“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."
You cannot support a military you can't afford. The priority, IMO, is to rebuild the industrial base, expand the working middle class and close the largest security gap that we face, economic insecurity.
4. stoicheionDirty Harry is scrambling furiously, bending the rules, etc, to avoid the ‘Jobs Plan’ from coming to a vote. He knows the Democrats will kill it.
That works for me. A bill that never comes to a vote it's exactly equivalent to a bill that is dead.
Obama advisor Patrick Gaspard is trolling Craigslist to hire Occupy Wall Street protesters. Obama has now increased debt more than all Presidents from George Washington through George H.W. Bush combined. George Lopez says Cain is 'Darker than Obama, but whiter on the inside' (this is a foretaste of how ugly the 2012 campaign will be).
Meanwhile there's a shovel-ready job waiting for Barack Obama in NYC today. Occupy Wall Street protesters are crapping in the streets.
Last year, he passionately defended plans to build a mosque and cultural center two blocks from the World Trade Center, a controversy that dominated media for months.
“This is the place where you can protest,” Bloomberg said last week, calling New York the “most tolerant, open city in the world.”
“Whether it’s the mosque or anything else, this is a city that values people’s rights and gives them the ability to say what they want to say. I think more so than other city that I know of around the world,” he said.
Some anti-Romney Republicans are beginning to acknowledge that their votes could be divided, leading to a Romney victory.
...
But other Republicans remain confident that the party’s anti-establishment wing will eventually find a champion who will compete in a long primary battle with the former Massachusetts governor.
“When I meet with people in the grass roots, in a crowd of 100, when you ask who is for Romney, you only get one or two hands up,” said Adam Brandon, a spokesman for the tea party-affiliated group FreedomWorks. “There’s a huge opening.”
Sims reached the surprising conclusion that interest-rate changes engineered by the Fed and other central banks typically have less effect on the economy than previously thought. On the other hand, policies that involve taxes and spending tend to play a bigger role than many economists had assumed.
...
“It is not an exaggeration to say that both Sargent’s and Sims’ methods are used daily ... in all central banks that I know of in the developed world and at several finance departments too,” Nobel committee member Torsten Persson told the AP.
...
Asked how he would invest his half of $1.5 million award, given the turbulence of today’s financial markets, Sims said: “First thing I’m going to do is keep it in cash for a while and think.”
Rufus:That's why Japanese Admiral Yamamoto told'em, "Don't do it guys; you don't know what you're fucking with."
That's because he rode a train across the country and saw the endless productive activity here. Japan is about the size of one state. In those days the United States could go from making Burma Shave to P-51s at the drop of a hat. Any hat.
Rufus II said...We had the Sea Bees. They were Magic. They could make Cold beer appear in an instant, in the middle of nowhere.
From cold beer to cold Bin Laden, the Navy delivers.
Just bar this silly sonofabitch and get it over with.
Naw. He's doing to his own reputation what Jerry Brown is doing to California's future with the Dream Act, or Perry screwing up his debates so bad he looks like Obama off 'Prompter.
Not only that, T; he was a student at Harvard from 1919 to 1921, spoke fluent English, and, if I remember correctly, even joined in a Friday night poker game with "Nimitz," and some of the boys.
His 6-month sojourn across the U.S. was probably more of a Spy Mission than anything else.
From Wiki:
Consequently, Yamamoto stayed in his post. With Tōjō now in charge of Japan's highest political office, it became clear the army would lead the navy into a war about which Yamamoto had serious reservations. He wrote to an ultranationalist:
Should hostilities once break out between Japan and the United States, it would not be enough that we take Guam and the Philippines, nor even Hawaii and San Francisco. To make victory certain, we would have to march into Washington and dictate the terms of peace in the White House. I wonder if our politicians (who speak so lightly of a Japanese-American war) have confidence as to the final outcome and are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices.[12]
This quote was spread by the militarists, minus the last sentence, where it was interpreted in America as a boast that Japan would conquer the entire continental United States.[12] The omitted sentence showed Yamamoto's counsel of caution towards a war that could cost Japan dearly. Nevertheless, Yamamoto accepted the reality of impending war and planned for a quick victory by destroying the US fleet at Pearl Harbor while simultaneously thrusting into the oil and rubber resource rich areas of Southeast Asia, especially the Dutch East Indies, Borneo and Malaya. In naval matters, Yamamoto opposed the building of the super-battleships Yamato and Musashi as an unwise investment of resources.
Yamamoto was responsible for a number of innovations in Japanese naval aviation. Although remembered for his association with aircraft carriers due to Pearl Harbor and Midway, Yamamoto did more to influence the development of land-based naval aviation, particularly the Mitsubishi G3M and G4M medium bombers. His demand for great range and the ability to carry a torpedo was intended to conform to Japanese conceptions of attriting the American fleet as it advanced across the Pacific in war. The planes did achieve long range, but long-range fighter escorts were not available. These planes were lightly constructed and when fully fueled, they were especially vulnerable to enemy fire. This earned the G4M the sardonic nickname "the Flying Cigarette Lighter." Yamamoto would eventually die in one of these aircraft.
Yeah, he understood the people, that they wouldn't "negotiate" a truce after an attack like Pearl Harbor, and he understood the Industrial Capacity that he was going up against.
