Secession!

A New Strategy For Liberty - Part 2: Secession in Three Easy Steps

Once you accept that the Progressive power structure includes the media, universities, and bureaucracy, you can understand that voting doesn't make sense. Conservatives and libertarians don't control the government to any extent. You laugh at Charlie Brown trying to kick the football...why do you act like Charlie Brown?

I cannot think of a conservative victory over the past 80 years. Reagan was just a reaction to a particularly rapid shift to the left, but even during his time the government expanded and conservatives ceded cultural ground.

The first step is to understand that voting isn't working. If you can get that far, then you open yourself to a whole new range of possible actions. We the people have power, not because we vote, but because we have inalienable rights given to us by God. It's our choice whether we use our rights and exercise our power, or turn those rights and power over to the government with our vote.

It's your choice.

Leftism Revealed

Your organization is fraudulent and corrupt. You accept taxpayer money and teach people how to cheat on their taxes. You encourage child prostitution and illegal immigration. Your response is:

"O'Keefe and Giles try to make it sound as if they concocted their sordid video scheme on a whim - as if they had no major backers," Kettenring said. "ACORN's lawsuit will smoke out the true motives and conservative money behind these attacks on a community organization that works to better the lives of ordinary Americans every day."

And we wonder why communists aren't as universally reviled as the Nazis, why we can still find morons wearing Che t-shirts. It's the motives! Child prostitution, murdering millions of people, anti-Semitism, violence, etc. is all OK as long as you do it for the right reasons!

ACORN helps the community rape children, evade taxes and violate God knows how many laws. But Obama worked there, and they support Obama, so they are good. It's all good.

Conservatives Never Win

It's true that massive, deadly arachnids in this family are found in the fossil record. It's also true that they've been shrinking steadily for the last 30 million years. You might well be face-to-face with a living fossil. Anything can happen. But first, look without your reading glasses. I suspect you may have the magnification set too high.

Take an example: where was gay marriage in 1979? The era of Anita Bryant and the Briggs Amendment? Of the Hard Hat Riot? Dear progressive, you can hardly admit that progress hasn't happened - by your own definition.

But this means your cause is going forward and your foe's is going backward, which means you are attacking and he is retreating. So shouldn't it be the spider who's afraid of you, not you who's afraid of the spider? I know I am beating a dead horse here. But you probably have friends who haven't seen the light yet, dear reactionary. Try this one out on them.

UR GI 9a

Take Physical Delivery of Gold!

Great comment by Gordon Gekko on Zero Hedge:

So it is NOT ENOUGH that the US Government LOOTS us via both EXCESSIVE direct taxation and inflation of the money supply. It has now set upon us these CRIMINAL gangs dressed in the garbs of "respectable" Wall Street firms - providing them unlimited monies and backstopping all their losses for the SOLE objective of PILLAGING the little guy in every way, shape and form. I have just one question for you all - how much more of this NONSENSE are you willing to take? If you have had enough (although this may seem "tin-foil-hatted" to those of you not in the know), start taking delivery of PHYSICAL Gold IMMEDIATELY and END this paper money scam. It is the most peaceful, effective and efficient way to end this orgy of corruption and crime (of course there are many other things that you can do as well, but this is the LEAST you can do). Fiat money is the source of all their power and all your problems. No amount of law enforcement, prosecutions, etc. will cure this disease unless we attack the problem at the root. I assure you - NOTHING can and will be rectified unless we reform our monetary system.

The post itself is about how Goldman Sachs and other firms use computers to profit from volatility, taking money away from retail and institutional investors. Note that Goldman and many of these firms are part of the Federal Reserve system, thus they benefit from the creation of new money (which costs you in the form of inflation), they receive taxpayer bailouts (which costs you in taxes), the set-up leads to volatility, which their programs exploit (which costs you in the market).

If instead of holding paper dollars or savings in a bank account, you transform the savings into physical assets such as gold, silver, platinum, etc., then money is drained from the system and it moves in reverse. The banks will lose at every step of the way, and your precious metal holdings will increase in value as the prices of stocks and other assets depreciate.

It's your choice whether you support a system impoverishing the American people or whether you will take a simple step to oppose it. Two sites that sell gold and precious metals for low markups are:

California Numismatic Investments
Only Gold

Massachusetts lets retards vote?

Several influential U.S. House Democrats have filed a bill that would require the government to tap the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve to counter rising oil prices.

Reps. Ed Markey, D-Mass., Chris Van Hollen, D-Md. and Peter Welch, D-Vt., said their legislation would direct the Department of Energy to sell 70 million barrels of more expensive light, sweet crude and replace it with cheaper heavy crude.

These men have just exposed themselves as economic morons. If I lived in Markey's district, I'd be ashamed and worried that everyone in America (excepting the districts of these two other disgraces) thinks I too am a retard for electing such a total idiot. Obviously, there's some amount of brain damage or well below normal IQ that results in the election of these idiots to Congress. Perhaps it is a gerrymandered district for special people.

If you think that's harsh, just read the common sense, obvious answers for why these men are absolute morons. This fails on multiple levels.

McArdle, Obama Voter and Supposed Libertarian

Paragraphs such as this one, written in a post about California's fiscal crisis, shows how someone of her thinking could vote for Obama, rather than no one or a third party:

I am not under the illusion that this will be fun. For starters, the rest of you sitting smugly out there in your snug homes, preparing to enjoy the spectacle, should prepare to enjoy the higher taxes you're going to pay as a result. Your states and municipalities will pay higher interest on their bonds if California is allowed to default. Also, the default is going to result in a great deal of personal misery, more than a little of which is going to end up on the books of Federal unemployment insurance and other such programs.

Let me break this down in the simplest of terms. Government is inefficient. There are many Democrats and not a few Republicans who want big government and don't care about inefficiency. However, a lot of taxpayers in both parties, some moderate to Blue Dog Democrats, plus the more economically inclined conservatives, understand the cost of government.

The current financial and political system, as it exists up until recently, was one in which interest rates were artificially low and governments were protected from bankruptcy. Low interest for government debt hid the inefficiency of government spending. If the interest rate on municipal and state debt increases, it will reduce (since this is government, economically stupid but politically sound decisions won't go away) the most inefficient spending.

Higher interest rates on government debt aren't a bug, they're a feature.

Democraphobia in China

And not from the communists, but the Confucians.
The Confucian Party

They point out that China’s most fertile intellectual period was the Warring States era (476 to 221 B.C.) , when scholars like Mencius could openly criticize rulers for their immoral deeds and put forward political alternatives. My Confucian friends have criticized the government’s clumsy attempts to shut down debate about Charter 08, a manifesto published in 2008 which urged the Communist Party to abandon monopoly rule and establish a multiparty system of government.

But the same scholars were severely critical of the content of the charter, saying that it echoes 20th century efforts by Chinese liberals to seek complete Westernization as the solution to China’s problems. In fact, even liberal scholars like Qin Hui, China’s most influential social critic, openly criticized the charter’s substance. Had the government not interfered with the charter, it might have died a natural death.

For the Confucians, any long-lasting and stable political reform must be rooted in China’s own traditions. So should we view them as narrow nationalists? Quite the opposite. Jiang Qing, a leading exponent of the new Confucianism, explicitly criticizes the idea of state sovereignty, saying that sovereignty lies with “heaven” rather than the state. He argues for a democratic institution that would offer more opportunities for political participation, while criticizing democracy for being too narrowly focused on the interests of the current generation of voters.

Jiang proposes another political institution designed to represent non-voters whose interests are typically neglected in democratic states, such as foreigners, future generations and ancestors. Is democracy really the best way to protect future victims of global warming, he asks?

Confucian intellectuals have also put forward ideas for educational reform. Communism is dead as a unifying myth that can sustain the Chinese people, they argue, so what does China stand for now? Here’s where Confucian values become relevant. There are currently thousands of educational experiments to promote such Confucian values as harmony and compassion.
Tsinghua University, the university that trains much of China’s elite (and where I teach), may be leading the way. It has recently made the “four Confucian classics” compulsory reading for a group of undergraduate students in the humanities. Written over 2,000 years ago, the books will effectively replace some of the compulsory courses in Marxist-Leninism. In the traditional mode, students will memorize the texts before engaging in critical interpretation.

