Socialism

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama’s socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama’s plan". All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A…. (substituting grades for dollars – something closer to home and more readily understood by all).

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little..

The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F. As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. It could not be any simpler than that.

Remember, there IS a test coming up. The 2012 elections.

These are possibly the 5 best sentences you’ll ever read and all applicable to this experiment:

1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.
2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!
5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

In a superb example of hubris representatives of the European Central Bank (ECB) simply tried to ignore justified questions from the Irish public in the video below. Irish journalist Vincent Browne had a very simple question, “why are Irish taxpayers required to bail out the holders of unsecured bonds?” At issue is the repayment of a €1.25 billion bond by Anglo-Irish Bank that will be due on January 25.

Watch this 5-minute video to deepen your impression that the ECB is not only a bad bank with almost no reserves, but also a badly managed bank, whose arrogant representatives seem to forget that they do not dictate the Eurozone. Browne’s question is truly justified. As the name of unsecured debt says, repayment should only happen if the debtor is in the position to do so. It is this difference that pays higher interest to such bond holders as the risk of default is higher than on guaranteed bonds.

Read on afterwards as the ECB Troika has truly threatened Ireland with bomb terror.

ECB Says “A Bomb Will Go Off in Dublin”

Irish website Nama Wine Lake reported during last weekend that the ECB threatened Ireland over the due bond. I am especially disturbed about the language used. Just imagine an ordinary citizen saying the same words. He would be in the flashlight for terror threats. The ECB Troika was allowed to leave the country without further consequences despite their radical speech that is actually an extortion threat.
From the report:

“He [Minister for Transport and Tourism, Leo Varadkar] said that the Troika told the Government that “we don’t want you to default on these payments, it is your decision ultimately but a bomb will go off; and the bomb will go off in Dublin and not in Frankfurt.”

Minister Varadkar has been accused of being unrestrained in his comments but they have been refreshing in illuminating dealings that other politicians want to remain hidden. The Minister’s comments come a fortnight after the ECB refused to release a letter it had sent to the former Minister for Finance, the late Brian Lenihan on 19th November 2010, a letter which was understood to have warned the Minister not to default on senior bondholders.

If you can make out the difference between a mobster and the ECB, please post it in comments. I do not see any. And this is only the ECB with limited powers. Europe is still on the way into the ESM dictatorship whose proposed statutes already outline a much stronger language without the possibility of regress as this institution will be immune and cannot be sued for any wrongdoing.
Help stopping the ESM in its tracks. European countries are democracies where budget sovereignty must not be transferred to the people who watched the Eurozone go down and had no other solution than to make more debts.

Today, there is a post on ZeroHedge by the Prudent Investor telling us that the EU finance ministers push through ESM Treaty in a Fishy Fly-by-night move. Stand by for purgatory folks.

RED ALERT TO EVERYBODY INTERESTED IN THE ESM: THERE IS NO CURRENT VERSION OF THE ESM TREATY AVAILABLE!!!

Europe’s most important treaty on the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), which will lead the EU into a financial dictatorship, has been pushed through by EU finance ministers late Monday evening.

But the latest version of the ESM cannot be found on English and German EU websites. A link on consilium EU only leads to a ‘file not found’ message and the German EU website “Europa von A – Z” does not mention the ESM at all. This reminds one of the secrecy around the Federal Reserve Act, that was pushed through in 1912. Is the EU Commission now playing the same fishy game 100 years later?

Media reports from last midnight only said that the ESM treaty was agreed on by EU finance ministers and mentioned January 30 as the date when the treaty will be officially signed.

Significant changes have been made, a few media reported.

The capital of the ESM will now be only €80 billion instead of the €700 billion proposed in the only available draft version from July 2011 (see treaty text below). The finance ministers also agreed to bring the ESM into existence one year earlier by July 2012, putting national governments under immense pressure to ratify the ESM treaty without sufficient public discussion.

German state TV ZDF reported shortly after Monday midnight that the fund shall have a financing volume of €500 billion, but this figure is a moving goal post. IMF head Christine Lagarde proposed a volume of €1 trillion whereas Italian prime minister Mario Monti and Austrian finance minister Maria ‘Mizzi’ Fekter said later that the ESM should be upped to €750 billion. Such important changes cannot be found in publicly released EU documents anywhere on the web. The ESM will be the successor of the European Financial Stability Fund (EFSF) which lost its AAA rating a few days ago.

