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Read here the confessions of a University of Illinois professor who at age 64 recently retired to fat city, courtesy of the state's taxpayers. He'll receive 80 percent of his salary for life, plus a three percent annual cost of living increase, but you  won't believe some of the other perks that came with the job.

Our friend Bob Bronson of Bronson Capital Markets Research, a bear's bear in recent years and one of the most accurate intermediate- and long-term forecasters we know, has been calling for a spectacular bull market in stocks to start around the fourth quarter of 2014.  Here's an excerpt from a recent report: [A new foreacsting service that we are planning] is being based upon multi-decade re-optimization of various sized model portfolios in anticipation of the coming Supercycle Bull Market that we continue to expect to start just before the midterm Congressional election in Nov, 2014.  We currently expect that the U.S. stock market during that ~16-year reflationary economic Supercycle Spring will triple every eight years, if not double every five years on a total return basis, with the Dow reaching 50-100,000 by 2030. Of course, I would love to be working during all of next 19 years, but in any case we are putting business succession plans in place.

On the Korelin Economics Report, Al Korelin and Rick Ackerman discuss Austrian vs. Keynesian Economics. Guess which of the two comes out on top?

Writing on the failed American state, and a failed presidency, Conrad Black is as sharp as Mencken in this National Review essay.  Click here to access it.

I've written here before about the unsustainability of soaring college tuitions for degrees of increasingly dubious value. I've also predicted that all colleges will eventually wholesale degrees online, with upscale, brand-name sheepskins from the likes of Harvard, Princeton, Stanford and Yale going for around $10,000 in today's dollars.  At the same time, schools like University of Phoenix that impart professionally useful skills to students will continue to flourish, notwithstanding the sleazy, hypocritical efforts of the college establishment to suppress competition by monoplizing accreditation standards and procedures. For an interesting take on this subject, click here for America's College Bubble Next to Burst.

We always knew that the sleazeballs who dish up those surreal U.S. payroll figures each month are the kind of guys we wouldn't trust alone with a housepet.  In case you were wondering how, exactly, they doctor the data, here's an interesting tidbit from Harry Dent's May latest newsletter: "But then April job creation came in at a better than expected 244,000 suggesting the economy still has rising momentum despite high oil and food prices. The problem with the job creation number is that a full 175,000 of those 244,000 jobs were part of the governmental birth/death adjustment. This adjustment tries to account for the companies that 'die' and do not return their employment survey. The way the adjustment is made is to assume that all the employees of defunct companies immediately found jobs elsewhere in small companies, or started their own. How likely is that?"

This video, lavishly produced in every detail with the sponsorship of George Mason University, is worth ten minutes of your time. Click here to view "The Fight of the Century" on YouTube.

FOFOA blogspot has taken pains to lay out the most cogent, exquisitely nuanced and, ultimately, persuasive argument for hyperinflation that I have read to date.  You can access it by clicking here.  I've responded as follows but plan to write later, in agreement, at greater length. Sheesh!  Where to begin?  It's difficult to give up a belief system that took root 30 years ago, but I find your arguments irresistible.  I took notes as I read the essay, thinking to rebut you point-by-point; instead, halfway through it I found myself overwhelmed by the clarity of your thoughts.  The real power of this essay is that each step of the hyperinflationary endgame you foresee is entirely consistent with human nature, particularly where self-interest and self-preservation are fated to play out. I will need to find a way to break this gently to my readers, perhaps starting with the old joke you've mentioned about not having to outrun the bear.  It goes a long way toward explaining how the Masters of the Universe will actually benefit from hyperinflation. You've also helped me understand how I could have been so bullish on gold over the years even though I considered myself a hard-core deflationist. It was a conflict between head and heart, really, but you’ve resolved it with the most persuasive argument I’ve seen in favor of gold. Even better, you’ve provided a sound basis for arguing that at $1500 per oz., gold has barely begun to discount the dollar’s final fall. I especially appreciate the patience and humility you showed in walking readers through your argument one gentle step at a time. By not trying to overpower your opponents, you have produced a treatise that is certain to engage many minds.  Thanks for engaging mine -- at a depth that had eluded

We stand foursquare with the lunatic fringe on the "birther" question, and we commend Donald Trump for pursuing it like a pit bull.  It's pretty obvious he's onto something, even if Fox's Bill O'Reilly doesn't believe there's a story here.  However, we doubt O'Reilly has a glib rebuttal to the investigative piece posted at American Thinker.  Click here to access it.