Red Tape Rising: A 2011 Mid-Year Report

By James Gattuso and Diane Katz

Abstract: Following a record year of rulemaking, the Obama Administration is continuing to unleash more costly red tape. In the first six months of the 2011 fiscal year, 15 major regulations were issued, with annual costs exceeding $5.8 billion and one-time implementation costs approaching $6.5 billion. No major rulemaking actions were taken to reduce regulatory burdens during this period. Overall, the Obama Administration imposed 75 new major regulations from January 2009 to mid-FY 2011, with annual costs of $38 billion. There were only six major deregulatory actions during that time, with reported savings of just $1.5 billion. This flood of red tape will undoubtedly persist, as hundreds of new regulations stemming from the vast Dodd–Frank financial regulation law, Obamacare, and the EPA’s global warming crusade advance through the regulatory pipeline—all of which further weakens an anemic economy and job creation, while undermining Americans’ fundamental freedoms. Action by Congress as well as the President to stem this regulatory surge is essential.

Women Speak Out: Obamacare Tramples Religious Liberty

Religious liberty has become an early casualty in Obamacare’s collision course with liberty. Obamacare’s anti-conscience mandate forces employers to provide health insurance coverage of abortion-inducing drugs, contraceptives, and sterilization -– regardless of religious or moral objections to such services.
The mandate’s coercion of employers is a serious affront to religious liberty and a warning sign of the problems inherent in a centralized health care system. Conflicts between individual liberty and the dictates of government bureaucrats on deeply personal health care decisions will only increase as implementation of what Obamacare deems to be an “essential benefits” package continues.
Join us as an expert panel discusses the specific religious liberty violations of the Obamacare anti-conscience mandate and the health care law’s profound threat to personal freedom.

Warning to a Superpower: The Threat of Debt to American Global Leadership

The scale of federal government debt in America is not only a major economic problem, but also a strategic one. Having jumped radically in recent years, federal debt is projected to continue to soar, driving up interest expense, adding more pressure to raise taxes, and crowding out national security spending, scaling back U.S. power on the world stage to help make ends meet.

The Devil We Don't Know: The Dark Side of Revolutions in the Middle East

Human rights activist Nonie Darwish assesses the potential for freedom to succeed following the recent revolutions in the Middle East. The powerful wave of uprisings has fueled both hope and trepidation in the region and around the world as the ultimate fate – and fallout – of the Arab Spring continue to hang in the balance. Darwish examines the ramifications of the game-changing recent revolts and the factors that will obstruct or support freedom and democracy in the Muslim world. Born and raised as a Muslim in Egypt and now living in the United States, she brings an informed perspective to this assessment of the potential outcome of the revolutions in the Middle East and what the future holds for the people and the politics of the region.
A former journalist for the Middle East News Agency, Nonie Darwish has written extensively on the Middle East, Islam, and women's rights. She is also the author of Cruel and Unusual Punishment: The Terrifying Implications of Islamic Law and Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel, and the War on Terror.

Can the Government Keep Us Safe?

By Andrew Napolitano

What a week we have all just endured! While the Democrats were re-writing the federal takeover of healthcare behind closed doors, the public face of the federal government was fixated on denying and then explaining all the gaps in its intelligence gathering. The Obama administration has been finger-pointing over who in the government let a murderous thug on a plane in Amsterdam that he tried to explode over Detroit. First, the government said that the system worked. Then the President said it didn't. Then he announced that the intelligence communities and security people would start to talk to each other so the bad guys could be kept out. Weren't they supposed to be doing this all along?

Let's Admit Enacting Medicare Was a Mistake

By Jacob Hornberger

The ongoing fiasco in healthcare shows why it was so wrong to have enacted Medicare in the first place.
For one thing, Medicare reflects perfectly the mindset of dependency that the welfare state has inculcated in the American people, who have been born and raised under a culture of welfare-statism. All too many Americans are absolutely convinced that they could not survive without Medicare. The thought of repealing, not reforming, Medicare is so terrifying to them that they cannot even rationally discuss the subject. In their minds, if Medicare were repealed, elderly parents and grandparents would soon be dying in the streets of untreated infections and illnesses.

Time to Get Out of Afghanistan

By Doug Bandow

After September 11 the U.S. intervened in Afghanistan to kill Osama bin Laden, dismantle al-Qaeda, and punish the Taliban. Washington finally has succeeded at all three tasks. It is time for American forces to come home.

