Free kibbles

ECONOMY:

We like to talk about the lost decade in Japan, but...

"Yesterday, The Financial Times reported that a thousand yen invested in stocks in 1985, “even including dividends and inflation… has made exactly nothing.”"

This won't happen in the US. It only happened in Japan because Japan had the US economy to prop it up. There is no economy to prop up the US economy. We're going down.

"You know, dear reader, that it is futile to make predications, especially about the future, as Yogi Berra would say. But heck, we’ll take a guess. The euro zone won’t fall apart…at least, not completely. The Germans will give way. It won’t be pretty. No ‘elegant solution’ will be found. Instead, an awkward, ugly…even grotesque…combination of concessions, compromise, and craven corruption will keep the European project together. In fact, it will be more together than ever. Francois Hollande and Angela Merkel will find a way to preserve the union. Most likely, the Europeans will learn from the US. They will write a huge check to member states to cover…or partially cover…the debts of the past. The union will be responsible for the debts of, say, Greece or Ireland. It will be a scheme vaguely reminiscent of the Brady Bonds, or Alexander Hamilton’s takeover of state debt after the American Revolution, with new debt backed by the EU…of extremely long duration (long enough to allow inflation to cut down the real value of the bonds.) The debts of the future, on the other hand, will be the responsibility of member states (lenders beware!). Everyone can save face. Lenders (banks) will get their money (more or less). Borrowers can avoid disorderly defaults and bankruptcy (more or less). And Germany and France can hold onto their beloved European Union (more or less) …and still not be on the hook for Greek behavior going forward."

So this guy predicts the inflation-default solution. Germans still learn about the Weimar Republic, and Merkel is already immensely unpopular. Where will she get the political capital to pull that off?

TAX AND SPEND:

The press keeps telling us is Ireland is a basket case, having had a bailout forced on it by the EU. Bu the reality is businesses are fleeing to Ireland and taking jobs with them because of its low tax rate.

""Rovio, the Finnish company behind Angry Birds, is considering moving its headquarters to Ireland, chief executive Mikael Hed has said. Rovio employs approximately 400 people, mostly in Finland, but Rovio is in contact with IDA Ireland about establishing headquarters here. The reason for the move would be corporation tax rate, which in Finland is 24.5%, while Ireland's rate is 12.5%. Companies such as Google and Facebook have also set up European headquarter operations in Dublin for the same reason. Hed said that if the decision was made to move to Ireland, the company would then decide exactly what elements of its operations would move. 'If we did make that decision then it would be a natural thing to do to have some production [in Ireland] also.'""

The EU tried to force Ireland to raise its tax rate to stop companies from moving from other EU countries to Ireland. Ireland intelligently refused.

Greeks vote in six days, and it can't help the eurozone's cause that the Spanish bailout came with few strings, unlike the Greek bailout. Ten years from now, all the experts will look back at the euro experiment and acknowledge it was doomed to fail.

Walter Williams says the congressional control of the federal budget is an example of the tragedy of the commons, this is why our economy is going to crash. I never thought of it that way.

"We can think of the federal budget as a commons to which each of our 535 congressmen and the president have access. Like the cattlemen, each congressman and the president want to get as much out of the federal budget as possible for their constituents. Political success depends upon "bringing home the bacon." Spending is popular, but taxes to finance the spending are not. The tendency is for spending to rise and its financing to be concealed through borrowing and inflation."

I wouldn't put it exactly like this because earmarks are not busting our budget. A better way to put it might be that all the special interests in Washington have common control of the budget like seniors, the military-intelligence complex, big Pharma, big Agra, big Medicine, big Green, etc. and they all demand a bigger piece of the pie every year, so Congress keeps increasing the spending.

REGULATION:

Here's a good reminder that government exists to protect the super-rich from the people.

"Ever since Kendall Carver's daughter mysteriously disappeared on an Alaskan cruise in 2004, he has dedicated his life to holding the cruise-line industry more accountable for passenger safety.

The retired Phoenix businessman believed he succeeded in 2010 with the passage of federal legislation that was supposed to reveal the full picture of the deaths, sexual assaults, thefts, missing persons and other crimes reported on cruise ships.

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., who sponsored the Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act, promised the bill would provide greater transparency about crimes on passenger ships operating out of U.S. ports.

However, unknown to Carver and other supporters, the bill was changed shortly before it passed to provide less, not more, information about cruise-ship crime."

