Oh dear, oh my, the horrors! Those needlessly inflammatory Democrats! Those NRA-endorsed troglodytes! Why, somebody might pick up a gun and shoot a politician or something! How dare they?!
Monday, January 10, 2011
Sec. of State Hillary Clinton Likens Half of America to Tucson Shooter and to Islamic Extremists
Speaking in the United Arab Emirates, as reported here by Reuters:
Did Jared Lee Loughner yell "Allahu Akbar!" before he opened fire?
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Labor Participation Rate For Men The Lowest Since 1948
So says Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, here:
The “labour participation rate” for working-age men over 20 dropped to 73.6pc, the lowest the since the data series began in 1948. My guess is that this figure exceeds the average for the Great Depression (minus the cruellest year of 1932). ...
Multinationals are exploiting “labour arbitrage” by moving plant to low-wage countries, playing off workers in China and the West against each other. The profit share of corporations is at record highs across ... America and Europe.
Men with nothing to do eventually find it, but it is called "trouble."
Gabrielle Giffords' Democrats Promoted Libertarian as True Conservative to Divide Vote on her Right
The following excerpts come from the website of the Libertarian Party candidate, Steve Stoltz, whom the Democrat Party (yes you read that right) promoted in its literature as the true conservative running against the Democrat incumbent Gabrielle Giffords, shot in Tucson on Saturday, to bleed off votes on the right from the Republican challenger Jesse Kelly:
As a Libertarian, I am socially liberal, compassionate and humanitarian, but I am also fiscally conservative and principled.
The United States should have sound money that is backed by gold not the “monopoly money” of a fiat currency that is essentially counterfeited by the printing presses of the Federal Reserve which causes massive inflation.
As a Libertarian I believe that everyone owns their own body and can do ANYTHING they want with it, so long as they do not infringe upon someone else’s life/health, liberty or property (the 4rth amendment of the constitution says that people have a right to be secure in their person).
Government has no authority over the nature of a person’s consensual sexual relationships - even if they desire to engage in promiscuity and immorality.
The government has no right to tell a person what food they can eat, has no right to restrict their access to vitamin and mineral supplements, has no right to prevent a person from taking experimental drugs or getting medical treatments they feel will cure them of disease.
It is ironic that laws limit access to drugs, while the FDA has permitted poisonous/toxic substance like aspartame to be introduced into beverages.
Drugs like marijuana should be legalized, with increasing amounts of regulation and taxation applied to the more addictive drugs.
Society should lift prohibitions, but should regulate drugs the way alcohol currently is.
Lifting some drug prohibition could have a positive impact on national security.
Marriage is a legal contract protecting the rights of two individuals who decide that they want to live together and share property.
The state’s sole role is to enforce the property rights of the union, without placing stipulations on the nature of the union, whether it is between heterosexuals or homosexuals.
The equal protection clause of the 14th amendment says that every US citizen shall enjoy the equal protection of the law.
Since no group should be given special treatment relative to over another, the military’s current policy of “Don’t ask don’t tell” is un-Constitutional, and should simply be reduced to “Don’t ask”.
The military should not expel a member who has already proven they can do the job merely because that person has identified himself/herself as homosexual.
I believe the government must respect the 2nd amendment, and place absolutely no restrictions on gun rights.
Although I am totally opposed to violence, I find it amazing that those who would place restrictions over a private citizen’s access to guns also seem to place blind faith in the integrity of the police, merely because they are agents of government.
Social security ... The system should be restructured so that younger persons invest in a privately held account, the way the government originally sold it.
I do not believe that it is moral for a wealthy person to hoard their wealth without trying to use it to help people.
[I]t doesn’t make sense for the government to document illegal aliens.
I do not believe that illegal aliens who give birth in the United States should instantly be granted citizenship (i.e. “anchor babies”).
I don’t believe illegal aliens should enjoy special access to entitlements relative to US citizens.
[W]hile it might be unfair for the children of illegal aliens who don’t pay property tax to receive a free education in US school systems, they nonetheless fall under the same category as the children of US citizens who receive a free education because their parents rent and don’t pay property tax.
The illegal alien problem is a multi-faceted social problem that can’t be solved merely by erecting a fence.
Female reproductive rights/abortion – I am pro-choice.
The focus of the military should be primarily to defend the nation’s borders against invasion.
As a Libertarian, I believe that in order for anything to be regarded as a crime, there must be a victim. Civil fines for traffic violations that do not result in an accident or property damage or personal injury, and merely raise money for the state represent victimless crimes.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Two Thirds of Decline in Unemployment Due to Falling Participation Rate
So says CalculatedRiskBlog here:
If the participation rate had held steady at 64.5%, then the unemployment rate would have only declined to 9.64%. [Instead, unemployment fell to 9.4 percent.]
So almost 2/3rds of the decline in the unemployment rate was related to the decline in the participation rate. Some of the decline might be from workers going back to school, but some is probably due to people just giving up.
A large portion of the decline in the participation rate was for people in the 16 to 24 age group. ...
Another group that saw a decline in the participation rate was men in the key 25 to 54 age group. I wonder if these people are just giving up? ...
The participation rate has fallen sharply from 66% at the start of the recession to 64.3% in December. That is almost 4 million workers who are no longer in the labor force and not counted as unemployed in U-3, although most are included as "discouraged workers" or "Marginally Attached to Labor Force" in U-6.
