2010 will be worse

From Monty Pelerin, writing in The American Thinker, on the FedGov's funding dilemma:

... There are only three possibilities with respect to meeting 2010 funding needs:

* The Fed continues its QE beyond their planned cessation in March 2010.
* The Fed raises interest rates to levels that would attract the capital necessary to fund government operations via conventional credit markets.
* No Fed action is taken. That would cause the government to default on some of its obligations.

None of these alternatives is attractive. The unpalatable choices arise from prior Fed and governmental policies. To avoid recessions over the past fifty years, the government abused and then finally exhausted all reasonable options. After years of mismanagement, the government is in a quandary of its own making from which there is no escape.

All alternatives will be very painful, and none offer the possibility of a traditional recovery. No matter what alternative is chosen, the country cannot avoid a depression. At this point, "do no further harm" should guide policy.

Of the three alternatives, what is best economically is worst politically. This natural conflict between good economics and good politics is not unusual. Economically, the country would be harmed least by implementing alternative 2. From a political standpoint, alternatives 2 and 3 are probably unacceptable. Thus, it is likely that alternative 1 will be tried (again!). It is precisely the continual overuse of this alternative that has led to the current sad state.

Alternative 1 cannot work. It will not avoid a depression. Worse, it will likely result in hyperinflation. Thus, we likely end up with the worst of all worlds. With hyperinflation, money will cease to be a medium of exchange. Markets will cease to work, except on a barter basis. The middle class will be wiped out. Their savings will become worthless along with the dollar. The end will be as Mises warned so many years ago.

The possibility of losing our form of government is a real risk under any of the alternatives. So is civil unrest and strife. All are probably more likely under alternative 1 because of the corrosive effects of high inflation combined with a depression. ...

Read it here.

Fishing show bloopers

Tonight's blooper reel, fishing show edition:

NRA seeks podium time at Supreme Court oral arguments for Chicago gun ban case

From SCOTUSblog:

The National Rifle Association asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to allow its lawyer to take part in the oral argument March 2 in the case testing whether the Second Amendment restricts the power of state and local governments to pass gun control laws. It sought 10 minutes of time allotted to the individuals and groups that are pursuing the Amendment’s extension, to put more stress on an alternative constitutional argument. The request, the NRA noted in its motion, is opposed by the lead parties in McDonald, et al., v. Chicago (08-1521). Those parties are expected to file a written opposition shortly. The Court will consider the NRA request at its private Conference on Jan. 15.

The Court in the McDonald case will consider two main arguments for applying the individual right to possess guns to state and local laws: first, that gun rights should be protected at those levels by the 14th Amendment’s “Privileges or Immunities” clause; and, second, the protection should come under the Amendment’s Due Process clause. Both of those arguments are at issue in the question presented by the petition. The NRA said it wants to put stress on the due process argument.

In their merits brief in the case, the NRA noted, Otis McDonald and the others appealing “have concentrated their argument on a Privileges or Immunities Clause theory that would require overruling at least three of this Court’s precedents.” And, the motion added, only 7 pages of the 73-page McDonald brief discuss the Due Process Clause.

The Due Process Clause, former Solicitor General Paul D. Clement said in the NRA motion, “presents the most straightforward and direct route to reversal of the decision” of the 7th Circuit Court against extending the Second Amendment to the state and local level. “Because the Due Process Clause represents a route to reversal that does not necessitate the overruling of this Court’s precedents, it would be particularly unfortunate if that argument was not adequately presented at oral argument.”

The NRA maneuver brings further out into the open the strategic differences in pursuing the two alternative arguments. ...

Read the rest here. As an aside, note that the NRA has hired former Solicitor General Paul Clement to represent it in this case. As Solicitor General for the Bush administration, Mr. Clement argued against us in 2008's historic Heller case.

Pump prices on pace to top 2009 highs

From Yahoo Finance news, we learn that more pain at the gas pumps is on the way:

The cost of filling up the car is rising in the wake of soaring crude and by this weekend, pump prices will race past the highs for all of 2009.

Tracing the ascension of crude, up 14 percent since mid-December, energy prices across the board are catching up. On Tuesday, benchmark crude prices closed higher than they had on any day last year.

And from MaxedOutMama we learn that naturally, the Obamites want to make domestic drilling for oil and natural gas harder:

Drilling for oil and natural gas on government land will face increased environmental scrutiny and slower approvals under requirements announced today by U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.

The moves will stop industry from treating public lands as a “candy store,” Salazar said. Representatives of oil and gas companies said the changes will slow domestic-energy development and make the U.S. more dependent on foreign supplies.

I guess we still aren't tired of shooting ourselves in the foot yet. MaxedOutMama sums up the Administration's energy policy thusly:

Not only don't we have any way to replace our transportation infrastructure with electric vehicles, we don't currently have any plan to sustain our current electricity production. We have thrown immense amounts of money into "green" sources and we are getting very little out for our efforts.

If we are concerned about carbon, nuclear power plants should address that issue.

If we are concerned about safety, coal plants are the way to go.

If we are concerned about air quality, both nuclear and NG plants are the way to go.

If we are concerned about the environment, then more hydropower is the way to go; any new projects are currently blocked by environmentalists.

If we are concerned about national security and the economy (and they are now one and the same issue), then it would be something like all of the above. Oil is not used to produce much in the way of electricity, and to the extent that electric vehicles are viable, we will need the electricity production to operate them.

If we want to be poor, hungry, sick and generally vulnerable, then our current policy is the best possible option and just keeps getting more optimal all the time. The more US energy policy looks like California policy, the more US finances look like CA finances. Is that any way to run a country?

That's why it's called a suspension bridge

Tonight's time-lapse video of the Manhattan bridge - watch the bridge as the subway passes on the lower deck:

U.S. economic disaster will be worse than Weimar or Zimbabwe

From Market Oracle, comes this interview with Doug Casey of Casey Research. Snippet:

... On July 1, 2005, Bernanke stated with great confidence that the U.S. was not experiencing a housing bubble, saying: “I think what is more likely is that house prices will slow, maybe stabilize, might slow consumption spending a bit.”

L: Wow could he possibly have been more wrong about anything more important?

Doug: In November of the same year, he talked about derivatives, saying, “With respect to their safety, derivatives, for the most part, are traded among very sophisticated financial institutions and individuals who have considerable incentive to understand them and to use them properly.” He also said, “The Federal Reserve’s responsibility is to make sure that the institutions it regulates have good systems and good procedures for ensuring that their derivatives portfolios are well managed and do not create excessive risk in their institutions.”

And a couple months after that, back on housing again, he said, “Our expectation is that the decline in activity or the slowing in activity will be moderate, that house prices will probably continue to rise.”

L: So much for the wisdom of the expert…

Doug: Well, he’s not stupid, not in the sense of being unintelligent (he’s obviously very intelligent) but I would say he’s stupid in a better, more sophisticated sense of the word. One that I think is more useful, that being: an unwitting tendency towards self-destruction. And I’m afraid his stupidity is not just going to drag down the U.S. financial system, but the U.S. itself with it.

What he said about the housing and derivatives bubbles shows that he either has no idea what’s going on, or he’s a pathological liar. Reality was totally absent from those two statements.

And in February of 2008, he said, “I expect there will be some failures of smaller banks.” Bear Stearns collapsed just a couple weeks later…

L: You’re kidding!

Doug: I wish I were. I’d like to believe the second most powerful man in the world weren’t either a knave, or a fool, or both. Remember, this is the same guy who told the world that Fannie and Freddie were “adequately capitalized” and “in no danger of failing.”

