The Road to Surf-Dumb

The Donald for President? Barf

2011-04-20T23:00:00.000-07:00

Television star and frequent debt scofflaw, The Donald, is talking about running the country because his richness qualifies him to do so.

Don't get me wrong, I like most rich people, especially when they give me money to do stuff, and I think democrats are freaking out over the thought of a "populist" television star taking on their failing socialist encumbant, but this guy is right out of Hayek's Road to Serfdom. Here's what this fascist clown espouses:

1. Trump's gonna teach those sneaky Orientals a lesson by slapping a 25% tariff on Chinese imports. Don't fall for Trump's anti-Chinese, Smoot Hawley jingoism. China does us a great favor by giving us lot's of stuff in exchange for green pieces of paper. That is a relationship that should be encouraged, not denigrated.

2. Trump's going to make OPEC sell us cheap oil. Don't fall for Trump's anti-Arab jingoism. The price of oil is rising because WE ARE DEVALUING OUR MONEY. We, or more appropriately, Ben Bernanke, is doing it to us. Stop printing money to bail out Wall Street thieves and the value of the dollar will stop falling.

3. Trump will not cut $1 from the military spending. Don't fall for Trump's corporate welfare pledge. We spend more on bombs and bullets than the rest of the world put together and it is a waste. There is no threat to our sovereignty. An invasion of America would be, in the late Admiral Yamamoto's estimation, a suicide mission, considering we have a 2nd Amendment (in addition to 5000 nukes).

Do not fall for Trump's populism. He is a fraud and no conservative in any traditional sense. He's an opportunist who will morph into a Mahattan Mussolini if elected. Let him stick to television.

On the other hand, Trump has filed multiple bankruptcies which may make him an ideal candidate for CEO of Amerika.

S&P 500 Is A Paper Bull!

2010-03-16T20:18:00.000-07:00

I think the graph below speaks for itself. But in case it's not clear, the graph compares the "Monetary Base" which is the narrowest definition of money supply vs the S&P 500 weekly closes since 1/1/09. The conclusion I draw is that the "recovery", at least as it is defined by the stock market, is illusory and 83% a function of the PRINTING PRESS!

Krugman and his Phlogistonomics

2010-03-16T19:37:00.000-07:00

Peter Schiff drills the Keynesian...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11WlFlO_mDg&feature=player_embedded

Keynesianomics explained:

consumption creates profit
profit creates production
production creates income
income creates consumption

Any physicist would instantly recognize this goofy-ass theory as "perpetual motion machine" nonsense

The real way economics works...

CONSUMPTION comes from CAPITAL
CAPITAL comes from INVESTMENT
INVESTMENT comes from SAVINGS
SAVINGS comes from DEFERRED CONSUMPTION

Try this on the next Keynesian clown you come across and watch them flop around trying to make sense of it.

Response to Neocon Denver Post Harsanyi's Smear Piece on Ron Paul

2010-02-27T10:28:00.000-08:00

Re: Article Discussion: Harsanyi: The Ron Paul delusion

by troyjgrice on February 24th, 2010, 11:18 pm

Harsanyi = Neocon

Typical Anti Ron Paul Arguments:

1) Smear Ron Paul as anti-semetic because he wants to end welfare for the Israeli apartheid state

2) Smear Ron Paul as hating the troops because he wants to bring the troops home

3) Smear Ron Paul as an isolationist because he wants to end "nation building"

4) Smear Ron Paul as a nut because he wants to end the Federal Reserve and fiat money which funds the welfare/warfare state, enables endless deficits, and impoverishes the middle class

5) Smear Ron Paul as a kook because he believes we should respect and follow the Constitution as it is the only check on the expansion if Federal tyranny

6) Smear Ron Paul as an idiot because he PREDICTED THE GREAT RECESSION AND THE KEYNESIAN ERRORS THAT ARE BEING MADE IN THE NAME OF FIXING IT.

The problem is that Ron Paul is RIGHT. We are bankrupt. Our empire is ending. Our dollar will crash. No one will lend us money anymore so we have to print it. Our deficits are unsolvable and will lead to punishing budget cuts. Our institutions are rotten, corrupt and collapsing. Our welfare state is unsustainable. We cannot afford to babysit Germany, Japan, South Korea, and the Middle East. The Empire is FINISHED.

Neocons like Harsanyi offer nothing, no solutions except more war, more deficits, more welfare, more erosion of civil liberties, and more dropping bombs on little brown people.

Irving Kristol's disciples are fools.

The GOP is rotten. Republicans are frauds. They are NOT conservatives. They are progressives. They seek only more power to kill and loot control and care nothing for liberty and individualism.

The Purity Test For Republicans

2010-02-04T20:27:00.000-08:00

1. Do ‘terrists’ hate our freedoms? (T/F)

2. Is waterboarding really torture or just an enhanced, bathing technique? (torture/bathing)

3. Would we still have freedom without Dick Cheney?” (Y/N)

4. The Bill Of Rights are actually a Bill of Suggestions? (T/F)

5. Is it true that inside every little third world brown person is an American yearning to be free? (T/F)

6. Explain the difference between evil Keynesian fiscal stimulus and enlightened supply-side economic stimulus.

7. Should refusal to say the pledge be grounds for caning in public schools?

8. Was John McCain a great fighter pilot (5 crashes aside)?

9. If the USA was in a full scale nuclear war with the rest of the world, who would win?

10. What can we make illegal so as to justify incarcerating the other 80% of black males in America?

11. How many times should one invoke “Reagan” during a political speech?

12. On a scale of 1-10, how nutty is that Ronpaul guy?

13. Which of the Bill of Rights would you suspend in order to protect us from the underpants/firecracker bomber?

14. Can you recite the words to Lee Greenwood’s “Proud to be an American”?

2010-01-24T18:57:00.000-08:00

Guy gets Amerikan sheeple to sign a petition to repeal the first amendment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tznR4wPeS4M&feature=player_embedded#

TSA Scanner Fails Test

2010-01-23T08:17:00.000-08:00

Funny, it takes German tv to teach Amerikans about thw false choice between liberty and security.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrKvweNugnQ

Comment on Denver Post Blog About Obama and Deficit

2010-01-22T19:56:00.000-08:00

Delusion runs rampant here.

"Working together" is exactly how they got to a $56Trillion debt. Democrats increased government spending 8% per year and republicans raised it 5%. They are the same party.

There is no political will in EITHER party to balance the budget. There never will be. If they tell you they want to do it they are lying. If you believe them you are hopelessly naive.

A balanced budget requires Republicans ending their pointless, exorbitant international wars, occupations and winding down the US corporate welfare state. A balanced budget requires Democrats to surrender their entitlement and welfare programs that they use to mobilize their serf voters.

It is impossible to pay off the debt. They know it and have no intention of doing it.

The Federal Reserve enabled this looming insolvency by keeping borrowing costs low with the monetary printing press. That racket is coming to an end.

$1 Trillion in newly printed money sits on deposit with the Fed. Heres the Fed's own site. Check out the "Monetary base". That is the money that they printed. Look at Oct 2008. That should startle you.

http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/ ... 3hist1.txt

Obama wants banks to lend it? If they did, gasoline would be $7 a gallon.

We are heading for a train wreck of a magnitude never experienced in US history. IT will change America more than the Great Depression. A collapse in Treasuries will result in parabolic interest rates and will bankrupt the government. An interest rate like Volcker's 21% would add $2.5Trillion to the ANNUAL DEFICIT. But printing money will lead to hyperinflation and destruction of the economy.

Japan is the lynch pin of this coming calamity. They are teetering on the brink and they hold $750B in US Treasuries that will be liquidated at firesale prices.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comm ... ieces.html

Republocrats did this. They were asleep at the wheel for the past 4 deacdes. This bed was made by NIXON, REAGAN, BUSH, CLINTON, W. AND OBAMA and all the Ted Kennedys and John McCains, too with their profligate spending and accounting tricks. They kicked the debt can down the road for 37 years. Now they are kicking it into a wall.

