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The FOMC Decision – Studying the Flight of Birds and Gold
The FOMC Decision – Studying the Flight of Birds and Gold
Federal Open Yawn Committee puts Kremlinologists all over the World to Sleep …
The Fed’s monetary policy statement delivered on Wednesday was the non-surprise/yawn-inducer of the year. Readers can take a look at the trusty WSJ statement tracker, which reveals that apart from a few minor and unimportant changes, the statement was basically a carbon copy of the last one.
Not a single dissent mars this bland exercise in bureaucratese, so there isn’t even anything to report on that front. If you have trouble sleeping, reading this statement might be a very good alternative to Valium.
So did anything noteworthy happen? Well, yes. Apparently market participants believe they have to react to the forecasts of a bunch of bureaucrats who are quite likely among the worst economic forecasters in the world – and that’s really saying something.
Augurs in ancient Rome, observing the behavior of hens.
The High Priests of Augury
It is widely assumed that it is the job of economists to “make predictions”. This is actually not the case. The job of making predictions is that of augurs and soothsayers. In fact, modern-day economists strike us as today’s equivalent of the caste of augurs in ancient Rome.
As Wikipedia informs us:
“The augur was a priest and official in the classical world, especially ancient Rome and Etruria. His main role was the practice of augury, interpreting the will of the gods by studying the flight of birds: whether they are flying in groups or alone, what noises they make as they fly, direction of flight and what kind of birds they are. This was known as “taking the auspices.” The ceremony and function of the augur was central to any major undertaking in Roman society—public or private—including matters of war, commerce, and religion.”
(emphasis added)
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The Glorious Imbecility of War
The Glorious Imbecility of War
Napoleon Returns
Today, on the eve of the bicentennial of the Battle of Waterloo, we do not celebrate war. Only a fool would celebrate something so horrible. But we pay our respects to the glorious imbecility of it.
War may be dreadful, little more than a racket in many ways, but it is also a magnificent undertaking. It engages the heart and the brain at once and exposes both the genius of our race and its incredible stupidity.
But we are talking about real war. Not phony wars against enemies who pose no real threat. Phony wars earn real profits for the war industry, but only an ersatz glory for the warriors. Real soldiers take no pride in them. Instead, to a real hero, they are a source of shame and embarrassment.
Wars are not conducted to “Free the Holy Land.” Or “Make the World Safe for Democracy.” Or “Rid the World of Tyrants.” Or “Fight Terrorism.” Those are only the cover stories used by the jingoists to get the public to surrender its treasure… and its sons. Wars are fought to release the fighting spirit – that ghost of many millennia – in the scrap for survival.
And so it was that, 200 years ago tomorrow, one of the greatest military geniuses of all time, Napoleon Bonaparte, faced the armies of the Seventh Coalition – principally, the British, under the Duke of Wellington, and the Prussians, under Gebhard von Blücher.
Napoleon Bonaparte, born in Ajaccio, Corsica, later emperor of France and famous (and usually victorious) general, and later still, pensioner on the island of St. Helena
Painting by Paul De La Roche, 1814
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How Could the Fed Protect Us from Economic Waves?
How Could the Fed Protect Us from Economic Waves?
Making Waves
Mainstream economists tell us that the Federal Reserve protects us from economic waves, indeed from the business cycle itself. In their view, people naturally tend to go overboard and cause wild swings in both directions. Thus, we need an economic central planner to alternatively stimulate us and then take away the punch bowl.
Newspapers report on the adoption of the Federal Reserve Act. It was erroneously held that it was going to be “a constructive Act to aid business”. Ominously, even more such acts were promised.
Prior to the global financial crisis of 2008, a popular term described the supposed benefits created by the Fed. The Great Moderation referred to the reduced volatility of the business cycle. For example, I have written beforeabout economist Marvin Goodfriend, who asserted that the Fed does better than the gold standard.
(Credit: Greg Ziegerson and Keith Weiner)
An Orwellian Mandate for the Provision of Miracles
This belief is inherent in the Fed’s very mandate from Congress. The Fed states its three statutory objectives as, “maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates.” These terms are Orwellian.
Maximum employment means five percent of able-bodied adults can’t find work. Stable prices are actually rising relentlessly, at two percent per year. The meaning of moderate long-term interest rates must be changing, because rates have been falling for a third of a century.
That aside, the basic idea is that the Fed has both the power and the knowledge to somehow deliver an economic miracle. However, we know that central planning never works, even for simple things such as wheat production. Communist states have invariably failed to produce the food to keep their people alive. Stalin, Mao, and other communist dictators have deliberately starved off segments of their populations that they couldn’t feed.
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Orwellian Language – the Slide toward “Velvet Glove” Fascism Continues
Orwellian Language – the Slide toward “Velvet Glove” Fascism Continues
Sometimes we get the feeling the ruling elites are investing the laws they enact with a kind of impertinent, slap-in-your-face black humor. How else to explain the Orwellian names given to the liberty-crushing laws that have been put in place since the “war on terror” started?
The latest example is the misnamed “Freedom Act”, the purpose of which appears to be to make legal what was hitherto plainly illegal – inter alia whole-sale spying by the government on the citizenry. The legislation has been sold to the serfs as absolutely necessary to “prevent terror attacks”. As we have previously pointed out, the average US citizen is statistically far more likely to die from drowning in a bathtub or simply by falling from a chair rather than from a terror attack. No special laws have been proposed yet to save us from the evil of bathtubs and chairs, in spite of the danger evidently emanating from these deadly household furnishings.
Many people indeed begin to watch what they are saying once they are aware of being under constant surveillance. As we have previously argued, this undermines an important pillar of civilization.
Cartoon via Terrence Nowicki
Apart from the vanishingly small statistical likelihood of actually being harmed by terrorists, it is noteworthy that such laws – the true purpose of which is highly unlikely to be congruent with their stated purpose – are enacted even while the government engages in activities that are bound to worsen these statistics in the future. The so-called “war on terror” so far actually seems to be similarly successful as the “war on poverty” and the “war on drugs”. In fact, it appears to be ranking quite high on the list of the biggest government boondoggles.
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