Quote of the week

From the redoubtable John Ward, describing Ben Bernanke’s speech suicide note….

If there is one thing that concerns me more than a bearded rabbit in the headlights, it’s adult male and female professionals taking this crap seriously. Bernanke’s speech today represented a lengthy overture of sightless denial followed by a cacophony of contradictory ideas – literally, a blind man stabbing at darkness he cannot see.

It’s a bank holiday in the UK. We should all relax: it will stand us in good stead in the coming months.

The Euro, currency of choice for drug gangs everywhere

According to today’s WSJ, EU federalists have found an interesting ally in the struggle to keep the Euro above the waterline.

“Why?” I hear you ask. Well, there’s stuff about seigniorage and other technical guff, but here’s the kicker….

….$1 million in $100 bills weighs 22 pounds; in hypothetical $500 bills, it would weigh just 4.4 pounds.

Simple really.

They’re also pretty handy handy when you’re hoovering up a bit of the old Bolivian marching powder.

Hat tip, Ian Geldard.

For Cleveland, Ohio, read Hackney, Maryhill….

….Birmingham Ladywood, Peckham, Shoreditch, Manchester Central, Liverpool Riverside….

How do we save our most depressed inner city regions?

• By encouraging inward private sector investment and making it easier for companies to function, giving schools and teachers the flexibility to make their own decisions, and improving services and civic pride by introducing commercial rigour into moribund, union-dominated municipal assets?
• Or by burdening these areas with ever greater levels of regulation, taxation, red tape and bureaucracy, while allowing doctrine, political orthodoxy and self interest to trump common sense and results-driven public services?

Watch this great series of shorts from Drew Carey’s excellent Reason TV and decide for yourself….

No brainer? You would have thought so, wouldn’t you?

A future fair? Don’t you mean bazaar?

Serious props to Man Widdicombe for this ingenious anagramisation of Labour’s general election campaign slogan….

The recession will end tomorrow

History will remember today as a day of days. Mark it in your diary. It will enter into our iconography.

I have returned to work. There will be a ripple, that will become a palpable surge in GDP, that will metamorphose into a raging torrent of energy and industry today as I fire up Powerpoint and Excel, and the steam, hiss, clank and roar of a process flow surge through the economy.

It will be positively Stakhanovite.

Admit it. You are lucky to have me.