Blogs

Um, about that "we won't monetize the debt" thing?

Under Twist, The Fed Has Purchased 91% Of All Gross Issuance In Long-Dated US Treasurys

Just in case you're susceptible to gov't propaganda...

Record 1.2 Million People Fall Out Of Labor Force In One Month, Labor Force Participation Rate Tumbles To Fresh 30 Year Low

A month ago, we joked when we said that for Obama to get the unemployment rate to negative by election time, all he has to do is to crush the labor force participation rate to about 55%. Looks like the good folks at the BLS heard us: it appears that the people not in the labor force exploded by an unprecedented record 1.2 million. No, that's not a typo: 1.2 million people dropped out of the labor force in one month! So as the labor force increased from 153.9 million to 154.4 million, the non institutional population increased by 242.3 million meaning, those not in the labor force surged from 86.7 million to 87.9 million. Which means that the civilian labor force tumbled to a fresh 30 year low of 63.7% as the BLS is seriously planning on eliminating nearly half of the available labor pool from the unemployment calculation. As for the quality of jobs, as withholding taxes roll over Year over year, it can only mean that the US is replacing high paying FIRE jobs with low paying construction and manufacturing. So much for the improvement.

Why we should regulate sugar like alcohol

First, we think that the public needs to be better informed about the science of how sugar impacts our health.

Second, we need to take what we know about protecting societies from the health harms of alcohol and apply it to sugar.

What doesn't work is all-out prohibition -- that's very old-school and often creates more problems than it solves.

What does work are gentle "supply side" controls, such as taxing products, setting age limits and promoting healthier versions of the product -- like making it cheaper for a person to drink light beer rather than schnapps.

The reality is that unfettered corporate marketing actually limits our choices about the products we consume. If what's mostly available is junk food and soda, then we actually have to go out of our way to find an apple or a drinking fountain. What we want is to actually increase people's choices by making a wider range of healthy foods easier and cheaper to get.

Turning around obesity and chronic disease will be an uphill political fight, but there's plenty that concerned people can do:

Red Alert: Credit Default Swaps Explained
Posted by Ann Barnhardt - January 31, AD 2012 11:41 AM MST
News out of Brussels last night was that a package is being put together that would haircut Greek bonds by 70%, thus only paying back 30 cents on the dollar to anyone holding Greek paper. This will set a precedent that will eventually be played out all over Europe.

This is extremely bad, and will spell the end of the big U.S. banks and the financial system in total. But EVERYONE needs to understand credit default swaps (CDS) first. CDS are insurance policies that investors have traded – very similar to OPTIONS for my old clients and cattle people out there. Buying a CDS is essentially like buying a put. The buyer pays a premium, or fee, to the writer, or seller of the CDS that says that the seller will guarantee and make whole the buyer’s position in a specific bond IF the entity behind the bond (such as Greece) defaults. In exchange for paying the premium and being made whole after a default, the buyer of the CDS surrenders the bond position to the seller of the CDS, and the seller gets to keep both the premium paid plus gets to keep any salvage value of the defaulted bond.

So the CDS buyer pays a premium or fee, and the seller guarantees against a default but gets to take ownership of the bonds and keep any salvage value if a default does happen.

Here is what I STRONGLY suspect is going to happen with this 70% haircut plan. The bondholders are going to take the full brunt of the 70% haircut, BUT the body that actually dictates whether or not a default has happened – the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) – will declare that this credit event is NOT a default, and thus all of the banks and entities that THOUGHT that their European debt positions were hedged with CDS will find out that they have no protection at all. And then the excrement hits the fan. Big time.

Latest Congressional Budget Outlook For 2012-2022 Released, Says Real Unemployment Rate Is 10%

What do the NAR, Consumer Confidence and CBO forecasts have in common? If you said, "they are all completely worthless" you are absolutely correct. Alas, the market needs to "trade" off numbers, which is why the just released CBO numbers apparently are important... And the fact that the CBO predicted negative $2.5 trillion in net debt by 2011 back in 2011 is largely ignored. Anyway, here are some of the highlights.

