tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-49669212275299835712024-02-20T17:22:38.564-08:00LATICONOMICSWe believe in free markets and free people." We stands for free trade and sound money; against confiscatory taxation and the oppression of collectivists; and for individual autonomy against dictators, bullies and even the tempers of momentary majorities.J R Valenzuelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04746547808350856721noreply@blogger.comBlogger124125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4966921227529983571.post-57192590999669857872014-09-03T10:03:00.002-07:002014-09-03T10:03:51.086-07:00<h2 class="date-header">
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<a href="http://libertarianpastures.blogspot.com/2014/09/comparison-gulf-war-coalition-iraq-war.html">Comparison: The Gulf War Coalition, Iraq War Coalition…And Obama’s Coalition</a>
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Compare these realities for a sense of where we stand...</h2>
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<strong>GULF WAR COALITION 1991</strong> – Afghanistan,
Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Britain, Canada,
Czechoslovakia, Egypt, France, Germany, Honduras, Hungary ,Italy, Kuwait
, New Zealand, Niger, Oman, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia ,South
Korea, Syria, United Arab Emirates, United States.<br />
<strong>IRAQ WAR COALITION 2003</strong> – Albania, Australia,
Bahrain, Britain, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech, Denmark, Egypt, Eritrea,
Estonia, Ethiopia, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Italy, Kuwait, Japan,
Jordan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Netherlands, Oman, Poland,
Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia,
South Korea, Spain, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United States.<br />
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<strong>OBAMA’S COALTION</strong> – John Kerry is working on it. Meanwhile, BHO has had a lot to say, in a most unusual way:<br />
“We don’t have a strategy.”<br />
“No boots on the ground.”<br />
“We will not intervene militarily.”<br />
“We have 1000 advisors in Iraq.”<br />
“Limited airstrikes in Iraq will commence.”<br />
“We are looking at striking Syria.”<br />
“We will increase sanctions.”<br />
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<a href="http://libertarianpastures.blogspot.com/2014/09/obama-subtly-credits-his-predecessor.html">Obama Subtly Credits His Predecessor For Keeping America Safe</a>
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"Justice will be done."</h2>
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As the 13<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the deadliest
attack on American soil approaches, the U.S. continues to face threats
from Islamic radicals on multiple fronts. A chief concern is the
expanding capabilities of extremists representing the Islamic State
terrorist organization.<br />
Also known as ISIS, the group has claimed credit for the brutal
murders of two American journalists in recent weeks. Furthermore, there
is a growing threat of affiliated terrorists staging an attack in the
U.S.<br />
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While Barack Obama <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-bush-cheney-security-apparatus-makes-us-pretty-safe_804056.html">declared </a>that his administration has yet to develop a policy through which to thwart this danger, he recently <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-isis-doesn-t-immediately-threaten-homeland_804054.html">referred</a>
to his predecessor as an example of how strong leadership can keep
Americans safe. Speaking at a recent Rhode Island fundraiser, Obama did
not mention George W. Bush by name, though it is clear from his
statement which administration should be credited with the policies he
praised.<br />
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<a href="http://libertarianpastures.blogspot.com/2014/09/farage-intl-rules-will-prevent-uk-from.html">Farage: Int'l Rules Will Prevent UK From Keeping Militants Out</a>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Farage: Int'l Rules Will Prevent UK From Keeping Militants Out</span></h1>
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UK Independence Party (UKIP) Leader and member of the
European Parliament, Nigel Farage declared that international
regulations will prevent the UK from keeping ISIS militants out of the
country on Tuesday’s “Hannity” on the Fox News Channel. Farage
commented that Prime Minister David Cameron was “following my lead” by
trying to revoke the passports of potential ISIS militants, but added
that “he’s going to bang straight into the European Commission on Human
Rights, who will tell him we cannot render people stateless.”</h2>
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<a href="http://libertarianpastures.blogspot.com/2014/09/president-obama-we-must-organize-arab.html">President Obama: We Must Organize the Arab World </a>
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During a press conference in Estonia on Wednesday morning, President
Obama was asked about the purpose of the NATO alliance, ahead of a
conference with allies in Wales.
Obama described NATO as “unique in the annals of history” because of its
success but admitted that the group had to move quickly to address
evolving global threats.
<br />
“We have to recognize that threats evolve, and threats have evolved as a
consequence of what we’ve seen in Ukraine, but threats are also
evolving in the Middle East that have a direct effect on Europe,” he
said.<br />
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<a href="http://libertarianpastures.blogspot.com/2014/09/wapo-white-house-earns-4-pinocchios-for.html">WaPo: White House Earns 4 Pinocchios For ISIS 'JV' Rewrite</a>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">WaPo: White House Earns 4 Pinocchios For ISIS 'JV' Rewrite</span></h1>
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<h2>
Weird how things work out among the White House Press Corps and the
White House. After 8 months, 2 beheadings, and weeks of being a top
story, a reporter finally asked White House spokesman Josh Earnest
about President Obama's January description of ISIS as "JV." And on the
day this finally happened, Earnest just happened to be as prepared for
the question as a man can be, “I thought somebody might ask this
question today so I wanted to pull the transcript of the interview[.]"</h2>
<h2>
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<a href="http://libertarianpastures.blogspot.com/2014/09/taliban-allies-consider-joining-islamic.html">Taliban Allies Consider Joining Islamic State</a>
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<h2>
Fighters from Hezb-e-Islami in Afghanistan, allies of the Taliban, are considering joining the Islamic State (IS).</h2>
Their commander, known simply as Commander Mirwais, said Muslims
everywhere are "thirsty for an Islamic caliphate" and that his fighters
are watching to see if IS proves to be "a true Islamic caliphate."<br />
<a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-29009125">According to BBC News</a>,
Commander Mirwais referred to IS "by its Arabic acronym Daish." And he
made clear that he and his men already "have links with some Daish
members."<br />
Commander Mirwais added:<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://libertarianpastures.blogspot.com/2014/09/obama-isis-can-become-manageable-problem.html">Obama: ISIS Can Become 'A Manageable Problem'</a>
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<h2>
President Barack Obama said that ISIS can be shrunk to
“a manageable problem” if the international community works to “isolate”
it on Wednesday. </h2>
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<a href="http://libertarianpastures.blogspot.com/2014/09/isis-says-us-mexican-border-is-now-open.html">ISIS
Says, “The US-Mexican Border Is Now Open”, And Are Planning On Crossing
Into The United States Through The US-Mexican Border</a>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">ISIS Says, “The US-Mexican Border Is Now Open”,
And Are Planning On Crossing Into The United States Through The
US-Mexican Border</span></h1>
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by <a href="http://www.jewsnews.co.il/author/admin/" rel="author" title="Posts by Eliyokim Cohen">Eliyokim Cohen</a></div>
<h2>
An ISIS propaganda trading group recently posted these disturbing words on Twitter:</h2>
<br />
<a href="http://cdn.jewsnews.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/69.jpg"><img alt="6" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-396245" height="401" src="http://cdn.jewsnews.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/69.jpg" width="690" /></a><br />
the US-Mexican border is now open large numbers of people crossing<br />
The Texas law department found a message on Twitter from ISIS, saying<br />
Americans in for ruin (sic).<br />
ISIS wants to cross into the United States through the US-Mexican
border. The Texas Department of Public Safety has given this warning:<br />
A review of ISIS social media messaging during the week ending August 26
shows that militants are expressing an increased interest in the notion
that they could clandestinely infiltrate the southwest border of US,
for terror attack … Social media account holders believed to be ISIS
militants and propagandists have called for unspecified border
operations, or they have sought to raise awareness that illegal entry
through Mexico is a viable option … The identities of persons operating
these accounts cannot be independently verified; however the accounts
were selected for monitoring based on several indications that they have
been used by actual ISIS militants for propaganda purposes and
collectively reach tens of thousands of followers… One account was
verified as belonging to an individual located in Mosul, Iraq.<br />
<br />
<br />
Judicial Watch has made this statement:<br />
Agents across a number of Homeland Security, Justice and Defense
agencies have all been placed on alert and instructed to aggressively
work all possible leads and sources concerning this imminent terrorist
threat.<br />
According to the Texas law department, some 32 Facebook and Twitter
posts by jihadists have been found expressing interest in the US-Mexican
border, with even “calls for border infiltration.” ISIS knows that
there are a large amount of people crossing into American through
Mexico, and plans on using this to their advantage. As the Texas law
department reports:
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<a href="http://libertarianpastures.blogspot.com/2014/09/inclusive-capitalism.html">Inclusive Capitalism?</a>
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<h2 class="active">
The current system of interventionism and cronyism will not cure our economic woes</h2>
<h5>
by <a href="http://www.fee.org/authors/detail/jay-bowen">JAY BOWEN</a></h5>
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<blockquote>
<em>A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A
society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of
both.</em> - Milton Friedman<br />
</blockquote>
As the economic recovery from the financial crisis continues to
disappoint on a variety of fronts—particularly job creation and real
income growth—calls for a more inclusive capitalism grown louder. A
chorus of critics is particularly obsessed with what they perceive as an
increasing inequality—of both income and opportunity—that the current
system has wrought.<br />
Income inequality has indeed increased over the last five years,
primarily because of the sharp rebound in stocks (the market is up 200
percent since the depths of the downturn). But most measures of income
inequality do not take into account taxes, social welfare transfer
payments, or non-cash benefits such as health insurance and pension
benefits. When these factors are considered inequality actually
decreased between 2000 and 2010, according to a Brookings Institution
analysis.<br />
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<a href="http://libertarianpastures.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-end-of-politicspart-one.html">The End of Politics—Part One</a>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">The End of Politics—Part One</span></h1>
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Our current social operating system might soon be obsolete</h2>
<h5>
by <a href="http://www.fee.org/authors/detail/max-borders">MAX BORDERS</a></h5>
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Someday we’ll look back on politics and shake our heads. It will have
been a necessary phase—but not one we’ll want to relive. Necessary,
because we have been undergoing a series of phases, none of which we
could have bypassed.<br />
We have already entered the next phase. Call it the Age of Connection.
Once we realize all the benefits of this next phase, we’ll see how
wasteful and acrimonious the prior phase had been.<br />
<h4>
Trench warfare</h4>
Most days it doesn’t seem like we are entering a transpartisan,
post-political era. Most people are so locked into the political
paradigm that arguments about who is to fund whose birth control—or
whether the schools should get another bond—seem bigger than life. Each
side cedes mere inches back and forth between election cycles in a kind
of trench warfare. Such is the nature of politics. And in politics the
only thing we share in common is a desire to take power, as there is one
ring to bind them.<br />
The tribe who has the ring rules the land, at least for a while. The
other side snatches it back sooner or later and the whole thing starts
all over again. Yet each side labors under the idea that if they can
just get and keep the ring, they will use it to good ends. <em>We’ll give it to the right people, </em>they imagine. <em>The right people are incorruptible. </em>We’re still waiting on the right people.<br />
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<a href="http://libertarianpastures.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-end-of-politicspart-two.html">The End of Politics—Part Two</a>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">The End of Politics—Part Two</span></h1>
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As humanity decentralizes, our moral norms will change, too</h2>
<h5>
by <a href="http://www.fee.org/authors/detail/max-borders">MAX BORDERS</a></h5>
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<i>This is the second in a two-part series. You can find <a href="http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/the-end-of-politicspart-one">part one here</a>.</i><br />
In the early 1990s, the nervous system of a new global order began to
emerge. Twenty years on, a generation of children raised online has
reached adulthood. What does this mean for the future of human social
organization?<br />
Three important things, among others, perhaps. Digital natives are:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>
Used to the concept of “exit.” If you don’t like some product,
service, operating system, or social media group, you can switch.</li>
<li>
Comfortable with forming and maintaining relationships online. These relationships can be intimate, casual, or impersonal.</li>
<li>
Cynical about politics as a process and means of making positive
change. Give them a relatively low-cost alternative and they’ll be fine
to adopt it—like downloading an app.</li>
</ul>
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<span>Tuesday, September 2, 2014</span></h2>
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<a href="http://libertarianpastures.blogspot.com/2014/09/30-stats-to-show-to-anyone-that-does.html">30 stats to show to anyone that does not believe the middle class is being destroyed</a>
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<img alt="" src="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/wp-content/themes/atahualpa/images/icons/user.gif" /> By Michael Snyder,<span class="st_sharethis_buttons"><span class="stButton" style="color: black; cursor: pointer; display: inline-block; text-decoration: none;"><span class="stMainServices st-sharethis-counter" style="background-image: url("http://w.sharethis.com/images/sharethis_counter.png");"></span></span></span></div>
<a href="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/30-stats-to-show-to-anyone-that-does-not-believe-the-middle-class-is-being-destroyed/abandoned-house-photo-by-flickr-user-baldeaglebluff" rel="attachment wp-att-7701"><img alt="Abandoned House - Photo by Flickr User baldeaglebluff" class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-7701" height="300" src="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Abandoned-House-Photo-by-Flickr-User-baldeaglebluff-300x300.jpg" width="300" /></a><br />
The
30 statistics that you are about to read prove beyond a shadow of a
doubt that the middle class in America is being systematically
destroyed. Once upon a time, the United States had the largest and most
prosperous middle class in the history of the world, but now that is
changing at a staggering pace. Yes, the stock market has soared to
unprecedented heights this year and there are a few isolated areas of
the country that are doing rather well for the moment. But overall, the
long-term trends that are eviscerating the middle class just continue
to accelerate. Over the past decade or so, the percentage of Americans
that are working <a href="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Employment-Population-Ratio-2014.png" target="_blank" title="has gone way down">has gone way down</a>,
the quality of our jobs has plummeted dramatically and the wealth of
the typical American household has fallen precipitously. Meanwhile, we
have watched median household income decline <a href="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/median-household-income-has-fallen-for-five-years-in-a-row" title="for five years in a row">for five years in a row</a>,
we have watched the rate of homeownership in this country decline for
eight years in a row and dependence on the government is at an all-time
high. Being a part of the middle class in the United States at this
point can be compared to playing a game of musical chairs. We can all
see chairs being removed from the game, and we are all desperate to
continue to have a chair every time the music stops playing. The next
time the music stops, will it be your chair that gets removed?<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://libertarianpastures.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-road-to-world-war-3-russia-and.html">The Road To World War 3: Russia And Ukraine Are Now Engaged In A Shooting War</a>
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<img alt="" src="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/wp-content/themes/atahualpa/images/icons/user.gif" /> By Michael Snyder, <span class="st_sharethis_buttons"><span class="stButton" style="color: black; cursor: pointer; display: inline-block; text-decoration: none;"><span class="stMainServices st-sharethis-counter" style="background-image: url("http://w.sharethis.com/images/sharethis_counter.png");"></span></span></span></div>
<a href="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/the-road-to-world-war-3-russia-and-ukraine-are-now-engaged-in-a-shooting-war/russian-tanks-photo-by-yana-amelina" rel="attachment wp-att-7726"><img alt="Russian Tanks - Photo by Yana Amelina" class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-7726" height="300" src="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Russian-Tanks-Photo-by-Yana-Amelina-300x300.jpg" width="300" /></a><br />
Russian
soldiers and Ukrainian soldiers are now shooting at each other in
eastern Ukraine. Could this conflict ultimately lead us down the road
to World War 3? This week, a very robust force of "tanks, artillery and
infantry" has opened up a "third front" in the Ukrainian civil war in a
part of southeastern Ukraine that had not seen much fighting yet.
Exhausted Ukrainian forces are suddenly being pushed back rapidly and
many outsiders are wondering how the nearly defeated rebels were able to
muster such impressive military strength all of a sudden. But it
really isn't much of a mystery. The tanks, artillery and infantry came
from inside Russia. In recent days, Ukrainian units have captured ten
Russian paratroopers and there have even been funerals for Russian
paratroopers that have been killed in action back home in Russia. Even
though it has become exceedingly obvious that Russia is now conducting a
stealth invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin is still choosing to deny
it. But if he did publicly admit it, that would be even more
dangerous. Barack Obama would be forced into a position of either
having to do something about the Russian invasion or look weak in the
eyes of the public. And as the Russians have already shown, they are
more than willing to match any move that the Obama administration makes.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://libertarianpastures.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-seven-year-cycle-of-economic.html">The Seven Year Cycle Of Economic Crashes That Everyone Is Talking About</a>
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<img alt="" src="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/wp-content/themes/atahualpa/images/icons/user.gif" /> By Michael Snyder,<span class="st_sharethis_buttons"><span class="stButton" style="color: black; cursor: pointer; display: inline-block; text-decoration: none;"><span class="stMainServices st-sharethis-counter" style="background-image: url("http://w.sharethis.com/images/sharethis_counter.png");"></span></span></span></div>
<a href="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/the-seven-year-cycle-of-economic-crashes-that-everyone-is-talking-about/blood-red-moon" rel="attachment wp-att-7735"><img alt="Blood Red Moon" class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-7735" height="300" src="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Blood-Red-Moon-300x300.jpg" width="300" /></a>Large
numbers of people believe that an economic crash is coming next year
based on a seven year cycle of economic crashes that goes all the way
back to the Great Depression. What I am about to share with you is very
controversial. Some of you will love it, and some of you will think
that it is utter rubbish. I will just present this information and let
you decide for yourself what you want to think about it. In my previous
article entitled "<a href="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/if-economic-cycle-theorists-are-correct-2015-to-2020-will-be-pure-hell-for-the-united-states" title="If Economic Cycle Theorists Are Correct, 2015 To 2020 Will Be Pure Hell For The United States">If Economic Cycle Theorists Are Correct, 2015 To 2020 Will Be Pure Hell For The United States</a>",
I discussed many of the economic cycle theories that all seem to agree
that we are on the verge of a major economic downturn in this country.
But there is an economic cycle that I did not mention in that article
that a lot of people are talking about right now. And if this cycle
holds up once again in 2015, it will be really bad news for the U.S.
economy.<br />
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<a href="http://libertarianpastures.blogspot.com/2014/09/what-michelle-and-barack-obama-knew.html">What Michelle and Barack Obama knew that would destroy our Republic </a>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">What Michelle and Barack Obama knew that would destroy our Republic </span></h1>
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<span class="byline">By <span class="author vcard"><a class="url fn n" href="http://theconservativecitizen.com/author/jimmullen1/" rel="author" title="View all posts by jimmullen1">jimmullen1</a></span></span> </div>
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<strong><em>“Barack knows that we are going to have to make
sacrifices; we are going to have to change our conversation; we’re going
to have to change our traditions, our history; we’re going to have to
move into a different place as a nation.” ~ Michelle Obama – May 14,
2008</em></strong><br />
It is unlikely the world will ever see another year like <strong>1787</strong>
when the United States Constitution was fashioned and signed. It was a
one-time event in world history when brilliant and brave men came
forward to form a unique government. Our Founders created a small,
centralized government with enumerated, limited powers. This document
commanded that states, and the people retain extraordinary power over
the federal government.<br />
The ink had barely dried on the Constitution before power-hungry
politicians, and greedy men began chipping away at liberty. Creeping
tyranny began before the final ratification. That tyranny creep has
amplified today to a crushing onslaught of federal power against the
states and people.<br />
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<a href="http://libertarianpastures.blogspot.com/2014/09/hong-kongs-twist-on-welfare-more-you.html">Hong Kong’s Twist on Welfare: The More You Work, the More Welfare You Get</a>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Hong Kong’s Twist on Welfare: The More You Work, the More Welfare You Get</span></h2>
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<span class="byline"><a href="http://time.com/author/michael-schuman/" itemprop="author">Michael Schuman</a></span>
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<span class="caption">An elderly woman pushes a cart filled with cardboard for recycling in the North Point area of Hong Kong, China, on Oct. 18, 2013</span>
<span class="credit">Brent Lewin / Bloomberg / Getty Images</span>
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<h2 class="article-excerpt" itemprop="alternativeHeadline">
Other policymakers should closely watch a program Hong Kong has come up with to aid its working poor</h2>
<a href="http://topics.time.com/hong-kong/" target="_blank">Hong Kong</a>
is a city of extremes. One of the world’s richest, its streets are
lined with Louis Vuitton and Prada shops, the roads with Jaguars and
BMWs, and its heights dotted with luxurious homes boasting spectacular
views of its famed harbor. But <a href="http://topics.time.com/china/" target="_blank">China</a>‘s
special administrative zone is also famous for one of the ugliest
income gaps in the world. Those less fortunate cram themselves into
closet-sized apartments and can barely afford put food on the table in
the high-cost city. The government estimates that more than 1.3 million
Hong Kongers, or nearly 20% of the population, <a href="http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1319984/hong-kong-draws-poverty-line-13-million-living-below-it?page=all" target="_blank">live below the poverty line</a>.<br />
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<a href="http://libertarianpastures.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-man-behind-hong-kong-miracle.html">The Man Behind the Hong Kong Miracle</a>
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<h3>
<a href="http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/type/ideas-and-consequences">IDEAS AND CONSEQUENCES</a></h3>
<h1 class="active">
The Man Behind the Hong Kong Miracle</h1>
<h2 class="active">
Some of us just write about libertarian ideas. This guy actually made them public policy for millions.</h2>
<h5>
by <a href="http://www.fee.org/authors/detail/lawrence-w-reed">LAWRENCE W. REED</a></h5>
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Three cheers for Hong Kong, that tiny chunk of Southeast Asian rock. For the twentieth consecutive year, the <a href="http://www.heritage.org/index/about">Index of Economic Freedom</a>—compiled by <em>The Wall Street Journal</em> and the Heritage Foundation—ranks Hong Kong (HK) as the freest economy in the world.<br />
Though part of mainland China since the British ceded it in 1997, HK is
governed locally on a daily basis. So far, the Chinese have remained
reasonably faithful to their promise to leave the HK economy alone. What
makes it so free is music to the ears of everyone who loves liberty:
Relatively little corruption. An efficient and independent judiciary.
Respect for the rule of law and property rights. An uncomplicated tax
system with low rates on both individuals and business and an overall
tax burden that’s a mere 14 percent of GDP (half the U.S. rate). No
taxes on capital gains or interest income or even on earnings from
outside of HK. No sales tax or VAT either. A very light regulatory
touch. No government budget deficit and almost nonexistent public debt.
Oh, and don’t forget its average tariff rate of near zero. That’s right—<em>zero</em>!<br />
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<a href="http://libertarianpastures.blogspot.com/2014/09/are-you-kidding-me-michele-bachmann.html">‘Are You Kidding Me?’: Michele Bachmann Shares What FBI Allegedly Told Her About Islamic State Terrorists Returning to U.S.</a>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">‘Are You Kidding Me?’: Michele Bachmann Shares What FBI Allegedly Told Her About Islamic State Terrorists Returning to U.S.</span></h1>
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Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R) was stunned when she
questioned the FBI about what would happen to American citizens who
have gone overseas to fight with the Islamic State, and then try to
return to the United States.<br />
“Two from my state were the first Americans who were fighting for ISIS,” she began on <i>The Glenn Beck Program</i>
Tuesday. “I had gone earlier this year and asked the FBI, ‘Are there
any Minnesotans that are over fighting with ISIS?’ It was classified
information at the time, I couldn’t reveal it. Now everyone knows.”<br />
“At that time, these two hadn’t been killed yet,” Bachmann continued.
“So what I asked is, ‘OK, once they’re done fighting with ISIS, what’s
going to happen if they try to return?’ And they said, ‘Well, they’ll
come into the country.’”<br />
“Are you kidding me?” Bachmann remarked. “We are not going to prevent them from coming into the United States?’”<br />
<div class="wp-caption aligncenter" id="attachment_859857" style="width: 620px;">
<a href="http://www.theblaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Michele-Bachmann.png" rel="attachment"><img alt="Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R) appears on The Glenn Beck Program September 2, 2014. (Photo: TheBlaze TV)" class="size-large wp-image-859857" height="331" itemid="http://www.theblaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Michele-Bachmann-620x331.png" itemprop="associatedMedia" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject" src="http://www.theblaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Michele-Bachmann-620x331.png" width="620" /></a><br />
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Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R) appears on The Glenn Beck Program September 2, 2014. (Photo: TheBlaze TV)</div>
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Bachmann said she is introducing legislation “so that anyone with a
U.S. passport who’s gone to fight with ISIS or any of these jihadist
groups, they are prevented from coming into the United States.”<br />
“In my opinion, they should lose their American citizenship,” she
added. “Because at that point, you have turned against the United
States. ISIS has declared the United States as their enemy. Once you
join an enemy army … you should, by definition, lose your American
citizenship, therefore your passport. You should have no ability to get
back into the United States.”<br />
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<a href="http://libertarianpastures.blogspot.com/2014/09/missing-libyan-jetliners-raise-fears-of.html">Missing Libyan Jetliners Raise Fears of Suicide Airliner Attacks on 9/11</a>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Missing Libyan Jetliners Raise Fears of Suicide Airliner Attacks on 9/11</span></h2>
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<a href="http://freebeacon.com/national-security/missing-libyan-jetliners-raise-fears-of-suicide-airliner-attacks-on-911/"><img alt="In this image made from video by The Associated Press, smoke rises from the direction of Tripoli airport in Tripoli, Libya, Sunday, July 13, 2014. Rival militias battled Sunday for the control of the international airport in Libya's capital" class="attachment-article" height="340" src="http://s1.freebeacon.com/up/2014/09/Tripoli-airport-smoke-rises.jpg" width="485" /></a><div class="wp-caption-text">
In
this image made from video by The Associated Press, smoke rises from
the direction of Tripoli airport in Tripoli, Libya, Sunday, July 13,
2014. Rival militias battled Sunday for the control of the international
airport in Libya's capital / AP</div>
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<span class="sep">BY: </span> <span class="author vcard"><a class="url fn n" href="http://freebeacon.com/author/bill-gertz/" rel="author" title="View all posts by Bill Gertz">Bill Gertz</a></span>
<br /><br />
Islamist militias in Libya took control of nearly a dozen
commercial jetliners last month, and western intelligence agencies
recently issued a warning that the jets could be used in terrorist
attacks across North Africa.<br />
Intelligence reports of the stolen jetliners were distributed within
the U.S. government over the past two weeks and included a warning that
one or more of the aircraft could be used in an attack later this month
on the date marking the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks against New York and Washington, said U.S. officials familiar
with the reports.<br />
“There are a number of commercial airliners in Libya that are
missing,” said one official. “We found out on September 11 what can
happen with hijacked planes.”<br />
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<a href="http://libertarianpastures.blogspot.com/2014/09/source-obama-given-detailed.html">Source: Obama given detailed intelligence for a year about rise of ISIS</a>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Source: Obama given detailed intelligence for a year about rise of ISIS</span></h1>
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<a href="http://www.foxnews.com/archive/catherine-herridge"><img alt=" Catherine Herridge" src="http://a57.foxnews.com/global.fncstatic.com/static/managed/img/Politics/48/48/128x128-catherine-herridge.jpg?ve=1&tl=1" /></a>
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<br />
President Obama was given detailed and specific intelligence
about the rise of the Islamic State as part of his daily briefing for
at least a year before the group seized large swaths of territory over
the summer, a former Pentagon official told Fox News.<br />
The official -- who asked not to be identified because the
President's Daily Brief is considered the most authoritative, classified
intelligence community product analyzing sensitive international events
for the president -- said the data was strong and "granular" in
detail.<br />
The source said a policymaker "could not come away with any other impression: This is getting bad."<br />
Obama, unlike his predecessors who traditionally had the document
briefed to them, is known to personally read the daily brief. The former
Pentagon official, who has knowledge of the process, said Obama
generally was not known to come back to the intelligence community with
further requests for information based on the daily report.<br />
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<a href="http://libertarianpastures.blogspot.com/2014/09/white-house-fuzzy-on-timing-of-obamas.html">White House Fuzzy on Timing of Obama's Executive Amnesty</a>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">White House Fuzzy on Timing of Obama's Executive Amnesty</span></h1>
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<h2>
President Obama insists that he still plans to make an executive
decision on immigration reform, but his timeline for action grows
increasingly convoluted.</h2>
Obama and his team spent most of the summer previewing his executive
action on immigration reform, vowing to fix what they describe as a
“broken immigration system” without Congress as soon as possible.
<br />
"I expect their recommendations before the end of summer, and I intend
to adopt those recommendations without further delay," Obama explained
in June, referring to a requested proposal from Department of Homeland
Security Secretary Jeh Johnson.
<br />
But since then, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest won't clarify the timing of Obama’s executive action.<br />
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<a href="http://libertarianpastures.blogspot.com/2014/09/you-are-not-up-to-this-job-parents-of.html">'You Are Not Up to This Job': Parents of SEAL Team Six Soldier Killed in Action Call for President Obama's Resignation</a>
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<i>This article originally appeared in <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2740184/You-not-job-Parents-SEAL-Team-Six-soldier-killed-action-call-President-Obama-s-resignation.html">Mail Online</a>. Karen Vaughn has been a contributor to <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/08/21/Obamas-JV-Performance-Has-Damaged-Global-Security-and-Cost-Lives">Breitbart News.</a></i></h2>
One couple knows all too well the pain suffered by the parents of
James Foley, the American photojournalist executed on camera last month
by the Islamic State.<br />
Billy and Karen Vaughn also lost their son Aaron Carson Vaughn in
2011, when the SEAL Team Six soldier's Chinook helicopter was shot down
over Afghanistan.<br />
Now the couple are calling on President Barack Obama to step down,
citing his reaction to the Foley video and 'lack of leadership' in
confronting ISIS.<br />
On Monday, the Vaughns wrote a letter, calling out Mr Obama's
decision to go golfing after holding an important press conference on
the Foley video.<br />
'As Commander-in-Chief, your actions - or lack thereof - Mr President, cost lives.<br />
<i>Read the rest of the article <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2740184/You-not-job-Parents-SEAL-Team-Six-soldier-killed-action-call-President-Obama-s-resignation.html">here</a></i>
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<a href="http://libertarianpastures.blogspot.com/2014/09/exclusive-sarah-palin-vladimir-putin.html">EXCLUSIVE: Sarah Palin: Vladimir Putin a 'Silly Little Man'</a>
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<h2>
Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin fired back against Russian
President Vladimir Putin on Thursday calling him a "silly little man"
after he said that he was not interested in invading Alaska.
</h2>
Putin downplayed the value of Alaska during a question-and-answer
session in Moscow today, pointing out that it was a cold northern
territory.
<br />
“What would you need Alaska for?” he said, advising Russians "not be overenthusiastic” about the state.<br />
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<a href="http://libertarianpastures.blogspot.com/2014/09/paul-krugman-funny-and-scary.html">Paul Krugman, "Funny and Scary?" </a>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Paul Krugman, "Funny and Scary?" </span></h1>
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Professor Paul Krugman, in his <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/02/opinion/dubya-s-double-dip.html%20,%20wherein%20he%20wrote:"><em>New York Times</em> blog</a>, says my recent column about him is, "funny and scary." Last week’s column <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphbenko/2014/07/14/is-paul-krugman-leaving-princeton-in-quiet-disgrace/">here</a> inferred that Prof. Krugman is leaving Princeton in quiet disgrace. It drew pretty wide attention.
<br />
It also drew over 150 comments. Many commentators merrily berated me.
(Comes with the territory.) The column, quite flatteringly, even drew a
riposte from Prof. Krugman himself, in his <em>Times</em> blog, entitled <em><a href="http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/07/16/fantasies-of-personal-destruction/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=1">Fantasies of Personal Destruction</a></em>:
<br />
<blockquote>
A correspondent directs me to a <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphbenko/2014/07/14/is-paul-krugman-leaving-princeton-in-quiet-disgrace/">piece in Forbes</a> about yours truly that is both funny and scary.
Yep, scurrying away with my tail between my legs, I am, disgraced for policy views shared only by crazy people like <a href="http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/spn/2010/spn1003.pdf">the IMF’s chief economist</a> (pdf).
<br />
One thing I’ve noticed, though, is how many people on the right are
drawn to power fantasies in which liberals aren’t just proved wrong and
driven from office, but personally destroyed. Does anyone else remember
this bit from the <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/oreilly-fracture-228136">O’Reilly scandal</a>?
<br />
“Look at Al Franken, one day he’s going to get a knock on his door and
life as he’s known it will change forever,” O’Reilly said. “That day
will happen, trust me. . . . Ailes knows very powerful people and this
goes all the way to the top.”
<br />
And people wonder why I don’t treat all of this as a gentlemanly conversation.
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<a href="http://libertarianpastures.blogspot.com/2014/09/our-freedoms-are-slowly-slipping-away.html">Our Freedoms Are Slowly Slipping Away</a>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Our Freedoms Are Slowly Slipping Away</span></h1>
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As Americans celebrated Labor Day and the freedom to
provide for their families, let’s hope they didn't spoil the holiday
yesterday by pausing to consider whether government today is making
their lives easier or more difficult.<br />
To wit, the 2014 Index of Economic Freedom, published by the Wall
Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation, which ranks countries based
on four main factors – rule of law, limited government, regulatory
efficiency, open markets – has the US is headed in the wrong direction.
“The U.S. is the only country,” the survey states, “to have recorded a
loss of economic freedom each of the past seven years.”<br />
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<a href="http://libertarianpastures.blogspot.com/2014/09/signs-of-feds-era-of-secrecy-coming-to.html">Signs Of The Fed's Era Of Secrecy Coming To An End </a>
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<a href="http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/ralphbenko/"><span>Ralph Benko</span></a><span></span>
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The Federal Reserve increasingly is attracting scrutiny across the
board. Now add to that a roller coaster of a thriller, using a miracle
of a rare device, shining a light into the operations of the Fed — that
contemporary <a href="http://www.churchill-society-london.org.uk/RusnEnig.html">riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigm</a>a: Matthew Quirk’s latest novel, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Directive-Novel-Matthew-Quirk/dp/0316198641/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406569507&sr=1-1&keywords=the+directive+matthew+quirk"><em>The Directive</em></a>.
<br />
“If I’ve made myself too clear, you must have misunderstood me,” Fed
Chairman Alan Greenspan once famously said. The era of a mystagogue Fed
may be ending. Recently, the House Government Oversight Committee <a href="http://oversight.house.gov/release/oversight-committee-approves-bipartisan-government-accountability-legislation/">passed</a>, and referred to the full House, the<a href="http://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/H.R.-24-Issa-ANS.pdf">Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2014</a>.
This legislation is part of the legacy of the great former
Representative Ron Paul. It popularly is known as “Audit the Fed.” How
ironic that a mystery novel proves a device to dispel some of the Fed’s
obscurantist mystery.<br />
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<a href="http://libertarianpastures.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-prisoner-swap-deal.html">The Prisoner Swap Deal</a>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">The Prisoner Swap Deal</span></h1>
<a href="http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/"><span>Thomas Sowell</span></a><span class="divider"> </span><span></span>
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People are arguing about what the United States got
out of the deal that swapped five top level terrorist leaders for one
American soldier who was, at best, absent from his post in a war zone.
Soldiers who served in the same unit with him call him a deserter. The
key to this deal, however, is less likely to be what the United States
got out of the deal than it is about what Barack Obama got out of the
deal. If nothing else, it instantly got the veterans' hospitals scandals
off the front pages of newspapers and pushed these scandals aside on
television news programs.<br />
It was a clear winner for Barack Obama. And that may be all that matters to Barack Obama.<br />
People who are questioning the president's competence seem
not to want to believe that any President of the United States would
knowingly damage this country's interests.<br />
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<a href="http://libertarianpastures.blogspot.com/2014/09/irresponsible-choices.html">Irresponsible Choices</a>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Irresponsible Choices</span></h1>
<a href="http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/"><span>Thomas Sowell</span></a><span class="divider"> </span><span></span>
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The latest Gallup poll indicates that 14 percent of the
people "moderately disapprove" of Barack Obama's performance as
president and 39 percent "strongly disapprove."Since Obama won
two presidential elections, chances are that some of those who now
"strongly disapprove" of what he has done voted to put him in office. We
all make mistakes, but the real question is whether we learn from them.<br />
With
many people now acting as if it is time for "a woman" to become
president, apparently they have learned absolutely nothing from the
disastrous results of the irresponsible self-indulgence of choosing a
President of the United States on the basis of demographic
characteristics, instead of individual qualifications.<br />
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<a href="http://libertarianpastures.blogspot.com/2014/09/state-dept-spokeswoman-not-going-to-put.html">State Dept. Spokeswoman "Not Going to Put Any Labels" on ISIS Beheading of Second American Journalist</a>
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<a href="http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/">Katie Pavlich</a><span class="divider"> </span>
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Earlier today in their second direct message to America, the terror army ISIS beheaded American journalist Steven Sotloff.<br />
"I'm back Obama," an ISIS executioner says in the newly released video. <br />
Two
weeks ago in their first direct message to America, ISIS did the same
to American journalist James Foley. The video showing his execution was
titled "Message to America." <br />
Despite video evidence of the
gruesome acts and masked men issuing direct challenges to the United
States, the Obama administration still has no strategy for dealing with
these savages. Adding insult to injury during her daily briefing Tuesday
afternoon, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said she isn't going
to "label" what ISIS did to Sotloff. <br />
<center>
</center>
Many thanks to Fox News' James Rosen for asking the question. <br />
Beheading Americans, which ISIS has done twice now, <i>certainly</i>
count as acts of war. This kind of political correctness, the constant
"no labeling," has not only resulted in Americans being killed but will
get more Americans killed in the future. This administration is more
interested in giving poll tested answers to questions posed by reporters
than they are in fighting radical jihad as it marches across the Middle
East to the West.
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395381545218020265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4966921227529983571.post-19605923913389323132012-10-12T14:27:00.001-07:002012-10-12T14:27:37.697-07:00<h2 class="date-header">
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<a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/10/a-world-without-income-taxes-by-richard.html">A World without Income Taxes. by Richard W. Rahn </a>
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Why should the federal government bother to impose
taxes when it can use the Federal Reserve to "print" all the money it
needs to pay its bills? Last year, the Fed bought 77 percent of all of
the government's new debt, which is the equivalent of printing money.
The government borrowed almost 40 cents for each dollar it spent, with
the Fed printing 30 cents of each dollar spent through its bond
purchases (creating new money) — an amount equal to about 7 percent of
gross domestic product.</div>
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Ricardo Valenzuela
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<a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-best-and-worst-governors-on-growth.html">The Best and Worst Governors on Growth. by Chris Edwards </a>
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Federal lawmakers have created an economic mess with
their chronic overspending and inability to deliver stable, pro-growth
tax policies. Perhaps the elections will break the Washington gridlock
and knock loose some solutions. Until then, state capitols are the only
place where there is real fiscal progress.</div>
Two governors—Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Chris Christie of New
Jersey—have gained national attention for their changes to government
pension and union rules. But other state leaders are making
breakthroughs on taxes, and they are the focus of Cato's new "Fiscal
Policy Report Card on America's Governors."<br />
Four governors received an "A" grade: Sam Brownback of Kansas, Rick
Scott of Florida, Paul LePage of Maine and Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania.
Messrs. Scott and Corbett have been the most tightfisted on spending,
but all four "A" governors are outstanding tax reformers.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/10/china-bashing-us-political-tradition-by.html">China Bashing: A U.S. Political Tradition. by Ted Galen Carpenter </a>
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In every U.S. presidential election, the major party
candidates vie to see who can appear tougher on China. Once the election
is over, however, the substance of U.S. policy toward China usually
changes little and is far more pragmatic than the campaign rhetoric.
There are ominous signs, though, that things could be different this
time.</div>
The accusations have been among the most caustic ever. Republican
presidential nominee Mitt Romney has denounced the Obama administration
for being "a near-supplicant to Beijing" on trade matters, human rights
and security issues. An Obama ad accuses Romney of shipping U.S. jobs to
China through his activities at the Bain Capital financier group, and
Democrats charge that Romney as president would not protect U.S. firms
from China's depredations.<br />
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<strong><em>“Les intellectuels ont toujours été des courtisans. Ils ont toujours vécu dans le palais.</em></strong>” Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922-1975)<br />
Western journalists increasingly assume the voices of subjugated
countries’ natives while muzzling them by denying them access to the
press. In the United States, the more visible venues of the alternative
press, such as online news sites <em>Truthout, Common Dreams,</em> and <em>Huffington Post</em> are essentially closed to native writers. This colonialism of the mind is rampant when it comes to Haiti.<br />
Inspect the U.S. alternative press for news of Haiti. You will find
articles there by Beverly Bell, Mark Weisbrot, Robert Naiman, Jane
Regan, Noam Chomsky, Stephen Lendman, and others, but you will be hard
put to find a Haitian name. Westerners, whatever their political
leaning, do reserve their right to rule the world, and the right to
pontificate to the ignorant natives is very much a part of it.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/10/muslim-rage-clash-of-civilizations-as.html">Muslim Rage: “Clash of Civilizations” as Imperialism Key Narrative</a>
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<span style="font-size: medium;">Muslim Rage: “Clash of Civilizations” as Imperialism Key Narrative</span> </h1>
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By <a href="http://newsjunkiepost.com/author/gilbert/" rel="author" title="Posts by Gilbert Mercier">Gilbert Mercier</a></span></span></div>
<br /><a class="highslide" href="http://newsjunkiepost.com/2012/09/16/muslim-rage-clash-of-civilizations-as-imperialism-key-narrative/7979563483_32e8fddf10_o/" rel="attachment wp-att-45933"><img alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-45933" height="395" src="http://newsjunkiepost.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/7979563483_32e8fddf10_o.jpg" title="7979563483_32e8fddf10_o" width="590" /></a><br />
It is hard to contest that 9/11 was the opening salvo of the notion
of “clash of civilization”, a simple yet effective concept to justify a
state of permanent war. Permanent wars against some elusive “enemies”
generate a constant state of fear which in return allows governments to
curtail some of the most basic liberties. What is better than a
concept such as the endless war on terror to justify any actions against
any countries?<strong></strong> If the narrative of “clash of
civilizations” started 11 years ago, in the immediate aftermath of
9/11/2001, the recent events in the Middle-East show that we are still
living in this nightmarish engineered reality. The notion of conflict of
civilizations has a lot more in common with crusades or clash between
religions than clash between actual cultures or people. It is concocted
and fueled by the rulers of the global system to create conflicts
between people who are intrinsically on the same side. It is the
ultimate tool of repression invented by the global 1 percent to keep the
99 percent divided.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/10/global-war-economy-empire-of-us.html">Global War Economy: The Empire of the US Military Industrial Complex</a>
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<span style="font-size: medium;">Global War Economy: The Empire of the US Military Industrial Complex</span> </h1>
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By <a href="http://newsjunkiepost.com/author/gilbert/" rel="author" title="Posts by Gilbert Mercier">Gilbert Mercier</a></span></span></div>
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Arguably, ever since entering World War II, the United States of
America’s economy has been a war economy. Starting or fostering wars
became essentially, independently of geopolitical reasons, a “good”
business proposition. The early 1940s marked the start of the era of
systematic wars for profit. War defined as the ultimate capitalist
enterprise. The extraordinary war efforts of World War II turned the
United States into a giant global arms factory for the war in Europe
and in the Pacific. It was even, cynically, credited as the main factor
in ending the Great Depression of 1929.<br />
<a class="highslide" href="http://newsjunkiepost.com/2012/08/30/global-war-economy-the-empire-of-the-us-military-industrial-complex/7419480466_e5bc65f720_z/" rel="attachment wp-att-45799"><img alt="" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-45799" height="276" src="http://newsjunkiepost.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/7419480466_e5bc65f720_z-448x276.jpg" title="7419480466_e5bc65f720_z" width="448" /></a><br />
This trend continued at a slower pace, but without any real
interruption, with the Korean war in the early 1950s, the Vietnam war in
the 1960s until the early 1970s, and various proxy wars worldwide-
including Afghanistan in the 1980s- against the Soviet Union. The event
of 9/11/ 2001 gave American politicians the unique opportunity to start
the perfect war on behalf of their friends and patrons of the military
industrial complex. It is the endless war: the “war on terror” without
any geographic boundaries, time frame or even the necessity to have a
well defined enemy.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/10/dnc-and-rnc-same-circus-different-clowns.html">DNC and RNC: Same Circus Different Clowns </a>
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<span style="font-size: medium;">DNC and RNC: Same Circus Different Clowns </span></h1>
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By <a href="http://newsjunkiepost.com/author/gilbert/" rel="author" title="Posts by Gilbert Mercier">Gilbert Mercier</a></span></span></div>
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The Republican National Convention and the Democrat National
Convention are the political equivalent of “America’s Got Talent”. The
two conventions should be about serious discussions concerning issues
and policies amongst the rank and file of both parties. They are not
supposed to be about showmanship and performances, but in a country
where politics have become spectacle, they are. Both Conventions are
circus masquerading as democracy. It is all about giving a sense to the
American people that they have a real choice, real options, and that
their voice matters. But as matter of fact, the politicians/celebrities
who are in the limelight do the talking while the “little people”- the
delegates- do the listening, and mostly the cheering, as if they were
given laughing or clapping cue cards. Meanwhile, the “Big Guns” of the
political theater are just figureheads working on behalf of
transnational interests. Barack Obama is currently auditioning for an
extension of his tenure as CEO of America Empire Inc., while Mitt
Romney- already member of the board- is trying to move up the corporate
ladder.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-blood-on-ches-shirt.html">The blood on Che’s shirt</a>
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<h2 class="post_name" id="post-21216">
The blood on Che’s shirt – by Caroline Carlson</h2>
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<img alt="" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-21217" height="367" src="http://www.hacer.org/latam/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/che_guevara_sangue.jpg" title="" width="290" />The
first time I saw a Che Guevara T-shirt was in the eleventh grade. I
didn’t know who Che Guevara was, but was instantly able to recognize him
whenever I saw kids walk through the halls wearing T-shirts and
carrying backpacks or lighters with his face on them. The image – a
young Argentinian man with long hair and a beret – became almost
universally known and sparked a global marketing campaign.<br />
Unbeknownst to many young people, Che Guevara was an international
terrorist who aided Fidel Castro in the overthrow of the Cuban
government in the late 1950s. After leading a two-year guerrilla
campaign against Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, he led firing squads
against alleged war criminals, created a “labor camp” system in Cuba
that imprisoned and killed Jehovah’s Witnesses and homosexuals and
oversaw the deaths of more than 1,000 people.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/10/us-modest-proposal-for-our-president.html">US: A Modest Proposal For Our President</a>
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<h2 class="post_name" id="post-2491">
US: A Modest Proposal For Our President – Investors.com</h2>
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<strong><img alt="" class="alignleft wp-image-2494" height="254" src="http://www.hacer.org/usa/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/sesame-street-big-bird.jpg" title="Big Bird turned 40 in 2009 - Photo: PR News" width="207" />Subsidies</strong>:
With the economy faltering and Middle East unrest rising, President
Obama acts as though the biggest issue facing the country is Mitt
Romney’s alleged threat to “Sesame Street.” We have an idea for him.<br />
According to a recent tally, Obama brought up either Big Bird or Elmo
13 times in speeches since last week’s debate, in which Romney promised
to end federal support for PBS and NPR.<br />
That <nobr><a class="FAtxtL" href="http://www.hacer.org/usa/?p=2491#" id="FALINK_2_0_1">compares</a></nobr>
with zero mentions of how he plans to revive the economy, and no
references to Libya. And he’s now running an ad featuring Big Bird.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/10/us-mexican-zeta-kingpins-demise-is-good.html">US: Mexican Zeta Kingpin’s Demise Is Good News For America, Too</a>
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<strong><img alt="" class="alignleft wp-image-2486" height="255" src="http://www.hacer.org/usa/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Armas-de-los-Zetas.jpg" title="Zetas' weapons - Photo: elcronistadigital.com" width="385" /><em>Americas: </em></strong><em>Knocking
off the kingpin of a monstrous drug cartel won’t end the war in Mexico.
But the Mexican navy’s killing of Zeta boss Heriberto Lazcano is
nevertheless a big victory — and not just south of our border.</em><br />
Lazcano, who was gunned down just 80 miles south of Laredo, Texas,
ran the most powerful, treacherous and violent drug cartel in Mexico.<br />
<nobr><a class="FAtxtL" href="http://www.hacer.org/usa/?p=2484#" id="FALINK_1_0_0">A military</a></nobr>
deserter turned trafficker, Lazcano pioneered the most horrific
spectacles of the drug war: beheadings; bodies dangling from bridges;
heads posted on pikes, strewn across highways, thrown in front of <nobr><a class="FAtxtL" href="http://www.hacer.org/usa/?p=2484#" id="FALINK_3_0_2">schools</a></nobr>, burned in cars and unearthed from mass graves.<br />
Mass murder was another speciality. The Zetas directed a
terrorist-style attack on a casino in Monterrey that killed 52, and
slaughtered 72 mostly Central American illegal immigrants near the U.S.
border. They are also assassins, targeting dozens of mayors, governors
and editors in an obvious strike at Mexico’s democracy.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/10/us-modest-proposal-to-ensure.html">US: A Modest Proposal To Ensure California’s Rich Don’t Leave</a>
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US: A Modest Proposal To Ensure California’s Rich Don’t Leave – by Walter Williams</h2>
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<em><img alt="" class="alignleft wp-image-2479" height="193" src="http://www.hacer.org/usa/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/california-broke1.jpg" width="313" />California was once the land of opportunity, but it is going down the tubes.</em><br />
Several of California’s prominent cities have declared <nobr><a class="FAtxtL" href="http://www.hacer.org/usa/?p=2471#" id="FALINK_1_0_0">bankruptcy</a></nobr>,
such as Vallejo, Stockton, Mammoth Lakes and San Bernardino. Others are
on the precipice, and that includes Los Angeles, California’s largest
city.<br />
California’s 2012 budget deficit is expected to top $28 billion, and
its state debt is $618 billion. That’s more than twice the size of New
York’s state debt, which itself is the second-highest in the nation.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/10/us-ryan-scores-decisive-blows-over.html">US: Ryan Scores Decisive Blows Over Biden in Veep Debate</a>
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US: Ryan Scores Decisive Blows Over Biden in Veep Debate – by Hope Hodge</h2>
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<em><img alt="" class="alignleft wp-image-2503" height="197" src="http://www.hacer.org/usa/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/bidenryandebate.jpg" title="Paul Ryan greets Vice President Joe Biden at the beginning of the vice presidential debate - Photo: AP" width="363" />Budget
wonk Paul Ryan scored several decisive blows over formidable debater
Joe Biden in this evening’s debate face-off, hitting the administration
on its missteps and misinformation following the Benghazi murders and
its failure to improve job growth. But Biden played to the crowd
throughout the night, sidestepping questions while snickering and
expressing exasperation with his opponent on every topic.</em><br />
The Republican ticket was riding a polling bump after presidential
challenger Mitt Romney scored the most decisive debate win in history
over President Barack Obama last week, but Ryan had a tall task: to
maintain momentum while highlighting his expertise in fiscal policy and
proving competence in foreign affairs and defense, a historical weak
area for the ticket.<br />
Moderator Martha Raddatz, senior foreign affairs correspondent for
ABC News, began the debate with a discussion of Libya, asking
hard-hitting questions about why the administration failed to provide
adequate security for the Benghazi consulate and why the White House
spread wrong information about the nature of the attacks.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/10/sponging-boomers.html">Sponging boomers</a>
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Sponging boomers</h3>
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The economic legacy left by the baby-boomers is leading to a battle between the generations</h1>
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ANOTHER economic mess looms on the horizon—one with a great wrinkled
visage. The struggle to digest the swollen generation of ageing
baby-boomers threatens to strangle economic growth. As the nature and
scale of the problem become clear, a showdown between the generations
may be inevitable.<br />
After the end of the second world war births surged across the rich
world. Britain, Germany and Japan all enjoyed a baby boom, although it
peaked in different years. America’s was most pronounced. By 1964
individuals born after the war accounted for 41% of the total
population, forming a generation large enough to exert its own political
and economic gravity.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/10/true-progressivism.html">True Progressivism</a>
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Inequality and the world economy</h2>
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True Progressivism</h3>
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A new form of radical centrist politics is needed to tackle inequality without hurting economic growth</h1>
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BY THE end of the 19th century, the first age of globalisation and a spate of <nobr><a class="FAtxtL" href="http://www.economist.com/node/21564556?spc=scode&spv=xm&ah=9d7f7ab945510a56fa6d37c30b6f1709#" id="FALINK_1_0_0">new inventions</a></nobr>
had transformed the world economy. But the “Gilded Age” was also a
famously unequal one, with America’s robber barons and Europe’s “Downton
Abbey” classes amassing huge wealth: the concept of “conspicuous
consumption” dates back to 1899. The rising gap between rich and poor
(and the fear of socialist revolution) spawned a wave of reforms, from
Theodore Roosevelt’s trust-busting to Lloyd George’s People’s Budget.
Governments promoted competition, introduced progressive taxation and
wove the first threads of a social <nobr><a class="FAtxtL" href="http://www.economist.com/node/21564556?spc=scode&spv=xm&ah=9d7f7ab945510a56fa6d37c30b6f1709#" id="FALINK_3_0_2">safety net</a></nobr>.
The aim of this new “Progressive era”, as it was known in America, was
to make society fairer without reducing its entrepreneurial vim.<br />
Modern politics needs to undergo a similar reinvention—to come up
with ways of mitigating inequality without hurting economic growth. That
dilemma is already at the centre of political debate, but it mostly
produces heat, not light. Thus, on America’s campaign trail, the left
attacks Mitt Romney as a robber baron and the right derides Barack Obama
as a class warrior. In some European countries politicians have simply
given in to the mob: witness François Hollande’s proposed 75% income-tax
rate. In much of the emerging world leaders would rather sweep the
issue of inequality under the carpet: witness China’s nervous
embarrassment about the excesses of Ferrari-driving princelings, or
India’s refusal to tackle corruption.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/10/hope-and-change-four-years-on.html">Hope and change, four years on</a>
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Hope and change, four years on</h3>
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Barack Obama reviews his tactics as the election race tightens dramatically</h1>
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FOR a reminder of how unusual the 2008 election was, consider a hit
video from that year, “Yes We Can”, by the hip-hop artist will.i.am. The
black-and-white film—viewed online many millions of times—set a Barack
Obama campaign speech to music. To the strumming of an acoustic guitar
and the tinkling of a piano, sundry famous folk crooned along to footage
of Mr Obama making a series of vows: that nothing can stand in the way
of millions calling for change, that Americans are not as divided as
their politics suggest and that their nation can be healed and the world
repaired if they just remember a three-word creed: “Yes, we can”.<br />
It says something about the lingering potency of Mr Obama’s
victory—winning as he did on a platform of racial and political
reconciliation—that the video is poignant rather than risible when
re-watched today. An especially painful moment shows the fresh-faced Mr
Obama of 2008 scorning advice not to <nobr><a class="FAtxtL" href="http://www.economist.com/node/21564555#" id="FALINK_2_0_1">offer</a></nobr> voters false hope, retorting that in America: “There has never been anything false about hope.”<br />
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<a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/10/biden-meltdown-burns-obama-campaign.html">Biden meltdown burns Obama campaign </a>
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VP debate exposes Democrats’ desperation</h1>
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<li><a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/multimedia/image/viceprez_debate10111209/" target="_blank"><img alt="Republican vice presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan, of Wisconsin, right, watches as Vice President Joe Biden, speaks during the vice presidential debate. (AP Photo/David Goldman)" class="npb" height="94" src="http://media.washtimes.com/media/image/2012/10/11/viceprez_debate10111209_s160x94.jpg?71b47f120197b1ed472cb0b65cc7f62b74e8bc13" width="160" /></a><div class="enlarge" style="margin-top: 0 !important; padding-top: 0 !important;">
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<span class="small caption">Republican vice presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan, of Wisconsin, right, watches as ... <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/multimedia/image/viceprez_debate10111209/" style="font-size: 11px;" target="_blank">more ></a></span></li>
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The 2012 presidential election is one of the most momentous crossroads in U.S. history. As Wisconsin <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/paul-ryan/">Rep. Paul Ryan</a>, the <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/republican-party/">GOP</a>’s vice-presidential nominee, stated in his Thursday debate against Vice President <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/joe-biden/">Joe Biden</a>,
the outcome on Election Day will determine “what kind of country we are
going to give our kids.” Under Obama-administration policies,
out-of-control government spending has grown to such an extent that
federal debt is now larger than the gross domestic product of the United
States, the largest economy in the world. U.S. power and prestige in
the world are in such dramatic decline that armed Islamists can overrun
an American diplomatic compound, murder a U.S. ambassador and get away
with it.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/10/biden-cracks-up-at-vice-presidential.html">Biden cracks up at the vice presidential debate</a>
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Thursday, October 11, 2012
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<span class="small caption">Vice President Joe Biden and Republican vice presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan ... <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/multimedia/image/veep3jpg/" style="font-size: 11px;" target="_blank">more ></a></span></li>
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Say whatever you want about last night’s debate, there is one thing we can all agree on. <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/joe-biden/">Joe Biden</a> sure was happy.<br />
How happy was the vice president? He looked happier than <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/bill-clinton/">Bill Clinton</a> with a bottle of Viagra and an intern.<br />
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<span class="small caption">Vice President Joe Biden listens to Republican vice presidential nominee Rep. Paul ... <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/multimedia/image/bidenjpg_734788/" style="font-size: 11px;" target="_blank">more ></a></span></li>
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Photo Gallery:</h5>
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Vice President <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/joseph-r-biden/">Joseph R. Biden</a>
on Thursday seemed to open the door to adjusting President Obama’s tax
increases to only apply to those making $1 million or more a year — a
much higher threshold than the $250,000 level they had pushed
previously.<br />
But the <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/barack-obama/">Obama</a> campaign said Friday that <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/joseph-r-biden/">Mr. Biden</a>
was only “providing an illustration” of how the tax increase would be
divided out and that the president sticks by his bigger tax-increase
plan.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/10/bully-biden-proves-obamas-got-nothing.html">Bully Biden Proves Obama's Got Nothing</a>
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<h2>
It was interesting to me when, after the vice-presidential debate,
Fox News Channel interviewed Chris Wallace and Charles Krauthammer, both
of whom said they had never seen a more “disrespectful” participant in a
debate than Joe Biden. </h2>
<h2>
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<h3 class="post-title entry-title">
<a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/10/fact-check-top-ten-worst-lies-by-joe.html">Fact Check: Top Ten Worst Lies by Joe Biden in VP Debate</a>
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<h2>
Once again, Joe Biden lied his way through a Vice Presidential
debate--just as he did in his contest with Sarah Palin in 2008. This
time, the media <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2012/10/11/Biden-Lies-In-debate-about-security-requests" target="_blank">caught a few</a> of Biden's worst "malarkey" moments--as did his opponent, Paul Ryan, when he could get a word in edgewise. </h2>
<h2>
</h2>
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<a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/10/by-numbers-moderator-raddatz-attacked.html">By the Numbers: Moderator Raddatz Attacked Ryan 9 Times, Biden Once</a>
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<h2>
Liberals are more pleased with moderator Martha Raddatz than
conservatives are disappointed. And it's easy to see why. Raddatz
allowed Joe Biden to interrupt Paul Ryan repeatedly during the Vice
Presidential debate, and interrupted Ryan herself, while posing
questions that were radically in favor of the Obama team. Ryan overcame
Raddatz's bias and won the debate regardless, leaving less for
conservatives to complain about.</h2>
Still, it is worth noting the facts. While the candidates' speaking
time was roughly equal--not counting crosstalk, Biden spoke for 38:25
and Ryan 37:27--Raddatz’s questions were not in any way a measure of
equality. She hit the Republican no fewer than nine times with pointed
questions that were either an attack on Romney/Ryan or a way to set up
excuses for Obama.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/10/white-house-serial-lies-about-libya.html">White House Serial Lies About Libya Extend to VP Debate</a>
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<h2 style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
The biggest lie Vice President Joe
Biden told tonight was a whopper. And somehow it like got past moderator
Martha Raddatz, who we were told knows everything about foreign policy.
Biden made the patently false and outrageous claim that no one in the
Obama administration knew that requests for extra security had been made
by our Libyan ambassador, Christopher Stevens, and other members of our
consulate in Benghazi. </h2>
<h2 style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
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<a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/10/damage-control-obama-campaign-tries-to.html">Damage Control: Obama Campaign Tries to Spin Biden's Bizarre Debate Behavior</a>
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<h2>
The Obama campaign is struggling to respond to mounting criticism of
Vice President Joe Biden's bizarre behavior during last night's debate
with Rep. Paul Ryan. </h2>
<h2>
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<span>Thursday, October 11, 2012</span></h2>
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<h3 class="post-title entry-title">
<a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/10/celebrity-economist-rushes-to-save-india.html">Celebrity Economist Rushes to Save India</a>
</h3>
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<img alt="Celebrity Economist Hired to Avert a Junk Rating " src="http://www.bloomberg.com/image/ii303XSpLgcQ.jpg" />
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Illustration by Andrew Neyer </div>
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<cite class="byline">By
<a class="author" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/view/bios/william-pesek/">William Pesek</a> </cite><cite class="byline story_time"><span class="datestamp" style="display: inline;"></span></cite></div>
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The first time I met <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/raghuram-rajan/">Raghuram Rajan</a>,
the Indian economist couldn’t sit still. <br />
It was over coffee in Bangkok in November 2008, less than
two months after Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. imploded and
almost took the global financial system down with it. Rajan had
become a big draw by then, having warned as early as 2005 that a
crash was coming. On that day in Thailand, he had a more local
crisis on his hands: The hotel’s WiFi was out.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/10/here-are-five-things-democrats-wont.html">Here Are Five Things the Democrats Won’t Tell You</a>
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<h1>
<cite class="byline">By
<a class="author" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/view/bios/caroline-baum/">Caroline Baum</a></cite></h1>
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<br />Election campaigns are about
promises: the more grandiose, the better. <br />
Who can forget President <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/barack-obama/">Barack Obama</a>’s <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/03/obamas-nomination-victory_n_105028.html" rel="external" title="Open Web Site">June 2008 speech</a>,
telling a rapt audience that future generations would look back
at his victory in the Democratic primaries as “the moment when
the rise of the oceans began to slow, and our planet began to
heal”? <br />
<div class="story_inline assets clearfix ">
<div class="module author">
<h2>
About Caroline Baum</h2>
Caroline Baum, a columnist for <nobr><a class="FAtxtL" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-10/here-are-five-things-the-democrats-won-t-tell-you.html#" id="FALINK_3_0_2">Bloomberg News</a></nobr> since 1998, is the author of "Just What I Said: Bloomberg Economics Columnist Takes on Bonds, Banks, Budgets and Bubbles."<br />
<a class="more_info" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/view/bios/caroline-baum/">More about Caroline Baum</a>
</div>
</div>
<h2>
If only he had substituted “deficit” for “oceans.” </h2>
Candidates love to promise the moon -- at minimum, a <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/25/newt-gingrich-moon-colony_n_1232426.html" rel="external" title="Open Web Site">colony</a>
on it -- and the stars. Years ago, they could avoid mentioning
the cost. Nowadays, the U.S. is in such a deep fiscal hole that
a candidate would appear to be out of touch if he didn’t invoke
“shared sacrifice” or pay lip service to reducing the <a class="web_ticker" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/FDEBTY:IND" title="Get Quote">deficit</a>. <br />
Yet that is where they draw the line and limit the
specifics. Which is why I’m here to tell you five things the
2012 Democrats don’t want you to know. (Next week, it’s the
Republicans’ turn.)<br />
<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395381545218020265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4966921227529983571.post-38897168304618021822012-03-09T21:15:00.002-08:002012-03-09T21:15:17.670-08:00<h3 class="post-title entry-title">
<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/03/greece-has-defaulted-which-country-in.html">Greece Has Defaulted - Which Country In Europe Is Next?</a>
</h3>
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<a href="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/55-interesting-facts-about-the-u-s-economy-in-2012"><img alt="" class="alignleft wp-image-3520" height="326" src="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Greece-Has-Defaulted-Which-Country-In-Europe-Is-Next-440x543.jpg" title="Greece Has Defaulted - Which Country In Europe Is Next" width="264" /></a>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 <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/46683364" target="_blank" title="$3.2 billion">$3.2 billion</a>
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.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/03/not-so-fast-on-that-whole-economic_09.html">Not So Fast On That Whole Economic Recovery Thing</a>
</h3>
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<a href="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/not-so-fast-on-that-whole-economic-recovery-thing/not-so-fast-on-that-whole-economic-recovery-thing" rel="attachment wp-att-3512"><img alt="" class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-3512" height="166" src="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Not-So-Fast-On-That-Whole-Economic-Recovery-Thing-250x166.jpg" title="Not So Fast On That Whole Economic Recovery Thing" width="250" /></a>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.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/03/president-karzai-and-secondary-sex.html">President Karzai and the 'secondary' sex</a>
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<h2>
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By Rachel Reid </span>
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<img src="http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/files/karzai-woman.jpg" /></div>
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 <a href="https://afghanistananalysis.wordpress.com/2012/03/04/english-translation-of-ulema-councils-declaration-about-women/" target="_blank">guidance</a>
that declared "men are fundamental
and women are secondary." It called
for women to travel with <i>mahrams (</i>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."<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/03/reflections-on-richard-cravatts.html">Reflections on Richard Cravatts’ “Genocidal Liberalism: The University’s Jihad Against Israel & Jews”</a>
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by <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/author/david-solway/" rel="author" title="Posts by David Solway">David Solway</a><br />
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<strong>Editor’s note: The review below is written by David Solway on Dr. Richard Cravatts’ new book, <em><a href="https://secure.donationreport.com/productlist.html?key=RVTZX68SIJJN">Genocidal Liberalism: The University’s Jihad Against Israel & Jews,</a> </em>published by the David Horowitz Freedom Center. To order a copy, <a href="https://secure.donationreport.com/productlist.html?key=RVTZX68SIJJN">click here</a>.</strong>
I first came across Richard Cravatts in an <a href="http://pjmedia.com/blog/york-university-finally-moves-quickly-to-suppress-offensive-speech-%E2%80%94-but-only-when-jews-are-speaking/" target="_blank">article</a> he wrote for <em>Pajamas Media</em>
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 <a href="http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2010/02/muslims-attack-jewish-students-at-york-university.html" target="_blank">Jew-bashing</a>
institutions, taking its cue from larger and more prestigious
universities like UC Irvine and Berkeley that promote, in Cravatts’
words, “slanted scholarship for jihad.” <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Genocidal-Liberalism-Universitys-Against-Israel/dp/0615566383/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1328881969&sr=1-1" target="_blank"><em>Genocidal Liberalism</em></a> expands Cravatts’ investigative sweep to encompass the entire malign phenomenon of antisemitism <em>cum</em> anti-Zionism that has corrupted the moral integrity and academic rectitude of the American liberal professoriate.<br />
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by <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/author/michellemalkin/" rel="author" title="Posts by Michelle Malkin">Michelle Malkin</a><br />
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<a href="http://cloud.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/solyndra.gif"><img alt="" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-125027" height="243" src="http://cloud.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/solyndra.gif" title="solyndra" width="375" /></a>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.<br />
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.<br />
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by <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/author/john-perazzo/" rel="author" title="Posts by John Perazzo">John Perazzo</a><br />
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<a href="http://cloud.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Picture-41.gif"><img alt="" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-125085" height="247" src="http://cloud.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Picture-41.gif" title="Picture-4" width="375" /></a>By now, you may already have seen the 1991 <a href="http://www.theblaze.com/stories/revealed-the-radical-racial-ideas-of-the-prof-obama-raves-about-in-new-harvard-video/">video footage</a> of <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1511">Barack Obama</a>, who was then a 30-year-old student at Harvard Law School, speaking in glowing terms about Harvard professor <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2175">Derrick Bell</a>,
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.<br />
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Ricardo Valenzuela
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/03/sandra-fluke-and-failure-of-feminism.html">Sandra Fluke and the Failure of Feminism</a>
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Posted by <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/author/jknh/" rel="author" title="Posts by Jacob Laksin and Nichole Hungerford">Jacob Laksin and Nichole Hungerford</a> </div>
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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.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/03/roosevelts-four-freedoms-fraud.html">Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms” Fraud</a>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">by </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><a href="http://www.fff.org/aboutUs/bios/jxb.asp" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="color: #003399; font-size: xx-small;">James Bovard</span></a><br />
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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.
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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. </div>
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/03/thank-goodness-for-wikileaks.html">Thank Goodness for WikiLeaks</a>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">by </span>
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<span style="color: #003399; font-size: xx-small;">Sheldon Richman</span></a></div>
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</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
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.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/03/libertarianism-versus-statism.html">Libertarianism versus Statism</a>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">by </span>
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<span style="color: #003399; font-size: xx-small;">Jacob G. Hornberger</span></a></div>
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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.
<br />
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.
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/03/persecution-of-lynne-stewart.html">The Persecution of Lynne Stewart</a>
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<span style="font-family: Times,Times New Roman;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times,Times New Roman;">
by Jacob G. Hornberger </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times,Times New Roman;">
Today’s <i>Los Angeles Times</i> 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.”
<br />
The <i>Times</i>’ 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.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/03/fairness-fraud.html">The 'Fairness' Fraud</a>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica; font-size: xx-small;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">By
Thomas Sowell </span></span></span>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: x-small;">
</span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica; font-size: x-small;">During a recent Fox News Channel debate about the Obama administration's
tax policies, Democrat Bob Beckel raised the issue of "fairness."</span><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
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.<br />
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?<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/03/reasonorg-reasoncom-reasontv-donate.html">RUSH LIMBAUGH IS DIFFERNET</a>
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<a href="http://reason.com/people/nick-gillespie" rel="author">Nick Gillespie</a> |</div>
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<img alt="" class="pic right" height="240" src="http://media.reason.com/mc/_external/2012_03/sometimes-a-cigar-is-a-subsitu.jpg?h=240&w=192" title="Sometimes a cigar is a subsitute penis." width="192" />You've probably heard that <a href="http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-cohn/101308/rush-limbaugh-calls-sandra-fluke-slut-birth-control-sex-video" shape="rect">recidivist
jackass Rush Limbaugh</a> 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.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/03/white-house-attack-dog-targets-limbaugh.html">White House Attack Dog Targets Limbaugh Sponsors</a>
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<a href="http://news.investors.com/photopopup.aspx?path=Issues_Brock_640.jpg&docId=603705&xmpSource=&width=640&height=803&caption=WASHINGTON%2cDC+-+NOVEMBER+23%3a+David+Brock%2c+a+former+conservative%2c+is+the+founder+of+the+liberal+media+watchdog+group+Media+Matters+for+America.+Media+Matters+fact+checks+Fox+News%2c+Rush+Limbaugh+and+other+conservatives%2c+exposing+mis-+and+disinformation+from+the+right+Tuesday%2c+Nov.+23%2c+2010+in+Washington%2c+DC.+Photo+by+Katherine+Frey%2fThe+Washington+Post+via+Getty+Images" target="_blank"><img alt="WASHINGTON,DC - NOVEMBER 23: David Brock, a former conservative, is the founder of the liberal media watchdog group Media Matters for America. Media..." height="432" src="http://www.investors.com/image/Issues_Brock_640_345.jpg.cms" width="345" /></a><div style="font-size: 11px; width: 345px;">
WASHINGTON,DC
- NOVEMBER 23: David Brock, a former conservative, is the founder of
the liberal media watchdog group Media Matters for America. Media... <a href="http://news.investors.com/photopopup.aspx?path=Issues_Brock_640.jpg&docId=603705&xmpSource=&width=640&height=803&caption=WASHINGTON%2cDC+-+NOVEMBER+23%3a+David+Brock%2c+a+former+conservative%2c+is+the+founder+of+the+liberal+media+watchdog+group+Media+Matters+for+America.+Media+Matters+fact+checks+Fox+News%2c+Rush+Limbaugh+and+other+conservatives%2c+exposing+mis-+and+disinformation+from+the+right+Tuesday%2c+Nov.+23%2c+2010+in+Washington%2c+DC.+Photo+by+Katherine+Frey%2fThe+Washington+Post+via+Getty+Images" target="_blank">View Enlarged Image</a></div>
</div>
<b>Censorship:</b>
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.<br />
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.<br />
This makes its collusion with the White House in the heat of a presidential race a serious matter worthy of investigation.<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/03/where-are.html">WHERE ARE.....?</a>
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<a href="http://news.investors.com/editorialcartoons/default.aspx">Ramirez Editorial Cartoons</a>
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<b>Economy: </b>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.<br />
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.<br />
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."<br />
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.<br />
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By <a href="http://www.investors.com/search/searchresults.aspx?source=filterSearch&Ntt=CHARLES+KRAUTHAMMER&Nr=OR%28Author%3aCHARLES+KRAUTHAMMER%2cAuthor%3aCharles+Krauthammer%29">CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER</a></h1>
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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.<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/03/only-one-republican-has-made-obama.html">Only one Republican has made Obama squirm</a>
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<h2 class="grey mb min">
By <span class="fn">Dr. Milton R. Wolf </span></h2>
<div class="column c160 left mb max">
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<img alt="Illustration by Linas Garsys for The Washington Times" class="mb" height="211" src="http://media.washtimes.com/media/image/2012/03/08/b1wolfnewtlg_s160x211.jpg?7b45a8698bffb614565e47c77e6e25c27a91cf14" width="160" /><span class="small caption">Illustration by Linas Garsys for The Washington Times</span></div>
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This wouldn’t be the first time the media missed the real story. In the wake of a split <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/super-tuesday/">Super Tuesday</a>, <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/mitt-romney/">Mitt Romney</a> and <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/rick-santorum/">Rick Santorum</a> scored wins against each other, but it was former Speaker <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/newt-gingrich/">Newt Gingrich</a> who single-handedly drove President <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/barack-obama/">Obama</a> into panic mode.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/03/fbi-cia-homeland-security-federal.html">The FBI, The CIA, Homeland Security, The Federal Reserve And Potential Employers Are All Monitoring You On Facebook And Twitter</a>
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<strong><a href="http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/the-fbi-the-cia-homeland-security-the-federal-reserve-and-potential-employers-are-all-monitoring-you-on-facebook-and-twitter">The American Dream</a></strong><br /><br />
<br />
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.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/03/pentagon-launches-desperate-damage_09.html">Pentagon Launches Desperate Damage Control Over Shocking Panetta Testimony</a>
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The United States has ceded control of its affairs to international bureaucrats<br />
<strong>Paul Joseph Watson</strong><br /><br />
<br />
<strong>Alex Jones: <em>“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.”</em></strong><br />
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.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/03/smith-wesson-reports-surging-gun.html">Smith & Wesson Reports Surging Gun Purchases On Back of Fears Over Obama Re-Election</a>
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60 per cent hike in backlog orders as gun stores report record monthly sales<br />
<strong>Paul Joseph Watson</strong><br /><br />
<br />
<div align="left">
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.</div>
<div class="caption right">
<img alt="Smith & Wesson Reports Surging Gun Purchases On Back of Fears Over Obama Re Election " height="250" src="http://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20120309&t=2&i=580398785&w=460&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=CBRE8280M0200" style="margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px;" title="Smith & Wesson Reports Surging Gun Purchases On Back of Fears Over Obama Re Election Photo" width="370" /><br />
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“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,” <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/09/us-smithwesson-idUSBRE8271BL20120309">reports Reuters.</a></div>
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/03/rise-of-imperialism-in-virginia_09.html">The Rise of Imperialism in Virginia</a>
</h3>
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by <a href="http://mises.org/daily/author/299/Murray-N-Rothbard" rel="author">Murray N. Rothbard</a>
<br />
<br /><div class="figure">
<img alt="" border="0" src="http://images.mises.org/5909/Ship.jpg" /></div>
<div class="editorial-preface">
[<a href="http://mises.org/resources/3006/Conceived-in-Liberty-Volume-1-A-New-Land-A-New-People"><i>Conceived in Liberty</i></a> (1975)]<br />
</div>
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 <a href="http://mises.org/daily/5908/The-Fall-of-Communism-in-Virginia">agreed to make in its social structure</a>.<br />
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.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/03/teaching-tomorrows-economists.html">Teaching Tomorrow's Economists</a>
</h3>
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<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-8322612914822147212">
by <a href="http://mises.org/daily/author/380/Robert-P-Murphy" rel="author">Robert P. Murphy</a>
<br />
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<img alt="" src="http://images.mises.org/DailyArticleBigImages/5959.jpg" /></div>
I am happy to announce that the <a href="http://mises.org/store/Lessons-for-the-Young-Economist-Teachers-Manual-P10826.aspx">Teacher's Manual</a> is now available for my introductory textbook, <i><a href="http://mises.org/document/5706/Lessons-for-the-Young-Economist">Lessons for the Young Economist</a></i>.
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.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/03/us-set-to-reach-another-debt-milestone.html">U.S. Set to Reach Another Debt Milestone Under Obama – by Jim Geraghty</a>
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On Tuesday, according to the Department of the Treasury, it was $15,499,023,629,682.44, to be precise.<br />
That figure was $10.6 trillion the day Barack Obama took office.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/03/us-set-to-reach-another-debt-milestone.html#more" title="U.S. Set to Reach Another Debt Milestone Under Obama – by Jim Geraghty">Read more »</a>
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/03/us-derrick-bell-jeremiah-wright-of.html">US: Derrick Bell: The Jeremiah Wright Of Harvard – Investors.com</a>
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<br />
<strong><img alt="" class="alignleft wp-image-1526" height="270" src="http://www.hacer.org/usa/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Obama-Harvard-vid.jpg" width="347" />Presidential Vetting:</strong> 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.”<br />
It turns out his favorite law professor was the late Derrick Bell, a
black radical who taught classes trashing the Constitution as racist.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/03/us-race-baiting-democrats-do-nothing.html">US: Race-baiting Democrats do nothing for undocumented citizens – by Deroy Murdock</a>
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<img alt="" class="alignleft wp-image-1532" height="211" src="http://www.hacer.org/usa/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/immigrationamer12.jpg" width="337" />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.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/03/us-iran-and-obama-by-thomas-sowell.html">US: Iran and Obama – by Thomas Sowell</a>
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<em><img alt="" class="alignleft wp-image-1537" height="275" src="http://www.hacer.org/usa/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/obama-netanyahu-dc.gif" width="300" />Those who buy time in the name of expediency seldom get peace in the bargain.</em><br />
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.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/03/syria-what-prevents-us-military.html">Syria: What Prevents U.S. Military Involvement</a>
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U.S. Central Command Commander Gen. James Mattis </div>
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SUMMARY <br />
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.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/03/spring-break-in-mexico-travel-and.html">Spring Break in Mexico: Travel and Security Risks</a>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Spring Break in Mexico: Travel and Security Risks</span></h1>
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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.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/03/russia-putin-to-appoint-medvedev-prime.html">Russia: Putin To Appoint Medvedev Prime Minister</a>
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Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (L) and President Dmitri Medvedev in Moscow on Feb. 23</div>
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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.<br />
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 <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/image/putins-clans-kremlin-political-crisis">the competing agendas of the Kremlin's political clans</a>.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/03/15-potentially-massive-threats-to-us_09.html">15 Potentially Massive Threats to the U.S. Economy Over the Next 12 Months. Economic Collapse Blog</a>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">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 <a href="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/20-economic-statistics-to-use-to-wake-sheeple-up-from-their-entertainment-induced-comas">long-term
economic trends</a> that are slowly but surely ripping the U.S.
economy to pieces, but the truth is that just a single really bad
"<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory">black
swan event</a>" 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 <a href="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/55-interesting-facts-about-the-u-s-economy-in-2012">is
currently performing</a>, 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.</span></div>
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/03/how-to-ruin-your-economy-and-influence.html">How to Ruin Your Economy and Influence People. by Bill Bonner</a>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">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.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">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?</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">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.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">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.</span></div>
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/03/will-ron-paul-invite-mitt-romney-to-be.html">Will Ron Paul Invite Mitt Romney To Be His Vice President?. by Allan Stevo</a>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">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.</span></div>
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/03/how-ron-paul-carried-my-county-and-man.html">How Ron Paul Carried My County … and the man whose selfless work made it possible. by Christopher Manion</a>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">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. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">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. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">"How
long have you been interested in politics," I asked. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">"About
two months." </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">"What
got you hooked?" </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">"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." </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">"I haven’t
sat down since." </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">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. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">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.</span></div>
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<span class="articleAuthor" id="content_0_maincontent_0_spanAuthor">by <a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/">Mike Flynn</a></span> <span class="articleTime"></span>
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<h2>
For the past several months, the media and the left have continually
heralded the "death" of the tea party movement. With a sparkle in their
eye and a barely concealed hint of glee, they've reassured themselves
that the organic grass-roots movement, which had delivered historic
Democrat losses across the country, was fading and would no longer pose a
threat to their progressive agenda. Apparently, though, nobody bothered
to tell the tea party. </h2>
<h2>
</h2>
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/03/bell-farrakhan-bffs.html">Bell, Farrakhan BFFs</a>
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<span class="articleAuthor" id="content_0_maincontent_0_spanAuthor">by <a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/">Ben Shapiro</a></span> <span class="articleTime"></span>
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<h2>
Derrick Bell’s <em>Faces at the Bottom of the Well</em> is a
fascinating take on racial politics. But he saves his most flattering
words for an anti-Semite who called Judaism a “gutter religion,”
believes that H1N1 flu vaccine was created to depopulate the earth,
supported racist monster Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, and received backing
from Moammar Gadhafi: Louis Farrakhan.</h2>
<h2>
</h2>
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at
<a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/03/bell-farrakhan-bffs.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2012-03-09T10:38:00-07:00">10:38 A</abbr></a></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395381545218020265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4966921227529983571.post-58881208203990554472012-03-01T16:05:00.002-08:002012-03-01T16:05:22.096-08:00<h3 class="post-title entry-title">
<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/03/bernanke-cant-blame-his-sins-on-milton.html">Bernanke Can’t Blame His Sins on Milton Friedman: Amity Shlaes</a>
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<h1>
<cite class="byline">By
<a class="author" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/view/bios/amity-shlaes/">Amity Shlaes</a> </cite><cite class="byline story_time"><span class="datestamp"></span></cite></h1>
</div>
Ben and Milton are together. Ben is
asking Milton a question: “Shall there be action, Master, or
<a href="" id="Y5688350S13" style="color: #000fff; text-decoration: underline;">depression</a>?” Ben is like <a href="http://www.starwars.com/explore/encyclopedia/characters/obiwankenobi/" rel="external" title="Open Web Site">Obi-Wan Kenobi</a> to Milton’s Yoda. At
first, Milton doesn’t answer. Finally, Milton speaks.
“Depression let it be. Deflation it must be.” <br />
This dialogue between <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/ben-s.-bernanke/">Ben S. Bernanke</a>, the <a href="" id="Y5688350S12" style="color: #000fff; text-decoration: underline;">Federal Reserve</a>
chairman, and <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/milton-friedman/">Milton Friedman</a>, the great <a href="" id="Y5688350S15" style="color: #000fff; text-decoration: underline;">economics</a> professor,
never happened. It’s a fantasy. But you can bet a gold dollar
that some version of the question, with or without the “Star
Wars” motif, rolls over and over again at night in the minds of
those who obsess about the economy. <br />
<div class="story_inline assets clearfix ">
<div class="module author">
<h2>
About Amity Shlaes</h2>
Amity Shlaes is a senior fellow in economic history at the Council on
Foreign Relations and the author of the best-sellers "The Forgotten
Man: A New History of the Great Depression" and "The Greedy Hand: Why
Taxes Drive Americans Crazy."<br />
<a class="more_info" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/view/bios/amity-shlaes/">More about Amity Shlaes</a>
</div>
</div>
Perhaps the Fed chairman is abusing his old connection to
the monetary master, Friedman, as a cover for a policy that
Friedman might not endorse. That policy is doing anything
Bernanke feels like -- dumping money in the economy, or simply
scaremongering -- with the defense that doing so is honoring
Friedman’s desire to avoid that deflation, that recession or
that Depression.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/03/andrew-breitbart-1969-2012.html">Andrew Breitbart, 1969 - 2012</a>
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/03/romney-takes-gop-lead.html">Romney Takes the GOP Lead</a>
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By Karl Rove
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Rick Santorum's candidacy will realistically be at an end if he loses Ohio next week.</h3>
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Tuesday's primaries bent the GOP <a href="" id="Y5688350S40" style="color: #000fff; text-decoration: underline;">presidential</a> contest solidly in <a href="" id="Y5688350S11" style="color: #000fff; text-decoration: underline;">Mitt
Romne</a>y's direction. Trailing Rick Santorum by 10 points in the Inside
Michigan Politics/MRG poll two weeks ago, Mr. Romney battled back to win
his birthplace by three percentage points. He beat Mr. Santorum by 20
points in Arizona, sweeping all the state's 29 delegates.<br />
Michigan was Mr. Santorum's best <a href="" id="Y5688350S35" style="color: #000fff; text-decoration: underline;">shot</a> at delivering a <a href="" id="Y5688350S14" style="color: #000fff; text-decoration: underline;">fatal</a> blow to
Mr. Romney. He logged as many campaign stops as Mr. Romney, and he
benefited from a social-conservative majority in the western part of the
state. His super PAC spent more than it had in any other contest. <a href="" id="Y5688350S1" style="color: #000fff; text-decoration: underline;">Ron
Pau</a>l and Newt Gingrich left both states largely to him—Mr. Paul focusing
on the upcoming caucus states (Washington, Alaska, Idaho, North
Dakota), and Mr. Gingrich trying to stop his slide in Georgia (his home
state) where polls show Mr. Santorum gaining.<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/03/sheriff-arpaio-obama-birth-certificate.html">Sheriff Arpaio: Obama birth certificate a ‘forgery’</a>
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<br />PHOENIX — <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/maricopa-county/">Maricopa County</a> Sheriff <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/joe-arpaio/">Joe Arpaio</a> said Thursday he suspects the birth certificate <a href="" id="Y5688350S18" style="color: #000fff; text-decoration: underline;">President</a> <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/barack-obama/">Obama</a> <a href="" id="Y5688350S48" style="color: #000fff; text-decoration: underline;">released</a> last year is a “computer-generated forgery” — and also raised questions about the authenticity of the president’s <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/selective-service-system/">Selective Service</a> card.<br />
“Based
on all of the evidence presented and investigated, I cannot in good
<a href="" id="Y5688350S19" style="color: #000fff; text-decoration: underline;">faith</a> report to you that these documents are authentic,” Sheriff <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/joe-arpaio/">Arpaio</a>
said. “My investigators believe that the long-form birth certificate
was manufactured electronically and that it did not originate in paper
format as claimed by the <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/white-house/">White House</a>.”<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/03/hurt-big-picture-looks-good-for-gop.html">HURT: Big picture looks good for GOP</a>
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With all the creepy preaching from <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/rick-santorum/">Rick Santorum</a> and <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/mitt-romney/">Mitt Romney</a>’s
disastrous attempts at relating to earthlings who don’t own a couple of
Cadillacs or hobnob with owners of NASCAR teams, it is understandable
<a href="" id="Y5688350S21" style="color: #000fff; text-decoration: underline;">Republicans</a> might be a wee bit depressed these days.<br />
But, if you
step wa-a-a-a-a-ay back and look at the much larger picture, Republicans
just might have some reason to be optimistic once this whole agonizing
primary is over.<br />
Remember, in the months leading up to <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/ronald-reagan/">Ronald Reagan</a>’s landslide annihilation of <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/jimmy-carter/">Jimmy Carter</a>,
the polls almost exclusively showed the Gipper in a dogfight too close
to call with one of the most disastrous presidents of all time. Looking
back now, it is impossible to imagine that anyone thought <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/jimmy-carter/">Mr. Carter</a>
had the slightest chance to win considering what a horrible steward he
was to the economy, foreign relations and domestic policies.<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/03/liberal-in-bed-conservative-in-head.html">Liberal in Bed, Conservative in the Head: Sophie B. Hawkins, Breitbart, ...</a>
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/03/farewell-to-friend-andrew-breitbart.html">Farewell to a Friend: Andrew Breitbart (1969-2012)</a>
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<img alt="Andrew Breitbart, Matt Welch, Steve Smith (yes, that one), and Nancy Rommelmann, at the after-party for Cathy Seipp's roast." class="pic right" src="http://media.reason.com/mc/_external/2012_03/andrew-breitbart-matt-welch-st.jpg?w=400" title="Andrew Breitbart, Matt Welch, Steve Smith (yes, that one), and Nancy Rommelmann, at the after-party for Cathy Seipp's roast." width="400" />It was always funny to many of
his friends that Andrew Breitbart, after he became <a href="" id="Y5688350S24" style="color: #000fff; text-decoration: underline;">famous</a>, was
probably most famous for being a 100 percent polarizing political
lightning rod. The reason that was funny was two-fold: He didn't
actually have strong philosophical/policy beliefs - at <i>all
- </i>and he was always perfectly comfortable and perfectly
welcome in ideologically and culturally diverse settings. Like my
L.A. backyard (pictured), dozens of times.<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/03/andrew-rip.html">Andrew RIP</a>
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">By </a><a class="story_subtext" href="http://www.nationalreview.com/author/56454">Jonah Goldberg</a></div>
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I walked out of
the studio at Fox only to have a producer greet me at the door and tell
me the wires were reporting Andrew had died. I walked around, dazed for a
few minutes. A booker asked me if I could hang around for reaction. I
said yes, foolishly. I went on. Bill Hemmer asked me some questions. I
don’t really remember what I said. But I know I started to break down. </div>
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/03/barack-obama-anti-economic-growth.html">Barack Obama: The Anti Economic Growth President</a>
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<a href="http://blogs.forbes.com/jimpowell/">Jim Powell</a><span class="desc">, Contributor</span>
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I cover economic and political history.
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2/29/2012 @ 1:14PM
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Barack Obama: The Anti Economic Growth President </span><span class="st_stumbleupon_button"><span class="stButton" style="color: black; cursor: pointer; display: inline-block; text-decoration: none;"><span class="stButton_gradient"><span class="chicklets stumbleupon"></span></span></span></span>
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For several hundred years, a consensus developed in Western
nations that economic growth – human <a href="" id="Y5688350S28" style="color: #000fff; text-decoration: underline;">progress</a> – is a good thing. But
now economic growth is under attack.<br />
Economic growth has meant more jobs, <a href="" id="Y5688350S29" style="color: #000fff; text-decoration: underline;">higher</a> incomes, more wealth and
all the good things that become possible — a more comfortable life,
better nutrition, better health care, more education, a cleaner
environment, a secure retirement, a higher life expectancy and
confidence that our children will be living even better.<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/03/what-if-constitution-no-longer-applied.html">What If the Constitution No Longer Applied?</a>
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by <a href="http://original.antiwar.com/author/andrew-p-napolitano/" rel="author" title="Posts by Andrew P. Napolitano">Andrew P. Napolitano</a></div>
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What if the whole purpose of the <a href="" id="Y5688350S20" style="color: #000fff; text-decoration: underline;">Constitution</a> was to
limit the government? What if <a href="" id="Y5688350S25" style="color: #000fff; text-decoration: underline;">Congress</a>’ enumerated powers in the
Constitution no longer limited Congress, but were actually used as
justification to extend Congress’ authority over every realm of human
life? What if the president, meant to be an equal to Congress, has
become a democratically elected, term-limited monarch? What if the
president assumed everything he did was legal, just because he’s the
president? What if he could interrupt your regularly scheduled radio and
TV programming for a special message from him? What if he could declare
war on his own? What if he could read your emails and texts without a
search warrant? What if he could kill you without warning?<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/03/what-if-freedom-were-temporary.html">What if Freedom Were Temporary?</a>
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by <a href="http://original.antiwar.com/author/andrew-p-napolitano/" rel="author" title="Posts by Andrew P. Napolitano">Andrew P. Napolitano</a></div>
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What if our rights didn’t come from God or from our humanity,
but from the government? What if the government really thinks we’re not
unique individuals with immortal souls, but just public property? What
if we were only entitled to our natural rights if it pleased the
government? What if our rights could be stripped away whenever the
government considers us to be its enemy?<br />
What if this could all be accomplished with the consent of the
people? What if the people’s own representatives subverted the
Constitution? What if the people were so afraid that they accepted the
subversion? What if the government demonizes an external enemy and uses
fear of that enemy to suppress our freedoms? What if people are afraid
to protest?<br />
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On June 2, 2009, a janitor in an office building in
New Brunswick, N.J., noticed what he thought was terrorist-related
literature and sophisticated surveillance equipment in an office he had
been assigned to clean. He told his boss, who called the local <a href="" id="Y5688350S27" style="color: #000fff; text-decoration: underline;">police</a>,
who notified the FBI. Later in the day, the FBI and the New Brunswick
police broke into the office and discovered five men busily operating
the equipment. Four of the men were police officers from the <a href="" id="Y5688350S34" style="color: #000fff; text-decoration: underline;">New York</a>
City Police Department (NYPD), and the fifth was a CIA agent.<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/03/obama-is-out-bushing-bush-and-no-one.html">Obama is out-Bushing Bush, and no one minds</a>
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<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="width: 395px;"><tbody>
<tr><td bgcolor="#D6CEDE" valign="top" width="100"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="width: 100px;"><tbody>
<tr><td align="center" background="/images/headlinecellbackground.gif" height="95"><img border="0" src="http://www.spiked-online.com/authors/NathalieRothschild/headline.gif" /></td></tr>
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</td><td bgcolor="#D6CEDE" valign="top" width="295"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="width: 295px;"><tbody>
<tr bgcolor="#ffffff" height="17"><td align="left" valign="bottom" width="60%"><span class="authornamehome">Nathalie Rothschild
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<tr><td bgcolor="#D6CEDE" colspan="2"><h1>
Obama is out-Bushing Bush, and no one minds</h1>
<br /><span class="articleAbstract">That
Obama has received so little flak over police spying on <a href="" id="Y5688350S23" style="color: #000fff; text-decoration: underline;">Muslims</a>
suggests <a href="" id="Y5688350S22" style="color: #000fff; text-decoration: underline;">Democrats</a> can get away with far more than Republicans.</span></td></tr>
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<b>It has emerged that the White House has funded the New
York Police Department’s surveillance of entire Muslim neighbourhoods
with money earmarked for fighting drug crime. The revelations were
detailed in reports by the <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5goI6Wnl2FLVcP5_K-5TtDk17Fgwg?docId=7563f134de75404395f87390312401e4">Associated Press</a>
this week. In response, senior law enforcement officials and
politicians have been either unapologetic or silent. Most tellingly, the
Obama administration, which has championed Muslim outreach and has said
law enforcement should not put entire communities under suspicion, said
on Monday that it has no opinion on the matter.</b><br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/03/inflation-not-as-low-as-you-think-by.html">Inflation: Not as low as you think. By Kathy Kristof</a>
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Forget
the modest 3.1 percent rise in the Consumer Price Index, the
government's widely used measure of inflation. Everyday <a href="" id="Y5688350S39" style="color: #000fff; text-decoration: underline;">prices</a> are <a href="http://www.aier.org/article/7557-epi-reflects-basic-economic-change">up some 8 percent</a> over the past year, according to <a href="" id="Y5688350S30" style="color: #000fff; text-decoration: underline;">the American</a> Institute for Economic Research.<br />
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<div class="storyMediaBox" id="storyMediaBox">
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<img border="0" height="349" src="http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim/2012/02/22/Marie_Colvin_AP120222011872_620x350.jpg" width="620" /> Sunday Times journalist Marie Colvin photographed in Tahrir square in Cairo. (AP Photo/Ivor Prickett Sunday Times)<br />
<div class="postSpecialReport" id="postSpecialReport">
<span class="spTitle">The <a href="" id="Y5688350S31" style="color: #000fff; text-decoration: underline;">Arab</a> Spring</span> <div class="postSpecialReportWrap">
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(AP) BEIRUT - <a href="" id="Y5688350S38" style="color: #000fff; text-decoration: underline;">American</a>
journalist Marie Colvin, who was killed in the central Syrian city of
Homs last week, has been buried in a cemetery in the embattled
neighborhood where she died, an activist video posted online Thursday
claimed.<br />
<br />
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Ricardo Valenzuela
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/03/afghan-gunmen-kill-2-us-troops.html">Afghan gunmen kill 2 U.S. troops</a>
</h3>
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<br />
(CBS/AP) KABUL, Afghanistan - Two U.S. troops were shot dead in
<a href="" id="Y5688350S36" style="color: #000fff; text-decoration: underline;">southern</a> Afghanistan when three assailants, two of whom were believed to
be Afghan soldiers, turned their weapons against American troops on
Thursday.<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/03/syrian-rebels-withdrawing-from-homs.html">Syrian Rebels Withdrawing From Homs</a>
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<h4 id="pagesub">
Rebel Officials Say Move a 'Tactical Retreat'</h4>
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by <a href="" id="Y5688350S32" style="color: #000fff; text-decoration: underline;">Jason</a> Ditz,</div>
<br />Less than 24 hours after the Free Syrian Army (FSA)<a href="http://news.antiwar.com/2012/03/01/2012/02/29/clashes-in-homs-as-syrian-troops-try-to-displace-rebels/"> was claiming to be holding the Syrian military back</a> from a “massacre” in the Baba Amro neighborhood of Homs, leaders of the group are <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=syrian%20rebels%20say%20they%20are%20withdrawing%20from%20enclave&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCsQqQIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2012%2F03%2F02%2Fworld%2Fmiddleeast%2Frebels-resisting-onslaught-in-syrian-city-activists-say.html&ei=8KpPT7G3DuOPiAKs3rS1Bg&usg=AFQjCNFhFCVlMZQEIq8SdYgtyf15mwTGYg">now saying that they are withdrawing from the city entirely</a>.<br />
<img align="right" alt="" hspace="10" src="http://news.antiwar.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/syria.gif" vspace="10" />Though
rebels say this is only a “tactical retreat” it seems a significant
gain for the Assad regime, as parts of Homs have been contested for
months and it has been the site of some of the fiercest battles in the
still relatively young civil war.<br />
If calm returns to Homs it could also be a major diplomatic victory
for the regime, as the close proximity of anti-Assad protesters and
battles has led the rebels to claim enormous civilian death tolls and
sparked international outcry.<br />
Where this leaves the rebels is unclear, though they still enjoy
considerable international support and have promised to escalate attacks
across the nation, saying they will strike everywhere from Daraa (along
the southern border with Jordan) to Idlib (near Turkey in the far
north).
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at
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<h3 class="post-title entry-title">
<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/03/energy-protectionism-is-not-good-policy.html">Energy Protectionism Is Not Good Policy. by Ivan Eland,</a>
</h3>
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</div>
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U.S.
policymakers and pundits continue to <a href="" id="Y5688350S33" style="color: #000fff; text-decoration: underline;">treat</a> energy as a “strategic”
commodity, which is just a way of justifying inefficient government
meddling in the industry sector. Before the 1973 Middle East
oil crisis, the federal government tried to keep oil prices high to
subsidize the oil industry. Ever since the Arabs wrested control of
their oil resources from the U.S.-dominated international oil cartel
and formed an imitative cartel of their own, the U.S. government has
decried high oil prices and spent hundreds of billions of dollars of
taxpayer money to “protect” Saudi Arabia and other Middle East producers
in exchange for their efforts to restrain oil prices.<br />
<br />
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Ricardo Valenzuela
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/03/corruption-and-citizen-american-style.html">Corruption and the Citizen, American-Style</a>
</h3>
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by <a href="http://original.antiwar.com/author/giraldi/" rel="author" title="Posts by Philip Giraldi">Philip Giraldi</a>, </div>
<div class="details3">
</div>
I have long nurtured this thoroughly
depressing conviction that the United States, far from being a shining
city on the hill, has become one of the most corrupt of nations.
Why does America have more lawyers than the rest of the world combined?
It is because the corruption has been institutionalized at every level
of political life and is protected by laws and procedures created
precisely
to enable elites to maintain dominance over the rest of us.
I appreciate that my viewpoint may be regarded as somewhat simplistic
as I am neither a judge nor a lawyer, and I do concede that many of
those
in the legal profession are both honest and dedicated to the
Constitution. Still, the bad taste of the past 11 years continues to
remind
me that there is something seriously wrong with how our political
system and rule of law operate.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/03/syria-crisis-un-demands-valerie-amos.html">Syria crisis: UN demands Valerie Amos let into country</a>
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An activist in the Syrian city of Homs has said the Free Syrian Army has left the embattled district of Baba Amr</div>
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The UN Security Council is demanding immediate access to Syria for its humanitarian chief, Valerie Amos. </div>
Russia and China, who vetoed two previous Security Council
resolutions on Syria, are also backing the call for Baroness Amos to be
allowed in.<br />
<br />
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Ricardo Valenzuela
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/03/france-election-sarkozy-hides-in-bar.html">France election: Sarkozy hides in bar amid protest</a>
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<span style="width: 304px;">Nicolas Sarkozy had to be escorted out of Bayonne by plain-<a href="" id="Y5688350S46" style="color: #000fff; text-decoration: underline;">clothes</a> police</span>
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Hundreds
of angry protesters have booed French President Nicolas Sarkozy,
forcing him to take shelter in a <a href="" id="Y5688350S43" style="color: #000fff; text-decoration: underline;">bar</a> as he campaigned in the Basque
country ahead of April's presidential election.</div>
Some in the crowd then threw eggs at the bar guarded by riot police in the south-western town of Bayonne.<br />
Mr Sarkozy described the protesters - Basque nationalists and
supporters of his rival Socialist candidate Francois Hollande - as
"hooligans".<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/03/death-from-above-apache-gunship.html">DEATH FROM ABOVE!!! apache gunship</a>
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/03/collateral-murder-wikileaks-iraq.html">Collateral Murder - Wikileaks - Iraq</a>
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/03/us-mad-about-high-gas-prices-then-chu.html">US: Mad About High Gas Prices? Then Chu On This – Investors.com</a>
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<br />
<strong><img alt="" class="alignleft wp-image-1492" height="219" src="http://www.hacer.org/usa/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/chusecretary.jpg" title="Steven Chu, Obama's Energy Secretary" width="296" /><a href="" id="Y5688350S41" style="color: #000fff; text-decoration: underline;">Gasoline</a>:</strong> As
pump prices hit $4 a gallon, Energy Secretary Steven Chu admits the
administration has no interest in bringing them down. Is it any <a href="" id="Y5688350S45" style="color: #000fff; text-decoration: underline;">wonder</a>
Democrats are growing increasingly agitated with this White House?<br />
At a hearing this week, Rep. Alan Nunnelee, R-Miss., specifically
asked Chu if “the overall goal” of the administration is to “get our
price down.” Chu’s answer was no.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/03/us-why-does-rick-santorum-have-serious.html">US: Why Does Rick Santorum Have “Serious Problems” With the Gold Standard? – by Ralph Benko</a>
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<img alt="" class="alignleft wp-image-1477" height="196" src="http://www.hacer.org/usa/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/rick-santorum12.jpg" title="Presidential Candidate Rick Santorum" width="336" />On a recent <a href="" id="Y5688350S44" style="color: #000fff; text-decoration: underline;">episode</a> of the <a href="http://www.forbes.com/profile/glenn-beck/">Glenn Beck</a> Show, Beck had an exchange, <a href="http://www.theblaze.com/stories/thomas-paine-vs-george-washington-santorum-and-glenn-part-ways-on-libertarianism/">summarized here</a>,
with presidential candidate Rick Santorum: “I think you’ve got to put
the Fed back in the business of just managing the money supply for the
purposes of holding inflation in check,” Santorum said. “If the Fed’s
only mission was dollar stabilization, then they wouldn‘t be doing what
they’re doing right now.”<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/03/us-problem-with-santorum-by-ann-coulter.html">US: The problem with Santorum – by Ann Coulter</a>
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<em><img alt="" class="alignleft wp-image-1498" height="215" src="http://www.hacer.org/usa/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Rick-Santorum62.jpg" title="Presidential Candidate Rick Santorum" width="322" />Even when I agree with Rick Santorum, listening to him argue the point almost makes me change my <a href="" id="Y5688350S49" style="color: #000fff; text-decoration: underline;">mind</a>.</em><br />
I also wonder why he’s running for president, rather than governor,
when the issues closest to his heart are family-oriented matters about
which the federal government can, and should, do very little.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/03/world-amnesty-executions-in-iran-spiked.html">World: Amnesty: Executions in Iran Spiked Last Year – by Ari Bildner</a>
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<img alt="" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-13733" height="225" src="http://www.hacer.org/latam/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Iran-executions-300x225.jpg" title="" width="300" />Iran publically executed around four times as many people in 2011 as in 2010, a new <em><a href="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/world/lede-blog/Amnesty-International-Iran-120227.pdf">Amnesty International report</a></em> published Tuesday said.<br />
“Casting a shadow over all those who fall <a href="" id="Y5688350S42" style="color: #000fff; text-decoration: underline;">foul</a> of Iran’s unjust
justice system is the mounting <a href="" id="Y5688350S47" style="color: #000fff; text-decoration: underline;">toll</a> of people sentenced to death and
executed,” the report said.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/03/us-growing-risk-posed-by-iran-venezuela.html">US: Growing risk posed by Iran-Venezuela axis – by Sen. Richard Lugar</a>
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<br />
<img alt="" class="alignleft wp-image-13286" height="296" src="http://www.hacer.org/latam/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/RichardLugar2012.jpg" title="Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Indiana)" width="400" />The
growing and deepening alliance between the mullahs of Iran and the
America-bashing leader of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, poses a serious threat
to U.S. national interests, but the Obama administration has been
behind the curve in appraising these risks and forging effective
policies to counter them.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/03/us-proposal-for-che-guevara-monument-in.html">US: Proposal for Che Guevara Monument in Ireland Should Be Rejected, Says Ros-Lehtinen – US House Committee on Foreign Affairs</a>
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<img alt="" class="alignleft wp-image-13673" height="240" src="http://www.hacer.org/latam/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/20ileana_ros-lehtinen12.jpg" title="U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee" width="206" />U.S.
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs
Committee, released the following statement today urging the City
Council of Galway, Ireland to reject a proposal to erect a monument in
honor of Che Guevara:<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/03/el-salvador-quits-market-model-by-mary.html">El Salvador Quits the Market Model – by Mary Anastasia O’Grady</a>
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<a href="http://www.hacer.org/latam/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/ShinyHappyAllies.jpg"><img alt="" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-8057" height="259" src="http://www.hacer.org/latam/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/ShinyHappyAllies.jpg" title="ShinyHappyAllies" width="346" /></a>The country’s debt has been repeatedly downgraded as President Mauricio Funes has increased government spending.<br />
The same Brazilian advertising hotshot who worked his magic to get a
left-winger elected president of El Salvador in 2009 is running the
presidential campaign of national socialist Ollanta Humala in Peru. If
João Santana’s expertise translates into a Humala victory, Peruvians had
better hope that the similarities end there.<br />
Mr. Santana’s successful Salvadoran client, Mauricio Funes of the
FMLN party, has been a disaster for the once-thriving Salvadoran
economy. One example: The United Nations’ Economic Commission on Latin
America and the Caribbean reported earlier this month that while “the
region’s FDI inflows were 40% higher than in 2009,” El Salvador didn’t
benefit. “In Central America, foreign investment flows to all countries
grew, except in the case of El Salvador.” It experienced a 79% decline.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/03/andrew-breitbart-dead-at-43-of-natural.html">Andrew Breitbart dead at 43 of natural causes at UCLA hospital</a>
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<a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/.a/6a00d8341c630a53ef01676339000a970b-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="Breitbart600" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d8341c630a53ef01676339000a970b" src="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/.a/6a00d8341c630a53ef01676339000a970b-640wi" style="width: 620px;" title="Breitbart600" /></a><br />
Conservative writer and website publisher Andrew Breitbart died of
natural causes at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center about midnight,
sources told The Times.<br />
The exact cause of death was unclear, said the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the case was ongoing.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/03/andrew-breitbart-collapsed-while.html">Andrew Breitbart collapsed while walking near Westwood home</a>
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<img alt="Breitbart at computer" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d8341c630a53ef016302445de7970d" src="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/.a/6a00d8341c630a53ef016302445de7970d-640wi" style="width: 620px;" title="Breitbart at computer" /><br />
<em>This post has been corrected. See details below.</em><br />
Conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart collapsed while walking near his Westwood home, his father-in-law said.<br />
Sources told The Times that Breitbart was rushed to Ronald Reagan
UCLA Medical Center about midnight, where he was pronounced dead of
natural causes. No further details were available.<br />
His father-in-law, actor Orson Bean, told the Associated Press that a
neighbor saw Breitbart fall and called paramedics. Bean also said
Breitbart had suffered from heart problems in the past.<br />
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<h2 class="date-header">
<span>Wednesday, February 29, 2012</span></h2>
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/coha-aide-memoire-falklands-fever-not.html">COHA Aide-mémoire: Falklands Fever Not Likely to Turn into War</a>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.coha.org/coha-aide-memoire-falklands-fever-not-likely-to-turn-into-war/" rel="bookmark" title="Permalink to COHA Aide-mémoire: Falklands Fever Not Likely to Turn into War">COHA Aide-mémoire: Falklands Fever Not Likely to Turn into War</a></span>
</h2>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">This analysis was prepared by </span><b style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">the following
members of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs staff: Director Larry
Birns and Research Associates Alex Gibson, Gustavo de Lima Palhares, and
Faizaan Sami.</b><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /> </div>
<div class="wp-caption aligncenter" id="attachment_15895" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; width: 310px;">
<a href="http://www.coha.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Cristina-Falklands.jpg"><img alt="" class="size-medium wp-image-15895" height="169" src="http://www.coha.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Cristina-Falklands-300x169.jpg" title="Cristina Falklands" width="300" /></a><div class="wp-caption-text">
Source: The Week</div>
</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">
In a speech on February 7 highlighting
steadily escalating Anglo-Argentine tensions, the explosive issue of the
Falkland Islands was the focus. Argentine President Cristina Fernández
de Kirchner announced that her government was prepared to denounce
London’s “latest re-militarization of the South Atlantic” before the
UN’s General Assembly, the Security Council, and the Committee on
Decolonization.</div>
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/julian-assange-walks-out-of-cnn.html">Julian Assange Walks Out of CNN Interview</a>
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/real-legacy-of-margaret-thatcher.html">The Real Legacy of Margaret Thatcher, Britain's Iron Lady</a>
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/role-of-economic-freedom.html">The Role of Economic Freedom</a>
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/red-tape-rising-2011-mid-year-report.html">Red Tape Rising: A 2011 Mid-Year Report</a>
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<span>By <a href="http://www.heritage.org/about/staff/g/james-gattuso" rel="author" title="James Gattuso">James Gattuso</a> and <a href="http://www.heritage.org/about/staff/k/diane-katz" rel="author" title="Diane Katz">Diane Katz</a></span><br /><span><em></em></span><br />
<br />
<b>Abstract:<i> </i></b>
<i>Following a record<b> </b>year of rulemaking, the Obama
Administration is continuing to unleash more costly red tape. In the
first six months of the 2011 fiscal year, 15 major regulations were
issued, with annual costs exceeding $5.8 billion and one-time
implementation costs approaching $6.5 billion. No major rulemaking
actions were taken to reduce regulatory burdens during this period.
Overall, the Obama Administration imposed 75 new major regulations from
January 2009 to mid-FY 2011, with annual costs of $38 billion. There
were only six major deregulatory actions during that time, with reported
savings of just $1.5 billion. This flood of red tape will undoubtedly
persist, as hundreds of new regulations stemming from the vast
Dodd–Frank financial regulation law, Obamacare, and the EPA’s global
warming crusade advance through the regulatory pipeline—all of which
further weakens an anemic economy and job creation, while undermining
Americans’ fundamental freedoms. Action by Congress as well as the
President to stem this regulatory surge is essential.</i><br />
<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/women-speak-out-obamacare-tramples.html">Women Speak Out: Obamacare Tramples Religious Liberty</a>
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<br />
Religious liberty has become an early casualty in Obamacare’s
collision course with liberty. Obamacare’s anti-conscience mandate
forces employers to provide health insurance coverage of
abortion-inducing drugs, contraceptives, and sterilization -– regardless
of religious or moral objections to such services. <br />
The mandate’s coercion of employers is a serious affront to
religious liberty and a warning sign of the problems inherent in a
centralized health care system. Conflicts between individual liberty and
the dictates of government bureaucrats on deeply personal health care
decisions will only increase as implementation of what Obamacare deems
to be an “essential benefits” package continues. <br />
Join us as an expert panel discusses the specific religious
liberty violations of the Obamacare anti-conscience mandate and the
health care law’s profound threat to personal freedom.
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/warning-to-superpower-threat-of-debt-to.html">Warning to a Superpower: The Threat of Debt to American Global Leadership</a>
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<br />
The scale of federal government debt in America is not only a major
economic problem, but also a strategic one. Having jumped radically in
recent years, federal debt is projected to continue to soar, driving up
interest expense, adding more pressure to raise taxes, and crowding out
national security spending, scaling back U.S. power on the world stage
to help make ends meet.<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/devil-we-dont-know-dark-side-of.html">The Devil We Don't Know: The Dark Side of Revolutions in the Middle East</a>
</h3>
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<br />
Human rights activist Nonie
Darwish assesses the potential for freedom to succeed following the
recent revolutions in the Middle East. The powerful wave of uprisings
has fueled both hope and trepidation in the region and around the world
as the ultimate fate – and fallout – of the Arab Spring continue to hang
in the balance. Darwish examines the ramifications of the game-changing
recent revolts and the factors that will obstruct or support freedom
and democracy in the Muslim world. Born and raised as a Muslim in Egypt
and now living in the United States, she brings an informed perspective
to this assessment of the potential outcome of the revolutions in the
Middle East and what the future holds for the people and the politics of
the region.
<br />
A former journalist for the Middle East News Agency, Nonie
Darwish has written extensively on the Middle East, Islam, and women's
rights. She is also the author of <em>Cruel and Unusual Punishment: The Terrifying Implications of Islamic Law </em>and <em>Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel, and the War on Terror</em>. <br />
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<h3 class="post-title entry-title">
<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/can-government-keep-us-safe.html">Can the Government Keep Us Safe?</a>
</h3>
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By Andrew Napolitano<br /><br />What a week we have all just endured! While the Democrats were
re-writing the federal takeover of healthcare behind closed doors, the
public face of the federal government was fixated on denying and then
explaining all the gaps in its intelligence gathering. The Obama
administration has been finger-pointing over who in the government let a
murderous thug on a plane in Amsterdam that he tried to explode over
Detroit. First, the government said that the system worked. Then the
President said it didn't. Then he announced that the intelligence
communities and security people would start to talk to each other so the
bad guys could be kept out. Weren't they supposed to be doing this all
along?
<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/lets-admit-enacting-medicare-was.html">Let's Admit Enacting Medicare Was a Mistake</a>
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By Jacob Hornberger<br /><br />
The ongoing fiasco in healthcare
shows why it was so wrong to have enacted Medicare in the first place. <br />
For one thing, Medicare reflects
perfectly the mindset of dependency that the welfare state has
inculcated in the American people, who have been born and raised under
a culture of welfare-statism. All too many Americans are absolutely
convinced that they could not survive without Medicare. The thought of
repealing, not reforming, Medicare is so terrifying to them that they
cannot even rationally discuss the subject. In their minds, if Medicare
were repealed, elderly parents and grandparents would soon be dying in
the streets of untreated infections and illnesses.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/time-to-get-out-of-afghanistan.html">Time to Get Out of Afghanistan</a>
</h3>
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By Doug Bandow<br /><br />
After September 11 the U.S. intervened in Afghanistan to kill Osama bin
Laden, dismantle al-Qaeda, and punish the Taliban. Washington
finally has succeeded at all three tasks. It is time for American
forces to come home.<br />
<br />
For many people Afghanistan started out as the good war. Osama
bin Laden and al-Qaeda turned Taliban-ruled Afghanistan into a
sanctuary as they plotted the death of thousands of Americans.
The Central Asian state -- in contrast to Iraq -- was an appropriate
target for military retaliation.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/national-intelligence-and-national.html">National Intelligence and National Defense</a>
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By Robert David Steele Vivas <br />
<br />
<div align="justify">
Right up front, here
is the value proposition: a revolution in national security affairs can
immediately deliver three things:</div>
<div align="justify">
1. Permit the rapid
(four years) reduction of the secret intelligence community budget from
$80 billion to under $20 billion and permit the rapid (four years)
reduction of the active and <a href="" id="Y5688350S17" style="color: #000fff; text-decoration: underline;">reserve</a> military budget from over $1
trillion a year (which is how much the US Government borrows every year
“in our name") to under $250 billion a year, with a strict focus on
defense against real modern threats instead of fabricated or
exaggerated threats;</div>
<div align="justify">
2. Provide the public
intelligence (decision-support) necessary to document, evaluate, and
recommend the reduction of the federal government by at least one-half
over four years; and</div>
<div align="justify">
3. Provide the
real-world, real-time comprehensive intelligence (decision-support)
necessary to restore the legitimacy and importance of the USA as an
enabler of a foreign policy of freedom (peace, commerce, and honest
friendship) and restore the legitimacy and importance of the federal
government as an enabler of domestic tranquility and prosperity, using
public intelligence in the public interest.</div>
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<h3 class="post-title entry-title">
<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/tax-credits-and-subsidies.html">Tax Credits and Subsidies</a>
</h3>
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<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-7951942274925810769">
By Laurence M. Vance<br /><br />
<br />
Do tax credits -- as well as tax
deductions, tax loopholes, tax shelters, and tax exemptions --
constitute subsidies? Many Republicans and conservatives think so.
<br />
Senate Republicans are divided over
a proposal to eliminate the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit. An
amendment to that end (<a href="http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:SP436:" target="hyper">S.Admt.436</a>) by Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) to the
Economic Development Revitalization Act of 2011 (<a href="http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:SN00782:" target="hyper">S.782</a>),
a bill to amend and reauthorize the Public Works and Economic
Development Act of 1965, was recently defeated with 34 out of 47
Republicans supporting the amendment.
<br />
The amendment follows a previous
attempt by Coburn to do the same thing with a stand-alone bill, <a href="http://thomas.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:S.520:" target="hyper">S.520</a>,
currently
languishing in the Committee on Finance.<br />
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</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395381545218020265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4966921227529983571.post-23517895206384109402012-02-11T16:45:00.001-08:002012-02-11T16:45:30.188-08:00<h3 class="post-title entry-title">
<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/us-creative-destruction-out-of-steam.html">US ‘creative destruction’ out of steam</a>
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<div class="byline ">
<span>By Ed Crooks</span></div>
<div class="master-row topSection">
<div class="fullstory fullstoryHeader">
</div>
</div>
If anybody wants a reason to feel optimistic
about America, they might take a stroll through the magnificent trading
floor of the Minneapolis Grain Exchange. A hundred years ago, farmers
would come here and tip samples of their grain on to heavy wooden desks
for merchants to assess. When that business moved on, the floor turned
into a place for the open outcry trading of futures and options in hard
red spring wheat. <br />
<div class="storyvideo" id="storyvideo1322146155001">
<div class="morevideo">
<a href="http://video.ft.com/">More video</a></div>
</div>
In 2008, that business died too, after the market became fully
electronic. But today, the Minneapolis exchange is far from dead; this
year, its floor was taken over by CoCo, which lets out space to
freelancers and small businesses. Among the ghosts of 19th century
farmers, there are new companies catering to mobile advertising, iPad
apps, business-to-business online networking, and other niches that the
old grain traders never imagined.<br />
<div class="story-package separator">
</div>
<div class="expandable-image" id="expandableimage">
<a href="http://im.media.ft.com/content/images/f894e9cc-24eb-11e1-8bf9-00144feabdc0.img?width=855&height=562&title=&desc=us-employment" target="_blank"><img alt="us-employment" src="http://im.media.ft.com/content/images/f880b3bc-24eb-11e1-8bf9-00144feabdc0.img" /><span>Click to enlarge</span></a></div>
“At
home I listen to the news about the economy, and it’s really different
from what I see at work,” says Kyle Coolbroth, a CoCo co-founder. “When
you come into this space and look at what’s happening, it doesn’t feel
like we’re in a <a href="http://www.ft.com/indepth/us-downturn" title="FT - In depth: US downturn">terrible recession</a>. A lot of people are rushing into market spaces that haven’t been defined yet.”<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/can-america-regain-most-dynamic-labour.html">Can America regain most dynamic labour market mantle?</a>
</h3>
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<span>By Edward Luce</span><div class="master-row topSection">
<div class="fullstory fullstoryHeader">
</div>
</div>
<div class="standfirst">
In Part One of the series examining the US jobs crisis, Edward Luce says that fears persist it cannot be fixed
</div>
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<span class="story-image"><img alt="Is America working" src="http://im.media.ft.com/content/images/39e0852e-2421-11e1-bbe6-00144feabdc0.img" /></span></div>
<span class="firstletter">L</span>ast week, <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2e03dfec-227f-11e1-923d-00144feabdc0.html" title="FT - US heads for class warfare election ">Barack Obama went to Osawatomie</a>,
Kansas, to kick off a more populist phase in his 2012 re-election bid.
