The Cynical Economist

Putting Gun Violence into Proper Perspective

Homicides vs. Gun Ownership

 The comparison between “countries” is somewhat arbitrary. The population range for the countries in this set spans two orders of magnitude: millions to hundreds of millions. Their ethnicities, geographies and densities are different as well. We must be careful in drawing conclusions when comparing small, relatively homogeneous countries such as Finland against a population with the size and heterogeneity of the US

Libor scandal grows as the fathers of two mass murderers were to testify - WTH? Both fathers of the shooters were allegedly expected to testify in the Libor scandal that rocked the banking world in June.

The father of Newtown Connecticut school shooter Adam Lanza is Peter Lanza who is a VP and Tax Director at GE Financial. The father of Aurora Colorado movie theater shooter James Holmes is Robert Holmes, the lead scientist for the credit score company FICO. Both men were to testify before the US Sentate in the ongoing LIBOR scandal. The London Interbank Offered Rate, known as Libor, is the average interest rate at which banks can borrow from each other. 16 international banks have been implicated in this ongoing scandal, accused of rigging contracts worth trillions of dollars. HSBC has already been fined $1.9 billion and three of their low level traders arrested.

The hysterical economy

A ‘self-fulfilling recession’ is a long-established idea in economics. This column argues that the US’s economic malaise continues to be caused by leaders’ hysteria rather than by actual engrained economic problems. Obama and Congress need to stop scaring the nation about the ‘fiscal cliff’ because, ultimately, they are coordinating expectations on there being a recession. Tackling the right policies now, and sending out the right message, will help more than hysteria

What about food inflation, Bernanke?

The Federal Reserve wants to prioritize jobs over inflation. How will Americans feel about that when they’re paying more for groceries next year?

Herring weather to land in Kolgrafafirði

Eye witnesses say that the amount of dead herring is now believed to be at least several hundred tons reported from this site Skessuhorn.

US, UK and Canada refuse to sign UN’s internet treaty

The US, Canada and UK have refused to sign an international communications treaty at a conference in Dubai.

Marc Faber: “Paul Krugman Should Go And Live In North Korea”

 Obama’s America Will Become Detroit

What happened to Detroit? It is achieving socialism in one city.

The Census Bureau estimates there are 563,055 people age 16 or older in the city who could potentially work and be part of the labor force. But only 54.3 percent of these — or 305,479 individuals — actually do participate in the labor force, meaning they either have a job or are looking for one.
Another 257,576 of Detroit residents age 16 or older — 45.7 percent of that demographic — do not participate in the labor force. They do not have a job, and they are not looking for one.

In fact, these 257,576 people in Detroit who do not have a job and are not looking for one outnumber the 224,846 residents who do have jobs. But of the 224,846 residents who do have jobs, 34,500 — or 15.3 percent — have jobs with the government. Thus, this city that boasted 1,849,568 residents in 1950 has only 190,346 private-sector workers today.

There are 264,209 households in Detroit, and 91,204 of them — or 34.5 percent — get food stamps.

Unemployed single mother on benefits who spends £2,000 on Christmas with 20 presents for each of her children 

• Leanna Broderick plans to give children designer outfits, iPads and jewellery
• The 20-year-old has never worked and claims nearly £15,500 a year 
• Claims she is better off on benefits and last year saved £2,500
• Said there was ‘no point’ getting minimum wage job and paying for childcare

Small businesses: Obama worse than Lehman collapse

Do small-business owners really fear that the re-election of President Barack Obama is worse for their businesses than the collapse of Lehman Brothers?A survey released Tuesday by the National Federation of Independent Business suggested as much. Not only did small-business sentiment plunge, but the net percentage of owners expecting better business conditions in six months fell 37 points.

Taxes Are Much Higher Than You Think

President Obama argues that the election gave him a mandate to raise taxes on high earners, and the White House indicates that he won’t compromise on this issue as the so-called fiscal cliff approaches.

But tax rates are already high—much higher than is commonly understood—and increasing them will likely further depress the economy, especially by affecting the number of hours Americans work.

