Federal Reserve

The unreported Greek bank run waned with the ECB secretly flying euros into Greece. This isn't the end of the story.

Economic suicide by the G20. 

"People forget that in 1971, when Nixon devalued the dollar, the Swiss franc was $0.23, and the German mark was $0.25; today they're $1.08 and $1.31, respectively. The Japanese yen was 300 to the dollar; today it's about 90. The success of these countries was partly because of strong currencies. A strong currency helped them become rich and prosperous. Of course, most governments are now deeply in debt, and that's a powerful incentive to destroy their currencies."

Where does the German mark exist? I thought it was replaced by the euro. I guess people could have held them.

"L: So Doug, the G20 declared that there will be no currency war. Other than a belly laugh, any reactions?
Doug: First, we should define what a currency war is. I'd say it's a competition between governments to devalue their respective currencies, accomplished by creating lots more new dollars, euros, yen, or what have you. The idea is to increase exports and decrease imports, with the supposed bonus of stimulating the economy. It's an idiotic idea, proof that the people struggling for control of the world's economy are both knaves and fools. The worst part is that people apparently think somebody actually can and should try to control the economy. The world is imitating Argentina.
I believe that Argentina is still a member of the G20, although hanging on by its fingernails. It would be interesting to see the transcript of the meeting and see what the Argentine representative said, because they're inflating the currency down here at a rate of about 30% per year, even while they're trying to maintain an artificial exchange rate. My suspicion is that the general level of economic knowledge, competence, and ethics among the participants of that conference is not much above that of Argentina.
L: That may be, but it strikes me as being... just so ridiculous. I mean, the US is printing money by the helicopter load and sending much of it abroad, which prompts other countries to try to do the same. Bernanke says it isn't so, but everyone can see it is. How can they say there's no currency war? Is this an attempt at a Big Lie?
Doug: The new Japanese prime minister has come out and said that the Bank of Japan needs to redouble its efforts to create new yen. The Chinese are creating yuan in hyperdrive. The Europeans are doing the same with the euro. In the US, they're printing new dollars at a rate of about 100 billion per month. And that's just among the four big players. It's as though they believe their own lies and think that the driving force of an economy really is public opinion. Believing that, they have no problem admonishing people to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain; everything will be fine as long as people believe it will be.
This reminds me of the story of the guy who jumps off a 100-story building and yells as he passes the 50^th floor, "So far, so good!"" 

It would be funny if it wasn't so destructive.