Reservations

You still hold a special place in my heart. 
I keep this special place just for you, like a ‘Reserved’ sign on a quiet corner table in a restaurant.

The Lunatics Are Running the Asylum

Draghi’s Money Printing Bazooka

by Author Pater Tenebrarum

The Utterly Absurd Becomes the “New Normal” 

“Bankers at the World Economic Forum in Davos are applauding the European Central Bank’s announcement of quantitative easing. Some said they were pleased the ECB’s plan, to buy about €60 billion a month in government bonds, is larger than expected. “It was positive and it was needed,” said Francisco Gonzalez, chairman of Spain’s BBVA. “Having said that, governments have to keep with reforms for the plan to meet its purpose,” he added.” 

The ECB surprised markets today by unveiling a slightly larger than expected “QE” program. Yesterday’s leak of the decision referred to money printing to the tune of €50 billion per month, so the actual announcement of a €60 billion per month program was seen as a “positive surprise”. Just think about this for a moment. The charlatans running the central bank announce that they will make a grandiose effort to debase their confetti currency even further by printing a huge amount of additional money every month, and this is greeted as a “positive surprise” and is “applauded by bankers”. It should be glaringly obvious by now that the lunatics are running the asylum.

The Charlatans of Inflationism

We know of a number of people who will be pleased (and will probably begin to cry for even more money printing shortly) – among them is Martin Wolf at the Financial Times. This breeding ground of hoary inflationism has been regaling its readers with long discredited (but quite popular) economic balderdash for several years already. Just prior to the ECB announcement, Mr. Wolf wrote the umpteenth editorial exhorting central bankers to print as much money as possible. In his opening salvo, he commented on the SNB’s wise, if belated, decision to finally stop printing unlimited amounts of Swiss francs to shore up the failing euro. Needless to say, this decision did not please Mr. Wolf. 

“These are exciting times in European central banking. Last Thursday the Swiss National Bank suddenly terminated its successful peg to the euro. This week the European Central Bank is expected to announce its program of quantitative easing. The SNB has embraced the risk of deflation from which the ECB wishes to escape.

Embarrassed Global Warming Alarmists Sink To Comedic Lows With 'Polar Vortex' Excuse

“Cold as Hell: The Chilling Effect of Global Warming” – Huffington Post

By james taylor

Confronted with the embarrassment of historic cold gripping the nation just as the Obama administration launches a new offensive on the mythical global warming crisis, global warming activists and their media allies just invented their most knee-slapping assertion yet; that global warming causes winter cold outbreaks. Global warming activists, after giving us about 48 hours of silence after the cold temperatures hit while they scrambled to come up with an explanation, now say they have always predicted that global warming would cause more frequent and severe winter cold spells.

It is quite amusing how the global warming propaganda machine works. For about 24 hours after the cold temperatures descended, the alarmists were enforcing radio silence on global warming. Then, when the global warming jokes were too widespread to ignore, they spent the next 24 hours telling us that occasional cold outbreaks are still “consistent” with a rapidly warming planet. Another 24 hours later, they morphed into the “we predicted this all along” meme.

Here are some of the latest headlines along that narrative:

“How frigid ‘polar vortex’ could be result of global warming” –Christian Science Monitor

“Polar Vortex: Climate Change Could Be the Cause of Record Cold” – Time

“US polar vortex may be example of global warming” – The Guardian

“Thank Global Warming for Freezing You Right Now” – The Daily Beast

“Cold as Hell: The Chilling Effect of Global Warming” – Huffington Post

What is really interesting among these and most of the other media accounts on the cold outbreak, is they address the topic like it is long-settled science that global warming causes more frequent and severe winter cold outbreaks. In other words, “It is really, really, really cold throughout the nation, global warming causes everything that people might think is bad, so global warming must cause cold temperatures. Now let’s quickly invent some scientific-sounding mumbo-jumbo explanation for how that might be the case.”

