To contact us Click HERE
HSBC recently released a report announcing a new era for FX where, as a result of central bank intervention and low interest rates, currency trading has become much more volatile and harder for investors to interpret. “The demise of carry has brought ‘onion skin’ layers of uncertainty into the FX market, tears and all.”
Enter Cliff Wachtel’s The Sensible Guide to Forex: Safer, Smarter Ways to Survive and Prosper from the Start (Wiley, 2012). It is a beginner’s book, written for those who never participated in the glory days of carry when “the FX market had the luxury of a clear framework for understanding and trading currencies, “ a time when, if you got your interest rate calls right, you were basically home free.
Wachtel offers a different kind of framework, one centered on trader psychology and what the author calls RAMM (risk and money management). He complements these key elements with technical analysis and a smattering of fundamental analysis. Although this framework is certainly not unique to forex, Wachtel explains at length how it can help an investor identify, execute, and manage simple, low-risk, high-yield, longer-term FX trades.
The first half of the book deals with the basics; the second half with trade examples, momentum and timing indicators, intermarket analysis, and “newer, smarter” methods. If you’re one of those impatient souls who peeks at the last pages of a mystery before you’re even familiar with the characters, I’m sure you’ll want to know up front what the newer, smarter methods are. I’ll accommodate, but only with a single sentence. “For those seeking simpler ways to tap the potentially faster profits from short- to medium-term (ranging from minutes to weeks) trading of forex, with more controlled risk, we introduce two new and very useful instruments: forex social trading [and] forex binary options.” (p. 295)
Wachtel breaks little new ground in this book, but he offers a solid, far-reaching course in trading. Beginners will learn a great deal (even though, if they have little experience in the markets, they will have to stretch to grasp everything). For those who have yet to trade profitably the book may serve as a useful refresher course. Even investors who think that “trading” is a four-letter word will discover how to use currencies to diversify their portfolios and to ride long-term forex trends for lower risk, higher income.
30 Kasım 2012 Cuma
Nahin, The Logician and the Engineer
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Back when I took high school physics, a course taught by a thoroughly uninspired and uninspiring man whose name I have mercifully forgotten, a group of guys (who I suspect went on to become TV repairmen) and I had a pact. I would do their math homework and they would do my “hands-on” projects, especially those involving electrical circuitry. Left to my own devices I would undoubtedly have sent sparks flying in all directions.
Fast forward. Here I am with Paul J. Nahin’s book The Logician and the Engineer: How George Boole and Claude Shannon Created the Information Age (Princeton University Press, 2012). The author promises that no knowledge of electronics is required, just an understanding of polarity, Ohm’s law for resistors, and the circuit laws of Kirchhoff. “No more than a technically minded college-prep high school junior or senior would have.” Well, that stirred up a lot of bad memories.
So, rather than pretend that I relish looking at wiring diagrams I decided on a different tack. Motivated by a book I recently finished but cannot review for a while (Mastery), I thought it might be worthwhile to look at how Boole and Shannon, men from different centuries and very different backgrounds, came to be such remarkable thinkers.
In today’s post I’m not drawing any conclusions, just presenting short biographies.
George Boole was born in Lincoln, England, in 1815. His father was a cobbler who “seems to have been able to do anything well except his own business of managing the shop.” His real interests lay in mathematics and the construction of optical instruments, interests that he shared with George.
Boole’s formal education was scanty—after primary school a brief stint at a commercial school. He taught himself languages in preparation for becoming a clergyman. But fortunately for the world he soon enough found his true calling. At the age of sixteen he became an assistant teacher of Latin and mathematics at a small boarding school, a job he lost after two years. Among his many sins, he did math problems in chapel. In the evenings, “after a day of being a bad teacher to dull boys,” he plowed through a book on differential calculus which prepared him to read the classics of Lagrange, Laplace, Newton, and Poisson. “As Boole later explained to a friend, he managed it all by sheer force of will, just reading and re-reading, over and over, until he understood.” (p. 20)
Boole continued to teach at various day and boarding schools, all the while writing math papers, inspired perhaps by the establishment of a new math journal, the Cambridge Mathematical Journal. The editor of the journal, Duncan F. Gregory, gave Boole “almost incredibly generous aid,” without which “it is not unreasonable to imagine that Boole’s spirit would have been crushed right at the start.” Gregory published Boole’s early papers and then, when one was too elaborate for the Journal, recommended that Boole submit it to the Transactions of the Royal Society of London. This paper earned Boole a Royal Medal as the best mathematics paper published in the Transactions in the previous three years.
At the age of 34, with no university degree, Boole was appointed professor of mathematics at Queen’s College (today’s University College), Cork, Ireland, where he spent the rest of his short life. He continued to publish and moved “from one honor and achievement to the next.” (p. 27) He died, presumably from pneumonia, shy of his fiftieth birthday.
Claude Shannon was born in Michigan in 1916. His father was a business man and probate judge; his mother, a language teacher and high school principal. Early on Shannon displayed an interest in how things work; when he was in high school he earned pocket money by fixing radios at a local department store. He graduated from the University of Michigan with degrees in mathematics and electrical engineering and then, as a graduate student, got a job as a research assistant in MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering to work part-time on Vannevar Bush’s differential analyzer, the world’s most advanced analog computer.
In Bush Shannon found “an early mentor” (and champion) “every bit as important to him as Gregory had been to Boole.” (p. 29) Shannon’s job involved understanding and maintaining the analyzer’s controller, a complex circuit of over 100 relays. It wasn’t long before Shannon had his epiphany of marrying Boolean algebra with electrical switching circuits. He described his work in his MIT master’s thesis, labeled by many “the most important master’s thesis ever written.”
After a foray into genetics (and eugenics) for his Ph.D., Shannon eventually ended up at Bell Labs for “an astonishingly creative fifteen years,” doing some work early on in cryptography, and in 1948 publishing “the Magna Carta of the information age,” his “Mathematical Theory of Communication.”
Shannon was strange man. Not only did he ride a unicycle through the corridors of Bell Labs while juggling balls, but he created all manner of toylike gadgetry. Some of the gadgets were scientifically intriguing, others pointless. Perhaps the weirdest was Shannon’s “Ultimate Machine.” Arthur C. Clarke described it thus: “It sits on Claude Shannon’s desk driving people mad. Nothing could look simpler. It is merely a small wooden casket the size and shape of a cigar box, with a single switch on one face. When you throw the switch, there is an angry, purposeful buzzing. The lid slowly rises, and from beneath it emerges a hand. The hand reaches down, turns the switch off, and retreats into the box. With the finality of a closing coffin, the lid snaps shut, the buzzing ceases, and peace reigns once more. The psychological effect, if you do not know what to expect, is devastating. There is something unspeakably sinister about a machine that does nothing—absolutely nothing—except switch itself off.” (pp. 35-36)
In 1958 Shannon left Bell Labs to go back to MIT. There he became interested in portfolio theory and, as William Poundstone described in Fortune’s Formula, became wealthy by applying his ideas to his personal finances.
Unfortunately Shannon was eventually afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease and spent the last seven years of his life in a nursing home.
Fast forward. Here I am with Paul J. Nahin’s book The Logician and the Engineer: How George Boole and Claude Shannon Created the Information Age (Princeton University Press, 2012). The author promises that no knowledge of electronics is required, just an understanding of polarity, Ohm’s law for resistors, and the circuit laws of Kirchhoff. “No more than a technically minded college-prep high school junior or senior would have.” Well, that stirred up a lot of bad memories.
So, rather than pretend that I relish looking at wiring diagrams I decided on a different tack. Motivated by a book I recently finished but cannot review for a while (Mastery), I thought it might be worthwhile to look at how Boole and Shannon, men from different centuries and very different backgrounds, came to be such remarkable thinkers.
In today’s post I’m not drawing any conclusions, just presenting short biographies.
George Boole was born in Lincoln, England, in 1815. His father was a cobbler who “seems to have been able to do anything well except his own business of managing the shop.” His real interests lay in mathematics and the construction of optical instruments, interests that he shared with George.
Boole’s formal education was scanty—after primary school a brief stint at a commercial school. He taught himself languages in preparation for becoming a clergyman. But fortunately for the world he soon enough found his true calling. At the age of sixteen he became an assistant teacher of Latin and mathematics at a small boarding school, a job he lost after two years. Among his many sins, he did math problems in chapel. In the evenings, “after a day of being a bad teacher to dull boys,” he plowed through a book on differential calculus which prepared him to read the classics of Lagrange, Laplace, Newton, and Poisson. “As Boole later explained to a friend, he managed it all by sheer force of will, just reading and re-reading, over and over, until he understood.” (p. 20)
Boole continued to teach at various day and boarding schools, all the while writing math papers, inspired perhaps by the establishment of a new math journal, the Cambridge Mathematical Journal. The editor of the journal, Duncan F. Gregory, gave Boole “almost incredibly generous aid,” without which “it is not unreasonable to imagine that Boole’s spirit would have been crushed right at the start.” Gregory published Boole’s early papers and then, when one was too elaborate for the Journal, recommended that Boole submit it to the Transactions of the Royal Society of London. This paper earned Boole a Royal Medal as the best mathematics paper published in the Transactions in the previous three years.
At the age of 34, with no university degree, Boole was appointed professor of mathematics at Queen’s College (today’s University College), Cork, Ireland, where he spent the rest of his short life. He continued to publish and moved “from one honor and achievement to the next.” (p. 27) He died, presumably from pneumonia, shy of his fiftieth birthday.
Claude Shannon was born in Michigan in 1916. His father was a business man and probate judge; his mother, a language teacher and high school principal. Early on Shannon displayed an interest in how things work; when he was in high school he earned pocket money by fixing radios at a local department store. He graduated from the University of Michigan with degrees in mathematics and electrical engineering and then, as a graduate student, got a job as a research assistant in MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering to work part-time on Vannevar Bush’s differential analyzer, the world’s most advanced analog computer.
In Bush Shannon found “an early mentor” (and champion) “every bit as important to him as Gregory had been to Boole.” (p. 29) Shannon’s job involved understanding and maintaining the analyzer’s controller, a complex circuit of over 100 relays. It wasn’t long before Shannon had his epiphany of marrying Boolean algebra with electrical switching circuits. He described his work in his MIT master’s thesis, labeled by many “the most important master’s thesis ever written.”
After a foray into genetics (and eugenics) for his Ph.D., Shannon eventually ended up at Bell Labs for “an astonishingly creative fifteen years,” doing some work early on in cryptography, and in 1948 publishing “the Magna Carta of the information age,” his “Mathematical Theory of Communication.”
Shannon was strange man. Not only did he ride a unicycle through the corridors of Bell Labs while juggling balls, but he created all manner of toylike gadgetry. Some of the gadgets were scientifically intriguing, others pointless. Perhaps the weirdest was Shannon’s “Ultimate Machine.” Arthur C. Clarke described it thus: “It sits on Claude Shannon’s desk driving people mad. Nothing could look simpler. It is merely a small wooden casket the size and shape of a cigar box, with a single switch on one face. When you throw the switch, there is an angry, purposeful buzzing. The lid slowly rises, and from beneath it emerges a hand. The hand reaches down, turns the switch off, and retreats into the box. With the finality of a closing coffin, the lid snaps shut, the buzzing ceases, and peace reigns once more. The psychological effect, if you do not know what to expect, is devastating. There is something unspeakably sinister about a machine that does nothing—absolutely nothing—except switch itself off.” (pp. 35-36)
In 1958 Shannon left Bell Labs to go back to MIT. There he became interested in portfolio theory and, as William Poundstone described in Fortune’s Formula, became wealthy by applying his ideas to his personal finances.
Unfortunately Shannon was eventually afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease and spent the last seven years of his life in a nursing home.
Travers, Hedge Fund Analysis
To contact us Click HERE
Investors who are thinking about handing over a portion of their assets to a hedge fund manager are often at a loss about where to turn. Some of the legendary funds have either closed or are not accepting new outside money. A lot of funds are underperforming duds. A few are frauds. New funds that often outperform are unknown quantities. What is an individual investor (admittedly, one with a fair amount of time on his hands) or a professional responsible for allocating institutional money to do? For starters, he can read Frank J. Travers’s Hedge Fund Analysis: An In-Depth Guide to Evaluating Return Potential and Assessing Risks (Wiley, 2012) and learn how to become his own due diligence analyst.
The first step is to troll through hedge fund databases, some available at no cost, screening for potential candidates. Let’s say you want an equity long/short fund in the U.S. with a minimum three-year track record, annualized return in the top quartile of its peers, minimum assets under management of $250 million, and reasonable liquidity terms. You can narrow the field substantially with just these parameters. Making some qualitative judgments here and there, let’s assume that you manage to whittle the funds down to just five for further review. Your real work is about to begin as you evaluate which fund is the best fit with your total portfolio of investments.
Travers chooses one of these funds, which he dubs Fictional Capital Management, as his case study. He analyzes it from start to finish, including mock interviews with key investment personnel and an operational review. The analysis is exhaustive.
In fact, the book is so detailed that I’m sure even the least astute analyst could successfully use it as a complete cheat sheet (or, the less tainted word, template) in performing his own due diligence. Travers has performed a real service for anyone who is trying to find the right hedge fund to add to his portfolio.
The first step is to troll through hedge fund databases, some available at no cost, screening for potential candidates. Let’s say you want an equity long/short fund in the U.S. with a minimum three-year track record, annualized return in the top quartile of its peers, minimum assets under management of $250 million, and reasonable liquidity terms. You can narrow the field substantially with just these parameters. Making some qualitative judgments here and there, let’s assume that you manage to whittle the funds down to just five for further review. Your real work is about to begin as you evaluate which fund is the best fit with your total portfolio of investments.
