Wednesday, March 5, 2014
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Is Crimea Payback For Cyprus?
I haven't heard anyone say this yet, but Russians lost a lot of money when the EU "bailed out" Cyprus by bailing it in. More to the point, the EU confiscated 40% of deposits in Cyprus banks in excess of 100,000 euros, which hit a lot of rich Russian depositors pretty hard. It was another example of EU overreach in the opinion of Russians, something of which the West has been very dismissive but which Putin has indicated will not fly anymore as early as 2008, and proved it when he annexed South Ossetia during the Olympic Games in China.
Crimea was a perfect opportunity for a little payback for Cyprus, considering that the US has been trying to push Ukraine into the arms of the EU, most recently when Senators John McCain and Chris Murphy visited Ukraine in December and threatened the country with sanctions if it did not ally with the West.
From Putin's perspective, the EU means losses for Russia. American policy isn't taking that seriously enough, because if it were Putin wouldn't need to resort to arms.
S&P500 Vaults 14 Points Above The Last High One Day After Crimean Invasion By Russia
War is the father of everything.
Drudge Is Just A Sensationalist Tabloid, Not In The Grocery Story Aisle But On The Internet
Everyone who reads the stories Drudge links to can perceive instantly that Drudge's headlines often are purely sensationalist and sometimes down right misleading, often in the extreme.
Today is a good example.
The story Drudge links to here via Reuters clearly states up front in the second paragraph that the US knew in advance of today's test. The test was not an exclamation point added at the end of the sentence about the Crimean invasion:
A U.S. official said the United States had received proper notification from Russia ahead of the test and that the initial notification pre-dated the crisis in Crimea. The Russian Defence Ministry could not be reached for comment.
Russia performs due diligence and informs us of these tests well in advance. Today's test was a good example. But Drudge plays it up differently nevertheless, as if Russia were sending us a message.
Wikileaks proved Russia has been warning the West about expanding NATO too closely to Russia's borders since at least 2008. Russia's action in Crimea should not have come as a surprise to anyone who has a sense of history or pays attention to the long record of Russian protests against European encroachments on its borders since the fall of the Soviet Union.
The sad part of this is that the radio talkers like Laura Ingraham, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and even Michael Savage take their lead from Drudge's headlines. At least Savage often brings a critical perspective to bear upon these stories, as does Ingraham to a lesser extent. But overall the tyranny of Drudge over the news cycle on the right is plain for anyone to see. Its memes become the fodder of the juggernaut of uninformed opinion to which we are all now hostage in the age of instant everything.
Stock Markets Are Casinos Of Sentiment Easily Swayed By Important Global Events Like The Crimean Invasion
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| Markets tank less than 1% on Russia's Crimean invasion . . . |
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| . . . then they recover all that and then some the day after. |
Monday, March 3, 2014
The Russian Invasion Of Georgia In 2008 Was A Warning To The West To Stop Expanding NATO Into Russia's Backyard, But We Ignore This Up To The Present Day
US foreign policy under Bush and Obama has ignored Russia's intentions to reassert its influence and control in regions populated with Russians.
Bloomberg reports here:
Putin has been warning the U.S. and other North Atlantic Treaty Organization states for at least six years not to impede Russian interests in Ukraine, particularly in Crimea, where the Black Sea Fleet has been based since its founding by Catherine the Great in 1783 after the Ottoman Empire ceded the peninsula.
Putin told a closed NATO summit in Romania in 2008 that the military alliance was threatening Ukraine’s very existence by courting it as a member, according to a secret cable published by Wikileaks. Putin said Ukraine’s borders were “sewn together” after World War II and its claims to Crimea, which belonged to Russia until Nikita Khrushchev gave it to Ukraine in 1954, are legally dubious, Kurt Volker, the U.S. ambassador to NATO at the time, said in the cable.
Four months later, Putin demonstrated his willingness to back up words with actions by sending Russian troops to war against Georgia, another former Soviet state, over two Russian-speaking regions seeking independence.
Sunday, March 2, 2014
Cold Temps Plunge South Into Texas To Start The First Full Week Of March 2014
The coldest temperature of the winter so far in Grand Rapids, Michigan was -12 degrees F on February 28th, and today Dallas, Texas at 21 degrees F was just 4 degrees warmer than Grand Rapids at about the same hour.
Story here.
Saturday, March 1, 2014
Sarah Palin Blames Obama Indecision For Russian Invasion Of Ukraine When She Should Be Blaming Bush
Sarah Palin thinks she's making "I told you so" news, quoted here criticizing Obama in October 2008 when it was already clear George Bush was never going to do anything to stop Russia in Georgia:
"After the Russian army invaded the nation of Georgia, Senator Obama's reaction was one of indecision and moral equivalence – the kind of response that would only encourage Russia's Putin to invade Ukraine next," she said in Reno, Nevada on October 21, 2008.
