The GrassCity Gazette

[aaronman]

Marry a Farmer

Marry a Farmer
Sure, commodities prices go down in the long term—but in the long term, we're all dead.
By Rana Foroohar | NEWSWEEK
Published Apr 11, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Apr 20, 2009

Jim Rogers, the legendary American investor, financial commentator and, along with George Soros, founder of the Quantum Fund, is the ultimate commodities bull. More than 10 years ago, he started the Rogers International Commodities Index, and in 2005 he wrote "Hot Commodities: How Anyone Can Invest Profitably in the World's Best Market." Below, he explains to NEWSWEEK's Rana Foroohar why oil is still black gold.

Foroohar: Inflation-adjusted, oil is the same price that it was in 1976, and in 1870. So why are you still a bull?

Rogers: It doesn't matter. It's also true that just about any stock you can think about is at or below where it was in the 1970s right now. So what? There are still 15- to 20-year periods when commodities, stocks and any other asset class goes up a great deal. In 1987 stocks collapsed by 40 to 80 percent. But people who were smart enough to stay in them made 1,000 percent returns in the next decade. The point is to take advantage of those periods and make some money.

What's the fundamental case for commodities right now?

Supply is declining. There's been 35 years of low investment in production capacity. The last lead smelter in the U.S. was built in 1969! There's been no major oilfield discovery in 40 years. Oil is in decline. According to the International Energy Agency, oil reserves are declining significantly. At this rate, in 20 years, there will be no oil left. The only people to make money in the next 20 years will make it in commodities. It's the only asset class where the fundamentals are improving. I mean, look at Citigroup, look at GM. Those fundamentals are not improving.


Do you see commodities as an inflation hedge?

Absolutely. This is only time in history where you've got every central bank in the world printing money at the same time. Consumer prices are going to go way up. The public is already getting out of paper money, which is why you're seeing gold go up.

Does the future growth of China factor into your bullishness?

China is tiny in comparison to the U.S. economy. Anyone who thinks that the commodities story is driven by China needs to do more homework. In the 1970s, everyone was in recession, and you still had declining supply [in oil] and higher prices. Asia wasn't even in the game then. China was run by Mao. But now, of course, there are those 3 billion people in Asia who are in the game. It's just another factor.

Are we going to see another food-price spike sometime soon?

Definitely. I think you should move back to Indiana and marry a farmer. There are times in history when the money lenders have been in charge, and we just came through one of those periods. But it wasn't always that way. Wall Street was a backwater in the '40s, '50s, '60s and '70s, and it will be again. Farmers are going to be the ones driving Lamborghinis, and the traders are going to have to learn to drive tractors.

What about technological advances? Another green revolution could easily drive prices down …

Sure, there's always something that will end a bull market. But if you think we're anywhere near that point now, think again. Even if everyone in the world decided to put a windmill on their head, it's going to take decades for that to really change things. In the meantime, you've got to put your money somewhere. And as we're already seeing, even the value of cash can be wiped out.

I guess that's one reason the Chinese are so worried …

Well, if I were running the Chinese central bank, I'd buy oil, wheat and zinc. Which is what folks there are already doing.

How about you? Are you upping your own commodities positions right now?

As a matter of fact, I am. I never sold anything to begin with. And I'm not planning to, either.

[Dickie4:20]

Monday, April 13, 2009

Plant your bubble garden


Two different versions of reality are circulating in the mainstream media. One version is the "news" dutifully read on air from press releases put out by the large banks. From what is being read from the TelePrompTers you would think that there wasn’t any problem with the banks and after the slight hiccup in the economy they are making billions again and ready for business as usual.

The other version is coming out in drips and drabs in the print media. People who attended White House meetings with bankers say that the encounters have been heated with Banking Regulators in favor wholesale firings and a crack down on executive pay. The bankers want to continue collecting billions in salary and perks from banks that are losing, well, billions, and not just investors money (that’s long gone) but now taxpayer money as well.

