It so happens that the Austrian Scholars Conference this year takes place in the midst of one of the most spectacular attempts to reflate the economy ever undertaken in American history. Ben Bernanke might as well be bombing Wall Street with silos full of cash.
What we see here is different in degree but not in kind to what has been attempted many times in American history, and also around the world.
The headlines are so packed with hilarious things that it’s hard not to comment, particularly on this Ferraro/race thing. She has caused a firestorm with her comments on Obama: “If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman of any color, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.”
Pyramid scams collapse when they run out of enough new “investors” to pay earlier promises. Some use this fact to deny that Social Security is really a massive redistribution scheme, since it has lasted over 70 years.
It’s not enough that New York Governor Eliot Spitzer jailed Martha Stewart, banned trans fats in New York, harassed business within an inch of its life, and grafted onto just about every other left-fascist cause provided it was politically correct and increased his personal power.
According to my reckoning, between the close of business Thursday and Tuesday, the Fed’s extra $352 billion in liquidity enhancing measures bought a 1.3% increase in the S&P500. Since we need a 19.4% rally to regain October’s Suckers’ High at 1576, we might only need another $4.8 trillion in new measures to do the trick! Neatly, that would equate to the Fed buying out the outstanding total of Agency/GSE-backed mortgage pools, with enough room to nationalize Freddie and Fannie at current market value, into the bargain. Over to you Ben...
A quick update to my SWF piece today.
