Paul Volcker was Fed Chair from 1979 to 1987.
His peak average Fed Funds Rate was north of 16% in 1981.
Thursday, June 30, 2022
Wednesday, June 29, 2022
Michael Anton may be right that National Review's Reductio ad Hitlerum is relatively recent, but NR has been ostracizing right-wingers since it was founded
I stopped reading in 2008, after subscribing since about 1980, so I really don't know about the Nazi smears. I had a long paid-up subscription which I was relieved to have finally run-out, coincidentally when Buckley did.
At any rate, National Review is indeed the enemy in the Socratic sense.
Don't help them.
LOL, "bombshell" testimony against Trump is mere hearsay, says her own lawyer in this tweet
You're not hearing THAT reported today.
What a bunch of frauds and losers.
The price of NATO membership for Sweden and Finland is for them to throw the Kurds under the bus to please Turkey
Same as it ever was.
The Kurds have been pretty much voiceless in the West since Winston Churchill first threw them under the bus in 1919 and used British air forces to attack them, advocating eventually that Turkey be given control of northern Iraq.
NATO members once more are ignoring Turkey’s role against the Kurds. This concerns internal Kurdish oppression in Turkey, bombing the PKK and Yazidis in Northern Iraq and killing and cleansing Kurds in Northern Syria. ...
NATO, the European Union, and the G7 anti-Russian Federation alliance ignore human rights in Turkey and the fact that this nation is occupying two nations (Northern Cyprus and Northern Syria) – while also bombing Kurds and Yazidis in another nation (Iraq). At the same time, the EU and G7 seek Saudi Arabia to increase energy production. Therefore, ignoring the conflict in Yemen: the Saudi Arabia-led war that has been bombing this nation for many years (weapons bought from America, France, and the United Kingdom).
The Kurds are perennially thrown under the American and NATO bus. Hence, Finland and Sweden are set to join the anti-Kurdish power plays of NATO before even being accepted.
More.
Inflation in Europe is at record levels but its central banking fools are talking about paltry quarter and half-point increases to interest rates
There's ample room to hike because Europe's idiots lowered rates effectively to zero in the first place and kept them there for years, and they are taking their sweet time about raising them just a little bit, same as in the US.
Meanwhile the people get punished mercilessly with the inflation tax.
Tuesday, June 28, 2022
LOL, Danish parents furious after vaccine announcement from Søren Brostrøm, Director General of the Danish Health Authority
Søren Brostrøm admitted on Wednesday that we "in retrospect did not get much out of the expansion of the vaccination program for children - at least not when it comes to epidemic control, which was otherwise the purpose of doing so. We have become wiser and we would not do the same today". ...
In June 2021, the National Board of Health chose to recommend corona vaccines for children aged 12-15 years. In November, a recommendation followed to also vaccinate children aged 5-11 years. ...
Søren Brostrøm admits to TV 2 that it all "went very fast" when the vaccine program was rolled out in Denmark. ...
"I understand well that there are some who think: 'Okay, here is an authority that now admits that they have made a mistake or that they would have done something else'. I understand that. But I would like to ask people to consider whether they would rather have had an authority that does not admit its mistakes?"
The whole thing in Danish is here.
Too bad we don't have a health authority in the United States which admits its mistakes.
Monday, June 27, 2022
Someone who takes her libertarianism far too seriously is haunted by a hobgoblin, amusingly faults so-called folk libertarians for inconsistency and channels her inner liberal Lionel Trilling to jeer at their "irritated" jerking
Real libertarianism like hers is a creature of liberalism and the left, not of the right, and so is primarily critical in nature, distinguishing as she does no fewer than five different types in her short polemical foray against Ron DeSantis.
Put a hundred of these people in a room and none will find another person with whom to agree about libertarianism, except maybe that the buffet was OK.
In The Daily Beast here:
Yet even linking this impulse to that new center may suggest a more formal political program than folk libertarianism entails. Douthat characterized it as “a reflexive individualism disconnected from the common good,” and the reflex is fundamentally reactive, a series of irritated jerks away from unwanted strictures as they come. Folk libertarians have “an instinctive dislike of being bossed around,” as my former colleague Samuel Goldman has observed in The Week, but they lack the broader principle of opposition to bossing others.
