Saturday, March 5, 2011

Asia Und Africa: Da Whirlwind Tour!

Greetings Folks!
 
Back in Köln,  and glad to be back!  I'm sure that this is no record, but technically, I hit four continents in a week; and no doubt three continents in four days!  (That's a record for all Florida Crackers!) 
 
I did Köln to Tampa; Tampa To Seoul (and local Korean points around Seoul....All Business) and then Seoul To Doha Qatar, back to Köln.   Because I am a cheap asshole, I took an indirect flight, via Doha Qatar,  because although I am cheap, I refuse to fly coach with the screaming babies, Greyhound bus seats, goats and chickens on flights longer than six hours, but I digress.
 
A few pics that I haven't shared yet...I spent only about four hours in Doha, but that is an amazing place.   I have stories to tell, just from my short visit:
 
 

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BACON: Complete Lifestyle







 


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Re: joke


No one has the right to bargain with thieves for a bigger share of the loot

On Sat, Mar 5, 2011 at 11:51 AM, MJ <michaelj@america.net> wrote:

Trying to 'reform' and 'improve' the criminal enterprise?
OK, I can go along with that.

Regard$,
--MJ

The State is a gang of thieves writ large. -- Murray Rothbard




At 11:11 AM 3/5/2011, you wrote:
yes but it currently has more people in it trying to reform it

On Sat, Mar 5, 2011 at 11:07 AM, Jonathan Ashley < jonathanashleyii@lavabit.com> wrote:
The Republican Party is also a criminal enterprise!

On 03/05/2011 07:29 AM, Bruce Majors wrote:


 

image001

 

 

In Washington, D.C. an old priest lay dying in the hospital. For
years he had faithfully served the people of the nation's capitol.
He motioned for his nurse to come near. "Yes, Father?" said the
nurse.
"I would really like to see President Obama and Speaker
Pelosi before I die," whispered the priest.
"I'll see what I can do, Father," replied the nurse.
The nurse sent the request to The President and Congress and
waited for a response. Soon the word arrived! President Obama and
Nancy Pelosi would be DELIGHTED to visit the priest.
As they went to the hospital, Obama commented to Pelosi, "I
don't know why the old priest wants to see us, but it will certainly
help our images and might even get me re-elected. After all, I'm IN
IT TO WIN IT."
Pelosi agreed that it was a good thing.
When they arrived at the priest's room, the priest took
Obama's hand in his right hand and Pelosi's hand in his left. There
was silence and a look of serenity on the old priest's face.
Finally President Obama spoke. "Father, of all the people you
could have chosen, WHY did you choose us to be with you as you near
the end?"
The old priest slowly replied, "I have always tried to
pattern my life after our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ."
"Amen," said Obama.
"Amen," said Pelosi..
The old priest continued, "Jesus died between two lying
thieves; I would be HONORED to do the same!"

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Content-Type: image/gif
Content-ID: <part1.00020209.06020004@lavabit.com>
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Re: joke


Trying to 'reform' and 'improve' the criminal enterprise?
OK, I can go along with that.

Regard$,
--MJ

The State is a gang of thieves writ large. -- Murray Rothbard




At 11:11 AM 3/5/2011, you wrote:
yes but it currently has more people in it trying to reform it

On Sat, Mar 5, 2011 at 11:07 AM, Jonathan Ashley < jonathanashleyii@lavabit.com> wrote:
The Republican Party is also a criminal enterprise!

On 03/05/2011 07:29 AM, Bruce Majors wrote:


 

image001

 

 

In Washington, D.C. an old priest lay dying in the hospital. For
years he had faithfully served the people of the nation's capitol.
He motioned for his nurse to come near. "Yes, Father?" said the
nurse.
"I would really like to see President Obama and Speaker
Pelosi before I die," whispered the priest.
"I'll see what I can do, Father," replied the nurse.
The nurse sent the request to The President and Congress and
waited for a response. Soon the word arrived! President Obama and
Nancy Pelosi would be DELIGHTED to visit the priest.
As they went to the hospital, Obama commented to Pelosi, "I
don't know why the old priest wants to see us, but it will certainly
help our images and might even get me re-elected. After all, I'm IN
IT TO WIN IT."
Pelosi agreed that it was a good thing.
When they arrived at the priest's room, the priest took
Obama's hand in his right hand and Pelosi's hand in his left. There
was silence and a look of serenity on the old priest's face.
Finally President Obama spoke. "Father, of all the people you
could have chosen, WHY did you choose us to be with you as you near
the end?"
The old priest slowly replied, "I have always tried to
pattern my life after our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ."
"Amen," said Obama.
"Amen," said Pelosi..
The old priest continued, "Jesus died between two lying
thieves; I would be HONORED to do the same!"

