M-m-m-my Moroni

Moroni atop The Temple in Salt Lake City

Ooh, my little naive one, naive one

Open up a package of my moroni

Ooh, I think this guy is dumb, this guy is dumb

Top him with a little of my moroni

Never gonna stop, eat it up

Such a golden snack I always eat too much, then throw up

But I'll soon be back for my, my, my, yi, yi, woo

M-m-m-my moroni

Spreadin' it on really thick, in secret scripts

Spread it with a little of this moroni

Wear the glasses if you must, if you must

If you do I'm sure you won't miss my moroni

Never gonna stop, eat it up

Such a golden snack I always eat too much, then throw up

But I'll soon be back for my, my, my, yi, yi, woo

M-m-m-my moroni

M-m-m-my moroni

(belch)

Goin' to the temple now, temple now

I'm the city's biggest moroni buyer

Walkin' down the shopping aisles, shopping aisles

Filling up my basket with Joe the liar

Never gonna stop, eat it up

Such a golden snack I always eat too much, then throw up

But I'll soon be back for my, my, my, yi, yi, woo

M-m-m-m-m-m-m-my, my, my, yi, yi, woo

M-m-m-my moroni

M-m-m-my moroni

M-m-m-my moroni

M-m-m-my moroni

(with apologies to Weird Al)

Just 93 Million Full Timers in Private Sector Now Form the Tax Base for 53 Million Social Security Recipients

Some of the latest grim facts about Social Security, as reported here:

[T]otal revenue from Social Security taxes in 2010—$544.8 billion—was not enough to cover Social Security’s total benefit payments—$577.4 billion. ...

The Social Security board of trustees reported that there were 53.398 million Social Security beneficiaries in 2010. ...

93.641 million full-time private sector workers were the foundation of the tax base that supported both government at large and Social Security in particular.

Year Over Year GDP Declines From 1900 to 1949

1904 $  0.23 billion (1903 level exceeded in 1905): 3 years/a decline of less than one percent

1908 $  3.75 billion (1907 level exceeded in 1911): 5 years/a decline of eleven percent

1914 $  2.62 billion (1913 level exceeded in 1916): 4 years/a decline of less than seven percent

1921 $14.79 billion

1922 $  0.20 billion (1920 level exceeded in 1925): 6 years/a decline of almost seventeen percent

1927 $  1.40 billion (1926 level exceeded in 1928): 3 years/a decline of less than two percent

1930 $12.40 billion

1931 $14.70 billion

1932 $17.80 billion

1933 $  2.30 billion

1938 $  5.80 billion (1929 level exceeded in 1941): 13 years/a decline of over forty-five percent through 1933 with an additional six percent drop in 1938 relative to 1937

1946 $  0.80 billion (1945 level exceeded in 1947): 3 years/a decline of less than one half percent

1949 $  1.90 billion (1948 level exceeded in 1950): 3 years/a decline of less than one percent

Current revisions to GDP for 2008 and 2009 show declines of 0.3 percent and 3.5 percent, respectively, making the severity of the GDP decline most like 1938, though still not yet as severe.

Depression of 2008-2009 Comparable to 1938 in GDP Decline

Obama's Transformational Change of US Nuclear Weapons Posture Means We're Inviting Attack By Terrorists

From the source:

"[T]he United States will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states that are party to the NPT [Non-Proliferation Treaty] and in compliance with their nuclear non-proliferation obligations. ...

"The United States would only consider the use of nuclear weapons in extreme circumstances to defend the vital interests of the United States or its allies and partners.

"[T]he United States affirms that any state eligible for the assurance that uses chemical or biological weapons against the United States or its allies and partners would face the prospect of a devastating conventional military response – and that any individuals responsible for the attack, whether national leaders or military commanders, would be held fully accountable." (italics added)

Biggest Applause Lines From September 7, 2011 Republican Debate

"We should make English the official language of government."

-- Rep. Newt Gingrich

"But in the state of Texas, if you come into our state and you kill one of our children, you kill a police officer, you're involved with another crime and you kill one of our citizens, you will face the ultimate justice in the state of Texas, and that is, you will be executed."

