India’s stock market collapsed this week in a panic free fall after the return of the Congress Party in last week’s elections. The investor freak-out increased when it seemed that Congress would have to include India’s Communist Party of Marxism-Leninism in its ruling coalition.
Then came Sonia Gandhi’s masterstroke.
Anti-reform hardliners in China's Communist Party have become seriously alarmed by the sharp slow-down in economic growth, creating a "task-force" to crank up production.
China's Caixin Magazine reports that there is a growing "sense of crisis" not felt since the depths of the global banking crash in 2008-2009.
The State Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) has assembled a team to "protect economic growth" and pressure state companies to boost jobs at all costs.
SASAC is the bastion of vested interests and controller of 115 state behemoths with assets above $6 trillion and a lock on much of the economy.
The move comes amid further signs that growth is faltering across all fronts. HSBC's gauge of Chinese services fell three points to 51.1 in April, the lowest in almost two years.
What would you think of a secretary of the Treasury who failed to do serious cost-benefit analysis about regulations that could cost millions of Americans their jobs and cause innocent people to be subject to political abuse or worse, and yet have almost no benefit to the United States?
Over the past several years, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner was warned by many private economists and members of Congress of the adverse consequences of a proposed rule that would force U.S. banks to be uncompensated tax collectors for foreign governments. On April 18, Mr. Geithner issued the rule anyway.
It only gets worse. The Treasury/IRS has finalized another rule set to go into effect on Jan. 1, 2013, called the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act.
What was it I said about sausage and the law last week? What emerged as "the debt ceiling deal" since could not possibly be called edible sausage. It is such a putrid malodorous maggot-infested dog's breakfast that no non-deranged dog would eat it.
Yet it's only the appetizer. The main course America is dining on today is itself. Autophagous mean "self-devouring." Our country is committing suicide by devouring itself. America has become an autophagous nation.
I always request a window seat on an airplane. No matter how many times I've flown across the US, I always see something memorably beautiful I've never seen before. To see that beauty below is so heartbreaking now, to gaze down upon such a blessed land so perversely destroying its blessings.
Washington DC has long been a fetid fever swamp of political insanity - but the level of lunacy is now full-on psychotic, and on both sides. Both the Dems and the Pubs, both the enemedia and the normally more sane punditry.
The editorial writers at the Wall Street Journal were smoking crack when they wrote A Tea Party Triumph on Monday (8/01). To call a $2.4 trillion debt increase a "victory for the forces of smaller government" is way beyond delusional. We're into Flat Earthism here.
Folks, the Tea Party Reagan Republicans have been screwed blue and tattooed by Boehner & Co. They got nothing, while Zero got exactly what he wanted all along - enough funny money trillions to spend all the way to his re-election.
50 days in, and we've just learned another shocking revelation concerning the Obama administration's response to the Gulf oil spill.
In an interview aired yesterday (6/08), President Obama admitted that he hasn't met with or spoken directly to BP's CEO Tony Hayward. His reasoning: "Because my experience is, when you talk to a guy like a BP CEO, he's gonna say all the right things to me. I'm not interested in words. I'm interested in actions."
First, to the "informed and enlightened" mainstream media: in all the discussions you've had with the White House about the spill: did it not occur to you before yesterday to ask how the CEO-to-CEO level discussions were progressing to remedy this tragedy?
Second, to fellow baffled Americans: this revelation is further proof that it bodes well to have some sort of executive experience before occupying the Oval Office -- as if the painfully slow response to the oil spill, confusion of duties, finger-pointing, lack of preparedness, and inability to grant local government simple requests weren't proof enough.
