Thursday, October 27, 2011
Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, October 27, 2011
Some videos are worthy of periodic re-airing - this is one of them.
(By the way... really cool "true" stereo recording...)
Oh... and speaking of messages that bear repeating...
You folks have simply got to read Mark Steyn's lastest tome, "After America: Get Ready for Armageddon".
Steyn is so right... and so... entertaining... while documenting the decline and fall of our once great nation with facts taken right out of Barker's Newsbites that the experience of reading his latest best seller is akin to watching a well made horror movie on DVD at home where you can pause and replay at your leisure!
Oh... and speaking of books...
Don't forget, folks... Pat Buchanan's latest - "Suicide of a Superpower" - is out now! I've already placed a "hold" on it at my local library, but I may break down and actually purchase a copy for myself rather than wait.
As regular readers know... like me, Pat Buchanan is usually right.
Folks... I'm begging you... don't simply piss away your hard earned money this Christmas and Chunukah on Chinese made crap! Buy books as gifts! Give them to young, impressionable skulls full of mush as well as to old, artery clogged sheeple you know and love (or who are simply on your gift list... er... because...) so as to hopefully educate them.
Perhaps it's too late to save America... but we've gotta try!
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http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/27/eu-greece-programme-idUSL5E7LR02120111027
Private owners of Greek bonds will accept a 50% write-down on their investment, enabling both a 100 billion euro cut in Greece's sovereign debts and allowing a new Greek program of aid of 100 billion euros, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday.
* RIDICULOUS! INSANE! CRIMINAL!
* LET THE PRIVATE OWNERS OF GREEK BONDS "ACCEPT" A 100% WRITE-OFF! FUCK 'EM! THERE'S SUCH A THING AS A BAD INVESTMENT AND THESE CLOWNS MADE IT. NOW LET 'EM FACE THE CONSEQUENCES!
* FOLKS... YOU DO UNDERSTAND THAT THIS LATEST GREEK BAILOUT IS FINANCED NOT JUST BY THE GERMANS AND OTHER EUROPEANS, BUT BY AMERICAN TAXPAYERS THROUGH OUR "CONTRIBUTIONS" TO THE INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND - RIGHT?! WE'RE BEING SUCKERED... AGAIN! (WHY IT WAS ONLY LAST YEAR THAT THE DEMS ASSURED US THAT WITH DODD-FRANK THE ERA OF BAILOUTS WAS OVER. THEY LIED!
"Our goal is that the debt of Greece by 2020 is 120% (of GDP)," Merkel told journalists after a meeting of euro zone leaders.
(*SNORT*)
* FOLKS... READ THE ABOVE QUOTE AGAIN IF YOU NEED TO. THIS IS WHAT THE GLOBALISTS CONSIDER "REASONABLE" AND "DOABLE."
* SO... THE U.S. GOVERNMENT (NEVERMIND THE STATES AND MUNICIPALITIES) BORROWS 43-CENTS OUT OF EVERY DOLLAR SPENT... AND ON TOP OF THIS OUR PRESIDENT AND OUR POLITICIANS WANT TO SUBSIDIZE GREEK (AND OTHER EUROPEAN AND WORLD) FINANCIAL IRRESPONSIBILITY. WOW... HARD TO IMAGINE HOW ANYTHING COULD "GO WRONG" WITH SUCH A... er... "SOPHISTICATED" ECONOMIC POLICY...
(*REACHING FOR THE PILLS*)
"A nominal haircut of 50% has been agreed. On the basis of this, we will have a new program for Greece with a value of 100 billion euros."
* THEY CAN'T AFFORD THEIR EXISTING DEBTS... AS FAR FORWARD AS 2020 THEY'RE EXPECTED TO RETAIN DEBT OF 120% OF GDP... AND THE BRIGHT IDEA OF THE GLOBALISTS IS TO... er... "LOAN" THEM ANOTHER 100 BILLION EUROS WHICH THEY'LL HAVE NO WAY OF REPAYING.
(*REACHING FOR THE BOOZE*)
She said the public sector would make a further 30 billion euro contribution towards private sector participation.
(*STIRRING THE PILLS INTO THE BOOZE*)
Merkel also said that Greece would be subject to closer supervision in future. "There will be a reinforced monitoring regime in connection with the fulfillment of the Greek obligations," she said.
* OH... WELL... THEN IN THAT CASE...
