Showing posts with label Economy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Economy. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Has the Inflation Genie Escaped? "Every nation is about nine meals away from a revolution"

Really good charts spotted at Market Daily Briefing that reflect the real costs of Ben Bernanke's magical printing press, which is spewing out dollars at an unprecedented clip.

Food is important, especially when you don't have it. The rule of 3s says "3 minutes without air, 3 days without water, 3 weeks without food" but another saying is, "every nation is about nine meals away from revolution."

It was posited here that the Arab Spring was due in no small part to high food prices for peoples whose food budgets started out at around 40%. For instance, the Egyptian government had a food price support in place, and when global prices rose, it became too expensive for them to run. Down went the Egyptian government, after being in power for 40 years. Check out the "Food" column in the table below and you'll have a sense.


The CPI that a population feels when prices move depends on where it spends. In the US, the food spend is 7% of our income. So if the food price index moves from 125 to 225 (an 80% move) as it did in 2006-2008, we would see a CPI impact of about 6%. For people whose food budgets account for 46% (such as the average Pakistani), they would see a CPI impact of 36%.

Since Barack Obama took office, the real price of food has increased about 40 percent.

Combined with Bernanke's ZIRP (Zero Interest Rate) policy -- which makes it extraordinarily difficult to generate income on savings accounts, CDs and money markets -- lower- and middle-class senior citizens are among the hardest hit by the irresponsible deficit spending instigated by Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.


"No amount of propaganda can cover up the physical, economic, social, and psychological descent afflicting our world"

Jim Quinn, writing at The Burning Platform, has one hell of a wake-up call, the SparkNotes version of which follows:

... the dreadful results of retailers and restaurants even before the Obama tax increases confirms the country has been in recession since the second half of 2012. In 1979 the economy was still driven by domestic investment that accounted for 19% of GDP. Today, it wallows at all-time lows of 13%. In addition, our trade deficits, driven by debt fueled consumption, subtract 3.5% from GDP. These facts are reflected in the depressed outlook of small business owners who are the backbone of growth, hiring and entrepreneurship in this country. Small businesses of 500 employees or less employ half of all the private industry workers in the country and account for 65% of all new jobs created. There are approximately 27 million small businesses versus 18,000 large businesses. The chart below does not paint an improving picture. The small business optimism has dropped from an already low 92.8 in September 2012 to 90.8 in March 2013...


...On paper, my county appears to be thriving and healthy, with white collar professionals living an idyllic suburban existence. One small problem – the visual evidence as you travel along Welsh Road towards Montgomeryville or Germantown Pike towards Plymouth Meeting reveals a decaying infrastructure, dying retail meccas, and miles of empty office complexes.

I don’t think my general observations as I drive around Montgomery County are colored by any predisposition towards negativity. I see a gray winter like pallor has settled upon the land. I see termite pocked wooden fences with broken and missing slats. I see sagging porches. I see leaky roofs with missing tiles. I see vacant dilapidated hovels. I see mold tainted deteriorating siding on occupied houses. I see weed infested overgrown yards. I see collapsing barns and crumbling farm silos. I see houses and office buildings that haven’t been painted in 20 years. I see clock towers in strip malls with the wrong time. I see shuttered gas stations. I see retail stores with lights out in their signs. I see trees which fell during Hurricane Sandy five months ago still sitting in yards untouched. I see potholes not being filled. I see disintegrating highway overpasses and bridges. I constantly see emergency repairs on burst water mains. I see malfunctioning stoplights. I see fading traffic signage. I see regional malls with rust stained walls beneath their massive unlit Macys, JC Penney and Sears logos. I see hundreds of Space Available, For Lease, For Rent, Vacancy, For Sale and Store Closing signs dotting the suburban landscape. These sights are in a relatively affluent suburban county. When I reach West Philly, it looks more like Dresden in 1945...

Stratfor warns: "Any solution [to the European financial crisis] will involve the loss of depositors' money"

By George Friedman, Founder and Chairman, Stratfor Research

The European economic crisis has taken different forms in different places, and Cyprus is the latest country to face the prospect of financial ruin. Overextended banks in Cyprus are teetering on the brink of failure for issuing loans they cannot repay, which has prompted the tiny Mediterranean country, a member of the European Union, to turn to Brussels for help. Late Sunday, the European Union and Cypriot president announced new terms for a bailout that would provide the infusion of cash necessary to prevent bankruptcies in Cyprus' banking sector and, more important, prevent a banking panic from spreading to the rest of Europe.

