LIKE LICORICE

If a writer wants to signal his intentions up front, just put the term “conspiracy theory” in the title. The public has been trained to react to that term with Pavlovian regularity. Conspiracies don’t exist, and therefore anyone who even hints at such is discredited as a nut. Simone Foxman, writing on Business Insider, has produced a piece on Ron Paul which is focused on the Consumer Price Index methodology for computing inflation. Rep. Paul is critical of the changes to the calculation that have reduced the inflation statistic.

The author’s whole point is wrapped up in this one silly statement: “We can clamor as much as we want about how a politician could have tried to bribe BLS officials to change the CPI system by offering the bureau money, but there is no hard evidence to prove that the BLS was motivated to change their calculations for political motives.” It is the straw man argument. Erect a flimsy, straw man example and then demolish it to prove your point. Apparently Ms. Foxman cannot conceive of a simple phone call from a cabinet official (or higher) to the appropriate person at BLS asking that they take whatever steps are necessary to minimize the CPI. When someone works for you, you don’t have to bribe them.

This is funny in a way. Chinese mining investors are having difficulty gaining access to Australian mining opportunities because they are convinced that they must offer bribes to get what they want. After all, that is the way it is done in China.

The info came out from Wikileaks and is posted on Google News.

David Galland reprints a piece by John Mauldin which was written several years ago. Mauldin analyzes the economic scene and speculates on what it takes to cause a collapse. Interestingly, he comes across the analogy of a sand pile which may have some validity in a complex economic system. It’s a long article but well worth the time.

Financial Sense posted this.

“But as we will see, there are fingers of instability building up that have the potential to create large disruptions, both positive and negative, in our future.”

“After all, every avalanche large or small starts out the same way, when a single grain falls and makes the pile just slightly too steep at one point.”

“We have players of this game from all over the world tied inextricably together in a vast dance through investment, debt, derivatives, trade, globalization, international business, and finance.”

Americans don’t get it yet, but the Chinese do. The Los Angeles Times carries this article by David Pierson on Chinese gold demand. As individual investors and for its currency reserves the Chinese are outstripping every other nation in the growth of their gold market.

“China, the world’s largest producer of gold, will soon be the biggest buyer of it.”

“…customer Zhang Li waited in line to purchase gold bars, an investment he describes as the only safe bet left for ordinary Chinese.”

“China’s government is suspected of quietly stockpiling more gold to diversify its $3.2-trillion holdings of foreign reserves and reduce its reliance on the U.S. dollar.”

Increased firearms ownership by citizens is not creating the wave of crime that the gun control advocates had predicted. The truth is that the incidence of crime is going down. Forbes has documented some of the facts about private gun ownership and self defense in this article by Larry Bell.

“Abuse of responsibility by armed citizens is rare, while successful defensive interventions against assaults on their lives and property are relatively commonplace.”

“A widely-known study conducted by Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz in the 1990s found that there were somewhere between 830,000 and 2.45 million U.S. defensive gun uses annually.”

The list of dying and defunct green energy firms keeps getting longer, and that includes the electric vehicle companies. Without government subsidies this industry is just not viable. However, that does not seem to deter the Obama administration and its Department of Energy in their quest for the mythical green energy genie.

Paul Chesser’s piece is posted on the National Legal and Policy Center’s website.

Oops! Inflation is taking its toll on Social Security. Rising energy costs have bumped up the cost of living adjustment to Social Security and put the precarious fund on even worse footing.

CNN Money published this piece by Allan Sloan.

“But CBO is predicting a $60 billion cash shortfall for fiscal 2012, compared with the $21 billion that Social Security predicted for 2012 last year. For 2013, the CBO projects $76 billion, compared with $19 billion for Social Security.”

Eric Sprott and David Baker write about the “Year of the Central Bank”. Regardless of what has gone on before, 2012 may prove to be the year of worldwide money printing by the central banks. Europe, Japan, England, and the U.S. are increasing liquidity via money creation. As the authors say, “it will have unintended consequences”.

The article appears on the Sprott Asset Management website.

“Long story short, in an effort to avert a total collapse in the European banking system, the US Fed agreed to offer unlimited US dollar swap agreements with the other central banks.”

“…the ECB flooded 523 separate European banks with 489 billion euros worth of 3-year loans to keep them going through Christmas.”

“…who needs traditional QE when the Fed already buys 91 percent of all 20-30 year maturity US Treasury bonds?”

A great may people would probably agree with Adrian Salbuchi in his assessment of Greece’s options. Priority number one for the EU is to protect the banks and creditors, regardless of the massive debt burden it is placing on the Greeks. Having lived through the Argentine sovereign debt crisis of 2001, Mr. Salbuchi has some definite opinions about the Greek disaster.

