Simply too good not to share............

Some recent deep and not so deep financial thoughts, as compiled by Edelweiss' Dylan Grice

“…the best way to get interest rates up is to have low interest rates, because that promotes a stronger growing economy and that causes interest rates to rise. In some ways the fact that interest rates have gone up a bit, and it happens on the real not the inflation side, is actually indicative of a stronger economy, which again suggests that maybe this is having some benefit.”

—Fed Chairman Bernanke responding to a Congressional testimony question by California Representative Miller

 “Credibility is an enormous asset. Once earned, it must not be frittered away by yielding to the notion that a little inflation right now is a good thing, a good thing to release animal spirits and to pep up investment. The implicit assumption behind that siren call must be that the inflation rate can be manipulated to reach economic objectives. Up today, maybe a little more tomorrow and then pulled back on command. Good luck in that. All experience demonstrates that inflation, when fairly and deliberately started, is hard to control and reverse.”

—Paul Volcker, 29 May 2013

“When you’re one step ahead of the crowd you’re a genius. When you’re two steps ahead, you’re a crackpot.”

—Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, Lincoln Square Synagogue, Feb 1998, cited in Arizona Jewish Post, 18 Sept 1998, B10



“Let’s be clear. We’ve intentionally blown the biggest government bond bubble in history.”

—Andy Haldane, Bank of England director of financial stability

“(As a teenager) I was utopian. I found adults and adulthood fundamentally corrupt, self-serving and unclear. I still do but I now find the utopian even more harmful.”

—Nassim Nicholas Taleb

“We all know it’s going to end badly, but in the meantime we can make some money.”

—Jim Cramer, CNBC

“Thank God for the Fed.”

—Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan

“In money management what sells is the illusion of certainty... a fund manager who tells the truth (the truth being that he may be wrong at any time) is a more difficult sale but a better investment.”

— John Hempton

“Banks need more capital—lots more capital, not minimal provision based on a pseudoscientific calculation of risk-weighted assets. Neither regulators nor management can assess accurately how much a bank really needs. The only safe bank is one with more capital than it could possibly require. Like banks of old.”

—John Kay, cited in the Financial Times, 2 April 2013

“He defeated fascism, this is what matters the most. And life was cheap and affordable too.”

—Ushangi Davitashvili, Georgian admirer of Josef Stalin, explaining the recent rise in popularity of the old Soviet tyrant to Bloomberg (According to a poll referenced in the same article, 45 of Georgians approve of Stalin.)

“What is the foundation for your certainty that as peacetime debt hits new records in coming years, the United States will be able to engage in forceful countercyclical fiscal policy if hit by a large unexpected shock? Furthermore, do you really want to find out the answer to that question the hard way? … we attach, as do many other mainstream economists, a somewhat higher weight on risks than you do, as debts of all measure—including old age liabilities, public debt, private debt and external debt—ascend into record territory.”

—Harvard’s Carmen M. Reinhart responding to Paul Krugman’s recent volley of attacks with significantly more class than the shrill mudslinger from Princeton, 25 May 2013

Open Letter to Pine Ridge on Legalizing Liquor Sales

It's in your ball park now.  The voting booth's will be open soon.   Whiteclay liquor sales can be a distant memory.   They won't have a dog in the fight.  Blame anyone but Whiteclay but remember, capitalism will rear it's head if you vote in Tribal beer sales.   Competition can run very high at the retail level of beer sales.   You think Whiteclay businesses will not cut prices on beer and make it tough for the Tribe to turn a profit? 

Just watch.

Ever since the late 1960's when I went to high school at Oglala Community High School in Pine Ridge, Whiteclay has been a great resource for the alcoholics of the Pine Ridge reservation.   I once walked in the ditch between Whiteclay and Pine Ridge, a distance of near two miles, and was able to take nearly every step on top of an empty beer can.  The litter was astounding.   My Dad who worked for the BIA in Law Enforcement in Pine Ridge as Chief of Police and then as a Special Agent when he was "detailed" to work the Wounded Knee fiasco had some wild stories about Whitclay.   Probably the best stories ever told about Whiteclay could come from the Theis family or the Coombs family.  Randy and Donna Theis ran a successful grocery business in Whiteclay  for many years.   They treated customers fairly and understood how to do business with Pine Ridge residents.    

I hope Pine Ridge can help itself.  I hope Pine Ridge can get back to two-parent households.  I hope addiction treatment centers work for many.    I hope the healing can come.  The Oglala warriors are up against a powerful enemy, alcohol.  

I can only pray.  Here is the Lord's Prayer in the language of the Oglala Lakota.