What makes this crisis different from the previous bailouts for Greece, Ireland or elsewhere are the conditions Brussels has attached for its assistance. Due to circumstances unique to Cyprus, namely the questionable origin of a large chunk of the deposits in its now-stricken banking sector and that sector's small size relative to the overall European economy, the European Union, led by Germany, has taken a harder line with the country. Cyprus has few sources of capital besides its capacity as a banking shelter, so Brussels required that the country raise part of the necessary funds from its own banking sector -- possibly by seizing money from certain bank deposits and putting it toward the bailout fund. The proposal has not yet been approved, but if enacted it would undermine a formerly sacred principle of banking in most industrial nations -- the security of deposits -- setting a new and possibly destabilizing precedent in Europe.

Monday, March 25, 2013

"Willful Ignorance Is Not an Excuse"

Bloomberg -- the news service, not the idiot mayor -- reports that:

...politicians such as President Barack Obama to House Speaker John Boehner say the U.S. doesn’t face an immediate debt crisis.

Refuting this madness is Karl Denninger, who likens America to a typical, middle-class household.

Let's assume that a few years ago you had $51,000 in annual income, about average.

You also, however, had $180,000 in debt, and most of your debt is in a balloon note mortgage that has to be rolled over every three years. That is, every three years you must find someone who will write you a new mortgage, or you're out of your house...

Now let's step forward a few years to today.

Your income has dropped somewhat to $48,980, which is a bit below average, but not by too much. That's a 4% reduction, incidentally.

But your debt is now $328,660, or very close to double what it was five years ago. The reason your debt has increased is that you spent $70,760 last year, and in fact have been doing this for the last five years -- spending dramatically more than you took in. You had a couple of very bad years for income, but never cut back on your spending -- and in fact you still aren't back to where you were on income five years previous.

You believe there is no "debt crisis" because the cost of borrowing all that money has gone down in interest rate terms. But this is a chimera, because you didn't borrow all the money for 30 years, locking in your cost -- instead, in order to make your spending better than it would otherwise be, you have borrowed a huge percentage of this money on a short-term basis which still must be rolled over every couple of years!

Your debt:income ratio has deteriorated by about a factor of two in the last five years.

"No immediate crisis"? Says who? That's not under your control because you neither control your income nor can you compel anyone to roll that debt over at a favorable cost.

You are currently enjoying this cheap lending because people are scared, in fact, that all of their other options for the use of their capital will result in huge losses, while they believe you are "safer" in this regard.

This is not good, it's bad.

The numbers used above are, in fact, the federal budget and debt figures with some zeroes and such lopped off.

Denninger outlines the results of two scenarios:

a) Status quo - the economy doesn't improve, but people continue to lend you money at low rates primarily due to fear. Eventually confidence is lost in your ability to repay and, one day, the debt can't be rolled over. That is when bankruptcy occurs, suddenly and with absolute certainty.

b) Improvement - the economy improves to the point where interest rates rise; your ability to make payments becomes harder and harder, which causes interest rate demands to increase, and so on. A crisis ensues.


The most basic financial advice ever uttered is TANSTAAFL - "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch."

Yet there are those who claim that the Fed's endless money-printing is somehow different. Here's a preview of coming attractions for you drones, media clowns and related Obama sycophants: it ain't different this time.


Sunday, March 24, 2013

The Next Phase of the Financial Meltdown in Cyprus: an "Unimaginable" and Vicious Policy is Being Considered

The editor-in-chief of the Greek newspaper Ekathimerini asserts that an "unimaginable" solution is on the table.

The main question surrounds the future of the island’s largest lender, Bank of Cyprus. If unsecured deposits (above 100,000 euros) at all Cypriot banks are taxed then large savings at Bank of Cyprus are likely to be taxed between 20 and 25 percent. If the levy is not imposed on deposits at other lenders, the haircut for Bank of Cyprus customers will be much larger.


