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Representative Darrell Issa has written an opinion piece in The Washington Times where he examines the supposed panacea to our budget crisis, higher taxes on the wealthy.

“The idea that we can tax our way into fiscal order is a fallacy. A wealth tax doesn’t necessarily create greater revenue; it just gives government more excuses to further delay making the tough decisions about our spending excesses.”

This documentary video, titled “Islam: What The West Needs To Know”, was produced by SnagFilms, and I think it is a must see. Our political leaders and the pop media have painted Islam as a religion of peace, and it is anything but that. It is a political system and a religion which is bent upon world domination.

The video is 98 minutes long, but I can promise if you watch even 15 minutes of it, you will want to see it all.

The silver and gold markets are experiencing a shift that will have profound implications on both pricing and the market mechanisms. In the recent past the paper futures market has had a direct connection with the physical market. Supposedly, futures buyers could take delivery of their contracts.

For some time the market participants have suspected that much more paper exists than physical metal. As with anything where a paper substitute can represent a physical asset, the paper tends to expand to multiples of the physical asset. The reality is that the Comex has only a fraction of the physical gold and silver in inventory that should back up the futures trading. Now the MF Global scandal has exposed another aspect of the futures market that is destroying investor trust.

Jim Willie has written a commentary on the loss of trust in the gold and silver futures markets, and what will be the likely outcome. His piece is carried on Kitco.com.

“Grand divergence dynamics are becoming clear. Ann Barnhardt explained in detail how the COMEX will not default, but rather fall into irrelevance, as it is shunned from lost trust.”

The global warming myth is a fully accredited legal fact in the EU as witnessed by the upcoming carbon tax to be applied to airlines. U.S. airlines have been joined by Chinese airlines in a legal challenge. The details are provided by this piece from EUObserver.

“Some airlines, such as America’s cargo giant UPS, are already thinking about re-routing flights in order to side-step the scheme and cut costs, reports the Wall Street Journal.”

John C.K. Daly of Oilprice.com brings us this piece on a new solar cell technology. It has the potential to be much cheaper than conventional solar cells, BUT it only has an efficiency of 1% compared to the 15% attainable with conventional technology. No doubt its efficiency can be improved, but a 15x improvement would only make it equal to commercial cells, which is still not enough to overcome the basic economic problems.

The popular attraction to solar power seems to be that it is “free”. In reality it is anything but free to produce in any economic quantity. And the advocates seem to forget that solar cells will not produce electricity for half of the day, meaning that an equivalent amount of conventional generation must be ready to supply the load during dark hours, and on cloudy days. Another consideration is the huge amount of land that is used by solar power.

The author wrote a similar piece which is referenced in this post.

Incidentally, I recently saw a poster in a European airport which claimed that .3% of the Sahara desert could supply all of the electrical needs of Europe (obviously touting solar power). Without extensive research, I can’t address the amount of generating capacity or the megawatts consumed by Europe, but some simple arithmetic can be applied to other aspects of the idea.

First, .3% of the Sahara would be 10,000 square miles of solar cells. Think of a solar array covering a tract of land 100 by 100 miles. Now consider the transmission line that would be necessary to go from say Tunisia to Rome, air line, a fairly short run to get to Europe. The line would run 500 miles which is a very long transmission line. Just the interconnecting lines within the solar array would be hundreds of miles long. Those lengths are not practical for power transmission. Another issue is: would Europe want to be dependent upon power generated in northern Africa? That would put them at the mercy of every terrorist with some dynamite. Because of the massive amounts of land required for solar power, it is not practical to install close to cities and farms, but neither is it practical to ship it for long distances.

If we can ignore the practical problems of solar power, it is really a grand idea.

According to the pop media, called the mainstream media by Greg Hunter, we are experencing a “turnaround” in the economy. In his piece on USAWatchdog Greg Hunter disagrees. As usual, if the media is promoting the idea, it is almost assuredly a lie.

“According to the official government number, it is running at 3.4% annually. If you compute inflation the way the government did in 1980 and earlier, it would be 11% (according to Shadowstats.com.)”

Ron Paul sounds a warning about the recently enacted National Defense Authorization Act. In the name of fighting terrorism we are destroying the very rights we are supposedly protecting.

