How much insanity can you pack into a single paragraph? I think Thomas Friedman is a strong contender for the prize with this gem from a New York Times op-ed today (thanks to Sheldon Richman for the link):

GLD, the “gold-ETF” I’ve posted on previously, is now trading on the NYSE. But James Turk raises some questions, such as, what are you really buying when you buy GLD? {C}”People who might have otherwise bought physical gold coins or bars, but wanted the same thing with more convenience, could be misled into thinking that they are buying physical gold by investing in the shares of GLD.

The CRN has an interesting section on the Top 25 IT Executives of 2004. Some names won’t be surprising: Steve Balmer (CEO of Microsoft) and Michael Dell (Chairman of Dell).

From CSM, a fascinating story on how China’s thriving market, cheap credit, government complicity, and pent up demand conspire to create what are surely some of the most spectacular malls in the world. The one in this story is 6 million square feet, with 230 escalators and 1,000 shops. As many of these stories as I’ve read, I still find it astounding that this is after all China —as in formerly communist China—we are talking about.

Whenever a country which has had large current account deficits for a long time suffers a fall in the value of its currency in response to this imbalance, huge losses are incurred either for the creditor nation or the debtor nation. Usually it is the debtor nation which suffers as the fall in the value of their currency increases the debt burden nominated in the foreign currency.

Reprinted from The Libertarian Review for January 1980.

One sign of the increasing visibility and importance of the libertarian movement is that we are coming under increasing attack from our enemies. Last spring, for instance, we were attacked editorially in the left-liberal Catholic magazine, Commonweal; and The Nation magazine, another left-wing publication, devoted a two-part article criticizing the growing influence of libertarian ideas, in particular as presented in Inquiry magazine.

Hedge Fund Manager William Fleckenstein has posted the transcript of his recent speech, Is the Fed a Short Sale?. The article is a review of Greenspan’s career as a central banker, showing his total genius for making incorrect forecasts, contradicting himself, and reversing field, and indulging in a form of historical revisionism with respect to his own past statements and policies.

Mention any topic touching on international trade and you are sure to provoke multiple discussions, ranging from child labor to parity in workplace safety, and including catchy terms like “dumping,” “outsourcing,” and “brain drain.”  It seems as if many of our best and brightest scholars are devoting their precious talents to enumerating all of the horrible ills that will beset humanity if we do not act immediately to combat each and every development in the global economy.