Detroit is the Poster city for where liberalism (Progressivism) leads you… us
Video: '>Detroit in Ruins (Crowder Goes Ghetto)
This is where the liberals are leading us. It shows exactly what happens in the United States when liberals' vision becomes a reality. The backbone of a socialist/communist/fascist/Marxist/progressive government is to plan and control how society functions; hence, how the people live. That's exactly what the Democrats did in Detroit. And make no mistake, they eliminated the free market system because it cannot exist in a governmentally planned and controlled city.
Which Americans want this for our country? Americans who DO want this for our country had better keep voting for Democrats because the Dem party is controlled by the far-left-ists that DO want this. It's their party platform; absolutely no doubt about that.
If there are Americans who do NOT want this, they had better run away from the Democrat politicians as fast as they can because... if they do NOT want this, they are a "conservative". If they don't like the term, that's only because the Democrat politicians, the uneducated, and the public educational system (run by Unions) lied to them about what conservatism really means. What the free-market means… What freedom means…
But it is not just Detroit… It is Miami, Los Angeles, etc etc. everywhere that the progressives are in control!
Video: Empire in Ruins (Miami Real-Estate Crash)
While on the subject of Progressive incompetence, stupidity, or worse… you be the judge, just look at Los Angeles (the whole state of California). Was listening to a local radio host yesterday talking about the all the hot air and rhetoric about LA boycotting AZ (although let us remember that they CA/Los Angeles get both water and energy from Arizona that they haven’t canceled, the also get their camera’s and management system thereof for the “revenue generating spy cameras… for traffic fines from Arizona that they now want to not only maintain but expand to gouge their citizens with more traffic violations to help pay their mismanaged bills and debts. Seems now that L.A. Councilman Reyes, one of the biggest proponents of the AZ boycott, is now willing to make another exception. So after calling AZ Nazi’s and comparing them enforcing a law that mirrors the Federal law to protect their citizens (that Obama has now said he won’t enforce), to putting Jews into camps, they are now willing to let that happen to buy more cameras to spy on their own citizens and bill their ineptness to their own financially struggling citizenry.
California is second or third highest state in the US for official unemployment figures (Nevada (Reid’s state), Michigan (union controlled state) and California (Pelosi/Boxer/Feinstein state) with the other progressive states nipping at their heels)… could be #1 in unofficial unemployment figures and is virtually bankrupt but won’t abandon their liberal agenda
I guess, looking at all these examples, nothing really matters to these people but ideology and greed and even their principles only matter when it fits their agenda!?!
Report: California on 'Verge of System Failure'
Think of it as Greece on the Pacific: A place with beautiful scenery where the government spent so far beyond its means that mass layoffs, welfare reductions that leave a million children and the poor and elderly without needed services and failing infrastructure are now the norm.
California’s fiscal hole reportedly is now so large that the state would have to free 168,000 prison inmates and permanently close 240 university and community college campuses to balance its budget in the fiscal year that begins July 1.
We are on the verge of system failure,” Jean Ross, executive director of the California Budget Project, told the Globe and Mail.
“We have to get some federal money,” Ross says. “It would be bad for the U.S. and, arguably, bad for the world to do the shock-therapy approach.”
Peter Dreier, a professor of politics at Occidental College, calls this a classic American dilemma.
“Americans expect a lot of their government,” Dreier says. “But politicians have convinced them they’re not getting what they want.”
Budget analysts say Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has no choice but to ask Washington for bailout funds, and that Washington has no choice but to agree because not bailing out the Golden State could put the entire U.S. economy at risk.
It seems that California — which at one time had the third-largest economy in the world — is like the biggest U.S. banks: Too big to fail.
Neither Democrat Jerry Brown nor Republican Meg Whitman has offered details in their campaigns to become the state’s next governor about how to close this year’s $19 billion budget deficit or handle next year’s anticipated $37 billion deficit, the Mercury News reports.
By: Julie Crawshaw - Monday, 21 Jun 2010 09:50 AM
© Moneynews. All rights reserved.
Why Coal Prices Will Soar
In Beijing, I saw firsthand the unfolding boom serving China’s new and growing disposable incomes. Besides busy shops and restaurants and 5 million cars on the road in Beijing alone, there is something more basic that underlines all of this. In fact, it is more fundamental to the entire story of Asia’s new consumer.
It’s energy. Yes, all those factories require power. But so do iPods and air conditioners. So do cell phones and computers. The modern consumer economy is a plugged-in economy that eats electricity like locusts devour crop fields.
As a result, China has added power plants as fast as they can make ‘em. China adds more every day, accounting for about 80% of worldwide construction. The Economist reports that the capacity China adds in 2010 will exceed the entire installed base of Brazil. In the next two years, China will produce more power than the U.S.
