Our Elective Monarchy

One of the myths Americans live by is that they rejected monarchy when the British left involuntarily in the late 18th century. Had a Martian been visiting the United States recently, he never would have believed it. Witnessing the state funeral and worshipful wall-to-wall cable-television coverage, our Martian would have sworn that Ronald Reagan had been the king of America. The visitor wouldn’t have been far off the mark. The Washington Post called it “a funeral fit for a king.”

The Economist on inflation

The Economist certainly do not have a Austrian outlook on monetary issues, as they detest deflation just as much as other non-Austrians , but their latest article about the extraordinarily loose monetary policies of the United States, and to a lesser extent also other western countries is quite interesting.

The Truth is in the Exchange Rate

From Antiwar.com comes a link to this fascinating story from the Asia Times: “Although many countries do not trade the Iraqi currency, Western traders have been doing so through websites. When trading began last October, a dollar bought 420. Now it buys 555 — a 32% drop. The currency has declined 11% against the dollar in the past five weeks alone, and this while the dollar itself has fallen. In downtown Baghdad, though, the exchange rate is 1,400 to the dollar.”

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