Over at The Wall Street Journal, they have discovered an ominous event taking place; identifying a "NIRP (negative interest rate policy) "Doom Loop" that threatens to wipeout banks and the global economy".
Europe has just passed #8 while the US just passed #5. Once an "event" takes place, hypothecation reigns supreme and the loop begins to swirl at exponential speed. As the WSJ noted, "the consequences are deeply worrying" and Zero Hedge is correct in advising to "buckle up".
As painful as it will no doubt be, the correct course of action would be to allow a crash and reset rather than extending quantitative easing with bailouts, or God forbid, a new idea of bailing IN.
ABC News Investigative Reporter Brian Ross is living in Fantasyland. Or is he?
In a simply stunning example of media bias, Brian Ross has come under fire for an inexcusable misrepresentation of the facts in the aftermath of the tragic series of events in Aurora, Colorado.
Take a listen:
Ross tried to tie the suspect to the Tea Party, noting one of the 25 estimated residents with the same name had previously signed up for the Tea Party. Ross has done some good work in the past, and prior to this, was highly thought of.
ABC quickly responded with an apology, which was insufficient and not accepted. So egregious was this level of reporting, even the members of the left wing media are hammering ABC and Ross. In fact, as a shareholder of the Walt Disney Corporation, owners of ABC, I demand Ross be immediately terminated, with Stephanopoulos placed on probation.
Ross is as experienced as they come, so do not buy the we made an error commentary. Ross spoke this knowingly and by throwing the Tea Party narrative into this story, plants a narrative that is difficult to rewind. Where does the Tea Party go to get its reputation back?
This is not the first time, and the list is long as compiled by The Blaze, the media has slandered political opponents.
The major news networks, most notably ABC, CBS, NBC and certainly CNN actively misrepresent the facts efforting to fit within their conspired narrative; therefore, they cannot be considered credible.
If you must watch a network news program, FOX News channel stands alone. Newspapers you should stick with are The Wall Street Journal and Investors Business Daily, if you want to read what is really going on.
A staggering jobs report on Friday accentuated the lack of recovery taking place in the job market, despite the efforts of the Obama administration. Seemingly oblivious to the elitist progressive power brokers in Washington, small business owners and those on the street, Wall and Main, not only expected the bad news, but can point to the causation of the problems.
Micheal Fleischer, president of Bogen Communications Inc. of Ramsey, N.J, penned an enlightening editorial in The Wall Street Journal. Mr Fleischer wrote of the increasing burden of competitively employing a staff and the negative impact of governmental taxation and regulatory interference.
In the aftermath of the editorial, which made some waves, Mr. Fleischer joined CNBC's Larry Kudlow and William George, former Medtronic chairman/CEO who teaches at Harvard Business School. This is well worth your time. Take a listen:
Unfortunately, at the time of Obama's election, the trend of governmental regulatory interventions and increasing taxation and regulatory reform should have been reduced. The opposite, on steroids, continues to take place, with small business getting clobbered to help the government offset their enormous and unnecessary entitlement programs.
However, as bad as those items are, if an employer knew the playing field, that would be one thing, but this government intervention knows no boundaries, and employers cannot adequately estimate future cost going forward and therefore are not hiring.
Scratch that. Small business does in fact know what is coming, and trust me, it is not conducive to increasing staff and growing a company. The Obama administration policies fly in the face of free market capitalism, and that will be adverse to growing business and thus creating jobs.
My voter primaries are August 24th, and when they open the doors at 7AM, they will find me, eager to throw out the progressive elitist idiot Keynesians wrecking our country.
George Mason University Professor Daniel Klein and Zogby researcher Zeljka Buturovic surveyed 4,835 American adults on eight questions about basic economics. They also asked each of the respondents about their political leanings, grouping them into six categories: progressive/very liberal; liberal; moderate; conservative; very conservative; and libertarian. They wrote about their findings in The Wall Street Journal.
As Klein asserts, “The left has trouble squaring economic thinking with their political psychology, morals, and aesthetics.”
If you are like me, you run into this thinking everyday. If you take for example our current economic crisis, spearheaded in large measure by decades of socialist programs, most with good intentions, which are geared to assist fellow citizens, you find governmental initiatives that end up being entitlement programs that are drowning our financial system and placing Uncle Sam at the doorstep of bankruptcy. Going green, presented as a worthwhile effort to protect the environment masquerading as a global transfer of wealth, is a prime example of this. Current legislation proposed as the cap and trade bill, if voted into law, will likely be the event that does bankrupt the ole USA.
“We must face the fact that the preservation of individual freedom is incompatible with a full satisfaction of our views of distributive justice" -F.A. Hayek
We recently had an example of a progressive politician, who really demonstrated what the study identified. Get a load of this recent interview on FOX News Neil Cavuto and Vermont Representative Peter Welch, and must I qualify that he is a Democrat:
That was brutal. Cavuto finally recognized that the progressives are lost in an economic sea. The Congressman simply cannot comprehend what the elimination of the dividends of British Petroleum (BP:NYSE) and other oil related companies would do to the pensions to most Americans.