The bankers contend that they are solvent but to make that claim they are valuing their toxic assets at 91% of original value. Nobody will give them anything like that and never will, but when your weekly salary is measured in millions you must be smarter than everybody else. Right? (yeah right) They are really operating like any other chronic gambler who is sure that if they just keep going back to the table they will win it all back. Of course they aren’t gambling with their money; it’s our farm they are betting on an inside straight; they win no matter how much we lose.

But that’s the "free market", right? How dare Obama and a bunch of bureaucrats at the Treasury Dept. interfere in the "free market". Just keep printing the money and handing it to them and everything will be all right. Just keep repeating: everything will be all right, we just need to keep printing money, printing money, printing, printing....

The bankers are creating the public illusion that the "free market" is working everything out and the Government is putting undo burdens on them. This may make it difficult for Obama to convince Congress to authorize further action. If they prevail and are able to just go back to business as usual, then what we will get is another bubble. This one won’t take long to run its course and when it bursts things really will get bad. Everybody should follow the President’s example and plant a garden.

[MountyBounty]

Gov. Perry Backs Resolution Affirming Texas’ Sovereignty Under 10th Amendment

AUSTIN – Gov. Rick Perry today joined state Rep. Brandon Creighton and sponsors of House Concurrent Resolution (HCR) 50 in support of states’ rights under the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

“I believe that our federal government has become oppressive in its size, its intrusion into the lives of our citizens, and its interference with the affairs of our state,” Gov. Perry said. “That is why I am here today to express my unwavering support for efforts all across our country to reaffirm the states’ rights affirmed by the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I believe that returning to the letter and spirit of the U.S. Constitution and its essential 10th Amendment will free our state from undue regulations, and ultimately strengthen our Union.”

A number of recent federal proposals are not within the scope of the federal government’s constitutionally designated powers and impede the states’ right to govern themselves. HCR 50 affirms that Texas claims sovereignty under the 10th Amendment over all powers not otherwise granted to the federal government.

It also designates that all compulsory federal legislation that requires states to comply under threat of civil or criminal penalties, or that requires states to pass legislation or lose federal funding, be prohibited or repealed.

HCR 50 is authored by Representatives Brandon Creighton, Leo Berman, Bryan Hughes, Dan Gattis and Ryan Guillen.

[MountyBounty]

Ron Paul's response to Obama's economic speech today. Ron Paul just lays out the facts about how we are becoming economically fascist and are just creating inflation.

YouTube - ron paul: barack obama is "preaching...

[AK Infinity]

Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment (PDF)

YouTube - Patsy Cline - Crazy

[aaronman]

^^^ Constitutionalism and limited government is XXXTREEEME!

10 Years Later, The Real Story Behind Columbine

By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY

They weren't goths or loners.

The two teenagers who killed 13 people and themselves at suburban Denver's Columbine High School 10 years ago next week weren't in the "Trenchcoat Mafia," disaffected videogamers who wore cowboy dusters. The killings ignited a national debate over bullying, but the record now shows Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold hadn't been bullied — in fact, they had bragged in diaries about picking on freshmen and "fags."

A decade after Harris and Klebold made Columbine a synonym for rage, new information — including several books that analyze the tragedy through diaries, e-mails, appointment books, videotape, police affidavits and interviews with witnesses, friends and survivors — indicate that much of what the public has been told about the shootings is wrong.

In fact, the pair's suicidal attack was planned as a grand — if badly implemented — terrorist bombing that quickly devolved into a 49-minute shooting rampage when the bombs Harris built fizzled.

"He was so bad at wiring those bombs, apparently they weren't even close to working," says Dave Cullen, author of Columbine, a new account of the attack.

So whom did they hope to kill?

Everyone — including friends.

What's left, after peeling away a decade of myths, is perhaps more comforting than the "good kids harassed into retaliation" narrative — or perhaps not.

