Well that didn’t take long. Just three days after the French government hosted dozens of foreign leaders in a “unity rally” to defend free speech in the wake of last week’s shooting at the Charlie Hebdo magazine, France has begun arresting its citizens for actually exercising free speech.

Continued:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/01/daniel-mcadams/a-noxious-cloud-of-hypocrisy/

Sent from my iPad

The right of people to express their opinions publicly without governmental interference, subject to the laws against libel, incitement to violence or rebellion, etc.

The right, guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, to express beliefs and ideas without unwarranted government restriction.

The right to express information, ideas, and opinions free of government restrictions based on content and subject only to reasonable limitations…

There is only speech, and government opposition to it.

Continued:

http://bionicmosquito.blogspot.com/2015/01/freedom-of-speech.html

This morning’s market is more erratic than Claire Danes off her lithium. Gold is soaring, the euro’s plunging, US treasury yields are in free fall, junk bonds are faltering, copper is bouncing, oil has rolled over, the Russell 2000 momos are getting mauled, the swissie has shot the moon, the Dow is knee-jerking down, correlations are failing……and the robo traders are flat-out lost.

All praise the god of price discovery!

Continued:

http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/in-praise-of-price-discovery-the-market-is-off-its-lithium/

Charlie Hebdo Puts Muhammad on Cover of Post-Attack Issue – WSJ.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/01/no_author/in-solidarity-with-a-free-press/

Good one. Just 9 minutes.

Published on Mar 2, 2012

Igor Kufayev replies to a question on reclusive way of life versus householder’s in relation to our time: ”…In a day and age we live now, spirituality is no longer a luxury of a few, it’s more of a necessity… You don’t need to call it spiritual practice if you don’t want to. It’s a type of a psychological and mental hygiene, just as you brush your teeth in a morning and take your shower, in the same way people need to practice silence from time to time… ”

via Igor Kufayev ~ Mental Hygiene – YouTube.

As the oil price falls, Russian President Vladimir Putin has issued a number of directives aimed at the economic sector, none of them good.

It is always best, when there are changes in an economy, to allow markets to adjust to the new situation and limit, or even better, reverse government meddling in the economy.

Putin does not appear to be consistently applying such a hands off approach.

He has, for example, ordered a freeze on vodka prices. As any first year college student of economics knows, price controls only lead to shortages and the development of black markets. Not good.

Under the watchful eye of Putin, the Bank of Russia also has bailed out a mid-sized bank for about $500 million to save it from bankruptcy. The central bank, headed by Elvira Nabiullina, a close confidant of Putin, has announced it will provide a 30-billion ruble loan to help the Trust Bank to continue operating as normal. Again, not good. The quickest way to turn around an economy that suffers from the misallocation of capital, which is what a problem bank is indicative of, is to allow the liquidation of such bad banksand investments, not to prop up such banks, and investments, by throwing good money after bad.

Nabiullina seems to understand this point, as I pointed out in an earlier post. The Russian people should hope that this bailout is some kind of an outlier event that resulted because of unique pressures, but that is unlikely to be repeated. Though it does seem that more propping up, of various sorts, will take place. In a statement published on Wednesday, the Bank of Russia said it would lend dollars and euros to banks putting up foreign currency loans to big exporters as collateral. This is another interventionist move that certainly has limits, since the Russian central bank does not have an unlimited amount of foreign reserves to do such lending. All this is doing is shrinking the reserves backing the ruble, not a good thing at any time, but certainly not a good thing when the ruble is crashing on foreign exchange markets.

The moves by Putin still do not seem to be as dramatic as what occurred in the United States by the US government, in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, but the Putin moves are certainly going in the wrong direction.

The more interventionist Putin gets, the worse it will be for the Russian economy in the long run. The Russian people should hope that Elvira can talk some sense into him.

http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2014/12/putin-interventions-will-slow-economy.html

Sent from my iPad

Published on Dec 23, 2014

Russell Brand The Trews (E217).

What methods are advertisers using this Christmas to get us to spend our money? Subscribe Here Now: http://tinyurl.com/opragcg and send links to video news items of topical stories that you’d like me to analyse.

via The Trews VS John Lewis Xmas Advert: Russell Brand The Trews (E217) – YouTube.

Published on Dec 26, 2014

Russell Brand The Trews (E220).

Part 2 of our favourite Trews moments of the year. Thanks for watching and Happy Boxing Day Trewsers!

Keep going:

The FBI and the President may claim that the Hermit Kingdom is to blame for the most high-profile network breach in forever. But almost all signs point in another direction.

So, “The Interview” is to be released after all.

The news that the satirical movie—which revolves around a plot to murder Kim Jong-Un—will have a Christmas Day release as planned, will prompt renewed scrutiny of whether, as the US authorities have officially claimed, the cyber attack on Sony really was the work of an elite group of North Korean government hackers.

All the evidence leads me to believe that the great Sony Pictures hack of 2014 is far more likely to be the work of one disgruntled employee facing a pink slip.

Continued:

via No, North Korea Didn’t Hack Sony – The Daily Beast.