Uniformity

Quote by Friedrich August von Hayek: Everything which might cause doubt about the wi...: "“Everything which might cause doubt about the wisdom of the government or create discontent will be kept from the people. The basis of unfavorable comparisons with elsewhere, the knowledge of possible alternatives to the course actually taken, information which might suggest failure on the part of the government to live up to its promises or to take advantage of opportunities to improve conditions--all will be suppressed. There is consequently no field where the systematic control of information will not be practiced and uniformity of views not enforced.”

― Friedrich A. von Hayek, The Road to Serfdom"

Smile for the drones. Both in front of and above you.

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Feeling Protected Yet?

Benghazi Blowback - By Michael Walsh - The Corner - National Review Online: "But unless this country has completely gone to the dogs, it’s inconceivable to me that a majority can stomach the notion that four Americans were murdered on sovereign American territory while the president of the United States took note, then rolled over and went to bed before flying to Las Vegas on a campaign swing, secure in the knowledge that the truth would never come out because it didn’t fit his media protectors’ beloved “narrative” that GM was alive and Osama bin Laden was dead.

But it’s not supposed to be the IC’s function to protect the executive’s reputation — it’s supposed to protect the country."

Binders, Big Bird, birth control and blame Bush. Those are the most important things...

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Surrender Your Dignity

Moonbattery » Open Thread: "Via The People’s Cube, on a tip from TED."

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The Welfare Cliff

It Doesn’t Pay to Work | Power Line: "[I]t is now more lucrative – in the form of actual disposable income – to sit, do nothing, and collect various welfare entitlements, than to work. This is graphically, and very painfully confirmed, in the below chart from Gary Alexander, Secretary of Public Welfare, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (a state best known for its broke capital Harrisburg). As quantitied, and explained by Alexander, “the single mom is better off earning gross income of $29,000 with $57,327 in net income & benefits than to earn gross income of $69,000 with net income and benefits of $57,045.“

This chart, created by the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare, explains the calculation:"

We are constantly told that it is difficult to find any state or federal spending that can possibly be cut. This suggestion is, I think, ludicrous. Let’s start by cutting welfare, and cutting it deeply. Not only because it is wasteful, but because by devaluing work it threatens to cripple not merely our economy, but our culture. An America where you are better off cashing welfare checks than working is an America that cannot long survive.

And we won't.

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You're Being Gamed

Column: Are we living in the Hunger Games?: "Washington is rich not because it makes valuable things, but because it is powerful. With virtually everything subject to regulation, it pays to spend money influencing the regulators. As P.J. O'Rourke famously observed: "When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators." But it's not just bags-of-cash style corruption. Most of the D.C. boom is from lobbyists and PR people, and others who are retained to influence what the government does. It's a cold calculation: You're likely to get a much better return from an investment of $1 million on lobbying than on a similar investment in, say, a new factory or better worker training.

So Washington gets fat, and it does so on money taken from the rest of the country: Either directly, in the form of taxes, or indirectly in the form of money that otherwise would have gone to that factory or training program.

I'm not the only one to notice this, or even to make the Hunger Games analogy. As Ross Douthat wrote, "There aren't tributes from Michigan and New Mexico fighting to the death in Dupont Circle just yet. But it doesn't seem like a sign of national health that America's political capital is suddenly richer than our capitals of manufacturing and technology and finance, or that our leaders are more insulated than ever from the trends buffeting the people they're supposed to serve.""

Du'O. RTWT.

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Those Stupid Wingnuts ... Not

Does this mean it’s now okay to say that Obama is a redistributionist? | Power Line: "With the reelection of President Obama secured, Washington Post economics reporter Zachary Goldfarb finally identifies “the bedrock belief that has driven the president for decade” (or Obama’s “driving force,” per the web edition). That bedrock belief is that the power of the federal government must be used reduce income inequality in America. According to Goldfarb, Obama formed this belief as a child and young adult living abroad, where he observed, in Obama’s words, “the vast disparity in wealth between those who are part of the power structure and those who are outside of it.” (Apparently, Obama has been unable to distinguish the situation in the U.S. from that of Indonesia in the 1970s)."

RTWT. The liar behind the curtain revealed.

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From My Inbox: Ode To The Welfare State

Click to enlarge and read:

Plus ca change...