Travers chooses one of these funds, which he dubs Fictional Capital Management, as his case study. He analyzes it from start to finish, including mock interviews with key investment personnel and an operational review. The analysis is exhaustive.
In fact, the book is so detailed that I’m sure even the least astute analyst could successfully use it as a complete cheat sheet (or, the less tainted word, template) in performing his own due diligence. Travers has performed a real service for anyone who is trying to find the right hedge fund to add to his portfolio.
Stock Trader’s Almanac 2013
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The election season is nearing its end and the candidates are making their last ditch efforts to sway voters. Which means, among other things, that it’s time for another look at how the presidential cycle influences stock prices. The Stock Trader’s Almanac (Wiley, 2013), edited by Jeffrey A. Hirsch and Yale Hirsch and now in its 46th annual edition, is the premiere source of this information.
A spiral-bound hardcover, the almanac includes a calendar section, a directory of trading patterns and databank, and a strategy planning and record section. The calendar section has on facing pages historical data on market performance (verso) and a week’s worth of calendar entries (recto). January’s verso pages, for example, give the month’s vital statistics, January’s first five days as an early warning system, the January barometer (which has had only seven significant errors in 62 years), and the January barometer in graphic form. Each trading day’s entry on the recto pages includes the probability, based on a 21-year lookback period, that the Dow, S&P, and Nasdaq will rise. Particularly favorable days (based on the performance of the S&P) are flagged with a bull icon; particularly unfavorable trading days get a bear icon. A witch icon appears on options expiration days. At the bottom of each entry is an apt quotation. There’s about a five-square-inch space in which to write.
So what, based on history, do we have to look forward to post-election? For starters, the post-election year is the worst performing year of the four-year presidential cycle. The average annual gain in the DJIA for the four-year cycle beginning in 1833 was: post-election year 2.0%, mid-term year 4.2%, pre-election year 10.4%, and election year 5.8%. The total percentage gains were 86.1%, 187.0%, 469.5%, and 254.5%. Of the 21 post-presidential election years since 1929, the Dow closed up 11 times: 1933, 1945, 1949, 1961, 1965, 1985, 1989, 1993, 1997, 2005, and 2009. Jeffrey Hirsch doubts that 2013 will be number 12. “After the yearend rally and positive 2012, we are concerned that the next major bear market will occur in the 2013-2014 period.”
So far this year Hirsch’s favorite defensive play has been HDGE (AdvisorShares Active Bear ETF), managed by John Del Vecchio and Brad Lamensdorf. Del Vecchio is also the co-author of the almanac’s choice for best investment book of the year: What’s Behind the Numbers? (With any luck I should be getting my review copy of this book soon.)
Traders and active investors who thrive on historical data will once again have a heyday with this almanac. Take, for instance, the notion of the super-8 days. “The market currently exhibits greater bullish bias from the last three trading days of the previous month through the first two days of the current month, and now shows significant bullishness during the middle three trading days, 9 to 11, due to 401(k) cash inflows.” (p. 88) In 2011 the super-8 day returns totaled 13.93%, the rest of the month (13 days) saw a total loss of 5.68%.
The promotional blurb describes the Stock Trader’s Almanac as “the ultimate desktop market data bank.” I never consider anything ultimate, but this almanac comes pretty darned close. And that’s praise from someone who tends not to pay very much attention to seasonals.
A spiral-bound hardcover, the almanac includes a calendar section, a directory of trading patterns and databank, and a strategy planning and record section. The calendar section has on facing pages historical data on market performance (verso) and a week’s worth of calendar entries (recto). January’s verso pages, for example, give the month’s vital statistics, January’s first five days as an early warning system, the January barometer (which has had only seven significant errors in 62 years), and the January barometer in graphic form. Each trading day’s entry on the recto pages includes the probability, based on a 21-year lookback period, that the Dow, S&P, and Nasdaq will rise. Particularly favorable days (based on the performance of the S&P) are flagged with a bull icon; particularly unfavorable trading days get a bear icon. A witch icon appears on options expiration days. At the bottom of each entry is an apt quotation. There’s about a five-square-inch space in which to write.
So what, based on history, do we have to look forward to post-election? For starters, the post-election year is the worst performing year of the four-year presidential cycle. The average annual gain in the DJIA for the four-year cycle beginning in 1833 was: post-election year 2.0%, mid-term year 4.2%, pre-election year 10.4%, and election year 5.8%. The total percentage gains were 86.1%, 187.0%, 469.5%, and 254.5%. Of the 21 post-presidential election years since 1929, the Dow closed up 11 times: 1933, 1945, 1949, 1961, 1965, 1985, 1989, 1993, 1997, 2005, and 2009. Jeffrey Hirsch doubts that 2013 will be number 12. “After the yearend rally and positive 2012, we are concerned that the next major bear market will occur in the 2013-2014 period.”
So far this year Hirsch’s favorite defensive play has been HDGE (AdvisorShares Active Bear ETF), managed by John Del Vecchio and Brad Lamensdorf. Del Vecchio is also the co-author of the almanac’s choice for best investment book of the year: What’s Behind the Numbers? (With any luck I should be getting my review copy of this book soon.)
Traders and active investors who thrive on historical data will once again have a heyday with this almanac. Take, for instance, the notion of the super-8 days. “The market currently exhibits greater bullish bias from the last three trading days of the previous month through the first two days of the current month, and now shows significant bullishness during the middle three trading days, 9 to 11, due to 401(k) cash inflows.” (p. 88) In 2011 the super-8 day returns totaled 13.93%, the rest of the month (13 days) saw a total loss of 5.68%.
The promotional blurb describes the Stock Trader’s Almanac as “the ultimate desktop market data bank.” I never consider anything ultimate, but this almanac comes pretty darned close. And that’s praise from someone who tends not to pay very much attention to seasonals.
Little, Trend Trading Set-Ups
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If you’ve read L. A. Little’s previous book, Trend Qualification and Trading, which I reviewed last year, you can skim through the first part of Trend Trading Set-Ups: Entering and Exiting Trends for Maximum Profit (Wiley, 2012). Essentially, Little introduces what he calls neoclassical technical analysis based solely on price, volume, and time. No squiggly lines, no patterns. Neoclassical technical analysis relies on the distinction between qualified and suspect trends for trade direction, anchor bars and zones for timing, and a trading cube that “offers a visual of the qualified trends across the differing time frames for a stock, its sector, and the general market it is part of as well as the inherent relationships between these three related components.” (p. 56)
In the second part of the book Little moves on to the task of formulating a trading plan and finding the highest probability trade set-ups.
Part and parcel of any trading plan is determining position size. But since in trading nothing is black and white, when trying to figure out trade size it can be misleading (and dangerous to the bottom line) to plug some numbers into a ready-made model and then confidently go full steam ahead. “Knowing when the probabilities for success are significantly greater than failure affords the market participant the luxury of making comparatively outsized trades in such situations. Money is made in the markets in bundles most of the time. It does not just arrive day in and day out. In fact, it usually leaks out rather than leaks in. Being able to make a larger bet when the probability for success is greater while at the same time the reward-to-risk of the trade is quite favorable is the Holy Grail of trading.” (p. 100)
So how does a trader identify high probability set-ups? First of all, there are only two basic trade types—breakouts and retraces. But there are seven possible and related scenarios for these set-ups, which I can’t possibly describe in a brief review. These scenarios are “tightly coupled” around the concept of retest and regenerate. “The term retest and regenerate was first coined to describe the common and repetitive situation where a swing point is broken and a suspect trend created (volume does not expand on the break). In the ebb and flow that accompanies most markets and stocks, it is overwhelmingly probable that when a stock breaks out under such conditions it will, after some period of time, retrace back to the area where it broke out to retest.” (p. 115) It is turns out that this is true not only of suspect trends but of confirmed trends as well.
The author has done extensive work to assign probabilities of failure to each of these scenarios. For example, the probability that a confirmed bullish trend will fail when a retest and regenerate sequence occurs within six bars of the breakout is 19.86%. For a suspect bullish trend, the probability is 11.35%.
Little provides trade entry decision ledgers for a range of scenarios. They are essentially checklists where, if a certain number of items is true, it is then appropriate to check the potential reward versus risk to make a final trading decision.
Trend Trading Set-Ups is a clear testament to the principle that trading is simple (although not too simple) but not easy. I don’t know what a good trader’s track record would be following Little’s method. I can say, however, that it’s a thoughtful, plausible approach to trading. And I don’t say that too often.
In the second part of the book Little moves on to the task of formulating a trading plan and finding the highest probability trade set-ups.
Part and parcel of any trading plan is determining position size. But since in trading nothing is black and white, when trying to figure out trade size it can be misleading (and dangerous to the bottom line) to plug some numbers into a ready-made model and then confidently go full steam ahead. “Knowing when the probabilities for success are significantly greater than failure affords the market participant the luxury of making comparatively outsized trades in such situations. Money is made in the markets in bundles most of the time. It does not just arrive day in and day out. In fact, it usually leaks out rather than leaks in. Being able to make a larger bet when the probability for success is greater while at the same time the reward-to-risk of the trade is quite favorable is the Holy Grail of trading.” (p. 100)
So how does a trader identify high probability set-ups? First of all, there are only two basic trade types—breakouts and retraces. But there are seven possible and related scenarios for these set-ups, which I can’t possibly describe in a brief review. These scenarios are “tightly coupled” around the concept of retest and regenerate. “The term retest and regenerate was first coined to describe the common and repetitive situation where a swing point is broken and a suspect trend created (volume does not expand on the break). In the ebb and flow that accompanies most markets and stocks, it is overwhelmingly probable that when a stock breaks out under such conditions it will, after some period of time, retrace back to the area where it broke out to retest.” (p. 115) It is turns out that this is true not only of suspect trends but of confirmed trends as well.
The author has done extensive work to assign probabilities of failure to each of these scenarios. For example, the probability that a confirmed bullish trend will fail when a retest and regenerate sequence occurs within six bars of the breakout is 19.86%. For a suspect bullish trend, the probability is 11.35%.
Little provides trade entry decision ledgers for a range of scenarios. They are essentially checklists where, if a certain number of items is true, it is then appropriate to check the potential reward versus risk to make a final trading decision.
Trend Trading Set-Ups is a clear testament to the principle that trading is simple (although not too simple) but not easy. I don’t know what a good trader’s track record would be following Little’s method. I can say, however, that it’s a thoughtful, plausible approach to trading. And I don’t say that too often.
29 Kasım 2012 Perşembe
Election Day Policy and Procedures
To contact us Click HERE
- No campaign signs of any kind (lawn, car stickers, T-shirts, etc) are allowed in or within 100 feet of a polling station.
- Outside of 100 feet, anything goes (in relation to electioneering)
- Report if there is any problem with access to a polling station between 7 AM and 8 PM, or any suspected interference or violation.
- Call the Registrar of Voters Hotline 858 565-3360.
- They will send a Trouble-Shooter to investigate.
- You should also inform the Precinct Inspector who is inside each Poll site and is in charge there.
A little humor from the Onion:
To contact us Click HERE
To take the White House, a candidate must secure 270 electoral votes; however, candidates can win various other prizes by reaching different predetermined vote totals. Here’s a look at the prizes up for grabs in this year’s election:
4 electoral votes — Federal Election Commission keychain
10 electoral votes — American flag pencil set
25 electoral votes — “Don’t Tread On Me” temporary tattoo
75 electoral votes — A $25 iTunes gift card
90 electoral votes — Founding Fathers sticker set
225 electoral votes — Presidential Seal fleece blanket
320 electoral votes — A fitted 'Commander-in-Chief' baseball cap
360 electoral votes — Bald eagle (Note: Ronald Reagan is the only man to ever win a bald eagle.)
Good News - Patch is covering the Encintias election results returns in the next hour or so.
Or you can check results for Encinitas directly at the San Diego Registrar site here.
To take the White House, a candidate must secure 270 electoral votes; however, candidates can win various other prizes by reaching different predetermined vote totals. Here’s a look at the prizes up for grabs in this year’s election:
4 electoral votes — Federal Election Commission keychain
10 electoral votes — American flag pencil set
25 electoral votes — “Don’t Tread On Me” temporary tattoo
75 electoral votes — A $25 iTunes gift card
90 electoral votes — Founding Fathers sticker set
225 electoral votes — Presidential Seal fleece blanket
320 electoral votes — A fitted 'Commander-in-Chief' baseball cap
360 electoral votes — Bald eagle (Note: Ronald Reagan is the only man to ever win a bald eagle.)
Good News - Patch is covering the Encintias election results returns in the next hour or so.
Or you can check results for Encinitas directly at the San Diego Registrar site here.
Let Dave Roberts explain it to your Uncle Charlie
To contact us Click HERE
No, not that Dave Roberts, our newest San Diego County Supervisor, Dave Roberts of Grist.
by digby
How many of us used the temperatures given in Fahrenheit are lulled by seeming low number of 2 degrees Celsius? In reality a 2 degrees Celsius rise means35.6 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. That is a horrible temperature rise, even for mild San Diego coastline temperatures. Update: Fixed math error. This is horrible for ecosystems, tide and weather patterns, agriculture and lots of other interconnected things. Plus it will be uncomfortable.
One can start today by changing the attitude that no waste in your life means deprivation. This is on the personal level. We can demand it of our new council on a local level (16 days, but who's counting?). There will be more climate change posts with email addresses and other thought provoking ideas from around the world and all over the net.