2012 Deficit: $1.1 trillion; 2013 Deficit: $0.6 - yes, we are cackling like mad too...
Unemployment to remain above 8% in 2012 and 2013; will be around 7% by end of 2015; to drop to 5.25% by end of 2022.
This forecast is utterly idiotic and is completely unattainable unless the US workforce drops to all time lows and the US economy generates 300,000 jobs a month for 10 years
Needless to say, CBO assumes the best of all worlds in this meaningless forecast
But here is the kicker: "Had that portion of the decline in the labor force participation rate since 2007 that is attributable to neither the aging of the baby boomers nor the downturn in the business cycle (on the basis of the experience in previous downturns) not occurred, the unemployment rate in the fourth quarter of 2011 would have been about 1¼ percentage points higher than the actual rate of 8.7 percent" translation: CBO just admitted that the BLS numbers are bogus and real unemployment is 10%. Thank you

H/T ZeroHedge

Latest Congressional Budget Outlook For 2012-2022 Released, Says Real Unemployment Rate Is 10%

What do the NAR, Consumer Confidence and CBO forecasts have in common? If you said, "they are all completely worthless" you are absolutely correct. Alas, the market needs to "trade" off numbers, which is why the just released CBO numbers apparently are important... And the fact that the CBO predicted negative $2.5 trillion in net debt by 2011 back in 2011 is largely ignored. Anyway, here are some of the highlights.

2012 Deficit: $1.1 trillion; 2013 Deficit: $0.6 - yes, we are cackling like mad too...
Unemployment to remain above 8% in 2012 and 2013; will be around 7% by end of 2015; to drop to 5.25% by end of 2022.
This forecast is utterly idiotic and is completely unattainable unless the US workforce drops to all time lows and the US economy generates 300,000 jobs a month for 10 years
Needless to say, CBO assumes the best of all worlds in this meaningless forecast
But here is the kicker: "Had that portion of the decline in the labor force participation rate since 2007 that is attributable to neither the aging of the baby boomers nor the downturn in the business cycle (on the basis of the experience in previous downturns) not occurred, the unemployment rate in the fourth quarter of 2011 would have been about 1¼ percentage points higher than the actual rate of 8.7 percent" translation: CBO just admitted that the BLS numbers are bogus and real unemployment is 10%. Thank you

H/T ZeroHedge

Latest Congressional Budget Outlook For 2012-2022 Released, Says Real Unemployment Rate Is 10%

What do the NAR, Consumer Confidence and CBO forecasts have in common? If you said, "they are all completely worthless" you are absolutely correct. Alas, the market needs to "trade" off numbers, which is why the just released CBO numbers apparently are important... And the fact that the CBO predicted negative $2.5 trillion in net debt by 2011 back in 2011 is largely ignored. Anyway, here are some of the highlights.

2012 Deficit: $1.1 trillion; 2013 Deficit: $0.6 - yes, we are cackling like mad too...
Unemployment to remain above 8% in 2012 and 2013; will be around 7% by end of 2015; to drop to 5.25% by end of 2022.
This forecast is utterly idiotic and is completely unattainable unless the US workforce drops to all time lows and the US economy generates 300,000 jobs a month for 10 years
Needless to say, CBO assumes the best of all worlds in this meaningless forecast
But here is the kicker: "Had that portion of the decline in the labor force participation rate since 2007 that is attributable to neither the aging of the baby boomers nor the downturn in the business cycle (on the basis of the experience in previous downturns) not occurred, the unemployment rate in the fourth quarter of 2011 would have been about 1¼ percentage points higher than the actual rate of 8.7 percent" translation: CBO just admitted that the BLS numbers are bogus and real unemployment is 10%. Thank you

H/T ZeroHedge

Occupy Wall Street Protesters Throw Condoms At Catholic Schoolgirls, Drown Out Speakers At Rhode Island Pro-Life Rally

PROVIDENCE, RI, January 30, 2012 – Demonstrators from the Occupy Wall Street movement threw condoms on Catholic schoolgirls, refused to allow a Catholic priest to give a closing prayer, and shouted down a pro-life speaker at a Rhode Island right to life rally on Thursday, according to its organizer. The event marked the third time protesters associated with the movement have disrupted a pro-life meeting in a week.

About two-dozen members of Occupy Providence hiked from Burnside Park to the 39th Annual Pro-Life State House Rally organized by the Rhode Island State Right to Life Committee on Thursday.

The pro-life organization’s executive director, Barth E. Bracy, told LifeSiteNews.com that, near the end of the rally, the Occupiers “strategically fanned out with military precision.”

That’s when they “started showering condoms down on some of the girls from a Catholic high school.”

They gathered around speakers at the podium, shouting them down or otherwise jostling them and members of the audience.

Bracy, who finished only a quarter of his keynote address before being drowned out by chants and catcalls, said the Occupiers – who carried a large sign reading “Occupy Providence” and wore distinguishing arm bands – physically bumped several people. “They’re touching you. They’re swarming you,” he said.