Taking into account all taxes on earnings and consumer spending—including federal, state and local income taxes, Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes, excise taxes, and state and local sales taxes—Edward Prescott has shown (especially in the Quarterly Review of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, 2004) that the U.S. average marginal effective tax rate is around 40%.

Government Gone Bad

It’s one reason America has been unusually slow to recover from the Great Recession. After previous recessions, employers quickly resumed hiring. Not this time. The unemployment rate is still near 8 percent. It only fell last month because people stopped looking for jobs.

Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute understands what’s happening.

“Add up all the regulations and red tape, all the government spending, all the tax increases we’re about to get — you can understand why entrepreneurs think: “Maybe I don’t want to hire people. … I want to keep my company small. I don’t want to give health insurance, because then I’m stuck with all the Obamacare mandates.” We can see our future in Europe — unless we change. Ann Jolis, who covers European labor issues for The Wall Street Journal, watches how government-imposed work rules sabotage economies.

“The minimum guaranteed annual vacation in Europe is 20 days paid vacation a year. … In France, it starts at 25 guaranteed days off. … This summer, the European Court of Justice … gave workers the right to a vacation do-over. … You spend the last eight days of your vacation laid up with a sprained ankle … eight days automatically go into your sick leave. … You get a vacation do-over.”

U.S. Small-Business Owners Pull Back Capital Spending Plans

Net capital spending over the past 12 months declined to -22, down from -11 in July

When Will Expected Inflation Hit 2.5%?

Just when most people were getting used to the idea of QE3, yesterday the Fed announced QE4. When will the madness stop?  In the Fed’s latest announcement it mentioned the “projected” inflation rate.  This article will take a look at the TIPS expected inflation indicator to determine how long the Fed can remain accommodative under the new guidelines.

Don’t Cave GOP, This Time Deficits DO Matter

Do deficits matter? Conservatives have sometimes claimed that they don’t. Dick Cheney has said on more than one occasion that, “Reagan taught us that deficits don’t matter.” In fact, he said that to me personally once.

Supply-siders like me have often downplayed the importance of deficits, arguing as George Gilder and Jack Kemp argued in the 1980s that we can ‘grow our way out of it’. But we can only grow our way out of it if we actually grow. And if wedon’t grow, there comes a time when debt grows to the point where it really is unsustainable.

‘Obama’s “Plan” Adds $8.6 Trillion to the Debt’

Aetna CEO: Obamacare Likely to Double Small Business, Individual Insurance Premiums

Health insurance premiums may as much as double for some small businesses and individual buyers in the U.S. when the Affordable Care Act’s major provisions start in 2014, Aetna Inc.’s chief executive officer said.

 This is out of hand now: Apple attempts to trademark the LEAF

Presumably next it will be blank space around the logo

$822,000 Worker Shows California Leads U.S. Pay Giveaway

Nine years ago, California Democrat Gray Davis became the first U.S. governor in 82 years to be recalled by voters. The state’s 20 million taxpayers still bear the cost of his four years and 10 months on the job.

Davis escalated salaries and benefits for 164,000 state workers, including a 34 percent raise for prison guards, the first of a series of steps in which he and successors saddled California with a legacy of dysfunction. Today, the state’s highest-paid employees make far more than comparable workers elsewhere in almost all job and wage categories, from public safety to health care, base pay to overtime.

The Fallacy of Redistribution

In theory, confiscating the wealth of the more successful people ought to make the rest of the society more prosperous. But when the Soviet Union confiscated the wealth of successful farmers, food became scarce. As many people died of starvation under Stalin in the 1930s as died in Hitler’s Holocaust in the 1940s.

How can that be? It is not complicated. You can only confiscate the wealth that exists at a given moment. You cannot confiscate future wealth — and that future wealth is less likely to be produced when people see that it is going to be confiscated. Farmers in the Soviet Union cut back on how much time and effort they invested in growing their crops, when they realized that the government was going to take a big part of the harvest. They slaughtered and ate young farm animals that they would normally keep tending and feeding while raising them to maturity.

