There Is More Serenity HERE
Sunday, January 5, 2014
Refuse To Comply...
Hans-Hermann Hoppe
Economist
Hans-Hermann Hoppe is a German-born American academic, libertarian theorist and an Austrian School economist. He is Professor Emeritus with the College of Business at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and currently resides in Istanbul, Turkey. Wikipedia
Born: September 2, 1949 (age 64), Peine, Germany
Education: Johann Wolfgang Goethe University of Frankfurt am Main
Books: The Economics and Ethics of Private Property
U.S. Must Build More Icebreakers Now
The United States has just two functioning icebreakers.
While the recently re-furbished Polar Star is rushing to save two ships in Antarctica due to rapidly advancing ice, the USCGC Healy is the only other available U.S. icebreaker. For those of us in the northern hemisphere, it is currently summer in Antarctica.
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| The Polar Star |
The Arctic ice cover has also increased dramatically this winter while Antarctica recently experienced the coldest temperature ever recorded on planet earth. It is clear that ice-breaking capability will need to be increased to accommodate the expanding ice.
+and+the+US+Coast+Guard+vessel+Healy+(back+loslouis-healy.jpg) |
| The Canadian Coast Guard vessel Louis S. St-Laurent (front) and the US Coast Guard vessel Healy (back) |
The Arctic region is of increasing strategic importance, the U.S. is falling behind Russia, China, Canada, and other countries in its ability to maintain shipping channels and rescue stranded ships there.
(From Popular Mechanics)
The United States is the world’s colossus when it comes to every other kind of military hardware, yet it has just one
functioning icebreaker: the medium-strength USCGC Healy, which is primarily used for research. The ship made headlines recently for breaking open a route to the Alaskan town of Nome to aid in the delivery of much-needed fuel. It was a great mission, but it may have left an overly upbeat impression of American capabilities.
(From Popular Mechanics)
The United States is the world’s colossus when it comes to every other kind of military hardware, yet it has just one
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| Shackleton Ice Shelf In 1912 |
According to National Defense magazine, the U.S. once operated 8 icebreakers. In November 2013 four Senators proposed an amendment to the 2014 Defense Appropriations Act authorizing the construction of four new Polar class vessels, at a cost of $850 million each. The four Senators sponsoring the amendment were Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray, from Washington, and Mark Begich and Lisa Murkowski, from Alaska. According to the Seattle Times the chances that the amendment will survive into the bill, as passed, are slim.
We need these icebreakers to deal with increasing activity in the arctic and antarctic regions. These investments will also sustain the Coast Guard’s ability to establish effective presence in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Chain: the gateway to the Arctic.
FACT: If Greg Gutfeld Had A Competing Show With John Stewart, Gutfeld Would Have More Viewers
If Greg Gutfled had a similarly formatted show as John Stewart, the same budget and was on at the same time slot, Greg Gutfeld would beat John Stewart in ratings within 6 months. The time is ripe for a new comedy show lampooning the socialists and espousing fiscal conservatism, free market principles and Gutfeld's own Libertarian viewpoint that appeals to the younger demographics.
Key point: Red Eye airs at three in the freakin' morning. Morning Joe airs between six and nine in the morning.
During the month of April, in all of cable news, Morning Joe ranked 44, with 133,000 viewers in the 25-54 demo. Red Eye ranked 37, with 155,000 viewers in that same demo.
Shouldn’t this fact take some of the air out of Morning Joe's ridiculously-inflated influence on the national debate? Scarborough's impact is all based on smoke, mirrors, and fraud.
Moreover, Salon's Alex Pareene believes Morning Joe might be a large part of the cable net's problem.
In the battle for hearts and minds, we can begin to win younger audiences disenchanted with the lies and deceptions of the Democrats. The fight against tyranny starts with winning back younger audiences and Greg Gutfeld should be our standard bearer.
Greg Gutfeld On Empowering Women...
11 Nasty Trends That Will Test America's Resilience
The resilience that has long been one of America's remarkable traits was on display in 2013. Not only did businesses create 2 million jobs, but the struggling economy actually grew and profits and stock prices soared to near-record levels.
Still, five years into the Obama presidency, the economy is grossly underperforming. Contrary to the dominant media narrative, it's not bad luck or the financial crisis to blame, but bad policies — from the $860 billion "stimulus" that didn't stimulate to the Dodd-Frank financial reform that killed lending.