There is still time to avert a hyperinflationary catastrophe or a USSR style breakup but deep, DEEP cuts need to be made. Federal spending needs to be reduced by half and those parasitical government functions cannot just be pushed onto the states. The states need to slim down as well. You will not close the budget gap by taxing and sucking every last drop of blood out of the middle class. Tax hikes will scuttle a recovery and further deplete tax revenues. You will not close the gap by "nationalizing" everyone's 401k.

It is going to be a wild ride. Get ready for inflation. It is the easiest political way out but it won't work. I myself do not have any "hope" and do not expect any "change" from our Washington plutarchs, and media enablers. The serfs like their welfare too much and the Lee Greenwood crowd enjoys their illusory wars, dropping bombs and getting strip-searched at airports.

If you want to see what America will look like in 25 years, read my book.

http://goldsteinrepublic.com/

Deflation? Don't Be Ridiculous.

2010-01-12T21:06:00.000-08:00

Not in any significant sense. There will be inflation. Why?

1) The Dollar is a bill of credit- a debt instrument. It is a note paying 0% interest, collateralized mostly by Treasuries. To the Fed, an FRN (a dollar) is a liability backed on the accounting ledger by Treasury "assets". Treasuries are going down. This is a certainty. It may be slowly over 5 years or it may be rapidly over 5 hours. I'm guessing sooner rather than later. As dollars are backed by Treasuries, as Treasuries go, so will go the dollar. It will start with Japan selling off.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/...

2) Inflation is a function of M1 growth or Monetary Base (less reserves on deposit) growth. It has not grown recently, hence, no inflation. Freshly printed dollars have been deposited with the Fed (for now). They will leak out. The Fed will have to raise rates to keep those dollars out of the economy. A special "Fed Deposit Rate" higher than the market rate and only for Wall Street Banks may be tried. It will fail. It is politically untenable.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north798.html

"Reverse Repos" are the new Fed scam...er....tool to remove excess liquidity. It goes like this: The Fed prints $1 Trillion, gives it to Citi for mortgages at $1 for $1 even thought the mortgages are worth $.67. Then Citi turns around and uses those dollars to buy Treasuries back from the Fed with a guarantee byt the Fed to buy them back at a higher rate (thus guaranteeing a higher interest rate). It's just a shell game and addresses corpulent money supply by obfuscating a rate hike.

3) The Fed is the banker's bank. They will not let all the big banks fail. They will print $50 Quadrillion dollars if necessary. If the Fed tries to tighten aka Volcker, they will bankrupt the US Government. A 21% interest rate = $2.4 Trillion interest expense ALONE for big Brother. There will be no Volcker 2.0 because a 21% interest rate = the government takes over the Central Bank and revs up the digital analogues (printing presses).

3.1) If the Fed raises rates any significant amount they will scuttle the recent "carry trade" stock market rally. Stocks are priced today as net future cash flows discounted to present value by (1+cost of capital)^n. Cost of capital ~ 0% for banks today making even the puniest of dividends valuable. Jack that cost of capital rate to 4% and the NPV sinks like a stone. The Fed cannot raise rates without scuttling the market. The S&P is priced at something like 75Xs trailing earnings. 80% of Goldman Sach's income comes from this 0% carry trade. Raising rates will destroy this income stream. The Banks own the Fed. They will not like this.

4) The US owes $75 Trillion. Will they tax it? Impossible. Will they borrow it? Impossible. There are only 2 solutions: 1) monetize it and 2) repudiate it. Repudiation is politically impossible but practically likely. Monetizing it is a disaster but politically practical.

Past Deflations:

But what about the 1930s you ask?

What about them? The US had a gold standard then. It took 5 years to double the monetary base. It took Bernanke 5 months! Ponzi-banks were allowed to collapse in the 1930s taking their fractionally multiplied Madoff dollars down to the never-after with them. That will not happen today. We have FDIC and Helicopter Ben with an infinite supply of dollars to ride in to save them.

But what about Japan in the 1990s?

There was no serious deflation in consumer prices in Japan. One must not confuse a collapse of a speculative bubble in real estate (or tech stocks, or South Sea Trading Companies or tulip bulbs) with skyrocketing consumer staples prices.

http://www.safehaven.com/article-15478.htm

We are going into mass-inflation. You can try to play technical trades, consult astrologers, and read goat entrails all you like. Time your "key reversals" and consult your trailing 100 day moving averages and your "Bollinger Bands" as well. Good luck. There may even be some merit in reading tarot cards...er...uh...technical charts. But I am prepping for the next decade, not the next week.

Finance yourself with fixed rate debt, wind down cash positions, invest in tangible things, stay away from bonds, liquidate (take a loan) on you 401k before Obama nationalizes it.

http://www.sharedprosperity.org/bp204/bp204.pdf

Hold on tight. It's gonna be a wild ride.

"Papers Please"

2010-01-09T09:39:00.000-08:00

Posted on Denver Post Website

I find it odd that democrats, who were (many decades ago) pro-civil liberties, support these invasive, demeaning, and pointless strip searches at airports. The grainy pictures TSA shows you are the over-exposed versions. The REAL pictures show you utterly unclothed in full detail for TSA goons to peruse.

If one thinks about it, the options for a suicide hijacker are already very limited. The vigilance of a Dutch passenger, AND NOT POLICE STATE MEASURES, thwarted the recent attack.
I think the bottom line is Americans are being sold an illusion- the illusion is "security". The notion that we must give up liberty and $40B for security is a false choice. In this exchange, we merely enrich politically connected corps that build strip search machines, bureaucrats who can look like they are "doing something", and create a welfare-jobs program for 40,000 unskilled TSA agents. AND YET, THE UNDERPANTS BOMBER STILL GOT THROUGH!

Wake up sheeple. The USA is becoming a police state.

What is a Dollar Worth?

2009-12-07T20:10:00.000-08:00

The dollar is a "note". In other words, it is a "debt" owed by the Fed. It pays 0.00% interest.
Accounting 101: From the perspective of the Federal Reserve (which issues these "Reserve Notes") the dollar is a liability (debts owed are liabilities). In order for the Fed's balance sheet ot balance, Assets less Equity Must = Liabilities.

The Fed's "Assets" are: US Treasuries (notes to be paid by the Treasury), bank reserves, some foreign currency, some commerical paper, and a small amount of gold.
Treasuries are debts owed by the government.

SO IN OTHER WORDS, THE DOLLAR IS A DEBT WHICH IS BACKED BY A DEBT.

When the Fed "prints money" they keystroke "Federal Reserve Notes" (dollars) which become liabilities on the Fed's balance sheet. They then use these "notes" to buy "assets" which are just the debts of the government (or GM and the banksters).

There is no "money" in any classical sense beyond the the hard assets the Fed holds. All that exists is the debt of the left hand backed by the debt of the right.

The purchasing power of Federal Reserve 'Notes' hinges on the value of the ASSETS that back them. That value is determined by the PERCEPTION of the government's ability to convert labor into dollars (via taxes) that can then be used to pay the interest on the debt they owe (Treasuries).

It is a system only CPAs, Ken Lay and Bernard Madhoff could be proud of.

Did Bernanke save us from another Great Depression?

2009-11-29T17:31:00.000-08:00

Athens, Ga. - The recession is probably over. So said Ben Bernanke this week. His timing is exquisite. President Obama has reappointed him to be Fed chairman, and he can now head into his Senate confirmation hearings this fall with the reputation that he nipped another Great Depression in the bud.
But did he?

