Free Republic

As Barron's notes in this recent interview, Marc Faber view the world with a skeptical eye, and never hesitates to speak his mind when things don't look quite right. Faber explains, among other things, the fallacy of the Fed's help "the problem is the money doesn't flow into the system evenly, how with money-printing "the majority loses, and the minority wins," and how, thanks to the further misallocation of capital, "people with assets are all doomed, because prices are grossly inflated globally for stocks and bonds." Excerpted from Barron's: On the error of the Fed's ways: The Fed has been...

Monetary policy today delivers the biggest benefits to the world’s largest borrower​ —​ our federal government. The Fed [harms] people who actually contribute real value to the economy, who live and work in the belief that saving is a virtue.

If you are looking for the most nauseating cover possible on Ben Bernanke, please consider the April 2012 issue of the Atlantic. The cover asks the question "Ben Bernanke saved the global economy. So why does everyone hate him?" For starters Ben Bernanke did not save the global economy. Making such a proclamation is like a football fans proclaiming victory at the end of the third quarter with the score 54-24 following a 24 point rally after being down 54-0. Simply put, it is far too early to make a presumption the Fed "saved" anything given the global economy remains...

So far, during the presidency of Barack Obama, the price of a gallon of gasoline has jumped 83 percent, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (AP Photo) During the same period, the price of ground beef has gone up 24 percent and price of bacon has gone up 22 percent. When Obama entered the White House in January 2009, the city average price for one gallon of regular unleaded gasoline was $1.79, according to the BLS. (The figures are in nominal dollars: not adjusted for inflation.) Five months later in June, unleaded gasoline was $2.26 per gallon,...

By now everyone realizes that the euro is in major trouble and will no longer exist in its current form for much longer. However, the common view is that it is Greece and possibly other PIIGS countries who will be forced out if the eurozone is broken up. But few are talking about another possibility- of Germany leaving the EU. One who is talking about this is Dr. Pippa Malmgren, a former economic advisor to George W. Bush and a former advisor to Deutsche Bank (DB). According to Malmgren, Germany has already ordered the printing of Deutsche Marks in anticipation...

Faber: Brace for a Global 'Reboot' and a War Published: Friday, 5 Aug 2011 | 7:51 AM ET By: Peter Guest Staff Writer, CNBC.com Markets could rebound after Thursday's global market sell-off, but investors should see any bounce as a selling opportunity, as the world economy rolls towards total collapse, Mark Faber, editor and publisher of the Boom, Doom and Gloom Report, told CNBC Friday. /snip "In general, I would be using rebounds as a selling opportunity," Faber said. Buying Treasurys as a safe haven is no longer a smart play, he added. "I think Treasurys are perceived still as...

On Twitter, Nouriel Roubini declares that the latest currency interventions from Switzerland and Japan represent the start of QE3, ultimately ending in more Fed easing.

The latest from AP: NEW YORK (AP) – Stocks fell sharply Tuesday as the nuclear crisis in Japan weighed on global markets. The stock market dropped at the start of trading on news that dangerous levels of radiation were leaking from a crippled nuclear plant. The plant was damaged in last week’s earthquake and tsunami. Japan, the world’s third-largest economy, accounts for 10 percent of US exports. Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at New York-based brokerage house Avalon Partners, said fear had taken hold in the market. “It’s a situation where you sell, and you ask questions later,” he said....

Educational video about debt monetization.

As recovery starts to stall in the US and Europe with echoes of mid-1931, bond experts are once again dusting off a speech by Ben Bernanke given eight years ago as a freshman governor at the Federal Reserve. Entitled "Deflation: Making Sure It Doesn’t Happen Here", it is a warfare manual for defeating economic slumps by use of extreme monetary stimulus once interest rates have dropped to zero, and implicitly once governments have spent themselves to near bankruptcy. The speech is best known for its irreverent one-liner: "The US government has a technology, called a printing press, that allows it...

I was struck by this article in Publiuspundit about the best performing stock market in the world in 2006: you see the chart above corresponds to the Zimbabwe stock market, which despite being one of the least friendly countries to investment in the world had that outstanding performance. up 555% in 2006. According to the Luwig Von Mises Institute in Austria the explanation is simple: “This is what we are seeing in Zimbabwe. With the country suffering from Mugabe's catastrophic policies, increasingly the only means for the government to fund itself has been money-supply growth. This has only exacerbated the...

Today former Chavez Minister of Finance Tobias Nobrega was trying to justify that monetary liquidity is not too high, by saying that it was only 25% of GDP. Well, that may be true in a country with positive returns on savings, but when banks pay 6% and inflation is running at 15%, money is looking to get out, which is why the current large liquidity is pushing the swap or parallel market up. The size of GDP is irrelevant, in fact, the devaluation will simply shrink GDP and bring it down to the right size. Below, I have a different...