Category Archives: Economic Issues
Need Money? Call O’Sucka and Ask Him.
Ya Gotta Love Grandpas…. (From the email inbox)
Love, Grandpa
Coming to A Bank Near You…Are You Awake Yet?
Big Government to Seize Bank Deposits in Cyprus
Cyprus graphically illustrates where the road to socialism leads, on its way to full-flown Soviet-style communism:
The surprise decision by euro zone leaders to part-fund a bailout of Cyprus by taxing bank deposits sent shockwaves through financial markets on Monday, with shares and the bonds of struggling euro zone governments tumbling.
The bloc struck a deal on Saturday to hand Cyprus rescue loans worth 10 billion euros ($13 billion), but defied warnings – including from the European Central Bank – and imposed a levy that would see those with cash in the island’s banks lose between 6.75 and 9.9 percent of their money.
It is no longer safe to keep money in the bank, because profligate bureaucrats will find it there and confiscate it.
The purpose of this outrage was to prevent Cyprus from going into default.
That would have undermined the promise that Greece’s debt writedown last year was a one-off, but the unprecedented move to hit depositors adds a radical new dimension to the crisis across the euro zone.
The initial response of investors was unambiguous. Shares lurched lower, the euro fell to a new three-month low, while safe-haven assets such as gold and German government bonds jumped.
The cost of insuring the debt of even high-quality European banks against default also rose sharply with analysts citing fears the decision could spark contagion across peripheral regions with the potential for widespread outflows of deposits.
Anyone with money in a Spanish or Italian bank might consider keeping it instead under the mattress where it will be relatively safe.
After the Mediterranean dominos fall, Germany will be left to carry the entire Eurozone on its back. Don’t buy stock in its success.
Similar tax and spend policies, arising from similar contempt for the concept of private property, will have similar effects in the USA. It is only a matter of time.
Liberals tell us there is a third way between freedom and communism. There isn’t. You can’t cop out when it comes to good and evil. Every society has to choose, and if it chooses wrong, it has to face the consequences.
On tips from Ghost of FA Hayek, Dr. 9, Bob Roberts, Sean C, Don M, and Wiggins. Hat tip: Zero Hedge.
The Economy is So Bad…How Bad is It? Well…
THE ECONOMY IS SO BAD:
I got a pre-declined credit card in the mail.
I ordered a burger at McDonald’s and the kid behind the counter
asked,”Can you afford fries with that?”
CEO’s are now playing miniature golf.
If the bank returns your check marked “Insufficient Funds,” you call
them and ask if they meant you or them.
Hot Wheels and Matchbox stocks are trading higher than GM.
McDonald’s is selling the 1/4 ouncer.
Parents in Beverly Hills fired their nannies and learned their
children’s names.
A truckload of Americans was caught sneaking into Mexico .
Dick Cheney took his stockbroker hunting.
Motel Six won’t leave the light on anymore.
The Mafia is laying off judges.
Exxon-Mobil laid off 25 Congressmen.
Congress says they are looking into this Bernard Madof scandal. Oh
Great! The guy who made $50 Billion disappear is being investigated by
the people who made $1.5 Trillion disappear!
I was so depressed last night thinking about the economy,
wars, jobs, my savings, Social Security, retirement funds, etc., I
called the Suicide Lifeline. I got a call center in Pakistan and when I
told them I was suicidal, they got all excited, and asked if I could
drive a truck.
Found this at Tea Party Community: https://www.teapartycommunity.com/
It is Not a Matter of “If” But “When” This House of Cards Will Collapse
Frightening: Entitlements And Obamacare To Make Up 53% of Federal Spending…
Nothing to see here folks, totally sustainable.
(CNSNews.com) – According to projections from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), entitlements and ObamaCare spending will comprise 53 percent of all federal spending over the coming decade, totaling $24.9 trillion.
In its updated Budget and Economic Outlook report released on Tuesday, the CBO projects that Social Security will account for $11.149 trillion in spending from 2014 to 2023 while federal health care entitlements, including Medicare, Medicaid, and ObamaCare, will spend $13.85 trillion. (That total includes TRICARE, CHIP, and “other” spending listed by the CBO under healthcare.)
ObamaCare’s insurance subsidies, exchange costs, and other spending are expected to cost the government $949 billion over the next 10 years. Medicare is expected cost $8.1 trillion while Medicaid is expected to cost $4.4 trillion.
Combined, these two entitlement categories (Social Security and all health care programs) will comprise 52.9 percent of the projected $47.2 trillion in total federal outlays from 2014 to 2023.
From Weasel Zippers: http://weaselzippers.us/
Thanks to Obummer…Your Power Bill is About to Go Way Up…and That is What He Wants
Thanks Barack… Georgia Power Company Closes 15 Plants Thanks To Latest EPA Regulations
The Milledgeville area plant closing will cost more than 200 jobs. (The Telegraph)
A Georgia utilities company is closing 15 coal, oil and gas plants thanks to the latest Obama EPA regulations.
Reuters reported, via The Examiner:
Georgia Power said on Monday it plans to seek approval from Georgia regulators to retire 15 coal-, oil- and natural gas-fired power plants in the state totaling 2,061 megawatts (MW) due primarily to the high cost of meeting stricter federal environmental regulations.
Over the past few years, U.S. generating companies have announced plans to shut about 40,000 MW of older coal-fired power plants as low natural gas prices have made it uneconomic for the generators to spend millions to upgrade the plants’ emissions systems to meet the latest federal and state environmental rules.
In a press release, Georgia Power, the biggest unit of U.S. power company Southern Co, said it wanted to shut units 3 and 4 at Plant Branch in Putnam County; units 1-5 at Plant Yates in Coweta County; units 1 and 2 at Plant McManus in Glynn County; units 1-4 at Plant Kraft in Chatham County; and units 2 and 3 at Boulevard in Chatham County.