Today, such efforts to revive tradition really grab intellectuals . According to a recent survey of Chinese political attitudes by Duke University’s Tianjian Shi, China has become more traditional in its political orientation as it has developed economically. Reacting to the materialism that has accompanied rapid modernization, many intellectuals are turning to traditions like Confucianism that emphasize social responsibility.

Those looking for another explosion of political demonstrations like Tiananmen are likely to be disappointed. At the conference in Qufu, the Confucian critics were careful to tell government officials that they favor change on a stable basis.

If the Confucians get their way, political change will come slowly and peacefully. Since Deng Xiaoping opened the doors to economic reform over 30 years ago, various economic experiments have been carried out at different levels of government, with the central government taking what works and implementing the reforms in the whole country. That’s also likely to be the model for educational and political reform over the next 30 years. It may be starting right now in towns like Qufu.

Down With Democracy

Peter Thiel responds to a Patri Friedman essay:

Indeed, even more pessimistically, the trend has been going the wrong way for a long time. To return to finance, the last economic depression in the United States that did not result in massive government intervention was the collapse of 1920–21. It was sharp but short, and entailed the sort of Schumpeterian “creative destruction” that could lead to a real boom. The decade that followed — the roaring 1920s — was so strong that historians have forgotten the depression that started it. The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics. Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron.

In the face of these realities, one would despair if one limited one’s horizon to the world of politics. I do not despair because I no longer believe that politics encompasses all possible futures of our world. In our time, the great task for libertarians is to find an escape from politics in all its forms — from the totalitarian and fundamentalist catastrophes to the unthinking demos that guides so-called “social democracy.”

The critical question then becomes one of means, of how to escape not via politics but beyond it. Because there are no truly free places left in our world, I suspect that the mode for escape must involve some sort of new and hitherto untried process that leads us to some undiscovered country; and for this reason I have focused my efforts on new technologies that may create a new space for freedom

Politics is not the answer, but I might allow a solution. Once freedom loving people understand that we need to move beyond politics and into action, the possibility opens up that the political system will be forced to compromise. Politics may still be a dead end, but by abandoning politics, one makes it possible for politics to solve the problem.

Hat tip to Scarecrow 2012.

You Represent Power and Greed

Senator Specter

When I supported the stimulus package, I knew that it would not be popular with the Republican Party. But I saw the stimulus as necessary to lessen the risk of a far more serious recession than we are now experiencing.

Since then, I have traveled the state, talked to Republican leaders and office-holders and my supporters and I have carefully examined public opinion. It has become clear to me that the stimulus vote caused a schism which makes our differences irreconcilable. On this state of the record, I am unwilling to have my twenty-nine year Senate record judged by the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate. I have not represented the Republican Party. I have represented the people of Pennsylvania.

Obama is a little bit Special Olympics

Shortage of Doctors Proves Obstacle to Obama Goals

Technically, reality is an obstacle to Obama's goals. But hey, it's the NYTimes. Why attack them when they could be bankrupt in a month?

Scarecrow For President

Stewart Browne, who wrote the article on national collapse at Strike the Root, has a blog that exposes the failure of reform from within and proposes to run an actual Scarecrow in 2012. Check out this recent post:

As crises often do, the current maelstrom is creating some political realignment.

Here's 50 years of history condensed into into 15 steps.

1. FDR creates The New Deal coalition, the most powerful political coalition in American history.
2. Those who believe in smaller government are funneled into the Republican party in response to FDR's coalition.
3. The Republican party gives small government types their chance with the Goldwater campaign. Goldwater suffers a monumental, epic loss, giving us an early lesson of how democracy responds to attempts to reform it from within.
4. The Republican party tinkers with the formula and moderates the message to appeal to a broader group, including those in the south who are displeased with the Civil Rights Act. Nixon wins.
5. Nixon wants to dismantle much of what Kennedy and Johnson did, but ends up just continuing and expanding on their legacies.
6. In the aftermath of Watergate, a former movie star with superb political charisma rises to prominence in the Republican party.
7. Reagan wins, and a failed assassination attempt gives him enough political clout to get a tax cut passed.
8. Even though government and total taxation greatly expanded under Reagan, his one legislative success deludes a generation of Republicans into thinking they can shrink Washington.
9. The 1994 elections bring about a strong Republican majority in both houses of Congress, and Republicans crush in state and local races. Republicans ran that year on a small government message.
10. Republicans fail miserably to shrink the government at any level. Clinton and Congressional Democrats politically outfox them on every initiative. If ever there was evidence of how difficult it is to try and shrink government from within, the '94 class is it.
11. Republicans moderate the message. Under Karl Rove's tutelage, Republicans adopt a strategy of speaking to the center, thinking that once elected they can then govern from the right.
12. Republicans win the Presidency, both houses of Congress, and a majority of state and local governments.
13. Under Republican watch, the US government undergoes its greatest expansion in history. The national debt skyrockets. Future obligations under Medicare explode in a new entitlement program. The economy tanks.
14. Republicans suffer a crushing defeat at all levels in 2008, and hand over to Obama and a Democratic Congress a system perfectly staged for a giant government power grab.

Votes reflect where the society and culture are, they do not shape society and culture——unless you are in favor of expanding government. It is possible to use the vote to expand government and change the culture to accept larger government, but it is impossible to vote for less government. It is a one-way street.

I'm a believer in living reform. Reform will come from outside the system. Until conservatives and libertarians are willing to make personal sacrifices for freedom, nothing will change. If you want to change things, the thing to do right now is not to think of how to elect more Republicans, it's how to stop supporting the system.

A few possibilities:
1. Reduce your tax burden. This can range from moving overseas, reducing your work load, consuming less, etc.

2. Homeschool. Private schools are fine, but many are just better run versions of the public schools. Children use the same textbooks and get the same left-wing indoctrination.

3. Sell your dollars. The U.S. government prints dollars to fund it's deficit spending. If you have little faith in the government, why do you have faith in its money?

Decline and Fall of the American Republic?

American's were concerned about nuclear annihilation and Soviet world domination and then the USSR up and disappeared. Could the American Republic face a similar path?
Please check out this post at Strike the Root: It Can Happen Here. It Might Be Happening Now.

Between the communists parachuting onto the high school in Red Dawn and the neighborhood getting vaporized in The Day After, my elementary school classmates and I were convinced the Soviets would invade and kill us all before we made it to our next summer vacation. Before we got out of middle school, Gorbachev had resigned and the Soviet flag was lowered for the last time over the Kremlin.

It can happen that fast.

Americans have become so accustomed to stability that, even as the future shouts at us with crystal clarity, we refuse to listen. Our government has assumed more debt in the past seven months than can possibly be repaid, and that is before accounting for its existing Social Security and Medicare obligations. Hundreds of thousands of ordinary Americans can't fathom how we might be unearthed from this massive debt, and they are taking their concerns to the street. Thirty-two states have passed "sovereignty statements" in their legislatures. The governor of Texas is speaking openly of secession.

How has the media responded? Mockery, ridicule, an adolescent meme about "tea bagging."

And Washington ?

"The White House says the president is unaware of the tea parties and will hold his own event today," said Dan Harris of ABC News on April 15.

One senses that the existing power structure knows something is up, but intends to go on with life in confidence that this will all sort itself out.

A piece missing from this article is the destruction of the dollar. I've heard Ron Paul mention it recently, and it's worth considering. The Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury are literally destroying the U.S. dollar right now. There is still deflation because this money cannot escape the banking system, but as John Mauldin discussed in this week's newsletter, the Fed will keep printing and printing until it gets inflation. It's going to print money and give it to Obama to spend on massive deficits. Essentially, the U.S. government is printing money to pay its bills. Your wealth will be stolen through the silent inflation tax. On top of the 35-40% average tax rate Americans now pay (federal, state & local taxes), there will be an inflation tax of between 5 and 10%, if we're lucky, but possibly much higher.

The federal government will be directing more than 50% of the economy and the results will be total disaster. People will begin to lose confidence in America itself, and hyperinflation is a real concern. This is why DHS put out the report on right-wing "radicals". Right-wingers are a threat because they have an answer to the problem—-cut the size of government. Anyone who works at DHS or any other federal agency, or wants to use government to further their personal agenda or bank account, is threatened by people who have an answer for the disaster they may be about to unleash.

I don't think the above is likely. I don't think we will have hyperinflation. I think things will be worse than the 1970s, but the country will pull out of it. Nonetheless, if things do go badly, then the above scenario is not unrealistic.