It does not exactly reassure Eurozone citizens when European leaders throw around figures between €500 million and €1 Trillion, proving they have no other clue than to fight debt with more debt if the fund is going to be leveraged inthe proposed style.

It all the more troubling that last night’s agreement changes have not been communicated by the EU at all. It reminds one of the ACTA act that was signed in a non-public meeting of the Agriculture and Fishing Commission and is designed to destroy the freedom on the internet. As a side note: Anonymous brought down the websites of three Austrian ministries and the Austrian chancellery on Monday evening, protesting that Austria will be one of the first countries to ratify this attack on internet freedom. This was not reported by Austrian state broadcaster ORF.
I have published my objections to the ESM in this post from last December. Nothing has changed since except for the reduction of the proposed capital and the date the treaty shall go into effect. The ESM and its staff will be completely immune and cannot be sued, but can sue itself. This stinks.

Stand by for purgatory!

noun. Purgatory /ˈpəːgət(ə)ri/

A place between Heaven and Hell, where the soul is not bad enough to be sent to an eternity of damnation in Hell, but not good enough to go to Heaven, so it is sent there temporarily where the person suffers

If I used to ask myself over a coffin: “What good did it do the occupant to be born?” I now put the same question about anyone alive.

Three weeks after Tehran threatened action against any US aircraft carrier entering the Strait of Hormuz, Washington made two moves: US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta disclosed Sunday, Jan. 22, that the USS Enterprise Carrier Strike Group would steam through the strategic strait in March; a few hours later, the US Navy sent the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier through the strategic strait without incident, accompanied by British and French warships.

Sunday, Jan. 22, Defense Secretary Panetta stood in a hangar of the Enterprise clad in the uniform of a ship’s crewman and told an audience of 1,700 personnel that the carrier would be sent to Hormuz in March. His statement was a red herring. A few hours later, the Abraham Lincoln was already through. 

On Saturday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards stated it considered the likely return of US warships to the Gulf part of its routine activity. They were not climbing down from their original threat. The statement came only after Tehran saw the USS Stennis, the object of threat, exiting the Gulf Friday, Jan. 20, and decided it was the Americans who had backed down.

Panetta’s comments Sunday aimed at correcting that impression and making it very clear to Tehran that although the Stennis was gone, the Abraham Lincoln was there and the Enterprise was coming "fully prepared to deal with any contingency."

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) announced on Friday that he will postpone consideration of his Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) until there is wider agreement on the controversial legislation.

"I have heard from the critics and I take seriously their concerns regarding proposed legislation to address the problem of online piracy," Smith said. "It is clear that we need to revisit the approach on how best to address the problem of foreign thieves that steal and sell American inventions and products."

Smith’s announcement came just minutes after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced he would shelve the Senate’s version of the anti-piracy legislation, the Protect IP Act.

The move is a stunning acknowledgement of failure for the powerful chairman.

Smith was the author of SOPA and its most vocal proponent. He had repeatedly said the bill did not need to be changed and accused the critics of "spreading lies."

But support for the bill collapsed after a massive Web protest on Wednesday. Major sites including Google and Wikipedia either shut down in protest or displayed messages opposing the legislation.

• On Jan. 13, 2012, we lowered to ‘AA+’ the long-term sovereign credit ratings on two of the European Financial Stability Facility’s (EFSF’s) previously ‘AAA’ rated guarantor member states, France and Austria.
• The EFSF’s obligations are no longer fully supported either by guarantees from EFSF members rated ‘AAA’ by Standard & Poor’s, or by ‘AAA’ rated securities. We consider that credit enhancements sufficient to offset what we view as the reduced creditworthiness of guarantors are currently not in place.
• We are therefore lowering our long-term issuer credit rating on the EFSF to ‘AA+’ from ‘AAA’. We are also affirming the ‘A-1+’ short-term rating on EFSF.
• The outlook is developing, which reflects that we could raise the EFSF’s long-term rating to ‘AAA’ if we see that additional credit enhancements are put in place, but also the likelihood that we could lower the rating further if we conclude that the creditworthiness of the EFSF’s members will likely be further reduced over the next two years.

The United States and Israel agreed to postpone a large joint military exercise from this spring to late in the year to avoid aggravating an already tense regional situation driven by conflicts with Iran, Israeli media reported Sunday.

The drill, slated for May and named "Austere Challenge," was announced in November by Andrew Shapiro, U.S. assistant secretary of State for politics-military affairs, at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The exercise as originally planned would include more than 5,000 U.S. and Israeli forces and, among other things, simulate Israel’s ballistic missile defense. It would be the "largest and most significant joint exercise in the allies’ history," Shapiro had said.