Where does the power come from? About 80% of it comes from coal. Not just coal, but awe-inspiring amounts of the stuff. Consider that in 2000, China used about as much coal as the U.S. Here we are 10 years later, and China consumes three times as much as coal as the U.S.
There are a couple of problems with coal. One won’t surprise you, but one may. First, coal is a dirty fuel. You have to spend only a few days in Beijing or any of the big cities to see what burning so much coal does to the sky.
This creates many health problems in China, and the Chinese know this. Hence, there has been a lot of money flowing to alternative modes of power generation — like wind and nuclear.
The other problem with coal, which might surprise you, is that China may have hard time making more of it. This line of thinking comes from Richard Heinberg at the Post Carbon Institute.
As he points out, China is now burning some 3 billion tons of coal per year. In the last decade, it added 2 billion tons of production. That’s quite a feat. But as Heinberg points out, it gets much more difficult from here.
“Imagine building mining and transport infrastructure three times the size of the entire U.S. coal and rail industries in just 10 years,” Heinberg writes. “That’s what it will take for China to maintain 7% growth rates.” Heinberg calls his 7% assumption “conservative,” as China’s growth rates to date have been much higher.
Another limiting factor is water, of which the Chinese are already relatively poor. As Heinberg points out, “A typical 500-megawatt coal-fired power plant uses about 2.2 billion gallons of water each year to create steam for turning its turbines — enough water to support a city of 250,000 people.”
China will be pressed to produce the coal it needs domestically. In fact, after being self-sufficient in coal for years, China has begun to import coal. This year, it will import 150 metric tons, which is double last year’s total. It may seem a molehill compared with what it burns, but that molehill is about 60% of Australia’s coal exports — and Australia is the world’s largest coal exporter — and growing.
“This means if China imports double again next year — not an unrealistic scenario — China will need to import more coal than Australia can currently provide,” Heinberg notes. “One more doubling of import demand and China will be wanting to import 600 million tons per year, about the total amount of coal exported by all exporting nations last year.”
This is fairly astounding math. And the first thing it makes me want to do is buy coal. It doesn’t take a lot of brains to see that if this kind of demand scenario unfolds, it is going to drive up the price of coal everywhere.
And as coal is still the primary means of generating power in the world, it’s going to have ripple effects throughout the energy chain. Natural gas-fired plants, for instance, will look increasingly valuable, especially as natural gas prices continue to wallow in the mud.
Another idea is to look at the engineering and construction firms (E&Cs). The E&Cs are in the business of building the hardware you need to process and produce energy. They build coal-fired and nuclear plants. They build refineries and liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals and biomass boilers. If you need more energy, you need an E&C.
E&Cs rise and fall with spending on energy projects. As oil demand (and pricing) has recovered in 2008 and 2009, this sets up strong capital spending for the next several years. This idea is particularly timely, because the market has knocked down one of the leading E&C firms by 25% in just the last month. It’s a compelling value, as you’ll see in today’s market.
Regards,
Chris Mayer for Whiskey and Gunpowder
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Posted by Karl Denninger in Politics at 08:52
As I noted last night on Blogtalk in response to a question (the last 15 minutes or so of the show) the Feral Government is increasingly being exposed as a pack of animals - cornered animals.
Recognition that The Feral Government has run the ship not aground but rather into an iceberg is rapidly spreading throughout the second-level administration people - along with firms and individuals who are in some way dependent on it.
The inevitable "rats jumping from a sinking ship" process has begun, starting with Peter Orszag, Obama's "budget director":
Orszag, 41, considered leaving his post as director of the Office of Management and Budget in April and stayed on after an appeal from the president, the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said. Orszag’s decision to leave in July will accelerate the process of picking a successor.
That wouldn't have anything to do with this chart, would it?
Let's see, over $1.5 trillion (annually) on that graph eh? Oh, and for what it's worth, the total this year thus far (as of yesterday) is $727 billion, so we're right on track for another year like last.
Don't give me any of this claptrap about it "not being Obama's" either - the fact remains that Barry took office in January of 2009, and as such not only was the 2009 budget "all his" (into 2010) so was the remaining time in the previous fiscal year - a year in which he spent like mad.
The sort of idiocy coming from the Adminsitration on the budget is infuriating - such as this:
Earlier this month, Orszag announced a plan to force some federal agencies to reduce their fiscal 2012 budget requests by 5 percent to help cut the deficit.
“As stewards of the American people’s tax dollars, we cannot afford to waste money on programs that do not work, that are outdated or that are duplicative of one another,” he said in a speech on June 8 at the Center for American Progress.
Uh huh. Remember this pie chart?
All the pieces of that pie that are worth eating are exempt. Net impact of this alleged "cutting"? Zero.