RIP UK

Govt hikes top income tax rate to 50%

The government will increase its top rate of income tax to a higher than expected 50 percent from next year, Chancellor Alistair Darling said on Wednesday as he delivered the government's annual budget.
The tax band had originally been due to rise to 45 percent from 40 percent in April 2011 as Britain seeks to claw back lost tax revenue caused by a deep recession.

The 50-percent rate will apply to any income above 150,000 pounds.

China wants to make Shanghai the financial capital of the world and they're offering tax breaks galore to entice businesses. Meanwhile, the vampires of London and New York seek to drain their blood.

Advantage: Shanghai.

Stupid is as stupid does...

If this is true, then there's simply no hope for the Republican Party. The Congressional Oversight Committee headed by Elizabeth Warren found that the government rescue programs are a recipe for disaster and they even drew parallels with Depression era policies enacted under Hoover and FDR! Amazing!

For conservatives to attack her commission because she personally is a liberal and her preferred solutions to the problem are left-wing is beyond stupid. She would inevitably be replaced by some 'yes woman' who has no problem signing off on government insanity programs.

Everyday we have more evidence that politicians are mostly a single group of filthy scum whose chief concern is to maintain power, and they do a wonderful job of it with the proles of America. At least we may see McCain go down in flames. What a delightful turn of events if the GOP standard bearer is kicked out of office.

Receiving nothing is better than spit in your eye

Obama's deficit, that is deficit, not spending, will be more than:
$2,000,000,000,000. And he wants to cut:
...........$100,000,000.

For every $20,000 plus in debt, he's willing to cut $1.

Consider that there are 300,000,000 million Americans. The deficit for this year will be more than $6,667 per person (!), and Obama is willing to cut your bill by $0.33.

$6,667 in debt.
$0.33 savings.

There's your change.

UPDATE: Even the AP and ABC reporters thought it was a joke, which is saying something.

Spengler to be Revealed!

SPENGLER REVEALED

Asia Times Online's essayist Spengler is the subject of one of the Internet's favorite guessing games: who is this acerbic writer whose interests range from the banking crisis to Biblical exegesis? For the past 10 years, ATol has guarded this secret zealously. In our Friday edition, Spengler will step out of the shadows with an autobiographical essay revealing who he is, why he writes, and why he chose his pseudonym.

Done with the MSM?

First, CNN's reporter argues with the protesters. Now, NBC's executives are hammering their CNBC anchors for talking too tough about Obama! This is just pathetic:

"It was an intensive, three-hour dinner at 30 Rock which Zucker himself was behind," a source familiar with the powwow told us. "There was a long discussion about whether CNBC has become too conservative and is beating up on Obama too much. There's great concern that CNBC is now the anti-Obama network. The whole meeting was really kind of creepy."

Check out the link for another bit about how the White House reacted to the Tea Parties.

If I was on-air talent at NBC, I'd have my agent on the phone with Fox Business and Bloomberg, ASAP.

I Hope Paul Ryan Gets Egged

Or at least heavily booed. He's exhibit A of the kind of Republicans in Washington. They support heavy spending and high taxes (which are the result of deficits and spending), until people start complaining. Now he's trying to hijack the Tea Party movement and act as though he's "one of us". He isn't. On Michelle Malkin's blog, an email from one of her readers:

So now all of a sudden, picking winners and losers in the market is bad policy? But a couple month ago, when Paul Ryan was arguing to give funds to the failing auto companies, that somehow wasn’t “neo-industrial policy” and wasn’t “picking winners and losers”? We weren’t taxing Toyota to save GM then? And now Paul is suddenly concerned about executive control over funding, when he said not one word after President Bush unilaterally, and illegally used TARP funds to bail out the auto industry? He’s concerned about keeping the Fed focused on the financial industry, but he had no problem with the car czar that he proposed in his earlier legislation?

Look, I’m all for cutting off these funds, and perhaps I’m being stupid to continue to go after Paul Ryan like this. But when reading these releases, you’d think that he was against these things the entire time! But only now that a Democratic President is in office, is he all of a sudden for a more reasonable fiscal policy that didn’t bailout industrial concerns.

Well you know what, that’s what a straight partisan hack does. He ought to be apologizing for his previous votes, not pretending he was being responsible the entire time, but I don’t see one bit of regret for what he did previously. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to let him get away with it.

Malkin sounds the right note with her own comments:

Now is not the time to sing kumbaya with the GOP or indulge in celebrity worship. This is the chance to hold your politicians accountable for engaging in legislation without deliberation, for “sacrificing the free market to save it” to paraphrase George the pre-socializer Bush, and for abandoning their fiscal conservative principles in the mad rush to “Do something.” (Quoting Rep. Ryan from last fall: “Doing nothing is the worst thing we could do!”)

I hope someone in Madison will ask why Tea Party activists should trust him not to crumble the next time the big government juggernaut yells “emergency!”

Promoting his tea party appearance, Ryan told a local radio station:

“I think the message is people are fed up with this notion of chasing ever-higher spending with ever-higher taxes. There’s a limit to how much you can soak the taxpayer.”
Message to GOP opportunists hitching their wagons to the Tea Party movement:

Practice what you preach when it matters. Not after the fact.

Right on. These guys should walk away from these events wondering if they'll still have a job in 2010.

About Time...

Texas tells Feds to stick it.

AUSTIN – Gov. Rick Perry joined state Rep. Brandon Creighton and sponsors of House Concurrent Resolution (HCR) 50 in support of states’ rights under the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

“I believe that our federal government has become oppressive in its size, its intrusion into the lives of our citizens, and its interference with the affairs of our state,” Gov. Perry said. “That is why I am here today to express my unwavering support for efforts all across our country to reaffirm the states’ rights affirmed by the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I believe that returning to the letter and spirit of the U.S. Constitution and its essential 10th Amendment will free our state from undue regulations, and ultimately strengthen our Union.”

Perry continued: "Millions of Texans are tired of Washington, DC trying to come down here to tell us how to run Texas."

A number of recent federal proposals are not within the scope of the federal government’s constitutionally designated powers and impede the states’ right to govern themselves. HCR 50 affirms that Texas claims sovereignty under the 10th Amendment over all powers not otherwise granted to the federal government.

It also designates that all compulsory federal legislation that requires states to comply under threat of civil or criminal penalties, or that requires states to pass legislation or lose federal funding, be prohibited or repealed.

Link.

Benedict on the Triduum

On a different note from today's other posts, Pope Benedict XVI's address to the faithful at the general audience on Wednesday, April 8, 2009:

How marvelous, and at the same time amazing, is this mystery! We can never meditate this reality sufficiently. Jesus, though being God, did not want to make of his divine prerogatives an exclusive possession; he did not want to use his being God, his glorious dignity and power, as an instrument of triumph and sign of distance from us. On the contrary, "he emptied himself" assuming our miserable and weak human condition -- in this regard, Paul uses a quite meaningful Greek verb to indicate the "kenosis", this descent of Jesus. The divine form (morphe) is hidden in Christ under the human form, namely, under our reality marked by suffering, poverty, human limitations and death. The radical and true sharing of our nature, a sharing in everything except sin, leads him to that frontier that is the sign of our finiteness -- death. But all this was not the fruit of a dark mechanism or a blind fatality: It was instead his free choice, by his generous adherence to the salvific plan of the Father. And the death which he went out to meet -- adds Paul -- was that of the cross, the most humiliating and degrading that one can imagine. The Lord of the universe did all this out of love for us: out of love he willed to "empty himself" and make himself our brother; out of love he shared our condition, that of every man and every woman. In this connection, Theodoret of Cyrus, a great witness of the Eastern tradition, writes: "Being God and God by nature and having equality with God, he did not retain this as something great, as do those who have received some honor beyond their merits, but concealing his merits, he chose the most profound humility and took the form of a human being" (Commentary on the Letter to the Philippians, 2:6-7).

The rest of the address is at Chiesa.

More Moldbuggery

The law of bankruptcy, as handed down by sages of old, abhors the zombie. If the obligations of a zombie can be restructured, handing its bondholders a haircut but converting the result into a profitable operation, the majesty of the law is there with its machete. If the zombie is an inherently unprofitable institution, the majesty brings its axe instead, and has a grave handy.

