A clove of prevention is worth a bulb of cure

The stinking rose more closely resembles its namesake as of late:

If you want to get rich in China, the way to do it this year is to buy and sell garlic. The Chinese have always had a taste for the bulb vegetable that makes your breath smell but now there has been an incredible surge in its price, which makes the property boom look static by comparison. Garlic has been a better investment this year than gold or silver.

Of course, I fully expect doubt to be cast upon any preventative measures (other than properly shielding one's sneeze, or the compulsive washing of hands, as advised by the High Priestess of HHS) that are of non-pharmaceutical origins, and doubly so if they're just "weeds". (Unless it's actual weed, in which case, you'll need to get a "green card" and live on the West Coast.)

"Those wacky Chinese! Don't they know that commodities are dead, and plants are only meant to be potential cures for cancer in obscure equatorial countries?"

Now, I'm not advocating that you should sell your house and buy rural real-estate for the purposes of growing vast tracts of garlic (typically, you should have at least a few more reasons, just for the sake of argument), since domestic consumption is likely to remain low. Come what may, I'll be planting everything available to me in January.

Pharmaceutical companies do very little of their own research, and have a long history of copying over the shoulder from folk medicine. My suggestion: cut out the middle-man. I'm already supplementing my diet with garlic, Vitamin D3, Vitamin C, St. John's Wort and green tea; I suggest you do the same. (Associated article here; if the strains that are currently active are indeed causing a severe cytokine response, one would ideally avoid foods that boost that response... This is for informational purposes only, your mileage may vary, I'm not responsible for your lack of personal research, etc.)

(Via SurvivalBlog.)

"Time? What time do you think we have?"

Obama isn't an 'A' student, and he definitely doesn't know much about history...

In one of his first major decisions on trade policy, President Obama opted Friday to impose a tariff on tires from China, a move that fulfills his campaign promise to "crack down" on imports that unfairly undermine American workers but risks angering the nation's second-largest trading partner.

The decision is intended to bolster the ailing U.S. tire industry, in which more than 5,000 jobs have been lost over the past five years as the volume of Chinese tires in the market has tripled.

It comes at a sensitive time, however. Leaders from the world's largest economies are preparing to gather in Pittsburgh in less than two weeks to discuss more cooperation amid tensions over trade.

The tire tariff will amount to 35 percent the first year, 30 percent the second and 25 percent the third.

Although a federal trade panel had recommended higher levies -- of 55, 45 and 35 percent, respectively -- the decision is considered a victory for the United Steelworkers union, which filed the trade complaint.

Hey, here's an idea: how about deliberately angering the largest creditors of the United States with a tariff, then following it up with yet another bond-auction? Obviously, China isn't worried about our ability to repay the staggering amount of debt that the Federal Government has accumulated, so why not?

The spread between AA-investment grade corporates and 10- year Treasuries was 2.07 percent today. The average for this year has been 3.151 percent.

The U.S. government is concerned about overall demand for Treasuries, not appetite from individual countries, said David Dollar, the U.S. Treasury Department’s economic and financial emissary to China.

“The interest rate on long-term Treasury bonds is at a very low level by historical standards,” Dollar said at the World Economic Forum meeting yesterday in Dalian, China. “That says that the market has confidence the U.S. will get the fiscal problem under control.” The U.S. government and the Federal Reserve have spent, lent or committed more than $12 trillion in a bid to revive the economy and credit markets.

Very interesting, Mr. Dollar. (I realize that this is beginning to sound akin to a Bond script.) As much as we would like to believe that you are not defrauding the American taxpayers, that isn't what we've heard from our sources in China!

Cheng Siwei, former vice-chairman of the Standing Committee and now head of China's green energy drive, said Beijing was dismayed by the Fed's recourse to "credit easing".

"We hope there will be a change in monetary policy as soon as they have positive growth again," he said at the Ambrosetti Workshop, a policy gathering on Lake Como.

"If they keep printing money to buy bonds it will lead to inflation, and after a year or two the dollar will fall hard. Most of our foreign reserves are in US bonds and this is very difficult to change, so we will diversify incremental reserves into euros, yen, and other currencies," he said.

In all seriousness, I'm having a difficult time imagining a more historically predictable or utterly asinine way of handling a severe market-correction.

