So which one?

Which Republican presidential nominee?

Having just spent an hour or so watching the New Hampshire GOP Republican debate, having gleaned various tidbits over the internet since a while back, I can honestly say I don’t know.

Yet.

In comments at that link, Ron Paul’s supporters come across as a tad too fervent, as does Paul himself. He just comes across as a bit whiney. Quick to complain about a problem but a bit wishy washy with any solutions.

Romney arguably won, but he comes off as Obama-lite+religion. He’s big government but I will say he’s tending to own his opponents. He does look presidential and has the establishment’s backing… not necessarily a good thing when up against Obama who REALLY has the Establishment’s backing and REALLY (at least) talks presidential (except here where he sounds about as formidable as Julia Gillard).

The decline and fall of the US dollar?

This little bit of economic news seems to have quietly slid out of the papers here fairly quickly.

FMG’s trade in renminbi expected to be followed

 

Fortescue minerals group is a medium sized player in the Australian iron ore market, it appears they have more confidence in the stability of the renminbi (Chinese currency) rather than the US dollars traditionally used for international commerce.

Tie that in with the US treasuries attempts to inflate away their domestic currency crisis and we may be looking at a severe downgrading of the prestige and value of the US currency as a unit of international trade.

A resources analyst says a decision by Fortescue Metals Group to trade using the renminbi signals a shift towards widespread transactions in the Chinese currency.

Yesterday, Fortescue Metal’s boss Andrew Forrest announced his group had completed its first ever deal using renminbi.

It is understood FMG is the first Australian company to trade in the currency rather than in US dollars.

The first, Mr Forrest is a pretty canny bloke, it remains to be seen if his business sense is right on this one.

The Chinese currency currently has its value pegged to the US dollar, if the dollar was to freefall it would be insane for the Chinese to allow it to take their currency down as well.

What would they then peg their currency to? The Euro?, British Pound?, The Yen? risky. Its difficult to see any other currency with the same “weight” to peg against.

He said he expects other Australian companies to follow suit.

“I don’t think it’s just Australian miners, it’s the Australian economy will definitely follow this move,” he said.

“It will start the flood because it makes it much easier now to do business with China, it’s part of China’s opening up and China becoming more efficient in global engagement.” Analyst Peter Strachan says the trade makes financial sense with China the region’s dominant economic and political force.

“They’re standing up and saying it’s our time,” he said.

Mr Strachan says many Australian companies will soon be trading with China using the renminbi.

“It’s not just going to be in iron ore, it will be in jocks and socks, through to refrigerators and whatever else comes through the door.”

The US government is printing money at a record rate, in all likelihood the US dollar is overvalued due to its reserve currency/trade currency status. If it were to lose even a large percentage of that just how much could the US dollar crash?

On the upside it would make exporting US products more competitive.

On the downside….everything else.

Now Im not a clever man, but I can see the US crippling itself in an attempt to ride out a downturn. Printing currency to inflate toxic losses is WORSE than the pricing correction trying to happen will be.

Carbon Tax Fallout: tax rates for low-income earners up, plus, “what compensation?”

Packaged along with the much-ballyhooed “save the planet” carbon tax were some increases in marginal tax rates which the press went pretty quiet on.  And although the tax-free threshold was raised, the LITO (low income tax offset) was actually reduced, which along with rises in the marginal tax rates for the lowest two tax brackets means that this is not such a good deal after all, especially for lower-income Australians.

I’m not an economist (and I don’t even play one on TV) so I’m linking you over to both Professor Sinclair Davidson’s reckonings at Catallaxy and Clinton Mead’s at the Australian Libertarian Society blog.  As a layman I found Clinton Mead’s in-depth explanation and examples pretty clear and easy to understand – I recommend wandering over and having a look at both his post and the comments there.

In short, though, both economists do a good job of showing what the effects of the new tax scales and the alleged “compensation” will work out to for those on various incomes.  And it’s not nearly as rosy a picture as the government or its cheerleaders in the lapdog media would have us believe.

In related carbon tax news, analysis of the latest opinion polls throws up a pretty surprising figure:  62 percent of 18-34 year olds are opposed to Labor’s carbon tax policy.  Wait, what?  If you only listen to the ABC and GetUp and its related pseudo-grassroots lobby groups, you get the distinct impression that it’s only the old fogeys who are opposed to this tax; that the Yoof are all hip & jiggy wit’ it.  So what’s up that? Are we being fed yet another busted meme which is all about the narrative Labor and the MSM want to push but nothing much to do with reality?

