Reptilian humor for the weekend.................

A little boy about 12 years old is walking down the street dragging a flattened frog on a string behind him. He came up to the doorstep of a' Whorehouse' and knocked on the door.

When the Madam answered it, she saw the little boy and asked what he wanted.

He said, 'I want to have sex with one of the women inside. I have the money to buy it, and I'm not leaving until I get it.

The Madam figured, why not, so she told him to come on in. Once in, she told him to pick any of the girls he liked.

He asked, 'Do any of the girls have any diseases?'

Of course the Madam said 'No'.

The boy said, 'I heard all the men talking about having to get shots after making love with Amber - THAT'S the girl I want.'

Since the little boy was so adamant and had the money to pay for it, the Madam told him to go to the first room on the right.

He headed down the hall dragging the squashed frog behind him. Ten minutes later he came back, still dragging the frog, paid the Madam, and headed out the door.

The Madam stopped him and asked, 'Why did you pick the only girl in the place with a disease, instead of one of the others?'

He said, 'Well, if you must know, tonight when I get home, my parents are going out to a restaurant to eat, leaving me at home with a baby-sitter. After they leave, my baby-sitter will have sex with me because she just happens to be very fond of cute little boys. She will then get the disease that I just caught. When Mum and Dad get back, Dad will take the baby-sitter home. On the way, he'll give her one in the car and he'll catch the disease.. Then when Dad gets home from the baby-sitter's, he and Mum will go to bed and have sex, and Mum will catch it.

In the morning when Dad goes to work, the Milkman will deliver the milk, have a quickie with Mum and catch the disease, and HE'S the prick who ran over my FROG!'

Only the facts in OK.....................

Between 1974 and 2009 there were 62 magnitude 3.0 or stronger earthquakes in Oklahoma. In the past five years there have been 1,070 M3.0+ quakes. Oklahoma's quake surge correlates perfectly with the amount of wastewater injected into the state.

There Is No Longer A Market: Citigroup Confirms What Zero Hedge Has Said Since 2009

"Zero Hedge long ago gave up discussing corporate fundamentals due to our long-held tenet that currently the only relevant pieces of financial information are contained in the Fed's H.4.1, H.3 statements... it is flow not stock that matters"  - Zero Hedge, January 2010

"If there were any lingering doubt, this week’s gyrations demonstrate neatly that it is central bank liquidity, not  fundamentals, driving markets. It is the flow, not the anticipated stock, of QE which counts."  - Citigroup, May 2015

So many cowards in the Iraqi military

On Memorial Day do you feel the same way I do?

I guess watching American Sniper (for the first time) a couple of nights ago got me thinking about all of this.   Why are we again even considering sending in American fighters to bail out these gutless wonders?   Where the hell is the outrage in the halls of Congress.   This shit makes me so sad for our nations military and the families who have lost loved ones.    Isn't it time America wakes up to this dishonesty at so many levels.

And we want to go "save" these bastards who don't want to save themselves?  YHGTBFKM........
 

Defense Secretary Ash Carter held open the possibility of a strategy shift by the White House on Iraq, a few days after recent setbacks in Iraq and Syria revived sharp criticism of the Obama administration’s approach in combating extremist groups there.

 

Islamic State forces last week captured the key Iraqi city of Ramadi and also expanded their reach in Syria. Critics and even allies of the administration took to Sunday television talk shows to call for a strategy change by the administration to stem the advance of Islamic State forces…

 

House Armed Services Chairman Mac Thornberry (R., Texas) said on ABC’s “This Week” that the battle in Ramadi was among the many reasons why he doubted the Obama administration’s claim that U.S. efforts have succeeded in degrading the strength of ISIS.

 

“I don’t see evidence of that,” said Mr. Thornberry. “I see ISIS gaining territory in Iraq and Syria.” What is more, he said, “their ideology, their approach, their brand is growing faster than their territory.”

Mr. Carter offered a withering critique of the will of Iraqi defense forces in the fall of Ramadi to Islamic State.