Full Audio Of 1998 “Redistribution” Speech: Obama Says Welfare Recipients Are A Major Voting Bloc For Liberal Politicians, Views Them As Key To Implementing Leftist Policies…

Dallas Fed’s Fisher Warns of ‘Uncharted Waters’

The Federal Reserve’s decision to jolt the economy a third time with monetary stimulus measures won’t help the country much but could stoke  inflationary pressures down the road, said Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher, a noted inflation hawk.

 The Great California Exodus: A Closer Look

What has caused California’s transformation from a “pull in” to a “push out” state? The data have revealed several crucial drivers. One is chronic economic adversity (in most years, California unemployment is above the national average). Another is density: the Los Angeles and Orange County region now has a population density of 6,999.3 per square mile—well ahead of New York or Chicago. Dense coastal areas are a source of internal migration, as people seek more space in California’s interior, as well as migration to other states. A third factor is state and local governments’ constant fiscal instability, which sends at least two discouraging messages to businesses and individuals. One is that they cannot count on state and local governments to provide essential services—much less, tax breaks or other incentives. Second, chronically out-of-balance budgets can be seen as tax hikes waiting to happen.

 Barack Obama shrugs, but the debt keeps mounting

A fiscal horror is unfolding on the president’s watch, yet few seem concerned

70% of Spending Goes to Dependence Programs

Government dependence is driving budget deficits and federal debt. More than 70 percent of federal spending goes to 47 government dependence programs, including housing, farm subsidies, and the three largest entitlements, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

Geithner Says U.S. Entitlement Commitments Are “Unsustainable”…

Roseanne Barr not joking: More socialism - HUH?

As Roseanne Barr continues her presidential campaign as the Peace and Freedom Party candidate, she has a attention-grabbing message: We need more socialism.

“I do think that we need a little bit more socialism in this country at this time,” Barr told Sean Hannity Monday night. “We need to move stuff from the top to the middle and the bottom, because it keeps on staying at the top.”

American High School Band Marches with Hammer & Sickle -WTH? 

A Pennsylvania high school marching band is raising eyebrows with a halftime performance that commemorates the Russian revolution, complete with red flags, olive military-style uniforms, and giant hammers and sickles.

“There is no reason for Americans to celebrate the Russian revolution,” said one irate parent who alerted Fox News. “I am sure the millions who died under Communism would not see the joy of celebrating the Russian revolution by a school 10 miles from Gettysburg.”

Colin Powell on Capitalism: ‘We Shouldn’t Be Afraid of That Word. It’s What Gave Us All Our Wealth’

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said America “shouldn’t be afraid” to use the word capitalism when encouraging economic growth in emerging democracies in the Middle East because “it’s what gave us all our wealth.”

The Stunning, Sudden Reversal of Economic Freedom In America

Built up over more than two centuries, America’s “irreversible trend toward more freedom” has been suddenly (and stunningly) reversed over the last decade – with tragic consequences for business owners, taxpayers and citizens alike. Once a bastion of free market ideology and unprecedented prosperity, America’s ongoing descent into dependence-inducing command economics is fast approaching terminal velocity.

Why We Should Care About America’s Fading Economic Freedom - We do NOT need more socialism, we need more economic freedom

Poll: 47 percent of Americans say too much government regulation

After a busy year for regulators, adding more than 58,000 of regulations so far this year alone, 47 percent of Americans say the government regulates too much, according to a new Gallup poll.

In contrast, only 26 percent of Americans say there’s not enough regulation of business, and 24 percent say there’s just the right amount of regulation.

Why the Stimulus Failed

History shows that government spending and social-engineering programs don’t spur growth

8 early warning signs inflation is percolating

They don’t ring a bell at the top of a bull market nor at the bottom of a bear market. But when it comes to inflation there are some early warning signs that investors can monitor, according to a new report.

Investing for globally coordinated inflation

I am not about to argue the morality of central bank actions, as Richard Russell recently did in his Dow Letter. What I simply recognize is that greater inflation, right or wrong, is imminent. What is further clear to me is that inflation will be driven not only by monetary factors, but by increasing demand for scarce resources, particularly food, energy and healthcare.