For many people Afghanistan started out as the good war. Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda turned Taliban-ruled Afghanistan into a sanctuary as they plotted the death of thousands of Americans. The Central Asian state -- in contrast to Iraq -- was an appropriate target for military retaliation.

National Intelligence and National Defense By Robert David Steele Vivas Published 06/17/11 Bookmark and Share Printer-friendly version Right up front, here is the value proposition: a revolution in national security affairs can immediately deliver three things: 1. Permit the rapid (four years) reduction of the secret intelligence community budget from $80 billion to under $20 billion and permit the rapid (four years) reduction of the active and reserve military budget from over $1 trillion a year (which is how much the US Government borrows every year “in our name") to under $250 billion a year, with a strict focus on defense against real modern threats instead of fabricated or exaggerated threats; 2. Provide the public intelligence (decision-support) necessary to document, evaluate, and recommend the reduction of the federal government by at least one-half over four years; and 3. Provide the real-world, real-time comprehensive intelligence (decision-support) necessary to restore the legitimacy and importance of the USA as an enabler of a foreign policy of freedom (peace, commerce, and honest friendship) and restore the legitimacy and importance of the federal government as an enabler of domestic tranquility and prosperity, using public intelligence in the public interest. In a nut-shell, the federal government has lost its intelligence and its integrity. Ideology from both sides of the two-party system has displaced intelligent discourse -- informed debate -- and also excluded the other 63 parties and the 43% of citizen-voters who now consider themselves Independent. The federal government has become the servant of those who receive the taxpayers' money, rather than the taxpayers themselves. This is because there has been a lack of transparency, a lack of truth, and now in consequence, a lack of trust. Properly defined, national security is about protecting individual liberties, rule of law and property rights. It is not about -- it should not be about -- installing missile defense systems in Poland, carrying out an assassination in Pakistan, or invading countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq on a foundation of 935 documented lies to our citizens, our Congress, and the world at large. What Is To Be Done? For almost a quarter century -- since the 1980's -- a handful of intelligence and defense specialists have labored to disclose to the public our national failures of intelligence and integrity across the policy, acquisition, and operations domains. They failed in part because the mainstream media became a captive of the same financial interests that have taken over the federal government, and in part because the public grew inattentive and abdicated -- as Congress has abdicated -- its responsibility for overseeing the federal government. Since 1988 a very simple and inexpensive solution has been under discussion: an Open Source Agency (OSA) that would create public intelligence in the public interest while encouraging everything open -- Open Spectrum, Open Source Software, Open Data Access are just a few examples. It would create National Intelligence Estimates using only legally and ethically available information in all languages (the Central Intelligence Agency is marginally competent at fewer than 15 languages, and the majority of its employees do not speak any foreign language at all). This would have the double advantage of creating intelligence (decision-support) that is totally public and transparent in nature; and of engaging all foreign stakeholders by providing a focal point for achieving multi-national information sharing and sense-making that can harmonize policies without conflict and often without expense. This would restore both intelligence and integrity to the federal government and also render valuable assistance to the state and local governments as well the other seven “information tribes" across America: academia, civil society, commerce, law enforcement, media, military, and non-profit or non-governmental. The OSA has been bitterly fought by both the secret intelligence world and the largely secret defense world for one simple reason: it would immediately expose both the terrible waste that is characteristic of both systems, and it would immediately render ridiculous most of the premises upon which we base the borrowing of one trillion a year in order to fund constituencies that are valuable only to politicians anticipating kick-backs to their political campaign funds. The OSA has been pre-approved within the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), first by Sean O'Keefe as Deputy Director after being briefed by Don Gessaman, recently retired Associate Deputy Director for National Security; and more recently by Kathleen Peroff, the incumbent Associate Deputy Director for National Security, after being briefed by Joe Markowitz and Robert Steele. The only thing lacking has been a direct demand from either a Cabinet Secretary or a President to “make it happen." Although the OSA was put on pages 23 and 423 of the 9-11 Commission Report, by Lee Hamilton and a very responsible senior executive member of the staff who reminded him of “the Burundi Exercise" carried out for the Aspin-Brown Commission (in which six telephone calls to private sector information providers produced all relevant information on Burundi including imagery, military maps, tribal orders of battle, and nuanced policy studies, while the secret world had almost nothing to show in an overnight challenge match), the existing national security empire is deathly afraid of transparency and truth such as the OSA would provide….for this reason it cannot be part of the secret intelligence community, a last ditch attempt to kill the OSA still-born. The OSA could be under diplomatic auspices, as a sister agency to the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), but with the national mission: using open source information as a form of “information transparency " and wealth creation while also explicitly assuring that we create public intelligence about the real world so as to avoid mis-steps, entanglements, and other foreign misadventures as a government. Starting at $125 million a year, and going up to $3 billion a year comprised of $10 million a year for each of 150 different threat, policy, and issue packages; and an additional $30 million a year for each of 50 Community Information Networks across America; the OSA is expected to help document, evaluate, and eliminate up to 70% of the fraud, waste, and abuse that is the chief characteristic of the national security, health, education, and energy “subsidy" networks as they now exist. Quiet, competent, ethically derived open decision-support. A Constitutional proposal that is rooted in the wisdom of our Fathers: Thomas Jefferson: A Nation's best defense is an educated citizenry. … Educate and inform the whole mass of the people… They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty. James Madison: Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. We must nurture and harness the distributed intelligence of We the People -- national intelligence is about us, not a secret network of contractors and mercenaries; national defense is about us, not a massive corporate welfare network that intrudes with armed force all over the world. Liberty is only possible when created upon a foundation of the Truth -- the whole Truth, all of the time, Of, By, and For We the People.