This piece appears on Russia Times.

“But no matter how bad it got, it would always be better to do that without the bankers, without the IMF’s, European Central Bank’s, US Fed’s and US Treasury’s “help”. Better to sort out your mess on your own, than to have parasitic banker vultures carving out their pound of flesh….”

“Greece, the Cradle of Democracy, can teach the world a lesson in True Democracy by kicking these parasites out of the country, which will hopefully trigger kicking them out of Europe and one day, kicking them out of the global economy.”

Our thanks to Spiegel Online for this fascinating article on Chinese emigration. Wieland Wagner is the author. Beyond the students who leave mainland China for a college education and all that it brings, there are hundreds if not thousands of families who are fleeing China for a better life. Private emigration services offer these Chinese advice on gaining legal entry into western countries as well as the means of obtaining an exit visa.

“These longings have led many people in China to pursue foreign citizenship for themselves and their families. The most popular destinations are the US and Canada, countries with a tradition of immigration.”

“In the beginning, he [Zhaohui] developed microchips in Montreal, but he says he found the job boring. Then he found his true calling: helping Chinese entrepreneurs and businesspeople escape.”

Did you ever wonder how a movie story came to be? Who decided that the story would make a good movie, or should I say a profitable movie? Dave Berg of The Washington Times wonders too. Does the movie industry question why 70% of movies are financial failures?

“…many Hollywood executives don’t want audience opinions to get in the way of their “creative vision.””

“The budget to produce and promote Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo” was huge. It has garnered 11 Oscar nominations, more than any other film, but it’s a box-office loser.”

Internet users beware. Your privacy is at stake, along with your freedom of internet access. A number of companies including Google and Facebook have violated users privacy, but the real threat is federal legislation which would supposedly protect privacy.

Violators are being identified and will pay a price by loss of customers and credibility. Simply put, the internet is self-policing, if it is given a chance. Corrective action may not be immediate, but as users demand responsible action, the better internet services will acknowledge the need and respond. The last thing we need is legislation which will insert bureaucratic government into the process and make it the ultimate arbiter of the internet.

This week the Obama administration introduced a “Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights”, which is voluntary, but is touted as a template for future legislation. It is a given that legislation is already being written to give the FTC or FCC police authority over the internet based on this “Bill of Rights”. David Goldman has written a news piece on CNN Money about this Obama proposal.

Most of us have little sympathy for the banking business which seems to enjoy privileges that other businesses do not. After reading this piece from The Economist I could almost view banking as a distressed industry. The crux of the problem is the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010.

Dodd-Frank has spawned a tangle of bureaucracies to regulate banking and the financial industry, all based on the language of the act which is open to each agency’s interpretation. Naturally the cost of compliance is just another overhead expense, as it would be in any industry, and will be borne by the consumer.

As with so many pieces of legislation, this is another example of our congressmen and senators voting for something that they had not the foggiest idea what it meant. If nothing else, it will be a marvelous stimulus program for lawyers. Interpreting and implementing the law will take years, and how it plays out will only be resolved in many cases through legal action.

“But there is an ever-more-apparent risk that the harm done by the massive cost and complexity of its regulations, and the effects of its internal inconsistencies, will outweigh what good may yet come from it.”

“In November four of the five federal agencies charged with enacting this rule [Volcker rule] jointly put forward a 298-page proposal which is, in the words of a banker publicly supportive of Dodd-Frank, “unintelligible any way you read it”.”

“It is the risk that they and other parts of the Dodd-Frank apparatus will smother financial institutions in so much red tape that innovation is stifled and America’s economy suffers. Officials are being given the power to regulate more intrusively and to make arbitrary or capricious rulings.”

For some years U.S. oil and gas production seemed to be in a state of decline, but that is no more. Shale gas, tight oil, and enhanced oil recovery are revolutionizing our energy industry. Much publicity has been given to shale gas, some of it unfavorable, but the public still does not understand the turn around that is occurring in domestic energy production.

Philip H. “Pete” Stark has documented the growth of these three phases of the industry in his article in The American Oil and Gas Reporter. He also includes some excellent graphs and maps.

“The next wave in unconventional resource development is now well under way, and it is creating equal opportunities for transforming the production of oil and natural gas liquids from tight North American formations.”

“Affordable energy has been a cornerstone of industrial growth and quality of life throughout the nation’s history, and with shale gas, a large part of future U.S. energy needs will be met at a much lower cost than almost any other region in the world.”

“The study found that shale gas production supported more than 600,000 jobs in 2010, and is projected to support 870,000 jobs by 2015 and 1.6 million by 2035.”

