The Black Knight Economy

Retail sales doesn't just suck it sucks something fierce -

...Unadjusted data set: the plunge from $459.8 billion in December to $361.4 billion in January, or -$98.5 billion in one month, was the biggest one month drop in retail sales in history.

Denninger clears it up a bit more -

Grocery stores were 45,833. Last year was 44,538. Here's the problem -- the CPI on food at home is claimed to be 6%, so the price-adjusted parity level is 47,210.

In other words this report sucks when adjusted for price changes on food -- people are either unable or unwilling to maintain their food spending due to price changes. You pick, but the facts are what they are.

Gasoline is up 10% year over year as well. Gas station sales, however, went from 38,216 to 40,991 and should be 42,038 on a parity price basis. We have heard about a collapse in demand for gasoline -- well, here's your proof folks, as on a gallons-sold basis it sure isn't going in the northbound direction. And gasoline is not used for heating purposes, so this is all travel (by car.)

Finally, dealing with the energy issue, ZH makes it clear that this is not an isolated commodity problem with oil -

Mark W.also forwarded these charts of Electrical power consumption. Not only has electrical consumption never recovered the levels of mid-2008, it peaked in mid-2011 and has begun a sharp decline in late 2011.

The Real Effect
I had originally intended to make this into a much larger, comprehensive post, however the news dictates that this needs to be dealt with now. The forthcoming article will show up later, but for now we need to look at some of these issues.

Last night, a large swath of Europe was downgraded by Moodys, Greece continues to be a thorn in everyone's side and fraud continues to be rampant with no sign of slowdown. So the consumer is doing what he should do in this situation which is to reclaim his natural right to protect himself from the government by removing himself from the marketplace.

This is why air travel has collapsed, sales of CD's has collapsed and the Greeks continue en masse to remove their money from the banks. (As do we) If a person contracts with company X for $100 to perform a service and company X assesses a 'fee' and takes the $100, rightfully the consumer cries foul and stops conducting business. At this point company X cries poverty and goes to the government for a 'bailout'. In reality, this is the company forcing you to do business with them via the government. Even further, the government often tries to re-engineer the industry to make it 'profitable'.

Then when confronted about the reality of the situation, the government lies to the people in an attempt to keep their racket going as well. We dealt with some of this in this post, over 2 years ago -

What we have here is a scene out of Monty Python and the Holy Grail in which The Black Knight of government being mortally wounded states that it’s "merely a flesh wound". This attitude reveals the attitude and perhaps the intent of our great leaders.

What I and the people of the world should tolerate to an extent is ignorance. Everyone is ignorant of all knowledge at some point in their lives. What should not be tolerated in any way shape or form is outright fraud.  This economy is in the tank, it continues to be in the tank and is getting significantly worse. As a nation, we have barely begun to look at step one of the 12 step recovery process -

We admitted we were powerless over our addiction - that our lives had become unmanageable. 

Tens of thousands of Greeks protest in violent clash over debt plan

Removal of Support for Gary Johnson 2012

Good afternoon all, just a little housekeeping to be done. I removed the link, and with it my support, for Gary Johnson 2012 under the blogroll. While I will support most candidates that advocate a return to a more libertarian mindset, I cannot support a candidate who is intellectually dishonest about the crimes that the banking population has committed against the country and the world. (See here for further clarification)

Syrian Baby Slaughter - Where Have We Heard That One Before?

History doesn't so much repeat itself as rhyme -

This morning, reporter Alastair Beach of The Independent newspaper based in London, cited “evidence” in his article entitled “Assad’s slaughter of the innocents“, claiming that Syrian President Assad’s security forces have indiscriminately killed scores of newborn babies in Homs this week, as his article claims:

“Bashar al-Assad’s bloody siege of Homs intensified yesterday as clear evidence emerged that his indiscriminate shelling of the restive town had started claiming innocent victims, including at least 18 premature babies and three entire families. The evidence came as civilians in the besieged city endured a fifth day of incessant shellfire – the worst yet, according to eyewitnesses – with dozens of other people being killed as the brutal assault continued.”

The Real Effect

It's as if the terrorists like to immediately do the one thing that will create the sort of moral outrage that will get them invaded every time. My goodness, they never learn do they?

