Greece Has Defaulted - Which Country In Europe Is Next?

Well, it is official. The restructuring deal between Greece and private investors has been pushed through and the International Swaps and Derivatives Association has ruled that this is a credit event which will trigger credit-default swap contracts. The ISDA is saying that there are approximately $3.2 billion in credit-default swap contracts on Greek debt outstanding, and most analysts expect that the global financial system will be able to absorb these losses. But still, 3.2 billion dollars is nothing to scoff at, and some of these financial institutions that wrote a lot of these contracts on Greek debt are going to be hurting. This deal with private investors may have "rescued" Greece for the moment, but the consequences of this deal are going to be felt for years to come. For example, now that Greece has gotten a sweet "haircut" from private investors, politicians in Portugal, Italy, Spain and other European nations are going to wonder why they shouldn't get some "debt forgiveness" too. Also, private investors are almost certainly going to be less likely to want to loan money to European nations from now on. If they will be required to take a massive haircuts at some point, then why in the world would they want to lend huge amounts of money to European governments at super low interest rates? It simply does not make sense. Now that Greece has defaulted, the whole game is going to change. This is just the beginning.

Not so fast. Those that are publicly declaring that an economic recovery has arrived are ignoring a whole host of numbers that indicate that the U.S. economy is in absolutely horrendous shape. The truth is that the health of an economy should not be measured by how well the stock market is doing. Rather, the truth health of an economy should be evaluated by looking at numbers for things like jobs, housing, poverty and debt. Some of the latest economic statistics indicate that unemployment is getting a little bit worse, that the housing market continues to deteriorate, that poverty in America continues to soar and that our debt problem is worse than ever. If we were truly experiencing the kind of economic recovery that the United States has experienced after every other post-World War II recession we would see a sharp improvement across the board in most of our economic statistics. But that simply is not happening. Sadly, this is about as much of an "economic recovery" as we are going to get because soon the economy will be getting much worse. So enjoy this period of relative stability while you can.

By Rachel Reid

The Afghan government was "too busy" for International Women's Day on March 8, so it postponed official acknowledgement until the 11th. It was not a great moment to celebrate, anyway. A week earlier a council of religious scholars -- the Ulema Council -- published guidance that declared "men are fundamental and women are secondary." It called for women to travel with mahrams (male escorts), and to avoid mixing with men in offices, markets and educational facilities. The statement also said that beating a woman is only permissible with a "Shariah-compliant reason."

Reflections on Richard Cravatts’ “Genocidal Liberalism: The University’s Jihad Against Israel & Jews”

by David Solway

Editor’s note: The review below is written by David Solway on Dr. Richard Cravatts’ new book, Genocidal Liberalism: The University’s Jihad Against Israel & Jews, published by the David Horowitz Freedom Center. To order a copy, click here. I first came across Richard Cravatts in an article he wrote for Pajamas Media on November 19, 2010, describing York University in Toronto as “a cesspool of anti-Semitic, pro-Palestinian activism.” York is notorious in Canada as one of its most prominent Jew-bashing institutions, taking its cue from larger and more prestigious universities like UC Irvine and Berkeley that promote, in Cravatts’ words, “slanted scholarship for jihad.” Genocidal Liberalism expands Cravatts’ investigative sweep to encompass the entire malign phenomenon of antisemitism cum anti-Zionism that has corrupted the moral integrity and academic rectitude of the American liberal professoriate.

Stephen Moore - Regaining Prosperity

Solyndra Syndrome Spreads

by Michelle Malkin

There’s no escaping Solyndra Syndrome. Here in my home state of Colorado, citizen journalists have uncovered our own gaping government green loan sinkhole. The stench of Chicago-on-the-Potomac is fouling the fresh Rocky Mountain air.
Meet Loveland-based Abound Solar, the lucky winner of a $400 million federal loan guarantee from the Obama administration. Earlier this month, the thin-film cadmium telluride solar module-maker announced layoffs of nearly 300 employees (70 percent of its workforce). In addition, the firm froze plans to build a new factory in Indiana. Abound says it will ride out bad market conditions and “hopefully” survive until the market recovers.

The Racist Ravings of Derrick Bell

by John Perazzo

By now, you may already have seen the 1991 video footage of Barack Obama, who was then a 30-year-old student at Harvard Law School, speaking in glowing terms about Harvard professor Derrick Bell, whom Obama described as a man known for “speaking the truth” and for an “excellence of … scholarship” that had not only “opened up new vistas and new horizons,” but had “changed the standards [of what] legal writing is about.” “Open up your hearts and your minds to the words of Professor Derrick Bell,” Obama urged the sizable crowd which had gathered to show their support for Professor Bell that day.