“Without shale gas production, relying on high levels of LNG imports would cause U.S. natural gas prices to soar by 200-300 percent.”

Steve Milloy of The Washington Times describes what could happen, what really ought to happen, at the EPA Senate hearings on March 2. He hopes that the EPA administrator, Lisa P. Jackson, will be compelled to explain the absurd policies that are being forced on the American people.

The EPA has virtually declared war on coal-fired power plants. To reinforce their agenda to purify America’s air, they are claiming that pollutants are causing serious health problems, which is simply not documented by the data. On top of that carbon dioxide, an essential component of our atmosphere, is now labeled as a dangerous pollutant. Under the Obama administration the EPA has become a law unto itself.

“So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.” [President Obama]

“The data show no correlation between hospital admissions for asthma and air quality measurements for ground-level ozone (smog) and fine particulate matter (soot) in Los Angeles,….”

The propaganda machine that defends global warming seems to have no “off” button. Even after the hoax was exposed by the posting of emails that demonstrated how the evidence was being slanted to support global warming and to discredit any other data, the pop media continues to push warming.

Alan Caruba explains how The New York Times has been involved in a scam to vilify the Heartland Institute because they revealed the flawed science behind warming. His piece is a guest column on Accuracy In Media.

“The New York Times article is a case study in bad journalism and bias on a scale for which this failing newspaper is renowned.”

““What the Heartland documents show is how badly warmists have been beaten by those with a fraction of the resources they’ve enjoyed.”"

Ok, time for some humor. I ran across this dog joke on Jim Sinclair’s MineSet website. It comes complete with pictures. Hope you enjoy it.

How does one nation provoke a war with another? Would a trade embargo work? The U.S. is doing everything it can to bully Iran into some kind of conflict, which would probably involve our military. And this is being done without any proof that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. Remember Iraq and Saddam Hussein who had weapons of mass destruction and was procuring uranium, none of which was true.

Reuters has posted a report that India and China will be cutting their purchases of Iranian oil. The U.S. is threatening these nations with sanctions if they don’t go along with the oil embargo. One has to wonder if Iranian oil will be bought by middlemen who will then sell to Europe, India, and China, all of which are heavily dependent on Iran for oil. All of these countries would get the oil they need, but at a considerable markup. That kind of transaction will also generate some creative payment schemes since the U.S. is trying to stop major international banks from dealing with Iran.

It is a confidence game in more than one sense of the word. If you believe the economy is good, then you will act accordingly, and the economy will be good. This is the charade that the Fed, the administration, and the pop media are playing since there is nothing substantive to create optimism.

Charles Hugh Smith wrote this commentary which is posted on Financial Sense.

“Economists speak of magical “animal spirits” that fuel economic expansion, but this is simply a colorful term for perception management:….”

“In other words, believing it is so will make it so. That is the essence of the campaign to stimulate “animal spirits” confidence: though the economy is actually tanking,….”

The Greek government and the EU have agreed to bailout terms and everything is rosey. That is the just lipstick on the pig. It is not going to work and the Greeks and the EU and the IMF know it. Here is a piece from Zerohedge which includes an analysis document apparently from the EU or ECB.

If reading the whole document is too much, just read the highlighted paragraph captions. Nothing in it gives any reason to believe the Greek bailout will work. All of the agreements and corrective measures are just smoke and mirrors.

“Somehow we are to believe that within a year, the country will not only turn around its economy, which is foundering courtesy of infinite austerity and striking tax collectors, but almost generate growth???”

Making sense of our culture is what this piece is all about. PJ Media published Victor Davis Hanson’s contribution educating the modern American.

The title is used by author John Rubino, which I posted but don’t think is appropriate. I will explain. Regardless of popular thinking, fascism, nazism, socialism, and communism are all variants of government control of a nation’s economy (and therefore its people). On the scale of least to worst, fascism may be the least intrusive and communism the worst.

Rubino references an article in Harper’s and cites several industries where virtual monopoly control have crushed competition and forced producers to do business with a given corporation on their terms, or not at all. He cites as examples Silicon Valley software engineers, the poultry business, book publishing, advertising, and banking. The dominance these business have achieved is without question oppressive, and I would suggest that at least some of that has been the result of government protection.

So what is the solution? Arriving at a solution demands that we genuinely understand the problem. As long as we have organized businesses there will be power hungry CEOs who will do anything to destroy their competition and exploit their suppliers and workers. We live in a world that is imperfect. In government the same applies, except that government has the benefit of using the force of law, and I do mean force, to achieve its ends. When well meaning people want to enlist the power of government to break up a monopoly or force businesses to act “fairly”, then the danger level rises drastically. The very business that are to be regulated will try to insure that any laws that may threaten them will actually reinforce their monopoly.

