Free Republic

"WTF was she talking about when she mentioned the "continuity of Gov't"?"

She was quoting from the Charter of FEMA

I predict this to be the source of future campaign ads spanning the next few centuries.

The Dims are making an appointment for premeditated stupidity; something that shouldn't go unrewarded - or soon forgotten.

Fire up those DVRs, VCRs, tape recorders and anything else available to document their essence, and be prepared to force feed it back to their supporters until the last syllable of recorded time.

Sport, when you figure out that the economy is affected by monetary policy - be sure to drop us all a note.

To everyone else, my apology for feeding the troll and getting off the subject.

This will end up being the largest natural disaster tragedy recorded in modern history, and what we (and the rest of the world) do to provide disaster relief and combat the spread of disease of an epidemic proportion is the real news.

"So, according to you, 911 must have been great for the economy because it caused a trillion dollar damage which our govt had to pay for and restore. The next time there is an economic crisis in my town, all I have to do is ask little kids to go around and throw stones through the windows in people's homes. Great for the window makers and Home Depot to be paid for by insurance companies. Right? Ever hear of capital going to waste? Stick to books, you may learn something."

Actually, there was more like 4 trillion to 9 trillion (according to which books you read) of wealth that was removed from the economy by 9/11. It almost matched the amount that was added by the first release of anti-counterfeiting bills and the run-up to Y2K.

In a country with a responsible monetary policy, there has to be accountability for all cash released into the system. However, since we are well past that benchmark, it becomes a matter of how to keep enough cash in play so that the velocity doesn't slow enough to allow any real accounting.

The way I usually try to put it into perspective for academic types to be able to fathom is to ask how long they can outrun a snowball going downhill. To further simplify that concept, I will provide the following 2 hints. First - It gets bigger as it gathers snow. Second - It goes faster as it gains mass.

It is not the downhill trek that causes the pain; it is the sudden stop at the bottom. This is like jumping out of a plane without a parachute. It is the sudden stop at the bottom that does the real damage.

But I don't have a degree in economics to cloud my vision, so what could I possibly know?

"Whose economics books are you reading my friend?"

Economics Books? I outgrew comic books about 4 decades ago.

What monetary policy principles are they failing to teach Economic Graduates?

As a hint to jump start reality-based reasoning (not taught in books, BTW), consider the sales of bottled water alone, and the revenue that ultimately is put into play by every load of relief goods that are shipped into the disaster zones.

I hate to be the one to put this into perspective for you, in light of the suffering that we are trying to ease and the further deaths that we are trying to prevent, but it is a concept that they obviously didn't teach you in econ school.

Perhaps the lack of real-world concepts in econ courses are a part of the reason that the monetary system has to look upon tragedy as another means of keeping economic growth in motion.

In a debt-backed monetary system, the easiest way to show economic growth is by going deeper in debt.

"I really hope he stops at 350 million. What a shame that we have to pony out all this cash when we have a Republican president."

In addition to taking the highroad on aid to disaster, keeping the money in play is ultimately good for the US economy.

It is both a humanitarian and economic gesture.

"The Japanese copied the English Mini in the sixties.
Their sixties model cars were worse than the Yugo.
The only reason one would buy them was price.
They did increase their quality control during the seventies and the cars were worth buying."

FWIW, the Yugo was styled after a Fiat body and power train that had been highly proven in the previous decade and a half. There was no problem with the design, or it's proven effectiveness.

Castings for various components were made at the forgery that turned out some of WWIIs most effective small arms.

Having said that, the American counterpart to Yugo were late is discovering the politics of factory workers. Once they found that the Supervisors were "voted" into their jobs, it was generally accepted that Quality Control was a moot point. The desire to keep a higher paying job negated the practice of asking your workers to do too much more than the daily minimum requirement.

By the time this was countered stateside with a PDI (Pre Delivery Inspection) program at port processing level, the bad press was already out, and Bricklin was already working his magic internally.

Yugos that went through PDI at port processing level were actually quite dependable, but not having parts availability or a company to back a warranty out trumped any gains of the PDI program.

In short, it was a quality control program.

It will be interesting to see if the local port processing facility picks up this line for "final assembly"; a buzzword meaning lower import taxes.

"May their product go the way of the Yugo..."

With Malcolm Bricklin associated with it, it is already half way there.