Last year was a challenging one for entrepreneurs and other productive Americans. No fewer than 13 new taxes were put into place. Big government now consumes one of every four dollars of our GDP and is getting bigger.
Entering 2014, we face problems, including taxes and spending, that neither the White House nor Congress is addressing. In the following charts, we look at a few of the more alarming and intractable ones.
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Extremely Limited Prosperity
The president talks endlessly about the need to reduce income inequality, and claims it will be the focus of his remaining years in office.
As this chart shows, since the U.S. recession bottomed in June 2009, stock prices have been on a tear — fueled by a powerful rise in corporate profits. The bellwether S&P 500 index has climbed more than 90%, as U.S. investors added more than $5 trillion in stock market wealth.
But Obama's slow-growth economic policies have taken a toll. Yes, corporate profits have increased, but companies worried about what lies ahead under Obama are holding on to cash or buying back stock rather than hiring workers. And the Fed's endless stimulus efforts have managed to lift stock prices to new heights.
These gains have largely bypassed the struggling middle class. In fact, median household income remains well below where it was when the recovery started.
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A Wide Economic Growth Gap
The Obama recovery is the most feeble since the Great Depression. GDP growth is far below the average recovery since World War II, and even below the average growth of the past three recoveries.
In dollar terms, if Obama's recovery had been merely average, the economy would be $1.3 trillion — or 8% — bigger today than it is.
Put another way, every American alive today — workers, non-workers, children — is $4,100 less well off than he or she would have been if growth had only been normal. Consider it a tax we all pay for voting poorly in recent elections.
This is more than just a matter of numbers. America's highest-in-the-world standard of living has been built on economic growth. Without it, we'll all be worse off.
Unfortunately, the policies put in place by tax-and-spend leftists in the administration and a Democrat-dominated Congress have stalled the U.S. growth machine.
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A Massive Ongoing Jobs Gap
The jobless rate is coming down and will likely continue to fall in 2014. But the tepid recovery has left millions who would otherwise have jobs languishing in the unemployment line.
By this time in past recoveries, the economy had churned out at least a 10% gain in net new jobs. This time, the hamstrung economy has managed just over 4%.
Worse, the total number of payroll jobs — 136.765 million as of November — remains 1.3 million below the level when the economy first went into the tank in December 2007. By comparison, our population has grown by 13 million over the same stretch. Statistically, this is the worst job slump since the Great Depression.
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Dependency Growing, Not Jobs
Obama's policies have also created a wide disparity between self-sufficiency and dependency. As this chart shows, food stamp and disability enrollment have climbed at a much faster pace than jobs since June 2009.
Today, 47 million people are on food stamps, up from about 28 million when Obama was sworn in. And disability rolls have swollen by 2 million.
This has not only increased our federal budget deficit as welfare spending has risen sharply.
It has also led to a startling surge in Americans' dependence on government handouts — a radical altering of the country's traditional culture of self-reliance and hard work.
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America's Global Strength Wanes
For more than a decade, the IBD/TIPP Poll has asked Americans about the U.S. position in the world. Our final poll of 2013 is in, and opinions have never been lower.
Whether it's the bumbling over Egypt and Syria, the Benghazi scandal, Iran's burgeoning nuclear program, Russia's and China's growing challenges or the cavalier treatment by the Obama White House of old allies, Americans feel our global standing has weakened.
This doesn't bode well for future engagement in the world economy and trade, or for U.S. influence.
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Workers Leave Labor Force
The administration has pointed proudly to the decline in unemployment from above 10% to a current level of 7%. What it doesn't say is how that was achieved.
It came about largely as a result of millions of workers leaving the workforce. As the chart shows, labor force participation has dropped steeply since the financial crisis — from 66% to 63%.
The difference may not seem large, but it is. The number of people who tell the government they are not in the labor force has jumped by 10 million since Obama took office, and 91.5 million Americans are not working at all.
If the labor force had remained relatively stable over the past five years, the unemployment rate today would be over 10%.
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America, The Biggest Debtor Ever
This chart may look innocent, but it's anything but. It shows how our debt has surged. As recently as 2008, total U.S. public debt totaled just over 60% of GDP — not low, but certainly manageable.
Today, our total debt is right at 100% — a level that many economists believe endangers future economic growth. The bad news is, it could rise to 150% or higher in coming decades. That's national insolvency.
As Americans pay increasing amounts to service their massive debt obligations, businesses will have less capital available to grow — and will hire fewer workers.
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Real Jobless Rate? Double Digits
Saturday, January 4, 2014
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