-- Gov. Rick Perry

Full transcript here at The New York Times.

Reminiscent of Michael Savage's themes of borders, language and culture.

EU Crisis: PIIGS' Bankruptcy Could Dwarf Lehman's By Nearly Three Times

Phase One, in which Doris gets her oats, is now over.

Time to save your money. You're going to need it.

Carl Weinberg, the chief economist at High Frequency Economics is very worried about Europe. His central forecast is that the debt crisis will lead Europe into a depression that will mean soaring unemployment, deflation and zero interest rates for the foreseeable future.

After months of inaction, Weinberg believes the time to stop a Greek default has now passed. He believes that once it becomes clear that Greece has defaulted, the market will quickly come to the realization that other euro zone members like Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Italy will be allowed to fail as well.

With the so-called PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain) sitting on 3 trillion euros in debt, Weinberg is assuming losses could ultimately hit 50 cents in the euro, leading to a 1.5 trillion euro hit to the financial system.

This will in Weinberg’s opinion force banks to stop lending. Governments will then be forced to bail them out, elevating debt-to-GDP ratios for national governments to "horrific levels".

Read the full story here.

Hey al Qaeda! Happy Anniversary, You Rag-Headed Heathen Bastards!

West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil Up 200 Percent Since 911

(source)

Ten Years of the S and P Since 911: Up a Paltry 6.3 Percent

The Shiller S and P 500 Price to Earnings Ratio Stands at 19.84

As reported here.

1974 to 1984 was one hell of a buying opportunity by comparison.

Unmanned Drone

h/t Steyn

The New York Times Notices Sarah Palin Now Speaks Their Language

Here, where hope springs eternal:

Ms. Palin’s third point was more striking still: in contrast to the sweeping paeans to capitalism and the free market delivered by the Republican presidential candidates whose ranks she has yet to join, she sought to make a distinction between good capitalists and bad ones. The good ones, in her telling, are those small businesses that take risks and sink and swim in the churning market; the bad ones are well-connected megacorporations that live off bailouts, dodge taxes and profit terrifically while creating no jobs.

Strangely, she was saying things that liberals might like, if not for Ms. Palin’s having said them.

“This is not the capitalism of free men and free markets, of innovation and hard work and ethics, of sacrifice and of risk,” she said of the crony variety. She added: “It’s the collusion of big government and big business and big finance to the detriment of all the rest — to the little guys. It’s a slap in the face to our small business owners — the true entrepreneurs, the job creators accounting for 70 percent of the jobs in America.”

Is there a hint of a political breakthrough hiding in there?

Honey! I Shrank The Workforce!

Employed in January 2009: 142 Million. Employed in July 2011: 139 Million.

So Jim Powell, here, who says the private sector also has shrunk:

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are fewer people employed now than back in January 2009 when Barack Obama was sworn in as President, and there are more people unemployed now than in January 2009.

Back then, a reported 142 million people had jobs. In July 2011, 139.2 million people had jobs.

In terms of employment, the private sector is smaller now than when Obama was sworn in. In January 2009, 110.9 million people were working in the (nonfarm) private sector, but by July 2011 there were only 109.9 million - despite the larger U.S. population in 2011.

Of Course It's Class Warfare!

And of course he's an ideologue, and of course Obamacare is a Bolshevik plot.

And of course whatever he says is not something, is that, and of course whatever he says something is, is not that.

Here's the video.

YOU LIE!

Arizona Power Company Employee at North Gila Substation Causes Massive Outage in San Diego

Oops:

"The outage was triggered after a 500-kilovolt (kV) high-voltage line from Arizona to California tripped out of service. The transmission outage cut the flow of imported power into the most southern portion of California, resulting in wide-spread outages in the region," according to Cal ISO. ...

The Arizona power company APS said the outage appears to be related to a procedure an employee was carrying out in the North Gila substation, located northeast of Yuma, Ariz. Operator error was determined to be the initiating event.