The latest explanation/mythical creature creation is a mutant polar vortex; first cousin of Big Foot, the Abominable Snowman, Mutant Teenage Ninja Turtles, and the Loch Ness Monster. (By the way, global warming alarmists, are Big Foot and the Abominable Snowman the same? You would know better than I….)

Oh, and for kicks and giggles, check out how global warming alarmists and their media allies blame global warming for a future UFO invasion.

According to this newest warming fad, global warming allegedly causes a weakening of Arctic air currents that keep cold air trapped in the far north. As a result, cold Arctic air can now break out and savage previously warm climates like a crazed zombie apocalypse.

Of course, if global warming alarmists really had predicted that it would cause more frequent and severe cold outbreaks (via Mutant Polar Vortexes, Mutant Teenage Ninja Turtles, Yeti, or whatever), we should see such predictions all throughout the latest United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. The problem is, it’s not there. Nowhere. Nada. Nunca. Nein. Nyet.

Here is what IPCC has to say on the topic of global warming and winter cold outbreaks: In IPCC’s Working Group II: Impacts, Adaption and Vulnerability, we are told there will be “warmer winters and fewer cold spells, because of climate change.”

This is the IPCC. The alarmists constantly preach that IPCC is the unified position – the settled science – of nearly all the world’s climate scientists. And IPCC says exactly the opposite of what global warming alarmists now tell us they “always predicted” about global warming and winter cold outbreaks.

So we have global warming alarmists consistently telling us global warming will mean an end to winter cold outbreaks. Then, when we have severe winter cold outbreaks, the alarmists say it is caused by global warming and they predicted it all along. It is like in the movie “A Christmas Story,” when Ralphie’s father repeatedly claims the green string of Christmas tree lights blew out, but then changes his story after he has been proven wrong.

Ralphie’s Father: “The green string is out!”

Ralphie’s Mother: “No, the green is on. It’s the blue that’s out.

Ralphie’s Father: “Don’t tell me what color it is. I’m not color blind.”

Ralphie’s Mother: “I’m not color blind, either.”

(After replacing one of the light bulbs, the blue string of lights comes back to life.)

Ralphie’s Father: “See, I told you it was green!”

Somebody please tell the global warming alarmists to hole up in a room somewhere, debate each other about whether global warming causes more frequent or less frequent severe cold spells, and then let us know when they have a consistent answer. In the meantime, the rest of us will wait up for Sasquatch, the Abominable Snowman, and the global warming-induced UFO invasion.

 Read more at:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2014/01/08/embarrassed-global-warming-alarmists-sink-to-comedic-lows-with-polar-vortex-excuse/

The Street Keynesians

Spreading the Keynesian benefits of the riots throughout the French economy and population

by Theodore Dalrymple

According to a poll carried out by the Figaro newspaper, only 17% of the French believe that 2014 will be a good year, but in fact it started very well for France. Only 1,064 cars were burned by youths in the banlieues this New Year’s Eve—about a hundred fewer than last year. Who says that there is no progress? The French Minister of the Interior congratulated the 57,000 policemen throughout the country who were on duty that night for their preventive work (one fewer cars1 burned per 570 policemen), but he still won’t publish the number of cars burned in France annually for fear of provoking youth to an attempt to beat the record. Yes, youth is the idealistic springtime of man’s life.

Another optimistic way of looking at the figures is to compare the number of cars burned with the number of cars not burned. This will put the figure into better perspective. About 19,999,000 cars in France were not burned on New Year’s Eve; that is to say, 99.995% of them. Surely this is the way the figures should be presented to improve the population’s morale? Instead of the murder rate, then, we should have the non-murder rate. The result is even better for most European countries: About 99.999% of people are not murdered in any given year.

“As Bakunin pointed out a long time ago, the destructive urge is a creative urge.”

We should always remember the story of the Soviet commissar who, when asked by a soldier in the audience he was addressing whether it was true that there were more cars in the United States than in the Soviet Union, thought for a moment and then replied, “Yes, comrade, but we in the Soviet Union have more parking spaces.”