He, famously, made the statement: "I can run wild for 6 months, but after that it's going all about industrial capacity and oil."
He seems to have been the only member of the Leadership that was concerned that the attack took place before the Declaration of War had been delivered.
He was extremely distressed by the timing, and thought it was a matter of monumental magnitude.
He knew the one thing the American people would Never forgive was a "Sneak Attack," or "Surprise Attack." (Also, knowing well the American Political Class, he knew how it would be used to rally the masses.)
"Obama has now increased debt more than all Presidents from..."
I shake my head in dismay at such simplistic thought. "Obama increased", yeah, riiight, the USA is a monarchy and the King is, well, King, and all powerful just like God.
It is so sad that so many in the US think this way. Unfortunately the problem is more structural then discretionary and a president, any president, simply can't wave his/her magic wand and make it different.
In fact I'd suggest that it isn't the Presidents fault, Bush nor Obama, but rather the US populace and their stubborn refusal to entertain tax increases AND spending cuts while, of course, the POL deliver just that. Typical of Americans to want their cake an to eat it too.
There is a lot of truth in what Ash is telling us. There is no way that we are going to pay the US debt. It is time to think about a national cram-down and done in a way that does not fall exclusively on the middle class. We could live with a debt of $5-7 Trillion. Get out the clippers.
Three other attacks in the capital left a dozen people wounded, the interior ministry official said.
In the northern city of Mosul, two Iraqi soldiers were shot dead by gunmen using silencer-equipped pistols, according to a police officer who did not want to be identified.
Meanwhile, just south of the restive central city of Baquba, in Diyala province north of Baghdad, a woman was killed and her husband was wounded when gunmen stormed into their home and opened fire, police said.
In fact I'd suggest that it isn't the Presidents fault, Bush nor Obama, but rather the US populace and their stubborn refusal to entertain tax increases AND spending cuts while, of course, the POL deliver just that. Typical of Americans to want their cake an to eat it too.
It is so sad that so many in the US think this way. Unfortunately the problem is more structural then discretionary and a president, any president, simply can't wave his/her magic wand and make it different.
Well shit. Ash. For once, I heartily agree with you.
Much as I can't stand the current occupant of the White House, this crisis has been 40 years in the making (for me, it starts with Nixon getting rid of the dollar pegged to gold).
Obama is a lot of things, but he is not the architect of the financial crisis. The guy is too arrogant and ignorant to see that his remedies are more of the same, but I'd expect that from the top receiver of campaign funds of all time from Wall Street.
Our current situation we all had something to do with, and we all need to take a bite to get back out of it. Unfortunately, 90% of our compatriots are too spaced out to see that it won't be pain free.
This is one step that has to be taken, and that is capital budgeting.
We need to:
- Limit our non-capital expenditures to tax receipts. - Broaden the tax base. - Increase private savings and simultaneously increase public investment to take up the slack in reduced private consumption. - Quit borrowing for capital projects. - Go back to the Clintonian plan replacing welfare with workfare. it is insane paying someone unemployment for two years without getting anything in return.
Pennsylvania, in the colonial period, issued currency for capital projects. that created economic stimulus without borrowing any money and provided income not based on going to Walmart to buy Chinese manufactured goods.
I really advise anyone that has not looked at the video to do so. That was who we were 50 years ago. We are not close to being that today. it is an amazing accomplishment and speaks wonders as to how government and private industry, based on a strong manufacturing base, can get things accomplished, without the impediment of a bloated bureaucratic multi-headed gauntlet of government agencies aided and abetted by divisions of worthless lawyers.
I'm pretty well "inflation-protected," D-Day. About as well as one could hope to be. 'sides, I don't eat much, anymore (I've even cut back on my beer.) :0
I love the smell, the noise, the dust, the grit of manufacturing plants with hard-handed men and woman having a cigarette and a cup of coffee of the back of a lunch truck or from a lunch bucket. Bethlehem Steel
If we could just put a million of your "hard-handed" men and women to work building an ethanol refinery in every county we could tell the world to kiss our rusty, red asses within 2 yrs.
….to pick up on Ash's point, Obama was thrown the keys to something that was way over his ability. Your concept is so simple Rufus, it is either nuts or genius. Build 25 of them and see how they work. Build them in 4 months.
A recent study by Purdue research scientist Youngmi Kim shows that combining a harvest fall schedule along with a pretreatment step will help increase the yield of cellulosic ethanol per acre.
The examples noted in the article (link below) noted that from a single acre of switchgrass, following the scientist's recommended approach can yield 800 to 1000 gallons of ethanol per year per acre, compared to 150 to 200 gallons per acre without the pretreatment step.
As a reference, the average per acre yield for corn-based ethanol is estimated at 500 to 600 gallons per acre of corn.
Ruf - I have to quibble with you some. The debt stuff does matter when the interest you pay to your semi-hostile creditors funds their military buildup. We send the money to the Wahabbists for oil or Charlie Chi-Cap for molded plastic and iPhones. Either way, it's outta here.
The .gov is now in the business of hiring six-figure bureaucrats. "Stimulus" is another program of the elite strip-mining everyone else to get their friends posts in the .gov to steer more lucre their way. Nothing new, yes, but the scale of it is epic. It raids the politically-incorrect guitar factory employing Joe sixpack making guitars in the USofA and shovels money by the bucketful to the "green" companies that can't do shit. "Build" stuff for US, sub-contract the work to the Far East or Central America. Triple your margin, the capital leaves the country, and the profits stay offshore.
