May 28, 2008

Foreign and domestic

Anyone raising their right hand on Earth Day, 1999 and promising to defend the constitution of the United States of America “against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” can bear witness, after seven years of observation, that no foreign enemies of the constitution appear to exist, inside or outside the USA, and that all enemies of the constitution, as of December 7, 2006, are domestic.

They include no less than three distinguished academics who launched campaigns in 2006 suggesting the traditional interpretation of the constitution was an invitation to suicide, and must be updated, and the abolition of Habeas Corpus in 2006 – US citizens now require clearance from Homeland Security before being allowed to leave the country, though they will not be aware that clearance has been given.

May 26, 2008

Hello, Planet Earth

The Earthling economics experiment By The Mogambo Guru

There was a message waiting for me from Zolgarg, Supreme Overlord of this sector of the galaxy. I put off opening it because communications from Galactic Command Central (GCC) are always a big hassle for me, and I am always torn between doing my usual lazy job by just making something up and taking the rest of the day off, or doing a really good job and maybe getting transferred off this stupid planet as my reward, thus allowing me to get away from a population of moronic people that actually believe such stupid crap as "everyone can make money by
investing for the long-term", "inflation should be above zero", and "the government can painlessly buy its way out of any mess it can make, just by creating the money to pay for it."

Finally, I knew that my delaying the inevitable was starting to look bad, so I opened it. What he wanted was the worst of all; a report on the economic situation on Earth, since Earthlings are of particular interest to economists throughout the universe, being that Earthlings are considered by advanced civilizations to be one of the rather lower-middle forms of life in the universe, in that many Earthlings, culminating in Ludwig von Mises and the Austrian school of economics, proved that the species has the intellect to conceive of the idea that excessive inflation in the money supply leads to inflation in consumer prices, which leads to social upheaval.

And the people of this planet have discovered universal reading and writing, and so they know from their own history books what happens to any idiot country that uses, and then abuses, a fiat money and bank debt until the sum total of debt becomes literally un-payable.

What makes Earthlings so interesting is ... Why don't they do what they know they should, especially since the freaking constitution of the United States of America requires that money be only of only silver and gold, so that a fiat currency would be impossible?

Of course, the next thing is ... How can we make a bet on it? And that is, I suspect, the essence of this latest message from Zolgarg, as rumor has it that he already has more Quatloons wagered than he can afford on when the economy collapses, and another big wad of Quatloons on the exact day the US government declares war on Iran so as to start World War III as a distraction to an angry, bankrupted citizenry and country, and we all figure that one day Zolgarg is going to find his bookie coming over there with a couple of goons and they will break off one of his tentacles.

I mean, it's no secret that that we know what will happen when you let a government allow the money supply be constantly expanded; disaster!

And everybody, even unto the farthest reaches of interstellar space, knows what happens when a government uses that money to expand itself, like now, when the federal, state and local governments now employ one out of seven workers and collectively spends one-half of GDP; disaster again!

But Zolgarg obviously overestimated the collective smarts of Earthlings in protesting with riots and recall elections, and underestimated the sheer degree of frantic desperation of the Federal Reserve and governments.

I tried to warn him that even John Maynard Keynes himself said that "Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent", but nobody listens to me, and neither did he.
But his answer is logical; if you're going to bet, you gotta go with the fundamentals, and so by virtue of a corrupt and intellectually bankrupt Federal Reserve perpetually lowering interest rates, using a fiat currency, using literally zero reserves in the banking system, with a complicit corrupt Congress (except Ron Paul), it is just a matter of time, and the payoff is knowing HOW much time!

None of this is going to help me, or him, but he is not going to believe me, and it just means more work for to write the stupid report.

In the end I reverted to my slug-like, worthless ways, and just sent him a copy of Jim Willie of the Hat Trick Letter saying, "The Bear Stearns and Fannie Mae stories are loud billboard statements that the United States is now MONETIZING BANKRUPTCY. A profound US dollar risk remains constant. The US system is now insolvent, from the US government to US economic trade to US banks to US households."

I added an Executive Summary of "Not yet, but soon, because we are freaking doomed!"
To hopefully lighten the mood, I included a cartoon by Dan Piraro at bizarro.com with my report, which shows a business executive explaining to his staff the downward-sloping graph on the wall behind him. He says, "I wouldn't say the ship is 'sinking', but the mast is broken, we're out of food and water, sharks are circling and the captain is insane." Hahahaha!

Richard Daughty is general partner and COO for Smith Consultant Group, serving the financial and medical communities, and the editor of The Mogambo Guru economic newsletter - an avocational exercise to heap disrespect on those who desperately deserve it.

(Republished with permission from The Daily Reckoning. Copyright 2008, The Daily Reckoning.)

