Economics

[TrueLight]

Peter Schiff Mortgage Bankers speech nov 13th 2006. There were over 2000 mortgage bankers present.

I must say this video is so awesome, it is very very worthwhile to watch every minute of it. as peter gives a spectacular speech about the crisis, origins of it, the housing markets, subprime mortgage, gives crystal clear insight into all this and more... a very very very fascinating speech, explaining the disaster we are in in 2006!!! amazing... this is one of the "must see" videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jj8rMwdQf6k&feature=sub#

[TrueLight]

Friedrich Hayek discusses Keynes and his experience with him

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqU-AZh-wqU&feature=related

Friedrich Hayek on Milton Friedman and monetary policy and keynes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXqc-yyoVKg&feature=related

[TrueLight]

Fighting the New World Order: Information Revolution 2009 (new clips with dates)

a neat summary video/with lots of small clips
heres the info given:
The information revolution has begun! This is a set of new clips from 2009 exposing the new world order, Barack Obama, and the fraudulent Federal Reserve system. Watch as great American patriots like Alex Jones, Judge Andrew Napolitano, Jeremy Scahill, Jesse Ventura, Dennis Kucinich, Gerald Celente, Peter Schiff and Ron Paul speak truth to power. The information you will see in these clips is still pushed as a minority opinion by the corporate controlled media. You be the judge.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9ZKaenkd5s

[dcc]

Definitely check out some of the free e-books on mises.org 

Very interesting site.  Not always going to agree with it, but it's interesting.

[TrueLight]

yep ive checked it before most of the stuff there is free! and some good books recommended

[Collin Li]

http://collinli.com/2009/10/05/the-irrational-cop-out/

Rationality is pretty crucial to economics.

[TrueLight]

ou excellent article! yeah it just makes so much sense! lol centralized planning cannot work i like the last lines

"Human behaviour is so unpredictable that no centralised agency could ever possibly obtain the distributed knowledge required to satisfactorily provide for the well-being of society.

It makes the ultimate case for decentralised decision-making and human liberty." Collin Li

[TrueLight]

you know whats funny? any time you talk to someone about like the free market theories and stuff, they dismiss it as incomplete or nonsense or somehow im disillusioned, and some are like i studied economics at so and so university...but seriously peter schiff is right they are all brainwashed into keynesian philosophy. And that guy Friedrich von Hayek said in that video that he wished he had paid more attention to keynes back then when he was putting his theories out and discrediting them, even though he did but said he didn't put much effort or thought cause he thought it was disproven years ago.....how sad... oh well lol...

and also i find that like 2007-2008-2009 is the beggining of the end, like hmmm kevin rudd got elected right, then its obama, and now theres other governments around the world who have changed liked greece who now has a socialist party or pasok or wateva right...and its just bad i reckon everyone is being conned nto thinking that they're going to save the day and their economic policies are going to be much better than the predecesor but its crazy its like theres a world type of government all with the same idea to inflate the money supply, like greeces new prime mininister is going to "invigorate the economy with salary and pension rises above the inflation rate in 2010. He also has a 100-day plan to boost the market, create jobs and clean up public finances."theage, instead of the oppositions plan to cut spending... but seriously that plan is so flawed, just like rudd and obama who had a 'mandate' to do all these things... ahh i just think its rediculous and will further weaken the economic fundamentals. lol... i guess the only countries now that will actually be growing is China... and some other asian countries...lol sad...

[TrueLight]

Dream policy not the right tool for the job
JULIE NOVAK
October 6, 2009

THERE is no shortage of ideas as to how to get those now on the unemployment lines off them. The challenge is to find the right ideas to implement.

The ABS figures reveal a sobering tale about the rise in joblessness. In August this year, about 623,900 people were out of work. This is a staggering 44 per cent jump in the number of people looking for a job compared with the corresponding period last year.

In Victoria, the percentage increase in the number of unemployed people was slightly higher than across the nation as a whole. On an industry basis, about 28,000 jobs have been lost from wholesale trade businesses, while the recent downturn accelerated the decades-long shakedown of manufacturing jobs, with 13,300 jobs lost since August 2008.

The Rudd Government insists it has a range of policies designed to ''support'' jobs. Arguably its centrepiece is its fiscal stimulus packages, estimated to have totalled about $80 billion and which Treasury's new Keynesian models estimate will save up to 210,000 jobs.

Putting aside the issue that the outcomes of economic modelling are driven by the assumptions underpinning it, there are strong reasons to question the veracity of the Government's ''make work'' schemes. For a start, its spending is financed by taxes or borrowing (implying future taxes). It is well known that the imposition of taxation can distort economic decisions, making the economy less productive and weakening its capacity to grow and employ more people.
Doubts have been cast on the capacity of much of the Government's spending, such as on Pink Batts installation or duplicated school halls, to add real value to the economy.