For the rest of your life make the impossible possible. Dave Roberts
No, not that Dave Roberts, our newest San Diego County Supervisor, Dave Roberts of Grist.by digby
"It's a stale trope that these family holiday gatherings are fraught with political arguments. But .. they often are. We may choose to live in our tribal encalves most of the time but for an awful lot of us, the family that hatched us isn't all of the same tribe.
Anyway, for the climate change argument, get out your nifty IPAD and show this to Uncle Charlie:"
How many of us used the temperatures given in Fahrenheit are lulled by seeming low number of 2 degrees Celsius? In reality a 2 degrees Celsius rise means
One can start today by changing the attitude that no waste in your life means deprivation. This is on the personal level. We can demand it of our new council on a local level (16 days, but who's counting?). There will be more climate change posts with email addresses and other thought provoking ideas from around the world and all over the net.
For the rest of your life make the impossible possible. Dave Roberts
Number of the Day
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Five-hundred and fifty-five votes behind, five-hundred and fifty-five votes needed right now to catch up. Plus, these same five-hundred and fifty-five people need to vote again every day for the next 9 days.
Can we do this people?
Oh yes, this is what is needed for our very own Solana Center to win the competition in the Earth 8 Eco Ambassadors contest for $25,000 prize money.
Tell everyone you know - 9 days of a simple mouse click or two to give our EUSD school kids a continued program they all love - reducing waste, composting and learning more than many parents know about the earth's natural systems.
Vote here.
Image: flickr Eve the Weaver
Five-hundred and fifty-five votes behind, five-hundred and fifty-five votes needed right now to catch up. Plus, these same five-hundred and fifty-five people need to vote again every day for the next 9 days.Can we do this people?
Oh yes, this is what is needed for our very own Solana Center to win the competition in the Earth 8 Eco Ambassadors contest for $25,000 prize money.
Tell everyone you know - 9 days of a simple mouse click or two to give our EUSD school kids a continued program they all love - reducing waste, composting and learning more than many parents know about the earth's natural systems.
Vote here.
Image: flickr Eve the Weaver
James Bond - Will You Miss?
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miss /ˈmɪs/ verb - miss·es; missed; miss·ing
1 : to fail to hit, catch, reach, or get (something) [+ obj] ▪
2 [+ obj]
a : to fail to use (something, such as an opportunity)
b : to fail to do, take, make, or have (something)
3 [+ obj] : to be without (something) : to lack (something)
4 [+ obj]
a : to fail to be present for (something)
b : to arrive too late for (something or someone)
5 [+ obj] : to notice or feel the absence of (someone or something)
6 [+ obj]
a : to fail to understand (something)
b : to fail to hear or learn about (something)
c : to fail to see or notice (something or someone)
7 [+ obj] : to avoid (something)
8 [no obj] : to fail to succeed
9 [no obj] : misfire
[phrasal verb]
1 : to lose an opportunity : to be unable to have or enjoy something
Meriam-Webster
Not a fan. So, no . . .
The other James Bond?
In 1966 spy author John La Carré considered 007 a neo-fascist gangster. He's softened his criticism, but I'm not sure why.
He's a silly white male fantasy from the 60s who goes around the world, shags exotic women and spreads STDs (all done in a family friendly way).
50 years. Seriously? I don't care how good the new 007 actor is. Please retire.
miss /ˈmɪs/ verb - miss·es; missed; miss·ing1 : to fail to hit, catch, reach, or get (something) [+ obj] ▪
2 [+ obj]
a : to fail to use (something, such as an opportunity)
b : to fail to do, take, make, or have (something)
3 [+ obj] : to be without (something) : to lack (something)
4 [+ obj]
a : to fail to be present for (something)
b : to arrive too late for (something or someone)
5 [+ obj] : to notice or feel the absence of (someone or something)
6 [+ obj]
a : to fail to understand (something)
b : to fail to hear or learn about (something)
c : to fail to see or notice (something or someone)
7 [+ obj] : to avoid (something)
8 [no obj] : to fail to succeed
9 [no obj] : misfire
[phrasal verb]
1 : to lose an opportunity : to be unable to have or enjoy something
Meriam-Webster
Not a fan. So, no . . .
The other James Bond?
In 1966 spy author John La Carré considered 007 a neo-fascist gangster. He's softened his criticism, but I'm not sure why.
He's a silly white male fantasy from the 60s who goes around the world, shags exotic women and spreads STDs (all done in a family friendly way).
50 years. Seriously? I don't care how good the new 007 actor is. Please retire.
28 Kasım 2012 Çarşamba
Rowland and Lawson, The Permanent Portfolio
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Talk about simple. Investing doesn’t get much simpler than The Permanent Portfolio: Harry Browne’s Long-Term Investment Strategy (Wiley, 2012). Craig Rowland and J. M. Lawson explain how to implement the 25%-25%-25%-25% (stocks, bonds, cash, gold) asset allocation strategy that Harry Browne recommended in his 1987 book Why the Best Laid Investment Plans Usually Go Wrong.
Browne assumed that financial markets are uncertain, which to him meant that no can predict what the market is going to do next and, as a corollary, that no one can time the market. He also admonished investors not to depend on any one investment, institution, or person for their financial safety. He even urged investors to keep some of their assets outside the country in which they live as protection against natural or manmade disasters and “against a government that may try to solve its financial problems by confiscating citizens’ private property.” (p. 11)
The Permanent Portfolio is a steady Eddie performer. Starting in 1972 after the gold standard ended and then looking at annualized real returns by decade (ending in 2009), the Permanent Portfolio returned +5.7%, +4.7%, +4.3%, and +4.2% with less volatility than competing portfolios. A 75/25 portfolio returned -2.3%, +10.5%, +12.4%, and -1.2%; a 50/50 portfolio -2.1%, +9.1%, +9.8%, and +0.6%; and a 25/75 portfolio -2.0%, +7.6%, +7.2%, and +2.2%.
Although there is a Permanent Portfolio mutual fund (with a different allocation: 20% gold, 5% silver, 10% short-term Swiss government debt, 15% real estate and natural resource stocks, 15% aggressive growth stocks, and 35% U.S. Treasury bills and bonds) and a new Permanent ETF, the authors suggest that investors, unless they want convenience, can get better diversification geographically and institutionally on their own.
It is somewhat amazing that the authors can fill over 300 pages writing about Browne’s 25-25-25-25 asset allocation strategy, but they manage—and in a way that investors searching for a way to grow their wealth can learn from. For instance, Rowland and Lawson explain rebalancing bands, tax considerations, and buying and storing gold (yes, they suggest holding at least some physical gold and storing part of it locally for emergencies and the rest abroad if you are able).
Browne’s strategy won’t appeal to those who are convinced they can outsmart the markets. It may not even be the best passive asset allocation plan. But it’s certainly better than investing on a wing and a prayer.
Browne assumed that financial markets are uncertain, which to him meant that no can predict what the market is going to do next and, as a corollary, that no one can time the market. He also admonished investors not to depend on any one investment, institution, or person for their financial safety. He even urged investors to keep some of their assets outside the country in which they live as protection against natural or manmade disasters and “against a government that may try to solve its financial problems by confiscating citizens’ private property.” (p. 11)
The Permanent Portfolio is a steady Eddie performer. Starting in 1972 after the gold standard ended and then looking at annualized real returns by decade (ending in 2009), the Permanent Portfolio returned +5.7%, +4.7%, +4.3%, and +4.2% with less volatility than competing portfolios. A 75/25 portfolio returned -2.3%, +10.5%, +12.4%, and -1.2%; a 50/50 portfolio -2.1%, +9.1%, +9.8%, and +0.6%; and a 25/75 portfolio -2.0%, +7.6%, +7.2%, and +2.2%.
Although there is a Permanent Portfolio mutual fund (with a different allocation: 20% gold, 5% silver, 10% short-term Swiss government debt, 15% real estate and natural resource stocks, 15% aggressive growth stocks, and 35% U.S. Treasury bills and bonds) and a new Permanent ETF, the authors suggest that investors, unless they want convenience, can get better diversification geographically and institutionally on their own.
It is somewhat amazing that the authors can fill over 300 pages writing about Browne’s 25-25-25-25 asset allocation strategy, but they manage—and in a way that investors searching for a way to grow their wealth can learn from. For instance, Rowland and Lawson explain rebalancing bands, tax considerations, and buying and storing gold (yes, they suggest holding at least some physical gold and storing part of it locally for emergencies and the rest abroad if you are able).
Browne’s strategy won’t appeal to those who are convinced they can outsmart the markets. It may not even be the best passive asset allocation plan. But it’s certainly better than investing on a wing and a prayer.
Commodity Trader’s Almanac 2013
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Commodities are clearly seasonal. Almost like clockwork there are corn harvests, winter heating demands, and holiday gold buying. Not every year is the same, of course. A drought can ravage the corn crop as it did this year, winters can be unseasonably warm or cold, and the general state of the economy can affect how much gold jewelry ends up under the Christmas tree.
Now in its seventh edition, the Commodity Trader’s Almanac (Wiley, 2012), compiled by Jeffrey A. Hirsch and John L. Person, is designed “for active traders of futures, forex, stocks, options, and ETFs.” It follows the general format of its older sister, the Stock Trader’s Almanac, with the first section devoted to the almanac proper and the second to trade strategies and detailed data on the twenty markets covered. These markets are the S&P 500, 30-year Treasury bonds, crude oil, natural gas, heating oil (a newcomer this year), copper, gold, silver, corn, soybeans, CBOT wheat, cocoa, coffee, sugar, live cattle, lean hogs, British pound, euro, Swiss franc, and Japanese yen.
On a two-page table the authors describe the seasonal trades that are the backbone of the almanac. They are the top percentage plays over the life of the traded commodity. For instance, short heating oil on the second trading day of January and hold for 30 trading days. This trade has a success rate of 69.7%, with 23 gains and 10 losses, and a total gain of $34,184, with a best gain of $17,686 and a worst loss of $11,155.
For traders who don’t have the stomach (or the wallet) for trading commodity futures, either individually or as spreads, the almanac introduces them to weekly and binary options. Another, more familiar alternative is to trade ETFs or ETNs, or even related stocks. The trader who couldn’t absorb a loss of over $11,000 on a heating oil futures contract could opt for RJN, the ELEMENTS Rogers International Commodity Energy ETN. “Despite the fact that RJN is composed of a basket of six different energy futures (47.7% crude oil, 31.8% Brent crude oil, 6.8% natural gas, 6.8% RBOB gasoline, 4.1% heating oil, and 2.7% gas oil), it is extremely closely correlated to the price trend of heating oil.” (p. 92)
If you’re looking for a desk calendar with a lot more meat to it than, say, The New Yorker’s cartoon-laden desk diary, the Commodity Trader’s Almanac would be an ideal choice. It is chock full of data and might even make you some money.
Now in its seventh edition, the Commodity Trader’s Almanac (Wiley, 2012), compiled by Jeffrey A. Hirsch and John L. Person, is designed “for active traders of futures, forex, stocks, options, and ETFs.” It follows the general format of its older sister, the Stock Trader’s Almanac, with the first section devoted to the almanac proper and the second to trade strategies and detailed data on the twenty markets covered. These markets are the S&P 500, 30-year Treasury bonds, crude oil, natural gas, heating oil (a newcomer this year), copper, gold, silver, corn, soybeans, CBOT wheat, cocoa, coffee, sugar, live cattle, lean hogs, British pound, euro, Swiss franc, and Japanese yen.
On a two-page table the authors describe the seasonal trades that are the backbone of the almanac. They are the top percentage plays over the life of the traded commodity. For instance, short heating oil on the second trading day of January and hold for 30 trading days. This trade has a success rate of 69.7%, with 23 gains and 10 losses, and a total gain of $34,184, with a best gain of $17,686 and a worst loss of $11,155.
For traders who don’t have the stomach (or the wallet) for trading commodity futures, either individually or as spreads, the almanac introduces them to weekly and binary options. Another, more familiar alternative is to trade ETFs or ETNs, or even related stocks. The trader who couldn’t absorb a loss of over $11,000 on a heating oil futures contract could opt for RJN, the ELEMENTS Rogers International Commodity Energy ETN. “Despite the fact that RJN is composed of a basket of six different energy futures (47.7% crude oil, 31.8% Brent crude oil, 6.8% natural gas, 6.8% RBOB gasoline, 4.1% heating oil, and 2.7% gas oil), it is extremely closely correlated to the price trend of heating oil.” (p. 92)
If you’re looking for a desk calendar with a lot more meat to it than, say, The New Yorker’s cartoon-laden desk diary, the Commodity Trader’s Almanac would be an ideal choice. It is chock full of data and might even make you some money.
Maurer, The Spirit of Kaizen
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In Japanese “kaizen” means “good change.” Although the word is identified with the dominance of Japanese businesses in the second half of the twentieth century, it had its roots in U.S. government programs instituted during World War II known as Training Within Industry (TWI). TWI stressed that since there was no time for corporations to perform total makeovers to meet wartime needs, they should instead pursue continuous improvement using what they had. As a strategy for change, kaizen “asks for nothing other than small, doable steps toward improvement.”
In The Spirit of Kaizen: Creating Lasting Excellence One Small Step at a Time (McGraw-Hill, 2013) Robert Maurer, a psychologist on the faculty of the UCLA and University of Washington Schools of Medicine, explores the many ways in which kaizen can help organizations make changes with minimal disruption and help people improve both their work and their personal lives.
By instinct most people resist change. The amygdala “smells danger whenever you try to change your routine—because to the amygdala your routine feels secure, good, and safe.” (p. 17) As a result, innovation, by which Maurer means radical change, rarely works. If, however, “the amygdala is like an alarm system, small steps are like cat burglars. Quietly, slowly, and softly, they pad past your fears. Your alarm never goes off.” (p. 18) Rather than looking for the “one big thing” to solve a problem, people should take very, very small steps. In this way they can change habits, even find inspiration, all with minimal stress. (“Inspiration,” Maurer writes, “is much more likely to develop from the habit of consistently paying attention to life’s small moments.” [p. 84])
Maurer demonstrates the value of kaizen in business. Take UPS, for instance, a company “with a kaizenlike attention to detail. (The company saves space at its dispatch centers by mandating that its brown vans park exactly five inches apart, with the rearview mirrors overlapping.) Using kaizen thinking, the UPS engineers recognized that left-hand turns are costly to the company; trucks have to idle longer at intersections, consuming extra fuel and taking up precious time. The engineers edited their GPS software to reduce left-hand turns. UPS has estimated that in one year, this change saved 28.5 million miles off their usual routes and saved 3 million gallons of gas. And within five months of the change, carbon dioxide emissions were reduced by more than a thousand metric tons in New York City alone.” (p. 56)
Lately there’s been a great deal of focus on little things—“little bets” come immediately to mind. I for one am a believer. Making little bets can potentially reap big rewards with minimal risk; taking little steps can bring about significant change with minimal stress.
Let me close with an excerpt from the most recent Yale Alumni Magazine about Richard Levin, the retiring president of Yale, which I believe reinforces this point. “An admirer of Rick Levin’s once told me that she hadn’t started out that way. When he was picked as the 22nd president of Yale, she was unimpressed. He wasn’t charismatic. He lacked the rhetorical flair that had become a hallmark of Yale presidents. ‘But then,’ she said, ‘he went and he fixed this little thing’—circling her hands around a spot on her desk as if it were some roiling problem on campus. ‘And then he fixed that’—and then another problem, and another and another, until she had become an ardent believer.” His presidency was described as “a record of specifics.”
In The Spirit of Kaizen: Creating Lasting Excellence One Small Step at a Time (McGraw-Hill, 2013) Robert Maurer, a psychologist on the faculty of the UCLA and University of Washington Schools of Medicine, explores the many ways in which kaizen can help organizations make changes with minimal disruption and help people improve both their work and their personal lives.
By instinct most people resist change. The amygdala “smells danger whenever you try to change your routine—because to the amygdala your routine feels secure, good, and safe.” (p. 17) As a result, innovation, by which Maurer means radical change, rarely works. If, however, “the amygdala is like an alarm system, small steps are like cat burglars. Quietly, slowly, and softly, they pad past your fears. Your alarm never goes off.” (p. 18) Rather than looking for the “one big thing” to solve a problem, people should take very, very small steps. In this way they can change habits, even find inspiration, all with minimal stress. (“Inspiration,” Maurer writes, “is much more likely to develop from the habit of consistently paying attention to life’s small moments.” [p. 84])
Maurer demonstrates the value of kaizen in business. Take UPS, for instance, a company “with a kaizenlike attention to detail. (The company saves space at its dispatch centers by mandating that its brown vans park exactly five inches apart, with the rearview mirrors overlapping.) Using kaizen thinking, the UPS engineers recognized that left-hand turns are costly to the company; trucks have to idle longer at intersections, consuming extra fuel and taking up precious time. The engineers edited their GPS software to reduce left-hand turns. UPS has estimated that in one year, this change saved 28.5 million miles off their usual routes and saved 3 million gallons of gas. And within five months of the change, carbon dioxide emissions were reduced by more than a thousand metric tons in New York City alone.” (p. 56)
Lately there’s been a great deal of focus on little things—“little bets” come immediately to mind. I for one am a believer. Making little bets can potentially reap big rewards with minimal risk; taking little steps can bring about significant change with minimal stress.
Let me close with an excerpt from the most recent Yale Alumni Magazine about Richard Levin, the retiring president of Yale, which I believe reinforces this point. “An admirer of Rick Levin’s once told me that she hadn’t started out that way. When he was picked as the 22nd president of Yale, she was unimpressed. He wasn’t charismatic. He lacked the rhetorical flair that had become a hallmark of Yale presidents. ‘But then,’ she said, ‘he went and he fixed this little thing’—circling her hands around a spot on her desk as if it were some roiling problem on campus. ‘And then he fixed that’—and then another problem, and another and another, until she had become an ardent believer.” His presidency was described as “a record of specifics.”
Newman, The Secret Financial Life of Food
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Although Kara Newman’s The Secret Financial Life of Food: From Commodities Markets to Supermarkets (Columbia University Press, 2013) has an enticing title, it doesn’t divulge any secrets. Instead, it is a rather jagged history of U.S. agricultural futures markets. Each chapter focuses on a particular commodity or group of commodities: corn; grains; butter and eggs; coffee, sugar, and cocoa; cattle; pork bellies; produce such as apples, onions, potatoes, tomatoes, and orange juice; and soybeans. At the end of each chapter is a brief section entitled “What Trades Now” with a snapshot of the commodity’s use, what exchange it trades on, and its contract size.
Newman’s book includes a series of vignettes, replete with larger than life, sometimes shady characters. Take, for instance, “Tino” De Angelis, who was “the brains behind the Great Salad Oil Swindle [of the early 1960s], which ultimately bankrupted twenty banks and commodities and securities firms, including an American Express unit, and caused losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars.” (p. 146) Or Peter McGeoch, the lord of lard, who, following the crash of the lard market, shot himself. Or Jack Richard Simplot, the Idaho potato king, who sold millions of dollars of Maine potato futures and, at expiration, could not deliver the requisite 49,850,000 pounds. This “great potato panic” resulted in the CFTC’s banning the trading of potato futures indefinitely, “effectively wiping out NYMEX’s most prosperous business.” (p. 134)
And then there was the onion scandal. In the early 1950s “eggs and onions were the [Merc’s] primary markets.” But not for long. A spectacular market-fixing incident engineered by a Chicago trader and a New York trader managed to push down “the price of a 50-pound bag of onions from $2.55 to 10 cents between August 1955 and March 1956.” In the process the two traders double-crossed some major onion growers in Michigan, who turned to Congress for regulatory action. “Despite a strenuous outcry from the Merc and a public relations effort aimed at showcasing the benefits of onion futures, Congress, in 1958, amended the Commodity Exchange Act to abolish the onion market. … [T]rading onion futures became a misdemeanor under federal law.” (pp. 129-132)
Commodity futures, of course, come and go. I, for one, mourned the demise of the pork belly contract in 2011. Whiskey never made it to a formal exchange, even though “on the opening day of the New York’s Produce Exchange [in the mid-nineteenth century], the New York Times published a trade table listing, among other products, 1,010 barrels of whiskey at 19 cents a gallon.” (p. 56) The high-fructose corn syrup market lasted only two years (1987-88). The contract for frozen eggs, introduced in 1949, ceased trading in the 1970s, and egg trading as a whole eventually “sputtered to a full stop.” (p. 74)
Those who are interested in the history of the “food” commodity markets will find many treats in Newman’s book. It is not a definitive history, but it’s worth a read nonetheless.
Newman’s book includes a series of vignettes, replete with larger than life, sometimes shady characters. Take, for instance, “Tino” De Angelis, who was “the brains behind the Great Salad Oil Swindle [of the early 1960s], which ultimately bankrupted twenty banks and commodities and securities firms, including an American Express unit, and caused losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars.” (p. 146) Or Peter McGeoch, the lord of lard, who, following the crash of the lard market, shot himself. Or Jack Richard Simplot, the Idaho potato king, who sold millions of dollars of Maine potato futures and, at expiration, could not deliver the requisite 49,850,000 pounds. This “great potato panic” resulted in the CFTC’s banning the trading of potato futures indefinitely, “effectively wiping out NYMEX’s most prosperous business.” (p. 134)
And then there was the onion scandal. In the early 1950s “eggs and onions were the [Merc’s] primary markets.” But not for long. A spectacular market-fixing incident engineered by a Chicago trader and a New York trader managed to push down “the price of a 50-pound bag of onions from $2.55 to 10 cents between August 1955 and March 1956.” In the process the two traders double-crossed some major onion growers in Michigan, who turned to Congress for regulatory action. “Despite a strenuous outcry from the Merc and a public relations effort aimed at showcasing the benefits of onion futures, Congress, in 1958, amended the Commodity Exchange Act to abolish the onion market. … [T]rading onion futures became a misdemeanor under federal law.” (pp. 129-132)
Commodity futures, of course, come and go. I, for one, mourned the demise of the pork belly contract in 2011. Whiskey never made it to a formal exchange, even though “on the opening day of the New York’s Produce Exchange [in the mid-nineteenth century], the New York Times published a trade table listing, among other products, 1,010 barrels of whiskey at 19 cents a gallon.” (p. 56) The high-fructose corn syrup market lasted only two years (1987-88). The contract for frozen eggs, introduced in 1949, ceased trading in the 1970s, and egg trading as a whole eventually “sputtered to a full stop.” (p. 74)
Those who are interested in the history of the “food” commodity markets will find many treats in Newman’s book. It is not a definitive history, but it’s worth a read nonetheless.
Checklist: Online Holiday Shopping Safety
To contact us Click HERE
Before you click the buy button this holiday season, make sure your wallet and computer are protected with this simple checklist.
Run the latest security updates.
Check that your anti-virus/anti-spyware software is running and receiving automatic updates. If you haven’t already done so, install the latest updates.
Use only secure websites.
Look for the "lock" icon on the browser's status bar and be sure “https” appears in the website address bar before making a purchase. The "s" stands for "secure” and indicates that the webpage is encrypted.
Do not handle transactions via email.
Never email credit card or other financial/sensitive information.
Do not pay for items on public computers or public wireless.
Public computers may contain malicious software that steals your credit card information when you place your order. Criminals may be monitoring public wireless for credit card numbers and other confidential information.
Review who you are buying from.
If you haven’t purchased from the merchant before, do some research. Read reviews if they are available.
Review return policies.
Review the company’s return policies before you click the buy button. Make sure their return and customer service policies meet your expectations.
Save and print your receipts.
After you have purchased your item, save and print your receipts. Compare them in the coming days with your account balances to make sure you were billed correctly.
Before you click the buy button this holiday season, make sure your wallet and computer are protected with this simple checklist.
Run the latest security updates.
Check that your anti-virus/anti-spyware software is running and receiving automatic updates. If you haven’t already done so, install the latest updates.
Use only secure websites.
Look for the "lock" icon on the browser's status bar and be sure “https” appears in the website address bar before making a purchase. The "s" stands for "secure” and indicates that the webpage is encrypted.
Do not handle transactions via email.
Never email credit card or other financial/sensitive information.
Do not pay for items on public computers or public wireless.
Public computers may contain malicious software that steals your credit card information when you place your order. Criminals may be monitoring public wireless for credit card numbers and other confidential information.
Review who you are buying from.
If you haven’t purchased from the merchant before, do some research. Read reviews if they are available.
Review return policies.
Review the company’s return policies before you click the buy button. Make sure their return and customer service policies meet your expectations.
Save and print your receipts.
After you have purchased your item, save and print your receipts. Compare them in the coming days with your account balances to make sure you were billed correctly.
27 Kasım 2012 Salı
Ron Paul is BETTER than the Founders
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We know about Ron Paul, the humble doctor and family man who turned statesman and advocated for peace, liberty and prosperity for 30 years. Many compare Ron Paul with the founding fathers but the more I learn about our founders the more I am convinced that Ron Paul stands above them.
Take George Washington. What churned Washington into a revolutionary wasn't a quest for liberty for the American people but his own bruised and colossal ego. Early in his life, he was furious and humiliated that as a member of Virginia's slave owning aristocratic plantation class, he was denied a commission in the British army. Washington also lobbied hard for a land grant from George III to expand his already gargantuan land holdings and slave plantations. Washington deemed himself a high ranking and noble member of the privileged ruling aristocracy. His anger with the British stems from the fact that America's ruling aristocracy was denied equal recognition and power that was conferred upon Britain's own ruling aristocracy. The real George Washington vs. the fictional Washington legend that we find in our history books is a story of conflict that includes the good, the bad and the ugly.
Thomas Jefferson, another aristocratic member of the Virginia slave holding plantation class, is difficult and perplexing because of his extraordinary mind, prose, philosophical views and writings. Jefferson may have believed what he wrote, but he didn't live it. In fact, Jefferson was a compulsive spender who lived way beyond his means and was always in debt to fund his lavish lifestyle. While Jefferson did call slavery a "moral and political depravity", he never freed his slaves except for 5 slaves who were members of the Hemmings family and possibly the children he fathered with his slave Sally Hemming. Jefferson was so in debt at the time of his death that his slaves were auctioned off on the front lawn of Monticello and Monticello itself was auctioned off for a pittance. In reality, Jefferson lived his entire life as a reckless slave holding aristocrat. Jefferson's private life in no way comports with his incredible public life. Despite his flaws, Jefferson was an extraordinary man.