Earlier this year he said, “Currently, we don’t think [the unemployment rate] will get to 10 percent." Wrong again and if you actually count people who are out of work, rather than the government’s phony subset of that number, we already have over 17% unemployment.

This guy is truly pathetic but nobody points any of this stuff out. That he can be so dead wrong about so many vital things and not get called on it is simply amazing to me it makes me feel like I’m living in some sort of demented parallel universe.

L: This has to be the worst case of “the emperor’s new clothes” on record.

Doug: Quite possibly. After all, who can gainsay the word of the second most powerful man on the planet? And a Ph.D. expert on the Great Depression to boot. Which makes perverse sense, as only an expert can screw things up as royally as he has.

I’m afraid the U.S. dollar is going to be totally destroyed. The consequences of that are going to make everything that’s going on now pale by comparison. I mean, as bad as the consequences of propping up all these dinosaurs like General Motors and AIG and General Electric and Goldman Sachs, among many others, might be next through direct theft from the U.S. taxpayer are, that’s nothing compared to what will happen when things get really bad, which they haven’t yet.

It’s really going to be bad when they destroy the dollar that’s when it’s really going to hit the fan. Runaway inflation is bad enough in a place like Zimbabwe, where most of the people are still living on a subsistence level. And it was bad enough in Germany in the 1920s, when most Germans were still living on farms or making things with their own hands. But in an advanced industrial society, as heavily urbanized as the U.S. is, runaway inflation is going to be unbelievably disastrous. As dim as the average American is, he’s bound to get perturbed when his quality of life nose-dives, and who knows what the social consequences of that will be.

L: Social revolution… Massive social change.

Doug: Yes. Runaway inflation in the U.S. would be the ultimate disaster. Think about all those people who have dollars set aside, which is to say the prudent middle class; they’ll be totally wiped out. Even huge corporations that have massive cash reserves, like Microsoft and McDonald’s, if they don’t hedge that cash with the utmost skill, could find those hoards wiped out and themselves bankrupted as well. Remember that people all over the world are holding U.S. dollars. There’s far more U.S. currency outside the U.S. than there is inside the U.S., and all those foreigners are going to resent it personally and hold it against Americans when their U.S. dollars are wiped out. On top of that, most central banks around the world hold U.S. dollars as their main asset, and that will be wiped out as well. It’s going to be a complete, worldwide disaster.

It’s going to be much worse than what happened in Germany or Zimbabwe. This is a couple orders of magnitude greater seriousness and it seems to me that this is almost certain to happen with a monumentally stupid person like Bernanke steering the ship of state into a reef. ...

Read it here. When it all does finally fall apart this country is going to get feral. Got guns and ammo?

Surprise reunions

Tonight's "I wonder what they're doing now?" video:

More green shoots

Via Mish, from the Wall Street Journal, on the rise of personal bankruptcy filings:

The number of Americans filing for personal bankruptcy rose by nearly a third in 2009, a surge largely driven by foreclosures and job losses.

And more people are filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which liquidates assets to pay off some debts and absolves the filers of others. That is significant because a 2005 overhaul of federal bankruptcy laws aimed to encourage Chapter 13 filings, which force consumers to sign onto debt-repayment plans in exchange for keeping certain assets.

The changes were designed to make it more difficult for people to shed their debt, particularly in a Chapter 7 filling. A "means" test, for example, was introduced to separate those who could afford to repay their debt from those who couldn't. A Chapter 7 filing is off the table if the means test determines a person is able to pay back at least a portion of the debt after it is restructured.

The worst U.S. recession in a generation is testing the effectiveness of these laws. The economic downturn also has prompted more middle-class Americans to file for bankruptcy protection.

Overall, personal bankruptcy filings hit 1.41 million last year, up 32% from 2008, according to the National Bankruptcy Research Center, which compiles and analyzes bankruptcy data. It is the highest level of consumer-bankruptcy fillings since 2005. Consumers rushed to file in 2005 before the new bankruptcy laws took effect in October of that year.

Chapter 7 filings were up more than 42% as of November 2009, compared with the same period a year earlier, according to the research center.

...

During this recession, the housing crisis and high unemployment rate have prompted more people to file for bankruptcy who may never have considered the option before, experts said. Filings from 2008 showed more people with high income and high education levels resorting to bankruptcy petitions, according to an annual survey of consumer-bankruptcy filers' demographics by the Institute for Financial Literacy, a nonprofit that provides bankruptcy-related counseling and education services. Those demographic trends appeared to continue last year.

...

"I can't see over the top of the files on my desk," said Cathleen Moran, a bankruptcy attorney at Moran Law Group in Mountain View, Calif., likening it to the rush of clients before the revised law went into effect. In a three-month period before those rules changed in 2005, her firm filed five times as many cases as usual.

Ms. Moran's clients in 2008 typically were people who earned between $40,000 and $80,000. That changed last year when a rash of people who earned $100,000 to $300,000 began filing as well, she said.

"Expenditures that were rational when these people were working at the peak of their salary just are no longer sustainable when they lose jobs or take jobs at a third or a half of what they were making before," Ms. Moran said. [emphasis added]

Read it here. Gangrene is green, right?

Los Angeles County preparing for a 'nuclear event'

From the L.A. Daily News, comes this story:

While the possibility of a nuclear attack in Los Angeles seems almost unthinkable, local officials are inventorying hundreds of old bomb and fallout shelters as part of their preparations for a "radiological or nuclear event."

Los Angeles and other metropolitan areas are drafting emergency plans while federal agencies study how to prepare the public for what county public health Director Jonathan Fielding describes as a "low-likelihood, huge-consequences event."

His department hosted a workshop last week for the emergency operations staff of the county's 88 cities in preparation for "Golden Phoenix," an exercise scheduled for June 2010 that simulates the scenario of a 10-kiloton nuclear device detonated in Los Angeles.

A seminar is planned for the medical community on Jan. 21 to provide information on what to expect and what actions they should take after a nuclear incident.

"These aren't comfortable things to talk about, but it all begins with preparations," said Angelo Bellomo, the county director of environmental health who oversees the Radiation Management unit.

"We think this is a great opportunity for us to open a dialogue with the 88 cities so they can begin to amend their emergency plans to include planning for a nuclear device."

...

Experts are especially concerned about the possibility that Iran one day could launch ship-based nuclear missiles, said Brian Kennedy, president of The Claremont Institute's Ballistic Missile Defense Project.

"The West Coast of the U.S. has limited missile defense against a North Korean missile," Kennedy said. "And, unfortunately, we're almost completely vulnerable to a ship-launched ballistic missile attack."

Kennedy is also concerned a ship-launched nuclear missile detonated at a high altitude would create an electromagnetic pulse, possibly destroying electronic equipment and knocking out the nation's power grid - leaving the country with little or no communications and no ability to provide food and water to potentially hundreds of millions of people.

Congressional reports suggest such an attack could result in more than 100 million deaths in a year, said Sharon Packer, executive director of the American Civil Defense Association. ...

Read it here.

Secession, the Second Amendment, and Sun Tzu

From Russell Longcore, writing at LewRockwell.com:

... The Second Amendment is the effort of the Founders to guarantee that the sovereign states would protect a mechanism whereby the states might thwart Federal tyranny through armed resistance, if only as a last resort. Now, there is nothing in the Amendment about any "last resort." Common sense dictates that all efforts to settle any difference would proceed peaceably first. And, when a well-regulated state militia is a day-to-day reality, it acts as a deterrent merely by its existence. Thugs seldom attack armed people.

