La citation du jour

Politicians are men who, at some time or other, have compromised with their honour, either by swallowing their convictions or by whooping for what they believe to be untrue.

-HL Mencken

La sagesse de nos économistes Keynésiens

"[t]o fight this recession, the Fed needs more than a snapback; it needs soaring household spending to offset moribund business investment. And to do that, as Paul McCulley of Pimco put it, Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble."

-Paul Krugman, Nobel d'Économie et chroniqueur du NY Times, août 2002

L'huile de noix de coco protège le foie du dommage causé par l'alcool

Une étude récente vient de répéter les résultats d'études précédentes (répertoriées dans un des tous premiers messages de ce blogue): l'huile de coco, et les gras saturés en général, protègent le foie des dommages causés par l'alcool, alors que les gras polyinsaturés amplifient ce dommage.

Via Daily Lipid:

THURSDAY, JUNE 3, 2010

Coconut Not Only Protects Your Liver From Alcohol -- But From a Diet Deficient in Meat and Eggs Too!

As I pointed out in a previous blog, saturated fats like palm oil, beef tallow, cocoa butter, and MCT oil (a derivative of coconut oil) protect against alcohol-induced fatty liver disease in animals, whereas polyunsaturated oils like corn oil and fish oil promote it. In fact, animals can consume nearly 30 percent of their calories as alcohol without developing liver damage if they consume 40% of their calories as cocoa butter, whereas they develop massive liver damage if they consume 40% of their calories as corn oil.

In the same blog, I pointed out that high-fat feeding alone can induce fatty liver disease when the fat is provided as corn oil, but not when the fat is butter or coconut oil.

You can read that blog here:

Maternal Intake of "Saturated Fat" Causes Liver Disease -- You Know, the Unsaturated Kind of Saturated Fat

A brand new study published several days go in the journal BMC Gastroenterology showed that a diet rich in coconut oil dramatically protected mice against fatty liver disease induced by a methionine and choline-deficient diet when compared to corn oil.

Methionine is an amino acid found in all foods but found particularly abundantly in meat. Choline, likewise, is ubiquitous, but is found primarily in liver and eggs. Deficiencies of these two nutrients in and of themselves are sufficient to cause fatty liver disease in animals.

When compared to the mice fed corn oil, however, the mice fed coconut oil had half the fatty infiltration of their livers, half the inflammation, and more than four times fewer dead liver cells.

Of course, even the mice fed coconut oil still had some damage to their livers from the deficiencies of methionine and choline. So we should be sure not only to avoid corn oil like the plague and incorporate coconut oil into our diet, but should make sure we eat our meat, eggs, and liver too.

David Descoteaux sur Keynes

Via le Blogue de David Descoteaux:

Keynes est mort, enterrons-le!

by David Descôteaux

(Publiée dans le journal Métro)

Keynes qui? Peu importe. Ce que vous devez savoir, c’est que les théories de ce défunt économiste nous entraînent tranquillement vers une dépression.

Si le gouvernement gaspille vos impôts et s’endette pour «relancer» l’économie, c’est sa faute. Sa théorie : le gouvernement doit agir comme assurance. Il accumule des surplus dans les bonnes années, et dépense quand l’économie ralentit – afin de remplacer les dépenses des consommateurs.

En théorie, ça tient. Mais dès qu’on quitte le merveilleux monde de Walt Disney, ça s’effondre.

Dans la réalité, les politiciens sont keynésiens quand ça leur plaît. Ils dépensent quand ça va mal… mais dépensent aussi quand ça va bien! Des surplus? Vous voulez rire. On s’endette année après année.

Surtout, les prescriptions de Keynes sont à l’opposé de ce dont l’économie a besoin aujourd’hui. L’économie piétine parce que les citoyens ont accumulé trop de dettes. Ils doivent dépenser moins, et épargner. Que propose Keynes? De guérir notre problème d’endettement… en dépensant encore plus!