May 18, 2008

Kung Fu in action

In April, in response to a man wielding an ax and demanding the contents of his cash register, the owner of Sam's Cigars in Vista, Calif., grabbed his wife and dashed out the front door, locking the man inside, where he made pleading gestures through the window until police arrived. [San Diego Union-Tribune, 4-16-08]

The next week in a suburb of Tampa, Fla., cafe owner Agustin De Jesus was asleep for the night in a back room but awakened by a break-in. He noticed that the thief had parked his SUV by the back door with the engine running for a quick getaway, so De Jesus hopped in, drove away and called police, who arrested Leonard Levy, 55, who is a candidate for life in prison based on his long record. [St. Petersburg Times, 4-22-08]

And the opposite, our technology

Brad Adams, 52, crashed his charter bus (carrying two dozen high school softball players, who had to be sent to a hospital) into a pedestrian bridge in Seattle's Washington Park Arboretum in April (bus: 11 feet, 8 inches high; bridge, 9 feet, 0 inches). Adams said he missed warning signs because he was busy following the navigation system. [Seattle Times, 4-17-08]

Five days after that, in King's Lynn, England, a Streamline taxi minibus had to be pulled from the River Nar after the driver, who said he was obediently following the navigation system instructions, drove straight into the water. [Lynn News, 4-23-08]

To an outsider, US instructions, of any kind on any subject, always seem to be aimed at an audience only just above the vegetable level, some kind of brain damaged quadriplegic, perhaps, and it could always happen that some scholarly and knowledgeable American – the place is full of them – says “Hey you think it was easy dumbing them down to this level? We’ve been at it for years.” and start reeling off the multiple methods of dumbing down the proles from (and probably before) the laws in the good ole south prescribing years of imprisonment for anyone who taught slaves to read and write. Hasn’t happened so far.

Just in case anyone should doubt the accuracy of this comment, here are some warning labels which you can check for yourself on the Michigan Law Suit Abuse Watch Web site:

Label on baby stroller – “Remove child before folding.”

Label on hair dryer – “Never use hair dryer while sleeping”

Label on carpenter’s electric drill – “This product is not intended for use as a dental drill.”

Label on bottle of drain cleaner – “If you do not understand, or cannot read, all directions, cautions and warnings, do not use this product.”

Label on laser printer cartridge – “Do not eat toner.”

Any where else in the world the person who spilled their just purchased cup of coffee on themselves would be ashamed of their own clumsiness and probably keep quiet about it. In the USA, as a recent law suit for millions of dollars illustrates, the coffee spiller can sue the cafĂ© for making the coffee too hot and not putting a warning label on it “This coffee is hot.” The reason seems clear – the US graduates ten lawyers for every one engineer (Japan graduates ten engineers for every lawyer) and Uncle Sam doesn’t like to see unemployment.

America’s wet dreams appear to result from the long sojourn in male cowboy frontiers, and male gold mining rushes, the absence of a wholesome family and clan life, and the consequent value of ladies of the night, and of girls with big tits. Delicious though these are, it’s time to grow up.

In June, the Oklahoma attorney general petitioned the state Supreme Court to remove District Judge Donald D. Thompson of Sapulpa based on recurring complaints that he used, during trials and other proceedings, under his robe, a pump device for enhancing masturbation, in view of court personnel, who complained of the "whooshing" noise the gadget made. News of the Weird, 7/18/04

Technical: - Ode to Spell Checker

Eye halve a spelling checker
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marks four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
My checker tolled me sew.

May 17, 2008

Get your war on

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May 14, 2008

The great psychobabble from Japan (courtesy Roushan)

The great psychobabble from Japan (courtesy of Roushan)

This is a personality classifying test, showing – usually with quite embarrassing accuracy – what is important and what is not important to the person taking the test. Since no one can charge a fee for using it, it is unlikely to be adopted by any government agency. It really works, however, and is far cheaper, making no money for anyone, than the standard government personality classifying test.

You are in the desert. Your aim, obviously, is to get out of the desert. You have with you five animals, a lion, a cow, a horse, a monkey, and a sheep.

To give yourself the best chance of getting out of the desert, which animal do you get rid of first? And which others would you get rid of next, in order, please.

(For US viewers only: Separate answer section from question section when using test.)

It’s a personality classifying test establishing what things are really important to the subject. The horse is passion. The lion is pride. The cow is your basic needs, food, shelter, and so on. The monkey is your children. The sheep is your friends.

May 2, 2008

The palace of your heart

President Ikeda's Guidance for April 24, 2008

If your fighting spirit is destroyed, the palace of your heart will also crumble into ruin. Just as water leaks from a damaged vessel, your benefits and good fortune will drain away. It is precisely because we want to prevent this from happening that we continue to encourage one another to fight on in our struggle.