Read More...
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0917/p09s01-coop.html

The Fed Does NOT Stabilize The Economy

2009-11-21T12:05:00.001-08:00

You may well wonder where he got that idea, since there are no official estimates of gross domestic product (GDP) for years before 1929. In the early 1960s, however, John Kendrick and Simon Kuznets bravely attempted to construct such estimates for gross national product (GNP). That would be close enough to modern GDP data were it not for the primitive statistics and technology they had to work with.
Read More...
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/09/09/no-the-fed-did-not-stabilize-the-economy/

Global Warming- A Conspiracy of Lies

2009-11-21T07:35:00.000-08:00

If you own any shares in alternative energy companies I should start dumping them NOW. The conspiracy behind the Anthropogenic Global Warming myth (aka AGW; aka ManBearPig) has been suddenly, brutally and quite deliciously exposed after a hacker broke into the computers at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (aka Hadley CRU) and released 61 megabites of confidential files onto the internet. (Hat tip: Watts Up With That)
When you read some of those files – including 1079 emails and 72 documents – you realise just why the boffins at Hadley CRU might have preferred to keep them confidential. As Andrew Bolt puts it, this scandal could well be “the greatest in modern science”.
Read More...
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017393/climategate-the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-of-anthropogenic-global-warming/

The Truth Behind China's Currency Peg

2009-11-21T07:25:00.000-08:00

During President Obama's high-profile visit to China this week, the most frequently discussed, yet least understood, topic was how currency valuations are affecting the economic relationship between the United States and China. The focal problem is the Chinese government's policy of fixing the value of the renminbi against the U.S. dollar. While many correctly perceive that this 'peg' has contributed greatly to the current global imbalances, few fully comprehend the ramifications should that peg be discarded.
The common understanding is both incomplete and naïve.

Read more...
http://www.lewrockwell.com/schiff/schiff59.1.html

Société Générale tells clients how to prepare for potential 'global collapse'

2009-11-20T20:42:00.000-08:00

In a report entitled "Worst-case debt scenario", the bank's asset team said state rescue packages over the last year have merely transferred private liabilities onto sagging sovereign shoulders, creating a fresh set of problems.
Overall debt is still far too high in almost all rich economies as a share of GDP (350pc in the US), whether public or private. It must be reduced by the hard slog of "deleveraging", for years.

Related Articles
'Debt levels risk another crisis'
"As yet, nobody can say with any certainty whether we have in fact escaped the prospect of a global economic collapse," said the 68-page report, headed by asset chief Daniel Fermon. It is an exploration of the dangers, not a forecast.

Read the rest...http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/6599281/Societe-Generale-tells-clients-how-to-prepare-for-global-collapse.html

Deflation or Inflation

2009-11-03T20:58:00.000-08:00

"Deflation" this time around will not result in falling consumer prices.

When the big deflation comes in US Treaasuries, which will be triggered by Japan selling off to fund their looming fiscal crunch, the Fed will monetize (inflate FRNs) to keep interest rates down. If they don't, the US government will go bankrupt as most of the US debt rolls over every 5 years and rapidly rising rates will devour the budget. If the Fed does not inflate FRNs to soak up crashing Treasuries, then Congress will take over the Fed and 2010 republicans will hyperinflate by decree.

There will be no deflation in consumer prices. Sorry. The mass-inflation is already here. The stock market/real estate market is being reflated by TARP/GSE cash infusions and Fed outright purchases. 2 of 3 automakers are utterly insolvent yet still have $Bs in market cap. Oil, gold, silver are on a rocket.

Mass inflation is here. We are in it. Next stop, $4.00 gas.

More Predictions

2009-10-21T19:37:00.000-07:00

10/20...

This latest market runup is nothing more than a reflation fueled by 0.00% money, levered up twenty times by banksters like Government Sachs.

90% of the bankster earnings are from the "carry trade" so to speak. They swap their bad assets (MBS) for Federal Reserve Notes which are used to shore up their margin accounts.

The Fed has "bought" close to $300 Billion in MBS since July 1 (check their H3 and H4 reports).

The speculative bubble is only possible with 0%, short term loans. The dollar crumbles daily and the Fed will be soon forced to act. But hiking rates will reveal the scheme as unsustainable and collapse the equity markets.

Public Option = Babies Left to Die (in UK)

2009-09-13T10:03:00.000-07:00

'Doctors told me it was against the rules to save my premature baby'
By Vanessa Allen and Andrew LevyLast updated at 8:53 AM on 10th September 2009

Doctors left a premature baby to die because he was born two days too early, his devastated mother claimed yesterday.

Sarah Capewell begged them to save her tiny son, who was born just 21 weeks and five days into her pregnancy - almost four months early.
They ignored her pleas and allegedly told her they were following national guidelines that babies born before 22 weeks should not be given medical treatment. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1211950/Premature-baby-left-die-doctors-mother-gives-birth-just-days-22-week-care-limit.html#ixzz0R0VRCvMh

A Track Record of Lies

2009-09-13T09:55:00.000-07:00

A MINORITY VIEW
BY WALTER WILLIAMS
RELEASE: WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2009

Washington's Lies

President Obama and congressional supporters estimate that his health care plan will cost between $50 and $65 billion a year. Such cost estimates are lies whether they come from a Democratic president and Congress, or a Republican president and Congress. You say, "Williams, you don't show much trust in the White House and Congress." Let's check out their past dishonesty.

Read the rest...http://economics.gmu.edu/wew/articles/09/Washington%27sLies.htm

The Health Care Plan Really IS Government Run

2009-08-15T08:48:00.000-07:00

The devil is definitely in the details! This plan is the typical statist scheme. The summary goals seem reasonable but the means of accomplishing those ends opens a pathway to total government control. See below:

Page 17

(3) RESTRICTIONS ON PREMIUM INCREASES.—
The issuer cannot vary the percentage increase in the premium for a risk group of enrollees in specific grandfathered health insurance coverage without changing the premium for all enrollees in the same risk group at the same rate, as specified by the Commissioner.

(Who defines the "risk group"?)

Page 17:

(A) IN GENERAL.—The Commissioner shall establish a grace period whereby, for plan years beginning after the end of the 5-year period beginning with Y1, an employment-based health plan in operation as of the day before the first day of Y1 must meet the same requirements as apply to a qualified health benefits plan under section 101, including the essential benefit package requirement under section 121.

And on Page 18:

(iii) Such other limited benefits as the Commissioner may specify.
In no case shall an employment-based health plan in which the coverage consists only of one or more of the coverage or benefits described in clauses (i) through (iii) be treated as acceptable coverage under this division

(More government mandates that create a political means of destroying private coverage)

Page 24:

SEC. 116. ENSURING VALUE AND LOWER PREMIUMS.
(a) IN GENERAL.—A qualified health benefits plan shall meet a medical loss ratio as defined by the Commissioner. For any plan year in which the qualified health benefits plan does not meet such medical loss ratio, QHBP offering entity shall provide in a manner specified by the Commissioner for rebates to enrollees of payment sufficient to meet such loss ratio.

(So if a private insurance company makes too much money, the government force them to give it up)

Page 41:

SEC. 141. HEALTH CHOICES ADMINISTRATION; HEALTH CHOICES COMMISSIONER.
(a) IN GENERAL.—There is hereby established, as an independent agency in the executive branch of the Government, a Health Choices Administration (in this division referred to as the ‘‘Administration’’).

(A "Health Choices" Czar accountable only to the President)

And on Page 42:

(a) DUTIES.—The Commissioner is responsible forcarrying out the following functions under this division:
(1) QUALIFIED PLAN STANDARDS.—The establishment of qualified health benefits plan standards under this title, including the enforcement of such standards...

