A Joyous And Merry Christmas To All

MATTHEW 1:19-23
19 Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a publick example, was minded to put her away privily.

20 But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.

21 And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.

22 Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying,

23 Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.

Merry Christsmas To All, And To All A Good King!

How remarkable is the irony of the always offended left getting their collective knickers in a bunch over Megan Kelly’s remark that Santa Clause is a white man?  Given this phony controversy let’s turn this into an opportunity to expose them for the ignorant hypocrites that they are.

Firstly, the left will always leap at any opportunity to condemn Christmas as having become an over commercialized excuse for rampant capitalism devoid of the “true spirit” of the celebration of Christ’s birth.  Santa Clause is of course the convenient symbol of this commercialization.  They then of course attach their favorite political vehicle to this argument, guilt ,or more specifically “white guilt”.  We should all be ashamed of not only our skin color, but when it comes to Christmas, we should be ashamed of our prosperity as well, (as diminished as that may have become by the ongoing economic ineptitudes of political class in general).

So then if we are to accept the arguments of Santa Clause being symbolic of the “over commercialization” of Christmas and the absence of the “true spirit” of the Holiday, how then can we reject the origins of Santa Clause, a term and legend that is an admixture of, at the very least, Greek, Bohemian and Dutch Origins?

Saint Nickolas of Bari was a Greek Bishop of the 4^th Century in Anatolia who traditionally went out on Christmas Eve and left coins of the shoes of children and the poor who left them on their doorsteps for him.  Legend has it that in order to save a poor family from the humiliation of not being able to marry off their three daughters for the lack of a dowry, he dropped a purse full of gold coins down the chimney of their house.

Saint Nicolas of Bari

These traditions became mixed with the warm and traditional fur lined clothing of the 10^th Century Duke Wenceslaus the First of Bohemia who was known to venture out into the deep snow on Saint Steven’s Day (the second day of Christmas) to leave alms for the poor.  In the mid 1850’s John Mason Neale and Thomas Helmore turned his legend of charity into the Christmas Carol we know today.

The Good King

The modern name Santa Clause comes from the Dutch transliteration of Saint Nicolas, “SinterKlass”, which became further changed into Santa Clause as the legends moved across the North Sea to the British Isles.  Ironically in the Dutch traditions of "SinterKlass" he is often portrayed with his helper "Black Pete".  Mentioning such political incorrectness would no doubt send the talking heads of MSNBC exploding in fits of racial apoplexy.  (We can only hope!) 

SinterKlass and Black Pete

 

So then if we are to return to the spirit of the holiday as it inspired pious men and their good works it pretty hard to ignore their cultural origins and to fail to recognize that the Greeks, the Bohemians and later the Dutch and the Brits were all “white Europeans”.  As silly and at the same time iconic as Santa sharing a Coke with a polar Bear is, it is a happy and warm portrayal of the season.  I just don’t think it would be quite the same with “Saint Skittles”, Trayvon Martin, flipping off the world and showing us his "grill" while sharing an Arizona watermelon flavored ice tea with a grizzly bear.

Santa & Friend

 

Setting such realities aside the spirit of Christmas should transcend race, cultural and political differences. I can’t speak for all Christians but I’d like to think that a great majority of them, of whatever race, color or culture, would be more than happy if the left would just let us celebrate our savior’s birth in our own ways and leave their stinking political indignation out of it, if only just for a few weeks out of the long year.

What A Surprise, Paul Krugman Is Still An Idiot.

In Keynesian Paul's latest screed he demands that the minimum wage be raised now.  My guess is that the only females giving him any cred or attention work at McDonalds. 

Well maybe this idiot thinks just because he can afford to pay $12.95 for a bad hamburger and fries that the rest of us can as well.  Granted we aren't going to "drive to China" for a burger and fries, but at those prices we're not going to drive to McDonald's either.  Just where will those prices leave all those minimum wage entry level workers?  Out on the street that's where, along with their managers and the franchise owners. 

If Krugman is as smart as he thinks he is why doesn't he start a burger joint and pay his workers $15.00 an hour to start and charge that $12.95 for a burger and fries.  He won't, because he has no idea what is involved in meeting a payroll and making a profit.  Remember that this is the same idiot who said in 2002 that in order to get us out of the 9-11 and dot com bust slump that the FED needed to create a new bubble in the housing market.  Gee Paul that worked out just great.  Maybe we should just hope that he would choke to death on a $12.00 hamburger and spare the rest of us from ever having to listen to his dangerous and destructive pseudo-intellectual blather ever again.

 

Krugman and his ilk live in a fantasy world of academic theory that has no relationship to reality.  In short his kind of thinking (if you want to call it that) is the problem not the solution.

Hollywood Has Finally Won!

A simple reflection of just how debased a society we have become.  World War Z has arrived.

Can you tell the difference?  I can't.

 

 

As China and Japan get ready to square off in a military confrontation to distract their populations from their ongoing economic central planning and environmental disasters, Obama regales in his Munich redux moment and economist after economist warns of a bubble in the stacked market, the masses greatest worry is about saving $25.00 while getting the latest and largest flatscreen bread and circuses propaganda infusion device. 

 

 

 

We are so screwed.





Was That Supposed To Be An Apology Mr. President? Or It's Not Like Nobody Warned Us.

This latest leftist debacle, that ongoing, predicted and predictable disaster known as Obamacare has revealed itself as the biggest clusterfuck in the last half century.  (Short of G.H.W. Bush's failure to hold communism accountable for its crimes in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union.  Because if we had we wouldn't be faced with this disaster today.)

Let's give this mess a little perspective shall we.  March 21st 2010 to October 1st 2013 was 3 years, 6 months, 10 days. December 7th 1941 to May 8th 1945 was 3 years, 5 months, 1 day. In that time frame of three and a half years, from the attack at Pearl Harbor to the day Germany surrendered we mobilized millions of American men and women, built hundreds of thousands of tanks, planes, trucks and jeeps, hundreds of merchant ships, troop carriers, landing craft, submarines, cruisers, destroyers, and aircraft carriers, millions upon millions of guns, bombs, torpedoes, artillery shells and billions of rounds of small arms ammunition etc.  We turned the tide in North Africa,  invaded Sicily and Italy, landed in Normandy, won the Battle of the Bulge, and raced to Berlin – all while we were also fighting  and defeating the Japanese in the Pacific!  And in that same amount of time, three and a half years, this administration can’t code, debug, test and launch a working website. 