The company said it plans to file its updated Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) with Georgia’s utility regulators on Jan. 31.
Units 3-4 at Branch, units 1-5 at Yates and units 1-3 at Kraft are coal-fired units. Kraft Unit 4 and Boulevard 2 and 3 are fired by natural gas and oil. McManus units 1-2 are oil-fired.
The company said it expects to ask to retire the units, other than Kraft 1-4, by the April 16, 2015, effective date of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Mercury and Air Toxics (MATS) rule.
From The Daley Gator: http://thedaleygator.wordpress.com/
Let’s Haul The Shit Out of Washington – Every Damn One of Them
From Theo: http://www.theospark.net/
Victor Davis Hansen Looks at The Future…and It is Scary
2013: Welcome To Very, Very Scary Times – Victor Davis Hanson
On the One Hand…
These should not be foreboding years. The U.S. is in the midst of a veritable energy revolution. There is a godsend of new gas and oil discoveries that will help to curtail our fiscal and foreign policy vulnerabilities – an energy bonanza despite, not because of, the present administration.
Demographically, our rivals – the EU, China, Russia, and Japan – are both shrinking and aging at rates far in excess of our own.
In terms of farming, the United States is exporting more produce than ever before at record prices. Americans eat the safest and cheapest food on the planet.
As far as high-tech gadgetry, the global companies that have most changed the world in recent years – Amazon’s online buying, Google search engines, Apple iPhones, iPads, and Mac laptops – are mostly American. There is a reason why Mexican nationals are not crossing their border into Guatemala – and it is not because they prefer English speakers to Spanish speakers.
Militarily, the United States is light years ahead of its rivals. And so on…
The New Poverty Is the Old Middle Class
We have redefined poverty itself through government entitlements, modes of mass production and consumerism, and technological breakthroughs. The poor man is not hungry; more likely he suffers from obesity, now endemic among the less affluent. He is not deprived of a big-screen TV, a Kia, warm water, or an air conditioner. (My dad got our first color television during my first year in college in 1972, a small 19 inch portable; I bought my first new car at 39, and quit changing my own oil at 44.)
In classical terms, today’s poor man is poor not in relative global terms (e.g. compared to a Russian, Bolivian, or Yemeni), but in the sense that there are those in America who have more things and choices than does he: a BMW instead of a Hyundai, ribeye instead of ground beef, Pellegrino rather than regular Coke, Tuscany in the summer rather than Anaheim at Disneyland, and L.L. Bean tasteful footwear rather than Payless shoes. I was in Manhattan not long ago, and noticed that my cheap, discount-store sportcoat and Target tie did not raise eyebrows among the wealthy people I spoke to, suggesting that the veneer of aristocracy is now within all our reach. When I returned to Selma, I noted that those ahead of me at Super Wal-Mart were clothed no differently than was I. Their EBD cards bought about the same foods.
Put all the above developments together, and an alignment of the planets is favoring America as never before – as long as we do not do something stupid to nullify what fate, our ancestors, and our own ingenuity have given us. But unfortunately that is precisely what is now happening.
The New Hubris
These are the most foreboding times in my 59 years. The reelection of Barack Obama has released a surge of rare honesty among the Left about its intentions, coupled with a sense of triumphalism that the country is now on board for still greater redistributionist change.
There is no historical appreciation among the new progressive technocracy that central state planning, whether the toxic communist brand or supposedly benevolent socialism, has only left millions of corpses in its wake, or abject poverty and misery. Add up the Soviet Union and Mao’s China and the sum is 80 million murdered or starved to death. Add up North Korea, Cuba, and the former Eastern Europe, and the tally is egalitarian poverty and hopelessness. The EU sacrificed democratic institutions for coerced utopianism and still failed, leaving its Mediterranean shore bankrupt and despondent.
Nor is there much philosophical worry that giving people massive subsidies destroys individualism, the work ethic, and the personal sense of accomplishment. There is rarely worry expressed that a profligate nation that borrows from others abroad and those not born has no moral compass. There is scant political appreciation that the materialist Marxist argument – that justice is found only through making sure that everyone has the same slice of stuff from the zero-sum pie – was supposed to end up on the ash heap of history.
Read the News and Weep
That is not conspiracy talk, but simply a distillation of what I read today. On the last day of the year when I am writing this, I offer you just three sample op-eds.
A journalist, Donald Kaul, in the Des Moines Register offers us a three-step, presto! plan to stop school shootings:
Repeal the Second Amendment, the part about guns anyway. It’s badly written, confusing and more trouble than it’s worth. …Declare the NRA a terrorist organization and make membership illegal. Hey! We did it to the Communist Party, and the NRA has led to the deaths of more of us than American Commies ever did. …Then I would tie Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, our esteemed Republican leaders, to the back of a Chevy pickup truck and drag them around a parking lot until they saw the light on gun control.
Note the new ease with which the liberal mind calls for trashing the Constitution, outlawing those whom they don’t like (reminiscent of “punish our enemies“?), and killing those politicians with whom they don’t agree (we are back to Bush Derangement Syndrome, when novels, movies, and op-eds dreamed of the president’s assassination.)
What would be the Register’s reaction should a conservative opponent of abortion dare write, “Repeal the First Amendment; ban Planned Parenthood as a terrorist organization; and drag Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi from a truck”? If an idiot were to write that trash, I doubt the Washington Times or Wall Street Journal would print such sick calls for overturning the Constitution and committing violence against public officials.
Ah Yes, Still More Redistribution
Turning to a column in The New Republic, John Judis, in honest fashion, more or less puts all the progressive cards on the table in a column titled “Obama’s Tax Hikes Won’t Be Nearly Big Enough” – a candor about what the vast $5 trillion deficits of Obama’s first term were all about in the first place.
