The List

No country for anyone

by Brian Rogers

If tomorrow all the things were gone,
I’d worked for all my life.
And I had to start again,
with just my children and my wife.

I’d thank my lucky stars,
to be livin here today.
‘ Cause the flag still stands for freedom,
and they can’t take that away.

   - Proud To Be An American, Lee Greenwood

America, F*CK YEAH!
Coming again, to save the mother f*cking day yeah,
America, F*CK YEAH!
What you going to do when we come for you now, 
it’s the dream that we all share; it’s the hope for tomorrow

F*CK YEAH!

McDonalds, F*CK YEAH!
Wal-Mart, F*CK YEAH!
The Gap, F*CK YEAH!
Baseball, F*CK YEAH!
NFL, F*CK, YEAH!
Rock and roll, F*CK YEAH!
The Internet, F*CK YEAH!
Slavery, F*CK YEAH!

   - America, F*ck Yeah, 
   Trey Parker (of South Park)

Coffee Shop at Union Square

I was out having drinks the other night with brilliant financial mind and Wall Street veteran Paulo Pereira.  Paulo is a Brazilian-American who's worked on both the buy and sell-side for years and has a long track record covering many of the large natural resource exporting countries.  A Yale grad with a degree in music, Paulo brings a unique perspective to finance and economics to say the least.

A different GDP yardstick

Worth a thousand words

The Ugly Truth For Northern Europeans

One way or another wealth will be transferred from the north to the south.

As Europe's exuberance from the LTROs fades (with Italian banks now negative YTD, Sovereigns wider than LTRO2 levels, and financials desparately divided by the LTRO Stigma) Jefferies David Zervos uncovers the sad reality that faces peripheral creditors and Northern Europeans - as we noted a month ago here. The 'success' of the LTRO monetization scheme (as opposed to EFSF/ESM transfer dabacles) is what enabled the Greek restructuring, and as Zervos notes, the losses that the big boys (Spain and Italy) need to take will not be taken via a haircut but a monetization as the number 1 rule is we must always assume that losses will be taken in a way that protects the large northern banks, northern jobs and most importantly Northern politicians. If the loss realization is not managed correctly (and losses there will be), then the ugly truth will escape but the North's large-scale vendor-financing scheme with the periphery will have to continue - even in the knoweldge that the debt will never get paid back.

The income and savings of Northern workers must be ploughed (directly or indirectly) into the rest-of-Europe or the entire structure becomes insolvent and the breaking of that social contract (that they will be looked after when they are old) will inevitably lead to revolt and nasty nationalist political forces being unleashed. The hope to avoid this is the 'wealth illusion' as the workers of the north can never be allowed to realize they have only 50% of their worth in reality. Ireland will be next on the loss-realization-monetization path but as we move from relatively small and containable sovereigns to the big-boys, the idea that Spain and Italy will roll over and accept a decade of austerity in exchange for a haircut is pure folly. These countries hold too much clout in the Eurozone and their threat of exit is a material threat to the northern jobs and hence northern politicians. 

Cheer Up!

17 18 reasons it's a great time to be alive

By Matt Ridley

“The world has never been a better place to live in,” says science writer Matt Ridley, “and it will keep on getting better.” Today, in a world gripped by global economic crisis and afflicted with poverty, disease, and war, them’s fightin’ words in some quarters. Ridley’s critics have called him a “denialist” and “shameful” and have accused him of “playing fast and loose with the truth” for his views on climate change and the free market.

Yet Ridley, 54, author most recently of The Rational Optimist, sticks to his guns. “It is not insane to believe in a happy future for people and the planet,” he says. Ridley, who’s been a foreign correspondent, a zoologist, an economist, and a financier, brings a broad perspective to his sunny outlook. “People say I’m bonkers to claim the world will go on getting better, yet I can’t stop myself,” he says. Read on to see how Ridley makes his case. Brilliant or bonkers? You decide.

1. We’re better off now

Compared with 50 years ago, when I was just four years old, the average human now earns nearly three times as much money (corrected for inflation), eats one third more calories, buries two thirds fewer children, and can expect to live one third longer. In fact, it’s hard to find any region of the world that’s worse off now than it was then, even though the global population has more than doubled over that period.

Israel's New Strategic Environment

Israel's national security interests outstrip its national resources

By George Friedman

Israel is now entering its third strategic environment. The constant threat of state-on-state war defined the first, which lasted from the founding of the Jewish state until its peace treaty with Egypt. A secure periphery defined the second, which lasted until recently and focused on the Palestinian issue, Lebanon and the rise of radical Sunni Islamists. The rise of Iran as a regional power and the need to build international coalitions to contain it define the third.

The $15 Trillion Dollar Party

The party is almost over, so enjoy yourselves while you can

By Giordano Bruno

If you knew that you could live in luxury for the rest of your life but that by doing so it would absolutely destroy the future for your children, your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren would you do it? Well, that is exactly what we are doing as a nation. Over the past several decades, we have stolen 15 trillion dollars from future generations so that we could enjoy a dramatically inflated level of prosperity. Our 15 trillion dollar party has been a lot of fun, but what we have done to our children and our grandchildren has been beyond criminal. We ran up the greatest mountain of debt in the history of the planet and we are sticking them with the bill. Sadly, both political parties have been responsible for the big spending that has been going on. Both Democrats and Republicans have run up huge budget deficits when in power. But instead of learning the hard lessons of the past, both political parties continue to vote for even more debt. They would rather continue to steal trillions of dollars from future generations than have the party end and have to face the consequences.