The option of a full bail in of Bank of Cyprus depositors is still on the table. As with the Popular Bank of Cyprus (Laiki), which is to go through a resolution process, the full bail in option could lead to deposits above 100,000 euros being lost. The only compensation for unsecured depositors will be shares in the “good” bank that will be created by a possible merger between the "healthy" Laiki and Bank of Cyprus entities.

Just a week ago the entire financial world shuddered when Cypriot banks were to "tax" (i.e., steal) 12 to 15 percent of deposits.

Now the act of total confiscation of these accounts is on the table.

This is lawlessness. And Statist cheerleaders like Henry Blodget and Paul Krugman support the policies that will bring Cyprus to our shores.


Free speech rights? What free speech rights?

A township in Michigan thinks it can restrict certain kinds of signs.

Farmer, township at odds over M-6 signs


Signs on semi trailers criticize Obama, socialism

A cattle farmer is fighting a Gaines Township zoning ordinance to keep a couple of trailer-sized political signs on his property.

A crowd is expected in 63rd District Court Friday as Vern Verduin takes on Township officials who are trying to force him to remove his signs[, which] are visible from M-6, are posted on two semi-truck trailers parked in Verduin's pasture.


One reads "Marxism/Socialism = Poverty & hunger." The other reads "Obama's 'mission accomplished.' 8% unemployment. 16 trillion debt."

"I felt that things were going in the wrong direction," he said... [and] as a farmer, he's concerned especially about hunger and poverty... But the signs have put him at odds with the leaders of Gaines Township, for whom he has worked as a volunteer firefighter for years.

The Township cited him for violating its sign ordinance, which restricts the size of political signs to 20 square feet... But under the ordinance, you can have a bigger sign to sell a product than to sell an idea.

"You can have a 32-foot advertising sign. I don't get that," said Verduin... That commercial element is why Verduin's lawyer thinks his client will win in court. The US Constitution, he says, gives political speech more protection than it does commercial speech.

...Verduin said he could have avoided the fight but has been encouraged by the response he said he has received from people who have driven by and seen his signs- -- especially those from countries where free speech is limited... "One guy gives me a big ol' bear hug. You know, used broken English. So that helped me continue on," he said.

I'd like to think Verduin would win the case in a default judgment, but since we're living in a post-Constitutional Republic (thanks, Chief Justice Roberts!), one never knows.


Hat tip: BB.

Saturday, March 23, 2013

LIST: Here are the 20 Obamacare Turncoats in the U.S. Senate

From the invaluable Senate Conservatives Fund:
Fellow Conservatives:

As you know, U.S. Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mike Lee (R-UT) forced a vote on an amendment last week to defund Obamacare. The Democrats defeated the amendment, but all 45 Republicans voted in favor of it even though some in the party don't want to fight the issue anymore.

But the real test for Republicans came this week when the Senate held the final vote on the bill that funds Obamacare. 

As we expected, a large group of Republicans flip-flopped and helped the Democrats pass the legislation.

Here are the 20 Republicans who voted to give the Obama Administration the funding it needs to implement Obamacare. The highlighted senators are running for re-election in 2014.

Alexander (R-TN)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Blunt (R-MO)
Boozman (R-AR)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coats (R-IN)
Cochran (R-MS)
Collins (R-ME)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)

Hatch (R-UT)
Hoeven (R-ND)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johanns (R-NE)
McConnell (R-KY)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Thune (R-SD)
Wicker (R-MS)

These senators want voters to know they oppose Obamacare, but they aren't willing to do what is necessary to actually stop it. They give lip service to conservative principles, but won't make real sacrifices to deliver for the American people.

Senator Mitch McConnell's vote for the Obamacare funding bill was especially disappointing. He not only supported the Cruz-Lee amendment to defund Obamacare, he also gave a speech at CPAC last week where he stood next to thousands of pages of Obamacare regulations and vowed to fight them. If he were serious, he would have opposed the bill that funds the implementation of those very same regulations.

Republicans like Senator McConnell won't oppose spending bills like this one because they're afraid of being blamed for a government shutdown. This fear is crippling the Republican Party. Until its leaders face the ghosts of 1995 and stand up to President Obama, there is little hope that things in Washington will change.

You will be pleased to know that all eight of the Senators SCF helped elect over the past two elections opposed the Obamacare funding bill, along with a majority of Republicans in the Senate. 

