Krugman says no inflation worries

Inflation? Pssshh. Ain't no inflation coming. So says economist Paul Krugman, writing as columnist at the New York Times in this article. Really? Yeah, all this nonsense about inflation is totally overblown. As Krugman says:

First things first. It’s important to realize that there’s no hint of inflationary pressures in the economy right now. Consumer prices are lower now than they were a year ago, and wage increases have stalled in the face of high unemployment. Deflation, not inflation, is the clear and present danger.

Well, sort of. But from the news I'm reading lately, prices are indeed moving up--some at record paces. Consider the price of crude oil, which is experiencing the largest one-month gain in the last ten years (you may have noticed when filling up last). Metals are also doing well, taking a look at industrial metals such as copper and even silver. In fact, if a person bought silver just a few months ago, they'd see an increase in dollar value of ~30%! Not bad--and certainly better than Wall Street of late.

Oh, but that's the value of things relative to the dollar. That means relative to things of intrinsic value (such as oil or copper), the dollar is falling--a sign of inflation. But Krugman just said "there’s no hint of inflationary pressures in the economy right now". Hmmm. That's odd--I wonder why an established, influential economist like Paul Krugman would say something like that in light of the evidence I just cited. Maybe he's simply overlooked some trivial details concerning the economy? Probably happens all the time. After all, economists like Paul Krugman didn't seem to notice any signs of danger with the economy just a couple of years ago, either, did they? Of course, it's easy to have perfect vision of things past.

Notice how Paul Krugman is strongly stating that there's no need to worry about inflation--everything's under control and looking quite rosy considering the circumstances. Why would he do that? Going out on a bit of a limb, isn't he? Couldn't this have some serious consequences to his credibility as an economist if he's wrong? (Didn't something like this recently happen to Jim Cramer?) I wonder if he's got a safety net of some sort--perhaps someone willing to pay for some good news from such an influential economist--maybe someone who can pluck some policy strings somewhere?

Look, I'm just in industrial designer, and certainly no economist. But some of these signs--at least in the short term--are quite telling. These are things I'd expect a real economist to at least notice, and perhaps even write about. After all, we use economists to gain a preview of the future--and often base our decisions on such prognostications.

If inflation is of no real concern in the near future, you'd do just as well to hang on to your dollars. But if inflation does become a real issue, you can do something about that by getting rid of your faith-based Federal Reserve Notes in exchange for something of true, intrinsic value--and in doing so, you remove opportunity for wealth extraction at the hands of those who control the value of the dollar (and your work).

In times of inflation, the last person you'd want to be is a Baby Boomer at or near retirement with a cash nest-egg in the market or in the bank. Your dreams of the golden years will dissolve as quickly as the numbers of dollars to buy gold rockets upward--and the true value of your golden egg declines.

So to all of you who could actually do something now to maintain the value of the career you just worked--nah, don't worry about inflation. Consider it a healthy donation to your country at the expense of your dreams.

"It was said during the presidential campaign that one of the candidates was running for George W. Bush’s third term. Did you think it was Obama?"

That line was pulled from this article at MWC News. Interesting. So many people during this last election were filled with so much hope in one of the two mainstream candidates--either for the liberal Messiah on the left or the hard-liner hero on the right. I watched in utter disgust, as only thin lines separated the true essence of each candidate. Sure, the news did their duty in expanding the crack in the sidewalk to the size of the Grand Canyon to point out such stark contrasts between the two, but if you stop and think, the candidates were both headed in the same direction--away from freedom and liberty and toward increases in state power. How they planned to do this hardly matters, for the destination is the same.

Now some of the liberals watching the scene with less fog in their eyes are sinking into the inevitable disillusion of following a false prophet. They've been betrayed, to be sure, just as they were in 2006 when the Democrats regained the majority in House and Senate. This is the same old story, but is happening to the supporters on the left at the exectutive level this time. And I'm increasingly running across articles bemoaning this fact of late. More from the MWC article here:

Obama has clearly adopted not only Bush’s policies, but also his premise: that the United States is in a war in which the world is the battlefield and restraints on the power of government are a luxury we can’t afford. He has dropped the more realistic view that acts of terrorism are crimes — provoked by years of U.S. intervention — that can be dealt with through normal procedures that protect basic freedoms.