 

“The Iraqi forces just showed no will to fight,” he said. “They were not outnumbered. In fact they vastly outnumbered the opposing force and yet they failed to fight and withdrew from the site...We can give them training, we can give them equipment. We obviously can’t give them the will to fight.”

 

John McCain, (R., Ariz.), chairman of the Senate Armed Service Committee, on CBS’s “Face the Nation” called for U.S. special forces in Iraq, in addition to forward air controllers who help direct bombing missions from the air. Right now, he said, the U.S. has “no strategy” for halting the advance of the Islamic State. “Anybody that says there is, I’d like to hear what it is,” Mr. McCain added.

 

Michele Flournoy, who served as undersecretary of defense under Mr. Obama from 2009 to 2012, and was in the running for the top job, said the administration needs to do more to turn the tide in Iraq.

Tragedy in the Windy City & Baltimore will NEVER END!

My Dad lived in Chicago for a while after high school.    These lunatics killing one another day after day weren't part of the culture he grew up in.  The culture of this insanity won't stop in my lifetime.  It will be going on forever if the incentives aren't changed.  Ayn Rand is NOT a town in Germany.

Think about all the brave warriors in Indian Country and America who gave their lives so idiots like this can have the freedom to own firearms.  Why is it that this culture is so anxious for America to care yet they spend the moments between excuses to riot and look the other way at the decay in their communities, the plague of drugs, gangs, unwed mothers, fatherless children, violence and joblessness?    Can anyone show me a work ethic in this culture?   If you want to find peace and quiet on weekday mornings hang out by any city housing project.  You can hear a pin drop.  That's because NOBODY is leaving or entering buildings.  Everyone is still fast asleep because most aren't going to work.    Here are some facts in Chicago since about a short 72 hours ago.    Thanks libs!

The official start of summertime in Chicago began violently, with NINE people dead and at least 32 others injured in shootings across the city.

Since Friday afternoon:

• A 21-year-old man was shot around 2:45 p.m. after a physical altercation in the 3000 block of West Roosevelt Road, police said. The man tried to flee the scene in a vehicle but was shot in the hip. The man took himself to Stroger Hospital where he was listed in stable condition. The shooting is believed to have been gang-related, according to authorities.  
• A 37-year-old man was shot in the upper leg at about 7:15 p.m. Friday in the 2900 block of West 66th Street in the Chicago Lawn neighborhood.
• A 25-year-old man was shot in the left ankle at about 11 p.m. Friday in the 600 block of North Menard in the Austin neighborhood.
• Two men, ages 19 and 44, were shot in the arm and thigh, respectively, at about 11:30 p.m. Friday in the 9200 block of South Normal in the Washington Heights neighborhood.
• A 15-year-old boy was shot in the arm while riding in a car in the 1500 block of South Lake Shore Drive at about 12:15 a.m. Saturday on the Near South Side.
• Two men, ages 20 and 21, were shot at about 12:15 a.m. Saturday in the 900 block of North Monticello in the Humboldt Park neighborhood. The younger man was shot in the neck and arm, and the other was shot in the back and chest.
• Two people, an 18-year-old man and a 45-year-old woman, were shot at about 12:15 a.m. Saturday in the 1100 block of West 104th Place in the Washington Heights neighborhood. The man was struck in the foot and finger, and the woman was hit in the ankle.
• A 20-year-old man was shot in the leg during a robbery at about 1:15 a.m. Saturday in the 0-100 block of East Garfield in the Washington Park neighborhood. The man's coat and cellphone were taken, police said.
• A 31-year-old man, who was the passenger in a vehicle stopped at a stop sign, was shot in the shoulder at about 1:20 a.m. Saturday in the 3200 block of West Walnut in the East Garfield Park neighborhood.
• A 26-year-old man was shot in the back at about 3 a.m. Saturday in the 11200 block of South Stewart in the Roseland neighborhood.
• A 25-year-old man was shot in both legs at about 5:30 p.m. Saturday in the 1800 block of East 68th Street in the South Shore neighborhood.
• A 30-year-old man was shot in the head at about 11:25 p.m. Saturday in the 7300 block of South Damen in the West Englewood neighborhood.
• A 20-year-old man was shot in the leg at about 12:10 a.m. Sunday in the 1300 block of South Lawndale in the neighborhood of the same name.
• A 32-year-old man was shot in the stomach at about 12:20 a.m. Sunday in the 3800 block of West Hirsch in the Humboldt Park neighborhood.
• A 33-year-old man was shot in the ankle at about 12:35 a.m. in the 200 block of West 101st Street in the Roseland neighborhood.
• Around 5:30 p.m. Sunday, a 19-year-old man was shot in the leg after getting into a verbal altercation with a person in a passing vehicle in the 4500 block of North St. Louis Avenue, police said. The teen was taken to Illinois Masonic Medical Center in stable condition.
• Just after 10:30 p.m., two people were shot in the 2000 block of West 69th Street. A 25-year-old man and a 20-year-old told police they were standing outside when they heard shots and felt pain, police said. Both were taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center where they were listed in stable condition.
• A 20-year-old man was shot in an apparent drive-by shooting around 2 a.m. on Memorial Day. The man was walking down the street in the 5900 block of West Montrose when a red minivan pulled alongside him and someone inside fired shots. The man was shot in the arm and listed in good condition at Our Lady of Resurrection Medical Center. 
• A little more than an hour later, two people were shot in the 300 block of West 113th Street. The men, both 25 years old, were allegedly involved in a gambling game before the shooting, police said. They were both shot in the leg in an alley and were taken to Roseland Hospital in stable condition.  

