Economics

Dispatches from Extreme Economics Should we start looking for weapons of mass destruction again? "Remember all that pooh-poohing when the gulf states were talking about their own currency? About how silly that would be? That it would never happen? Yeah well, sort of looks like it might." [http:

A Monetary Primer . . . with Commentary Does the whole topic of fiat currency and the gold standard confuse you? Don't feel bad. I couldn't have explained the important differences or the history behind our current monetary policy 15 months ago. I've had to read a

Anti-Gold Tired of the economics, much less metal, blogging? Sorry 'bout that, but it's what interests me these days . . . that, and the state of my soul, which is poor and lacking in good bloggable script. I don't stumble across many sensible anti-gold pieces, but I

Shut Up Out There! Robert Higgs fisks Ben Bernanke's recent op-ed [http://www.independent.org/blog/?p=4214]. One of the most enjoyable economics pieces I've read in weeks. Highly recommended. Excerpt (Bernanke in bold; Higgs in regular font: > “The government's actions to

The Mainstream Economist Well, the holidays are here. How's the economic recovery going? I'm curious because a prominent economist assured us last year that late 2008 would be a distant memory come late 2009: “The S&P will be over 1,000 at the end

If Misery Loves Company . . . I track Randall Forsyth's columns at Barron's. I typically don't care what Warren Buffett has to say, so I wasn't much interested when I saw Forsyth's most-recent column, "Has Buffett Overplayed His Hand? [http://online.

Sword of Damocles? "Amherst [Securities] estimates this massive overhang at seven million units. That's the equivalent of 135% of a full year's existing-home sales and chillingly greater than the 1.27 million units that made up the overhang in early 2005, when the housing bubble

Inflation Debases the Currency Soul Dalrymple [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Dalrymple] stuns me again. Well, he didn't actually stun me, but he has taken a timely and mundane topic--inflation--and given it a cultural and spiritual angle [http://www.city-journal.org/2009/19_3_otbie-inflation.html]. Great

Sticking It to the Middle Class "Budget cuts have hit public colleges hard, even as the demand for a well-educated workforce soars [http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/best-colleges/2009/08/19/budget-cuts-take-toll-on-education_print.htm] ." That's the headline from U.S. News & Report cover story