Joan McCarter - Minus concnerted stimulus action from the government, which ain't happening with a GOP House, we're looking at grim economic times for at least half a decade, according to the CBO.
The jobs crisis isn't going anywhere, according to the latest forecast from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which puts the national unemployment rate above 9 percent through 2011 and 8 percent through 2012.
Unemployment will fall to a more "natural rate" only in 2016, when CBO estimates it will reach 5.3 percent -- a projection roughly in line with private-sector figures.
"The recovery in employment has been slowed not only by the moderate growth in output in the past year and a half but also by structural changes in the labor market, such as a mismatch between the requirements of available jobs and the skills of job seekers, that have hindered the reemployment of workers who have lost their job," CBO's report says.
The degree to which the unemployment crisis is structural, as opposed to cyclical, is hotly debated by economists, with progressives like Paul Krugman arguing that structural unemployment is a fake problem "which mainly serves as an excuse for not pursuing real solutions." Many argue that the even drop in employment across industries shows that lack of overall demand is the problem, with stimulus spending the answer. Others have said pay disparities between workers with different levels of education show the problem is at least partly structural.
So much for those great, stimulative tax cuts. While the debate over whether or not this is a structural or situational problem continues, the reality for the unemployed remains unchanged:
The most unusual factor of the jobs crisis is how long some people are going without work. Long-term unemployment has surged since the unprecedented mortgage meltdown that clobbered housing prices and launched the Great Recession in December 2007. Some 6.4 million people -- 44.3 percent of the 14.5 million unemployed -- have been out of work for six months or longer, and 1.4 million have been out of work for two years or longer. This is the worst long-term unemployment situation in the United States since the Great Depression.
Even if you want to call that structural, seems like someone with the power to do so would want to do something about that. Or at least, make a convincing effort towards trying to do something about it, if for no other reason than to make the other guys look bad. Honesty, and a real acknowledgment from the administration that many people are suffering is appreciated, but a jobs progam (even if the GOP killed it) would be better.
Monday, January 31, 2011
ElBaradei Prepares To Hijack Egyptian Revolution
Paul Joesph Watson - Zbigniew Brzezinski has called for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to step down as globalist stooge Mohammed ElBaradei prepares to act as the pied piper for a revolution that has been hijacked by the global elite.
Speaking with fellow CFR member Christiane Amanpour, Brzezinski told ABC News’ This Week that Mubarak must be convinced by “outside advice” that “It is in his interest as well as in Egypt’s interest that he goes and that he sets in motion a process which facilitates that.”
Although Brzezinski warned of a “global political awakening” during a CFR meeting last year that threatened to topple the existing international order, it is unsurprising that Brzezinski is calling for the ousting of Mubarak despite the fact that he has been a dutiful servant to the new world order elite.
It became known in Brzezinski’s globalist circles at least three years ago that Egypt was teetering on the edge of revolt and that another political entity would fill the inevitable vacuum of power if the elite didn’t get ahead of the game.
That’s why the American Embassy trained rebel leaders to infiltrate opposition groups from the very beginning, as the Telegraph revealed on Saturday.
The geopolitical maneuverings of the US military-industrial complex don’t take away from the fact that the revolt in Egypt is driven by genuine grievances relating to spiraling food prices, high unemployment, policy brutality and the grass-roots drive to unseat a 30 year dictatorship.
However, if they allow globalist carpetbagger Mohammed ElBaradei to seize power, demonstrators are ensuring that their actions are in vain and ultimately worthless.
Addressing protesters in Cairo yesterday, ElBaradei demanded Mubarak step down and promised “change within days”.
“You are the owners of this revolution. You are the future,” ElBaradei declared. “Our essential demand is the departure of the regime and the beginning of a new Egypt in which each Egyptian lives in virtue, freedom and dignity.”
Egyptians may be the owners of the revolution, but the owners of ElBaradei himself are busy hijacking that revolution by installing a puppet that will be just as compliant with Egypt continuing as a globalist client state as Mubarak has been for the past 30 years. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Won’t get fooled again?
ElBaradei serves on the Board of Trustees of the International Crisis Group, who on Friday issued a press release protesting the decision on behalf of Egyptian authorities to place ElBaradei under house arrest.
International Crisis Group is a shadowy NGO (non-governmental organization) that enjoys an annual budget of over $15 million and is bankrolled by the likes of Carnegie, the Ford Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as George Soros’ Open Society Institute. Soros himself serves as a member of the organization’s Executive Committee.
In other words, this is a major geopolitical steering group for the global elite.
The fact that their man ElBaradei is being primed to head up the post-Mubarak government should set alarm bells ringing in the ears of every demonstrator who is protesting in the name of trying to wrestle Egypt away from the clutches of new world order control.
Indeed, even Mubarak himself is now seemingly catching on to the understanding that his usefulness to the global power elite has run its course, remarking during a national address Saturday that the protests were “part of a bigger plot to shake the stability and destroy the legitimacy” of the political system.
ElBaradei is the central figure in a long term plot to subvert and steer the outcome of a revolution that the global elite knew was coming three years ahead of time. Although his installation as puppet president may see political freedoms temporarily restored as a symbolic gesture, Egypt’s destiny will still be firmly under the control of the same parties that have pulled Mubarak’s strings for the past three decades.
Sham Afghanistan-style rigged elections will ensue where the Egyptian people are given the false decision of choosing between two globalist-controlled puppets. The international media will hail the event as a momentous occasion for democracy in the Middle East and broadcast endless images of purple fingers, but the true legacy of the revolution will be eviscerated and Egyptians will eventually realize that they were the victims of a cruel deception.
Speaking with fellow CFR member Christiane Amanpour, Brzezinski told ABC News’ This Week that Mubarak must be convinced by “outside advice” that “It is in his interest as well as in Egypt’s interest that he goes and that he sets in motion a process which facilitates that.”
Although Brzezinski warned of a “global political awakening” during a CFR meeting last year that threatened to topple the existing international order, it is unsurprising that Brzezinski is calling for the ousting of Mubarak despite the fact that he has been a dutiful servant to the new world order elite.
It became known in Brzezinski’s globalist circles at least three years ago that Egypt was teetering on the edge of revolt and that another political entity would fill the inevitable vacuum of power if the elite didn’t get ahead of the game.
That’s why the American Embassy trained rebel leaders to infiltrate opposition groups from the very beginning, as the Telegraph revealed on Saturday.
The geopolitical maneuverings of the US military-industrial complex don’t take away from the fact that the revolt in Egypt is driven by genuine grievances relating to spiraling food prices, high unemployment, policy brutality and the grass-roots drive to unseat a 30 year dictatorship.
However, if they allow globalist carpetbagger Mohammed ElBaradei to seize power, demonstrators are ensuring that their actions are in vain and ultimately worthless.
Addressing protesters in Cairo yesterday, ElBaradei demanded Mubarak step down and promised “change within days”.
“You are the owners of this revolution. You are the future,” ElBaradei declared. “Our essential demand is the departure of the regime and the beginning of a new Egypt in which each Egyptian lives in virtue, freedom and dignity.”
Egyptians may be the owners of the revolution, but the owners of ElBaradei himself are busy hijacking that revolution by installing a puppet that will be just as compliant with Egypt continuing as a globalist client state as Mubarak has been for the past 30 years. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Won’t get fooled again?
ElBaradei serves on the Board of Trustees of the International Crisis Group, who on Friday issued a press release protesting the decision on behalf of Egyptian authorities to place ElBaradei under house arrest.
International Crisis Group is a shadowy NGO (non-governmental organization) that enjoys an annual budget of over $15 million and is bankrolled by the likes of Carnegie, the Ford Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as George Soros’ Open Society Institute. Soros himself serves as a member of the organization’s Executive Committee.
In other words, this is a major geopolitical steering group for the global elite.
The fact that their man ElBaradei is being primed to head up the post-Mubarak government should set alarm bells ringing in the ears of every demonstrator who is protesting in the name of trying to wrestle Egypt away from the clutches of new world order control.
Indeed, even Mubarak himself is now seemingly catching on to the understanding that his usefulness to the global power elite has run its course, remarking during a national address Saturday that the protests were “part of a bigger plot to shake the stability and destroy the legitimacy” of the political system.
ElBaradei is the central figure in a long term plot to subvert and steer the outcome of a revolution that the global elite knew was coming three years ahead of time. Although his installation as puppet president may see political freedoms temporarily restored as a symbolic gesture, Egypt’s destiny will still be firmly under the control of the same parties that have pulled Mubarak’s strings for the past three decades.
Sham Afghanistan-style rigged elections will ensue where the Egyptian people are given the false decision of choosing between two globalist-controlled puppets. The international media will hail the event as a momentous occasion for democracy in the Middle East and broadcast endless images of purple fingers, but the true legacy of the revolution will be eviscerated and Egyptians will eventually realize that they were the victims of a cruel deception.
71% Of Americans Say Republicans Should Listen To The Tea Party
Ed Morrissey - Remember when the media and the political establishment treated the Tea Party like a fringe group of lunatics that signaled the end of the Republic? Of course you do; it was just last week. But perhaps it’s the media and political establishment that have marginalized themselves as a result. Gallup’s new survey shows that almost three out of every four adults say it’s important for the GOP to account for Tea Party ideas in their policies — including a majority of Democrats:
About 7 in 10 national adults, including 88% of Republicans, say it is important that Republican leaders in Congress take the Tea Party movement’s positions and objectives into account as they address the nation’s problems. Among Republicans, 53% rate this “very important.” …
Although few Democrats (6%) are supporters of the Tea Party or even have a favorable view of it (11%), more than half say it is important that the Republican Party take the Tea Party’s positions into account. Why this is the case is unclear, although Democrats may simply feel that the opposing party should pay attention to all of its constituencies.
Perhaps underscoring the same principle, Republicans overwhelming feel their leaders should take the Tea Party’s positions into account, even though barely half are self-identified as Tea Party supporters.
I’d somehow doubt that Democrats are really all that concerned about whether the GOP listens to “all its constituencies.” Their party leaders and the media spend most of their time sneering at the “teabaggers,” and dismissing them as cranks, or worse. The flip side to this analysis is that 44% of Democrats would think it unimportant for politicians to pay attention to their constituents, which seems unlikely to be the case.
“New survey” is somewhat relative. While Gallup published these results today, the survey itself was taken between January 14 and 16, within a few days after the shooting in Tucson and the media’s rush to smear the Tea Party as an unindicted co-conspirator. If those numbers were ever going to suffer, it would have been that week. Yet majorities in all party affiliations think that their ideas deserve important consideration, including 53% of Democrats, 72% of independents, and 88% of Republicans.
Andrew Malcolm tells his colleagues to stop looking for the schism in the GOP:
Last week, you’ll remember, the “tea party” even had its own short response to Obama’s State of the Union speech, given by Rep. Michele Bachmann, who formed the House Tea Party Caucus, followingthe usual GOP response, given by Rep. Paul Ryan, who heads the House Budget Committee.
The dominant media theme, perhaps wistfully, was that this showed a split or, worse a schism, in the GOP. This despite denials all around and an impression among many who listened to the responses that Ryan’s broad overview and Bachmann’s detailed Perot-like charts complemented each other in a kind of Obama double-team.
The new Gallup findings seem to indicate that by a lopsided margin, regardless of their “tea party” impressions, Americans see such cooperation or teamwork as a good thing. Developing support for tea party positions as well as listening could augur large trouble for Obama’s reelect next year.
If the Tea Party has 53% of Democrats interested in its ideas, “large trouble” could be an understatement.
About 7 in 10 national adults, including 88% of Republicans, say it is important that Republican leaders in Congress take the Tea Party movement’s positions and objectives into account as they address the nation’s problems. Among Republicans, 53% rate this “very important.” …
Although few Democrats (6%) are supporters of the Tea Party or even have a favorable view of it (11%), more than half say it is important that the Republican Party take the Tea Party’s positions into account. Why this is the case is unclear, although Democrats may simply feel that the opposing party should pay attention to all of its constituencies.
Perhaps underscoring the same principle, Republicans overwhelming feel their leaders should take the Tea Party’s positions into account, even though barely half are self-identified as Tea Party supporters.
I’d somehow doubt that Democrats are really all that concerned about whether the GOP listens to “all its constituencies.” Their party leaders and the media spend most of their time sneering at the “teabaggers,” and dismissing them as cranks, or worse. The flip side to this analysis is that 44% of Democrats would think it unimportant for politicians to pay attention to their constituents, which seems unlikely to be the case.
“New survey” is somewhat relative. While Gallup published these results today, the survey itself was taken between January 14 and 16, within a few days after the shooting in Tucson and the media’s rush to smear the Tea Party as an unindicted co-conspirator. If those numbers were ever going to suffer, it would have been that week. Yet majorities in all party affiliations think that their ideas deserve important consideration, including 53% of Democrats, 72% of independents, and 88% of Republicans.
Andrew Malcolm tells his colleagues to stop looking for the schism in the GOP:
Last week, you’ll remember, the “tea party” even had its own short response to Obama’s State of the Union speech, given by Rep. Michele Bachmann, who formed the House Tea Party Caucus, followingthe usual GOP response, given by Rep. Paul Ryan, who heads the House Budget Committee.
The dominant media theme, perhaps wistfully, was that this showed a split or, worse a schism, in the GOP. This despite denials all around and an impression among many who listened to the responses that Ryan’s broad overview and Bachmann’s detailed Perot-like charts complemented each other in a kind of Obama double-team.
The new Gallup findings seem to indicate that by a lopsided margin, regardless of their “tea party” impressions, Americans see such cooperation or teamwork as a good thing. Developing support for tea party positions as well as listening could augur large trouble for Obama’s reelect next year.
If the Tea Party has 53% of Democrats interested in its ideas, “large trouble” could be an understatement.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Egypt And Arab World March Against Mubarak's Regime
(CNN) -- Egyptians and activists around the world took to the streets in various cities Saturday to show their support for the protests currently underway in Egypt and to join the call for President Hosni Mubarak to step down.
Outside the Egyptian Embassy in London, people rallied, chanted, hoisted banners and demanded change.
One sign, written in red ink, read: "From The Nile, To the Sea -- Egypt Soon Will Be Free! Freedom for Egypt!"
Demonstrators chanted: "One, two, three, four, we don't want Mubarak anymore!" d'Amore said in an e-mail to CNN.
Elsewhere in Europe, protesters in Geneva shouted slogans in Arabic, French and English, chanting, "Get out, Mubarak!" according to Courtney Radsch, who attended the demonstration there.
Radsch sent CNN a video of the protest that showed a crowd of people carrying signs that read, "Freedom. Social Justice. Democracy" and "Free Egypt."
Protests also took place in cities throughout Canada.
About 150 protesters gathered outside the Egyptian consulate in Montreal, CNN affiliate CTV reported. In Toronto, a downtown rally drew more than 500 people, it said.
Ahmed Khalifa, who helped organize the Toronto protest, said he was encouraged by the protests in Egypt and stressed their significance.
"We are witnessing a great change in history," he told CTV. "It's like the fall of the Berlin Wall. We are watching Egyptian people and Middle Eastern people telling us that 'we want freedom.' "
Anti-Mubarak demonstrations were also held across the United States.
Outside the Egyptian Embassy in London, people rallied, chanted, hoisted banners and demanded change.
One sign, written in red ink, read: "From The Nile, To the Sea -- Egypt Soon Will Be Free! Freedom for Egypt!"
Demonstrators chanted: "One, two, three, four, we don't want Mubarak anymore!" d'Amore said in an e-mail to CNN.
Elsewhere in Europe, protesters in Geneva shouted slogans in Arabic, French and English, chanting, "Get out, Mubarak!" according to Courtney Radsch, who attended the demonstration there.
Radsch sent CNN a video of the protest that showed a crowd of people carrying signs that read, "Freedom. Social Justice. Democracy" and "Free Egypt."
Protests also took place in cities throughout Canada.
About 150 protesters gathered outside the Egyptian consulate in Montreal, CNN affiliate CTV reported. In Toronto, a downtown rally drew more than 500 people, it said.
Ahmed Khalifa, who helped organize the Toronto protest, said he was encouraged by the protests in Egypt and stressed their significance.
"We are witnessing a great change in history," he told CTV. "It's like the fall of the Berlin Wall. We are watching Egyptian people and Middle Eastern people telling us that 'we want freedom.' "
Anti-Mubarak demonstrations were also held across the United States.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Obama Admin. Expresses Support For The Mubarkak Regime
Paul Joesph Watson - The Obama administration expressed its support for under fire Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak even as footage emerged of a protester being shot dead by Mubarak’s security forces in Cairo, as the government shut down the Internet, land lines and the mobile phone network in a desperate bid to cling on to power amidst widespread rioting.
“Vice President Joe Biden spoke to the PBS NewsHour tonight with the most direct US government comments yet about the gathering Egypt protests against President Hosni Mubarak’s 29-year reign,” reports The Christian Science Monitor.
Speaking to Jim Lehrer, Biden refused to call Mubarek a dictator, and went on to lend his support to a man who presides over $1.3 billion in U.S. military aid each year.
“Mubarak has been an ally of ours in a number of things. And he’s been very responsible on, relative to geopolitical interest in the region, the Middle East peace efforts; the actions Egypt has taken relative to normalizing relationship with – with Israel. … I would not refer to him as a dictator,” said Biden, who went on to imply that some of the protesters’ demands were illegitimate.
The demonstrations are firmly centered around spiraling fuel and food prices, rising unemployment, as well as police brutality and torture of political dissidents. These factors have culminated in protesters turning on Mubarek and his regime.
