vendredi 30 avril 2010

La citation du jour

The trouble with most people in economics and finance these days is that they study too much math and not enough history. If they read more history they’d know that governments go broke all the time. They’d probably get a hint about why governments go broke too – they pay too much; hire too many people; give away too much money on bread and circuses; and they get involved in too many costly foreign wars.

-Bill Bonner

Leviathan continue à croître malgré la crise économique

Via The Washington Examiner:

Want to get rich? Work for feds

Examiner Editorial
April 29, 2010

Data shows the pay gap between state and local government and private sector workers. (Chris Edwards/Cato Institute)

For decades, public sector unions have peddled the fantasy that government employees were paid less than their counterparts in the private sector. In fact, the pay disparity is the other way around. Government workers, especially at the federal level, make salaries that are scandalously higher than those paid to private sector workers. And let's not forget private sector workers not only have to be sufficiently productive to earn their paychecks, they also must pay the taxes that support the more generous jobs in the public sector.

Data compiled by the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis reveals the extent of the pay gap between federal and private workers. As of 2008, the average federal salary was $119,982, compared with $59,909 for the average private sector employee. In other words, the average federal bureaucrat makes twice as much as the average working taxpayer. Add the value of benefits like health care and pensions, and the gap grows even bigger. The average federal employee's benefits add $40,785 to his annual total compensation, whereas the average working taxpayer's benefits increase his total compensation by only $9,881. In other words, federal workers are paid on average salaries that are twice as generous as those in the private sector, and they receive benefits that are four times greater.

The situation is the same when state and local government compensation data is compared with that of the private sector. As the Cato Institute's Chris Edwards notes in the current issue of the Cato Journal, "The public sector pay advantage is most pronounced in benefits. Bureau of Economic Analysis data show that average compensation in the private sector was $59,909 in 2008, including $50,028 in wages and $9,881 in benefits. Average compensation in the public sector was $67,812, including $52,051 in wages and $15,761 in benefits." Those figures likely underestimate the true gap on the benefits side because the typical government employee gets a guaranteed defined benefit pension under very generous terms, while the private sector norm is a 401(K) defined contribution plan that is subject to the ups and downs of the economy.

With the federal deficit and national debt heading into the stratosphere, taxpayers can no longer afford to support such lucrative government compensation. Public sector pay and benefits at all levels should be reduced to make it comparable to the wages and benefits earned by the average working taxpayer. The first politician to propose a five-year plan for this purpose is likely to be cheered mightily by taxpayers.!

jeudi 29 avril 2010

Matt Stone: l'effet d'une alimentation hypocalorique sur la pression sanguine

Les bonzes de l'hygiène corporelle et de la santé publique nous exhortent de réduire notre apport calorique et d'augmenter notre dépense calorique, afin d'améliorer notre santé.

Or, le médecin Ancel Keys a démontré, dans les années 50, qu'une telle approche aura un effet inverse à celui escompté.

Les effets immédiats d'une réduction calorique sont, évidemment, une baisse de la pression sanguine et une amélioration de plusieurs marqueurs sanguins, ainsi qu'une perte de poids substantielle.

Toutefois, ces améliorations sont temporaires, et cessent dès que l'apport calorique redevient normal.

En fait, l'apport calorique redevient plus que normal, puisque la plupart des sujets de l'étude de Keys (et des gens faisant un régime) mangent bien au-delà de leur apport calorique initial dans les semaines suivant l'épisonde de famine.

C'est une réponse physiologique normale, et il est vain de chercher à l'éviter. Il serait même possiblement dangereux de le faire.

Le poids et l'adiposité, évidemment, ont tendance à revenir à leur point initial, voire en-haut de ce dernier.

Ainsi, la plupart des gens se soumettant à des régimes, contribuent à s'engraisser et à empirer leur santé à la longue!


Leningrad Hypertension Epidemic

One thing I’ve been keen on since the beginning of my “investigation” is the equal and opposite reaction of the human body to the things you force upon it.

There is no end to the repetitive advice to eat less and exercise more to achieve any number of health benefits. When people with health problems increase their exercise level and decrease their food intake, a number of positives immediately jump into the spotlight…

1) They lose weight! Shazam!

2) Their insulin levels plummet! Ka-Pow!

3) Triglycerides fall off a cliff! Woo-sha! (this exclamation will be familiar to anyone that’s ever been forced to watch the “Verbal Judo” training video)

4) Blood sugar drops (a little bit)! Zowie!

5) And, the subject of today’s jibba-jabba, is that blood pressure drops! Boo-yah!

Of course, things are never quite that simple. If it were, we all could’ve exercised and starved ourselves to good health. But when humans pursue such endeavors, and go to battle with their appetites, the body makes some adjustments to steer you back from whence you came.

There’s no better example of this than Ancel Keys’s marvelous 1385-page opus The Biology of Human Starvation. In a prior post, I revealed some nice graphs showing that body fat decreased, and then increased well above starting levels prior to the 24-week low-calorie period (about 1,700 calories per day).

