Independence Day Hootenanny

Posted on July 4, 2014 by MN Gordon

Uncompromising independence, rugged individualism, and unbounded personal freedom were once essential to the American character.  According to popular American folklore, they still are.  We have some reservations.

In the year 2014, the ideas that roused America’s War of Independence are, alas, just ideas. Limited government and individual liberty were long ago squandered for big government.  Similarly, personal freedoms were turned over for safety nets and collectivism.

Was there ever a time when you could surf the web without the NSA ogling your every keystroke?  Perhaps there was a brief moment during the twilight of the last millennium.  We don’t know.

But we do know that gone are the days when you could earn a living without the IRS making a federal case out of it.  So, too, gone are the days when you could board an airplane without some TSA boob squeezer touching your most private parts.  Nearly all has been lost. Continue reading →

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Janet Yellen’s Unwise and Inhumane Policies

Posted on July 1, 2014 by MN Gordon

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen says the 0.4 percent May CPI increase is noise.  Perhaps she is right and it is noise.  But just what type of noise is it?

Is it the type of noise to ignore…like a street vagrant’s mutterings of gibberish?  Or is it the type of noise, like a fire alarm, telling us to get out because our home is about to go up in smoke?  The difference is stark.

Though Yellen didn’t elaborate, we assume she means the CPI noise is something to ignore.  That price inflation isn’t a real concern.  Here at the Economic Prism we think otherwise.

Regardless of whether it shows up in the CPI, the price of just about everything that’s needed to live is going up.  In fact, according to MarketWatch, the price of health-care, gas, housing, pork, beef, chicken, orange juice, milk, and coffee, are all going up.  Who cares if you can get a really good laptop for $500 when pork prices have risen over 50 percent in the past year and beef prices are up 74 percent since 2009? Continue reading →

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I Owe My Soul

Posted on June 27, 2014 by MN Gordon

I Owe My Soul
By Jeff Thomas, International Man

In 1946, an American singer, Merle Travis, recorded a song called “Sixteen Tons.”  The song told the story of a poor coal miner in Kentucky, who lived in a small coal mining town.  The town’s economy revolved entirely around the mine.

The mining company owned a “company store,” which had a monopoly on the sale of provisions.  It charged rates that were designed to use up the weekly paycheque of the miner, so that the miner, in effect, was a slave to the mining company.  As the song states…

You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don’t you call me ‘cause I can’t go
I owe my soul to the company store Continue reading →

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The Paradox of Fed Credit

Posted on June 24, 2014 by MN Gordon

Last Tuesday the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the Consumer Price Index increased 0.4 percent in May and 2.1 percent over the last 12 months.  That means if you didn’t get a 2 percent raise this year you’re doing worse – not better – than last year.  But not to worry…

The following day, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellon dismissed the CPI report…calling the data “noisy.”  Obviously, she missed the announcement from In-N-Out – the iconic California hamburger stand – that they’re raising prices because of the soaring cost of dairy and beef.  Is this noise too?

Perhaps in Yellon’s world – a place where the polar vortex is the root cause of lethargic GDP – it is.  For the rising cost of dairy and beef is due to the epic California drought.  Somehow, according to the top Fed head, these price hikes are all just noise.

We don’t quite comprehend how the Fed figures what’s noise or not.  In our world, higher prices are higher prices.  As for the California drought, we took a drive through ground zero on Sunday. Continue reading →

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