Interesting note over at Zero Hedge about the Irish bail out:

Today the myth of a popular, democratic government in Ireland collapsed for good. After an impromptu poll of 500 people nationwide found that a “substantial majority” of the people, or 57%, wants the State to default on debts to bondholder, what it ended up getting was precisely the opposite. Why? “Last night that the Irish delegation negotiating with the EU-IMF last week raised the issue of default. “The Europeans went completely mad,” a senior government source said.” Of course, this is a reason for the Europeans not to want an Irish default, not for the Irish…

Which is very true – and with elections upcoming in Ireland, will the Irish people give a big “FU” to the EU? They should – I mean it; they should vote in droves for whomever promises to default…and then, default.

I realize that we, the regular folks of the world, played our role in the economic melt down. No one put a gun to our head and forced us to go in to credit card debt, buy houses we couldn’t afford or, in general, get slack and want a high life without earning it. In payment for this idiocy, we are massively in debt, underwater on our homes and facing a long, grim climb back to prosperity. But it takes two to tango – and we were dancing with the banksters all the way to the poor house. And now we, out of our taxes and the future earnings of our children are to do, what? Bail out the banksters?

I don’t think so.

I’m not saying that default won’t hurt. In fact, the sudden end of the usurious, fiat-based economic model will be painful. If we here, in the United States, pulled the plug on all this asinine “stimulus” and TARP garbage, we would probably see unemployment skyrocket, maybe even as high as 25%. But that would only be temporary. An economy is not something orchestrated by government and the Federal Reserve. It is something which happens when people live – we all gotta eat, have clothes and some place to live. Unless you are a complete bum, you’re going to strive for what you need, especially if you’ve got a spouse and kids to look after. Faced with the stark choice, we’ll just get to work.

And if we don’t have a gargantuan government coupled with behemoth corporations standing in our way, we’ll do it. We’ll make things, mine things and grow things – and the things we need, not the useless feces which is shoved at us through advertising.

I do hope the Irish do this vital task – this first European step in telling Big Government and Big Corporation to get stuffed. We did it here in the US on November 2nd. Prayers and fingers crossed that they don’t let us down.

Just how bad has it gotten out there? From the Wall Street Journal:

492: The number of days since the average borrower in foreclosure last made a mortgage payment.

Banks can’t foreclose fast enough to keep up with all the people defaulting on their mortgage loans. That’s a problem, because it could make stiffing the bank even more attractive to struggling borrowers…

A neighbor of mine not only defaulted on her mortgage but completed her bankruptcy filing…five months later, she just moved because she was tired of waiting for the bank to get around to evicting her. There are so many defaulted loans out there that the banks just can’t keep up – and now with the robo-signing “foreclosuregate” slowing things up even more, it’ll just get worse.

What this does is put a big incentive on people to just give up if their houses are underwater. You can go 16 months without paying mortgage or rent, save money and move on. The credit hit? Big, freaking deal – anyone in credit will tell you that you can finesse your way around that in two to three years (though the negative credit report will remain for 7 years – 10, if you file bankruptcy).

Things in housing will, I think, get a lot worse before they start to get better – there are millions of houses in the “shadow inventory” (foreclosed on, not on the market) and millions more will join them as unemployment remains high and the desire to stay in underwater homes becomes weaker. The bottom, I think, won’t be reached before 2013.

HAT TIP: Mish’s

He will be missed – Infectious Greed found an excellent tribute:

Here is the New York Times justification for publishing the most recent Wikileaks information. In it, we get the scope of what is being released:

…The documents — some 250,000 individual cables, the daily traffic between the State Department and more than 270 American diplomatic outposts around the world — were made available to The Times by a source who insisted on anonymity. They were originally obtained by WikiLeaks, an organization devoted to exposing official secrets, allegedly from a disenchanted, low-level Army intelligence analyst who exploited a security loophole. Beginning Sunday, WikiLeaks intends to publish this archive on its Web site in stages, with each batch of documents related to a particular country or topic. Except for the timing of publication, the material was provided without conditions. Each news organization decided independently what to write about the cables…

A couple things:

1. I begin to doubt that it was really one, low-level analyst. This is just too much data from too many sources for one person to have obtained it all. Unless our security is completely worthless, this is the act of several people. We really need a thorough investigation of how this happened – and, unfortunately, it must be an investigation we learn nearly nothing about because we can’t fix this problem in the open.

2. The person or persons who have done this have earned a trip to the firing squad. The level of damage to our ability to operation – with its resultant certain loss of life among allied peoples – calls for the most extreme measures. Keeping in mind that I’m opposed to the death penalty – but we must instruct people that doing this sort of thing, which will lead to so many deaths in the future, will result in the perpetrator dying.

3. The world is a much more dangerous place than official, government communications make it out to be. Just in the fact that Iran has obtained missiles capable of striking Europe from North Korea – and missiles which were originally designed to carry nuclear warheads – indicates that the world is under grave threat from the tyrannical regimes of the world. We must begin to act with extraordinary force against the tyrants – they are growing too strong and too willing to play with fire.