Page 59:

‘‘(B) require paper versions of standardized transactions to comply with the same standards as to data content such that a fully compliant, equivalent electronic transaction can be populated from the data from a paper version;

(Every medical service you receive will be put into an electronic database)

Page 432:

(A) IN GENERAL.—For purposes of reporting data on quality measures for covered professional services furnished during 2011 and any subsequent year, to the extent that measures are available, the Secretary shall include quality measures on end of life care and advanced care planning that have been adopted or endorsed by a consensus-based organization, if appropriate. Such measures shall measure both the creation of and adherence to orders for life sustaining treatment.

(Death Czar?)

It goes on and on....

Audit the Fed Bill Will Not Pass

2009-08-01T07:36:00.000-07:00

Will we ever get to see how much many trillions of dollars Bernanke printed and handed over to Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, the Bank of England, and the US Treasury? Wouldn't it be nice to learn how the FOMC twisted the arms of banker executives and what the committee members had to say and how far they are willing to go to prevent the collpase of the Financial Cartel?

Well, it ain't gonna happen because all the forces of the three branches of government have WAY too much to lose. And no, the three branches of American government are not the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial like your Public School propoganda agent taught you. They are the Bureaucratic, Financial, and Corporate and they have ONE GOAL: Keep their system alive by ANY means possible.

A Fed audit would generate so much outrage that the system would collapse almost instantly out of sheer outrage.

So this is what will happen:

1. The Bill will never get out of Braney Frank's Committee
2. If it does and the House votes for it, the Senate will kill it
3. If the Senate votes for it (without neutering it) due to pressure from constituants, then Obama will veto it.
4. If Obama signs it then the GAO will half-ass the audit
5. If the GAO actually does their job then the Fed will simply shred the offending documents and cook the books.

Welcome to Amerika!

The Monetary Base

2009-07-25T18:07:00.001-07:00

Gold Price as a Function of the Monetary Base

2009-07-25T17:36:00.001-07:00

Fed Method

2009-07-23T21:25:00.000-07:00

The monetary base has been expanded by roughly $1Trillion (more than doubled) since last Spetember. When the inflation comes (and you are seeing it already) how will the Fed pull liquidity out of the system?

Well, in 2008 the Fed devised a scheme whereby they can pay interest on bank deposits held on deposit with them. So when the inflated monetary base starts working it's way into the economy, the Fed can suck it back out by merely increasing the interest rate they pay to bankers for keeping their cash on deposit with the Fed.

What are the implications of this?

1. Does it not still create money in the form of monetized interest payments (albeit at a slower pace)?

2. Will the Fed get in a viscous spiral whereby they chase the market interest rates up?

3. Will the Fed's lucrative rates be made available to slobs like you and me?

Inflation is here!

2009-05-29T22:07:00.000-07:00

Gas climbing daily. Gold and silver on a rocket. Dollar tanking. Stock market taking off with no good news. GM still trading above $0.00. Ten year yield steadily climbing as investors balk at US debt. Looks like the fed will have to bail out the Treasury and buy another trillion. Look for more "quantitative easing". Get ready for Weimar.

My gold coins went from $900 to $980.

Looking to buy an inverse bond mutual fund like Proshare's or Rydex.

Response to Senator's Email

2009-03-23T20:21:00.000-07:00

Dear Senator Bennett,

The notion that government can put the economy back on track by pumping liquidity in begs the question: where will the money come from?
If it is borrowed then it must a) be paid back with interest extracted from taxes and b)that borrowing will crowd out private sector borrowers.

If it is borrowed from the Fed it is "printed" and the result will eventually be higher consumer prices which act much like a tax.

The only responsible and sustainable method for you clowns in government to put the economy back on track is to dramatically reduce taxes AND spending, deregulate, and drastically cut the number of parasites you employ in government jobs that are a drain on the economy.

Remember, it was regulation, fiscal deficits, and credit expansion by the Fed that caused this mess. Stop trying to cure the illness with the smae things that caused it.

But that would mean relinquishing your power and you will certainly not do that voluntarily.

Read Frederic Bastiat's "What is Seen and What is Not Seen" when you get a chance.

Regards,
Troy Grice

Sucker's Rally

2009-03-16T18:44:00.000-07:00

Don't get in yet! Manufacturing is still plummeting. Earnings are shriveling up. Alt A and commercial real estate crash is coming. All paper currencies are inflating. It is a race to the bottom. DOW ain't bottoming until 2010. (Unless a cup of coffee costs $20, that is). Hahaha!

It's coming

2009-02-27T12:42:00.000-08:00

I called for hyperinflation last summer. It didn't pan out. Just as commodity prices were rocketing through the stratosphere, the great deleveraging began. Holders of real estate and stocks sold off and held cash. This is deflationary. I am certain it is temporary.

When the deleveraging ends (DOW at 4500, median home price at 2.5 xs median income) and we are on our 5th or 6th round of bailouts and stimulus, things will begin to creep up.

I'm watching the 10 year Treasury yield. The Treasury is having some trouble selling it's $2.5 trillion shit sandwhich in $33 Billion dollar bites. This means they have to offer it at a discount. When the price of bonds fall, the difference between their purchase and par value increases. This translates into higher yield. When the yield gets above 3%, I am treating it as a signal to buy gold coins (on the downtick).

So what's so bad about high inflation?

Here's how it goes down:

1) Prices, probably commodity and agricultural goods end their see-saw and start reflecting a permanent upward trend.

2) Within6-12 months, commodities double.

3) In the mean time, the economy worsens due to the interventions of the Keynesians.

4) With staggering unemployment 12-15%, there will be HUGE political pressure to end the "price gouging".

5) Government will insitute price controls on gasoline and certain foods.

6) Price controls will eradicate the profits in these industries.

7) There will be shortages. Shortages will lead to civil unrest. Government will blame "hoarding".

8) Businesses will lobby congress to enact wage controls to keep their costs down. Some businesses will get what they want, others (who have no political clout) will be nationalized.

9) A black market will evolve, rendering the price control mechanism meaningless.

10) With its prestige at stake, government will launch an assault on the illegal underground market.

11) We will devolve into a surveillance state. Prison populations will swell. There will be more unrest. More arrests. More unrest. More arrests. etc, etc.

Get ready. It could be a WILD RIDE ahead.

Daily Rant

2008-11-22T14:32:00.000-08:00

http://bailoutsleuth.com/

This is Mark Cuban's website. It is designed to track the greatest heist in the history of the world known as the $700 Billion TARP program. This scheme was devised by the Fed (the banker's bank) to extract money from you and I in the form of taxes and higher prices, and redistribute it to thieves on Wall Street and the Chinese who gambled and lost in the Real Estate market.

The total theft now stands at $2.5 Trillion. Is it any surprise that the Feds are now trying to trump up charges on Mr. Cuban for "insider trading"?

It is important to realize that these bailout billions do not come from a benevolent rich uncle. The money comes from you and I. If we spend $50 billion saving the sloppily run, sclerotic GM we can only do so by destroying $50 billion of business in the productive sector. In order to "save" GM by giving them money, government must destroy family practices, farms, and small businesses by robbing income from them.

Government cannot "save" or "produce" or "invest" anything. It can only take wealth from one person and give it to another. When Obama/Pelosi/Reid/McCain/Dodd/Bush/Bernanke/Frank/Paulson tell you they can fix the crisis they are LYING! They are money-changers and thieves- that's all.

These bailouts ARE MAKING IT WORSE! This is exactly what Hoover and FDR did in the 1930s. Bailouts, price controls, public works, unionization, cartels, interest rate cuts all made the Great Depression FAR WORSE than it would have been and now we are doing it all over again.

Don't trust the politicians. They will take EVERYTHING! Guard your 401k. Withdraw it if necessary. Save money- don't spend. Pay down debt. Stay out of the stock market. Things are going to get much worse as earning reports come in in 2009. The country needs savings and investment right now, not consumption. We need higher interest rates, not lower. We need falling prices, not inflation. Yet they keep telling us the opposite. They are wrong. Do not trust the politicians or the ignorant clowns on TV or the Ivy League faux-economists. They are delusional with fantasies of "saving the world" by exerting their power. They will lead you to ruin.