Democrat Senator Crockagawea Warren's solution to the Supreme Court's so-called "lost legitimacy" is to pack it and make it even more illegitimate
It's always helpful to see the lunacy of Democrats put on public display by themselves while at the same time providing the people with further evidence of their complete disloyalty to America and its institutions:
This court has lost legitimacy. They have burned whatever legitimacy
they may still have had after their gun decision, after their voting
decision, after their union decision. They just took the last of it and
set a torch to it with the Roe v. Wade opinion. I believe we need to get
some confidence back in our court, and that means we need more justices
on the United States Supreme Court.
Lindsey Grahamnesty basically tells Democrats that if it weren't for Dingy Harry Reid changing Senate rules Roe would still be the law of the land
This is an odd argument for a conservative to make, hinting at nostalgia as it does for the status quo ante, but Lindsey isn't one, so there it is and here we are.
Sunday, June 26, 2022
LOL Bank for International Settlements: "Yeah, we've only been just asking for high global inflation with our insane low rates for 15 years nonstop, but Nah, we're not too late to the game of reversing it"
The world’s central bank umbrella body, the Bank for International
Settlements (BIS), has called for interest rates to be raised “quickly
and decisively” to prevent the surge in inflation turning into something
even more problematic. ...
“The key for central banks is to act quickly and decisively before inflation becomes entrenched,” Agustín Carstens, BIS general manager, said as part of the body’s post-meeting annual report. ...
World markets are already suffering one of the biggest sell-offs in recent memory as heavyweight central banks like the U.S. Federal Reserve - and from next month the ECB - move away from record low rates and almost 15 years of back-to-back stimulus measures. ...
“Yes, you can argue a little bit here about an error of timing of certain actions and the responses of the central banks. But by and large, I think that the central banks have responded forcefully in a very agile fashion,” Carstens said.
More.
Yeah, inflation is so tame in the Euro Area the ECB is waiting to move until "next month".
Mark Levin had Senator Mike Lee on the show on Friday, called him a national treasure
You remember Mike Lee, libertarian open borders squish.
He's the guy who shepherded through the Trump crime reform bill, otherwise known as the get out of jail free card, which Trump signed in December 2018, about 18 months before the country blew up in a wave of rioting, looting, and violent crime.
He's also the guy who proposed Merrick Garland for FBI Director, who as Attorney General is responsible for investigating moms and pops going to school board meetings for terrorism, among other excesses at the behest of demented Uncle Joe.
I turn on the show for the first time in weeks and that's what I get. It's like never playing darts but hitting the bullseye every time I do.
Levin is nothing if not consistently wrong.
Saturday, June 25, 2022
Biden administration's Kerry Doyle is unlawfully granting illegal immigration amnesty to tens of thousands of the 2 million backlogged immigration cases by simply dismissing them
The Washington Examiner obtained leaked video recordings of virtual meetings that Kerry Doyle, ICE's principal legal adviser, held with the more than 1,200 ICE prosecutors who bring cases against illegal immigrants nationwide, in which she explained in detail who should not be targeted for deportation. Illegal immigrants identified as national security and public safety threats, or those who had crossed the border illegally after Nov. 1, 2020, would be the only cases ICE would pursue. All others would be dropped. ...
“Congress hasn’t passed it, but [Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro] Mayorkas’s chief lawyer at ICE is telling all prosecutors to dismiss cases. Once it’s dismissed, they’re not required to check in with you anymore," said the ICE federal prosecutor who spoke with the Washington Examiner on the condition of anonymity. ...
The tens of thousands of noncitizens who have been cleared from the immigration court dockets over the past eight weeks may now apply to become permanent legal residents, the prerequisite to becoming a U.S. citizen. An illegal border crosser is barred from applying for legal permanent residency as long as his or her case is pending in court. With no case pending, they may apply. Once approved, they may apply for adjustment of status to citizenship after five years.
More.
This is The Swamp in action.
LOL Boris Johnson, leader of Britain's "conservatives"
"It's a very important decision. I've got to tell you, I think it's a big step backwards," he told a news conference in Kigali, where he is attending a Commonwealth meeting. "I've always believed in a woman's right to choose and I stick to that view and that is why the UK has the laws that it does."
Reuters, here.
