All The Daily Reckoning

When too many people and companies depend on government subsidies, Bonner writes, your society consumes more wealth than it produces.

Welfare states depend on growth to fuel their spending. But when growth slows to a crawl....

Government moves energy from the future to the past, Bonner writes, from what will be to what used to be, and finally, to what will be no more.

In a completely free market, we can assume people will get what they want, or at least what they deserve, Bonner writes. 

Nazi Germany's economy was not a central planning success, it was a disaster. Is there a lesson for today?

Modern economists – especially the famous ones – close their eyes to how an economy actually works, focusing instead on a make-believe world of numbers and theories, with little connection to the world in which most people live.

Does the US really need to spend more money on an M1 tank that won't be a part of the next war? 

Mario Draghi's vow to do 'whatever it takes' to save the euro isn't an empty promise. But his new powers to act with overwhelming force at the central bank won't solve the eurozone's crisis.

It looks like the US economy is headed into another recession. That’s what usually happens when retail sales go down for three months in a row.

France's economy is hanging by a thread – and French President Hollande is reaching for the scissors.

The folks over at The Daily Reckoning are on a mission. Their treasure? Insight. Insight into why it is that the smartest economists in the world are so stupid. Incidentally, they hope to understand why the GDP is such a fraudulent measure of prosperity

Over the course of three odd decades, billions of dollars were lent to people who shouldn’t have been allowed to borrow lunch money. And now, there are losses in the trillions. The real question is, will the market finally be allowed to correct itself?

Bill Bonner and the analysts over at The Daily Reckoning are feeling fairly vindicated this week. They have been investigating how the federal government may have rigged the system over the past 30 years, directing funds to help the rich get richer.

Bill Bonner is not too pleased with economists right now. In his latest post he claims that as a result of their conceits and delusions, trillions of dollars have been clipped from the world’s GDP, billions of people are poorer and their lives shorter.

There are times when governments need to build tanks. An economist can’t tell the difference between a Tiger tank and a BMW. But a passenger can. It doesn’t take him long to realize that a tank is no way to travel.

What’s the point of having an economy, asks Bill Bonner? It makes no sense to waste trillions of dollars’ worth of resources just to “protect the economy,” he says. The whole point of an economy is to create more stuff, not to waste it.

So who's right? The French seem preoccupied with the mistresses of their new chief, and the details of their last meal. Meanwhile back in America, President Barack Obama is happily married, but taking flak for his economic and foreign policies.

Markets soar when the Fed hints at more money, and crash when it hints that it will sit still. When you operate with an elastic currency, and expand credit 50 times in 50 years, Bill Bonner warns, don't be surprised when the market inevitably falls over.

A Washington garden party serves as a think tank hothouse, providing the Daily Reckoning with some interesting insights into the current US situation. Representing a variety of backgrounds, the group was united by a hatred of the US "empire."

Europe’s austerity policies nor America’s growth policies have worked. In Europe, governments collectively spent 44.8% of GDP in 2000. Today it is 49.2%. That’s not austerity, that’s stimulus, according to Bill Bonner.