Economy Sinks, Market Rises It would be wrong the say that the stock market’s hefty jump in recent months is the result of an outright conspiracy. No secret cabal of Templars, Freemasons, Elders of Zion or Club of Romers is behind this curious upturn. Rather, a simple confluence of interest between government agencies and the market’s own major players is what’s kicking up stock prices while the real U.S. economy sinks. There’s no question that the U.S. economy is, in fact,...

Government’s Economic Misinformation Campaign Peaks Americans are pretty used to getting bogus economic information from their government and the barons of Wall Street. But today, May 14, 2008, this misinformation campaign may well have peaked. We were informed that inflation during April was “modest,” and only increased a piddling .02 percent. How is this possible, you might ask? Or at least, you might ask that if you lived in the real world rather than Economist...

The government is sending out a one-time $130 billion gift to American taxpayers in hopes this will reanimate the U.S. economy. It’s a nice gesture but not an especially fair one. Washington should be gifting us to the tune of $150 billion a month. Every month. Consider. We’re spending $12 billion a month supporting Iraq and its people. That country’s population being 24 million (we’ll overlook the millions who have fled since we arrived), that comes out to $1 billion a month...

Not long ago, several dozen gray wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park. It was part of an Interior Department effort to keep down excess deer and elk populations, and to restore a natural predator to a habitat where it once roamed freely. In a larger sense, it was also a recognition that the natural” approach to public land management, the way it was done before elaborate human planning became the rule, is still often the best way to get things done. The question that immediately...

Rising food and energy prices are scaring a lot of people. Not the folks at the Federal Reserve, though. They have found a revolutionary mechanism to address worries generated by these price increases. By creating its own preferred inflation measure, the so-called core rate, which factors out food and energy, the Fed can claim inflation is well under control. Given that food and energy are core elements in sustaining human life, I used to be bothered by this curious approach to economic management....

In a great field of potential Democratic nominees, a field that originally included Bill Richardson, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd and John Edwards, the Democratic Party’s politically-correct activists (We have to have a woman President! We have to have a black President!), melding perfectly with a press obsessed with novelty and gotcha-ism, managed to leave us with the two least experienced, least qualified, least likely to be elected pair of survivors—Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. So be it....

Last week was filled with awful reports about the state of the U.S. economy. But the stock market went up three percent. Why? The stock market is supposed to be a barometer of the overall economy. It’s supposed to go up when economic times are good and fall when they aren’t. This barometer has never been perfect in this regard, of course. Market-specific quirks such as the recent leverage buyout craze can skew that relationship for awhile. These days, however, the schism between market...

Supposing I were to tell you that financial markets were over-regulated. That the way to ensure endless economic well-being was to lessen the government’s oversight of these markets. That these markets are in fact self-regulating, and that the risk management tools already built into them eliminate the need for growth deadening outside interference. Hearing this rap today you would immediately think about recent upheavals in world financial markets caused by under-regulation and judge the above...

How can one account for Barack Obama’s truly astonishing success in reaching for the American presidency? It isn’t his speechifying. He’s an excellent speaker, but Jesse Jackson in his time was better. It’s not his personal story, which though in many ways inspiring, can’t match the heroic realism of John McCain’s. It’s not his stands on issues that are not noticeably different from Hillary’s. Nor is it the populist edge that has creeped into his campaign...

Dear Ben, I’m not an investment bank, not a hedge fund, not any kind of major player on Wall Street. But I know that your efforts to save the economy aren’t just geared to making the big people whole, but to helping little folks, plain old Americans, such as myself. So I’m hoping you can extend to me the same kind of deals you are now daily dishing out in giant dollops to Wall Streeters. Specifically: 1. I have a lot of lousy investments I made in hopes of a financial killing that...

Gold at $1,000 an ounce. Oil at $110 a barrel. Record home foreclosures. Steeply rising inflation. Worrisome employment numbers. Personal bankruptcies surging again. Are you worried about the economy yet? Are you beginning to be very, very frightened? And if not, why not? Bad times follow good times, just as good times follow the bad. That’s a natural process. It’s what economists call the business cycle. Or if you’re of a religious bent, it’s what the Bible was referring...

The Spitzer Story (in 8 words) Spitzer Wall Street disser caught in tryst splits

If you can’t go with Kipling, you might try this Blake knock-off…. William Blakess “Tiger, Tiger’ is about a mighty force gone bad. For some reason that made me think of the current state of the U.S. dollar… William Blake On The Fall Of The U.S. Dollar Dollar, dollar, falling fast, How long can this downturn last? Can we just this slide dismiss, While the world our dollars diss? Traders of our currency, These days don’t like what they see; They look at our thirst...

George Bush Endorses John McCain Politics, ’tis often said, Doth make some strange bedfellows; Old angers and hostilities For winning sake get mellowed. And so George Bush and John McCain To no one’s great surprise, Now hug and join in hopes John wins The next election prize. The problem here for John McCain ‘Bout this unseemly flirt, Ain’t that at many times gone by The Bush team did him dirt. His problem is Bush policies, A long litany of dross; That now hang round poor...

Why isn’t there more poetry on the Op Ed and opinion pages of this country’s newspapers? The answer to this question might seem obvious. Poetry isn’t viewed by newspaper editors (nor by most American poets) as a primary medium of popular political and economic expression. It’s seen as a way to express personal feelings, and best-suited for the pages of small literary journals. Except for snippets of verse that appear when a new poet laureate is named, and perhaps a cutsie...

Food: The New Luxury Item Who thought that we would ever see A time when costs per calorie Had risen high enough so we Start thinking food’s a luxury. When prices for a hunk of cheese Could put one in a dollar squeeze When costs for milk sold by the quart Could get a parent overwrought. When bread and eggs, the basic fare And fruits and veggies, bottled beer The stuff on which we all depend Would fam’ly budgets badly rend The reason? Grain-to-ethanol Supposed to make the pump price...

If you try really hard and know where to look, you can find the major presidential candidates’ positions on important issues. But you sure won’t learn these things from what passes in this country for prime time election coverage… Election (Under)Coverage The media treats this election Like a sporting event where the need Ain’t informing the voters’ ’bout issues But simply who’s holding the lead. I know Hillary’s demographics I know that Obama speaks...