The Palestinian Archipelago

“Maybe posting the full map would help to take it for what it is, i.e. an illustration of the West Bank’s ongoing fragmentation based on the (originally temporary) A/B/C zoning which came out of the Oslo process, still valid until now. To make things clear, areas ‘under water’ strictly reflect C zones, plus the East Jerusalem area, i.e. areas that have officially remained under full Israeli control and occupation following the Agreements. These include all Israeli settlements and outposts as well as Palestinian populated areas.”

Shouldn’t we be talking about Palestine’s right to exist?

Obamanomics

Obama = more of the same (but better P. R.)

– Ron Paul on the budget, war, global governance, the dollar, and blaming freedom:

– Obama’s $163,000 Tax Bomb “The House and Senate are preparing to pass President Barack Obama’s radical budget blueprint, with only minor modifications, by using (abusing would be more accurate) the budget ‘reconciliation’ process. This process circumvents the Senate’s normal rules requiring 60 votes to prevent a filibuster. Reconciliation was created by Congress in the mid-1970s to enforce deficit reduction, the opposite of what the president and his party are aiming for. The immense increase in nondefense spending and taxes, and the tripling of the national debt in Mr. Obama’s budget, have been the subject of considerable scrutiny since it was announced. . . .

[Obama] claims to reduce the deficit by half, to shave $2 trillion off the debt (the cumulative deficit over his 10-year budget horizon), and not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year. While in a Clintonian sense correct (depends on what the definition of “is” is), it is far more accurate to describe Mr. Obama’s budget as almost tripling the deficit. . . .

Finally, what of the claim not to raise taxes on anyone earning less than $250,000 a year? Even ignoring his large energy taxes, Mr. Obama must reconcile his arithmetic. . . . Mr. Obama is going to leave a discounted present-value legacy of $6.5 trillion of additional future taxes, unless he dramatically cuts spending. (With interest the future tax hikes would be much larger later on.) Call it a stealth tax increase or ticking tax time-bomb. . . . If spread evenly over all those paying income taxes . . . every income-tax paying family would get a tax bill for $163,000.” (Read more from online.wsj.com)

– Obama’s Banking Rescue: O for Opaque
“President Obama has promised to run an administration of unprecedented openness. And in some respects, such as the ground rules for spending stimulus funds, he has. But in the most important area of all, the financial rescue, the administration is making trillion dollar decisions relying on the Federal Reserve and a small Wall Street club of advisors, with no transparency or public accountability.” (Read more from huffingtonpost.com)

– Stealing a Nation
“Bloomberg News reported earlier this week that it had calculated the total spending promised by the Obama administration to date as equaling the nation’s gross national product for one entire year—around $13 trillion. The public has grown inured to daily reports of massive spending programs and the administration’s fear mongering that the world will come to an end—or rather the cushy jobs of its friends on Wall Street will come to an end—unless our government spends and inflates on a scale that has never before been attempted. Ah, all the more reason to admire us, their propagandists proclaim, for the boldness of our actions in the face of such a calamity.

Yes, a calamity is approaching. It is the calamity brought about by reckless spending of the nation’s wealth in pursuit of the unattainable. There is no way that the trillions of dollars of malinvestment of the last few years can be pulled back out of the sinkhole. The money is gone. There is no way to get it back. What the Obama administration is doing is trying to make everyone pay for this massive loss when the proper, legal, ethical policy should be to ensure that those involved accept their losses like men.” (Read more form patrickbarron.blogspot.com)

– Geithner’s Plan Will Tax Main Street to Make Wall Street Richer
“The new consensus among the experts who missed the housing bubble (EMHB) is that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s plan to subsidize the purchase of junk mortgages and their derivatives will help alleviate the stress on the banking system. That’s good news.

These geniuses have devised a plan that for $1 trillion (approximately equal to 300 million kid-years of SCHIP, the State Child Health Insurance Program) can alleviate the stress on the banking system. Note that no one claims that $1 trillion spent on the Geithner plan will actually clean up the banking system – that would be asking too much. The EMHB only assure us that this $1 trillion (more than enough to have energy conserving retrofits for every building in the country) will make things better. Isn’t that enough?” (Read more from truthout.org)

Yet Another Obama Apointee Doesn’t Pay Taxes

Obama’s court: “Taxes are for commoners.”

Add Sebelius to list of Obama Cabinet picks with tax troubles

“President Obama’s second choice to lead Health and Human Services said she’s paid nearly $8,000 for ‘unintentional’ tax errors. . . . The list of nominees with tax trouble includes Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and former Sen. Tom Daschle, who was Obama’s first choice for HHS and withdrew after disclosing that he paid $140,000 in back taxes and interest. Neither Sebelius nor the White House issued a comment.” (Read more from miamiherald.com)

One in 10 Americans gets help to buy food

“A record 32.2 million people — one in every 10 Americans — received food stamps at the latest count, the government said on Thursday, a reflection of the recession now in its 16th month.

Food stamps, the major U.S. anti-hunger program, help poor people buy groceries. The average benefit was $112.82 per person in January.

The January figure marks the third time in five months that enrollment set a record.” (Read more from uk.reuters.com)

Me: Of course we’re poor. Where do you think the wealth comes from to pay for our empire and our gigantic government?

Health Insurance before the Welfare State

“Fraternal organizations and friendly societies provided health insurance for hundreds of thousands of Americans and Britons before the surge of the welfare state. Their rapid disappearance underscores the fragility of voluntary institutions when challenged by government power.”

“At their peak, fraternal organizations and friendly societies provided health insurance for millions of Americans and Britons, mostly lower-middle-class tradesmen and skilled artisans. By 1886, the Independent Order of Oddfellows and the Ancient Order of Foresters each claimed more than 600,000 members worldwide. In the 1920s, roughly every third adult male in the United States belonged to a fraternal organization.

These groups were characterized by independent lodges, democratic governance, a ritual, and mutual aid for members (and often their families). Although camaderie was a leading incentive to join, disability insurance was also an attractive benefit.

Despite their popularity, however, such groups had all but vanished within two decades after being pushed aside by the surge of the welfare state. What accounts for their rise and fall?

The answer, according to Pavel Chalupnicek and Lukas Dvorak (both from the University of Prague), lies in the concept of social capital, and individual’s ability to use his or her network of friends and acquaintances for economic gain. Social capital, they explain, enables many people to function better in society, but its value depreciates rapidly in the presence of certain kinds of government activities.” (Read more from independent.org)

It’s baaaaack. G20 and World Government.

The vocabulary of so-called conspiracy theorists, “New World Order,” “One World Government,” “Global Currency,” returns again and again. Every day, their concerns look more reasonable. Are the they right? Is there a push toward compromising our sovereignty in the name of “stability”?

See also mass protests at G20 target banks. “Protesters pushed against police barricades outside the Bank of England on Wednesday, shouting ‘Abolish Money!’ Helicopters hovered over the capital. Many buildings in the financial district were boarded up and several streets were closed. Some bankers swapped their pinstripe suits for jeans to avoid being possible targets. Six people were arrested.

Hidden History: Post Office sues Cub Scouts to maintain monopoly

“The Postal Service has faced repeated challenges from more competent private companies and has responded with one legal counterattack after another.

In 1971, a federal district court prohibited a private firm from carrying Christmas cards in Oklahoma on the basis that the plaintiffs, a postal employees union, suffered ‘significant loss of work time, overtime, employment benefits. . and morale.’ The court concluded that private delivery of Christmas cards would be a ‘widespread public nuisance.’ The result was that the public suffered slower service and higher costs to support postal workers’ ‘morale.’

In 1976 in New York, a pack of Cub Scouts tried to raise money by delivering Christmas cards: Postal Service lawyers ordered them to stop, and threatened the ten-year-olds with a $76,500 fine. A New York Times editorial regretted that the Postal Service’s carriers were not as fast as its lawyers.

In 1978, the P.H. Brennan Hand Delivery Service offered same-day delivery of mail in Rochester, New York, for 10� a piece; the Postal Service could not guarantee overnight delivery even for 15�. The Brennan Service operated during snowstorms (when the Postal Service did not even try to deliver), never lost a letter, and never had a complaint. When U.S.P.S. attorneys closed in on the Brennans, Rochester lawyers provided them with a free legal defense. But the Postal Service persuaded a judge to issue a ‘cease and desist’ order on account of the ‘threat to postal revenues.’

For 200 years, the Postal Service has been playing a game of catch-up with its illegal competition. Throughout its history, U.S.P.S. has upgraded service or cut rates only after some private company came along and did a better job. Were it not for its competition, the Postal Service might still be charging by the page and requiring citizens to come to the post office to send and pick up mail.” (Read more from cato.org)

***

Government is not our protector from monopolies, they are the creators and enforcers of monopolies. Businessmen, whom we so readily blame for all our problems, survive by providing goods and services we want at affordable prices.

***

“The U.S. Post Office [1839-1851] returned almost no revenue to the general fund. It usually reported losses. Large profits were being earned, but they were distributed internally. Giving out the postage revenues to groups with political power became the Post Office’s second function. Measured monetarily, it was the Post Office’s primary function. Thomas Jefferson, suspicious of the Post Office, had written:

I view [the Post Office] as a source of boundless patronage to the executive, jobbing to members of Congress and their friends and a bottomless abyss of public money. You will begin by only appropriating the surplus of the post-office revenues; but other revenues will soon be called in to their aid and it will be a source of eternal scramble among the members, who can get the most money wasted in their states; and they will always get most who are meanest [Jefferson 1892-99: IX, 324-25].