Ate unyapi Mahpiya ekta nanke cin, Nicaje wakanlapi nunwe. Nitokiconze u nunwe. Mahpiay ekta nitawacin econpi kin, he iyecel maka akanl econpi nunwe. Anpetu ihohi aguyapi kin, anpetu kin le unqu piye. Na tona ecinsniyan ecaunkicinpi wicaunkicicajujupi kin, he iyecel waunhtanipi kin unkiciajujupiye. Na taku wawiyutanye cin ekta unkayapi sni piye; Tka taku sice etanhan eunklaku piye; Wokiconse kin, na wowasake kin, na wowitan kin hena ohinniyan naohinniyan nitawa heon. Amen.

 

Hillary Clinton

Remember the Rose Law Firm billing records?

She "Benghazi'd" Americans.

Exactly how much more do you need to know?

Guns and butter don't mix...............

Never try to steal from a Waffle House… unless you're willing to take a bullet. A 20-year-old man was shot by a customer when he tried to rob one of the eatery's locations in Georgia's Fulton County early Monday (July 29).

Suspect Ashton Macafee's ill-fated robbery attempt was interrupted by a patron's gun, police say. At around 2 a.m., Macafee hit the Waffle House wearing a black bandana and hoodie, and yelled "Nobody move and open the cash register."

According to cops, the 20-year-old unknowingly pointed his handgun at Officer Jonathon Sutton, an off-duty cop dinning at the counter. Sitting next to the him was an off-duty security guard, Evans Chad Pollard, who shot Macafee when Sutton couldn't get to his weapon.

No one else was injured in the shooting. "I felt that not only my life, but everyone's life was in danger, so I had to do what I had to do," Pollard said. "Everybody was scared and when I eliminated the threat, everyone felt calm. He came in and I did what I could."

Macafee was transported to downtown Atlanta's Grady Memorial Hospital. The location of his wound hasn't been disclosed.

As a brand, the Waffle House is as known for its affordable (and greasy eats), as it is for a lack of cleanliness. A Florida location was shut down twice in a year for roaches, and a Consumer Reports survey named the restaurant as one of the country's worst in the category of family dining.

You say you bank at J.P. Morgan?

Here is a summary of JPM's recent exorbitant and seemingly endless fines.

Courtesy of the Daily Beast:

Date: April 2011

Amount: $56 million

Behavior: JPMorgan was one of several banks called out in a class-action lawsuit for overcharging or wrongfully foreclosing on active-duty military personnel. The company apologized, paid out $27 million in cash, cut interest rates on home loans and returned houses that were wrongfully foreclosed upon.
adual shift to inflation from deflation

Date: June 2011

Amount: $153.6 million

Behavior: The Securities and Exchange Commission sued JPMorgan for misleading buyers by allegedly failing to inform investors that a hedge fund assisted in picking and betting against securities in a collateralized debt obligation JPMorgan had sold in 2007. JPMorgan paid $153.6 million to settle the charges without admitting or denying the allegations.

Date: July 2011

Amount: $229 Million

Behavior: In response to a suit by federal and state authorities, JPMorgan settled allegations that it rigged the bidding process for reinvesting bond transactions that affected 31 state governments. The bank paid $229 million to settle the charges without admitting or denying the allegations.

Date: August 2011

Amount: $88.3 Million

Behavior: Talk about shady dealings. The Treasury Department alleged the banking giant violated sanction orders by conducting transactions with people or entities tied to Iran, Sudan, Cuba, and Liberia. JPMorgan Chase settled the charges and violations by paying $88.3 million civil penalty.

Date: February 2012

Amount: $5.29 Billion

Behavior: JPMorgan and four other major mortgage servicers agreed to pay a combined $25 billion to settle charges with state attorneys general, the Justice Department, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development relating to what Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna called years of “shoddy loan servicing, illegal robo-signing, and faulty foreclosure processing.” JPMorgan Chase’s share of the settlement came to $5.29 billion.

Date: February 2012

Amount: $110 million

Behavior: Along with Bank of America and a few smaller lenders, JPMorgan settled consumer litigation that claimed the banks processed checks by size—rather than by chronological order—so they could charge unwarranted overdraft fees.

Date: March 2012

Amount: $150 million

Behavior: After being sued by pension funds and investors for investing their funds in a risky structured investment vehicle that failed at the height of the global financial crisis in 2008, JPMorgan settled the suit without admitting wrongdoing.

Date: November 2012

Amount: $296.9 million

Behavior: The Securities and Exchange Commission charged JPMorgan with misleading investors about the quality of mortgages that underlay mortgage-backed securities it sold. The bank settled the charges without admitting or denying guilt.