Go ask Switzerland if a militia works. They haven’t been invaded in nearly 500 years.

Washington and the state legislatures have bleached out the reality of the well-regulated state militia from the American fabric. Meanwhile, Americans have been hoodwinked into fighting about whether or not they can carry a gun with or without a permit, or packing heat in a bar or restaurant. While those turf wars raged, Washington absorbed the sovereignty of the states, and made the states into serfdoms.

So, can you now see that because "A well-regulated Militia...is...necessary to the security of a Free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed?"

States need to reclaim their sovereignty by revitalizing their state militias. Through the militia, states will once again gain their true freedom to regulate the Federal Government that once was their servant. And, in the failure of the exertion of state sovereignty to control the actions of Washington, the unhappy states may secede knowing that they are capable of defending their decision from all who would attempt to use force to prevent their exit.

Read it here.

Do Christians have a right to self-defense?

So asks Brother Gregory Williams:

Does a modern Christian have a right to self defense? With every right there is a correlative responsibility. The ancient right to bear arms has been described in antiquity as the obligation to bear arms in defense of your community. In those ancient times if you would not arm yourself to defend your community you were often shunned if not run out of town all together.

Chuck Baldwin in and article published by NewsWithViews.com quoted the statistic that “as of 2004, 50% of the adults in the United States own one or more firearms.” My first reaction was, why so few? As someone who once wore a badge and a gun to protect the property and lives of citizens I can testify that my biggest disappointment was the apathy and even cowardice of the people I was often expected to protect.

To refuse to come to the aid of others has been considered a crime and good Samaritan laws have prosecuted citizens who failed to assist and aid people in need of assistance or protection.

Yet, I have heard many people say they would not own a gun or they did not believe in guns. On further inquiry everyone of these purveyors of pseudo-pacifism confirmed that if someone was breaking into their house they would call the police, who will come with guns. The truth is they do believe in guns, but they are either to lazy, to cheap, to cowardly, or just to irresponsible to own one.

One of the last things Christ said to His apostles before His crucifixion was to go and buy a sword, even if they had to sell their garment to do so. ...

Read it here.

Looping the loop

Tonight's automotive stunt -- looping the loop ... in a real car:

No right to bear machine guns

So says the federal Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, based in Cincinnati:

A former commander in the Tennessee State Guard has lost an appeal to overturn his conviction for trying to provide his soldiers with homemade machine guns for possible use in defending the state.

On Wednesday, a federal appeals court in Cincinnati threw the case out of court.

“Whatever the individual right to keep and bear arms might entail, it does not authorize an unlicensed individual to possess unregistered machine guns for personal use,” said the three-judge panel of the Sixth US Circuit Court of Appeals.

Richard Hamblen was arrested in 2004 by federal firearms agents and charged with possession of nine unregistered machine guns. ...

Article here.

Court sides with cop who says he's "only one" allowed to carry

From Massachusetts:

... A case out of the First Circuit has some painful lessons for gun carriers in Georgia. A United States Circuit Court of Appeals last week upheld the constitutionality of pointing a gun at any citizen daring to carry, lawfully, a concealed weapon in public.

The First Circuit Court of Appeals is the Court just below the United States Supreme Court in the New England states. The case stems from a lawyer who sued a police officer after he was detained for lawfully carrying a concealed weapon while in possession of a license to carry concealed. According to the case opinion, the lawyer, Greg Schubert, had a pistol concealed under his suit coat, and Mr. Schubert was walking in what the court described as a "high crime area." At some point a police officer, J.B. Stern, who lived up to his last name, caught a glimpse of the attorney's pistol, and he leapt out of his patrol car "in a dynamic and explosive manner" with his gun drawn, pointing it at the attorney's face.

Officer Stern "executed a pat-frisk," and Mr. Schubert produced his license to carry a concealed weapon. He was disarmed and ordered to stand in front of the patrol car in the hot sun. At some point, the officer locked him in the back seat of the police car and delivered a lecture. Officer Stern "partially Mirandized Schubert, mentioned the possibility of a criminal charge, and told Schubert that he (Stern) was the only person allowed to carry a weapon on his beat." [emphasis added]

For most people, this would be enough to conclude that they were being harassed for the exercise of a constitutional right, but the officer went further, seizing the attorney's pistol and leaving with it. Officer Stern reasoned that because he could not confirm the "facially valid" license to carry, he would not permit the attorney to carry. Officer Stern drove away with the license and the firearm, leaving the attorney unarmed, dressed in a suit, and alone in what the officer himself argued was a high crime area. ...

Article here. Read the court's opinion here. Do the citizens of Massachusetts feel safer, knowing that this thug with a badge is "protecting" them?

No rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide fraction in past 160 years, new research finds

From Science Daily, comes this report of more evidence against anthropogenic (human-caused) Global Warming (AGW). Key snippet:

... To assess whether the airborne fraction is indeed increasing, Wolfgang Knorr of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol reanalyzed available atmospheric carbon dioxide and emissions data since 1850 and considers the uncertainties in the data.

In contradiction to some recent studies, he finds that the airborne fraction of carbon dioxide has not increased either during the past 150 years or during the most recent five decades.

The research is published in Geophysical Research Letters.

Article here. Hopefully we'll start to see more published research presenting a more balanced (and rigorous science-based) examination of AGW, now that the ClimateGate scandal has exposed the practices of the loudest AGW "scientists" and their apparent effort to manipulate data and/or results and suppress conflicting research.

Cinema 2009

Tonight's mashup of 2009 films:

New Hampshire firearms freedom act introduced

From Kurt Hoffman at examiner.com, comes this news from the Granite State [links omitted]:

We've talked many times before [...] about the growing movement on the part of states to assert their sovereign powers as protected by the Tenth Amendment. In the context of discussions here, this comes down to states proposing (and in the cases of Montana and Tennessee, already passing) laws that would exempt firearms, ammunition, and firearms accessories manufactured in-state, and kept in-state, from federal regulation. This, as one might expect, doesn't sit well with the feds, and is being challenged. The BATFE, in the meantime, has already announced its intention of ignoring such laws.

That is not stopping more states from hopping on the state sovereignty bandwagon, with the [latest] to do so being New Hampshire.

Pre-filed for the 2010 legislative session in New Hampshire, House Bill 1285 (HB1285) seeks to “exempt firearms, firearm accessories, and ammunition manufactured in New Hampshire from federal law and regulation.”

Don't call the Live Free or Die state a copycat, though--the New Hampshire bill contains a very interesting provision not (to my knowledge) seen in any of the other states' legislation.

Any official, agent, or employee of the government of the United States, or employee of a corporation providing services to the government of the United States that enforces or attempts to enforce a act, order, law, statute, rule or regulation of the government of the United States upon a personal firearm, a firearm accessory, or ammunition that is manufactured commercially or privately in New Hampshire and that remains within the State of New Hampshire shall be guilty of a class B felony. (emphasis added)

Hmm--I'm guessing that's not going to sit well with the BATFE, or the entire federal government, for that matter. ...

Read it here. See the bill's docket entry here, and text of the bill here. Here's the "penalty" section of the bill:

159-E:4 Penalty.

