Understanding The Modern Monetary System...
I’ve been reporting on the oddly strong consumer spending numbers out of Gallup for the last few months. Well it seems these numbers are finally starting to show up in the mainstream numbers. The Gallsup consumer spending numbers are still extremely strong – far stronger than I expected after the tax increases that hit consumers [...]
I don’t know if this piece is flat out supporting wasteful spending, but it’s really close. The United States threw money down the toilet for about 35 years – until computers paid off. Ryan Avent says: “To give just one example: during the formative years of the computing era, government was an enormous source of [...]
Of course, if you read this blog, you’ve already heard about the incredible (and not certain) actions taken by the government of Cyprus. Cyprus wants to “tax” every depositor in every Cyprus bank to pay for a banking bailout. The depositors would lose some part of their cash deposits in the bank, and get shares [...]
Steve Waldman has an interesting new post up about banks and banking. He restates an earlier observation which I find very interesting: “I think it is true that the business of banking, in order to effectively perform its social function of mobilizing resources at scale, necessarily involves a degree of deception. It must work to [...]
…all things considered. Gallup Consumer spending is running at $83 per day. Just eyeballing this graph, I’d say that is nearly $16-$18 per day higher than the last few years. And Consumer Confidence is very high. This number is very high, especially considering exactly how badly the recent news is for the average consumer. The [...]
Mark Thoma catches Tim Duy who catches an analyst saying: “”The increase in the payroll tax has undoubtedly dampened consumers’ spirits and it may take a while for confidence to rebound and consumers to recover from their initial paycheck shock,” Lynn Franco, director of economic indicators at The Conference Board, said in a statement.” One [...]
Carlos Mucha of Monetary Realism discusses the Trillion Dollar Coin for the New York Times: “Under the Constitution, Congress is given the authority to create money. Congress has delegated this power to create money to two agencies: the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Mint. For decades, the Fed has issued paper money and assisted the [...]
We’ve had some discussions within the MR team on the costs of minting a coin vs. the costs of borrowing. It turns out it’s more expensive for the U.S. government to mint a coin than it is for the the government to borrow money. It sounds crazy, but it’s true. If the U.S. mints a [...]
People are calling the Trillion Dollar coin, crazy, a farce, and even dangerous, but there is a common, mainstream proposal which is far more dangerous to our economy than the Trillion Dollar Coin. Over the next page or so, you’ll find out exactly how this seemingly harmless proposal will result in 1,000,000 per month [...]
This is a chart of something which cannot last. I can’t believe how long it has lasted already. This chart shows gasoline prices vs. oil prices. You can see they track each other quite well, until a few years ago. By my calculations, gasoline would have to fall $0.74 to match the current price of [...]
Recent Comments