Month: September 2011

Revolt of the Tax Slaves

Mark Noonan24 Comments

From Der Speigel:

The people who could ultimately give Greece the coup de grace are not the kind to throw stones or Molotov cocktails, and they have yet to torch any cars. Instead, they are people like 60-year-old beverage distributor Angelos Belitsakos, people who might soon turn into a real problem for the economically unstable country. Feeling cornered, he and other private business owners want to go on the offensive. But instead fighting with weapons, they are using something much more dangerous. They are fighting with money.

Belitsakos is a short, slim and alert man who lives in the middle-class Athenian suburb of Holargos. He is also the physical and spiritual leader of a movement of businesspeople in Greece that is recruiting new members with growing speed. While Greece’s government is desperately trying to combat its ballooning budget deficit by raising taxes and imposing new fees, people like Belitsakos are putting their faith in passive resistance.

The group’s slogan is as simple as it is stoic: “We Won’t Pay.”…

Greece, like all socialist countries is, of course, over run by moochers.  People who, by one means or another, get all or most of their income via government funding.  Whether its by special tax breaks, government employment or direct welfare payments, a huge number of people (and perhaps a majority, once you total it all up) in Europe either don’t work at all, or don’t work much, or don’t work at anything which creates wealth…but they still manage to live pretty well.  And, meanwhile, it is people like Mr. Belitsakos who have been paying for it all.  And now that Greece’s socialist fantasy has come economically crashing down, the government wants people like Mr. Belitsakos to pony up even more.  And a revolt is brewing.

Do keep in mind that those people you remember rioting from time to time in Greece (and Britain and Spain…and soon to spread elsewhere in Europe) were not hard working, middle class people…they were the moochers who are ticked off that even a small amount of their welfare is being cut.  Around the world a revolution is brewing…those who are hard working, play by the rules and try to do the right thing are starting to wake up and shake off those who have lived off them for nigh on a century.  There won’t be much room for either a George Soros to manipulate governments to make billions, nor for the welfare bum who runs riot when his stipend is cut.

While there is no way for us to shake off our moral responsibility to those who cannot work through no fault of their own, we must all admit that this moral obligation has been much abused.  A gigantic amount of money is siphoned away from the productive in the name of helping the less fortunate, but we know where a large amount (possibly a majority) of it goes:  to over paid bureaucrats, crony-capitalists and people who could darn well work, but choose not to.  The moochers have, by this point, driven us in to bankruptcy…and their only real answer is to demand more from us…and to take it by taxing it, or by devaluing the currency, which steals the wealth we’ve already created.

You know that things are changing when even in socialist Europe, something akin to the TEA Party emerges.  This will be quite an interesting decade, I’m thinking.

HAT TIP:  Dan Mitchell

Germany Wants 50% Default for Greece

Mark Noonan3 Comments

From Zero Hedge:

…the debt rollover plan has imploded and means that the entire Greek bailout has collapsed as some had expected. And now that it is clear that contagion is threatening to sweep through the core, it is back to Germany to prevent the gangrene, no longer contagion, from advancing beyond the PIIGS. However, in order to prevent a full out revolution, Germany’s economic elite has said it would agree to an EFSF expansion and hence installation of European firewall, but at a price: a “controlled” default by Greece and 50% haircuts for private bondholders (as German banks have long since offloaded their Greek bonds).

This means that “Lehman” is indeed here: just like back in 2008 Paulson et al thought they could contain the adverse effects of a Lehman bankruptcy, while the financial system ground to a halt 4 days later when money market funds broke the buck, so now Greece is somehow expected to remain in the eurozone even as it files bankruptcy…

The bottom line appears to be that the Europeans need to come up with $2 trillion to keep their financial system afloat – that is, to keep the bad news confined to the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain) and keep it out of France. What Germany seems to want – and it is reasonable – is an end to the Greek problem.  That if this is going to happen, it happens once and for all.  The Greek bondholders lose 50%, Greece gets bailed out…and hopefully Greece manages to get its finances in order sufficiently to service the rest of their debt.

The trouble is whether or not bailing out Greece – even with a 50% “haircut” for bondholders – will really do the trick.  Greece is pretty small potatoes as far as the Eurzone economy goes.  Looming gigantically larger are Spain and Italy.  As far as I can determine, both of those nations are already fundamentally bankrupt and cannot rely upon the private economy to service their debt as their bonds come due.  The only entity out there with the willingness to heavily purchase Spanish and Italian bonds would be the European Central Bank, or whatever financial bail out structure the Europeans come up with.  And where does the money come for that? From the Germans who will have already bailed out Greece and have no spare money left?  From the European Central Bank printing up a bucket of money?  Where?