Date: January 2013

Amount: Unclear

Behavior: Ten banks, including JPMorgan Chase, agreed to an $8.5 billion settlement with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve over “robo-signing” and other alleged abuses of the foreclosure process. The banks were to pay $3.3 billion to harmed borrowers and provide a combined of $5.2 billion in assistance in the form of principal reductions or mortgage modifications. JPMorgan Chase didn’t disclose its share of the settlement.

Date: March 2013

Amount: $100 million

Behavior: JPMorgan Chase agreed to return $546 million to former customers of MF Global Holdings, the investment firm run by former New Jersey governor Jon Corzine that collapsed in 2011. While it did not admit wrongdoing, JPMorgan had been threatened with a lawsuit if it didn’t return the cash that had been transferred from MF Global during the firm’s chaotic final days.

* * *

Today we can add the following:

Date: July 2013

Amount: $410 million

Behavior: FERC accuses JPM of manipulating energy prices. JPM "admitted the facts" it was charged with, but "neither admitted nor denied the violations." Instead of being shut down like Enron for engaging in essentially the same activity if to a more modest degree, JPM is fined $410 million or 0.4% of its annual projected revenue of just under $100 billion.

Mom...........

Mom always loved to dance.   She loved to move.   This is one she would have liked.

Dance to the Sandstorm

You would have been 85 today.   I hope you're dancing!

The Great Deformation by David Stockman

David Stockman is receiving a flurry of media attention over his new book, The Great Deformation, and he is using it for all it's worth to go after Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke's policies as having set the U.S. up for the mother of all financial crises. He denounced Bernanke as "the most dangerous man ever to hold high financial office in the history of the United States," in a Fox News interview this week. Charged that his deregulation binge as budget director for Reagan helped cause the crisis, Stockman protested that he never argued for deregulating the financial system (just everything else). "In my book, I list policy heroes," he said, and "Number one is Carter Glass. He happened to be the author of Glass-Steagall... So I do not agree that we should have deregulated banks because I don't think banks are legitimate free market institutions. They're awards of the state. They get deposit insurance. They get to go to the fed and borrow money cheap."

 He said that one of his policy recommendations at the end of his book is what he calls "super Glass-Steagall." By which he said he means that (1) banks over a certain size simply have to be broken up; and (2) if any bank wants to receive deposit insurance or access to the discount window at the Fed, it can only be involved in lending to households and businesses and taking in deposits. No trading. No underwriting. No asset management of any kind. No prop trading. No London Whales. None of the rest of the stuff. "We need to stand firm and do that instead of the stupid Dodd-Frank thing," he added.

Let's have some real banking reform, or the next crisis is going to be worse than the crisis which scared us the last time. [buried in the thousands of pages of Dodd-Frank is the mechanism for "bail-in" (Cyprus model) that allows TBTF banks to confiscate depository funds, making the ripped off depositor a "shareholder" in the essentially worthless bank in return. Chris Dodd, and Barney Frank then quit politics--job done for the TBTF Banks. Glass Steagall cuts the money supply off to the TBTF Banks.

Just add eggs with the bacon!

Can't wait to bury a couple of these youngsters in some hot coals overnight!

Milton Georgia buck

Just sayin'

Pamelot power lines going underground where they belong!!!!

Power lines belong underground.   They do it in LaJolla they should do it in Milton, Georgia.     I have talked to several city fathers about doing away with power lines everywhere in Milton.   It's all babble from there.    If Milton doesn't look out it will look like Sandy Springs.

When their lips move...............

The slaughter of the American Indian is a success story for the United States Government.  Indians "lost", government "won".

The forked tongue of so many government officials are what has caused every single treaty signed by the United States Government with Indian tribes to be violated.

Here is another United States government official that is a great bullshit artist.

"I worry about the effects on the long-run stability and efficiency of our financial system if the Fed attempts to substitute its judgments for those of the market. Such a regime would only increase the unhealthy tendency of investors to pay more attention to rumors about policymakers' attitudes than to the economic fundamentals that by rights should determine the allocation of capital." - Ben Bernanke, October 15, 2002

Teleprompter-In-Chief talks, says nothing

Yo Barack,

 

If the percentage of working age Americans that have a job is exactly the same as it was three years ago, then why is the government telling us that the "unemployment rate" has gone down significantly during that time?

Why is real disposable income in the United States falling at the fastest rate that we have seen since 2008?

Why do 53 percent of all American workers make less than $30,000 a year?

Why are 76 percent of all Americans living paycheck to paycheck?

If the U.S. economy is recovering, why is the mortgage delinquency rate in the United States still nearly 10 percent?

What are the central banks of the world going to do when the 441 trillion dollar interest rate derivatives bubble starts to burst?