By Robert David Steele Vivas

Right up front, here is the value proposition: a revolution in national security affairs can immediately deliver three things:

1. Permit the rapid (four years) reduction of the secret intelligence community budget from $80 billion to under $20 billion and permit the rapid (four years) reduction of the active and reserve military budget from over $1 trillion a year (which is how much the US Government borrows every year “in our name") to under $250 billion a year, with a strict focus on defense against real modern threats instead of fabricated or exaggerated threats;

2. Provide the public intelligence (decision-support) necessary to document, evaluate, and recommend the reduction of the federal government by at least one-half over four years; and

3. Provide the real-world, real-time comprehensive intelligence (decision-support) necessary to restore the legitimacy and importance of the USA as an enabler of a foreign policy of freedom (peace, commerce, and honest friendship) and restore the legitimacy and importance of the federal government as an enabler of domestic tranquility and prosperity, using public intelligence in the public interest.

Tax Credits and Subsidies

By Laurence M. Vance

Do tax credits -- as well as tax deductions, tax loopholes, tax shelters, and tax exemptions -- constitute subsidies? Many Republicans and conservatives think so.
Senate Republicans are divided over a proposal to eliminate the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit. An amendment to that end (S.Admt.436) by Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) to the Economic Development Revitalization Act of 2011 (S.782), a bill to amend and reauthorize the Public Works and Economic Development Act of 1965, was recently defeated with 34 out of 47 Republicans supporting the amendment.
The amendment follows a previous attempt by Coburn to do the same thing with a stand-alone bill, S.520, currently languishing in the Committee on Finance.

What is the correct size and proper function of the state?

By Detlev Schlichter

Signing of the Constitution of the United States

This is a question that was posted to me by a journalist who has read my book and is following this website. He suggested I make it into a blog.

This essay is not directly about the fiat money crisis so it might at first look a bit “off message”, but I guess for everyone who has read Paper Money Collapse and has been reading this website, the connections are obvious enough. This is a big, big topic, and probably too ambitious for any single essay. Although the following is fairly long even by the standards of this website, it still cannot be an exhaustive treatment. Many questions will be left unanswered and many objections – including many I already anticipate – will not be addressed. I hope the reader still finds it worth the effort.

Don't look down!

I never usually push the King World News interviews with the heads and ex-heads of mining companies, as there’s normally too much puffing of their various books and share issues to wade through, to justify the useful nuggets of information they do generate, if you’ll pardon the gold-mining-related pun.
However, as they say in movie trailers, this time it’s different.
Jean-Marie Eveillard delivers a coruscating analysis of the current financial situation in Europe, with a superb and explicit Austrian analysis of what’s going on, followed by an incisive flow of information about where investors should be placing their resources.
What really makes it good however, is the bit where he calls Bernanke a lunatic.
Check it out:

Global Markets, Gold, & Much More, King World News, Jean-Marie Eveillard as interviewed by Eric King, Monday, February 20, 2012

Nigel Farage again, on Greece, Iran, and Europe

What the EU plan to do to Greece

Nigel Farage, serious contender for the title of Europe’s best politician – with Ron Paul clearly holding the title of World’s best politician – is on King World News again, with another update on the chaotic situation in Greece.

