Walter Block on politics and hypocrisy

Most conservatives (and left liberals too) hate the government, except when it is bombing innocents abroad. Most western socialist intellectuals decry income inequality, as they drive their Mercedes, vacation abroad and swill down expensive wines. And then there are the environmental watermelons (red on the inside, green on the outside) who whine about the plight of the planet while jetting from one conference to another, which they should not do, if their own analysis of the problem is correct.

~ Walter Block, "You Are a Rotten Kid," LewRockwell.com, February 27, 2010

Alan Greenspan on home prices and the economy (2010)

I don’t think [home prices will] decline from here. In other words, they seem to be bottoming out.

The recession is over.

~ Alan Greenspan, interview with Meet the Press, February 7, 2010

Milton Friedman on Austrian business cycle theory

The Hayek-Mises explanation of the business cycle is contradicted by the evidence. It is, I believe, false.

~ Milton Friedman, "The Monetary Studies of the National Bureau, 44th Annual Report," The Optimal Quantity of Money and Other Essays, Chicago: Aldine, pp. 261–284

Matthew Lynn on Keynesian stimulus and the U.K. economy

The U.K. has been in Keynes overdrive for the past 18 months. The budget deficit is already more than 12 percent of gross domestic product, on a par with Greece. And while the Greeks are cutting spending, the British deficit is widening. Figures for January showed another fiscal blowout. At the same time, interest rates have been slashed to 0.5 percent. And the pound has slumped in value, which is supposed to boost demand for British goods, and help close the trade gap.

Just about everything possible has been done to encourage consumption. The results have been miserable.

Retail sales excluding gasoline in January fell 1.2 percent from the previous month, twice as much as economists forecast. The number of people receiving unemployment benefits jumped to 1.64 million in January, the highest level since April 1997. The yield on U.K. government debt is now higher than on Spanish or Italian bonds, a sure sign that investors are losing faith in the country’s ability to pay its debts. The inflation rate has also accelerated to 3.5 percent.

In reality, Britain has the worst of all possible worlds: a stagnant economy, a crippling budget deficit and rising prices.

~ Matthew Lynn, "Deathbed of Keynesian Economics Will Be in U.K.," Bloomberg.com, February 23, 2010

Barack Obama on the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

One year later, it is largely thanks to the recovery act that a second depression is no longer a possibility.

There has never been a program of this scale, moved at this speed, that has been enacted as effectively and as transparently as the Recovery Act.

~ President Barack Obama, "Obama says stimulus bill saved troubled economy," Associated Press, February 17, 2010

George Soros: "the ultimate asset bubble is gold"

When interest rates are are low, we have conditions for asset bubbles to develop, and they are developing at the moment. The ultimate asset bubble is gold. 

~ George Soros,  "Soros Warns Gold May Be the Next Bubble to Burst", Bloomberg, January 28, 2010

Gary D. Barnett on terrorism

The point I’m attempting to make is that terrorism is terrorism regardless of the players involved. I think this fact is overlooked by the masses who simply bury their heads in the sand in order to escape the hard truth. When the general populations, in this case much of the population in America, accept barbarous torture, rendition, suspension or elimination of common rights, military tribunals, rape and murder, then they have become part of the problem, not the solution. Support of any government that participates in this kind of behavior is indicative of a blind society, and one that has lost its soul. This kind of hypocrisy is the epitome of immorality, and if continued can only lead straight to hell!

~ Gary D. Barnett, "Terrorism Is Terrorism: An American Contradiction in Terms," LewRockwell.com, February 13, 2010