Free kibbles

STATES RIGHTS:

South Carolina representatives introduce bill to make incandescent light bulbs legal in South Carolina. I hope it passes.

SOCIALISM:

Wisconsin Democrats to return because they think they won the political war. If this is true, given we're drowning debt, it's a reminder that Republicans can screw up a train wreck. One of the Democrats who abandoned his job and left the state claims that "Trust is completely broken down now." Democrats broke the trust, not the governor. Democrats are doing a great job of blaming Republicans for their actions, and the Republicans are doing a terrible job of making the case that cutting spending is key to economic recovery. Report claims the average school teacher in Milwaukee Public schools makes over $100 grand in salary and benefits. Yet Republicans are losing this debate. Crazy.

ECONOMY:

Specifics on how government corrupts the job numbers.

"There are various reasons that job gains are overstated and losses understated. One is the BLS’s “birth-death model.” This is a way of estimating the net of non-reported new jobs from business start-ups and job losses from business shut-downs. During recessions this model doesn’t work, because the model is based on good times when new jobs always exceed lost jobs. On the “death” side, if a company goes out of business because of recession and, therefore, doesn’t report its payroll, the BLS assumes the previously reported employees are still in place. On the “birth” side, the BLS adds 30,000 jobs to the monthly numbers as an estimate of new start-ups."

That's blatantly fraudulent in any type of economy.

"Another indication is that despite 10 years of population growth, there are 8 to 9 million fewer Americans employed today than a decade ago."

Ouch.

The US will suffer less pain during the global economic collapse than most other countries. Is that the consolation prize? This essay illustrates how complex global financial systems are and how hard they are to predict, let alone centrally plan.

Advice to move your assets out of the US before the US government seizes them.

What is MERS?

"But for the mortgage industry, MERS was mostly about speed — and profits. MERS, founded 16 years ago byFannie Mae, Freddie Mac and big banks like Bank of America andJPMorgan Chase, cut out the county clerks and became the owner of record, no matter how many times loans were transferred. MERS appears to sell loans to MERS ad infinitum."

Ummm. That doesn't pass the sniff test.

From Boortz:

"Since December 2007 the private sector workforce has shrunk by 6.6% while the federal government workforce has grown by 11.7%."

No politician is explaining that political economy jobs are parasitic while private sector jobs are productive. You would expect Republicans to make that case. You would expect Republicans in Wisconsin to make that case. Nobody is.

TAX AND SPEND:

FCC turns down free data so it can create a new bureaucracy funded by our tax dollars to create the same data.

Obama's budget is even worse than we thought.

REGULATION:

As predicted, the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill increased advantages for the big Wall Street banks compared to their smaller competitors.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Fed to create more money via QE3 if oil prices continue to rise. But of course the Fed creating money is one of the reasons oil prices continue to rise. Bernanke is locking us into a vicious, inflationary circle. This is going to hurt.

HEALTH CARE:

The Government Accounting Office reports that Medicare wasted four times as much money on fraudulent payments than the top ten most profitable health insurance companies made in profits combined. That's the same government that claims it will lower our health care costs. Right.

WAR ON DRUGS:

Study shows that marijuana use in teens correlates with increased chances of psychosis later. But of course there are caveats:

"The researchers did caution about several possible limitations, however, including self-reported data and the lack of direct adjustment for a family history of psychosis.Michael Rice, a professor and psychiatric nurse practitioner at the University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Nursing in Omaha, noted that the participants were not actually diagnosed with a psychotic disorder, only symptoms."

So the smokers versus the non-smokers reported different symptoms. Imagine that. This study sounds worthless.

POLICE STATE:

Graphic shows the abominable increase in federal prisoners since 1950.

WAR:

NATO begins 24/7 surveillance of Libya and Obama warns Gaddafi and his supporters. This sounds like preparations for war to me. I'm not the only one.

POLITICS:

Dick Morris calls for drug testing every high school student, and he calls this overcoming Obama's socialist agenda. I wonder if he recognizes the irony.

MISC:

How patents infected agricultural products.

Documenting history online.

Facebook buys company that plans to issue text messages via web data to circumvent mobile carrier prices 50,000 times higher.