It's a portrait of Harris and Klebold as a sort of In Cold Blood criminal duo — a deeply disturbed, suicidal pair who over more than a year psyched each other up for an Oklahoma City-style terrorist bombing, an apolitical, over-the-top revenge fantasy against years of snubs, slights and cruelties, real and imagined.

Along the way, they saved money from after-school jobs, took Advanced Placement classes, assembled a small arsenal and fooled everyone — friends, parents, teachers, psychologists, cops and judges.

"These are not ordinary kids who were bullied into retaliation," psychologist Peter Langman writes in his new book, Why Kids Kill: Inside the Minds of School Shooters. "These are not ordinary kids who played too many video games. These are not ordinary kids who just wanted to be famous. These are simply not ordinary kids. These are kids with serious psychological problems."

Deceiving the adults

Harris, who conceived the attacks, was more than just troubled. He was, psychologists now say, a cold-blooded, predatory psychopath — a smart, charming liar with "a preposterously grand superiority complex, a revulsion for authority and an excruciating need for control," Cullen writes.

Harris, a senior, read voraciously and got good grades when he tried, pleasing his teachers with dazzling prose — then writing in his journal about killing thousands.

"I referred to him — and I'm dating myself — as the Eddie Haskel of Columbine High School," says Principal Frank DeAngelis, referring to the deceptively polite teen on the 1950s and '60s sitcom Leave it to Beaver. "He was the type of kid who, when he was in front of adults, he'd tell you what you wanted to hear."

When he wasn't, he mixed napalm in the kitchen .

According to Cullen, one of Harris' last journal entries read: "I hate you people for leaving me out of so many fun things. And no don't … say, 'Well that's your fault,' because it isn't, you people had my phone #, and I asked and all, but no. No no no don't let the weird-looking Eric KID come along."

As he walked into the school the morning of April 20, Harris' T-shirt read: Natural Selection.

Klebold, on the other hand, was anxious and lovelorn, summing up his life at one point in his journal as "the most miserable existence in the history of time," Langman notes.

Harris drew swastikas in his journal; Klebold drew hearts.

As laid out in their writings, the contrast between the two was stark.

Harris seemed to feel superior to everyone — he once wrote, "I feel like God and I wish I was, having everyone being OFFICIALLY lower than me" — while Klebold was suicidally depressed and getting angrier all the time. "Me is a god, a god of sadness," he wrote in September 1997, around his 16th birthday.

Klebold also was paranoid. "I have always been hated, by everyone and everything," he wrote.

On the day of the attacks, his T-shirt read: Wrath.

Shooter profiles emerge

Columbine wasn't the first K-12 school shooting. But at the time it was by far the worst, and the first to play out largely on live television.

The U.S. Secret Service and U.S. Education Department soon began studying school shooters. In 2002, researchers presented their first findings: School shooters, they said, followed no set profile, but most were depressed and felt persecuted.

Princeton sociologist Katherine Newman, co-author of the 2004 book Rampage: The Social Roots of School Shootings, says young people such as Harris and Klebold are not loners — they're just not accepted by the kids who count. "Getting attention by becoming notorious is better than being a failure."

The Secret Service found that school shooters usually tell other kids about their plans.

"Other students often even egg them on," says Newman, who led a congressionally mandated study on school shootings. "Then they end up with this escalating commitment. It's not a sudden snapping."

Langman, whose book profiles 10 shooters, including Harris and Klebold, found that nine suffered from depression and suicidal thoughts, a "potentially dangerous" combination, he says. "It is hard to prevent murder when killers do not care if they live or die. It is like trying to stop a suicide bomber."

At the time, Columbine became a kind of giant national Rorschach test. Observers saw its genesis in just about everything: lax parenting, lax gun laws, progressive schooling, repressive school culture, violent video games, antidepressant drugs and rock 'n' roll, for starters.

Many of the Columbine myths emerged before the shooting stopped, as rumors, misunderstandings and wishful thinking swirled in an echo chamber among witnesses, survivors, officials and the news media.

Police contributed to the mess by talking to reporters before they knew facts — a hastily called news conference by the Jefferson County sheriff that afternoon produced the first headline: "Twenty-five dead in Colorado."

A few inaccuracies took hours to clear up, but others took weeks or months — sometimes years — as authorities reluctantly set the record straight.

Former Rocky Mountain News reporter Jeff Kass, author of a new book, Columbine: A True Crime Story, says police played a game of "Open Records charades."

In one case, county officials took five years just to acknowledge that they had met in secret after the attacks to discuss a 1998 affidavit for a search warrant on Harris' home — it was the result of a complaint against him by the mother of a former friend. Harris had threatened her son on his website and bragged that he had been building bombs.

Police already had found a small bomb matching Harris' description near his home — but investigators never presented the affidavit to a judge.

They also apparently didn't know that Harris and Klebold were on probation after having been arrested in January 1998 for breaking into a van and stealing electronics.

The search finally took place, but only after the shootings.

Meticulous planning

What's now beyond dispute — largely from the killers' journals, which have been released over the past few years, is this: Harris and Klebold killed 13 and wounded 24, but they had hoped to kill thousands.

The pair planned the attacks for more than a year, building 100 bombs and persuading friends to buy them guns. Just after 11 a.m. on April 20, they lugged a pair of duffel bags containing propane-tank bombs into Columbine's crowded cafeteria and another into the kitchen, then stepped outside and waited.

Had the bombs exploded, they'd have killed virtually everyone eating lunch and brought the school's second-story library down atop the cafeteria, police say. Armed with a pistol, a rifle and two sawed-off shotguns, the pair planned to pick off survivors fleeing the carnage.

As a last terrorist act, a pair of gasoline bombs planted in Harris' Honda and Klebold's BMW had been rigged apparently to kill police, rescue teams, journalists and parents who rushed to the school — long after the pair expected they would be dead.

The pair had parked the cars about 100 yards apart in the student lot. The bombs didn't go off.

Looking for answers at home

Since 1999, many people have looked to the boys' parents for answers, but a transcript of their 2003 court-ordered deposition to the victims' parents remains sealed until 2027.

The Klebolds spoke to New York Times columnist David Brooks in 2004 and impressed Brooks as "a well-educated, reflective, highly intelligent couple" who spent plenty of time with their son. They said they had no clues about Dylan's mental state and regretted not seeing that he was suicidal.

Could the parents have prevented the massacre? The FBI special agent in charge of the investigation has gone on record as having "the utmost sympathy" for the Harris and Klebold families.

"They have been vilified without information," retired supervisory special agent Dwayne Fuselier tells Cullen.

Cullen, who has spent most of the past decade poring over the record, comes away with a bit of sympathy.

For one thing, he notes, Harris' parents "knew they had a problem — they thought they were dealing with it. What kind of parent is going to think, 'Well, maybe Eric's a mass murderer.' You just don't go there."

He got a good look at the boys' writings only in the past couple of years. Among the revelations: Eric Harris was financing what could well have been the biggest domestic terrorist attack on U.S. soil on wages from a part-time job at a pizza parlor.

"One of the scary things is that money was one of the limiting factors here," Cullen says.

Had Harris, then 18, put off the attacks for a few years and landed a well-paying job, he says, "he could be much more like Tim McVeigh," mixing fertilizer bombs like those used in Oklahoma City in 1995. As it was, he says, the fact that Harris carried out the attack when he did probably saved hundreds of lives.

"His limited salary probably limited the number of people who died."

Contributing: Marilyn Elias, USA TODAY

[Dickie4:20]

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

A Better Grade of Sand


The economy took a big dip in March after a relatively good report for February. Retail sales dropped sharply reflecting month after month of crippling job losses. Wholesale prices took an unexpected downturn which raises fears that deflation is taking a grip on the economy.

