Dollars While The Idiots

New York Times writer, Steven M. Davidoff, recently dubbed the Federal Reserve, “the most successful hedge fund around.” After reading the article, we concluded that Mr. Davidoff is the most creative financial writer around. As such, Mr. Davidoff may be the perfect apologist for today’s dysfunctional monetary “system.” Certainly, he possesses the cerebral alacrity to dodge whatever cold, hard facts may be standing in the way of a good story. “I call the Fed a hedge fund,” Davidoff cheerily explains, “because it is operating like one, leveraging its balance sheet to earn huge profits.” We might have been able to embrace Davidoff’s analysis were it not for one nettlesome fact: the Fed is absolutely nothing like a hedge fund. The Fed is, instead, more like a crime syndicate — a racketeer ...

“Whatever is true in one form of words, is true in every other form of words, which conveys the same meaning.” – John Stewart Mill Few and confused are the pundits lauding the vitality of the American economy. Worse still, many and confused are those who offer solutions. More often than not, situations brought about by the wasteful ineptitude of the state are met with calls for more state involvement, as if a double dose of poison will somehow dilute the effects of its initial involvement. We see this everywhere today, as central banks shackle their present and future citizens with more debt in order to treat a problem caused by just that: too much debt. We offered a broad-brush overview of the nation’s general trajectory in the Weekend Edition: “According to the official figures, the ...