Terrifying headline? Certainly so if you work for the Fed, or ever worked for the Fed. Yet, it is what is called for according to law. Having experienced the harmful results of a paper currency manufactured at will, early US statesmen tried to forbid it from ever happening again. Article [...]

I suppose I shouldn’t laugh, but I found humor in Eric Fry‘s description of Chairman Bernanke’s performance at Jackson Hole: Like a guy who falls down a flight of stairs, then stands up and says, “I meant to do that,” Bernanke insisted the economy’s dismal trajectory is neither particularly surprising [...]

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is out of options and luck. Of course, he couldn’t say that at Jackson Hole. Instead, he had to pretend that his magic was still strong and would be used, if necessary. By customizing mixtures of various powders (some apparently never used before), he would produce [...]

Chris Whalen is one of the better financial analysts around Wall Street. His specialty is banking and he was one that warned early and often of the coming collapse of the financial system. Mr. Whalen has written a detailed analysis of the Federal Reserve entitled I am Superman: The Federal Reserve [...]

For those wanting a primer on QE and its effect on the value of currency, I recommend that you read John Hussman’s article. As a teaser, Hussman had this to say about Ludwig von Mises and Ben Bernanke regarding their views on inflation/devaluation: My impression is that Ben Bernanke has [...]

William Black was one of the tough regulators during the S&L crisis. He knows what is going on and knows what needs to be done. According to Mr. Black: The FDIC is sitting there knowing that it has both the residential disaster and the commercial real estate disaster [and] knowing [...]

One of the earliest to understand what was happening and where it ultimately had to end was Chris Martenson. For those who have not watched his “Crash Course,” I recommend it highly. It can be found on his website. Here is his latest take on markets: Thumbs Down For the [...]

EconomicPolicyJournal‘s take on what the Fed did yesterday: Thus, at this point, this move has to be classified as jawboning in the sense that it is not a clear money supply booster as say a cut in the interest rate on excess reserves would be. That said, under perfect storm conditions, [...]

The economic condition of the country continues to decline toward its rendezvous with an, as yet, unknowable catastrophe. Speculation regarding this outcome is natural because self-interest, if not self-preservation, is at stake. Here is but one possibility. It is not a prediction, but a look at a series of not [...]

More and more people are coming to see the Federal Reserve as the source of the country’s problems. This view is not new. It was held before we had a central bank. The view has moved further into the mainstream than ever before. There is good reason. Since 1913 when [...]

The following article by Michael Eden is one of the best summaries of what has happened under the reign of The One: Articulate Incompetent Obama Leads Nation To Great Depression Unemployment Levels Robert Blagojevich – the brother of Democrat Governor Blagojevich – labeled Jesse Jackson Jr. as an “articulate incompetent” (actually [...]

The “Pretence of Knowledge” was the title of economist Friedrich Hayek’s 1974 Nobel speech. In his first few sentences, he described the then-prevailing economic condition in words appropriate to today: … [this economic condition] has been brought about by policies which the majority of economists recommended and even urged governments [...]

Greg Ip, long-time Fed analyst, describes in The Economist what he terms the Fed’s last two options, both of which he claims to be politically toxic: The Fed is not helpless; it has two powerful tools left—but both are politically toxic. One is unsterilised foreign exchange intervention: buying foreign currencies [...]

The Fed is clueless. Fed Chair Ben Bernanke now describes the condition of the economy as “unusually uncertain,” a descriptive phrase fogged up enough to have been invented by his predecessor, Alan Greenspan. The Fed has little idea what the economy is doing or why. Mr. Bernanke, despite his pomposity, [...]

Robert Murphy takes apart the Keynesian argument for more stimulus. He concludes with the following: Brad DeLong’s recent arithmetical argument for bigger government deficits is flawed on several counts. He treats government spending as equivalent to household spending, and his focus on aggregates overlooks the coordinating function of interest rates. [...]

While one can never be certain about how this economic crisis will play out, most of us have various probabilities of certain events happening and use these to develop forecasts. John Mauldin (see writeup here) recently explained how difficult such forecasts are because of a complex chain of interdependent variables. [...]

From Richard Russell’s 7/15 newsletter: A word – seigniorage. What does it mean? It’s the profit the Fed or the government takes in when it makes coins or fiat money. For instance, it costs the mint just 30 cents to make a dollar coin. In the outside world, the coin [...]

An article by Michael Pento describes the Fed’s predicament rather well. Because of the continued slowing in the economy (what recover?), he believes the next Fed move will be to ease even more: The next ease from the Fed will most likely be in the form of ceasing to pay [...]

A prediction by the always insightful and clever Bill Bonner: “The employees of the US Federal Reserve will ask to be paid in gold before the crisis is over.” Read the full piece here. Rolfe Winkler: Case for GoldBen Bernanke — Pathetic, Duplicitous or Just a Good Soldier?Close the Federal Reserve

Ron Paul discusses the European problems, the US problems and the Fed on CNBC. CNBC was obviously not happy with his realistic assessment of the economic problems. It certainly doesn’t fit their typical “tout” the markets and the recovery. Our Destructive Central BankThe Fed is a Hazard to Your Wealth [...]

The world economy is truly in dangerous times. All central banks and governments are desperate. They are trying to stave off the inevitable by printing and spending money. This is the cause of the current problem. How could they possibly think it is the cure? As shown in Welfare States [...]

The article below is long and worth reading. It captures much of what many Americans now feel about their country. It is well-referenced with historical quotes that indicate the fears and prescience of our ancestors. Much of the knowledge that preceded us has been lost, seemingly displaced by the mass [...]

The economic packages employed by the Bush Administration and extended by the Obama Administration are being increasingly questioned. Similar stimulus policies have been used for 50 plus years, although never in doses so large. “Stimulus” is merely a euphemism for inflationism and has been since the ideas of John Maynard Keynes [...]