Baltimore is a bit more tame but the culture is the same.  Check these stats!

Baltimore police reported eight shootings overnight, two of which were fatal — making the tally for the weekend in Baltimore 26 shootings, 9 fatal.  A summary of the overnight shootings police are investigating are below:

May 24, 2015, 10:28 p.m. — 1600 block of Hazel St. (Southern)
Police respond to a report of a firearm discharged. They learn of a walk-in shooting victim at area hospital and when they arrive, they learn a man was shot in the buttocks. Victims tells police he was shot by two masked men.
May 25, 2015, 12:13 a.m. –500 block of E. 21 st St. (Eastern)
Officers respond for a report of a cutting and find a man suffering from a gunshot wound to the back of his head. Man is taken to hospital where he’s listed in critical condition.
May 25, 2015,  12:29 am — 800 block of W Fayette St. (Western)
Officers respond to a report of a shooting and they find a man inside a car suffering from gunshot wounds. Police locate a second victim — a woman – who was shot in the back and was laying in the street. Both victims were taken to area hospitals, but the man died due to his injuries. Woman is listed in critical, but stable condition.
May 25, 2015, 1:43 am –5300 St Georges Ave. (Northen)
Police responded for a report of a shooting and find a man suffering from gunshot wounds to his chest and legs. He’s immediately transported to a local hospital, but dies. While investigating the shooting, police learn of two more victims — a 17-year-old male who walked into a local hospital for treatment of a gunshot wound to his arm and a another man who sought treatment for a gunshot/graze wound to his head.
May 25, 2015, 4:09 am — 5200 Midwood Ave. (Northern)
Officers arrive at a local hospital for a report of a walk-in shooting victim. They find a man suffering from a gunshot wound to his leg.

The Baltimore Sun reports 35 people have been killed so far in May making it the deadliest month in Baltimore since December of 1999. Since the beginning of the year, 108 people have died due to violence in the city.

My Father, Flight Officer Douglas E. Parisian

They call to you this weekend. From Flanders Field, from Normandy, Khe San, Gettysburg, Concord and Lexington, the Chosin Reservoir, from the hull of the Arizona, and from all the hundreds of thousands of resting places marked and unmarked they call to you. The call to you from the depths of the Pacific and the jungle of Asia, from the deserts of the American Southwest, from the fields and cities of Europe, from Cuba, from around the world they call you with a request this weekend. Remember me.
 