Now, I would like to attribute as much of this behavior to either good-natured ignorance or old-fashioned congenital idiocy, but the limit of this behavior is fast approaching deliberate, calculated evil, as I find that the collection of "our best and brightest" on Capitol Hill cannot or will not drop the pitched slap-fight over non-issues to address the debt. Indeed, they seem to be doing everything within their power to not only avoid it, but to exacerbate and accelerate its arrival.

The hour is later than you think.

Getting a second opinion

It's encouraging to hear Dr. Paul's perspective on this, as the amount of poor-quality non-information regarding swine-flu from the media is not only omnipresent, it is likely to interfere with those actively seeking accurate information and contextual relevance.

It's a delicate situation, and I prefer to err on the side of caution, which has the combined effect of inducing a very uneasy feeling in my gut, but there's little to be done about it at this point; it's here, and it's contagious, although the relative lethality of the strain is still open to interpretation due to the standard of medical care in Mexico.

SurvivalBlog is running daily updates regarding swine-flu et al., and there is (as always) no shortage of excellent information there about steps that concerned individuals can take to minimize the risk of exposure.

Today's practical advice: wash your hands frequently, wipe-down the doorknobs and frequently-handled objects in the house with a sanitizing agent, and try not to touch your face when out and about. Stay healthy, and stay alert.

"A republic, if you can keep it."

Did anyone really believe that Pelosi or the Obama administration would not pursue this?

The ball is in Congress's court to craft a compromise in reinstating regulations on assault weapons, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) acknowledged Tuesday.

During an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America," Pelosi said that the Congress will work to find some middle ground between the previous ban, which expired in 2004, and the precedent laid by the Supreme Court in a ruling enumerating more concrete gunowners' rights last term.

"We have to find some level of compromise," Pelosi said, citing 53 victims of gun violence nationwide in less than a month. "And we have to rid the debate of the misconceptions people have about what gun safety means."

I'm not going to re-hash the arguments against this here, again, now; this is merely the latest in a long list of "a long train of abuses and usurpations", to quote some scholars that are, for lack of less delicate terms, passé.

We have lost it, ladies and gentlemen. The republic is gone, and the coming days will confirm this assertion in ways that we cannot imagine. Yes, that sounds melodramatic, but who among us could have imagined the Great Depression in 1928? Or the horrors of the First World War in 1912?

Considering the still-active frenzy of firearms-related purchases, is there an expectation that there will be widespread compliance with a nation-wide registration movement? In the fevered dreams of Beltway politicians, perhaps. Perhaps light sweet crude will fall to a permanent $5 per barrel, and perhaps Obama will unleash his unicorn-cavalry and cleanse the globe of nuclear arms forevermore, leaving pot-pourri and Skittles in their wake.

Perhaps it's time for some real change.

Crows, Gold and Three-Card Monte

The Mogambo Guru offers up yet another keen insight:

Although Mr, Zuckerman does not mention me directly, he says, “For years, big gold fans were fast-moving traders and so-called gold bugs, a crowd of bears ever-convinced that the underpinnings of global economies and markets were set to crumble” which not only describes me to a freaking T, but is exactly what happened!

He also describes me pretty well, too, when he says, “Gold has disappointed some investors because it hasn’t been a home-run investment despite continuing financial ills” which is also the fault of the Federal Reserve, which is on record as saying that “the Fed stands ready” to dump as much gold onto the market as is needed to keep its price from rising.

And the reason they are openly manipulating the price of gold, which is the advice of former Fed chairman Paul Volcker, is because they are concerned about the price of gold rising, which is a clear signal that inflation is raging because the Fed is a bunch of money-maddened morons and the economy is in Big Freaking Inflationary Trouble (BFIT) because of them and their mismanagement of monetary policy with their ridiculous neo-Keynesian econometric stupidities! Hahahaha!

Following news today that the Federal Reserve is going to print promissory-notes until the presses glow red-hot, gold has jumped almost thirty-dollars an ounce.

Jim Cramer, who has evidently never read the story of "Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby" and suffered for it, sang the praises of Bernanke this morning on CNBC regarding the $1.2 trillion inflation of the money supply and expects to see long-term growth in the near-future as a result of the purchase of the worthless Treasury bonds.

