konane's Blog

"Kagan Was ‘Not Sympathetic’ as Law Clerk to Gun-Rights Argument

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aPI35t8uR6Gs

Some really good questions to ponder.  Love or hate him, Boortz makes you think.

______

Source Boortz.com

"If you've been paying attention you will know that the cost estimates for ObamaCare were far too low in the first place, just as they usually are for government spending and entitlement programs. The key phrase here is "if you've been paying attention." Sadly, far too many Americans aren't paying attention to much more than their Hollywood celebrity news and favorite sports team. Bread and circuses .. and the politicians love it. Spending figures and debt to GDP ratios mean little to most Americans. Slogans and impossible promises drive far too many elections.

Now let's say, just for the sake of argument, that you do run into someone today who has decided that it's time to put down the US Weekly magazine and pick up some serious reading. They ask you for some suggestions on what areas they might research for more information. I'm running out of time before the show ... but here are just a few ideas.

• Look into the Social Security Trust Fund. Does is really exist? Social Security benefits now exceed the amount collected in Social Security taxes. If there is no money in the Trust Fund, where will the money come from to pay these benefits?
• China seems to be running into a little snag with their economy. Soon they might not be in the mood to buy any foreign debt. When that happens (when, not if) who will se sell our bonds too? At what interest rate?
• Here's a simple task. Try to find someone who can explain to you how we will be able to afford to pay Social Security and Medicare benefits ... together with ObamaCare ... in, say, ten years.
• The United States has the second-highest corporate income tax in the world - second to Japan. Ask some businessmen to explain how this helps create much-needed jobs.
• Virtually all of the personal income taxes in the United States are paid by just 47% of those who actually have income. This means that about 53% of the people are getting a free ride. Jobs and economic growth come from the 47%, not the 53%. What does this tell you about America's future?
• Speaking of America's future: The life-expectancy of a representative government based on the rule of law with personal and economic liberty is right around 200 years. We're about three decades beyond our life expectancy. Try to explain why we're bulletproof and our system of government simply cannot collapse under regulatory and debt load.
• If two fat Asian women wearing traditional Japanese garb robbed a bank, try to explain how police would catch these two without profiling. Would the "BOLO" alert simply say "Be on the lookout for two people who robbed a bank ....... ?"
• Study the 10th Amendment to our Constitution. Then try to find one politician in Washington who actually tries to govern in accordance with these instructions from our founding fathers.
• Are you watching what's happening in Greece? Do you know that the European Union and the International Monetary Fund have just approved a ONE TRILLION dollar bailout fund for countries like Greece, Portugal, Spain and others? Oh, you did? Well ... did you know that American taxpayers are on the hook for $50 billion of those dollars in that bailout fund? Just where is that money going to come from?
• Do you have health insurance through your employer? Well, isn't that special. Are you aware that some of America's largest employers are considering dropping their employee health benefits as ObamaCare goes into effect? Why? Because they get rid of a massive headache. Besides, it would be cheaper for them just to pay the penalty to the government rather than pay for all of those expensive health plans. Reconcile this with Obama's promise that you would be able to keep your health insurance plan if you liked it.
• A little reading of history will show you that despots and tyrants know that they must control the flow of information if they are to maintain power. In recent days your President has been telling graduates that all of this information is "putting pressure" on them and "our democracy." Obama's FCC has also made moves to control the Internet. Is there any reason to believe that Obama has a problem with the free flow of information in our society?
• A wager earner pays $5000 in income taxes. He needs that money to bring his mortgage current and to pay for some medical expenses. Instead the money is given to a puppet theatre to build some new puppets and scenery. Do you have a problem with that?
• Do illegal immigrants in the Southwest United States believe that they are there illegally? Do you realize that 58% of the people in Mexico are of the opinion that the Southwestern United States actually belongs to Mexico and not to the United States?
• Our borders with Mexico are still wide open. List the reasons why politicians might not want to stem the flood of illegals into the United States.
• Try to figure out why a school system owned by the government, operated by the government and staffed by government employees would NOT teach your children that government is the answer to all of their problems.
• Do some research to figure out where the jobs come from. You'll find that almost all new private sector jobs ... as much as 80% ... come from small businesses, not corporations. The owners of these small businesses report their income on their personal income tax returns. They aren't hiring. Study the situation and try to figure out why they're sitting on the sidelines. Could it possibly have anything to do with the fact that they're scared s#!tless about all of the regulations and tax increases Obama has in store for them?
• Considering the fact that we have a president who has called the private sector "the enemy;" a president who clearly does not favor the concept of free enterprise and capitalism ... is there the slightest chance that this president might be engaged in an intentional effort to destroy or cripple our free market economy so that he can replace it with a centrally-planned economy more to his liking? Even the SLIGHTEST chance?