President Obama gave a long speech on the economy today that demonstrated he’s been reading his briefing book but not that he really understands it. He is focused on the bringing the banks back on line because he thinks that banks create a "multiplier effect". He’s been told that "a dollar of capital in a bank creates eight or ten dollars in new lending". That’s true Mr. President, but only because the Federal Reserve will in turn loan banks ten to one new money that they, the Federal Reserve, created out of thin air. That’s how we got in this mess. Sad to say he doesn’t get it or he is not sharing with us the knowledge if he has it.

He did say that having 40% of corporate profits coming from trading derivatives and other instruments of no real value was no way to run an economy. He’s got that right, but he doesn’t seem to realize that corporations began doing this with the blessing of the Federal Reserve as well as the Bush Adm. They did this in order to postpone the current Great Depression. For the past year; the Fed along with Congress and Bush and now Obama have been propping everything up by creating trillions and trillions of new money. This is unsustainable and Obama is giving no indication that he understands what to do about this.

Obama threw in the Bible verse about not building your house on a pile of sand. That’s great but he isn’t offering any actual rocks. He wants to fix the banking system, rather the Treasury Dept. should charter new banks and the Justice Dept. round up people who ran the old ones. He wants more education so that we can compete better in the World, ask Ireland how that works. They have the most educated work force in Europe and have no jobs, all the corporations abandoned Ireland for cheaper labor. He wants health care reform, that’s great and it would help the economy some, but you can’t build an economy on taking each other’s temperature.

He says we have to save more and borrow less; people have been borrowing because it was Fed policy to have easy credit to offset low wages. Obama says we need to consume less and export more; but that’s what really poor third world countries do instead of having their own industrial base and they have no middle class. With Wall Street discredited and no plans to increase consumer spending, that means business will have to drive the recovery but with no export market and no domestic market how exactly will that work? We’re just moving up to a better grade of sand.

[aaronman]

Legalize it, bitches!

YouTube - Ron Paul on CNN American Morning...

[MountyBounty]

Perry fires up anti-tax crowd

AUSTIN, Texas — Texas Gov. Rick Perry fired up an anti-tax "tea party" Wednesday with his stance against the federal government and for states' rights as some in his U.S. flag-waving audience shouted, "Secede!"
An animated Perry told the crowd at Austin City Hall — one of three tea parties he was attending across the state — that officials in Washington have abandoned the country's founding principles of limited government. He said the federal government is strangling Americans with taxation, spending and debt.
Perry repeated his running theme that Texas' economy is in relatively good shape compared with other states and with the "federal budget mess." Many in the crowd held signs deriding President Barack Obama and the $786 billion federal economic stimulus package.
Later, answering news reporters' questions, Perry suggested Texans might at some point get so fed up they would want to secede from the union, though he said he sees no reason why Texas should do that.
"There's a lot of different scenarios," Perry said. "We've got a great union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that. But Texas is a very unique place, and we're a pretty independent lot to boot."
Perry is running for re-election against U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, a fellow Republican. His anti-Washington remarks have become more strident the past few weeks as that 2010 race gets going and since Perry rejected $550 million in federal economic stimulus money slated to help Texas' unemployment trust fund.
Perry said the stimulus money would come with strings attached that would leave Texas paying the bill once the federal money ran out.
He said he believes he could be at the center of a national movement that is coordinated and focused in its opposition to the actions of the federal government.
"It's a very organic thing," he said. "It is a very powerful moment, I think, in American history."
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, also Republicans, have been outspoken against the federal economic stimulus spending and were supportive of tea parties in their states.
The protests, organized throughout the country by conservative groups and talk show hosts, were held on the federal income tax deadline day to imitate the original Boston Tea Party of American revolutionary times.
Conservative syndicated talk show host Glenn Beck broadcast live in San Antonio from outside the Alamo, a legendary symbol of Texas independence, with crowds packing the small plaza. Many waved signs or carried little yellow flags that read, "Don't tread on me." A local barbecue chain gave away free cups of iced tea.
Mike Smart, a 51-year-old oil field worker from West Texas, held up a white handwritten sign that said, "I'll keep my freedom, my $ and my guns. You keep the change."
"I just want the government to stay out of my way. I won't get in their way if they don't get in mine," said Smart, who described himself as conservative but not a Republican.
Government spending, going back multiple administrations, has reached a boiling point with the latest rounds of stimulus spending, he said. While the Bush administration spent heavily before he left office, the Obama administration has fast-tracked big spending, he said.
"Ol' George was going to the same destination. He just didn't want to tell anyone," said Smart.
Another protester, 38-year-old Melva Fried, said the forced ouster of General Motors Corp. CEO Rick Wagoner was the last straw for her — a symbol the federal government was moving toward socialism.
"When a president can fire the head of a company, that's too much," she said, holding a sign that read "Stop Rewarding Failure."
The sales associate, who considers herself a disaffected Republican, said she doesn't believe the government should bail anyone out, including banks and individual homeowners.
The crowd at the Austin tea party appeared decidedly anti-Democrat. Many of the speakers were Republicans and Libertarians.
One placard said, "Stop Obama's Socialism." Another read, "Some Pirates Are in America," and it showed photographs of Obama, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wearing pirate hats.
Rebecca Knowlton, 45, of Smithville, said she took the day off of home-schooling her three children and brought them to the rally to teach them about civic duty. She felt camaraderie at the demonstration.
"The movement is growing stronger," she said. "You're not alone."

