U.S. Dollar: No Upside to Deceit and Betrayal
Les Lafave
2009-12-14 17:00
Exclusive to STR
Through decades of economic turmoil, there's one thing we've been able to rely on--when the U.S. dollar weakens, an endless herd of analysts start mooing the same refrain: 'A falling dollar is actually good. A falling dollar has an upside. A falling dollar helps American business to compete and export.'
The moos often accompany self-satisfied expressions of self-perceived...
Death Squads and Taxes: Health Care Bogies Follow Noble Tradition
Les Lafave
2009-09-07 16:00
Exclusive to STR
There's two methods to separate scare tactics from scariness (unless there's three or more methods and I haven't thought of some of them yet).
First there's the reactive bias method: whatever side I'm on has real fear (or if we don't want to seem like wimps--concerns). The other side has scare tactics. The advantage of the reactive bias method is it works no matter which side...
Universal Health Care: A Near Death Experience for Innovation
Les Lafave
2009-07-27 16:00
Exclusive to STR
If economies of scale and a government system to compete with the private system are effective price reducing mechanisms, shouldn't we have a government restaurant system to drive the cost of a McDonald's hamburger to 20 cents? Surely we could squeeze a few billion out of these fat restaurant middlemen who stand between us and our food--even from advertising budgets alone. And...
Waste and Corruption Out of Thin Air
Les Lafave
2009-06-22 16:00
Exclusive to STR
June 23, 2009
If government proposed a 'stimulus' program to give each American $50 million, we'd immediately think of inflation. At that scale, the proposal would meet its deserved ridicule.
Carbon in the Monetary Unit: Alternatives to Fiat Currency
Les Lafave
2009-05-18 16:00
Exclusive to STR
May 19, 2009
Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain--all of these mainstream presidential candidates used the 'put a man on the moon' comparison. The logic is that we put a man on the moon, therefore we can solve X, where X = something that inspires (and/or annoys) voters.
However, the campaigns didn't fully explore the fun side of the comparison. Since there are no...
Carbon in the Monetary Unit: Alternatives to Fiat Currency
Les Lafave
2009-03-29 16:00
Exclusive to STR
March 30, 2009
In an earlier piece, 'An Energy and Carbon Monetary Unit,' I wondered if there might be a happy medium (so to speak) between the bubbly excesses of fiat currency and a perhaps distant but disturbing problem of interest payments under a gold standard.
Energy money can be considered on its own, but I'd like to introduce a 'carbon' credit sub-plot, on the theory that...
Bernanke Moves the Sun-Dried Fish (Fun With Austrian-Style Crusoe Economics)
Les Lafave
2009-02-22 17:00
Exclusive to STR
February 23, 2009
In this adventure of Robinson Crusoe, the writer is so bitter that he takes it out on innocent characters in his own imagination, meanly depriving Crusoe of tools, supplies and opportunity.
Seven hundredths of a second after Crusoe thinks, 'I wonder if I could rescue some supplies from the ship?', it sinks almost instantaneously with a perverse Champagne cork...
Where Does Speculation Come From?
Les Lafave
2009-01-19 17:00
Exclusive to STR
January 20, 2009
Speculation, as we know, comes about when bridge trolls get hold of refined sugar. The rush of the abrupt shift from their normal grumpy diet of bone marrow and gruel causes the trolls to dance out from under their bridges in a miasma of invisible gaseous trollulose, which makes the human world go mad. Florida real estate soon follows.
Environmental Banking
Les Lafave
2008-12-04 17:00
Exclusive to STR
December 5, 2008
When someone runs for office under a promise of fiscal reform, the office seeker may try to grab some press by throwing out big budget cut numbers.
Once the numbers make a big splash, the cuts may turn out to be in the category of 'waste, fraud, and abuse,' whereupon everybody rolls their eyes. We've heard this one before.
We Will End the Fed?
Les Lafave
2008-11-24 17:00
Exclusive to STR
November 25, 2008
I returned from the 'End the Fed' rally at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta , and zapped on the news to hear the tag end of a story on enormous nationwide protests (about Prop 8).
If 30-word columns ever got published, it'd be tempting to leave it there, with the quick ironic reflection of an obvious key question-- just how memetically challenging is the...
Globalization: Spreading the Wealth (of Mistakes)
Les Lafave
2008-11-13 17:00
Exclusive to STR
November 14, 2008
What would the U.S. be doing now if the rest of the world wasn't infected by our credit collapse?
Probably a good imitation of an old fashioned emerging market collapse, which is a good imitation of a fire in an over-crowded roller skating arena, just after the concession has spilled a vat of popcorn machine butter in front of the only unblocked exit.
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