Panic spreads

Here's another article about the Greek financial cancer that is spreading across Europe.

Here's one about how it has spread from Greece to Portugal to Spain.

My theory for many months now has been that it will spread from the weakest countries through eastern Europe to Japan and the UK to the US. This view has been widely ridiculed by the (always wrong) experts for months. I guess a prediction is always wrong until the day it happens.

The fundamental problem is called the mispricing of sovereign risk. That is what I call it anyway. The bond markets have not been acting like all these profligate sovereign countries like Spain, Greece, Ireland, Latvia, Hungary, Bulgaria, France, Italy, UK, Us, etc. are acting crazy and spending more than they can ever repay. The bond markets have been acting normal, though the countries have been acting insane. At some point, apparently right now, people will have to look the situation right in the face and say "Stupid European socialists, Japan, and stupid newly socialist Americans have spent more than they could ever pay. There is no way out of it, so if I am going to lend them money it should be at a very high interest rate if at all. I will probably never get repaid."

The problem is that once interest rates are higher there is really no hope for countries to come out of it. But that's how it goes when you try to solve your problems using something as idiotic as Keyenesian economics (that is, spend more money no matter what).

Common sense

"In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."
--Thomas Jefferson

Contagion

Is there anyone who is still unsure about whether the bond market panic in Europe can cross the ocean? Because I would hate for anyone to be able to say they weren't warned, I will say it again. I was all alone six months ago when I said the bond market would start panicking by the end of March and that it would end in the worst collapse in history. People thought I was nuts. Read these two articles from today and see if any experts still think I'm nuts. This is the real deal, and marching along exactly on the timeline I originally gave, just like clockwork.

My point is not that right now I am the most accurate economic forecaster on earth (though I seem to be), but that you know that when I tell you something is about to happen and you need to act preemptively, you won't stand around wondering if I know what I'm talking about. This has the potential to be a $600 TRILLION dollar collapse, not $5 or $10 trillion like in 2008.

Excerpt below is from the following article.

“The EU’s inability to contain the Greek crisis is sparking concern that other countries will have to fend for themselves and will struggle to win support from European parliaments. Portugal’s PSI-20 benchmark dropped 5.4 percent today, the most since the aftermath of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s collapse. Spain’s IBEX 35 Index dropped 4.2 percent.

Contagion

“There is a clear risk that contagion pressures might intensify in the coming months, perhaps after a brief respite immediately after the Greek package is finalized and money starts being disbursed,” said Marco Annunziata, chief European economist at UniCredit Group in London.”

Another excerpt from another article.

ATHENS -- Greece was pushed to the brink of a financial abyss and started dragging another eurozone country - Portugal - down with it Tuesday, fueling fears of a continent-wide debt meltdown.

Stocks around the world tanked when ratings agency Standard & Poor's downgraded Greek bonds to junk status and downgraded Portugese bonds two notches, showing investors that Greece's financial contagion is spreading.

Major European exchanges fell more than 2.5 percent, and on Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average finished down more than 200 points. The euro slid more than 1 percent to nearly an eight-month low.

"We have the makings of a market crisis here," said Neil Mackinnon, global macro strategist at VTB Capital.

Greece is struggling with massive debt, and with prospects for economic growth weak it could end up in default. Its 15 eurozone partners and the International Monetary Fund have tried to calm the markets with a euro45 billion rescue package, but it hasn't worked.

Standard & Poor's warned that holders of Greek debt could take large losses in any restructuring, but a greater worry is that Greece's debt crisis is mushrooming to other debt-laden members of the eurozone.

One more article.

And another.

Very well said

"In the economic world, freedom is a reference to the “free market”. The free market is simply peaceful, voluntary exchange between buyers and sellers. For a nation, it is millions of people and businesses trading value for value in a voluntary way. The exchange is typically money for goods and services but the hallmark of this exchange is that it is about peaceful exchange…that is the essence of a free market…FREEDOM.

The net result of this free exchange is economic growth. The buyers get goods and services while the sellers get paid for their cost of production plus a profit. The profit, then, is utilized for growth whether we realize or not, whether we acknowledge it or not. The bottom line is that this activity is about PRODUCTION. Production is a critical part of a healthy, growing economy. Without the production of goods and service, what consumption can there be?

