The Cobden Centre has been established to promote social progress through honest money, free trade and peace. We endorse Richard Cobden's view that:
21 December 09 by Toby Baxendale
Sean Corrigan of Diapason Commodities Management packs more sound applied economics into this report than ever: Toby Baxendale provides a commentary. This is a great Christmas read for us all: download the report here.
Bastiat's Iceberg
On the Errors of GDP Accounting
For the USA economy, Corrigan shows the utter futility of using the conventional GDP measure. The [...]
18 December 09 by James Tyler
James Tyler explains how to fix banking. This article originally appeared on hedgehedge.com.
Open your wallet. Take out that £10 note. It’s yours. Your property, to spend as you wish. Put it in a bank, and you enter Alice’s Wonderland.
Most people in this country believe that when your money is placed in [...]
17 December 09 by Steven Baker
Via FT.com / US / Economy & Fed – Fed signals pullback in liquidity supports, we learn:
The Federal Reserve on Wednesday upgraded its assessment of the US economy and highlighted its intention to shut down most of its crisis-fighting liquidity facilities in early 2010.
And consequently:
Stocks eased slightly after the Fed statement, while the yield curve [...]
15 December 09 by Toby Baxendale
Here’s a sobering thought. If you are due to pay 50% income-tax in the new tax year, do not be fooled: it will come closer to 80% when you add on a few mandatory extras such as the full 17.5% VAT on most of your spending coupled with the 12.8% National Insurance paid by your [...]
14 December 09 by Steven Baker
This article gives a summary of the legal nature of banking contracts as presented by Jesús Huerta de Soto in Money, Bank Credit and Economic Cycles (PDF). A second article will discuss artificial credit expansion and its effects.
In his speech in the 2009 Banking Bill debate, the Earl of Caithness, one of the most experienced Conservative [...]