Alexander Hamilton was a most unusual character. He rose up from the lower middle class and was born and raised on a Caribbean slave plantation island. Hamilton revered and worshiped all things British including its empire and aristocratic merchantilism. Hamilton was catapulted to power and fame when he got noticed by Washington early in the Revolutionary War. Hamilton was smart, brave, dashing, loyal and hardworking. However, Hamilton also had an obsession with himself who he perceived as a rising Napoleon Bonaparte. After the Revolutionary War Hamilton ferociously fought for a new army and a war with France. Fellow Federalist John Adams, who was president at the time, squashed his war and military ambitions. Hamilton was so incensed with Adams that he successfully waged a campaign to guarantee that Adams would be a one term president for the crime of refusing to pursue a military US empire and costly wars.
Benjamin Franklin was an extraordinary and noble man by any measurement. He may have been America's first voluntarist because he was always organizing voluntary groups like fire fighters and he also lobbied the rich to donate books and money for libraries and public schools. Franklin belonged to many groups that voluntarily sought to solve problems without government and public money. Ben Franklin was 100% self-made and rose from humble beginning as the son of a Boston candle maker. He was also an incredibly astute diplomat who knew how to play the French against the British and vice versa. Without Franklin's superb diplomacy skills, it's doubtful that the French would have ever intervened on behalf of the American Revolution. But even Franklin, who truly believed that a deal could be cut with the British to keep America a sovereign nation but a loyal component of the British Empire, lobbied the British for a land grant for himself.
John Adams was, in my humble opinion, the founder closest to Ron Paul in ideology, morality and principles, even if Ron Paul and John Adams are temperamentally quite different. Adams was the son of a farmer who lived a simple life but throughout his life he never flinched or waivered on his principle, even though Adams had a few missteps and errors in judgment, particularly with the Alien and Sedition Acts. The enduring legacy of John Adams is that he fought Hamilton and other Federalist warmongers, the neocons of the day, and even sacrificed a second term as president to save the nation from war with France. For more on John and Abigail Adams, see:
John and Abigail, the Original Adams Family
At the end of the day, our founders are still extraordinary men and like all men they have their own flaws, limitations and motivations. Still, they were willing to sacrifice everything in pursuit of their Revolution. Jefferson narrowly escaped capture by the British when they literally showed up at Monticello to arrest him. Washington was well aware that he gambled the house and everything he owned on the Revolution. It's also fair to say that our founders were products of the times and despite their flaws they successfully forged a new version of human liberty that for the most part recognized natural rights as a guiding principle.
I think our founders would all be very proud of Ron Paul for ideologically perfecting and clarifying their dream in a context that is far more moral and relevant. Ron Paul never asked for anything and he never got anything. Ron Paul never sought glory or power or land or privilege. It's hard to find a human being alive or dead whose motivations are purer than that of Ron Paul.
We know about Ron Paul, the humble doctor and family man who turned statesman and advocated for peace, liberty and prosperity for 30 years. Many compare Ron Paul with the founding fathers but the more I learn about our founders the more I am convinced that Ron Paul stands above them.
Take George Washington. What churned Washington into a revolutionary wasn't a quest for liberty for the American people but his own bruised and colossal ego. Early in his life, he was furious and humiliated that as a member of Virginia's slave owning aristocratic plantation class, he was denied a commission in the British army. Washington also lobbied hard for a land grant from George III to expand his already gargantuan land holdings and slave plantations. Washington deemed himself a high ranking and noble member of the privileged ruling aristocracy. His anger with the British stems from the fact that America's ruling aristocracy was denied equal recognition and power that was conferred upon Britain's own ruling aristocracy. The real George Washington vs. the fictional Washington legend that we find in our history books is a story of conflict that includes the good, the bad and the ugly.
Thomas Jefferson, another aristocratic member of the Virginia slave holding plantation class, is difficult and perplexing because of his extraordinary mind, prose, philosophical views and writings. Jefferson may have believed what he wrote, but he didn't live it. In fact, Jefferson was a compulsive spender who lived way beyond his means and was always in debt to fund his lavish lifestyle. While Jefferson did call slavery a "moral and political depravity", he never freed his slaves except for 5 slaves who were members of the Hemmings family and possibly the children he fathered with his slave Sally Hemming. Jefferson was so in debt at the time of his death that his slaves were auctioned off on the front lawn of Monticello and Monticello itself was auctioned off for a pittance. In reality, Jefferson lived his entire life as a reckless slave holding aristocrat. Jefferson's private life in no way comports with his incredible public life. Despite his flaws, Jefferson was an extraordinary man.
Alexander Hamilton was a most unusual character. He rose up from the lower middle class and was born and raised on a Caribbean slave plantation island. Hamilton revered and worshiped all things British including its empire and aristocratic merchantilism. Hamilton was catapulted to power and fame when he got noticed by Washington early in the Revolutionary War. Hamilton was smart, brave, dashing, loyal and hardworking. However, Hamilton also had an obsession with himself who he perceived as a rising Napoleon Bonaparte. After the Revolutionary War Hamilton ferociously fought for a new army and a war with France. Fellow Federalist John Adams, who was president at the time, squashed his war and military ambitions. Hamilton was so incensed with Adams that he successfully waged a campaign to guarantee that Adams would be a one term president for the crime of refusing to pursue a military US empire and costly wars.
Benjamin Franklin was an extraordinary and noble man by any measurement. He may have been America's first voluntarist because he was always organizing voluntary groups like fire fighters and he also lobbied the rich to donate books and money for libraries and public schools. Franklin belonged to many groups that voluntarily sought to solve problems without government and public money. Ben Franklin was 100% self-made and rose from humble beginning as the son of a Boston candle maker. He was also an incredibly astute diplomat who knew how to play the French against the British and vice versa. Without Franklin's superb diplomacy skills, it's doubtful that the French would have ever intervened on behalf of the American Revolution. But even Franklin, who truly believed that a deal could be cut with the British to keep America a sovereign nation but a loyal component of the British Empire, lobbied the British for a land grant for himself.
John Adams was, in my humble opinion, the founder closest to Ron Paul in ideology, morality and principles, even if Ron Paul and John Adams are temperamentally quite different. Adams was the son of a farmer who lived a simple life but throughout his life he never flinched or waivered on his principle, even though Adams had a few missteps and errors in judgment, particularly with the Alien and Sedition Acts. The enduring legacy of John Adams is that he fought Hamilton and other Federalist warmongers, the neocons of the day, and even sacrificed a second term as president to save the nation from war with France. For more on John and Abigail Adams, see:
John and Abigail, the Original Adams Family
At the end of the day, our founders are still extraordinary men and like all men they have their own flaws, limitations and motivations. Still, they were willing to sacrifice everything in pursuit of their Revolution. Jefferson narrowly escaped capture by the British when they literally showed up at Monticello to arrest him. Washington was well aware that he gambled the house and everything he owned on the Revolution. It's also fair to say that our founders were products of the times and despite their flaws they successfully forged a new version of human liberty that for the most part recognized natural rights as a guiding principle.
I think our founders would all be very proud of Ron Paul for ideologically perfecting and clarifying their dream in a context that is far more moral and relevant. Ron Paul never asked for anything and he never got anything. Ron Paul never sought glory or power or land or privilege. It's hard to find a human being alive or dead whose motivations are purer than that of Ron Paul.
America Really Doesn't Have Health Insurance
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America really doesn't have health insurance. The definition of insurance is as follows (here):
But along comes government to destroy a perfectly functional and cost effective and voluntary healthcare system. Courtesy of the government, America now has a taxpayer subsidized healthcare system that costs over $1 trillion dollars a year and that's just for those on government healthcare.
The Old, The Poor, and U.S. Health Care Explained
Forbes reported in June 2012 that Medicare premiums collected in the form of payroll tax deductions to fund the Medicare program only covers about a third of the actual cost of Medicare.
The Truth About Medicare Costs: Payroll Taxes Cover Just About a Third
Medicaid recipients don't pay a cent for their benefits. So here we sit with these 2 monster trillion dollar government healthcare programs and the taxes collected to fund them only total about $185 billion (a third of Medicare spending). That's a whopper of a gap as well as a cash shortfall of over $800 billion annually.
As Americans are about to learn, nothing is free. Obamacare was designed accomplish 3 things.
1. Force folks to pay for mandated healthcare services that they wouldn't voluntarily choose to pay for in a free market if they actually had the option to buy REAL insurance at free market prices.
2. Create a healthcare system so expensive that more folks will be forced into government run healthcare programs. It's nothing more a backdoor single payer government run healthcare system.
3. Mandate a slew of new taxes, here, to fund the programs.
Obamacare will hit the poor and middle class the hardest. The middle class who can afford healthcare will be paying higher healthcare costs in the way of taxes and government mandated insurance costs to subsidize the socialized healthcare system and the poor will be paying taxes to cover at least a portion of all their free healthcare.
More Middle-Class Americans Hit by Obamacare Tax
Year Receipts Spending
2011 $2,174 $3,819 Estimated
2012 $2,626 3,729 Estimated
2013 $3,033 3,771 Estimated
2014 $3,333 3,977 Estimated
It's clearly evident that the government government is anticipating a windfall in Obamacare tax receipts and collections. Meanwhile, the IRS is beefing up its staff to collect all these new taxes.
NOT A TAX: IRS TO HIRE THOUSANDS OF NEW AGENTS TO ENFORCE OBAMACARE
U.S. health care: Highest in the world in cost, 37th in performance. This system has already been declared guilty.
Indeed.
What the hell are we paying for? God only knows but whatever it is, it's hugely expensive and there is definitely no bang for the buck. The health of the American people are the first victims.
America really doesn't have health insurance. The definition of insurance is as follows (here):
Insurance is a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent, uncertain loss. Insurance is defined as the equitable transfer of the risk of a loss, from one entity to another, in exchange for payment. An insurer, or insurance carrier, is a company selling the insurance; the insured, or policyholder, is the person or entity buying the insurance policy. The amount to be charged for a certain amount of insurance coverage is called the premium. Risk management, the practice of appraising and controlling risk, has evolved as a discrete field of study and practice.By definition, insurance is a voluntary contract and coercion should never a factor, otherwise it's not insurance but government force and taxation. Folks voluntarily choose to purchase insurance for various purposes to mitigate against unforseeable catastrophic events like an automobile accident or the house burning down. Decades ago before government intervened in the healthcare business, America had a low cost world class medical system because folks only bought medical insurance for catastrophic medical events such as a major illness requiring large but unexpected medical expenses. All other routine medical expenses, such as doctor visits and perscriptions, were paid for out of pocket.
The transaction involves the insured assuming a guaranteed and known relatively small loss in the form of payment to the insurer in exchange for the insurer's promise to compensate (indemnify) the insured in the case of a financial (personal) loss. The insured receives a contract, called the insurance policy, which details the conditions and circumstances under which the insured will be financially compensated.
But along comes government to destroy a perfectly functional and cost effective and voluntary healthcare system. Courtesy of the government, America now has a taxpayer subsidized healthcare system that costs over $1 trillion dollars a year and that's just for those on government healthcare.
The Old, The Poor, and U.S. Health Care Explained
Medicare and Medicaid combined cost over $1 trillion last year, and health care costs are spiraling....According to USA Today, 2011 Medicare and Medicaid spending was $554 billion and $438 billion, respectively, here. Total US healthcare costs are staggering. A healthcare think tank, Kaiseredu.org, reported that America spent $2.6 trillion on healthcare in 2010, here. Bloomberg reported that US healthcare spending will top $3 trillion in 2014 and that government funded healthcare accounts for 46% of all healthcare spending, here.
In 1969, government plus private health spending per capita in America was just 8.2 percent of median income, but that has now risen to over 30 percent, according to a National Institute for Health Care Management analysis of government data.
Forbes reported in June 2012 that Medicare premiums collected in the form of payroll tax deductions to fund the Medicare program only covers about a third of the actual cost of Medicare.
The Truth About Medicare Costs: Payroll Taxes Cover Just About a Third
Medicaid recipients don't pay a cent for their benefits. So here we sit with these 2 monster trillion dollar government healthcare programs and the taxes collected to fund them only total about $185 billion (a third of Medicare spending). That's a whopper of a gap as well as a cash shortfall of over $800 billion annually.
As Americans are about to learn, nothing is free. Obamacare was designed accomplish 3 things.
1. Force folks to pay for mandated healthcare services that they wouldn't voluntarily choose to pay for in a free market if they actually had the option to buy REAL insurance at free market prices.
2. Create a healthcare system so expensive that more folks will be forced into government run healthcare programs. It's nothing more a backdoor single payer government run healthcare system.
3. Mandate a slew of new taxes, here, to fund the programs.
Obamacare will hit the poor and middle class the hardest. The middle class who can afford healthcare will be paying higher healthcare costs in the way of taxes and government mandated insurance costs to subsidize the socialized healthcare system and the poor will be paying taxes to cover at least a portion of all their free healthcare.
More Middle-Class Americans Hit by Obamacare Tax
Of the 30 million Americans whom Obamacare leaves uninsured and without affordable insurance options, 6 million will have to pay the penalty, an increased estimate from 2010.....According to website of the White House, here, federal revenues and expenditures are as follows but the government doesn't even seem to know how much it collects and spends as evidenced by the figures being estimates.
Despite claims made by Obamacare’s advocates that the law will help middle- and low-income Americans, CBO’s table reveals that the distribution of the tax falls heavily on those making less than 400 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL)—meaning the majority of this new tax falls on the very people the law was supposed to help. For instance, a family of four making about $24,600 per year, the projected FPL in 2016, could be subject to this egregious tax penalty.
Regardless of whether or not these 6 million Americans want health coverage, they are going to pay a hefty tax and still won’t have it. Moreover, the individual mandate tax is only one of Obamacare’s 18 new or increased taxes and penalties that will cost Americans $836 billion over the next 10 years.