“This is a make-or-break moment for the middle class,” declared the US
president, who chose the same venue that Teddy Roosevelt used in 1910 to
call for a new progressive era. “I believe that this country succeeds
when everyone gets a fair shot.”<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/risk-of-syrian-massacre-by-gideon.html">The risk of a Syrian massacre. by Gideon Rachman</a>
</h3>
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<div style="background-color: white; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
A few weeks ago, I heard a senior person in the <a href="http://www.ft.com/indepth/obama-presidency" title="FT - latest news on the Obama presidency">Obama administration</a>
talk about the situation in Syria. One of the problems with Bashar
al-Assad, he said, was that the Syrian leader was still surrounded by
his father’s old cronies. But one positive development, he mused, was
that it was no longer possible simply to kill 10,000 protesters in a
single city, as Hafez al-Assad once did.</div>
<div class="entry-content">
I wonder whether that may be too optimistic?<span id="more-26076"></span><br />
The <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/cc0d9b24-91d4-11e0-b4a3-00144feab49a.html">reports</a>
from Syria are certainly alarming. Refugees flooding across the Turkish
border. And the citizens of the rebellious town of Jisr al-Shugour,
bracing themselves for a full-scale assault by the army.<br />
I think the idea that the Syrian army could not simply kill thousands
of their fellow citizens was based on two assumptions – or, perhaps,
hopes. First, that in the internet age, it would be impossible to carry
out bloody repression on this scale, without immediately provoking a
paralysing international outcry. Second, that the development of the
international doctrine of a “responsibility to protect” brutalised
civilians – even within the boundaries of a sovereign state – would make
Assad junior stay his hand.<br />
<br />
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Ricardo Valenzuela
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/keep-taking-testosterone.html">Keep taking the testosterone</a>
</h3>
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<br />
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<span>By Charles Wallace</span></div>
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<span class="story-image"><img alt="Lionel Bissoon working lives" src="http://im.media.ft.com/content/images/ab3e4bce-5311-11e1-8aa1-00144feabdc0.img" /></span><div class="caption">
High T: Lionel Bissoon (above) has seen a rise in demand for testosterone from Wall Street workers.</div>
</div>
Until
a few years ago, doctor Lionel Bissoon, who practises what he calls
integrative medicine on Manhattan’s smart Upper West Side, mostly
treated middle-aged women for what is politely known as cellulite. Then
the <a href="http://www.ft.com/indepth/global-financial-crisis" title="FT In depth - Global financial crisis">financial crisis</a>
hit Wall Street and a strange thing happened: a stream of financial
executives and traders began coming to him in the hope of being turned
into alpha males.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/false-dawns-and-public-fury-1930s-are.html">False dawns and public fury: the 1930s are not so far away</a>
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<span>By Martin Taylor</span></div>
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<span class="story-image"><img alt="" src="http://im.media.ft.com/content/images/63658b24-5428-11e1-bacb-00144feabdc0.img" /></span></div>
Forget the icy weather: the financial markets are signalling that spring is coming. <a href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/bab18bf2-53cf-11e1-9eac-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1lwYy2ykh" title="FT - Pendulum swings in favour of equities">Equities are rallying</a>
and credit spreads have narrowed. Yet look around, if you can bear to.
Similarities with the interwar period – a time of persistent false dawns
– are multiplying ominously.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/obama-budget-again-skips-making-hard.html">Obama Budget Again Skips Making Hard Choices</a>
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By <a href="http://www.investors.com/Search/SearchResults.aspx?source=filterSearch&Ntt=SEN.+JOHN+BARRASSO&Nr=OR%28Author%3aSEN.+JOHN+BARRASSO%2cAuthor%3aSen.+John+Barrasso%29">SEN. JOHN BARRASSO</a> <span> </span></div>
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On Monday, President Obama is scheduled to release his
proposed budget for the coming year. If his past three budgets are any
indication, it is unlikely anyone outside of the White House will take
this budget seriously.<br />
That's because past Obama budgets have been long on empty promises
and short on real solutions. This president has consistently ignored
Washington's crushing debt and passed the real costs on to future
generations.<br />
The administration has already signaled that this year's spending
plan will offer more of the same: a budget that spends too much, borrows
too much and taxes too much.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/producers.html">The Producers</a>
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The decline of marriage and male wages is a problem of equality, not inequality.</h2>
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By <a href="http://online.wsj.com/search/term.html?KEYWORDS=JAMES+TARANTO&bylinesearch=true">JAMES TARANTO</a>
</h3>
<a class="" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/10/opinion/krugman-money-and-morals.html" target="_blank">Former Enron adviser</a> Paul Krugman has expanded the blog post we <a class="" href="http://bit.ly/xcKsFo" target="_blank">criticized Wednesday</a>
into a full-length column, and in doing so made explicit a predictable
fallacy in his thinking. To review, Krugman's argument is that the sharp
decline in marriage rates among less-affluent white Americans,
documented by Charles Murray in his new book, "Coming Apart: The State
of White America, 1960-2010," is "mainly about money" as opposed to
"morals." Here's the meat of Krugman's argument:<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/is-mitt-romney-electable.html">Is Mitt Romney Electable?</a>
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/washingtons-guide-to-presidency.html">Washington's Guide to the Presidency</a>
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/santorum-new-frontrunner.html">Santorum the New Frontrunner?</a>
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/journal-columnist-jeffrey-zaslow-dies.html">Journal Columnist Jeffrey Zaslow Dies at 53</a>
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By <a href="http://online.wsj.com/search/term.html?KEYWORDS=STEPHEN+MILLER&bylinesearch=true">STEPHEN MILLER</a> and <a href="http://online.wsj.com/search/term.html?KEYWORDS=DOUGLAS+BELKIN&bylinesearch=true">DOUGLAS BELKIN</a>
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Wall Street Journal reporter Jeffrey Zaslow
was tragically killed in an automobile accident on Friday. Kelsey
Hubbard spoke to Deputy Managing Editor Mike Miller about the beloved
journalist, whose work touched and inspired millions of people around
the world.</div>
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/" name="U603566483548MLI"></a>
Jeffrey Zaslow, a longtime Wall Street Journal writer
and best-selling author with a rare gift for writing about love, loss,
and other life passages with humor and empathy, died at age 53 on Friday
of injuries suffered in a car crash in northern Michigan.<br />
<br />
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Ricardo Valenzuela
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at
<a class="timestamp-link" href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/journal-columnist-jeffrey-zaslow-dies.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2012-02-11T08:56:00-07:00">8:56 AM</abbr></a>
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<h3 class="post-title entry-title">
<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/low-turnout-and-big-tune-out.html">Low Turnout and the Big Tune-Out</a>
</h3>
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<h2 class="subhead">
Voters aren't bothering with the GOP, but Obama has lost their attention too.</h2>
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<h3>
By PEGGY NOONAN</h3>
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The
Romney campaign is better at dismantling than mantling. They're better
at taking opponents apart than building a compelling candidate of their
own. They do not seem capable of deepening his meaning, making his
stands and statements more textured and interesting. He comes across
like a businessman who studied the data and came up with the formula
that will make the deal.<br />
<br />
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Ricardo Valenzuela
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at
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/taliban-five.html">The Taliban Five</a>
</h3>
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<h2 class="subhead">
Meet the men the U.S. might release as a goodwill gesture.</h2>
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The
Obama Administration is pursuing peace talks with the Taliban, and as a
goodwill gesture it has been leaking the news that it may pre-emptively
release five of their leaders held at Guantanamo. We thought you might
like to meet them.<br />
Their identities are an open secret, and last week the White House
gave a restricted briefing to a few Members of Congress to win their
support. The men are among the 46 out of 171 detainees left at Gitmo
that an Administration review in 2010 deemed "too dangerous to transfer
but not feasible for prosecution." Two years later, these detainees are
evidently no longer too dangerous. <br />
These upstanding citizens are:<br />
• Mohammad Fazl, around age 45, was the senior-most Taliban commander
in northern Afghanistan and their deputy defense minister when captured
in November 2001. He was at the Qala-i-Jangi fortress, outside the city
of Mazar-i-Sharif, when hundreds of Taliban prisoners revolted against
their captors in the Northern Alliance. CIA operative Johnny Michael
Spann died in the melee, becoming the first American casualty of the
Afghan war. A confidential annex of the Administration's 2010 review
suggests that Fazl may be responsible for Spann's death. <br />
According to his secret 2008 Gitmo file, which was published by
WikiLeaks, Fazl also commanded foreign fighters in Afghanistan and
"possessed vast power and financial resources." <br />
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Guantanamo Bay, Cuba</div>
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He was
close to Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader. Before 9/11, Fazl commanded
troops in central Afghanistan who massacred hundreds of Hazaras, a
Shiite Muslim ethnic minority. His Gitmo file also says the Iranian
government suspects him of "being connected" to the killing of its
diplomats in Mazar-i-Sharif in 1998.<br />
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Ricardo Valenzuela
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</span>
<span class="post-timestamp">
at
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<h3 class="post-title entry-title">
<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/immaculate-contraception.html">Immaculate Contraception</a>
</h3>
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<h2 class="subhead">
An 'accommodation' that makes the birth-control mandate worse.</h2>
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Here's
a conundrum: The White House wants to impose its birth-control ideology
on all Americans, including those for whom sponsoring or subsidizing
such services violates their moral conscience. The White House also
wants to avoid a political backlash from this blow to religious freedom.
These goals are irreconcilable.<br />
So you almost have to admire the absurdity of the new plan President
Obama floated yesterday: The government will now write a rule that says
the best things in life are "free," including contraception. Thus a
political mandate will be compounded by an uneconomic one—in other
words, behold the soul of ObamaCare.<br />
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President Obama with HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelious announce an adjustment to the health care bill on Friday.</div>
Under the original Health and Human
Services regulation, all religious institutions except for houses of
worship would be required to cover birth control, including hospitals,
schools and charities. Under the new rule, which the White House
stresses is "an accommodation" and not a compromise, nonprofit religious
organizations won't have to directly cover birth control and can opt
out. But the insurers they hire to cover their employees can't opt out.
If that sounds like a distinction without a difference, odds are you're a
rational person.<br />
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Ricardo Valenzuela
</a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="post-timestamp">
at
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/why-world-needs-america.html">Why the World Needs America</a>
</h3>
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<h2 class="subhead">
Foreign-policy
pundits increasingly argue that democracy and free markets could thrive
without U.S. predominance. If this sounds too good to be true, writes
Robert Kagan, that's because it is.</h2>
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By <a href="http://online.wsj.com/search/term.html?KEYWORDS=ROBERT+KAGAN&bylinesearch=true">ROBERT KAGAN</a>
</h3>
History shows that world orders, including our own,
are transient. They rise and fall, and the institutions they erect, the
beliefs and "norms" that guide them, the economic systems they
support—they rise and fall, too. The downfall of the Roman Empire
brought an end not just to Roman rule but to Roman government and law
and to an entire economic system stretching from Northern Europe to
North Africa. Culture, the arts, even progress in science and
technology, were set back for centuries. <br />
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Many of us take for granted how the world
looks today. But it might look a lot different without America at the
top. The Brookings Institution's Robert Kagan talks with Washington
bureau chief Jerry Seib about his new book, "The World America Made,"
and whether a U.S. decline is inevitable.</div>
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/" name="U603559549978LRD"></a>Modern history
has followed a similar pattern. After the Napoleonic Wars of the early
19th century, British control of the seas and the balance of great
powers on the European continent provided relative security and
stability. Prosperity grew, personal freedoms expanded, and the world
was knit more closely together by revolutions in commerce and
communication.<br />
<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/" name="U603559549978P0E"></a>With the outbreak of World War I, the
age of settled peace and advancing liberalism—of European civilization
approaching its pinnacle—collapsed into an age of hyper-nationalism,
despotism and economic calamity. The once-promising spread of democracy
and liberalism halted and then reversed course, leaving a handful of
outnumbered and besieged democracies living nervously in the shadow of
fascist and totalitarian neighbors. The collapse of the British and
European orders in the 20th century did not produce a new dark
age—though if Nazi Germany and imperial Japan had prevailed, it might
have—but the horrific conflict that it produced was, in its own way,
just as devastating. <br />
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maintain its hegemony on the high seas, would other nations fill in the
gaps? On board the USS Germantown in the South China Sea, Tuesday.</div>
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<span>Friday, February 10, 2012</span></h2>
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/02/10-things-that-every-american-should.html">10 Things That Every American Should Know About The Federal Reserve</a>
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<a href="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/10-things-that-every-american-should-know-about-the-federal-reserve/10-things-that-every-american-should-know-about-the-federal-reserve" rel="attachment wp-att-3350"><img alt="" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-3350" height="300" src="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/10-Things-That-Every-American-Should-Know-About-The-Federal-Reserve-240x300.jpg" title="10 Things That Every American Should Know About The Federal Reserve" width="240" /></a>What would happen if the Federal Reserve was shut down permanently? That is a question <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/46241902" target="_blank" title="that CNBC asked recently">that CNBC asked recently</a>,
but unfortunately most Americans don't really think about the Fed much.
Most Americans are content with believing that the Federal Reserve is
just another stuffy government agency that sets our interest rates and
that is watching out for the best interests of the American people. But
that is not the case at all. The truth is that the Federal Reserve is a
private banking cartel that has been designed to systematically destroy
the value of our currency, drain the wealth of the American public and
enslave the federal government to perpetually expanding debt. During
this election year, the economy is the number one issue that voters are
concerned about. But instead of endlessly blaming both political
parties, the truth is that most of the blame should be placed at the
feet of the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve has more power over
the performance of the U.S. economy than anyone else does. The Federal
Reserve controls the money supply, the Federal Reserve sets the interest
rates and the Federal Reserve hands out bailouts to the big banks that
absolutely dwarf anything that Congress ever did. If the American
people are ever going to learn what is really going on with our economy,
then it is absolutely imperative that they get educated about the
Federal Reserve.<br />
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<span class="by">By</span> <a class="url fn" href="http://dailyreckoning.com/author/mogamboguru/" title="View all posts by The Mogambo Guru">The Mogambo Guru</a></h1>
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<span class="date"><abbr class="published" title="2011-04-15T18:00:45+0000"></abbr>Tampa, Florida – </span>At my age, I have pretty much figured out that people don’t like me because they fear me.<br />
I don’t know why, exactly, but perhaps they fear me because I am a
cynical, paranoid, gold-bug old man who thinks that the Federal Reserve
has turned into an evil institution by creating So Freaking Much Money
(SFMM), now so that it can commit the sin of monetizing new government
debt by the truckload, increasing the money supply and guaranteeing a
roaring inflation that hurts the poor, and hurts the almost-poor, and
hurts the not-quite-poor, and (now that I think about it) it hurts
everybody, which hurts me personally because they come whining to me to
give them some of MY money!<br />
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<span class="date"><abbr class="published" title="2012-02-10T17:42:29+0000">02/10/12</abbr> Baltimore, Maryland – </span>Decline rates.<br />
Seriously.<br />
There are not very many people outside the “Peak Oil” crowd who care — heck, even know — what “decline rates” are.<br />
Yet the “story that isn’t being told” is often where you find the best investment narratives.<br />
“At first,” our resident energy enthusiast kicks us off with just
such a tale, “the conservative approach was to estimate that the
Marcellus wells would be productive for about two-three years and then
the decline curve would kick in.<br />
“Now, after three years of testing in some areas, that window is more like five years.”<br />
After five years? Many operators will go back and refrack the wells. Those five-year wells might become 10-year wells.<br />
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<span class="date"><abbr class="published" title="2012-02-10T15:24:05+0000">02/10/12</abbr> Delray Beach, Florida – </span>We used to like traveling. Now, it’s a drag.<br />
“No, we don’t want to go through your new x-ray machine,” we told the TSA guard.<br />
“Whassa matter? It’s safe…” she replied.<br />
“How do you know that?”<br />
“The government said it was safe.”<br />
“Do you believe everything the government tells you?”<br />
“Heh…heh… Okay…” then, turning to no one in particular… “REFUSAL on 11. Male.”<br />
We were out quickly…but the poor old woman behind us had to get up
out of her wheelchair…hobble through the x-ray machine…and then they
still wanted to feel her up on the other side.<br />
You can’t be too safe, right?<br />
<br />
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<span class="date"><abbr class="published" title="2012-02-10T18:30:20+0000">02/10/12</abbr> Buenos Aires, Argentina – </span>Wow! That was quick!<br />
“Greek Bailout at Risk as Party Pushes Back,” reports <em>Bloomberg</em>.<br />
“Greece Plunged Into Political Turmoil Over Austerity Measures,” chimes <em>The New York Times</em>.<br />
“Greek government hit by resignations,” adds the <em>FT</em>.<br />
We spilled a good deal of virtual ink in yesterday’s issue casting
doubt and aspersions over the validity of the Greek bailout plan. The
story, we reckoned, was at best an old one…at worst an irrelevant one.
Bailout or no bailout, the Greeks are broke. The rest is merely noise.<br />
Curiously (and to their credit), markets yesterday would not be
roused to action, neither by rumour, hearsay or scuttlebutt regarding
the imminent, 11th hour deals “struck” between Greek Prime Minister
Lucas Papademos and European Central Bank President Mario Draghi.<br />
Instead, they held tight, patiently.<br />
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<img alt="" class="alignleft wp-image-1430" height="367" src="http://www.hacer.org/usa/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/buitrecolisioneolica.jpg" title="Death Vulture in Navarra Photo: GURELUR" width="240" />“…
gleaming white wind turbines generating carbon-free electricity carpet
chaparral-covered ridges and march down into valleys of Joshua trees.”
This is “the future” of American energy – not “the oil rigs planted
helter-skelter in [nearby] citrus groves,” nor the “smoggy San Joaquin
Valley” a few miles away.<br />
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<img alt="" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1438" height="265" src="http://www.hacer.org/usa/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/constflagfl2.jpg" title="" width="400" />Our
Constitution is no longer respected as it once was. Nations writing new
constitutions don’t see it as the prototype to be followed. All have
something in common with our president.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/02/us-our-constitution-is-best-model.html#more" title="US: Our Constitution Is The Best Model A Country Could Have – Investors.com">Read more »</a>
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/02/us-plutocrat-dems-attack-romney-as.html">US: Plutocrat Dems attack Romney as ‘Richie Rich’ – by Ann Coulter</a>
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<img alt="" class="alignleft wp-image-1418" height="310" src="http://www.hacer.org/usa/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/richierich.jpg" width="311" />Having
given up on pillorying Mitt Romney for plundering his way to vast
wealth — because, unfortunately, it isn’t true — the NFM (Non-Fox Media)
seem to have settled on denouncing him as a rich jerk.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/02/postwar-rent-controls-mises-daily-by.html">Postwar Rent Controls Mises Daily: by Robert L. Scheuttinger and Eamonn F. Butler</a>
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<div class="editorial-preface">
[<a href="http://mises.org/resources/3968/Forty-Centuries-of-Wage-and-Price-Controls-How-Not-to-Fight-Inflation"><i>Forty Centuries of Wage and Price Controls: How Not to Fight Inflation</i></a> (1978)]<br />
</div>
<div class="figure">
<img alt="" border="0" src="http://images.mises.org/5871/PostwarHousingShortage1946.jpg" /></div>
The rent that a landlord charges for his accommodation is merely an
instance of a price for a commodity, like all other prices for all other
commodities. And like all other prices and all other commodities, rents
have been a prime target for government restrictions. The postwar
experience with rent control has been particularly revealing in regard
to the adequacy of controls in general.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/02/feds-quasi-fiscal-policies-mises-daily.html">The Fed's Quasi-Fiscal Policies Mises Daily: by David Howden</a>
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2007 are a sharp departure from the old way of performing monetary
policy. In fact, it is difficult to state that the Fed is any longer in
the business of traditional monetary policy — understood in the United
States as aiming for low inflation and smoothed output volatility. A new
breed of monetary policies better referred to as "quasi-fiscal"
policies has become the norm.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/02/time-is-money-capital-and-interest.html">Time Is Money: Capital and Interest Mises Daily: by Eugen-Maria Schulak and Herbert Unterköfler</a>
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<img alt="Time Is Money" border="0" src="http://images.mises.org/5872/TimeIsMoney.jpg" /></div>
The up-and-coming Austrian School received support from abroad even during the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methodenstreit"><i>Methodenstreit</i></a>.
Léon Walras mentioned already well-known supporters of the new value
theory from among the Romance countries in the preface to his <i>Théorie de la monnaie</i>
(1886). In English publications, the subjectivist theory of value was
gaining increased acceptance as well (cf. Böhm-Bawerk 1889b). The fact
alone that it had been discovered at almost the same time by three
authors (Walras, Menger, and Jevons) was considered by Böhm-Bawerk to be
substantive evidence of its veracity (Böhm-Bawerk 1891/1930, p. 132 n.
1). In contrast, Gustav Cohn (1840–1919), an advocate of the Historical
School, interpreted this brisk publishing activity to mean that the
discovery of the marginal utility constituted a "meager morsel" that
would have to be shared by "a number of like-minded discoverers" (Cohn
1889, p. 23).<br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/02/will-currency-devaluation-fix-eurozone.html">Will Currency Devaluation Fix the Eurozone? Mises Daily: by Frank Shostak</a>
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Roubini said in Davos, Switzerland, on January 25, 2012, that tight
policies are making the recession in the eurozone worse. According to
Roubini what Europe needs is less austerity and more growth. In
particular, the NYU professor is concerned about the deep recession in
the eurozone's peripheral countries: Spain, Portugal, Greece — all are
on a strict regime of austerity. For instance, in Spain the yearly rate
of growth of government outlays stood at minus 12.4 percent in November
against minus 15.7 percent in the month before. In Portugal the yearly
rate of growth stood at minus 3.6 percent in December against minus 2.5
percent in November. In Greece the yearly rate of growth fell to 2.9
percent in December from 6.2 percent in the prior month.
<br />
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A visible tightening is also observed in the two major European
economies of Germany and France. Year-on-year government outlays in
Germany stood at minus 1.6 percent in November versus minus 1.7 percent
in October. In France the yearly rate of growth stood at minus 12.4
percent in November against minus 12.3 percent in the prior month.<br />
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</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395381545218020265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4966921227529983571.post-2651239197175571072012-02-03T23:16:00.001-08:002012-02-03T23:16:57.738-08:00<h3 class="post-title entry-title">
<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/keynesian-economics-vs-austrian.html">Keynesian Economics vs. Austrian Economics</a>
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<h3 class="post-title entry-title">
<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/americas-last-chance.html">America’s Last Chance</a>
</h3>
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One Against the Empire</div>
<div class="mainauthorstyle">
by PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS</div>
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<div class="main-text">
America has one last chance, and it is a very slim one. Americans
can elect Ron Paul President, or they can descend into tyranny.<br />
Why is Ron Paul America’s last chance?<br />
Because he is the only candidate who is not owned lock, stock, and
barrel by the military-security complex, Wall Street, and the Israel
Lobby.<br />
All of the others, including President Obama, are owned by exactly
the same interest groups. There are no differences between them. Every
candidate except Ron Paul stands for war and a police state, and all
have demonstrated their complete and total subservience to Israel. The
fact that there is no difference between them is made perfectly clear by
the absence of substantive issues in the campaigns of the Republican
candidates.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/airline-that-makes-money-really.html">An Airline That Makes Money. Really.</a>
</h3>
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<h2 class="subhead">
The
Alaska Airlines CEO talks about surviving the industry's last horrible
decade, and how to make money when everyone else is losing it.</h2>
<div class="articlePagination" id="article_pagination_top">
</div>
<h3 class="byline">
By <a href="http://online.wsj.com/search/term.html?KEYWORDS=MATTHEW+KAMINSKI&bylinesearch=true">MATTHEW KAMINSKI</a>
</h3>
<em>Seattle</em>
<br />
Airline business: Mere oxymoron or investor death wish? Cumulatively,
America's airlines have lost $34 billion since 1947. In the last
decade, five legacy carriers landed in Chapter 11 bankruptcy—US Airways
twice. "How do you become a millionaire?" mused Warren Buffett, who had
an unhappy dalliance with US Airways. "Make a billion dollars and then
buy an airline."<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/romneys-pyrrhic-victory.html">Romney's Pyrrhic Victory</a>
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By Al Giordano<br />
<img alt="" src="http://narcosphere.narconews.com/userfiles/70/MittNewt2.jpeg" style="height: 412px; width: 580px;" /><br />
While tea leaves point to a likely Florida primary victory for
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney tonight, the former
Massachusetts governor will emerge only marginally ahead in the delegate
count with 46 of the 50 states yet to cast a vote.<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/new-lead-surfaces-in-cold-house-of.html">New Lead Surfaces in Cold “House of Death” Drug-War Case</a>
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<span class="submitted">Posted by <a href="http://narcosphere.narconews.com/users/bill-conroy" title="View user profile.">Bill Conroy</a> - </span><br />
<span class="submitted"> </span>
<br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span><strong>Man on the Run From the “Cartel” Claims He Is a Witness to a Murder That Threatens the State </strong></span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span>A new voice from the past has emerged
in the House of Death mass-murder case — in which a US government
informant is accused of assisting with up to a dozen murders, the bodies
of the victims later found buried, covered in lime, in the backyard of a
house in Juarez, Mexico.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span>This individual is himself a victim of
the House of Death and claims to have survived its deadly grip by
fractions of an inch after a bullet ripped through his head. And he has
now stepped forward, out of the shadows, to tell his story.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span>In recent weeks, Narco News conducted a
series of interviews with this individual, who asked that his name not
be used because he asserts that he is still being pursued by “the
cartel.”<img alt="" src="http://narcosphere.narconews.com/userfiles/70/House.pix.jpg" style="border-style: solid; border-width: 1px; float: right; height: 285px; margin: 3px; width: 380px;" /> </span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span>In addition, this individual, whom we
will call Juanito, has reason to fear the “Migra” in the United States
will once again deport him, despite his long history of saying the
pledge of allegiance in US classrooms. </span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span>Juanito was born in Mexico, he
concedes, and is now living somewhere in the United States, without
proper papers. However, Juanito also says he came to this country with
his family at the age of six and grew up here, until he was deported
more than a decade ago after a run-in with the law. </span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span>Finding himself stranded in Mexico
after his forced exit from the United States, and with no family or way
to make a living in Mexico, Juanito says he saw no other option but to
continue to walk the path of an outlaw in the business of drug
trafficking, not as a major player, but as a worker — moving cars to
locations where they were needed, loading and unloading the cargo of the
trade and assisting with all the other manual labor that goes with
keeping a sales and distribution business in motion.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/us-aims-to-crush-iranian-oil-sector.html">US Aims to Crush Iranian Oil Sector, While Avoiding Harm to Oil Markets?</a>
</h3>
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John Glaser </div>
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The Obama administration wants to sanction Iranian oil without negatively effecting global oil markets. <a href="http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/white-house-iran-sanctions-not-aimed-at-oil-markets/">No, seriously</a>:<br />
<blockquote>
The White House said on Thursday the Iran sanctions
proposed by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama should be
enforced in a way that does not hurt the United States’ allies or
disrupt oil markets.<br />
“We want to make sure that the implementation of those sanctions is
handled in a way that does not inadvertently do any harm to our allies
or to the oil markets,” White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters.</blockquote>
But a recent <a href="http://www.cfr.org/iran/managing-oil-market-disruption-confrontation-iran/p27171">Energy Brief from the Council on Foreign Relations concludes that is wishful thinking</a>.
The U.S.’s efforts “to sanction Iran’s crude oil exports,” says the CFR
report, “has already pushed Iran to threaten ”to disrupt the flow of
oil through the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important oil
chokepoint, through which nearly seventeen million barrels per day
(mb/d), or about 35 percent of seaborne traded oil, moves.”<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/israel-ramps-up-push-for-attack-on-iran.html">Israel Ramps Up Push for Attack on Iran</a>
</h3>
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<h4 id="pagesub">
Officials claim Iran has missiles that could strike US</h4>
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by John Glaser,
February 02, 2012 </div>
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Israeli officials have apparently been engaged in an aggressive
public relations offensive to broaden support for a military attack on
Iran, with particular emphasis on American audiences.<br />
Israel’s strategy conference this week in Herzliya, a Tel Aviv
suburb, has featured highly publicized speeches by many Israeli
officials. Specifically, they have claimed that Iran currently possesses
long range missiles that could reach the United States and enough the
material to build four nuclear weapons.<br />
<a href="http://news.antiwar.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/iran-13.gif"><img alt="" class="alignright size-full wp-image-25810" height="353" src="http://news.antiwar.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/iran-13.gif" title="" width="332" /></a>For months, Israeli officials have been feeling out the Obama administration’s appetite for a war with Iran. <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/12/28/u-s-israel-discuss-triggers-for-bombing-iran-s-nuclear-infrastructure.html">Reports have revealed</a>
that U.S. officials have tried to assure Israel that a military strike
is in principle on the table, while simultaneously urging them not to
attack unilaterally.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/blocking-paths-out-of-poverty.html">Blocking the Paths Out of Poverty</a>
</h3>
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<strong>By</strong> <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/authors/?author=John+Stossel&id=14461"><b>John Stossel</b></a><br />
<div class="article_body" id="article_body">
Have you noticed how often government takes sides against the little guy?<br />
Street vending has been a path out of poverty for Americans. And like
other such paths (say, driving a taxi), this one is increasingly
difficult to navigate. Why? Because entrenched interests don't like
competition. So they lobby their powerful friends to erect high hurdles
to upstarts. It's an old story.<br />
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Now, growing local governments are crushing street vendors.<br />
The city of Atlanta, for example, has turned all street vending over
to a monopoly contractor. In feudalist fashion, all existing vendors
were told they must work for the monopoly or not vend at all.<br />
"Vendors who used to paying $250 a year for their vending site must
now hand over $500 to $1,600 every month for the privilege of working
for the monopoly," wrote Bob Ewing in The Freeman. Ewing works for the
Institute for Justice, the libertarian public-interest law firm that
defends victims of anticompetitive regulation.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/anonymous-claims-it-intercepted-fbi.html">Anonymous Claims It Intercepted FBI Conference Call</a>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Anonymous Claims It Intercepted FBI Conference Call (VIDEO)
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LONDON — Trading jokes and swapping leads, investigators from the FBI
and Scotland Yard spent the conference call strategizing about how to
bring down the hacking collective known as Anonymous, responsible for a
string of embarrassing attacks across the Internet.<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/case-for-romney-president-who-owes-you.html">The Case for Romney A president who owes you is better than one who owns you.</a>
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<span class="drop">Y</span>ears ago, a friend told me a story from her days living in South America. The movie <i>Wayne’s World</i> had come out, and she went to see it. She spoke English, but it was interesting to read the Spanish subtitles.</div>
For instance, early in the film, Wayne says: “Shyeah, and monkeys might fly out of my butt!”<br />
The Spanish subtitles read: “Yes, when judgment day comes.”<br />
Needless to say, something was lost in translation.<br />
This, in a nutshell, is Mitt Romney’s biggest problem. A late
immigrant to conservatism, Romney doesn’t speak the language naturally.
He shares traits with both Al Gore, whose stiffness bordered on the
animatronic, and George H. W. Bush, whose contempt for the
song-and-dance of elections was transparent. Gore tried to compensate
for his inadequacies by shouting, like an ugly American who thinks a
foreigner will understand him if he only talks louder. Bush fell back on
recitations of patriotic slogans and the generosity of providence that
delivered Michael Dukakis as an opponent.<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/exit-newt.html">Exit Newt</a>
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<span>By <a href="http://spectator.org/people/r-emmett-tyrrell-jr" rel="author">R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.</a> </span></div>
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He's part and parcel of the 1960s generation's larger
failures.</div>
WASHINGTON -- Ah, yes, Newt Gingrich did in the last days of the
Florida primary precisely what I predicted he would do. He hurled
wild charges at Mitt Romney that suggested Newt was losing his
grip. He charged Romney with lying and falling into the hands of
George Soros and Goldman Sachs, and he did this while seeking the
<em>Republican</em> presidential nomination!<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/civil-disobedience-in-obamas-second.html">Civil Disobedience in Obama's Second Term</a>
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<span>By <a href="http://spectator.org/people/george-neumayr" rel="author">George Neumayr</a> </span></div>
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The religious should march on this unjust presidency.</div>
Some of Barack Obama's useful idiots on the Catholic center/left
say that his decree forcing religious organizations to pay for
contraceptives amounts to a betrayal. No, it is not. Candidate
Obama had telegraphed his plans to discriminate against the
religious. Were Cardinal Mahony and company too busy burbling over
"hope and change" to pay attention? You made Obama's bed; now lie
in it.<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/last-republican.html">The Last Republican?</a>
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<span>By <a href="http://spectator.org/people/geoffrey-norman" rel="author">Geoffrey Norman</a> </span></div>
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Friedrich Nietzsche was right about Mitt Romney.</div>
<em><span>The earth has become small, and on it hops the Last
Man, who makes everything small. His species is ineradicable as the
flea; the Last Man lives longest.<br />
<strong>-- Nietzsche</strong></span></em><br />
<span>So it seems it will be Mitt. And good thing he won't be
offering his main rival the second spot on the ticket. "Mitt &
Newt" sounds like the name of a comedy act or a network sitcom. Not
right for something epic or tragic. Which is to say… not right for
the times. Not even close.</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/jobs-picture-lackluster-is-new.html">Jobs Picture: Lackluster Is the New Excellent Under Obama</a>
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<span class="author">Posted by <a href="http://cfif.org/v/freedom_line_blog/author/tlee/" title="Posts by Timothy Lee">Timothy Lee</a></span> </div>
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Today’s Department of Labor <a href="http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm" target="_blank">report</a>
that unemployment declined slightly from 8.5% to 8.3% in January will
surely be celebrated and trumpeted by the Obama Administration. Which
only serves to illustrate the terrible quality of his economic
performance in office.<br />
First of all, today’s announcement means that unemployment has now
exceeded 8% for 36 consecutive months, three entire years. That’s an
all-time record since recordkeeping began. Second, that new record is
not somehow a reflection of the fact that the most recent recession was
“the worst since the Great Depression,” as Obama and his apologists
constantly claim. Unemployment actually reached a higher peak in the
early 1980s recession, but <a href="http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet" target="_blank">quickly plummeted</a>
from 10.8% to 6.7% following implementation of Reagan’s tax cuts. In
contrast, unemployment has increased under Obama from 7.8% to over 10%
and three straight years over 8%. Moreover, inflation and interest
rates were far higher in the early 1980s recession, and monetary policy
was much tighter, meaning that conditions were less hospitable for
economic improvement. Third, for all of the deficit spending the Obama
Administration heaped upon American taxpayers, it <a href="http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1910208,00.html" target="_blank">promised</a> that unemployment under its agenda would be down to around 6% by now.<br />
Instead, we’re barely treading water and mediocre news is characterized as wonderful. This is the Age of Obama.
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/his-abominations-accelerate.html">His Abominations Accelerate</a>
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<span>By <a href="http://spectator.org/people/quin-hillyer" rel="author">Quin Hillyer</a> </span></div>
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Obama's the man leading the Occupy the Oval Office movement.</div>
The Republican presidential campaign thus far has been so
bizarre and, frankly, depressing, that some of us have failed to
adequately cover worrisome developments on a number of other
important fronts. By ineptness and, worse, by deliberate design,
Barack Obama daily makes this nation weaker abroad, less free (and
more authoritarian) at home, economically more feeble, and in the
civic realm <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/obama-the-most-polarizing-president-ever/2012/01/29/gIQAmmkBbQ_print.html" target="_blank">
more bitterly divided</a> than ever. Meanwhile, ominous
developments crowd the world stage. In short, we're in a big heap
of trouble.<br />
<span>The recent litany of Obama's odiousness begins with his
growing, unambiguous war against traditional Christianity. He has
now left no room for any pretense otherwise to be believed. Right
on the heels of a <em>unanimous</em> Supreme Court, including his
own two appointees, <a href="http://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/42-constitution-and-legal/1266-supreme-court-saves-religious-liberty-from-obama" target="_blank">
smacking down</a> his administration's attempt to kill the
"ministerial exemption" for employment practices of faith-based
institutions, an unchastened Obama has <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/290037/matter-principle-stephen-p-white" target="_blank">
decided</a> that even faith-based organizations must provide
insurance that covers contraception -- even including
abortifacients.</span><br />
<span></span><br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/bolivia-rough-justice-economist.html">Bolivia: Rough justice – The Economist</a>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Bolivia: Rough justice – The Economist</span></h2>
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<em><a href="http://www.hacer.org/latam/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/linchamientosbolivia.gif"><img alt="" class="alignleft wp-image-12876" height="240" src="http://www.hacer.org/latam/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/linchamientosbolivia.gif" title="The Justicia Comunitaria opened a green way for the legal lynching in Bolivia." width="335" /></a>The Justice System in Bolivia: The wrong way to reform the courts.</em><br />
In the streets of El Alto, Bolivia’s poorest and fastest-growing
city, scarecrow dummies hang grotesquely from lampposts with ropes
around their necks as a macabre warning to potential thieves and
criminals. The threat is not idle. Residents have little faith in the
police or the courts. Instead, they often take justice into their own
hands: the lynching and killing of alleged offenders is not infrequent
in El Alto, nor elsewhere in Bolivia.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/latin-america-cocaine-new-front-lines.html">Latin America: Cocaine: The New Front Lines – by John Lyons</a>
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<em><a href="http://www.hacer.org/latam/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/CocaineLatam1.jpg"><img alt="" class="alignleft wp-image-12890" height="374" src="http://www.hacer.org/latam/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/CocaineLatam1.jpg" title="One expert calls it the 'whack-a-mole policy' to try to deal with the migrating cocaine business. Photo: Ben Wiseman" width="264" /></a>Colombia’s
success in curbing the drug trade has created more opportunities for
countries hostile to the United States. What happens when coca farmers
and their allies are in charge?</em><br />
<em></em><br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/opinion-why-2012-is-critical-year-for.html">Opinion: Why 2012 is a critical year for the US and Venezuela, the narco-state on our doorstep – by Roger F. Noriega</a>
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<a href="http://www.hacer.org/latam/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/CocaineVaccine_main_0106.jpg"><img alt="" class="alignleft wp-image-12871" height="248" src="http://www.hacer.org/latam/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/CocaineVaccine_main_0106.jpg" title="Rangel Silva & Chavez Frias" width="368" /></a>Venezuela’s
dictator Hugo Chávez was informed five years ago that his close ally
Gen. Henry Rangel Silva – the man whom he recently named Defense
Minister – is involved in cocaine smuggling.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/us-gospels-contradict-obamas-idea-of.html">US: Gospels Contradict Obama’s Idea Of A Socialist Jesus</a>
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<strong><a href="http://www.hacer.org/usa/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/viewer.png"><img alt="" class="alignleft wp-image-1408" height="252" src="http://www.hacer.org/usa/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/viewer.png" title="Followers of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela usually portray Jesus Christ as a revolutionary socialist with a machine gun." width="448" /></a>Church And State:</strong> President
Obama has taken a very powerful name in vain in defense of his class
warfare economic policies. In fact, Obama encourages a sin Jesus Christ
repeatedly admonished: <strong>envy</strong>.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/us-obamas-green-energy-investments.html">US: Obama’s Green Energy Investments Continue to Fail – Investors.com</a>
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<strong><a href="http://www.hacer.org/usa/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/giant-off-switch.jpg"><img alt="" class="alignleft wp-image-1413" height="274" src="http://www.hacer.org/usa/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/giant-off-switch.jpg" width="340" /></a>Industrial Policy:</strong> In
recent days we learned sales of the Volt and Leaf cratered, President
Obama’s failed green jobs program is under investigation, and another
“clean energy” company’s in trouble. Green is the new red.<br />
Each week, it seems, brings fresh evidence that the Obama
administration’s obsession with so-called clean energy is an
increasingly costly failure.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://www.intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/02/mapmakers-petition.html">The Mapmakers Petition</a>
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This could have also been labelled as from the files of
“anti-trust is not about consumers.” Apparently, a mapmaker in France
has successfully<a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/%7Er/Cato-at-liberty/%7E3/mCii7fHD_7s/"> sued and won damages from Google</a> for unfair competition, ie from providing Google Maps for free.<br />
Just as in the Microsoft anti-trust case and just about every
anti-trust case in history, companies who brought the suit are really
trying to stop an up-start competitor from trashing their business
model, but they have to couch this true concern in mumbled words about
the consumer. Specifically, they raise that ever-popular boogeyman of
jacking up prices once the monopoly is secured. The next time this
happens, of course, will be the first time. Its a myth. For example,
in Google’s case, left unsaid is how they would jack up their prices
when at least two other companies (Bing, Mapquest) also provide mapping
services online for free.<br />
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Tags: <a href="http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/tag/france" rel="tag">france</a>, <a href="http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/tag/google-maps" rel="tag">Google Maps</a>, <a href="http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/tag/monopoly" rel="tag">monopoly</a>, <a href="http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/tag/prices" rel="tag">prices</a><br /> Category: <a href="http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/category/liability-lawsuits-insurance" rel="category tag" title="View all posts in Liability / Lawsuits / Insurance">Liability / Lawsuits / Insurance</a>, <a href="http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/category/regulation" rel="category tag" title="View all posts in Regulation">Regulation</a> |
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<a href="http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2012/01/the-media-and-cancer-risks.html" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to The Media and Cancer Risks">The Media and Cancer Risks</a></h2>
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January 31, 2012, 8:44 am </div>
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The old saying goes, “where there is smoke, there’s fire.” I
think we all are at least subconciously suceptible to thinking this way
vis a vis the cancer risks in the media. We hear so much about these
risks that, even if the claims seem absurd, we worry if there isn’t
something there. After all, if the media is concerned, surely the
balance of evidence must be at least close – there is probably a small
risk or increase in mortality.<br />
Not so. Take cell phones. We have heard for decades concern about
cancer risk from cell phones. But they are not even close to dangerous,
<a href="http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2012/01/more-anti-science-blather-from-the-atlantic.html">missing danger levels by something like 5 and a half orders of magnitude.</a><br />
<blockquote>
Cell phones do not cause cancer. They do not even
theoretically cause cancer. Why? Because they simply do not produce the
type of electromagnetic radiation that is capable of causing cancer.
Michael Shermer <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=can-you-hear-me-now">explains</a>, using basic physics:<br />
<blockquote>
…known carcinogens such as x-rays, gamma rays and UV rays
have energies greater than 480 kilojoules per mole (kJ/mole), which is
enough to break chemical bonds… A cell phone generates radiation of less
than 0.001 kJ/mole. That is 480,000 times weaker than UV rays…</blockquote>
If the radiation from cell phones cannot break chemical bonds, then
it is not possible for cell phones to cause cancer, no matter what the
World Health Organization thinks. And just to put the “possible
carcinogen” terminology into perspective, the WHO also considers <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Possible_carcinogen">coffee</a> to be a possible carcinogen. Additionally, it appears that <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2011/08/23/world-health-organization-cancerous-cell-phones/">politics and ideology</a> may have trumped science in the WHO’s controversial decision.</blockquote>
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Tags: <a href="http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/tag/media" rel="tag">media</a>, <a href="http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/tag/michael-shermer" rel="tag">Michael Shermer</a>, <a href="http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/tag/physics" rel="tag">physics</a>, <a href="http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/tag/risk" rel="tag">risk</a>, <a href="http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/tag/risks" rel="tag">risks</a>, <a href="http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/tag/uv" rel="tag">UV</a>, <a href="http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/tag/who" rel="tag">WHO</a>, <a href="http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/tag/world-health-organization" rel="tag">World Health Organization</a><br /> Category: <a href="http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/category/science" rel="category tag" title="View all posts in Science">Science</a> |
<a href="http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2012/01/the-media-and-cancer-risks.html#comments" title="Comment on The Media and Cancer Risks">16 Comments</a> </div>
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<h2 class="posttitle">
<a href="http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2012/01/the-ultimate-end-of-social-democratic-labor-policy.html" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to The Ultimate End of Social-Democratic Labor Policy">The Ultimate End of Social-Democratic Labor Policy</a></h2>
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When a country<br />
<ul>
<li>Increases the minimum wage, and therefore the minimum skill / productivity needed for a job</li>
<li>Adds substantially to the costs of labor through required taxes, insurance premiums, pensions, etc</li>
<li>Makes employees virtually un-fireable, thus forcing companies to
think twice about hiring young, unproven employees they may be saddled
with, good or bad, for decades</li>
<li>Puts labor policy in the hands of people who already have jobs (ie unions)</li>
<li>Shift wealth via social security and medical programs from the young to the old</li>
</ul>
<a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/%7Er/zerohedge/feed/%7E3/rVoHzMIoIsI/europes-scariest-chart">It gets this</a><br />
<a href="http://www.coyoteblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Youth-Unemployment-Europe_0.jpg"><img alt="" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-15673" height="363" src="http://www.coyoteblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Youth-Unemployment-Europe_0-500x363.jpg" title="click to enlarge" width="500" /></a><br />
<br />
The bitterly ironic part is that when these folks hit the streets in
mass protests, it will likely be for more of the same that put them
there in the first place.<br />
<br />
Want to argue that such policies are hurting workers rather than helping? <a href="http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/labor-law-professors-defy-death-threats-in-italy/">Good luck, at least in Italy</a><br />
<blockquote>
Pietro Ichino, a professor of labor law at the University
of Milan and a senator in the Italian legislature, is known as the
author of several “neoliberal” books and studies recommending that the
Italian government relax its extraordinarily stringent regulation of
employers’ hiring and firing decisions. As <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-27/labor-professor-gets-death-threats-as-italy-resists-jobs-revamp.html" target="_blank">Bloomberg Business Week reports</a>,
that means that Prof. Ichino must fear for his life: “For the past 10
years, the academic and parliamentarian has lived under armed escort,
traveling exclusively by armored car, and almost never without the
company of two plainclothes policemen. The protection is provided by the
Italian government, which has reason to believe that people want to
murder Ichino for his views.”</blockquote>
Memo to US: Don’t get cocky, <a href="http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2010/06/job-killing-impact-of-minimum-wage-laws_18.html">you are going down the same path</a><br />
<a href="http://www.coyoteblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/minwage.jpg"><img alt="" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-15674" height="406" src="http://www.coyoteblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/minwage-500x406.jpg" title="click to enlarge" width="500" /></a><br />
<strong> Update:</strong> <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/%7Er/MeganMcardle/%7E3/pmlpAbnkTtQ/click.phdo">Interesting and sort of related from Megan McArdle</a><br />
<blockquote>
An apparent paradox that frequently puzzles journalists
is that Europeans work fewer hours than workers in the United States,
while in some countries, hourly productivity appears to be the same, or
even higher, than that of American workers.
This is not actually a paradox at all. Much of the decline in European hours worked per-capita <a href="http://faculty-web.at.northwestern.edu/economics/gordon/MIT_EU_Combined_100124.pdf" target="_blank">came in the form of unemployment</a>.
Rigid labor laws which make it hard to fire (and thus, risky to hire)
shut less productive workers out of the market, particularly the young,
and those who had been displaced due to disruptive industry change. So
does anything that raises the cost of labor, like, er, loads of
mandatory vacation and leave. When you exclude your least productive
workers from the labor force, your measured hourly productivity will be
higher, particularly if you use metrics like GDP per hours worked.</blockquote>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395381545218020265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4966921227529983571.post-82867188074916674492012-01-30T14:07:00.001-08:002012-01-30T14:07:17.497-08:00<h3 class="post-title entry-title">
<a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/01/florida-gop-trying-to-force-allen-west.html">Florida GOP trying to force Allen West out of Congress through redistricting?</a>
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by Allahpundit</h4>
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Via <a href="http://legalinsurrection.com/2012/01/allen-west-being-redistricted-out-of-existence-in-effort-led-by-romney-florida-spokesman/">Legal Insurrection</a> and our own <a href="http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2012/01/30/florida-redistricting-jeopardy-to-allen-wests-and-tom-rooneys-seats/">J.E. Dyer</a> in the Greenroom. According to <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/breaking-down-the-florida-gops-redistricting-map/2012/01/26/gIQAdCFYTQ_blog.html">WaPo</a>,
the new congressional map under consideration in Florida’s legislature
would make West’s district four points more Democratic than it is now — a
tough haul for a guy who lost that district by nine points in 2008
before riding the big red wave to a nine-point win last year. Turns out
Will Weatherford, the GOP’s state House redistricting chairman, is also a
Mitt Romney fan. Coincidence, or evidence that the Republican
establishment is trying to push one of the tea party’s biggest rock
stars towards the door? Javier Manjarres of the <a href="http://shark-tank.net/2012/01/27/24717/">Shark Tank</a>
confronted Weatherford about it last Thursday and was told there’s
little that can be done about the map due to legal guidelines about
redistricting. But here’s what Manjarres reported back <a href="http://shark-tank.net/2012/01/10/24080/">on January 10</a>:<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/01/ingraham-maybe-tea-party-isnt-as-strong.html">Ingraham: Maybe the Tea Party isn’t as strong as the media thinks</a>
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<h4>
by Ed Morrissey</h4>
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Does the slate of surviving Republican presidential choices in
this primary mean that the Tea Party’s strength has been overrated — or
just directed elsewhere? <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2012/01/30/laura-ingraham-tea-party-doesn%E2%80%99t-have-the-great-strength-that-the-old-media-believe-video/" target="_blank">The Daily Caller</a> has a clip from a fascinating discussion between Laura Ingraham and George Will from <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/video/green-room-gingrich-slides-romney-rises-15467293?tab=9482930&section=1206874&playlist=8257591" target="_blank">ABC’s <em>This Week: Green Room</em></a> over what a Mitt Romney nomination would mean:<br />
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<a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/01/mark-levin-lay-off-matt-drudge-msm.html">Mark Levin: Lay off Matt Drudge! The MSM hates his guts, remember?</a>
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Mark Levin Friday came to the defense of headline aggregator Matt Drudge, who, last week, <a href="http://hotair.com/archives/2012/01/27/sarah-palin-establishment-is-trying-to-crucify-newt-gingrich/">took some heated criticism</a> from conservatives for a series of links he posted that suggested Newt Gingrich was not a loyal Reaganite.<br />
Levin, who said he knows Drudge personally and characterizes him as “a good man,” <a href="http://cnsnews.com/blog/gregory-gwyn-williams-jr/mark-levin-lay-matt-drudge-mainstream-media-hates-his-guts">encouraged</a> critics to remember all the good Drudge has done for the country and to allow little annoyances to slide.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/01/how-big-is-romneys-florida-lead.html">How Big Is Romney's Florida Lead?</a>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">How Big Is Romney's Florida Lead?</span></h1>
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<a href="http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/"><img alt="Guy Benson" src="http://media.townhall.com/Townhall/ColPics/columnist_Benson.jpg" /></a></li>
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Guy Benson</a>
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<strong>FORT MYERS, FL</strong> - Tomorrow is election day here in the
Sunshine State, and up-to-the-minute polling indicates that former
Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is poised to win the state's closed
(ie, Republicans only) primary election. Given Florida's <a href="http://frontloading.blogspot.com/2012/01/2012-republican-delegate-allocation_29.html">winner-take-all status</a> in 2012, Tuesday's victor will reap all 50 of Florida's delegates. Over the weekend, <a href="http://townhall.com/tipsheet/danieldoherty/2012/01/29/more_polls_romney_takes_commanding_lead_in_florida">Dan chronicled </a>Romney's favorable polling trends, but just how far is Romney <em>actually</em>
ahead? A final batch of state surveys paints a somewhat murky picture,
with various data points telling remarkably different stories. If
you're a Romney supporter, there's significant evidence that your man
could win in a blowout. Several outlets show the former governor
leading by double digits, including Suffolk (<a href="http://t.co/iOyXbJgh">20 points</a>), Survey USA (<a href="http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=d5499f5d-fe8e-4423-80d6-51b54ed472d0">15 points</a>), and Quinnipiac (<a href="http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=d5499f5d-fe8e-4423-80d6-51b54ed472d0">14 points</a>):<br />
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<a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/01/pax-americana-charles-payne.html">Pax Americana. Charles Payne</a>
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<em>Father Father Father (continue to) Help Us</em><strong> </strong><br />
<i>People killin’, people dyin’</i><br />
<i>Children hurt and you hear them cryin’</i><br />
<i>Can you practice what you preach</i><br />
<i>And would you turn the other cheek</i><br />
<i>Father, Father, Father help us</i><br />
<i>Send some guidance from above</i><br />
<i>‘Cause people got me, got me questionin’</i><br />
<i>Where is the love (Love)</i><br />
-Black Eyed Peas <br />
Earlier this week, I began an interview on Fox Business by asking the
guest if the market had entered into some kind of Pax Romana period.
It wasn’t a planned question; it just popped into my head since I knew
the guest was bullish on the market. Yesterday another guest described a
backdrop for the Fed that wasn’t deflationary or inflation which gives
them room to risk zero percent interest rates for the next three years.
While the stock market has been anything but peaceful for the past
decade and major economies face serious treats, the world itself may be
entering a modern version of Roman Peace.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/01/former-massachusetts-congressman-takes.html">Former Massachusetts Congressman Takes Graft to Next Level. Daniel J. Mitchell</a>
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I’ve <a href="http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2010/11/21/earmarks-are-the-gateway-drug-to-big-government-addiction/"><u>written before about the sleazy and corrupting impact of earmarks</u></a>.<br />
And I’ve <a href="http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2010/05/29/the-rent-seekers-strike-back/"><u>debunked the lobbyist arguments</u></a> in favor of earmarks.<br />
Heck, I’ve even <a href="http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2010/12/24/talking-about-earmarks-and-the-carousel-of-corruption-on-taxpayer-subsidized-radio/"><u>done NPR interviews</u></a> about this unseemly Washington practice.<br />
So I like to think I’m reasonably knowledgeable about the system. But
even I’m shocked to learn how a former Massachusetts Congressman has
taken graft to the next level.<br />
And I’m slightly happy that he’s been caught with his hand in the
cookie jar and feels compelled to give up his share of the loot.<br />
Here are some excerpts from a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/us/politics/delahunt-retreats-on-project-he-financed-in-congress.html?_r=1&hp"><u>report in the New York Times</u></a>.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/01/aborting-hitler-mike-adams.html">Aborting Hitler. Mike Adams</a>
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Someone once asked me whether I would abort Adolf Hitler if I knew in
advance he would try to launch a Holocaust against millions of Jews. I
said I would not. That is because aborting Hitler would not have
prevented the Holocaust. It would have justified it. The killing of
millions of innocents does not begin with the killing of one innocent.
It begins with the idea that in the larger scheme of things it is
permissible to kill one innocent person.<br />
The movie <i>Judgment in Nuremburg</i> (1961) shows that, even in
Hollywood, Americans once appreciated this important principle. The
movie is three hours long. But one only needs to watch the last ten
minutes of the movie in order to see how far we have fallen in just a
half-century.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/01/we-like-ron-paul-fox-news-focus-group.html">'We Like Ron Paul' - Fox News Focus Group and Fox Five Panel</a>
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<a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/01/one-million-terrorists.html">One Million Terrorists?</a>
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by Paul Craig Roberts
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<span><b>T</b></span>he Bush Regime's "terrorist" protection
schemes have reached the height of total incompetence and utter absurdity. According
to the American Civil Liberties Union, a private organization that defends the
US Constitution that inattentive Americans neglect, there are now one million
names on the "terrorist" watch list. <br />
One of them is that of former Assistant US Attorney General Jim Robinson, whose
top security clearances are current. Every time Mr. Robinson flies away on business,
he is delayed by a totally incompetent "terrorist" protection racket
that cannot tell a person named Jim Robinson, who served in the highest echelons
of the US government, from a Muslim terrorist.<br />
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by Paul Craig Roberts
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<span><b>P</b></span>resident Lyndon B. Johnson's policy of Great
Society spending and the Vietnam War is credited with the rising American inflation
that persisted until checked by President Reagan's supply-side policy. <br />
In Johnson's time, the American economy and the U.S. dollar were strong,
and there was no current account deficit. Yet LBJ's policy of guns and butter
did long-term harm. <br />
The Bush-Obama 21st-century policy of guns and butter makes LBJ look like
a piker. The 2009 and 2010, federal budget deficits will be monstrous even
without guns. But Obama is exiting (apparently) the Iraq War in order to start
two, possibly three, more wars.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/01/another-reason-not-to-go-to-war-so.html">Another Reason Not to Go to War So Often</a>
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by Charles V. Peña</div>
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<br /> By
now, everyone has either seen or knows about the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/verify_age?next_url=/watch%3Fv%3DF6lR3ZGFwvI">video</a> of U.S. Marines urinating
on the corpses of dead Taliban fighters. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/world/asia/video-said-to-show-marines-urinating-on-taliban-corpses.html">said</a>
that “the conduct depicted in the footage is utterly deplorable.” According to Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton, the actions of the Marines in the video are “absolutely inconsistent
with American values and the standards we expect from our military personnel.”
Not surprisingly, Afghan President Hamid Karzai is <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/video-of-us-marines-urinating-on-taliban-dead-causes-uproar/article2299893/">none too pleased</a>:
“This act by American soldiers is completely inhumane and condemnable
in the strongest possible terms.”<br />
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<a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/01/hypocrisy-of-americas-cuba-policy.html">The hypocrisy of America's Cuba policy</a>
</h3>
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<h1>
By Roland Martin</h1>
<strong></strong>
<div class="cnn_stryimg640captioned">
<img alt="In Cuba, a man checks his motorcycle in front of political billboards that allude to the US embargo on Cuba" border="0" height="360" src="http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/dam/assets/120128033201-martin-cuba-story-top.jpg" width="640" /></div>
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In Cuba, a man checks his motorcycle in front of political billboards that allude to the US embargo on Cuba</div>
</div>
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<div class="cnn_strylftcntnt">
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<div>
<strong>STORY HIGHLIGHTS</strong></div>
<ul class="cnn_bulletbin cnnStryHghLght">
<li>Roland Martin notes Cuba has come up as issue in Florida GOP primary race</li>
<li>The candidates have looked silly defending America's failed Cuba policy, he says</li>
<li>Martin says only Ron Paul has the right idea about Cuba</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<div class="cnnEditorialNote">
<em><strong>Editor's note:</strong> <a href="http://www.rolandsmartin.com/" target="_blank">Roland S. Martin</a>
is a syndicated columnist and author of "The First: President Barack
Obama's Road to the White House." He is a commentator for the TV One
cable network and host/managing editor of its Sunday morning news show,
"Washington Watch with Roland Martin."</em></div>
<strong>(CNN)</strong> -- For more than 50 years, the United States
has had an embargo against the island of Cuba, all because we supposedly
hate communism and believe the nation 90 miles from our borders should
institute democracy.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/01/ron-paul-destroys-stupid-media-dog.html">Ron Paul - destroys stupid media Dog</a>
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<a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/01/zionist-master-plan-for-global.html">Zionist Master Plan for Global Dictatorship</a>
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<br />
<img alt="" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-3698" height="304" src="http://www.wariscrime.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/zionism.jpg" title="zionism" width="300" />Before the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_American_Mercury"><em>American Mercury</em></a>
magazine came into its present ownership, it was owned and controlled
by a noted patriot by the name of Russell Maguire. He was a man of
wealth and intelligent business initiative.
<br />
He became alarmed over what he knew to be <em>Zionism’s Master Plan for World Power</em>. A documented research manuscript came into his hands and he had the courage to publish it.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2012/01/real-deal-about-world-peace.html">The Real Deal About World Peace</a>
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<img alt="" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-3673" height="200" src="http://www.wariscrime.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/peace.jpg" title="peace" width="300" />What’s the Real Deal? How do we bring Real Peace to our world? The answer to that question is actually easy. The <strong><em>real</em></strong>
question is this: Are you prepared to hear an answer that is so simple,
so prolifically accessible to all, so do-able, that it is resting right
at your fingertips this very moment?<br />
It’s simple, it is profound, you will immediately feel the resonance
of it’s Truth begin to loosen constraints within you. And here it is:<br />
<br />
<br />
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</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395381545218020265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4966921227529983571.post-17658144962134658482012-01-29T20:49:00.001-08:002012-01-29T20:49:53.854-08:00<h3 class="post-title entry-title">
<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/01/christie-to-1-please-occupy-new-jersey.html">Christie to the 1%: Please Occupy New Jersey</a>
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Now
that the governor has controlled state spending, he's pushing tax
reform and hoping to steal businesses and residents from neighboring
blue states.</h2>
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By <a href="http://online.wsj.com/search/term.html?KEYWORDS=%0A++++++++++++++++++++%3CA+HREF%3D%22%2FSEARCH%2FTERM.HTML%3FKEYWORDS%3D%250A%2B%2B%2B%2B%2B%2B%2B%2B%2B%2B%2B%2B%2B%2B%2B%2B%2B%2B%2B%2B%2B%2B%2B%2B%253CA%2BHREF%253D%2522%252FSEARCH%252FTERM.HTML%253FKEYWORDS%253DJAMES%252BFREEMAN%2526BYLINESEARCH%253DTRUE%2522%253EJAMES%2BFREEMAN%253C%252FA%253E%250A%2B%2B%2B%2B%2B%2B%2B%2B%2B%2B%2B%2B%2B%2B%2B%2B%2B%2B%2B%2B%26BYLINESEARCH%3DTRUE%22%3E%0A++++++++++++++++++++++++%3CA+HREF%3D%22%2FSEARCH%2FTERM.HTML%3FKEYWORDS%3DJAMES%2BFREEMAN%26BYLINESEARCH%3DTRUE%22%3EJAMES+FREEMAN%3C%2FA%3E%0A++++++++++++++++++++%3C%2FA%3E%0A++++++++++++++++&bylinesearch=true">
</a><a href="http://online.wsj.com/SEARCH/TERM.HTML?KEYWORDS=%0A++++++++++++++++++++++++%3CA+HREF%3D%22%2FSEARCH%2FTERM.HTML%3FKEYWORDS%3DJAMES%2BFREEMAN%26BYLINESEARCH%3DTRUE%22%3EJAMES+FREEMAN%3C%2FA%3E%0A++++++++++++++++++++&BYLINESEARCH=TRUE">
</a><a href="http://online.wsj.com/SEARCH/TERM.HTML?KEYWORDS=JAMES+FREEMAN&BYLINESEARCH=TRUE">JAMES FREEMAN</a>
</h3>
Garden State Gov. Chris Christie has a message for
the top 1% of income earners: Please occupy New Jersey. "I'm going to
start going after a lot of these hedge-fund guys who are in Connecticut
and New York and say, 'You're going to get a better deal with us,'" says
the country's most important Republican not running for president. <br />
Mr. Christie's new tax-reform plan also offers an improved deal to
the bottom 99%, which is why he may be able to move it through New
Jersey's Democratic legislature: a 10% cut in tax rates across the
board.<br />
The governor is two years into a four-year term. In 2010, he told the
Journal's editorial board that the Garden State represented America's
best example of a "failed experiment" in rising taxes and bigger
government. As he returns to the Journal for another visit, it's time to
check the results of his counter-experiment.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/01/coming-tech-led-boom.html">The Coming Tech-led Boom</a>
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Three breakthroughs are poised to transform this century as much as telephony and electricity did the last.</h2>
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By <a href="http://online.wsj.com/search/term.html?KEYWORDS=MARK+P.+MILLS&bylinesearch=true">MARK P. MILLS</a>
<a href="http://online.wsj.com/search/term.html?KEYWORDS=AND+JULIO+M.+OTTINO&bylinesearch=true">AND JULIO M. OTTINO</a>
</h3>
In January 1912, the United States emerged from a
two-year recession. Nineteen more followed—along with a century of
phenomenal economic growth. Americans in real terms are 700% wealthier
today.<br />
In hindsight it seems obvious that emerging technologies circa
1912—electrification, telephony, the dawn of the automobile age, the
invention of stainless steel and the radio amplifier—would foster such
growth. Yet even knowledgeable contemporary observers failed to grasp
their transformational power.<br />
In January 2012, we sit again on the cusp of three grand
technological transformations with the potential to rival that of the
past century. All find their epicenters in America: big data, smart
manufacturing and the wireless revolution.<br />
<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/" name="U603385390820BO"></a>Information technology has entered a
big-data era. Processing power and data storage are virtually free. A
hand-held device, the iPhone, has computing power that shames the
1970s-era IBM mainframe. The Internet is evolving into the "cloud"—a
network of thousands of data centers any one of which makes a 1990
supercomputer look antediluvian. From social media to medical
revolutions anchored in metadata analyses, wherein astronomical feats of
data crunching enable heretofore unimaginable services and businesses,
we are on the cusp of unimaginable new markets. <br />
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</a>The second transformation? Smart
manufacturing. This is the first structural shift since Henry Ford
launched the economic power of "mass production." While we see evidence
already in automation and information systems applied to supply-chain
management, we are just entering an era where the very fabrication of
physical things is revolutionized by emerging materials science.
Engineers will soon design and build from the molecular level,
optimizing features and even creating new materials, radically improving
quality and reducing waste.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/01/veterans-march-for-ron-paul.html">Veterans march for Ron Paul announcements - MONEY GRENADE 2/1!!!</a>
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</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395381545218020265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4966921227529983571.post-71350816191617821162012-01-29T18:20:00.001-08:002012-01-29T18:20:18.555-08:00<h3 class="post-title entry-title">
<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/01/each-star-marks-us-military-base-but.html">Each star marks a US military base, but just so we're all clear: Iran is threatening us; we're not threatening them.</a>
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<h1 class="firstHeading" id="firstHeading">
Henry David Thoreau<span class="inline related-searches-wikipedia" id="related-searches"><a class="search-engine-link" href="http://duckduckgo.com/?q=Henry%20David%20Thoreau" target="_blank" title="DuckDuckGo"><img alt="DuckDuckGo" class="search-engine-favicon" src="https://ff.duckduckgo.com/favicon.ico" /></a><a class="search-engine-link" href="http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=Henry%20David%20Thoreau" target="_blank" title="Yahoo"><img alt="Yahoo" class="search-engine-favicon" src="http://www.yahoo.com/favicon.ico" /></a><a class="search-engine-link" href="http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&index=blended&field-keywords=Henry%20David%20Thoreau&tag=smtfx1-20" target="_blank" title="Amazon"><img alt="Amazon" class="search-engine-favicon" src="http://www.amazon.com/favicon.ico" /></a><a class="search-engine-link" href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=Henry%20David%20Thoreau" target="_blank" title="Twitter"><img alt="Twitter" class="search-engine-favicon" src="http://twitter.com/favicon.ico" /></a><a class="search-engine-link" href="http://delicious.com/search?p=Henry%20David%20Thoreau" target="_blank" title="del.icio.us"><img alt="del.icio.us" class="search-engine-favicon" src="http://delicious.com/favicon.ico" /></a></span></h1>
<div class="dablink">
"Thoreau" redirects here. For other uses, see <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoreau_%28disambiguation%29" title="Thoreau (disambiguation)">Thoreau (disambiguation)</a>.</div>
<table cellspacing="5" class="infobox vcard" style="width: 22em;">
<caption class="fn">Henry David Thoreau</caption>
<tbody>
<tr class="">
<td class="" colspan="2" style="text-align: center;"><a class="image" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Henry_David_Thoreau.jpg"><img alt="" height="284" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/ba/Henry_David_Thoreau.jpg/230px-Henry_David_Thoreau.jpg" width="230" /></a><br />
<span>Maxham <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daguerreotype" title="Daguerreotype">daguerreotype</a> of Henry David Thoreau made in 1856</span></td>
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<tr class="">
<th scope="row" style="text-align: left;">Full name</th>
<td class="">Henry David Thoreau</td>
</tr>
<tr class="">
<th scope="row" style="text-align: left;">Born</th>
<td class="">July 12, 1817<br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concord,_Massachusetts" title="Concord, Massachusetts">Concord</a>, Massachusetts</td>
</tr>
<tr class="">
<th scope="row" style="text-align: left;">Died</th>
<td class="">May 6, 1862 (aged 44)<br />
Concord, Massachusetts</td>
</tr>
<tr class="">
<th scope="row" style="text-align: left;">Era</th>
<td class=""><a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19th_century_philosophy" title="19th century philosophy">19th century philosophy</a></td>
</tr>
<tr class="">
<th scope="row" style="text-align: left;">Region</th>
<td class="">Western Philosophy</td>
</tr>
<tr class="">
<th scope="row" style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_schools_of_philosophy" title="List of schools of philosophy">School</a></th>
<td class=""><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendentalism" title="Transcendentalism">Transcendentalism</a></td>
</tr>
<tr class="">
<th scope="row" style="text-align: left;">Main interests</th>
<td class=""><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_history" title="Natural history">Natural history</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarianism" title="Unitarianism">Unitarianism</a></td>
</tr>
<tr class="">
<th scope="row" style="text-align: left;">Notable ideas</th>
<td class=""><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolitionism" title="Abolitionism">Abolitionism</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_resistance" title="Tax resistance">tax resistance</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_criticism" title="Development criticism">development criticism</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_disobedience" title="Civil disobedience">civil disobedience</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscientious_objector" title="Conscientious objector">conscientious objection</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_action" title="Direct action">direct action</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmentalism" title="Environmentalism">environmentalism</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism" title="Anarchism">anarchism</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_living" title="Simple living">simple living</a></td>
</tr>
<tr class="">
<td class="" colspan="2" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr class="">
<td class="" colspan="2" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<b>Henry David Thoreau</b> (born <b>David Henry Thoreau</b>; July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862) (pronounced like the word <i>thorough</i>, with emphasis on the first syllable)<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-0"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_David_Thoreau#cite_note-0"><span>[</span>1<span>]</span></a></sup><sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-1"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_David_Thoreau#cite_note-1"><span>[</span>2<span>]</span></a></sup> was an American author, poet, philosopher, <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolitionist" title="Abolitionist">abolitionist</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_history" title="Natural history">naturalist</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_resistance" title="Tax resistance">tax resister</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_criticism" title="Development criticism">development critic</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveying" title="Surveying">surveyor</a>, historian, and leading <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendentalism" title="Transcendentalism">transcendentalist</a>. He is best known for his book <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walden" title="Walden">Walden</a></i>, a reflection upon <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_living" title="Simple living">simple living</a> in natural surroundings, and his essay <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Disobedience_%28Thoreau%29" title="Civil Disobedience (Thoreau)">Civil Disobedience</a></i>, an argument for individual <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_disobedience" title="Civil disobedience">resistance to civil government</a> in moral opposition to an unjust state.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/01/romneys-tax-return-really-nothing.html">Romney's Tax Return: Really Nothing Unusual There. by Alan Reynolds</a>
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After the fuss that Republican presidential candidate
Newt Gingrich made over his rival's 2010 taxes, it turns out there was
nothing in Mitt Romney's return that should have caught anyone by
surprise. Not that any facts could possibly discourage political
interests from fishing for shadowy insinuations.</div>
Looking around for an objective tax analyst, the New York Times settled for Bill Burton, who happens to run an Obama Super PAC.<br />
Mr. Burton claims Romney "has access to complicated legal maneuvers
involving offshore accounts and retirement savings that simply are not
available to everyday Americans." That is not so.<br />
The assets of Mitt and Ann Romney have been held in blind trusts
since 1993, leaving them with no choice about how or where the money is
invested. Accounts in Bermuda or the Caymans would be suspicious only if
the resulting interest income was not reported on the tax return — as
it obviously was.<br />
<blockquote class="pullquote">
[T]ax rates on capital gains and dividends above about 20% damage the economy without raising more revenue.</blockquote>
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In his State of the Union address, President Obama let
us know that he will be "sending this Congress a plan that gives every
responsible homeowner the chance to save about $3,000 a year on their
mortgage, by refinancing at historically low interest rates."</div>
What he failed to tell us is that such a push would do nothing to
turn around either the housing market or the broader economy. In fact,
by continuing his trend of confusing redistribution of wealth with its
creation, the effort will likely hurt both the economy and the housing
market.<br />
Let's start with the impact on the economy at large. The logic is
that when you lower mortgage rates for thousands of families, reducing
their monthly payments, you thereby increase disposable income and
spending. That spending then increases demand and helps turn around the
economy.<br />
In other words, it's a no-cost stimulus.<br />
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Continued efforts to delay foreclosures only prolong the inevitable adjustment of the housing market.</blockquote>
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<em> Bryan/College Station Eagle </em><br /><br />
<br />
In my first legislative session as chancellor of The Texas A&M University
System, I was so focused on getting "our fair share" of higher
education funds that I barely noticed the important effort to introduce choice
and competition into Texas public education. The failure of that effort is
arguably more detrimental to raising the educational achievement of Texans
in the long run than the failure to approve tuition revenue bonds for needed
university building programs.<br />
Choice and competition work wonders. It wasn't that long ago that the introduction
of high-quality Hondas and Toyotas into the U.S. market not only broadened
the choices available to American consumers, but ultimately improved Ford
and Chevrolet quality as well.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">The "occupy"
protest movement is thriving off the claim that the 99% are being
exploited by the 1%, and there is truth in what they say. But they
have the identities of the groups wrong. They imagine that it is
the 1% of highest wealth holders who are the problem. In fact, that
1% includes some of the smartest, most innovative people in the
country – the people who invent, market, and distribute material
blessings to the whole population. They also own the capital that
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">During an interview
with RT on December 1, I said that the US Constitution had been
shredded by the failure of the US Senate to protect American citizens
from the detainee amendment sponsored by Republican John McCain
and Democrat Carl Levin to the Defense Authorization Bill. The amendment
permits indefinite detention of US citizens by the US military.
I also gave my opinion that the fact that all but two Republican
members of the Senate had voted to strip American citizens of their
constitutional protections and of the protection of the Posse Comitatus
Act indicated that the Republican Party had degenerated into a Gestapo
Party. </span></div>
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/01/next-war-on-washingtons-agenda-by-paul.html">The Next War on Washington’s Agenda. by Paul Craig Roberts</a>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times,serif; font-size: x-small;">Only the blind
do not see that the US government is preparing to attack Iran. According
to Professor Michel Chossudovsky, “<a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28542">Active
war preparations directed against Iran (with the involvement of
Israel and NATO) were initiated in May 2003</a>.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times,serif; font-size: x-small;">Washington
has deployed missiles directed at Iran in its oil emirate puppet
states, Oman and the UAE, and little doubt in the other US puppet
states in the Middle East. Washington has beefed up Saudi Arabia’s
jet fighter force. Most recently, Washington has deployed 9,000
US troops to Israel to participate in “war games” designed
to test the US/Israeli air defense system. As Iran represents no
threat unless attacked, Washington’s war preparations signal
Washington’s intention to attack Iran.</span><br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/01/post911-roundup-of-innocents-by-james.html">The Post—9/11 Roundup of Innocents. by James Bovard</a>
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<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Many Americans
have been lulled into a false sense of security by the end of the George
W. Bush administration. In reality, the government continues to pose
grave perils to people's rights and liberties. And it could take only
one shocking incident for the government to once again show its
heavy-handed ways. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">
Prior to the September 11, 2001, attacks, the dark side of the Bush
administration was barely evident. But within days after those attacks,
the government seized almost any conceivable excuse to lock up anyone it
chose to target. At a time when many people are lowering their guard
against Leviathan, we should recall how quickly the government razed
restraints on its power. </span></div>
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/01/lethal-hypocrisy.html">A Lethal Hypocrisy</a>
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Bill Clinton on Violence and Government<br />
<br />
By JAMES BOVARD<br />
<br />
<br />
Yesterday, on the fifteenth anniversary of the attack on the federal
office building in Oklahoma City, former President Bill Clinton had an
op-ed in the New York Times headlined: “Violence is Unacceptable in a
Democracy.” The article settles any doubts about whether Clinton was
one of the most talented demagogues of modern times.<br />
Casting a net of collective guilt over much of the 48 contiguous
states, Clinton announced that the 1995 bombing was the fault of people
who believed “that the greatest threat to American freedom is our
government, and that public servants do not protect our freedoms, but
abuse them.” People who distrusted government helped echo ideas which
somehow persuaded “deeply alienated and disconnected Americans” to
carry out the attack.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/01/tea-party-vindicators-i-am-traitor.html">Tea Party Vindicators: I Am a Traitor, Communist, Nazi, and Racist. by James Bovard</a>
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The <i><a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2010/0423/Tea-party-activists-Do-they-hate-liberals-more-than-they-love-liberty">Christian Science Monitor</a></i><a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2010/0423/Tea-party-activists-Do-they-hate-liberals-more-than-they-love-liberty"> ran an article of mine on the Tea Party last Friday</a>.
The article opened, "Many ‘tea party' activists staunchly oppose big
government, except when it is warring, wiretapping, or waterboarding."
It concluded, "America needs real champions of freedom — not poorly
informed Republican accomplices." <br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times,serif; font-size: x-small;">Many Tea Party supporters posted rebuttals to the piece on the web. <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20100423/cm_csm/296410#mwpphu-container">Here is a sampling of how they vindicated their cause (taken from Yahoo.com).</a></span><br />
<hr align="center" width="300" />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times,serif; font-size: x-small;">Mark:
None of the author's comments can withstand a fair and open debate. If
one was to fairly generalize the character of the Tea Party protesters
it is the opposite of this propagandist's flawed spin. The protesting
Tea Party bunch are mostly informed and above average educated. Exactly
what the continued good health of a successful democracy requires.</span><br />
<hr align="center" width="300" />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times,serif; font-size: x-small;">MichaelA: A truly socialist article. I thought Christian Scientists were conservative. What a shock. Traitors</span><br />
<hr align="center" width="300" />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times,serif; font-size: x-small;">GBM : more liberal racist crap</span><br />
<hr align="center" width="300" />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times,serif; font-size: x-small;">Paul:
The "Christian" Science Monitor is so far LEFT that what they have to
say is as meaningful and valuable as the trash I set out for pickup once
a week!!</span><br />
<hr align="center" width="300" />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times,serif; font-size: x-small;">Ragnar: Just another dihonest bit of editorializing nothing new to see here just move on everyone</span><br />
<hr align="center" width="300" />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times,serif; font-size: x-small;">Ed:
Just ready Michael Savage's book, "liberalism is a mental disorder" get
off your lazy buts and get a job or open a business and stop mooching
off the government.</span><br />
<hr align="center" width="300" />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times,serif; font-size: x-small;">D.D: I wonder if Mr. Bovard is part of the 50% who pay no income tax?</span><br />
<hr align="center" width="300" />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times,serif; font-size: x-small;">JamesM
: The Report of this artical built a straw man and put words in the
straw mans mouth. Of course our reproter won the argument with his straw
man. I saw no resemblance between this reporter's straw man, and the
Tea Party.</span><br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/01/who-commissioned-us-to-remake-world-by.html">Who Commissioned Us to Remake the World?. by Patrick J. Buchanan</a>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times,serif; font-size: x-small;">U.S. Ambassador
Michael McFaul, Obama's man in Moscow, who just took up his post,
has received a rude reception. And understandably so. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times,serif; font-size: x-small;">In 1992, McFaul
was the representative in Russia of the National Democratic Institute,
a U.S. government-funded agency whose mission is to promote democracy
abroad.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times,serif; font-size: x-small;">The NDI has
been tied to color-coded or Orange revolutions such as those that
dethroned regimes in Serbia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia and Lebanon.
The project miscarried in Belarus. </span><br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/01/newts-illegal-immigrant-pandering.html">Newt’s illegal immigrant pandering</a>
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Gingrich offers the same false choices as liberals</h2>
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By <span class="fn">D.A. King </span></div>
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<img alt="Illustration by John Camejo for The Washington Times" class="mb" height="164" src="http://media.washtimes.com/media/image/2012/01/27/b4b-1-30-rgb-_s160x164.jpg?fd32850833bbc2ed1fa9eafbb99a0cb64a1846e1" width="160" /><span class="small caption"></span></div>
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Nobody should be surprised that <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/newt-gingrich/">Newt Gingrich</a>’s
immigration enforcement position has devolved from his unworkable
gibberish of November down to the Bush-Kennedy-McCain “guest-worker”
amnesty schemes of the last decade he has been trying to camouflage.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/01/another-million-dead-roe-v-wade.html">Another million dead. Roe v. Wade anniversary marks social failure</a>
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an. 22 marked the 39th anniversary of the <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/supreme-court/">Supreme Court</a>’s
decision in Roe v. Wade and corresponding abdication of social
responsibility. The March for Life and other pro-woman and pro-life
groups commemorated the day as they have every year since 1974, with
vigils and gatherings across the country and a march from downtown
Washington, D.C., to the <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/supreme-court/">Supreme Court</a>.<br />
There
is much to mourn in this anniversary. The loss of at least a million
unborn children (most recent data recorded 1.21 million in 2008) is most
prominent. But what this decision says about us as a nation comes in as
a strong second: America does not support its women and children. Many
abortions are the result of women trying to find their way out of bad
situations, whether lack of partner support, no funds, no access to
child care, the need to finish school in an environment that’s hostile
to parenthood, fear of recriminations - the list goes on.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/01/usa-gestapo.html">USA GESTAPO</a>
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/01/eu-signs-acta-global-internet.html">EU signs ACTA, global internet censorship treaty</a>
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<strong>Rady Ananda<br />
</strong><br />
Today, the European Union and 22 member states signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (<a href="http://cdn.thejournal.ie/media/2012/01/20120125acta.pdf" target="_blank">ACTA</a>),
Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced. They have now joined the
US and seven other nations that signed the treaty last October.<br />
This signing ceremony merely formalized the <a href="http://www.laquadrature.net/en/acta-adopted-by-eu-governments-now-in-eu-parliaments-hands" target="_blank">EU’s adoption of ACTA</a> last month, during a completely unrelated meeting on agriculture and fisheries, reports <a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111219/02385917123/eu-council-quietly-adopts-acta-hiding-it-agriculture-fisheries-meeting.shtml" target="_blank">TechDirt</a>.<br />
Though initiated by the US, Japan is the official depository of the treaty.<br />
Removal of the Three Strikes clause, in which users accused of three
counts of piracy would be barred from the internet, paved the way for
the EU to adopt ACTA last month.<br />
<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/" name="more"></a>Related to ACTA, a chapter in the <a href="https://www.eff.org/pages/trans-pacific-partnership-agreement" target="_blank">Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement</a> (TPP) “would have state signatories adopt even more restrictive copyright measures than ACTA,” reports the <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/12/2011-review-developments-acta" target="_blank">Electronic Frontier Foundation</a>.<br />
Both ACTA and TPP were developed without public input and outside
international trade groups, like the World Trade Organization and the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.<br />
<div>
<ins><ins id="aswift_0_anchor"></ins></ins></div>
Leaked cables published by WikiLeaks in 2009 exposed <a href="http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Classified_US,_Japan_and_EU_ACTA_trade_agreement_drafts,_2009" target="_blank">early drafts</a> of ACTA, resulting in a firestorm of controversy. Those cables, coupled with later releases, showed that ACTA negotiations<a href="http://www.laquadrature.net/en/wikileaks-cables-offer-new-insight-on-the-history-of-acta" target="_blank">began in 2006</a>
and were controversial even to participating states. An historical
summary of the treaty’s progress through December can be found <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/12/2011-review-developments-acta" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/01/speaking-perpetually-to-political-wind.html">Speaking Perpetually To The Political Wind: Why Obama’s Words Lack Authority</a>
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<strong>Saman Mohammadi</strong><br />
<blockquote>
“Now everything’s a little upside down, as a matter of fact the wheels have stopped<br />
What’s good is bad, what’s bad is good, you’ll find out when you reach the top.” – Bob Dylan, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnUnoReKP0s">Idiot Wind</a>.<br />
“No rays from the holy heaven come down<br />
On the long night-time of that town;<br />
But light from out the lurid sea<br />
Streams up the turrets silently-<br />
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free-<br />
Up domes- up spires- up kingly halls-<br />
Up fanes- up Babylon-like walls-<br />
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers<br />
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers-<br />
Up many and many a marvellous shrine<br />
Whose wreathed friezes intertwine<br />
The viol, the violet, and the vine.<br />
Resignedly beneath the sky<br />
The melancholy waters lie.<br />
So blend the turrets and shadows there<br />
That all seem pendulous in air,<br />
While from a proud tower in the town<br />
Death looks gigantically down.” – Edgar Allan Poe, <a href="http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_City_in_the_Sea">The City in the Sea (1831)</a>.<br />
“John Murdoch: Excuse me. How do I get to the end of the line?<br />
Train Passenger: You want the Express.<br />
John Murdoch: [after train blows by him] Hey, how come that train didn’t stop?<br />
Station Master: That’s the Express.” - <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118929/quotes">Dark City</a>, Directed by Alex Proyas (1998).</blockquote>
<blockquote>
“A man made of stone has nothing to say.” – Kno, If You Cry f. Natti, from the album <a href="http://cunninlynguists.bandcamp.com/album/death-is-silent">Death Is Silent (2010)</a>.</blockquote>
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/01/obama-signs-global-internet-treaty.html">Obama Signs Global Internet Treaty Worse Than SOPA</a>
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</span> <span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">White House bypasses Senate to ink agreement that could allow
Chinese companies to demand ISPs remove web content in US with no legal
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<span class="unnamed10"><span style="color: #333333;">Paul
Joseph Watson</span></span><span class="unnamed10"><br />
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Months before the debate about Internet
censorship raged as SOPA and PIPA dominated the concerns of web users,
President Obama signed an international treaty that would allow companies
in China or any other country in the world to demand ISPs remove web
content in the US with no legal oversight whatsoever.</div>
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/01/alex-jones-show-obamas-treasonist-act.html">The Alex Jones Show: Obama's Treasonist Act Gives Mexican Narco Terroris...</a>
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/01/mexico-is-narco-terrorist-state-thermal.html">Mexico is a Narco Terrorist State: Thermal drug mule video</a>
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/01/civilian-personnel-missing-piece-in.html">Civilian Personnel: The Missing Piece in the Pentagon’s Budget Puzzle</a>
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by <span class="author vcard"><a class="url fn n" href="http://www.cato.org/people/christopher-preble" target="_blank" title="View all posts by Christopher Preble">Christopher Preble</a></span><br />
<span class="author vcard"> </span>
<br />
While most <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/27/us/pentagon-proposes-limiting-raises-and-closing-bases-to-cut-budget.html?_r=1" target="_blank">news stories</a> have accurately
characterized the Obama administration’s proposed military spending
cuts as “modest,” the Pentagon is planning significant reductions in the
number of active-duty troops in the Army and Marine Corps. Both forces
will be larger than they were in 2001, but the active-duty Army will
fall from a post-9/11 high of 570,000 in 2010 to 490,000. The Marine
Corps will go from 202,000 to 182,000.<br />
The DoD should likewise reduce civilian personnel.<br />
The reason the Pentagon’s plan places so much emphasis on personnel is stated clearly in the <a href="http://www.defense.gov/news/Defense_Budget_Priorities.pdf" target="_blank">document</a> (pdf):<br />
<blockquote>
Military personnel costs have doubled since 2001, or
about 40% above inflation, while the number of full-time military
personnel, including activated reserves, increased by only 8% during the
same time period.</blockquote>
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/01/ten-red-lines-washingtons-totalitarian.html">Ten Red Lines Washington’s Totalitarian Terrorist State Has Crossed</a>
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<strong>Saman Mohammadi</strong><br />
<strong> </strong><br />
The government in Washington is a <a href="http://disquietreservations.blogspot.com/2011/07/10-reasons-why-america-is-failed.html">failed terrorist state</a>.
It can no longer manage American public opinion, its violations of
international law are resented by many nations, and it has failed to
psychologically dominate the world by unleashing terror at home and
abroad.<br />
To put it simply, nations are not afraid of America because it has
military strength combined with political vision, rather, they are
afraid because America’s leaders are insane and self-destructive. In
other words, they are afraid of a failed terrorist state, not a global
superpower.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/01/zambada-niebla-case-exposes-us-drug-war.html">Zambada Niebla Case Exposes US Drug War Quid Pro Quo</a>
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<span class="submitted">Posted by <a href="http://narcosphere.narconews.com/users/bill-conroy" title="View user profile.">Bill Conroy</a> -</span><br />
<span class="submitted"> </span>
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Prosecutor, DEA Agent Confirm Intel From Sinaloa Mafia Used to Undermine Juarez, Beltran Leyva Drug Organizations</span><br />
<br />
U.S. government officials have long presented the drug war through
the media as a type of "Dirty Harry” movie, in which hardscrabble cops
are engaged in a pitched battle with hardened street criminals who
threaten the very social fabric of life behind America’s gated
communities.<br />
Of course it’s a big pretense, with the truth being closer to what
really goes on in the marketplace of the US everyday. The drug war is,
in reality, a drug business in which backroom deals are cut to advance
the profit motives of the business entities involved, whether they be
narco-trafficking organizations, or weapons manufacturers or government
bureaucracies — and the aspiring, greedy careerists who inhabit their
leadership ranks.<img alt="" src="http://narcosphere.narconews.com/userfiles/70/dirty.harry.jpg" style="border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; float: right; height: 223px; margin-bottom: 3px; margin-left: 3px; margin-right: 3px; margin-top: 3px; width: 290px;" /><br />
But even the US government makes mistakes, and in this case it’s the
government’s own agents and prosecutors who have that egg on their face
via affidavits filed in early December in a controversial criminal case
now pending in the Windy City. The pleadings supposedly advance the
government’s case against a major Mexican narco-trafficker, Jesus
Vicente Zambada Niebla. In reality, though — for any person of a
critical mind reading them — the court documents demonstrate the
insidious nature of the cooperation that exists between the US
government and Mexico’s Sinaloa mafia organization.<br />
Nowhere has the peel on that sour fruit been stripped back more
cleanly with the paring knife of truth, revealing the bloody pulp
inside, than in the ongoing narco-trafficking case against the rising
Mexican Sinaloa Cartel capo Zambada Niebla — son of Ismael “El Mayo”
Zambada Garcia, who, together with business associate Joaquin Guzman
Loera (El Chapo), serves as a godfather of the Sinaloa organization.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/01/cbs-news-poaches-narco-news-drug-war.html">CBS News Poaches Narco News’ Drug War Coverage Posted. by Bill Conroy</a>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span><b>Network Producer Also Concedes “<span style="color: black;">Some Bloggers Were Out Ahead of Us” on the</span><span style="color: black;"><i> </i></span>Fast and Furious Story But Were Given No Credit</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span>Taking a poke at the
mainstream media is old hat in the new age of dispersed media access,
but the mechanizations of some old-world information clowns are still
worth illuminating from time to time, particularly when they involve
pilfering unapologetically work done by the independent press.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span>In the spotlight on
that front for this expose is CBS News, part of CBS Corp.’s
“Entertainment business segment,” which accounts for some 53 percent of
the parent company’s annual revenue of $14 billion, according to <a href="http://narcosphere.narconews.com/userfiles/70/CBS10K.pdf">filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.<span> </span></a></span></span></div>
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</span></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span>You would think with
that kind of pecuniary clout, the employees of CBS News would have no
need to lift and repurpose deep reporting unabashedly, without credit,
from independent journalists, who are invariably underpaid — if at all.
But, in this case, and in my experience with many other interactions
with network TV honks, the evidence of such behavior in play seems
rather convincing.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span>The story in
question relates to arms trafficking between the United States and
Mexico, legal gun running in this case as part of a U.S. State
Department program known as Direct Commercial Sales (DCS) — through
which U.S. companies are approved to sell arms to Mexico, via the
Mexican military. Given the situation in Mexico with the drug war, and
the extent of the corruption within the government there, including its
military, the DCS program appears to be a direct conduit for weapons
transfers that empower narco-trafficking organizations.<img alt="" src="http://narcosphere.narconews.com/userfiles/70/Mexico.Shooting.JPG" style="border-style: solid; border-width: 1px; float: right; height: 300px; margin: 3px; width: 400px;" /></span></span></div>
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</span></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span>At least that’s the
nature of the story that Narco News broke in early 2009, and continued
to follow through this year, with three additional story updates
following the original scoop — which carried the headline <a href="http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/bill-conroy/2009/03/legal-us-arms-exports-may-be-source-narco-syndicates-rising-firepower">“Legal U.S. Arms Exports May Be source of Narco Syndicates Rising Firepower.”</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span>In early December of
this year, nearly three years after Narco News published its initial
story on the DCS program, CBS News, via its well-marketed “Investigative
Unit” (which takes credit for exposing the <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8300-31727_162-10391695.html?keyword=Fast+and+Furious">Fast and Furious</a></span></span></div>
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<strong>Turf Wars, Agency Budgets and Case Stats Trump Lives in the Era of Prohibition</strong><br />
<br />
Ever since ATF’s Fast and Furious gun-running operation was
catapulted into the national spotlight in early 2011, the focus has been
on the politics influencing the police work and the manipulations
behind intelligence operations, with little to no attention paid to the
dysfunction of the drug-war bureaucracy.<br />
A report released by the US Government Accountability Office in June
2009, some three months before Operation Fast and Furious was even
launched, underscores that dysfunction in succinct detail. Advance
copies of that report were provided at the time to “the Departments of
Homeland Security, Justice, and State and to the Office of National Drug
Control Policy,” GAO documents state.<img alt="" src="http://narcosphere.narconews.com/userfiles/70/car.jpg" style="border-style: solid; border-width: 1px; float: right; height: 230px; margin: 3px; width: 307px;" /><br />
In that now two-and-a-half-year-old report is a blistering indictment
of operations, obviously already in existence prior to June 2009 and
Fast and Furious, that utilized a strategy similar to that employed in
Fast and Furious — which allowed criminals to “walk” thousands of guns
into Mexico under the watch of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms
and Explosives (better known as ATF). The supposed goal: identify and
bring to justice the higher-ups in Mexico’s arms trafficking
organizations.<br />
Here are the money graphs from the <a href="http://narcosphere.narconews.com/userfiles/70/GAO.pg32.2009.export.ATF.ICE.pdf">GAO report:</a><br />
<br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/01/gingrich-took-month-to-rebound-but-here.html">Gingrich Took a Month to Rebound, but Here He Is</a>
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By Al Giordano<br />
<img alt="" src="http://narcosphere.narconews.com/userfiles/70/RCPSC12sm.jpeg" style="height: 250px; width: 588px;" /><br />
Now that everyone in this electoral projections business is picking
former House Speaker Newt Gringich to win a come-from-behind victory in
today's South Carolina primary, let's reflect on why they had so little
faith until after the polls began turning his way. Less than a week ago,
the New York Times' 538 blog projected former Massachusetts Governor
Mitt Romney with an 82 percent chance to win in the Palmetto State and,
citing its method of "regression analysis" gave him <a href="http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/16/national-polls-suggest-romney-is-overwhelming-favorite-for-g-o-p-nomination/">a 98 percent chance to win the GOP nomination</a>.<br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/01/nuclear-war-against-iran-by-michel.html">Nuclear War against Iran. by Michel Chossudovsky</a>
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The launching of an outright war using nuclear warheads against Iran is now in the final planning stages.<br />
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Coalition partners, which include the US, Israel and Turkey are in "an advanced stage of readiness". </div>
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Various military exercises have been conducted,
starting in early 2005. In turn, the Iranian Armed Forces have also
conducted large scale military maneuvers in the Persian Gulf in December
in anticipation of a US sponsored attack. </div>
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Since early 2005, there has been intense shuttle
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/01/preparing-for-next-conquest-what-does.html">PREPARING FOR THE NEXT CONQUEST: What does Libya tell us about Intervention in Syria and Iran?. by Richard Lightbown</a>
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<i>Debkafile reported on 17 January that an imminent
joint Israeli-US exercise had been cancelled by Israel’s prime minister,
and not by the US as widely supposed. Convinced that Iran has made the
decision to become a nuclear power Mr Netanyahu is preparing for
possible unilateral attacks on Iranian nuclear sites. </i></div>
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<i>British press reports say agents from the CIA and
MI6 are operating within Syria while British and French Special Forces
are training members of the Free Syrian Army in Turkey. Pravda has
claimed that NATO snipers who fought in Libya have been sent to Syria. </i></div>
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As regional war threatens drastic and unforeseen
consequences in the Middle East some commentators claim that
humanitarian benefits justify Western intervention in repressive states.
This claim is worth considering in the context of the events that have
befallen Libya. </div>
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/01/greatest-threat.html">The Greatest Threat</a>
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It's not the Mooslims</div>
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by <a href="http://original.antiwar.com/author/justin/" rel="author" title="Posts by Justin Raimondo">Justin Raimondo</a>, </div>
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There’s always a <a href="http://images.travelpod.com/users/acres_wild/1.1302097122.the-storm-on-the-horizon.jpg">Looming
Danger</a>, an Ominous Threat lurking somewhere – that’s the War Party’s bread-and-butter.
Back in the day, it was <a href="http://original.antiwar.com/buchanan/2011/09/01/looking-back-at-the-good-war/">the
Germans</a>, who were going to cross the Atlantic and meet their Japanese allies
<a href="http://bigthink.com/ideas/26571">somewhere near the Mississippi</a>.
Then it was <a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/eisenhower-gives-famous-domino-theory-speech">the
Commies</a>, who were not only in the process of swallowing Asia but supposedly
had their <a href="http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.1375/article_detail.asp">Fifth
Column</a> right here in the US, ready willing and able to take the Capitol
at a signal from the Kremlin. After that there was <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfWz20nDAyI">some</a>
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYIiuIgIOY4">hesitation</a> in deciding
just who or what would take the place of the Red Threat, but that was decided
on September 11, 2001, when Osama bin Laden’s <a href="http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2005/12/15/from-spain-to-indonesia/">Global
Caliphate</a> emerged as the Bogeyman of the moment. It turned into quite a
long moment, as we have seen, one that still lingers to this day, even after
bin Laden’s death and the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/al-qaeda-targets-dwindle-as-group-shrinks/2011/11/22/gIQAbXJNmN_story.html">crushing</a>
of al-Qaeda: Americans, being sentimentalists, hang on to their villains long
after their shelf life has expired. <br />
<br />
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<a href="http://intermexpower.blogspot.com/2012/01/cia-drug-ops-conspiracy-unaired.html">CIA Drug Ops Conspiracy-Unaired Documentary-Full Length</a>
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</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395381545218020265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4966921227529983571.post-21266513733731577402011-08-30T17:58:00.001-07:002011-08-30T17:58:34.666-07:00<div class="post-body entry-content"> <p class="author"> Victor Davis Hanson </p><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:180%;"><span class="article_title">A Vineyard Too Far</span> </span>
<br /><div class="blog_news"> <span class="article_subtitle">People who rail against “fat cats” shouldn’t vacation with them.</span>
<br />
<br /> <div id="article_text" class="article_text"> <div id="resizetext"> <div id="article_text" class="article_text"> <p style="margin-top: 0; padding-top: 0;"> <span class="drop">B</span>y Sunday afternoon, the Gallup tracking poll showed a 17-point spread in the president’s approval rating — 38 percent approval to 55 percent disapproval. Such polls are fickle and can go up and down quickly, often depending on unwarranted and unfair perceptions and media hype, hinging on everything from hurricanes to killing bin Laden. That said, these recent abysmal numbers might suggest that for the first time, a considerable number of Americans are starting to be turned off not just by Barack Obama’s economic policies, but by Barack Obama himself. But why now?</p> <p> </p><div style="text-align: center; width: 100%;"><p align="center"> </p> </div> The president’s latest Martha’s Vineyard vacation was a public-relations disaster, wholly unnecessary, and in part responsible for Obama’s most recent slide in the polls. Part of the problem was purely coincidental and no one’s fault: Who could have expected that while the president of the United States was resting on an exclusive private beach on a tony island on a calm August day, millions of Eastern Seaboarders around him would be engaged in a media-driven frenzy of emergency preparation and evacuation? <p> Yet most of the negative perception was the president’s own doing. For nearly three years, there has been something strange about the First Family’s ritzy getaway tastes. The annual Martha’s Vineyard rentals were bookended by First Family junkets to Vail, Costa del Sol, and <a id="KonaLink0" class="kLink" style="text-decoration: underline !important;position:static;font-family:inherit !important;font-weight:inherit !important;font-size:inherit !important;" href="http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/275821/vineyard-too-far-victor-davis-hanson#"><span style="color: #ee1c24 !important; font-family:inherit !important;font-weight:inherit !important;font-size:inherit !important;position:static;color:#ee1c24;"><span class="kLink" style="color: #ee1c24 !important; font-family:inherit !important;font-weight:inherit !important;font-size:inherit !important;position:static;">Hawaii</span></span></a>. The choice of venues spawned at least three problems for the president that have nothing to do with the First Family’s right, and indeed duty, to enjoy a little well-earned vacation time — or with the fact that other presidents have vacationed in nice places.</p> <p> First, Obama’s fiery rhetoric (“fat-cat bankers,” “corporate jets,” “millionaires and billionaires,” “redistributive change,” “at a certain point you’ve made enough money,” etc.) has demonized the better off. Many successful liberal presidents do that, but they finesse the necessary fundraising and schmoozing with <a id="KonaLink1" class="kLink" style="text-decoration: underline !important;position:static;font-family:inherit !important;font-weight:inherit !important;font-size:inherit !important;" href="http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/275821/vineyard-too-far-victor-davis-hanson#"><span style="color: #ee1c24 !important; font-family:inherit !important;font-weight:inherit !important;font-size:inherit !important;position:static;color:#ee1c24;"><span class="kLink" style="color: #ee1c24 !important; font-family:inherit !important;font-weight:inherit !important;font-size:inherit !important;position:static;">Wall </span><span class="kLink" style="color: #ee1c24 !important; font-family:inherit !important;font-weight:inherit !important;font-size:inherit !important;position:static;">Street</span></span></a> zillionaires with tact and discretion. Bill Clinton was a past master at gluing a populist veneer atop his deep fascination with old money and hip celebrity. The Obamas are far clumsier in both their class-warfare boilerplate and their overt elite tastes, whose contradictions they apparently either miss or don’t much care about.</p> <p> No doubt this August the presidential advisers, without a clue about life in Tulare or Des Moines, gave sycophantic pep talks to the Obamas not to listen to “right-wing talk radio” and just enjoy what they like to enjoy. Obama himself apparently is still confident that the media will always exempt his golfing in a way they never did Bush’s far less frequent putting. Michael Moore, after all, is not going to cut and paste a video clip of Obama on the fairway.</p> <p> Yet some photos inevitably leaked out of the “redistributive change” statist at his $50,000-a-week rented estate, surrounded by “millionaires and billionaires” who could alone afford such rental prices, many of whom flew in on “corporate jets.” That disconnect appears to the American public as abjectly hypocritical. We all know that for the president to keep pushing his agenda of higher <a id="KonaLink2" class="kLink" style="text-decoration: underline !important;position:static;font-family:inherit !important;font-weight:inherit !important;font-size:inherit !important;" href="http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/275821/vineyard-too-far-victor-davis-hanson#"><span style="color: #ee1c24 !important; font-family:inherit !important;font-weight:inherit !important;font-size:inherit !important;position:static;color:#ee1c24;"><span class="kLink" style="color: #ee1c24 !important; font-family:inherit !important;font-weight:inherit !important;font-size:inherit !important;position:static;">taxes</span></span></a>, he will soon inevitably get back to bashing the rich. But we also assume that this time the public has seen the flip side of a one-eyed Jack and wonders, when the president hits up his Vineyard neighbors for campaign cash at his $20 million rented estate, whether he will first make sure that they are not “fat cats” and owners of “corporate jets.”</p> <p> Even right-wing presidents, even in good times, know enough not to rub in too much the perks of being president. George W. Bush was pilloried for chain-sawing at “the ranch,” as if he were a counterfeit outdoorsman; but he still knew that his media critics suffered far more in his beloved nowheresville of Crawford than did he. The “Reagan Ranch” in the Santa Barbara Mountains was not really a ranch at all, but a rustic hovel, and the videos of Reagan in his early seventies, chopping wood amid burrs and stickers, with sweat spots under his arms, were not faked. In contrast, the elder Bush liked boating off his <a id="KonaLink3" class="kLink" style="text-decoration: underline !important;position:static;font-family:inherit !important;font-weight:inherit !important;font-size:inherit !important;" href="http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/275821/vineyard-too-far-victor-davis-hanson#"><span style="color: #ee1c24 !important; font-family:inherit !important;font-weight:inherit !important;font-size:inherit !important;position:static;color:#ee1c24;"><span class="kLink" style="color: #ee1c24 !important; font-family:inherit !important;font-weight:inherit !important;font-size:inherit !important;position:static;">family </span><span class="kLink" style="color: #ee1c24 !important; font-family:inherit !important;font-weight:inherit !important;font-size:inherit !important;position:static;">estate</span></span></a> in Maine — and was flayed for being a bit too happy with his seaside, preppie-sounding Kennebunkport mansion.</p> <p> </p></div> </div> </div> <div class="div-pageturn"> 1 | <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/275821/vineyard-too-far-victor-davis-hanson?page=2" class="pageturn">2</a> | <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/275821/vineyard-too-far-victor-davis-hanson?page=2" class="pageturn">Next ></a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/08/victor-davis-hanson-vineyard-too-far.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-08-30T17:54:00-07:00">5:54 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=6185502919994262888">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=6185502919994262888&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/A%20Vineyard%20Too%20Far" rel="tag">A Vineyard Too Far</a> </span> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="2837681346011789059"></a> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:180%;">Marco Rubio's Tide Is Rising</span>
<br />By Cal Thomas
<br />
<br />In my high school days before sex and environmental education and the general dumbing down of the population, memorization of some Shakespeare was expected in Miss Kauffman's 12th-grade English class.
<br />A favorite I still recall is this line spoken by Brutus in "Julius Caesar": "There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries ..."
<br />
<br />Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., repeatedly says in various ways it is too soon, or he isn't ready, for higher office such as vice president. He's been in the Senate for a little more than seven months and has delivered only two major speeches -- his maiden speech on the Senate floor and one last week at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif.
<br />
<br />In the Reagan Library speech, Rubio laid out his philosophical foundation, something that must be at the heart of any policy.
<br />
<br />Defining the proper role of government ought to be the central issue in the coming presidential campaign. Indeed, it should occupy our thoughts between campaigns because those of us who pay income tax are not getting a good return on our investment.
<br />
<br />Here's Rubio: "We have the opportunity -- within our lifetimes -- to actually craft a proper role for government in our nation that will allow us to come closer than any Americans have ever come to our collective vision of a nation where both prosperity and compassion exist side by side."
<br />
<br />That takes the "compassionate conservatism" of George W. Bush to a different level. To Rubio, prosperity is not the opposite of compassion. Rather, the two are -- or should be -- joined.
<br />
<br />Prosperity provides the means by which people can be compassionate to those truly in need, such as the disabled and elderly. It is also the ticket out of dependency for people who can work but have been robbed of their dignity by addiction to a government check.
<br />
<br />Dignity leads to many other character qualities, which advance the true welfare of an individual, benefiting society. Someone with dignity, self-regard and respect for others is unlikely to take part in a flash mob attack.
<br />
<br />Rubio points to a path beyond the familiar "either-or" debate; beyond envy of the wealthy and multiple and ineffective programs to liberate the "poor." This repetitive scenario has produced, said Rubio, "a government that not even the richest and most prosperous nation on the face of the Earth can fund or afford to pay for. An extraordinary tragic accomplishment, if you can call it that."
<br />
<br />Rubio went further than what might be expected of a Republican, acknowledging his party is partly responsible for the growth of government:
<br />
<br />"I know that it is popular in my party to blame the president, the current president. But the truth is the only thing this president has done is accelerate policies that were already in place and were doomed to fail. All he is doing through his policies is making the day of reckoning come faster, but it was coming nonetheless."
<br />
<br />And then there is this, which shatters the left's stereotype about the right: "Conservatism is not about leaving people behind. Conservatism is about empowering people to catch up, to give them the tools ... that make it possible for them to access all the hope, all the promise, all the opportunity that America offers. And our programs to help them should reflect that."
<br />
<br />If this is not a speech that lays the foundation for a Rubio run for higher office, it is a speech that ought to begin a major transition from costly and ineffective government programs to a renewed empowerment of individuals.
<br />
<br />No one, perhaps not even Rubio, can know for certain whether he is "ready" for higher office. President Obama has proven he wasn't ready. Some leaders don't know they can lead until leadership is thrust upon them.
<br />
<br />The right philosophy is key and the Reagan Library speech proves that Rubio has the most important ingredient of any leader: vision. Read it, be inspired and then consider whether Rubio's tide is rising. </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/08/marco-rubios-tide-is-rising-by-cal.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-08-30T17:52:00-07:00">5:52 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=2837681346011789059">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=2837681346011789059&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Marco%20Rubio%27s%20Tide%20Is%20Rising" rel="tag">Marco Rubio's Tide Is Rising</a> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="4699475736478208349"></a> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:180%;">An Unusual Economy?</span>
<br />By Thomas Sowell
<br />
<br />Many in the media are saying how unusual it is for our economy to be so sluggish for so long, after we have officially emerged from a recession. In a sense, they are right. But, in another sense, they are profoundly wrong.
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<br />The American economy usually rebounds a lot faster than it is doing today. After a recession passes, consumers usually increase their spending. And when businesses see demand picking up, they usually start hiring workers to produce the additional output required to meet that demand.
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<br />Some very sharp downturns in the American economy, such as in the early 1920s, were followed quickly by bouncing back to normal levels or beyond. The government did nothing -- and it worked.
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<br />In that sense, this is an unusual recovery in how long it is taking and in how slowly the economy is growing -- while the government is doing virtually everything imaginable.
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<br />Government intervention may look good to the media but its actual track record -- both today and in the 1930s -- is far worse than the track record of letting the economy recover on its own.
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<br />Americans today are alarmed that unemployment has stayed around 9 percent for so long. But such unemployment rates have been common for years in Western European welfare states that have followed policies similar to policies being followed currently by the Obama administration.
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<br />Those European welfare states have not only used the taxpayers' money to hand out "free" benefits to particular groups, they have mandated that employers do the same. Faced with higher labor costs, employers have hired less labor.
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<br />The vast uncertainties created by ObamaCare create a special problem. If employers knew that ObamaCare would add $1,000 to their costs of hiring an employee, then they could simply reduce the salaries they offer by $1,000 and start hiring.
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<br />But, since it will take years to create all the regulations required to carry out ObamaCare, employers today don't know whether the ObamaCare costs that will hit them down the road will be $500 per employee or $5,000 per employee. Even businesses that have record amounts of cash on hand are reluctant to gamble it by expanding their hiring under these conditions.
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<br />Many businesses work their existing employees overtime or hire temporary workers, rather than get stuck with unknown and unknowable costs for expanding their permanent work force.
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<br />As unusual as 9 percent unemployment rates may seem to the current generation of Americans, unemployment rates stayed in double digits for months and years on end during the 1930s. Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration followed policies very similar to those of the Obama administration today. He also got away with it politically by blaming his predecessor. </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/08/unusual-economy-by-thomas-sowell-many.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-08-30T17:51:00-07:00">5:51 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=4699475736478208349">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=4699475736478208349&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/An%20Unusual%20Economy%3F" rel="tag">An Unusual Economy?</a> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="4961032086809082181"></a> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:180%;">White House bluster hides truth</span>
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<br />STEVE HUNTLEY
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<br />That’s a mighty wind blowing from the east. No, I’m not talking about Hurricane Irene. It’s the blustery gusts stirred up long before Irene by the constant whining from the Obama White House: Everything but the administration’s own policies are responsible for the faltering economy.
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<br />Irene is only the latest of the “head winds” White House officials blame for feeble economic growth and persistent high unemployment. There was the earthquake/tsunami in Japan, the fiscal crisis in Greece, the civil war in Libya on top of Arab Spring uprisings in other Arab countries and, of course, Republicans refusing to go along with President Barack Obama’s spending binge, er, “investments.” One adviser even found head winds from the East Coast earthquake, though its most notable damage appeared to be cracks in the foundation of the Washington Monument.
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<br />No doubt these events did create drag for the economy. But Democrats never cut that kind of slack for President George W. Bush. They constantly talk about him inheriting a surplus from the Clinton years but ignore that he also inherited a deteriorating economy that produced a recession in March of 2001 just weeks after he was sworn in.
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<br />Liberals ignore the economic devastation of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in New York and Washington. Air traffic was grounded for days, commerce came practically to a halt. But none of that was allowed to intrude into the left’s narrative of Bush squandering the surplus.
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<br />Hurricane Katrina was a convenient cudgel to pound Bush over the failure of government to respond effectively to the disaster, though it was the Democratic-run governments of New Orleans and Louisiana, the first responders, that were the most guilty. Here again the Democratic narrative leaves out the economic consequences of Katrina.
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<br />The point is that any president has to deal with “head winds” to the economy from unexpected and uncontrollable events domestic and foreign. What’s remarkable about this presidency is the never-ending whining about them.
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<br />This finger-pointing is just passing the buck to avoid responsibility for policies that have failed to revive the economy and, worse, served to prolong the economic suffering.
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<br />There’s the nearly trillion-dollar stimulus that failed its goal of keeping unemployment from breaching 8 percent. ObamaCare and the new financial regulatory law have bureaucrats working overtime writing new regulations. That’s frozen investment by businesses large and small worried about the yet-to-be-determined costs of the new rules.
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<br />Obama and his advisers never flinch from anti-business rhetoric, further undermining investment. They rail about millionaires and billionaires but their tax proposals would hit small businesses earning far less than a million dollars.
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<br />Democrats sneer at the Texas job growth story by pointing out that a significant part of it is based in the oil and gas industry, revealing left-wing job-killing hostility to developing traditional energy resources. A study by the business analysis firm IHS Global Insight asserts increased offshore energy production could produce nearly 230,000 jobs, add $44 billion to the economy and provide nearly $12 billion in tax and royalty revenues to state and federal governments.
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<br />But documents released by Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) show that the administration’s campaign against deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico caused 10 oil rigs to leave for better opportunities in waters off Egypt, Congo and other places — including Brazil where, ironically, Obama has promoted the ocean exploration he frustrates at home.
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<br />Meanwhile the administration pursues alternative energy jobs, though the New York Times reported this month that “federal and state efforts to stimulate creation of green jobs have largely failed.”
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<br />All the finger pointing, whining and passing the buck can’t hide the failure of Obamanomics. </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/08/white-house-bluster-hides-truth-steve.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-08-30T17:50:00-07:00">5:50 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=4961032086809082181">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=4961032086809082181&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/White%20House%20bluster%20hides%20truth" rel="tag">White House bluster hides truth</a> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="5106426094752879479"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/08/irenes-broken-windows.html">Irene's Broken Windows</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content">
<br />By Larry Kudlow
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<br />Get ready for a bunch of demand-side economists to tell you that the post-Hurricane Irene rebuilding phase is actually a good thing for future economic growth. But don't believe it.
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<br />Who has it right?
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<br />Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist at MFR Inc., delivered my favorite quote on the subject to The New York Times: "If you're in the middle of recession, you just wander around blowing up buildings, and that would be your path to prosperity. And clearly, that's not the case. It's not the case with a natural disaster, either."
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<br />Echoing this thought, Ian Shepherdson, the chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, bluntly noted on CNBC's website that "no one is made better off by the destruction of their home or workplace." He acknowledged the benefits of reconstruction work, but he dismissed the idea that somehow this is a net win for the economy.
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<br />It sounds to me as if both of these gentlemen are recalling the parable of the broken window, introduced by French free market philosopher Frederic Bastiat, in an 1850 essay called "That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen." Though Bastiat agrees that repairing broken windows is a good thing, encouraging the glazier's trade and income, he argues that it is quite different from the idea that breaking windows is a good thing, in that it would cause money to circulate and encourage industry in general.
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<br />Why? Because a shopkeeper who spends money to fix broken windows cannot spend or invest that money on new ventures.
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<br />"It is not seen that if he had not had a window to replace, he would, perhaps, have replaced his old shoes, or added another book to his library," Bastiat wrote. "In short, he would have employed his six francs in some way, which this accident has prevented."
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<br />In other words, the businesspeople who are spending to fix the damage of Hurricane Irene are not spending or investing that money on brand-new ventures or startups or on ordinary goods and services. Those are the real economics of Hurricane Irene.
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<br />There was a lot of damage incurred along 1,100 miles of U.S. coastline. Tragically, 28 deaths have been reported so far. There were toppled trees, power disruptions and flooding on damaged roads. Homes, commercial buildings and factories all stopped for at least a couple of days. In some sense, the human distress has been even greater than the economic distress.
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<br />On the other hand, lost sales, forgone consumer spending and temporary stoppages of production and employment all will be recouped in a relatively short period of time. Mark Zandi of Moody's Analytics suggests that the economic toll will be in the billions, but not the tens of billions. (Remember that the total U.S. gross domestic product is roughly $15 trillion.) So there's no black-swan event here that will throw our fragile economy into a double-dip recession.
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<br />Yes, the economic blow from Irene is noticeable, but it's temporary. In fact, what makes this economic setback even less worrisome is that it occurred over a weekend. You really didn't even lose two days of economic activity.
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<br />Restaurants, retailers, baseball games and Broadway shows all shut down, but only for a short bit. And actually, there was a lot of consumer buying in the days leading up to Irene. People went to Home Depot and Lowe's to find stuff with which to board up their windows. They went to Costco for food. And they went to Walmart and Dollar General for all sorts of things.
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<br />When the final tally is in, Irene may or may not qualify as a top 10 hurricane. But the history of such disasters is that the national economy rebuilds and snaps back shortly thereafter. Nonetheless, the economic rebuilding essentially gets you back to where you were before the storm. Unfortunately, there is virtually no net new investment from all of this.
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<br />That said, if President Barack Obama tries to use Hurricane Irene as an excuse to pour tens of billions of new infrastructure dollars into the economy, he's barking up the wrong tree.
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<br />For just as Bastiat's seen-and-unseen analysis holds for the shopkeeper repairing his window, it also holds for the impact of massive government spending on the whole economy. It's a huge mistake -- and a consequence of our fiscal profligacy -- when private money is not spent on new investment because funds are absorbed by big-government borrowing.
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<br />If we are to restore strong economic growth and job creation, we require measures such as pro-growth tax reform or regulatory rollback and repeal. In this sense, the new House Republican plan just released by Majority Leader Eric Cantor to repeal job-destroying regulations -- especially on labor and the environment -- makes a lot more sense than throwing money at the Federal Emergency Management Agency for new infrastructure banks.
