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WHY DON’T THE GERMANS TRUST OBAMA WITH THEIR GOLD? Print E-mail
Written by James Delingpole   
Thursday, 17 January 2013

Back in the mid-1920s, the head of the German Central Bank, Herr Hjalmar Schacht, went to New York to see Germany's gold. However the NY Fed officials were unable to find the pallet of Germany's gold bullion.

The Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Benjamin Strong was mortified, but to put him at ease Herr Schacht turned to him and said "Never mind, I believe you when you say the gold is there. Even if it weren't you are good for its replacement."

But that was then and this is now. In the eyes of the Germans - and who can blame them? - America has lost its mojo to such a degree that it can no longer be trusted honor its debts, even in the unlikely event that it were financially capable of doing so.

Which is why, following in the footsteps of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez (who may be an idiot but is definitely no fool), Germany is repatriating its gold from the New York Federal Reserve, which will now be stored in Frankfurt.

Now, why in the world would they do that?  Don't they trust Obama with their gold?
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WILL THE WORLD SOON HAVE A NEW GOLD STANDARD? Print E-mail
Written by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard   
Thursday, 17 January 2013

The world is moving step by step towards a de facto Gold Standard, without any meetings of G20 leaders to announce the idea or bless the project.

Some TTPers will already have seen the GFMS Gold Survey for 2012 which reported that central banks around the world bought more bullion last year in terms of tonnage than at any time in almost half a century.

They added a net 536 tons in 2012 as they diversified fresh reserves away from the four fiat suspects: dollar, euro, sterling, and yen.

Gone is the illusion that the euro would take its place as the twin pillar of a new G2 condominium alongside the dollar. That hope has faded. Central bank holdings of euro bonds have fallen back to 26%, where they were almost a decade ago.

Neither the euro nor the dollar can inspire full confidence, although for different reasons. The euro is a dysfunctional construct, covering two incompatible economies (northern vs. southern Europe), prone to lurching from crisis to crisis, without a unified treasury to back it up. The dollar stands on a pyramid of debt. We all know that this debt will be inflated away over time - for better or worse. The only real disagreement is over the speed.
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TALE OF TWO ECONOMIC STYLES Print E-mail
Written by Richard Rahn   
Wednesday, 16 January 2013


Will 2013 be a better year? A number of economic commentators have been saying the worst is behind us. I think they are wrong, and here is why. In most major countries, including the United States, government is growing faster than the private sector.

As Mitchell's Golden Rule explains, when the private sector grows faster than government, prosperity increases, and when government grows faster than the private sector, misery increases.

As can be seen in the accompanying table, in most of the major nations, debt-to-GDP ratios are increasing, because the deficits as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) are greater than economic growth -- meaning these countries are getting deeper in the hole each year.  The US is one of them.

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CHINA'S LEADERS FEAR THEIR PEOPLE MORE THAN THEY FEAR US Print E-mail
Written by Jack Kelly   
Tuesday, 15 January 2013

China has threatened Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam with war over islands in the South China Sea which under international law belong to Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam.

China has built up its military forces opposite Taiwan, even though the new Taiwanese government  seeks closer ties to Beijing.

China is building up military forces along its border with India, India's intelligence service reported in July.

If that weren't saber rattling enough, "China will not hesitate to protect Iran even with a third world war," a Chinese general said last month.

China bullies its neighbors because it can, most analysts think.

"Beijing is deploying superior power in an effort to repeal basic geometry and clearly written treaty law," wrote James Holmes, a professor of strategy at the U.S. Naval War College.  "Learn to love Big Brother, Southeast Asia."

There could be a very different reason for Chinese bellicosity.
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BIDEN'S MORAL ISSUE Print E-mail
Written by Jack Kelly   
Tuesday, 15 January 2013

Gun control is a moral issue, Vice President Joe Biden said at a news conference Wednesday.

This was more nonsense from the premier dunce in American politics.  The evidence is massive gun control measures do not restrict gun violence.  They may contribute to it.  (All but one mass shooting in the last half century has taken place in "gun free" zones.)

But liberals don't care much whether their nostrums work or not.  They judge programs on their declared intent, not results.  That's all it takes to massage their egos, and it spares them the trouble of having to learn a lot of pesky facts.