However, we must not be too optimistic that optimism can be instilled in this way, for almost any statistic can be viewed in a dark light. From the point of view of supposedly Keynesian economics, for example, the decline in the number of cars burned in France on New Year’s Eve was a change in precisely the wrong direction. As everyone knows the European economy is in the doldrums, suffering from a lack of aggregate demand. Government spending cannot take up the slack because governments such as that of the French have been running deficits for forty years, and if they were to try to increase their expenditure yet further there would be another debt crisis (if the first such crisis has ever gone away, that is).

No, the solution can come only from real growth; that is to say, from the private sector. The French have been accused, because of their immemorial Colbertian dirigiste economic culture, of lacking economic initiative. (They were famously even once accused by a great American thinker of lacking a word for entrepreneur.) That is why the ambition of so many of them is to be a fonctionnaire, a civil servant.

This view of the French, however, is in complete contradiction with the initiative shown by youth in the banlieues. Having read Mr. Krugman in The New York Times, they have been persuaded that there is a chronic lack of demand in the French economy that they have decided to stimulate by burning cars. What better stimulation, indeed, could be imagined? The roughly 40,000 cars burned a year (as I have said, no one knows the precise figures) provide employment for thousands of people. The cars have to be replaced, so manufacturing is encouraged; service industries such as sales and insurance are likewise given a fillip. When M. (soon to be president) Sarkozy called the rabble who rioted in 2005 “scum,” he should really have thanked them for their presciently Keynesian conduct.

But M. Chirac, the then-president, was the hero of the hour. He wisely decreed that the insurance companies, whose policies had hitherto excluded damage caused by civil riot, revolution, and war as grounds for claim, that henceforth (and retrospectively in this case) these exclusions should not hold; and he thereby spread the Keynesian benefits of the riots throughout the French economy and population. Equity and justice required no less; the costs and the benefits were spread equally. Furthermore, government debts were completely unaffected by this. No more perfect way of stimulating demand could be imagined. It was not only effective; it was the very instance of liberty, equality, and fraternity in action.

I regret to say, however, that the French government, completely lacking in imagination, has since taken no advantage of the method of stimulating the economy with which it was so selflessly provided by the idealistic youth of the banlieues in 2005. Instead of encouraging those youth, it has taken measures to dissuade them—for example, by posting policemen all around the country and arresting those whom they catch in the process of stimulating the economy. Some of them it even punishes, thus discouraging the very kind of entrepreneurial activity for which it should be thankful.

Read the rest at:

http://takimag.com/article/the_street_keynesians_theodore_dalrymple/print#axzz2pj2c9564

The Socialist government in France is running out of other people's money

Angry French Union So Called Workers Take Two Bosses Hostage

by Tyler Durden

Workers at a tire plant in Northern France have taken two managers hostage until Goodyear (the firm that owns the plant and has been trying to shutter it for years) meets the major unions demands, WSJ reports, as Goodyear winds down operations with the plant almost idle, French labor law requires the company to keep all workers employed, which means many of them don't work more than a couple of hours a day while still getting full salary. The situation is why Titan International's Maurice Taylor blasted that he "would be stupid" to operate the plant on that basis.

As we noted previosuly the tire factory farce escalated a year ago...

The saga of the capitalist vs the socialist goes on with Round 3, following round 1 in which the "Titan CEO Crushes Socialist "Work Ethic", Tells France "You Can Keep Your So-Called Workers" and round 2 in which "Socialist France Responds To Titan CEO, Hilarity Ensues." With the entire "developed" world now a real-time parody of itself, in which the truth about the true state of affairs is only revealed in grotesque, farcical, ad-hominem repartees between various members of the insolvent status quo plutocracy, we can only hope for many more rounds of this didactic back and forth.

Excerpted from Titan CEO Maurice Taylor's follow up letter in response to Arnaud Montebourg's letter responding to Maurice Taylor.