I. Any public servant of the State of New Hampshire as defined in RSA 640:2 that enforces or attempts to enforce a act, order, law, statute, rule or regulation of the government of the United States upon a personal firearm, a firearm accessory, or ammunition that is manufactured commercially or privately in New Hampshire and that remains within the State of New Hampshire shall be guilty of a class A misdemeanor.

II. Any official, agent, or employee of the government of the United States, or employee of a corporation providing services to the government of the United States that enforces or attempts to enforce a act, order, law, statute, rule or regulation of the government of the United States upon a personal firearm, a firearm accessory, or ammunition that is manufactured commercially or privately in New Hampshire and that remains within the State of New Hampshire shall be guilty of a class B felony.

Kudos to NH Rep Daniel Itse and his co-sponsors. This is precisely the type of "or else" language we need in the laws designed to restrain the government.

Georgia: Proposed gun laws spark debate

From Georgia:

Georgia lawmakers will soon debate major changes to the state's firearm laws. One proposal would allow licensed gun owners to carry their weapons almost anywhere including school zones, college campuses, churches, and parts of airports.

Supporters say that more gun owners licensed to carry concealed weapons would lower the crime rate. Opponents argue that letting more people carry guns almost everywhere would lead to more violence. Legislators say they need to clarify and balance Georgia's gun laws.

One thing for certain, more Georgians are buying guns and getting permits so they can carry concealed guns for protection.

Dougherty County Sheriff Kevin Sproul said "We see more and more people in their 50 to 60 year old brackets, coming in to get guns, to get permits for them to carry weapons." ...

Article here.

Serfdom vs. Liberty in 2010

From an op-ed in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review:

It was in 1774 that John Adams reminded how the "most sensible and jealous people are so little attentive to government that there are no instances of resistance until repeated, multiple oppressions have placed it beyond a doubt that their rulers had formed settled plans to deprive them of their liberties."

And that's not merely to "oppress the individual or a few," he added, "but to break down the fences of a free constitution, and deprive the people at large of all share in the government, and all the checks by which it is limited."

Mr. Adams, of course, would have been labeled a "right-wing extremist" or a "militia maniac" by today's "progressives" in Congress who have been working so assiduously to soil the fabric of America. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid would dismiss Adams' sentiment as "un-American" and tap dance around its implications of unconstitutional freelancing.

But on the cusp of a new year and the second decade of the 21st century, this is where America finds itself: Constitutional perverts and rule of law scofflaws are in charge, the once-creeping crud of socialism has broken into a trot and an increasing number of good and decent people really are mad as hell and not willing to take another centimeter of the shaft.

And perhaps, just perhaps, revolution is nigh. ...

Read it here. Now we have op-eds in mainstream media outlets warning the collectivists about the possibility of armed revolution. Yet I fear that the collectivists will not stop their looting and usurpation and will only believe revolution to be possible when it happens and engulfs us all (including them) in its bloody violence, ripping the fabric of our society to shreds.

Denninger: Where we are, where we're headed

From Karl Denninger, who scores his 2009 predictions, and gives us his predictions for 2010. A sample [emphasis below in original]:

... If you take nothing else away from this Year in Review Ticker, it should be that singular chart above and a decent understanding of what it means:

To come back into equilibrium, assuming we do not decrease debt in the system at all, we would have to shrink GDP by about 20%. But shrinking GDP means that money available to pay down debt would also decrease which would generate even more defaults.

This is how deflationary depressions happen - years, even decades of playing Ponzi by layering debt upon debt. Bernanke and Geithner, along with President Obama, are well-aware of these facts which is why they are all pounding the table demanding that banks "loan more."

The problem with such a prescription is that the wise person won't borrow, for he knows what's coming. The unwise has no collateral to pledge, and thus can't borrow.

If the government forces (either by persuasion or legislation) lending to those who can't pay they only extend the Ponzi and in doing so make the inevitable collapse WORSE.

We have made no progress economically in terms of the common weal of the average American but have added debt in dramatic amounts to paper over the deficiency. That's the bottom line on the 2000s, and despite all the crooning that "the economy is on the mend" one has to look at the reality of the common man on the street to see what's coming around the bend for our economy and ask the following question:

How do we get positive economic growth when by every metric available the disposable personal income available to Americans has gone down, personal wealth has in fact decreased when one subtracts out debt (and you must; nobody in their right mind argues that if you go to the bank and take a cash advance for $20,000 on your credit card that you are "more wealthy" as a consequence of having done so!) and while employment at first blush looks "equal" to 2000 in fact there are 25 million more unemployed due to population growth - people who create drag on the economy due to entitlement spending rather than contributing to productive output?

So with all this said, here's what I believe we're looking at for 2010... ready or not, here it comes! ...

Read it all here.

Card tricks

Tonight's magic tricks -- Swedish magician Lennart Green does a few card tricks:

Power to the (conservative) people

Via The Anchoress (whose post here is also worth reading), comes this link to an article in the American Thinker, written by that rarest and most endangered of creatures, a conservative in Berkeley, California:

As a Jewish child, I never celebrated Christmas. I found out what I was missing on Christmas Eve, 1973.

My high school boyfriend Brian invited me to join his family for their celebration. The event floored me. It wasn't just the illuminated tree, the music, and the pleasure of opening gifts. It was the power of the holiday to transform Brian's ordinary family.

Laughing, singing hymns, praying -- they were absolutely radiant. I had never seen them so joyful. And in their presence, I felt joyful, too.

That was my one and only Christmas experience, and it never occurred to have another one. But this year's Christmas felt different.

I'm now a conservative who has purchased her first Bible. I am blessed with many new conservative friends in person and online, most of whom are religious. Given that God has taken center stage in my life, I decided it was time to celebrate another Christmas.

Having been rejected by the Berkeley Episcopalians, I remained undeterred in my pursuit of a Christmas Eve service. I searched the internet and found a large Catholic church the next town over. My plan: come early and sit inconspicuously in the back row.

For one, I didn't want to make a fool of myself. I'd never been to church, and I had no idea what to do.

Also, I hadn't told my husband Jon that I was going, so I didn't want to bump into anyone we knew. While I felt bad not telling him, Jon rolls his eyes every time he sees me reading the Bible. I didn't want anyone raining on my parade.

With my plan firmly in place, I was as excited as a little kid about attending the 5:00 pm Family Mass. I couldn't wait to see the Nativity play, both for the adorable children and because I was a bit fuzzy on the plot. ...

Read the rest here.

We're screwed!

That's the headline from the Fairfield Weekly interview of economist John Williams by NYU-Polytechnic Institute professor Phil Maymin:

Do you believe everything the government tells you? Economist and statistician John Williams sure doesn't. Williams, who has consulted for individuals and Fortune 500 companies, now uncovers the truth behind the U.S. government's economic numbers on his Web site at ShadowStats.com. Williams says, over the last several decades, the feds have been infusing their data with optimistic biases to make the economy seem far rosier than it really is. His site reruns the numbers using the original methodology. What he found was not good.

Maymin: So we are technically bankrupt?

Williams: Yes, and when countries are in that state, what they usually do is rev up the printing presses and print the money they need to meet their obligations. And that creates inflation, hyperinflation, and makes the currency worthless.

Obama says America will go bankrupt if Congress doesn't pass the health care bill.

Well, it's going to go bankrupt if they do pass the health care bill, too, but at least he's thinking about it. He talks about it publicly, which is one thing prior administrations refused to do. Give him credit for that. But what he's setting up with this health care system will just accelerate the process.

Where are we right now?

