The sub prime debacle continued last week as BNP Paribas, a large French bank, reported losses in some of their hedge funds. The news caused a further tightening of credit and the European Central Bank, the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan all added liquidity to the market to calm things. While this…

This ties in nicely with the entry below about Congress and their protectionist legislation. Apparently, the Chinese don’t feel the need to revalue their currency –and for good reason: they own almost $1 trillion worth of our Treasury Notes: The Chinese government has begun a concerted campaign of economic threats against the United States, hinting…

Desmond Lachman has an article at TCS Daily that warns of the consequences of the protectionism being contemplated by Congress: Seemingly forgetful of the disastrous consequences for global prosperity of the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, today Congress has before it no fewer than 60 proposals to do something about the Chinese trade surplus. More ominous…

Our local paper, the Coral Gables News Gazette, has written an article about AIM and our upcoming 1-year anniversary of operations. Click the title of this blog post to see the article. We would like to thank the fine folks at Vine Communications for pitching us to the local editors. Without their help, our newsworthiness…

When a man who lived under communist rule calls environmentalists response to global warming a greater threat than communism, I think it might behoove us to heed his warning: As someone who lived under communism for most of his life, I feel obliged to say that I see the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the…

The Independent carries an apologia for the peak oil crowd titled, “A World without Oil” which attempts to bring some legitimacy to the panic at all costs crowd. Scientists have criticised a major review of the world’s remaining oil reserves, warning that the end of oil is coming sooner than governments and oil companies are…

The February 26th edition of the Washington Post carried an editorial calling for punitive tariffs on Chinese goods. On February 27th, the Chinese stock market fell 8.8% and other Asian markets followed suit. European markets also succumbed and then the US market had its worst one day loss since 9/11, dropping over 400 points on…

The WSJ has an article about a conundrum facing the Bank of Japan. The Japanese economy is expanding but deflation remains persistent (prices are falling again). Apparently this is viewed as a problem: Still, such weakness in prices would make it difficult for the Bank of Japan to raise interest rates. Raising interest rates too…

As long time readers know, I have no love for the Federal Reserve. When you give a bank the monopoly on printing money, well, that’s what they will do. That the Federal Reserve’s official policy is to maintain an inflation rate says a lot about the purpose of the bank. Our government issues debt and…

This story comes courtesy of Opinion Journal, the WSJ daily blog by James Taranto. Mark Mellman, writing in The Hill, opines that the Democrats have wrested control of the tax isssue from Republicans. As most of you know, I am a libertarian so I don’t have much use for either of the major parties, but…