Free kibbles

ECONOMY:

Every time I go out, I hear people complaining about working so much overtime, yet unemployment is still high. This tells me that it's cheaper for an employer to pay time and a half for 20 or 30 hours than it is to hire a new employee. That's a measure of how expensive government has made it to hire somebody.

Peter Schiff reports we've entered the next phase of the gold boom: institutional investment. Beat the rush.

TAX AND SPEND:

More discussion of whether or not Greece will secede from the Eurozone over its debt problems. The disintegration of the Eurozone is happening fast.

This is a provocative headline:

"What would Jesus cut?"

I'm not aware of Jesus ever supporting the theft and violence inherent in government.

John Williams is the keeper of Shadowstats.com which tracks statistics the way the US government used to track them before it changed them to make itself look better as well as alternative ways. He makes a crucial point about rating US government debt.

"There's good reason for fear about the debt, but it would be a tremendous shock if either S&P or Moody's Investor Service actually downgraded the U.S. sovereign-debt rating. The AAA rating on U.S. Treasuries is the benchmark for AAA, the highest rating, meaning the lowest risk of default. With U.S. Treasuries denominated in U.S. dollars and the benchmark AAA security, how can you downgrade your benchmark security? That's a very awkward situation for rating agencies. As long as the U.S. dollar retains its reserve currency status and is able to issue debt in U.S. dollars, you'll continue to see a triple-A rating for U.S. Treasuries. Having the U.S. Treasuries denominated in U.S. dollars means the government always can print the money it needs to pay off the securities, which means no default."

In other words, just as we measure the cost of goods in dollars, the credit agencies measure the credit ratings of investments in terms of Treasuries. So they have no way of valuing Treasuries below AAA. It's uncharted territory. Explaining further:

"Let's say the U.S. wants to sell debt to Japan, but Japan doesn't like the way the U.S. is running fiscal operations. It can say, "We don't trust the U.S. dollar. We'll lend you money, but we'll lend it in yen." Then, the U.S. has a real problem because it no longer has the ability to print the currency needed to pay off the debt. And if you're looking at U.S. debt denominated in yen, most likely you would have a very different and much lower rating."

Since a Treasury is defined in dollars and the Fed prints dollars, the US is always guaranteed to pay off its debts by simply printing money. This implies foreign governments and central banks may stop buying the debt in dollars and demand it be valued in their own currency. This would force some fiscal constraint of the US government. He predicts the end of the dollar as the world's reserve currency and hyperinflation in the US by 2014.

"Shy of any short-term gyrations, the U.S. is really in the worst condition of any major economy and any major country in the world and, therefore, in a weaker currency circumstance."

That comment should be sobering to anybody. He reports we're falling into the double-dip recession. Every day the economic collapse doesn't come means it will be worse when it does.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Ten super-secret signs of US inflation.

HEALTH CARE:

Every now and then you see a headline that just shines because of its honesty.

"Doctors are creating too many patients"

This is one of them. They get away with that because they're protected from competition by the government. Malpractice risks also play a role. This is similar to how police create crime.

Baby's brain cancer reportedly cured by medical marijuana. Cured? I'm skeptical, but I'm not surprised that the marijuana worked better for him than the anti-nausea cocktail provided by doctors. I'm happy for this family. I hope he continues cancer-free.

POLICE STATE:

Fourteen ways you are tracked.

WAR:

Government to release captured home videos of Osama bin Laden. This would support, but not prove, they got the right guy.

Motivation for the changing US stories of Osama bin Laden's assassination:

"The first U.S. edited version of "The Killing Of Osama" made it look like one Seal found Osama and his wife in their third floor bedroom, the surprised and unarmed Osama used her as a shield so the Seal shot her first and then him. It did not seem to occur to them that this made the Seal both a coward – or a terrified incompetent – and a war criminal. By the second day they had edited this scene to have the wife rushing at the Seal, presumably scaring him witless, so he shot her and then shot the unarmed old Osama who was either sitting around or standing around doing nothing but, presumably, looking dumb. This still left the Seal a coward and war criminal, so on the third day they started editing it to have Osama sitting next to a pistolo and an AK-47 which he apparently was too witless, too scared, or too incompetent to use to defend his wife and himself. This still left the Seal a coward and a war criminal, so they started whispering the Seal thought Osama was wearing a suicide vest, in spite of that being a bit bulky and uncomfortable under his nighty."

This is why government will significantly edit any pictures and video before releasing them. But they will be released.

Now we read that US detective work may not have led to Osama bin Laden after all. It turns out that his second in command, Ayman al Zawahiri might have turned him in to get him out of the way so he could take over the organization.

"Egyptian Ayman Al Zawahiri, who has been touted widely as the man who will succeed Bin Laden as the head of Al Qaeda, turned his back on his terrorist leader following a prolonged power struggle, according to a Saudi newspaper.
The plot to get rid of Bin Laden began when Zawahiri’s faction persuaded bin Laden to leave the protection of the tribal areas along the Afghan-Pakistan border."
"The courier who led U.S. forces to Bin Laden was a Pakistani national working for Zawahiri, according to the source.
The man is said to have known he was being followed by American troops and to have intentionally led them to their target."

That would explain why al Qaeda confirmed bin Laden's death: to solidify Zawahiri's control.


Poor little Osama bin Laden, confined to his compound with his three wives unable to kill more Americans. Don't you feel sorry for him? But what's that about a computer? I thought he didn't have internet access.


FOREIGN POLICY:


Despite the best efforts of government, US power is collapsing around the world. Better sooner than later. Better we make those decisions ourselves than to have them forced on us as is happening now. Because of decades of US aggression in the Middle East, we're going to have to endure a more militant Islamicism in the Middle East for the foreseeable future.

POLITICS:

Ron Paul may the South Carolina Tea Party favorite, but South Carolina's Republican establishment vote overwhelmingly for Rick Santorum followed by establishment Mitt Romney. This highlights the continuing rift between the dangerous Republican establishment and the tea party.

MEDIA:

I just had a depressing and late revelation: being right doesn't matter in the media. Media people succeed by telling the masses what they want to hear. That's how they gain audience. That's why pundits can be wrong time and time again, they can be wrong every time, and not only keep their jobs, they get promoted to the top. I should have realized this decades ago.

MISC:

I don't know what to make of this. Google and others claim "do not track" would hurt economy. It would certainly harm the businesses that profit from selling tracking information, but I have no idea how big a market that is. I also have no idea how many people would use it. What I know for sure is, this is a government non-solution to a problem created by government. Robust competition would resolve this issue, but patents prevent robust competition.

In praise of cheapeners. Suppose the airplane was still as expensive and rudimentary as when the Wright brothers invented it. Who would care? This article praises all the people who take inventions and and cheapen and improve them to make them worthwhile.

Prediction that current, growing flood on the Mississippi will be the worst ever. Wow. You can count on the global warming frauds to claim credit, or blame. However that works.

Chocolate and red wine are good for the brain and better when consumed together.

Tuscaloosa tornado relieve from the private sector in spite of the looting we suffer under the government.