If you've seen Dead Alive, or Braindead, the Peter Jackson horror flick, or Evil Dead II, then you understand the analogy. Once the body becomes infected, one must chop off the infected part, lest the entire body succumb to the disease. Replacing your chopped off arm with a chainsaw to do battle with other undead creature is just pure awesomeness. Not that the government will announce a new AIG, with chainsaw arms and a vulture investing beak.

Bruce Campbell's character in Army of Darkness is truly a hero for our age. His investing advice was sound as well, "Gimme some sugar baby."

Eight Decades of Free Thinking & the Zombie Threat

Anne Cleveland doesn't like the sounds emanating from the G20.

If here in the United States, the centralized government takes over and Nationalizes Banks, and IF at the G-20 group meeting of heads of State from 20 countries agreed to turn over the handling of money to the IMF, then the sovereignty of this nation has been compromised, we’ve lost the farm.

I’M saying IF. IF, if, this government has forked over the money or the power to create it to a foreign entity, that’s as crazy as Caligula appointing his horse a Counsel.

There's always gold.

Now, what could be worse than Caligula appointing his horse a Counsel? How about a zombie Caligula appoints his zombie horse a Counsel!

For example, everyone knows what a zombie bank is these days. They have also heard of the shadow banking system, which the Obama administration is doing its best to resurrect. And speaking of the Obama administration, UR readers will recall that our dear President got his start as an acolyte of a philosopher who dedicated his most famous book to Lucifer, Prince of Night - which by my calculations gives us two degrees of separation between Barack Hussein Obama and Satan himself. Not that any of this bothers anyone, of course. Why should it?

If I can boil Moldbug's long post into an analogy: brains are to zombies as debt is to America.

Aim for the head.

Life discovered at Harvard

Some background at Real Clear Politics.

What the hell is this?!

April 7 UPDATE: Nobody else knows what the hell this is either. Here's Powerline:

What the Minneapolis Star Tribune is to Keith Ellison, the New York Times is to Barack Obama. Michael Goldfarb explores the irony of the Times deep-sixing the story of Obama's bow to the King of Saudi Arabia last week. Goldfarb aptly titles his post "The NYTimes bows before Obama." We still don't know why Obama bowed to the King. At least we know why the Times is bowing!

Democracy: The Enemy of Freedom

Moldbug's latest is out. Good, and long, as always.

Bryan Caplan highlights relevant passages from Lee Kuan Yew's story of Singapore.

People in Hong Kong depended not on the government but on themselves and their families... The drive to succeed was intense; family and extended family ties were strong. Long before Milton Friedman held up Hong Kong as a model of a free-enterprise economy, I had seen the advantage of having little or no safety net. It spurred Hong Kong's people to strive to succeed. There was no social contract between the colonial government and them. Unlike Singaporeans, they could not and did not defend themselves or their collective interests. They were not a nation - indeed, were not allowed to become a nation...

Caplan: During the 50s and early 60s, Lee basically saw himself as a nationalist. So you'd think that he'd see Hong Kong's unnationhood as a big handicap. Wrong!

We had to become a nation or we would cease to exist. We had to subsidize education, health, and housing even though I tried to avoid the debilitating effects of welfarism. But the Singaporean cannot match the Hong Konger in drive and motivation. In Hong Kong when people fail, they blame themselves or their bad luck, pick themselves up, and try again... Singaporeans have different attitudes to government and to life. They prefer job security and freedom from worry. When they do not succeed they blame the government since they assume its duty is to ensure that their lives get better... Singaporeans vote for their MPs and ministers and expect them to distribute whatever prizes their are. (emphasis mine)

Read it all.

Was AIG a total fraud?

This is amazing, insane, and everything else wrapped up in an enigma of fraud. There is now the claim that AIG's CDS contracts, the supposed things worth trillions of dollars that would bankrupt the whole world economy, were, in fact...fake. And the government just sent trillions of dollars to financial companies to pay for...nothing.

Notre Dame & Obama

Notre Dame Honors Pro-Abortion President

Visions of Tyranny

I'm not a fear monger or prone to panic. But if we see the growth of tyrannical police states in the West, this is how things may unfold. The first noose goes on capital.

Switzerland’s private banks have started to ban their top executives from travelling abroad, even to neighbouring France and Germany, because of fears they will be detained as part of a global crackdown on bank secrecy.

The head of one leading private bank in Geneva said the growing determination of countries such as the US and Germany to tackle tax evasion and secrecy meant banks felt they had to take extra measures to protect employees.

“Some banks have taken this precaution,” he said. “If today I go to Germany to visit two banks I deal with...German customs can take me in and question me.”

The travel bans, which have not been brought in by all banks, have focused on those visiting the US, following the detention there last year of a senior private banker from UBS, Switzerland’s biggest bank, as part of a federal tax investigation.

The head of the private bank, which itself has no travel restrictions, said: “Today if you are a banker from Switzerland going to the US you have to fear you will be taken in for questioning. I am thinking twice about going to America.”

However, four people in the private banking industry in Geneva told the Financial Times of banks bringing in total travel bans for staff, even for adjoining European countries.

Moldbug's Latest

If we separate the economy into two consolidated balance sheets - A, the balance sheet of the government and the banking industry; B, the balance sheet of all other industries and households - we feel it is perfectly normal for B to borrow more and more money, every year, from A. But is it?

In fact, when this "flow of credit" ceases, the result is described as a "recession." And it is certainly quite painful. And when the flow reverses - that's real pain.

Now: imagine you were considering investment in a business, and that business had borrowed two trillion dollars last year. Or two billion dollars. Or two million dollars.

There are two possibilities. One, the business is in an expansion stage, and is creating equity with negative cashflow. It has a "burn rate." But it is using this money to make productive long-term investments which will, in time, reverse this and produce a profit.

Two: the business is a dog. It is losing money. It needs to be liquidated or at least restructured. Woof! Sorry, Old Yeller. The time has come to say hello to Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson.

Which is it? There is no way to know. However, if we discover that the same business has been borrowing money every year, in the same way, for the past decade, we probably have our answer. If it has been bleeding for the past quarter-century... behold: Exhibit A.

In this interpretation, the United States, as a whole, is a money-losing operation. The fact that the dollar is a fiat currency has allowed us to disguise this, because fiat currency is essentially equity, and equity can always be diluted. So our losses are funneled into a hemorrhage of new shares, in the classic equity death spiral of the dying corporation. But since USG, unlike most dying corporations, is sovereign, the game can continue indefinitely.

Read the whole post, he also has Plan M to revitalize the financial sector.

Obama's Deficit

Every liberal likes to talk about Reagan and his deficits, which at the time, were pretty large. Over 8 years in office, however, the deficits under Reagan amounted to roughly $1,600,000,000,000. Already, the estimate for this year's deficit is $2,000,000,000,000, and my personal estimate is something closer to $2,500,000,000,000, or about two-thirds more than all eight years of Reagan.

And of course, Obama's first 4 years of deficits will likely surpass 8 years of Bush.

The Federal Reserve just announced another bailout program, to the tune of more than $1,000,000,000,000. And Treasury Secretary Geithner just announced a $1,000,000,000,000 plan to buy toxic waste.

But Americans want to get their panties in a wad about $167,000,000 in AIG bonuses. To put that in perspective, 167,000,000 divided by 4,500,000,000,000 is equal to 0.0037%. Why do the politicians and ACORN want you to focus on 0.0037% and ignore the other 99.6289%? Or put it this way, take you anger over AIG. You should be about 27,000 times as angry over the other spending, as you are about AIG. If you're not, you are what is commonly known as a tool or a useful idiot.

Could say the same thing to Bubama

Hear hear!

I have no idea if this has ever happened before at the EU parliament, an intranational feud carried out in an international arena.

The Way to Hell

Go Topolanek, it's your birthday:

Topolanek bluntly said that "the United States did not take the right path.".

He slammed the U.S.' widening budget deficit and protectionist trade measures -- such as the "Buy America" -- and said that "all of these steps, these combinations and permanency is the way to hell."

"We need to read the history books and the lessons of history and the biggest success of the (EU) is the refusal to go this way," he said.

"Americans will need liquidity to finance all their measures and they will balance this with the sale of their bonds but this will undermine the stability of the global financial market," said Topolanek.

Damn skippy.

Zimbabwe's Collapse

Check out this video titled Gold for Bread.