George W. Bush did nothing but talk at the time when Russia invaded and occupied South Ossetia in August 2008, which did more to encourage Russia to invade Ukraine next than anything Senators Obama or McCain might have said or not said at the time or now:
"Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century."
"Russia has invaded a sovereign neighbouring state and threatens a democratic government elected by its people."
"Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century."
Six years later Russia remains in South Ossetia and America has had to accept it, just like it will have to accept the occupation of Ukraine. America looks stupid and weak when it doesn't back up its words with actions. George Bush made us look stupid then, and Obama is doing it now.
Friday, February 28, 2014
Scholar Who Sniffed Out The Libor Scandal Now Smells Manipulation In $20 Trillion Gold Market
Bloomberg reports here:
Unusual trading patterns around 3 p.m. in London, when the so-called afternoon fix is set on a private conference call between five of the biggest gold dealers, are a sign of collusive behavior and should be investigated, New York University’s Stern School of Business Professor Rosa Abrantes-Metz and Albert Metz, a managing director at Moody’s Investors Service, wrote in a draft research paper. “The structure of the benchmark is certainly conducive to collusion and manipulation, and the empirical data are consistent with price artificiality,” they say in the report, which hasn’t yet been submitted for publication. “It is likely that co-operation between participants may be occurring.” ... Abrantes-Metz advises the European Union and the International Organization of Securities Commissions on financial benchmarks. Her 2008 paper “Libor Manipulation?” helped uncover the rigging of the London interbank offered rate, which has led financial firms including Barclays Plc (BARC) and UBS AG to be fined about $6 billion in total. She is a paid expert witness to lawyers, providing economic analysis for litigation. [Albert] Metz heads credit policy research at ratings company Moody’s.
Bank Failure Friday: Vantage Point Bank, Horsham, Pennsylvania
Vantage Point Bank, Horsham, Pennsylvania, failed today, the fifth bank failure in 2014, costing the FDIC $8.5 million.
Bank Failure Friday: Millennium Bank, National Association, Sterling, Virginia
Millennium Bank, National Association, Sterling, Virginia, failed today, the fourth bank failure of 2014, costing the FDIC $7.7 million.
Janet Yellen Is Not Certain That "Too Big To Fail" Has Ended
Quoted here:
“I'm not positive that we can declare with confidence,” she said, “that ‘too big to fail’ has ended until it's tested in some way.”
Just peachy.
Gasoline Has Been Above Obama's 2008 Crisis Prices For The Last Three Years
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| Average annual gas prices April 25, 2008 to present |
Gasoline at $3.60/gallon was a crisis to Barack Obama in 2008 (here, April 25th in Indy), but the average annual price nationwide at the time was about $3.20/gallon. Now it's $3.50/gallon and has been for three years.
Pathetic Obama GDP: Not A Single Year Above 2.8%, Worst Performance Ever
Despite today's 25% revision down of Q4 2013 GDP from 3.2% to 2.4%, 2013 GDP remains unchanged at 1.9% in the report.
If the final estimate for Q4 confirms today's number a month from now, it's entirely possible the 2013 total will be revised down as well.
But even so, Obama's record remains the worst in the post-war just as it is: an average annual report of just 1.24%.
Truly pathetic.
Huge Revision DOWN To Q4 2013 GDP, 25%, From 3.2% To 2.4% In Second Estimate
From bea.gov here:
Real gross domestic product -- the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States -- increased at an annual rate of 2.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013 (that is, from the third quarter to the fourth quarter), according to the "second" estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the third quarter, real GDP increased 4.1 percent. The GDP estimate released today is based on more complete source data than were available for the "advance" estimate issued last month. In the advance estimate, the increase in real GDP was 3.2 percent. With this second estimate for the fourth quarter, an increase in personal consumption expenditures (PCE) was smaller than previously estimated . . ..
Obama Regime Doubles Down On Using IRS To Silence Political Opponents
Kimberley Strassel for The Wall Street Journal, here:
Democrats are instead fully vested now in using the IRS to shut down criticism by outside groups of ObamaCare, overspending or (ironically) the IRS targeting. Even liberal groups are howling about the White House's use of the IRS to silence political speech, and the House on Wednesday passed a bill to delay the regulations. The White House's response? A veto threat.
