The End Game or: How the Dupes were Duped or: The Euro Ten Years on

The Euro was probably the most hyped-in currency the world may have ever known.

That fact alone should have been reason for suspicion.

In this article we contrast some of the eulogies heaped on the Euro back in around 2001/2002 when it was introduced as a tangible currency with these past weeks’ near-obituaries.

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Why Our Future Must Be Solar As Our Past Once Was

When you put a pot on the hot plate on your stove and switch on the heat – do you not expect the pot to get hot?

When you add energy on the earth’s surface to what the sun and geothermal influences already provide would you not expect the earth respectively the atmosphere to get warmer?

Then why do scientists not consider this as a source of global warming? Why do they concentrate on potential influences of some gases in the atmosphere while proposing to heat the earth to a much greater extent by adding heat through sources like nuclear fission or fusion which indubitably add to earth’s heat balance? Read more …

Dangers, Properties, possible Uses and Methods of Purification of radioactively contaminated (drinking) Water (e.g. in Japan)

Most methods and tools being recommended here on the Internet such as purification by filtration will not lead to your desired result of decontaminating “radioactive water”.

Here is what you need to know and what you can do [updated March 31st 2011, see end] – e.g. even if you can’t buy bottled water anymore.

a) Radioactive contamination of drinking water in Japan at this point in time can come about in only two ways:

Economic Musings X: Legal Tender – Legal or Tender or What?

After World War II when the German Reichsmark was discredited and people were starving they would travel from their city to the local farms …

Bloom of Doom VIII: US Figures Stronger than Feared

If you think the title is a contradiction, well, not more so than the idea that debt or subsidies could increase wealth. Where truth can’t win by argument it needs to do so by stealth (that almost rhymes). The President of the United States has published a report on the state of the economy which proves how uneconomical the state has become. From that report you can glean two things, the bad and the ugly: the US economy has greatly deteriorated further and it seems beyond the point of no return.

Economic Musings IX: We could all be millionaires …

… if we hadn’t destroyed literally trillions over the last 200 years!

Economic Musings VIII: Is there a limit to economic growth?

Something which puzzles many thinkers and frightens many young people concerned about waste or the pillaging of our natural resources is the question: can “an economy” (whatever that is – we’ll come to that in a minute) grow indefinitely?

How can there be unlimited economic growth if we’ve never heard of unlimited growth in, say, an elephant?

Economic Musings VII: Marketing doesn’t advertise itself

Have you ever wondered if marketing and advertising are the same, if not, what’s the difference and which is the more important of the two? And why should you care?

Blogs and Web Sites you may want to follow

The following is a list of blogs and websites that CrisisMaven has followed and observed over the last few months and that readers may want to check out from time to time.

Economic Musings V: Subsidies, Brothers and Nannies

There are a thousand-and-one reasons why states “need” to subsidise economic activities. And there are at least as many critiques as to how the money was wisely spent, should not have been spent, should have been spent on something else, was too little, too much, at the wrong time, too early, too late, wasted or wonderful. Any policy that meets with such contradicting praise or censure is worth a deeper look.

Economic Fallacy VI: The Divisive Multiplier

There is a widespread believe that if governments inject a certain amount of money into “an” or “their” economy, it will miraculously multiply and bear fruit beyond what was invested. This is one of the mainstays of Keynesian economics in that it justifies state subsidies, public works, in short just any intervention by a state in the realm of private enterprise on the expenditure side.

Economic Fallacy V: Can CPI measure Deflation?

In a recent post Woodford warns of deflation threat as CPI drops to 3% CrisisMaven found another instance of the widespread belief that not only sinking prices (misspelt “deflation”) are harmful as they cause buyers “to strike” but that the housing market has “deflated”.

Economic Fallacy IV: Buyers’ Strike during Deflation?

If buyers don’t buy during a period of deflation why would sellers sell during periods of inflation?

Economic Musings IV: How Bank Robbers cause Inflation

If a robber robs a bank and runs away with the money, never gets caught or if he gets caught has spent the money before that, has that caused inflation? No – the bank now has less money and thus its money holdings have decreased exactly as much as the robber’s holdings increased. But what if the bank gets “recapitalised”?

Economic Musings III: The Bubble Analogy

There’s this fear that if a financial bubble bursts this would be tantamount to deflation (after all, when an inflatable dinghy bursts it’s called deflation). And because deflation is deemed to be a bad thing the panacea must be (re)inflation of “the” economy. Well, let’s look at what happens when a balloon bursts …