Wealthy Colombian businessman is a drug-trafficker, CIA operative alleges

Posted by Bill Conroy -

Another source, a past employee, also claims narco-entrepreneur is connected to rightwing paramilitary forces

Narco News won an historic legal battle in 2001 when the New York Supreme Court dismissed a libel suit filed against the online publication by a giant Mexican bank. In the process, the court also extended critical free-press protections for the first time to Internet news sites and reporters.

Narco News publisher Al Giordano, and his longtime ally, Mexican journalist Mario Menendez, publisher of the Mexican daily Por Esto!, stood as defendants in that litigation against the powerful lender Banco Nacional de Mexico S.A.(Banamex), led and controlled at the time by banker Roberto Hernandez Ramirez.

At the heart of the litigation was the following claim:

Posted by Bill Conroy -

Turf Wars, Agency Budgets and Case Stats Trump Lives in the Era of Prohibition
Ever since ATF’s Fast and Furious gun-running operation was catapulted into the national spotlight in early 2011, the focus has been on the politics influencing the police work and the manipulations behind intelligence operations, with little to no attention paid to the dysfunction of the drug-war bureaucracy.
A report released by the US Government Accountability Office in June 2009, some three months before Operation Fast and Furious was even launched, underscores that dysfunction in succinct detail. Advance copies of that report were provided at the time to “the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice, and State and to the Office of National Drug Control Policy,” GAO documents state.

In that now two-and-a-half-year-old report is a blistering indictment of operations, obviously already in existence prior to June 2009 and Fast and Furious, that utilized a strategy similar to that employed in Fast and Furious — which allowed criminals to “walk” thousands of guns into Mexico under the watch of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (better known as ATF). The supposed goal: identify and bring to justice the higher-ups in Mexico’s arms trafficking organizations.
Here are the money graphs from the GAO report:

Posted by Bill Conroy -

Reported US Military Ramp-up on the Border Follows Years of ATF-Sanctioned Gun Running
U.S. troops deployed to the US/Mexican border last week may well be there, in part, to deal with the blowback from ATF's botched Fast and Furious gambit.
Veteran border reporter Diana Washington Valdez of The El Paso Times reported late last week that “active-duty soldiers” from Fort Bliss, just north of El Paso, Texas, have been deployed to support the US Border Patrol in the Arizona and New Mexico border region.
Tosh Plumlee, a longtime CIA operative, who has been actively monitoring the New Mexico border region for years, also confirms that at least a half dozen “government vans” packed with US soldiers were spotted in recent days on a highway leading into Columbus, N.M., which is just across the border (some 3 miles) from Palomas, Mexico — a hotbed of narco- and weapons- trafficking activity in recent years.
Plumlee says the deployment is likely part of an ongoing joint Mexican and US military task-force operation that has been active since at least 2009. Narco News reported on some of the activities of that joint op in mid-2010, including the fact that small teams of US special operations soldiers were active on the Mexican side of the border, imbedded with the Mexican military.

However, neither Plumlee, nor The El Paso Times report, shed any definitive light on the precise nature of the recent US troop deployment along the border, specifically in the Columbus area. Plumlee has told Narco News previously, though, that there have been numerous reports of suspected weapons stashes concealed in the desolate moon-like landscape surrounding Columbus and Palomas — near landmarks such as Guzman Lookout Mountain and Coyote Hill to the east of Columbus.
In fact, several days ago, on the evening of Feb. 16, Plumlee says he was traveling along the border near Columbus when he came across the echoes of a firefight playing out just across the border. It’s not clear, Plumlee adds, who was engaged in that shootout, but it is certain, he says, that there were live rounds ripping through the air. He tape-recorded his experience that evening, providing the play-by-play of the action — a recording that can be found at this link.

Steve Forbes,

In reaffirming its near 0% interest rate policy for another three years the Federal Reserve averred that this was necessary to revive the housing market, which, in turn, was necessary for the economy to revive. House building and the buying and selling of existing homes are meaningful parts of the economy. More important, from the Fed’s perspective a house is the biggest asset for millions of people; therefore, higher values mean owners will be more likely to spend.
This reasoning is arse backwards.

By Karl Rove

Mitt nearly erased the gap among non-college graduates and once again carried Catholic voters.