Year Receipts Spending
2011 $2,174 $3,819 Estimated
2012 $2,626 3,729 Estimated
2013 $3,033 3,771 Estimated
2014 $3,333 3,977 Estimated
It's clearly evident that the government government is anticipating a windfall in Obamacare tax receipts and collections. Meanwhile, the IRS is beefing up its staff to collect all these new taxes.
NOT A TAX: IRS TO HIRE THOUSANDS OF NEW AGENTS TO ENFORCE OBAMACARE
How many, exactly? Numbers range from 2,700 to 16,500:
The IRS says it is well on its way to gearing up for the new law but has offered little information about its long-term budget and staffing needs, generating complaints from Republican lawmakers and concern from government watchdogs.
The IRS is expected to spend $881 million on the law from 2010 through 2013, hiring more than 2,700 new workers and upgrading its computer systems. But the IRS has not made public information about its spending plans in the following years, when the bulk of the health care law takes effect.Not surprisingly, the US has the most expensive healthcare system in the world and by a wide margin. Moreover, the US healthcare system ranks 37th in performance and quality.
U.S. health care: Highest in the world in cost, 37th in performance. This system has already been declared guilty.
The health care system in the U.S. is 40% more expensive per capita than the next most expensive OECD developed countriesAmericans seem to overpay for everything because our entire economic system is based on corporatism, oligarchy, fascism, statism, socialism, political corruption and rent seeking cronyism. Meanwhile, Americans will happily cling to their delusion that healthcare is free.
As a country, approximately 18.2% of our GDP is devoted to healthcare spending. Switzerland and France (#2 and #3) spend respectively 12.3% of 12.0% of their GDP for health care. The U.S. spends the second greatest amount of GDP for health care among all members of the United Nations, topped only by East Timor.
For its money, the U.S. obtains health outcomes that are near the bottom of the OECD rankings, and, in fact, rival some of the outcomes of Third World countries.
Indeed.
What the hell are we paying for? God only knows but whatever it is, it's hugely expensive and there is definitely no bang for the buck. The health of the American people are the first victims.
The GOP Panics and Shows a Spine that Resembles Cooked Spaghetti
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OKAY, I'm not going to scream one more time "Just Cut the Damn Spending!". Disturbingly, Politico is reporting that the GOP is ready to give in on Obamacare and higher taxes.
How red-state governors are opening the doors to Obamacare
Some Republican governors soften on taxes
OKAY, I'm not going to scream one more time "Just Cut the Damn Spending!". Disturbingly, Politico is reporting that the GOP is ready to give in on Obamacare and higher taxes.
How red-state governors are opening the doors to Obamacare
Bobby Jindal’s got a funny way of showing how much he hates Obamacare and Washington bureaucracy: The Louisiana governor’s about to invite the feds to set up a health insurance exchange right in his backyard.So is Rick Perry in Texas. Ditto for John Kasich in Ohio. And Scott Walker in Wisconsin.These Republican governors, and more than a dozen others in red states around the country, have decided it’s better to have Obamacare forced on them than to legitimize it by setting up their own exchanges, even if that means empowering the federal government at the expense of the states.Whatever happened to all the Republican talk about nullifying Obamacare and refusing to comply with the implementation of the healthcare exchanges?On the tax front, the situation is equally bad.
Some Republican governors soften on taxes
Some Republican governors are softening on the party’s hard-line toward tax increases for the wealthy, suggesting that GOP congressmen at least be open to rate hikes in exchange for a comprehensive fiscal agreement on taxes and entitlements.“The people have spoken, I think we’re going to have to be [flexible] now,” said Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, when asked if his party would now have to be open to taxes on the highest earners. “Elections do have consequences. The president campaigned on that.”
McDonnell, the outgoing head of the Republican Governors Association, made clear that raising taxes isn’t his first choice. But he said that the political reality of a Democratic president and Democratic Senate makes it unlikely that a grand bargain can be struck without some compromise on raising revenues.Such spineless statist rhetoric isn't going to win over the conservative voters who have been opining for less government, less spending and lower taxes for years. Quite frankly, the Republicans are admitting that they are scared of the Democrats and even more scared of raising the issue of spending cuts.
A Twinkie Autopsy
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Twinkie-gate is getting a ton of media and blogger attention because of its bankruptcy and the loss of over 18,000 jobs. However, there is a whole lot more to the story besides the emotional aspect, and like everything else it's a whole lot more complicated than soundbites and rants from the left and right.
The right wing Twinkie meme: A fine capitalist company like Hostess was forced out of business by the evil labor unions.
The left wing Twinkie meme: The evil and greedy capitalists treat their labor like expendable garbage and only care about profits.
The Libertarian free market meme: Let the markets sort it out.
Some even believe that changes in consumer tastes and demand killed Twinkie and dubbed it creative destruction.
The Free Market Killed Hostess, And That’s A Good Thing
The website of Hostess Brands says:
Synergy is defined as the belief that the whole is greater than the individual parts. In Wall Street speak, the individual parts are worth vastly more than the whole. All those Hostess Registered Trademarks have value, probably considerable value, and there is no doubt that they will be sold for the highest possible price.
Creatures like Hostess, who are wallowing in mountains of debt, are all products of the leveraged buyout (LBO) fever that was born in the 1980's after the dollar was de-tethered from gold and easy fiat money became as prevalent as grains of sand in the Sahara Desert.
Understanding the LBO game requires understanding the concept of leverage. Simply put, leverage is very little equity (no skin in the game) and a big pile of debt to play the takeover game and frequently the hostile takeover game. The LBO players are typically Wall Streeters, Hedge fund operators, private equity firms and just about any financial high roller seeking to make a big play with borrowed money. Many of these takeovers absolutely included plans to bust up companies and sell them off piece by piece.
There are many famous LBO's including an LBO involving former Treasury Secretary William Simon, here.
What Republicans dub plain old fashion venture capitalism is perceived by Democrats and the left as vulture capitalism. Mitt Romney earned his mega fortune doing LBO deals. A lot of these deals came packaged with government loans and subsidies (corporate welfare).
Let's get back to Hostess Brands because the company is possibly just another victim of the LBO as told by Firedog Lake.
Death By Twinkie: What the Hostess Liquidation Says About Labor and the Economy
Also, there is something inherently repugnant and unjust about an economic system that makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. America was once a nation with the strongest middle class in human history. Now the once proud and prosperous American middle class is vanishing as we increasingly morph into a society of the rich and the poor.
Not only is this a very bad situation that will continue to explode into class warfare, it's also a situation that was substantially advanced when Nixon de-tethered the dollar from gold in 1971. The unleashing of "Banksters Gone Wild" has resulted in all kinds of horrors from birthing the LBO in the 1980's to massive $15 trillion bankster bailouts to a busted economy.
The real tragedy, however, is that capitalism always get blamed. The truth of the matter is that America doesn't have free market capitalism. We've got this insidious hybrid command and control corporatist and bankster run economy that maintains its absolute control through the buying of Congress Critters and the ownership of the DNC and RNC money laundering machines.
When we think of companies like Hostess that are saddled with incredible debt stemming from LBO shenanigans we also have to think about "how did all this happen, why did it happen and who is really benefitting?". The workers, consumers and free marketd are not among the beneficiaries.
Twinkie-gate is getting a ton of media and blogger attention because of its bankruptcy and the loss of over 18,000 jobs. However, there is a whole lot more to the story besides the emotional aspect, and like everything else it's a whole lot more complicated than soundbites and rants from the left and right.
The right wing Twinkie meme: A fine capitalist company like Hostess was forced out of business by the evil labor unions.
The left wing Twinkie meme: The evil and greedy capitalists treat their labor like expendable garbage and only care about profits.
The Libertarian free market meme: Let the markets sort it out.
Some even believe that changes in consumer tastes and demand killed Twinkie and dubbed it creative destruction.
The Free Market Killed Hostess, And That’s A Good Thing
It’s unfortunate to see this company go away, of course. Not just for the history, but for the tens of thousands of people who are now unemployed....It's unclear whether or not the company, Hostess Brands, and its well known and popular brands that included Hostess®, Drakes® and Dolly Madison®, which make iconic cake products such as Twinkies®, CupCakes, Ding Dongs®, Ho Ho’s®, Sno Balls® and Donettes® and also includes bread brands that include Wonder®, Nature’s Pride ®, Merita®, Home Pride®, Butternut®, and Beefsteak® and others just arrived at a natural free market death or if other considerations were involved
Herein lies the paradox of progress. A society cannot reap the rewards of creative destruction without accepting that some individuals might be worse off, not just in the short term, but perhaps forever. At the same time, attempts to soften the harsher aspects of creative destruction by trying to preserve jobs or protect industries will lead to stagnation and decline, short-circuiting the march of progress. Schumpeter’s enduring term reminds us that capitalism’s pain and gain are inextricably linked. The process of creating new industries does not go forward without sweeping away the preexisting order.
Over the past two centuries, the Western nations that embraced capitalism have achieved tremendous economic progress as new industries supplanted old ones. Even with the higher living standards, however, the constant flux of free enterprise is not always welcome. The disruption of lost jobs and shuttered businesses is immediate, while the payoff from creative destruction comes mainly in the long term. As a result, societies will always be tempted to block the process of creative destruction, implementing policies to resist economic change.
Attempts to save jobs almost always backfire. Instead of going out of business, inefficient producers hang on, at a high cost to consumers or taxpayers. The tinkering short circuits market signals that shift resources to emerging industries.
The website of Hostess Brands says:
Hostess Brands is Closed....Jonathan Turley's liberal leaning website reported on the Hostess bankruptcy, here:
We are sorry to announce that Hostess Brands, Inc. has been forced by a Bakers Union strike to shut down all operations and sell all company assets. For more information, go to hostessbrands.info. Thank you for all of your loyalty and support over the years
HOSTESS BRANDS TO WIND DOWN COMPANY AFTER BCTGM UNION STRIKE CRIPPLES OPERATIONS...
The Board of Directors authorized the wind down of Hostess Brands to preserve and maximize the value of the estate after one of the Company’s largest unions, the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM), initiated a nationwide strike that crippled the Company’s ability to produce and deliver products at multiple facilities.
The company is in its second bankruptcy in a decade. Hostess sold about $2.5 billion worth of snack products last year with Twinkies leading the pack. However, the company has nearly $1 billion in debt and has $2 billion in unfunded pension obligations..Is the Hostess bankruptcy an engineered bankruptcy, a chapter straight out of the famous Wall Street movie staring Michael Douglas, a legal maneuver to avoid pension liability, a scheme to wiggle out of paying its debts, a strategy to kill the unions or is it something even more sinister?
While Hostess CEO Gregory Rayburn was planning to ask his employees for wage and benefit concessions, he was awarded a 300 percent raise (from approximately $750,000 to $2,550,000). Nine other top executives of the company received massive pay raises.
Over the eight years since the first bankruptcy, Hostess employees have watched as:
money from previous concessions that was supposed to go towards capital investment, product development, plant improvement and new equipment, was squandered in executive bonuses, payouts to Wall Street investors and payments to high-priced attorneys and consultants.
Synergy is defined as the belief that the whole is greater than the individual parts. In Wall Street speak, the individual parts are worth vastly more than the whole. All those Hostess Registered Trademarks have value, probably considerable value, and there is no doubt that they will be sold for the highest possible price.
Creatures like Hostess, who are wallowing in mountains of debt, are all products of the leveraged buyout (LBO) fever that was born in the 1980's after the dollar was de-tethered from gold and easy fiat money became as prevalent as grains of sand in the Sahara Desert.
Understanding the LBO game requires understanding the concept of leverage. Simply put, leverage is very little equity (no skin in the game) and a big pile of debt to play the takeover game and frequently the hostile takeover game. The LBO players are typically Wall Streeters, Hedge fund operators, private equity firms and just about any financial high roller seeking to make a big play with borrowed money. Many of these takeovers absolutely included plans to bust up companies and sell them off piece by piece.
There are many famous LBO's including an LBO involving former Treasury Secretary William Simon, here.
It may be argued that LBO fever first set in through a demonstration of its potential in a wildly successful deal by former Treasury Secretary William Simon in 1983. He had participated in an LBO takeover of Gibson Greeting Cards which was financed by $1M in equity and $79M in debt (total purchase value $80M); 1.5 years later Gibson was refloated on the market for $300M. Simon's original investment of $330K (1/3 of the total equity stake) turned into a fortune of $66M (ie. 1/3 of the total market capitalisation), thanks to the power of 80:1 leverage.Having started my Libertarian education back in the early 1970's that included reading and learning about free market capitalism, the LBO craze left be scratching my head in bewilderment. The debt fueled LBO craze wasn't creating new plants, new companies, new products, new jobs or even R & D for the future. The LBO craze was strictly predicated on raiding and plundering corporations, their assets and renouncing unions and pension obligations.
What Republicans dub plain old fashion venture capitalism is perceived by Democrats and the left as vulture capitalism. Mitt Romney earned his mega fortune doing LBO deals. A lot of these deals came packaged with government loans and subsidies (corporate welfare).
Let's get back to Hostess Brands because the company is possibly just another victim of the LBO as told by Firedog Lake.