__._,_.___
Reply to sender | Reply to group | Reply via web post | Start a New Topic
Messages in this topic (2)
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Visit Your Group
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Enemies of the Middle Class


Enemies of the Middle Class
by Gary North

With less than one quarter of 2011 gone, we have seen the spread of three revolutions. The first is literal. It is happening in North Africa. The second is intellectual: the acceptance by large numbers of voters of a shutdown of the United States government, which is deemed to be out of control. The third is political: the willingness of state legislatures in the rust belt to remove the 70-year government subsidies to public employees' unions.

The second revolution is getting very little publicity. A brief reference to it appeared at the end of a report on the Senate's extension of Federal spending this week for two more weeks in order to avoid a shutdown of the Federal government, which really means a shutdown of a few minor services, such as getting a passport. A Reuters story closed with this:
A Quinnipiac University poll found that 46 percent of voters believed a government shutdown would be a good thing, while 44 percent thought it would be bad. Most Democratic voters opposed a shutdown and most Republicans favor it, the poll found.

The full poll is here.

That brief reference deserves an extended analysis. If the poll is accurate, then about half the voters say they are willing to accept a spreading paralysis of government services. Somehow, I doubt that, if push ever comes to shove, half the voters would accept anything like a shutdown. They want their monthly checks. But I think it is safe to say that they would willingly accept a 25% or 30% pay cut for employees of the U.S. government as an emergency cost-cutting measure. This is a major reversal of public opinion. The Establishment has not seen this blip on the radar screen of public opinion.

Yet we also read that 60% of voters favor collective bargaining by trade unions representing government employees.

What we have here is a failure to communicate. The right brains of the voters are not fully in touch with their left brains. They want to be tough, but nice. They want to cut the deficit, but increase spending. They want to save money in taxes in order to let the government pay a living wage to government employees. This is cognitive dissonance.

Voters do not understand basic economics. This should come as no surprise. Neither do Keynesian economists, who really do believe that money spent by government – taxed, borrowed, and printed – strengthens the economy, while money saved by private citizens and corporations causes systemic unemployment and economic decline.


ELIZABETH WARREN'S HAND-WRINGING

Elizabeth Warren is a Harvard Law School professor and a highly visible government bureaucrat. Here is Wikipedia's description of her present career.
She serves as Assistant to the President and Special Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She is also the Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, where she has taught contract law, bankruptcy, and commercial law. In the wake of the 2008-9 financial crisis, she became the chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel created to investigate the U.S. banking bailout (formally known as the Troubled Assets Relief Program).

We can safely conclude that she is a representative figure within America's elite. In a recent interview, she was asked if she thought that the decision of Midwestern politicians – mainly, the battle in Wisconsin – to challenge the legal authority of unions representing state employees is valid. She did not answer directly – a wise decision for a political appointee. Instead, she defended trade unions in general as defenders of the middle class. The video is posted on-line. Here is a Yahoo summary of her position.
Unions are one of the few institutions trying to strengthen America's middle class by fighting for fair wages, she says. "We should be in a world in which we all are a little better off when this country produces more, not that the part left over for those who work for a living keeps shrinking, while those who manage investments get an ever bigger piece."

She was even more emphatic in the actual interview.

She said that blaming unions in general for the problem of the middle class does not correspond with the facts. She is correct. What she failed to mention is this: union membership in the United States is under 7% of the labor force. In a recent article, I quoted from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In 2010, 7.6 million public sector employees belonged to a union, compared with 7.1 million union workers in the private sector. The union membership rate for public sector workers (36.2 percent) was substantially higher than the rate for private sector workers (6.9 percent). Within the public sector, local government workers had the highest union membership rate, 42.3 percent. This group includes workers in heavily unionized occupations, such as teachers, police officers, and fire fighters.

Over the last four decades, unions have steadily disappeared from the private sector in the United States. They are a factor only in the government sector. So, Prof. Warren is correct: no one should blame unions in general for much of anything. They are a relic of the Eisenhower era. When you think "private sector union," think "Hudson."

She seemed to be implying that this decline of union power was bad for the middle class. But was it? The customers who purchased the goods and services offered to them sought lower prices. Wal-Mart did not come onto the scene by selling at higher prices. Indeed, its recent decline in domestic profitability seems to be the result of its attempt to sell some goods at somewhat higher prices.