Dow will repeat 2007-2008 peak-crash cycle

In the next four years — no matter who’s president — Wall Street will keep repeating the B.S., piling it on thicker, deeper, until they finally trigger a new meltdown bigger than 2008, worse than 1929, driving America into another Great Depression, like the 1930s

U.S. Debt On Track to Hit $16 Trillion Within Week

The federal government’s debt could hit an unprecedented $16 trillion this week while the Republican Party is holding its national convention in Tampa, Fla.

On Monday afternoon, at the opening of the convention. the Republicans will try to draw attention to the mounting debt by unveiling a debt clock in the Tampa Bay Times Forum, where the convention will be held.
At an event in Waterloo, Iowa, earlier this month President Obama highlighted his own efforts to deal with the debt.

STUDY: States over $4 trillion in debt

America’s 50 states are collectively over $4 trillion in debt according to a new study by an independent, non-partisan think tank.

State Budget Solutions‘ third annual State Debt Report shows that aggregate state debt fell from $4.24 trillion last year to $4.19 trillion this year. State Budget Solutions’ debt calculations include a state’s regular debt, the fiscal year 2013 budget gap, outstanding unemployment trust fund loans, unfunded other post employment benefit liabilities, and the state’s unfunded pension liabilities.

State of the States

Long considered the best issuers in the municipal bond market, states are under a lot of strain. Mounting pension shortfalls and high debt are upping the risk for state muni-bond investors.

Feds: Too few Americans ‘turn to government for assistance’

More Americans rely on their families for assistance than the government, so federal officials have undertaken an effort to help people to apply for federal assistance.

“Given that only 15 percent of you turn to government assistance in tough times, we want to make sure you know about benefits that could help you,” USA.gov announced today. The ”government made easy’ website has created a “help for difficult financial times” page for people to learn more about the programs.

80% of President Obama’s Drought Relief Bill Is For Food Stamps

The farm bill that President Obama was referring to, and that the Senate had passed, is proposed as an extension to current legislation which is due to expire next month. That new plan would cost taxpayers nearly $1 trillion over the next ten years, with an estimated $770 billion of that money going to fund an already out-of-control food stamp program. Yes, the vast majority of all the money budgeted to support the “Federal Agricultural Reform andManagement Act” is specifically earmarked for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), more commonly known as the food stamp program.

Chart of the Week: Tax Revenues Devoured by Entitlements

Obama’s false sense of fairness

In the 2012 election, “a fair shot” is the new “hope and change.”

President Barack Obama regularly promises in campaign speeches that his policies will give every American a “fair shot.” As with his previous campaign promises, the president knows people interpret “fair” to match their own meaning.

The choice Americans face in this important election, however, does not rest on what they think “fair” means. They must know what the President means when he uses the term.

For more than three and a half years, the president has governed by his politically motivated idea of fairness. His record demonstrates that “fair” for him doesn’t mean equal opportunity for all Americans – it means equal outcome regardless of efforts.

What’s really wrong with our economy 

Before you can fix something, you have to know what’s wrong.

Politics lies at heart of problem

Brain-dead politics assures chaos till 2016

 No matter who wins, irrationality will rule markets

Into The Meat Grinder We Go

“I want to give you a few predictions and then tell I’ll you who they’re from. It might surprise you.

Prediction number 1: We’re heading headlong into a financial meat grinder.

Prediction number 2: We’re about to plunge off a financial cliff.

Prediction number 3: Major market meltdown the likes of which we’ve never seen is upon on us.

This wasn’t from some alternative media site or somebody that’s peddling gloom and doom.

The first one is from JP Morgan, the second from Ben Bernanke, and the third was from Steven Rattner, former Obama Treasury adviser.

The IMF and the US Congressional budget office are both warning about the largest tax increase and the largest spending cut in history hitting this country.

They’re doing this for a reason. 

It isn’t because it’s not going to happen. It is because it’s going to happen.

Spaniards pull more money out of banks in July

A rush by consumers and firms to pull their money out of Spanish banks intensified in July, with private sector deposits falling almost 5 percent as Spain was sucked into the centre of the euro zone debt crisis.