But now that I think about it, I believe I remember this incident... (Scooby-Doo flashback lines)

URGENT
Syria | The electricity was cut today from the city of Hama, and the outage included the hospitals. Following this, the Shabiha [state militia] deliberately destroyed the electricity generators in the hospitals which led to the deaths of all the premature babies (more than 40 in a single hospital).

Oh wait, that was in 2011 and was a hoax? Oh, now I remember back in Iraq...(More Scooby-Doo flashback lines)...Wait. That one was fake too...

But this time it's DIFFERENT!!! Certainly there must be a good source?

Surprisingly, the Independent’s chief source for the alleged horrors in question is a nearly invisible organization known as the ”Syrian Observatory for Human Rights”(SOHR) (and to make matters worse, there are two competing SOHR orgs in London- with the same name although the Independent does not provide a link to either org), who claim to have an office based in London, but apparently have no address or contact phone number listed - only and email address. Even murkier however, is that fact that there are no names associated with the SOHR on their website, and many of its articles have been written under the fictitious pen name known as “Rami Abdul Rahman“.

P-R-O-P-A-G-A-N-D-A

When one lies during war to get what one wants it's called, now come on, say it with me.... propaganda. Just like the miraculous resurrected terrorists that die repeatedly, the Pat Tillman story, Bin Laden, Nick Berg, Jessica Lynch, Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, 9/11, most politicians' campaign promises (cough Romney, Gingrich, Bush, Obama)...would you like me to keep going?


You...are...being...lied...to.............A LOT.

Unintended Consequences and Responsibility

Just why are these Muslims overrunning Europe? I bet it's some weird reason....

Girls as young as 13 have been fitted with contraceptive implants at school without their parents knowing. 

The procedure was carried out in Southampton, Hants, as part of a government initiative to drive down teenage pregnancies.

As many as nine secondary schools in the city are thought to have been involved.

But it has caused a backlash from parents who weren't aware that their daughters had been fitted with the 4cm device, which sits under the skin.

It is currently unknown exactly how many youngsters have taken part in the scheme.

I bet there's a real good reason why this is happening. Let's turn to the techon-fascists to get our answer -

Health chiefs have defended sexual health services going into schools, saying teenage pregnancies had dropped by 22 per cent as a result.

The Real Effect
Oh, well pregnancies are dropping. Whew. We really dodged a bullet there. I mean, pregnancy is the worst thing that can happen to anyone...right? Now that we got the mandatory sarcasm out of the way we can can continue with some real substantive discussion.

I know it's fashionable today to bash 'fundies' and religious folks as being crazy and unthinking. While it is certainly true that some individuals in the religious realm are legitimately crazy the same could be argued of just about any subset of people. At this point it becomes necessary to argue about the merits of a particular argument and its ideal situation actually being applied. History is replete with 'well meaning' individuals who foist off their 'tyrannical chains' of that filthy moralism (cough) only to realize too late that those chains were the only thing holding them in on the ride.

Naturally, these individuals waste little time in pointing the finger elsewhere when the chicken comes home to roost. Indeed, 'didn't see that one coming' is quickly becoming the unrecognized meme of the decade where individuals, households, counties, states and above all look to duck any sort of responsibility and make someone else pay!

But now we find ourselves at the point when not only have we taken all the eggs, but we have subsequently slaughtered, dressed, BBQ'd, and feasted upon the golden goose. Hungry, we turn to the cupboard but find it surprisingly bare.Slowly it dawns on us that we've consumed everything and we produce nothing. True, we'll eat the furniture for a while, but sooner or later we'll perish.

So it is with shades of atheism, amorality, and progressivism. These individuals argued for the removal of certain constraints with the idea that they were making progress. Everything that originated in a moral setting was viewed increasingly with a suspicious eye, then subsequently castigated, demonized and outright rejected.

Nuclear family - Gone
No-fault Divorce - Accepted
Property Rights - Gone
....and so on...

Eventually, covetousness reared its ugly head as we began to hate people simply because they possessed. Since only a select righteous few can now societally possess, the middle class is quickly evaporating.

But who, ultimately is to blame? Specifically it resides with each individual that decides to break just one of these commandments. Most importantly, it resides in the Church. 

If the Church can claim credit for 'society' becoming more civilized, then certainly it bears the blame for its downfall.  But that post can wait for a different day. For now, we get to reap our rewards that we have sown.