Terrorists of whatever stripe are achieving a victory over America by subverting our own Constitutional rights. They could not have captured America, or even a single city, by force of arms, but are now giving our own government the pretext to destroy our nation. The war on terrorism has become on ourselves.

“The PATRIOT Act, as bad is its violation of the 4th Amendment, was just one step down the slippery slope. The recently passed National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) continues that slip toward tyranny and in fact accelerates it significantly.”

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Doug Bandow of the Cato Institute has an unfulfilled Christmas list, but remains hopeful, maybe next year. His ten wish-list items are things I can relate to, until he gets to number nine. He loses me on the one where he says of Barack Obama, “…gives no sign of being anything other than a patriot. He is liberal, yes, but certainly not a “socialist thug”….” In fact, I also would contest his very gentle assessments of several of our previous presidents.

Still, to agree with 90 percent of what the man says may be pretty good. He has put some serious thought into his Christmas list. His piece is posted on Forbes.

“Next, I wish the people of the world would stop confusing Uncle Sam with Joan of Arc. It seems everyone everywhere expects America to show up and save them.”

“Number three is that Washington stop lecturing other nations about democracy while sucking up to corrupt thugs who jail anyone foolish enough to support democracy there. You know, like the Saudi royals.”

We have not posted anything from Marc Faber in some time, and so here is a summary of some of his newsletter commentary and segments from an interview. The piece is carried on Business Intelligence Middle East.

“The renowned investor clearly disagrees with Keynesian policies that seek to get out of the crisis caused by too much borrowing and spending by spending and borrowing even more.”

“Faber said: “There is no doubt that QE3 will come in one form or the other, and in Europe also”.”

Explaining the loss of $1.2 billion continues to be baffling, however some of the money may have been found. Jesse’s Cafe Americain published two pieces on the lost money.

It is becoming obvious IMHO, that there is a major cover-up going on. Needless to say, MF Global clients are taking a hit, and the supposedly regulated investment business offers the customer much less protection than advertised.

The rise of a secular theocracy is the subject of this piece by David J. Theroux. Governments have become the new religion, along with other subordinate theologies like science, education, media, and economics, all of whom demand obedience. Theistic religions have been pushed to the periphery of society.

In the U.S., these secular centers of power are major influences in our public life while Christianity is being marginalized. There was a time when all of life was heavily influenced by Christianity, and now the mere mention of Christianity or its traditions is considered distasteful, if not unlawful. As C.S. Lewis noted, we cannot divide our lives into secular and sacred without paying a penalty in the moral fabric of society.

The Independent Institute posted this piece.

“…William Cavanaugh similarly notes that for Augustine and the ancient world, religion was not a distinct realm separate from the secular.”

“In the Middle Ages, Aquinas further viewed religion not as a set of private beliefs but instead a devotion toward moral excellence in all spheres.”

The past year seems to have been a particularly active year for volcanos. The Atlantic “In Focus” feature gives us 36 photos of volcanic activity around the world. Most of us have little appreciation of what a volcanic eruption means. This photo collection will help fill that void.

But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, 
out of you will come for me 
one who will be ruler over Israel, 
whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.”

In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register.

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
(New International Version)

Sometimes the best explanation is a graph, and that is just what Alasdair Macleod supplies in this piece that is posted on GoldMoney. The graph of US True Money Supply is rather scary. A second graph of gold price is also revealing.

Here is a speech by Walter Williams which is typical, clear and insightful Walter Williams. The man understands free market economics. I wish that just five percent of Americans had the same understanding.

The video is posted on Ideas Matter.

Gregg Easterbook discusses some huge questions about dark matter, dark energy, and astronomy. This stuff is way beyond who will be president in 2012 or the fate of the Euro. His piece is published on Reuters.

“A baseball is solid at the macro scale: at the subatomic scale, it seems to be made of rapidly spinning packets of nothingness.”

“Physicist Charles Townes…wryly observed, “To posit the existence of an infinite number of unobservable universes seems considerably more freewheeling than positing a single unobservable God.”

In about fifty years our culture has literally shifted 180 degrees. What was good and honorable is now largely reviled and ridiculed. Some of the details of this shift are examined by Dan Gainor on the Business and Media Institute website. He could have written a book on the subject; still his short article will get the message across.