Have a nice day!

Troy

Al Gore Won a Nobel too!

2008-10-13T21:20:00.000-07:00

So Paul Krugman won a Nobel prize.

Mr. Krugman subscribes to the Keynesian notion that consumption determines output. He posits that classical and Austrian Economics, which essentially state that capital investment determines output, are flawed in that they cannot explain why there would be unemployment as a result of malinvestment. He argues that it should not matter whether income is spent on consumption goods or capital goods, that a dollar spent is a dollar earned.

Now I'm obviously no Nobel Laureate, but here's my explanation:

1) Consumption goods are created with factors of production. Namely, labor and capital stock (factories, equipment and infrastructure).
2) Creating capital requires foregoing consumption, otherwise known as "saving".
3) Capital depreciates, and therefore must be replaced with an investment of savings.
4) If incomes are diverted from savings to consumption or speculative activities, capital investment will not replace the capital stock and the capital stock will shrink.
5) Shrinking capital stock must, at some point, cause falling output.
6) Falling output must manifest itself in one of two ways: 1) falling real wages or 2) unemployment.

Krugman seems to believe that either a) capital does not depreciate or b) consumption need not equate to output. Are either of these assumptions realistic? I suppose if you relaxe the notion of diminishing marginal returns and infinite inventories.

Is there another explanation?

Capitalism is Dead

2008-10-04T08:05:00.000-07:00

Congress is a group of criminal thieves. Pelosi, Reid and Boehner, along with Bernanke and Paulson are Sovietizing our financial sector.

We have learned nothing about economics in the last 95 years.

Prices are trying to fall. Bad assets need to be liquidated. Reckless and in competent investors need to be wiped out. A crash is a healing, cathartic process. None of this will be allowed to happen. The cancer will live on, fed and nurtured by "easy money" from the Fed's digital printing press. Instead, real wealth will be siphoned off from the middle class and redistributed by congressional gangsters to their criminal donors on Wall Street. And the sheeple stand by and do nothing.

The lesson of the Great Depression was cronyism and price fixing will not solve the crisis- it only deepens and prolongs it. No serious economist disputes that.

This bailout forestalls the inevitable price correction. It will not stop it It will merely change it's form into something more sinister. Political thievery has now supplanted the honesty of economic Darwinism and the elegance of spontaneous order. Welcome to National Socialism! Where are my jack boots?

In the words of George Carlin, "They won't stop until they take it all!".

Blog Response to Robert Samuelson's Column

2008-10-04T08:04:00.001-07:00

Mr. Samuelson should be advised that there is one economic school of thought that has been consistently sounding the alarm on the credit bubble for quite some time- The Austrian School.
See: Mises, Hayek, Rothbard, and even, yes, Ron Paul.

What we don't need is a bailout that attempts to create value using a government redistribution scheme where there is no value. This bailout is a welfare giveaway that will divert real wealth from the middle class into the bank accounts of reckless and incompetent institutions. And it will PROLONG the recession. NO BAILOUT!

Letter to RMN

2008-09-19T04:31:00.000-07:00

9/17/08

Dear Editor,

Two absurdly ignorant assessments of the current financial crisis are being made by our two Presidential candidates. Obama identifies under-regulation and McCain blames Wall Street greed for the ongoing financial collapse. Both of these comments are so spectacularly ignorant of economics that they should both be banned from speaking on the subject altogether.

The housing bubble that preceded today’s inevitable crash was a function of regulation- namely the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy and pro home-ownership subsidies by Congress facilitated through Fannie and Freddie. This governmental tinkering and redirecting of real resources created the real estate mania. Unless they lived in an illusory, Keynesian fantasyland, each new investor knew the crash was looming but hoped that he could sell out to a ‘greater fool’ before the day of reckoning.

Neither Obama’s Newer Deal nor McCain’s assault on the human condition (which he calls greed) will have any impact on the occurrence of future bubbles or their subsequent crashes. The key solution resides in reassessing the role and accountability we have assigned to the Federal Reserve.

Do we really want to continue to enable an un-beholden banker’s bank (The Fed), with unlimited access to money creation, the ability to enable a corporatist system that privatizes profits for Wall Street and socializes losses for you and me?

That is the discussion our economically illiterate candidates should be having.

Troy Grice

The Beginning of the End

2008-06-27T21:05:00.000-07:00

I think the time has come. Forget stagflation, now we're talking HYPERINFLATION. Hyperinflation is the situation like in the Weimar Republic and in present day Zimbabwe where it takes a wheelbarrow of money to buy a loaf of bread.

Stagflation is the process whereby pumping cash into the economy in an attempt to boost demand and thus push output (which creates jobs) fails because supply is inelastic. Instead of an increase in output, all you get is higher prices. Staglfation exhibited in the 1970s destroyed the theory of using monetary and fiscal policy to inflate our way out of recessions. Stagflation destroyed the theories of John Maynard Keynes and knocked the monetarists woosy but Keynesianism still reigns supreme in places like the Fed and the Wall Street Journal. Google "P*" or read any WSJ article and look for the explanation the "consumption drives the economy". It's complete bullshit.

The Fed has been keystroking credit, bailing out multi-billionaires on Wall Street, and swapping worthless mortgage debt for YOUR Treasuries in an attempt to juice output by boosting demand. Its measures have failed. The market is down to its lowest level in 21 months. Instead of putting factories back into production, all that counterfitted liquidity has been parked in OIL and COMMODOTIES driving up their price.

Stagflation is no longer a worry, it is a reality. We are living it. The Fed says that inflation is 4.3% and 2.3% not counting food and fuel- as if none of us buys food and fuel. Set yourself up an algebraic equation. Even if you went to a public school you should be able to do this.

Let's call Inflation "I", Fuel and Food inflation "F" and Core inflation "C". Now lets assume that 25% of your expenditures goes to food and fuel leaving 75% for core items.

This leaves the following inflation calculation:
I = .25 * F + .75 *C.
Let's plug in what we know:
I = 4.3 and C = 2.3.
The now equation looks like this:
4.3 = .25 * F + .75 * 2.3
4.3 = .25F + 1.725
4.3 - 1.725 = .25F
2.575 = .25F
10.3 = F

So therefore, based on the BLS cpi #, fuel and food has increased only 10.3% in the last year. This should make your bulshit detector go off! This number is an absolute lie. It doesn't stand up to simple mathematical scrutiny. THEY ARE LYING TO YOU! THEY ARE LYING! THEY ARE LYING!

If you plug in a more realistic food and fuel inflation of 40% the equation results in an 11.725% rate of inflation! That is double digits, people.

Think of your grandmother who is on fixed income. The cpi determines her cost of living increase as a means of keeping her purchasing power "whole". The BLS says she gets a 4.3% increase but here costs are going up 11.725%. That means that her social security check, in real terms WAS CUT 7.4%!

This is the mechanism by which we are being robbed by the bankers and the Fed to line the pockets of the criminals on Wall Street.

But wait, it can get worse.

All fiat currencies fall victim to inflation- that is to say, politicians, finding direct taxation politically untenable, resort to counterfitting in order to make budgetary ends meet. The hope is that productivity growth (deflationary pressure) can eventually overcome their seignorage.

But what if the productivity does not catch up? What if, instead of buying new factories and infrastructure in recent years, liquidity was pumped into asset bubbles like dot coms and real estate for, oh, 15 years or so and now those bubbles have collapsed? Then what?

