Free kibbles

ECONOMY:

Retail sales drop 1.2 percent in May. That means people are getting smart and saving more money. This is a good thing, but the side-effect will be a short-term drop in economy. Saving money creates the jobs we need for growth. Spending does not.

"The Commerce Department said retail sales declined 1.2% in May, with auto sales down 1.7%, a sign that consumers are still struggling to make ends meet and are less willing to open their wallets and go shopping. Economists had expected the figure to edge up 0.2%."

Here we go again. Once again the so-called experts got it wrong. That's because they aren't experts. They're political hacks paid to tell the politicians and the American people what the politicians want to hear. Case in point:

"Excluding auto sales, building materials and gasoline receipts, Wall Street Strategies equity research analyst Brian S. Sozzi says the retail sales figure was essentially flat in May. "Considering the Memorial Day holiday shift, these are numbers that we think were better than many were expecting,""

That's some pretty impressive spin to make this sound like good news. If it was better than many were expecting, why were they expecting growth, not contraction?

I'm not the only person who thinks Americans should move their money to Switzerland.

"The real challenge for the Swiss National Bank is to limit the franc's appreciation when billions of investor euros are flooding into Switzerland and bidding for the local currency. Contrary to what you'll read in the American financial press, the smart money is moving into Switzerland in big volume."

There's your real safe haven - a country that's been stable for 500 years, and one of the big reasons is banking freedom.

Many college grads leave college deeply in debt with no job prospects because government has driven up the price of college, lowered the quality of the eduction, taken over the loan process and crashed the economy. But naturally government wants to take more money from us by force so it can make things worse.

TAX AND SPEND:

Japan's new Prime Minister may be the first honest world leader for saying:

"Our country's outstanding public debt is huge... our public finances have become the worst of any developed country.

...

There is a risk of collapse if we leave the increase of the public debt untouched and then lose the trust of the bond markets."

That's what 20 years of Keynesian policy has wrought in Japan, and we're following that same path. I wonder what Paul Krugman will say.

"Over the weekend, US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner called on surplus countries - like Japan, Germany and China - to do more to increase spending."

Lord Geithner wants to make sure everybody in the world suffers the same collapse Obama is orchestrating in America. Geithner knows exactly what the consequences of his actions will be. He's evil.

POLICE STATE:

Hero arrested because he rescued a 13 year old girl, making cops look bad.

"Ryan Daniel Snodgrass, a 28-year-old guide with Arkansas Valley Adventures rafting company, was charged with "obstructing government operations," said Clear Creek Sheriff Don Krueger.

"He was told not to go in the water, and he jumped in and swam over to the victim and jeopardized the rescue operation," said Krueger, noting that his office was deciding whether to file similar charges against another guide who was at the scene just downstream of Kermitts Roadhouse on U.S. 6.

Duke Bradford, owner of Arkansas Valley Adventures, said Snodgrass did the right thing by contacting the 13-year-old Texas girl immediately and not waiting for the county's search and rescue team to assemble ropes, rafts and rescuers.

"When you have someone in sight who has taken a long swim, you need to make contact immediately," said Bradford, a 15-year rafting guide and ski patroller from Summit County. "This is just silly. Ryan Snodgrass acted entirely appropriately. These guys came to the scene late and there was a rescue in progress. They came in and took over an existing rescue. To leave a patient on the side of a river while you get your gear out of the car and set up a rescue system you read about in a book is simply not good policy.""

Slap! Bradford insulted them, so the cops want to arrest him too. What have we done to ourselves and our country?

WAR:

It's probably politically unfeasible to cut the military budget, but not to freeze it. At least freeze it already. Al Qaeda isn't invading us with tanks and aircraft carriers.

POLITICS:

Obama's approval rating down to 44. Who in the world are those people? Everything Obama has done has harmed Americans and made our problems worse. It isn't like he's doing a few things right. Everything he's done is wrong, and everything he plans to do is wrong. How come this rating isn't zero? That 44 percent of Americans approve of Obama's job is far scarier than Obama himself.

Remembering when Americans treated presidents like the normal people they are, not gods.

LOCAL:

Dayton aristocrats have been taking money from people by force and using it to destroy wealth by bulldozing 'blighted' homes, but they seem shocked that the consequences of their actions is ever more blighted homes that need to be bulldozed.

"The city of Dayton has been aggressively tearing down blighted and abandoned homes, but its list of nuisance properties is growing faster than the number of homes being demolished."

Naturally federal stimulus money is involved in this destruction of wealth.

"The growth of the nuisance list — which contains buildings that city inspectors have determined are structurally unsafe — has been spurred in part by an influx of close to $26 million federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program money. The city will use $9.2 million of that to demolish about 1,300 units, said Aaron Sorrell, housing and neighborhood development manager."

You can't make this stuff up.

"But Dayton has an estimated 15,000 vacant housing units and a vacancy rate of 20 percent, he said — about twice what is considered a healthy for a housing market. So the city either needs to grow households or tear down houses. Given the populations trends for the city and state, Sorrell said, the reality is more homes have to come down.

“It’s expensive and time-consuming,” Sorrell said. “I think we’re making a good dent in that vacancy rate. But, clearly, there’s still work to be done.”

Meanwhile, the nuisance structures are a drain on the city’s fire and police departments, said City Manager Tim Riordan. It costs $400,000 just to mow lawns of the 4,000 vacant lots once a year, he said."

I suppose it never occurred to them to stop mowing the lawns of private properties. If they've seized the property, which they shouldn't do, maybe they should sell it at market price. One person's blighted home is another's low income housing. But no. The only thing government knows how to do is destroy wealth. Maybe after the politicians destroy every last house in Dayton, we'll all be richer for it. This program is even stupider than cash for clunkers.

MISC:

Abby Sunderland, a 16 year old girl trying to sail around the world alone, found in Indian ocean. That's great news. I hope everybody involved in the rescue charges her parents for their expenses - equipment, man-hours and opportunity costs - and I hope it totals millions of dollars and bankrupts them so people will quit doing these stupid stunts - especially teens. People take these kinds of risks when they are insulated from the economic consequences of failure and taxpayers subsidize this irresponsible behavior. In order to make our world sane again, we have to allow market discipline to work so people will incur the costs as well as the reward of their decisions.

It is funny to see all the people who worship government like God, liberals and conservatives both, flounder with the Gulf oil spill. They blame it on Obama's incompetence, like if we had a competent president he would swim a mile under the sea and stop the flow of oil then come up and crush the already leaked oil into diamonds with his bare hands. It doesn't matter who the president is. Government has no ability to deal with this leak, and if the aristocrats created an oil leak bureaucracy like they probably will in the wake of this debacle, it will still have no ability to deal with this leak. It would be instantly obsolete. It would just hinder solving the problem even more than it's hindering it now.

"People sometimes say if only a Jack Welch, the legendary GE chairman, were put in charge, he'd get government to hum. That's a fantasy. Jack Welch, Warren Buffett, Steve Jobs: They'd all fail. After James Carville went off on the president, David Axelrod bemusedly replied, "What I haven't heard is exactly what he thinks we should do." Professional politicians must be amazed, and thankful, at this credulousness."

Human beings are not gods, and all would fail to meet godlike expectations.

"Now government's inefficiency has become indefensible and its fantastic costs, its oceanic spending, a clear and present danger."

The biggest danger we face.

Minnesota state government has ended that heinous ritual of discrimination that was destroying the country - lady's night.

Now the feds want to ban peanuts on airplanes.