Free kibbles

ECONOMICS:

Henry Hazlitt predicted today's currency crisis nearly 70 years ago based on the Bretton Woods conference.

"[A]s Hazlitt wrote, "it would be difficult to think of a more serious threat to world stability and full production than the continual prospect of a uniform world inflation to which the politicians of every country would be so easily tempted.""

They were, and here we are.

"In the midst of the Bretton Woods proceedings, Hazlitt hit the American delegates with another punch in the nose. He made fun of how the Americans in particular are under the impression that they can solve any problems in the world by setting up machinery in the form of an organization. It could be an organization to make water run uphill or to keep rocks from falling but the Americans are under the belief that if the president is behind anything, anything can be accomplished."

I think every presidential candidate in my lifetime has played on this fallacy, but none worse than Obama.

"Hilariously, Hazlitt sums up the plan for the World Bank with this general observation: "world economic revival will not necessarily flow from a plan under which taxpayers are saddled by their own governments with losses from huge foreign loans made regardless of their soundness.""

Sure enough, US taxpayers are helping bail out Europe through the IMF.

"That Bretton Woods was called a gold standard was an exercise in obfuscation. It happened for the same reason that NAFTA was called free trade or the FTC is said to protect competition. The state has long used the language of liberalism and the market economy as a plow to push through its opposite. The gold standard was an early victim in this war over words."

Orwell didn't invent double-think. He recognized it being used by governments of his time and realized it would only increase.

"The stakes are impossible to overstate. Fiat paper money is destroying civilization right now. It has fueled the predator state. It has destabilized markets. It has wrecked balance sheets and distorted financial markets. It has wrecked the culture by leading the whole world to believe that prosperity can come as if by magic, that stones can be turned into bread. It might yet unleash a ravaging inflation that will be welcomed by dictators, despots, and cruel tyrants.

How important is sound money? The whole of civilization depends on it."

The whole of western civilization is collapsing without it.

Foxnews is interviewing an economist, and he just said the information about falling consumer spending informs economists things weren't as good as they thought they were. Only delusional people thought things were better than they are.

EDUCATION:

Average yearly textbook costs for students jump to $1,370. That's what happens in government monopolies. It's the same economic forces that led to $500 hammer for the defense department.

HEALTH CARE:

Remember when Democrats pretended they didn't have to pay for the doc fix for Medicare when they rammed Obamacare down our throats? Now Obama is demanding money for the doc fix and trying to make Republicans look like bad guys. I think he has the advantage on this. It'll be a lot simpler for him to paint Republicans as bad guys for opposing the doc fix than it will be for Republicans to explain that they wanted the doc fix included in the costs of Obamacare and Obama and Democrats were hiding the expense.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Kyrgyz government asks Russian troops to come into Kyrgyz city to restore order. That's crazy. Nobody asks outside troops to enter their country. Russia declines. There's something fishy about this.

Saudi Arabia, having a legitimate fear of a nuclear armed Iran, opens up skies to Israeli jets to knock out Iranian nuclear facilities. As I predicted, regional forces would solve this problem. Having Saudi Arabia involved also takes away the clash of civilization problem. But you can bet there will be backlash in Saudi Arabia if this plays out.

"“The Saudis have given their permission for the Israelis to pass over and they will look the other way,” said a US defence source in the area. “They have already done tests to make sure their own jets aren’t scrambled and no one gets shot down. This has all been done with the agreement of the [US] State Department.”"

The US should have stayed out of it.

"Despite the tension between the two governments, they share a mutual loathing of the regime in Tehran and a common fear of Iran’s nuclear ambitions. “We all know this. We will let them [the Israelis] through and see nothing,” said one."

All the hyperventilating was for nothing. I'm sure neocons will be shocked that other countries can deal with threats. This is really about control. The neocons, like all Democrats and many conservatives, are control freaks. They want to run everybody's lives through violence. This analysis doesn't mention that Israili jets can fly over Syrian unmolested, which they did a year a two ago to destroy a Syrian nuclear facility. They probably can't refuel on that path though.

"In 2007 Israel was reported to have used Turkish air space to attack a suspected nuclear reactor being built by Iran’s main regional ally, Syria. Although Turkey publicly protested against the “violation” of its air space, it is thought to have turned a blind eye in what many saw as a dry run for a strike on Iran’s far more substantial — and better-defended — nuclear sites."

So Turkey may facilitate too.

Hints of unrest in Iran on the anniversary of the presidential election widely believe to have been stolen by Ahmadinejad.

POLITICS:

Obama tells Britons no hard feelings over spill as if he speaks for all Americans. As if his opinion matters more than any other individual American's. Plenty of Americans have hard feelings.

MEDIA:

Biden's beach party is a humorous reminder than the accomplice press is in bed with the government aristocrats who feed them.

MISC:

Selfish US teen wants to try sailing around the world solo again despite having to be rescued. It's all about her. What does she care that pilots and ships had to all stop working to feed their families to rescue her spoiled butt. Self-gratification is all that matters to her, and we can all thank her parents for that. This is the true definition of greed -wanting something for nothing. Unless would-be rescuers charge her family for the time and resources they burned working on her rescue, her parents will fund her selfish stupidity again. Please inject some economic reality into these people's selfish lives by charging them for the millions of dollars spent on the rescue.