Typical. Cruise lines couldn't get away with this in a free society. The only way they can get away with it is if government protects them. The same is true with all big corporations, unions and special interests. The government protects them and limits their liability at the expense of the people.

How can Ohio state universities allow smoking while it's banned in other Ohio businesses? It's nice to be the king.

EDUCATION:

Seventeen year old honor student jailed and fined for truancy.

"She helps support two siblings with both a full time and part-time job. Her parents were divorced and she lived with the family that owns the wedding venue where she works on weekends. "She goes from job to job from school," Devin Hill, one of Tran's classmates, told KHOU-11. "She stays up until 7:00 in the morning doing her homework."

According to KHOU-11, Tran admitted that she was often too tired to go to school.

She said she took AP Spanish, college level algebra and dual credit English and history courses.

Despite pleas for leniency, Moriarty reportedly said "a little stay in the jail for one night is not a death sentence" and claimed if one student was allowed to avoid jail then they would all "run loose.""

The world would end.

HEALTH CARE:

Lew Rockwell catches up to the Obamacare prediction I made as soon as it passed.

"The social nationalist author of Romneycare will not repeal Obamacare, since both were written in large part by Big Pharma, and the drug companies are at least as close to the Repubs as they are to the Dems. Oh, some changes will be made, but only to maximize payoffs."

It's all about the looting.

POLICE STATE:

Not too long ago I claimed that Kinect was the final tool necessary implement Orwell's 1984 complete surveillance and control vision. Now Microsoft has filed this patent:

"GeekWire reports on a newly-surfaced Microsoft patent application for 'Targeting Advertisements Based on Emotion', which describes how information gleaned from Kinects, webcams, online games, IMs, email, searches, webpage content, and browsers could be used to build an 'Emotional State Database' of individuals' emotions over time for advertisers to tap into."

I wonder who might tap into it besides advertisers. You watch. Very soon, these things will be always on, recording every move and every comment of every person in your house.

The FBI isn't waiting for internet companies to give them a backdoor to monitor communications. It's developing its own hacking tools.

The state is a protection racket.

Routine sexual abuse of female prisoners.

WAR:

When discussing why the US goes to war, you have to ask two questions. The first is why do the people support it. The second is what is the goal of our rulers. It sounds like this discussion addresses the first question. The reason our rulers go to war is to loot the people. The longer the war, the more they can loot the people. The more gadgets, the more they can loot the people. The more they demonize the enemy, the more they can loot the people.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Foreign mainstream journalist reports that the Houla massacre was executed by western backed Syrian rebels, not government forces. It sounds like the same is true of the Homs massacre. Many libertarians suspected that from the beginning. Even the National Review is reporting this.

The Swiss government defies US and EU sanctions against Iran.

With overwhelming support, 411-2, The Israel lobby wins bizarre bill in which the US government declares to protect it at any cost.

POLITICS:

Wisconsin Governor Walker, who just survived a recall election, says Republicans can't beat Obama by making this election a referendum on Obama. In what world is he living? Obama is tanking because of his policies. The only way Republicans can lose is by doing something stupid like Walker advises. That's why Republicans ran such a terrible candidate.

LOCAL:

Petty, $30 bribe results in $94,000 spent on investigation and legal fees.

MISC:

Western wildfires out of control again. How many years in a row now? Ever since government took control out there? No private owner would allow his property to burn every freaking year. Only government could be so evil - not inept - as to allow that.

Debate over the general welfare clause.

"The two primary authors of The Federalist Papers set forth two separate, conflicting interpretations:

James Madison advocated for the ratification of the Constitution in The Federalist and at the Virginia ratifying convention upon a narrow construction of the clause, asserting that spending must be at least tangentially tied to one of the other specifically enumerated powers, such as regulating interstate or foreign commerce, or providing for the military, as the General Welfare Clause is not a specific grant of power, but a statement of purpose qualifying the power to tax.[16][17]

Alexander Hamilton, only after the Constitution had been ratified,[18] argued for a broad interpretation which viewed spending as an enumerated power Congress could exercise independently to benefit the general welfare, such as to assist national needs in agriculture or education, provided that the spending is general in nature and does not favor any specific section of the country over any other.[19]"

We know the states believed Madison, they didn't vote to give the government unlimited powers, therefore Madison's view is the proper view.