Friday, June 24, 2022
The abortion ban in Wisconsin is 124 years older than the so-called 50-year-old constitutional right which breached that core rule-of-law principle in the first place
Supremes end protections for abortion in place for half century...
In Wisconsin, which has an 1849 abortion ban on the books, Planned Parenthood immediately halted all scheduled abortions at its clinics in Madison and Milwaukee following the high court’s ruling. ...
The liberal justices ... in their joint dissent: The majority “eliminates a 50-year-old constitutional right that safeguards women’s freedom and equal station. It breaches a core rule-of-law principle, designed to promote constancy in the law. In doing all of that, it places in jeopardy other rights, from contraception to same-sex intimacy and marriage. And finally, it undermines the Court’s legitimacy.”
It's pretty clear whose side Drudge is on from the way he worded the linked html:
https://apnews.com/article/abortion-supreme-court-decision-854f60302f21c2c35129e58cf8d8a7b0
LOL, one of Scotty Kilmer's worst cars ever made has Bernie stickers all over it
Bernie isn't for sale, and neither is the PT Cruiser.
I'm sure it's just a coincidence.
Thursday, June 23, 2022
Andrew Gillum, erstwhile opponent of Ron DeSantis, indicted "for funneling donations through third parties back to himself for personal use"
AP Obama reports here.
FBI agents were involved as posers, however.
Can't law enforcement catch anyone fair and square anymore?
Wednesday, June 22, 2022
The Forehead, dunderheaded liberal, says goodbye to Mark Shields, but can't get the pronoun right
So, I thank you, Mark. As your fellow Marines say, "Semper Fi." And as our fellow Catholics say, "Pax Vobiscum."
Here.
"Tecum", Paul.
Tuesday, June 21, 2022
Emmanuel Macron's plans for tax cuts, welfare reform, and raising the retirement age thwarted by resurgent right under LePen and left under Mélenchon in France
French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday, June 19, lost his absolute majority after major election gains by a newly formed left-wing alliance and a historic breakthrough for the far right, in a stunning blow to his hopes of major reform in his second term.
The run-off election was decisive for Mr. Macron's second-term agenda following his re-election in April, with the 44-year-old needing a majority to secure promised tax cuts and welfare reform and raise the retirement age. ...
The expected number of seats for Marine Le Pen's Rassemblement National (90) amounts to a historic breakthrough. Only once under the Fifth Republic had the far right passed the threshold to form a group in the Assemblée (15 MPs), which allows for certain parliamentary resources and prerogatives.
More here at LeMonde.
Monday, June 20, 2022
This story blames climate change for homeless deaths, never once mentions the families who abandon them and the role played by drug abuse in their homelessness
Sweltering streets: Hundreds of homeless die in extreme heat
One family, which presumably lived in a home where they presumably wrote the obituary and where the woman could have stayed temporarily, blames "the system" for the death of their homeless sister:
When a 62-year-old mentally ill woman named Shawna Wright died last summer in a hot alley in Salt Lake City, her death only became known when her family published an obituary saying the system failed to protect her during the hottest July on record, when temperatures reached the triple digits.
Her sister, Tricia Wright, said making it easier for homeless people to get permanent housing would go a long way toward protecting them from extreme summertime temperatures.
“We always thought she was tough, that she could get through it,” Tricia Wright said of her sister. “But no one is tough enough for that kind of heat.”
Housing market conditions update, now vs. then
Housing market conditions, now vs. then:
Average borrower FICO score today: 751
In 2010: 699
Underwater today: virtually none (2.5% with less than 10% equity)
In 2011: more than 1 in 4 underwater (25% plus)
Today: 2.5 million ARMs (8% of mortgages)
In 2007: 13.1 million ARMs (36% of mortgages)
Facing resets today: 1.4 million ARMs (56%)
In 2007: 10 million (76%)
Housing remains as unaffordable as ever. The cost of the median new one is up a whopping 45% in April 2022 vs. April 2020, to $450,600.
Sunday, June 19, 2022
Saturday, June 18, 2022
Friday, June 17, 2022
What rot from AP Obama: "Watergate and Jan. 6 are rooted in the same ancient thirst for power at any cost"
"Two presidents tried an end run around democracy."
Give me a break.
