Living on hope

LANSING - Governor Jennifer M. Granholm tonight addressed the state and said citizens should expect a partial shutdown of state government, absent any late action by the Republican-controlled Senate and Democratic-controlled House of Representatives to pass a comprehensive budget solution that will prevent massive cuts to public safety, health care, and education.
...
"The Constitution is clear," Granholm said in a statewide televised address. "Without a balanced budget in place, state government cannot write a single check. But tonight I am hopeful, because productive negotiations are now underway in my office that could head off this government shutdown while there is still time. We have made significant progress in the last 48 hours, and we have narrowed our differences. I am doing all that I can to achieve a budget agreement, however, there is one thing I will not do. I will not accept a budget that makes massive cuts to education, health care, and public safety."

More irrational behavior on the part
of a pol.

She's "hopeful". Muahahahahah.

Hope in one hand and shit in the other
to see which one fills up first.

Full report.

Sleaze in the Texas Legislature

A much different kind of Shock and Awe

The next several weeks are liable to be a time of great stress as these realities become increasingly undeniable. I imagine the public chatter will become increasingly delusional as the wave crests. When it it finally comes, the shock of recognition that we are a bankrupt nation will present itself at first as a great silence. The public's collective jaw will fall open, but no sound will come out. That will be the true moment of shock and awe.

Bingo. Jim gets the prize.

I've already seen The Drop in the Collective Jaw.

Highly recommended.

A victory against taxes and for hard money

A criminal tax case alleging income tax evasion and conspiracy dissolved in federal court this week, when a jury returned zero convictions on 161 charges faced by nine defendants.

Monday's verdict "sends a strong message," said defense attorney Lisa Rasmussen, who represented Joel Axberg, a tile layer.

Informally called the Kahre case -- after the primary defendant, local business owner Robert Kahre, who paid workers in gold and silver coins -- the trial lasted four months. It relied heavily on evidence gathered in a controversial armed raid in May 2003 on several of Kahre's local business places. The raid entailed keeping more than 20 workers handcuffed, at gunpoint, in 106-degree heat without shade or water while agents collected records and equipment.

Read.

How to create a local depression

RIVERSIDE, N.J., Sept. 25 — A little more than a year ago, the Township Committee in this faded factory town became the first municipality in New Jersey to enact legislation penalizing anyone who employed or rented to an illegal immigrant.

Within months, hundreds, if not thousands, of recent immigrants from Brazil and other Latin American countries had fled. The noise, crowding and traffic that had accompanied their arrival over the past decade abated.

The law had worked. Perhaps, some said, too well.
...

Then came The Law of Unintended Consequences
to kick the fools in the ass:

So last week, the town rescinded the ordinance, joining a small but growing list of municipalities nationwide that have begun rethinking such laws as their legal and economic consequences have become clearer.

“I don’t think people knew there would be such an economic burden,” said Mayor George Conard, who voted for the original ordinance. “A lot of people did not look three years out.”

How many other city, state or feral laws
do you suppose there are where the
consequences will be seen but the causes
unknown?

When you arrive in a place such as that
learn to spot those consequences and run.

They have a death wish.

Read.

Greenspan tells the truth

What else doesn't the Federal Reserve have
control over?

Who needs them only to fuck things up?

French prime minister declares bankruptcy

France is bankrupt and can no longer afford to pay its workers generous salaries and subsidies, its prime minister has declared.

Francois Fillon made the undiplomatic outburst during a trip to the French island of Corsica, where farmers were demanding more government money.

"I am at the head of a state that is in a position of bankruptcy," he said.

Psst. Don't tell anybody. France is not alone.

Big French Fire Sale coming too.

Full article.

The Government-Created Subprime Mortgage Meltdown

The thousands of mortgage defaults and foreclosures in the "subprime" housing market (i.e., mortgage holders with poor credit ratings) is the direct result of thirty years of government policy that has forced banks to make bad loans to un-creditworthy borrowers.

See the details

Where will this gorilla sleep?

Dollar Crash

Update:

The chart above is static.

This one is live.

The chart below refreshes with each reload.

Gold, storing value

The Nitty Gritty

One step closer

Saudi Arabia has refused to cut interest rates in lockstep with the US Federal Reserve for the first time, signalling that the oil-rich Gulf kingdom is preparing to break the dollar currency peg in a move that risks setting off a stampede out of the dollar across the Middle East.
...
There is now a growing danger that global investors will start to shun the US bond markets. The latest US government data on foreign holdings released this week show a collapse in purchases of US bonds from $97bn to just $19bn in July, with outright net sales of US Treasuries.

Like I've said here many times before...
on the way to junk status.

Full article.

The Competent State

The only practice in which the state has demonstrated any competency lies in its increased efficiency in the mass slaughter of people.--Butler Shaffer

A primer on the blessings of uncertainty

What this means is, particles are unpredictable. They do their own thing. We have no way of knowing what they are going to "decide" to do. Bunches of particles, on the other hand, are very predictable. Even if we can only say that 51% of the time a particle will go this way and 49% of the time it will go that way, when you have a trillion particles stuck together, as a group they will go the 51% direction every single time.

Do you suppose this also applies to humans?

Don't get trampled. Be the contrarian.

Full essay.

Of a sudden, it's in your face

...and it screams...

Whatever someone thinks of Mr. Brown personally, or of any
unorthodox tax-related beliefs, it is good for Americans to be
forced to face the question: Is it okay to MURDER people for not
paying the government's "protection" fees? If you say "yes," you
deserve any level of enslavement and oppression "authority" can
impose upon you. If you say "no," then ALL "taxation"--however
many layers of euphemisms and platitudes the truth is buried
under--is an intolerable evil.

Full article.