NEW ARKANSAS POLL

Our efforts to expose U.S. Senator Mark Pryor (D-Arkansas) are beginning to pay off in a very big way. 

We released the results of joint SCF-Club for Growth Action poll this week showing a significant decline in Senator Pryor's image over the past two months. This is a direct result of the advertising our two organizations have funded this year to highlight his record.

Senator Pryor has gone from a +28 Favorable/Unfavorable spread among likely voters (53/25) to even (36/36), a 28-point drop. In addition, the number of Arkansans who now view Mark Pryor as a "liberal" has nearly doubled, going from 26% in a January survey to 47% now, a strong plurality of respondents. 

We must continue and expand this effort so voters in Arkansas know the truth about Senator Pryor. The Democrats are not going to give up on him and will probably spend money to help him soon.

Please make a contribution to the Senate Conservatives Fund today so we can continue our efforts to expose Mark Pryor's liberal record.

Thank you for supporting the principles of freedom that make this country great. We'll keep fighting.

Best regards,

Matt Hoskins
Executive Director
Senate Conservatives Fund

Please consider donating to the Senate Conservatives Fund. If these the RINO mush-mouthes won't fight, they need to be fired.


Thursday, March 21, 2013

The inevitable result of amoral, secular progressivism: Half of all first children born out of wedlock

This story is flat out shocking.

...for the first time in history the median age of American women having babies is lower than the median age of marriage – 25.7 and 26.5, respectively ... 48 percent of first births are by unwed mothers, and by age 30 two-thirds of American women have had a child, typically out of wedlock.

What legacy media and Democrats (but I repeat myself) won't tell you is this shocking fact: easy access to welfare is helping spur the record number of out-of-wedlock births. The more the welfare state provides, the more kids are born out of wedlock.

There have been dozens of studies that link the availability of welfare benefits to out-of-wedlock births. One study found that a 50 percent increase in the value of AFDC and foodstamp payments led to a 43 percent increase in the number of out-of-wedlock births.

Worse still, children raised in single-parent households are far more likely to commit crimes and end up incarcerated than their peers raised by both a Mother and a Father.

A U.S. Department of Health and Human Services study showed that a 50 percent increase in the monthly value of combined AFDC and food stamp benefits led to a 117 percent increase in the crime rate among young black men.

In 1995, Dr. Patrick Fagan wrote a seminal summary of the situation: "Over the past thirty years, the rise in violent crime parallels the rise in families abandoned by fathers... High-crime neighborhoods are characterized by high concentrations of families abandoned by fathers... The rate of violent teenage crime corresponds with the number of families abandoned by fathers... Neighborhoods with a high degree of religious practice are not high-crime neighborhoods... Even in high-crime inner-city neighborhoods, well over 90 percent of children from safe, stable homes do not become delinquents. By contrast only 10 percent of children from unsafe, unstable homes in these neighborhoods avoid crime... Criminals capable of sustaining marriage gradually move away from a life of crime after they get married."

Obama and his Democrat sycophants are creating a lost generation of children -- heavily tilted toward Black and Hispanic kids -- needlessly condemning them to a culture of dependency, crime and violence.

With Obama in charge, these poor kids never had a chance.


Related: How We Lost the War on Poverty.

eHealth Survey: Average Monthly Obamacare Premiums for a Family Will Jump from $400 to... $600 a month

Like a kidney-stone, we had to pass the bill to find out what was in it.

Individual and family insurance plans with comprehensive benefits could see major price spikes in the coming months as more measures of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act come into place.


A new report found plan premiums that cover benefits like prescription drugs and maternity care, among others, will increase by nearly half this year. The “Cost of Comprehensive Health Benefits” report from eHealth, Inc. found the average monthly premiums for individual and family health insurance plans are 47% higher than average when they cover a comprehensive list of eight health benefits compared to2012. Deductibles are on average for plans that cover these benefits are 27% lower than the average for all plans.

The report compared 30,000 individual plans purchased across 32 states on eHealthInsurance.com. eHealth has released this report since 2005...

Just for grins, let's recall how the President "sold" Obamacare to a reluctant American public (before the Democrats rammed it down our throats without a single representative bothering to read the bill before voting on it).

