I am away on business travel, so I don’t have a lot of time to do a full post with commentary. But I still think these links below deserve a little attention.
Completely unreported outside Iceland: Icelanders are rioting in reaction to government mismanagement of the crisis.
Gudrun Jonsdottir, a 36-year-old office worker, said: “I’ve just had enough of this whole thing. I don’t trust the government, I don’t trust the banks, I don’t trust the political parties, and I don’t trust the IMF.
“We had a good country and they ruined it.”
These aren’t the actions of unwieldy mobs in third world countries, we’re talking about a country that had one of the highest living standards in Europe and a relatively wealthy and sedate population, the vast majority of whom are now in revolt over mass redundancies and the fast disappearing values of their paychecks and savings.
The EUnion is ‘helping’ our economies, but doesn’t want you to know about it. Probably with good reason: ECB Adopts New Collateral Guidelines, Leaves Public In Dark
Having warned of a sinking quality of the ECB’s balance sheet in January that were followed by an update of collateral guidelines in September, this move signals another milestone on the road to monetary hyper inflation.
Here’s Sam Mathid on the pigheaded insistence on applying Keynesian theory to solve the crisis: King Midas
Our governing elites have utterly failed to manage the economy in a wise manner. The not only predictable, but blindingly obvious consequences of their own actions have left them open-mouthed and bewildered. It goes without saying that the moment that the economy is ‘managed’ then distortions and mal-investments will occur. But it is possible to manage an economy with a competence borne of an understanding of economics that at least minimises that damage. This has not been the case.
The economic mistakes that have destroyed America were borne of a pig-headed, Congressional arrogance that they, the wise and wonderful politicians, were right and that the classical economists and Founding Fathers were wrong. Gold and silver, the only real money, were replaced by pieces of printed paper backed by nothing other than the full faith and credit of politicians. How much more worthless can something get?
And lastly: Did The One already wreck the US economy?
The recession, once it becomes official, will thus richly deserve designation as the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) recession. Further, Obama’s and the Democratic Party’s performance on the economy must be benchmarked from June 1, 2008 — not Election Day, not Inauguration Day, and not, as traditionally has been the case, from October 1 of the new president’s first year in office.
Evidence of the POR triumvirate’s virtually unilateral damage to the economy began appearing as early as the fourth quarter of 2007, the first quarter of negative growth in six years. The POR recession itself began in June. The historically steep downward revision in second-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) growth from an annualized 3.3% to 2.8% in the government’s final September announcement was more than likely due to deterioration that occurred in the final month of the quarter.
Some good stuff to be had in all of them.
Klein Verzet 