The Keynes thing isn't working this time. If it was going to, it would have by now.
Wholesale restructuring of the tax code and the empowerment of the individual to create businesses and prosper are the things we need. Two things that diminish the power of a central, national government. Two things that the corrupt, bloated, parasitic system we now have is incapable of doing.
G'night fellas. Gotta be up at 0500 for a run, PT, and a day behind the desk. Will carry on with you reprobates later.
The Republicans (and, more than a few Democrats) are fighting biofuels just as hard as they possibly can. Their Lords, and Masters, the big oil companies are scared to death of cellulosic ethanol. With damned good reason.
Poet, and Abengoa are putting up, basically, their own money for a couple of plants - Poet in Iowa, Abengoa in Kansas.
Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc. OMEX +6.46% has discovered another shipwrecked British vessel loaded with a shipment of silver, only 100 miles from a recent discovery confirmed last month.
...
Odyssey has begun the process of assembling the tools and equipment for the expedition to salvage the Gairsoppa and Mantola, and anticipates that operations will begin next spring. Gordon said the company's share of a successful recovery will contribute significantly to its operational funding.
Second-quarter results from Odyssey showed its loss narrowed from a year earlier as revenue jumped 56%.
Almost 62 percent of Marylanders polled said they would be willing to pay an additional $2 per month for electricity if more of it was generated by “clean, local offshore wind farms, instead of coming from coal, oil and gas.”
An additional 34 percent said they would be unwilling to pay more.
Show me an economically viable offshore wind farm in the Western Hemisphere.
One of the stupider ideas ever, given the cost of construction of all the undersea infrastructure, high maintenance expenses, and elimination of seabirds.
And, the stupidest assholes on earth will continue to buy oil from Saudi Arabia to burn for the most expensive electricity they can waste their money on.
Fortunately, there are very few places left on the planet where people are That stupid.
Rufus:The Republicans (and, more than a few Democrats) are fighting biofuels just as hard as they possibly can. Their Lords, and Masters, the big oil companies are scared to death of cellulosic ethanol. With damned good reason.
Yeah, we all heard how Big Oil suppressed the electric car because it scared them too, but when the Watermelons finally got the upper hand and they made Big Oil back off on that, what we got was the $90,000 Volt.
117. Barry Meislin:So are you saying that ****** should have sat on its hands (as the Bush I administration demanded they do—and which ****** did, while Iraqi scuds were landing on its citizens)?
Naw, they should have been helping us find the Scuds, to hell with the coalition. The coalition was a whitewash anyway. Did we really need the French tank division, or the token forces from the Philippines? The UK and the Poles would have been with us come hell or high water.
But most of our BC regulars were here for the 2006 ******-Lebanon War, and we saw how effective the IDF was in finding Scuds then....NOT.
Teresita said... 117. Barry Meislin: So are you saying that ****** should have sat on its hands (as the Bush I administration demanded they do—and which ****** did, while Iraqi scuds were landing on its citizens)?
interesting...
even if I do not bring it up Ms T cannot help herself...
she can't use the term "Israel" but she can copy and paste from other blogs the topic..
The Volt, which has a sticker price of $ 41,000, comes with a federal tax credit of $7,500 which brings the price down to $33,500. However, each Volt is subsidized by the government to the tune of $132,500. So the real cost of the vehicle is actually $173,500. Most of the cost of the Volt is not paid by the buyer, it is paid by the American taxpayer.
WiO:she can't use the term "Israel" but she can copy and paste from other blogs the topic..
If WiO can't complain about this, he complains about me being a lesbian in the pre-DADT Navy. If he can't complain about that, he'll find something else to whine about. But either way, he's boring the hell out of the Bar.
Teresita said... WiO: she can't use the term "Israel" but she can copy and paste from other blogs the topic..
If WiO can't complain about this, he complains about me being a lesbian in the pre-DADT Navy. If he can't complain about that, he'll find something else to whine about. But either way, he's boring the hell out of the Bar.
Sorry to bother you, since it was you that make such a stink about NOT being Israel obsessed...
Now you are pasting the Belmont Club HERE and blacking out Israel with *****????
Are you retarded or what??????
But the truth? You swore an oath when you enlisted into the Armed Forces to which you lied and covered up the fact you were an admitted homosexual when it was a CRIME.
You tried to excuse it by bringing up DADT but you admitted you JOINED during Reagan, years BEFORE DADT....
So when you are caught in a LIE you change the subject....
You are an anti-semite.
They CALL you that at the Belmont Club, I call you that here....
Notice a PATTERN sweetie?
But it is ODD that you PASTE posts from the Belmont Blog HERE...
WHEN NOONE is talking about Israel, YOU BRING IT UP!!!!!
Gosh, WiO I thought you would appreciate my view that ****** should have been permitted to hunt for Scud launchers in the 1991 War. That's what they wanted to do, but they were willing to stay pat for $13 billion dollars. My bad.
Teresita said... Gosh, WiO I thought you would appreciate my view that ****** should have been permitted to hunt for Scud launchers in the 1991 War. That's what they wanted to do, but they were willing to stay pat for $13 billion dollars. My bad.
I dont discuss Israel with anti-semites..
And you are an anti-semite.
You parse words, you misdirect and are not capable of rational discussion of the subject of Israel, Zionism or Judaism.
I am just glad to see that the Belmont Blog sees thru your nonsense and labeled you an anti-semite.
Me, I can't stand borrowing money from the Bank of China to pay Bob-al-Harb NOT to grow alfalfa, and I can't stand borrowing money from the Bank of China to pay our "allies" NOT to fight. I'm just funny that way.
And where will these “one million new jobs” come from? By expanding oil and gas drilling and building new pipelines, says the American Petroleum Institute, an industry lobbying group that paid for the ad campaign, which also has featured in newspapers, on television and on Metro platforms.
Oil companies aren’t the only ones promising jobs if Washington gives them their way. A wide array of businesses are saying they can help solve the country’s unemployment crisis if only the government would roll back some regulations, approve their big mergers or lower their taxes...
Industry groups including API says all you have to do is cut our taxes, allow our mergers, and cut the regulations we don't like and we will provide millions of jobs.
The candidates buy these stories. They cite the numbers all the time. Why don't I?
When is the last time you heard of a merger increasing jobs rather than reducing them?
I would love to see a return to state banking. All these mega money center banks do is go from bailout to bailout, Argentina, Mexico, Thailand, yada, yada, yada. Make them go away. They will never be missed.
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — The securities industry in New York City faces likely job cuts of nearly 10,000 through 2012 as Wall Street banks cope with lower trading revenue, new regulations restricting their activities, and bruised stock prices, according to a new report.
Countries buying oil from Saudi Arabia have to buy with US dollars (Petro dollar).
The only way they get US dollars is to sell us shit they can make cheaper than what we can make it. Then they have US Dollars to buy oil. One of the many reasons mfg left the country years ago.
When the US could build things, fast.
ReplyDeleteThis film shows all the industry that we no longer need, because we can get it from China.
ReplyDeleteNo affirmative action. You knew what you were doing or you took a hike.
ReplyDeleteThe meme of closing foreign military bases to save money - how much actual savings would it net?
ReplyDeleteIf you go to the 25 minute mark, you get a very interesting comment as a comparison to the American mentality then and now.
ReplyDeleteYou cannot support a military you can't afford. The priority, IMO, is to rebuild the industrial base, expand the working middle class and close the largest security gap that we face, economic insecurity.
ReplyDeleteIt make me sick to see what US industry could do. Compare that to our great technological feat of flash trading. WTF
ReplyDeleteAlready we're starting to look back at the 20th Century as the muscular high water mark of America. The 21st Century is the nerdy little brother.
ReplyDelete4. stoicheion Dirty Harry is scrambling furiously, bending the rules, etc, to avoid the ‘Jobs Plan’ from coming to a vote. He knows the Democrats will kill it.
ReplyDeleteThat works for me. A bill that never comes to a vote it's exactly equivalent to a bill that is dead.
Obama advisor Patrick Gaspard is trolling Craigslist to hire Occupy Wall Street protesters. Obama has now increased debt more than all Presidents from George Washington through George H.W. Bush combined. George Lopez says Cain is 'Darker than Obama, but whiter on the inside' (this is a foretaste of how ugly the 2012 campaign will be).
Meanwhile there's a shovel-ready job waiting for Barack Obama in NYC today. Occupy Wall Street protesters are crapping in the streets.
Last year, he passionately defended plans to build a mosque and cultural center two blocks from the World Trade Center, a controversy that dominated media for months.
ReplyDelete“This is the place where you can protest,” Bloomberg said last week, calling New York the “most tolerant, open city in the world.”
“Whether it’s the mosque or anything else, this is a city that values people’s rights and gives them the ability to say what they want to say. I think more so than other city that I know of around the world,” he said.
Some anti-Romney Republicans are beginning to acknowledge that their votes could be divided, leading to a Romney victory.
ReplyDelete...
But other Republicans remain confident that the party’s anti-establishment wing will eventually find a champion who will compete in a long primary battle with the former Massachusetts governor.
“When I meet with people in the grass roots, in a crowd of 100, when you ask who is for Romney, you only get one or two hands up,” said Adam Brandon, a spokesman for the tea party-affiliated group FreedomWorks. “There’s a huge opening.”
Sims reached the surprising conclusion that interest-rate changes engineered by the Fed and other central banks typically have less effect on the economy than previously thought. On the other hand, policies that involve taxes and spending tend to play a bigger role than many economists had assumed.
ReplyDelete...
“It is not an exaggeration to say that both Sargent’s and Sims’ methods are used daily ... in all central banks that I know of in the developed world and at several finance departments too,” Nobel committee member Torsten Persson told the AP.
...
Asked how he would invest his half of $1.5 million award, given the turbulence of today’s financial markets, Sims said: “First thing I’m going to do is keep it in cash for a while and think.”
So it has been established that for many of T's st years of service in the USA armed forces she willingly lied and covered up her illegal behavior.
ReplyDeleteto which Deuce lends his stamp of approval....
to which Rufus exclaims...
"Just bar this silly sonofabitch and get it over with"
Speaks volume.....
Really....
Something you didn't want to hear: "I thought YOU packed it."
ReplyDeleteThose old boys earned their pay.
ReplyDeleteComplete silence on latest cleansing of Christians in Egypt.
ReplyDeleteIn a little over a decade we've pretty well purified every ME country we've touched.
For the Muzzies.
ROP Reigns
In any Army it's the Engineering battalions that make you drop your jaw in awe.
ReplyDeleteWe had the Sea Bees. They were Magic. They could make Cold beer appear in an instant, in the middle of nowhere.
ReplyDeleteThat's why Japanese Admiral Yamamoto told'em, "Don't do it guys; you don't know what you're fucking with."
ReplyDeleteRufus: That's why Japanese Admiral Yamamoto told'em, "Don't do it guys; you don't know what you're fucking with."
ReplyDeleteThat's because he rode a train across the country and saw the endless productive activity here. Japan is about the size of one state. In those days the United States could go from making Burma Shave to P-51s at the drop of a hat. Any hat.
Rufus II said... We had the Sea Bees. They were Magic. They could make Cold beer appear in an instant, in the middle of nowhere.
ReplyDeleteFrom cold beer to cold Bin Laden, the Navy delivers.
Just bar this silly sonofabitch and get it over with.
Naw. He's doing to his own reputation what Jerry Brown is doing to California's future with the Dream Act, or Perry screwing up his debates so bad he looks like Obama off 'Prompter.
Not only that, T; he was a student at Harvard from 1919 to 1921, spoke fluent English, and, if I remember correctly, even joined in a Friday night poker game with "Nimitz," and some of the boys.
ReplyDeleteHis 6-month sojourn across the U.S. was probably more of a Spy Mission than anything else.
From Wiki:
Consequently, Yamamoto stayed in his post. With Tōjō now in charge of Japan's highest political office, it became clear the army would lead the navy into a war about which Yamamoto had serious reservations. He wrote to an ultranationalist:
Should hostilities once break out between Japan and the United States, it would not be enough that we take Guam and the Philippines, nor even Hawaii and San Francisco. To make victory certain, we would have to march into Washington and dictate the terms of peace in the White House. I wonder if our politicians (who speak so lightly of a Japanese-American war) have confidence as to the final outcome and are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices.[12]
This quote was spread by the militarists, minus the last sentence, where it was interpreted in America as a boast that Japan would conquer the entire continental United States.[12] The omitted sentence showed Yamamoto's counsel of caution towards a war that could cost Japan dearly. Nevertheless, Yamamoto accepted the reality of impending war and planned for a quick victory by destroying the US fleet at Pearl Harbor while simultaneously thrusting into the oil and rubber resource rich areas of Southeast Asia, especially the Dutch East Indies, Borneo and Malaya. In naval matters, Yamamoto opposed the building of the super-battleships Yamato and Musashi as an unwise investment of resources.
Yamamoto was responsible for a number of innovations in Japanese naval aviation. Although remembered for his association with aircraft carriers due to Pearl Harbor and Midway, Yamamoto did more to influence the development of land-based naval aviation, particularly the Mitsubishi G3M and G4M medium bombers. His demand for great range and the ability to carry a torpedo was intended to conform to Japanese conceptions of attriting the American fleet as it advanced across the Pacific in war. The planes did achieve long range, but long-range fighter escorts were not available. These planes were lightly constructed and when fully fueled, they were especially vulnerable to enemy fire. This earned the G4M the sardonic nickname "the Flying Cigarette Lighter." Yamamoto would eventually die in one of these aircraft.
Yeah, he understood the people, that they wouldn't "negotiate" a truce after an attack like Pearl Harbor, and he understood the Industrial Capacity that he was going up against.
He, famously, made the statement: "I can run wild for 6 months, but after that it's going all about industrial capacity and oil."
6 Months after Pearl Harbor came "Midway."
He was tremendously unpopular amongst the "Warhawks." He vehemently opposed Japan joinging the Axis with Germany, and Italy.
ReplyDeleteHe seems to have been the only member of the Leadership that was concerned that the attack took place before the Declaration of War had been delivered.
ReplyDeleteHe was extremely distressed by the timing, and thought it was a matter of monumental magnitude.
He knew the one thing the American people would Never forgive was a "Sneak Attack," or "Surprise Attack." (Also, knowing well the American Political Class, he knew how it would be used to rally the masses.)
Terasita wrote:
ReplyDelete"Obama has now increased debt more than all Presidents from..."
I shake my head in dismay at such simplistic thought. "Obama increased", yeah, riiight, the USA is a monarchy and the King is, well, King, and all powerful just like God.
It is so sad that so many in the US think this way. Unfortunately the problem is more structural then discretionary and a president, any president, simply can't wave his/her magic wand and make it different.
In fact I'd suggest that it isn't the Presidents fault, Bush nor Obama, but rather the US populace and their stubborn refusal to entertain tax increases AND spending cuts while, of course, the POL deliver just that. Typical of Americans to want their cake an to eat it too.
There is a lot of truth in what Ash is telling us. There is no way that we are going to pay the US debt. It is time to think about a national cram-down and done in a way that does not fall exclusively on the middle class. We could live with a debt of $5-7 Trillion. Get out the clippers.
ReplyDeleteThe great advantage of a fiat currency is the ability to "inflate away" debt.
ReplyDeleteIt's a "slow motion Jubilee" every day.
The nightmare scenario is that the government over-tightens, and you can't get out of "Deflation."