Every Republican running for president got something on Super Tuesday. Not all they wanted, but enough to convince themselves to carry on, making it likely the GOP race goes on for months, not weeks.
Ron Paul didn't finally win a state. But he took 41% of the vote in Virginia—his highest percentage in this primary season—and picked up 22 delegates in the evening's 10 contests.
Newt Gingrich won Georgia—the state that elected him to Congress for nearly two decades—with almost half the vote, a strong performance. He would have lost all credibility had he lost. He had failed to turn in enough signatures to get on the Virginia ballot, and he came in third in the other Southern states up for grabs on Tuesday, behind Rick Santorum (who took the gold medal in Tennessee and Oklahoma) and Mitt Romney (who took the silver in both). The former House speaker must now win Alabama or Mississippi next week even to remain a regional candidate.

By Bob McTeer

My house is under water, for sure

My car is upside down, you bet

But I’m getting me a consolidation loan

And finally getting out of debt

Bob McTeer

Well, it may be hard to borrow your way out of debt, but sometimes it buys time, and time is money. One of the few major contributions to the European debt crisis is the ECB’s lending to European banks. Long-term low-interest loans help the banks themselves as well as put them in a position to buy European sovereign debt, an excess of which is the main problem. It buys debtor countries some time to become less so. It goes a long way toward making the European debt crisis a condition that doesn’t portend disaster tomorrow.

Vulture Capitalism. John Stossel

Now that Mitt Romney is likely to be the Republican nominee, we can expect new attacks on his "vulture capitalism." That's how Rick Perry characterized his private equity work. Newt Gingrich's supporters ran an ad about Romney's firm, Bain Capital, that said, "Their greed was only matched by their willingness to do anything to make millions in profits."
Give me a break.
"Greed" means you want more for yourself. Fine. If you obtain it legally, without force or privilege — say, by buying a business and making it more efficient, or shifting resources to where consumers prefer them — that is a good thing. "Creative destruction" makes America richer.

Too Many Laws!

by John Stossel |

My last Fox News special "Illegal Everything" showed how government's mountain of rules stifle entrepreneurs and make criminals out of everyday people. I tried to open my own lemonade stand but New York City made it difficult. The government said I had to pass a 15-hour food protection class, which included questions about barracuda and puffer fish.

60 Second Refutation of Socialism, While Sitting at the Beach

Last week, there were several comments in Carnival of the Capitalists that people would like to see more articles highlighting the benefits of capitalism. This got me thinking about a conversation I had years ago at the beach:

Hanging out at the beach one day with a distant family member, we got into a discussion about capitalism and socialism. In particular, we were arguing about whether brute labor, as socialism teaches, is the source of all wealth (which, socialism further argues, is in turn stolen by the capitalist masters). The young woman, as were most people her age, was taught mainly by the socialists who dominate college academia nowadays. I was trying to find a way to connect with her, to get her to question her assumptions, but was struggling because she really had not been taught many of the fundamental building blocks of either philosophy or economics, but rather a mish-mash of politically correct points of view that seem to substitute nowadays for both.

by Don Boudreaux

Here’s a letter to the New York Times:
Hayley Gorenberg and others who support “hate-crime” legislation (“Even Nonviolent Crime Needs to Be Fought,” March 8th) endorse – no doubt unawares – a source of tyranny that dates back ages, namely, ruling-elites’ attempts to govern people’s thoughts.
In the past, thought-policing was aimed at controlling individuals’ notions about sacred texts and other theocratic matters. Today, thought-policing is aimed at controlling individuals’ notions about sexual practices, racial and gender differences, and lifestyles. But today as yesterday – and regardless of the ungodliness or shamefulness of the targeted thoughts – no institution is to be trusted that empowers some men and women to peer into the minds of other men and women for the purpose of forcing people’s thoughts to conform to an official standard.
The great early 17th-century English jurist, Sir Edward Coke – whose writings greatly influenced America’s founding generation – famously challenged King James I’s effort to deploy the power of the English crown to punish people merely for what they thought. Coke proclaimed that “No man ecclesiastical or temporal shall be examined upon secret thoughts of his heart…. Cogitationis poenam nemo emeret – no man may be punished for his thoughts –’For it hath been said in the Proverb, Thought is free.’”*
That maxim is today as important a bulwark against tyranny as it was 400 years ago.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030

“Rattle The Turbans” – Defeating Iran in Syria

Charles Hill |

“What are the range of options open to the United States, and other powers, in the face of the large-scale violence that the Assad regime has unleashed on the Syrian people?”
Reporters covering the Obama Administration’s foreign policy have provided the answer: “the U.S. sees few good options in Syria” (Washington Post, 12 Feb 2012). Those living in a time of revolution, it has been said, often don’t realize it. Washington does not seem to understand that what is going on in the Middle East is a world-historical (not merely regional) event.