“But according to an article in this month’s Harper’s Magazine (Killing the competition: How the new monopolies are destroying open markets, by Barry C. Lynn), US corporations are evolving into forms that are more threatening to their victims than anything emanating from Washington.”

The finest example of that was the outcry in the early part of the twentieth century against the “money powers” and the subsequent creation of the Federal Reserve to rein in their monopoly. Now we have a monopoly established by law which has life and death control over the U.S. economy.

Just recently the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was established to “protect” consumers in the area of finance. Will that really happpen? Almosty assuredly, that agency will destroy competition in the finance industry and insure that just a few major corporations dominate the field.

Business monopolies are oppressive, but a business monopoly that has the protection of government is an order of magnitude worse. Ordinary monopolies, I am convinced, cannot last without government collusion, and will ultimately fail in a free market. The ugly fact is that we seldom have truly free markets because big businesses are so effective at enlisting government intervention, usually under the pretext of protecting the consumer or preventing foreign competition.

John Rubino’s piece is posted on Safe Haven.

The editors of National Review prepared this commentary on women in combat, which I think makes a good case for not putting women in that role. However, so much more could be said in support of that position. The Defense Department is planning to make combat positions available to women in their drive to be politically correct.

For a male combat soldier having one or more women in his fighting unit would be a nightmare. The obvious issue is: could women handle the rigors of combat, physically and mentally, in such a way that the men would feel secure with their presence. Just their lack of physical strength would be a liability.

Another piece on the topic was published more than a year ago by the Center For Military Readiness. Even then the diversity movement was gaining momentum in the armed services.

“As current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Adm. Mike Mullen said a few years ago, “Diversity is a strategic imperative for the security of our nation.”  On the contrary, most people believe that the purpose of the military is to deter or fight wars.”

The Fiscal Times posted this article by Blaire Briody on young adults living at home. While this may not be a new phenomenon looking back to the early 1900s, the author cites a growing trend in the last forty years. Just since 2007 young adults living with parents have grown by 15 percent. The focus was on the U.S., but this lifestyle is also expanding in Europe.

So is this a harmful trend? That could depend on what is causing children to return home and how parents and children handle the situation. Are we witnessing a generation of young people who refuse to grow up, or could there be economic reasons that are pushing young adults back home? I suspect both may be at play.

“What I found interesting was that this change has taken place rapidly enough that in many American households and elsewhere in the world, you have two generations side by side with very different visions of adulthood.”

In a world of economic madness, seeing a nation turn itself around from financial collapse is heartening. Iceland’s economy ran aground in 2008 as a result of huge bank failures and a sovereign debt burden which they could not handle. Rather than protecting the bond holders and saving the banks they allowed the bond holders to take a loss and the banks went into receivership.

As of Friday, Iceland’s credit rating was raised by Fitch from BBB- to BB+. Unemployment is at 6.7 percent. Unlike other western nations, Iceland is prosecuting the bankers and financial officials who were responsible. That small country out in the Atlantic is demonstrating how financial recovery should be managed.

The news item by Ben Chu appears in the U.K. Independent.

“The economic policy orthodoxy through this crisis – pushed by ratings agencies and European politicians alike – has demanded that national governments honour the debts of their banking sectors, protect their exchange rates, eschew capital movement restrictions, and impose massive austerity to earn back the confidence of bond markets. Much of that wisdom was ignored by Reykjavik. And the early signs are that Iceland is doing quite well as a result.”

Our State Department has decided that it can strike a blow for democracy in the Middle East and generate more love for the U.S. by handing out an additional $770 million to various nations that have been involved in the Arab Spring. The new fund will be called the Middle East and North Africa Incentive Fund and is money beyond the usual foreign aid and military grants.

Handing out cash to the governments of the region has never gained us any friends, at least not the kind we want. This follows the pattern of the last fifty years where we have meddled in their politics, installed our puppet leaders, and doled out hundreds of millions of dollars to every strongman. The result is that the region is moving steadily toward more repressive regimes, many of which are part of radical Islam, and with U.S. troops involved in two wars on their soil we are generally hated by these peoples.

The pop media likes to call it isolationism, but it is time that we stopped funding these regimes, stopped “nation building”, and ended our military invasions.

This article by Patrick Goodenough is posted on CNS News.

“While the fund will be focused primarily on supporting governments already committed to meaningful reform, it “will also allow us to respond to emerging opportunities to support early transitions so that nascent reforms can continue.”

