dog's blog

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.

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

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...

10/18/2011 : So How's That European 'Multi-culturalism' Working Out?

"This is what London has come to. Halal food in all schools. No eating in front of your Muslim colleagues during Ramadan. Special accommodations for Muslims in public buildings. Officially sanctioned sharia courts.

And above all, no “racist” speech. Muslims may gather and scream “Death to those who insult Islam!” with impunity. But a non-Muslim who objects to the spread of sharia may be arrested, charged, convicted, fined, and slapped with an Anti-Social Behavior Order (ASBO) forbidding him from taking part in any activist events for several years.

This is the reality of 21st century Britain. This is not creeping sharia, it is galloping sharia."

08/10/2011 : Years of liberal dogma have spawned a generation of amoral, uneducated, welfare dependent, brutalised youngsters

They are an absolute deadweight upon society, because they contribute nothing yet cost the taxpayer billions. Liberal opinion holds they are victims, because society has failed to provide them with opportunities to develop their potential.

Most of us would say this is nonsense. Rather, they are victims of a perverted social ethos, which elevates personal freedom to an absolute, and denies the underclass the discipline — tough love — which alone might enable some of its members to escape from the swamp of dependency in which they live.

07/28/2011 : UK'S NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE BEGINS RATIONING SURGERIES...

Hip replacements, cataract surgery and tonsil removal are among operations now being rationed in a bid to save the NHS money.

Two-thirds of health trusts in England are rationing treatments for "non-urgent" conditions as part of the drive to reduce costs in the NHS by £20bn over the next four years. One in three primary-care trusts (PCTs) has expanded the list of procedures it will restrict funding to in the past 12 months.

Rally to reinstate Capt Paul Fields
** Tomorrow ** Tues, Aug 30

On August 30th, ACT! for America Executive Director Guy Rodgers and National Field Director Kelly Cook will be in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for our rally calling for the full reinstatement of Captain Paul Fields.

After the rally, we will walk the five blocks to City Hall and deliver the reinstatement petition with 52,000+ signatures, to Mayor Dewey Bartlett, who appointed Chuck Jordan to Tulsa Chief of Police last November. At that time Rodgers will take questions from the media.

If you are coming to the event, please feel free to make a sign in support of Captain Fields. We anticipate there will be media covering the event, and we will have our own camera crew there, so please have your sign be respectful while you are being creative!
Tuesday, August 30
Chapman Centennial Park
600 S Main
10 AM

Suggested Parking Garages:

SouthEast corner of 6th & Boston and the ONEOK parking garage at 6th & Boulder.

From victorhanson.com

July 2, 2011
There Are No Socialists
by Victor Davis Hanson
Pajamas Media

Are There Really Socialists?

Two unconnected developments were announced this past week. President Obama is releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, despite the absence of a global embargo or horrific natural disaster — and despite a litany of assertions from 2008 that drilling and increased supply might only have a marginal effect on prices.

Like the sudden Afghan withdrawal announcement, the tapping is largely explained by political worries about reelection, as in increasing oil supplies to lower gas prices by election time — and thus avoiding campaign ads equating Obama’s opposition to drilling with high prices at the 2012 pump.

In a second piece of news, the Europeans seem to be winning far more plane orders than Boeing. One wonders whether that fact is remotely connected with airlines’ collective worries about obtaining orders on time and as specified — as in uncertainty whether Obama’s NLRB ruling [1] that attempted to shut down a nearly $1 billion new aircraft line in South Carolina translates into something like “who knows what those Americans are doing next?”

Read it all

How's that Hope-n-Change working out?

Birth/Death Adjustment+ 206,000!

Take away the Birth/Death adjustment of 206,000 and the Real NFP is: -150,000. This is the biggest monthly B/D adjustment in over a year. And if as all the pundits claimed last month, demanding the McDonalds addition of 62,000 janitorial, part-time jobs be added to the May number, the economy really lost over 200,000 in May. Time to price in QE 666.

H/T zero hedge

If you know of anyone who might be interested in running for office - WHATEVER TYPE - please have them attend this meeting in Edmond next Thursday. I know that those of you in areas further out may not be able to meet at this time and location, however, if you are interested in holding a training in your area, please let me know. WE MUST have good, Constitutional, Christian Conservatives willing to stand up for our country and state. If you've EVER considered running, please attend.