We can blame the pop media for much of the depravity in our culture, but the responsibility must ultimately be laid on the consumer who patronizes the movies, tv shows, internet sleaze, and tabloid news.

“Actor Charlie Sheen was covered like he was actually somebody important. He’s not. Still, ABC, CBS and NBC used 38 separate broadcasts to give viewers 4 hours, 51 minutes and 1 second of Sheen.”

Resource Clips published this interview with Peter Grandich. He talks about manipulation of the gold market, gold equities, the Euro and the dollar. His experience in the markets make him a man to be heard.

“Europe is just the opening act; the real problem will come when it hits the shores in America. In terms of a safe haven, the lows on the US dollar index was around 70, we’re at 80; so we’re talking about a market that’s about only 15% up from its multi-decade lows.”

We have all heard complaints about low teacher pay, and out of sympathy have probably bought into the idea. Forbes brings us this piece by Warren Meyer where he discusses this issue with some numerical data. He makes some good points.

“The problem with salaries for government workers like teachers is that, in a monopoly (particularly one enforced by law), the usual checks and balances on compensation simply don’t exist.”

New rules proposed by the European Commission would limit the sovereign powers of the member states. The move is aimed at forcing EU countries to give some of their budgeting authority to unelected EU bureaucrats. EUobserver published this piece by Leigh Phillips.

It may well come to pass, and I suspect that the gradual integration of the European Union has been planned from the start. However, these nations have been at war with each other over the centuries for less provocation. Making their national budgets subject to a supranational authority sounds strange indeed.

“”The EU is doing what it does best: creating new rules and layers of governance that undermine national sovereignty,” said MEP Jan Zahradil, the Czech chairman of the ECR.”

We have covered the European crisis more than once, and have addressed the Feds probable involvement in it. Still, Ron Paul has a beautiful way of illuminating these economic events, and this latest piece by him is well done.

“A bailout of European banks by the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve will exacerbate the crisis rather than alleviate it. What is needed is for bad debts to be liquidated. Banks that invested in sovereign debt need to take their losses….”

Stability preservation and social management are key policies in the Peoples Republic of China (Red China). View these policies as you would the control of inmates in a prison. Liberty and justice are not part of the plan, just control and management of people, as is typical of Communist governments. Reuters carries this report on China.

The ongoing protest at the village of Wukan is an example of the protests that are springing up throughout China. This recent post gives some information on that village uprising.

“‘Stability preservation is the party’s defensive response to a society that is growing more fluid and assertive,’ said Cui.”

“He called the campaign – which has been given added urgency by upheavals rippling from the Arab world – a strategic task to ‘consolidate the ruling status of the party’ and protect order.”

“But Cui, the Beijing-based writer, said the stability drive would ultimately buckle under the weight of costs, corruption and pent-up social pressures. Wukan could be a forerunner of what Xi must confront.”

Greg Hunter writes his usually incisive piece on USAWatchdog. This time he examines the one-sided reporting of the mainstream media.

“My new friend is 75 years old and gets a Social Security check every month. She’s pretty sharp, but I don’t blame her for being misinformed. She gets her news the old fashioned way—from the mainstream media (MSM).”

We have all been told about the growing problem of cellphone use and automobile accidents. The National Transportation Safety Board chief Deborah Hersman has voiced her concern for the problem. Or is there a problem?

Walter Olsen posted this item on Cato@Liberty where he reveals that the government is totally misrepresenting the data (read lying).

“…as columnist Charen notes, that overall highway deaths have been dropping steadily, from 44,599 in 1990 to 32,885 in 2010, even though there are now more licensed drivers and cars on the road, and of course vastly more phones. That’s no “epidemic.””

Obamacare is moving steadily toward implementation, whereupon the U.S. will receive its own version of socialized medicine. Had we given the plan any thought, we could have looked at the British or Canadian health systems to see that government run medical care does not work.

Forbes carries this piece by Sally Pipes on the ugly and inherent problems of socialized medicine.

“The incentives are wrong. The government’s main priority is keeping costs low — not providing quality care. Patients can’t choose how they receive their care — it’s one-size-fits-all medicine. And the entrenched NHS bureaucracy has no reason to improve efficiency.”