In terms of the GDP, we are about halfway to depression level. If you look at retail sales, industrial production, we are already well into depressionary. If you look at things such as the housing industry, the new orders for durable goods we are in Great Depression territory. If we have hyperinflation, which I see coming not too far down the road, that would be so disruptive to our system that it would result in the cessation of many levels of normal economic commerce, and that would throw us into a great depression, and one worse than was seen in the 1930s.

What kind of hyperinflation are we talking about?

I am talking something like you saw with the Weimar Republic of the 1930s. There the currency became worthless enough that people used it actually as toilet paper or wallpaper. You could go to a fine restaurant and have an expensive dinner and order an expensive bottle of wine. The next morning that empty bottle of wine is worth more as scrap glass than it had been the night before filled with expensive wine.

We just saw an extreme example in Zimbabwe. ... Probably the most extreme hyperinflation that anyone has ever seen. At the same time, you still had a functioning, albeit troubled, Zimbabwe economy. How could that be? They had a workable backup system of a black market in U.S. dollars. We don't have a backup system of anything. Our system, with its heavy dependence on electronic currency, in a hyperinflation would not do well. It would probably cease to function very quickly. You could have disruptions in supply chains to food stores. The economy would devolve into something like a barter system until they came up with a replacement global currency.

What can we do to avoid hyperinflation? What if we just shut down the Fed or something like that?

We can't. The actions have already been taken to put us in it. It's beyond control. The government does put out financial statements usually in December using generally accepted accounting principles, where unfunded liabilities like Medicare and Social Security are included in the same way as corporations account for their employee pension liabilities. And in 2008, for example, the one-year deficit was $5.1 trillion dollars. And that's instead of the $450 billion, plus or minus, that was officially reported.

Wow.

These numbers are beyond containment. Even the 2008 numbers, you can take 100 percent of people's income and corporate profit and you'd still be in deficit. There's no way you can raise enough money in taxes. ...

Read the rest here.

Musical interlude

Tonight's musical interlude, to end the first day of 2010 on a positive note, in this season of joy: Where the Hell is Matt? (now over 25 million YouTube views!) with Matt Harding doing his silly jig joined by folks from all over the world. I previously posted this earlier this year, but the sheer joy and exuberance of the participants, of all colors, races, and creeds, warms my heart. Enjoy.




The lyrics to the song in the video are reportedly from the Bengali poem Gitanjali ("Stream of Life") from Rabindranath Tagore:

Bhulbona ar shohojete
Shei praan e mon uthbe mete
Mrittu majhe dhaka ache
je ontohin praan

Bojre tomar baje bashi
She ki shohoj gaan
Shei shurete jagbo ami

Shei jhor jeno shoi anonde
Chittobinar taare
Shotto-shundu dosh digonto
Nachao je jhonkare!

Translated:

The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day
runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.

It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth
in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.

It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth
and of death, in ebb and in flow.

I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life.

And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.

The song is available as an MP3 download from Amazon: Praan

New Year's resolutions, Second Amendment edition

From David Codrea, comes some things to do this year (I may have missed some; see his whole list at the preceding link):

Read Second Amendment books

Attend an Appleseed

Know your representatives

Write letters to the editor

Join a gun rights group

Send a politician the gun rights questionnaire

Build a guns and liberty video collection

Take a new person shooting

Shoot a machine gun

Spread the word on Gun Rights Examiner

Go to a gun show

Happy New Year

Wishing all of you a very happy and prosperous new year.

Unfortunately, the coming years are likely to be filled with turmoil, the likes of which no American alive today has ever seen. No one knows the exact nature and timing of these trials, only that they will come. Decades of decadent overspending and living beyond our means at both the governmental and individual levels, on mountains of borrowed money, all while piling on layers of stifling, often unconstitutional regulation and largely unaccountable government bureaucracy, and the simultaneous multi-decade dumbing down of our education system, have made the coming crisis (or crises) inevitable. Add in the continued profligate spending by the government of money we don't have, the near certain passage of healthcare "reform" (i.e., the government takeover of one sixth of the economy) in some form, the possibility of cap-and-trade sneaking through, the likelihood of more bailouts of the Wall Street cabal and those too big or too unionized to fail, and you have the proverbial perfect storm for financial disaster.

Of course, self-inflicted financial disaster is only one subset of possible crises -- add in the potential for a government filled to the brim with individuals consumed with a seemingly limitless lust for power over others, and the very real makings of violent revolution, civil unrest, bloody civil war (is there any other kind?) ... choose whatever appellation for that bloodbath you wish ... looms ever closer.

I suspect the vast majority of Americans are unaware of how close we are to this fate. Those folks either simply haven't been paying attention, or are part of the problem themselves. Decades of collectivist imposition on our God given, and supposedly constitutionally protected, human rights have led us to this point, this precipice. Sadly, whether or not we fall off this precipice depends on whether our government can resist the urge to overreach, to stop piling on infringements to our fundamental human liberties. A frightening realization, given past history. Because if the American people end up at war with their government -- bloody, brutal, violent, killing war -- it will be because the government pushed one time too far, piled one infringement on human liberty too many. And enough Americans pushed back against such tyranny and oppression. Forcefully. And if it's one thing collectivists hate, it's the hoi polloi horning in on their precious (imagined, but near) monopoly of force. And as night follows day, what to many was once unthinkable, will follow.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the collectivists will look into the fearsome maw of armed citizens willing to fight, kill, and die ... and back off. Maybe. The history of government usurpation of powers not granted to them by the people doesn't exactly fill me with hope. Indeed, I have absolutely, positively no doubt that the collectivists would happily murder us all -- every last uppity citizen who won't go along peacefully with our own enslavement -- if the collectivists believed they could do so without risking (or losing) their own dammed lives. I suspect the only thing giving them pause is the likelihood of their own deaths. Time will tell how that calculus plays out.

Let us not, however, be so inward-focused that we forget the external crisis potentialities -- a nuclear-armed Iran, war in the Middle East (resulting in oil prices through the roof, followed shortly by everything else), another terrorist attack on US soil, perhaps larger and more successful than those of 9/11/2001. Will current DHS head Janet Napolitano again say the "system worked" then too, as she did in the case of the recent would-be airline passenger bomber (who was thwarted by fellow passengers and his own apparent ineptitude, not anything the government did)?

Or it might be something not on the radar. Perhaps China will attempt to repatriate Taiwan? Or a needy North Korea may decide to invade and plunder wealthy South Korea? With the image of weakness and submissiveness presented by our Marxist-in-Chief on his meet-and-greet foreign trips, can we really say these possibilities are all that far-fetched? Or maybe the catalyst will be something else that will catch us by surprise.

The world is, and remains, an increasingly dangerous place, despite a year of Hope and Change. Or, more likely, because of it.

As for us humble individuals, we prepare as best we can as our circumstances and resources permit, as we try to warn those friends and family who have not seen or prepared for the coming storm, or who, despite being otherwise intelligent individuals seem willfully blind to the impending disaster facing our nation. We can do no more, and are honor bound to do no less.

As we enter this uncertain time, this new year, take the time to thank the Lord for the many blessings He has bestowed upon us, and that we may be as worthy of them as our imperfect sinful selves will allow, and pray for His loving mercy. Happy New Year.

Musical interlude

Wishing all my readers a Happy New year and a great 2010!

A performance of the obligatory, and iconic, Auld Lang Syne, this one featuring violinist Andre Rieu:

Study: Music therapy can ease tinnitus symptoms

From Newsmax Health, comes this news that may be of interest to those who suffer from tinnitus:

Individually designed music therapy may help reduce noise levels in people suffering from tinnitus, or ear ringing, German scientists said on Monday.