“Our government is a dictatorship. A total dictatorship,” said Mohamed Fahim, a 29-year-old glass factory worker, as he stood near the charred skeleton of a car.
“It’s our right to choose our government ourselves. We have been living 29 years, my whole life, without being able to choose a president.”
The rage only intensified after authorities moved to shut down Internet access, the mobile phone network and even land lines across large areas of the country, primarily in an attempt to restrict access to the Associated Press footage showing a protester being shot dead in the street, one of at least eight victims who have been killed since the uprising began. Mubarek’s regime is also desperate to stop activists from organizing via Facebook and Twitter.
As Tyler Durden writes, the ludicrous decision to stoke more anger and chaos by shutting down communications gives an insight into what might happen under similar conditions in America.
“Ironically this act of desperation in Egypt which seeks to prevent the ongoing televising of the revolution, would be precisely the match that would set off America on a certain path to revolution: not ongoing banker rape, not Primary Dealers stealing from babies, not Greek president G-Pap robbing your wallet… merely a shutdown of Facebook and Twitter (and possibly cable) and 300 million well-armed American will promptly go apeshit.”
Despite a myriad of justifiable reasons why Egyptians would want to stage a revolution, one wonders why it took them 29 years of Mubarek’s despotic reign to do so. Are we merely witnessing a natural domino effect from what happened in Tunisia, or are there darker forces at work? Namely, the same NGO’s and elitists that were behind previous color revolutions that were artificially contrived in order to make the target country a vassal state for the new world order?
If Egyptians are given the same “freedoms” that Americans enjoy – particularly the right to choose one of two puppet Presidents controlled by the same elite every four years – will its population be equally as angry when their country becomes the next Iraq – a conquered outpost for the new global government empire?
Egyptians are right to revolt against the tyranny they have been subjected to for almost three decades, but the most important aspect of the situation now becomes the aftermath. Should Mubarek be toppled and his regime swept away, will Egypt retain its sovereignty under a popularly elected government that serves the people, or will the country simply be picked off by encircling geopolitical vultures and turned into another frontier, another giant US/NATO military base and another stepping stone towards the invasion of Iran
“Vice President Joe Biden spoke to the PBS NewsHour tonight with the most direct US government comments yet about the gathering Egypt protests against President Hosni Mubarak’s 29-year reign,” reports The Christian Science Monitor.
Speaking to Jim Lehrer, Biden refused to call Mubarek a dictator, and went on to lend his support to a man who presides over $1.3 billion in U.S. military aid each year.
“Mubarak has been an ally of ours in a number of things. And he’s been very responsible on, relative to geopolitical interest in the region, the Middle East peace efforts; the actions Egypt has taken relative to normalizing relationship with – with Israel. … I would not refer to him as a dictator,” said Biden, who went on to imply that some of the protesters’ demands were illegitimate.
The demonstrations are firmly centered around spiraling fuel and food prices, rising unemployment, as well as police brutality and torture of political dissidents. These factors have culminated in protesters turning on Mubarek and his regime.
“Our government is a dictatorship. A total dictatorship,” said Mohamed Fahim, a 29-year-old glass factory worker, as he stood near the charred skeleton of a car.
“It’s our right to choose our government ourselves. We have been living 29 years, my whole life, without being able to choose a president.”
The rage only intensified after authorities moved to shut down Internet access, the mobile phone network and even land lines across large areas of the country, primarily in an attempt to restrict access to the Associated Press footage showing a protester being shot dead in the street, one of at least eight victims who have been killed since the uprising began. Mubarek’s regime is also desperate to stop activists from organizing via Facebook and Twitter.
As Tyler Durden writes, the ludicrous decision to stoke more anger and chaos by shutting down communications gives an insight into what might happen under similar conditions in America.
“Ironically this act of desperation in Egypt which seeks to prevent the ongoing televising of the revolution, would be precisely the match that would set off America on a certain path to revolution: not ongoing banker rape, not Primary Dealers stealing from babies, not Greek president G-Pap robbing your wallet… merely a shutdown of Facebook and Twitter (and possibly cable) and 300 million well-armed American will promptly go apeshit.”
Despite a myriad of justifiable reasons why Egyptians would want to stage a revolution, one wonders why it took them 29 years of Mubarek’s despotic reign to do so. Are we merely witnessing a natural domino effect from what happened in Tunisia, or are there darker forces at work? Namely, the same NGO’s and elitists that were behind previous color revolutions that were artificially contrived in order to make the target country a vassal state for the new world order?
If Egyptians are given the same “freedoms” that Americans enjoy – particularly the right to choose one of two puppet Presidents controlled by the same elite every four years – will its population be equally as angry when their country becomes the next Iraq – a conquered outpost for the new global government empire?
Egyptians are right to revolt against the tyranny they have been subjected to for almost three decades, but the most important aspect of the situation now becomes the aftermath. Should Mubarek be toppled and his regime swept away, will Egypt retain its sovereignty under a popularly elected government that serves the people, or will the country simply be picked off by encircling geopolitical vultures and turned into another frontier, another giant US/NATO military base and another stepping stone towards the invasion of Iran
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Sen. Rand Paul Introduced $500 Billion In Spending Cuts
WASHINGTON, D.C. – In the face of an ever-expanding national debt, newly elected Senator Rand Paul is taking a bold and proactive step in protecting our national security and lowering our deficit. By introducing $500 billion in spending cuts today – to be enacted over one year – Sen. Paul is starting an important conversation with his Senate colleagues about how to fix our nation’s current economic situation.
“I am proud to introduce my own solution to the mounting debt our spendthrift, oversized government has accrued. By rolling back to 2008 levels and eliminating the most wasteful programs, we can still keep 85 percent of our government funding in place,” Sen. Paul said today.
“By removing programs that are beyond the constitutional role of the federal government, such as education and housing, we are cutting nearly 40 percent of our projected deficit and removing the big-government bureaucrats who stand in the way of efficiency in our federal government,” he continued.
“I am proud to introduce my own solution to the mounting debt our spendthrift, oversized government has accrued. By rolling back to 2008 levels and eliminating the most wasteful programs, we can still keep 85 percent of our government funding in place,” Sen. Paul said today.
“By removing programs that are beyond the constitutional role of the federal government, such as education and housing, we are cutting nearly 40 percent of our projected deficit and removing the big-government bureaucrats who stand in the way of efficiency in our federal government,” he continued.
Middle East Gripped By Anti-Government Riots: America Next?
John Joesph Watson - The planet is in a never-ending cycle of anti-government revolt as riots that plagued Europe last year now spread like wildfire through the Middle East and beyond, threatening to accelerate bloody clashes and force the hand of authorities as the risk of a new Tiananmen Square-style massacre grows ever likelier. Is America next in line to experience unrest that has touched almost every corner of the globe?
Our prediction three years ago, based on UN documents, which was made six months before the collapse of Lehman brothers, that the world would be hit by massive food riots and anti-government unrest in the aftermath of an economic collapse, is now unfolding at an astonishing pace.
The latest countries to be enveloped by the chaos are Tunisia, Egypt, and now Yemen, whose population are demanding the ouster of 30-year President Ali Abdullah Saleh in a protest against poverty and lack of political freedom.
The unrest in Yemen was inspired by a popular uprising in Tunisia earlier this month that led to the ejection of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, figurehead of a government accused of abusing their power to enrich themselves while the poverty gripped the rest of the country. Ben Ali was forced to flee the country and the interim government has now issued an international arrest warrant for the President and his wife.
Riots in Tunisia were quickly followed by mass protests in Egypt demanding an end to President Mubarek’s regime. Four people have died as demonstrators engaged in violent clashes with police and set fire to government buildings.
Besides America there has barely been an area of the globe that hasn’t been hit by riots and unrest in the last six months, as the fallout from the economic collapse begins to be felt amongst the victims of the financial terrorists that launched an assault characterized by falling wages, high unemployment, spiraling inflation and food prices as well as crippling austerity cuts.
The cost of staples like wheat, corn and soybeans is going through the roof as countries increasingly rely on imports from the U.S. to offset the impact of global unrest.
“In emerging markets, it’s leading to rising inflation, to reduction in disposable income, it’s leading to riots, demonstrations and political instability,” New York University economist Nouriel Roubini said in an interview in Davos, Switzerland, today with Tom Keene on Bloomberg Television’s “The Pulse.” “It’s really something that can topple regimes, as we have seen in the Middle East.”
Back in early 2008, before the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the start of the financial crisis, we warned that inflation and economic uncertainty would cause inflation to skyrocket and food prices to explode, which would lead to riots globally.
In June of last year, shortly before mass unrest hit Europe in countries like France, Italy and the United Kingdom, we forecast that, “The imminent onset of so-called austerity measures, which in reality represent nothing more than an elevated phase of government-run looting of the taxpayer, would herald an “age of rage,” leading to “riots and even revolutions as people react with fury in response to their jobs, savings, basic public services, pensions and welfare money being seized by the financial terrorists who caused the economic collapse in the first place.”
That “age of rage” is now playing out across the planet, with governments being toppled left, right and center as economic turmoil forces desperate people to revolt in a bid to rescue any kind of decent living standard.
We didn’t have the privilege of a crystal ball when we made these predictions, we were merely reading what globalist bodies and the elite themselves were saying would be the consequences of their agenda to eviscerate any kind of middle class and re-impose an archaic caste system of haves and have nots.
The only question left to be answered is if and when similar scenes will unfold on the streets of America, as notoriously accurate trend forecaster Gerald Celente warned would happen several years ago. Celente put the time frame on “tax rebellions and food riots” sweeping the US by 2012.
With even the likes of Time Magazine seriously entertaining the probability of social dislocation as a backlash to the crumbling economy leading to “civil war” in the United States, we stand on the precipice of bedlam.
In November 2008, right as the economic implosion was unraveling, the U.S. Army War College released a white paper called Known Unknowns: Unconventional ‘Strategic Shocks’ in Defense Strategy Development. The report warned that the military must be prepared for a “violent, strategic dislocation inside the United States,” which could be provoked by “unforeseen economic collapse,” “purposeful domestic resistance,” “pervasive public health emergencies” or “loss of functioning political and legal order.” The “widespread civil violence,” the document said, “would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security.”
A British Ministry of Defence report struck a similar tone when it predicted that within 30 years, the growing gap between the super rich and the middle class, along with an urban underclass threatening social order would mean, “The world’s middle classes might unite, using access to knowledge, resources and skills to shape transnational processes in their own class interest,” and that, “The middle classes could become a revolutionary class.”
If the violent scenes we now witness unfolding across the planet are anything to go by, we won’t have to wait too long to find out whether or not the United States will become engulfed in the crisis, or whether the global elite will move to prevent such a scenario by coming to the realization that their war on the middle class and the poor threatens to provoke a reaction that even they may be unprepared to deal with.
Our prediction three years ago, based on UN documents, which was made six months before the collapse of Lehman brothers, that the world would be hit by massive food riots and anti-government unrest in the aftermath of an economic collapse, is now unfolding at an astonishing pace.
The latest countries to be enveloped by the chaos are Tunisia, Egypt, and now Yemen, whose population are demanding the ouster of 30-year President Ali Abdullah Saleh in a protest against poverty and lack of political freedom.
The unrest in Yemen was inspired by a popular uprising in Tunisia earlier this month that led to the ejection of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, figurehead of a government accused of abusing their power to enrich themselves while the poverty gripped the rest of the country. Ben Ali was forced to flee the country and the interim government has now issued an international arrest warrant for the President and his wife.
Riots in Tunisia were quickly followed by mass protests in Egypt demanding an end to President Mubarek’s regime. Four people have died as demonstrators engaged in violent clashes with police and set fire to government buildings.
Besides America there has barely been an area of the globe that hasn’t been hit by riots and unrest in the last six months, as the fallout from the economic collapse begins to be felt amongst the victims of the financial terrorists that launched an assault characterized by falling wages, high unemployment, spiraling inflation and food prices as well as crippling austerity cuts.
The cost of staples like wheat, corn and soybeans is going through the roof as countries increasingly rely on imports from the U.S. to offset the impact of global unrest.
“In emerging markets, it’s leading to rising inflation, to reduction in disposable income, it’s leading to riots, demonstrations and political instability,” New York University economist Nouriel Roubini said in an interview in Davos, Switzerland, today with Tom Keene on Bloomberg Television’s “The Pulse.” “It’s really something that can topple regimes, as we have seen in the Middle East.”
Back in early 2008, before the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the start of the financial crisis, we warned that inflation and economic uncertainty would cause inflation to skyrocket and food prices to explode, which would lead to riots globally.
In June of last year, shortly before mass unrest hit Europe in countries like France, Italy and the United Kingdom, we forecast that, “The imminent onset of so-called austerity measures, which in reality represent nothing more than an elevated phase of government-run looting of the taxpayer, would herald an “age of rage,” leading to “riots and even revolutions as people react with fury in response to their jobs, savings, basic public services, pensions and welfare money being seized by the financial terrorists who caused the economic collapse in the first place.”
That “age of rage” is now playing out across the planet, with governments being toppled left, right and center as economic turmoil forces desperate people to revolt in a bid to rescue any kind of decent living standard.
We didn’t have the privilege of a crystal ball when we made these predictions, we were merely reading what globalist bodies and the elite themselves were saying would be the consequences of their agenda to eviscerate any kind of middle class and re-impose an archaic caste system of haves and have nots.
The only question left to be answered is if and when similar scenes will unfold on the streets of America, as notoriously accurate trend forecaster Gerald Celente warned would happen several years ago. Celente put the time frame on “tax rebellions and food riots” sweeping the US by 2012.
With even the likes of Time Magazine seriously entertaining the probability of social dislocation as a backlash to the crumbling economy leading to “civil war” in the United States, we stand on the precipice of bedlam.
In November 2008, right as the economic implosion was unraveling, the U.S. Army War College released a white paper called Known Unknowns: Unconventional ‘Strategic Shocks’ in Defense Strategy Development. The report warned that the military must be prepared for a “violent, strategic dislocation inside the United States,” which could be provoked by “unforeseen economic collapse,” “purposeful domestic resistance,” “pervasive public health emergencies” or “loss of functioning political and legal order.” The “widespread civil violence,” the document said, “would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security.”
A British Ministry of Defence report struck a similar tone when it predicted that within 30 years, the growing gap between the super rich and the middle class, along with an urban underclass threatening social order would mean, “The world’s middle classes might unite, using access to knowledge, resources and skills to shape transnational processes in their own class interest,” and that, “The middle classes could become a revolutionary class.”
If the violent scenes we now witness unfolding across the planet are anything to go by, we won’t have to wait too long to find out whether or not the United States will become engulfed in the crisis, or whether the global elite will move to prevent such a scenario by coming to the realization that their war on the middle class and the poor threatens to provoke a reaction that even they may be unprepared to deal with.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
U.S. Budget Deficit Will Hit $1.5 Trillion In the Future
MSNBC - A continuing weak economy and last month's bipartisan tax cut legislation will drive the government's deficit to a record $1.5 trillion this year, a new government estimates predicts.
The eye-popping numbers mean the government will continue to borrow 40 cents for every dollar it spends.
The new Congressional Budget Office estimates will add fuel to a raging debate over cutting spending and looming legislation that's required to allow the government to borrow more money as the national debt nears the $14.3 trillion cap set by law. Republicans controlling the House say there's no way they'll raise the limit without significant cuts in spending, starting with a government funding bill that will advance next month. The CBO analysis predicts the economy will grow by 3.1 percent this year, but that joblessness will remain above 9 percent this year. Dauntingly for President Obama, the nonpartisan agency estimates a nationwide unemployment rate of 8.2 percent on Election Day in 2012
President Obama's State of the Union wasn't exceptional in the traditional sense, but it was a strong rebuttal to some conservative critics who have.
The latest figures are up from previous estimates because of bipartisan legislation passed in December that extended Bush-era tax cuts, unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless and provided a 2 percent payroll tax cut this year.
That measure added almost $400 billion to this year's deficit, CBO says.
The deficit is on track to beat the record of $1.4 trillion set in 2009. That figure reflected huge outlays from the Wall St. bailout. The nonpartisan budget agency predicts the deficit will drop to $1.1 trillion next year.
"The fiscal challenge confronting us is enormous. To solve this problem, it will require real compromise and a great deal of political will," said Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D. "We need to have both sides, Democrats and Republicans, willing to move off their fixed positions and find common ground."
'Somebody is going to have to bite the bullet'
The chilling figures come the morning after Obama called for a five-year freeze on domestic agency budgets passed by Congress each year. But those nondefense programs make up just 18 percent of the budget, which means any upcoming deficit reduction package will require politically dangerous curbs to popular benefit programs, which include Social Security, Medicare, the Medicaid health care program for the poor and disabled, and food stamps.
Neither Obama nor his GOP rivals on Capitol Hill have yet come forward with specific proposals for cutting benefits programs.
"Somebody is going to have to bite the bullet and get this process going," said Maya MacGuineas of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a bipartisan group that advocates fiscal responsibility. "And that somebody has to be the president."
Obama has pointedly steered clear of the recommendations of his deficit commissions, which in December called for politically difficult moves such as increasing the Social Security retirement age and reducing future increases in benefits. It also proposed a 15 cents a gallon increase in the gas tax and eliminating or scaling back tax breaks — including the child tax credit, mortgage interest deduction and deduction claimed by employers who provide health insurance — in exchange for rate cuts on corporate and income taxes.
CBO predicts that the deficit will fall to $551 billion by 2015, down to a sustainable 3 percent of the size of the economy.