This is a statistic that I don’t think I have ever seen, at least not with some economic significance attached to it. Gasoline consumption has been declining since 2008, and the rate of decline has accelerated in the last few months. The article is by James Bianco and is posted on Ritholtz.com.

A possible explanation for falling gasoline consumption may be that with high unemployment fewer people are driving to work. As for the data on miles driven, that seems specious. I cannot imagine any credible source for that.

“If the economy is indeed getting better, it seems to be happening while we are driving less and consuming less gasoline.”

As the effective dates for Obamacare come closer we are starting to see the ugly face of what was promoted as as an American right, “free health care”. The Washington Times published this piece by Jonah Goldberg.

“Of course, if religious institutions don’t want to violate their consciences, they can simply stop offering health insurance (providing yet another example of how Mr. Obama misled voters when he promised that the Affordable Care Act wouldn’t cause anyone to lose his or her current coverage).”

Some investors may still think of U.S. Treasury bonds as a good thing, but Russia and China do not share that opinion. They are paring down their holdings. Zerohedge provides us with this data.

If you look at the spreadsheet of “Major Foreign Holders of Treasury Securities” you will see one listing as Caribbean Banking Centers. This is obviously not a single entity, but represents Treasury buyers that purchase through Caribbean banks. Note also, that they are one of the largest holders of U.S. bonds, far larger than most countries. So the inescapable question is: who are they?

Wow! John Embry has delivered a stunning overview of our economic situation, from China to Europe. He spoke at the California Investment Conference. Most nations are dealing with one nagging problem, sovereign debt, and they will likely handle it in a very similar manner. His speech is posted on the GATA website.

“I do believe that this whole process has a very limited shelf life at this point, which is neatly encapsulated in the economist Herbert Stein’s timeless comment in 1986: “If something can’t go on forever, it will stop.”"

“To avert a near-term economic and financial implosion the authorities throughout the developed world will have to hold their noses and stimulate to whatever degree necessary.”

Nigel Farage is a U.K. Member of the European Parliament (MEP) and is a founding member of the U.K. Independence Party. And the man is not afraid to speak out on issues that are unpopular with the European establishment. If he were an American, I would love to see him in our House or Senate.

In his recent speech before the European Parliament he lambasted the EU and its puppet, Lucas Papademos, the Prime Minister of Greece. The article by Jonathon M. Seidl is carried on Business Insider, and the video of Farage’s speech is included.

“Greece is being driven into the ground, and I think, frankly, when it comes to chaos, you ain’t seen nothing yet!”

The sovereign debt crisis in Europe, and it is not just confined to Greece, is creating some interesting ramifications. Bruce Krasting has posted an observation on the Swiss Franc. As one might expect, money is fleeing the weaker economies and more fragile currencies to find safe havens in other places. It appears that Switzerland may be one of the havens, along with the Swiss franc.

“Note that 59% of all bills outstanding are of the 1,000 CHF denomination. This is crazy.”

Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas documents the Obama adminstration’s violation of the Constitution, the most recent being the “recess” appointments to the National Labor Relations Board and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. This is posted on Investor’s Business Daily.

Peter Schiff of Euro Pacific Capital has written one of his punchy pieces. He has a talent for shining a spotlight into the fog of the pop media and Keynesian economists. This is posted on 321gold.

“The reason stimulus is so politically popular is that it appears to work in the short-term.”

“Of course, the Fed’s ability to stimulate the economy with inflation only works as long as bondholders remain ignorant of its plan.”

“First of all, it’s not that Quantitative Easing will lead to inflation; it’s that QE is inflation.”

The Fed, Ben Bernanke, inflation, bonds, and unemployment are some of Bill Fleckenstein’s topics in this piece from MSN Money.

“Thus, for a guy [Ben Bernanke] who did not even see the most obvious bubble in the history of the world, it strikes me as the height of hubris for him to think he can pick not just the right interest rates but the right inflation rate to target in order to make the world hum the way he likes.”

Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, has written a piece which is part of the Business Insider debate on energy. Naturally, Mr. Brune comes to the discussion from the environmentalist point of view, and his commentary sounds very reasonable and accommodating, but what is he really saying?

He assumes that we should switch from dirty fossil fuels to clean sources of energy, and he lists solar power, wind power, and geothermal power as some options. What happened to nuclear power? Apparently, that is dirty power for him. We have really jumped past an important point which is his premise that fossil fuels are dirty and therefore bad. How did he come to that conclusion? What is dirty energy? He does not say, but just assumes that we will go along with his unstated premise.

I’ll skip the part about humans as the most important resource. That is just warm, fuzzy thinking and has nothing to do with the subject of energy options. It makes the reader think that the author is a really nice guy who probably has some really nice ideas.