C’est insensé. Et c’est ce qu’on fait depuis les années 1970. Nous, citoyens-consommateurs ainsi que nos gouvernements, avons épousé le crédit comme mode de vie. À chaque récession, au lieu d’être responsable, réduire nos dépenses et déchirer notre carte de crédit, nos gouvernements bienveillants nous en offre une deuxième. Et nous disent : allez magasiner!

Exemple : depuis la crise, la Banque du Canada diminue les taux d’intérêt afin de vous inciter à acheter des maisons, des télés 50 pouces et des autos, à crédit. Conséquence : le Canadien moyen traîne aujourd’hui une dette de 42 000 $. Presque trois fois sa dette en 1990.

Les gouvernements aussi creusent leurs tombes avec cette philosophie. Certains États – on le voit aujourd’hui en Europe – risquent la faillite. Puisque citoyens et banques augmentent constamment leur dette (au lieu de la réduire), chaque nouvelle récession exige des «plans de relance» plus gros pour repartir la machine. L’économie, comme accroc à l’héroïne, a besoin de toujours plus de crédit pour atteindre le même «high». Dans son livre The Great Reflation, Anthony Boeckh calcule qu’entre 2002 et 2008, il a fallu 10 billions $ de crédit (10 000 milliards) pour générer 4 billions $ de croissance économique. Nous repoussons chaque fois les limites de l’endettement. Jusqu’où pouvons-nous étirer l’élastique?

Pour rebâtir une économie solide, nous devons purger la dette du système – au lieu d’en empiler davantage et prétendre que tout va bien. Cela exigera des sacrifices, de la douleur, et une récession. Une vraie.

Le monde de Walt Disney est merveilleux. Mais plus longtemps nous y demeurons, plus violente sera la prochaine crise. Enterrons Keynes une fois pour toute. Avant qu’il nous enterre tous.

L'armée Américaine tue le numéro 3 d'Al Quaeda...pour la 3e fois!

Via le blogue de Lew Rockwell:

June 2, 2010

Al Qaeda Official Killed THREE Times?

Posted by Butler Shaffer on June 2, 2010 01:47 PM

As a follow-up to my blog of yesterday (re the U.S. government’s announced killing of alleged Al Qaeda leader Abu Mustafa al-Yazid) please note the 5/31/2010 news report, as well as the Wired.com article of 10/22/2009, wherein this apparently same man had, as of that date, already been killed twice!

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/05/31/al-qaeda-official-reportedly-killed-recently-pakistan/

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/10/al-qaeda-big-wig-killed-again/

La catastrophe du Golfe du Mexique, est-ce la faute du libre marché?

Via Antagoniste.net:

Un environnement socialiste

de David

Pour certains, la marée noire causée par BP est une preuve que le libre-marché ne fonctionne pas et, par conséquent, qu’il faut revenir au socialisme et nationaliser les pétrolières (ici & ici).

Vraiment ?

En URSS, l’exploitation des ressources pétrolières était entièrement sous contrôle étatique. Donc, selon la logique des socialistes, l’industrie pétrolière soviétique était plus propre que l’industrie pétrolière occidentale (capitaliste).

En URSS, les pipelines ont déversé en annuellement moyenne 371 tonnes métriques de pétrole par 1000 km de pipeline. Pendant ce temps dans l’occident capitaliste, les déversements se sont élevés à seulement 116 tonnes métriques par 1000 km de pipeline. De plus, les chiffres relatifs aux déversements en URSS sont probablement sous-estimés.

Voici un extrait assez révélateur de la situation en URSS tiré du rapport:

Russia Pipeline Oil Spill Study

The number of reported incidents in former Soviet Union is comparable to Western Europe. However, it is unlikely that the many incidents about which there is no information concerning pollution of soil or water were actually incidents that had no environmental effect. About 60 percent of the incident reports in the former Soviet Union provide no information about soil pollution, whereas all reports from Western Europe assess soil pollution. Even if only the 42 incidents with information about effects on the soil are used, 24 out of the 42 incidents or about 57 percent resulted in significant pollution, compared to 36 out of 122 incidents or 30 percent in Western Europe. [...]