Why is government dependence in the U.S. at an all-time high if the economy is getting better?  Back in 1960, the ratio of social welfare benefits to salaries and wages was approximately 10 percent.  In the year 2000, the ratio of social welfare benefits to salaries and wages was approximately 21 percent.  Today, the ratio of social welfare benefits to salaries and wages is approximately 35 percent.

The number of Americans on food stamps has grown from 32 million to 47 million while Barack Obama has been occupying the White House.  So why is Obama paying recruiters to go out and get even more Americans to join the program?

 

Five years as President and we get campaign speech after campaign speech with class warfare at the heart.

 

Ugh.

  

Detroit, my take

I have been through Detroit a few times.  Probably never again.   Life is too short to be in such  a hell hole.   What you see happening in Detroit is what will happen to our cities, counties, states and nation. It's just a matter of time;  the math will see to it.

Detroit is the model for every city burdened by the "leadership" of Democrats.  

Detroit should take a page out of the Obama Administration's playbook.  Just raise taxes on those that are left. They can "spend" their way to prosperity!

 

The following are 25 facts about the fall of Detroit that will leave you shaking your head... facts by Michael Snyder of   The Economic Collapse blog.

 

1) At this point, the city of Detroit owes money to more than 100,000 creditors.

2) Detroit is facing $20 billion in debt and unfunded liabilities.  That breaks down to more than $25,000 per resident.

3) Back in 1960, the city of Detroit actually had the highest per-capita income in the entire nation.

4) In 1950, there were about 296,000 manufacturing jobs in Detroit.  Today, there are less than 27,000.

5) Between December 2000 and December 2010, 48 percent of the manufacturing jobs in the state of Michigan were lost.

6) There are lots of houses available for sale in Detroit right now for $500 or less.

7) At this point, there are approximately 78,000 abandoned homes in the city.

8) About one-third of Detroit's 140 square miles is either vacant or derelict.

9) An astounding 47 percent of the residents of the city of Detroit are functionally illiterate.

10) Less than half of the residents of Detroit over the age of 16 are working at this point.

11) If you can believe it, 60 percent of all children in the city of Detroit are living in poverty.

12) Detroit was once the fourth-largest city in the United States, but over the past 60 years the population of Detroit has fallen by 63 percent.

13) The city of Detroit is now very heavily dependent on the tax revenue it pulls in from the casinos in the city.  Right now, Detroit is bringing in about 11 million dollars a month in tax revenue from the casinos.

14) There are 70 "Superfund" hazardous waste sites in Detroit.

15) 40 percent of the street lights do not work.

16) Only about a third of the ambulances are running.

17) Some ambulances in the city of Detroit have been used for so long that they have more than 250,000 miles on them.

18) Two-thirds of the parks in the city of Detroit have been permanently closed down since 2008.

19) The size of the police force in Detroit has been cut by about 40 percent over the past decade.

20) When you call the police in Detroit, it takes them an average of 58 minutes to respond.

21) Due to budget cutbacks, most police stations in Detroit are now closed to the public for 16 hours a day.

22) The violent crime rate in Detroit is five times higher than the national average.

23) The murder rate in Detroit is 11 times higher than it is in New York City.

24) Today, police solve less than 10 percent of the crimes that are committed in Detroit.

25) Crime has gotten so bad in Detroit that even the police are telling people to "enter Detroit at your own risk".

It is easy to point fingers and mock Detroit, but the truth is that the rest of America is going down the exact same path that Detroit has gone down.

Detroit just got there first.

 

 

Summer Time for the Fed? God help America!

Larry Summers's Billion-Dollar Bad Bet at Harvard
2013-07-18 13:35:11.738 GMT

By Matthew C. Klein

July 18 (Bloomberg) -- President Obama has only a fewmonths to pick a candidate to replace Ben Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve, and while the betting website Paddy Power has Fed Vice Chair Janet Yellen leading the pack at 1:4 odds, Larry Summers remains a strong contender at 11:2.
 
Despite an impressive resume that includes stints as Treasury Secretary and chief economist of the World Bank, there is a very good reason Summers shouldn't be in charge of monetary policy: He seems to have trouble with interest rates.
 
During the financial crisis, Harvard lost nearly $1 billion because of some unusual and ill-judged interest rate swaps that Summers implemented in the early 2000s during his troubled tenure as the university's president.  Interest rate swaps allow borrowers to lock in a fixed interest rate on floating-rate debt, which can be good to hedge against short-term uncertainty. The problem with Harvard was that Summers wanted to lock in interest rates for money that the university hadn't actually borrowed and  wasn't planning on borrowing for a very long time.
 
There aren't a lot of ways to interpret this exotic instrument except as a bet that the future level of interest rates would be higher than the market pricing implied at the time. That bet was wrong, and Harvard lost a billion dollars.

