Clueless

Now They Tell Us: China Debt Levels ‘Unknown’

"A senior Chinese official said on Friday that the government did not know precisely know how much debt local governments had built up and warned that it could be more than previous estimates. Estimates of local government debt range from Standard Chartered's 15 percent of the country's GDP at end-2012 to Credit Suisse's 36 percent. Fitch put the figure at 25 percent when it downgraded China's sovereign debt rating in April. Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao said China had not released official figures since a 2010 auditing report that put local government debt at 10.7 trillion yuan." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingNow They Tell Us: China Debt Levels ‘Unknown’

Activists converge on Rahm Emanuel’s home for Fourth of July protest

"As of Thursday afternoon, over 400 people had indicated on a Facebook event page that they would be attending the 'Block Party to Fight Austerity at Rahm’s House.' 'Let’s gather at Chase Park (Ashland and Leland) at noon, then march over to Rahm Emanuel’s house for a street dance party to celebrate citywide resistance to budget cuts and other austerity measures that hurt poor and working people in order to make the super-rich even richer,' the organizers wrote. 'At a time when working people are already struggling to make ends meet, Mayor Emanuel is eliminating thousands of jobs across the city every year,' organizer Greg Goodman explained to the station." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingActivists converge on Rahm Emanuel’s home for Fourth of July protest

Homicide convictions upheld for faith-healer parents whose daughter died

"Wisconsin and more than a dozen other states have protections in place to keep parents who choose prayer over medical attention from being charged with child abuse. The Neumanns’ attorneys maintain that the law protects parents up through the creation of a potentially lethal situation, making the line where faith-healer parents cross over into criminal liability a blurry one. An Neumann family attorney told the AP that the couple is 'devastated' by the decision. 'They’re still mourning the loss of this child,' said Dale Neumann’s defense lawyer Steven L. Miller. 'From their perspective they felt they were acting in a legal manner.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingHomicide convictions upheld for faith-healer parents whose daughter died

Egypt: What a Shame

"When was the last time you saw a Jiffy Lube tear gas everyone who refused to stop in? Have you ever seen a Chiropractor driving down the street shooting water cannons at people who refused his services? Every single person could make a decision that 'I'll never go to Jiffy Lube as long as I live,' and Jiffy Lube could do nothing about it. Should that decision be made by everyone, it would have no choice but to close its doors. No pickets....No chants....No fairy tales like 'making your voice heard' or 'the will of the people'. No injuries, arrests or tanks trampling over bodies. Just a simple decision not to interact...not to exchange...not to associate." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingEgypt: What a Shame

Fed Committee Member Warns Off ‘Feral Hogs’ in Markets

"Richard Fisher, president of the Dallas Federal Reserve and a member of the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee, said in an interview with the Financial Times that while the big players in financial markets acted like 'feral hogs' by scenting any weakness in policy makers’ intent, he did not think anyone could break the US central bank. Commenting on the market turbulence that has followed Fed chair Ben Bernanke’s signal that the bank could begin tapering its $85bn monthly bond purchases before the end of this year, Fisher told the FT: 'My personal feeling is that you don’t walk up to a lion and flinch.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingFed Committee Member Warns Off ‘Feral Hogs’ in Markets

Fed Chairman Bernanke Admits the Fed Has No Clue

"ROBIN HARDING. Mr. Chairman, you’ve always argued that it’s the stock of assets that the Federal Reserve holds which affects long-term interest rates. How do you reconcile that with a very sharp rise in real interest rates that we’ve seen in recent weeks? And do you think the market is correctly interpreting what you think is most likely to be the future path of the Federal Reserve’s stock of assets? Thank you. CHAIRMAN BERNANKE. Well, we were a little puzzled by that. It was bigger than can be explained I think by changes in the ultimate stock of asset purchases within reasonable ranges. So I think we have to conclude that there are other factors at work..." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingFed Chairman Bernanke Admits the Fed Has No Clue

This Graph Shows How Bad the Fed is at Predicting the Future

"Ben Bernanke and the Fed are out with their latest happy talk economic projections. They project the economy will grow by 2.3 to 2.6 percent, in real terms, in the fourth quarter of 2013 relative to the fourth quarter of 2012. That speeds up to 3.0 to 3.5 percent in 2014 and 2.9 to 3.6 percent in 2015. Unemployment also is projected to fall, hitting 5.8 to 6.2 percent in 2015, all while inflation stays below 2 percent. The chart put together by WaPo shows how abysmal the Fed's actual forecasts have been (and this is not counting the Fed missing the housing crash or the overall financial crisis)." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingThis Graph Shows How Bad the Fed is at Predicting the Future

MSU Police Accidentally Send Out Campus Shooting Message

"Michigan State University police have confirmed to wilx.com they accidentally sent out an alert that there had been a shooting at Wilson Hall on campus. Police were trying to send a severe weather alert when the wrong message was sent. It was followed by an email from alert@msu.edu reading, 'The MSU Police accidentally sent a message of an active shooter on campus. THERE IS NO ACTIVE SHOOTER ON CAMPUS...THERE IS NO DANGER ON CAMPUS.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingMSU Police Accidentally Send Out Campus Shooting Message

The reality is Americans aren’t that concerned about drones

"Support for the drone program varies across demographic and political groups about like you’d expect. Across pretty much all polling, Republicans, by about 10pts, are more likely to support drone use in general than Democrats, though majorities of both parties support it. Men are more likely to favor it than women, by anywhere from 7pts to 20pts. Again, however, more women favor the drone program in general than oppose it. Why are Democrats and women more likely to oppose drone usage? It’s not because of the program’s murky legality. Americans’ number one worry is that the program endangers civilian lives." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingThe reality is Americans aren’t that concerned about drones

Dutch tourist cannabis cafe ban leads to surge in dealing in the south

"The decision to ban foreigners not resident in the Netherlands from the country’s cannabis cafes has led to an ‘explosion’ in drugs-related crime in the south of the country, the AD reports on Saturday. The government’s decision to turn the cafes into members’ only clubs in the southern provinces last May led to a sharp rise in street dealing, the paper says. It bases its claim on police and city council figures. In Maastricht, at the forefront of efforts to reduce drugs tourism, the number of drugs crimes has doubled over the past year while in Roermond they are up three-fold with at least 60 active street dealers, the AD says." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingDutch tourist cannabis cafe ban leads to surge in dealing in the south