It is instructive that the neoconservatives who gave us the Bush war program are now delighted with Obama’s policies, including his escalation in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

This all should be troubling to anyone who thinks elections can bring needed change. Presidents come and go, with little obvious effect on foreign policy, no matter what they say during their campaigns. Republican and Democrat, right and left — those terms are more about style than substance. In subtle ways and with staunch corporate media support, the system maintained by the ruling elite ensures that no successful national candidate will deviate too far from its plumb line. The marginalization of real anti-war candidates during the 2008 election was just the latest demonstration.

Funny--I've been thinking exactly the same thing. Tyranny hides behind the strangest masks.

Promises, promises...

I missed a promise in my "Liars" post from a while back. Really, I didn't think it would be difficult for this one to be kept. This involves posting of considered bills for citizens to view up to five days before rushing it forward with a presidential signature, as seen in this article from The Washington Times (as excerpted below):

During the campaign and again during the transition, Mr. Obama said opening bills up for public comment was a way of fighting back against special interests' control of the process.

"When there's a bill that ends up on my desk as president, you the public will have five days to look online and find out what's in it before I sign it, so that you know what your government's doing," Mr. Obama said in a major campaign speech laying out his goals for transparency.

Maybe the IT department at the White House is finding this task a bit too daunting? Maybe the former Bush administration decided to keep the FTP password for the web site a secret as an exit joke?

Or maybe Obama is simply not interested in keeping this promise for other reasons. It would, of course, be inconvenient if citizens could call their lawmakers and chief executive to account by flagging all the pork (and other stupid ideas) in bills before they were included in permanent law, wouldn't it? Really, why would any of our politicians actually decide to opt-in--voluntarily--to any form of accountability? That's just silly. They're servants of the citizens, after all, and not "rulers".

Or wait--maybe I've got that backwards in this government ostensibly of, by, and for the people.

Reduce crime by disarming citizens?

Sometimes the core idea for a post originates in a forum, amidst a discussion already in-progress. That's what happened with this post, too, which is here with some slight modifications for better out-of-context reading. For reference, the sources for some of the data cited below are here and here.


Custer County, Colorado. That's where we live. More guns here, per capita, than the national average, by far. Less crime here, per capita, than the national average, by far. Is it a fluke? If you're inclined to say it is a fluke, I'd like to see some justification for that. Custer County isn't alone in the US (although it is unique in many other areas).

Custer County is the sort of place where stupid criminals get taken out of the gene pool by citizens. Cook County (location of Chicago) is not. In Custer County, the vast majority of those with handguns are law-abiding citizens. In Cook County, the vast majority of those with handguns are law-breaking people (some not even citizens).

I did a little scrounging around the internet to see what I might turn up on areas somewhat familiar with me--so I could get a bit of a mental corollary and see what the numbers might indicate. I found data for "serious crimes known to police" for three counties, plus the populations of each of those counties. If we count the following as "serious crimes" (have to patch together data from several sites and spreadsheets) we get interesting results: murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault. For each, I divide the "serious crimes" by the county population:

Custer County, CO, 3,999 people
Rate: 0.00075

Cook County, IL, 5,096,540 people
Rate: 0.0127

Maricopa County, AZ, 2,611,327 people (home of Phoenix)
Rate: 0.0065

Some of the numbers are a few years old (what can you do when looking for census-based statistics?), but I find them interesting.

Whatever the true reason, I find highest crime (by far) in the most handgun-restricted places. I threw in the Phoenix area, since comparing Cook County to Custer County is a bit odd--huge difference in population. But Maricopa is one of the most populous counties in the nation and serves as the best comparison I could think of where I know the handgun laws to be relatively lax.

