Notre Dame & Obama

Notre Dame Honors Pro-Abortion President

Visions of Tyranny

I'm not a fear monger or prone to panic. But if we see the growth of tyrannical police states in the West, this is how things may unfold. The first noose goes on capital.

Switzerland’s private banks have started to ban their top executives from travelling abroad, even to neighbouring France and Germany, because of fears they will be detained as part of a global crackdown on bank secrecy.

The head of one leading private bank in Geneva said the growing determination of countries such as the US and Germany to tackle tax evasion and secrecy meant banks felt they had to take extra measures to protect employees.

“Some banks have taken this precaution,” he said. “If today I go to Germany to visit two banks I deal with...German customs can take me in and question me.”

The travel bans, which have not been brought in by all banks, have focused on those visiting the US, following the detention there last year of a senior private banker from UBS, Switzerland’s biggest bank, as part of a federal tax investigation.

The head of the private bank, which itself has no travel restrictions, said: “Today if you are a banker from Switzerland going to the US you have to fear you will be taken in for questioning. I am thinking twice about going to America.”

However, four people in the private banking industry in Geneva told the Financial Times of banks bringing in total travel bans for staff, even for adjoining European countries.

Moldbug's Latest

If we separate the economy into two consolidated balance sheets - A, the balance sheet of the government and the banking industry; B, the balance sheet of all other industries and households - we feel it is perfectly normal for B to borrow more and more money, every year, from A. But is it?

In fact, when this "flow of credit" ceases, the result is described as a "recession." And it is certainly quite painful. And when the flow reverses - that's real pain.

Now: imagine you were considering investment in a business, and that business had borrowed two trillion dollars last year. Or two billion dollars. Or two million dollars.

There are two possibilities. One, the business is in an expansion stage, and is creating equity with negative cashflow. It has a "burn rate." But it is using this money to make productive long-term investments which will, in time, reverse this and produce a profit.

Two: the business is a dog. It is losing money. It needs to be liquidated or at least restructured. Woof! Sorry, Old Yeller. The time has come to say hello to Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson.

Which is it? There is no way to know. However, if we discover that the same business has been borrowing money every year, in the same way, for the past decade, we probably have our answer. If it has been bleeding for the past quarter-century... behold: Exhibit A.

In this interpretation, the United States, as a whole, is a money-losing operation. The fact that the dollar is a fiat currency has allowed us to disguise this, because fiat currency is essentially equity, and equity can always be diluted. So our losses are funneled into a hemorrhage of new shares, in the classic equity death spiral of the dying corporation. But since USG, unlike most dying corporations, is sovereign, the game can continue indefinitely.

Read the whole post, he also has Plan M to revitalize the financial sector.

Obama's Deficit

Every liberal likes to talk about Reagan and his deficits, which at the time, were pretty large. Over 8 years in office, however, the deficits under Reagan amounted to roughly $1,600,000,000,000. Already, the estimate for this year's deficit is $2,000,000,000,000, and my personal estimate is something closer to $2,500,000,000,000, or about two-thirds more than all eight years of Reagan.

And of course, Obama's first 4 years of deficits will likely surpass 8 years of Bush.

The Federal Reserve just announced another bailout program, to the tune of more than $1,000,000,000,000. And Treasury Secretary Geithner just announced a $1,000,000,000,000 plan to buy toxic waste.

But Americans want to get their panties in a wad about $167,000,000 in AIG bonuses. To put that in perspective, 167,000,000 divided by 4,500,000,000,000 is equal to 0.0037%. Why do the politicians and ACORN want you to focus on 0.0037% and ignore the other 99.6289%? Or put it this way, take you anger over AIG. You should be about 27,000 times as angry over the other spending, as you are about AIG. If you're not, you are what is commonly known as a tool or a useful idiot.

Could say the same thing to Bubama

Hear hear!

I have no idea if this has ever happened before at the EU parliament, an intranational feud carried out in an international arena.

The Way to Hell

Go Topolanek, it's your birthday:

Topolanek bluntly said that "the United States did not take the right path.".

He slammed the U.S.' widening budget deficit and protectionist trade measures -- such as the "Buy America" -- and said that "all of these steps, these combinations and permanency is the way to hell."

"We need to read the history books and the lessons of history and the biggest success of the (EU) is the refusal to go this way," he said.

"Americans will need liquidity to finance all their measures and they will balance this with the sale of their bonds but this will undermine the stability of the global financial market," said Topolanek.

Damn skippy.

Zimbabwe's Collapse

Check out this video titled Gold for Bread.

Alec Baldwin Goes John Galt

Dr. Helen notices some hypocrisy, but I notice a celebrity endorsement of the John Galt lifestyle!

Red Tape? Not in Red China

Read it and weep.

The environment ministry today said it cut its review time for new building proposals to two days from five. The regulator approved 246 projects with a total investment of 970 billion yuan in the first two months.

"It wasn't me, it was the gooks!"

The Yellow Peril, the Asian Menace, call them what you will, but according to a growing number of economists, they're the reason for the economic decline. You know, the one caused by American central bank printing and excessive borrowing by consumers and businesses. Latest j'accuse courtesy of Alan Greenspan. Krugmania now includes fear of the Orient on the list of symptoms.