Monthly Archives: August 2012
The Austrian School in the Present Crisis | Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
Professor Krugman, Where Is The Austerity?
We are told that austerity in Europe has failed. The elections in France and Greece, for instance, are supposedly evidence of people’s opposition to severe cuts in spending. However, the growing anti-austerity backlash against Europe ignores one fundamental point: If there is austerity in Europe, in most cases it hasn’t taken the form of massive spending cuts.
(Read more)
New York Politicians Set to Ruin Engergy Drinks
New York’s attorney general is investigating whether the multibillion-dollar energy-drink industry is deceiving consumers with misstatements about the ingredients and health value of its products.
Eric T. Schneiderman issued subpoenas in July to PepsiCo Inc., PEP -0.07% maker of AMP, Monster Beverage Corp., MNST -0.92% and Living Essentials LLC, maker of 5-hour Energy drink, according to a person familiar with the matter. The subpoenas asked for information on the companies’ marketing and advertising practices. (Read more)
New Navy Admiral Trying to Provoke Iran War
I wonder who was behind this idiot’s promotion.
Vice Adm. Kevin J. Cosgriff had amassed an impressive résumé, rising through the ranks to command a cruiser and a warship group after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Following a customary path to three stars, he had also spent as much time in Washington as he had at sea, including stints at the Defense Intelligence Agency and as director of the Clinton White House Situation Room.
Cosgriff — backed by a powerful friend and boss, U.S. Central Command (Centcom) chief Adm. William J. “Fox” Fallon — was itching to push the Iranians, Todd and other present and former Navy officials say.
“There was a feeling that the Navy was back on its heels in dealing with Iran,” according to a Navy official prohibited from commenting in the media. “There was an intention to be far more aggressive with the Iranians, and a diminished concern about keeping Washington in the loop.”
Two people who were there said Cosgriff mused in a staff meeting one day that he’d like to steam a Navy frigate up the Shatt al Arab, the diplomatically sensitive and economically crucial waterway dividing Iraq and Iran. In another, they said, he wanted to convene a regional conference to push back Iran’s territorial claims in the waterway, a flash point for the bloody Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. (Read more)
Ron Paul Contingent Forced Gold Discussion, Court Intellectuals Launch Slander Campaign
Ever since the Ron Paul contingent forced a statement about the Gold Standard onto the party platform, the court pseudo-economists, intellectual body guards of the state have gone to work:
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Why the Gold Standard Is the World’s Worst Economic Idea, in 2 Charts “Whether it’s 1896 or 2012, it doesn’t make sense to crucify our economy on a cross of gold.” (Read more from The Atlantic)
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Republicans tease with gold standard, but idea seen full of bugs U.S. Republicans have all but guaranteed the backing of the “gold vote” this November by raising an idea that even the most bullish mainstream bullion boosters believe is unrealistic – a return to the gold standard.
Gold prices would likely surge to $10,000 an ounce, the greenback’s credibility would vanish and global superpowers would risk a new trade war if Republicans were to restore the link between the U.S. dollar and gold that was severed 40 years ago.
But that isn’t stopping Republicans from considering the idea, who will call for a commission to look at restoring a fixed value for the dollar, according to a draft of the party platform to be adopted at the Republican National Convention that begins on Monday in Tampa, Florida. (Read more)
Schiff: The Fed readies QE3, Republicans re-consider the Gold Standard
FULL UNEDITED Ron Paul Speech @ We Are the Future Rally
Republicans Move Convention Delegate Vote To Time With No TV Coverage To Hide Ron Paul Supporters
There Was Major Drama At The GOP Convention Friday, And It Ended With John Sununu Fleeing The Building
TAMPA, FLA. — The GOP convention doesn’t officially start until Monday, but trouble is already brewing between presumptive nominee Mitt Romney and Republicans who are concerned by his campaign making an aggressive power play to control the party.
The drama Friday centered around a contentious meeting of the powerful Rules Committee, where Romney’s campaign lieutenants, led by his legal counsel Ben Ginsberg, pushed through several changes that would give Romney broad authority over the Republican nominating process.
According to one source who was at the meeting, the saga ended with former New Hampshire Governor John Sununu, the committee chair, hightailing it out of the building before committee members could submit dissenting minority opinions, or “minority reports.”
In an interview with Business Insider Friday night, Maine’s newly-elected state committeewoman Ashley Ryan, said that committee members opposed to Romney’s plan drafted two minority reports immediately after the meeting, stating their position against the changes. Republican Party rules stipulate that people have one hour to submit a minority report after a meeting of the Rules Committee, and that it must have the support of at least 25 percent of the committee.
“The rules say that you have an hour after the meeting, but within 15 minutes, we couldn’t find [Chairman Sununu] anywhere,” Ryan, a Ron Paul supporter and member of Maine’s delegation, said. “Finally, we asked an RNC official if they had seen former New Hampshire Governor John Sununu. He said, ‘John Sununu! Everyone’s looking for him! But he left the building.'”
The details around Sununu’s Friday dip are still foggy, and it’s unclear if he ended up receiving the minority reports after all. Convention officials have not yet responded to our email asking for comment. (Read more)
Reality Check: RNC Pulling Out All Stops To Keep Ron Paul’s Name Out Of Nomination
2012 GOP Platform Survey — The Ron Paul Supporters are Angry
NYPD cop shoots carelessly into crowd @ Empire State Building
Don’t expect to hear a goddamn thing about this on the news. The state is here to keep us safe. That is all.
Doctors becoming Slaves in Massachusetts, as Obamacare will do nationally
In Massachusetts they eventually came to the conclusion that Washington will come to if President Obama is re-elected: that the only way to rein in health costs would be to assert government control over doctors and hospitals. Forget about those greedy health insurance companies. Now, it’s time to place government’s “boot” on the neck of the providers.
Under the new law, all Massachusetts doctors, hospitals, and other providers must register with a new state bureaucracy as a condition of licensure. Yes, if you are any kind of health care provider in Massachusetts, you now belong to the state- that is, if you want to actually earn a living in your field. The new “state bureaucracy,” not unlike the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) in ObamaCare, will have a lot to say about what providers do each day as it tracks and reports their financial performance, price and cost patterns, state-sanctioned quality measures, market share, and other statistics.
As WSJ indicates:
…Massachusetts takes 360-degree surveillance and converts it into a panopticon prison. An 11-member board known as the Health Policy Commission will use the data to set and enforce rules to ensure that total Massachusetts health spending, public and private, grows no more than projected gross state product through 2017, and 0.5 percentage points lower thereafter. (And Paul Ryan’s Medicare projections are unrealistic?)
According to the new law, no registered provider is permitted to make “any material change to its operations or governance structure,” without the commission’s approval. In addition, the commission has the authority to rewrite the terms of provider contracts with insurers as well as payment levels and methods if they are “deemed to be excessive,” to police providers who exceed benchmarks, and demand “performance improvement plans” of those providers found to be spending too much money on patient care. Providers who consistently spend above the authorized amount on patient care can be fined $500,000 for disobeying the rules of the commission, an amount that the uber-liberals of the state believe to be a mere pittance of a penalty. (Read more)
The Showdowns that will define Europe’s future
In today’s Telegraph, we argue:
‘It will not be the case that the south will get the so-called wealthy states to pay. Because then Europe would fall apart.” Thus spoke Horst Köhler, former German president, finance secretary and IMF head, almost two decades ago.
Köhler’s remarks are worth pondering. A series of multi-billion-euro bail-outs – and more to come – have now planted a north-south political divide at the heart of the European project. Taxpayers in Europe’s north resent underwriting their southern neighbours, while voters in the south are equally frustrated at having austerity imposed upon them from abroad. As has been noted repeatedly, this is the greatest tragedy of this crisis: a project that was meant to bring people together, now risks driving them further apart. Alas, events in the eurozone this autumn could further exacerbate this tension. There are at least five key stand-offs to watch over the next few months:
Greece v Germany: Greece managed narrowly to escape running out of money today by raising almost 4 billion euros in short-term debt. But Athens will face an excruciating autumn. On almost every count, Greece is miles away from meeting its EU-mandated austerity targets, which raises the questionof whether Germany – or the IMF – will pull the plug on the country in October when its next progress report is due.
Though there is still scope for muddling through, almost any outcome will lead to rising political tensions. If Germany sticks to its guns, the popular disillusion in Greece will grow massively. If Berlin gives in, it faces a serious backlash from the country’s public – a majority of which wants to kick Greece out.
Spain v the North: Amid continued problems, Spain could possibly request EU cash as early as September. But the country is simply too big for a Greece-style bail-out, while Madrid would not accept having its economic policies fully decided in Brussels and Berlin. Instead a third way must be found involving less money and softer conditions, probably with heavy and controversial ECB involvement. The North will dislike such an arrangement – particularly cheap ECB money going to Spain – but may give in for fear of worse.
The bail-out funds v national democracy: On September 12, Germany’s constitutional court will rule on whether the eurozone’s permanent bail-out fund – the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) – is compatible with the country’s “basic law’, following a host of complaints. Though unlikely, should it strike it down, the markets will go absolutely crazy. Regardless, the ruling will leave a bad taste in Germany and shows how the ESM is becoming an increasingly toxic issue, with southern and northern politicians disagreeing fundamentally on its size and whether it should be given a direct credit line to the ECB.
The Dutch v Europe: September 12 will also see another example of national democracy reasserting itself: the Dutch elections. Geert Wilders, leader of the super-populist PVV, is seeking to turn the campaign into a referendum on Europe, hoping to tap into the Dutch anti-bail-out mood. At the same time, the Dutch socialists – currently leading in the polls – have vowed to resist both the EU fiscal treaty and further transfers of power to the EU without approval in referendums. A divided Dutch parliament and more assertive government will almost certainly make eurozone politics even more complicated.
Germany v France: This autumn will also see negotiations over whether the eurozone will take the next big leap towards an economic union, with an October EU summit tasked with providing a “road map” for more integration. Ideas include a banking union (with a single supervisor and joint backstop) and collective government borrowing in the form of eurobonds. The issues are tremendously complicated, subject to a cobweb of disagreements and will take years to clear away. But importantly, this could widen the gap between Germany and France, with the two disagreeing fundamentally on the order of events. Berlin wants a political union first, meaning greater German control over others’ finances in return for underwriting them – while Paris wants to press ahead with stronger bail-out mechanisms, via the ECB and others, leaving the oversight for later. The Franco-German axis is not about to break, but maintaining it will become increasingly difficult.
So how should Britain respond to all of this? Simple: try to control what it can control and leave the rest behind. The UK is right to seek to buffer up against a potential euro meltdown. It is also right to look for ways to ensure that further eurozone integration – such as a banking union – is not detrimental to Britain or the single market. But the UK government needs to stop giving unwelcome advice on the need to turn the eurozone into a “debt union” or for the ECB to start spraying the Continent with cheap money – both options effectively involving Angela Merkel completely running over her own voters.
The eurozone crisis has unleashed some seriously unpredictable political forces. EU leaders may have to choose between maintaining the euro and maintaining national democracy as we know it. In either case, we have no idea how voters – in the North and South alike – will respond. (Read more)