It is the lack of real money – someone out there with trillions not already committed to some other enterprise – which makes me figure all these efforts to avert collapse are meaningless in an economic sense.  In a political sense, they may help the Ruling Class (European and American) ride out the political storm now through 2013.  The cost will be enormous, but such things never disturb people who are rich, in charge and determined to stay that way.

 

So Much for “Frontrunners”: Cain Wins FL Straw Poll

Mark Noonan28 Comments

From the Washington Times:

Former Godfather Pizza CEO Herman Cain won the Presidency 5 straw poll here Saturday, delivering a blow to Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s frontrunner status and a victory for a candidate who has struggled to transform his grassroots popularity into strong showings in national polls.

“Tonight’s winner is Herman Cain,” Florida Gov. Rick Scott announced. “It shows you something, the road to the White House come through Florida, and it pays to spend time here.”

He received 37 percent of the more than 2,600 votes cast…

Lots of people will say lots of things about this and some of them will be quite well-informed and illuminating.  I’ll say this:  victory in the GOP nomination will go to the guy (or gal) who gets the most votes…no one really knows how it will come out or who will win.  This may be a flash in the pan for Cain (though I think it reflects a reservoir of good will for him in the GOP electorate), but it clearly shows that for all the Perry/Romney/Bachmann talking headism of the MSM (and a lot of the New Media), the GOP electorate has not settled on a candidate.

Here’s a thought – why don’t we let this fine collection of men and women state their positions, hash things out in open debate, and then we voters go to the polls and decide who wins?  Once that has happened, we’ll have a nominee and everyone who isn’t an Obama zombie will then have the duty of enthusiastically supporting the nominee to ensure that Obama leaves office on January 20th, 2013.  That, at least, is how I think it should go.

 

Another Obama Crony Capitalist

Mark Noonan32 Comments

From Politico:

President Barack Obama will raise money in early October with a Missouri businessman whose company benefited from a $107 million federal tax credit to develop a wind power facility in his state.

Tom Carnahan, a scion of Missouri’s most prominent Democratic political family, is listed on Obama’s campaign website as a host of a $25,000-per-person fundraiser to be held in St. Louis on October 4.
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His energy development firm, Wind Capital Group, was helped by a sizable credit authorized in the stimulus, for an energy project in northwest Missouri…

If the name “Carnahan” sounds familiar it is because Tom is the son of former Missouri governor Mel Carnahan and former Missouri Senator Jean Carnahan.  In other words, what we’ve got here is the scion of a massively connected, political family who is building up a personal fortune via taxpayer subsidy.  This is the sort of private enterprise our Democrats actually like…someone who is in the private sector, gets massive government aid and then turns around and boosts Democrats at election time.  If the Democrats fully had their way, the only people permitted to be in business would be people like Tom Carnahan.

The world Obama wants to build – the change you can really believe in – is to create in the United States an European-style Ruling Class in which all power in government and industry is held by those who are well-connected…not those who earn it; not those in whom public reposes their trust.  The future will be Tom Carnahan clones getting rich and Barack Obama’s running the show while the rest of us dwindle in to poverty and slowly die out as welfare and the Culture of Death sap our will to live…

Revolution is the answer…and next year we can do it.

HAT TIP:  Hot Air

Iran’s Nuclear Facility Unsafe?

Mark Noonan3 Comments

Interesting bit of news from Strategy Page:

…Russians who worked at Bushehr complained of sloppy work by Iranians and a nuclear power facility that is fundamentally unsafe. Perhaps because of this, the government recently announced that 4,000 civilians living near the Bushehr plant would be relocated, at a cost of $10 million…

If the Russians are considering it unsafe, then one has to wonder just how bad it is…the guys who built Chernobyl are scared.  Just great.  Not only is Iran only building the bloody things so they can eventually get nuclear weapons, but they are building them badly, probably much too rushed and we have the risk of a major nuclear accident to add to the risk that those lunatics might get nuclear weapons.

This is the price of not acting decisively.  Iran’s nuclear facilities should have been destroyed years ago…long before any nuclear fuel could get to a nuclear plant which may be unsafe.  It is time for us to stop acting like fools – regimes like that which governs Iran are not legitimate.  They don’t have the right to issue a parking ticket, let alone build nuclear.  It is up to decent people to decide how far such a regime can go…and as soon as it became clear that Iran was bent on nukes, we should have taken the steps to halt the program, even if it meant war.

