Showing posts with label World. Show all posts
Showing posts with label World. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

SOUNDING THE ALARM: Obama doing to the U.S. military what no enemy on Earth could do

Guest post by Alan Caruba


I began March with a look at the way President Obama is undermining the U.S. military and did not think I would have to return to this topic for a while. I was wrong.

A March 25 article in The Washington Times was titled “Obama to Kill Navy’s Tomahawk, Hellfire Missile Programs in Budget Decimation” and on March 21, The Wall Street Journal published a commentary, “America’s Incredible Shrinking Navy.” When you add those to The New York Times February 23 article, “Pentagon Plans to Shrink Army to Pre-World War II Level”, you’ve got sufficient reason to begin to realize something very ominous is occurring.

This concern is heightened by the way dozens of high ranking officers are, in the view of some observers, being purged. A number of retired generals are speaking out about it. One of them, retired Army Major General Paul Vallely has charged that Obama is “intentionally weakening and gutting our military and reducing us as a superpower, and anyone in the ranks who disagrees or speaks out is being purged.” Retired Army Major General Patrick Brady agrees saying, “There is no doubt he is intent on emasculating the military and will fire anyone who disagrees with him.”

The world, over the course of human civilization, has always been a dangerous place. Much of the history of mankind is a history of wars, large and small. In the last century the U.S. military was involved in two world wars, a Korean conflict, a war in Vietnam, and the Gulf War to drive out Hussein’s Iraqi forces after he invaded Kuwait.

The Russian seizure of Crimea in the wake of the protests that has left Ukraine in disarray has put all of Europe on edge and raised questions about the readiness of NATO. A look around the world sees China increasing its military strength, particularly at sea.

The Middle East to include much of northern Africa is a hotbed of turmoil. And, of course, Iran continues to contribute to it, aiding Syria’s regime along with the Russians, supporting Palestinian terror organizations that threaten Israel, while pursuing its own nuclear weapon capabilities.

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

SICK, DELUSIONAL OLD FOOL: Harry Reid Blames Russia's Invasion of Ukraine on... Republicans

Guest post by Investor's Business Daily

Politics: Harry Reid blames Russia's annexation of Crimea on Republicans who didn't act fast enough on a sanctions package. But he ignores Obama's appeasement as president and push when a senator to disarm Ukraine.

The Senate Majority Leader's latest claim is consistent with other utterances out of his parallel universe, including calling Stage IV cancer patients liars about Obamacare's collateral damage and asking why we'd want to save one child with cancer.

"Since a few Republicans blocked these important sanctions, Russian lawmakers voted to annex Crimea, and Russian forces have taken over Ukrainian military bases," Harry Reid said Monday as the Senate began debate on a package of sanctions and aid.

"It's impossible to know whether events would have unfolded differently if the United States had responded to Russian aggression with a strong, unified voice."

The man who makes Vice President Joe Biden look competent by comparison ignores the fact that since the House and Senate passed different versions, quick action on sanctions would have been impossible and that it was Reid and the Democrats who refused to bring up the House version as is.

The Senate version wasn't a clean bill, having attached provisions that would increase the power of emerging countries in the International Monetary Fund and shift some $63 billion from a crisis fund to a general account that Republicans feared would leave U.S. taxpayers on the hook for more foreign bailouts.

Monday, March 24, 2014

DUDE: Now, That's Customer Service!

The only thing more callous than this would be to receive a piece of junk mail from Publisher's Clearinghouse announcing your loved one's death.

Families of MH 370 Victims Told About Their Deaths Via Text Message


It's hard to imagine receiving a worse text message than the one sent to the families of the 239 people aboard Malaysian Air flight 370.

Here's the text message that was sent to relatives (the Chinese translation you see here is generated by the user's phone)...


...The message came shortly before Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak told a packed press conference that data from Britain's Air Accidents Investigation Branch and the satellite company Inmarsat indicated that the airplane went down in a remote part of the Indian Ocean and that all aboard were presumed dead.

Even a postcard would have been more heartfelt than a text message, for heaven's sake.


Hat tip: BadBlue News

Saturday, March 22, 2014

And now... some censored news from the Democrat Utopia of Venezuela

I'm so confused: we're not seeing any of this on "mainstream" media.



Miami Herald: 3 more deaths in Venezuela as both sides march


Hat tip: BadBlue News

Friday, March 21, 2014

REALLY: Is Anyone Surprised?

