U.S. Army Puts Soldiers on the Street in Alabama in Response to Shootings                        

On the TARP salary cap and other things

While I was not in favor of the TARP bail out, (nor am I in favor of the current "stimulus" package) I find the outrage over the proposed salary cap and conditions to be placed on recipients of the TARP money very interesting. I can't say that I have actually heard Sean Hannity or Limbaugh say it, but I have heard "conservatives" complaining for years about welfare/food stamp recipients buying t-bone steaks or living lavishly on the dole. It seems they'd rather make sure that a poor person doesn't misspend a few hundred dollars of "my tax money" before they'd put limits on the misspending of millions of dollars of the same tax money.

Speaking of "my tax money," I don't think much can be said in favor of this so called stimulus package. It is entirely deficit spending and will only delay the inevitable. There is no way around it, we are going to have to down grade our lifestyles. This is not some hate America tirade, it is simply the facts. We, as a people, have lived beyond our means for many years. Certainly all of my adult life, 20 years, credit has been readily available. And more than available: it has been shoved down our throats. By this I mean the constant "buy! buy! buy!" mantra. From the time we we're toddlers we are taught to consume more than we we are taught to create.

and now a quote from Alan Greenspan:

When banks loan money to finance profitable endeavors, the loans are paid off rapidly and bank credit continues to be generally available. But when the business ventures financed by bank credit are less profitable and slow to pay, bankers find their loans outstanding are excessive relative to their gold reserves, and they begin to curtail new lending, usually through higher interest rates... Thus, under the gold standard, a free banking system stands as the protector of an economy's stability and balanced growth.

...prior to WWI, the banking system in the US was based on gold, and even though governments intervened occasionally, banking was more free than controlled. Periodically banks became loaned up to the limit of their gold reserves, interest rates rose sharply, new credit was cut off, and the economy went in to sharp, but short-lived recession. It was limited gold reserves that stopped the unbalanced expansions of business activity, before they could develop into the post- WWI type of disaster...
But the process of cure was misdiagnosed as the disease: if shortage of bank reserves was causing a business decline- argued economic interventionists- why not find a way of supplying increased reserves to the banks so they never need be short! If banks can continue to loan money indefinitely- it was claimed- there need never be any slumps in business. And so the Federal Reserve System was organized in 1913. It consisted of 12 regional Federal Reserve banks nominally owned by private bankers, but in fact government sponsored, controlled, and supported...Now, in addition to gold, credit extended by the Federal Reserve banks( "paper" reserves) could serve as legal tender to pay depositors...

With a logic reminiscent of a generation earlier, statists argued that the gold standard was largely to blame for the credit debacle which led to the Great Depression. If the gold standard had not existed, they argued, Britain's abandonment of gold payments in 1931 would not have caused the failure of banks all over the world. (The irony was that since 1913, we had been, not on a gold standard, but on what may be termed "a mixed gold standard"; yet it is gold that took the blame.) But the opposition to the gold standard in any form -- from a growing number of welfare-state advocates -- was prompted by a much subtler insight: the realization that the gold standard is incompatible with chronic deficit spending (the hallmark of the welfare state). Stripped of its academic jargon, the welfare state is nothing more than a mechanism by which governments confiscate the wealth of the productive members of a society to support a wide variety of welfare schemes. A substantial part of the confiscation is effected by taxation. But the welfare statists were quick to recognize that if they wished to retain political power, the amount of taxation had to be limited and they had to resort to programs of massive deficit spending, i.e., they had to borrow money, by issuing government bonds, to finance welfare expenditures on a large scale...

Under a gold standard, the amount of credit that an economy can support is determined by the economy's tangible assets, since every credit instrument is ultimately a claim on some tangible asset. But government bonds are not backed by tangible wealth, only by the government's promise to pay out of future tax revenues, and cannot easily be absorbed by the financial markets. A large volume of new government bonds can be sold to the public only at progressively higher interest rates. Thus, government deficit spending under a gold standard is severely limited. The abandonment of the gold standard made it possible for the welfare statists to use the banking system as a means to an unlimited expansion of credit. They have created paper reserves in the form of government bonds which -- through a complex series of steps -- the banks accept in place of tangible assets and treat as if they were an actual deposit, i.e., as the equivalent of what was formerly a deposit of gold. The holder of a government bond or of a bank deposit created by paper reserves believes that he has a valid claim on a real asset. But the fact is that there are now more claims outstanding than real assets.

And Ayn Rand:

A system in which the government does not nationalize the means of production, but assumes total control over the economy is fascism.

I found both of these quotes in the book Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal

Thanks to Rich Brilliant for the copy. although I'm not sire if I just never gave it back or it was a gift.

Here's the squatting story Bill from OP was talking about

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Rep_Foreclosed_owners_should_squat_in_0130.html
"During the lending boom, most mortgages were flipped and sold to another lender or servicer or sliced up and sold to investors as securitized packages on Wall Street," explains the Consumer Warning Network. "In the rush to turn these over as fast as possible to make the most money, many of the new lenders did not get the proper paperwork to show they own the note and mortgage. This is the key to the produce the note strategy."

And another stratergy...