But under its rules, the CBO assumes that recently-extended cuts in taxes on income, investment and people inheriting large estates will expire in two years. If those tax cuts, and numerous others, are extended, the deficit for that year would be almost three times as large.
Tax revenues, which dropped significantly in 2009 because of the recession, have stabilized. But revenue growth will continue to be constrained because of the slow pace of economic growth and the extension of Bush era tax cuts passed by Congress in December. The CBO projects revenues to be 6 percent higher in 2011 than they were two years ago, which will not keep pace with the growth in spending.
As a share of the economy, tax revenues in 2011 are projected to reach their lowest levels since 1950. The CBO projects that tax revenues will be 14.8 percent of GDP in 2011, which would be 0.1 percentage point lower than in 2009.
"The United States faces daunting economic and budgetary challenges. The economy has struggled to recover from the recent recession, which was triggered by a large decline in house prices and a financial crisis — events unlike anything this country has seen since the Great Depression," the CBO report says.
The eye-popping numbers mean the government will continue to borrow 40 cents for every dollar it spends.
The new Congressional Budget Office estimates will add fuel to a raging debate over cutting spending and looming legislation that's required to allow the government to borrow more money as the national debt nears the $14.3 trillion cap set by law. Republicans controlling the House say there's no way they'll raise the limit without significant cuts in spending, starting with a government funding bill that will advance next month. The CBO analysis predicts the economy will grow by 3.1 percent this year, but that joblessness will remain above 9 percent this year. Dauntingly for President Obama, the nonpartisan agency estimates a nationwide unemployment rate of 8.2 percent on Election Day in 2012
President Obama's State of the Union wasn't exceptional in the traditional sense, but it was a strong rebuttal to some conservative critics who have.
The latest figures are up from previous estimates because of bipartisan legislation passed in December that extended Bush-era tax cuts, unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless and provided a 2 percent payroll tax cut this year.
That measure added almost $400 billion to this year's deficit, CBO says.
The deficit is on track to beat the record of $1.4 trillion set in 2009. That figure reflected huge outlays from the Wall St. bailout. The nonpartisan budget agency predicts the deficit will drop to $1.1 trillion next year.
"The fiscal challenge confronting us is enormous. To solve this problem, it will require real compromise and a great deal of political will," said Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D. "We need to have both sides, Democrats and Republicans, willing to move off their fixed positions and find common ground."
'Somebody is going to have to bite the bullet'
The chilling figures come the morning after Obama called for a five-year freeze on domestic agency budgets passed by Congress each year. But those nondefense programs make up just 18 percent of the budget, which means any upcoming deficit reduction package will require politically dangerous curbs to popular benefit programs, which include Social Security, Medicare, the Medicaid health care program for the poor and disabled, and food stamps.
Neither Obama nor his GOP rivals on Capitol Hill have yet come forward with specific proposals for cutting benefits programs.
"Somebody is going to have to bite the bullet and get this process going," said Maya MacGuineas of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a bipartisan group that advocates fiscal responsibility. "And that somebody has to be the president."
Obama has pointedly steered clear of the recommendations of his deficit commissions, which in December called for politically difficult moves such as increasing the Social Security retirement age and reducing future increases in benefits. It also proposed a 15 cents a gallon increase in the gas tax and eliminating or scaling back tax breaks — including the child tax credit, mortgage interest deduction and deduction claimed by employers who provide health insurance — in exchange for rate cuts on corporate and income taxes.
CBO predicts that the deficit will fall to $551 billion by 2015, down to a sustainable 3 percent of the size of the economy.
But under its rules, the CBO assumes that recently-extended cuts in taxes on income, investment and people inheriting large estates will expire in two years. If those tax cuts, and numerous others, are extended, the deficit for that year would be almost three times as large.
Tax revenues, which dropped significantly in 2009 because of the recession, have stabilized. But revenue growth will continue to be constrained because of the slow pace of economic growth and the extension of Bush era tax cuts passed by Congress in December. The CBO projects revenues to be 6 percent higher in 2011 than they were two years ago, which will not keep pace with the growth in spending.
As a share of the economy, tax revenues in 2011 are projected to reach their lowest levels since 1950. The CBO projects that tax revenues will be 14.8 percent of GDP in 2011, which would be 0.1 percentage point lower than in 2009.
"The United States faces daunting economic and budgetary challenges. The economy has struggled to recover from the recent recession, which was triggered by a large decline in house prices and a financial crisis — events unlike anything this country has seen since the Great Depression," the CBO report says.
CRS Report: 1.4 million Americans Have Been Our Of Work For More Than 99 Weeks
Joan McCarter - Those left behind in the infamous tax-cut deal, the 99ers, now comprise 1.4 million would-be American workers, according to the Congressional Research Service. Other estimates from advocates peg the number much higher.
Ninety-nine weeks is a milestone for the jobless because that's the limit for unemployment benefits (though 99 weeks are not available in all states). Beyond that point, the jobless aren't eligible for much help besides food stamps and charity. The job market for anyone out of work that long is downright hostile.
The 1.4-million figure, calculated using the latest data available as of October, is much smaller than some home-cooked estimates circulated online by advocates for additional weeks of benefits for these "99ers." Some of those estimates are as high as 7 million.
A spokesman for Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) told HuffPost on Monday that the Lee intends to reintroduce legislation to provide additional weeks of benefits, but more help for the jobless seems unlikely to pass a Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
The long-term unemployed, as opposed to very long-term unemployed, are people who've been out of work for six months. As of December, 6.4 million people, or 44.3 percent of the 14.5 million total jobless, have been out of work for six months or longer.
The CRS report also showed that older workers are more likely to be among the very long-term unemployed. "Of jobless workers older than 45, 10.7 percent have been unemployed for 99 weeks, compared to 6 percent of workers younger than 35. And 44.4 percent of the very long-term unemployed are older than 45." This cohort of the unemployed is also comprised of all educational levels.
And, of course, as high unemployment rates continue, the ranks of the very long-term unemployed--the 99ers--are just going to grow. For one thing, employment discrimination among the currently unemployed is a significant factor. For another, the GOP House is more interested in kabuki votes against healthcare reform, banning abortion, and doing away with the campaign matching fund--their very first bills--than creating jobs.
Ninety-nine weeks is a milestone for the jobless because that's the limit for unemployment benefits (though 99 weeks are not available in all states). Beyond that point, the jobless aren't eligible for much help besides food stamps and charity. The job market for anyone out of work that long is downright hostile.
The 1.4-million figure, calculated using the latest data available as of October, is much smaller than some home-cooked estimates circulated online by advocates for additional weeks of benefits for these "99ers." Some of those estimates are as high as 7 million.
A spokesman for Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) told HuffPost on Monday that the Lee intends to reintroduce legislation to provide additional weeks of benefits, but more help for the jobless seems unlikely to pass a Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
The long-term unemployed, as opposed to very long-term unemployed, are people who've been out of work for six months. As of December, 6.4 million people, or 44.3 percent of the 14.5 million total jobless, have been out of work for six months or longer.
The CRS report also showed that older workers are more likely to be among the very long-term unemployed. "Of jobless workers older than 45, 10.7 percent have been unemployed for 99 weeks, compared to 6 percent of workers younger than 35. And 44.4 percent of the very long-term unemployed are older than 45." This cohort of the unemployed is also comprised of all educational levels.
And, of course, as high unemployment rates continue, the ranks of the very long-term unemployed--the 99ers--are just going to grow. For one thing, employment discrimination among the currently unemployed is a significant factor. For another, the GOP House is more interested in kabuki votes against healthcare reform, banning abortion, and doing away with the campaign matching fund--their very first bills--than creating jobs.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
President Obama New Conservative Image: To Propose A Budget Freeze And Earmark Ban Tonight At SOTU
Protein Wisdom - Re-imaging himself as a fiscal conservative, is he? Is that what we’re supposed to believe? From Jake Tapper, ABC News:
Pursuing a path of deficit reduction and government reform, President Obama will tonight in his State of the Union address call for a ban on earmarks and he will propose an overall budget freeze, ABC News has learned.
The proposals come as the president prepares to tackle the deficit and debt and as he faces a House of Representatives in Republican hands, many of whose members include those affiliated with the Tea Party who may be willing to embrace both moves.
The president will propose some new spending in certain areas that address the speech’s theme of “How We Win the Future”: innovation, education and infrastructure. But those increases will be proposed as part of an overall budget freeze, which given the annual rate of growth is often seen in Washington, DC, budgeting as a cut.
The FY 2011 budget was $3.8 trillion.
As for earmarks, President Obama has long been critical of the process in which members of Congress insert their pet projects into legislation without having them first go through the normal appropriations process, but Congress has continued to put billions of dollars of such projects in bills that arrive at the president’s desk.
Freezing the budget after increasing discretionary domestic spending by 84% is hardly a sacrifice.
But it will be sold that way.
John McCain believes this signals a President wedded to fiscal responsibility; protein wisdom, conversely, believes it’s time for John McCain to put himself out to pasture, and take Colin Powell and Pat Buchanan with him.
The TEA Partiers in the House want to slash the federal government back to 2006 levels; they want to do the hard work of actually cutting spending and bringing our fiscal house to order. By proposing a budge “freeze” tonight, Obama hopes to present himself as a fiscal hawk concerned with the federal deficit — while setting up the GOP to do the actual cost cutting, which Obama and the Dems will subsequently frame as hurting woman, children, minorities, and the elderly.
And as he sets this up, he’ll call for civility — and the camera will zoom in on Republicans and Democrats, sitting together, in comity and harmony.
Making Paul Ryan’s rebuttal a televised downer.
We’re being played. And because it’s so obvious, I have to believe that the Republicans who go along with this ruse are being played happily. Because big government is good for business — regardless of which party establishment one belongs t
Pursuing a path of deficit reduction and government reform, President Obama will tonight in his State of the Union address call for a ban on earmarks and he will propose an overall budget freeze, ABC News has learned.
The proposals come as the president prepares to tackle the deficit and debt and as he faces a House of Representatives in Republican hands, many of whose members include those affiliated with the Tea Party who may be willing to embrace both moves.
The president will propose some new spending in certain areas that address the speech’s theme of “How We Win the Future”: innovation, education and infrastructure. But those increases will be proposed as part of an overall budget freeze, which given the annual rate of growth is often seen in Washington, DC, budgeting as a cut.
The FY 2011 budget was $3.8 trillion.
As for earmarks, President Obama has long been critical of the process in which members of Congress insert their pet projects into legislation without having them first go through the normal appropriations process, but Congress has continued to put billions of dollars of such projects in bills that arrive at the president’s desk.
Freezing the budget after increasing discretionary domestic spending by 84% is hardly a sacrifice.
But it will be sold that way.
John McCain believes this signals a President wedded to fiscal responsibility; protein wisdom, conversely, believes it’s time for John McCain to put himself out to pasture, and take Colin Powell and Pat Buchanan with him.
The TEA Partiers in the House want to slash the federal government back to 2006 levels; they want to do the hard work of actually cutting spending and bringing our fiscal house to order. By proposing a budge “freeze” tonight, Obama hopes to present himself as a fiscal hawk concerned with the federal deficit — while setting up the GOP to do the actual cost cutting, which Obama and the Dems will subsequently frame as hurting woman, children, minorities, and the elderly.
And as he sets this up, he’ll call for civility — and the camera will zoom in on Republicans and Democrats, sitting together, in comity and harmony.
Making Paul Ryan’s rebuttal a televised downer.
We’re being played. And because it’s so obvious, I have to believe that the Republicans who go along with this ruse are being played happily. Because big government is good for business — regardless of which party establishment one belongs t
Monday, January 24, 2011
How Much Will Rahm Emanuel Pay To Get Back On The Ballot In Chicago
Chicago News Cooperative - Rahm Emanuel has been knocked off the mayoral ballot after an Appellate Court overturned a ruling in his residency case.
The court ruled that Emanuel did not meet the residency requirement for eligible candidates.
“We conclude that the candidate neither meets the the municipal code’s requirement that he have ‘resided’ in Chicago for the year preceding the election in which he seeks to participate nor falls within any exception to the requirement,” the court wrote in its decision.
More to follow.
The court ruled that Emanuel did not meet the residency requirement for eligible candidates.
“We conclude that the candidate neither meets the the municipal code’s requirement that he have ‘resided’ in Chicago for the year preceding the election in which he seeks to participate nor falls within any exception to the requirement,” the court wrote in its decision.
More to follow.
Here It Comes America $4 Gas, $5 Cup Of Coffee, Hey Blame Bush
Newsweek - The final dam to stopping $150-a-barrel oil and $4-a-gallon gas is being breached, as financial regulation continues its daily erosion into worthlessness.
Watching the CFTC attempt to back up Dodd-Frank legislation since it was passed in July has been like watching salmon flop upstream as the water drains out -- it's slow, arduous and likely to lead nowhere.
It is clear now that we will instead be witness to the highest prices for commodities ever, fueled by the biggest influx of profit-driven trading and investment ever, unstanched even in the slightest by the hopes of financial regulation legislation.
In my upcoming book, Oil's Endless Bid, due out from John Wiley & Sons in March, I argue that financial influences from investors and traders and the massive growth of derivatives markets have been the single most important factor for oil's high and unreliable price, far outstripping fundamental arguments of emerging market growth, peak oil or any other supply constraints or a devaluing dollar.
Putting some controls on at least some of these speculative influences was supposed to be one of the goals of Dodd-Frank, but the actual rule-making to put teeth behind the legislation has been left to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Since it began tackling this massive job in July 2010, the CFTC has literally been uried by the pushback from industry lobbyists, hired-gun lawyers, derivatives broker/dealers and virtually every industrial corporation with a trading desk that depends even marginally on derivatives activity to protect or augment profits.
The process of rule-making has seemed like it would be fair—propose a rule from the outline of Dodd-Frank and open a forum for comment and discussion before ultimately writing and enforcing it. The problem has been the virtual avalanche of opinion that has descended on the commissioners entirely from the industry side; pretty much no one has bothered to speak for the American public—the consumer—and the industry just wants Dodd-Frank and those profit-dissolving proposals to go away.
Consequently, there has been little to no movement since July, despite the mandate of legislation to have rules for energy markets in place by January, a deadline that the CFTC has already indicated it will certainly miss.
Two specific areas have already convinced me that the rules will ultimately be toothless, business will proceed as usual and whatever is implemented will do nothing to curb the explosive price rises we've seen not only in oil, but in copper, corn, coffee and cotton last year.
Proposals on contract position limits, necessary to avoid any single participant from having overwhelming influence on prices, were argued previously in December without resolution.
Bart Chilton, the one commissioner committed to strict position-limits in futures markets, gave up on a hard limit Thursday, proposing a much weaker "point system" to monitor participants, without any authority to force a finite limit or liquidation of positions.
If Chilton has given in, a dam has broken, and we shouldn't expect substantial position-limiting rules in futures markets to come from the CFTC.
Another issue defining new swaps clearinghouses and who can own them has generated similar industry interest and pushback. Creating "aggregate" owned clearinghouses would help in transparency, fairness of access and help keep the clearing business competitive. Undue influence by a small group of banks in a new Swaps Execution Facility (SEF) could potentially control the nexus of trade and give far too much of an advantage for the bank owners, it is feared.
Republican commission members have agreed with investment bank lawyers and the Futures Industry Association (FIA) that even the proposed 40% ownership limit for any one participant is still too low. A recent Department of Justice opinion advocating third-party ownership of new SEFs has been excoriated by industry spokespersons representing the banks saying: "The DOJ letter's analysis appears deficient and fails to consider the relevant history and features of the derivatives markets."
We can see where this issue is ultimately headed. Banks will enjoy pass-through clearing that will in name only be at all different from the bilateral clearing system that is already in place and has sunk derivative markets in the past.
The bottom line is that commodity trading isn't about to change one iota from the system that has caused one boom and bust cycle for oil already and is currently causing others in corn, coffee, copper and cotton.
For the average investor, it's tough to profit from this laissez-faire rule-making result -- most of the trading profits from higher commodity prices will be enjoyed by the funds and commodity proprietary desks, accessible only to the most well-heeled investor. For the "regular" guy, I again repeat my recommendations that have proven so profitable so far: Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips to take advantage of rising crude oil and Freeport-McMoRan and Southern Copper to profit from rising base metals, especially copper.
A great opportunity to avoid the similar problems in commodities we saw in 2008 with credit default swaps and mortgage securities is being lost. Get ready for $4 gas and your local Starbucks brew heading north of 5 bucks—all courtesy of the financial lobbyists, hedge fund traders, industry spokesmen and the CFTC.
Watching the CFTC attempt to back up Dodd-Frank legislation since it was passed in July has been like watching salmon flop upstream as the water drains out -- it's slow, arduous and likely to lead nowhere.
It is clear now that we will instead be witness to the highest prices for commodities ever, fueled by the biggest influx of profit-driven trading and investment ever, unstanched even in the slightest by the hopes of financial regulation legislation.
In my upcoming book, Oil's Endless Bid, due out from John Wiley & Sons in March, I argue that financial influences from investors and traders and the massive growth of derivatives markets have been the single most important factor for oil's high and unreliable price, far outstripping fundamental arguments of emerging market growth, peak oil or any other supply constraints or a devaluing dollar.
Putting some controls on at least some of these speculative influences was supposed to be one of the goals of Dodd-Frank, but the actual rule-making to put teeth behind the legislation has been left to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Since it began tackling this massive job in July 2010, the CFTC has literally been uried by the pushback from industry lobbyists, hired-gun lawyers, derivatives broker/dealers and virtually every industrial corporation with a trading desk that depends even marginally on derivatives activity to protect or augment profits.