OK ... enough. Maybe .. just maybe those questions aimed at the right people might get someone actually interested in what the hell is going on outside of Hollywood or their local sports stadium."

http://boortz.com/nealz_nuze/2010/05/but-wait-theres-more-2.html

"Porker of the Month is a dubious honor given to lawmakers, government officials, and political candidates who have shown a blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers.
 

Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.)

Washington Office:
Phone: 202-224-5054
Fax: 202-224-9450

"CAGW Names Senator Thad Cochran Porker of the Month 

"(Washington, D.C.) – Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today named Senate Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) April Porker of the Month for being the biggest porker in the 2010 Congressional Pig Book, the third consecutive year he has received this dishonor.  Sen. Cochran obtained 240 earmarks worth $490 million.  Since fiscal year 2008, Sen. Cochran has obtained more than $2 billion in pork-barrel earmarks.  This year also marks the 20th anniversary of the Congressional Pig Book. 

The 2010 Congressional Pig Book documented 9,129 earmarks worth $16.5 billion and features “Oinker Awards,” which bestow special recognition on the most extraordinarily wasteful projects.  The “Thad the Impaler Award” went to Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) for securing the most pork. 

In a March 17, 2010 Politico article, when Sen. Cochran was asked about his earmark spending he said, ‘“I don’t have any guilt trips.”’  Sen. Cochran’s attitude illustrates how fiscally irresponsible members put wasteful parochial interests ahead of the fiscal strength of the country and taxpayers. 

“Unfortunately, some members of Congress continue to take advantage of the broken earmark spoils system,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz.  “Sen. Cochran and members like him continue to manipulate the appropriations process and siphon off the limited resources created by the taxpayers’ blood, sweat, and tears to buy votes.  This mindless self-dealing is why the taxpayers are saddled with a $1.6 trillion budget deficit, a $12.8 trillion national debt, and the prospect of trillion-dollar budget deficits for the foreseeable future.  Taxpayers know that earmarks are not a productive use of taxpayer money, but politicians like Sen. Cochran who continue to earmark with an utter disregard to the country’s fiscal situation either don’t listen or don’t care,” concluded Schatz. 

Some examples of Sen. Cochran’s $490 million in pork include:  $4,841,000 for wood utilization research; $1,608,000 for dietary supplements research; $1,000,000 for the University of Southern Mississippi for transitioning space technologies into the commercial sector; $850,000 for the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship; $231,000 for e-commerce; and $200,000 for the Washington National Opera. 

For his unparalleled ability to engage in excessively wasteful pork-barrel spending, CAGW names Sen. Thad Cochran its April 2010 Porker of the Month.
 
Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.  Porker of the Month is a dubious honor given to lawmakers, government officials, and political candidates who have shown a blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers."

http://www.cagw.org/newsroom/porker-of-the-month/2010/senator-thad-cochran.html

A friend sent this video in email.  Unbelievable .... I wish everyone in the Nashville area the very best luck cleaning and rebuilding.

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Submitted by Tyler Durden on05/11/2010 15:48 -0500

From the BelfastTelegraph

Banksprotesters storm Irish parliament

Protesters have stormedparliament during a march against government plans to inject billions of eurosinto the country's banks.

Dozens of people broke away from the march andran at the gates of the parliament's main building, Leinster House.

Theywrestled with police, who tried to force them back and secure thegate.