(*CHUGGING THE MIXTURE OF BARBITURATES AND SCOTCH*)
http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2011/10/27/begging_pleading_for_the_abolishment_of_gross_domestic_product_99327.html
[I]t's time to abolish GDP because its existence as the accepted measure of economic activity means that we cannot achieve the necessary reforms that would really allow our economy to grow.
With so much of our economy directed towards work of little to no economic value, but which ultimately factors into the GDP calculation, we're restrained from doing what we need to do to truly advance ourselves.
[W]hat often drives GDP up is far from something that would be considered economically stimulative.
* HE'S TALKING ABOUT INFLATION.
* YEP... FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO DON'T KNOW HOW GDP IS CALCULATED, PLEASE NOTE: IF ONE WEEK YOU SPEND $6.99/lb. FOR YOUR FAVORITE COLD CUT AND THE NEXT WEEK (EVEN THOUGH YOUR SALARY HASN'T GONE UP) YOU'RE ASKED TO PAY $7.99/lb. FOR THE EXACT SAME PURCHASE... THE GOVERNMENT VIEWS THIS AS "GROWTH IN THE ECONOMY" AND THE MEDIA SPIN IS THAT "GROWTH IS GOOD!"
(*HEADACHE*)
Indeed, government measures of inflation are notoriously slow to pick up on the horrors of dollar devaluation, but when devaluation leads to higher prices, GDP increases.
* OH... AND THERE'S MORE! (READ ON!)
Government spending, for the latter having no resources that it hasn't first extracted from the private sector also boosts GDP!
(*BANGING MY HEAD AGAINST THE DESK*)
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903927204576574433454435452.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
* LABEL UNDER: "ONE... MORE... FRIGG'N... TIME..."
Occupy Wall Street is denouncing banks and Wall Street for "selling toxic mortgages" while "screwing investors and homeowners."
* UH-HUH.
And the federal government recently announced it will be suing mortgage originators whose low-quality underwriting standards produced ballooning losses for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
* UH-HUH.
[N]o doubt that reductions in mortgage-underwriting standards were at the heart of the sub-prime crisis, and Fannie and Freddie's losses reflect those declining standards. Yet...
* WAIT FOR IT...! WAIT FOR IT...!
...the decline in underwriting standards was largely a response to mandates, beginning in the Clinton administration, that required Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to steadily increase their mortgages or mortgage-backed securities that targeted low-income or minority borrowers and "underserved" locations.
* YES! YES...!!! YES... YES... YES...!!!
* AND ACTUALLY... IF MEMORY SERVES... IT REALLY BEGAN UNDER CARTER - CLINTON ONLY ACCELERATED THE SCOPE AND REACH OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT'S POLITICALLY CORRECT PRESSURING FOR (RATHER THAN AGAINST!) EXTENSION OF MORAL HAZARD!
The turning point was the spring and summer of 2004. Fannie and Freddie had kept their exposures low to loans made with little or no documentation (no-doc and low-doc loans), owing to their internal risk-management guidelines that limited such lending. In early 2004, however, senior management realized that the only way to meet the political mandates was to massively cut underwriting standards.
(*SHRUG*)
* WE KNOW ALL THIS! (AT LEAST I AND OTHER INFORMED PEOPLE KNOW ALL THIS.) WHY IT'S NOT COMMONLY UNDERSTOOD IS DUE TO A BIASED, PARTISAN, UNPROFESSIONAL, AND FRANKLY INCOMPETENT MEDIA (AND ACADEMIA!).
* To be continued...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
[Liberal ideology and democrat] politics - not shortsightedness or incompetent risk managers - drove Freddie Mac to eliminate its previous limits on no-doc lending.
Commenting on what others referred to as the "push to do more affordable lending]business," Senior Vice President Robert Tsien wrote to Dick Syron on July 14, 2004: "Tipping the scale in favor of no cap [on no-doc lending] at this time was the pragmatic consideration that, under the current circumstances, a cap would be interpreted by external critics as additional proof we are not really committed to affordable lending."
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
* FOLKS... I STRONGLY URGE YOU TO READ THE FULL PIECE; IT COMES COMPLETE WITH OTHER DAMNING EMAIL EXCERPTS FROM FANNIE AND FREDDIE INSIDERS.
The decision by Fannie and Freddie to embrace no-doc lending in 2004 opened the floodgates of bad credit.
In 2003, for example, total subprime and Alt-A mortgage originations were $395 billion. In 2004, they rose to $715 billion. By 2006, they were more than $1 trillion.