The process of rule-making has seemed like it would be fair—propose a rule from the outline of Dodd-Frank and open a forum for comment and discussion before ultimately writing and enforcing it. The problem has been the virtual avalanche of opinion that has descended on the commissioners entirely from the industry side; pretty much no one has bothered to speak for the American public—the consumer—and the industry just wants Dodd-Frank and those profit-dissolving proposals to go away.
Consequently, there has been little to no movement since July, despite the mandate of legislation to have rules for energy markets in place by January, a deadline that the CFTC has already indicated it will certainly miss.
Two specific areas have already convinced me that the rules will ultimately be toothless, business will proceed as usual and whatever is implemented will do nothing to curb the explosive price rises we've seen not only in oil, but in copper, corn, coffee and cotton last year.
Proposals on contract position limits, necessary to avoid any single participant from having overwhelming influence on prices, were argued previously in December without resolution.
Bart Chilton, the one commissioner committed to strict position-limits in futures markets, gave up on a hard limit Thursday, proposing a much weaker "point system" to monitor participants, without any authority to force a finite limit or liquidation of positions.
If Chilton has given in, a dam has broken, and we shouldn't expect substantial position-limiting rules in futures markets to come from the CFTC.
Another issue defining new swaps clearinghouses and who can own them has generated similar industry interest and pushback. Creating "aggregate" owned clearinghouses would help in transparency, fairness of access and help keep the clearing business competitive. Undue influence by a small group of banks in a new Swaps Execution Facility (SEF) could potentially control the nexus of trade and give far too much of an advantage for the bank owners, it is feared.
Republican commission members have agreed with investment bank lawyers and the Futures Industry Association (FIA) that even the proposed 40% ownership limit for any one participant is still too low. A recent Department of Justice opinion advocating third-party ownership of new SEFs has been excoriated by industry spokespersons representing the banks saying: "The DOJ letter's analysis appears deficient and fails to consider the relevant history and features of the derivatives markets."
We can see where this issue is ultimately headed. Banks will enjoy pass-through clearing that will in name only be at all different from the bilateral clearing system that is already in place and has sunk derivative markets in the past.
The bottom line is that commodity trading isn't about to change one iota from the system that has caused one boom and bust cycle for oil already and is currently causing others in corn, coffee, copper and cotton.
For the average investor, it's tough to profit from this laissez-faire rule-making result -- most of the trading profits from higher commodity prices will be enjoyed by the funds and commodity proprietary desks, accessible only to the most well-heeled investor. For the "regular" guy, I again repeat my recommendations that have proven so profitable so far: Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips to take advantage of rising crude oil and Freeport-McMoRan and Southern Copper to profit from rising base metals, especially copper.
A great opportunity to avoid the similar problems in commodities we saw in 2008 with credit default swaps and mortgage securities is being lost. Get ready for $4 gas and your local Starbucks brew heading north of 5 bucks—all courtesy of the financial lobbyists, hedge fund traders, industry spokesmen and the CFTC.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Sharpton And Jackson Flesh Peddlerss: Exchanges The Plight Of A People For Profit
Atlanta Post - In a recent New York Daily News op-ed which garnered mostly snickers and jeers, Rev. Al Sharpton, or as he was referred to by one snarky reader in the comments section – “Rev. Simpleton” – anointed himself sole heir to Martin Luther King’s dream and proclaimed that King’s dream had been nearly fulfilled in New York.
During a brief moment of deliberation about the cases of Abner Louima and Amadou Diallo in his piece, Sharpton reflected the following, “…during these times, we were all forced to take a stern, hard look in the mirror to see how our own shortcomings and preconceived ideas may have contributed to a climate of hatred and animosity.”
Yes, if you utter the wrong words at the wrong time or offer up your wallet too quickly, New York City’s finest are predisposed to stick a plunger up your hiney or fill your body with bullets. It happens.
And when Rev. Sharpton’s ex-wife and daughter were arrested in Harlem after a traffic stop, I’m guessing that ‘just happened’ too. Back then though, Rev. Al Sharpton lashed out at what he called the “unfair treatment” of his ex- wife and daughter by New York City cops. How far we’ve come since 2009.
Rev. Simpleton is a charlatan. I’ve been preaching this mantra to anyone who’ll listen for longer than I care to remember. But it’s always a positive development when the person you’re dissecting adopts an active role in his own undoing. Reverend Al has revealed himself to us. He, and those like him (Rev. Jackson & Co.), have always and continue to use MLK’s legacy as the preferred currency for their personal asset accumulation.
The hustle may change, but the game remains the same.
In a society of haves and have-nots, where strengthened clusters of haves are recapturing wealth from the have-nots, Al Sharpton is being leveraged by the super-elites to convince African Americans not to trust their lying eyes. He tinkers around the edges, blustering about one thing or another, but never having any beneficial impact on the community he claims to serve.
At this point, I feel that I’m beating a dead horse – both figuratively and literally. The vast intellectualism in the black community has been replaced by self-interested quackery. Al Sharpton runs a media firm while Jesse Jackson heads an entrepreneurial conglomerate – evidenced by his annual Wall Street Project. These two men don’t bellow from the good book of anyone’s pulpit every Sunday morning, don’t focus the bulk of their energy on their flock, nor do they abide by Christian principles and thus, their titles are mere symbols intended to hone your attention on the very things that they are not – honest men with moral cores. Henceforth, I will be referring to Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson absent their title of Reverend. By doing so, I aim to elevate content above symbolism.
What’s made clear from Mr. Sharpton’s camouflage of 21st century disparities is that the African American community is 1) devoid of principled leadership and 2) having their views misrepresented on both the national and international stage. More than any other time in history, African-Americans are in dire need of an action plan.
First up on our to do list should be recasting the spotlight of leadership elsewhere, preferably as far away from Sharpton and Jackson as possible. How do we do that? Glad you asked.
1) Resist any impulse to defend Mr. Sharpton or Mr. Jackson in conversation, even on Right wing blogs or among mixed crowds where the impulse is strongest. Instead, deflect the conversation to a thinker who you believe is a better surrogate than Sharpton or Jackson. The person you choose could be anyone; entrepreneur, professor, writer, essayist etc. Just be sure the person has a strong record of working with ideas and creative solutions.
2) Call up your media outlet when you turn on the tube and see Sharpton or Jackson’s serpentine smile on any of the major news networks. Ask why these men are given your proxy? Make your displeasure known. Further, advise them that the views espoused by these men do not reflect your perspective or that of the broader African American community.
There is hope that we can remove Sharpton and Jackson from the conversation and allow for the re-emergence of men like Clarence Jones. In a recent op-ed published in The Guardian, Jones – who was also Martin Luther King’s speechwriter and counsel, said what all African-Americans know is true: Dr. King’s dream remains unfulfilled. It’s somewhat reassuring to know that we have at least one stalwart in the room whose not toiling away King’s legacy in exchange for proximity to power. It’s a rarity these days.
During a brief moment of deliberation about the cases of Abner Louima and Amadou Diallo in his piece, Sharpton reflected the following, “…during these times, we were all forced to take a stern, hard look in the mirror to see how our own shortcomings and preconceived ideas may have contributed to a climate of hatred and animosity.”
Yes, if you utter the wrong words at the wrong time or offer up your wallet too quickly, New York City’s finest are predisposed to stick a plunger up your hiney or fill your body with bullets. It happens.
And when Rev. Sharpton’s ex-wife and daughter were arrested in Harlem after a traffic stop, I’m guessing that ‘just happened’ too. Back then though, Rev. Al Sharpton lashed out at what he called the “unfair treatment” of his ex- wife and daughter by New York City cops. How far we’ve come since 2009.
Rev. Simpleton is a charlatan. I’ve been preaching this mantra to anyone who’ll listen for longer than I care to remember. But it’s always a positive development when the person you’re dissecting adopts an active role in his own undoing. Reverend Al has revealed himself to us. He, and those like him (Rev. Jackson & Co.), have always and continue to use MLK’s legacy as the preferred currency for their personal asset accumulation.
The hustle may change, but the game remains the same.
In a society of haves and have-nots, where strengthened clusters of haves are recapturing wealth from the have-nots, Al Sharpton is being leveraged by the super-elites to convince African Americans not to trust their lying eyes. He tinkers around the edges, blustering about one thing or another, but never having any beneficial impact on the community he claims to serve.
At this point, I feel that I’m beating a dead horse – both figuratively and literally. The vast intellectualism in the black community has been replaced by self-interested quackery. Al Sharpton runs a media firm while Jesse Jackson heads an entrepreneurial conglomerate – evidenced by his annual Wall Street Project. These two men don’t bellow from the good book of anyone’s pulpit every Sunday morning, don’t focus the bulk of their energy on their flock, nor do they abide by Christian principles and thus, their titles are mere symbols intended to hone your attention on the very things that they are not – honest men with moral cores. Henceforth, I will be referring to Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson absent their title of Reverend. By doing so, I aim to elevate content above symbolism.
What’s made clear from Mr. Sharpton’s camouflage of 21st century disparities is that the African American community is 1) devoid of principled leadership and 2) having their views misrepresented on both the national and international stage. More than any other time in history, African-Americans are in dire need of an action plan.
First up on our to do list should be recasting the spotlight of leadership elsewhere, preferably as far away from Sharpton and Jackson as possible. How do we do that? Glad you asked.
1) Resist any impulse to defend Mr. Sharpton or Mr. Jackson in conversation, even on Right wing blogs or among mixed crowds where the impulse is strongest. Instead, deflect the conversation to a thinker who you believe is a better surrogate than Sharpton or Jackson. The person you choose could be anyone; entrepreneur, professor, writer, essayist etc. Just be sure the person has a strong record of working with ideas and creative solutions.
2) Call up your media outlet when you turn on the tube and see Sharpton or Jackson’s serpentine smile on any of the major news networks. Ask why these men are given your proxy? Make your displeasure known. Further, advise them that the views espoused by these men do not reflect your perspective or that of the broader African American community.
There is hope that we can remove Sharpton and Jackson from the conversation and allow for the re-emergence of men like Clarence Jones. In a recent op-ed published in The Guardian, Jones – who was also Martin Luther King’s speechwriter and counsel, said what all African-Americans know is true: Dr. King’s dream remains unfulfilled. It’s somewhat reassuring to know that we have at least one stalwart in the room whose not toiling away King’s legacy in exchange for proximity to power. It’s a rarity these days.
Newt Gingrich Tells Friends In Georiga That He's Running For President
AllahPundit - Not a surprise, but this is as close as he’s gotten so far to a formal announcement.
In the last 24 hours, former U.S. House speaker Newt Gingrich has touched base with several prominent Republicans in his former home state, telling them that he intends to make a run for president in 2012 using Georgia as his base – and that he already has his eye on office space in Buckhead for a campaign headquarters…
The visits and conversations – some face-to-face, others on the phone — appear to be an attempt by Gingrich to revive his old campaign network and lock down as much support as possible in a state won by Republican Mike Huckabee in the 2008 presidential primary.
A spokeswoman for Johnny Isakson said Gingrich called the U.S. senator earlier this month – adding that Gingrich was not definite about his plans in that conversation. In an interview on Friday, U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss said he had not talked to Gingrich yet, but that the former U.S. House speaker had asked for an appointment in the near future. “He said, ‘I need a significant amount of your time,’” Chambliss said.
Follow the link for a brutal quote from Chambliss giving Newt the treatment Palin typically gets from Beltway Republicans, i.e. love ya, love ya, love ya, but you can’t win. Back in November, PPP asked supporters of each of the big four candidates who their second choice is in case their favorite doesn’t run. Gingrich didn’t make the cut for second place among any group; his best showing was drawing 20 percent of Palin’s supporters (compared to 24 percent for Huckabee) if she skips the race. Here’s an interesting data point for Palin fans, though, about Newt’s own supporters:
If Newt Gingrich doesn’t run the biggest beneficiary would be Mike Huckabee. 31% of Gingrich supporters say Huck is their second choice, followed by 27% who say it’s Mitt Romney and 19% who say it’s Sarah Palin.
A Gingrich candidacy actually helps her slightly since he’s drawing away more of Huck’s and Mitt’s potential supporters than hers. In fact, the AJC goes on to say in the piece quoted above that one of Newt’s objectives in shoring up support in Georgia is to head off Huckabee, who won the state in 2008 and stands to do well in the south generally. It’s strange to think of a wonk like Newt having to worry most about a guy whose biggest political asset, arguably, is his faith, but such are the vagaries of regional politics, my friends.
Here’s Human Events’s Jason Mattera interviewing Gingrich about Hopenchange turning into Clinton’s third term, which … sounds ominous given BJ’s record at the polls.
In the last 24 hours, former U.S. House speaker Newt Gingrich has touched base with several prominent Republicans in his former home state, telling them that he intends to make a run for president in 2012 using Georgia as his base – and that he already has his eye on office space in Buckhead for a campaign headquarters…
The visits and conversations – some face-to-face, others on the phone — appear to be an attempt by Gingrich to revive his old campaign network and lock down as much support as possible in a state won by Republican Mike Huckabee in the 2008 presidential primary.
A spokeswoman for Johnny Isakson said Gingrich called the U.S. senator earlier this month – adding that Gingrich was not definite about his plans in that conversation. In an interview on Friday, U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss said he had not talked to Gingrich yet, but that the former U.S. House speaker had asked for an appointment in the near future. “He said, ‘I need a significant amount of your time,’” Chambliss said.
Follow the link for a brutal quote from Chambliss giving Newt the treatment Palin typically gets from Beltway Republicans, i.e. love ya, love ya, love ya, but you can’t win. Back in November, PPP asked supporters of each of the big four candidates who their second choice is in case their favorite doesn’t run. Gingrich didn’t make the cut for second place among any group; his best showing was drawing 20 percent of Palin’s supporters (compared to 24 percent for Huckabee) if she skips the race. Here’s an interesting data point for Palin fans, though, about Newt’s own supporters:
If Newt Gingrich doesn’t run the biggest beneficiary would be Mike Huckabee. 31% of Gingrich supporters say Huck is their second choice, followed by 27% who say it’s Mitt Romney and 19% who say it’s Sarah Palin.
A Gingrich candidacy actually helps her slightly since he’s drawing away more of Huck’s and Mitt’s potential supporters than hers. In fact, the AJC goes on to say in the piece quoted above that one of Newt’s objectives in shoring up support in Georgia is to head off Huckabee, who won the state in 2008 and stands to do well in the south generally. It’s strange to think of a wonk like Newt having to worry most about a guy whose biggest political asset, arguably, is his faith, but such are the vagaries of regional politics, my friends.
Here’s Human Events’s Jason Mattera interviewing Gingrich about Hopenchange turning into Clinton’s third term, which … sounds ominous given BJ’s record at the polls.
Friday, January 21, 2011
GE CEO Jeff Immelt China To Replace U.S. As Top Economic Power
(Reuters) - For Jeff Immelt, the CEO of General Electric (GE.N), the 130 year-old American industrial behemoth, the financial crisis marked the end of the age of America's economic dominance.
"I came to GE in 1982," Mr. Immelt told me this week in Washington. "For the first 25 years, until the bubble crashed in 2007, the American consumer was the definitive driver of the global economy."
But Mr. Immelt said the future will be different. For the next 25 years, he said, the American consumer "is not going to be the engine of global growth. It is going to be the billion people joining the middle class in Asia, it is going to be what the resource-rich countries do with their newfound wealth of high oil prices. That's the game."
A lot of that game will be played in China. At a moment when it is compulsory on the American right to pay homage to the exceptionalism of the United States, Mr. Immelt, a lifelong Republican, is matter-of-fact about China's inevitable rise.
Indeed, reflecting this pragmatism, GE is this week signing a joint venture agreement in commercial aviation with a state-owned Chinese company that -- despite any risk of handing over advanced technology -- will mean sharing some of the most sophisticated airplane electronics.
"It is going to be the biggest economy in the world," Mr. Immelt said of China. "The only question is when."
Underlining this new reality, Mr. Immelt spoke after attending a White House summit of U.S. and Chinese CEOs, and before a state dinner for Chinese President Hu Jintao in Washington.
In the American public discourse, the big strain in the American-Chinese economic relationship is the renminbi, and what many Americans view as the government-manipulated undervaluation of the Chinese currency.
Some U.S. businessmen -- who share Mr. Immelt's enthusiasm for the Chinese market -- are so keen to court Sino-investors that they are reluctant publicly to criticize China's exchange rate policy.
Mr. Immelt is bolder. He supports the open complaints from Mr. Obama and his administration about the exchange rate -- but not why you might think. For the GE chief, the renminbi is a valid focus of U.S. economic policy not because of its impact on his company's bottom line, but because of its impact on American public opinion.
At a time of much worry that the American public debate is dumbed-down and parochial, the fact that currency exchange rates have become a populist issue says a lot about Americans, and their awareness of the impact of globalization.
Here's how Mr. Immelt explained GE's perspective: "Is it the one, two, three, four or five issue for GE? It isn't, because we make and sell things in so many different countries around the world.'' Yet Mr. Obama was right to complain, Mr. Immelt added, because ''it's important for the President to do the right things inside our country so that people feel like China can be a partner, and if it means sometimes you have to talk tough … then I want the President to do that.''
But the GE chief had a warning for those Americans tempted to attribute China's rise, and possibly their own country's economic malaise, to the Chinese exchange rate.