Catalonia Asks Madrid for Help in Spanish Financial Crisis - The house of cards are falling down, falling down….

Spain’s regions have a combined debt of €145 billion and some €36 billion must be refinanced this year. Catalonia alone owes more than €42 billion. The government fund, which was set up on July 13 to help rescue the regions, has €18 billion in capital, part of it raided from the national lottery.

2013 Ford C-Max Hybrid, America’s first Prius killer: Motoramic Drives

Over the past 12 years, the Toyota Prius has made hybrid cars a household term and given the carmaker the greenest image of any manufacturer. The competition isn’t just sitting on the sidelines and watching the Japanese manufacturer dominate the world’s demand for fuel-efficient cars with a growing Prius model line; cars like the Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf provide some alternative to help consumers save on energy usage. But no model from Detroit has taken a direct aim at the Prius.

That is, until now. Enter the 2013 Ford C-Max Hybrid, a five-passenger tall hatchback that, like the Prius, will only succeed or fail as a hybrid.

End Game - OOPS…

Curt Schilling set out to build the greatest video-game company the world had ever seen, and to get rich — Bill Gates rich — doing it. Instead, the whole thing exploded in his face. Drawing on exclusive interviews with the Red Sox legend and his former employees, Jason Schwartz takes us inside the chaos, arrogance, and mistakes that led to the destruction of 38 Studios and the loss of $75 million in taxpayer money.

Drought to cost insurers billions in losses - Taxpayers on the hook again….

The insurance industry faces its biggest ever loss in agriculture as the worst drought to hit the US in more than half a century devastates the country’s multibillion-dollar corn and soyabean crops, triggering large claims.

Insurance companies providing so-called crop protection will recoup part of their loss, nonetheless, as the US federal government reinsures some of their risk, on top of subsidising the premiums that farmers pay to private companies.

A Dismal Outlook for Growth

In a new paper, the Northwestern economist Robert J. Gordon argues that the United States should get ready for an extended period of slowing growth, with economic expansion getting ever more sluggish and the bottom 99 percent getting the short end of the (ever-slower-growing) stick.

Diabetes May Be Reversed By Long-Used Vaccine For TB

A tuberculosis vaccine in use for 90 years may help reverse Type 1 diabetes and eliminate the life- long need for insulin injections, say Harvard University researchers raising money to conduct large, human studies.

Blink! U.S. Debt Just Grew by $11 Trillion

Republicans and Democrats spent last summer battling how best to save $2.1 trillion over the next decade. They are spending this summer battling how best to not save $2.1 trillion over the next decade.
In the course of that year, the U.S. government’s fiscal gap — the true measure of the nation’s indebtedness — rose by $11 trillion.

Over 100 Million Now Receiving Federal Welfare

Obama fast-tracks federal wind, solar energy projects

President Obama is fast-tracking seven federal wind and solar projects as the administration touts its energy policies amid GOP criticism over green investments and rising gas prices.

The projects in Arizona, California, Nevada and Wyoming will produce 5,000 megawatts of power, enough to run 1.5 million homes, the White House said in a statement announcing the decision.

Postal Service Posts Big Loss as Cash Runs Low

The U.S. Postal Service on Thursday reported a $5.2 billion quarterly loss and said it was nearly out of cash and likely to exhaust its government credit line in coming months.

Slow path to progress for U.S. immigrants

Immigrants lag behind native-born Americans on most measures of economic well-being — even those who have been in the U.S. the longest, according to a report from the Center for Immigration Studies, which argues that full assimilation is a more complex task than overcoming language or cultural differences.

Arrested illegals who were released charged with 16,226 subsequent crimes

Illegal aliens who have been released from custody between 2008 and mid-2011 have been charged with 16,226 subsequent crimes, including 19 murders, 142 sex crimes and thousands of drunk-driving offenses, drug-crimes and felonies, according to a new report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

IRS told employees to ignore potential fraud in program used by immigrants

IRS supervisors ignored employees who tried to warn agency higher-ups of fraud in a program designed to collect taxes from immigrants, resulting in the agency paying out potentially bogus refunds, according to an official audit released Wednesday.

