Jack B. sent a link to a brilliant little essay by “Innocent Bystander”, posted over at The Silver Bear Café, titled Economics.
From Greg J.: US government seeks to rein in executive pay. Greg asks: “When will this stop? If the Benevolent State can declare both a minimum wage and a maximum salary, then what is to stop them from controlling all wages? This is madness! “Punishing” the rich will just push funds and eventually people and entire corporations offshore. As you’ve mentioned in SurvivalBlog, wage and price controls have an ugly history. They’re indiscriminate. They’re ineffective. They’re anti-freedom. And they’re coming soon again, to America.” JWR Adds: Just wait until inflation returns, in earnest. We’ll no doubt then see some draconian wage and price controls. Methinks it is time to dig out my copy of Dr. Gary North’s book, Government By Emergency
Nouriel Roubini asks: Is Eastern Europe on the Brink of an Asia-Style Crisis?
I noticed that spot silver took another substantial dip on Friday. Buy on these dips!
Items from The Economatrix:
Two Japanese Carrying $134 Billion in U.S. Treasury Notes (and 10 ‘bond Kennedy’ of the nominal value of $1 billion each) Detained In Italy. This sounds more than a little bit fishy. If these bearer bonds weren’t counterfeited, then somebody in the US Treasury has a lot of explaining to do. Oh, and here is a bit of interesting follow-up commentary on this case. (The latter link courtesy of Frank K.)
US Stocks Fall On Concern Over Bond Yields, Rising Fuel Costs
US Trade Gap Grows as Exports Decrease Geithner: “Recovery here depends on recovery abroad.”
Oil Prices Near $72, Strike New High For 2009
The Media Fall PForhony “Jobs” Claims “We would never have used a formula like ‘save or create,'” he tells me. “To begin with, the number is pure fiction — the administration has no way to measure how many jobs are actually being ‘saved.’ And if we had tried to use something this flimsy, the press would never have let us get away with it.”
Majority Now Supports Ron Paul’s Fed Audit Bill “The majority of Americans are fed up with Fed secrecy.”
Fed Would Be Shut Down If It Were Audited, Expert Says
Counterfeit or Just Fake? (The Mogambo Guru)