You letter shows the extent to which your political class is out of touch with real world problems.

You call me an extremist, but most businessmen would agree that I must be nuts to have the idea to spend millions of US dollars to buy a tyre factory in France paying some of the highest wages in the world.

Your letter did not mention why the French government has not stepped in to rescue this Goodyear tyre factory.

The extremist, Mr Minister, is your government and the lack of knowledge about how to build a business. 

Your government let the wackos of the communist union destroy the highest paying jobs. 

At no time did Titan ask for lower wages; we asked only if you want seven hours pay, you work at least six. 

France does have beautiful women and great wine. 

PS: My grandmother named my father after French entertainer Maurice Chevalier, and I inherited the name. 

I have visited Normandy with my wife. I know what we did for France. 

But now, Goodyear is entangled in legal proceedings with unions representing workers, led by the communist-backed CGT... and their actions have re-escalated... (via WSJ)

Workers at a Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. factory in northern France prevented two managers from leaving the facility on Monday, the latest in a string of protests by union members who were accused by a U.S. executive last year of doing little work. 

...

Mickaël Wamen, a union representative, said the managers would be held until workers get a satisfactory response to their requests. He said the managers already have been informed that they will spend the night at the site. 

Goodyear, of Akron, Ohio, has been trying to shut the plant for several years, but is entangled in legal proceedings with unions representing workers, led by the communist-backed CGT. Efforts to sell the factory to U.S. tire maker Titan International Inc. hit the headlines last year, after Titan Chief Executive Maurice Taylor blasted French labor laws and work habits.

Read the rest at:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-01-06/angry-french-union-workers-take-two-bosses-hostage

Crime and No Punishment

"Affluenza"

A wealthy Texas teenager who killed four pedestrians in a DUI is being let off with only probation because he was afflicted with a curious disease: ‘affluenza’. No joke. The LA Times explains exactly how this dreaded scourge works:

A psychologist testified for the defense that the teen is a product of something he called “affluenza” and doesn’t link bad behavior with consequences because his parents taught him that wealth buys privilege, the psychologist said in court, according to media reports.

That psychologist cited one instance when the boy, then 15, was caught in a parked pickup with a naked 14-year-old girl who was passed out. He was never punished, the psychologist said, noting to the court that the teenager was allowed to drink at a very young age, and even began driving at 13.

We’re not highly-paid psychiatrist-consultants, but we do think there is one surefire cure for a bad case of ‘affluenza’: jail.

We’re also not, of course, in a position to judge all of the facts in the case; there could be much going on here that doesn’t come across in the article. But the idea that someone should get better treatment because he or she is wealthy and therefore has a poor moral compass is insane and destructive. It’s hard to imagine a greater perversion of the principle of equality before the law. 

Central Planning for All

Germany Plans to Ban 'Flat-Rate' Offers in Brothels

Germany's biggest political parties have agreed to ban so-called flat-rate sex offered by some brothels in the country, reports AP.

They view as exploitative the special offers in some brothels where men can have unlimited sex for 100 euros ($136).

Anja Strieder, spokeswoman for the center-left Social Democrats, confirmed a report Monday by Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that a ban was agreed during coalition talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Union bloc. 

Seattle en route to Venezuela

A Socialist Wins in Seattle

By John Nichols

When Machinists union members rallied in Seattle in mid-November to protest Boeing’s demand for wage and pension cuts, the newest municipal official roused the crowd. “We salute the Machinists for having the courage to reject this blatant highway robbery from the executives of Boeing in pursuit of their endless, endless thirst for private profit.” Kshama Sawant, an economics professor and Occupy Seattle activist who had just won a citywide City Council seat, said threats to shift production out of state could be met with an eminent domain move allowing workers to “take over the factories.”

Condemning private profit and talking up worker control of factories? That sounds kinda socialist. And socialists don’t win elections in the United States, right? Wrong. Sawant is the most recent in a long line of “out” socialists elected to city councils, mayoralties and even seats in Congress over the past century. Yet her win drew headlines as far away as her native India.

