Glenn Beck vs. Anti-Defamation League - What's This all About?
November 12, 2010 Filed in: Glenn Beck | Anti-Defamantion League
ADL Goes After Glenn Beck - More Proof That It’s Just Another Progressive Spin Machine
Posted by Jeff Dunetz Nov 12th 2010 at 12:35 pm www.bigjournalism.comI’ve gotta hand it to Glenn Beck for being completely fearless. I’m afraid we may miss him one day. He’s obviously taken the Left head-on in shining the spotlight on George Soros ( a truly diabolical Leftist). I haven’t followed the details of this latest adventure, but it has got to be a ‘must read’ for anyone who has the time to explore it a little deeper. It’s like I say about the Tampa Tribune - any conservative that they are attacking must be for real and effective. Any self-proclaimed conservative that the Trib doesn’t attack, or even likes, has got to be a RINO. At any rate, I’m going to read this again and hope you enjoy it, too. Beck has got to be on to something to catch this much heat.
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International Rebuff of Obama at G20
Obama's economic view is rejected on world stage
By Sewell Chan, Sheryl Gay Stolberg and David E. Sanger New York Times Posted: 11/11/2010 06:15:39 PM PSTHow could the NY Times let such an unflattering article be printed about their ‘precious’ Obama? Must be slowly but surely distancing themselves from his unworkable, job-killing economic policies.
“SEOUL, South Korea - After five largely harmonious meetings in the past two years to deal with the most severe downturn since the Great Depression, major disputes broke out between Washington and China, Britain, Germany and Brazil.
Each rejected core elements of Obama's strategy of stimulating growth before focusing on deficit reduction. Several major nations continued to accuse the Federal Reserve of deliberately devaluing the dollar last week in an effort to put the costs of America's competitive troubles on trading partners, rather than taking politically tough measures to rein in spending at home. >>>” READ MORE FROM THE NY TIMES Read More...
Quantitative Easing
November 05, 2010 Filed in: Monetary Policy | Economic Theory
If you missed it, the FED is going to inject a lot of money into circulation. It’s called Quantitative Easing and it is like the stimulus without a vote by the Congress. You should read up on it. Here’s a good article from the WSJ speculating what free market economist, Milton Friedman, would have to say about it if he were still alive.
“Enough about John Maynard Keynes. We can be sure the 20th century British economic giant would advise more government spending to spur U.S. economic growth with consumers and businesses so hesitant and short-term interest rates at zero.
What would Milton Friedman, the University of Chicago champion of monetary discipline, do now? What would he say—reversing the charges when he returned a reporter's call, as he always did—if asked about Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's imminent move to print hundreds of billions of dollars to buy more U.S. Treasury bonds to put more money into the economy?
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What would Milton Friedman, the University of Chicago champion of monetary discipline, do now?
We can't ask him. He died in 2006. "Friedman," says one of his eminent students, Robert Lucas of the University of Chicago, "was such an original thinker that one could never guess how he would react to a new question." Nevertheless, this seems a ripe moment to contemplate Friedman's views and those of his disciples—though they don't agree among themselves.
Friedman believed in the power of money: the more money, the more income and, eventually, the more inflation. He didn't think the Fed could deliver full employment. He regarded interest rates as a misleading measure of whether the Fed was loose or tight. He favored flexible exchange rates, and would have lectured China against pegging its yuan to the dollar.
He didn't trust central bankers. He blamed the Bank of Japan for the deflation of the 1990s and the Fed for the Great Depression of the 1930s and the Great Inflation of the 1970s. He would, if his sharp-tongued co-author Anna Schwartz is any clue, have condemned the bank bailouts of recent years. "They should not be recapitalizing firms that should be shut down," she told the Journal in October 2008.
David Wessel looks at what would Milton Friedman, the University of Chicago champion of monetary discipline, do now? Would he approve of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's move to buy more U.S. Treasury bonds to put more money into the economy?
Friedman would have scoffed at the notion that the Fed is out of ammunition. He believed in the potency of "quantitative easing," or QE—printing money to buy bonds.
"The Bank of Japan can buy government bonds on the open market…" he wrote in 1998. "Most of the proceeds will end up in commercial banks, adding to their reserves and enabling them to expand…loans and open-market purchases. But whether they do so or not, the money supply will increase…. Higher money supply growth would have the same effect as always. After a year or so, the economy will expand more rapidly; output will grow, and after another delay, inflation will increase moderately."
But how would he decide if the Fed should buy bonds now?
He would look at the growth of the money supply, though he and his followers always had trouble identifying which measure was the right one. The Fed pumped up the monetary base (currency plus bank reserves), but broader measures are growing slowly. That bolsters the QE case. Still, the money supply is growing, not shrinking, Mr. Lucas notes. "If we had something like the Japanese deflation I'm sure Milton would say: Pour more money into the system. But we're not in that situation." POINT: Uncertain on QE.