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<br />Breaking fiscal windows is just as ineffective as breaking the shopkeeper's pane of glass.
<br />Lawrence Kudlow is host of CNBC's The Kudlow Report and co-host of The Call. He is also a former Reagan economic advisor and a syndicated columnist. Visit his blog, Kudlow's Money Politics. </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/08/irenes-broken-windows.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-08-30T17:48:00-07:00">5:48 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=5106426094752879479">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=5106426094752879479&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="6750822609324051961"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/08/can-obama-pull-reagan.html">Can Obama Pull a Reagan?</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1>Can Obama Pull a Reagan? </h1><h2 class="subhead">Democrats inside and outside the White House are looking for a comeback strategy for President Obama, and their model is Ronald Reagan.</h2> <a href="http://online.wsj.com/search/term.html?KEYWORDS=STEPHEN+MOORE&bylinesearch=true">STEPHEN MOORE</a><h3 class="byline"> </h3><p>Democrats inside and outside the White House are looking for a comeback strategy for President Obama, and their model is Ronald Reagan.</p> <p>The Gipper's approval ratings were in the tank at the end of his second year in office, but he roared back to win 49 states against Democrat Walter Mondale. And Reagan's polling numbers at this stage of his presidency were not much better than Mr. Obama's are now.</p> <div class="insetContent insetCol3wide embedType-image imageFormat-D"><div class="insetTree"> <div id="articleThumbnail_1" class="insettipUnit insetZoomTarget"><div class="insetZoomTargetBox"><div class="insettipBox"><div class="insettip"><p><a>View Full Image</a></p></div></div><a><img src="http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-PK198_pd0830_D_20110830124340.jpg" alt="pd0830" border="0" height="174" hspace="0" vspace="0" width="262" /></a></div> <cite>Getty Images
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<br /></cite><p>However, a new analysis from Laffer and Associates suggests that it will be very difficult for Team Obama to replicate Reagan. Reagan's numbers bottomed out in January 1983, right after the trough of the 1982 recession, at about 35%. But for the rest of 1983, Reagan's numbers steadily climbed and eventually surpassed 50% by the end of that year. For Mr. Obama, the trend line this year has been in the opposite direction.</p> <p>"Reagan's numbers really began to soar by late '83," says Arthur Laffer, who was an economic adviser to Reagan. "The numbers really tracked the economic recovery."</p> <p>That kind of political resurrection could happen for Mr. Obama if the economy heals. But right now unemployment exceeds 9%, and presidents typically don't get re-elected when unemployment is more than 8%. And then there are the "confidence" and "competence" factors, according to the Laffer report. These are measures of whether people feel that things are getting better and the president is doing the right thing, even if the economy isn't so good at that point in time. In 1984, the unemployment rate was still above 7.5 % and Reagan won big.</p> <p>The Laffer report on the two presidents is aptly entitled "The Odd Couple." In this case Reagan would be Felix, because he cleaned up the mess; and Mr. Obama is more like Oscar, who leaves a bigger mess behind.</p>
<br /> </div></div></div> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/08/can-obama-pull-reagan.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-08-30T17:07:00-07:00">5:07 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=6750822609324051961">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=6750822609324051961&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> 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class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=4520413131750036860&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="7497146896104123861"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/08/cbos-fiscal-fantasy.html">CBO's Fiscal Fantasy</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/08/cbos-fiscal-fantasy.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-08-30T17:03:00-07:00">5:03 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=7497146896104123861">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=7497146896104123861&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="1364039413774335642"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/08/president-obamas-competency-crisis.html">President Obama's Competency Crisis</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div 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title="2011-08-30T17:01:00-07:00">5:01 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=7313003977223661844">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=7313003977223661844&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="6498610093633199619"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/08/larry-summerss-bad-math-is-s-informed_30.html">Larry Summers’s Bad Math Is S&P Informed Opinion</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1>Larry Summers’s Bad Math Is S&P Informed Opinion: Caroline Baum</h1> <div class="story_inline assets clearfix "> <cite class="byline">By <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/view/bios/caroline-baum/" class="author">Caroline Baum</a> </cite><cite class="byline story_time"><span class="datestamp"></span></cite><div class="module author"> <h2>About Caroline Baum</h2> <p>Caroline Baum, a columnist for Bloomberg News since 1998, is the author of "Just What I Said: Bloomberg Economics Columnist Takes on Bonds, Banks, Budgets and Bubbles."</p> <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/view/bios/caroline-baum/" class="more_info">More about Caroline Baum</a> </div> </div> <p>When <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/standard-%26-poor%27s/">Standard & Poor’s</a> downgraded the U.S.’s long-term credit rating from AAA to AA+ on Aug. 5, <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/washington/">Washington</a> went on the offensive. </p> <p>President <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/barack-obama/">Barack Obama</a>’s advisers blasted S&P. The administration’s friends and allies came out with guns blazing. The Securities and Exchange Commission is reportedly scrutinizing S&P’s procedures connected with the downgrade. And the Senate Banking Committee is said to be pondering an investigation -- into what exactly, committee members haven’t said. </p> <p>None of S&P’s detractors let us forget for one minute that this is the same S&P that slapped a AAA rating on collateralized subprime junk during the housing bubble, and that gave Enron Corp. and WorldCom Inc. investment-grade ratings shortly before each of them imploded. </p> <p>What’s more, the <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/u.s.-treasury/">U.S. Treasury</a> found a <a href="http://www.treasury.gov/connect/blog/Pages/Just-the-Facts-SPs-2-Trillion-Mistake.aspx" title="Open Web Site" rel="external">$2 trillion error</a> in S&P’s analysis, prompting <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/larry-summers/">Larry Summers</a>, a former Obama economic adviser, to offer a <a href="http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2011/08/07/larry-summers-and-steve-forbes-on-sp-dowgrade/" title="Open Web Site" rel="external">rating</a> of his own. </p> <p>“S&P’s track record has been terrible and its arithmetic is worse,” Summers told <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/cnn/">CNN</a>. </p> <p>A pox on S&P’s house! Death to the messenger! In fact, the messenger was shot so early and often one might have missed the message amid all the gun smoke. Unless the U.S. gets its fiscal house in order and aligns the promises it has made to retirees with tax rates that don’t stunt growth, the nation’s sovereign- debt rating is unlikely to contain the first letter of the alphabet at all. </p> <h2>Ready, Shoot, Aim </h2> <p>As it turns out, the sharpshooters were wide of the target. S&P didn’t make an arithmetical error, as Summers would have us believe. Nor did the sovereign-debt analysts show “a stunning <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/44053113/Geithner_Rips_S_P_for_Really_Terrible_Move_on_Downgrade" title="Open Web Site" rel="external">lack of knowledge</a>,” as Treasury Secretary <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/tim-geithner/">Tim Geithner</a> claimed. Rather, they used a <a href="http://www.standardandpoors.com/ratings/articles/en/us/?articleType=PDF&assetID=1245316552710" title="Open Web Site" rel="external">different assumption</a> about the growth rate of discretionary spending, something the nonpartisan <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/congressional-budget-office/">Congressional Budget Office</a> does regularly in its long-term outlook. </p> <p>CBO’s “alternative fiscal scenario,” which S&P used for its initial analysis, assumes discretionary spending increases at the same rate as nominal gross domestic product, or about 5 percent a year. CBO’s baseline scenario, which is subject to current law, assumes 2.5 percent annual growth in these outlays, which means less new debt over 10 years. </p> <p>But S&P’s rating horizon is three to five years. The difference between the two assumptions amounts to a gap of about $250 billion in debt estimates for 2015: $14.5 trillion, or 79 percent of GDP, under the baseline scenario, versus $14.7 trillion, or 81 percent of GDP, under the alternative. (S&P includes federal, state and local government debt in its calculations.) </p> <p>Over 10 years, the difference is, as Treasury says, $2 trillion and eight percentage points as a share of GDP. </p> <h2>Repeated Mistake </h2> <p>In its <a href="http://www.treasury.gov/connect/blog/Pages/Just-the-Facts-SPs-2-Trillion-Mistake.aspx" title="Open Web Site" rel="external">response</a> to the S&P downgrade, Treasury used the word “mistake” eight times, “error” five times, and other pejorative words three times -- all in a 550-word memo. Just in case anyone missed the point. </p> <p>To be sure, S&P’s critics have legitimate gripes. Was the credit rating company being too much of an activist in demanding $4 trillion of savings for the U.S. in order to maintain its AAA rating? Why didn’t S&P’s acceptance of a slower rate of spending produce a different outcome? Was the downgrade political? If so, is this a legitimate framework for assessing the creditworthiness of the U.S.? </p> <p>These are all valid questions. Yet when the discussions between S&P and Treasury didn’t have the desired results, the administration set out to discredit the messenger. </p> <h2>Cognitive Dissonance </h2> <p>Imperfect as that messenger may be, shooting him doesn’t minimize the message. Fiscal policy is on an unsustainable path, largely the result of entitlement spending exacerbated by the retirement of the <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/baby-boomers/">baby boomers</a>. We have a government that lives beyond its means and a political class that lacks the will to find a solution. </p> <p>For example, “preserving Medicare as we know it,” as House minority leader <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/nancy-pelosi/">Nancy Pelosi</a> is wont to say, isn’t an option. Medicare’s Hospital Insurance Trust Fund will be exhausted by 2024, according to the 2011 <a href="http://www.cms.gov/ReportsTrustFunds/downloads/tr2011.pdf" title="Open Web Site" rel="external">annual report</a> from the program’s trustees. That’s five years earlier than they projected in 2010. Medicare has been running a cash-flow deficit, with expenditures exceeding income, since 2008. </p> <p>The <a href="http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TR/2011/tr2011.pdf" title="Open Web Site" rel="external">Social Security Trust Fund</a>, which ran a cash-flow deficit excluding interest last year and is projected to run one this year, will be exhausted in 2036. (No, Virginia, there is no lockbox.) </p> <h2>‘Delicious Irony’ </h2> <p>The Republicans’ intransigence on revenue increases, no matter what the source, is another stumbling block. As economist Art Laffer put it, “Who doesn’t want revenue increases” if they result from stronger economic and job growth? Almost everyone agrees the economy would get a boost from a more efficient tax system that eliminates loopholes and lowers corporate and individual income-tax rates. </p> <p>Looking at the big picture, the <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/american-enterprise-institute/">American Enterprise Institute</a>’s Alex Pollock finds a “<a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903918104576502121667479138.html?KEYWORDS=alex+pollock" title="Open Web Site" rel="external">delicious irony</a>” in the S&P downgrade. The only reason it carried so much weight is the federal government gave S&P that power. S&P is one of three nationally recognized statistical rating organizations (<a href="http://www.sec.gov/divisions/marketreg/ratingagency.htm" title="Open Web Site" rel="external">NRSRO</a>s), along with Moody’s and Fitch, designated by the SEC in 1975. </p> <p>The Dodd-Frank financial-reform act includes a <a href="http://www.dodd-frank-act.us/Dodd_Frank_Act_Text_Section_939A.html" title="Open Web Site" rel="external">provision</a> that would end their monopoly, but progress on implementing it has been slow. </p> <p>In the meantime, just think if all the energy expended to discredit S&P had been put to better use. Maybe the Obama administration could have offered up its own plan to put the U.S. on a sustainable fiscal path -- perhaps one that passes muster with S&P. </p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/08/larry-summerss-bad-math-is-s-informed_30.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-08-30T16:58:00-07:00">4:58 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=6498610093633199619">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=6498610093633199619&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="7661597276318774150"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/08/grannys-fate-rides-with-bernanke-in.html">Granny’s Fate Rides With Bernanke in Jackson Hole</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1>Granny’s Fate Rides With Bernanke in Jackson Hole: Caroline Baum</h1> <div id="article_image_container"> <img alt="Granny's Fate " src="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/data?pid=avimage&iid=iOM24xfPtVnI" /> <p id="article_credit">Illustration by Nathaniel Russell </p> </div> <div class="story_inline assets clearfix "> <cite class="byline">By <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/view/bios/caroline-baum/" class="author">Caroline Baum</a></cite><div class="module author"> <h2>About Caroline Baum</h2> <p>Caroline Baum, a columnist for Bloomberg News since 1998, is the author of "Just What I Said: Bloomberg Economics Columnist Takes on Bonds, Banks, Budgets and Bubbles."</p> <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/view/bios/caroline-baum/" class="more_info">More about Caroline Baum</a> </div> <div class="story_inline attachments"> </div> </div> <p>Investors around the world are waiting to find out whether Federal Reserve Chairman <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/ben-bernanke/">Ben Bernanke</a> puts any QE3 in his opening remarks today at the Kansas City Fed’s <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/jackson-hole/">Jackson Hole</a> conference. It was one year ago at the same event that he outlined the Fed’s policy options for an ailing economy, including a second round of quantitative easing that started in early November. </p> <p>A second audience will be listening to Bernanke -- not as closely, perhaps, nor in real time, but with no less a stake in the outcome: retirees living on fixed incomes who have watched their returns dwindle to almost nothing. </p> <p>Bernanke has already told this group to forget about earning a higher rate of interest anytime soon. At the conclusion of its Aug. 9 meeting, the Fed <a href="http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/monetary/20110809a.htm" title="Open Web Site" rel="external">announced</a> it would keep the benchmark rate near zero “at least through mid-2013.” What’s a small saver to do? </p> <p><a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/monetary-policy/">Monetary policy</a> isn’t offering much solace in the short run. That’s because the Fed adjusts <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/interest-rates/">interest rates</a> and, in so doing, changes the incentives to spend and to save. </p> <p>When inflation-adjusted interest rates are high, the public is induced to forego current consumption in favor of future consumption. In plain talk, we’re being paid to save. </p> <p>Alternatively, when real rates are low or negative, as they are now, the incentive is to spend today and forget about saving for a rainy day. Interest rates act as a guide to our choices. </p> <h2>Risk Management </h2> <p>That’s one explanation of how monetary policy works. There are others. While currently out of favor, monetarism teaches that if the Fed creates more money than the public wants to hold, people will spend it. It’s akin to dropping money from a helicopter, the metaphor adopted by the late <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/milton-friedman/">Milton Friedman</a> to teach his <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/university-of-chicago/">University of Chicago</a> students how monetary policy works. </p> <p>Bernanke explains it in a different way. Once short-term rates hit zero, monetary policy works through the <a href="http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/bernanke20100827a.htm" title="Open Web Site" rel="external">portfolio balance channel, </a>a theory he outlined at Jackson Hole last year. Specifically, when the Fed buys risk-free Treasuries, it depresses the yields and forces investors to buy other assets that carry increased credit and interest-rate risk -- long-term corporate bonds or stocks, for example. </p> <p>In a Nov. 19 <a href="http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/bernanke20101119a.htm" title="Open Web Site" rel="external">speech</a>, he even argued that there was no Q in quantitative easing. The thrust of QE, he said, comes from changing the quantity of bank reserves, a channel he called weak. Securities purchases, on the other hand, work through portfolio substitution. </p> <p>“The Fed should talk in terms of reserves, not asset prices,” said <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/marvin-goodfriend/">Marvin Goodfriend</a>, a professor of economics at <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/carnegie-mellon-university/">Carnegie Mellon University</a> in Pittsburgh and a former research director at the Richmond Fed. </p> <h2>Bad Marketing </h2> <p>The reason? To remind the public of the Fed’s unique authority, independent of the political process, “to stabilize the purchasing power of money,” Goodfriend said. </p> <p>Maybe it’s just a case of bad marketing, although the Fed has been emphasizing the asset side of its <a href="http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h41/Current/h41.pdf" title="Open Web Site" rel="external">balance sheet</a> since December 2008, when it lowered the funds rate to near zero. For an institution that is so concerned with its communication policy, the Fed could do better. The talk about forcing investors to assume more risk sounds as if the Fed is encouraging Gram and Gramps to redeem those six-month Treasury bills, cash out of the money-market fund and let the CDs mature, and go out and buy stocks and high-yield bonds. </p> <p>Small savers and retirees have reason to be upset. It’s as if monetary policy has been personalized to punish one group that behaved well (savers) and reward another that over-borrowed and over-spent. </p> <p>Daily 400-point swings in the <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/dow-jones-industrial-average/">Dow Jones Industrial Average</a> aren’t for everyone. Most octogenarians, I’d venture to say, prefer less volatility. </p> <h2>Bubble Blindness </h2> <p>Goodfriend says the Great Inflation of the 1970s soured many savers on owning long-term bonds. They opted for short-term instruments instead, which left them vulnerable to periodic bouts of ultra-low rates (the periods seem to be getting longer). </p> <p>Besides, the Fed’s extended policy of zero-percent interest rates is apt to spark a bubble in some unexpected asset class. (<a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2289095/" title="Open Web Site" rel="external">Farm land</a> and <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/09/moodys-student-loans-bubble-burst_n_922646.html" title="Open Web Site" rel="external">student loans</a> have been mentioned as possible candidates.) When it comes to bubble identification, the Fed is the last one to know and even slower to admit to a role in its creation. </p> <p>The Fed tries to be neutral in its conduct of monetary policy, buying Treasuries only and no other asset classes. (The various lending facilities created in 2007 and 2008 to deal with the financial crisis are the exception.) In the same spirit, the central bank needs to communicate that it’s running monetary policy for everyone, not just sophisticated investors. </p> <h2>Don’t Forget Gramps </h2> <p>“A policy that is effective in getting the economy to grow more rapidly will improve the lives of most people,” says former St. Louis Fed President Bill Poole. </p> <p>Stronger growth means more hiring, more income, bigger profits, higher stock prices and higher real interest rates. </p> <p>Figuring out what’s “effective” isn’t so easy. I doubt that Bernanke will offer any new solutions today. After all, three members of the Fed’s policy committee dissented from the Aug. 9 decision to commit to near-zero rates through mid-2013. </p> <p>Inflation readings are much higher than they were a year ago: 3.6 percent versus 1.2 percent for the <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/consumer-price-index/">consumer price index</a>; 1.8 percent versus 0.9 percent for the core CPI, which excludes food and energy and is given more weight by policy makers. The bar for additional Fed action has been raised. </p> <p>Whatever Bernanke says or doesn’t say is sure to have a market impact. Stocks, for example, will probably be disappointed without the prospect of a Fed fix. </p> <p>As for Gram and Gramps, who won’t be attending this or any Fed symposium, Bernanke will have nothing to offer. At minimum he could acknowledge their predicament and stop encouraging them to buy <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/junk-bonds/">junk bonds</a>. </p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/08/grannys-fate-rides-with-bernanke-in.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-08-30T16:56:00-07:00">4:56 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=7661597276318774150">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=7661597276318774150&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="7245577024150695091"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-steve-jobs-made-business-cool-again.html">How Steve Jobs Made Business Cool Again, 1981</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1>How Steve Jobs Made Business Cool Again, 1981: Virginia Postrel</h1> <div id="article_image_container"> <img alt="How Steve Jobs Made Business Cool " src="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/data?pid=avimage&iid=iACTtHosHOQo" /> <p id="article_credit">Illustration by Leif Parsons </p> </div> <div class="story_inline assets clearfix "> <cite class="byline">By <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/view/bios/virginia-postrel/" class="author">Virginia Postrel</a> </cite><cite class="byline story_time"><span class="datestamp"></span></cite><div class="module author"> <h2>About Virginia Postrel</h2> <p>Virginia Postrel writes about commerce and culture, innovation, economics and public policy. Shes the author of "The Future and Its Enemies" and "The Substance of Style," and is writing a book on glamour.</p> <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/view/bios/virginia-postrel/" class="more_info">More about Virginia Postrel</a> </div> <div class="story_inline attachments"> </div> </div> <p>To understand the cultural significance of <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/steve-jobs/">Steve Jobs</a>, you have to go back in time: to before the iPad or iPhone or iTunes, before Apple Inc.’s comeback products made candy-colored plastics and iAnything cool, before Jobs got kicked out of Apple, even before the Macintosh <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYecfV3ubP8" title="Open Web Site" rel="external">hurled a sledgehammer</a> at <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/big-brother/">Big Brother</a>. </p> <p>It’s 1981. Most people have never heard of Silicon Valley. The country’s most famous businessman is Lee Iacocca, the head of Chrysler Corp. He’s famous because in 1979 he engineered a government bailout -- loan guarantees -- that saved the company. He’s also famous because, unlike his peers, Iacocca is colorful. He seems to believe in what he’s doing. </p> <p>In 1981, business executives aren’t known for either personality or passion. The general public sees business as a boring, impersonal, possibly suspect activity. Its significance seems purely financial. </p> <p>“Businessmen,” Tom Wolfe tells the Wall Street Journal, “no longer have the conviction that what they’re doing is exciting and glamorous, which is, I guess, another way of saying intrinsically worthwhile.” </p> <p>That was all about to change. </p> <p>In the 1980s, entrepreneurs became heroes, celebrities and role models. The Apple whiz kids, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, were the new face of business. </p> <p>Money was, of course, part of the appeal -- millionaires in their 20s! -- but there was much more to it than that. The aspirations for pleasure and self-expression that the sociologist Daniel Bell had condemned as the “cultural contradictions of capitalism” turned out to be its fuel. </p> <p>“It’s a neat way to play,” said Dave House, who was the manager of <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=INTC:US" title="Get Quote" class="web_ticker">Intel Corp. (INTC)</a>’s microprocessor division in 1982 when he posed for a magazine in a hot tub with his girlfriend, apparently naked. House wasn’t talking about his hot-tub frolics. He was explaining why he kept working once he had more money than he knew what to do with. </p> <p>In the 1980s, business became a realm of passion and personality and, above all, surprises. Big changes could come from anywhere -- from backwaters such as <a href="http://www.walmart.com/" title="Open Web Site" rel="external">Bentonville, Arkansas</a> and <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/memphis/">Memphis</a>, <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/tennessee/">Tennessee</a>, and <a href="http://store.nike.com/us/en_us/?cp=USNS_KW_0611081618&l=shop,home" title="Open Web Site" rel="external">Portland Oregon.</a> Or, of course, <a href="http://www.apple.com/" title="Open Web Site" rel="external">Cupertino, California</a> and <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx" title="Open Web Site" rel="external">Redmond, Washington</a>. The ethos of Silicon Valley became, if not workaday reality, then the cultural norm. </p> <p>“Apple was about as pure of a Silicon Valley company as you could imagine,” Jobs said in an interview with <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/newsweek/">Newsweek</a> after he was fired in 1985. If he had been born and raised in <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/new-york/">New York</a>, we probably would never have heard of him. But Jobs grew up knowing about David Packard and Bill Hewlett starting a business in their garage. When he was barely a teenager, he cold-called Hewlett, whose home number was listed in the phone book, and talked his way into a job at HP. </p> <p>“Our role model was Hewlett-Packard,” he said in 1985. Apple just grew a lot faster. </p> <p>Although the HP Way was Silicon Valley lore, it wasn’t a touchstone to the general public. Apple’s rapid success, by contrast, made quite an impression. Before long, the ideal of the loyal company man working his way to the top was being replaced by the ideal of the brilliant, arrogant college dropout conquering the world before he was 30: the entrepreneur as Alexander. </p> <p>Business became more like sports or fashion: a topic of social conversation, a source of rooting interest and an expression of personal taste. The cultural, or even religious, war between Apple and Microsoft devotees would have been as inconceivable in 1981 as a “brand evangelist” or a corporate chieftain who appeared in public without a tie. </p> <p>Now, by contrast, people far removed from the executive suite, working in entirely different companies or even completely different industries, have strong opinions about what strategies Apple or Microsoft or General Motors or Wal-Mart or Amazon should pursue. </p> <p>“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work,” Jobs said in a 2005 <a href="http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html" title="Open Web Site" rel="external">Stanford University commencement speech</a>, which has been much quoted in recent days. “And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.” </p> <p>That inspiring philosophy offers the promise of greatness and self-fulfillment, but also perpetual dissatisfaction. If business isn’t just about making money, if it is about finding a version of true love and leaving a cultural mark, the stakes are much higher. Your work becomes your identity. </p> <p>Nobody ever asked why Steve Jobs kept working after he was rich. Everyone understood. </p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-steve-jobs-made-business-cool-again.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-08-30T16:55:00-07:00">4:55 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=7245577024150695091">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=7245577024150695091&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/1981" rel="tag">1981</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Cool%20Again" rel="tag">Cool Again</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/How%20Steve%20Jobs" rel="tag">How Steve Jobs</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Made%20Business" rel="tag">Made Business</a> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="6803100403153567465"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/08/why-alan-kruegers-jobs-analysis-was.html">Why Alan Krueger's Jobs Analysis Was Spot On</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1>Why Alan Krueger's Jobs Analysis Was Spot On: The Ticker</h1> <div id="article_image_container"> <img alt="Ticker: Percent of U.S. Population with a Job in July " src="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/data?pid=avimage&iid=i5c5Aeafznqw" /> </div> <div class="story_inline assets clearfix "> <cite class="byline">By Paula Dwyer </cite><cite class="byline story_time"><span class="datestamp"></span></cite><div class="story_inline attachments"> </div> </div> <p>In a March 31 Bloomberg News<a title="Link to op-ed" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-31/why-unemployment-rose-so-much-dropped-so-fast-commentary-by-alan-krueger.html"> op-ed</a>, Princeton University economist Alan Krueger predicted that the <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/unemployment-rate/">unemployment rate</a>, then at 8.9 percent, would keep falling. He was wrong -- it rose, and five months later it's still higher at 9.1 percent.</p> <p>President Barack Obama today nominated Krueger to lead the <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/council-of-economic-advisers/">Council of Economic Advisers</a>, replacing <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/austan-goolsbee/">Austan Goolsbee</a>. Did the president choose someone who doesn't understand labor markets?</p> <p>To the contrary. In the same op-ed, Krueger's analysis was spot on when he wrote about the employment-to-population ratio, which may offer a better window on job-market trends. As Krueger explained, the unemployment rate can be illusory because it only counts people who have actively looked for a job in the last month. He wrote:</p> <blockquote><p>"Here’s something to think about. At the end of this year, extended <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/unemployment-benefits/">unemployment benefits</a> will expire, while other people will exhaust their benefits during the course of the year. Once that happens we might start seeing more people give up looking for work, restoring the pattern where people unemployed the longest leave the <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/labor-force/">labor force</a> at a higher rate than others. After all, the prospect of finding a job after looking for two years is small, and it probably won’t improve much even if the labor market continues to heal.</p> <p>So we might well see the labor force shrinking more even as the measured unemployment rate falls. Nonetheless, we still will have a serious joblessness problem even as the unemployment rate falls.</p> <p>Instead of focusing on the unemployment rate, it may be better to look at the employment-to-population ratio, or the share of the population that is employed. This rate isn’t affected by whether someone is counted as in or out of the labor force.</p> <p>Tellingly, the employment-to-population rate has hardly budged since reaching a low of 58.2 percent in December 2009. Last month it stood at just 58.4 percent. Even in the expansion from 2002 to 2007 the share of the population employed never reached the peak of 64.7 percent it attained before the March-November 2001 recession.</p> <p>What this indicator tells me is that we weren’t creating enough jobs long before the recession that began in December 2007. If this pattern holds, even in recovery, it points to a much deeper and disturbing problem for the <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/u.s.-economy/">U.S. economy</a>."</p> </blockquote> <p>He was right: The employment-to-population ratio kept on slipping in subsequent months, reaching 58.2 percent in the June payrolls report and 58.1 percent in July. As my colleague Mark Whitehouse wrote in an Aug. 5 Ticker post, that's the lowest point since the 1983 recession. We'll see if it dips below that, to 58 or even lower, when the August employment figures are released on Friday.</p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/08/why-alan-kruegers-jobs-analysis-was.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-08-30T16:52:00-07:00">4:52 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=6803100403153567465">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=6803100403153567465&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="8772672519352835692"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/08/give-karl-marx-chance-to-save-world.html">Give Karl Marx a Chance to Save the World Economy</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1>Give Karl Marx a Chance to Save the World Economy: George Magnus</h1> <div id="article_image_container"> <img alt="Karl Marx and the World Economy " src="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/data?pid=avimage&iid=iUdH3.CRrRak" /> <p id="article_credit">Illustration by Jordan Awan </p> </div> <div class="story_inline assets clearfix "> <cite class="byline">By George Magnus </cite><cite class="byline story_time"><span class="datestamp"></span></cite><div class="story_inline attachments"> </div> </div> <p>Policy makers struggling to understand the barrage of financial panics, protests and other ills afflicting the world would do well to study the works of a long-dead economist: <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/karl-marx/">Karl Marx</a>. The sooner they recognize we’re facing a once-in-a-lifetime crisis of capitalism, the better equipped they will be to manage a way out of it. </p> <p>The spirit of Marx, who is buried in a cemetery close to where I live in north <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/london/">London</a>, has risen from the grave amid the financial crisis and subsequent economic slump. The wily philosopher’s analysis of capitalism had a lot of flaws, but today’s global economy bears some uncanny resemblances to the conditions he foresaw. </p> <p>Consider, for example, Marx’s prediction of how the inherent conflict between capital and labor would manifest itself. As he wrote in “<a href="http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/" title="Open Web Site" rel="external">Das Kapital</a>,” companies’ pursuit of profits and productivity would naturally lead them to need fewer and fewer workers, creating an “industrial reserve army” of the poor and unemployed: “Accumulation of wealth at one pole is, therefore, at the same time accumulation of misery.” </p> <p>The process he describes is visible throughout the developed world, particularly in the U.S. Companies’ efforts to cut costs and avoid hiring have boosted U.S. corporate profits as a share of total economic output to the highest level in more than six decades, while the <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/unemployment-rate/">unemployment rate</a> stands at 9.1 percent and real wages are stagnant. </p> <p>U.S. income inequality, meanwhile, is by some measures close to its highest level since the 1920s. Before 2008, the income disparity was obscured by factors such as easy credit, which allowed poor households to enjoy a more affluent lifestyle. Now the problem is coming home to roost. </p> <h2>Over-Production Paradox </h2> <p>Marx also pointed out the paradox of over-production and under-consumption: The more people are relegated to poverty, the less they will be able to consume all the goods and services companies produce. When one company cuts costs to boost earnings, it’s smart, but when they all do, they undermine the income formation and effective demand on which they rely for revenues and profits. </p> <p>This problem, too, is evident in today’s developed world. We have a substantial capacity to produce, but in the middle- and lower-income cohorts, we find widespread financial insecurity and low consumption rates. The result is visible in the U.S., where new housing construction and automobile sales remain about 75% and 30% below their 2006 peaks, respectively. </p> <p>As Marx put it in Kapital: “The ultimate reason for all real crises always remains the poverty and restricted consumption of the masses.” </p> <h2>Addressing the Crisis </h2> <p>So how do we address this crisis? To put Marx’s spirit back in the box, policy makers have to place jobs at the top of the economic agenda, and consider other unorthodox measures. The crisis isn’t temporary, and it certainly won’t be cured by the ideological passion for government austerity. </p> <p>Here are five major planks of a strategy whose time, sadly, has not yet come. </p> <p>First, we have to sustain aggregate demand and income growth, or else we could fall into a debt trap along with serious social consequences. Governments that don’t face an imminent debt crisis -- including the U.S., <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/germany/">Germany</a> and the U.K. -- must make employment creation the litmus test of policy. In the U.S., the employment-to-population ratio is now as low as in the 1980s. Measures of underemployment almost everywhere are at record highs. Cutting employer payroll taxes and creating fiscal incentives to encourage companies to hire people and invest would do for a start. </p> <h2>Lighten the Burden </h2> <p>Second, to lighten the household debt burden, new steps should allow eligible households to restructure mortgage debt, or swap some debt forgiveness for future payments to lenders out of any home price appreciation. </p> <p>Third, to improve the functionality of the credit system, well-capitalized and well-structured banks should be allowed some temporary capital adequacy relief to try to get new credit flowing to small companies, especially. Governments and central banks could engage in direct spending on or indirect financing of national investment or infrastructure programs. </p> <p>Fourth, to ease the sovereign debt burden in the <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/euro-zone/">euro zone</a>, European creditors have to extend the lower <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/interest-rates/">interest rates</a> and longer payment terms recently proposed for <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/greece/">Greece</a>. If jointly guaranteed euro bonds are a bridge too far, Germany has to champion an urgent recapitalization of banks to help absorb inevitable losses through a vastly enlarged European Financial Stability Facility -- a sine qua non to solve the bond market crisis at least. </p> <h2>Build Defenses </h2> <p>Fifth, to build defenses against the risk of falling into deflation and stagnation, central banks should look beyond bond- buying programs, and instead target a growth rate of nominal economic output. This would allow a temporary period of moderately higher inflation that could push inflation-adjusted interest rates well below zero and facilitate a lowering of debt burdens. </p> <p>We can’t know how these proposals might work out, or what their unintended consequences might be. But the policy status quo isn’t acceptable, either. It could turn the U.S. into a more unstable version of <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/japan/">Japan</a>, and fracture the euro zone with unknowable political consequences. By 2013, the crisis of Western capitalism could easily spill over to <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/china/">China</a>, but that’s another subject. </p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/08/give-karl-marx-chance-to-save-world.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-08-30T16:51:00-07:00">4:51 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=8772672519352835692">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=8772672519352835692&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/a%20Chance" rel="tag">a Chance</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Give%20Karl%20Marx" rel="tag">Give Karl Marx</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Save%20the%20World%20Economy" rel="tag">Save the World Economy</a> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="6857164853006823620"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/08/us-confidence-slumps-to-lowest-since.html">U.S. Confidence Slumps to Lowest Since 2009</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1>U.S. Confidence Slumps to Lowest Since 2009</h1> <div class="story_inline assets clearfix "> <cite class="byline"> By Timothy R. Homan </cite><div class="story_inline attachments"> <div class="image thumbnail"> <div class="thumbnail_container overlay_container"> <a class="enlarge_image" rel="#98255" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/photo/u-s-consumer-confidence-falls-to-two-year-low-/98255.html" target="_blank"> <span>Enlarge image</span> <img alt="U.S. Consumer Confidence Falls to Two-Year Low " class="small_img img_keep_size" src="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/data?pid=avimage&iid=iSWTdcI8mEaU" /> </a> </div> <p class="caption">Women carry shopping bags in New York. Photographer: Scott Eells/Bloomberg </p> </div> <div class="image thumbnail video"> <div class="thumbnail_container"> <img alt="Consumer Confidence and the U.S. Economy " class="small_img img_keep_size" src="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/data?pid=avimage&iid=iPGyKIznld2g" /> <div class="overlay"> </div> <div class="play_video_link"><a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/video/74609097/" class="q" id="74609097" type="Video">Play Video</a></div> </div> <p class="caption"> Aug. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Jonathan Spector, chief executive officer of the Conference Board, talks about the group's consumer confidence survey for August and the outlook for the U.S. economy. The Conference Board’s index slumped to 44.5, the weakest since April 2009, from a revised 59.2 reading in July. Spector speaks with Matt Miller on Bloomberg Television's "Street Smart." (Source: Bloomberg) </p> </div> <div class="image thumbnail video"> <div class="thumbnail_container"> <img alt="Robert Shiller on U.S. Housing, Economy, Stimulus " class="small_img img_keep_size" src="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/data?pid=avimage&iid=ipuxXWbbahEo" /> <div class="overlay"> </div> <div class="play_video_link"><a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/video/74596673/" class="q" id="74596673" type="Video">Play Video</a></div> </div> <p class="caption"> Aug. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Robert Shiller, an economics professor at Yale University and co-creator of the S&P/Case-Shiller home-price index, talks about the U.S. housing market and economy, and his prescription for government action to boost growth and employment. Property values in 20 cities fell 4.5 percent in the year ended in June, after a 4.6 percent drop in the 12 months ended in May that was the biggest since 2009, according to the Case-Shiller index. Shiller speaks with Tom Keene on Bloomberg Television's "Surveillance Midday." (Source: Bloomberg) </p> </div> <div class="image thumbnail video"> <div class="thumbnail_container"> <img alt="Meltzer, Frenkel, Maki Own Words on Bernanke Speech " class="small_img img_keep_size" src="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/data?pid=avimage&iid=in30Lujub8QQ" /> <div class="overlay"> </div> <div class="play_video_link"><a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/video/74494544/" class="q" id="74494544" type="Video">Play Video</a></div> </div> <p class="caption"> Aug. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Allan Meltzer, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University and a historian of the Federal Reserve, Jacob Frenkel, chairman of JPMorgan Chase International, and Dean Maki, chief U.S. economist at Barclays Capital, offer their views on today's speech by Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke at the Kansas City Fed's annual symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. This report also contains comments by Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial Holdings Inc., Allen Sinai, chief global economist at Decision Economics Inc., Richard Dekaser, an economist at the Parthenon Group, and Kevin Hassett, director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. (Source: Bloomberg) </p> </div> <div class="image thumbnail"> <div class="thumbnail_container overlay_container"> <a class="enlarge_image" rel="#98249" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/photo/u-s-consumer-confidence-falls-to-lowest-since-april-2009-/98249.html" target="_blank"> <span>Enlarge image</span> <img alt="U.S. Consumer Confidence Falls to Lowest Since April 2009 " class="small_img img_keep_size" src="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/data?pid=avimage&iid=ignYTAXHJujk" /> </a> </div> <p class="caption">Shoppers look over merchandise at a Gap Inc. store in San Francisco. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg </p> </div> <div class="image thumbnail"> <div class="thumbnail_container overlay_container"> <a class="enlarge_image" rel="#98237" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/photo/u-s-consumer-confidence-falls-to-lowest-since-april-2009-/98237.html" target="_blank"> <span>Enlarge image</span> <img alt="U.S. Consumer Confidence Falls to Lowest Since April 2009 " class="small_img img_keep_size" src="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/data?pid=avimage&iid=ijKIziD4aTv0" /> </a> </div> <p class="caption">Confidence among U.S. consumers plunged in August to the lowest in more than two years as Americans’ outlooks for employment, incomes and business conditions soured. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg </p> </div> </div> </div> <p>Confidence among U.S. consumers plunged to the lowest level in more than two years as Americans’ outlooks for employment and incomes soured. </p> <p>The Conference Board’s index slumped to 44.5, the weakest since April 2009, from a revised 59.2 reading in July, figures from the New York-based research group showed today. It was the biggest point drop since October 2008. A separate report showed <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/home-prices/">home prices</a> declined for a ninth month. </p> <p>Treasury yields dropped on concern consumers will pull back on the spending that makes up about 70 percent of the economy, increasing the risk of a recession. An unemployment rate above 9 percent, partisan bickering over the <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/budget-deficit/">budget deficit</a> and a volatile stock market weighed on sentiment. </p> <p>“This paints a picture of underlying demand weakening,” said Bricklin Dwyer, an economist at BNP Paribas in New York, whose forecast of 45 was most accurate in a Bloomberg News survey. “Consumers are seeing their wealth deteriorate. We’ve seen a huge decline continuing in the housing market. They’ve also been hit on the chin by the equity markets.” </p> <p>Treasuries climbed, pushing down the yield on the benchmark 10-year note down to 2.17 percent from 2.26 percent late yesterday. After declining as much as 1.2 percent, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose 0.2 percent to 1,212.92 at the 4 p.m. close in <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/new-york/">New York</a> after minutes of the Federal Reserve’s last meeting showed some policy makers wanted to take more action to spur growth. </p> <h2>Global Confidence Slump </h2> <p>American consumers aren’t the only ones feeling more glum. European confidence in the economic outlook plunged in August by the most since December 2008 as a persistent debt crisis roiled markets and clouded growth prospects. An index of executive and consumer sentiment in the single-currency region fell to 98.3 from a revised 103 in July, the European Commission in Brussels said today. </p> <p>The S&P/Case-Shiller index of property values in 20 cities fell 4.5 percent in June from a year earlier, after a 4.6 percent drop in the 12 months ended in May that was the biggest since 2009. </p> <p><a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/federal-reserve/">Federal Reserve</a> Bank of Chicago President <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/charles-evans/">Charles Evans</a> urged easier monetary policy to keep the recovery going after the central bank on Aug. 9 vowed to keep its benchmark <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/interest-rate/">interest rate</a> close to zero at least through mid 2013. </p> <p>“I would favor more accommodation,” Evans, a voting member of the Fed’s policy-making committee, said today in a CNBC television interview. “I am somewhat nervous about the economic recovery and where we stand at this point.” </p> <h2>Survey Results </h2> <p>Economists predicted the Conference Board’s gauge would fall to 52 in August, according to the median forecast in the Bloomberg survey. The index averaged 98 during the economic expansion that ended in December 2007. </p> <p>The share of consumers who said jobs are currently hard to get increased to 49.1 percent, the highest since November 2009, from 44.8 percent in July. Confidence dropped in all nine U.S. regions. </p> <p>“If you were advised to lean on one side or the other, I’d say it’s more likely to be slightly more negative from a sentiment perspective in consumers in the <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/united-states/">United States</a>,” Glenn Murphy, chief executive officer of <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=GPS:US" title="Get Quote" class="web_ticker">Gap Inc. (GPS)</a>, said in an Aug. 18 conference call with analysts. “Maybe the holiday season could be slightly positive, but we’re not counting on it right now.” </p> <p>San Francisco-based Gap, the largest U.S. apparel chain, reported a 19 percent decline in second-quarter profit as price increases failed to keep up with higher costs to make clothes. </p> <h2>Other Measures </h2> <p>Today’s confidence report is in line with other figures. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan final index of consumer sentiment dropped this month to the lowest level since November 2008. The Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index has been hovering at levels previously consistent with recessions. </p> <p>A struggling labor market is weighing on consumer sentiment. Employers added 75,000 jobs in August, compared with 117,000 in July, as the <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/unemployment-rate/">unemployment rate</a> held at 9.1 percent, according to the median estimates in a Bloomberg survey ahead of a Sept. 2 report from the Labor Department. </p> <p>“Economic growth has, for the most part, been at rates insufficient to achieve sustained reductions in unemployment,” Fed Chairman <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/ben-s.-bernanke/">Ben S. Bernanke</a> said Aug. 26 at the <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/jackson-hole/">Jackson Hole</a>, <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/wyoming/">Wyoming</a>, central bank symposium. </p> <p>The Conference Board’s data showed a measure of present conditions declined to 33.3, the second-lowest this year, from 35.7 in July. The measure of expectations for the next six months slid to 51.9, the weakest since April 2009, from 74.9. </p> <h2>Job Concerns </h2> <p>The percent of respondents expecting more jobs to become available in the next six months fell to 11.4, the lowest since March 2009, from 16.9 the previous month. The proportion expecting their incomes to rise over the next six months declined to 14.3 from 15.9. The percent expecting a drop rose to 18.7, the highest since November 2009. </p> <p>Fewer respondents in the Conference Board’s survey indicated they were planning to buy a house, while more intended to purchase cars or major appliances in the next six months. </p> <p>The cutoff date for the survey responses in this month’s calculation was Aug. 18, <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/lynn-franco/">Lynn Franco</a>, director of the Conference Board’s Consumer Research Center, said in an interview. The group looked at the responses received before and after the downgrade of <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/u.s.-debt/">U.S. debt</a> by <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/standard-%26-poor%27s/">Standard & Poor’s</a> and saw very little difference, she said. </p> <p>“The decline we saw was already in place before the downgrade, and there was really already a significant change in confidence,” said Franco. </p> <h2>Broad-Based Drop </h2> <p>All of the 20 cities in the S&P/Case-Shiller home-price index showed a year-over-year decline in June, led by an 11 percent drop in <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/minneapolis/">Minneapolis</a>. </p> <p>Any recovery in home values is probably years away as foreclosures dump more properties onto to the market, while a jobless rate hovering around 9 percent and strict lending rules hurt sales. </p> <p>“Prices aren’t going to rebound back rapidly,” said <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/paul-dales/">Paul Dales</a>, a senior U.S. economist at Capital Economics Ltd. in Toronto. </p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/08/us-confidence-slumps-to-lowest-since.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-08-30T16:48:00-07:00">4:48 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=6857164853006823620">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=6857164853006823620&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="4894117694701587931"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/08/rebel-leader-gives-qaddafi-forces.html">Rebel Leader Gives Qaddafi Forces Weekend Deadline</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1>Rebel Leader Gives Qaddafi Forces Weekend Deadline</h1> <div class="story_inline assets clearfix "> <cite class="byline"> By Christopher Stephen </cite><div class="story_inline attachments"> <div class="image thumbnail"> <div class="thumbnail_container overlay_container"> <a class="enlarge_image" rel="#98215" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/photo/libyan-rebel-leader-mustafa-abdul-jalil-/98215.html" target="_blank"> <span>Enlarge image</span> <img alt="Libyan Rebel Leader Mustafa Abdul Jalil " class="small_img img_keep_size" src="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/data?pid=avimage&iid=iH5N9KsxBxq0" /> </a> </div> <p class="caption">Libyan rebel leader Mustafa Abdul Jalil pauses during a press conference on in Benghazi. Photographer: Gianluigi Guercia/AFP/Getty Images </p> </div> </div> </div> <p>Libyan rebel leaders expressed growing confidence that <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/muammar-qaddafi/">Muammar Qaddafi</a>’s days on the run are numbered. </p> <p>Mustafa Abdel Jalil, chairman of the rebel National Transitional Council, gave Qaddafi’s forces until Sept. 3 to surrender or face attack and said members of the former leader’s government would receive fair trials. </p> <p>“We have a good idea where he is,” Ali Tarhouni, a rebel council minister, was quoted by the <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/associated-press/">Associated Press</a> as saying yesterday. “We don’t have any doubt that we will catch him.” </p> <p>UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said yesterday that rebel forces have control over most of Tripoli since the Qaddafi family fled, the German press agency <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/deutsche-presse--agentur/">Deutsche Presse-Agentur</a> reported. </p> <p>“We are now looking for a quick conclusion of the conflict and sufferings of the Libyan people,” Ban told the UN Security Council, which met yesterday. The council approved the U.K’s request to release $1.55 billion of frozen Libyan banknotes held there. </p> <p>Rebel leaders also demanded that <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/algeria/">Algeria</a> return Qaddafi’s wife, Safia, daughter Aisha and two sons, Hannibal and Mohammed, who crossed the border into Algeria on Aug. 29. </p> <p>Algeria closed part of the border with Libya after their arrival, according to the privately owned newspaper El Watan. The Algerian Foreign Ministry said yesterday that Aisha had given birth in Algeria. </p> <h2>Holdout Cities </h2> <p>The coastal city of Sirte and the southern town of Sabha are the key remaining bastions of Qaddafi loyalists, Abdel Jalil, the rebel council chairman, said yesterday in a televised press conference broadcast from Benghazi. </p> <p>“The entry to Sirte and southern towns of Libya should be as peaceful as possible to avoid more bloodshed and destruction,” he said. “If there are no indications for conducting this peacefully, we can act decisively to end this situation in a military manner, but we do not wish to do so.” </p> <p>Sirte, Qaddafi’s hometown, is the last major coastal city still resisting rebel forces, which are backed by the <a href="http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/index.htm" title="Open Web Site" rel="external">North Atlantic Treaty Organization</a>. The opposition is seeking to capture Qaddafi and his closest aides, including son Saif al- Islam, to consolidate its gains and announce a new interim government after entering Tripoli, the capital, last week. </p> <p>“We want the wise people of these cities to cooperate,” Abdel Jalil said. “We have been in contact with the elders and the wise men of these cities.” </p> <h2>NATO Attacks </h2> <p>NATO, which has supported the rebels by bombing pro-Qaddafi targets, will continue operations in the North African country as long as necessary, spokeswoman Oana Lungescu <a href="http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/news_room.htm" title="Open Web Site" rel="external">told reporters</a> in Brussels. </p> <p>“It looks as if we are nearly there, but we’re not there yet,” she said. </p> <p>One of Qaddafi’s sons, Khamis, a military commander, was killed in a NATO air strike southeast of Tripoli, <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/sky-news/">Sky News</a> reported, citing a man claiming to have been Khamis Qaddafi’s bodyguard. A rebel official, speaking on the condition he not be named, said the deaths of Khamis and Qaddafi’s top security adviser, Abdullah al-Senussi, hadn’t been confirmed. </p> <h2>Balance of Strength </h2> <p>“The Qaddafi regime is collapsing and rapidly losing control on multiple fronts,” Colonel Roland Lavoie, spokesman for NATO’s Operation Unified Protector, told reporters. “The Tripoli region is essentially freed.” </p> <p>Columns of rebel units in armed <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/pickup-trucks/">pickup trucks</a>, some towing artillery and wheeled anti-aircraft guns, left Tripoli Aug. 29 and headed east to Misrata in preparation for an advance on Sirte. </p> <p>Pro-Qaddafi forces committed possible <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/war-crimes/">war crimes</a> in the battle for Misrata, <a href="http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/issues/mass-atrocities/war-crimes-in-libya/" title="Open Web Site" rel="external">Physicians for Human Rights</a> said in a report released yesterday. </p> <p>Those crimes include murder, torture and rape, the Boston- based group said, citing interviews with 54 residents of Misrata and its surrounding villages that it said were conducted in June, shortly after rebel forces captured the western coastal city. </p> <p>“The rule of law must be the bedrock of a new and free <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/libya/">Libya</a>,” the group said. The transitional council “must ensure that perpetrators are brought to justice and held accountable.” </p> <p>Jalil said the transitional council will try members of Qaddafi’s government in the courts. </p> <p>“The safety and security of everyone is our responsibility,” he said. “We will provide fair trials for each of them, but we will not deal lightly with anyone who poses a threat to the revolution.” </p> <p>Rebel officials have said that resuming oil production, halted by the conflict, will be a top priority. <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/oil-prices/">Oil prices</a> rose to their highest level in almost four weeks in New York. The price of crude oil for October delivery rose by $1.63, or 1.9 percent, to $88.90 a barrel, the highest settlement since Aug. 3 on the <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/new-york/">New York</a> Mercantile Exchange. </p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/08/rebel-leader-gives-qaddafi-forces.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-08-30T16:47:00-07:00">4:47 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=4894117694701587931">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=4894117694701587931&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="3085753325426946368"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/08/chinas-military-power.html">China's military power</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h2 class="ec-blog-fly-title"><span style="font-size:180%;">China's military power</span></h2> <h1 class="ec-blog-headline"> Modernisation in sheep's clothing </h1> <p class="ec-blog-info"> by J.M. | BEIJING </p> <div class="ec-blog-body"> <p><span><img class="imagecache-original-size" src="http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/original-size/20110827_ASP502.jpg" alt="" />THE good news, as suggested by <span class="aptureLink " id="apture_prvw1"><span style="background-position: right -448px;" class="aptureLinkIcon"> </span><a class="aptureLink snap_noshots" href="http://www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/2011_CMPR_Final.pdf">the Pentagon's latest annual report on China's military power</a></span>, is that Chinese leaders are still eager to avoid confrontation with other powers and focus on beefing up the economy. The bad news, it hints, is that this might not last. With its rapidly improving military capability (described by the Pentagon in great detail), China has the wherewithal to challenge the security status quo in the Pacific as well as potential motives to do so.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The report is diplomatically couched—though from China's perspective, not nearly enough. It hints at considerable unease about long-term trends in China's military buildup. The last few months have seen some headline-grabbing aspects of this: an assertion by the Pentagon in December that China was <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/17908622">making faster progress than expected on an aircraft-carrier-killing ballistic missile</a>, the DF-21D; a new stealth fighter, the J-20, making its first test flight just as Robert Gates, then defence secretary, was visiting Beijing in January; and then this month <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/21525960">the maiden launch of China's first aircraft carrier</a>, a refitted Kuznetsov-class ship (as yet unnamed) from the former Soviet Union.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">About these particular weapons, the Pentagon avoids sounding alarmed. Of the DF-21D missile, it says that it is still being developed. It does not repeat the claim made by Admiral Robert Willard of America’s Pacific Command in December that the missile has reached “initial operational capability”. The J-20, it says, is not expected to reach “effective operational capability” before 2018 (China, it says, has yet to master high-performance jet-engine production). China is likely to build “multiple” aircraft-carriers with support craft over the next decade. But it will take “several additional years” for China to achieve a “minimal level of combat capability” with them, says the report.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The Pentagon does say, however, that China is steadily closing its technological gap with modern armed forces. The country’s lack of transparency about this, it says, is fuelling concern in the region about China’s intentions, with some of its neighbours fearing that China’s growing military and economic weight is “beginning to produce a more assertive posture, particularly in the maritime domain”. <a href="http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=65130">A senior Pentagon official, Michael Schiffer, told reporters</a> that China’s capabilities could “contribute to regional tensions and anxieties”.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Like previous such reports, this one lists forces which could cause China’s self-proclaimed “peaceful development” to become less so. One of these, which was not listed last year, is a growing expectation at home and abroad that China will become more involved in addressing global problems and pursuing its own international interests. This is causing some of the Chinese leaders in responsible positions to worry about taking on more than they can handle, says the Pentagon. Nationalists at home, however, are pushing for a “more muscular” posture.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">China</span><span lang="EN-GB"> is outraged that anyone could doubt its commitment to a peaceful ascent. The Pentagon’s assertions, <a href="http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/indepth/2011-08/25/c_131073269.htm">said China’s state-run news agency, Xinhua</a>, were “utterly cock-and-bull” and based on “a wild guess and illogical reasoning”. Thumping furiously on the table, China apparently believes, is a good way of convincing the world of its pacific intent.</span></p> </div> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/08/chinas-military-power.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-08-30T15:49:00-07:00">3:49 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=3085753325426946368">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=3085753325426946368&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/China%27s%20military%20power" rel="tag">China's military power</a> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <a name="7322836536504378154"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/08/doing-business-in-brazil.html">Doing Business in Brazil</a> </h3> <h2 class="ec-blog-fly-title"><span style="font-size:180%;">Doing Business in Brazil</span></h2> <h1 class="ec-blog-headline"> Rio or São Paulo? </h1> <p class="ec-blog-info"> by H.J | RIO DE JANEIRO AND SÃO PAULO </p> <p><img class="imagecache-original-size" src="http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/original-size/20110827_WBP005.jpg" alt="" /></p><p>LAST year Paulo Rezende, a Brazilian private-equity investor, and two partners decided to set up a fund investing in suppliers to oil and gas companies. Although this industry is centred on Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s second-largest city, with its huge offshore oilfields—and fabulous beaches, dramatic scenery and outdoor lifestyle—they instead established the Brasil Oil and Gas Fund 430km (270 miles) away, in São Paulo’s concrete sprawl. Even though it means flying to Rio once or twice a week, Mr Rezende, like many other businesspeople, decided that São Paulo’s economic heft outweighed Rio’s charms. But the choice is harder than it used to be.</p><p>For many years, São Paulo has been the place for multinationals to open a Brazil office. It may be less glamorous than Rio, as the two cities’ nicknames suggest: Rio is <em>Cidade Maravilhosa</em> (the Marvellous City); São Paulo is <em>Cidade da Garoa</em> (the City of Drizzle). But as Mr Rezende sadly concluded: “São Paulo is the financial centre, and that’s where the money is.”</p><p>Edilson Camara of Egon Zehnder International, an executive-search firm with offices in both cities, does 12 searches in São Paulo for each one in Rio. The biggest mistake, he reckons, is for firms to let future expatriates visit Rio at all. “They are seduced by the scenery and lifestyle, and it’s a move they can sell to their families. But many have ended up moving their office to São Paulo a couple of years later, with all the upheaval that entails.”</p><p>From a hamlet founded by Jesuit missionaries in 1554, São Paulo grew on coffee in the 19th century, industry in the first half of the 20th—and then on the misfortunes of Rio, once Brazil’s capital and its richest, biggest city. The federal government abandoned Rio for the newly built Brasília in 1960, starting a half-century of decline. Misgoverned by politicians and fought over by drug gangs and corrupt police, Rio became dangerous, even by Brazilian standards. The exodus gained pace as businesses and the rich fled, mostly for São Paulo.</p><p>Now, though, there are signs that the cost-benefit calculation is shifting. São Paulo’s economy has done well in Brazil’s recent boom years and it is still much bigger, but Rio’s is growing faster, boosted by oil discoveries and winning its bid to host the 2016 Olympics (see table below). Last year Rio received $7.3 billion in foreign direct investment—seven times more than the year before, and more than twice as much as São Paulo. Prime office rents in Rio are now higher than anywhere else in the Americas, north or south, according to Cushman and Wakefield, a property consultancy.
<br /><img class="imagecache-original-size" src="http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/cf_images/images-magazine/2011/08/27/WB/20110827_WBC450.gif" alt="" />Community-policing projects are taming its infamous <em>favelas</em>, or shanty towns: its murder rate, though still very high at 26 per 100,000 people per year (two-and-a-half times São Paulo’s), is at last falling. Brazil’s soaring real is pricing expats paid in foreign currencies out of São Paulo’s classy restaurants and shopping malls; Rio’s recipe of sun, sea and samba is still free. Even Hollywood seems to be on Rio’s side: an eponymous animation, with its lush depictions of rainforest and carnival, is one of the year’s highest-grossing films.</p><p><strong>Red-carpet treatment
<br /></strong>Rio’s mayor, Eduardo Paes, has big plans for capitalising on the city’s magic moment. The sharp-suited, English-speaking lawyer has set up a business-development agency, Rio Negócios, to market the city, help businesspeople find investment opportunities, and advise on paperwork and tax breaks. Though all investors are welcome, it concentrates on those in sectors where it reckons Rio has an edge: tourism, energy, infrastructure and creative industries such as fashion and film. “A couple of years ago, foreign businessmen would come to Rio and ask what we had to offer,” says Mr Paes. “We had no answer. Now we roll out the red carpet.”</p><p>The political balance between the two cities has changed too. In the 1990s São Paulo was more influential and better run: it is the stronghold of the Party of Brazilian Social Democracy (PSDB), the national party of government from 1995 to 2002. Now the PSDB is in its third term of opposition in Brasília, and though it still governs São Paulo state, it is weakened by internal feuds. In Rio, by contrast, the political stars are aligned. The state governor, Sérgio Cabral, campaigned tirelessly for the current president, Dilma Rousseff—and received his reward when police actions in an unruly favela late last year were backed up by federal forces. Mr Paes and Mr Cabral are from the same party, and their pre-Olympic plans for security, housing and transport mesh well.</p><p>São Paulo’s socioeconomic segregation, long part of its appeal to expats, is starting to look like less of an advantage. Most of its nicer bits are clustered together, allowing rich <em>paulistanos</em> to ignore the vast <em>favelas</em> on the periphery. In Rio, selective blindness is harder with <em>favelas</em> perched on hilltops overlooking all the best neighbourhoods. But proximity seems to be teaching well-off <em>cariocas</em> that abandonment is no solution for poverty and violence. Community policing and urban-renewal schemes are bringing safety and public services. Chapéu Mangueira and Babilônia, twin <em>favelas</em> a 20-minute uphill scramble from Copacabana beach, are being rebuilt, with a health clinic, nursery and a 24-hour police presence. The price of nearby apartments has already soared. Several other slums are also getting similar make-overs.</p><p><strong>Central do Brasil
<br /></strong>Rio’s Olympic preparations include extending its metro and building lots of dedicated bus lanes, including one linking the international airport to the city centre. By 2016, predicts City Hall, half of all journeys in the city will be by high-quality public transport, up from 16% today. São Paulo’s metro extensions are years behind schedule, and the city is grinding towards gridlock. Its plans to link the city centre to its main international airport (recently voted Latin America’s most-hated by business travellers) rely on a grandiose federal high-speed train project, bidding for which was recently postponed for the third time.</p><p>Rio is still unpredictably dangerous, and decades of poor infrastructure maintenance have left their mark. Its mobile-phone and electricity networks are outage-prone; the <em>língua negra</em> (“black tongue”, a sudden overflow of water and sewage from inadequate hillside culverts) is a staple of the rainy season; exploding manholes, caused by subterranean gas leaks meeting sparks from electricity lines, are a hazard all year round. All in all, still not an easy choice for a multinational business—but it is no longer foolish to let prospective expats fly down to Rio to take a look.</p><p><strong>Audio guide: </strong></p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395381545218020265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4966921227529983571.post-37741105451467897292011-07-15T16:32:00.001-07:002011-07-15T16:32:40.835-07:00<div class="post-body entry-content"> <div class="guia">EN RIESGO DE SUSPENSIÓN DE PAGOS</div> <h1><span style="font-size:130%;">Standard&Poor's cierra el cerco sobre la deuda de EEUU</span></h1> <h2 class="lead">La agencia afirma que hay bastantes posibilidades de que degrade la deuda del país en los próximos meses.<br /></h2><div class="texto-noticia"><p> Standard & Poor's situó hoy la deuda estadounidense "bajo vigilancia con perspectiva negativa", e indicó que <strong>hay un 50 por ciento de posibilidades de que la degrade en los próximos tres meses</strong>.</p> <p> El anuncio de Standard & Poor's se suma al emitido el miércoles por otra de las grandes agencias mundiales de calificación, Moody's, que colocó bajo revisión la calificación "Aaa" de la deuda de Estados Unidos, ante la <strong>posibilidad de que no se logre un acuerdo que eleve el límite de endeudamiento</strong> del país antes del 2 de agosto. "El debate político sobre la posición fiscal de Estados Unidos y el asunto relacionado del techo de la deuda del Gobierno estadounidense, en nuestra opinión, no ha hecho más que complicarse", indicó Standard & Poor's en un comunicado.</p> <p> De no lograr un acuerdo bipartidista en los próximos días, la <strong>agencia considera que el país no podría alcanzarlo "en varios años"</strong>, lo que resulta "inconsistente con una calificación 'Aaa', dada la trayectoria esperada de la deuda en los próximos años.</p> <p> John Chambers, director gerente de Standard & Poor's, <strong>comunicó la decisión de la agencia en una reunión privada</strong> con el líder de la mayoría demócrata en el Senado, Harry Reid, y a funcionarios de la Cámara de Comercio de EEUU y del Foro de Servicios Financieros.</p> <p> <strong>Toque de atención</strong></p> <p> El subsecretario del Tesoro para finanzas domésticas, <strong>Jeffrey Goldstein, consideró la medida un nuevo toque de atención </strong>sobre la urgencia de que republicanos y demócratas encuentren cuanto antes un acuerdo que evite que el país entre en suspensión de pagos por primera vez en su historia. "La acción de hoy de S&P demuestra lo que el Gobierno de (Barack) Obama lleva diciendo un tiempo: que el Congreso debe actuar expeditamente para evitar un incumplimiento de las obligaciones nacionales, y para trazar un plan de reducción del déficit creíble y que tenga un apoyo bipartidista", dijo Goldstein en un comunicado.</p> <p> Si el Congreso y el Gobierno finalmente llegan a un acuerdo antes del 2 de agosto, <strong>S&P "revisará los detalles" de ese plan en los 90 días siguientes </strong>para determinar si, en su opinión, "es suficiente para estabilizar la dinámica de la deuda de Estados Unidos a medio plazo", según el comunicado de la agencia.</p> <p> Obama alentó a los líderes republicanos y demócratas del Congreso a <strong>esforzarse para llegar a un acuerdo en las próximas 24 a 36 horas</strong>, para evitar exponerse a la fecha límite en la que caduca el anterior tope de la deuda, de 14,29 billones de dólares.</p> <p> El presidente, cuya propuesta inicial estaba ligada a una ambiciosa reducción del déficit valorada en unos 4 billones de dólares en los próximos diez años, <strong>sigue abogando por el "acuerdo más amplio posible"</strong>, pero está ahora más dispuesto a aceptar un plan más modesto, con un recorte de unos 2 billones de dólares.</p> <p> Sin embargo, la propuesta de Obama, que incluye concesiones demócratas como los recortes a la Seguridad Social, <strong>sigue contemplando subidas de impuestos</strong>, algo que los republicanos aseguran que no aceptarán.</p> </div> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/07/standard-cierra-el-cerco-sobre-la-deuda.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-07-15T16:27:00-07:00">4:27 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=1509671816706876095">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=1509671816706876095&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="5321718236752513658"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/07/david-ogilvys-lesson-for-libertarians.html">David Ogilvy's Lesson for Libertarians</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <div class="colPost"> <h2><span style="font-size:180%;">David Ogilvy's Lesson for Libertarians</span></h2> <p class="datetime">by <b>Michael Cloud</b> <span id="sharethis_0"><a title="ShareThis via email, AIM, social bookmarking and networking sites, etc." class="stbutton stico_default"><span class="stbuttontext"></span></a></span> </p> <p> <img alt="" src="http://theadvocates.org/admin/system/images/2011-06/speaker-ppp.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 225px;" /></p> <p> "A good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself," wrote advertising legend David Ogilvy.<br /><br /> Good advertisements persuade people to buy and use the product. Bad advertisements convince people that the ad was clever or funny or interesting.<br /><br />Good advertisements create an ever-growing number of customers. Bad advertisements leave sales stagnant, but they win advertising industry awards.<br /><br />David Ogilvy's insight is equally true of libertarian speakers and talk show guests.<br /><br /> Good libertarian speakers win people to liberty. Slick libertarian speakers convince the audience that they are clever or interesting.<br /><br /> Good libertarian TV and radio talk show guests sell the audience on libertarianism. Slick libertarian guests sell the audience on them.<br /><br /> Good libertarian spokespeople leave the audience excited about liberty. Slick libertarian spokespeople leave the audience excited about them.<br /><br />Do you want the audience jazzed about the product: liberty? Or the advertisement: the speaker?<br /><br />Do you want new supporters of freedom? Or fans of the speaker?<br /><br />Do you want the audience embracing and advancing liberty? Or embracing and promoting the speaker?<br /><br />Why is this important to you? Why is this important to libertarianism?<br /><br /> Because your choice will determine whether we grow the libertarian movement, whether we advance the libertarian cause -- or whether we promote the careers of slick libertarian personalities who do NOT increase our numbers or advance our cause.<br /><br />Because your choice will determine whether we make America more free -- or an ambitious libertarian personality more famous.<br /><br />Because your choice will either push liberty forward or hold it back in America.<br /><br />When you support and promote spokespeople who put liberty first, we will get more libertarians and more liberty.</p> <hr /> <p> <em>Michael Cloud is author of the acclaimed book <a href="http://store.theadvocates.org/products/secrets-of-libertarian-persuasion">Secrets of Libertarian Persuasion</a>, available exclusively from the Advocates.</em></p> </div> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/07/david-ogilvys-lesson-for-libertarians.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-07-15T16:20:00-07:00">4:20 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=5321718236752513658">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=5321718236752513658&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/David%20Ogilvy%27s" rel="tag">David Ogilvy's</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Lesson%20for%20Libertarians" rel="tag">Lesson for Libertarians</a> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="5415807241212879822"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/07/should-you-oppose-redistribution-of.html">Should You Oppose the "Redistribution of Wealth?"</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <div class="colPost"> <h2><span style="font-size:180%;">Should You Oppose the "Redistribution of Wealth?"</span></h2> <p class="datetime"> by <b>Michael Cloud</b> <span id="sharethis_0"><a title="ShareThis via email, AIM, social bookmarking and networking sites, etc." class="stbutton stico_default"><span class="stbuttontext">ShareThis</span></a></span> </p> <p> <img alt="" src="http://theadvocates.org/admin/system/images/2011-07/money-ppp.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 225px;" /></p> <p> "These government programs and policies take us closer to -- or are -- the redistribution of wealth," say pundits, bloggers, and talk radio hosts. Then they expose and explain and attack the "redistribution of wealth."<br /><br />Some bring light to the subject. Others just heat.<br /><br /> Will you empty your mind of all you know and believe about "the redistribution of wealth?" Will you look at the matter with fresh eyes and an open mind?<br /><br />Will you "examine your premises," as Ayn Rand wisely counseled?<br /><br />Ask: What is the redistribution of wealth?<br /><br />First, the meaning of the key words: "wealth" and "redistribution."<br /><br />"Wealth" means all goods, services, or information that have economic value. Usually money or goods.<br /><br />To understand "redistribution," we need to first grasp the meaning of "distribution."<br /><br /> "Distribute" means to deliver, disperse, spread, give out, or hand out. "Distribution" means the act of distributing or condition of being distributed.<br /><br />"Redistribute" means to distribute again. "Redistribution" is the act of distributing again or the condition of being distributing again.<br /><br />Wealth is first distributed when each of us earns or produces it.<br /><br />Every transfer afterwards is redistribution.<br /><br />When you barter, you redistribute wealth.<br /><br />When you buy or sell, you redistribute wealth.<br /><br />When you give or receive gifts or charity, you redistribute wealth.<br /><br />When you borrow or loan money, you redistribute wealth.<br /><br />Every voluntary transfer of wealth is redistribution. A free market is a mechanism for voluntary redistribution of wealth.<br /><br />But there is also the involuntary, coerced, forced redistribution of wealth.<br /><br />Armed robbery is a coerced transfer of wealth.<br /><br />Burglary is, too.<br /><br />Embezzlement and fraud are coerced transfers of wealth.<br /><br />So is extortion.<br /><br />I support each person's right to freely choose, to voluntarily redistribute his own wealth.<br /><br />I oppose the criminal, coercive, involuntary redistribution of a person's wealth.<br /><br />Don't you? Isn't this the litmus test for being a libertarian?<br /><br />I'd wager that most of the critics of the redistribution of wealth would agree with you and me -- up to this point.<br /><br />But then they'd add, "I'm talking about the GOVERNMENT'S redistribution of wealth."<br /><br />Okay.<br /><br />Every tax transfers money from the man or women who earned it to the government.<br /><br /> Every tax redistributes wealth. Then the government again redistributes the wealth to government contractors, government employees, politically-privileged special interests, and other beneficiaries.<br /><br />Every government mandate on private citizens and private businesses redistributes wealth.<br /><br />Many government laws and regulations redistribute wealth.<br /><br />So, do these critics oppose ALL "government redistribution of wealth?" All taxes? All government spending?<br /><br /> Or, are they just against certain KINDS of "government redistribution of wealth?" Or for certain purposes? Or for certain individuals or groups?<br /><br />Or, are they only against these KINDS or these PURPOSES when "the other political party" controls the White House, Senate, or House of Representatives?<br /><br />Some critics are engaging in self-serving, misleading propaganda.<br /><br />But many largely agree with the libertarian principle. Not totally. But mostly.<br /><br /> If they examine their premises, many will reject the phrasing and framing of the two-edged slogan. They will find better concepts and language to oppose Big Government -- to endorse and advocate individual liberty, personal responsibility, and small government.</p> <hr /> <p> <em>Michael Cloud is author of the acclaimed book <a href="http://store.theadvocates.org/products/secrets-of-libertarian-persuasion">Secrets of Libertarian Persuasion</a>, available exclusively from the Advocates.</em></p> </div> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/07/should-you-oppose-redistribution-of.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-07-15T16:19:00-07:00">4:19 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=5415807241212879822">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=5415807241212879822&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/%22Redistribution%20of%20Wealth" rel="tag">"Redistribution of Wealth</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Should%20You%20Oppose" rel="tag">Should You Oppose</a> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="2380399621562453916"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/07/put-ceiling-on-overregulation.html">Put a Ceiling on Overregulation</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <div class="node-header"> <h2><span style="font-size:180%;">Put a Ceiling on Overregulation</span></h2> <div class="cei-subtitle">Make regulatory reform part of the big deal.</div> <div class="cei-authors"> By <a href="http://cei.org/expert/john-berlau">John Berlau</a>, <a href="http://cei.org/expert/clyde-wayne-crews">Clyde Wayne Crews</a> </div></div> <p>After months of saying it wanted a “clean” hike in borrowing authority, the Obama administration now proclaims it wants to do something “big” in a debt-ceiling package just as its self-imposed deadline is approaching. On NBC’s <em>Meet the Press</em> this Sunday, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-still-looking-for-biggest-debt-ceiling-deal-possible-2011-7#ixzz1RlJkfqPV">said</a> the president wanted to do the “biggest, most substantial deal possible, the deal that’s going to be best for the economy.”</p> <p>GOP leaders should take up this challenge and put on the bargaining table something big that would also be a boost the economy: curbing overregulation that’s crushing economic growth.</p> <p>With the economy teetering, leaders of both parties realize that long-term issues must be addressed in a debt-ceiling package. The American people agree and so, seemingly, do the markets. While the bond market has registered barely a hiccup to news about the debt-ceiling talks, stocks and other financial instruments continue to drop after the release of dismal growth and employment statistics.</p> <p>Yet when it comes to the foundations of the U.S. economy, neither party is using the debt-ceiling talks to address the proverbial elephant in the room. In this case, it’s a trillion-dollar elephant that is stomping all over new business formation and job growth.</p> <p>Taxes and spending are of course very important. House Speaker John Boehner is right to insist that debt reduction come from spending cuts rather than net tax hikes. It is more than reasonable for congressional leaders to shape most of the package to their liking, because the <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/271329/constitutional-nonsense-debt-john-berlau">Constitution explicitly makes approval of new borrowing a prerogative of Congress</a>, not the presidency.</p> <p>But the problem here is that GOP leaders aren’t exercising this prerogative to deal with the vital issue of overregulation. Even if the GOP got all the spending cuts it is asking for, with no increase in taxes, Americans would still face the hidden tax of overregulation.</p> <p>Even the Obama administration itself has pledged — in its rhetoric — to rein in regulation. “If they are not providing the kind of benefits in terms of the public health, and clean air and clean water, and worker safety that have been promised, then we should get rid of some of those regulations,” Obama <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/06/29/press-conference-president">said</a> in his press conference on Monday following up on his calls earlier this year for repealing “outdated regulations that stifle job creation.”</p> <p>This language sounds strikingly similar to language in the House GOP’s “Plan for America’s Job Creators” unveiled in May, which <a href="http://www.gop.gov/indepth/jobs">states</a>: “We must remove onerous federal regulations that are redundant, harmful to small businesses, and impede private sector investment and job creation.”</p> <p>Yet, amazingly, even though both parties now want the debt-ceiling package to address issues of economic growth — all the more so, in the wake of Friday’s dismal employment numbers — no one has put measures to rein in regulation on the table. Since both Obama and GOP leaders are saying that overregulation is a barrier to job creation, it’s time to make regulatory curbs part of the debt-ceiling negotiations. As Sen. Olympia Snowe (R., Maine), not generally known as an anti-government Tea Party stalwart, <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0611/57543.html">wrote</a> recently in <em>Politico</em>, “One of the most effective ways government can spur job creation is to pass substantial regulatory reforms — immediately.”</p> <p>A debt-ceiling deal to spur growth without adding to our fiscal woes must contain measures to halt and reverse the mounting regulatory burden. The Competitive Enterprise Institute’s annual study “<a href="http://cei.org/10kc">Ten Thousand Commandments</a>” found that the <em>Federal Register</em>, which spells out all the new regulation the government has issued, stands — as of the end of 2010 — at an all-time-record high of 81,405 pages. Meanwhile, the sheer number of regulations in the pipeline at the end of 2010 stood at 2,439, a 19 percent increase from 2009.</p> <p>In 2010, the Obama administration issued more than 90 rules that regulatory agencies figure will cost the economy at least $100 million apiece. A single provision of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial overhaul — the pending rule on new collateral requirements for derivatives — <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/06/29/us-derivatives-isda-idUSTRE65S6NF20100629?type=politicsNews&feedType=RSS&sp=true">could cost</a> U.S. manufacturers and other firms as much as $1 trillion in lost capital and liquidity, according to an estimate by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association. <em>The Atlantic</em> magazine finance columnist Daniel Indiviglio largely agrees with ISDA’s calculation, <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/06/dodd-franks-derivatives-rules-could-cost-main-street-1-trillion/58989/">arguing</a> that the cost “would certainly be in the hundreds of billions.”</p> <p>This and other pending regulations have attracted bipartisan criticism. Democrats have joined Republicans in expressing objections to the Federal Communications Commission’s “net neutrality” mandates on Internet providers, the Department of Education’s “<a href="http://cei.org/news-releases/new-cei-study-challenges-department-educations-gainful-employment-rule">gainful employment</a>” regulations on for-profit colleges, and the Environmental Protection Agency’s plans to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act — a backdoor cap-and-trade scheme that <em>Time</em> <a href="http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2040485,00.html">has called</a> “the most far-reaching environmental regulatory scheme in American history.”</p> <p>The ideological gulf between Obama and the GOP on many of these regulations is indeed wide, and it may be unrealistic to address all these edicts in a debt-ceiling deal. Still, since both Obama and the GOP recognize that regulation can be a barrier to growth, the debt-ceiling package can set a framework to put constraints on regulatory agencies and hold them more accountable to Congress and the courts. At the very least, any hike in borrowing authority should be conditioned on passage of major elements of bills pending in Congress to reform the regulatory process. The GOP should give the Obama administration the chance to back up at least some of its rhetoric on overregulation.</p> <p>First, a debt-ceiling deal should include passage of the <a href="http://snowe.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ContentRecord_id=e7cdf2af-193c-4d3a-b467-d01cf854227c&ContentType_id=ae7a6475-a01f-4da5-aa94-0a98973de620&Group_id=2643ccf9-0d03-4d09-9082-3807031cb84a">Freedom Act</a> sponsored by Senator Snowe. This bill received the support of 53 senators — including six Democrats — when voted on in June. The act would, among other things, give small business more access to the courts to challenge rules.</p> <p>Current rules requiring agencies to minimize costs for smaller firms lack teeth, because firms are required to “exhaust” time- and money-consuming challenges before agencies before they can get judicial review. This can be next to impossible for firms that have trouble securing money for day-to-day operations, let alone a costly lawsuit. The Freedom Act would make this process easier for smaller entrepreneurs by allowing suits to be filed as soon as a rule is proposed.</p> <p>And where Snowe’s bill would give the courts more oversight over regulations, the <a href="http://geoffdavis.house.gov/REINS/">REINS Act</a> would do the same for Congress. It would require that major rules scored as costing the economy $100 million or more be affirmatively approved by both houses of Congress.</p> <p>The bill, a part of the House GOP’s job-creation plan, has been praised by such respected scholars as New York Law School professor <a href="http://www.aei.org/docLib/SchoenbrodHouseWritten.pdf">David Schoenbrod</a> and Case Western Reserve University professor Jonathan Adler. Adler <a href="http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv34n2/regv34n2-2.pdf">writes</a> in the current issue of the policy journal <em>Regulation</em> that “requiring congressional approval before economically significant rules may take effect ensures that Congress takes responsibility for major regulatory policy decisions.” Noting that the REINS Act designs a streamlined procedure for approval of regulations that is not subject to filibuster, Adler compares the bill to legislation creating “fast-track trade authority or base closing” procedures and argues that it will likely not delay “needed regulatory initiatives.”</p> <p>Meanwhile, Sen. Mark Warner’s (D., Va.) “one-in, one-out” <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/12/AR2010121202639.html">proposal</a> for balancing new regulations by getting rid of old ones at least helps put a “ceiling” on today’s regulatory enterprise. It belongs on the table too.</p> <p>Sober reflection indicates that ours is an age in which we need, not politicians who come to Washington merely to “get things done,” but leaders who recognize when it’s time to get things “undone.” Balancing the budget may address our fiscal woes. But to resolve the current “ceiling” we suffer on job creation, we must reduce the “regulatory budget” of costly mandates faced by entrepreneurs.</p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/07/put-ceiling-on-overregulation.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-07-15T16:15:00-07:00">4:15 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=2380399621562453916">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=2380399621562453916&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Overregulation" rel="tag">Overregulation</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Put%20a%20Ceiling" rel="tag">Put a Ceiling</a> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="584037255977301690"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/07/shadow-science-of-economics.html">The Shadow Science of Economics</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h2 class="title"><span style="font-size:180%;"><a href="http://takimag.com/article/the_shadow_science_of_economics">The Shadow Science of Economics</a></span></h2> <p class="byline large"><a href="http://takimag.com/contributors/JohnDerbyshire/76">by John Derbyshire</a> <a href="http://takimag.com/contributors/contributor_feed/JohnDerbyshire/"><img src="http://takimag.com/images/global/feed-32x32.png" class="leftX" height="12" width="12" /></a></p> <span class="addthis_separator"></span><a href="http://takimag.com/article/the_shadow_science_of_economics/print#" title="Send to Facebook_like" target="_blank" class="addthis_button_facebook_like at300b"><span></span></a><div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style no_print" style="text-decoration:none;"> </div> <div class="img_article" style="width:270px;background-color:#f9f9f9;"> <img src="http://takimag.com/images/uploads/Bodrum_Peninsula_6582.jpg" alt="The Shadow Science of Economics" width="270" /> <br /> <p class="byline large" style="padding:8px;">Bodrum, Turkey</p> </div> <p>I spent the Memorial Day weekend as a guest of Professor Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s <a href="http://propertyandfreedom.org/" target="blank">Property and Freedom Society</a> at their annual conference in Bodrum, Turkey. It was a wonderfully relaxing break, for which I am very much obliged to the good professor, his charming wife, and their co-organizers. I gave <a href="http://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/China/understanding.html" target="blank">a talk about China</a> and got to see some of Turkey (a country that was new to me), and I listened to some interesting and instructive lectures.</p> <p>The PFS exists to help promote the economic and political libertarianism of <a href="http://mises.org/about/3248" target="blank">Ludwig von Mises</a> and <a href="http://murrayrothbard.com/" target="blank">Murray Rothbard</a>. I was in Bodrum because Prof. Hoppe was kind enough to invite me, not because I am a particularly dogmatic disciple of those gents. I approve of them and their doctrines in a vague, general sort of way, as I approve of anything much to the right of the statist elephantiasis dominant in the modern West and which looks to be sailing into some great crisis in the near future. </p> <p>On the other hand I have issues with libertarianism—with <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Free-Trade-Doesnt-Work-Replace/dp/0578082616/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1306952809&sr=1-1" target="blank">free trade</a>, for instance, and with the open-borders dogma that too many libertarians (though not all the ones at Bodrum, perhaps not even a majority) cling to with religious zeal. </p> <p>If I had to be marooned on a desert island with an economist, I’d much prefer it to be someone from the Austrian School, merely for their devotion to liberty; but like other economists, the Austrians seem to be uninterested in the <a href="http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080726210904AAwu6Ag" target="blank">crooked-timber</a> aspect of human nature. (I might exempt some <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Advances-Behavioral-Economics-Roundtable/dp/0691116822/ref=pd_sim_b_4" target="blank">behavioral economists</a> from that observation, but as <a href="http://mises.org/media/author/304/Nikolay-Gertchev" target="blank">Nikolay Gertchev</a> demonstrated in his talk at Bodrum, the Austrians look askance at behavioral economics. The title of Nikolay’s forceful address was “Psychology Ain’t Economics.”)</p><div class="pullquote">“Human nature, and a true understanding thereof, precedes everything in the human world.”</div> <p>I have never read anything by an economist—though I confess I have read far too little in the field—or heard any lecture by an economist that did not leave me thinking, “If this guy’s fundamental assumptions about human nature were true, human history would have been utterly different.” </p> <p>Still, I suppose <i>someone</i> has to do economics, and the Austrians do it closer to my own political tastes than any others. There was even something calming about listening to their airy abstractions there at Bodrum. I came away feeling about the Austrian school somewhat the same way I feel about <a href="http://takimag.com/article/loyalty_to_the_tribe" target="blank">the Anglican Church</a>: unable to assent wholeheartedly to the doctrines, but sympathetic at some deep level and wishing them well. </p> <p>Back home in New York, I checked through the mail that had arrived in my absence. It included my subscription copy of <i>The Economist</i>. Page 87, “<a href="http://www.economist.com/node/18741382" target="blank">The Future of Mobility</a>”:</p> <blockquote><p>Immigration is unpopular in rich countries because people overestimate its costs and underestimate its benefits. An influx of unskilled migrants may drag down the wages of unskilled natives, but this effect is “very small at most, and may be irrelevant”, according to a number of different studies.</p> </blockquote> <p>Really? According <a href="http://www.cis.org/Wages" target="blank">to a number of <i>different</i> different studies</a>, that is not true. So what is the non-economist to think? Perhaps the same thing he finds himself thinking when surveying <a href="http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/" target="blank">the list of recent Nobel Prize winners in economics</a> and noticing that for every large opinion that has won a Nobel, the contrary opinion has also won one. Real sciences don’t work like that. </p> <p>And then (going back to <i>The Economist</i>):</p> <blockquote><p>The next big wave of migration will come from Africa.</p> </blockquote> <p>Oh. The <i>Economist</i> article (it is actually a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Exceptional-People-Migration-Shaped-Define/dp/0691145725/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1306955107&sr=1-1" target="blank">book</a> review) is illustrated with a photograph of some young black African men, presumably the leading edge of that “next big wave.” </p> <p>I suppose the <i>Economist</i> reviewer would be shocked speechless to know that some large majority of Europeans and Americans, presented with that picture, imagine not fresh, keen young workers coming to help ease their labor shortage. Instead, in their wicked human hearts, they see <a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/05/09/false_claim_of_police_harassment_is_debated_at_university_of_virginia" target="blank">sowers of discord</a>, <a href="http://stuffblackpeopledontlike.blogspot.com/2011/05/drudge-report-exposes-bra.html" target="blank">destroyers of civil peace</a>, <a href="http://ronmull.tripod.com/racism.html" target="blank">inmates of penitentiaries</a>, <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ontario/jury-was-racist-convicted-hiv-killer-says/article2037333/" target="blank">carriers of disease</a>, agents of <a href="http://www.haitian-culture.com/images/map-of-haiti.jpg" target="blank">social and economic entropy</a>, and <a href="http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ofa/character/FY2008/tab08.htm" target="blank">consumers of welfare</a>.</p> <p>That’s economics for you—and economists, and <i>The Economist</i>. The world of their imagination is a cool, well-lit world in which thoughtful human beings, responding to rational incentives, move along paths defined by elegant mathematical formulas. It is a shadow world, a dream of perfection. It resembles, but only as shadows resemble objects, the grimy, gamy, half-mad world of actual humanity—the substance of human affairs. </p> <p>The human beings who populate the economist’s—certainly <i>The Economist</i>’s—imagination are mere tokens. They have no allegiance to nation, faith, family, or the huge old inbred extended families we call <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/joshgerstein/0311/Eric_Holder_Black_Panther_case_focus_demeans_my_people.html" target="blank">races</a>. Still less do they exhibit features so evident to those of us who live outside great universities: pride, stubbornness, folly, misplaced loyalty, and the occasional irresistible urge to cut off one’s nose to spite one’s face. They are not biological entities at all.</p> <p>Economics can have a future, if the human race does. It will not be a container of large truths, though, unless it somehow incorporates facts about human nature that the earthier human sciences—genetics, paleoanthropology, evolutionary biology, neurophysiology, and psychometrics—are only beginning to wrestle into submission. </p> <p>Until it is willing to do this, and actually <i>can</i> do it, economics will be a discipline of shadows, not substances. Worse yet, it will continue to be a plaything of <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/paulkrugman/index.html" target="blank">ideologues</a>, as it has so disastrously been <a href="http://freemencapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Karl-Marx1.jpg" target="blank">in the past</a>. Human nature, and a true understanding thereof, precedes everything in the human world.</p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/07/shadow-science-of-economics.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-07-15T15:49:00-07:00">3:49 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=584037255977301690">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=584037255977301690&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/economics" rel="tag">economics</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Shadow%20Science" rel="tag">The Shadow Science</a> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="7151827020312937120"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/07/what-is-anarcho-capitalism.html">What is anarcho-capitalism?</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <span><h2><a name="part1">1. <span style="font-size:130%;">What is anarcho-capitalism?</span></a></h2> <b>Anarcho-capitalism</b> is the political philosophy and theory that <ol><li>the State is an unnecessary evil and should be abolished, and</li><li>a free-market private property economic system is morally permissible.</li></ol> Part one is simply the definition of "anarchism," and part two is soft propertarianism, known more generally as "a free market" or "laissez-faire." Let's look more closely at each of the two parts of our definition. Moral permissibility is a "minimum" position. Almost all anarcho-capitalists believe also that a laissez-faire economic system is generally better than alternatives. Some strong propertarians, such as <a href="http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=objectivism_intro">objectivists</a>, go further and claim that laissez-faire is the <i>only</i> moral economic system.<p> A typical dictionary definition<a href="http://www.onelook.com/?w=anarchism&ls=a"><sup>Pf</sup></a> of anarchism is: <i>"The theory or doctrine that all forms of government are oppressive and undesirable and should be abolished."</i><a href="http://www.bartleby.com/61/17/A0281700.html"><sup>Pf</sup></a> This definition follows the etymology of the word: "Anarchism" is derived from the Greek αναρχία meaning "without archon" (ruler, chief, or king.) This is the core meaning of the term - <b>against the State</b>. This means against it <i>in principle</i>, as an institution, not merely against certain policies or personnel.</p><p> Murray Rothbard coined the term "anarcho-capitalist" in the winter of 1949 or 1950. "My whole position was inconsistent [...], there were only two logical possibilities: socialism, or anarchism. Since it was out of the question for me to become a socialist, I found myself pushed by the irresistible logic of the case, a private property anarchist, or, as I would later dub it, an anarcho-capitalist."<a href="http://www.mises.org/journals/scholar/Modugno.PDF"><sup>Pf</sup></a></p><p> Some prefer the term "market anarchism" to avoid the negative connotations some people have with "capitalism." </p><h2><a name="part2">2. Why should one consider anarcho-capitalism?</a></h2> <img src="http://www.ozarkia.net/picts/AnarchoDollar.gif" align="right" border="0" height="116" hspace="18" vspace="0" width="145" /> First, there is the issue of <i>self-ownership</i>, as the abolitionists called it, or <i>moral autonomy</i> as the philosophers call it. Is <i>your life</i> your own moral purpose? Do you owe anyone obedience regardless of consent? In natural rights language: Do you have rights - moral claims to freedom of action? If you answer yes to any of these questions, then logic leads you to the position of philosophical anarchism. <blockquote> The defining mark of the state is authority, the right to rule. The primary obligation of man is autonomy, the refusal to be ruled. It would seem, then, that there can be no resolution of the conflict between the autonomy of the individual and the putative authority of the state. Insofar as a man fulfills his obligation to make himself the author of his decisions, he will resist the state's claim to have authority over him. That is to say, he will deny that he has a duty to obey the laws of this state <i>simply because they are the laws</i>. In that sense, it would seem that anarchism is the only political doctrine consistent with the virtue of autonomy." - Robert Paul Wolff, <a href="http://www.ucpress.edu/books/sale/pages/8269.html">In Defense of Anarchism</a>. </blockquote> A second more utilitarian reason is the dismal record of States. Considering all the war, genocide, slavery, and repression perpetrated by States through history, might humanity do better without this barbaric institution? As the young Edmund Burke wrote in the world's first anarchist essay (before he went conservative): <blockquote> These Evils are not accidental. Whoever will take the pains to consider the Nature of Society, will find they result directly from its Constitution. For as Subordination, or in other Words, the Reciprocation of Tyranny, and Slavery, is requisite to support these Societies, the Interest, the Ambition, the Malice, or the Revenge, nay even the Whim and Caprice of one ruling Man among them, is enough to arm all the rest, without any private Views of their own, to the worst and blackest Purposes; and what is at once lamentable and ridiculous, these Wretches engage under those Banners with a Fury greater than if they were animated by Revenge for their own proper Wrongs - Edmund Burke, <a href="http://www.ozarkia.net/bill/anarchism/library/VindicationBurke/index.html">A Vindication of Natural Society</a>. </blockquote> That was written in 1756, long before modern weapons of mass destruction and long before 170 million civilian people were murdered by their own governments in the 20th century. That's just civilian deaths perpetrated by their own governments; it doesn't count the deaths due to enemy States, deaths of soldiers, dislocated refugees, and so on. To quote Rothbard, "If we look at the black record of mass murder, exploitation, and tyranny levied on society by governments over the ages, we need not be loath to abandon the Leviathan State and ... try freedom." <h2><a name="part3">3. Do anarcho-capitalists favor chaos?</a></h2> No. Anarcho-capitalists believe that a stateless society would be much more peaceful, harmonious, and prosperous than society under statism. We see life under <i>States</i> as chaotic - the insanity of war and the arbitrariness of government regulation and plunder. Anarcho-capitalists agree with the "father of anarchism" Pierre Proudhon: "Liberty is not the daughter but the mother of order," and his contemporary Frederic Bastiat, who wrote of the "natural harmony" of the market, that "natural and wise order that operates without our knowledge." (<a href="http://www.econlib.org/library/Bastiat/basHar.html">"Economic Harmonies"</a>) <h2><a name="part4">4. Isn't anarcho-capitalism utopian?</a></h2> No. Anarcho-capitalists tend to be pragmatic, and argue that, no matter how good or bad man is, he is better off in liberty. If men are good, then they need no rulers. If men are bad, then governments of men, composed of men, will also be bad - and probably worse, due to the State's amplification of coercive power. Most anarcho-capitalists think that some men are okay and some aren't; and there will always be some crime. We are not expecting any major change in human nature in that regard. Since utopianism by definition requires a change in human nature, anarcho-capitalism is not utopian.</span> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/07/what-is-anarcho-capitalism.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-07-15T15:46:00-07:00">3:46 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=7151827020312937120">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=7151827020312937120&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Anarcho-Capitalism" rel="tag">Anarcho-Capitalism</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/What%20is" rel="tag">What is</a> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="3024067708622710798"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/07/tea-party-confusion.html">Tea Party Confusion</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1><span style="font-size:180%;"><a href="http://blog.independent.org/2011/07/15/tea-party-confusion/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to Tea Party Confusion">Tea Party Confusion</a></span></h1> <p>By <b><a href="http://blog.independent.org/author/tibor-machan/" title="Posts by Tibor Machan">Tibor Machan</a></b><span style="position:relative;top:3px;"><span></span></span></p><div class="entry"><p><a href="http://blog.independent.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/teapartyscene1.jpg"><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-11568" title="teapartyscene" src="http://blog.independent.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/teapartyscene1-300x225.jpg" alt="" height="225" width="300" /></a>The idea that politicians should sign a pledge to promote personal morality is contrary to the avowed Tea Party commitment to small government. If you want the government to have a restricted scope, you should stick to the US Declaration as your guide: Government is instituted so as to secure our rights! It is not instituted, at least in the American political tradition, so as to be our moral police!</p> <p>This is the kind of inconsistency that will bode very ill for the Tea Party and the Republicans. It is just like the liberals’ inconsistency of preaching choice in the abortion debate but loving to take it from us in nearly everything else. Obama care comes to mind which commands people to buy health insurance and is, thus, anything but pro choice. And what about coercing us all to buy green light bulbs?</p> <p>Who are these people, imposing their standards of right conduct on the rest? Both sides of the political spectrum are still wedded to their tyrannical ways. No wonder so few people vote.</p> <p>Here is the pledge Tea Party Republican Rep. Michell Bockmann wants candidates to sign:<br /><em> “Therefore, in any elected or appointed capacity by which I may have the honor of serving our fellow citizens in these United States, I the undersigned do hereby solemnly vow* to honor and to cherish, to defend and to uphold, the Institution of Marriage as only between one man and one woman. I vow* to do so through my:<br />Personal fidelity to my spouse.<br />Respect for the marital bonds of others.<br />Official fidelity to the U.S. Constitution, supporting the elevation of none but faithful constitutionalists as judges or justices.<br />Vigorous opposition to any redefinition of the Institution of Marriage – faithful monogamy between one man and one woman – through statutory-, bureaucratic-, or court-imposed recognition of intimate unions which are bigamous, polygamous, polyandrous, same-sex, etc.<br />Recognition of the overwhelming statistical evidence that married people enjoy better health, better sex, longer lives, greater financial stability, and that children raised by a mother and a father together experience better learning, less addiction, less legal trouble, and less extramarital pregnancy.<br />Support for prompt reform of uneconomic, anti-marriage aspects of welfare policy, tax policy, and marital/divorce law, and extended “second chance” or “cooling-off” periods for those seeking a “quickie divorce.”<br />Earnest, bona fide legal advocacy for the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) at the federal and state levels.<br />Steadfast embrace of a federal Marriage Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which protects the definition of marriage as between one man and one woman in all of the United States.<br />Humane protection of women and the innocent fruit of conjugal intimacy – our next generation of American children – from human trafficking, sexual slavery, seduction into promiscuity, and all forms of pornography and prostitution, infanticide, abortion and other types of coercion or stolen innocence.<br />Support for the enactment of safeguards for all married and unmarried U.S. Military and National Guard personnel, especially our combat troops, from inappropriate same-gender or opposite-gender sexual harassment, adultery or intrusively intimate commingling among attracteds (restrooms, showers, barracks, tents, etc.); plus prompt termination of military policymakers who would expose American wives and daughters to rape or sexual harassment, torture, enslavement or sexual leveraging by the enemy in forward combat roles.<br />Rejection of Sharia Islam and all other anti-woman, anti-human rights forms of totalitarian control.<br />Recognition that robust childbearing and reproduction is beneficial to U.S. demographic, economic, strategic and actuarial health and security.<br />Commitment to downsizing government and the enormous burden upon American families of the USA?s $14.3 trillion public debt, its $77 trillion in unfunded liabilities, its $1.5 trillion federal deficit, and its $3.5 trillion federal budget.<br />Fierce defense of the First Amendment?s rights of Religious Liberty and Freedom of Speech, especially against the intolerance of any who would undermine law-abiding American citizens and institutions of faith and conscience for their adherence to, and defense of, faithful heterosexual monogamy.”</em></p> <p>Some of this is of course redundant–anyone who takes the oath to defend the US Constitution has made many of these pledges, namely, those that involve protection of individual rights. But many of them are meddling pieces of political posturing as the citizenry’s moral guide, as our nannies, just as Al Gore wants to be our moral guide vis-a-vis global warming or other environmental issues.</p> <p>One thing is for sure: anyone who signs this would not be a supporter of limited government, the sort Tea Party folks are proud to claim to be.</p> </div> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/07/tea-party-confusion.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-07-15T15:12:00-07:00">3:12 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=3024067708622710798">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=3024067708622710798&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Confusion" rel="tag">Confusion</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Tea%20Party" rel="tag">Tea Party</a> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="4731487312493062141"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/07/why-us-leaders-deceive-their-own-people_15.html">Why U.S. Leaders Deceive Their Own People</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1><span style="font-size:130%;">Why U.S. Leaders Deceive Their Own People</span></h1> <p>by Ted Galen Carpenter </p><p class="first">Professor John Mearsheimer's latest book, <em>Why Leaders Lie</em>, provides a number of intriguing insights and surprising conclusions. Perhaps his most unexpected conclusion is that leaders lie to foreign leaders far less frequently than is generally assumed. Indeed, he contends that leaders lie to their own people more than they do to foreign counterparts. He does, however, concede that less blatant forms of deception, such as "spinning" and "concealment" are pervasive in international politics.</p> <p>Two other conclusions ought to be deeply troubling to populations in democratic countries, and especially so to Americans. One is that officials in democratic political systems are more likely to deceive their own people — even engaging in outright lies — than officials in autocratic systems. His reasoning on that point is solid, and he provides compelling evidence to support his case. Mearsheimer's thesis is that democratic leaders are much more dependent than autocrats on public support for foreign policy initiatives, especially when an initiative includes going to war. If the available evidence is weak that a major security threat exists, but political leaders believe that taking military action is in the national interest, a powerful incentive exists to inflate the threat to gain badly needed public support.</p> <p>A second, related part of his thesis is that political leaders are much more inclined to lie involving wars of choice rather than wars of necessity. Again, there are ample historical examples supporting his argument. </p><div class="box2"> <div class="boxcontent"> <span class="author_pub2" id="author_pic"></span><p style="font-family:Georgia;"><em><a href="http://www.cato.org/people/ted-galen-carpenter">Ted Galen Carpenter</a>, senior fellow of foreign policy studies at The Cato Institute, is the author of </em><a href="http://www.cato.org/store/books/smart-power-toward-prudent-foreign-policy-america-hardback">Smart Power: Toward a Prudent Foreign Policy for America</a><em>, as well as other books on international affairs.</em></p> <a class="head" href="http://www.cato.org/people/ted-galen-carpenter">More by Ted Galen Carpenter</a></div></div> <p>If Mearsheimer is correct, Americans must face the troubling realization that U.S. leaders will be unusually prone to engage in lying as well as milder forms of deception to gull their own populations. Not only is the United States a long-standing democracy, but it is the nation since World War II that is most inclined to embark on wars of choice — often involving issues that have little or no connection to genuine American security interests. The list of U.S. military interventions just in the post-Cold War era — Panama, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq (twice), and the extended mission in Afghanistan — is definitive testimony to that tendency.</p> <p>America's status as a democracy and a country inclined to wage wars of choice is a deadly combination that creates an overwhelming incentive for political leaders to use whatever techniques of threat inflation are necessary to stampede an otherwise skeptical public into supporting the latest dubious military crusade. The potential corrosive effect on America's political institutions and values are all too apparent. At a minimum, Americans ought to be on guard and doubly skeptical when an administration's spin machine goes into action making the case that Lower Slobovia's mistreatment of Upper Slobovians really, truly poses a dire security threat that only U.S. military action can prevent. The American people have heard such a refrain — and believed it — far too often for the health of the Republic.</p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/07/why-us-leaders-deceive-their-own-people_15.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-07-15T15:00:00-07:00">3:00 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=4731487312493062141">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=4731487312493062141&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Deceive" rel="tag">Deceive</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Their%20Own%20People" rel="tag">Their Own People</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Why%20U.S.%20Leaders" rel="tag">Why U.S. Leaders</a> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="268431768943957216"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/07/federal-spending-doesnt-work.html">Federal Spending Doesn't Work</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1>Federal Spending Doesn't Work</h1> <p>by Chris Edwards </p><p class="first">Despite ongoing federal deficits of more than $1 trillion a year, many liberals are calling for more government spending to "create jobs." At the same time, liberals are opposing budget cuts because that would supposedly hurt the economic recovery. And then there is the perennial problem of Democrats and Republicans defending spending on their particular favored programs.</p> <p>With all these forces arrayed against budget sanity, it's time to take a back-to-basics look at the role of government spending in the economy.</p> <p>Federal spending has soared over the past decade. As a share of gross domestic product, spending grew from 18 percent in 2001 to 24 percent in 2011. The causes of this expansion include the costs of wars, growing entitlement programs, the 2009 stimulus bill and rising spending on discretionary programs such as education.</p> <blockquote class="pullquote"><p>The reality is that Washington is very bad at trying to micromanage short-term economic performance.</p></blockquote> <p>New projections from the Congressional Budget Office show that without reforms spending will keep rising for decades to come. The CBO's "alternative fiscal scenario" shows spending growing to 34 percent of GDP by 2035. Thus, the federal government is on course to gobble up almost twice as much of the U.S. economy 24 years from now as it did just a decade ago.</p> <p><strong>America is becoming a big-government nation</strong></p> <p>Sadly, America is rapidly becoming a big-government nation. Data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development compares spending by all levels of government among its 31 high-income member countries. This year, government spending in the United States hit 41 percent of GDP, meaning that more than 4 out of every 10 dollars that we produce is consumed by our federal, state and local governments.</p> <p>We used to have a substantial government size advantage compared to other countries. But Figure 1 shows that while government spending in the United States was about 10 percentage points of GDP smaller than the average OECD country in the past, that gap has now shrunk to just 4 points. A number of high-income nations — such as Australia — now have smaller governments than does the United States.</p> <p>This is very troubling because America's strong growth and high living standards were historically built on our relatively small government. The ongoing surge in federal spending is undoing this competitive advantage that we have enjoyed in the world economy.</p> <p>CBO projections show that federal spending will rise by about 10 percentage points of GDP between now and 2035. If that happens, governments in the United States will be grabbing more than half of everything produced in the nation by that year. That would doom future generations of Americans to unbearable levels of taxation and a stagnant economy with fewer opportunities.</p> <center><img src="http://www.cato.org/images/pubs/testimony/ct-edwards-62911-2.jpg" /></center> <p><strong>Government spending doesn't stimulate</strong></p> <p>There is renewed talk in Washington about further spending measures to try and stimulate the weak economy. That idea is remarkably naïve and misguided. It is now more than two years after passage of the $821 billion stimulus package in 2009, and it is obvious that that effort was a hugely expensive Keynesian policy failure.</p> <p>The Obama administration's attempt to pump up "aggregate demand" in the economy simply hasn't worked. In Keynesian theory, the total amount of deficit spending is the amount of "stimulus" delivered to the economy. Well, we've had deficit spending of $459 billion in 2008, $1.4 trillion in 2009, $1.3 trillion in 2010 and $1.4 trillion in 2011.</p> <p>Yet despite that enormous deficit-spending stimulus, U.S. unemployment remains stuck at more than 9 percent and the recovery is very sluggish compared to prior recoveries. Indeed, the current recovery appears to be slower than any since World War II, according to a recent Joint Economic Committee study.</p> <p>Obama administration economists had claimed that the Keynesian "multipliers" from government spending are large, meaning that spending would give a big boost to GDP. But other economists have found that Keynesian multipliers are actually quite small, meaning that added government spending mainly just displaces private-sector activities. Stanford University economist John Taylor took a detailed look at GDP data over recent years, and he found little evidence of any benefits from the 2009 stimulus bill. Any "sugar high" to the economy from recent increases in government spending was at best very small and short-lived.</p> <p>The reality is that Washington is very bad at trying to micromanage short-term economic performance. Its failed stimulus actions have just put the nation further into debt, which will harm our long-term prosperity. Harvard University's Robert Barro calculated that any short-term benefit that the 2009 stimulus bill may have provided is greatly outweighed by the future damage caused by higher taxes and debt.</p> <p><strong>The government's leaky bucket</strong></p> <p>Let's take a look at how government spending damages the economy over the long run. Spending is financed by the extraction of resources from current and future taxpayers. The resources consumed by the government cannot be used to produce goods in the private marketplace. For example, the engineers needed to build a $10 billion government high-speed rail line are taken away from building other products in the economy. The $10 billion rail line creates government-connected jobs, but it also kills at least $10 billion worth of private jobs.</p> <p>Indeed, the private sector would actually lose more than $10 billion in this example. That is because government spending and taxing creates "deadweight losses," which result from distortions to working, investment and other activities. The CBO says that deadweight loss estimates "range from 20 cents to 60 cents over and above the revenue raised." Harvard University's Martin Feldstein thinks that deadweight losses "may exceed one dollar per dollar of revenue raised, making the cost of incremental governmental spending more than two dollars for each dollar of government spending." Thus, a $10 billion high-speed rail line would cost the private economy $20 billion or more.</p> <p>The government uses a "leaky bucket" when it tries to help the economy. Former chairman of the Council of Economics Advisors, Michael Boskin, explains: "The cost to the economy of each additional tax dollar is about $1.40 to $1.50. Now that tax dollar … is put into a bucket. Some of it leaks out in overhead, waste and so on. In a well-managed program, the government may spend 80 or 90 cents of that dollar on achieving its goals. Inefficient programs would be much lower, $0.30 or $0.40 on the dollar." Texas A&M economist Edgar Browning comes to similar conclusions about the magnitude of the government's leaky bucket: "It costs taxpayers $3 to provide a benefit worth $1 to recipients."</p> <p>The larger the government grows, the leakier the bucket becomes. On the revenue side, tax distortions rise rapidly as tax rates rise. On the spending side, funding is allocated to activities with ever lower returns as the government expands. Figure 2 illustrates the consequences of the leaky bucket. On the left-hand side, tax rates are low and the government initially delivers useful public goods such as crime reduction. Those activities create high returns, so per-capita incomes initially rise as the government grows.</p> <p>As the government expands further, it engages in less productive activities. The marginal return from government spending falls and then turns negative. On the right-hand side of the figure, average incomes fall as the government expands. Government in the United States — at more than 40 percent of GDP — is almost certainly on the right-hand side of this figure.</p> <p>In his 2008 book, <em>Stealing from Ourselves</em>, Professor Browning concludes that today's welfare state reduces GDP — or average U.S. incomes — by about 25 percent. That would place us quite far to the right in Figure 2, and it suggests that federal spending cuts would substantially increase U.S. incomes over time.</p> <center><img src="http://www.cato.org/images/pubs/testimony/ct-edwards-62911-3.jpg" /></center> <p>All the official projections show rivers of red ink for years to come unless federal policymakers enact major budget reforms. Unless spending is cut, the United States is headed for economic ruin. We need to cut entitlements, domestic discretionary programs and defense spending, as Cato has detailed at www.DownsizingGovernment.org.</p> <div class="box2"> <div class="boxcontent"> <span class="author_pub2" id="author_pic"></span><p style="font-family:Georgia;"><em><a href="http://www.cato.org/people/chris-edwards">Chris Edwards</a> is editor of Cato Institute's <a href="http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/">Downsizing Government.org</a>.</em></p> <a class="head" href="http://www.cato.org/people/chris-edwards">More by Chris Edwards</a></div></div> <p>Cutting spending would boost the economy because many federal programs have very low or negative returns. Many programs cause severe economic distortions. Other programs damage the environment and restrict individual freedom. And the federal government has expanded into hundreds of areas that would be better left to state and local governments, businesses, charities and individuals.</p> <p>With the upcoming debt-limit vote, fiscal conservatives in Congress have a real chance to start turning the tide. If they don't stick to their guns, the "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" we celebrate this July 4 will become meaningless as Washington usurps an ever larger share of our incomes and our economy.</p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/07/federal-spending-doesnt-work.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-07-15T14:56:00-07:00">2:56 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=268431768943957216">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=268431768943957216&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="58389167791831775"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/07/tim-pawlenty-latest-dangerous.html">Tim Pawlenty: The Latest Dangerous Neoconservative</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1>Tim Pawlenty: The Latest Dangerous Neoconservative</h1> <p>by Doug Bandow </p><p class="first">Republicans have spent a decade as the party of war. In fact, since President George W. Bush abandoned his call for a "humble foreign policy" the country has not been at peace. Now former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty has unabashedly raised the neoconservative banner.</p> <p>President Bill Clinton famously wished to be a wartime leader, but ordering 78 days of high-altitude bombing of Serbia doesn't count. When he left office Americans were not in combat, other than undertaking episodic air and missile strikes to enforce the "no fly" zone over Iraq. Looking back, those were the good ole days.</p> <p>Unfortunately, this relative peace ended with 9/11. Rather than limit his response to targeting al-Qaeda, President Bush launched two nation-building crusades. </p><div class="box2"> <div class="boxcontent"> <span class="author_pub2" id="author_pic"></span><p style="font-family:Georgia;"><em><a href="http://www.cato.org/people/doug-bandow">Doug Bandow</a> is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former special assistant to Ronald Reagan, he is the author of </em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Foreign-Follies-Americas-Global-Empire/dp/1597819883/catoinstitute-20" target="_blank">Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire</a><em> (Xulon)</em></p> <a class="head" href="http://www.cato.org/people/doug-bandow">More by Doug Bandow</a></div></div> <p>The first, in Afghanistan, is nearing its tenth year with little success to show. As the attack on the Intercontinental Hotel demonstrates, even the capital of Kabul is not safe.</p> <p>The second, in Iraq, generated a new terrorist franchise and turned an entire nation into a charnel house. Over time, U.S. military operations spread into Pakistan and Yemen, and today qualify as "hostilities" by any definition except that used by the Obama administration.</p> <p>President Barack Obama has initiated his own war, in Libya, for largely discredited humanitarian claims. Nevertheless, the GOP's most avid cheerleaders for war, Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, have pressed for escalation in North Africa. Sen. Graham also has proposed military action against Syria.</p> <p>Four years ago advocates of permanent war dominated the Republican presidential race. Rudy Giuliani was perhaps the most hawkish but least informed candidate. The other GOP presidential candidates, other than Rep. Ron Paul, also advocated pursuing the American imperium, irrespective of cost. Even Mitt Romney, who presented himself as a responsible businessman, sounded like a neocon bot.</p> <p>Sen. McCain ended up as the Republican presidential nominee and his hawkish mien defined the GOP fall campaign. He even urged confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia in its conflict with the country of Georgia — which started the conflict. Had McCain won the election, no one knows how many additional wars Washington now would be fighting.</p> <p>But reality has made a reemergence in Republican ranks. Rep. Paul has been joined by another ideological libertarian, former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson. Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman has expressed skepticism of the Afghan war. And the newly refurbished Mitt Romney has taken several carefully choreographed steps away from the neocon cry of "Afghanistan forever."</p> <p>The result has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth in the neoconservative camp, and especially by Senators McCain and Graham. In their view, anyone who fails to endorse killing foreigners in at least five different countries or believes that Americans cannot afford to forever police the globe is an "isolationist."</p> <p>Now candidate Pawlenty has taken up the cry of "war now, war forever" with his speech to the Council on Foreign Relations. Naturally, it took him little time to toss the "I" word at his primary opponents: "parts of the Republican Party now seem to be trying to out-bid the Democrats in appealing to isolationist sentiments."</p> <p>The talk was long on rhetoric but short on reality. Candidate Pawlenty obviously is a true believer in Washington's ability to run the world. The U.S. president need only speak with sufficient firmness — unlike Barack Obama, naturally — and the world will come to heel.</p> <p>Pawlenty focused on the struggle of Arab peoples against authoritarian governments, many long supported by the United States: "We can help steer events in the right direction." He complained that the Obama administration stood by as an election was stolen in Iran only "to see the Green Movement crushed." He decried the reduction in foreign aid as "a lack of support" for democracy in Egypt. Declared Pawlenty: "I called for Assad's departure on March 29; I call for it again today."</p> <p>As for policy, Pawlenty called for more American micro-management in more countries:</p> <ul><li>"We must do more than monitor polling places."</li><li>We must use foreign aid "to build good allies."</li><li>"We must insist that our international partners get off the sidelines and do the same."</li><li>We must tell new government "the truth," that "economic growth and prosperity are the result of free markets and free trade."</li><li>We must "commit America's strength to removing Qaddafi."</li><li>"We should press new friends to end discrimination against women, to establish independent courts, and freedom of speech and the press."</li><li>"We must insist on religious freedoms for all."</li><li>"We need to tell the Saudis what we think."</li><li>"We need to be frank about what the Saudis must do to insure stability in their own country. Above all, they need to reform and open their own society."</li><li>"We need to encourage opponents of the [Syrian] regime by making our own position very clear, right now. Bashar al-Assad must go."</li><li>We must "hasten the fall of the mullahs" in Iran.</li><li>We should keep the military option against Tehran on the table.</li><li>"Peace will only come if everyone in the region perceives clearly that America stands strongly with Israel."</li><li>"I would ensure our assistance to the Palestinians immediately ends if the teaching of hatred in Palestinian classrooms and airwaves continues."</li><li>"I would recommend cultivating and empowering moderate forces in Palestinian society."</li><li>We must seek "victory" like "in the 1980s."</li></ul> <p>It's an impressive litany, and most of the sentiments are reasonable or at least defensible. But most are sentiments, not policies. And certainly not realistic policies. Nor are any of the points new. Unfortunately, none so far has worked. Because most people, irrespective of how friendly, will not allow Washington to run their lives. They want to govern themselves.</p> <p>Of course, foreign aid should be used to build "good allies." Like giving billions of dollars to Hosni Mubarak year in and year out. He was a "good ally." Moreover, with his overthrow has come rising hostility to Israel and religious minorities. Does Pawlenty believe that all we have to do is "insist" that the newly democratic Egyptians adopt our liberal values and all will be well?</p> <p>Of course, the Saudi ruling family should be encouraged to reform. Does Pawlenty believe that the Saudi royals run a quasi-totalitarian state because they have never considered the benefits of reform? That all we have to do is tell the Riyadh autocrats that empowering women and freeing religious minorities would be good for the country, and the regime will act?</p> <p>Why didn't Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Obama realize how easy it was?</p> <p>Naturally, Pawlenty closed with the usual rhetorical boilerplate used to justify an American imperium. It is wrong "for the Republican Party to shrink from the challenges of American leadership." "Weakness in foreign policy costs us and our children much more than we'll save in a budget line item." "America already has one political party devoted to decline, retrenchment, and withdrawal." "Our enemies in the War on Terror, just like our opponents in the Cold War, respect and respond to strength." Of course. All the U.S. government has to do is stand strong for "the ideals of economic and political freedom of equality and opportunity for all citizens" and all will be well.</p> <p>Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel said Samuel Johnson, and so it is today. What current politician does not believe in the traditional values which have animated the American republic? What presidential candidate does not want to ensure U.S. security in a dangerous world? What national leader wants America and Americans to be isolated from and uninvolved in the world?</p> <p>The challenge is how to best promote those values and best ensure that security. America as empire — constantly bombing, hectoring, invading, lecturing, occupying, and instructing other states — is not.</p> <p>Today the U.S. is involved in the equivalent of five wars: Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, and Libya. Americans have not enjoyed peace for more than a decade, and if Tim Pawlenty has his way, would not enjoy peace for years if not decades to come.</p> <p>The costs are high. Some 6000 Americans have died and tens of thousands of Americans have been wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq alone, and the human toll continues to climb. In Iraq perhaps 200,000 civilians died in the violent aftermath to the U.S. invasion; millions of people were pushed into internal or external exile; the historic Christian community was ravaged. The financial cost continues to rise. Washington is effectively bankrupt, with a $14 trillion national debt, trillions more in unfunded federal retirement liabilities, and more than $100 trillion in unfunded Social Security and Medicate obligations. Yet America has doubled military spending, adjusted for inflation, over the last decade. The U.S. now spends more, in real terms, than at any point in the Cold, Korean, and Vietnam wars, and accounts for roughly half of the globe's military outlays.</p> <p>Finally, every new bombing run, invasion, and occupation creates more enemies, and thus encourages more terrorism. Better calibrated responses relying on Special Forces, drones, intelligence, and international cooperation are less costly, more effective, and less likely to trigger blowback.</p> <p>Far from being an early neocon, Ronald Reagan was a master of restraint. He used force only three times — in Grenada, Libya, and Lebanon. All were limited actions, and in the latter case Reagan responded to the bombing of the Marine Corps barracks by pulling out U.S. forces rather than launching a nation-building campaign. He recognized that the stakes in Lebanon were no where near the cost of expanding the conflict.</p> <p>Ultimately, advocates of limited government and individual liberty must choose between empire and freedom. Perpetual intervention and conflict have been among the most important political fertilizers for the growth of the Leviathan state.</p> <p>Tim Pawlenty has endorsed war and Big Government. Let us hope his competitors decide differently.</p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/07/tim-pawlenty-latest-dangerous.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-07-15T14:54:00-07:00">2:54 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=58389167791831775">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=58389167791831775&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="5884270659643022007"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/07/why-us-leaders-deceive-their-own-people.html">Why U.S. Leaders Deceive Their Own People</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:180%;">Why U.S. Leaders Deceive Their Own People</span><br /><br />by Ted Galen Carpenter<br /><br />Professor John Mearsheimer's latest book, Why Leaders Lie, provides a number of intriguing insights and surprising conclusions. Perhaps his most unexpected conclusion is that leaders lie to foreign leaders far less frequently than is generally assumed. Indeed, he contends that leaders lie to their own people more than they do to foreign counterparts. He does, however, concede that less blatant forms of deception, such as "spinning" and "concealment" are pervasive in international politics.<br /><br />Two other conclusions ought to be deeply troubling to populations in democratic countries, and especially so to Americans. One is that officials in democratic political systems are more likely to deceive their own people — even engaging in outright lies — than officials in autocratic systems. His reasoning on that point is solid, and he provides compelling evidence to support his case. Mearsheimer's thesis is that democratic leaders are much more dependent than autocrats on public support for foreign policy initiatives, especially when an initiative includes going to war. If the available evidence is weak that a major security threat exists, but political leaders believe that taking military action is in the national interest, a powerful incentive exists to inflate the threat to gain badly needed public support.<br /><br />A second, related part of his thesis is that political leaders are much more inclined to lie involving wars of choice rather than wars of necessity. Again, there are ample historical examples supporting his argument.<br /><br />Ted Galen Carpenter, senior fellow of foreign policy studies at The Cato Institute, is the author of Smart Power: Toward a Prudent Foreign Policy for America, as well as other books on international affairs.<br />More by Ted Galen Carpenter<br /><br />If Mearsheimer is correct, Americans must face the troubling realization that U.S. leaders will be unusually prone to engage in lying as well as milder forms of deception to gull their own populations. Not only is the United States a long-standing democracy, but it is the nation since World War II that is most inclined to embark on wars of choice — often involving issues that have little or no connection to genuine American security interests. The list of U.S. military interventions just in the post-Cold War era — Panama, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq (twice), and the extended mission in Afghanistan — is definitive testimony to that tendency.<br /><br />America's status as a democracy and a country inclined to wage wars of choice is a deadly combination that creates an overwhelming incentive for political leaders to use whatever techniques of threat inflation are necessary to stampede an otherwise skeptical public into supporting the latest dubious military crusade. The potential corrosive effect on America's political institutions and values are all too apparent. At a minimum, Americans ought to be on guard and doubly skeptical when an administration's spin machine goes into action making the case that Lower Slobovia's mistreatment of Upper Slobovians really, truly poses a dire security threat that only U.S. military action can prevent. The American people have heard such a refrain — and believed it — far too often for the health of the Republic. </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/07/why-us-leaders-deceive-their-own-people.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-07-15T14:47:00-07:00">2:47 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=5884270659643022007">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=5884270659643022007&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Deceive" rel="tag">Deceive</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Their%20Own%20People" rel="tag">Their Own People</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Why%20U.S.