Then there's this:
A band of McChrystal’s profane, irreverent aides are quoted mocking Vice President Joe Biden and Richard Holbrooke, the special U.S. representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
McChrystal himself is described by an aide as “disappointed” in his first Oval Office meeting with an unprepared President Barack Obama. The article says that although McChrystal voted for Obama, the two failed to connect from the start.
It includes a list of administration figures said to back McChrystal, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and puts Biden at the top of a list of those who don’t.
The article claims McChrystal has seized control of the war “by never taking his eye off the real enemy: The wimps in the White House.”
Why that's positively revolting!
Obama is, of course, not amused. I give McChrystal's odds of surviving this roughly approximating that of standing under "Trinity" and it "all being ok." But if this is any indication of the military's "rank and file" opinion of the Washington DC "establishment" one should be keeping a very close eye on the plans you made for "bugging out" (you have made such plans, right?), especially if you live in a major urban center.
To add to this grand bunch of bogosity in Afghanistan we have this:
The contractors and their truck subcontractors “pay tens of millions” of dollars in what “amounts to a protection racket,” the report said. While the warlords provide the paid- for protection, contractors have “little choice but to use them,” the report said.
The system “fuels warlordism, extortion and corruption and may be a significant source of funding for insurgents,” the report said.
Oh that's nice. So our wonderful "civilian" establishment has "decided" that moving military assets around in Afghanistan is "best conducted" by paying bribes and other forms of "protection money" to the very people trying to shoot our troops, which then, I'm sure, use that money to buy the guns and ammunition that they attack us with.
That's truly impressive, and if true, damn well ought to constitute an actual formal act of Treason, since we are in fact engaged in armed conflict over there, and this most-certainly would count as "actual aid and comfort" to our enemy.
Treason, I remind you, is defined in 18 USC 2381, and provides for, among other things, permanent disqualification for political office along with the possibility of execution. Gee, who knows about this little charade within the government again?
The Pentagon is “grossly out of compliance” with government regulations to oversee private contractors and has “no visibility into the operations of private security companies” working under the trucking contracts, the report said.
Rat, eat thyself? Somehow I doubt it eh? My money is on someone outside of the military chain of command being involved in the "direction" of this little policy tidbit, but we'll see.
Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, is expected to leave his job later this year after growing tired of the "idealism" of Barack Obama's inner circle.
Ah, the head of the snake. Douchies Maximus Jackassiness, to use a "Roadrunner" sort of latin abuse.
His abrasive style has rubbed some people the wrong way, while there has been frustration among Mr Obama's closest advisers that he failed to deliver a smooth ride for the president's legislative programme that his background promised.
A "smooth ride"? 
You have to be joking me. The first part of a "smooth ride" is having a program in place that actually makes economic and political sense.
That's been lacking since Day #1. Not that McCain had any better ideas - he did not. Both, if you remember, were more than willing to blow trillions on trying to prop up a criminal cabal that had run roughshod in both Washington DC and Wall Street, refusing to do the right thing (that is, forcing those who made bad bets to eat them.)
Being unwilling (or simply being too stupid) to understand and work within the framework of the mathematics that ultimately always wins is just another piece of the pie.
People like Emmanuel think they can force math to do what they want. Witness Illinois and Chicago in particular, where grift, fraud, and voter turnouts exceeding 100% of the registered precinct population have become so embedded in the culture that the city's motto is "Vote early and often."
This is working out real well for Ill-noise, where the "Educators Unions" have managed to rack up salaries of nearly one million dollars for the certain "favored few", and pensions exceeding $600,000 annually - at retirement.
No, I'm not joking. Go look for yourself. Former Niles Township Superintendent Neil Codell is projected to receive over twenty-six million dollars from the Illinois teacher pension plan, free health care (for life) and a $500 monthly stipend for a personal automobile.
Can Ill-Noise and the Chicagoland area, (which incidentally Rahm would like to become mayor of!) pay for this? Bah.
To those who argue that Ill-Noise's state constitution protects the payment of these pensions, I will simply observe that it will be far easier to change the Constitution of the state than to extract the more than $1 trillion that these pensions are underfunded by from Ill-Noise residents, as they both can and will flee to other states before forking over that money.
The infamous Chicago corruption was the icing on the cake for Washington DC. Now we have a military that is openly mocking the civilian "leadership" in Washington DC, we have a MMS that was fully-aware of the fact that BP nearly blew its rig up in February - less than two months before it actually did explode and sink, yet MMS did nothing and continued to rubberstamp every permit request it received, and of course we have the crooks in the banking system that have run roughshod over cities and states with twisted and outright felonious frauds in the derivative and municipal funding markets, yet not one indictment has issued against any of these large financial institutions.
It's all crumbing around our ears folks and the folks on the inside are bailing off before they drown with the rest of you.
Be prepared.
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