So with a handful of economic idiots running things in Washington, what can we expect going forward in the marketplace? The worst is behind us according to President Barack Obama. Dr. Arthur Laffer, former economic advisor to President Ronald Reagan, penned an article for The Wall Street Journal that is raising quite a few eyebrows among those on the periphery of the investor community. Art Laffer's colleague, Steve Moore of The Wall Street Journal, weighs in and you better sit down for this one.
Dr. Laffer has put this conclusion forward for a few months now, and when you couple the Gulf Oil Spill, an economic and environmental of unmeasurable magnitude, you put in some sell stops. You may still have some time for trades, but you have been warned.
Spring football is over around the country and as we embark on the dog days, the chirping on the college football landscape has begun. With the preseason annuals set to hit the newstands in just a few weeks, passions are beginning to simmer.
Not surprisingly, the Southeastern Conference banter tops the blogosphere, with Lane Kiffin of Tennessee verbally assaulting just about everyone. Steve Spurrier and Urban Meyer have been recent sparring partners for the unproven Kiffin. Given the embarrassing antics of Kiffin, I could see anyone who could hang half a hundred on the Vols doing just that.
Surprisingly, Florida State is feeling some heat; from Penn State fans. A Lions sportswriter claims the fix is in and FSU will keep all victories when the NCAA makes its ruling first week of June.
Handicapper Phil Steele has released his list of the toughest schedules for 2009, and the Seminoles are tops on the list. FSU is the only team whose opponents won over 100 games collectively. SEC powers Florida and Georgia are 43rd and 44th respectively. FSU will be much better in '09 but the record may not show it. On the warpath in 2010.
The Wall Street Journal, of all folks, had an intriguing story on how stellar offensive lines are a prelude to success. The study, which was well done, indicates that three teams who were projected to thrive in 2008, Missouri, Georgia and Clemson, all faltered behind inexperienced offensive lines. Four teams return over 80 starts this year. Virginia Tech, a top five pre-season lock, Notre Dame, Texas and Florida State, led by All America candidate Rodney Hudson, are the teams. I do place quite a bit of weight on experience up front, particularly if the team is breaking in a new signal caller.
There will be a lot to kick around over the summer. Athlons and Lindy's will be out first week of June. I'll wager on the Gators as the preseason top pick.
While most free market capitalist Americans see every day as Independence Day, many government elected officials and left wing loons look to April 15th as a trip to the candy store. They see this day as a day to feed the monster of well intended programs that have given way to a socialistic mentality which is crippling our once thriving economy.
Ari Fleischer, former press secretary for George W. Bush, wrote an outstanding column in The Wall Street Journal on the disaster that our tax system has become. Most, if not all, citizens near the bottom of the scale pay zero taxes, and in fact, receive tax credits making their rate of taxation charted in the negative. An alarming balance of the taxes are paid by the wealthiest of Americans, who are the ones who tend to be most philanthropic and those who start major business who employ high numbers of workers.
The current tax code is indeed an abomination, and Larry Kudlow moderates a discussion on The Kudlow Report with the aforementioned Ari Fleischer, Wall Street Journal Editorial Board member Steve Moore, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich and Jim Tisch, chairman of the Loews Corporation (L:NYSE).
The famous novel Atlas Shrugged is some 675,00 words. The Bible is near 800,000 words. Our tax code is estimated at 3,700,000 words. Enough said.
The Obama administration is on a spending spree not seen in our history. President Obama is of the mindset that government and it's checkbook is the preferred avenue of resurrecting the economy, as further evidenced by his speech today. This type of thinking sinks potential workers into a drug users position in the form of welfare and breaks the competitiveness inside of them.
I believe that small business, behind the entrepreneurial spirit with limited governmental regulation and taxation, is the vehicle to provide this great land of ours with a free market path to prosperity. Ronald Reagan believed that as well.
We might come closer to balancing the Budget if all of us lived closer to the Commandments and the Golden Rule--Ronald Reagan
It is with that spirit that there will be over 500 tea parties across this great land today. Among the items spearheaded with Glenn Beck's 912 Project is the subscription of a set of principles and values. The Golden Rule would be one of those, and if any of our politicians recognized this, they would stand firmly against the spending that is set to cripple our children if not tackling us in the meantime. Most all do not, so it is time for action on our part.
Please join me in peacefully making your voice heard. Hopefully, I won't have to Jack Bauer any trouble making ACORN representatives at the Orlando Tea Party at City Hall tonight.
In an effort to better your mood, grab this Revolver and enjoy our annual presentation of the following Beatles/George Harrison composition:
BAHL is a REALTOR, Real Estate Investor and Residential Real Estate Appraiser in Orlando. He holds a BS degree in Economics from Florida State University.