Customers demand better deals. They benefit from better deals. Holding down retail prices was possible because the largest factor of production, labor, could be purchased at free market prices only after the government's subsidies to labor unions were reduced by law by the so-called right to work laws. These were really "right to offer to work" laws. These laws spread rapidly after 1960. The southern states had them, so labor and employment moved south. When right-to-work laws met air conditioning, the Old South was finished. So was the more heavily unionized Old North. But that process did not start in 1973.


HOW WAGES ARE SET

Individual workers compete against workers. "I'll work for less," says a worker. Individual employers compete against employers. "I'll pay more," says an employer. Out of this competition arises an array of wages.

The concept is simple, but it is not widely understood. That is because high school and college textbooks in economics and history, written mainly for tax-funded institutions, do not present an economic analysis of wage formation that begins with individual decision-making. They do not begin with the decisions of individuals. They begin with aggregates. This is the Keynesian model. Collectives determine the economy; individuals do not – not where it counts, anyway, which is at the margin.

The proponents of government-licensed coercion by trade unions, which includes all members of textbook-authorization committees, paint the free market as a place where collectives called employers compete against collectives called workers. Economic analysis does not support this theory of wage formation, but the proponents of legalized trade union coercion have always ignored economic analysis. They accept the position of the unions' public relations departments.

Textbooks describe employers as trying to drive down wages. They never present employers as acting on behalf of customers. The employers are presented as exploiters of labor in general. But how do they exploit labor in general? By offering jobs to specific workers at specific wages. Some worker says, "I'll work for less." Some employer says, "You've got a deal."

The textbooks do not mention the worker who is willing to work for less, but who is prevented from doing so by a union contract. They mention only the exploiting employer who somehow forces workers to accept low wages when there is no union. But he can do this only because there are takers of his offer. When one worker fills the job slot, another worker must look elsewhere. This is competition. It is basic to every area of life, beginning with marriage.

But the process also works the other way. When an employer offers too little, another employer can lure away workers by offering more. In the history textbooks, this is always presented as the result of the successful bargaining of a union. The textbook does not discuss what happens to the non-union members who are not permitted by law to make competitive bids.

Elizabeth Warren has no clue as to how the labor market works. She also has no clue about how the debt markets work. She blames the bankers for the extension of credit to consumers. Oh, woe! The poor, exploited consumers!


THE MYTH OF THE CONSUMER DEBT BURDEN

What these people never refer to is the Federal Reserve's published statistics on the household debt burden. It is titled, "Household Debt Service and Financial Obligations Ratios." This information is updated every quarter. What it shows is this: since 1980, there have been only marginal shifts in the percentage of monthly after-tax income allocated to debt repayment. Let the Federal Reserve describe the statistic.

The household debt service ratio (DSR) is an estimate of the ratio of debt payments to disposable personal income. Debt payments consist of the estimated required payments on outstanding mortgage and consumer debt.

Let us look at the numbers. In the first quarter of 1980, a recession year, the DSR for a home owner was 16.04%. For a renter, it was 24.74%. In the third quarter of 2010, the respective figures were 16.78% and 23.99%. So, for home owners, it was up by a fraction of a percentage point, and for renters, it was down a fraction of a percentage point. Big deal. Or, as the Mogambo Guru would put it, BD. (Actually, he would put it BFD.)

You can see why all of the professional hand-wringers regarding the "enormous" increase in Americans' debt burden refuse to mention this Web page. Keep it in mind.

There is a threat from this debt: the threat of monetary stabilization by the Federal Reserve System. This would produce a recession. If the FED still refused to pump in new money, there would be a depression. If the FED refused to buy any new government debt, the FDIC would go bust, bank runs would begin, and then there would be monetary deflation. The level of today's debt would be unsustainable. We would get Great Depression 2. But this is a problem created by the FED. The source of this threat is never mentioned by the hand-wringers. They blame the squeeze on the middle class on the banks: the extension of credit to the middle class.

Of course, whenever the banks get in trouble and stop lending to consumers, these same hand-wringers call for the FED to intervene and create new money. They call for Congress or the FED to do something to get banks lending again.

So, consumer debt is bad when privately profitable to bankers. Consumer debt is good when promoted by the government whenever bankers find credit extension unprofitable. This is the logic behind Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This is Keynesianism. It is the dominant position on campus.

My conclusion: these people are paid well by the government and by Establishment universities to wring their hands about the lack of government action. So, there is a constant supply of hand-wringing. The free market responds!