In that voluntary exchange, profit is the crucial key to growing that business in particular and the economy in general. Profit is the catalyst for job creation, innovation and business expansion. The primary beneficiary of this private growth and expansion is the government. As profits grow and jobs are created, this ultimately results in greater tax revenue for government. But what if government…the state…grows faster than the economy’s ability to sustain it? You must remember that statism and government is not merely paperwork, taxes, laws, regulations, bureaucracy and what we see. Keep in mind that statism (as embodied in government) is CONSUMPTION BY FORCE.

The embodiment of statism (government) siphons its resources by force from the economy. If it is kept at a reasonable (low) level, then both the free market (the economy) and the government can co-exist just fine. If government is kept at a reasonable level, general prosperity is relatively easy to achieve. However, this is not the case today. Far from it!

I came from a now-defunct communist country (the former socialist paradise of Yugoslavia). My family and I learned that painful economic lesson all too well. When you tear away “communist rhetoric”, what you have is an economy totally run by government bureaucracy where “consumption” is king and “production” is basically decimated. What you had left was a country where the general populace was hungry and constantly in need of the basics of life. You had an economy that was top-heavy in “wants and needs” unfulfilled and totally lacking in the means (production!) to fulfill those wants and needs (translation: Poverty!)

The Yugoslavian government thought that an easy way to fix the problem was simply to flood the economy with “more money”. After all, the government (statism) was in charge of printing money. Surely you can make everyone better off by printing trillions of “dinars” (the currency at the time) and give the economy some good old-fashioned stimulus…Right?

Wrong. It didn’t solve the crisis of production. Of course, what it did “produce” was hyper-inflation. By now, the people had enough. Social chaos and conflict ensued and this led to civil war and total breakdown. Yugoslavia was no more by 1994. At the heart of all this was a case of statism gone too far.

The lesson is that freedom and a healthy, thriving free market is critical…CRITICAL…to the long-term success and viability of an economy. And yes…it is even critical for the government’s own well-being and for the well-being of those that are dependent on what it offers.

What worries me is that this lesson is being ignored right now in America."

Peak oil, best chart yet

The supply of the world's most essential energy source is going off a cliff. Not in the distant future, but in a year and a half. Production of all liquid fuels, including oil, will drop within 20 years to half what it is today. And the difference needs to be made up with "unidentified projects," which one of the world's leading petroleum geologists says is just a "euphemism for rank shortage," and the world's foremost oil industry banker says is "faith based."

The chart was drawn by the United States Department of Energy, and the United States military's Joint Forces Command concurs with the overall picture. This information is well known to experts, just not to everyone who needs to be thinking about it. We've known about this for twenty years. Some think this is what the whole global warming scare is all about. That explains why no matter how much it cools, they pretend we're still burning up. Some give them the benefit of the doubt that global warming is not just a blatant fraud in order to tax more, spend more, and build a frightening world government later this year. They think the global warming nitwits are actually trying to ease us into this new reality of $400/ barrel oil, and $20 a gallon gas. That would actually be admirable: lie to people because they won't take the truth about shortages seriously.

Actually, there aren't shortages. A huge amount of oil we can't touch because of enviro-Nazis. A lot more will take many years to get. A lot more is just very difficult and expensive to get. There is 150 years of oil left, we just can't get it quickly or cheaply (or at all if enviro-Nazis forbid it).

Powerful new healthcare rationing panel

Notice they are permanent, unelected, their word is law effective immediately, and they determine who gets care and how much, and who does not.

On the lighter side

Slam trunk

New symbol of Obamacare

Continuing off the cliff -- background updates

US government debt is a safe haven the way Pearl Harbor was a safe haven in 1941.” -- Niall Ferguson

Excerpts below are from this article.

"The Austrian School’s Seven Commandments:

(The Austrian free-market economists use common sense principles.)

· You cannot spend your way out of a recession.

· You cannot regulate the economy into oblivion and expect it to function.

· You cannot tax people and businesses to the point of near slavery and expect them to keep producing.

· You cannot create an abundance of money out of thin air without making all that paper worthless.

· The government cannot make up for rising unemployment by just hiring all the out of work people to be bureaucrats or send them unemployment checks forever.

· You cannot live beyond your means indefinitely.

· The economy must actually produce something others are willing to buy.