At least one man suffered a head injury during the scuffles withorganisers appealing for calm."

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/breaking-bank-protesters-storm-irish-parliament-yesterday-greece-today-ireland-tomorrow

No wonder this movement has Dems running scared, demonizing this grass roots movement. 

________

Many women gave the most obvious answer: "If we waited around for you men to do it, it would never get done."

When I asked Christen Varley, the Boston tea party leader, she said it's because moms tend to be "the CEO's of our households. We do the shopping, bill paying, budgeting, etc. We know less money means less freedom. Maybe if the president and Congress did the grocery shopping, they'd know why we're mad."

Dana Loesch, talk host and co-founder of the St. Louis tea party, believes the tea party movement is the modern conservative version of "the personal is political."

"Motherhood itself has become a political act," says Ms. Loesch. "And the tea parties are an extension of our need as moms to protect the future for our children."

Keli Carender isn't a mom, but the Seattle-area 30-something is the mother of the tea party movement. She held the very first rally of the modern tea party era to protest the so-called stimulus package, days before Rick Santelli's infamous CNBC rant.

The tea party idea "just clicked in the minds of conservative women," she says. "Most women I know are thinking 'I'm taking care of my family and the government's taking care of it's business—right?' Then they see what the government is really doing and they saw 'Whoa, whoa! I guess I've gotta take care of their mess, too.'"

Mr. Graham, a radio talk show host in Boston

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703961104575226661708997640.html

"DON'T GET TOO COMFORTABLE

@ May 10, 2010 8:49 AM

Source Boortz.com 

Looks like the people of Utah have finally called the bluff. Senator Bob Bennett in Utah has been in Washington for 18 years. He was running for a fourth term. Key word .. "was." GOP delegates at the state convention voted for another guy by the name of Mike Lee, rather than sending Bob Bennett back to the statewide race.

Bennett's sin? Apparently the voters didn't appreciate his vote for the so-called Toxic Asset Relief Program (TARP). The voters evidently have this odd idea that it is not the role of government to bail out businesses that fail. Maybe they also realized that when the bill was passed the funds were supposed to be used to purchase toxic assets from troubled companies ... but were used instead to effect complete bailouts.

At any rate ... there are a lot of politicians on this Monday morning who received a rather rude wake up call over the weekend. Couldn't happen to a nicer crowd."

http://boortz.com/nealz_nuze/2010/05/dont-get-too-comfortable.html

http://market-ticker.org/archives/2294-KaBoom-Britain-And-Now-Germany.html

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/guest-post-your-senator-bankster

Since I've never played the stock market, no loss no gain for me.  My primary motivation posting financial market information is to hopefully bring back integrity to our financial system for the safety of eveyone's money.

Excellent article.

_________

Source Zero HedgeSubmitted by smartknowledgeu on 05/07/2010 02:39 -0500

"Yesterday’s slide in the US stock markets provides further proof that the world’s financial markets are nothing more than a rigged casino where the house (Wall Street) holds by far the better odds in every game (currency markets, stock markets, derivative markets, commodity markets) it offers the mark (the retail investor).  How else could the US DJIA lose 700 points in a 10-minute span and a number of blue chip stocks lose 25%, or 30% in a matter of minutes as well? The answer? Wall Street’s use of predatory algorithmic High Frequency Trading (HFT) programs that are designed to trigger cascade-like buying and selling. To believe that, as an individual investor, you have a snowball’s chance in hell of beating these Wall Street trading programs that front run your trades or block your trade executions faster than you can blink your eye is tantamount to believing that skill is involved in winning when you shimmy up to the slot machine stool at the Bellagio in Vegas.

Predatory algorithmic HFT programs aren’t called “predatory” without good reason. Not that yesterday’s selloff wasn’t partially the result of fear injected into a Fed Reserve inflated stock market bubble, because it was. But Wall Street deployed HFT programs had a lot to do with the cascading nature of the decline in yesterday’s trading. Continuing our casino analogy, HFT programs act in the same capacity as the thugs employed by casinos that take you to the back room to rain down their “thuggery” upon you if you start winning too much.  HFT programs are designed to block the retail investor from making successful trades against the trades of the house (Wall Street) and often prevent the retail investor from obtaining fair prices in the execution of trades in numerous financial markets.

Consider the following example. Stock A’s bid is $10.10 and the ask is $10.13.  An investor places an order to buy at $10.13. Instead of his order being filled and executed as it would if human traders were executing the trade, HFT programs often immediately step up the ask price to $10.14 and screw both parties in the trade.  Depending on the orders that HFT programs “see”, sometimes the HFT will see an order at $10.13, and step up the price to $10.18 so the bids follow higher and the bid price gets reset from $10.10 to $10.13 almost immediately.  Or, if the bid price does not follow higher, then the bid-ask spread becomes grotesquely distorted from $0.03 to $0.08 for no other reason than HFT programs are blocking liquidity.  Should the human trader withdraw his order to buy at $10.13, then often the bid-ask spread almost immediately returns to $0.03 and the ask will subsequently fall from $10.18 back to $10.13.  Should he place the order again seconds later, however, the bid-ask spread will often immediately increase again with the bid price increasing to a point higher than $10.13 again.

The HFT programs execute the shame shenanigans in the options markets depending on what side of the market they are manipulating. I have many times been forced to take a lower profit on options trades because of HFT programs. For example, if I placed an order to sell on option contracts at $2.50 when the bid is at $2.50 and the ask is $2.60, instead of my order filling, the bid often immediately falls to $2.40 and the ask becomes $2.50, blocking my order from filling.  HFT programs run amok in options markets as well.  This is Skynet from Terminator rigging markets, destroying liquidity and unfairly rigging prices of all possible financial instruments that trade in every conceivable market, all with the blessings of the SEC.

Wall Street has been running these types of scams ever since advances in technology have enabled them to develop algorithmic programs to manipulate markets. In fact, on my company’s website, I have stated the following message for a long time now:

“Today, when stock markets rise in the face of horrid economic fundamentals, fundamental and technical analysis are inadequate when making critical decisions about your financial future…If one expects to be profitable in today's investment world, one MUST realize that ALL MARKETS ARE RIGGED, including gold, silver, currency and stock markets…Without understanding the fraud and rigging games of the financial oligarchs, it is impossible to accurately predict long-term trends. It is a near certainty that future shocks to the economic system will catch the vast majority of all investors unprepared and we expect great shocks to hit the global economy at some point in 2010.”

The only difference is that when I started pushing this message a decade ago, people laughed off my proclamations and accused me of being enamored with conspiracy theories. Today, more and more people finally are awakening to the reality that such a message is not a conspiracy but a fact.

So this is how the Wall Street Casino Scam operates.

The ratings agencies like Moodys and Standard and Poors are the pretty <snip>tail waitresses that lure the mark (the retail investor) into the Casino (stock markets) with free alcoholic drinks (abominably horrible and deceitful credit ratings of financial instruments) to instill the mark with the false sense of confidence necessary to induce gambling in the rigged Casino.  The regulators like the CFTC and the SEC are the pit bosses that oversee the floormen (Wall Street firm CEOs) that oversee the table games dealers (the firm’s traders) and ensure the games (stock markets, currency markets, commodity markets) you are allowed to play possess a feature (HFT trading programs) that ensures that the odds will always enormously be in favor of the house.  The pit boss oversees all floor dealers and conspire with the regulators (the <snip>tail waitresses) to give gamblers (the investor) a sense that all dealings are legitimate even though the odds of every table game (currency markets, commodity markets, stock markets) are insanely rigged in favor of the house (Wall Street firms).  If we consider the table game of blackjack, in a real casino, should you receive a good hand, the dealer will pay out your bet. In the case of Wall Street, due to HFT programs, in many instances, should an investor receive a favorable hand (i.e., a favorable move in the stock market) in the game he or she is playing, HFT programs move in to prevent the bet from paying out in full or paying out at all (an investor’s sell order never executes at the price at which the market has informed the investor that he or she can cash out).