A decline in the unemployment rate mostly due to a decline in the participation rate is not good employment news.
Here is Mish's annotated version of the chart from Calculated Risk:
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Incompetent WSVN.com Shows the Wrong Spy Drone in Miami-Dade Police Story
Here's the drone shown in the video by WSVN.com, which their own story says weighs 20 pounds and is called a Honeywell T Hawk:
Link to the story with video here (dc20500 caught the error and posted so in the comment section).
You'd think the numbskulls could at least check Wikipedia (here) and showcase the correct object so people in Florida know what to look for.
And when it's weaponized it will perfectly resemble the probe droid sent to the planet Hoth in Star Wars.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
A Hypothetical US Bank Run Exercise: How Much Would You Get?
According to The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, here, only about one third of US currency in circulation is thought to be held within the United States:
In April 2008, M1 was approximately $1.4 trillion, more than half of which consisted of currency. While as much as two-thirds of U.S. currency in circulation may be held outside the United States, all currency held by the public is included in the money supply because it can be spent on goods and services in the U.S. economy.
Current observations by The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, here, show that currency in circulation as of the end of December 2010 came to about $983.7 billion.
So let's ask hypothetically, just for the mental exercise, that if we had a bank run in America and we decided we would ration the available cash in equal shares to the adult population of, say, 228 million people, assuming of course each such person had some digits on a bank statement warranting cash claims, how much maximum could each claimant expect to get under such circumstances?
$1,438 each.
2009 Circulating Currency Production Totaled $219,468,800,000
A total of 6.24 billion notes were printed for 2009 circulation, according to the US Bureau of Engraving and Printing here:
$2.6368 billion in ones
$1.92 billion in 384 million fives
$3.456 billion in 345.6 million tens
$14.336 billion in 716.8 million twenties
$18.560 billion in 371.2 million fifties
$178.56 billion in 1.7856 billion hundreds.
2009 Circulating Coin Production Totaled $601,492,000
A total of 3.548 billion coins were minted for 2009 circulation, according to US Mint figures here:
$23.54 million in 2.354 billion pennies
$4.332 million in 86.64 million nickels
$14.6 million in 146 million dimes
$133.48 million in 533.92 million quarters
$1.9 million in 3.8 million halves
$423.64 million in an equal number of dollar coins.
Irish Banks' Deposit Base Declines 15 Percent in Last Year
So says a story here for Fortune, which also asserts that foreign depositors have pulled out 100 billion Euros since 2008.
What BankRun2010 failed to accomplish on the Continent with premeditation might actually have been happening all along in Ireland. There are worries that a cascade of withdrawals might trigger runs in the rest of the PIIGS.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Retirement Assets Declined 22 Percent in 2008
Whenever government sees something big, it either wants to tax it or confiscate it.
Here's the data about retirement assets for 2008, according to the Investment Company Institute, totaling just over $14 trillion:
IRA assets = $3.613 trillion
Defined contribution plans (401Ks, 403(b)s, 457s, etc.) = $3.517 trillion
Defined benefit plans (private sector pensions, government pensions, life insurance company annuities, etc.) = $6.9 trillion.
In 2007 such assets totaled nearly $18 trillion.
WAPO's Richard Cohen Still Hates America
In a twisted, weird rant about today's All Volunteer Army vs. his army of the Vietnam War era, Richard Cohen of The Washington Post displays the self-loathing which is still at the heart of liberalism, saying that today's army, mostly white and Southern, is only wonderful to today's general public because most of us are strangers to it, while his army of the bygone days was an army of the people, familiar and contemptible:
Yet one was an army of the people, draftees and such, and the other is an army of volunteers, strangers to most of us. What's happening here? The answer, I fear, is a cliche: Familiarity breeds contempt.
In other words, if you only knew the truth about people you'd say America sucks, too, and you wouldn't idolize the military so.
Don't worry, Richard. Today's army is only going to get more wonderful as all those white Southerners who fight your wars for you bail out with the influx of the queers. Somehow I think you will like this just fine.
Confiscation of Your Retirement Funds is Unthinkable, Right?
Well, not in Europe, where private monies have already been taken by statist spendthrifts in Hungary, Bulgaria and Poland, according to this story in The Christian Science Monitor, originally posted at the Polish arm of The Ludwig von Mises Institute (here).
The same people greedy bastards in this country who brought you Obamacare are just as enthusiastic about taking your IRAs, 401Ks and the like, people like Democrat Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa.
Political realities right now mean that the plan eyeing your savings will sit in some Democrat's desk until times change, just as Obamacare was really a bill long pre-dating him, sitting in Representative Henry Waxman's top drawer for over a decade until the moment was right.
The difference between liberals and Republicans in America is that liberals have a long term strategy to take over and transform the country, while so-called conservatives keep backing up, drawing new lines in the sand in a strategy of retreat, daring liberals to cross them, which they invariably do. The policies of these conservatives are offensive enough to liberals, but it is conservatives' cowardice which really inspires their contempt.
The failure to install gays in the military and Hillarycare in 1994 took 16 years to redress, but liberalism surely did so with its victories in 2010, overturning DADT and passing Obamacare.
Individual liberty, the foundation of which is in traditional values derived from revealed religion, has been under assault in America since the victory of Abraham Lincoln and the united States became the United States. The war between originalism and "a more perfect union" was decided long ago by force. The contemporary Republican Party will be a conservative party when it finally realizes this, but frankly, it doesn't have the nerve.
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