This is the funniest email I have received in years. I thought about putting it in the Humor File because you’ll collapse laughing so hard when you read it. But it’s not a gag - the guy is serious! He’s from Switzerland - a place we all thought had some respect for freedom and dissent. This email displays just how far Europe has sunk into Terminal Weeniedom. It is also a cold shower reminder that the totalitarian ideologies of Communism, Fascism, and Naziism originated in Europe - and how Europeans are once again trashing their own freedoms. This letter is hilarious - but it’s also a sobering reminder of just how unique and precious our American freedom is. The letter is in full, with my comments in italicized brackets ---JW
From: Kurt Brülisauer
To: info@tothepointnews.com
Sent: Sunday, May 23, 2004 11:50 AM
Subject: Some comments concerning the content of your web site
Sir,
Looking for comments on the Iraq prisoner abuse issue, I found your site. With growing disgust I've read some of your articles that are freely accessible. The first one I read, "Why can't she take it like a man?", shows a dumb macho behavior but your attitude concerning the Iraq prisoner abuse scandal is not uncommon in right circles. Having read other comments of so called "patriot" sites I was not very surprised about your putting the blame on a single person, but you are the only one who insults at the same time the officer in charge just because she is a woman. A new quality of baseness.
Nevertheless I find your article about what you call the Pogo Press worse. Like the Nazis during the Weimar Republic you abuse the freedom of press and of speech just to fight the free press. Unfortunately there is a swamp of fascist American sites on the internet that do the same thing every day without being sanctioned.
[Note carefully: Any criticism of the liberal press is Nazi, fascist, and must be “sanctioned,” i.e., made illegal. This is truly Orwellian.]
As information about the apparent Israeli strikes on targets inside Syria continues to pour in, it's easy to lose sight of the central fact: the two reported Israeli attacks are part of an ongoing war, the big war against the West.
While the attacks were in Syria, the mission was primarily a major strike against Iran and Russia, two key components of the global alliance arrayed against us. Both are desperately trying to shore up the Assad regime in Damascus.
The fall of Assad would be a devastating blow to Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei's tyranny in Tehran, would gravely weaken Russia's strategic position in the Mediterranean and the Middle East, and would threaten the strength (and even the survival) of Hezbollah, the world's most dangerous terrorist organization and the creation of Iran's founding tyrant, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
The attacks apparently did great damage to Iranian missiles, and the vaunted Russian antiaircraft system provided to both Syria and Iran was unable to do anything to prevent them. Both have been humiliated.
Mr. Obama's insistence on high business taxes drives away opportunity. How can he not know this?
The United States already has the highest corporate tax rate in the world. Yet this is not good enough for the Obama administration, which is now proposing to make the U.S. even less competitive internationally by reducing the corporate tax deferral on income made abroad.
Somehow, Mr. Obama fails to understand that companies can charter themselves anywhere in the world, and their tax rate depends largely on where they are chartered. They do have to pay local tax rates where they conduct business, but that is only on the business done in tha particular state.
Companies increasingly have been moving out of the United States for tax reasons, and of greater concern is that many new businesses are deciding to choose a home other than the U.S. This is not good for future U.S. employment and economic growth. Again, how is it possible for Mr.Obama to not know this?
Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881), one of Victorian England's most prominent Prime Ministers (1868/1874-1880), once commented to a friend: "There are two things that the public should never be allowed to see how they are made: sausage and the law."
We are witnesses today of just how immortally trenchant Disraeli was back in the 19th century. For in truth, observing our politicians handling the current "debt crisis" is a far more repulsive sight than the inside of a sausage factory.
If Disraeli were here now, he'd smile sardonically and remind us that (he was fluent in French) plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose - the more things change, the more they stay the same. Yet there has emerged a conservative movement determind to put an end to this: the Tea Parties.
I have spent the last week criss-crossing the country meeting with Tea Party leaders. My jaunt was capped by a private dinner last night with three Congressmen at the home of one of them on Capitol Hill. While I can't quote any of these folks by name, here's what they said. First the Tea Party leaders.
The Honorable Barack Obama
President of the United States of America
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear Mr. President:
For more than seventeen years, I have had the privilege of serving my country as a member of the U.S. Armed Forces, including overseas assignments in imminent danger/combat areas in Bosnia and Afghanistan.
The United States is an example to the rest of the world of a stable, civilized democratic government where all men are created equal and the rule of law is cherished and obeyed. The U.S. military teaches and promotes the rule of law and civilian control of the military to many other nations and militaries around the world.
Every soldier learns what constitutes a lawful order and is encouraged to stand up and object to unlawful orders. This is called "the duty to disobey."
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva - known as “Lula” - is functionally illiterate. He won’t read anything, any studies, reports, books et al. His aides have learned to give him only one-page bulleted summaries of any issue, then explain it to him verbally. He has no education and knows nothing of economics or business. Yet he has a photographic memory for events and what is said to him. He is incredibly articulate and persuasive in speech. Thus he is the perfect populist demagogue to rouse the poor Brazilian masses.
After such an enjoyable week watching GOP all-stars slap Zero around like a hockey puck, I'm outta here - for I'm sure not sticking around to spend a minute watching Democrat fascisti indulge in lies, rage, and racism in Charlotte.
Next week I'll be in Bangladesh - for real. Then I'm spending the rest of September, ah, somewhere in Asia. It's a place I can't write about - I'll have to explain when I get back.
Meanwhile, the HFR will be in good hands with Jack Kelly. Thanks, Jack!
Tampa. Let's start with Clint last night (8/30). The media moonbats erupted with scorn and mockery. They can't stand it when Zero is made fun of - any more than Zero can. The first time I watched Clint's skit, I was taken aback. By the second and third time, I realized I was watching comedic genius. Now think about the context...
The RNC was all about the presidency, but what about the Senate? Let's discuss the prospects. Here's the HFR 2012 Labor Day Senate Sitrep.
Do you think it is more important to have a tax policy that raises the most revenue at the least cost, in order to maximize job growth and economic opportunity - or to have a tax policy like the Buffett rule, which falsely claims it would make all millionaires pay a higher tax rate than their secretaries?
President Obama released his tax return last week, showing he had an effective rate of a little more than 20 percent of his income, even though he is rich by his own definition. One of major ways the Obamas were able to reduce their tax rate was by giving away 22 percent of their income to charity, which I applaud. But their actions raise several interesting points.
When we donate money to a charity, church or some other worthy cause, we are allowed a tax deduction, which means the government gets less of our money. The president and many in his party keep telling us that the government needs more money, but if they believe this, why are they taking charitable deductions? Why didn't they give it to the IRS which they say needs it so much?
The level of snake-oil shell-game flim-flammery going on in the Washington Circus has now reached levels of Ptolemaic astronomy.
Although certain ancient Greek astronomers had argued that the earth revolves around a "central fire" (along with the sun, like the black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy: Philolaus, 480-385 BC) or the sun (Aristarchos of Samos, 310-230 BC), Christian theologians declared the geocentric astronomy of Ptolemaios (90-168 AD) as official dogma.
Geocentrism argues that the earth does not move at the center of the universe, that the sun, planets, and stars revolve around it. Since the earth is the sinful dross of the universe while the heavens are perfect, the sun, stars, and planets revolve around it in perfect circles.
The problem, among others, is that they do not have circular orbits in regular motion. Especially the planets, which is the Greek word for "wanderers." From the earth, they appear to stop, reverse, and switch direction at various times - whence, e.g., the expression "Mercury in retrograde."
This is an illusion, caused by the earth's orbit around the sun being slower or faster than those of other planets (like cars going slower or faster than you on a race track). The only way for Ptolemaic geocentrists to explain planetary wandering was to invent "epicycles" (orbits within orbits) that spun around a make-believe point called an "equant" which was the center of a make-believe orbit called a "deferent."
What they ended up with looks remarkably like the schemes Dems and Rinos are inventing to explain how to solve the debt ceiling problem, as convoluted as what the special-interest, crony-capitalist, constitution-trashing universe of the federal government has become. Call it Ptolemaic politics. It needs to be junked, like Ptolemaic astronomy was. There is a way to do this.
Thomas Paine (1737-1809), one of America's great founding patriots, wrote this on December 23, 1776, when America was less than six months old. Substitute Democrats for Britain, RINOs for Tories, Obama for King George III, Pelosi for Howe, Reid for Gage - Sarah Palin for the "Jersey maid" - and he is speaking to us today.
These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.
Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but "to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER" and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can belong only to God.