There’s not much use in lowering your body fat levels by reducing your calorie intake if doing so makes you want to increase your calorie intake while slowing down your metabolism. In fact, the men actually INCREASED their body fat levels by 40% by switching from a low-calorie diet to resuming eating to appetite before slowly losing most of it within the next year. This fat was primarily abdominal fat as well, the type of fat associated with metabolic syndrome.

Overweight people have a similar reaction as well, losing weight with calorie restriction and then, in over 95% of clinically-studied cases, gaining it all back and “bringing some friends along with it.”

Keys discussed blood sugar curves as well, noting that they typically fell during fasting or semi-starvation before spiking to levels higher than they were at the start afterward.

Finally, to add another component to metabolic syndrome’s relation to the aftermath of calorie restriction – Keys discusses this same pattern with blood pressure. When you consume fewer calories, blood pressure falls like there’s no tomorrow. In fact, when
I underwent semi-voluntary semi-starvation, my hypotension was so severe that I nearly fainted every time I stood up – a symptom reported amongst all 32 of Keys’s semi-starvation subjects.

But, this blood pressure-lowering effect doesn’t last. In fact, Keys points out some interesting data from the famine in Leningrad when the Nazis blockaded the city and cut off food supplies.

Prior to the famine, hypertension was somewhat common – something like 10% of doctor’s patients. During the famine, that level dropped to just 2%. Oh Jolly Triumphant! Cure hypertension – eat a few bites of stale bread and a slice of the dead guy you went to high school with (you never really liked him much anyway), just keep those calories low!

Fascinatingly, but not surprisingly, Keys reports:

“The substantial improvement of the diet in 1943 was paralleled by an epidemic incidence of hypertension.”


“Before the war patients with hypertension accounted for about 10 per cent of all admissions to the Therapeutic Clinic of the Pavlov First Medical Institute. This proportion dropped during the period of semi-starvation and increased progressively thereafter through 1943. In January 1943 patients with hypertension constituted 20 per cent of the admissions, and by June of that year the figure had risen to 60 per cent.”


“Obviously, many factors may have been involved in this epidemic of hypertension in Leningrad, but the outstanding peculiarity of the period was severe semi-starvation for 6 months, followed by refeeding, with the necessity for hard work at all times.”

Those repeating the mantra to eat less and exercise more to cure all that might possibly ail you - hypertension, insulin levels, blood sugar, triglycerides, body fat – yep, ALL the facets of metabolic syndrome, mean well. They do. And data supports that you will in fact improve all of those risk factors for health problems if you do exercise more and eat less.

But this advice remains ignorant of the body’s response to such strategies. It’s like stretching a rubber band and then letting go. And since you don’t just break even in your attempt, but usually make all of your indicators worse given sufficient time, that brisk snap of the rubber band is basically an unabated shot to the groin at point blank range. The consequences are identical to the aftermath of my 2-week vegan diet discussed
HERE (updated).

If your body is hungry and tired as hell, it is not making a mistake that you should attempt to correct. It is not wrong and in need of your supreme cognitive reason to step in and show it how to keep itself healthy. If you go to war against yourself – a battle of mind vs. body, let me know so I can go all in on “body.”

Eat better, not less – even if, in the short term, it makes your body fat increase, your triglycerides increase, your blood sugar increase, your insulin increase, and your blood pressure increase. In the vast majority of cases, this is just as temporary as the positive results you might’ve seen doing Jenny C.

And you don’t want LOW blood pressure any more than you want to have hypertension. I’d actually like to see my blood pressure (104/62) come up considerably, and expect it to do so when I begin on the milk diet in a week – as this was consistently reported by milk diet authors to take place in anyone with blood pressure below 120/80 (while ALWAYS returning hypertensives back to normal as well).

La citation du jour (2)

Ces Etats Providence, par leur coût financier et la déresponsabilisation éthique qu’ils légitiment, ont asphyxié la croissance économique en Europe : nous sommes le continent du déclin, mais du déclin solidaire.

-Guy Sorman

L'empreinte carbone de Al Gore

Le blogue de Lew Rockwell m'apprend que Al Gore, grand pontife du mouvement réchauffiste, vient de s'acheter une somptueuse villa avec vue sur l'océan sur un terrain de 1,5 acres, comprenant piscine, spa, fontaines, 6 foyers, et 9 salles de bain!

Visiblement, son empreinte de carbone ne le préoccupe pas outremesure, pas plus que le supposé danger d'élévation du niveau des mers (un cheval de bataille du mouvement réchauffiste).


Algore Buys Mansion by the Sea

Writes Heidi:

I guess Al Gore isn’t too worried about his “carbon footprint” or rising sea levels owing to global warming:

ocean-view villa on 1.5 acres with a swimming pool, spa and fountains… six fireplaces, five bedrooms, and nine bathrooms.



La citation du jour

A careful examination of the policies pursued by the Obama administration and his allies in Congress shows that their agenda is corporatist. For example, the health care bill that recently passed does not establish a Canadian-style government-run single-payer health care system. Instead, it relies on mandates forcing every American to purchase private health insurance or pay a fine. It also includes subsidies for low-income Americans and government-run health care “exchanges.” Contrary to the claims of the proponents of the health care bill, large insurance and pharmaceutical companies were enthusiastic supporters of many provisions of this legislation because they knew in the end their bottom lines would be enriched by Obamacare.

-Ron Paul

mercredi 28 avril 2010

La citation du jour

Every socialist and fascist regime in history has put up walls to prevent flight by people and capital. This is why people and capital are starting to fly out of the US now, while they still can.

-Lew Rockwell

mardi 27 avril 2010

La citation du jour

The promise of hope and change electrifies young student activists. The Bolshevik rebellion in Russia in 1917 certainly did. That is, it did until it morphed into unrecognizable nightmares of state control, censorship, and cruelty.

-Floy Lilley

GM 'rembourse' le gouvernement Américain?

Karen de Coster explique pourquoi les publicités dans lesquelles GM annonce avoir remboursé les fonds d'aide du gouvernement Américain constituent une simple fraude comptable.

En effet, il semble que non seulement GM a utilisé des fonds gouvernementaux pour rembourser le gouvernement (!!), mais qu'en plus le montant en question est d'environ 6G$ sur une aide totale de 50G$...


Government Motors is using government money to pay back government money to get more government money

My hometown is electrified about the great news: GM is paying back its loans. A cartoon from the Detroit Free Press on the “seven dirty words”:

I can think of two really dirty words that would please even Joe Wilson: “You Lie!” When I heard the payoff figure of $6B on the news, my eyebrows did an about-face on my forehead. GM CEO Ed Whitacre threw a party for the press, stating that GM paid off the government loans “in full, with interest, years ahead of schedule.” Here’s the propaganda piece (commercial) from Mr. Ed for the Big Lie.

Newsbusters has a nice story on this that links to a Forbes story on this house of lies. GM received $50B in bailout funds while only $6.7B of that amount was deemed a loan (at 7% interest). As most folks know, most of the bailout money was given to GM, by the US and Canadian governments, in return for a large stake in the company. As to how the loan is being paid back, as Shikha Dalmia of Forbes explains:

As it turns out, the Obama administration put $13.4 billion of the aid money as “working capital” in an escrow account when the company was in bankruptcy. The company is using this escrow money–government money–to pay back the government loan.

Additionally, as Dalmia goes on to say,

Sean McAlinden, chief economist at the Ann Arbor-based Center for Automotive Research, points out that the company has applied to the Department of Energy for $10 billion in low (5%) interest loan to retool its plants to meet the government’s tougher new CAFÉ (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards. However, giving GM more taxpayer money on top of the existing bailout would have been a political disaster for the Obama administration and a PR debacle for the company. Paying back the small bailout loan makes the new–and bigger–DOE loan much more feasible.

The gist of this is – if you didn’t catch it – that General Motors will get a DOE loan at 5% to pay off its 7% loans, so essentially it is a refinance of debt, at a lower rate, with the Government playing banker with your money. Even the awful, pro-bailout Charles Grassley referred to this as the TARP Shuffle. In a letter from Grassley to Timmy Geithner, he stated:

On Tuesday of this week, Mr. Neil Barofsky, the Special Inspector General for TARP, testified before the Senate Finance Committee. During his testimony Mr. Barofsky addressed GM’s recent debt repayment activity, and stated that the funds GM is using to repay its TARP debt are not coming from GM earnings. Instead, GM seems to be using TARP funds from an escrow account at Treasury to make the debt repayments. The most recent quarterly report from the Office of the Special Inspector General for TARP says “The source of funds for these quarterly [debt] payments will be other TARP funds currently held in an escrow account.” See, Office of the Special Inspector General for TARP, Quarterly Report to Congress dated April 20, 2010, page 115.

Furthermore, Exhibit 99.1 of the Form 8K filed by GM with the SEC on November 16, 2009, seems to confirm that the source of funds for GM’s debt repayments was a multi-billion dollar escrow account at Treasury—not from earnings.

Yet so many people, including those in the media, are swept off their feet by the lies. A really, really, really bad article on cars.com has the nerve to make this Mickey Mouse statement:

Essentially, GM no longer needs emergency government aid to stay afloat. While the taxpayer still has a sizable investment wrapped up in the automaker, GM has returned to decent health for the time being.




dimanche 25 avril 2010

La citation du jour

Imaginez si, au lieu de se démener pour obtenir plus d’argent du reste du Canada, on se donnait un objectif plus constructif : devenir suffisamment riches pour ne plus recevoir de paiements de péréquation. Est-ce qu’on ne serait pas plus fiers d’être Québécois dans une telle situation ?

-Maxime Bernier

L'État répète sans cesse les erreurs du passé

Via le Blogue de LewRockwell:

What Do the Montgomery Bus Boycotts and Trash Collection in San Francisco Have in Common?


by

“Dr. King did not make the boycott, the boycott made Dr. King.”

~ Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement

The lessons of the past keep being repeated, over and over and over, and…

Blogger Mike “Mish” Shedlock posted a fascinating story on his website regarding a situation in San Francisco. In “Trash Collecting Entrepreneur Squashed In San Francisco” he cites one of his respondents, known simply as Michael, who relates a story about trash collection. One of the customers of the local trash collection service—a contractor referred to as Joe—got fed up with paying $37 per trash can, per week, for garbage removal. He and his neighbor began to take their own trash for disposal at a local dump, using “Joe’s” truck. Shortly, other neighbors joined their informal garbage disposal network, opting to pay the contractor $10 a week for more service than they were getting from the city union. Soon, after their little business had begun to unexpectedly take off, their competitors decided to call in the big guns.

When the local garbage company and its union found out about “Joe” they complained to the city. Within a year a law was passed stating that garbage service was now mandatory for all residents at the price the city’s monopoly charged, which was shortly raised. And “Joe”? For a while he still took our recyclables until he was fined $4000, even though he had our permission.

None of this is really that surprising. The State often passes laws to prevent competition. For example, Lysander Spooner’s attempts to compete with the post officeled to the passing of laws specifically designed to prevent competition in delivery of first class mail. Recalling my Southern pig farming roots, I’d offer this metaphor. When a hog is sucking the teat, he tends to fight to keep his place in line. He cares not about his siblings and their hunger. Nor does he care that he is full. He cares about one thing: maintaining vapor lock on that teat. With apologies to any unionist garbage men in our studio audience, the garbage collection unions employed by the city of San Francisco are comparable to government teat suckers, so their reaction to some random guy actually providing service and “stealing” their business is no surprise. What I find ironic is this. Not only does this situation in San Francisco compare to Spooner’s mail delivery business, it also reflects the scenario during the Montgomery Bus Boycotts.

Consider: When the Montgomery Bus Boycotts began, black people immediately tried to find alternative means of transportation. This was a classic market response. Some of the local taxis, specifically the ones driven by other black people, began to offer reduced-price rides. They charged a fare equal to the cost of a bus ride. How did the City of Montgomery respond? The city began to fine taxis for charging reduced fares. They made it against the law to charge whatever you wanted for the service you sold to customers who voluntarily sought you out. (Sound familiar?) Not to be outdone (and using techniques from similar boycotts in other places), the black citizens organized extensive carpool options. These were people attempting to use their own resources—pieces of private property known as automobiles—to provide a voluntary service for people who needed rides. How did the City of Montgomery respond? The city forced insurance carriers to drop coverage for any such car. Note that this was a struggle between citizens of Montgomery who happened to be black and the City of Montgomery—an arm of the government.

Any competent student of U.S. history knows how all this played out. The boycott lasted for a very long time, much longer than comparable ones in other cities. The federal government eventually rode to the rescue, passing legislation that required the bus company to treat all passengers equally. What is generally not known is this. The bus company, losing money hand over fist early in the boycott, was actually considering a way to acquiesce to the citizens’ demands early in the boycott, since a large percentage of the bus company’s ridership was black people. (They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. I say the way to a racist’s heart is through his wallet.) Furthermore, the business community of Montgomery, also feeling the burn of less black spending, formed a group called the Men of Montgomery with the express purpose of finding a way to end the boycott. One could argue that it was only because the city blocked alternative travel options and outside financiers “spotted” the bus company money that the whole thing wasn’t over in a few weeks.

One arm of the State ostensibly stopping another arm of the State from infringing on black folks is an example of the irony of coercion. One would be wise to learn from the words of Laurence J. Peter, “A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.” The initial statist actions—of the City of Montgomery—had the effect of forcing those who did not want to pay for poor service to walk, and for much longer than the market would have otherwise allowed. The secondary statist actions—the laws passed to supposedly protect black bus riders in Montgomery—gave those against whom the law was enforced an excuse to remain upset for years to come. Would the owners and operators of the bus company have eventually given in, faced with bankruptcy? We’ll never know, but I bet it’s a lot harder to be mad at a paying customer who is not the beneficiary of statist action. (As an aside, Rosa Parks was not the first black person to refuse to move from her seat, but that’s probably another essay.) Certainly one has to admire the tenacity of those who risked so much for a privilege for which they should not have even had to ask. The courage of those on the front lines in Montgomery cannot be overstated! Still, it would have been nice to see if Montgomery would have become the epicenter of a black-owned bus and taxi company movement.

Either way, we’ll never know. The rest is history, and it keeps repeating itself.

vendredi 23 avril 2010

Les chiens de garde de la SEC: compte-rendu de leur emploi du temps pendant la crise

Mike Shedlock dresse un tableau dévastateur du bilan de la SEC (Securities Exchange Commission, l'équivalent de l'Autorité des marchés financiers Américaine) pendant la période de la crise financière entre 2008 et 2009.

Via le blogue de Mike Shedlock:

SEC staff watched porn as economy crashed; Senate panel: Ratings agencies rolled over for Wall Street; SEC Ignored Stanford Ponzi Scheme For 12 Years

What was the SEC doing when Bernie Madoff was stealing billions and the economy crashed? Here are a few reports.

SEC staffers watched porn as economy crashed

CNN is reporting
SEC staffers watched porn as economy crashed
"During the past five years, the SEC OIG (Office of Inspector General) substantiated that 33 SEC employees and or contractors violated Commission rules and policies, as well as the government-wide Standards of Ethical Conduct, by viewing pornographic, sexually explicit or sexually suggestive images using government computer resources and official time," said a summary of the investigation by the inspector general's office.

More than half of the workers made between $99,000 and $223,000. All the cases took place over the past five years.

A regional office staff accountant tried to access pornographic websites nearly 1,800 times, using her SEC laptop during a two-week period. She also had about 600 pornographic images saved on her laptop hard drive.

Separately, a senior attorney at SEC headquarters admitted to downloading pornography up to eight hours a day, according to the investigation.

"In fact, this attorney downloaded so much pornography to his government computer that he exhausted the available space on the computer hard drive and downloaded pornography to CDs or DVDs that he accumulated in boxes in his office," the inspector general's report said.
SEC Knew About and Ignored Stanford Ponzi Scheme

Please consider
IG report: SEC knew of Stanford scheme since 1997.
The Securities and Exchange Commission knew since 1997 that R. Allen Stanford likely was operating a Ponzi scheme but waited 12 years to bring fraud charges against the billionaire, the agency inspector general said Friday.

An SEC enforcement official who helped quash investigations of Stanford's business later legally represented him, according to a new report by the agency watchdog.

The SEC didn't bring charges against Stanford until February 2009, when it alleged a $7 billion fraud. SEC Inspector General David Kotz said in the report that "institutional influence" in the enforcement division was a factor in the agency's repeated decisions not to conduct a full investigation.

The IG's office did find evidence, however, that "institutional influence" within the enforcement division contributed to the repeated decisions not to conduct a thorough investigation of Stanford, the report says. Senior agency officials in the Fort Worth office believed they were being judged on the number of cases they brought, and told their enforcement staff that novel or complex cases — as opposed to "quick-hit" cases — were discouraged, the IG's inquiry found.

The findings were the latest in a string of black eyes for the SEC, following a series of reports issued by Kotz's office last year that chronicled in detail how the agency bungled five investigations of financier Bernard Madoff's business between June 1992 and December 2008. Madoff's multibillion-dollar fraud, which could be the biggest Ponzi scheme in history, destroyed thousands of people's life savings, wrecked charities and jolted investor confidence during the worst days of the financial crisis.

The SEC's civil fraud charges filed last year against Stanford accused the brash billionaire, a larger-than-life figure in the Caribbean, of luring investors with promises of improbable high returns on the CDs and other investments.

Last June, Stanford was indicted and jailed on Justice Department charges that his international banking empire was really a pyramid scheme built on lies, bluster and bribery. Stanford is disputing the charges, which in the criminal case could send him to prison for up to 250 years if convicted.

The new IG report was in sharp contrast to one issued on Kotz last July, which found that the SEC had fulfilled its duty to pursue alleged wrongdoing by Stanford. The SEC's decision to halt its investigation of Stanford in April 2008 came in response to a request by the
Justice Department, and the agency didn't breach its obligation, the earlier report found.
Ratings agencies rolled over for Wall Street

Inquiring minds are reading
Senate panel: Ratings agencies rolled over for Wall Street

A Senate panel investigating the causes of the nation's financial crisis on Thursday unveiled evidence that credit-ratings agencies knowingly gave inflated ratings to complex deals backed by shaky U.S. mortgages in exchange for lucrative fees.

The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations will hold a detailed hearing on Friday, where its chairman, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., will introduce e-mail records in which executives from Standard & Poor's and Moody's Investors Service acknowledge compromising the integrity of ratings to win business from big Wall Street firms.

"They did it for the big fees they got," Levin told reporters on Thursday after outlining the broad strokes of what he'd pursue Friday when he puts current and former ratings agency officials on the hot seat.

The documents to be released Friday confirm what a McClatchy investigation revealed in October _ that pressure from top ratings-agency executives to retain market share and the fees that it brought meant that ratings on complex deals were malleable. Some fees were as high as $1.4 million.
See the link for a couple of videos

Who Anointed Moody's, Fitch, and the S&P?

The answer is the SEC. I have been harping about this since 2007!

Please consider
Time To Break Up The Credit Rating Cartel
The rating agencies were originally research firms. They were paid by those looking to buy bonds or make loans to a company. If a rating company did poorly it lost business. If it did poorly too often it went out of business.

Low and behold the SEC came along in 1975 and ruined a perfectly viable business construct by mandating that debt be rated by a Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organization (NRSRO). It originally named seven such rating companies but the number fluctuated between 5 and 7 over the years.

Establishment of the NRSRO did three things (all bad):

1) It made it extremely difficult to become "nationally recognized" as a rating agency when all debt had to be rated by someone who was already nationally recognized.
2) In effect it created a nice monopoly for those in the designated group.
3) It turned upside down the model of who had to pay. Previously debt buyers would go to the ratings companies to know what they were buying. The new model was issuers of debt had to pay to get it rated or they couldn't sell it. Of course this led to shopping around to see who would give the debt the highest rating.

With that I have to sit back and laugh at one of the original opening statements in this article: "I do not think that the market can discipline ratings agencies sufficiently," said Mr Mindich, chief executive of Eton Park Capital and a former colleague of Hank Paulson, the Treasury secretary, at Goldman Sachs, the investment bank.

Clearly Mr. Mindich does not understand the free market. The problems arose because the free market was disrupted by a misguided mandate by the SEC.
The Solution is Amazingly Easy

Government sponsorship of organizations and intervention into free markets always creates these kinds of problems. The cure is not an executive shuffle, third party verification or half-measures and more regulation that mask over the issues by splitting functions within an organization. The SEC created this problem by creating the
NRSRO. The problem is easily fixable.

It's time to break up the cartel by eliminating the rules that created it. Moody's, Fitch, and the S&P should have to sink or swim by the accuracy of their ratings just like everyone else. Ratings would be a lot better if corporations had to live or die by them. Free market competition, not additional regulation is the cure.

The SEC is attempting to improve its piss poor image by cracking down on Goldman Sachs. It has a reason (many of them as detailed above) for that piss poor image. The SEC and regulators in general have a lot to do if they hope to regain confidence. Goldman is just a start. Where are the charges against Fuld, Hank Paulson, Geithner, and the New York Fed?

Mike "Mish" Shedlock

jeudi 22 avril 2010

US: les syndicats veulent plus d'argent, le public (les supposés patrons des employés 'publics') ne veut pas.

Via le blogue de Mike Shedlock:

15,000 Illinois Protesters Chant "Raise My Taxes"; Unions Getting More Aggressive and Obnoxious; Record Turnout in N.J. Tells Unions to Go to Hell

In Illinois, union protesters staged a huge rally in Springfield, demanding higher taxes for their self-serving agenda. Please consider Thousands of protesters at Illinois Capitol to press for tax increase.
Thousands of protesters bused down by labor unions and social service advocates rallied at the Capitol today in an attempt to pressure state lawmakers into raising the income tax to avoid more budget cuts.

A spokesman for Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White estimated the rally crowd at 15,000, with more than 12,000 marching around the building. That would appear to make it the largest Capitol protest since the Equal Rights Amendment crowds a quarter-century ago.

Bus after bus pulled up on streets surrounding the Capitol complex and dumped sign-waving protesters clad in purple, green, red and blue shirts that represented a show of strength from a variety of public employee unions and dozens of groups that formed what they named the “Responsible Budget Coalition.”

"Raise my taxes! Raise my taxes! Raise my taxes!" they chanted, lined up shoulder to shoulder for a few hundred yards stretching a street in front of the Capitol.
Springfield Pro-Tax Rally



Save our Schools is a farce. Save our Salaries is what the protest is all about.

The union does not give a damn about the kids.

Click here for a series of
15 Tribune Images of the Pro-Tax Rally.

SEUI Union Thugs

Popout

Unions Getting More Aggressive and Obnoxious

To appreciate just how obnoxious union thugs are in Illinois, please play the above video. I had to play it a few times to make out the key chant from a woman on a megaphone. Here it is.

What do we want?
More money.
What do we want?
We want more money.
When do we want it?
Now?
When do we want it?
Now?

The Ace of Spades blog commented on the rally in
"Raise My Taxes! Raise My Taxes! Raise My Taxes!"
So chanted thousands of bused-in ACFSME union "grassroots" agitators to Illinois state congressmen, urging them to "raise [our] taxes!" so that their salaries and benefits wouldn't be cut.

The rest of the public is finally starting to notice that, and that the public -- 20% of whom are out of a job or working part-time when they want a full-time job -- is basically paying their employees more than they themselves receive in salary, and with far better benefits and job-security, too.

People are finally starting to understand that they are, ultimately, the boss, and all these 4%-per-year raises and ridiculously huge pension plans are coming out of their own hide.

I don't think the unions understand this. They are getting more aggressive and obnoxious about their undeservedly high salaries and pension plans rather than being conciliatory about it. They are continuing to demand salaries and benefits that most of the rest of the country could only dram of without even offering even the slightest apologies to the strapped taxpayers whose incomes they are reducing in order to increase their own.

I don't think that's going to play well in 2012. I don't think these guys are understanding that things have changed, and that the public is no longer willing to uncritically bless 4%-a-year-regular-as-clockwork raises when their salaries have been more or less flat for a good long time.
Huge Anti-Union Backlash Starting

If unions think these outrageous tactics are going to bring them sympathy from the public, they are sadly mistaken.

Thus, as disgusting as those rallies are, I am grateful for them. Anyone in the private sector out of a job, or with a 401-K chopped to bits, or anyone who has had to take a huge cut in pay is going to be disturbed and angered by those union images and videos.

The Ace of Spades said "I don't think that's going to play well in 2012".

Forget about 2012, I don't think it will play now. In fact, I know it does not play now.

NJ voters in 'no' mood for school tax hikes

Once again, New Jersey and Governor Chris Christie are leading the way. Moreover record numbers of voters are fed up and agree with the governor.

Please consider
NJ voters in 'no' mood for school tax hikes.
With record-breaking turnouts for a school board election, tax levy proposals in Monmouth and Ocean counties mostly went down in flames on Tuesday, as a backlash against school spending won the day.