Sleight of Hand

Put Some Limits in Place on Federal Power Now

by Richard A. Epstein

Professor Erwin Chemerinsky pushes all the right buttons for the government in making out the claim that the imposition of the individual mandate is in his words "clearly constitutional" under today's law. I have written here and here that the current Commerce Clause jurisprudence of the Supreme Court is wholly inconsistent with the original vision of the Constitution as giving the federal government few and enumerated powers.

With ObamaCare, the Congress has stretched that overbroad power even further, by allowing the government to impose taxes on individuals who have not engaged in any form of activity at all. Chemerinsky takes the view that this benign intervention is intended to make sure that individuals who will always be in the need of health care will be prevented from free riding on the system by showing up without insurance coverage or cash at an emergency room.

Shortcuts to Prosperity

There Is No Shortcut, But All We Have Are Shortcuts

Cheating on the final exam to get an A doesn't mean you mastered the subject. Yet cheating is all we have in America because sacrifice and adult trade-offs are too painful.

We all know there is no shortcut to anything worth having--mastery, security, wealth-- yet all we have in America is another useless, doomed shortcut. Insolvency is scale-invariant, meaning that being unable to live within your means leads to insolvency for households, towns, corporations, states and national governments.

There is no shortcut to living within one's means. Expenses must align with revenues or the debt taken on to fill the gap will eventually bankrupt the entity--even an Empire.

Cry for Argentina

The Two Women that Are about to Destroy Argentina

Two women have taken control of Argentina's central bank and are about to use it as if they are on a weekend shopping spree.

Mary Anastasia O'Grady reports:

Argentina's Franken-state stormed the central bank last month, destroying the last vestiges of independence. Given the hyperinflationary history of that nation, it is worth asking why Argentines have allowed this to happen.

The pathology of a government power grab is not hard to discern. The state creates the conditions for crisis. Crisis strikes. Politicians seize extraordinary powers. Crisis passes. Left behind is a popular perception that complete annihilation was averted due to government genius. Politicians are permitted to expand their power...

Backing the Wrong Horse

Third World Poor Turn to Private Education

By James Tooley 

 Last fall the High-Level Plenary Meet­ing of the UN General Assembly brought together more than 170 heads of state—“the largest gathering of world leaders in his­tory”—to review progress toward the Millennium Devel­opment Goals. It was, we were told, “a once-in-a-gen­eration opportunity to take bold decisions,” a “defining moment in history” when “we must be ambitious.”

One of the internation­ally agreed-on development goals the heads of state reviewed was the achieve­ment of universal primary education by 2015. The UN was not happy with progress. There are still officially more than 115 million children out of school, it reported, of which 80 percent are in sub‑Saharan Africa and Southern Asia. But even for those lucky enough to be in school, things are not good: “Most poor children who attend primary school in the developing world learn shockingly little,” the UN reported.

Understanding The Slave Mentality

The system is their drug

by Brandon Smith

In the initial stages of nearly every recorded tyranny, the saucer eyed dumbstruck masses exhibit astonishing and masterful skill when denying reality.  The facts behind their dire circumstances and of their antagonistic government become a source of cynical psychological gameplay rather than a source of legitimate concern.  Their desperate need to maintain their normalcy bias creates a memory and observation vacuum in which all that runs counter to their false assumptions and preconceptions disappears forever.  It is as if they truly cannot see the color of the sky, or the boot on their face.  The concrete world of truth becomes a dream, an illusion that can be heeded or completely ignored depending on one’s mood.  For them, life is a constant struggle of dissociation, where the tangible is NOT welcome…

Real vs. the illusion of growth

On Gold, A Cracked Dam, And The Fed's Small Thumb

by Brian Rogers,

We get some rules to follow
That and this
These and those
No one knows

We get these pills to swallow
How they stick
In your throat
Tastes like gold
                           -Queens of the Stone Age

Understand the short video below and you will understand what I mean when I say that the United States of America (and the rest of the world for that matter) has not fundamentally grown much at all over the last 40 years. 

We have instead replaced fundamental growth with the illusion of growth brought on by constantly increasing the monetary supply, aka, inflation.

Usually, when a good or service is dramatically increased, it's price will fall.  Too many cars manufactured?  Prices will fall.  Too many new houses?  Prices will fall.  You get the idea.  Good ol' laws of supply and demand. 

Europe’s Real Crisis

The Continent’s problems are as much demographic as financial and they won’t go away soon

By MEGAN MCARDLE

All of us can breathe easy now: policy makers and analysts finally agree on how to fix Europe’s problems.