I feel sorry for the guy, but then again, I don't have my own show on CNBC (nor do I want one), and I suspect before long he will have developed a keen appetite for corvus a l'Orange with thinly-sliced chapeau, served with nothing but the economic establishment's finest whine.

A design towards Absolute Despotism

America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards. - Claire Wolfe

To say that I am violently angry regarding the following is an understatement without parallel. The level of ruinous intent, the magnitude of the usurpation of liberty is likewise without parallel, and we must answer it.

Putting aside for the moment that centralized large-scale food-processing in this country is frequently worse on every level for all organisms involved than domestic small-scale production, this bill is, bar none, the most expansive, intrusive, irresponsible, tyrannical and in all other ways absolutist piece of putridity that I've ever had the displeasure to read. Here is the operative core of HR 875, which applies without exception to every American in possession of edible goods:

SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS:

In this Act:

(5) CATEGORY 1 FOOD ESTABLISHMENT- The term `category 1 food establishment' means a food establishment (other than a seafood processing establishment) that slaughters, for the purpose of producing food, animals that are not subject to inspection under the Federal Meat Inspection Act or poultry that are not subject to inspection under the Poultry Products Inspection Act.

(6) CATEGORY 2 FOOD ESTABLISHMENT- The term `category 2 food establishment' means a seafood processing establishment or other food establishment (other than a category 1 establishment) not subject to inspection under the Federal Meat Inspection Act, the Poultry Products Inspection Act, or the Egg Products Inspection Act, that processes raw seafood or other raw animal products, whether fresh or frozen, or other products that the Administrator determines by regulation to pose a significant risk of hazardous contamination.

(7) CATEGORY 3 FOOD ESTABLISHMENT- The term `category 3 food establishment' means a food establishment (other than a category 1 or category 2 establishment) that processes cooked, pasteurized, or otherwise ready-to-eat seafood or other animal products, fresh produce in ready-to-eat raw form, or other products that pose a risk of hazardous contamination.

(8) CATEGORY 4 FOOD ESTABLISHMENT- The term `category 4 food establishment' means a food establishment that processes all other categories of food products not described in paragraphs (5) through (7).

(9) CATEGORY 5 FOOD ESTABLISHMENT- The term `category 5 food establishment' means a food establishment that stores, holds, or transports food products prior to delivery for retail sale.

(13) FOOD ESTABLISHMENT - (A) IN GENERAL- The term `food establishment' means a slaughterhouse (except those regulated under the Federal Meat Inspection Act or the Poultry Products Inspection Act), factory, warehouse, or facility owned or operated by a person located in any State that processes food or a facility that holds, stores, or transports food or food ingredients.

(Italic-emphasis added.)

Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot, over?

Take a little while to read the whole bill; it's important, and it's nearly impossible to succinctly describe the horrific amount of bureaucracy proposed or trangressions defined.

Collectively (and I'm loathe to use that term), we're in a bit of a bind with our elected representatives ignoring their responsibilities as our official representatives, instead regarding their office as license to demand military escort and misappropriate funding for personal interests that was ear-marked for inappropriate spending elsewhere. This, however, takes the cake and everything used to make it:

The bill’s sponsor is Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), with 39 co-sponsor, all Democrats. It gets more interesting to find out that DeLauro is married to Stanley Greenberg, who counts Monsanto among his corporate clients. It is also is an interesting coincidence that large corporations are much better equipped to comply with the onerous requirements and paperwork this bill dumps on “Food Production Facilities” then the lowly local farmer or backyard gardener.

I can see the headlines now: "Local man arrested, charged with growing foodstuffs with intent to consume."

I understand that this bill is still in committee, and that alone is of no import, but as HR 875 has 39 co-sponsors is an indicator that the we are leaving the "awkward stage". The very idea that this is acceptable legislation makes my blood boil in my veins, and there has been nary a falsetto squeak from the mainstream-media regarding the submission of this bill or the barely-concealed nature of the relationship of the sponsor to the beneficiaries.

It is fortunate that things cannot remain this way for long, and that God willing, we will collapse under our own weight and perhaps restore a form of government more suitable to protecting the natural rights of free men; any other course will perpetuate a State devoted to the destruction of everything it touches.