Alec Baldwin Goes John Galt

Dr. Helen notices some hypocrisy, but I notice a celebrity endorsement of the John Galt lifestyle!

Red Tape? Not in Red China

Read it and weep.

The environment ministry today said it cut its review time for new building proposals to two days from five. The regulator approved 246 projects with a total investment of 970 billion yuan in the first two months.

"It wasn't me, it was the gooks!"

The Yellow Peril, the Asian Menace, call them what you will, but according to a growing number of economists, they're the reason for the economic decline. You know, the one caused by American central bank printing and excessive borrowing by consumers and businesses. Latest j'accuse courtesy of Alan Greenspan. Krugmania now includes fear of the Orient on the list of symptoms.

The Rise of the Chucktatorship

Chuck Norris, President of Texas.

When I appeared on Glenn Beck's radio show, he told me that someone had asked him, "Do you really believe that there is going to be trouble in the future?" And he answered, "If this country starts to spiral out of control and Mexico melts down or whatever, if it really starts to spiral out of control, before America allows a country to become a totalitarian country (which it would have under I think the Republicans as well in this situation; they were taking us to the same place, just slower), Americans won't stand for it. There will be parts of the country that will rise up." Then Glenn asked me and his listening audience, "And where's that going to come from?" He answered his own question, "Texas, it's going to come from Texas. Do you agree with that Chuck?" I replied, "Oh yeah!" Definitely.

It was these types of thoughts that led me to utter the tongue-n-cheek frustration on Glenn Beck's radio show, "I may run for president of Texas!"

We Surround Them

Glenn Beck is having his own get together on Friday.

Do you watch the direction that America is being taken in and feel powerless to stop it?

Do you believe that your voice isn’t loud enough to be heard above the noise anymore?

Do you read the headlines everyday and feel an empty pit in your stomach…as if you’re completely alone?

If so, then you’ve fallen for the Wizard of Oz lie. While the voices you hear in the distance may sound intimidating, as if they surround us from all sides—the reality is very different. Once you pull the curtain away you realize that there are only a few people pressing the buttons, and their voices are weak. The truth is that they don’t surround us at all.



We surround them.

VDH Drops the Hammer on "Conservatives"

Finally. The sooner the recriminations end, the sooner they can move forward.

Conservatives created Barack Obama and his vision of the Europeanization of America, and so have themselves to blame for the current recessional, as the present as we have known it fades into the past..

Let me explain. Yes, I know that the 2000-01 recession, Hurricane Katrina, two wars, and a $1 trillion hit after 9/11 made fiscal discipline hard. But being a conservative in America these days is hard—and one gets very little leeway or second chances.

Reaping, sowing, and all that jazz. Vox Day also comments on the situation:

Modern politicians didn't cause the economic crisis, as the seeds for that were planted back when the 63rd Congress elected to turn monetary power over to the Federal Reserve. They merely helped determine the particular form it took. If the credit inflation hadn't taken place in the tech and housing sectors, it would simply occurred in some other part of the economy. But in first choosing George W. Bush as their standard bearer, then lining up behind him in support of his wars and occupations, conservatives laid the groundwork to put Obama into office at this critical juncture. The insane selection of John McCain instead of Ron Paul as the 2008 Republican Party standard bearer was little more than the foul icing on an excremental cake. Paul might well have lost... but he certainly couldn't have done any worse than McCain and the Republican Party would have far more credibility with regards to the present crisis than it does now.

ODS

During the Bush years, many liberals had BDS, Bush Derangement Syndrome. I wonder how many conservatives have ODS, Obama Derangement Syndrome. Sure, the guy is more liberal and he's spending way more money on even more wasteful programs, but it isn't as though Bush was much better. Plus, Bush laid the groundwork for Obama. There were conservatives blasting Bush, but most of the party rallied around him. Obama is like 130% McCain. Videos like the one below might suddenly be popular, but if John McCain had won, he'd be effectively destroying just as much of America, except conservatives would cheer it and liberals would scream that it wasn't enough spending and McCain was abusing government power.

And many conservatives are still singing the same tune. Just last week at CPAC, Mitt Romney won with 20%! It's encouraging that Ron Paul tied Sarah Palin with 13%, and Bobby Jindal had 14%, but I don't know enough about Palin or Jindal. I do know, however, that Romney is a liberal who went along with universal health care in Massachusetts. In sum, I'm not going to listen to anyone who gets angry at Obama for doing 130% of what they voted for and/or continue to support.

About those immigrants Mass relies on...

Why Skilled Immigrants Are Leaving the U.S.

Our new paper, "America's Loss Is the World's Gain," finds that the vast majority of these returnees were relatively young. The average age was 30 for Indian returnees, and 33 for Chinese. They were highly educated, with degrees in management, technology, or science. Fifty-one percent of the Chinese held master's degrees and 41% had PhDs. Sixty-six percent of the Indians held a master's and 12.1% had PhDs. They were at very top of the educational distribution for these highly educated immigrant groups -- precisely the kind of people who make the greatest contribution to the U.S. economy and to business and job growth.

The immigrants go home first, but Americans may be following them soon.

And it wasn't just new immigrants who were returning. In fact, 30% of respondents held permanent resident status or were U.S. citizens.

I guess we'll have to rely on the public education system...

Robert Gibbs—Let me break it down for you.

I understand playing politics, but this is really lame. The only reason a President needs to respond to a partisan talk show host is if his comments are finding a mainstream audience.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, who last month blasted CNBC host Rick Santelli from the podium in the briefing room, challenged reporters on Monday to ask Republicans if they agree with Limbaugh's desire.

"Do they want to see the president's economic agenda fail? You know, I bet there are a number of guests on television throughout the day and maybe into tomorrow who could let America know whether they agree with what Rush Limbaugh said this weekend."

Gibbs said he thought "it would be charitable to say he doubled down on what he said in January in wishing and hoping for economic failure in this country."

Pull up a chart of the DJIA or S&P 500 Index. See that chart that goes lower and lower? That's a successful Obama Presidency. If Obama starts losing and his bills are defeated in Congress, the bailouts end, and taxes stay the same, then the chart reverses.

This isn't rocket science. When the president has the wrong policies, we want him to fail and fail spectacularly.

Sorry you work for a loser who's presidency is already worse than Carter or Bush. You jumped the shark and are busy attacking radio hosts and news reporters.
So long, farewell, see you in 2010.

ReTea Party

This is just unacceptable.

The department attributed to rise in incomes to pay raises for federal civilian and military employees, as well as cost-of-living adjustments to several government transfer payments programs. It said excluding these factors, incomes increased by 0.2 percent in January.

Incomes are up thanks to taking money from working people and giving the money to government workers and welfare recipients. By this logic, if you make $40,000 and I make $0, but the government takes all your money and gives it to me, we're both earning $40,000 per year.

And then some Keynesian retardation, but I repeat myself:

"There was a big increase in the savings rate to 5 percent. It is good that people save but it is not good that everybody saves at the same time. That makes the current downturn more severe and long lasting."

Savings jumped to an annual rate of $545.5 billion, the highest level since monthly records began in 1959. The saving rate surged to 5 percent in January, the biggest advance since March 1995, as households uncertain about the economy prefer to conserve their cash.

So during the 1950s to 1980s, when the savings rate was 10 percent, the economy did horribly? How does the savings rate get to 10% unless we're all saving at the same time? And yes, the savings rate needs to get to about 10%, or double current levels.

Sorry Boehner, You're Wrong

Boehner: 'Spending barrage' starting

House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) told conservatives Friday that a "spending barrage" from President Barack Obama is the first step toward an American brand of socialism.

"First it was the stimulus, then the omnibus and now the budget," Boehner said during a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference. "It's all a down payment on a new American socialist experiment."

"The spending barrage is just beginning," he added.

Boehner harshly criticized the president's recently unveiled budget as a "job killer, plain and simple."

"American jobs are under threat," he said.

The down payment on the new American socialist experiment was made by George W. Bush with No Child Left Behind, Homeland Security, and the Medicare prescription drug bill. Forty percent of earmarks in the latest Democrat spending bill are Republican earmarks. This party is finished, or at least, I'm finished with them, unless some new blood gets in there. There are almost no elected officials with any principle. I know of only a handful, such as Senators Inhofe, Coburn and Shelby, and Congressmen Pence, McCotter, and of course Ron Paul. Outside of Thaddeus McCotter and Ron Paul, I'm not sure than any Republican even understands the economy. They want the same Keynesian BS, only in the form of tax cuts instead of spending.

