Hey, Anonymous!

Think you're being a good "conservative" by disliking government and the "state"?

Dislike the fed and all the other trappings of capitlism?

Here's the political movement you belong to:





You know what's really funny--watching real anarchists interacting with members of the Tea Party!

Gun Flow Between States

(click to make bigger)

Miller-McCune.com reports on the findings of Brown University economist Brian Knight.

You may recognize this phenomenon if you’ve ever driven across the border from a state that doesn’t allow the sale of fireworks into one that does. Knight has also done research into state lotteries, where eye-popping jackpots in one state have been shown to cut into ticket sales in neighboring areas.

Of course, the stakes for gun sales are higher than they are for Roman candles or lotto tickets, but so too is the demand for states to be able to locally determine their own gun laws. Knight says his research suggests there would be significant benefits from establishing more uniform federal gun policy.

We didn't really need Ivy League Economists or smart journalists like Emily Badger who writes for Miller-McCune to tell us the obvious. But, Their affirmation is appreciated.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Murder at Occupy Wall Street

This image demonstrates that murder has been happening at occupy Wall Street.

Note the feet protruding from the garbage toward the centre front of the picture!

These protesters are evil! Murdering other protesters and dumping the bodies in garbage.


Give me a break.

Some people miss that people can lie with photographs: they can be photoshopped, cropped, misrepresented, etcetera.

See:

• The Camera Never Lies...or does it?

Extra Credit???

American financier Jay Gould. After hiring strikebreakers, he said

"I can hire one-half of the working class to kill the other half."

Discuss.

What was Black Friday (1869)?

Robbing Peter to pay Paul

One of my neighbours is a German (husband) and Greek (wife) couple, family arguments about finance have been over the topic of the Euro and Greek debt for the past couple of years rather than the usual financial arguments!

Anyway, there may be some peace in the household today with the announcement that this has been addressed. Although, it's amusing how its been addressed, which is why I've titled this "Robbing Peter to Pay Paul". One of the question I asked on my first quiz was:

How much national debt is too much?

Which was a trick question, but entirely relevant to this solution. I would toss in the concept of "too Big To fail" as well, but the question ultimately is "who is too big to fail: the Governments or Banks?" Governments are adding more money to the pot, and banks have been told to increase their reserves in this solution to the Euro crisis.

And anyone who was dim enough to have lent money to these countries is getting a fraction of their investment.

The thing is that both government and the private sector are having to take a hit in this "solution". "Solution" since it offers more questions than answers. Not to mention the failure of a few countries will effect the world economy. Which gets back to my too big to fail comment.

Who is too big to fail: Governments or the private sector?

I've wanted to post Michael Peston's BBC Documentary Britain's Banks: Too Big to Save? Although another good documentary is Inside Job. Ireland and Iceland were both brought to their knees by the excesses of their banking industries, yet the public ended up bailing them out.

Regulation is needed, but that means that we have another question which is who should regulate the banking/financial industry: the public or private sector? For most of its existence, the Bank of England was a private institution (nationalised in 1946) that worked to regulate the British economy. So, a private body can act as a "reserve" bank.

Of course, there are issues of control and transparency when one discusses whether such a body should be public or privately run.

Anyway, we now have a patch job of a solution to the Euro crisis--how long before another crisis occurs?

Long Gun Registry in Canada Worked Extremely Well

The Winnepeg Free Press reports on what all reasonable folks already knew.

Advocates for gun control could only shrug with resignation Wednesday as Statistics Canada reported fewer murders with rifles and shotguns -- one day after Ottawa issued a death warrant for the controversial long-gun registry.

The agency's annual study of homicide rates found the number of murders committed using firearms slid seven per cent from 2009 to 2010, continuing a downward trend that's been taking place over the past three decades.

Shootings still accounted for most of the country's slayings at 32 per cent, but the number of murders committed with rifles or shotguns had tumbled to one-fifth of what they were 30 years ago.

In spite of the opinion of Police Chiefs and leading gun control groups in Canada, the Conservative government has succeeded in destroying the long-gun registry. Even as mis-managed as it was fiscally, the positive results were undeniable. 

"The evidence has been quite clear, and in fact compelling, that stronger controls on firearms generally have impact on public safety," she said.

"We've seen murders with rifles and shotguns in particular plummet as we strengthen controls over those."

Rifles and shotguns, once blamed for the majority of firearm-related homicides and most commonly used in domestic violence cases, have been the weapons most tightly regulated under the registry, she added.

In order to accomplish this sleight-of-hand legislation, they used an argument we're very familiar with in the States.

"We don't want laws that target law-abiding citizens, hunters and sports shooters. We want laws that focus on the criminal and those who use firearms illegally," Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said Tuesday in announcing the bill to abolish it.

Many times we've covered this. Gun control laws aimed at the law-abiding are necessary to help them hang onto their guns. I've outlined them here, and I defy anyone to say these initiatives would not significantly cut down on gun flow to criminals. Registration is just one part of it.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

It's quiz time again!

OK, one of the byproducts of the Occupy movement is that it is getting people to discuss economics. In this case, this quiz was designed to get you thinking about economic history (particularly US, but also includes world economic history) and some economic concepts that might help you grasp what exactly is going on.

of course, I think most people are pretty confused as to what is going on and what a reasonable solution would be.

There are "answers" to this, but I was hoping to get some discussion going. So, let's see comments!

1. What was colonial scrip?

2. What were the Currency Acts of 1751, 1764, and 1773?

3. What was the economic complaint mentioned in the Declaration of Independence (not tax related).

4. What were two economic results of the North American Independence Movement?

5. What was Shays' Rebellion?

6. If a factory closed, and the laid off workers bought it, sold shares proportional to their investments and reopened the factory: Would that be communism or capitalism?

7. What do Brook Farm, the Harmony Society (New Harmony, IN), the Shakers, the Amana Colonies, the Oneida Community, The Icarians, Bishop Hill Commune,Aurora, Oregon, and Bethel, MO have in common? I'm going to toss in who were the Diggers and Levellers as well even though I am not sure if they had much influence in the Massachusetts Colony.

8. What is behavioural economics?

9. What is the Psychology of the Bubble.

10. Were there any financial crashes prior to the existence of the Federal Reserve Bank?

11. What was tulip mania?

12. What is the intrinsic (natural? Real?) value of gold? Silver?

13. What are Rai Stones? Tally Stick? (see this interesting blog post for a good answer, which also apples to 12)

14. If we were still on the gold standard, we would have dollars that were worth $1600 in buying power: discuss.
    

15. What is the Big Mac Index (Wikipedia and the people who produce the index have a couple of good pieces on it--wikipedia being the more accessible of the two?)

16. What are some theories of financial crises?

17. What are the types of financial crisis?

18. This comment which is a paraphrase from the TV show Jute City:
    

    Money is great when it's used as an accounting tool, but it becomes evil when it becomes a commodity.

    Discuss
    

Have fun!