This is the biggest intelligence mess since the Rosenberg’s gave the atomic bomb to Russia. The world will pay a high price for this.

UPDATE: Roger Simon notes that some of the documents being leaked reveal Obama’s State Department to be chock full of nincompoops. I tend to agree – if this is “smart diplomacy”, then I want some of GW’s idiocy back.

It does make sense:

…While psychopaths are theoretically capable of committing murder and other acts of cruelty without remorse, the definition of a psychopath is much broader than the image evoked by popular culture. According to mental health professionals, a psychopath is someone who is fundamentally lacking in human empathy, who sees other human beings as mere objects of manipulation. The relationships of a psychopath are typically superficial and fluid, and are often sexually promiscuous. The psychopath has a fundamentally egoistic, selfish personality, unable to transcend his own personal sense of self to recognize the dignity of others…

Does someone who says abortion is ok have or lack empathy for human beings? I’m not talking about people bamboozled in to being pro-choice – I’m talking about those people quite strident in advocating abortion in the public square. Its one thing to be, in a sense, more sympathetic to the mother you can see while forgetting the unborn child you can’t…quite another to be as some pro-abortion people are, with their use of de-humanizing terminology (“tumor”, “mass of cells”, etc) to dismiss the unborn children from thought. When you think about it, doesn’t it occur to the mind that we have people who are viewing other human beings as objects of manipulation?

Remember the “Roe” of “Roe V Wade” – just a poor girl used by pro-abortion fanatics to advance their case. They didn’t care what was going on with the pregnancy – they just wanted someone to sign and affidavit so that they could start a lawsuit against pro-life laws. Furthermore, think of some of the arguments they use – that a woman might need an abortion because she was raped. As if executing the child was the rational response to her father being a rapist! But it manipulates people…makes them worry, “what if it were me? My daughter? Would I want her to carry the child of a rapist?”. Anything to get people to stop thinking about human decency and start reacting to manipulation.

It would also explain why such people are impervious to fact and logic – psychopaths usually are, after all. Have you ever come across anyone more thick headed and impossible to talk to than someone who is really advocating for abortion rights? Once again, not talking about people suckered in to being pro-choice – this is about the very strange people who, say, try to insert federally funded abortion in to health care reform, or are trying to force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions. When you come up against such people, all you can do is shake your head in sorrow – you can’t talk to them, you can’t reason with them; they are mind-numbed and just determined to have their way.

This really does explain a lot and is worth rolling over in the mind – truth always opens the door, and if we can get to the truth about the people advocating abortion, we’ll have them boxed in.

From 24/7 Wall Street:

“Black Friday sales showed a very slight increase over last year despite record spending for the day 0.3 percent increase versus the same period in 2009.”

This translated into disappointing revenue growth:

“retail sales increased a very slight 0.3 percent versus last year with consumers spending $10.69 billion in various retail locations.”

Sales per purchase appear to have dropped because total “U.S. foot traffic increased 2.2 percent on Black Friday which points to a shopper driven by various sales and promotions.” The increases in store visits is larger than overall sales growth..

Which is about what I expected to happen. People are zeroing in on the best deals and not indulging in impulse buying. And who really can? Honestly, how many of you out there feeling like spending a lot of money? More importantly, since consumer credit was such a large part of the boom before the bust, how many of you want to rack up the credit cards for Christmas? I do expect that 2010 will be better than 2009 because people, I think, have de-leveraged a lot and saved some money (those that are employed, at any rate)…so, now they can do a bit of shopping. But the days of shop till you drop and buy everything in sight on credit cards are over. And I don’t think they’re coming back.

Ultimately, this is a good thing. It is a sign of sanity – a sign of sobriety and thrift building up in the American people. First, earn; then, spend, but only after some is set aside for savings. Its how we did things for a long time and it was when we forgot about it that we got in to trouble.

The short term effect, though, is not good – as Big Corporation lives by continually increasing profits (as opposed to a more healthy make-smaller-but-very-steady-profits), the fact that there won’t be a big increase in profits off of holiday sales will prove another drag on economic recovery (if we’re even in one right now). The only reason we even got the sales we had this black Friday was because of steep discounts – meaning, less profits. Corporations will resume being gun shy about hiring and investment – and if Congress refuses to extend the Bush era tax cuts, then we’ll have this even more.

More interesting times coming, boys and girls.

HAT TIP: Mish’s

Just thought I’d put some timely reminders out there for everyone as we head in to Christmas. It isn’t about retail mark downs.

Today is the first Sunday of Advent. For those of Christian background, this is where we start to prepare for the birth of Jesus. While this is a season of joy, it is also a penitential season – in other words, we’re supposed to, among all the shopping and parties, take heed for the fact that we are not altogether good people and that we do, indeed, need someone to come in to the world to save us.