Anonymous finance blogger Epicurean Dealmaker puts it well:
     
"I have rarely encountered a corporate client who feels confident enough about both their absolute funding needs and current and impending market conditions to enter into a forward swap starting more than nine months into the future. Entering into a forward start swap for debt you do not intend to issue up to 20 years in the future sounds like either rank hubris or free money for Wall Street swap desks."
 
Why, back in 2004, did Summers feel so confident that interest rates were going to be much higher than they actually were? Reuters blogger Felix Salmon found one clue in a speech Summers gave in October of that year. Among other he things, Summers warned of the dangers created by the U.S. current account deficit and highlighted the seemingly absurd fact that short-term borrowing costs were lower than the rate of
inflation. Perhaps Summers's experience with foreign-exchange crises in Asia and Latin America convinced him that something similar could happen in a country that borrowed in its own currency.
 
Not only was Summers wrong in 2004 about where interest rates would be -- he was willing to bet a lot of other people's money that he knew better than everyone else. The damage at Harvard was bad enough. Imagine what that sort of thing could do to the U.S. economy.

(Matthew C. Klein is a writer for Bloomberg View.

Ted Nugent with some common sense

So this guy’s neighborhood has been burglarized off and on and the residents are very concerned for their safety and well-being. Neighbors agree to upkick their vigilance and overall level of awareness to watch out for each other and keep an eye out for suspicious individuals and behavior. It could be considered by an official designation such as “Neighborhood Watch”, but officially labeled or not, it is the purest form of Americans watching out for each other and being good neighbors.

So far so good.

So George Zimmerman sees what he believes is a suspicious individual in suspicious circumstances, and intelligently and responsibly pays attention and calls 9-1-1 to report what he sees to the officials. This gesture is proof positive he was not looking to do anyone harm or break any laws, but rather perform the fundamental responsibility of a neighbor who cares.

Doing nothing illegal or improper, he follows the individual while answering all the questions from the 9-1-1 operator to the best of his ability, keeping an eye on the individual so the authorities can hopefully intercept and determine exactly what is going on.

For reasons unknown, though I will comment on momentarily, after expressing racism and hostility on the phone to a friend in response to being followed, the suspect now changes course and turns towards George and immediately initiates a hostile verbal confrontation that quickly escalate to a violent physical assault.

Within seconds, the suspect has overwhelmed George, has gained the advantage on top, pinning George to the ground, and further escalates the assault to deadly force by smashing George’s face, breaking his nose, and violently slamming his skull onto the concrete with all his youthful athleticism.

George screams frantically for help as Trayvon Martin pummels his face and head furiously, inflicting damaging and potentially life threatening wounds. Fearing for his life and about to lose consciousness at the hands of an enraged, violent attacker, George Zimmerman does what anyone who wishes to live would do, and he reaches for his concealed handgun, firing a single shot to neutralize the deadly force being wreaked upon him.

This represents the purest form of self-defense there is. It is exactly why people who believe in good over evil carry a gun to protect themselves from the well documented violence that plagues our country, in order to save our lives from a life threatening attack. Period.

Based on all evidence available to them, the professional law enforcement officers did not hold George Zimmerman on charges later that night. They saw it for what it was: cut and dried self-defense.

And so it was for a few weeks until the race-baiting industry saw an opportunity to further the racist careers of Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, the Black Panthers. President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, et al, who then swept down on the Florida community refusing to admit that the 17-year-old dope smoking, racist gangsta wannabe Trayvon Martin was at all responsible for his bad decisions and standard modus operendi of always taking the violent route.

With an obvious racist chip on his shoulder, referencing the neighborhood watch guy as a “creepy ass cracker” to his fellow racist female friend who admitted under oath that that is how non-blacks are referred to normally in their circles, Trayvon had no reason not to attack, because it was the standard thug thing to do. See Chicago any day of the week.

With nearly 700 examples of this truism played out in Chicago in 2012 alone, no one can possibly dispute the recent surge in black racism increasing throughout Barack Obama’s presidency. To attempt to claim otherwise is a laughable lie.

The jury got it right, and non-racist America rejoices that there is still common sense, honesty and decency aware of identifying justice in this country. America also believes that the entire prosecutorial team should be ashamed of themselves and disbarred for ignoring the obvious and kowtowing to the pure racism that forced the politically correct lie that only black lives killed by non-blacks matter, which is why there are no headlines, protests or prosecutions and no Barak Obama or Eric Holder meddling in the nonstop black-on-black slaughter in their gun-free zone of Chicago.

