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Inside Fed Baseball, from Bill Barnett

I am on a discussion list of Austrian economists, and Bill Barnett (economics professor at Loyola University in New Orleans, when it’s not underwater) posted the following, which I reprint with his permission: The Fed’s consolidated balance sheet…and its data on reserves and the monetary base…reveal several interesting points, not limited to the following: The […]

"Mad Money" Senior Writer Wants Credit for Bailout

Aww, no fair! Paulson’s getting all the credit for the Great Bank Robbery of 2008! So says one of Jim Cramer’s henchmen. (Note: I no longer read or listen to Cramer AT ALL, but this is a loophole since I’m not quoting him directly.) Anyway listen to this guy: I know we’ve spent every night […]

Monday Monday…Can We Trust This Day?

I am very anxious to see what happens to the stock market and gold/silver prices today, now that the Great Bank Robbery of 2008 has gone through. Let’s suppose the market tanks more than 3% this week, and another big institution goes under. Would the government say, “Hmm, I guess our bailout didn’t work after […]

Snapshot of Free Advice Reader Profile

Wow it’s already been more than a month since the Little Blog That Could opened up shop. I’m proud to say that in this brief time, we’ve overseen the biggest theft in world history. But snap out of it, guys, we still have the whole second half! Anyway, I was browsing the stats from my […]

Economist Robert Murphy Endorses the Bailout (!!)

From this Boston Herald column: Not even economists and financial experts could agree on the plan’s wisdom and probability of success, if the $700 billion package is approved. Some say the bailout could easily cost more than $1 trillion. Peter Cohan, a venture capitalist and president of Peter Cohan & Associates in Marlboro, said Paulson’s […]

Smallville, er, Hillsdale Adventures: Tales of Murphy When He Had Hair

Aristos (not his Christian name) starts out trying to pay tribute to Alexander Shtromas, a really cool political science professor we both had in Hillsdale College, but his jealousy of me overtakes the post. It’s OK Aristos, let it go. (BTW, if you are in a closet and the feds are searching your house, don’t […]

Army Gets Ready for Civil Unrest–in the US of A

Naturally they aren’t billing it the way I have done above, but really, there isn’t much left to the imagination in this article at the Army Times from September 8. The article starts out pleasantly enough: The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling […]

Funny Joel Stein Article on Bailout

Joel Stein is the kind of smarmy writer who is annoying when you happen to like whatever he’s mocking, but who is hilarious when you agree with him. On the bailout he and I are of one mind: Even though I understand so little about economics that much of my long-term investments are tied up […]