Congress is currently considering the size and scope of a second stimulus plan to help bailout the American economy. The first stimulus plan essentially focused on bailing out Wall Street and the banks. It is vital that the second stimulus plan provide direct economic relief to Americans. There are many ways to provide relief. The Mortgage Deferred Payment Plan is the initiative we are advocating.
How will the Mortgage Deferred Payment Plan work?
The plan will allow qualified homeowners who have Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac backed mortgages to apply for a mortgage payment “deferment” for a specified period of time. We are proposing 6 months to 3 years...

At the end of the “deferment” period we are proposing that the homeowner have 15 years to repay the “deferment” interest free.

more pharma...

I India:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/01/26/world/main4752641.shtml?source=RSSattr=HOME_4752641

In the USA:
http://www.enews20.com/news_Drugs_Found_in_US_Drinking_Water_Supplies_06410.html

now that's responsibility

Woman Turns In Grandsons After Shooting
http://www.kctv5.com/news/18590157/detail.html

Gete ready to fire up the cameras

Red-Light Safety Camera Program
http://www.kcmo.org/pubworks.nsf/web/rlc_main?opendocument

a few pharmaceutical dots to consider:

In 2001, an estimated 150 million prescriptions, or 21 percent of prescriptions written, were for off-label use, according to the Archives study.

There is little question that what Dr. Gleason did was legal as companies can hire independent physicians to discuss he drugs and physicians are allowed to use FDA approved drugs for off label reasons.

Maker of Narcolepsy Drug Pleads Guilty in U.S. Case

Maryland psychiatrist Peter Gleason pleads guilty in federal court in drug “misbranding” scheme

XYREM(R) (sodium oxybate oral solution) net sales for the third quarter of 2008 increased 48 percent to $14.2 million, compared with $9.6 million for the third quarter of 2007.

Sorry folks

It looks as though I will not be able to do a show this weekend. I had to work last weekend and now I have a personal situation that I have to leave town for. I'll try to be back but it doesn't look like it at the moment.

Online Ads Lead To 3 Robberies In KC

Be careful when doing your Christmas shopping.

Gold is poised for a dramatic surge and could blast through $2,000 an ounce

Gold traders are playing close attention to reports from Beijing that the China is thinking of boosting its gold reserves from 600 tonnes to nearer 4,000 tonnes to diversify away from paper currencies. "If true, this is a very material change," he said.

In memory of this dark anniversary

The Committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. The Committee is unable to identify the other gunman or the extent of the conspiracy.

Call me a liar of you will, but it seems to me that the House committee is saying that a conspiracy killed the President of the United States. And still, you are a nut to say so.

Why was it done?

For your consideration:

Al-Qaeda’s alleged number two Ayman Al-Zawahiri has called for new attacks to be launched against “criminal America,” which is somewhat odd considering the fact that he once fought on behalf of the CIA and was granted U.S. residence by the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Mayor sorry for kids' 'Assassinate Obama' chant

Iran said to have enough nuclear fuel for one weapon

People want to know Recipients of Loans

Nov. 12 (Bloomberg) --

House Republican leader John Boehner called for the Federal Reserve to disclose the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans from American taxpayers and the troubled assets the central bank is accepting as collateral...

Senator John Cornyn of Texas, said the lack of disclosure ``should trouble taxpayers and policymakers alike. There cannot be accountability in government and in our financial institutions without transparency... Many of the financial problems we are facing today are the direct result of too much secrecy and too little accountability.''

Naomi Klein:

There’s another piece of this puzzle that is also borderline illegal, which is that in addition to the $700 billion that we are discussing, the $700 billion bailout, there’s another $2 trillion that’s been handed out by the Federal Reserve in emergency loans to financial institutions, to banks, that actually we don’t really know who they’re handing the money out to, because, apparently, it’s a secret.

Grave Is Oldest DNA Evidence of Family

A grave with the remains of a mother and father huddled together with two sons has been dated to 4,600 years ago and marks the oldest genetic evidence for a nuclear family, researchers say.

I have to support the policeman in this one:

Our $3 Trillion Bailout

http://www.clusterstock.com/2008/11/our-3-trillion-bailout

Adding together the $170 billion that the Treasury Department has currently agreed to provide banks in additional capital, the $150 billion that the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve are providing to AIG and the $2 trillion that the Federal Reserve has provided banks in emergency loans brings the total assistance to $2.32 trillion. If the estimated savings from the new tax breaks are included, the assistance would climb to $2.46 trillion.

That total does not include other measures not focused directly on banks, such as Treasury Department's $200 billion in support for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the Federal Housing Administration's $300 billion HOPE for Homeowners program."

Add in another $50 billion for automakers, and that's how you get to $3 trillion.

Google the Flu?

Remember that the CIA owns In-Q-tel Which owns (did) Google.

then consider this quote:

Thomas Malone, professor at M.I.T.: "I think we are just scratching the surface of what's possible with collective intelligence."

Eric Schmidt, GOOGLE's chief executive vows: "From a technological perspective, it is the beginning." 

Let's slow down just a little bit:

Obama Holiday!??!

Can't we wait at least until he's served a few days in office? I am sure that there will be a holiday eventually. But I hate driving down Cleaver Blvd as it is. I think you should wait until someone is dead and gone before youstart naming roads and holidays after them. After all, it's possible ( albeit HIGHLY unlikely) that Obama could be as bad a president as G W Bush.