Now we’re kind of stuck.  We’ve got a President who doesn’t even realize the risks and we’ve got Iran an ace away from having nuclear weapons which can target all of the middle east.  It is just going to get worse and worse because we did not act with firmness an in accordance with American convictions about what constitutes legitimate government.  Just burns me up that the merest application of morality to the Iranian situation would have produced the correct decision…we didn’t and now we’re going to catch it hot.

Obama, Ruling Class Desperate for Europe to Act

Mark Noonan3 Comments

From Zero Hedge:

The Obama administration has been fiercely lobbying European governments and central banks to shut up and do something. No more disagreements in public, Timothy Geithner told them in Poland. No more disputes over fundamental issues. To heck with democratic problem resolution. The world is collapsing, and it’s time to act boldly and decisively. Hank Paulson’s extortion racket is back.

This time, it isn’t Congress and American taxpayers that are targeted, but the Europeans, or rather a select few, in particular certain recalcitrant elements in the German government and in the Bundesbank. The White House brandishes the big fix of 2008 and 2009. That’s how we fixed our crisis, that’s how you should fix yours, they say.

Alas, the big fix of 2008 and 2009 today: Withered green shoots, high unemployment, annual budget deficits near 10% of GDP, and a gargantuan pile of debt…

So, why would Obama and Co want the Europeans to do that?  Because they are afraid that an European collapse will drop the whole world in to Depression and that would kill off any chance of Obama getting re-elected.  It doesn’t matter that duplicating our efforts 2008-09 would ultimately fail and,  indeed, leave Europe and the world worse off…all that matters is getting the economy to limp past November, 2012 without a Great Depression.

This is a Ruling Class in panic…worried that it really is all coming to an end.  But here’s Obama’s problem – he’s got to get the Germans to agree to kill their own economy in order to bail out Greece, Spain, etc…and if Germany agrees to do that, then Chancellor Merkel will be crushed at the next German elections.  Merkel must politically die so that Obama may politically live…and, if you polled the Ruling Class, that would probably be considered a good outcome.  Obama has become the lynch pin of a corrupt, self-serving, global elite…if he goes, the sort of reforms to be enacted in the United States would pave the way for the rest of the world’s people to reform themselves.  But, will Merkel do it?

That remains to be seen.  It also remains to be seen whether such actions by Europe can really save the day.  I don’t think they can…I think the debt has piled so high and the insolvency has spread to widely in the financial system that nothing can really stop the crash.  But, we shall see.  But remember what is going on here – the Ruling Class is trying to save itself.  Whatever they say, remember what the real goal is:  Saving Obama.

Christie Considers Presidential Run

Mark Noonan24 Comments

From Newsmax:

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is reconsidering his decision not to enter the 2012 presidential race — and he says he will let top Republican donors know within days about his plans, Newsmax has learned.

During the past few weeks, several leading Republican donors and fundraisers have been urging the popular Republican governor to reconsider his decision not to run and to enter the GOP primary.

These Christie supporters note that significant GOP support has remained on the sidelines of the primary fight. Many leading fundraisers have yet to commit to any current primary contender, including frontrunners Rick Perry and Mitt Romney…

In my view, the only person who could stop Christie would be Palin…if he gets in, he’s the Republican nominee for President…and most likely the next President of the United States of America.

Stay tuned.

Democrats Attempt to Limit Solyndra Investigation

Mark Noonan11 Comments

As per usual, desperately trying to protect their corrupt, fellow Democrats – from the New York Times:

Democrats would back a GOP subpoena to compel testimony from executives at government-backed solar firm Solyndra who plan to invoke their Fifth Amendment rights at a hotly anticipated oversight hearing tomorrow, according to the party’s senior member on the House Energy and Commerce Committee…

Sounds good, right?  First paragraph of the MSM story…good, old Democrats are willing to join the GOP in going after the Solyndra execs.  Just great!  Except for one thing – the Solyndra execs represent only one half of the corruption…the other half is Obama Administration officials.  So, how do the Democrats view that?  Some paragraphs down in the story, we’re told:

…Waxman drew a bright line between a potential subpoena of the company and a July edict that Republicans issued to the Office of Management and Budget for emails related to its review of the Solyndra loan guarantee — a party-line subpoena that the Californian then lambasted as “an abuse” and “a fishing expedition”…

So, it is “abuse” to ask Administration Officials about how Administration officials decided to procure a loan benefiting a donor to the President’s political campaigns.  Yeah, right.  What this really amounts to is a Democrat attempt to limit the investigation…ok to hang the Solyndra execs out to dry, but don’t dare go after the Administration.  And if you do, its an abuse…some sick bit of Teabagger, bitter-clinger political nastiness when we’re all supposed to be engaging in a new tone.  How dare you!

