http://www.FreeMarketNews.com FreeMarketNews.com - FMNN itself is an independent media solution, an Internet-grown, free-market alternative to mainstream media complexes. en-us Sat, 05 Jul 2008 01:15:00 EST http://www.Freemarketnews.com/WorldNews.asp?nid=58442 The news about the World Trade Center's latest delays and cost overruns is neither surprising nor unexpected. Sat, 5 Jul 2008 10:39:00 EST http://www.Freemarketnews.com/WorldNews.asp?nid=58441 I have, for the past 35 years, expressed my grave concern for the future of America. The course we have taken over the past century has threatened our liberties, security and prosperity. Sat, 5 Jul 2008 10:36:00 EST http://www.Freemarketnews.com/WorldNews.asp?nid=58440 FBI Agents could soon be allowed to investigate Americans without any evidence of wrongdoing, according to the Justice Department. Sat, 5 Jul 2008 10:35:00 EST http://www.Freemarketnews.com/WorldNews.asp?nid=58439 The Federal Reserve's use of core inflation measures is harming its credibility, the new president of the St. Louis Fed wrote in an editorial released on Thursday. Sat, 5 Jul 2008 10:32:00 EST http://www.Freemarketnews.com/WorldNews.asp?nid=58438 Oil at $135? That was just the opening skirmish in the "peak oil" wars. The latest smart money? $200 oil in 2010, with gasoline at $7 a gallon. Sat, 5 Jul 2008 10:31:00 EST http://www.Freemarketnews.com/WorldNews.asp?nid=58437 Officials investigating the salmonella outbreak now are looking at jalapeņo peppers as a leading suspect for spreading the bacteria that has sickened hundreds across the U.S. Sat, 5 Jul 2008 10:18:00 EST http://www.Freemarketnews.com/WorldNews.asp?nid=58436 Taiwan media and business people on Saturday welcomed the new weekend charter flights carrying mainland tourists as good news for ties across the Taiwan Strait and for the economy. Sat, 5 Jul 2008 10:14:00 EST http://www.Freemarketnews.com/WorldNews.asp?nid=58435 Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe said that he would only negotiate if it acknowledges that he is the duly elected head of state - something the opposition has already said it will not do. Sat, 5 Jul 2008 10:13:00 EST http://www.Freemarketnews.com/WorldNews.asp?nid=58434 People lined up to be sworn in as new U.S. citizens were unwitting witnesses Friday to a constitutional lesson at President Bush's expense on the grounds of Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. Sat, 5 Jul 2008 08:31:00 EST http://www.Freemarketnews.com/WorldNews.asp?nid=58433 A U.S. judge's ordered Google Inc. to turn over YouTube user data to Viacom Inc. Sat, 5 Jul 2008 08:29:00 EST http://www.Freemarketnews.com/Analysis/246/9679/?wid=246&nid=9679 It has become apparent to me that investors who continue to place money in the U.S. Treasury market don't have any idea how to protect themselves from inflation or how to achieve a real return on their investments. Even though inflation is running at a multi-decade high (according to official government numbers), we find that these fixed income investors were willing to send the yield on the 10 year note to an historical low of 3.38% on March 19th of this year. As amazing as that sounds in a world of 4+% "official" inflation rates, it was nothing compared to what happened just last month. Wed, 2 Jul 2008 01:28:00 EST http://www.Freemarketnews.com/Analysis/25/9678/?wid=25&nid=9678 The basic error underlying the Quantity Theory of Money (QTM) is the notion that central banks can command their newly created money to flow to the commodity market, or any other market of their choice. This is the pipe-dream of the Sorcerer's Apprentice. In reality, once the newly created money is off the premises it is no longer under central bank control. It has become a plaything in the hands of speculators. Far from being guided by the wishful thinking of central bankers, speculators follow their own agenda. They are motivated by profit potential as they see it emerge in various markets. It is true that, on occasion, the commodity market is their preferred playground and mischief to prices is the result. But it could just as well be the stock, bond, or real estate market. It is also true that there is a "trickle-down" effect on the commodity market as the newly created money is spent again and again by subsequent recipients who are not speculators. But by the time money trickles down to the commodity market damage has already been done elsewhere. Whether peddled under the name "monetarism" or "neoclassical economics", the QTM is utterly inapplicable to the modern economy and cannot explain changes in the price level. The linear relationship between the stock of money and the level of commodity prices that may have held in more primitive societies up to medieval times has been replaced by a highly non-linear one modulated by speculation. Wed, 2 Jul 2008 01:26:00 EST http://www.Freemarketnews.com/Analysis/160/9677/?wid=160&nid=9677 The latest story to get scientists emailing furiously among each other was the one in the Telegraph, a British newspaper, that all the ice around the North Pole would melt away this summer. This story has surfaced before, most notably in The New York Times, and clearly journalists should not be allowed to grapple with the extraordinary notion that, in the SUMMER, the ice at the top of the world might actually melt a bit because the northern hemisphere gets-what's the word---oh yes, WARMER! These highly complex concepts such as "warm" in the summer and "cold" in the winter just completely overwhelm the ability of journalists to cope with any sign of climate change. Wed, 2 Jul 2008 01:21:00 EST http://www.Freemarketnews.com/Analysis/28/9675/?wid=28&nid=9675 Bloomberg reports that Americans continue to fall further and further behind on their mortgage payments. Unemployment is rising. And now, carpenters, plumbers and even granite countertop installers are getting jobs with the banks. They're finding work maintaining foreclosed