In essence, financial markets are rigged exactly like casinos except for one difference.   The predatory algorithms executed by HFT programs ensure the winnings of the house to a much greater extent than any Casino table game is able to accomplish.  It this sense, Wall Street is rigged to a greater extent than even casinos. In the instances when you win, they deploy HFT trading programs that prevent the bet from paying out full value so that the house (Wall Street firms) can step in and earn profits from a trade it spots AFTER an order has already been placed.  Or in the mirror example, HFT programs allow the house (Wall Street firms) to step in front of trades they “see” and front run them for their own profits, again screwing the retail investor out of a lower price in a buy transaction. In these cases, which must happen by the thousands every day, the HFT programs employed by Wall Street screw both the buyer and seller in the transaction as it always attempts to widen the losses or lessen the gains of both parties involved.  In some instances, frustrated traders leave the game tables so liquidity dries up which leads to the establishment of even more grossly distorted and unfair bid and ask prices. Despite this practice being commonplace, the pit bosses of the giant rigged Wall Street casino, men like Goldman Sachs’s Lloyd Blankfein, want us to believe that their enormous profits are derived because of their upstanding integrity and above-average intelligence of his firm’s employees.

Next on the list of financial weapons of mass destruction? The $600 trillion (notional value) of the derivatives market.  Oh, what joy we’ll experience when the banksters are eventually forced to unwind a fraction of this market and various parties will actually be forced to make good on these contracts when the financial instruments insured by them start heading south (or the true value of them are finally recognized, whichever comes first). It's no wonder that the price of gold has diverged from the behavior of the US dollar and US stock markets on multiple days for the last several weeks.  The next significant dip in gold/silver price that occurs may be the last best buying opportunity in "real" money for years."

About the author: JS Kim is the Chief Investment Strategist and Managing Director of SmartKnowledgeU, LLC

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/near-1000-point-slide-djia-compels-further-investigation-wall-street-casino-scam

"US to announce Mexico trucking plan soon-LaHood

"WASHINGTON, May 6 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's adminstration will soon announce its plan to reopen the U.S. border to Mexican trucks and end a dispute that prompted Mexico to slap duties last year on $2.4 billion worth of U.S. goods, a top U.S. official said on Thursday. ..............."

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN0626694320100506

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/06/2010 20:13 -0500

Source Zero Hedge

"The Senate is officially bribed, paid for and in the pocket of the big banks. Too disgusted to even comment on this. This country deserves all that the "big banks" have in store for it.

Below is the full press release from Senator Kaufman:

WASHINGTON, DC – Senator Ted Kaufman (D-Del.) released the following statement after the Senate voted down the Brown-Kaufman amendment to Wall Street reform legislation, 33-61.

“I am disappointed. This is certainly a defeat for those who are concerned about the dangers of financial concentration in this country. 
 
“On the other hand, against the odds and starting from nowhere, I am proud that Senator Sherrod Brown and I helped to start a nationwide debate on the need to break up ‘too big to fail’ banks and succeeded in getting a vote on our amendment.
 
“The debate on the floor and around the country was not short – it lasted for weeks.  In the last month, this proposal and debate was met with favorable reaction from many respected policymakers, economists and former regulators.  I believe this idea was sound policy – and I further believe that a mainstream consensus will continue to grow that these megabanks are too large, too complex and too internally conflicted to regulate successfully.
 
“Some causes are worth fighting for, and for me, the concern about the risks ‘too big to fail’ banks pose to the American economy and people is deep and profound given the economic tragedy millions of American have endured.  I believe the debate itself – though failing to gain a majority of votes – has helped to change attitudes about the degree of financial concentration and power these megabanks now represent.  Going forward, I hope the Congress will work to strengthen the bill’s ban on proprietary trading by banks.  And I hope that regulators will understand that they should use their discretion under existing statutory authority to break up megabanks when the financial system is threatened.”

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/senate-rejects-brown-kaufman-proposal-break-largest-banks

May 6, 2010 Posted by Scott at 10:05 AM

"Based on a recent report in London's Telegraph, it appears that the financial crisis in Greece is awakening some festering European resentments dating back to World War II. Although Greece is in a position of great weakness, some Greeks think that now is the time to settle old scores:

The mayor of Athens, Nikitas Kaklamanis, led the call for Germany to pay reparations for the conquest and occupation, saying; "You owe us 70 billion euros for the ruins you left behind."