In fact, in spite of numerous warnings from internal staff, who allegedly knew about these things, the site was not only functionally seriously flawed, but also was a security threat to the sensitive and private information of those who attempted to use it.  "A hackers dream" was one of the terms used to describe it in public testimony.

In the process of peddling this dystopian fantasy to the public two things happened.  The left repeatedly lied about how the public would benefit from this central planning nightmare, and what remains of the capitalist, economic realists warned us that it would and could never work on anything approaching the scale it was being sold under.

So then just who was it who had a more accurate grasp of economic and bureaucratic realities?  Don't expect any leftist to acknowledge this question never mind daring to answer it.  Unless of course they are worried about loosing an election and their place at the feeding trough.

The big lie;  "If you like your present coverage, you can keep it," started with the President himself and was repeated over and over and over by every leftwing political and bureaucratic hack in the Federal government.  The bureaucratic regulation writers did everything they could to make sure that that promise got turned into a lie.  Not satisfied to saddle the public and the Healthcare Industry with a 2000 plus page piece of legislation they made sure to add 10's of thousands of pages of regulations and "interpretations" of the law to the top of the pile.  Given that most Congress critters can't be bothered with reading and understanding the Constitution they swore an oath to defend, (Many I'm convinced would have the same trouble with "See Dick and Jane") are sure as hell not going to be bothered to wade into the reams of regulations or attempt to understand their implications in the real world that the rest of us have to live in.

That big lie of course began to unravel even before the alleged portal to health care was launched.  Hundreds of thousands of hard working Americans lost their jobs as their employers cut down on total numbers of employees so as to fall under the requirements of the law that mandated their workers be covered.  Hundreds of thousands if not millions more saw there status as full time workers cut back to 29 hours or less so they could be classified as "part time workers" under the legislation so they were no longer eligible for coverage offered by their employers.

In spite of every conceivable attempt at linguistic gymnastics to try and claim that the lie was not a lie, economic and especially political reality soon  came crashing down on the heads of the leftists who forced through this legislation. Their Nietzschean "force of will" was exposed as not being able to withstand the pressures of the real world. 

So then this week the Liar in Chief stepped before the microphones and issued a half hearted none-apology, apology.  Nowhere in his long and convoluted statement were the words "I'm sorry" or "we're sorry" for all the anguish and pain they have put millions of American's through.  No where was there an apology to those millions of Americans who have lost their jobs, or had their wages cut to below any reasonable level at which they could be expected to provide for themselves and their families.  No where was their any acknowledgement that maybe yes "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" and that for those millions this has indeed proven to be a hellish nightmare.

What we got was more of the same old, "Don't worry, we're still smarter than you, we're still smarter than our critics."  In their minds this is not a failure of policy, it's a failure that was brought about because not everybody got on board with their utopian fantasy of one size fits all, central planning, we're smarter than reality delusions.  Meanwhile the only fix they can imagine is not to step back and reconsider the debacle and pain they have brought forth in their arrogance and ignorance but to find "extra-legal" ways of either not implementing their own legislation or ignoring its enforcement requirements, while at the same time still claiming it's still the best thing since sliced bread for the American people.  It seems "extra-legal" has become the defining phrase of this administration.  Could you show that to us in the Constitution please.

Well I've got news for you Mr. President.  The American people aren't buying it because in spite of all your pronouncements and phony apologies they can still see that they and their families are worse off and struggling even harder to make do with less than they were before this nightmare was set in motion by a bunch of political hacks who have no concept of what goes on in the real world.

If you were seriously interested in fixing the problems Mr. President you would direct your party's leaders in both houses of Congress to repeal the ACA immediately, issue a Presidential directive to the insurance companies and various State Insurance Commissioners requesting that they restore the policies and structures to what they were before the effects of this disaster began to take effect.  Then and only then should the legislative process be opened up to all the American people to find, define and propose needed and necessary changes to what up until now was still the best healthcare system in the world.

Don't worry Mr. President none of us have any expectations that you will do this or anything else that is in the best interest of the American people.  To do so would require you to acknowledge that you were wrong.  And we all know that that is something you are psychologically, emotionally and intellectually incapable of doing.  You and all your leftist pals live in a fantasy world and more than anything else you resent reality and the demands of the electorate interceding in your delusions of the all seeing, all knowing and all powerful state.

On Ignorance

“Five percent of the people think;
ten percent of the people think they think;
and the other eighty-five percent would rather die than think.”- Thomas Edison

“Any formal attack on ignorance is bound to fail because the masses are always ready to defend their most precious possession – their ignorance.” - Hendrik Willem van Loon

“During my eighty-seven years, I have witnessed a whole succession of technological revolutions. But none of them has done away with the need for character in the individual or the ability to think.” - Bernard M. Baruch

“As we peer into society’s future, we — you and I, and our government — must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower

“No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and virtue is preserved. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauched in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders.” – Samuel Adams

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” – Isaac Asimov

“While every group has certain economic interests identical with those of all groups, every group has also, as we shall see, interests antagonistic to those of all other groups. While certain public policies would in the long run benefit everybody, other policies would benefit one group only at the expense of all other groups. The group that would benefit by such policies, having such a direct interest in them, will argue for them plausibly and persistently. It will hire the best buyable minds to devote their whole time to presenting its case. And it will finally either convince the general public that its case is sound, or so befuddle it that clear thinking on the subject becomes next to impossible.In addition to these endless pleadings of self-interest, there is a second main factor that spawns new economic fallacies every day. This is the persistent tendency of man to see only the immediate effects of a given policy, or its effects only on a special group, and to neglect to inquire what the long-run effects of that policy will be not only on that special group but on all groups. It is the fallacy of overlooking secondary consequences.” – Henry Hazlitt

“Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.” – Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929

“Many of the new financial products that have been created, with financial derivatives being the most notable, contribute economic value by unbundling risks and shifting them in a highly calibrated manner. Although these instruments cannot reduce the risk inherent in real assets, they can redistribute it in a way that induces more investment in real assets and, hence, engenders higher productivity and standards of living.” – Alan Greenspan – March 6, 2000

“We’ve never had a decline in house prices on a nationwide basis. So, what I think what is more likely is that house prices will slow, maybe stabilize, might slow consumption spending a bit. I don’t think it’s gonna drive the economy too far from its full employment path, though.” – Ben Bernanke – July 2005

“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.” – Aldous Huxley

“But you can’t make people listen. They have to come round in their own time, wondering what happened and why the world blew up around them. It can’t last.” – Ray Bradbury – Fahrenheit 451

Pass this on to any and all.

I am hoping my readers will pass this link on to any and all.

http://hiddensecretsofmoney.com/videos/episode-4

Liberals, The Anti-math.