US: Obama is America’s Lenin – by Jeffrey T. Kuhner

Why does President Obama despise Christianity? Recently, his administration ruled most religious organizations must provide health insurance to employees that covers free contraception and sterilization procedures — including the morning-after pill. The decision provoked a furor among Catholics and non-Catholics. They rightly understood that the contraceptive mandate violates religious freedom and the conscience rights of the Catholic Church.

As Syrian tanks and artillery continued to rain indiscriminate fire on the defenseless city of Homs and as the world watched with mounting horror the final reports of courageous American journalist Marie Colvin, half a world away, in Caracas, Venezuela, a truculent and defiant Hugo Chavez continues to stand four-square behind the Bashar al-Assad regime.

Iran publically executed around four times as many people in 2011 as in 2010, a new Amnesty International report published Tuesday said.
“Casting a shadow over all those who fall foul of Iran’s unjust justice system is the mounting toll of people sentenced to death and executed,” the report said.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at AIPAC

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared on Monday he would never allow his people to live under the constant threat of annihilation from a nuclear-armed Iran.

Addressing the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Netanyahu said Israel had waited patiently for the international community to deal with the problem – but so far it had failed. (Read the full speech)

Submitted by Tyler Durden

When it comes to economic data, there is the BLS's seasonally-adjusted, Birth/Death-ed, Arima-factored, goal-seeked, election year propaganda, or there is real time polling such as that conducted every month by Gallup. And while there is no doubt tomorrow's NFP number will be just better than expected (after all it is an election year for the Derpartment of Truth), the reality is that in February unemployment, that measured by the impartial polling agency Gallup, soared by 0.5%, the most since late 2010, from 8.6% to 9.1%, and back to August 2011 levels. As for the U-6 BLS equivalent, Gallup's underemployment metric rose to 19.1% from 18.7% in January, and a 18% low in mid 2011. The good news, it is just modestly better than the 19.9% in February 2011. Gallup's conclusion, which should be pretty obvious: "Regardless of what the government reports, Gallup's unemployment and underemployment measures show a substantial deterioration since mid-January. In this context, the increase in unemployment as measured by Gallup may, at least partly, reflect growth in the workforce, as more Americans who had given up looking for work become slightly more optimistic and start looking for work again. So while there may be positive signs, the reality Gallup finds is that more Americans are looking for work now than were doing so just six weeks ago....In mid-February, Gallup reported that its U.S. unemployment rate had increased to 9.0% from 8.3% in mid-January. The mid-month reading normally provides a relatively good estimate of the government's unadjusted unemployment rate for the month." Ahh.. Unadjusted. As for tomorrow, expect the BLS to continue in treating seasonally-adjusted Americans like idiots, and pushing the disconnect between the economy as seen by DC bureaucrats and Joe Sixpack to record spreads.

Obama Promises Bunker Busters To Israel If Netanyahu Delays Iran Invasion Until After US Elections

Zero Hedge

Two days ago Obama held a press conference in which he openly prevaricated and disinformed the world about the true nature of his meeting with Israel PM Netanyahu. Today we find what was truly discussed, courtesy of Israel’s Maariv newspaper, Spiegel and Reuters, which all tell us that it was a simple case of quid pro quo, namely that Barack Obama would supply Israel with bunker-busters and refueling planes if Bibi promised to delay an Iran attack until after the presidential election. The implication is simple – avoid an oil price shock this summer and delay it until next winter when Obama will be safely in his throne for another 4 years, at which point US citizens can fuel their cars with combustible urine following nights of binging on Everclear in hopes of ending their sorrows with alcohol poisoning, or better yet, all be in possession of the heavily subsidized flaming half ton block of metal known as the Obama Pinto, er, Volt.
Some more details on the latest horse trade from Israel Insider:

Pentagon Launches Desperate Damage Control Over Shocking Panetta Testimony

The United States has ceded control of its affairs to international bureaucrats
Paul Joseph Watson

Alex Jones: “This represents absolute 100 per cent proof that the military industrial complex which runs the United States is under the control of foreign central banks who are imposing a military dictatorship.”
The Pentagon is engaging in damage control after shocking testimony yesterday by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta at a Senate Armed Services Committee congressional hearing during which it was confirmed that the U.S. government is now completely beholden to international power structures and that the legislative branch is a worthless relic.

During the hearing yesterday Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey brazenly admitted that their authority comes not from the U.S. Constitution, but that the United States is subservient to and takes its marching orders from the United Nations and NATO, international bodies over which the American people have no democratic influence.

Obama Uses Staged Cyber Attack To Sell Draconian Cybersecurity Bill

Wants federal control over companies’ cyber security systems
Steve Watson

The Obama administration conducted a mock cyber attack on New York City yesterday in an effort to gain support in the Senate for a cybersecurity bill that internet providers argue will prevent them from making real security improvements.

– by Staff Report

Proof Libertarianism Is an Illuminati Ploy ... So Jewish Supremacism can be retraced directly to the Austrian Economics' main proponent himself (Murray Rothbard) ... Libertarianism and Austrian Economics are not the products of maverick free thinkers. On the contrary, all leading proponents of the movement were highly connected individuals. In the early years the Volker Fund made available vast sums of money, because Austrian Economics was considered the right answer to communism, to maintain the dialectic the Money Power needs (also see: 'Banker explained 'Occupy America' Scam'). Far from a fringe movement, Mont Pelerin Alumni collected no less than eight Noble Prizes. Alan Greenspan testified of its pervasive influence by saying in 2000: "the Austrian School have reached far into the future from when most of them practiced and have had a profound and, in my judgment, probably an irreversible effect on how most mainstream economists think in this country." In this day and age when communism is no longer considered a threat, but with Marxism/Liberalism/Political Correctness a strong force in Western nations, Libertarianism has found a new lease of life as a way co-opting the resistance in the Alternative Media. The dialectic continues unabated. – Henry Makow

– by Staff Report

As long as there is confidence in the Fed, the Fed's strategy may pan out, right? Maybe. We don't even question the motives of the Fed 154127845 However, we question the Fed's ability to conduct policy when its policy makers are blindfolded. We fear that some of the Fed's most important gauges used to set policy have been taken away, by the Fed itself. – Merk Funds
Dominant Social Theme: If the Fed would only do a better job, things could get better.
Free-Market Analysis: Merk Funds' Axel Merk just issued a commentary in which he points out, astonishingly, that the Fed "now owns more U.S. government debt than China." The ramifications are immense.

by Tibor Machan

Dr. Tibor Machan

I assume that writers like me want to be read, not ignored. But, alas, there isn't much we can do about this except perhaps fine-tune our craft. Even that merely improves the odds. No one can make others read one's works. Thousands are simply left unread. (Do they actually burn all those unread copies?)
Or take chefs who would naturally want the public to prefer their cuisine. Still, only a few customers will give it a shot. Or all those artists whose works hang in galleries but without being viewed by visitors. Or museums no one goes to. Or athletics no one cares much about, like the ones that were popular with my family, fencing and rowing. Just compare their fan base with football and baseball!

Matthew O’Brien Thinks Currency Wars Are A Good Thing

by James E. Miller

“It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a ‘dismal science.’ But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.”
-Murray Rothbard

Pummeling criticism, in most instances, should be reserved for those who espouse such nonsense that it strikes even the most unlearned reader as illogical. While some economic commentators have an impeccable talent for twisting the facts in a way that makes their argument seem as the only sound alternative (Paul Krugman and Robert Reich come to mind), some thinkers are so utterly confused on the complexity of a market economy that their preferred policies border on infantile.
The latest perpetrator of this crime is associate editor of The Atlantic Matthew O’Brien. In yesterday’s column titled “Currency Wars Are Good!” O’Brien commits an economic fallacy dating back hundreds of years.

