New Canadian Currency Is Out of This World

Cmdr. Chris Hadfield has the bully pulpit from the ISS, and he's turned into Canada's best PR officer ever.  Check out his latest for the Bank of Canada.  As Geekosystem gushes, "The New Canadian Five Dollar Bill Has Space Robots on It, Makes Presidents Look Lame."  

Seriously, though, if you haven't been following Hadfield's exploits on YouTube and on Twitter, you've been missing out on all sorts of great stuff (like this exchange or this holiday-themed musical offering).

Quote of the Day: Cyprus and the Euro

Here it is:

"For a small, open economy like Cyprus, euro adoption provides protection from international financial turmoil."

These were the words of Jean-Claude Trichet, then-president of the European Central Bank, on January 18, 2008.  What a difference 5 years make!

You Can't Spell "Cypriot" Without "Riot"

It's been a few days since the news broke, and the angry aftermath has set in.  Protests in Nicosia, the revolt of the Cypriot lawmakers against the bailout proposal, and the prospect of no end to the debt crisis.

I am bemused by how some people/analysts/bureaucrats are calling the proposed "let's grab a chunk of depositors' money" ploy the Orwellian term of "deposit levy" or even "tax."  I'll just quote a piquantly relevant response:

This is not really about Cyprus, of course, but about the precedent that is being set there. In exchange for an infusion of capital into the nation's banks, Cyprus is being asked to impose a "special bank levy" ... This is described as a "wealth tax," except that it's not a tax. A tax is a regular rule that operates uniformly according to a pre-determined formula. A one-time, ad hoc seizure of money isn't a tax. It is confiscation. Or we can use a plainer word for it: theft.

If you want a Puckish application of this whole mess, I give you the incomparable Instapundit, who recently suggested:

... an enterprising GOP member of the House or Senate would introduce a bill immediately to make such shenanigans illegal — and dare the Dems to oppose it.

Put those Dems on the defense.  It's a brilliant idea ... which means establishment GOP leaders and pseudo-cons will be too stupid to adopt it.  Hey, Rand Paul, are you listening?

Quote of the Day: the Bailout Debacle in Cyprus

Have you been watching the nightmare unfolding in Cyprus over the weekend?  It actually took me a couple hours before I could believe what I was seeing.  Imagine waking up and realizing that 6.7% to 9.9%  3%-15% (updated figures) of your savings accounts have been - oh, let's just say it - confiscated.  It might be a way to get back at dodgy Russian oligarchs using Cyprus and possibly money-laundering and whatever, but it's a horrible precedent and plenty of ordinary Cypriots are getting screwed.  This passionate rant gives us the quote of the day:

"The establishment of the principle that a government can, and at times of economic strain must, help itself to your savings, and that this is a legitimate tool of statecraft, ought to provoke riots. I am amazed at the tranquillity with which it has been accepted so far."

Perhaps there aren't any riots yet because everybody is right now busy sprinting to the ATMs.  Hell, I would!  Once folks figure out that they can't get to their money, then I'll expect panic to turn into rage.

Hey, remember all that crazy talk about how cash-strapped governments might start raiding people's retirement accounts?  Doesn't sound so crazy now, does it?  Meanwhile, all those jokes that the Cine-Sib and I used to make about putting your money into your mattress instead of a bank ("Haha, I'm sure my Sealy Posturepedic can give me a better interest rate") now aren't so funny anymore.

Anyway, the thought occurs to me as I watch Cyprus: the leadership in the euro zone could scarcely do a better job of crashing that country if they were trying to do so.  I mean, look at what's been done in the name of "saving it."  When you spark panicked bank runs in the name of saving anything, I think it's fairly safe to say that you've screwed the proverbial pooch.

PS: Interesting (and prescient) anecdote.

One Canadian Perspective on Bernanke

Oh, my.

Contingency Plans for Euro Collapse

Does this sound like a vote of no confidence to you too, or is it just me?

Quote of the Day: "little choice but to root for Europe now"?

Some thoughts.  Some other thoughts.

Euro Notes: Credit Rating Downgrades

Uh-oh -- some eurozone countries are getting coal in their stocking this Christmas.  Spain, Italy, Belgium ... you've been very naughty indeed.

Life Imitates Satire: Occupy San Francisco Goes Into Banking

Bwahahahaha!  Is it the "inevitable culmination"?   If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!  And somehow I can't help thinking, "The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."

Euro Notes: NOW He Tells Us

The architect of the euro currency, Jacques Delors, apparently now says that the thing was doomed from the start.  Well, Milton Friedman did say that the euro wouldn't survive its first major European recession.  I had my misgivings about the whole project, and I take no pleasure really in seeing the eurozone in flames now because it's wrecking the economic lives of millions.  But the fact remains that it's becoming increasingly clear that the euro is fatally flawed.

On a related and ironically timed note, here is a new propaganda video from the European Central Bank "celebrating the first ten years of the euro."  I rather doubt that euro will see another ten years.  Dude, doesn't the ECB have any better to do than churn out propaganda and make video games?  But I digress.  On to the video, which I find unintentionally hilarious, beginning with the choice of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" as the opening music.  (LOL!)

6 Ideas for the Ash Heap of History

Here's an interesting list from Foreign Policy. 

Euro-geddon?

The Economist has a piece on the eurozone crisis.  This other view has a wryly amusing choice of illustration.

Gaming While the Eurozone Burns

I'm not making this up!  Because the European Central Bank seemingly has nothing better to do, it's made Economia, a game about monetary policy. Then again, the game's opening image might be unintentionally truthful about the folks in charge:

But is it worse than World of Borecraft?

Quote of the Day: Wealth, Values, and "Exactly the Wrong Message"

Here are some timely observations by Tyler Cowen of George Mason University during an NPR interview about the Occupy Wall Street protests:

Quote of the Day: Protests and Missing the Mark

From British MEP Daniel Hannan on the various and variously intellectually incoherent Occupy [Insert Location Here] protests:

The hard-Left protesters who marched in cities across the world today are wrong about many things, but they have got one thing absolutely right: bailing out first banks and then entire countries, is a form of class war against working people. 

The trouble is, the demonstrators are picking the wrong target. The people they should blame are not the financiers, but the politicians who obsequiously agreed to rescue them from the consequences of their malinvestments. 

Please understand, my Leftie friends, that what has taken place since 2008 is anything but capitalism. In a capitalist system, incompetent banks would have been allowed to fail, their profitable operations sold on to their competitors. Shareholders, bondholders and some depositors would have lost money, but taxpayers would not have contributed a penny.

Well, yes.  If these protesters had the least understanding of actual capitalism versus the perverse crony capitalism currently being practiced by corrupt-ocrats on both sides of the Pond and if these angry demonstrators actually had two economically-literate neurons to rub together, they'd be marching on government buildings.  But, of course, they don't.  And, so life imitates "Star Trek II": "You've managed to kill everyone else, but like a poor marksman, you keep missing the target!"  UPDATE: By the way, La Parisienne and I would like to note for the record that we always thought the massive government bailouts were stupid, but of course nobody listens to us.

2 Thoughts on the Wall Street Protests/Temper Tantrum/Whatever

Thought the first and thought the second.  Professor Bainbridge: "absurdity."  Or perhaps we should regard it as performance art or comedy improv?

Well, Assuming That You Even *Have* Cash

A large assumption to make ...

The Mouse in the ATM

Hilarious. It had made a nest out of shredded $20 bills!

Satire Alert: Tim Geithner and Bank Stress Tests

From the TaxProf Blog comes this amusing link from Saturday Night Live: