Mad Statists – Page 80

Merry Christmas and Happy Gun Control, Chicago

Post author:The Freedom Watch Staff
Post published:December 31, 2012
Post category:Network Archives

"This is another banner year for Rahm Emanuel's tightly controlled non-gun 'paradise.' Chicago's own stats show that 440 school age children were shot in 2012 in Chicago's paradise. And yet, it has long been reported that the school where Rahm's children attend to their education has an armed security guard. Additionally, his children also have an armed escort to get them to and from school, just like those Hollywood celebrities who clamor for gun control while they enjoy full-time, armed bodyguards." Continue reading →

Celebrity Gun Violence Hypocrites

Post author:The Freedom Watch Staff
Post published:December 31, 2012
Post category:Network Archives

"These self-serving whores of the 1% love guns and violence as long as they can line their pockets. When you elect leaders that commit mass murder, don't be surprised when the citizens follow suit." Continue reading →

Free Staters Not Welcome in New Hampshire

Post author:The Freedom Watch Staff
Post published:December 28, 2012
Post category:Network Archives

"Democratic State Rep. Cynthia Chase calls them 'the single biggest threat the state is facing today.' 'There is, legally, nothing we can do to prevent them from moving here to take over the state, which is their openly stated goal. What we can do is to make the environment here so unwelcoming that some will choose not to come, and some may actually leave. One way is to pass measures that will restrict the 'freedoms' that they think they will find here.... Cheshire County is a welcoming community but not to those whose stated goal is to move in enough ideologues to steal our state, and our way of life.'" Continue reading →

Ben Bernanke – Revisiting The Helicopter Speech

Post author:The Freedom Watch Staff
Post published:December 28, 2012
Post category:Network Archives

"He referred to economist Milton Friedman’s famous 'helicopter drop' of money as a solution for deflation. In essence, the suggestion was that, if there is deflation, it may be cured simply by dumping new currency from helicopters. For this suggestion to come from a member of the Board of Governors of the Fed caused many economists and investors to worry that the US economy may not be in the most competent hands. The comment was so unnerving that much of the rest of the speech failed to generate much discussion; yet, in it, Mr. Bernanke revealed other points from his philosophy on dealing with deflation that most certainly deserve review." Continue reading →

Prohibitionists Respond to Repeal: Bootlegging, Racketeering, and Kidnapping Will Go Up Now!

Post author:The Freedom Watch Staff
Post published:December 27, 2012
Post category:Network Archives

"Seventy-nine years ago today, Utah, of all states, delivered the killing blow that brought the national prohibition of alcohol to an end. In honor of Repeal Day -- and with an eye on what may be the early stages of an end to the war on marijuana -- here's a flashback to December 1933, as prohibitionists watched their achievement crumble." Continue reading →

Drones Are Like Structured Finance

Post author:The Freedom Watch Staff
Post published:December 25, 2012
Post category:Network Archives

"What happened with structured finance and what's happening with drones is that the adoption and increased use of the technologies come to have an independent effect on the underlying phenomena, the housing bubble and the war on terror's killing bubble. Being effective and low-cost technologies, they heighten the bubbles as people use them intensively. The indiscriminate use or broad use or overuse of these technologies cause problems all their own and, in the hands of their users, who were investment bankers and now U.S. government officials, they become contributory causes of new problems." Continue reading →

U.S. Ready to Offer Mercenaries $10 Billion for a Drug-War Air Force

Post author:The Freedom Watch Staff
Post published:December 25, 2012
Post category:Network Archives

"Unsure how your private security firm makes money as the U.S. war in Afghanistan winds down? One option: Go into the drug trade — more specifically, the lucrative business of fighting narcotics. The State Department needs a business partner to keep its fleet of drug-hunting helicopters and planes flying worldwide. You could make up to $10 billion-with-a-B. Without much publicity, the State Department has built a bespoke air force since the mid-1980s, one that’s stacked with helicopters and heavily reliant on contractors. From its headquarters at Florida’s Patrick Air Force Base, the State Department directs 51,000 annual hours worth of air operations." Continue reading →

Housing Up, Home Ownership Down: The Mysterious New Housing Bubble

Post author:The Freedom Watch Staff
Post published:December 24, 2012
Post category:Network Archives

"If the number of people who actually bought a home and moved in dropped by 175,000, then what we’re seeing is industrial-scale investment by Wall Street speculators who are getting lavish financing perks from the banks to buy distressed properties that, if they had been sold on the MLS or via bank auctions, would have driven prices down even further pushing bank balance sheets deeper into the red. In other words, the Obama administration, the banks, the Fed and the behemoth private equity firms are all in bed together to reward the people who blew up the financial system with another backdoor bailout." Continue reading →

France’s Jean-Marc Ayrault slams flight of the ‘greedy rich’

Post author:The Freedom Watch Staff
Post published:December 24, 2012
Post category:Network Archives

"These individuals are leaving 'because they want to get even richer,' he said. 'We cannot fight poverty if those with the most, and sometimes with a lot, do not show solidarity and a bit of generosity,' he added. Announcing plans to spend up to 2.5 billion euros by 2017 to help the poor, Mr Ayrault said that poverty affected 12.9 percent of the population in 2002 and rose to 14.1 percent in 2010. Mr Hollande has since introduced other hefty new charges on capital gains and inheritance, while increasing France's wealth tax and an exit tax for entrepreneurs selling their companies." Continue reading →

Central bankers rethink their devotion to slaying inflation

Post author:The Freedom Watch Staff
Post published:December 21, 2012
Post category:Network Archives

"A subtle shift in monetary policymaking is afoot with a new generation of central bankers, striving to secure global economic recovery, prepared to challenge the old doctrine of inflation-fighting at all costs. Policymakers from the U.S. Federal Reserve to the Bank of Japan have reconsidered or relaxed their inflation targets and have given more emphasis to economic growth. With the financial crisis having starkly exposed central banks' failure to stave off danger, and policymakers having responded by flooding world markets with trillions of dollars in cheap funding, a small run-up in inflation may no longer be the anathema it once was." Continue reading →