Until someone proposes the more than $1 trillion in spending cuts necessary to balance the budget (about 30% of current Federal spending), then there's nothing to discuss. We'll take it to the streets.

Would you join me for afternoon tea? Delightful!

Why reduce the deduction for charitable contributions?

The nefarious might claim Obama really wants to weaken the private sector with this law. Since even Democrats oppose it, however, my guess is that this is a red flag for the bulls. Conservatives will stupidly focus on some idiotic clause that means nothing in comparison to the overall bill, Democrats will also avert their focus from the rest of the bill, and then Obama gets his big victory and gives conservatives a bone on charitable contributions.

The Bubba Effect

This is both hilarious and a little frightening at the same time. It's even funnier/scarier if you connect Bubba with Deliverance.

Donald Sensing has a plan...and I like it

Repeal the 16th and 17th Amendments.

Both were "Progressive" ideas, and we see how well progressivism turned out. This European disease should be torn out by the roots and sent back where it belongs.

They Taxed Paradise and Made it an Empty Lot

They taxed paradise and made it an empty lot
With a drab motel, no jobs, and no wi-fi spots
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you got till it's gone
They taxed paradise and made it an empty lot

They took all the jobs, and put em in a bureaucracy
And they taxed the people an arm and a leg to get them
No, no, no, don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got till it's gone
They taxed paradise, and made it an empty lot

Hey farmer, banker get your hands away from me,
I don't care about a tough economy,
Leave me the freedom to do as I - please
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you got till it's gone
They taxed paradise and made it an empty lot
Hey now, they've taxed paradise to make it an empty lot
Why not?

Listen, late last night, I heard the newsman say,
That a low tax country took my job away
Now don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you got till it's gone
They taxed paradise and made it an empty lot
Hey now now, don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you got till it's gone
They taxed paradise to made it an empty lot
Why not, they taxed paradise
They made it an empty lot
Hey hey hey, taxed paradise and made it an empty lot

I don't wanna give it
Why you tax it
Why you wanna spendin it all away
Hey, hey, hey
Now you wanna tax it
I don’t wanna give it
Cuz you're spending it all away, no no

I don't wanna give it
Why you wanna tax it
Why you wanna spend it all away
Cuz you're tax it all spendin it all away yeah yeah
Cuz You're spendin it all away hey, hey, hey

Hey, taxed paradise, to make it an empty lot
la,la, la, la, la, la, la ,la ,la ,la ,la
Taxed paradise, and made it an empty lot

Are you laughing?

I'm laughing. This is funny stuff.

House Democrats unveiled a $410 billion spending bill on Monday to keep the government running through the end of the fiscal year, setting up the second political struggle over federal funds in less than a month with Republicans.

The measure includes thousands of earmarks, the pet projects favored by lawmakers but often criticized by the public in opinion polls. There was no official total of the bill's earmarks, which accounted for at least $3.8 billion.

The legislation, which includes an increase of roughly 8 percent over spending in the last fiscal year, is expected to clear the House later in the week.

Democrats defended the spending increases, saying they were needed to make up for cuts enacted in recent years or proposed a year ago by then-President George W. Bush in health, education, energy and other programs.

Democrats always want higher spending. If a Republican President spent money faster than a crack-addicted compulsive gambler (George Bush), Democrats would complain it wasn't enough. Don't worry though, by the end of Obama's term, he will have cut the deficit in half...to an amount higher than any deficit under George Bush. At the current rate, this year's deficit will probably exceed $2 trillion, and may come close to equaling 50% of Bush's deficits over 8 years. Democrats are using the same strategy as Citigroup, AIG, Bank of America, GE, subprime home buyers, Bear Stearns, and Lehman Brothers. Borrow short-term to the hilt, and hope the long-term investments pay off.

Rick Santelli made a funny when he attacked the idea of a government spending multiplier and asked why we don't spend $1 trillion every day if it creates $1.5 trillion in GDP. Well, the Democrats are trying. The only flaw in their plan is that there's no money—the government is literally broke. It's like small children thinking monopoly money is real. But too many Americans are essentially little children. They stomp their feet when things go bad and say, "We have to do something! I have a boo boo!" Prop up my home, save my farm/bank/car company, pay for my healthcare, education, job training. The public simply has no concept of budgeting, interest rates, money supply, currency rates and how these can combine to totally annihilate Federal spending.

Democrats are out of cash, but they want to keep playing at the poker table. They are now putting up Medicare and Social Security to play another hand. That's how big the stakes are with these spendaholics in charge. Does the average American realize the huge gamble "we" are taking? If it fails, instead of Medicare, you will receive a bill for interest. Either you will literally be paying high taxes for interest on the debt, or the government will have inflated it away and you will have to pay 12% interest to get a mortgage, or your Social Security check will grow at the 5% government CPI, but your actual costs will be up 15%.

The kids are in charge. Sit back, grab a beer, and enjoy. It won't be long before they piss their pants, break some furniture, vomit on the floor and maybe even burn the house down. It's America's Funniest Home Videos, all day, everyday.

Either that or go insane.

The Bubama Plague

It seems the hard-working members of the right and left are in total agreement: stop giving money to failed business and irresponsible borrowers.

Among them: Lynn Powers, 39, a Bethesda, Md., resident who describes herself as a “liberal Democrat” who has been hardworking, prudent and responsible — and now feels “like a fool.”

“We were in the market,” she says. “We put out eight bids and got outbid every time. It was very upsetting for us. I want to see some accountability and responsibility across the board. The only way for me to have an affordable home, and I’m not looking for a McMansion at all, is if we let the chips fall, in a sense. This is still the bubble — the prices have to come down. You can’t just subsidize some of the people. I don’t know how you deleverage. It is going to be painful, but this is also hurting the people who behaved responsibly.”

What does she mean by “responsibly”?

“People who didn’t overbuy. Who stuck to their guns. Who read their contracts,” she says. She and her husband wound up buying a 600-square-foot studio and moved to a rental when they had their daughter, now 18 months old.

“My husband and I paid for our cars in cash,” she says. “We have no credit card debt. We have no student loans. I don’t buy Starbucks, but that’s because they’re non-fair trade, nonenvironmental.”

When they tried to buy a house, she said, “We just felt outgunned.” And now, she says, “I feel very outgunned as a citizen.”

Does she know she's channeling the "leave it alone liquidationists", the enemies of Hoover, FDR, Bush and Obama? She's an Austrian and she doesn't even know it.

Another Maryland resident concurs: “I am an Obama supporter, campaigned for him, baked cookies for him; my husband and I are Democrats all the way, but this is the issue that gets our goat.”

Echoing Santelli’s complaint, a Silver Spring, Md., mom who did not want her name used adds: “I’m not sure why we should work and pay for someone else to have a granite countertop or an extra bathroom.”

When asked about people who hadn’t overreached but had lost their down-­payment money when the value of their homes had dropped, she replies, “We put money in a 401(k), and we lost that money, and no one is going to give it back.”

So much for a level playing field, opportunity for all, a free and fair economy. Instead we get unfree, unfair, and debt and taxes to pay for other peoples' stupidity, hubris, and greed.

Bush/Obama, the Bubama Plague. Hopefully it won't destroy one-third of our GDP. There are, of course, plenty of vaccines.

Leftism: A Videologue

Enjoy!

The Renters are angry

If you rent, you are part of 32% of the American public. Why should you have to pay for people who bought overpriced homes? I don't know.

Angry Renter

Boston ReTea Party

There will be a Re Tea Party in Boston.

WHEN: Saturday, July 4, 2009

WHERE: Griffins Wharf | Boston, MA

Rick Santelli’s Chicago Tea Party

So many things to protest these days. Maybe toss an Amtrack car in the harbor? How about some government cheese? Mohair? Social Security card?

We're going to have a Tea Party!!!

A lot of folks might not be able to go to Chicago.

Massachusetts can kick it old school.

And let's get some tar and feathers.

Seeds of Revolution

Rick Santelli needs a pitchfork.

President of the EU Slams the EU

Klaus is known for deep skepticism of the EU and has refused to fly the EU flag over his official seat in Prague during the Czech presidency, saying the country is not an EU province.

He said current EU practices smacked of communist times when the Soviet Union controlled much of eastern Europe, including the Czech Republic and when dissent or even discussions were not tolerated.

