Not only did the grasshoppers make the things that the ants used, the ants took the grasshoppers’ money and lent it back to them, so they could buy more. The grasshoppers were ruining themselves. But the ants were making a mistake too. They were building up capital, but what could they do with it?
August 23rd, 2010 | Bill Bonner | 36 comments | ContinuedAll Posts Tagged With: "austerity"
Independent from What?
Obviously, that kind of boom can’t go on forever. And when it came to an end in 2007 it changed the financial picture for governments as well as households and businesses. Tax revenues went down. Expenses went up. And so did the bailouts and boondoggles that they call ‘stimulus’ spending.
July 7th, 2010 | Bill Bonner | 0 comments | Continued
Coco vs the Trifecta of Trouble
So stimulus steals from the long run. But does austerity pay? The German politicians think so. Their argument is that the private sector gets insecure about uncertainty and an unsustainable government debt makes the consumer uncertain. Especially any German consumer with a long memory and an eye on the ECB. Are they right? Does austerity pay off?
July 3rd, 2010 | Nickolai Hubble | 1 comment | Continued
Budgeting Casualty
Mr. Orszag can’t seem to put a simple sentence together. But he can count. According to the last census results, there were 1.7 million households in America with incomes of $250,000 or more. Even if you took an additional $250,000 in tax from each one of them, raising the effective rate on many of them to nearly 150% of income, it you would still have a trillion-dollar deficit.
July 1st, 2010 | Bill Bonner | 4 comments | Continued
Where Debt Goes to Die
But the meandering action in the markets has caused us to step back and assess where we are at in the whole scheme of things (other than level one of an office on Fitzroy Street in a wintery St Kilda, nibbling at a chicken and bacon sandwich). Financially and historically speaking, we’re into phase two of a global debt crisis brought about by the fraud that is fiat money.
June 29th, 2010 | Dan Denning | 76 comments | Continued
Phony Choices from a Bogus Profession
Several things have become obvious: first, a ‘recovery’ is not going to happen; second, after 60 years of credit expansion, the world has entered a long period of financial adjustment and debt destruction; third, most economists should be put to work picking up trash along national highways. Not that they would do a very good job of it,
June 28th, 2010 | Bill Bonner | 1 comment | Continued
Even Taxes are Pretty in Pink
Forcing the more productive, intelligent and resourceful people in the economy to bear the weight of those who should be going out of business is just stupid. That hasn’t stopped countries from trying it. But the IMF points out that most countries abandon it. And what would happen to government revenue when the economy slows?
June 26th, 2010 | Nickolai Hubble | 11 comments | Continued
Stimulus, Austerity, and the Spiral of Decline
“Austerity” usually means spending cuts and tax hikes. But, it does not take long before politicians, bureaucrats, public employees and corporate cronies all agree that they don’t actually want to cut spending. Usually, they take some unpleasant swipes at welfare programs and services – in other words, the only programs that actually do some good, and which are especially important in a recession.
June 25th, 2010 | Nathan Lewis | 2 comments | Continued
Austerity is Missing from the Financial Bailout Debate
Within the billions of sentences about the financial bailout there is one word notably absent, austerity. All talk is of payments, supports, subsidies, incurring more debt, stimulus packages.
July 3rd, 2009 | Juan Enriquez | 1 comment | Continued