Covert to Overt: 'Revolt how-to' earns big for US freedom factory

Civil war looms as mass media caught in Syria crossfire

Paul Ryan Taking On Bernanke

Denninger points out the culprit in the room -

Ryan is going to town on him as I write this and I have to wonder if he reads Tickers, as he's pointing out:

• He's bailing out fiscal policy with near-zero interest rates.  That is, we are able to run trillion dollar plus deficits because he is playing with ZIRP and QE.  Ryan basically told Bernanke that Congress is not comprised of adults and that Bernanke must pull system liquidity in order to force Congress to do its job!
  
• He used the words stable prices.  What he did not do is bend him over the desk and give him one or two good ones from behind on the "2% inflation" game, but it's a start.
  
• He's pointing out that trashing saver's investment income and forcing them into risk is counter-productive.  Mr. Ryan recognizes capital formation will get the job done?  THAT is a change.

 Exactly. This is the exact reason why socialism, communism and the like continually fail. You cannot control human nature. You can cajole, penalize, even imprison but in the end it becomes a financial question. Is the perceived benefit worth the risk? To some, the answer is a resounding "Yes" and eventually you end up attacking the very institutions which make your country possible. In the end you prop up organizations that are unproductive in an attempt to save things. (Solyndra, GM anyone?) This is achieved via massive expenditures which price you out of the markets and seal the fate on your government as debt piles on resulting in a slave class footing the bills.

This grossly understates the case; we will not make it through the next one cycle (eight years) say much less two.  To believe we can manage to spend over three trillion dollars at the Federal level in 16 years is an outrageous lie and the idea that we can absorb another $400+ billion annually in deficits before 2016 and $800+ billion annually by 2020 is preposterous.

That which cannot happen will not happen.

This puts the lie to claims by Ryan, Southerland, Miller and others that "those over 50 will not see their Medicare tampered with."  Oh yes they will, as for them to "not have it tampered with" they'd have to make it through four cycles of doubling, not two, which would increase Federal health spending at present rates of acceleration to more than $13 trillion by the time that person reaches 85, or some 16 times the present amount.

The Real Effect

This, incidentally, is why I have beef with Paul Ryan. It's akin to invaders breaking down the door to the castle and Mr. Ryan wants to put up some 1/2" plywood to "patch" it and then deal with it in half-an-hour by asking one of the invaders to eventually put up maybe some actual braces on the door. By that point, it is far too late and we're all dog food.

Paul Ryan continually talks of 10 year unenforceable budgets that slowly chip away at part of the problem while continuing the pork fest on the other side. On the flip side, Ron Paul just so happens to be running for President and is actually talking about fixing this real and deadly issue whereas his counterparts simply bring up a country half way around the world an our 'responsibility' to protect it.

One simply needs to realize that once the invaders break through the castle door, our current leaders will no longer be calling the shots and all of that discussion will be moot. Or have they broken through already?

Tensions Rising In the Gulf as the US Builds Its Forces

A massive and expensive buildup of troops in the immediate area around Iran -

While quietly casting lines to draw Tehran into talks on their nuclear dispute, PresidentBarack Obama is reported exclusively by DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military and Washington sources to have secretly ordered US air, naval and marine forces to build up heavy concentrations on two strategic islands – Socotra, which is part of a Yemeni archipelago in the Indian Ocean, and the Omani island of Masirah at the southern exit of the Strait of Hormuz.

Socotra is situated 80 kilometers east of the Horn of Africa and 380 kilometers southeast of the Yemeni coastline. It lies athwart the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. A military base there is in a position to oversee the shipping moving in and out of those strategic naval waterways.

Western military sources familiar with the American buildup on the two strategic islands tellDEBKA-Net-Weekly that, although they cannot cite precise figures, they are witnessing the heaviest American concentration of might in the region since the US invaded Iraq in 2003.

Then, 100,000 American troops were massed in Kuwait ahead of the invasion. Today, those sources estimate from the current pace of arrivals on the two island bases, that 50,000 US troops will have accumulated on Socotra and Masirah by mid-February. They will top up the 50,000 military already present in the Persian Gulf region, so that in less than a month, Washington will have some 100,000 military personnel on the spot and available for any contingency.

US air transports are described as making almost daily landings on Socotra and Masirah. They fly in from the US naval base of Diego Garcia, one of America's biggest military facilities, just over 3,000 kilometers away. The US military presence in the region will further expand in the first week of March when three US aircraft carriers and their strike groups plus a French carrier arrive in the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea: They are theUSS Abraham Lincoln, USS Carl Vinson, USS Enterprise and the Charles de Gaulle nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.