"Not so long ago, in our part of Europe we lived in a political system that permitted no alternatives and therefore also no parliamentary opposition," said Klaus. "We learned the bitter lesson that with no opposition, there is no freedom."

He said the 27-nation bloc should concentrate on offering prosperity to Europeans, rather than closer political union, and scrap a stalled EU reform treaty that Irish voters have already rejected.

Klaus said that questioning deeper integration has become an "uncriticizable assumption that there is only one possible and correct future of the European integration."

Czech president compares EU to Soviet Union

New Link

In the News section, Pension Tsunami.

Covering the yet to be mainstream story of the underfunded pension problem.

I ♥Derb

Derb takes a swing at low-brow conservatism and connects.

With reasons for gratitude duly noted, are there some downsides to conservative talk radio? Taking the conservative project as a whole—limited government,fiscal prudence, equality under law, personal liberty, patriotism, realism
abroad—has talk radio helped or hurt? All those good things are plainly off the
table for the next four years at least, a prospect that conservatives can only
view with anguish. Did the Limbaughs, Hannitys, Savages, and Ingrahams lead
us to this sorry state of affairs?

They surely did. At the very least, by yoking themselves to the clueless George W. Bush and his free-spending administration, they helped create the great debt bubble that has now burst so spectacularly. The big names, too, were all uncritical of the decade-long (at least) efforts to “build democracy” in noaccount nations with politically primitive populations. Sean Hannity called the Iraq War a “massive success,” and in January 2008 deemed the U.S. economy “phenomenal.”

Much more at the link, but sign up may be required. I would love to hear Derb discuss this article with Limbaugh because I think it would not be acrimonious and would air a lot of dirty laundry that's piled up after 8 years of George W. Bush. In Limbaugh's defense, when he gets serious about an issue he's very close to what I think Derb means when he talks about middle-brow conservatism.

Detroitification: State Tax Revenues Imploding

Good thing Massachusetts voters didn't eliminate the income tax. Otherwise, they would have forced the state to immediately cut spending and prepare for a decline in revenues. Instead, they're still spending to the hilt while the economy implodes around them. Long story short: state spending is going to cliff dive or they're going to literally tax the suckers workers back to the stone age.

Mish has it covered:

California is, like many states simply spending beyond its means. Promises have been made than cannot be kept. Raising taxes is not the answer in California or anywhere else.

Eventually someone will give in. Will it be the one needed Republican or a group of Democrats who agree to cut more spending?

Either way the point is moot except for an initial cheer of exhaustion. Falling sales tax revenue and falling property tax collections ensures another budget crisis is coming up in a few more months, not just in California but 46 states.

Think Obama's stimulus plan will counteract this on top of everything else that is going wrong? Think again.

Here is the very important point to understand, in light of Guvnah Deval's plans to close the budget shortfall. (And be clear that this is to close the shortfall that appeared around October-December. The even bigger hole that exists today hasn't even been publicized yet.) If the state's GDP declines and undergoes a permanent downshift, then maintaining government spending is the same as a massive increase in taxes and spending. The size of government relative to GDP will grow massively this year and in future, and may finally break the back of companies and industries that struggled to stay in the area. Considering the tax breaks for biotech and other favored industries, unless you are a high-wage employee in this field or others such as law, you'd best consider selling your home and finding a nice place down South before rising property taxes or job loss force you into foreclosure.

Prepare for Detriotification.

Can we import Yan Yiming?

I love this:

A Shanghai lawyer made a formal request with the Ministry of Finance this week to make public the detailed expenditure of the country's four-trillion-yuan fiscal stimulus package (585.5 billion U.S. dollars).

Yan Yiming, a lawyer specializing in securities case and owning a law firm named after himself, said he was dissatisfied with the ministry's previous response to his request which said it was improper to have the information released.

The current formal request made this week, an 'administrative reconsideration', must get a reply from the ministry within 15 days, according to the Chinese law.

Yan submitted his previous request to the Ministry of Finance (MOF) and the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China's top economic planner, on Jan. 7. According to Yan, The MOF reply came less than two weeks later but the NDRC remained silent.

The Ministry of Finance said in a written reply that the plan details should be released after it was approved by the National People's Congress, China's top legislature.

"There is no state secret in the stimulus plan, then why not make it public for better supervision?" Yan said.

Here's a Bloomberg interview with Yan Yiming.


Recall that Bloomberg sued the Federal Reserve over its secretive lending practices and they were rebuffed.

Oklahoma May Ask For Its Rights Back

Check this out:

A Joint Resolution claiming sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over certain powers; serving notice to the federal government to cease and desist certain mandates; providing that certain federal legislation be prohibited or repealed; and directing distribution.

Tragedy of the Commons: Education

Reading the latest post from Mencius Moldbug, I made a connection between yesterday's post on education and his use of the Tragedy of the Commons.

The example used in Moldbug's post is the fisheries. When one person/company/organization/caretaker owns the fish, they will protect them and only extract the "interest". They will maintain a relatively stable population of fish and only take the excess. When many fisherman can take the fish, their incentive is to grab as many fish as possible, otherwise someone else will, and overfishing leads to a decline of the fisheries. Moldbug then goes on to discuss this in the context of fractured authority.

This go me thinking about the education system in America. What is the nation's greatest resource? It is the students. If all power were given to the student or their parent (guardian), their incentive would be to maximize their return. They have full ownership of the thing of value in the system—themselves. (State spending is dependent on the student. No students, no schools, no spending.) But instead of giving the student absolute authority over the spending of education money, it is fractured throughout federal government, state government, local government, teachers' unions and school boards. Thus, the one person who has the most interest in maximizing their educational return, the student, in fact has almost all authority and capital stripped from them by various parties with their own personal interests and goals, which may or may not coincide with the interests of the student.

The federal bureaucrat's mandate is to ensure education money is spent effectively. No Child Left Behind includes tests to measure student performance. They do not care if the tests really work, their job is to administer tests, and they do so. Massachusetts state government administers MCAS for the same reason, with the same effects.

Local government's strip the public of capital and redirect it in the interests of the majority of the public, which will never be closely aligned with the interests of students.

School boards are there to make sure money is spent properly and to hold the educators accountable. I don't need to go far to find an example of Creation/evolution battles to show that they are not acting in the interest of the individual students. These are the battles that make headlines, consider how many pass without interest to the public, such as battles over which foreign languages to teach, or what math courses to offer.

Finally, there are the teacher's unions. Their interest is to maximize the flow of income into the school system, and then maximize the flow of said income into their members' pockets. They've done a masterful job of convincing the public that our biggest problem is underpaid teachers.

Consider the converse. Imagine a system where the student can choose among public schools. (School choice) Here, the student can outmaneuver the school boards and perhaps find a school more in tune with his educational needs.

Imagine a system where the student directs the capital. (Vouchers) The student can outmaneuver the school board, and to some extent the teachers' unions. With fractured control over spending, the union could no longer control the flow of funds at the school level (which now depends on how many students choose to attend). They can still lobby for more funding at the government level, and there's still the ultimate control of government on how the money is spent.

Now imagine a system where the student owns the capital. In this system, there is no authority higher than the student. Government cannot impose testing on the student (though they may try, "in the public interest") because the student does not use public funds. The student finally has the ability to maximize his return on investment (ROI). The student has the choice to attend a school, or to maintain total educational freedom in the environment of a home school. (And in light of European systems with educational choice, homeschooling would meet very strong competition from educations with an economic incentive to deliver superior returns.) With local and state government out of the picture, the teachers and boards of private schools only have control to the extent that they show a superior ability to maximize the student's ROI.

All the failures and reforms of public education fail and continue to fail because they are trying to fix a system flawed from the start. To the extent that school choice and vouchers show improvements, it is because they are closer to the ideal system of total student control. Efforts at school choice and vouchers, however, are wasted efforts. Promoting a less-bad system is to promote a bad system. If all the school choice, voucher, and home school supporters combined their efforts and promoted the best system, we would have the chance to accomplish something good.

About those foreign workers...

Massachusetts has to rely on foreign workers to replace the Exodus of young people from the state. I had this to say about it:

Massachusetts needs to rely on international immigration policies...which will turn decidedly against immigration during a massive economic downturn. On top of which, the Congress and President are sticking xenophobic "Buy American" clauses into their legislation, at the very least fueling nativist sentiment.