Martin Luther King Jr. is rolling over in his grave that he sacrificed his life for the cause of judging people by the content of their character instead of the color of their skin, as so many of his own race carry on in self-destructive behavior while professional race mongers blame everything on racism. It is painful and heartbreaking to say and write this, but horrifically it is true. Blacks
kill more blacks in a weekend in Chicago than the evil, vile Ku Klux Klan idiots did in 50 years. Truly earth shattering insane. And not a peep from Obama or Holder. Tragic.

The only racism on that night was perpetrated by Trayvon Martin, and everybody knows it.

Here’s the lesson from all this, America: Teach your children to not attack people for no good reason whatsoever. Conduct yourself in a responsible, civil manner, and everything will be just fine. Try to kill someone and that someone just may be exercising his or her Second Amendment rights and you could get shot. It’s called self-defense, and it is the oldest, strongest and most righteous instinct and God-given right known to man.

The enemy is within..............

The following brief exchange between a congressman and Ben Bernanke pretty much wins today's Humphrey Hawkins farce.

• Q: Are You Printing Money?
• Bernanke: Not Literally

This is what Mr. Bernanke was really saying to the nitwits in Congress.

Q: Have you sold future generations down the river?

A: Not literally

White Horses running for all they desire!

Be aware of beautiful white horses running in the wind coming to your rescue.

Watch this clip from a guy I have tremendous respect for lay out the scenario.    

I think you will like what you hear.

WHITE HORSE

America. BROKE?

Maybe because I grew up in a house that had a Law Enforcement officer calling the shots.   Maybe it was because I simply grew up in a family that believed in hard work and honesty.   In any case, there were consequences if rules were broken.

In America they flaunt the rules.  They flaunt justice.   From the highest law enforcement official in the land to 1600 Pennsylvania we simply get a ration of bullshit.

Let me know what you think.  Broke or not broke?  Fiscally or morally?  Or both?

(CNSNews.com) – According to the Daily Treasury Statement for July 12, which the U.S. Treasury released this afternoon, the federal debt that is currently subject to a legal limit of $16,699,421,095,673.60 has stood at exactly $16,699,396,000,000.00 for 56 straight days.

That means that for 56 straight days the federal debt has remained approximately $25 million below the legal limit.

Is that possible? Of course not. Quantitative Easing by itself is increasing debt at the rate of $85 billion every thirty days.

Government sets its own laws. When they become inconvenient, they just ignore them and do whatever they choose. Then they lie to the American people.

Long ago Justice Brandeis observed:

In a government of laws, the existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipotent teacher. For good or ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. If government becomes a lawbreaker it breeds contempt for law: it invites every man to become a law unto himself. It invites anarchy.

Is there a better explanation for why our society is crumbling?

Bob Filner and Bill Clinton

Does anybody else think these goons were cut out of the same cloth or drank the same well water growing up?

Roddy White

Another great reason not to watch Mr. Blanks band of train-wrecks.

Inflation and Bernanke

Common sense is lacking in every aspect of society and the following article on inflation is excellent.   I have been harping for years on the lies the American citizenry is being fed on the effects of inflation.    Read and weep............

Submitted by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said this week that inflation in the United States needs to be higher.  Yes, he actually came right out and said that.  It almost seems as if Bernanke is trying to purposely hurt the middle class.  On Wednesday, Bernanke told the press that "both sides of our mandate are saying we need to be more accommodative". 

Of course he was referring to the Fed's dual mandate to keep unemployment and inflation low, but Bernanke has a very unique interpretation of that mandate.  According to Bernanke, inflation in the U.S. is now "too low".  The official inflation rate is currently sitting at about 1 percent, and Bernanke insists that such a low rate of inflation is not good for the economy.  He would prefer that the rate of inflation be up around 2 percent, and he is hoping that more "monetary accommodation" will help push inflation up and the unemployment rate down.

But what Bernanke will never admit is that the official inflation rate is a total sham.  The way that inflation is calculated has changed more than 20 times since 1978, and each time it has been changed the goal has been to make it appear to be lower than it actually is.

If the rate of inflation was still calculated the way that it was back in 1980, it would be about 8 percent right now and everyone would be screaming about the fact that inflation is way too high.

But instead, Bernanke can get away with claiming that inflation is "too low" because the official government numbers back him up.

Of course many of us already know that inflation is out of control without even looking at any numbers.  We are spending a lot more on the things that we buy on a regular basis than we used to.

For example, when Barack Obama first entered the White House, the average price of a gallon of gasoline was $1.84.  Today, the average price of a gallon of gasoline has nearly doubled.  It is currently sitting at $3.49, but when I filled up my vehicle yesterday I paid nearly $4.00 a gallon.

And of course the price of gasoline influences the price of almost every product in the entire country, since almost everything that we buy has to be transported in some manner.

