Several months ago I detailed the corrupt foundations underlying the chaebol’s in Korea, it seems that Samsung (the grand daddy of them all) is being accused of: “mastermind[ing] a campaign to raise slush funds to pay prosecutors, judges and lawmakers and influence a high-profile court case.” And even if they are found innocent of these crimes, these conglomerates are all guilty of living at the expense of taxpayers (e.g., subsidies, artificially l
The crime of the century: Slugger Barry Bonds might have lied to a federal grand jury! For this he faces up to 30 years in prison. Sounds like he may get off easy since we simply cannot have people obstructing the valuable functions of government. Chaos would surely follow. 30 years isn’t enough.
Peter Eavis has an interesting piece on Fannie Mae and the way it changed how it discloses its bad loans. Fannie’s loss ratio appears to be escalating while Fannie’s management is spraying Chanel No. 5 on a rotted carcass. Fannie, with $40 billion of capital, is exposed to $74 billion on subprime loans and $196 billion in Alt-A loans.
See more on Fannie Mae here.
Reflection — what’s the point of it? Well, it works. But trying to get an economist to do it is like trying to get a child to check his figures — or a bad employee to check his work. A kid thinks, checking my figures just means doing my figures again, so why do that? A bad employee thinks checking his plumbing set-up or his electrical system just means more work. But if a person checks through his figures, and reflects on the correct procedures and answers, he can catch and make right a mistake.
Woodrow Wilson’s speech on postwar reconversion, As printed in American Affairs, V7, n 4.
From the Message of President Woodrow Wilson to the Congress on Dec. 2, 1918
THE devouring state has lost a gadfly. The political masquerade will miss one who stood always on the curbstone casting derision and mockery upon it, and felt an urchin’s delight when a mummer touched his mask with an embarrassed gesture to make sure it had not slipped. And the few who love freedom, knowing what it is they love, are fewer by one.From American Affairs, Volume VII, Number 4.
The ideal of conscious control of social phenomena has made its greatest influence felt in the economic field. The present popularity of “economic planning” is directly traceable to the prevalence of the scientistic ideas we have been discussing. As in this field the scientistic ideals manifest themselves in the particular forms which they take in the hands of the applied scientist and especially the engineer, it will be convenient to combine the discussion of this influence with some examination of the characteristic ideals of the engineers.
Professor Roger Garrison is a leader in the field of Austrian macroeconomics, and has had a burning passion his whole career to present Austrian business cycle theory in terms that mainstream economists can understand and identify. This book represents the culmination of his efforts in that regard.