Here is the summation quote: “But to fund these programs, governments will have to extract a share of income from those who are able to afford them and use the revenues to make the services available for everyone.”
Note that Judas was not talking about the projected new taxes in the fiscal cliff talks, but something far greater to come. He understands well that the “gorge the beast” philosophy that resulted in these astronomical debts will require enormous new sources of revenue, funds “to extract” from “those who are able to afford them” in order to “make services available for everyone.”
That is about as neat a definition of coerced socialism as one can find. Implicit in Judas’s formulation is that only a very well-educated (and well-compensated) technocratic class will possess the wisdom, the proper schooling, and the morality to adjudicate who are to be the extracted ones and who the new “everyone.”
The Constitution – Who the Hell Needs It?
The third item in my year-end reading was the most disturbing. A law professor (could it be otherwise?) named Louis Michael Seidman enlightens us with “Let’s Give Up on the Constitution” – yet another vision of what the now triumphant liberal mind envisions for us all:
As the nation teeters at the edge of fiscal chaos, observers are reaching the conclusion that the American system of government is broken. But almost no one blames the culprit: our insistence on obedience to the Constitution, with all its archaic, idiosyncratic and downright evil provisions.
Did Madison force Obama to borrow a half-billion dollars to fund Solyndra and its multimillionaire con artists?
Note Seidman’s use of “evil,” which tips his hand that our great moralist is on an ethical crusade to change the lives of lesser folk, who had the misfortune of growing up in America – a place so much less prosperous, fair, and secure than, say, Russia, China, the Middle East, Africa, South America, Spain, Greece, Italy, or Japan and Germany (in the earlier 20th century history). When I lived in Greece, traveled to Libya, and went into Mexico, I forgot to sigh, “My God, these utopias are possible for us too, if we just junked that evil Constitution.”
White Guys Did It
The non-archaic, un-idiosyncratic, and anti-downright evil Professor Seidman presses his argument against his inferiors who wrote the “evil” document: “Instead of arguing about what is to be done, we argue about what James Madison might have wanted done 225 years ago.”
Ah yes, old white male Madison, who lacked the insight, character, and morality of our new liberal technocrats in our successful law schools, such as, well, Mr. Seidman himself:
As someone who has taught constitutional law for almost 40 years, I am ashamed it took me so long to see how bizarre all this is. Imagine that after careful study a government official – say, the president or one of the party leaders in Congress – reaches a considered judgment that a particular course of action is best for the country. Suddenly, someone bursts into the room with new information: a group of white propertied men who have been dead for two centuries, knew nothing of our present situation, acted illegally under existing law and thought it was fine to own slaves might have disagreed with this course of action. Is it even remotely rational that the official should change his or her mind because of this divination?
I suppose human nature changes every decade or so, so why shouldn’t constitutions as well?
I can see Seidman’s vision now: Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi decides that semi-automatic handguns, not cheap Hollywood violence or sick video games, empower the insane to kill, and, presto, their “considered judgment” and favored “particular course of action” trump the archaic and evil wisdom of “white propertied men.” But if we wish to avoid the baleful influence of white guys, can Seidman point to indigenous Aztec texts for liberal guidance, or perhaps the contemporary constitution of liberated Zimbabwe, or the sagacity of the Chinese court system?
The Law Is What We Say It Is
Note the fox-in-the-henhouse notion that a constitutional law professor essentially hates the Constitution he is supposed to teach, sort of like Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg warning the Egyptians not to follow our own constitutional example, when South Africa has offered so much more to humanity than did Madison, Hamilton, Jefferson, and others: “I would not look to the U.S. Constitution, if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012. I might look at the constitution of South Africa.” Ginsburg obviously vacations in Johannesburg, goes to Cape Town for her medical treatment, and has a vacation home and bank account in the scenic South African countryside.
Seidman looks fondly on Roosevelt’s war against the Constitution (especially the notion that law is essentially what an elected president who has proper “aspirations” says it is):
In his Constitution Day speech in 1937, Franklin D. Roosevelt professed devotion to the document, but as a statement of aspirations rather than obligations. This reading no doubt contributed to his willingness to extend federal power beyond anything the framers imagined, and to threaten the Supreme Court when it stood in the way of his New Deal legislation.
No doubt.
Free at Last from Constitutional Chains
In the age of Obama, the constitutional law lecturer who once lamented that the Supreme Court had not gone far enough by failing to take up questions of forced redistribution, Seidman writes:
In the face of this long history of disobedience, it is hard to take seriously the claim by the Constitution’s defenders that we would be reduced to a Hobbesian state of nature if we asserted our freedom from this ancient text. Our sometimes flagrant disregard of the Constitution has not produced chaos or totalitarianism; on the contrary, it has helped us to grow and prosper.
But I thought it was the Constitution, not the anti-Constitution or egalitarian good will, that separated us from Hitler’s Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, Tojo’s Japan, Stalin’s Soviet Union, Mao’s China, and most of the miserable places that one sees abroad today, from Cuba to North Korea, which all had and have one thing in common – the embrace of some sort of national, republican, or democratic “socialism” guiding their efforts and plastered about in their sick mottoes.
The progressive mind, given that is it more enlightened and moral, alone can determine which parts of the “evil” Constitution should be summarily ignored (e.g., the Second Amendment) and which should not be: “This is not to say that we should disobey all constitutional commands. Freedom of speech and religion, equal protection of the laws and protections against governmental deprivation of life, liberty or property are important, whether or not they are in the Constitution. We should continue to follow those requirements out of respect, not obligation.”