The researchers designed musical treatments adapted to the musical tastes of patients with ear-ringing and then stripped out sound frequencies that matched the individual's tinnitus frequency.

After a year of listening to these "notched" musical therapies, patients reported a distinct decrease in the loudness of ringing compared with those who had listened to non-tailored placebo music, the researchers wrote in a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.

Article here. Sounds promising.

America: Guaranteed default

From a commentary by Porter Stansberry:

It's one of those numbers that's so unbelievable you have to actually think about it for a while...

Within the next 12 months, the U.S. Treasury will have to refinance $2 trillion in short-term debt. And that's not counting any additional deficit spending, which is estimated to be around $1.5 trillion.

Put the two numbers together. Then ask yourself, how in the world can the Treasury borrow $3.5 trillion in only one year? That's an amount equal to nearly 30% of our entire GDP. And we're the world's biggest economy. Where will the money come from?

How did we end up with so much short-term debt? Like most entities that have far too much debt – whether subprime borrowers, GM, Fannie, or GE – the U.S. Treasury has tried to minimize its interest burden by borrowing for short durations and then "rolling over" the loans when they come due. As they say on Wall Street, "a rolling debt collects no moss."

What they mean is, as long as you can extend the debt, you have no problem. Unfortunately, that leads folks to take on ever greater amounts of debt... at ever shorter durations... at ever lower interest rates. Sooner or later, the creditors wake up and ask themselves: What are the chances I will ever actually be repaid? And that's when the trouble starts. Interest rates go up dramatically. Funding costs soar. The party is over. Bankruptcy is next.

When governments go bankrupt, it's called a "default." Currency speculators figured out how to accurately predict when a country would default. Two well-known economists – Alan Greenspan and Pablo Guidotti – published the secret formula in a 1999 academic paper. The formula is called the Greenspan-Guidotti rule.

The rule states: To avoid a default, countries should maintain hard currency reserves equal to at least 100% of their short-term foreign debt maturities. The world's largest money-management firm, PIMCO, explains the rule this way: "The minimum benchmark of reserves equal to at least 100% of short-term external debt is known as the Greenspan-Guidotti rule. Greenspan-Guidotti is perhaps the single concept of reserve adequacy that has the most adherents and empirical support."

The principle behind the rule is simple. If you can't pay off all of your foreign debts in the next 12 months, you're a terrible credit risk. Speculators are going to target your bonds and your currency, making it impossible to refinance your debts. A default is assured.

So how does America rank on the Greenspan-Guidotti scale? It's a guaranteed default. ...

Read the rest here.

Rocketman

Tonight's stunt - Eric Scott goes for the world jetpack record:

What you have in common with King Nebuchadnezzar

Some interesting facts from Jeff Clark, editor of Casey Research's Gold & Resource Report:

... But I can address Betsy’s misunderstanding now, because part of what she said is correct: gold is not an investment. Gold’s primary purpose is to preserve your purchasing power. Whether it be roaring inflation, or dollar debasement, or economic upheaval, or out-of-control government spending, it has been the absolute best form of protection throughout the history of mankind. And I can prove it.

Let’s trace what an ounce of gold or silver – true money – has been able to purchase at various periods in history, and how it compares to today.

1979: Gold’s average price that year was $306.68. This bought an average-priced full size bed.

* 30 years later, $950 would still buy you a full size bed.


1963: A gallon of gasoline in America sold for 31 cents. This meant that 3 silver dimes could buy a gallon of gasoline. The total weight of silver in 3 silver dimes is .217 of an ounce.

* Today, 3 silver dimes would buy a gallon of gasoline anywhere in the U.S.


600 AD: In the Middle East, a chicken at the time of Mohammad would cost a family one silver Dirham (3 grams).

* Today, 1,400 years later, a chicken in the Middle East would still cost a family one silver Dirham.


Time of Christ: Under the Roman Empire, an ounce of gold purchased a Roman citizen his toga (suit), a leather belt, and a pair of sandals.

* Today, one ounce of gold will still buy a man a suit, a leather belt, and a pair of shoes.


400 BC: Some scholars report that during the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar, an ounce of gold bought 350 loaves of bread.

* Today, an ounce of gold still buys about 350 loaves ($950 divided by 350 = $2.73/loaf).


1000 BC: King Solomon was known to have purchased many horses for his army. Historical records show he bought them in Egypt for 150 shekels of silver each. 150 shekels was about 55 troy ounces of silver.

* Today, you can still buy a riding horse for 55 troy ounces of silver ($800).

Read it here. Got precious metals?

2010, the year of bankrupt governments

From NY Post columnist Ralph Peters:

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. But he only comes for kids -- not for governments that have bragged, borrowed and spent their way into bankruptcy. Two Thousand Ten is going to belong to the Grinch.

For spendthrift governments around the world, the new year's going to bring massive defaults. The new globalization may be the globalization of a second wave of financial crises.

The world economy is not convalescing. It's just been pumped full of unaffordable medicines. Borrowing madly, countries as diverse as Greece and Dubai have been buying time, not fiscal health.

Built on financial quicksand, Dubai (an Arab Las-Vegas-without-the-fun) is in collapse (predicted by this column years ago). Quasi-governmental corporations backed by the ruling family are at least $80 billion in the hole. The recent transfusion of 10 billion bucks from Abu Dhabi merely applied a Band-Aid to a hemorrhage. Dubai can't pay.

Eighty billion in bad debts may not sound high in President Obama's Washington, but Dubai's just a city pretending to be a country. It produces nothing. There's no inherent wealth. It Madoff-ed the world with extravagant brochures and nutty projects.

Speculators went nuts, proclaiming Dubai the city of the future, where wealth could only beget more wealth. The frenzy produced the craziest real-estate bubble in the world, as gullible investors mistook a couple of shopping malls for a civilization.

Dubai's approach to development mirrored that of much of the Arab world, expecting money to do all of the work. But Dubai's ambitions weren't backed by oil wealth, only vast development schemes that never should have fooled a single investor. But investors wanted to be fooled.

Speculation hasn't been the only villain generating financial ruin around the world. Another villain has been exploding entitlements. Several European states (plus my favorite foreign country, California) have been downed by a self-inflicted one-two punch. ...

Rest here.

What'cha doing, Mr. Policeman?

Tonight's inquisitive kitty:

Obama signs immunity order for Interpol agents

More Hope and Change from a couple of weeks ago, from our foreigner-lovin', America-hatin' Marxist-in-Chief:

Last Thursday, December 17, 2009, The White House released an Executive Order "Amending Executive Order 12425." It grants INTERPOL (International Criminal Police Organization) a new level of full diplomatic immunity afforded to foreign embassies and select other "International Organizations" as set forth in the United States International Organizations Immunities Act of 1945.

By removing language from President Reagan's 1983 Executive Order 12425, this international law enforcement body now operates - now operates - on American soil beyond the reach of our own top law enforcement arm, the FBI, and is immune from Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

...

In light of what we know and can observe, it is our logical conclusion that President Obama's Executive Order amending President Ronald Reagans' 1983 EO 12425 and placing INTERPOL above the United States Constitution and beyond the legal reach of our own top law enforcement is a precursor to more damaging moves.