The latest meme from the math challenged left is that the shut down of government "cost" some $24 billion dollars!  Oh the horror!

So lets do the math.  The vaunted Federal Government was shut down for three weeks.  This comes to $1.143 billion a day supposedly "lost" to the economy because in their Keynesian fantasy world government spending equals prosperity. 

The only problem with such a claim of loss is that the Federal Government spends that same $24 billion in just 2-1/2 days!  It take the Federal Government only six days to borrow that same $24 billion.  Now add into this the fact that all those Federal parasites are going to get paid retroactively for the period that they were in essence "laid off" and I don't see where the economy actually lost any thing.  The tax payer lost because those same parasites just got a big fat 2 weeks plus paid vacation.

In the private sector when a company has cash flow problems employees are transferred to still funded programs or get laid off without pay, and if they have accumulated vacation, holiday and/or sick days they can charge the lost time towards that. 

But were not talking private sector here, were not even talking common sense, were talking Federal Government La La Land where the rules of the real world, the rules that apply to us common peasants, don't apply.  Just another manifestation of the rules applying to us but not our rulers or even their court jesters apparently.

Laws Are For You and Me But Not For Our Rulers.

Well now that didn't take long.  It was announced on Thursday that our national debt had grown to nearly $17.1 trillion, an increase of $328 billion virtually overnight.  What this means is that government has been accumulating charges on the national credit card without swiping it through the card reader.  In other words they have been violating the legislation that set the limit.

Imagine going into your local Sears store with an arm load of goods.  The clerk swipes your card and informs you that your card is maxed out.  You respond that you have applied for a credit extension and that your good for it.  You then propose to pay interest on the charge from the date provided they don't actually ring up the sale. The clerk says "OK", puts the goods in a bag and sends you on your way.

Both parties have just committed numerous felony counts, and no doubt face prosecution.  But the laws that apply to you and me don't apply to our rulers.  If they did never mind the scandal, there would be prison sentences.  But we all know that won't happen.

Fascists At Facebook? What A Surprise. Rev. 1

Well, my experience with Facebook lasted almost an entire week. Actually I'm kind of surprised it lasted that long before one of the Facebook's fascist came to realize that my nom de plume wasn't really my name. This of course led to being reported and getting my account suspended.  How shocking that they like to talk about privacy but then they try to force you to use your real name so any violent or threatening fool can track you down.  Really now did they think that I am that freakin' stupid? Well I for one am NOT. I've encountered too many violent fascist leftists in my experience on the nets to put my real name out there and expose myself and my family to any fascist nut cases.

My great offence of course was not my attempt to keep my identity private but that I dared ask questions the left does not want asked never mind answered.

Specifically, if $17 trillion is not enough debt, how much is? $20, $50, $100 trillion?  Why not $500 trillion or $1quadrillion?  Even worse I asked;  If the government can print all the currency it wants or needs out of thin air, why does anyone need to pay taxes at all?

I'm sure all the little leftists are much happier now that they don't have to be exposed to anybody calling them out on their delusions or telling them the truth.

While they congratulate themselves for ridding themselves of having to be exposed to uncomfortable contrary opinion and truth they don't even possess the cognizance to recognize the nature of what they've done. But then there's nothing really new about that now is there? 

This inspired the following note to Facebook on their feedback page:

"I find your "Privacy" policy hypocritical.  I wanted to use Facebook primarily as an instrument for political and news commentary as many newspapers and news sites have adopted it.  The expression of opinion often provokes anger in others.  With other platforms, Disqus etc. threats of violence against myself or my family are moot in that individuals can remain anonymous.  The haters can't know who you are or more importantly where you live.  Under Facebook terms that would be impossible and would constitute not a protection of but a threat to my privacy.

I would remind you that some of the greatest political commentary in history has been written, had to be written, anonymously because governments and established powers with time grow less and less tolerant of criticism.  I'd ask that you reconsider this policy but I have little doubt that message will not go beyond the desk of the individual first reading it.

Facebook has become one of those established powers of which I speak.  Ask yourself; are you more dedicated to protecting that position of power, influence and control over social commentary or to principles of freedom of expression without the fear of suppression or violence.  Sadly I fear that I already know the answer."

As Facebook is so clearly now a part of the corporatist collective I guess "Joe Martin's Ghost" and "FVS" will remain here and on those sites still using Disqus or other such means of protecting life and limb from violent fascists.

Political Arts or Politician's Farts..

It’s been said that politics is the art postponing a decision until it is no longer relevant.  So what possible event could intervene that would make  the last few weeks of Potomac Kabuki theater no longer relevant? 

Well before we get into any speculation on that let me just put out what I’d like to see happen.  Obama likes to make comparisons between himself and Lincoln.  Ok let’s see him really be Lincolnesque.  Grow some hair on your balls and tell the banks to go pound sand.  Be the Christian you claim to be and turn over the tables of the money changers. 

When the Banks told Lincoln that they wanted outrageous interest rates to finance the Civil War he circumvented them and directed the Treasury Department to create the “Greenback” dollar that was independent of any issuance of debt.  Obama should tell the banks that the needs of the nation are greater than the needs or wants of the banks and that all debt payments on paper held by the FED and the “primary dealers” is suspended until further notice and that they are prohibited from selling any of the paper that they hold as of the date of the announcement.  He should then direct the Treasury to issue the appropriate “US NOTES” as are required to meet critical needs.  He can then turn to Congress and tell them that he has done his part and they need to do theirs and set about serious budgetary reform and take a two bladed ax to all the duplication, fraud and waste in the Federal budget.

Anyone seriously holding their breath waiting for Obama to do any of this is a bigger fool than I am in even proposing it.

So what will we get in the alternative?  Nothing good I am sure. The can has been kicked down the road so many times that looks like it's been put in an automobile crusher.  The MOPE will continue until a Black Swan event, or a false flag attack occurs and these fools plunge us into yet another devastating war or a crushing police state.  Take your pick, either one will make any "negotiation" over debt limits or rational budget reform become the aforementioned irrelevance.

The Big Failure

In the aftermath of WWII the Allied powers made much of themselves by holding the Nuremburg Trials.  Both the Nazis and National Socialism itself were to be held accountable for the crimes and atrocities of the regime.  The utter hypocrisy of the fact that the war in Europe started with a secret pact between the Nazis and the Soviet Communists was conveniently swept under the rug. 