The severity of spillage, measured by the amount of oil spilled, is higher in the former Soviet Union than in Western Europe. The reason could be poor contingency planning and delayed responses to spills when they occur; poor detection procedures; long distances between emergency shutdown valves; or the larger average diameter of pipelines in the former Soviet Union than in Western Europe. [...]

There are more mechanical failures and operational errors in former Soviet Union than in Western Europe. This could be due to the utilization of poor pipeline materials, poor construction standards, poor supervision, or lack of clarity of responsibilities in the legislative and regulatory framework. The higher number of spills in the former Soviet Union could also indicate that the Russian pipelines examined in this study are older than lines in Western Europe.

Et comme si ce n’était pas suffisant, dans la plupart des cas l’URSS ne déployait aucun effort pour nettoyer les sols contaminés.

Dans un régime socialiste, il n’y a aucun mécanisme pour inciter l’État à limiter les déversements et à nettoyer les sols lorsque ceux-ci surviennent. Si un citoyen est mécontent de la situation, il ne dispose d’aucun recours puisque l’État dispose d’un monopole.

Par contre, dans un régime capitaliste, le marché met en place de puissants incitatifs pour obliger les entreprises à adopter un comportement responsable. Il suffit de voir ce qui arrive aux actions de BP en ce moment:

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Depuis l’explosion de la plate-forme Deepwater Horizon, l’action de BP a perdu 38,6% de sa valeur, ce qui représente une perte de 75 milliards de dollars en capitalisation boursière.

Le Président Tchèque Vaclav Klaus sur l'Euro

Via le Blogue de Mike Shedlock:

Czech Republic President says 'The Euro Zone Has Failed'

by noreply@blogger.com (Michael Shedlock)

Has the Euro Zone "project" been a success or a failure? Václav Klaus, president of Czech Republic makes a solid case 'The Euro Zone Has Failed'

As a long-standing critic of the idea of a European single currency, I have not rejoiced at the current problems in the euro zone because their consequences could be serious for all of us in Europe—for members and non-members of the euro zone, for its supporters and opponents. Even the enthusiastic propagandists of the euro suddenly speak about the potential collapse of the whole project now, and it is us critics who say we have to look at it in a more structured way.

Extensive studies published prior to the launch of the European single currency promised that the euro would help to accelerate economic growth and reduce inflation and stressed, in particular, that the member states of the euro zone would be protected against all kinds of external economic disruptions (the so-called exogenous shocks).

This has not happened. Economic growth in Europe has been slowing down since the 1960s, thanks to the increasingly damaging economic and social system which started dominating Europe at that time.

The European "soziale Marktwirtschaft" is an unproductive variant of a welfare state, of state paternalism, of "leisure" society, of high taxes and low motivation to work. The existence of the euro has not reversed that trend. According to the European Central Bank, the average annual rate of growth in the euro-zone countries was 3.4% in the 1970s, 2.4% in the 1980s, 2.2% in the 1990s and only 1.1% from 2001 to 2009 (the decade of the euro). A similar slowdown has not occurred anywhere else in the world (speaking about "normal" countries, e.g. countries without wars or revolutions).

Not even the expected convergence of inflation rates has taken place. Two distinct groups have formed within the euro zone—one (including most of the countries of western and northern Europe) with a low inflation rate and one (including Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland) with a higher inflation rate. We have also seen an increase in long-term trade imbalances. There are countries where exports exceed imports and countries that lastingly import more than they export. It is no coincidence that the latter countries also have higher inflation. It has no connection with the world-wide crisis. This crisis "only" escalated and exposed longtime hidden economic problems; it did not cause them.