"Chery Automobile Co., owned by the Chinese government, has signed a deal with the privately held Visionary Vehicles LLC of New York to sell the cars in United States, said Malcolm Bricklin, Visionary's chief executive. "

Old Malcolm is at it again.

Look for him to gut this company in 3 to 5 years; depending on revenue.

I wouldn't look for him to show up for a lot of international presentations in the company's behalf, unless the hosting country has no extradition agreements with the rest of the world.

"Abrupt Climate Change" is the new Global Warming.

When one dog won't hunt, you replace him with another.

"A question. Why do HAM radio operators continue when such things can be done by Internet? I'm not pro or con HAM radio, I just don't know much about it. It just seems to me anything that can be done with HAM radio can be done over the net."

In a word; infrastructure.

When you can't get a link into the Internet, due to disaster, remote location, loss of power, etc... Ham radio provides a loose network that can set up in quick fashion and provide traffic handling.

Also, Ham Radio can operate in conjunction with the Internet (VoIP) and provide nation-wide coverage with handheld transceivers. It allows a large, mobile. volunteer force that has a commitment to public service.

Ham Radio is also far more in handling a local event or emergency than the internet. Local repeaters are often used to coordinate between evacuation shelters in hurricane season (from personal experience) and I would suppose for Tornado, flood or other evacuation operations that are localized.

In the early 90s, I can remember the first hurricane reports from a pacific island that was hard hit were via Ham Satellite operations. Using Ham Sats give global coverage.

There are similar network protocols in use with 2 way radio as the vehicle, rather than the Internet.

A new generation of Icom mobile radios is offering Ethernet networking and the ability to use the Internet on the road; not dependent on Wifi or hotspots.

There will continue to be both Ham Radio and the Internet; until either (or both) is taxed, regulated or government red-taped out of existence....

Once we get them used to coming across the border to get water, we can get them to drink the Kool Aid.

Don't you just love it when a plan comes together?

"Such as our own government? What's the debt-ceiling up to now? Can that, or will that ever be repaid? Or do we just raise it up a trillion more next uear?"

That debt will never be paid, unless it is devalued away.

The question is, how much longer can we continue to pay the interest?

Guess What?

They hold both ends of the debt; the cash we use to pay them, and the bonds we sold to back the cash we used to pay them.

Ever think of that?

There is no fear of them being short of capital; the only thing that is uncertain, is when they decide to spend it.

I have been watching China for a while, and I certainly don't have the full picture.

This is what concerns me:

We are putting a lot of pressure for them to "unpeg" their currency from the US Dollar.

They own a very large amount of US Debt.

The falling value of the Dollar is causing their investment in our debt to continually lose value.

Their economy is extremely heated, and they are facing some rough choices as to how to slow it down, or face the coming inflation.

My fear is that they finally decide to bow to US pressure to unpeg, but decide to use their excess US debt to attempt to "corner" a commodity the the US needs as a hedge against the loss of value of the share of US Dollars.

Sorry for the dupe.

I see a definite pattern.

It is looking more and more that China is going to make the best of it's US Debt by spending it in areas that will assure them more prominence.

Faced with the falling value of a large investment, I couldn't say I wouldn't try to do the same.

I had posed a question some weeks ago about what would happen if China decided to try to capture all OPEC oil production as an answer to the falling dollar and their diminishing investment. I guess I didn't look far enough to consider Russia or Venezuela's oil.

I see a definite pattern.

It is looking more and more that China is going to make the best of it's US Debt by spending it in areas that will assure them more prominence.

Faced with the falling value of a large investment, I couldn't say I wouldn't try to do the same.

I had posed a question some weeks ago about what would happen if China decided to try to capture all OPEC oil production as an answer to the falling dollar and their diminishing investment. I guess I didn't look far enough to consider Russia or Venezuela's oil.

Like at least one other responder has mentioned, I echo to read "State of Fear" by Michael Crichton.

It is heavily footnoted, has a 30 page bibliography, and presents a fairly pragmatic look at the myth of Global Warming, and the shift by the Eco terrorists to label it as abrupt climate change, after learning that the "Global Warming" dog would no longer hunt.

I think if China uses some of that excess US debt it owns to purchase future oil production, they could have the last giggle over the currency peg game of chicken.

If nothing else, the Venezuela deal is additional leverage.