Sinc has the full polling results here and they’ll be worth referring to later.  As he points out, “Both these polls can be considered pre-policy announcement benchmarks. If Gillard is able to sell her policy to the public we’ll be able to see changes of opinion here.”  So, bookmark ’em.

And also, just a memo to myself to remember to check out the Catallaxy blog more often, especially since I’ve pretty much gone off the comments thing at Bolt’s.  Some really good voices over there, and it doesn’t seem to be over-run by astroturfers and trolls (yet!).

Remember the live cattle trade ban?

With all the hoohah over the past few days over PM Gillard’s carbon (dioxide!) tax, it’s perhaps easy to forget some of the other current stuff-ups Labor is actively involved with.

Ten weeks on and there’s still no deal with Malaysia over a refugee swap.

There’s the mining super profits tax – not just the carbon tax – that our biggest industry with have to put up with.

There’s the $36 billion NBN that still somehow has to be paid for. Meanwhile, a bloke who just bought a new house can’t get a copper phone line connected – Telstra have stopped doing that – and has to wait three-odd years for his fibre cable.

And there’s the ongoing damage from the government’s naive decision to stop the live cattle trade (since resumed but so much damage is yet to be undone).

The suspension, prompted by cruelty concerns, was lifted last week and Indonesia plans to issue fresh import permits to get things moving over the next three months.

But Gulf Savannah Development says trade is still dependent on permits flowing through quickly.

The group’s chairman, Carpentaria Shire mayor Fred Pascoe, said it could take years to recover the costs from missing an important trading period with Indonesia.

“To be honest, I think we’d rather front a category 5 cyclone than the high pressure storm created by the government,” he said.

Mr Pascoe said it could take months to re-establish supply chain protocols.

Meanwhile, the Queensland manager of Australia’s largest livestock transport company doubts business will ever be the same.

Townhall meeting coming to a venue near you

OK, so PM Gillard reckons The Debate We Never Had™ is over, but that doesn’t mean – oh no siree – that folks aren’t standing up to have their say.

A townhall meeting in Brisbane:

Mr Hockey said merchants at a Brisbane market this morning told him they would not be able to pass on the cost of an estimated 10 per cent rise in electricity without sacking staff.

“Time and time again, as we went past every store, all the workers were coming out and saying ‘you have to stop this tax’,” he said.

Read on.

Our Langolier government

Most of you probably remember the book and/or movie, The Langoliers. Those little creatures would gobble up, or destroy if you will, everything – matter, space, time – they came across.

In a sense, the Gillard (and previously, Rudd) government has many similarities. Everything her Langolier eyes set themselves upon, they destroy.

The list is unbelievable.

Read the rest of this entry

Road trip!

Let’s do it!

How about the cattle farmers stick it back to that Gillard?

Click for full size.

Yes. We’re talking loading 100-odd trucks – or more – with now unsaleable cattle and sending them down to the lawns of Parliament House. There’s lush green grass there for them to feed on and even a water fountain for them to drink from (not to mention the sprinklers could be utilised).

Bugger all else they can do with that season’s worth of cattle now, is there?

It would send a clear message.

Spot has even included a handy directions guide (where the map comes from).

Green deceivers

The latest Green commercial states that “storms are more extreme and more frequent”.

This is flat out wrong. In fact, the opposite is true.

Yes. Storm frequency and intensity has actually gone down the past 30 years. Here’s data collected by Dr. Ryan Maue Ph.D at Florida State University.

Continue reading this entry

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition

Unexpectedly, the mainstream media did not expect Obama to end up making such a hash of the American economy…

Aurelius at Pundit Press fingers the MSM for apparently being in a constant state of shock that the completely expected is happening, and that Obama-nomics simply isn’t delivering.

“Whenever poor business, house, or job news comes out, they are quick to throw on the word ‘unexpectedly,’ pretending that the economy is actually doing great, but this one time it hiccuped.”

Unexpectedly.

via iowntheworld.com

Agreed, Jill Singer: the nonsense has to stop

Jill Singer supports a carbon (dioxide!) tax. Unfortunately, she shows a complete ignorance of the real science behind the politics.

THE “debate” over a carbon tax in Australia has become high farce.

