My letter to the NY Times re: How to Eliminate Scandals Over Subsidies

Re: Scandal Around Billionaire Prime Minister Leaves Czechs in Limbo

Dear Sirs:

I have a sure fire way not only to minimize but completely eliminate scandals over government subsidies. Eliminate the subsidies!

You are welcome,

Patrick Barron

A friend asks why there have been no more Paul Volckers at the Fed

Dear XXXX,

You ask, where is a Volcker-like Fed chairman today? The answer is that no president would appoint one and no government really wants one! Governments want easy money and will appoint only a Fed chairman who will succumb to money printing. Frankly, I believe that it is impossible to make a fiat currency sound. Here's why:

1. As I stated above, no government really wants sound money, because governments are the main beneficiary of easy money.
2. No one who works in the Federal Reserve System, as did Paul Volcker for many, many years before becoming chairman, is a true proponent of sound money. If Volcker were honest and really wanted sound money, he would not work for the Fed. Volcker was president of the NY Fed. He knew how the system worked and would have quit if he truly didn't believe in it. In other words, anyone who works for the Fed is an inflationist. It's only a matter of degree. Volcker did print money, only he didn't print as much as either his predecessors or his successors.
3. The political pressure to inflate is irresistible. No one can ignore it. Even if you or I were appointed Fed chairman, we would inflate. If we did not, we would be removed for some reason.
4. If we really wanted sound money, we would abolish the Fed and force banks to abide by normal commercial law, which would require them to back their deposits with a commodity. Once an organization is given the power to inflate the currency, inflation is exactly what will happen. In other words, "A person or entity that CAN print money WILL print money." So don't give any person or entity the power to print money! It would require an act of Congress to eliminate the Fed anyway, which is not likely to happen.
5. You ask why Paul Volcker didn't peg the dollar to gold at some higher level. The answer is that he had no power to do so, even if he wanted to do that. Furthermore, Volcker was not chairman in 1971, when Nixon took the US off the gold exchange standard. This act by Nixon just proves that the real power over the currency is political.
6. My conclusion is that only political action can restore the dollar, not administrative action. In other words, the American people must want sound money. Barring a complete collapse of the dollar, as happened to the French assignat, this is not likely to happen.

My letter to the NY Times: No Nation Can Harm Another Through Trade

Navarro tells Wall Street to stay out of trade talks

There is nothing that another nation can do to harm another through trade. If a nation foolishly chooses to manipulate its currency to spur exports, it gifts goods to its trading partners. If it restricts imports to spur domestic industries, it harms its own citizens while leaving potential trading partners in the same position as before, which is NOT a definition of harm. The only policies that our government need adopt are unilateral free trade externally and laissez faire economics internally. Our motto should be "We will mind our own business and set a good example to others."

EU to the UK: We will not allow you to sell our citizens superior goods at bargain prices

From today's Open Europe news summary:

 

Ireland demands level playing field in any Brexit deal

Speaking at a meeting of the European People’s Party (EPP) in Helsinki yesterday, the Irish Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, said that Ireland wants the future relationship between the EU and UK “to be as close as possible” but added that it “must provide a level playing field and the integrity of our single market must be upheld.”

Elsewhere, Reuters reports that the European Commission also stresses the importance of such a commitment, quoting one EU official explaining that “It is important that Britain would not undercut our own products on our own market in the all-UK Irish backstop.”

Meanwhile, Cabinet Brexiteers have reportedly warned Prime Minister Theresa May that obligations on a level playing field “would mean a single market through the backdoor.”

Source: The Times I The Times II Reuters

 

Here you have the EU position in a nutshell. The EU is to be a closed trading bloc in which its citizens will be forced to buy shoddy, overprices goods produced within the bloc. Why the rest of the sovereign nations of the EU have remained in this blatantly inhumane association for so long is mystifying, except that continental Europeans have experienced many centuries of governmental dictatorships under many forms rather than the Anglo-Saxon tradition of the common law and government being responsible to the people.