What made Sawant’s victory historic was the context. Since 2008, Republican politicians and their media echo chambers have built a cottage industry around the comic claim that Barack Obama is a socialist. The man who took single-payer healthcare off the table and refused to break up “too big to fail” banks wouldn’t qualify as a mild social democrat, let alone the raging “Marxist” of Rush Limbaugh’s hallucinations.

Still, the charge persists. In October, Sarah Palin was peddling the fantasy that problems with the Affordable Care Act website were part of an elaborate scheme to steer America toward “full socialized medicine.” The rhetorical strategy imagines that the mere suggestion of a socialist or socialized tendency is a deal killer. It’s not just Republicans who buy into the notion; Democrats, with rare exceptions like Representative John Conyers and Senator Bernie Sanders, are almost as quick as conservatives to distance themselves from the s-word.

But the American people are less concerned. Thirty-nine percent of Americans surveyed for a November 2012 Gallup poll said they had a positive image of socialism. In a 2011 Pew survey, 49 percent of Americans under 30 said they felt positive about socialism, while just 46 percent felt positive about capitalism. Among African-Americans, 55 percent had a positive reaction to socialism, versus 41 percent to capitalism. Among Latinos, it was 44 percent for socialism, 32 percent for capitalism.

Even socialists have a hard time agreeing on definitions of socialism, so there may not be a consensus on what all those Americans feel positive about. But in an era of lingering unemployment, cuts to public education and public services, and ever-widening incomeinequality, it should not be surprising that millions of Americans are ill at ease with capitalism—at least as it’s defined by Ted Cruz and Paul Ryan—and that many of them are open to alternatives. Nor should it be surprising that, after all the silly ranting about Obama’s “socialism,” voters are increasingly immune to redbaiting. In New York City this fall, Bill de Blasio’s Republican opponent seized on a New York Times story that said the Democratic mayoral candidate had once expressed an interest in “democratic socialism”; he attacked de Blasio for running a campaign “directly out of the Marxist playbook.” The New York Post featured an image of the Democrat next to a hammer and sickle. De Blasio laughed the attacks off, continued to describe himself as a progressive and won 73 percent of the vote.

Frustration with America’s constrained political discourse, and the dysfunctional governance that extends from it, is palpable, and people are looking for fresh policies and approaches. Virginia Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Robert Sarvis just won 15 percent of the under-30 vote, securing almost 150,000 votes statewide. Political and media elites acknowledge that libertarian ideas can attract votes, but they still wrestle with the notion that socialist ideas might also have appeal. Sawant put the prospect to the test in Seattle, a city with a population larger than the District of Columbia, Vermont and Wyoming. Identifying herself as a “Socialist Alternative” candidate who would fight for a $15 minimum wage, taxation of millionaires and expanded public services, she beat a sixteen-year incumbent who had broad support from mainstream Democrats and environmental groups. It’s fair to suggest that much of her backing came from Seattle voters who wanted to shake things up: on the same Election Day, the city turned out a mayor and changed its system of electing Council members. But it is also fair to suggest, as Sawant does, that her win has “shown the strongest skeptics that the socialist label is not a bad one for a grassroots campaign to succeed.”

That’s not a new notion. The acceptance of socialist candidates and ideas has waxed and waned in American history. With the rapid evolution of our politics in an age of instant communication and growing anger at income inequality, fear of the s-word is diminishing. And voters—especially younger ones—are beginning to demand a politics that, instead of rejecting solutions or candidates based on a label, considers their merits.

The Most Despised Tax-And-Retreat French President Sinks Deeper Into Economic Quagmire

Nothing seems to work. Squeezing the French has reached its limit.

By Wolf Richter   

The French habitually appear to be on the verge of having had it. But the incidents have been getting denser, more frequent. There were the protests in the Bretagne and elsewhere, followed by "operation snail" where 2,100 heavy trucks drove side by side down major expressways at a snail’s pace, with everyone behind them going nuts. Every day, there are protests organized by different organizations. On Thursday, the farmers went to town, to Paris more specifically. They were getting there by driving their tractors on major highways, setting up roadblocks as they went, snarling traffic for miles.