Indeed it has. The Left seem to think that taxing the bejesus out of a trace gas will somehow save a planet that doesn’t need saving. Jill and her ilk fail to realise CO2 is only a minor greenhouse gas at that. It makes up only 0.04% of our atmosphere. Most of it is natural. The sceptical side has man-made CO2 at 3% or about 0.001% of our atmosphere. The alarmist side puts man-made CO2 at ten times higher. But so what? That means man-made CO2 would occupy 0.01% of our atmosphere.

There’s no way Man’s small contribution to a minor greenhouse trace gas – yet an essential gas, most of it naturally occurring – can be the main driver of climate. That hypothesis is, to use Jill’s words, a “high farce”.

Read more of this post

A request

Currently watching Gasland on youtube. It’s all about how bad fracking is. Even Alan Jones doesn’t seem to like it.

Also watched a reply on youtube from the gas industry saying it’s basically OK.

Hmm. Watching people being able to light their tap water on fire looks pretty bad, to say the least…

A few readers and writers here are involved in the mining industry (right?). Is anyone able to give us a basic run down on whether fracking really is a total disaster the environment or whether it’s the best thing since bourbon whisky was invented… or somewhere in between?

In return, tits!

Thanks in advance.

UPDATE

A hot redhead explains in 6 minutes what an entire night of documentary and lecture watching does.

Angus Dei would be proud.

(edited)

Climate Commissar Tim Flannery: Prius Person & Panasonic Man

Does he wave that Panasonic flag out the window of his free Prius on his way to taxpayer-funded Climate Commissar gigs?

“A Climactic Immense Hogs-On”  indeed.

Tell me again how it’s the skeptics who are in all the Big Corporates’ pockets…?

N.B. Tim Flannery is NOT a dinosaur-bone expert.

EAT THE RICH… but you’ll be hungry again an hour later.

This excellent video by Bill Whittle, featuring some statistics from Iowahawk’s “Feed Your Family on $10 Billion a Day”, is definitely worth nine minutes of your time.  Michael Moore makes an appearance though, so best not watch whilst eating.

More good stuff at Bill Whittle’s Declaration Entertainment, and see also Iowahawk‘s post above & Allahpundit‘s “Why can’t we balance the budget by confiscating super-rich people’s money?” featuring video by Mary Katharine Ham.  H/T HotAir.

I Want Your Money

It’s a new film coming out that takes a look at recent US government spending.

H/T RWB

cross-posted

The Greens’ economic policies translated

To go through all of them would be most tedious, and half of them are just blather anyway, but here’s a few of their more noteworthy domestic economic policies (as opposed to their global wet dream) translated in bold. And since they’ll be our new overloads come next July, and since Julia has done her post-election deal, perhaps it’s a good idea to continue having the look the MSM hasn’t at more of their policies.

Principles:

3. the free market economy, by externalising the environmental and social costs of greenhouse gas emissions is creating the greatest market failure of all time, namely climate change.

OK. So what’s the alternative to a free market economy?

Read on.

Resources super profits tax, Major project risk.

The ABC’s Inside business show yesterday had an interview with the head of the Geraldton iron ore alliance, a group of miners starting up 5 iron ore mines inland from Geraldton in Western Australia. 15 Billion dollars of investment is on the line.

To give you an idea of the impact heres the companies own blurb on the impacts on the economy. Even allowing for the usual overstating of benefits its pretty considerable.

According to the report, key economic benefits from expanding iron ore mining in the region over a 25-year period has the potential to deliver:

• 1,360 jobs a year during construction;
• 4,254 direct jobs a year for a conservatively estimated 25-year operational period;
• A total of 12,000-plus direct and indirect jobs a year in WA from the increased economic activity;
• An addition of $1.5 billion a year to Gross State Product (the overall measure of WA’s economy); and
• About $7 billion in taxes and duties to the Federal Government and around $3.5 billion in royalties and other payments to the State Government.

Rudd wants more? If I do a rough calculation on the wages alone, based at a rate of $70,000 per year the mines would generate over $297 million dollars and at least a quarter of that flows to the government as increased tax/lessened dole payments.

The whole interview is well worth a watch, particularly for the body language of Mr Casello, the director of the alliance.

In a nutshell 5 seperate companies are developing mines in the same region, a Chinese consortium is building the rail links and I believe its a Japanese financed port project. All this has been in planning/development for over a decade now.