They never mention what should be obvious about the extension of credit, 1973–2011: the creditors extended credit because they expected the borrowers to be able to meet their monthly payments. This has proven to be an accurate forecast, with one exception: mortgage debt. Mortgage debt was extended by means of the policies of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two agencies promoted by the Federal government and eventually nationalized by it in September 2008. In short, the Federal government was the culprit in the ruin of millions of middle-class families' balance sheets. The hand-wringers nevertheless blame the banks, as if the banks were not extensions of the Federal Reserve System.

Prof. Warren never mentions any of this. Neither do her hand-wringing peers.

They regard anyone who blames the FED for all this as a crackpot. Anyone who wants the government to audit the FED is a nut case, someone intent on undermining the independence of the FED. Then they call for more regulation of commercial banking.

Cognitive dissonance is not an affliction only of the voters.


WHAT MAKES ECONOMIES GROW?

The answer to this question has been clear since the days of the little-known School of Salamanca in the sixteenth century. It was popularized by Adam Smith in 1776. This was made even more clear by Austrian School economists, beginning in the 1870s.

What makes economies grow is this: (1) private ownership, (2) future-orientation, (3) capital formation through thrift, (4) technological innovation, (5) a system of profits and losses, (6) low taxation, (7) free trade at every level, (8) the enforcement of contracts, (9) honest money, (10) the reduction of envy. This list can be boiled down into three phrases, all of which have been dominant in the history of the United States.
1. Live and let live.
2. Let's make a deal.
3. Mind your own business.

The American middle class has seen its progress blunted ever since 1973. There are reasons for this. (1) present-orientation, (2) capital consumption through reduced thrift, (3) government-capped profits and government-subsidized losses, (4) rising taxation (Social Security), and (5) dishonest money (no gold exchange standard after 1971).

What has saved the middle class from ruination is this: (1) private ownership, (2) technological innovation, (3) free trade, (4) the enforcement of contracts, (5) the reduction of envy.

Entrepreneurship is still alive and well in the United States. It is very easy to start a company. The USA remains the richest free trade zone on earth. Generally, "live and let live" overcomes the politics of envy. "Mind your own business" is honored in the breach, although the extension of Homeland Security is undermining this relentlessly.

So, there is a war on. It's an ideological war. The Keynesians want to reduce the extent of the second list of five. The libertarians want to increase this list and then reduce the government's restrictions on the first five.


CONCLUSION

Your assessment of the economic future of the United States and the West should focus on the list of ten virtues of the free society. There are large segments of the elite that do not see them as virtues except when overseen by government-empowered, academically certified experts.

What is happening in the Middle East indicates that millions of people have had enough. The attitude of Americans toward a government shutdown indicates that they have also had enough . . . before any pain from a shutdown actually sets in, anyway. The fact that legislatures are ready to confront the public employee unions indicates that the last remaining stronghold of union power is about to end.

Where we are clearly losing is in monetary policy. Dishonest money is still undermining the middle class. Until that battle has ended in favor of the enforcement of contracts, the abolition of legal tender laws, and the abolition of central banking, the middle class will be on the defensive.

Conclusion: end the FED.

www.garynorth.com

Texans Against Tyranny

Texans Against Tyranny
Posted by J.H. Huebert on March 5, 2011 09:25 AM

This week, lawmakers in Texas have introduced state legislation to stop the government from using porno-scanners against the people.

Texas HB 1938 ­ featured in a story on the Drudge Report today ­ would impose a civil penalty of up to $1,000 per day per violation for any airport owned by a local government (i.e., all of the ones that matter) that installs or operates any device "that uses backscatter x-rays or millimeter waves, that creates a visual image of a person's unclothed body and is intended to detect concealed objects."

They've also introduced another bill, HB 1937, that would authorize state and local prosecutors to bring felony charges against TSA agents who sexually assault innocent airline passengers by touching their sexual organs, breasts, or anus.

As this moves forward, look for legal scholars ­ including certain libertarians who live in and around the nation's capital ­ to argue that states aren't allowed impose penalties on the feds like this. Why? Because, they'll say, the Supreme Court says so. But of course that misses the point. The point is that we do not and should not care what the federal government says about the law if it is violating libertarian rights that the Constitution supposedly protects. If the Supreme Court really did its ostensible job and struck down unconstitutional legislation, this kind of action by Texas wouldn't be necessary. But the Supreme Court never strikes anything down, so the states and the people must take the protection of their so-called constitutional rights into their own hands. That's what nullification is all about.