The drill was announced shortly after American military officials reportedly expressed concern that Israel was preparing an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities and would not warn them in advance. Although American and U.S. officials are in close contact on defense matters, especially regarding Iran’s disputed nuclear program, Jerusalem and Washington are at odds over how aggressively to approach with the issue.

U.S. Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is scheduled to arrive in Israel this week for talks with his Israeli counterpart, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz. Dempsey may also meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Talk of a military strike against Iran to stop its nuclear program continues to buzz, adding to tensions surrounding recent developments that include the assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist last week in Tehran. Iranian officials, who maintain that their nuclear research is intended for peaceful purposes, accused Israel and the U.S. of responsibility for the attack. Both denied involvement.
(source)

EUROPEAN farmers are being urged to look increasingly at the benefits of operating within a cooperative as a means of boosting their market power.

Speaking at a press conference held with Cooperatives Europe and other European member organisations, Copa-Cogeca secretary general Pekka Pesonen said: “Agri-Cooperatives are a driving force to ensuring a competitive, innovative EU agri-food sector.

He said he was pleased the European Commission had recognised the importance of agricultural cooperatives and has come forward with plans to reinforce their role  in its Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform proposals.

The Commission intends to work on each sector and see how producer organisations, such as cooperatives, can be strengthened, focusing in particular on the fruit and vegetables, wine, olive oil and sheep sectors.

There is no doubt within the EU, however, that if Salmond secures a ‘yes’ vote, complex three-way negotiations between London, Edinburgh and Brussels will be triggered — altering Britain’s voting clout and financial relations with the EU.

"There is a valid legal question about what ‘rUK’ (what remains of the United Kingdom) would have to renegotiate," said one senior EU source.

An exit from the UK for Scotland would reduce London’s EU budget contributions, but also re-allocate billions of euros in a rebate London gets each year in lieu of French and German farm aid or grants for regional development and social projects.

"All sorts of allocations that are country-based" would change, the source said. "We’re not talking about policy renegotiation — but a rewrite of Britain’s membership."

That Police already have the power in the UK to seize amounts in excess of £1000, using the slightest of suspicions as an excuse, for which you have to prove whose money it is, what it is for and where it came from.

Recovery of the proceeds of crime is a government priority. The powers for police officers were created by the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (POCA). These powers afford the police a major opportunity to reduce volume crime, disrupt organised criminal enterprises and remove criminal assets.

The powers legislate for the search, seizure and detention of cash of £1,000 or more, suspected of being the proceeds of crime or intended for use in criminal activity (Section 289 (searches), Section 294 (Seizure of cash) and Section 295 Detention of seized cash) (POCA).

With regards to cash under this legislation, cash refers to:-

• All notes and coins (whatever currency),

• Postal Orders,

• Cheques of any kind,

• Bankers Drafts,

• Bearer Bonds or Bearer Shares.

..and when the banks start going down, and people begin withdrawing their cash…. Not just Italy that is draconian eh?

All your questions about the historic European downgrade should be answered after reading the following FAQ. Or so S&P believes. Ironically, it does an admirable job, because the following presentation successfully manages to negate years of endless lies and propaganda by Europe’s incompetent and corrupt klepocrarts, and lays out the true terrifying perspective currently splayed out before the eurozone better than most analyses we have seen to date.

Namely that the failed experiment is coming to an end.

And since the Eurozone’s idiotic foundation was laid out by the same breed of central planning academic wizards who thought that Keynesianism was a great idea (and continue to determine the fate of the world out of their small corner office in the Marriner Eccles building), the imminent downfall of Europe will only precipitate the final unravelling of the shaman “economic” religion that has taken the world to the brink of utter financial collapse and, gradually, world war.

Do go and read the whole post, including the full S&P FAQ.

Its all over folks, hang on to your hats, bend your knees and whistle Dixie. Being present at a funeral is always a trying time, you knew the patient was sick, you knew that one day they were going to die, but when it happens it still presents a period of shock, as in, so soon? I thought they would last a bit longer..

Now there will be a wailing and a gnashing of teeth as the final death throws of the disenfranchised cuckoos and parasites work through the system, before the rigor mortis sets into the host and the Keynesian experiment lays still forever.

By not marketing their own product, but a totally fictitious one, and blaming the success of your product for blocking theirs.