The emotionally healthy can feel good about themselves without putting others down.  Liberal preening apparently requires feeling superior to those who disagree with them.

If you don't agree with us about gun control, you can't be as horrified as liberals are by mass shootings, the vice president implied.  We're good.  You're bad.

Making themselves feel good is more important to most liberals than solving problems, and they tend to be intellectually lazy. So this attitude pervades most of the positions they take.  Note the following:
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JOKES ABOUT O's SECOND PRESIDENTIAL INAUGURATION Print E-mail
Written by To The Point News   
Friday, 18 January 2013

"President Obama will be sworn in with his hand resting on two Bibles. Is that how screwed up Washington is now? One Bible can't get the job done anymore?" –Jay Leno

"The White House announced today that the theme for President Obama's second inauguration will be 'Faith in America's Future.' The idea is to get our minds off of America's present." –Jay Leno

"President Obama's inauguration is coming up. During next week's inauguration, he will be sworn in with not one, but two Bibles. Relax, Mr. President. We get it. You're not a Muslim. You're overcompensating." –Conan O'Brien

"President Obama recently came under fire over the lack of diversity in his cabinet. Then Obama said, 'You guys know I'll be there, too, right?'" –Jimmy Fallon

"The White House announced that the theme for President Obama's inauguration will be 'Faith in America's Future.' Which is proof that no one in the White House has ever seen 'Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.'" –Jimmy Fallon
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HALF-FULL REPORT 01/11/13 Print E-mail
Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler   
Friday, 11 January 2013

On Wednesday (1/09), we saw the greatest headline ever posted on Drudge:

o_hitler-stalin_drudge.png

It was linked to a Weekly Standard story on Zero's considering an Executive Order to effect gun control without legislation from Congress.  It gave CommieMedia libtards the vapors, as chronicled by the Washington Examiner.  They can't stand it whenever someone reveals they worship an Evil Messiah.

Yet, in truth, there is in fact an enormous difference between Zero and Hitler-Stalin.  Hitler and Stalin were both rabidly crazed nationalists, determined at whatever cost to conquer other peoples and subject them to Germany or Russia.

Zero, on the other hand, is a rabidly crazed anti-nationalist, determined at whatever cost to destroy his own country.  He is filled with hatred and contempt for America, as neither Hitler nor Stalin were towards their own countries. 

Zero is at the extreme end of American liberalism, which has always been characterized, at a minimum, by embarrassment.  Liberals are embarrassed to be Americans, embarrassed over the very existence of America and in a state of constant apology for it - look what we did to the Indians, our Founders owned slaves, we're racist imperialist capitalist war-mongers, blah-blah-blah.

This is why Zero - who feels free to take his phony-nice mask off in a second term and expose who he really is - has nominated three  revolting embarrassed-to-be-American libtards to be in charge of our defense, foreign policy, and intelligence security.
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THE LAW THAT CAN SAVE AMERICA AND PUT OBAMA IN JAIL Print E-mail
Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler   
Thursday, 10 January 2013

[Note:  this is a Free Access article to enable it to go viral.  Every Republican on Capitol Hill, every talk show host like Limbaugh and Levin, every conservative organization needs to be aware of it.  There is a federal law that can remove the President from office and put him in prison without impeachment.  Here it is.]

Neither the Senate, nor the President, nor the Supreme Court, nor any federal agency secretary or bureaucrat, has the constitutional authority to spend one single dime by themselves, without a majority of the House giving it to them.  This is the "power of the purse."
   
There is, however, a problem - a legal problem, not just a psychological one, such as Congressistas being spendaholics or too cowardly to refuse the begging of various constituencies for handouts.

This problem is epitomized by the Senate Republicans' inability to force Harry Reid to pass an annual budget, even though there is a law requiring the Senate to do so.  Thanks to Reid's blocking all attempts, the Senate hasn't passed a budget since April, 2009, which clearly violates federal law - the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.

So how come Reid can't be prosecuted?  Why can't the Senate Pubs take legal action against him?  As Byron York explains, "the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 doesn't have an enforcement mechanism.  Lawmakers are required by law to pass a budget each year by April 15, but there's no provision to punish them, or even slightly inconvenience them, if they don't." 

So we arrive at what may well be the single most important question to ask in America today.