The pre-requisite conditions regarding the Iraq withdrawal and the Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention facility closure will continue their course. meanwhile, the next move from President Obama is likely an attempt to dissolve the agreements made between President Bush and other states preventing them from turning over American military forces to the ICC (via INTERPOL) for war crimes or any other prosecutions.

When the paths on the road map converge - Iraq withdrawal, Guantánamo closure, perceived American image improved internationally, and an empowered INTERPOL in the United States - it is probable that President Barack Obama will once again make America a signatory to the International Criminal Court. It will be a move that surrenders American sovereignty to an international body whose INTERPOL enforcement arm has already been elevated above the Constitution and American domestic law enforcement.

For an added and disturbing wrinkle, INTERPOL's central operations office in the United States is within our own Justice Department offices. They are American law enforcement officers working under the aegis of INTERPOL within our own Justice Department. That they now operate with full diplomatic immunity and with "inviolable archives" from within our own buildings should send red flags soaring into the clouds. ...

Read the whole thing here. So, to recap: foreign police agents operating on American soil are immune from prosecution for any misdeeds committed against American citizens.

Seems like if we wanted to have foreign agents, answerable only to politicians and bureaucrats in some far off foreign capital, operating on our soil with the ability to harass and abuse American citizens, we would have stayed part of the British Empire.

Williams: The U.S. has no way of avoiding a financial armageddon

Today's dose of economic analysis comes from economist John Williams of Shadow Government Statistics, interviewed by Eric King.

Listen to the interview here (about 30 minutes).

Guns, teachers, and self-defense

From that stalwart of the anti-gun mainstream media (but I repeat myself), the Boston Globe [hat tip to Tom B.], comes this letter to the editor from a self-described "progressive":

I AM a math teacher at Brockton High School, the site of a school shooting earlier this month.

Current school security procedures lock down school populations in the event of armed assault. Some advocate abandoning this practice as it holds everyone in place, allowing a shooter easily to find victims.

An alternative to lockdown is immediate exodus via announcement. Although this removes potential hostages and makes it nearly impossible for the shooter to acquire preselected targets, it unfairly rewards resourceful children who move to safety off-site more shrewdly and efficiently than others.

Schools should level playing fields, not intrinsically reward those more resourceful. A level barrel is fair to all fish.

Some propose overturning laws that made schools gun-free zones even for teachers who may be licensed to securely carry concealed firearms elsewhere. They argue that barring licensed-carry only ensures a defenseless, target-rich environment.

But as a progressive, I would sooner lay my child to rest than succumb to the belief that the use of a gun for self-defense is somehow not in itself a gun crime.

DOUG VAN GORDER
Quincy

[emphasis added]

Read it here, then read the comments to the letter here. I can't figure out whether this is satire, as one friend (and a few commenters) has suggested, or whether Mr. Van Gorder is serious. Most of the commenters, however, appear to take the letter's author at face value, and quite a few agree with him. (This is the Boston Globe, so I suspect many of the commenters are based in the People's Commonwealth of Massachusetts.)

As one commenter points out, if we were to apply Mr. Van Gorder's logic (I use that term loosely) to school fires, then we should keep everyone in the building, rather than "unfairly reward[ing] resourceful children who move to safety off-site more shrewdly and efficiently than others." After all, "schools should level playing fields" for the flammable, "not intrinsically reward those more resourceful. A level barrel is fair to all fish." And students should burn equally, in the author's progressive Utopia. Equal immolation for all.

Of course, we'll probably also have to create "nomex-free" zones in our schools to ensure that no student gets an unfair fire-resistant garment advantage (the evil "Haberdasher's Loophole"). Another "progressive" idea whose time has come, no?

Who needs a corkscrew, anyway?

Tonight's unusual way to open a bottle of wine:

2010 Food crisis for dummies

And now back to our regularly scheduled gloom and doom. :)

From Market Skeptics' Eric deCarbonnel, who makes the case for a major food crisis next year:

If you read any economic, financial, or political analysis for 2010 that doesn’t mention the food shortage looming next year, throw it in the trash, as it is worthless. There is overwhelming, undeniable evidence that the world will run out of food next year. When this happens, the resulting triple digit food inflation will lead panicking central banks around the world to dump their foreign reserves to appreciate their currencies and lower the cost of food imports, causing the collapse of the dollar, the treasury market, derivative markets, and the global financial system. The US will experience economic disintegration.

The 2010 Food Crisis Means Financial Armageddon

Over the last two years, the world has faced a series of unprecedented financial crises: the collapse of the housing market, the freezing of the credit markets, the failure of Wall Street brokerage firms (Bear Stearns/Lehman Brothers), the failure of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the failure of AIG, Iceland’s economic collapse, the bankruptcy of the major auto manufacturers (General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler), etc… In the face of all these challenges, the demise of the dollar, derivative markets, and the modern international system of credit has been repeatedly forecasted and feared. However, all these doomsday scenarios have so far been proved false, and, despite tremendous chaos and losses, the global financial system has held together.

The 2010 Food Crisis is different. It is THE CRISIS. The one that makes all doomsday scenarios come true. The government bailouts and central bank interventions, which have held the financial world together during the last two years, will be powerless to prevent the 2010 Food Crisis from bringing the global financial system to its knees.

Financial crisis will kick into high gear

So far the crisis has been driven by the slow and steady increase in defaults on mortgages and other loans. This is about to change. What will drive the financial crisis in 2010 will be panic about food supplies and the dollar’s plunging value. Things will start moving fast.

Dynamics Behind 2010 Food Crisis

Early in 2009, the supply and demand in agricultural markets went badly out of balance. The world experienced a catastrophic fall in food production as a result of the financial crisis (low commodity prices and lack of credit) and adverse weather on a global scale. Meanwhile, China and other Asian exporters, in an effort to preserve their economic growth, were unleashing domestic consumption long constrained by inflation fears, and demand for raw materials, especially food staples, exploded as Chinese consumers worked their way towards American-style overconsumption, prodded on by a flood of cheap credit and easy loans from the government.

Normally food prices should have already shot higher months ago, leading to lower food consumption and bringing the global food supply/demand situation back into balance. This never happened because the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), instead of adjusting production estimates down to reflect decreased production, adjusted estimates upwards to match increasing demand from china. In this way, the USDA has brought supply and demand back into balance (on paper) and temporarily delayed a rise in food prices by ensuring a catastrophe in 2010. ...

Read it all here. Food for thought (pun intended). A longish post with lots of data tables and charts. Worth reading.

Movie quotes

Tonight's movie collage -- quotes from the American Film Institute's 100 years, 100 movie quotes list:

Christmas bird

Tonight's culinary humor:

Musical interlude

Tonight's musical interlude - Christmas Canon Rock, by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra:

Merry Christmas!

And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.

(And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.)

And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.

And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:)

To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.

And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.

And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

Luke 2:1-14, from the King James Version

Wishing all of you a blessed and very Merry Christmas!

Here's a couple of songs to start your day of right:

First, Sarah McLachlan, doing her rendition of What Child is This?:




And here's the lovely Carrie Underwood, performing How Great Thou Art:

Musical interlude

Tonight's musical interlude -- O Holy Night, performed by Carrie Underwood:

Exposing the cast of ClimateGate

Via SamizData, comes this video of Britain's Lord Monckton on Climategate at the 2nd International Climate Conference last month:



Worth watching the whole 34 minutes. Think of the release of the ClimateGate data and emails as a Christmas present to the world, exposing the massive coordinated fraud perpetrated by the Global Warming crowd.

