Eric Scheske

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Economics

Monday

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

Thursday

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

Tuesday

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

Friday

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

Thursday

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.

What's A Guy Gotta Do to Get a Drink Around Here?

The Distiller and the Bureaucrat I have a friend out in the stix [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=out%20in%20the%20styx]. He has neighbors, but it's definitely rural; nothing but woods and fields. He's an individualist with a unique personality, but lots of

Tuesday

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

Dalrymple and Time

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

Monday Miscellany

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

Tuesday

Modest Man Rides Again . . . and again, and again, and again, and again, and . . . . [http://nymag.com/news/politics/58199/] "Since occupying the White House, Barack Obama has hosted fifteen town-hall meetings; appeared in more than 800 images on the White House Flickr photo-stream; and held four prime-time press conferences,