By the way, this bill came about thanks in large part to the heroic efforts of LRC contributor and Libertarian Christians blogger Norman Horn.

Rumsfeldia


Rumsfeldia
by Karen Kwiatkowski

Watching two-timing U.S. Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld do the book rounds is painful. It's also funny, in a Portlandia kind of way.

For those of you who haven't had a chance to watch Portlandia, it is a satirical comedy about knowns and unknowns of Portland, Oregon, delivered in a deadpan style by characters with a guffaw-inducing lack of self-awareness.

Rumsfeld these days – a man who very likely met the criteria of both criminal and war criminal long before his second stint at the Pentagon – brings to mind nothing more than a brutal and blood-thirsty version of Portlandia. The world in which Rumsfeld operates is one of his own creating, a fantastical place where he poses, ever so sincerely, and weaves tales that defy the widely recorded facts. Ironically, Rumsfeldia also defies the down-home, common-sense wisdom with which Rumsfeld self-associates at every turn. There is a way that empires make their wars against weak yet desirable states, and the way always includes egotistical can-do'ers and yes-men, carefully framed and made-up "intelligence" and a story about "why the [easy, quick, short-term and safe] war is necessary for the continuation of life as we know it" for the bread-eating and circus-attending public.

Rumsfeld gently sparred with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show. Stewart was prepared, probing and polite. It appeared that Stewart was also speechless at times, unable to process Rumsfeldia. Rumsfeld kept his famous tongue in check, relative to his ungentlemanly behavior with Andrea Mitchell the day before, who seemed to be really trying, just a short eight years after the manufactured US invasion of Iraq, to get to the bottom of the story.

Both interviews concentrated on Rummy's role in and knowledge about the lying run-up to war, a war planned in late 2001, and sold the next year to the public and to Congress as a short-term and decisive action to prevent Saddam's use of WMD, to disarm his government of said WMD and to revenge Saddam's involvement with 9/11. There were a multitude of other falsely advertised reasons. Wild stories pushed by the administration ranged from yellow cake buys that never happened, to extremely dangerous and warlike aluminum tubes, to Saddam's alleged support of Al Qaeda training camps. It was a war to avenge the United Nations, or perhaps, a war to punish the UN for actually succeeding in their mission of accounting for the bio-chem agents guys like Rumsfeld had sold them in the 80s. My goodness, there was something for everyone!

In an era when Ronald Reagan seems to a golden boy of American presidents, it may be hard to recall that American high-ranking Iraq war criminals – Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, and Abram Shulsky, among others, were the same creeps who were busy playing Iraq against Iran, Iran against Iraq, and selling bio-chem and conventional weapons to a younger Saddam. But I digress. In Rumsfeldia, history is just a concept, or better yet, optional. Something to be shaped at will to keep you out of trouble in the present, or at least to shift blame to others.

I have not and likely will not read Rumsfeld's memoirs, preferring instead to let the knowns and unknowns of Rumsfeldia remain just that. From the interviews I have seen, it appears that Rumsfeld, as noted by someone who should know, despite being a known micromanager and control freak, was largely unaware of what may or may not be going on under Doug Feith's Policy shop, just a few doors down. Far be it from Don Rumsfeld to have a clue about what an office just one level under Feith, called the Office of Special Plans, a.k.a. the Expanded Iraq Desk, or even the Iran/Iraq desk, as Iran "expert" and neocon-man Larry Franklin was also emplaced in the midst of Abe Shulsky's lair, was doing from dusk till dawn. Oh, the complications of it all.

We now know that Rummy knew nothing – absolutely nothing – of this intelligence-machinating neoconservative nest, nor of its daily communications with Cheney's office. He knew not of the Special Plans' published talking points on pending war in Iraq, WMD, and terrorism, and its orderly and periodic distribution throughout the policy community in the months leading up to the invasion. That these talking points were also made available to some selected and trusted neoconservative newspaper reporters and interested war advocates, hopefuls and beneficiaries – my goodness, Rumsfeld simply couldn't imagine!

We might also get the sense from these interviews and others that even though Rumsfeld himself knew little, Colin Powell on the other hand, and the CIA specifically had no doubts at all. Let me rephrase that. Colin Powell had no doubts at all and believed every word of the Pentagon/Cheney-pushed war rationale. While Rumsfeld calls his own knowledge limited, apparently Powell – whose own INR (Bureau of Intelligence and Research) dissented as much or more than any of the other 13 known and legal intelligence producing agencies – was both knowledgeable and confident.