...The social welfare states are falling to their doom as intensifying debt spirals suck the wind out of capital markets and misallocate capital from wealth/income creation and production to government-directed consumption (support for bloated state and municipal governments and green energy, aka crony capitalism and higher taxes, etc) investment and entitlements. This is misallocation of capital on a massive scale, barricades to future prosperity and anchors of debt on all levels of society.

Driving more nails into the economic coffins in which economic and income growth have been placed. This is but a small fire drill in preparation for the coming total financial system destruction which looms. Next up: Italy, Spain, Portugal and every developed G7 nation (UK, US, France, Switzerland, Germany, everyone in Europe); all socialist welfare-state economies in everything but name as they and the mainstream press try and pin the tail of the current crisis on capitalism, which has been systematically destroyed by socialist progressives, private and public sector unions, crony capitalists and banksters...

Everyone is crowing about GROWTH in the developed-world economies, but if you SUBTRACT government spending (which they are calling growth), the G7 Economies are STILL COLLAPSING at rates of 5 to 10% per year. "

Fantastic article about the risks of US Treasury bonds, which is the big time bomb I keep warning about.

Keynesian gibberish

Remember Keynesian economics? We could just say it's the insanity the Obama gang is inflicting on us. Spend till you bleed, even if the problem is too much debt, and everything will be ok. Actually, Keynes would punch Obama for claiming his rape of America's treasury to pay off all his friends is just Keynesian economics. The point is the same: Keynes said in a recession the government is the good guy who spends money and fixes everything. Here's an analysts take:

Keynesian Economics

The first thing to appreciate is the power of ideas. And one point that this crisis has conclusively demonstrated is the enduring hold of Keynesian economics. People now forget that Keynesianism didn't work well, even in the 1930s; its short-term focus and its failure to deal with the monetary side of the economy led to inflation and, ultimately, to the miseries of stagflation in the '70s. Keynesianism's failure was then manifest, and it was rightly repudiated. Fiscal and monetary extravagance were then reined in, inflation was painfully brought down, and the economy boomed.

And then comes the next big crisis, and Keynesianism is suddenly respectable again —and back with a vengeance. We are now told that Keynesian solutions are the only solutions. And it's not just Keynesianism, but Keynesianism on a mass (or should I say, crass?) scale: massive fiscal stimulus, regardless of the cost; and loose monetary policy, regardless of the inflationary dangers.

This reminds me of an old joke: Keynes was once giving a lecture and noticed that one of his students had fallen asleep. So Keynes asked him a direct question, which woke him up. The startled student responded: "I'm sorry, Mr. Keynes, I didn't hear the question. But the answer is that we need more stimulus."

One size fits all, basically.

by MISES

Last one turn out the lights

Let's look at some figures:

The cost of unfunded Social Security and Medicaid is over $100 trillion — and rising. This is about ten times bigger than the total existing debt of the United States, and it is about $330,000 per man, woman and child in the United States — or about $1.3m for a family of four. And rising.

So your average US family of four is facing a government-imposed bill of $1.3m on top of existing taxes! Change the sign around and they'd all be millionaires! Welcome to the age of the negative millionaire.

It is not surprising, then, that leading experts are now openly asking if the United States is bankrupt, and they are anticipating possible futures in which young, educated Americans flee the country in large numbers to escape crippling taxes — and, of course, in so doing, leave their fellow citizens with even greater per capita burdens to bear. A real case of "last one to leave please switch off the lights."

To quote one leading authority, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas:

I see a frightful storm brewing in the form of untethered government debt.… Unless we take steps to deal with it, the long-term fiscal situation of the federal government will be unimaginably more devastating to our economic prosperity than the subprime debacle and the recent debauching of credit markets. (Richard W. Fisher, 2008)

by Kevin Dowd

Social unrest/ violence

Here's an excerpt of an article talking about how the economic problems are causing social unrest. Anyone who knows my predictions for the year know I think it will come here:

"At the onset of the economic crisis, these warnings were numerous. While many will claim that since we have moved on since the fall of 2008, these warnings are no longer valid. However, considering that the western world is on the verge of a far greater economic crisis that will spread over the next few years, from Greece to America, a great global debt depression, these warnings should be reviewed with an eye on the near future.