Courtesy of the peerless Matt Drudge:


Uhm, it's almost as if Michelle is sending a surreptitious message to the Red Chinese. Like: we're with you!

But, no, that's just crazy talk.

Or... is it?


Hat tip: Andrea Shea King

PARTY OF WEAKNESS COMIX: Mom Jeans vs. KGB

Democrats despise our military and have always undermined our national defense. Always.


As former director of the U.S. Naval Institute Steve Cohen notes, "Only 35% of the U.S. Navy's entire fleet is deployed, fewer than 100 ships, including just three aircraft carriers."

And Obama wants more cuts. Not for his radical corporatist green-energy buddies. Not for the hundreds of millions of waste, fraud and abuse as described by the federal government itself.

No, Democrats always want to cut the military.

Because they despise America.

The next president is going to have one hell of a mess on his or her hands.


Hat tip: BadBlue News

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

FORMER PENTAGON INSPECTOR GENERAL: Obama Administration Riddled With Deceit

Guest post by M.D. Kittle

Yes, government waste, fraud and abuse are the triplet children of incompetence, greed and unbridled ambition.


Joseph E. Schmitz, former inspector general of the U.S. Department of Defense, says the Obama administration doesn’t like watchdogs looking at it.
But these sins of public trust begin and end with dishonesty.And Joseph E. Schmitz has seen a lot of lying by the government to taxpayers in his lengthy legal career.

Schmitz, who served as inspector general of the U.S. Department of Defense from 2002-05, in an interview with Watchdog.org said, “no political party has a monopoly on waste, fraud and abuse and corruption.”

But he said he has seen some troubling patterns of deceit in the Obama administration.

Exhibit A, according to the attorney: Benghazi.

“I still represent whistleblowers, and I see the people in this current administration just blatantly lying — lying to American citizens, lying about people trying to redress grievances,” Schmitz said. “These huge scandals start with dishonesty.”

Conservatives have been critical of the Obama administration’s handling of the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, an assault that killed four Americans — including a U.S. ambassador.

A Senate Intelligence Committee report released in January criticized the Hillary Clinton-led U.S. State Department and the intelligence community for not preventing the attacks.

The long-delayed bipartisan report asserts the State Department failed to increase security, although it had been repeatedly warned to do so, and it faulted intelligence agencies for not sharing information.

“The attacks were preventable, based on extensive intelligence reporting on the terrorist activity in Libya — to include prior threats and attacks against Western targets — and given the known security shortfalls at the U.S. Mission,” the panel said in a statement.

The report was released a year after Clinton, in aggravation at a Senate committee hearing on Benghazi, asked U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., “What difference does it make?”

“Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night and decided they’d go kill some Americans,” Clinton said. “What difference — at this point, what difference does it make?”

Schmitz, like myriad other conservatives, said the State Department’s actions, or lack thereof, made a big difference in the outcome of the attacks.

“From my standpoint, whoever wrote those fallacious talking points that (then U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations) Susan Rice repeated to citizens in government, those blatantly dishonest talking points that were propagated by senior officials. And nobody has been held accountable,” the former inspector general said.

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Misunderstanderers of Islam call for car bombs in U.S. cities

Last week, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) released the 12th issue of their Inspire e-magazine. This issue, the first since last year’s release of Issue 11 (30 May 2013), continues AQAP’s calls for attacks on the West, individual jihad, and the lionization of the Tsarnaev brothers. Local attacks are encouraged with considerable focus on the Commercial Facilities Sector, and sporting events in particular. It also identifies high-priority targets in the US, UK and France.

A section entitled “Open Source Jihad” asserts it is a “resource manual for those who loathe the tyrants; includes bomb-making techniques, security measures, guerrilla tactics, weapons training and all other jihad related activities.” As with previous messages, the section continues to encourage jihadists to conduct local operations as opposed to assuming risk via overseas travel.