Greece's deputy prime minister, Theodoros Pangalos, also dragged up the war, stating; "The Nazis took away the Greek gold that was in the Bank of Greece, they took away the Greek money and they never gave it back."

Which reminds me. It was the Greeks who gave us the word for democracy. They also gave us the the words for demagoguery, tyranny, crisis and chaos.

The Wall Street Journal picks up on the latter two in "Crisis deepens; chaos grips Greece." Left-wing protesters wielding a fire bomb killed three bank employees yesterday when the bomb hit a bank in central Athens.

Sen. Jim Demint brings it all back home: "U.S. taxpayers are helping finance Greek bailout."   (article below)

Via Instapundit.

UPDATE: A reader forwards an interesting article from the Australian Business Spectator asking "Will German voters cut the cord?"

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/05/026238.php

________

"The International Monetary Fund board has approved a $40 billion bailout for Greece, almost one year after the Senate rejected my amendment to prohibit the IMF from using U.S. taxpayer money to bailout foreign countries.

Congress didn’t learn their lesson after the $700 billion failed bank bailout and let world leaders shake down U.S taxpayers for international bailout money at the G-20 conference in April 2009. G-20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors asked the United States, the IMF’s largest contributor, for a whopping $108 billion to rescue bankers around the world and the Obama Administration quickly obliged.

Rather than pass it as stand-alone legislation, President Obama asked Congress to fold the $108 billion into a war-spending bill to send money to our troops.

It was clear such an approach would simply repeat the expensive mistake of the failed Wall Street bailouts with banks in other nations. Think of it as an international TARP plan, another massive rescue package rushed through with little planning or debate. That’s why I objected and offered an amendment to take it out of the war bill. But the Democrat Senate voted to keep the IMF bailout in the war spending bill. 64 senators voted for the bailout, 30 senators voted against it.

Only one year later, the IMF is sending nearly $40 billion to bailout Greece, the biggest bailout the IMF has ever enacted.

Right now, 17 percent of the IMF funding pool that the $40 billion bailout is being drawn from comes from U.S. taxpayers. If that ratio holds true, that means American taxpayers are paying for $6.8 billion of the Greek bailout. Although the $108 billion extra that Congress approved for the IMF in 2009 hasn’t yet gone into effect, you can bet that once it does Greek bankers will come to the IMF again with their hat in hand. And, if other European Union countries see free money up for grabs they could ask the IMF for bailouts when they get into trouble, too. If we’ve learned anything from the Wall Street bailouts it’s that just one bailout is never enough.

To hide the bailout from Americans already angry with the $700 billion bank bailout, Congress classified it as an “expanded credit line.” The Congressional Budget Office only scored it as $5 billion because IMF agreed to give the United States a promissory note for the rest of the bill.

As the Wall Street Journal wrote at the time, “If it costs so little, why not make it $200 billion. Or a trillion? It’s free!”

Of course, money isn’t free and there are member nations of the IMF that won’t be in a hurry to pay it back. Three state sponsors of terrorism, Iran, Syria and Sudan, are a part of the IMF. Iran participates in the IMF’s day-to-day activities as a member of its executive board.

If the failed bank bailout and stimulus bill wasn’t enough to prove to Americans the kind of misguided, destructive spending that goes on in Washington this will: The Democrat Congress, aided by a few Republicans, used a war spending bill to send bailout money to an international fund that’s partially-controlled by our enemies.

America can’t afford to bail out foreign countries with borrowed dollars from China and certainly shouldn’t allow state sponsors of terror a hand in that process.

This has to stop if we are going to survive as a nation. Congress won’t act stop such foolishness on its own. The only way Americans can stop this is by sending new people to Washington in November who will."

Sen. Jim DeMint is a Republican U.S. Senator from South Carolina."

http://dailycaller.com/2010/05/06/u-s-taxpayers-are-helping-finance-greek-bailout/