies as they will be better able to cope with this regulation.

Oh well, when it fails (and it will) the politicians can blame evil speculators for ruining their "good" intentions (good intentions for their own glorification).

When are people going to learn that it is entirely free markets the reduce our harm to the environment as free markets already seek to make the most efficient use of resources (think of the decreased transportation costs in the goods we buy thanks to Walmart compared to the old system of wholesalers, middlemen, and small stores; they allowed us to save money and the environment). When government gets involved it only subverts the process.

Cash for Clunkers: A Cautionary Tale for Healthcare Reform

People who claim that countries with Medicare competing for manufacturing jobs have an advantage should take a longer term view....all these countries have high (and growing) debt to GDP levels....they will be broke sooner than later funding these programs....or face drastic cuts. Growing up in the birthplace of Medicare I have seen cuts to services through the years, the growing taxes and ever growing debt to support it, the growing wait times, shortages of doctors and nurses, and now the warning signs coming from people who were ounce supporters!

No country has yet found an affordable and sustainable system of Medicare, even though they all put there own spin on it. I guess Obama and the democrats have a secret recipe for Medicare that no one else has ever thought of....they will be the saviors of Medicare worldwide....LOL!

Why the Federal Reserve Bank Must Maintain Its Independence

Why would the banks who "own"/control the FRB receive a dividend when the bank is not a for-profit company but rather has a government mandate to manage the economy? Seems awfully fishy since the banks already benefit through reserve based lending and discount borrowing, but I'm sure there is some "academic" argument for it.

Supporting the Financial System by Bleeding the 'Real' Economy

Excellent article! Some seem to think "forced break-ups" of financial institutions is the answer but fail to see they are addressing the problem of over-regulation with more regulation. Government should get out of the banking system altogether and allow a pure free market banking system to grow, where the banks are funded based on their own abilities and not allowed to be perpetually insolvent as is the current situation.

It's the government involvement and regulation that promotes "too big too fail" institutions, not only in banking but auto's and insurance as well.

Options Trader Weekend Update: Charts, Art and Market Manipulation

With regards to overall market manipulation the most important thing to remember is that government spending competes with private investment for capital. With all this capital sitting on the "sidelines"; where it presumably sits in "safe" government securities, and given the current and future spending commitments being made by Obama and the US government requiring sizable issuance's of debt, it's easy to see that capital inflows into the stock market is not in the best interest of the US government. Expect the US government and their Wall Street banks to keep this market from going very high, at least until Obama has completed his costly socialist overhaul.

Something else to think about....why is the US gov making it so difficult for banks to return the unneeded TARP money...ask yourself where is this money sitting? It's not under the bank CEO's mattress but in "safe" government securities waiting to be returned.

P.S. Good luck with that medicare....too bad more US media and politicians don't mention that Canada, the birthplace of medicare, is going broke funding it.....if current trends continue, by 2030 all of Canada's GDP will be required to pay for it! Even the sweet deals on drugs aren't helping control the costs.....Obama and his supporters are living in a dream world. The only solution is removing government entirely from healthcare. Let the free market drive the cost of medical services down and the productivity and quality up, as it has done in other industries left free from government intervention (vs. autos, banks, insurance, etc......all with high government intervention, regulation, and oversight).

All fact....not opinion!

What Happened to the American Dream?

When did this "unregulated capitalism" exist...I must have been a sleep cause as far as I can remember government has always had it's hands in the markets, and they've accomplished nothing but distruction of wealth! The Madoff scandal provides a good example of the effectiveness of government regulation. People have to start learning how to invest and not rely on the government to mitigate risk....cause they are too inept to do it.

We have a "mixed economy", or alternatively government sponsored capitalism. The economist Von Mises called it socialism by installments.


On Dec 25 01:50 PM unclej0 wrote:

>
> Bitter experience has amply demonstrated that unregulated capitalism
> is inherently and painfully unstable. It is a license to cheat on
> a very large scale.
>
> Regulated capitalism could work if it were properly regulated in
> the public interest.
>
> Human beings are incapable, by virtue of greed, fear, and appalling
> incompetence, of regulating a banana republic, much less a global
> economy. The most greedy inmates are in charge of the asylum.
>
> I suggest that, if a decent future is to be created, it must rely
> upon the automated regulation of economic activity, including taxation,
> monetary policy, fiscal policy, and regulations to suppress economic
> criminal behavior This would require the development of good (psychologically
> realistic) economic models and a lot of simulation, the cost of which
> would be relatively modest.
>
> Why won't it happen? Well, possibly because the inmates would have
> to relinquish control and find some honest work.