The section on "Car Bombs Inside America" states, “Inspire Magazine's goal is to empower Muslim youth. And what is empowerment without being strong, powerful and intelligent? In this section, we give you strength, power and intelligence. Believe me, using car bombs gives you all that. It is absolutely simple. And we will make it simpler for you, biidhnillāh (meaning: by Allah’s [God’s] will), so that every Muslim, who loves Allāh and His Messenger, and wants to accelerate Islam's victory, becomes prepare to make, even if this is the first military mate- rial his eyes has set on. This recipe gives you the ability to make a car bomb even in countries with tight security and surveillance. The reason is: primary materials easily available and they do not raise suspicion. These materials are not explosives in nature. But after you have assemble and prepare them, they become a bomb ready for destruction, biidhnillāh. This type of car bomb is not usually used to destroy buildings, but is very effective in killing individuals. The merit of this method is that you can prepare a car bomb in a few hours during the availability of the primary materials. So there is less worry about your personal security.”

A section captioned “Car Bomb Field Data” states, "Choosing the place and time is a crucial factor to success in any operation. Choose targets in your own country. You know the enemy better, you are within. We will point out some general and specific targets as an example.” Identifying “general targets,” the segment continues, “America is our first target, followed by United Kingdom, France and other crusader countries. As for the field target for the car-bomb, you have places flooded with individuals, e.g. sports events in which tens of thousands attend, election campaigns, festivals and other gathering. The important thing is that you target people and not buildings.” The section then lists specific target areas within the US, UK and France.

Monday, March 17, 2014

RED SCREEN OF DEATH: White House Plans to Turn Over Control of Internet to Totalitarian Regimes

Guest post by Investor's Business Daily

Error 404: U.S. officials plan to relinquish federal control over the administration of the Internet to something called the "global Internet community," which is full of tyrants to whom the free flow of information is a threat.

In the wake of the NSA surveillance scandal, some might not be inclined to defend federal involvement in anything related to the flow of information between individuals.

But the decision announced Friday by the Commerce Department to give up next year its oversight of Icann, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, to the "global Internet community" is a bad idea.

Under a Commerce Department contract, Icann has issued domain names since 2000. But the Los Angeles-based nonprofit has worked, encouraged by states and groups not necessarily dedicated to free expression, to transform itself into a global organization free of U.S. ties.

Since at least 2004, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has tried repeatedly to wrest power from Icann. During a meeting in Dubai last year, the ITU, the telecom branch of the United Nations, demanded rules governing the Internet be rewritten. It proposed inspection authority that would allow it to monitor and censor otherwise encrypted content on the Internet.

Sunday, March 16, 2014

Crowd-sourcing website Tomnod.com lets users search for missing flight

Writing at eWeek, Chris Preimesberger describes the latest crowd-sourcing approach to finding MH370

In the unusual case of the missing Flight 370, [mapping firm] DigitalGlobe is gathering as much human-created data as possible through the crowdsourcing model.

"On Tomnod.com, any person can go and just look at photos in the grid, and you're supposed to flag anything that looks interesting," Hardman said. "The problem is, humans can see lots of things, but they might not always be the right things. For example, someone may see something they think is unusual, but it's really just some floating garbage or a whitecap wave that may look a little suspicious.

"So what [DigitalGlobe] does is get the input of many thousands of people, run it through big data filters on the back end that say things like: 'Are there areas of the Indian Ocean where a lot of people have flagged an item of interest?' They then do cluster analysis on that. Then, experts in search-and-rescue may say, 'There's a hot spot, go fly over this.'"

As of 2 p.m. Pacific time March 15, the free-to-use Tomnod.com site indicated that 421,338 photos -- each showing an area about 1,000 to 2,000 feet wide of the Indian Ocean -- have been produced and entered into the analytics engine... "I don't know what size grid that ends up being, but it's a wide, wide area of the western side of the search," Hardman said.

As of March 15, the search was still on, with many thousands of human eyes -- and a very high-powered photo/data analytics engine -- trying to solve the mystery of the missing airliner.

Rather than using brute force crowd-sourcing, the U.S. Navy has an excellent track record of employing a diverse team of experts to find the lost:

...naval strategists have been unraveling lost-at-sea mysteries as far back as the U-boat battles of World War II, and perhaps most dramatically in 1968, when an intelligence team found the submarine Scorpion, which sank in the North Atlantic after losing contact under equally baffling circumstances. "The same approach we used with Scorpion could be applied in this case and should be," says John P. Craven who helped pioneer the use of Bayesian search techniques to locate objects lost at sea.