%20Leaders" rel="tag">Why U.S. Leaders</a> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="5058895309605956742"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-get-real-spending-cuts_15.html">How to Get Real Spending Cuts</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:180%;">How to Get Real Spending Cuts</span><br /><br />by Michael D. Tanner<br /><br />It is getting close to "crunch time" in the debate over raising the debt ceiling. Much of the debate continues to focus on whether Republicans will accept tax hikes as part of the package, and how big the debt-reduction package will be. All sorts of numbers are being tossed out: $4 trillion over twelve years? $6 trillion over ten years? $3 trillion over two years?<br /><br />But focusing on dollars — even trillions of dollars — may be setting Republicans up for a fall.<br /><br />After all, we've heard promises of spending cuts before. Remember the deal over the continuing resolution that kept the government open back in April? That deal was supposed to include $61 billion in spending cuts, but, in reality, it was crammed full of gimmicks such as counting savings from spending that hadn't occurred in the previous year or not funding programs that actually didn't exist. In the end, the actual reduction in spending was less than $8 billion.<br /><br /> Budget history is flush with promises of cuts some day in the future — but some day never actually comes.<br /><br />And President Obama, in his most recent budget proposal, counted interest savings and the elimination of tax breaks ("spending in the tax code") as reductions in spending. They might show up that way on a balance sheet, but that sort of budget cutting does very little to reduce the size and burden of government — which is what this debate should really be about.<br /><br />Republicans must also ask when those spending cuts will occur and how will they be enforced. Budget history is flush with promises of cuts some day in the future — but some day never actually comes. This is especially true when budget savings are anticipated not from actually eliminating programs, but from making government "more efficient." For example, the Obama administration claims that the health-care-reform law will ultimately save some $500 billion in Medicare spending. But even Medicare's own actuaries don't believe those savings will ever occur.<br /><br />Now, the administration is reportedly offering another $340 billion in Medicare and Medicaid cuts as part of a budget deal. But because the administration continues to resist any changes in the structure of the program, those savings are likely to be as ephemeral as the Obamacare cuts.<br /><br />And speaking of those Obamacare cuts, the health-care law "double counted" those Medicare savings by routing them through the so-called Medicare Trust Fund. This type of "trust-fund accounting" allowed the administration to "extend the life of Medicare" and reduce the program's unfunded liabilities, even as the savings were actually spent elsewhere. Will the debt-ceiling deal include similar smoke and mirrors?<br /><br />Michael Tanner is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and coauthor of Leviathan on the Right: How Big-Government Conservatism Brought Down the Republican Revolution.<br />More by Michael D. Tanner<br /><br />That is why Republicans should not get hung up on seeking any particular amount of spending cuts. The dollar amount matters far less than getting the structural and institutional changes that will actually bring down the size, cost, and intrusiveness of government in the future.<br /><br />Republicans should push hard for a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution — and not one that simply requires a balanced budget, but one that includes meaningful spending limitations. If they can't get the two-thirds vote that such an amendment would require, they should at least insist on a statutory spending cap. Republicans should also insist on fundamental structural changes to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.<br /><br />In the end, this is not really a debate about budgeting or the size of the national debt. It is a debate about whether we will have a limited constitutional government or a European-style social democracy. Winning that debate will not be a question of whether there is an agreement to cut $2 trillion over ten years rather than $1.5 trillion. If Republicans get an extra $500 billion in cuts on paper, but leave the structures of big government in place, they will find out down the road that nothing has really changed. </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-get-real-spending-cuts_15.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-07-15T14:46:00-07:00">2:46 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=5058895309605956742">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=5058895309605956742&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="7934569172257807763"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/07/stocks-advance-behind-energy-tech.html">Stocks Advance Behind Energy, Tech Shares</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1><span style="font-size:130%;">Stocks Advance Behind Energy, Tech Shares</span></h1> <div class="story_inline assets clearfix "> <cite class="byline"> By Nikolaj Gammeltoft -</cite><div class="story_inline attachments"> <div class="image thumbnail"> <div class="thumbnail_container"> <img alt="House to Vote " class="img_keep_size" src="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/data?pid=avimage&iid=inSQGqI.QdcQ" /> </div> <p class="caption">U.S. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), right, listens as U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), center, answers questions during a press conference on a balanced budget amendment at the U.S. Capitol July 14, 2011 in Washington, DC. Photographer: Win McNamee/Getty Images </p> </div> </div> </div> <p>U.S. stocks rose, trimming the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index’s weekly loss, as gains in energy and technology shares were enough to overcome concern that an impasse over raising the federal debt limit is putting the nation’s top credit rating in jeopardy. </p> <p><a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=GOOG:US" title="Get Quote" class="web_ticker">Google Inc. (GOOG)</a> jumped 13 percent after reporting sales that beat predictions, a sign that it’s making progress expanding beyond search advertising. <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=HK:US" title="Get Quote" class="web_ticker">Petrohawk Energy Corp. (HK)</a> rallied 62 percent as BHP Billiton Ltd. agreed to buy the oil and gas company for $12.1 billion in cash. Gauges of energy stocks and technology companies advanced at least 1.5 percent. <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=CLX:US" title="Get Quote" class="web_ticker">Clorox Co. (CLX)</a> rose 8.9 percent after <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/carl-icahn/">Carl Icahn</a> offered to buy the company. </p> <p>The S&P 500 rose 0.6 percent to 1,316.14 at 4 p.m. in New York. The gauge fell 2.1 percent this week. The <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/dow-jones-industrial-average/">Dow Jones Industrial Average</a> added 42.61 points, or 0.3 percent, to 12,479.73 today. </p> <p>“There’s a lot more company-specific issues driving stocks now, even though there’s still macro uncertainty about the debt negotiations in <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/washington/">Washington</a> and the European crisis,” Jeffrey Coons, president of Manning & Napier Advisors Inc. in Fairport, <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/new-york/">New York</a>, said in a telephone interview. His firm manages $44 billion. </p> <p>Stocks lost their gains this morning amid concern negotiations toward raising the U.S. debt ceiling are failing to progress. House Speaker <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/john-boehner/">John Boehner</a>, a Republican from <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/ohio/">Ohio</a>, told reporters that his party wouldn’t accept any tax increases as they work with President Barack Obama on a deal to lower deficits and possibly raise the U.S. debt limit. Moody’s Investors Service and S&P said this week that they may cut the federal government’s credit rating if the issue isn’t resolved. </p> <h2>Higher Rates </h2> <p>Obama said a failure to raise the U.S. debt limit would trigger a default on the nation’s obligations that could drive up <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/interest-rates/">interest rates</a> for everyone in the country. </p> <p>“We could end up with a situation where interest rates rise for everyone,” he told a Washington press conference. In effect, it would be “a tax increase for everybody.” </p> <p>The <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/s%26p-500/">S&P 500</a> rallied 93 percent from its low in March 2009 through yesterday as the <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/federal-reserve/">Federal Reserve</a> used large-scale asset purchases to buoy the economy and companies posted earnings that beat analysts’ estimates. Of the 13 S&P 500 companies that have posted results so far this earnings season, 11 have beaten forecasts for per-share profit. </p> <p>Stocks fell from their highs of the day after the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan preliminary index of consumer sentiment fell to 63.8 in July from 71.5 the prior month. The gauge was projected to rise to 72.2, according to the median forecast of 62 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. Estimates for the confidence measure ranged from 75 to 68. The index averaged 89 in the five years leading up to the recession that began in December 2007. </p> <h2>Stress Tests </h2> <p>Stocks briefly extended their advance after the European Banking Authority said eight banks failed the European Union stress tests with a combined capital shortfall of 2.5 billion euros ($3.5 billion). </p> <p>Agricultural Bank of Greece SA, <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/austria/">Austria</a>’s Oesterreichische Volksbanken AG and Spain’s Banco Pastor SA were among the failures. The companies were found to have insufficient reserves to maintain a core tier 1 capital ratio of 5 percent in the event of an economic slowdown, the European Banking Authority said. All banks tested in Italy, <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/germany/">Germany</a> and the U.K. passed. </p> <p>“The stress test results are coming in pretty much as expected, at least at the headline level,” E. William Stone, who helps oversee about $110 billion as chief investment strategist at PNC Wealth Management in Philadelphia, said in a telephone interview. “Everybody is waiting for more news on the U.S. debt ceiling and more about the EU sovereign debt situation, and nobody wants to get too far on one side or the other ahead of the weekend.” </p> <h2>Google, Clorox </h2> <p>Google soared 13 percent to $597.62, its biggest gain since October 2008. Sales, excluding revenue passed on to partner sites, rose to $6.92 billion. That topped the $6.57 billion average estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. </p> <p>Clorox advanced 8.9 percent to $74.55, its highest price since at least 1980. Icahn, a billionaire, offered to buy the maker of the namesake bleach for about $10.2 billion in a move designed to draw out other potential bidders. </p> <p>Petrohawk Energy rallied 62 percent to $38.17. <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/bhp-billiton/">BHP Billiton</a>, the world’s largest mining company, agreed to buy the company for about $12.1 billion in cash in its biggest acquisition, betting natural gas demand will gain in the U.S. </p> <p><a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=CHK:US" title="Get Quote" class="web_ticker">Chesapeake Energy Corp. (CHK)</a> climbed 9.1 percent to $32.96. The natural-gas driller would be worth $58 a share should it be taken over based on the valuation of the Petrohawk acquisition, Ticonderoga Securities LLC said in a note. </p> <h2>Energy Stocks </h2> <p>Energy companies rose 2.3 percent, the most among 10 industries in the S&P 500. Technology stocks added 1.6 percent as a group. </p> <p><a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=RAH:US" title="Get Quote" class="web_ticker">Ralcorp Holdings Inc. (RAH)</a> fell 0.7 percent to $86, dropping for a sixth straight day. The maker of Raisin Bran cereals and private-label food brands plans to spin off Post Foods after failing to sell the unit to rival foodmakers or private-equity firms. </p> <p><a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=FLIR:US" title="Get Quote" class="web_ticker">Flir Systems Inc. (FLIR)</a> fell the most in the S&P 500, slumping 9.9 percent to $28.92. The maker of night-vision cameras used by U.S. combat forces reported second-quarter profit excluding some items of 35 cents a share, trailing the average analyst estimate by 4 cents, according to Bloomberg data. </p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/07/stocks-advance-behind-energy-tech.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-07-15T14:43:00-07:00">2:43 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=7934569172257807763">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=7934569172257807763&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Behind%20Energy" rel="tag">Behind Energy</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Stocks%20Advance" rel="tag">Stocks Advance</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Tech%20Shares" rel="tag">Tech Shares</a> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <a name="2407237047207778909"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/07/is-obama-one-termer.html">Is Obama a One-Termer?</a> </h3> <p><img src="http://takeaction.wta007.com/images/142/napoleon.jpg" title="" align="left" height="279" hspace="8" vspace="4" width="226" />Republicans have a golden opportunity to break Barack Obama's presidency, ensuring he will be a one-termer. Mr. Obama has backed himself into a corner on the debt-limit talks; the GOP can smash his re-election prospects if they have the will—and intelligence—to do it.<br /><br />Mr. Obama has asked that the nation's $14.3 trillion debt-ceiling be raised, and he knows that cannot be done without support from House Republicans. Moreover, along with Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, Mr. Obama warns that fiscal Armageddon is coming unless the ceiling is lifted before Aug. 2—the date Mr. Geithner claims the United States begins defaulting to its debtors.<br /><br />Mr. Obama seeks a "grand bargain": a debt reduction package that includes $1 trillion in tax increases to accompany entitlement spending cuts, including Social Security and Medicare. He wants to go big. His target is to slash $4 trillion over 10 years. He has repeatedly vowed to veto any "small" debt-limit increase—one that keeps America paying its bills until a more comprehensive agreement is ratified. In other words, Mr. Obama has issued an ultimatum to congressional Republicans: either break your 2010 campaign pledge not to raise taxes or else be blamed for the debt-limit debacle. As he put it, it's time to "eat our peas." The president is playing Russian roulette with the economy and our nation's future.<br /><br />Yet, he has badly played his weak hand. Mr. Obama has committed a fatal mistake: overreach. The president has issued a public ultimatum that either must be upheld or he must back down from. Either way, it is Mr. Obama's political credibility that threatens to be shattered.<br /><br />House Speaker John Boehner is holding all the cards. Mr. Boehner should insist on a small deal—lifting the debt ceiling accompanied with corresponding spending reductions. Every debt dollar raised should be coupled with a dollar cut. Hence, the package pays for itself. More importantly, it places Mr. Obama in a no-win situation. House Republicans will pass legislation that raises the debt-limit. Therefore, they cannot be blamed for any economic fallout should America default. Mr. Obama can veto it, which means he will be solely responsible for the fiscal calamity. Or he can sign it—publicly standing down from his earlier threats. Thus, he will be denuded among his liberal supporters and the larger electorate, and shown to be a weak leader whose words mean nothing.<br /><br />Either way, it will be his Waterloo: the effective end of his presidency.</p> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center" align="center"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman""> <hr align="center" size="2" width="100%"> </span></div> <p><strong><span style="color:#003366">AOL Touts Masturbation Huffington-Style</span></strong></p> <p><img src="http://takeaction.wta007.com/images/142/xxx.jpg" title="" align="left" height="118" hspace="8" vspace="4" width="255" />America Online is now endorsing masturbation. Recently, AOL posted an item on its general page discussing how men often fake orgasms, and that they should engage in masturbation to help "discover what stimulates you." Apparently, women aren't the only ones faking it in the bedroom.</p> <p>The fact that AOL would even run a lewd story like this—never mind give it top billing—reveals the change in editorial content since its merger with the far left Huffington Post. The liberal website, founded by Arianna Huffington, was acquired by AOL in February for a stunning $315 million. Moreover, the deal made Ms. Huffington the editor-in-chief of AOL's 1,200-member newsroom. AOL's stories are starting to reflect her radical views—undermining its credibility as a respectable Internet news source.</p> <p>This is what now passes for informative news at AOL? Under Ms. Huffington's leadership, the popular website has become a pimp for the sexual revolution. It is peddling the Playboy philosophy, hoping to make it mainstream. Perversion and moral indecency are packaged as part of a "healthy lifestyle." What's next: the benefits of bestiality, polygamy or oral sex?<br /><br />Ms. Huffington is frittering away the hard-won reputation of AOL and dragging it into the journalistic gutter.</p> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center" align="center"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";color:#990000"> <hr align="center" size="2" width="100%"> </span></div> <p style="color:rgb(0, 51, 102)"><strong>Beck's Swan Song</strong></p> <p><img src="http://takeaction.wta007.com/images/142/quill.jpg" title="" align="left" height="154" hspace="8" vspace="4" width="250" />Glenn Beck, the radio host and former FOX News talking head, apparently needs to capitalize one last time on his dwindling fame. His solution: publish a redundant book on the Federalist Papers. </p> <p>In "The Original Argument" (Threshold Editions, 430 pages), Mr. Beck seeks to translate and adapt the Federalist Papers for contemporary readers. Therefore, many of its passages—written in 18th-century English prose—are updated to be more understandable and, hopefully, relevant. The book contains footnotes explaining the historical events or references of the time. There are short summaries of key arguments, as well as one-paragraph nuggets on the essays seeking to apply their wisdom to today's problems. "The Original Argument" is really a version of the "Federalist Papers for Dummies." </p> <p>But do we really need another work on the Constitution, or the Federalist Papers for that matter? The subject has become a cottage industry. There have been countless volumes written on the topic. Mr. Beck argues that the Federalist Papers are "boring" to read and arcane, thereby there is a need for his book. This is false—and puerile. I (along with millions of students) had no trouble reading the essays in college years ago. The same held true for the Bible, Shakespeare, Plato and all the other canons of Western civilization. Hence, will Mr. Beck be coming out with his adaptation of the Bible anytime soon—maybe one for those of his Mormon faith. </p> <p>Mr. Beck has cynically positioned himself as a so-called leader of the Tea Party. His rise to fame and fortune has been based on one giant gimmick: the wannabe constitutionalist professor, eye glasses and chalk-board in hand, preaching about the evils of progressivism. Yet, Mr. Beck is really a phony: He has placed Vaseline near his eyes so he could cry on cue about the suffering caused by President Obama's socialist policies. Mr. Beck is the court jester of the conservative movement. </p> <p>He is a modern-day P.T. Barnum, whose act has finally worn thin. His ratings at FOX dropped dramatically. He had become overexposed—the speaking tours, the countless books and novels, the metamorphosis into a self-help guru preaching personal empowerment and bogus uplift. He is now leaving the stage, launching his own Internet-based television network (GBTV). My prediction: it will flop. Just like "The Original Argument," Mr. Beck has nothing new or meaningful to say. This is a non-book by a non-author. </p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395381545218020265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4966921227529983571.post-21314208305409390322011-07-15T09:54:00.000-07:002011-07-15T09:55:03.471-07:00<div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1 class="mb min entry-title"><span style="font-size:130%;">High-stakes dealing on debt ceiling</span></h1><h2 class="grey mb min">President prepares to trade endgame for blame game</h2><div class="full left byline mb mt"><p class="left author vcard ">By <span class="fn"><a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/staff/donald-lambro/">Donald Lambro</a></span></p><p class="left source-org vcard"><span class="org fn">The Washington Times</span></p></div><div class="story left mb"><div class="column c160 left mb max"><div class="full left mb"><img src="http://media.washtimes.com/media/image/2011/07/14/b3-wc-obama_s160x125.jpg?5370caa7a3e14f25e9836df76c186a64fd7b1973" alt="Illustration: W.C. Obama" height="125" width="160" /><span class="small caption">Illustration: W.C. Obama</span></div><div class="full left mb min tools"><ul><li style="display: inline;" id="listentab" class="listen full bb"><a class="nt_listen" style="visibility: visible;" id="C2LContainer">Click-2-Listen</a></li></ul></div><div class="ad160x600 left mt mb"> <div style="position:absolute;left:0px;top:0px;visibility:hidden;"><img src="http://ads.undertone.com/l?bannerid=214736&campaignid=37862&zoneid=71&UTLIA=1&UTCBLOCK=86400&UTSCCAP=3&cb=f368fdc4f65a4a6a9839052231a2aba6&bk=lodw3k&id=8xwu775c5kbt62qdr95mipbf1" alt="" style="width:0px;height:0px;" height="0" width="0" /></div> <div style="position:absolute;left:0px;top:0px;visibility:hidden;"><img src="http://ads.undertone.com/l?bannerid=216894&campaignid=37549&zoneid=71&UTLIA=1&cb=86416b9fc2b84045b989fe6e6a31253b&bk=lodw3j&id=98faki9jko7k2puvc4rxyey2t" alt="" style="width:0px;height:0px;" height="0" width="0" /></div> </div></div><div class="entry-content"><p>The gulf between President <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/barack-obama/">Obama</a> and a divided <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/congress/">Congress</a> grows ever wider as the debt limit crisis stumbles toward a potentially catastrophic deadline.</p><p>Tempers flared Wednesday at the high-level negotiating session, with <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/barack-obama/">Mr. Obama</a> walking out of the meeting at one point, angrily warning House Majority Leader <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/eric-cantor/">Eric Cantor</a>, “Don’t call my bluff. You know I’m going to take this to the American people.”</p><p>But apparently the president, who thinks he can tax his way out of this mess, is unaware that Americans are strongly behind <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/eric-cantor/">Mr. Cantor</a> and the Republicans on the issue of tax increases versus spending cuts.</p><p>A Gallup poll reported Thursday that when people are asked how <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/congress/">Congress</a> should deal with the mountain of deficits and debts that threaten to sandbag our economy, 50 percent prefer spending cuts to tax hikes.</p><p>The nationwide poll showed 20 percent saying the debts should be dealt with only through spending cuts, while another 30 percent opted for “mostly with spending cuts.”</p><p>Only 32 percent said the government should cut the deficits equally between tax hikes and spending cuts, with just 7 percent saying “mostly with tax increases.”</p><p>Neither side is giving an inch as we near the Aug. 2 deadline when the government will run out of sufficient capital to pay all of its bills.</p><p>The <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/white-house/">White House</a> and most Republican leaders agree that failure to raise the debt limit will roil the financial markets and could plunge our fragile economy into yet another recession.</p><p>Even if an agreement is reach-ed in the negotiations, leading credit-rating agency <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/moodys/">Moody's</a> warned midweek that our AAA status could still be downgraded. With the government’s public debt rapidly approaching $15 trillion, or more than our economy’s entire gross domestic product, our debts now exceed our total annual income.</p><p>A downgrade would mean not only that the Treasury would have to pay higher interest rates to borrow money, but it also would drive up interest rates for mortgages, car and business loans, and credit card users.</p><p>“President <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/barack-obama/">Obama</a> wants a big deficit reduction deal - a long-term solution to the nation’s unbalanced finances. Yet, what the president and Republicans propose - even if both could accept much of what the other offers - would only delay the inevitable. Like <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/greece/">Greece</a>, America’s finances will grow worse and worse,” writes <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/university-of-maryland-college-park/">University of Maryland</a> business economist <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/peter-morici/">Peter Morici</a>.</p><p>The reasons: Dangerously excessive spending levels that even the largest economy in the world cannot afford to maintain and a 2 percent, snail’s-pace economic growth rate, combined with near-zero job creation and an ever-climbing unemployment rate that have flattened federal tax revenues.</p><p><a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/barack-obama/">Mr. Obama</a>’s tax-raising proposals would worsen our fiscal situation. His plan to raise taxes on incomes more than $200,000 would hit tens of thousands of small businesses struggling to survive and wouldn’t make a dent in this year’s $1.6 trillion deficit. Slapping manufacturers and corporations - such as oil companies - with higher taxes would shrink domestic production, yield less revenue and worsen the budget.</p><p>Throw in Obamacare, which is driving up state Medicaid costs and private insurance premiums and raising business expenses that force job cuts, and that would result in less revenue to pay the government’s bills.</p><p>Until now, Republican leaders believed that just the threat of not raising the debt ceiling would force <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/barack-obama/">Mr. Obama</a> to drop his insistence that higher taxes be a major part of any budget deal. But he knows that would anger his liberal political base, which is already showing signs of division and disapproval of his presidency. As of Wednesday, he was not budging from his tax posture.</p><p><a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jul/14/high-stakes-dealing-on-debt-ceiling/?page=2"><em>Story Continues →</em></a></p><span style="font-size:180%;"><a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jul/14/high-stakes-dealing-on-debt-ceiling/?page=all#pagebreak">View Entire Story</a></span><div class="pagination mb"><div class="pagination full pt"><span style="font-size:180%;"><span class="grey prev">‹‹ previous</span><span class="current pag">1</span><a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jul/14/high-stakes-dealing-on-debt-ceiling/?page=2" class="pag">2</a><a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jul/14/high-stakes-dealing-on-debt-ceiling/?page=2" class="next">next ››</a></span></div></div></div></div> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/07/high-stakes-dealing-on-debt-ceiling.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-07-15T09:50:00-07:00">9:50 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=9035320303384511180">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=9035320303384511180&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="1873894604513155466"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/07/obama-big-opportunity-to-calm-economy.html">Obama: ‘Big’ opportunity to calm economy</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1 class="mb min entry-title"><span style="font-size:130%;">Obama: ‘Big’ opportunity to calm economy</span></h1><div class="sharetools" style="padding-top: 5px;"><div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style"><span class="addthis_button_comments" style="float: left;"><br /></span><span class="addthis_separator"></span><a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jul/15/obama-chance-something-big-calm-economy/#" title="Send to Facebook_like" target="_blank" class="addthis_button_facebook_like at300b"><span></span></a></div></div><img src="http://media.washtimes.com/media/image/2011/07/15/obama-debt-showdown_live3_s640x418.jpg?349d669f1fb920eb523923d471d7c4824403ba4f" alt="President Obama makes an opening statement on the ongoing budget negotiations before a press conference at the White House on July 15, 2011. (Associated Press)" class="storyimg mt min" height="418" width="640" /><span class="small caption">President <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/barack-obama/">Obama</a> makes an opening statement on the ongoing budget negotiations before a press conference at the <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/white-house/">White House</a> on July 15, 2011. (Associated Press)</span><div class="column c160 left mb max"><p class="left author vcard ">By <span class="fn">Jim Kuhnhenn</span></p><p class="left source-org vcard"><span class="org fn">Associated Press</span></p><div class="ad160x600 left mt mb"> <div style="position:absolute;left:0px;top:0px;visibility:hidden;"><img src="http://ads.undertone.com/l?bannerid=214736&campaignid=37862&zoneid=71&UTLIA=1&UTCBLOCK=86400&UTSCCAP=3&cb=e5ed846af7704baa8d4faf344af2bb6a&bk=lodvxw&id=32j2ufc8aw85sf1yn9gbxwzyh" alt="" style="width:0px;height:0px;" height="0" width="0" /></div> <div style="position:absolute;left:0px;top:0px;visibility:hidden;"><img src="http://ads.undertone.com/l?bannerid=216894&campaignid=37549&zoneid=71&UTLIA=1&cb=e8293186e0a94521b93de7256067eadb&bk=lodvxw&id=duj2ebpk644bzcqy7x2efr0mz" alt="" style="width:0px;height:0px;" height="0" width="0" /></div> </div></div><p>WASHINGTON — President <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/barack-obama/">Barack</a><span>Obama</span> said Friday <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/congress/">Congress</a> has a “unique opportunity to do something big” and stabilize the U.S. economy for decades by cutting deficits even as it raises the national debt limit ahead of a critical Aug. 2 deadline. But, he declared, “We’re running out of time.”</p><p><span>Obama</span> said he was ready to make tough decisions — such as on <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/medicare/">Medicare</a> costs — and challenged Republicans to do the same. He attempted to turn the Republicans’ opposition to any tax increases back against them, warning starkly that failure to raise the debt ceiling would mean “effectively a tax increase for everybody” if the government defaults, sending up interest rates.</p><p>Still, <span>Obama</span> said that “it’s hard to do a big package” in deadlocked Washington, acknowledging Republicans are opposed to any new tax revenue as part of a deficit-cutting deal.</p><p>“If they show me a serious plan I’m ready to move,” he said.</p><p>The president spoke at the <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/white-house/">White House</a> Friday after five days straight of meetings with congressional leaders failed to yield compromise, and amid increasingly urgent warnings from credit agencies and the financial sector about the risks of failing to raise the government’s borrowing limit.</p><p>Administration officials and private economists say that if the U.S. fails to raise its borrowing limit and begins to stop paying its bills as a result, the fragile U.S. economy could be cast into a crisis that would reverberate around the globe. Democratic and Republican congressional leaders agree on the need to avert that outcome, but that hasn’t been enough to get Republicans to agree to the tax hikes on corporations and the wealthy sought by <span>Obama</span> — or to convince <span>Obama</span> and Democrats to sign onto the steep entitlement cuts without new revenue that Republicans favor.</p><p>The president spoke at his third news conference in two weeks on an issue that is increasingly consuming Washington and his presidency.</p><p>The president said he was ready to make tough decisions such as restructuring <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/medicare/">Medicare</a> so that very wealthy recipients would have to pay slightly more. He said he had stressed to Republicans that anything they looked at should not affect current beneficiaries, and he said providers such as drug companies could be targeted for cuts.</p><p>On Capitol Hill, meanwhile, Democrats and Republicans in the <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/house/">House</a> emerged from closed-door meetings to reiterate their hardened stances. Republicans announced plans to call a vote next week on a balanced budget constitutional amendment that would force the government to balance its books.</p><p><span>Obama</span> dismissed the idea, saying, “We don’t need a constitutional amendment to do that. What we need to do is do our jobs.”</p><p>Failure to reach compromise has focused attention on a fallback plan under discussion by <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/senate/">Senate</a> Republican leader <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/mitch-mcconnell/">Mitch McConnell</a> and <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/senate/">Senate</a> Majority Leader <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/harry-reid/">Harry Reid</a>. That plan would give <span>Obama</span> greater authority to raise the debt ceiling while setting procedures in motion that could lead to federal spending cuts.</p><p><span>Obama</span> insisted the public was on his side in wanting a “balanced approach” that would mix spending cuts and the tax increases opposed by Republicans.</p><p>“The American people are sold,” he said. “The problem is that members of <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/congress/">Congress</a> are dug in ideologically.”</p><p>He renewed his pitch for a major package of some $4 trillion, about three-quarters of which would be spending cuts along with about $1 trillion in new revenue.</p><p>“We have a chance to stabilize America’s finances for a decade or 15 years or 20 years if we’re willing to seize the moment,” the president said, adding later that everyone must be “willing to compromise.”</p><p><a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jul/15/obama-chance-something-big-calm-economy/?page=2"><em>Story Continues →</em></a></p><span style="font-size:180%;"><a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jul/15/obama-chance-something-big-calm-economy/?page=all#pagebreak">View Entire Story</a></span><div class="pagination mb"><div class="pagination full pt"><span style="font-size:180%;"><span class="grey prev">‹‹ previous</span><span class="current pag">1</span><a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jul/15/obama-chance-something-big-calm-economy/?page=2" class="pag">2</a><a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jul/15/obama-chance-something-big-calm-economy/?page=2" class="next">next ››</a></span></div></div> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/07/obama-big-opportunity-to-calm-economy.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-07-15T09:47:00-07:00">9:47 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=1873894604513155466">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=1873894604513155466&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="4159936679036226195"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/07/lower-debt-ceiling.html">Lower the Debt Ceiling</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1> <span style="font-size:130%;">Lower the Debt Ceiling</span></h1> <p class="meta"> <strong>Mises Daily:</strong> by <a id="ctl00_ctl00_ContentPlaceHolder1_ContentPlaceHolder1_lnkAuthor" rel="author" href="http://mises.org/daily/author/288/Mark-Thornton">Mark Thornton</a> </p><div class="editorial-preface"> <p>[An MP3 audio file of this article, narrated by the author, is <a href="http://media.mises.org/mp3/audioarticles/5457_Thornton.mp3?utm_source=mp3&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=Direct_MP3">available for download</a>.]</p> </div> <div class="figure"><img src="http://images.mises.org/CapitolOffTheChart.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></div> <p>Currently, the big show in Washington, DC, centers around raising the debt ceiling. Congress began setting this ceiling in 1917 so that the Treasury could independently issue debt.<a href="http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/105193.pdf"><img src="http://images.mises.org/icons/pdf.png" alt="Download PDF" border="0" /></a> The debt ceiling is like the limit on your credit card, except the federal government sets the limit on itself. When President Nixon took us off the gold standard in 1971, the national debt was $400 billion. The increase in the national debt last year alone was four times the entire debt in 1971.</p> <p>Both Democrats and Republicans tell us that not raising the debt ceiling would have a negative — even catastrophic — effect on the American and world economies. They are in agreement on this. The only matter of debate is what concessions are necessary in order to establish a bipartisan majority to pass a bill raising the ceiling. Democrats seem to want larger cuts and tax increases, while Republicans want smaller cuts with no tax increases. The multitrillion-dollar cuts that they are discussing only occur over a ten-year time frame and do not balance the budget, so no one except Ron Paul is really discussing the kinds of budget cutting that would actually help the economy.</p> <p>What we really need to do is to <i>lower</i> the debt ceiling. If Congress passed legislation that systematically reduced the debt ceiling over time, the economy could be rebuilt on a solid foundation. Entrepreneurs in the productive sectors would realize that an ever-increasing proportion of resources (land, labor, and capital) would be at their disposal, while companies that capitalized on the federal budget would have an ever-declining share of such resources.</p> <p>Congress would have to cut the pay and benefits of its employees (<a href="http://mises.org/daily/4797/The-Real-Reason-for-FDRs-Popularity">FDR cut them by 25 percent</a> in the depths of the Great Depression) as well as the number of such employees. Real wage rates would decline, allowing entrepreneurs to hire more employees to produce consumer-valued goods.</p> <p>Congress would have to cut back on its far-flung regulatory operations, which are in fact one of the biggest drags on the economy due to the burden and uncertainty that Obama and Congress have created in terms of healthcare, financial-market, and environmental regulations. A recent study by the Phoenix Center found that even a small reduction of 5 percent, or $2.8 billion, in the federal regulatory budget would result in about $75 billion in increased private-sector GDP each year and the addition of 1.2 million jobs annually.<a href="http://www.phoenix-center.org/PolicyBulletin/PCPB28onepagerFinal.pdf"><img src="http://images.mises.org/icons/pdf.png" alt="Download PDF" border="0" /></a> Eliminating the job of even a single regulator grows the American economy by $6.2 million and creates nearly 100 private-sector jobs annually.</p> <p>Under a reduced debt ceiling, the federal government would also have to sell off some of its resources. It has tens of thousands of buildings that are no longer in use and tens of thousands of buildings that are significantly underused — about 75,000 buildings in total. It also controls over 400 million acres of land, or over 20 percent of all land outside of Alaska, which is almost wholly owned by the government. There is also the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Petroleum_Reserve_%28United_States">Strategic Petroleum Reserve</a> and many other assets that could be sold off to cover short-term budget shortfalls.</p> <div class="book-ad" id="main-ad"> <div class="book-img"><a href="http://mises.org/store/Money-Bank-Credit-and-Economic-Cycles-P290.aspx"><img src="http://mises.org/store/Assets/ProductImages/B582.jpg" border="0" /></a></div> </div> <p>Of course, reducing the debt ceiling would force the government to stop borrowing so much money from credit markets. This would leave significantly more credit available for the private sector. The shortage of capital is one of the most often cited reasons for the failure of the economy to recover.</p> <p>Lowering the debt ceiling would force federal-government budget cutting on a large scale, and this would free up resources (labor, land, and capital) and force a cutback in the federal government's regulatory apparatus. This would put Americans back to work producing consumer-valued goods.</p> <p>Passing an increase in the debt ceiling merely perpetuates the myth that there is any ceiling or control or limit on the government's ability to waste resources in the short run and its willingness to pass the burden of this squander onto future generations.</p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/07/lower-debt-ceiling.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-07-15T09:43:00-07:00">9:43 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=4159936679036226195">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=4159936679036226195&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <a name="4361666597581149329"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/07/short-history-of-us-credit-defaults.html">A Short History of US Credit Defaults</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1> A Short History of US Credit Defaults</h1> <p class="meta"> <strong>Mises Daily:</strong> by <a id="ctl00_ctl00_ContentPlaceHolder1_ContentPlaceHolder1_lnkAuthor" rel="author" href="http://mises.org/daily/author/1456/John-S-Chamberlain">John S. Chamberlain</a> </p><div class="figure"><img src="http://images.mises.org/USEmptyWallet.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></div> <p>On July 13th, the president of the United States angrily walked out of ongoing negotiations over the raising of the debt ceiling from its legislated maximum of $14.294 trillion dollars. This prompted a new round of speculation over whether the United States might default on its financial obligations. In these circumstances, it is useful to recall the previous instances in which this has occurred and the effects of those defaults. By studying the defaults of the past, we can gain insights into what future defaults might portend.</p> <h2>The Continental-Currency Default </h2> <p>The first default of the United States was on its first issuance of debt: the currency emitted by the Continental Congress of 1775. In June of 1775 the Continental Congress of the United States of America, located in Philadelphia, representing the 13 states of the union, issued bills of credit amounting to 2 million Spanish milled dollars to be paid four years hence in four annual installments.</p> <p>The next month an additional 1 million was issued. A third issue of 3 million followed. The next year they issued an additional 13 million dollars of notes. These were the first of the "Continental dollars," which were used to fund the war of revolution against Great Britain. The issues continued until an estimated 241 million dollars were outstanding, not including British forgeries.</p> <p>Congress had no power of taxation, so it made each of the several states responsible for redeeming a proportion of the notes according to population. The administration of these notes was delegated to a "Board of the Treasury" in 1776. To refuse the notes or receive them below par was punishable by having your ears cut off and other horrible penalties.</p> <p>The notes progressively depreciated as the public began to realize that neither the states nor their Congress had the will or capacity to redeem them. In November of 1779, Congress announced a devaluation of 38.5 to 1 on the Continentals, which amounted to an admission of default. In this year refusal to accept the notes became widespread, and trade was reduced to barter — causing sporadic famines and other privations.</p> <p>Eventually, Congress agreed to redeem the notes at 1,000 to 1. At a rate of 0.82 troy ounces to the Spanish milled dollar, if we take the current (July 2011) price of silver, $36 to the troy ounce, this first default resulted in a cumulative loss of approximately $7 billion dollars to the American public.</p> <p>Benjamin Franklin characterized the loss as a tax. Memory of the suffering and economic disruption caused by this "tax" and similar bills of credit issued by the states influenced the contract clause of the Constitution, which was adopted in 1789:</p> <blockquote> <div class="figure"><a href="http://mises.org/store/Liberty-Defined-P10463.aspx"><img src="http://mises.org/store/Assets/ProductImages/Thumbnails/B1011_T.jpg" /></a></div> <p>No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts.</p> </blockquote> <h2>The Default on Continental Domestic Loans </h2> <p>In addition to its currency issuance, the Continental Congress borrowed money both domestically and abroad. The domestic debt totaled approximately $11 million Spanish dollars. The interest on this debt was paid primarily by money received from France and Holland as part of separate borrowings. When this source of funding dried up, Congress defaulted on its domestic debt, starting on March 1, 1782. Partial satisfaction of these debts was made later by accepting the notes for payments of taxes and other indirect considerations.</p> <p>In an act of 1790, Congress repudiated these loans entirely, but offered to convert them to new ones with less favorable terms, thereby memorializing the default in the form of a Federal law.</p> <h2>The Greenback Default of 1862 </h2> <p>After the Revolutionary War, the Congress of the United States made only limited issuance of debt and currency, leaving the problems of public finance largely to the states and private banks. (These entities defaulted on a regular basis up to the <a href="http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Panic_of_1837">Panic of 1837</a>, in which a crescendo of state defaults led to the invention of the term "repudiation of debts.")</p> <p>In August of 1861, this balance between local and federal finance switched forever; the Civil War induced Congress to create a new currency, which became known as the "greenback" due to the green color of its ink. The original greenbacks were $60 million in demand notes in denominations of $5, $10, and $20. These were redeemable in specie at any time at a rate of 0.048375 troy ounces of gold per dollar. Less than five months later, in January of 1862, the US Treasury defaulted on these notes by failing to redeem them on demand.</p> <p>After this failure, the Treasury made subsequent issues of greenbacks as "legal-tender" notes, which were not redeemable on demand, except through foreign exchange, and could not be used to pay customs duties. Depending on the fortunes of war, these notes traded for gold at a discount ranging from 20 percent to 40 percent. By the stratagem of monetizing this currency with bonds and paying only the interest on those bonds in gold acquired through customs fees, Lincoln's party financed the Civil War with no further defaults.</p> <h2>The Liberty Bond Default of 1934 </h2> <p>The financing of the United States government stepped up to a whole new level upon its entry into the Great War, now known as World War I. The new enterprises of the government included merchant-fleet maintenance and operation, production of ammunition, feeding and equipping soldiers entirely at its own expense, and many other expensive things it had never done before or done only on a much smaller scale.</p> <p>To finance these activities, Congress issued a series of debentures known as "Liberty Bonds" starting in 1917. The preliminary series were convertible into issues of later series at progressively more favorable terms until the debt was rolled into the fourth Liberty Bond, dated October 24, 1918, which was a $7 billion dollar, 20-year, 4.25 percent issue, payable in gold at a rate of $20.67 per troy ounce.</p> <p>By the time Franklin Roosevelt entered office in 1933, the interest payments alone were draining the treasury of gold; and because the treasury had only $4.2 billion in gold it was obvious there would be no way to pay the principal when it became due in 1938, not to mention meet expenses and other debt obligations.</p> <p>These other debt obligations were substantial. Ever since the 1890s the Treasury had been gold short and had financed this deficit by making new bond issues to attract gold for paying the interest of previous issues. The result was that by 1933 the total debt was $22 billion and the amount of gold needed to pay even the interest on it was soon going to be insufficient.</p> <p>In this exigency, Roosevelt decided to default on the whole of the domestically held debt by refusing to redeem in gold to Americans and devaluing the dollar by 40 percent against foreign exchange. By taking these steps the Treasury was able to make a partial payment and maintain foreign exchange with the critical trade partners of the United States.</p> <p>If we price gold at the present-day value of $1,550 per troy ounce, the total loss to investors by the devaluation was approximately $640 billion in 2011 dollars. The overall result of the default was to intensify the depression and trade reductions of the 1930s and to contribute to fomenting World War II.</p> <h2>The Momentary Default of 1979 </h2> <p>The Treasury of the United States accidentally defaulted on a small number of bills during the 1979 debt-limit crisis. Due to administrative confusion, $120 million in bills coming due on April 26, May 3, and May 10 were not paid according to the stated terms. The Treasury eventually paid the face value of the bills, but nevertheless a class-action lawsuit, <i>Claire G. Barton v. United States</i>, was filed in the Federal court of the Central District of California over whether the treasury should pay additional interest for the delay.</p> <p>The government decided to avoid any further publicity by giving the jilted investors what they wanted rather than ride the high horse of sovereign immunity. An economic study of the affair concluded that the net result was a tiny permanent increase in the interest rates of T-bills.</p> <h2>What Will Happen in August of 2011? </h2> <p>Many people are wondering about the possibility of a default by the Treasury on August 3, 2011, when, according to the Treasury's projections, it will no longer be able to meet all expenses without additional borrowing.</p> <div class="book-ad" id="main-ad"> <div class="book-img"><a href="http://mises.org/store/Economic-Controversies-P10459.aspx"><img src="http://mises.org/store/Assets/ProductImages/B962.jpg" border="0" width="200" /></a></div> </div> <p>In this event, it is unlikely a default will occur. Historically, governments prioritize debt service above all other expenses. If the expansion of funds via debt becomes ipossible, the Treasury will cease paying other expenses first, starting with "nonessential" discretionary expenditures, and then it will move on to mandatory expenditures and entitlements as a last resort.</p> <p>In extremis, what will happen is that all the losses will be foisted onto the Federal Reserve. The Fed holds something on the order of $1.6 trillion in debt issued by the Treasury of the United States. By having the Federal Reserve purchase blocks of Treasury debt and defaulting on these non-investor-held securities, the United States can postpone a default against real investors essentially forever.</p></div><span class="post-author vcard"><span class="fn"></span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395381545218020265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4966921227529983571.post-87654155511882208802011-07-14T10:36:00.001-07:002011-07-14T10:36:08.018-07:00<div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1><span style="font-size:130%;">The New Commanding Heights</span></h1> <p>by Arnold Kling </p><p><span class="tallcap">I</span>n the early 1920s, the Russian economy was flagging, having been ravaged by years of war and political turmoil. In an attempt at revival, Vladimir Lenin initiated a series of controversial reforms, including permitting a bit of profit-making enterprise in some areas of the economy. This move naturally shocked many Bolsheviks, who had risked their lives in the Russian Revolution in order to advance communist principles. Eager to alleviate their concerns, Lenin addressed the communist-party faithful at a convention in 1922. He told them not to worry: The reforms were relatively modest, and the new Soviet state would always retain its control over what he called the "commanding heights" of the economy.</p> <p class="first">By "commanding heights," Lenin meant the critical sectors that dominated economic activity — primarily electricity generation, heavy manufacturing, mining, and transportation. Because these industries were the foremost drivers of employment, production, and consumption in Russia — and because they were the essential growth sectors in any economy of that era that sought to be called "modern" — government control of these particular sectors meant government dominance over the economic life of the nation. A communist government could afford to permit relatively free markets in less significant sectors, Lenin thought, because as long as it controlled those industries that formed the heart of the economy, it effectively controlled the whole.</p> <p>Throughout much of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, communist and socialist parties around the world continued to see government dominance of these industries as a key goal. The commanding heights of the economy became crucial battlegrounds in the struggle between advocates of central planning and defenders of market economics. </p><div class="box2"> <div class="boxcontent"> <span class="author_pub2" id="author_pic"></span><p style="font-family:Georgia;"><em><a href="http://www.cato.org/people/arnold-kling">Arnold Kling</a> is an adjunct scholar with the Cato Institute and a member of the Financial Markets Working Group at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Nick Schulz is the DeWitt Wallace Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the editor of American.com.</em></p> <a class="head" href="http://www.cato.org/people/arnold-kling">More by Arnold Kling</a></div></div> <p>In America today, few people champion government control of the industries Lenin saw as the commanding heights. On the contrary, these sectors have been largely deregulated, and market forces have, for the most part, been permitted to govern their development for decades. Defenders of the market might therefore imagine that they have won, and that the struggles that remain are peripheral debates.</p> <p>But such a declaration of victory would be dangerously premature. Over the past few decades, our economy has undergone some fundamental changes — with the result that the fight for control over the commanding heights of American economic life is still very much with us. And it is a fight that, at least for now, the free-market camp appears to be losing.</p> <p>The commanding heights of our economy today are not heavy manufacturing, energy, and transportation. They are, rather, education and health care. These are our foremost growth sectors — the ones most central to employment and consumption; the ones that, increasingly, drive our economy. And it is in precisely these two sectors that the case for extensive government intervention and planning, if not outright control, is dominant — and becoming ever more so.</p> <p>If there is to be any hope of reversing this trend, champions of market economics must come to see these two sectors as the front lines in the battle for capitalism. At stake is not only an ideological or theoretical point, but also American prosperity. The historical record makes this clear: In the nations where it was practiced, government control of the old commanding heights of the economy made those industries less efficient and less innovative — bringing overall economic performance down with them.</p> <p>Today, America risks following the same course. Looking to the coming decades, it will simply not be possible to maintain a genuine free market — or a thriving, innovative, growing economy — if our education and health sectors are controlled by the government. Champions of the market thus have their work cut out for them. First and foremost, however, they must come to understand the central place that education and health care occupy in America's economic life.</p> <p><b>AN ECONOMY TRANSFORMED</b></p> <p>To discern where the heart of an economy lies, one must identify the sectors in which employment and consumption are focused, and in which growth is swiftest. In the case of our own economy, the data over recent decades clearly show the decline of the old commanding heights — manufacturing and heavy industry — and their replacement by "softer" sectors, especially health care, education, and government work.</p> <p>Economists Michael Spence and Sandile Hlatshwayo recently devised a way of breaking the American economy into industries that produce tradable goods and services and industries that produce non-tradable ones. They calculated that, from 1990 to 2008, employment in the tradable sector edged up from 33.7 million to 34.3 million. Meanwhile, in the non-tradable sector — which covers most service-based businesses — employment rose from 88.3 million to 114.9 million. Thus the non-tradable sector accounted for nearly <em>all</em> of the job growth during this period.</p> <p>We are accustomed to thinking that our country is in the midst of a long transition from an industrial economy to a "service" economy, and these figures would seem to confirm that perception. But the service economy is not what we often think it is. The images that most readily come to mind when we think of these sectors might involve retail sales, information-technology consulting, and financial services. But Spence and Hlatshwayo's work shows that, within the non-tradable sector, health care was easily the growth leader — increasing from 10 million to 16.3 million jobs, and accounting for almost 25% of total job growth in the past two decades. Government was second, growing from 18.4 million to 22.5 million jobs, and accounting for about 15% of total job growth. Of this expansion in government employment, nearly 70% was attributable to jobs in education. Today, the drivers of the American labor market are therefore clearly health, education, and government work; these sectors form the backbone of our post-industrial economy.</p> <p>Over the past decade, this trend has only accelerated. Economist Michael Mandel has shown that, between February 2001 and February 2011, employment in the U.S. economy in health care, education, and government increased by 16%. This was not simply a function of a growing population and economy: During the same period, employment outside of those sectors <em>decreased</em> by 8%. Wage gains were similarly tilted toward health and education. "What we see," Mandel explains, "is that health and education (public and private) accounted for an amazing 75% of real wage and salary gains."</p> <p>A similar picture emerges when one looks at changes in American spending and consumption patterns. Our examination of the most recent data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis concludes that spending on health care and education (public and private combined) accounted for 21% of gross domestic product in 2000 and roughly 26% in 2010. Education and health-care spending thus accounted for an astonishing 37% of the overall growth of the economy over the past ten years.</p> <p>The recession of the past few years presents an especially clear picture of consumption patterns and priorities — for it is during such downturns that people must prioritize their spending, thus offering economists a sense of the relative degree to which Americans value certain goods and services over others. In the period between January 2008 and January 2009, for instance, Americans significantly reduced spending related to cars, as well their spending on clothing and food. At the same time, they increased spending on education, recreation, and, most of all, health care.</p> <center><img src="http://www.nationalaffairs.com/imgLib/20110623_KlingSchulz_webchartVERYSMALL.jpg" /></center> <p>Several related factors have combined to produce this trend. When economists compare different sectors — particularly in terms of employment — they consider the relationship between demand for the goods those sectors provide and the productivity of those sectors in meeting that demand. If demand for a sector's product grows more rapidly than that sector's productivity can increase in order to keep up, employers in that sector will need to hire more workers to bridge the gap. Similarly, when demand grows less rapidly than productivity, that sector will experience relative shrinkage.</p> <p>Changes in both demand and productivity across the economy have brought about the growing dominance of the health and education sectors. Relative changes in demand have chiefly been a function of rising incomes over many decades — a shift that has put many basic necessities (such as food, clothing, and shelter) more easily within the reach of more Americans. At the same time, this shift has provided Americans with more disposable income, which many people have chosen to spend on health care and education. This does not mean that people are spending less money in nominal terms than they once did on food, clothing, or manufactured items. What it means is that people spend a smaller <em>proportion</em> of their incomes on these commodities, since Americans now have significantly more money to spend than they used to.</p> <p>This change is easiest to see when examining spending patterns over the very long term. Economic historian Robert Fogel compared how potential income was divided among broad categories of goods and services in 1875 with its distribution among the same categories 120 years later. He found the following:</p> <center><img src="http://www.nationalaffairs.com/imgLib/20110625_KlingSchulz_table_small.jpg" /></center> <p>The period Fogel examined is, obviously, an extremely long stretch over which to trace economic trends — spanning from roughly the beginning of the industrial era in America to nearly its end. But what Fogel confirmed in his research was that, across this wide window of time, the proportion of people's incomes spent on bare necessities diminished as their incomes rose. Meanwhile, more of Americans' wealth came to be devoted to health, education, and leisure.</p> <p>It should be noted that Fogel's findings are expressed in terms of <em>potential</em> income — in other words, the income that someone <em>could</em> earn from working full time as an adult, including income that is implicitly taken as leisure. Thus, when Americans devote greater portions of time to leisure (as they now do, thanks to developments like a shorter work week and longer lives in retirement), this is expressed as a proportion of income — which tends to inflate the numbers for leisure in Fogel's calculations. Putting leisure aside, however, his consideration of how real income has been used by Americans over the past 12 decades provides more evidence in support of a crucial point: As our society has grown more wealthy, there has been a significant increase in the proportion of income that people choose to devote to education and health care; a significantly smaller share, meanwhile, has come to be devoted to basic necessities and durable goods.</p> <p>Economists describe such trends in terms of "income elasticity of demand." This phrase refers to how the demand for a particular good responds to changes in the incomes of the people demanding that good. Some goods, like public transportation, show a negative income elasticity of demand — meaning that people consume less of them as they get wealthier. Others, like bread and butter, show an elasticity near zero — meaning people buy them at roughly constant levels regardless of whether they are rich or poor.</p> <p>Fogel has shown that education and health care have particularly high income elasticities of demand. By his calculations, the long-term income elasticity of demand for each is roughly 1.6 — meaning that, if a person's potential income goes up by 1%, his spending on those services will rise by 1.6%. As people get wealthier, therefore, the relative portion of their incomes going to health and education will increase.</p> <p>To illustrate the point, suppose, for example, that in 2030 potential income has increased over its 1995 level by 100%. If in 1995 we had $100 in potential income and spent $9 on health care (as Fogel's figures show), then in 2030 we will have $200 in potential income and spend $23 on health care. In other words, while potential income will have doubled, spending on health care will have increased by a factor of more than 2.5. Generally speaking, this is the trend that has emerged in education and health-care spending in recent decades — and all signs suggest that it will continue.</p> <p>But the growing centrality of education and health care is not only a function of public preferences and demand. Another important factor, especially to the two sectors' growth within the labor market, is the fact that it is more difficult to squeeze labor costs out of those industries than it is in, say, manufacturing or agriculture. After all, most factory work does not require deep knowledge or complex judgment. As a result, engineers are constantly developing machines that can substitute for humans in manufacturing. Furthermore, as countries like China and India become more integrated into the global economy, an ever-larger pool of low-skill labor becomes available. The need for manufacturing labor in the United States is therefore reduced; the relative cost of manufacturing output is thus held down.</p> <p>Compared to manufacturing, the delivery of services in education and health care today is relatively labor intensive. Teachers and doctors require much more training than do manufacturing workers. Everyday work in education and health care generally involves more judgment and complex decision-making than are required on a production line. These higher-level tasks are not as easily handed over to machines or outsourced to low-skilled workers abroad.</p> <p>Education and health care are also more resistant to the productivity increases that have dramatically altered the manufacturing sector. Factory automation, for instance, can swiftly raise the number of widgets produced per worker; office automation has vastly streamlined supply-chain management, inventory control, and accounting. But increasing the number of operations per surgeon, or the number of essays graded per teacher, is much more difficult. Hence, productivity growth in health care and education lags behind that in other industries.</p> <p>As a rule, this means that health care and education tend to be less efficient. As increased productivity has led to wage growth in other, more efficient industries, the inefficient sectors must maintain competitive wages. But without the commensurate productivity gains, they experience cost growth, an effect named "Baumol's Cost Disease" (after the economist William Baumol, who identified it in the 1960s).</p> <p>Baumol's famous illustration of this phenomenon compared classical musicians with auto workers. It takes just as many musicians to play one of Mozart's symphonies today as it did a half-century ago, but it takes far fewer auto workers to produce a car now than it did then. As a result, manufacturing has become much more efficient — employing fewer people, but paying each of them somewhat more. Orchestras can't employ fewer people, but they do have to pay each of their employees more than they used to — if only to keep up with the rest of the economy, lest their musicians run off to become auto workers.</p> <p>The result is that, over time, costs in less efficient industries — like the fine arts, but also health care and education — will increase in relation to costs in more efficient industries. And these increasing costs, as well as rising demand for the services these sectors offer, have combined to place both education and health care at the commanding heights of today's economy.</p> <p><b>PUBLIC SECTORS</b></p> <p>If it were true only that health care and education are increasingly important sectors of our economy, there would be little cause for concern. Indeed, societies ought to desire economies that are strong and flexible enough to hum along as new technologies and other developments cause industries within them to rise and fall. The problem, rather, is that both health care and education are increasingly government-dominated industries. And this domination produces two ill effects that exacerbate the changes these sectors are already undergoing: Government's influence artificially increases the demand for health care and education (by significantly subsidizing both), and it makes both sectors even less efficient than they would be otherwise (by heavily regulating them and shielding them from market forces).</p> <p>In most industrialized countries, more than 80% of health-care spending is now paid for by third parties, primarily government, leaving about 20% to be paid directly by consumers. In the United States, however, only about 10% of health-care spending is paid for by households out of pocket. About 50% is directly paid for by government, mainly through Medicare and Medicaid. And about 35% comes from private health insurance, which is heavily subsidized by the government through the income-tax exemption for employer-provided coverage. The result is that patients rarely need to factor in cost when making choices about medical treatment, since someone else is footing almost all of the bill.</p> <p>Removing cost as a consideration certainly increases the demand for medical services, although it is difficult to calculate precisely how much. In 1971, RAND began a 15-year study to examine the effects of free medical care on both health-care consumption and participants' actual health quality. To date, the experiment is the only major controlled study of health-care spending behavior in America. And its findings clearly demonstrated that households tend to reduce consumption of medical services when they shoulder a greater share of the cost. Families whose coverage included cost-sharing components (like co-insurance) used between 20% and 30% less medical care (depending on the extent of their co-insurance). Moreover, as the RAND study put it, "In general, the reduction in services induced by cost sharing had no adverse effect on participants' health."</p> <p>As for education in the United States, government directly provides most schooling from kindergarten through 12<sup>th</sup> grade through the public-school system that now educates about 90% of American children. Through various tax benefits, it also subsidizes some educational expenses for parents who choose to have their children educated outside of that system. In addition, there are large public universities where many students pay less in tuition than the cost of their education, pushing enormous expenses onto the taxpayer. Finally, the federal government subsidizes college education to a massive degree even in private colleges and universities, with generous student-loan guarantees and other financial-support programs.</p> <p>Government also has enormous influence over the supply side of health care and education. For instance, in primary education — again, because most children attend public schools — states and localities employ the great majority of educators. Government schools face little market pressure to improve productivity, and it is difficult to change outmoded practices and fire incompetent teachers.</p> <p>Another way government shapes work-force supply (and, for that matter, demand) is through its support for credential requirements. The salary scales for government employment often automatically reward people for obtaining additional educational credentials; given the massive number of jobs in the government sector, as well as the high demand for them, this helps to stimulate the demand for post-graduate education. Requirements for credentials also restrict the supply of teachers in public schools: Even though there is reason to doubt the practical classroom value of teacher education provided at the college level, a degree in education is required for employment by most public-school systems.</p> <p>The entry of new providers into the health-care sector is similarly regulated, primarily through government-mandated licensing requirements. Not surprisingly, these requirements are often manipulated by incumbent practitioners in order to restrict supply. They can make it impossible for health-care providers to improve efficiency by substituting on-the-job training for formal educational credentials. Such restrictions might make sense in the case of many physicians and nurses, but they extend to every variety of service provider in health care in ways that often undermine cost effectiveness and efficiency. For example, several years ago, the state of Maryland increased the education requirements for licensed physical therapists, insisting that anyone entering the profession hold a doctorate. This sort of requirement benefits degree-granting institutions and works to the advantage of the incumbent physical therapists, but comes at the expense of consumers.</p> <p>We are left to wonder how much of the salary gap between workers with college degrees and those without is artificial. We cannot tell how salaries <em>would</em> be determined if government did not set its own pay scales based on educational attainment (thereby setting a standard that private employers must compete with); we cannot calculate precisely where pay levels would be if government did not enforce licensing restrictions in health care, education, and other industries. Still, it is not difficult to imagine that, if a dynamic and free market were allowed to flourish in education and health services, there might be more apprenticeships and fewer degree factories; one can easily see how salaries might be determined more on the basis of performance than of educational attainment. But because there is no true free market in these industries, the usual methods we have for evaluating such patterns simply do not suffice.</p> <p>The inability to apply the usual standards and measures of our market economy to health care and education points to a broader problem with government's domination of our new commanding heights. The unique characteristics of these sectors — and especially the fact that they are subject to so much government influence and control — make it very difficult to assess them using the terms in which we usually describe our economy. It is therefore nearly impossible to compare them to other sectors, to distinguish success from failure, and to make informed consumer choices.</p> <p>In health care, education, and government work, concepts like economic value, efficiency, productivity, and consumer preferences are obscured. And as these sectors continue to grow more central to our economy in the years ahead, our broader economy will therefore become more difficult to analyze and understand in traditional market terms.</p> <p><b>THE NON-MARKET ECONOMY</b></p> <p>To be sure, part of this shift is inherent to the nature of the "softer" sectors that now make up the commanding heights of American economic life. The "products" of education and health care are less tangible than those of heavy industry or agriculture, making them more difficult to measure and quantify. We can quantify the inputs — the workers and equipment used in medical procedures or in teaching — but their effects on outcomes are notoriously difficult to judge.</p> <p>Nobel Prize-winning economist Kenneth Arrow is usually credited with first noting the information asymmetries that characterize health care — for instance, the basic fact that it is often difficult for a consumer to know whether the treatment provided by his physician is correct. Doctors, after all, have expertise that patients lack. Similarly, in education, consumers typically have to trust that the educators involved in selecting a curriculum, and the teachers who are delivering it, know what they are doing. But it is not simply that consumers may lack knowledge about the value of educational or medical services: The providers themselves suffer from biases and large gaps in their knowledge. Thus, economic decisions and the allocation of both private and public resources in these sectors are often poorly informed.</p> <p>Many careful studies show little or no value added from increased health-care expenditures or additional resources devoted to education. It is true, of course, that people in the United States, and indeed all over the world, are healthier today than they were one or two generations ago; the average lifespan appears to be increasing at a rate of about three months per year, or about 2.5 years per decade in this country. And it's not just longevity: Overall health quality throughout one's life has improved as well. Robert Fogel has shown that the quality of life of people in their sixties is much improved in recent decades. The average number of chronic illnesses for those over age 65 has fallen dramatically. And these improvements in longevity and general health have had an enormous impact on well-being. Economists Kevin Murphy and Robert Topel estimated the economic value of the measurable improvements in health in the United States from 1970 to 2000 at about half of the value of the increase in GDP over that same time period.</p> <p>Nonetheless, although there is no doubt that health has improved considerably over time, it is not clear how much of this gain can be attributed to health <em>care</em>. Indeed, much of the improvement comes from better nutrition, less dangerous work environments, better sanitation, and other public-health measures, as well as more informed and health-conscious citizens. The marginal impact on health outcomes of increased spending on medical procedures appears to be low. Numerous studies, including the RAND health-care experiment, find <em>no</em> significant effect on outcomes for more intensive medical treatment in similar groups of patients. The Dartmouth Atlas project has documented large differences in health-care spending through Medicare across different regions of the country, with no apparent effect on outcomes.</p> <p>A similar pattern prevails in education. Looking at population averages, the correlation between schooling and earnings is unmistakable. Regions and countries with higher average levels of schooling have higher per capita incomes. Work by Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz has recently shown that, within the United States, the gap in average earnings between workers with college education and those without is large and apparently growing.</p> <p>But this correlation does not demonstrate causation, and the true impact of spending on outcomes in education is as elusive as it is in health care. In 2006, the United States spent close to 40% more per student on K-12 education than the average of the 34 developed nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Yet according to student-performance rankings in science, reading, and math, the U.S. ranks far below the OECD average. And in higher education, Stacy Dale and Alan Krueger have found that, controlling for factors that could be observed prior to college attendance, the actual choice of college (i.e., the choice between a very expensive and a far less expensive school) makes little or no difference in subsequent earnings.</p> <p>This is true even of education programs specifically meant to compensate for the many obstacles — poor home or community environment, low income, neglect, a lack of early-childhood schooling, and so forth — that are often blamed for gaps in later income attainment. Summarizing a large body of research, James Heckman wrote in 2005,</p> <blockquote>[C]lassroom remediation programs designed to combat early cognitive deficits have a poor track record. Public job training programs and adult literacy and educational programs, like the GED, that attempt to remediate years of educational and emotional neglect among disadvantaged individuals have a low economic return, and for young males, the return is negative.</blockquote> <p>In both education and health care, then, our faith in the value of expensive interventions is not reliably supported by the evidence. And as these sectors absorb larger shares of employment and spending, and become increasingly central to our economy, aggregate productivity measures will become more problematic — making our understanding of the economy at large ever more hazy.</p> <p>Naturally, there are also difficulties in measuring the value of complex durable goods in other sectors of the economy. It can be hard to compare, for instance, the value of this year's cell phone that includes a five-megapixel digital camera with last year's model that included only a three-megapixel camera. For these goods, however, consumer preferences offer vital guidance concerning value. The willingness of consumers to pay more for goods with certain features provides a clue as to the true value of those features.</p> <p>But in the cases of health care and education — in large part because of the dominance of government in these sectors — the prices of various "features" are often barely related to consumer preferences. With much of health-care and education spending paid for by third parties (and ultimately subsidized by government), consumers generally do not make decisions based on perceived relative value. The medical patient, instead of asking which medical procedure offers the greatest value, asks only whether the recommended procedure will be covered by insurance — a decision made by insurance-company or government bureaucrats, who have little sense of what is most important to the patient. The parents of a student in an elementary school are not responsible for choosing the school's teaching methods; as "consumers," they have no say in — and indeed, no way of knowing — whether the costly programs they pay for with their tax dollars are in fact producing good "value" in the form of their child's education.</p> <p>The result is that, in the sectors of education and health care, the preferences of policymakers — not of consumers — become the driving economic forces. And as these sectors become the new commanding heights, policymakers — rather than consumers and producers — will come to dominate more and more of our nation's economic life.</p> <p>Under these circumstances, the supposed inadequacy of market economics will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Markets can work in education and health care, but only if governments allow them to. This means that, for the champions of free enterprise, introducing market principles and mechanisms into health care and education must become a top priority in the years ahead.</p> <p><b>NEW PRIORITIES</b></p> <p>Unfortunately, these would-be champions have a lot of work to do. As the advocates of state control over education and health care have steadily ascended the new commanding heights, advocates of markets have been flat-footed. Why?</p> <p>In August 2008, Philip Klein wrote a perceptive article in the conservative <em>American Spectator</em> magazine. Addressing his compatriots on the right, and astutely anticipating the coming political dramas, Klein argued that his fellow conservatives needed to start "learning to care about health care." "While the right has been effective at mobilizing support among its activist base on issues such as guns, taxes, and judges," Klein wrote, "when it comes to health care, conservatives who aren't involved in public policy for a living tend to tune out."</p> <p>As a generalization, it's difficult to deny Klein's point. The academic and professional public-policy communities have long contained conservative and libertarian scholars doing serious and thoughtful work on health care. But, broadly speaking, the most politically active advocates of free enterprise have usually been uninterested in the details of health-care policy.</p> <p>Klein was concerned that apathy would ultimately translate into political defeat and greater state involvement in the nation's health-care system. The passage of Obamacare seemed to validate his concern (although the drawn-out fight over the law helped galvanize conservative activists and the Tea Party movement). That struggle has certainly made conservatives a little more interested in health care, but they have a lot of catching up to do. Most conservative politicians and activists still know little about the details of health policy, and still struggle with profound apathy. As one right-leaning policy wonk quoted by Klein put it, most of his fellow libertarians and conservatives "find health care a sort of squishy, bleeding-heart kind of issue that doesn't interest them very much."</p> <p>What has been true of health care has also often been true of education — an issue most conservative politicians have struggled to speak about. Market-minded conservatives have tended to dismiss both as "soft" issues with little relevance to the kind of "hard" economics that moves them most.</p> <p>As with all generalizations, there are exceptions. But it is telling that, when George W. Bush sought to distinguish himself from traditional conservatives — going so far as to brand himself a "compassionate conservative" — his campaign focused on his interest in education policy. And when prominent conservative politicians (including Bush) have shown a serious interest in health care and education, they have usually advanced policies that ceded control of the new commanding heights to critics of the market. Rather than looking for ways to bring market principles to these arenas, they have accepted the premise that "reform" of these sectors must require exceptions to their usual belief in the benefits of markets.</p> <p>Bush, for instance, pushed through a major expansion of the health-care entitlement system with his Medicare prescription-drug plan. And his signature domestic-policy achievement, the No Child Left Behind Act, marked a significant expansion of the federal government's role in K-12 education. Mitt Romney took a similar approach to health-care reform as governor of Massachusetts. He opted for greater government involvement in the state's health-care sector through an ill-considered system of mandates, price controls, and subsidies. The result has been, as the <em>Wall Street Journal</em> reports, that the state's total health-care spending as a share of its budget has gone from 30% in 2006 (when the law was enacted) to 40% today.</p> <p>Thinkers on the left have long seen these subjects more clearly. Consider the insights of the great social scientist Daniel Bell — who, while difficult to categorize politically, once famously described himself as "a socialist in economics." In his prophetic book <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Post-Industrial-Society-Venture-Forecasting/dp/0465097138/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1308861259&sr=1-1">The Coming of Post-Industrial Society</a></em>, Bell predicted that, over time, "there will be an enormous growth in the 'third sector': the non-profit area outside of business and government which includes <em>schools</em>, <em>hospitals</em>, <em>research</em> <em>institutes</em>, voluntary and civic associations, and the like" (emphasis added). Bell published this forecast in 1976, when the Cold War fight over the political control of the old commanding heights was still raging. It is safe to say that Bell and other economic progressives had a better understanding of how the new commanding heights of the economy would emerge over time than have their more conservative counterparts.</p> <p>But while advocates of market control (as opposed to political control) of the economy's commanding heights may have been slow to recognize the importance of education and health care, they may now finally be starting to catch up. The events of the past few years seem to have made the public increasingly wary of America's looming fiscal challenges. This is prompting renewed scrutiny of the nation's health-care entitlement programs, especially Medicare and Medicaid. It is also emboldening a number of reform-minded legislators and executives to propose changes to programs that were once thought politically untouchable. For its part, the passage of Obamacare has caused more conservatives to think seriously about the structure of our entire system of health insurance and medical care.</p> <p>Meanwhile, as concerns over federal finances have mounted, there has been an increasing awareness of the budget crises facing states and municipalities. The states' problems include underfunded public-employee pensions, particularly for teachers, as well as the ever-increasing costs of Medicaid.</p> <p>It is worth examining the recent contretemps in Wisconsin — the fight over Governor Scott Walker's efforts to eliminate some collective-bargaining privileges for public employees — through the lens of the broader battle over the new commanding heights. On one level, the Wisconsin situation was a squabble about mundane questions of salaries and benefits. On another level, however, it was a more fundamental struggle over political control, with the state's teachers' unions struggling to maintain their power over the commanding heights of education. Walker, for his part, was trying to restore that power to citizens and free markets.</p> <p>It is clear that such struggles will continue in the coming years, so that health care and education will increasingly be front and center in our economic debates. This is as it should be. But defenders of the market can waste no time in preparing themselves accordingly.</p> <p><b>THE NEXT FRONT</b></p> <p>The growing economic significance of health care and education makes the question of their ultimate control — whether by government or the market — one of deep national importance. It is no exaggeration to say that the struggle for power over these sectors will be the focal point of American domestic politics in the 21<sup>st</sup> century.</p> <p>The fight over the relative merits and demerits of Obamacare leading up to its passage last year highlighted the inadequacy of our current political debates about the new commanding heights. Champions of the law pointed to its distributional effects — broadening access to health coverage for those without employer-provided insurance, for example. Critics focused mostly on excessive costs or fears of rationing — worthy concerns, to be sure. But there was very little attention paid to what greater government control of the health sector would mean for the adaptive efficiency of the health-care system — the ability of providers to generate and use new techniques, business models, services, and technologies to keep quality high and costs low.</p> <p>It is not surprising that the debate among the political class focused on questions of allocation. Much of politics is a scramble for existing resources, and so political fights often boil down to questions of control over a fixed set of goods and services. But the long-run success of a health-care system — or any economic sector, or an entire economy — has much more to do with questions of adaptation, new technology, and innovation than with the allocation of fixed resources. The more that we allow our economy to be governed by politics rather than market forces, the more inclined we will be to forget that fact, and so to see our dynamism and prosperity diminish.</p> <p>If the century-long battle over Lenin's old commanding heights should teach us anything, it is that the extent of government control over the key sectors of a nation's economy matters tremendously to that nation's eventual success. That lesson should be foremost in our minds as we commence a long and arduous struggle over the American economy's new commanding heights.</p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/07/new-commanding-heights.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-07-14T10:31:00-07:00">10:31 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=4357501587420644886">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=4357501587420644886&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Commanding%20Heights" rel="tag">Commanding Heights</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20New" rel="tag">The New</a> </span> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="5093171906035569469"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/07/patriotic-taxation-or-unpatriotic.html">Patriotic Taxation or Unpatriotic Redistribution?</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1>Patriotic Taxation or Unpatriotic Redistribution?</h1> <p>by Doug Bandow </p><p class="first">The unruly Democratic coalition can unite around little other than raising taxes. Only with higher revenues can the various interest groups carrying the Democratic banner enrich themselves at public expense.</p> <p>Not surprisingly, few people who actually work and pay taxes are enthused about turning more of their money over to Washington. So big-spending pols have to resort to increasingly creative arguments for pushing up the government's take.</p> <p>The campaign to fill government coffers naturally has focused on the "rich." (Luckily, I guess, I don't qualify under anyone's definition!) Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is pushing a resolution declaring that "it is the sense of the Senate that any agreement to reduce the budget deficit should require that those earning $1,000,000 or more per year make a more meaningful contribution to the deficit reduction effort." </p><div class="box2"> <div class="boxcontent"> <span class="author_pub2" id="author_pic"></span><p style="font-family:Georgia;"><em><a href="http://www.cato.org/people/doug-bandow">Doug Bandow</a> is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former special assistant to Ronald Reagan, he is the author of </em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Foreign-Follies-Americas-Global-Empire/dp/1597819883/catoinstitute-20" target="_blank">Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire</a><em> (Xulon).</em></p> <a class="head" href="http://www.cato.org/people/doug-bandow">More by Doug Bandow</a></div></div> <p>Offering more than boilerplate rhetoric is former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, who proposed returning to a top income tax rate of 70%. Still, he could have gone higher: the top rate once ran 91%, before President Jack Kennedy's across-the-board rate cuts.</p> <p>A more peculiar advocate for higher taxes is "Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength." The group has a website and its members wrote an open leader urging the president and congressional leaders "to put our country ahead of politics." How? By increasing taxes on incomes greater than a million dollars.</p> <p>Argued PMFS, "Our country faces a choice — we can pay our debts and build for the future, or we can shirk our financial responsibilities and cripple our nation's potential." There's no discussion of cutting spending, which has exploded in recent years. Rather, argue these "patriotic millionaires," a decade ago Congress "made a mistake. You decided our country needed less money, and millionaires like me needed more." The obvious answer: "Please do the right thing for our country. Raise our taxes."</p> <p>Actually, tax cuts don't reduce money for "our country." Tax cuts reduce money for the government. The two are not the same.</p> <p>If there is one truth in life, it is that Washington spends far more money than it should. Indeed, Uncle Sam squanders money on a grand scale. There is the usual waste, fraud, and abuse. The redundant and ineffective programs. The pork used to reelect legislators. The consistent refusal of the governing establishment to treat the taxpayers' money as anything other than a great common pool to use for political advantage.</p> <p>The greatest waste of money is not inadvertent inefficiency, but intentional redistribution from the economically productive to the politically influential. Why billions in pork? Why tens of billions in corporate welfare? Why hundreds of billions in subsidies for rich foreign allies? Why more than a trillion in middle class welfare?</p> <p>The deficit is too high because the government spends too much, not because Washington collects too little. In the decade following the Bush tax cuts federal revenue actually rose, just not as much as it would have otherwise. As a percentage of GDP federal tax revenues, despite the Bush tax cuts, continue to run around the historical average of 18%.</p> <p>From 2001 to 2011 a projected surplus of $5.6 trillion turned into a real deficit of $6.1 trillion. Noted the Heritage Foundation's Brian Riedl, the "tax cuts were responsible for just 14% of the swing." A similar analysis by the Tax Foundation's Scott Hodge figured that number at 16%.</p> <p>The biggest factors by far were increased spending and lower economic growth. Today's huge deficit is almost entirely due to them, as the impact of the Bush tax cuts continues to diminish. There are many people to blame for exploding deficits, but not because they reduced income tax rates.</p> <p>The future is even clearer. Over the last 40 years revenues have averaged about 18% of GDP. The Congressional Budget Office projects that tax collections will run about 18.2% of GDP in 2020, even if the Bush tax cuts are preserved. In the past, outlays averaged 20.3% of GDP. The CBO expects that to go to 26.5% without action. Spending is the problem.</p> <p>But the issue is not partisan. Republicans bear equal responsibility with Democrats — the Medicare drug benefit was a budget-buster just like health care "reform," and the misguided Bush administration wars have turned into unfunded liabilities. However, the answer is not handing more of people's earnings over to the same legislators who have so prodigiously wasted past monies.</p> <p>The "patriotic millionaires" would do more good if they campaigned to stop legislators from gaily wasting taxpayers' dollars day in and day out. Only politicians would benefit from a tax hike like that suggested by PMFS.</p> <p>Still, if the "patriotic millionaires" really believe the government collects too little money, they should personally contribute more. The organization argues increasing taxes "is both an ethical and patriotic decision," but there is nothing ethical or patriotic about taking other people's money. Real fiscal patriots would give more of their own cash.</p> <p>Earlier this year Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), ranking member of the Finance Committee, wrote the PMFS coordinator to helpfully point out that "For those that are interested in making voluntary contributions to pay down the national debt, the process is both easy and advantageous." Voluntary payments to reduce the debt came to only $3.1 million in 2010, leaving much room for the "patriotic millionaires" to help out.</p> <p>The PMFS responded rather churlishly, denouncing the idea of allowing people to "opt out" and noting that the government even used rationing during World War II. But the biggest problem, argued PMFS, is that "we are a very small group. If there were even the remotest chance of making a noticeable dent in the problem by acting alone we would have done it already." So it appears that there are virtually no "patriotic millionaires" ready to give politicians more money to waste. Rather, the PMFS apparently represents a few "unpatriotic redistributionists" who mostly want to take more of <em>other people's money</em>.</p> <p>In support of raising taxes the PMFS members contend that "We have been more fortunate than most people." But they also likely pay more taxes than most people. In 2008, the last year for which the figures are available, the top 1% of earners paid 38% of total income tax levies; the top 5% paid 59%. The top quarter paid 86%.</p> <p>These numbers generally have been increasing over time. They rose after the 1986 Reagan tax reform, which kicked many poorer people off the income tax rolls entirely. The shares of taxes paid by wealthier Americans also rose after the Bush tax cuts.</p> <p>In contrast, the share of income taxes paid by the bottom 50% started out below 10% and fell steadily over time, to less than 3% in 2008. In fact, federal policy, particularly the earned income tax credit and child credit now mean that almost half of filers pay no income tax. Virtually no one in the bottom income quintile and only a minority in the next quintile owe anything.</p> <p>Never mind, says PMFS. Member Paul Egerman argued that "If our country is really broke, then we can't afford to give tax cuts to people like me." However, tax cuts give nothing. Rather, they allow people of all income levels to keep more of their own money, money usually earned through hard work, risk-taking, investment acumen, and/or entrepreneurial insight.</p> <p>Yet the worst blindness is the failure to address what additional revenues would be used to finance. To Sen. Hatch's argument that the deficit reflects overspending, replied PMFS: "This is quibbling over semantics. Deficits result when spending exceeds receipts. Whether that happens because spending is too high or receipts are too low is a matter of perspective and priorities."</p> <p>It is a matter of perspective and priorities, which must be addressed. If the U.S. was locked in a struggle for national survival, then one might call on the American people for a maximum sacrifice. But the exploding deficit reflects old-fashioned tax-and-spend politics. Hiking taxes would reward those responsible for America's current financial travails.</p> <p>So the "patriotic millionaires" shouldn't wait on others to join them. If they believe there is an "ethical and patriotic" obligation to pay more, they have a duty to act. Right now.</p> <p>The easiest step, as suggested by Sen. Hatch, would simply be to give money to reduce the national debt. But that should be just a start.</p> <p>So-called economic patriots should routinely inflate their income tax liabilities. Whether they are patriotic billionaires, millionaires, or even thousandaires, they should engage in a little creative accounting. One of the virtues of America's outrageously complicated tax system is the fact that it offers many opportunities for paying more to the government.</p> <p>Pick up the 1040. Don't claim dependents, irrespective of how many children one has. Take the standard deduction instead of itemizing.</p> <p>Claim extra interest, dividends, and miscellaneous income. Maybe even toss in some nonexistent alimony.</p> <p>On the Schedule C make up income and don't claim expenses. Do the same with capital gains. What self-respecting "patriotic millionaire" would take advantage of unfair loopholes in order to deny Uncle Sam needed revenue?</p> <p>Finally, inflate taxes owed. Don't take any credits and toss in some "additional taxes" at the end. The IRS might be a bit perplexed about how the numbers were derived, but the agency isn't likely to turn down extra cash.</p> <p>This strategy can be repeated year in and year out. "Patriotic millionaires" should do the same for their state and city taxes. Those governments also need money, lots of it!</p> <p>There is much wrong with America's tax system. The personal income tax is complex and intrusive. High corporate tax rates place the U.S. at an international disadvantage. Excessive capital gains taxes discourage investment.</p> <p>But one thing is not a problem: paying the government too little.</p> <p>It would be nice if all millionaires were patriotic. But love of country does not mean campaigning for increased taxes that would spark even more greedy raids on taxpayers. The best way for everyone to demonstrate their commitment to America would be to battle against the non-stop special interest looting that occurs in Washington.</p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/07/patriotic-taxation-or-unpatriotic.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-07-14T10:29:00-07:00">10:29 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=5093171906035569469">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=5093171906035569469&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="285881305625113660"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/07/intransigent-meet-unserious.html">The Intransigent Meet the Unserious</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1>The Intransigent Meet the Unserious</h1> <p>by Michael D. Tanner </p><p class="first">Last Friday, House minority leader Nancy Pelosi held a press conference to announce that House Democrats should oppose a debt-ceiling agreement that included any cuts in Medicare or Social Security. Meanwhile, over in the Senate, Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio) and Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) announced that they would filibuster any deal that included changes to those programs, and possibly Medicaid as well.</p> <p>So, of course, you saw the deluge of media stories blaming Democratic intransigence for threatening to throw the country into default. Neither did I. </p><div class="box2"> <div class="boxcontent"> <span class="author_pub2" id="author_pic"></span><p style="font-family:Georgia;"><em><a href="http://www.cato.org/people/michael-tanner">Michael D. Tanner</a> is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and author of </em><a href="http://www.cato.org/store/books/leviathan-right-how-big-government-conservatism-brought-down-republican-revolution-hardback">Leviathan on the Right: How Big-Government Conservatism Brought Down the Republican Revolution</a><em>.</em></p> <a class="head" href="http://www.cato.org/people/michael-tanner">More by Michael D. Tanner</a></div></div> <p>Republicans have clearly drawn a line in the sand, opposing any tax increase. But Democrats have been even more unbending, resisting any serious structural reform of entitlements or deep spending cuts, while insisting on huge tax hikes as part of any deal.</p> <p>Why the insistence on tax hikes? Democrats know that, according to the Congressional Budget Office, tax revenues will return to their historic average of 18 to 19 percent of GDP by the end of the decade. They know this will happen even if the Bush tax cuts are extended and the alternative minimum tax is fixed. The only reason, therefore, for tax increases would be to enable more government spending.</p> <p>The president is now calling for a "big" deal that would reduce the debt by $4 tillion over ten years, while we'll borrow more than a third of that this year.  In fact, over those ten years, we are expected to run up more than $13 trillion in new debt.</p> <p>It's also important to remember that the president is not offering $4 trillion in spending cuts. The deal he has proposed includes more than $1 trillion in tax hikes. Another $1 trillion is assumed savings on interest payments. Thus, what is really on the table is barely $2 trillion in actual spending reductions. What the president is really offering is closer to $2 in spending reductions for every $1 in tax hikes, not the 4:1 ratio reported by the media. Moreover, that is over ten years, meaning the cuts would actually be just $200 billion per year. We will pay more than that this year in interest on what we have already borrowed.</p> <p>As minimal as these cuts are, they are actually even less than they appear. Most people assume that a spending cut means spending less next year than we spend this year. Then again, most people don't understand Washington. Washington operates under "baseline budgeting," meaning that if Congress plans to spend $2 billion more on a program than it spent this year, but only spends $1 billion more, that is a $1 billion "cut." Thus, the $2 trillion in spending "cuts" currently being discussed would actually allow government spending to increase by $1.8 trillion.</p> <p>Of course, the president also has expressed a willingness to put Medicare and Social Security on the table, despite opposition from the Democrats in Congress. But here too the proposals are far less than they appear. They would do nothing to change the structure of these programs, instead offering a grab bag of future benefit trims that may or may not ever occur, such as further squeezing reimbursements to hospitals and physicians.</p> <p>So the deal that the Republicans are currently offering would actually allow federal revenue, federal spending, and the national debt all to increase over the next decade. They have abandoned structural changes to entitlement programs — anything like Paul Ryan's Medicare reform is off the table — and appear to have dropped calls for a balanced-budget amendment or a spending cap.</p> <p>This is radical? This is intransigence? If only.</p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/07/intransigent-meet-unserious.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-07-14T10:27:00-07:00">10:27 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=285881305625113660">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=285881305625113660&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Meet%20the%20Unserious" rel="tag">Meet the Unserious</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Intransigent" rel="tag">The Intransigent</a> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <a name="5572457343071282387"></a> <b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Cuba: Enriquecimiento de Fidel basado en desinformación de los cubanos</span></span></b> <a href="http://www.asuntoscapitales.com/articulo.asp?ida=5826" title="Ir al artículo siguiente"><img src="http://www.asuntoscapitales.com/images/n_siguiente.png" border="none" /></a> <br /><div class="sintesis">“Desde que Fidel tomó el poder, el país quedo paralizado en el tiempo. Y como sabemos, lo que no mejora, empeora. Esa es la triste realidad de una Cuba que camina sobre la base de la desinformación.”</div><br /><div class="autor">Samuel Angel</div><span class="fecha_articulo"></span><br /><div class="submenu"> <table style="margin-top: -3px;" align="right"><tbody> <tr> <td align="right"> <br /></td></tr> <tr> <td> <div class="relacionados"> <div class="head"> </div></div><br /></td></tr> </tbody></table></div><div class="texto">La Cuba que visite en días pasados no refleja la información de la Revista financiera Forbes que en el año 2006, mostraba la <a href="http://www.elmundo.es/mundodinero/2006/05/05/portada/1146791748.html">fortuna del dictador Cubano Fidel Castro en 900 millones de dólares</a>, ubicándolo en el séptimo puesto entre los mandatarios más ricos del mundo.<br />Por supuesto que los cubanos no saben esto y toda información que pueda tocar sus puertas que no convenga, será mostrada como producto del “imperio yanqui”. Sin embargo la miseria que inunda la isla por doquier haría que cualquier información real conocida por el pueblo que sufre, se convierta en una bomba de tiempo para los intereses de los Castro.<br />En el país de la desinformación, gracias a Fidel, los cubanos viven con pavor de lo que el régimen haga. Claro, si se dieran cuenta que no tienen por qué aguantarse la miseria que les brinda Fidel y su régimen, podrían cambiar de vida así como lo están haciendo en medio oriente varios países.<br />Fidel no permite que la gente tenga celulares, tener un celular cuesta el equivalente al salario mensual para un cubano raso. Que entre otras cosas es de 10 dólares mensuales, como todos comprenderán, nadie vive de eso, pero todo sea por la revolución, la revolución económica personal de Fidel. O come o habla por celular, ¿qué escogería usted?<br />Por supuesto, los que tienen celular no tienen plan de datos, los cubanos no saben bien qué es eso. Es decir, no tienen la posibilidad de educarse, realizar transacciones, aumentar su productividad y tantas otras cosas que para el mundo en la actualidad son parte de la vida cotidiana a través de la tecnología. Claro, los que tienen celular no pueden llamar porque también les cuesta un ojo de la cara.<br />Como me decía un taxista cubano: “en sus países conocen a las personas que están en la miseria, porque viven en la calle pidiendo dinero, en Cuba, los indigentes están dentro de las casas, y son todos”.<br />Es increíble el nivel de obras inconclusas o con andamios llenos ya de vegetación, producto de la parálisis económica de ese país, sumergido en el socialismo, improductivo, esclavizante y adormecedor.<br />Las librerías de la Habana contienen únicamente literatura guerrillera, resulta fácil encontrar el bestseller “la Guerra de Guerrillas”, escrito por el Che. Literatura que se llevan los incautos jóvenes turistas europeos, que confunden al Che con Tarzan y a Fidel con una especie de Moisés en decadencia.<br />La pobreza en Cuba está por doquier y el principal afectado es el pueblo cubano, a quienes se les ha infundido por parte de Fidel una especie de creencia en que son mártires del socialismo, santos de la guerrilla. A costa de cuyo sufrimiento en medio de la desolación del país, deben aguantar las migajas que el régimen les tira al piso.<br />Los vendedores del órgano informativo del régimen, el Granma, son personas de la tercera edad, que entregan el periódico a cambio de cualquier moneda, caminan por las calles de la ciudad descompuestos, hambrientos y solitarios. Sacados de un cuento de terror, esos ancianitos sufren física hambre mientras son usados por el régimen para entregar a los turistas el periódico que alaba las maravillas del régimen de miseria en el que viven.<br />Como nadie vive de 10 dólares al mes, se ha generado toda una economía informal, basada en el contrabando de puros, prostitución y abuso de cobros al incauto turista. Claro, todas las anteriores son prohibidas por el régimen, pero, ante el conocimiento de su ineptitud y buscando no gobernar sobre cadáveres, todo lo permite de manera solapada.<br />Si alguien se expresa de manera contraria a Fidel y su régimen comunista, es llevado a las mazmorras al estilo de los antiguos esclavistas. La policía traída de oriente a la ciudad de la Habana es más obediente ya que, al provenir de la provincia, su ingenuidad de sentirse traído a la ciudad, los hace ser presas fáciles, obedientes ciegos a Fidel.<br />Los músicos que pululan en la Habana tocan de manera maravillosa repertorios de los cincuentas, paralizados en la historia, estos artistas deben supeditar su arte a las ideas del régimen. No salirse del Guantamera de Martí es una regla y bailar al ritmo del son cubano como si fueran libres debe ser su mayor puesta en escena.<br />Los automóviles de los años 40s y 50s que transitan por las calles Cubanas y que se han vuelto un icono del país, en realidad están allí, ante la imposibilidad del régimen de permitirle al pueblo escoger lo que más quiera, cambiar de auto o mejorar año tras año, eso, gracias a Fidel, no existe en Cuba.<br />Desde que Fidel tomó el poder, el país quedo paralizado en el tiempo. Y como sabemos, lo que no mejora, empeora. Esa es la triste realidad de una Cuba que camina sobre la base de la desinformación.<br /></div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"> <span class="post-author vcard"> Publicadas por <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> a la/s <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://alianzaliberal.blogspot.com/2011/07/enriquecimiento-de-fidel.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-07-14T10:20:00-07:00">10:20 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="reaction-buttons"> </span> <span class="star-ratings"> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=3679109554603372635&postID=2955235618392992924">0 comentarios</a> </span> <span class="post-backlinks post-comment-link"> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-action"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/email-post.g?blogID=3679109554603372635&postID=2955235618392992924" title="Enviar la entrada por correo electrónico"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img1.blogblog.com/img/icon18_email.gif" height="13" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <div class="post-share-buttons goog-inline-block"> </div> </div> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-2"> <span class="post-labels"> Etiquetas: <a href="http://alianzaliberal.blogspot.com/search/label/de%20Fidel" rel="tag">de Fidel</a>, <a href="http://alianzaliberal.blogspot.com/search/label/Enriquecimiento" rel="tag">Enriquecimiento</a> </span> </div> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-3"> <span class="post-location"> </span> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry uncustomized-post-template"> <a name="2336017175401209156"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://alianzaliberal.blogspot.com/2011/07/como-obtuvo-calderon-la-presidencia.html">Cómo obtuvo Calderón la Presidencia</a> </h3> <div class="post-header"> </div> <div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2336017175401209156"> <div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Cómo obtuvo Calderón la Presidencia (o cuando los priistas no eran un peligro para México)</span></b></div><br /><br /><div class="sintesis">“La izquierda era un peligro para México en 2006 y lo será en 2012 si llega al poder, aunque lo haga de la mano del PAN. La suma de un mal mayor y un mal menor no hacen un mal menor y menos un bien ¡Obvio!”</div><br /><div class="autor">Leopoldo Escobar</div><br /><div class="submenu"> <table style="margin-top: -3px;" align="right"><tbody> <tr> <td align="right"> <br /></td></tr> <tr> <td> <div class="relacionados"> <div class="head"> </div></div><br /></td></tr> </tbody></table></div><div class="texto"> El periodista Ciro Gómez Leyva le preguntó a Felipe Calderón si Enrique Peña Nieto le parecía un peligro para México. Con ello el periodista aludió al señalamiento de ser un peligro para México que Calderón lanzó contra su rival Andrés Manuel López, durante la contienda electoral de 2006.<br />Al responder, esta vez Calderón no fue claridoso como hace 5 años, sino ambiguo. Pero eso es en público, pues en corto Calderón sigue insistiendo en que lo peor que le podría pasar al país en 2012 es el triunfo electoral del PRI y en que, por tanto, lo único que podría impedir tal escenario es una alianza electoral entre su partido (el PAN) y la izquierda. Y con los malos resultados para PAN y PRD en los comicios locales del Estado de México, que esta vez marcharon separados, Calderón y los partidarios de la alianza la suponen ahora más necesaria y más viable.<br />Pero hubo un tiempo en el cual a Calderón los priistas no le parecían un peligro para México. La historia que hoy los calderonistas quieren sepultar bajo una montaña de olvido es que Calderón no sólo pudo tomar posesión de su cargo como Presidente de la República gracias a los priistas, sino que además gracias a ellos (o una parte de ellos) pudo ganar la elección.<br />Y esos votos decisivos provinieron de los muy priistas seguidores de Elba Esther Gordillo, Enrique Peña y Eugenio Hernández, entre otros prominentes personajes del PRI, quienes en forma soterrada pero efectiva promovieron el voto útil a favor de Calderón, para impedir que la izquierda se hiciera del poder.<br /><div align="center"><strong>Cuando El Peje parecía una calamidad inexorable</strong></div>Un par de semanas antes de la elección presidencial de 2006, parecía muy difícil que Calderón pudiera derrotar a López, si bien la distancia de las preferencias electorales se habían venido acortando y había un “empate técnico” o…casi.<br />La última encuesta mensual (correspondiente a junio de 2006) de Mitofsky daba 35% de los votos para López, 32% para Calderón y 28% para Roberto Madrazo.<br />La encuesta de Reforma publicada el 23 de junio de 2006, 9 días antes de la elección, concedía 36% a López y 34% a Calderón.<br />Pero el 2 de julio Calderón se impuso por una diferencia de apenas 0.52% de los votos (235,329 en cifras absolutas). De “panzazo”, pero ganó. Mas ¿cómo lo hizo?<br /><div align="center">Encuestas de Mitofsky</div><div align="center"> <table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody> <tr> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="19%"><div align="center"><a href="http://alianzaliberal.blogspot.com/" name="_Hlk298351132"><strong>CANDIDATO</strong></a></div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="14%"><div align="center"><strong>Enero</strong></div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="14%"><div align="center"><strong>Febrero</strong></div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="14%"><div align="center"><strong>Marzo</strong></div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="14%"><div align="center"><strong>Abril</strong></div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="14%"><div align="center"><strong>Mayo</strong></div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="10%"><div align="center"><strong>Junio</strong></div></td> </tr> <tr> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="19%"><div align="left">Andrés Manuel López </div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="14%"><div align="right">39%</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="14%"><div align="right">39%</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="14%"><div align="right">38%</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="14%"><div align="right">34%</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="14%"><div align="right">34%</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="10%"><div align="right">35%</div></td> </tr> <tr> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="19%"><div align="left">Felipe Calderón </div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="14%"><div align="right">31%</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="14%"><div align="right">30%</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="14%"><div align="right">31%</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="14%"><div align="right">35%</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="14%"><div align="right">34%</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="10%"><div align="right">32%</div></td> </tr> <tr> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="19%"><div align="left">Roberto Madrazo </div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="14%"><div align="right">29%</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="14%"><div align="right">28%</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="14%"><div align="right">29%</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="14%"><div align="right">27%</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="14%"><div align="right">28%</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="10%"><div align="right">28%</div></td> </tr> <tr> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="19%"><div align="left">Patricia Mercado </div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="14%"><div align="right">1%</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="14%"><div align="right">1%</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="14%"><div align="right">1%</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="14%"><div align="right">3%</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="14%"><div align="right">3%</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="10%"><div align="right">4%</div></td> </tr> <tr> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="19%"><div align="left">Roberto Campa </div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="14%"><div align="right">0%</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="14%"><div align="right">2%</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="14%"><div align="right">1%</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="14%"><div align="right">1%</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="14%"><div align="right">1%</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="10%"><div align="right">1%</div></td> </tr> <tr> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="19%"><div align="left">TOTAL </div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="14%"><div align="right">100%</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="14%"><div align="right">100%</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="14%"><div align="right">100%</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="14%"><div align="right">100%</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="14%"><div align="right">100%</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="10%"><div align="right">100%</div></td> </tr> </tbody></table></div>López y sus secuaces gritaron que la no correspondencia entre resultados y encuestas era “prueba” del “fraude”. Pero si las encuestas previeran exactamente los resultados, entonces nos ahorraríamos las elecciones. Calderón ganó legal, limpiamente. No hubo fraude alguno y es el momento que seguimos esperando las evidencias de la supuesta defraudación de 2006, ese otro mito izquierdista.<br />Lo que sí es cierto es que con los puros votos de los simpatizantes del PAN Calderón no ganaba y López hubiera arrasado. Calderón necesitó casi 5 puntos porcentuales más de lo que podrían aportar los simpatizantes panistas. La prueba es que mientras Calderón obtuvo 14,921,749 votos, los disputados panistas obtuvieron apenas poco más de 13 millones de votos. Casi 2 millones de ciudadanos dividieron sus votos entre diferentes partidos. Pero esta operación no fue del todo espontánea, aunque su inducción tampoco fue ilegal o ilegítima.<br /><div align="center"><strong>Entra Elba al quite…pero no basta</strong></div>Si la elección presidencial hubiera sido en enero, febrero o marzo de 2006, Calderón habría perdido. Estaba estancado en un máximo de 31% de las preferencias. A finales de febrero situación era desesperada y entonces Calderón pactó alianzas terminó de amarrar la alianza con Elba Esther Gordillo.<br />Toda la estructura del Partido Nueva Alianza -que respondía a Gordillo (mientras ella formalmente seguía en el PRI)- aprendió la consigna: votar por Calderón para presidente (y no por el candidato de la PANAL que era Roberto Campa) y votar por los candidatos del partido para los demás cargos. Por eso en la elección mientras que los diputados del PANAL obtuvieron 1.8 millones de votos, su candidato presidencial apenas consiguió 400 mil. Gordillo y su partidarios aportaron 1.4 millones de votos a Calderón.<br />En las encuestas de abril se empiezan a sentir los efectos benéficos de estas maniobras. Pero los votos del PANAL no bastaban para derrotar a López y para que triunfara Calderón. Por eso en abril diferentes operadores políticos experimentados, que no pertenecían ni al PAN y al PRI, pero que tenían buenas relaciones con políticos de ambos partidos, emprendieron una labor para convencer a ciertos gobernadores priistas a promover el voto útil en favor de Calderón en virtud de que ni Roberto Madrazo tenía real probabilidad de ganar y de que López efectivamente era una formidable amenaza para México. Gordillo por su parte también cabildeó con gobernadores priistas.<br />La labor se centró especialmente en los gobernadores de Campeche, Durango, Hidalgo, México, Nuevo León, Sonora y Tamaulipas. Estos mandatarios accedieron, pero advirtieron que no serían muchos los votos que podrían lograr para el candidato panista, pues la promoción no podía ser abierta, so riesgo de provocar un cisma en el PRI.<br /><div align="center">Resultados de votaciones para Presidente de la República (2000 y 2006) y diputados federales (2009)</div><table style="width: 595px;" align="center" border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody> <tr> <td rowspan="10" nowrap="nowrap" valign="middle" width="48"><div align="left">2000</div><div align="left"><br /></div><div align="left"><br /></div><div align="left"><br /></div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="96"><div align="center"><br /></div></td> <td valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="center"><strong>V. Fox</strong></div></td> <td valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="center"><strong>F. Labastida</strong></div></td> <td valign="bottom" width="72"><div align="center"><strong>C. Cárdenas</strong></div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="107"><div align="center"><strong>Diferencia</strong><br /><strong>2000-2006 (PRI)</strong></div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="104"><div align="center"><strong>Diferencia</strong><br /><strong>2003-2006 (PRI)</strong></div></td> </tr> <tr> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="96"><div align="left">NACIONAL</div></td> <td valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">15,104,164</div></td> <td valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">12,654,930</div></td> <td valign="bottom" width="72"><div align="right">5,842,589</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="107"><div align="right"><br /></div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="104"><div align="right"><br /></div></td> </tr> <tr> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="96"><div align="left">Campeche</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">97,712</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">96,730</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="72"><div align="right">31,968</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="107"><div align="right">9,318</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="104"><div align="right"><br /></div></td> </tr> <tr> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="96"><div align="left">Durango</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">186,989</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">188,262</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="72"><div align="right">44,626</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="107"><div align="right">34,272</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="104"><div align="right"><br /></div></td> </tr> <tr> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="96"><div align="left">Hidalgo</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">270,992</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">335,446</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="72"><div align="right">129,134</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="107"><div align="right">99,520</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="104"><div align="right"><br /></div></td> </tr> <tr> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="96"><div align="left">México</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">2,094,449</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">1,520,711</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="72"><div align="right">896,409</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="107"><div align="right">487,601</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="104"><div align="right"><br /></div></td> </tr> <tr> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="96"><div align="left">Nuevo León</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">730,290</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">588,217</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="72"><div align="right">92,427</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="107"><div align="right">99,815</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="104"><div align="right"><br /></div></td> </tr> <tr> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="96"><div align="left">Sonora</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">423,420</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">277,377</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="72"><div align="right">107,665</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="107"><div align="right">102,012</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="104"><div align="right"><br /></div></td> </tr> <tr> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="96"><div align="left">Tamaulipas</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">486,262</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">413,861</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="72"><div align="right">85,425</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="107"><div align="right">96,012</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="104"><div align="right"><br /></div></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="4" nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="336"><div align="left">Suma</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="107"><div align="right">928,550</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="104"><div align="right"><br /></div></td> </tr> <tr> <td rowspan="10" nowrap="nowrap" valign="middle" width="48"><div align="left">2003</div><div align="left"><br /></div><div align="left"><br /></div><div align="left"><br /></div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="96"><div align="left"><br /></div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">PAN</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">PRI</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="72"><div align="right">PRD</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="107"><div align="right"><br /></div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="104"><div align="right"><br /></div></td> </tr> <tr> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="96"><div align="left">NACIONAL</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">8,273,012</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">9,878,787</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="72"><div align="right">4,734,612</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="107"><div align="right"><br /></div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="104"><div align="right"><br /></div></td> </tr> <tr> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="96"><div align="left">Campeche</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">100,808</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">106,570</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="72"><div align="right">6,351</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="107"><div align="right"><br /></div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="104"><div align="right">19,158</div></td> </tr> <tr> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="96"><div align="left">Durango</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">100,653</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">193,845</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="72"><div align="right">14,538</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="107"><div align="right"><br /></div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="104"><div align="right">39,855</div></td> </tr> <tr> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="96"><div align="left">Hidalgo</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">126,756</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">259,716</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="72"><div align="right">93,043</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="107"><div align="right"><br /></div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="104"><div align="right">23,790</div></td> </tr> <tr> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="96"><div align="left">México</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">886,940</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">1,059,755</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="72"><div align="right">705,108</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="107"><div align="right"><br /></div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="104"><div align="right">26,645</div></td> </tr> <tr> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="96"><div align="left">Nuevo León</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">508,860</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">718,831</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="72"><div align="right">30,190</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="107"><div align="right"><br /></div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="104"><div align="right">230,429</div></td> </tr> <tr> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="96"><div align="left">Sonora</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">310,680</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">313,937</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="72"><div align="right">87,955</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="107"><div align="right"><br /></div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="104"><div align="right">138,572</div></td> </tr> <tr> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="96"><div align="left">Tamaulipas</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">244,950</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">386,914</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="72"><div align="right">60,694</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="107"><div align="right"><br /></div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="104"><div align="right">69,065</div></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="6" nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="547"><div align="left">Suma<br />547,514</div></td> </tr> <tr> <td rowspan="9" nowrap="nowrap" valign="middle" width="48"><div align="left">2006</div><div align="left"><br /></div><div align="left"><br /></div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="96"><div align="left"><br /></div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">F. Calderón</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">R. Madrazo</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="72"><div align="right">A. López</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="107"><div align="right"><br /></div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="104"><div align="right"><br /></div></td> </tr> <tr> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="96"><div align="left">NACIONAL</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">14,921,284</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">9,301,441</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="72"><div align="right">14,686,420</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="107"><div align="right"><br /></div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="104"><div align="right"><br /></div></td> </tr> <tr> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="96"><div align="left">Campeche</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">99,526</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">87,412</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="72"><div align="right">101,192</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="107"><div align="right"><br /></div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="104"><div align="right"><br /></div></td> </tr> <tr> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="96"><div align="left">Durango</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">255,229</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">153,990</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="72"><div align="right">128,881</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="107"><div align="right"><br /></div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="104"><div align="right"><br /></div></td> </tr> <tr> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="96"><div align="left">Hidalgo</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">251,772</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">235,926</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="72"><div align="right">385,750</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="107"><div align="right"><br /></div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="104"><div align="right"><br /></div></td> </tr> <tr> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="96"><div align="left">México</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">1,771,515</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">1,033,110</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="72"><div align="right">2,469,093</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="107"><div align="right"><br /></div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="104"><div align="right"><br /></div></td> </tr> <tr> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="96"><div align="left">Nuevo León</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">865,006</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">488,402</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="72"><div align="right">282,384</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="107"><div align="right"><br /></div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="104"><div align="right"><br /></div></td> </tr> <tr> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="96"><div align="left">Sonora</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">468,288</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">175,365</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="72"><div align="right">240,114</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="107"><div align="right"><br /></div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="104"><div align="right"><br /></div></td> </tr> <tr> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="96"><div align="left">Tamaulipas</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">506,177</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="84"><div align="right">317,849</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="72"><div align="right">324,491</div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="107"><div align="right"><br /></div></td> <td nowrap="nowrap" valign="bottom" width="104"><div align="right"><br /></div></td> </tr> </tbody></table>Los candidatos del PRI a diputados federales obtuvieron 1.4 millones más de votos que los que obtuvo su candidato presidencial. No todos esos votos fueron para Calderón, pero sí la mayoría y gracias a las promociones soterradas de los gobernadores priistas ganados a la causa del voto útil.<br />Como se aprecia en la tabla, esos gobernadores no pudieron mantener para el candidato presidencial priista ni siquiera los votos obtenidos en 2003 (a pesar de que las elecciones intermedias son de menor participación electoral que las presidenciales), para no hablar de los votos de 2000. La transferencia de votos priistas al candidato panista Calderón fue del orden de entre 600 mil y 900 mil. Y por cierto, nadie obligó a esas personas a votar así, porque en la soledad de las urnas podrían haber votado de otro modo si esa hubiera sido su convicción. Simplemente parte del liderazgo político consiste en tener autoridad moral y capacidad de persuasión sobre los seguidores.<br />Sea por las motivaciones que sea, muchos priistas actuaron responsablemente en 2006 y ayudaron a impedir la catástrofe que habría significado que la izquierda llegara al poder. Por eso ahora resulta tan hipócrita que se tome a los mismos que ayudaron a Calderón a llegar al poder como “un peligro para México” ¿No es acaso absurdo hasta el ridículo que el “peligro para México” haya sido vencido con el apoyo de otro “peligro para México”? En realidad lo que dicen los que antes veían en la izquierda un peligro para México y hoy lo ven en los priistas es: la única manera en que no haya peligro para México es que nosotros estemos en el poder…por siempre…<br />El único “peligro para México” es la izquierda. Las demás opciones políticas simplemente son no deseables por cuanto están infectadas por el intervencionismo estatal, el programa de la “justicia” redistributiva y el colectivismo edulcorado y difícilmente lograran que nuestra nación supere la pobreza y el subdesarrollo. Esas opciones debemos considerarlas males menores en diferente grado, las cuales son preferibles frente al mal mayor que es la izquierda, claro, en tanto no surja la opción de poder deseable, que no es otra que la liberal.<br />La izquierda era un peligro para México en 2006 y lo será en 2012 si llega al poder, aunque lo haga de la mano del PAN. La suma de un mal mayor y un mal menor no hacen un mal menor y menos un bien ¡Obvio!<br /></div> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"> <span class="post-author vcard"> Publicadas por <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> a la/s <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://alianzaliberal.blogspot.com/2011/07/como-obtuvo-calderon-la-presidencia.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-07-14T10:03:00-07:00">10:03 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="reaction-buttons"> </span> <span class="star-ratings"> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=3679109554603372635&postID=2336017175401209156">0 comentarios</a> </span> <span class="post-backlinks post-comment-link"> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-action"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/email-post.g?blogID=3679109554603372635&postID=2336017175401209156" title="Enviar la entrada por correo electrónico"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img1.blogblog.com/img/icon18_email.gif" height="13" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <div class="post-share-buttons goog-inline-block"> </div> </div> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-2"> <span class="post-labels"> Etiquetas: <a href="http://alianzaliberal.blogspot.com/search/label/cuando%20los%20priistas%20no%20eran" rel="tag">cuando los priistas no eran</a>, <a href="http://alianzaliberal.blogspot.com/search/label/para%20M%C3%A9xico" rel="tag">para México</a>, <a href="http://alianzaliberal.blogspot.com/search/label/un%20peligro" rel="tag">un peligro</a> </span> </div> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-3"> <span class="post-location"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry uncustomized-post-template"> <a name="372474097973514233"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://alianzaliberal.blogspot.com/2011/07/desafios-del-liberalismo-clasico-en-una.html">Desafíos del liberalismo clásico en una era de información</a> </h3> <div class="post-header"> </div> <div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-372474097973514233"> <div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Crítica, conversación y creatividad: Desafíos del liberalismo clásico en una era de información </span></b> </div><br /><br /><div class="sintesis">“La evolución de las tecnologías de comunicación tenderá a revolucionar nuestros métodos de generación de contenidos. Quizás deberemos emprender la formulación general de un liberalismo con aceptabilidad pública. Por ahora, dados los riesgos que impone la atracción pública hacia la vanidad de redención absoluta, en la defensa de la crítica y la conversación debemos contemplar todo aquello que permita avanzar los fines de la libertad.”</div><br /><br /><div class="autor">Roberto Salinas León</div><span class="fecha_articulo"></span><br /><div class="submenu"> <table style="margin-top: -3px;" align="right"><tbody> <tr> <td align="right"> <br /></td></tr> </tbody></table></div><div class="style1" align="center">El presente texto forma parte de la colección "Facetas Liberales: Ensayos en honor de Manuel F. Ayau", editado en 2011 por la Universidad Francisco Marroquín y coordinado por Alberto Benegas Lynch (h) y Giancarlo Ibargüen. Asuntos Capitales reproduce este ensayo con autorización tanto del autor como de los coordinadores de la obra.</div><a href="http://www.asuntoscapitales.com/mini.asp?idm=253#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title="">[Nota sobre el autor]</a><br /><em>“Modern civilization will not perish unless it does so by its own act of self-destruction. Only inner enemies can threaten it. It can come to an end only if the ideas of liberalism are supplanted by an anti-liberal ideology hostile to social cooperation.”</em> Ludwig von Mises<br /><strong>Introducción</strong><br />Los grandes avances tecnológicos en el mundo de las comunicaciones han generado una explosión de nuevos contenidos y medios más sofisticados para transmitir ideas. En este sentido, el futuro de la información conlleva una gama de nuevas tecnologías que facilitarán enormemente la producción y, sobre todo, la difusión de contenidos y conocimientos. Ciertamente, la causa de consolidar una sociedad abierta, junto con la de articular una defensa efectiva de la libertad y de los principios del liberalismo clásico, también disfrutará de una mayor disponibilidad de tecnologías de comunicación, sin los costos de transacción -como la distancia, el tiempo o las fronteras nacionales, por ejemplo- que tradicionalmente han estado asociados a esta labor. Sin embargo, aún no existe un mecanismo ideal, una “camisa de fuerza dorada”, que limite la naturaleza de contenidos potencialmente transmisibles.<a href="http://www.asuntoscapitales.com/mini.asp?idm=253#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title="">[1]</a> Las ideas tienen consecuencias; buenas o malas, liberales o anti-liberales, radicales o en el centro. El reto permanente de defender una sociedad abierta, de exponer de manera convincente los argumentos del liberalismo clásico, sigue siendo una tarea de máxima relevancia para el futuro de la libertad y la conversación civilizada.<br /><br /></div> <div class="jump-link"> <a href="http://alianzaliberal.blogspot.com/2011/07/desafios-del-liberalismo-clasico-en-una.html#more" title="Desafíos del liberalismo clásico en una era de información">Más información »</a> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"> <span class="post-author vcard"> Publicadas por <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> a la/s <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://alianzaliberal.blogspot.com/2011/07/desafios-del-liberalismo-clasico-en-una.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-07-14T10:00:00-07:00">10:00 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="reaction-buttons"> </span> <span class="star-ratings"> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=3679109554603372635&postID=372474097973514233">0 comentarios</a> </span> <span class="post-backlinks post-comment-link"> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-action"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/email-post.g?blogID=3679109554603372635&postID=372474097973514233" title="Enviar la entrada por correo electrónico"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img1.blogblog.com/img/icon18_email.gif" height="13" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <div class="post-share-buttons goog-inline-block"> </div> </div> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-2"> <span class="post-labels"> Etiquetas: <a href="http://alianzaliberal.blogspot.com/search/label/Desaf%C3%ADos%20del%20liberalismo%20cl%C3%A1sico%20en" rel="tag">Desafíos del liberalismo clásico en</a>, <a href="http://alianzaliberal.blogspot.com/search/label/informaci%C3%B3n" rel="tag">información</a> </span> </div> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-3"> <span class="post-location"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry uncustomized-post-template"> <a name="7127852348143644614"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://alianzaliberal.blogspot.com/2011/07/colombia-las-cifras-verdaderas-sobre-la.html">Colombia: Las cifras verdaderas sobre la violencia en el país</a> </h3> <div class="post-header"> </div> <div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-7127852348143644614"> <h2 class="post_name" id="post-9100"><span style="font-size:180%;">Colombia: Las cifras verdaderas sobre la violencia en el país </span>– por William Calderón</h2> <div class="post_meta"> </div> <p style="text-align: left;" dir="ltr"><a href="http://www.hacer.org/latam/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/ELNisback.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-9102" title="ELNisback" src="http://www.hacer.org/latam/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/ELNisback.jpg" alt="" height="252" width="336" /></a>Mientras los consultados en las más recientes encuestas se muestran pesimistas en temas tan sensibles como la seguridad, la salud y el empleo, nadie se explica cómo el presidente Santos mantiene tan alta su favorabilidad en las mediciones de opinión. La pregunta se la trasladamos, en La Hora de la Verdad, de Súper, al encuestador Jorge Londoño, de Gallup, quien se salió por la tangente y se despidió sin darnos una respuesta satisfactoria.