The world in headlines

Mmmm.  Now watch carefully as the Bank of England skillfully places all the blame for runaway UK inflation on the Olympics.  Perfect timing for the MOPEsters.

The indomitable spirit of the human will to survive amid destruction and against all odds.  Special.

That’s $180 billion. 1-2 months worth of Fed QE in one shot for an economy half the size of the US.  Keep a printin’ boys…

Good news.  Glad to see some sense is prevailing.  Of course the playing field still isn’t really level is it because AEMFC won’t be subject to the same profit and loss calculations as most privately held firms accountable to shareholders.  So, like EVERY other state run enterprise before it, AEMFC will get its coffers topped up by taxpayer funding every so often when it runs it finances into the ground.

Shame.  Imagine being owned by a bank being propped up solely by printed cash and exposed to the fragile UK housing market and Irish banks.

Murray Rothbard in his tome Man, Economy, and State reminds us that consumers goods, capital goods, and land and natural factors will be owned by the most capable owners/buyers in the economic system.  You can’t buck economics with house of cards BEE rules forever.

Paying at source for services is great. Not getting tax concessions isn’t.  South Africans are already charged one of the highest top marginal tax rates, and 20% of taxpayers already account for some 70% of the tax intake. Adding the huge amounts South African’s pay toward private security (the police are totally incompetant) and other stop-gap services government is supposed to be providing with tax income, the productive sector in South Africa has one of the highest real tax burdens of anywhere in the world. Slapping a road toll without making it 100% tax-deductable is only going to strip income out of people’s hands and into the hands of bureaucrats…to the ultimate detriment of everyone.

That’s it, go into more debt to fix the debt crisis.  Clever.