They’re all protesting the relentless onslaught of new taxes. At first, buoyant from an election victory, President François Hollande and his government went after the rich then quickly hit even modest households, farmers, truckers, craftsmen, everyone who does or buys anything. Because it’s never enough. In January, the Value Added Tax hike will take effect. For the top tier of items, the VAT will only increase from 19.6% to 20%. But for some of the lower tier items, it will be jacked up massively. For example, for the equestrian industry, the VAT will jump from 7% to 20% – hence the protests the other day.

Now the farmers have had it. While at it, they’re also protesting EU rules on how they should run their businesses and anti-pollution laws that would limit the use of tractors on some days. The word "insurrection" is showing up in the media, though it's still more an exaggeration than a description. "Fiscal discontent” is better, but not broad enough.

After 18 months in office, Hollande's ratings have plunged to the lowest levels of any president since 1958, according to an Ifop/JDD poll, the only poll going back this far. A mere 20% of the French were satisfied with him; 17% among workers and employees; 15% among merchants and craftsmen. Even his erstwhile supporters have abandoned him.

And 79% were dissatisfied. Cited were "social desperation" of the people affected by his policies, but also his leadership qualities, his apparent "inability to decide," his "lack of discipline," his tendency to make decisions and then, when the volume gets too loud, withdraw them. It leaves the country rudderless.

Who could do a better job? Maybe Santa Claus.

Because no one else seems to be able to, in the eyes of the French. Turns out, 74% think that any of the major figures of the UMP, the party of former President Sarkozy, would do worse or no better. And on the right-wing where Marine Le Pen reigns with her National Front (FN)? 79% of the respondents think she’d be worse or no better than Hollande. There simply is no savior in sight. Much less a solution.

What Soviet Medicine Teaches Us

Sheep demanding the wolf

by Yuri Maltsev

In 1918, the Soviet Union became the first country to promise universal “cradle-to-grave” healthcare coverage, to be accomplished through the complete socialization of medicine. The “right to health” became a “constitutional right” of Soviet citizens.

The proclaimed advantages of this system were that it would “reduce costs” and eliminate the “waste” that stemmed from “unnecessary duplication and parallelism” — i.e., competition.

These goals were similar to the ones declared by Mr. Obama and Ms. Pelosi — attractive and humane goals of universal coverage and low costs. What’s not to like?

The system had many decades to work, but widespread apathy and low quality of work paralyzed the healthcare system. In the depths of the socialist experiment, healthcare institutions in Russia were at least a hundred years behind the average US level. Moreover, the filth, odors, cats roaming the halls, drunken medical personnel, and absence of soap and cleaning supplies added to an overall impression of hopelessness and frustration that paralyzed the system. According to official Russian estimates, 78 percent of all AIDS victims in Russia contracted the virus through dirty needles or HIV-tainted blood in the state-run hospitals.

Irresponsibility, expressed by the popular Russian saying “They pretend they are paying us and we pretend we are working,” resulted in appalling quality of service, widespread corruption, and extensive loss of life. My friend, a famous neurosurgeon in today’s Russia, received a monthly salary of 150 rubles — one-third of the average bus driver’s salary.

In order to receive minimal attention by doctors and nursing personnel, patients had to pay bribes. I even witnessed a case of a “nonpaying” patient who died trying to reach a lavatory at the end of the long corridor after brain surgery. Anesthesia was usually “not available” for abortions or minor ear, nose, throat, and skin surgeries. This was used as a means of extortion by unscrupulous medical bureaucrats.

To improve the statistics concerning the numbers of people dying within the system, patients were routinely shoved out the door before taking their last breath.