Even Otmar Issing, the former member of the Executive Board and chief economist of the European Central Bank, has repeatedly pointed out (most recently in a speech in Prague in December 2009) that the establishment of the euro zone was primarily a political, not an economic, decision. In such a situation, it is inevitable that the costs of establishing and maintaining it exceed its benefits.

It is evident that the euro—the European single currency—and the currently proposed measures to save the euro do not represent any "salvation" for the European economy. In the long run, it can be saved only by a radical restructuring of the European economic and social system.

The Czech Republic has not made a mistake by avoiding the membership in the euro zone. I am glad we are not the only country taking that view.

That is a lengthy snip from a lengthy, extremely well written article. Inquiring minds will give the article a closer look.

I am inclined to agree with everything Václav Klaus said. Here are the main points.

Václav Klaus: The European "soziale Marktwirtschaft" is an unproductive variant of a welfare state, of state paternalism, of "leisure" society, of high taxes and low motivation to work.

Mish: We have the same problem in the US. Unfortunately President Obama has embraced the welfare state led by his support of public unions. How dense can one be to not see that Greece has failed?

The ECB kicked the can down the road. Now it's a far bigger can. For more on this line of thinking please see France Worries About AAA Rating; UK Economists Urge Greece to Abandon Euro; Spanish Prime Minister Losing Support

President Obama seems hell bent on insuring the US becomes the next Greece. Hopefully the next Congress puts an end to it.

Václav Klaus: The establishment of the euro zone was primarily a political, not an economic, decision. In such a situation, it is inevitable that the costs of establishing and maintaining it exceed its benefits.

Mish: Actually the Euro came about as a result of a currency union, not a political union. However, the decision was certainly political in nature. Politicians are always looking for the proverbial free lunch. There is no such thing. While the politicians in every European country were in favor of it, the general population was not.

The result is a "union" of sorts that favors exporters like Germany over the importers like Greece and Spain. In the end, the whole mess will collapse. The cost of a Spanish bailout will be much greater than Greece. The real fireworks have yet to begin.

In contrast, the US has a genuine political union, but the same stupid mentality of bailing out failed banks, failed insurers, failed automotive companies, and failed pension plans.

Everything is done to protect the banks and the wealthy in the US just as it is in Europe.

Václav Klaus: The Czech Republic has not made a mistake by avoiding the membership in the euro zone.

Mish: I concur. Moreover, the UK avoided a mistake as well. Certainly the UK has massive problems. Fortunately for Britain, the Euro isn't one of them.

Václav Klaus: Europe will have to decide whether to centralize itself politically as well. Europeans don't want that because they know (or at least feel) that it would be to the detriment of liberty and prosperity. There is, however, a real danger that the politicians will do it anyway—behind the backs of those who elected them. The recent dealings in EU headquarters in Brussels—literally behind closed doors—about the aid package for Greece demonstrated that there is no democracy there. The German-French tandem made the decision on behalf of the rest of the euro-zone countries, and I am afraid this will continue.

Mish: The entire bailout scheme was meant to protect German and Especially French banks. For more details, please see Euro Bailout Plan is all about Rescuing Banks and Rich Greeks.

Václav Klaus: So much political capital had been invested in its [the Euro's] existence and in its role as a "cement" that binds the EU on its way to supra-nationality that in the foreseeable future the euro will surely not be abandoned. It will continue, but at a very high price—low economic growth. It will bring economic losses even to non-members of the euro zone, like the Czech Republic.

Mish: Agreed. The Euro itself will survive. How many countries are in the Eurozone is the question in debate. The more countries that remain in the Eurozone, the bigger the price.

Václav Klaus: It is evident that the euro—the European single currency—and the currently proposed measures to save the euro do not represent any "salvation" for the European economy. In the long run, it can be saved only by a radical restructuring of the European economic and social system.

Mish: I could not possibly agree more. Please send a message to President Obama that the US needs a radical restructuring as well. The best way is in the next election. Please throw the bums out.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock