Arkady's Thoughts

Glancing around the blogosphere it seems that conservatives and libertarians are once again in a collective rage over the inevitable passing of ObamaCare.   Yes, there is plenty to be angry about and the depth to which our politicians are stooping is surprising even the most seasoned pundits.  However this surprise is only shared by those individuals who believe our Congress is acting at the behest of a populace upset with our current health care system.  This is simply incorrect, ObamaCare has very little to do with health care.  Latest polling data suggests that a higher percentage of people oppose ObamaCare than the percentage Obama received in November of 2008.  54% of Americans oppose this piece of legislation, with 45% strongly opposing it.  Now, this was the point I repeatedly brought up during the special election in Massachusetts, when Republican superstar Scott Brown pledged to stop ObamaCare.  In fact this issue was a cornerstone of...

This is a good video , short and sweet describing the main arguments between inflation and deflation.  While Marc "Dr. Doom" Faber deserves all the respect in the world, he unfortunately misses the mark here, at least partially.  Mike Shedlock however delivers a succinct argument as to why the credit expansion strategy of the Central Bank will inevitably fail.  Where both men are completely right is that the current policy being pursued by our government is one of utter disaster and Marc Faber even goes so far as to say these policies will bring down the Western governments.  Well, they don't call him Dr. Doom for nothing, but sadly he may be on to something.  One of the hallmarks of the Great Depression was it's unbearable length and duration, this is of course purely and completely due to massive government stimulus, currency devaluation and choking taxation.  Both Mike Shedlock and Marc Faber are sensing that the approach over the last two years...

At least that is what the headlines read, but did it really?  According to the BLS , they sure did, but if you look deeper then the picture is a bit muddied.  The following industries either shed jobs or remained steady: - Construction - Information - Transportation and ware-housing - Manufacturing - Retail trade The following industries gained jobs: - Temporary help - Health care - Federal government (15,000 new people for Census work) So the industries that actually produce something tangible and contribute to the productivity of the country are either all stagnant or continuing to shed.  Yet the industries that produce nothing but service or rely on shrinking hours are trending up.  Not a good trade-off.  Losing private sector while gaining public sector jobs should make anyone cringe.  Furthermore the trend from full time employees to part time employees or the amount of hours per worker is continuing to deteriorate.  BLS will have ...

Kentucky's Republican Senator Jim Bunning has dominated headlines in the past few days due to his seemingly incomprehensible and flat out evil "filibuster" of a 10 billion dollar unemployment package.  As reported by CNN just two days ago, Bunning is being blamed for filibustering H.R. 4691 and has in the process drawn ire from not only Democrats, but fellow Republicans.  Most puzzling is the reporting of the story as if Bunning performed some horrendous act for which he now must be crucified for.  CNN is not the only culprit as virtually every major news media spun this story as Jim 'the Scrooge' Bunning blocking unemployment benefits from being paid out.   Not true, he has nothing against unemployment benefits, he simply refused to provide unanimous consent for a bill that has absolutely no financing mechanism.  That is all.  From a geeky political perspective this is hardly a filibuster as the bill was never brought up for debate, but was s...

Perhaps discussing is the wrong term, perhaps skewers or shreds is more appropriate.  In five or six minutes Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) runs through the costs of Obama's proposal and brings to light the many painful aspects that we have been talking about for the past several months.  First and foremost, the entire plan is way too expensive and while Obama's proposal is not yet scored by the CBO the Senate's version was indeed scored and the scoring was based on misleading information.  Ryan delves into specific tricks and gimmicks that he believes were injected into the bill on purpose to offset the cost deficit.  The true cost over ten years of this new government health care proposal will result in over 400 billion in losses, but that number is useless.  Because as you remember, the bill is front loaded which means that taxes and cuts to Medicare will go on for ten years, but spending will only go on for six.  If you were to look out in twenty years the d...

Below is a fascinating video on a subject rarely discussed.  Dan Mitchell is on point as always presenting another government paradigm that we have so frequently examined.  This paradigm suggests that most of the time our government responds to a so-called crisis, implements benevolent and far reaching regulations and end up hurting people unintentionally while failing to solve the crisis.  In lessons from Shays' Rebellion we saw how radically and quickly a government can jump to a conclusion based on perceived threats or failing to understand the source of the problem.   Stopping criminals from laundering money and using far reaching regulations is just such an example.  However there is a great cost to pay for such benevolence. On top of the tens of billions extracted from the banks by the FDIC, the banks are also burdened with filing millions of reports on "suspicious" activities that some have estimated cost the banking industry up to 10 billion...

Throw this one into the rapidly mounting "duh" pile.  FDIC is reporting of a rapid increase in distressed banks, highest in 16 years to be exact.  On top of that and you can throw this one into "government manipulated statistic" pile, FDIC claims their account dipped further into negative territory.  Looks like our ruling elite are following a directive of extend and pretend, because a negative account does not exist.  There is a much more apt and straightforward term for negative account and that would be the term bankrupt.  As this little blurb suggests, the situation is dire and getting worse.  The FDIC reported that its Deposit Insurance Fund dropped further into negative territory, reporting a $20.9 billion loss in the fourth quarter, worse than its $8.2 billion loss in the third quarter. The agency hopes to make up that loss through advance payments by banks of $45 billion in fees In fact, as reported here some time ago , FDIC has been br...