A fourth US carrier will be standing by in the Pacific Ocean, a few days' sailing time from the water off Iran's coast.

The Real Effect
At a bare minimum this is a bare threat against Iran in case they decide to get upset and defend Syria if NATO decides to invade help. This way, Iran has to at least think twice before they decide to come to Syria's aid. However, given the extreme amount of chaos that the Regime Changers have been causing in Iran lately, I am more inclined to think that the direct target is Iran. (Not that Syria won't be invaded)

Are We Responsible?

 We kicked off 2012 with the following -

Yearly Theme: Are we responsible for our own actions?
This question becomes the fundamental litmus test for most every action and decision in the future.

Following this, we move to the dictionary, that long forgotten instrument that standardizes communication among us lowly proles, that we might understand one another when we converse about, ya know, things.

Responsible -
adjective
1. answerable or accountable, as for something within one's power, control, or management (often followed by to or for ): He is responsible to the president for his decisions.
2.involving accountability or responsibility: a responsible position.

Policy -
noun
1. a definite course of action adopted for the sake of expediency, facility, etc.: We have a new company policy.
2. a course of action adopted and pursued by a government, ruler, political party, etc.: our nation's foreign policy.

Authority
noun.
1. the power to determine, adjudicate, or otherwise settle issues or disputes; jurisdiction; the right to control, command, or determine.
2. a power or right delegated or given; authorization: Who has the authority to grant permission?

And to explore these definitions, we move to our story -

Mustang Public Schools officials said a ninth-grader snapped a photo of a snoozing substitute with a cellphone last Friday at Mustang Mid-High School.The student was later suspended.

However, officials said, "A student may possess a telecommunication device while on school premises, but the use of a telecommunication device is not permitted during the school day."

The Real Effect
Let's begin by assuming a random person, Bob, exists. Bob, according to our Declaration of Independence and Constitution, is born with a certain set of rights. We'll identify them with letters, ABCD. Now simply by virtue of the fact the he exists, Bob possesses these rights.

For the sake of argument, Bob gets married to Jane and in doing so, he gives control of right "D" to Jane. This ownership is conditional upon the marriage and its validity. At this point, Bob has rights ABC but has subjected D to Jane. Bob might permanently or temporarily transfer these rights. For example, Bob has given control of his finances to Jane and in doing so Jane has authority over his finances. Why? Because Bob gave them to Jane.

So now Jane has ABCD + (Bob)D rights. But in gaining (Bob)D, she also gained (Bob)D responsibility. Put simply, Jane cannot resource pillage Bob's rights and then throw Bob to the side of the road because those  rights come with responsibilities. If she were to do this, she would rightly be reviled as a thief and fraud.

To cope with this, Jane then decides to implement a policy that states she can take all of Bob's money and ditch him. Does this have any bearing on her responsibility? No, of course not. Only Bob can release her of that and he has done no such thing. So Jane's personal policy that states it's ok to rob Bob is entirely irrelevant.

So returning to our original story, parents have given right "D" to a school to educate their children. They pay for this via taxation and as dutiful employers, have a right to a certain product. I think we can all assume that "sleeping" is not that product. So the recipient of one of these services, the student, documents poor performance utilizing his cell phone. In essence, the teacher is committing fraud against the parents and student.

When confronted with this information, the school blows the dust off it's policy book and states - Yes, you may possess a phone, but you may not use it. And since you used it, you broke our policy and we get to assess a penalty against you.

What?!? Should be the correct response to the school. Are you nuts? You caused the condition that required documentation (camera) to prove that you're robbing us! For you to attempt to preemptively punish us is abject lunacy!

One would think that this is the way people would think, but in this ever "complicated" (read as uninformed) world in which we live, the charlatans are running the show.

Prove things? They often scoff. We'll make it so hard for you to do that, you're stuck with us no matter WHAT we give you! And if you succeed, we'll ruin you.

And at this point, the problem and its symptoms come squarely into view.

Problem
Who is responsible?

Answer
Let's follow the chain....
Parents -> Government -> School -> Administrator -> Teacher

Ah, we see that the correct party is being held to the fire. In response to this, we have the school attempting to free itself from that responsibility. But a nasty little thing happens when you try to get away from responsibility, you lose your rights as ownership defaults to the last person to possess them.This in turn creates many symptoms which often become crisis.