And, Christian or not, all of us can surely afford to pause for a moment and consider what we’ve done this past year. There was that time when you didn’t suffer a fool gladly. There was that time you resented a family member for doing something. There was that friend you didn’t help. You passed a stranger in need, and didn’t do anything. ‘Tis the season to be jolly – but also the season to start consider how we will try to do better in the coming year.

This is what Isaiah, son of Amoz,

saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.

In days to come,

the mountain of the LORD’s house

shall be established as the highest mountain

and raised above the hills.

All nations shall stream toward it;

many peoples shall come and say:

“Come, let us climb the LORD’s mountain,

to the house of the God of Jacob,

that he may instruct us in his ways,

and we may walk in his paths.”

For from Zion shall go forth instruction,

and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

He shall judge between the nations,

and impose terms on many peoples.

They shall beat their swords into plowshares

and their spears into pruning hooks;

one nation shall not raise the sword against another,

nor shall they train for war again.

O house of Jacob, come,

let us walk in the light of the Lord! – Isaiah 2:1-5

From Oregon Live – and example of our twin plagues of Islamic terrorism and political correctness:

FBI thwarts terrorist bombing attempt at Portland holiday tree lighting, authorities say

Uh, guys, it is a Christmas Tree – and it was being targeted because the Christmas Tree is iconic of the Judeo-Christian West. In other words, we might not be at war with Islam, but at least a part of Islam is at war with us…and not because of what we do, but because of what we are.

Until we start being rational and insisting upon the hard truth of the matter, we’ll never get anywhere.

Rep. Lamar Smith notes in the Washington Post:

…Exit polls reported by CNN and updated this week reveal that a historically robust 38 percent of Hispanic voters cast ballots for House Republican candidates in 2010 – more than in 2006 (30 percent) and 2008 (29 percent). In fact, since 1984, Republican House candidates have only won a higher percentage of the Hispanic vote in one election: 2004. This level of Hispanic support for Republican candidates came despite widespread pre-election claims by advocates for illegal immigration that the Arizona law and a pro-rule-of-law stand would undercut Hispanic support for Republicans…

The fundamental flaw with both the liberal and the RINO narrative about the GOP and Hispanics (ie, that we GOPers have to become more pro-amnesty, etc, or we’ll lose the votes of Hispanics for ever, and thus become a permanent minority party) is that it is based upon a racist assumption that people of Hispanic ancestry all think alike – in this case, that all of them want illegal immigration and amnesty and all that rot. I’m sure a lot of Hispanics do, but I’m betting that the strong support Hispanics show for Democrats at election time isn’t based upon the possibility of amnesty (Hispanic voters don’t need that), but on the fact that Hispanics tend to be poor, and Democrats promise poor people a lot of stuff (and always fail to deliver, but that is another story).

As it turns out, of course, Hispanics don’t all think alike. Seems that some of them – and probably those who are second or third generation, or who came here legally, are not necessarily enthused about open borders. And, perhaps, not offended by the concept of the American government – or even a State government – enforcing American law. Who would have thought this?

Well, it turns out that we on the right did. People want laws to be enforced and obeyed. Its the only way a rational society can function. I’m de-facto for amnesty – but not until the border is secured. No sense in having laws if we’re just going to forever flout them…and then look at what happens when we do flout: the border region of Mexico is a war zone where thousands of people are murdered every year. You think some Hispanic man in El Paso wants to continue a policy where his cousins in Mexico remain prey to drug lords?

2010 was an eye-opener in a lot of ways, but not at all for our Ruling Class. They seem to have armored themselves from head to toe and ear to ear against any message getting through from the voters. Well, that is fine – it’ll make beating them in 2012 all the more fun.

From The Hill:

The investigative arm of the Homeland Security Department appears to be shutting down websites that facilitate copyright infringement.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has seized dozens of domain names over the past few days, according to TorrentFreak.

ICE appears to be targeting sites that help Internet users download copyrighted music, as well as sites that sell bootleg goods, such as fake designer handbags.

The sites are replaced with a note from the government: “This domain named has been seized by ICE, Homeland Security Investigations.”…

It appears that ICE is acting under authority of a “seizure warrant” – which power, if the government really has it, I want taken away. Yesterday. Except when the possession of something puts others at risk of life and limb, I don’t want the government seizing anything until, at the very least, the owner of the property has been convicted in a court of law. There is absolutely no way that a web site for downloading music – even if it is copyright infringement – is a danger to anyone. So, while I’m ok with criminal investigation; ok with the site owners being arrested and ok with them going to jail if convicted…I don’t want any of their property taken by the government until they are convicted.

To me, this is a matter of personal liberty – this action by government is clearly impelled by well heeled lobbyists putting pressure on law enforcement to go after what is likely, at any rate, a matter for the civil courts. And you liberals out there should step back a moment – this is your liberal government under your liberal President doing this. Talk about being beholden to corporate bosses! Hollywood says “jump!” and Obama’s DHS says “how high?”.

UPDATE: Don Surber notes that DHS isn’t protecting the border, but is protecting rap musicians. Your tax dollars at work, good people.