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That Stupid Gipper

Ace of Spades HQ: "Missile defense systems 1, liberal scientist critics 0. Advantage: Reality."

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Kyle Bass On The End Of The Debt Super-Cycle

Kyle Bass On The End Of The Debt Super-Cycle | ZeroHedge: "From his belief in the possibility of ongoing rate compression in developed nations and negative nominal yields in more than just Germany and Switzerland, Bass expounds on the structure of his fund (funding via low-duration 'high'-yield vehicles along with a long-short equity book and the core 'convex' Japan credit book) and how his template is playing out... must watch"

Super. And super ugly.

Oh. And if you work at it for the next 100 years you could never have the financial mastery he has in his little finger.

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With "Friends" Like This...

Senate bill rewrite lets feds read your e-mail without warrants | Politics and Law - CNET News: "Leahy's rewritten bill would allow more than 22 agencies -- including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Communications Commission -- to access Americans' e-mail, Google Docs files, Facebook wall posts, and Twitter direct messages without a search warrant. It also would give the FBI and Homeland Security more authority, in some circumstances, to gain full access to Internet accounts without notifying either the owner or a judge.

It's an abrupt departure from Leahy's earlier approach, which required police to obtain a search warrant backed by probable cause before they could read the contents of e-mail or other communications. The Vermont Democrat boasted last year that his bill "provides enhanced privacy protections for American consumers by... requiring that the government obtain a search warrant.""

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Best Buds

AP’s Lee Eviscerates State Department - By Nathaniel Botwinick - The Corner - National Review Online: "Associated Press reporter Matthew Lee had a spirited argument with the State Department’s Victoria Nuland today over the administration’s refusal to condemn Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan’s labeling of Israel a “terrorist state.”"

And who would be one of Obama's few best buds among world leaders? Why, yes, that would be Recip of course.

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Relegated To Time's Investment Section Of Course...

Investment Advice as the U.S. Approaches a Fiscal Cliff | TIME.com: "If a country runs a deficit (as a percentage of GDP) that is equal to its growth rate, the debt level will remain constant. This year U.S. GDP will be a little less than $16 trillion, and its historical growth rate is 3.25%. That works out to what we might call a “safe” deficit of $520 billion, or even $600 billion if you allow for a little inflation. Last year, however, the U.S. deficit was $1.1 trillion — or roughly $500 billion too much.

That gap could be closed by ending all tax cuts, tax breaks and stimulus payments for everyone, according to the Tax Policy Center. But two-thirds of the burden would fall on the middle class — something both political parties want to avoid. All the proposed tax increases on the wealthy, however, even combined with the end of the payroll-tax cut, would raise only $295 billion. So unless there were spending cuts twice as big as the ones currently scheduled, the deficit would still be too large."

... so it will remain unread by libs! Did I forget to mention Haavaad Maath?

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Graham: The Parrot Is Dead

One and One-Half Cheers For Lindsey Graham (with comment by Paul) | Power Line: "SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC; Armed Services Committee): Well, I think one of the reasons that Susan Rice told the story she did, if the truth came out a few weeks before the election that our consulate in Benghazi, Libya, had been overrun by an al Qaeda sponsored or affiliated militia, that destroys the narrative we’ve been hearing for months that al Qaeda has been dismantled, bin Laden is dead, we’re safer. And Susan Rice just did not say it was a result of a mob spawned by a video like Cairo. She actually said on Face The Nation, “I want to remind the American people this president promised to go after bin Laden, refocus on al Qaeda. He got bin Laden. Al Qaeda has been dismantled.” And the truth of the matter is nothing could’ve been further from the truth, and the story she told reinforced a political narrative helpful to the president, but disconnected from reality."

Dead, dead, dead. Dead.

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Forgive Us For Not Arresting Those Truly Responsible For This Crisis: Bankers & Politicians

Protesting Spanish Cops: "Forgive Us For Not Arresting Those Truly Responsible For This Crisis: Bankers & Politicians" | ZeroHedge: "Yesterday, in what is an appetizer to the great 2013 convergence trade (that, between the now thoroughly dead Greek and the Spanish economy, which is rapidly getting there, of course), several thousand Spanish policemen took the streets of Madrid protesting the latest round of austerity, which included frozen pensions and the elimination of the Christmas bonus (they will have many more opportunities to protest not only the loss of any future upside, but the eventual cut of existing wages and entitlements). As RT reports, protesters blew whistles, shouted slogans, and carried anti-austerity banners as they marched through the city centre to the interior ministry. But perhaps the most telling message read on one of the slogans, was the following: "Citizens! Forgive us for not arresting those truly responsible for this crisis: bankers and politicians."

