“Laissez-faire is finished, the all-powerful market that is always right, that’s finished,” said Nicholas Sarkozy, speaking ex cathedra, last month. As a result, said the diminutive French president, it is “necessary to rebuild the entire global financial and monetary system from the bottom up, the way it was done at Bretton Woods after World War II.” Sarky’s history is a bit … [Read More]

Over at Chronicles, Scott Richert comes to the defense of Tom Piatak and, referring to my last blog, accuses me of “individualism” and of not properly understanding economics. Unfortunately, in his justification of the proposed 25-50 billion dollar bailout of Chrysler, Ford, and GM, Scott stumbles into an economic fallacy or two along the way—and classic ones at that. Scott claims … [Read More]

In 1980, when the U.S. economy was last in serious trouble, Ronald Reagan offered the correct diagnoses that government was the problem and not the solution.  His message resonated with voters, propelling him into the White House to implement an agenda of lowering marginal tax rates, reducing government spending and business regulations, restoring sound money, abolishing entire government departments, and basically … [Read More]

Back in the 1950s, when Americans knew from recent experience just how important it was to have a dominant manufacturing sector, Ike’s Defense Secretary, “Engine Charlie” Wilson, formerly of General Motors, famously declared, “What’s good for America is good for General Motors, and what’s good for General Motors is good for America.”  Charlie Wilson, whose former company had turned out the … [Read More]

For decades, before a heedless congregation, some of us have preached the old Hamiltonian gospel. Great nations do not have trade partners. They have trade competitors and rivals. Trade surpluses are superior to trade deficits. Tariffs on foreign goods are preferable to taxes on U.S. producers. Manufacturing, not finance, is the muscle of the nation. Economic independence is vital to political … [Read More]

“Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers.” So Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon advised Herbert Hoover in the Great Crash of ‘29. Hoover did. And the nation liquidated him—and the Republicans. In the Crash of 2008, 40 percent of stock value has vanished, almost $9 trillion. Some $5 trillion in real-estate value has disappeared. A recession looms with sweeping layoffs, unemployment compensation … [Read More]

Over the past several months, we have witnessed an unprecedented financial storm stirred up by the irrationally exuberant, Wall Street welfare parasites and their Fed-God, Ben Bernanke, and the usual enablers who roam the halls of the regime in power. It’s no fluke that according to the Chinese system of astrology, we’ve entered The Year of the Rat. The federal bailout … [Read More]

The crushing defeat and subsequent victory of the $700 billion economic bailout bill last week left both parties pointing fingers, claiming both the failure of conservatism and the triumph of liberalism depending on one’s party or politics. But the Republicans and Democrats doing the most pointing had it completely backwards, as what we saw was the triumph, and then defeat, of … [Read More]

In 1890, the brand-new Kansas People’s Party (later to become the national Populist Party) routed the Republican state establishment in the fall elections, winning control of both the state government and the state’s congressional delegation.  The race that best typified the mood of the day was the U.S. House contest pitting People’s Party candidate Jerry Simpson, the marshal of Medicine Lodge … [Read More]

How did the United States of America, the richest nation on earth, whose economy represents 30 percent of the Global Economy, arrive at the precipice of a financial panic and collapse? The answer lies in the abject failure of both America’s financial elite and the political elite of both parties—the same elites now working together to determine how much of our … [Read More]