In December of 2008, in the midst of the worst period of the crisis of 2008, the IMF issued a warning to government’s of the west to “step up action to stem the global economic crisis or risk delaying a recovery and sparking violent unrest on the streets.”[2] However, governments did not stem or stop the economic crisis, they simply delayed the eventual and inevitable crisis to come, the debt crisis. In fact, the actions governments took to “stem” the economic crisis, or delay it, more accurately, have, in actuality, exacerbated the compound effects that the crisis will ultimately have. In short, bailing out the banks has created a condition in which an inevitable debt crisis will become far greater in scope and devastation than had they simply allowed the banks to fail.

Even the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the most prestigious financial institution in the world – the central bank to the world’s central banks – has warned that the bailouts have put the global economy in potentially far greater peril. The BIS warned that, “The scope and magnitude of the bank rescue packages also meant that significant risks had been transferred onto government balance sheets.”[3]

The head of the IMF warned that, “violent protests could break out in countries worldwide if the financial system was not restructured to benefit everyone rather than a small elite.”[4] However, he is disingenuous in his statements, as he and the institution he represents are key players in that “small elite” that benefit from the global financial system; this is the very system he serves.

In late December of 2008, “A U.S. Army War College report warn[ed] an economic crisis in the United States could lead to massive civil unrest and the need to call on the military to restore order.” The report stated:

Widespread civil violence inside the United States would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities ... to defend basic domestic order and human security.[5]

Further revealed in the news release was the information that, “Pentagon officials said as many as 20,000 Soldiers under the U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) will be trained within the next three years to work with civilian law enforcement in homeland security.”[6]

Europe in Social Crisis

In January of 2009, it was reported that Eastern Europe was expected to experience a “dangerous popular backlash on the streets” over the spring in response to the economic crisis:

Hit increasingly hard by the financial crisis, countries such as Bulgaria, Romania and the Baltic states face deep political destabilisation and social strife, as well as an increase in racial tension.

Last week protesters were tear-gassed as they threw rocks at police outside parliament in Vilnius, capital of Lithuania, in a protest against an austerity package including tax rises and benefit cuts.[7]

In January of 2009, Latvia experienced the largest protests since the mass rallies against Soviet rule in the late 1980s, with the protests eventually turning into riots. Similar “outbursts of civil unrest” spread across the “periphery of Europe.”[8]

This should be taken as a much larger warning, as the nations of Eastern Europe are forced into fiscal ‘austerity’ measures before they spread through the western world. Just as throughout the 1980s and the 1990s, countries of the ‘global south’, which signed Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) with the IMF and World Bank, were forced to undertake neoliberal reforms and harsh fiscal austerity measures. The people of these nations rioted and rebelled, in what was cynically referred to as “IMF riots”. What our nations have done abroad, in the name of ‘aid’ but in the intent of empire, is now coming home. The west will undergo its very own “IMF riots”.

The fears of civil unrest, however, were not confined simply to the periphery of Europe. In January of 2009, a massive French strike was taking place, as “teachers, television employees, postal workers, students and masses of other public-sector workers” were expressing discontent with the handling of the economic crisis; as “A depression triggered in America is being played out in Europe with increasing violence, and other forms of social unrest are spreading.”[9]

By late January, France was “paralysed by a wave of strike action, the boulevards of Paris resembling a debris-strewn battlefield.” Yet, the ‘credit crunch’ had hit harder in Eastern Europe and the civil unrest was greater, as these countries had abandoned Communism some twenty years prior only to be crushed under the “free market” of Capitalism, leading many to feel betrayed: “Europe's time of troubles is gathering depth and scale. Governments are trembling. Revolt is in the air.”[10]

Olivier Besancenot, the leader of France’s extreme left “is hoping the strike will be the first step towards another French revolution as the recession bites and protests multiply across Europe's second largest economy.” He told the Financial Times that, “We want the established powers to be blown apart,” and that, “We are going to reinvent and re-establish the anticapitalist project.”[11]

In January of 2009, Iceland’s government collapsed due to the pressures from the economic crisis, and amidst a storm of Icelanders protesting in anger against the political class. As the Times reported, “it is a sign of things to come: a new age of rebellion.” An economist at the London School of Economics warned that we could expect large-scale civil unrest beginning in March to May of 2009:

It will be caused by the rise of general awareness throughout Europe, America and Asia that hundreds of millions of people in rich and poor countries are experiencing rapidly falling consumption standards; that the crisis is getting worse not better; and that it has escaped the control of public authorities, national and international.[12]