... forecasters draw on expertise from diverse but relevant areas — in the case of finding a submarine, say, submarine command, ocean salvage, and oceanography experts, as well as physicists and engineers. Each would make an educated guess as to where the ship is, based on different scenarios: the sub was attacked; a torpedo activated onboard; a battery exploded. Craven's work was instrumental in the Navy's search for the missing hydrogen bomb that had been lost in the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Spain in 1966 and this is how Craven located the Scorpion. "I knew these guys and I gave probability scores to each scenario they came up with," says Craven. The men bet bottles of Chivas Regal to keep matters interesting, and after some statistical analysis, Craven zeroed in on a point about 400 miles from the Azores, near the Sargasso Sea. The sub was found about 200 yards away.

One can only hope and pray that the plane is found and that the passengers are safe.


Hat tip: BadBlue Tech News

As Obama fine-tunes his NCAA brackets, Russian state television is showing mushroom clouds

Reagan won the Cold War and now Obama is losing it.


To repeat: "Obama Did Not Attend The Meeting."


Saturday, March 15, 2014

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES, ILLUSTRATED: The EPA and DDT

Another @BiffSpackle exclusive:


References:
• DDT: Genocide in Green
• DDT: Rachel Carson's Deadly Fantasies

19 Signs That the American Consumer is Tapped Out

Guest post by Michael Snyder

You can't get blood out of a rock. Traditionally the United States has had a consumer-driven economy, but now years of declining incomes and rising debts are really starting to catch up with us. In order to have an economy that is dependent on consumer spending, you need to have a large middle class. Unfortunately, the U.S. middle class is steadily shrinking, and unless that trend is reversed we are going to see massive economic changes in this country. For example, in poor neighborhoods all over America we are seeing bank branches, car dealerships and retail stores close down at an alarming rate. If you didn't know better, you might be tempted to think that "Space Available" was the hottest new retailer in some areas of the nation. On the other hand, if you live in San Francisco, New York City or Washington D.C., things are pretty good for the moment. But as a whole, the condition of the U.S. consumer continues to decline. Incomes are going down, the cost of living is going up, and debts are skyrocketing. The following are 19 signs that the U.S. consumer is tapped out...

#1 Real disposable income per capita continues to fall. In the fourth quarter of 2012, it was sitting at $37,265. By the time that the fourth quarter of 2013 had come around, it had dropped to $36,941. That means that average Americans have less money to go shopping with than they did previously.

#2 In January, real disposable income in the U.S. experienced the largest year over year decline that we have seen since 1974.

#3 As disposable income decreases, major retailers are closing thousands of stores all over the country. Some are even calling this "a retail apocalypse".

#4 From September 2013 to January 2014, the personal saving rate in the United States dropped by a staggering 16 percent.

Two-Faced Feinstein

Via Curmudgeonly & Skeptical:


Related: SEN. FEINSTEIN (D-CA): Obama White House Ordered CIA to Spy on Congress, an Impeachable Offense.


Friday, March 14, 2014

THE NITWIT CHRONICLES: Starring Sean Penn

Hollywood's most useful idiot celebrates yet another success story of Statism (without redistribution of his own cash, of course):



As for what's really happening in Penn's "Utopia"? Fausta translates for us:

This in NOT a demonstration, this is a line to buy food in Venezuela. The result of 15 years of Chavismo.

Oh. And:


How sick, ignorant or -- yes, I said it -- evil do you have to be to support the radical left's agenda of centralized government, price/wage controls, and totalitarianism?

That's a rhetorical question. I've concluded that the leaders of today's Democrat Party are both ignorant and evil.


Hat tip: BadBlue Real-Time News

OUTRAGE: Obama's Roman Orgy of Wealth Redistribution Funded on the Backs of America's Veterans

Guest post by Investor's Business Daily

ObamaCare: The administration plans to cut the military pensions of those who served their country while giving public employees a break by exempting their ObamaCare subsidies from sequestration.

On the heels of announcing that Army troop levels will be cut below pre-World War II levels, the Military Times has reported that the Obama administration is planning to reduce military pension costs by 10% by converting part of their retirement to 401(k)-like defined-contribution plans from defined-benefit plans.

What makes this interesting is that it affects military retirees and members of the military who are non-union and therefore can't strike or engage in collective bargaining. Public-sector union employees will retain their defined-benefit plans.

So, those who defend this country will be cut while those who feed at the public trough and whose union dues provide a ready supply of campaign cash will not.

To cut the retirement benefits of the military after these genuine heroes have fought with honor and distinction for 13 years in Iraq and Afghanistan is unconscionable. It's particularly despicable to treat American military retirees worse than other public employees.