But that is just one example.

Our monthly bills also seem to keep growing at a very brisk pace.

Electricity bills in the United States have risen faster than the overall rate of inflation for five years in a row, and according to USA Today water bills have actually tripled over the past 12 years in some areas of the country.

No inflation there, eh?

Well, what about health insurance?

Yup, that has been going up rapidly as well.  Since 2010, employee health insurance premiums have been rising an average of between 8 and 9 percent a year.

So where is this low inflation that everyone has been talking about?

It certainly cannot be found in college tuition costs.  Since 1986, the cost of college tuition in the United States has risen by 498 percent.

What about at the supermarket?

We all have to buy food.  It sure would be nice if inflation was low there.

Unfortunately, anyone that shops for groceries on a regular basis knows exactly how painful food prices are becoming.

And over time, those increases really add up.  An article by Benny Johnson details how the prices of many of the things that we buy on a regular basis absolutely soared between 2002 and 2012.  Just check out these price increases...

• Eggs: 73%
• Coffee: 90%
• Peanut Butter: 40%
• Milk: 26%
• A Loaf Of White Bread: 39%
• Spaghetti And Macaroni: 44%
• Orange Juice: 46%
• Red Delicious Apples: 43%
• Beer: 25%
• Wine: 60%
• Electricity: 42%
• Margarine: 143%
• Tomatoes: 22%
• Turkey: 56%
• Ground Beef: 61%
• Chocolate Chip Cookies: 39%

So how in the world can Bernanke possibly come to the conclusion that inflation is too low?

Is he insane?

If you want to see a really good example of the impact that inflation has had on our economy in recent years, just check out this amazing chart which shows what Bernanke's reckless policies have done to the prices of commodities during his tenure.

Meanwhile, paychecks are not rising at the same pace that inflation is.  In fact, median household income in the United States has fallen for four years in a row.  Overall, it has declined by over $4000 during that time span.

So the cost of living just keeps rising, but the middle class is making less money than before.

That certainly is not good news.

Of course a big reason for this is because the quality of jobs in America continues to steadily decline.  Only 47 percent of adults have a full-time job at this point, and 53 percent of all American workers make less than $30,000 a year.

Most families are just barely scraping by from month to month, and Bernanke has the gall to say that he needs to try to get prices to rise even faster.

Is Bernanke also going to increase all of our paychecks in order to make up for the "inflation tax" that is being imposed on all of us?

Of course not.

And sadly, it appears that the number of Americans that are losing their jobs is starting to move upward again.  We just learned that initial claims for unemployment benefits rose to 360,000 last week.

That is getting dangerously close to the 400,000 number that I keep talking about.

The middle class in the United States is shrinking with each passing day, and Bernanke seems absolutely clueless.

His answer to every economic problem always seems to involve printing more money.  Thankfully, about 1.8 trillion dollars of that money is being stashed away at the Fed and has not gotten out into the real economy yet.

But someday that money will be unleashed on the real economy, and it will create crippling inflation.

Unfortunately, Bernanke doesn't seem to really be too concerned about the mountains of cash that the big banks have parked at the Fed.  He is just happy that his reckless money printing has pumped up the stock market to new all-time highs.

He should enjoy this little period of euphoria while he can, because this bubble will burst like all false financial bubbles eventually do.

And when this bubble bursts, the foolishness of Bernanke and the Federal Reserve will be glaringly apparent to everyone.

I love hunting wolves.........

Here's another government half-wit.    The business of HUNTING has a hell of a lot bigger economic impact than the RV/s that roll around Yellowstone Park watching wolves.    Ask him about the cow/calf elk ratios in the Park.

"Yellowstone Superintendent Dan Wenk, says that the park’s wolves generate a fair amount of economic activity in the Yellowstone region from wildlife watchers and a few of the park’s prominent wolves were killed last year."

Makes FAST n FURIOUS look tame..............

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Police in rural Brazil have detained one man and were seeking two others in the slaying of a soccer referee who was killed, dismembered and decapitated by spectators after he stabbed a player to death mid-match, a police official said Monday.

Paulo Storani, a professor and security expert who spent three decades in Rio's police forces, called the slayings "an isolated incident" and said they don't reflect on Brazil's ability to ensure security at during the World Cup.

"It's something that's completely out of the ordinary which took place in an isolated area of the poorest state in the country, an area where violence is very widespread," said Storani. "While it's true we are used to soccer violence in Brazil, this is completely off the charts of what we usually see."

Fed Minutes and Bernanke

Ben Bernanke told the world yesterday that years of FED QE , bond buying and bailing out failed banks aren't working very well.

 

Why the market would celebrate rather than be scared shitless is beyond me. 