Symptoms
Parents -  Why should we take our children to school, why should we pay taxes on a non service, why should we trust government AT ALL?

In failing to defend the parents rights, the school has destroyed the justification for its very existence.

Additionally, they have created a conflict of interest for the administrators. Just who do you support, the student or the teacher. After all, the policy says no using phones. And those teachers have it really hard. It is this conflict that turns a productive relationship into an unproductive one. This is demonstrated in the fact that the child is now less educated. Apply this out for a few generations and soon you have a system that takes money from one group and gives it to another for the sole purpose of existence. That is properly understood as a leech. And really, other then fish, who likes leeches?

Government should exist to enforce the ramifications of the contracts agreed upon. Not to draw up new ones itself or to direct policy. Quite frankly it should have no pony at this show.

Yet here we stand in 2012 and people just don't get it.

Real GDP increased 1.7 percent in 2011 (that is, from the 2010 annual level to the 2011 annual level), compared with an increase of 3.0 percent in 2010.

Got that? Growth is half of what it was last year and that's only because government is spending money like an 18 year old stripper. $52,409 is what each person "owes" the Federal government. But do they really owe this? The correct answer is yes and no. And therein is where people usually check out. 

You see the banks via the Federal Reserve have stolen rights, in the case of Bob, rights C and D and left us with A and B. Additionally, they dislike the responsibility that goes along with those rights. The government, our employees, cannot simultaneously claim that they are "in charge" or "leaders" while passing the bill to us. In doing so, they are seizing the power via fraud, spending the spoils on junk (lots of it), lying to you about the situation and when you finally find out, they try to imprison or kill you.

You do not owe fraudulent debt. Period. You did not incur that debt, they did. Many times in complete defiance of your stated wishes. They are rogue. They are usurpers. 

The correct way to deal with these ilk is to 1) Expose them 2) Arrest them 3) Try them and finally 4) Administer justice

Until we do this, we are just wasting time and resources.

Egypt Cracks Down On US "Democracy"

Egypt makes a move -

Six Americans working for publicly funded U.S. organizations promoting democracy in Egypt have been barred from leaving the country, provoking angry demands in Washington that Cairo's new military rulers stop "endangering American lives".

 Do you think it has something to do with this?

A month after police raided the Cairo offices of the IRI, NDI and eight other non-governmental organizations, it raises the stakes for Washington, which had already indicated it may review the $1.3 billion it gives the Egyptian military each year if the probe into alleged breaches of local regulations went on.

'You're going to investigate us? Then we'll just stop sending the checks.'

And whose hands are all over this?

John McCain, the leading Republican senator who chairs the IRI...

Of course, he's outraged at such things -

...voiced "alarm and outrage" at a "new and disturbing turn" which included a travel ban on Sam LaHood, the group's Egypt director and son of President Barack Obama's transport chief.

The Real Effect
"(O)rganizations promoting democracy" indeed. This makes one wonder if the Egyptian government is disposing of US (CIA?) assets that helped the revolution start in the first place? Goodness know that George Soros is up to his eyeballs in the stuff. We've covered that in the past-

The American Embassy in Cairo helped a young dissident attend a US-sponsored summit for activists in New York, while working to keep his identity secret from Egyptian state police.

On his return to Cairo in December 2008, the activist told US diplomats that an alliance of opposition groups had drawn up a plan to overthrow President Hosni Mubarak and install a democratic government in 2011.

Almost one year ago, we posted the following in response to a bloody uprising (The start of the "Arab Spring") -

History indeed. It is very telling that there is a revolt in Egypt of all places. With the Coptic Christian murders on the 1st (New Year) precluding this seeming evolution of this country, one doesn't have to think very hard to see some parallels to some sort of magical thinking here.

...with dead Christians in the wings, the Egyptian army firing on its people and the Pharaoh seemingly stepping down, people need to take notice because this could get ugly fast.

And boy did it get ugly fast.  There were more insurrections, overthrows and wars then a person could shake a stick at. The Ivory Coast, Bahrain, Syria just to name a few. Of course the magical implications of the Libyan operation took the cake -

Of course the timing of this has nothing to do with the so called Supermoon that was present that day. Nor does the fact that it's called Operation Odyssey Dawn mean a whole lot to the astronomically inclined among us. (Nor the new "suns" created in the Fukushima incident.)Think of this a sort of magical invocation, conjuring the spirits of war and death.