"If the American people sit back in the comfort of their home, whether it is in Ohio or New York state, and think that the only reason the Chinese succeed is because of the cheap currency, they're missing the point. And I think that's dangerous."
The China challenge, in Mr. Immelt's view, is about much more than a manipulated exchange rate and "cheap labor." "It is the adaptability, it is the speed with which they move, it is the unanimity of purpose, it is the productivity of thought," he said, adding that when he visits his interlocutors at the Ministry of Railways in Beijing, the mandarins are at work on Sunday. Nor does Mr. Immelt flinch when, in conversation, it is suggested that this "business model that works for them" is Communist authoritarianism. "That has been very effective," he said. "They're in their 12th five-year plan and they've done quite well."
If you stop to recall that just 20 years ago America was the proud victor of the Cold War, confident it could export democracy and free-market capitalism to the rest of the world, that is quite a concession, particularly coming as it does from a conservative, millionaire, college-football playing, Cincinnati-raised businessman.
But it speaks to Mr. Immelt's belief -- shared by other global-minded American businesspeople -- that the defining challenge for America in the 21st century is understanding that "there are certain things that are taking place that you have to treat as real and important, and the emergence of the developing world is one of those."
And Mr. Immelt thinks he knows what America needs to do to thrive in this changed world. "If you want to be a great country, which the U.S. has every right to want to be, you have got to be thinking about being a better exporter," he said. "Our only destiny can be as a high-tech exporter, that creates jobs, high-paying jobs ... Export-led growth is the key to national success.''
Happily for Mr. Immelt, that national destiny would be very good indeed for high-tech manufacturers, like -- to take one not very random example -- GE.
Both the approach, and the man who advocates it, are finding favor in a White House keenly aware that Mr. Obama must be seen as trying to reduce stubbornly high unemployment.
Expect to hear more on Friday, when Mr. Obama and Mr. Immelt, who is a member of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, are scheduled to visit GE's birthplace in Schenectady, New York, and talk about ... how to create American jobs in the competitive global economy.
"I came to GE in 1982," Mr. Immelt told me this week in Washington. "For the first 25 years, until the bubble crashed in 2007, the American consumer was the definitive driver of the global economy."
But Mr. Immelt said the future will be different. For the next 25 years, he said, the American consumer "is not going to be the engine of global growth. It is going to be the billion people joining the middle class in Asia, it is going to be what the resource-rich countries do with their newfound wealth of high oil prices. That's the game."
A lot of that game will be played in China. At a moment when it is compulsory on the American right to pay homage to the exceptionalism of the United States, Mr. Immelt, a lifelong Republican, is matter-of-fact about China's inevitable rise.
Indeed, reflecting this pragmatism, GE is this week signing a joint venture agreement in commercial aviation with a state-owned Chinese company that -- despite any risk of handing over advanced technology -- will mean sharing some of the most sophisticated airplane electronics.
"It is going to be the biggest economy in the world," Mr. Immelt said of China. "The only question is when."
Underlining this new reality, Mr. Immelt spoke after attending a White House summit of U.S. and Chinese CEOs, and before a state dinner for Chinese President Hu Jintao in Washington.
In the American public discourse, the big strain in the American-Chinese economic relationship is the renminbi, and what many Americans view as the government-manipulated undervaluation of the Chinese currency.
Some U.S. businessmen -- who share Mr. Immelt's enthusiasm for the Chinese market -- are so keen to court Sino-investors that they are reluctant publicly to criticize China's exchange rate policy.
Mr. Immelt is bolder. He supports the open complaints from Mr. Obama and his administration about the exchange rate -- but not why you might think. For the GE chief, the renminbi is a valid focus of U.S. economic policy not because of its impact on his company's bottom line, but because of its impact on American public opinion.
At a time of much worry that the American public debate is dumbed-down and parochial, the fact that currency exchange rates have become a populist issue says a lot about Americans, and their awareness of the impact of globalization.
Here's how Mr. Immelt explained GE's perspective: "Is it the one, two, three, four or five issue for GE? It isn't, because we make and sell things in so many different countries around the world.'' Yet Mr. Obama was right to complain, Mr. Immelt added, because ''it's important for the President to do the right things inside our country so that people feel like China can be a partner, and if it means sometimes you have to talk tough … then I want the President to do that.''
But the GE chief had a warning for those Americans tempted to attribute China's rise, and possibly their own country's economic malaise, to the Chinese exchange rate.
"If the American people sit back in the comfort of their home, whether it is in Ohio or New York state, and think that the only reason the Chinese succeed is because of the cheap currency, they're missing the point. And I think that's dangerous."
The China challenge, in Mr. Immelt's view, is about much more than a manipulated exchange rate and "cheap labor." "It is the adaptability, it is the speed with which they move, it is the unanimity of purpose, it is the productivity of thought," he said, adding that when he visits his interlocutors at the Ministry of Railways in Beijing, the mandarins are at work on Sunday. Nor does Mr. Immelt flinch when, in conversation, it is suggested that this "business model that works for them" is Communist authoritarianism. "That has been very effective," he said. "They're in their 12th five-year plan and they've done quite well."
If you stop to recall that just 20 years ago America was the proud victor of the Cold War, confident it could export democracy and free-market capitalism to the rest of the world, that is quite a concession, particularly coming as it does from a conservative, millionaire, college-football playing, Cincinnati-raised businessman.
But it speaks to Mr. Immelt's belief -- shared by other global-minded American businesspeople -- that the defining challenge for America in the 21st century is understanding that "there are certain things that are taking place that you have to treat as real and important, and the emergence of the developing world is one of those."
And Mr. Immelt thinks he knows what America needs to do to thrive in this changed world. "If you want to be a great country, which the U.S. has every right to want to be, you have got to be thinking about being a better exporter," he said. "Our only destiny can be as a high-tech exporter, that creates jobs, high-paying jobs ... Export-led growth is the key to national success.''
Happily for Mr. Immelt, that national destiny would be very good indeed for high-tech manufacturers, like -- to take one not very random example -- GE.
Both the approach, and the man who advocates it, are finding favor in a White House keenly aware that Mr. Obama must be seen as trying to reduce stubbornly high unemployment.
Expect to hear more on Friday, when Mr. Obama and Mr. Immelt, who is a member of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, are scheduled to visit GE's birthplace in Schenectady, New York, and talk about ... how to create American jobs in the competitive global economy.
Abortion On Demand: Dr. Gosnell's House Of Horrors
Nice Deb - Some news stories are almost too sick and disturbing to countenance. You just want to look away and pretend it’s not happening.
The Philadelphia abortion butcher horror is just that sort of story for me. And while the left calls for more “civility” in public discourse, our civil betters are flushing this story down the memory hole as quickly as possible because it doesn’t further their narrative. It furthers ours: Legal or illegal, abortion is a ghastly business that corrupts everything it touches.
In Doc Gosnell’s case, liberal fealty to the pro-abortion narrative was so heart-achingly appalling and indecent, I’m near speechless.
The Anchoress isn’t speechless, although she’s just as horrified: Gosnell; Baby Feet Kick the Nation – UPDATES
I have been afraid to write about this woman-killing, baby-slaughtering, fertility-stealing, heartless and exploitative freak since the story broke. It’s been that horrifying.
***
Of course this neglect toward patient’s safety and the law is by design. A shoddy operation like Gosnell’s could not have continued to perpetrate medical atrocities on women, unless somewhere along the line situations were going unreported and investigations were left unassigned as true-believers within the system looked determinedly away. See pages 9-15 of the report. In fact, just keep reading.
For them, I suppose, these dead or maimed women might be considered “collateral damage” in the efforts to preserve a “choice” they consider sacrosanct. If a few women perish along with the million babies per year, well, it’s such a small number, right?
And if some women are left scarred, maimed or infertile, well…probably they’re the sort of women who shouldn’t have babies, anyway, right?
***
Yesterday on Twitter, a journalist wrote: “This abortion doctor story is gruesome. Anti-choicers will seize on it, but it’s about criminal behavior, not abortion.”
Its funny how framing works. A massacre perpetrated by a deranged man is not about the deranged man; it’s about “rhetoric.” But a massacre perpetrated by an abortion provider whose violations against laws of the nation and of humanity were overlooked for years is “not about abortion.” It’s about criminal behavior, and that’s all. But some of our most prominent politicians have voted against the very bill — the “born alive” bill — that defines such behavior as criminal. Meaning, I guess, that if only enough politicians had voted with Sen. Barack Obama, Gosnell’s behavior would not be “criminal” at all, and therefore we wouldn’t even be talking about it?
Nobody wanted to believe this about Obama in 2008:
More Anchoress: Abortion, Language and Looking Away:
Many of the women who came to Gosnell were poor, and far along in their pregnancies They paid exorbitant sums to Gosnell (after being referred to him by who? Other doctors?) in order to be stripped from the waist down and given not-so-much as a gown — only blood-stained blankets that were washed once a week. They were anesthetized by unlicensed persons while flea-infested cats roamed freely. That’s just the tip of this iceberg, but I can’t go on because its too upsetting. The babies who “precipitated” and “fell out” of women while no medical personnel were available; babies being pulled out of the pipes or “seeming to swim” in the toilet. Babies breathing and crying before their spinal cords were “snipped” and their bodies were thrown into empty milk-cartins, cat food containers, shoe boxes. Women who were maimed or left infertile, or diseased or killed. The unwashed instruments, the bloody tables and stirrups, the feet severed from babies and kept as trophies.
Crying yet? How many more clinics like Gosnell’s are there out there?
The press is not going giving a full sense of the scope of this horrorshow, because they will want this story minimized and shoved down the memory hole as fast as possible. There are a few weak lines of spin being bandied about, but do not be fooled; this is about abortion in America, and about a mindset that will excuse a great deal for its sake. Steel yourself to it and try to read the report. Become educated about Gosnell; it is very likely there are more like him — exploiting the poor, cutting every corner and confident that local authorities and regulators will not care.
We were told that Roe v. Wade made abortion “safe, legal, and rare”. Well, it certainly made it legal.
Michelle Malkin posts the grand jury report, and focuses on the media angle to the story: The Philadelphia Horror: How mass murder gets a pass
Deadly indifference to protecting life isn’t tangential to the abortion industry’s existence – it’s at the core of it. The Philadelphia Horror is no anomaly. It’s the logical, blood-curdling consequence of an evil, eugenics-rootedenterprise wrapped in feminist clothing.
Almost as if on cue, R.S. McCain posts: Professor on Aborted Babies: ‘I Look at Them Unflinchingly and See Meat’:
“I’ve scooped brains out of buckets, I’ve counted dendrites in slices cut from the brains of dead babies. You want to make me back down by trying to inspire revulsion with dead baby pictures? I look at them unflinchingly and see meat. And meat does not frighten me.”
– Paul Z. Myers, University of Minnesota biology professor
While Prof Babymeat has no problem with the murder charges against Gosnell pertaining to the women, he takes exception to charges for the baby murders:
He has also been charged with the murders of seven babies, and there I have to disagree. There has to be a difference in degree, or the mothers of those infants would also have to be charged as collaborators (they were all willing volunteers for this medical procedure, and they knew the result would be termination of their pregnancy). They haven’t, and they shouldn’t. Much noise is being made about the “horrific” killings, but late term abortions, even the ones done in clean, properly maintained facilities with well-trained personnel, are always necessarily bloody and unpleasant affairs, like most surgeries.
See, only the women’s deaths and mutilations were “horrific”. All those babies who bawled as their spinal chords were snipped, or were delivered straight into the toilet….no big deal.
Vox Popoli sez:
This is the naked face of atheism, ladies and gentlemen. Look on it well and remember it, because it usually doesn’t dare to show its disgusting and anti-human nature so openly.
I was thinking the same thing, but didn’t want to bring atheism into it. Not all atheists are like that.
Ed Morrissey notes at Hot Air:
There are really two stories here. The first is Gosnell and his clinic, and all of the damage and death he caused over a decades-long run. The second is the utter lack of concern over it by government authorities that supposedly exist to protect public health and women. The grand jury report could not possibly be more damning of the failure of public oversight in the Gosnell case. The media is covering the first and doing their best to ignore the second, and especially the reasons for the failure, which the grand jury showed more courage in defining than news organization have done in reporting.
Ace plumbs the depths of depravity at a radical feminist hive known as Feministing : Feminists: What Gosnell Did Says Absolutely Nothing About Abortion Because It Wasn’t Abortion
The Philadelphia abortion butcher horror is just that sort of story for me. And while the left calls for more “civility” in public discourse, our civil betters are flushing this story down the memory hole as quickly as possible because it doesn’t further their narrative. It furthers ours: Legal or illegal, abortion is a ghastly business that corrupts everything it touches.
In Doc Gosnell’s case, liberal fealty to the pro-abortion narrative was so heart-achingly appalling and indecent, I’m near speechless.
The Anchoress isn’t speechless, although she’s just as horrified: Gosnell; Baby Feet Kick the Nation – UPDATES
I have been afraid to write about this woman-killing, baby-slaughtering, fertility-stealing, heartless and exploitative freak since the story broke. It’s been that horrifying.
***
Of course this neglect toward patient’s safety and the law is by design. A shoddy operation like Gosnell’s could not have continued to perpetrate medical atrocities on women, unless somewhere along the line situations were going unreported and investigations were left unassigned as true-believers within the system looked determinedly away. See pages 9-15 of the report. In fact, just keep reading.
For them, I suppose, these dead or maimed women might be considered “collateral damage” in the efforts to preserve a “choice” they consider sacrosanct. If a few women perish along with the million babies per year, well, it’s such a small number, right?
And if some women are left scarred, maimed or infertile, well…probably they’re the sort of women who shouldn’t have babies, anyway, right?
***
Yesterday on Twitter, a journalist wrote: “This abortion doctor story is gruesome. Anti-choicers will seize on it, but it’s about criminal behavior, not abortion.”
Its funny how framing works. A massacre perpetrated by a deranged man is not about the deranged man; it’s about “rhetoric.” But a massacre perpetrated by an abortion provider whose violations against laws of the nation and of humanity were overlooked for years is “not about abortion.” It’s about criminal behavior, and that’s all. But some of our most prominent politicians have voted against the very bill — the “born alive” bill — that defines such behavior as criminal. Meaning, I guess, that if only enough politicians had voted with Sen. Barack Obama, Gosnell’s behavior would not be “criminal” at all, and therefore we wouldn’t even be talking about it?
Nobody wanted to believe this about Obama in 2008:
More Anchoress: Abortion, Language and Looking Away:
Many of the women who came to Gosnell were poor, and far along in their pregnancies They paid exorbitant sums to Gosnell (after being referred to him by who? Other doctors?) in order to be stripped from the waist down and given not-so-much as a gown — only blood-stained blankets that were washed once a week. They were anesthetized by unlicensed persons while flea-infested cats roamed freely. That’s just the tip of this iceberg, but I can’t go on because its too upsetting. The babies who “precipitated” and “fell out” of women while no medical personnel were available; babies being pulled out of the pipes or “seeming to swim” in the toilet. Babies breathing and crying before their spinal cords were “snipped” and their bodies were thrown into empty milk-cartins, cat food containers, shoe boxes. Women who were maimed or left infertile, or diseased or killed. The unwashed instruments, the bloody tables and stirrups, the feet severed from babies and kept as trophies.
Crying yet? How many more clinics like Gosnell’s are there out there?
The press is not going giving a full sense of the scope of this horrorshow, because they will want this story minimized and shoved down the memory hole as fast as possible. There are a few weak lines of spin being bandied about, but do not be fooled; this is about abortion in America, and about a mindset that will excuse a great deal for its sake. Steel yourself to it and try to read the report. Become educated about Gosnell; it is very likely there are more like him — exploiting the poor, cutting every corner and confident that local authorities and regulators will not care.
We were told that Roe v. Wade made abortion “safe, legal, and rare”. Well, it certainly made it legal.
Michelle Malkin posts the grand jury report, and focuses on the media angle to the story: The Philadelphia Horror: How mass murder gets a pass
Deadly indifference to protecting life isn’t tangential to the abortion industry’s existence – it’s at the core of it. The Philadelphia Horror is no anomaly. It’s the logical, blood-curdling consequence of an evil, eugenics-rootedenterprise wrapped in feminist clothing.
Almost as if on cue, R.S. McCain posts: Professor on Aborted Babies: ‘I Look at Them Unflinchingly and See Meat’:
“I’ve scooped brains out of buckets, I’ve counted dendrites in slices cut from the brains of dead babies. You want to make me back down by trying to inspire revulsion with dead baby pictures? I look at them unflinchingly and see meat. And meat does not frighten me.”
– Paul Z. Myers, University of Minnesota biology professor
While Prof Babymeat has no problem with the murder charges against Gosnell pertaining to the women, he takes exception to charges for the baby murders:
He has also been charged with the murders of seven babies, and there I have to disagree. There has to be a difference in degree, or the mothers of those infants would also have to be charged as collaborators (they were all willing volunteers for this medical procedure, and they knew the result would be termination of their pregnancy). They haven’t, and they shouldn’t. Much noise is being made about the “horrific” killings, but late term abortions, even the ones done in clean, properly maintained facilities with well-trained personnel, are always necessarily bloody and unpleasant affairs, like most surgeries.
See, only the women’s deaths and mutilations were “horrific”. All those babies who bawled as their spinal chords were snipped, or were delivered straight into the toilet….no big deal.
Vox Popoli sez:
This is the naked face of atheism, ladies and gentlemen. Look on it well and remember it, because it usually doesn’t dare to show its disgusting and anti-human nature so openly.
