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Gold Rising From Its Slumber

Gold has just broken through $987 an ounce. I don’t suppose if it breaks $1000 before Labor Day, you guys would give me my “by summer” gold call, will you? Nah, didn’t think so. Anyway here’s another way the government does its best to keep you in your financial prison: [S]ince the IRS has determined […]

My Former Boss Interviews My Former Idol

(Guess which is which.) On May 22, 2006, Hillsdale College president Larry Arnn had a conversation with Milton Friedman. At the end of this clip, Friedman calls for abolishing the Federal Reserve. He also (as of 2006) thought it was foolish to predict 20 years of 2% inflation. Thanks to BlackSheep for the video.

A Great Metaphor for the Whole Obama Administration

Hey kids, check out this neat magic trick! (HT2EPJ) If you go to this page hosted by the Department of Education, the third bullet point says: Find information about community service organizations and share it with your child. You can begin by going to the Web site for the newly created Freedom Corps— www.usafreedomcorps.gov/—and looking […]

Glenn Beck on Van Jones

In case some of you can’t figure out why so many people like Glenn Beck, here’s probably the best sample you’ll ever get of his show. He goes through and parses remarks that “green jobs czar” Van Jones made back in February, and then at the end plays a clip of Obama saying we need […]

Scott Sumner: The Gulag Is Half Full

(We also would have accepted, “Actually, the Guantanamo is half full.”) Just to make sure we understand what it would mean to start from a crazy premise and then run with it using exquisite logical consistency, Scott Sumner leaves his well-developed monetary theories to write: Before answering this question, let’s first examine what has happened […]

Don’t Hate Bernanke, Hate the Game

Von Pepe sends me this hilarious simulation on the SF Fed’s website. As von Pepe notes in his email, this is basically the Phillips curve with sound effects. I got fired after my first term as Fed chief. At the first opportunity, I jacked the fed funds target up to 19.0% (the highest setting) and […]

"We hold that all men are endowed by their state representatives with certain alienable privileges…"

I’m doing research for the next installment in PRI’s California Prosperity Project, and came across this rather ominous statement on page C-3 in a report [.pdf] from New Jersey’s Treasury: The Corporation Business Tax imposes a franchise tax for the privilege of having or exercising a corporate charter or doing business, employing or owning capital […]

Throwing in the Towel on Tyler Cowen and Milton Friedman

I just sent Tyler an email saying I was dropping this, because I don’t want to be a stubborn jerk in case I’m just missing something. So I hope it was understood that by “dropping it” I meant, “After I zing you one last time on my blog.” For the record, I have no idea […]