Naturally anyone who had read the Religious Wars Series would have realized that this was coming. Look up and down the coast of where these events are happening and you quickly get an idea of why things are going the way they are. With Libya more-or-less conquered and Egypt somewhat in line, the only country left to beat on the way to the Iranian prize is Syria.

Bankrupt Nations Scramble To Bailout Other Bankrupt Nations

Portugal Pops

Portugal goes the way of Greece -

As the world awaits resolution out of Greece and the debt exchange offer which even if passed today would have to cram 6 months of actual work into 54 days, the global bond vigilantes are not sticking around, and continue to attack the next weakest link - Portugal, whose 10 Year bonds just passed 15% in yield, and were trading well below 50 cents of par with CDS hitting a new record of 1350 bps.

So if one does use Greece as a benchmark how long does Portugal have? As the third chart shows, the last time 10 year GGBs passed 15% was back in August. So Portugal has 6 months. Give or take.

The Real Effect
I would say that it's fun watching so-called "experts" predict recovery and the like only to fall flat on their face just a year later. The down side to that is that these are not companies, these are countries inhabited by people. Let's go back to late 2007 and Vicente Fox again -

NAFTA has been good, as a matter of fact we should have a new vision, go further, integrating and working together to build a better future for both. "That happened with Spain and with the European Union with them joining the union and having access to those huge cohesive bonds, they were able to overcome poverty and today Spain, or Ireland or Greece or Portugal are all very successful nations, what you need is a little bit of solidarity." Stewart then went on to ask "Would you like to see a North American Union with the U.S. Mexico, and Canada, you want Canada in there?" To which Fox responded "Yes long term, yes."

This interview was given where the little red circle is in the chart below. Note what comes next...

Namely a 50%+ drop in the markets. At this time, this sight and this author were being lambasted as "crazy", "conspiratorial" and "tin-foil hat wearing" What are you talking about? They would say. Market collapse? Tyranny? Uh yeah, that about sums it up.

More importantly, compare Vicente's observation of "poverty destruction" with the following -

...the EU's first summit of 2012, to be held on Jan 30, will focus on finding ways to kickstart growth and create jobs across the 27-country union, which is on the brink of recession and has average unemployment of 10 percent, rising to 45 percent among the young in countries such as Spain.

Half of these young people are unemployed. HALF.

Let that sink in for a second because the same is true over here. Most of the reason why we have not witnessed the proverbial crud hitting the fan yet is precisely because Europe is that much worse. Yet we have these liars on stage parading again telling you that it's "your fault" because you want services that you paid for. It's businesses fault, not Wall St., for not hiring you and being selfish. It's the rich people for not paying enough. Of course all of this is pure class warfare from ALL sides, not just the left.

• The left would have you believe that it is noble to dwell in poverty because you aren't "hurting" anyone.
• The right would have you believe that it is noble to steal because, 'We need it'.

Of course, the solution will be to plunge the American hemisphere into a totalitarian dictatorship just like Europe. 

A SC Mayor, Gingrich and the Globalists

Consider the following for a moment -

The Times and Democrat of Orangeburg reports that Norway Mayor Jim Preacher was stopped for speeding on Wednesday. After the traffic stop, Norway turned on the blue lights and siren in his vehicle and pulled the trooper over.

Norway acknowledges he was speeding, but says he was acting in his capacity as the town's chief constable. 

The Real Effect
Now what does this have to do with Gingrich? Let's look at the following -

Mr. Gingrich, a former House speaker, on Tuesday morning threatened not participate in any future debates with audiences that have been instructed to be silent. That was the case on Monday, when Brian Williams of NBC News asked the audience of about 500 people who assembled for a debate in Tampa to hold their applause until the commercial breaks.

In an interview with the morning show “Fox and Friends,” Mr. Gingrich said NBC’s rules amounted to stifling free speech. In what has become a standard line of attack for his anti-establishment campaign, Mr. Gingrich blamed the media for trying to silence a dissenting point of view.

As the Drudge Report is aptly pointing out, this isn't exactly unprecedented.

At the start of the Sept. 26, 2008, debate Jim Lehrer explained: “The audience here in the hall has promised to remain silent, no cheers, no applause, no noise of any kind, except right now, as we welcome Senators Obama and McCain.”