Give Real Freedom a Chance
I am sure that history offers all sorts of examples where people without evil documents like our Constitution protected free speech and religious worship – out of “respect.” Ask Socrates, Jesus, six million Jews, 20 million Russians, or those with eyeglasses during the days of the Khmer Rouge. Apparently, what stops such carnage is not the rule of constitutional law, but good progressive minds who care for others and show respect. I’ll try that rhetoric on the next thief who for the fourth time will steal the copper wire conduit from my pump.
So just dream with Professor Seidman:
The deep-seated fear that such disobedience would unravel our social fabric is mere superstition. As we have seen, the country has successfully survived numerous examples of constitutional infidelity… What has preserved our political stability is not a poetic piece of parchment, but entrenched institutions and habits of thought and, most important, the sense that we are one nation and must work out our differences. No one can predict in detail what our system of government would look like if we freed ourselves from the shackles of constitutional obligation, and I harbor no illusions that any of this will happen soon. But even if we can’t kick our constitutional-law addiction, we can soften the habit… before abandoning our heritage of self-government, we ought to try extricating ourselves from constitutional bondage so that we can give real freedom a chance.
I have seen their future and it is almost here right now. Scary times, indeed.
From The Daley Gator: http://thedaleygator.wordpress.com/
Miserable Economic Conditions Will Lead to Dependency, Envy, Strife, and Death – The Liberal Formula Being Carried Out in America
Democrat Death Spiral
The objective of liberal politics is to induce the Democrat Death Spiral, a vicious cycle by which miserable economic conditions lead to government dependency and class envy, leading to Democrat electoral victories, leading to higher taxes and crippling regulations, leading to still more miserable economic conditions. Once the Democrat Death Spiral has been initiated, the more damage left-wing bureaucrats inflict on the economy, the more certain they are of reelection.
Detroit entered the Democrat Death Spiral decades ago. As a result of the city’s utter wretchedness, the Democrats who inflicted it receive upwards of 90% of the vote. There is no possibility of Democrats losing control, or of the city ever regaining its lost greatness.
California officially entered the Democrat Death Spiral when it brought back Jerry Brown despite a desperate economic situation that urgently required the state to turn away from Governor Moonbeam’s brand of profligate liberalism. In effect, the state committed suicide out of sheer moonbattery. Its prospects are no better than Detroit’s.
The United States of America officially entered the Democrat Death Spiral on November 6, 2012. Obama was not reelected despite the awful state of the economy under his rule but because of it. The more of a mess Obama makes, the more his Marxist rhetoric will resonate, the tighter the grip Democrats will have on America’s throat. This is why Obama will not lift a finger to improve the economic situation, but rather will deliberately worsen it by using taxation to drive up unemployment.
It is no coincidence that Obama received 98% of the vote in Detroit, America’s worst and most liberal city, the model for our future.
From here forward, the worse it gets, the worse it will get. Unless a way is found to reverse the cycle by removing liberals from power, each day will be the best day of the rest of America’s existence.
Be sure to thank the next liberal you see.
By Dave Blount from Moonbattery: http://moonbattery.com/
America is Plunging Headlong into Economic Slavery
The Declining Economic Freedom Of The United States
From 1980 to 2000,the US was generally rated the third freest economy in the world, ranking behind only Hong Kong and Singapore.
The ranking of the US has fallen precipitously; from second in 2000 to eighth in 2005 and 19th in 2010. By 2009, the United States had fallen behind Switzerland, Canada, Australia, Chile, and Mauritius, countries that chose not to follow the path of massive growth in government financed by borrowing that is now the most prominent characteristic of US fiscal policy. By 2010, the United States had also fallen behind Finland and Denmark, two European welfare states. Moreover, it now trails Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Estonia, Taiwan, and Qatar. — | ZeroHedge
From American Digest: http://americandigest.org/
Economics? Math? This is Beyond My Pay Grade…
From Moonbattery: http://moonbattery.com/
Fat Cat Union Bosses Raking in the Cash…
Heroes Of The Working Class? Top Union Bosses’ Salaries Exceed $500K….
Those pinky rings aren’t cheap.
Via Beltway Confidential:
Advocating for the working man doesn’t pay too poorly, it seems. Here’s a list of the annual salaries and benefits earned by the nation’s top labor officials, according to the Labor Department. This data is based on 2011 filings:
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka – $293,750.
National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel – $460,060
Service Employees International Union President Mary Kay Henry – $290,334.
American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees President Gerald McEntee – $512,489.
International Brotherhood of Teamsters President James P. Hoffa , Jr. – $372,489.
American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten – $493,859.
International Association of Fire Fighters President Harold Schaitberger – $323,811.
From Weasel Zippers: http://weaselzippers.us/
Let’s Stop Obama From Destroying the Coal Industry That Helps Deliver Affordable Electricity
Coal Miners Turn Out for Mitt
If those of us who use electricity understand what’s at stake this November as well as those who provide it do, Romney will win in a landslide. Check out this turnout to hear him speak:
From the Toledo Blade:
Mitt Romney [Tuesday] stood in front of eastern Ohioans seemingly straight out of the mine — hard hats, smudged faces, and blue and gray uniforms — as he accused President Obama of “waging war” on coal.
“He’s for all the sources of energy that come from above the ground, none of the sources below the ground, like oil and coal and gas,” the presumptive Republican nominee told a crowd outside American Energy Corp’s Century Mine near Beallsville, Belmont County. …
“We’ve 250 years left of coal,” he said. ‘’Why in the world wouldn’t we use it?”
Southeast Ohio is also the focus of a burgeoning shale natural gas and oil industry built around hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” the practice of using chemically treated fluids at high pressure to fracture shale to release the gas and oil within.