At the end of the cold war with Eastern Europe in the throes of self liberation and the Soviet Union in the throes of dissolution and chaos George H.W. Bush met with Mikael Gorbachov on the island of Malta.  The Russians were quite clearly concerned about both the personal repercussions and political repercussions for Communism in the wake of the impending Soviet collapse.  Bush, ever the “New World Order” Fabian globalist, snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and gave Gorbachov just the assurances he sought. 

Even if the inheritors of Stalin had been given a pass for their continuation of the Gulag economy, the system itself should have been and justly deserved its day in court along the lines of the Nuremburg model.    It’s quite telling of these events that the Russians have released their version (highly redacted if not suspect?) of the transcripts of the Malta meetings and the American transcripts remain under lock and key, and Top Secret classification, at the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library.

Had the failures of socialism itself been exposed to the world back in the 1990s and given the condemnation and vilification they deserved and had earned I don’t think we would have the bunch dangerous characters we have today haunting the halls of government in Washington DC, at least not with the levels of influence and power that they now exercise.

Can someone tell us the difference between this,

 

 

this

 

and this.

 

 

Don't bother trying.  Whatever their so-called political party the goal remains the same.  Power and wealth for the elites and the rest of us just get to pay for it.  They get the gold and we get the shaft.

 

A "Dry Run" For A Reichstag Momment?

And now the fascists have been handed the keys to the kingdom, their Reichstag moment as it were. Crash the EBT system for a single day, then wait for their urban leigons to swarm and riot in the streets, and their suburban sheep to beg them to be saved from the savages. They now have their manufactured excuse for martial law (what do you think all those up armored Humvees and Urban Assault Vehicles are for?). Once they have established their full blown police state some Tea Party computer hacker will be “revealed” as having caused the crash. Then the real repression and tyranny will begin.

Seig Heil

Having the Last Laugh! Rev. 1

it seems our miss Tish's boss, one Julie Moss, got word of what she had done. Apparently she was not very pleased.  I have received an email from Ms. Moss apologizing for what Tish head done in deleting all of my comments. Wow!  A journalist with some integrity?  We can certainly hope so.  I'll have more when I get time to post Ms. Moss's email.  It can be found in the comments of the previous post.  My crimes apparently were that I didn't roll over a play dead and gave it back better than our resident fascists dished out.  Some kind soul might do me the favor of sticking it up Mistress Clara and stinkray's nether regions.

And the hilarity continues!  It seems one of our not so illustrious attack-dogs from the McClatchy are not to happy about either Ms. Moss apologizing to me for Tish Wells having deleted my posts in a wholesale manner or that I continue to write about their particularly reprehensible behavior.

Either way the response is predictable. One of them (I suspect stingray68) attempted to post a comment to this post with one of their delightful expletives in the form of a personal characterization.  What a surprise I know.  Funny how they all seem so eager  make the switch to fraudbook on the McC site wherein they will allegedly be required to use their "real names" and yet they attempt to post anonymously on mine! Again a real surprise I know.

I am in the process of composing a response to Ms. Moss's letter to me and I will post it when I have completed it and sent it to her.

Speaking My Mind and Defending Myself at McClatchy Gets Me Banned. Shocking I know!

In a recent post I went into how certain leftists can't help exposing their inner selves.  To no ones surprise and at the intervention of the moderator/web editor at the McClatchy DC website I have been banned.  Not only was I banned, but all my comments were removed kind of like a Stalinist era airbrushing of a deposed former "Hero of the Soviet Union".  See what standing up to vile accusation gets you?  I sent her the following letter.

An open minded journalist?  Decide for yourself.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/tish-wells/

To:Tish Wells, McClatchy dc web editor:

And here I was, after reading your personal profile, thinking that perhaps this Ms. Wells is a professional person and could be someone with whom I might reason and I was going to do a polite and reasoned de-construction of your letter. But then two things happened, or was it three?

Firstly I re-read your note informing me of my having been banned (that was a first at least) and your reasons for it. I soon realized however that I had to question the hesitancy you claimed. You might note that I have been the subject of attack for nothing more than expressing an opinion contrary to the orthodoxy held by certain of the denizens of the McClatchy boards.

I came aboard to do nothing more than express an opinion on various stories. I almost immediately came under attack. Not attacks on the position or perspectives I presented but rather personal attacks upon my personality, character, judgment and intelligence.

Not a single one of these denizens (and you know of whom I speak) attempted to do anything that came close to a deconstruction or argument by counter point, but rather almost as if by reflex action the accusation of “fascist” was hurled at me as if that were some magic potion that makes offending opinion and those who dare speak it run to the hills or melt away like the Wicked Witch of the West.

Much to their chagrin I then committed the cardinal sins of both claiming that fascism is a product of the political left and being able to back up the contention with references to original source documents and quotations from the period. Did this lead to any of our leftist friends to reconsider or engage in a reasoned debate on the subject? Of course not, all it got was further, even more vitriolic name calling and childish statements of no more substance than “that’s not what I was told in school so you must be wrong.”

I then proceeded to firstly demonstrate all the points of commonality between fascism/national socialism and communism/international socialism. I then delineated that the only significant difference between them was a philosophical one revolving around the use of or the destruction of national identity as a tool in furtherance of constructing a global socialist state. I further showed that Stalin and the Soviets quickly abandoned their position on this argument and adopted the “nationalist” positions and the methods of the Nazis as soon as the first Panzers started crossing the Russian Steeps. Again I sourced period materials.

It was at this point that the attacks against me began to broaden into the unacceptable. Certain attacks of a political nature I can take and return in kind without so much as batting an eye. But when they sink so low as to make baseless accusation such as that I must be a pedophile or attacks on my family members who have nothing to do with any of this, accusations that they must spend a lot of time under psychiatric care simple because of who his father is. At such a point then it is they, not I, who have crossed the line into the realm of uncivilized and wholly unacceptable behavior. They “declared war” on me and demonstrated it by attacking “defenseless civilians” as it were.

Perhaps before you condemned my retaliatory actions in response to this you should have asked yourself; How you would I feel if such accusations had been directed at me and my family? My responses to them certainly became more acerbic no doubt, and pointed to their own natures as fascists (gmartini’s statements that she would turn the power of the state against me in order to suppress my opinion) was particularly revealing. She followed that up by saying that she could “see a FEMA camp in my future”. That certainly sounds like a threat. Ask yourself; just who was it that was doing all the flagging and making the request to you that an individual be banned?. You know perfectly well that it wasn’t me.

But enough of that digression, let’s get back to your letter.
 

"Various readers have requested that I blacklist you for many of your comments over the last couple of weeks. I have resisted because you used (emphasis mine) to make good points.