Remember who I was and the hopes and dreams I willingly laid upon the altar of the great American experiment. Remember that like you I was once flesh and blood and I gave that up to secure a portion of the American Dream and secure essential liberties at home and even for people around the world.  You may not have agreed with the rational for some of the conflicts we have ensnared ourselves in over the centuries and I am not even sure I fully understood it. But our nation called and I answered. Liberty carries a price tag and I paid it for you. Remember me.
 

War is an idiotic human endeavor and I wish we never had to go engage in such a wasteful exercise. But at times throughout history it has been necessary for good men to take up arms to secure our freedom from tyranny and defends ourselves against expressions of pure evil and hatred. When such times have arisen I have taken arms and defended the freedom and liberty in which I believed and for which all humanity years. Remember me.
 

Do not remember me with tears and sadness. Pray solemnly and shed tears if you must but that it is not my preference. Remember me in a violent celebration of all that is America. Take your families to the seashore and frolic as man has done since we merged from the sea.  Go out on your boats and go as fast as you can over the waves with the winds of a free land and a free people blowing back your hair. Fire up your grill and invite the neighbors up for food, drink and laughter. This is why I laid down my life. Not so you would cry for me but so you could enjoy your life and your family, your loved ones and friends. Remember me in the laughter and joy of being alive.
 

Hear me in the sound of loud music coming from a dock bar. Hear me in the growling of a stock car engine taking a green flag or the whine of an Indy car hitting 200 mph on the backstretch. Hear me in the laughter of a child skipping in the surf or running through the sprinkler in the back yard. Hear me in the chatter of friends around a BBQ pit. Hear me in the swell of an orchestral pop concert on a wide meadow as the sun settles over the land. In all the joyous raucous noises of being alive, hear me and remember me.
 

See me in the flag unwinding in the breeze. See me on the baseball diamond, the soccer pitch, the basketball court. See me at the bar with my friends raining a glass to good times gone by and still to come. See me in the smile of your wife, your girlfriend or male equivalent thereof. See me in the hammock beneath the tree taking a slow summer nap. See me in all the moments and times that make life special. See me and remember me.
 

Remember me best in living well. Think of me when you are passing around the steaks and steamed crabs. Remember me as you sip the cold gin and tonic in a sweaty solo cup under a shade tree. Think of me in the fisszt of a beer bottle opening, the fizzing of soda pop in a glass, the shaking of a martini, the pop of a cork, and the tinkle of ice. Remember me in the sounds of the party of life.
 

I do not want you to remember me in solemn sweaty ceremonies and pompous parades of politicians. You do not need to go to the cemetery to remember me for I am not there. I am at the beach, the ballgame and in the backyard. I am at the lake, on the boat and fishing on the riverbank. Do not remember me simply because I died. Forgetting to duck or being ordered to charge impregnable positions is a crappy legacy if you ask me. Remember me because I lived and I died protecting your right and ability to live and experience all the joys and madness that is life.
 

I am not merely a dead soldier who died in the service of his country. I am all the things that were made possible by freedom gained and protected. I am Mark Twain, William Faulkner and Hunter Thompson and all the words written by the geniuses spawned in America. I am the music spawned among a free and talented people. I am Robert Johnson, Miles Davis, Liberace and Ted Nugent. I’m all the great scientists and inventors that have graced this land. I am Edison, I am Feynman and I am Ford. I am all the great athletes born in the towns and cities of this nation. I am Mantle. I  am Unitas. I am Jesse Owens and Jim Thorpe. I am every greatness achieved by this nation born in a sea of blood and protected by rivers of it over centuries.  Do not mourn me for time has past for that, but remember me.
 

Remember me for I am also the future of this great nation I died to build. Remember me as you live, as you build as you work and as your create. Remember me as you protect my legacy from the charlatans , thieves and idiots who make up our political  class. Remember me when you refuse to cede personal liberties I died for to those who have good intentions and bad ideas. Remember me when you take chances and reach for your dreams and ideal. Remember me when you refuse to participate in limiting freedom or opportunity based on skin color, sexual preference or genital make up. Remember me when you dream, when you achieve and when you celebrate. These are things for which I died and for which I would be remembered. 
 

