Welfare-Warfare State

Ron Paul launches Institute for Peace and Prosperity

"For the first time since leaving office, Ron Paul returned to the spotlight this week. The recently retired congressman launched a new foreign-policy educational effort from Washington on Wednesday called the Institute for Peace and Prosperity. Some fellow lawmakers past and present - including Walter Jones, Dennis Kucinich, John Duncan, and Thomas Massie are on the Institute's board, and they are aiming to change more than policy as RT's Meghan Lopez explains." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingRon Paul launches Institute for Peace and Prosperity

When The Window Closes For Americans

"Something I think you can plan your life around is the eventuality of the US government imposing capital controls and other restrictive measures on the movement of people and capital. Any country that is sufficiently desperate can and will implement such measures. The big question remains: When will this happen in the US? I believe that moment will arrive sometime before it is apparent that the US dollar has lost its place as the world's premier currency. The ramifications of the US dollar losing this status are difficult to overstate. It will be the tipping point at which the US government becomes sufficiently desperate." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingWhen The Window Closes For Americans

David Stockman: This Is a Giant Ponzi Scheme, It’s Just Debt on Top of More Debt

"Two days ago, former White House Budget Director in the Reagan Administration, David Stockman, dropped some financial bombs in an interview on FOX. He said the Social Security Trust Fund was 'filled with confetti.' Stockman said if the Fed was 'gone fishing' for six weeks (meaning it would stop the $85 billion a month 'open-ended' money printing), 'there would be calamity in the markets.' It seems everybody on both sides of the aisle hates his new book called 'The Great Deformation.' That tells me he’s doing something right." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingDavid Stockman: This Is a Giant Ponzi Scheme, It’s Just Debt on Top of More Debt

Echoes of the bubble in agents’ descriptions of real estate markets

"Astonishingly low mortgage rates, which the Federal Reserve has driven down in the hopes of stimulating borrowing and goosing the economy, have given qualified purchasers more buying power. A 1 percent decline in mortgage rates increases buying power by about 10 percent. Even though agents might worry about overvalued homes, that's not stopping buyers from bidding up prices, a phenomenon happening in markets with tight inventories across the U.S. Maxwell Rabin, an agent at TTR Sotheby's International Realty, said the Washington, D.C. market is experiencing 'very, very high demand and almost historically low supply.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingEchoes of the bubble in agents’ descriptions of real estate markets

Obama Will Become First President to Spend $4 Trillion in One Year

"In the historical tables it released along with President Barack Obama's fiscal 2014 budget proposal this morning, the White House Office of Management and Budget revealed that in fiscal 2016, under the president's budget proposal, it expects Obama to become the first president in the nation's history to preside over a federal government that spends more than $4 trillion in one year. The OMB's historical tables also reveal that the White House does not expect this administration to ever run an annual deficit as low as $458.5 billion, which was the deficit the government ran in fiscal 2008, the last fiscal year completed before Obama took office." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingObama Will Become First President to Spend $4 Trillion in One Year

Millions, possibly billions of dollars awarded to scientists for duplicate studies

"Big Data computation at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech reveals that over the past two decades funding agencies may have awarded millions and possibly billions of dollars to scientists who submitted the same grant request multiple times — and accepted duplicate funding. An analysis led by Harold R. Garner, a professor at Virginia Tech, not only indicates that millions in funding may have been granted and used inappropriately, it points to techniques to uncover existing instances of duplicate funding and ways to prevent it in the future." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingMillions, possibly billions of dollars awarded to scientists for duplicate studies

Millions, possibly billions of dollars awarded to scientists for duplicate studies

"Big Data computation at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech reveals that over the past two decades funding agencies may have awarded millions and possibly billions of dollars to scientists who submitted the same grant request multiple times — and accepted duplicate funding. An analysis led by Harold R. Garner, a professor at Virginia Tech, not only indicates that millions in funding may have been granted and used inappropriately, it points to techniques to uncover existing instances of duplicate funding and ways to prevent it in the future." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingMillions, possibly billions of dollars awarded to scientists for duplicate studies

NASA slams spending cuts that put Earth at risk of undetected killer asteroids

"A trio of experts testified before the House Science Committee of the U.S. Congress on Tuesday and warned that the detection and early warning of approaching Near Earth Objects (NEOs) and other threats from space is imperiled by current political wrangling over the national budget. Holdren, Shelton and Bolden emphasized that while odds of a devastating strike from an object from space are small, the consequences could be enormous. While dozens of objects a meter or more in size strike the Earth’s atmosphere every year, most burn up harmlessly in the upper limits of the stratosphere." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingNASA slams spending cuts that put Earth at risk of undetected killer asteroids

For Price Of Iraq War, US Could Power Half Country With Renewables

"Today, wind analyst Paul Gipe asks, how much renewable energy could we have gotten from what we spent on the Iraq War? The total cost of the Iraq War, including future costs to care for veterans, is $2.2 trillion. If we include the interest we have to pay on the debt we used to finance the war, that figure rises to $3.9 trillion by 2053." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingFor Price Of Iraq War, US Could Power Half Country With Renewables