Death By Twinkie: What the Hostess Liquidation Says About Labor and the Economy
Hostess has apparently not kept up with market share – with such good products like Twinkies and Wonder Bread, imagine! – but as you see above, the real trigger for this liquidation was the strike. This is the second Hostess bankruptcy since 2004. The BCTGM union took multiple concessions in the first bankruptcy, and offered multiple concessions (I’d tell you exactly what they are but apparently they’re having bandwidth issues at their site today) on wages and benefits this time around. But the contract the company tried to unilaterally impose was so bad, with a 27-32% wage cut and benefit slashes and the elimination of the eight-hour workday, that 92% of workers rejected it. And after the strike initiated, Hostess moved right to shutting down the company rather than working with the union on a resolution.It's definitely refreshing to hear the AFL-CIO president invoke crony capitalism as a cause of America's economic decline.
In fact, Wall Street hedge funds and private equity firms own Hostess brands, and they took massive bonuses and payouts over the past eight years or so. They dumped the company pensions, unilaterally stopped making pension payments that would have totaled $160 million, and plan to pay themselves with the sale of the liquidated assets of the company. Their current CEO’s main credential for the job is his “expertise in corporate liquidations,” according to the union (he’s also seen his pay triple).
This is an object lesson in how management looks at labor relations these days. Workers are expected to take their lumps, and if they protest, management will just blow up the company. And the owners will still make a profit. This is Romneyism and Bainism writ large. AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka reacted today:
What’s happening with Hostess Brands is a microcosm of what’s wrong with America, as Bain-style Wall Street vultures make themselves rich by making America poor. Crony capitalism and consistently poor management drove Hostess into the ground, but its workers are paying the price. These workers, who consistently make great products Americans love and have offered multiple concessions, want their company to succeed. They have bravely taken a stand against the corporate race-to-the-bottom. And now they and their communities are suffering the tragedy of a needless layoff. This is wrong. It has to stop. It’s wrecking America.
Also, there is something inherently repugnant and unjust about an economic system that makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. America was once a nation with the strongest middle class in human history. Now the once proud and prosperous American middle class is vanishing as we increasingly morph into a society of the rich and the poor.
Not only is this a very bad situation that will continue to explode into class warfare, it's also a situation that was substantially advanced when Nixon de-tethered the dollar from gold in 1971. The unleashing of "Banksters Gone Wild" has resulted in all kinds of horrors from birthing the LBO in the 1980's to massive $15 trillion bankster bailouts to a busted economy.
The real tragedy, however, is that capitalism always get blamed. The truth of the matter is that America doesn't have free market capitalism. We've got this insidious hybrid command and control corporatist and bankster run economy that maintains its absolute control through the buying of Congress Critters and the ownership of the DNC and RNC money laundering machines.
When we think of companies like Hostess that are saddled with incredible debt stemming from LBO shenanigans we also have to think about "how did all this happen, why did it happen and who is really benefitting?". The workers, consumers and free marketd are not among the beneficiaries.
Why is Europe Such a Freaking Disaster?
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The European Union is one of the worst economic disasters ever concocted by modern government. In fact, it’s nothing but a failed experiment in socialism, income redistribution and the concentration of power in Brussels, frequently dubbed The Throne in Brussels, where un-elected and overpaid bureaucrats tax and plunder the crap out of member nations and people while deciding who gets the plunder.
The original EU included 6 nations – Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, West Germany but grew to 15 with the addition of the United Kingdom, Denmark, Ireland, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Finland, Sweden.
Interestingly, the voters in Norway voted not to join the EU and the fiercely independent Swiss, who actually kept their republic, never joined the EU. Iceland never joined either and is now recovering nicely its financial meltdown.
What nations have the top performing economies on the planet? The Legatum Institute did an analysis on the issue. The report includes overall rankings and rankings on individual issues including economy, entrepreneurship/opportunity, governance, education, health, safety % security, personal freedom and social capital.
THE 2012 LEGATUM PROSPERITY INDEX™ RANKINGS
Overall rankings have Norway as #1 and Switzerland as #9. However, on the economy and governance, Switzerland ranked #1 and #1. Norway ranked #2 on the economy and 13th in governance.
The moral of the story is that nations who maintain their economic independence, sovereignty and refuse to submit to a higher centralized taxing and economic authority are clearly the most prosperous. Denmark is ranked #3 overall but Denmark did not join the common Euro currency so it's not embroiled in the euro currency crisis.
The great tragedy of the EU is that the union consists of giver nations and taker nations in accordance with the Marxist principle ‘from each according to his means and to each according to his needs’. It’s also called the Tragedy of the Commons. Some nations have literally been feeding off of the production and wealth of prosperous nations.
Take Greece. Greece has contributed 1.7 billion euros to the EU but got back a whopping 6.5 billion euros, an astounding 270% return according to The Guardian that did a detailed report on the EU relative to who pays and who receives.
EU budget: how much does each country pay and where does it get spent?
When the EU expanded the union from 15 nations to 27 nations, the newly added EU nations were: Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Malta, Cyprus, Bulgaria and Romania. These nations have received HUGE subsidies and handouts from the EU.
And it’s not just Greece and the recently added EU members that are cleaning up, even older EU members are getting back way more than they paid.
Portugal paid 1.6 billion euros but got back 4.7 billion euros, 194% more than it paid
Spain paid 9.9 billion euros but got back 14 billion euros, 37% more than it paid.
What nations are getting royally shafted?
Netherlands got back 47% less than it contributed
United Kingdom got back 41% less than it contributed
Sweden got back 38% less than it contributed
German got back 38% less than it contributed
Italy got back 33% less than it contributed
Denmark got back 30% less than it contributed
Finland got back 28% less than it contributed
France got back 27% less than it contributed
These are astounding percentages given that many of the nations that are heavily subsidizing other nations are now experiencing severe fiscal and economic problems themselves. France is in bad economic condition yet it gave the EU 18 billion euros while only getting back 13 billion euros.
Meanwhile, the EU Nazis just finished a contentious 2 day meeting on the EU budget and it ended badly because they could not agree on anything.
EU summit ends without budget deal
Where does all this EU money go? Apparently it serves no useful or productive purpose whatsoever except to grow the hugely expensive and un-affordable EU bureaucracy that is directly responsible for squashing the economic and civil liberties of Europeans. According to the Guardian article, here's how the money is spent:
The European Union is one of the worst economic disasters ever concocted by modern government. In fact, it’s nothing but a failed experiment in socialism, income redistribution and the concentration of power in Brussels, frequently dubbed The Throne in Brussels, where un-elected and overpaid bureaucrats tax and plunder the crap out of member nations and people while deciding who gets the plunder.
The original EU included 6 nations – Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, West Germany but grew to 15 with the addition of the United Kingdom, Denmark, Ireland, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Finland, Sweden.
Interestingly, the voters in Norway voted not to join the EU and the fiercely independent Swiss, who actually kept their republic, never joined the EU. Iceland never joined either and is now recovering nicely its financial meltdown.
What nations have the top performing economies on the planet? The Legatum Institute did an analysis on the issue. The report includes overall rankings and rankings on individual issues including economy, entrepreneurship/opportunity, governance, education, health, safety % security, personal freedom and social capital.
THE 2012 LEGATUM PROSPERITY INDEX™ RANKINGS
Overall rankings have Norway as #1 and Switzerland as #9. However, on the economy and governance, Switzerland ranked #1 and #1. Norway ranked #2 on the economy and 13th in governance.
The moral of the story is that nations who maintain their economic independence, sovereignty and refuse to submit to a higher centralized taxing and economic authority are clearly the most prosperous. Denmark is ranked #3 overall but Denmark did not join the common Euro currency so it's not embroiled in the euro currency crisis.
The great tragedy of the EU is that the union consists of giver nations and taker nations in accordance with the Marxist principle ‘from each according to his means and to each according to his needs’. It’s also called the Tragedy of the Commons. Some nations have literally been feeding off of the production and wealth of prosperous nations.
Take Greece. Greece has contributed 1.7 billion euros to the EU but got back a whopping 6.5 billion euros, an astounding 270% return according to The Guardian that did a detailed report on the EU relative to who pays and who receives.
EU budget: how much does each country pay and where does it get spent?
When the EU expanded the union from 15 nations to 27 nations, the newly added EU nations were: Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Malta, Cyprus, Bulgaria and Romania. These nations have received HUGE subsidies and handouts from the EU.
Czech Republic paid 1.4 billion euros but got back 3 billion euros, 107% more than it paidEven Croatia, who won’t officially become a EU member until July, 2013, has gotten 113 million euros and it has not paid a dime in EU dues/taxes.
Estonia paid 135 million euros but got back 504 million euros, 269% more than it paid
Hungary paid 836 million euros but got back 5.3 billion euros, 537% more than it paid
Latvia paid 160 million euros but got back 911 euros, 470% more than it paid
Lithuania paid 257 million euros but got back 1.7 billion euros, 542% more than it paid
Poland paid 3.2 billion euros but got back 14.4 euros, 347% more than it paid
Slovakia paid 576 million euros but got back 1.8 billion euros, 209% more than it paid
Slovenia paid 327 euros but got back 847 million euros, 159% more than it paid
Malta paid 56 million euros but got back 135 million euros, 140% more than it paid
Cyprus paid 160 euros and got back 184 million euros, 14% more than it paid
Bulgaria paid 346 million euros but got back 1.1 billion euros, 219% more than it paid
Rumania paid 1.1 billion euros but got back 2.7 billion euros, 138% more than it paid
And it’s not just Greece and the recently added EU members that are cleaning up, even older EU members are getting back way more than they paid.
Portugal paid 1.6 billion euros but got back 4.7 billion euros, 194% more than it paid
Spain paid 9.9 billion euros but got back 14 billion euros, 37% more than it paid.
What nations are getting royally shafted?
Netherlands got back 47% less than it contributed
United Kingdom got back 41% less than it contributed
Sweden got back 38% less than it contributed
German got back 38% less than it contributed
Italy got back 33% less than it contributed
Denmark got back 30% less than it contributed
Finland got back 28% less than it contributed
France got back 27% less than it contributed
These are astounding percentages given that many of the nations that are heavily subsidizing other nations are now experiencing severe fiscal and economic problems themselves. France is in bad economic condition yet it gave the EU 18 billion euros while only getting back 13 billion euros.
Meanwhile, the EU Nazis just finished a contentious 2 day meeting on the EU budget and it ended badly because they could not agree on anything.
EU summit ends without budget deal
A European Union summit wound up Friday with "no agreement" sealed for the bloc's next long-term budget, officials from several EU delegations said.Yes, the fight has definitely started over the European fiscal mess and the fight will only grow more intense and fierce. I suspect that many European nation, especially the solvent and economically viable nations, will continue to oppose the Eurocrats, their insane spending and their absolute power.
"There is no agreement," one official said.
With the 27 heads of state and government bitterly divided over spending policy, there had been little hope of a deal on a trillion-euro budget for 2014-20 during the two-day summit.
British Prime Minister David Cameron headed a group of austerity-driven nations demanding huge cuts in the next seven-year budget to match belt-tightening measures at home.
Divisions between have and have-not nations on how to spend the EU's billions caused further disagreements.
Talks to settle the bitter disputes that surfaced at the two-day summit will resume in January, Belgium's Foreign Minister Didier Reynders said on his Twitter account.
An EU diplomat said the main obstacle at the summit was Cameron's demand for reductions in the planned [budget,] adding that "the most virulent" countries by his side were Sweden and the Netherlands.
Where does all this EU money go? Apparently it serves no useful or productive purpose whatsoever except to grow the hugely expensive and un-affordable EU bureaucracy that is directly responsible for squashing the economic and civil liberties of Europeans. According to the Guardian article, here's how the money is spent:
• Administration Running the EU in each country
• The EU as a global partner International aid, activities outside the EU
• Citizenship, freedom, security and justice Asylum, education and culture
• Preservation and management of natural resources Common agricultural policy, environment, fishing
• Cohesion for growth and employment Helping poorer regions of Europe
• Competitiveness for growth and employment Economic growth grants to small business, science and researchThe EU is nothing more than a crime syndicate styled jobs protection racket for the parasitic public sector and its thieving bureaucrats. However, I will give Europe credit for one thing. At least the facade of fiscal solvency has finally melted away and now a real fight and a real debate has begun. That's more than you can say about bind, deaf and dumb America where denial runs deep and our bureaucratic class consistently fails to heed the warnings about going over the fiscal cliff. As far as clueless American politicians are concerned, everything is just perfect and they will continue to attempt to spend their way to prosperity even if it means nuking and laying waste the entire US economy.
26 Kasım 2012 Pazartesi
Neo-Nazis attack Jewish soccer fans in Rome!
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“Never Again” first appeared on handmade signs put up by inmates at Buchenwald in April, 1945 (Hoover Institution)
Never-the-less anti-Semitism in Europe has been on the rise, not coincidently occurring as the economies of countries there have been on the decline and governments have been forced to institute austerity measures that are extremely unpopular with the people who then look for something, or someone, to blame it on.
At the same time far-right neo-Nazi political parties such as Golden Dawn in Greece have opportunistically used the economic flux to gain a foothold in national government.
Anti-Semitic Attacks in Rome!
"...Witnesses told local media masked men armed with knives and baseball bats shouted "Jews, Jews" as they laid siege to a pub where the Tottenham fans were drinking in a district popular with tourists in an old quarter of Rome.
Ten people were injured in the attack and 25-year old Ashley Mills was left in a critical condition.
He was still in hospital on Friday, and the Italian news agency Agi said he was undergoing surgery after suffering internal bleeding.
Israeli ambassador to Italy Naor Gilon told reporters the attack on the Spurs fans, many of whom are Jewish, stemmed from "a new trend of anti-Semitism in Europe".
Rome mayor Gianni Alemanno expressed deep concern about the attack and hoped the police would quickly track down those responsible.
"What happened shows that there is a group of madmen and thugs running around and hiding behind the fans in our stadiums, and this is unacceptable," he told reporters.