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Monica Lewinsky Said In 2004 That Bill Clinton Completely Desecrated Her Character
Quoted here:
"Instead, he talked about it as though I had laid it all out there for the taking. I was the buffet and he just couldn't resist the dessert," she was quoted as saying. "That's not how it was. This was a mutual relationship, mutual on all levels, right from the way it started and all the way through. ... I don't accept that he had to completely desecrate my character."
Ten years later that's exactly what he did, so that now she's just a verb to a black female popstar.
No one gets Rosa Parksed last time I checked, except for Republicans on Barack Obama's bus.
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Obama Regime Admits Late Last Friday Afternoon That ObamaCare Will Increase Costs For Most Small Employers On Top Of 90% Increase Since 2009
WaPo here:
Nearly two-thirds of small businesses that currently offer health insurance to their workers will pay more for coverage as a result of new rules in the health care law, as will millions of small-business employees and their family members, according to new estimates released by the Obama administration. ... roughly 11 million of the 17 million individuals who have health care plans through a small employer will see their premiums increase as a result of the new rules on insurers in the law, while 6 million people will enjoy lower premiums. If accurate, it would continue a steady climb in insurance costs for many small businesses. Ninety-six percent of small businesses say their premiums have increased in the past five years, with the average monthly insurance cost soaring from $590 per employee in 2009 to $1,121 in 2014, according to poll released earlier this month by the National Small Business Administration.
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Monday, February 24, 2014
Idiot Republican Hagel Does Obama's Bidding: To Retire Our Deadliest Close Air Support A-10 Warthog
What's next, the B-2 and its 19 megatons of nuclear payloads? The Minuteman Missile?
Video of the craft in action here, capable of killing tanks by sneaking up at 100 feet of altitude and flying in formation at 20,000 feet. The sucker is built around a 30mm cannon which burps rounds 11 inches long by the thousands, rounds so fast you'll freak.
There's nothing like it, and the traitors running our country want to get rid of it.
Story here:
To pay for the programs and the new engine, the Air Force will shrink the size of its tactical air squadrons and completely eliminate its A-10 attack airplane fleet, to save $3.5 billion over five years, Hagel said. The move would let the Air Force concentrate its resources on the F-35 made by Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT)
Senator Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire isn't going down without a fight, here (this source incorrectly says she represents Arizona, the dopes):
Ayotte’s office said this: “It is not accurate to say the A-10 is a single mission aircraft. For example, the A-10 conducts close air support (CAS), forward air controller-airborne (FAC-A), combat search and rescue (CSAR), and strike coordination and reconnaissance (SCAR) missions.”
Sentiment Survey Finds Americans Like Community Banks Much More Than Big Banks
The story with video interview is here.
The top commenter on the story points to nickel and dime fees by big banks as the single most important reason why Americans switch to community banks from big banks.
The survey finds customers of big banks twice as likely to say they get gouged by fees.
The Fed is subsidizing all banks to the tune of $100 billion per quarter in artificially depressed income to depositors
Chief among the data points to be noted is that net interest expense, which is the money paid to depositors at banks, continues to fall. While all banks earned about $118 billion in interest income last quarter, they paid just $13 billion to depositors, a graphic example of the “financial repression” used by the Fed to subsidize the US banking industry. Via QE, the Fed is subsidizing all banks to the tune of over $100 billion per quarter in artificially depressed interest cost and income to depositors of all stripes.
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Dinesh D'Souza's Mistake Is Failing To Take The Enemy For An Enemy
Conservatism in the United States is fatally flawed because it is incapable of imagining that the opposition is the enemy, even when the enemy openly comes after it. Under the influence of Christian teaching, it turns the other cheek also only to get slapped again, as if naming the enemy were itself a transgression. This makes them no different in spirit from the disarmament crowd, as misguided by utopianism derived from religion as revolutionaries are by ideology.
Conservatism is full of people like Dinesh D'Souza who keep saying "so and so should say this", "so and so should not say that", and "so and so ought to do such and such" or "they shouldn't be doing that" when the facts staring them in the face at every turn demonstrate that the opposition is not behaving in any way like countrymen who act in good faith as the opposition but like foreign agents working in the service of a different loyalty. Continuing to protest that the enemy is not playing according to the rules is not going to stop the enemy.
Seen here:
“I think it is the broader pattern of going after people who are critics,” he continued. “Not just me, but the Hollywood guys, the group Friends of Abe, these are Hollywood guys who are conservatives. So I think there is a sense here that Obama treats his critics not merely as people who disagree, but as enemies.”
When the rubber hits the road, as in the critical period just before an election, as here in October 2010, the president makes it plain how he wants his peeps to view us:
“If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, ‘We’re going to punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us,’ if they don’t see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it’s going to be harder and that’s why I think it’s so important that people focus on voting on November 2.”