* AND HERE'S THE KICKER, FOLKS: WHICH PARTY CONTROLLED THE WHITE HOUSE AND BOTH HOUSES OF CONGRESS IN 2003? IN 2004? IN 2006? (YOU GOT IT... THE RINO REPUBLICAN PARTY!)
[I'f the mortgage-underwriting standards at Fannie and Freddie circa 2003 had remained in place, nothing like the magnitude of the subprime crisis would have occurred.
* FOLKS... YES... THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE IMPETUS OF THESE INSANE POLICIES STARTED WITH CARTER AND ACCELERATED WITH CLINTON... BUT... WHEN REPUBLICANS CONTROLLED THE WHITE HOUSE AND BOTH HOUSES OF CONGRESS... AUTO-PILOT.
* AGAIN... IN ALL SERIOUSNESS... ABSENT VIOLENCE - ABSENT KILLING A FEW OF THE "MOVERS AND SHAKERS" IN ORDER TO PUT THE FEAR OF GOD INTO THE REST... WHAT'S THE ANSWER? THE HISTORY STARING US IN THE FACE HERE TELLS US THAT "DEMOCRACY" - THAT MOVING THE DECK CHAIRS AROUND THE TITANIC - ISN'T GOING TO STOP THE "MOVERS AND SHAKERS" FROM "MOVING" THE COUNTRY OVER THE CLIFF AND "SHAKING" ALL OF US DOWN.
Taxpayer losses at Fannie and Freddie alone may exceed $300 billion. The costs of the financial collapse and recession brought on by the mortgage bust are immeasurably higher.
(*HEADACHE*)
Unfortunately, the Obama administration has perpetuated the low underwriting standards that gave us the crisis and encouraged the postponement of foreclosures by lending support to various states' efforts to sue originators for robo-signing violations.
* SEE... WHAT... I... MEAN...?!?!
Now [the Obama administration is] trying to deflect blame from Fannie and Freddie by suing the originators who fulfilled the politically motivated demands of the government-sponsored agencies that drove the mortgage crisis.
(*THROWING MY ARMS INTO THE AIR*)
If successful, all of those efforts will further postpone the ability of banks to grow the supply of credit, and they will sow the seeds of the next mortgage bust.
* I TRULY FEAR THAT VIOLENCE IS THE ONLY ANSWER... (AND SINCE LIFE ISN'T A TOM CLANCY OR VINCE FLYNN NOVEL... ALL VIOLENCE IS GONNA DO IS LEAD TO MORE VIOLENCE.)
* FOLKS... OUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN ARE SCREWED!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203554104576655052604890180.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
People are occupying Wall Street, blaming capitalism, speculation and greed [for our current economic situation], but rare is the analysis that traces all these problems back to the structural change in money that was brought about in the early 1970s.
* SO READ ON AND GET THAT ANALYSIS!
1971 was the year that the Nixon administration killed the gold standard, and along with it Bretton Woods and hard currencies...
[I]n the early 1980s, financial deregulation in many countries removed the last major barriers to virtually unlimited amounts of credit...
[T]he 1990s was the decade when the drive to suppress interest rates became the common policy of central banks around the world.
Since the 1990s, we have seen that money and credit instruments worldwide have grown more rapidly than revenue, even adjusting for current prices. From this came the formation of pockets of excessive liquidity and speculative bubbles which later turned into a series of solvency and confidence crises that have spread and followed one another over the years.
A first crisis took place in the 1970s until the early 1980s and was related to the sudden sharp rises in oil prices. Subsequently, there was a series of crises in the developing world, for example, the first crisis in Mexico in the 1980s and those in Brazil, Russia and Korea, and then again in Mexico in the 1990s as well as in Thailand and Argentina.
The speculative bubble in real estate and the recent financial crisis have the very same origin in the excessive amount of money and the plethora of financial instruments globally.
* YES! YES THEY DO...!!!
We went from a hard-money regime, in which there were restrictions on the power of central banks and financial institutions to create money and credit, to one where money became purely paper. There were no restrictions remaining on the power of governments to finance unlimited debt. Banks could create credit seemingly without limit. Central banks became the real power in the world economy.
* BER-NANK-E! BER-NANK-E! BER-NANK-E! BER-NANK-E! BER-NANK-E!
None of this was true under a gold standard. That system limits the expansion of credit by an indelible physical fact. There was a limit, a check, a rule that went beyond the whim of financial masters and politicians.