RISING EXTREMISM
The European far right has gained increased support as the continent's economic crisis has deepened, especially in the debt-laden south. Its most startling rise has been in the worst hit country, Greece, where the anti-immigrant Golden Dawn group has flourished.
Italy is no stranger to the trend.
Last week police arrested four people for allegedly inciting racial hatred through the website of the white supremacist movement Stormfront, confiscating a variety of weapons and neo-Nazi propaganda, after the group published a list of prominent Jewish citizens.
Teenagers carrying neo-fascist flags stormed a high school last month, tossing smoke bombs into classrooms as lessons were being taught, in a raid interpreted in Italy as an attempt by Blocco Studentesco to assert control over its turf.
Shortly afterwards a school due to host a meeting with local authorities about the "neo-fascist resurgence in schools" was daubed with swastikas, Celtic crosses and the word 'Hitler'.
There is no suggestion the Blocco is linked to the attack on the Tottenham supporters.
"We are proud to be fascists," the 18-year old Rome leader of the Blocco recently told Reuters in a suburban cafe, where swastikas had been scrawled across walls and furniture.
RACIST CHANTS
Israeli flags are a common sight among Tottenham supporters at matches, and fans refer to themselves in chants as the 'yid army'.
Lazio have long had fans with extreme right-wing sympathies, notorious for making Nazi salutes, unfurling anti-Semitic banners and chanting racist insults against black players.
At the game on Thursday, which ended in a goalless draw, Lazio supporters unfurled a banner reading 'Free Palestine'.
The English Football Association plans to send a report to European soccer's governing body UEFA following alleged anti-semitic chanting by Lazio fans during the match on Thursday. Spurs manager Andre Villas-Boas has demanded an investigation..." (Source)
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“Never Again” first appeared on handmade signs put up by inmates at Buchenwald in April, 1945 (Hoover Institution)
Never-the-less anti-Semitism in Europe has been on the rise, not coincidently occurring as the economies of countries there have been on the decline and governments have been forced to institute austerity measures that are extremely unpopular with the people who then look for something, or someone, to blame it on.
At the same time far-right neo-Nazi political parties such as Golden Dawn in Greece have opportunistically used the economic flux to gain a foothold in national government.
Anti-Semitic Attacks in Rome!
"...Witnesses told local media masked men armed with knives and baseball bats shouted "Jews, Jews" as they laid siege to a pub where the Tottenham fans were drinking in a district popular with tourists in an old quarter of Rome.
Ten people were injured in the attack and 25-year old Ashley Mills was left in a critical condition.
He was still in hospital on Friday, and the Italian news agency Agi said he was undergoing surgery after suffering internal bleeding.
Israeli ambassador to Italy Naor Gilon told reporters the attack on the Spurs fans, many of whom are Jewish, stemmed from "a new trend of anti-Semitism in Europe".
Rome mayor Gianni Alemanno expressed deep concern about the attack and hoped the police would quickly track down those responsible.
"What happened shows that there is a group of madmen and thugs running around and hiding behind the fans in our stadiums, and this is unacceptable," he told reporters.
RISING EXTREMISM
The European far right has gained increased support as the continent's economic crisis has deepened, especially in the debt-laden south. Its most startling rise has been in the worst hit country, Greece, where the anti-immigrant Golden Dawn group has flourished.
Italy is no stranger to the trend.
Last week police arrested four people for allegedly inciting racial hatred through the website of the white supremacist movement Stormfront, confiscating a variety of weapons and neo-Nazi propaganda, after the group published a list of prominent Jewish citizens.
Teenagers carrying neo-fascist flags stormed a high school last month, tossing smoke bombs into classrooms as lessons were being taught, in a raid interpreted in Italy as an attempt by Blocco Studentesco to assert control over its turf.
Shortly afterwards a school due to host a meeting with local authorities about the "neo-fascist resurgence in schools" was daubed with swastikas, Celtic crosses and the word 'Hitler'.
There is no suggestion the Blocco is linked to the attack on the Tottenham supporters.
"We are proud to be fascists," the 18-year old Rome leader of the Blocco recently told Reuters in a suburban cafe, where swastikas had been scrawled across walls and furniture.
RACIST CHANTS
Israeli flags are a common sight among Tottenham supporters at matches, and fans refer to themselves in chants as the 'yid army'.
Lazio have long had fans with extreme right-wing sympathies, notorious for making Nazi salutes, unfurling anti-Semitic banners and chanting racist insults against black players.
At the game on Thursday, which ended in a goalless draw, Lazio supporters unfurled a banner reading 'Free Palestine'.
The English Football Association plans to send a report to European soccer's governing body UEFA following alleged anti-semitic chanting by Lazio fans during the match on Thursday. Spurs manager Andre Villas-Boas has demanded an investigation..." (Source)
If you need the product or service, please visit these preferred sponsors of The Political Commentator
Watcher's Council results: Arab Spring Part 2 Edition! (Blog aggregator)
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Is the world looking at the Arab Spring, Part 2?
Almost two years since the Obama administration had a hand in forcing Hosni Mubarak to step down, a move that led to the subsequent ascension to power of Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood in "democratic" elections, violence is once again taking place in Tahrir Square in what could be called Arab Spring Part 2!
The cause of the unrest is the sweeping dictatorial powers assumed by Morsi which he claims are only temporary but that one would assume may turn out to be anything but.
Do the strong-arm tactics now being used by this member of the Muslim Brotherhood have anything to do with the effusive praise heaped on the Egyptian government by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for its help in brokering a deal between Israel and Hamas?
Did this embolden Morsi to take this step?
It's impossible to say but if it does it would not be the first foreign policy miscalculation/failure for the Obama administration! And now...
Welcome to the Watcher's Council voting results for the week of November 19, 2012!
The Watcher's Council nominations for the week of November 19th were presented, the votes were cast and counted, and the winner will now been announced!
For those who may be enjoying their first Watcher's Council experience, it is a group that consists of some of the top conservative bloggers from around the world.
A group that The Political Commentator is extremely proud to have been asked to be part of!
Each week members select and submit an article of their own creation in addition to one article from a non-council blog they find to be particularly topical and important.
While you may not always agree with what you read, that alone may make the experience that much more valuable!
Once the submissions have been received at an undisclosed location hidden somewhere on the Left Coast of the United States, the Watchers Council members then individually vote for their favorites.
Those votes are protected and held by outside auditing firm Arthur Andersen until such time as they are counted and a winner named for the Grand Prize.
This Grand Prize consists of the appreciation of ones peers.
In the end though, we all win because of the range of information and important analysis received on the critical issues of the day.
In a nutshell, the Watchers Council is the ultimate conservative blog aggregator!
So without further ado the winner(s) of the Watcher's Council for the week of November 19th is (are)...?
Council Winners
*First place with 2 2/3 votes! The Razor –Freedom of Choice: Why Liberals Should Exercise Their Freedom to Pay Higher Taxes
Second place with 2 1/3 votes – Bookworm Room – Too much education makes people economically dumb
Third place with 1 2/3 votes – The Noisy Room-Going Galt and the Neo-Comms
Fourth place *t* with 1 1/3 votes – Joshuapundit-An Answer For Rupert Murdoch – Why The U.S Jewish Press Is So Anti-Israel
Fourth place *t* with 1 1/3 votes – The Independent Sentinel-Obama Is a Narcissist Who Rules a Narcissistic Nation
Fifth place with 1 vote – The Mellow Jihadi-Ethics Training Inbound
Sixth place *t* with 2/3 vote – GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD-Miss Calculation
Sixth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Political Commentator –Presenting the Democrat plan for going over the fiscal cliff!
Seventh place with 1/3 vote – The Colossus of Rhodey – It Ain’t Time to S.T.F.U. Yet, I Guess
Non-Council Winners
First place with 2 1/3 votes! – Via Meadia-America, Israel, Gaza, the World submitted byJoshuapundit
Second place *t* with 2& votes – Mark Steyn –How The GOP Earned Its Date With Destiny submitted by The Noisy Room
Second place *t* with 2 votes – Neo-Neocon –Obama’s Outrage submitted by The Glittering Eye
Third place with 1 1/3 votes -Ralph Peters-It’s Not Adding Up submitted by Bookworm Room
Fourth place *t* with 1 vote- Atlas Shrugs -Six Israeli ‘collaborators’ executed before baying Muslim mob in Gaza City submitted by VA Right!
Fourth place *t* with 2/3 votes - Powerline –“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to cash welfare checks…” submitted by Gay Patriot
Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote - Washington Wire –Specter of Iran Looms Over Gaza Crisissubmitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote -Daily Kos –Libertarians provided the margin for Democrats in at least nine elections submitted by Rhymes With Right
Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote -S. E. Cupp/Townhall –Unlocking Obama’s Economic Vision (Spoiler: It’s Blurry) submitted by The Political Commentator
Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote -Militant Libertarian –Real Danger of “Obamacare”: Insurance Company Takeover of Health Care submitted by The Razor
Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote -Seraphic Secret –Operation Pillar of Defense, Day Seven: Hey, Maybe the Ethnic Cleansing of Jews from Gaza Wasn’t Such a Bright Idea submitted by The Watcher
If you need the product or service, please visit these preferred sponsors of The Political Commentator
Is the world looking at the Arab Spring, Part 2?
Almost two years since the Obama administration had a hand in forcing Hosni Mubarak to step down, a move that led to the subsequent ascension to power of Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood in "democratic" elections, violence is once again taking place in Tahrir Square in what could be called Arab Spring Part 2!
The cause of the unrest is the sweeping dictatorial powers assumed by Morsi which he claims are only temporary but that one would assume may turn out to be anything but.
Do the strong-arm tactics now being used by this member of the Muslim Brotherhood have anything to do with the effusive praise heaped on the Egyptian government by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for its help in brokering a deal between Israel and Hamas?
Did this embolden Morsi to take this step?
It's impossible to say but if it does it would not be the first foreign policy miscalculation/failure for the Obama administration! And now...
Welcome to the Watcher's Council voting results for the week of November 19, 2012!
The Watcher's Council nominations for the week of November 19th were presented, the votes were cast and counted, and the winner will now been announced!
For those who may be enjoying their first Watcher's Council experience, it is a group that consists of some of the top conservative bloggers from around the world.
A group that The Political Commentator is extremely proud to have been asked to be part of!
Each week members select and submit an article of their own creation in addition to one article from a non-council blog they find to be particularly topical and important.
While you may not always agree with what you read, that alone may make the experience that much more valuable!
Once the submissions have been received at an undisclosed location hidden somewhere on the Left Coast of the United States, the Watchers Council members then individually vote for their favorites.
Those votes are protected and held by outside auditing firm Arthur Andersen until such time as they are counted and a winner named for the Grand Prize.
This Grand Prize consists of the appreciation of ones peers.
In the end though, we all win because of the range of information and important analysis received on the critical issues of the day.
In a nutshell, the Watchers Council is the ultimate conservative blog aggregator!
So without further ado the winner(s) of the Watcher's Council for the week of November 19th is (are)...?
Council Winners
*First place with 2 2/3 votes! The Razor –Freedom of Choice: Why Liberals Should Exercise Their Freedom to Pay Higher Taxes
Second place with 2 1/3 votes – Bookworm Room – Too much education makes people economically dumb
Third place with 1 2/3 votes – The Noisy Room-Going Galt and the Neo-Comms
Fourth place *t* with 1 1/3 votes – Joshuapundit-An Answer For Rupert Murdoch – Why The U.S Jewish Press Is So Anti-Israel
Fourth place *t* with 1 1/3 votes – The Independent Sentinel-Obama Is a Narcissist Who Rules a Narcissistic Nation
Fifth place with 1 vote – The Mellow Jihadi-Ethics Training Inbound
Sixth place *t* with 2/3 vote – GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD-Miss Calculation
Sixth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Political Commentator –Presenting the Democrat plan for going over the fiscal cliff!
Seventh place with 1/3 vote – The Colossus of Rhodey – It Ain’t Time to S.T.F.U. Yet, I Guess
Non-Council Winners
First place with 2 1/3 votes! – Via Meadia-America, Israel, Gaza, the World submitted byJoshuapundit
Second place *t* with 2& votes – Mark Steyn –How The GOP Earned Its Date With Destiny submitted by The Noisy Room
Second place *t* with 2 votes – Neo-Neocon –Obama’s Outrage submitted by The Glittering Eye
Third place with 1 1/3 votes -Ralph Peters-It’s Not Adding Up submitted by Bookworm Room
Fourth place *t* with 1 vote- Atlas Shrugs -Six Israeli ‘collaborators’ executed before baying Muslim mob in Gaza City submitted by VA Right!
Fourth place *t* with 2/3 votes - Powerline –“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to cash welfare checks…” submitted by Gay Patriot
Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote - Washington Wire –Specter of Iran Looms Over Gaza Crisissubmitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote -Daily Kos –Libertarians provided the margin for Democrats in at least nine elections submitted by Rhymes With Right
Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote -S. E. Cupp/Townhall –Unlocking Obama’s Economic Vision (Spoiler: It’s Blurry) submitted by The Political Commentator
Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote -Militant Libertarian –Real Danger of “Obamacare”: Insurance Company Takeover of Health Care submitted by The Razor
Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote -Seraphic Secret –Operation Pillar of Defense, Day Seven: Hey, Maybe the Ethnic Cleansing of Jews from Gaza Wasn’t Such a Bright Idea submitted by The Watcher
If you need the product or service, please visit these preferred sponsors of The Political Commentator