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There are consequences to changes in the tax code and the regulations governing the economy. As our politicians manipulate the marketplace people react to their string pulling like puppets with souls and minds, making decisions meant to thwart the machinations of the puppet masters. The political decisions made by people that have very little understanding of their affects cause distortions with potentially serious portent.
Or, perhaps the puppet masters understand what they're doing all to well. Maybe they've purposely made changes to pull forward growth coming into an election to benefit themselves, cementing their hold on power. Perhaps they believe that two more years of Progressive control of the government will be adequate to so totally integrate their system into ours that we'll never get rid of it. And, maybe a financial collapse after they've won reelection would help them to force their agenda on us.
Never let a crisis go to waste.
From Arthur Laffer at the Wall Street Journal:
"...Now, if people know tax rates will be higher next year than they are this year, what will those people do this year? They will shift production and income out of next year into this year to the extent possible. As a result, income this year has already been inflated above where it otherwise should be and next year, 2011, income will be lower than it otherwise should be.
Also, the prospect of rising prices, higher interest rates and more regulations next year will further entice demand and supply to be shifted from 2011 into 2010. In my view, this shift of income and demand is a major reason that the economy in 2010 has appeared as strong as it has. When we pass the tax boundary of Jan. 1, 2011, my best guess is that the train goes off the tracks and we get our worst nightmare of a severe "double dip" recession.
...Consider corporate profits as a share of GDP. Today, corporate profits as a share of GDP are way too high given the state of the U.S. economy. These high profits reflect the shift in income into 2010 from 2011. These profits will tumble in 2011, preceded most likely by the stock market."
"...There have been some signs recently that China’s blue-collar workforce is tired of being paid like factory workers in a Third World nations. Employees have closed three Honda (NYSE: HMC) plants and demanded raises of as much as 50%. Workers at Foxconn, a supplier of parts to companies such as Apple (NASDAQ: AAP), have used the suicide rate in the company’s facilities to push for and get a doubling of their daily compensation.The People’s Republic has countenanced the union behavior for the last several months, but patience may be growing thin. China knows that its manufacturing labor costs are going up as workers press for better conditions. Higher labor costs mean that the demand for goods made on the mainland will likely fall. The mighty Chinese export engine will falter. And, China will face competition from nations including Vietnam and Mexico.
The Chinese government may well decide that it can control labor costs, if it is willing to control unions within its borders. The way the country handled unrest last year is telling. Police force was kept at a minimum briefly. Informants were used to identify the leaders of the strike movements. They apparently disappeared. or at least the drop in the riots would say so."
247waalst.com
From Machiavelli:
"A PRINCE must defend his state with either his own subjects or mercenaries, or auxiliaries. Mercenaries are utterly untrustworthy; if their captain be not an able man the prince will probably be ruined, whereas if he be an able man he will be seeking a goal of his own. This has been perpetually exemplified among the cities and states of Italy which have sought to maintain themselves by taking foreigners into their pay."
With the current partnership in America between the administration and the unions can unrest be far behind? At the moment they both share a common goal, that of the eventual destruction of the American capitalist system and replacing it with at the least a European Democrat Socialist model or complete Communism. They've moved well along their way, passing healthcare, backing failing union pensions with public money, handing the ownership of private corporations (GM and Chrysler) over to the unions and government control, using public funds to bolster the pay of union workers in the public sector and on and on. But a wrench is about to be thrown into their plans.
November is election time and things aren't looking good for the Progressives and their Communist partners in the unions. The political winds are blowing favorably for a conservative victory, maybe even a landslide. While most politicians may be wedded to a cause they are more solidly joined to their own survival. Many of the same politicians that have supported the radical causes espoused by the administration and their buddies in the unions will shift away from them if they think their survival depends on it.
Now, if we accept the premise, one offered up by Glenn Beck, that the main difference between Progressivism and Communism is the means used to achieve the ends desired we are in for big troubles in the next few months. Beck asserts that Progressives seek change through evolution, deliberate actions changing small pieces that add up to massive change, while Communists rely on revolution, massive and violent abrupt change at the end of a gun barrel. The Russian, Chinese and Cuban revolutions spring to mind here.