Another British state subject deported to Third World Country on no evidence

And so, another serf of the Bilderberg empire is dragged off to an imperial court, in El Paso, to face retribution from his imperial masters.

Syria: From Valued Ally to “Vicious Enemy”

Written by Michael Tennant

Is the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad, in the opinion of U.S. officials, a valued ally or a murderous, tyrannical regime? It all depends on which day you ask.
These days U.S. officials call the Assad regime just about every name in the book, as the Guardian’s Mehdi Hasan recounts: “President Obama has accused it of committing ‘outrageous bloodshed’ and called for Assad to stand down; Hillary Clinton has referred to the Syrian leader as a ‘tyrant’; Elliot Abrams, Deputy National Security Adviser under George W. Bush, has called Syria a ‘vicious enemy.’”

The Obama administration has already imposed sanctions on Syria and tried to get the United Nations to impose more, an attempt that was thwarted by Russia and China.

Obama’s Double Standard on Reporting Government Abuses

Written by Michael Tennant

At the start of his February 22 press briefing, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney offered a tribute to deceased reporters Marie Colvin, Remi Ochlik, and Anthony Shadid, all of whom had given their lives, he said, “in order to bring the truth about what’s happening in a country like Syria to those of us at home and in countries around the world.”--
That got ABC News’ Jake Tapper thinking. Carney was not the first Obama administration figure to praise journalists for putting their lives on the line to expose oppression in foreign countries. Vice President Joe Biden, for instance, had also issued a statement lauding Shadid for reporting “at extraordinary personal risk.” The very same administration, however, seems bound and determined to prevent anyone from reporting on abuses by the U.S. government, vigorously prosecuting — or at the very least persecuting — those blowing the whistle on such abuses.

Profiling and Criminalizing Political Dissent

Written by William F. Jasper

Missouri Highway Patrol troopers at a shooting scene. AP Images

A recent report issued through the Missouri State Highway Patrol is stirring alarm among citizens and some elected officials that Christians, political conservatives, and opponents of unconstitutional government action are being targeted for intimidation and harassment — or worse. The drafters of the report clearly are attempting to create in the minds of law-enforcement personnel an association between violent “right-wing extremists” and the millions of law-abiding Americans who oppose gun control, the United Nations, the Federal Reserve System, the income tax, illegal immigration, and abortion.
The eight-page report entitled “The Modern Militia Movement” and dated February 20 also

Car sticker in the back window of a Ron Paul fan.

specifically mentions by name Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas), who ran for president in the 2008 Republican Party primaries, and third-party candidates Bob Barr and Chuck Baldwin. The clear implication is that people sporting bumper stickers or literature related to these candidates should be viewed as potential threats that view all law enforcement as “the enemy.”

After listing 18 incidents of “noteworthy militia activity” from 1995 through 2008, some of which involved bombings or armed confrontations with law enforcement, the report states:

Paying Cash for that Latte? It May Land You on FBI's Terrorist List

Written by William F. Jasper

Did you pay cash for that latte this morning at the Starbuck's drive-through? Well, that smiling lady who handed you your frothy espresso and your change may have been taking down your license plate as you drove off — before jumping on the phone to report your "suspicious activity" to the FBI.

Really? Yes, crazy as it sounds, in our post-9/11 snitch/spy/surveillance society, if you "always pay cash," you may be marked as a potential terrorist. That's according to an FBI flyer that appears to be aimed at proprietors and employees of Internet cafés. The single-page flyer (see below), entitled "Communities Against Terrorism: Potential Indicators of Terrorist Activities Related to Internet Café," asks: "What Should I Consider Suspicious?" The flyer then answers that people should be viewed with suspicion if they:

"Are overly concerned about privacy, attempts [sic] to shield the screen from view of others."

Is Gold Money? Iran Says Yes by Andrey Dashkov and Louis James

Economic crises signal that the current system isn't working as expected and needs improvement. When it comes to monetary systems, questioning their fundamentals can lead to doubts about whether the preferred medium of exchange will continue to be preferred for long. The large-scale whirlwind of economic trouble around the globe has pushed some to rethink the role of gold in the economy – and to actually move toward bringing it back.