We will be putting the Northside 912 group together again very soon.
Anyone who is interested in attending will be welcome. We will be working on collecting information for the WhatAmIVotingFor website and getting out and supporting good, local candidates. If you are interested in attending this meeting and have not previously been members, please email me and I will put you on the list. WE WILL NEED THE SERVICE OF MANY to defeat Obama and the liberals in 2012!

God Bless and hope to see you next Thursday!

And this from CNBC???

Horror for US Economy as Data Falls off Cliff

The last month has been a horror show for the U.S. economy, with economic data falling off a cliff, according to Mike Riddell, a fund manager at M&G Investments in London.

"It seems that almost every bit of data about the health of the US economy has disappointed expectations recently," said Riddell, in a note sent to CNBC on Wednesday.

"US house prices have fallen by more than 5 percent year on year, pending home sales have collapsed and existing home sales disappointed, the trend of improving jobless claims has arrested, first quarter GDP wasn’t revised upwards by the 0.4 percent forecast, durables goods orders shrank, manufacturing surveys from Philadelphia Fed, Richmond Fed and Chicago Fed were all very disappointing."

"And that’s just in the last week and a bit," said Riddell.

Top Libertarian and Austrian Economic Books

By Gary Gibson

When selecting books for a best libertarian title list, a few narrowing questions come to mind. Do you qualify the list based on the ideas? How well it’s written? The most popular Austrian Economic books?

Well, this list of the best Austrian Economics books is a bit different than most. Rather than focusing solely on my discretion, I have compiled a list of the best libertarian book titles selected by the most important people in the world: customers of Laissez Faire Books.

Now there are many lists containing the likes of Atlas Shrugged (which made it on this list too), Human Action and Man, Economy and State. These are must-reads for any self-respecting free-market guy or gal. What I like about our list is that we have some outliers that give the list a bit more…flavor.

Other sites cater very strictly to the party line. We like to range a bit more widely…entertain opinions that other liberty-minded folks may not deem orthodox.

Our selection includes top economics books by the giants like Ludwig von Mises, Frederic Hayek, Henry Hazlitt and Murray Rothbard, along with the works of Ayn Rand, Ron Paul, Judge Napolitano, Thomas Sowell and P.J. O’Rourke.

You probably would not have left Ayn Rand and Murray Rothbard in the same room together. But they stand side by side here.

There are also books by various other lesser-known authors that take a detailed look at the results of various forms of government intervention—in the housing market, in stocks…and at all the disastrous economic and social effects of prohibitions and subsidies.

The case is made in top books on liberty and economics like Henry Hazlitt’s classic “Economics in One Lesson”, or Murray Rothbard’s “Man, Economy, and State”.

Then there are other essential books on liberty like Ayn Rand’s canonic “Atlas Shrugged,” a paean to capitalism dressed as fiction.

From the Austrian school of economics with books by Mises to Hayek’s warnings about socialism to Milton Friedman’s essays, and hundreds of other authors writing about every economics, liberty, history and the state and its effects on our lives.

Liberty is inseperable from economics so our library covers it all: the effect of every tax, every good and service the government provides with the money they take from their citizens.

Below is a list of our Essential Books on Liberty

1. Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt – Probably the very first book everyone with any interest in economic thought should read. Hazlitt challenges the reader to think beyond the immediate benefits of any economic policy.

2. The Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek – This is Hayek’s masterwork, a passionate warning about the dangers of state control of production.

3. The Vision of Ayn Rand: The Basic Principles of Objectivism by Nathaniel Branden – Collection of lectures by Nathaniel Branden providing a detailed exposition of Ayn Rand’s philosophy.

4. The Law by Frederic Bastiat – The 1850 classic about government intervention in the economy causing the subversion of life and liberty.

5. End the Fed by Ron Paul – Congressman Ron Paul’s explanation of the unconstitutionality and danger of the Federal Reserve.

6. Capitalism and Freedom: Fortieth Anniversary Edition by Milton Friedman – an explanation of why competitive capitalism is the necessary framework for economic and political freedom.

7. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand – The towering work of fiction that has changed so many lives. With her narrative and dialogue Ayn Rand makes the unassailable case for capitalism and liberty.

8. The Market for Liberty by Morris and Linda Tannehill – This underappreciated classic persuasively argues for a stateless world where private enterprise provides everything better than government ever could.

9. The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible by Ken Schooland – A very accessible allegorical tale of all the ills of government intervention.

10. Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One by Thomas Sowell – Sowell goes beyond the first stage of a wide range of policies and examines their disastrous effects further down the line. From socialized health care schemes to rent control to government backed mortgages.

Gary Gibson
Whiskey & Gunpowder