Tainted Lunch Meat : could be worse

Inflation has been high this year, 5.6% in July and consistently above 4% most of the year, but it could be worse. Let's take a look at Zimbabwe. That country just issued $200,000,000 notes right on the heels of the $100,000,000 notes. A loaf of bread could cost you $35,000,000 in Zimbabwe. Of course $500,000 Zimbabwe is only worth about a quarter here, as in 25 cents. Their inflation rate, the highest in the world, is running at 231 million percent. Here's the full story on CNN.

As Per Requested - Jesus Was Not A Jew

I wouldn't normally post a blog like this so soon, because when I write my blogs I like to travel in a linear direction. Shane requested that I post this because I've brought this up in our varied discussions.

Jesus wasn't a Jew, wasn't of the bloodline, and there's no biblical evidence for the claim that he was a Jew.

Tainted Lunch Meat : Modern Money Mechanics

This may be of some interest for some of you. It was printed by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and is out of print.

Tainted Lunch Meat : Chomsky

I'll just post the whole thing, it's what he said to the BBC back in September.

Markets have inherent and well-known inefficiencies. One factor is failure to calculate the costs to those who do not participate in transactions. These "externalities" can be huge. That is particularly true for financial institutions.

Their task is to take risks, calculating potential costs for themselves. But they do not take into account the consequences of their losses for the economy as a whole.

Hence the financial market "underprices risk" and is "systematically inefficient," as John Eatwell and Lance Taylor wrote a decade ago, warning of the extreme dangers of financial liberalization and reviewing the substantial costs already incurred - and also proposing solutions, which have been ignored.

The threat became more severe when the Clinton administration repealed the Glass-Steagall act of 1933, thus freeing financial institutions "to innovate in the new economy," in Clinton's words -- and also "to self-destruct, taking down with them the general economy and international confidence in the US banking system," financial analyst Nomi Prins adds.

The unprecedented intervention of the Fed may be justified or not in narrow terms, but it reveals, once again, the profoundly undemocratic character of state capitalist institutions, designed in large measure to socialise cost and risk and privatize profit, without a public voice.

That is, of course, not limited to financial markets. The advanced economy as a whole relies heavily on the dynamic state sector, with much the same consequences with regard to risk, cost, profit, and decisions, crucial features of the economy and political system.

Tainted Lunch Meat : mind, blown.

I picked this up over at BoingBoing. Wow, good video, really lays out how money is created and why debt is an absolute necessity for our current economic model to function. I feel incredibly stupid after watching the video. I had a lot of misconceptions on how this system actually worked. And I never realised how subversive the 'debt-free' people were. Some quality quotes from some major figures in history show up, pretty astounding stuff. A little conspiratorial, but it doesn't harp on that for very long, and the questions it raises in regards to conspiracy aren't beyond the realm of possibility. It's a long one, clocking in at 47 minutes, but well worth the time. The goofy graphics almost turned me off of it before it really got going, but give it about 10 minutes and you will probably watch the whole thing.

Tainted Lunch Meat : Not so Great Depression

Ben Bernanke seems to wish to make clear that the current economic disaster is completely different from the Great Depression. To his credit I think he is right, kind of. He's talking percentages and not volumes, so clearly we aren't in as bad of shape, yet. But if those percentages start creeping up to Great Depression levels, the volumes of loss today would be unimaginable. Plus he adds that the Fed did nothing but stand by in the Great Depression, and everything went to shit. So obviously if the Fed does things, you know, other than nothing, it couldn't possibly go to shit again, right. So far the bailout seems to be working, banks are lending and the stock market is rebounding, failing.

Tainted Lunch Meat : Big 3 just won't die

Black Friday is over, money was spent, people died and the economy still sucks, or so I'm told. Gas is cheap though, so that's a plus. Ford, Chevy and Chrysler are all still on the verge of extinction apparently. The AP has a news item about why the proposed bailout may not even save them. There's a lot of talk about 'reorganization' and union hurdles, which sounds to me like they're trying to find a way to get out of their pension obligations and not pay their employees as much. I'm generally not in favor of bailouts, especially as I see them as a form of corporate socialism where profits are privatised and risk is spread around, but I think anything that can keep the Big 3 out of bankruptcy is critical, just so they can't bilk all the people who worked their entire lives for those companies. Maybe they should just take the bailout money and pay the retirees until the fund runs out. The Big 3 automakers aren't likely to all survive, maybe 1 of the 3 could make it, but if the focus is on selling Hummers and not a more sane model, then maybe all 3 disappear. Maybe it's time for a Big 2, Toyota and Honda seem to be doing marginally better.

My Delegate Speech

While I'm still working on some of the blogs that I'm dedicating special attention to, in the meantime I figure I can pacify my expectant blog readers for a bit with this post.

I'd like to explain something first. I never made the speech that you're going to read. I was a Ron Paul Revolutionary from the very beginning and when I learned about the delegate system I felt this overwhelming compulsion to involve myself in this democratic process of getting the man I wanted for President past the primaries that are politically-biased towards the two-party system, as everything is rigged in this country of ours. I blame this on two things: the polarization of party politics and the mindlessness of America's brainwashed lemmings. I was very fortunate to be able to have my good friend, Levi, to participate in this historic moment.

