Free kibbles

TAX AND SPEND:

It looks like the Greek bailout is official. Some of $54 billion is paid by US taxpayers because we fund the IMF. Not only do we have to bail out the banks and Wall Street firms whom government has enabled to loot us forever, we have to do the same for European countries. Portugal, Spain and Italy, all bigger spenders than Greece, are coming to the trough next. The US is following close behind, but nobody can bail us out.

"Moreover, the European Central Bank decided last week to prolong the exceptional collateral regime, which allows banks that own Greek bonds to exchange their assets for cheap central bank funds. This was a significant announcement, and will provide Greece and its creditors with breathing space."

So in addition to paying with taxes, anybody holding euros is paying an inflation tax to bailout Greece. All of Greece is an inflationary bubble like the US housing market was. In another similarity, much as bundled mortgages backed by Fannie and Freddie spread the housing market debt poison to our entire financial market where it stayed hidden for longer than it otherwise would and became a bigger problem than it otherwise would, this plan spreads Greece's debt problem to all of Europe where it will be relatively hidden as it grows. Needless to say, this is going to blow up into a way bigger crisis in the near future. There is no free lunch, and the longer you put off paying the piper, the more you have to pay in the end.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Video from msnbc.com, yes, I said msnbc.com, explains how the Fed, the banks, and the government have been robbing us blind and are continuing to rob us blind. This is awesome that even ultra-liberal MSNBC is publicizing this.

Robert Reich, Labor Secretary for Bill Clinton, seems to just have realized what the Fed is:

"If the Fed can secretly bail out big banks, the problem of “moral hazard” – bankers taking irresponsible risks because they know they’ll be rescued – is far greater than anyone assumed after Congress and the Bush and Obama administrations bailed out the banks. Big banks will always be too big to fail because they know the Fed will secretly back them up if they get into trouble, even if Congress won’t do it openly."

This is no mystery. The Fed is the lender of last resort. That's what it's advertised to be. The Fed's job is to make loans to banks so they don't fail. In order words, the Fed's job is to bailout banks. Even I knew that much before I found mises.org. Obviously Reich has to know this, so who's he kidding? On the plus side, the more liberals explain this, the better.

HEALTH CARE:

50 links to our health care future. I'm afraid to visit them.

GLOBAL WARMING:

Do companies participate in Earth Day just to keep government from harming them?

MISC:

Beware of con-men posing as census-takers. Because government threatens us at the point of a gun if we don't answer the census, it makes Americans unusually susceptible to scams like this.