Watch this interview and tell me how likely it is to progress a lot further than it has.

http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/insidebusiness/video/podcast/r583385_3684018.wmv

They still dont even know where the tax will be applied, as the ore is dug up, processed, or shipped.

The uncertainty will kill the whole project, KRudd has applied buckets of it, and the promise of no certainty for months to come. As mentioned in the interview, there are vast parts of what the tax will affect which couldnt be talked about by the governments own consultative group.

The killer line is right at the end. “Theres very little value in  getting tax out of something that doesnt go ahead”…..

Nationalize US banks?

Former IMF chief economist, Simon Johnson, thinks it’s necessary in the short term to get to the root of one of the major problems that caused the GFC.

In its depth and suddenness, the U.S. economic and financial crisis is shockingly reminiscent of moments we have recently seen in emerging markets (and only in emerging markets): South Korea (1997), Malaysia (1998), Russia and Argentina (time and again). In each of those cases, global investors, afraid that the country or its financial sector wouldn’t be able to pay off mountainous debt, suddenly stopped lending. And in each case, that fear became self-fulfilling, as banks that couldn’t roll over their debt did, in fact, become unable to pay. This is precisely what drove Lehman Brothers into bankruptcy on September 15, causing all sources of funding to the U.S. financial sector to dry up overnight. Just as in emerging-market crises, the weakness in the banking system has quickly rippled out into the rest of the economy, causing a severe economic contraction and hardship for millions of people.

But there’s a deeper and more disturbing similarity: elite business interests—financiers, in the case of the U.S.—played a central role in creating the crisis, making ever-larger gambles, with the implicit backing of the government, until the inevitable collapse. More alarming, they are now using their influence to prevent precisely the sorts of reforms that are needed, and fast, to pull the economy out of its nosedive. The government seems helpless, or unwilling, to act against them.

The American Right would have a fit if Obama suggested that, but Johnson insists it would only be temporary.

The challenges the United States faces are familiar territory to the people at the IMF. If you hid the name of the country and just showed them the numbers, there is no doubt what old IMF hands would say: nationalize troubled banks and break them up as necessary.

Nationalization would not imply permanent state ownership. The IMF’s advice would be, essentially: scale up the standard Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation process. An FDIC “intervention” is basically a government-managed bankruptcy procedure for banks. It would allow the government to wipe out bank shareholders, replace failed management, clean up the balance sheets, and then sell the banks back to the private sector. The main advantage is immediate recognition of the problem so that it can be solved before it grows worse.

In fact, Johnson goes even further.

This may seem like strong medicine. But in fact, while necessary, it is insufficient. The second problem the U.S. faces—the power of the oligarchy—is just as important as the immediate crisis of lending. And the advice from the IMF on this front would again be simple: break the oligarchy.

An overhaul of anti-trust legislation is also proposed.

Anything that is too big to fail is too big to exist.

The entire article is well worth consideration. Either way, something has to change. Some economists out there are far from convinced the crash is truly over. Anyone who’s signed up to Newsmax email alerts will be familiar with this. Me? I dunno. But what I do know is that my investments (global) still aren’t making any serious headway (although they’re not hemorrhaging anymore), and that’s a bit of a bugger. That, and my Australian tax dollars aren’t being used appropriately… and I suspect many of my American buddies feel the same about theirs.

*cross-posted

Stop global warming. Who cares if Africa’s poor?

And stays poor.

Certainly not “concerned” ecotards.

The World Bank on Thursday approved a controversial $3 billion loan for the development of a coal-fired power plant by the South African state utility Eskom despite lack of support from major shareholder countries.

…

The U.S. Treasury said it abstained because of “concerns about the climate impact of the project and its incompatibility with the World Bank’s commitment to be a leader in climate change mitigation and adaptation.” …

Apart from banning DDT, isn’t it obvious that by, under the pretences of compassion, keeping third world countries poor, will literally kill millions of people?

Folks, despite what you may have heard, the planet doesn’t have an over-population problem.

If we get everyone rich, population growth will stabilize, anyway. It’s an historically demonstrated fact that “rich” people have one or two kids, and that “poor” people have many.

The Al Gores of this world are pimping man-made global warming. It’s a front for a very nasty agenda.

It’s got nothing to do with environmentalism and everything to do with power and control.

UPDATE

I’m not against a one-world government. Time will dictate its necessity. But an un-elected one-world communist government? Fuck no.

