Tuesday, December 13, 2011

SAR #11345

Confusion is often mistaken for insight.

Cliff Note: The only thing those gathered in Durban actually agreed on was to put off doing anything about global warming for 8 years. Everything else was essentially a matter of waving hands and expressing sincere best wishes for a future, as the world approaches the edge of the precipice and prepares to jump off.

True Believers: Europe's leaders (for which read Germany) wants to commit the continent to severe fiscal austerity believing there is some magic in mass suffering that will make contractionary policies produce expansionary results. No mater how righteous suffering may be, it is not going to save the euro. The cavalry are not coming. And remember it was the Germany obsession with austerity and hard money that created the conditions that gave rise to Hitler.

Times Change: Young, relatively wealthy Russians are no longer afraid to speak out politically and are turning out by the tens of thousands to express their disapproval with Putin. Odds are that Mr. Putin will find ways of expressing his disapproval of them, too.

There They Go Again: Lindsey Graham (R-SC) says the Consumer Finance Protection Board the Democrats want to pass (oops, it's already law) has no independent nor Congressional oversight (which isn't true), and the conditions the GOP insists on do not exist for any other regulator. It's also not Stalinist just because it protects people, not businesses.

Fifth Amendment? The SEC is demanding that US companies doing business with Syria, Iran, and other “state sponsors” of terror must publicly confess their sins so investors will realize what poor an investments they are.

Self-Survey: it should not come as a surprise that federal agencies such as the DEA and ICE use drones to spy on protect the public, but how do you feel about your local police using drones to monitor your behavior?

Shadows at the Center: Last month the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development reported that there was a significant deterioration of belief in democracy and in the free-market system in the “transition economies”. Nobody wants to say “fascist” but that's the fear.

Wannabe Watch:

Geography Lessen: Ask Rick Perry to point out on a map “the country of Solynda”, on which he says the US has spent “over $500 million”.

Math Problem: Wannabe Michele Bachmann claims to have ”spent 50 years in the real world as a private business woman.” But her work history shows 5 years at the IRS and 11 in elected office. Even if she started at age 5 working for Newt in a coal mine her business experience could not amount to more than 35 years, most of it part-time while she was in grade school and college. Maybe she counts raising foster children as business experience.

Try Before You Buy: Leading wannabe Newt Gingrich thinks the unemployed are being paid “99 weeks to do nothing,” and wants unemployment taxes to go to fund training programs like the one in Georgia that pays the “unemployed” $240 a week for eight weeks of forced labor provided free to companies who can, but are not required to, hire some of those who complete their “tryouts”. The serial adulterer has (once more) promised to “ uphold the institution of marriage through personal fidelity to my spouse and respect for the marital bonds of others”.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

No Krugman, Germany can do the math and realize no amount of suffering or currency debasement is going to cover the trillions in losses the euro zone is facing. Self preservation is in their own interest.

mistah charley, ph.d. said...

re Times change/Putin: Front page headline in today's Financial Times: 'Suspicions of stage management greet oligarch's challenge to Putin'

kwark said...

Re "Self-Survey" Well, in my not-so-little town I'm not sure the local police could pull-off such a feat. What am I saying, pour enough money down the rat-hole of choice and anything's possible. It is just one more inch down the slippery slope, which was heavily greased by the recent, so-called "National Defense Authorization Act" which still give the president the (currently unconstitutional) authority to indefinitely imprison suspects linked to al Qaeda or associated groups, including citizens captured in the United States. We just have to wait for our fine supreme court puppets to decide the VI ammendment is void and make sure it IS constitutional.

Anonymous said...

"And remember it was the Germany obsession with austerity and hard money that created the conditions that gave rise to Hitler."

Funny! My history book says it was Weimar money printing "out of thin air" that precipitated the rise of Hitler.

Hey how about we allow debt default and then live within our means...

Left, Right, Left, Right, Left, Right... What a moron!

Charles Kingsley Michaelson, III said...

Why did the Weimar Republic resort to printing money? It resulted from the immense austerity imposed by the victors in the Great War. They inflated their currency to pay back the victors (in mostly worthless paper). It was the austerity and suffering and labor dislocation brought on by the need to make those reparations that lead the multitude to look for a savior - not the paper-money-inflation, but the austerity program.

If we allow the debt default, we will have no means to live within. Until we define a completely new economic system, debt/credit is required. Structurally we cannot live within our means, because our means require interest payments, and new debt has to be created to generate enough "money" to pay the debt and interest already owed. If the merry-go-round stops (and we "live within our means") we are all going to fall down.

The system cannot continue, and we cannot stop it. And if you've got a solution that does not entail immense suffering and the risk (if not certainty) of the rise of 'strong leaders' and that is not based on adolescent fascination with glib Libertarian nonsense - please, tell us all about
it.

ckm

Anonymous said...

it is all a matter of who the suffering is inflicted on

covering banking debt by putting it on the tax payers will fail

now that the growth paradigm is also essentially dead yes it would be a good time to reboot and put an end to usury and a debt based system which cannot survive anyway