Friday, February 21, 2014
Why You Should Boycott ObamaCare If You're Under Age 44
Because at your age you are most likely to die of violence, not disease, and you'll get better care for violence without insurance.
Story here:
Researchers from the Stanford University of Medicine found that patients with insurance are less likely to get the best care than those who do not have insurance. They found that insured patients taken to non-trauma hospitals were 13 to 15 percent less likely to be transferred to trauma centers than uninsured ones. ...
Shootings and traffic accidents are the most common causes of death in this county among people under 44-years-old. Previous research has shown that severely injured patients are 2 percent less likely to die if treated at a top-ranked trauma center than at a non-trauma center.
And Now A Word From The Paternal Fascists At Wells Fargo
Seen here:
“Retirement security is a shared responsibility between government, business, and individual and a system that is designed to motivate all stakeholders will drive the best outcome for Americans to achieve retirement security, said Joe Ready, director of Wells Fargo Institutional Retirement and Trust.
In the good old days your retirement was no one's responsibility but your own.
How Speculators Redistribute Wealth: Find The Greater Fool
John Hussman, here:
It is certainly possible for any individual investor to realize wealth from an overvalued security by selling it, but this requires another investor to buy that overvalued security. The wealth of the seller is obtained by redistributing that wealth from the buyer.
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Actually, Just 10% Of Arizonans Defeated The Speed Cameras
Before Gov. Brewer pulled Janet Napolitano's speed cameras, 676,668 violators simply ignored their $181 or greater speeding tickets, about 10% of the 2012 population.
Imagine 31 million Americans not paying the $95 fine for not having insurance: that's only $3 billion. But 31 million Americans each not buying a $5,000 policy is $155 billion.
If 61% Of Arizonans Can Defeat Big Sis' Speed Cameras By Not Paying, Americans Can Do The Same To ObamaCare
Flashback to the November 2010 story in CAR AND DRIVER, "Arizona's Speed Cameras Come Down . . . Arizona drivers win one with civil disobedience" here:
Last summer [2009], with Arizona locked in a national shouting match over its clampdown on illegal immigration, the state’s Republican governor was quietly pulling the plug on a two-year photo-camera reign of terror that nailed 1,109,035 motorists, mostly along a Phoenix freeway, with mail-in citations that started at $181. Governor Jan Brewer called the cameras “invasive” and said she believed they were put in place by Janet Napolitano, her Democratic predecessor, as a “revenue-generating solution to solving our budget [problems].” Others pointed out that the state got only half the cash projected by Napolitano—about $64 million instead of $120 million. And that was because only 39 percent of those ticketed drivers (432,367 of 1,109,035) knuckled under and paid up—the other 61 percent simply tossed the tickets and then avoided process servers for 90 days.
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
GLD is down to 795.61 tons
Seen here:
SPDR Gold Trust, the world's largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, said its holdings fell 0.70 percent to 795.61 tons on Wednesday from 801.25 tons on Tuesday.
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Holdings have fallen 25% since May 2013.
Oops: Last Fall NOAA Predicted Above Normal Temps November Through January
Reported here:
Surprised by how tough this winter has been? You’re in good company: Last fall the Climate Prediction Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted that temperatures would be above normal from November through January across much of the Lower 48 states. ... The big red blotch in the top map represents parts of the country in which the Climate Prediction Center forecast above-average temperatures. The frigid-looking blue blotch in the bottom “verification” map shows areas where temperatures turned out to be below average. “Not one of our better forecasts,” admits Mike Halpert, the Climate Prediction Center’s acting director.
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How come the experts are always surprised?
This is another climate model failure, you know the kind, like the ones which claim global warming continues even though it stopped fourteen years ago.
How The 2009 Stimulus Has Hidden The Obama Decline
The passage of the stimulus has been a boon to Democrats and their program. One, the added spending for fiscal 2009 got charged to George Bush's account, not Obama's, making Bush's spending record look worse than it was. Two, the added spending became the new baseline for spending in every year since, keeping government big, its most insidious affect. Three, because Republicans retook the House in 2010, spending in 2011 and 2012 has had to hew more closely to what it was in 2009 because of Tea Party demands to put the brakes on spending, allowing Obama to brag that he's kept government spending increases low for a longer period of time than has been usual. This is sort of like how Obama takes credit for our oil production boom, which happens in spite of him on private lands, not because of him.