Being a People’s Deputy in the Moscow region from 1987 to 1989, I received many complaints about criminal negligence, bribes taken by medical apparatchiks, drunken ambulance crews, and food poisoning in hospitals and child-care facilities. I recall the case of a 14-year-old girl from my district who died of acute nephritis in a Moscow hospital. She died because a doctor decided that it was better to save “precious” X-ray film (imported by the Soviets for hard currency) instead of double-checking his diagnosis. These X-rays would have disproven his diagnosis of neuropathic pain.

Ruthless Tyrants Win Seats on UN “Human Rights” Council

China, Cuba, and Vietnam, along with the hardline Islamic tyrants will enforce "Human Rights" to the rest of the World as well

by  Alex Newman

A motley assortment of the planet’s most ruthless Islamist and communist autocracies were appointed on November 12 to sit on the increasingly discredited United Nations “Human Rights” Council (UN HRC), drawing swift condemnation and ridicule from around the world. The week before, the mass-murdering dictatorship ruling over mainland China had its “education vice-minister” elected to lead the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), adding more fuel to the fire for critics who advocate an immediate American withdrawal from the scandal-plagued planetary outfits.    
Among the mass-murdering regimes selected to sit on the UN’s self-styled “human rights” entity were the brutal communist dictatorships enslaving the people of China, Cuba, and Vietnam, along with the hardline Islamic tyrants ruling over Algeria and Saudi Arabia. Of course, numerous critics have pointed out that those are some of the most repressive tyrannies on earth. Vladimir Putin’s Russian government, widely criticized as a gangster regime, was also chosen to sit on the global body supposedly charged with upholding “human rights” around the world. Other brutal autocrats were already on the council prior to the most recent additions.  
There were a number of other controversial selections this week for three-year terms on the disgraced UN “human rights” outfit as well: the radical South African government, for example, which has been implicated in genocidal machinations by the world’s top expert on genocide, along with the socialist regime in Namibia. Rulers from Morocco and Macedonia were also appointed. Finally, among the least controversial of the 14 new selections for the council were the governments of France and the United Kingdom.As the dubious UN institution cements its status as a planetary laughing stock by adding even more of the world’s worst human-rights abusers to its leadership, more than a few analysts and human rights activists were left scratching their heads. However, when considering the composition of the 193-member UN General Assembly, the vote to add the planet’s leading communist and Islamist autocracies to an entity in charge of human rights — as defined by the UN: revocable privileges — makes perfect sense. There is a reason that the UN is regularly blasted by critics as the “dictators' club,” and the recent vote illustrated that perfectly. 
Still, outrage was being expressed around the world. “This is a black day for human rights,” noted Executive Director Hillel Neuer with the Geneva-based UN Watch, a non-governmental human rights group that monitors the global body and its activities. “Today the UN sent a message that politics trumps human rights, and it let down millions of victims worldwide who look to the world body for protection.”

Venezuela Declares Economic Laws Abolished

It's Been Tried Before …

President Maduro of Venezuela. He reminds us faintly of a bouncer or some other type of enforcer. We wouldn't hesitate to cast him in a movie about the mob. Getting 'protection' from this dude sounds like a slightly scary prospect.

By Pater Tenebrarum

Mish already wrote about the latest escapades in the ongoing Venezuelan crack-up boom/hyper-inflation catastrophe. In the meantime, Bloomberg has updated its original report, noting inter alia that the latest news have provoked a mini-crash in the country's bonds. 

“Venezuelan bonds tumbled, sending yields to a 22-month high, after President Nicolas Maduro dispatched the military to take over a retail chain as part of his effort to quell inflation that’s soared above 50 percent.

The country’s benchmark bonds due 2027 fell 3.9 cents to 72.1 cents on the dollar as Maduro’s seizure of electronics retailer Daka and his warnings to other businesses to cut prices to “fair” levels deepened investor concern that growth is being choked off by government controls. Yields on the bonds soared 0.79 percentage point to 13.82 percent, the highest since January 2012, at 3:19 p.m. in New York.

