UR: the heard-it-here-first files
Every asshole these days has a blog. Every asshole with a blog wants to “change the world.” But the great thing about being right is that, when the world catches on, you really can’t tell whether or not they heard it from you. The truth, being true, belongs to all. If I started lying and my lies started showing up in the Financial Times, that would really be time to worry.
That said, despite my great modesty a bit of trumpeting is essential on occasion. If not needed to reassure me that writing UR is worth my time, it may reassure you that reading it is worth yours.
Maturity transformation considered harmful:
Or, in an idea that would mean the radical reshaping of the banking system, banks could be forced to match each investment made with funding over an equivalent time period, Mr King said.
That’s Mervyn King of the Bank of England, in the Financial Times. See also Mr King’s speech—in which he unfortunately repeats the canard that MT is socially productive. But hey, it’s a start. (King appears to have borrowed his clue from Laurence Kotlikoff.)
The system should also consider employing gold as an international reference point of market expectations about inflation, deflation and future currency values. Although textbooks may view gold as the old money, markets are using gold as an alternative monetary asset today.
That’s Robert Zoellick of the World Bank, also in the Financial Times. Don’t pull on that, Mr Zoellick—you never know what it might be connected to. See also this mysterious post at Zero Hedge, by the mysterious FOFOA, quoting the even more mysterious “John Law.” I can tell you that in 2006, remonetization of gold did not feel like an especially sane idea.
Yesterday morning, conservative writer Michael Brendan Dougherty drew my attention to this 1942 Time article …
That’s Will Wilkinson in The Economist (who goes on to completely misinterpret the material, but hey, that’s cool). Okay, the Time archives are part of the truth, too—but a fairly obscure one. I’ll have you know I mined this link myself, deep in the bowels of the John Birch Society. Not all that does not glitter is not gold.
And finally, the UR reader will share a private snicker at Professor Kloppenberg in the NYT:
And Barack Obama’s opposition to inequality stems from Puritan preachers and the social gospel rather than socialism.
(Actually, if you read Staughton Lynd’s Radicalism of the American Revolution, you’ll find that almost every word is true, even though Professor Lynd is a close personal friend of Howard Zinn. In general, when trying to piece together the last three centuries, a pretty decent start can be obtained by getting your 20th century from the JBS and your 18th from the CPUSA. The 17th is remarkably in focus on all sides. The 19th? It’s difficult—very difficult.)