US Airways Flight 1549 animation

Tonight's emergency landing animation - an animation of US Airways Flight 1549's Jan 19, 2009 ditching in the Hudson River:

From the video's description:

This animation is based on all currently available data concerning the US Airways Flight 1549 crash (Cactus 1549). Satellite imagery, elevation models and robust GIS mapping methods are utilized to create a vegetation model, terrain model and ground clutter (3D buildings). Of all available audio tracks, only two are used, La Guardia Tower and New York TRACON Departure controller position. Radar data as well as the onboard Flight Data Recorder are utilized in constructing the flightpath of the aircraft.

And another perspective:

The next "assault weapon" for Mayor Bloomberg to ban

Today's Christmas toy, "assault nerf" edition:

100 reasons why climate change is natural

From the the U.K. Daily Express:

HERE are the 100 reasons, released in a dossier issued by the European Foundation, why climate change is natural and not man-made:

1) There is “no real scientific proof” that the current warming is caused by the rise of greenhouse gases from man’s activity.

2) Man-made carbon dioxide emissions throughout human history constitute less than 0.00022 percent of the total naturally emitted from the mantle of the earth during geological history.

3) Warmer periods of the Earth’s history came around 800 years before rises in CO2 levels.

4) After World War II, there was a huge surge in recorded CO2 emissions but global temperatures fell for four decades after 1940. ...

Read the other 96 reasons here.

Survival trends for 2010

From Charles Hugh Smith:

Here are a few key trends which will gather momentum in 2010--trends drawn from the Survival+ analysis.

My purpose in writing Survival+ was to provide a coherent account (i.e. an integrated understanding) of the powerful trends which are working beneath the superficial surface of our economy and culture.

Survival+ explains why the status quo is doomed, and illuminates the mechanisms which doom it. It also describes "the way out"--we must each put our energy into constructing a parallel, transparent, self-organized, re-localized system which is entirely legal and entirely independent of the failing, doomed status quo which is stripmining the productive to enrich the public and private Elites (file under "Fall of the Empire, Roman and other").

Here are a few of the trends described in Survival+ which I anticipate will be gathering momentum in 2010.

1. Millions of productive citizens will opt out, voluntarily or involuntarily. Millions of small business owners will get tired of paying taxes so thousands of Federal bureaucrats can "earn" $170,000 a year (and pile up benefits the private sector can only dream about) and make sure Goldman Sachs employees (the "doing God's work" CEO is only worth $250 million, poor guy) can divvy up $16 billion in ill-gotten gains.

While they aren't wealthy, many small business owners are comfortable because they scrimped and saved and sacrificed. So when they close their business because it's no longer worth the hassle, the guff, the taxes, the bureaucratic fees and paperwork, then they will survive. The closure of the business will deprive their employees of jobs and the local stripmining machinery (local government) of tax revenues--revenues which cannot be replaced.

Given the dominance of the financial sector, agribusiness, pharmaceuticals and a hundred other concentrations of capital and political power (cartels), then the individual citizen has literally no choice but to opt out.

Those who have worked like crazy to net $170,000 will no longer be willing to work that hard so they can pay absurdly high tax rates to support bureaucrats raking in $170,000 a year for going to pre-meetings (or whatever) and public-employee retirees double-dipping (drawing $100K+ pensions and bennies and getting rehired immediately on contract to do the same job they just left.)

No, thank you, we really don't need to work this hard to support you. We are tired of being serfs. The more you try to tax "the rich," the more "rich" people will opt out. ...

Read the rest here.

Fox, hunting

Tonight's fox-searching-for-dinner video, from PBS' Nature - Christmas in Yellowstone:

Stephen Halbrook podcast interview

From Dave Kopel at Volokh:

A fifty-three minute podcast interview with Stephen Halbrook. Over the last three decades, Halbrook has been the greatest legal champion of Second Amendment rights. As a scholar, as an attorney (with a 3–0 record in the Supreme Court), and as a public advocate, Halbrook has done tremendous work in saving the Second Amendment from nullification, and in putting the courts and the legal academy back on the track of recognizing the right to arms in the Second and Fourteenth Amendments. We talk about the broad scope of Halbrook’s career, and about McDonald v. Chicago, in which Halbrook is representing the National Rifle Association as a party “respondent in support of petitioner.”

Listen to the interview here.

New Gunsight Improves Marksmanship With Intuitive Aim, Says UAB Vision Scientist

From the University of Alabama, on one researcher's work on improving the humble iron gunsight:

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - A University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Vision Science Research Center investigator who also is an expert marksman has found a more intuitive way to aim a pistol.

Associate Professor Timothy Kraft, Ph.D., has developed a new gunsight design that relies on subconscious ability. Opti-sight, a UAB-protected innovation, updates a pistol-aiming device that has remained unchanged for more than a century. Opti-sight promises to reduce the time law enforcement, professional and amateur shooters need for target practice to improve marksmanship.

Opti-sight is a precision-milled half-triangle shape that replaces the traditional pistol gunsight. The design relies on subjective contours, an optics principle that explains how the subconscious mind fills in the blanks when the eye sees half of a familiar shape like a circle, square or triangle, Kraft says.

The rear opti-sight notch looks like an incomplete triangle sitting atop the gun barrel. When a shooter looks through the notch, the brain tells the eye where the missing triangle apex should appear, and that apex is the precise point of aim, Kraft says. "This triangular shape that I've created allows the brain to visualize concentric triangles whose imaginary apexes focus the shooter's attention on the exact target bullseye.

"Opti-sight makes shooting very intuitive by allowing gunsight alignment to become subconscious."

Marksmen, especially beginning shooters, will see improvements more quickly with opti-sight than a traditional gunsight, he says. ...

Article here.

Musical interlude

Tonight's musical interlude - the Trans-Siberian Orchestra's Wizards in Winter, set to lights:

Bitter bambi-lovers berate, but bluster blinds to benefits

From the Washington Post:

During a recent deer hunt in Southern Maryland, Blaise Higgs killed a doe and then took it to a butcher shop for dressing. After setting aside several pounds of venison for his family, he donated the rest to an organization that helps feed the hungry.

"A lot of people are having a difficult time putting food on the table, so if you can help them, why not?" said Higgs, 38, a resident of Mechanicsville and a hunter since he was 6.

In the long-running dispute with animal rights advocates over the ethics of deer hunting, Higgs and other sportsmen have found what they believe to be the moral high ground: stocking food banks and soup kitchens with their kills.

One day last week, about 50 people dined on venison chili at the Loaves & Fishes Soup Kitchen, which operates out of St. Paul's United Methodist Church in Leonardtown.

"We call it 'Bambi chili,' " said Shirley Morton, a volunteer cook.

Higgs's bounty was distributed through Farmers and Hunters Feeding the Hungry, a national outreach ministry headquartered in Williamsport, Md. Steve White, a coordinator for the group, said participants in Maryland provided enough food for 497,800 meals between June 2008 and this past July.

Animal rights activists are not impressed.

"I find it offensive that people would try to justify immoral behavior by claiming that something good comes out of it," said Bruce Friedrich, a spokesman for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. "They can't defend ruthlessly blowing away animals for fun, so they come up with these ancillary benefits." ...

Read it here. The closing quote sums it up:

Higgs donated 20 doe last season, most of them shot with his compound bow and three-blade arrows. Told that animal rights activists consider bowhunting especially cruel, Higgs replied, "How many hungry people do they feed?"

Somehow, I'll bet none of these so-called animal rights activists are going hungry this holiday season.