MSM begins catching on to Rudd’s BER fiasco

This is good stuff. To the best of my knowledge, the gargantuan sums of Aussie taxpayer dollars being frittered away by Rudd’s Building the Education Revolution (BER) was first revealed publically right here back on February 4th. Finally, after a couple of emails, Andrew Bolt made mention of it almost a month later on March 3rd. And now, it looks like the floodgates are opening.

After Bolt’s March 3rd mention, it came up again last Sunday, and again today in one of Bolt’s columns. This is important since it’s his columns, and not his blog posts, which are reprinted in various newspapers around the country, noteably in Australia’s largest city, Sydney.

And right under that column is another post covering the massive cost blow-outs schools are experiencing. Yet, I’ll argue again that this was inevitable thanks largely to Rudd’s pathetic scope of works coupled with massive government incompetence in other areas such as delayed decision making, and massively overwhelmed government-appointed project managers who’ve been having to handle up to ten times the workload a project manager would normally be entrusted with.

Even better, if one clicks the links on Bolt’s March 7th post, they go to not another Murdoch newspaper, but to rival paper the Sydney Morning Herald. Those links can be found here.

Not to be out-done, Sydney’s Daily Telegrapgh is onto it today also, as is The Australian.

So yes. A full five weeks after it was first (to the best of my knowledge) brought to any public attention here, this – dare we call it BERgate? – story is finally gaining the traction it deserves.

PS In case you missed them, there are four other posts here highlighting various aspects of what this blog has coined Rudd’s Education Devolution. They can be found here, here, here, and here.

Of course, ultimate thanks has to go to the mole who first contacted me about this, who first delivered the facts about this, and who patiently answered many a dumb question. Cheers. You know who you are.

Cross-posted at James Board.

Are they lying, or just stupid?

This from the department of propaganda ABC today.

Families will ‘be ahead’ under emissions scheme

Now I understand the ABC is reporting what theyve been told, but would it be to much to ask they get off their well padded taxpayer funded fat arses that they do some actual investigative reporting and poke a few holes in this rather obvious lie?

The Federal Government says the average low income household will be just under $200 better off under its proposed emissions trading scheme (ETS).

Apparently the government hasnt released the underlying data (and assumptions) for scrutiny, nor anywhere is mentioned just who will be worse off under an ETS…

ANYONE NOT CONSIDERED LOW INCOME.

Who will that be? God knows, it could be 90% of Australians will be worse off for all the fuzzy newspeak of “low income households”…

Oh wait here it is…

But Environment Minister Peter Garrett says many households will be financially better off under the Government’s plans.

“A significant portion – some 8 million households – will receive some assistance,” he said.

“Low income households will receive significant assistance and be ahead by some $190 per year under the scheme.”

Note the weaselspeak, “many households” a non defined number is linked by the magic of weaselspeak to the 8 million “households receiving assistance”. Thats not to say 8 million households will be better off, only that 8 million will receive something….

Now to use the Australian Beurau of statistics own data (2006 data, its a bit clearer)

At 30 June 2006 there were a projected 8.1 million households in Australia which were home to an estimated 20.2 million people, or 98% of the resident population.

So is chrome dome Garrett seriously trying to say that 95% of Australians will be better off? Or is he mixing figures to lie to Australians?

Again from the ABS (2009 data) heres the breakdown of incomes

Income share		2006	2009
	Lowest quintile	7.9	7.6
	Second quintile	12.8	12.7
	Third quintile	17.7	17.4
	Fourth quintile	23.7	22.9
	Highest quintile	37.8	39.4
	Second and third deciles	10.8	10.4

 

Given low income should mean those receiving the lowest percentile is it safe to assume Mr Garretts announcement should have read

“7.6% of you will be up to $190.00 a year better off, the other 92.4% of you will go backwards even if we do return some of the money we take from you back to you”.

So in a round about way is Mr Garett announcing over 90% of the Australian population is going to be worse off under an ETS??

Again, for an emissions trading scheme to work it has to retard demand for goods and services by pricing them higher, this is cloaked by referring to “increasing the price of energy”. Since everything you dont make yourself requires energy expenditure to manufacture/grow/transport/store/refine/anything, then it is effectively a consumption tax on every stage of a purchased items life. This has to mean people consume less of what they could previously afford, lowering the quality of living for millions of people in Australia.

If by magic it didnt affect the price of goods and everyone could afford the same items they do now, they there is no underlying reason to introduce it.