What's so disturbing about the increase to baseline spending is that over 75% of the GDP gains for 2009 through 2012 can be attributed to that, not to anything real in the US economy. In other words, GDP growth from government spending has been propping up reported GDP and masking the severity of the current economic depression in which millions of homeowners remain underwater, similar millions remain without work after five years, and those still working suffer under a real multi-year decline in their earnings because of stagnant wages and increased costs for food, energy, clothing, healthcare and taxes. The middle class is being pushed inexorably downward. Like the infamous Climategate emails which showed an effort by scientists to hide the decline in global temperatures over the last decade, US government spending has been doing the same for the decline of GDP.
The figures are startling.
Using 2008 as the baseline from Table 3A of the Bureau of Economic Analysis's summer 2013 comprehensive revision of GDP ($14,720.3 billion), the net increase to GDP in nominal dollars for each year 2009 through 2012 relative to 2008 was $2.8782 trillion:
2009 -302.4 billion dollars
2010 +238.0
2011 +813.5
2012 +1524.3.
Similarly, using 2008 as the baseline for federal outlays as tracked by the Tax Policy Center using figures from the OMB ($2,982.5 billion), the net increase to federal spending in nominal dollars for each year 2009 through 2012, again, relative to 2008, was $2.1841 trillion:
2009 +535.2 billion dollars
2010 +473.7
2011 +620.6
2012 +554.6.
Thus the nominal gain in GDP relative to 2008 for all four years apart from nominal increases to government spending has been all of $694.1 billion, for a gain overall of 4.71% since 2008, 1.17% per annum on average, one of the most appalling records in all of American history because that figure is not adjusted for inflation. The all items CPI has risen 19.388 seasonally adjusted between January 1, 2009 and January 1, 2013, an increase of 9.1% which completely wipes out the nominal GDP gain of 4.71%.
So GDP has actually been negative for the whole of Obama's first term, but completely hidden from view by the increase to baseline spending caused by the 2009 stimulus. If it has felt like a depression, it's because it is one.
So GDP has actually been negative for the whole of Obama's first term, but completely hidden from view by the increase to baseline spending caused by the 2009 stimulus. If it has felt like a depression, it's because it is one.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Gold Stats For 2013
The gold stats for 2013 are out, reported here:
- Chinese consumer demand: a record 1,066 tonnes.
- Indian consumer demand: 975 tonnes.
- Global consumer demand: 3,864 tonnes.
- Average price: $1,411/ounce, down 15% from 2012.
- Overall demand: 3,756 tonnes, down 15% from 2012.
- Net outflows from ETFs: 881 tonnes.
- Central bank purchases: 369 tonnes, down 32% from 2012 when demand was at its highest in half a century.
Sunday, February 16, 2014
Michigan Spends 53% More Per Mile On Roads Than The National Average
What a shock. Industry wants us to spend more money on roads.
From all that you wouldn't know that Michigan spent 53% more per mile than the national average, as reported here in 2013 (overall story here).
Michigan actually ranks 37th in total disbursements per mile.
That's quite a different picture than being dead last per capita.
Think about it. If Michigan roads are so bad, maybe spending per mile has been spent on the wrong people, namely the unions in control of the industry. If we're not getting what we're paying for, maybe we should hire someone else instead of throwing more money at the problem.
I'll Believe In The Liberals' Idea Of Equal Dignity Of Work When Paul Krugman Gets Paid To Scrub Toilets
Here he is in all his liberal splendor, refusing to grant the dignity he demands:
It’s all very well to talk in the abstract about the dignity of work, but to suggest that workers can have equal dignity despite huge inequality in pay is just silly. In 2012, the top 40 hedge fund managers and traders were paid a combined $16.7 billion, equivalent to the wages of 400,000 ordinary workers. Given that kind of disparity, can anyone really believe in the equal dignity of work?
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I'll spell it out for you: if your dignity depends on how much you make rather than on doing your job, whatever it is, well, then you will never have any dignity.
Yes, there is dignity of work, but only if work is done well. The real indignity accrues to those who do not value the work of others, however humble, and imagine that they are better because of what they do and how much they make.
Saturday, February 15, 2014
Michael Mann Of Penn State Claimed He "Shared" The Nobel Peace Prize For Almost Five Years
As reported here. And the guy still won't say in the revised bio to whom the Nobel was actually awarded: "jointly" to the IPCC and Al Gore. The IPCC and Al Gore shared the prize, not the IPCC authors, the IPCC and Al Gore.
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| "He shared the Nobel Peace Prize" |
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| "He contributed to the award of the prize", but to whom exactly? |
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| Ah, to these, exactly. |
VW Workers Reject UAW In Tennessee 726-612
Reported here:
The rejection is a major blow to the UAW which has never organized a foreign-brand auto plant operating in the U.S.
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