• Obamacare will "cut the cost of a typical family's premium by up to $2,500 a year." - Lie.

• "If you like your healthcare plan, you'll be able to keep your healthcare plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what." - Lie.

• "Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase." - Lie.

• "I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits - either now or in the future." - Lie.

• It's not a government takeover: "I don't believe that government can or should run healthcare." - Lie.

• The new healthcare law will improve, not hurt, the quality of American healthcare. - Lie.

Those are just off the top of my head. There are probably more. My prediction: 2014 will be a banner year for the Republican Party, in spite of the idiocy of John Boehner and Karl Rove. Because our very survival will be at stake with the madness that is this stuttering clusterf*** of a miserable failure of a bill.


Hat tip: BadBlue Financial News.

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Transcript: Mark Levin on the Republican Party's disintegration

The brilliant Mark Levin is one of the few pundits offering blunt and honest criticism of the feckless Republican Establishment that is now in the throes of "re-branding itself".

The autopsy report. They don't even know how to name a report. The autopsy report. Here's the deal, folks: Reince Priebus was ahead of the Republican National Committee when Romney lost. Why hasn't he been fired? Why hasn't he been fired? Karl Rove ran the biggest independent PAC in America, or one of them. He won 1.3% of his races. Why do people keep promoting him? On TV, donors, and so forth. These losers are not going to save the Republican party...

...A year ago, a poll was done, it's not every year, except this year so far, and I believe it's Gallup, the political ideology of the American people. 'While 47% of Americans continue to describe their views as conservative, 35% moderate, 21% liberal. For the third straight year, conservatives outnumber moderates, after more than a decade in which moderates mainly tied or outnumbered conservatives. I'm giving you this information for a reason.

February, 1, 2013, Gallup did another poll of the individual states. Which ideology outnumbers which ideology in the states? Conservatives outnumber liberals in 47 out of the 50 states. So what's the problem here? Well, the word conservative can be a little ambiguous. But what's the real problem here? If you're going into elections and your political party, where every survey and poll shows that Americans identify themselves more as conservatives than liberals, and you can't beat Barack Obama, what's the problem here?

The problem is execution. The problem is your being outworked, you're being outsmarted. The problem is you're not standing on "conservative principles." You're not believable. You're not an alternative to Obama. You're not an alternative to Pelosi and Reid. Less and less people view you that way. I mean, I'm amazed by this. When we look at the last thirty years, who was the most successful Republican president electorally? Ronald Reagan. Of course the times have changed, but the principles haven't. Just apply them, wisely.

That's like saying, 'the times have changed, so our Constitution needs to be living and breathing.' No it doesn't! These principles are invaluable. These rights are inalienable. The fact that the modern politician in the Republican party is incapable of articulating them and applying them to modern society is the problem with that politician. The fact that the chairman of the Republican National Committee can't do it and the Speaker can't do is a problem with the Republican party and it's leadership. And damn it, if it's not changed, if these people aren't thrown out, we're going to lose. And the Republican party is going to split, and there's going to be two parties.

I liken President Obama to the Captain of the Titanic. And First Mate John Boehner, instead of sounding the alarm, is helpfully steering the mighty ship right into the iceberg.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

Monday, March 18, 2013

HELPFUL CHART: Projected Obamacare Premium Increases by State

It's the gift that keeps on taking.

Remember that repetitive presidential promise to “cut the cost of a typical family’s premium by up to $2,500 a year”? As 2014 and full implementation of Obamacare get closer, it is crystal clear that won’t be the case.

Obamacare’s most onerous insurance regulations will directly cause insurance premiums to skyrocket, particularly in the individual and small group markets... There have been many different studies done over the past few years to model what premium increases are likely to be under Obamacare’s new rules. [Staff members of House and Senate committees compiled] over 30 of them to make a list of projected premium increases by state:


With the bulk of the health care law kicking in 2014, this is likely just the beginning of Obamacare’s broken promises.

As News from Doswell predicted in 2010, "Only Chumps and Hypocrites Will Pay For Health Insurance Under Obamacare Because Insurers Must Cover All Preexisting Conditions."


Hat tip: BadBlue News Service.

Helpful Message for Cypriot Bankers

Tyler Durden:

If you see this man coming to make a withdrawal, it may be a good idea to run.



