Apparently, Rules Matter, At Least to Football Fans

That big sucking sound was not, as presidential candidate Ross Perot once famously said, the sound of American jobs going to other countries.   The big sucking sound was the collective sigh of relief as the National Football League lockout of referees ended.

Apparently, one big mistake in the Green Bay-Seattle game the previous Monday propelled the NFL into bargaining action.    Suddenly, the full-time refs, normally bums, became heros.

One wonders why we put up with so many mistakes by central bankers...who don’t seem to understand or follow the rules they are presumably supposed to enforce.   Ironically, it was a banker whose ruling brought down the wrath of NFL-fandom and an end to the impasses.  According to the Wall Street Journal: “Before Monday night, Lance Easley was a mostly anonymous full-time banker for Bank of America Corp. And part-time high-school football referee blowing whistles in a Christian league in California.”

“By Tuesday morning, he was the toast of Seattle, the scourge of Green Bay, Wis., the owner of his own Wikipedia entry and now maybe the man most influential in the campaign to bring back regular referees to the National Football League.

A clearly decent man, Easley made what many observers saw as a clear mistake – one that cost Green Bay the game.   Football is not as forgiving as religion.   Mistakes matter.   They cannot be tolerated on the gridiron.

A satirical feature in the New York Times demonstrated ten fictitious poses “From the Replacement Official’s Handbook.  Figure 10 was entitled: “Here, you try if you think you can do better” as the official stretched out an open right arm as if to invite someone to take his spot.

What a concept.   Perhaps one of the world’s central bankers might try the Figure 10 play and invite someone else to do better.   There is a clear need to do better.

Most folks acknowledge that our current approach to fiscal problems in Washington is dysfunctional.   But what is even more dysfunctional is our monetary policy.

Everyone is worrying about the fiscal cliff we’re facing.  What about the monetary cliff we’re facing.   The world’s central bankers may think they’re pros...but they are sure muffing a lot of plays.

Send in the gold team.

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George Gilder Thankfully Returns, Bearing Knowledge and Power

by Ralph Benko

George Gilder, whose new book publishes today, is one of the original pillars of Supply Side economics. As stated by Discovery Institute, which he co-founded, “Mr. Gilder pioneered the formulation of supply-side economics when he served as Chairman of the Lehrman Institute’s Economic Roundtable, as Program Director for the Manhattan Institute….”

He was the living writer most quoted by President Reagan. And he is back with his most brilliant work yet — one of potentially explosive importance if taken to heart by our political and policy thought leaders. It is a radical guide, with surprising insights on almost every page, to the creation of a new era of vibrant prosperity.


The Lehrman Standard

by Paul Brodsky

As reviewer Paul Brodsky, a professional investor in New York City, perceptively notes,

"Lewis Lehrman is one of a very small group of contemporary gold advocates able to successfully bridge the gap separating practical conservative intellectualism from fleeting, half-baked idealism. His CV lists great success across many fields including education (degrees and teaching fellowships from Yale and Harvard); industry (past president of Rite Aid); politics (narrow loser to Mario Cuomo in the 1982 New York governor’s race); finance, (past Morgan Stanley managing director); private sector entrepreneur (founder, L. E. Lehrman & Company); public sector advocate (founder, Lehrman Institute); historian (author, Lincoln at Peoria: The Turning Point); and recognized philanthropist (awarded the National Humanities Medal by George W. Bush in an Oval Office ceremony). ... Only someone erudite and elegant in demeanor could hope to pull it off . In an irreconcilably over-leveraged world where irritated bond vigilantes question economic sustainability and angry Tea Partiers protest the immorality of it all, Lehrman’s views are considered and his convictions carry weight. He brings gravitas to his cause, and he does so from within as a member of the club."

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Before the Fed: JP Morgan Summons the Bank Presidents

"Finally, on the night of Sunday, November 2, Morgan summoned the presidents of the major New York banks to his new library, at the corner of Madison Avenue and Thirty-sixth Street, an Italian Renaissance-style palace he had built next door to his house to showcase his collection of rare books, manuscripts, and other artwork. Its marble floors, frescoed ceilings, walls lined with tapestries and triple-tiered bookcases of Circasian walnut, crammed full of rare Bibles and illuminated medieval manuscripts, made it an incongruous setting for a meeting of the banking establishment. Once the moneymen had gathered, Morgan had the great ornamental bronze doors to the library locked and refused to let anyone leave until all had collectively agreed to commit a further $25 million to the rescue fund."

— Liaquat Ahamed, Lords of Finance (Penguin Books, 2009, p. 54)



The Demise of Money and Credit

by Lewis E. Lehrman

Lately we have been engulfed by headlines reporting financial turmoil on every continent, in almost every nation, large and small. The commissars of central planning who so marred the history of the 20th century have been replaced by central banks in the 21st. In Cyprus, the new leadership now dares to confiscate citizens’ wealth with a one-time tax of up to 60 percent on bank deposits above 100,000 euros. Self-interested prime ministers blame continental monetary policies for instigating the currency wars that they themselves surreptitiously carry on.

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Remembering the Fed

Kathleen Packard  |  Jun 19, 2013
America recently celebrated — well, maybe we didn’t celebrate – the 80th anniversary of Franklin Roosevelt’s action to end to the gold standard. But America is also celebrating – well, maybe not everyone is celebrating – the 100th anniversary of the legislation creating the Federal Reserve System. As Lewis E. Lehrman...

The Common Sense of the Common Law

Ralph J. Benko  |  Jun 18, 2013
Constitution.org provides an extensive and thoughtful Memorandum of Law by Larry Becraft, Esq., of Huntsville, Alabama, on Article I, Section 10, clause 1 of the US Constitution. Sir William Blackstone courtesy of Wikipedia One of many interesting matters the Memorandum treats is Blackstone's Commentaries, a book that was a fixture in the...
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Jun 19, 2013
World Press
Philip Scranton

How the U.S. Scuttled the 1933 World Economic Conference

In the spring of 1933, global trade was being undermined by nationalistic economic responses to the Great Depression, including currency...
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Thank you for the opportunity to testify in support of H.R. 1098, The Free Competition in Currency Act of 2011.
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(1896-1978)

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