Since you are upset by their comments, where I note you have often given as good or more than you have received, I will remove you.

We are moving to Facebook on Tuesday, October 1st. If you chose to comment then, under your full name, (emphasis mine) then come on back.”

Have a good day -- Moderator/McClatchy


(Before going any further you might consider the most famous, in recent history at least, of the authoritarian “blacklist”.)

 Since when then did I stop making good points? Since when did my condemnations of their vile accusations ever reach gutter level that is shown by gmartini and stingray68? Never. So what if I called gmartini a bee itch. Such euphemistic constructions are used all the time to get around embedded filters. Since when does that reach the level of the accusations of pedophilia?

I have told them both, and repeatedly so, that if they want to hurl the fascist accusation at me they had best be prepared to define the term and defend their use of it. Neither of them has dared to take up that challenge. Instead they just repeat the accusation like some Goebbels inspired "big lie," if repeated often enough, it becomes true.

So now let’s get to the point that has me truly upset, even more so than the vile nature of gmartini’s and stingray68’s underhanded and personal attacks. That being, what you have done. I’m not talking about being banned from the web pages of McClatchy’s Disqus system. I’m talking about you having gone back through the files and deleting every post I have made on a wholesale basis, even those that had nothing to do with any remarks made by me about the two aforementioned characters – everything! I also noted that their responses to me were left intact.

So I am going to ask you a very serious question. Whether you answer me or not is not of concern, it’s the answer you give yourself that is far more important. So here it goes:

Please tell me or justify to yourself your actions. How is it any different from the action of the Nazis or the Stalinists who would airbrush out the images of any former “Hero of the Soviet Union” or “Defender of the Fatherland” from public archives just as soon as they fell into disfavor with Stalin or Hitler? They had the “power” to do it and to make them disappear, and they used it. Is this the kind of action you take pride in or have received praise for? Just what in god’s name does do this have to do with any kind of stretch of the meaning of “journalistic ethics”?

I’m not asking you to reinstate my profile (kind of moot with but 3 days remaining before the change over, but I am asking you to do a little self examination and ask yourself if you really think you took the “high road” here?

Consider also that some of the finest pieces of political satire and criticism of government throughout history have been written anonymously, precisely because governments, all governments grow more centralized and tyrannical with time, and as they do so they have less and less of a sense of humor or tolerance of those critics. Nowadays government has more power than ever before to pry into our personal and secret lives and do so with impunity. Think of George III's hated “Stamp Tax” that was used as pretext to enter into people’s homes with self written warrants to search for “untaxed” documents” particularly those of a political nature.

All this makes even the preservation of even the smallest sense of anonymity that much more important. You won’t be seeing my presence on facebook or twitter under my real name or any other. Having worked inside the beltway for 10 years (TS-SCI W/SBI & PGE) I know exactly what upstream is and how it works. I won’t be so foolish as to step into those jaws.

Lastly I’d ask you to go back to the top of the McClatchy web page and read that “Truth to Power” motto they have there. Does it really mean anything, or is it just empty rhetoric and sloganeering?

Sincerely.

FVS (Joe Martin's Ghost)


I am not going to hold my breath waiting for a response from one twells@mcclatchydc.com but it might be fun if some of my readers dropped her a line just to say hello. What pieces of your minds you decide to give her is entirely up to you. If you do please leave a copy in the comments below.

Each and Every Day .....

Each and every day I become more convinced that leftists either never heard of the concept of unintended consequences, they simply don't care or are completely incapable of seeing anything beyond a hedonistic desire for what they think will be emotionally satisfying in the moment.  I can only guess this is what passes for normal in their closed little worlds as most of them have only been taught what to think not how to think.

My case in point being all the parrot squawking about "extortion".  One inside the beltway talking head speaks the word and they all start squawking in unison as if on cue.  The latest mime being that the Republicans and/or the Tea Party are ready, willing and wanting to shut down the entire government in order to get Obamacare defunded.  There are even some who earnestly hope that it happens as they see that as the death knell of the Republican Party and that that would clear the way for their long hoped for one-party state!  I'd ask one of these idiots if they are insane but I doubt they could even define the term.

It's bad enough that for leftists compromise means others acceding to their desires, never the other way around.  But I don't think they can even begin to grasp what it means that under a one-party state there is no one left to debate with never mind compromise with.

Ok. So just for gits and shiggles let's say that is exactly just what transpires.  What happens from there?  The Republicans stand their ground, America's debt or at least a substantial portion of it goes into default and the ensuing political and economic pressure results in every welfare queen (no money for EBT, SNAP etc) union member (because they're told to) and college campus moron (again because they are told to) marches and riots in the streets.  The chaos results in either massive losses at the polls for Republicans or the imposition martial law and they are physically removed to placate the rioters.  Then what?  Do these fools think that we could then just pick up where they left off and put the printers at the Eccles Building into hyper drive and everything will be "back to normal"?

Latin America is still in the process of getting out from under succession after succession of one-party state dictatorships, Africa has barely started, Eastern Europe has only recently escaped the yoke of one-party state communism and Western Europe is in the midst of a liquidity crisis even worse than our own.  Seeing the United State devolve into a one-party state is not going to inspire them with confidence that they should continue to keep buying US debt paper.  Just the opposite in fact.  After just seeing the value of what they already hold fall to a fraction of it's face value they are not going to look at this as some sort of BTFD situation.  They'll be out looking for suckers to buy what they already have and they'll take what ever they can get for it and they won't be accepting US dollars.

Next they will be telling the us that they are not going to be accepting US dollars for oil or cars or any of that junk we stock the shelves at Wal-Mart and Bed, Bath and Beyond with either, including food.  They will be asking for gold and they won't be accepting any of those gold plated tungsten bars either.

But what the heck the Democrats will have their one-party state and that's all that matters right?  What could possible go wrong with that?

How long will it take for this to turn into .....

 

This?

A Typical Lefist Exposes Their Inner Fascist.

I recently had the following exchange on the McClatchy news site with a California leftist anti-gun zealot.  She became upset apparently when I said that if she lived next door to me I'd put up a sign declaring that my home was protected by a legal, trained and proficient fire arms owner but that my neighbor's was not and that I further promised not to use my legally owned weapons to protect them no matter how loud they screamed.  She responded by saying that if she were my neighbor she would seek to unleash any and all possible means of legal harassment upon me.  I then asked if she would then get as obnoxious with the police (name calling and other such verbal abuse) as she does with anyone with whom she disagrees on the board, when they told her to stop filing false reports.  I further asked her to let me know, if she could, as I would like to set up bleachers and sell refreshments to watch the show that would be created by her confrontation with a bunch of cops who were as emotionally stunted as she is. 