Peter Ferara has written an analysis of the Obama administration’s economic policies, their Marxist roots to the crisis in which we now find ourselves. His piece appears on Townhall.com.

“All of this is documented in the public record. This is the man the Democrat party took off the streets of Chicago, then pursuing a career as a Marxist street agitator, and launched into the White House, favoring him over Hillary Clinton because she was too moderate for the party.”

“Of course, essential to all of President Obama’s essential spending is to increase tax rates on the rich, otherwise known in English as the nation’s investors and job creators.”

Silver seems to be in the news lately, mainly because it has dropped in price, but that does not change the fundamentals which are solidly in favor of higher prices for the metal. Paul Tracy writing on Street Authority produced this commentary on silver which I think is good, though not as thorough as I would like.

He makes the comparison of the 1980 price of silver to what it would sell for today adjusted for inflation. The price of silver generally follows the gold price, which is obviously manipulated by our government, and a case might be made that the silver price also is being manipulated down. So today’s prices are considerably below what the market would set, but the market will ultimately have its way, and prices will rise, and I think dramatically.

Paul Tracy did not mention the growing investment demand for gold and silver from international investors. Unquestionably silver is being consumed increasingly as an industrial metal, but investment demand is growing, especially from overseas investors who see silver as a safe haven. Chinese and Indian investment demand will be a major force in the market.

At the last of his article he cites the growth in above ground gold, which I think is misleading. Gold is almost entirely a monetary metal, so obviously it is not consumed as is silver. It is held by central banks and investors as the ultimate stable asset, unaffected by inflation or counter party risks. International investor demand likely will become the driving force in the price of gold.

Climategate 2.0 e-mails published in November have revealed another aspect to the promotion of man-made global warming by the University of East Anglia. It appears that the U.S. Dept. of Energy was encouraging the suppression of temperature data.

The question that should be answered is why was temperature data that was funded by the U.S. Dept. of energy treated as classified information, and why was the processing methodology of the data also kept a secret. Open review of data and data analysis is a fundamental tenet of scientific inquiry. One would have to be brain-dead to not conclude that the research was deliberately biased.

The report by Maxim Lott was published on Fox News.

“Two months later, Jones reiterated that sentiment to colleagues, saying that the data “has to be well hidden. I’ve discussed this with the main funder (U.S. Dept of Energy) in the past and they are happy about not releasing the original station data.””

Belgium has just had its credit rating cut by Moody’s Investors Service. The debt contagion continues to spread in the Euro zone.

Reuters carries this piece.

“”The fragility of the sovereign debt markets (in the euro zone) is increasingly entrenched and unlikely to be reversed in the near future,” Moody’s said in a statement.”

The Atlantic gives us this piece by Jordan Weissmann. He presents a study by Roland Fryer who gathered data on what produced academic achievement in New York City charter schools. The old concept that small class size, high spending per student, and credentialed teachers makes for educational excellence proved wrong.

What Roland Fryer has discovered probably explains why spending more and more money on education has produced dismal results.

“Fryer found that class size, per-pupil spending, and the number of teachers with certifications or advanced degrees had nothing to do with student test scores in language and math.”

The Coca-Cola Company may be the poster child of eco-friendly companies. Coke has enthusiastically bought into the politically correct environmental agenda. Paul Chesser reports on the company’s many carbon friendly, sustainable, and energy saving programs. And let’s not forget that they are committed to saving the polar bears which have survived many millennia without man’s assistance.

Mr. Chesser’s article was posted on the National Legal and Policy Center website.

““Coca-Cola Enterprises is determined to grow more and to use less, and we are very proud to achieve the highest carbon performance score ever awarded by the Carbon Trust Standard,”….”

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) has gained some opposition from major internet executives who see the act as a means of censoring internet content. As with many federal laws it will likely have unintended consequences which will be worse than the problem being addressed.

CNN Money carries the piece by Dan Mitchell.

The author is quite right in his analysis, and opens his article with “It is astonishing that those in the West are living through the near extinction of their civilization.” Using the term “near extinction” may be a little optimistic. The current generation may well see the end of western values. Herbert London laments the demise of the Western Civilization course that was basic to college education.

