bank

Remember the outrage one year ago when it was revealed that in its push to pad its top, and bottom line, Warren Buffett's favorite bank had engaged in outright criminal account churning and "cross selling", opening some 2.1 million unauthorized client accounts without permission (subsequently this extended to unsolicited car insurance policies extended on Wells auto loans). Well it turns out there was not nearly outrage, because as the bank revealed this morning, the "real" number was higher. 67% higher.

Authored by Frank Shostak via The Mises Institute,

Some economists such as a Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman are of the view that if the US were to fall into a liquidity trap the US central bank should aggressively pump money and aggressively lower interest rates in order to lift the rate of inflation. This Krugman holds will pull the economy from the liquidity trap and will set the platform for an economic prosperity. In his New York Times article of January 11, 2012, he wrote,

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Something strange happened on July 24: on that day the Bank of Japan announced it would reduce the size of its purchases of five-to-ten year JGBs from Y500 billion to Y470 billion. However, instead of yields and the yen spiking, as some had expected would happen, they slumped. And, just as unexpectedly, 10Y JGB yields continued to slump over the next month, despite another reduction in the amount of JGB in the 5-10 year bucket that the BOJ would purchase on August when it further reduced the amount to Y440 billion.

Authored by Steve H. Hanke of the Johns Hopkins University. Follow him on Twitter @Steve_Hanke.

What follows are six questions and answers that were wedged between cocktails and a dinner hosted by Karl J. Feitelberg, Founder and Chairman of Sterling Resources Ltd. at the Castle Hill Inn, Newport, R.I. on July 24, 2017.

1. Question: What were the two greatest economic catastrophes in the U.S. of the last 100 years?