Michael Krieger

My name is Michael Krieger, and I am the creator and editor of Liberty Blitzkrieg. I'm originally from New York City.

As far as my academic and professional background, I attended college at Duke University where I earned a double major in Economics and Spanish. After completing my studies in 2000, I took a job at Lehman Brothers where I worked with the Oil analyst in the Equity Research Department.  In 2005, I joined Sanford C. Bernstein where I served as the Commodities Analyst on the trading floor. About halfway through my time there, I started to branch out and write opinions on bigger picture "macro" topics that no one else at the firm was covering. These opinion pieces were extremely popular throughout the global investment community, and I traveled around providing advice to some of the largest mutual funds, pension funds and hedge funds in the world.

I loved my job, but as time passed I started to educate myself about how the monetary and financial system functions and what I discovered disgusted me. I no longer felt satisfied working within the industry, and I resigned in January 2010.  At that point, I started a family investment office and continued to write macro pieces on economic, social and geopolitical topics. That summer, I drove cross country for six weeks and ultimately decided to leave the crowded streets of Manhattan for the open spaces of Boulder, Colorado, where I currently reside.

In the years that followed, I gradually recognized that my true passion centers upon writing on issues of significant societal importance given the extremely challenging times we live in. This realization culminated with me losing interest in financial markets and eventually launching this website in early 2012.

If you are interested in a more detailed description, replete with colorful anecdotes, of how I ended up making this bizarre professional transition, take the time to watch the video below.

https//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/DcqMN-FXCIE?rel=0

In Liberty,
Michael Krieger

The United States: 5% of the World’s Population, 25% of its Prisoners

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This article is from May, but wow what a crazy statistic.  I guess there was just no room for Corzine…From The Economist:

Excessive incarceration is an American problem. The country has about 5% of the world’s population but almost 25% of its prisoners, with the world’s largest number of inmates and highest per capita rate of incarceration. California eagerly participated in this trend of locking up ever more people. During Mr Brown’s previous stint as governor in the 1970s the state switched to more inflexible sentencing. It then spent another two decades adding “tough-on-crime” laws that kept extending sentences even for minor crimes.

The resulting prison-building boom, and rapacious bargaining by the prison-guards union, meant that state penitentiaries became the fastest-growing major cost in the state budget. California’s 33 prisons and associated camps therefore bear no small responsibility for the state’s recurring budget crises, and the resultant crunch on school and university funding.

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Fukushima Safety Scientists Paid by Nuclear Operators

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Can’t say I am surprised in the least.  From The New Zealand Herald:

Influential Japanese scientists who help set national radiation exposure limits have for years had trips paid for by the country’s nuclear plant operators to attend overseas meetings of the world’s top academic group on radiation safety.

Some of these same scientists have consistently given optimistic assessments about the health risks of radiation, interviews with the scientists and government documents show. Their pivotal role in setting policy after the March 2011 tsunami and ensuing nuclear meltdowns meant the difference between school children playing outside or indoors and families staying or evacuating.

The doctor on the parliamentary panel, Hisako Sakiyama, is outraged about utility funding for Japan’s ICRP (International Commission on Radiological Protection). She fears that radiation standards are being set at a lenient level to limit costly evacuations.

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Payday Loans in California: School Districts Owe $1 Billion on $100 Million Borrowed

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This story here, as much as any I have ever read, perfectly exemplifies the complete parasitic, ponzi and entirely unsustainably criminal carcass of an economy that remains in the United States today. This is devastatingly frightening reading. The state of California is completely finished. From NPR:

Collectively, the districts have borrowed billions in loans that defer payments for years — leaving many districts owing far more than they borrowed.

“We’d be foolish not to take advantage of getting $25 million” when the district had to spend just $2.5 million to get it, Ramsey says. “The only way we could do it was with a [capital appreciation bond].”

Those bonds, known as CABs, are unlike typical bonds, where a school district is required to make immediate and regular payments. Instead, CABs allow districts to defer payments well into the future — by which time lots of interest has accrued.

In the West Contra Costa Schools’ case, that $2.5 million bond will cost the district a whopping $34 million to repay.

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Is Obama Close to Waging War on Legalized Pot?

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I believe that election day 2012 will go down in U.S. history as an extremely important event.  No, not because in its national apathy the citizens re-elected a crony capitalist puppet as President.  Rather, because it was the day when two states overwhelmingly rejected the Federal Prohibition on marijuana.  Of course, I am referring to … Read more

Ivy League Gone Wild: Mocking Homeless People, Branding and Vomit Omelets

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This story of degenerate behavior at America’s “finest institutions” is a perfect reflection of our declining culture and society.  Just remember as you read the article that this is the pool from which future Central Bank chiefs, government officials and Managing Directors at Goldman will be chosen.  From Bloomberg: Yale was hit with a discrimination complaint … Read more

Coming to Your Car: Mandatory Black Boxes That Record Everything

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This is just awesome news.  Similar to my article about drones from yesterday, I am not saying that new technology like this is necessarily bad.  What I am most bothered by is that these devices are being employed with little or no public debate.  I bet only 1% of the population even knows about this.  From Fox: Many … Read more

Nobel Prize Winner in Literature Says “Censorship is Necessary”

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Let’s do a quick recap of some prominent Nobel Prize winners in recent years.  Paul Krugman for Economics in 2008.  Barack Obama for Peace in 2009.  Now we have Mo Yan for Literature in 2012, a Chinese citizen who advocates in favor of censorship.  Yes, you heard right, a writer who favors censorship.  It gets … Read more

Meet Liz Fowler: Architect of ObamaCare Jumps Ship to Johnson & Johnson

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Following the passage of ObamaCare, several of the smartest people I know claimed that the bill was actually written by and for the drug and insurance companies rather than “the people” as Obama had claimed.  My friend and orthopedic surgeon Dave Janda wrote an excellent piece that I published titled: Thoughts on Obamacare from a Surgeon and … Read more

Gun Sales Surge: Smith & Wesson Announces Sales +48%

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I have maintained for quite some time that the only true “consumer confidence” statistic one should look at is that of gun sales.  The bottom line is people do not hoard guns when they are confident about the future of the country, and gun sales have never been better.  More evidence emerged as Smith & Wesson … Read more

Senate Leader McConnell Fighting AGAINST Campaign Finance Reform

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This appears to be another example of the dissent and internal implosion occurring within the Republican Party, which I discussed in my piece yesterday Night of the Long Knives.  According to The Hill: McConnell met with the House Republican Study Committee last week to warn conservatives in the lower chamber not to sign on to any … Read more