[aaronman]

Iraq air raids hit mostly women and children

Air strikes and artillery barrages have taken a heavy toll among the most vulnerable of the Iraqi people, with children and women forming a disproportionate number of the dead.

Analysis carried out for the research group Iraq Body Count (IBC) found that 39 per cent of those killed in air raids by the US-led coalition were children and 46 per cent were women. Fatalities caused by mortars, used by American and Iraqi government forces as well as insurgents, were 42 per cent children and 44 per cent women.

Twelve per cent of those killed by suicide bombings, mainly the tool of militant Sunni groups, were children and 16 per cent were females. One in five (21 per cent) of those killed by car bombs, used by both Shia and Sunni fighters, was a child; one in four (28 per cent) was a woman.

The figures, compiled by academics at King’s College and Royal Holloway, University of London, show that hi-tech weaponry has caused lethal damage to those in the population who would be furthest away from the conflict.

The victims of one of the most brutal and common types of killings in the war – abduction and execution by death squad – were 95 per cent men, many of them bearing marks of torture.

The report, The Weapons That Kill Civilians, Deaths of Children and Noncombatants in Iraq, was compiled from a sample of 60,481 deaths in 14,196 events over a five-year period since the 2003 invasion. Civilian casualties from concentrated bouts of violence, such as the two sieges of Fallujah, were excluded.

IBC estimates that the total deaths in the conflict so far number 99,774. The medical journal The Lancet has maintained in another study that more than 600,000 people were killed in the first three years of the war. IBC holds that the indiscriminate nature of the fatalities caused by air strikes shows they should not be used in urban areas.

Growing anger over civilian casualties caused by air raids in another front of the “war on terror”, Afghanistan, has led to the US, UK and their Nato partners reviewing their policy of using warplanes. Hamid Karzai, the Afghan President, recently said this had become the most contentious issue between him and Western powers.

From 2004 to 2007, the overall tonnage of munition dropped from planes in the Afghan conflict rose from 163 tonnes a year to 1,956 tonnes, an increase of 1,100 per cent. Since 2001 the US air force has dropped 14,049 tonnes of bombs in Afghanistan and 18,858 in Iraq.

Professor John Sloboda, of Royal Holloway, co-author of the report, said: “Our weapon-specific findings have implications for a wide range of conflicts, because the patterns found in this study are likely to be replicated for these weapons whenever they are used.

*Last night a US army sergeant was facing life imprisonment after being found guilty of executing four Iraqi detainees in 2007. Master Sgt John Hartley shot four men in the head and dumped their bodies in a canal in West Rasheed area of Baghdad. He is due to be sentenced today.