A month ago, a rumor that India is going to pay in gold for oil imported from sanction-struck Iran sent shockwaves through the markets. It was no small deal, both in principle and volume: India is one of Iran's largest oil buyers, responsible for about 22 percent of total exports and worth about US$12 billion per year. China is next with 13 percent, and Japan is third with about ten. All of them are having a hard time dealing with Iranian oil imports, as the country is under sanctions caused by Western fears regarding its nuclear program.

Then Israeli news site DEBKAfile claimed exclusive knowledge of a possible workaround between India and Iran: settling the purchases in gold. Indian government officials refused to comment, which added to the speculation.

by David Greenwald

In a recent conversation about global warming, my conversation partner, an old friend who is a professor of North American studies at a German university, opined that climatologists were being "irresponsible" if they contradicted the official line that climate change would spell certain disaster for the human race if capitalist industry were not swiftly reined in. This got me to thinking about the meaning of the word "responsibility" and how it is used in everyday discourse.

by Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr.

[The Left, the Right, and the State (1990; 2008)]

Socialists want socialism for everyone else, but capitalism for themselves, while capitalists want capitalism for everyone else, but socialism for themselves.
Neither Ted Kennedy nor Jane Fonda practices a vow of poverty, nor are they taking any homeless into their mansions, while too many big companies try to short-circuit the market with government privileges. And one way they do it is through the regulatory agencies that acne Washington, DC.

by Eric Phillips

[An army of] a hundred thousand men, costing the taxpayers a hundred million of money, live and bring to the purveyors as much as a hundred million can supply. That is which is seen.
But, a hundred million taken from the pockets of the taxpayers, ceases to maintain these taxpayers and their purveyors as far as a hundred million reaches. This is that which is not seen. Now make your calculations. Add it all up, and tell me what profit there is for the masses?
-Frédéric Bastiat

Real GDP was revised up to a 3.0% annual growth rate in Q4 from a prior estimate of 2.8%

Data Watch

Real GDP was revised up to a 3.0% annual growth rate in Q4 from a prior estimate of 2.8%
Brian S. Wesbury - Chief Economist
Robert Stein, CFA - Senior Economist
Date: 2/29/2012

Real GDP was revised up to a 3.0% annual growth rate in Q4 from a prior estimate of 2.8%. The consensus had expected GDP growth to remain unchanged at 2.8%.

Commercial construction and personal consumption were revised up, while inventories were revised down slightly.

The largest positive contributions to the real GDP growth rate in Q4 were inventories and personal consumption. By far the weakest component was government.

The GDP price index rose at a 0.9% annual rate of change. Nominal GDP growth – real GDP plus inflation – was revised up to a 3.9% annual rate from a prior estimate of 3.2%.

Implications: Real GDP growth in the fourth quarter was revised up, coming in at a 3% annual rate versus a consensus expected and prior estimate of a 2.8% rate. Most major categories were only revised slightly. Commercial construction was better than first thought and so was personal consumption. There were very slight downward revisions to inventories, which means the composition of growth was also more promising for the economy going forward. The biggest drag on growth in Q4 was government purchases, driven by a wind-down of operations in Iraq and continued state and local spending cuts. Excluding government, real GDP grew at a robust 4.7% and was revised up to 2.7% for 2011. Nominal GDP (real growth plus inflation) grew at a 3.9% annual rate in Q4, up from the original estimate of 3.2%, and is up at a 3.8% rate in the past year. The Federal Reserve faces an uphill battle trying to justify another round of quantitative easing based on the growth rate of nominal GDP. Zero percent interest rates are inappropriate when nominal GDP growth is this high. The most newsworthy part of today’s report is that there was a large 1.6% upward revision to wages and salaries. Better growth in personal income is a great sign for the economy moving into the new year. In other news this morning the Chicago PMI, a measure of manufacturing in that region, increased to 64.0 in February, easily beating the consensus expectations of 61.0 and is now at the highest level since April 2011.