You are now inflating your phony money while simultaneously contracting output. The inflation pushes into interest rates because people don't like to get a negative return when they loan money. Interest rates sky-rocket. Investment hurdles become impossible to attain. Investment stops. New factories and roads and machines stop getting built. Capital flees the country. The economy shrinks. Profits evaporate. There are massive layoffs. Tax returns shrink. Governments can't borrow because they would have to pay 15, 20, 30% rates of interest. They can't raise taxes, no one has jobs (see Michigan)

So what do they do? THEY PRINT MONEY AND THEY PRINT AND PRINT AND PRINT! The word gets out. The gig is up. People know that their future money will be worthless so they start spending everything they have as soon as possible. Prices take off. 15% inflation, 30% inflation, 100% inflation. Then prices start increasing DAILY, then HOURLY!

Think I'm making this up? Google the Weimar republic or Zimbabwe inflation. We almost had this once in the early 1980s but Paul Volcker stepped in and squashed it by jacking up interest rates to the onscene levels necessary to restore confidence in the dollar. The result were two very bad recessions in the early 1980s. It resulted in capital flight oversees. Our maufacuring base left the country. That sector never fully recovered.

Since WWII we have benefited from the world using our fiat money as a defacto international currency. We buy goodies from the world in exchange for dollars. Instead of sending those dollars back here, they held on to them or spent them with other foreign nations. That meant that we got something for nothing. Well, that game is up. Our dollar is rapidly losing value and no one wants our crap dollars anymore. They are making their way back here, thus increasing their supply and driving down their value.

We will end up spending $3.5 Trillion fighting two wars in the Middle East that will accomplish NOTHING! That money came not from taxes but from the Chinese who lent it to us. How much more will they lend us? Our dollar is depreciating at a far greater pace then our 4% Treasury yield pays out. How stupid are the Chinese? I bet they won't be stupid for much longer.

We have a welfare statist or a warfare statist who will take office. One will flush billions down the welfare rathole and the other will flush billions down the warfare rathole. One subsidizes sloth and dependancy the other subsidizes corporate bomb peddlers. Either way, you pay.

With no place left to borrow and tax receipts drying up, the only recourse will be to counterfit. When this genie gets out of the bottle it may very well unleash another Weimar Republic here in America. Don't forget what that economic calamity led to.

P.S. I'm predicting DOW 9,000 by October. If you stick it out in your 401k you are a sucker. Take a max loan against it and pay down your HELOC in order to protect your asset.

Bin Laden is Dead

2008-06-25T18:31:00.000-07:00

I've been saying this for 2 years now. He was buried under a hundred million tons of rock somewhere in Tora Bora. If he was alive he would be on Al Jazeera at least once a week rattling sabres and quoting the Quran. Instead, we get these grainy pictures and poor quality audio recordings.

So why won't anyone say it? I have a two word explanation: Emmanuel Goldstein. Emmanuel who, you ask? Emmanuel Goldstein was the antagonistic icon in the book 1984 that inspired the "two minutes hate". This was a daily period set aside for people to vent their nationalism, focus their hatred and reaffirm their love of the embodiement of the state- Big Brother.

Bin Laden = Emmanuel Goldstein.

Our current warfare state has a huge interest in having a living Bin Laden. It keeps the war fires burning hot. It keeps the American 'sheeple' in a jingoistic fervor. It keeps republicans voting for necons.

The funny thing is that the Islamofascists need him to be alive as well. He is a lightening rod for their movement- they don't call them fascists for nothing. They'll keep releasing doctored clips purported to be "proof of life" for as long as they can.

The bottom line is he is dead, people. There will be no show trial. There will be no symbolic revenge for 9-11. It's time to move on.

Reap What Your Sow

2008-03-30T11:32:00.001-07:00

There are a lot of goofy statements eminating from the lips of so-called Wall Street experts. One I hear quite often is, "consumption is the driver of the economy" or something to that effect. To people who understand the very simple science of economics, a statement like this is akin to reasoning that the melting of an ice cream cone on a July afternoon drives the irradiance of the sun. It confuses cause and effect.

There is one economic axiom (Say) that cannot be challenged and it is: In order to consume something, it must first be produced. This holds for a peasant who plants so that he may consume grain just as well as it applies to the corporations that convert raw materials into consumable goods. Production must precede consumption.

Furthermore, capital investment (spending productive effort crafting the plow or the factory) must precede production of present consumables if you want to increase your FUTURE consumption.

If an economy produces nothing, it will eventually deplete its stores and will be unable to consume anything. If it makes no capital investment, its existing machinery, equipment and infrastructure will deteriorate and future consumption levels will be returned to a hand-to-mouth level. See: Zimbabwe for a current example.

So what defines economic health? The mercantilists (16th century Europe) and the Neo-mercantilists (modern China, anti-trade politicians) seem tho think prosperity is measured by how fat your trade surplus is and how much money you can stuff into your vaults. This was thoroughly disproven by Adam Smith and David Ricardo almost 200 YEARS AGO! What good is money if you don't exchange it for useful goods and services?

Economic health, simply put (to paraphrase Adam Smith): is the abundance and availability of goods and services. If more goods and services are available to you, the more healthy you are in economic terms. It is in fact, the present value of all goods and services you can or will consume in the future that determines your current economic health. If you exchange a little present consumption for investment in capital that greatly increases your future consumption you are better off (depending on your time preferences of course).

What the Wall Street experts should be saying is, "current consumption is possibly an indication of economic health" rather than the driver of it. It's an important distinction which underscores the pervasive economic ignorance in today's media (and even academia!).

Market bubbles like the recent housing mania have real effects on consumption but in ways that are much deeper than the talking heads explain. The problem with manias is that they pull investment out of tangible capital and into speculative paper by lure of high rates of return. When or even if the ponzi scheme fails is almost irrelevent. The point is that investment in capital goods like factories, roads, and machines is reduced during the mania which, in turn, curtails future production and ultimately, levels of consumption. I think the Austrian School calls this phenomenon malinvestment.

The billions of dollars invested in the real estate mania in the 2000s, tech stocks in the 1990s, junk bonds in the 1980s, and tulip bulbs in the 1500s represented billions of man hours of productive effort that could have went into tangible capital. Instead, it was vaoporized when the bubble burst- eradicated in a flash of write-down and liquidation, irretrievably wasted like the heat of a furnace that escaped through an open window on a frigid December night.

That is the problem with the so-called subprime crisis- not that the writedown of equity will curtail current consumption (which has its own marix of compounding impacts), but that the speculative investment in housing, that would have gone into tangible capital that produces consumables, never did and now we will have to accept a lower level of consumption going forward.

Perhaps the bible gets it best when it says that you "reap what you sow." The talking heads seem to think changes in consumption levels means you reap what you reap. Sorry, they're wrong.

http://www.troyjgrice.blogspot.com/

Where Is All The Money Coming From?

2008-03-30T11:26:00.000-07:00

So Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is willing to pump $30 billion into Bear Stearns to prep it for fire sale to another "private" bank. And it plans to lend another $200 billion to unlock the reluctance of wary bankers to loan to one another. It's slashed its lending rate in response to the sagging Dow, and yet it continues to drop.

Where is it getting these billions from? The Chinese? What will happen when foreigners get tired of earning negative 1 percent (after inflation) on our treasuries? Where then will the next round of Wall Street welfare handouts come from?

I'll tell you: It will come from you and me in the form of an inflation tax as the Fed creates money out of thin air. Get ready for $5 gas.

Letter to the Editor of the Rocky Mountain News, 3/28/08

Another Case Against the Fed

2008-02-27T18:58:00.000-08:00

What if we used statistical techniques to quantify the impact of the Federal Reserve and population growth on Real GDP from 1800 to today?

If we assume that annual changes in Real GDP are a function of annual population growth and the 1800-1913 vs. the 1914-2006 era what would be their impact? Why pre 1913 vs post 1914? That's because the Fed was established in 1913.

