The following is the complete text of Frédéric Bastiat’s great work, The Law for you’re enjoyment and education. It’s especially relevant today with our current economic crisis.
The real problem in the US isn’t that people can’t afford health insurance, it’s that they choose to spend their money in other ways. Roughly 45% of all uninsured people could afford insurance right now if they wanted it. But it would mean spending less on cigarettes or Friday nights, so they choose not to get it. It’s simple economics, people are using the funds they have and prioritizing what they want. You simply cannot have everything you want.
Politicians aren’t going to get votes if they tell people to change their lifestyle though, so they tell people they’ll solve all their problems for them. This is how politics works, unfortunately, and it’s why we’re in the economic position we’re in today. Think about it, be a Common Sense Investor…and a Common Sense citizen.
It’s commonly understood among those who know that the Department of Defense wages war; the Department of Homeland Security bothers travelers; the Department of Agriculture makes food more expensive; and the Drug Czar sends non-violent offenders to overcrowded prisons.
Now, we have a government entity specifically designed to create financial instability, it’s called, of course, the Office of Financial Stability. There is very little media coverage of this development and it’s easy to see why, it’s just not interesting to most people.
But it’s interesting to me, and it should be interesting to you, if you care about you’re dollar and your country’s economy. Guess who is heading the OFS… 35 year old ex-Goldman Sachs executive Neel Kashkari. Kashkari was a former Goldman Sachs Executive before he joined the Treasury Department in 2006. His most recent role was as the Treasury’s assistant secretary of international affairs. Read the rest of this entry »
The Financial Times interviewed Jim Rogers in late 2007. They were trying to get an idea of where he thought the US economy was headed in 2008 and beyond. He makes some very insightful comments about Ben Bernanke, the FED, and the recession on the horizon.
I can’t get enough Peter Schiff. He’s a great speaker, he’s very knowledgeable, and he’s generally spot on with his financial calls. In this speech, he’s basically telling a room full of over 1000 mortgage bankers that most of them are going to be out of a job soon. Difficult to listen to, but in the 2 years that have passed so far, a good part of his predictions have come true.
If there is anyone who’s even more clear-sighted about finance than Peter Schiff, it’s Jim Rogers. He’s a legendary investor, founder of the Quantum fund, and a highly respected financial commentator, moreso in Europe and Asia than in the US.
This video is an interview with Rogers about the government action and its effects, namely what Rogers calls the inflation holocaust that is to come. Highly recommended for Common Sense Investors. Read the rest of this entry »
As the financial markets around the world are crashing in on themselves, we may see an unexpected benefit: decreasing oil prices, and therefore, cheap gas. Many analysts are predicting that crude prices are in a bit of a bubble, which will pop as the world goes in to an economic slowdown.
Peter Beutel, an oil analyst at Cameron Hanover, predicts a low of around $50 or $60 a barrel in 2009, and even lower prices in 2010. “I’m not going to rule out some extraordinarily low numbers, even $20 a barrel,” he said, “Whatever the market does, it’s going to make us all look like fools.” Read the rest of this entry »
This has been the worst week for global equities since at least 1970. The Dow dropped 21 percent in just 10 trading days, and this week is likely to be one the worst weekly point drops in the history of the US stock market.
After a 679 point drop yesterday, the Dow actually dipped under 8000 for moment in early trading this morning, then bounced back up to around the closing price from yesterday. That swing was probably caused the computer-driven “buy” orders that kicked in when prices fell under the psychological 8k barrier. Read the rest of this entry »
The US automotive industry has been soundly beaten by foreign competition over the years. That’s why the industry as a whole begged Congress for the $25 billion in low-interest loans. They said they needed it to better compete with foreign automakers. But pumping taxpayer money into private companies isn’t going to help them compete, the problem lies in 1) Poor management, and 2)Bad legislation. We can’t do much about #1, but we can fight to change #2, but we need to understand it first.
Here is a great video interview with George Reisman about minimum wage laws and unions and their effect on the quality of production and the economy as a whole. Bear with me, the video may start off a bit slow for those who aren’t interested in economics, but gets interesting as Reisman talks about the real effects of unions on US automakers. Highly recommended for Common Sense Investors.
The national debt clock, the unofficial tracker of the federal deficit maintained by the Durst Organization in New York, has run out of space. Last month, when the national debt exceeded $10 trillion for the first time in history, the clock ran out of digits.
The Durst Organization had to delete the dollar sign and replace it with a one. They also put an makeshift dollar sign in the frame next to the 1 for the time being. They say a new model — with space for two extra digits — will be in place early next year.
The board was originally constructed in 1989 to highlight that year’s debt level of $2.7 trillion. Two more digits means the new clock will be able to reach the quadrillions. Judging from the parabolic increase in the national debt since 1980, it shouldn’t take us that long to reach that number. Look at a chart of the national debt over the years, adjusted for inflation: Read the rest of this entry »