Cyprus: The Canary in the Coal Mine?

Henry Blodget, for once in his life, may be on to something here:

...Some of Cyprus's banks, like many banks in Europe, are bankrupt... Cyprus went to the eurozone to get a bailout, the same way Ireland, Greece, and other European countries have.

The eurozone powers-that-be (mainly Germany) gave Cyprus a bailout and insisted that the depositors in Cyprus's banks pay part of the tab — a startling condition that has never before been imposed on any major banking system since the start of the global financial crisis in 2008.

The deal did not touch the bondholders. Why the depositors? These are folks who had their money in the banks for safe-keeping.

When Cyprus's banks reopen on Tuesday morning, every depositor will have some of his or her money seized. The current plan is that accounts under 100,000 euros will have 6.75% of the funds seized. Accounts over 100,000 euros will have 9.9% seized. And then the eurozone's emergency lending facility and the International Monetary Fund will inject 10 billion euros into the banks to allow them to keep operating.

...Not surprisingly, news that deposits in Cyprus's banks would be seized triggered an immediate run on the banks... Depositors rushed to ATMs and tried to withdraw their money before it could be seized. But the ATMs weren't working. And the government has now made it impossible to transfer money out of the country.

...ever since the Great Depression wiped out a big percentage of the world's banks, vaporizing the bank depositors' savings in the process, banking system regulators have tried to do everything they can to protect bank depositors... Because the moment depositors think that there is risk to their savings, they rush to banks to yank their money out.

That's called a run on the bank. And since no bank anywhere has enough cash on hand to pay off all its depositors at once, runs on the bank cause banks to go bust.

...now, thanks to the eurozone's bizarre decision in Cyprus, the illusion that depositors don't need to yank their money out of threatened banks because they'll be protected has been shattered... Depositors in Cyprus banks will lose some of their money. They will be furious about this. And they will, rightly, feel that it is grossly unfair — because depositors in the bailed-out banks in Ireland, Greece, etc. didn't lose their money. And they will feel like fools for not having taken their money out.

...Other depositors at weak banks all over Europe, in places like Spain, Italy, and Greece, will rightly wonder whether this is the beginning of a new era of bank bailouts, an era in which bank depositors are going lose some of their money. What do you think those other depositors in Spain, Italy, Greece, etc., are going to feel like doing when they realize that, if their banks ever need a bailout, they might have their deposits seized?

...Well, then, a good portion of Europe might suddenly experience a good old-fashioned bank run. That, to put it mildly, could be a disaster. It could bring the European financial crisis, which has lurched from one flare-up to another for most of the past five years, to a rather sudden head.

Econoblogger Karl Denninger says that Cyprus is a preview of coming attractions for those of us in the United States.

And he asserts that our Cyprus event will occur within two years. Because the laws of mathematics always trump those of politics.


Image hat tips: Zero Hedge (top) and NBC News.

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Preview of Coming Attractions: Full-On Bank Run in Cyprus as Depositors' Assets Seized by Government-Banker Complex

This is government-sponsored theft, plain and simple. And it is a sign that the civil society is unraveling in Europe.

ATMs drained as bailout tax triggers run on bank deposits


In a move that could set off new fears of contagion across the eurozone, anxious depositors drained cash from ATMs in Cyprus on Saturday, hours after European officials in Brussels required that part of a new €10 billion ($12.6 billion) bailout must be paid for directly from the bank accounts of savers.

The move - a first in the three-year-old European financial crisis - raised questions over whether bank runs could be set off elsewhere.

Jeroen Dijsselbloem, president of the group of euro-area ministers, on Saturday declined to rule out taxes on depositors in countries beyond Cyprus... Although banks placed withdrawal limits of €400 on ATMs, most of them had run out of cash by early evening. People around the country reacted with disbelief and anger... ''This is a clear-cut robbery,'' said Andreas Moyseos, a former electrician who is a pensioner in Nicosia, the capital...