We must not let Democrats have any say in the House investigation.  We have learned that allowing Democrats to participate in any investigation only results in Democrats covering up for other Democrats.  Democrats have proven they are not interested in the truth…only interested in limiting the amount of damage to themselves and, if possible, shoving the blame for their own failures on to the GOP.  This investigation is vital and it must find the truth…and so the only Democrat input should be under oath, on camera, and in front of the investigating committee.

Corrupt, Thuggish “Palestinian” Regime Applies for Statehood

Mark Noonan29 Comments

From CBS:

Defying U.S. and Israeli opposition, (the ruffians who rule over the West Bank) asked the United Nations on Friday to accept them as a member state, sidestepping nearly two decades of failed negotiations in the hope this dramatic move on the world stage would reenergize their quest for (unfettered rule over a kleptocracy which likes murdered Jews).

Shortly after submitting the application to U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon, “Palestinian” (capo) Mahmoud Abbas was greeted by sustained applause and appreciative whistles as he approached the dais to deliver a speech outlining his (fellow thugs and kleptocrats) hopes and dreams of becoming a full member of the United Nations…(MSM report edited to make it accurate)

Thing is, such a State would fit right in with the UN…seriously, what would be the difference between such a regime and UN stalwarts like Zimbabwe, Syria, Sudan, Iran and Cuba?  Probably get them right on the Human Rights Commission in time to issue some more anti-Semitic statements while ignoring massacre and robbery in other lands.

The bottom line here is not the absurd demand for Statehood, but the fact that we are even part of this corrupt organization.  The United States cannot with honor remain in the United Nations…we have to cut the ties and seek to build a global organization of decent, free nations.  Sticking with the UN is akin to the police making common cause with drug gangs.

In practical terms, all this will do is allow the thugs and thieves of the world – especially those of the Islamo-fascist variety – to be yet more thuggish and criminal.  They’ll be encouraged to steal and kill even more, because stealing and killing is clearly the path to glory in the UN.  Time we were well done with it…and we should start pressing the GOP contenders on how they view our relationship to the UN and how they will propose to reform it, how long they’ll wait, and when they’ll withdraw us from it once the UN proves itself incorrigible.

 

Can a Recession be Avoided?

Mark Noonan10 Comments

The G20, faced with a global slump in stock prices, has pledged to keep things afloat.  This, I think, makes at least a half dozen Ruling Class efforts I’ve seen over the past month to stave off disaster…each assertion (by a central bank, by China, by the European Union, etc) is that no one should worry…they’re on it and they’ll never let it all fall apart.  Usually, when such announcements are made, stock prices shoot up.  I guess because people who buy stocks are stupid enough to actually believe such stories.  Naturally, there is a renewed slump…and the slumps come faster after each “we’ve got a cure!” announcement.

Sure enough, European stocks inched off their lows…but a Mish points out, Asian stocks weren’t even phased by the announcement:  they resumed their slide from the day before.  Essentially, the Masters of the Universe are running out of even fake things they can do stave off collapse.  I don’t know what they’ll do next, but I guess the maximum half-life of this latest pledge from the G20 is about 5 days.  It might see us through the weekend.

But they can’t prevent the crash – they can only delay it, and the longer they delay it, the worse it will be.  The economy is bad – not just the US economy, but the global economy.  It is honeycombed with bad debt, corruption and political blindness.  Some nations have managed to fake it to prosperity the last three years (most notably China), a few nations actually did well (Australia and Canada, who sell a lot of things to China), but all nations are doomed to an economic downturn.  No part of the world will escape it, and it will be a hard landing.  I just don’t know when it will happen…depends on how badly the Ruling Class wants to cling on to power.  A bad economy going in to 2012 means not only Obama loses, but may well mean an historic electoral blowout of the Democrats.  The people in charge don’t want that…same thing around the world.  The Chinese don’t want revolution, the Eurocrats want the people to keep quiet, etc, etc, etc.  So, these clowns will go to very great lengths to patch up the sinking ship.

And that means – what?  Beats me…could be they hold it together until 2013…could be that the market crashes tomorrow or Monday.  We’ll have to wait and see…

UPDATE:  Want a little more proof that the global economy is lousy?  According to this news report – about a new supertanker being mothballed – back in 2007 you had to pay $229,000.00 a day to lease a tanker…this supertanker is being mothballed because they could only get $1,000.000 a day.  This is where economic rubber hits to road…not in phonied-up government statistics, not in stock prices and bond yields (though these things can be important) but in whether or not people are actually doing things.  Ships lying idle is an indicator of an economy in desperate straights.