If the stated goal is to reduce energy consumption (by taxing it) so people use less/have less, then it is a lie to claim they will be better off.

US Citizen? Sign the petition against cap n’ trade

If you’re a man-made global warming sceptic, or if you think the science perhaps isn’t settled, or if you are worried about a potential communist world government, or if you are worried about giant non-sovereign world taxes being imposed on all of us, or if you think the governments of this world already have too much power, or even if you’re not convinced yet either way, and don’t want a road paved that there’s no turning back on in just two short weeks, then sign this petition.

SIGN HERE

People literally right now are speaking at Copenhagen presenting the other side to this man-made CO2-driven man-made climate change/global warming argument. They will also be speaking tomorrow. Time is of the essence.

UPDATE

This post differs from the original. It came from watching the latest Monckton videos (the end of Part 4 of which part 1 was posted by 1.6 below), about a GLOBAL problem – but unfortunately only US citizens can sign that petition. Hence, first update removed, replaced with this.

Copenhagen: Climate Sense Conference

This is one of the first conferences of the COP15 junket summit, and it’s prime objective will be urging UN members (and everyone else there) to have open minds about this debate. Although Climategate has essentially proven that climate scientists, politicians, journalists, and the UN don’t have an open mind about climate change and it’s many causes, well, at least this Climate Sense Conference is taking place at all. It begins at 8pm tonight, Tizona time (same as Sydney and Melbourne) and runs until 2am Tizona time. It will continue at 8pm Tizona time on Wednesday and wrap up at 1am, er, Tizona time.

*Note: They mixed up the date on that link. It should read Tuesday, December 8, not Tuesday, December 7.

It’s brought to you by this mob, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, and that link has lots of great additional stuff related to Christopher Monckton, Climategate, and Copenhagen et. al..

In case you missed it yesterday, Lord Monckton, along with Professor Fred Singer, and Professor Ian Plimer, will be speaking at that conference.

Also, in case you missed this over at Bolt’s, Tim Wilson of Sustainable Development is actually over in Copenhagen and will be blogging about it. Might be a good place to go to get up-to-the-minute info.

UPDATE

Better late than never. From December 1, MIT’s professor of meteorology, Dr. Richard Lindzen, argues that the science isn’t settled in the following summary…

Is there a reason to be alarmed by the prospect of global warming? Consider that the measurement used, the globally averaged temperature anomaly (GATA), is always changing. Sometimes it goes up, sometimes down, and occasionally—such as for the last dozen years or so—it does little that can be discerned.

Claims that climate change is accelerating are bizarre. There is general support for the assertion that GATA has increased about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since the middle of the 19th century. The quality of the data is poor, though, and because the changes are small, it is easy to nudge such data a few tenths of a degree in any direction. Several of the emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) that have caused such a public ruckus dealt with how to do this so as to maximize apparent changes.

ETS in context

With many thanks to Kaboom, this (relatively old) article puts the global financial crisis and Turnbull’s support of an emissions trading scheme into disturbing context. Remember, Turnbull made his money at Goldman Sachs.

Not that making money is a bad thing… in principle.

Yet, some players bet on the Internet bubble, the housing, er, bust, the huge rise in oil prices (despite lower demand and greater supply), and now?

Thin air. Taxing thin air. Regulating thin air.

It’s called Cap n’ Trade.

But who are they? They made a lot whilst most lost a lot. It would be good to know since they’ve made a lot of money so far and are poised to make a lot more.

They, allegedly, are Goldman Sachs, and as the article shows, “they” are everywhere… but now we know where, kk (that’s Korean for LOL).

The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it’s everywhere. The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money. In fact, the history of the recent financial crisis, which doubles as a history of the rapid decline and fall of the suddenly swindled dry American empire, reads like a Who’s Who of Goldman Sachs graduates.

…

The bank’s unprecedented reach and power have enabled it to turn all of America into a giant pumpanddump scam, manipulating whole economic sectors for years at a time, moving the dice game as this or that market collapses, and all the time gorging itself on the unseen costs that are breaking families everywhere — high gas prices, rising consumercredit rates, halfeaten pension funds, mass layoffs, future taxes to pay off bailouts. All that money that you’re losing, it’s going somewhere, and in both a literal and a figurative sense, Goldman Sachs is where it’s going: The bank is a huge, highly sophisticated engine for converting the useful, deployed wealth of society into the least useful, most wasteful and insoluble substance on Earth — pure profit for rich individuals.