Bracy said he was disappointed when he tried to ask a man from the national Occupy Wall Street movement, who identified himself as “Dallas,” what opposing the right to life had to do with economics. “You can’t have a reasoned conversation with these people,” he said, “They simply try to taunt you. They’re smug, snarky, arrogant. You won’t get a straight answer.”

From: The Blaze

We’ve covered the Catholic Church’s ongoing battle with the Obama administration over contraception health care mandates for quite some time. Over the weekend, though, the stand-off took an unusual turn, as Catholic churches across America read a letter to congregants that perfectly encapsulated the church’s stance against the impending federal requirements.

The Church’s vocal arguments against the Obama administration are centered upon a Health and Human Services Department requirement that employers must include contraception and abortion-inducing drugs in health-care coverage. While this requirement doesn’t apply to houses of worship, it will force Catholic colleges, hospitals and other Christian groups to provide these drugs despite their faith-based opposition to them.

Many of these organizations, despite not being, themselves, churches, are intrinsically rooted in religious belief systems that stand firmly opposed to medications and procedures that would terminate the life of an unborn child. These deeply-rooted moral codes, which drive the groups’ work, will be impeded, Catholic leaders say, should the Obama administration continue with its planned mandate.

Recently, the federal government made one small concession surrounding the requirement, as officials decided to give church-affiliated hospitals and organizations another year before they will be forced to comply with the coverage restrictions.
Catholic Letter Denounces Health Care Contraceptive Mandate

“In effect, the president is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences,” Cardinal-designate Timothy M. Dolan, archbishop of New York and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, recently said.

From Monty Pelerin's World

How Currencies Die and Gold Prospers

The Dollar is doomed. So too are most other fiat currencies. It is the nature of fiat currencies and the nature of governments throughout history.

All countries have abused their citizenry and investors via the printing press. Since the formation of the Federal Reserve in 1913, the dollar has lost 96% of its value. Most of that loss has occurred since 1970. It was 1971 when the U.S. officially defaulted on its promise to redeem dollars for gold. That marked the point where, for the first time in modern history, gold was completely removed from any role in the world monetary system. Then, there was no hard constraint to prevent any country from inflating its currency. All did!

With the dollar as the reserve currency of the world, the U.S. has had (and used) advantages not available to, but coveted by other countries. At times, our monetary policy has forced (at least in the opinion of foreign policy makers) inflation onto other countries. Behind the scenes there has been resentment building toward U.S. dollar hegemony for decades. Part of this resentment results from US abuses, part results from other countries wanting a similar ability to plunder. The current financial crisis, arguably begun in the U.S., has exacerbated both of these sentiments.

We were at an impasse with Europe over proper monetary and fiscal policy. In The Keynesian Dead End the conflict was described:

Now the political and fiscal bills are coming due even as the U.S. and European economies are merely muddling along. The Europeans have had enough and want to swear off the sauce, while the Obama Administration wants to keep running a bar tab.

Just recently we became aware of a very troubling situation.

As many of you know, ROPE has raised concerns over the hiring of former OEA head lobbyist, Joel Robison, by our new State Superintendent. New information (well, a reminder of old information actually) has come to our attention and we feel it important to share that information with you.

Please read the article below (posted on our blog and our Facebook account). Think about it. Digest it. Decide for yourself if our argument makes sense. If it does, please send it on to anyone else you think would be interested.

Soon, we will be sending you information on the bills we will be asking you to help us forward for the upcoming session.

We will be running bills to try to repeal the use of Common Core in Oklahoma again this session. As last year, we will be unable to even allow the public to decide on this issue if the Chairman of the House Common Education Committee, Representative Anne Coody, won't allow the bill to be heard in her committee. This, truly, is an unacceptable concentration of power that prevents the voice of the people from being heard. We hope you will join with us to help change Mrs. Coody's mind on this issue. We will provide more information on this effort later this week.

Don't forget, Oklahoma's legislative session starts February 6th. There are already threats to the Home School community and we will be providing information on that as well.

As always, thank you for all your concern for children, liberty and the Constitution, and thank you for your help.

Deception, NOT Excellence in Oklahoma Education
Or...Short Memories Allow Business As Usual in Public School 'Reform'

How would you feel if I told you that taxpayers are paying the salary for a man at the Department of Education who committed voter fraud in a school board election?