In February of 2009, the Guardian reported that police in Britain were preparing for a “summer of rage” as “victims of the economic downturn take to the streets to demonstrate against financial institutions.” Police officials warned “that middle-class individuals who would never have considered joining demonstrations may now seek to vent their anger through protests this year.”[13]

In March, it was reported that “top secret contingency plans” had been drawn up to counter the threat posed by a possible “summer of discontent,” which “has led to the extraordinary step of the Army being put on standby.” The report revealed that, “What worries emergency planners most is that the middle classes, now struggling to cope with unemployment and repossessions, may take to the streets with the disenfranchised.”[14]

As the G20 met in London in early April 2009, mass protests took place, resulting in violence, “with a band of demonstrators close to the Bank of England storming a Royal Bank of Scotland branch, and baton-wielding police charging a sit-down protest by students.” While the majority of protests were peaceful, “some bloody skirmishes broke out as police tried to keep thousands of people in containment pens surrounding the Bank of England.”[15] Protests further broke out into riots as a Royal Bank of Scotland office was looted.[16] The following day, a man collapsed and died in central London during the protests shortly after having been assaulted by riot police.[17]

On May 1, 2009, major protests and riots broke out in Germany, Greece, Turkey, France and Austria, fuelled by economic tensions:

Police in Berlin arrested 57 people while around 50 officers were hurt as young demonstrators threw bottles and rocks and set fire to cars and rubbish bins. There were also clashes in Hamburg, where anti-capitalist protesters attacked a bank.

In Turkey, masked protesters threw stones and petrol bombs at police, smashing banks and supermarket windows in its biggest city, Istanbul. Security forces fired tear gas and water cannon at hundreds of rioters and more than a hundred were arrested with dozens more hurt. There were also scattered skirmishes with police in the capital, Ankara, where 150,000 people marched.[18]

There were further protests and riots that broke out in Russia, Italy, Spain, and some politicians were even discussing the threat of revolution.[19]

As a debt crisis began spreading throughout Europe in Greece, Portugal, and Spain, social unrest followed suit. Riots and protests increasingly took place in Greece, showing signs of things to come to all other western nations, which will sooner or later have to face the harsh reality of their odious debts.[20]

Over the summer of 2009, the major nations of the west and their corporate media machines promoted and propagandized the notion of an ‘economic recovery’, allowing dissent to quell, spending to increase, stock market speculation to accelerate, and people’s fears and concerns to subside. It was a massive organized propaganda effort, and it had major successes for a while. However, in the New Year, this illusion is largely being derided for what it is, a fantasy. With the slow but steady erosion of this economic illusion, fears of riots, rebellion and revolution return.

On March 1, 2010, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan warned President Obama about civil unrest, saying:

When we can't feed our families what do you tell us? Thou shalt not steal? When survival is the first law of nature? What are you going to do when black people and poor people erupt in the streets of America? It's coming! Will you use the federal troops, Mr. President, against the poor?[28]

A March 8 article in the Wall Street Journal speculated about the discontent among the American people in regards to the economy, suggesting that it is “likely” that the economy has “bottomed” and that it will simply “trudge along” until November. However, the author suggested that given all the growing discontent in a variety of areas, it wouldn’t be surprising to see some civil unrest:

Now, contrary to what you may read in the New York Times or the Huffington Post, the ugliness could come from anywhere – the Left, the Center or the Right. Almost everyone in America thinks they’ve been betrayed.[29]

Healthcare fiasco

I couldn't say it better myself, so I won't. From James Quinn, April 5,2010 from Market Oracle:

'...It is clear that prices for all forms of healthcare will be going up. At least we can be sure that services levels and care will decline while wait times for service go up. A survey in the New England Journal of Medicine reports that 46% of doctors may give up their practice in the wake of this bill. There is no doubt that many doctors will choose to shrink their patient loads or retire. In Massachusetts, after the passage of Romneycare, the wait to see a primary-care physician increased from 33 to 52 days. Surely adding 159 new programs, thousands of new rules and regulations, and a boatload of government bureaucrats will improve healthcare for all. According to a recent report by the Association of American Medical Colleges:

• There are currently 700,000 doctors in the U.S. today. That is one doctor for every 450 people.
• With the rapidly aging population, the need for doctors would have been 860,000 by 2025.
• With the passage of universal healthcare, the need will be 910,000 by 2025.
• The number of people graduating from Medical school has been flat at 16,000 per year since 1980.
• The supply of doctors will only be 750,000 in 2025.
• Approximately 53% of all the doctors in the US are over 50 years old.
• Only 1% of doctors under 35 are in General Practice, while 47% of those over 50 years old are in General Practice.

