Free kibbles

ECONOMY:

The Dow is down 265 points on news of the debt deal. The same press that pretended a deal is good for the economy is now pretending that this deal left too much uncertain. Baloney. The Dow is down because it's certain the government is going to steal another $2.4 trillion out of our economy now. Certain theft is worse than the possibility of future theft.

Ten signs the double-dip recession has begun. This isn't really a double-dip. It's a continuous recession that's been papered over to appear like it ended and then entered a double-dip.

TAX AND SPEND:

Criticism of governments bulldozing houses: it's another handout to banks that also increases the tax burden on neighboring properties.

Obama releases details of debt ceiling agreement.

If Obama campaigns on letting the Bush tax cuts expire, he'll get beat even worse.

Stossel lists a series of cuts that would balance the budget.

Look what spending has done to Connecticut.

"Connecticut has zero job growth since 1990 while government spending has increased 250%"

Ouch.

Here are some big lies about the debt ceiling compromise:
1. It cuts $900 million in spending over ten years. Wrong. It doesn't cut a dime. Government spending will increase every year over the next ten years.
2. There are no tax increases in this deal. Wrong. Every dollar government spends must ultimately be paid for with taxes. This agreement is a $2.4 trillion tax increase.
3. Our kids will have to pay off this debt. Wrong. We will have to pay off this debt, and our kids will suffer too. Because the Fed will monetize most of this debt, the value of the dollar will fall, and we'll pay for it with higher prices. When private investors buy government debt, that money can't be invested in the private economy. Because this bill steals $2.4 trillion of wealth - steal, rubber, equipment, computers, fabric, etc. - out of the productive, private sector economy and squanders it in the parasitic political economy, it makes us all poorer.

House roll call vote on the debt ceiling compromise. Mike Turner voted no. The name of the compromise is "To make a technical amendment to the Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002".

FEDERAL RESERVE:

We knew it was bad, but I didn't know it was this bad.

"According to the recent GAO report on its limited audit of the Federal Reserve, the central bank secretly pumped $16 trillion into American and foreign banks during the recent economic crisis."

$16 trillion? That's over $5,000 per person. That's more than US GDP. That's more than four years worth of federal spending. That's money we will pay for through inflation. It's in the pipeline. There's nothing we can do about it.

"The U.S. GDP is $14.8 trillion. The entire U.S. debt spanning over 200 years is $14.5 trillion. The current debt ceiling compromise is over cuts that would be enacted over the next decade to the tune of $900 billion. The budget debate in early 2011 was over $1.5 trillion. But there was no debate over the $16,000,000,000,000 (GAO Report) handed out to failing corporations and banks around the world in just a few short years.How can we afford to have the Fed give away more than our entire national debt in just three years?"

There are no words for how crazy-stupid this is.

Mises's plan for returning to the gold standard.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Another case where climate models of alarmists are significantly different than actual measurements from satellites.

An astrophysicist points out something I've often explained but I've never seen anybody else ever address: when we convert sunlight into energy, it produces heat, which warms the planet. This guy goes on to explain that pretty soon, within a few hundred years, we'll use so much energy that the heat produced will make the planet unlivable. People will adapt by becoming more energy efficient and colonizing space. The leveling off of energy use will likely produce a leveling off of economic activity. All this assumes a closed system (Earth).

POLITICS:

Contrary to their rhetoric, the two parties are basically the same - two factions of the same ruling class crooks - and the worst of the worst rise to the top. I bet John Boehner and Harry Reid are together having group sex with a bunch of hookers, lighting huge joints of the best pot laced with cocaine rolled in Cuban tobacco with hundred dollar bills - all paid for with taxpayer money - and laughing over which party's voters are more stupid.

LOCAL:

Here come the layoffs.

MISC:

I'm no the least bit surprised the NSA is recruiting black hat hackers. The government care nothing about the law. That's for others, not government agents.

How both producers and consumers win from coupons and price discrimination schemes.