The public take up of the Meerkat phenomenon has been huge, and whilst I am not in any way endorsing their products, this latest version, sent by email, it made me laugh enough that I thought I would share it with you.

Note: no breach of copyright intended.

The Stennis was due to return to its home port in San Diego but the Pentagon did not say when that would happen.

Another carrier strike group, led by the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72), concluded a port visit to Thailand on Tuesday and was now in the Indian Ocean. It is on track to join the USS Carl Vinson in the Central Command (5th Fleet AOR) area of operations, which begins in the neighbouring Arabian Sea.

USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) is flagship of Carrier Strike group nine, and Carrier Air Wing Two.

Carrier Strike Group Nine is composed of the following units:

• USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72), flagship
• Carrier Air Wing Two (CVW-2)
• USS Cape St. George (CG-71)
• Destroyer Squadron Nine (DESRON-9)
  • USS Sterett (DDG-104)
  • USS Halsey (DDG-97)
  • USS Momsen (DDG-92)
  • USS Shoup (DDG-86)
  • USS Ingraham (FFG-61)
  • USS Rodney M. Davis (FFG-60)
  • USS Ford (FFG-54)

CVW-2 consists of nine air Squadrons, consisting of four squadrons of F18C Hornets and F18F Super-Hornets, with 1 squadron each of E2C Hawkeye airborne early warning systems, EA6B Prowler Electronic Attack aircraft, C2A Greyhound Logistics support squadron and two squadron of MH-60S/MH-60R Seahawk Sea Combat & Maritime Strike helicopters totalling 112 fixed wing and Helo aircraft.

Update from APNewsbreak:

A senior U.N. nuclear agency team will visit Tehran on Jan. 28 with Iran saying it is ready after years of refusal to discuss allegations that it was involved in secret nuclear weapons work, diplomats said Thursday.

Can we see the Iraq game play yet?

Writing on his blog in an article last week, Robert Green said in relation to a meeting with his defence QC : “I had made it clear that Elish Angiolini is probably the most important witness for the defence and must be called. However, after deliberations, Senior Counsel Gary Allen QC felt that Angiolini`s appearance in the witness box would prove damaging to the defence, on the grounds that she would refuse to answer questions that may incriminate her and in that, her position would be supported by the sheriff.”


“I stated that whilst I had never held any great expectation of Angiolini breaking down under cross-examination and confessing, I considered it valuable both to the defence and in the public interest for her to be seen in court, failing to answer pertinent questions about her conduct in public office in connection with both my case and that of Hollie. It has been her failings and private interventions with the media, using public funds, that led to me taking the course that has resulted in the prosecution that she in fact personally authorised. Thus I regard her as a key witness. I also failed to see how Angiolini being cross-examined could possibly harm the defence.”


“As a result of our difference of opinion, we have mutually agreed that I would be best served by instructing another Senior Counsel to represent me. I accept that Mr Allen and Junior Counsel, who supported his view, were acting professionally in what they deemed to be my best interests and there is hence no ill will of any kind. It is just that an impasse was reached on a single important issue that could not be resolved. My solicitor will try to find a new team to represent me in the future, but it must be on the fundamental basis that Elish Angiolini is called as witness for the defence. I will not accept any deviation from that position.”

Whether you look at national government departments, regional government or even local government, and local government is the primary area that I am looking at here, spending far outweighs the ability of government to raise taxes to pay for its outgoings.

That is why every EU State has a current account deficit, why it continues to have to borrow on the money markets to make up the difference.

So why cannot these States reduce their spending to levels that fit in with their ability to raise taxes. The primary cause of the problem is the EU itself. If we look at the local level, local authorities, town councils, unitary authorities, municipal and borough councils the problem is the same in every case. Regulation.

Upto 75% of all council and local authority spending is mandated, not by national governments but by EU regulations, directives and decisions, collectively known as EU secondary legislation, and in that I draw your attention to the way in which EU law is made. To a great extent it is coordinated by the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions as well as the EU Commission itself.

Local authorities are responsible for the implementation of most of the regulations that are imposed on businesses, covering materials, packaging, health & safety, waste disposal, workers directives, farming regulation, trading practises, environmental regulation, green policy, and the list goes on and on, with literally thousands of regulations.

The local authorities are not only responsible for their implementation, but also have to set up units or bodies to monitor, to enforce and to impose via the courts if necessary, and it is this element of government spending that our national government have no say whatsoever. They can not decrease the spending as it is all imposed from Brussels.