</p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p style="text-align: left;" dir="ltr">En la prensa costeña no se apagan todavía los ecos del rifirrafe que mantuvieron, en Montería, el Presidente de la República y la gobernadora de Córdoba alrededor de las cifras sobre los muertos y heridos que deja la violencia en esa región del litoral atlántico. La mandataria salió airosa al demostrar con datos institucionales que su información no era producto de la imaginación, como lo sugirió el doctor Santos. Tras la visita presidencial, El Meridiano de Córdoba abundó en información gráfica y escrita sobre las víctimas de la ola criminal y en un editorial exigió al gobierno central resultados para frenar la violencia.</p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p style="text-align: left;" dir="ltr"> </p><p style="text-align: left;" dir="ltr"><strong>La ofensiva de los terroristas en el sur</strong></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p style="text-align: left;" dir="ltr">El pasado fin de semana, en el sur del país, los insurrectos activaron cargas explosivas en Cali y Buenaventura. Hubo asaltos en Argelia y Jambaló, Cauca, con saldo de muertos y heridos, a pesar de las advertencias que había recibido el gobierno por parte del senador payanés Aurelio Iragorri, a quien también tildó de mentiroso el presidente Santos, en otro desafortunado consejo de seguridad. En San Vicente del Caguán hubo masacre durante el fin de semana. En el departamento del Magdalena –como lo registró el diario que lleva su nombre—se registraron en junio último 56 asesinatos, 30 de ellos ocasionados con armas de fuego. La violencia también hizo presencia en Arboletes, Antioquia; entre las víctimas figura un periodista. Cabe recordar que la guerrilla regresó al Chocó, de acuerdo con una denuncia del gobernador Malcom Ali Córdoba.</p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p style="text-align: left;" dir="ltr"> </p><p style="text-align: left;" dir="ltr"><strong>Alarmante ola de inseguridad imperante en Colombia</strong></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p style="text-align: left;" dir="ltr">El Diario del Otún, de Pereira, la tierra natal del ministro de Defensa, Rodrigo Rivera, publicó durante el “puente” festivo un inflamado editorial dando cuenta de la alarmante ola de inseguridad imperante en Colombia. Entre los hechos perturbadores enumerados dejábamos por fuera el regreso del boleteo, la extorsión y el secuestro en Arauca (según Salud Hernández) y los Llanos orientales (de acuerdo con María Isabel Rueda). Y al departamento de Nariño regresó el ELN. Sin embargo, después de este inventario el almirante Cely dice otra cosa muy distinta en El Tiempo. Como que estamos en el gobierno del “tapen, tapen”. El ministro Rivera sostiene que quienes están perpetrando los asaltos y asesinatos de oficiales y suboficiales de la fuerza pública son unos chichipatos. Lo que preocupa es que “esos pobres chichipatos” tengan al país perplejo con la inseguridad que se vive en la nación, ola que se trató de disimular con la innecesaria rueda de prensa ofrecida por el Presidente, en la base militar de Catam.</p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"> <span class="post-author vcard"> Publicadas por <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> a la/s <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://alianzaliberal.blogspot.com/2011/07/colombia-las-cifras-verdaderas-sobre-la.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-07-14T09:37:00-07:00">9:37 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="reaction-buttons"> </span> <span class="star-ratings"> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=3679109554603372635&postID=7127852348143644614">0 comentarios</a> </span> <span class="post-backlinks post-comment-link"> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-action"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/email-post.g?blogID=3679109554603372635&postID=7127852348143644614" title="Enviar la entrada por correo electrónico"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img1.blogblog.com/img/icon18_email.gif" height="13" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <div class="post-share-buttons goog-inline-block"> </div> </div> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-2"> <span class="post-labels"> Etiquetas: <a href="http://alianzaliberal.blogspot.com/search/label/Colombia%3A%20Las%20cifras%20verdaderas" rel="tag">Colombia: Las cifras verdaderas</a>, <a href="http://alianzaliberal.blogspot.com/search/label/violencia%20en%20el%20pa%C3%ADs" rel="tag">violencia en el país</a> </span> </div> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-3"> <span class="post-location"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry uncustomized-post-template"> <a name="9162047336002728006"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://alianzaliberal.blogspot.com/2011/07/venezuela-la-hora-final.html">Venezuela: La hora final –</a> </h3> <div class="post-header"> </div> <div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-9162047336002728006"> <h2 class="post_name" id="post-9223"><span style="font-size:180%;">Venezuela: La hora final –</span> por Pompeyo Márquez</h2> <div class="post_meta"> </div> <p><a href="http://www.hacer.org/latam/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/chavez-enfermo-111.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-9230" title="chavez enfermo 11" src="http://www.hacer.org/latam/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/chavez-enfermo-111.jpg" alt="" height="240" width="360" /></a>Marx encontró una bella metáfora para referirse a ese proceso sociopolítico, cultural y económico que va tejiendo nuevos escenarios históricos casi siempre a redropelo de la voluntad de los hombres y a veces, incluso, contra su expresa voluntad. Engañando a tirios y troyanos y usando los más equívocos, falsos y trastornados mensajeros. Lo llamó “el viejo topo”. Y al trabajo que realiza en el subsuelo de la conciencia colectiva hasta derrumbar todas las falsas certidumbres para permitir el nacimiento de una nueva sociedad lo llamó “su trabajo de zapa”.</p> <p>Súbitamente y de la manera más insólita, pues nadie se lo había siquiera imaginado, el viejo topo hace su trabajo de zapa bajo el resquebrajado cuero seco de esta Venezuela petrolera.</p> <p>Y para terminar de derrumbar el tinglado fantasmagórico de esta sedicente revolución bolivariana y permitir que emerja del trajinado subsuelo de nuestra sociedad la nueva sociedad moderna y globalizada que exigen las circunstancias, se sirve del falso mensajero: un teniente coronel con aspiraciones de eternidad al que el destino, en una siniestra jugarreta, le desemboza de un solo tajo la dolorosa fragilidad de su existencia. La historia lo pilla en offside: fuera de juego. Con su revolución en el cartapacio.</p> <p>Pertenezco a aquellos que creyeron que Hugo Chávez, en esta particular circunstancia, se desempeñaba en el rol de lo que Molière llamara “le malade imaginaire”, el enfermo imaginario. Bajo la mise en scène de Fidel Castro y la producción estelar del G2 cubano.</p> <p>En un operativo que llamé “misión resurrección”. Consistente, tal como lo ha hecho el mayor de los Castro, en desaparecer de la faz del planeta, provocar conmoción pública y reaparecer al filo de la desesperación colectiva para ser recibido en gloria y majestad como el hijo pródigo, ya al borde de la histeria. Tiempo suficiente, además, para volver a empaquetar la mercadería: un lifting, una cirugía estética, un new look para ver si engañaba a Cronos, el Dios del tiempo, el implacable. Ha sido el recurso con el que su íntimo amigo y compañero de aventuras Muammar Gadaffi ha refrescado su imagen, hasta ahora, cuando los dioses del desierto le vuelven la espalda.</p> <p>La realidad parece desmentirme. La realización de la asamblea cumbre de la organización con que el segundo de Fidel Castro imagina el futuro sin la OEA, el CELAC, pautada para el 4 y 5 de julio en la isla de Margarita, jugada maestra de los bolivarianos y del lulista Foro de Sao Paulo con la que pretenden desbancar a los Estados Unidos y al Canadá del tablero político latinoamericano, ha sido cancelada el pasado miércoles 29 de junio. La razón clama a los cielos: Chávez está enfermo. Y no de cualquier minucia propia de personajes estresados – empresarios, artistas, periodistas, productores de televisión, políticos derrotados y jugadores de bolsa – tales como una gastritis, colon irritable, mareos súbitos, torsiones musculares, obesidad y desmayos causados por la acumulación de acosos existenciales. De ninguna manera. Chávez padece de cáncer. Por ahora, según se deduce de las informaciones que traspasando el espeso muro del secretismo propio de regímenes totalitarios han llegado a los medios nacionales e internacionales, no padece de un cáncer terminal y devastador, como los que suelen llevarse a los simples mortales en pocos días con la silbante ráfaga de un guadañazo. Pero no nos llamemos a engaño: un cáncer es un cáncer. No existe un cáncer benigno – ejemplar oxímoron -, como esos malestares que se guardan en el portafolios y nos sorprenden el día de mañana llegando a la oficina. Una acidez pertinaz e insoportable después de días de alcohol, sexo y fatiga.</p> <p>Nadie ha dicho que el cáncer de Chávez, supuestamente de próstata con algún nivel de metástasis en otros órganos vecinos – se habla del hígado y del páncreas, incluso de sus huesos -, se lo llevará al otro mundo de un día al otro. Conozco a muchos que han sobrevivido años y años con un cáncer, de los aviesos y traidores.</p> <p>Pero al día de hoy y a pesar de esa certidumbre debemos reconocer que casi todos quienes sufren de cáncer se invalidan para las grandes aventuras psíquicas, físicas y corporales a las que se sentían llamados. En la inefable pantalla espiritual de sus vidas se asoma la persistente, la tenaz, la aviesa sombra de la más antigua, más amarga y más extenuante de las certidumbres: la de la inmediatez inevitable de la muerte. En esos casos, ese tenue velo de la eternidad con el que convivimos en la sana inconsciencia cotidiana, se rasga como con un relámpago. Murieron las ilusiones.</p> <p>Esto le, nos sucede, además, en el peor y más angustioso de los momentos del proyecto vital que ha convertido en esencia de su vida desde sus tempranos días en la Academia Militar. Le sucede cuando la llamada revolución bolivariana se derrumba en pedazos sin haber dejado a su paso una sola institución, una sola obra, una sola realidad imperecedera.</p> <p>Como suele suceder con regímenes autocráticos sustentado en atributos absolutamente personales y azarosos del autócrata. La única que pudo sobrevivirle, la Constitución, ha sido envilecida, atropellada y ultrajada por sus mismos creadores.</p> <p>En un país que siente animadversión congénita por el orden constitucional y se lo ha pasado pergeñando constituciones – ya van 27, mientras Estados Unidos tiene una con enmiendas e Inglaterra simplemente carece de ella – difícilmente le sobrevivirá más de algunos meses.La asamblea nacional – sea escrito en minúsculas dada su bajeza – es infinitamente más venal, corrupta y despreciable que todas las que la precedieran en estos doscientos años de vida legislativa. Incluso la de Cipriano Castro, sobre la que Rómulo Gallegos escupiera su juvenil y corajudo desprecio hace más de un siglo. Y el partido que se sacó de la manga en medio del aluvión social que lo arrastrara al Poder, el PSUV, se volverá escenario de una guerra a dentelladas por la herencia de los despojos. En suma: estos trece años de despilfarro, desorden, odios, enfrentamientos y esperanzas yacen por los suelos. Tanto, que uno de sus más importantes artífices, el teniente Diosdado Cabello, se ve en la obligación de señalar que sin Chávez, no queda, no quedaría, no quedará absolutamente nada. Como exclama el croupier cuando detiene las apuestas: fin de partie. Para comprender la magnitud de la confesión me imagino un solo escenario: ¿Stalin exclamando que sin Lenin se acabó la revolución bolchevique? Imposible.</p> <p>Aún así, haberse mantenido firmemente montado sobre el alebrestado cimarrón que lo respalda no es poco para un ágrafo teniente coronel al que en la academia militar menospreciaban sin miramientos apodándolo “el loco Chávez”. Haber enfebrecido a un pueblo rebajado a pasto de sus ambiciones ha sido una proeza que pasará a la historia. Como tambiél pasará el hecho insólito y condenable de no dejarle un techo, un pan, un abrigo a pesar de haber contado en una década con la mayor fortuna jamás conocida en la historia de Venezuela desde su descubrimiento. Ni siquiera le entrega una auténtica Nación en la que cobijarse. Sólo un recuerdo vaporoso y difuso que el viento irá esparciendo en el olvido como el sueño de una larga, interminable, pesadillesca noche de verano. Pues todo lo que sobrevive en instituciones, en infraestructura, en desarrollo económico, cultural y social ha sido obra de los cuarenta años que lo precedieran. Y que el más feroz de los embates no ha podido terminar por destruir.</p> <p>Es esencial que las élites lo comprendan y se preparen a actuar en concordancia: Venezuela, desde el 10 de junio de 2011, día en que se le operara en La Habana de un absceso pélvico producto de una prostatectomía, ya es otro país. Chávez no está muerto ni posiblemente lo estará en años. Le ha sucedido algo peor, porque es menos glorioso: se nos ha vuelto súbitamente inútil, obsoleto. Temeroso, frágil y quebradizo. Ya es tarde para parapetar de urgencia una nueva realidad pariendo de la noche a la mañana una revolución armada, socialista, bolchevique, heroica e impoluta como la que naciera en la Sierra Maestra y muriese a poco andar de un brutal totalitarismo caudillesco y autocrático. Tal como lo pretende Adán Chávez, patética y lamentable parodia de Raúl Castro, el comunista de la familia. Nunca segundas partes fueron buenas.</p> <p>La oposición debe descifrar las claves de este nuevo país.</p> <p>Y observar con atención al estado de excepción que se agudiza tras este providencial suceso. Un atentado del destino ha fracturado las bases del Poder caudillesco que sostenía la farsa revolucionaria. Desde luego, y visto en la gran perspectiva del Poder y la Historia, no se trata de mantener la ficción electoral sometiéndola al estrés del apuro y la precipitación. Se trata del aprehender y comprender en toda su magnitud el momento crucial que vivimos, el Kairós (καιρός) que llamaban los griegos: ese instante único e irrepetible por el que se nos cuela lo nuevo, lo inédito en la historia. El problema, así como el desafío, son trascendentales. Se trata de asumir la responsabilidad del Poder y asegurarle a la Nación el futuro cuyas portones acaban de ser abiertos por el viejo topo. Lenin exigió en sus tesis de abril de 1917, cuando la parodia democrático burguesa intentaba gatear, “todo el poder a los soviets”.</p> <p>Llegó la hora de exigir “todo el Poder a la Democracia” y proceder de inmediato al delicado montaje de la transición a la nueva Venezuela.</p> <p>Dios quiera que sea por medios electorales. Y que el fantasma del golpe de Estado que estará rondando las cabezas de los más afiebrados de entre los huérfanos de Chávez, ultima ratio de una revolución que se desbarranca, sea impedido por la sensatez de nuestras élites civiles y uniformadas. La Patria lo demanda. La decisión está en nuestras manos.</p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"> <span class="post-author vcard"> Publicadas por <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> a la/s <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://alianzaliberal.blogspot.com/2011/07/venezuela-la-hora-final.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-07-14T09:35:00-07:00">9:35 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="reaction-buttons"> </span> <span class="star-ratings"> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=3679109554603372635&postID=9162047336002728006">0 comentarios</a> </span> <span class="post-backlinks post-comment-link"> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-action"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/email-post.g?blogID=3679109554603372635&postID=9162047336002728006" title="Enviar la entrada por correo electrónico"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img1.blogblog.com/img/icon18_email.gif" height="13" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <div class="post-share-buttons goog-inline-block"> </div> </div> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-2"> <span class="post-labels"> Etiquetas: <a href="http://alianzaliberal.blogspot.com/search/label/Venezuela%3A%20La%20hora%20final%20%E2%80%93" rel="tag">Venezuela: La hora final –</a> </span> </div> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-3"> <span class="post-location"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry uncustomized-post-template"> <a name="9189205852920795667"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://alianzaliberal.blogspot.com/2011/07/venezuela-centro-operativo-de.html">Venezuela: Centro operativo de terrorismo</a> </h3> <div class="post-header"> </div> <div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-9189205852920795667"> <h2 class="post_name" id="post-9208"><span style="font-size:180%;">Venezuela: Centro operativo de terrorismo</span> – por Adolfo R. Taylhardat</h2> <div class="post_meta"> </div> <p><a href="http://www.hacer.org/latam/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/IranChavezBrotherhood.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-9211" title="IranChavezBrotherhood" src="http://www.hacer.org/latam/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/IranChavezBrotherhood.jpg" alt="" height="265" width="375" /></a>La semana pasada el Comité de Seguridad Nacional de la Cámara de Representantes del Congreso de los Estados Unidos inició una investigación acerca de las actividades de apoyo al terrorismo que tienen lugar en América Latina. En una audiencia de ese Comité, en la cual participaron congresistas y expertos en cuestiones de terrorismo, trascendió que elementos vinculados al Hezbollah y ciudadanos venezolanos de origen árabe participan en labores de reclutamiento y entrenamiento para la realización de ataques terroristas y que una base central operativa para esa actividad se encuentra en la Isla de Margarita.</p> <p>La investigación en el Congreso de los Estados imprime al tema un carácter sumamente delicado y coloca a nuestro país en una posición comprometedora porque el asunto está siendo considerado como una situación que podría constituir “una seria amenaza para la seguridad de los Estados Unidos”.</p> <p>Según los expertos que participan en esa investigación, en América Latina se encuentran activos alrededor de 80 operativos de Hezbollah, principalmente en Venezuela y Brasil.</p> <p>Roger Noriega, quien hasta hace poco desempeñó el cargo de Secretario para Asuntos Latinoamericanos en el Departamento de Estado y participa en la investigación como uno de los expertos en el tema, señaló que régimen venezolano “tiene un récord de apoyar a narcoterroristas colombianos, ha cooperado con Irán para proveer apoyo político, financiamiento o armas a Hezbollah, Hamas o la palestina Jihad Islámica en este hemisferio y otras partes” Afirma además que la isla de Margarita “ha eclipsado a la infame área de la Trifrontera – la región donde Brasil, Argentina y Paraguay coinciden en Sur América- como el principal refugio y centro de las operaciones de Hezbollah en las Américas”.</p> <p>Según informaciones proporcionadas durante la audiencia “Uno de los líderes claves de Hezbollah, es el segundo funcionario en importancia en la embajada de Venezuela en Siria”, el venezolano originario de Líbano, Ghazi Atef Salameh Nassereddine Abu Ali, quien supuestamente dirige, “junto a dos de sus hermanos, una red de lavado de dinero y reclutamiento, que entrena operativos para expandir la influencia de Hezbollah en Venezuela y en toda América Latina”. Nassereddine figura, desde el año 2008 en la lista de personas que apoyan el terrorismo internacional elaborada por el Departamento del Tesoro de los Estados Unidos. También se afirmó en la audiencia que Oday, el hermano menor de Nassereddine, “ha establecido en Venezuela “una base en la cual se organizan operaciones de entrenamiento en la Isla de Margarita, y actualmente está reclutando seguidores a través de los Círculos Bolivarianos en Barquisimeto”.</p> <p>Ya el periodista español Antonio Salas, en su libro “El Palestino”, publicado recientemente, había ofrecido testimonios acerca de la existencia en Venezuela de campos de entrenamiento en los cuales las FARC, ETA, Hezbollah y otros grupos terroristas realizan actividades de entrenamiento de sus efectivos. Según Salas, quien se hizo pasar como un palestino-venezolano partidario de la jihad y logró penetrar esos grupos, solamente en los alrededores de Caracas existen seis campamentos de entrenamiento de terrorismo. Los testimonios de Salas están respaldados con una serie de fotografías y videos, que están disponibles en Internet.</p> <p>El libro de Salas habría sido <em>notitia criminis</em> más que suficiente como para que la fiscalía emprendiera una investigación sobre esas graves y comprometedoras revelaciones. Sin embargo, como ocurre siempre con situaciones que involucran al régimen, el tema ha sido olímpicamente ignorado por las autoridades que deberían tomar cartas en el asunto.</p> <p>Seguramente la investigación del parlamento norteamericano recibirá el mismo tratamiento, sazonado con calificativos peyorativos y hasta soeces, como es la conducta habitual del régimen.</p> <p>Sin embargo, no está lejos el momento en que la actual administración tendrá que rendir cuenta a los venezolanos y a la comunidad internacional por esta conducta que constituye una grave falta a los compromisos internacionales del país. Además infringe decisiones expresas del Consejo de Seguridad de las Naciones Unidas e involucran a Venezuela como país y a personeros del gobierno en actividades contrarias a la esencia fundamental de nuestra nación, implicándola en situaciones que por su propia naturaleza generan riesgos claros e inminentes para la soberanía nacional.</p></div></div></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395381545218020265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4966921227529983571.post-35534188528139684132011-06-30T15:34:00.001-07:002011-06-30T15:34:15.486-07:00<div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1 class="title">Islamist Militancy in a Pre- and Post-Saleh Yemen</h1><p><strong>By Reva Bhalla</strong></p> <p>Nearly three months have passed since the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, first saw mass demonstrations against Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, but an exit from the current stalemate is still nowhere in sight. Saleh retains enough support to continue dictating the terms of his eventual political departure to an emboldened yet frustrated opposition. At the same time, the <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110318-yemen-crisis-special-report">writ of his authority beyond the capital is dwindling</a>, which is increasing the level of chaos and allowing various rebel groups to collect arms, recruit fighters and operate under dangerously few constraints.</p> <p>The prospect of Saleh’s political struggle providing a boon to <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20100823_yemen_military_faces_aqap_south">al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)</a> is understandably producing anxiety in Washington, where U.S. officials have spent the past few months trying to envision what a post-Saleh Yemen would mean for U.S. counterterrorism efforts in the Arabian Peninsula.</p> <p>While fending off opponents at home, Saleh and his followers have been relying on the “me or chaos” tactic abroad to hang onto power. Loyalists argue that the dismantling of the Saleh regime would fundamentally derail years of U.S. investment designed to elicit meaningful Yemeni cooperation against AQAP or, worse, result in a civil war that will provide AQAP with freedom to hone its skills. Emboldened by the recent unrest, a jihadist group called the Abyan-Aden Islamic Army launched a major raid on a weapons depot in Jaar in late March, leading a number of media outlets to speculate that the toppling of the Saleh regime would play directly into the hands of Yemen’s jihadists.</p> <p>Meanwhile, the opposition has countered that the <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/geopolitical_diary/20100105_yemens_complex_jihadist_problem">Yemeni jihadist threat</a> is a perception engineered by Saleh to convince the West of the dangers of abandoning support for his regime. Opposition figures argue that Saleh’s policies are what led to the rise of AQAP in the first place and that the fall of his regime would provide the United States with a clean slate to address its counterterrorism concerns with new, non-Saleh-affiliated political allies. The reality is likely somewhere in between.</p> <h3>The Birth of Yemen’s Modern Jihadist Movement</h3> <p>The pervasiveness of radical Islamists in Yemen’s military and security apparatus is no secret, and it contributes to the staying power of al Qaeda and its offspring in the Arabian Peninsula. The root of the issue dates back to the Soviet-Afghan war, when Osama bin Laden, whose family hails from the Hadramawt region of the eastern Yemeni hinterland, commanded a small group of Arab volunteers under the leadership of Abdullah Azzam in the Islamist insurgency against the Soviets through the 1980s. Yemenis formed one of the largest contingents within bin Laden’s Arab volunteer force in Afghanistan, which meant that by 1989, a sizable number of battle-hardened Yemenis returned home looking for a new purpose.</p> <p>They did not have to wait long. Leading the jihadist pack returning from Afghanistan was Tariq al Fadhli of the once-powerful al Fadhli tribe based in the southern Yemeni province of Abyan. Joining al Fadhli was Sheikh Abdul Majid al Zindani, the spiritual father of Yemen’s Salafi movement and one of the leaders of the conservative Islah party (now leading the political opposition against Saleh). The al Fadhli tribe had lost its lands to the Marxists of the Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP), which had ruled South Yemen with Soviet backing throughout the 1980s while North Yemen was ruled with Saudi backing. Al Fadhli, an opportunist who tends to downplay his previous interactions with bin Laden, returned to his homeland in 1989 (supposedly with funding from bin Laden) with a mission backed by North Yemen and Saudi Arabia to rid the south of Marxists. He and his group set up camp in the mountains of Saada province on the Saudi border and also established a training facility in Abyan province in South Yemen. Joining al Fadhli’s group were a few thousand Arabs from Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan who had fought in Afghanistan and faced arrest or worse if they tried to return home.</p> <p>When North and South Yemen unified in 1990 following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Yemen’s tribal Salafists, still trying to find their footing, were largely pushed aside as the southern Marxists became part of the new Republic of Yemen, albeit as subjugated partners to the north. Many within the Islamist militant movement shifted their focus to foreign targets — with an eye on the United States — and rapidly made their mark in December 1992, when two hotels were bombed in the southern city of Aden, where U.S. soldiers taking part in Operation Restore Hope in Somalia were lodged (though no Americans were killed in the attack). A rocket attack against the U.S. Embassy in January 1993 was also attempted and failed. Though he denied involvement in the hotel attacks, al Fadhli and many of his jihadist compatriots were thrown in jail on charges of orchestrating the hotel bombings as well as the assassination of one of the YSP’s political leaders.</p> <p>But as tensions intensified between the north and the south in the early 1990s, so did the utility of Yemen’s Islamist militants. Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh brokered a deal in 1993 with al Fadhli in which the militant leader was released from jail and freed of all charges in exchange for his assistance in defeating the southern socialists, who were now waging a civil war against the north. Saleh’s plan worked. The southern socialists were defeated and stripped of much of their land and fortunes, while the jihadists who made Saleh’s victory possible enjoyed the spoils of war. Al Fadhli, in particular, ended up becoming a member of Saleh’s political inner circle. In tribal custom, he also had his sister marry Brig. Gen. Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, a member of the president’s Sanhan tribe in the influential Hashid confederation and now commander of Yemen’s northwestern military division and 1st Armored Brigade. (Mohsen, known for his heavily Islamist leanings, has been leading the political standoff against Saleh ever since his high-profile defection from the regime March 24.)</p> <h3>The Old Guard Rises and Falls</h3> <p>Saleh’s co-opting of Yemen’s Islamist militants had profound implications for the country’s terrorism profile. Islamists of varying ideological intensities were rewarded with positions throughout the Yemeni security and intelligence apparatus, with a heavy concentration in the Political Security Organization (PSO), a state security and intelligence agency. The PSO exists separately from the Ministry of Interior and is supposed to answer directly to the president, but it has long operated autonomously and is believed to have been behind a number of large-scale jailbreaks, political assassinations and militant operations in the country. While the leadership of the PSO under Ghaleb al Ghamesh has maintained its loyalty to Saleh, the loyalty of the organization as a whole to the president is highly questionable.</p> <p>Many within the military-intelligence-security apparatus who fought in the 1994 civil war to defeat South Yemen and formed a base of support around Saleh’s presidency made up what is now considered the “old guard” in Yemen. Interspersed within the old guard were the mujahideen fighters returning from Afghanistan. Leading the old guard within the military has been none other than Mohsen, who, after years of standing by Saleh’s side, has emerged in the past month as the president’s most formidable challenger. Mohsen, whose uncle was married to Saleh’s mother in her second marriage, was a stalwart ally of Saleh throughout the 1990s. He played an instrumental role in protecting Saleh from coup attempts early on in his political reign and led the North Yemen army to victory against the south in the 1994 civil war. Mohsen was duly rewarded with ample military funding and control over Saada, al-Hudaydah, Hajja, Amran and Mahwit, surpassing the influence of the governors in these provinces.</p> <p>While the 1990s were the golden years for Mohsen, the 21st century brought with it an array of challenges for the Islamist sympathizers in the old guard. Following the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, Saleh came under enormous pressure from the United States to crack down on al Qaeda operatives and their protectors in Yemen, both within and beyond the bounds of the state. Fearful of the political backlash that would result from U.S. unilateral military action in Yemen and tempted by large amounts of counterterrorism aid being channeled from Washington, Saleh began devising a strategy to gradually marginalize the increasingly problematic old guard.</p> <p>These were not the only factors driving Saleh’s decision, however. Saleh knew he had to prepare a succession plan, and he preferred to see the next generation of Saleh men at the helm. Anticipating the challenge he would face from powerful figures like Mohsen and his allies, Saleh shrewdly created new and distinct security agencies for selected family members to run under the tutelage of the United States with the those agencies run by formidable members of the old guard. Thus the “new guard” was born.</p> <h3>The Rise of Saleh’s Second-Generation New Guard</h3> <p>Over the course of the past decade, Saleh has made a series of appointments to mark the ascendancy of the new guard. Most important, his son and preferred successor, Ahmed Ali Saleh, became head of the elite Republican Guard (roughly 30,000-plus men) and Special Operations Forces. Ahmad replaced Saleh’s half-brother, Ali Saleh al-Ahmar, as chief of the Republican Guard, but Saleh made sure to appease Ali by making him Yemen’s defense attache in Washington, followed by appointing him to the highly influential post of chief of staff of the supreme commander of the Armed Forces and supervisor to the Republican Guard.</p> <p>The president also appointed his nephews — the sons of his brother Muhammad Abdullah Saleh (now deceased) — to key positions. Yahya became chief of staff of the Central Security Forces and Counter-Terrorism Unit (roughly 50,000 plus); Tariq was made commander of the Special Guard, which effectively falls under the authority of Ahmed’s Republican Guard; and Ammar became principal duty director of the National Security Bureau (NSB). Moreover, nearly all of Saleh’s sons, cousins and nephews are evenly distributed throughout the Republican Guard.</p> <p>Each of these agencies received a substantial amount of money as U.S. financial aid to Yemen increased from $5 million in 2006 to $155 million in 2010. This was expected to rise to $1 billion or more over the next several years, but Washington froze the first installment in February when the protests broke out. Ahmed’s Republican Guard and Special Operations Forces worked closely with U.S. military trainers in trying to develop an elite fighting force along the lines of Jordan’s U.S.-trained Fursan al Haq (Knights of Justice). The creation of the mostly U.S.-financed NSB in 2002 to collect domestic intelligence was also part of a broader attempt by Saleh to reform all security agencies to counter the heavy jihadist penetration of the PSO.</p> <p>Meanwhile, Mohsen watched nervously as his power base flattened under the weight of the second-generation Saleh men. One by one, Mohsen’s close old-guard allies were replaced: In 2007, Saleh sacked Gen. Al Thaneen, commander of the Republican Guard in Taiz. In 2008, Brig. Gen. Mujahid Gushaim replaced Ali Sayani, the head of military intelligence (Ali Sayani’s brother, Abdulmalik, Yemen’s former defense minister, was one of the first generals to declare support for the revolt against Saleh). The same year, Gen. Al Thahiri al Shadadi was replaced by Brig Gen. Mohammed al Magdashi as commander of the Central Division; Saleh then appointed his personal bodyguard, Brig. Gen. Aziz Mulfi, as chief of staff of the 27th mechanized brigade in Hadramawt. Finally, in early 2011, Saleh sacked Brig. Gen. Abdullah Al Gadhi, commander of Al Anad Base that lies on the axis of Aden in the south and commander of the 201st mechanized brigade. As commander of the northwestern division, Mohsen had been kept busy by an al-Houthi rebellion that ignited in 2004, and he became a convenient scapegoat for Saleh when the al-Houthis rose up again in 2009 and began seizing territory, leading to a rare Saudi military intervention in Yemen’s northern Saada province.</p> <p>Using the distraction and intensity of the al-Houthi rebellion to weaken Mohsen and his forces, Saleh attempted to move the headquarters of Mohsen’s 1st Armored Brigade from Sanaa to Amran just north of the capital and ordered the transfer of heavy equipment from Mohsen’s forces to the Republican Guard. While Saleh’s son and nephews were on the receiving end of millions of dollars of U.S. financial aid to fight AQAP, Mohsen and his allies were left on the sidelines as the old-guard institutions were branded as untrustworthy and thus unworthy of U.S. financing. Mohsen also claims Saleh tried to have him killed at least six times. One such episode, revealed in a WikiLeaks cable dated February 2010, describes how the Saleh government allegedly provided Saudi military commanders with the coordinates of Mohsen’s headquarters when Saudi forces were launching airstrikes on the al-Houthis. The Saudis aborted the strike when they sensed something was wrong with the information they were receiving from the Yemeni government.</p> <p>Toward the end of 2010, with the old guard sufficiently weakened, Saleh was feeling relatively confident that he would be able to see through his plans to abolish presidential term limits and pave the way for his son to take power. What Saleh didn’t anticipate was the viral effect of the North African uprisings and the opportunity they would present to Mohsen and his allies to take revenge and, more important, make a comeback.</p> <p><a href="http://web.stratfor.com/images/middleeast/map/Yemen_conflict_zones_800.jpg"> </a></p><div class="media media-image floatleft" style="width:400px"><a href="http://web.stratfor.com/images/middleeast/map/Yemen_conflict_zones_800.jpg"> <div class="inner"> <div class="media-item"><img src="http://media.stratfor.com/files/mmf/c/2/c2eaf9226ba809df28020899b95b1cfdf026771f.jpg" alt="Islamist Militancy in a Pre- and Post-Saleh Yemen" title="" /></div> <div class="media-caption">(click here to enlarge image)</div> </div> </a></div><a href="http://web.stratfor.com/images/middleeast/map/Yemen_conflict_zones_800.jpg"> </a> <h3>An Old Guard Revival?</h3> <p>Mohsen, 66 years old, is a patient and calculating man. When thousands of Yemenis took to the streets of Sanaa in late March to protest against the regime, his 1st Armored Brigade, based just a short distance from the University of Sanaa entrance where the protesters were concentrated, deliberately stood back while the CSF and Republican Guard took the heat for increasingly violent crackdowns. In many ways, Mohsen attempted to emulate Egyptian Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi in having his forces stand between the CSF and the protesters, acting as a protector of the pro-democracy demonstrators in hopes of making his way to the presidential palace with the people’s backing. Mohsen continues to carry a high level of respect among the Islamist-leaning old guard and, just as critically, maintains a strong relationship with the Saudi royals.</p> <p>Following his March 24 defection, a number of high-profile military, political and tribal defections followed. Standing in league with Mohsen is the politically ambitious Sheikh Hamid al-Ahmar, one of the 10 sons of the late Abdullah bin Hussein al-Ahmar, who ruled the Hashid confederation as the most powerful tribal chieftain in the country and was also a prominent leader of the Islah political party. (Saleh’s Sanhaan tribe is part of the Hashid confederation as well.) Hamid is a wealthy businessman and vocal leader of the Islah party, which dominates the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP), an opposition coalition. The sheikh who, like Mohsen, has a close relationship with the Saudi royals, has ambitions to replace Saleh and has been responsible for a wave of defections from within the ruling General People’s Congress, nearly all of which can be traced back to his family tree. In an illustration of Hamid’s strategic alliance with Mohsen, Hamid holds the position of lieutenant colonel in the 1st Armored Brigade. This is a purely honorary position but provides Hamid with a military permit to expand his contingent of body guards, the numbers of which of recently swelled to at least 100.</p> <p>Together, Mohsen and Sheikh Hamid have a great deal of influence in Yemen to challenge Saleh, but still not enough to drive him out of office by force. Mohsen’s forces have been gradually trying to encroach on Sanaa from their base in the northern outskirts of the capital, but forces loyal to Saleh in Sanaa continue to outman and outgun the rebel forces.</p> <p>Hence the <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110413-yemens-rebel-general-raises-stakes">current stalemate</a>. Yemen does not have the luxury of a clean, geographic split between pro-regime and anti-regime forces, as is the case in Libya. In its infinite complexity, the country is divided along tribal, family, military and business lines, so its political future is difficult to chart. A single family, army unit, village or tribe will have members pledging loyalty to either Saleh or the revolution, providing the president with just enough staying power to deflect opposition demands and drag out the political crisis.</p> <h3>Washington’s Yemen Problem</h3> <p>The question of whether Saleh stays or goes is not the main topic of current debate. Nearly every party to the conflict, including the various opposition groups, Saudi Arabia, the United States and even Saleh himself, understand that the Yemeni president’s 33-year political reign will end soon. The real sticking point has to do with those family members surrounding Saleh and whether they, too, will be brought down with the president in a true regime change.</p> <p>This is where the United States finds itself in a particularly uncomfortable spot. Yemen’s opposition, a hodgepodge movement including everything from northern Islamists to southern socialists, are mostly only united by a collective aim to dismantle the Saleh regime, including the second-generation Saleh new guard that has come to dominate the country’s security-military-intelligence apparatus with heavy U.S.-backing.</p> <p>The system is far from perfect, and counterterrorism efforts in Yemen continue to frustrate U.S. authorities. However, Saleh’s security reforms over the past several years and the tutelage the U.S. military has been able to provide to these select agencies have been viewed as a significant sign of progress by the United States, and that progress could now be coming under threat.</p> <p>Mohsen and his allies are looking to reclaim their lost influence and absorb the new-guard entities in an entirely new security set-up. For example, the opposition is demanding that the Republican Guard and Special Forces be absorbed into the army, which would operate under a general loyal to Mohsen (Mohsen himself claims he would step down as part of a deal in which Saleh also resigns, but he would be expected to assume a kingmaker status), that the CSF and CTU paramilitary agencies be stripped of their autonomy and operationally come under the Ministry of Interior and that the newly created NSB come under the PSO. Such changes would be tantamount to unraveling the past decade of U.S. counterterrorism investment in Yemen that was designed explicitly to raise a new generation of security officials who could hold their own against the Islamist-leaning old guard. This is not to say that Mohsen and his allies would completely obstruct U.S. counterterrorism efforts. Many within the old guard, eager for U.S. financial aid and opposed to U.S. unilateral military action in Yemen, are likely to veer toward pragmatism in dealing with Washington. That said, Mohsen’s reputation for protecting jihadists operating in Yemen and his poor standing with Washington would add much distrust to an already complicated U.S.-Yemeni relationship.</p> <p>Given its counterterrorism concerns and the large amount of U.S. financial aid flowing into Yemen in recent years, Washington undoubtedly has a stake in Yemen’s political transition, but it is unclear how much influence it will be able to exert in trying to shape a post-Saleh government. The United States lacks the tribal relationships, historical presence and trust to deal effectively with a resurgent old guard seeking vengeance amid growing chaos.</p> <p>The real heavyweight in Yemen is Saudi Arabia. The Saudi royals have long viewed their southern neighbor as a constant source of instability in the kingdom. Whether the threat to the monarchy emanating from Yemen drew its roots from Nasserism, Marxism or radical Islamism, Riyadh deliberated worked to keep the Yemeni state weak while buying loyalties across the Yemeni tribal landscape. Saudi Arabia shares the U.S. concern over Yemeni instability providing a boon to AQAP. The Saudi royals, who are reviled by a large segment of <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20090128_al_qaeda_arabian_peninsula_desperation_or_new_life">Saudi-born jihadists in AQAP operating from Yemen</a>, are a logical target for AQAP attacks that carry sufficient strategic weight to shake the oil markets and the royal regime, especially given the current climate of unrest in the region. Moreover, Saudi Arabia does not want to deal with a dramatic increase in the already regular spillover of refugees, smugglers and illegal workers from Yemen should civil war ensue.</p> <p>At the same time, Saudi Arabia and the United States may not entirely see eye to eye in how to manage the jihadist threat in Yemen. The Saudis have maintained close linkages with a number of influential Islamist members within the old guard, including Mohsen and jihadists like al Fadhli, who broke off his alliance with Saleh in 2009 to lead the Southern Movement against the regime. The Saudis are also more prone to rely on their jihadist allies from time to time in trying to snuff out more immediate threats to Saudi interests.</p> <p>For example, Saudi Arabia’s current concern regarding Yemen centers not on the future of Yemen’s counterterrorism capabilities but on the al-Houthi rebels in the north, who have wasted little time in exploiting Sanaa’s distractions to expand their territorial claims in Saada province. The al-Houthis belong to the Zaydi sect, considered an offshoot of Shiite Islam and heretical by Wahhabi standards. Riyadh fears Houthi unrest in Yemen’s north could stir unrest in Saudi Arabia’s southern provinces of Najran and Jizan, which are home to the Ismailis, also an offshoot of Shiite Islam. Ismaili unrest in the south could then embolden Shia in Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich Eastern Province, who have already been engaged in demonstrations, albeit small ones, against the Saudi monarchy with heavy Iranian encouragement. Deputy AQAP leader Saad Ali al Shihri’s declaration of war against the al-Houthi rebels on Jan. 28 may have surprised many, but it also seemed to play to the Saudi agenda in channeling jihadist efforts toward the al-Houthi threat.</p> <p>The United States has a Yemen problem that it cannot avoid, but it also has very few tools with which to manage or solve it. For now, the stalemate provides Washington with the time to sort out alternatives to the second-generation Saleh relatives, but that time also comes at a cost. The longer this political crisis drags on, the more Saleh will narrow his focus to holding onto Sanaa, while leaving the rest of the country for the al-Houthis, the southern socialists and the jihadists to fight over. The United States can take some comfort in the fact that AQAP’s poor track record of <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110120-jihadism-2011-persistent-grassroots-threat">innovative yet failed attacks</a> has kept the group in the <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20110330-aqap-and-vacuum-authority-yemen">terrorist minor leagues</a>. With enough time, resources and sympathizers in the government and security apparatus, however, AQAP could find itself in a more comfortable spot in a post-Saleh scenario, likely to the detriment of U.S. counterterrorism efforts in the Arabian Peninsula.</p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/islamist-militancy.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-30T11:47:00-07:00">11:47 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=8222536337860717133">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=8222536337860717133&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Islamist%20Militancy" rel="tag">Islamist Militancy</a> </span> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="1587634939954262651"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/divided-states.html">The Divided States</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1 class="title">The Divided States of Europe</h1><p><strong>By Marko Papic</strong></p> <p>Europe continues to be engulfed by economic crisis. <a class="strat_tip_off" title="Watch Video: Dispatch: Greek Austerity Measures and the Wider Eurozone Threat"><img src="http://media.stratfor.com/stratfor_images/playbuttonsmall.gif" /> The global focus returns to Athens</a> on June 28 as Greek parliamentarians debate austerity measures imposed on them by eurozone partners. If the Greeks vote down these measures, Athens will not receive its second bailout, which could create an even worse crisis in Europe and the world.</p> <p>It is important to understand that <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/geopolitical_diary/20110622-eurozone-crisis-not-greek-drama">the crisis is not fundamentally about Greece</a> or even about the indebtedness of the entire currency bloc. After all, Greece represents only 2.5 percent of the eurozone’s gross domestic product (GDP), and the bloc’s fiscal numbers are not that bad when looked at in the aggregate. Its overall deficit and debt figures are in a better shape than those of the United States — the U.S. budget deficit stood at 10.6 percent of GDP in 2010, compared to 6.4 percent for the European Union — yet the focus continues to be on Europe.</p> <p>That is because the real crisis is the more fundamental question of how the European continent is to be ruled in the 21st century. Europe has emerged from its subservience during the Cold War, when it was the geopolitical chessboard for the Soviet Union and the United States. It won its independence by default as the superpowers retreated: Russia withdrawing to its Soviet sphere of influence and the United States switching its focus to the Middle East after 9/11. Since the 1990s, Europe has dabbled with institutional reform but has left the fundamental question of political integration off the table, even as it integrated economically. This is ultimately the source of the current sovereign debt crisis, the lack of political oversight over economic integration gone wrong.</p> <p>The eurozone’s economic crisis brought this question of Europe’s political fate into focus, but it is a recurring issue. Roughly every 100 years, Europe confronts this dilemma. The Continent suffers from overpopulation — of nations, not people. Europe has the largest concentration of independent nation-states per square foot than any other continent. While Africa is larger and has more countries, no continent has as many rich and relatively powerful countries as Europe does. This is because, geographically, the Continent is riddled with features that prevent the formation of a single political entity. Mountain ranges, peninsulas and islands limit the ability of large powers to dominate or conquer the smaller ones. No single river forms a unifying river valley that can dominate the rest of the Continent. The Danube comes close, but it drains into the practically landlocked Black Sea, the only exit from which is another practically landlocked sea, the Mediterranean. This limits Europe’s ability to produce an independent entity capable of global power projection.</p> <p>However, Europe does have plenty of rivers, convenient transportation routes and well-sheltered harbors. This allows for <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20100602_eu_us_european_credit_rating_agency_challenge">capital generation at a number of points on the Continent</a>, such as Vienna, Paris, London, Frankfurt, Rotterdam, Milan, Turin and Hamburg. Thus, while large armies have trouble physically pushing through the Continent and subverting various nations under one rule, ideas, capital, goods and services do not. This makes Europe rich (the Continent has at least the equivalent GDP of the United States, and it could be larger depending how one calculates it).</p> <p>What makes Europe rich, however, also makes it fragmented. The current political and security architectures of Europe — <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20091014_eu_and_lisbon_treaty_part_1_history_behind_bloc">the European Union</a> and <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20101121_nato_inadequate_strategic_concept">NATO</a> — were encouraged by the United States in order to unify the Continent so that it could present a somewhat united front against the Soviet Union. They did not grow organically out of the Continent. This is a problem because <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110606-europe-shifting-battleground-part-2">Moscow is no longer a threat for all European countries</a>, Germany and France see Russia as a business partner and European states are facing their first true challenge to Continental governance, with fragmentation and suspicion returning in full force. Closer unification and the creation of some sort of United States of Europe seems like the obvious solution to the problems posed by the eurozone sovereign debt crisis — although <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110217-europes-next-crisis">the eurozone’s problems are many</a> and not easily solved just by integration, and Europe’s geography and history favor fragmentation.</p> <h3>Confederation of Europe</h3> <p>The European Union is a confederation of states that outsources day-to-day management of many policy spheres to a bureaucratic arm (the European Commission) and monetary policy to <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20100325_greece_lifesupport_extension_ecb">the European Central Bank</a>. The important policy issues, such as defense, foreign policy and taxation, remain the sole prerogatives of the states. The states still meet in various formats to deal with these problems. Solutions to the Greek, Irish and Portuguese fiscal problems are agreed upon by all eurozone states on an ad hoc basis, as is participation in the Libyan military campaign within the context of the European Union. Every important decision requires that the states meet and reach a mutually acceptable solution, often producing non-optimal outcomes that are products of compromise.</p> <p>The best analogy for the contemporary European Union is found not in European history but in American history. This is the period between the successful Revolutionary War in 1783 and the ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1788. Within that five-year period, the United States was governed by a set of laws drawn up in the Articles of the Confederation. The country had no executive, no government, no real army and no foreign policy. States retained their own armies and many had minor coastal navies. They conducted foreign and trade policy independent of the wishes of the Continental Congress, a supranational body that had less power than even <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20090608_eu_european_parliament_elections">the European Parliament</a> of today (this despite Article VI of the Articles of Confederation, which stipulated that states would not be able to conduct independent foreign policy without the consent of Congress). Congress was supposed to raise funds from the states to fund such things as a Continental Army, pay benefits to the veterans of the Revolutionary War and pay back loans that European powers gave Americans during the war against the British. States, however, refused to give Congress money, and there was nothing anybody could do about it. Congress was forced to print money, causing the Confederation’s currency to become worthless.</p> <p>With such a loose confederation set-up, the costs of the Revolutionary War were ultimately unbearable for the fledgling nation. The reality of the international system, which pitted the new nation against aggressive European powers looking to subvert America’s independence, soon engulfed the ideals of states’ independence and limited government. Social, economic and security burdens proved too great for individual states to contain and a powerless Congress to address.</p> <p>Nothing brought this reality home more than a rebellion in Western Massachusetts led by Daniel Shays in 1787. Shays’ Rebellion was, at its heart, an economic crisis. Burdened by European lenders calling for repayment of America’s war debt, the states’ economies collapsed and with them the livelihoods of many rural farmers, many of whom were veterans of the Revolutionary War who had been promised benefits. Austerity measures — often in the form of land confiscation — were imposed on the rural poor to pay off the European creditors. Shays’ Rebellion was put down without the help of the Continental Congress essentially by a local Massachusetts militia acting without any real federal oversight. The rebellion was defeated, but America’s impotence was apparent for all to see, both foreign and domestic.</p> <p>An economic crisis, domestic insecurity and constant fear of a British counterattack — Britain had not demobilized forts it held on the U.S. side of the Great Lakes — impressed upon the independent-minded states that a “more perfect union” was necessary. Thus the United States of America, as we know it today, was formed. States gave up their rights to conduct foreign policy, to set trade policies independent of each other and to withhold funds from the federal government. The United States set up an executive branch with powers to wage war and conduct foreign policy, as well as a legislature that could no longer be ignored. In 1794, the government’s response to the so-called Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania showed the strength of the federal arrangement, in stark contrast to the Continental Congress’ handling of Shays’ Rebellion. Washington dispatched an army of more than 10,000 men to suppress a few hundred distillers refusing to pay a new whiskey tax to fund the national debt, thereby sending a clear message of the new government’s overwhelming fiscal, political and military power.</p> <p>When examining the evolution of the American Confederation into the United States of America, one can find many parallels with the European Union, among others a weak center, independent states, economic crisis and over-indebtedness. The most substantial difference between the United States in the late 18th century and Europe in the 21st century is the level of external threat. In 1787, Shays’ Rebellion impressed upon many Americans — particularly George Washington, who was irked by the crisis — just how weak the country was. If a band of farmers could threaten one of the strongest states in the union, what would the British forces still garrisoned on American soil and in Quebec to the north be able to do? States could independently muddle through the economic crisis, but they could not prevent a British counterattack or protect their merchant fleet against Barbary pirates. America could not survive another such mishap and such a wanton display of military and political impotence.</p> <p>To America’s advantage, the states all shared similar geography as well as similar culture and language. Although they had different economic policies and interests, all of them ultimately depended upon seaborne Atlantic trade. The threat that such trade would be choked off by a superior naval force — or even by North African pirates — was a clear and present danger. The threat of British counterattack from the north may not have been an existential threat to the southern states, but they realized that if New York, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania were lost, the South might preserve some nominal independence but would quickly revert to de facto colonial status.</p> <p>In Europe, there is no such clarity of what constitutes a threat. Even though there is a general sense — at least among the governing elites — that Europeans share economic interests, it is very clear that their security interests are not complementary. There is <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20101011_natos_lack_strategic_concept">no agreed-upon perception of an external threat</a>. For Central European states that only recently became European Union and NATO members, <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/geopolitical_diary/20101207_who_fears_russian_bear">Russia still poses a threat</a>. They have asked NATO (and even the European Union) to refocus on the European continent and for the alliance to reassure them of its commitment to their security. In return, they have seen <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110620-russia-and-france-new-levels-cooperation">France selling advanced helicopter carriers to Russia</a> and <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110215-significance-russias-deal-germanys-rheinmetall">Germany building an advanced military training center in Russia</a>.</p> <h3>The Regionalization of Europe</h3> <p>The eurozone crisis — which is engulfing EU member states using the euro but is symbolically important for the entire European Union — is therefore a crisis of trust. Do the current political and security arrangements in Europe — the European Union and NATO — capture the right mix of nation-state interests? Do the member states of those organizations truly feel that they share the same fundamental fate? Are they willing, as the American colonies were at the end of the 18th century, to give up their independence in order to create a common front against political, economic and security concerns? And if the answer to these questions is no, then what are the alternative arrangements that do capture complementary nation-state interests?</p> <p>On the security front, we already have our answer: the regionalization of European security organizations. NATO has ceased to effectively respond to the national security interests of European states. Germany and France have pursued an accommodationist attitude toward Russia, to the chagrin of the Baltic states and Central Europe. As a response, these Central European states have begun to arrange alternatives. The four Central European states that make up the regional <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110204-visegrad-group-central-europes-bloc">Visegrad Group</a> — Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary — have used the forum as the mold in which to create <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20110516-visegrad-new-european-military-force">a Central European battle group</a>. Baltic states, threatened by Russia’s general resurgence, have looked to expand <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/geopolitical_diary/20110208-nordic-baltic-alliance-and-natos-arctic-thaw">military and security cooperation with the Nordic countries</a>, with Lithuania set to join the Nordic Battlegroup, of which Estonia is already a member. France and the United Kingdom have decided to enhance cooperation with <a class="strat_tip_off" title="Watch Video: Dispatch: France Balances Germany With a British Military Deal"><img src="http://media.stratfor.com/stratfor_images/playbuttonsmall.gif" /> an expansive military agreement</a> at the end of 2010, and London has also expressed an interest in becoming close to the developing Baltic-Nordic cooperative military ventures.</p> <p>Regionalization is currently most evident in security matters, but it is only a matter of time before it begins to manifest itself in political and economic matters as well. For example, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been forthcoming about wanting Poland and the Czech Republic to speed up their efforts to enter the eurozone. Recently, both indicated that they had <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110518-polands-continued-hesitation-over-eurozone-entry">cooled on the idea of eurozone entry</a>. The decision, of course, has a lot to do with the euro being in a state of crisis, but we cannot underestimate the underlying sense in Warsaw that Berlin is not committed to Poland’s security. Central Europeans may not currently be in the eurozone (save for Estonia, Slovenia and Slovakia), but the future of the eurozone is intertwined in its appeal to the rest of Europe as both an economic and political bloc. All EU member states are contractually obligated to enter the eurozone (save for Denmark and the United Kingdom, which negotiated opt-outs). From Germany’s perspective, membership of the Czech Republic and Poland is more important than that of peripheral Europe. Germany’s trade with Poland and the Czech Republic alone is greater than its trade with Spain, Greece, Ireland and Portugal combined.</p> <p><a href="http://web.stratfor.com/images/europe/map/5-18-11-European_Monetary_Union_800.jpg"> </a></p><div class="media media-image floatright" style="width:400px"><a href="http://web.stratfor.com/images/europe/map/5-18-11-European_Monetary_Union_800.jpg"> <div class="inner"> <div class="media-item"><img src="http://media.stratfor.com/files/mmf/b/0/b02b122cbe3fa29fc28b575b2dd07f9b1944b919.jpg" alt="The Divided States of Europe" title="" /></div> <div class="media-caption">(click here to enlarge image)</div> </div> </a></div><a href="http://web.stratfor.com/images/europe/map/5-18-11-European_Monetary_Union_800.jpg"> </a> <p>The security regionalization of Europe is not a good sign for the future of the eurozone. A monetary union cannot be grafted onto security disunion, especially if the solution to the eurozone crisis becomes more integration. Warsaw is not going to give Berlin veto power over its budget spending if the two are not in agreement over what constitutes a security threat. This argument may seem simple, and it is cogent precisely because it is. Taxation is one of the most basic forms of state sovereignty, and one does not share it with countries that do not share one’s political, economic and security fate.</p> <p>This goes for any country, not just Poland. If the solution to the eurozone crisis is greater integration, then the interests of the integrating states have to be closely aligned on more than just economic matters. The U.S. example from the late 18th century is particularly instructive, as one could make a cogent argument that American states had more divergent economic interests than European states do today, and yet their security concerns brought them together. In fact, the moment the external threat diminished in the mid-19th century due to Europe’s exhaustion from the Napoleonic Wars, American unity was shaken by the Civil War. America’s economic and cultural bifurcation, which existed even during the Revolutionary War, erupted in conflagration the moment the external threat was removed.</p> <p>The bottom line is that Europeans have to agree on more than just a 3 percent budget-deficit threshold as the foundation for closer integration. Control over budgets goes to the very heart of sovereignty, and European nations will not give up that control unless they know their security and political interests will be taken seriously by their neighbors.</p> <h3>Europe’s Spheres of Influence</h3> <p>We therefore see Europe evolving into a set of regionalized groupings. These organizations may have different ideas about security and economic matters, one country may even belong to more than one grouping, but for the most part membership will largely be based on location on the Continent. This will not happen overnight. Germany, France and other core economies have <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20100208_germanys_choice">a vested interest in preserving the eurozone</a> in its current form for the short term — perhaps as long as another decade — since the economic contagion from Greece is an existential concern for the moment. In the long term, however, regional organizations of like-minded blocs is the path that seems to be evolving in Europe, especially if Germany decides that its relationship with core eurozone countries and Central Europe is more important than its relationship with the periphery.</p> <p><a href="http://web.stratfor.com/images/europe/map/Europe_Spheres_influence_800.jpg"> </a></p><div class="media media-image floatright" style="width:400px"><a href="http://web.stratfor.com/images/europe/map/Europe_Spheres_influence_800.jpg"> <div class="inner"> <div class="media-item"><img src="http://media.stratfor.com/files/mmf/a/d/ad826b4788bf938c33c9415dabff0613fcda9f93.jpg" alt="The Divided States of Europe" title="" /></div> <div class="media-caption">(click here to enlarge image)</div> </div> </a></div><a href="http://web.stratfor.com/images/europe/map/Europe_Spheres_influence_800.jpg"> </a> <p>We can separate the blocs into four main fledgling groupings, which are not mutually exclusive, as a sort of model to depict the evolving relationships among countries in Europe:</p> <ol><li><strong>The German sphere of influence</strong> (Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Czech Republic, Hungary, Croatia, Switzerland, Slovenia, Slovakia and Finland): These core eurozone economies are not disadvantaged by Germany’s competitiveness, or they depend on German trade for economic benefit, and they are not inherently threatened by Germany’s evolving relationship with Russia. Due to its isolation from the rest of Europe and proximity to Russia, Finland is not thrilled about Russia’s resurgence, but occasionally it prefers Germany’s careful accommodative approach to the aggressive approach of neighboring Sweden or Poland. Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia are the most concerned about the Russia-Germany relationship, but not to the extent that Poland and the Baltic states are, and they may decide to remain in the German sphere of influence for economic reasons.<br /><br /></li><li><strong>The Nordic regional bloc</strong> (Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia): These mostly non-eurozone states generally see Russia’s resurgence in a negative light. The Baltic states are seen as part of the <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20090629_geopolitics_sweden_baltic_power_reborn">Nordic sphere of influence (especially Sweden’s)</a>, which leads to problems with Russia. Germany is an important trade partner, but it is also seen as overbearing and as a competitor. Finland straddles this group and the German sphere of influence, depending on the issue.<br /><br /></li><li><strong>Visegrad-plus</strong> (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria): At the moment, the Visegrad Group members belong to different spheres of influence. The Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary do not feel as exposed to Russia’s resurgence as Poland or Romania do. But they also are not completely satisfied with Germany’s attitude toward Russia. Poland is not strong enough to lead this group economically the way Sweden dominates the Nordic bloc. Other than security cooperation, the Visegrad countries have little to offer each other at the moment. Poland intends to change that by lobbying for more funding for new EU member states in the next six months of its EU presidency. That still does not constitute economic leadership.<br /><br /></li><li><strong>Mediterranean Europe</strong> (Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus and Malta): These are Europe’s peripheral states. Their security concerns are unique due to their exposure to illegal immigration via routes through Turkey and North Africa. Geographically, these countries are isolated from the main trade routes and lack the capital-generating centers of northern Europe, save for Italy’s Po River Valley (which in many ways does not belong to this group but could be thought of as a separate entity that could be seen as part of the German sphere of influence). These economies therefore face similar problems of over-indebtedness and lack of competitiveness. The question is, who would lead?</li></ol> <p>And then there are France and the United Kingdom. These countries do not really belong to any bloc. This is <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/geopolitical_diary/20091008_geopolitical_implications_conservative_britain">London’s traditional posture with regard to continental Europe</a>, although it has recently begun <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110118-baltic-nordic-british-relationship-summit">to establish a relationship with the Nordic-Baltic group</a>. France, meanwhile, could be considered part of the German sphere of influence. Paris is attempting to hold onto its leadership role in the eurozone and is revamping its labor-market rules and social benefits to sustain its connection to the German-dominated currency bloc, <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20101021_france_turmoil">a painful process</a>. However, France traditionally is also a Mediterranean country and has considered Central European alliances in order to surround Germany. It also recently entered into a new bilateral military relationship with the United Kingdom, in part as a hedge against its close relationship with Germany. If France decides to exit its partnership with Germany, it could quickly gain control of its normal sphere of influence in the Mediterranean, probably with enthusiastic backing from a host of other powers such as the United States and the United Kingdom. In fact, its <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/france_germany_mediterranean_union_and_tectonic_shift">discussion of a Mediterranean Union</a> was a political hedge, an insurance policy, for exactly such a future.</p> <h3>The Price of Regional Hegemony</h3> <p>The alternative to the regionalization of Europe is clear German leadership that underwrites — economically and politically — greater European integration. If Berlin can overcome the anti-euro populism that is feeding on bailout fatigue in the eurozone core, it could continue to support the periphery and prove its commitment to the eurozone and the European Union. Germany is also trying to show Central Europe that its relationship with Russia is a net positive by using its negotiations with Moscow over Moldova as <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110616-start-new-german-russian-cooperation">an example of German political clout</a>.</p> <p>Central Europeans, however, are already putting Germany’s leadership and commitment to the test. Poland assumes the EU presidency July 1 and has made the union’s commitment to increase funding for new EU member states, as well as EU defense cooperation, its main initiatives. Both policies are a test for Germany and an offer for it to reverse the ongoing security regionalization. If Berlin says no to new money for the newer EU member states — at stake is the union’s cohesion-policy funding, which in the 2007-2013 budget period totaled 177 billion euros — and no to EU-wide security/defense arrangements, then Warsaw, Prague and other Central European capitals have their answer. The question is whether Germany is serious about being a leader of Europe and paying the price to be the hegemon of a united Europe, which would not only mean funding bailouts but also standing up to Russia. If it places its relationship with Russia over its alliance with Central Europe, then it will be difficult for Central Europeans to follow Berlin. This will mean that the regionalization of Europe’s security architecture — via the Visegrad Group and Nordic-Baltic battle groups — makes sense. It will also mean that Central Europeans will have to find new ways to draw the United States into the region for security.</p> <p>Common security perception is about states understanding that they share the same fate. American states understood this at the end of the 18th century, which is why they gave up their independence, setting the United States on the path toward superpower status. Europeans — at least at present — do not see their situation (or the world) in the same light. Bailouts are enacted not because Greeks share the same fate as Germans but because German bankers share the same fate as German taxpayers. This is a sign that integration has progressed to a point where economic fate is shared, but this is an inadequate baseline on which to build a common political union.</p> <p>Bailing out Greece is seen as an affront to the German taxpayer, even though that same German taxpayer has benefited disproportionally from the eurozone’s creation. The German government understands <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20100315_germany_mitteleuropa_redux">the benefits of preserving the eurozone</a> — which is why it continues bailing out the peripheral countries — but there has been no national debate in Germany to explain this logic to the populace. Germany is still waiting to have an open conversation with itself about its role and its future, and especially what price it is willing to pay for regional hegemony and remaining relevant in a world fast becoming dominated by powers capable of harnessing the resources of entire continents.</p> <p>Without a coherent understanding in Europe that its states all share the same fate, the Greek crisis has little chance of being Europe’s Shays’ Rebellion, triggering deeper unification. Instead of a United States of Europe, its fate will be ongoing regionalization.</p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/divided-states.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-30T11:45:00-07:00">11:45 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=1587634939954262651">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=1587634939954262651&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Europe" rel="tag">Europe</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Divided%20States" rel="tag">The Divided States</a> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="8606179176139736646"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/seattle-plot.html">The Seattle Plot</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1 class="title">The Seattle Plot: Jihadists Shifting Away From Civilian Targets?</h1><p><strong>By Scott Stewart</strong></p> <p>On June 22 in a Seattle warehouse, Abu Khalid Abdul-Latif pulled an unloaded M16 rifle to his shoulder, aimed it, and pulled the trigger repeatedly as he imagined himself gunning down young U.S. military recruits. His longtime friend Walli Mujahidh did likewise with an identical rifle, assuming a kneeling position as he engaged his notional targets. The two men had come to the warehouse with another man to inspect the firearms the latter had purchased with money Abdul-Latif had provided him. The rifles and a small number of hand grenades were to be used in an upcoming mission: an attack on a U.S. Military Entrance Processing Station (MEPS) in an industrial area south of downtown Seattle. </p> <p>After confirming that the rifles were capable of automatic fire and discussing the capacity of the magazines they had purchased, the men placed the rifles back into a storage bag intending to transport them to a temporary cache location. As they prepared to leave the warehouse, they were suddenly swarmed by a large number of FBI agents and other law enforcement officers and quickly arrested. Their plan to conduct a terrorist attack inside the United States had been discovered when the man they had invited to join their plot (the man who had allegedly purchased the weapons for them) reported the plot to the Seattle Police Department, which in turn reported it to the FBI. According to the federal criminal complaint filed in the case, the third unidentified man had an extensive criminal record and had known Abdul-Latif for several years, but he had not been willing to undertake such a terrorist attack. </p> <p>While the behavior of Abdul-Latif and Mujahidh in this plot demonstrates that they were amateur “wannabe” jihadists rather than seasoned terrorist operatives, their plot could have ended very differently if they had found a kindred spirit in the man they approached for help instead of someone who turned them into the authorities. This case also illustrates some important trends in jihadist terrorism that we have been watching for the past few years as well as a possible shift in mindset within the jihadist movement. </p> <h3>Trends</h3> <p>First, Abu-Khalid Abdul-Latif and Walli Mujahidh, both American converts to Islam, are prime examples of what we refer to as <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20100512_setting_record_grassroots_jihadism">grassroots jihadists</a>. They are individuals who were inspired by the al Qaeda movement but who had no known connection to the al Qaeda core or one of its franchise groups. In late 2009, in response to the success of the U.S. government and its allies in preventing jihadist attacks in the West, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) began a <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20091104_counterterrorism_shifting_who_how">campaign to encourage jihadists living in the West to conduct simple attacks</a> using readily available items, rather than travel abroad for military and terrorism training with jihadist groups. After successes such as the <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20091111_hasan_case_overt_clues_and_tactical_challenges">November 2009 Fort Hood shooting</a>, this theme of encouraging grassroots attacks was <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20110608-al-qaedas-new-video-message-defeat">adopted by the core al Qaeda group</a>. </p> <p>While the grassroots approach does present a challenge to law enforcement and intelligence agencies in that attackers can seemingly appear out of nowhere with no prior warning, the <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20100317_jihadism_grassroots_paradox">paradox presented by grassroots operatives</a> is that they are also far less skilled than trained terrorist operatives. In other words, while they are hard to detect, they frequently lack the skill to conduct large, complex attacks and frequently make mistakes that expose them to detection in smaller plots. </p> <p>And that is what we saw in the Seattle plot. Abdul-Latif had originally wanted to hit U.S. Joint Base Lewis-McChord (formerly known as Fort Lewis and McChord Air Force Base), which is located some 70 kilometers (44 miles) south of Seattle, but later decided against that plan since he considered the military base to be too hardened a target. While Abdul-Latif and Mujahidh were amateurs, they seem to have reached a reasonable assessment of their own abilities and which targets were beyond their abilities to strike.</p> <p>Another trend we noted in this case was that the attack plan called for the use of firearms and hand grenades in an armed assault, rather than the use of an improvised explosive device (IED). There have been a number of botched IED attacks, such as the <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20100505_uncomfortable_truths_times_square_attack">May 2010 Times Square attack</a> and <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20090922_u_s_thwarting_potential_attack">Najibullah Zazi’s plot to attack the New York subway system</a>. </p> <p>These were some of the failures that caused jihadist leaders such as AQAP’s Nasir al-Wahayshi to encourage grassroots jihadists to undertake simple attacks. Indeed, the most successful jihadist attacks in the West in recent years, such as the Fort Hood shooting, the June 2009 attack on a <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20090603_lone_wolf_lessons">military recruitment center in Little Rock, Ark.,</a> and the March 2011 attack on <a class="strat_tip_off" title="Watch Video: Dispatch: U.S. Airmen Shot in Germany"><img src="http://media.stratfor.com/stratfor_images/playbuttonsmall.gif" /> U.S. troops at a civilian airport in Frankfurt, Germany</a>, involved the use of firearms rather than IEDs. When combined with the thwarted <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110512-new-york-police-disrupt-alleged-jihadist-plot">plot in New York in May 2011</a>, these incidents support the trend we identified in May 2010 of grassroots jihadist conducting <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20100526_failed_bombings_armed_jihadist_assaults">more armed assaults and fewer attacks involving IEDs</a>. </p> <p>Another interesting aspect of the Seattle case was that Abdul-Latif was an admirer of AQAP ideologue Anwar al-Awlaki. Unlike the Fort Hood case, where U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan had been in email contact with al-Awlaki, it does not appear that Abdul-Latif had been in contact with the AQAP preacher. However, from video statements and comments Abdul-Latif himself posted on the Internet, he appears to have had a high opinion of al-Awlaki and to have been influenced by his preaching. It does not appear that Abdul-Latif, who was known as Joseph Anthony Davis before his conversion to Islam, or Mujahidh, whose pre-conversion name was Frederick Domingue Jr., spoke Arabic. This underscores the importance of <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20110511-al-qaeda-leadership-yemen">al-Awlaki’s role within AQAP as its primary spokesman to the English-speaking world</a> and his mission of radicalizing English-speaking Muslims and encouraging them to conduct terrorist attacks in the West. </p> <h3>Vulnerabilities </h3> <p>Once again, in the Seattle case, the attack on the MEPS was not thwarted by some CIA source in Yemen, an intercept by the National Security Agency or an intentional FBI undercover operation. Rather, the attack was thwarted by a Muslim who was approached by Abdul-Latif and asked to participate in the attack. The man then went to the Seattle Police Department, which brought the man to the attention of the FBI. This is what we refer to as <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/jihadist_threat_and_grassroots_defense">grassroots counterterrorism</a>, that is, local cops and citizens bringing things to the attention of federal authorities. As the jihadist threat has become more diffuse and harder to detect, grassroots defenders have become an <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20110406-how-tell-if-your-neighbor-bombmaker">even more critical component</a> of international counterterrorism efforts. This is especially true for Muslims, many of whom consider themselves engaged in a struggle to defend their faith (and their sons) from the threat of jihadism. </p> <p>But, even if the third man had chosen to participate in the attack rather than report it to the authorities, the group would have been vulnerable to detection. First, there were the various statements Abdul-Latif made on the Internet in support of attacks against the United States. Second, any Muslim convert who chooses a name such as Mujahidh (holy warrior) for himself must certainly anticipate the possibility that it will bring him to the attention of the authorities. Abdul-Latif and Mujahidh were also somewhat cavalier in their telephone conversations, although those conversations do not appear to have brought them to the attention of the authorities. </p> <p>Perhaps their most significant vulnerability to detection, aside from their desire to obtain automatic weapons and hand grenades, would have been <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/vulnerabilities_terrorist_attack_cycle">their need to conduct preoperational surveillance of their intended target</a>. After conducting some preliminary research using the Internet, Abdul-Latif quickly realized that they needed more detailed intelligence. He then briefly conducted physical surveillance of the exterior of the MEPS to see what it looked like in person. Despite the technological advances it represents, the Internet cannot replace the physical surveillance process, which is a critical requirement for terrorist planners. Indeed, after the external surveillance of the building, Abdul-Latif asked the informant to return to the building under a ruse in order to enter it and obtain a detailed floor plan of the facility for use in planning the attack. </p> <p>In this case, the informant was able to obtain the information he needed from his FBI handlers, but had he been a genuine participant in the plot, he would have had to have exposed himself to detection by entering the MEPS facility after conducting surveillance of the building’s exterior. If some sort of <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/secrets_countersurveillance">surveillance detection program</a> was in place, it likely would have flagged him as a person of interest for follow-up investigation, which could have led authorities back to the other conspirators in the attack.</p> <h3>A New Twist</h3> <p>One aspect of this plot that was different from many other recent plots was that Abdul-Latif insisted that he wanted to target the U.S. military and did not want to kill people he considered innocents. Certainly he had no problem with the idea of killing the armed civilian security guards at the MEPS — the plan called for the attackers to kill them first, or the unarmed still-civilian recruits being screened at the facility, then to kill as many other military personnel as possible before being neutralized by the responding authorities. However, even in the limited conversations documented in the federal criminal complaint, Abdul-Latif repeated several times that he did not want to kill innocents. This stands in stark contrast to the actions of previous attackers and plotters such as John Allen Mohammed, the so-called D.C. sniper, or Faisal Shahzad, who planned the failed Times Square attack. </p> <p>Abdul-Latif’s reluctance to attack civilians may be a reflection of the debate we are seeing among jihadists in places like Afghanistan, Pakistan and even Algeria over the killing of those they consider innocents. This debate is also raging on many of the English-language jihadist message boards Abdul-Latif frequented. Most recently, this tension was seen in the <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110628-afghanistan-weekly-war-update-border-tensions-pakistan">defection of a Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan faction in Pakistan’s Kurram agency</a>. </p> <p>If this sentiment begins to take wider hold in the jihadist movement, and especially the English-speaking jihadist community in the West, it could have an impact on the target-selection process for future attacks by grassroots operatives in the West. It could also mean that commonly attacked targets such as subway systems, civilian aircraft, hotels and public spaces will be seen as less desirable than comparably soft military targets. Given the limitations of grassroots jihadists, and their tendency to focus on soft targets, such a shift would result in a much smaller universe of potential targets for such attacks — the softer military targets such as recruit-processing stations and troops in transit that have been targeted in recent months. </p> <p>Removing some of the most vulnerable targets from the potential-target list is not something that militants do lightly. If this is indeed happening, it could be an indication that some important shifts are under way on the <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20081001_al_qaeda_and_tale_two_battlespaces">ideological battlefield</a> and that jihadists may be concerned about losing their popular support. It is still too early to know if this is a trend and not merely the idiosyncrasy of one attack planner — and it is contrary to the target sets laid out in recent messages from AQAP and the al Qaeda core — but when viewed in light of the Little Rock, Fort Hood and Frankfurt shootings, it is definitely a concept worth further examination.</p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/seattle-plot.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-30T11:43:00-07:00">11:43 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=8606179176139736646">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=8606179176139736646&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Seattle%20Plot" rel="tag">The Seattle Plot</a> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="2625833620777225231"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/rise-of-transfer-state.html">Rise of the Transfer State</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <div id="header"> <div id="blackband_top_left"> </div></div><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:180%;"><a href="http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/rise-of-the-transfer-state/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this post">Rise of the Transfer State</a></span> <p class="post-author"> Posted by <span class="author vcard"><a target="_blank" class="url fn n" href="http://www.cato.org/people/mark-calabria" title="View all posts by Mark A. Calabria">Mark A. Calabria</a></span> </p> <p>Perhaps this is best thought of as the<em><strong> chart of the day</strong></em>, as I will not attempt to discuss its many implications or drivers. The following chart tracks the percentage of federal spending that is simply a direct transfer of income. Now we could debate whether all government spending is little more than a transfer of wealth, but let’s save that for another day. The chart shows a dramatic increase in the share of government that does not go to buying or producing anything, but simply takes the form of a check, increasing from around a third of federal spending to about two-thirds today.</p> <div><a target="_blank" href="http://wac.0873.edgecastcdn.net/800873/blog/wp-content/uploads/govt-transfers.png"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-34141" title="govt transfers" src="http://wac.0873.edgecastcdn.net/800873/blog/wp-content/uploads/govt-transfers.png" alt="" height="378" width="630" /></a>There is one aspect of this trend which merits study in our current economic environment. While there is a wide range of estimates* for how much government spending adds (or subtracts from) overall economic activity – the so called “<a target="_blank" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_multiplier">fiscal multiplier</a>” - that multiplier is likely to differ for transfer payments versus the government purchase of goods and services. If government simply takes from A and gives to B, then the magnitude and sign (- or +) will depend on A’s marginal propensity to consume relatives to B’s, minus any resources A spends to avoid said transfer. This suggests to me that the multiplier for transfers is likely to be about zero, if not negative. Some of that transfer will be saved by the receiving party, while consumption will likely decline by the losing party.</div> <p>With direct government purchases of good and services, little, if any, of the initial spending will be saved. Hence it seems reasonable to believe that the multilpier for direct spending is higher than than for transfer payments, although it still may be less than one.</p> <p>The point of all this is that the shift of federal spending towards transfer spending has likely reduced the fiscal multiplier, all else equal. As this is an empirical question, I would certainly be interested in knowing if anyone has tried to measure it.</p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/rise-of-transfer-state.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-30T10:07:00-07:00">10:07 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=2625833620777225231">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=2625833620777225231&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Rise" rel="tag">Rise</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Transfer%20State" rel="tag">Transfer State</a> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="1073816285898635814"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/economics-of-sustainability.html">The Economics of Sustainability</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/economics-of-sustainability.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-30T10:04:00-07:00">10:04 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=1073816285898635814">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=1073816285898635814&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="5108134368992836806"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/economic-freedom-quality-of-life.html">Economic Freedom & Quality of Life</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/economic-freedom-quality-of-life.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-30T10:04:00-07:00">10:04 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=5108134368992836806">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=5108134368992836806&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <h2 class="date-header"><span>Wednesday, June 29, 2011</span></h2> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="5141581296857961538"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/revisiting-fdr-and-unimagined-power.html">Revisiting FDR and 'Unimagined Power': Echoes</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1><span style="font-size: x-large;">Revisiting FDR and 'Unimagined Power': Echoes</span></h1><div id="article_image_container"> <img alt="First Draft " src="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/data?pid=avimage&iid=iYYbHEjOdwEg" /> <div id="article_credit">Courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum </div></div><div class="bview_story_meta"> <cite class="byline">By Amity Shlaes </cite><cite class="byline story_time"><span class="datestamp"></span></cite></div>Last week, reader Chris Ryan wrote to say that in analyzing President <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/franklin-d.-roosevelt/">Franklin D. Roosevelt</a>'s second inaugural address of 1937 <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-06/what-paul-krugman-misses-about-1937-redux-echoes.html">my last column</a> contained a "serious factual error." I noted that when Roosevelt said the U.S. sought "an instrument of unimagined power for the establishment of a morally better world," the instrument the president was referring to was the government. Mr. Ryan disagrees.<br />He argues that FDR wasn't referring to government in this section -- that the president had moved on to matters of the spirit. The suggestion here is that my column made Roosevelt look more aggressive than he was. Mr. Ryan says "such distortions of people’s words are dishonest."<br />Here's my take. Roosevelt relished ambiguity, precisely because it allowed him to have it both ways. Indeed, you can hear FDR chuckling in the background when modern history buffs squabble over what he meant. That's what he wanted us to do. As my Bloomberg View colleague <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/jonathan-alter/">Jonathan Alter</a> has noted in his book "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Defining-Moment-FDRs-Hundred-Triumph/dp/0743246004">The Defining Moment</a>," Roosevelt once backed free trade and protectionism in the same speech. A distraught speechwriter, Ray Moley, pointed out that the principles were mutually exclusive. FDR blithely told the speechwriter to "weave them together."<br />But to the 1937 inaugural. Speechwriter Sam Rosenman notes in his memoir, "Working With Roosevelt," that this speech involved multiple drafts and contained more "work, corrections, inserts, substitutions and deletions by the President than any of the other speeches." Exactly what was intended by these changes, readers may judge for themselves: A copy of the relevant pages from two of those earlier drafts are posted here, courtesy of the <a href="http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/">Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum</a> in Hyde Park, <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/new-york/">New York</a>.<br />But since Mr. Ryan's charges are so strong, it seems worthwhile to supply some more facts. Roosevelt had campaigned the prior fall vowing that he would escalate the fight against business if he won, promising that in him businessmen would find they had met "their master." Whoa.<br />Then he did win, in a landslide so historic it seemed Democrats would rule always and forever. Everyone, including those in his administration, therefore expected that laws even more radical than those of FDR's first term would be passed and signed. And those of the first term had already been disastrous for business: The National Recovery Act and the Public Utilities Holding Company Act, which strangled promising utilities, were just two examples. When you review the second inaugural speech, it helps to recall that context.<br />In the speech, FDR reminds the country that from the beginning the settlers in the New World realized that they must strengthen government. And he placed his own first term in that tradition: "Instinctively we recognized a deeper need -- the need to find through government the instrument of our united purpose to solve for the individual the ever-rising problems of a complex civilization." Note the use of the word "instrument."<br />Then Roosevelt moves on to other topics, winding his way toward both the spiritual and political change the nation had already begun. He says that "using the new materials of social justice we have undertaken to erect on the old foundations a more enduring structure for the better use of future generations."<br />Then the president suggests that Americans have learned to think differently about economics. "In that purpose we have been helped by achievements of mind and spirit. Old truths have been relearned; untruths have been unlearned. We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics. Out of the collapse of a prosperity whose builders boasted their practicality has come the conviction that in the long run economic morality pays."<br />Roosevelt ends the paragraph by taking up the instrument image again. "We are beginning to wipe out the line that divides the practical from the ideal; and in so doing we are fashioning an instrument of unimagined power for the establishment of a morally better world."<br />Mr. Ryan thinks Roosevelt is referring this time to an event purely spiritual in nature. But the case that Roosevelt has moved back to government -- that he means it is government that will have unimagined power -- is also strong. That’s because the word "instrument" has already been established in this speech as a governmental instrument. The lines that follow also suggest FDR’s instrument here is for action, not philosophizing.<br />"This new understanding undermines the old admiration of worldly success as such. We are beginning to abandon our tolerance of the abuse of power by those who betray for profit the elementary decencies of life. In this process evil things formerly accepted will not be so easily condoned."<br />Here FDR sounds like he's giving marching orders to his antitrust lawyers, not laying out the Sunday school curriculum.<br />A few moments later, Roosevelt utters the famous lines about "one third of a nation" being "ill clad, ill housed, ill nourished." (The FDR Library reports that Roosevelt seems to have made those ratios up, but never mind.) Roosevelt also talks about using America's "rediscovered ability to improve our economic order." Rediscovered ability means time for action.<br />Most importantly, what this speech is remembered for is that it did, in fact, foreshadow aggressive presidential action. Roosevelt soon launched his plan to pack the <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/supreme-court/">Supreme Court</a> with justices friendly to his view, a level of executive intervention into the judiciary branch so egregious that his own party blocked it.<br />In short, Mr. Ryan's interpretation is possible. My interpretation -- that Roosevelt was talking about government -- is also possible. This is not a factual dispute. </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/revisiting-fdr-and-unimagined-power.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-29T21:26:00-07:00">9:26 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=5141581296857961538">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=5141581296857961538&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="9201662170914592102"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/rule-of-lawlessness.html">Rule of Lawlessness</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h2><span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="http://spectator.org/archives/2011/06/29/rule-of-lawlessness">Rule of Lawlessness</a></span></h2><div class="byline"><span>By <a href="http://spectator.org/people/john-h-fund" rel="author">John H. Fund</a> </span></div><div class="byline"><br /></div>Is the Age of Obama ushering in an Era of Thuggery by his left-wing supporters?<br />Barack Obama has made clear his admiration of Saul Alinsky, the radical "father" of community organizing. Peter Slevin of the <em>Washington Post</em> wrote in 2007 that "Obama embraced many of Alinsky's tactics and recently said his years as an organizer gave him the best education of his life."<br />Alinsky, who died in 1971, was known for his belief that revolutionaries must stir up the downtrodden to become angry enough at their condition to demand its betterment. In his famous book <em>Rules for Radicals</em>, Alinsky acknowledged his debt to Lucifer, "the very first radical," who "rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom."<br />When it came to the best way to achieve revolution, Alinsky explictly argued for moral relativism in fighting the establishment: "In war the end justifies almost any means." Specifically, "the practical revolutionary will understand… [that] in action, one does not always enjoy the luxury of a decision that is consistent both with one's individual conscience and the good of mankind."<br />It appears that the left has decided to throw conscience aside and put the raw exercise of political power first. Consider three separate news stories that developed within the same week in late April:<br />• When Attorney General Eric Holder decided to no longer uphold the constitutionality of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, the U.S. House hired the Atlanta-based law firm of King and Spalding to defend it in court. The law defines marriage as between a man and a woman and says states aren't obliged to honor gay marriages recognized in other states.<br />But within days of being hired the firm dropped the House as a client, claiming the firm had failed in properly "vetting" the issue. Former Bush solicitor general Paul Clement, who had brought the case to King and Spalding, resigned from the firm in protest.<br />The real reason the case was dropped was the campaign launched by the Human Rights Campaign to "educate" (read: intimidate) the firm's clients about "King and Spalding's decision to promote discrimination." Never mind that like 84 other senators Vice President Joe Biden had voted for the bill. Or that Holder's old boss Bill Clinton signed it. Anyone who now touched the issue was to be branded a bigot. "Gay rights activists argue that DOMA is unconstitutional," notes <em>San Francisco Chronicle</em> columnist Debra Saunders. "If they're so sure, why are they trying to prevent good lawyers from defending it?"<br />• California Democratic leaders, frustrated by the refusal of Republican state legislators to go along with tax increases to close the state's $15.4 billion deficit, are threatening to focus budget cuts on the districts those Republicans represent.<br />"You don't want to pay for government, well then, you get less of it," Senate president pro tem Darrell Steinberg told reporters in late April. Steinberg echoed comments made by Treasurer Bill Lockyer, who told reporters that budget cuts should be targeted at the districts of lawmakers who oppose putting $11 billion in tax increases before the state's voters in a referendum.<br />"When it comes to kids or the vulnerable, I wouldn't want to make distinctions between who lives in a Democratic district and who lives in a Republican district, but when it comes to sort of basic services, convenience services that affect adults...I have an open mind," Steinberg told reporters.<br />A spokeswoman for Bob Dutton, the Senate's Republican leader, reacted quickly to the bully-boy tactics. "It only means Democrats are unwilling to stand up to public employee unions," said Jann Taber. "They'd rather cut services to Californians than fix bloated public employee pension systems. Clearly this isn't an attempt to craft a true bipartisan budget solution."<br />Local officials in districts represented by Republicans called the tactic completely counterproductive.<br />"That is shameless extortion," Butte County supervisor Larry Wahl told the <em>Sacramento Bee</em>.<br />"He's trying to get me to call [Assemblyman Dan] Logue and [state Sen.] Doug LaMalfa and say 'Raise our taxes.' I'm not going to do that."<br /><div class="paginator"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><strong>Page:</strong> <b>1</b> <a href="http://spectator.org/archives/2011/06/29/rule-of-lawlessness/1">2</a> <a href="http://spectator.org/archives/2011/06/29/rule-of-lawlessness/1" rel="next">></a> </span></div> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/rule-of-lawlessness.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-29T18:01:00-07:00">6:01 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=9201662170914592102">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=9201662170914592102&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Rule%20of%20Lawlessness" rel="tag">Rule of Lawlessness</a> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="7799618978717616115"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/that-90s-show.html">That '90s Show</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h3 class="department"> <a href="http://spectator.org/departments/features">Feature</a> </h3><h2><span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="http://spectator.org/archives/2011/06/29/that-90s-show">That '90s Show</a></span></h2><div class="byline">By <a href="http://spectator.org/people/james-antle" rel="author">W. James Antle, III</a> </div><div class="byline"><br /></div>Since the Republican victory in last year's elections was frequently compared to 1994, it was not terribly surprising that many observers expected the next two years to be a repeat of 1995-96. The conventional wisdom held that the resurgent Republicans would overreach, allowing an unpopular Democratic president a new lease on life and an improbable second term. The new Republican-controlled House would reprise the role of Newt Gingrich's revolutionaries, while Barack Obama replayed Bill Clinton.<br />Six months into this new era of divided government, a rerun of the Seinfeld decade remains a plausible scenario. Conservative commentator and Republican campaign veteran Jim Pinkerton has gone so far as to argue that the "Tea Party-ized House" will make such an inviting target that Obama will emulate not Clinton but Harry Truman, running entirely against a "Do Nothing" Congress in 2012. But it is important to note that there are key differences between the 1990s and now.<br />First, no current Republican leader has emerged as a PR villain of Gingrich-like proportions. Polls show House Speaker John Boehner is becoming better known and less popular, but not to the point where his photo in a campaign commercial is a silver bullet for Democratic candidates. He isn't as given to bombastic pronouncements as Gingrich. Voters who pay only a modest amount of attention to politics are more likely to be familiar with his tears than his views or public remarks on controversial issues.<br />Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has penetrated the public consciousness even less than Boehner, causing Democrats to look around for other congressional Republicans to demonize. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann of Minnesota is one target for liberals eager to relive their two-minute hate against Sarah Palin, but she has yet to acquire Palin's name identification. House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan has become another potential Gingrich figure, though his calm and cerebral manner might persuade Democrats to stick to demagoguery about his proposed spending cuts instead. No matter how it treats his 2012 budget proposal, <i>Time</i> will probably not run a holiday cover story comparing Ryan to the Grinch who stole Christmas.<br />While the Democrats' retention of the Senate has frustrated many conservative ambitions, it has also complicated any media narrative about right-wing control of Washington. Where Clinton seemed besieged by Republicans on all sides of Capitol Hill, nothing can reach Obama's desk without at least token bipartisan support. Tea Party senators like Rand Paul are as likely to be in opposition to legislation that emerges from the Senate as they are to be ramming conservative policy proposals down the president's throat. In their imagined sequel to the 1996 election, Democrats may need Newt Gingrich to play himself by running for president.<br />BUT THERE ARE a lot of similarities between then and now as well, and these commonalities have guided the major players in the 2011-12 political drama. When they entered into their initial budget confrontation with Obama, it was clear that whatever the Tea Party activists may have wanted, the Republican leadership was determined to avoid a government shutdown. Despite major changes in the media over the past 16 years, such as the rise of conservative-leaning Fox News, GOP leaders seemed convinced that a shutdown would play as badly for Republicans this year as it did in 1995. <i>New York Times</i> columnist Ross Douthat opined that Boehner "made it abundantly clear -- in word, deed, and especially body language -- that he wanted the government shut down about as much as Indiana Jones wants to be locked in a room full of cobras."<br />Meanwhile, President Obama has forced himself to copy Clinton's triangulation strategy even though it manifestly runs counter to his ideological and temperamental inclinations. He signed a temporary extension of the Bush tax cuts for upper-income earners, although he clearly wasn't very happy about it. He reached a budget agreement with the House Republicans that cut at least some spending. (That time, Obama did pretend to be happy.) He fine-tuned his fiscal 2012 budget to appear more serious about deficit reduction in response to the Ryan plan. And Obama has quietly adopted most of George W. Bush's national security policies, down to launching another preventive war against a Muslim country and enlisting General David Petraeus -- the man who oversaw the surge in Iraq -- to run the country's intelligence apparatus.<br />Virtually all of these moves were bitterly unpopular with Obama's liberal base, and the current president is much less comfortable distancing himself from progressives than was Clinton. Obama was nominated in large part as a reaction against the Clintons' triangulating ways, a successful version of Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign. But changing political circumstances have led the president to embrace the Clintons' Democratic Leadership Council logic: he believes independents will reward at least the appearance of responsible behavior on fiscal policy and national defense while angry liberals will have nowhere else to go. Daily Kos visitors aren't going to vote for Mitt Romney.<br />Yet Clinton-era triangulation never made partisan attacks on Republicans less potent. In fact, because he was ceding substantive policy ground to the GOP on issues ranging from welfare reform to the capital gains tax, Clinton needed to sharpen the rhetorical distinctions between the parties, not dull them. So even as he ended up working with Republicans to balance the budget, he also promised to protect the country from their cuts -- real and imagined -- to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education, and the environment. He challenged the Republicans to be fiscally responsible, and then punished them for it at the polls when they complied.<br />That's exactly what the Democrats hope to repeat this time around. House Republicans dodged a government shutdown by agreeing to a continuing resolution that to some extent fudged its $38.5 billion in spending reductions, but they have passed a budget that is breathtakingly honest about the scope of entitlement cuts that will be necessary to keep the federal tax burden from soaring past its postwar average of 18 to 20 percent of GDP. Where the Gingrich Republicans promised to grow Medicare more slowly, the Ryan Republicans want to partially privatize Medicare. While the Gingrich Republicans favored a smaller increase in Medicare recipients' benefits, the Ryan Republicans are actually cutting benefits (albeit on the theory that they can also cut costs).<br />WHAT HASN'T CHANGED at all is the standard Democratic talking point. In 1995, Republicans estimated that their Medicare reforms would save $270 billion while most estimates pegged their proposed tax cut at $245 billion. Naturally, Democrats argued that these figures proved Republicans were cutting Medicare benefits-even abolishing Medicare-in order to pay for tax cuts for the rich. "Finally we learn the truth about how the Republicans want to eliminate Medicare," warned one 1996 Clinton campaign ad. Dozens of other Democratic commercials in down-ballot races used similar scare tactics.<br />Ever strong believers in recycling, Democrats have dusted off their 1990s rhetoric and reused it in attacks on the Ryan plan. "Newt Gingrich has said Medicare should wither on the vine," intoned Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) "Well, this Republican budget would chop it down." Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) also took aim at Ryan's proposed block granting of Medicaid: "They use Medicaid as a piggy bank in order to avoid asking the people at the very top of our economic ladder, the very richest in our society, the highest income earners of millions of dollars or more, to avoid paying their fair share of taxes."<br />Higher-brow liberals have chimed in with similar talking points. Jonathan Chait writes in the <i>New Republic</i> that Ryan has consciously decided to "cut Medicare in order to cut taxes for the rich." Paul Krugman, writing in the <i>New York Times</i>, agrees "a large part of the supposed savings from spending cuts would go, not to reduce the deficit, but to pay for tax cuts." John Cassidy blogged for the <i>New Yorker</i> that the Republican budget "featured slashing reductions in domestic spending, more big tax cuts for the rich, and the conversion of Medicare to a voucher program." Cassidy concluded, "By spelling out what the Republicans would do to Medicare and Medicaid, [Ryan] may well have deprived his party of the White House for the foreseeable future."<br />That's exactly what the Democrats are betting. Concerns Republicans would cut Medicare certainly helped deprive them of the White House in 1996. Bob Dole ineffectually decried the Democrats' "Mediscare" tactics, but the then 73-year-old lost the 65 and over vote by 50 percent to 43 percent. Dole also failed to carry senior-heavy Florida, which had been the second-largest remaining weapon in the GOP's electoral vote arsenal just four years before.<br />Then as now, Republicans argued that they were not just cutting Medicare but "saving" the program by preventing its insolvency. And they had some advantages in the '90s that don't obtain now. The baby boomers were then in their peak earning years, not entering retirement. The economy was on the cusp of a high-tech boom, not coming off the Great Recession. The GOP's $500 per child tax credit was harder to characterize as a tax cut for the wealthy than lowering the top marginal tax rate to 25 percent.<br /><div class="paginator"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Page:</b> 1 <a href="http://spectator.org/archives/2011/06/29/that-90s-show/1">2</a> <a href="http://spectator.org/archives/2011/06/29/that-90s-show/2">3</a> <a href="http://spectator.org/archives/2011/06/29/that-90s-show/1" rel="next">></a> </span></b></div> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/that-90s-show.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-29T18:00:00-07:00">6:00 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=7799618978717616115">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=7799618978717616115&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/That%20%2790s%20Show" rel="tag">That '90s Show</a> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="4814239134427883867"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/friedrich-hayek-for-president-in-2012.html">Friedrich Hayek For President in 2012</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h2 class="date-header"><span></span><span style="font-size: x-large;">Friedrich Hayek For President in 2012</span></h2><div class="date-posts"><div class="post-outer"><div class="post hentry"><h3 class="post-title entry-title"> </h3><div class="post-body entry-content"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeAT4lEAJMbip7eQvEu-svT2WEazXTzlriJ6cuSCyvKst5DzYvU0BNIaSI_aDMD88s7GxDlJRRAO7Hk5zgh0PJoPscayzN80gbaNkaM_Dgw9zqo-cJzdl1DS3YFwPlGOcLUzY5ft1ENQ/s1600/keynes_hayek.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeAT4lEAJMbip7eQvEu-svT2WEazXTzlriJ6cuSCyvKst5DzYvU0BNIaSI_aDMD88s7GxDlJRRAO7Hk5zgh0PJoPscayzN80gbaNkaM_Dgw9zqo-cJzdl1DS3YFwPlGOcLUzY5ft1ENQ/s400/keynes_hayek.jpg" border="0" height="301" width="400" /></a></div>The ever-shifting American populace is temporarily sick of deficit spending and bailouts. Not necessarily because they disagree with the fundamental principles behind them, but rather, they simply don't like what the current economy looks like. So, more and more are jumping on the Paul Ryan bandwagon that says shallow spending cuts will solve everything.<br /><br />But did anyone else catch this video of John Stossel on Bill O'Reilly, translating Ron Paul's views on Keynesian economic policy for him?<br /><br />Perhaps it shouldn't have, but this clip completely shocked me.<br /><br /><b>Bill O'Reilly, a leading political commentator and conservative voice, is wholly unfamiliar with the man the United States bases its entire macroeconomic model off of! </b>How much more so the average American voter!?!?<br /><br />It's as if we've conceded Keynesian theory as <i>de facto</i> best practice and inarguable economics. Because of that, the current economic debate in this country is overly-simplified and, from a macro standpoint, entirely one-sided.<br /><br />The 2008 Presidential campaign made Ron Paul a household name. The 2012 campaign needs to do the same for a man who's not running. His name is Friedrich Hayek.</div><div class="post-body entry-content"> </div></div></div></div> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/friedrich-hayek-for-president-in-2012.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-29T16:48:00-07:00">4:48 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=4814239134427883867">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=4814239134427883867&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="317033435174291376"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/sen-rand-paul-on-situation-room-062911.html">Sen. Rand Paul on The Situation Room - 06/29/11</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/sen-rand-paul-on-situation-room-062911.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-29T16:45:00-07:00">4:45 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=317033435174291376">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=317033435174291376&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="787858283484883145"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/tom-woods-say-no-to-fopo-nullify-now.html">Tom Woods: Say No to FoPo - Nullify Now! Los Angeles</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/tom-woods-say-no-to-fopo-nullify-now.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-29T16:42:00-07:00">4:42 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=787858283484883145">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=787858283484883145&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="6171849782350764705"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/monetary-policy-subcommittee-imf-gold.html">Monetary Policy Subcommittee: IMF & Gold Pt. 2 - 06/23/11</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/monetary-policy-subcommittee-imf-gold.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-29T16:41:00-07:00">4:41 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=6171849782350764705">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=6171849782350764705&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <a name="9113914702880160484"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/first-step-to-sound-money.html">A First Step To Sound Money</a> </h3> <h1 style="margin-bottom: 10px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">A First Step To Sound Money</span></h1><table class="no_print" id="links" style="border-bottom: 1px solid gray; margin: 5px 0 5px 0;" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody> <tr><td style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12px; padding: 3px 5px 3px 5px; vertical-align: bottom;"><br /></td><td style="border-left: 1px solid gray; font-family: arial; font-size: 12px; padding: 3px 5px 3px 5px; vertical-align: bottom;"><br /></td><td style="border-left: 1px solid gray; font-family: arial; font-size: 12px; padding: 3px 5px 3px 5px; vertical-align: bottom;"><br /></td><td style="border-left: 1px solid gray; color: #525252; font-family: arial; font-size: 12px; padding: 3px 5px 3px 5px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: bottom; white-space: nowrap;"><br /></td> </tr> </tbody></table><div id="print_content_3"><div class="content-copy"><div class="introduction">Here’s a hypothetical situation. Suppose you had $1.5 million. At today’s gold price that would buy approximately 1,000 ounces of gold. Suppose now that President Obama, the Congress, and the Federal Reserve began managing the American economy in such a way that by the end of President Obama’s second term, the dollar was back to where it was when President George W. Bush began his first term. Were that to happen, your $1.5 million could purchase 5,660 ounces of gold.</div>So, do you think you should have to pay taxes on the increase in the value of your money?<br />If the idea strikes you as crazy, let us refer you to the legislation introduced today at the Senate by James DeMint, Rand Paul, and Michael Lee. It’s called the Sound Money Promotion Act, and The New York Sun is happy to lay claim to being the first newspaper to endorse it. The measure, as it is characterized in a press release posted by Senator DeMint, would remove the tax burden on gold and silver coins that have been declared legal tender by either the federal government or state governments.<br />On its face it might seem an odd bill. But looks at the hypothetical situation above from the opposite end of the telescope, so to speak. It seeks to block tax authorities from treating gold and silver coins as though they were mere commodities and start treating them, at least in tax law, as though they were what the Founders of America thought they were, which is money. Gold and silver coins are already treated this way, as legal tender, inside the state of Utah, whence Senator Lee was elected.<br />This is because Utah was the first state in our modern time to exercise its constitutional power to make gold and silver coins legal tender. It did so earlier this year, ahead of as many as a dozen states that are at various stages of looking in to the question of how to protect themselves against the collapse of the United States dollars that are being issued by the Federal Reserve. They are all being energized by the fact that the value of the dollar has collapsed to barely a fifth of what it was, if that, at the start of the 21<sup>st</sup> century.<br />One of the states considering making gold and silver coins legal tender is South Carolina. That was remarked on by Mr. DeMint, one of its senators at Washington, in introducing the bill. He attributed the dollar’s collapse in recent years to “the government’s reckless over-spending, continued bailouts, and the Federal Reserve’s easy money policy” and said that in addition to fiscal discipline the country would need “monetary discipline to restrain further destructive monetizing of our debt.” The legislation, he said, “would encourage wider adoption of sound money measures.”<br />The press release introduced by Senators DeMint, Lee, and Paul noted that Standard & Poor’s has recently downgraded America’s outlook to “negative” from “stable,” meaning, the senators asserted, “there is a one in three chance of an actual credit downgrade in the next two years.” They asserted that the Federal Reserve is now buying 70% of U.S. Treasuries, set to surpass the holdings of both Communist China and Japan combined.<br />How far the three senators will get with the Sound Money Protection Act is hard to say. Its implication — a recognition of gold and silver as the true constitutional money — is, in the current context, radical. But it's no more radical than the Founders, who, when they twice used the word “dollars” in the Constitution, were referring to a coin containing 371 ¼ grains of silver. They codified that as the definition of the dollar in the Coinage Act of 1792. They also referenced gold in the 1792 Act, with a value of 15 times that of silver. We are in a time when understanding the concept of constitutional money will point the way to the policies needed to steer our country out of its current difficulties.</div></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395381545218020265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4966921227529983571.post-35011207699668796052011-06-29T15:15:00.001-07:002011-06-29T15:15:14.072-07:00<div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1 class="documentFirstHeading">Are Productivity Gains in Higher Education Possible?</h1> <p id="article-byline"> <span class="article_author highlight"><a href="http://www.american.com/author_search?Creator=Andrew%20Kelly">By Andrew Kelly</a></span> <span class="article_issue discreet"></span></p><div> </div> <div class="documentDescription">Yes, but not until institutions are provided with incentive to pursue them. </div> <img id="bernarticle-featured-image" src="http://www.american.com/archive/2011/june/are-productivity-gains-in-higher-education-possible/FeaturedImage" class="image-left" /> <p>Here’s a puzzle: leaders are calling on colleges and universities to produce more degrees, but cash-strapped states are cutting higher education spending. What’s the solution? Be careful how you answer—this question has become the most prominent fissure in contemporary debates about higher education reform.</p> <p>On the one hand, many observers within higher education argue that colleges and universities are fundamentally handicapped when it comes to increasing productivity because of the nature of their core business. The argument (explored in the recent book <span class="link-external"><a style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank" href="http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Economics/Policy/?view=usa&ci=9780199744503">Why Does College Cost So Much</a></span><span style="font-style: italic;">?</span>) is that higher education is a service industry, where the “product” is heavy on human interaction, requires a fixed amount of time with the consumer, and is run by highly educated individuals with high reservation wages. These forces translate to increases in wages and costs without any increase in outputs, leading to declines in overall productivity. This dynamic is what economists call the “cost disease.”</p> <blockquote class="pullquote">Increasing wages leads to rising costs with no increase in outputs, and together this translates to declines in productivity. </blockquote> <p>Reform-minded analysts within and outside of higher education have argued that institutions <span style="font-style: italic;">can </span>conceivably become more productive by leveraging technology, reallocating resources, and searching for cost-effective policies that promote student success. Advances in technology and in our understanding of how students learn have opened new avenues for online and hybrid courses that can build capacity and reduce cost. Decisions about how to structure programs—like requiring students to register full-time and creating a set sequence of courses—can promote retention and degree completion over a shorter time frame, leading some colleges to be far more productive than others. And some institutions have shown a willingness to think strategically about how to cut costs so that funding is preserved for elements that are both effective and efficient in promoting student success.</p> <p>This divide—between those who see no way out the “cost disease” and those who believe colleges and universities can change to become more productive—has risen to the fore of current higher education policy debates. While age-old arguments about whether everyone should go to “college” and who should pay for it still rage, the productivity question is the most prominent dividing line between reformers and the status quo.</p> <p style="font-weight: bold;">Objections to the Productivity Agenda: The ‘Cost Disease’</p> <p>The standard response to calls for more higher education productivity is to invoke Baumol and William Bowen’s “cost disease.” The “cost disease” posits that service sector firms whose “products” involve interactions with customers (i.e., a nurse treating a patient, a barber giving a haircut) will have difficulty increasing their productivity because those interactions typically entail a fixed amount of time with the customer. Meanwhile, because industries outside of service sector routinely enhance their productivity by utilizing new technology and re-allocating labor, the wages for workers in those industries will increase as productivity increases. As wages increase in other sectors, service sector firms must pay their own employees more in order to prevent them from defecting to industries where the pay is higher, even though they are not producing more of their product. Increasing the wages of these service sector workers leads to rising costs with no increase in outputs, and together this translates to declines in productivity.</p> <blockquote class="pullquote">The authors argue that new technologies actually increase higher education costs. </blockquote> <p>Applying this argument to higher education leads many to conclude that productivity gains will prove elusive—students are required to spend about as much time listening to lectures as they were 50 years ago, and grading essays takes about as long as it did when typewriters ruled the day, yet a university must pay faculty and staff more in order to retain them. Moreover, if compelled to increase productivity, institutions will likely respond by decreasing the quality of the education they provide. As Robert Archibald and David Feldman <span class="link-external"><a target="_blank" href="http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Economics/Policy/?view=usa&ci=9780199744503">write </a></span>in their recent study of college costs and productivity:</p> <p style="margin-left: 40px;">An institution can increase class size to raise measured output (students taught per faculty per year) or it can use an increasing number of less expensive adjunct teachers to deliver the service, but these examples of productivity gain are likely to be perceived as decreases in quality, both in the quality rankings and in the minds of the students.</p> <p>What about the promise of technology, which has so markedly increased the productivity of firms in many different industries? A blind alley, say Archibald and Feldman:</p> <p style="margin-left: 40px;">For the higher education industry, new technologies are not transforming the industry in ways that allow significant reductions in input use, especially of highly educated labor, and the shift toward an ever-more-highly-skilled workforce has not led to any measured productivity gain for the sector as a whole. Costs must go up as a consequence.</p> <p>In fact, the authors argue that new technologies actually <span style="font-style: italic;">increase </span>higher education costs as colleges seek to maintain a “standard of care” that keeps up with technological change and what employers need.</p> <p>In light of this apparent iron law of higher education, it is not surprising that higher education advocates bristle at the suggestion that their institutions could improve without an influx of new dollars. In a recent <span class="link-external"><a target="_blank" href="http://www.insidehighered.com/layout/set/popup/views/2011/04/11/walters_more_degrees_at_same_cost_will_hurt_quality">editorial </a></span>in Inside Higher Education, the director of South Carolina’s commission on higher education pilloried the idea that prodding colleges and universities to become more productive is a sensible approach to reform:</p> <p style="margin-left: 40px;">The thinking goes like this: 1) Higher education is getting more expensive; 2) Higher education is more necessary than ever; so 3) we should be able to get our colleges and universities to produce the same product at half the cost.</p> <p style="margin-left: 40px;">That shrieking sound in the background is the logic alarm going off. Unfortunately, many can’t hear it over the loud, unceasing babble about reform ...</p> <p style="margin-left: 40px;">We need to escape from the “creating more degrees through better management” box. If we don’t, my fear is that the ersatz reform movement will win and higher education will come to resemble K-12: a vast machine run by bureaucrats and focused on outputs that are truly quantitative but only pretend qualitative.</p> <p>If focusing on outputs and better management are dead ends, how should we go about making <span style="font-style: italic;">real </span>gains? By providing more money to higher education’s “experts” and improving inputs, naturally. A favorite recommendation: pour grant money “into projects designed to create more of a pervasive education culture in the U.S.” Walters’ belief “is that much of the inefficiency in our education system ... occurs because students don’t think learning is important or don’t believe they can learn, or both.” Translation: It’s those darn lackadaisical students who need to be reformed, not the institutions they attend. With remediation rates at community colleges hovering around 40 percent, we clearly have a lot of work to do on the preparation front. But this does not take colleges off the hook. If students must be prepared for college, colleges must be prepared for students.</p> <p>The main target of Walters’ ire was a report released by McKinsey and Company last year (“<span style="font-style: italic;">Winning by Degrees</span>”) which highlighted how improved management and use of technology could increase the productivity of postsecondary institutions.</p> <blockquote class="pullquote">Researchers and institutions themselves have rarely paid much attention to whether their policies and practices are cost-effective. </blockquote> <p>I’m as skeptical of management consultants in public policy as the next guy. The solutions always seem a little too simple and self-evident (“better management”) and the numbers are provocative but largely un-replicable (e.g., “the achievement gap costs the U.S. $3 to $5 billion a day”). More to the point, Walters is right that small-bore tinkering with management is only likely to produce incremental benefits. And experimentation with new ideas often requires some start-up investment to get them up and running.</p> <p>But these caveats don’t add up to a rejection of the McKinsey report’s basic premise: institutions of higher education can learn to become more productive and can do so without a big infusion of new dollars or a decline in quality. At the very least, providing incentives for colleges to rethink the way they organize and do business seems like a more tractable approach than pie-in-the-sky proposals to increase students’ appreciation for learning <span style="font-style: italic;">before </span>they enroll in college.</p> <p style="font-weight: bold;">Getting Past the ‘Known Unknowns’ Is a First Step to Enhancing Productivity</p> <p>In some sense, it is not surprising that colleges and universities would argue that they cannot possibly become more productive. As an influential paper by Doug Harris and Sara Goldrick-Rab <span class="link-external"><a target="_blank" href="http://www.lafollette.wisc.edu/publications/workingpapers/harris2010-023.pdf">argues</a></span>, researchers and institutions themselves have rarely paid much attention to whether policies and practices are cost-effective. How would you know whether you’re spending money effectively if you’ve never even asked the question?</p> <blockquote class="pullquote">A redesigned course features computer-based interactive tutorials that periodically quiz students to gauge their mastery of concepts. </blockquote> <p>Harris and Goldrick-Rab argue that higher education research has largely ignored questions about the cost-effectiveness of important institutional policies—everything from student-faculty ratios, to the use of adjunct faculty, to call centers for student support. Without concrete information about cost-effectiveness, it is difficult, if not impossible, to figure out which changes might enhance productivity. The authors suggest that “the absence of [this] type of information ... is perhaps the strongest evidence that we are falling short of our productivity potential.”</p> <p>On the basis of their analysis, Harris and Goldrick-Rab conclude that colleges are far from “helpless” when it comes to confronting productivity, and that their results “suggest a need to break out of this mindset, to actively search for new and better ways to serve students.” Shedding light on what policies and programs are cost-effective—the “known unknowns”—is a critical first step in enhancing productivity.</p> <p style="font-weight: bold;">Are Productivity Improvements Possible?</p> <p>In spite of the “cost disease,” some institutions and providers are experimenting with productivity-enhancing reforms, providing scattered proof points to the reform-minded.</p> <p>The National Center for Academic Transformation (<span class="link-external"><a target="_blank" href="http://www.thencat.org/whatwedo.html">NCAT</a></span>) is probably the most oft-cited example of how to reform instructional delivery in a way that maintains quality and reduces costs. NCAT partners with existing institutions to redesign large enrollment introductory courses using information technology. Instead of the standard model, where students sit in a professor’s lecture for 3-4 hours per week and attend an hour-long discussion section, a redesigned course features computer-based interactive tutorials that periodically quiz students to gauge their mastery of concepts. The redesigned courses also feature “on-demand” assistance from peer tutors or course assistants. Because these lower-cost assistants and tutors handle organizational and technical issues, faculty can spend less time fussing with these elements and more time on instructional matters. And because students can rely on these intermediaries for assistance, student-faculty ratios can increase in redesigned courses.</p> <p>The proof is in the pudding: NCAT’s various redesign efforts, hosted at a variety of institutions and in a variety of courses, boast student outcomes that are as good if not better than the analogous traditional courses. Most importantly, they do so at a lower cost. NCAT’s rigorous <span class="link-external"><a target="_blank" href="http://www.thencat.org/R2R/R2R_Outcomes_Analysis.htm">evaluations </a></span>have estimated cost savings of between 15 and 75 percent when compared with the traditional model. No loss of quality there, and a whole lot less expensive.</p> <blockquote class="pullquote">Reallocating resources away from costly policies and practices with dubious track records toward those that show promise is another route to enhanced productivity. </blockquote> <p>Leveraging technology is not the only route to enhanced productivity. Reallocating resources away from costly policies and practices with dubious track records toward those that show promise is another. For example, a high percentage of community college students are placed in remedial courses on the basis of an exam taken just before the semester begins. These remedial courses rarely count toward a certificate or a degree but must be taken before the student can advance to credit-bearing coursework. The costs of providing these remedial courses are enormous and research suggests that remediation may be negatively related to retention and completion rates. The good news is that some institutions are thinking of low-cost ways to help their students avoid remedial classes The key insight is simple: people are likely to do better on a test if they are prepared for it—if they know the stakes, are familiar with the format, and know which concepts will be tested. Some colleges have realized that a dose of such test preparation can go a long way toward reducing remediation rates.</p> <p>Some institutions have invested a fraction of the money that they spend on remedial courses in a summer “bridge” program, where students are pre-tested and then brush up on their basic math and English skills before taking the real exam. Others, like <span class="link-external"><a target="_blank" href="http://www.epcc.edu/AboutEPCC/Documents/Pathways_To_Success.pdf">El Paso Community College</a></span>, have reached down into local high schools to let students know what they can expect on the Accuplacer exam. EPCC has found that simply explaining what a placement test is, pre-testing high school juniors, and providing targeted instruction on the basis of the pretest can help a nontrivial proportion of incoming students avoid remedial classes. Avoiding these “false positives” saves the student money and lowers the college’s cost per degree.</p> <p style="font-weight: bold;">Getting Around the ‘Cost Disease’ Argument</p> <p>The cost disease is clearly not a figment of college administrators’ imaginations. Indeed, Archibald and Feldman do an excellent job illustrating that the cost and productivity curves of other service industries (i.e., legal services, healthcare) look similar to those in higher education. Given the pathologies that plague these two industries, higher education should take little solace in the fact that it has company. But the costs of hiring highly educated workers are what they are, and policy makers must acknowledge that.</p> <p>But they must also acknowledge that we are unlikely to see increases in productivity, or even experimentation with innovations that might cut costs, until institutions are provided with incentive to pursue them. Funding colleges and universities based on bodies in seats rather than successful outcomes is a fundamental handicap in advancing a productivity agenda. Competitive grant-making that rewards successful programs without attention to whether those programs are cost-effective leaves us without the information that would make productivity gains possible. Policies that provide incentives to focus on productivity not only test the limits of the cost disease, but can provide further proof that it is not an iron law.</p> <p>At this stage, though, this debate is still as rhetorical as it is empirical. So long as entrenched higher education interests skirt responsibility for stagnant productivity by citing the cost disease or the academic preparation of their students, reformers who believe institutions can improve will cede any rhetorical momentum.</p> <p>Inputs like state funding and the types of students that schools enroll are obvious determinants of institutional success, but they are not the only ones. In an era of budget cuts and mass enrollment, the path to raising attainment rates must start with colleges and universities themselves.</p> <p><span style="font-weight: bold;">Andrew Kelly is a research fellow in education policy at the <span class="link-external"><a target="_blank" href="http://www.aei.org/">American Enterprise Institute</a></span>.</span></p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/productivity-gains-in-higher-education.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-29T15:11:00-07:00">3:11 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=1098392951818324690">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=1098392951818324690&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Higher%20Education" rel="tag">Higher Education</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Productivity%20Gains" rel="tag">Productivity Gains</a> </span> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="3478361605470042531"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-not-to-balance-budget.html">How Not to Balance the Budget</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1 class="documentFirstHeading">Means and Extremes: How Not to Balance the Budget</h1> <p id="article-byline"> <span class="article_author highlight"><a href="http://www.american.com/author_search?Creator=Andrew%20G.%20Biggs">By Andrew G. Biggs</a></span> <span class="article_issue discreet"></span></p><div> </div> <div class="documentDescription">Should we impose a means test on Social Security and Medicare benefits? No.</div> <img id="bernarticle-featured-image" src="http://www.american.com/archive/2011/june/means-and-extremes-how-not-to-balance-the-budget/FeaturedImage" class="image-left" /> <p>Last month, the Peter G. Peterson Foundation <span class="link-external"><a href="http://pgpf.org/Issues/Fiscal-Outlook/2011/01/20/PGPF-Announces-Grants-to-Six-Institutions-to-Develop-Solutions-to-Americas-Fiscal-Challenges.aspx" target="_blank">released </a></span>budget plans authored by analysts at six think tanks from across the ideological spectrum: the American Enterprise Institute, the Bipartisan Policy Center, the Center for American Progress, the Economic Policy Institute, The Heritage Foundation, and the Roosevelt Institute Campus Network. Along with Joe Antos, Alan Viard, and Alex Brill, I was one of the authors of the <span class="link-external"><a href="http://pgpf.org/Issues/Fiscal-Outlook/2011/01/20/%7E/media/6A83826740A94DBE91CCA557ECA1D36F" target="_blank">proposal </a></span>from AEI (and I’d note that it represents the authors’ opinions and not those of AEI or other AEI scholars).</p> <p>All of the plans managed to put the budget on a more-or-less sustainable track through tax increases, spending reductions, or a combination of the two. One plan, from Heritage, stood out in that it went further in cutting spending and it stabilized the debt sooner than the others. The principle difference between Heritage’s plan and AEI’s (which are similar in many other respects) is that Heritage imposed a means test on Social Security and Medicare benefits.</p> <blockquote class="pullquote">The reason means tests have been unpopular in the past remains true today: they penalize people who work and save. </blockquote> <p>I’m working on a general article for National Affairs on means testing that will come out in the fall, but since we’ve gotten some questions about how the plans differ and why we didn’t go for a means test in our approach, I thought I’d quickly run through the issues. I’ve talked to the folks at Heritage and welcome a back-and-forth discussion. I’ve worked with Heritage and even written papers published by them, so this should be taken as a disagreement among friends.</p> <p>A means test makes the payment of a government benefit contingent upon the income or assets—that is, the “means”—of the recipient. Many programs for low earners are means tested, but means tests for Social Security and Medicare are more limited. Retirees may pay income taxes on part of their Social Security benefits and high-income retirees pay higher Medicare premiums, but the effects of these de facto means tests are usually pretty small.</p> <blockquote class="pullquote">Older individuals are particularly sensitive to marginal rates, because unlike others they have the option of retiring. </blockquote> <p>Heritage imposed a means test more aggressively, which may reflect a new willingness among conservatives to use means tests to limit spending. Columnist Charles Krauthammer has called for a means test for Social Security “so that Warren Buffett’s check gets redirected to a senior in need.” Likewise, former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty favors means-tested Cost of Living Adjustments (COLAs).</p> <p>But the reason means tests have been unpopular in the past remains true today: they penalize people who work and save. Some may perceive this as unfair; fair or unfair, means tests have negative effects on incentives to work and save.</p> <p>Heritage’s means test would reduce Social Security and Medicare benefits for retirees with non-Social Security income over $55,000 and eliminate them for those with incomes over $110,000. The means test is limited: around 9 percent of individuals would have some benefit reduction and around 3.5 percent would lose their benefits completely. (It’s not clear if these percentages would remain stable over time.)</p> <p>Since a typical person at that income level has Social Security benefits of around $14,000 and Medicare benefits, under Heritage’s plan of around $11,000, Heritage’s means test implies a loss of around 45 cents in benefits for each dollar of income over $55,000. In effect, it’s an implicit marginal tax of 45 percent on top of the 25 percent flat tax rate under Heritage’s proposal, for a total of around 70 percent.</p> <blockquote class="pullquote">We don’t want to set a precedent that 70 percent marginal rates for anyone are a good policy prescription for addressing the U.S. deficit. </blockquote> <p>One of the lessons of tax policy is that most people aren’t going to pay that kind of tax rate. My National Affairs article will point to some interesting research finding that older individuals are particularly sensitive to marginal rates, because unlike others they have the option of retiring. If people stop working then they won’t get the income and the government won’t get the spending reductions.</p> <p>In practice (or using dynamic scoring), I doubt Heritage’s means test would produce nearly the savings that a static projection implies. Some people would limit their earnings to avoid it, as individuals already do with Social Security’s Retirement Earnings Test, which reduces social benefits for early retirees who earn more than around $14,000. If individuals work less to avoid the Heritage means test, that’s bad for them, but it also means lower budget savings. Other retirees might avoid the means test by delaying claiming Social Security benefits until after they stop working completely. The main savings would come from individuals with incomes far above $110,000, for whom the negative marginal incentives wouldn’t apply. But there are only a tiny number of people in this category.