houses. Today, we're still waiting for a bounce in the stock market, following last week's big drop. But there was little change in the Dow. Nor was there any change in the oil market. The price per barrel stayed right where we left it last week - at $140. No change in the dollar either - at $1.57 per euro. And gold? It stayed where it was too - at $927 per ounce. Wed, 2 Jul 2008 01:05:00 EST http://www.Freemarketnews.com/Analysis/246/9674/?wid=246&nid=9674 Gold had me worried in the spring as a large and powerful head and shoulders top formed in the weekly basis chart. Had this formation broken its neckline, I would be looking for a pullback in gold to the apex of the giant triangle it formed in 2006-07, which is $670. But on Thursday and Friday, it moved aggressively in the opposite direction and broke its downtrend line. A head and shoulders deserves respect, even when it does not complete. How does one choose between these two signals, one bearish, one bullish. The answer is that there is a larger picture. Just as most individual stocks move with the general market, so gold reflects these larger forces, which manifest themselves in the commodity pendulum. Tue, 1 Jul 2008 11:15:00 EST http://www.Freemarketnews.com/Analysis/160/9673/?wid=160&nid=9673 A lot of us are going to figuratively hold our noses and vote for John McCain because the notion of Barack Obama as President is too awful to contemplate, but if you go to JohnMcCain.com, you will find some of the worst Green babble posted on his "Issues" page and bodes ill for ridding us of a lot of bad science and worse "solutions" to solve so-called environmental problems that do not even exist. Tue, 1 Jul 2008 11:14:00 EST http://www.Freemarketnews.com/Analysis/102/9672/?wid=102&nid=9672 Many Junior Mogambo Rangers (JMRs) were correctly upset at the Washington Post story that bore the headline "Paulson To Urge New Fed Powers". The poop is (and you will soon see why I use that particular noun) that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is calling "for the Federal Reserve to be given new, explicit powers to intervene in the workings of Wall Street firms." To show you what an unimaginative dork Mr. Paulson is (which is almost the same thing I have been saying for years), give The Mogambo "new, explicit powers to intervene in the workings of Wall Street firms, the Federal Reserve, Congress and the Supreme Court, and let me go stomping in there anytime I want, wielding a baseball bat in my Mighty Mogambo Fist OF Vengeance (MMFOV) and start imparting some monetary and Constitutional sense to those morons with (as the saying goes) a whack to remember it by, making them do anything I say, whether they like it or not! And extend my powers to total dominion over cheerleaders, too!" Tue, 1 Jul 2008 11:11:00 EST http://www.Freemarketnews.com/Analysis/28/9671/?wid=28&nid=9671 What not to do with your money now... It has been the worst June in 77 years, says Bloomberg. In June of 1930, the Dow lost 18%. So far, it is down 9.4% this month. Since this is the last day of the month, we presume that is where it will stay. The rest of the news is not much better. Oil closed over $140 a barrel on Friday. OPEC's president says it could go to $170 by the end of the year. And the New York Times says the number of people who can't pay their mortgages continues to grow. There were 2.6 million of them six months ago. Now, the figure has risen to 3 million. The combination of '30s-style asset deflation and '70s-style consumer price inflation has spooked investors everywhere. Tue, 1 Jul 2008 11:10:00 EST http://www.Freemarketnews.com/Analysis/246/9670/?wid=246&nid=9670 A common view of the Federal Reserve is that it is some sort of a nearly omnipotent being standing on guard of healthy economic expansion maintaining a delicate balance between growth and inflation in the way of regulating money supply and the cost of borrowing. This view may be correct, but only theoretically so. In reality, the Federal Reserve is a private, not a public, institution representing the interests of the US banks through its 12 regional branches. Therefore, the nature of the Fed is that it is a banking system insider; the Fed first and foremost defends the banking system and only secondarily represents broad economic interests as mandated by the US Congress. These two objectives are not necessarily always in harmony with each other. For example, the most profitable cycle for the banks started during the 2001 recession as a result of the Fed's super loose monetary policy eventually leading to today's disaster in the housing market. Mon, 30 Jun 2008 09:46:00 EST http://www.Freemarketnews.com/Analysis/102/9669/?wid=102&nid=9669 I don't like to quote Alan Abelson from his Up & Down Wall Street column in Barron's because (I admit) I am jealous of his talent and success. And while we are talking about me, I also admit that I am a petty and vindictive kind of creepy guy who is not very smart, but very paranoid and armed to the teeth. And I use not only this as an excuse for my rotten behavior, but also the fact that he never quotes me, either, as he has an obvious disinclination towards idiots like me, and has, in fact, apparently instructed his receptionists (even the temps!), to never put my calls through to him, and to never take a message, because I have simply lost count of the times when I tried to get through to Mr. Abelson so that I could tell him that the damnable Federal Reserve is creating so much money and credit that the resultant rise in prices is going to destroy this freaking country, like inflation in prices has destroyed every other economy in the entire history of the world when any country was so stupid, so brain-dead, so retarded and so deliberately obtuse that they inflated their money supply with a stupid fiat currency http://dailyreckoning.com/rpt/fiathistoryWP.html and the willing collusion of corrupt banks and government regulators. Mon, 30 Jun 2008 09:43:00 EST