Another record wheat-harvest...

"Bread lines" are a capitalist pig-dog myth! Our workers do not stand idly for want of bread! However, there is a small wait for the ingredients:

Venezuela's public finances are unravelling, with oil prices at $40 a barrel, while the national budget is calculated at $60 a barrel. Inflation is running at over 30 per cent, yet with the new measures Mr Chavez is seeking to ensure that his core support, the poor, can still fill their shopping baskets with food.

"If any industry wants to ride roughshod over the consumers, with a view to getting better dividends, we are going to act," said Carlos Osorio, the national superintendent of silos and storage. "For the government, access to food is a matter of national security."

Production quotas and prices have now been set for cooking oil, white rice, sugar, coffee, flour, margarine, pasta, cheeses and tomato sauce.

Unfortunately for the people of Venezuela, Chavez is in the position to hold power as long as he has a taste for it.

I wouldn't hold my breath if you're waiting for him to give it up peacefully, Venezuela. Lo siento.

Update: Evidently, in addition to other economic difficulties, Venezuela is experiencing a shortage of salesmanship:

Caracas - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Friday called upon US President Barack Obama to follow the path to socialism, which he termed as the "only" way out of the global recession. "Come with us, align yourself, come with us on the road to socialism. This is the only path. Imagine a socialist revolution in the United States," Chavez told a group of workers in the southern Venezuelan state of Bolivar.

The controversial Venezuelan leader, who taunted the United States as a source of capitalistic evil under former president George W Bush, added that the United States needs a leader who can take it to a "higher" destiny and bring it out of "the sad role that it has been given, as a murderous, attacking power that is hated all around the world."

Well, it's not quite as embarrassing as addressing the People having forgotten to zip up your fly, but it's uncomfortably close. When one's economy is suffering due to adherence to a failed economic model, it's understandable that others might be hesitant to explicitly apply that model to their own economic policy.

Marxists world-wide should look forward to an international comedy-tour headlining an Obama/Chavez ticket; they'll die laughing.

The War on Drugs, Terrorism, Poverty, Assault Weapons, Hate Speech, et al.

It's for the children! Wave hands! Talk louder! Shoulder things!

At a press conference announcing the arrests, Holder also suggested that re-instituting a U.S. ban on the sale of assault weapons would help reduce the bloodshed in Mexico, where last year 6,000 people were killed in drug-related violence.

U.S. officials have a responsibility to make sure Mexican police "are not fighting substantial numbers of weapons, or fighting against AK-47's or other similar kinds of weapons that have been flowing to Mexico," Holder said.

Maybe it's a double-secret underhand twin-spoiler extra-cheese economic stimulus, designed to promote consumer confidence through firearms sales!

And maybe I'll be the first one on my block with a sleigh hitched to eight flying pigs.

Si vis pacem, para bellum.

The weed of idiocy sprouts eternal:

A coalition led by [Switzerland's] Social Democrat party and the Greens has collected nearly 120,000 signatures to force a national referendum on whether the weapons should be stored at military bases...

Service in the militia is compulsory for men aged between 19 and 31 and in between call-ups they store their weapons at home. There are currently around 220,000 conscripts.

However, a 2007 law change banned the storage of ammunition in homes. The coalition is looking to extend this, control the purchase of military weapons and set up a national gun register.

Green lawmaker Josef Lang said more than 1.5 million unused weapons were kept in Swiss homes.

Lang said their presence "at the heart" of the population could not be justified.

Lies, lies, and damned lies.

Switzerland has enjoyed some unique benefits from widespread firearms-ownership in the previous centuries: non-participation in warfare directly attributed to the promise of horrific casualties to the invading force and extremely low crime-rates. Ideally, this is what the United States should have been had it followed the advice given by Washington in his Farewell Address (1796):

It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements. I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy. I repeat it, therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense. But, in my opinion, it is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend them.

Taking care always to keep ourselves by suitable establishments on a respectable defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies.

Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing (with powers so disposed, in order to give trade a stable course, to define the rights of our merchants, and to enable the government to support them) conventional rules of intercourse, the best that present circumstances and mutual opinion will permit, but temporary, and liable to be from time to time abandoned or varied, as experience and circumstances shall dictate; constantly keeping in view that it is folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors from another; that it must pay with a portion of its independence for whatever it may accept under that character; that, by such acceptance, it may place itself in the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more. There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion, which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.

