A quick summary of the ten most popular articles Ive written on Nolan Chart in 2011. by Bill Gee
(centrist)
Friday, December 16, 2011
It has almost been a year since I have started writing for Nolan Chart, and I have to say that it has been a wonderful experience. Not only has it opened my eyes to different points of view, I have found myself persuaded to change some of my own.
As a person obsessed with numbers, I have kept meticulous records on the readership of the nearly 90 columns I have written this year. I do this for two reasons. 1) It allows me to gauge how “hot” a topic seems to be for people who visit this forum. 2) It helps me to find topics to write about that I know people will want to read.
I realize that “Top 10” lists are cliché, and are usually written as “filler” when columnists have little else to write about, but I hope you will forgive this little bit of self-indulgence as I review my top ten most read columns of 2011.
This was the opening salvo of a debate I held with Nolan Chart Founder, Walt Theissen regarding the pros and cons of changing the monetary system we currently enjoy to a system based on something more tangible such as precious metals. The debate took the form of about six different columns where Walt presented his views on the subject and I took the more traditional view. The most profound thing I found during our debate is that by the end of it, I was myself persuaded to abandon fiat currency and support an alternative monetary system. While I am not entirely convinced that precious metals are the way to go, I am convinced that the current system is unsustainable.
I wrote this article to mainly poke fun at the macroeconomic concept that believes that there is a so-called “sweet spot” between taxation and economic growth. A point where government revenues are maximized via economic growth. The debate, of course, is do we increase marginal tax rates or lower them in order to maximize revenues to pay down the debt. The debate, of course, is “laughable” as this article’s high readership attests to.
Ironically, a full month before the Occupy Wall Street movement got started, the city of London erupted into violence as disenfranchised youth took to the streets in the worst rioting in half a century. In the aftermath of the violence, participants were labeled as “gangsters”, and “hoodlums” as they refused to acknowledge the economic connection that motivated the violence in the first place. It is interesting that as the Occupy Camps were taken down earlier this month and hundreds of protesters were arrested, that authorities are now characterizing our own youth in the same way.
In this article I made the argument that the former Alaska Governor’s use of the “Blood Libel” term for herself in the wake of the shooting of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, would damage her chances of winning the Republican nomination for President. While she did not give me the chance to be proven correct in my argument, I believe the fact that she decided to not run at all proved my point that she is incapable of appearing “Presidential” enough to convince voters to vote for her.
In this article I described the growing market for “short selling” in the sovereign debt market through the purchase of Swaps on Government Debt – especially in Europe. I further argued that such investments were unlikely to ever pay out because should the level of default on sovereign European debt get to the point to trigger a payout, the currency supporting the Swap will also be gone.
This article was a light-hearted approach to how a children’s author probably had a sustainable economic model to present to the world than the brightest minds in academia. While not entirely scholarly in nature, I suspect that “Potterheads” found the article’s main points amusing as they compare Gringots to the Federal Reserve Bank.
In this article, I exposed another form of investment vehicle where holders of the investment have a financial incentive to see the premature death of seniors who were forced to cash in their life insurance policies in order to make ends meet. The article hits home for all of us who live hand-to-mouth and are afraid that we’ll be denied health care in our old age because our insurance carrier is more likely to make more money from allowing us to die than to keep us alive.
This column, written at the height of the OWS movement, asks the question of what, if anything, will the Wall Street protestors actually accomplish in the long-run.
This was the first of a five-part series on the city my parents grew up in, which was forced to lay off over half its police and firefighters in January due to budget cuts. It examined Camden’s options from a law-enforcement and human rights perspective taking most of its source information from WHYY reporter, Liz Fiedler. While the city has not exploded into a sea of violence, the latest reports show that violent crime and arson are rising steadily and that police have decided to stop investigating petty crime altogether. As more cities face painful budget cuts and austerity, we may all be living near a city like Camden in the near future.
If for no other reason, I believe the popularity of this column was primarily driven by the wildfire popularity of the movement and the article’s promise to provide some concrete positions put forth by the Movement. In other words, it’s popularity was most likely driven by good timing in the news cycle. More importantly, the article sought to bridge Liberals, Libertarians and Tea Party Patriots together by informing them that they have a common enemy, and that history is presenting everyone in America the opportunity to join together to make some real changes in the way business is conducted in this country. Of all the articles on my top ten list, it is the most hopeful for the future, which is why I hope it had such a broad appeal with my readers.
There you have it, Bill Gee’s first year as a regular columnist in a nutshell. I wish to thank all of my constant readers throughout the months as I broke my chops and stepped on a few toes along the way.
I’m sure 2012 will give us all something to write about.
Did you like this article? If you did, Thumb It! 1
thumb so far
The views expressed
in this article are those of Bill Gee only and
do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates.
Bill Gee is solely responsible for the contents
of this article and is not an employee or otherwise affiliated
with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