Next, he postulates that everyone wants “clean” energy, whatever that is, but since that is probably not totally achievable, he asks what can be done to get more clean energy. Please note that getting clean energy should be our goal according to Mr. Brune. I would suggest that getting abundant and inexpensive energy should be our goal.

Clean energy, that is using the options that he proposes, solar, wind, and geothermal, has not yet been demonstrated as a practical alternative. Both solar and wind energy are too unreliable and limited in density to provide the huge amounts of energy modern nations require. And that does not consider the increased cost. Where solar and wind power have been implemented in any magnitude they are simply not practical alternatives to fossil fuels and nuclear power.

He says that our workers “…would be left behind if our nation doesn’t keep pace with the clean-energy innovations that are already happening around the globe.” Our workers will fare much better if we have cheap and abundant energy. A number of countries have built large solar or wind projects that consume huge quantities of land to generate power during a portion of the daylight hours or when the wind is blowing, but conventional generating plants must back-up these experiments in clean power. And these “clean-energy innovations” are only made possible by hefty government subsidies and increased rates for users.

“And let’s not forget to listen to the rest of humanity, with whom we share this ever-shrinking world. What countries and cultures best protect their forests to store carbon, and how?” There are several assumptions packed into that statement, but it does sound nice on the surface. What about the rest of humanity, most of whom live subsistence lifestyles? Are most of the people of Africa and Asia supposed to get by with solar and wind power instead of fossil fuels? Without the abundance of electrical power that we enjoy in the West, these peoples will never attain a reasonable standard of living. As for protecting forests to store carbon, Mr. Brune is referring to the global warming myth. Without global warming the clean energy campaign loses a lot of its charm.

His piece ends with: “Developing clean energy is perhaps the single greatest challenge facing our nation — and the world.” The U.S. and most of Europe already have developed clean energy. Coal, natural gas, and nuclear energy work very nicely, and we should be encouraging other nations to adopt these economical and abundant sources of electrical power.

In 1294 a people of the Khan empire found a way to deal with the evils of a fiat currency. Peter C. Earle gives us this slice of history that is posted on the Ludwig von Mises Institute website.

“Also stamped on the new bills was a promise that with its issuance, “poverty [would] vanish, provisions [would] become cheap, and rich and poor [would] be equal.”"

In 2007 the United Nations (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) published a report that claimed the glaciers in the Himalayas would melt away by 2035. Three years later that report was disputed as being entirely wrong. Now the error of the report has been validated by satellite photos which show that almost no change in the Himalayan glaciers has occurred in the last ten years.

While admitting their error about the glaciers, they are standing by the opinion that the earth’s climate is rapidly changing. In order to save face, the global warming crowd is only willing to admit that they were a little bit wrong.

Fox News carries the article.

The U.S. has been in Afghanistan for more than 10 years, and we have nothing to show for it. Eighteen hundred soldiers have been killed and more than $450 billion dollars have been spent in this pointless operation. Lt. Colonel Daniel L. Davis provides his description of the potential for success in Afghanistan in this piece in the Armed Forces Journal.

“I saw the incredible difficulties any military force would have to pacify even a single area of any of those provinces; I heard many stories of how insurgents controlled virtually every piece of land beyond eyeshot of a U.S. or International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) base.”

Now this is an intriguing piece, and I use the word in its full meaning. Justin Raimondo has posted a commentary on Antiwar.com where he expresses his fear that there may be some intrigue going on in the Ron Paul campaign. Both the media and the Republican national party hate Paul. Ignoring Ron Paul, then ridiculing him, then ignoring him, then demonizing his foreign policy have failed to slow the man and his message. So what is the next tactic?

“”The adviser, Trygve Olson, developed a friendship with Rand Paul, and the two realized that they could teach each other a lot….”"

“”And at Rand Paul’s suggestion, Olson joined his father’s presidential campaign this year, basically to do what he did for Rand: help bring the Paul constituency into the Republican coalition without threatening the party.”"

Since the Keystone XL pipeline has been put on hold Canada is looking to China as a potential buyer for its oil. Bob Beauprez posted this piece on Townhall.

The Facebook IPO will soon be here. How will this much-hyped stock play out? Keith Fitz-Gerald of Money Morning has some views that are worth considering. Most of us buy stocks based on what the value of the stock may become, not on what it is at the moment. The writer thinks this may be a case of a grossly overvalued company. My own thought: shorting the stock may be the real investment opportunity.

“If Facebook is really worth $100 billion, that means the company would come out of the gate at roughly 27 times 2011 sales and nearly 100 times 2011 earnings.”