Doctors will face greater workloads, lower reimbursements and still be subject to frivolous lawsuits by ambulance chasers, as the Democrats surprisingly chose not to address medical malpractice lawsuits. The fact that 96% of the contributions from the Trial Lawyers of America go to the Democratic Party couldn’t have had an impact on Democrats not addressing this issue in a 2,400 page “reform” bill. Despite the future doctor shortage, higher premiums, longer wait times, more paperwork, and boards of bureaucrats deciding your treatment, at least you have the comfort of knowing the IRS will be enforcing the 2,400 pages of rules and regulations with threats of fines and imprisonment. The IRS is well known for their extreme competence and ability to enforce rules and regulations. There are already 100,000 pencil pushing, mouth breathing thugs occupying the offices of the IRS. They are so efficient in their existing endeavors that it is estimated that they have somehow not collected $354 billion of taxes that they are owed. They now have the green light to hire 16,500 more hooligan enforcement agents to crack skulls if you fail to purchase government healthcare. Thomas Sowell sums up the fantasy that only a liberal intellectual could believe:

“It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication and a government bureaucracy to administer it.”' '

Net Neutrality wheels come off

Great article about a serious blow to the FCC's "Net Neutrality" insanity. In case you don't remember, that was the huge collection of new regulations to be enacted (without constitutional authority, that is, illegally) and enforced by lunatic Mark Lloyd. Remember Mark "I don't care about free speech" Lloyd? The one who said he needed to "eradicate capitalist whoring" on the internet?

This mountain of pointless new laws would have literally made everything about the internet and cell phone service up to the discretion of bureaucrats like Mark Lloyd. That includes who can be on the internet, and what they can say. They would have discretionary authority based on what they feel is "appropriate." No kidding. That's the standard, "appropriate."

I guess they're having a hard time slipping it past the Constitution and the courts. Boo hoo.

Another look at the bond time bomb - the big show

Here's an article about the bond bubble collapse I have been predicting since October (to start by end of March, which it did).

I should simply explain again the problem I have been seeing. Our government has been spending money like water. More than half is paid for with debt. The amount will go up a lot each year. Every other major country is on the same stupid plan we're on of borrowing piles of money to solve the problem of too much borrowed money. They also need to borrow tons each year.

Our government needs to refinance mountains of short term debt. They keep increasing the amount of short term debt. They are also paying virtually no interest. There will soon be a ton of debt to be refinanced combined with a ton of new debt. At the same time, the economy is about to get much worse, and the Fed says they aren't going to keep buying our debt.

No one on the earth thinks they will actually stop buying our debt, even though Bernanke has never wavered in claiming they would absolutely stop on March 31st. The bond and stock markets are not prepared at all for them to actually stop. Everyone scoffs at the idea. I think they really will. They're effectively broke, and there's no decent resolution to it anyway. If they really stop, the economy stops all over the world, period. That's a problem.

I have to rebut the article. It blithely claims that until now the foreign appetite for our debt has been good. This is plain silly. When the Fed lends a country free money to buy debt that pays money, or offers to swap American junk real estate debt for Treasury debt, or a country sells our long term debt and buys short term, those aren't good signs. It is different ways for them to edge towards the exit.

Crazy Tea Partying Americans

From an article by Michael Walsh in the New York Times (of all places --I didn't know they also had a section for information in the Times to spice up their leftist propaganda):

"...And it was all going so well for Democrats and liberals in the media.

Display a picture or vid clip of angry, contorted faces of the tea partiers, add the race card, accuse the “core” of the movement of being birthers, and generally play to the idea that this vast, grassroots movement is a small, insignificant bunch of sour grape Republicans who hate Obama.

Well, it worked for a while. But something funny happened on the way to smearing millions of ordinary Americans worried about the future; surveys of tea partiers show them to be as mainstream as a McDonald’s french fry.

For example, there’s this one, from the Winston Group, which found that:

Four in 10 Tea Party members are either Democrats or Independents, according to a new national survey.

The national breakdown of the Tea Party composition is 57 percent Republican, 28 percent Independent and 13 percent Democratic, according to three national polls by the Winston Group, a Republican-leaning firm that conducted the surveys on behalf of an education advocacy group. Two-thirds of the group call themselves conservative, 26 are moderate and 8 percent say they are liberal.