Maduro, who took over as president this year after his socialist mentor Hugo Chavez died of cancer, is stiffening government-imposed price controls that have contributed to food and goods shortages across the South American country. Maduro blamed the “parasitic bourgeoisie” and said he’d impose limits on profit margins throughout the economy after inflation surged to 54 percent in October, the fastest pace in 16 years.

“In the 20 years that I’ve been managing emerging markets, I have never seen the mismanagement of the scale that I’m seeing in Venezuela today,” Ray Zucaro, who oversees $375 million of emerging-market debt at SW Asset Management LLC in Newport Beach,California, wrote in an e-mailed response to questions. “The government effectively is promoting anarchy. This disconnect with reality, I’ve never seen it bigger than it is now.” 

Venezuela Jails Over 100 "Bourgeois, Barbaric, Capitalist Parasites"

The Land of Plenty

"It's time to deepen the offensive, go to the bone in this economic war," warned Venezuelan President Maduro - echoing Hugo Chavez's iron fist of socialism (and nationalization) before him - as his decision to jail over 100 businessmen is "defending the poor." As Reuters reports, plenty of Venezuelans have applauded his measures, saying price hikes were out of control, while others have expressed fears that Maduro could be uncorking dangerous forces as opposition forces note Maduro's economic policies were "chillingly similar" to those of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. Officials say unscrupulous companies have been hiking prices of electronics and other goods more than 1,000 percent. Critics say failed socialist economic policies and restricted access to foreign currency are behind Venezuela's runaway inflation. No matter which, Maduro thundered "They are barbaric, these capitalist parasites!" 

Via Reuters,

Venezuela's socialist government has arrested more than 100 "bourgeois" businessmen in a crackdown on alleged price-gouging at hundreds of shops and companies since the weekend, President Nicolas Maduro said on Thursday. 

"They are barbaric, these capitalist parasites!" Maduro thundered in the latest of his lengthy daily speeches. "We have more than 100 of the bourgeoisie behind bars at the moment." 

...

Officials say unscrupulous companies have been hiking prices of electronics and other goods more than 1,000 percent. Critics say failed socialist economic policies and restricted access to foreign currency are behind Venezuela's runaway inflation. 

"Goodyear has to lower its prices even more, 15 percent is not enough, the inspectors have go there straightaway," Maduro said in his evening address, sending officials to check local operations of the U.S.-based tire manufacturer. 

Like Chavez, Maduro says he is defending the poor.

All Options on Table

Central Bank Could Adopt Negative Deposit Rate, Asset Purchases If Needed

By BRIAN BLACKSTONE

The European Central Bank could adopt negative interest rates or purchase assets from banks if needed to lift inflation closer to its target, a top ECB official said, rebutting concerns that the central bank is running out of tools or is unwilling to use them.

"If our mandate is at risk we are going to take all the measures that we think we should take to fulfill that mandate. That's a very clear signal," ECB executive board member Peter Praet said in an interview Tuesday with The Wall Street Journal.

Annual inflation in the euro zone slowed to 0.7% in October, far below the central bank's target of just below 2% over the medium term. The euro dipped briefly after the comments appeared on the Journal's website.

Mr. Praet didn't rule out what some analysts see as the strongest, and most controversial, option: purchases of assets from banks to reduce borrowing costs in the private sector.

"The balance-sheet capacity of the central bank can also be used," said Mr. Praet, whose views carry added weight as he also heads the ECB's powerful economics division. "This includes outright purchases that any central bank can do."

Additional stimulus from the ECB isn't needed right now, Mr. Praet signaled, noting that inflation risks for the euro zone as a whole are balanced after last week's unexpected ECB interest-rate cut.

On Thursday the central bank reduced its key lending rate to 0.25%, a record low.

The move came days after the October inflation report fanned fears that the euro zone may slip into a period of excessively low inflation or, in some places, persistent declines in consumer prices, known as deflation. This cripples economic activity by holding wages and profits down and hampering efforts by the private sector and governments to reduce debt.