Republicans now calling the gold standard a "central position" in the party. The Midas Touch goes mainstream.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444914904577619383218788846.html?mod=opinion_newsreel

It's me again...any questions?

http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2012/08/federal_receipt.html

WOW!

It's the weekend! How about some more dogs?

All I want out of life is to be the man my English Springer Spaniel thinks I am. The House of Parker has a new one coming this fall. I'm so happy!

Trade liberty for equality and in the end you will have neither...and we will have neither.

http://johnbtaylorsblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/how-departures-from-economic-freedom.html

LIE-BOR explained.

http://www.accountingdegree.net/numbers/libor.php

Please put your lie in writing.

http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-12/always-ask-a-banker-to-put-the-lie-in-writing.html

Horse race gambling rule #3: Greed kills. Listen up banking jackasses.

http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-12/the-worst-banking-scandal-yet-.html

Why not?

http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2012/07/markets-in-everything-london-taxi-hotel.html

The Best of The Funny Economist

Tyronne hits it right on the button.

The Best of The Funny Economist

This still cracks me up. Messing with a cab driver.

Come again?

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2012/07/18/oops-what-bernanke-said-five-years-ago-today/

Just Spiffy!

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/19/the-federal-reserve-and-the-libor-scandal/

Facism.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444464304577537233908744496.html?mod=wsj_share_tweet

The fiscal cliff

http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2012/07/the_fiscal_clif_1.html

The Best of the Funny Economist: Randy Parker Schmuck Hall of Shame: Karl Marx

This ladies and gentlemen is Karl Marx. His thoughts have dominated how resources are allocated through much of the world over the last 100 + years or so. It is there where you will find the greatest enslavement of mankind and the worst of the human condition. For this Marx is forever on the top shelf of the Randy Parker Schmuck Hall of Shame. But you know who is even more in Schmuck Hall of Shame infamy? Any schmuck who believes any of the garbage he wrote. If that is you...then you are a schmuck too. You have the empirical record to show what garbage it is, think Stalin, Mao, Kim Jong Il, Pol Pot and other darlings of history that have made the world so much better for their fellow man. At least Marx only had a belief and a theory and croaked before it was fully tested. You know better and still believe. So now we have the best economics that the Departments of English, Foreign Languages and the Halls of Harvard Law School have to offer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_each_according_to_his_ability_to_each_according_to_his_need

Thus quoteth Marx "In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly—only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!"

Perhaps this is the new way we will soon allocate scarce resources in the U.S.

The Best of the Funny Economist: Pick 4 heart break.

My degenerate horse race gambling buddies and I hit the late Pick 4 last weekend at Churchill Downs. We had the "All" in the last race so we won for sure...just a question of which horse would win and for how much. It was for as little as $750 on a $2 Pick 4 ticket or as much as $13,500 in the unlikely event that a 35-1 bomb managed to clunk up and hit the wire first. But that had about as much chance of happening as the world seeing the natural conception of Richard Simmons Jr. Guess who comes from second to last way at the back of the field, running six wide at the top of the stretch way on the outside and continues the charge at the end and makes me have a coronary...that's right, the $13,500, 35-1 bomb horse. His name is Even Aly and he is the #14.





The Pick 4 still paid $1070...but I cried for 90 minutes.

And you wonder why the poor stay poor?

http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2012/07/effective-marginal-tax-rate.html

Henninger, Lucas and...Parker. This deserves another look...and much thought.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304911104576443953024891120.html?mod=djemEditorialPage_t

I have been saying this all along. The fact that Robert Lucas and Dan Henninger agree with me is cold comfort. We are going to become France and your children will have much more leisure time than you ever dreamed of. And also lower income and lower economic opportunity. All my parents ever wanted in life was a better life for their children than they had growing up. They were a total success. That is now ending. Once again consider that in 2008 the average citizen of West Virginia had an income $2000 higher than the average citizen of the European Union. We have met the enemy and now we are he.

The Best of The Funny Economist: The "New New Deal."

Thinking back historically, FDR did not mean "hey buddy have I got a New Deal for you" with his programs and agenda. No, the symbolism was that of shuffling the deck of cards and having a "New Deal." Taking in resources by the government and then having the government decide how and to whom they were dealt out. Sound familiar? It is no different from "spreading the wealth around." Maybe we should call the Obama agenda the "New New Deal." Go all in, put all your chips in the kitty, we'll decide how many you get back. Honest. Trust us.

If this is what the American people want, then this is a democracy and they will be heard. But make no mistake, the long-run steady state equilibrium unemployment rate in the US will soar. Take a look at the graph in the upper right (click on it). That shows the US vs. the French long-run unemployment data. Guess which way we will go? And if that is what you want, then as they say down here in the South, "come get you some." But I thought it was my duty to inform you before and whatever you decide.