Blog

July 21, 2008 – I lived in South East Asia for most of the 1970’s, working in the branch offices there for one of the large New York City banks. I was a ‘line’ officer. This meant that I was not in the back-office, but instead, I dealt with the bank’s customers, which principally wereRead more

July 7, 2009 – The Commodity Research Bureau Continuing Commodity Index tracks the price of seventeen commodities. It made a new record this past week. It also surpassed 600 for the first time, ending the week at 611.51. So it is clear that the bull market in commodities is alive and well. But these newRead more

June 23, 2008 – As the inventor of digital gold currency (DGC), I am compelled to respond to the spate of recent articles that focused upon the dark-side of my invention. The initial article appeared last month in Canada’s Globe & Mail, which in turn sparked a mini-frenzy on the Internet. Now that this frenzyRead more

June 1, 2008 – In the early 1980s I began researching and experimenting to find a reliable and trustworthy guide to evaluate the precious metals. I came up with a working model in mid-1980s, which I call the Fear Index. It does two things. First, it clearly illustrates gold’s relative valuation in terms of aRead more

May 26, 2008 – What a week this has been! As the oil price soared and gasoline prices at the pump touched $4 per gallon, the search for scapegoats picked up momentum. Congress led the parade of misguided crazies. The House of Representatives says sky-high oil prices are OPEC’s fault. It overwhelmingly passed a billRead more

May 26, 2008 – Probably almost everyone is familiar with the hyperinflationary episode that engulfed Germany after the First World War. That nation’s economy was crippled by monetary problems that resulted in dreadful personal hardships, even though up to that time Germany had achieved one of the highest living standards in the world. The newlyRead more

May 12, 2008 – The Bush administration spin artists were out in force on May 8th. With the burst of activity that day, one can only assume that word came down from higher up to ‘make news’. And that they did, though “spin” would be a more accurate description of their comments than “news”, givenRead more

April 28,2008 – There have been numerous media reports about food shortages around the globe and the resulting riots caused by empty store shelves. Usually missing from these reports though is the reason for the shortages. The problem is not agricultural, but rather monetary. In other words, the problem is not too few food staples,Read more

April 28, 2008 – In the last letter I quoted Murray Rothbard to help explain how the practice of keeping only fractional reserves – where a bank’s cash reserves are less than its total liabilities – makes banks “inherently unsound”. But fractional reserve banking is only one of several intractable problems that plague banks. AnotherRead more

April 7, 2008 – “Crises are endemic to financial systems.” So says The Economist in an April 3rd editorial about the present credit crisis. But are they right? Or are they just an apologist for banking interests and offer what has come to be accepted as conventional wisdom in order to deflect blame away fromRead more