...[The seizure] came with almost no warning at the beginning of a three-day religious holiday... Under an emergency deal reached early on Saturday in Brussels, a one-time tax of 9.9 per cent is to be levied on Cypriot bank deposits of more than €100,000 effective on Tuesday, hitting wealthy depositors - mostly Russians who have put vast sums into Cyprus's banks in recent years. But even deposits under that amount would be taxed at 6.75 per cent, meaning that Cyprus's creditors will be confiscating money directly from pensioners, workers and regular depositors to pay off the bailout tab...

This is an idiotic step and one that could trigger bank runs throughout Europe.

Oh. And think it can't happen here? There are steps that our own federal government is taking that say otherwise.


Saturday, March 16, 2013

MARK LEVIN TRANSCIPT: What happens when the system collapses?

A caller to Thursday's Mark Levin Show [MP3] had an interesting question regarding the inevitable result of Barack Obama's record-setting deficits.
Curtis: We talk about all of this out-of-control spending, we have the CBO reports, the GAO, the Medicare Trustees, I mean how much time do we really have before...

Levin: Well, the Social Security Trustees report that we have only 11 years, that's all.

Curtis: But the government... the government bubble... the government collapse?

Levin: It's hard to know. Hard to know, but at some point... you can see, Curtis, how they're struggling now. They're having to do these little Continuing Resolutions, they have to lie about how much we're in debt and the yearly deficit.

You can see that they're in full cover-up mode like Ponzi or Madoff. But it's hard to know exactly when [it all comes crumbling down]...

Curtis: What will this collapse look like [when it occurs]? What will we experience?

Levin: I can give some indicators. I don't know exactly what it will look llike. But some indicators will be:

- the seizing of assets... oh, they'll say it's done legally, to get "the rich", to close some "unfair loophole". Including, I believe, and I've talked about this extensively, 401(k) plans and private pensions. There's trillions of dollars sitting there and, in the view of the government, you have that money sitting there because they gave you certain tax advantages that they choose to take away.

- also in terms of programs the government offers, those programs will dry up. You'll start to see that.

- you'll start to see hyper-inflation, where the Fed -- through monetary policy -- will try to keep apace with [Obama's] disastrous fiscal policies.

- you'll see promises that the government made, such as Social Security and Medicare, start to disappear.

What you'll see in a more theoretical sense is a breakdown in the social contract. You'll see that all of these welfare programs were not social service and insurance programs, those were just facades. So all of the false premises and pretexts that were used to develop these massive entitlements, all of the borrowing and printing, will have an enormously devastating effect on our financial system.

And what is our financial system? What is the currency? The currency is not just a means of exchange. It represents the fruits of your labor. It's your paycheck. It's your savings. It's your pension. It's your investment. It's what you use to purchase food and clothing and the basics, energy. The government's in charge of the currency. The government's in charge of valuing it devaluing it.

And so my point is, you will see signs... of more and more aggressive central government... this is one of the reasons you hear me, on and on and on, attack class warfare. Because it's not about class warfare. If they can break down the most successful and productive elements of our society, they're going to break you down.

And when they break you down, you're going to ask for help. From whom? The government. Not all of you, but you get the point. When the thing begins to unravel, it collapses.

I'm not Nostradamus here, but the Constitution was set up the way it was set up to prevent this sort of thing. The people in public office today, the president, almost all of the members of his party in DC, reject limited constitutional government.

The lessons of Argentina are especially relevant.


Thanks to Biff Spackle for the transcript.

Friday, March 15, 2013

GOOD NEWS: Democrats Vote to Promote Free Food Stamps in Foreign Embassies Around the World

When a country is forced to borrow 42 cents of every dollar it spends, behavior like this borders on the criminal:

SENATOR SESSIONS: We're a nation of immigrants, we are built that way... our law would expect and calls for immigrants who can sustain themselves and not be a public charge as a historic rule. We have instances of the promotion of the SNAP [food stamp] program in foreign consulates...


...[We should] prohibit the expenditure of funds for the promotion of the SNAP program in foreign embassies.

In short, Democrats voted unanimously to market free food stamps to the poor and indigent. As freebies. As giveaways.

If you want to make big bucks, consider moving to Washington, D.C. The sky is the limit when it comes to suckling on the public teat.


What the Democrat Party Told Me

They told me that allowing law-abiding citizens to carry concealed weapons would turn our streets into rivers of blood.

They told me that taking trillions of dollars from the successful and giving it to those "who truly needed it" would cure poverty.