 

For such a great nation full of talented, resourceful people to be held hostage by a small group of psychopaths is utter failure.

 

The day of reckoning is coming.

 

 

Insanity in the Windy City...... and not a Dad or Father in sight

It is ludicrous the MSM is concerned with the murder trial in Florida when it should be reporting on some real carnage in President Teleprompters home town.

 "Following a weekend of horrific violence in Chicago in which at least 70 people were shot and 12 killed, this was the wrong move for public safety in Illinois," Mr Quinn said in a statement after the vote.

He said legislators had "surrendered" to the National Rifle Association, a powerful gun rights lobby funded in part by weapons manufacturers.

He warned the new law would allow people to carry guns in pubs and bars, and allow people to carry virtual arsenals on their persons.

Gun rights proponents, meanwhile, celebrated.

"This is a historic, significant day for law-abiding gun owners,'' Representative Brandon Harris, a southern Illinois Democrat said, according to the Associated Press.

Referring to the clause in the US constitution that refers to gun ownership, he said, "They finally get to exercise their Second Amendment rights."

Life in the balance...........

Alaska is full of wolves.    This pretty much sums up what moose are up against in the Lower 48 these days.

Eloquent truth spoken here............

With all the media attention being tossed towards this trial going on down in Florida I thought I should share Ms. Coulters thinking.  

Ann Coulter 

Unfortunately, the inner-city hip hop contingent will be out for some freebies over all of this.   Innocent Americans will get hurt.    A lost generation for sure with Al Sharpton doing his best at inciting media attention.

Just another day at the pool...............

Jordan thinks he has a rough life at 16 having to work at his lifeguard job. 

I told him life might improve in college.

On second thought, I doubt it.

101,000,000. LET FREEDOM RING!

(CNSNews.com) – The number of Americans receiving subsidized food assistance from the federal government has risen to 101 million, representing roughly a third of the U.S. population.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that a total of 101,000,000 people currently participate in at least one of the 15 food programs offered by the agency, at a cost of $114 billion in fiscal year 2012.

That means the number of Americans receiving food assistance has surpassed the number of full-time private sector workers in the U.S.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), there were 97,180,000 full-time private sector workers in 2012.

The population of the U.S. is 316.2 million people, meaning nearly a third of Americans receive food aid from the government.

Of the 101 million receiving food benefits, a record 47 million Americans participated in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as food stamps. The USDA describes SNAP as the “largest program in the domestic hunger safety net.”

The USDA says the number of Americans on food stamps is a “historically high figure that has risen with the economic downturn.”

SNAP has a monthly average of 46.7 million participants, or 22.5 million households. Food stamps alone had a budget of $88.6 billion in FY 2012.

The USDA also offers nutrition assistance for pregnant women, school children and seniors.

The National School Lunch program provides 32 million students with low-cost or no-cost meals daily; 10.6 million participate in the School Breakfast Program; and 8.9 million receive benefits from the Woman, Infants and Children (WIC) program each month, the latter designed for low-income pregnant, breastfeeding, and postpartum women, as well as children younger than 5 years old.

In addition, 3.3 million children at day care centers receive snacks through the Child and Adult Care Food Program.

There’s also a Special Milk Program for schools and a Summer Food Service Program, through which 2.3 million children received aid in July 2011 during summer vacation.

At farmer’s markets, 864,000 seniors receive benefits to purchase food and 1.9 million women and children use coupons from the program.

A “potential for overlap” exists with the many food programs offered by the USDA, allowing participants to have more than their daily food needs subsidized completely by the federal government.

According to a July 3 audit by the Inspector General, the USDA’s Food Nutrition Service (FNS) “may be duplicating its efforts by providing participants total benefits in excess of 100 percent of daily nutritional needs when households and/or individuals participate in more than one FNS program simultaneously.”

Food assistance programs are designed to be a “safety net,” the IG said.

“With the growing rate of food insecurity among U.S. households and significant pressures on the Federal budget, it is important to understand how food assistance programs complement one another as a safety net, and how services from these 15 individual programs may be inefficient, due to overlap and duplication,” the audit said.

Alaska, 2013

Arrived back in Georgia with an iPad full of great photo's,  plenty of mosquito bites and some wonderful memories spent with my wife and sons.  What a trip it was.

First, a few words to express my sincere sympathy for the sorrow and grief felt by the relatives of the 10 killed in a de Havilland OTTER the other day at the Soldotna airport.  Check it out,  Airport at Soldotna and the crash details here,  

Soldota Plane Crash

We flew over the field the other day in a de Havilland and the loss of such talented and loving Americans is a tragedy.   God bless them.   More to come when the fires are extinguised and I can see over my in-box.