24/7 Wall St. has put together a comparison of the fifty states based on fiscal responsibility, crime rates, poverty rates, unemployment, and a number of other metrics. Overall Wyoming comes in first. You can probably guess who comes in last.

This is a follow-up on the previous post and will provide you with some light-hearted amusement. All of the demands and negotiations and compromises are a drama for the amusement of the public. The EU, IMF, the banks, and even the Greeks cannot possibly believe that this is going to solve anything. As entertaining as it is, I really think the governments and banks are buying time to figure out how to extricate themselves from the coming default.

Private bond holders are reportedly ready to take a 70 percent loss on their Greek bonds, which is not being called a default. (Why do they keep calling it a “haircut”? It is a loss; the bond holders suffer a LOSS.) If it is not a default, then the banks holding the credit default swaps do not have to make good on their obligations. Also, whatever Greece does, will likely influence what Italy, Spain, and Portugal do.

The article by Helena Smith is posted on the U.K. Guardian.

“Panic hovered over the talks, widely seen as a last chance for Greece to keep bankruptcy at bay.”

Spiegel Online writers have a way of being honest and blunt in their commentaries which is refreshing. This piece by Stefan Kaiser calls the Greece rescue what it is, a farce, and it recommends action that will end all of the pretense.

“Quite apart from the humiliation these measures would entail for the Greeks, Athens would almost certainly find a way to circumvent them. In the end, Germany would wind up turning an entire nation into its enemy without even gaining anything.”

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has just come into its own with the appointment of a director, Richard Cordray. Ron Paul examines what the CFPB is and how it will supposedly protect Americans in this post on Safehaven.

My crystal ball says the CFPB will limit consumer borrowing to only those establishment sources which are government approved, and will make sure that certain major banks and lending institutions will be the primary purveyors of consumer loans. Competition and innovation in money lending will be squelched in the name of protecting the consumer.

Money is pouring into U.S Treasury bonds which are viewed as the ultimate safe haven, and the lucky purchasers are receiving from .2 to 2.0 percent on the one year to 10 year bonds. Based on a true measure of inflation bond holders are probably losing money at an 8 percent rate.

Michael Pento thinks the current bond mania cannot last indefinitely, but he concedes, “Manias can last a very long time and become more extended than reason should allow”. His commentary appears on SafeHaven.

“The U.S. Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee, which brings together dealers and Treasury officials, met last week in a closed meeting at the Hays Adams Hotel. The committee members unanimously agreed that the Treasury should start permitting negative interest rate bids for T-bills.”

David P. Goldman writing under the name “Spengler” has penned a commentary on the U.S. educational system. I think the man has some good points. He dislikes the popular use of computers in grade school education, and also references an article in The New York Times on ADD treatment. L. Alan Sroufe of the University of Minnesota has concluded that drug treatment of school age children for ADD is not productive. Today approximately 8% of school age children have been diagnosed with ADD and are candidates for drug treatment.

His piece is posted on Asia Times.

“Web access in this case is simply a pretext to help seventh-graders to reduce Shakespeare to their own level, rather than allow Shakespeare to lift children up to his.”

“If drugs, which studies show work for four to eight weeks, are not the answer, what is? Many of these children have anxiety or depression; others are showing family stresses.” [L. Alan Sroufe]

Florence Green of the Women’s RAF died on Feb. 4th. American Thinker carries the article.

The SEC regulates the securities markets and is charged with investigating fraud and illegal bahavior in the industry. So how has it been doing in the last ten years. It seems that the big financial firms repeatedly get a wrist slap and are allowed to continue their operations without sanctions. The New York Times published this piece by Edward Wyatt.

“Federal judges in New York and Wisconsin recently criticized the S.E.C. for its habit of settling cases by allowing companies to promise not to violate the law in the future.”

This last week we were treated to a much improved unemployment statistic of 8.3%. As with most government statistics, a much closer look is warranted before passing out the cigars. The American Enterprise Blog carries this piece by James Pethokoukis on how the unemployment number is manipulated.

“Most of the shift of the past year is due not to the improvement in the labor market, but the continued drop in participation in the labor force.” [Hamilton Place Strategies]

As the southern nations of the EU struggle with debt and the world awaits some kind of resolution, Alan Wheatley of Reuters has come up with a novel study. The question he seeks to answer is: why have these nations fallen into this debt trap? On the surface the answer must be that they spent more than they generated in revenue. However, he goes deeper and looks at the innovation statistics in each country.

“Innovation matters because it is a key driver of competitiveness, allowing firms to win greater market share and feeding through into greater productivity.”

The EU crisis has not been solved and will not likely be solved by anything that is being done right now. A response should be coming from Greece in the next day or two, and Spain is trying to play by the rules, but it is already acknowledged that the rules don’t work.