</p> <p>Heritage’s plan projects a reduction in Social Security and Medicare outlays of 1.4 percent of GDP from 2011 to 2015, much of which presumably comes from the means test (although savings may also come from abandoning ObamaCare and other areas). Personally, I do not think this reduction would really happen. Moreover, I don’t think it should happen, in the sense that we don’t want to set a precedent that 70 percent marginal rates for anyone are a good policy prescription for addressing the U.S. deficit.</p> <blockquote class="pullquote">Heritage imposed a means test more aggressively, which may reflect a new willingness among conservatives to use means tests to limit spending. </blockquote> <p>To be fair, Heritage’s plan would exempt the first $10,000 in retirees’ incomes from taxes, which would encourage low-income retirees to work. However, for individuals in the means test’s income range of $55,000-110,000, this exemption would actually exacerbate disincentives to work (in econo-speak, they’d have a positive income effect on top of the means test’s negative substitution effect, both of which discourage work). I believe Heritage’s plan would do away with some of the smaller entitlement means tests under current law, although the implicit taxes from these current policies aren’t huge. So, on net, this is a pretty big change.</p> <p>Because Heritage’s plan (like AEI’s) would shift the general tax code to a consumption base, it might seem that the true marginal rate would not be the sum of the implicit tax through the means test and the 25 percent consumption tax rate. But that’s not right. Consumption taxes alter the incentives whether income, once earned, would be spent or saved, but they don’t change work incentives overall.</p> <p>If you needed to reduce Social Security and Medicare outlays in a hurry, there is a way around this: cut benefits based on individuals’ <span style="font-style: italic;">lifetime </span>earnings rather than their current incomes. Social Security benefits are based on lifetime earnings, so we already know what people earned. If you cut benefits for retirees with high lifetime earnings, you would give them the incentive to earn more to make up the difference, not the incentive to earn less to avoid the penalty. I’m not saying it would be popular and it wouldn’t be as closely targeted as a means test based on current income, but it would be more effective in generating budget savings and more conducive to encouraging individual work and saving.</p> <p>Clearly we need to get on top of the budget deficit, and to their credit, Heritage’s folks were willing to make tougher choices than most of the rest of us. But, at least when it comes to the means test, I think the benefits aren’t worth the cost.</p> <p style="font-weight: bold;">Andrew G. Biggs is a resident scholar at the <span class="link-external"><a href="http://www.aei.org/" target="_blank">American Enterprise Institute</a></span>.</p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-not-to-balance-budget.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-29T15:10:00-07:00">3:10 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=3478361605470042531">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=3478361605470042531&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Balance%20the%20Budget" rel="tag">Balance the Budget</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/How%20Not" rel="tag">How Not</a> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="5585067643107517386"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/to-help-us-economy-raise-rates.html">To Help U.S. Economy, Raise Rates</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1>To Help U.S. Economy, Raise Rates</h1> <p>by Steve H. Hanke </p><p class="first">The rate of broad money growth (M3) in the United States is weak. The ultra-low federal funds rate (0.25%) has acted to keep a lid on broad money growth and, in turn, economic activity. Yes, "low" interest rates imposed by the Fed are contributing to a credit crunch and anaemic money growth. But, wait. This is counterintuitive. And if that's not enough, it's not what the textbooks tell us, either.</p> <p>While the Fed has pumped huge quantities of so-called high-powered money into the economy, the United States is paradoxically facing a credit crunch. Banks have utilized their liquidity to pile up cash and accumulate government bonds and securities. In contrast, bank loans have actually decreased since May 2008. And since credit is a source of working capital for businesses, a credit crunch acts like a supply constraint on the economy. Even though it appears as though the economy has loads of excess capacity, the supply side of the economy is, in fact, constrained by the credit crunch. It is not surprising, therefore, that the economy is not firing on all cylinders.</p> <p>To understand why, in the Fed's sea of liquidity, the economy is being held back by a credit crunch, we have to focus on the workings of the loan markets. Retail bank lending involves making risky forward commitments. A line of credit to a corporate client, for example, represents such a commitment. The willingness of a bank to make such forward commitments depends, to a large extent, on a well-functioning interbank market — a market operating without counterparty risks and with positive interest rates. With the availability of such a market, even illiquid (but solvent) banks can make forward commitments (loans) to their clients because they can cover their commitments by bidding for funds in the wholesale interbank market. </p><div class="box2"> <div class="boxcontent"> <span class="author_pub2" id="author_pic"></span><p style="font-family:Georgia;"><em><a href="http://www.cato.org/people/steve-hanke">Steve H. Hanke</a> is a professor of applied economics at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C.</em></p> <a class="head" href="http://www.cato.org/people/steve-hanke">More by Steve H. Hanke</a></div></div> <p>At present, the major problem facing the interbank market is what can be termed a zero-interest rate trap. In a world in which the fed funds rate is close to zero, banks with excess reserves are reluctant to part with them for virtually no yield in the interbank market. Accordingly, the interbank market has dried up — thanks to the Fed's "zero" interest-rate policy. And, with that, banks have been unwilling to scale up their forward loan commitments.</p> <p>But, how can banks make money without making wholesale and/or retail loans? Well, it's easy and "risk free" to boot. By holding the federal funds rate near zero, the Fed creates an opportunity for banks to borrow funds at virtually no cost and use them to purchase two-year U.S. treasury notes, which yield about 40 basis points. That doesn't sound like much. But, considering that banks don't have to hold capital against U.S. treasuries, their positions in U.S. government securities can be leveraged to the moon. Well, not really. But, at a leverage ratio of 20, a bank can do quite well by playing the treasury yield curve.</p> <p>It's time for the Fed to recognize market realities and raise the federal funds rate. A higher fed funds rate would release the credit squeeze created by the Fed's misguided "low" interest-rate policy. If the Fed boosted the funds rate to 2%, the all-important broad money measure — M3 — would get a boost, and so would the slumping economy.</p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/to-help-us-economy-raise-rates.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-29T14:29:00-07:00">2:29 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=5585067643107517386">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=5585067643107517386&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Help" rel="tag">Help</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Raise%20Rates" rel="tag">Raise Rates</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/U.S.%20Economy" rel="tag">U.S. Economy</a> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="4408872277751519022"></a> <div class="post-body entry-content"> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/blog-post_29.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-29T14:28:00-07:00">2:28 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=4408872277751519022">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=4408872277751519022&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="4822731060430720904"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/time-to-ax-federal-jobs-programs.html">Time to Ax Federal Jobs Programs</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1><span style="font-size:130%;">Time to Ax Federal Jobs Programs</span></h1> <p>by Chris Edwards and Daniel Murphy </p><p class="first">With the nation's unemployment rate still above 9 percent and a steady stream of worrisome labor news (the latest statistic: 429,000 new unemployment claims last week), federal policymakers are facing pressure to do something about joblessness. The giant 2009 stimulus bill was supposed to cut unemployment to less than 7 percent by now — but that clearly hasn't worked as planned.</p> <p>Some policymakers are now looking at expanding job training and other federal employment programs. Even conservative House Budget Committee ChairmanPaul Ryan (R-Wis.) proposed to "strengthen" these programs in his recent fiscal plan. Alas, the history of waste and failure in these programs argues for termination, not expansion.</p> <p>Federal programs for unemployed and disadvantaged workers now cost $18 billion a year, yet the Government Accountability Office recently concluded that "little is known about the effectiveness of employment and training programs we identified." Indeed, many studies over the decades have found that these programs — though well intentioned — don't help the economy much, if at all.</p> <blockquote class="pullquote"><p>As Congress scours the budget looking for spending cuts, employment and training programs would be good targets.</p></blockquote> <p>Worse, federal jobs programs have long been notorious for wastefulness. The word "boondoggle" was coined in the 1930s, to describe the inefficiencies of New Deal jobs programs. Laborers on Works Progress Administration projects were generally viewed as slackers, and a popular song of the era went, "WPA, WPA, lean on your shovel to pass the time away."</p> <p>The modern era of jobs programs began in the 1960s, under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, who created an array of employment services. Indeed, so many overlapping programs were created that, in 1969, Labor Secretary George Shultz called the organization chart for jobs programs a "wiring diagram for a perpetual motion machine."</p> <p>In the 1970s, President Richard Nixon created — and President Jimmy Carter then expanded — the Public Service Employment Program, which used federal dollars to create hundreds of thousands of jobs in local governments and community groups. The program was "scandal-ridden," according to Congressional Quarterly, and led to many "newspaper exposés of local instances of nepotism, favoritism and other kinds of fraud."</p> <p>Luckily, President Ronald Reagan killed the entire program. Unfortunately, he then backed a wasteful "conservative" solution to high unemployment — expanded job training. Reagan said the Job Training Partnership Act of 1982 would not be "another make-work, dead-end bureaucratic boondoggle."</p> <p>But in his book, <="" em="">, University of Oregon labor professor Gordon Lafer found that "from its start, JTPA was plagued by widespread abuse and mismanagement." A 1994 official study on JTPA found that job-training programs created no significant benefits for most participants.</p> <p>Subsequent legislation has allegedly improved these programs. But, Lafer notes, "as successive generations of job-training programs fail to produce the hoped-for results, policymakers have cycled through a stock repertoire of procedural fixes that promise to solve the problem."</p> <p>They don't, but politicians keep trying.</p> <p>Ryan now argues that the budget "is dotted with failed, unaccountable and duplicative job-training programs." But rather than repealing them, his recent budget plan wants to make them more "targeted."</p> <p>Ryan's budget-reform efforts are laudatory, but he should follow his own plan's advice to "limit government to its core constitutional roles" — and terminate federal jobs programs.</p> <p>The good news is that federal job-training and employment programs don't fill any critical need that private markets can't fill in the modern economy. The vast majority of U.S. job training, for example, is done by individuals and businesses without government help in the normal pursuit of higher wages and profits. U.S. organizations spent more than $120 billion a year on employee learning and development, according to the American Society for Training and Development.</p> <div class="box2"> <div class="boxcontent"><p style="font-family:Georgia;"><em><a href="http://www.cato.org/people/chris-edwards">Chris Edwards</a> is editor of the Cato Institute's <a href="http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/">Downsizing Government.org</a>. Daniel Murphy is a former special assistant in the Labor Department.</em></p> <a class="head" href="http://www.cato.org/people/chris-edwards">More by Chris Edwards</a></div></div> <p>Other Labor Department activities are also redundant. The department helps fund 3,000 offices nationwide that provide unemployed workers with job-searching and job-matching services. In turns out that remarkably few people use these services, even with today's high unemployment.</p> <p>Instead, job seekers mainly rely on the Internet, personal networking, temp agencies and other market institutions. Essentially, Monster.com has made federal employment offices obsolete.</p> <p>To solve the federal budget mess, policymakers need to restrain their impulses to "help" the economy with spending programs. Federal help usually doesn't work — it just consumes resources that would have created jobs and growth if left in the private sector.</p> <p>As Congress scours the budget looking for spending cuts, employment and training programs would be good targets.</p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/time-to-ax-federal-jobs-programs.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-29T14:26:00-07:00">2:26 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=4822731060430720904">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=4822731060430720904&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Federal%20Jobs%20Programs" rel="tag">Federal Jobs Programs</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Time%20to%20Ax" rel="tag">Time to Ax</a> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="8295365779883817780"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/tax-increase-con-men.html">Tax Increase Con Men</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1><span style="font-size:130%;">Tax Increase Con Men</span></h1> <p>by Richard W. Rahn </p><p class="first">Would you prefer to have 25 percent of $200 that you can see or 20 percent of $300 that you cannot see immediately? Many battles, including the current ones in Washington, are fought between those who can see the consequences of actions several steps in the future, like good chess players, and those who cannot.</p> <p>Former Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve Alan Blinder wrote an article in the <em>Wall Street Journal</em> this past week attacking Republicans who have said that more government spending will kill jobs. In the same vein, my old friend Bruce Bartlett, a Treasury official in the George H.W. Bush administration, wrote an article attacking former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and other Republicans for claiming the Reagan tax cuts paid for themselves. (Note: Mr. Bartlett used to be a supply-side advocate, but in the past few years, he has become an almost full-time Republican basher and, not surprisingly, now writes for the <em>New York Times</em>.) Mr. Blinder, Mr. Bartlett and others of their stripe no longer seem to be able to see beyond the first-order effects of an economic policy.</p> <p>The reason these old questions are still causing arguments is because the answers give a guide to which future economic policies are likely to be effective and which are not. Did President Reagan's tax cuts pay for themselves? Mr. Bartlett states: "The fact is that the only metric that really matters is revenues as a share of the gross domestic product. By this measure, total federal revenues fell from 19.6 percent of GDP in 1981 to 18.4 percent of GDP in 1989."</p><div class="box2"> <div class="boxcontent"><p style="font-family:Georgia;"><em><a href="http://www.cato.org/people/richard-rahn">Richard W. Rahn</a> is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and chairman of the Institute for Global Economic Growth.</em></p> <a class="head" href="http://www.cato.org/people/richard-rahn">More by Richard W. Rahn</a></div></div> <p>The real fact is that Mr. Bartlett has it dead wrong.</p> <p>It is not only the size of the revenue share of GDP that matters, but, more important, the size of the pie (GDP in this case). Real GDP grew by more than 34 percent from 1982, when Reagan's tax-cut policies started to take effect, through 1989. (A mixture of both tax increases and tax-rate cuts over the Reagan years resulted in a massive drop of the top marginal rate from 70 to 28 percent.) This was an average annual real growth rate of approximately 4.5 percent, much higher than either opponents or proponents of the Reagan policies had forecast. When Mr. Bartlett and others argue that the Reagan-era tax cuts did not pay for themselves, even though real inflation-adjusted revenues rose, they are, in effect, saying that some other, unspecified policies would have brought in more revenue. From the beginning of 1979, there was no real economic growth under President Carter's tax-rate regime. The economy did not start steady growth again until the fourth quarter of 1982, when the Reagan tax cuts were being phased in.</p> <p>Why should one believe the economy would have grown as fast under the Carter tax regime with a 70 percent top rate? If you assume, as I and many others do, that a continuation of the Carter policies would have produced an economic growth rate of no more than 2.8 percent and probably lower (which is the 30-year average economic growth rate and also is almost identical to the growth rate of the two years of the so-called Obama "recovery") then the Reagan tax cuts did pay for themselves in seven years. Again, the size of the pie counts, and a much larger pie results when it compounds at 4.5 percent rather than 2.8 percent.</p> <p>Higher economic growth also results in a bigger permanent stock of capital, which can have wealth-enhancing effects many years into the future. Some Roman aqueducts built 2,000 years ago are still being used. Lower tax rates, particularly on capital, make it easier for entrepreneurs to raise capital for new ventures, some of which can have enormous productivity and other beneficial effects on society. Those beneficial innovations that were squashed by high taxes or destructive regulation are never seen. Without specifying the alternative policy regime and knowing the precise effects of it, as contrasted with the Reagan policies, Mr. Bartlett and the others cannot "prove" that the Reagan tax cuts did not pay for themselves in seven years.</p> <p>Likewise, Mr. Blinder can only see the jobs that are created by direct government spending but not the jobs that are destroyed by it. When funds are spent on a less productive government job, there is diversion of productive resources along with the dead-weight loss of the taxes or borrowing needed to pay for it. Many studies show that most governments are larger than optimal and thus more government jobs lead to fewer total jobs. A study published in the <em>British Economic Policy Journal</em> concluded: "Empirical evidence from a sample of [Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD] countries in the 1960-2000 period suggests that, on average, creation of 100 public jobs may have eliminated 150 private sector jobs."</p> <p>Finally, Mr. Blinder ignores the important fact that as government spending increases as a share of GDP, the percentage of adults employed in the civilian labor force decreases and vice versa.</p> <p>There is little doubt that if much of the counterproductive government spending, regulation and taxation were removed, the U.S. economy could grow for many years at a 5 percent or higher rate. If higher taxes and more government spending were the keys to prosperity, it would be easy to see. The question is: What is unseen?</p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/tax-increase-con-men.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-29T14:24:00-07:00">2:24 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=8295365779883817780">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=8295365779883817780&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Con%20Men" rel="tag">Con Men</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Tax%20Increase" rel="tag">Tax Increase</a> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="7880960189645867321"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/public-versus-private-risk.html">Public Versus Private Risk</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1>Public Versus Private Risk: Heed the Lesson from Greece</h1> <p>by Jagadeesh Gokhale </p><p class="first">Greece's current debt problems were created by government officials who used underhanded financial mechanisms to hide the size of the nation's debt and exposure to risky assets from their foreign creditors. Once these problems were revealed, the Greek economy began an endless downward spiral.</p> <p>In order to protect its own banks from exposure to debts in Greece and other fiscally struggling nations, the European Central Bank created the European Stability Fund to provide bailouts. But these payments are conditional on recipient nations adopting very stiff austerity policies.</p> <p>The latest round of Greek austerity measures is meeting with violent resistance on the nation's streets. The next vote could support or sink the entire bailout enterprise, with potentially huge consequences for the ECB's financial sectors and the survival of the euro. </p><div class="box2"> <div class="boxcontent"> <span class="author_pub2" id="author_pic"></span><p style="font-family:Georgia;"><em><a href="http://www.cato.org/people/jagadeesh-gokhale">Jagadeesh Gokhale</a> is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a member of the Social Security Advisory Board, and author of </em><a href="http://www.cato.org/store/books/social-security-fresh-look-policy-alternatives-hardback">Social Security: A Fresh Look at Policy Options</a><em>.</em></p> <a class="head" href="http://www.cato.org/people/jagadeesh-gokhale">More by Jagadeesh Gokhale</a></div></div> <p>With the twin spiral of imploding private and public sectors, it's difficult not to sympathize with Greek demonstrators. This is a problem created not by them, but by their elected officials. Yet in its outcome, it is very similar to the situation that proponents of government service and insurance provision fear and wish to protect against: a steep and economywide recession from distant and uncontrollable economic shocks and market failures. We need to acknowledge the significant possibility of government failure and understand how Greece got there.</p> <p>Greece owed $587 billion to foreign creditors as of December 2010. Of that, $280 billion was owed to foreign governments and $290 billion to foreign banks.</p> <p>The country's debt problem has two features: insolvency of the government and insolvency of its banks. Bailouts from other Euro-zone countries and the International Monetary Fund can temporarily stave off government insolvency. Bank insolvency is a more difficult problem: As foreigners continually withdraw their investments from Greece, the nation's private banks are being forced to liquidate their assets, starving businesses of the credit they need to continue operating.</p> <p>In a vicious cycle, worsening business prospects in an already uncompetitive economy are inducing additional capital flight from Greece. By the end of 2012, analysts expect Greek bank deposits to shrink by 40 percent compared with their amount in mid-June 2010. And ECB members are demanding additional austerity policies to bail out the state: cutting payrolls, laying off government workers, reducing public services and scaling back the overly generous (even by EU standards) retirement and health benefits of public workers and retirees.</p> <p>The weight of expert opinion now is that unless it is rescued, Greece's economy will implode. But the provision of periodic bailouts may prove to be yet another government failure because they work only when the recipient institution is economically viable but short on liquidity, not when it is insolvent as the Greek state and its financial sector are.</p> <p>Moreover, defaults on foreign private sector loans will adversely affect other ECB nations, chiefly Germany, where banks are exposed to Greek, Irish, Portuguese and Spanish debt; all those nations are also facing sovereign debt problems.</p> <p>With a shrinking economy, it's difficult to predict when the Greek economy will stabilize, but that's key because the capacity of ECB nations to provide bailout funds is limited. That's when the ECB's financial system and the Euro will face their true test of survival.</p> <p>Many proponents of broad government intervention and management of the economy, including comprehensive social insurance programs, insist those solutions to be the only way to provide needed public services and to protect workers and other vulnerable segments of the population from brutish market forces. But the recent events in Greece suggest the government's ability to operate, manage, self-insure and protect the population can be just as tenuous as that attributed by liberal-leaning analysts to the market.</p> <p>Although the government can provide a qualitatively different source of risk management, it is not a fail-safe mechanism, and certainly not an unambiguous improvement over private sector mechanisms. The safer option would be to diversify between public and private sector mechanisms to protect the economically vulnerable.</p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/public-versus-private-risk.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-29T14:23:00-07:00">2:23 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=7880960189645867321">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=7880960189645867321&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Public%20Versus%20Private%20Risk" rel="tag">Public Versus Private Risk</a> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="9138850799701907708"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/good-bye-recession-hello-slump.html">Good-Bye Recession, Hello Slump</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1>Good-Bye Recession, Hello Slump</h1> <p>by Steve H. Hanke </p><p class="first">The U.S. recession officially ended in June 2009. With that, a normal post-recession boom failed to materialize. Instead, an unwelcomed slump ensued. Since the recession bowed out, the average annual GDP growth rate has been a paltry 1.6% — well below the long-run trend growth rate of 3.1%.</p> <p>The economic policy prescriptions of the Obama administration — contrary to the President's oft-repeated assertions — have failed to mitigate the damage from the Panic of 2008-09. Rather, they have kept the patient in sick bay.</p> <p>The first misguided advice was peddled by the fiscalists (Keynesians) who dominate the Washington, D.C. stage. According to them, increased government spending, accompanied by fiscal deficits, stimulates the economy. That dogma doesn't withstand factual verification. </p><div class="box2"> <div class="boxcontent"> <span class="author_pub2" id="author_pic"></span><p style="font-family:Georgia;"><em><a href="http://www.cato.org/people/steve-hanke">Steve H. Hanke</a> is a Professor of Applied Economics at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C.</em></p> <a class="head" href="http://www.cato.org/people/steve-hanke">More by Steve H. Hanke</a></div></div> <p>Nothing contradicts the fiscalists' dogma more conclusively than former President Clinton's massive fiscal squeeze. When President Clinton took office in 1993, government expenditures were 22.1% of GDP, and when he departed in 2000, the federal government's share of the economy had been squeezed to a low of 18.2% (see the accompanying chart and table). And that's not all. During the final three years of the former President's second term, the federal government was generating fiscal surpluses. President Clinton was even confident enough to boldly claim in his January 1996 State of the Union address that "the era of big government is over."</p> <p>President Clinton's squeeze didn't throw the economy into a slump, as Keynesianism would imply. No. President Clinton's Victorian fiscal virtues generated a significant confidence shock, and the economy boomed.</p> <p>As for President Clinton's proclamation about the era of big government being over, he obviously hadn't anticipated the uncontrolled government spending that would accompany former President George W. Bush's eight years in office and the truly shocking two-year's worth of government spending on President Obama's watch. All told, the George W. Bush and Obama Good-Bye Recession, Hello Slump administrations have added a whopping 5.6 percentage points to government spending as a proportion of GDP. The current federal government outlays are at 23.8% (see the accompanying chart and table). This is significantly above the average of 20.1%.</p> <p>The surge in government spending — coupled with President Obama's anti-market, anti-business and anti-bank rhetoric — does not inspire confidence. In consequence, the current U.S. fiscal stance has fueled a slump.</p> <center><img src="http://www.cato.org/images/pubs/commentary/hanke-globeasia-july2011-1.jpg" /></center> <p>That said, it is important to stress what the fiscalists refuse to acknowledge: money dominates. When fiscal and monetary policies move in opposite directions, the direction taken by monetary policy will dictate the economy's course. During the Clinton era, fiscal policy was tight (confidence was "high") and monetary policy was accommodative. The economy boomed.</p> <p>Since the Panic of 2008-09, fiscal policy has been ultra expansionary, while the growth in the money supply has fallen from a peak annual growth rate of over 15% to an annual rate of contraction of over 5% (see the accompanying chart). No surprise that the economy suffered a serious recession and then became mired in a slump. With the current anemic money supply growth rate, it looks like the slumping economy — something I first warned about in my August 2010 column "Money Dominates" — will, unfortunately, be with us for the foreseeable future.</p> <p>What makes that gloomy prognosis more likely is the prospect for continued muted growth in the broad measure of the money supply, M3. To understand this, we must understand the implications of the so-called Basel III capital-asset standards for banks, which are set by the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland — a bank that counts the U.S. and twenty-six other countries as members.</p> <p>Basel III, among other things, will require banks in member countries to hold more capital against their assets than under the prevailing Basel II regime. While the higher capital-asset ratios that are required by Basel III are intended to strengthen banks (and economies), these higher ratios destroy money. In consequence, higher bank capital-asset ratios contain an impulse — one of weakness, not strength.</p> <p>To demonstrate this, we only have to rely on a tried and true accounting identity: assets must equal liabilities. For a bank, its assets (cash, loans and securities) must equal its liabilities (capital, bonds and liabilities which the bank owes to its shareholders and customers). In most countries, the bulk of a bank's liabilities (roughly 90%) are deposits. Since deposits can be used to make payments, they are "money."</p> <center><img src="http://www.cato.org/images/pubs/commentary/hanke-globeasia-july2011-2.jpg" /></center> <p>Accordingly, most bank liabilities are money.</p> <p>Under the Basel III regime, banks will have to increase their capitalasset ratios. They can do this by either boosting capital or shrinking assets. If banks shrink their assets, their deposit liabilities will decline. In consequence, money balances will be destroyed. So, paradoxically, the drive to deleverage banks and to shrink their balance sheets, in the name of making banks safer, destroys money balances. This, in turn, dents company liquidity and asset prices. It also reduces spending relative to where it would have been without higher capital-asset ratios.</p> <p>The other way to increase a bank's capital-asset ratio is by raising new capital. This, too, destroys money. When an investor purchases newly-issued bank equity, the investor exchanges funds from a bank deposit for new shares. This reduces deposit liabilities in the banking system and wipes out money.</p> <center><img src="http://www.cato.org/images/pubs/commentary/hanke-globeasia-july2011-3.jpg" /></center> <p>As banks ramp up in the anticipation of the introduction of Basel III in January 2013, we observe stagnation in the growth of broad money measures. And if that isn't bad enough, Federal Reserve Governor Daniel Tarullo has suggested that capital-asset ratios for some larger U.S. banks should be mandated to be set at higher levels than those imposed by Basel III. Governor Tarullo's views appear to be widely shared by his colleagues at the Federal Reserve and most who inhabit the environs of Washington, D.C.</p> <p>The suggestion of ultra-high capital-asset ratios for some banks will not go down without a fight, however. Indeed, Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co. recently confronted the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben S. Bernanke. Dimon argued that excessive bank regulation, including ultra-high capitalasset ratios would put a damper on money supply growth and the U.S. economy. While Dimon might have been arguing JPMorgan's book, he was on the right side of economic principles and Chairman Bernanke was on the wrong side.</p> <p>Banks in the eurozone come under the purview of Basel III. Like banks in the U.S., eurozone banks are shrinking their risk assets relative to their equity capital, so that they can meet Basel III. Broad money growth for the euro area is barely growing and moving sideways (see the accompanying chart). And Greece, which is at the epicenter of Europe's current crisis, is facing a rapidly shrinking money supply. These money supply numbers will ultimately be the spike that is driven into the heart of the Greek economy and the false hopes of a peaceful resolution of Greece's fiscal woes. Greece will be yet another case in which money dominates.</p> <center><img src="http://www.cato.org/images/pubs/commentary/hanke-globeasia-july2011-4.jpg" /></center> <center><img src="http://www.cato.org/images/pubs/commentary/hanke-globeasia-july2011-5.jpg" /></center> <p>In China, money matters, too. During the 1995-2005 period, when China fixed the yuan- U.S. dollar exchange rate at 8.28, China's overall inflation rate mirrored that of the U.S. and was relatively "low." Once China caved in to misguided pressure — notably from the U.S., France and international institutions, like the International Monetary Fund — and allowed the yuan- U.S. dollar exchange rate to wobble around, problems arose. The money supply growth rate surged in the wake of the Panic of 2008-09. And as night follows day, inflation has raised its ugly head in China. The monetary authorities are scrambling to cool down the inflationary pressures by slowing monetary growth — from almost 30% per annum to 15%.</p> <p>The combination of Basel III (or Basel III, plus) and China's attempt to squeeze inflation out of the economy via tighter money leads to a less than encouraging money supply picture. Good-bye recession, hello slump.</p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/good-bye-recession-hello-slump.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-29T14:21:00-07:00">2:21 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=9138850799701907708">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=9138850799701907708&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Good-Bye" rel="tag">Good-Bye</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Hello" rel="tag">Hello</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/recession" rel="tag">recession</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Slump" rel="tag">Slump</a> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="5807039836255117943"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/triumphalism-hides-many-important.html">Triumphalism Hides Many Important Foreign-Policy Failures</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="title"><span style="font-size:180%;">Triumphalism Hides Many Important Foreign-Policy Failures</span></p> <div class="details3"> by <a href="http://original.antiwar.com/author/eland/" title="Posts by Ivan Eland">Ivan Eland</a></div><p> Nationalism in many countries prompts their governments to trumpet foreign-policy successes while sweeping disappointments under the rug. The inclination toward such biases may only be human nature, but democracies should also take the difficult step of heeding and analyzing the failures—that is, if they want to embrace truth and avoid the path to authoritarianism. </p> <p> Because American nationalism is especially strong, the U.S. government regularly attempts to take maximum credit for events such as the fall of the communist bloc and the killing of terrorist Osama bin Laden—while forgetting about profligate blunders that have made America and its citizens less secure, a failure in the most importance function of government. </p> <p> Although communism did fall, in most such societal revolutions, domestic factors usually overwhelm external influences. Although Reaganophiles give that president almost sole credit for toppling the communist bloc, an unviable economic system is what ultimately brought down the Soviet Union and its communist allies. </p> <p> As for killing Osama bin Laden, it took the gold-plated U.S. intelligence community, which probably spends as much on intelligence as the rest of the world combined, a decade and a half to neutralize him. Moreover, the CIA’s greatest triumph has been its greatest failure; its encouragement and funding of radical Islam, including the Afghan “freedom fighters,” as a counterweight to Soviet communism helped create al-Qaeda in the first place. Moreover, the U.S. government’s unneeded meddling and military presence in the Islamic world motivated bin Laden to attack the United States and continue to fuel Islamists’ anti-American attacks—for example, the nation-building occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq inflame Islamic jihadists worldwide. Because many anti-American jihadists in Iraq came from eastern Libya, American provision of the air force for the Libyan rebels may replicate the unintended threat-creation experience of U.S. aid to Islamists in Afghanistan. And getting rid of Moammar Gadhafi—whom Ronald Reagan originally demonized and attacked but who had more recently given up his nuclear-weapons program and made nice with the West—won’t enhance U.S. security very much. </p> <p> But such reckless behavior should not be surprising. The U.S. government has made or strengthened enemies before. Recent examples are in Somalia, Lebanon, Pakistan, Yemen, Iraq, and Iran. In Somalia, the U.S. government recently trumpeted the killing of Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, a leader in both the Somali Islamist Shabaab movement and al-Qaeda. Yet the Islamists had little support in the moderate Islamic country of Somalia until the U.S. government began supporting corrupt, violent warlords there. And Somali support for Shabaab against foreign influence really spiked during the catastrophic U.S.-backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia in 2006. The Bush administration’s encouragement—with weapons and advisers—of a Christian-led Ethiopian government’s invasion of a Muslim country further stoked the fires of radical Islam, coming in the wake of the post-9/11 U.S. invasions of Muslim Afghanistan and Iraq. </p> <p> In Lebanon, the Shi’ite Islamist group Hezbollah—which formed during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon by U.S.-backed Israel and which enhanced its reputation by throwing Reagan’s forces out of Lebanon soon thereafter—now dominates the Lebanese government. This result was made possible by Israel’s second invasion of Lebanon in 2006, which again enhanced Hezbollah’s reputation by demonstrating its ability to withstand an attack by a stronger power. </p> <p> In Pakistan, the Pakistani Taliban did not try to attack targets in the United States—the attempted Times Square bombing—until the United States began to kill Pakistani Taliban fighters with drone attacks in Pakistan. Similarly, Islamist militants in Yemen did not try to attack targets in the United States until our government escalated military involvement in Yemen. </p> <p> In Iraq, the United States helped bring Saddam Hussein to power, made him the dominant power in the Persian Gulf by supporting him in his successful war with Iran, and then demonized him and fought two wars against him. </p> <p> Finally, creating an enemy in Iran goes way back to 1953, when the CIA helped overthrow the elected anti-communist government of Mohammed Mossadegh because he had nationalized British oil interests. The United States restored the autocratic shah, who allowed U.S. companies to have some of Iran’s oil, oppressed his people with the secret police, and spent too many of the country’s resources on U.S.-made weapons and not enough on economic development. He was overthrown by a Shi’ite Islamist regime, which has always been predictably hostile to the United States. </p> <p> Throw in the expensive and pointless Korean and Vietnam Wars, the reckless and failed invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, and the resulting near incineration of the world during the Cuban Missile Crisis for no American strategic gain, and post-World War II U.S. foreign policy doesn’t look so successful after all. </p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/triumphalism-hides-many-important.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-29T11:39:00-07:00">11:39 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=5807039836255117943">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=5807039836255117943&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="7545148143619625328"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/like-nixon-obama-will-waste-lives-to.html">Like Nixon, Obama Will Waste Lives to Get Reelected</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="title"><span style="font-size:180%;">Like Nixon, Obama Will Waste Lives to Get Reelected</span></p> <div class="details3"> by <a href="http://original.antiwar.com/author/eland/" title="Posts by Ivan Eland">Ivan Eland</a></div><p> No one needs to tell the public that politicians are slick — and the ones who get elected are the oiliest. President Obama, in a recent speech announcing the phased withdraw of 33,000 U.S. surge forces from Afghanistan by September 2012, told the country that the United States had largely achieved its goals in Afghanistan and that “we are starting this drawdown from a position of strength.” The public could be forgiven for missing the real message: “We’ve lost the war, but we are declaring victory anyway and getting out.” </p> <p> The reality of withdrawing 33,000 of about 100,000 troops in that country is that the president’s “counterinsurgency” strategy — the U.S. clearing areas of Taliban forces until “good government” can take hold and the Afghan forces are competent enough to take over — has failed. The strategy was designed to achieve battlefield gains that would not eradicate the Taliban but cause the group to come to the negotiating table. Although the Taliban is negotiating, it is not doing so seriously because it knows it is winning the war. If it were losing, more Taliban would be defecting to the Afghan government; so far, only 1,700 out of between 25,000 and 40,000 insurgents have done so. </p> <p> Superior U.S. forces have cleared some areas of the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, traditionally Taliban strongholds, but they only have an illegitimate, corrupt Afghan government and incompetent Afghan security forces to hand them over to. Yet it is still nearly impossible to drive safely from the capital of Kabul to Kandahar. Furthermore, the Taliban merely lies low in those two provinces until the U.S. leaves, or they move to other parts of the country where American forces are much more sparse. The Taliban in eastern Afghanistan — which have more links to al-Qaeda than those in the south but who have enjoyed less U.S. attention — can withdraw to sanctuaries in Pakistan. The U.S. and NATO have never had enough forces in Afghanistan to run an effective counterinsurgency strategy. And if the insurgents are not losing, they are winning. Time is on their side, because it’s their country and they can simply outwait the United States, which the insurgents know will eventually withdraw.</p> <p> Since according to counterinsurgency expert William R. Polk, guerrilla warfare is 80 percent political, 15 percent administrative, and only 5 percent military, the U.S.-sponsored corrupt and illegitimate Afghan government is a major albatross around America’s neck. Also, even after Afghan security forces have been trained for almost a decade, they are incapable of securing Afghanistan on their own. </p> <p> Yet if there hasn’t been a terrorist threat from Afghanistan for seven to eight years, as the Obama administration maintains, then why did we need the surge and 18-month counterinsurgency strategy in the first place, and why can’t troops come home faster? The answer is that the withdrawal timetable is not based on military considerations but on electoral politics.</p> <p> Instead of going against the Taliban during the next fighting season, those 33,000 troops already will have been withdrawn or will be packing to leave Afghanistan by September 2012. Thus, with an eye toward the November 2012 presidential election, Obama can say that the surge is over, that it was a success, and that all surge forces have been withdrawn. But if the withdrawal table is political, why not claim the same victory and remove all 100,000 U.S. troops to satisfy a war-weary public?</p> <p> Richard Nixon faced the same dilemma presiding over the lost Vietnam War. In 1971, he wanted to withdraw U.S. forces from South Vietnam until Henry Kissinger reminded him that the place would likely fall apart in 1972, the year Nixon was up for reelection. To avoid this scenario, Nixon unconscionably delayed a peace settlement until 1973, thus trading more wasted American lives for his reelection.</p> <p> Obama appears to be up to the same thing. A phased withdrawal of 33,000 U.S. troops before the election will push back at Republican candidates’ demands for more rapid withdrawal and signal to the conflict-fatigued American public that he is solving the problem, while leaving 70,000 forces to make sure the country doesn’t collapse before that election. Again, American lives will be needlessly lost so that a slick politician can look his best at election time. </p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/like-nixon-obama-will-waste-lives-to.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-29T11:37:00-07:00">11:37 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=7545148143619625328">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=7545148143619625328&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Like%20Nixon" rel="tag">Like Nixon</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Obama" rel="tag">Obama</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Reelected" rel="tag">Reelected</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Will%20Waste%20Lives" rel="tag">Will Waste Lives</a> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="3880970565327715381"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/its-kinetic-so-dont-get-frenetic.html">It’s ‘Kinetic,’ So Don’t Get Frenetic</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="title"><span style="font-size:180%;">It’s ‘Kinetic,’ So Don’t Get Frenetic</span></p> <p class="pagesub">Throw away your dictionary – we’re not at war in Libya</p> <div class="details3"> by <a href="http://original.antiwar.com/author/justin/" title="Posts by Justin Raimondo">Justin Raimondo</a></div><p>Explaining the Obama administration’s rationale for violating the War Powers Act by not asking Congress for authorization to attack Libya, the White House claims that what’s going on in Libya isn’t war, it’s a “<a href="http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/03/white-house-libya-fight-not-war-its-kinetic-military-action">kinetic military action</a>.” This set off such a round of guffaws – even from Libya war supporters in the Democratic congressional caucus – that the administration felt compelled to send a government lawyer to Congress to elaborate on this exercise in Doublespeak. <a href="http://www.lawfareblog.com/2011/06/an-overview-of-harold-kohs-testimony-on-the-wpr-at-todays-sfrc-hearing/">Harold Koh</a>, the State Department’s lawyer-in-chief, explained to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that since there was no back-and-forth firing between American and Libyan forces, the Libyan intervention isn’t a real war – and therefore the President is not in violation of <a href="http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/warpower.asp">the War Powers Act</a>. (No word yet on whether he’s in violation of <a href="http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/tocs/a1_8_11.html">the Constitution</a>, which gives Congress, and not the President, the power to make war.)</p> <p>This, by the way, is the same <a href="http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2011/06/harold-koh-gollum-foggy-bottom">Harold Hongju Koh</a> who <a href="http://www.lawfareblog.com/2011/03/presidential-war-unilateralism-and-the-role-of-a-government-lawyer-the-case-of-harold-koh/">once authored</a> a <a href="http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1748&context=facpubs&sei-redir=1#search=%22law+professords+memorandum+dellums%22">legal brief</a> [.pdf] challenging George Herbert Walker Bush’s authority to fight <a href="http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/ir/Ch22.html">the first Iraq war</a>, on the grounds that “the Constitution requires the president to consult with Congress and receive its affirmative authorization – not merely present it with faits accomplis – before engaging in war.” </p> <p>Oh, but this <i>isn’t</i> a war – didn’t you hear me the first time? As Koh explained to the befuddled solons in his <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM-54TM93-Q">opening statement</a>: the word “hostilities,” which “triggers” the 60-day time line imposed by the War Powers Act, is “an ambiguous term of art.” Translation: it can mean anything anyone wants it to mean – especially if that anyone is a sitting Democratic president. After all, Koh argued, the word wasn’t defined in the legislation, and there is no legislative precedent that would define it for us. Oh, and <i>put down</i> that <a href="http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en#sclient=psy&hl=en&site=webhp&source=hp&q=hostilities+dictionary&aq=&aqi=&aql=&oq=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=f0db36aa1c9349b9&biw=746&bih=615">dictionary</a> – we don’t use them in ObamaWorld, which is in the same galaxy as <a href="http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j021302.html">Bizarro World</a>. Instead, we must stick to “historical practice.” </p> <p>It is precisely “historical practice” that argues against Koh’s Orwellian linguistics, because never in the history of the world has anyone ever argued that bombing and killing citizens of a foreign country isn’t war plain and simple – not even <a href="http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE4.HTM">the Soviets</a>, who were masters of Doublespeak. That didn’t deter our State Department’s legal eagle from defending the indefensible: after all, this administration is all about “change” – and yet they didn’t tell us they were changing the language and the clear meaning of words. </p> <p>According to Koh, there are four factors that qualify the Libyan adventure as a “kinetic action” rather than a war, the first being that the action has “international support,” and – due to its multilateral character – transcends the need for congressional approval. That is the view taken by his boss, Hillary Clinton, who <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/03/30-3">stated</a> that the only authorization needed came from the United Nations. Koh echoed Hillary again when he said that even if the Senators disagreed with the administration’s position on the issue of authorization, they should support the Libyan <s><strike> war</strike></s> “kinetic action,” because congressional opposition only “serves Gadhafi’s’s interests.” A less dramatic way of saying, as Hillary did, “<a href="http://nation.foxnews.com/hillary-clinton/2011/06/24/hillary-clinton-libya-war-critics-whose-side-are-you">Whose side are you on?</a>”, but just as <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/06/24/clinton/index.html">offensive</a>. </p> <p>Furthermore, argued Koh, this “kinetic action” was launched in pursuit of “limited goals,” i.e. protecting Libyan civilians by preventing an <a href="http://articles.boston.com/2011-04-14/bostonglobe/29418371_1_rebel-stronghold-civilians-rebel-positions">alleged impending</a> “massacre” (as administration spokesmen put it). Yet this is another brazen falsehood, because the goals of the NATO alliance <i>have</i> changed – and with record rapidity.</p> <p>You’ll recall it was only a few months ago that the pro-war pundits and their friends in the White House were <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/151191-white-house-suggests-regime-change-is-goal-of-libya-mission">telling us</a> that “regime change” was not on the agenda, that it would be “<a href="http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2011/03/obama-to-members-of-congress-action-versus-libya-in-days-not-weeks.html">a matter of days, not weeks</a>,” and that the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw4ETZhgEbw">whole idea</a> was to prevent the Mad Dog Dictator from slaughtering as many as 100,000 of his political enemies. In a matter of weeks, all three of the NATO principals – Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy – published a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/opinion/15iht-edlibya15.html?_r=1">jointly-authored op ed piece</a> openly acknowledging that the goal had changed, and the allies were now going for regime change. </p> <p>There is nothing limited about America’s war on Libya: Washington’s war aims are as unlimited as <a href="http://www.africom.mil/">their ambition</a>. Libya is just the beginning. Wait until they go into <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/170620/20110628/sudan-abyei-peacekeepers-un-security-council-obama.htm">Sudan</a>, again on “humanitarian” grounds. </p> <p>In any case, whatever “limited” objectives this administration is currently pursuing in North Africa – or anywhere else, for that matter – you can be sure it’s in the service of a much larger objective: ensuring <a href="http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:ruMnHnl98cAJ:www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf+rebuilding+america%27s+defenses&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESj4bAm84ZY-wSHiV4YDs97cgz0dSV0v85ZlpKgYvrnwC1RXrRrCmouidLePaRILxVsz7AgCq4zMmn59xYjMDUfcn9hWbhO9Qz-Sh1b41g8wNkHQBu7zCHPkbQCWyAFvTLSAafoo&sig=AHIEtbQLHMPAOmA5rD_XhiHfftZsx9Xj9g">US domination</a> of the region. Given the current circumstances, in which American-supported dictators in the Middle East and North Africa are being <a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/06/20116583530542599.html">kicked out</a> of power <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/29/world/middleeast/29egypt.html">left</a> and <a href="http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/2/8/15150/World/Region/Ben-Ali-supporters-to-be-banned-from-Tunisia-vote-.aspx">right</a>, the only way Washington can accomplish this is through <a href="http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle09.asp?xfile=data/international/2011/June/international_June1085.xml&section=international">war</a>. But <i>please</i> – don’t call it that. </p> <p>Another argument made by Koh is that, since there is little or even no danger of incurring casualties – US planes are bombing from heights unreachable by the ramshackle Libyan air defenses – this action doesn’t meet the definition of a war. There have been no deaths on the US side, nor are any likely to occur, said Koh – but what about the Libyans? In particular, what about those civilians we keep “<a href="http://news.antiwar.com/2011/06/19/nato-admits-killing-civilians-in-tripoli-attack/">mistakenly</a>” killing? Apparently, only the number of American deaths enters into Koh’s calculations. </p> <p>Oh, and did I tell you Senor Koh is noted as a great defender of “human rights”? <a href="http://www.bahaindex.com/en/news/human-rights/902-harold-hongju-koh-assistant-secretary-of-state-for-democracy-human-rights-and-labor-robert-a-sei">Indeed</a>, he served as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor in the Clinton administration.</p> <p>In today’s world, it is entirely possible – indeed, probable – that a “human rights” champion of renown would argue in favor of a military action on the grounds that the enemy is completely at our mercy, and unable to mount an effective defense. That’s what we mean by “human rights” in ObamaWorld. </p> <p>Koh’s third point was that US military action in Libya is unlikely to escalate, because a ground presence has been ruled out in advance. Yet that is not what <a href="http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/apr2011/liby-a19.shtml">we’ve heard</a> from our European allies, particularly the French, who have consistently pushed for an all-out invasion. Furthermore, how do we know there are no US troops are the ground – because the US government says so? </p> <p>Well, I guess it all depends on how one defines “troops” – we’re back to playing word games, you’ll note – because the CIA is almost certainly “on the ground” in Libya, along with their <a href="http://gawker.com/5806794/armed-western-troops-filmed-in-libya-as-generals-defect">British</a> and French equivalents. What if one or more of these spooks are captured, and subjected to torture and/or public display? What if one of those US pilots crashes, and is captured? This is almost certain to result in an attempted rescue operation, and that will in itself represent a significant escalation of the conflict. Such a scenario would fatally undermine Koh’s fourth point, made in testimony to the Senate committee, that the US is utilizing limited means to achieve its limited objectives. </p> <p>Koh, an advocate of “<a href="http://www.uctv.tv/search-details.aspx?showID=8382">transnational</a>” law, is not only an enemy of Libyan sovereignty, he’s also an enemy of US sovereignty: we don’t need congressional authorization to commence “kinetic” actions, according to Koh and his fellow transnationalists, because “international law” precedes – and overrides – the US Constitution.</p> <p>To Obama and his minions, the Constitution is an obstacle to be ignored, where possible, and “reinterpreted” when necessary. During his presidency, the US military is the instrument of a militant internationalism, one that murders civilians in the cause of “human rights” and seeks to spread “democracy” abroad even while ignoring basic democratic precepts on the home front. </p> <p>This administration, armed with an ideology so far removed from American traditions and sheer common sense, is far more dangerous than its <a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:rRjgrKoMXqoJ:antiwar.com/engelhardt/%3Farticleid%3D12928+antiwar+bush+kick+ass&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com">war-maddened</a> predecessor. At least Bush spared us the verbal gymnastics and never denied he intended to take us to war. The current occupant of the Oval Office wants us to consider him a modern Gandhi while besting Bush at his own game. The pretentious doubletalk engaged in by this White House is an insult to the American people, and yet another measure of Obama’s monumental arrogance. </p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/its-kinetic-so-dont-get-frenetic.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-29T11:35:00-07:00">11:35 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=3880970565327715381">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=3880970565327715381&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="7950938415255200770"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/idolizing-absolute-power.html">Idolizing Absolute Power</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1 align="left"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, Times, serif;font-size:130%;color:#990000;">Idolizing Absolute Power</span></h1> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, Times, serif;font-size:+1;">By JAMES BOVARD</span></p> <p class="style2"><span class="style50">T</span>he <em>Christian Science Monitor </em>published a piece I wrote last month wrote opposing allowing the U.S. government to kill Americans without a warrant, trial, or any judicial niceties. The article, “<a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2011/0517/Assassination-nation-Are-there-any-limits-on-President-Obama-s-license-to-kill">Assassination Nation: Are there any limits on President Obama's license to kill?</a>,” spurred a torrent of feedback on Yahoo.com that vividly illustrates how some Americans now view absolute power.</p> <p class="style2">Some folks believed that opposing “extrajudicial killings” should be a capital offense. My article mentioned an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit pressuring the Obama administration “to disclose the legal standard it uses to place U.S. citizens on government kill lists.” “Will R.” was indignant: “We need to send Bovard and the ACLU to Iran. You shoot traders and the ACLU are a bunch of traders.” (I’m not aware that the ACLU is engaged in either interstate or international commerce). “Jeff” took the high ground: "Hopefully there will soon be enough to add James Bovard to the [targeted killing] list." Another commenter - self-labeled as “Idiot Savant” - saw a grand opportunity: "Now if we can only convince [Obama] to use this [assassination] authority on the media, who have done more harm than any single terror target could ever dream of..." </p> <p class="style2">Many folks feared that any restrictions on U.S. government killing could be fatal. As “Rogmac” groused: “You guys who are against killing these guys are going to be the death of all of us.” Other commenters started from the self-evident truth that, as “Bert” declared, “In the best interest of the United Sates and it's citizen's, someone has to be the judge, jury and executioner.” This theory of government differs significantly from that proffered in the<em> Federalist Papers</em>. “Rich” was sure everything had been done properly: “The warrants have already been signed, the execution orders have all been approved now we just need to find them and eradicate them.” Having a president approve his own execution orders is more efficient than the procedures used by the U.S. government in earlier times. “Coder Cable” joined the pro-power parade: “In a time of war, the military (ie: President) is allowed to execute anyone for the crime of treason, assuming there is strong evidence to backup the claim.”</p> <p class="style2">This was practically the only pro-assassination comment that referred to a standard of evidence. The question of whether government officials can be trusted to arbitrarily label Americans as enemies did not arise. Instead, most commenters favored “faith-based killings,” blindly accepting the assertions of any political appointee as the ultimate evidence. “Dark Ruby Moon” wrote: “I won't loose a minutes sleep over these people being eliminated.... One of the reasons presidential elections are so important is we are picking someone who must make such difficult decisions and who is in the end accountable for those decisions.” Perhaps future presidential races will feature campaign promises such as “Vote for Smith - he won’t have you killed unless all his top advisers agree you deserve to die”? </p> <p class="style2">Commenter “FU” played the race card: “James bovard, I don't think the killing started with Obama but I wonder if you would write the same article if the cowboy from Texas was pulling the trigger? Or is it that you are angry because the existence of plantations run with blacks are done in this country and Obama managed to become president? We would all be better off if bigots like you stopped writing crap.” Bigotry is the only reason to oppose permitting a black president to kill Americans of all races and ethnicities. </p> <p class="style2">For “Rocketman1945,” the fact that I opposed unlimited presidential power proved I was a foreigner: “WOW! You can sure tell what side of the political spectrum this article came from. Not one word of support for the currant American President. Who are these people that write this drivel? Not Americans that's for sure.” </p> <p class="style2">The newspaper won few fans on Yahoo for publishing that piece. “Zaria” said it was no surprise that an article that was “all nonesense” came from the <em>Monitor</em>. “Nomadd” denounced the <em>Monitor</em> as a “socialist rag” that should be “put in supermarket checkout lines.” Perhaps “Nomadd” assumed that only left-wingers had anything to fear from this new power. (I never saw socialist rags in grocery checkout lines, except maybe at the Boston Food Co-op). </p> <p class="style2">Unfortunately, the primary difference between some assassination advocates and Washington apologists for targeted killing is that the latter use spellcheckers. For both groups, “due process” is an anachronism - if not a terrorist ploy. And for both groups, boundless groveling to the Commander-in-Chief is the new trademark of a good American. Anything less is national suicide. </p> <p class="style2"><strong>James Bovard</strong> is a policy advisor for <a href="http://www.fff.org/">The Future of Freedom Foundation</a> and is the author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/140397666X/counterpunchmaga">Attention Deficit Democracy</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403968519/counterpunchmaga">The Bush Betrayal</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403963681/counterpunchmaga">Terrorism and Tyranny</a>, and other books. </p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/idolizing-absolute-power.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-29T11:33:00-07:00">11:33 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=7950938415255200770">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=7950938415255200770&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <a name="251148737135811922"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/world-overwhelmed-by-western-hypocrisy.html">A World Overwhelmed by Western Hypocrisy</a> </h3> <h1 align="left"><em><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, Times, serif;font-size:+1;">In America, Lawlessness is Now Complete</span></em></h1> <h1 align="left"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, Times, serif;font-size:130%;color:#990000;">A World Overwhelmed by Western Hypocrisy</span></h1> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, Times, serif;font-size:+1;">By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS</span></p> <p class="style2"><span class="style50">W</span>estern institutions have become caricatures of hypocrisy. </p> <p class="style2">The International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank are violating their charters in order to bail out French, German, and Dutch private banks. The IMF is only empowered to make balance of payments loans, but is lending to the Greek government for prohibited budgetary reasons in order that the Greek government can pay the banks. The ECB is prohibited from bailing out member country governments, but is doing so anyway in order that the banks can be paid. The German parliament approved the bailout, which violates provisions of the European Treaty and Germany’s own Basic Law. The case is in the German Constitutional Court, a fact unreported in the US media. </p> <p class="style2">US president George W. Bush’s designated lawyer ruled that the president has “unitary powers” that elevate him above statutory US law, treaties, and international law. According to this lawyer’s legal decisions, the “unitary executive” can violate with impunity the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which prevents spying on Americans without warrants obtained from the FISA Court. Bush’s man also ruled that Bush could violate with impunity the statutory US laws against torture as well as the Geneva Conventions. In other words, the fictional “unitary powers” make the president into a Caesar. </p> <p class="style2">Constitutional protections, such as habeas corpus, which prohibit government from holding people indefinitely without presenting charges and evidence to a court, and which prohibit government from denying detained people due process of law and access to an attorney, were thrown out the window by the US Department of Justice, and the federal courts went along with most of it. </p> <p class="style2">As did Congress, “the people’s representatives”. Congress even enacted the Military Tribunals Commissions Act of 2006, signed by the White House Brownshirt on October 17. </p> <p class="style2">This act allows anyone alleged to be an “unlawful enemy combatant” to be sentenced to death on the basis of secret and hearsay evidence not presented in the kangaroo military court placed out of reach of US federal courts. The crazed nazis in Congress who supported this total destruction of Anglo-American law masqueraded as “patriots in the war against terrorism.” </p> <p class="style2">The act designates anyone accused by the US, without evidence being presented, as being part of the Taliban, al-Qaeda, or “associated forces” to be an “unlawful enemy combatant,” which strips the person of the protection of law. </p> <p class="style2">The Taliban consists of indigenous Afghan peoples, who, prior to the US military intervention, were fighting to unify the country. The Taliban are Islamist, and the US government fears another Islamist government, like the one in Iran that was blowback from US intervention in Iran’s internal affairs. The “freedom and democracy” Americans overthrew an elected Iranian leader and imposed a tyrant. American-Iranian relations have never recovered from the tyranny that Washington imposed on Iranians. </p> <p class="style2">Washington is opposed to any government whose leaders cannot be purchased to perform as Washington’s puppets. This is why George W. Bush’s regime invaded Afghanistan, why Washington overthrew Saddam Hussein, and why Washington wants to overthrow Libya, Syria, and Iran. </p> <p class="style2">Barack Obama inherited the Afghan war, which has lasted longer than World War II with no victory in sight. Instead of keeping with his election promises and ending the fruitless war, Obama intensified it with a “surge,” </p> <p class="style2">The war is now ten years old, and the Taliban control more of the country than does the US and its NATO puppets. Frustrated by their failure, the Americans and their NATO puppets increasingly murder women, children, village elders, Afghan police, and aid workers. </p> <p class="style2">A video taken by a US helicopter gunship, leaked to Wikileaks and released, shows American forces, as if they were playing video games, slaughtering civilians, including camera men for a prominent news service, as they are walking down a peaceful street. A father with small children, who stopped to help the dying victims of American soldiers’ fun and games, was also blown away, as were his children. The American voices on the video blame the children’s demise on the father for bringing kids into a “war zone.” It was no war zone, just a quiet city street with civilians walking along. </p> <p class="style2">The video documents American crimes against humanity as powerfully as any evidence used against the Nazis in the aftermath of World War II at the Nuremberg Trials. </p> <p class="style2">Perhaps the height of lawlessness was attained when the Obama regime announced that it had a list of American citizens who would be assassinated without due process of law. </p> <p class="style2">One would think that if law any longer had any meaning in Western civilization, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, indeed, the entire Bush/Cheney regime, as well as Tony Blair and Bush’s other co-conspirators, would be standing before the International Criminal Court. </p> <p class="style2">Yet it is Gadaffi for whom the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants. Western powers are using the International Criminal Court, which is supposed to serve justice, for self-interested reasons that are unjust. </p> <p class="style2">What is Gadaffi’s crime? His crime is that he is attempting to prevent Libya from being overthrown by a US-supported, and perhaps organized, armed uprising in Eastern Libya that is being used to evict China from its oil investments in Eastern Libya. </p> <p class="style2">Libya is the first <em>armed </em>revolt in the so-called “Arab Spring.” Reports have made it clear that there is nothing “democratic” about the revolt. </p> <p class="style2">The West managed to push a “no-fly” resolution through its puppet organization, the United Nations. The resolution was limited to neutralizing Gadaffi’s air force. However, Washington, and its French puppet, Sarkozy, quickly made an “expansive interpretation” of the UN resolution and turned it into authorization to become directly involved in the war. </p> <p class="style2">Gadaffi has resisted the armed rebellion against the state of Libya, which is the normal response of a government to rebellion. The US would respond the same as would the UK and France. But by trying to prevent the overthrow of his country and his country from becoming another American puppet state, Gadaffi has been indicted. The International Criminal Court knows that it cannot indict the real perpetrators of crimes against humanity--Bush, Blair, Obama, and Sarkozy--but the court needs cases and accepts the victims that the West succeeds in demonizing. </p> <p class="style2">In our times, everyone who resists or even criticizes the US is a criminal. For example, Washington considers Julian Assange and Bradley Manning to be criminals, because they made information available that exposed crimes committed by the US government. Anyone who even disagrees with Washington, is considered to be a “threat,” and Obama can have such “threats” assassinated or arrested as a “terrorist suspect” or as someone “providing aid and comfort to terrorists.” American conservatives and liberals, who once supported the US Constitution, are all in favor of shredding the Constitution in the interest of being “safe from terrorists.” They even accept such intrusions as porno-scans and sexual groping in order to be “safe” on air flights. </p> <p class="style2">The collapse of law is across the board. The Supreme Court decided that it is “free speech” for America to be ruled by corporations, not by law and certainly not by the people. On June 27, the US Supreme Court advanced the fascist state that the “conservative” court is creating with the ruling that Arizona cannot publicly fund election candidates in order to level the playing field currently unbalanced by corporate money. The “conservative” US Supreme Court considers public funding of candidates to be unconstitutional, but not the “free speech” funding by business interests who purchase the government in order to rule the country. The US Supreme Court has become a corporate functionary and legitimizes rule by corporations. Mussolini called this rule, imposed on Americans by the US Supreme Court, fascism. </p> <p class="style2">The Supreme Court also ruled on June 27 that California violated the US Constitution by banning the sale of violent video games to kids, despite evidence that the violent games trained the young to violent behavior. It is fine with the Supreme Court for soldiers, whose lives are on the line, to be prohibited under penalty of law from drinking beer before they are 21, but the idiot Court supports inculcating kids to be murderers, as long as it is in the interest of corporate profits, in the name of “free speech.” </p> <p class="style2">Amazing, isn’t it, that a court so concerned with ‘free speech” has not protected American war protesters from unconstitutional searches and arrests, or protected protesters from being attacked by police or herded into fenced-in areas distant from the object of protest. </p> <p class="style2">As the second decade of the 21st century opens, those who oppose US hegemony and the evil that emanates from Washington risk being declared to be “terrorists.” If they are American citizens, they can be assassinated. If they are foreign leaders, their country can be invaded. When captured, they can be executed, like Saddam Hussein, or sent off to the ICC, like the hapless Serbs, who tried to defend their country from being dismantled by the Americans. </p> <p class="style2">And the American sheeple think that they have “freedom and democracy.” </p> <p class="style2">Washington relies on fear to cover up its crimes. A majority of Americans now fear and hate Muslims, peoples about whom Americans know nothing but the racist propaganda which encourages Americans to believe that Muslims are hiding under their beds in order to murder them in their sleep. </p> <p class="style2">The neoconservatives, of course, are the purveyors of fear. The more fearful the sheeple, the more they seek safety in the neocon police state and the more they overlook Washington’s crimes of aggression against Muslims. </p> <p class="style2">Safety uber alles. That has become the motto of a once free and independent American people, who once were admired but today are despised. </p> <p class="style2">In America lawlessness is now complete. Women can have abortions, but if they have stillbirths, they are arrested for murder. </p> <p class="style2">Americans are such a terrified and abused people that a 95-year old woman dying from leukemia traveling to a last reunion with family members was forced to remove her adult diaper in order to clear airport security. Only a population totally cowed would permit such abuses of human dignity. </p> <p class="style2">In a June 27 interview on National Public Radio, Ban Ki-moon, Washington’s South Korean puppet installed as the Secretary General of the United Nations, was unable to answer why the UN and the US tolerate the slaughter of unarmed civilians in Bahrain, but support the International Criminal Court’s indictment of Gadaffi for defending Libya against armed rebellion. Gadaffi has killed far fewer people than the US, UK, or the Saudis in Bahrain. Indeed, NATO and the Americans have killed more Libyans than has Gadaffi. The difference is that the US has a naval base in Bahrain, but not in Libya. </p> <p class="style2">There is nothing left of the American character. Only a people who have lost their soul could tolerate the evil that emanates from Washington.</p> <p class="style2"><strong>Paul Craig Roberts</strong> was an editor of the Wall Street Journal and an Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. His latest book, <a href="http://www.easycartsecure.com/CounterPunch/CounterPunch_Books.html">HOW THE ECONOMY WAS LOST</a>, has just been published by CounterPunch/AK Press. He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com">PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com</a></p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395381545218020265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4966921227529983571.post-6758624094939643482011-06-27T21:16:00.001-07:002011-06-27T21:16:16.432-07:00<div class="post-body entry-content"> <div class="post-headline"> <h1>Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Prepper Dad? Even Robert Kiyosaki Is Warning That An Economic Collapse Is Coming</h1> </div> <p><a rel="attachment wp-att-2354" href="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/rich-dad-poor-dad-prepper-dad-even-rober-kiyosaki-is-warning-that-an-economic-collapse-is-coming/robert-kiyosaki"><img class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-2354" title="Robert Kiyosaki" src="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Robert-Kiyosaki-237x250.jpg" alt="" height="250" width="237" /></a>Are you familiar with Robert Kiyosaki? He is best known for the "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" series of books. Over 26 million books authored by Kiyosaki have been sold and he is recognized as a financial expert by millions of people across the globe. Well, guess what? Even Robert Kiyosaki is warning that an economic collapse is coming. In fact, Kiyosaki and his team of financial experts are encouraging Americans to stock up on food, guns and precious metals. This is yet another sign of just how close we are to the total collapse of the U.S. Economy. Kiyosaki, who once co-authored a book with Donald Trump entitled "Why We Want You To Be Rich" is now a full-fledged prepper. As even more prominent Americans start warning that an "economic collapse" is coming do you think that the American people will finally wake up and start paying attention?</p> <p>The statements that Robert Kiyosaki makes in the video posted below are absolutely jaw-dropping. Once upon a time he was all about teaching people how they could get rich, but now he is talking about storing food, buying guns, investing in precious metals and preparing for the coming crash.</p> <p>The following are 11 of the best Kiyosaki "sound bites" from the video below....</p> <p><strong>#1</strong> "when the economy crashes as we predict"</p> <p><strong>#2</strong> "the crowds come rushing in to buy gold and silver"</p> <p><strong>#3</strong> "we could either go into a depression or we go to hyperinflation"</p> <p><strong>#4</strong> "or we could also go to war"</p> <p><strong>#5</strong> "buy a gun"</p> <p><strong>#6</strong> "I'm preparing"</p> <p><strong>#7</strong> "I'm prepared for the worst"</p> <p><strong>#8</strong> "so come to my house and I'm armed and dangerous and I'll welcome you"</p> <p><strong>#9</strong> "we have food, we have water, we have guns, gold and silver, and cash"</p> <p><strong>#10</strong> "the credit card system shuts down, the world shuts down"</p> <p><strong>#11</strong> "the supermarkets have less than 3 days supply"</p> <p>If you have not seen this video yet, it is definitely worth the 8 minutes that it takes to watch it. Robert Kiyosaki seems to be extremely alarmed about the future of the U.S. economy....</p> <p>It certainly seems as though the entire financial culture in America is changing.</p> <p>Once upon a time everyone wanted to know how to get rich.</p> <p>Now everyone wants to know how to survive the collapse that is coming.</p> <p>As I have written about previously, even people like <a href="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/even-tony-robbins-is-warning-that-an-economic-collapse-is-coming">Tony Robbins</a> and <a href="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/even-donald-trump-is-warning-that-an-economic-collapse-is-coming">Donald Trump</a> are warning that an economic collapse is coming.</p> <p>Economic pessimism is seemingly everywhere and almost every recent survey indicates that the American people are <a href="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/losing-faith-in-the-u-s-economy">losing faith</a> in the U.S. economy.</p> <p>For example, in a recent article I noted that 48 percent of Americans believe that it is likely that <a href="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/48-percent-of-americans-believe-another-great-depression-is-likely-in-the-next-12-months-19-reasons-why-they-are-not-completely-crazy">another great Depression</a> will begin within the next 12 months.</p> <p>According to Gallup, the percentage of Americans that lack confidence in U.S. banks is now at an all-time high <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/148244/Record-High-Americans-Lack-Confidence-Banks.aspx?utm_source=tagrss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=syndication&utm_term=All%20Gallup%20Headlines">of 36%</a>. Back in 2007, just 14% of Americans lacked confidence in U.S. banks.</p> <p>In order for society to function correctly, people need to be able to trust each other and they need to be able to trust the major institutions that hold society together.</p> <p>Once confidence in our major societal institutions is gone, it is going to be incredibly difficult to get it back.</p> <p>Sadly, the reality is that many of our major financial institutions have been untrustworthy for a very long time. It is just that the American people are only just now starting to wake up to that fact.</p> <p>For example, <a href="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/19-reasons-why-the-federal-reserve-is-at-the-heart-of-our-economic-problems">the Federal Reserve</a> has been at the heart of our economic problems for decades but most Americans have not realized it.</p> <p>But now that is starting to change. According to one recent poll, <a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/his_two_left_feet_feat_myx77BB64tdNaLXTpqpoKN">only 30%</a> of Americans currently view Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke favorably.</p> <p>The American people are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with an economic system where the vast majority of the rewards flow to Wall Street, the big banks, the biggest corporations and the ultra-wealthy.</p> <p><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/business/income-inequality/">According to the Washington Post</a>, the top 0.1% of all income earners in the United States took home 2.6% of the nation's earnings in 1975. By 2008, the top 0.1% were taking home 10.4% of the nation's earnings.</p> <p>The Washington Post <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/business/income-inequality/">also says</a> that after adjusting for inflation, the average income of the top 0.1% of all Americans jumped by 385 percent between 1970 and 2008 while the average income for the bottom 90 percent of all Americans actually fell by one percent.</p> <p>The sad truth is that <a href="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/will-the-banksters-and-the-corpocracy-eventually-own-it-all-29-statistics-about-extreme-income-inequality-in-america-that-will-blow-your-mind">income inequality</a> in the United States has become a major problem. A very small sliver of the population is reaping almost all of the rewards and the middle class is being ripped to shreds. Conservatives, liberals, Democrats, Republicans and libertarians should all be alarmed by this.</p> <p>Meanwhile, the <a href="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/national-debt">national debt</a> continues to explode. Right now, U.S. government debt is expanding at a rate of <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/us-politics/8598451/Dont-be-distracted-by-Greece-Americans-must-also-face-financial-facts.html">$40,000 per second</a>.</p> <p>Every single minute we steal another 2 million dollars away from our children and our grandchildren.</p> <p>But if we stop this theft it would throw the U.S. economy into a horrible economic crisis that would be far worse than what we are experiencing right now.</p> <p>That is why the vast majority of our politicians do not have the guts to do it.</p> <p>We truly are caught between a rock and a hard place.</p> <p>But people like Robert Kiyosaki can see what is coming, and they are getting prepared.</p> <p>Are you prepared?</p> <p>Many of our young people have come up with their own versions of an "economic stimulus plan". In past articles I have documented many of the signs that <a href="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/12-more-signs-that-society-is-collapsing">society is collapsing</a>, including the disturbing rise of the "mob robbery" phenomenon.</p> <p>Well, just the other day there was another very shocking mob robbery in the city of Philadelphia.</p> <p>On Thursday, a mob of 40 teens and young adults <a href="http://www.delcotimes.com/articles/2011/06/26/news/doc4e0696aaf127f552097776.txt?nstrack=sid:3501255%7Cmet:300%7Ccat:0%7Corder:1">invaded a Sears department store on 69th Street</a>, grabbed all of the merchandise that they could carry, and stormed right back out again.</p> <p>We are starting to see these kinds of large scale crimes happen from coast to coast.</p> <p>So what is going to happen to America if the economy experiences the kind of full out collapse that Robert Kiyosaki is talking about?</p> <p>We live in very interesting times.</p> <p>I hope that you are getting prepared.</p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/even-robert-kiyosaki-is-warning-that.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-27T21:13:00-07:00">9:13 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=1913984853018616822">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=1913984853018616822&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Coming" rel="tag">Coming</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Economic%20Collapse" rel="tag">Economic Collapse</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Even%20Robert%20Kiyosaki" rel="tag">Even Robert Kiyosaki</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Is%20Warning" rel="tag">Is Warning</a> </span> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="294874993735000044"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/why-are-food-prices-rising-so-fast.html">Why Are Food Prices Rising So Fast?</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <div class="post-headline"> <h1><span style="font-size:130%;">Why Are Food Prices Rising So Fast?</span></h1> </div> <p><a rel="attachment wp-att-2343" href="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/why-are-food-prices-rising-so-fast/why-are-food-prices-rising-so-fast"><img class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-2343" title="Why Are Food Prices Rising So Fast" src="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Why-Are-Food-Prices-Rising-So-Fast-250x164.jpg" alt="" height="164" width="250" /></a>If you do much grocery shopping, you have probably noticed that the cost of food has been rising at a very brisk pace over the past year. So why are food prices rising so fast? According to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, inflation is still very low and the <a href="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/is-the-economy-improving">economy is improving</a>. So what is going on here? When I go to the grocery store these days, there are very few things that I will buy unless they are on sale. In fact, I have noticed that many of the new "sale prices" are the old regular prices. Other items have had their packages reduced in size in order to hide the price increases. But with millions of American families just barely scraping by as it is, what is going to happen if food prices keep rising this rapidly?</p> <p>The food prices are especially painful if you are trying to eat healthy. Most of the low price stuff in the grocery stores is garbage. Eating the "typical American diet" is a highway to cancer, heart disease and diabetes.</p> <p>But if you try to stick to food that is "healthy" or "organic" you can blow through hundreds of dollars in a heartbeat. In fact, the reality is that tens of millions of American families have now essentially been priced out of a healthy diet.</p> <p>Soon there will be millions more American families that will not even be able to afford an unhealthy diet.</p> <p>Some recent statistics compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics are absolutely staggering. According to <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/43498072">a recent CNBC article</a>, over the past year many of the most popular foods in America have absolutely soared in price....</p> <blockquote><p><em>Coffee, for instance, is up 40 percent. Celery is 28 percent higher while butter prices rose 26.4 percent. Rounding out the top five are bacon, at 23.5 percent, and cabbage, at 23.3 percent.</em></p></blockquote> <p>Unfortunately, it looks like the trend of rising food prices is accelerating. Just look at what <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/43498072">the CNBC article</a> says happened in the month of April alone....</p> <blockquote><p><em>Just in April—the most recent month for which data is available—grapes went up nearly 30 percent, cabbage jumped about 17 percent and orange juice surged more than 5 percent.</em></p></blockquote> <p>Meat is becoming more expensive as well. Since March 2009, livestock prices have risen <a href="http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2011/06/livestock-prices-soar.html">by 138%</a>.</p> <p>So when Ben Bernanke tells us that inflation is very low, that really is a lie. On the stuff that people spend money on every day (like food and gas), prices have gone up dramatically.</p> <p>Sadly, this is not just a phenomenon that is happening in the United States. The truth is that the entire planet is rapidly approaching a horrific <a href="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/20-signs-that-a-horrific-global-food-crisis-is-coming">global food crisis</a>.</p> <p>Over the past year, the global price of food has risen <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-22/sarkozy-tells-g-20-ministers-food-price-surge-is-plague-needing-action.html">by 37 percent</a> and this has pushed approximately 44 million more people around the world into poverty.</p> <p>When food prices rise in the U.S. it may be painful for millions of American families, but around the world a rise in food prices can mean the difference between surviving and not surviving.</p> <p>That is why it has been so alarming that the global price of wheat has approximately doubled over the past year.</p> <p>But it is not just wheat that has been soaring. Check out what <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-22/sarkozy-tells-g-20-ministers-food-price-surge-is-plague-needing-action.html">a recent Bloomberg article</a> had to say about what has been happening to many key agricultural commodities over the past year....</p> <blockquote><p><em>Corn futures advanced 77 percent in the past 12 months in Chicago trading, a global benchmark, rice gained 39 percent and sugar jumped 64 percent. There will be shortages in corn, wheat, soybeans, coffee and cocoa this year or next, according to Utrecht, Netherlands-based Rabobank Groep. Prices also rose after droughts and floods from Australia to Canada ruined crops last year. European farmers are now contending with their driest growing season in more than three decades.</em></p></blockquote> <p>Even before this recent spike in food prices the world was struggling to get enough food to everybody. It has been estimated that somewhere in the world someone starves to death <a title="every 3.6 seconds" href="http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/just-one-really-bad-year-away-from-a-horrific-world-famine">every 3.6 seconds</a>, and 75 percent of those are children under the age of five.</p> <p>So what is going to happen if food prices keep on rising at the current pace?</p> <p>That is a very good question.</p> <p>We really are starting to move into unprecedented territory. Nobody is quite sure what is going to happen next.</p> <p>So why is all of this happening?</p> <p>Well, a lot of people are blaming <a href="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/19-reasons-why-the-federal-reserve-is-at-the-heart-of-our-economic-problems">the Federal Reserve</a>. All of the "quantitative easing" that the Fed has done has flooded the financial markets with money. All of that money had to go somewhere. Much of it has pumped up the prices of hard assets such as oil, gold and agricultural commodities.</p> <p>But it is not just the Fed that is to blame. The truth is that central banks all over the world have been <a href="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/6-charts-which-prove-that-central-banks-all-over-the-globe-are-recklessly-printing-money">recklessly printing money</a>.</p> <p>When the amount of money in an economy goes up, the purchasing value of all existing money goes down. In the United States, that means that your dollars will not go as far as they did before.</p> <p>But it is not just monetary policy that is affecting food prices. In 2010 and 2011 we have seen an unprecedented wave of natural disasters and crazy weather. This has caused problems with crops all over the globe.</p> <p>In addition, U.S. economic policies are also playing a role. At this point, <a href="http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/looming-food-crisis">almost a third</a> of all corn grown in the United States is used for fuel. This is putting a lot of stress on the price of corn.</p> <p>Also, there are some long-term trends that are not in our favor. For example, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/8359076/US-farmers-fear-the-return-of-the-Dust-Bowl.html">the systematic depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer</a> could eventually turn "America's Breadbasket" back into the "Dust Bowl". If you have not heard of this problem I would encourage you to do some research on it.</p> <p>Things are going to get a lot worse, but already America is having a really hard time feeding itself. According to Feeding America's 2010 hunger study, <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2011-05-10-new-face-of-hunger-food-assistance_n.htm">more than 37 million Americans</a> are now being served by food pantries and soup kitchens.</p> <p>So is that number unusual?</p> <p>Yes, it sure is.</p> <p>The number of Americans that are going to food pantries and soup kitchens has increased <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2011-05-10-new-face-of-hunger-food-assistance_n.htm">by 46%</a> since 2006.</p> <p>That is not a good trend.</p> <p>Another stat that I talk a lot about in this column is the number of Americans on food stamps.</p> <p>Right now, there are 44 million Americans on food stamps. Nearly half of them <a href="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/20-facts-about-child-hunger-and-child-poverty-that-will-break-your-heart">are children</a>.</p> <p>How did we ever get to the point as a nation where more than 20 million children end up on food stamps?</p> <p>It is estimated that <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/us/29foodstamps.html">one out of every four</a> American children is currently on food stamps, and it is being projected that <a href="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/more-than-1-in-5-american-children-are-now-living-below-the-poverty-line">approximately 50 percent</a> of all U.S. children will be on food stamps at some point in their lives before they reach the age of 18.</p> <p>So what is going to happen if the economy gets even worse?</p> <p>What is going to happen if there really is a major food crisis in this country someday?</p> <p>Food prices have been going up for decades and they are going to continue to go up. But the frightening thing is how fast they are increasing now.</p> <p>As the U.S. middle class <a href="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/the-coming-economic-hell-for-american-families">continues to be destroyed</a>, the number of Americans that can't afford to buy enough food is going to continue to rise. Food prices are rising much faster than wages are, and that is not likely to change any time soon.</p> <p>Food is rapidly becoming one of the most important global economic issues of this decade. The farther one looks down the road, the bleaker things look for the global food situation.</p> <p>I hope you are prepared for that.</p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/why-are-food-prices-rising-so-fast.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-27T21:11:00-07:00">9:11 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=294874993735000044">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=294874993735000044&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Food%20Prices" rel="tag">Food Prices</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/rising" rel="tag">rising</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/So%20Fast" rel="tag">So Fast</a> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="5043085876493931893"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/is-economy-improving.html">Is The Economy Improving?</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <div class="post-headline"> <h1><span style="font-size:130%;">Is The Economy Improving?</span></h1> </div> <p><a rel="attachment wp-att-2338" href="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/is-the-economy-improving/is-the-economy-improving"><img class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-2338" title="Is The Economy Improving" src="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Is-The-Economy-Improving-250x166.jpg" alt="" height="166" width="250" /></a>Is the U.S. economy improving? That is what Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke would have us believe. Bernanke declared today that the "recovery appears to be proceeding at a moderate pace" and that everything is going pretty much as planned. Sadly, the mainstream media and most of the American people still seem to have faith in the economic pronouncements of Helicopter Ben. They seem to have forgotten all of the <a href="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/say-what-30-ben-bernanke-quotes-that-are-so-stupid-that-you-wont-know-whether-to-laugh-or-cry">Bernanke quotes</a> from before the financial crisis. Bernanke pledged that there would not be a housing crash and that there would not be a recession. It is amazing that anyone still believes that Bernanke has any credibility left.</p> <p>Of course "economic recovery" is one of Barack Obama's favorite new terms. He loves to talk about all of the signs that the economy is improving. To Obama, all of the recent bad economic news is no big deal. He says that what we are experiencing right now are simply "<a title="bumps on the road to recovery" href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/43279028" target="_blank">bumps on the road to recovery</a>".</p> <p>Well, whether you want to call them "bumps" or "potholes" or "massive gaping wounds that are gushing blood all over the place", the truth is that the U.S. economy is not improving at all. In fact, it is rapidly getting worse.</p> <p>Let's take a look at just a few areas of the economy....</p> <p><strong>Federal Government Finances</strong></p> <p>As I wrote about yesterday, the <a href="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/national-debt">national debt</a> is completely and totally out of control. Since Barack Obama took office, the U.S. national debt has increased <a href="http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/NPGateway">by nearly 4 trillion dollars</a>.</p> <p>Keep in mind that from George Washington to Ronald Reagan, the U.S. government accumulated only 1 trillion dollars in debt.</p> <p>Between 2007 and 2010, U.S. GDP grew by only 4.26%, but the U.S. national debt soared <a href="http://www.thestreet.com/story/11142443/10-myths-that-politicians-want-you-to-believe.html">by 61%</a> during that same time period.</p> <p>Now the Democrats and the Republicans are busy negotiating over some modest reductions in spending.</p> <p>But unprecedented federal spending is one of the only things propping the economy up right now.</p> <p>If the U.S. economy is performing so poorly after being flooded with "stimulus money" from the federal government, what is going to happen once the federal government cuts back?</p> <p><strong>State And Local Government Finances</strong></p> <p>All over the United States, there are large numbers of state and local governments <a href="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/municipal-bond-market-crash-2011-are-dozens-of-state-and-local-governments-about-to-default-on-their-debts">that are on the verge of bankruptcy</a>.</p> <p>For the moment, let's just focus on the state of Illinois.</p> <p>Did you know that things have gotten so bad in Illinois at this point that the Illinois state government is letting bills go unpaid for long periods of time on a regular basis?</p> <p>It's true.</p> <p>Right now they have billions in unpaid bills and they are facing a financial future that is so bleak that it is almost indescribable.</p> <p>In <a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/lendman01132011.html">one recent article</a>, author Stephen Lendman described the horrific financial crisis that Illinois is facing right now....</p> <blockquote><p><em>With spending exceeding revenues, and obligations not postponed, unpaid bills are growing "at a frightening rate. For instance, IGPA's Fiscal Futures Model indicates (they) could reach $40 billion by July 1, 2013, with an associated delay in paying those bills of more than five years."</em></p> <p><em> Besides its $13 billion deficit and $6 billion in unpaid bills, its pension fund is about $130 billion in the red - a red flag that state workers may lose out altogether, wiping out their promised retirement savings.</em></p></blockquote> <p>But it isn't just the state government that is having problems. According to Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas, the average household in Chicago would owe <a href="http://www.chicagobusiness.com/section/blogs?blogID=greg-hinz&plckController=Blog&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&uid=1daca073-2eab-468e-9f19-ec177090a35c&plckPostId=Blog:1daca073-2eab-468e-9f19-ec177090a35cPost:73061b12-c71d-45b0-aad9-130e57727e64&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest">a whopping $63,525</a> if all local government debt was divided up equally among all of the households.</p> <p>The truth is that even if the finances of the federal government could somehow be fixed, there would still be dozens and dozens of very significant "government debt problems" all across America.</p> <p>With so many state and local governments drowning in debt, jobs are being slashed at an alarming rate. UBS Investment Research is projecting that state and local governments in the U.S. will combine to slash <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ten-signs-the-double-dip-recession-has-begun-2011-6#5-the-federal-budget-5">a whopping 450,000 jobs</a> by the end of next year.</p> <p>So would the U.S. government step in and start bailing out state and local governments?</p> <p>Not likely.</p> <p>U.S. Representative Paul Ryan <a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/lendman01132011.html">has said the following</a> about the prospect of bailing out the states....</p> <blockquote><p><em>"If we bail out one state, then all of the debt of all of the states are almost explicitly on the books of the federal government."</em></p></blockquote> <p>So for now, state and local governments are on their own.</p> <p><strong>Commercial Real Estate</strong></p> <p>Commercial real estate continues to decline all across America.</p> <p>Moody’s/REAL All Property Type Aggregate Index <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-22/u-s-commercial-property-index-falls-to-record-on-distressed-properties.html">fell 3.7%</a> in April and is now the lowest it has been in over 10 years.</p> <p>Overall, commercial real estate is down by over 40 percent since the peak back in 2007.</p> <p><strong>Residential Real Estate</strong></p> <p>The United States is dealing with a <a href="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/category/housing-crash">housing crash</a> that never seems to end.</p> <p>According to the National Association of Realtors, existing home sales in the United States <a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2011/06/21/national-association-of-realtors.html?ana=RSS&s=article_search&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+industry_20+%28Industry+Commercial+Real+Estate%29&utm_content=Google+Reader">fell another 3.8%</a> in May.</p> <p>During this housing crash home values have declined more than they did during the Great Depression and there does not appear to be any hope in sight.</p> <p>New home sales are in even worse shape. During the first three months of this year, less new homes were sold in the U.S. than in any three month period <a title="ever recorded" href="http://www.goldshark.com/kaspars-comments/item/123-sociapitalism-how-the-government-became-the-next-bubble.html" target="_blank">ever recorded</a>.</p> <p><strong>Unemployment</strong></p> <p>As 2009 began, the official U.S. unemployment rate <a title="was 7.6 percent" href="http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2009/feb/wk2/art02.htm" target="_blank">was 7.6 percent</a>. Today it is 9.1 percent.</p> <p>The American people keep waiting for a "jobs recovery", but it has not shown up.</p> <p>Sadly, all of this is part of a long-term trend.</p> <p>Over the past decade, U.S. multinational corporations have been laying off <a href="http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/06/speedup-americans-working-harder-charts">millions of workers</a> in the U.S. and hiring millions of workers overseas to take their place.</p> <p>The labor of American workers is rapidly losing value in a globalized economy. Big corporations have a tough time justifying paying ten times more to a worker in the United States when they are allowed to hire people for slave labor wages overseas.</p> <p>The share of the national income taken in by U.S. workers continues to decline. Just consider what Mortimer Zuckerman had to say in a recent article <a href="http://www.usnews.com/opinion/mzuckerman/articles/2011/06/20/why-the-jobs-situation-is-worse-than-it-looks?PageNr=1">for usnews.com</a>....</p> <blockquote><p><em>Labor's share of national income has fallen to the lowest level in modern history, down to 57.5 percent in the first quarter as compared to 59.8 percent when the so-called recovery began. This reflects not only the 7 million fewer workers but the fact that wages for part-time workers now average $19,000—less than half the median income.</em></p></blockquote> <p>In the United States today, there are not nearly enough jobs for everyone. The number of "middle class jobs" has fallen by about 10 percent over the last decade.</p> <p>Only <a title="66.8%" href="http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/employment/2011-04-13-more-americans-leave-labor-force.htm" target="_blank">66.8%</a> of American men had a job last year. That was the lowest level that has ever been recorded in all of U.S. history.</p> <p>We are seeing the rise of a whole class of people that are chronically unemployed. At the beginning of 2009, the number of "long-term unemployed" in the United States was approximately 2.6 million. Today, that number <a title="is up to 6.2 million" href="http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf" target="_blank">is up to 6.2 million</a>.</p> <p>So in light of these employment statistics, can anyone really say that the economy is improving?</p> <p><strong>Economic Anxiety</strong></p> <p>The economy is the number one issue on the minds of the American people. There is an extraordinary about of economic pain out there today, and Americans are becoming impatient.</p> <p><a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/43482688">According to CNBC</a>, the Money Anxiety Index is at its highest level in 30 years....</p> <blockquote><p><em>The latest indicator to ring up trouble is the Money Anxiety Index, which uses traditional economic metrics as well as other factors to gauge the level of consumers' worry regarding their personal financial conditions. </em></p> <p><em>According to the May figures, the MAI is not only at its highest level in 30 years at 91.9 but also two months away from indicating another dip into recession. In the past, five straight months of increases in the index often signaled recession.</em></p></blockquote> <p>Most recent polls show that the American people are rapidly becoming more pessimistic about the direction the U.S. economy is headed.</p> <p><a href="http://hotair.com/archives/2011/06/08/cnn-48-believe-a-great-depression-is-coming-within-a-year/">According to a recent CNN poll</a>, 48 percent of Americans believe that "<a href="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/48-percent-of-americans-believe-another-great-depression-is-likely-in-the-next-12-months-19-reasons-why-they-are-not-completely-crazy">another Great Depression</a>" is likely within the next 12 months.</p> <p>When you really stop and think about that number, it is really frightening.</p> <p><strong>Inflation</strong></p> <p>Ben Bernanke may not admit it, but the truth is that the price of just about everything is soaring.</p> <p>For example, when Barack Obama took office, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States was $1.83. Today <a href="http://travel.usatoday.com/destinations/dispatches/post/2011/06/fourth-of-july-travel-gas-prices-/175269/1">it is about $3.74</a>.</p> <p>So what are our politicians doing about it?</p> <p>Not much.</p> <p>They just want to pretend that it isn't happening.</p> <p>In fact, members of Congress are actually tinkering with the idea <a href="http://www.zerohedge.com/article/americas-latest-proposal-deal-its-insolvency-and-pursue-stealth-dollar-devaluation-change-cp">of changing the way that inflation is calculated</a> once again.</p> <p>By making inflation appear lower, it would be easier for Congress to deny cost of living increases to those on Social Security and other social programs.</p> <p>How sad is that?</p> <p><strong>Economic Suffering</strong></p> <p>As American families find it increasingly difficult to pay the mortgage and put food on the table, many of them find themselves forced to put off other expenses. According to one recent survey, <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2011/06/07/pf/financial_stress_health/index.htm?iid=HP_LN&iid=EL">26 percent of Americans</a> have put off doctor visits because of the economy.</p> <p>Other Americans can't make it at all without government assistance. As 2007 began, there were only 26 million Americans on food stamps. Today, there are more than <a title="44 million on food stamps" href="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/you-call-this-an-economic-recovery-44-million-americans-on-food-stamps-and-10-other-reasons-why-the-economy-is-simply-not-getting-better" target="_blank">44 million Americans on food stamps</a>, which is an all-time record.</p> <p>It is not good to have so many Americans on food stamps, but it is probably better than the alternative.</p> <p>If there were tens of millions of Americans that could not feed themselves we would probably already have economic riots in the streets.</p> <p><strong>Solutions?</strong></p> <p>So do our politicians have any solutions?</p> <p>Of course not. Everything that they have tried has failed.</p> <p>Several top Democrats in Washington D.C. are now calling for <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/43499845">a new economic stimulus package</a>. When in doubt, our politicians usually revert to spending more money.</p> <p>Sadly, this is about the best that our economy is going to get.</p> <p>What we are experiencing right now is "the recovery". As we move forward things are going to get progressively worse.</p> <p>A lot of people don't like to hear that we are in the middle of a long-term economic decline, but that is the truth.</p> <p>The era of tremendous economic prosperity for America is coming to an end.</p> <p>An economic nightmare is coming.</p> <p>You better get ready.</p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/is-economy-improving.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-27T21:10:00-07:00">9:10 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=5043085876493931893">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=5043085876493931893&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Improving%3F" rel="tag">Improving?</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Is%20The%20Economy" rel="tag">Is The Economy</a> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="8867142670073507894"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/us-stocks-gain-as-banks-get-new-capital.html">U.S. Stocks Gain as Banks Get New Capital Rules</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/us-stocks-gain-as-banks-get-new-capital.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-27T19:58:00-07:00">7:58 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=8867142670073507894">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=8867142670073507894&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="42427244788485601"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/pjtv-mainstream-media-takes-aim-at.html">PJTV: The Mainstream Media Takes Aim at Michele Bachmann</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/pjtv-mainstream-media-takes-aim-at.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-27T19:56:00-07:00">7:56 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=42427244788485601">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=42427244788485601&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="7687715852767389256"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/rupkey-says-gdp-growth-will-help-shrink.html">Rupkey Says GDP Growth Will Help Shrink U.S. Deficit</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/rupkey-says-gdp-growth-will-help-shrink.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-27T19:55:00-07:00">7:55 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=7687715852767389256">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=7687715852767389256&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="6810361500334356518"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/why-old-jobs-arent-coming-back.html">Why the Old Jobs Aren't Coming Back</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h2 class="title "> <span style="font-size:180%;"><a href="http://www.hoover.org/news/daily-report/83506" title="Why the Old Jobs Aren't Coming Back">Why the Old Jobs Aren't Coming Back</a></span> </h2> <div class="byline small-font">by <span class="bold"><a href="http://www.hoover.org/fellows/9827">Michael Spence</a></span><br /></div> <div class="content"> <p>Many have expressed shock at the recent U.S. employment data. But 9.1% unemployment shouldn't be a surprise. To address the jobs challenge, we must stop pretending that this is only a difficult cyclical recovery. The root of the problem is structural.</p> <p>During the two decades before the crisis of 2008-09, the U.S. economy added 27 million jobs, primarily in government, health care, construction, retail and hospitality. This employment growth was almost all in the "nontradable" side of the economy—sectors generating goods and services that must be consumed where they are produced. But several factors will depress these sectors. Government budget woes, a likely leveling-out of the dramatic growth in health-care consumption, and a permanent reduction in domestic consumption as asset prices reset downward and debt-financed purchases are reduced, will all have effects in the short-to-medium term.</p> <p>The "tradable" side of the economy (which includes exportable goods and services) has its own set of issues. While finance, consulting, computer design and managing complex international businesses all fueled job growth for 20 years, these gains were matched by declines in the manufacturing jobs held by the middle class. The very things that propped up our tradable sectors through the export market—high growth rates in emerging economies and a more educated consumer class in those countries—have challenged middle-class U.S. employees on the job front. Emerging markets are now increasingly moving up the value chain with improved skills, and it's likely that higher-paying jobs—including design and even product development—will move abroad in ever greater numbers.</p> <p>Multinational companies have benefited from these global supply-chain opportunities and from growing emerging-economy markets, but the effects for the U.S. have been mixed. Growth may be coming back slowly, but it is not bringing jobs with it.</p> <p>A stimulus package that temporarily restores elements of precrisis demand is unlikely to generate the escape velocity needed to get out of the jobs hole. Nontradable job growth can't mask the declines in the tradable sector any more. The structural problem demands a structural answer.</p> <p>Rebuilding the employment engine requires shifts in policy and process. On the policy side, we must expand the scope of the tradable sector. A short list of steps would include investments in infrastructure and education reform that emphasizes teaching productive skills, for example in advanced manufacturing sectors. Tax reform should aim for simplification and the elimination of biases against domestic investment for our multinational firms. It should also aim to help raise savings rates so we can finance our own investment. A value-added tax with an exemption for exports would enhance competitiveness. An energy policy focused on efficiency and security would create opportunities for investment and growth.</p> <p>In terms of process, business, government and labor must identify what each has to offer and needs to help expand the tradable sector. What will it take to keep more jobs in the U.S.? We might have to accept a period of lower income growth in order to restore competitiveness.</p> <p>A useful model is Germany, which limited wage and salary growth as part of a restructuring in the period 2000-05, allowing it to compete more effectively in exports and the tradable sector than other advanced countries.</p> <p>In addition, a broad public-private investment in advanced manufacturing and in energy- efficiency technologies can advance relatively high-income, capital-intensive job creation. Government co-investment can lower the private sector's cost and expand the employability of domestic citizens in the tradable sector.</p> <p>These structural solutions won't work, of course, without a plan to restore fiscal balance. A sovereign-debt crisis will abort any recovery. Right now, however, the policy discussion oscillates between balancing the budget and supporting a fragile economic recovery—mixed with puzzlement that employment figures are disobeying the rules of a normal cyclical recovery. Having a credible five-year fiscal plan would help avoid an excessively rapid withdrawal of government expenditure and investment from the demand side of the economy.</p> <p>Can business, government, educators and labor come together to tackle the structural employment challenge head-on? Some will say that in the present political and fiscal climate, this is highly unlikely. They may be right. But it is a choice, a collective choice. We can invest in future growth and employment of an inclusive kind, or not. If we do, it will take significant shared sacrifice.</p> <p><i>Mr. Spence, a 2001 Nobel laureate in economics, is the author of "The Next Convergence: The Future of Economic Growth in a Multispeed World," out last month from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.</i></p> </div> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/why-old-jobs-arent-coming-back.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-27T19:52:00-07:00">7:52 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=6810361500334356518">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=6810361500334356518&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Aren%27t%20Coming%20Back" rel="tag">Aren't Coming Back</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Old%20Jobs" rel="tag">Old Jobs</a> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="5511372492513998845"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/us-and-eu.html">The U.S. and E.U.</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <div class="entry_header clearfix"> <h1><span style="font-size:130%;">The U.S. and E.U.: Have They Ever Been in Such Terrible Shape?</span></h1> <ul class="detail_top_links"><li><div class="author"><a href="http://www.tnr.com/article/economy/90539/european-union-greece-bankruptcy-us-unemployment#" class="author-info-link" rel="/authorinfo/view/Josef Joffe"><h3>Josef Joffe</h3></a></div></li></ul></div><div class="img-left"><img src="http://www.tnr.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/detail_page/EU1.jpg" alt="" title="" class="imagecache imagecache-detail_page" height="250" width="250" /></div><p>This is no time for gloating, neither for Americans nor for Europeans. For both sides are in deep economic trouble, only in different ways. The U.S. runs the worst deficit (as share of GDP) since World War II, and yet Keynesianism to the max won’t budge the unemployment rate—pace Professors Krugman and Stiglitz. What does fall is the dollar and the price of real estate, a double-whammy if ever there was one.</p> <p>The euro, meanwhile, may be rising, at least against the greenback, but the common currency, now ten years old, is about as stable as was Confederate script back in the Civil War. “Civil war,” actually, is not a bad way to describe the state of Euroland. On one side, there are the “PIIGS”—Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain—looking at bankruptcy. In fact, Greece <i>is </i>bankrupt. Its foreign debt exceeds its GDP by about one-half, and, as slices of it come due, it cannot possibly redeem the bonds without yet another infusion of cash from Europe and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Government outlays keep rising, while tax receipts are falling (year-on-year). So austerity does not work—except in the streets of Athens, where the angry masses revolt against a tottering government.</p> <p>On the other side are France and Germany, the two heavies of the E.U. economy (Britain is in as much trouble as the U.S., but outside the euro). Their banks groan under a hefty exposure to Greek debt, French banks more than their German counterparts. So neither Berlin nor Paris wants the Greeks to default. But the two of them have their own little civil war. Nicholas Sarkozy wants to put Greece on welfare as long as it takes, counting on Germany—the biggest and richest country in Euroland—to foot the largest part of the bill. Angela Merkel, well aware of this unending drain, wants to impose fiscal discipline and market reforms on Athens. In the latest spat, Merkel, who is not as enamored of state action as her French counterpart, wanted to drag in banks, pension funds, and insurance companies by making them roll over Greek debt by seven years. This would be a default in everything but name, and so the French balked. Merkel, always tougher at the outset than at the end, finally relented. Participation by the private sector now is to be “voluntary.” So far, though, there haven’t been too many volunteers.</p> <p>This mano-a-mano is typical for Germany and France, who are always vying for the leadership of Europe. But it is patty-cakes compared to the other horrors the monetary union has wrought, and not for lack of warning. As many economists cried out in the run-up to the euro 15 years ago, in monetary policy, one size won’t fit all—certainly not a bunch of diverging economies untrammeled by common governance. And, indeed, the euro, instead of forcing member states into fiscal convergence, has only accentuated the bad habits of the PIIGS. These countries had always lived beyond their means. With the euro, however, they could suddenly spend like Italians, but borrow like Germans, at low rates. Bond spreads converged between the spendthrifts and the tightwads, but not basic policies. Indeed, cheap money encouraged even more profligacy—worst of all in Greece (which also managed to cheat on its financial statistics before and after entering the euro).</p> <p>This is where we are now: With Greek two-year bonds fetching almost 30 percent, the markets are growling that Hellas is doomed. Both Merkel and Sarkozy dread the looming default as “Lehman squared“—and so, by the way, does Washington. So, too, does the IMF, which wants to withhold a critical $12 billion pay-out to the Greeks unless the E.U. swears a holy oath on bailing out Athens, come what may.</p> <p>Europe will inevitably buy time by handing over a few more slices of bail-out money to Greece, even though, one day, the country <i>will </i>default. With 50 cents of the euro, it will halve its debt as well as its repayments and thus buy more time. The E.U., meanwhile, still won’t have any idea where it’s going or how to handle the crisis long-term. But what else is new? Twenty-seven governments do not a “more perfect union” make. Certainly not when the natural leader, which is Germany by dint of wealth and weight, sounds such an uncertain trumpet as it has under Chancellor Merkel. Yet what, exactly, is she supposed to do when the chickens of an ill-designed monetary union have finally come home to roost? Neither she nor Sarkozy can undo the mismanagement of the PIIGS in one fell swoop.</p> <p>Meanwhile, back to the United States—to its still-sinking dollar and rising unemployment. It is hard to think of a time when both the U.S. and the E.U., the two biggest players in the international economy, were in such miserable shape. We are talking about two giants with a total of 50 percent of global GDP. Who will save them?</p> <p><i>Josef Joffe is the editor of </i>Die Zeit<i> in Hamburg Germany. He is also a senior fellow at the Freeman-Spogli Institute for International Studies and Abramowitz Fellow at the Hoover Institution, both at Stanford.</i><br /></p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/us-and-eu.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-27T19:50:00-07:00">7:50 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=5511372492513998845">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=5511372492513998845&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/and%20E.U." rel="tag">and E.U.</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20U.S." rel="tag">The U.S.</a> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="3414827123485802815"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/us-and-pakistan-afghan-strategies_27.html">U.S. and Pakistan: Afghan Strategies</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1 class="title">U.S. and Pakistan: Afghan Strategies</h1><p><strong>By George Friedman</strong></p> <p>U.S. President Barack Obama will give a speech on Afghanistan on June 22. Whatever he says, it is becoming apparent that the United States is exploring ways to accelerate the drawdown of its forces in the country. It is also clear that <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/geopolitical_diary/20110602-us-pakistan-unending-love-hate-relationship">U.S. relations with Pakistan are deteriorating</a> to a point where cooperation — whatever level there was — is breaking down. These are two intimately related issues. Any withdrawal from Afghanistan, particularly an accelerated one, will leave a <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20100418_afghanistan_campaign_view_kabul">power vacuum in Afghanistan that the Kabul government will not be able to fill</a>. Afghanistan is Pakistan’s back door, and its evolution is a matter of fundamental interest to Pakistan. A U.S. withdrawal means an Afghanistan intertwined with and influenced by Pakistan. Therefore, the current dynamic with Pakistan challenges any withdrawal plan.</p> <p>There may be some in the U.S. military who believe that the United States might prevail in Afghanistan, but they are few in number. The champion of this view, Gen. David Petraeus, has been relieved of his command of forces in Afghanistan and promoted (or kicked upstairs) to become director of the CIA. The conventional definition of victory has been the creation of a strong government in Kabul controlling an army and police force able to protect the regime and ultimately impose its will throughout Afghanistan. With <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/geopolitical_diary/20100405_karzai_political_reality">President Hamid Karzai increasingly uncooperative with the United States</a>, the likelihood of this outcome is evaporating. Karzai realizes his American protection will be withdrawn and understands that the Americans will blame him for any negative outcomes of the withdrawal because of his <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/geopolitical_diary/20100510_conflicting_objectives_afghanistan_and_pakistan">inability or unwillingness to control corruption</a>.</p> <h3>Defining Success in Afghanistan</h3> <p>There is a prior definition of success that shaped the Bush administration’s approach to Afghanistan in its early phases. The goal here was the disruption of al Qaeda’s operations in Afghanistan and the prevention of further attacks on the United States from Afghanistan. This definition did not envisage the emergence of a stable and democratic Afghanistan free of corruption and able to control its territory. It was more modest and, in many ways, it was achieved in 2001-2002. Its defect, of course, was that the disruption of al Qaeda in Afghanistan, while useful, did not address the evolution of al Qaeda in other countries. In particular, it did not deal with the movement of al Qaeda operatives to Pakistan, nor did it address the Taliban, who were not defeated in 2001-2002 but simply <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/taliban_withdrawal_was_strategy_not_rout_0">declined combat on American terms</a>, re-emerging as a viable insurgency when the United States became bogged down in Iraq.</p> <p>The mission creep from denying Afghan bases to al Qaeda to the transformation of Afghan society had many roots and was well under way during the Bush administration, but the immediate origin of the current strategy was the attempt to transfer the lessons of Iraq to Afghanistan. <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/iraq_u_s_iranian_negotiations_surge_and_future_war">The surge in Iraq</a>, and the important political settlement with Sunni insurgents that brought them into the American fold, reduced the insurgency. It remains to be seen whether it will produce a stable Iraq not hostile to American interests. The ultimate Iraq strategy was a political settlement framed by an increase in forces, and its long-term success was never clear. The Obama administration was prepared to repeat the attempt in Afghanistan, at least by using Iraq as a template if not applying exactly the same tactics.</p> <p>However, the United States found that the Taliban were less inclined to negotiate with the United States, and certainly not on the favorable terms of the Iraqi insurgents, simply because <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20100830_afghanistan_why_taliban_are_winning">they believed they would win in the long run</a> and did not face the dangers that the Sunni insurgents did. The military operations that framed the search for a political solution turned out to be a frame without a painting. In Iraq, it is not clear that the Petraeus strategy actually achieved a satisfactory political outcome, and its application to Afghanistan does not seem, as yet, to have drawn the Taliban into the political process in the way that incorporating the Sunnis made Iraq appear at least minimally successful.</p> <p>As we pointed out after the <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20110502-bin-ladens-death-and-implications-jihadism">death of Osama bin Laden</a>, his demise, coupled with the <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/geopolitical_diary/20110502-death-bin-laden-and-strategic-shift-washington">transfer of Petraeus out of Afghanistan</a>, offered two opportunities. The first was a return to the prior definition of success in Afghanistan, in which the goal was the disruption of al Qaeda. Second, the departure of Petraeus and his staff also removed the ideology of counterinsurgency, in which social transformation was seen as the means toward a practical and radical transformation of Afghanistan. These two events opened the door to the redefinition of the U.S. goal and the ability to claim mission accomplished for the earlier, more modest end, thereby building the basis for terminating the war.</p> <p>The central battle was in the United States military, divided between conventional warfighters and counter-insurgents. Counterinsurgency draws its roots from theories of social development in emerging countries going back to the 1950s. It argues that victory in these sorts of wars depends on social and political mobilization and that the purpose of the military battle is to create a space to build a state and nation capable of defending itself.</p> <p>The conventional understanding of war is that its purpose is to defeat the enemy military. It presents a more limited and focused view of military power. This faction, bitterly opposed to Petraeus’ view of what was happening in Afghanistan, saw the war in terms of defeating the Taliban as a military force. In the view of this faction, defeating the Taliban was impossible with the force available and unlikely even with a more substantial force. There were two reasons for this. First, <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20100830_afghanistan_why_taliban_are_winning">the Taliban comprised a light infantry force with a superior intelligence capability</a> and the ability to withdraw from untenable operations (such as the battle for Helmand province) and re-engage on more favorable terms elsewhere. Second, sanctuaries in Pakistan allowed the Taliban to withdraw to safety and reconstitute themselves, thereby making their defeat in detail impossible. The option of invading Pakistan remained, but the idea of invading a country of 180 million people with some fraction of the nearly 150,000 U.S. and allied troops in Afghanistan was militarily unsupportable. Indeed, no force the United States could field would be in a position to compel Pakistan to conform to American wishes.</p> <p>The alternative on the American side is a more conventional definition of war in which the primary purpose of the U.S. military in Afghanistan is to create a framework for special operations forces to disrupt al Qaeda in Afghanistan and potentially Pakistan, not to attempt to either defeat the Taliban strategically or transform Afghanistan politically and culturally. With the death of bin Laden, an argument can be made — at least for political purposes — that <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/themes/al_qaeda">al Qaeda has been disrupted</a> enough that the conventional military framework in Afghanistan is no longer needed. If al Qaeda revives in Afghanistan, then covert operations can be considered. The problem with al Qaeda is that it does not require any single country to regenerate. It is a global guerrilla force.</p> <h3>Asymmetry in U.S. and Pakistani Interests</h3> <p>The United States can choose to leave Afghanistan without suffering strategic disaster. Pakistan cannot leave Pakistan. It therefore cannot leave its border with Afghanistan nor can it evade the reality that Pakistani ethnic groups — particularly the Pashtun, who straddle the border and form the heart of the Taliban phenomenon — live on the Afghan side of the border as well. Therefore, while Afghanistan is a piece of American global strategy and not its whole, Afghanistan is central to Pakistan’s national strategy. This asymmetry in U.S. and Pakistani interests is now the central issue.</p> <p>When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, Pakistan joined with the United States to defeat the Soviets. Saudi Arabia provided money and recruits, the Pakistanis provided training facilities and intelligence and the United States provided trainers and other support. For Pakistan, the Soviet invasion was a matter of fundamental national interest. Facing a hostile India supported by the Soviets and a Soviet presence in Afghanistan, Pakistan was threatened on two fronts. Therefore, deep involvement with the jihadists in Afghanistan was essential to Pakistan because the jihadists tied down the Soviets. This was also beneficial to the United States.</p> <p>After the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, the United States became indifferent to Afghanistan’s future. Pakistan could not be indifferent. It remained deeply involved with the Islamist forces that had defeated the Soviets and would govern Afghanistan, and it helped facilitate the emergence of the Taliban as the dominant force in the country. The United States was quite content with this in the 1990s and accepted the fact that Pakistani intelligence had become intertwined not only with the forces that fought the Soviets but also with the Taliban, who, with Pakistani support, won the civil war that followed the Soviet defeat.</p> <p>Intelligence organizations are as influenced by their clients as their clients are controlled by them. Consider anti-Castro Cubans in the 1960s and 1970s and their beginning as CIA assets and their end as major influencers of U.S. policy toward Cuba. <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/pakistan_anatomy_isi">The Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI) became entwined with its clients</a>. As the influence of the Taliban and Islamist elements increased in Afghanistan, the sentiment spread to Pakistan, where a massive Islamist movement developed with influence in the government and intelligence services.</p> <p>Sept. 11, 2001, posed a profound threat to Pakistan. On one side, Pakistan faced a United States in a state of crisis, demanding Pakistani support against both al Qaeda and the Taliban. On the other side Pakistan had a massive Islamist movement hostile to the United States and intelligence services that had, for a generation, been intimately linked to Afghan Islamists, first with whole-hearted U.S. support, then with its benign indifference. The American demands involved shredding close relationships in Afghanistan, supporting an American occupation in Afghanistan and therefore facing internal resistance and threats in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.</p> <p>The Pakistani solution was the only one it could come up with to placate both the United States and the forces in Pakistan that did not want to cooperate with the United States. The Pakistanis lied. To be more precise and fair, they did as much as they could for the United States without completely destabilizing Pakistan while making it appear that they were being far more cooperative with the Americans and far less cooperative with their public. As in any such strategy, the ISI and Islamabad found themselves engaged in a massive balancing act.</p> <p>U.S. and Pakistani national interests widely diverged. The United States wanted to disrupt al Qaeda regardless of the cost. The Pakistanis wanted to avoid the collapse of their regime at any cost. These were not compatible goals. At the same time, the United States and Pakistan needed each other. The United States could not possibly operate in Afghanistan without some Pakistani support, ranging from the <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20090424_pakistan_facing_reality_risk_pakistan">use of Karachi and the Karachi-Khyber and Karachi-Chaman lines of supply</a> to at least some collaboration on intelligence sharing, at least on al Qaeda. The Pakistanis badly needed American support against India. If the United States simply became pro-Indian, the Pakistani position would be in severe jeopardy.</p> <p>The United States was always aware of the limits of Pakistani assistance. The United States accepted this publicly because it made Pakistan appear to be an ally at a time when the United States was under attack for unilateralism. It accepted it privately as well because it did not want to see Pakistan destabilize. The Pakistanis were aware of the limits of American tolerance, so a game was played out.</p> <h3>The Endgame in Afghanistan</h3> <p>That game is now breaking down, not because the United States raided Pakistan and killed bin Laden but because it is becoming apparent to Pakistan that the United States will, sooner or later, be dramatically drawing down its forces in Afghanistan. This drawdown creates three facts. First, Pakistan will be facing the future on its western border with Afghanistan without an American force to support it. Pakistan does not want to alienate the Taliban, and not just for ideological reasons. It also expects the Taliban to govern Afghanistan in due course. India aside, Pakistan needs to maintain its ties to the Taliban in order to maintain its influence in Afghanistan and guard its western flank. Being cooperative with the United States is less important. Second, Pakistan is aware that as the United States draws down, it will need Pakistan to cover its withdrawal strategically. Afghanistan is not Iraq, and as the U.S. force draws down, it will be in greater danger. The U.S. needs Pakistani influence. Finally, there will be a negotiation with the Taliban, and elements of Pakistan, particularly the ISI, will be the intermediary.</p> <p>The Pakistanis are preparing for the American drawdown. Publicly, it is important for them to <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/geopolitical_diary/20110518-us-unilateral-operations-pakistan-upsetting-domestic-balance-power">appear as independent and even hostile to the Americans as possible</a> in order to maintain their domestic credibility. Up to now, they have appeared to various factions in Pakistan as American lackeys. If the United States is leaving, the Pakistanis can’t afford to appear that way anymore. There are genuine issues separating the two countries, but in the end, the show is as important as the issues. U.S. accusations that the government has not cooperated with the United States in fighting Islamists are exactly what the Pakistani establishment needs in order to move to the next phase. Publicly arresting CIA sources who aided the United States in capturing bin Laden also enhances this new image.</p> <p>From the American point of view, the war in Afghanistan — and elsewhere — has not been a failure. There have been no more attacks on the United States on the order of 9/11, and that has not been for al Qaeda’s lack of trying. U.S. intelligence and security services, fumbling in the early days, achieved a remarkable success, and that was aided by the massive disruption of al Qaeda by U.S. military operations. The measure of military success is simple. If the enemy was unable to strike, the military effort was a success. Obviously, there is no guarantee that al Qaeda will not regenerate or that another group will not emerge, but a continued presence in Afghanistan at this point doesn’t affect that. This is particularly true as franchise operations like the Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula begin to overtake the old apex leadership in terms of both operational innovation in transnational efforts and the ideological underpinnings of those attacks.</p> <p>In the end, <a class="strat_tip_off" title="Watch Video: Dispatch: Re-examining the U.S. Withdrawal from Afghanistan"><img src="http://media.stratfor.com/stratfor_images/playbuttonsmall.gif" /> the United States will leave Afghanistan</a> (with the possible exception of some residual special operations forces). Pakistan will draw Afghanistan back into its sphere of influence. Pakistan will need American support against India (since <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110523-chinas-interest-pakistans-gwadar-port">China does not have the force needed to support Pakistan</a> over the Himalayas nor the navy to protect Pakistan’s coast). The United States will need Pakistan to do the basic work of preventing an intercontinental al Qaeda from forming again. Reflecting on the past 10 years, Pakistan will see that as being in its national interest. The United States will use Pakistan to balance India while retaining close ties to India.</p> <p>A play will be acted out like the New Zealand Haka, with both sides making terrible sounds and frightening gestures at each other. But now that the counterinsurgency concept is being discarded, from all indications, and a fresh military analysis is under way, the script is being rewritten and we can begin to see the end shaping up. The United States is furious at Pakistan for its willingness to protect American enemies. Pakistan is furious at the United States for conducting attacks on its sovereign territory. In the end it doesn’t matter. They need each other. In the affairs of nations, like and dislike are not meaningful categories, and bullying and treachery are not blocks to cooperation. <a class="strat_tip_off" title="Watch Video: Agenda: U.S.-Pakistan After bin Laden"><img src="http://media.stratfor.com/stratfor_images/playbuttonsmall.gif" /> The two countries need each other</a> more than they need to punish each other. Great friendships among nations are built on less.</p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/us-and-pakistan-afghan-strategies_27.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-27T19:47:00-07:00">7:47 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=3414827123485802815">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=3414827123485802815&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/U.S.%20and%20Pakistan%3A%20Afghan%20Strategies" rel="tag">U.S. and Pakistan: Afghan Strategies</a> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="5926140628376341020"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/obamas-afghanistan-plan-and-realities.html">Obama's Afghanistan Plan and the Realities of Withdrawal</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1 class="title">Obama's Afghanistan Plan and the Realities of Withdrawal</h1><p><strong>By Nathan Hughes</strong></p> <p><a href="http://www.stratfor.com/geopolitical_diary/20110622-obamas-announcement-and-future-afghan-war">U.S. President Barack Obama announced June 22 </a>that the long process of drawing down forces in Afghanistan would begin on schedule in July. Though the <a class="strat_tip_off" title="Watch Video: Dispatch: Re-examining the U.S. Withdrawal from Afghanistan"><img src="http://media.stratfor.com/stratfor_images/playbuttonsmall.gif" /> initial phase of the drawdown appears limited</a>, minimizing the tactical and operational impact on the ground in the immediate future, the United States and its allies are now beginning the inevitable process of <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110620-afghanistan-weekly-war-update">removing their forces from Afghanistan</a>. This will entail the risk of greater Taliban battlefield successes.</p> <h3>The Logistical Challenge</h3> <p>Afghanistan, a landlocked country in the heart of Central Asia, is one of the most isolated places on Earth. This isolation has posed huge logistical challenges for the United States. Hundreds of shipping containers and fuel trucks must enter the country every day from Pakistan and from the north to sustain the nearly 150,000 U.S. and allied forces stationed in Afghanistan, about half the total number of Afghan security forces. Supplying a single gallon of gasoline in Afghanistan reportedly costs the U.S. military an average of $400, while sustaining a single U.S. soldier runs around $1 million a year (by contrast, sustaining an Afghan soldier costs about $12,000 a year). </p> <p>These forces appear considerably lighter than those in Iraq because Afghanistan’s rough terrain often demands dismounted foot patrols. Heavy main battle tanks and self-propelled howitzers are thus few and far between, though not entirely absent. Afghanistan even required a new, lighter and more agile version of the hulking mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicle known as the <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20100713_week_war_afghanistan_july_7_13_2010">M-ATV</a> (for “all-terrain vehicle”).</p> <p>Based solely on the activity on the ground in Afghanistan today, one would think the United States and its allies were preparing for a permanent presence, not the imminent beginning of a long-scheduled drawdown (a perception the United States and its allies have in some cases used to their advantage to reach political arrangements with locals). A 3,500-meter (11,500-foot) all-weather concrete and asphalt runway and an air traffic control tower were completed this February at Camp Leatherneck and Camp Bastion in Helmand province. Another more than 2,700-meter runway was finished at Shindand Air Field in Herat province last December.</p> <a href="http://web.stratfor.com/images/asia/art/Iron_mountain_1280.jpg"> <div class="media media-image floatright" style="width:400px"> <div class="inner"> <div class="media-item"><img src="http://media.stratfor.com/files/mmf/a/7/a75b39160ca1d5aeb967c3f83e89c2dd954fb99a.jpg" alt="Obama's Afghanistan Plan and the Realities of Withdrawal" title="" /></div> <div class="media-caption">(click here to enlarge image)</div> </div> </div> </a> <p>Meanwhile, a so-called iron mountain of spare parts needed to maintain vehicles and aircraft, construction and engineering equipment, generators, ammunition and other supplies — even innumerable pallets of bottled water — has slowly been built up to sustain day-to-day military operations. There are fewer troops in Afghanistan than the nearly 170,000 in Iraq at the peak of operations and considerably lighter tonnage in terms of armored vehicles. But short of a hasty and rapid withdrawal reminiscent of the chaotic American exit from Saigon in 1975 (which no one currently foresees in Afghanistan), the logistical challenge of withdrawing from Afghanistan — at whatever pace — is perhaps even more daunting than the drawdown in Iraq. The complexity of having nearly 50 allies with troops in country will complicate this process.