Developing World: Euro Loses Attraction as Reserve Currency … Countries in the developing world are drastically reducing their euro holdings as economic instability in Europe leads them elsewhere to stock their currency reserves. Euro holdings are at their lowest level in a decade, according to the International Monetary Fund. When the euro was first launched on Jan. 1, 1999, there were hope...Read More
The Trillion-Dollar Bureaucrat … He may be the most important central banker in the world. But is China's Zhou Xiaochuan really in charge? The longest-serving leader of a central bank of a major world economy is not to be found in Europe, or North America, or Japan. It is a 65-year-old man named Zhou Xiaochuan who was recently reappointed to the job he has already held for a decade, name...Read More
A time of unqualified promises … In Japan, newly appointed Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda will on Cyprus bank Wednesday convene a two-day policy meeting, his first after assuming office and pledging to do – again those words – "whatever it takes" to end years of deflation. While Kuroda's supporters would probably stress that "whatever it takes" is...Read More
David Stockman's Delusions: The Gold Standard Is Still a Really, Really Terrible Idea … Barbarous relics are relics for a reason … Have we been living in some kind of economic hellscape the past 80 years? … Now, the past five years have been brutal. And the five before that weren't great, either. But it seems hard to argue that the U.S. economy peaked in any way back in 1...Read More
News Release – People's Bank of China swap line … Governor Zhou Xiaochuan met Governor Mervyn King today during Governor King's visit to Beijing. They agreed to facilitate discussions on the establishment of a reciprocal 3-year, renminbi (RMB)/sterling currency swap arrangement. The arrangement would be used to finance trade and direct investment between the two countries and t...Read More
Print Money. Mail Everybody a Check. Fight unemployment by giving money directly to American families … America has grown desperate for smart ideas to revive a flagging economy … Ben Bernanke himself famously argued years ago that a central bank should never run out of tools for fighting deflation and depression because, as a last resort, it could always drop cash out of helicopters. T...Read More
Three days that saved the world financial system … The BlackBerrys all started buzzing, just before dinner was to begin at the Palacio da Bacalhoa, a 15th-century estate outside Lisbon. The 21 men and one woman charged with charting the course of Europe's economy looked down to find startling news that evening of May 6, 2010. – Washington Post/ Adapted from "The Alchemists: Th...Read More
Stop Subsidizing Wall Street … Imagine if the United States had an airline industry in which the biggest carriers that fly both domestically and internationally received a larger government fuel subsidy than those flying only domestic routes. Unfair? Yes — and that's exactly how the U.S. financial system works. The fuel of the largest firms in our financial services industry is sub...Read More
Why We Need to Fix Our Health care … I think you should read both Brill's essay and Goldhill's book. There are actually some points of agreement about how to reform what everyone accepts is a badly functioning, almost crooked, marketplace for health care. (Goldhill, by the way, wants universal health care and thinks the government has a big role to play, so this is not an argument fo...Read More
What the UN Doesn't Want You to Know … In 1999, Kathryn Bolkovac went to Bosnia as part of a UN mission. She discovered terrible wrongdoing – and refused to stay silent about it … The UN mission in Bosnia finished in January 2003 but the abuses did not end there. In fact, Jacques Paul Klein, the head of the UN mission in Bosnia, went on to lead the UN mission in Liberia, wher...Read More
Southern Europe lies prostrate before the German imperium … Cyprus is only the first victim of a one-size-must-fit-all policy that is made in Berlin … 'Cyprus is capitulating not out of euro-patriotism, but out of fear; this is not European "solidarity", but coercion.' … Othello was sent there from Venice to repel the Turks, though luckily they all got blown awa...Read More
900,000 choose to come off sickness benefit ahead of tests … Nearly 900,000 people who were on incapacity benefit dropped their claim to the payments rather than undergo a tough medical test, latest government figures show. – UK TelegraphDominant Social Theme: In order to catch malingerers we need a stern paternalism.Free-Market Analysis: When large democracies create state mandates th...Read More
News Release – People's Bank of China swap line … Governor Zhou Xiaochuan met Governor Mervyn King today during Governor King's visit to Beijing. They agreed to facilitate discussions on the establishment of a reciprocal 3-year, renminbi (RMB)/sterling currency swap arrangement. The arrangement would be used to finance trade and direct investment between the two countries and t...Read More
Print Money. Mail Everybody a Check. Fight unemployment by giving money directly to American families … America has grown desperate for smart ideas to revive a flagging economy … Ben Bernanke himself famously argued years ago that a central bank should never run out of tools for fighting deflation and depression because, as a last resort, it could always drop cash out of helicopters. T...Read More
Three days that saved the world financial system … The BlackBerrys all started buzzing, just before dinner was to begin at the Palacio da Bacalhoa, a 15th-century estate outside Lisbon. The 21 men and one woman charged with charting the course of Europe's economy looked down to find startling news that evening of May 6, 2010. – Washington Post/ Adapted from "The Alchemists: Th...Read More
Stop Subsidizing Wall Street … Imagine if the United States had an airline industry in which the biggest carriers that fly both domestically and internationally received a larger government fuel subsidy than those flying only domestic routes. Unfair? Yes — and that's exactly how the U.S. financial system works. The fuel of the largest firms in our financial services industry is sub...Read More
Why We Need to Fix Our Health care … I think you should read both Brill's essay and Goldhill's book. There are actually some points of agreement about how to reform what everyone accepts is a badly functioning, almost crooked, marketplace for health care. (Goldhill, by the way, wants universal health care and thinks the government has a big role to play, so this is not an argument fo...Read More
What the UN Doesn't Want You to Know … In 1999, Kathryn Bolkovac went to Bosnia as part of a UN mission. She discovered terrible wrongdoing – and refused to stay silent about it … The UN mission in Bosnia finished in January 2003 but the abuses did not end there. In fact, Jacques Paul Klein, the head of the UN mission in Bosnia, went on to lead the UN mission in Liberia, wher...Read More
Southern Europe lies prostrate before the German imperium … Cyprus is only the first victim of a one-size-must-fit-all policy that is made in Berlin … 'Cyprus is capitulating not out of euro-patriotism, but out of fear; this is not European "solidarity", but coercion.' … Othello was sent there from Venice to repel the Turks, though luckily they all got blown awa...Read More
900,000 choose to come off sickness benefit ahead of tests … Nearly 900,000 people who were on incapacity benefit dropped their claim to the payments rather than undergo a tough medical test, latest government figures show. – UK TelegraphDominant Social Theme: In order to catch malingerers we need a stern paternalism.Free-Market Analysis: When large democracies create state mandates th...Read More