If it’s up to Obama, these precious resources will remain beneath the ground, throwing thousands out of work, particularly in key swing states like Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Meanwhile the Moonbat Messiah and his flying monkeys in the EPA continue their war on coal, shutting down power plants left and right just as Obama promised.
You don’t have to be a coal miner to want Obama out of there before he can do any more damage. You just have to like the way the lights come on when you flip the switch.
On tips from Oiao, AC, and Just TheTip. Hat tips: I’m 41, Gateway Pundit.
Obama Laughing His Ass off While Running Up Huge Deficits.
It’s Official: Federal Government Runs $1 Trillion Deficit For Fifth Straight Year…
Time to clean house.
(CNSNews.com) – By the end of the third quarter of fiscal 2012, the new debt accumulated in this fiscal year by the federal government had already exceeded $1 trillion, making this fiscal year the fifth straight in which the federal government has increased its debt by more than a trillion dollars, according to official debt numbers published by the U.S. Treasury.
Prior to fiscal 2008, the federal government had never increased its debt by as much as $1 trillion in a single fiscal year. From fiscal 2008 onward, however, the federal government has increased its debt by at least $1 trillion each and every fiscal year.
The federal fiscal year begins on Oct. 1 and ends on Sept. 30. At the close of business on Sept. 30, 2011—the last day of fiscal 2011—the total debt of the federal government was $14,790,340,328,557.15. By June 29, the last business day of the third quarter of fiscal 2012, that debt had grown to $15,856,367,214,324.44—an increase for this fiscal year of $1,066,026,885,767.29.
In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2012, the federal debt has continued to accumulate, hitting $15,874,365,457,260.40 at the close of business on Thursday, July 19—marking a total increase so far in fiscal 2012 of $1,084,025,128,703.25.
HT: DRUDGE
ZIP at Weasel Zippers: http://weaselzippers.us/
Ignoring Evil Will Not Cause it To Disappear
The normalcy bias is a killer – literally.
Let’s call the Greater Depression of 2008-2012 (and counting!) what it is.
Yes, it is that bad. But too many people, both in the media and elsewhere, still think that putting their heads in the sand and refusing to put a name to evil will cause that evil to disappear.
No, the rot in our body politic not start with Barack Hussein Obama. It set in long before that, and it has gotten worse with every administration since Ronald Reagan left office. That said, BHO has raised presidential profligacy and perfidy to an entirely new level. And the SCOTUS has doubled down on doing damage in the week following their outrageous Obamacare ruling.
We are told to accept all of this as the “new normal.” We must not!
- PJM: June Jobs Report: 8.2 Percent Unemployment (updated)
- PJM: Two Peas in a Political Pod: Obamacare and Stubborn Unemployment
- Yahoo! Finance: Dismal hiring shows economy stuck in low gear
- Breitbart: Next Month’s Job Growth Could Be Even Lower
From 1389 Blog: http://1389blog.com/
Black Unemployment is Sky High – Obama Will Not Help His Brothers Out. What The…?
Under Obama, Black Unemployment Skyrockets
Blacks bearing a racial grudge sure stuck it good to the white man by voting for Barack Hussein Obama. But they also stuck it good to themselves. Crushed by the Big Government boot on its neck, the economy was only able to create 80,000 jobslast month, probably not even enough to keep up with the undocumented Democrats pouring over the border.
Hit hardest were the unemployed in the black community, where the unemployment rate increased from 13.6% in May to 14.4% in June. For black youths aged 16 to 19, the unemployment rate is now an astonishing 39.3%, up from 36.5% last month.
These numbers do not include the millions who are underemployed or who have given up looking for work. Nor do they reflect Benedict Roberts’s catastrophic ObamaCare ruling, which will cripple businesses. Hiring of blacks and whites alike may have to wait until employers see if Romney can get in there and repeal the monstrosity.
Despite the Manchurian Moonbat’s politically precious pigmentation, Hopey Change has been no kinder to blacks than anyone else. Not that this will prevent many from voting for him again.
A liberal is someone who drills holes in the bottom of the boat, pleased that the other passengers will drown, not realizing that he will drown first.
On tips from Shawn and SR. From Moonbattery: http://moonbattery.com/
Maybe They Mean “Dessert” instead of “Desert”… Or “I’ve Never Seen a Skinny Food Stamp Recipient”
Its difficult to complain that poor people are doing so terribly and require more of your tax dollars if they are fat.
Usually poor people in a nation are the most malnourished and skinny. In America they’re characterized as being fat and well fed, which doesn’t lend its self well to “give me more of your money.” So a way of getting you to pay anyway had to be created. The definition of a “food desert” is contingent upon the income level of people. USDA guidelines state that someone living more than a mile from a shop selling fresh food and below the mean income of the community is in a food desert. Portland’s guidelines are the same, but the distance is reduced to a half mile. This is interesting since 94% of Portland’s residents own a car – far higher than most big cities – and can easily make a trip of a mile to shop. – Word Around the Net: JUST DESERTS?
From American Digest: http://americandigest.org/
The Labor Picture That The O’Sucka Regime Won’t Talk About
Labor Force Participation Plunges To 30-Year Low As Another 522,000 People Drop Out
It is just getting sad now. In April the number of people not in the labor force rose by a whopping 522,000 from 87,897,000 to 88,419,000. This is the highest on record.
The flip side, and the reason why the unemployment rate dropped to 8.1%, is that the labor force participation rate just dipped to a new 30 year low of 64.3%.
Labor force participation Rate:
……………………….Click on image above to enlarge.
People not in labor force:
……………………….Click on image above to enlarge.