Most of the politicians that have backed the Obama administration are Progressives. They are willing to accept a defeat here and there with their long term goals still intact. Strategic retreats, if you will. The Communists that have supported Obama through the unions and community organizers, on the other hand, want massive and violent revolutionary change and they sense blood in the water.
If the Progressive politicians, as I expect they will, begin to stage a strategic withdrawal in the attempt to retain their power, their heretofore willing accomplices on the Communist side of the equation will not stand for it. They are ready and prepared to follow the script they are acting out now in Europe and plunge this country into turmoil. We've seen the beginnings of it in the beat down of Gladney and the protesters showing up at the homes of bankers. We've seen marches on Wall Street and death threats against New Jersey's Governor.
These guys are playing for keeps.
So how will the government react? Will it stand idly by as the country disintegrates, or will it act like China, brutally repressing the demonstrations and in the process declaring martial law and shredding the Constitution? The unions and the rest are going to go all in on this, leaving only two choices, because both work to their advantage. All they really want is power and both answers give it to them. At least to the guys at the top, and that's what Communism is all about anyway.
Brace yourselves for what's coming late in the summer or early in the fall, sometime before the elections when times are desperate. Prepare yourselves and your families. Talk to your friends if you believe as I do that this is coming.
But most of all, pray. The only real answer to what's about to overwhelm us is God. If we open our hearts and listen He'll lead us to safety.
"...Those qualities to be expected in a president were never about rhetoric; Mr. Obama had proved himself a dab hand at that on the campaign trail. They were a matter of identification with the nation and to all that binds its people together in pride and allegiance. These are feelings held deep in American hearts, unvoiced mostly, but unmistakably there and not only on the Fourth of July.
A great part of America now understands that this president's sense of identification lies elsewhere, and is in profound ways unlike theirs. He is hard put to sound convincingly like the leader of the nation, because he is, at heart and by instinct, the voice mainly of his ideological class. He is the alien in the White House, a matter having nothing to do with delusions about his birthplace cherished by the demented fringe."
Wall Street Journal
Ms. Rabinowitz, the author of the article from the Journal above gets right to the heart of the matter; the President isn't part of our family. He's an outsider, not by birth but by inclination.
America is a family. All of us are related by birth, blood and the soil. We belong to each other through shared history and struggle, through triumph and tragedy. We are all products of what came before us, both the good and the bad. We can no more distance ourselves from America than we can from our natural parents. We belong to her.
This was obvious on the day after the 9/11 attacks when we turned as one and faced our Muslim attackers and said, "We're coming for you!" When someone attacks your family there's a visceral reaction natural to all human beings, the need to defend that thing that lies closest to your heart. The American family felt it and acted.
It doesn't matter if you can't stand your weird cousin our if your brother drives you crazy; if somebody hurts them they hurt you. Because, in the end, family is the only thing that matters and it's the only thing you've got.
My guess is that on 9/12, Mr. Obama and his family and friends weren't standing with the rest of us. Their hearts were instead with the attackers and those that would harm our country. I don't know this for sure and I know that I'm going out on a limb here but I'm basing this on his actions since taking office. He's flown all over the world apologizing for our country. His administration can't bring itself to admit that the guys screaming "Allahu Akbar!" as they murder our family members just might have some connection to Islam. Members of his administration have praised Mao and Marx, even saying that power comes from the barrel of a gun. Obama and his cohort are not part of our family, they belong to someone else. They belong to the world of politics and universities, of theories and debate, of revolution and destruction.
This is why the oil continues to flow in the Gulf as our President parties in Washington. He doesn't care about the damage being done because in many ways it will further his radical ends. The oil isn't harming his family but it's going to kill ours.
Our family, the real America, needs to, for a while at least, put aside all of our normal inter-family squabbling and focus on the threat before us. Forget liberal and conservative, Republican and Democrat and just think American. We must join together again, just as we did after the Trade Center attack, to face a common enemy, this time one that has taken over our government. If we fail to defeat this enemy, nothing else will matter because our family will have been destroyed.
And in the end, family is all we've got.
As the government and BP go on and on about their "success" in containing the blowout the real truth is that the oil is about to round the corner and enter the Gulf Stream. Next stop, Georgia and the Carolinas, then on across the ocean to Europe.
All the while, the oil continues to flow.