The findings provide one of the most detailed portraits to date of the grassroots movement that started last year.

And this one, from the Gallup organization:

Tea Party supporters skew right politically; but demographically, they are generally representative of the public at large. That’s the finding of a USA Today/Gallup poll conducted March 26-28, in which 28% of U.S. adults call themselves supporters of the Tea Party movement.

Tea Party supporters are decidedly Republican and conservative in their leanings. Also, compared with average Americans, supporters are slightly more likely to be male and less likely to be lower-income.

In several other respects, however — their age, educational background, employment status, and race — Tea Partiers are quite representative of the public at large.

Moran goes on to note:

Ooops. There goes the narrative – mostly. With 28% of all Americans supporting the Tea Partiers and 26% opposed, you are bound to get a few kooks and crazies. You know the type; the one in ten thousand who hold up a sign comparing Obama to a witch doctor who somehow is portrayed as representative of protesters.

But I find it interesting that a group that is representative of the racial makeup of the US would be…racist. Can’t use the excuse that voters aren’t aware of the charges of racism made so casually, so nauseatingly by opponents. They’d have to be oblivious to the avalanche of media reports and opinion pieces that make the racist charge so cavalierly.

… the left is going to have to start coming to terms with this group based on reality, not their own, politically motivated smears. It is possible to argue against their positions without referring to them as racist, although I admit it’s a challenge to defend deficits of more than a trillion dollars as far as the eye can see. It is also possible to critique their arguments without trying to marginalize them as kooks."

More on shock poll

Here's another article about the poll that found many Americans think Obama is the antichrist, anti-American, and Muslim. What's really funny is the end of the article where the people go into hyperdrive to spin and explain away the poll. People must be ignorant, the poll methodology was wrong, they didn't understand the questions, etc. It looks to me like people are wide awake and alert.

Important article

This is a very important article. Andrew Breitbart does a really good job talking about the Democratic Party's obsession with toxic, thuggish, amoral Saul Alinsky tactics. Alinsky's book, which is revered by progressives like Obama who bathe in its teachings, is lovely. The whole purpose of it is tactics for how to stir up enough hatred and outrage and division to bring about a communist revolution in a country that starts out not wanting one. Touching really.

Research it, Rules for Radicals. Obama was the trainer for the trainers of Alinsky tactics for years, the grand master. All of his top people have spent their whole lives teaching Alinsky, starting Alinsky organizations, running Alinsky organizations. So, what you expect from them? It is hate and suffering spread as widely as possible and elevated to the level of an art form.

To Alinsky, the very first job of a community organizer is to disorganize and stir up discontent. Only 3% of Americans think the government is doing a good job. By any measure we have the angriest, most discontented populace, and most unpopular congress and first term president in history. So, has he disorganized and stirred up yet? I'd give him an A+ on community organizing, though he gets a well-deserved F as a president, which is actually what we hired him for. (For the record, I didn't hire him. That would be crazy.)

Poll: one quarter of Republicans think Obama is the antichrist, more liken him to Hitler.

Is that stirred up enough for you? Sadly, the part that comes after making everybody angry and discontented is worse.

What on earth???

What on earth could anyone possibly say that would explain something like this? It has been on the cover of the New York Times several times without explanation. Frankly, I don't need a backup messiah. It would be really cool if this guy was the slightest bit competent at the job he has. Oh, and if he could tolerate this country without feeling the need for worldwide apology tours, that would be great too.

If this picture is meant to "x" him out of history like he never existed, and everything would revert back and erase anything he ever did, that would be AWESOME.

Follow up

I am too tired to get into the technical stuff, but I want to reiterate my warning from the other day. If you even sniff that the Fed is not longer buying treasury debt, or even think you heard the words bond panic, drop everything and start preparing. I have posted before about my predictions for the year, and about currency crises. Those give an idea of what I'm expecting. Things are constantly coming true that I have predicted, all heading to the result I've warned you about. The big things to know are that you will have very little time to prepare, and once it starts, if you're not prepared there will be no recourse. If there is no food or fuel for sale, or natural gas or electricity for everyone else, there will be none for you. What will you do.

If I tell you everything you will see along the way to a certain destination, and am always right, we are going to that destination! Get ready, at least mentally.