Operating and protection protocols typically would have isolated the resulting outage to the Yuma area. The reason that did not occur in this case will be the focal point of the investigation, which is underway.

More here.

Who needs terrorists when home grown incompetence will do?

'Social Security's Long-Term Shortfall Grows About $1.2 Trillion Annually'

And by "long-term" the meaning is about 18 years.

So said Dennis Cauchon late in the spring for USA Today, here:

Social Security's long-term shortfall grows about $1.2 trillion annually — a sign of an imbalance between the number of young workers and older beneficiaries, according to the Social Security trustees' annual reports. The $21.4 trillion unfunded liability represents the difference between all taxes that will be paid and all benefits received over the lifetimes of everyone in the system now — workers and beneficiaries alike. This is the measure corporations and insurance companies use to assess financial adequacy of their retirement programs.

What this means is that this year and every year for the next two decades or so social security will be in the red annually to the tune of about $1.2 trillion, and government will have to borrow the funds to pay for that annual deficit spending.

Put another way, the social security scheme is a Ponzi scheme writ large. The pool of early fools putting up the dough for the few early, and very lucky, investors has now dried up so much that the program will run in deficit mode annually going forward, just like the rest of government has for years.

This will add significantly to the national debt, driving up interest payments on that debt and severely crimping the government's other spending options without massive injections of new revenues, aka higher taxes on the people.

In the short term, the $2.6 trillion in the social security trust fund (intragovernmental debt) would disappear in relatively short order under this analysis, say roughly in just over two years from now, except that the monies are invested in a mix of shorter and longer US Treasury securities which will reach maturity over a more or less longer period of time and thus force the program into deficit much sooner because redemptions are barred, compounding the pressure on the availability of funds for current year government spending.

You Own Treasuries. So Does The Social Security Trust Fund.

You'll find it classified under the debt government owes to itself, so to speak, otherwise called intragovernmental debt, which today totals about $4.6 trillion.

Of that, $2.6 trillion is money borrowed from the social security trust fund, money the government has borrowed to spend for other purposes and thus owes back to the social security program.

Social security takes in roughly what it expends of late, but whenever receipts do not match expenditures, it becomes necessary to cash in a treasury instead of re-investing it in more treasuries as it comes due.

So there really is no pile of cash in safe-keeping for social security. Instead there's a pile of IOU's, backed by the full faith and credit of the United States the printing presses of the US Department of the Treasury.

Governor Perry is correct when he says social security is a Ponzi scheme. 

Ben Bernanke: Clueless on the Consumer Because His Housing Data Are Not Current

From his speech today to the Economic Club of Minnesota:

One striking aspect of the recovery is the unusual weakness in household spending. After contracting very sharply during the recession, consumer spending expanded moderately through 2010, only to decelerate in the first half of 2011. The temporary factors I mentioned earlier--the rise in commodity prices, which has hurt households' purchasing power, and the disruption in manufacturing following the Japanese disaster, which reduced auto availability and hence sales--are partial explanations for this deceleration. But households are struggling with other important headwinds as well, including the persistently high level of unemployment, slow gains in wages for those who remain employed, falling house prices, and debt burdens that remain high for many, notwithstanding that households, in the aggregate, have been saving more and borrowing less. Even taking into account the many financial pressures they face, households seem exceptionally cautious. Indeed, readings on consumer confidence have fallen substantially in recent months as people have become more pessimistic about both economic conditions and their own financial prospects.

Here's the Fed's House Price Index on 8/24/11, which shows prices at late 2004 levels:

The fact is, prices have fallen to 1999 levels and may continue to fall to 1997 levels and perhaps lower than that:

Bernanke doesn't understand the severity of the home equity massacre which the consumer has sustained since 2006. That was the primary source of wealth for the vast majority of Americans, and Bernanke doesn't get that a whole decade of gains has been wiped out. His own data are off by five years.

Everyone hangs on every word of the Fed. "Don't fight the Fed" they say. Too bad the Fed doesn't know what it's talking about.