The statistical evidence is showing that the fiscal stimulus has been ineffective so far in delivering masses of sustainable, real jobs. The number of people engaged by the retail sector nationally, which was the primary beneficiary of the $900 cash splashes, fell by 51,700 over the 12 months to August this year.

Meanwhile, job losses in construction have totalled about 15,000 over the same period despite huge government projects getting under way. To be sure, however, there are some people benefiting from the great fiscal churn. For example, there are likely to be extra Pink Batt installers while some consortiums are taking up school hall renewals with undoubted relish.

Even if we take the questionable Treasury modelling at face value, the Government's spending equates to about $380,950 per job saved.

Against the fact of jobs being lost in even the politically favoured segments of the economy, let alone just about everywhere else, the beneficiaries of the Government's new-found Keynesianism form one exclusive club indeed.

As questionable as the Government's suite of policies for jobs growth are, other ideas advocate the entrenchment of government as an employer of choice.

University of Newcastle economist Bill Mitchell has argued for the Government to guarantee jobs unconditionally for the unemployed. In a speech to the ACTU in July, Mitchell argued that, since ''the Federal Government is not financially constrained in the same way as a household is, it can always ensure there are enough jobs available to meet the preferences of the available labour force''.

The Centre for Full Employment and Equity estimates that a job guarantee based on the minimum wage would cost $8.3 billion a year. However, according to Mitchell's own blog this is an underestimate as his ideal scheme entails extra ''social wage'' government expenditures across a range of portfolio areas.

This represents one of the great internal contradictions of the scheme, as the private sector effectively bears additional financial burdens, and potentially contracts, to support a larger public sector.

The scheme is also likely to waste economic resources as special interests lobby the ''buffer employment'' government over the geographic distribution and industrial composition of jobs.

The Mitchell jobs scheme is littered with potentially damaging unintended consequences for the economy. The scope of public-sector activity would have to expand if the job guarantee was to have any chance of providing satisfying, meaningful work for the jobless.

But such a development would tend to displace current private-sector activities. For existing private-sector employees at or near the minimum wage, there is also a greater incentive to perform poorly on the job because of the perceived fallback of a guaranteed job in the public sector.

The dream of governments being able to create, support or guarantee jobs without harming the job-generating properties of the private sector is not based on economic reality. The reality is that the private sector is the majority employer of Australians, and the capacity of markets to self-correct and absorb additional labour is determined in part by a policy environment supporting continuous, strong economic growth. This implies we need a practical embrace of ideas in support of economic deregulation and fiscal discipline.
Julie Novak is a research fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs

[TrueLight]

Economics in One Lesson. Henry Hazlitt.... about jobs..

"Therefore for every public job created by the bridge project a private job has been destroyed somewhere else. We can see the men employed on the bridge. We can watch them at work. The employment argument of the government spenders becomes vivid, and probably for most people convincing. But there are other things that we do not see, because, alas, they have never been permitted to come into existence. They are the jobs destroyed by the $1,000,000 taken from the taxpayers. All that has happened, at best, is that there has been a diversion of jobs because of the project. More bridge builders; fewer automobile workers, radio technicians, clothing workers, farmers. But then we come to the second argument. The bridge exists. It is, let us suppose, a beautiful and not an ugly bridge. It has come into being through the magic of government spending. Where would it have been if the obstructionists and the reactionaries had had their way? There would have been no bridge. The country would have been just that much poorer. Here again the government spenders have the better of the argument with all those who cannot see beyond the immediate range of their physical eyes. They can see the bridge. But if they have taught themselves to look for in direct as well as direct consequences they can once more see in the eye of imagination the possibilities that have never been allowed to come into existence. They can see the unbuilt homes, the unmade cars and radios, the unmade dresses and coats, perhaps the unsold and ungrown foodstuffs. To see these uncreated things requires a kind of imagination that not many people have. We can think of these non-existent objects once, perhaps, but we cannot keep them before our minds as we can the bridge that we pass every working day. What has happened is merely that one thing has been created instead of others."

[TrueLight]

A history lesson. The End of dollar hegemony. great informative video
Ron Paul

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44wo8IhuHfQ

hmm i never knew that iran was dealing with oil prices in euro and that because oil is prices in us dollars universally that that artificially helps keep the dollar strong and valuable and that it is in america's interest therefore to protect the oil supply in the middle east...but its amazing sadam husein defied selling oil in dollars and so america got angry and i guess it was one reason they waged war for regime change...then you have venezuela with chavez who asked for euro, then america attempted a coup to overthrow him which undoubtedly invovled CIA and then you now have Iran who "In 2005-2006, The Tehran government has a developed a plan to begin competing with New York's NYMEX and London's IPE with respect to international oil trades - using a euro-denominated international oil-trading mechanism. This means that without some form of US intervention, the euro is going to establish a firm foothold in the international oil trade. Given U.S. debt levels and the stated neoconservative project for U.S. global domination, Tehran's objective constitutes an obvious encroachment on U.S. dollar supremacy in the international oil market". and now america is pumping out the proaganda machine to label Iran as some kind of enemy and antogonising and provoking them...... i just find all this quite amazing and bizarre.. and sad... argh no wonder more and more countries are getting sick of america and their faulty system and monetary system...