Sandra Fluke and the Failure of Feminism

Posted by Jacob Laksin and Nichole Hungerford

By now, you are no doubt familiar with the tearful tale of Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown University Law School student who gained national attention and iconic feminist status last week for publicly protesting the fact that her school’s heath insurance policy does not cover her contraception. Firmly grasping the mantle of victimhood, Fluke lamented that “forty percent” of female students at Georgetown Law “struggl[ed] financially as a result of this policy.” Fluke’s complaint earned her deserved mockery, most prominently from radio host Rush Limbaugh, who riffed that she was essentially asking to be paid for having sex, behavior that he likened to a “slut” and a “prostitute.” That in turn triggered howls of exaggerated outrage from feminists and the left, most prominently President Obama, who personally called Fluke to offer his support and to say that her parents should be proud of her.

Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms” Fraud

by James Bovard

President Obama has succeeded in seizing new power over health care and other swaths of American lives in part because previous presidents muddied Americans’ understanding of freedom.

Most of the past century’s debates over the meaning of liberty have featured one politician after another who promised people true freedom, if only they would submit to increased government power. In the process, politicians have been generously shrinking people’s individual liberty.

Thank Goodness for WikiLeaks

by Sheldon Richman

In October WikiLeaks released close to 400,000 U.S. classified military documents relating to the Iraq war. The American people, the theoretical masters of the government, were not supposed to see them. The government preferred that they not know. So just as when the website released 77,000 documents on the Afghan war in August, government officials and apologists for the empire’s war policies roundly condemned WikiLeaks. Apparently, the greatest breach of decorum is to let the American people know how their government conducts its wars. In November WikiLeaks began to release more than 250,000 secret diplomatic cables, creating even more heat for the organization.

Libertarianism versus Statism

by Jacob G. Hornberger

All of us have been born and raised within a statist box, one in which the federal government’s primary roles are to take care of people, regulate their economic activities, and maintain an overseas military empire that intervenes in the affairs of other countries.
Both liberals and conservatives have come to accept this statist box as a permanent feature of American life. Even worse, they have convinced themselves that life in this statist box is actually freedom.
What makes libertarians different from liberals and conservatives is that, although we too have been born and raised within the statist box, we have broken free of it, in an intellectual and moral sense. Moreover, unlike liberals and conservatives, we recognize that statism isn’t freedom at all. It’s the opposite of freedom. Genuine freedom, libertarians contend, entails a dismantling of the statist box in which we all live.

The Persecution of Lynne Stewart

by Jacob G. Hornberger

Today’s Los Angeles Times has an interesting editorial on the Lynne Stewart case. Stewart is a 72-year-old criminal defense lawyer from New York who is now serving a 10-year sentence in a federal penitentiary. She was convicted in 2005 of supporting terrorism, an offense that arose during her defense of Omar Abdel Rahman, a radical Islamic cleric known as the “blind sheik.”
The Times’ editorial addressed the length of Stewart’s sentence. She was originally sentenced to a term of 28 months. The government appealed that sentence, however, claiming that it was too short, saying that Stewart should have received a higher sentence for three reasons: (1) that she supposedly committed perjury when she testified at trial; (2) that she abused her role as an attorney; and (3) that she wasn’t remorseful for what she had done.

The 'Fairness' Fraud

By Thomas Sowell

During a recent Fox News Channel debate about the Obama administration's tax policies, Democrat Bob Beckel raised the issue of "fairness."

He pointed out that a child born to a poor woman in the Bronx enters the world with far worse prospects than a child born to an affluent couple in Connecticut.
No one can deny that. The relevant question, however, is: How does allowing politicians to take more money in taxes from successful people, to squander in ways that will improve their own reelection prospects, make anything more "fair" for others?

RUSH LIMBAUGH IS DIFFERNET

Nick Gillespie |

You've probably heard that recidivist jackass Rush Limbaugh called a Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke "a slut" and "a prostitute" after she testified before Congress about wanting the Jesuits who run her college to pay for her birth control pills. Just to make sure that nobody but nobody ever gets sexually aroused again, the broadcaster who once "had talent on loan from God" spun out a scenario in which he would also watch a video of Fluke having sex. Limbaugh subsequently fake-apologized for his untoward remarks. Why a fake apology? Because being a former Oxycontin addict and super-conservative marrying man means never having to say you're sorry. Not as long as a Democrat's in the White House at least.