I was thinking the same thing, but didn’t want to bring atheism into it. Not all atheists are like that.
Ed Morrissey notes at Hot Air:
There are really two stories here. The first is Gosnell and his clinic, and all of the damage and death he caused over a decades-long run. The second is the utter lack of concern over it by government authorities that supposedly exist to protect public health and women. The grand jury report could not possibly be more damning of the failure of public oversight in the Gosnell case. The media is covering the first and doing their best to ignore the second, and especially the reasons for the failure, which the grand jury showed more courage in defining than news organization have done in reporting.
Ace plumbs the depths of depravity at a radical feminist hive known as Feministing : Feminists: What Gosnell Did Says Absolutely Nothing About Abortion Because It Wasn’t Abortion
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Goldman Sachs Rewards Staff $11.4 Billion Bonuses
Independent.ie - Wall Street banking giant Goldman Sachs revealed today that staff earned a total of $15.4bn (€11.4bn) in pay and bonuses last year.
The total figure represents a 5pc decline on the previous year's pot, but the share of revenues paid out in salary and benefits for 2010 was up from 35.8pc at 39.3pc.
The firm posted a 38pc drop in net earnings to $8.35bn (€6.2bn) for the year to December 31. This followed a 13pc decline in revenues to $39.16bn (€29bn).
Goldman Sachs took $10bn (€7.4bn) from the US Treasury at the height of the financial crisis but has since paid the money back, with taxpayers earning $1.4bn (€1.03bn) on the investment.
In the UK, the bank is trying to rebuild its reputation after it was fined £17.5m by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) for failing to tell the regulator that Goldman trader Fabrice Tourre was under investigation when he took a job at the bank's London office in 2008.
Goldman has recently been in the spotlight for its dealings with Facebook - the bank invested $500m (€371m) in the social networking giant.
The New York-based group said the drop in revenues compared with 2009 was driven by declines in the firm's underwriting business.
Chief executive Lloyd Blankfein said: "Market and economic conditions for much of 2010 were difficult, but the firm's performance benefited from the strength of our global client franchise and the focus and commitment of our people.
"Looking ahead, we are seeing signs of growth and more economic activity and we are well-positioned to help our clients expand their businesses, manage their risks and invest in the future."
In the UK, Goldman forked out $465m (€345m) in UK bank payroll tax - a one-off 50pc tax on bonuses above £25,000.
But the large tax windfall was not enough to appease the unions, with TUC general secretary Brendan Barber calling for the UK Government to do more to tackle bonuses at the next G20 meeting.
He said: "Goldman Sachs has stuck two fingers up to austerity Britain by shelling out mega bonuses again. These earnings would make Gordon Gekko blush.
"Bankers are toasting their telephone digit bonuses while the rest of the country reels from more than a fifth of young people being out of work. This Government is overseeing a fast return to the worst excesses of the 1980s.
The total figure represents a 5pc decline on the previous year's pot, but the share of revenues paid out in salary and benefits for 2010 was up from 35.8pc at 39.3pc.
The firm posted a 38pc drop in net earnings to $8.35bn (€6.2bn) for the year to December 31. This followed a 13pc decline in revenues to $39.16bn (€29bn).
Goldman Sachs took $10bn (€7.4bn) from the US Treasury at the height of the financial crisis but has since paid the money back, with taxpayers earning $1.4bn (€1.03bn) on the investment.
In the UK, the bank is trying to rebuild its reputation after it was fined £17.5m by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) for failing to tell the regulator that Goldman trader Fabrice Tourre was under investigation when he took a job at the bank's London office in 2008.
Goldman has recently been in the spotlight for its dealings with Facebook - the bank invested $500m (€371m) in the social networking giant.
The New York-based group said the drop in revenues compared with 2009 was driven by declines in the firm's underwriting business.
Chief executive Lloyd Blankfein said: "Market and economic conditions for much of 2010 were difficult, but the firm's performance benefited from the strength of our global client franchise and the focus and commitment of our people.
"Looking ahead, we are seeing signs of growth and more economic activity and we are well-positioned to help our clients expand their businesses, manage their risks and invest in the future."
In the UK, Goldman forked out $465m (€345m) in UK bank payroll tax - a one-off 50pc tax on bonuses above £25,000.
But the large tax windfall was not enough to appease the unions, with TUC general secretary Brendan Barber calling for the UK Government to do more to tackle bonuses at the next G20 meeting.
He said: "Goldman Sachs has stuck two fingers up to austerity Britain by shelling out mega bonuses again. These earnings would make Gordon Gekko blush.
"Bankers are toasting their telephone digit bonuses while the rest of the country reels from more than a fifth of young people being out of work. This Government is overseeing a fast return to the worst excesses of the 1980s.
12 Economic Collapse Scenarios That We Could Potentially See In 2011
Economic Collapse - What could cause an economic collapse in 2011? Well, unfortunately there are quite a few “nightmare scenarios” that could plunge the entire globe into another massive financial crisis. The United States, Japan and most of the nations in Europe are absolutely drowning in debt. The Federal Reserve continues to play reckless games with the U.S. dollar. The price of oil is skyrocketing and the global price of food just hit a new record high. Food riots are already breaking out all over the world. Meanwhile, the rampant fraud and corruption going on in world financial markets is starting to be exposed and the whole house of cards could come crashing down at any time. Most Americans have no idea that a horrific economic collapse could happen at literally any time. There is no way that all of this debt and all of this financial corruption is sustainable. At some point we are going to reach a moment of “total system failure”.
So will it be soon? Let’s hope not. Let’s certainly hope that it does not happen in 2011. Many of us need more time to prepare. Most of our families and friends need more time to prepare. Once this thing implodes there isn’t going to be an opportunity to have a “do over”. We simply will not be able to put the toothpaste back into the tube again.
So we had all better be getting prepared for hard times. The following are 12 economic collapse scenarios that we could potentially see in 2011….
#1 U.S. debt could become a massive crisis at any moment. China is saying all of the right things at the moment, but many analysts are openly worried about what could happen if China suddenly decides to start dumping all of the U.S. debt that they have accumulated. Right now about the only thing keeping U.S. government finances going is the ability to borrow gigantic amounts of money at extremely low interest rates. If anything upsets that paradigm, it could potentially have enormous consequences for the entire world financial system.
#2 Speaking of threats to the global financial system, it turns out that “quantitative easing 2″ has had the exact opposite effect that Ben Bernanke planned for it to have. Bernanke insisted that the main goal of QE2 was to lower interest rates, but instead all it has done is cause interest rates to go up substantially. If Bernanke this incompetent or is he trying to mess everything up on purpose?
#3 The debt bubble that the entire global economy is based on could burst at any time and throw the whole planet into chaos. According to a new report from the World Economic Forum, the total amount of credit in the world increased from $57 trillion in 2000 to $109 trillion in 2009. The WEF says that now the world is going to need another $100 trillion in credit to support projected “economic growth” over the next decade. So is this how the new “global economy” works? We just keep doubling the total amount of debt every decade?
#4 As the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve continue to pump massive amounts of new dollars into the system, the floor could fall out from underneath the U.S. dollar at any time. The truth is that we are already starting to see inflation really accelerate and everyone pretty much acknowledges that official U.S. governments figures for inflation are an absolute joke. According to one new study, the cost of college tuition has risen 286% over the last 20 years, and the cost of “hospital, nursing-home and adult-day-care services” rose 269% during those same two decades. All of this happened during a period of supposedly “low” inflation. So what are price increases going to look like when we actually have “high” inflation?
#5 One of the primary drivers of global inflation during 2011 could be the price of oil. A large number of economists are now projecting that the price of oil could surge well past $100 dollars a barrel in 2011. If that happens, it is going to put significant pressure on the price of almost everything else in the entire global economy. In fact, as I have explained previously, the higher the price of oil goes, the faster the U.S. economy will decline.
#6 Food inflation is already so bad in some areas of the globe that it is setting off massive food riots in nations such as Tunisia and Algeria. In fact, there have been reports of people setting themselves on fire all over the Middle East as a way to draw attention to how desperate they are. So what is going to happen if global food prices go up another 10 or 20 percent and food riots spread literally all over the globe during 2011?
#7 There are persistent rumors that simply will not go away of massive physical gold and silver shortages. Demand for precious metals has never been higher. So what is going to happen when many investors begin to absolutely insist on physical delivery of their precious metals? What is going to happen when the fact that far, far, far more “paper gold” and “paper silver” has been sold than has ever actually physically existed in the history of the planet starts to come out? What would that do to the price of gold and silver?
#8 The U.S. housing industry could plunge the U.S. economy into another recession at any time. The real estate market is absolutely flooded with homes and virtually nobody is buying. This massive oversupply of homes means that the construction of new homes has fallen off a cliff. In 2010, only 703,000 single family, multi-family and manufactured homes were completed. This was a new record low, and it was down 17% from the previous all-time record which had just been set in 2009.
#9 A combination of extreme weather and disease could make this an absolutely brutal year for U.S. farmers. This winter we have already seen thousands of new cold weather and snowfall records set across the United States. Now there is some very disturbing news emerging out of Florida of an “incurable bacteria” that is ravaging citrus crops all over Florida. Is there a reason why so many bad things are happening all of a sudden?
#10 The municipal bond crisis could go “supernova” at any time. Already, investors are bailing out of bonds at a frightening pace. State and local government debt is now sitting at an all-time high of 22 percent of U.S. GDP. According to Meredith Whitney, the municipal bond crisis that we are facing is a gigantic threat to our financial system….
“It has tentacles as wide as anything I’ve seen. I think next to housing this is the single most important issue in the United States and certainly the largest threat to the U.S. economy.”
Former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan is convinced that things are so bad that literally 90% of our states and cities could go bankrupt over the next five years….
#11 Of course on top of everything else, the quadrillion dollar derivatives bubble could burst at any time. Right now we are watching the greatest financial casino in the history of the globe spin around and around and around and everyone is hoping that at some point it doesn’t stop. Today, most money on Wall Street is not made by investing in good business ideas. Rather, most money on Wall Street is now made by making the best bets. Unfortunately, at some point the casino is going to come crashing down and the game will be over.
#12 The biggest wildcard of all is war. The Korean peninsula came closer to war in 2010 than it had in decades. The Middle East could literally explode at any time. We live in a world where a single weapon can take out an entire city in an instant. All it would take is a mid-size war or a couple of weapons of mass destruction to throw the entire global economy into absolute turmoil.
Once again, let us hope that none of these economic collapse scenarios happens in 2011.
However, we have got to realize that we can’t keep dodging these bullets forever.
As bad as 2010 was, the truth is that it went about as good as any of us could have hoped. Things are still pretty stable and times are still pretty good right now.
But instead of using these times to “party”, we should be using them to prepare.
A really, really vicious economic storm is coming and it is going to be a complete and total nightmare. Get ready, hold on tight, and say your prayers.
So will it be soon? Let’s hope not. Let’s certainly hope that it does not happen in 2011. Many of us need more time to prepare. Most of our families and friends need more time to prepare. Once this thing implodes there isn’t going to be an opportunity to have a “do over”. We simply will not be able to put the toothpaste back into the tube again.
So we had all better be getting prepared for hard times. The following are 12 economic collapse scenarios that we could potentially see in 2011….
#1 U.S. debt could become a massive crisis at any moment. China is saying all of the right things at the moment, but many analysts are openly worried about what could happen if China suddenly decides to start dumping all of the U.S. debt that they have accumulated. Right now about the only thing keeping U.S. government finances going is the ability to borrow gigantic amounts of money at extremely low interest rates. If anything upsets that paradigm, it could potentially have enormous consequences for the entire world financial system.
#2 Speaking of threats to the global financial system, it turns out that “quantitative easing 2″ has had the exact opposite effect that Ben Bernanke planned for it to have. Bernanke insisted that the main goal of QE2 was to lower interest rates, but instead all it has done is cause interest rates to go up substantially. If Bernanke this incompetent or is he trying to mess everything up on purpose?
#3 The debt bubble that the entire global economy is based on could burst at any time and throw the whole planet into chaos. According to a new report from the World Economic Forum, the total amount of credit in the world increased from $57 trillion in 2000 to $109 trillion in 2009. The WEF says that now the world is going to need another $100 trillion in credit to support projected “economic growth” over the next decade. So is this how the new “global economy” works? We just keep doubling the total amount of debt every decade?
#4 As the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve continue to pump massive amounts of new dollars into the system, the floor could fall out from underneath the U.S. dollar at any time. The truth is that we are already starting to see inflation really accelerate and everyone pretty much acknowledges that official U.S. governments figures for inflation are an absolute joke. According to one new study, the cost of college tuition has risen 286% over the last 20 years, and the cost of “hospital, nursing-home and adult-day-care services” rose 269% during those same two decades. All of this happened during a period of supposedly “low” inflation. So what are price increases going to look like when we actually have “high” inflation?
#5 One of the primary drivers of global inflation during 2011 could be the price of oil. A large number of economists are now projecting that the price of oil could surge well past $100 dollars a barrel in 2011. If that happens, it is going to put significant pressure on the price of almost everything else in the entire global economy. In fact, as I have explained previously, the higher the price of oil goes, the faster the U.S. economy will decline.
#6 Food inflation is already so bad in some areas of the globe that it is setting off massive food riots in nations such as Tunisia and Algeria. In fact, there have been reports of people setting themselves on fire all over the Middle East as a way to draw attention to how desperate they are. So what is going to happen if global food prices go up another 10 or 20 percent and food riots spread literally all over the globe during 2011?
#7 There are persistent rumors that simply will not go away of massive physical gold and silver shortages. Demand for precious metals has never been higher. So what is going to happen when many investors begin to absolutely insist on physical delivery of their precious metals? What is going to happen when the fact that far, far, far more “paper gold” and “paper silver” has been sold than has ever actually physically existed in the history of the planet starts to come out? What would that do to the price of gold and silver?
#8 The U.S. housing industry could plunge the U.S. economy into another recession at any time. The real estate market is absolutely flooded with homes and virtually nobody is buying. This massive oversupply of homes means that the construction of new homes has fallen off a cliff. In 2010, only 703,000 single family, multi-family and manufactured homes were completed. This was a new record low, and it was down 17% from the previous all-time record which had just been set in 2009.
#9 A combination of extreme weather and disease could make this an absolutely brutal year for U.S. farmers. This winter we have already seen thousands of new cold weather and snowfall records set across the United States. Now there is some very disturbing news emerging out of Florida of an “incurable bacteria” that is ravaging citrus crops all over Florida. Is there a reason why so many bad things are happening all of a sudden?
#10 The municipal bond crisis could go “supernova” at any time. Already, investors are bailing out of bonds at a frightening pace. State and local government debt is now sitting at an all-time high of 22 percent of U.S. GDP. According to Meredith Whitney, the municipal bond crisis that we are facing is a gigantic threat to our financial system….
“It has tentacles as wide as anything I’ve seen. I think next to housing this is the single most important issue in the United States and certainly the largest threat to the U.S. economy.”
Former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan is convinced that things are so bad that literally 90% of our states and cities could go bankrupt over the next five years….
#11 Of course on top of everything else, the quadrillion dollar derivatives bubble could burst at any time. Right now we are watching the greatest financial casino in the history of the globe spin around and around and around and everyone is hoping that at some point it doesn’t stop. Today, most money on Wall Street is not made by investing in good business ideas. Rather, most money on Wall Street is now made by making the best bets. Unfortunately, at some point the casino is going to come crashing down and the game will be over.
#12 The biggest wildcard of all is war. The Korean peninsula came closer to war in 2010 than it had in decades. The Middle East could literally explode at any time. We live in a world where a single weapon can take out an entire city in an instant. All it would take is a mid-size war or a couple of weapons of mass destruction to throw the entire global economy into absolute turmoil.
Once again, let us hope that none of these economic collapse scenarios happens in 2011.
However, we have got to realize that we can’t keep dodging these bullets forever.
As bad as 2010 was, the truth is that it went about as good as any of us could have hoped. Things are still pretty stable and times are still pretty good right now.
But instead of using these times to “party”, we should be using them to prepare.
A really, really vicious economic storm is coming and it is going to be a complete and total nightmare. Get ready, hold on tight, and say your prayers.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
The New Boss: China Owns The United States
Paul Joseph Watson - Not satisfied with a hemorrhaging trade deficit with China that continues to bleed American jobs at a rate of millions, a crumbling manufacturing base being replaced by the endless import of cheap slave goods from the Communist state, and a stunted economy being rapidly outpaced by the Red Dragon, the Obama administration wanted to further drill it in to Americans who the new boss is yesterday, by placing Chinese flags throughout Washington DC before Obama’s fawning meeting with unelected President Hu Jintao.
Everyone is painfully aware of the fact that China now owns the United States economically, with the Chinese central bank being the largest debt holder at approaching $1 trillion dollars. The average American family with two children collectively owes around $12,000 dollars to China. The Communist state’s ownership of long term U.S. Treasury Securities means the United States pays upwards of $100 million dollars a day to China in terms of interest alone.
China’s huge accumulation of US dollars gives it the sway to lead the United States by the nose like a sheep to slaughter, holding in its hands the power to decide the economic destiny of the now collapsing American empire. The culmination of this process moved a step closer this week when Hu Jintao made it clear that China was preparing to sharpen the knife for the bloodletting to begin, by deriding the dollar as a “product of the past” and signaling its replacement with a new global monetary system based around the Chinese yuan.