He would warn, as he often did, about "erratic swings" in the money supply. For much of his career he said the Fed should let the money supply grow at a fixed rate. "Friedman did not believe in big discretionary changes in the money supply," says John Taylor, a Stanford University economist. "He would argue that we need to keep money growth stable, and if it slows, pick it up." But he wouldn't back massive bond-buying, Mr. Taylor insists. POINT: Against QE.” Read More...
Channeling Milton Friedman
“Enough about John Maynard Keynes. We can be sure the 20th century British economic giant would advise more government spending to spur U.S. economic growth with consumers and businesses so hesitant and short-term interest rates at zero.
What would Milton Friedman, the University of Chicago champion of monetary discipline, do now? What would he say—reversing the charges when he returned a reporter's call, as he always did—if asked about Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's imminent move to print hundreds of billions of dollars to buy more U.S. Treasury bonds to put more money into the economy?
Getty Images
What would Milton Friedman, the University of Chicago champion of monetary discipline, do now?
We can't ask him. He died in 2006. "Friedman," says one of his eminent students, Robert Lucas of the University of Chicago, "was such an original thinker that one could never guess how he would react to a new question." Nevertheless, this seems a ripe moment to contemplate Friedman's views and those of his disciples—though they don't agree among themselves.
Friedman believed in the power of money: the more money, the more income and, eventually, the more inflation. He didn't think the Fed could deliver full employment. He regarded interest rates as a misleading measure of whether the Fed was loose or tight. He favored flexible exchange rates, and would have lectured China against pegging its yuan to the dollar.
He didn't trust central bankers. He blamed the Bank of Japan for the deflation of the 1990s and the Fed for the Great Depression of the 1930s and the Great Inflation of the 1970s. He would, if his sharp-tongued co-author Anna Schwartz is any clue, have condemned the bank bailouts of recent years. "They should not be recapitalizing firms that should be shut down," she told the Journal in October 2008.
David Wessel looks at what would Milton Friedman, the University of Chicago champion of monetary discipline, do now? Would he approve of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's move to buy more U.S. Treasury bonds to put more money into the economy?
Friedman would have scoffed at the notion that the Fed is out of ammunition. He believed in the potency of "quantitative easing," or QE—printing money to buy bonds.
"The Bank of Japan can buy government bonds on the open market…" he wrote in 1998. "Most of the proceeds will end up in commercial banks, adding to their reserves and enabling them to expand…loans and open-market purchases. But whether they do so or not, the money supply will increase…. Higher money supply growth would have the same effect as always. After a year or so, the economy will expand more rapidly; output will grow, and after another delay, inflation will increase moderately."
But how would he decide if the Fed should buy bonds now?
He would look at the growth of the money supply, though he and his followers always had trouble identifying which measure was the right one. The Fed pumped up the monetary base (currency plus bank reserves), but broader measures are growing slowly. That bolsters the QE case. Still, the money supply is growing, not shrinking, Mr. Lucas notes. "If we had something like the Japanese deflation I'm sure Milton would say: Pour more money into the system. But we're not in that situation." POINT: Uncertain on QE.
He would warn, as he often did, about "erratic swings" in the money supply. For much of his career he said the Fed should let the money supply grow at a fixed rate. "Friedman did not believe in big discretionary changes in the money supply," says John Taylor, a Stanford University economist. "He would argue that we need to keep money growth stable, and if it slows, pick it up." But he wouldn't back massive bond-buying, Mr. Taylor insists. POINT: Against QE.” Read More...
US Bankruptcy is Certain
November 05, 2010 Filed in: US Fiscal Policy | The US Budget
“Now, countries don’t go bankrupt the way companies do,” said Allison. “They don’t file bankruptcy. They usually hyper-inflate. They print a bunch of paper money, or they become Third World economies like Argentina--unless we change direction. So, we absolutely have to change direction. And the irony of that is it requires an interesting combination. It requires both discipline, but it also requires a focus on growing our economy. And it means a fundamental philosophical change from where we are today, from the idea of redistributing wealth to the idea of creating wealth.”
At some point the Congress will have to put on the brakes. They may do it as we go over the cliff, but they must do it.
“John Allison, who for two decades served as chairman and CEO of BB&T, the nation's 10th largest bank, told CNSNews.com it is a “mathematical certainty” that the United States government will go bankrupt unless it dramatically changes its fiscal direction.
Allison likened what he sees as the predictable future bankruptcy of the United States to the problems at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, whose insolvency he also said was foreseeable to those who studied their business practices and financial situation.
“I think the first thing we have to realize is where we’re going and to face it objectively,” Allison told CNSNews.com, when asked about the trillion-dollar-plus deficits the federal government has run for three straight years, the more than $13 trillion in federal debt, and the $61.9 trillion long-term shortfall the government faces (according to the analysis of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation) if the government is to pay all the benefits it has promised through entitlement programs.
“If you run the numbers, on all those numbers that you just talked about, which I think are accurate, very accurate, in 20 or 25 years, the United States goes bankrupt,” said Allison. “It’s a mathematical certainty. ... “ READ MORE AT CNSNEWS.COM Read More...