</p> <p>Moreover, coalition forces in Iraq had ready access to well-established bases and modern port facilities in nearby Kuwait and in Turkey, a long-standing NATO ally. Though U.S. and allied equipment comes ashore on a routine basis in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, the facilities there are nothing like what exists in Kuwait. Routes to bases in Afghanistan are anything but short and established, with locally contracted fuel tankers and other supplies not only traveling far greater distances but also regularly subject to harassing attacks. They are inherently vulnerable to aggressive interdiction by militants fighting on terrain far more favorable to them, and to <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20101005_week_war_afghanistan_sept_29_oct_5_2010">politically motivated interruptions by Islamabad</a>. The American <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/geopolitical_diary/20101004_uss_logistical_need_pakistan">logistical dependence</a> on Pakistani acquiescence cannot be understated. Most supplies transit the isolated <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20081230_pakistan_khyber_pass_and_western_logistics_afghanistan">Khyber Pass</a> in the restive Pakistani Federally Administered Tribal Areas west of Islamabad. As in Iraq, the United States does have an alternative to the north. But instead of Turkey it is the Northern Distribution Network (NDN), which runs through Central Asia and Russia (Moscow has agreed to continue to expand it) and entails a 5,150-kilometer (3,200-mile) rail route to the Baltic Sea and ports in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.</p> <p><a href="http://web.stratfor.com/images/asia/map/Afghan_weekly_800_062211.jpg"> </a></p><div class="media media-image floatleft" style="width:400px"><a href="http://web.stratfor.com/images/asia/map/Afghan_weekly_800_062211.jpg"> <div class="inner"> <div class="media-item"><img src="http://media.stratfor.com/files/mmf/7/6/76c265d055b3f23eeed611575924cbe3954df83b.jpg" alt="Obama's Afghanistan Plan and the Realities of Withdrawal" title="" /></div> <div class="media-caption">(click here to enlarge image)</div> </div> </a></div><a href="http://web.stratfor.com/images/asia/map/Afghan_weekly_800_062211.jpg"> </a> <p>Given the extraordinary distances involved, the metrics for defining whether something is worth the expense of <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/geopolitical_diary/20081215_geopolitical_diary_breakdown_transporting_supplies_afghanistan">shipping back from Afghanistan</a> are unforgiving. Some equipment will be deemed too heavily damaged or cheap and will be sanitized if necessary and discarded. Much construction and fortification has been done with engineering and construction equipment like Hesco barriers (which are filled with sand and dirt) that will not be reclaimed, and will continue to characterize the landscape in Afghanistan for decades to come, much as the Soviet influence was perceivable long after their 1989 withdrawal. Much equipment will be handed over to Afghan security forces, which already have begun to receive up-armored U.S. HMMWVs, aka “humvees.” Similarly, some 800,000 items valued at nearly $100 million have already been handed over to more than a dozen Iraqi military, security and government entities.</p> <p>Other gear will have to be stripped of sensitive equipment (radios and other cryptographic gear, navigation equipment, <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/pros_and_cons_ied_electronic_countermeasures">jammers for improvised explosive devices</a>, etc.), which is usually flown out of the country due to security concerns before being shipped overland. And while some Iraqi stocks were designated for redeployment to Afghanistan or prepared for long-term storage in pre-positioned equipment depots and aboard maritime pre-positioning ships at facilities in Kuwait, most vehicles and supplies slated to be moved out of Afghanistan increasingly will have to be shipped far afield. This could be from Karachi by ship or to Europe by rail even if they are never intended for return to the United States.</p> <h3>Security Transition</h3> <p>More important than the fate of armored trucks and equipment will be the process of rebalancing forces across the country. This will involve handing over outposts and facilities to Afghan security forces, who <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110613-afghanistan-weekly-war-update-infiltration-challenge">continue to struggle to reach full capability</a>, and scaling back the extent of the U.S. and allied presence in the country. In Iraq, and likely in Afghanistan, the beginning of this process will be slow and measured. But its pace in the years ahead remains to be seen, and <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20110620-us-and-pakistan-afghan-strategies">may accelerate considerably</a>.</p> <p><a href="http://web.stratfor.com/images/asia/map/Afghan_transportation_800.jpg"> </a></p><div class="media media-image floatright" style="width:400px"><a href="http://web.stratfor.com/images/asia/map/Afghan_transportation_800.jpg"> <div class="inner"> <div class="media-item"><img src="http://media.stratfor.com/files/mmf/3/c/3cbebc03edf0f886cb9f9f2f9db7d18ead07e125.jpg" alt="Obama's Afghanistan Plan and the Realities of Withdrawal" title="" /></div> <div class="media-caption">(click here to enlarge image)</div> </div> </a></div><a href="http://web.stratfor.com/images/asia/map/Afghan_transportation_800.jpg"> </a> <p>The first areas slated for <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110328-week-war-afghanistan-march-16-29-2011">handover to Afghan control</a>, the provinces of Panjshir, Bamiyan and Kabul — aside the restive Surobi district, though the rest of Kabul’s security effectively has been in Afghan hands for years — and the cities of Mazar-e-Sharif, Herat, Lashkar Gah and Mehtar Lam have been relatively quiet places for some time. Afghan security forces increasingly have taken over in these areas. As in Iraq, the first places to be turned over to indigenous security forces already were fairly secure. Handing over more restive areas later in the year will prove trickier.</p> <p>This process of pulling back and handing over responsibility for security (in Iraq often termed having Iraqi security forces “in the lead” in specific areas) is a slow and deliberate one, not a sudden and jarring maneuver. Well before the formal announcement, Afghan forces began to transition to a more independent role, conducting more small-unit operations on their own. International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops slowly have transitioned from joint patrols and tactical overwatch to a more operational overwatch, but have remained nearby even after transitions formally have taken place.</p> <p>Under the current training regime, Afghan units continue to require advice and assistance, particularly with matters like intelligence, planning, logistics and maintenance. The ISAF will be cautious in its reductions for fear of pulling back too quickly and seeing the situation deteriorate — unless, of course, Obama directs it to conduct a hastier pullback.</p> <p>As in Afghanistan, in Iraq the process of drawing down and handing over responsibility in each area was done very cautiously. There was a critical distinction, however. A <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20100506_afghanistan_understanding_reconciliation">political accommodation</a> with the Sunnis facilitated the apparent success of the Iraqi surge — something that <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/now_hard_part_iraq_afghanistan">has not been (and cannot be) replicated in Afghanistan</a>. Even with that advantage, Iraq remains in an unsettled and contentious state. The <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20100830_afghanistan_why_taliban_are_winning">lack of any political framework</a> to facilitate a military pullback leaves the prospect of a viable transition in restive areas where the <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20100214_afghanistan_campaign_special_series_part_1_us_strategy">U.S. counterinsurgency-focused strategy</a> has been focused tenuous at best — particularly if timetables are accelerated.</p> <p>In June 2009, U.S. forces in Iraq occupied 357 bases. A year later, U.S. forces occupied only 92 bases, 58 of which were partnered with the Iraqis. The pace of the transition in Afghanistan remains to be seen, but handing over the majority of positions to Afghan forces will fundamentally alter the situational awareness, visibility and influence of ISAF forces.</p> <h3>Casualties and Force Protection</h3> <p>The security of the remaining outposts and ensuring the security of U.S. and allied forces and critical lines of supply (particularly key sections of the <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20100316_afghanistan_battle_ring_road">Ring Road</a>) that sustain remaining forces will be key to crafting the withdrawal and pulling back to fewer, stronger and more secure positions. As that drawdown progresses — and particularly if a more substantive shift in strategy is implemented — the increased pace begins to bring new incentives into play. Of particular note will be both a military and political incentive to reduce casualties as the endgame draws closer.</p> <p>The desire to accelerate the consolidation to more secure positions will clash with the need to pull back slowly and continue to provide Afghan forces with advice and assistance. The reorientation may expose potential vulnerabilities to Taliban attack in the process of transitioning to a new posture. Major reversals and defeats for Afghan security forces at the hands of the Taliban after they have been left to their own devices can be expected in at least some areas and will have wide repercussions, perhaps even <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20100401_afghanistan_talibans_point_view">shifting the psychology and perception of the war</a>.</p> <p>When ISAF units are paired closely with Afghan forces, those units have a stronger day-to-day tactical presence in the field, and other units are generally operating nearby. So while they are more vulnerable and exposed to threats like IEDs while out on patrol, they also — indeed, in part because of that exposure — have a more alert and robust posture. As the transition accelerates and particularly if Washington accelerates it, the posture and therefore the vulnerabilities of forces change.</p> <p>Force protection remains a key consideration throughout. The United States gained considerable experience with that during the Iraq transition — though again, a political accommodation underlay much of that transition, which will not be the case in Afghanistan.</p> <p>As the drawdown continues, ISAF will have to balance having advisers in the field alongside Afghan units for as long as possible against pulling more back to key strongholds and pulling them out of the country completely. In the former case, the close presence of advisers can improve the effectiveness of Afghan security forces and provide better situational awareness. But it also exposes smaller units to operations more distant from strongholds as the number of outposts and major positions begins to be reduced. And as the process of pulling back accelerates and particularly as allied forces increasingly hunker down on larger and more secure outposts, their <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20100316_afghanistan_battle_ring_road">already limited situational awareness</a> will decline even further, which opens up its own vulnerabilities.</p> <p>One of these will be the impact on not just situational awareness on the ground but intelligence collection and particularly exploitable relationships with local political factions. As the withdrawal becomes more and more undeniable and ISAF pulls back from key areas, the human relationships that underlie intelligence sharing will be affected and reduced. This is particularly the case in places where the Taliban are strongest, as villagers there return to a strategy of hedging their bets out of necessity and focus on the more enduring power structure, which in many areas will clearly be the Taliban.</p> <h3>The Taliban</h3> <p>Ultimately, the Taliban’s incentive vis-a-vis the United States and its allies — especially as their exit becomes increasingly undeniable — is to conserve and maximize their strength for a potential fight in the vacuum sure to ensue after the majority of foreign troops have left the country. At the same time, any “revolutionary” movement must be able to <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20090526_afghanistan_nature_insurgency">consolidate internal control and maintain discipline</a> while continuing to make itself relevant to domestic constituencies. The Taliban also may seek to take advantage of the shifting tactical realities to <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110517-afghanistan-weekly-war-update-larger-taliban-attacks">demonstrate their strength</a> and the extent of their reach across the country, not only by targeting newly independent and newly isolated Afghan units but by attempting to kill or even kidnap now-more isolated foreign troops. </p> <p>Though this year the Taliban have demonstrated their ability to <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110531-afghanistan-weekly-war-update-attacks-herat-and-taloqan">strike almost anywhere in the country</a>, they so far have failed to demonstrate the ability to penetrate the perimeter of large, secured facilities with a sizable assault force or to bring crew-served weapons to bear in an effective supporting manner. Given the <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20101019_week_war_afghanistan_oct_13_19_2010">intensity and tempo of special operations forces raids</a> on Taliban leadership and weapons caches, it is unclear whether the Taliban have managed to retain a significant cache of heavier arms and the capability to wield them.</p> <p>The <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20091201_obamas_plan_and_key_battleground">inherent danger of compromise</a> and penetration of indigenous security forces also <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110613-afghanistan-weekly-war-update-infiltration-challenge">continues to loom large</a>. The vulnerabilities of ISAF forces will grow and change while they begin to shift as mission and posture evolve — and those vulnerabilities will be particularly pronounced in places where the posture and presence remains residual and a legacy of a previous strategy instead of more fundamental rebalancing. The shift from a dispersed, counterinsurgency-focused orientation to a more limited and more secure presence will ultimately provide the space to reduce casualties, but it will necessarily entail more limited visibility and influence. And the transition will create space for potentially more significant Taliban successes on the battlefield.</p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/obamas-afghanistan-plan-and-realities.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-27T19:44:00-07:00">7:44 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=5926140628376341020">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=5926140628376341020&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Obama%27s%20Afghanistan%20Plan" rel="tag">Obama's Afghanistan Plan</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Realities%20of%20Withdrawal" rel="tag">Realities of Withdrawal</a> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="4635577399726427093"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/zetas-raid-or-rescue.html">Zetas Raid or Rescue?</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> Mexico Security Memo: <span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:180%;">Confusing Reports of a Battle in Matamoros Zetas Raid or Rescue?</span><br /><br />Around 5 a.m. on June 17, simultaneous firefights reportedly broke out between elements of the Gulf and Los Zetas cartels in several locations in Matamoros, Tamaulipas state, a Gulf stronghold. The Mexican military has confirmed that a gunbattle did indeed take place in the Colonia Pedro Moreno area but has not confirmed media reports of additional firefights in the Mariano Matamoros, Valle Alto, Puerto Rico and Seccion 16 neighborhoods. The military also has not confirmed a reported gunbattle in the rural area of Cabras Pintas, where six Mexican soldiers are said to have been killed.<br /><br /><br />View an interactive map of hot spots this week in Mexico<br /><br />Details of the confirmed firefight remain unclear, but from all indications, a large movement of Zeta forces into a Gulf stronghold did occur, and it suggests a heightened operational tempo in the war between these two cartels. In the coming months, this increasing violence is likely to continue in Gulf-held Reynosa and Zeta-held Monterrey as well as Matamoros.<br /><br />The Mexican military said the June 17 gunbattle in Matamoros’ Colonia Pedro Moreno neighborhood resulted in three deaths and nine arrests, while an unnamed U.S. law enforcement official said four Gulf cartel gunmen died in the exchange of fire. According to a Mexican army officer quoted in border media, a Mexican army “mechanized regiment” was patrolling in trucks in downtown Matamoros when the fighting erupted but did not participate. The media also quoted a U.S. law enforcement official confirming the presence of another mechanized regiment and claiming that this other regiment of soldiers traveling in trucks supported Los Zetas in an attempt to rescue 11 Zeta operatives, both male and female, who had been captured by the Gulf cartel June 16.<br /><br />For its part, the Mexican military said a motorized army unit rescued 17 civilians who had been kidnapped, although it is uncertain how an army unit could have achieved this without being a part of the operation or participating in the firefight. At some point during the gunbattle, the leader of Los Zetas, Heriberto “El Lazca” Lazcano Lazcano, was reportedly killed, although STRATFOR doubts that he was present.<br /><br />While reports of the Matamoros battle are conflicting, it is very likely that a large firefight did occur in the city between the Gulf cartel and Los Zetas and that it was initiated by the latter. Due to the conflicting information, we have been unable to determine the motive behind the Zeta assault, which reportedly involved a force of armed Zetas in 130 SUVs. However, we have seen several large Zeta raids into Gulf territory in recent months intended to undercut Gulf’s support network, and this raid into Matamoros would have been the largest one yet (at least that we are aware of).<br /><br />Zetas leader Lazcano, a former member of the army’s Grupo Aeromovil de Fuerzas Especiales (GAFES), an elite special operations unit, is an “old Zeta.” He has good tactical and operational awareness and has proved himself to be a very rational decision-maker. Moving a convoy of 130 SUV’s nearly a half mile long (if they were bumper to bumper) into the heart of Gulf territory could not have achieved any element of surprise, which means Lazcano probably thought his force was large enough to accomplish the mission even if it was detected well in advance.<br /><br />If the objective of this raid was to recover the 11 Zetas reportedly captured by Gulf forces, those prisoners must have been extremely valuable to the Zetas and possibly to Lazcano personally. Low-ranking members of an organization are typically not worth potential losses incurred in such an operation.<br /><br />The reports that a motorized Mexican army regiment took part in the firefight alongside Zetas gunmen are likely untrue. While there is a corrupt element within the military, the chance of an entire regiment operating with cartel gunmen is quite remote. It is not uncommon for individual soldiers and smaller military units to be found in the employ of cartels, and perhaps a small element was working with the Zetas, but it could not have been a Mexican army regiment, which would number some 1,000 to 3,000 troops.<br /><br />Whether the Zetas Matamoros raid was a deliberate strike against the Gulf cartel’s power base or an attempt to rescue a group of Zetas prisoners, we have been expecting to see this type of Zetas offensive for several months now. People and businesses should be aware of the probability of increasing violence in the coming months in Matamoros, Reynosa and Monterrey. </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/zetas-raid-or-rescue.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-27T19:42:00-07:00">7:42 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=4635577399726427093">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=4635577399726427093&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/or%20Rescue" rel="tag">or Rescue</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Zetas%20Raid" rel="tag">Zetas Raid</a> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="3646182367285158457"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/personal-income-increased-03-in-may.html">Personal income increased 0.3% in May,</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> Data Watch<br />________________________________________<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:180%;">Personal income increased 0.3% in May, while personal consumption was unchanged</span><br />Brian S. Wesbury - Chief Economist<br />Robert Stein, CFA - Senior Economist<br /><br />Personal income increased 0.3% in May, slightly less than the consensus expected. Personal consumption was unchanged, also slightly less than the consensus expected. In the past year, personal income is up 4.2% while spending is up 4.7%.<br />Disposable personal income (income after taxes) was up 0.2% in May. Disposable income is up 3.1% versus a year ago. The gain in May was led by private-sector wages and salaries, which are up 3.6% from a year ago.<br /><br />The overall PCE deflator (consumer inflation) increased 0.2% in May and is up 2.5% versus a year ago. The “core” PCE deflator, which excludes food and energy, was up 0.3% in May and is up 1.2% since last year.<br /><br />After adjusting for inflation, “real” consumption dipped 0.1% in May but is up 2.1% versus a year ago.<br /><br />Implications: Consumer spending got slammed by Japan in May, with purchases of durable goods like autos down 1.5% for the month. As a result, total consumer spending was unchanged for the month. With consumption prices up 0.2% in May – that was before the recent dip in oil prices – “real” (inflation-adjusted) consumer spending fell slightly. As we have said repeatedly, we believe these effects are temporary and will result in a forceful rebound in spending later this summer. Late this Friday (July 1), we expect automakers to report the start of the rebound, with sales bouncing up off the May low despite very skimpy manufacturer and dealer incentives in June. Longer term, consumer spending should strengthen. Consumer balance sheets are healthier and their financial obligations (monthly payments like mortgages, rent, car loans/leases, as well as other debt service), are the smallest share of disposable income since 1994. Meanwhile, the underlying trend in worker income continues in a favorable direction, with private-sector wages and salaries up at a 4.5% annual rate in the past six months. This is more than enough to outpace inflation and that gap should widen in the next few months due to the recent drop in oil prices. The problem for the Federal Reserve is that its favored measure of “core” inflation, which excludes food and energy, is accelerating, up only 1.2% versus a year ago but up at a 2.4% annual rate in the past three months. This is an economic problem that calls out for a tighter monetary policy, not the continuation of an overly loose policy.<br />________________________________________ </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/personal-income-increased-03-in-may.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-27T19:40:00-07:00">7:40 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=3646182367285158457">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=3646182367285158457&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/increased%200.3%25%20in%20May" rel="tag">increased 0.3% in May</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Personal%20income" rel="tag">Personal income</a> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <a name="8992736562420499761"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/no-us-is-not-greece.html">No, The US Is Not Greece</a> </h3> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Monday Morning Outlook</span></b> </p> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center" align="center"> <hr style="color:black" align="center" noshade="noshade" size="1" width="100%"> </div> <p style="font-family: georgia; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:180%;">No, The US Is Not Greece </span><span class="small"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Brian S. Wesbury - Chief Economist<br />Robert Stein, CFA - Senior Economist</span></span> <span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><span style="font-size: 8pt;">Date: 6/27/2011</span></span> </p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p style="font-family: georgia; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">Two-hundred and thirty-five July 4<sup>th</sup>’s ago, the United States became reality. While there have been plenty of stumbles along the way, other than during the Civil War, doubts about its continued existence have been few and far between. Lately, however, government spending and debt levels have created a mainstream fear that the US is possibly on its last legs – destined to become a future version of Greece.</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: georgia; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">We don’t agree and, no, we are not sticking our heads in the sand. Our problems are clear. The budget deficit will be about 8.5% of GDP in 2011, down slightly from 9% in 2010 and 10% in 2009. These deficits are impossible to sustain over the longer run.</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: georgia; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: georgia; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">Meanwhile, the total public debt of the US is now $14.3 trillion and future promised, but as yet unfunded, Social Security and Medicare benefits amount to about $60 trillion in present value terms. Combined, this $75 trillion is roughly five times annual GDP. With numbers like these, how could we not think serious, economy-threatening problems are on the way?</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: georgia; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: georgia; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">Well, for one thing, the very obvious problems in Greece (and other countries and the states) and the fact that politicians can’t hide from the Internet are forcing the issue. Second, the political landscape in the US has changed – perhaps because of point one. Third, the solutions are relatively simple in reality, even though very complicated politically.</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: georgia; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: georgia; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">Part of the solution is higher revenues, and this will happen <i>even if tax rates are not increased</i>. In the past 12 months, revenues have climbed by about $220 billion over the previous 12 months – or, about 0.5% of GDP. We expect revenues to continue this trend, rising from their current level of 14.5% of GDP back to about 18.5% of GDP (a 4% move).</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: georgia; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: georgia; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">Meanwhile, current debt-limit negotiations are likely to cut federal discretionary (non-entitlement, non-interest) spending. In the 1990s, discretionary spending fell from about 9% of GDP to 6%. So let’s say, we go from 9% today to 7.5%, which could be a “low hurdle” given the eventual reduction in operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Combining this 1.5% of GDP cut with the 4% rise in revenues (total of 5.5%), could bring the annual deficit down to 3% of GDP. </span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: georgia; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: georgia; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">Of course, that still leaves the long-term entitlement problem. But even there we can see the outlines of solutions looming in the distance. For Medicare and Medicaid, which are much bigger problems than Social Security, we think ultimately the forces of smaller government win. We do not know whether it will be in 2012, 2016, or 2020. But one of those elections is likely to result in a Republican in the White House with control of both the US Senate and House. And at that point, they can enact major reforms along the lines of some recent proposals to turn Medicare into premium support and turn Medicaid into block grants to the states.</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: georgia; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: georgia; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">Parliamentary rules will allow the GOP to enact these changes with only a simple majority in the Senate (with no chance for a Democratic filibuster). And to reverse these reforms, because it would make future budget deficits larger, Democrats would need 60 votes in the Senate!</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: georgia; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: georgia; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">On Social Security, any change requires 60 votes in the Senate. This means tax hikes (to fill the gap) are as much in play as benefit cuts and this is why it will likely be put off for many years into the future. In the meantime, news stories suggest even AARP is now willing to consider some reductions in benefits. In other words, fiscal reality is beginning to bite.</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p style="font-family: georgia; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: georgia;">In the end, the road to fiscal redemption is a long one and we’ll be on it for many years. But we think the ultimate destination will be smaller government and more manageable deficits than most investors realize.</span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395381545218020265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4966921227529983571.post-45677566351227101802011-06-22T12:59:00.000-07:002011-06-22T12:59:05.355-07:00<div class="date-posts"><div class="post-outer"><div class="post hentry"><br />
<div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/president-obama%e2%80%99s-afghan-decision-previewing-the-speech/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this post">President Obama’s Afghan Decision: Previewing the Speech</a></span></h1><div class="post-author"> Posted by <span class="author vcard"><a class="url fn n" href="http://www.cato.org/people/christopher-preble" target="_blank" title="View all posts by Christopher Preble">Christopher Preble</a></span> </div>Tomorrow night, President Obama will announce how many troops will be withdrawn from Afghanistan over the next 18 months. <em>CNN.com</em> <a href="http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/21/u-s-surge-forces-could-leave-afghanistan-by-end-of-2012-source-says/" target="_blank">reported</a> this morning that the president is expected to announce a plan that would bring all 30,000 “surge” troops home by the end of 2012. This would give them two more fighting seasons in Afghanistan. The <em>Los Angeles Times</em> <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-afghan-withdrawal-20110621,0,6964197.story" target="_blank">reported</a> administration and Pentagon officials told them 10,000 troops will leave Afghanistan by the end of this year. In an effort to quell the leaks, White House officials told <em>Fox News</em> that Obama has not made a final decision and that the reporting is “all over the map.”<br />
But we should not allow this speculation over troop numbers to distract us from the bigger picture. Even if by the end of 2012 the size of the U.S. military presence is reduced by 30,000 (and I’m not holding my breath), that would still leave more than twice as many troops as were there in January 2009 when Obama took office.<br />
We won’t know for sure what the president intends until tomorrow. More importantly, we won’t know if the president’s intentions translate into actual troop withdrawals until our brave men and women are welcomed back home. There will always be those arguing that conditions on the ground do not allow for a U.S. withdrawal. Some are making that case with respect to Iraq, a war that was supposedly won by David Petraeus and the surge back in 2008. For the U.S. military, it seems that every war is like the Eagles’ Hotel California: we can check out, but we can never leave.<br />
Regardless of the president’s decision, the mission will not have changed. The military wants more time to put pressure on the Taliban. They believe that they have the Taliban on the run, and that continuing pressure will aid in negotiations on a political settlement. Meanwhile, the true believers of nation-building want to buy more time for the Karzai government to get its act together. They believe that if American troops and aid workers dig more wells, pave more roads, build more schools, and draft more legal standards, we will have achieved our essential goals. The public, and a growing number within the Congress, is skeptical.<br />
And they should be. A nation-building mission is far too ambitious, and far too costly. Most importantly, <a href="http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13178" target="_blank">it isn’t necessary</a>. We could keep pressure on the Taliban, and deny al Qaeda a sanctuary, with perhaps as few as 10,000 troops in Afghanistan. If President Obama rejects that option, and declares instead that more than 60,000 U.S. troops will be in Afghanistan in 2013, he will have bowed to pressure from some within the Pentagon, at State, and a handful of think tankers, and ignored the clear wishes of the American people who want to turn their attention to building the United States, and allow the Afghans to build Afghanistan. </div><div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/president-obamas-afghan-decision.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-22T12:56:00-07:00">12:56 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=5784665987495249931">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=5784665987495249931&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" height="18" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/President%20Obama%E2%80%99s%20Afghan%20Decision" rel="tag">President Obama’s Afghan Decision</a> </span> </div></div></div></div><div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a href="" name="8508770151022150981"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/taxpayers-have-rights-too.html">Taxpayers Have Rights, Too</a> </h3><div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1><span style="font-size: large;">Taxpayers Have Rights, Too</span></h1>by Neal McCluskey <br />
<div class="first"><br />
</div><div class="first">Watching the coverage of the big Wisconsin standoff, you could easily get the impression that it's all about the trampling of workers' rights. And individuals do, indeed, have the right to band together in pursuit of better wages and conditions. The problem is, the taxpayers who pay those wages also have rights, and those are the ones currently being trampled. Which highlights the real problem: When government does things, someone's rights are always crushed.</div>National Education Association president Dennis Van Roekel exemplified the focus recently, declaring that Badger State Republicans are "just attacking workers' rights... . They want to silence the public employees."<br />
Framing this as a one-sided attack on basic rights seems to be working for unionists. In a recently released <em>New York Times</em>/CBS News poll, 60 percent of respondents said they opposed "taking away some of the collective bargaining rights" of public employees.<br />
<blockquote class="pullquote">Let people decide for themselves with whom they will do business and under what terms, and everyone's rights will be on an equal footing.</blockquote>Are Wisconsin Republicans, in fact, trying to take away collective bargaining rights?<br />
The answer is yes and no. Under the law just passed by the state Legislature, public employees — the biggest group of whom is teachers — will be able to collectively bargain for salaries but not benefits. There will also be a cap on wage increases. Workers' ability to bargain collectively won't be eliminated, but it will be constrained.<br />
What's crucial to examine, though, is the much-neglected opposite side of all this rights talk: the right of individuals not to deal with unions and collective bargaining.<br />
For one thing, there's the forcing of people as a condition of public employment to pay union dues. The law will end this egregious violation of individual freedom — the right to associate or not associate with others — but not having to plow money into their coffers is one right the unions absolutely will not tolerate.<br />
Then there is the broader right: that of any taxpayer not to employ workers under terms he finds unacceptable. In other words, just as potential employees have the right to propose conditions for their employment, those who hire them have the right to make their own proposals and reject those they find unsatisfactory.<br />
But don't elected bodies such as school boards represent taxpayers, putting them on an equal footing with unions?<br />
It's hardly equal, thanks to concentrated benefits and diffuse costs. Public-sector unions have huge incentives to be involved in the politics of whatever their specific area is, while taxpayers have to deal with every single issue with which government is involved. The result is that in any given area, the employees have much greater power than their ultimate employers.<br />
<div class="box2"> <div class="boxcontent"> <span class="author_pub2" id="author_pic"></span><div style="font-family: Georgia;"><em><a href="http://www.cato.org/people/neal-mccluskey">Neal P. McCluskey</a> is the associate director of the Center for Educational Freedom at the Cato Institute and the author of </em><a href="http://www.cato.org/store/index.asp?fa=ProductDetails&method=&pid=1441355">Feds in the Classroom: How Big Government Corrupts, Cripples and Compromises American Education</a><em>.</em></div><a class="head" href="http://www.cato.org/people/neal-mccluskey">More by Neal McCluskey</a></div></div>Even more central to equally respecting all people's rights, though, is that the best an elected body can do is represent the majority of taxpayers. Any taxpayers who disagree will have their rights to freely come to terms with those whom they employ violated.<br />
Notably, the impossibility of protecting everyone's rights is a problem when it comes to not just public-school employment, but anything people can conceivably disagree about, whether it's the teaching of evolution, reading <em>The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn</em>, or choosing a school mascot. As long as government decides such things, people's rights to determine for themselves what their children will learn, or with what educators they will associate, will be violated.<br />
The solution to this is freedom: Let people decide for themselves with whom they will do business and under what terms, and everyone's rights will be on an equal footing. It would be an especially easy thing to do in education, where private schools already educate millions of children and would proliferate if they didn't have to compete with "free" alternatives.<br />
Unfortunately, there are two major obstacles in the way: education politics, and the teachers' unions that dominate it. To equally respect everyone's rights, politicians would have to end the public schooling monopoly, setting both educators and parents free. But that would decimate union power, and all their current rhetoric about rights notwithstanding, unions would fight madly to keep that from happening. </div><div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/taxpayers-have-rights-too.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-22T12:52:00-07:00">12:52 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=8508770151022150981">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=8508770151022150981&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" height="18" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div></div></div></div><div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a href="" name="4826087213647748656"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/are-even-dems-getting-tired-of-anti.html">Are Even Dems Getting Tired of Anti-Profit Crusade?</a> </h3><div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/are-even-dems-getting-tired-of-anti-profit-crusade/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this post">Are Even Dems Getting Tired of Anti-Profit Crusade?</a></span></h1><div class="post-author"> Posted by <span class="author vcard"><a class="url fn n" href="http://www.cato.org/people/neal-mccluskey" title="View all posts by Neal McCluskey">Neal McCluskey</a></span> </div><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/Hand_whit_I%27m_bored.jpg"><img alt="File:Hand whit I'm bored.jpg" class="alignright" height="231" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/Hand_whit_I%27m_bored.jpg" width="193" /></a><br />
Yesterday, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) held his fifth — and <a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/06/08/harkin_hearing_on_for_profit_colleges">perhaps final </a>– Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committee show-hearing lambasting for-profit colleges. As usual, it was a decidedly one-sided affair, with no profit-defenders apparently invited to testify, and Republican committee members boycotting. Perhaps the only interesting thing that occurred was Sen. Al Franken (D-MN), who has never given any indication he doesn’t support Harkin’s obsessive whale hunt, saying the proceedings could have benefitted from more than one point of view. According to <a href="http://www.marketwatch.com/story/for-profit-colleges-still-under-scrutiny-2011-06-07?link=MW_latest_news">MarketWatch</a>, Franken lamented that “it would have been nice to have someone here to represent the for-profit schools.” Now, he might have only wanted a for-profit rep there to receive the beating, but even that would have been preferable to no rep at all.<br />
Could this indicate that even Senate Democrats are getting tired of Harkin’s tedious grandstanding against for-profit colleges, especially now that the Education Department has issued its “<a href="http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/gainful-employment-regs-softened-still-a-diversionary-sideshow/">gainful employment</a>” rules? Maybe, and there are lots of <a href="http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/02/dems-fight-to-protect-for-profit-colleges-from-disclosure-rules.php">Dems in the House </a>who have opposed the attack on for-profit schools for some time. But don’t expect this to be over quite yet: Harkin still gets a lot of <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-07/for-profit-college-students-need-rules-protection-kanter-says.html">negative</a> <a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/06/07/137042244/education-department-testifies-on-for-profit-college-rules">media</a> <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/07/for-profit-colleges-statistics-federal-dollars_n_872834.html">coverage</a> for proprietary schools with each hearing, while the scandals surrounding <a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/college-inc/2010/06/should_a_short_seller_testify.html">people he’s had testify</a>; the decrepit GAO <a href="http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/keep-moving-theres-still-nothing-to-see-here/">“secret shopper” report </a>that turned out to be hugely inaccurate; and potentially <a href="http://www.citizensforethics.org/blog/c/for-profit-education">dirty dealings </a>behind the gainful employment rules seem only to get real ink from Fox News and <em>The Daily Caller</em>. And Harkin keeps indicating that he will introduce legislation — doomed to failure though it may be — to curb for-profits even further.<br />
Of course, what should be the biggest source of outrage in all of this is that while Harkin fixates on for-profit schools, Washington just keeps on enabling all of higher education to luxuriate in ever-pricier, <a href="http://www.cato.org/events/powerpoint/11409event.ppt">taxpayer-funded opulence</a>. Indeed, as a new Cato report due out next week will show, putatively nonprofit universities are likely making <em>bigger </em>profits on undergraduate students than are for-profit institutions. Of course, they don’t call them “profits” – nonprofits always spend excess funds, thus increasing their “costs” – but that’s probably just plain smart. Be honest about trying to make a buck, and Sen. Harkin has shown just what’s likely to befall you. </div><div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/are-even-dems-getting-tired-of-anti.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-22T12:49:00-07:00">12:49 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=4826087213647748656">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=4826087213647748656&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" height="18" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div></div></div></div><div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a href="" name="2733199623077742481"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/punish-me-i-didnt-do-anythingand.html">Punish Me? I Didn’t Do Anything—and Johnny’s Guilty, Too!</a> </h3><div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/punish-me-i-didnt-do-anything%e2%80%94and-johnnys-guilty-too/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this post">Punish Me? I Didn’t Do Anything—and Johnny’s Guilty, Too!</a></span></h1><div class="post-author"> Posted by <span class="author vcard"><a class="url fn n" href="http://www.cato.org/people/neal-mccluskey" target="_blank" title="View all posts by Neal McCluskey">Neal McCluskey</a></span> </div>It’s hard to pin down what’s more frustrating about <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/268239/toward-less-fed-your-ed-michael-j-petrilli?page=1" target="_blank">Michael Petrilli’s response</a> to <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/267616/battle-education-freedom-neal-mccluskey" target="_blank">my recent <em>NRO</em> op-ed</a> on national standards: the rhetorical obfuscation about what Fordham and other national-standardizers really want, or the grade-school effort to escape discipline by saying that, hey, some kids are even worse!<br />
Let’s start with the source of aggravation that by now must seem very old to regular Cato@Liberty readers, but that has to be constantly revisited because national standardizers are so darned disciplined about their message: The national-standards drive is absolutely not “state led and voluntary,” and by all indications this is totally intentional. Federal arm-twisting hasn’t just been the result of ”unforced errors,” as Petrilli suggests, but is part of a conscious strategy.<br />
There was, of course, <a href="http://www.achieve.org/files/BenchmarkingforSuccess.pdf" target="_blank"><em>Benchmarking for Success: Ensuring Students Receive a World-class Education</em></a><em>, </em>the 2008 joint publication of Achieve, Inc., the National Governors Association, and the Council of Chief State School Officers that called for Washington to implement “tiered incentives” to push states to adopt “common core” standards. Once those organizations formed the Common Core State Standards Initiative they <a href="http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/education-standards-throwdown/">reissued that appeal </a>while simultaneously — and laughably — stating that “the federal government has had no role in the development of the common core state standards<em> and will not have a role in their implementation</em> [italics added].”<br />
Soon after formation of the CCSSI, the Obama administration created the “Race to the Top,” a $4.35-billion program that in accordance with the CCSSI’s request — as opposed to its hollow no-Feds “promise” — went ahead and required states to adopt national standards to be fully competitive for taxpayer dough.<br />
The carnival of convenient contradiction has continued, and Fordham — despite Petrilli’s assertion that “nobody is proposing” that “federal funding” be linked “to state adoption of the common core standards and tests” — has been running it. Indeed, just like President Obama’s “<a href="http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/blueprint/blueprint.pdf" target="_blank">blueprint</a>” for reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act — better known as No Child Left Behind — Fordham’s ESEA “Briefing Book” proposes (<a href="http://www.edexcellencemedia.net/publications/2011/20110419_ESEABriefingBook/20110419_ESEABriefingBook.pdf" target="_blank">see page 11</a>) that states either adopt the Common Core <em>or</em> have some other federally sanctioned body certify a state’s standards as just as good in order to get federal money. So there would be an ”option” for states, but it would be six of one, half-dozen of the other, and the Feds would definitely link taxpayer dough to adoption of Common Core standards and tests.<br />
<span id="more-32423"></span>Frankly, there’s probably no one who knows about these proposals who doesn’t think that the options exist exclusively to let national-standards proponents say the Feds wouldn’t technically “require” adoption of the Common Core. But even if the options were meaningful alternatives, does anyone think they wouldn’t be eliminated in subsequent legislation?<br />
Of course, the problem is that most people don’t know what has actually been proposed — who outside of education-wonk circles has time to follow all of this? — which is what national-standards advocates are almost certainly counting on.<br />
But suppose Fordham and company really don’t want federal compulsion? They could put concerns to rest by doing just one thing: loudly and publicly condemning all federal funding, incentivizing, or any other federal involvement whatsoever in national standards. Indeed, <a href="http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/help-break-my-common-curriculum-fever/">I proposed this</a> a few months ago. And just a couple of weeks ago, Petrilli and Fordham President Chester Finn <a href="http://www.educationgadfly.net/flypaper/2011/05/fordham-responds-to-the-common-core-counter-manifesto/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+flypaper+%28Flypaper%3A+Ideas+that+stick+from+the+Education+Gadfly+team%29" target="_blank">rejected that call</a>, saying that they ”have no particular concern with the federal government … helping to pay” for the creation of curricular guides and other material and activities to go with national standards.<br />
So, Fordham,<em> you</em> are proposing that federal funding be linked to adoption of common standards and tests, and denying it is becoming almost comical. At least, comical to people who are familiar with all of this. But as long as the public doesn’t know, the deception ends up being anything but funny.<br />
Maybe, though, Fordham is getting nervous, at least over the possibility that engaged conservatives are on to them. Why do I think that? Because in addition to belching out the standard rhetorical smoke screen, Petrilli is now employing the’ “look over there — that guy’s really bad” gambit to get the heat off. Indeed, after ticking off some odious NCLB reauthorization proposals from other groups, Petrilli concludes his piece with the following appeal to lay off Fordham and go after people all conservatives can dislike:<br />
<blockquote>We might never see eye to eye with all conservatives about national standards and tests. But we should be able to agree about reining in Washington’s involvement in other aspects of education. How about we drop the infighting and spend some of our energy working together on that?</blockquote>Nice try, but sorry. While I can’t speak for conservatives, those of us at Cato who handle education have certainly <a href="http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=12775" target="_blank">addressed</a> all <a href="http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8680" target="_blank">sorts</a> of <a href="http://www.cato.org/store/books/feds-classroom-how-big-government-corrupts-cripples-compromises-american-education-paperback" target="_blank">problems</a> with federal intervention in our schools. But right now in education there is no greater threat to the Constitution, nor our children’s learning, than the unprecedented, deception-drenched drive to empower the federal government to dictate curricular terms to every public school — and every public-school child — in America. And the harder you try to hide the truth, the more clear that becomes. </div><div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/punish-me-i-didnt-do-anythingand.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-22T12:47:00-07:00">12:47 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=2733199623077742481">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=2733199623077742481&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" height="18" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div></div></div></div><div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a href="" name="8535555304673330064"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/why-fed-ed-fails.html">Why Fed Ed Fails</a> </h3><div class="post-body entry-content"> <div id="header"> <div id="blackband_top_left"> </div></div><br />
<h1><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/why-fed-ed-fails-and-proposals-to-stop-the-madness/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this post">Why Fed Ed Fails, and Proposals to Stop the Madness</a></span></h1><div class="post-author"> Posted by <span class="author vcard"><a class="url fn n" href="http://www.cato.org/people/neal-mccluskey" title="View all posts by Neal McCluskey">Neal McCluskey</a></span> </div>On Monday, we took the word<a href="http://www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=8198"> right to Capitol Hill</a>: The federal government has been an abject education failure, and the only acceptable solution to the problem is for Uncle Sam to leave our kids alone. <br />
At the briefing in which the word was issued, Heritage’s Lindsey Burke and I also examined congressional proposals that could move us closer to the ultimate solution — especially the <a href="http://garrett.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=186575">LEARN</a> and <a href="http://blog.heritage.org/2011/04/19/senators-introduce-new-legislation-to-decrease-federal-intervention-into-schools-a%e2%80%93plus/">A-PLUS </a>acts — and explained why Washington, even if its interference were authorized by the Constitution, will never make education better by staying involved.<br />
Unfortunately, lots of people couldn’t make the briefing. That’s why we are so happy to be able to present the briefing right here, to view in the comfort of your own computer chair.<br />
Enjoy!<br />
</div><div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/why-fed-ed-fails.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-22T12:44:00-07:00">12:44 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=8535555304673330064">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=8535555304673330064&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" height="18" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Why%20Fed%20Ed%20Fails" rel="tag">Why Fed Ed Fails</a> </span> </div></div></div></div><div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a href="" name="5876008183186415468"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/earth-in-balance.html">Earth in the Balance</a> </h3><div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1>Earth in the Balance, Humankind on the Edge: Nathan Myhrvold</h1><div id="article_image_container"> <img alt="Earth in the Balance " src="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/data?pid=avimage&iid=i.4jZ.YVStUo" /> <div id="article_credit">Illustration by Damien Correll </div></div><div class="bview_story_meta"> <cite class="byline">By Nathan Myhrvold</cite>r<br />
<br />
Complacency is baked into our species. We can’t resist thinking that recent experience defines the future. Give us a run of good luck, and we are apt to turn that into an implicit expectation that our luck will continue -- even that we are entitled to it. </div>This kind of thinking was instrumental in the run-up to the financial crash of 2008. Too many private and public institutions assumed that an extraordinary run in prosperity, particularly in the real estate market, was just normal. It didn’t occur to them that things could go so wrong. Even when token stress testing or risk assessment was done, it largely excluded the possibility of a bad shock or a protracted slump. Risk wasn’t systematically measured; it was ignored. <br />
It’s easy to write this off to greed or foolishness on the part of <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/wall-street/">Wall Street</a>. But the truth is, our entire civilization rests on a foundation just as shaky. We assume that the very Earth is static and will always be as it is now, or as we remember it. <br />
Yet geophysics tells us that is emphatically not the case. Bad things happen. In the past couple of years alone, we have witnessed a litany of horrific natural disasters. Early last year, Haiti, already one of the most impoverished places in the world, was slammed by a magnitude 7 earthquake that caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, both directly and as the result of a cholera epidemic that occurred 10 months later during the recovery effort. <br />
<h2>Flights Cancelled </h2>In Iceland last year, a long-dormant volcano erupted, necessitating the cancellation of more than 100,000 flights, and causing an estimated <a href="http://www.iata.org/pressroom/facts_figures/fact_sheets/Pages/volcanic-ash.aspx" rel="external" title="Open Web Site">$1.8 billion</a> in losses across <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/europe/">Europe</a> (but no deaths). Just a few months ago, Japan was savaged by the fourth-most-powerful earthquake ever caught on seismographs and an ensuing tsunami that killed more than 15,000 people, brought down almost 200,000 buildings and (unfairly) tarnished the image of nuclear energy worldwide. This was only seven years after a tsunami in the <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/indian-ocean/">Indian Ocean</a> killed at least a <a href="http://www.livescience.com/147-quake-death-toll-2004-worst-1556.html" rel="external" title="Open Web Site">quarter-million people</a>. <br />
When the Earth itself isn’t tormenting us, the weather is. Within the past few months, the U.S. has been wracked by drought, wildfires and record-breaking flooding and tornadoes; the damage bill will total <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/16/science/earth/16climate.html" rel="external" title="Open Web Site">more than $32 billion</a>. Tuscaloosa, <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/alabama/">Alabama</a>; Joplin, <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/missouri/">Missouri</a>; and, more surprisingly, Monson, <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/massachusetts/">Massachusetts</a>, were flattened by tornadoes, which have taken more American lives this tornado season than in any year <a href="http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/2011_tornado_information.html" rel="external" title="Open Web Site">since 1927</a>. <br />
<h2>A Restive Earth </h2>What’s behind all this terrestrial unrest? The answer may not be comforting, but it is simple: A run of bad events like this is completely normal. Nature contains many phenomena that are usually benign but sometimes turn vicious. The probability that really bad things will happen is low -- but it isn’t zero. Its rarity only lulls people into a false sense of security. <br />
As a result, natural disasters are almost always compounded by human error. The buildings in Port-au-Prince, <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/haiti/">Haiti</a>’s capital, were poorly constructed. That most of them would collapse in a severe earthquake, leading to enormous loss of life, was easily predictable. Worsening the situation, United Nations aid officials staffed the relief effort with personnel from <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/nepal/">Nepal</a>, where there was an ongoing cholera epidemic. Unsurprisingly, those workers brought the disease with them, and so began <a href="http://emergency.cdc.gov/situationawareness/haiticholera/map_1.asp" rel="external" title="Open Web Site">an outbreak</a> that is thought to have so far killed at least 4,700 Haitians. <br />
It’s easy to dismiss this kind of poor response when it occurs in Haiti, which has an infamously ineffective government. But a mortifying degree of incompetence was also on display after <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/hurricane-katrina/">Hurricane Katrina</a> struck <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/new-orleans/">New Orleans</a> in 2005, and again this year when the Japanese tsunami swamped four reactors at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear-power plant. <br />
<h2>Bad Decisions </h2>Someone there had decided it would be safe to build the reactors behind a 16-foot (5-meter) sea wall in an area that experienced 125-foot tsunamis as recently as 1896. Then, in the crucial hours and days following the event, a string of bad decisions caused most of the problems -- the nuclear-plant operators just <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/13/world/asia/13japan.htm" rel="external" title="Open Web Site">didn’t know what to do</a>. <br />
Mistakes are common in big natural disasters. If such events happened frequently, response teams and the people who direct them would have practice, as trauma teams in hospital emergency rooms have. Unfortunately, responders rarely get the opportunity to rehearse large-scale disasters. When the inevitable finally occurs, and a tsunami hits a nuclear reactor, or an earthquake reduces much of a major city to rubble, the people in charge often are caught napping and react ineptly. <br />
<h2>Lucky History </h2>None of these catastrophes came entirely out of the blue. To the contrary, geologic history tells us that we’ve actually gotten off lucky. In 1783, the <a href="http://volcanism.wordpress.com/2011/06/08/on-this-day-the-laki-eruption-begins-1783/" rel="external" title="Open Web Site">Laki volcano</a> in Iceland erupted so violently that it killed perhaps a quarter of the country’s population. That volcano put enough ash into the sky to change the weather in the entire Northern Hemisphere, causing crop failures and famines across Europe, <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/india/">India</a>, <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/japan/">Japan</a>, <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/egypt/">Egypt</a> and <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/north-america/">North America</a> that pushed the total death toll to 6 million. It took almost a decade for the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8624791.stm" rel="external" title="Open Web Site">weather to recover</a>. <br />
Laki isn’t even the worst Icelandic volcano on record -- far larger was the six-year eruption of Eldgja that began in 934. <br />
One could recount many such examples, but people’s eyes tend to glaze over when you talk about something that last occurred in 1783, much less 934. Surely things are different now, they say. The unfortunate truth is quite the opposite -- a millennium ago was yesterday as far as the Earth is concerned, and the relevant phenomena operate as vigorously as ever. Proud as we are of the many technological achievements of modern society, we are actually more vulnerable than ever because we live more densely, within a complex and sometimes fragile web of buildings, roads, bridges and the like. <br />
<h2>No War Games </h2>The military uses war games to prepare for unforeseen contingencies, but there seem to be few civilian equivalents. Unfortunately, people just aren’t built to think about danger that way. A few rare risks -- such as dying in an airplane accident -- loom larger in our imaginations than statistics suggest they should. But we discount other low-probability perils straight to zero. <br />
The lesson is simple to state, but hard to follow: Risks with heavy consequences must be taken seriously even if the probability of their happening tomorrow is low. That means incurring small, but real, costs in the here and now to mitigate the damage from some disaster that may lie far in the future -- even though “far” means beyond the present budget cycle, after the current chief executive officer has retired, or after the current politicians have left office. Only by thinking and training in anticipation of the inevitable can authorities avoid getting blindsided. <br />
</div><div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/earth-in-balance.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-22T10:28:00-07:00">10:28 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=5876008183186415468">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=5876008183186415468&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" height="18" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Earth" rel="tag">Earth</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/in%20the%20Balance" rel="tag">in the Balance</a> </span> </div></div></div></div><div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a href="" name="5478676250767415911"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/washington-whiffs-at-us-foreclosure.html">Washington Whiffs at U.S. Foreclosure Mess</a> </h3><div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1>Washington Whiffs at U.S. Foreclosure Mess: Douglas Holtz-Eakin</h1><div class="bview_story_meta"> <cite class="byline">By Douglas Holtz-Eakin </cite><cite class="byline story_time"><span class="datestamp"></span></cite></div>There is little doubt that the U.S. housing market is hurting; the latest S&P Case-Shiller index shows residential values declined 4.2 percent in the first quarter compared with the previous three months. <br />
The market has struggled, partly because federal policy has wandered all over the proverbial lot. Congress should create a clear and effective strategy for supporting mortgages or, given the remote odds of that happening, let the market stabilize on its own. <br />
Past efforts to buoy the market haven’t worked, but the government is loath to stop trying. The weakness is both an indication of a sputtering economy and the bursting of the housing bubble that the federal government (and both political parties) did so much to promote. <br />
With this in mind, two recent developments in <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/washington/">Washington</a> may provide a clue to the likely future of mortgage regulation. The first was the delivery of a 27-page so-called code-of- conduct <a href="http://www.housingwire.com/2011/03/07/state-ags-settle-with-mortgage-servicers" rel="external" title="Open Web Site">settlement</a> proposal between the companies that service many of the nation’s mortgages and the 50 state <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/attorneys-general/">attorneys general</a> as well as federal agencies. The second was the <a href="http://www.consumerfinance.gov/pressrelease/treasury-department-announces-senior-leadership-hires-for-the-consumer-financial-protection-bureau/" rel="external" title="Open Web Site">appointment</a> of <a href="http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/mullainathan" rel="external" title="Open Web Site">Sendhil Mullainathan</a>, a Harvard University economist, to head the Office of Research at the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. <br />
At the heart of the code-of-conduct settlement is a plan to encourage more mortgage modifications for borrowers who are underwater -- people who owe more than their homes are worth. The attorneys general propose, for example, that loan servicers -- the companies that collect and disburse payments to the investors who hold the mortgages -- modify loans when the investment return would be greater than if the home had been placed into foreclosure. The recommendations also call for servicers to provide as much as $20 billion in aid to homeowners, much of which would be used for reducing mortgage principal. <br />
<h2>Little Part </h2>Here’s the problem: Mandated principal reduction plays little part in preventing foreclosures. Most people want to hold on to their home as long as they can pay the mortgage, even when the property is underwater. A recent Federal Reserve <a href="http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2010/201035/201035pap.pdf" rel="external" title="Open Web Site">study</a> found that borrowers didn’t skip out and default until they owed 62 percent more than the house’s value. In any case, given recent estimates that the mortgage market is more than $750 billion underwater as a whole, a successful principal-reduction policy would require much more than $20 billion. <br />
So, if mortgage modifications won’t work, how about a more market-friendly approach? Mullainathan, a prominent behavioral economist, is the kind of thinker who might be expected to give that a try. His 2008 <a href="http://www.newamerica.net/files/naf_behavioral_v5.pdf" rel="external" title="Open Web Site">paper</a>, “Behaviorally Informed Financial Services Regulation,” written with <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/michael-barr/">Michael Barr</a>, a former assistant secretary of the Treasury; and <a href="http://lapa.princeton.edu/peopledetail.php?ID=331" rel="external" title="Open Web Site">Eldar Shafir</a>, a cognitive scientist at <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/princeton-university/">Princeton University</a>; argued that consumers are “fallible in systematic and important ways.” The goal of federal housing policy, the authors said, should be to correct “social welfare failures,” one of which is the preference for homeownership when renting makes more economic sense. <br />
<h2>Plain Vanilla </h2>Among other things, the paper proposed that the federal government require lenders to disclose mortgage terms (and potential alternative options) in easy-to-understand language, and borrowers to affirmatively opt out of plain-vanilla mortgages. What’s more, Mullainathan and his co-authors proposed making it costlier for mortgage originators to sell exotic loans into the secondary market. That would make it harder for some buyers to get unconventional financing. <br />
Alas, many consumers choose to purchase houses even when it is in their long-term financial interest to rent. So the Mullainathan plan sets up a contradiction: If his proposals were to become law, they would nudge Americans toward renting, while many other existing policies <a href="http://www.fanniemae.com/kb/index?page=home" rel="external" title="Open Web Site">champion homeownership</a>. Furthermore, discouraging buying wouldn’t do much to help revive the housing market. <br />
<h2>Bigger Challenges </h2>Other behavioral approaches face even bigger challenges. Eric Posner, a law professor at the <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/university-of-chicago/">University of Chicago</a>, and <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/luigi-zingales/">Luigi Zingales</a>, an economist at the Chicago Booth School of Business, have <a href="http://www.ericposner.com/A_loan_modification_approach_to_the_housing_crisis.pdf" rel="external" title="Open Web Site">suggested</a> that the government require mortgages to be written down in areas of the country where prices have fallen 20 percent or more. In exchange, lenders would receive a portion of future gains in neighborhood prices. <br />
But why 20 percent? And, what happens if a neighborhood’s prices rise on average, but an individual homeowner is left behind? <br />
Unfortunately, none of the leading philosophies coming out of Washington today on how to change mortgage policy has much merit. The longer the government continues to try telling consumers how to behave, the longer the much-needed housing recovery will take to materialize. <br />
The truth is, there is little the government can do to prevent the painful, but needed, marketadjustment. By moving out of the way and allowing foreclosures to proceed in due course, the markets will eventually clear. <br />
</div><div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/washington-whiffs-at-us-foreclosure.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-22T10:26:00-07:00">10:26 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=5478676250767415911">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=5478676250767415911&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" height="18" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Foreclosure%20Mess" rel="tag">Foreclosure Mess</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/U.S." rel="tag">U.S.</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Washington%20Whiffs" rel="tag">Washington Whiffs</a> </span> </div></div></div></div><div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a href="" name="2795960146752871459"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/john-paulson-subprime-god-flees-muddy.html">John Paulson, Subprime God, Flees Muddy Waters</a> </h3><div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1>John Paulson, Subprime God, Flees Muddy Waters: William Pesek</h1><div class="story_inline assets clearfix "> <cite class="byline">By <a class="author" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/view/bios/william-pesek/">William Pesek</a> </cite><cite class="byline story_time"><span class="datestamp"></span></cite><div class="module author"> <h2>About William Pesek</h2>William Pesek is based in Tokyo and writes on economics, markets and politics throughout the Asia-Pacific region. His journalism awards include the 2010 Society of American Business Editors and Writers prize for commentary.<br />
<a class="more_info" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/view/bios/william-pesek/">More about William Pesek</a> </div><div class="story_inline attachments"> <div class="image thumbnail video"> <div class="thumbnail_container"> <img alt="Muddy Waters' Block Interview, June 7 " src="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/data?pid=avimage&iid=iPKu.lpD.rx0" /> <div class="overlay"> </div><div class="play_video_link"><a class="q" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/video/70563840/" id="70563840" type="Video">Play Video</a></div></div><div class="caption"> June 7 (Bloomberg) -- Carson Block, founder of Muddy Waters Research, talks about the potential for business fraud in China. Block's assertions of financial manipulation by Sino-Forest Corp. preceded a 71 percent plunge in the forestry company’s shares last week. He spoke with Bloomberg's Robyn Meredith in Hong Kong yesterday. Sino-Forest Chief Executive Officer Allen Chan said in a statement the allegations contained in the Muddy Waters' report are "inaccurate and unfounded." (Excerpts. Source: Bloomberg) </div></div><div class="image thumbnail video"> <div class="thumbnail_container"> <img alt="Fitch's Chu `Concerned' About China Banks' Bad Debt " src="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/data?pid=avimage&iid=iUcT2ZRRRZrE" /> <div class="overlay"> </div><div class="play_video_link"><a class="q" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/video/71232108/" id="71232108" type="Video">Play Video</a></div></div><div class="caption"> June 22 (Bloomberg) -- Charlene Chu, senior director of financial institutions at Fitch Ratings, talks about China's banking industry. Fitch in March said its gauge of systemic risk indicated a 60 percent chance of a banking crisis in China by mid-2013. Chu, who also discusses Chinese banks' holdings of Greek debt, speaks in Hong Kong with Susan Li on Bloomberg Television's "First Up." (Source: Bloomberg) </div></div></div></div>Suddenly finance god <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/john-paulson/">John Paulson</a> isn’t looking so omniscient. The New York-based hedge-fund manager was the star of the 2008 subprime crisis, capitalizing on <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/wall-street/">Wall Street</a>’s misrepresentations to the tune of $15 billion betting against U.S. mortgages. Now, fraudsters may have taken him in. <br />
That is, if a June 2 <a href="http://www.muddywatersresearch.com/research/tre/initiating-coverage-treto/" rel="external" title="Open Web Site">report</a> by Muddy Waters LLC is correct and Sino-Forest Corp. lied about its finances. I don’t know, and neither do investors such as Paulson, the biggest shareholder in the Canadian-listed, Chinese timberland owner. Paulson & Co. said this week that it sold all its stock, which has plunged more than 90 percent in the past few weeks. <br />
Even though Sino-Forest rejects claims that it exaggerated its landholdings, investors are taking no chances. That gets at a bigger issue than short sellers trying to undermine one company. The skittishness of markets reflects the sense that we’re one step away from replaying the world financial crisis. <br />
The global backdrop offers no comfort. Post-tsunami <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/japan/">Japan</a> is a mess; the U.S. recovery is faltering; and Europe poses a Lehman Brothers-like risk if <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/greece/">Greece</a>’s debt crisis can’t be resolved. The sudden collapse in confidence in some Chinese investments adds to the anxiety for the markets. <br />
<h2>Dodgy Accounts </h2>Why is it a surprise that some Chinese companies have dodgy finances? One reason we are so quick to assume the worst is that Lehman, after months of vehement denials in 2008, really was a house of cards. Before that, WorldCom Inc. and Parmalat SpA really had cooked their books as Wall Street looked the other way. <br />
So why are markets quick to believe a little-known investor such as Carson Block, the head of Hong Kong-based research firm <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/muddy-waters/">Muddy Waters</a>, when he questions China? Although few short- sellers make lots of money betting against China, the ranks of Carson and his ilk are growing. That’s partly a reflection of the fear that the great Chinese crash is coming. <br />
One worry is that the first wave of bad loans from China’s huge 2008-2009 stimulus is about to hit. The bigger concern is how growth in recent years left the domestic financial system less resilient. China’s expansion relies on a variety of counterproductive policies: an undervalued, nonconvertible currency, off-balance-sheet arrangements to mask debt and ample credit to politically connected firms that don’t necessarily make the most productive use of capital. <br />
<h2>Margin for Error </h2><a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/china/">China</a> does have a rather large margin for error, mostly in the form of $3 trillion in currency reserves. Yet it has made little progress toward developing a more transparent and open financial system. That, too, is making some investors more inclined to short China than to bet on continued growth. <br />
China is less of a market-based economy than a vast family- run business controlled by the political elite, says Fraser Howie, a co-author of the book “Red Capitalism.” It’s important to remember that when a company such as Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. goes public, majority ownership stays with the Communist Party in Beijing. Good corporate governance doesn’t always follow. <br />
Is the new scrutiny of Chinese companies a game changer? “I certainly hope so,” Howie says. “We know China is a difficult and corrupt place to do business, so funny dealings are rife. Certainly small Chinese companies are coming under the spotlight, but will it translate to the big state-owned enterprises as well? That I am not so sure of. I think too many investors will shy away from questioning the big guys.” <br />
<h2>Start Asking Questions </h2>It’s important that investors start asking those questions. As potential irregularities come to the surface, they will fuel a broad reappraisal of corporate-governance practices at foreign-listed Chinese companies. As skepticism and activism widen, China Inc. will be subjected to much more intense scrutiny than in the past. <br />
That would be a plus for China’s long-term development. In the short run, the fact that markets are so riled about reports that a small company like Sino-Forest might be exaggerating revenue hints at the broad erosion in confidence over the fate of the world’s major economies. <br />
China is now the second-biggest economy, but there is a growing sense that it is due for a setback. The country has proved it can live without consumers in Japan, <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/europe/">Europe</a> and the U.S. for a couple of years. But a third or fourth year as the world heads into an economic soft patch or worse? <br />
Everyone liked having a bright spot amid the gloom after the world financial crisis. Now China’s prospects are becoming as murky as the governance of its companies. There’s a reason Block called his firm Muddy Waters. <br />
</div><div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/john-paulson-subprime-god-flees-muddy.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-22T10:24:00-07:00">10:24 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=2795960146752871459">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=2795960146752871459&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" height="18" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Flees%20Muddy%20Waters" rel="tag">Flees Muddy Waters</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/John%20Paulson" rel="tag">John Paulson</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Subprime%20God" rel="tag">Subprime God</a> </span> </div></div></div></div><div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a href="" name="1406037112579581578"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/stocks-little-changed.html">Stocks Little Changed</a> </h3><div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1>Stocks Little Changed on Fed Decision</h1><div class="story_inline assets clearfix "> <cite class="byline"> By Rita Nazareth -</cite><div class="story_inline attachments"> <div class="image thumbnail"> <div class="thumbnail_container"> <img alt="U.S. Stocks Erase Losses as Commodity, Industrial Companies " src="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/data?pid=avimage&iid=iBQNc.uCazCA" /> </div><div class="caption">Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York. Photographer: Ramin Talaie/Bloomberg </div></div><div class="image thumbnail video"> <div class="thumbnail_container"> <img alt="Bespoke's Paul Hickey on Stocks Reaching New Highs " src="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/data?pid=avimage&iid=ivsAkfNounDc" /> <div class="overlay"> </div><div class="play_video_link"><a class="q" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/video/71259200/" id="71259200" type="Video">Play Video</a></div></div><div class="caption"> June 22 (Bloomberg) -- Paul Hickey, co-founder of Bespoke Investment Group, talks about the outlook for the U.S. equity market, investor sentiment and the economy. Hickey speaks with Erik Schatzker on Bloomberg Television's "InsideTrack." (Source: Bloomberg) </div></div><div class="image thumbnail video"> <div class="thumbnail_container"> <img alt="Sandler Sees Stock Market Rally on Glum Conditions " src="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/data?pid=avimage&iid=i0l4K558r0t4" /> <div class="overlay"> </div><div class="play_video_link"><a class="q" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/video/71261060/" id="71261060" type="Video">Play Video</a></div></div><div class="caption"> June 22 (Bloomberg) -- Doug Sandler, chief equity officer at Riverfront Investment Group LLC, talks about the impact of investor sentiment on the stock market and strategy. Sandler speaks with Jon Erlichman and Dominic Chu on Bloomberg Television's "In the Loop." (Source: Bloomberg) </div></div><div class="image thumbnail video"> <div class="thumbnail_container"> <img alt="Fed to Maintain Stimulus After Bond Purchases " src="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/data?pid=avimage&iid=iH5dmU7kLZlw" /> <div class="overlay"> </div><div class="play_video_link"><a class="q" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/video/71271394/" id="71271394" type="Video">Play Video</a></div></div><div class="caption"> June 22 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve officials said they will maintain record monetary stimulus to support a flagging economic recovery after completing a $600 billion bond-purchase program as scheduled this month. The Federal Open Market Committee released its statement today after a two-day meeting in Washington. Peter Cook reports on Bloomberg Television's "Surveillance Midday." (Source: Bloomberg) </div></div></div></div>U.S. stocks were little changed, following a four-day rally for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, as the <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/federal-reserve/">Federal Reserve</a> said it will end its $600 billion bond- purchase program while maintaining record monetary stimulus. <br />
<a class="web_ticker" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=FDX:US" title="Get Quote">FedEx Corp. (FDX)</a>, operator of the biggest cargo airline and considered a proxy for the economy, added 3 percent after forecasting earnings that may top analysts’ estimates as global shipping demand climbs. <a class="web_ticker" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=ADBE:US" title="Get Quote">Adobe Systems Inc. (ADBE)</a>, the largest maker of graphic-design software, slumped 5.3 percent after forecasting profit that fell short of analysts’ estimates. <br />
The <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/s%26p-500/">S&P 500</a> rose 0.1 percent to 1,296.87 at 12:56 p.m. in New York. The benchmark gauge had risen 2.4 percent over the previous four days. The <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/dow-jones-industrial-average/">Dow Jones Industrial Average</a> climbed 4.66 points, or less than 0.1 percent, to 12,194.67 today. <br />
“The economy would have to decelerate materially from here for the Fed to do another round of quantitative easing,” said <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/alan-gayle/">Alan Gayle</a>, senior investment strategist at RidgeWorth Capital Management in Richmond, Virginia, which oversees about $48 billion. “The economy will continue in a low trajectory of recovery. The underlying fundamentals remain in place. We see little downside risk for stocks.” <br />
The S&P 500 surged 24 percent through yesterday since Fed Chairman <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/ben-s.-bernanke/">Ben S. Bernanke</a>’s Aug. 27 speech in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where he foreshadowed the second round of quantitative easing, known as QE, to boost the economy. <br />
<h2>‘Moderate Pace’ </h2>“The Committee will complete its purchases of $600 billion of longer-term <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/treasury-securities/">Treasury securities</a> by the end of this month and will maintain its existing policy of reinvesting principal payments from its securities holdings,” the <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/federal-open-market-committee/">Federal Open Market Committee</a> said today in a statement after a two-day meeting in Washington. “The economic recovery is continuing at a moderate pace, though somewhat more slowly than the committee had expected.” <br />
Bernanke has said record-low <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/interest-rates/">interest rates</a> are still needed to spur a recovery that remains “frustratingly slow” two years after the recession ended. Consumer spending has been held back by falling home values, accelerating inflation and an <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/unemployment-rate/">unemployment rate</a> that rose to 9.1 percent last month. At the same time, Bernanke has said growth is likely to pick up as commodity costs recede and factories overcome disruptions of supplies from Japan. <br />
In a Twitter post this morning, Bill Gross, who runs the world’s biggest bond fund at Pacific Investment Management Co. in <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/newport-beach/">Newport Beach</a>, California, said the Fed at its <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/jackson-hole/">Jackson Hole</a>, Wyoming, meeting in August "will likely hint" at a third round of quantitative easing and an effort to limit borrowing costs through interest-rate caps. <br />
<h2>Home Prices </h2>U.S. home prices fell 5.7 percent in April from a year earlier, signaling the housing market is struggling to recover as foreclosures weigh down values. The decline was led by an 11 percent drop in the region that includes Nevada and Arizona, the <a href="http://www.fhfa.gov/" rel="external" title="Open Web Site">Federal Housing Finance Agency</a> said today. Prices rose 0.8 percent from March, the FHFA said. Economists had projected a 0.3 percent decline from the previous month, according to the average of 18 estimates in a Bloomberg survey. <br />
FedEx gained 3 percent to $91.81. The company is benefiting from a pickup in worldwide shipping and higher pricing. The express unit’s overall revenue per package, or yield, added 10 percent to $22.69 in the quarter through May, FedEx said. <br />
<h2>‘Boxes Are Moving’ </h2>“The FedEx data today is as good as anything,” said Peter Tuz, president of Chase Investment Counsel in Charlottesville, Virginia, which manages $1.5 billion. “Boxes are still moving and that’s a sign that business is getting done.” <br />
<a class="web_ticker" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=KMX:US" title="Get Quote">CarMax Inc. (KMX)</a> gained 6.8 percent to $32.58. The largest U.S. seller of used cars sold more vehicles at higher prices in its first fiscal quarter. <br />
Adobe fell 5.3 percent to $30.31. The company said profit for the third quarter may be as low as 50 cents a share, compared with the 54-cent average analyst projection, excluding certain items. <br />
U.S. corporate profit margins are so high that a return to normal will cut about 3 percentage points a year from any future stock-market gains, according to Pierre Lapointe, a strategist at Brockhouse & Cooper Inc. <br />
Margins in the first quarter were 11.3 percent overall and 13 percent in the non-financial category, based on Commerce Department data. These were the highest readings since 2007, before the latest recession started. Both were about two points higher than the average since the 1970s. <br />
“We see no way around margin contraction,” Lapointe and economist Alex Bellefleur wrote yesterday in a report with a similar chart. U.S. companies are vulnerable even though they are increasingly generating profits overseas, they wrote. <br />
</div><div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/stocks-little-changed.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-22T10:22:00-07:00">10:22 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=1406037112579581578">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=1406037112579581578&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" height="18" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/fed%20decision" rel="tag">fed decision</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Little%20Changed" rel="tag">Little Changed</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Stocks" rel="tag">Stocks</a> </span> </div></div></div></div><div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a href="" name="4810513205823362118"></a> <div class="post-body entry-content"> </div><div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/blog-post_22.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-22T10:21:00-07:00">10:21 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=4810513205823362118">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=4810513205823362118&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" height="18" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div></div></div></div><div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a href="" name="8033402263379287836"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/fed-to-maintain-stimulus.html">Fed to Maintain Stimulus</a> </h3><div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1>Fed to Maintain Stimulus After Ending Treasury Purchases</h1><div id="story_meta"> <cite class="byline"> By Craig Torres and Jeannine Aversa -</cite> </div><div class="story_inline assets clearfix "><div class="clearfix" id="story_tools_top_container"><br />
</div><div class="story_inline attachments"> <div class="image thumbnail"> <div class="thumbnail_container"> <img alt="Ben Bernanke " src="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/data?pid=avimage&iid=ilHD0L9CWAEc" /> </div><div class="caption">Ben S. Bernanke, chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, listens during a Senate Banking Committee hearing on the central bank's semi-annual monetary policy report in Washington, D.C. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg </div></div><div class="image thumbnail video"> <div class="thumbnail_container"> <img alt="Fed to Maintain Stimulus After Bond Purchases " src="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/data?pid=avimage&iid=iH5dmU7kLZlw" /> <div class="overlay"> </div><div class="play_video_link"><a class="q" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/video/71271394/" id="71271394" type="Video">Play Video</a></div></div><div class="caption"> June 22 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve officials said they will maintain record monetary stimulus to support a flagging economic recovery after completing a $600 billion bond-purchase program as scheduled this month. The Federal Open Market Committee released its statement today after a two-day meeting in Washington. Peter Cook reports on Bloomberg Television's "Surveillance Midday." (Source: Bloomberg) </div></div><div class="pdf_link story_attachment"> <a href="http://media.bloomberg.com/bb/avfile/rIuSSkVkHCto"> <span class="link_type_label">Attachment: </span>FOMC Side-by-Side Statements </a> </div></div></div>Federal Reserve officials said they will maintain record monetary stimulus to support a flagging economic recovery after completing a $600 billion bond-purchase program as scheduled this month. <br />
“The Committee will complete its purchases of $600 billion of longer-term <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/treasury-securities/">Treasury securities</a> by the end of this month and will maintain its existing policy of reinvesting principal payments from its securities holdings,” the <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/federal-open-market-committee/">Federal Open Market Committee</a> said today in a statement after a two-day meeting in Washington. “The economic recovery is continuing at a moderate pace, though somewhat more slowly than the committee had expected.” <br />
Fed Chairman <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/ben-s.-bernanke/">Ben S. Bernanke</a> has said record-low <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/interest-rates/">interest rates</a> are still needed to spur a recovery that remains “frustratingly slow” two years after the recession ended. <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/consumer-spending/">Consumer spending</a> has been held back by falling home values, accelerating inflation and an <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/unemployment-rate/">unemployment rate</a> that rose to 9.1 percent last month. At the same time, Bernanke has said growth is likely to pick up as commodity costs recede and factories overcome disruptions of supplies from <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/japan/">Japan</a>. <br />
“Recent labor market indicators have been weaker than anticipated,” the statement said. “The slower pace of the recovery reflects in part factors that are likely to be temporary,” such as supply chain disruptions stemming from the Japanese disaster in March. <br />
The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index was little changed at 1,295.24 at 12:29 p.m. in New York. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note was 2.96 percent from 2.98 percent late yesterday. <br />
<h2>Press Conference </h2>Fed officials will release their economic forecasts for 2011-2013 at 2 p.m. today, and Bernanke plans to hold a press conference at 2:15 p.m. <br />
The Fed left its benchmark interest rate in a range of zero to 0.25 percent and repeated a pledge to keep it there “for an extended period.” The decision was unanimous. <br />
“Inflation has moved up recently, but the Committee anticipates that inflation will subside to levels at or below those consistent with the Committee’s dual mandate as the effects of past energy and other commodity price increases dissipate.” <br />
The <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/u.s.-economy/">U.S. economy</a> grew at an annual rate of 1.8 percent in the first quarter, down from 3.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010, and recent data have shown manufacturing and consumer and business sentiment weakening. <br />
<h2>‘Sit and Wait’ </h2>“Growth in the economy has just not been what people expected,” said Bret Barker, a portfolio manager at Los Angeles-based TCW Group Inc., which manages about $120 billion in assets. “The Fed is going to want to sit and wait and see what is going to happen.” <br />
Bernanke said on June 7 that policy makers will “closely monitor” inflation, while predicting that price increases will ease in the medium term. The <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/consumer-price-index/">consumer price index</a> rose 3.6 percent for the 12 months ending in May, the most since October 2008, as food and fuel prices drove the benchmark higher. So- called core CPI, the index excluding food and fuel, rose 1.5 percent during the same period, the most since January 2010. <br />
“Higher raw material costs” prompted Orrville, Ohio-based J.M. Smucker Co. to boost prices, effective in May, across “key categories including coffee, peanut butter, fruit spreads, oil and various baking products,” Richard Smucker, co-chief executive officer, said in a conference call with analysts on June 9. The company produces Folgers Coffee, Jif peanut butter and Smucker’s jams and jellies. <br />
<h2>No Reason to Expand </h2>Without slower inflation and a bigger deterioration in growth, Bernanke sees no reason to expand stimulus, said <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/julia-coronado/">Julia Coronado</a>, North America Chief Economist for BNP Paribas in <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/new-york/">New York</a>. <br />
“<a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/monetary-policy/">Monetary policy</a> isn’t getting any easier,” Coronado said before the statement was released. “We haven’t met the threshold for quantitative easing three, and the economy is going to struggle to gain traction,” she said, referring to a third round of bond purchases. <br />
Investor expectations for long-term inflation have fallen. Price increases will average 2.53 percent a year for the five years starting 2016, according to a measure of yields on Treasuries indexed to inflation and nominal Treasury notes tracked by <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/barclays-capital/">Barclays Capital</a> Inc. in New York. That’s down from the 12-month high of 2.99 percent on April 14. <br />
Households find little cause to step up spending. The S&P/Case-Shiller index of property values in 20 cities fell 3.6 percent in March from a year earlier, the biggest year-over-year decline since November 2009. <br />
<h2>Hourly Earnings </h2>Also, real average hourly earnings fell 1.6 percent in May from a year earlier, and the Standard and Poor’s 500 Index has fallen about 5 percent from its 2011 peak on April 29. <br />
“We expect the recovery will continue to be slow and uneven, particularly for more moderate-income households,” <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/gregg-steinhafel/">Gregg Steinhafel</a>, chairman and chief executive of Minneapolis- based Target Corp., the second largest U.S. discount retailer, told investors last month. “These households need to see further improvements in housing and income growth before they’ll have the capacity to meaningfully increase their discretionary spending.” <br />
Economists at several U.S. government bond dealers reduced their estimates for second-quarter growth in recent weeks. <br />
Barclays Capital cut its forecast to a 2 percent annual rate from a prior estimate of 3.5 percent, and <a class="web_ticker" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=JPM:US" title="Get Quote">JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)</a> economists reduced their estimate to a 2 percent annual rate from 2.5 percent. <a class="web_ticker" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=GS:US" title="Get Quote">Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS)</a> cut its estimate to a 2 percent rate from 3 percent. <br />
<h2>Core Inflation </h2>The economy’s moderate growth rate combined with rising core inflation measures have left Fed policy in “a zone of inaction,” Goldman Sachs economists said in a report on June 17. It would take a 1.25 percentage point increase in the unemployment rate or a 1 point drop in core inflation to trigger an increase in Fed stimulus, the economists said. <br />
“There is little prospect of either monetary tightening or monetary easing anytime soon,” Goldman Sachs economist Sven Jari Stehn said before the Fed released its statement. <br />
</div><div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/fed-to-maintain-stimulus.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-22T10:18:00-07:00">10:18 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=8033402263379287836">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=8033402263379287836&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" height="18" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Fed" rel="tag">Fed</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Stimulus" rel="tag">Stimulus</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/to%20Maintain" rel="tag">to Maintain</a> </span> </div></div></div></div></div><div class="date-outer"> <h2 class="date-header"><span>Tuesday, June 21, 2011</span></h2><div class="date-posts"> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a href="" name="2285178044689517511"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/return-of-misery-index.html">The Return of the Misery Index</a> </h3><div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="http://dailyreckoning.com/the-return-of-the-misery-index/" rel="bookmark" rev="post-42598" title="Permanent link to The Return of the Misery Index">The Return of the Misery Index</a></h1><div class="byline"><span class="by">By</span> <a class="url fn" href="http://dailyreckoning.com/author/addison-wiggin/" title="View all posts by Addison Wiggin">Addison Wiggin</a></div><div class="entry-content"> <div style="float: left; padding-right: 10px;"><a href="http://dailyreckoning.com/the-return-of-the-misery-index/" rel="bookmark" title="The Return of the Misery Index"><img alt="leadimage" id="leadpic" src="http://dailyreckoning.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/5/files/2011/06/Markets_24.jpg" /></a></div><span class="date"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-20T17:12:34+0000">06/20/11</abbr> Baltimore, Maryland – </span><strong>Here’s a cheery way to begin the week. For a brief moment on Friday, the “misery index” of the Jimmy Carter era reared its ugly head again.</strong><br />
Readers old enough to recall “the misery index” will remember it was computed by adding the inflation rate to the unemployment rate. On Friday, CNBC posted, and Drudge picked up, a brief story about how the misery index stands at its highest since 1983:<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>9.1% unemployment + 3.6% consumer price index = 12.7% misery index</strong></div>What the story did not explain is how government has gamed both elements of the misery index in the ensuing 28 years.<br />
People who’ve given up looking for work no longer count as unemployed. Statisticians make the rising price of steak go away by assuming you buy less steak and more hamburger. And so on.<br />
John Williams at ShadowStats.com still runs the numbers the way they were in those bygone days. Let’s recalculate…<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>22.3% unemployment + 11.2% consumer price index = 33.5% misery index</strong></div>That compares to a peak misery index of 22.0% in June 1980.<br />
If circumstances now feel worse than they did then, if the “recovery” of the last two years seems like a chimera, now you have a statistical glimpse why.<br />
If they don’t feel worse, then you’ve been successful at staying abreast of the trends… and on the “right side of the trade,” for which you should be commended. We’ll do our best to assist you in that endeavor, if we can…<br />
<strong>The source of much of the “misery” in the index, the number of foreclosure filings, fell to a near four-year low in May, according to RealtyTrac. If the “recovery” were for real, this would be because homeowners can once again keep up with their payments.</strong><br />
But the real reason for the low number of filings appears to be that banks are “weighed down by an increasing inventory of seized homes,” as a <em>Bloomberg</em> story put it… so they’re holding off (again) on processing even more defaults.<br />
<strong>In New York State, 213,000 homes are now in severe default or foreclosure, according to figures from LPS Analytics. At the current rate banks are unloading these properties, it will take 62 years to clear the inventory.</strong><br />
In New Jersey, it will take 49 years. In Illinois, Massachusetts and Florida, it will take a decade.<br />
<a href="http://dailyreckoning.com/author/awiggin/" target="_blank" title="Addison Wiggin">Addison Wiggin</a></div></div><div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/return-of-misery-index.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-21T23:40:00-07:00">11:40 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=2285178044689517511">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=2285178044689517511&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" height="18" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Misery%20Index" rel="tag">Misery Index</a>, <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Return" rel="tag">The Return</a> </span> </div></div></div></div><div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a href="" name="1199196779974673787"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/another-lost-decade.html">Another Lost Decade</a> </h3><div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="http://dailyreckoning.com/another-lost-decade-2/" rel="bookmark" rev="post-42629" title="Permanent link to Another Lost Decade">Another Lost Decade</a></h1><div class="byline"><span class="by">By</span> <a class="url fn" href="http://dailyreckoning.com/author/bbonner/" title="View all posts by Bill Bonner">Bill Bonner</a></div><div class="entry-content"> <div style="float: left; padding-right: 10px;"><a href="http://dailyreckoning.com/another-lost-decade-2/" rel="bookmark" title="Another Lost Decade"><img alt="leadimage" id="leadpic" src="http://dailyreckoning.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/5/files/2011/06/Deficit4.jpg" /></a></div><span class="date"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-21T14:07:27+0000">06/21/11</abbr> London, England – </span>An article in <em>The Financial Times</em> yesterday tells Americans they may face a “lost decade,” like the Japanese in the ’90s.<br />
What? We’ve had a lost weekend or two. But how can you lose a whole decade?<br />
But Americans have done it already. Read on…<br />
What’s the hot news today?<br />
Well, the European Central Bank is withholding money from the Greeks. It says they need to get their act together before it will give them more money.<br />
This bit of drama kept markets on edge yesterday. The Dow finished up. It broke a 6-week losing streak last week. So far this week, it seems to be continuing in an upward direction in an irresolute kind of way.<br />
Oil remained down.<br />
US 2-year debt, on other hand, has been in a 10-week winning streak. You know what that means. When the price of debt goes up and the price of oil goes down? It signals a weaker economy.<br />
Not that we especially care. We’ve got our story. And we’re sticking to it until the facts prove we’re wrong. Even then, we might not give it up.<br />
Our story is this:<br />
After a 60-year debt expansion, the developed world – led by the USA – went into a period of debt contraction. This is what we call the Great Correction. We know for sure that debt is being consolidated – at least in the private sector. We know that this will be a drag on the economy for several more years.<br />
We know also that the feds’ efforts to fight the correction are setting up another crisis and correction – this one in the public sector.<br />
So, it looks as though at least two things will be corrected – private debt…and public debt. Beyond that, we’re not sure what excesses, mistakes and absurdities this correction will target. Only time will tell.<br />
So far, all the facts that have come to light in the last 4 years seem to corroborate our Great Correction story. As expected, jobs are few and far between. Consumer spending is weak, as households try to repair their balance sheets. And the economy limps along with negative or barely positive real GDP growth.<br />
What does this sound like to you?<br />
Like Japan, of course, which has been in a Great Correction for 20 years.<br />
And even though the peak of credit in the US wasn’t hit until 2007 we’re beginning to think that the actual correction began in 2000. Since then, jobs, stocks, houses, and the real, per-capita GDP have gone nowhere. In other words, a stealth correction has probably been going on for 10 years already…it didn’t come out into the open until after 2007.<br />
Last week and this week, several articles in the financial press have warned that America might face a “Lost Decade,” similar to the ’90s in Japan. They can stop worrying. We’ve already lost a decade.<br />
Now, another ‘lost decade’ is coming up.<br />
Yes, just look at page 20 of today’s <em>International Herald Tribune</em>:<br />
“Long unemployment lines in US cities could last years, study finds…”<br />
And then the follow-on subhead:<br />
“Report says may areas will need until 2020 to reach pre-recession levels.”<br />
Yes, dear reader… One ‘lost decade’ already completed. Another coming up.<br />
Losing one decade could be bad luck. Losing two begins to look like recklessness. Inattention. Or robbery. Stay tuned…<br />
For the benefit of dear readers, the service level at United-Continental has crashed. We found more professional service at the Anne Arundel county dump on Saturday. The fellow checking our trash was a half-wit. But at least he didn’t get in the way. Believe it or not, they have a kind of TSA security at the dump. They want to be sure people from other counties aren’t throwing out their junk in Anne Arundel County. So, the fellow at the gate checks your driver’s license to see where you live. Pretty soon, he’ll be issued jackboots.<br />
Naturally, our papers were not in order. Our license shows a Baltimore City address. But it didn’t seem to matter, because the guy checking our documents was probably illiterate.<br />
“You can go ahead,” he said politely, ignoring the one and only reason he was supposed to check the papers.<br />
At Dulles Airport yesterday, nobody told us to go ahead. Instead, they all stopped us. It took us an hour of standing in line to check in – Business Class, no less. People in economy were probably lucky to be able to check in at all.<br />
But who cares. It’s still almost a miracle to be able to leave our home in Washington at 4PM and be in London at 6AM the following day. What a boost to our standard of living! This is the kind of miracle that high-octane fossil fuel can give you. You have to burn a lot of energy in order to lift a giant vessel made of thin metal, filled with fat people off the ground. And then fly across the Atlantic Ocean with it!<br />
You can’t do that with solar power…or wood…or batteries charged up from hydroelectric power stations. You can only do it by reaching into the earth and using up some of its stored up calories. And you can only use those calories once. (For reasons we can’t figure out at this hour, the law of conservation of energy doesn’t seem to apply.)<br />
As you will see later this week, the energy revolution of the 18th century boosted output and speeded up GDP growth. Our standard of living – not to be confused with our quality of life – is directly proportional to the amount of energy consumed. All of which is a warm up to where our meandering will take us this week.<br />
Energy use in the US peaked in 1997. Real US GDP peaked a few years later. Since then, it’s been downhill for the economy.<br />
From memory…US GPD didn’t hit 10 trillion dollars until about 2000. Now, it’s about $14 trillion. Nice growth, huh? But wait. We know that a lot of that was phony, debt-fueled growth. It was phony because it raised living standards to a level that people couldn’t really afford. Or to look at it another way, it drew on earnings that hadn’t happened yet…and maybe never would.<br />
But how much of that $4 trillion worth of GDP is real and how much is phony? We don’t know. But we note that the federal deficit is about $1.5 trillion, which is as phony as a $3 bill. Subtract that and you have a gain of $3.5 trillion over 10 years…or about $350 billion per year.<br />
Let’s see, adjust that for population growth. Subtract phony private sector debt-fueled growth too. And properly adjust for inflation. What do you get?<br />
You get a lost decade.</div></div><div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/another-lost-decade.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-21T23:39:00-07:00">11:39 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=1199196779974673787">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=1199196779974673787&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" height="18" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/Lost%20Decade" rel="tag">Lost Decade</a> </span> </div></div></div></div><div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a href="" name="1346138710383307021"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/us-and-pakistan-afghan-strategies.html">U.S. and Pakistan: Afghan Strategies</a> </h3><div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1 class="title"><span style="font-size: 130%;">U.S. and Pakistan: Afghan Strategies</span></h1><strong>By George Friedman</strong><br />
U.S. President Barack Obama will give a speech on Afghanistan on June 22. Whatever he says, it is becoming apparent that the United States is exploring ways to accelerate the drawdown of its forces in the country. It is also clear that <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/geopolitical_diary/20110602-us-pakistan-unending-love-hate-relationship">U.S. relations with Pakistan are deteriorating</a> to a point where cooperation — whatever level there was — is breaking down. These are two intimately related issues. Any withdrawal from Afghanistan, particularly an accelerated one, will leave a <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20100418_afghanistan_campaign_view_kabul">power vacuum in Afghanistan that the Kabul government will not be able to fill</a>. Afghanistan is Pakistan’s back door, and its evolution is a matter of fundamental interest to Pakistan. A U.S. withdrawal means an Afghanistan intertwined with and influenced by Pakistan. Therefore, the current dynamic with Pakistan challenges any withdrawal plan.<br />
There may be some in the U.S. military who believe that the United States might prevail in Afghanistan, but they are few in number. The champion of this view, Gen. David Petraeus, has been relieved of his command of forces in Afghanistan and promoted (or kicked upstairs) to become director of the CIA. The conventional definition of victory has been the creation of a strong government in Kabul controlling an army and police force able to protect the regime and ultimately impose its will throughout Afghanistan. With <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/geopolitical_diary/20100405_karzai_political_reality">President Hamid Karzai increasingly uncooperative with the United States</a>, the likelihood of this outcome is evaporating. Karzai realizes his American protection will be withdrawn and understands that the Americans will blame him for any negative outcomes of the withdrawal because of his <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/geopolitical_diary/20100510_conflicting_objectives_afghanistan_and_pakistan">inability or unwillingness to control corruption</a>.<br />
<h3>Defining Success in Afghanistan</h3>There is a prior definition of success that shaped the Bush administration’s approach to Afghanistan in its early phases. The goal here was the disruption of al Qaeda’s operations in Afghanistan and the prevention of further attacks on the United States from Afghanistan. This definition did not envisage the emergence of a stable and democratic Afghanistan free of corruption and able to control its territory. It was more modest and, in many ways, it was achieved in 2001-2002. Its defect, of course, was that the disruption of al Qaeda in Afghanistan, while useful, did not address the evolution of al Qaeda in other countries. In particular, it did not deal with the movement of al Qaeda operatives to Pakistan, nor did it address the Taliban, which were not defeated in 2001-2002 but simply <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/taliban_withdrawal_was_strategy_not_rout_0">declined combat on American terms</a>, re-emerging as a viable insurgency when the United States became bogged down in Iraq.<br />
The mission creep from denying Afghan bases to al Qaeda to the transformation of Afghan society had many roots and was well under way during the Bush administration, but the immediate origin of the current strategy was the attempt to transfer the lessons of Iraq to Afghanistan. <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/iraq_u_s_iranian_negotiations_surge_and_future_war">The surge in Iraq</a>, and the important political settlement with Sunni insurgents that brought them into the American fold, reduced the insurgency. It remains to be seen whether it will produce a stable Iraq not hostile to American interests. The ultimate Iraq strategy was a political settlement framed by an increase in forces, and its long-term success was never clear. The Obama administration was prepared to repeat the attempt in Afghanistan, at least by using Iraq as a template if not applying exactly the same tactics.<br />
However, the United States found that the Taliban were less inclined to negotiate with the United States, and certainly not on the favorable terms of the Iraqi insurgents, simply because <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20100830_afghanistan_why_taliban_are_winning">they believed they would win in the long run</a> and did not face the dangers that the Sunni insurgents did. The military operations that framed the search for a political solution turned out to be a frame without a painting. In Iraq, it is not clear that the Petraeus strategy actually achieved a satisfactory political outcome, and its application to Afghanistan does not seem, as yet, to have drawn the Taliban into the political process in the way that incorporating the Sunnis made Iraq appear at least minimally successful.<br />
As we pointed out after the <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20110502-bin-ladens-death-and-implications-jihadism">death of Osama bin Laden</a>, his demise, coupled with the <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/geopolitical_diary/20110502-death-bin-laden-and-strategic-shift-washington">transfer of Petraeus out of Afghanistan</a>, offered two opportunities. The first was a return to the prior definition of success in Afghanistan, in which the goal was the disruption of al Qaeda. Second, the departure of Petraeus and his staff also removed the ideology of counterinsurgency, in which social transformation was seen as the means toward a practical and radical transformation of Afghanistan. These two events opened the door to the redefinition of the U.S. goal and the ability to claim mission accomplished for the earlier, more modest end, thereby building the basis for terminating the war.<br />
The central battle was in the United States military, divided between conventional warfighters and counter-insurgents. Counterinsurgency draws its roots from theories of social development in emerging countries going back to the 1950s. It argues that victory in these sorts of wars depends on social and political mobilization and that the purpose of the military battle is to create a space to build a state and nation capable of defending itself.<br />
The conventional understanding of war is that its purpose is to defeat the enemy military. It presents a more limited and focused view of military power. This faction, bitterly opposed to Petraeus’ view of what was happening in Afghanistan, saw the war in terms of defeating the Taliban as a military force. In the view of this faction, defeating the Taliban was impossible with the force available and unlikely even with a more substantial force. There were two reasons for this. First, <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20100830_afghanistan_why_taliban_are_winning">the Taliban comprised a light infantry force with a superior intelligence capability</a> and the ability to withdraw from untenable operations (such as the battle for Helmand province) and re-engage on more favorable terms elsewhere. Second, sanctuaries in Pakistan allowed the Taliban to withdraw to safety and reconstitute themselves, thereby making their defeat in detail impossible. The option of invading Pakistan remained, but the idea of invading a country of 180 million people with some fraction of the nearly 150,000 U.S. and allied troops in Afghanistan was militarily unsupportable. Indeed, no force the United States could field would be in a position to compel Pakistan to conform to American wishes.<br />
The alternative on the American side is a more conventional definition of war in which the primary purpose of the U.S. military in Afghanistan is to create a framework for special operations forces to disrupt al Qaeda in Afghanistan and potentially Pakistan, not to attempt to either defeat the Taliban strategically or transform Afghanistan politically and culturally. With the death of bin Laden, an argument can be made — at least for political purposes — that <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/themes/al_qaeda">al Qaeda has been disrupted</a> enough that the conventional military framework in Afghanistan is no longer needed. If al Qaeda revives in Afghanistan, then covert operations can be considered. The problem with al Qaeda is that it does not require any single country to regenerate. It is a global guerrilla force.<br />
<h3>Asymmetry in U.S. and Pakistani Interests</h3>The United States can choose to leave Afghanistan without suffering strategic disaster. Pakistan cannot leave Pakistan. It therefore cannot leave its border with Afghanistan nor can it evade the reality that Pakistani ethnic groups — particularly the Pashtun, which straddle the border and form the heart of the Taliban phenomenon — live on the Afghan side of the border as well. Therefore, while Afghanistan is a piece of American global strategy and not its whole, Afghanistan is central to Pakistan’s national strategy. This asymmetry in U.S. and Pakistani interests is now the central issue.<br />
When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, Pakistan joined with the United States to defeat the Soviets. Saudi Arabia provided money and recruits, the Pakistanis provided training facilities and intelligence and the United States provided trainers and other support. For Pakistan, the Soviet invasion was a matter of fundamental national interest. Facing a hostile India supported by the Soviets and a Soviet presence in Afghanistan, Pakistan was threatened on two fronts. Therefore, deep involvement with the jihadists in Afghanistan was essential to Pakistan because the jihadists tied down the Soviets. This was also beneficial to the United States.<br />
After the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, the United States became indifferent to Afghanistan’s future. Pakistan could not be indifferent. It remained deeply involved with the Islamist forces that had defeated the Soviets and would govern Afghanistan, and it helped facilitate the emergence of the Taliban as the dominant force in the country. The United States was quite content with this in the 1990s and accepted the fact that Pakistani intelligence had become intertwined not only with the forces that fought the Soviets but also with the Taliban, who, with Pakistani support, won the civil war that followed the Soviet defeat.<br />
Intelligence organizations are as influenced by their clients as their clients are controlled by them. Consider anti-Castro Cubans in the 1960s and 1970s and their beginning as CIA assets and their end as major influencers of U.S. policy toward Cuba. <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/pakistan_anatomy_isi">The Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI) became entwined with its clients</a>. As the influence of the Taliban and Islamist elements increased in Afghanistan, the sentiment spread to Pakistan, where a massive Islamist movement developed with influence in the government and intelligence services.<br />
Sept. 11, 2001, posed a profound threat to Pakistan. On one side, Pakistan faced a United States in a state of crisis, demanding Pakistani support against both al Qaeda and the Taliban. On the other side Pakistan had a massive Islamist movement hostile to the United States and intelligence services that had, for a generation, been intimately linked to Afghan Islamists, first with whole-hearted U.S. support, then with its benign indifference. The American demands involved shredding close relationships in Afghanistan, supporting an American occupation in Afghanistan and therefore facing internal resistance and threats in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.<br />
The Pakistani solution was the only one it could come up with to placate both the United States and the forces in Pakistan that did not want to cooperate with the United States. The Pakistanis lied. To be more precise and fair, they did as much as they could for the United States without completely destabilizing Pakistan while making it appear that they were being far more cooperative with the Americans and far less cooperative with their public. As in any such strategy, the ISI and Islamabad found themselves engaged in a massive balancing act.<br />
U.S. and Pakistani national interests widely diverged. The United States wanted to disrupt al Qaeda regardless of the cost. The Pakistanis wanted to avoid the collapse of their regime at any cost. These were not compatible goals. At the same time, the United States and Pakistan needed each other. The United States could not possibly operate in Afghanistan without some Pakistani support, ranging from the <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20090424_pakistan_facing_reality_risk_pakistan">use of Karachi and the Karachi-Khyber and Karachi-Chaman lines of supply</a> to at least some collaboration on intelligence sharing, at least on al Qaeda. The Pakistanis badly needed American support against India. If the United States simply became pro-Indian, the Pakistani position would be in severe jeopardy.<br />
The United States was always aware of the limits of Pakistani assistance. The United States accepted this publicly because it made Pakistan appear to be an ally at a time when the United States was under attack for unilateralism. It accepted it privately as well because it did not want to see Pakistan destabilize. The Pakistanis were aware of the limits of American tolerance, so a game was played out.<br />
<h3>The Endgame in Afghanistan</h3>That game is now breaking down, not because the United States raided Pakistan and killed bin Laden but because it is becoming apparent to Pakistan that the United States will, sooner or later, be dramatically drawing down its forces in Afghanistan. This drawdown creates three facts. First, Pakistan will be facing the future on its western border with Afghanistan without an American force to support it. Pakistan does not want to alienate the Taliban, and not just for ideological reasons. It also expects the Taliban to govern Afghanistan in due course. India aside, Pakistan needs to maintain its ties to the Taliban in order to maintain its influence in Afghanistan and guard its western flank. Being cooperative with the United States is less important. Second, Pakistan is aware that as the United States draws down, it will need Pakistan to cover its withdrawal strategically. Afghanistan is not Iraq, and as the U.S. force draws down, it will be in greater danger. The U.S. needs Pakistani influence. Finally, there will be a negotiation with the Taliban, and elements of Pakistan, particularly the ISI, will be the intermediary.<br />
The Pakistanis are preparing for the American drawdown. Publicly, it is important for them to <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/geopolitical_diary/20110518-us-unilateral-operations-pakistan-upsetting-domestic-balance-power">appear as independent and even hostile to the Americans as possible</a> in order to maintain their domestic credibility. Up to now, they have appeared to various factions in Pakistan as American lackeys. If the United States is leaving, the Pakistanis can’t afford to appear that way anymore. There are genuine issues separating the two countries, but in the end, the show is as important as the issues. U.S. accusations that the government has not cooperated with the United States in fighting Islamists are exactly what the Pakistani establishment needs in order to move to the next phase. Publicly arresting CIA sources who aided the United States in capturing bin Laden also enhances this new image.<br />
From the American point of view, the war in Afghanistan — and elsewhere — has not been a failure. There have been no more attacks on the United States on the order of 9/11, and that has not been for al Qaeda’s lack of trying. U.S. intelligence and security services, fumbling in the early days, achieved a remarkable success, and that was aided by the massive disruption of al Qaeda by U.S. military operations. The measure of military success is simple. If the enemy was unable to strike, the military effort was a success. Obviously, there is no guarantee that al Qaeda will not regenerate or that another group will not emerge, but a continued presence in Afghanistan at this point doesn’t affect that. This is particularly true as franchise operations like the Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula begin to overtake the old apex leadership in terms of both operational innovation in transnational efforts and the ideological underpinnings of those attacks.<br />
In the end, <a class="strat_tip_off" href="" title="Watch Video: Dispatch: Re-examining the U.S. Withdrawal from Afghanistan"><img src="http://media.stratfor.com/stratfor_images/playbuttonsmall.gif" /> the United States will leave Afghanistan</a> (with the possible exception of some residual special operations forces). Pakistan will draw Afghanistan back into its sphere of influence. Pakistan will need American support against India (since <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110523-chinas-interest-pakistans-gwadar-port">China does not have the force needed to support Pakistan</a> over the Himalayas nor the navy to protect Pakistan’s coast). The United States will need Pakistan to do the basic work of preventing an intercontinental al Qaeda from forming again. Reflecting on the past 10 years, Pakistan will see that as being in its national interest. The United States will use Pakistan to balance India while retaining close ties to India.<br />
A play will be acted out like the New Zealand Haka, with both sides making terrible sounds and frightening gestures at each other. But now that the counterinsurgency concept is being discarded, from all indications, and a fresh military analysis is under way, the script is being rewritten and we can begin to see the end shaping up. The United States is furious at Pakistan for its willingness to protect American enemies. Pakistan is furious at the United States for conducting attacks on its sovereign territory. In the end it doesn’t matter. They need each other. In the affairs of nations, like and dislike are not meaningful categories, and bullying and treachery are not blocks to cooperation. <a class="strat_tip_off" href="" title="Watch Video: Agenda: U.S.-Pakistan After bin Laden"><img src="http://media.stratfor.com/stratfor_images/playbuttonsmall.gif" /> The two countries need each other</a> more than they need to punish each other. Great friendships among nations are built on less.<br />
</div><div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/us-and-pakistan-afghan-strategies.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-06-21T22:27:00-07:00">10:27 PM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=1346138710383307021">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=1346138710383307021&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" height="18" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" width="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> Labels: <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/search/label/U.S.%20and%20Pakistan%3A%20Afghan%20Strategies" rel="tag">U.S. and Pakistan: Afghan Strategies</a> </span> </div></div></div></div><div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a href="" name="1302350813703440244"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-capitalist-is-america.html">How Capitalist is America?</a> </h3><div class="post-body entry-content"> <div class="antre"> <h1 class="headline" dir="ltr" lang="en">How Capitalist is America?</h1><h2 class="author"><a class="author" dir="ltr" href="http://www.project-syndicate.org/contributor/655" lang="en" rel="author">Mark Roe</a></h2></div><div style="float: right; margin-top: -15px;"> <a href="http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/roe4/English" title="Read this in English"> <img alt="English" class="lflag" height="8" src="http://ps-web-images-layout.s3.amazonaws.com/flag_en.png" width="13" /> </a> <a href="http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/roe4/Spanish" title="Read this in Spanish"> <img alt="Spanish" class="lflag" height="8" src="http://ps-web-images-layout.s3.amazonaws.com/flag_es.png" width="13" /> </a> <a href="http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/roe4/French" title="Read this in French"> <img alt="French" class="lflag" height="8" src="http://ps-web-images-layout.s3.amazonaws.com/flag_fr.png" width="13" /> </a> <a href="http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/roe4/Chinese" title="Read this in Chinese"> <img alt="Chinese" class="lflag" height="8" src="http://ps-web-images-layout.s3.amazonaws.com/flag_zh.png" width="13" /> </a> <a href="http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/roe4/Arabic" title="Read this in Arabic"> <img alt="Arabic" class="lflag" height="8" src="http://ps-web-images-layout.s3.amazonaws.com/flag_ar.png" width="13" /> </a> </div><div class="action"> <img class="newsart" height="106" id="newsart" src="http://www.project-syndicate.org/newsart/e/1/f/pa3449c_thumb3.jpg" width="200" /> </div>CAMBRIDGE – If capitalism’s border is with socialism, we know why the world properly sees the United States as strongly capitalist. State ownership is low, and is viewed as aberrational when it occurs (such as the government takeovers of General Motors and Chrysler in recent years, from which officials are rushing to exit). The government intervenes in the economy less than in most advanced nations, and major social programs like universal health care are not as deeply embedded in the US as elsewhere.<div class="instapaper_body"> But these are not the only dimensions to consider in judging how capitalist the US really is. Consider the extent to which capital – that is, shareholders – rules in large businesses: if a conflict arises between capital’s goals and those of managers, who wins?<br />
Looked at in this way, America’s capitalism becomes more ambiguous. American law gives more authority to managers and corporate directors than to shareholders. If shareholders want to tell directors what to do – say, borrow more money and expand the business, or close off the money-losing factory – well, they just can’t. The law is clear: the corporation’s board of directors, not its shareholders, runs the business.<br />
Someone naïve in the ways of US corporations might say that these rules are paper-thin, because shareholders can just elect new directors if the incumbents are recalcitrant. As long as they can elect the directors, one might think, shareholders rule the firm. That would be plausible if American corporate ownership were concentrated and powerful, with major shareholders owning, say, 25% of a company’s stock – a structure common in most other advanced countries, where families, foundations, or financial institutions more often have that kind of authority inside large firms.<br />
But that is neither how US firms are owned, nor how US corporate elections work. Ownership in large American firms is diffuse, with block-holding shareholders scarce, even today. Hedge funds with big blocks of stock are news, not the norm.<br />
Corporate elections for the directors who run American firms are expensive. Incumbent directors typically nominate themselves, and the company pays their election expenses (for soliciting votes from distant and dispersed shareholders, producing voting materials, submitting legal filings, and, when an election is contested, paying for high-priced US litigation). If a shareholder dislikes, say, how GM’s directors are running the company (and, in the 1980’s and 1990’s, they were running it into the ground), she is free to nominate new directors, but she must pay their hefty elections costs, and should expect that no one, particularly not GM, will ever reimburse her. If she owns 100 shares, or 1,000, or even 100,000, challenging the incumbents is just not worthwhile.<br />
Hence, contested elections are few, incumbents win the few that occur, and they remain in control. Firms and their managers are subject to competitive markets and other constraints, but not to shareholder authority.<br />
In lieu of an election that could remove recalcitrant directors, an outside company might try to buy the firm and all of its stock. But the rules of the US corporate game – heavily influenced by directors and their lobbying organizations – usually allow directors to spurn outside offers, and even to block shareholders from selling to the outsider. Directors lacked that power in the early 1980’s, when a wave of such hostile takeovers took place; but by the end of the decade, directors had the rules changed in their favor, to allow them to reject offers for nearly any reason. It is now enough to reject the outsider’s price offer (even if no one else would pay more).<br />
American corporate-law reformers have long had their eyes on corporate elections. About a decade ago, after the Enron and WorldCom scandals, America’s stock-market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), considered requiring that companies allow qualified shareholders to put their director nominees on the company-paid election ballot. The actual proposal was anodyne, as it would allow only a few directors – not enough to change a board’s majority – to be nominated, and voted on, at the company’s expense.<br />
Nevertheless, the directors’ lobbying organizations – such as the Business Roundtable and the Chamber of Commerce (and their lawyers) – attacked the SEC’s initiative. Lobbying was fierce, and is said to have reached into the White House. Business interests sought to replace SEC commissioners who wanted the rule, and their lawyers threatened to sue the SEC if it moved forward. It worked: America’s corporate insiders repeatedly pushed the proposal off of the SEC agenda in the ensuing decade.<br />
Then, in the summer of 2010, after a relevant election and a financial crisis that weakened incumbents’ credibility, the SEC promulgated election rules that would give qualified shareholders free access to company-paid election ballots. As soon as it did, the US managerial establishment sued the SEC, and government officials felt compelled to suspend the new rules before they ever took effect. The litigation is now in America’s courts.<br />
The lesson is that the US is less capitalist than it is “managerialist.” Managers, not owners, get the final say in corporate decisions.<br />
Perhaps this is good. Even some capital-oriented thinking says that shareholders are better off if managers make all major decisions. And often the interests of shareholders and managers are aligned.<br />
But there is considerable evidence that when managers are at odds with shareholders, managerial discretion in American firms is excessive and weakens companies. Managers of established firms continue money-losing ventures for too long, pay themselves too much relative to their and the company’s performance, and too often fail to act aggressively enough to enter new but risky markets.<br />
When it comes to capitalism vs. socialism, we know which side the US is on. But when it’s managers vs. capital-owners, the US is managerialist, not capitalist.<br />
