Context<blockquote>
'..At its heart it is a crisis of the fractionally reserved banking system..''..a truly stable financial and monetary system..' (
Banking Reform)</blockquote>
'Alan Blinder, the man who up until 1989 was an admirer of Soviet central planning and nowadays poisons young minds at that hotbed of US Keynesianism, Princeton..'<blockquote>'No matter how often and how thoroughly inflationist doctrines have been refuted by economic theory, or how many times their implementation in practice has resulted in large-scale economic misery, they never seem to lack for support. The main supporters these days are the pro-statism establishment intellectuals which seem to populate both mainstream media and academe in staggering abundance. You might say there's an inflation of inflation-loving intellectuals.
Naturally, their doctrines are as faulty today as they have been since the times when Roman emperors debased their coins, but that doesn't keep them from recommending the same hoary nonsense all over again. Worst of all, their opinions coincide with those of modern-day policymakers, in fact they serve as a fig leaf and provide propaganda support for their policies.
..
The Wall Street Journal opens its editorial pages to a wide swathe of opinions, and although it is slightly more inclined to give free market supporters a say than certain other publications, it occasionally brings us Alan Blinder, the man who up until 1989 was an admirer of Soviet central planning and nowadays poisons young minds at that hotbed of US Keynesianism, Princeton. The place has brought forth such luminaries as e.g. the current Fed chairman and Paul '
Alien Invasion' Krugman.'
- Acting Man,
Establishment Quacks Call For More Money Printing, October 3rd, 201</blockquote>
'..that bank accounting is a complete sham and bears no relationship to what one would consider conservative accounting practices..'<blockquote>'What we found far more interesting than this was the tacit admission by Dexia, SocGen and BNP that they have 'not valued their Greek assets correctly on their books'. The fact as such is not news to us (we have been tirelessly pointing out over the past year that bank accounting is a complete sham and bears no relationship to what one would consider conservative accounting practices). What is new is only that there is now a
public admission of this fact – in the context of the banks concerned resisting the necessary write-downs!'
- Acting Man,
The Post Mortem of ‘Turnaround Tuesday’, October 5th, 2011</blockquote>
'..Ireland .. on the verge of succeeding with its program..'<blockquote>'It has now turned out that Greece will once again miss the deficit target imposed by the bailout lenders, as its economy continues to circle the drain, contracting much faster than originally anticipated. This should be no surprise, as the Greek government has gone about its austerity plans in the worst manner possible. The canard that 'austerity just doesn't work' is of course utter nonsense. If that were true, then Ireland would not be on the verge of succeeding with its program. The problem is that the PASOK-led Greek government is scared to tackle the bloated public sector, as that is where its support base is entrenched. At the same time, it has been dragging its feet over privatization plans for exactly the same reason. The radical leftist unions that populate the firms that should be privatized stand in the way: no-one wants to surrender his 'free lunch' and there were, and presumably still are, plenty of free lunches in Greece (just as a reminder, there is a state-owned hospital in Athens that employs 45 gardeners – alas, it has no garden. This example describes better than any other what is wrong with Greece).'
- Acting Man,
Greece Once Again Misses Its Deficit Target, October 4th, 2011</blockquote>