From The Daley Gator: http://thedaleygator.wordpress.com/
Modern Man is Telling Himself a Fable
What’s Wrong With The World Part VII— Ignorant
Posted on 27 April 2012
(Highlights by ZTW)
By: John C. Wright
Ignorant
The mere fact that the Samoans, as well as every other sane tribe, nation, and race on the planet, adheres to a marriage custom and rules that deter fornication, and the mere fact that tales spun by jocose natives to fool gullible palefaces pretending to be anthropologists with stories so outrageous that no one but an intellectual would believe them, these facts do not halt the progress of Modern nonsense-theories that the conscience has no authority and words have no meaning, because whatever partisans of nonsense do not care to notice, they do not notice. They create a mental blankness, partly a pretense and partly a psychosis, which enables them to not notice ungood thoughts. What is never noticed need never be answered, refuted, or denied.
The Modern Man proposes to prove that there is no such thing as right and wrong.
Of course, he does not notice that to embark on a proof, any proof, is tacitly to accept that there are standards of right and wrong, since a proof by its nature is an appeal to the objective authority of reason.
A proof that meets the standard of evidence is right (proven) and what does not meet the standard is wrong (not proven). The tacit assumption is that it is wrong, morally wrong, an act of intellectual dishonesty, to ignore an honest proof.
Every proof, even something as abstract as a technical debate between empirical scientists concerning the merits of the Steady State Theory versus the Big Bang Theory, tacitly assumes the honesty of the discussion and the integrity of the evidence: it is vain to offer proof to someone who does not adhere to the duty of an honest man to admit (despite his inclination otherwise) his cherished theory might be wrong.
To prove there is no such thing as right and wrong, the Modern Man has to maintain that all previous assessments of right and wrong were utterly arbitrary. No two eras, no two nations, no two religions, no two philosophies (so the Modern argument runs) can agree on anything; ergo (so the leap of logic leaps) no one is correct; ergo (so the leap of unlogic leaps) only the Christians are despicable, and everyone else is praiseworthy.
Clitoris mutilation carried out by Mohammedans on their female children is merely their particular contribution to the rich diversity of cultural multiplicity, and therefore neither right nor wrong; whereas monogamy as practiced by Christians is abhorrent, and to teach children the Christian religion is child abuse. So the Moderns say, or, rather, would say, if somehow they could be forced to speak without recourse to that mental blackness which enables them to utter nonsense and evil while pretending not to notice what they are saying.
In order to pull off the massive false-to-facts deception, the man of the modern mind has to ignore all of history and to remain blissfully aware of what other men of other lands and eras preach and teach.
No one (except, perhaps, an intellectual) can read the Koran, the Sutras, the Mahabharata, the Analects of Confucius, the writings of Lao Tzu, the Havamal of the pagan Norse or the learning of the pagan Greeks and not see much the same moral precepts endlessly repeated. All men have the same basic knowledge of right and wrong: the differences are either differences of a barbaric practice as opposed to a civilized (as monogamy versus polygamy, or slavery versus abolition, or infanticide versus holding human life sacrosanct) or they are trivial differences of custom or ritual, not related to ethical principles.
But the Modern Man does not just argue that barbarians disagree with civilized men about the morality of polygamy. No, indeed. He also argues that BECAUSE there is no such thing as right and wrong, some Caesar should be granted an unchecked and absolute power over the speech, acts, and thoughts of his neighbors, and should take money and land and personal property from whomsoever Caesar deems and grant the same to whomsoever Caeasar favors.
The Modern furthermore argues that the current crises and emergency requires a repudiation of precedent and legal practice, and a radical reinvention of any and all ancient institutions, and any other act by the state as might be needed to correct for historical injustices, or to make manna fall from the sky to feed the poor, or to bend all swords into ploughshares as war shall be studied no more, or to wipe all tears from the eyes of men, and bless and love them forever and aye.
This is not merely a confusion of theology with political economics. This is a manifestation of gross ignorance is in the realm of political economics.
The only way the same policies that failed in ancient city-states (and failed every place and each time they have been attempted) could be seriously proposed and debated is if the debaters or the audience of the debate is utterly ignorant of the basic facts of history which have been known since the days of Thucydides, and basics of economics which have been known since the days of Adam Smith.
The only way it seriously could be debated that even though all previous attempts to give one man or one small faction extraordinary and unchecked power have led to the corruption of the laws, but nonetheless the modern intellectual’s version of Caesar is appointed by History with such shining moral virtue that he will never get corrupt, is if the debater or his audience indulge in an unprecedented, nay, an awe-inspiring degree of naivety and self-imposed ignorance.
The only way it seriously could be debated that, even though all previous scares and panics and panicky scares and scary panics about overpopulation, DDT, Alar, ozone depletion, acid rain, global cooling, global warming, nuclear winter, genetically-altered grain, this current scare (whatever it is) is honestly and truly a cause for panic and immediate creation of a dictatorship as the only solution to avoid this current catastrophe (whatever it is), is if the debater or his audience know little or nothing about science.
The only way it seriously could be debated that fundamentalist Islamic is not a threat, but is indeed a collection of well-intentioned peaceful souls, perhaps stirred momentarily to understandable if regrettable violence by the unforgiveable atrocities of Jews and Christians, whereas fundamentalist Christianity is a looming and immediate menace to the life, liberty, even the sanity of the innocent world, is if the debater and his audience ignore the current situation, and ignore the last decade, last century, and last millennium of history, and the millennium before that.
That requires a lot of ignoring; a gigantic ignorance, a cyclopean ignorance, a titanic ignorance, a celestial and Uranian ignorance so vast beyond the measure of the universe as to be invincible.
Such titanic ignorance aids the deceiver and the self-deceived.
It is not ignorance at all, but pretense; telling oneself a fable.