…

And here’s the real punch line. After playing an intimate role in four historic bubble catastrophes, after helping $5 trillion in wealth disappear from the NASDAQ, after pawning off thousands of toxic mortgages on pensioners and cities, after helping to drive the price of gas up to $4 a gallon and to push 100 million people around the world into hunger, after securing tens of billions of taxpayer dollars through a series of bailouts overseen by its former CEO, what did Goldman Sachs give back to the people of the United States in 2008?

Fourteen million dollars.

But here’s the catch. The last century saw unprecedented advancements in technology and the average standard of living. That’s bing’s opinion, anyway.

Clear cut?

Hmmm. But historically, we’ve witnessed societies decline. Continually robbing people could perhaps help facilitate that. Not that anyone is accusing Goldman Sachs of that – I invest myself – but perhaps it would be wise – long term wise – for Goldman Sachs to reiterate their “long term greed” strategy, and exactly what it means, and to clarify if or if not this is their current strategy… and why or why not…

Right, Left, or wrong, there are a lot of people out there concerned that the West is in decline. Not really a huge stretch of the imagination, especially for those who studied history in high school. This concern is not being adequately addressed.

Anyone who who knows anything about history would know making short term gains for long term pain is fucked. Perhaps not for certain individuals, but certainly for society and most likely for thus that said individual’s descendants.

Sure, we have increased technology, but what about the principles behind it?

(Isn’t it ironic how capitalism and socialism mix sometimes?)

Anyway, I think this is part of what we’re talking about when we talk about the decline of the West.

The linked article ties in directly to the money and power page on this blog.

That Malcolm Turnbull is an ex Goldman Sachs employee, and a major one at that, and that he’ co-opting Australia’s ETS aka CPRS, and that, it if nothing else will help bankers ($$$) at firms such as Goldman Sachs… IT JUST REEKS.

IT IS FETID.

And please, do take the time to read the original article.

No one at Tizona’s is against money, or capitalism. But we are against being conned by an ETS scheme, that Turnbull agreed to, that could directly benefit his ex-workmates who, according to the linked article, were allegedly implicit in implementing.

And please prove me wrong – with argument, not lawsuits – that Malcolm Turnbull is trashing the alternative voice.

What next? The moon? Done. Mars? Hmm, getting there. Europa (not to be confused wit the EU).

It’s gangsta stuff that makes Capone look like an amateur.

Just one thing… The entire century Goldman Sachs was allegedly doing this kind of stuff, the standard of living skyrocketed, pardon the pun.

UPDATE

Kabs can go shove it. 😉 It’s actually been Colin who’s, exasperatedly, been alerting us to this for months. Sorry, Colin.

Death-Care Reform, NOW!

What I want to know is, where are Obama’s Death-Care Reform proposals?!

“The abandoned corpses, in white body bags with number tags tied to each toe, lie one above the other on steel racks inside a giant freezer in Detroit’s central mortuary, like discarded shoes in the back of a wardrobe.

Some have lain here for years, but in recent months the number of unclaimed bodies has reached a record high. For in this city that once symbolised the American Dream many cannot even afford to bury their dead.”

This morgue seems to have some room.

““I have not seen this many unclaimed bodies in 13 years on the job,” said Albert Samuels, chief investigator at the mortuary. “It started happening when the economy went south last year. I have never seen this many people struggling to give people their last resting place.”

Unburied bodies piling up in the city mortuary — it reached 70 earlier this year — is the latest and perhaps most appalling indignity to be heaped on the people of Detroit. The motor city that once boasted the highest median income and home ownership rate in the US is today in the midst of a long and agonising death spiral.”

Reminds me of something.

“After years of gross mismanagement by the city’s [DEMOCRAT! – Beef] leaders and the big three car manufacturers of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, who continued to make vehicles that Americans no longer wanted to buy, Detroit today has an unemployment rate of 28 per cent, higher even than the worst years of the Great Depression.

The murder rate is soaring. The school system is in receivership. The city treasury is $300 million (£182m) short of the funds needed to provide the most basic services such as rubbish collection. In its postwar heyday, when Detroit helped the US to dominate the world’s car market, it had 1.85 million people. Today, just over 900,000 remain. It was once America’s fourth-largest city. Today, it ranks eleventh, and will continue to fall.