(*SOLEMN NOD*)
http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/EURO-CLIMBS-TO-FRESH-SEVEN-targetukfocus-3642931473.html?x=0
EURO CLIMBS TO FRESH SEVEN-WEEK PEAK VS DOLLAR
(*SNORT*)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/27/markets-forex-idUSN1E79Q09R20111027
The dollar, which has hit a string of record lows this week against the yen, fell to a new low on Thursday...
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/27/markets-forex-swiss-idUSN1E79Q0UP20111027
The dollar fell more than 2% against the Swiss franc on Thursday...
* SO, FOLKS... ABOUT THAT RISE IN GDP... (*GUFFAW*)
* EXPECT OIL TO START HEADING BACK UP...
http://www.politico.com/politico44/perm/1011/houston_fundraiser_drama_6cccc297-f2cd-4cc6-a869-28e72d10b851.html
An upcoming Houston fundraiser featuring first lady Michelle Obama at the home of a former Enron executive who is part of a movement to convert public pensions to 401(k)-style plans is angering some local Democrats.
* FROM THIS GUY'S MOUTH TO GOD'S EAR! YES! OF COURSE! CONVERTING UNTENABLE, UNSUPPORTABLE PUBLIC PENSIONS TO 401(K) PLANS IS THE ONLY VIABLE OPINION AVAILABLE... SO NO WONDER MANY LOCAL DEMS ARE... er... "ANGERED."
John Arnold, a Houston billionaire and former Enron trader, is hosting the Michelle Obama event with his wife, Laura Arnold, at their Houston home on Nov. 1.
Arnold is part of an organization pushing to convert public pensions - including teachers, police, firefighters and others - to 401(k)-style plans. The effort launched in California but has plans to go nationwide, according to a story by Bloomberg. The story notes that Arnold is a libertarian and his wife a Democrat.
* AGAIN... THIS ARNOLD GUY HAS THE RIGHT IDEA!
The Obama campaign told POLITICO that Arnold is a supporter and said the Nov. 1 fundraiser is still on the schedule. Tickets for the event start at $10,000, and co-host level contributions are $35,800.
(*SNORT*)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-drone-base-in-ethiopia-is-operational/2011/10/27/gIQAznKwMM_story.html
The Air Force has been secretly flying armed Reaper drones on counter-terrorism missions from a remote civilian airport in southern Ethiopia as part of a rapidly expanding U.S.-led proxy war against an al-Qaeda affiliate in East Africa, U.S. military officials said.
The Air Force has invested millions of dollars to upgrade an airfield in Arba Minch, Ethiopia, where it has built a small annex to house a fleet of drones that can be equipped with Hellfire missiles and satellite-guided bombs. The Reapers began flying missions earlier this year over neighboring Somalia, where the United States and its allies in the region have been targeting al-Shabab, a militant Islamist group connected to al-Qaeda.
* SOMALIA... WHERE THE PIRATES ARE... WHERE THE PIRATES ENJOY SAFE HAVEN...
* WHY ARE WE NOT TAKING THE PIRATES OUT...??? THE PIRATES ARE A CLEAR THREAT TO COMMERCE AND THUS AMERICAN COMMERCIAL AND ECONOMIC INTERESTS AS WELL AS A FORCE WHICH HAS IN THE PAST KIDNAPPED AND EVEN KILLED INNOCENT AMERICANS...YET... AFTER "INVESTING" MILLIONS OF DOLLARS AND TREATING SOMALIA AS IF IT HAS NO NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY WE'RE NOT GONNA TAKE OUT THE PIRATES...??? DOES THIS MAKE SENSE TO ANYONE...???
Mindful of the 1993 “Black Hawk Down” debacle in which two U.S. military helicopters were shot down in the Somali capital of Mogadishu and 18 Americans killed, the Obama administration has sought to avoid deploying troops in the country.
* BY WHAT RIGHT DOES THE PRESIDENT UNILATERALLY SEND TROOPS TO FIGHT IN FOREIGN LANDS WITHOUT AT THE VERY LEAST SPECIFIC CONGRESSIONAL APPROVAL? FOLKS... UNDERSTAND... THE CONSTITUTION IS MEANINGLESS TO OBAMA AND INDEED TO MOST OF THE WASHINGTON ELITE OF BOTH PARTIES.
The Washington Post reported last month that the Obama administration is building a constellation of secret drone bases in the Arabian Peninsula and Horn of Africa, including one site in Ethiopia. The location of the Ethiopian base and the fact that it became operational this year, however, have not been previously disclosed. Some bases in the region also have been used to carry out operations against the al-Qaeda affiliate in Yemen.