Ron Paul on fox news  4/10/09
how you could move to a gold standard
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDd3clOzj-8



Peter Schiff on CNBC Fast Money 5/10/09
explains why the stock market is currently really going up
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMpS5P7Atb8


Peter Schiff talking about the weakening dollar and gold. Talks about Australia raising interests rates! but this is problematic to US dollar... woot at least we have some sense...also talks about stock price rises in relation to the previous video where he's on Fast Money..... also talks about the non existant relationship between inflation and unemployment- unemplyment is not the antidote to inflation- sound currency is and increased interests rates and productivity, low regulations and low taxes... 5/10/09
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q45gWKRZbcQ

[TrueLight]

a further point i made in the last post about countries moving away oil dominated in US dollars

Dollar's demise plotted by oil producers, China and France, report says
The world's oil producers, as well as China and France, are planning to end using the dollar as the currency to buy and sell oil, the Independent newspaper reported.

telegraph.co.uk
 
Published: 6:39AM BST 06 Oct 2009

The move would see oil priced not in dollars but in a unit based on a basket of currencies including the Chinese yuan, the Japanese yen, and a new currency intended for use by the Gulf emirates, according to a report in Tuesday's Independent newspaper. The paper added that the transistion from the dollar to a new currency will take almost a decade.

Finance ministers and central bankers have held meetings in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to discuss the idea, which the Americans are aware of, the Independent said.

"Eventually there will be a move to non-dollar commodity contracts, and it may be the next big risk for the dollar," Ben Simpfendorfer, chief China economist for Royal Bank of Scotland, told Bloomberg. "At the same time, I don't want to overplay the importance of the story. There's no credible sources there."

The financial crisis has intensified speculation about the eventual demise of the dollar as the world's reserve currency. In the last six months, Russia, Brazil, India and China have already discussed buying each other's debt as a way of cutting their dependence on the dollar, while the United Nations last month proposed a new global currency to replace the greenback.

The dominant role of the dollar in world trade and financial markets - a position it inherited from sterling - has already been under threat since the formation of the euro and the emergence of China as a major economic power.

The amount of the the world's currency reserves held in dollars has fallen over the past decade, with the it declining to a record low of 62.8pc in the second quarter, figures from the International Monetary Fund showed last week. The euro's share climbed to 27.5pc from 25.9pc.

But few experts expect the dollar's status to be quickly eclipsed.

Niall Ferguson, a Harvard University Professor, said yesterday that there wouldn't be a dollar collapse given the lack of proper alternatives. “There are enormously strong arguments for maintaining a substantial pile of your reserves in dollar form,” according to Professor Ferguson. "That is still the currency of choice for most of the trade that goes on in the world.”

However, there seems little doubt that China's fears over the fate of the dollar have increased recently. Timothy Geither, the US Treasury Secretary, has sought to ease China's worry that America's combination of record low interest rates and a policy of printing money will spark a sharp decline in the currency. China is America's biggest international creditor.

The dollar was weaker in early morning trading in London, losing half a cent against the euro at $1.4722 and weaker against the pound.

[TrueLight]

The demise of the dollar
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/the-demise-of-the-dollar-1798175.html

In a graphic illustration of the new world order, Arab states have launched secret moves with China, Russia and France to stop using the US currency for oil trading

By Robert Fisk

Tuesday, 6 October 2009

In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.


Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean that oil will no longer be priced in dollars.

The plans, confirmed to The Independent by both Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong, may help to explain the sudden rise in gold prices, but it also augurs an extraordinary transition from dollar markets within nine years.

The Americans, who are aware the meetings have taken place – although they have not discovered the details – are sure to fight this international cabal which will include hitherto loyal allies Japan and the Gulf Arabs. Against the background to these currency meetings, Sun Bigan, China's former special envoy to the Middle East, has warned there is a risk of deepening divisions between China and the US over influence and oil in the Middle East. "Bilateral quarrels and clashes are unavoidable," he told the Asia and Africa Review. "We cannot lower vigilance against hostility in the Middle East over energy interests and security."