</div></div></div></div></div></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395381545218020265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4966921227529983571.post-54786895914784399532011-05-19T10:52:00.001-07:002011-05-19T10:52:38.634-07:00<div class="post-body entry-content"> <h2 class="post_name" id="post-836"><span style="font-size:180%;">US: Dear Liberals: It’s Your Fed’s Paper Money That’s Thwarting Full Employment – by Ralph Benko</span></h2> <div class="post_meta"> </div> <p><a href="http://www.hacer.org/usa/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/300px-Goldkey_logo_removed.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-837" title="300px-Goldkey_logo_removed" src="http://www.hacer.org/usa/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/300px-Goldkey_logo_removed.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="239" /></a>Last week, the Roosevelt Institute took notice of a massing conservative attack on the Progressives’ Achilles heel: the Fed’s paper dollar system. The Roosevelt’s Mike Konczal wrote, “Conservatives are organizing against a full employment mandate and rallying around the gold standard wing of their party, and I believe it is time progressives and liberals start to play offense.”</p> <p>Konczal is half right and half wrong. But he is more astute than most. Conservatives are rallying around the gold standard wing of their party. But not against a full employment mandate.</p> <p>Konczal hurriedly is convening “The Future of the Federal Reserve Event” this week. Konczal’s a big deal. He is read by Krugman. His blog,<a href="http://rortybomb.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Rortybomb</a>, was recently tapped by Ezra Klein in <em>Time Magazine</em> as the world’s 22nd best economic and finance blog. Reuters’ Felix Salmon rhapsodizes that he is “the Italian <em>Vogue </em>of the economoblogosphere, the best that there is, read by everybody who matters, if nobody else.” And the Roosevelt Institute? Its chief economist is Joseph Stiglitz.</p> <p> </p> <p>The progressive movement now is starting to play offense by … riding to the defense of the Federal Reserve. High time that liberals are rallying to defend their mothership, arguably their most powerful bastion in the federal government. Conservatives indeed are launching a serious critique.</p> <p>A revived supply side movement has captured and secured Fort Knox, the nation’s gold repository. It is using Fort Knox as a base from which to direct heavy fire at the left’s main redoubt, Fort Fed, where the printing presses are spraying an enfilade of deadly QEs.</p> <p>“Conservatives are organizing…and rallying around the gold standard wing of their party.” It began with important initiatives by some nonprofit organizations (with which this writer is professionally associated). Last year the American Principles Project and American Principles in Action<a href="http://goldstandard2012.org/">mobilized</a>. Momentum grew substantially stronger this year when joined by the Lehrman Institute’s web-based <a href="http://thegoldstandardnow.org/">The Gold Standard Now</a>.</p> <p>The movement also strengthened when, at a ceremony at the Capitol Visitor’s Center, Dr. Judy Shelton importantly took leadership of <a href="http://www.soundmoneyproject.org/" target="_blank">Atlas Economic Research Foundation’s Sound Money Project</a>. And the Manhattan Institute convened an <a href="http://blogs.forbes.com/ralphbenko/2011/03/28/the-rise-and-fall-and-rise-again-of-supply-side-economics/" target="_blank">extraordinary gathering</a> to chart the future, introduced by Forbes’ own Steve Forbes, articulating a clearly developing consensus for the gold standard. Only two months ago the<a href="http://teapartypatriots.org/" target="_blank">Tea Party Patriots</a> conducted a full breakout session on the gold standard at its first American Summit, a populist summit attended by thousands, and thousands more by web.</p> <p>Cato Institute re-issued the iconic Gold Commission’s Minority Report, “<a href="http://www.cato.org/case-for-gold/" target="_blank">The Case for Gold</a>,” in e-book form, a report kept available to the public for many years by the <a href="http://mises.org/resources/603" target="_blank">Mises Institute</a>, long a lonely voice for gold. Mises also makes available Jacques Rueff’s crucially important work on monetary policy and the classical gold standard, <a href="http://mises.org/resources/3049/media.aspx?action=author&ID=809" target="_blank">The Monetary Sin of the West</a>.</p> <p>In the media, Forbes.com turned itself into the Fort Knox of cutting edge analysis for the restoration of gold. The <em>Wall Street Journal</em> re-opened its editorial page for significant occasional analysis of gold. The <em>Weekly Standard</em>’s Bill Kristol, from the right, publicly praised the gold standard, (as did the <em>Atlantic</em>’s Michael Kinsley, from the left).</p> <p>The information (<a href="http://truthisliberty.blogspot.com/2011/04/federal-reserve-bloombergs-foia-release.html" target="_blank">downloadable here</a>) from Bloomberg’s successful lawsuit against the Fed under the Freedom of Information Act is causing some of the greatest elite trembling since WikiLeaks. In the “economoblogosphere” <a href="http://thesupplyside.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">The Supply Side</a> became an internationally admired “Drudge Report” on supply side economics, including all things gold standard. (How did <em>Time Magazine </em>miss it?)</p> <p>Libertarian icon Dr. Ron Paul conducted perhaps the most important<a href="http://blogs.forbes.com/charleskadlec/2011/03/21/coming-soon-an-uncontrolled-800-billion-federal-spending-increase/" target="_blank">monetary policy hearing</a> in 40 years on rising prices, featuring three distinguished gold standard proponents: James Grant, Lewis E. Lehrman, and Prof. Joseph Salerno. Conservative champion Rep. Mike Pence, in <a href="http://mikepence.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4392&Itemid=71" target="_blank">a speech before the Detroit Economic Club</a>, said “The time has come to have a debate over gold and the proper role it should play in our nation’s monetary affairs.”</p> <p>Upcoming: The Iowa Tea Party, in concert with American Principles in Action, is <a href="http://teapartybustour.com/" target="_blank">revving up a blitz</a> throughout the first caucus state. One of its featured messages? Gold money is honest money.</p> <p>Upcoming: hearings by the House Domestic Monetary Policy Subcommittee discount window lending practices by the Fed.</p> <p>Bravely facing this onslaught, Konczal cleverly insinuates a counterfactual clause: “against a full employment mandate.” Conservatives embrace gold not “against a full employment mandate” but because, by history and data, gold-based currency has proven itself as the key to the full employment mandate. Conservatives are turning to classical gold convertibility as the authentic proven way of uplifting workers. As the Sage of Mexico, Hugo Salinas-Price, <a href="http://www.plata.com.mx/mplata/articulos/articlesFilt.asp?fiidarticulo=161" target="_blank">has written</a> most eloquently, “the gold standard is the generator and protector of jobs.”</p> <p>As pointed out by Forbes.com columnist <a href="http://search.forbes.com/search/find?tab=searchtabgeneraldark&MT=kadlec" target="_blank">Charles W. Kadlec</a>, writing in the <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703440004575548451304697496.html" target="_blank"><em>Wall Street Journal</em></a>:</p> <p><em>“From 1947 through 1967, the year before the U.S. began to weasel out of its commitment to dollar-gold convertibility, unemployment averaged only 4.7% and never rose above 7%. …</em></p> <p><em>What’s happened since 1971, when President Nixon formally broke the link between the dollar and gold? Higher average unemployment, slower growth, greater instability and a decline in the economy’s resilience. For the period 1971 through 2009, unemployment averaged 6.2%, a full 1.5 percentage points above the 1947-67 average, and real growth rates averaged less than 3%. We have since experienced the three worst recessions since the end of World War II, with the unemployment rate averaging 8.5% in 1975, 9.7% in 1982, and above 9.5% for the past 14 months.”</em></p> <p>When confessed liberal Paul Krugman recently <a href="http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/30/recessions-under-the-gold-standard/" target="_blank">attacked gold proponents</a>it drew <a href="http://www.thegoldstandardnow.org/key-blogs/103--recessions-under-the-gold-standard-how-about-gdp-growth-under-a-gold-standard" target="_blank">this withering response</a> from esteemed economic historian and Forbes.com columnist <a href="http://search.forbes.com/search/find?tab=searchtabgeneraldark&MT=domitrovic" target="_blank">Professor Brian Domitrovic</a>:</p> <p><em>“There’s another fact-defying entry from Paul Krugman. His blog post from January 30 is titled, “Recessions Under the Gold Standard,” and the text manages to undermine both terms in that title. A total of one recession is adduced, that surrounding the panic of 1893, which as they used to teach in school, came about specifically because the US had recently balked at the gold standard and permitted the mass monetization of silver. No “recessions” plural and no gold standard.</em></p> <p><em>You’ve got to look under a lot of rocks to find recessions in the era before the silver purchase act of 1890. For the 1880s, when the US was closest to being on a full gold standard, were the greatest decade of real economic growth in the nation’s history, and the only competition is the 1870s, when the US made the decision to commit to gold. We’re talking 5-6% growth per annum for the long haul.”</em></p> <p>The progressive fairy tale (which they actually seem to believe, and is rather sweet … except for the <a href="http://tolbertreport.com/2011/04/18/liberal-make-them-pay-group-calls-for-guillotines/" target="_blank">calls to guillotine us</a>, probably, dear reader, including you), casts conservatives as miserly creatures looking to squeeze every ounce of work from the sweet, vulnerable, working class at bare (and preferably below) subsistence wages.</p> <p>Not so fast, Mike. That’s all fairy tale. It’s the progressives who have proved too willing to sell out the workers in return for elevating the liberal elites. Conservatives stand for real jobs, more jobs and better jobs. According to the supply side’s narrative the last time we were in power, with Reagan, we formulated and implemented a policy of a strong dollar and lower tax rates. That policy mix, of which gold is an improvement, quickly generated 20 million jobs. The nice thing about our fairy tale is… it’s true.</p> <p>Yes, Mike, the Supply Side is rallying … after being out of power for three Bush terms with benighted, Progressive-scale, 2% annual growth rates. And your people have been in power for years. The unemployment rate is way over 8%. It is understandable that you would feel defensive.</p> <p>The evidence shows your Fed’s papier-mâché money to be a big part of what is thwarting full employment. Honest money — dollars convertible to a defined weight of gold, not “faith-based” Federal Reserve Notes — carries the full employment mandate. That mandate belongs to conservatives, not to the Roosevelt Institute.</p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/05/us-dear-liberals-its-your-feds-paper.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-05-19T10:49:00-07:00">10:49 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=7829382132064664835">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=7829382132064664835" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" width="18" height="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="2657379503309862072"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/05/peruvians-wary-of-humala.html">Peruvians wary of Humala –</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h2 class="post_name" id="post-7862"><span style="font-size:180%;">Peruvians wary of Humala – by Carlos Alberto Montaner</span></h2> <div class="post_meta"> </div> <p><a href="http://www.hacer.org/latam/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/imohages.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-7863" title="imohages" src="http://www.hacer.org/latam/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/imohages.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="168" /></a>Runoffs are never good and never were. Especially for the candidate who provokes greater rejection. The balloting makes clear not what the voter wishes but what he doesn’t want.</p> <p>In a runoff, you vote against someone. For example, the Peruvians gave Ollanta Humala 33 percent of the votes and Keiko Fujimori 22 percent in the first round. Shortly thereafter, a poll revealed that the distance between them when facing each other, one on one, had been reduced to eight points. The latest survey reveals that only four points separate them. The trend favors Keiko.</p> <p>It is inevitable to remember the 2006 elections. In the first round of that contest, Ollanta Humala obtained 30 percent of the votes and Alan García came in second with 24. In the runoff, despite the terrible experience of his first administration (1985-1990), characterized by hyperinflation and corruption scandals, García won with 53 percent of the vote.</p> <p>Why did Alan win, without being destroyed by the bad memories left by his previous presidency? He won because most Peruvians regarded Humala a radical in the mold of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez who might drag the country toward the abyss of the so-called “21st-Century socialism,” a chaotic way to impoverish society, strain human relations and poison international ties.</p> <p>In those elections, Alan García very skillfully campaigned against Hugo Chávez more than against Humala, Chávez’s man in Lima, and achieved victory.</p> <p>Humala learned the lesson, and in this campaign he presents himself as a disciple of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva rather than Chávez. He’s no longer a carnivorous socialist, he says. He insists that he has become tame and vegetarian. But the Peruvians, if we judge by the electoral trends, don’t believe him.</p> <p>When did that transformation occur in Humala’s heart and conscience? Where are the express condemnations of the violations of democratic standards and human rights that happen in Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador — countries that, for now, shape the map of 21st-Century socialism?</p> <p>The Peruvians fear, not without reason, that Humala’s moderation is a disguise. They think that he is the same radical and dangerous wolf he always was, this time clad in a lamb’s wool coat that’s too small for him. His current discourse is not what he really believes in but what has been suggested to him by the voting experts who advise him. They are making him sing a kind of dishonest ideological karaoke.</p> <p>Once installed in Pizarro Palace, suspicious Peruvians presume, Humala will begin the dismantling of the democratic system, the cutting back of freedoms and the substitution of the economic model of market and private property by something similar to Chávez’s model.</p> <p>How? The Fidel Castro-Hugo Chavéz model has a method. First step will be to elevate the level of popular support above 70 percent of the population. That can be done in less than 18 months through the creation of a framework of subsidies and government aid that wrecks the economy but draws loud popular applause.</p> <p>The purpose is to recruit an army of grateful stomachs, for which he would rely on the large economic reserves left by Alan García’s outstanding second term, and the help of Venezuelan petrodollars, now that the barrel of crude exceeds $100.</p> <p>The script then calls for a summons to referenda to reform or revoke the Constitution, to remake Parliament and give the president special powers, until, through a majority vote, the “liberal democracy” enjoyed by the Peruvians, founded on a division of powers and the limitation of authority, is replaced by a “dictatorial democracy,” agreed to and legitimized by the governed. This monstrosity has a precedent in Roman law, when the consuls agreed to turn over all authority to a supreme leader called the “dictator.”</p> <p>Will Humala manage to overcome the fears of most Peruvians? That will depend on the decision made by that high percentage of voters who prefer not to vote or to spoil their ballot rather than opt for him or Keiko.</p> <p>That’s what happened in 2006: Millions of Peruvians who had sworn never to back the APRA pinched their noses and voted for García, to keep Chávez from imposing his will in Peru. In the end, it was a good decision and García governed effectively. It is very likely that the same will happen this time.</p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/05/peruvians-wary-of-humala.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-05-19T10:48:00-07:00">10:48 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=2657379503309862072">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=2657379503309862072" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" width="18" height="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="7546005975646108199"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/05/obama-faces-pivotal-week-on-mideast.html">Obama faces pivotal week on Mideast policy</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1><span style="font-size:130%;">Obama faces pivotal week on Mideast policy</span></h1> <div class="facebookRec"> </div><span name="trackingEnabledModule"></span><span name="trackingEnabledModule"></span><span name="trackingEnabledModule"><div class="columnRight"><div id="relatedInteractive" class="relatedRail gridPanel grid2"> </div></div></span> <div class="columnRight"><div class="relatedRail gridPanel grid2"> </div></div> <div class="relatedPhoto landscape" id="articleImage"> <img src="http://www.reuters.com/resources/r/?m=02&d=20110513&t=2&i=414116033&w=460&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=2011-05-13T174303Z_01_BTRE74C1D7U00_RTROPTP_0_USA" alt="President Barack Obama delivers remarks at a DNC event at Austin City Limits Moody Theater in Austin, Texas, May 10, 2011. REUTERS/Jim Young" border="0" /> </div> <span id="articleText"> <span id="midArticle_start"></span> <div id="articleInfo"> <p class="byline">By <a href="http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=matt.spetalnick&">Matt Spetalnick</a></p> <p> <span class="location">WASHINGTON</span> |<span class="timestamp"></span> </p> </div> <span id="midArticle_0"></span><span class="focusParagraph"><p> (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's bid this week to reconnect with the Arab world after the killing of Osama bin Laden poses a daunting challenge complicated by an uneven U.S. response to the region's uprisings and his failure to advance Israeli-Palestinian peace.</p> </span><span id="midArticle_1"></span><p>Obama on Thursday will give his much-anticipated "Arab spring" speech, the centerpiece of a pivotal week of Middle East diplomacy that also will include talks with Jordan's King Abdullah II and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.</p><span id="midArticle_2"></span><p>By laying out his own vision for a "reset" with the region, Obama aims to counter criticism that he has been slow and inconsistent in dealing with an unprecedented wave of popular revolts that have upended decades of U.S. Mideast policy.</p><span id="midArticle_3"></span><p>But even as he reaches out to a wider Arab audience, he is likely to disappoint many with what will be left out -- fresh U.S. proposals for breaking the impasse between Israel and the Palestinians and getting them back to negotiations.</p><span id="midArticle_4"></span><p>Clashes on Sunday on Israel's borders, where Israeli troops killed at least 13 Palestinian protesters, underscored the depth of Arab frustration over the decades-old conflict, which remains a central preoccupation in the region.</p><span id="midArticle_5"></span><p>Unlike Obama's 2009 Cairo speech that sought to win the hearts and minds of Muslims worldwide after years of estrangement under his predecessor, George W. Bush, the White House insists the address Thursday at the State Department will focus on new flashpoints in the Middle East and North Africa.</p><span id="midArticle_6"></span><p>Less than three weeks after U.S. Navy SEALs killed bin Laden in <a href="http://www.reuters.com/places/pakistan" title="Full coverage of Pakistan">Pakistan</a>, Obama will try to tie together events in the Arab world and put the al Qaeda leader's demise in the context of the region's political transformation, aides say.</p><span id="midArticle_7"></span><p>However, it is unlikely -- according to Obama aides -- that he will use the chance to articulate an overarching strategy to supplant the case-by-case approach to turmoil engulfing U.S. allies like Egypt and Yemen and foes like Libya and <a href="http://www.reuters.com/places/syria" title="Full coverage of Syria">Syria</a>.</p><span id="midArticle_8"></span><p>"The 'Arab spring' has huge uncertainties," said David Makovsky of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, citing an Islamist rise to power as Washington's biggest fear. "So they want to avoid a one-size-fits-all doctrine."</p><span id="midArticle_9"></span><p>IN SEARCH OF A NARRATIVE</p><span id="midArticle_10"></span><p>Even before the bin Laden raid, aides were crafting a narrative on Middle East upheaval for Obama to roll out. Obama, enjoying a boost in his foreign policy standing following the risky assault, will make the case for Arabs to reject al Qaeda's Islamist militancy and embrace democratic change.</p><span id="midArticle_11"></span><p>Aides suggest Obama's speech could carry a veiled warning to <a href="http://www.reuters.com/places/iran" title="Full coverage of Iran">Iran</a>, which he has said cannot be allowed to develop nuclear weapons, that he is a leader who matches words with actions.</p><span id="midArticle_12"></span><p>But Obama's push for democratic reform will remain tempered by a desire to preserve longtime partnerships with autocratic Arab governments like <a href="http://www.reuters.com/places/saudi-arabia" title="Full coverage of Saudi Arabia">Saudi Arabia</a> considered crucial to fighting al Qaeda, containing Iran and securing oil supplies.</p><span id="midArticle_13"></span><p>Obama's critics probably will not be satisfied.</p><span id="midArticle_14"></span><p>"I don't think you can get away with a Mideast policy that just cherry-picks the easy ones," said Elliott Abrams, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and Bush's former deputy national security adviser.</p><span id="midArticle_15"></span><p>Obama's domestic opponents have accused him of acting too timidly in Libya to break the stalemate between Muammar Gaddafi and rebels trying to oust him, and of not being tough enough with autocratic allies in Yemen and <a href="http://www.reuters.com/places/bahrain" title="Full coverage of Bahrain">Bahrain</a>.</p><span id="midArticle_0"></span><p>The administration also is under pressure to take stronger action against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad over his government's violent crackdown on a pro-democracy protests.</p><span id="midArticle_1"></span><p>It's obviously a very fluid situation and every country is different," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.</p><span id="midArticle_2"></span><p>PEACE EFFORTS STALLED</p><span id="midArticle_3"></span><p>Obama's advisers had weighed using Thursday's speech to present a new formula for restarting long-stalled peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.</p><span id="midArticle_4"></span><p>That was put on hold after a reconciliation deal between the Palestinian Authority and the Hamas Islamist movement, an accord Netanyahu denounced on Monday as a barrier to peace. The resignation last week of Obama's Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, further underscored faltering diplomatic prospects.</p><span id="midArticle_5"></span><p>Obama raised Arab expectations for a more active and even-handed U.S. role when he took office but the mood soured when he backed down from confronting Israel over settlement building in the occupied West Bank. His unmet pledge to shut the prison at Guantanamo also has drawn Muslim criticism.</p><span id="midArticle_6"></span><p>While Obama is expected to recommit broadly to seeking Israeli-Palestinian peace in his speech and during talks with Netanyahu on Friday, there are no plans to seek major Israeli concessions for now. Nor has the right-wing Israeli leader given any sign concessions would be forthcoming.</p><span id="midArticle_7"></span><p>Pushing Netanyahu would risk alienating Israel's support base among the U.S. public and in Congress as Obama seeks re-election in 2012. Relations between Obama and Netanyahu already have been strained and both want to smooth over ties.</p><span id="midArticle_8"></span><p>Obama will address the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC on Sunday to stress the "unshakeable bond" between Israel and the United States, the White House said. That gives Obama a chance to pre-empt Netanyahu's speech to Congress two days later.</p><span id="midArticle_9"></span><p>Jordan's monarch, expected to voice Arab frustrations over U.S. peace efforts when he meets Obama on Tuesday, said in Washington the peace process was the region's "core issue."</p><span id="midArticle_10"></span><p>With Arabs increasingly resigned to the limits of what they can expect from Obama, analysts in the Middle East question whether many will even be paying close attention on Thursday.</p><span id="midArticle_11"></span><p>The White House already has cautioned against the notion that the speech -- which some U.S. media have dubbed "Cairo II" -- will be on par with his enthusiastically received address in the Egyptian capital nearly two years ago.</p><span id="midArticle_12"></span><p>"People in the region who put a lot of hope in Obama and his rhetoric have been disillusioned by his actual policies," said Mouin Rabbani, an independent Middle East analyst based in Amman. "They may not be interested in tuning in for more."</p></span> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/05/obama-faces-pivotal-week-on-mideast.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-05-19T10:26:00-07:00">10:26 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=7546005975646108199">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=7546005975646108199" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" width="18" height="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="6233242092796599105"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/05/legal-woes-could-derail-lagardes-imf.html">Legal woes could derail Lagarde's IMF prospects</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1> <span style="font-size:130%;">Legal woes could derail Lagarde's IMF prospects</span></h1> <div class="facebookRec"> </div> <span name="trackingEnabledModule"><div class="columnRight"><div class="relatedRail gridPanel grid2"><div id="relatedVideo" class="module"> <div class="moduleHeader"><h3>Related Video</h3></div> <div class="moduleBody"> <div class="feature"> <div class="photo"><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/video/idUSTRE74I3U820110519?videoId=210946631"><img src="http://www.reuters.com/resources/r/?d=20110519&i=210946631&w=140&r=20302439&t=2" alt="Video" width="140" border="0" height="80" /><img class="overlay" src="http://www.reuters.com/resources_v2/images/video_overlay_140.gif" alt="" width="140" border="0" height="80" /></a></div> <h2><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/video/idUSTRE74I3U820110519?videoId=210946631">Search for IMF Strauss-Kahn successor</a></h2> </div> </div> </div> </div></div></span> <span name="trackingEnabledModule"> <div class="columnRight"><div id="relatedInteractive" class="relatedRail gridPanel grid2"> </div></div></span> <div class="columnRight"><div class="relatedRail gridPanel grid2"> </div></div> <div class="relatedPhoto landscape" id="articleImage"> <img src="http://www.reuters.com/resources/r/?m=02&d=20110519&t=2&i=418017943&w=460&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=2011-05-19T170439Z_01_BTRE74I12HK00_RTROPTP_0_FRANCE" alt="France's Finance and Economy Minister Christine Lagarde (C), surrounded by the media, leaves a Parisian food and goods retailer after a visit focused on French employer's subsidies of meal coupons or restaurant tickets in Paris May 19, 2011. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier" border="0" /> </div> <span id="articleText"> <span id="midArticle_start"></span> <div id="articleInfo"> <p class="byline">By <a href="http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=daniel.flynn&">Daniel Flynn</a></p> <p> <span class="location">PARIS</span> | <span class="timestamp"></span> </p> </div> <span id="midArticle_0"></span><span class="focusParagraph"><p> (Reuters) - Christine Lagarde's deft handling of the G20 presidency has made the French finance minister a frontrunner to become the first woman to run the IMF, but a potential legal inquiry could upset her chances.</p> </span><span id="midArticle_1"></span><p>With Europe pushing hard to retain the IMF leadership in the wake of Frenchman Dominique Strauss-Kahn's resignation after his arrest for attempted rape, Lagarde has emerged as Europe's strongest candidate to fend off the claim of emerging economies.</p><span id="midArticle_2"></span><p>Her fluent English and more than two decades of practicing law in Chicago are likely to boost her transatlantic appeal.</p><span id="midArticle_3"></span><p>However, her chances could be undermined by a legal row, unlikely to be resolved before June at the earliest, over her decision to settle a dispute between the state and businessman Bernard Tapie, a personal friend of President Nicolas Sarkozy.</p><span id="midArticle_4"></span><p>Lagarde denies any misconduct, and there is no suggestion of personal profit. But legal trouble could make her unacceptable to the IMF as it tries to polish its image after Strauss-Kahn's dramatic fall from grace.</p><span id="midArticle_5"></span><p>"This weighs on Lagarde's candidacy. I don't see anyone putting someone with an affair like this looming over them at the head of the IMF," said one French parliamentary source. "Lagarde would be legitimate if it wasn't for the Tapie case."</p><span id="midArticle_6"></span><p>Lagarde has won admirers from Washington to Beijing for skillfully balancing the interests of the world's major economies under France's Group of 20 presidency while making progress on guidelines to avoid a repeat of the global financial crisis.</p><span id="midArticle_7"></span><p>Lagarde, 55, has also received plaudits for her instrumental role in approving a bailout mechanism to aid struggling members of the <a href="http://www.reuters.com/subjects/euro-zone" title="Full coverage of Euro Zone">euro zone</a> last May, making her well-placed to lead the multilateral lender as it grapples with Europe's debt crisis.</p><span id="midArticle_8"></span><p>Officials in Berlin say Lagarde is liked and respected by Chancellor Angela Merkel, while European colleagues such as Swedish Finance Minister Anders Borg back her for the job.</p><span id="midArticle_9"></span><p>In <a href="http://www.reuters.com/places/france" title="Full coverage of France">France</a>, officials say that, though her appointment would deprive Sarkozy of a popular minister ahead of the 2012 presidential election, it would also hand him a powerful ally to promote his agenda for the G20 and the euro zone crisis.</p><span id="midArticle_10"></span><p>Next week's Group of Eight summit in France gives Sarkozy the perfect opportunity to lobby the leaders of most of the IMF's main stakeholders on Lagarde's behalf, if he chooses to.</p><span id="midArticle_11"></span><p>In a Reuters poll, 32 of 56 economists said Lagarde was the person most likely to be named to the post.</p><span id="midArticle_12"></span><p>"Lagarde is Europe's joker in the pack. No one else has her profile," said one source close to IMF thinking. "The main problem is her judicial case. The most important thing for the IMF Board right now is a clean bill of health."</p><span id="midArticle_13"></span><p>TIMING CRUCIAL</p><span id="midArticle_14"></span><p>On May 10, a public prosecutor recommended a full judicial enquiry into Lagarde's role in awarding a 285 million euro payout to Tapie, a former left-wing minister whose support for Sarkozy's 2007 presidential campaign helped to discredit his Socialist rival.</p><span id="midArticle_15"></span><p>Tapie had sued the government, alleging that the former state-owned bank Credit Lyonnais had defrauded him during the sale of his stake in the sports company Adidas in 1993.</p><span id="midArticle_0"></span><p>Opposition deputies accused Lagarde of abuse of authority after she dropped a legal battle with Tapie in a bid to end the long-running case and submitted it to an arbitration panel, overruling officials in her ministry.</p><span id="midArticle_1"></span><p>The prosecutor alleges that Lagarde ignored recommendations to check if the arbitration process was legal, and refused recommendations to appeal against the hefty compensation award.</p><span id="midArticle_2"></span><p>Three judges now have to decide whether to proceed with the case against her or drop it.</p><span id="midArticle_3"></span><p>"There is no deadline on the statutes but this should take around a month," said a prosecutor. "It's almost impossible for them to take a quick decision, given how technical the case is."</p><span id="midArticle_4"></span><p>Lagarde says others are trying to sully her reputation, and even some leading opposition politicians have expressed regret that she is under scrutiny, saying the ultimate decision to go to arbitration came from Sarkozy's office.</p><span id="midArticle_5"></span><p>Timing could be crucial. If the IMF seeks to fill the post quickly to turn the page on the sex scandal and press ahead with its European rescue packages, that could rule Lagarde out.</p><span id="midArticle_6"></span><p>"It could take a while until she's clear and that could be a problem as far as the IMF is concerned," said Jacques Reland of the Global Policy Institute. "Otherwise, she has most of the qualities for the job."</p><span id="midArticle_7"></span><p>U.S. Secretary of State Timothy Geithner appeared to give Lagarde breathing space on Wednesday by suggesting the IMF should name an internal head on an interim basis.</p><span id="midArticle_8"></span><p>But Merkel said on Thursday that, while she wanted a European in the job, it was important to find a quick solution.</p><span id="midArticle_9"></span><p>A final deadline could be September 1, when acting managing director John Lipsky's term ends. This could leave the IMF rudderless as the naming of a new deputy is the prerogative of the managing director, not the Board.</p><span id="midArticle_10"></span><p>SKILFUL NEGOTIATOR</p><span id="midArticle_11"></span><p>Europeans, who have controlled the Washington-based lender since its creation in 1945, insist that it must be a European who does the job at a time when the IMF is heavily involved in the "old Continent's" debt crisis.</p><span id="midArticle_12"></span><p>Lagarde would be likely to continue Strauss-Kahn's policy, which softened the Fund's "orthodox" approach to stabilization policy and opposed debt restructuring in Europe.</p><span id="midArticle_13"></span><p>Though Lagarde is not a trained economist, her strengths include stamina, negotiating skills and flawless English.</p><span id="midArticle_14"></span><p>Lagarde has refused to comment on reports of her candidacy, though she is understood to be welcome the prospect of a return to the United States, where she worked as the first female head of the Chicago law firm Baker & Mackenzie before being recruited in 2005 by France's then-prime minister, Dominique de Villepin.</p><span id="midArticle_15"></span><p>One senior European source said Lagarde already had backing from Washington and several large developing countries.</p><span id="midArticle_0"></span><p>The court case is one of very few blemishes in Lagarde's four years as minister -- the second-longest tenure of any French finance minister of modern times.</p><span id="midArticle_1"></span><p>She has made a handful of gaffes -- angering the French by telling them to take to bicycles when fuel prices rose -- and recently had an investment called briefly into question.</p><span id="midArticle_2"></span><p>"Christine Lagarde is an extremely well-qualified candidate ... It would be inappropriate to decide to go for someone who is less qualified simply because they are non European," said DeAnne Julius, head of the Chatham House think-tank.</p><span id="midArticle_3"></span><p>"I'm always in favor of a qualified woman getting a high profile job, so I think that would be an added plus."</p><span id="midArticle_4"></span><p>Former Turkish economy minister Kemal Dervis is regarded as her main rival, combining impeccable emerging market credentials with experience of the World Bank and United Nations.</p></span> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/05/legal-woes-could-derail-lagardes-imf.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-05-19T10:22:00-07:00">10:22 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=6233242092796599105">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=6233242092796599105" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" width="18" height="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="8447160103099002397"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/05/wall-street-flat-on-data-linkedin-soars.html">Wall Street flat on data; LinkedIn soars in debut</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1>Wall Street flat on data; LinkedIn soars in debut</h1> <div class="facebookRec"> </div><span name="trackingEnabledModule"></span><span name="trackingEnabledModule"></span><span name="trackingEnabledModule"><div class="columnRight"><div id="relatedInteractive" class="relatedRail gridPanel grid2"> </div></div></span> <div class="columnRight"><div class="relatedRail gridPanel grid2"> </div></div> <div class="relatedPhoto landscape" id="articleImage"> <img src="http://www.reuters.com/resources/r/?m=02&d=20110519&t=2&i=417831813&w=460&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=2011-05-19T112845Z_01_BTRE74I0OBF00_RTROPTP_0_MARKETS-STOCKSNEWS" alt="A flag flies on outside of the New York Stock Exchange building in New York May 6, 2010. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson" border="0" /> </div> <span id="articleText"> <span id="midArticle_start"></span> <div id="articleInfo"> <p class="byline">By <a href="http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=chuck.mikolajczak&">Chuck Mikolajczak</a></p> <p> <span class="location">NEW YORK</span> |<span class="timestamp"></span> </p> </div> <span id="midArticle_0"></span><span class="focusParagraph"><p> (Reuters) - U.S. stocks barely budged on Thursday after a mixed bag of economic data kept confidence in the economic recovery on shaky ground, but LinkedIn's shares surged in their Wall Street debut.</p> </span><span id="midArticle_1"></span><p>Economic data painted a cloudy picture after weekly jobless claims suggested the labor market was on track for recovery, but factory activity in the U.S. Mid-Atlantic region grew much more slowly than expected in May. In addition, sales of previously owned U.S. homes fell in April in a sign the <a href="http://www.reuters.com/subjects/housing-market" title="Full coverage of the housing market">housing market</a> is still struggling.</p><span id="midArticle_2"></span><p>"We continue to see the rate of growth slow. That has been the prevailing trend for the last three or four weeks and the Philly Fed is adding to that pressure," said Marc Pado, U.S. market strategist at Cantor Fitzgerald & Co in San Francisco.</p><span id="midArticle_3"></span><p>"With <a href="http://www.reuters.com/finance/earnings" title="Full coverage of Earnings">earnings</a> season mostly behind us, it's been difficult to find or identify a catalyst that will take you to the next level, not without at least consolidating or absorbing some of the information and getting through some time."</p><span id="midArticle_4"></span><p>In their public trading debut, shares of LinkedIn Corp (<span id="symbol_LNKD.N_0"><a href="http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=LNKD.N">LNKD.N</a></span>) more than doubled their IPO price in a jump reminiscent of the heyday of investors' love affair with Internet stocks. The stock rocketed to an intraday high of $121.97 -- or as much as 171 percent above its initial offering price of $45.</p><span id="midArticle_5"></span><p>The Dow Jones industrial average <a href="http://www.reuters.com/finance/markets/index?symbol=us%21dji">.DJI</a> rose 20,43 points, or 0.16 percent, to 12,586.61. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <a href="http://www.reuters.com/finance/markets/index?symbol=us%21spx">.SPX</a> inched up 0.46 of a point, or 0.03 percent, to 1,341.14. The Nasdaq Composite Index <a href="http://www.reuters.com/finance/markets/index?symbol=us%21comp">.IXIC</a> was up 2.93 points, or 0.10 percent, to 2,817.93.</p><span id="midArticle_6"></span><p>Semiconductor shares fell after Goldman Sachs cut its rating on Intel Corp (<span id="symbol_INTC.O_4"><a href="http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=INTC.O">INTC.O</a></span>) to "sell" from "neutral," citing slowing processor shipments, rising competition and record capital expenditure levels this year. The firm also lowered its rating on Applied Materials (<span id="symbol_AMAT.O_5"><a href="http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AMAT.O">AMAT.O</a></span>) as part of a wider downgrade on the semiconductor equipment sector.</p><span id="midArticle_7"></span><p>Intel shares lost 1.4 percent to $23.55 and Applied Materials dropped 1.7 percent to $14.26. The PHLX semiconductor index .SOX declined 1 percent.</p><span id="midArticle_8"></span><p>Stocks, bonds, gold and the euro are expected to fall in the three months after the end of the Fed's second massive bond-buying operation, also known as quantitative easing, or QE2, a Reuters poll of 64 analysts and fund managers found on Thursday.</p></span> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/05/wall-street-flat-on-data-linkedin-soars.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-05-19T10:20:00-07:00">10:20 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=8447160103099002397">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=8447160103099002397" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" width="18" height="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="1412218037684615668"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/05/obama-seeks-to-recast-ties-with.html">Obama seeks to recast ties with skeptical Arab world</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1>Obama seeks to recast ties with skeptical Arab world</h1> <div class="facebookRec"> </div> <span name="trackingEnabledModule"><div class="columnRight"><div class="relatedRail gridPanel grid2"><div id="relatedVideo" class="module"> <div class="moduleHeader"><h3>Related Video</h3></div> <div class="moduleBody"> <div class="feature"> <div class="photo"><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/video/idUSTRE74A48V20110519?videoId=210883954"><img src="http://www.reuters.com/resources/r/?d=20110518&i=210883954&w=140&r=20219756&t=2" alt="Video" width="140" border="0" height="80" /><img class="overlay" src="http://www.reuters.com/resources_v2/images/video_overlay_140.gif" alt="" width="140" border="0" height="80" /></a></div> <h2><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/video/idUSTRE74A48V20110519?videoId=210883954">Obama: Mideast Peace "more vital than ever"</a></h2> </div> </div> </div> </div></div></span> <span name="trackingEnabledModule"> <div class="columnRight"><div id="relatedInteractive" class="relatedRail gridPanel grid2"> </div></div></span> <div class="columnRight"><div class="relatedRail gridPanel grid2"> </div></div> <div class="relatedPhoto landscape" id="articleImage"> <img src="http://www.reuters.com/resources/r/?m=02&d=20110519&t=2&i=418008014&w=460&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=2011-05-19T164347Z_01_BTRE74I1AH700_RTROPTP_0_OBAMA-MIDEAST" alt="President Barack Obama delivers a speech about United States' policy on the Middle East and North Africa at the State Department in Washington May 19, 2011. REUTERS/Jason Reed" border="0" /> </div> <span id="articleText"> <span id="midArticle_start"></span> <div id="articleInfo"> <p class="byline">By <a href="http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=matt.spetalnick&">Matt Spetalnick</a></p> <p> <span class="location">WASHINGTON</span> |<span class="timestamp"></span> </p> </div> <span id="midArticle_0"></span><span class="focusParagraph"><p> (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Thursday invoked the killing of Osama bin Laden as a chance to recast relations with the Arab world and said the top U.S. priority was to promote democratic change across the region.</p> </span><span id="midArticle_1"></span><p>Obama, in his much-anticipated "Arab spring" speech, also ratcheted up pressure on Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, saying for the first time that he must stop a crackdown on protests and lead a democratic transition "or get out of the way."</p><span id="midArticle_2"></span><p>He hailed popular unrest sweeping the Middle East as a "historic opportunity" and said the U.S. future was bound to that of the region now caught up in unprecedented upheaval.</p><span id="midArticle_3"></span><p>"The people have risen up to demand their basic human rights. Two leaders have stepped aside. More may follow," Obama told an audience of U.S. and foreign diplomats at the State Department in Washington.</p><span id="midArticle_4"></span><p>His bid to reset ties with the Arab world also faced skepticism over what many have perceived as a hesitant and uneven response to the region's uprisings that threaten both U.S. friends and foes.</p><span id="midArticle_5"></span><p>Struggling to regain the initiative in a week of intense Middle East diplomacy, Obama was seizing an opportunity to reach out to the Arab world in the wake of the death of Osama bin Laden at the hands of U.S. Navy SEAL commandos.</p><span id="midArticle_6"></span><p>"We have dealt al Qaeda a huge blow by killing its leader," Obama said. "Bin Laden was not a martyr, he was a mass murderer ... Bin Laden and his murderous vision won some adherents but even before his death al Qaeda was losing its struggle for relevance."</p><span id="midArticle_7"></span><p>Seeking to back democratic reform with economic incentives, Obama planned to announced billions of dollars in aid for Egypt and <a href="http://www.reuters.com/places/tunisia" title="Full coverage of Tunisia">Tunisia</a> to bolster their political transitions after revolts toppled autocratic leaders.</p><span id="midArticle_8"></span><p>Obama's speech was his first major attempt to put the anti-government protests that have swept the Middle East in the context of U.S. national interests.</p><span id="midArticle_9"></span><p>He has scrambled to keep pace with still-unfolding events that have ousted long-time leaders in Egypt and Tunisia, threatened those in Yemen and <a href="http://www.reuters.com/places/bahrain" title="Full coverage of Bahrain">Bahrain</a> and engulfed Libya in civil war where the United States and other powers unleashed a bombing campaign.</p></span> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/05/obama-seeks-to-recast-ties-with.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-05-19T10:16:00-07:00">10:16 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=1412218037684615668">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=1412218037684615668" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" width="18" height="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="8652199461746664584"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/05/strauss-kahn-resigns-as-imf-chief.html">Strauss-Kahn Resigns as IMF Chief</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/05/strauss-kahn-resigns-as-imf-chief.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-05-19T10:12:00-07:00">10:12 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=8652199461746664584">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=8652199461746664584" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" width="18" height="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="3663066760113619735"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/05/obama-middle-east-support-is-priority.html">Obama: Middle East Support is Priority</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/05/obama-middle-east-support-is-priority.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-05-19T10:11:00-07:00">10:11 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=3663066760113619735">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=3663066760113619735" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" width="18" height="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="1819183916184500469"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/05/obamas-middle-east-speech.html">Obama’s Middle East Speech</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1 class="entry-title">Obama’s Middle East Speech Has Many American Audiences</h1> <address class="byline author vcard">By <a href="http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/author/michael-d-shear/" class="url fn" title="See all posts by MICHAEL D. SHEAR">MICHAEL D. SHEAR</a></address> <div class="entry-content"><div class="w480"><img id="100000000826281" src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/05/20/us/20obamaspan/20obamaspan-blog480.jpg" alt="President Obama spoke about Middle East policy at the State Department on Thursday." width="480" height="320" /><span class="credit">Doug Mills/The New York Times</span><span class="caption">President Obama spoke about Middle East policy at the State Department on Thursday.</span></div> <p>Thursday’s speech by <a class="tickerized" title="More articles about Barack Obama." href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/barack_obama/index.html?inline=nyt-per">President Obama</a> on the upheaval in the Middle East is aimed at a global audience. But it will also play out in a domestic — and political — context as Mr. Obama seeks a second term in the White House.</p> <p>Since taking office, Mr. Obama has sought to strike a balance between reaching out to the Muslim world while also combating terrorism and pushing for progress toward peace between Israel and the <a class="tickerized" title="More articles about Palestinians." href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/p/palestinians/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier">Palestinians</a>. The as-yet unfulfilled promise of that approach, which he described in a speech in Cairo in 2009, helped win him the Nobel Peace Prize early in his presidency.</p> <p>But the effort to construct a cohesive narrative for American voters about his administration’s efforts in the region has proved more difficult. The peace process has been largely halted. The move away from Bush-era terrorism policies has gone more slowly than expected. And the uprisings in the Arab world have forced case-by-case decisions that sometimes appear contradictory.</p> <p>“They need to make the case for why all of this stuff matters to Americans and give some narrative that makes sense for all the different things we are doing,” said Marc Lynch, the director of the Institute for Middle East Studies at <a class="tickerized" title="More articles about George Washington University" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/g/george_washington_university/index.html?inline=nyt-org">George Washington University</a>.<span id="more-148767"></span></p> <p>Mr. Obama’s decision to launch the raid in Pakistan that killed <a class="tickerized" title="More articles about Osama bin Laden." href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/osama_bin_laden/index.html?inline=nyt-per">Osama bin Laden</a> has clearly helped to define for Americans a new Obama story in the region. Thursday’s speech will give the president the opportunity to put those actions in a broader context, Mr. Lynch said.</p> <p>Jewish voters are a small but critical Democratic constituency in terms of both votes and fund-raising; Mr. Obama, a Democrat, won nearly 80 percent of the Jewish vote in the 2008 election. That support will be particularly important Mr. Obama, who has been viewed with suspicion by some Jewish voters because of his early efforts to put pressure on Israel to stop settlement construction.</p> <p>“Pivoting into presidential campaign season, they are going to want to have in place a robust story to tell,” said Mr. Lynch, who writes the Middle East blog for Foreign Policy magazine. “The more that they can choose a few clear themes that fit together into a clear story, the better.”</p> <p>Thursday’s speech at the State Department is designed to be the first in a series of rhetorical opportunities for the president. On Friday, he will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a conversation that will be closely watched by the Jewish community in the United States.</p> <p>And this weekend, Mr. Obama will address the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the largest pro-Israel lobby in the United States. Together, the post-speech events will give the president a chance to assert his support for Israel early in the 2012 campaign cycle.</p> <p>White House aides who previewed the speech for reporters Wednesday said that the president would use the opportunity to speak about the Middle East and North Africa region as a whole and how its challenges relate to the United States.</p> <p>“Now, having wound down the Iraq war and continuing to do so, and having taken out Osama bin Laden, we are beginning to turn the page to a more positive and hopeful future for U.S. policy in the region,” a senior administration official said. “The president will have the opportunity to speak broadly about the change in the Middle East and North Africa, the implications for U.S. policy, and some concrete proposals for American policy going forward.”</p> <p>Whom will he be speaking to? Leaders and citizens in the Middle East, of course. But several different American audiences will also be listening carefully to what he says. Here are some of them:</p> <p>* <strong>His 2012 rivals</strong>: Before Bin Laden was killed, the Republican candidates for president had begun attacking Mr. Obama as a weak, feckless leader with no backbone. That argument is more difficult to make now.</p> <p>But Mr. Obama’s rivals for the White House are not going to back away entirely from their criticisms of his foreign policy. They will be listening to his speech on Thursday for ways to criticize his policies toward Iran and his outreach to the Arab world.</p> <p>They will also be watching closely for any evidence that Mr. Obama is being critical of Israel in the hopes they could use that as an electoral advantage.</p> <p>* <strong>Liberals</strong>: Mr. Obama’s base has been frustrated at times by his willingness to continue anti-terrorism policies put in place by his predecessor. The terrorist detention facility at Guantánamo Bay — which remains open despite Mr. Obama’s promise to close it — is a constant reminder of their dissatisfaction.</p> <p>The speech gives Mr. Obama a chance to describe how his approach to the region fulfills his campaign promises and to claim that his policies have worked better than Mr. Bush’s. That could help energize his base — a crucial part of the path toward getting reelected.</p> <p>* <strong>American Jews</strong>: The president’s early decision to press Israel to end settlements was done in the hope that it might kick-start peace talks with the Palestinians. In fact, after the Israelis balked, the policy has so far failed to move the peace process along. The administration’s top negotiator, former senator George Mitchell, quit last week.</p> <p>But in the process, the tough-love approach to Israel caused friction between Mr. Obama and some Jewish voters. That could be particularly important in certain swing states like Florida, where there is a large Jewish population.</p> <p>* <strong>Congress</strong>: The debates in the House and Senate during the next 18 months are likely to focus primarily on the domestic economy. But with the House under Republican control, leaders there may be looking for ways to question Mr. Obama’s handling of foreign policy, especially in the volatile Middle East.</p> <p>Republicans struggled at the height of the Middle East uprisings earlier this year, first criticizing the president’s lack of action in Libya and then later criticizing the aggressive use of force in ways that Mr. Obama said would halt the slaughter of those leading the uprising.</p> <p>Democratic lawmakers, too, will be watching the speech for clues to the defense they may have to mount to Republican criticism. Last year’s extended debate over a nuclear treaty with Russia showed how differences over foreign policy can sometimes play out in the halls of Congress.<br />President Obama gives a speech directed at the Muslim world in Cairo in 2009.</p> </div> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/05/obamas-middle-east-speech.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-05-19T10:08:00-07:00">10:08 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=1819183916184500469">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=1819183916184500469" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" width="18" height="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="4892036092631026429"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/05/economics-of-abundance.html">The Economics of Abundance</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1> The Economics of Abundance</h1> <p class="meta"> <strong>Mises Daily:</strong> by <a id="ctl00_ctl00_ContentPlaceHolder1_ContentPlaceHolder1_lnkAuthor" rel="author" href="http://mises.org/daily/author/126/Friedrich-A-Hayek">Friedrich A. Hayek</a> </p> <div class=" fb_reset" id="fb-root"> <span></span> </div> <div class="editorial-preface"><p>[Excerpted from <i><a href="http://mises.org/resources/3683/The-Critics-of-Keynesian-Economics">The Critics of Keynesian Economics</a></i> (1960)]</p></div> <div class="figure"><img src="http://images.mises.org/Cornucopia.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></div> <p>A situation in which abundant unused reserves of all kinds of resources (including all intermediate products) exist may occasionally prevail in the depths of a depression. But it is certainly not a normal position on which a theory claiming general applicability could be based.</p> <p>Yet it is some such world as this which is treated in Mr. Keynes's <i>General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money</i>, which in recent years has created so much stir and confusion among economists and even the wider public. Although the technocrats, and other believers in the unbounded productive capacity of our economic system, do not yet appear to have realized it, what he has given us is really that economics of abundance for which they have been clamoring so long.</p> <p>Or rather, he has given us a system of economics which is based on the assumption that no real scarcity exists, and that the only scarcity with which we need concern ourselves is the artificial scarcity created by the determination of people not to sell their services and products below certain arbitrarily fixed prices. These prices are in no way explained, but are simply assumed to remain at their historically given level, except at rare intervals when "full employment" is approached and the different goods begin successively to become scarce and to rise in price.</p> <p>Now if there is a well-established fact which dominates economic life, it is the incessant, even hourly, variation in the prices of most of the important raw materials and of the wholesale prices of nearly all foodstuffs. But the reader of Mr. Keynes's theory is left with the impression that these fluctuations of prices are entirely unmotivated and irrelevant, except toward the end of a boom, when the fact of scarcity is readmitted into the analysis, as an apparent exception, under the designation of "bottlenecks."<a class="noteref" href="http://mises.org/daily/5282/The-Economics-of-Abundance#note1" name="ref1">[1]</a></p> <p>And not only are the factors which determine the relative prices of the various commodities systematically disregarded;<a class="noteref" href="http://mises.org/daily/5282/The-Economics-of-Abundance#note2" name="ref2">[2]</a> it is even explicitly argued that, apart from the purely monetary factors which are supposed to be the sole determinants of the rate of interest, the prices of the majority of goods would be indeterminate. Although this is expressly stated only for capital assets in the special, narrow sense in which Mr. Keynes uses this term, that is, for durable goods and securities, the same reasoning would apply to all factors of production.</p> <p>In so far as "assets" in general are concerned the whole argument of the <i>General Theory</i> rests on the assumption that their yield only is determined by real factors (i.e., that it is determined by the given prices of their products), and that their price can be determined only by capitalizing this yield at a given rate of interest determined solely by monetary factors.<a class="noteref" href="http://mises.org/daily/5282/The-Economics-of-Abundance#note3" name="ref3">[3]</a></p> <p>This argument, if it were correct, would clearly have to be extended to the prices of all factors of production the price of which is not arbitrarily fixed by monopolists, for their prices would have to be equal to the value of their contribution to the product less interest for the interval for which the factors remained invested.<a class="noteref" href="http://mises.org/daily/5282/The-Economics-of-Abundance#note4" name="ref4">[4]</a> That is, the difference between costs and prices would not be a source of the demand for capital but would be unilaterally determined by a rate of interest which was entirely dependent on monetary influences.</p> <p>We need not follow this argument much further to see that it leads to contradictory conclusions. Even in the case we have considered before of an increase in the investment demand due to an invention, the mechanism which restores the equality between profits and interest would be inconceivable without an independent determinant of the prices of the factors of production, namely their scarcity. For, if the prices of the factors were directly dependent on the given rate of interest, no increase in profits could appear, and no expansion of investment would take place, since prices would be automatically marked to make the rate of profit equal to the given rate of interest.</p> <div class="figure-left"><a href="http://mises.org/store/Critics-of-Keynesian-Economics-P559.aspx"><img src="http://mises.org/store/Assets/ProductImages/Thumbnails/SS400_T.jpg" /></a></div> <p>Or, if the initial prices were regarded as unchangeable and unlimited supplies of factors were assumed to be available at these prices, nothing could reduce the increased rate of profit to the level of the unchanged rate of interest. It is clear that, if we want to understand at all the mechanism which determines the relation between costs and prices, and therefore the rate of profit, it is to the relative scarcity of the various types of capital goods and of the other factors of production that we must direct our attention, for it is this scarcity which determines their prices.</p> <p>And although there may be, at most times, some goods an increase in demand for which may bring forth some increase in supply without an increase of their prices, it will on the whole be more useful and realistic to assume for the purposes of this investigation that most commodities are scarce, in the sense that any rise of demand will, <i>ceteris paribus</i>, lead to a rise in their prices. We must leave the consideration of the existence of unemployed resources of certain kinds to more specialized investigations of dynamic problems.</p> <p>This critical excursion was unfortunately made necessary by the confusion which has reigned on this subject since the appearance of Mr. Keynes's <i>General Theory.</i></p> <h2>What "Full-Employment" Policy Means</h2> <p>In order to understand the situation into which we have been led, it will be necessary to take a brief look at the intellectual sources of the full-employment policy of the "Keynesian" type. The development of Lord Keynes's theories started from the correct insight that the regular cause of extensive unemployment is real wages that are too high.</p> <p>The next step consisted in the proposition that a direct lowering of money wages could be brought about only by a struggle so painful and prolonged that it could not be contemplated. Hence he concluded that real wages must be lowered by the process of lowering the value of money. This is really the reasoning underlying the whole "full-employment" policy, now so widely accepted.</p> <p>If labor insists on a level of money wages too high to allow of full employment, the supply of money must be so increased as to raise prices to a level where the real value of the prevailing money wages is no longer greater than the productivity of the workers seeking employment. In practice, this necessarily means that each separate union, in its attempt to overtake the value of money, will never cease to insist on further increases in money wages and that the aggregate effort of the unions will thus bring about progressive inflation.</p> <h2>"Après Nous Le Déluge"</h2> <p>I cannot help regarding the increasing concentration on short-run effects — which in this context amounts to the same thing as concentration on purely monetary factors — not only as a serious and dangerous intellectual error, but as a betrayal of the main duty of the economist and a grave menace to our civilization. To the understanding of the forces which determine the day-to-day changes of business, the economist has probably little to contribute that the man of affairs does not know better.</p> <p>It used, however, to be regarded as the duty and the privilege of the economist to study and to stress the long effects which are apt to be hidden to the untrained eye, and to leave the concern about the more immediate effects to the practical man, who in any event would see only the latter and nothing else. The aim and effect of 200 years of continuous development of economic thought have essentially been to lead us away from, and "behind," the more superficial monetary mechanism and to bring out the real forces which guide long-run development.</p> <p>I do not wish to deny that the preoccupation with the "real" as distinguished from the monetary aspects of the problems may sometimes have gone too far. But this can be no excuse for the present tendencies which have already gone far toward taking us back to the prescientific stage of economics, when the whole working of the price mechanism was not yet understood, and only the problems of the impact of a varying money stream on a supply of goods and services with given prices aroused interest.</p> <div class="book-ad" id="main-ad"> <div class="book-img"><a href="http://academy.mises.org/courses/keynes-krugman-and-the-crisis/"><img src="http://images.mises.org/AcademyAds/MAA_Murphy_KeynesKrugmanCrisis_2011.jpg" alt="Mises Academy: Robert Murphy teaches Keynes, Krugman, and the Crisis" border="0" /></a></div> </div> <p>It is not surprising that Mr. Keynes finds his views anticipated by the mercantilist writers and gifted amateurs: concern with the surface phenomena has always marked the first stage of the scientific approach to our subject. But it is alarming to see that after we have once gone through the process of developing a systematic account of those forces which in the long run determine prices and production, we are now called upon to scrap it, in order to replace it by the shortsighted philosophy of the business man raised to the dignity of a science.</p> <p>Are we not even told that, "since in the long run we are all dead," policy should be guided entirely by short-run considerations? I fear that these believers in the principle of <i>après nous le déluge</i> may get what they have bargained for sooner than they wish.</p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/05/economics-of-abundance.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-05-19T09:38:00-07:00">9:38 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=4892036092631026429">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=4892036092631026429" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" width="18" height="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="8471935003128896502"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/05/can-governments-finances-be-compared-to.html">Can Government's Finances Be Compared to a Household's?</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1> Can Government's Finances Be Compared to a Household's?</h1> <p class="meta"> <strong>Mises Daily:</strong> by <a id="ctl00_ctl00_ContentPlaceHolder1_ContentPlaceHolder1_lnkAuthor" rel="author" href="http://mises.org/daily/author/380/Robert-P-Murphy">Robert P. Murphy</a> </p> <div class=" fb_reset" id="fb-root"> <span></span> </div> <div class="figure"><img src="http://images.mises.org/PresidentialMailbox.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></div> <p>Politicians often try to empathize with struggling Americans by promising to cut government spending, "just like regular households in tough times." This simile evokes different reactions depending on one's economic views. Keynesians think it's reckless, proponents of <a href="http://mises.org/daily/5260/The-UpsideDown-World-of-MMT">Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)</a> think it's absurd, and Rothbardians think it's correct as far as it goes, but it falsely equates tax revenues to an honest living.</p> <p>In this context, I was amazed to read a <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/43050221">CNBC article</a> earlier this week arguing that households were no role models for the politicians! It's worth going through a comparison to clarify the important issues.</p> <h2>Households a Bad Role Model for Government?</h2> <p>The article (which originally ran on Reuters) sets the stage:</p> <blockquote> <p>Republicans, claiming revulsion over the U.S. government's $14.3 trillion in debt, say Washington needs to take a hard look at its finances and balance the books like the typical American family.</p> <p>"It's simple. Spend what you take in. That's what every family has to do … imagine the federal government actually doing what makes sense," said U.S. Representative Jim Jordan, a prominent conservative Republican.</p> <p>Jordan is among a string of politicians who say the nation's mounting debt can be resolved with a simple dose of prudent planning.</p> </blockquote> <p>Although appealing to average voters, such rhetoric often annoys professional economists. For example, <a href="http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/math-rage/">Keynesians argue</a> that when the private sector is trying to wind down debt, the only way to maintain aggregate demand is for the government to run offsetting deficits.</p> <p>Proponents of MMT would go even further, arguing that the analogy with households is <a href="http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2011/05/my-critique-of-mmt.html#comment-15830">simply an anachronism</a> in our age of fiat money. The <a href="http://moslereconomics.com/mandatory-readings/">MMT position</a> is that modern governments are never constrained by fiscal matters, since they can issue their own currency. The only problem with the government spending too much would be increasing price inflation, not an inability to finance the spending.</p> <p>What is interesting is that the Reuters/CNBC article also objected to Jim Jordan's analogy, but for different reasons. To wit, the article argued that households were no role models when it came to financial management:</p> <blockquote> <p>But in looking for ways to balance its budget, policymakers may want to avoid taking cues from American families.</p> <p>According to the latest Federal Reserve statistics, U.S. consumer credit is at about $2.4 trillion for short- and intermediate-term borrowing on credit cards and for car loans, vacations, boats and college loans. That did not count the trillions of dollars in borrowing for home mortgages.</p> <p>Americans are juggling about $796 billion in credit card debt alone, according to the statistics.</p> <p>The average credit card debt per U.S. household is $8,329, Hardekopf said, quoting a March Nilson Report. That figure rises to $10,679 when only households that actually have credit cards — about 75 percent — were factored in, he said.</p> <p>It's no wonder there's a bumper sticker out there asking:</p> <p>"Can I pay my Visa with my Master Card?"</p> <p>The National Foundation for Credit Counseling conducts an annual "financial literacy" survey that tracks consumers' borrowing habits and financial worries.</p> <p>Its latest survey, carried out last March by Harris Interactive, found only 43 percent of families said they had a household budget and kept close track of how much they spent on food, housing and entertainment.</p> <p>Fifty-six percent said they didn't have any budget at all.</p> <p>And, according to the NFCC survey, while 68 percent said they paid their bills on time, many apparently were not paying off their entire credit card bills each month.</p> <p>Forty percent said they carried credit card debt from month to month, while half said they did not. A whopping 73 percent said they were worried about their financial situation.</p> </blockquote> <p>As we'll see, these statistics miss the point of the comparison.</p> <h2>When Times Are Tough, the Proper Move Is to Cut Spending</h2> <p>Of course, politicians of all stripes mouth platitudes while failing to enact policies living up to their rhetoric. But in this case, the rhetoric itself is correct: Just as most American households are much more careful about their finances now than they were during the housing-bubble years, so too should the government be.</p> <p>Most of the statistics quoted above merely convey that households <i>have debt</i>. But that's not the issue — the government has a massive amount of debt as well. The difference is that once the housing bubble burst and everyone realized Americans had been living beyond their means for years, the average household changed its ways. That is, savings rates shot way up, and households began paying down their debt:</p> <div class="chart"> <div class="single-chart"> <div class="image"><img src="http://images.mises.org/5304/Figure1.png" alt="Figure 1" /></div> </div> </div> <p>Of course, the federal government has just done the opposite. Even while Presidents Bush and Obama both acknowledged that excessive leverage and overconsumption were problems during the housing bubble years, and even as revenues plunged, this is what happened to spending on their respective watches:</p> <div class="chart"> <div class="single-chart"> <div class="image"><img src="http://images.mises.org/5304/Figure2.png" alt="Figure 2" /></div> </div> </div> <h2>There Are Solid Reasons to Support "Fiscal Austerity"</h2> <p>As I argued in my <a href="http://mises.org/store/Politically-Incorrect-Guide-to-the-Great-Depression-and-the-New-Deal-P580.aspx">book on the Depression</a>, the federal government didn't engage in "countercyclical policies" too much before the allegedly laissez-faire Herbert Hoover. Sure, the government would run up massive debts during wartime, but it would then<i> pay them down</i>. Indeed, Calvin Coolidge ran a surplus every year of his presidency.</p> <p>In fact, as <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czcUmnsprQI">Tom Woods</a> and I have <a href="http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/the-depression-youve-never-heard-of-1920-1921/">pointed out</a> repeatedly, the Depression of 1920–21 provides a textbook example of the Fed engaging in "tight-money" policies while the federal government engaged in (what are now almost) inconceivably aggressive budget cuts. The result was a short, painful, <i>deflationary</i> depression, followed by a decade of immense prosperity.<a class="noteref" href="http://mises.org/daily/5304/Can-Governments-Finances-Be-Compared-to-a-Households#note1" name="ref1">[1]</a> There are other, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7bi7vHsbVg">more recent examples</a> of debt-ridden governments slowing or even cutting spending in order to eliminate budget deficits and improve economic growth.</p> <div class="book-ad" id="main-ad"> <div class="book-img"><a href="http://mises.org/store/Politically-Incorrect-Guide-to-the-Great-Depression-and-the-New-Deal-P580.aspx"><img src="http://mises.org/store/Assets/ProductImages/B926.jpg" width="200" border="0" /></a></div> </div> <h2>Conclusion</h2> <p>In one sense, the analogy between households and the government <i>is</i> flawed: Households (generally) earn their income through voluntary transactions in which they provide goods and services to others. In contrast, the government raises the revenue with which to provide its "services" ultimately through the threat of imprisonment.</p> <p>Even so, the deficit-hawk politicians are right when they say the government should be sharing in the belt-tightening along with everyone else. Slashing spending at the federal level would return much-needed resources to the private sector, where they would do the most good.</p> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/05/can-governments-finances-be-compared-to.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-05-19T09:36:00-07:00">9:36 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=8471935003128896502">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=8471935003128896502" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" width="18" height="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="5891600354446798407"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/05/whos-rich-enough-to-tax.html">Who's Rich Enough to Tax?</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/05/whos-rich-enough-to-tax.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-05-19T08:19:00-07:00">8:19 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=5891600354446798407">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=5891600354446798407" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" width="18" height="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="4686732642253442814"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/05/another-imf-scandal.html">Another IMF Scandal</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/05/another-imf-scandal.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-05-19T08:18:00-07:00">8:18 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=4686732642253442814">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=4686732642253442814" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" width="18" height="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="8383711828348469888"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/05/obamas-digital-age-advantage.html">Obama's Digital-Age Advantage</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/05/obamas-digital-age-advantage.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-05-19T08:17:00-07:00">8:17 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=8383711828348469888">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=8383711828348469888" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" width="18" height="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-outer"> <div class="post hentry"> <a name="601430413430715576"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/05/imf-succession-heats-up.html">IMF Succession Heats Up</a> </h3> <div class="post-body entry-content"> <h1><span style="font-size:180%;">IMF Succession Heats Up </span></h1><div id="article_pagination_top" class="articlePagination"> </div><h3 class="byline"><a href="http://online.wsj.com/search/term.html?KEYWORDS=JAMES+HOOKWAY&bylinesearch=true">JAMES HOOKWAY</a> <a href="http://online.wsj.com/search/term.html?KEYWORDS=BERND+RADOWITZ&bylinesearch=true">BERND RADOWITZ</a> <a href="http://online.wsj.com/search/term.html?KEYWORDS=IAN+TALLEY&bylinesearch=true">IAN TALLEY</a> </h3><p>The battle for the top job at the International Monetary Fund kicked into high gear Thursday, with Europeans staking their claim for the post as the continent grapples with economic problems and Asian and emerging nations arguing now is their time to lead the international institution.</p> <div class="insetContent insetCol3wide embedType-image imageFormat-D"><div class="insetTree"> <div id="articleThumbnail_1" class="insettipUnit insetZoomTarget"><div class="insetZoomTargetBox"><div class="insettipBox"><div class="insettip"><p><a>View Full Image</a></p></div></div><a><img src="http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-NY965_0519la_D_20110519091934.jpg" alt="0519lagarde03" vspace="0" width="262" border="0" height="174" hspace="0" /></a></div> <cite>Agence France-Presse/Getty Images</cite> <p class="targetCaption">French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde.</p><p>World Bank President Robert Zoellick said global leaders have started the formal process to replace Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who early Thursday resigned following his weekend arrest on sexual-assault charges.</p> <p>"There's a process that the countries will use, and the shareholders and you can see it starting to form now," Mr. Zoellick said after speaking at the Bretton Woods Committee annual conference in Washington. "It's up to the shareholders to decide the next process that they take in leadership and I'm sure they'll pick a very fine person." </p> <p>Asked whether the process would live up to promise by global leaders for a more transparent, merit-based process, Mr. Zoellick said, "I'm sure it will be."</p> <p>The Group of 20 industrialized nations has promised to change the leadership selection process at both the IMF and World Bank, suggesting a move away from the automatic appointment of a European to the IMF and an American to the World Bank.</p> <p>Mr. Zoellick spoke as European governments coalesced around Christine Lagarde, a corporate lawyer who has been France's finance minister since 2007 and who has emerged as the frontrunner for the IMF job in the days since Mr. Strauss-Kahn's arrest in New York.</p> <div class="insetContent insetCol3wide embedType-video"><div class="insetTree" id="articlevideo_2"> <div class="videoObjectBox" size="D"> <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704904604576332972538753628.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories#" class="videoClickThru"> <span class="videoHint"></span><span class="videoPlayIndicator"></span> <img src="http://m.wsj.net/video/20110519/051811hubam/051811hubam_512x288.jpg" width="272" height="153" /> </a> </div> <p class="targetCaption">WSJ's Ashby Jones reports Dominique Strauss-Kahn has resigned as managing director of the IMF. The News Hub panel also discusses possible successors for the fund's top post. (Photo by Emmanuel Durand-Pool/Getty Images)</p> </div></div> <p>Asian and other emerging markets nations, meanwhile, are pressing for increased representation, arguing that senior management should better reflect changes in global economic patterns.</p> <p>The question of the IMF's leadership is sensitive as it comes at a time of change in the global economic power balance. Emerging market countries are expanding strongly, playing an ever increasing role in contributing to world economic growth. Most European economies, however, are growing slowly over the medium term, and many are creaking under the burden of government debt. </p> <p>Some Asians think the rise of their continent should mean greater representation in international organizations—the IMF post involves directing the flow of billions of dollars to stabilize the global economy.</p> <p>"There's no logic to the tradition that the IMF is run by a European," Thailand's Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij told The Wall Street Journal Thursday in a telephone interview. "The world has come a long way in the past three or four years.</p> <p>But Europeans argue that their problems—in particular some countries' unsustainable sovereign debt burdens—would make a European more suitable for the job. Crucially, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that pressing concerns required a rapid appointment—something that might favor a European, as the most obvious candidates are European. "It's of great importance that we find a fast solution" for the IMF succession, Ms. Merkel told a press conference Thursday. "I am of the opinion that we should propose a European," she said, adding, "I won't give a name today, but we will talk about it in the E.U."</p> <p>Ms. Lagarde said that any proposal for the post would need European agreement. "Any candidacy should have European support," she said during a visit to a Paris supermarket Thursday.</p> <p>"Our objective is that the IMF is able to fulfil its mission and to meet its challenges," said a French foreign ministry spokesman. "It's quite clear that in this regard, Europe is a player of the first order."</p> <p>Ms. Lagarde has already secured the backing of European capitals. Swedish Finance Minister Anders Borg on Wednesday said Ms. Lagarde stood out for the role she has played in managing the euro zone's fiscal crisis and global financial coordination. "Madame Lagarde is one of the obvious candidates," he said. Crucially, Ms. Merkel will support Ms. Lagarde if France puts her forward, according to people familiar with the matter.</p> <p>But she is not the only high profile European name circulating. European Central Bank Governing Council member Nout Wellink said Wednesday that ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet would be "a fantastic candidate ... He knows everything in Europe, and he is fully independent. He has a big track-record and is very persuasive," Mr. Wellink said during a late-night talk show on Dutch television.</p> <p>A volley of statements from Asia on Thursday seemed designed to preempt any hasty appointment of a European. Philippine Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima said Asia's role as an engine of growth for the global economy meant an Asian should take the reins at the IMF. </p> <p>"Given the urgent need for stable leadership in the IMF, coupled with the shifting global economic landscape … there is no time more fitting than now for an Asian leader to take the helm of such a distinguished organization," Mr. Purisima said in a statement. "A new brand of leadership will send a positive signal that the IMF is indeed responsive to the changing world." </p> <p>People's Bank of China Gov. Zhou Xiaochuan said in a statement that "the make-up of the top management should better reflect changes in the structure of the global economy and better represent emerging markets."</p> <p>Indonesian Finance Minister Agus Martowardojo said: "It would be good if the opportunity is also open for Asian candidates. Indonesia certainly will welcome and support it." </p> <p>Thai Finance Minister Mr. Korn argued that Asians knew how to deal with financial problems after the region's 1990s financial crisis, which erupted in Thailand before spreading across Southeast Asia and beyond.</p> <p>"We've all had hands-on experience, and credit should go to Mr. Strauss-Kahn and the IMF for the way they have learned from their mistakes in Asia in the past," Mr. Korn said. </p> <p>Still, it wasn't immediately clear whether Asian or emerging economies could coalesce around a single candidate. A former U.S. official said the only way to block France's Ms. Lagarde would be for the Brics countries—Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa—to quickly agree on a candidate and force the U.S. and EU to respond. </p> <p>Mr. Korn said Singapore's Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam would be a good choice to take on the top job at the IMF, as would Indonesia's former finance minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati, who is now with the World Bank. But Mr. Tharman, who was given the added role of Singapore's deputy prime minister in a Cabinet reshuffle Wednesday, has dismissed speculation that he might get the job. "Fortunately, the new Cabinet has been announced and put paid to such rumors," he was quoted as saying in the local Today newspaper. Mr. Tharman's office had no immediate comment Thursday. </p> <p>SaKong Il, a prominent South Korean economist also considered a contender, said the selection of the next IMF managing director should be "merit-based," not dependent on the home country of the candidate. </p> <p>"It's time to follow through on what's been promised" by the Group of 20 leaders,"said Mr. SaKong, who organized the G-20 summit in Seoul in Nov. 2010. "I think the global community is watching." </p> <p>Speaking from London, Mr. SaKong said he was "honored" to be considered a candidate but said it would "too presumptuous" for him to say how he would propose to run the IMF. </p> <p>One strike against Mr. Sakong is that he is 71 years old. IMF rules say that a managing diredtor must be younger than 65 when he starts his first term. According to the IMF's bylaws, the managing director must retire at 70. However, those rules can be changed.</p> <p>One Japanese national sometimes mentioned as a candidate is Asian Development Bank President Haruhiko Kuroda, a former Japanese vice finance minister. The ADB said Thursday that Mr. Kuroda wouldn't be available for comment but that the Manila-based lender "looks forward to continue working with the IMF and its recently appointed acting Managing Director, Mr. John Lipsky." </p> <p>Other financial leaders from emerging economies have also questioned the tradition of appointing a European to head the IMF since it was created in the aftermath of World War II. Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega has suggested a shake-up at the organization so that the person who leads it is selected on merit, not just for being European, while South Africa's Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan has said a candidate from an emerging economy would bring "a new perspective" to the IMF. </p> <cite class="tagline">—Cris Larano in Manila, I Made Sentana in Jakarta, Owen Fletcher and Bob Davis in Beijing, Prasanta Sahu in New Delhi, Takashi Nakamichi in Tokyo, P.R. Venkat in Singapore, Enda Curran in Sydney and In-Soo Nam in Seoul, Gabriele Parussini and Nathalie Boschat in Paris contributed to this article.</cite> </div><div style="visibility: hidden;" id="articleImage_1" class="insetFullBracket"><div class="insetFullBox"><div class="insetButton"><a class="insetClose"><img src="http://si.wsj.net/img/BTN_insetClose.gif" alt="0519lagarde03" vspace="0" width="19" border="0" height="19" hspace="0" /></a></div><img src="http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-NY965_0519la_G_20110519091934.jpg" alt="0519lagarde03" vspace="0" width="553" border="0" height="369" hspace="0" /></div></div></div></div><br /><cite class="tagline"></cite> </div> <div class="post-footer"> <div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"><span class="post-author vcard"> Posted by <span class="fn">Ricardo Valenzuela</span> </span> <span class="post-timestamp"> at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/05/imf-succession-heats-up.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2011-05-19T08:13:00-07:00">8:13 AM</abbr></a> </span> <span class="post-comment-link"> <a class="comment-link" href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=601430413430715576">0 comments</a> </span> <span class="post-icons"> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1082159742"> <a href="post-edit.g?blogID=4981636788804851613&postID=601430413430715576" title="Edit Post"> <img alt="" class="icon-action" src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" width="18" height="18" /> </a> </span> </span> <span class="post-labels"> </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <a name="8347937208469842472"></a> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://intermexfreemarket.blogspot.com/2011/05/strauss-kahn-resigns.html">Strauss-Kahn Resigns</a> </h3> <h1>Strauss-Kahn Resigns, Spurring Search for IMF Leader </h1><div id="article_pagination_top" class="articlePagination"> </div><h3 class="byline"><a href="http://online.wsj.com/search/term.html?KEYWORDS=BOB+DAVIS&bylinesearch=true">BOB DAVIS</a> <a href="http://online.wsj.com/search/term.html?KEYWORDS=SUDEEP+REDDY&bylinesearch=true">SUDEEP REDDY</a> </h3><p>Dominique Strauss-Kahn resigned as head of the International Monetary Fund, which he is widely credited with revitalizing at a pivotal time, throwing into high gear a global race to replace him following charges that he sexually assaulted a hotel worker in New York.</p> <div class="insetContent insetCol3wide embedType-video"><div class="insetTree" id="articlevideo_1"> <div class="videoObjectBox" size="D"> <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704904604576332622418732758.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories#" class="videoClickThru"> <span class="videoHint"></span><span class="videoPlayIndicator"></span> <img src="http://m.wsj.net/video/20110519/051811hubam/051811hubam_512x288.jpg" width="272" height="153" /> </a> </div> <p class="targetCaption">WSJ's Ashby Jones reports Dominique Strauss-Kahn has resigned as managing director of the IMF. The News Hub panel also discusses possible successors for the fund's top post. (Photo by Emmanuel Durand-Pool/Getty Images)</p> </div></div><p>The 62-year-old Mr. Strauss-Kahn, in a statement released by the IMF shortly after midnight Thursday in Washington, said was leaving to "protect the institution," which has been largely paralyzed since he was arrested on suspicion of attempted rape in New York on May 14. In a letter to the IMF's board, he continued to deny that the charges against him. "I want to say that I deny with the greatest possible firmness all of the allegations that have been made against me," he wrote.</p> <p>"I want to devote all my strength, all my time, and all my energy to proving my innocence," Mr. Strauss-Kahn said.</p> <p>The IMF under Mr. Strauss-Kahn has played a key role in handling the fallout from the global financial crisis. It has bailed out more than a dozen countries with emergency loans, and worked with the European Union—less successfully—in keeping the crisis from spreading to Western Europe. So far, Ireland, Greece and Portugal have sought loans, though Greece hasn't come close to meeting the deficit-reduction requirements the IMF and EU set as conditions for the loans.</p> <div class="insetContent insetCol3wide embedType-image imageFormat-D"><div class="insetTree"> <div id="articleThumbnail_2" class="insettipUnit insetZoomTarget"><div class="insetZoomTargetBox"><div class="insettipBox"><div class="insettip"><p><a>View Full Image</a></p></div></div><a><img src="http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-NY961_0519la_D_20110519090950.jpg" alt="0519lagarde" vspace="0" width="262" border="0" height="174" hspace="0" /></a></div> <cite>Reuters</cite> <p class="targetCaption">French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde is the leading contender to replace Mr. Strauss-Kahn.</p> </div><div style="visibility: hidden;" id="articleImage_2" class="insetFullBracket"><div class="insetFullBox"><div class="insetButton"><a class="insetClose"><img src="http://si.wsj.net/img/BTN_insetClose.gif" alt="0519lagarde" vspace="0" width="19" border="0" height="19" hspace="0" /></a></div><img src="http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-NY961_0519la_G_20110519090950.jpg" alt="0519lagarde" vspace="0" width="553" border="0" height="369" hspace="0" /></div></div></div></div><p>French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde is the leading contender to replace Mr. Strauss-Kahn, though others are likely to emerge from developing nations. The leaders of the Group of 20 industrial and developing nations have committed to "support new open, transparent and merit-based selection processes," but haven't detailed how that would be handled. By tradition, dating back to the founding of the institutions after World War II, a European heads the IMF and an American heads the World Bank.</p> <p>The IMF said it would "communicate in the near future" about a process to pick a new managing director. For the time being the fund's No. 2 official, John Lipsky, will run the institution. Mr. Lipsky has said he will resign by the end of his term on Aug. 31. He is scheduled to give a talk on the IMF's future in Washington on Thursday.</p> <div class="insetContent insetCol3wide embedType-image imageFormat-D"><div class="insetTree"> <div id="articleThumbnail_3" class="insettipUnit insetZoomTarget"><div class="insetZoomTargetBox"><div class="insettipBox"><div class="insettip"><p><a>View Full Image</a></p></div></div><a><img src="http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-NY867_dsklag_D_20110518204311.jpg" alt="dsklagarde0518" vspace="0" width="262" border="0" height="174" hspace="0" /></a></div> <cite>Associated Press</cite> <p class="targetCaption">Christine Lagarde and Dominique Strauss-Kahn at a Europe-China trade conference in Paris in June 2010.</p> </div><div style="visibility: hidden;" id="articleImage_3" class="insetFullBracket"><div class="insetFullBox"><div class="insetButton"><a class="insetClose"><img src="http://si.wsj.net/img/BTN_insetClose.gif" alt="dsklagarde0518" vspace="0" width="19" border="0" height="19" hspace="0" /></a></div><img src="http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-NY867_dsklag_G_20110518204311.jpg" alt="dsklagarde0518" vspace="0" width="553" border="0" height="369" hspace="0" /></div></div></div></div><p>The resignation also may weaken Mr. Strauss-Kahn's hand in negotiating with the Manhattan District Attorney over possible punishment, given that he has already made a big concession by stepping down from his IMF job.</p> <p>On Thursday, Mr. Strauss-Kahn will make a bid to be released from jail, attorneys in the case say. In papers filed Wednesday in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, Mr. Strauss-Kahn's attorneys redoubled efforts to have their client released from New York City's Rikers Island jail, offering to post $1 million in cash bail and saying he had agreed to submit to around-the-clock home detention in Manhattan and electronic monitoring. </p> <p>Mr. Strauss-Kahn's accuser on Wednesday testified before a grand jury, which is weighing the charges and will return Thursday, said her lawyer, Jeffrey Shapiro. </p> <p>Before his arrest, Mr. Strauss-Kahn had been widely expected to leave the IMF around July to campaign for the French presidency, parlaying his stint at the IMF, where his reputation grew as a global economic leader. Those plans are now in tatters as well.</p> <p>European governments Wednesday started to rally around Ms. Lagarde, a corporate lawyer who has been France's finance minister since 2007, as the fund's next chief, saying she would be best positioned to replace her compatriot and become the first woman to lead the institution. Swedish Finance Minister Anders Borg said that while the selection of an IMF chief should be open, Ms. Lagarde stood out because of her role in managing the euro zone's fiscal crisis and global financial coordination. "Madame Lagarde is one of the obvious candidates," he told the Sky News television channel.</p> <div class="insetContent insetCol3wide embedType-video"><div class="insetTree" id="articlevideo_4"> <div class="videoObjectBox" size="D"> <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704904604576332622418732758.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories#" class="videoClickThru"> <span class="videoHint"></span><span class="videoPlayIndicator"></span> <img src="http://m.wsj.net/video/20110518/051811hubamdsk/051811hubamdsk_512x288.jpg" width="272" height="153" /> </a> </div> <p class="targetCaption">As Dominique Strauss-Kahn remains in a New York City prison following his arrest on attempted rape charges, The White House has given the IMF orders to find a replacement as soon as possible. WSJ's David Wessel reports. (Photo by Stephen Jaffe/IMF via Getty Images)</p> </div></div><p>The IMF, an organization of 187 countries, advises and lends to member nations while serving as a coordinator for global economic policies. Neither Ms. Lagarde nor her spokesman could be reached to comment. A spokesman for French President Nicolas Sarkozy couldn't be reached to comment.</p> <p>Europe has a big edge in selecting an IMF chief—if it can maintain unity. European nations have 35.6% of the votes on the IMF board and a successful candidacy requires a simple majority. But other European candidates could emerge, dividing the region. Central Bank Governing Council member Nout Wellink, for instance, suggested that European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet, who is retiring in October, would make a "fantastic candidate."</p> <div class="insetContent insetCol3wide embedType-image imageFormat-D"><div class="insetTree"> <div id="articleThumbnail_5" class="insettipUnit insetZoomTarget"><div class="insetZoomTargetBox"><div class="insettipBox"><div class="insettip"><p><a>View Full Image</a></p></div></div><a><img src="http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-NY886_dskres_D_20110519001529.jpg" alt="dskresign" vspace="0" width="262" border="0" height="174" hspace="0" /></a></div> <cite>Associated Press</cite> <p class="targetCaption">Dominique Strauss-Kahn is arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court.</p> </div><div style="visibility: hidden;" id="articleImage_5" class="insetFullBracket"><div class="insetFullBox"><div class="insetButton"><a class="insetClose"><img src="http://si.wsj.net/img/BTN_insetClose.gif" alt="dskresign" vspace="0" width="19" border="0" height="19" hspace="0" /></a></div><img src="http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-NY886_dskres_G_20110519001529.jpg" alt="dskresign" vspace="0" width="553" border="0" height="369" hspace="0" /></div></div></div></div><p>The U.S., which has 16.8% of the votes in the IMF, will play a big role in any selection and must weigh conflicting goals. On one hand, the U.S has traditionally had the No. 2 slot at the IMF and would like to put White House economic aide David Lipton into that job. A deal with the Europeans for the Nos. 1 and 2 slots could accomplish that. But such back-room dealing would frustrate another U.S. goal, which is to persuade developing nations, especially those in Asia, to participate more fully in international organizations.</p> <p>Still, it isn't clear whether emerging economies can agree on a single candidate. Some, including Brazil, have said that it is reasonable for Europe to provide the next IMF chief—though that position could change now that Mr. Strauss-Kahn has resigned. South Africa's finance minister Pravin Gordhan forcefully argued otherwise on Wednesday.</p> <p>"Institutions such as the IMF must reform so that they can become credible, and to be credible they must represent the interests and fully reflect the voices of all countries, not just a few industrialized nations," Mr. Gordhan said in a statement. A candidate from a developing country, he added, "will bring a new perspective" to the IMF.</p> <p>A former U.S. official said the only way to block Ms. Lagarde would be for the Brics countries—Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa—to quickly agree on a candidate and force the U.S. and EU to respond.</p> <p>China's government isn't expected to take the lead in any wheeling and dealing over a successor, said a number of prominent academics in Beijing. "I don't think Brics will sit together to find a candidate," said Peking University economist Huang Yiping. "If one country has a very strong candidate, it could look for support from the others."</p> <p>Thailand's Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij said that a candidate from the emerging market ought to run the IMF. Among the potential candidates from emerging markets, Mr. Korn said Singapore's Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam would be a good choice to take on the top job at the IMF. "He's technically very sound and he is respected within the institution," Mr. Korn said. "But there are potentially other candidates from within Southeast Asia, including [Indonesia's former finance minister] Sri Mulyani Indrawati, who is now with the World Bank. There are also strong candidates from India, China and South Korea."</p> <div class="insetCol3wide"><div class="insetContent"> <h3 class="first">A Potential Successor to Lead the Fund</h3> <p>Christine Lagarde's career in the private and public sectors</p> <a name="U402338069160LZB"></a><p> <strong>1956:</strong> Born in French port city of Le Havre to a university-professor father and schoolteacher mother </p> <a name="U402338069160MEE"></a><p> <strong>1981:</strong> Admitted to Paris bar; joins U.S. law firm Baker & McKenzie in Paris, specializing in corporate law</p> <a name="U402338069160GOC"></a><p> <strong>1999:</strong> Named chairman of executive committee at Baker & McKenzie</p> <a name="U402338069160PLE"></a><p> <strong>2005:</strong> Returned to France after 10 years in the U.S. to take post of trade minister in then-President Jacques Chirac's conservative administration </p> <a name="U402338069160HQC"></a><p> <strong>2007:</strong> Named finance minister in President Nicolas Sarkozy's government after a brief stint as agriculture minister</p> </div></div><p>It isn't clear what ultimately persuaded Mr. Strauss-Kahn to give up his position. U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner put pressure on the IMF to make a change by calling for it to formally ratify Mr. Lipsky as acting managing director. Mr. Lipsky took on that role automatically under standard IMF procedures after Mr. Strauss-Kahn's imprisonment. But world leaders were wary of calling for Mr. Strauss-Kahn to step down while he was facing serious criminal charges out of concern for seeming to prejudice the case. </p> <p>Mr. Strauss-Kahn took the helm of the IMF in September 2007 when it faced an uncertain future and probable financial losses because few countries were turning to it for loans as the global economy expanded smartly. He worked to reduce the size of the staff and shore up its finances. But he quickly ran into trouble when he was accused of abusing his position by having a sexual relationship with a female subordinate, Piroska Nagy, who was a senior official in the IMF's Africa department.</p> <p>In a letter she wrote to attorney Robert Smith, who was conducting an investigation into the affair for the IMF's board, Ms. Nagy said she was confused and unsure how to respond to her boss's advances. "Despite my long professional life, I was unprepared by advances by the Managing Director of the IMF. As I told you, I felt that I was 'damned if I did and damned if I didn't.'"</p> <p>Mr. Smith's report was released in October 2008 and found that the affair was consensual and that Mr. Strauss-Kahn didn't make either promises or threats to Ms. Nagy "to induce her to engage in the affair." Taking its cue from the report, the IMF board found that Mr. Strauss-Kahn committed a "serious error in judgment," but said there was no evidence of "harassment, favoritism or any other abuse of authority."</p> <p>Mr. Strauss-Kahn apologized for his behavior and told the board and IMF staff that he was committed "going forward, to uphold the high standards" expected of a managing director. Despite weeks of humiliation, Mr. Strauss-Kahn was quickly able to win over the staff by helping steer the IMF so it had a major role in handling the deepening global financial crisis.</p> <p>In her letter to Mr. Smith, Ms. Nagy called Mr. Strauss-Kahn "a brilliant leader with a vision for addressing the ongoing global financial crisis," but warned, "I fear he is a man with a problem that will make him ill-equipped to lead an institution where women work under his command."</p> <p>With the global economy in turmoil, Mr. Strauss-Kahn helped persuade global leaders to stimulate their economies in a coordinated fashion. When countries ran into financial straits, he provided emergency loans, often without some of the detailed requirements for privatization and economic opening that the IMF had required of Latin American and Asian countries in past crises. That somewhat softer touch began to ease resentment toward the IMF in those countries.</p> <p>He also improved relations with China, which had been resentful of IMF efforts to get it to raise the value of its currency, by shifting to less confrontational language and focusing on ways China could improve its growth prospects over the longer term. </p> <p>As the G-20 took on a larger role in global affairs, it turned again and again to the IMF to provide research and advice. Under Mr. Strauss-Kahn, the IMF essentially became the staff of the G-20.</p> <p>Mr. Strauss-Kahn, a former French finance minister, also was able to convince skeptical European leaders, especially in Germany and at the ECB, that the IMF should play a big role in bailing out EU countries that ran aground. Some EU officials thought that turning to the IMF would be a humiliating admission that their members were on a par with developing nations. Among Mr. Strauss-Kahn's strongest arguments: Much of the IMF staff was European and they had Europe's interests at heart.</p> <p>Indeed, the IMF and the EU are now trying to decide what ought to be done to aid Greece, which hasn't lived up to the terms of an EU-IMF loan agreement. If the IMF cuts Greece too much slack, developing nations are bound to complain of a double standard. Mr. Strauss-Kahn won't be around now to try to finesse that political problem.</p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395381545218020265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4966921227529983571.post-43384822209260274572011-05-18T15:51:00.000-07:002011-05-18T15:53:11.002-07:00It’s Time For American Troops To Leave Iraq<div id="contrib_intro"> <div class="contrib_photo"> <div class="crop"> <img alt="Doug Bandow" src="http://blogs-images.forbes.com/cache/gravatars/dougbandow_136.jpg" class="avatar avatar-136 photo avatar-default" width="136" height="136" /> </div> </div> <div class="votebutton votebutton-facebook"> <h2><a href="http://blogs.forbes.com/dougbandow/">Doug Bandow</a></h2><a style="text-decoration: none;" name="fb_share" type="box_count" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.forbes.com%2Fdougbandow%2F2011%2F05%2F16%2Fits-time-for-american-troops-to-leave-iraq%2F&t=It%E2%80%99s%20Time%20For%20American%20Troops%20To%20Leave%20Iraq%20-%20Doug%20Bandow%20-%20The%20Politics%20of%20Plunder%20-%20Forbes&src=sp"><span class="fb_share_size_Small fb_share_count_wrapper"><span class="FBConnectButton FBConnectButton_Small" style="cursor:pointer;"><span class="FBConnectButton_Text"></span></span></span></a></div></div><div class="votecolumn"><div id="socialvotesdummy" style="display: block;"> <div class="votebutton votebutton-twitter"> </div> <div class="votebutton votebutton-reddit"> </div> <div class="votebutton votebutton-linkedin"><span class="IN-widget" style="line-height: 1; vertical-align: middle; display: inline-block; text-align: center;"><span style="padding: 0pt ! important; margin: 0pt ! important; text-indent: 0pt ! important; display: inline-block ! important; vertical-align: middle ! important; font-size: 1px ! important;"><span id="li_ui_li_gen_1305759078544_1-container" class="top empty"><span id="li_ui_li_gen_1305759078544_1" class="top"><span id="li_ui_li_gen_1305759078544_1-inner" class="top"><span id="li_ui_li_gen_1305759078544_1-content" class="top">0</span></span></span></span></span><br /><span style="padding: 0pt ! important; margin: 0pt ! important; text-indent: 0pt ! important; display: inline-block ! important; vertical-align: middle ! important; font-size: 1px ! important;"><span id="li_ui_li_gen_1305759078536_0"><a id="li_ui_li_gen_1305759078536_0-link"><span id="li_ui_li_gen_1305759078536_0-logo">in</span><span id="li_ui_li_gen_1305759078536_0-title">Shar</span></a></span></span></span></div></div></div> <h1 class="post-title"><span style="font-size:130%;">It’s Time For American Troops To Leave Iraq</span></h1><div class="zemanta-img"> <div class="wp-caption alignright" style="width: 310px"><a href="http://www.daylife.com/image/0bcnbTX1BU4GD?utm_source=zemanta&utm_medium=p&utm_content=0bcnbTX1BU4GD&utm_campaign=z1"><img src="http://blogs-images.forbes.com/dougbandow/files/2011/05/300x200.jpg" alt="Iraqis burn the replica of the US flag during ..." width="300" height="200" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Image by AFP/Getty Images via @daylife</p></div> </div> <p>U.S. troops should leave Iraq. America’s job is done.</p> <p>Baghdad has no WMDs — there never were any to seize. Al-Qaida only showed up <em>after</em> America’s invasion, and has been largely destroyed. Saddam Hussein long ago was captured, convicted, executed and buried. Democracy, such as it is, has been established and its survival does not depend on a foreign military presence.</p> <p>Washington should close its 86 bases and bring home its 47,000 troops, 63,000 civilian contractors and mountains of military equipment.</p> <p>The Obama administration’s attempt to keep U.S. forces in Iraq is further evidence that America has become an empire. Not in the traditional sense of conquering territory. But certainly in the sense of garrisoning foreign lands to extend Washington’s influence and creating advanced bases to impose Washington’s will.</p> <p><span id="more-104"></span></p> <p>World War II mercifully ended 66 years ago. U.S. troops are still spread about Europe and Japan. The Korean War thankfully concluded 58 years ago. American forces continue to provide a security “tripwire.”</p> <p>Serbian troops were ejected from Kosovo 12 years ago. U.S. soldiers are still on station. If it hadn’t been for the killing of 18 rangers in Mogadishu, American personnel probably would still be in Somalia nearly two decades later.</p> <p>The Afghan war blazes after a decade and American officials say some troops undoubtedly will remain after the formal withdrawal planned for 2014. Despite their promise to pull U.S. forces from Iraq in 2011, American officials are browbeating the Iraqi government to accept a continued occupation.</p> <p>It’s an odd spectacle: representatives of the American people begging another government to let Washington spend more money and risk more lives for nothing. In the case of America’s other major security commitments, the allies do the begging.</p> <p>The Europeans, Japanese, and South Koreans all enjoy their very cheap (if not quite free) defense rides. They know that if U.S. troops came home they would have to spend more themselves. Far better in foreign minds for American taxpayers to continue picking up the defense check.</p> <p>At least these military commitments grew out of the Cold War. America’s friends once were weak, even helpless, while America’s adversaries looked strong, even deadly. But Washington stayed well past this moment of vulnerability, allowing allied nations to under-invest in their defense well after they had recovered economically and surpassed their enemies.</p> <p>Now the U.S. government wants to stay, potentially forever, in a land where values, histories, religions and cultures divide rather than unite and in a country which never mattered much to American security. “What has ever been must ever be” seems to be the Defense Department’s motto.</p> <p>Even after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said no to extending Washington’s military role, Defense Secretary Robert Gates expressed his hope that U.S. forces could remain in Iraq for “years to come.” Pentagon officials said they were awaiting “an answer,” meaning the answer they desired. Late last month Adm. Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, insisted that Baghdad must decide “within weeks” because of the logistics involved in withdrawing or maintaining U.S. forces.</p> <p>Exactly what the Pentagon wants to keep on station it won’t say. Secretary Gates said “It just depends on what the Iraqis want and what we’re able to provide and afford.” Providing bipartisan support for preserving America’s imperial presence was House Speaker John Boehner, who visited Iraq earlier this month.</p> <p>For what purpose would U.S. troops remain? President George W. Bush and his aggressive neoconservative allies apparently expected to establish a permanent presence in the Middle East with which Washington could wage any number of other wars, such as against neighboring Iran.</p> <p>The idea that the Iraqi people would willingly host foreign forces to bomb, invade, and occupy their neighbors and nations beyond was merely one of the Bush administration’s many foolish fantasies about the conflict. Yet the imperial dream lives on. Wrote Max Boot of the Council on Foreign Relations: “Having active bases in Iraq would allow us to project power and influence, counter the threat from both Iran and al-Qaida, and possibly even nudge the entire Middle East in a more pro-Western direction.”</p> <p>The Obama administration speaks in less grandiose terms, with unnamed military officers talking of a “power vacuum,” “regional instability,” and warding off “threats.” Iraq lacks adequate forces, especially heavy equipment, to secure its frontiers and airspace. Of course, this problem was created by the invasion. Saddam Hussein had a sizable military and helped constrain his neighbors, most importantly Iran. By blowing up Hussein’s Iraq, Washington wrecked the balance of power and left the new Iraq temporarily weak.</p> <p>Still, the possibility of smuggling or similar border incursions against Iraq shouldn’t worry Washington: even if U.S. troops remained, they presumably wouldn’t be used as border guards. More important, none of Baghdad’s neighbors seem likely to embark upon a war of conquest.</p> <p>Iran is bedeviled by a domestic political crisis, requiring the regime to focus on internal security. Moreover, the two nations’ extensive religious, personal, and cultural ties discourage conflict. Boot worried that Tehran might possess “an extra element of coercive leverage,” but Iraq shows no signs of slipping into an Iranian protectorate.</p> <p>No one else is a plausible aggressor. Syria’s attentions also are diverted within. Turkey cares about little more than Kurdish issues. Saudi Arabia has to worry about preserving its dysfunctional authoritarian monarchy. Jordan and Kuwait are small players militarily. American troops aren’t necessary to guard Iraq against any of these countries.</p> <p>The Kurds would like Washington to stick around, mostly to protect their autonomy <em>from</em> the Iraqi government. Such is the reality of America’s new ally: it has enduring interests and faces persistent conflicts which run contrary to U.S. preferences. But to intervene on behalf of a group fighting Baghdad would put Washington at war with the new government over stakes largely irrelevant to American security. U.S. forces in effect would be working to destroy the very government they had helped create at enormous cost.</p> <p>The only logical purpose of leaving troops in Iraq is to intervene in internal disputes, but on behalf of the Shia-majority regime. While no organized insurgency has reemerged, violence is ubiquitous and bombings and assassinations have returned. Sunnis remain disaffected while radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr remains an unpredictable member of the governing coalition. The “Arab Spring” has generated extensive protests, some violently suppressed.</p> <p>Although Iraq is nominally a democracy, the Maliki government long has exhibited thuggish tendencies, which have worsened with rising discontent. Disagreements between Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi imperil the “unity” agreement between the two. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) worries that “Iraq could go to hell.”</p> <p>Attempting to sort out such a mess could keep Washington busy for a long time. Although American troops no longer are on patrol, they remain in the middle of Iraq’s unruly power scramble. In mid-May Special Forces raided a provincial headquarters of Sadr’s group. And nowhere are Americans secure. In April the State Department warned: “Violence and threats against U.S. citizens persist and no region should be considered safe from dangerous conditions.”</p> <p>Now the American troop presence is turning into another bitter political issue. Maliki has proved to be among the slipperiest of politicians, insisting that U.S. forces leave before announcing a “consultation” to achieve a consensus within his political bloc. He explained: “The government is a partnership government, so everyone is responsible for the decision. The government, the Parliament and political blocs, it’s everyone’s responsibility, and all must bear this responsibility.”</p> <p>Some Sunni as well as Kurdish leaders want America troops to stay. Sadr, an important Shia member of Maliki’s coalition, insists that U.S. forces leave; he threatened to return his movement to violence if they remain. Sadr may be bluffing, but he could further roil Baghdad’s politics.</p> <p>J. Scott Carpenter, an assistant secretary of state in the Bush administration, observed: “The basic agreement that led to the governing coalition — that allowed Sadr to throw his support behind Maliki — is now breaking down.” Baghdad University Professor Hakeem Mezher went further, noting that if Sadr “walks out on this fragile alliance, it will encourage other blocs to do the same. Such a step will definitely collapse the government, or at least it will be considered illegitimate to sign any new pact.”</p> <p>The situation is unpredictable and combustible, which is all the more reason to leave it to the Iraqis. There’s no need for the U.S. military to garrison every trouble spot around the globe.</p> <p>The only good news is that Americans suffer fewer casualties these days. The new killing zone is Afghanistan, where the troop “surge” has led to rising deaths and injuries. However, Americans can ill afford to pay for another permanent occupation with no important benefit to them.</p> <p>One can imagine continuing intelligence cooperation in Iraq, but that requires only a very small “footprint.” Iraqi forces would benefit from additional training. However, that sounds like a good job for the Europeans, who continue to shrink their militaries even as Washington continues to defend them from phantom threats. Or Baghdad could use its growing oil revenue to hire a private military contractor or two. And the Iraqi government can order needed military equipment without accepting an American military garrison.</p> <p>Vice President Joe Biden traveled to Iraq in January and told American forces that Washington wanted to leave behind “a country that was worthy of the sacrifices” made by U.S. personnel. No amount of “stability” will be worth the 4500 dead Americans, perhaps 200,000 dead and far more wounded and displaced Iraqis, and two or more trillion dollars the war ultimately will cost the American people.</p> <p>The Bush administration originally hoped for permanent bases, but the Iraqis said no. In seeking a long-term military presence President Barack Obama again has morphed into his predecessor. However, the American people should say no thanks even if the Iraqi government asks Washington to stay. The U.S. was created as a republic, not an empire. Americans should keep it that way.</p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395381545218020265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4966921227529983571.post-63361764512151016562011-05-18T15:49:00.000-07:002011-05-18T15:50:11.896-07:00Latin America’s new shining path<div style="overflow: hidden; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; border: medium none;"><br /></div><div class="ft-story-header"><h1><span style="font-size:180%;">Latin America’s new shining path</span></h1><p>By Gideon Rachman</p></div><p><img alt="Pinn illustration" src="http://media.ft.com/cms/53fd0e1a-7fe8-11e0-b018-00144feabdc0.gif" width="470" height="272" /></p><p>In the small towns of Peru’s Andean highlands, every spare surface has been commandeered for a poster or a mural proclaiming: “Keiko Presidente!” or “Ollanta”. The <a class="bodystrong" title="FT - Humala and Fujimori set for June run-off" href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/ab508c0c-645c-11e0-a69a-00144feab49a.html">Peruvian presidential election</a>, which will see either Keiko Fujimori or <a class="bodystrong" title="FT - Humala leads first round of Peru poll" href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/b950c992-63a9-11e0-bd7f-00144feab49a.html">Ollanta Humala</a> elected on June 5, will be the most closely watched poll in Latin America this year. It has become a test of whether the continent’s dramatic economic and political progress is irreversible; or whether the bad old days of authoritarianism, populism and economic chaos could still return to haunt Latin America.</p><p>In 1980, there were just three democracies in the whole of Latin America; now it is the autocracies that can be counted on the fingers of one hand. A continent that was once synonymous with the words “economic crisis” has become the toast of emerging market investors. Countries that lived in dread of capital flight now complain that there is too much “hot money” flowing in from abroad.</p><p>The rise of <a class="bodystrong" title="FT - Brazil told to invest windfall wisely" href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/57f2d440-7cf1-11e0-a7c7-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1MT57r953">Brazil </a>as a global power has overshadowed much of the rest of the continent. But the transformation of Peru, Brazil’s smaller neighbour, is in some ways even more remarkable. Once famous for a vicious Maoist insurgency, the country grew by almost 9 per cent last year – and has commitments for more than $40bn of new foreign investment in mining alone. (Peru also has the unique status of being the world’s leading exporter of both cocaine and asparagus.)</p><p>The figures show poverty falling fast in Peru – but the smart restaurants and gleaming offices of central Lima are still surrounded by crime-ridden slums, where 20 per cent of the population lack access to running water. It is a pattern of affluence surrounded by deprivation that is replicated in other megacities across Latin America – from São Paulo to Mexico City.</p><p>That inequality now threatens <a class="bodystrong" title="FT - Moody’s raises Peru outlook ahead of election" href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/b437e92c-547c-11e0-979a-00144feab49a.html#axzz1MT57r953">Peru’s stability</a>. To the horror of many of the upper middle classes, Peru’s centrists were all eliminated in the first round of the presidential election last month. The race has come down to a contest between two populists with authoritarian streaks – Ms Fujimori and Mr Humala. </p><p>The 35-year-old Ms Fujimori is the daughter of an imprisoned former president, Alberto Fujimori. As president, Mr Fujimori laid the foundation for Peru’s success by suppressing the Maoist Shining Path movement, whose war had claimed thousands of lives. Abimael Guzmán, the renegade philosophy professor who led the Shining Path, is now in prison. But Mr Fujimori, the president who oversaw his capture, is also in jail – serving a 25-year stretch for corruption and links to death squads. </p><p>Peru’s technocrats fear a Keiko Fujimori presidency would repeat the sins of the father – undermining the country’s democratic institutions and fostering rampant corruption.</p><p>Most of the Peruvian middle class, however, seem to fear Keiko’s opponent even more. Mr Humala is a former army officer who literally shot to prominence when he led an attempted coup in 2000. His brother, Antauro, is in prison for leading yet another attempted coup in 2005. He was once close to Hugo Chávez, a ranting populist, whose “21st-century socialism” has subverted nearby Venezuela’s democracy and gravely weakened its economy. These days Mr Humala, who is just ahead in the polls, plays down his Chávez links – but many Peruvians are still wary.</p><p>If Peru, which has become a poster child for the success of liberal economic and political reforms, now slips backwards, it would send a worrying message about the fragility of reform across Latin America, where persistent inequality and weak institutions are common problems. </p><p>It is certainly possible that either a Humala or a Fujimori presidency would push Peru down the path of populist authoritarianism. Yet things need not be that grim. One reassuring aspect of the Peruvian election is the way in which both candidates have talked of Brazil, rather than Venezuela, as a model.</p><p>Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who recently stepped down as president of Brazil, has achieved cult-like status because he showed that it was possible to combine things that were too often mutually exclusive in Latin America: charismatic leadership and a respect for democracy; a booming market economy and social reforms that benefit the poor. </p><p>Brazil may soon be the world’s fifth-largest economy. On a recent visit there, President <a class="bodystrong" title="FT - Obama acknowledges Brazil’s UN hopes" href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/1f518fec-5257-11e0-8a31-00144feab49a.html#axzz1MT57r953">Barack Obama</a> said that the US was cheering on its rise. Certainly to American eyes, Brazil is the cuddly rising power – less prickly than India and less threatening than China. It is a tribute to the skill with which Brazil is managing its rise that even a smaller neighbour such as Peru (with just 30m people to Brazil’s 190m), regards the country as a model rather than a threat.</p><p>Salamon Lerner, Mr Humala’s campaign manager, says that it is Brazil not Venezuela that his boss wants to learn from. A successful entrepreneur with a helicopter business, Mr Lerner told me in Lima last week: “If you look at Brazil and Venezuela, it is clear that Brazil is much more successful. We don’t want to drive away foreign investment. We are not crazy.” Ms Fujimori’s advisers also cite Mr Lula da Silva’s social reforms as a model.</p><p>There are plenty of good reasons for treating both candidates in Peru’s election with extreme caution. But if Brazil really has provided a model for democratic, market-friendly social progress, then Peru, and the rest of Latin America, may finally have discovered a genuine shining path. </p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395381545218020265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4966921227529983571.post-35077578332103861882011-05-18T15:47:00.000-07:002011-05-18T15:48:08.073-07:00Beaucoup B.S.<h2 class="title"><span style="font-size:180%;"><em>Beaucoup</em> B.S.</span></h2><h1 class="subhead">The DSK case and the silly stereotypes about American and European morals.</h1><span class="byline">By Christopher Hitchens</span><span class="dateline"></span><p><span class="imagewrapper" id="imagewrapper" style="width:250px;"><a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2294973/"><img src="http://img.slate.com/media/1/123125/2073765/2279603/2292686/110518_FW_Dominique_Strauss-Kahn-Court_TN.jpg" alt="Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Click image to expand." width="250" height="153" /></a><label class="caption">IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn in federal court in New York City</label></span>Why is it that we cannot read any discussion of a political sex scandal, or a sex scandal involving a politician, without pseudo-sophisticated comments about the supposedly different morals of Americans and Europeans? And why is it that this goes double if the politician is French, or if the reactions being quoted are from Gallic sources? And when did this annoying journalistic habit become so prevalent? It must have sprung up quite recently, or at least since the time when Charles de Gaulle and John F. Kennedy were presidents of their respective countries. The first man was a strict and fastidious Puritan who never gave his wife Yvonne a moment's cause for complaint, while the second was a sensational debauchee who went as far as importing a Mafia gun-moll into the White House sleeping quarters. Yet the American culture, which regards Kennedy as a virtual <a href="http://www.kingarthursknights.com/knights/galahad.asp" target="_blank">Galahad</a>, is the supposedly shockable one, while in France—ah, <em>la France</em>—a much more broad-minded and adult attitude prevails.</p><p>Surely France and its partisans are not saying that the attempted rape of a chambermaid would not rearrange so much as an eyebrow in the supposedly refined salons of Paris? (After all, the endlessly cited François Mitterrand may have <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/news/World/Mitterrands-love-child-tells-of-a-life-under-wraps/2005/02/25/1109180106694.html" target="_blank">had a daughter out of wedlock</a>, but he took good care to keep it a secret for as long as he could.) The problem arises from mentioning the two types of sexual behavior in the same breath. A related problem derives from <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2294216/">the belief that Americans will not tolerate marital infidelity from their politicians</a>.</p><p>Take two recent episodes on this side of the Atlantic: the impeachment of Bill Clinton and the forced resignation of Paul Wolfowitz from the World Bank. To hear Clinton's defenders talk at the time, you would have imagined that he was impeached for receiving oral sex in the Oval Office (an endless source of pretended amusement and bewilderment on the part of the French faction), while to hear the detractors of Wolfowitz you would have had to believe that he arranged special treatment for a bank employee with whom he was conducting an affair. </p><div id="insider_ad_wrapper" class="slate"><span class="label">Advertisement</span><br /></div><p>In fact, Clinton's problem arose from the fact that he was exploiting a junior employee and lying about it under oath in the course of a lawsuit. That lawsuit in turn arose from an episode in which he had made use of his political office to "hit on" young women in his employ. Not content with forcing his whole Cabinet to join in the deception, Clinton used his own staff to suggest that Monica Lewinsky was "stalking" him, an accusation that was highly defamatory and damaging and might well have been believed if she had not been in possession of proof. This extremely sordid behavior led to the surfacing of many earlier allegations. These included charges of coerced sex, amounting to rape, from more than one believable witness. (The story of that revolting conduct is told in my book <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1859842844/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=slatmaga-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399349&creativeASIN=1859842844" target="_blank">No One Left To Lie To</a></em>.) But a majority of the country made light of the entire business, regarding it as a "peccadillo" or private matter. Two of Clinton's hastily recruited spiritual advisors, Jesse Jackson and Billy Graham, even defended the exercise of his special needs as an alpha male, overlooking the crucial fact that his entire defense consisted of denying having done so. Jesse Jackson has gone on to <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=122032&page=1" target="_blank">admit</a> the fathering of an out-of-wedlock child, without any noticeable effect on the rate of his pious public appearances. So it seems that the American public is by no mean as censorious either as it believes itself to be or as others believe it to be.</p><p>Shaha Riza had been a senior employee of the World Bank before Paul Wolfowitz was appointed, and their long-term and stable relationship was no secret. The decision to find her another post was made in order to avoid even the faintest appearance of any conflict of interest. There was not the scintilla of a suggestion of any sexual harassment or exploitation. But a political vendetta, in which many high-minded European figures took an extremely active part, made it impossible for him to continue in his post. Contrast this with the letter sent to the investigators appointed by the IMF to look into the "affair" between Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Piroska Nagy, a female employee who had been subjected to unwanted attentions but had finally succumbed to them. Contesting the finding that their relationship met the proper definition of "consensual," she <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/17/world/europe/17fund.html" target="_blank">described</a> Strauss-Kahn as "a man with a problem that may make him ill-equipped to lead an institution where women work under his command." (Her delicate phrasing is somewhat outdone by that of Tristane Banon, a young reporter who claims to have suffered an earlier attempted rape at his hands, in the course of which he behaved like "<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/16/dominique-strauss-kahn-tristane-banon" target="_blank">a rutting chimpanzee</a>.") The IMF nonetheless decided that a formal apology would meet the case of Nagy and that no abuse of power had occurred. Exactly who, here, has been demonstrating astonishing naivete in matters sexual?</p><p>The belated <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/16/dominique-strauss-kahn-tristane-banon" target="_blank">breakup of the Schwarzenegger-Shriver marriage</a> and the <a href="http://swampland.time.com/2011/05/13/newt-gingrichs-friendly-fire-problem/" target="_blank">hard time</a> being given to Newt Gingrich by the "social conservatives" may seem to reaffirm the idea that broken marriage vows and a political career are not easily compatible in America. But in Paris, it is being openly said that Strauss-Kahn was the victim of <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2294214/">some kind of setup</a>. Much hypocrisy is, of course, involved in both reactions. But of the two, the display of the Gallic "shocked—<em>shocked</em>" reflex is by far the least "adult."</p><p><strong><em>Christopher Hitchens' Kindle Single, </em></strong><strong><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0050W9FZO/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=slatmaga-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399349&creativeASIN=B0050W9FZO" target="_blank">The Enemy</a><em>, on the demise of Osama Bin Laden, has just been published. </em></strong></p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395381545218020265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4966921227529983571.post-79783134737549242892011-05-18T15:45:00.000-07:002011-05-18T15:46:16.441-07:00The End of an Idea — Why Affirmative Action Should Stop<div class="entry"> <h2><span style="font-size:180%;"><a href="http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/why-affirmative-action-should-stop/">The End of an Idea — Why Affirmative Action Should Stop</a></span></h2> <div class="date"><span class="authorname"> - by <a href="http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/author/victordavishanson/">Victor Davis Hanson</a></span> </div><p>We have had about a half-century of racial preferences and often unspoken but real quotas for hiring and admission based on racial identity. If the original intent was to level the playing field for African-Americans and Latinos, who had been subject to systematic and often gratuitously mean discrimination throughout much of the American South and Southwest, nonetheless the current rationale for sustaining affirmative action has become a veritable nightmare of contradictions, biases, and incoherence that is now well beyond reform. Conservatives mostly believe this; an increasing number of liberals quietly think it.</p> <p><strong>Who Is What?</strong></p> <p>First, what exactly is race today in America in which intermarriage and immigration have increasingly made it — and its ugly twin racial purity — often irrelevant? We are no longer a country largely 85-90% “white” and 10-12% “black,” but something almost hard to categorize in racial terms. Do university admission officers adopt the 1/16, one-drop racial rule of the old Confederacy? Does being one fourth African-American qualify one for consideration; three-fourths Japanese; half Mexican-American? Does a simple surname add — and often by intent — authenticity and credulity? The son of Linda Hernandez and Jason Smith — a Bobby Smith — is not considered, without genealogical investigation, Hispanic, but the son of Linda Smith and Jason Hernandez — a Roberto Hernandez of equal 50/50 ancestry — is almost instantly? If so, is race a state of mind and personal choice more than circumstances of birth? What exactly is white and what a minority — a dark-skinned Armenian-American is the former, a light-skinned Colombian American is the latter? A dark Sicilian-American is white, Barack Obama is black?</p> <p>We are reaching the point in a multiracial and intermarried America where <a href="http://pajamasmedia.com/tatler/2011/05/14/coming-soon-to-a-bookstore-near-you-david-mamet/">admissions officers</a> and employers simply would have to hire British genealogists to trace our bloodlines — and instead, in millions of cases, therefore resort <em>ad hoc</em> to what Americans profess or think they are. Plenty of societies in history have predicated preferences on race — apartheid South Africa, Germany of the 1930s and 1940s, and the Confederacy are the most obvious — but all at some point had to codify their prejudices by some sort of repugnantly explicit genealogical science. We differ only in that our racial categories are said to be for preferences and recompense rather than for discrimination and punishment, and that we believe in our intellectual and moral arrogance that racial biases can, in our careful hands, be used for good purpose.</p> <p><strong>Sins of the Father</strong></p> <p>Second, there is no longer an easy yardstick by which to calibrate skin color or racial identity with past or present oppression. The original, noble enough justification of affirmative action rested on two principles: a sort of reparations that extended preference to atone for undeniable past discrimination; and a leveling of the playing field that assumed ongoing prejudice based on outward appearance and accompanying stereotyping — usually in terms of white privilege used against the darker other. But in 2011, such notions have become surreal. Someone with quite dark skin from India or Egypt surely is more easily recognizable as “the other” than someone indistinguishable from the “white” majority who has a Latino surname; yet would not a college admissions officer more likely admit a Pedro Gomez than a Tarsam Singh?</p> <p>Is there a color-coded graph somewhere that says the darker one is, the more consideration one is due? Apparently not — given that most East Asians and Arabs are not usually extended affirmative action status. OK, but do third-generation affluent Japanese-Americans qualify for preferences on the rationale that their parents as children were interned in camps in the American West; or fifth-generation Chinese because their great-great-grandparents were treated horribly while building the transcontinental railroad?</p> </div><div style="font-weight: bold;" class="paged-nav-left"><span style="font-size:180%;"><a href="http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/why-affirmative-action-should-stop/2/">Continued on Next Page -></a></span></div><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:180%;" >Page 1 of 3 <a href="http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/why-affirmative-action-should-stop/2/">Next -></a></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395381545218020265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4966921227529983571.post-80852635766347402602011-05-18T15:44:00.001-07:002011-05-18T15:44:42.147-07:00Obama's Newest Ambush<h2 id="article-title"><span style="font-size:180%;">Obama's Newest Ambush</span></h2><strong>By</strong> <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/authors/?author=Caroline+Glick&id=15008"><b>Caroline Glick</b></a><br /><div style="font-size: 1em;" class="article_body" id="article_body"><p>It is hard to believe, but it appears that in the wake of the Palestinian unity deal that brings Hamas, the genocidal, al-Qaida-aligned, local franchise of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, into a partnership with Fatah, US President Barack Obama has decided to open a new round of pressure on <a href="http://realclearworld.com/topic/around_the_world/israel/?utm_source=rcw&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=rcwautolink" class="external_link">Israel</a> to give away its land and national rights to the Palestinians. It is hard to believe that this is the case. But apparently it is.</p> <p>On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that while Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is in Washington, and before the premier has a chance to give his scheduled address to a joint session of Congress, Obama will give a new speech to the Arab world. In that speech, Obama will praise the populist movements that have risen up against Arab tyrannies and embrace them as the model for the future. As for Israel, the report claimed that the Obama administration is still trying to decide whether the time is right to put the screws on Israel once more.</p><div style="display: inline; float: right; width: 300px; margin: 0px 0 12px 12px; padding: 0 0 0 10px; position: relative; background-color:#fff;"><div id="article-box-ad"><div id="google_ads_div_RC_300_by_250_top_ad_container"> </div> </div></div> <p>On the one hand, Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes told the Journal that Arab leaders are clamoring for a new US initiative to force Israel to make new concessions. Joining this supposed clamor are the administration-allied pro-Palestinian lobby J Street, and the administration-allied New York Times.</p> <p>On the other hand, the Netanyahu government and Congress are calling for a US aid cutoff to the Palestinian Authority. With Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization, now partnering with Fatah in governing the PA, it is illegal for the US government to continue to have anything to do with the PA. Both the Netanyahu government and senior members of the House and Senate are arguing forcefully that there is no way for Israel to make peace with the Palestinians now, and that the US must abandon its efforts to force the sides to sign an agreement.</p> <p>The Israeli and congressional arguments are certainly compelling. But the signals emanating from the White House and its allied media indicate that Obama is ready to plough forward in spite of them. With the new international security credibility he earned by overseeing the successful assassination of Osama bin Laden, Obama apparently believes that he can withstand congressional pressure and make the case for demanding that Israel surrender Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria to Hamas and its partners in Fatah.</p> <p>THE SIGNALS that Obama is setting his sights on coercing Israel into agreeing to surrender its capital and heartland to Hamas and its partners in Fatah came in three forms this week. First, administration officials are trying to lower the bar that Hamas needs to pass in order to be considered a legitimate political force.</p> <p>After Fatah and Hamas signed their first unity deal in March 2007, the US and its colleagues in the so-called Middle East Quartet - <a href="http://realclearworld.com/topic/around_the_world/russia/?utm_source=rcw&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=rcwautolink" class="external_link">Russia</a>, the EU and the UN - set three conditions that Hamas needed to meet to be accepted by them as legitimate. It needed to recognize Israel's right to exist, agree to respect existing agreements with Israel, and renounce terrorism.</p> <p>These are not difficult conditions. Fatah is perceived as having met them even though it is still a terrorist organization and its leaders refuse to accept Israel's right to exist and refuse to abide by any of the major commitments they took upon themselves in precious agreements with Israel. Hamas could easily follow Fatah's lead.</p> <p>But Hamas refuses. So, speaking to Washington Post columnist David Ignatius two weeks ago, administration officials lowered the bar.</p> <p>They said Hamas had made major concessions to Fatah in their agreement because it agreed to accept provisions of the 2009 unity deal drafted by the Mubarak government that it rejected two year ago and because Hamas agreed that the unity government will be manned by "technocrats" rather than terrorists.</p> <p>Even if these contentions are true, they are completely ridiculous. In point of fact, all the 2009 agreement says is that Hamas will refrain from demanding to join the US-trained and funded Fatah army in Judea and Samaria. As for the "technocratic" government, who does the Obama administration think will control these "technocrats"? And as to the truth of these contentions, in an interview last week with the New York Times, Hamas terror-master Khaled Mashal denied that he had agreed to the terms of the 2009 agreement.</p> <p>Indeed, he said that Fatah agreed to add annexes to the agreement reflecting Hamas's positions.</p> <p>The second pitch the administration and its friends have adopted ahead of Obama's address next week is that Hamas has become more moderate or may become more moderate.</p> <p>Robert Malley, who in the past advised Obama's presidential campaign, made this argument last week in an op-ed in the Washington Post. Malley claimed that by joining the government, Hamas will be more moved by US pressure. A New York Times editorial last Saturday argued that Hamas may have moderated, and even if it hasn't, "Washington needs to press Mr. Netanyahu back to the peace table."</p> <p>Adding their voices to the din, Middle Eastern leaders like Amr Moussa, the frontrunner to serve as <a href="http://realclearworld.com/topic/around_the_world/egypt/?utm_source=rcw&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=rcwautolink" class="external_link">Egypt</a>'s next president, and Turkish Prime Minister Recip Erdogan, have given interviews to the US media this week in which they denied that Hamas is even a terrorist organization.</p> <p>Here it is important to note that none of the administration's statements about the Hamas- Fatah deal and none of the media coverage related to it have included any mention of the fact that Hamas deliberately murders entire families and targets children specifically. No one mentions last month's Hamas guided rocket attack which deliberately targeted an Israeli school bus. Hamas murdered 16-year-old Daniel Viflic in that attack. No one has mentioned the café massacres, the bus bombings, the university campus massacres, the breaking into homes massacres, the Passover Seder massacres Hamas has carried out and bragged about in recent years. No one has mentioned that when seen as a portion of the population, Hamas has killed far more Israelis than al-Qaida has killed Americans.</p> <p>The final pitch the administration and its surrogates are making is that the deal needs to be seen as part of the overall regional shift towards popular rule. This pitch too is difficult to make.</p> <p>After all, the first casualty of the Arab world's shift towards popular rule is the 30-year-old Camp David peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. Now that Egypt's citizens have gotten rid of US-ally Hosni Mubarak, they have committed themselves to getting rid of the peace he upheld with Israel throughout his long reign.</p> <p>Again, despite the difficulties, the Obama administration is clearly willing to make the case. Regarding Egypt, they argue that the Muslim Brotherhood's rise to power is a good. This was the point of Obama's Passover and Israel Independence Day messages.</p> <p>As for the regional shift, the fact that Obama reportedly intends to place the so-called Palestinian- Israeli peace process into the regional context signals that he sees potential for an agreement between Israel and <a href="http://realclearworld.com/topic/around_the_world/syria/?utm_source=rcw&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=rcwautolink" class="external_link">Syria</a> as well. His advisers telegraphed this view to Ignatius.</p> <p>Obama's advisers made the unlikely argument that if Syrian leader Bashar Assad survives the popular demonstrations calling for his overthrow, he will feel compelled to distance his regime from <a href="http://realclearworld.com/topic/around_the_world/iran/?utm_source=rcw&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=rcwautolink" class="external_link">Iran</a> because his Sunni-majority population has been critical of his alliance with the Shi'ite mullocracy.</p> <p>This argument is unlikely given that the same officials recognize that if Assad survives, he will owe his regime's survival to Iran. As they reminded Ignatius, US intelligence officials reported last month that Iran has "secretly supplied Assad with tear gas, anti-riot gear and other tools of suppression."</p> <p>WHAT IS perhaps most remarkable about Obama's apparent plan to use the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt as an excuse for a new round of diplomatic warfare against Israel is how poorly coordinated his steps have been with the PLO-Fatah. Mahmoud Abbas and his predecessor Yasser Arafat always viewed the US obsession with getting the Arabs and Israel to sign peace treaties as a strategic asset. Anytime they wanted to weaken Israel, they just needed to sound the fake peace drum loudly enough to get the White House's attention. US presidents looking for the opportunity to "make history" were always ready to take their bait.</p> <p>Unlike his predecessors, Obama's interest in the Palestinians is not opportunistic. He is a true believer. And because of his deep-seated commitment to the Palestinians, his policies are even more radically anti-Israel than the PLO-Fatah's. It was Obama, not Abbas, who demanded that Jews be barred from building anything in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. It is the Obama administration, not the PLO-Fatah, that is leading the charge to embrace the Muslim Brotherhood.</p> <p>Like his belated move to demand a permanent abrogation of Jewish property rights in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, Abbas arguably embraced Hamas because Obama left him no choice. He has no interest in making peace with Israel, so the only thing he can do under the circumstances Obama has created is embrace Hamas. He can't be less pro-Islamic than the US president.</p> <p>ALL OF this brings us to Netanyahu and his trip to Washington next week. Obviously Obama's decision to upstage the premier with his new outreach-to-the-Arab-world speech will make Netanyahu's visit more challenging than it was already going to be.</p> <p>Obama is clearly betting that by moving first, he will be able to coerce Netanyahu to make still more concessions of land and principles.</p> <p>Certainly, Netanyahu's earlier decisions to cave in to Obama's pressure with his acceptance of Palestinian statehood and his subsequent acceptance of a Jewish building freeze give Obama good reason to believe he can back Netanyahu into a corner. Defense Minister Ehud Barak's hysterical warnings about a diplomatic "tsunami" at the UN in September if Israel fails to capitulate to Obama today no doubt add to Obama's sense that he can expect Netanyahu to dance to his drums, no matter how hostile the beat.</p> <p>But Netanyahu doesn't have to give in. He can stick to his guns and defend the country. He can continue on the correct path he has forged of repeating the truth about Hamas. He can warn about the growing threat of Egypt. He can describe the Iranian-supported butchery Assad is carrying out against his own people and note that a regime that murders its own will not make peace with the Jewish state. And he can point out the fact that as a capitalist, liberal democracy which protects the lives and property of its citizens, Israel is the only stable country in the region and the US's only reliable regional ally.</p> <p>True, if Netanyahu does these things, he will not win himself any friends in the White House.</p> <p>But he never had a chance of winning Obama and his advisers over anyway. He will empower Israel's allies in Congress, though. And more importantly, whether he is loved or hated in Washington, if Netanyahu does these things, he will be able to return home to Jerusalem with the sure knowledge that he earned his salary this month.</p></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395381545218020265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4966921227529983571.post-37441350113340771332011-05-18T15:42:00.001-07:002011-05-18T15:42:41.967-07:00Federal Food Police Against Business and Science<h2 id="article-title"><span style="font-size:130%;">Federal Food Police Against Business and Science</span></h2><strong>By</strong> <a href="http://www.realclearmarkets.com/authors/?id=12411"><b>Steven Malanga</b></a><br /><p>Late last month a host of government agencies including the Federal Trade Commission and the Agriculture Department proposed what the media described as "tough'' but "voluntary" new standards for food companies that advertise to children, designed to pressure the businesses into incorporating much lower amounts of fat, sodium and sugar in foods aimed at a young audience. </p><p>Barely a week later the <em>Journal of the American Medical Association</em> published new research which suggested that lowering sodium consumption not only doesn't benefit most people, it may actually increase risk of heart attacks for some. The research was apparently so disturbing to government regulators that some felt the need to step out and criticize the results in the media, something that they rarely do.</p> <p>If you've been following the latest research on diet in the scientific journals, you would understand why the regulators appeared so defensive. Increasingly, some of the basic assumptions about nutrition that have formed the core of the government's recommendations on what Americans should eat are being questioned by studies which suggest the advice is not merely ineffective but may be counterproductive, contributing among other things to the rise in obesity which the White House decries. Rather than be humbled and made cautious by such research, however, government regulators are simply plowing ahead with a conviction that their ideas about nutrition are correct. Businesses are expected to fall into line, regardless of the implications for their products.</p><div id="article-box-ad"><div id="google_ads_div_RC_300_by_250_top_ad_container"> </div> </div> <p>The sodium controversy is a good example of how distorted the arguments have become. The regulators dismissed the new study by suggesting that the results were unusual because the research was flawed. But this was not the first time that a peer-reviewed study had cast doubt on the idea that most of us consume too much sodium. Indeed, more than a decade ago <em>Science Magazine</em> highlighted the controversy with a piece entitled "The (Political) Science of Salt" which noted that, "Three decades of controversy over the putative blood pressure benefits from salt reduction are demonstrating how the demands of good science clash with the pressures of public health policy." More recently, in a February, 2010, article in the<em> Journal of the American Medical Association</em>, Dr. Michael Alderman, a leading hypertension expert, reviewed the relevant recent research and found a disturbing lack of consistency in the results of a dozen studies on the relationship of salt to our health, which prompted him to observe in the <em>New York Times</em> that any potential population-wide government requirements or recommendations on sodium reduction would amount to a giant uncontrolled experiment with the U.S. population with potentially unintended consequences.</p> <p>The legacy of the government's dietary guidelines may turn out to be a disturbing list of unintended consequences, including possibly the current obesity epidemic. Since the 1970s, the government's food recommendations have largely been aimed at cutting our consumption of cholesterol and fat, especially saturated fat, to reduce cardiovascular disease and stroke and the conditions that might lead to them, including obesity.</p> <p>The guidelines, first produced by Sen. George McGovern's Select Subcommittee on Nutrition and Human Needs, were controversial from the start because there was no conclusive evidence at the time that diet was a major contributor to heart disease. But the committee and its scientific advisers proceeded because, they argued, there were no risks in "eating less meat, less fat, less saturated fat...more fruits, vegetables, unsaturated fats and cereal products." Over the years this has become a mantra of the public health establishment about diet, namely that even when the research is inconclusive, what could possibly be the harm in consuming less of things like meat and salt?</p> <p>With the federal bureaucracy behind them, the guidelines became widely accepted even though subsequent research often questioned them. Two of the government's principal studies on diet and heart disease, published in the 1980s, were intended to offer reassurances, but instead produced results that were inconclusive, at best. The science has only gotten more troubling since then, as researchers have begun to wonder if the obesity epidemic is in some way related to the change in diet prompted by the guidelines. A 2008 article in the <em>American Journal of Preventive Medicine</em> argued that Americans have actually followed the government's advice, reducing intake of fat and increasing the proportion of our calories from carbohydrates. The result had been a rise in overall calorie intake, leading the authors to wonder if, "the U.S. dietary guidelines recommending fat restriction might have worsened rather than helped the obesity epidemic." They criticized the government for relying on "weak evidentiary support" in the guidelines.</p> <p>In April of last year <em>Scientific American</em> reviewed the mounting number of studies contradicting the governments point of view in a piece entitled, "Carbs Against Cardio: More Evidence that Refined Carbohydrates, not Fats, Threaten the Heart." And in October of 2010 the journal <em>Nutrition</em> weighed in with a piece by five researchers entitled "In the Face of Contradictory Evidence: Report of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans Committee," which cited dozens of peer-reviewed studies questioning the science at the foundation of the guidelines.</p> <p>None of this has deterred the government. The new, 2010 guidelines, for instance, ignored the contrary evidence and recommended significantly lowering salt consumption for everyone over age 50. As in the past, the food regulators seem to have little concern for the unintended consequences of their untested theories. Food companies have argued, for instance, that the sodium goals set by the government are so low that they will make some foods like prepared soups unpalatable to kids. We have no idea what other foods kids will turn to instead.</p> <p>More than three decades of government involvement in dietary recommendations have led to a situation our grandparents and great-grandparents would have found unthinkable: people turning to government for advice on what to eat. In the interim a whole industry of nutrition writers and diet books has emerged to interpret the Washington diet to us, or contend against it. Not surprisingly, some Americans are confused.</p> <p>If the federal government unleashed a Pandora's Box of unintended consequences more than three decades ago, it's going to be awfully hard to undo much of what Washington has done. We haven't even begun trying yet.</p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395381545218020265noreply@blogger.com0