* SO THEY SAY... (*SHRUG*)
http://paul.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1920:tsa-releases-vipr-venom-on-tennessee-highways&catid=62:texas-straight-talk&Itemid=69
* BY THE HON. CONGRESSMAN RON PAUL (R-TX)
If you thought the “Transportation Security Administration” would limit itself to conducting unconstitutional searches at airports, think again.
The agency intends to assert jurisdiction over our nation’s highways, waterways, and railroads as well.
TSA launched a new campaign of random checkpoints on Tennessee highways last week, complete with a sinister military-style acronym - VIP(E)R - as a name for the program.
As with TSA’s random searches at airports, these roadside searches are not based on any actual suspicion of criminal activity or any factual evidence of wrongdoing whatsoever by those detained.
They are, in effect, completely random.
So first we are told by the U.S. Supreme Court that American citizens have no 4th amendment protections at border crossings, even when standing on U.S. soil. now TSA takes the next logical step and simply detains and searches U.S. citizens at wholly internal checkpoints.
(*SHRUG*)
The slippery slope is here.
When does it end?
How many more infringements on our liberties, our property, and our basic human rights to travel freely will it take before people become fed up enough to demand respect from their government? When will we demand that the government heed obvious constitutional limitations, and stop treating ordinary Americans as criminal suspects in the absence of probable cause?
The real tragedy occurs when Americans incrementally become accustomed to this treatment on the roads just as they have become accustomed to it in the airports. We already accept arriving at the airport two or more hours before a flight to get through security; will we soon have to build in an extra two or three hours into our road trips to allow for checkpoint traffic?
http://www.cnbc.com/id/45063296
Republicans in the U.S. Congress are calling for $2.2 trillion in deficit-reduction cuts, including significant cuts to [unaffordable] healthcare programs for the elderly and poor, along with tax changes that they argue would boost the economy...
(*CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)
* ONE... MORE... TIME... (*PAUSE*)... THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT CURRENTLY BORROWS 43-CENTS OF EVERY DOLLAR IT SPENDS ON DAY TO DAY OPERATING EXPENSES!
* BEFORE YOU GET TOO EXCITED, THOUGH... (*PAUSE*) (*SMIRK*)... THIS IS A CALL FOR A CUT OF $2.2 TRILLION OVER 10 YEARS... MEANING $220 MILLION A YEAR... MEANING... (*SIGH*)... (*PAUSE*)... PLUS... NO DOUBT THE PROPOSED CUTS ARE BACK-LOADED.
The plan offered by Republicans, who serve on a congressional "super committee" tasked with slashing deficits, calls for cuts to the [unaffordable as presently constituted] Medicare and Medicaid health programs for the poor and elderly and other health and welfare programs.
* HEY... DIDN'T CLINTON SUPPOSEDLY END "WELFARE AS WE KNEW IT?"
In contrast to a Democratic plan that has an almost even balance between spending cuts and tax increases, House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner told reporters the focus should be almost exclusively on cutting benefit programs.
* AND BOEHNER IS RIGHT! THE TAX SYSTEM MUST BE REFORMED - BUT THE PROBLEM IS TOO MUCH SPENDING, NOT ENOUGH TAXATION.
Boehner also rejected the idea of additional defense spending cuts.
* AND THERE HE'S WRONG. (*SHRUG*)
Congressional aides...said the Republican proposal has $785 billion in mandatory spending cuts, including $500 billion for Medicare, $185 billion for Medicaid and $100 billion for other health programs.
* GOOD! THE MORE CUTS THE BETTER! AGAIN, FOLKS... THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT CURRENTLY BORROWS 43-CENTS OF EVERY DOLLAR IT SQUANDERS... er... SPENDS!
There are an additional $400 billion in spending cuts for other mandatory spending programs that include government retirement programs and food stamps, according to other aides.
(*CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)
* FAR TOO MANY PEOPLE ARE ON FOOD STAMPS. ENOUGH!
The proposal also includes a...plan to change the way annual benefit increases are calculated for Social Security and other government programs to reflect a lower rate of inflation than the current formula.
* GOOD! EXPOSE SENIORS AND WELFARE RECIPIENTS TO THE REALITY OF INFLATION AS EXPERIENCED BY THE REST OF US!
The Republican plan calls for tax changes, but would dedicate any revenues generated by closing tax loopholes and other breaks to reducing overall income tax rates...
* LISTEN... (*SIGH*)... YOU FOLKS KNOW MY VIEWS ON HOW WE SHOULD REFORM TAXATION. (*SHRUG*)
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