Greek Economic Lessons For Portugal

Desmond Lachman

As Athens burns after two years under an International Monetary Fund (IMF) - European Union (EU) adjustment program, one has to hope that Lisbon is paying attention to the Greek drama. Since, in order to cure Portugal's chronic budget and external current account deficits, the IMF and EU are now prescribing for Portugal the very same policy mix of draconian fiscal austerity and structural reform as they did with such dismal results in Greece. Forewarned by this experience, Portugal could avoid Greece's horrible fate if it were to draw the right lessons from the Greek experience.

Why is the Constitution missing from the GOP debates? Steven F. Hayward |

The debates of the four remaining Republican presidential candidates appear to be over, and it is no secret that Republican voters remain dissatisfied with the field. The analysts and TV talking heads keep dwelling on the same particular defects of each candidate, such as Romney’s inauthenticity, Newt’s Jekyll and Hyde character, Santorum’s fixation on social issues and Ron Paul’s dodgy foreign policy. But the entire field has shared one common defect from the start; none of them talk with any serious depth about what used to be close to the center of many presidential campaigns in times of tumult: how we should interpret the Constitution.

Raul654/Wikimedia Commons

FDR memorial in Washington, D.C.

"A 2008 election widely regarded as heralding a shift toward the more government-friendly public sentiment of the New Deal and Great Society eras seems to have yielded just the reverse."
So writes William Galston, Brookings Institution scholar and deputy domestic adviser in the Clinton White House, in the New Republic. Galston, one of the smartest political and policy analysts around, has strong evidence for this conclusion.

Getty Images

People walk by Zuccotti Park a day after it was cleared of Occupy Wall Street protesters in an early morning police raid in New York on Nov. 16, 2011.

No doubt Barack Obama would love to reprise Ronald Reagan’s 1984 “Morning in America” reelection campaign, but the anemic economy is not cooperating. Without a robust recovery to trumpet, the president is betting his reelection on class warfare — focusing on “income inequality” and “fairness.” Class warfare is not a winning strategy, but it is the only card Obama has to play.

$750,000 for a new soccer field at Guantanamo?

By Marc Thiessen

The New York Times reported Friday:

Lawyers representing six of the highest-profile detainees at the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, sent a letter on Friday to the Pentagon complaining that their clients’ living conditions have deteriorated since a new commander took over the prison last year.
In the five-page letter addressed to William K. Lietzau, the top detainee policy official at the Pentagon, the lawyers complained that some of the food, medicine, and hygienic items given to the prisoners has not been certified as halal, as required for observant Muslims. They also suggest that the amount of recreation time and access to educational and entertainment items, like Arabic newspapers, has been curtailed.

Slay This Tax 'Monster'

By Veronique de Rugy

A soak-the-rich measure is badly in need of reform.

“It's a monster,” said then-Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel about the Alternative Minimum Tax. Congress created the AMT in 1969 to prevent 155 wealthy taxpayers from using deductions and credits to avoid paying any federal income taxes.

The Myth of a Return to Clinton-era Taxes

By Alan D. Viard

The claim that the president’s plan would only take the top tax rates back to Clinton levels isn’t quite right. Here’s why.

In a major speech about the economy last week, President Obama reiterated his support for letting most of the Bush tax cuts expire for taxpayers with incomes above $200,000 ($250,000 for married couples), while making the tax cuts permanent for all other taxpayers. The president defended his proposal by saying that, for high-income taxpayers, “the tax rates would just go back to where they were under President Clinton.” The president reminded his listeners that the economy grew at a rapid clip during the Clinton years, adding tens of millions of new jobs.

How Taxing the Rich Harms the Middle Class

By Aparna Mathur

‘Rich corporations’ don’t pay taxes. Workers do.

President Obama’s budget speech on Monday expanded on the theme of economic “fairness,” like his State of the Union speech in January. He lectured Americans that if critical steps are not taken, the rise of the middle class will be threatened and disparities between the rich and the rest will continue to grow. A general theme was that taxing the rich would get us a long way towards reducing income inequality. This may be why President Obama failed to extend the promise he made last year to fight for corporate tax reform. Why lower tax rates on “rich” corporations if inequality is what really matters?

Lessons from the Shale Revolution

By Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger

A closer look at the shale gas story challenges both conservative and liberal policy preferences and points to much-needed reforms for today's mash of state and federal clean energy subsidies and mandates.