The U.S. Ready to Attack Iran According to Defense Secretary

by James E. Miller

The path to what could be World War III showed no signs of stopping today.
You know it’s kleptocracy when one of the heads of the federal government openly appeases perhaps the most influential and financially flush lobbying groups in the country.
In what amounts to a grotesque instance of outright pandering, Department of Defense head Leon Panetta spoke today at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual conference and assured the audience that “we will keep all options – including military action – on the table to prevent (Iran) from obtaining a nuclear weapon.” This assurance has confirmed what the majority of Americans have long feared- that their government stands ready and willing to involve itself in another war despite public opinion being in opposition of such an excursion.

Is State Capitalism Winning?

by James E. Miller

If we are to keep the term “capitalism” at all, then, we must distinguish between “free-market capitalism” on the one hand, and “state capitalism” on the other. The two are as different as day and night in their nature and consequences. Freemarket capitalism is a network of free and voluntary exchanges in which producers work, produce, and exchange their products for the products of others through prices voluntarily arrived at. State capitalism consists of one or more groups making use of the coercive apparatus of the government — the State — to accumulate capital for themselves by expropriating the production of others by force and violence.

Murray Rothbard

“State capitalism.”
Has there ever been a more contradictory word?
With the Davos World Economic Forum now come and gone, the political class and armchair intellectuals of the world predictably failed to reach their goal of developing a conclusive method to restructure capitalism for the 21^st century. Of course attributing the kind of economic systems which exist in today’s developed countries to capitalism is not only a wrongful understanding on what free enterprise encompasses but gives a false directive for policymakers to try and fix what they believe is broken. The reality is that capitalism isn’t broken as true free market principles haven’t been pursued through worldwide movements of decentralization in almost a century.

IMF Head Christine Lagarde Saving the World?

by James E. Miller
Don’t make me laugh.
In what can only be viewed as a glowing and adoring profile, the BBC highlights the efforts by International Monetary Fund managing director Christine Lagarde to contain the ongoing Eurozone crisis.

For the past month Ms Lagarde has given the BBC unusual behind-the-scenes access as she steers her 187-member organisation to manage the biggest financial crisis of our lifetimes – thefiscal nightmare that is the eurozone.
Her conviction that the euro crisis leaves no country immune is what is driving Ms Lagarde to ask the world to help pay for a $500bn (£314bn) global firewall. It is a job that keeps her extremely busy and extremely mobile.
On that travel occasion she was on her way to Mexico City for a meeting of the G20 Finance Ministers and she invited us to join her.
This summit is a chance to pass around the IMF cap for those hundreds of billions of dollars. She uses all her easy charm and lawyer’s training to cajole non-eurozone countries to surrender their domestic interests to the greater global good.

Who's the Real Criminal?. by Jeff Berwick

Last week, in the article, "The Death of Privacy", I stated that I wouldn't care much about privacy if it wasn't for government. One reader wrote in and stated that I should also be worried about privacy or someone could "steal my identity".

I responded, please, steal it! You think it is fun being handcuffed every time I go to the US? If anyone wants to be Jeff Berwick, please, go right ahead!

It is crucial, however, to retort the reasons government say they need to invade and attack financial privacy of individuals. Because none of the purported reasons have any basis on which to stand.

In the year 2000, Ron Paul said, sarcastically:

What If Democracy Is Bunk? by Andrew P. Napolitano

What if you are only allowed to vote because it doesn't make a difference? What if no matter how you vote, the elites get to have it their way? What if "one person, one vote" is just a fiction created by the government to induce your compliance? What if democracy is dangerous to personal freedom? What if democracy erodes the people's understanding of natural rights and the foundations of government, and instead turns elections into beauty contests?

Can the President Kill You? by Andrew P. Napolitano

Can the president kill an American simply because the person is dangerous and his arrest would be impractical? Can the president be judge, jury and executioner of an American in a foreign country because he believes that would keep America safe? Can Congress authorize the president to do this?

Earlier this week, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder attempted to justify presidential killing in a speech at Northwestern University law school. In it, he recognized the requirement of the Fifth Amendment for due process. He argued that the president may substitute the traditionally understood due process – a public jury trial – with the president's own novel version of it; that would be a secret deliberation about killing. Without mentioning the name of the American the president recently ordered killed, Holder suggested that the president's careful consideration of the case of New Mexico-born Anwar al-Awlaki constituted a substituted form of due process.