Given that the current President of the United States seems determined to bypass the House's appropriation authority and spend gigantic sums on whatever programs he wants or enforcing whatever Executive Orders he issues, is there an enforcement mechanism for his violating the power of the purse clauses in the Constitution?

The answer is yes.
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THE DÉJÀ VU CATASTROPHE Print E-mail
Written by Jack Kelly   
Wednesday, 09 January 2013

The men whom President Barack Hussein Obama has chosen to head his national security team send more shivers down the spines of our allies than those of our enemies.

So if Charles Emmerson is right in thinking the world in 2013 "eerily looks like the world of 1913, on the cusp of the Great War," that's not good.

The United States, like Britain 100 years ago, is in relative economic and military decline, Mr. Emmerson, a researcher for Chatham House, a British think tank, wrote in Foreign Policy magazine Jan. 4.  Hostile powers are rising and "jostling for position in the four corners of the world." 

The president wants someone whom many consider an outright traitor to replace Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State; a straight out Anti-Semite to take over for Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, and a sympathizer of Jihad Islam as CIA Director. 

You couldn't ask for a greater recipe for catastrophe than that.
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UNCLE SAM IS ADDICTED TO OVERSPENDING Print E-mail
Written by Richard Rahn   
Tuesday, 08 January 2013

Tax revenue in 2013 will be lower (despite the just passed tax increase), and government spending will be higher than forecast. It's an easy prediction -- and this is why.

The capital gains tax rate and the tax on dividends is being raised from 15 percent to 23.5 percent for higher-income people. There are many studies, including those made by the U.S. Treasury, showing that the revenue-maximizing rate on capital gains is less than 15 percent.

Taking a capital gain is often a discretionary event, and it is well documented that capital gains realizations fall as the rate is increased. Thus, this rate increase will be a net revenue loser for the government.

Expenditures will also be far higher than forecast. The simple fact is the Obama administration and Congress, particularly the Democrats, are unable to resist the urge to spend more.
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PHONY SELF-ESTEEM HURTS CHILDREN, EARNED SELF-ESTEEM HELPS THEM Print E-mail
Written by Dr. Joel Wade   
Wednesday, 09 January 2013

There is a study by Jean Twenge of San Diego State University that is getting a lot of news this week, in which she found that college kids today are more likely to call themselves gifted and driven to succeed, while their test scores and hours spent studying are decreasing. Their tendency toward narcissism has also increased  over the last 30 years.

Some reports get a bit more frenzied than I prefer ("We are raising a generation of deluded narcissists!" just gets us scared, I prefer to be effective); but Twenge has been studying this trend for several years, has accumulated some impressive research, and has written several books.

Today I want to look at what I consider one of the sources of this trend: the phony self-esteem movement, and how it feeds the fixed trait mindset - and thus the need to see oneself as just fantastic. This also shows what can be done to remedy the situation, by contrasting phony self-esteem with the genuine article -- earned self-esteem.
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WILL EUROPE GO THE WAY OF THE MING EMPIRE? Print E-mail
Written by Matt Ridley   
Monday, 07 January 2013

A "rational optimist" like me thinks the world will go on getting better for most people at a record rate, not because I have a temperamental or ideological bent to good cheer but because of the data. Poverty, hunger, population growth rates, inequality, and mortality from violence, disease and weather -- all continue to plummet on a global scale.

But a global optimist can still be a regional pessimist. When asked what I am pessimistic about, I usually reply: bureaucracy and superstition. Using those two tools, we Europeans seem intent on making our future as bad as we can.

Like mandarins at the court of the Ming emperors or viziers at the court of Abbasid caliphs, our masters seem determined to turn relative into absolute decline. It is entirely possible that ten years from now the world as a whole will be 50 per cent richer, but Europeans will be 50 per cent poorer.

As the Ming empire found out, the more government you buy, the less economic activity you get. A Fujian travelling salesman in 1400 was enmeshed in such a tangled bureaucracy that he could neither travel nor sell without bribes and permits, and he had to submit a monthly inventory of his stocks to the emperor.