With little or no understanding of what we call western civilization and how it came to be, can the next generation preserve what they enjoy? Even if they are shallow enough to just want their material prosperity, that will not be maintained with the loss of western values.

Accuracy In Media published this piece.

What is happening in Europe is like a three ring circus. It is hard to know what to watch because so much is going on. And all of this is not just so much amusement. Bank failures, recession, or the break up of the EU will drastically affect us.

Spiegel Online interviewed the head of the European Banking Authority, Andrea Enria, and the interviewer definitely asked the hard questions.

“Enria: There are other ways to raise the capital ratio: Banks can issue new equity…
SPIEGEL: …which no one will buy.
Enria: …and they can retain earnings…
SPIEGEL: …which won’t be too high in a difficult year like 2011.”

Voyager I was launched in 1977 with the goal of collecting data from the outer edges of our solar system. The spacecraft continues to operate, but at a reduced level, and sends data back to the earth as it approaches the edge of interstellar space.

NPR posted this article.

More and more news of Chinese popular protests are making the news. These events have been covered up by the government in years past, but are now coming to the front, probably as a result of internet communications.

The residents of Wukan village have been incensed by the illegal confiscation of land by local officials. Protestor Xue Jinbo was killed allegedly as the result of a police interrogation. Reuters carries this piece.

Another Chinese protest was reported in this post of November 26.

“”Contrary to international human rights law and standards, Chinese citizens rarely have an opportunity for genuine consultation before eviction, rarely receive adequate information on the nature or purpose of the eviction and often receive little or no compensation,” the group said in a statement.”

If the EU were not enough, now India is having its fiscal problems with a deficit climbing beyond expectations. Individual Indian states are also incurring debt at a rapid clip.

Yahoo Finance India carries this article.

If the massive layer of ice were stripped away from Antarctica, what would be left? Radar surveys of the continent have produced a map of the rock surface, complete with its high mountain peaks and deep valleys.

BBC News has this story by Jonathan Amos, science correspondent.

Duty is the most sublime word in our language. Do your duty in all things. You cannot do more. You should never wish to do less.

I like whiskey. I always did, and that is why I never drink it.

I tremble for my country when I hear of confidence expressed in me. I know too well my weakness, that our only hope is in God.

It is well that war is so terrible. We should grow too fond of it.

Private and public life are subject to the same rules– truth and manliness are two qualities that will carry you through this world much better than policy or tact or expediency or other words that were devised to conceal a deviation from a straight line.

My chief concern is to try to be an humble, earnest Christian.

California, according to the best data that I can find, has a debt of more than $77 billion dollars. Fiscal year 2012 may add another $13 billion to that amount.

But not to worry. Governor Jerry Brown has a plan. By increasing the sales tax and the income tax rate for the upper 1% of earners, he hopes to raise an additional $7 billion per year. According to my calculations that will put the state $6 billion into the hole per year.

Columnist Brian Calle for the Orange County Register has his own opinions about the spiralling fiscal fortunes of California.

“The top 1 percent of income earners in California already account for nearly one-half of all revenue.”

As you may know Britain will not be joining the seventeen nation Euro zone in a new fiscal union. Prime Minister David Cameron voted for Britain to stay out of the new alliance, for which he is the target of intense criticism. There is no doubt that the financial transactions tax that would have been levied against the financial district of the City was a factor in staying out. Whatever the motivations, IMHO Britain took the brave road by not immersing itself further in the problems of the Euro zone.

Paul Tustain gives us his views on Cameron’s decision in this piece which was published on Safe Haven.

“Only this time some of the creditors – particularly Germany and France – don’t want to lose their money. They want to force two or three generations of Greeks, Irish, Portuguese, Italians, Spanish and Belgians to pay, pay, pay. Germany and France lent to your father, yet you become the indentured slave. That should never be how bad money-lending is resolved. The lender should take the hit when the borrower cannot repay; it helps to focus his mind before he lends. In Britain we got rid of inter-generational debt servitude 200 years ago, and it is not progress to return to it.”

“We think that Europe’s political class is making a monumental error in order to hold on to something which carries their political credibility. We think they will fail and that Europe will suffer dreadfully for it.”