Presidents are term-limited by the constitution. Even if by hook or by crook one of them managed to steal his reelection, out he goes after that because it says so. Everyone agrees with this. No one questions it. No president would get away with staying in office one day longer than the second term permits.
If you want to see the ancient thirst for power, look at the Seniority list for the US House.
Some of those placeholders have been holding on to power there for decades.
Seven go back to the 1980s.
Thirty-eight go back to the 1990s.
Sixty-eight go back to the 2000s.
They've watched presidents come and go since Reagan, Bush 41, and Clinton.
Of the top fifty by seniority, just eleven are Republicans.
Of the top 113, just thirty-eight are Republicans.
75 remaining senior Democrats are the foundation in the House of the people pressing their power hungry vendetta against the private citizen, Donald Trump. They are also the foundation in the House of the people robbing Americans blind and putting the country $30 trillion in debt.
What we have is a tyranny of the legislative. An imperial presidency isn't even in sight.
The only coup in view is the cuckoo who wrote this story.
In an election year, the votes of the bottom 90% count a lot more than the campaign contributions of the rich, who own 89% of the stonks
Lucky for you inflation is raging in an election year, otherwise they'd pretend to take this seriously even less than they are.
US COVID-19 deaths per day in June 2022 to date have flatlined: As good as it gets?
June 2022 (15th): 372
May 2022: 373
Apr 2022: 426
Mar 2022: 980
Feb 2022: 2247
Jan 2022: 1987
Thursday, June 16, 2022
Every damn time: Man armed with "A Glock 17 pistol, two magazines, pepper spray, zip ties, a hammer, screwdriver, nail punch, crowbar, pistol light and duct tape" indicted for attempted murder of Kavanaugh "was on doctor-prescribed medication"
He was arrested "without incident" after allegedly calling authorities to tell them he was suicidal and wanted to kill Kavanaugh, police have said. ... During an appearance in U.S. District Court later on June 8, Roske told Judge Timothy Sullivan that he thought he had a "reasonable understanding" of the attempted murder charge, though he told the court he wasn't thinking clearly and was on doctor-prescribed medication.
More.
Seems like he was thinking pretty clearly based on what he decided to bring to the show.
No word in the story if he brought extra socks and a change of underwear.
Perverse anti-capitalist AP Obama says inflation had been under control since the early 1980s, blames inflation now on "robust recovery from the pandemic"
You can't make this shit up.
AP Obama, here:
Inflation in the United States, which had been under control since the early 1980s, resurged with a vengeance just over a year ago, largely a consequence of the economy’s unexpectedly robust recovery from the pandemic recession. The rebound caught businesses by surprise and led to shortages, delayed shipments — and higher prices.
Inflation averaged 4.75% 1981-1990 inclusive. You can't call that "under control". The FedFunds rate averaged 9.4% over that same period. The one halved your nest egg in about 15 years while the other halved what was left in 7.5.
If that's success I'd hate to see failure.
While the Fed fiddles around with interest rates as if they controlled anything, oh look! over there! a deer!, it has presided over an orgy of balance sheet expansion of $7.7 trillion since 2008 as the Treasury has flooded the economy with $1.5 trillion in new currency and the Congress of idiots has spent us blind with $15.75 trillion beyond the 2008 baseline ballooning the total debt to $30 trillion by the end of 2021 so that it's three times the size that it was just 14 years ago.
An economy which runs only on going deep into debt is not a capitalist economy.
It's a Chinese communist economy.
Today's inflation-adjusted price of gasoline from 1918 is $4.84, but we're averaging record prices well north of $5.00
Calculator here:
We estimate it would take $4.84 on June 16, 2022 to have equal purchasing power with $0.25 on June 16, 1918.
For the 1918 price, see here.
You can see from this chart that the price of gasoline in 1918 was indeed about $0.25. Wholesale prices averaged about 20.6 cents in 1918.
As of three days ago the official government average actual price at 900 retail outlets was $5.107.
GasBuddy has the USA average at about $5.03 this morning.
Wednesday, June 15, 2022
Sometimes the UK Daily Mail can screw up a story as badly as The Grauniad, but Drudge is even worse
"Converted to non-condensing by 2029" is definitely NOT what the story says. Quite the opposite.