Earthmonkeyshines

Ripped from owlsarentwise...

Now the Real Space Race begins

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Web search leader Google Inc. will sponsor a $30 million competition for an unmanned lunar landing, following up on the $10 million Ansari X Prize that spurred a private sector race to space.

Like the Ansari X Prize, which was claimed in 2004 by aircraft designer Burt Rutan and financier Paul Allen for a pair of flights by SpaceShipOne, the Google Lunar X Prize is open to private industry and non-government entities worldwide, organizers said before an official announcement on Thursday.
...

"We're starting on steps that will eventually lead to permanent settlement of the moon and Mars," Worden said. "That's probably going to get led by the private sector."

I don't doubt it. Full article.

Clearing the air...again

The US got closest to a free market between 1870 and 1913.

In 1913 it all went to shit. (Possible book title for someone.
Feel free. I doubt I'll do it.)

The world has never seen a fully free market, contrary to
what you hear from pols and Talking TeeVee Heads.*

Before 1913 there were no income taxes, no drug laws, no
Federal Reserve bank, no world wars, and the business
regulations came in a small booklet.

That was then.

How do you like The Other Economy so far?

P.S. I'm really not a fan of 'the free market' per se.

It's Just Another System.

But I am a fan of watching and participating in a free-wheeling
manner, seeing the results without wondering when The Man
gonna show to piss on my parade.

That means I have to be tolerant of the peaceful activities
of others in order not to set a precedent, calling for A Law
allowing them to come for me.

Probably some day, somewhere, we'll see it.

Promote by doing...

...til The Man joins ya.

*Now there's no end of muddle-headed fucks parroting this
drivel calling "failures of the free market" when in reality
it's the failure of the force-based mindset found throughout
The Would-Be Controllers of All That Moves or Not.

Very pious of them, to put it politely.

I'm beyond confident that Ma Nature's going to kick their
collectivist asses into the next century.

Peter Schiff gets it right

Listen closely. Here's a man with a fine track record.

Unfortunately, the only realistic way to “pay” for such a massive bailout would be for the Fed to monetize it. If that were to happen, the value of the dollar would plunge, and consumer prices would go through the roof. Now that the dollar Index has finally broken below the key 80 support level, an event that I have been forecasting would eventually occur for years, a run on the greenback may already be in motion. Ultimately, long-term interest rates will soar as a result, and we will experience unprecedented stagflation and a substantial decline in our collective standard of living. This week’s serge (sic) in the price of gold, which traded above $700 per ounce for the first time since May of 2006, reveals that some investors are finally beginning to figure this out.

Read.

The government fire sale continues

Jump in with a bid or wait for lower prices.

I'll say it again because few see it:

What choice is there?

Trust no one

"Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper." - - George Orwell

Anyone else noticed?

We've been living in the dark unless you don't go
beyond The Locals, the person you know who
reports what he sees to you. Even then, mistaken
observations and lies go on.

How will you know what's real and what isn't?

My gut usually tells me.

Another look at The Big Picture

It's even worse than you thought...

Highly recommended.

Security, The New Version

The Upside Breakout in Gold

Looking back to today, you won't believe how far
this move went when it's all over. (Pardon the
double entendre.)

I'm selling the wife, kids, house, car and donkey
and loading up on more silver - The Poor Man's Gold -
which will be running apace.

The future of the world's monopoly money is
short.

The Bottom Line

Until "whose business is it?" is debated, and won (nobody's), there will be no shortage of superfluous make-work. What kind of milk you drink is just one of an infinite number of inane distractions. Someone else posted Thoreau's observation already, "There are thousands hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root." Until people learn to mind their own business, and insist others do the same, the plague of symptoms will continue.

What are the odds of that
happening anytime soon?

Gonna get real dicey, ain't it.

Whole post.

Impassioned reason

The immoral pragmatism involved in making a living by corrupting the young is so ghastly that it can only be sustained by completely separating theory from practice. When you want to keep doing bad things, you must separate your self-justifying theories from your empirical actions, otherwise your guilt and self-hatred will arise and compel you to change your behaviour. You must numb your conscience by repeating over and over that morality has nothing to do with practicality – but only because the practicality that you have chosen is completely immoral.

Highly recommended.

Short primer on American banking

What, then, is the magic potion of the federal government? Why does everyone trust the FDIC and FSLIC even though their reserve ratios are lower than private agencies, and though they too have only a very small fraction of total insured deposits in cash to stem any bank run? The answer is really quite simple: because everyone realizes, and realizes correctly, that only the federal government – and not the states or private firms – can print legal tender dollars. Everyone knows that, in case of a bank run, the U.S. Treasury would simply order the Fed to print enough cash to bail out any depositors who want it. The Fed has the unlimited power to print dollars, and it is this unlimited power to inflate that stands behind the current fractional reserve banking system.

They won't be able to print fast enough on
this one but Helicopter Ben has a big syringe
to inject those digits into the system.

Expect further limits on cash withdrawals until
you do all your transactions electronically.

Highly recommended.

Immigration solved

As former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan repeatedly testified to Congress (both House and Senate), we need to have folks from foreign lands move here to the U.S. and pay taxes.

Why?

Answered here.

Know your enemy

"As Americans we must always remember that we all have a
common enemy, an enemy that is dangerous, powerful, and
relentless. I refer, of course, to the federal government."
-- Columnist Dave Barry

"The United States is at war with America. And we have
been for 60 years." -President George W. Bush, June 29, 2006

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we.
They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country
and our people, and neither do we." -President George W. Bush,
Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004

Thanks to Rick White.

My Power, My Responsibility

Beautifully done video but I don't need a 'leader'.

I won't be participating in any way I can, as always.

You?