Shrink the State. End the Fed. Balance the budget. Make a profit. Leave an inheritance.
Gary North
Written by Gary North on November 29, 2011
The OECD is an international organization: the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. It is not given to wild predictions. Recently, it issued a report that said this: If everything came to a head, with governments and banking systems under extreme pressure in some or all of the vulnerable countries, the political fall-out would be […]
Continue reading →Written by Gary North on November 28, 2011
We know about the game of chicken. Teenage boys in hot rods drive toward each other to see who will swerve first: “Chicken!” It is happening in Europe. There is going to be a crash. That crash will lead to an explosion, which will be felt in the USA. The credit markets are intertwined. This […]
Continue reading →Written by Gary North on November 21, 2011
The modern bank run is not where depositors line up to pull their meager funds out. It is when hedge funds and large investment funds refuse to roll over credit lines to banks. That takes place behind closed doors. In 2012, European banks must refinance $660 billion of loans. The banks are in hock to […]
Continue reading →Written by Gary North on November 18, 2011
North’s law of bureaucracy is simple to state: “Eventually, some bureaucrat will follow the rules exactly and do something incomparably silly.” A fine example of this law is a regulation from the European Union’s bureaucrats that sellers of bottled water are not allowed to claim that their products, made of 100% water, reduce dehydration. De-hydration […]
Continue reading →Written by Gary North on November 18, 2011
The only institution with enough money to bail out the PIIGS is the European Central Bank. The threat of a domino effect is increasing. By treaty, the ECB is not allowed to buy the debt of governments. It gets around this by lending to banks that buy government debt. But the bankers are beginning to […]
Continue reading →Written by Gary North on November 16, 2011
There is a bank run going on. The targets are Italian banks. Rich people are selling Italian bonds and buying other assets. Italy’s debt is huge. Its bonds constitute a quarter of bonds held by European banks. Only Germany has issued more bonds — just barely. Italy has issued more bonds than France. You can […]
Continue reading →Written by Gary North on November 16, 2011
We have read about Greece. It is obviously gong to default on its loans. The Eurocrats are pouring hundreds of billions down a rat hole to provide the Greek government with money to pay interest on its huge debt. They will pour lots more. Italy is heading in the same direction. Its bond prices are […]
Continue reading →Written by Gary North on November 15, 2011
If you think of the European debt crisis in terms of taverns (banks), drunks (governments), and a distillery (the European Central Bank), you will begin to understand the reasons why it is getting worse. The governments are like drunks who have run up large tabs as the local tavern. Some drunks have huge tabs: the […]
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