World’s Oldest Shipping Company Closes In Industry Slide

The Baltic Dry Index, a gauge of rates to transport dry- bulk commodities including grains and coal by sea, is down 55 percent this year and on course for a fourth annual slide in five years, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The current slump is “one of the worst experienced for many years,” the shipping company said in the statement.

Obama Still Lying About Mother’s Health Insurance Problem

President Obama’s willingness to falsify the facts about a personal tragedy in order to make a political point speaks volumes about not only his cynicism but also his character. It’s important to remember that this is no misunderstanding but rather a bald-faced lie.

CBO: Obamacare Will Leave 30 Million Uninsured

A new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report says that under the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, 30 million non-elderly Americans will remain without health insurance in 2022.

One of the main arguments the Obama administration made for passing the Affordable Care Act was that it would provide coverage for the uninsured.

Currently, accoriding to CBO, there are 53 million uninsured persons in the United States, including uninsured illegal aliens. The CBO estimates that in 2022–8 years after the Affordable Care Act has been fully implemented–30 million people will remain uninsured.

Artificial Butter Linked to Alzheimer’s

A new study is raising concern about chronic exposure to an artificial butter flavoring ingredient used in some margarines, microwave popcorn, snack foods, candy, baked goods, pet foods and other products.

The study, published in the American Chemical Society journal Chemical Research in Toxicology, has found the ingredient – diacetyl (DA) – intensifies the damaging effects of an abnormal brain protein linked to Alzheimer’s disease.

Robert Arnott: Inflation Will Triple by 2017

While the U.S. economy will soon enter recession, if it hasn’t already, inflation represents the long-term worry, says Robert Arnott, founder of Research Affiliates, an investment management firm.

The inflation rate has “an 80 percent chance of topping 5 percent within five years,” he tells Smart Money. Consumer prices rose 1.7 percent in the year through June.

If a recession hasn’t already begun, a tax increase or government spending cuts – the “fiscal cliff” – would spark one, Arnott says. At that point, of course, the issue is deflation.

But toward the end of the next downturn, inflation will surge, he says. The government’s exploding debt burden, which now totals $16 trillion, will pave the way.

Germany and Italy near blows over euro

German politicians from across the spectrum have reacted furiously to warnings by Italy’s Mario Monti that Bundestag control over EU debt policies threatens to bring about the “disintegration” of the European project.

Emails: Geithner, Treasury drove cutoff of non-union Delphi workers’ pensions

Emails obtained by The Daily Caller show that the U.S. Treasury Department, led by Timothy Geithner, was the driving force behind terminating the pensions of 20,000 salaried retirees at the Delphi auto parts manufacturing company.

The move, made in 2009 while the Obama administration implemented its auto bailout plan, appears to have been made solely because those retirees were not members of labor unions.

OBAMA’S COLLEGE CLASSMATE: ‘THE OBAMA SCANDAL IS AT COLUMBIA’

If you could unseal Obama’s Columbia University records I believe you’d find that:

A)   He rarely ever attended class.

B)   His grades were not those typical of what we understand it takes to get into Harvard Law School.

C)   He attended Columbia as a foreign exchange student.

D)   He paid little for either undergraduate college or Harvard Law School because of foreign aid and scholarships given to a poor foreign students like this kid Barry Soetoro from Indonesia.

If you think I’m “fishing” then prove me wrong. Open up your records Mr. President. What are you afraid of?

Wait, the U.S. economy actually lost 1.2 million jobs in July?

The U.S. economy lost 1.2 million jobs between June and July. But that’s not how it got reported. When the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its jobs figures for July, it said the economy gained 163,000 jobs. So what gives?

Obama Blames State and Local Governments, Congress for 14.1 Percent Black Unemployment

In an interview with Black Enterprise magazine, President Barack Obama blames state and local governments, as well as Congress, for over 14 percent black unemployment.