Thousands of houses are abandoned, roofs ripped off, windows smashed. Block after block of shopping districts lie boarded up. Former manufacturing plants, such as the giant Fisher body plant that made Buicks and Cadillacs, but which was abandoned in 1991, are rotting.

Even Detroit’s NFL football team, the Lions, are one of the worst in the country. Last season they lost all 16 games. This year they have lost eight, and won just a single gane.

Michigan’s Central Station, designed by the same people who gave New York its Grand Central Station, was abandoned 20 years ago. One photographer who produced a series of images for Time magazine said that he often felt, as he moved around parts of Detroit, as though he was in a post-apocalyptic disaster.

Then in June, the $21,000 annual county budget to bury Detroit’s unclaimed bodies ran out. Until then, if a family confirmed that they could not afford to lay a loved one to rest, Wayne County — in which Detroit sits — would, for $700, bury the body in a rough pine casket at a nearby cemetery, under a marker.”

I worked in Detroit, in some of the worst areas, for several weeks at a time on two separate occasions in 2000 and 2004. It really does have to be seen to be believed, so the TIME photo series they referred to above is here, in all of it’s horrible post-apocalyptic gory glory. If you want more, there are 47 much larger pictures from the series at photographer Timothy Fadek’s site. I highly recommend it. Here’s my personal favorite.

I’m sure Marxism would fix all this up. /sarc

“Darrell Vickers had to identify his aunt at the mortuary in September but he could not afford to bury her as he was unemployed. When his grandmother recently died, Mr Vickers’s father paid for her cremation, but with a credit card at 21 per cent interest. He said at the time it was “devastating” to not be able to bury his aunt.

What has alarmed medical examiners at the mortuary is that most of the dead died of natural causes. It is evidence, they believe, of people who could not afford medical insurance and medicines and whose families can now not afford to bury them [Hey, you didn’t expect this entire article to pass w/o at least one speculative anecdote in support of Obama Care, did you? – Beef].

Yet in recent weeks there have been signs of hope for Mr Samuels that he can reduce the backlog of bodies. Local philanthropists have donated $8,000 to help to bury the dead. In the past month, Mr Samuels has been able to bury 11 people. The number of unburied is now down to 55.”

Yes, “local philanthropists” who made their money through capitalism, or who inherited money made through capitalism.

Spoilt Brats at UCLA Protest Results of Policies They Voted For

California is the US’ first “failed state” in the financial crisis, and the University of California system has had to absorb real, actual budget cuts. As a result, they are having to raise student tuitions more than 30%. Of course, these students, none of whom seem to have ever taken an economics course, are not happy about it. That lead to a near riot at UCLA t’other day.

The protests have now spread to other campuses in the system.

“Los Angeles, California (CNN) — Students were occupying buildings Friday on campuses of the University of California system in protest of a 32 percent tuition hike.

Students took over portions of buildings on campuses in Los Angeles, Berkeley, Santa Cruz and Davis late Thursday, and two remain occupied Friday morning.

Student organizers said they would escalate their protests after the system’s regents approved the tuition hike during a meeting Thursday on the UCLA campus.

University officials said the $505 million to be raised by the tuition increases is needed to prevent even deeper cuts than those already made because of California’s persistent financial crisis.

Protesting students said the hike will hurt working and middle-class students who benefit from state-funded education.”

Yes, when there is a budget shortfall – because of policies the voters voted for and their representatives enacted into law – the school administrators have no right to raise prices to keep the schools afloat. Anyway, these retard protestors are being arrested right and left now.

“Authorities arrested dozens of angry students at the Davis campus late Thursday after they refused to vacate the school’s administration building.

The Davis Police Department and deputies from the Yolo County Sheriff’s Department took 52 students into custody, according to UC Davis spokeswoman Claudia Morain [Which, if you are a PC-phile and use the French pronunciation, comes deliciously close to, “Moron.” – Beef}.

The arrests at Mrak Hall administration came about four hours after the usual 5 p.m. PT closing time. At one point, as many as 150 students were at the building protesting the tuition increase, Morain said.”

For a shocking visual of the US financial meltdown in terms of lost jobs, you really need to watch this awesome animation. It looks like the spread of The Andromeda Strain. Pity I can’t embed it, but it rocks.

Also, note that this job loss Andromeda Strain fell to earth when the Democrats took over total control of the Congress and Senate, and accelerated when they took absolute control of the government with the Obama administration.

So, you retarded brats, you have only yourselves to blame for the current financial fiasco in Cali.