We’d prefer to invite you to a quieter place, Fellow Reckoner…somewhere we could talk in private. A speakeasy, perhaps. Somewhere off the radar. Alas, that’s becoming increasingly difficult.
February 15th, 2012 | Joel Bowman | 3 comments | ContinuedArchive for Joel Bowman
Joel Bowman is managing editor of The Daily Reckoning. After completing his degree in media communications and journalism in his home country of Australia, Joel moved to Baltimore to join the Agora Financial team. His keen interest in travel and macroeconomics first took him to New York where he regularly reported from Wall Street, and he now writes from and lives all over the world.
How The US Tax Code is Creating A Chicken Run
A study cites the “confusing complexity” of the US tax code and “bait and switch” tactics used by the IRS to lure in victims behind on “payments” as the primary two reasons for the uptick in permanent expatriation.
January 30th, 2012 | Joel Bowman | 0 comments | Continued
Why US GDP Figures Mean Nothing
Here’s a meaningless abstraction for you, Fellow Reckoner. US GDP grew at an annualised rate of 1.7% for 2011. Now, what does that sentence actually tell us?
January 30th, 2012 | Joel Bowman | 2 comments | Continued
The Consequences of Denying Reality in a Bernanke Economy
Mr. Bernanke is fiddling the levers again, promising to keep rates lower than a sea snake’s belly until 2014. America’s #1 central banker may well be highly intelligent…but that does not preclude him from also being a dunce.
January 27th, 2012 | Joel Bowman | 0 comments | Continued
Megaupload, Orwell and Knowing Your Role as an Obedient Citizen
Now, one might assume that artists would want their music distributed, to have their artwork seen and heard by as many eyes and ears as possible. Correct. In fact, that was exactly what Megaupload – a website owned and operated by recording artists – was trying to accomplish.
January 24th, 2012 | Joel Bowman | 13 comments | Continued
The Return of System D
A non regulation-sized nutshell, System D refers to the world’s unregulated, non state-sanctioned economy. And it is, in many ways, where the real action is.
January 13th, 2012 | Joel Bowman | 0 comments | Continued
Markets Seen and Unseen
Investors would have done well to go fishing yesterday. The markets were flat as a mill pond, ending the session more or less where they began.
January 13th, 2012 | Joel Bowman | 0 comments | Continued
System D is for Free
“System D.” was a term coined by Robert Neuwirth, author of the book Stealth of Nations: The Global Rise of the Informal Economy, to describe the world’s collection of off-book street markets. It’s a kind of “global street market,” or, if you prefer, one of the only truly free markets left on the planet.
January 11th, 2012 | Joel Bowman | 11 comments | Continued
As the Thread Unravels
Instead of losing ourselves in the increasingly granular interplay between the world’s governments and the markets they affect to save and to serve, we are going to take a step back today, to start from the beginning. Forests are so often lost in trees, after all, the majesty and grandeur of the universe ignored for a single star.
January 5th, 2012 | Joel Bowman | 1 comment | Continued
Freedom, Naturally: A Review of Morris and Linda Tannehill’s, The Market for Liberty
It is at times useful to imagine how a truly laissez-faire society, one entirely emancipated from the shackles of state coercion, might exist and operate. Morris and Linda Tannehill examine this very idea in, The Market for Liberty: Is Government Really Necessary?
May 11th, 2011 | Joel Bowman | 0 comments | Continued
A Few Laughs Courtesy of Standard & Poor’s
You want a good laugh, Fellow Reckoner? We’ve got a great joke for you, courtesy of Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services Inc. But first, the news… We had other notes prepared for you this morning, but then this headline crept across our screen: “S&P Moves US Outlook to Negative”
April 19th, 2011 | Joel Bowman | 2 comments | Continued
For Love of Democracy
Tunisia…Egypt…Libya…a half dozen others on the brink… While restless masses across the Middle East and North Africa region are struggling to realize democracy in their own lands, many here in the USA are just now waking up to some of the not-so-pleasant effects of it. The expression of discontent is more or less the same in each country. The results? Well, we’ll have to wait and see…
February 24th, 2011 | Joel Bowman | 0 comments | Continued
In Praise of Anarchy
Left alone, good people tend to do good things. And, when free of coercion, force, violence or other tools the state employs to foster and maintain a more “responsible,” “socially conscious” citizenship, most people tend to be good…all on their own.
January 26th, 2011 | Joel Bowman | 36 comments | Continued
Socialist Pigs
One need only look to the recent goings on in Australia, your editor’s country of birth, for a glimpse into the real world outcomes of this ideological struggle. Kevin Rudd was last week ousted from Prime Ministership after a botched attempt to impose a “super profits” tax on the most productive sector of the Australian economy – the mighty mining sector. We provided a few details in Thursday’s issue:
July 1st, 2010 | Joel Bowman | 33 comments | Continued
Moving On Out
Against a backdrop of heated immigration disputes along its border states, America this week learned that a small but growing number of her citizens are choosing to renounce their citizenship in order to pursue a freer life abroad.
May 3rd, 2010 | Joel Bowman | 2 comments | Continued