More evidence comes from Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa.

Microsoft's plans to lay off 5,000 workers have ruffled the feathers of Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a long-time critic of the U.S. H-1B visa program. Microsoft, a top 10 employer of H-1B visa holders, has been among the most vocal tech companies over the last several years urging Congress to raise the cap on H-1B visas. Now Grassley is urging Microsoft to furlough those temporary foreign workers first before handing out pink slips to Americans and permanent U.S. residents.

Someone on Beacon Hill ought to start thinking about how to attract American workers.

Let my people...go to the school of their choice!

I like this idea from the Center for Small Government. Educational choice that saves the taxpayers' money.

Each homeowner is taxed $3,000 a year for public schools.

Putting a student into the local public school COSTS taxpayers $7,500 per year.

NOT putting a student into the local public school system SAVES taxpayers $7,500 per year.

Taking a student out of the local public schools REDUCES the public school expenses $7,500 per year.

THE SMALL GOVERNMENT PROPOSAL FOR EDUCATIONAL FUNDING AND CHOICE : Every homeowner who does NOT put a student into the local public schools gets a 100% tax credit for the part of property taxes that pays for public schools. $3,000 back each year.

Each homeowner is free to choose. Use the public schools and pay the tax. Or don't use the public schools and don't pay the tax.

I would add one additional policy, which is that anyone can take the tax credit if they pay for a child to attend a private school. For instance, maybe there's a single mother who pays no property taxes because she rents an apartment, she wants to send her child to private school, but can't afford it. Why shouldn't her neighbor, a family member, a friend, or a alumnus of the school, be allowed to take the tax credit if they pay the tuition for the student (assuming they live in the town)?

The key is to rebate the property taxes though, otherwise the state will claim its "our" money, will all the strings and religious bigotry attached to it. A voucher system won't work for this reason, but the tax credit system will because it will allow true educational choice. Power to the people!

Brilliant

The Kiwis Have a Plan

Don't let people find out about this Deval. They might want to move to New Zealand. Or worse! Douglas proposes parallel tax plan

Act MP Sir Roger Douglas is proposing a new low-tax option for taxpayers in which the first $30,000 of income would be tax-free - but only if they pay for their own retirement, health care and welfare insurance or costs.

Income over the $30,000 tax-free threshold would be at a flat tax rate - 15 per cent - to be phased in over 15 years.

The Douglas plan would cut corporate tax rates to the same 15 per cent.

Sir Roger outlined his opt-in proposal to the Orewa Rotary Club.

He would inflation-proof the tax-free income so the $30,000 threshold would rise at the rate of inflation.

But rates would vary for income-earners with dependent children: the threshold for a couple with one child would be set at $50,000.

Families would have a guaranteed minimum income, so that if they earned less than the tax-free threshold they would receive a tax credit up to the threshold.

The Government would create superannuation savings accounts for individuals under Sir Roger's parallel tax plan, and those in the low-tax option would be guaranteed not to receive less than under the old system.

Sir Roger said the system would help the poor more than the wealthy.

"The poor are forced to queue for health care, while the wealthy get it when they need it through private provision," he said. "Only by restoring responsibility to individuals will we be able to tame the increasing cost of Government services."

Provision of services would be controlled by the individuals rather than bureaucrats and there would be an incentive to keep costs down.

Service providers would have an incentive to serve customers and be innovative, "not capture politicians and bureaucrats through lobbying".

Sir Roger, a reforming finance minister in the fourth Labour Government, criticised the last Labour-led Government's policies as well as the claims by the present National-led Government that it represents limited government.

He said last year's election was a choice between more spending by Labour or more spending and lower taxes from National.

"We offer a third option: less spending and lower taxes."

Read all about it!

There is no plan

Administration officials were greeted with sarcasm and laughter Monday night when they briefed lawmakers and congressional staff on Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's new financial-sector bailout project, according to people who were in the room.

The laughter was at its height when Obama officials explained that the White House planned to guarantee a wide swath of toxic assets -- which they referred to as "legacy assets" -- but wouldn't be asking Congress for money. Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA), a bailout opponent in the fall, asked the officials to give Congress the total dollar figure for which they were on the hook. The officials said that they couldn't provide a number, a response met by chuckling that was bipartisan, but tilted toward the GOP side. By guaranteeing the assets, Geithner hopes he can persuade the private sector to purchase a portion of them.

Yes we can...destroy a Presidency in less than one-month. Investors, economists, politicians, banks, insurance companies, America, the world have been waiting for the Obama Administration's plan to save the economy. Except...there is no plan.

Naked Capitalism isn't happy:

As one astute reader commented yesterday:

At least Paulson announced his plans. Not that he ever did anything he announced, but that's a small technicality. These guys can't even make an announcement.

Let us not forget that Paulson did manage to dispense the better part of $350 billion in a blinding show of Mussolini-styled corporatism. The new Treasury secretary exhibits similar Italian fascist tendencies, with even less ability to make the trains run on time.

Discussion Paper on the Mass Exodus

Here's the conclusion from the paper:

The interaction of several different factors (the size of the age cohort, educational attainment, and international immigration) all come together to create the population of young professionals. If policy makers wish to increase the supply of young, educated workers in the region, they would do well to consider not only domestic migration,
but international immigration policies as well as education policies.

Massachusetts needs to rely on international immigration policies...which will turn decidedly against immigration during a massive economic downturn. On top of which, the Congress and President are sticking xenophobic "Buy American" clauses into their legislation, at the very least fueling nativist sentiment.

Taxachusetts is Back in Black

Maybe global warming caused a glacier to melt and Taxachusetts escaped its icy prison.

Back in black
I hit the sack
It's been too long I'm glad to be back
Yes, I'm let loose
From the noose
That's kept me hanging around
I've been looking at the sky
and it's gettin' me high
Forget the hearse 'cause I never die
I got nine lives
Cats eyes

This time it's gas taxes...up 27 cents to make Massachusetts the highest in America!

Gov. Deval L. Patrick may seek a 27-cent-a-gallon increase in the state's gasoline tax as part of a comprehensive plan to overhaul transportation.

The proposal would boost the state's gas tax to 50.5 cents, the highest in the nation.

The Associated Press obtained a Patrick administration policy draft that said the added tax would be used to retire debt of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, finance regional transit authorities and take down some tolls on the Massachusetts Turnpike.

Home Prices Are Too High

Good thing the Federal government wants to prop them up.

One in five Massachusetts residents aged 25 to 39 plans to leave the state during the next five years, according to a survey released this week by the think tank MassINC.

Of the people who plan to leave, 32 percent told MassINC that the state's high cost of living was driving them to greener pastures. When asked what, if anything, could keep them here, respondents said lower taxes, more affordable housing and improved job opportunities.

Jaime A. Delaney, 32, of Chicopee, was one of the people surveyed. She said she understands why people plan to leave the state.

"I would if I could," she said. "Taxes are too high. It's too expensive to live here. It takes my whole paycheck just to feed my family and put gas in my car. It's horrible."

Delaney works as an order selector in a factory and has three children. An area native, she said family ties keep her in the Pioneer Valley.

"If my family lived somewhere else, I'd be gone in a heartbeat," she said.

Young adults planning to leave WMass.
Note that the article is from July 2008. Deval Partrick wants to raise taxes, there are fewer jobs, and the Feds are doing everything possible to keep home prices high.

And now even global warming is in doubt.

"As Chief of several of NASA Headquarters’ programs (1982-94), an SES position, I was responsible for all weather and climate research in the entire agency, including the research work by James Hansen, Roy Spencer, Joanne Simpson, and several hundred other scientists at NASA field centers, in academia, and in the private sector who worked on climate research," Theon wrote. "I appreciate the opportunity to add my name to those who disagree that global warming is man made.”

Theon takes aim at the models, and implicitly criticises Hansen for revising to the data set:

“My own belief concerning anthropogenic climate change is that the models do not realistically simulate the climate system because there are many very important sub-grid scale processes that the models either replicate poorly or completely omit. Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results. In doing so, they neither explain what they have modified in the observations, nor explain how they did it.

"They have resisted making their work transparent so that it can be replicated independently by other scientists. This is clearly contrary to how science should be done. Thus there is no rational justification for using climate model forecasts to determine public policy.”

I'm a sceptic now, says ex-NASA climate boss