In his State of the Union address, President Obama invoked the 30-year history of federal support for new shale gas drilling technologies to defend his present day investments in green energy. Obama stressed the value of shale gas—which will create thousands of jobs and billions in profits—as part of his "all of the above" approach to energy, and defended the critical role government investment has always played in developing new energy technologies, from nuclear to solar panels to wind turbines.

Time to Reset Obama’s Reset Policy

By Ambassador Richard S. Williamson

Russia is yet another example of President Obama's naïve foreign policy, which has left American interests weakened and our values compromised.

President Obama’s much-touted reset policy with Russia has failed. Instead of democratic reform, Vladimir Putin has led an authoritarian drift that is crowding civil society, repressing a free press, and denying free and fair elections to the Russian people. Meanwhile, on missile defense, Iran, Syria, and other issues, Russia is consistently taking positions in opposition to U.S. interests.

How to Engender the Return of a Bull Market

By Bill Bonner

02/27/12 Salta, Argentina – Did you miss us, Dear Reader?
You won’t believe this…we hardly believe it ourselves…but after months of planning and preparation for our expedition to the high, dry mountains of Argentina, we’re still here in the city of Salta… Our project has been delayed…by floods.
As you may recall, it is so dry up at the ranch that visitors wonder what the cows eat. We tell them we have developed a new race of low-fat, low cholesterol cattle we call “sand fed beef.”
But what ho! Now we are still in Salta, a city about a 5-hour drive from the ranch, and we are stuck.
“Well…” says our foreman “…the road to Angastaco is blocked by the river. The road to Molinos is blocked by mud. But you don’t have to worry about that. You can’t get anywhere near there, because the road to Cafayate is impassable because of rockslides…and the road over the mountain pass has been washed out completely.”

By Chris Mayer

02/28/12 Gaithersburg, Maryland – “It’s like Thailand was 50 years ago,” Alexandre de Lesseps told me. We were talking about the next big emerging market to bloom in Asia. It may surprise you, but it is one heck of a story… and opportunity. It also fits our grand thesis on emerging markets and is the subject of my upcoming book, World Right Side Up. The country I’m talking about is Myanmar (or Burma, as most people still seem to call it).
I caught up with Alex over the holidays because I remembered his infectious enthusiasm for the country. He is an accomplished investor of frontier markets, those half-forgotten realms on the fringe of the investing world. Alex has been investing in Burma for 15 years as a partner at SPA Capital Partners, working with Serge Pun & Associates. The latter is an investment holding company that has been in Burma since ’91. (And yes, Alex is the great-great-grandson of Ferdinand de Lesseps, the French developer of the Suez Canal, who also oversaw the early construction of the Panama Canal.)

By Ray Blanco

02/28/12 We live in a time when you can pick up a tiny computer, ask it a question out loud and have a satisfactory answer provided in a matter of seconds. It’s amazing if you stop to think about it.
Voice-recognizing digital personal assistants have become commonplace. One such assistant is among the most important new features unveiled in Apple’s latest smartphone. Called Siri, it recognizes natural language questions and accesses a plethora of web services to provide an answer. Android-based phone users (like yours truly), on the other hand, have enjoyed voice recognition to navigate, search or compose messages since summer of last year.

By Joel Bowman

02/28/12 Auckland, New Zealand – Here’s a headline for you, Fellow Reckoner:

“Blood and spittle on pub floor, to little avail”

That was on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald yesterday. No joke. Yep, we’re back on Terra Australis. At least we were for a couple of hours. Then we hopped the Tasman for the Land of Birds and/or Long White Clouds, depending who you ask. We’ve barely slept a wink since we left on Monday.
More on all that when our mind (stuck in a humid Tuesday afternoon reverie back in Argentina) catches up with our body (now floating around somewhere on a rainy Wednesday morning in Auckland).

In "What's Your Favorite 'On the Ground' Recession Indicator?" California-based author and publisher of the Of Two Minds blog (a longtime favorite of mine), Charles Hugh Smith, writes about an interesting development in his neck of woods:

I've sold a few cars myself at the local "sell your own car" lot, so I know it's reputable and a model that works for buyers and sellers. For a flat fee, you park your car on their lot and price it however you want. Potential buyers get to test-drive it, take it to their mechanic, etc. It's a big lot, so the selection of cars and prices is suggestive of larger trends--at least to me.

Back in 2009 at the initial depths of the recession, the used Toyotas and Hondas vanished and the lot filled with Volvos and other big-car-payment brands. I took this to reflect people were ditching their car payments and snapping up older reliable cars they could buy for cash and get another 100,000 miles out of.

