An undergraduate takes-down Paul Krugman

open quotePaul Krugman gave up being an honest economist a long time ago – shortly after he learned that the cool crowd gave him more attention when he conjured up economic-like arguments to support the left’s irrational view of the world.

His most recent piece of propaganda claims that increased national debt causes economic growth. He supports his claim by looking at 5 countries and showing that the countries with higher debt levels grew faster over the last 3 months. Thousands of Krugman zombies must have been elated to finally see hard evidence that the 1% aren’t any smarter or harder working: All you have to do is take on a lot of credit card debt.

But an economic Jedi — an undergraduate from the University of Illinois — uncovered the subtle flaw in Krugman’s logic: The earth has more than 5 countries, and the world wasn’t created 3 months ago. The student used a graph posted on his Facebook page to show that if you look at the 21 largest countries over the past year, you see a strong, clear relationship: Economies with higher debt grow less.
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Feds Steals $70,000 from Small Farms Bank Accounts

open quoteOver the last couple of months, we have detailed numerous examples of how the government seems to be targeting small family farmers. From Michigan raiding small family farms and making it a crime to breed free range pigs, to the federal governments attempts to make it illegal for kids to work on farms, the attacks on farmers seem to be escalating.

In the governments latest assault on the small family farm, we learned about a family who is fighting the federal government after it seized their bank account and stole $70,000 of their hard earned money.

It seems the Sower family, who owns the South Mountain Creamery in Middletown, Maryland, is being prosecuted by the Department of Justice under the post-9/11 “Bank Secrecy Act”. The act makes it illegal to deposit less than $10,000 if you have deposits totaling more than that. Never mind the fact that it’s your money, the feds can literally freeze and seize your account if you don’t deposit your money in accordance with the federal governments new rules.close quote (Read more)

“VPNs” – cheap online services that hide your web traffic – are about to have a massive spike in business

open quoteHere’s why:

1. UK internet service providers are blocking access to the PirateBay.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17894176

(To be clear, I don’t think piracy is very nice, but equally I think that the film and music industries have shot themselves in the foot, by making it so hard for paying customers to buy content online. That silliness is neatly summed up here.)

2. At the same time, the government is planning to monitor everything you do online.

www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/17/tim-berners-lee-monitoring-i…

Including every website you look at, and your emails. This is almost unbelievably creepy and weird.

What’s the solution?

A VPN is a secure tunnel that encrypts your traffic, and stops people seeing what you’re looking at online, or controlling what you connect to. Anyone can set up a VPN, it’s easy, and some companies are listed below: get someone to do it for you if you struggle, and remember it’s a one shot job. It’s also very cheap, in fact, some are free and ad supported, but there’s nothing wrong with paying for a good service. If you’re really techy, you can do it within your router, rather than within your computer, which makes it even easier. close quote (Read more)

Obama: JPMorgan Is ‘One of the Best-Managed Banks’

open quoteust hours after a top JPMorgan Chase executive retired in the wake of a stunning $2 billion trading loss, President Obama told the hosts of ABC’s “The View” that the bank’s risky bets exemplified the need for Wall Street reform.

“JPMorgan is one of the best managed banks there is. Jamie Dimon, the head of it, is one of the smartest bankers we got and they still lost $2 billion and counting,” the president said. “We don’t know all the details. It’s going to be investigated, but this is why we passed Wall Street reform.”close quote (Read more)

“strengthen its monetary union by giving European politicians the power to declare a sovereign state bankrupt and take over its fiscal policy, the former head of the European Central Bank said”

Terrifying! Absolute madness!

open quoteEurope could strengthen its monetary union by giving European politicians the power to declare a sovereign state bankrupt and take over its fiscal policy, the former head of the European Central Bank said on Thursday in unveiling a bold proposal to salvage the euro.

The plan offered by Jean-Claude Trichet, who stepped down last November as ECB president, would address a fundamental weakness of the 13-year-old single currency [EUR= 1.2647 -0.0039 (-0.31%) ], the survival of which is threatened by the Greek crisis.

The monetary union has always defied economic principles, because the euro was launched ahead of European fiscal or political union. This has caused strains for countries running huge budget deficits – namely Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Italy – that have led to financing difficulties and over-stretched banking systems. close quote (Read more)