OK2A Weekly Newsletter

OKC Metro Chapter Meeting
Time & Date: Tuesday, February 21 at 6:30 PM.
Location: H&H Gun Range (400 S Vermont, Suite 110).
Memo: Please arrive early if you plan to purchase dinner from 4U Café inside H&H.

From: Bill Buckler's "The Privateer"

The Four Harbingers Of The Apocalypse:

There are four indicators today which show as clearly as anything can be shown the state of our global debt-based monetary and financial system. Any one of them alone should be all the evidence one needs that the system is unsustainable. Put them together and much more than the canary is singing.

First, the most popular (measured by its nominal “value”) investment vehicle today is a combination of a bet that sovereign debt will go bankrupt and an “insurance policy” that if/when it does, the holders of the debt paper will be made whole. These are called “credit default swaps” or CDSs, conceived in the early 1990s and unleashed on the investment world shortly thereafter. The total of CDSs outstanding doubled every year from 2003 to 2007. This growth paused in 2008 – early 2009 and then exploded again with the onset of “quantitative easing”.
The second indicator is the mere fact that it is now universally accepted in the investment world that the only “safe” government debt is one issued by a government whose central bank has demonstrated its willingness to print money.
The third indicator is the fact that the “sovereign debt crisis” hype is focussed exclusively on Europe in a desperate attempt to prevent the discovery that everybody is in the same boat.
And the fourth and last is Gold. On the paper markets, the price of Gold can and is being manipulated. Beyond Gold’s price appreciation is the ever increasing global demand for physical Gold and the fact that central banks throughout Europe and Asia are ADDING to their supply.

Please take the time to read this VERY excellent piece of work from OK-SAFE on health care reform. Amanda Teagarden and OK-SAFE have worked tirelessly on our behalf to present information to the Committee. Please become informed on the information she has worked so hard to obtain for us. This way, if the legislature begins to go down the road of accepting this abomination in some form or another, we'll be informed enough to tell them WHY we don't want ANYTHING to do with this nonsense. God Bless and please forward as widely as you possibly can!

Here is our response to an AP reporter's request for comments on the Joint Legislative Committee on Health Care Reform Law.

http://oksafe.wordpress.com/2011/11/17/ok-safe-response-to-federal-healt...

From : The American Spectator
A 'Genocidal' Thanksgiving

By Mark Tooley on 11.28.11 @ 6:08AM

The academic and Religious Left believe that Western Civilization, especially America, is uniquely contaminating to an otherwise pristine world. So celebrations of the European settlement of the Western Hemisphere are always problematic. Thanksgiving is no exception.

Just in time for the holiday was an anti-Thanksgiving column in Jim Wallis' Sojourners. "I've been checking my heart for years why I can't just go with the flow and to see the 'redemptive' aspect of present day Thanksgiving," declared the Rev. Eugene Cho, pastor of a Seattle church.

Read the entire piece

BCM HAS CEASED OPERATIONS
POSTED BY ANN BARNHARDT – NOVEMBER 17, AD 2011 10:27 AM MST

Dear Clients, Industry Colleagues and Friends of Barnhardt Capital Management,It is with regret and unflinching moral certainty that I announce that Barnhardt Capital Management has ceased operations. After six years of operating as an independent introducing brokerage, and eight years of employment as a broker before that, I found myself, this morning, for the first time since I was 20 years old, watching the futures and options markets open not as a participant, but as a mere spectator.The reason for my decision to pull the plug was excruciatingly simple: I could no longer tell my clients that their monies and positions were safe in the futures and options markets – because they are not. And this goes not just for my clients, but for every futures and options account in the United States. The entire system has been utterly destroyed by the MF Global collapse. Given this sad reality, I could not in good conscience take one more step as a commodity broker, soliciting trades that I knew were unsafe or holding funds that I knew to be in jeopardy.

The futures markets are very highly-leveraged and thus require an exceptionally firm base upon which to function. That base was the sacrosanct segregation of customer funds from clearing firm capital, with additional emergency financial backing provided by the exchanges themselves. Up until a few weeks ago, that base existed, and had worked flawlessly. Firms came and went, with some imploding in spectacular fashion. Whenever a firm failure happened, the customer funds were intact and the exchanges would step in to backstop everything and keep customers 100% liquid – even as their clearing firm collapsed and was quickly replaced by another firm within the system.

Excellent discussion on the state of affairs...
Kyle Bass @ AmeriCatalyst 2010 | 'Confessions of a Dangerous Mind'