This transition is only becoming more obvious with the continuing fire sale of crucial infrastructure to the Red Dragon. Alex Jones’ first documentary film America: Destroyed By Design, made in 1997, warned Americans that the sell-out to the Chinese was the first step on the road to the sacking of the American economy and pulling the plug on key US infrastructure in the move towards global management of the planet.
The figures don’t lie – after a 20 year process of gradual sellout overseen by Clinton, Bush and now Obama – China owns America.
However, to have that notion aggressively reinforced by the plethora of Chinese flags that invaded DC this week goes beyond mere pomp and ceremony. This is meant to send a message to Americans that the United States is being hollowed out and swallowed up by the globalists, and that the center of the new world order empire will be transferred to Communist China in a bloodless coup.
And at the center of it all is a fawning, obedient, bowing Barack Obama, who ironically in the same week as Martin Luther King was remembered, played his role diligently as the house slave for his globalist masters, lavishing Jintao with a private dinner in a stunt that the Associated Press admits was designed to “soften the American public’s suspicions about China,” a nation that detains and tortures individuals for exercising their rights to freedom of association, freedom of religion and freedom of expression, while abducting, beating and performing forced abortions on women who refuse to submit to the country’s brutal one child policy.
The sickening worship and fealty displayed towards Jintao and China this week is all about training Americans to recognize who their new slavemasters are – the globalists who have exalted the Communist state as a model country for the new world order – a world in which antiquated ideas about freedom of the individual, prosperity, self-determination, family and happiness will be abolished.
Taiwanese animators got it right with the following cartoon, with depicts Obama’s subservience to America’s new boss, unelected dictator Hu Jintao.
Everyone is painfully aware of the fact that China now owns the United States economically, with the Chinese central bank being the largest debt holder at approaching $1 trillion dollars. The average American family with two children collectively owes around $12,000 dollars to China. The Communist state’s ownership of long term U.S. Treasury Securities means the United States pays upwards of $100 million dollars a day to China in terms of interest alone.
China’s huge accumulation of US dollars gives it the sway to lead the United States by the nose like a sheep to slaughter, holding in its hands the power to decide the economic destiny of the now collapsing American empire. The culmination of this process moved a step closer this week when Hu Jintao made it clear that China was preparing to sharpen the knife for the bloodletting to begin, by deriding the dollar as a “product of the past” and signaling its replacement with a new global monetary system based around the Chinese yuan.
This transition is only becoming more obvious with the continuing fire sale of crucial infrastructure to the Red Dragon. Alex Jones’ first documentary film America: Destroyed By Design, made in 1997, warned Americans that the sell-out to the Chinese was the first step on the road to the sacking of the American economy and pulling the plug on key US infrastructure in the move towards global management of the planet.
The figures don’t lie – after a 20 year process of gradual sellout overseen by Clinton, Bush and now Obama – China owns America.
However, to have that notion aggressively reinforced by the plethora of Chinese flags that invaded DC this week goes beyond mere pomp and ceremony. This is meant to send a message to Americans that the United States is being hollowed out and swallowed up by the globalists, and that the center of the new world order empire will be transferred to Communist China in a bloodless coup.
And at the center of it all is a fawning, obedient, bowing Barack Obama, who ironically in the same week as Martin Luther King was remembered, played his role diligently as the house slave for his globalist masters, lavishing Jintao with a private dinner in a stunt that the Associated Press admits was designed to “soften the American public’s suspicions about China,” a nation that detains and tortures individuals for exercising their rights to freedom of association, freedom of religion and freedom of expression, while abducting, beating and performing forced abortions on women who refuse to submit to the country’s brutal one child policy.
The sickening worship and fealty displayed towards Jintao and China this week is all about training Americans to recognize who their new slavemasters are – the globalists who have exalted the Communist state as a model country for the new world order – a world in which antiquated ideas about freedom of the individual, prosperity, self-determination, family and happiness will be abolished.
Taiwanese animators got it right with the following cartoon, with depicts Obama’s subservience to America’s new boss, unelected dictator Hu Jintao.
U.S. Overlook China's Civil Rights Abuses
(CNN) -- As Chinese President Hu Jintao visits Washington, the policy of the Obama administration is clear -- at least rhetorically. But will this approach deliver real results on improving human rights in China?
Setting the tone for the talks, Secretary of State Clinton recently delivered a lecture at the State Department, where she laid out a broad-ranging China strategy that places human rights within an international framework of obligations -- and acknowledges the "significant challenges" and "profoundly different political systems and outlooks" between the two countries.
She outlined the three elements of U.S. strategy: regional engagement in the Asia-Pacific, trust building, and expansion of economic, political, and security cooperation. She affirmed that human rights "remains at the heart of American diplomacy," detailing China's serious human rights issues, including freedom of expression and religion, imprisonment of lawyers and legal advocates, and rights of minorities in Tibet and Xinjiang.
She pointed to the plight of activists and lawyers such as Chen Guangcheng and Gao Zhisheng and the harassment of lawyers who advocate peacefully for reform. She also called for the release from prison of political activists, including Liu Xiaobo, a writer and human rights activist who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 and is serving an 11-year prison sentence for calling for political reforms.
Human rights, China and US policy
U.S., China to discuss weighty issues
Rep. Paul: 'We can't blame China'
The Chinese government's bullying tactics at home and abroad in response to the Nobel awarded to Liu Xiaobo are sobering reminders of its zero tolerance for critical voices, and the engagement challenges posed by a leadership distrustful and afraid of its own people.
In a new step to further restrict an independent press, the Central Propaganda Department of the Communist Party of China ordered media outlets nationwide not to "oppose the government" and "discuss, debate, and question the contents of political reform" when covering corruption cases -- or even use the phrase "civil society" in reporting.
A report delivered in April, 2010, to the National People's Congress by Wang Chen -- the highest government official responsible for managing online information and the Communist Party of China's top official in charge of external propaganda work -- articulates China's view of the dangers posed by any open information systems, and of China's strategic objectives in internet development to ensure correct and unified opinions and views.
This vision of China's leadership reflects not only a "profoundly different" outlook, but an entrenched party mindset of maintaining power at all costs, including state-of-the art censorship, surveillance, ideological control, detentions, harassment, enforced disappearances, and intimidation.
While the United States is reaching out to China's citizens, in events such as a round-table meeting with Chinese bloggers in Beijing on January 14, China is deploying its considerable resources to extend its soft power abroad through foreign media; Confucian Institutes throughout the world, including in the U.S.; and through extensive academic and cultural exchanges.
The Chinese government's bullying tactics ... are sobering reminders of its zero tolerance for critical voices.
A state-sponsored campaign, launched during President Hu's visit to the U.S., includes video clips featuring celebrities and others. It's aimed at promoting an image of prosperity, democracy, openness, peace and harmony in China, designed for major U.S. media outlets, online, and on big screens in Times Square in New York. A 12-minute film on China's accomplishments in politics, economics, society, culture, science and research, education, the environment and ethnic minority relations, still in production, will be aired in Europe, Latin America and the Middle East and on the internet.
But the best public relations campaign that money can buy will not mask the reality that Liu Xiaobo is serving an 11-year prison sentence, and many others continue to be detained and harassed for peacefully advocating for democratic reforms in China.
As the U.S. government navigates the difficult waters ahead toward "deeper, broader, and more sustained cooperation" with China, it needs to recognize that the Chinese government will not be rowing in the same boat, in the same direction, until it respects the rights of its own people to envision their collective future.
To advance true prosperity, democracy, openness, peace and harmony, the Chinese people must be able to exercise -- without fear or loss of liberty -- the fundamental rights and freedoms protected in China's Constitution and by China's international human rights obligations.
Setting the tone for the talks, Secretary of State Clinton recently delivered a lecture at the State Department, where she laid out a broad-ranging China strategy that places human rights within an international framework of obligations -- and acknowledges the "significant challenges" and "profoundly different political systems and outlooks" between the two countries.
She outlined the three elements of U.S. strategy: regional engagement in the Asia-Pacific, trust building, and expansion of economic, political, and security cooperation. She affirmed that human rights "remains at the heart of American diplomacy," detailing China's serious human rights issues, including freedom of expression and religion, imprisonment of lawyers and legal advocates, and rights of minorities in Tibet and Xinjiang.
She pointed to the plight of activists and lawyers such as Chen Guangcheng and Gao Zhisheng and the harassment of lawyers who advocate peacefully for reform. She also called for the release from prison of political activists, including Liu Xiaobo, a writer and human rights activist who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 and is serving an 11-year prison sentence for calling for political reforms.
Human rights, China and US policy
U.S., China to discuss weighty issues
Rep. Paul: 'We can't blame China'
The Chinese government's bullying tactics at home and abroad in response to the Nobel awarded to Liu Xiaobo are sobering reminders of its zero tolerance for critical voices, and the engagement challenges posed by a leadership distrustful and afraid of its own people.
In a new step to further restrict an independent press, the Central Propaganda Department of the Communist Party of China ordered media outlets nationwide not to "oppose the government" and "discuss, debate, and question the contents of political reform" when covering corruption cases -- or even use the phrase "civil society" in reporting.
A report delivered in April, 2010, to the National People's Congress by Wang Chen -- the highest government official responsible for managing online information and the Communist Party of China's top official in charge of external propaganda work -- articulates China's view of the dangers posed by any open information systems, and of China's strategic objectives in internet development to ensure correct and unified opinions and views.
This vision of China's leadership reflects not only a "profoundly different" outlook, but an entrenched party mindset of maintaining power at all costs, including state-of-the art censorship, surveillance, ideological control, detentions, harassment, enforced disappearances, and intimidation.
While the United States is reaching out to China's citizens, in events such as a round-table meeting with Chinese bloggers in Beijing on January 14, China is deploying its considerable resources to extend its soft power abroad through foreign media; Confucian Institutes throughout the world, including in the U.S.; and through extensive academic and cultural exchanges.
The Chinese government's bullying tactics ... are sobering reminders of its zero tolerance for critical voices.
A state-sponsored campaign, launched during President Hu's visit to the U.S., includes video clips featuring celebrities and others. It's aimed at promoting an image of prosperity, democracy, openness, peace and harmony in China, designed for major U.S. media outlets, online, and on big screens in Times Square in New York. A 12-minute film on China's accomplishments in politics, economics, society, culture, science and research, education, the environment and ethnic minority relations, still in production, will be aired in Europe, Latin America and the Middle East and on the internet.
But the best public relations campaign that money can buy will not mask the reality that Liu Xiaobo is serving an 11-year prison sentence, and many others continue to be detained and harassed for peacefully advocating for democratic reforms in China.
As the U.S. government navigates the difficult waters ahead toward "deeper, broader, and more sustained cooperation" with China, it needs to recognize that the Chinese government will not be rowing in the same boat, in the same direction, until it respects the rights of its own people to envision their collective future.
To advance true prosperity, democracy, openness, peace and harmony, the Chinese people must be able to exercise -- without fear or loss of liberty -- the fundamental rights and freedoms protected in China's Constitution and by China's international human rights obligations.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Sen. Rubio Undecided On Joining Tea Party
Protein Wisdom - Is Jeb Bush in his ear, warning him that it’s safer politically to brand yourself “center-right” and “civil” than to get all that TEA Party stink on you? Is he watching what the media and the left have been able to do to a female former Governor — turning her “toxic,” even among those who call themselves conservative, despite her being one of the most forceful advocates of conservatism and conservative policy — and hedging his bets? Is he a right-wing version of Obama — a con artist who road a wave of public sentiment to political power and is now working his next maneuver to position himself for a higher office…?
Or is it something else?
I have questions.
Or is it something else?
I have questions.
Obama Approval Rating Up To 54% After Tucson Memorial
Ed Morrissey - Barack Obama got a bounce on overall approval coming off of last week’s high-profile memorial event in Tucson, Arizona, going to his highest job performance rating since last April in the Washington Post/ABC poll — but that was mainly driven from personal approval. Jake Tapper notes, though, that his job approval on key issues remains mired at pre-midterm levels. Plus, it appears that neither the Post nor ABC will release the sample demographics:
Aided by his response to the Tucson shootings, popular lame-duck legislation and a hint of economic relief, Barack Obama has matched his highest job approval rating in more than a year in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, with his ratings for empathy likewise rebounding. …
Fifty-four percent now approve of Obama’s job performance, up 5 points from last month and 8 points above his career low in September. And given overwhelming approval of his response to the Tucson attack, Americans by an 18-point margin, 58-40 percent, say Obama “understands the problems of people like you.” That’s up from a mere 2-point split, 50-48 percent, in September.
Obama got a bounce on the soft evaluations, especially on personals, but given the stage on which he operated last Wednesday, a five-point bounce in overall job approval to his pre-Gulf spill level seems a little weak. Tapper warns the White House not to pop the champale as he explains why:
But it is hardly time for the president to pop open the champale. While the percentage of those saying the country is heading in the right direction is up 7 points from last month, a whopping 60 percent believe the US is headed seriously off on the wrong track.
And the president is still under 50% when it comes to his handling of the economy, which 72% of all Americans say should be the highest priority for him and Congress.
Perhaps the most troubling data point for the president – he and the Republicans are tied for the first time in trust to handle health care, with trust in Obama dropping 9 points since last month to a new low, and trust in the GOP gaining 4 points, rough news for the president in advance of the vote this week in the House to repeal the health care law.
In other words, Obama hasn’t done anything to address the underlying issues that pushed his job approval downward. As the new session of Congress opens, voters will turn their attention back to policy, and Obama doesn’t do nearly as well there as he does on the dais. On the issues, Obama has barely moved since December:
* Economy: 46/51, up from 43/54
* Health care: 43/52, down from 45/50
* Afghanistan: 49/41, up from 45/46
* Deficit: 43/52, up from 38/55
* Taxes: 50/44, down from 51/40 (in August)
Plus, it’s worth pointing out a couple of issues in the poll itself. The pollster surveyed 1053 adults, not registered voters, which is consistent within the WaPo/ABC series but generally produces non-predictive results. More importantly, this is the second survey in a row in which the Post and ABC have failed to report the demographics of its respondents, especially on party affiliation. This series has an extremely poor record in representing the current state of the electorate. For instance, in their October survey before the midterms when most pollsters try hardest for accuracy, the sample had a ten-point advantage for the Democrats when Gallup and Rasmussen had put the field at closer to dead even. This caused the Post and ABC to report that Democrats had begun a “modest” comeback, a meme that got utterly discredited a month later as the GOP scored the biggest midterm victory in 72 years.
Taking this poll result at face value, Obama may have gotten a bump that relates mainly to his personal likability, assuming that the sample wasn’t tilted even more egregiously for Democrats, and no real increase in support for his policies. As policies come back to the fore with Congress getting back to work, expect the bounce to dissipate quickly.
Aided by his response to the Tucson shootings, popular lame-duck legislation and a hint of economic relief, Barack Obama has matched his highest job approval rating in more than a year in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, with his ratings for empathy likewise rebounding. …
Fifty-four percent now approve of Obama’s job performance, up 5 points from last month and 8 points above his career low in September. And given overwhelming approval of his response to the Tucson attack, Americans by an 18-point margin, 58-40 percent, say Obama “understands the problems of people like you.” That’s up from a mere 2-point split, 50-48 percent, in September.
Obama got a bounce on the soft evaluations, especially on personals, but given the stage on which he operated last Wednesday, a five-point bounce in overall job approval to his pre-Gulf spill level seems a little weak. Tapper warns the White House not to pop the champale as he explains why:
But it is hardly time for the president to pop open the champale. While the percentage of those saying the country is heading in the right direction is up 7 points from last month, a whopping 60 percent believe the US is headed seriously off on the wrong track.
And the president is still under 50% when it comes to his handling of the economy, which 72% of all Americans say should be the highest priority for him and Congress.
Perhaps the most troubling data point for the president – he and the Republicans are tied for the first time in trust to handle health care, with trust in Obama dropping 9 points since last month to a new low, and trust in the GOP gaining 4 points, rough news for the president in advance of the vote this week in the House to repeal the health care law.
In other words, Obama hasn’t done anything to address the underlying issues that pushed his job approval downward. As the new session of Congress opens, voters will turn their attention back to policy, and Obama doesn’t do nearly as well there as he does on the dais. On the issues, Obama has barely moved since December:
* Economy: 46/51, up from 43/54
* Health care: 43/52, down from 45/50
* Afghanistan: 49/41, up from 45/46
* Deficit: 43/52, up from 38/55
* Taxes: 50/44, down from 51/40 (in August)
Plus, it’s worth pointing out a couple of issues in the poll itself. The pollster surveyed 1053 adults, not registered voters, which is consistent within the WaPo/ABC series but generally produces non-predictive results. More importantly, this is the second survey in a row in which the Post and ABC have failed to report the demographics of its respondents, especially on party affiliation. This series has an extremely poor record in representing the current state of the electorate. For instance, in their October survey before the midterms when most pollsters try hardest for accuracy, the sample had a ten-point advantage for the Democrats when Gallup and Rasmussen had put the field at closer to dead even. This caused the Post and ABC to report that Democrats had begun a “modest” comeback, a meme that got utterly discredited a month later as the GOP scored the biggest midterm victory in 72 years.
Taking this poll result at face value, Obama may have gotten a bump that relates mainly to his personal likability, assuming that the sample wasn’t tilted even more egregiously for Democrats, and no real increase in support for his policies. As policies come back to the fore with Congress getting back to work, expect the bounce to dissipate quickly.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Welcome To Liberal Progressive America, 90 Pregnant Girls In A Memphis High School
Ria Patel - This may sound bizarre but it is absolutely true. A high school in Memphis is facing this crisis now and they are after resolving it by educating the teenagers in the school about unwanted pregnancies.