We are indebted to Christopher Monckton of Durban, South Africa for this report on the auspicious Climate Change Conference in said city. Though the pop media contends that nothing really happened there, the reality is that the conference is setting into motion their scheme for world government founded upon saving the earth from global warming. The United Nations is the driving force behind the conference.

The main points produced by the gathering are listed, and they cover such things as: an International Climate Court, Rights of Mother Earth, global temperature, CO2 emissions, and who will pay for all of it. Reading this shopping list of objectives sounds like Alice In Wonderland, but these people are serious. Once these points are repeated endlessly in the pop media, and various “authorities” are presented to endorse this stuff, people will be conditioned to believe that the earth is in danger and the U.N. plan must be adopted.

This report was posted on the SPPI Blog.

“Their plans to establish a world government paid for by the West on the pretext of dealing with the non-problem of “global warming” are now well in hand.”

“At Copenhagen and Cancun, the states parties to the Convention arrogated to themselves the power – previously safe in the hands of Divine Providence – to alter the weather in such a way as to prevent global mean surface temperature from rising by more than 2 C° above the “pre-industrial” level.”

Osawatomie, Kansas, was chosen as the site for the Presidents speech on Tuesday because he wanted to liken himself to Theodore Roosevelt and the populist speech he delivered there 101 years ago. However, President Obama’s speech revealed both his socialist core beliefs and his inexcusable ignorance of American history.

Peter Schiff discusses the speech in his post on Safe Haven.

“This view is complete fiction and proves that Obama is not qualified to teach elementary school civics, let alone serve as President of the United States.”

“The prosperity enjoyed during mid-20th century actually resulted from the incredible progress produced by years of capitalism. Contrary to Obama’s belief, the New Deal and Great Society did not create the middle class; it was, in fact, a direct result of the capitalist industrial revolution.”

Read this piece by Tom Engelhardt. The man is right. If your heart and head are not moved by this, you must be made of stone.

“Aside from those who love them, who pays much attention anymore to the deaths of American troops in distant lands?”

“Since the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, there have been so many proclamations of “success,” of “mission accomplished,” of corners turned and tipping points reached, of “progress” made, and so very, very little to show.”

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The title sounds menacing, but this story is amazing. It explains how major banks have become leveraged far beyond the normal risk of sovereign debt. I have never seen this even mentioned before. This adds a new dimension to the EU crisis.

Thomson Reuters New and Insight posted this piece by Christopher Elias.

“Most have been focused on how a Eurozone default would result in huge losses in Eurozone bonds being felt across the world’s banks. However, re-hypothecation suggests an even greater fear. Considering that re-hypothecation may have increased the financial footprint of Eurozone bonds by at least four fold then a Eurozone sovereign default could be apocalyptic.”

“U.S. banks direct holding of sovereign debt is hardly negligible. According to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), U.S. banks hold $181 billion in the sovereign debt of Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain. If we factor in off-balance sheet transactions such as re-hypothecations and repos, then the picture becomes frightening.”

Our economy is compared to the famous “Milgram Experiment” which was a psychological experiment conducted to study human behavior. The results demonstrated a basic human weakness: that people will knowingly inflict harm on another person if they are encouraged to do so by an “expert” who claims that some benefit will occur.

Larrey Anderson’s piece appears on American Thinker.

“A “Milgram Economy” resembles a Milgram experiment gone mad, an economy that is devoid of common sense and moral purpose.”

Not to be outdone by the EU, China is generating its own debt crisis. The local governments are up their ears in debt and are now permitted to sell their own bonds. Cooked economic data from the Chinese government has kept their problems out of the limelight.

The Epoch Times provides this story by Jane Lin and Alex Wu.

“The party secretary of a district government in Zhengzhou City in Henan Province is Lang’s former student. He told Lang that he cannot afford to pay his staff salaries at the end of the year, but he can do nothing about it except continue to lie to people, since he will be transferred to a new post next year anyway.”

Local police departments are receiving military equipment and arms from the Department of Defense, and for the most part it is free. Are the local police that patrol our streets becoming like soldiers occupying Iraq? The Daily carries this piece by Benjamin Carlson.