How is the U.S. economy doing in 2012? Unfortunately, it is not doing nearly as well as the mainstream media would have you believe. Yes, things have stabilized for the moment but this bubble of false hope will not last for long. The long-term trends that are ripping our economy and our financial system to shreds continue unabated. When you step back and look at the broader picture, it is hard to deny that we are in really bad shape and that things are rapidly getting worse. Later on in this article you will find a list of interesting facts that show the true state of the U.S. economy. Hopefully many of you will find this list to be a useful tool that you can share with your family and friends. Each day the foundations of our economy crumble a little bit more, and we need to wake up as many Americans as we can to what is really going on while there is still time. We have accumulated way too much debt, we consume far more wealth than we produce, millions of our jobs are being shipped overseas, our big cities are decaying, family budgets are being squeezed more than ever, poverty is rampant and we have raised several generations of Americans that expect the government to fix all of their problems. The U.S. economy is at a crossroads, and the decisions that the American people make in 2012 are going to be incredibly important.

The global financial system is not a game of checkers. It is a game of chess. All over the world today, news headlines are proclaiming that this new Greek debt deal has completely eliminated the possibility of a chaotic Greek debt default. Unfortunately, that is simply not the case. Rather, the truth is that this new deal actually "sets the table" for a Greek debt default. When I was studying and working in the legal arena, I learned that sometimes you make an agreement so that you can get the other side to break it. That may sound very strange to the average person on the street, but this is how the game is played at the highest levels. It is all about strategy. And in this case, the new debt deal imposes such strict conditions on Greece that it is almost inevitable that Greece will fail to meet some of them. When Greece does fail, Germany and the other northern European nations may try to claim that they "did everything that they could" but that Greece just did not "live up to its obligations". So does this mean that we will definitely see a chaotic Greek debt default? No. What this does mean is that the chess pieces are being moved into position for one.

The decay of society is so much harder to quantify than economic decline is. The government keeps lots of statistics on things like unemployment and inflation, but it really does not keep track of how sick and twisted people are becoming. Most of us recognize that the character of the American people has changed dramatically over the decades, but unlike the national debt, you can't easily point to a chart or a graph to show exactly how bad things are getting. In this article, my approach will be to point you to various "signs" of social decay. Signs tell us where we are at now and where we are headed. Some of the signs that I will use will be statistics while others will simply consist of anecdotal evidence. Yes, anecdotal evidence is not perfect, but when you put enough of it together it starts to paint a pretty clear picture of what is going on out there. America is becoming a truly frightening place. Our cities our decaying, thieves are becoming bolder, you never know who you can trust and everyone seems depressed. America is decomposing right in front of our eyes, and it is time that we all admitted it.

In the attached Project Syndicate video, NAME expands upon the views expressed in this commentary. Click here to watch.
STANFORD – Successful political candidates try to implement the proposals on which they ran. In the United States, President Barack Obama and the Democrats, controlling the House of Representatives and (a filibuster-proof) Senate, had the power to do virtually anything they wanted in 2009 – and so they did.
Obama and his congressional allies enacted an $800 billion “stimulus” bill that was loaded with programs geared to key Democratic constituencies, such as environmentalists and public employees; adopted a sweeping and highly unpopular health-care reform (whose constitutionality will be determined by the Supreme Court this year); imposed vast new regulations on wide swaths of the economy; embraced an industrial policy that selects certain companies for special treatment; engaged in borrowing and spending at levels exceeded only in World War II; and centralized power in Washington, DC (and, within the federal government, in the executive branch and regulatory agencies).

SHANGHAI – Nowadays there is no shortage of pundits, economic or otherwise, warning of impending disaster. If right, they are hailed as seers; if wrong, chances are that no one will remember. So here’s a forecast: there will be no shortage of predictions that 2012 is shaping up as a disastrous year.
My view is different: 2012 will not be a year of crisis, but nor will it bring an end to our current economic troubles. Rather, it will be a year of muddling through.
Many people think that 2012 will be the make-or-break year for Europe – either a quantum leap in European integration, with the creation of a fiscal union and the issuance of Eurobonds, or the eurozone’s disintegration, igniting the mother of all financial crises.

Wednesday, February 29, 2012