High-Frequency Trading: Menger vs. Walras

by John Paul Koning

While Carl Menger and Léon Walras simultaneously discovered the principle of marginal utility, their ideas about the nature of market prices are very different. Walras was more interested in the final equilibrium prices arrived at by traders than the process by which these prices were formed. Therefore, he dramatically simplified the pricing process by imagining it as if it were governed by an auction mechanism capable of instantly calculating all prices in an economy.

The Rise of Imperialism in Virginia

by Murray N. Rothbard

[Conceived in Liberty (1975)]

The survival of the Virginia colony hung for years by a hairbreadth. One major reason for the survival of this distressed colony was the changes that the Virginia Company agreed to make in its social structure.
The other major factor in the survival of the colony was the discovery by John Rolfe, about 1612, that Virginia tobacco could be grown in such a way as to make it acceptable to European tastes. Previously, Virginia tobacco had been regarded as inferior to the product that had been introduced to the Old World by the Spanish colonies in America. By 1614 Rolfe was able to ship a cargo of tobacco to London and meet a successful market. Very rapidly, Virginia possessed a staple and an important economic base; tobacco could be readily exported to Europe and exchanged for other goods needed by the colonists.

Bill Maher, Major Obama Donor

HBO has perhaps made Bill Maher America's nastiest talk show host. He's also America's most prominent, militant atheist. Now he's made himself the most prominent million-dollar donor to Barack Obama's super PAC, Priorities USA. He broke out a big check onstage in San Jose to advertise his magnanimous support.
A few days ago, NBC's resident feminist Andrea Mitchell practically needed smelling salts when Santorum super-PAC backer Foster Friess repeated a very old (and equally innocent) joke about Bayer aspirin being used as birth control. This somehow became the scandal of the day for Rick Santorum.
So why don't Bill Maher's "jokes" now blow back on Barack Obama?

Miss Fluke's Fluke. R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.

WASHINGTON — I like to think of Miss Sandra Fluke's contretemps with the madly admired Mr. Rush Limbaugh as, well, a fluke. She objected to his joke about her being "a slut" and "a prostitute," and hesto presto the part-time Georgetown University law student struck pay dirt. You object to my characterization of her as "part-time"? How could she be a full-time law student and still be appearing before Congress explicating the plight of coeds with $3,000 contraceptive bills or others suffering the heartbreak of being rejected publicly at the pharmacy for insurance coverage of a birth control bill? Then there was all the other media attention that came from Rush's little joke. Yes, I see it as a fluke, defined by the Dictionary of American Slang as "a fortuitous accident." Was not Miss Fluke felicitously named years ago before anyone ever thought of talk radio?

Rush: At the Tip of Liberty's Spear. David Limbaugh

If you'll indulge me, I need to express this beyond my Twitter posts: I am proud of my brother, Rush, for his multiple sincere apologies to Sandra Fluke. I am not even slightly surprised that so many on the left refuse to accept his apology.
I think this entire incident is instructive. Rush is heartsick over the direction this country is going and that we arrived at a place where many people don't even bat an eye over the alarming development that our government is mandating insurance coverage — and forcing employers to pay for it even when they object on moral grounds.

Barack ‘All of the Above' Obama. Larry Kudlow

President Obama fought back against rising oil and retail gas prices in a speech in Florida on Thursday. But it was a curious speech. He started out by mocking Republicans, stating that GOP candidates are licking their chops as gasoline prices rocket up. He said, "They are already dusting off their three-point plans for $2 gas. I'll save you the suspense: Step one is drill, step two is drill, and step three is keep drilling."
Very clever. It's kind of what Newt Gingrich said in this week's Arizona debate.
But here's the curious part. Obama said, "If we're going to take control of our energy future, if we're going to avoid these gas-price spikes down the line, then we need a sustained all-of-the-above strategy that develops every available source of American energy — oil, gas, wind, solar, nuclear, biofuels and more."
That's a Republican policy. All of the above. George W. Bush used to say it. John McCain ran on it in 2008. And you hear Republicans talk in similar terms all the time. "All of the above."