“Europe Debt Crisis Plan Hinges on Economic Growth,” declared the Los Angeles Times in October, after finance ministers announced what felt like the hundredth plan to seriously, no-foolin’-this-time, really rescue the European Union’s illiquid and insolvent states.

“Countries have to undergo significant structural reforms that would revamp growth,” said Mario Draghi, the head of the European Central Bank, in a December interview with the Financial Times.

Too Crooked to Fail

A few things i know about Bank of America

The bank has defrauded everyone from investors and insurers to homeowners and the unemployed. So why does the government keep bailing it out?

by Matt Taibbi

At least Bank of America got its name right. The ultimate Too Big to Fail bank really is America, a hypergluttonous ward of the state whose limitless fraud and criminal conspiracies we'll all be paying for until the end of time. Did you hear about the plot to rig global interest rates? The $137 million fine for bilking needy schools and cities? The ingenious plan to suck multiple fees out of the unemployment checks of jobless workers? Take your eyes off them for 10 seconds and guaranteed, they'll be into some shit again: This bank is like the world's worst-behaved teenager, taking your car and running over kittens and fire hydrants on the way to Vegas for the weekend, maxing out your credit cards in the three days you spend at your aunt's funeral. They're out of control, yet they'll never do time or go out of business, because the government remains creepily committed to their survival, like overindulgent parents who refuse to believe their 40-year-old live-at-home son could possibly be responsible for those dead hookers in the backyard.

In the mean time in Palestine

Building Palestinian prosperity
By Alexander Joffe And Asaf Romirowsky

Modern café in Ramallah

The Palestinian cause has never been more marginalized than it is today. That was the message conveyed by Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in a recent meeting in Ramallah. The Arab Spring has deflected the attention of the international community and the Arab world, to the detriment of the Palestinians. But Fayyad was also frank that the uprisings were inevitable. The fundamental lack of respect for citizens in places such as Syria, Tunisia and Egypt, he stated, could not be sustained forever. With understated pride, he pointed to the lack of similar protests in the Palestinian Authority.

But the drama of the uprisings has contributed to a "lack of focus" on the Palestinians, a situation that Fayyad clearly found both novel and disturbing. He also added forcefully that the missteps of world powers in the fall of 2011 had dramatically set back the cause of Palestinian statehood. Pushing for agreement on final-status issues such as borders and refugees, at the expense of incremental moves to build infrastructure, co-operation and confidence, had been disastrous.

Greece is not even trying anymore

Back to square one

by Wolf Richter

Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, while visiting Japan, summarized it eloquently when he said, "The financial aspect of the crisis is over." The ECB, despite any apparently fake German reservations, has jumped with both feet on the money printing bandwagon where it happily joins the Fed, the Bank of Japan, and other central banks around the world. The endless flow of money has started in the Eurozone, and Greek politicians, it now turns out, have figured this out.

A conflict of visions

It's All About Race Now

By Pat Buchanan

If it had been a white teenager who was shot, and a 28-year-old black guy who shot him, the black guy would have been arrested.

So assert those demanding the arrest of George Zimmerman, who shot and killed Trayvon Martin.

And they may be right.

Black life doesn't hold so much value in the region Trayvon was killed

Trayvon Martin had it coming ...

by Gary Gibson

We read those words to that effect from an article linked to by a libertarian website we visit very regularly.

"In Zimmerman's case, Martin was an athletic six-foot-two-inch tall football player that had him on his back pounding on him. Martin got what he deserved."

So wrote Paul Huebl, a former Chicago cop and proud member of the Screen Actors Guild.

We've tried to avoid having to write anything publicly about the shooting of Trayvon Martin. But we feel we must let our thoughts be known, if only in passing...

You see, dear patron, we spent a few years of our adolescence in the Central Florida town just south of where Trayvon was killed. We have some experience with being Black in that corner of the world.

The Sultan of Swing

Swingin’ Kennedy

By Mark Steyn

Since the retirement of Sandra Day O’Connor, Swingin’ Anthony Kennedy has been the swingingest swinger on the Supreme Court, the big Numero Cinco on all those 5–4 white-knuckle nail-biting final scores. So naturally Court observers have been paying close attention to his interventions in the Obamacare oral arguments. So far he doesn’t sound terribly persuaded by the administration’s line:

“The government is saying that the federal government has a duty to tell the individual citizen that it must act, and that is different from what we have in previous cases, and that changes the relationship of the federal government to the individual in a very fundamental way.” 

Human Achievement Hour

The gift of lighting

Light in North & South Korea

by Julie Kirsten Novak

It’s that time of year again when that rag‑tag coalition of conspicuously compassioned doctor’s wives, tambourining hippies still living as if they’re in the ‘60’s, ‘hug a whale’ do‑gooders, humanity =camphylobacter misanthropes, anti‑coal wowsers, and eco‑warriors brainwashed by standardised school curricula exhort the general public to replicate North Korea by turning off the lights for Earth Hour 2011.

The practical curiosity and problem-solving inclination of previous generations to seek to transform night into day, for mass convenience, started to produce real outcomes from 1800. The English chemist Humphry Davy connected two pieces of wire to a battery with a piece of charcoal between the ends of the wires. The carbon fragment glowed, producing light.