TEA PARTY ECONOMIST

The TEA PARTY ECONOMIST Ron Paul's original staff economist, Dr. Gary North! Friday, March 22, 2013

“The Banking Crisis Is Over,” Say European Bureaucrats. Ho, Ho, Ho. Bureaucrats are paid well to lie. They are paid well to tell the voters not to worry, that everything is fine. This lets politicians say the same. The banks in Cyprus remain closed. There is a $130 limit on daily withdrawals of currency out of an ATM. Capital controls keep depositors from wiring euros outside [...] READ MORE Sequestration Pain: Biden Loses $13,200 Weekly Free Flight Home (100 Miles) Talk about unintended consequences! Vice President Biden will lose his weekly flight to and from home: 100 miles each way. He normally flies on Air Force 2, a 727 jetliner that is earmarked as his very own for as long as he is the Vice President. The estimate is that this costs $13,200, round-trip. I [...] READ MORE Cyprus Banks Are Roach Motels. Money Goes In. It Doesn’t Come Out. There will be a $13 billion bailout supplied by the European Union. Europe’s voters will not get to vote on this. The unnamed “Euro Group” of national finance ministers have agreed to the bailout. It answers to no one. The EU parliament has nothing to say about this. Banks on Cyprus will remain closed. Depositors [...] READ MORE The Cypriot Parliament Reversed the Bankers’ Coup When the officially unnamed EuroGroup of eurozone finance ministers cooked up a deal where all depositors in Cyprus would be taxed to bail out the nation’s banking system as a condition for the $13 billion bailout, they adopted a new rule for banking: depositors are lenders to the banks. Previously, depositors had first claim on [...] READ MORE Here Come the Salt Police! Medical researchers at Harvard University have released a report which says that Americans eat too much salt. This is a follow-up report on an earlier report by the same team, authored by the same man with the unpronounceable name, which concluded that Americans eat too much sugar. The author of the report, predictably, called for [...] READ MORE Feinstein Gun Control Bill Will Shoot Down Senate Democrats’ Careers Diane Feinstein is a prominent advocate of gun control. She has introduced a bill to outlaw certain so-called assault rifles. I have been saying that the bill was dead on arrival. But it may have some very good side effects. It may make several of her Democrat colleagues’ campaigns for 2014 dead on arrival. If [...] READ MORE Gold and Silver Coins in Arizona May Become Legal Tender Arizona is likely to become the second state after Utah to pass a law specifying that gold and silver coins will be regarded as legal tender inside the borders of the state. Other states have similar legislation pending, but Arizona is the most likely state to see this legislation become law. I don’t think this [...] READ MORE Housing: Addicted to Fiat Money It is now over five years since the recession began. We are told that the housing recovery is strong. Then why is the best-performing new home building stock losing money? KB Homes lost $12 ½ million from December through February of this year. This was down from a loss of $46 million during the same [...] READ MORE I Speak Today . . . Live, Online, at No Charge Every year, the Mises Institute sponsors the Austrian Economics Research Conference. It broadcasts the main speeches online for free. I will be delivering my speech at 5:30 p.m., Eastern Daylight Time. It’s on this topic: “How Come We’re So Rich?” The full details of the conference are here: http://mises.org/events/167 READ MORE Bernanke Will Bail in February Bernanke is hinting that he may not accept another term as Chairman of the Board of Governors. My prediction: he will decline the nomination. Why? Because his policies have lit the fuse on the dynamite of mass inflation. The FED cannot sell the $2 trillion in government debt that it bought. The monetary base sits [...] READ MORE