Three other attacks in the capital left a dozen people wounded, the interior ministry official said.
ReplyDeleteIn the northern city of Mosul, two Iraqi soldiers were shot dead by gunmen using silencer-equipped pistols, according to a police officer who did not want to be identified.
Meanwhile, just south of the restive central city of Baquba, in Diyala province north of Baghdad, a woman was killed and her husband was wounded when gunmen stormed into their home and opened fire, police said.
In fact I'd suggest that it isn't the Presidents fault, Bush nor Obama, but rather the US populace and their stubborn refusal to entertain tax increases AND spending cuts while, of course, the POL deliver just that. Typical of Americans to want their cake an to eat it too.
ReplyDeleteIt is so sad that so many in the US think this way. Unfortunately the problem is more structural then discretionary and a president, any president, simply can't wave his/her magic wand and make it different.
Well shit. Ash. For once, I heartily agree with you.
Much as I can't stand the current occupant of the White House, this crisis has been 40 years in the making (for me, it starts with Nixon getting rid of the dollar pegged to gold).
Obama is a lot of things, but he is not the architect of the financial crisis. The guy is too arrogant and ignorant to see that his remedies are more of the same, but I'd expect that from the top receiver of campaign funds of all time from Wall Street.
Our current situation we all had something to do with, and we all need to take a bite to get back out of it. Unfortunately, 90% of our compatriots are too spaced out to see that it won't be pain free.
This is one step that has to be taken, and that is capital budgeting.
ReplyDeleteWe need to:
- Limit our non-capital expenditures to tax receipts.
- Broaden the tax base.
- Increase private savings and simultaneously increase public investment to take up the slack in reduced private consumption.
- Quit borrowing for capital projects.
- Go back to the Clintonian plan replacing welfare with workfare. it is insane paying someone unemployment for two years without getting anything in return.
I can be done.
It's a "slow motion Jubilee" every day.
ReplyDeleteHope your retirement accounts are in moonies or francs Ruf.
May be a Jubilee for the .gov, but Joe sixpack and his retirement fund sure don't think so.
Pennsylvania, in the colonial period, issued currency for capital projects. that created economic stimulus without borrowing any money and provided income not based on going to Walmart to buy Chinese manufactured goods.
ReplyDeleteI really advise anyone that has not looked at the video to do so. That was who we were 50 years ago. We are not close to being that today. it is an amazing accomplishment and speaks wonders as to how government and private industry, based on a strong manufacturing base, can get things accomplished, without the impediment of a bloated bureaucratic multi-headed gauntlet of government agencies aided and abetted by divisions of worthless lawyers.
Yea, fuck that Rufus! That helps Wall Street, China and the big banks. I want to put a stake through their collective cold hearts ;-)
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty well "inflation-protected," D-Day. About as well as one could hope to be. 'sides, I don't eat much, anymore (I've even cut back on my beer.) :0
ReplyDeleteMy father came of age during the Depression. He talked to me quite a bit out it.
ReplyDeleteThe simple folks just boiled it down to, "There wasn't any money."
Everything was cheap; but, it didn't matter. There wasn't any money.
Sometimes, you just gotta step back, and quit "overthinking" it.
ReplyDelete1) you gotta get people "back to work."
2) See 1.
All that government debt stuff doesn't matter a hill of beans if people have jobs.
ReplyDeleteOf course, you can't give all your national wealth away to Saudi Arabia, because, if you do, then they'll have the money, and you'll be poor.
I know it's complicated, but sometimes you've gotta really "dig down." :)
Reinhart-Rogoff studied All government defaults over the last 800 years.
ReplyDeleteOne thing they almost always had in common was a Commodity Spike leading to a "financial" crisis.
I gave a link two threads, down.
I love the smell, the noise, the dust, the grit of manufacturing plants with hard-handed men and woman having a cigarette and a cup of coffee of the back of a lunch truck or from a lunch bucket. Bethlehem Steel
ReplyDeleteYour link doesn't work, Deuce.
ReplyDeleteWe are, actually, ahead of the world in one very key area, but we don't even realize it.
ReplyDeleteWe have the potential to get away from expensive foreign oil in just a few years if we'll do it.
We're already the world's largest producer/exporter of ethanol (accomplished almost as an afterthought.)
It's estimated that w/o the 900,000 bbl/day of ethanol that we produce we'd be paying at least $0.89 more per gallon of gasoline than we are, already.
$3.40 + $0.90 = $4.30/gal, which, of course, we can't afford, so we'd have been back in/never gotten out of Recession.
If we could just put a million of your "hard-handed" men and women to work building an ethanol refinery in every county we could tell the world to kiss our rusty, red asses within 2 yrs.
ReplyDeleteBethlehem Steel
ReplyDeleteBut, No; we want to pay farmers $40.00/acre NOT to farm 30 Million acres, and send a Billion Dollars/Day to Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela.
ReplyDeleteAnd, why do we want to do this? Because, somehow, Exxon, and the Koch Bros have convinced us that's a Good Idea.
Which leads me to think that our hands might be "hard," but our brains are, decidedly, "flabby."
….to pick up on Ash's point, Obama was thrown the keys to something that was way over his ability. Your concept is so simple Rufus, it is either nuts or genius. Build 25 of them and see how they work. Build them in 4 months.
ReplyDeleteIf they work build another hundred.