President Obama has long defended defined-benefit plans, which, yes, do cost the government more and have pushed some cities and states toward bankruptcy. In a defense of public-sector unions and their benefits, Obama spoke forcefully to the National Governors Association at the White House on Feb. 28, 2011:

"I don't think it does anybody any good when public employees are denigrated or vilified or their rights are infringed upon."

That cost-saving measures are to be applied only to the military and not to politically favored groups and programs

O'S PARTNERS IN PEACE: Iranian Military General Swears on His Religion That They Will Annihilate Israel

When it comes to Barack Obama, there are -- best I can tell -- three possible reasons for his catastrophic track record.

Imagine a Venn diagram with three interlocking circles. One is labeled Marxism, the other is marked Hatred, and the last one is captioned Ignorance. All three circles overlap with different ratios depending upon the actual policy.

Take Obama's Middle East policy. Please. He has, in just five short years, isolated our strongest ally Israel; attempted to prop up the Nazi-aligned Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt; toppled a strongman in Libya leaving Al Qaeda in charge; permitted a U.S. ambassador and other diplomatic personnel to be slaughtered during a seven hour gunfight without lifting a finger to help; failed to pursue said terrorists despite multiple promises to do so; and attempted to interfere in Syria by drawing bogus "red lines" failing only after Congress refused to empower evil bastards of one stripe or another.

But the worst element of all of Obama's miserable foreign policies failures relate to Iran. During the Green Revolution that threatened to topple the Islamofascist Mullahs, Obama refused to speak out during the critical first week of riots and protests. Eventually the resistance movement was crushed thanks to Obama's inaction and -- seemingly -- tacit endorsement of the Mullah's actions.

Then there's Iran's nuclear program, which no credible observer believes is destined for anything except for the manufacture of atomic bombs. Instead of choking the Islamofascists through sanctions, Obama instead argued for relaxing the economic noose.

And his reward is the entirely predictable set of statements coming out of Tehran.

Iranian Deputy Commander Warns They Are Ready to Annihilate Israel


MEMRI. Org: Speaking at a conference held in Tehran, Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Deputy Commander Brigadier-General Hossein Salami said: “We, here, can muster all our energies in order to annihilate the Zionist entity, more than 1,400 kilometers away. We are ready for that moment in the future.”

Following are excerpts from the speech, which aired on Al-Alam TV on March 11, 2014.

Brigadier-General Hossein Salami: Despite the geographical distance, we are attached to the hearts of the Palestinians. How is it that our slogans and goals are identical to the slogans and causes of the Palestinians? Why do we strive to become martyrs and risk our lives for the Palestinian cause?

The answer is that the religion of Islam has designated this for us – this goal, this motivation, this belief, this energy – so that we, here, can muster all our energies in order to annihilate the Zionist entity, more than 1,400 kilometers away. We are ready for that moment in the future.

These Islamonazis are Obama's "partners in peace". His negotiating partners. His pals.

Can it be any more clear what Barack Hussein Obama's true agenda is?


Hat tip: BadBlue News

Thursday, March 13, 2014

FOURTH TURNING: The People vs. Big Brother

Guest post by Jim Quinn

“The risk of catastrophe will be very high. The nation could erupt into insurrection or civil violence, crack up geographically, or succumb to authoritarian rule. If there is a war, it is likely to be one of maximum risk and effort – in other words, a total war. Every Fourth Turning has registered an upward ratchet in the technology of destruction, and in mankind’s willingness to use it.” – Strauss & Howe - The Fourth Turning

“In the need to develop a capacity to know what potential enemies are doing, the United States government has perfected a technological capability that enables us to monitor the messages that go through the air. Now, that is necessary and important to the United States as we look abroad at enemies or potential enemies. We must know, at the same time, that capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left such is the capability to monitor everything—telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide.

If this government ever became a tyrant, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology.