From John C. Wright: http://www.scifiwright.com/2012/04/what%e2%80%99s-wrong-with-the-world-part-vi%e2%80%94-ignorant/
Via American Digest:http://americandigest.org/
How The Left Plans To Control People in America
Controlling a large number of people isn’t easy. The United States alone consists of 312 million people spread out across nearly 4 million square miles. Add on nearly 500 million for the population of the European Union and another nearly 4 million square miles of territory. Then pile on Canada with 34 million people and another 4 million square miles, Australia with 22 million and 3 million square miles and a few other stragglers here and there, and the postmodern rulers of the progressive empire have to cope with nearly a billion people spread out across 15 million square miles.
Large territories and large numbers of people are very difficult to govern. Structures tend to break down and people further away from the centers of power don’t listen to the boys at the top. The only way to make a going proposition of it is to consolidate as much power as possible at the center and the very act of centralizing power leads to tyranny.
The most direct chokehold possible is physical. China’s rulers, faced with vast territory and population, turned to the water empire. The modern West is quickly rediscovering a more sophisticated form of hydraulic despotism, cloaked in talk of saving the planet and providing for everyone’s needs.
Western resources are not innately centralized, which makes seizing control of them and routing them through a central point more difficult. This has to be done legislatively and has to be justified by a universal benefit or a crisis. One example of this is FDR’s Agricultural Adjustment Act which allowed the government to control wheat grown on a farm for private consumption. Another is nationalizing health care by routing the commercial activity of medicine through government organs. Both services and commodities can be controlled in this manner.
But the larger challenge is that the West is rich and a water empire depends on scarcity. Central control is much less potent if there is plenty of the commodity or service available. It’s only when shortages are created in bread or health care that the system really wields power by rationing a scarce commodity or service.
If a resource is scarce, then the water empire has to distribute it efficiently. But if a resource is widely available, then the water empire has to find ways of making it scarce, until the demand vastly outstrips the supply.
The modern water empire is dependent for its power on manufactured shortages. The rise of the progressive state was closely tied to its exploitation of shortages. Its challenge has been to win the race with industrial productivity by manufacturing shortages and destroying wealth faster than it could be created. While the machine of industry created wealth, the machine of government destroyed it. Today the machine of government is very close to winning the race, creating a state of permanent shortages.
Manufactured shortages are the great project of modern governments. This manufacture is done by prohibitively increasing the cost of creating and distributing products and services, by controlling the means of production in the name of wealth redistribution and by prohibiting the production on the grounds that it is immoral or dangerous. Over the 20th century the transition was made from the first to the second and finally to the third.
Agorism: It’s Time to Get Our Minds Right
Agorist Philosophy Overview
by “FSK”
As originally posted on: FSK’s Guide to Reality
September 13, 2007
I’ve been reading a bit about the philosophy of agorism, and it seems attractive to me.
The philosophy can be summarized in one sentence: “I want to do useful work, get paid, and not have to report it for taxation, confiscation, and regulation.”
Let’s start with a specific example. Suppose you don’t like the US government’s policy of aggressive wars in Iraq and other countries. You can vote, but voting is ineffective due to various corruptions in the system. The income tax means that the government confiscates 50%-95% or more of everything I produce. Productive work supports the government, even if I disapprove of its activities. I am unable to do any useful economic activity without supporting things I find objectionable.
The government’s policy is completely ridiculous. Citizens may not perform work without reporting it for taxation, confiscation, and regulation. I object to that requirement.
The fundamental goal of an agorist revolution is the creation of wealth that the red market can’t confiscate. This is the only type of revolution that has a legitimate chance of succeeding, because the participants would be profiting and undermining the government at the same time. The red market derives its power by leeching wealth. Creating unconfiscatable wealth undermines the red market’s power.
Currently, the only type of grey market work available is low-paid unskilled labor. The agorist wants to create a grey market for highly-skilled, high-paid labor.
The agorist says that all governments are inherently illegitimate. A government is merely a group of people conspiring to take away my property and my rights. Government employees benefit handsomely from this arrangement, because the salaries and pensions they receive are higher than they would get in the private sector. The people who control large corporations benefit from this arrangement, because their market position is frequently endorsed by the government and its regulations. Wealthy campaign donors love the government-granted perks they get. The Federal Reserve’s policy of inflation benefits the financial industry at the expense of everyone else. Government is merely a group of people conspiring to confiscate the wealth of the productive part of society.
The agorist says that all the functions of government could be more effectively performed by the free market. You can have a private justice system. You can have a private police force. Everyone knows that government is up for sale, manipulated by the wealthy. Why not do away with the pretense completely? Let’s privatize everything.
Why should the government have a monopoly on violence and justice?
For example, instead of paying a 50% income tax, maybe I can pay 2%, or even a fixed fee, to a private police force who will insure my property is protected. The police force would utilize a private justice system, to make sure that they don’t use force needlessly. If two people have a conflict and are subscribing to different police forces, then the incentive is for the businesses to resolve the dispute peacefully rather than violently. If a private police force was misbehaving, then it would be perfectly acceptable for people to start seeking alternate vendors. Some people might pay for protection by several police forces simultaneously, to prevent monopolies from forming.
Suppose there’s no intrinsic legitimacy given to the government. It’s perfectly legitimate to use force to defend yourself, if someone attempts to confiscate your property. Imagine what would happen if tax collectors were met with armed resistance from everyone? What would happen if everyone ceased voluntary compliance with the taxation system?
Right now, the vast majority of people are compliant with the taxation system. That means that red market workers can afford to expend vast resources tracking down violators. It needs to make sure that violators are caught so that the penalty for tax avoidance makes the risk unattractive. However, with taxation rates of 50%-95% or more, tax avoidance starts to be attractive, if it can be done with relatively low risk. I’m not just counting direct noticeable taxes. There are hidden taxes and regulations, which also cost money.