The missions of a police officer and a soldier are fundamentally different. A policeman has the task of protecting life and property and apprehending suspects for indictment and trial, all subject to due process of law. The soldier is supposed to kill the enemy, inflict maximum damage, and capture enemy held territory. Personally, I don’t want a soldier patrolling my neighborhood.

““If we’re training cops as soldiers, giving them equipment like soldiers, dressing them up as soldiers, when are they going to pick up the mentality of soldiers?” he asked.”

Today we remember the attack on Pearl Harbor. It was a treacherous act, and the truth is that most of the treachery was committed by the U.S. government. The U.S. role in the attack is well documented in the book Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor, by Robert B. Stinnett.

He has written a detailed history of our government’s role in provoking the Japanese attack, and how the FDR and key officials kept the impending attack secret from the naval base at Pearl Harbor. Using records from the Naval Archives he researched the radio message logs that were kept by several listening stations around the Pacific. The U.S. for months before the attack had decoded both the Japanese diplomatic and military radio codes, and the President and his aides were kept updated on Japanese communications almost daily.

When the Japanese fleet sailed for Pearl Harbor, the U.S. continued to monitor their radio communications as well as the position of the ships. The widely promoted idea that the Japanese maintained radio silence during their voyage is a lie. Our naval listening stations intercepted their communications and the President knew exactly what their objective was.

FDR and his staff were content to let the military personnel at Pearl Harbor suffer a surprise attack and have our Pacific fleet almost destroyed. Twenty-three hundred Americans died, 1100 were injured, and 21 ships were sunk or damaged. And the American public was told it was a surprise attack, which provided the provocation for our entry into WWII.

I highly recommend this book.

Walt Disney was born on December 5, 1901. Few people have had the lasting impact in the movie and entertainment industry that Disney did and continues to have. PJ Media brings us this article on the five major innovations that he introduced.

The Washington Times Opinion section provides us with this piece by Richard W. Rahn. He says the obvious, but because it is so open, it is usually overlooked by the public. We fail to see the forest for the trees. Crises create more bureaucracy, which destroys our liberties.

“It is true that elected officials are the ones who have created the bureaucracies that reign over the people, but that fact does not mean that either the will of the people or their liberties are being protected.”

“What is new is that due to the global financial crisis, the rate at which democratic control and individual liberty are being destroyed has greatly accelerated.”

EPA might stand for Expanding Power Always. The federal agency has announced that it intends to regulate the waste water from oil and gas drilling. More heavy handed regulation from the federal government is not what we need.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute brings us this article by Jackie Moreau.

“A one-size-fits-all policy will not work. Dana Murphy, Chairwoman of the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, pointed out the slew of variables—unique to each state—that need to be considered for drilling: geography, topography, climate change, etc. The state officials with their boots on the ground are the ones with the extensive experience and knowledge of these factors.”

According to Discovery News writer Jennifer Viegas scientists anticipate that they will be able to clone a woolly mammoth. If the DNA from a frozen mammoth bone is usable, we may see the first mammoth to live in 10,000 years.

Besides the scientific achievement in this, I can see a commercial aspect, ie. raising herds of mammoths for meat production. Twenty-first century ranching might take on a new look.

Government regulations have been the topic of a number of posts, and now we are about to get Obamacare. The Washington Post carries this opinion piece by George Will on the impact of Obamacare on businesses, with some specifics on CKE Restaurants (Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s).

When government mandates more employee expenses, the result is fewer employees and/or fewer businesses. And the federal government is trying to figure out how to create more jobs.

“A second certainty is that “employers everywhere will be looking to reduce labor content in their business models as Obamacare makes employees unambiguously more expensive.””

The latest cure for the EU crisis is “fiscal union”, but Liam Halligan, writing for the U.K. Telegraph, doubts that it will happen. A major point would be to give Brussels power over individual national budgets, and Germany might be picking up the tab for the debt of the weaker countries.

Think about this. We have twenty-seven nations who have been at war with each other multiple times over the last four hundred years, and they are now going to blend their economies together with a single authority dictating how much each nation can spend. I cannot see that happening except at the point of a bayonet.

“And when it comes to QE, the German Chancellor was similarly unequivocal. “The role of the ECB is different from that of the Fed in the US and the Bank of England,” she insisted.”