WASHINGTON,DC - NOVEMBER 23: David Brock, a former conservative, is the founder of the liberal media watchdog group Media Matters for America. Media... View Enlarged Image

Censorship: The pressure on Rush Limbaugh's advertisers is from a group that meets regularly with the White House and runs an Obama Super-PAC funded by unions.
The group Media Matters acts like a lobbyist but is not registered as one. It operates in the shadows, outside congressional oversight and unaccountable to voters.
This makes its collusion with the White House in the heat of a presidential race a serious matter worthy of investigation.
Targeting Limbaugh, a staunch Republican, is no coincidence. If the Obama campaign can silence him, it can knock out the party's most powerful voice for firing up its base and getting out the vote. Limbaugh has a huge Tea Party following.
The White House's attack dog, Media Matters, has been intimidating private businesses into dropping their ads on Limbaugh's popular radio show. It boasts of scaring off 45 of his advertisers since launching its drive last week, when Limbaugh apologized for using sexist terms to criticize a college coed called by Democrats to testify in support of ObamaCare's coverage of birth control.
Media Matters keeps a death watch on its website. It lists those Limbaugh advertisers who have canceled, then identifies sponsors still airing ads — making it clear to Occupy Wall Street and Acorn thugs which business they still need to threaten.

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Income Inequality Myths Of Left Exposed Once Again

Economy: The president's strategy this election year is to divide the supposedly battered 99% from the evil, super-rich 1% doing the battering. But reports of America's income inequality are greatly exaggerated.
That financial "inequality" gets treated as a serious issue is proof of an epidemic of economic illiteracy, since the rich do the job-generating in our economy. Now, Manhattan Institute senior fellow Diana Furchtgott-Roth has just added some essential new analysis exposing class-warfare fallacies.
Examining Labor Department data, "The Myth of Increasing Income Inequality," published this week, show "that inequality as measured by per-capita spending is no greater today than in it was in the 1980s."
Among the neglected or ignored factors she addresses are the role food stamps, Medicaid and housing allowances play in the statistics; the increase in both high-income two-earner households and low-income one-person households; and more small businesses shifting from corporate to individual tax schedules since the 1986 tax reform.

Obama Vs. Israel: Priority No. 1? Stop Israel

By CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER

It's Lucy and the football, Iran-style. After ostensibly tough talk about preventing Iran from going nuclear, the Obama administration acquiesced to yet another round of talks with the mullahs.
This, 14 months after the last group-of-six negotiations collapsed in Istanbul because of blatant Iranian stalling and unseriousness. Nonetheless, the new negotiations will be both without precondition and preceded by yet more talks to decide such trivialities as venue.
These negotiations don't just gain time for a nuclear program about whose military intent the IAEA is issuing alarming warnings. They make it extremely difficult for Israel to do anything about it (while it still can), lest Israel be universally condemned for having aborted a diplomatic solution.

By Dr. Milton R. Wolf

Illustration by Linas Garsys for The Washington Times

This wouldn’t be the first time the media missed the real story. In the wake of a split Super Tuesday, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum scored wins against each other, but it was former Speaker Newt Gingrich who single-handedly drove President Obama into panic mode.

The FBI, The CIA, Homeland Security, The Federal Reserve And Potential Employers Are All Monitoring You On Facebook And Twitter

The American Dream

Why is there such a sudden obsession with monitoring what average Americans are saying on Facebook and Twitter? To be honest, the vast majority of what is being said on Facebook and Twitter is simply not worth reading even if you could understand it. But for the FBI, the CIA, the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Reserve, Facebook and Twitter represent a treasure trove of intelligence information. Tens of millions of us have compiled incredibly detailed dossiers on ourselves and have put them out there for the entire world to see. Since the information is public, the various alphabet agencies of the federal government see no problem with scooping up all of that information and using it for their own purposes. Many potential employers have also discovered that Facebook and Twitter can tell them an awful lot about potential employees. Social media creates a permanent record that reflects who you are and what you believe, and many Americans are finding out that all of this information can come back and haunt them in a big way. In the world in which we now live, privacy is becoming a thing of the past, and we all need to be mindful of the things that we are exposing to the public.