She goes by the handle gmartini on Disqus, I go by FVS

gmartini:  "Hamilton:  (she calls me that because of my self declaration as a Hamiltonian Constitutionalist another concept she has yet to grasp.)  Do you really believe that the police is (sic) who handles code violations and regulations? No---in my city, we call building inspectors, code enforcement, parking enforcement, nuisance (which you are) abatement, etc---If I lived next door to you or even near you, you could expect, without a doubt, that any and all of these agencies would be all over your lying behind. But, this is all moot. I would never live in some forsaken RED State and you would not live in CA...so moot!"  (Forgive her her bad syntax even though she is one of that boards spelling and grammar Nazis.  Every board has at least one.)

This was my response

FVS:  "Congratulations! So then you are indeed (and I'll include stingray68 in this as he endorsed your little rant) a perfect example of the classic, textbook, leftwing fascist who would use the power of the state to suppress free speech and contrary opinion and incarcerate those you don't like for political reasons.  In other words you are the very antithesis of what being an American means. 

"They say confession is good for the soul but I've never heard of a repentant fascist.

"Whereas the classical liberal would quote Voltaire; "I disagree with what you say sir, but I would defend to my death your right to say it."  You then display all the traits of the fascist who falls right in line with the theme of the 1934 Nazi Party convention; "We Command the State!"  You epitomize Joseph Goebbels statement "We came to power legally in order to gain the possibility of acting illegally."

"In fact I'm going to quote your post and this response in a new post at the top (both here and repeatedly) so any and all can see that a typical leftist really is a despicable fascist.  You will stand convicted (just like the Nazis) by the words out of your very own mouth."

She can count on me following up as I can (and will be) relentless in my hatred and exposure of fascists and what they really are.

Leftists, Guns and Fetid Dreams of Social Control.

Immediately in the wake of the latest firearms tragedy, this time at the Washington Navy Yard, we quite predictably get another wave of urban leftists and political hacks who want to blame conservative states for their gun violence problems.

Those other states haven't supplied anything.  INDIVIDUAL CRIMINALS made straw purchases (itself an illegal act) and then either themselves or in concert with other INDIVIDUAL CRIMINALS carried them into California and other states to supply them to another set of INDIVIDUAL CRIMINALS.  INDIVIDUALS committed these crimes, not the states of Virginia or North Carolina or any other, INDIVIDUALS.  It's not the states of Arizona or Oklahoma that are committing daily drive by shootings on the streets of Chicago or Detroit or Los Angles.  It's INDIVIDUALS.

It's exactly like as with prohibition. Where there is a will there is a way.  If the idiot left succeeds in imposing their utopian gun ban fantasy on an unwilling public They won't have to contend with semi-automatic AR15s and 9mm Glocks in the hands of registered owners, but fully automatic unregistered and illegal Sten Guns and Metral submachine guns that any competent machinist and sheet metal worker can make by the dozen.  All the plans are available on line and there a millions of surplus machine tools available for little more than a song.  Not to mention all the unemployed industrial workers that would love to make a few extra  bucks turning them out. 

Just as moonshine stills dotted the rural countryside during prohibition, the basement machine shop will dot the American landscape if the government bans personal firearms.  Ask the Israelis how it works.  A large percentage of the small arms they used to fight off the Arabs in their war of independence were produced, illegally, in underground workshops in the period between 1945 and 1948.

But then liberals and leftists are idiots, always have been and always will be.  Reality and human nature do not enter into their calculations of self-righteousness and fascist social control.  Unintended consequences are the last thing that crosses their mind.

Ban the legal and registered ownership of this.

 

And you will get an explosion of illegal ownership of this.

 

 

 

All it takes is one of these,

 

 

one of these. 

 

 

and one of these. 

 

 

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/09/16/202320/security-at-navy-yard-weak-surveillance.html#comment-1048318858#storylink=cpy

Egypt (Part2)

For over a decade these morons that call themselves the US government, (Democrats and Republicans alike) have been feeding us the propagandistic crap that “Islam is a religion of peace” and that the nihilist, fascist, jihadists aren’t representative of Islam and that there are millions of “moderate Muslims” who don’t want anything to do with them.  So now we have a group Egyptians who not only don’t want anything to do with the nihilist, fascist, jihadists, but are also willing to stand up and fight them and this same bunch of morons condemns them for not being “inclusive”.

When a deadly snake crawls into your house you kill it first and worry about how it got in after.

It’s just like starting in the 1930’s and all through the cold war and right up to today, we do a dance of denial about the existence of a communist fifth column operating right here.  (media and government were far more angry with Whitaker Chambers for exposing Alger Hiss as a Soviet agent of 20 years than they were about Hiss’s actual treason.  Similarly they were more upset about Ronald Reagan referring to the Soviet Union as an “evil empire” than they were about the evil of the empire.

Curious that the Germans are always having to make accounts for the horrors of the Nazis and the 15 million deaths in their camp systems but Soviet communism NEVER gets held to account for the 100s of millions killed in there camp systems?  3-3.5 million Ukrainians alone were starved to death.
The differences between national socialism and international socialism are differences without any distinction.

We so often forget that WWII began with an alliance between the Nazis and the Soviets to carve up Poland and Eastern Europe between them.

So today these same elitist’s do the dance of denial about the evils of fundamentalist Islam and their fifth column working in America, particularly when it comes to any discussion of them gaining government power and influence. 

And most of us, like sheep, just ignore it or turn a blind eye to it or even deny what we see going on right before us.  We never held the communist to account for its crimes, (thanks George H. W. Bush!) why should we expect these morons to hold Islam accountable for its crimes.

 

Egypt

Egypt has a certain commonality with Turkey which also has had recent civil unrest related to an elected government over stepping it bounds in trying to impose Islamic law on a population with a large secularized population. 

Although Egypt does not have Turkeys much longer history of republican and democratic institutions, it does have a large secularized element in its population.  This is due to both the presence of the Suez Canal and it large dependence on tourism as a major pillar of its economy.  Both of these bring in large numbers of foreigners and particularly Westerners and their influence into the society. 

Additionally, like Turkey, Egypt's economy has remained open to Western commercialization and over the last decade or so, the internet.  This stands as opposed to countries like Syria, Libya and most others that have remained largely closed and controlled economies and societies.

Having enjoyed at least some of the benefits of a Westernized society and economy they don't want to slide back toward the social mores of the 8th century which the Muslim Brotherhood represents, and much to the surprise of Obama and the Muslim Brotherhood,they are willing to fight to prevent it.

