Wednesday, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke announced the central bank would maintain its pace of quantitative easing (QE) in light of moderate improvement in US economic activity. However, as we’ve detailed many times before, we view the Fed’s QE policy moves as grossly counterproductive to its stated aims.

"When governments spend with abandon (deficits just a form of finance) there's a smaller capital base for the productive to access, so when it comes to government spending the tragedy is not whether it occurs in deficit or surplus, but the Microsofts and Intels, the cancer cures, and the transportation innovations that never materialize thanks to politicians consuming so much capital."

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The price of rice has increased by roughly 28'500% over the last three years, while the North Korean Won currency is in a free fall. Sounds familiar?

The recent jump in forex volatility is understandable. A similar theme coloured the mid-to-late 1930s.

More than 20 years ago Sweden suffered a severe financial crisis that brought unemployment to an all-time high. To this day the unemployment rate has not returned to where it was before the crisis. Economists say that if the U.S. is anything like Sweden, our full recovery may still be a long way off. Sweden is like the U.S. in many ways, but the roots of its labor market troubles appear to be very different from ours.

The Euro is making headlines again, this time not due to its possible imminent disappearance as a currency but rather as a result of what many regard as its undue strength.