Pentagon Launches Desperate Damage Control Over Shocking Panetta Testimony

The United States has ceded control of its affairs to international bureaucrats
Paul Joseph Watson

Alex Jones: “This represents absolute 100 per cent proof that the military industrial complex which runs the United States is under the control of foreign central banks who are imposing a military dictatorship.”
The Pentagon is engaging in damage control after shocking testimony yesterday by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta at a Senate Armed Services Committee congressional hearing during which it was confirmed that the U.S. government is now completely beholden to international power structures and that the legislative branch is a worthless relic.

Smith & Wesson Reports Surging Gun Purchases On Back of Fears Over Obama Re-Election

60 per cent hike in backlog orders as gun stores report record monthly sales
Paul Joseph Watson

Prolonged economic uncertainty is not proving too much of a challenge for firearms makers like Smith & Wesson, whose shares today soared 18 per cent after the company announced a 60 per cent surge in backlog orders, demand driven by a prevailing belief that Barack Obama will launch a crackdown on the second amendment if he wins a second term in the White House.

Smith & Wesson Reports Surging Gun Purchases On Back of Fears Over Obama Re Election

“Shares in Smith & Wesson Holding Corp (SWHC.O) shot up nearly 18 percent to their highest in more than two years on Friday, after the gun maker hiked its full-year sales forecast on a higher order backlog, reflecting strong demand for its guns and rifles,” reports Reuters.

The Rise of Imperialism in Virginia

by Murray N. Rothbard

[Conceived in Liberty (1975)]

The survival of the Virginia colony hung for years by a hairbreadth. One major reason for the survival of this distressed colony was the changes that the Virginia Company agreed to make in its social structure.
The other major factor in the survival of the colony was the discovery by John Rolfe, about 1612, that Virginia tobacco could be grown in such a way as to make it acceptable to European tastes. Previously, Virginia tobacco had been regarded as inferior to the product that had been introduced to the Old World by the Spanish colonies in America. By 1614 Rolfe was able to ship a cargo of tobacco to London and meet a successful market. Very rapidly, Virginia possessed a staple and an important economic base; tobacco could be readily exported to Europe and exchanged for other goods needed by the colonists.

Teaching Tomorrow's Economists

by Robert P. Murphy

I am happy to announce that the Teacher's Manual is now available for my introductory textbook, Lessons for the Young Economist. For those readers who are unfamiliar with it, let me explain that the student text was designed with junior-high students in mind, but it is applicable for younger, precocious students, and also even for adults who never got a solid grounding in free-market economic principles.

The total U.S. public debt will probably hit $15.5 trillion today.
On Tuesday, according to the Department of the Treasury, it was $15,499,023,629,682.44, to be precise.
That figure was $10.6 trillion the day Barack Obama took office.

US: Derrick Bell: The Jeremiah Wright Of Harvard – Investors.com

Presidential Vetting: Obama’s days at Harvard have been shrouded in secrecy. But a new video lifts a corner of the veil, revealing his creepy embrace of the “Jeremiah Wright of academia.”
It turns out his favorite law professor was the late Derrick Bell, a black radical who taught classes trashing the Constitution as racist.

In order to stymie new and proposed requirements that voters present photo identification at the polls, top Democrats cry rivers over those who would become disenfranchised for lack of ID cards. If they really cared about these people — of whom there may be millions — Democrats would join Republicans to assure that these individuals received ID cards for everyday use.

US: Iran and Obama – by Thomas Sowell

Those who buy time in the name of expediency seldom get peace in the bargain.
What are we to make of President Barack Obama’s latest pronouncements about Iran’s movement toward nuclear bombs? His tough talk might have had some influence on Iran a couple of years ago, when he was instead being kinder and gentler with the world’s leading terrorist-sponsoring nation. Now his tough talk may only influence this year’s election — which may be enough for Obama.

Alex Wong/Getty Images

U.S. Central Command Commander Gen. James Mattis

SUMMARY
The United States is not eager to launch an air campaign against the Syrian regime that would be similar to the NATO campaign in Libya even though numerous U.S. lawmakers have called for such a campaign. Not only did Libya not have the formidable air defense systems that Russia has provided to Syria, but Syria's rebels have not been able to control large areas of territory. These factors would complicate any air campaign against the al Assad regime, but Washington's reluctance to get involved militarily is based on the fear that it could slip into a much messier conflict than it did in Libya.

Spring Break in Mexico: Travel and Security Risks

Every year between January and March, U.S. college administrations remind their students to exercise caution while on spring break. These well-meaning guidelines often go unread by their intended recipients, as do travel warnings issued to citizens by the U.S. State Department. Many regular visitors to Mexican resort areas believe they are safe from transnational criminal organizations (TCO), more commonly called cartels. These travelers tend to think cartels want to avoid interfering with the profitable tourism industry, or that they only target Mexican citizens; this is not an accurate assessment.

NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA/AFP/Getty Images

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (L) and President Dmitri Medvedev in Moscow on Feb. 23

Russian Prime Minister and presidential candidate Vladimir Putin confirmed March 2 that he would appoint current President Dmitri Medvedev as premier once he resumed the presidency. Putin first announced the job swap plan in September 2011, saying they had discussed the plan for years. However, since then, Medvedev and Putin have been quiet on the issue, and many within Russian media and political circles came to believe that Putin was not serious about the plan and was considering other candidates for prime minister.
The premiership's responsibilities and power have shifted over the years. Russia's prime minister oversees the organization of the teams that will address political, economic and security issues and is meant to balance the competing agendas of the Kremlin's political clans.

15 Potentially Massive Threats to the U.S. Economy Over the Next 12 Months. Economic Collapse Blog

We live in a world that is becoming increasingly unstable, and the potential for an event that could cause "sudden change" to the U.S. economy is greater than ever. There are dozens of potentially massive threats that could easily push the U.S. economy over the edge during the next 12 months. A war in the Middle East, a financial collapse in Europe, a major derivatives crisis or a horrific natural disaster could all change our economic situation very rapidly. Most of the time I write about the long-term economic trends that are slowly but surely ripping the U.S. economy to pieces, but the truth is that just a single really bad "black swan event" over the next 12 months could accelerate our economic problems dramatically. If oil was cut off from the Middle East or a really bad natural disaster suddenly destroyed a major U.S. city, the U.S. economy would be thrown into a state of chaos. Considering how bad the U.S. economy is currently performing, it would be easy to see how a major "shock to the system" could push us into the "next Great Depression" very easily. Let us hope that none of these things actually happen over the next 12 months, but let us also understand that we live in a world that has become extremely chaotic and extremely unstable.

How to Ruin Your Economy and Influence People. by Bill Bonner

We can learn a lot from the Argentines. When it comes to messing up an economy, they’re Numero Uno. They’re Olympians of financial legerdemain and masters of the old false shuffle.

In 2001, the country was deeply in debt. The government was out of money. And the currency was losing value fast. What did the Argentines do?

First, they broke their promise to investors and savers, cutting the peso loose from the dollar. Then, they seized control of banks and bank accounts. People had been saving money in US dollar accounts in order to avoid problems with the peso. But the Argentine feds forcibly converted their accounts to pesos, just as the peso was losing 2/3rds of its value.

The next thing was to take the reserves in the central bank and use them to pay current expenses – which caused the head of the bank to resign in protest.

Will Ron Paul Invite Mitt Romney To Be His Vice President?. by Allan Stevo

Conservative Americans DO NOT WANT Mitt Romney. That’s pretty darn obvious. He spends a fortune trying to convince voters, gets a generous amount of media time to express his message, and still can’t seem to inspire the Republican base, even when he’s running against the likes of crooked party hacks Santorum and Gingrich, or against that other guy – the Congressman from Texas who seldom gets mentioned in the media. Against opponents like that, the out-of-touch punditry have long expected that Super Tuesday 2012 would be the coronation of Mitt Romney.

How Ron Paul Carried My County … and the man whose selfless work made it possible. by Christopher Manion

Four years ago and more, I met a neighbor at our farm gate. He was an LRC regular and wanted to say hello – and to post a big 3’x6’ "Ron Paul Revolution" sign on our farm fence.

As he drove up, I smiled at his license plate – "Wrench 1." He got out the sign, unrolled it, and we talked while we put it up.

"How long have you been interested in politics," I asked.

"About two months."

"What got you hooked?"

"I was driving to work one morning and saw a sign at the side of the highway, ‘Google Ron Paul.’ I went home that night and looked him up."

"I haven’t sat down since."

That’s how I met Richard Conrow, a living tribute to the passion for liberty that God has planted in every man, woman, and child ever born. While Rockefeller Romney has placed paid campaign staff in virtually every county in the country – and there are some 3,300 of them – for the past five years, Ron Paul’s simple appeal to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" has inspired countless lovers of liberty to devote millions of unpaid hours to spread the word that freedom isn’t dead, and it need not die.

Richard came back last spring and we went to work again at the farm gate. I asked him if he’d be so kind as to write down his story – why a guy who had seldom been interested in politics had suddenly become an engine of inspiration out here in the Shenandoah Valley. With his permission, I am quoting here his reply.