What’s the real risk of getting caught? It’s hard to say. You only hear about the people who got caught. The people who get away with it don’t come forward and admit it, do they? There’s no source of reliable statistics, so you can’t quantify the risk.
How would you make the transition to an agorist economy? There is a problem, because people aren’t going to want to give up their government-granted perks. They are going to resist change as much as they can. People are reluctant to avoid paying taxes and following government rules. However, if there’s a profit to be made, people might be convinced.
The key is to develop a system that allows people to perform productive economic activity without reporting it for taxation and confiscation. The Internet is a useful tool for this, because it would allow people to share information efficiently. It wouldn’t be too hard to write software that would facilitate an agorist economy.
The standard financial system is designed to frustrate attempts to perform economic activity without reporting it for confiscation. Transactions larger than $10,000 must be reported to the government. Repeated small transactions are also reportable. Besides, who wants to trade with worthless paper money? An alternate financial system would need to be developed. This way, transactions can be performed without reporting them to the government. People could still settle transactions with paper money or silver or gold, if they really wanted to. I think the Social Credit Monetary System is the best solution.
Whatever system is developed would need to be as decentralized as possible. As much as possible, information should NOT be stored on a centralized server. A centralized server represents an attack point. As much as possible, communications should be encrypted.
Actually, some information needs to be public. A database listing who trusted whom would need to be public and shared to be useful. On the other hand, maybe a trust database should be private, because it would represent a list of people for red market agents to harass. All transaction records should be private. Ideally, transaction records should be destroyed when completed, so red market agents can’t confiscate them.
There would be an important check that ensures people follow the rules. Just like in the BitTorrent economy, any user who misbehaves would be banned and denied a valuable resource. New users would be admitted only if another user vouched for their trustworthiness. The distributed nature would make it hard to shut it down, even if spies did infiltrate it.
Suppose there was an effective system for facilitating productive work without reporting it for taxation. With such high confiscatory taxation rates, there would be a huge incentive for people to work under such a system. The goal would be to avoid government detection as much as possible. As more productive people started working in this grey market economy, the power of government would decrease.
If the system was sufficiently distributed, there would be low risk even if you got caught. Red market agents might find out about some of your transactions, but not all of them. You could pay back taxes and fines on some of the transactions, and still come out ahead overall.
An agorist grey-market economy would also benefit because it could avoid compliance with all government regulations. It would not need to spend productive effort on regulation compliance. Its only wasted effort would be that spent avoiding detection by red market enforcers.
Ideally, an agorist economy could offer lower prices and higher wages, compared to the white market or pink market. The ability to avoid taxation and regulation should cut expenses by 50% to 95% or more.
Some pink market practitioners have their salaries artificially raised by the red market. For example, doctors need to waste a lot of money on education and spend years training. The supply of doctors is restricted by the red market. A license is required to practice medicine. A grey market doctor would not need the licensing requirement. He would only need to spend a year or two learning what is really needed to help his patients. An agorist doctor would not earn as much as a pink market doctor, but he would save the hassle of years of medical school and a residency. An agorist doctor would not have to deal with HMOs, Medicare, and insurance companies. The free market would help people decide which doctors are good and which are no good; people will share information about their experiences. Currently, the supply of doctors is artificially restricted, so there’s no mechanism for incompetent doctors to be removed from the market. The agorist doctor won’t get busted for “practicing medicine without a license” if his customers don’t turn him in to the red market. Besides, patients can always go to a pink market hospital if they have a problem their agorist doctor can’t handle. Eventually, the agorist hospitals would be better than the pink market hospitals.
Switching to a grey market agorist economy might be necessary for survival. A hyperinflationary crash of the dollar could happen at any time. A substantial amount of untaxed economic activity would facilitate such a collapse.
It probably is not possible for a person to satisfy all their needs in the grey market. However, the larger percentage of their economic activity that they can hide, the more they will benefit. If someone operated both a white-market business and a grey-market business, that would facilitate concealing their grey-market activities. On the other hand, you might be better off not having any official business at all. The IRS frequently cracks down on small business owners; registering yourself as a business owner might just be making yourself a target.
The red market derives its power solely by leeching off the productive members of society. Without them to push around, its power would rapidly collapse.
An agorist revolution has a legitimate chance of succeeding. The agorist market participants would be profiting from their activity. They would be undermining the government and making a profit at the same time. They would profit more than white market participants, because they would be unencumbered by taxes, inflation, and regulations. In that sense, once an agorist movement gets started, it would be self-sustaining. With a leaderless organization structure, it could not be easily shut down by infiltration or force. The agorist needs tools for effective operation, plus a certain number of participants.
An agorist revolution would probably be a peaceful one. Agorist market participants can hide their activity. They would appear to be normal, productive, nonviolent citizens. Agorist market participants would tend to resolve their differences peacefully, both to avoid the attention of red market enforcers, and because non-initiation of violence is part of the philosophy. By the time the agorist economy is large enough to be noticed by red market enforcers, it would have viable systems for competing and replacing government institutions. The agorist market would step in smoothly as the government loses power. The violence would come from red market participants, trying to crack down to preserve their position. However, a large number of red market workers might simultaneously be employed by agorist protection agencies. Typically, corporations infiltrate government by subverting Congress and the President. An agorist movement would infiltrate government by subverting the low-level line workers.
An agorist revolution, once started, would be self-sustaining. The participants would be profiting from their actions.
A lot of websites I read are philosophizing and speculating. I am ready to start writing tools and start using them. I would like to be a participant in an agorist economy, if only I knew other people to trade with! My primary skill is writing software. That’s the skill I’d be offering in trade. Initially, I’ll just write the code I think is needed and release it into the public domain.
Summarizing, I want to do productive work, get paid for it, and not have to report it for taxation and confiscation.