This sounds like a dangerous prediction of a future economic war between the US and China over Middle East oil – yet again turning the region's conflicts into a battle for great power supremacy. China uses more oil incrementally than the US because its growth is less energy efficient. The transitional currency in the move away from dollars, according to Chinese banking sources, may well be gold. An indication of the huge amounts involved can be gained from the wealth of Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar who together hold an estimated $2.1 trillion in dollar reserves.

The decline of American economic power linked to the current global recession was implicitly acknowledged by the World Bank president Robert Zoellick. "One of the legacies of this crisis may be a recognition of changed economic power relations," he said in Istanbul ahead of meetings this week of the IMF and World Bank. But it is China's extraordinary new financial power – along with past anger among oil-producing and oil-consuming nations at America's power to interfere in the international financial system – which has prompted the latest discussions involving the Gulf states.

Brazil has shown interest in collaborating in non-dollar oil payments, along with India. Indeed, China appears to be the most enthusiastic of all the financial powers involved, not least because of its enormous trade with the Middle East.

China imports 60 per cent of its oil, much of it from the Middle East and Russia. The Chinese have oil production concessions in Iraq – blocked by the US until this year – and since 2008 have held an $8bn agreement with Iran to develop refining capacity and gas resources. China has oil deals in Sudan (where it has substituted for US interests) and has been negotiating for oil concessions with Libya, where all such contracts are joint ventures.

Furthermore, Chinese exports to the region now account for no fewer than 10 per cent of the imports of every country in the Middle East, including a huge range of products from cars to weapon systems, food, clothes, even dolls. In a clear sign of China's growing financial muscle, the president of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, yesterday pleaded with Beijing to let the yuan appreciate against a sliding dollar and, by extension, loosen China's reliance on US monetary policy, to help rebalance the world economy and ease upward pressure on the euro.

Ever since the Bretton Woods agreements – the accords after the Second World War which bequeathed the architecture for the modern international financial system – America's trading partners have been left to cope with the impact of Washington's control and, in more recent years, the hegemony of the dollar as the dominant global reserve currency.

The Chinese believe, for example, that the Americans persuaded Britain to stay out of the euro in order to prevent an earlier move away from the dollar. But Chinese banking sources say their discussions have gone too far to be blocked now. "The Russians will eventually bring in the rouble to the basket of currencies," a prominent Hong Kong broker told The Independent. "The Brits are stuck in the middle and will come into the euro. They have no choice because they won't be able to use the US dollar."

Chinese financial sources believe President Barack Obama is too busy fixing the US economy to concentrate on the extraordinary implications of the transition from the dollar in nine years' time. The current deadline for the currency transition is 2018.

The US discussed the trend briefly at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh; the Chinese Central Bank governor and other officials have been worrying aloud about the dollar for years. Their problem is that much of their national wealth is tied up in dollar assets.

"These plans will change the face of international financial transactions," one Chinese banker said. "America and Britain must be very worried. You will know how worried by the thunder of denials this news will generate."

Iran announced late last month that its foreign currency reserves would henceforth be held in euros rather than dollars. Bankers remember, of course, what happened to the last Middle East oil producer to sell its oil in euros rather than dollars. A few months after Saddam Hussein trumpeted his decision, the Americans and British invaded Iraq.



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Peter Schiff explains this article and what it means for america and the dollar 6/10/09

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1cxhus-uL0

[Collin Li]

ou excellent article! yeah it just makes so much sense! lol centralized planning cannot work i like the last lines

"Human behaviour is so unpredictable that no centralised agency could ever possibly obtain the distributed knowledge required to satisfactorily provide for the well-being of society.

It makes the ultimate case for decentralised decision-making and human liberty." Collin Li

Cheers

[TrueLight]

np...ha your the only freemarket guy here or as close to it ? i think lol


interesting lecture on Keynesian philosophy and theories

http://mises.org/MultiMedia/mp3/MU2009/MU2009_Herbener1_07-30-2009.mp3


hm hopefully my statement/question here is alright if i havent'y already forgetten some of the lecture
so i just don't get why somehow if we have 'capitol' out of nowhere, basically printed money from the central bank this will lead to investment and the spending that is done will eventually be paid with savings from the investments....like he was saying how just as long as you have capitol to invest, no matter the situation eventually savings which is a side thing will come about through this agregate ...and also keynes always wanted to focus on the current today instead of any future consequences which i find rather strange...and keynes was a really big believer in a central planner controlling the economy with all these fancy maths equations..ah.just read collin li's piece... anyway...and somehow consumer spending is good for the economy as it supports anothers earnings? wth wealth and capital comes from savings to invest in something that leads to production to export etc..and then when interest rates are manipulated it leads to false signals that people are saving when they are not and leads to the boom etc.....all i can say is austrian free market theorists predicted the crisis coming and future pain in america! which no main stream economists did or will do ...

ah its funny looking back...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sRPFnXxlrQ
and quite embarassing for bernanke...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goBjOIdvFMs