My voice calls to you today. Life, love, laugh, dream, build and achieve. Do this in remembrance of me.
 

Happy Memorial Day. Remember me.

 

Insanity today............SHAKE SHACK

Yesterday the average SHAK restaurant was worth $48 million. Today it is $53 million and rising, following the overnight 6% surge in the company's market cap. Because why not.

Jordan Parisian, 2015, Fishing Bass

My son, Jordan Parisian, is the President of his High School fishing team and this year took 13th place in the Georgia state HS fishing championship out of 68 boats.  To say that he loves to fish is an understatement.  Fishing with Jordan yesterday was my pal, Ron Branch from Tifton, Georgia.  Ron has more bass fishing trophies than most people have socks and at one time long ago was very close to turning professional.  

 Ron and Jordan fished this 350 acre lake 2 years ago and boated nearly 90 fish until they tired out.

In all the years of fishing and seeing big bass, the biggest bass, by far, that Ron has ever laid eyes on, came at around the 4 minute mark of this video.  There was a tremendous amount of exclamatory profanity that Jordan dubbed out for viewer nondiscretion after they saw it,  which is why the sound is a little off.

Ron thought that fish could be a Georgia state record.  Both Jordan and Ron have caught big 10 pound bass and this one literally made a 10 pounder look like a dwarf.    This big bass was going to swallow a 1.5 pound bass for lunch!   You can see the wave action as the big fish makes his run at that little bass.

Jordan at one point went 16 for 16.   They fished until their hands cramped up and called it quits. 

I hope you enjoy a taste of south Georgia bass fishing at it's finest!  Jordan graduates from high school tomorrow night and next year will be a member of the Bass Fishing Team at the University of Georgia where he will be an engineering major. 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=jpR1lD7Pg1Y

     

Remember that definition of insanity.......?

No wonder Washington never changes – 79 members of Congress have been there since Bill Clinton’s first term in the White House.  This list includes names such as Reid, Feinstein, McConnell, McCain, Pelosi, Boehner, Rangel and Boxer. 

With a 15% approval rating,The American People absolutely hate the job that Congress is doing, and yet the same clowns just keep getting sent back to Washington again and again.

Nearly 20 years ago...............

I was told that Salomon trading floor at 7 World Trade was a den of thieves.  If a quarter got loose it was a brawl.  I had a chance to visit the mammoth floor on the 8th anniversary of the Big Crash.   It reminded me of a row of brokers offices in the Drexel Burnham Lambert office in LaJolla.   We called it "murderers row" for lack of a better term.  I don't think it mattered, the clients got twirled.  In fact there was one broker who would sell open-end fixed-income mutual funds and at the same time as he wrote up the "buy" ticket he would write up the "sell" ticket!     The office manager at the time, Walter J. Shaw, did his best.   He wasn't the finest branch manager I ever worked with and far from the worst, but he never tossed his guys under the bus.

The best branch manager I ever worked with was David B. Utter.

    

Thank you Mr. William J. O'Neil

Success in a free country is simple.   Get a job,  get an education, and learn to save and invest wisely.

Anyone can do it.

The Oglala...........

Father Eugene Buechel,  S.J., (Black Eagle)  priest and missionary's favorite argument was that no people in history had risen so swiftly from a primitive life to meet a strange civilization as had the Sioux.  Whereas the English, Irish, German and other European barbaric peoples had become civilized gradually over the centuries.  The Indian had been whirled into confrontation.  And yet in about 75 years they had made a marvelous adaptation. 

Rev.  Joseph Karol,  S. J.

May 1,  1969     

Jordan Parisian

My son will be attending the University of Georgia this fall.

He loves bass fishing.   This photo was on Lake Lanier this past week.

Anybody but Hillary..........

I don't have much of a dog in the fight.   I don't write checks for big amounts to politicians.  I write some small ones once in a while but nothing big.

Who ever is on the conservative side opposing the Clinton sleaze team is going to have a battle.

You won't just be running against the snake herself.

You will be up against Hollywood, the media, immigrants, academia, the Bush Mafia and every rich liberal in America.