Once again, you may ask, what does one have to do with the other? Easy, both demonstrate the symptoms of the overall problem in American politics. Using the power of the law to get what you want.

In the first example we have a mayor, obviously torqued because he was pulled over. So he decided to show that trooper who his boss was by returning the favor. This is not justice. This is not equity. This is a raw use of power to send a message, I am above all this.

In the example provided with Gingrich, we see the same dynamics at work. Gingrich routinely  throws out the moral outrage card in an attempt to sway his audience into taking his side. This has nothing to do with what actually happens in these situations, it has everything to do with taking control. Again and again we see this in Gingrich's private life and public. He doesn't care for the situation so he aggressively tries to gain control so that he can 'right' things. Of course opposing him is the equivalent of opposing America. Never mind the  sort of idiots that feel marriage should be a federal issue support an individual such as Newt should be in charge of this sort of nonsense. After all, what could be wrong about having a foreign army defending a country they neither love nor reside in?

It is no small wonder then, that most discussions start not with questions of justice or law, but rather appeals to authority and the 'good of society' in an attempt to avoid the relevant issue of justice.

As a final note, perhaps John Stewart can shed some sort of light on this.

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Rand Paul 'Detained' By the TSA

Are the sides being drawn?

Texas Congressman and current Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul – Sen. Rand Paul’s father – placed a post on Facebook about the news as well. “My son Rand is currently being detained by the TSA at the Nashville Airport,” Ron Paul posted. “I’ll share more details as the situation unfolds.”

Ron Paul adds, via Twitter, that the TSA detained his son “for refusing full body pat-down after anomaly in body scanner.”

The Real Effect
I love the situation in this. A sitting US Senator is 'detained' by a quasi-gestapo like agency that is supported by the supposed conservatives who wish to 'keep America free'. This is exactly why these agencies are such a horrific idea. They inevitably turn into tools that the government can use to repress another group, be it liberal, moderate or conservative. This action to protect our 'safety' and simultaneously removes our liberty, turns into the exact mechanism that ultimately consumes our safety. Any semi-interested student of history knows this in a heartbeat with minimal effort.

The irony that is present in a system being espoused by the so-called freedom lovers that would see one of its own representatives possibly jailed over a so-called discrepancy on a DNA wrecking scanner and yet maintains a policy of systemic murder over its unborn children and southern border citizens is not just palpable, it's downright disgusting.

If we cannot trust the individuals that make the laws that govern our society, who can we trust?

Thank you Rand for giving an incredibly public face to this atrocious issue.

Newt and the Election - Character Matters

While I do not subscribe to the virtuous candidate rhetoric as much as some of my counterparts, Newt is finding out the hard way why character makes a difference -

In her most provocative comments, the ex-Mrs. Gingrich said Newt sought an "open marriage" arrangement so he could have a mistress and a wife.

She said when Gingrich admitted to a six-year affair with a Congressional aide, he asked her if she would share him with the other woman, Callista, who is now married to Gingrich.

"And I just stared at him and he said, 'Callista doesn't care what I do,'" Marianne Gingrich told ABC News. "He wanted an open marriage and I refused."

Marianne described her "shock" at Gingrich's behavior, including how she says she learned he conducted his affair with Callista "in my bedroom in our apartment in Washington."

"He always called me at night," she recalled, "and always ended with 'I love you.' Well, she was listening."

 The Real Effect
While I cannot speak to Mr. Gingrich's love for his wife at the time, the more critical component that we need to take note of is that he is a user. As others and I have been saying for decades, this is a man that has two sides, his public and his private. His outward projection of 'love' or 'patriotism' is subjugated primarily to his devotion to himself. This is not a warrior, nor a faithful husband. This is a man that creates a paradigm that others view him in and then carries on in his own manner as he sees fit. The key word we are looking for is conviction. Or perhaps more succinctly - fraud.

It is via this metric that we discover that his fidelity to his wife only bears on his job performance in as much as it demonstrates that when the stakes really matter, Newt will back....well, Newt. Of course his history tells us as much. From 2010 -

Fool me once, shame on you.

In 1994, Republicans surged into power with the Contract With America amid promises of shrinking the size of government, promoting lower taxes, greater entrepreneurial activity, tort reform and welfare reform. While one can quibble that this was achieved to a degree, the overall net effect during this time was the exact opposite. Government largess grew exponentially, myriads of wars were started, Federal departments were created and liberty was slashed to a nub. Towards the end of 2008, all that remained were entitled carcasses of what was in effect "dead" politicians.