Less than 30 percent of the Monmouth districts saw their budget questions approved, according to unofficial results, the lowest in at least a decade. In Ocean County, the passage rate was 39 percent, with 11 budgets approved and 17 defeated.

The voter turnout in each county was approximately 24 percent of registered voters. For comparison, the statewide turnout in the school vote was 13.4 percent a year ago. No statewide turnout has topped 18.6 percent in the 27 years of records compiled by the New Jersey School Boards Association.

The march to the polls came in the wake of a contentious dialogue between Gov. Chris Christie and the leaders of the state's teachers union, which fought Christie after he rolled out a proposal to cut $820 million from local education. The cuts left school districts juggling the options of layoffs, tax increases or program cuts.

Residents finally got their chance to weigh in. They mostly said they wanted no part of tax increases. For the defeated budgets, more cuts of programs or personnel, or both, may be required, with rejected spending plans being sent to a town's governing body for review and possible changes.

With record-breaking turnouts for a school board election, tax levy proposals in Monmouth and Ocean counties mostly went down in flames on Tuesday, as a backlash against school spending won the day.

View the school budget election results for Monmouth, Ocean counties

Also at stake Tuesday were seats on local school boards, with Brick voters allowing Warren H. Wolf, 82, to return to the spotlight as he won a three-year term.

Wolf is a retired township deputy schools superintendent. He was also a longtime football coach in the district who retired, only to end his retirement in January when he was named the football coach at Lakewood High School. Wolf has also served in Brick as mayor and township councilman and has been an Ocean County freeholder and state assemblyman.

The march to the polls came in the wake of a contentious dialogue between Gov. Chris Christie and the leaders of the state's teachers union, which fought Christie after he rolled out a proposal to cut $820 million from local education. The cuts left school districts juggling the options of layoffs, tax increases or program cuts.

A two-decade high of Neptune Township voters for a school election, 19 percent, voted on the school system's $33.96 million levy. They defeated it.

"It's the highest turnout I've seen since I've been here and I've been here for 20
years," Municipal Clerk Richard J. Cuttrell said.

A $44.7 million tax levy for the Matawan-Aberdeen Regional Board of Education was defeated 2,189 to 1,645. Matawan resident John Lupi, 74, said he voted against the levy because "there's already too much waste and I think the teachers union (New Jersey Education Association) is nothing but a propaganda machine.
Once I saw the NJEA putting ads on television, I said enough is enough. Those ads are paid by dues that come from tax money."
It's good to see record turnout in New Jersey. It's even better that the public is finally sick of being taxed to death for the benefit of ungracious, overpaid, public union members.

The message from New Jersey voters to the public unions is "Go To Hell". It is a fitting and well deserved message. Politicians in the rest of the country better be listening.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock

mercredi 21 avril 2010

George Carlin et le jour de la terre

Un classique en cette journée de la terre:

Les braillards réclament plus de paternalisme totalitaire en Indonésie

Quel article déprimant...d'un côté, il est rafraîchissant de voir un pays ou les compagnies de tabac sont encore libres d'annoncer leurs produits créativement, de l'autre, on entend les échos du mouvement politiquement correct Occidental qui sévit depuis plus de 30 ans...

Notez cette statistique, se voulant épeurante, mais que je trouve en fait très rassurante sur l'innocuité des produits du tabac:

As smoking has declined in many Western countries, it has risen in Indonesia - about 63 per cent of all men light up and one-third of the overall population smokes, an increase of 26 per cent since 1995. Smoking-related illnesses kill at least 200,000 annually in a nation of 235 million.

Donc, selon ce calcul, l'Indonésie compte (0,33*235 millions) 77,55 millions de fumeurs.

Le taux de mortalité chez les fumeurs est donc de (200 000 sur 77,55 millions), ou un gros 0,2% par année.

Donc, le tabac garde en vie 99,8% des fumeurs chaque année en Indonésie, selon les données fournies par cet article!

Les statistiques de mortalité chez les non-fumeurs ne sont pas fournies dans l'article, mais j'ai l'impression que la différence entre la mortalité chez les fumeurs et non fumeurs est assez triviale!

Par contre, pour les totalitaires de l'état-nounou, l'important n'est pas vraiment la santé du public, mais plutôt l'imposition d'un mode de vie que ces derniers approuvent.

PS. J'encourage Kelly Clarkson à ne pas céder aux pressions des Nazis de la santé et à faire son concert...


Kelly Clarkson sparks smoking debate as tobacco company sponsors Indonesian concert


Tue Apr 20, 3:58 PM

By Margie Mason, The Associated Press

BOGOR, Indonesia - Just a few miles after passing a towering Marlboro Man ad, a second billboard off the highway promotes cigarettes with a new American face: Kelly Clarkson.

The former "American Idol" winner invites fans to buy tickets to her upcoming concert in Jakarta, the nation's capital. The logo of her sponsor is splashed in huge type above her head - the popular Indonesian cigarette brand L.A. Lights. Similar ads also run on TV.