Sound familiar?
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THE SECURITY DIAMOND OF JAPAN, INDIA, AUSTRALIA, AND AMERICA Print E-mail
Written by Shinzo Abe   
Monday, 07 January 2013

Peace, stability, and freedom of navigation in the Pacific Ocean are inseparable from peace, stability, and freedom of navigation in the Indian Ocean. Developments affecting each are more closely connected than ever. Japan, as one of the oldest sea-faring democracies in Asia, should play a greater role in preserving the common good in both regions.

Yet, increasingly, the South China Sea seems set to become a "Beijing Lake," which analysts say will be to China what the Sea of Okhotsk was to Soviet Russia: a sea deep enough for the People's Liberation Army's navy to base their nuclear-powered attack submarines, capable of launching missiles with nuclear warheads. Soon, the PLA Navy's newly built aircraft carrier will be a common sight - more than sufficient to scare China's neighbors.

That is why Japan must not yield to the Chinese government's daily exercises in coercion around the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.  The ongoing disputes in the East China Sea and the South China Sea mean that Japan's top foreign-policy priority must be to expand the country's strategic horizons.

Japan is a mature maritime democracy, and its choice of close partners should reflect that fact. I envisage a strategy whereby Australia, India, Japan, and the US form a diamond to safeguard the maritime commons stretching from the Indian Ocean region to the western Pacific. I am prepared to invest, to the greatest possible extent, Japan's capabilities in this security diamond.
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CHINA AND THE RACE FOR THORIUM POWER Print E-mail
Written by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard   
Tuesday, 08 January 2013

Princeling Jiang Mianheng, son of former leader Jiang Zemin, is spearheading a project for China's National Academy of Sciences with a start-up budget of $350m.

He has already recruited 140 PhD scientists, working full-time on thorium power at the Shanghai Institute of Nuclear and Applied Physics. He will have 750 staff by 2015.

The aim is to break free of the archaic pressurized-water reactors fueled by uranium -- originally designed for US submarines in the 1950s -- opting instead for new generation of thorium reactors that produce far less toxic waste and cannot blow their top like Fukushima.

"China is the country to watch," said Baroness Bryony Worthington, head of the All-Parliamentary Group on Thorium Energy, who visited the Shanghai operations recently with a team from Britain's National Nuclear Laboratory.  "They are really going for it, and have talented researchers. This could lead to a massive break-through."

The thorium story is by now well-known. It could do for nuclear power what shale fracking has done for natural gas -- but on a bigger scale.
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WEEKLY MIND FOOD 01/11/13 Print E-mail
Written by Joe Katzman   
Friday, 11 January 2013
Best of Weekly Mind Food (So Far)

Weekly Mind Food aims to show you what TTPers without a regular column, but with deep expertise in key fields, are paying attention to. We call ourselves TTP's Team B. Note the "Weekly Mind Food" category in the left side-bar now, which will have all our issues. They're Free Access, as are all the linked articles, so feel free to read them at your leisure - and to mail the article's URL to your friends!

This issue has a simple premise: The best links from the last 6 months of "Team B's" WMF! It's a subjective "ohmakase" view, but I think you'll find the content and the presentation eye-opening, even if you've read WMF before. I did, and I wrote them!

This is the last issue I write. After this issue, TTP is adopting hunkajunk's idea, and calling for section editors in order to continue this feature. That will help minimize each individual's time commitment. If you would like to take full responsibility for a section, email us, using the address the web link will show you.

I thought about doing the best of in the same sections as the regular briefings, but some themes emerged that were best broken out to their own headings. Copybook Heading offers my parting credo, and USSA: United Surveillance State of Amerika? is actually a mild title, compared to what the links suggest. The Oligarchic Road to Serfdom looks at the socio-structural foundation beneath. A set of 3 video Orations offers first steps toward a way forward. Fighting Back: Sharpen the Saw offers a combination of previous personal, professional, and political links that will give you strength, perspective, and some useful solutions & tools.

We do still have the best of Polis (domestic politics), Economos (global economy), Ekpolitismos (culture & civilization), Techne Logos (tech, incl. citizenk2's awesome story about the disaster that made the Gulf of Mexico come north), Stratiootika (geopolitics & military), plus Useful Web Resources and 1 Good News This Week items to brighten your week and/or make you better.

We end, as we should, with Make 'Em Laugh. Personally, I thought Donald "Cosmo" O'Connor was the best part of Singin' In the Rain...

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