So here's what I found (using a dummy variable for Fed years 1914-2007):

1. Real GDP Growth is ~4.1% per year from 1800 to present.
2. Population growth and GDP growth are almost perfectly inversely related- meaning a 1% growth in population causes a 1% decline in GDP growth.
3. And, most surprisingly, the existence of the Fed actually reduces growth .6% per year!

Now, the confidence interval is quite wide (-2.8% to 1.6% at a 95% level of confidence), but low statistical significance hasn't gotten in the way of the super-governmental organizations from making bold pronouncements on climate so why should it stop me from drawing conclusions?

Anyway, the data seems to say that the Fed actually SLOWS economic growth.

So you are now saying, "that this is probably true but there is a tradeoff in terms of lower growth for less economic volatility."

But is that assumption true?

If we take the standard deviation of Real per capita GDP from 1800 to 1913 the range is +-3.7%. But the surprising thing is that the deviation from 1914-2006 is +-5.1%! In other words, the existence of the Fed corresponds with HIGHER VOLATILITY in per capita income growth!

What the hell is going on?

The analysis is telling us that the Fed SLOWS GROWTH AND INCREASES VOLATILITY! Had the Fed not been created, ostensibly to smooth out the business cycle, our REAL incomes would be 25% higher today!

So why do we have a Fed again?

Source Data: Louis Johnston, Department of Economics,College of Saint Benedict at Saint John's University and Samuel H. Williamson, Department of Economics, emeritus
The Miami University

What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen

2008-02-21T19:16:00.000-08:00

Liberals know what they are doing! They are believers in the State but not in a manner which most naive, proletarian, nimrods would understand. To them, the State is not a vehicle to promote general prosperity. Unless they are utterly ignorant of economics, they know that the pathway to greater prosperity is through limited government intervention in the economy which is too hopelessly complex to be managed productively.

No, what liberals really believe in is obtaining public adulation. Politics is Hollywood for ugly people. They need the pats on the back. It makes them feel good to play Robin Hood. Their mechanism is to use the power of taxation to soak a minority or unpopular populations and redistribute that wealth to their drooling, teary-eyed, back slapping constituencies. Then they congratulate themselves for their quasi-charity.

There was an economist named Frederic Bastiat that described this process perfectly in the 19th century. He described it as "What is Seen and What is Not Seen". You see, a liberal will tell you (in many different forms) that smashing storefront windows will improve the general welfare by creating jobs for window-glaziers. And no one in the media has the brains to ask them what the shopkeepers would have spent their money on had they not had to replace their broken windows. The point is redistributing wealth does not INCREASE wealth. In fact, it makes it smaller because bureaucrats take their cut and because it destroys production incentives

Obama and Hillary and all liberals manipulate the moronic American electorate with this lame argument over and over and the teary-eyed, neophytes get all wet over the message.

They promise socialized health care, FDR style jobs programs, protection of sloppy, inefficient domestic industries, free college, etc. People with brains ask: Paid for by Who? Why can't I be left to acquire my own? What gives you the right to make my economic decisions for me? Why should I produce if you are going to take the fruits of my labor and give it to non producers?

FDR ravaged the American economy for a decade with his jobs programs, cartelization of major industries, price fixing, and taxation. He created great benefits for his selected constituency- corporate monopolists, unions, dairy farmers who were paid to flush milk down the toilet. The cost for the rest of America was a recession that drug on until 1942.

And Americans, enamoured with his cult of personality, reelected this tyrant three times!

Now Obama (another personality) wants to do the same thing all over again. He will raise tax rates to 52%. He will soak the 'evil' corporations. How does he expect to "create" jobs when he chases even more corporations out of the country? He will tax your carbon using the hoax of manmade global warming as justification (there's been no global temperature increase in almost 10 years!). He will spend $210 billion to create governement works projects. How many jobs will be destroyed in the private sector so that we can pay people to dig holes and fill them back up again?

And, like the 1930s, the naive American electorate can't get enough.

Unfortunately, the Republocrat alternative isn't much of an alternative. 100 year wars are not good for the economy. God help us all!

The Predictable Liberal Response to Bullying

2008-02-18T17:38:00.000-08:00

Since the Columbine Shootings, there has been something of a national movement directed against bullying. I think it is based on the assumption that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were oppressed loners, victimized by bullies and who one day just exploded with terrible results. The assumption is probably wrong but pervasive none-the-less. If only the social workers could have intervened with counseling maybe 13 kids would not have been murdered. In response, an army of psycho-crats are applying for federal aid in order to pump out pamphlets, directives, and policies that advise kids and parents on how to best deal with these coercive individuals.

Kids who are being bullied have always wanted to know, "What can I do to make it stop?" Unfortunately, the response from the liberal-leaning school bureaucrats is inane, frequently useless, and quite predictable. In almost every case, the advice is to simply "tell an adult" (preferably a teacher) and never resort to violence. How profound! And how many resources were dedicated to coming up with this directive?

Now telling an adult may work on occasion, and I do agree that an adult should be told (preferably a parent first), but establishing this notion that blindly trusting some public authority (like a teacher) rather than telling a parent or fighting back will or even can solve a bullying problem is emblematic of our society-wide journey towards dependancy and the nanny-state.

Modern liberals assume that a well-crafted, academically contrived policy can cure any evil. They place their existence (and yours as well) solely in the hands of anointed authorities. If some one is stealing your property- pray that the police show up. If someone is raping you- don't fight back, just get counseling afterwards. If someone is extorting your lunch money- trust a teacher to make it stop.

One of the inviolable rights of man is the right to defend yourself. That includes the bearing of arms if necessary and extends all the way down to the use of fists when appropriate. Modern liberals repudiate this personal, inalienable right. They want you to trust some agent of the government to solve your problems rather than having you take matters into your own hands (or fists). Their logic: How can the population possibly be controlled if everyone is taking matters into their own hands?

When I was 12 years old I was bullied by a smirky-faced punk named Anthony Romero. In those days, before all these goofy, dangerous, far-liberal ideas permeated our culture, I was conditioned to take my problems to my dad. I expected him to go over to Anthony's house and kick Anthony's ass for me and his dad's ass too. To my surprise, he didn't. Nor did he tell me to go crying to a teacher. He told me to stand up to the bully by punching him in the nose with the hardest haymaker I could muster. Can you imagine if an edu-crat got wind of this? There would probably be a social worker knocking on our door the next day ready to spirit me away to some foster home.

This caused me great anxiety for the next couple of days preceding the inevitable confrontation. I was afflicted by interminable butterflies. I could not sleep at night. What tortue! Why was my dad doing this to me? Then the day came. Although I did not succeed in crushing Anthony's nose, the experience was empowering more than any other experience in my early childhood. I confronted my fear directly and much to my surprise, I did not die in the process. We used to call these moments 'life experience'. This particular experience taught me that you sometimes have to be an active participant in your own survival. Courage matters. It is shameful that, in our efforts to sanitize life and create utopia for children, we are denying kids real, useful life experience.

After the fight we were hauled into principal Jab's office. Watching a humiliated Mr. Romero sobbing uncontrollably was one of the most satisfying experiences of my life. The world made sense to me again as justice had been served. Principal Jab's was a wise man who knew of Anthony's reputation and also knew that his humiliation was probably appropriate punishment. We were both released on our own recognizance and Anthony never bullied me again.

It saddens me that principal Jab's life was cut short in a terrible car accident. He was a clear thinking, rational man who was loved by the teachers, students and parents of Vista Grande Elementary. He was not today's knee-jerk, moronic, edu-crats who rule by creating absurd rules like 'no playing tag' or 'no playing cops and robbers' on recess. We need more Mr. Jabs' and fewer morons running public schools today. Where do they find these imbeciles? Public Universities I imagine. But I digress...