ReplyDeleteA recent study by Purdue research scientist Youngmi Kim shows that combining a harvest fall schedule along with a pretreatment step will help increase the yield of cellulosic ethanol per acre.
ReplyDeleteThe examples noted in the article (link below) noted that from a single acre of switchgrass, following the scientist's recommended approach can yield 800 to 1000 gallons of ethanol per year per acre, compared to 150 to 200 gallons per acre without the pretreatment step.
As a reference, the average per acre yield for corn-based ethanol is estimated at 500 to 600 gallons per acre of corn.
http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2011/08/31/Study-Switchgrass-ethanol-can-be-boosted/UPI-29181314835818/
Ruf - I have to quibble with you some. The debt stuff does matter when the interest you pay to your semi-hostile creditors funds their military buildup. We send the money to the Wahabbists for oil or Charlie Chi-Cap for molded plastic and iPhones. Either way, it's outta here.
ReplyDeleteThe .gov is now in the business of hiring six-figure bureaucrats. "Stimulus" is another program of the elite strip-mining everyone else to get their friends posts in the .gov to steer more lucre their way. Nothing new, yes, but the scale of it is epic. It raids the politically-incorrect guitar factory employing Joe sixpack making guitars in the USofA and shovels money by the bucketful to the "green" companies that can't do shit. "Build" stuff for US, sub-contract the work to the Far East or Central America. Triple your margin, the capital leaves the country, and the profits stay offshore.
The Keynes thing isn't working this time. If it was going to, it would have by now.
Wholesale restructuring of the tax code and the empowerment of the individual to create businesses and prosper are the things we need. Two things that diminish the power of a central, national government. Two things that the corrupt, bloated, parasitic system we now have is incapable of doing.
G'night fellas. Gotta be up at 0500 for a run, PT, and a day behind the desk. Will carry on with you reprobates later.
One more thing for Rufus. Saw E85 for sale here in NC for $3.18/gal over the weekend. Diesel was $3.79/gal. Thought that was interesting.
ReplyDelete"Nuts," or "Genius," Deuce - Sometimes the two things are sooo close. :)
ReplyDeleteWe can build a car, today, that gets the same mileage on E85 as on Gasoline (it just requires a small tweak to the sensor system.)
I figure we can produce, and sell (complete with all fuel taxes paid, with No subsidies) cellulosic ethanol for approx $3.00/gal.
Now, give us that nice midsize car that gets 30 mpg on E85, and we're back off to the races.
The Republicans (and, more than a few Democrats) are fighting biofuels just as hard as they possibly can. Their Lords, and Masters, the big oil companies are scared to death of cellulosic ethanol. With damned good reason.
ReplyDeletePoet, and Abengoa are putting up, basically, their own money for a couple of plants - Poet in Iowa, Abengoa in Kansas.
I have no doubt they'll be successful.
Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc. OMEX +6.46% has discovered another shipwrecked British vessel loaded with a shipment of silver, only 100 miles from a recent discovery confirmed last month.
ReplyDelete...
Odyssey has begun the process of assembling the tools and equipment for the expedition to salvage the Gairsoppa and Mantola, and anticipates that operations will begin next spring. Gordon said the company's share of a successful recovery will contribute significantly to its operational funding.
Second-quarter results from Odyssey showed its loss narrowed from a year earlier as revenue jumped 56%.
Almost 62 percent of Marylanders polled said they would be willing to pay an additional $2 per month for electricity if more of it was generated by “clean, local offshore wind farms, instead of coming from coal, oil and gas.”
ReplyDeleteAn additional 34 percent said they would be unwilling to pay more.
<a href="http://www.gazette.net/article/20111010/NEWS/710109973/1034/marylanders-appear-willing-to-pay-more-for-wind-energy-than-coal-oil&template=gazette</a>
This is why Republicans can't win on the Coasts.
Let's try that linky-poo, again.
ReplyDeleteMaryland Wind Poll
Show me an economically viable offshore wind farm in the Western Hemisphere.
ReplyDeleteOne of the stupider ideas ever, given the cost of construction of all the undersea infrastructure, high maintenance expenses, and elimination of seabirds.
"Clean" for greens, shit for realists.
You're behind the curve, Doug. Offshore has "steadier winds," and thus less need for Solar during the day.
ReplyDeleteOil will get more expensive. Coal will get more expensive. Nat Gas will get more expensive.
Wind, and Solar will continue to be free.
And, the stupidest assholes on earth will continue to buy oil from Saudi Arabia to burn for the most expensive electricity they can waste their money on.
ReplyDeleteFortunately, there are very few places left on the planet where people are That stupid.
Rufus: The Republicans (and, more than a few Democrats) are fighting biofuels just as hard as they possibly can. Their Lords, and Masters, the big oil companies are scared to death of cellulosic ethanol. With damned good reason.
ReplyDeleteYeah, we all heard how Big Oil suppressed the electric car because it scared them too, but when the Watermelons finally got the upper hand and they made Big Oil back off on that, what we got was the $90,000 Volt.
117. Barry Meislin: So are you saying that ****** should have sat on its hands (as the Bush I administration demanded they do—and which ****** did, while Iraqi scuds were landing on its citizens)?