So--almost no crime in our county, with Cook County doubling the crime in Maricopa County. DOUBLING! Hmmm. I get the feeling that "serious crimes known to police" often involve things like handguns. Isn't it strange such crimes might happen where such guns are banned? (I don't think so.)

It seems to me that crime finds difficulty thriving where the citizens of an area tend to be better armed. This makes sense, right? If we use a bit of hyperbole, it's obvious. Let's take a look at two cities--one with 100% armed citizens, the other with 0% armed citizens.

In Armed City, a rapist is loose, often arming himself with a knife. Unfortunately for this scumbag, he's now operating in Armed City. His potential victim hears his forced entry into her residence and the idiot's career as a living scumbag is converted into a career as a dead scumbag.

In Unarmed City, a rapist is loose, often arming himself with a knife. This scumbag is used to getting whatever he wants since he's been operating in Unarmed City for several months. His potential victim hears his forced entry into her residence and immediately calls the police. Unfortunately, the headlines in the evening paper the next day cite yet another grim statistic.

Look, it's obvious not all potential crimes can be prevented merely by having a firearm at hand. This is true. But think of the many crimes that can be either prevented or deterred or at least fought by having a firearm. And with law-abiding citizens, this will happen only with lax laws on firearm possession. (Certainly, violent criminals care little about such firearm laws.) I don't understand how disarming the law-abiding citizens ever helps reduce crime. From the quick numbers I dug up, it doesn't. I'd imagine there could be some exceptions to what I found, but there are exceptions to everything, so what's that prove?

Ask yourself the question, "Which woman in which city would I rather be in the extreme examples above?" What about in a real-world situation you can think of from recent headlines? What about a couple of years ago at Virginia Tech?

Those citizens "trusted" by their government to govern themselves with fewer restrictive laws tend to have less difficulty with crime and a more healthy embrace of freedom itself.

We have an absurd situation that's grown slowly over the last few decades in some areas of our great nation. An irrational network of laws have combined with increases in violent crime to the degree that it's truly illegal to be a citizen protected from violent crime. Chicago's Mayor Daley seems bent on keeping bans on handguns that can only possibly disarm the law-abiding citizens while allowing the violent criminals to continue in their crimes--unobstructed by citizens able to defend themselves on equal ground.

What does this leave us with? Total reliance on the police force. Is this a realistic solution to spontaneous violent crimes? I don't think so. How can the police possibly protect every citizen in Chicago? They cannot. But that's really not the point of having police, either. The violent criminals have guns, the law-abiding citizens cannot have guns, the police cannot defend these citizens. Where is this going? The citizens of Chicago cannot possibly be legally protected from criminal vermin.

How is this a good thing? This is a great question. The only thing I can see anyone getting out of this in governmental echelons is control over a population increasingly dependent on local authorities and governmental services--services that fail them, but are nonetheless forced upon them. Is this an issue of control?

What I don't like about this is the culture of fear of the gun itself. Sure, any necessity to have guns is a grim reminder of the degraded human condition--but this condition is best confronted head-on instead of ignored. Why hide from reality? Why not instead change reality? When a culture of fear of a neutral (but powerful) tool is created and sustained for more than a generation, changing this culture is extremely difficult, and therefore unlikely. The culture of fear, then, may become the primary obstacle to the only realistic solution available.

The statistics I've cited above are stark reminders of the high correlation between the legality of defending one's self with tools on par with those of the violent criminals and low violent crime rates. Yes, guns can, and often do, kill people. But the numbers also suggest the mere presence of guns in citizens' possession also saves lives (quite often without even firing a single shot).

Why make it easy--why not make it dangerous--to be a violent criminal? In 1996 in Cook County alone, we had 64,746 violent crimes committed. Could this have possibly been the same number if the citizens of Cook County were armed like the citizens of Custer County? I don't think so.