[Salvial]

Originally Posted by AK Infinity

Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment (PDF)

To be honest, I'm pretty offended. Only your government could phrase the name of a bill like that and still have SOME citizens buy that bullshit.

You could say the Campaign For Liberty had a fairly visible presence in Lansing today:



Because we were the only group (of over at least ten who organized participants) to plan our sign messages in advance, the sign breakdown was roughly 30 Audit/End the Fed signs, 20 Campaign For Liberty signs, maybe 20 "TEA--Taxed Enough Already" signs (those weren't our idea), 10 "Don't tread on me" signs and flags, maybe 5 "Who is John Galt?" signs, and 300 unique ones bearing everything else you could think of. We were easily the most visible group in the crowd of roughly 5,000.

A Republican candidate for Secretary of State was seen helping us hold up the 8' x 4' Campaign For Liberty banner in the back (which also had the beginning ofthe Declaration of Independence written in calligraphy on the reverse)



Our literature table (which I'm not sure, but I don't think was ever registered or paid for) was a non-stop scene of people signing up to join us. We had the HR1207 slim jims printed and handed out thousands.



About halfway through the event I got an urgent call from HQ--they needed me to produce the list of Congressional office phone numbers; the HR 1207 petition notices were getting faxed today. I was able to duck into the Capitol building and use the wireless network to get the numbers to them, and informing our volunteers that Congress was going to receive something like 80,000 (or is it more?) faxes today really fired everyone up! (Turns out they were notice letters for the bulk paper to be delivered later, but still it fired us up!)

Funniest sign of the day.

http://www.campaignforliberty.com/us.../commodity.jpg

Cutest sign of the day.

http://www.campaignforliberty.com/us...i/SSPX0056.jpg

The thumbnail above will open the full-size crowd shot. How many Audit the Fed signs can you count?

Michigan Coordinator Tony DeMott was interviewed by a local newspaper, a local radio station, a freelance journalist, and one of Glenn Beck's people.

In sum, the event was a complete success:

* We got contact information from many interested people
* We made HR 1207, the only legislation called for at this major rally, highly visible
* We made our own organization highly visible
* We had no trouble with any counterdemonstrators of any kind
* We received our share of media coverage
* We helped make the event a success for similar groups, who expressed interest in working with us again in the future

On that last point, I noticed an interesting thing. At the St. Louis Regional Conference (footage, by the way, will soon be available for sale at this website), Kirk Shelley discussed the many risks associated with coalitions, both official and ad hoc. Looking back, what we managed to do, by communicating very little with other groups in advance and just sticking to our plan to do our business and keep out of theirs, effectively was to work with these other groups essentially as a coalition yet without any of the hassle or baggage. We were able to hold a complete peaceful, energetic rally and get a lot accomplished, without the differences of opinion on issues or priorities getting in the way.

So once again, I thank everyone in Michigan's Campaign For Liberty for yet again handling a challenging situation exactly right. In a few days we'll regroup, follow up with the sign-ups we earned today, follow up with phone calls to our Representatives' district offices, work and getting SCR 4 passed in the Michigan Senate, and continue building our movement to victory!

[Dickie4:20]

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

A chicken in every pot, if you raise it in the backyard


The low income tax protesters must realize how they don't pay that much tax but they have been brain washed into thinking that they are low income because the rich are being overtaxed. If corporations didn't have to pay any taxes their wages would be higher. The reality of course is that few corporations pay any taxes and some even make a net gain from the public trough.

They also believe that someday they might be rich, not grasping the reality that they have half the chance of upward mobility of somebody born in socialist Sweden. They also believe that the rich would invest more if they didn’t have to pay any taxes. The really rich only pay an average of 17% income tax and no fica taxes. These morons are paying more on every dollar than the super rich now.

They should be protesting, they have every right to be angry. The protesters just don’t have a clue who they really are. They think that they are the upper class that is being repressed by the liberals in government. If the liberals would just go away then they would have the income they deserve.