Mike Shedlock writes this analysis of Spain’s situation.

Greece, Italy, Spain, and Portugal are facing urgent fiscal issues, but there may be no uniformity of treatment for these nations. Greece is trying to negotiate a defacto default. Greece, Ireland, and Portugal have received bailout money, and new fiscal rules have been passed for the EU countries, which are in the process of being implemented. If a country fully complies with the mandatory austerity measures, their economy may tank, and that has become a sore point for countries that are trying to abide by the rules.

The U.K. Mail Online presents us with a magnificent display of Britain’s gold wealth, 4600 tons of it. Actually, the truth is that not all of it belongs to Britain; some is the property of foreign governments.

Would it be possible for the U.S. Treasury to take photos of the gold in Fort Knox and the other storage facilities? It strikes me as odd, if not nefarious, that our government has refused to audit our gold holdings.

Chuck Butler writes a piece called the Daily Pfennig where the general topic is the currency markets. In this Pfennig which was posted on The Daily Reckoning he discusses deficit spending, tax revenues, and currencies.

“You see, government spending has been a HUGE part of economic growth measured by GDP.”

“You know what government revenue is, don’t you? Taxes! In fact, the CBO believes that taxes will increase by 30% in the next two years!”

The outrage over the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s decision to stop grants to Planned Parenthood has subsided somewhat with an apparent reversal by the Komen Foundation. What the pop media has published about the subject has been misleading at best, and Mary L. Davenport, M.D. provides some much needed factual information. Her piece is carried on American Thinker.

“Planned Parenthood does not provide mammograms, although at one point it claimed to do so.”

“It has always seemed ironic that Komen would give grants to Planned Parenthood, whose medical practices and promotion of unhealthy life styles are instrumental in the increase in breast cancer….”

According to this piece on Yahoo Finance there is definitely some job growth occurring. Forbes writer Jacquelyn Smith prepared this run-down of the top five employers that are hiring in fifteen metropolitan areas. The data came from SimplyHired.com, a job aggregator. To give some perspective on the numbers, I totalled the openings that are health related and those that are restaurant/retail. This is rough stuff since it was a guess as to which is in each category, and this analysis applies only to the “top five employers” data that was supplied.

Washington, D.C. had by far the most job postings with almost twice that of the next contender, New York City. The lowest were Portland and Miami.

All totalled the number of jobs posted were 74,838. Of these 36% were health related and 24% were restaurant/retail. That comes to 60%, so the remaining 40% would fall into such groups as clerical, sales, and manufacturing. From the list it appears that manufacturing probably has a rather small percentage out of the total. If one were to pick the growth industry in the U.S., it would have to be health care.

Facebook has just filed to make its initial public offering as a public company and Wall Street is all abuzz about it. The Wall Street Journal gives some of the details on the company.

Mark Zuckerberg will remain in control of the company as its CEO. A statement from him describes his vision for the company which sounds quite noble, but the management of the company is structured in a manner that seems at odds with their mission statement. Forbes carries this piece by Eric Jackson.

Chancellor Angela Merkel is making another trip to Beijing to encourage Chinese investment in the European Union. With currency reserves of $3.2 trillion, they are viewed as a potential source of help for the desperate EU. The story by Philipp Wittrock appears in Spiegel Online.

It is odd that the developed nations of western Europe are now asking for help from China which was a third world country just a few years ago. The significance of that is not wasted on the Chinese.

“In Europe, there are still hopes that the Chinese will invest in the euro rescue fund, the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), in order to leverage its guaranteed amounts….”

Zerohedge brings us this bizarre statistic. I am not sure what to make it, unless people have abandoned the market out of fear.

MarketWatch writer Brett Arends has given us a great look at the Wall Street legend Jim Grant. I use the word “Wall Street” advisedly, because he is anything but a typical investment banker or brokerage exec.

“The Fed has moved from “central banking” to “central planning,” fueling bubbles, encouraging risks, and generally upsetting the equilibrium of the economy.”

Controller John Chang explains the state’s budget crunch as a business as usual event. It is just what we do every year. The article explains that they fix the problem by “internal borrowing”, but fails to say what the source of the borrowing is.

This piece by Christopher Palmeri is posted on Bloomberg.

The Congressional Budget Office has made some projections on the U.S. debt. Matt Cover has posted this piece on the CBO data. It appears on CNS News.

The article explains that these projections are based on current Obama administration policies as carried forward into future years. As outrageous as this administration’s spending is, let not forget that Congress also made it possible. Our representatives and senators have no concept of fiscal restraint, and we the people have kept them in office year after year.