And there you have the entire current clusterfuck summarized in one simple sentence: because as long as those responsible for the ongoing economic collapse, which will inevitably end in war as many have observed, Kyle Bass most recently, are not only not arrested but preserve their positions of power, any and all change will merely be cosmetic and any real change will only affect the bank accounts of the global middle class which are slowly but surely drained to zero."

Yeppers. They don't call him Zero for nothing.  As in the middle class will end up with zero by the time that he's done.  And will still be voting for him gladly from their mud huts.  Because, well, he so coooool!

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It Begins

Rockets over Tel Aviv - YouTube: "Watch the sky as the Iron Dome shoots down a rocket over Tel Aviv."

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ZerO

Newsalert: In 37 Chicago Precincts, Romney Received No Votes: "In critical swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois there are a lot of precincts in Philadelphia, Cleveland, and Chicago which reported 100% of their votes cast for Obama. These add up to many 10's of thousands of votes for Obama and 0 for Romney. I repeat, 0 for Romney. I have read a number of articles about this and people knowlegable in Political Science and Statistics are starting to take notice of this.Statistically, even if among 10's of thousands of voters all wanted to vote for Obama, it would not be possible to receive 100% of the vote because at least a few would make a mistake and vote incorrectly for Romney. Not to mention the fact that a least a few of those 10's of thousands might actually disagree with Obama. These types of election returns are only seen in countries run by dictators."

Nada. Zip. Zilch. ZerO. Move along folks, nothing to see here...

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Goats Have The Last Laffer

RealClearMarkets - Goat Economics: Why the Laffer Curve Is No Joke: "Since raising goats is a rather simple economic activity, it is easy to model the impact of taxation on goat farming. Assuming the government comes and takes various numbers of the new goats (income) each year in goat taxes, one can easily calculate the impact of the size of the herd, and ultimately how much total revenue the government would receive over 10 years at various tax rates. It turns out that the optimum tax rate is in the 20-30% range to maximize total 10 year revenue. The reason the tax revenue drops above a 30% rate is simple. If the government takes more new goats in taxes, the goat farmer has fewer goats to breed the following year."

It's rocket science I tell ya...

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COTD: Shrugging

Belmont Club » Osama bin Laden is Dead and So Are Ho Hos: "9. Doug Fed Ex Driver calls Miller show to tell his story of following Dennis’s advice to “Shrug:”

After delivering an Obamaphone to a home sporting a High-End BMW for their mode of transport, he signed up for foodstamps to buy all the high-end items he was heretofore unable to afford.

…A gift to and from our children. (esp those who yearn to live in Greece.)"

Why not when you can get $60K a year -- minus the bureaucratic graft O course...

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Breaking The NYeT News Blockade

A picture you will never see.. | Power Line: "A PICTURE YOU WILL NEVER SEE.. …on BBC or CNN. Found on Twitter’s #Gaza hashtag, the photo below of “Israeli soldiers helping Palestinian kids escape the rockets from Gaza.”"

And normal humans know what would happen to Israeli children unlucky enough to be in Gaza. It makes me shiver.

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Wall Street Dumb

Human Beings Are Getting Dumber, Says Study | TIME.com: "The urbanization that followed the development of agriculture simplified survival by removing some of its challenges, which likely weakened natural selection’s ability to eliminate mutations associated with deficiencies in intelligence. Crabtree estimates that over the last 3,000 years (about 120 generations), humans have sustained at least two mutations that have eroded our intellectual and emotional intelligence. “A hunter-gatherer who did not correctly conceive a solution to providing food or shelter probably died, along with his or her progeny, whereas a modern Wall Street executive that made a similar conceptual mistake would receive a substantial bonus and be a more attractive mate,” Crabtree wrote in the paper. He also noted that the average Athenian from 1000 B.C. would rank among the smartest and most emotionally stable in today’s society."

Ain't that the truth.

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