And now the bad news:
March economic numbers indicate that Deflation is here with the first year to year drop in consumer prices since 1955. Some of this can be attributed to cheaper gas but this has not inspired Americans to drive more and they aren’t spending the gas savings with retail sales dropping sharply.

Manufacturing output fell in the first quarter by 20% with the factories that still remain in the US now operating at 69% of capacity. This is the worst number since the government started keeping track in the sixties. Increasingly companies are making no secret of the fact that they have no plans to bring back the jobs they are eliminating in the US.

The Federal Reserve Beige Book Report tried valiantly to paint a rosy picture of things but the best they could come up with was that home sales were up slightly in a few cities. Foreclosures are picking up dramatically with the end of the moratoriums that some of the large mortgage companies had in place.

Farm equipment manufactures that were a bright spot in the economy are laying off large numbers of workers with the flattening out of farm prices. Exports of farm equipment are drying up as the major US companies bring large factories on line in Brazil. Brazil is putting millions of acres into production that will replace US farm exports to China. A massive highway and bridge building project across Peru will allow Brazil to move a truck load of grain to Pacific ports every 17 seconds.

The only thing that everybody agrees on is that things will get worse before they get better, but nobody is really talking about the things that must be done to make things better. I saw an ad for a prefab chicken coop that you can put up in your back yard. It’s disguised to look like a cluster of garbage cans so that the neighbors won’t notice that you have something to eat.

[aaronman]

^^^^^

They use CPI when oil goes down and the Core Rate when oil goes up... why do you think that is?

Core Rate inflation (excluding oil & food) has risen 1.2% in the past 12 months, .2% for the last 3 months.

But otherwise yes, most of the morons at those tea parties don't understand the argument that founded the movement.

[wackdeafboy]

Originally Posted by aaronman

^^^^^

They use CPI when oil goes down and the Core Rate when oil goes up... why do you think that is?

Core Rate inflation (excluding oil & food) has risen 1.2% in the past 12 months, .2% for the last 3 months.

But otherwise yes, most of the morons at those tea parties don't understand the argument that founded the movement.

They will never understand unless they smoke pot and do acid!
Seriously though, no matter what if they think it sounds good, they will follow it. Simply a sheeple.

[aaronman]

Mugabe Abandons Worthless Currency

Zimbabwe's new coalition Government has decided to withdraw the country's worthless currency from circulation for at least a year and rely exclusively on other hard currencies.


Economic Planning Minister Elton Mangoma has been quoted in the state-controlled Sunday Mail newspaper as saying the Zimbabwe dollar, whose value was sent crashing by an official policy of the former regime of President Robert Mugabe to print huge volumes of cash to keep up with state spending, ''will be out at least for a year''.

''We resolved there will be no immediate plans to introduce the money because there is nothing to support its value,'' he said.

In late January, when it took 20trillion Zimbabwe dollars to equal $US1 ($A1.41), the Government adopted international hard currencies, mostly the United States dollar and the South African rand, as legal tender alongside the local currency.

Inflation running into percentage points with 15 zeroes had made trade in Zimbabwe dollars impossible and business was already conducted predominantly in hard currencies, albeit technically illegal.

''Our focus is to ensure that we first have a vibrant industry,'' Mr Mangoma said.
''If we try to reintroduce the local currency now, it will face the same fate of being wiped out of its value within weeks.''

The new power-sharing coalition Government of Mr Mugabe's ZANU(PF) party and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change has levied all taxes, duties and state services in US dollar terms while adopting the rand as its official ''currency of reference''.

The use of foreign currencies has seen critical shortages of all commodities, including basic foodstuffs, filling store shelves again.

The Government says it needs $12billion to reconstruct the economy, but Western donors have said they will not contribute while the country continues to commit human rights abuses.

Note: Mugabe studied economics at the London School of Economics, just as Paul Volcker and Paul Krugman did.