"Tuesday, Florida's oil forecast went from grim to grimmer.
Lab tests were announced showing that an invisible layer oil exists deep into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, lending credibility to fears that the spill may devastate Gulf sea life and have impact far beyond what the eye can see.
And the head of a group of scientists closely tracking the oil's location said that a small slick may be rounding Florida's tip - and that the delicate oceanic balance keeping the oil away looks to be shifting, potentially bringing a whole lot more of it to the Atlantic and Palm Beach County."
Palm Beach Post
"The immense undersea gusher of oil and gas, seen on live video feed, looks as big as it did last week, or bigger, before the company sliced through the pipe known as a riser to install its new collection device.
At least one expert, Ira Leifer, who is part of a government team charged with estimating the flow rate, is convinced that the operation has made the leak worse, perhaps far worse than the 20 percent increase that government officials warned might occur when the riser was cut.
Dr. Leifer said in an interview on Monday that judging from the video, cutting the pipe might have led to a several-fold increase in the flow rate from the well.
“The well pipe clearly is fluxing way more than it did before,” said Dr. Leifer, a researcher at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “By way more, I don’t mean 20 percent, I mean multiple factors.”
New York Times
Contrary to the government propaganda we hear daily on the news I tend to believe what Mr. Leifer says in the above article. As I wrote the other day, this is no more complicated in concept than working on the plumbing in your house. If you have a pipe that is broken and spewing water one solution is to use a valve with a compression fitting to stop the flow. That's really all this cap they've installed is.
Now the ugly reality is that if you plan to use a compression fitting the pipe has to be smooth and round, not deformed and jagged. I would use a pipe cutter or a saw with a fine tooth blade. BP tried exactly that and failed. What they ended up doing was using a shear. A shear will partially crush the pipe and leave the edges ragged. A compression fitting will never hold to it and could possibly cause more to leak because the original broken pipe was crushed, restricting flow. Since they cut it with the shears they have opened the end of the pipe, allowing more oil to flow out. That was why they originally estimated that cutting the pipe would increase flow by 20%.
In a few days we'll start to hear more backpedaling on their initial claims of success, just like we've heard with every other solution. And the oil will continue to flow.
So in the story below we've got a perfect picture of how the criminal justice system works and why more and more people, if they have any real sense of justice, will take care of things themselves.
We've got a guy that sends a picture of his willy to a seventeen year old girl. He admits he did it and says he thought it was funny.
Now the girls Dad gets pissed off, rightfully so. He's going to call the cops but decides to inflict a bit of justice himself. Hey, his daughter was abused by this creep! I'd do the same thing. You know why? Because of the last line in the article: "Prosecutors declined to charge Moore in connection with the photo for lack of evidence, said district attorney's spokesman John Hall."
I'm sure that the Dad had as much confidence in justice being served as any other right thinking person would. He knew that this guy would be let off and his daughter would lose any faith she may have wrongfully placed in our system of official justice. But, you know what. His daughter has had her faith in her father reinforced. He did what fathers do and that's protect their family when possible and make sure justice is done when its not.
Not so long ago, Mr. Attwood would have been hailed as a hero. He didn't do any damage to the guy; he maybe just scared him a bit. More importantly, he sent a message to his family, and to his daughter in particular that he will do whatever he has to do to make sure they're safe. And, he sent a message even more important to the rest of the world, "Don't f*** with my family or I will come after you!"
Isn't that what men are supposed to do?
The sad thing is that now the guy that did the right thing will have his life ruined while the piece of crap sending pictures of his privates walks away to do it again. WHAT IN THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THIS COUNTRY???!!!!
"An angry father is accused of using a stun gun on a 23 year old man who sent his 17 year old daughter an explicit cell phone picture.
William Atwood Sr., 45, was charged Wednesday with multiple felonies in connection with the case.
Authorities say Atwood lured Justin Moore to his home, ordered him to strip down to his boxer shorts, and tied him up and tased him with a stun gun before turning him over to a sheriff's deputy.
Moore told authorities he sent a photo of his genitals to several friends, including Atwood's daughter, as a joke.
Atwood apparently didn't think the joke was funny when his daughter told him about the picture in January.
According to court records, Atwood called the Sheriff's Department saying that Moore sent pornography to a child.
