Free kibbles

SOCIALISM:

GM issuing $3,000 bonuses to union workers paid for with our tax dollars.

TAX AND SPEND:

Obama's claim that he cut taxes, not raised them is a lie that Bill O'Reilly let him get away with.

Credit default swaps on US debt are growing.

REGULATION:

Exposing Obama's fantasy on auto-defrosting refrigerators.

The two conflicting mandates of the FTC are both unconstitutional.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Bernanke's Fed officers seem to be taking the same official position: you can't blame the Fed for rising prices. Bernanke said it about food and energy prices. Now this woman repeats it:

"The Fed, like every other central bank, is powerless to prevent fluctuations in the cost of living and increases of individual prices. We do not produce oil. Nor do we grow food or provide health care."

Nothing to see here. Move along. They're laying the groundwork for a blanket denial of responsibility for inflation so they can destroy the dollar while denying they're doing it. They're destroying the dollar on purpose. And when other countries dump the dollar, it loses its status as the world's reserve currency, and those dollars come back to the US and create tremendous inflation, Bernanke will blame the other countries, just like he blamed China for the housing bubble, not his policies. I don't think for a second that he's delusional. I think he's evil.

Despite, or because, the Fed purchasing treasuries in QEII, yields are going up, not down as Bernanke expected.

"It has increased the monetary base in order to buy government debt, all in the name of creating jobs. Traditionally, economists have offered this explanation of cause and effect. The Federal Open Market Committee buys Treasury debt. This lowers the rate of interest: greater supply of money flowing to the Federal government, which spends it, thereby increasing employment. Also, this reduction of rates is supposedly followed by reduced rates in the market for private bonds. This leads to greater borrowing by businesses, which leads to greater employment. Problem: Treasury bond rates are rising.

The FED is trapped. Its traditional policy of increasing the monetary base is not working as expected, i.e., as Keynesian textbooks predict that it will. It is behaving as if lenders are expecting rising price inflation, and therefore refuse to lend the government money unless they are compensated for a falling dollar by rising rates."

And we're the ones who have to pay.

"What is standard practice in Zimbabwe is not acceptable in the West. So, central bankers must satisfy their plans for personal success with applause from their academic peers, plus the legislature.

This means that the Federal Reserve is not going to serve as the lender of last resort to the government – only to the four largest banks, which control over half of the nation's bank assets. The FED is not going to oversee the destruction of the dollar, along with the purchasing power of the FED's retirement portfolio – fully vested – of its employees. They know where their bread is buttered. Take a look at the FED's retirement plan's portfolio."

This is a strawman. I haven't read any predictions that US inflation will hit Zimbabwean levels. But we're still likely to see significant inflation because it's already built into the system, and it's unlikely the Fed will dramatically reduce reserves in time to stop it. It's unlikely Bernanke will want to given the disinformation campaign the Fed is undertaking to blame everybody but it for inflation.

"The trend is clear: there will be a bankruptcy in every Western industrial nation, including Japan. There is no pathway out that voters will accept today. But they will accept major changes when the government digs too deeply into their wallets.

The politicians will go after the wealthy first: means testing. "No promised benefits for you!" Then the government will keep lowering its definition of wealthy.

The process will be relentless, because all of the governments' deficits are relentless. Promises were made when promises were cheap. They are getting more expensive.

Widows had better figure this out before they are widows."

I think we'll see combination of serious inflation and cutting of benefits. The only way to explain Bernanke's actions, policies and disavowment of responsibility for the resulting inflation, is he's intentionally devaluing the dollar.

The case for hyperinflation.

"And while we think hyperinflation – defined as the total destruction in the value of the U.S. dollar – is a low probability event, a lot, and we do mean a lot more monetary inflation most definitely is not."

That's what I'm talking about.

HEALTH CARE:

Obama's health care waivers are another example of why he's the most lawless president in our lifetimes.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Because milk contains oil, the EPA has decided to regulate spilled milk disasters. Seriously.

NASA once again revises down its prediction for the number of sunspots in solar cycle 24. It's amazing how wrong they've been on this.