I don’t want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.”Frank Church on Meet the Press regarding the NSA – 1975

Ever since Edward Snowden burst onto the worldwide stage in June 2013, I’ve been wondering how he fits into the fabric of this ongoing Fourth Turning. This period of Crisis that arrives like clockwork, 60 to 70 years after the end of the previous Fourth Turning (Civil War – 66 years after American Revolution, Great Depression/World War II – 64 years after Civil War, Global Financial Crisis – 62 years after World War II), arrived in September 2008 with the Federal Reserve created collapse of the global financial system. We are now five and a half years into this Fourth Turning, with its climax not likely until the late-2020’s. At this point in previous Fourth Turnings a regeneracy had unified sides in their cause and a grey champion or champions (Ben Franklin/Samuel Adams, Lincoln/Davis, FDR) had stepped forward to lead. Thus far, no one from the Prophet generation has been able to unify the nation and create a sense of common civic purpose. Societal trust continues to implode, as faith in political, financial, corporate, and religious institutions spirals downward. There is no sign of a unifying regeneracy on the horizon.

The core elements of this Fourth Turning continue to propel this Crisis: debt, civic decay, global disorder. Central bankers, politicians, and government bureaucrats have been able to fashion the illusion of recovery and return to normalcy, but their “solutions” are nothing more than smoke and mirrors exacerbating the next bloodier violent stage of this Fourth Turning. The emergencies will become increasingly dire, triggering unforeseen reactions and unintended consequences. The civic fabric of our society will be torn asunder.

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

SEN. FEINSTEIN (D-CA): Obama White House Ordered CIA to Spy on Congress, an Impeachable Offense

Where are those styrofoam Grecian columns when you need them?

Senate Democrats are openly accusing the White House of ordering the CIA to spy on Congress during a Senate Intelligence Committee investigation.

As Rachel Maddow so aptly put it, this is “death of the Republic stuff.” The congressional committee tasked with overseeing the executive branch and our intelligence agencies is being spied upon and their investigations “interfered” with, and it’s coming straight from the White House, according to top Senate Democrat and Intelligence Committee chairwoman Dianne Feinstein...

Say, I wonder if Feinstein is funded by the Koch brothers?

The Washington Post described Feinstein's tirade, but omitted some key facets of the story.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said that the situation amounted to attempted intimidation of congressional investigators, adding: “I am not taking it lightly.”

She confirmed that an internal agency investigation of the action has been referred to the Justice Department for possible criminal prosecution. And she said that the CIA appears to have violated the Fourth Amendment, which bars unreasonable searches and seizures, as well as various federal laws and a presidential executive order that prevents the agency from conducting domestic searches and surveillance.

She has sought an apology and recognition that the CIA search of the committee’s computers was inappropriate, she said. “I have received neither,” she added.

MSNBC's Adam Serwer added the information the Post was unwilling to mention:

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

GRIM MILESTONE: Global Debt Breaks $100 Trillion Mark

Not unfunded liabilities, mind you. Global current debt.

The amount of debt globally has soared more than 40 percent to $100 trillion since the first signs of the financial crisis as governments borrowed to pull their economies out of recession and companies took advantage of record low interest rates, according to the Bank for International Settlements.

The $30 trillion increase from $70 trillion between mid-2007 and mid-2013 compares with a $3.86 trillion decline in the value of equities to $53.8 trillion in the same period, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The jump in debt as measured by the Basel, Switzerland-based BIS in its quarterly review is almost twice the U.S.’s gross domestic product.

That's right: the global debt accrued in the last six years alone is more than double the amount of all the goods and services produced in the United States each year.

Can you say, "will never be repaid"?

Borrowing has soared as central banks suppress benchmark interest rates to spur growth after the U.S. subprime mortgage market collapsed and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s bankruptcy sent the world into its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Yields on all types of bonds, from governments to corporates and mortgages, average about 2 percent, down from more than 4.8 percent in 2007, according to the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Broad Market Index.

“Given the significant expansion in government spending in recent years, governments (including central, state and local governments) have been the largest debt issuers,” according to Branimir Gruic, an analyst, and Andreas Schrimpf, an economist at the BIS.

Now, those activities might be acceptable had governments exhausted all measures to reduce overhead, suppress regulations, and otherwise promote free market activities.

Of course, that's not what happened because -- for the most part -- Democrats, leftists and other Marxists were in control of many large economies. So they printed money and spent. Not on investments, as they claimed. No, they redistributed it on "green job" scams, union payoffs, a massive expansion of the welfare state, and payoffs to crony capitalists,

As Bloomberg -- not the bizarre wannabe tyrant, but the news service -- notes, the amount of outstanding U.S. government has nearly tripled in the last six years, from $4.5 trillion to $12 trillion.

Nothing good will come of this madness because the old truism is just that.

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

Pity the modern Democrat Party never learned common sense.


Hat tip: BadBlue News