Rumsfeld says the CIA was also confident, full-fledged believers. An unprecedented number of visits by the Vice President to the analysts at Langley saw to that, but of course, Rumsfeld had no idea Cheney was up to such madness. Rumsfeld reminded both Mitchell and Stewart that it has always been his philosophy and practice, in the presence of unknowns (apparently, between 2001 and 2003 that would be everything going on in the Pentagon), to always remain searching and skeptical. "You have to question the intelligence," said Rumsfeld to Mitchell, circa 2011. There was a great "absence of certainty" said Rumsfeld to Stewart. I must say, Rumsfeldia leaves me breathless.

I don't know how much Rumsfeld talks about Cheney in his memoirs of the Iraq war years. I do know that long after Cheney and Rumsfeld are paid for their memoirs, we the people are left with a history of lies and a persistent occupation that makes our own country less safe, less respected, less loved, and way more broke. My impression in hearing Rumsfeld talk about his new book is that this guy is still a bald-faced liar. Well, either that or he lives in another world. Rumsfeldia.

If I want to know what happened, I can rely on the long history of Washington's interference in the Middle East. I can read about the 935 lies directly told by the U.S. government regarding Iraq, including the 109 lies told by Rumsfeld. I can look at the strategic structures of domestic power in this country that facilitate wars not for liberty or survival, but for political and business interests. A hundred years ago, Smedley Butler witnessed and served raw business interests, before he came to understand that war is a racket. In modern times, we pay blood and treasure for the more refined and much larger banking/defense/industrial/congressional interests observed and served by John Perkins. We don't fight for constitutional reasons, for reasons of survival or even to bring freedom to the great global unwashed. None of that determines which states Washington chooses to topple and invade, which foreign leaders we prop up, and which ones we assassinate. This, I suspect, Rumsfeld actually knows very well.

As Rumsfeld hawks his book, the Bush III administration under Obama is bringing new charges against Iraq war whistleblower Bradley Manning. The news is abuzz that Manning, for aiding the "enemy" by leaking information to the media, may in fact receive the death penalty someday, if he ever gets a trial, and he's not psychologically or physically destroyed by his incarceration. Yet, if I am not mistaken, leaking classified intelligence, including raw unsubstantiated information to the media, and having that material republished by the New York Times and the Washington Post in order to make a difference in public opinion was precisely what Rumsfeld's Office of Special Plans, and Rumsfeld's close friend Dick Cheney, were doing, for months and years in advance of the invasion of Iraq.

In Rumsfeldia, it's OK to lie to make wars you, your children and grandchildren will never fight, but it's not OK to tell the truth to stop a war based on lies that you are actually fighting. Maybe this Rumsfeld guy is on to something, after all. Too bad it isn't the stairs to the gallows.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski263.html

Re: joke

yes but it currently has more people in it trying to reform it

On Sat, Mar 5, 2011 at 11:07 AM, Jonathan Ashley <jonathanashleyii@lavabit.com> wrote:
The Republican Party is also a criminal enterprise!

On 03/05/2011 07:29 AM, Bruce Majors wrote:


 

image001

 

 

In Washington, D.C. an old priest lay dying in the hospital. For
years he had faithfully served the people of the nation's capitol.
He motioned for his nurse to come near. "Yes, Father?" said the
nurse.
"I would really like to see President Obama and Speaker
Pelosi before I die," whispered the priest.
"I'll see what I can do, Father," replied the nurse.
The nurse sent the request to The President and Congress and
waited for a response. Soon the word arrived! President Obama and
Nancy Pelosi would be DELIGHTED to visit the priest.
As they went to the hospital, Obama commented to Pelosi, "I
don't know why the old priest wants to see us, but it will certainly
help our images and might even get me re-elected. After all, I'm IN
IT TO WIN IT."
Pelosi agreed that it was a good thing.
When they arrived at the priest's room, the priest took
Obama's hand in his right hand and Pelosi's hand in his left. There
was silence and a look of serenity on the old priest's face.
Finally President Obama spoke. "Father, of all the people you
could have chosen, WHY did you choose us to be with you as you near
the end?"
The old priest slowly replied, "I have always tried to
pattern my life after our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ."
"Amen," said Obama.
"Amen," said Pelosi..
The old priest continued, "Jesus died between two lying
thieves; I would be HONORED to do the same!"

__._,_.___
Recent Activity:
"To promote the Conservative base within the GOP and RNC"
.

__,_._,___

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Re: joke

The Republican Party is also a criminal enterprise!