Likewise with National implementation of the same kind of regulations, directives and decisions, with regulation of the financial industry, medicines, transport, shipping, environment, farming etc where national bodies are involved. The monitoring and enforcement must continue by order of Brussels and national government may not cut their spending or manpower.

So when our Chancellor wants to reduce the UK government’s overall spending, he may only do so with the bits of the budget that still remain in his hands, likewise with local government, so it is the provided services that suffer.

That is why cuts are being made in health care, pension provision, various benefit schemes, bin collections etc. We have handed so much sovereignty over to the EU, who in turn have regulated everything we do, touch, eat, drink, package or use. We are now in a situation whereby the paper pushers who enforce this mountain of regulation have their roles protected by EU law, whilst the essential front line services provided by doctors, nurses, servicemen & women are the ones being cut with good qualified people are being thrown onto the scrap heap of life because that is the only fiscal option left open to government.

Whilst this situation continues, whilst we allow the EU to govern and micromanage our lives and our government this situation will continue, and no EU state will ever be able to bring its economy back to life again.

But then.. that’s what always happens in Socialist empires…

The USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70), another Nimitz class aircraft carrier with its attendant battle group, Carrier Strike Group 1 (CSG-1) and Carrier Air Wing 17 (CVW-17). The USS Carl Vinson was the last place Osama Bin Laden’s body was before he was buried at sea.

U.S. Navy carrier strike groups typically consist of an aircraft carrier (flagship), an embarked carrier air wing, at least one Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser, and a destroyer squadron.

Carrier Strike Group One is composed of the following units:

• USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70), flagship
• Carrier Air Wing Seventeen (CVW-17)
• USS Bunker Hill (CG-52)
• USS Lake Champlain (CG-57)
• Destroyer Squadron One (DESRON 1)
  • USS Stockdale (DDG-106)
  • USS Gridley (DDG-101)
  • USS Higgins (DDG-76)
  • USS Rentz (FFG-46)
  • USS McClusky (FFG-41)

CVW-17 is made up of eight air squadrons consisting of four squadrons of F18C Hornets and F18F Super-Hornets, with 1 squadron each of E2C Hawkeye airborne early warning systems, EA6B Prowler Electronic Attack aircraft, C2A Greyhound Logistics support squadron and a squadron of SH-60F/HH-60H Seahawk Anti Submarine helicopters totalling 90 fixed wing and Helo aircraft.

Carrier Strike Group Three is composed of the following units:

• USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74), flagship
• Carrier Air Wing Nine (CVW-9)
• USS Antietam (CG-54)
• Destroyer Squadron Twenty-one (DESRON-21):[20]
  • USS Wayne E. Meyer (DDG-108)
  • USS Dewey (DDG-105)
  • USS Kidd (DDG-100)
  • USS Milius (DDG-69)
  • USS Jarrett (FFG-33)

CVW-9 consists of nine air Squadrons, consisting of four squadrons of F18C Hornets and F18F Super-Hornets, with 1 squadron each of E2C Hawkeye airborne early warning systems, EA6B Prowler Electronic Attack aircraft, C2A Greyhound Logistics support squadron and two squadron of MH-60S/MH-60R Seahawk Sea Combat & Maritime Strike helicopters totalling 112 fixed wing and Helo aircraft.

Looks like its getting a bit crowded in the Straight of Hormuz at the moment…

Addition via UPI:

The Russian carrier Admiral Kuznetsov anchored earlier than planned at Syria’s Tartus port on the Mediterranean Sunday, causing France to respond by consigning an air defense destroyer to the waters off Tartus, Israeli military intelligence Web site DEBKAfile reported.

Canada also was sending a warship, the HMCS Charlottetown, to the Mediterranean where it would take over from the HMCS Vancouver.

Meanwhile, Britain has dispatched a missile destroyer to the Sea of Oman, due to arrive at the same time as the French Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier.

The Charles de Gaulle has upto 40 aircraft, including
* Rafale M
* Super Étendard
* E-2C Hawkeye
* SA365 Dauphin helicopters

Very crowded…

More than 1,000 British holidaymakers are trapped in the Alps after freak snowfalls severed road, rail and air links.

As much as 18ft of snow has fallen in Austria the past few days with falling trees and rocks blocking many routes.

Some 1,000 British skiers are stuck in the Austrian town of Ischgl alone, with more trapped in the resorts of Galtur, St Anton and Arlberg – which have seen as much as 10ft of snow in the past 48 hours.