The pop media has had their hot button topic and the protestors appeared to have enjoyed themselves, but according to John Merline on Investors Business Daily it’s almost over.

Income inequality was supposed to be a major issue of the movement, but short of a totalitarian government, how can that be solved. For a large country the old Soviet Union may have had the closest thing to income equality that has ever been achieved. Almost everyone was poor.

“A survey by the Economic Mobility Project found that 71% say the country should focus on making sure everyone has a fair chance to succeed. Just 21% think the focus should be on reducing income inequality.”

Reuters published this news item on the possibility of China buying EU bonds.

So that just leaves the U.S. (read Federal Reserve) to step in and buy Euro zone bonds.

You might consider this a kind of movie review. I just watched “The Book of Eli” with Denzel Washington and Mila Kunis. It is a unique apocalypse story with Eli(Denzel Washington) walking toward the west coast with the mission of taking an almost forgotten book to its destination. The book turns out to be the King James version of the Bible. War has devasted the earth and either before or after that all copies of the Bible were deliberately destroyed, except for the one copy that Eli is carrying.

During his long walk toward the west, Eli encounters all kinds of savage and evil men who are struggling to survive in the desolate waste land left by the war. His problems take a severe turn for the worse when he walks into a town run by a local despot, Carnegie, who has been searching for “the book”. As he sees it, having “the book” would give him tremendous power over people. When he learns that Eli has “the book”, the chase is on with Eli fleeing for his life, and being followed by Solara (Mila Kunis).

To limit this story somewhat, I will skip to the finale. Eli has lost his treasured book to Carnegie and is mortally wounded. He and Solara find safety on Alcatraz Island where he recites the entire King James Bible from memory so that it can be transcribed and printed. When it was revealed that “the book” was the King James Bible, I was intrigued that maybe this story was going to have a profound, or even a very moving conclusion. The Bible does get copied from Eli’s dictation, and Solara starts out on her own journey back to her home, maybe to take the printed Bible there.

Now you might think I am picky, but Eli’s last words were a prayer thanking God for protecting him and taking him on his journey, and the story ended there. For me, the significance of the Bible was totally missed. The Bible was seen as a means of helping one to live a good life. If that is what the Bible is about, then a book by Oprah or Dr. Phil might be equally good.

The Bible is about God, who He is and what he has done, His revelation of Himself. To be specific He sent his Son, Jesus, to pay for the sins of all who would trust in Him. A loving God sent his Son, to be a man, to redeem sinful men, according to His wise and wonderful plan. If the Bible is assumed to be a self help book for us to improve our lives, we have missed the point entirely.

The question is posed: Do solar energy plants need more land, meaning should we allocate more real estate for solar power generation? The article on BusinessWeek has a pro and a con presentation, which are virtually the same. It comes down to what land is available without disturbing the habitat of too many snail darters or jumping rats. Tough decisions.

What really should be discussed is who is going to build new conventional power plants or finance the old ones that are going to be running at far less than capacity as backup for the solar generation. And for that matter, who is going to pay for solar generation that is only functional for approximately 50% of the time. These are rhetorical questions. The answer is the consumer who will be buying very expensive electricity.

Erik Swarts is in a Christmas mood, or so the markets would seem to indicate, but it’s all superficial. He writes a commentary on the economics of the season.

This seems like an appropriate place for LikeLicorice axiom #3: The financial powers can put off the inevitable almost indefinitely.

“If you thought Beranke’s job was difficult, it makes Mario Draghi’s job look downright impossible.”

“We are talking about people who are merely suspected of a crime. We are talking about American citizens.”

“If these provisions pass, we could see American citizens being sent to Guantanamo Bay. This should be alarming to everyone because it puts every single American citizen at risk.”

The U.S. Senate has just passed the National Defense Authorization Act which contains a provision that puts every American citizen in jeopardy of military detention without due process of law. Senator Rand Paul has written an excellent piece on the Act.

Co-sponsors of the military detention provision are Senators Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, and John McCain, Republican of Arizona, both of whom should be censured by the Senate for this provision, which is in direct violation of the Constitution which the senators are sworn to uphold. Is there no penalty for violating the oath of office?