And Drudge's headline is also false:
Biden plans for all to pay $350 to upgrade to 'energy efficient' furnaces...
$350 is how much more the more efficient condensing furnaces cost. You just won't be able to buy the old non-condensing variety after 2029.
The Biden rule isn't going to force anyone to pay anything unless they elect to buy a new furnace after 2029, in which case you'll be able to get only the more expensive, more efficient type.
I bought one way back in 2008, with a DC motor for the blower which is where the real savings come from: On the electricity used to move the heated air.
Too bad the story never mentions it.
Stonks laugh again after Powell's miserable 75 basis point hike to fight inflation
The rate is now 1.52% vs. CPI up 8.5% year over year and the all commodities Producer Price Index up 21.5% year over year.
This isn't being tough.
It's a joke perpetrated on an ignorant public like all the other jokes of our time, like George Floyd, Caitlin Jenner, and Jan 6.
The investing world's experts, let alone all the sheeple who follow them, don't have a CLUE how bad this market has been since August 2000
The TOP, do you hear me, was in already last November.
As of May 2022 real return has pulled back all the way to 4.14%.
We truly live in a new period of suck.
Tuesday, June 14, 2022
You are being lied to: CDC data shows firearm homicides among children ages 1-17 are down 28% 1999-2020 vs. 1981-1998
For the 22 years 1999-2020 (8,030 days) firearm homicides among children ages 1-17 totaled 19,306 or 2.404/day.
For the 18 years 1981-1998 (6,570 days) firearm homicides among children ages 1-17 totaled 21,919 or 3.336/day.
The per day rate has declined 28%.
Data here.
Monday, June 13, 2022
LOL, phony green Barack Obama is a prepper, installs 2,500 gallon propane tank for 6,900 square foot Martha's Vineyard estate, five times the typical size
Martha's Vineyard Times reports here:
The select board approved a request for a 2,500-gallon commercial propane tank for 79 Turkeyland Cove Road in Katama — owned by former President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. “We’ve never had a private propane tank come to us,” said select board member Arthur Smadbeck, with select board member Michael Donaroma noting a private-residence propane tank is typically a fraction of the quantity being requested.
500 gallon tanks "provide adequate fuel needs for whole-home or business heating for structures up to 4,500 square feet."
Sunday, June 12, 2022
LOL, the blog of the St. Louis Fed gaslights you on gasoline prices by jumping through hoops to make the current outrageous prices disappear
While nominal gas prices have increased rapidly over the past few months, real gas prices were still lower than they were for most of the 2006-2014 period.
More in "Gaslighting gas prices", April 21, 2022.
They don't pay those economists the big bucks for nothing:
[W]e compute by dividing the nominal price by the consumer price index (CPI) and multiplying by 127.5, the value of the CPI in January 1990.
Talk about gaslighting.
Look, US Regular All Formulations (GASREGW), which is what the blog post used, peaked around the 4th of July in 2008 around $4.11/gallon.
Here's what a popular inflation calculator says about that:
We estimate it would take $5.54 on June 12, 2022 to have equal purchasing power with $4.11 on July 4, 2008.
Just using a simple CPI calculator here puts $4.11 in 2008 at $4.94 . . . already IN 2020.
We are mostly certainly paying the highest prices ever for gasoline.
Be happy, right? At least we're not Hong Kong.
Friday, June 10, 2022
Matthew Dowd still works hard every day to prove that he's the dumbest man alive
 |
| https://www.econlib.org/archives/2015/01/are_german_scho.html |
Nancy Pelosi's husband, Paul Pelosi, has a court date August 3rd, when charges, if any, will be filed and he will be arraigned
AP Obama reports here:
Pelosi agreed to a court date of Aug. 3, 2022 in Napa County Superior Court, according to the Napa County district attorney news release. If charges are filed, he will be arraigned then.
Thursday, June 9, 2022
CDC watchers are abuzz trying to explain away data showing coronavirus cases are higher among the boosted than the merely double-jabbed
Remember when there weren't supposed to be ANY cases among the vaccinated?
Rachel Madcow, 3/29/21:
now we know that the vaccines work well enough that the virus stops with every vaccinated person.
These people still haven't owned up to that fact, nor to their responsibility for the continuing spread of the disease.
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