They told me that giving home loans to those who couldn't afford them would make the American dream achievable for all.

They told me that paying into the Social Security "Trust Fund" would guarantee a comfortable retirement for everyone.

They told me that allowing teachers to unionize in public schools would help inner city students reach for the stars.

They told me that the federal government could run a guaranteed, affordable health care program for seniors forever.

They told me that the new employment paradigm consisted of millions of "green jobs".

They told me that their support for immoral and criminal behavior wouldn't result in the breakdown of the two-parent family.

They told me that spending trillions on Stimulus programs would heal a damaged economy.

They told me that raising taxes on corporations and "the rich" would create more jobs.

They told me that our borders were "as secure as they've ever been".

They told me that intentionally restricting access to our own sources of energy would reduce dependence on foreign oil.

They told me that recklessly spreading unemployment benefits and food stamps would jump-start the economy.

They told me that, in spite of the VA and the Indian Health Service, they could successfully run the entire American health care system.

They told me that their record-breaking borrowing could never result in a downgrade of the United States' AAA credit rating.

They told me that "the Constitution doesn't matter".

They told me that the Constitution has to change with the times.

They told me that I exist to serve the government and not the other way around.

They told me that anyone who opposes their unconstitutional, reckless and failed policies are racists.

Well, I'm here to tell you:

Everything they told me was a lie.

Everything they told me was wrong.

Intentionally, diabolically, criminally wrong.

And if we don't begin to turn back the tide of centralized government, if we don't politically obliterate the Democrat Party, this beautiful Republic, this magnificent country, this bastion of free enterprise and private property rights, this shining city on a hill... well, it will be finished.


Related: Don't cry for me, America.

Thursday, March 14, 2013

GEE, WHICH ONE WILL SAVE THE COUNTRY FROM FISCAL COLLAPSE? Chart Compares House and Senate Budgets

The Statist kook Patty Murray hardest hit:

This week, the budget committees of both chambers of Congress released their budgets ahead of President Obama’s budget—marking the first time in 92 years that Congress kicked off the budget process instead of the President...


The House budget, under the helm of Chairman Paul Ryan (R–WI), delivers a balanced budget in 10 years by slowing the annual growth in federal spending from a projected 5 percent to 3.4 percent...

...The Senate budget, under the helm of Senate Budget Chairwoman Patty Murray (D–WA), makes no attempt at balancing the budget—ever. Instead, the Senate budget would ramp up spending immediately and raise taxes yet higher while continuing chronic deficits that rise higher in later years. The Senate budget would leave the nation even worse off beyond the 10-year budget window by failing to curb the growth in entitlement spending.

Medicare is the fastest-growing entitlement program, and Obamacare’s newest entitlements—the Medicaid expansion and health care subsidies—dramatically worsen federal health care spending, increasing it by now $1.8 trillion over a decade. And yet the Senate budget does nothing to correct course.

Of course not. The Democrats are like lemmings, following their Pied Piper and marching us off the cliff in lockstep and right into a fiscal abyss.

Their strategy is called "Cloward-Piven Government" and it translates to the economic destruction of America.


PREVIEW: Here is the actual short form to apply for subsidized health care from the federal government

Straight from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) comes the elegant and concise form CMS-10440, also known as "Data Collection to Support Eligibility Determinations for Insurance Affordability Programs and Enrollment through Affordable Insurance Exchanges, Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program Agencies".

Here's the cover page of the application that lets individuals and families apply to the federal government for subsidized health care coverage.


To give you a sense of how complex the application is, think of doing your taxes and multiply it by the number of people in your household. Here's a sample of one page:


And here's the entire paper application, which weighs in at a hefty 21 pages.


Not to worry: the specifications for the electronic version of the application run a tidy 61 pages.

Obamacare is a complete and utter disaster. How many people will be able to understand -- not to mention actually complete -- this mess?

The entire health care system is coming unraveled and the drones are too stupid to understand that they voted for their own destruction.


Wednesday, March 13, 2013

This may be Paul Krugman's kid

I'll say it again: Michael Ramirez may be the most talented political cartoonist of not just this -- but any -- generation.


As our national treasure Mark Levin demonstrates night after night, liberalism is indeed the philosophy of the stupid.