ReplyDeleteNaw, they should have been helping us find the Scuds, to hell with the coalition. The coalition was a whitewash anyway. Did we really need the French tank division, or the token forces from the Philippines? The UK and the Poles would have been with us come hell or high water.
But most of our BC regulars were here for the 2006 ******-Lebanon War, and we saw how effective the IDF was in finding Scuds then....NOT.
$90,000.00 Volt?
ReplyDeleteTeresita said...
ReplyDelete117. Barry Meislin: So are you saying that ****** should have sat on its hands (as the Bush I administration demanded they do—and which ****** did, while Iraqi scuds were landing on its citizens)?
interesting...
even if I do not bring it up Ms T cannot help herself...
she can't use the term "Israel" but she can copy and paste from other blogs the topic..
what an obsessed person she is.....
Rufus II said... $90,000.00 Volt?
ReplyDeleteSorry, I low-balled it.
The Volt, which has a sticker price of $ 41,000, comes with a federal tax credit of $7,500 which brings the price down to $33,500. However, each Volt is subsidized by the government to the tune of $132,500. So the real cost of the vehicle is actually $173,500. Most of the cost of the Volt is not paid by the buyer, it is paid by the American taxpayer.
WiO: she can't use the term "Israel" but she can copy and paste from other blogs the topic..
ReplyDeleteIf WiO can't complain about this, he complains about me being a lesbian in the pre-DADT Navy. If he can't complain about that, he'll find something else to whine about. But either way, he's boring the hell out of the Bar.
Teresita said...
ReplyDeleteWiO: she can't use the term "Israel" but she can copy and paste from other blogs the topic..
If WiO can't complain about this, he complains about me being a lesbian in the pre-DADT Navy. If he can't complain about that, he'll find something else to whine about. But either way, he's boring the hell out of the Bar.
Sorry to bother you, since it was you that make such a stink about NOT being Israel obsessed...
Now you are pasting the Belmont Club HERE and blacking out Israel with *****????
Are you retarded or what??????
But the truth? You swore an oath when you enlisted into the Armed Forces to which you lied and covered up the fact you were an admitted homosexual when it was a CRIME.
You tried to excuse it by bringing up DADT but you admitted you JOINED during Reagan, years BEFORE DADT....
So when you are caught in a LIE you change the subject....
You are an anti-semite.
They CALL you that at the Belmont Club, I call you that here....
Notice a PATTERN sweetie?
But it is ODD that you PASTE posts from the Belmont Blog HERE...
WHEN NOONE is talking about Israel, YOU BRING IT UP!!!!!
What a loser you are....
But i am boring...
ReplyDeleteand you are a untrustworthy smarmy piece of work...
Gosh, WiO I thought you would appreciate my view that ****** should have been permitted to hunt for Scud launchers in the 1991 War. That's what they wanted to do, but they were willing to stay pat for $13 billion dollars. My bad.
ReplyDeleteTeresita said...
ReplyDeleteGosh, WiO I thought you would appreciate my view that ****** should have been permitted to hunt for Scud launchers in the 1991 War. That's what they wanted to do, but they were willing to stay pat for $13 billion dollars. My bad.
I dont discuss Israel with anti-semites..
And you are an anti-semite.
You parse words, you misdirect and are not capable of rational discussion of the subject of Israel, Zionism or Judaism.
I am just glad to see that the Belmont Blog sees thru your nonsense and labeled you an anti-semite.
Me, I can't stand borrowing money from the Bank of China to pay Bob-al-Harb NOT to grow alfalfa, and I can't stand borrowing money from the Bank of China to pay our "allies" NOT to fight. I'm just funny that way.
ReplyDelete.
ReplyDeleteAnd where will these “one million new jobs” come from? By expanding oil and gas drilling and building new pipelines, says the American Petroleum Institute, an industry lobbying group that paid for the ad campaign, which also has featured in newspapers, on television and on Metro platforms.
Oil companies aren’t the only ones promising jobs if Washington gives them their way. A wide array of businesses are saying they can help solve the country’s unemployment crisis if only the government would roll back some regulations, approve their big mergers or lower their taxes...
Jobs. Jobs. Jobs
Industry groups including API says all you have to do is cut our taxes, allow our mergers, and cut the regulations we don't like and we will provide millions of jobs.
The candidates buy these stories. They cite the numbers all the time. Why don't I?
When is the last time you heard of a merger increasing jobs rather than reducing them?
.
You create more jobs breaking companies than merging them.
ReplyDeleteI would love to see a return to state banking. All these mega money center banks do is go from bailout to bailout, Argentina, Mexico, Thailand, yada, yada, yada. Make them go away. They will never be missed.
ReplyDeleteBrother B-day wrote:
ReplyDelete"Wholesale restructuring of the tax code and the empowerment of the individual to create businesses and prosper are the things we need. "
Brotha I hear ya and think it is worth an echo! That US tax code is byzantine!
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — The securities industry in New York City faces likely job cuts of nearly 10,000 through 2012 as Wall Street banks cope with lower trading revenue, new regulations restricting their activities, and bruised stock prices, according to a new report.
ReplyDeleteCountries buying oil from Saudi Arabia have to buy with US dollars (Petro dollar).
ReplyDeleteThe only way they get US dollars is to sell us shit they can make cheaper than what we can make it. Then they have US Dollars to buy oil. One of the many reasons mfg left the country years ago.
Round and round it goes.