Whether the military and the new government will be successful in suppressing the social and civil destructive influence of the Muslim Brotherhood of course remains to be seen.  Will there be a protracted and bloody civil war?  At this point it seems likely if the military and their secularist supporters don't move swiftly.  There short term success nay have some serious repercussions for the Islamist segment of Egypt's society.  In the long term thier failure my have serious repercussions for the rest of the world.

Hilarity and Desperation in the (Real) Money Pits (Part 3)

Jamie Dimon sits behind his desk trying to concentrate on some paper work.  His chief aide is the only other person in the room.  He suddenly raises his head with a twisted look on his face and sniffs the air.  "Is that bad tuna fish I'm smelling?"

His aide replies "No sir. That's Blythe's crotch your smelling.  With the spike in PMs today she is getting seriously fucked with a golden derivatives dildo sir."

Jamie twist his face yet again.  "The US still doesn't have an extradition treaty with Brazil right?"

"I believe that is the case sir.  Would you like me to call and have the plane warmed up?"

"Perhaps we should.  The main lobby called a bit ago and said that this big silver phallus looking thing was just there when they came in this morning.  They said it had my name on it."

"Warmed up AND fully fueled!  I understand sir.  Your passport is in the top drawer sir."

Hilarity and Desperation In The (Real) Money Pits (Part 2)

From Zerohedge.com

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-08-08/hello-scotia-mocatta-jpmorgan-we-urgently-need-some-your-gold

If this is not a confirmation that the comment that if you own paper promises for bullion you don't own squat, I don't know what is.

What with all the fines for manipulation and fraud Jamie's JP Morgan has been accumulating lately one has to wonder if his magic White House cuff link shields will protect him when all those gold  naked shorts (about $520,000,000 worth at current price of $1,300 toz.) come up empty because HSBC and Scotia don't have any more or simply refuse to deliver from their own inventory to cover his and Blyth Masters' highly exposed and pimply backsides. 

And then the questions will start on their even larger naked short position in silver.

All those who scoffed (you know who you are, my "usual suspects) at the several years worth of warnings that this is precisely where we have been headed my just have to soon develop a taste for crow when JP Morgan becomes the "new" Lehman Brothers and suddenly is not "too big too fail" after all.  I can almost hear Dick Fuld Jr. having a good laugh at Jamie Dimon's expence..

Another Lesson For Leftist Trolls (Not That We Can Expect Them To Be Bothered To Actually Read that Far) Rev.1

As my readers know I never grow tired of skewering leftists and their silly notions that fascism is product of the right wing or conservative political thought.  If you want to watch a leftist's head explode and all their so-called notions of moral relativism evaporate into nothingness try challenging, what is for them an axiomatic truth.  Here then is a little contention, and some evidence to prove it, that will generate a whole new scale of cognitive dissonance, not to mention vituperative sputtering and maybe even some creative name calling.

So here we go.  Step back if you repeat any of this, I wouldn't want you to get any spit on you, (or fists) some of them are violent! What socialists violent?  Who ever heard of such a thing?!?

When push came to shove (quite literally) the left's beloved Stalin didn't hesitate to demonstrate his inner National Socialist self! 

As soon as the German Panzer divisions began to roll east across the border one of the very first acts that Stalin under took (besides changing his underwear) was to walk across Red Square to St. Basil's Cathedral and solicit the aid of the Russian Orthodox Church and its inherent nationalism, in the construction of the campaign for the defense of "Mother Russia"!  All the years of attacking and trying to destroy the church (religion was counterrevolutionary and anti-internationalist), all the decades of rhetoric about the march of "International Socialism" went right out the window.  "Mother Russia" came first.  The appeal to Russian nationalism in rhetoric and propaganda became just as naked as that visible at any Nazi torch light parade. 

The overarching goal of both fascist National Socialism and communist International Socialism was and is the same, global conquest.  The only significant philosophical difference between the two was/is that the communists believe that the normal human tendency towards national identity had to be destroyed as a part of creating a global socialist hegemony.  They believe that this global hegemony was to be spread by means of local socialist revolutions that once achieved, would by their nature merge into a global internationalist cadre.  For the communists being a socialist and a nationalist was an oxymoron. 

The fascists took a different approach.  They recognized the normal human tendency towards national identity and saw it as a tool to be used in the spread of the socialist ideal.  From this perspective it was perfectly acceptable, even necessary to be socialist and a nationalist.  Those countries that stood in the way of the spread of this movement were of course subject to conquest often justified by some false provocation.  Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia and Slovakia all joined in with little hesitation.  Others of course not so much and found themselves subject to local National Socialists propped up by occupying armies, (Quisling in Norway, Vichy France). This was no different than the Russian's false provocation of the need to "protect" Russian minorities when the re-occupied and annexed the Baltic States.  They had learned the lesson well from the Nazis occupation of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia and their demands for access across the Polish corridor. 

So does this mean that Stalin and his cadre suddenly moved from the left side to the right side of the political aisle in response to the Nazi invasion?  Of course not, it was just a tacit, albeit unspoken recognition that the fascists perspective of using normal feelings of nationalist identity was the more powerful political tool.  The people weren't willing or motivated by decades of propaganda to fight and die for the "internationalist" ideal, but they would fight and die to protect "Mother Russia".

As the Russians prevailed in their war in defense of "Mother Russia" and their armies rolled into Eastern Europe their very first acts were to follow the Nazi's model and put "local" communists in charge and back them up with an occupying army.  For fifty years any loosening of the leash of occupation led to nascent independence movements and the quick reassertion of an even heavier yoke of occupation.  I give you Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968. This condition remained in effect until the Soviet Union itself began to collapse under the weight of it's own bureaucratic corruption.

When two movements, that both proclaim the banner of socialism, both use the same lies and methodologies for conquest and subjugation, and the implementation of each result in the same tyranny and stacking of corpses like cord wood, don't tell me that one is "left wing" and the other is "right wing" or that one is benevolent and well meaning and the other is the essence of evil just because you say so or because some no doubt leftist college professor told you so. 

The bitter fruits of the tree of socialist tyranny are inalterable.  They can't be changed by disingenuous rhetoric. Evil is evil, tyranny is tyranny and political murder is political murder.  The victims of Nazi slave labor and extermination are no less dead than the victims of Russia's starvation of the Ukraine or the slavery of the Gulag Archipelago.  None found any comfort in the political "leanings" of their tormentors.