Such in-your-face tobacco advertising has been banned for years in the U.S. and many other countries. But in Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous nation, tobacco companies have virtual free rein to peddle their products, from movies to sports sponsorships and television shows. The country remains one of the last holdouts that has not signed the World Health Organization's tobacco treaty.

As smoking has declined in many Western countries, it has risen in Indonesia - about 63 per cent of all men light up and one-third of the overall population smokes, an increase of 26 per cent since 1995. Smoking-related illnesses kill at least 200,000 annually in a nation of 235 million.

"Indonesia is a big concern, a big epidemic, a big population, and very little control," said Dr. Prabhat Jha, a tobacco control expert at the University of Toronto's Center for Global Health Research. "They have a chaotic taxation and regulatory structure. They have made the mistake of letting the Marlboro Man into the country."

In recent months, anti-tobacco forces have rallied. A new health law has declared smoking addictive and urged the government to hammer out tobacco regulations. An anti-smoking coalition is pushing for tighter restrictions on smoking in public places, advertising bans and bigger health warnings on cigarette packages.

Public debate also exploded last month after Indonesia's second-largest Islamic organization, Muhammadiyah, issued a fatwa banning smoking. Though not legally binding, the religious ruling does put pressure on smokers in the world's most populous Muslim nation.

Anti-smoking advocates now hope Clarkson will drop the sponsorship of Indonesia's third-largest tobacco company, Djarum. A growing number of voices have started pleading with the Grammy-winning pop star on her Facebook page.

Two years ago, a tobacco affiliate of U.S.-based Philip Morris International, which dominates Indonesia's tobacco market, removed its logo from ads promoting an Alicia Keys concert in Jakarta after the singer publicly denounced the sponsorship and apologized to her fans.

"If Kelly Clarkson goes ahead with the concert, she is by choice being a spokesman for the tobacco industry and helping them to market to children," said Matt Myers, president of the U.S.-based Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, which has urged Clarkson to drop the sponsorship.

"She has the power now to turn this situation around and to send a clear message to Indonesian young people and, frankly, to the young people of the world."

The Associated Press left messages and emailed representatives at Clarkson's management company, Starstruck Entertainment in Nashville, as well as representatives at her record label, RCA Records in New York. Neither responded to repeated requests for comment.

About a quarter of Indonesian boys aged 13 to 15 are already hooked on cigarettes that sell for about $1 a pack or as little as a few cents apiece, according to WHO. A video on YouTube last month prompted outrage when a 4-year-old Indonesian boy was shown blowing smoke rings and flicking a cigarette. His parents say he's been smoking up to a pack a day since he was 2.

L.A. Lights company Djarum declined to comment on its sponsorship of the April 29 Clarkson concert, or on accusations that it markets cigarettes to young people. But the company's international brand manager, Roland Halim, said it abides by government restrictions on tobacco advertising.

Philip Morris affiliate HM Sampoerna said in a statement it has urged the government to adopt tougher regulations on cigarette sales and ads, including age limits on buying tobacco, billboard restrictions and the phasing out of television commercials.

"We recognize that our products, like all tobacco products, cause disease and are addictive," it said. "Our advertising is intended solely for adult smokers. We sponsor events in compliance with Indonesian law. We do not advertise to minors."

Smoking is embedded in Indonesia's culture. Wafts of a pungent mixture of tobacco and cloves, called kreteks, can be smelled in houses rich and poor across the vast archipelago.

According to a 2008 study on tobacco revenue in Indonesia, smokers spend more than 10 per cent of their household income on cigarettes; that's three times more than they spend on education-related expenses such as school fees and books.

Indonesia remains one of the last places in the world where cigarette TV commercials still run, featuring rugged men and beautiful women smoking. Billboards plastered above four-lane highways encourage motorists stuck in Jakarta's notorious traffic jams to "Go Ahead" or "Become a Man" or let Marlboro Lights "Style Your Party."

Leggy women in short skirts and strappy heels promote cigarettes at events, sometimes even giving out discounted or free samples to "taste."

Indonesia's tobacco industry employs millions in the world's fifth-largest cigarette-producing market. About 6 per cent of the government's revenue comes from cigarette taxes, and a powerful tobacco lobby has blocked past regulation attempts, including a move to ban TV ads.

Indonesian cigarettes are cheap by regional standards, with taxes less than 40 per cent. Tobacco farmers have held massive street protests to denounce any push for higher taxes or tighter restrictions.

"Kretek cigarettes are Indonesia's heritage just like cigars in Cuba," " said Nurtantio Wisnu Brata, chair of the Central Java chapter of the Indonesian Tobacco Farmers Association.

Any move to limit tobacco promotion and use in the country will require strong political will. But critics point out that even Indonesia's smoke-happy neighbours China and Vietnam have signed the WHO's tobacco treaty and imposed stronger controls.

"The level of advertising in Indonesia is unmatched anywhere else in Asia," said Mary Assunta, senior policy adviser for the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance. "The Marlboro Man has ridden into the sunset in many countries, but not in Indonesia."

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Associated Press writer Irwan Firdaus in Jakarta contributed to this report