Dayhoff Westminster Soundtrack: Daily Grind: To print or not to print, that is the question

Friday, December 09, 2011

Daily Grind: To print or not to print, that is the question

December 5^th, 2011

To Print or Not to Print, That is the Question

Will printing more money solve Europe's debt crisis? The establishment thinks so.

Video: Top Republican in House Says No To IMF European Bailouts

Washington Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers is promoting legislation to keep our tax dollars from going to European bailouts.

Obama Administration Denies Federal Drug Price Controls are Killing Americans

Two hearings now have been held on the government induced prescription drug shortage in Congress with more planned.

Durban due diligence

The COP-17 United Nations world environment and climate conference is now being held until Dec. 9 in Durban, South Africa.

To Print or Not to Print, That is the Question

By Bill Wilson

The global financial elite have finally taken off their masks and just flat out told the world that the solution to Europe's debt woes is too simply turn on the European Central Bank's (ECB) printing press to refinance the debts of Greece, Italy, and other sovereigns. The Lisbon Treaty's prohibition on doing so be damned.

In a Dec. 1 column, UK Telegraph writer Ambrose Evans-Pritchard boldly declared in his headline, "You are all wrong, printing money can halt Europe's crisis". Rarely is the establishment this brazen.

He has inadvertently admitted to a practice that classical economist Adam Smith called a "pretended payment" in the Wealth of Nations, adding that "The honour of a state is surely very poorly provided for, when, in order to cover the disgrace of a real bankruptcy, it has recourse to a juggling trick of this kind, so easily seen through, and at the same time so extremely pernicious."

Evans-Pritchard apparently has no problems with pretending to pay, however. He explained, "This crisis can be stopped very easily by monetary policy," and called the provisions of the Lisbon Treaty a "fundamental design-flaw of monetary union."

Never mind that the no-bailout clause of the treaty was included because it likely never would have been adopted without it. It was even included practically verbatim from the first Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe that failed to be adopted in 2005. There clearly was a consensus at the time that a bailout prohibition remain included — to prevent exactly the situation that Europe today faces.

Get full story here.

Top Republican in House Says No To IMF European Bailouts

Video by Frank McCaffrey

Get permalink here.

Obama Administration Denies Federal Drug Price Controls are Killing Americans

By John Vinci

While Americans are dying because of a drug shortage problem serious enough to call a national emergency, the Obama Administration is denying that Medicare price controls are the cause.

Two hearings now have been held on the government induced prescription drug shortage in the House and another has been requested by ranking members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The Senate will hold a hearing of its own on Wednesday.

In a nation as prosperous as our own — how can we have such drug shortages? That was the question the minds of congressmen in a hearing on Nov. 30, 2011 before the House Oversight and Government Reform's Subcommittee on Health.

Four out of the five expert witnesses before the Subcommittee agreed that a Medicare price control policy has disincentivized the production of certain drugs and is at least part of the reason we now have the drug shortages that are killing Americans.

The Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 introduced the "average sales price" repayment method for certain drugs. Instead of paying drug manufacturers based on the "wholesale acquisition cost," Medicare pays based on the average price of the medication six months ago plus six percent. So, if the costs of producing the medicines increases more than 6 percent in six months, the manufacturer will have to take a loss.

Get full story here.

Durban due diligence

By Kelvin Kemm

From my vantage point here in South Africa, I could hardly miss the major build-up to the COP-17 United Nations world environment and climate conference, which is being held Nov. 28 to Dec. 9 in Durban, where I went to school and university.

For weeks international news broadcasts spoke of "the road to Durban," and people of all ranks made daily comments concerning issues to be addressed at COP-17. Conference organizers announced that bottled water would be limited, or even prohibited, because making, shipping and disposing of plastic bottles was not environmentally sound – and in any event Durban tap water is so good that anyone can safely drink water out of any tap, whether in a hotel room, restaurant or back yard garden hose. I agree with both points; Durban municipal water is excellent everywhere.

Other images also drifted through my mind, such as those of legendary scientist and philosopher Galileo, who dared to announce that it was not the sun that orbited the earth, but the planets, including the earth, which orbited the sun. The ruling establishment of the day jumped on Galileo, threatening him with dire consequences if he did not toe the politically correct line and recant his claims. He did so to avoid burning at the stake but was placed under house arrest anyway, to ensure that he did not spread his views, and his book was banned.

Many years later, during the French Revolution, baying mobs in Paris streets were ready to chop the heads off anyone perceived not to be part of the New World Order. Even scientist Antoine Lavoisier, the discoverer of oxygen and hydrogen, was one of many unfortunate people who lost their heads to French guillotines.

Get full story here.

*****