There was a certain number of delegates who were to be elected to the state level and also a certain number to the national level. I wanted to get to the national level and if I couldn't then to the state level. Because I didn't file a declaration of intention out of ignorance on my part, I failed to satisfy party protocol.

So here follows a speech I prepared and was never allowed to deliver. I unabashedly stole a quote outright from Patrick Henry, but I felt the conditions were appropriate enough. Please forgive me.

Ladies and gentlemen, fellow Republicans, honorable delegates; I come to you out of a sense of urgency. I have good news but first you must understand the bad news. We have arrived at a great crossroads in America’s history. We cannot afford to let a moment like this pass us by again. We now resemble Soviet Russia’s command economy. The only difference between Russia’s economy then and our economy now is that America doesn’t have a foreign government subsidizing her, so don’t expect current conditions to last very much longer.

In all likelihood, we’re heading towards an economic depression, the likes of which have not been seen since the Stock Market Crash of ‘29. There are multiple scenarios that could trigger the snowball. The potential exists for outstanding bank derivatives to destroy this economy before unfunded liabilities will wreak havoc. International animosity towards American imperialism could spark retaliation wherein foreign governments agree to option a run on the dollar. When this happens, not if, and the American Republic falls like the Roman Empire, it will not produce a great deal more sorrow than when the Soviet Union imploded from economic and domestic stress. Our economy will not so much collapse though as our debt-based fiat-currency will cause it to evaporate.

However, there is indeed a light at the end of the tunnel and this is why I believe we are at a very important crossroads. There is a kind of candidate running for President our Republic hasn’t seen since Senator Barry Goldwater. To quote former Superior Court Judge Andrew P. Napolitano briefly, “There are 535 people on Capitol Hill whose job it is to write the laws that govern all of us and he is one of them. There are 535 people on Capitol Hill whose job it is to preserve the Constitution and he is one of them. There are 535 people on Capitol Hill whose job it is to preserve our liberties and he is one of them. But in his heart and in his head; in his character and in his intellect; in what he has done and what he will become, the Thomas Jefferson of our day, Ron Paul is one of us.”

His name is Ron Earnest Paul and after reviewing his constantly consistent voting record one may wonder if his middle name is more than just coincidence. The Republicans talk a lot about loyalty and fealty to the Constitution, but Paul is among a very few who seem to actually care about it enough to live by it. Recall, when Reagan ran for President he even had some Democrats voting for him. Paul has that same ability of uniting the country that Reagan had. The Democrats are now back in control in Washington, D.C. If we decide as a party to vote for McCain come November, the 2006 election could look like a prophetic declaration of things to come in 2008. Should we follow Mike Huckabee’s rhetoric of preserving our honor even if it means losing elections? Or should we perhaps enlighten ourselves to the Jeffersonian philosophy of limited government and sound monetary policy represented in the candidacy of Ron Paul? I beg those who plan on voting for McCain to reconsider the ramifications of your own actions. I ask you, honorable delegates, do you want to experience in your lifetime a catastrophic economic crisis worse than the one in the 30s? The passengers on the Titanic thought the ship wouldn’t sink even as it was going down, at least not until it became too late! There is no fate but what we make for ourselves! Don’t let Orwellian groupthink keep you from voting on principle. The capacity for things to get worse is limitless!

With Soviet Russia’s economy and Adolf Hitler’s surveillance state, our very Republic may indeed be coming to its end! There is no candidate running other than Paul that promises to reverse government largesse. How can the Republican Party endorse a candidate who was at one point considered by John Kerry as a running mate? We have the Federal Reserve, the IRS, the FBI, the CIA, Homeland Security, and the military-industrial complex… Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death! Thomas Jefferson would vote for Ron Paul. Will you?

Tainted Lunch Meat : Shadow Government wtf?

In a fairly forgettable interview with Newsmax Jeb Bush rather disturbingly encourages the Republicans to establish a shadow government while they are on the short end of the political stick. He also comically repeats the nonsense that the US is a center right country, after two straight election cycles where the country has tilted hard left. I wish they would give up that lie, they keep repeating it but it doesn't seem to want to stick, unlike so many of the other lies they have spouted in the past eight years. I don't know if what he thinks of as a shadow government is the same as what I think it is, but his nonchalance in advocating it really creeps me out, like that's a natural thing to have in a functioning democracy. Here's a few bits from the piece.

“If you take the [last] two election cycles, there’s real cause for concern, no question about it,” he said.

There is good news for Republicans, Bush said: The United States remains “basically a center-right country.”

Bush’s other advice on where the GOP should go from here:

The party should establish a loyal opposition and “organize ourselves in the form of a shadow government” that would address key issues, providing the public with “a loftier debate about policy” rather than mere partisanship.

Slow Weekend Maintenance Post

maintenance post, adding all the bloggers names to labels so folks can search posts by blogger.