How would a modern day edu-crat handle my scuffle with Anthony? Probably with zero tolerance. I would have been suspended for the use of violence and an enabled Mr. Romero would have bullied on. Worse yet, I probably would have never asked my dad for help and would have instead trusted the 'proper authorities' to deal with it on my behalf. After whining to teachers and being referred to counseling while the bullying continued, I would have resigned myself to a life of just taking it. In my view, that's really what the liberals want us to do- to sit down, shut up, and take it.

I'm not recommending standing up to a bully alone in every situation. Sometimes they are genuinely tougher than you and you need to find three or four friends to ambush them and beat their ass senseless to teach them a lesson. All kidding aside, the point is that contrary to modern liberals, violence is NOT always wrong. When used as self-defense it is justified. I would even argue that you are OBLIGATED! We shouldn't let the psychologists and edu-crats automatically rule it out as a method for dealing with bullies because they have a romanticized idea of society. Remember- they are bullies. Violence is their language.

Best regards.

Danish Publishers = Big Balls

2008-02-12T21:04:00.000-08:00

Just when I had given up hope for Europe as they apathetically slouch towards collectivistic oblivion, these badasses in Denmark stand up for the ideal of Western Civilization!

THIS PROTEST REPRESENTS THE IDEOLOGICAL BATTLE OF OUR LIFE!

Free speech is not negotiable in a free society. Allow the fundamentalist goons intimidate us and we deserve a return to the Dark Ages.

Threatening people for being offensive is immoral. Disregard for individual liberty explains why fanatical countries have living standards that compare to 8th century Gaul.

You can have it you way in your third world, feudal dump but don't bring it to the West. We won't stand for it.

Hey McCain, Economics Is Very Simple

2008-02-11T19:06:00.000-08:00

Before I changed my major to econ in 1996 I thought it was some complicated science that was the domain of bespectacled, bow-tie wearing poindexters. Especially macro.

When taught abstractly it can be daunting. But this complexity is all a ruse. Economists know that their science is a very simple and qualitive discipline. Many economists feel the need to "sex it up" so they can convince people to give them jobs explaining the obvious. Government economists are hardly a notch better than lawyers.

Econ is a science that tries to explain the alternatives in the allocation of limited resources. The same rules apply at the macro level as do at the individual level.

It all starts with a need. This need causes an individual to take an action to address the need. The chosen action is a function of his limited options and risk vs. reward of those options.

Hunger is a need. Hunting and gathering are productive options. The relative risk and reward of the available options are weighed by the individual and then he acts. Each person has their own concept of risk and reward. There is no one order that applies to all. Some prefer apples to oranges and some prefer oranges to apples. When some bureaucrat gets involved in ranking those preferences on individual's behalf, he can make a god-awful mess of things.

Individuals can act economical in isolation. But specialization and trade makes even more options available to the individual. Imagine if you could not trade, if you had to do everything yourself: Build your own shelter, hunt your own food, make your own clothes. You would certainly have full employment but your life would be a miserable hell as you toiled night and day. The bottom line: Specialization and trade are good. The more you have available to consume the better off you are.

In order to enhance future productivity, you can forgo some current consumption in order to make or acquire tools. Economists call this capital investment. The catch is that consumption today is worth more than the same amount of consumption in the future.

So putting it all together: There is a need. The need causes productive action. That production can be directed towards consumption, trade, or used to increase future production. That's really all there is to it. Don't let Wall Street analysts and baldheaded bureaucrats try to confuse you.

Distort one aspect and the system responds quite predictably.

Less abundance of goods and services means you will be worse off. Anti trade measures lessen the abundance of goods and services (unless you directly benefit from the protection scam).

Fixing prices will create a shortage. Worse yet, you will destroy the profit signal that compels producers to increase supply!

Discourage capital investment by taxation and future productivity will be less.

Increasing supply causes prices to fall. Print money- the value of money falls. Please inform your Federal Reserve Chairman Counterfitter of this!

That should be enough to get you started...

I Can't Throw My Vote Away (and other fallacies)

2008-02-09T13:45:00.000-08:00

'I Can't Throw My Vote Away!'

I hear this lament from prospective voters all the time. They use it as justification for holding their nose and voting for a front-running candidate who really doesn't share their values or ideology (re: McCain).

The argument goes something like this: If I vote for the candidate I really agree with but is polling poorly, I will be enabling a more sinister candidate to win. Therefore, I must choose his rival with whom I have little agreement.

There is an axiom from Ayn Rand that says something like: If you feel the need to compromise, then recheck your assumptions. The assumption here is that your single, solitary, individual vote will actually impact the outcome. That assumtpion is unequivicably false!

No election of significance was EVER determined by a single vote. None. Therefore, the impact of your single vote is zero, zip, zilch! By voting for the 'lesser of evils' You are not being 'strategic'. You are not aiding your cause. In fact, the only compromise you are achieving is to compromise YOUR values and ideology.

Furthermore, you are enabling a monolithic political system that thrives by squashing challenges through this very process- by tricking you into compromising what you believe in! Bastardizing our beliefs by voting 'strategically' is a very undemocratic process. No election is determinable by you and your 1 puny, meaningless vote. Strategic voting is pointless and irrational.

In the spirit of democracy and for the preservation of your integrity, vote your conscience!

Why I Hate Hillary #2 (Response to her opinion piece in WSJ)

2008-02-09T13:26:00.000-08:00

So the enlightened Mrs. Clinton says she is going to help America pass the "shared prosperity test" by cutting health care costs, fixing student loan interest rates, and by reducing our heating bills.

She says she will encourage saving by "giving new incentives to employers". She plans to "address the root causes of poverty" by increasing the minimum wage, and by creating a "green collar" job core that would make FDR proud.

She plans to offer universal pre-school, universal health care, and even universal broad band. She promises to close the income gap between blacks and whites, the math aptitude gap between women and men, and the cognitive development gap between smart and dumb pre-schoolers.

She is committed to your "pursuit of happiness" whether you are personally committed to it or not. And she will do all this while not borrowing money from "countries like China".

Since the 'paid for by whom' was omitted from her piece (refer to her website) I imagine the costs are inconsequential.

Why I Hate Hillary #1

2008-02-09T13:15:00.000-08:00

Well, the socialists are at it again. Here is their latest legislative proposal:

The "Fair Pay Act" and the "Paycheck Fairness Act" aim to force companies to set pay scales based on some bureaucrat's definition of "social utility" rather than by allowing market forces to prevail. That means that, theoretically, truck drivers (who are usually male) cannot be paid more than paralegals (who are usually female).

This sounds great to the members of special interest groups that will benefit from the law. And those people will undoubtedly support it. But the problem is that we are creating a society that rewards not by voluntary, non-coercive, production and exchange but rather by forming political collectives, and petitioning government agents to steal wealth from other groups.

We're replacing our Republic with a Kleptocracy.

I find the practitioners and enablers of this brand of socialism-by-proxy spectacularly brazen, repugnant, and disastrously ignorant of economics.
Wages and prices send out critical signals to all of us. If truck drivers make more than paralegals, the signal being sent out is that truck drivers are either less abundant than and/or more needed than paralegals.

Tinkering with these signals will, without exception, cause a shortage of labor in the underpriced profession as potential truck drivers will not be enticed into the trade due to a wage that does not adequately compensate them for their skills and risks. It is these shortages (and offsetting surpluses) that lead to the systematic wasted productivity inherent in all socialistic systems.

Productivity drives income therefore, lost productivity translates into lost income.

The shocking thing is that leftists like Mrs. Clinton are either unforgivably ignorant on how economies work or know this going in but choose to exploit the special interest mechanism in order to attain power.

It is the latter that makes her and her ilk so distasteful to me. But in the words of Lenin, "Democracy is indispensable to socialism."