Global warming frauds like to point to the millions spent by oil companies to study global warming as evidence those studies are corrupt, but NASA spent about $1 billion last year. That doesn't count the billions spent by other agencies like NOAA and USGS. There's your uber-corruption.

POLICE STATE:

TSA loses in court, but continues abuse.

"The lawsuits keep coming; the TSA keeps losing, yet the agency presses ever forward rather than backing down. It's too early to predict how Ventura's lawsuit will be decided, although the TSA hasn't been faring well in court lately: last week, Phil Mocek was acquitted of the four charges the TSA brought against him after he (legally) videotaped agents at work and refused to show his ID. TSA's case was so weak,Mocek's defence didn't even need to call witnesses. Two weeks before that, the TSA settled another lawsuit brought by Lynsie Murley, after agents in Texas allegedly pulled down her blouse, exposing her breasts to all, then teased her about it.

American taxpayers – who actually paid for that settlement – weren't told how much it was for. TSA spokesman Luis Casanova also refused to name the agents responsible, but did say they hadn't been fired or disciplined. "When a settlement is reached, there is no disciplinary action," Casanova said. "It's a no-fault kind of settlement."

It always is where the TSA's concerned."

Kind of like Bernanke. I wonder if he's a pervert too. The freakishness of power-hungry aristocrats tends to exhibit itself in multiple areas of their life.

WAR:

The parasitic costs of a huge military.

FOREIGN POLICY:

It looks like the bloom is off the rose in Cairo as the army is accused of capturing and torturing protesters.

"The Egyptian military has secretly detained hundreds and possibly thousands of suspected government opponents since mass protests against President Hosni Mubarak began, and at least some of these detainees have been tortured, according to testimony gathered by the Guardian.

The military has claimed to be neutral, merely keeping anti-Mubarak protesters and loyalists apart. But human rights campaigners say this is clearly no longer the case, accusing the army of involvement in both disappearances and torture – abuses Egyptians have for years associated with the notorious state security intelligence (SSI) but not the army."

So much for the reverence and so-called neutrality of the army. The protesters were depending on the army to provide stability during a transition, but that can't happen now without changes in the military. But this shouldn't be surprising. the US funds that military. It's beholden to the US like Mubarak and Suleiman. It's part of the US oppression system.

"It's unusual and to the best of our knowledge it's also unprecedented for the army to be doing this."

That's because the US oppression system has never been seriously challenged in decades. Now it is.

The Onion nails another one:

"Egyptian Populace To Hopefully Get Something Better Than Democracy Out Of All This"

Funny because it's true.

POLITICS:

The last week has exposed anybody who thought John Boehner was going to do anything different than the standard big-government Republican agenda. What is surprising is the tea party so far is resisting.

"Within 24 hours this week, House Speaker John Boehner's team had to pull a trade bill from the chamber floor, suffered an embarrassing setback on a USA Patriot Act vote, and failed to recoup money paid to the United Nations.

And in electoral politics, the tea party's threat to Republican incumbents came more into focus. Three GOP senators up for re-election in 2012 could be looking at challenges for their party nominations."

But we don't have a decade for the tea party to gain power over the Republicans. America as we know it won't last that long.

LOCAL:

Knowing full well that red light cameras make intersections more dangerous, Dayton city planners are going to install cameras at the ten most dangerous intersections in Dayton so they can steal more of our money and cause more wrecks.

Developer hopes to build $200 million race track in north Dayton, but Kasich may not allow it because of video slot machines. Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.

Oregon district removes 17 liquor license cap.

MISC:

Using a net to clean up space junk.

Motion Picture Association threatens to cut Google off of the internet for copyright violations.

I was just thinking today that Austrian economics is going mainstream, and they way you can tell is the establishment is making fun of them. I'm not the only one.

"By the way, considering that Krugman has previously tried to belittle Austrian economist Robert Murphy, this latest belittling of another Austrian economist—Thomas DiLorenzo—shows that Austrian economics is clearly in Stage Two of Mahatma Gandhi’s four stages of  how a “revolutionary” idea is eventually accepted into the mainstream consciousness:

1) First they ignore you,

2) Then they laugh at you,

3) Then they fight you,

4) Then you win."

I think we're close to step three thanks to Ron Paul being in charge of the monetary policy subcommittee.