Those criminals would have moved on to greener pastures.

Federal Reserve oversight--or not

This is stunning. Since September of last year, the Federal Reserve ought to have lots of explaining to do. We're talking about trillions of dollars, unaccounted for. Fortunately, we have officials responsible for overseeing the Federal Reserve to make sure nothing gets out of hand.

Or do we? In this video, we see Representative Alan Grayson (finally, someone!) asking some direct questions about what's happening at the Federal Reserve. (You may know the Federal Reserve as the bank that prints the money, so you don't have to. It's called inflation, and I believe we're about to be hit with a tidal wave of decreasing value of every Federal Reserve Note held by anyone in the world.)

So--what's happening at the Federal Reserve? Apparently the Inspector General for the Federal Reserve doesn't know either. Nice. As Rep. Grayson mentioned, the sums in question amount to ~$30,000 for every person in this country. It seems the Fed "printed" these vast sums of money, handed them out to anonymous recipients, and has no real accounting for where this money went or who received it. It also seems the Inspector General has no idea either.

If we at least had an elected post available at this state-mandated currency factory, that would help. Perhaps we may have a slim shot at some occasional accountability. Or maybe if we at least had some other, viable form of legal tender, that would allow all who see fit to simply abandon use of the Federal Reserve Note for something that has hopes of maintaining its value. Unfortunately, we have no such things. Making purchases with gold or silver or bottle caps or Cabbage Patch Dolls is seen as use of a competing private currency, and is simply not allowed. Why not? What's the big deal?

The big deal is the government's refusal to maintain total control over the value of every citizen's work. To avoid being hemmed in by pesky budgets--spending within its means (through tax collection)--our lawmakers have discovered the allure of debt. Don't have enough in the budget for that pork? Who cares? We'll charge it! That's right--our lawmakers can spend infinite amounts of money to get what they want now and YOU'LL pay for it! How? The Federal Reserve will create new money (out of nothing, backed by nothing) to pay the debts incurred by the spenders in Washington. But wait, doesn't that cost somebody somewhere? Yes it does.

There is a finite amount of Federal Reserve Notes in circulation throughout the world (though some days it may not seem like it), representing a finite value. Suppose I hold $1,000,000 of those notes. I have a fraction of that total value. When the Federal Reserve cranks up their printing presses (they need not literally print the notes anymore), they do not create more value as represented by those finite Federal Reserve Notes in the world. In fact, they create more dollars, but the value remains the same. What does this mean? It means the $1,000,000 I hold now have less value than they did before the printing surge.

We can see this with a simple lemonade stand. Suppose I sell some great fresh-squeezed lemonade on the corner. I have a giant pitcher of perfectly-flavored lemonade, and it's selling great. But I've run out of lemons and sugar. Oops. I don't want to shut down my stand, and I've got some worthless water, so I decide to add water to my depleted pitcher of lemonade. Mmmm. I continue to sell lemonade, adding water when necessary. After a while, I notice my customers don't have any more nice compliments. In fact, many demand their money back, since this lemonade resembles dirty water more than lemonade.

Which would you prefer--the first or the last glass of that lemonade? The first obviously contains the best value. This is exactly what the Federal Reserve is doing to the value of the dollar. They add more and more "water" to the fixed value of the pitcher of lemonade, diluting the worth of each glass (eventually) to zero. And that's what we can expect to happen to our dollar at this current rate.

But there's not much use in complaining. You don't vote for king. And you don't vote for any of the posts held at the Federal Reserve.

Hey, it's only your livelihood.

More punishing the responsible...

This is really getting worn out. Once again, our amazingly-creative lawmakers are helping us out with innovative new solutions in supporting the irresponsible by the responsible. That's right, we've got more parasitic controls from above.

Let's look at this example of meddling within the credit card industry (from Yahoo).

Now Congress is moving to limit the penalties on riskier borrowers, who have become a prime source of billions of dollars in fee revenue for the industry. And to make up for lost income, the card companies are going after those people with sterling credit.