”

“In the first half of the 19th century, the federal government’s legal monopoly over the mail was a monopoly over all intercity communication. Informal and illegal channels of communication had always existed, but their inconvenience and limited scope allowed the Post Office to earn huge monopoly profits. The government’s policy of running the Post Office on a ‘nonprofit’ basis simply channeled the rents (profits) to powerful political groups who were in a position to draw directly from the Post Office coffers. Those profits gathered from the U.S. Post Office were of the same magnitude as the profits earned more openly by the British postal service.

The transportation revolution lowered the cost of intercity transportation and communication in the 1830s and 1840s. Private companies met the change by offering low-cost transportation and communication. The Post Office, facing no formal competition, at first kept its prices fixed. As costs dropped, monopoly profits increased. The profits became large enough to draw competitors despite the legal risk. That competition, and pressure from consumer groups, caused the Post Office to lower its rates in 1845 and 1851 by 79 percent.

The effect of private competition went beyond the drop in postage rates. An equally important effect was the introduction of new techniques into the U.S. market. The most important innovations were prepayment with stamps and intracity pickup and delivery. The Post Office showed no sign of adopting such innovations until they were successfully used by private companies.” (Read more from cato.org)

Russia backs [partial] return to Gold Standard to solve financial crisis

The best thing about a gold standard is that governments can’t print money, so the stupidity of almost everything they do will be more apparent, as it’d require an increase in taxes or debt.

Interestingly, there is a split in the Austrian School of Economics about the gold standard. I think both these ideas exist in the context of the bank-issued notes, instead of government currency. Murray Rothbard advocated a mandatory 100% gold standard, by which laws would require banks to carry gold for every note they issue. Ludwig Von Mises, while believing this was best, didn’t trust government to wield that power. He advocated “free banking,” which would allow banks to debase their notes, and customers to make decisions accordingly.

I’m partial to Mises’s free market approach, but followers of the Austrian School all agree on one thing: government control of the printing press is very, very bad.

“Russia has become the first major country to call for a partial restoration of the Gold Standard to uphold discipline in the world financial system.” (Read more from telegraph.co.uk)

For once, Gordon Brown had to sit and listen

From telegraph.co.uk:

By Daniel Hannan –

On Tuesday, I was one of those few. The Prime Minister was in the European Parliament, trying to persuade the rest of the EU to react to the financial crisis in the way that he has, viz by fire-hosing cash at it. I was one of the eight MEPs who got to respond, and was given three minutes to make my point.

According to convention, Mr Brown had to remain in his place while I spoke. Right, I thought, for once you’re going to have to listen to what people are saying. The country was in negative equity, I said; the weight of his debt would press down on our children yet unborn and unbegot, I said; surely he could see that his bail-outs and nationalisations had failed, I said; we should stop throwing good money after bad, I said.

No doubt you can imagine how Mr Brown reacted; you might have watched him do it week after week at Prime Minister’s Questions. He chatted ostentatiously to his neighbours; he pretended to doodle; he pulled his face into that grin that makes us think of the cold glint of moonlight on a silver coffin plate. Not for the first time, it struck me that the PM won’t listen to criticism.

US judge orders Iran to compensate family of IDF soldier captured by Hamas

“A US judge on Friday ordered Iran to pay $25 million plus interest to the family of IDF soldier Nachshon Wachsman, who was kidnapped and executed by Hamas in 1994.

Wachsman’s mother and six brothers filed the lawsuit in 2006 against Iran and its ministry of information and security, saying Tehran was responsible for the death because it provided training and support to Hamas. (AP)” (Read more from ynetnews.com)

Jurisdiction?

Monsanto’s Many Attempts to Destroy All Seeds but Their Own

“Some say that if farmers don’t want problems from Monsanto, they simply shouldn’t buy Monsanto’s GMO seeds. But it isn’t quite that simple. Monsanto contaminates the fields, trespasses onto the land taking samples, and then sues, saying they own the crop.

Meanwhile, Monsanto is taking many other steps to keep farmers and everyone else from having any access at all to buying, collecting, and saving of normal seeds:

1. They’ve bought up the seed companies across the Midwest.

2. They’ve written Monsanto seed laws and gotten legislators to put them through, that make cleaning, collecting and storing of seeds so onerous in terms of fees and paperwork that having normal seed becomes almost impossible.

3. Monsanto is pushing laws that ensure farmers and citizens can’t block the planting of GMO crops even if they can contaminate other crops.

4. There are Monsanto regulations buried in the FDA rules that make a farmer’s seed cleaning equipment illegal because it’s now considered a “source of seed contamination.”

Monsanto has sued more than 1,500 farmers whose fields had simply been contaminated by GM crops.” (Read more from articles.mercola.com)