On 03/05/2011 07:29 AM, Bruce Majors wrote:


 

image001

 

 

In Washington, D.C. an old priest lay dying in the hospital. For
years he had faithfully served the people of the nation's capitol.
He motioned for his nurse to come near. "Yes, Father?" said the
nurse.
"I would really like to see President Obama and Speaker
Pelosi before I die," whispered the priest.
"I'll see what I can do, Father," replied the nurse.
The nurse sent the request to The President and Congress and
waited for a response. Soon the word arrived! President Obama and
Nancy Pelosi would be DELIGHTED to visit the priest.
As they went to the hospital, Obama commented to Pelosi, "I
don't know why the old priest wants to see us, but it will certainly
help our images and might even get me re-elected. After all, I'm IN
IT TO WIN IT."
Pelosi agreed that it was a good thing.
When they arrived at the priest's room, the priest took
Obama's hand in his right hand and Pelosi's hand in his left. There
was silence and a look of serenity on the old priest's face.
Finally President Obama spoke. "Father, of all the people you
could have chosen, WHY did you choose us to be with you as you near
the end?"
The old priest slowly replied, "I have always tried to
pattern my life after our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ."
"Amen," said Obama.
"Amen," said Pelosi..
The old priest continued, "Jesus died between two lying
thieves; I would be HONORED to do the same!"

__._,_.___
Recent Activity:
"To promote the Conservative base within the GOP and RNC"
.

__,_._,___

--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
 
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
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joke



 

image001

 

 

In Washington, D.C. an old priest lay dying in the hospital. For
years he had faithfully served the people of the nation's capitol.
He motioned for his nurse to come near. "Yes, Father?" said the
nurse.
"I would really like to see President Obama and Speaker
Pelosi before I die," whispered the priest.
"I'll see what I can do, Father," replied the nurse.
The nurse sent the request to The President and Congress and
waited for a response. Soon the word arrived! President Obama and
Nancy Pelosi would be DELIGHTED to visit the priest.
As they went to the hospital, Obama commented to Pelosi, "I
don't know why the old priest wants to see us, but it will certainly
help our images and might even get me re-elected. After all, I'm IN
IT TO WIN IT."
Pelosi agreed that it was a good thing.
When they arrived at the priest's room, the priest took
Obama's hand in his right hand and Pelosi's hand in his left. There
was silence and a look of serenity on the old priest's face.
Finally President Obama spoke. "Father, of all the people you
could have chosen, WHY did you choose us to be with you as you near
the end?"
The old priest slowly replied, "I have always tried to
pattern my life after our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ."
"Amen," said Obama.
"Amen," said Pelosi..
The old priest continued, "Jesus died between two lying
thieves; I would be HONORED to do the same!"

__._,_.___
Recent Activity:
"To promote the Conservative base within the GOP and RNC"
.

__,_._,___

--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
 
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
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* Read the latest breaking news, and more.

Diane Carey

Diane Carey, libertarian "Star Trek" novelist

I just learned from a friend at the "Atlas Shrugged" premiere that her
Randian friend from high school, Diane Carey, had been hired by Gene
Roddenberry to write some of the first Star Trek novels. But she was
too pro-capitalist for him, so he didn't renew her contract when it
expired, even though her books were very popular. After he died and
other people took over Star Trek they hired her back to write more.

http://teapartiers.blogspot.com/2011/03/diane-carey-libertarian-star-trek.html

Follow the discussion
Comments

http://teapartiers.blogspot.com/2011/03/diane-carey-libertarian-star-trek.html

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Re: Contra the Pinhead ‘Fed’ Bankster Puppet

Friday, March 4, 2011
Senior Fed Economist Calls Ron Paul a Pinhead
by Robert Wenzel at 1:49 PM

David Andolfatto, Vice President in the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, makes one of the most ludicrous arguments against Ron Paul's attack on the Fed that one could make. I mean even for a Fed apologist, it is off the wall.

He attacks this paragraph in Ron Paul's book End the Fed:
One only needs to reflect on the dramatic decline in the value of the dollar that has taken place since the Fed was established in 1913. The goods and services you could buy for $1.00 in 1913 now cost nearly $21.00. Another way to look at this is from the perspective of the purchasing power of the dollar itself. It has fallen to less than $0.05 of its 1913 value. We might say that the government and its banking cartel have together stolen $0.95 of every dollar as they have pursued a relentlessly inflationary policy.
What are the details of the attack?