Iran and Obama. Tom Sowell

What are we to make of President Barack Obama's latest pronouncements about Iran's movement toward nuclear bombs? His tough talk might have had some influence on Iran a couple of years ago, when he was instead being kinder and gentler with the world's leading terrorist-sponsoring nation. Now his tough talk may only influence this year's election — which may be enough for Obama.
The track record of Barack Obama's pronouncements on a wide range of issues suggests that anything he says is a message written in sand, and easily blown away by the next political winds. Remember the "shovel-ready projects" that would spring into action and jump-start the economy, once the "stimulus" money was available? Obama himself laughed at this idea a year or so later, when it was clear to all that these projects were going nowhere.

The Laffer Curve, Part I: Understanding the Theory

Keynesian Economics Is Wrong: Bigger Gov't Is Not Stimulus

Defending the Undefendable | Walter Block

The Folly of Intellectuals

By Patrick Cox

03/02/12 Marco Island, Florida – I have referred often to a theory of business cycles that was first described by the Austrian Joseph Schumpeter, but amplified by contemporary American Thomas Sowell. Both are brilliant economists who have described in mathematical detail how free markets produce the most wealth and well-being for society, including for those at the lower end of the financial spectrum.
It is their explanation for why things go wrong, however, that I find most illuminating. Both Schumpeter and Sowell write about “intellectuals” who have academic credentials of some sort but are lacking in knowledge that would make them particularly valuable to the market. Incapable of commanding significant wealth and status through voluntary market mechanisms, these intellectuals resent the wealth of more-successful people. As a result, they envy and resent the entire market system that has failed to reward them as they believe they deserve to be rewarded.

By Eric Sprott

03/06/12 2012 is proving to be the ‘Year of the Central Bank’. It is an exciting celebration of all the wonderful maneuvers central banks can employ to keep the system from falling apart. Western central banks have gone into complete overdrive since last November, convening, colluding and printing their way out of the mess that is the Eurozone. The scale and frequency of their maneuvering seems to increase with every passing week, and speaks to the desperate fragility that continues to define much of the financial system today.

Not So Encouraging

According to the conventional wisdom, data released this morning should be taken as an encouraging sign for the labor market.

"US Worker Productivity Growth Slowed in Q4, Which Could Signal More Hiring in Coming Months" (Associated Press)

U.S. companies will have to keep hiring steadily to meet their customers’ rising demand. That’s the message that emerged Wednesday from a report that employers are finding it harder to squeeze more output from their existing staff.

Worker productivity rose at an annual rate of 0.9 percent in the October-December quarter, the Labor Department said. While that’s a slight upward revision from last month’s preliminary estimate, it’s half the pace from the July-September quarter.

Productivity, the amount of output per hour of work, grew last year at the slowest pace in nearly a quarter of a century.

How is the U.S. economy doing in 2012? Unfortunately, it is not doing nearly as well as the mainstream media would have you believe. Yes, things have stabilized for the moment but this bubble of false hope will not last for long. The long-term trends that are ripping our economy and our financial system to shreds continue unabated. When you step back and look at the broader picture, it is hard to deny that we are in really bad shape and that things are rapidly getting worse. Later on in this article you will find a list of interesting facts that show the true state of the U.S. economy. Hopefully many of you will find this list to be a useful tool that you can share with your family and friends. Each day the foundations of our economy crumble a little bit more, and we need to wake up as many Americans as we can to what is really going on while there is still time. We have accumulated way too much debt, we consume far more wealth than we produce, millions of our jobs are being shipped overseas, our big cities are decaying, family budgets are being squeezed more than ever, poverty is rampant and we have raised several generations of Americans that expect the government to fix all of their problems. The U.S. economy is at a crossroads, and the decisions that the American people make in 2012 are going to be incredibly important.

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Posted by Bill Conroy -

Posted by Bill Conroy -

Posted by Bill Conroy -

By Karl Rove

Mitt nearly erased the gap among non-college graduates and once again carried Catholic voters.

By Bob McTeer

by Don Boudreaux

Charles Hill |

Submitted by Tyler Durden

– by Staff Report

– by Staff Report

by Tibor Machan

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

By Patrick Cox

By Eric Sprott

No comments:

BLOG ARCHIVE