Before detectives could investigate the claim, Atwood told deputies that Moore came to his home uninvited.
He admitted telling Moore to take off his clothes and says he bound his wrists and ankles with zip ties.
Deputies found Moore at Atwood's home naked, tied up and extremely frightened.
Moore tells a different story. He says that Atwood called him and asked him to come over to discuss the photo. When he arrived, Atwood was holding a shotgun, Moore told officials.
He says Atwood ordered him out of his car and fired a shot. Atwood pulled him off the ground by his feet, injuring his shoulder, according to Moore.
Atwood told Moore he had connections with the Pechanga tribe and was going to have him buried on the reservation, court records say.
Moore said he believed that Atwood was going to kill him.
A short time later, Atwood pulled out a handgun and a stun gun.
He shocked Moore on the shoulder for about 20 seconds and asked him how he liked it, court records say.
Moore said he was detained for about an hour before Atwood called the Sheriff's Department.
Investigators determined that Moore had received a call from Atwood about an hour before he called authorities and also found a text message Moore had sent to a friend on his way to Atwood's house, saying he was going to discuss the pictures.
"If I don't get back, let everyone know," he joked.
Investigators searched Atwood's home, seized zip ties, at least two stun guns and more than a dozen firearms.
The district attorney's office on Wednesday charged Atwood with making criminal threats, false imprisonment, assault with a stun gun, assault with a deadly weapon and other gun charges.
Prosecutors declined to charge Moore in connection with the photo for lack of evidence, said district attorney's spokesman John Hall.
KDVR
I've posted the story below in its entirety from WREG in Memphis.
The reason is because one has to wonder if this is the beginning of what I anticipate for this summer; massive ecological damage from the chemicals in the Gulf of Mexico riding North on the rain and dropping over the mid section of the country.
Here in Missouri, on those hot and humid summer days, right before a storm, you can almost taste the salt air when the moisture from the Gulf rolls over us. Hurricanes ride right up on top of us; we may not get all the wind but we get the water. All of the oil and dispersant that is floating and submerged in the Gulf will be mixed and vaporized over the coming months, sent aloft to ride the storms right through the center of the country, poisoning everything in their path.
What will happen to crops and water supplies as this chemical brew washes down over us? I don't know but the possibility of a dead zone of undetermined duration seems a possibility. I wonder if the story below is just the first of many we'll see over the coming months?
Pray, pray, pray!
"Something is killing crops, trees, even weeds and nobody can explain why.
Farmers are scratching their heads and some are worried their crops may be lost to the mysterious plague.
It's happening along a large swath of land near the Shelby and Tipton county border along Herring Hill Road and elsewhere near the Mississippi River bottoms.
It's happening along a large swath of land near the Shelby and Tipton county border along Herring Hill Road and elsewhere near the Mississippi River bottoms.
Tiny dots appear to have burned onto leaves of all types of plants, and they appear different depending on the plant.
On corn stalks, the dots seem to turn white in the center.
On other plants, a white dust speckles the leaves and then destroys the green life underneath.
"We found it all in the herbs, in the flowers, in the plum tree, in the weeds," said organic farmer Toni Holt. "It's apparently in everything."
Holt grows organic produce that she sells at area farmers' markets.
As she and other farmers inspect the new growth covered in the perplexing plague, they fear their entire crop may be lost.
Less than ten miles from Holt's crops, the damage could possibly hit hundreds of acres of corn at Wilder Farms.
It appears to have hit everything in its path.
There does not seem to be anything in common with the affected plants.
The Holts raise organic crops, so they don't spray pesticides on any of their fruits and vegetables.
The first thought among some was a new parasite or insect caused the damage, but Wilder farms sprays pesticides and the damage there is exactly the same.
Farmers first noticed the damaging dots over the weekend.
Then Holt came home to find baby birds dead in their nests.
"There are two dead birds hanging out of two different bird houses, so we're concerned about that. We don't know if it's related, but it's alarming," said Holt. "We've got horses, we're concerned about the horses on the grass. We've got chickens. We sell our eggs at the market."
Farmers we spoke with are convinced something in the air caused this damage.
They're asking the USDA and other experts to look into the problem, and so are we."
H/T
The Coming Depression
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