SAR #12076

Change that actually matters occurs only rarely.

Proof of Life: The Labor Department reports that initial unemployment claims fell to 351,000, an encouraging sign. However, there are still over 26 million Americans who want jobs – 12.8 million officially unemployed, 5.4 million involuntary part-timers, 1.0 million 'discouraged' workers ,and 6.4 million former workers no longer counted by the DOL – all of which leads to a true unemployment rate of 19.9%.

Up, Up, and Away: Everything is up. The market is up, oil is up, gold and silver are up, bonds are up and most importantly the odds of Bernanke committing QE3 are up. As much as $3.6 trillion more in essentially free funny money to add to the bonfire. The Fed's prime mandate, after all, has always been to get the incumbent re-elected.

Sad/True: For all the speeches, bills, announcements, commissions and studies, nothing gets done in Washington about actually cutting government spending because the participants all want to get re-elected.

Indulgences: Big Sister, reprising a role originated by popes during the Middle Ages, is accepting $100 bribes from those who wish to avoid TSA airport molestation.

Bad Penny: Republicans are once more trying to privatize Medicare (and if possible, Social Security), citing the benefits of the market system. You know the market system, the one that brings us iPads and Nike shoes made in a virtual slave economy that has ruined our economy and our standard of living while ruthlessly exploiting those who make our bread and circuses. Do we really want these people running our health care and retirement systems? Does Romney really need another house?

Silver Lining: In the US,  the richest 10% pocketed all of 2010's income gains.

Daily Dose: Research shows that in Republican controlled New Hampshire, both abortion and birth control pills cause breast cancer, while teenage pregnancy is the best way to prevent it because (quoting the law) “for each year that a woman’s first full-term pregnancy is delayed, her risk of breast cancer rises 3.5 percent.”

Echo: Governor Corbett , echoing Clayton Williams, supports forcing women to have an ultrasound before an abortion because “they can just close their eyes.”

Faking It: Modern economies depend on a collaborative agreement by most to suspend disbelief, as banks go about creating “value” (or the appearance thereof) from thin air. In a debt-based money system, debt must grow in order to create the money needed to pay back (with interest) the money already created by previous acts of magic. The interest paid, over time, consumes an ever greater part of our resources and production until eventually nothing of real value is left. Note that if the music stops, the system collapses. Now do you understand “extend and pretend”?

Half A Loaf: Republican wannabe Newt Gingrich is right when he says his ideas are incomprehensible, and that “our political system is so methodically and deliberately stupid.”

Porn O'Graph: Is the 'down' related to 'up'?