This Is Not Capitalism
Friday, April 26, 2013 at 3:00AM
[Positive Dennis] in Economics

 

I remember a story from my philosophy professor in college. He mentioned one of his socialist professors who refused to call the Soviet Union a socialist nation. His reasoning was that he disagreed with the Soviet Union, therefore it could not be socialist. This is a form of the no true Scotsman fallacy.

While I want to avoid this error, I hope you can agree with me that this is not capitalism.

In a survey of 60 central bankers this month by Central Banking Publications and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, 23 percent said they own shares or plan to buy them. The Bank of Japan, holder of the second-biggest reserves, said April 4 it will more than double investments in equity exchange-traded funds to 3.5 trillion yen ($35.2 billion) by 2014. The Bank of Israel bought stocks for the first time last year while the Swiss National Bank and the Czech National Bank have boosted their holdings to at least 10 percent of reserves

If one cannot trust the government measures of GDP or inflation or economic growth how can one invest? In this case if the government is buying stocks, how can you trust the stock prices? If the government is buying bonds and house mortgages then you can't trust their price either. All market prices are of little value as signals for investment. In this situation investment is impossible. One can only be forced to speculate. But first, get out of debt. I am personally in this stage. The current sucker's rally gives us all a little breathing room. Use that time wisely.

Article originally appeared on Prophecy Podcast (http://www.prophecypodcast.com/).
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