As observed of late, increased third-world immigration, strict firearms-control measures and draconian edicts regarding civil liberties have done much to enrich the member-nations of the EU; perhaps a good riot and some knife-trauma will enlighten the Swiss to the "shining future" that the collectivists are pushing.

Personally, the only shine I see is that of the collectivists' knives. The Swiss would do well to remember their history, the history of their neighbors, and laugh the quislings out of the country.

May you remain forever armed and forever free, Switzerland.

All-Natural Preservatives

The Mogambo Guru elucidates on the value of gold:

Mr Ash notes that Stephen Harmston, erstwhile economist at Bannock Consulting, wrote that "across 2,500 years, gold has retained its purchasing power, relative to bread at least", which is seemingly proved when one considers that "It is said that an ounce of gold bought 350 loaves of bread in the time of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, who died in 562 BC", which is roughly what it buys today, a stretch of 2,500 years, while the dollar, on the other hand, has lost 97% of its buying power since 1913, less than 100 years ago, when the detestable US Federal Reserve was given its diabolical unholy control of the nation's banks and money by a corrupt Congress and allowed by a corrupt Supreme Court.

I really enjoy this column.

To reiterate an argument made in the last few days, gold is not a priority investment for those without tangible goods, but once one is comfortably prepared (double-checking, and three's the charm), gold is then an excellent method for preserving one's financial state; it is not a mutual-fund, nor is it supposed to emulate the behavior of one. Think of it as trading for a foreign currency. The total amount of purchasing power didn't change, but if the dollar tanks, that currency is still worth what it was worth in 500BC.

I'm still waiting for an argument for this being a "bad thing".

One-two! And through and through, the inflation went snicker-snack!

They left it dead, and with its debt, they went galumphing back!

RIGA (Reuters) - Latvia's four-party ruling coalition collapsed on Friday and the president called for talks to forge a new government to tackle a deepening economic crisis.

The coalition's fall, the second European government to succumb to the financial crisis, adds to the economic problems of the small Baltic state, which last year had to take a 7.5 billion euro ($9.43 billion) IMF-led rescue loan last year.

This is the second government to fall in the face of the financial collapse, and I am doubtless it will not be the last.

The Wages of Statism

Via Survival Blog:



From the article:

The opposition activist has produced extraordinary footage of what Zimbabweans have to do in order to survive in a wrecked economy. As money is worthless – Zimbabwe is plagued by the world's highest inflation rate – the villagers are reduced to panning for gold in rivers. Instead of attending school, youngsters from the village scrabble knee-deep in muddy water or dig ever deeper holes in a desperate search for a few grains of gold.

These small supplies of the precious metal have thus become a crucial commodity Zimbabweans can trade for food; a loaf of bread is worth 0.1 grams. But only the young have the strength to dig and pan for gold; the village elders must go hungry, unless they have friends or relatives they can rely on. Some parents have been forced to feed rats to their children, and hunger has turned family members against each other.

It's painful to watch, but it's another thing entirely to realize it can happen anywhere where the people will not or cannot control their government.

At the risk of sounding crass, it is fortunate for the people of that particular village that they have the ability to pan for gold. In an urban area without means of production, I would expect the desperation (and the resultant violence) to be much, much worse.

The Heresy of Survivalism

Evidently, SurvivalBlog was the focus of a Yahoo! News story on the troubled times we live in and the corresponding interest in survivalism. A link to a MetaFilter thread followed the article, from which I gathered the following opinions about the vocal majority:

- The State, all-powerful and all-knowing, will rescue everyone without fail in a crisis situation.

- Having more than a few weeks of food on-hand is selfish and paranoid, and the amount in excess is directly proportional to one's paranoia and antisocial sentiments.

- Firearm ownership signifies sexual dysfunction/deviancy, and anyone that would use a firearm to protect themselves, their liberty or property is "already dead inside".

- If the future has any sort of apocalyptic events that will precipitate hardship, it would be preferable to die than try to survive. Should survival be unavoidable, kill and loot from those that are prepared.

- I (my room-mate/siblings/parents/dog/friend/lover/ancestor) experienced a three-day blackout, and (I/we/they) made s'mores and told stories, which by induction, proves that all preparation beyond three days is unnecessary if one has candles and s'mores.

- Lowering myself to preparing for a disaster would cheapen my morals, poke quarter-sized holes in my faith and pride in my society, and cause the milk to sour.

- Any impending collapse is the fault of the Bush administration for failure to subsidize low-income hope/change.

I imagine that the vocal majority is college-educated, registered with the bipartisan juggernaut and unaware of the nature of fractional-reserve banking. Which is to say, blissfully ignorant of history and unwilling to be bothered while worshipping at the altar of the State. Furthermore, I doubt that the average snarky pedant has walked more than ten miles at a stretch, fired a rifle, or eaten something that they had to kill. Prosperity, in their eyes, is a matter of belief.

And so, following the weekend of the final exam for America's Great Depression, echoes from the past attempts to stabilize an inflationary economic model continue to build amidst the increasingly fervent attempts to avert disaster. No amount of belief in the fundamental goodness of human nature will mitigate the cascading economic failures that are inherent to the international banking systems that were modeled on central-banking theory. Not only has it ruined the economies of multiple nations, but it has left virtually no safe haven from the following holocaust. And yet, the vocal majority welcome it with open arms, and expect salvation within the year at the hands of the State.

So it goes.

When in doubt, empty the clip

- One more tragic reason to be energy-independent, even within the boundaries of one's property.

- In which I am tempted once again to add a "Chicago" tag to this blog.

- They finally killed it.

- It is on the agenda, despite the claims that firearm-owning Obama-apologists are making. If you own a firearm and you did the deed, you ought to be tarred, feathered, and run out of town on a rail... And I'm not joking.

- My catalog for the Seed Savers Exchange came in this week, and although I have seeds for this year's garden already (mostly), I'm still enjoying browsing and compiling a new order. (SSE catalogs are free. I have others on the way, and will report in on those at a later date.)

Cultivating a "Condition Yellow" mindset

Arizona v. Johnson, via the Volokh Conspiracy:

This morning the Supreme Court handed down the decision in a unanimous opinion by Justice Ginsburg. The Court limited its opinion to how this power applies in a traffic stop setting. It held first that the Terry v. Ohio power to detain is met in a traffic stop setting "whenever it is lawful for police to detain an automobile and its occupants pending inquiry into a vehicular violation." Second, "To justify a patdown of the driver or a passenger during a traffic stop, however, just as in the case of a pedestrian reasonably suspected of criminal activity, the police must harbor reasonable suspicion that the person subjected to the frisk is armed and dangerous." That is, the police can pat-down the passenger in a lawful traffic stop if the passenger is reasonably suspected of being dangerous regardless of what other crimes are suspected.

The commentary on Orin Kerr's analysis is worth a read, even if just for familiarity with some of the jargon and finer points of application. Although it is uncomfortable to think about, it is likely that having the knowledge will be of practical use sooner rather than later, considering the general mitigation of civil liberties in this forced amalgamation of vassal-states.

Furthermore, even though these have made the rounds on the 'Net more times than Rick Astley, I believe there isn't a bad time to repost them:





I would also recommend picking up a copy of You & The Police. Although the last printing was in 2005, the information is still useful, despite aggressive movement in the interim towards a more restrictive State.

Reverberating disquietude

Keynesian economic theory failure gave the thread of monetary policy a good jerk (insert Bernanke joke here), and now the whole sweater is starting to unravel:

While Barack Obama was being sworn in to office on Capitol Hill yesterday, the people of Iceland were starting the first revolution in the history of the republic. The word "revolution" might sound a bit of an overstatement, but given the calm temperament that usually prevails in Icelandic politics, the unfolding events represent, at the very least, a revolution in political activism.

Four months after the collapse of Iceland's entire financial system, no one has accepted any responsibility. Our currency has lost more than half its value, rampant inflation has already eaten up most people's savings, property values have dropped by more than a third and unemployment is reaching levels never seen before in the life of our young republic. The fault is clearly shared between the business elite and the government, which failed to regulate the newly privatised financial sector, allowing a few incompetent and egotistical business tycoons to gamble with the nation's fortune. And yet neither the government nor the bankers – who, by the way, seem to have disappeared into the cold thin air – see anything wrong with their own behaviour.

And while Iceland is an excellent microcosmic example of what can be expected as the correction takes its course, it is not alone:

The financial meltdown has become part of the real economy and is now beginning to shape real politics. More and more citizens on the edge of the global crisis are taking to the streets. Bulgaria has been gripped this month by its worst riots since 1997 when street power helped to topple a Socialist government. Now Socialists are at the helm again and are having to fend off popular protests about government incompetence and corruption.

In Latvia – where growth has been in double-digit figures for years – anger is bubbling over at official mismanagement. GDP is expected to contract by 5 per cent this year; salaries will be cut; unemployment will rise. Last week, in a country where demonstrators usually just sing and then go home, 10,000 people besieged parliament.

The United States has avoided the worst of it so far, but that in itself is a small comfort: the damping effect of the Federal government's interventionist policy prevents a swift correction of accumulated mismanaged assets, just as that same interference amplifies existing and/or expanding "bubbles" in the economy. When the good times were good, we enjoyed a level of opulence unseen since the halcyon days of Palatine Hill.

However, to draw on thermodynamic law and popular wisdom, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. Predictably, unfortunately, and inevitably, the crash will mirror and match the meteoric rise of the economy pound-for-pound, inch-for-inch, and the very same Statist high-priests that kept the economy from correcting itself will keep the correction from clearing the detritus of failed institutions to make way for new growth.

Strangely enough, it is not all that different from the Federal government's forest-management policy in the western United States: unmitigated growth and fire-suppression until a "critical mass" stage, wherein a devastating, yea, holocaustic inferno consumes the entirety of the diseased and dying forest, causing otherwise healthy trees to explode from the heat and sterilizing entire swathes of wilderness.

I am willing to bet that the recovery will take a similar course: decades.

Two is one, one is none, and twenty is one with inflation

Really, it's not a problem:

Using a speech last night in Madrid to issue his stark warning, Dominique Strauss-Kahn argued that government efforts to tackle the economic downturn so far have been uncertain and largely insufficient, which could lead to severe consequences. He singled out the eurozone nations as he attacked the inadequate global response.

His hard-hitting comments came as fears of a prolonged slumped intensified after China showed signs that its economy could be in more trouble than initially expected next year. Factory output in the rapidly growing economy registered the weakest growth in almost a decade last month.

The IMF's managing director said such news signaled that a world recovery may not take place until late next year or into 2010 unless swift action is taken.

Translation: Y'all are screwed, and we might be able to fix it if we really wanted to, but half of us don't know our rear-ends from our elbows, and the other half would rather ride out the ensuing chaos and rebuild from the rubble after-the-fact, no matter what the cost.

On a related note, posting frequency has been low in the last week owing to a host of factors, including epic allergies, copious research regarding possible retreat/settlement areas, the usual ridiculousness that comes with the holiday-season... Oh, and the hand-numbing cold in this dump makes me a tad sluggish.

Also, I've been stepping up the prep-work for an eventual (and likely lengthy) economic depression. Now, owing to the fact that I'm the only one in my immediate family that seems to be taking this somewhat seriously, the onus of labor is upon me. Not that it bothers me to any large degree; I will confess to a level of paranoia that makes many people uncomfortable, but as the saying goes, it's only "well-prepared after-the-fact".

I know this is a market-correction that has been a long-time coming, but I'm still anxious. This is bitter medicine for a great many people, and some will use it to justify rash behavior, to say the least.

Food for thought, but not much else

It appears that "tightening our belts" may take a more literal meaning:

Food prices will rise next year, prompting a revival of protectionism from food-growing nations and risking a renewed bout of rioting, according to Jochen Hitzfeld, an analyst at UniCredit SpA in Munich.

“Agricultural commodities will outperform the broad commodity indices in 2009,” Hitzfeld wrote in a research note this week. “If key crop-producing countries then impose export bans again and speculators drive up prices via physical stockpiling and futures contracts, new food unrest is even conceivable in the second half of 2009.”

While it might seem a bit absurd to think that the production of food may become a problem in the coming years, a quick look at some of the contributing factors indicates that the absurd may have a firm foundation in reality:

Retail prices for flour, potatoes, cheddar cheese and apples showed the largest increases in the quarter. A 5-pound bag of flour cost $2.62, up 37% from a year earlier, while 5 pounds of potatoes rose 32% to $3.38. Prices for cheddar cheese and apples surged 21%.

Vegetable oil rose 17%, a dozen eggs jumped 13%, pork chops were up 6.8% and hamburger cost 5% more, the federation said.

Corn futures surged 70% on the Chicago Board of Trade during the quarter from a year earlier, wheat increased 11% and live cattle rose 8.2%.

Food-price inflation may run as high as 6% this year, the highest since 1980, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said.

Coupled with rising inflation across the board*, while a single food crisis alone would not be enough to cause a serious panic domestically, a number of mutually-magnifying crises affecting the food-market might be enough to cause more serious problems both domestically and abroad.

It has been observed that the difference between civilization and barbarism is a week without food; I pray we don't get to test the hypothesis.

* An inevitable step, in my opinion; with skyrocketing national debt, the only available option to a government that evidently has no intention of paying honestly is to monetize it, causing massive, nay, titanic inflation.

Happy Thanksgiving

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

Psalms 23:1-6

May your day be filled with joy. That is all.

Predictable, yet abhorrent nonetheless

Obama is nothing if not consistent; a verifiable rogues' gallery is assembling to infest the White House:

Washington attorney Eric Holder is President-elect Barack Obama's top choice to be the next attorney general and aides have gone so far as to ask senators whether he would be confirmed, an Obama official and people close to the matter said Tuesday.

Holder, a former U.S. attorney who served as the No. 2 official in the Justice Department under President Bill Clinton, would be the nation's first black attorney general...

On the last day of Clinton's term, Holder was asked whether the president should pardon Rich, a wealthy commodities dealer who had spent years running from tax charges. Holder said he was "neutral, leaning towards favorable" on the pardon. Clinton later cited that as among the factors that persuaded him to issue the pardon.

So much for a reputation as a "tough and aggressive foe of public corruption."

If anything, Holder's appointment confirms the fears of those rushing to purchase firearms before the Obama administration takes office in January... But I'll let Holder speak for himself:

"As most of you know, I have served as a judge, as the chief prosecutor for the District of Columbia, and for the past two years as the Deputy Attorney General of the United States. I know the harm that guns can do - to individuals, to families, and to communities. My concern about easy access to guns in our society is built on my professional experience and the tragedies I have encountered in my work day life. But even more important, I am a father, and I want to be sure that we here in Washington do everything we can -- everything in our power -- to make our communities, our schools and our nation a safer place for our kids.

"Five years ago, Congress came together in a bipartisan way and passed one of the most important gun control measures ever -- the Brady bill. Yesterday, the President announced that since this law went into effect, more than 400,000 criminals and others who are not legally eligible to have guns, have been stopped from buying guns.

"Four hundred thousand. That's a lot of guns. Particularly if those guns were in the hands of fugitives or felons.

"But while the Brady law has done a lot to make this country safer, the law has a dangerous loophole that criminals and others who cannot legally buy guns at a licenced gun shop exploit. While everyone who buys a gun through a licenced dealer must undergo a background check to determine if they are eligible to buy a gun, the current law allows unlicenced sellers at gun shows to sell to anyone -- with no questions asked.

"It's not hard to see what kind of message that sends to criminals."

I'm guessing that message is, "We're disarming the sheep-dogs for the disadvantaged thugs, and we'll pardon the rest of you."

Let me remind you all that the latest proposed ban leaves the determination of what constitutes an "assault rifle" to the Attorney-General:

(L) A semiautomatic rifle or shotgun originally designed for military or law enforcement use, or a firearm based on the design of such a firearm, that is not particularly suitable for sporting purposes, as determined by the Attorney General. In making the determination, there shall be a rebuttable presumption that a firearm procured for use by the United States military or any Federal law enforcement agency is not particularly suitable for sporting purposes, and a firearm shall not be determined to be particularly suitable for sporting purposes solely because the firearm is suitable for use in a sporting event.

I shouldn't have to say it again, as it's beating a dead horse at this blog, but I will: Get a battle-rifle while you can.