the IDIOT

this headline did it for me:

Karzai’s brother calls for U.S. to shore up Kabul Bank as withdrawals accelerate

(more…)

did someone just write an epitaph for H-ben? via LRC:

Ben looks to me suspiciously like a greenhorn lost in the woods who used up all his ammo shooting at shadows.

a modified version of that on a gravestone may be a pretty good fit. more polite than “master of official crime, king of obfuscation”.

reading this article linked from LvMI, it’s almost shocking how infantile is the “mainstream” view of economics in the goonited states. pushing aside the buzzwords, it comes down to this plea:

“please, great demigods calling yourselves the federal government, say something to me. grant me the blessing of your declaration. create economic miracles with your tongues and pens.” [and guns] (more…)

posting ‘ayn rand, whipping girl for cowardly liars‘ just now reminded me of a post i’d thought of writing then dropped — an exposure of the posturing of pro douche raj patel. won’t take long! the chief exposure is to simply quote from the beginning of his book. (more…)

writes one of the unapologetic-parasite class:

[...] In 2004 NASA administrator Sean O’Keefe canceled the 5th space shuttle servicing mission to Hubble citing astronaut safety concerns in the post-Columbia accident era. But Hubble’s death sentence was overturned by O’Keefe’s successor Michael Griffin who burst onto the scene like Luke Skywalker. Griffin had the “Rebel Alliance” of the America public behind him. People wanted their beloved Hubble pictures. The thought of letting Hubble go was as bad as shooting Walt Disney’s Old Yeller. [...]

egads. where to start with that one, even ignoring the “Rebel Alliance” tag. (more…)

via LvMI, in an article nearly tailor-made for my post on the subject, the boys at the onion do it in style:

[...] “It’s just an illusion,” a wide-eyed Bernanke added as he removed bills from his wallet and slowly spread them out before him. “Just look at it: Meaningless pieces of paper with numbers printed on them. Worthless.”
[...]
A few U.S. banks have remained open, though most teller windows are unmanned due to a lack of interest in transactions involving mere scraps of paper or, worse, decimal points and computer data signifying mere scraps of paper. [...]

the premise of all fedgoon “job creation” (ha!) is money from nowhere. this wealth is never presumed to have been pried from the fingers of productive victims (many of them still unborn), precluding their chosen avenues of true job creation; it merely falls from the skies via large-numbers obfuscatory magic. no victims.

tyrants lulling imbeciles (categorized by reuters in the URL as “type=marketsNews”):

Obama to announce $8 bln funding for high-speed rail

WASHINGTON, Jan 28 (Reuters) – President Barack Obama will announce on Thursday $8 billion in grants to develop the first U.S. high-speed, intercity rail service the White House says will create or save thousands of jobs. (more…)

most of the publishing truer (e.g., “austrian school”) praxeologists have missed the core disconnect between currency destruction and hyperinflation of prices. what is keeping prices comparatively stable after the recent ridiculous credit expansion? (more…)

magic.

contrary to the foolishness of paulists and other psychotic poltroons, any year-spanning dollar comparison not adjusted for material debasement is deficient.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Film box offices were poised on Wednesday to eclipse 2007′s record $9.68 billion in U.S. and Canadian ticket sales with Hollywood eyeing more than $10 billion this year as audiences flocked to theaters during the recession. [...]

oh wow!

buried after the headline and hype: (more…)

Recovery not as strong as previously thought

Dec 22, 9:02 AM (ET)
By JEANNINE AVERSA

WASHINGTON (AP) – The economy grew at a 2.2 percent pace in the third quarter, as the recovery got off to a weaker start than previously thought. However, all signs suggest the economy will end the year on stronger footing. [...]

translation: “Keep watching NASCAR and buying diet coke. Disregard that I am a stenographer for the Ministry of Information, not a reporter.”

see the rest of the article for the usual stunning bullshit, or enjoy this:

Split Personality: One Hour After Cheerleading, AP’s Aversa Goes Dour on Economy

When it is a question of taxes, gentlemen, prove their usefulness by reasons with some foundation, but not with that lamentable assertion: “Public spending keeps the working class alive.” It makes the mistake of covering up a fact that it is essential to know: namely, that public spending is always a substitute for private spending, and that consequently it may well support one worker in place of another but adds nothing to the lot of the working class taken as a whole. Your argument is fashionable, but it is quite absurd, for the reasoning is not correct.

read bastiat, confirm the logic, then be rattled to your core that the same colossal preening lying dumbbells and their inferior sheep still exist ~160 years after he destroyed them on the field of intellect. it is not intellect that survived. cheerleading from the whatever “estate”? yes, that survived: (more…)

yeah? i propose an agency to regulate your dumb ass. let’s call it “the individual”.

“I was caught in a debt-trap of predatory lending. . . . [...],” said Patricia Nelson, 64, a retired nurse from Waukesha, Wis., who introduced the president at the event.

in the newspeak of odumbaville, where everyone seeks above all to “effect change“, “predatory lending” means “the devil made me do it” — kissin’ cousin of the twinkie defense. (more…)

yayyyyy!

U.S. stocks pushed higher Tuesday helped by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s declaration the recession is likely over, with industrial and material firms once again pacing the day’s move.

Stocks had drifted around the flat line for much of the morning as new measures of retail sales and New York-area manufacturing were better than expected. But wholesale-level inflation was surprisingly strong.

The market ticked higher in the early afternoon, however, as Bernanke said that from a technical point, the “recession is very likely over at this point.” Bernanke made his comments during a question-and-answer session at the Brookings Institution. [...]

In an economic round table with homeowners, President Barack Obama said Thursday that the government’s efforts to drive down interest rates have fueled a surge in mortgage refinancing—putting money into many homeowners’ pockets during the current crisis. [...]

the rest of the article is similarly horrific twaddle straight from the state’s ass.

as usual, the question aching to be asked these stupid motherfuckers: if printing “money” creates wealth, why stop at x? fire up the presses, bitch. let’s get rich.