Just like the ring of power, Republicans seized the power and then the power seized them. This is why we the Democrats were able to route the Republicans in 2008 amid "Hope and Change".

Put simply, this is exactly the reason why I support Rep. Paul. He is the only Republican candidate that wants to destroy the ring of power and the reason why he is being marginalized is because he will actually do it.

WSJ Economist: Ron Paul's 0% Income Tax = Massive Insourcing of Jobs into America

The Real Effect 
Exactly. For starters an income tax is a repugnant idea. It basically holds that you "owe" another entity, in this case the Federal Government, a bill because you had "income". Put another way, the Federal government is entitled to a percentage of each and every trade that is made to improve our social conditions. This is an outrageous idea on it's face and part of the reason why I staunchly oppose most flat taxes and the like. Those plans view the problem as this -

Well, the government "needs" 30% to stay afloat, so we have to "pay" for that somehow.

While true that the government has debt, it ignores the much larger issue in the room. Government is supposed to benefit the people, not vice-versa. And who can really argue that the people are benefiting from the government at this point? It is exactly this type of top-down approach that gets the initial question wrong, therefore any solution that follows may succeed in a sense, but is ultimately doomed to fail.

This is what we learned in the last 100 years of socialist experiments. When you allow the state to control the means of production through either outright or overt methods, the bloodshed and war that intrinsically follow literally consume the people's prosperity. It is to this end that the government is established, to prevent this from occurring not enable it.

The question that we must ask is not what can government afford, but what can the people afford? With millions of us unemployed, on food stamps and in some cases literally starving how can we as a nation justify not implementing this 0% tax?

Ultimately, we need to do what is right for the people, not the banks or the government.

Europe Is a Mess - Collapse Coming Soon

Let's look at just a few stories out of the fascist front -

On Jan. 13, 2012, we lowered to 'AA+' the long-term sovereign credit ratings on two of the European Financial Stability Facility's (EFSF's) previously 'AAA' rated guarantor member states, France and Austria.

The EFSF's obligations are no longer fully supported either by guarantees from EFSF members rated 'AAA' by Standard & Poor's, or by 'AAA' rated securities. We consider that credit enhancements sufficient to offset what we view as the reduced creditworthiness of guarantors are currently not in place.

We are therefore lowering our long-term issuer credit rating on the EFSF to 'AA+' from 'AAA'. We are also affirming the 'A-1+' short-term rating on EFSF.

 In short, the 'lifeboat' to save Europe also has holes in it. Guess that's what happens when you propose a global ponzi scheme to save a global ponzi scheme.

Next, we move to Greece -

Time for the dominos to fall where they may: head of sovereign ratings at S&P Kraemer spoke on Bloomberg TV, and said the following:

• KRAEMER: GREECE, CREDITORS `RUNNING OUT OF TIME' IN DEBT TALKS -BBG
• KRAEMER: EURO LEADERS HAVEN'T TACKLED CORE UNDERLYING PROBLEMS -BBG
• KRAEMER SAYS EUROPE MUST DEAL WITH IMBALANCES, COMPETITIVENESS -BBG

Portugal can't feel left out now...

Portuguese 10Y bond spreads to bunds just broke 1250bps, +180bps on the day and at record wides. Given the subordination concerns as ESM is accelerated, it is perhaps no surprise that the ECB's SMP has seemingly decided that Portugal has crossed the Rubicon into Greece territory

The Real Effect
As noted in a post from Dec of 2010 -

This is going to gain steam now, Portugal and Germany are blowing out, China is finally starting to slow and Yahoo is laying off 10 - 20% of its employees.

The music has stopped, now where are the chairs? If I were you, I would get cash, on hand. Buy silver, buy gold, and items to protect yourself because we're going in for a crash landing.

 Further, this was predicted back in 2008, before the US crisis hit it's nadir and was identified as an actual 'crisis' -

European Union -They will be hit by this economic downswing, but where the US will be ravaged by this downturn, the EU will "weather the storm" precisely because they are the EU. This will lead for calls to imitate them with the North American Union in order to survive. (Timeframe: 1 - 3 years)

The groundwork is being prepped for Europe's phoenix moment. But like the mythical bird of lore, before the new can come into being, first the old must burn.