Why? Well, somebody's got to pay to float things, right? We see it with taxation and in many other areas lately (see bailouts, too). Who pays? Those who ought to pay, or those who can pay? These are often two different groups of people. Throw away the ethics of this decision and simply use the forceful arm of the government to shake down those who can pay. We don't care about right and wrong (in fact, we've discarded any rational standard for such discussion).

So, back to the credit card folks. On the one hand, we have credit card companies whining about deadbeats--those who pay their bills before fees and interest can accrue:

Robert Hammer, an industry consultant, said the legislation might have the broad effect of encouraging card issuers to become ever more reliant on fees from marginal customers as well as creditworthy cardholders -- "deadbeats" in industry parlance, because they generate scant fee revenue.

"They aren't charities. They have shareholders to report to," he said, referring to banks and credit card companies. "Whatever is left in the model to work from, they will start to maneuver."

Nice. But this doesn't really tell the whole story. Did you know merchants get charged fees for the privilege of accepting credit cards? Isn't that income for credit card companies? It seems to me charging annual fees to card holders ins't the only possible way to get payment from "deadbeat" card users--you can also raise the rates paid by merchants. (Wonder why this isn't mentioned.)

Supposing credit card companies decide to do this, they'll simply find the frugal "responsible" people will opt out. Such people would rather not pay to play. What, then, will these credit card companies do with no responsible bill-payers and a high rate of defaults? Why always point the gun at the responsible, ignoring the ethical concerns? This cannot go on forever, yet it's permeating our society with increasing frequency.

Here's a great example, from the Wall Street Journal. Despite increasingly intrusive meddling by the federal government, some degree of experimentation on state level is still happening. We see that states with higher tax rates simply fail to stick it to the rich with such rates. Why? They leave.

Here's the problem for states that want to pry more money out of the wallets of rich people. It never works because people, investment capital and businesses are mobile: They can leave tax-unfriendly states and move to tax-friendly states.

Seems obvious enough, right? Why pay more for broken services you don't need anyway?

I'm concerned about the increasing use of force against ethics. Most benevolent Uncle Sam has a need somewhere, and instead of filling that need with an ethical, trade among the willing, it's an unethical, forceful extraction from the able. Sooner or later, the able will simply opt out. Atlas will shrug, pick up his trade, and relocate the product of his mind to greener pastures. He cannot be forced to give up the produce of his mind to looters.

Newsflash: Politicians are Liars!

This sort of thing drives me nuts. Obama seems to back-pedal on some pre-election commitments--some commitments that landed him in office.

But this isn't the only case, nor is it new. The Democrats ousted the fattened Republicans amid scandals and promises in 2006. Promises that stand out are:
1. Bringing the troops home from war
2. Ending unwarranted domestic wire-tapping
3. Condemning torture and the ignoring of due process with "war criminals"

This was three years ago. None of the promises were honored, now intensifying the ire of those who elected them. Just over 100 days in office, Obama seems to have broken these same promises made as well.

I don't see this as Democrat vs. Republican. A roach is a roach. This problem is deeply endemic within our current political scene. Roach A or Roach B? Yeah, that's representative democracy at its best. I seem to remember making fun of this sort of thing in the 1980s, but it was of admittedly communist (or other non-representative government structures) nations.

Who is the real master of these puppets? Certainly not the citizens. Who, then?

No posts lately? Just another neglected blog?

Well, not exactly.

I've been a bit torn between, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all" and speaking my mind. Looking over the posts so far, it's looking all doom-and-gloom. But I find it a bit more therapeutic to rant somewhere and get it out of my system than not. So in this case, it's about me and not about anyone reading this. ;-)

However, I'll attempt not to merely complain without offering a solution to the problem I bring up. Maybe bring a little balance when pointing out those things driving me nuts. This will be a better exercise in keeping my own mind balanced, if nothing else.

With that, let the posting begin (again).