Fraser High School at Memphis has at least 90 girls who are pregnant or already gave birth to a child. This sounds something really awful.
This awkward situation has raised alarm to the whole education system and its effectiveness on today's teenagers. There is also a pressing demand of proper sex education in schools so that these young children can gauge the harms of the explicit relationships.
Fraser High School has 978 students out of which 508 are girls. It means almost 18% of the girls students are facing the problem with pregnancy or have already become a mother.
Ms. Deborah Hester Harrison from the organisation Girls Inc says her institution explains to girls about the harms of unwanted pregnancy and how to avoid it.
She blames lack of education to be the cause of this crisis. At Fraser County there is a 26% rate of teenage pregnancy which is twice of the national average.
She blames the media to be primarily responsible for the situation. She says, "'So much of our society is sexually oriented. As adults we can look at that and it doesn't impact us, but kids are different."
Fraser High School at Memphis has at least 90 girls who are pregnant or already gave birth to a child. This sounds something really awful.
This awkward situation has raised alarm to the whole education system and its effectiveness on today's teenagers. There is also a pressing demand of proper sex education in schools so that these young children can gauge the harms of the explicit relationships.
Fraser High School has 978 students out of which 508 are girls. It means almost 18% of the girls students are facing the problem with pregnancy or have already become a mother.
Ms. Deborah Hester Harrison from the organisation Girls Inc says her institution explains to girls about the harms of unwanted pregnancy and how to avoid it.
She blames lack of education to be the cause of this crisis. At Fraser County there is a 26% rate of teenage pregnancy which is twice of the national average.
She blames the media to be primarily responsible for the situation. She says, "'So much of our society is sexually oriented. As adults we can look at that and it doesn't impact us, but kids are different."
Friday, January 14, 2011
The Liberal Media Empire Strikes Back
Cal Thomas - The Left apparently has taken to heart the admonition of former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel to "never let a serious crisis go to waste."
In the aftermath of the Tucson tragedy that killed six and wounded 14 others, the Left has attacked talk radio, Fox News, Sarah Palin and anyone else it can smear. Never mind there is not a shred of evidence that the accused gunman, the mentally disturbed Jared Lee Loughner, ever watched Glenn Beck or listened to Rush Limbaugh (Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, a Democrat, irresponsibly suggested Limbaugh incited Loughner).
Even if Loughner had watched and listened to conservative media, what does that prove? Millions do, but they don't go on a shooting rampage. What do other murderers and terrorists watch on TV or listen to on the radio? Why isn't the media they consume a matter of interest? Answer: Because it doesn't further the Left's agenda.
Since the Left lost its monopoly of the U.S. media, it has repeatedly tried to suppress speech it doesn't like. Thus, we hear calls by Democratic Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina for the resurrection of the Fairness Doctrine. Rep. Robert Brady, Pennsylvania Democrat, reportedly plans to introduce legislation that would make it a federal crime to use language or symbols that could be perceived as threatening or that incites violence against a federal official or member of Congress. Who would police that and based on what standard?
In the 1980s when conservative groups tried to "clean up" the bad language, sexual references and violence on TV, the Left cried "censorship." When conservatives campaigned against pornography and "music" that encouraged violence against women and racial epithets, they were told a healthy First Amendment required that even the most offensive speech be tolerated. It was the same argument used to allow the burning of the American flag at political protests. But the Left is intolerant of speech it disagrees with and so wishes to censor what it cannot overcome with superior argument.
Eric Burns wrote a book titled "Infamous Scribblers: The Founding Fathers and the Rowdy Beginnings of American Journalism."
Compared to 18th-century journalism in America, today's media are tame. Burns writes of the Gazette of the United States (born on April 15, 1789, while the Constitution was being ratified) that its editor, John Fenno, was an ardent supporter of the federalism represented by George Washington and Alexander Hamilton. Fenno's newspaper served as a counterweight to the Republican slant of the National Gazette.
Burns sums up Fenno's journalistic philosophy: "He would cajole his readers, deceive them when necessary, rile them when advisable; he would praise public officials and other newspaper editors who agreed with his positions and drub those who did not, assailing their intelligence, their character, their patriotism; and he would publish the records of legislative proceedings that advanced the federalist agenda while either ignoring or deriding or sometimes even falsifying documents to the contrary."
Such things were to be found on the "news" pages, not the opinion page. Entire newspapers were opinion pages. To have a page designated "opinion" would have been redundant.
The 1790s were, according to historian John Ferling, "one of America's most passionate decades." The nation's journalism, notes Burns, could not help but reflect the heat.
One paper, named the Philadelphia Aurora, engaged in what Burns describes as "journalistic savagery ... not caring about accuracy or even the illusion of it." The Aurora published a series of letters supposedly written by George Washington while he was encamped at Valley Forge during the winter of 1777-1778. The letters "portrayed Washington as a lukewarm patriot at best, a loyal subject of George III at worst, and at least a skeptic concerning independence."
It would have been a great story if true, but Washington wrote no such letters. That didn't bother Benjamin Franklin Bache (Ben Franklin's grandson and the owner of the Aurora), who was not about to retract something that served his anti-Washington political ends.
Journalism survived, even displaying responsibility on occasion. The public can sort out the good from the bad and ugly. They don't need politicians doing it for them.
In the aftermath of the Tucson tragedy that killed six and wounded 14 others, the Left has attacked talk radio, Fox News, Sarah Palin and anyone else it can smear. Never mind there is not a shred of evidence that the accused gunman, the mentally disturbed Jared Lee Loughner, ever watched Glenn Beck or listened to Rush Limbaugh (Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, a Democrat, irresponsibly suggested Limbaugh incited Loughner).
Even if Loughner had watched and listened to conservative media, what does that prove? Millions do, but they don't go on a shooting rampage. What do other murderers and terrorists watch on TV or listen to on the radio? Why isn't the media they consume a matter of interest? Answer: Because it doesn't further the Left's agenda.
Since the Left lost its monopoly of the U.S. media, it has repeatedly tried to suppress speech it doesn't like. Thus, we hear calls by Democratic Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina for the resurrection of the Fairness Doctrine. Rep. Robert Brady, Pennsylvania Democrat, reportedly plans to introduce legislation that would make it a federal crime to use language or symbols that could be perceived as threatening or that incites violence against a federal official or member of Congress. Who would police that and based on what standard?
In the 1980s when conservative groups tried to "clean up" the bad language, sexual references and violence on TV, the Left cried "censorship." When conservatives campaigned against pornography and "music" that encouraged violence against women and racial epithets, they were told a healthy First Amendment required that even the most offensive speech be tolerated. It was the same argument used to allow the burning of the American flag at political protests. But the Left is intolerant of speech it disagrees with and so wishes to censor what it cannot overcome with superior argument.
Eric Burns wrote a book titled "Infamous Scribblers: The Founding Fathers and the Rowdy Beginnings of American Journalism."
Compared to 18th-century journalism in America, today's media are tame. Burns writes of the Gazette of the United States (born on April 15, 1789, while the Constitution was being ratified) that its editor, John Fenno, was an ardent supporter of the federalism represented by George Washington and Alexander Hamilton. Fenno's newspaper served as a counterweight to the Republican slant of the National Gazette.
Burns sums up Fenno's journalistic philosophy: "He would cajole his readers, deceive them when necessary, rile them when advisable; he would praise public officials and other newspaper editors who agreed with his positions and drub those who did not, assailing their intelligence, their character, their patriotism; and he would publish the records of legislative proceedings that advanced the federalist agenda while either ignoring or deriding or sometimes even falsifying documents to the contrary."
Such things were to be found on the "news" pages, not the opinion page. Entire newspapers were opinion pages. To have a page designated "opinion" would have been redundant.
The 1790s were, according to historian John Ferling, "one of America's most passionate decades." The nation's journalism, notes Burns, could not help but reflect the heat.
One paper, named the Philadelphia Aurora, engaged in what Burns describes as "journalistic savagery ... not caring about accuracy or even the illusion of it." The Aurora published a series of letters supposedly written by George Washington while he was encamped at Valley Forge during the winter of 1777-1778. The letters "portrayed Washington as a lukewarm patriot at best, a loyal subject of George III at worst, and at least a skeptic concerning independence."
It would have been a great story if true, but Washington wrote no such letters. That didn't bother Benjamin Franklin Bache (Ben Franklin's grandson and the owner of the Aurora), who was not about to retract something that served his anti-Washington political ends.
Journalism survived, even displaying responsibility on occasion. The public can sort out the good from the bad and ugly. They don't need politicians doing it for them.
Remember Americans, Liberal Elites In Power are Smarter Than You
Patterico's Pontifications - For instance, they understand the constitution better than you do. Indeed that was why it was pointless to read it on Congress, or so the liberal spin goes.
Um, except for this. Richard Brake of Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s National Civic Literacy Board announced the results of their test in basic knowledge of the constitution. They had been doing this for years with embarrassing results, but the innovation this years is they asked participants if they ever held elective office in the state or federal government and then compared those results to the general populace.
You know where this is headed, right? From the article:
* Only 49 percent of elected officials could name all three branches of government, compared with 50 percent of the general public.
* Only 46 percent knew that Congress, not the president, has the power to declare war — 54 percent of the general public knows that.
* Just 15 percent answered correctly that the phrase “wall of separation” appears in Thomas Jefferson’s letters — not in the U.S. Constitution — compared with 19 percent of the general public.
* And only 57 percent of those who’ve held elective office know what the Electoral College does, while 66 percent of the public got that answer right. (Of elected officials, 20 percent thought the Electoral College was a school for “training those aspiring for higher political office.”)
And what is more frightening is… well, look at the quiz for yourself. This is multiple choice. For instance, consider this question on “Wall of Separation:”
6) The phrase that in America there should be a “wall of separation” between church and state appears in:
A. George Washington’s Farewell Address
B. the Mayflower Compact
C. the Constitution
D. the Declaration of Independence
E. Thomas Jefferson’s letters
If you guessed randomly, you would have a 20% chance of getting it right. Regular folks guessing it right 19% of the time is roughly in line with that. But public officials are apparently not only ignorant of where that phrase comes from, but positively misinformed. Thus Christine O’Donnell is vindicated (and WaPo/AP, I am still waiting for you to acknowledge your mistake rather than pretend you never made it).
So the answer is we need more constitution reading, and not less.
Um, except for this. Richard Brake of Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s National Civic Literacy Board announced the results of their test in basic knowledge of the constitution. They had been doing this for years with embarrassing results, but the innovation this years is they asked participants if they ever held elective office in the state or federal government and then compared those results to the general populace.
You know where this is headed, right? From the article:
* Only 49 percent of elected officials could name all three branches of government, compared with 50 percent of the general public.
* Only 46 percent knew that Congress, not the president, has the power to declare war — 54 percent of the general public knows that.
* Just 15 percent answered correctly that the phrase “wall of separation” appears in Thomas Jefferson’s letters — not in the U.S. Constitution — compared with 19 percent of the general public.
* And only 57 percent of those who’ve held elective office know what the Electoral College does, while 66 percent of the public got that answer right. (Of elected officials, 20 percent thought the Electoral College was a school for “training those aspiring for higher political office.”)
And what is more frightening is… well, look at the quiz for yourself. This is multiple choice. For instance, consider this question on “Wall of Separation:”
6) The phrase that in America there should be a “wall of separation” between church and state appears in:
A. George Washington’s Farewell Address
B. the Mayflower Compact
C. the Constitution
D. the Declaration of Independence
E. Thomas Jefferson’s letters
If you guessed randomly, you would have a 20% chance of getting it right. Regular folks guessing it right 19% of the time is roughly in line with that. But public officials are apparently not only ignorant of where that phrase comes from, but positively misinformed. Thus Christine O’Donnell is vindicated (and WaPo/AP, I am still waiting for you to acknowledge your mistake rather than pretend you never made it).
So the answer is we need more constitution reading, and not less.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Obama Turns Memorial Into A Political Rally Backfires
Kurt Nimmo - On Wednesday night in Tucson, Arizona, Obama and the Democrats disrespected the dead and turned a memorial into a cheap and tawdry political rally for the re-election campaign of Barry Obama.
A few of the usual pundits and observers noticed the obvious attempt to gain political mileage out of the dead and wounded by the Obama machine.
“Never before in the annals of national moments of mourning have the words spoken been so wildly mismatched by the spirit in which they were received,” writes John Podhoretz. “There was something about the choice of place, a college arena with the appropriate name of the McKale Memorial Center, that made the event turn literally sophomoric.”
The Washington Post said it is not “offering a judgment on whether or not it was an appropriate tone for a memorial service, but rather that it made for at-times incongruous sounds and images on television.”
The New York Times skirted the truth when Michael Shear wrote: “Mr. Obama’s speech, delivered amid sorrow, offered a fresh glimpse of the candidate who used hope as the tool to inspire his [supporters].”
“This was more like an Arsenio Hall show than a memorial service,” Doug Lucas, writing for American Thinker, complains today. “Catcalls, standing ovations, whistling and the whoop, whoop, whoop of the crowd dominated the night. What should have been a somber occasion for reflection turned into another Obama pep rally. It was as if these students had their guy up on stage and by God they weren’t about to let a national tragedy get in the way of them having a good time and cheering on their messiah.”
From the moment a politically correct Indian invoked ancestral spirits it was obvious the event was designed to be a political rally for Obama.
The creepy zombie-like Obama supporters we endured during the election returned in force and completely overshadowed any solemnity intended for the dead.
Another indication Democrats planned to exploit the dead came when operatives placed “Together We Thrive: Tucson & America” t-shirts on seats in the lower sections of the arena prior to the arrival of participants.
On January 10, the University of Arizona announced that Team Obama had accepted an invitation to visit Tucson in response to the shooting on Saturday. “President Obama will speak at a memorial event at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 12 to support and remember victims of the mass shooting in Tucson, and to lift the spirits of those who have been personally affected by this tragedy,” UANews reported.
It takes time to design and manufacture thousands of t-shirts, a fact that leads one to conclude that Obama’s handlers had planned to exploit the tragedy soon after it occurred last weekend.
Rahm Emanuel, Obama chief of staff, once averred “never let a good crisis go to waste.” Soon after the shooting, however, Emanuel was quick to declare his political maxim “is not not intended for this moment, it doesn’t apply to this moment.”
The reaction of the Barry Obama faithful last night indicates otherwise. The corporate media is now predictably praiseful of the scriptwriter eloquence of Obama’s teleprompter speech. But with a few notable exceptions they have ignored the obvious fact that Barry Obama operatives decided before the smoke cleared in Tucson to exploit the memorial for political gain.
It is not an exaggeration to say that Obama has kicked off his re-election campaign on the bodies of Jared Lee Loughner’s victims, including the body of a nine year old child.
Even with the stench and pallor of the dead, politics never seem to change in the district of criminals.
A few of the usual pundits and observers noticed the obvious attempt to gain political mileage out of the dead and wounded by the Obama machine.
“Never before in the annals of national moments of mourning have the words spoken been so wildly mismatched by the spirit in which they were received,” writes John Podhoretz. “There was something about the choice of place, a college arena with the appropriate name of the McKale Memorial Center, that made the event turn literally sophomoric.”
The Washington Post said it is not “offering a judgment on whether or not it was an appropriate tone for a memorial service, but rather that it made for at-times incongruous sounds and images on television.”
The New York Times skirted the truth when Michael Shear wrote: “Mr. Obama’s speech, delivered amid sorrow, offered a fresh glimpse of the candidate who used hope as the tool to inspire his [supporters].”
“This was more like an Arsenio Hall show than a memorial service,” Doug Lucas, writing for American Thinker, complains today. “Catcalls, standing ovations, whistling and the whoop, whoop, whoop of the crowd dominated the night. What should have been a somber occasion for reflection turned into another Obama pep rally. It was as if these students had their guy up on stage and by God they weren’t about to let a national tragedy get in the way of them having a good time and cheering on their messiah.”
From the moment a politically correct Indian invoked ancestral spirits it was obvious the event was designed to be a political rally for Obama.
The creepy zombie-like Obama supporters we endured during the election returned in force and completely overshadowed any solemnity intended for the dead.
Another indication Democrats planned to exploit the dead came when operatives placed “Together We Thrive: Tucson & America” t-shirts on seats in the lower sections of the arena prior to the arrival of participants.
On January 10, the University of Arizona announced that Team Obama had accepted an invitation to visit Tucson in response to the shooting on Saturday. “President Obama will speak at a memorial event at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 12 to support and remember victims of the mass shooting in Tucson, and to lift the spirits of those who have been personally affected by this tragedy,” UANews reported.
It takes time to design and manufacture thousands of t-shirts, a fact that leads one to conclude that Obama’s handlers had planned to exploit the tragedy soon after it occurred last weekend.
Rahm Emanuel, Obama chief of staff, once averred “never let a good crisis go to waste.” Soon after the shooting, however, Emanuel was quick to declare his political maxim “is not not intended for this moment, it doesn’t apply to this moment.”
The reaction of the Barry Obama faithful last night indicates otherwise. The corporate media is now predictably praiseful of the scriptwriter eloquence of Obama’s teleprompter speech. But with a few notable exceptions they have ignored the obvious fact that Barry Obama operatives decided before the smoke cleared in Tucson to exploit the memorial for political gain.
It is not an exaggeration to say that Obama has kicked off his re-election campaign on the bodies of Jared Lee Loughner’s victims, including the body of a nine year old child.
Even with the stench and pallor of the dead, politics never seem to change in the district of criminals.
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