He starts out this way:
The guy can be a real pinhead at times. And this is never so evident as in his persistent "attacks" against the Fed...Now, of course, I work at the Fed, so maybe you think I'm just complaining for the sake of defending my employer. If you think that, I can understand why you do. It is because you do not know me.
There are legitimate arguments one could make against the Fed as an institution and/or about the conduct of Fed policy. And then there are the stupid arguments, for example, the one contained on pg. 25 of his book End the Fed
So what is at the heart of Andolfatto's defense of the Fed destroying 95% of the value of the dollar and calling Ron Paul's argument stupid?  Here it is:
There is this old idea in monetary theory called money neutrality. Money neutrality means that larger quantities of money ultimately manifest themselves in the form of higher nominal prices (and wages), and not on real quantities. No serious economist disputes the idea of long-run money neutrality.
Yes, what cost $1 in 1913 now costs $20. But so what? Money neutrality states that if you were earning $1 per hour in 1913, you are now earning $20 per hour (and even more, if labor productivity is higher).
That's it, the beginning and end of Andolfatto's Fed defense of destroying 95% of the value of the dollar. It all works out in the end, says Andolfatto. But, please, Mr. Andolfatto explain to me how this works out for someone who has been a careful saver of his money and now sees the purchasing power of that money destroyed? Please explain to me how this works out for a retired person on a fixed income who sees the declining purchasing power of that income? Please explain to me how this works out for the rest of the country when Wall Street bankers are the first to get their hands on newly printed Fed money, so that they can bid up all kinds of prices, including rents on apartments, which makes it difficult for anyone but a Wall Streeter to afford to live in Manhattan?

These damages, Mr. Andolfatto, you somehow don't see and even think Ron Paul is stupid and a pinhead for raising questions about them. I would say you are suffering from what I have seen a lot in those working for the government: delusion. Phil Swagel, who was the chief economic advisor to Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, told me that he didn't even know there was any major decline in  money supply growth during the summer of 2008. To not watch money supply growth when you are the Deputy Treasury Secretary for economic affairs is simply bizzare to me.

That you can't see how a destruction of 95% of the value of the dollar might hurt some people, falls right into that category. You guys really suffer from what Brad DeLong has admitted he has suffered from and what he calls, Greenspanism, the absurd belief that whatever the Fed does is right, even if logic suggests the exact opposite.

But, hey, if you think the destruction of a currency is no biggie, here's a job tip for you, call Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. He really thinks the same way you do.

http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2011/03/senior-fed-economist-calls-ron-paul.html

Contra the Pinhead ‘Fed’ Bankster Puppet

Contra the Pinhead 'Fed' Bankster Puppet
Posted by David Kramer on March 4, 2011 11:43 PM

Apropos Robert Wenzel's LRC essay today on the pinhead 'Fed' lackey David Andolfatto, I would like to point out a disingenuous remark that Andalfatto made. He stated:
"Yes, what cost $1 in 1913 now costs $20. But so what? Money neutrality states that if you were earning $1 per hour in 1913, you are now earning $20 per hour (and even more, if labor productivity is higher)."
In 1920, a person making $20,000 was considered making a very nice salary. Today, adjusted for inflation, that person would be making $220,000 a year. In 1920, a person making $220,000 would today be making (again, adjusted for inflation) $2,422,453 a year.

Let's not adjust for inflation. Let's take that same $220,000 a year in 1920 and bring it up to date for 2011. Is there anyone reading this post who thinks that $220,000 today couldn't provide a very comfortable living for a family of four, albeit not quite as extravagant as an $2,422,453 salary a year? (My father was earning $35,000 a year in 1969 -- about forty years ago -- and he was comfortably supporting a family of five. Try doing that today with $35,000.)

Now let's take that same $20,000 dollars a year back in 1920, not adjust for inflation, and bring it up to date for 2011. Is there anyone reading this post who thinks that $20,000 today can provide a very comfortable living for a family of four?

That is how the Banksters have purposely destroyed the middle class over the past century with their destruction of the value of the dollar.

Re: Wringing-the-Neck of Empty Rhetoric

Guten Morgen from Köln John!

I can think of nothing profound to say, so I prefer to sit idly by, and watch,  at least on this round!
 
All of ya'll are so humble, yet your brilliance is literally blinding! 
 
I only ask that ya'll play nice!!
 
KeithInKöln
 
 
 
 
On Fri, Mar 4, 2011 at 7:26 PM, NoEinstein <noeinstein@bellsouth.net> wrote:
Keith in Koln:  Don't be shy; say something!  — J. A. A. —

On Mar 4, 5:31 am, Keith In Köln <keithinta...@gmail.com> wrote:
> <Grin>!!

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