Take me down to the parasite city

Have you seen the latest jobs report? Major buzzkill: creeping unemployment, anemic growth, and the recovery’s totally stalled.

But not here: The District is booming! “Washington may have the healthiest economy of any major metropolitan area in the country,” says New York Times D.C. bureau chief David Leonhardt in Sunday’s Gray Lady. “You can actually see the prosperity”!

Generation Squeezed

 I worry about the future — not mine but that of my three children, all in their 20s. It is an axiom of American folklore that every generation should live better than its predecessors. But this is not a constitutional right or even an entitlement, and I am skeptical that today’s young will do so. Nor am I alone. A recent USA Today/Gallup poll finds that nearly 60 percent of Americans are also doubters. I meet many parents who fear the future that awaits their children.

The young (and I draw the line at 40 and under) face two threats to their living standards. The first is the adverse effect of the Great Recession on jobs and wages. Even if this fades with time, there’s the second threat: the costs of an aging America. It’s not just Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — huge transfers from the young to the old — but also deferred maintenance on roads, bridges, water systems and power grids. Newsweek calls the young “generation screwed”; I prefer the milder “generation squeezed.”

Obama Administration Proposes Race-Based School Discipline System

The White House thinks that schools are providing too much discipline to black students, and it is proposing race-based quotas for school suspensions. That’s right, affirmative action for school discipline. Could Asian students be disciplined more to meet quota requirements? That’s what Trifecta thinks. Hear what race-based school discipline means for American education.

Taxpayers to Recover a Mere $24 Million From Solyndra; Networks Ignore

The three networks have, thus far, ignored the revelation that American taxpayers will only recover a mere $24 million of the $527 million lost on Solyndra, a new report by the Dow Jones newswire revealed last week. The evening newscasts and morning shows have skipped the announcement.

65 Outrageous Lies by President Obama

 Report: Cronyism, political donations likely behind Obama, Holder failure to charge any bankers after 2008 financial meltdown

A new report from the conservative Government Accountability Institute (GAI) finds that President Barack Obama’s and Attorney General Eric Holder’s failure to criminally charge any top Wall Street bankers is likely a result of cronyism inside the Department of Justice and political donations made to Obama’s campaign.

Solyndra CEO in 2009 email: ‘The Bank of Washington continues to help us!’

Solyndra CEO Chris Gronet referred to the federal government as “The Bank of Washington,” in a 2009 email released by the Republican National Committee Research blog Thursday.

Fed study says Bush and the banks didn’t cause the Great Recession. The Fed did

A book by Robert Hetzel, a senior economist at Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, says it wasn’t Bushonomics or greedy bankers or broken markets that caused the Great Recession. InThe Great Recession: Market Failure or Policy Failure, Hetzel pins the blame squarely on the Federal Reserve and Team Bernanke.

Oh, the downturn first started with “correction of an excess in the housing stock and a sharp increase in energy prices” — the housing bust and the oil shock. Indeed, those two things were enough, in Hetzel’s view, to cause a “moderate recession” beginning in December 2007.

But only a moderate one. It was the Fed’s monetary policy miscues after the downturn began that turned a run-of-the-mill downturn into a once-in-a century disaster.

Bernanke Says Student Loans Won’t Cause Crisis - LOL

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said record U.S. student loan debt doesn’t put the financial system at risk the way mortgages did because most educational borrowing is backed by the government.

Chart of the day, HFT edition

This astonishing GIF comes from Nanex, and shows the amount of high-frequency trading in the stock market from January 2007 to January 2012. (Which means that the Knightmare craziness of last week is not included.)

The various colors, as identified in the legend on the right, are all the different US stock exchanges. You might think there are only two stock exchanges in the US, but you’d be wrong: there are only two exchanges where stocks are listed. There are many, many more exchanges where stocks are traded.

What we see here is relatively low levels of high-frequency trading through all of 2007. Then, in 2008, a pattern starts to emerge: a big spike right at the close, at 4pm, which is soon mirrored by another spike at the open. This is the era of traders going off to play golf in the middle of the day, because nothing interesting happens except at the beginning and the end of the trading day. But it doesn’t last long.