Imagine trying to sway the entitlement crowd to vote for a conservative!

Good luck with that.

Ornithology in Georgia

I have enjoyed watching birds since I was a kid long ago.   Can't remember what started my interest but I can clearly remember a couple of very important "sightings" that helped me further my birding interests.

I have also been a life member of the Georgia Ornithological Society for a good while.

Talk about a tireless group that does so much for birding in Georgia.

Here is the new GOS website.  Enjoy

Georgian Ornithological Society

Well earned. No one has worked harder!

AT&T's chief information officer (CIO) is being inducted into the Women in Technology International Hall of Fame.
 

Pam Parisian is one of the five honorees selected for the 2015 induction. WITI established the Women in Technology Hall of Fame award in 1996. Winners are honored for their contributions to the business of technology as well as effort to improve and evolve society while supporting and mentoring women and girls nationwide.
 

Parisian is responsible for technology development for the business supporting systems that enable ordering, care, rating and billing for AT&T’s strategic mobility, business and home solutions businesses. She was charged with the company’s business systems and global end-user experience in 2014, after serving as senior vice president of mobility and home solutions IT.
 

Parisian oversaw the convergence of consumer and mobility systems to create a seamless customer experience across all of AT&T’s consumer products. Prior, as senior vice president of wireless systems and software engineering, she was charged with aligning the wireless organization’s technology strategy with the AT&T wireless business strategy.
 

Before joining AT&T, Parisian was vice president of IT acquisition strategy and planning for Cingular Wireless, where she was responsible for the integration between Cingular and the former AT&T Wireless. Prior to that, she was BellSouth Cellular’s chief information officer.

Crossville, TN TOPIX web site.......

Size 60 pair of panties found on 4-lane out in front of McDonald's.

Light wear, a few holes, and crotch has a buttered up stain in it.

Contact store manager if you know who they belong to.

Not "if", only a question of "when"..........

"I'm not sure if it’s the biggest trade ever, but it's certainly one of them," noted Jamie Tyrrell, a VIX specialist on the CBOE floor, as Bloomberg reports almost $100 million worth of options pegged to the volatility of US equities were traded in a split second at 1216ET today."Someone is interested in owning a lot of protection," Tyrrell added as just over 1 million contracts were traded.   

Mothers Day, 2015

My Mother would have been 87 this year.  She had dark hair her entire life.

Mom always cooked what we killed or caught and made it taste good.

She did her best under all of the circumstances we called "home".  She did good.

I miss her and I miss her parents. 

Clinton sleaze on display................

America's economic recovery??????

For every manufacturing job added in April of 2015 there were 26 new waiters and bartenders confirming the "robustness" of America's jobs recovery.

The day after Cinco de Mayo ........

Is not a good day to find Hispanics doing day labor in Atlanta.

Steve Wynn schooling CNBC

"If you were to ask me, since we’re making forward-looking statements, what will the second quarter look like in Las Vegas? Weak. Do you hear me? Weak. So I’m trying to lower expectations here. This notion of a big recovery is a complete dream," Steve Wynn says, underscoring not only the weakness in gaming revenue from the Vegas strip to Macau, but also the fact that there simply is no economic recovery in the US.

 

Five years after the Flash Crash..........no recovery.

The WSJ "mayweathers" Bernanke.............

The mainstream is beginning to sound a lot like some fringe blog... A week after theworld's largest sovereign wealth fund unleashed a tirade against high-frequency trading and monetary policy distortions, The Wall Street Journal has penned an Op-Ed ramping up its war against Bernanke (and The Fed). What next? Cats living with dogs, mass hysteria, the dead rising from the grave?

Bernanke threw the first punch... and it landed. Now The Wall Street Journal counters with a colossal combination...

It’s nice to know we’re being read, and Thursday’s editorial on “The Slow-Growth Fed” sure got a rise out of Ben Bernanke. The former Federal Reserve Chairman turned blogger turned Pimco adviser wrote to defend the central bank and by implication his policies as innocent of responsibility for subpar economic growth.

 

This is fun, so let’s parse the Revered One’s arguments. First, Mr. Bernanke accuses us of “forecasting a breakout in inflation” at least since 2006. The central banker is getting into the polemical swing, but he’s wild with that one. We’re not always right. But we’ve been careful not to join some of our friends in predicting inflation from the Fed’s post-crisis policies. We’ve written that we are in uncharted monetary territory with risks and outcomes we lack the foresight to predict.

 

Our view has been that the Fed’s first round of quantitative easing was necessary to stem the financial panic—and that it worked. We were skeptical of the later bouts of QE, and in our view these have been notably less successful in helping the economy return to robust health. Asset prices are up and the wealthy are better off, but the working stiff is still waiting for the economic payoff.

 

Mr. Bernanke defends the Fed’s over-optimistic economic growth forecasts by saying the central bank has been overly pessimistic about unemployment. “The relatively rapid decline in unemployment in recent years shows that the critical objective of putting people back to work is being met,” Mr. Bernanke writes.

 

Now, that’s over-optimism. One reason the jobless rate has fallen to 5.5% is because so many people have left the workforce. The labor participation rate has plunged to 1978 levels during this supposedly splendid expansion. Most economists acknowledge that if the participation rate had stayed constant, the jobless rate would still be close to 8%. The failure to attract the long-term unemployed into the job market is one reason the Fed continues to hold interest rates so low.

 

Mr. Bernanke’s other defense is the counterfactual that it could have been worse: “It seems clear that the Fed’s aggressive actions are an important reason that job creation in the United States has outstripped that of other industrial countries by a wide margin.”

 

That’s conveniently unprovable, not least because it doesn’t correct for non-monetary variables. The structural policy impediments to growth in Europe and Japan are far worse than in the U.S., yet Mr. Bernanke implies that the main policy difference is that they waited too long to try QE.

We learned in school that something isn’t a theory if it can’t be tested. Mr. Bernanke’s theory of post-crisis monetary policy is that if it’s working, then do more of it. And if it’s not working, then do more of it too. This isn’t data-driven monetary policy.

 

Mr. Bernanke also says that we “argue (again) for tighter monetary policy.” If lifting the fed-funds rate to 50 or 100 basis points after six years of near-zero policy is tighter money, then we plead guilty.

 

But perhaps Ben should consult Stanley Fischer, the Fed’s current vice chairman, who recently said on CNBC that “we are going to be changing monetary policy from the most extremely expansionary we’ve been able to do in all of history to an extremely expansionary monetary policy.” That doesn’t sound like a return to tight money. Lifting rates off zero means beginning an inevitable return to monetary normalcy that lets markets set rates and allocate capital.

 

We can understand that Mr. Bernanke doesn’t like being tagged with any responsibility for poor economic results. He absolved himself for any mistakes before the financial crisis too. But sooner or later he and the Fed have to stop using the financial crisis as the all-purpose excuse for slow growth. Even President Obama has stopped blaming George W. Bush for everything. Maybe Mr. Bernanke should stop blaming everyone else too.

*  *  *

"Vote the ticket".............

H. C. "Bill" Smith, 93, of Ashburn passed away Thursday, April 30, 2015 at his residence after an extended illness.

A United States Army veteran, Mr. Smith was born in Turner County on April 17, 1922 to the late Jesse James and Anna Roberts Smith. He was a member and deacon at High Hill Baptist Church where he served as song leader for 59 years. He was also a member of the Georgia Farm Bureau.

Mr. Smith is survived by his wife, Ouidafa Conner Smith of Ashburn.

Bill Smith was truly a great Christian man and South Georgia farmer.  I always enjoyed visiting with Bill and his lovely wife.  Bill loved the land and the animals that lived on his farm.

Bill was the first died-in-the-wool Democrat I had ever met that no matter the political repercussions, Bill would always "vote the (Democratic) ticket".

It was the first time I had ever heard that term and my first encounter with such ideology in the South.

"Vote the ticket".    What a great way to make America a more fascist state.

Look around America.   You are blind.