So my friends don't expect any of the leftist trolls you encounter to listen to or even attempt to understand the first bit of this.  Few if any will even get to, never mind past the third paragraph before raw emotion takes over their already weak impulse control.  Just take small comfort in the realization that their reaction is ample demonstration of the lie that is the progressivist or socialist or what ever label the left calls itself this week or month.

MOPE, Blythe and a Derivatives Dreams

Ok so let's get this straight, the dirtbags in Washington don't like the way the economic numbers are coming in so they revise the way the numbers are calculated (all the way back to 1929!) to make them stink less and so they can claim that the (non-existent) recovery is even better than the last batch of lies they told about it.

Have we reached the point that all this MOPE (management of perception economics, i.e "the new normal") has finally over estimated the stupidity and naïveté of the American public?  Sadly I think not, as there is a scarily large number of people who will believe whatever garbage the government puts out because the implications of questioning the validity of it are just too scary, or they want to believe it because "their guys" are in charge.  Neither of these forms of intellectual laziness or the governments deliberate miscalculations will change the reality of the looming disaster.

So what evidence do I have that we're looking at another disastrous bubble bursting crash?   Well for anyone with the courage to shed the dangerous combination of politically partisan horse blinders and the heavily tinted rose colored glasses it will be as plain as the nose on your face.

The so-called powers that be have not learned a single thing from the last crash, not a single damn thing! 

It is widely acknowledged that the 2007-2008 disaster was brought about by the collapse of that segment of the Derivatives market (thanks Blythe Masters of J.P. Morgan) known as CDOs, collateralized debt obligations, and more specifically the bundling of sub-prime mortgages into RMBSs (Retail Mortgage Backed Securities), that were sold to the public and institutions as "prime" investments.  Well the weren't so "prime" after all and that led to Lehman Brothers, AIG, and Morgan Stanley going into the toilet, (and onto the taxpayers back) and ushering in the that other "new normal", the Too Big to Fail financial institution.

So what then are these TBTF geniuses up to now that would evidence either they haven't learned anything from the recent past (or they are just to damn arrogant to care)?  Let's look at the evidence. 
A recent study showed that home ownership is at an 18 year low and that residential rental rates are at an all time high.  (Don't worry the FED says there is no inflation!)  The so called "recovery" in housing construction is being driven by the building of more rental property.  The so-called "reduction" in available homes for sale is being driven by foreclosed properties being either withdrawn from the market or being put into the rental market. 

So now in order to respond to this "new normal" in the housing market banking and financial friends have decided to reduce their risk in holding all this previously foreclosed and newly constructed rental property by coming up with, you guessed it, a new Derivative instrument!

I give you the Rent Backed Security!  What could possibly go wrong?!?!  Isn't terribly hard to figure out. Lot's of individuals and families either lost their jobs or got downsized to lower paying jobs, so they ended up in default on home loans they couldn't really afford in the first place.  So now with some income or cash freed up from those mortgage payments, and not being able to re-qualify for a downsized home and mortgage they have no choice but to rent. 

Many of these families are of course either still unemployed or underemployed and are scavenging from what savings they have left to make ends meet.  When that money runs out and they can't increase their income if they have any, they will be forced to either go onto public assistance of some sort or will move in with other family members or friends.  They will default again, this time on their rental contracts. 

I doesn't take a genius to figure out what will then happen to these Rent Backed Securities? Their value will fall to absolutely zero, any institutions or individuals stupid enough to have bought them will get wiped out and our friends (We are "richer than you are") like Blythe Masters and Jamie Dimon at J.P. Morgan will still own the real estate and will still get their multi-million dollar year end bonuses, and they will kick bake a few hundred thousand in campaign contributions to the politicians that let them set this mess up in the first place.  The banks themselves might face a few million or a billion dollars in fines for their manipulations but the criminals that set up and personally profit from the fraud will walk away scott free, or at the very worst will retreat to some non-extradition treaty county and set themselves up in new digs that would make The Great Gatsby blush. 

Oh yeah and they will figure out a way to stick the taxpayer with the bill!

Hilarity and Desperation In The (Real) Money Pits

Manipulating and hammering down the price of gold and silver futures contracts has become the SOP at the COMEX and LBMA.  I really wish JP Morgan would explain a couple of things for us.  Firstly, how does it make any sense covering losses on naked short PM contracts by selling more naked short PM contracts? Secondly, if PMs are such a bad investment why is their inventory (and that of the GLD) disappearing into the hands of customers demanding delivery of physical metals?  I don’t think I’m going to hold my breath waiting for answers that will never come.  Well at least not until there is default coupled with massive class action suits.

This of course brings us back to my favorite realm, that of unintended consequences, brought on by that most magnificent of combinations; arrogance and stupidity.  It would seem the investing public is not quite as stupid or gullible as Jamie Dimon and company would hope.

Case in point #1.  Total demand for US Silver Eagles and for Canadian Silver Maple Leaves is far out stripping domestic production by millions of tons.  Laws in both countries require that coins must be produced from domestic supplies.  This forces both the mints and all the manufacturers that require silver for their products onto the import markets to meet demand.  The public knows a bargain basement price when they see it, even when premiums over spot are at 30%!

And that is just the silver market.  Demand for the popular 1/10 toz. Gold Eagles has been so high that the West Point Mint has had to halt production several times because the refineries can’t provide enough metal to the blank manufactures to meet supply requests from the Mint.

Case in point #2.  India has long been one of the largest consumers of gold in the world, both for investment and dowry jewelry.  Demand in India has become so large that the imports have grossly distorted the country’s balance of trade. This had caused India to levy a 6% tax on gold imports.  The tax has had no effect on demand and it was recently raised to 8%.  Again the tax had no effect on demand, so now the Central Bank of India has directed that commercial banks stop selling bullion coins.  Year right, that’ll work!  Nothing stifles demand for something like telling people they can’t have it.

Case in point #3.  Over the last year or so France’s economy has been sliding down the same hole of unpayable debt and expanding deficits that has driven Greece, Italy and Spain into insolvency.  Newly elected President Hollande’s noted response was to attempt to raise the top marginal tax rate to 75%.   Not surprisingly then, anyone and everyone in France with any measurable amount of wealth is busily engaged in finding ways of getting said wealth out of the grasp of the Hollande government’s tax collectors.  In spite of various capital controls measures asset liquidation and outflows continue unabated.  The latest reaction of the French government; prohibit sending currency, bullion and jewelry through the mails!  Yeah that’ll work.  Future headline; “Massive jewelry smuggling operation found at Swiss border!” 

Oh wait gold is a just a “barbarous relic,” never mind.