Do Ultra-Mega-Metropolises Pave Way for Great Dieoff?

As metropolitan cities continue to grow at incredible rates alongside each other across the globe, their boundaries start to blur. This has given rise to a new scale of geography known as "mega-regions". These vastly populated settlements have interlocking economic systems, common natural resources and shared transportation links....According to a new UN report, the world's mega-cities are merging to form these vast mega-regions which may stretch hundreds of kilometres across countries and be home to more than 100 million people. _AsianInfrastructure_via_BrianWang

Image from NextBigFuture

The Hong Kong-Shenhzen-Guangzhou region is home to over 120 million people and it is here where a significant chunk of China's economic boom is happening.

..."The top 25 cities in the world account for more than half of the world's wealth. And the five largest cities in India and China now account for 50 percent of those countries' wealth," he added....Asian cities are growing more equally according to the report, but primarily because they were already uniformly poor with a greater volume of slums. _AsianInfrastructure

As the populations of the world huddle together in ballooning megalopolises, what will happen should something suddenly go wrong? What if war breaks out, and the enemy targets civilian infrastructure such as power, transportation, communications, water, fuel, food delivery, sanitation, health care facilities? What will 100 million people packed together to the gills, do when faced with sudden loss of food, water, fuel, medicines, and such?

Clearly, the strong will prey on the weak, until there is no one left to prey on but other predators.

If a diabolical green leftist scientist wanted to eliminate at least 90% of the human population, the task is made so much easier by the concentration of hundreds of millions of people into small areas. Under such conditions, the effect of the EMP, or the bioengineered lethal virus or toxin, will be magnified. Particularly with the calculated demolition of particular bridges and highway overpasses.

A highly centralised population is a highly vulnerable population -- vulnerable to a decapitation strike. The simultaneous loss of transportation hubs, research and production centers, centers for delivery of health care, and destruction of food, fuel, and water distribution along with bureaucratic infrastructure -- would likely lead to rapid collapse and terminal disorder. Particularly when the same thing was happening to most of the megalopolises of an entire region or continent.

The technology of the 21st century will allow for comfortable rural living -- a reversal of the compulsive urbanisation the 20th century bequeathed to the early 21st. But we have to learn to use it, then make the choices that allow us to break the chains that tie us to the urban lifestyle. Otherwise we are the ones who tie ourselves to the railroad tracks while the black-suited villain in the background pulls the track switch lever, sending the hurtling train our way.

Take your pick of black suited villains, but as long as the radically insane third world nations such as North Korea, Iran, and Venezuela are not allowed to possess reliable nuclear weapons and delivery systems, it is most likely that the threat will come from within high tech societies themselves.

The radical greens have never made a secret of their wish to cleanse the planet of most of humankind. Let's not make it any easier for them than we have to.

America Cannot Afford Stupidity of Obama Pelosi

Too broke to be this stupid? Mark Steyn makes a convincing case that America can no longer afford the stupid policies of an ever expanding welfare state fascism.

If your children are normal and healthy, they will outgrow the socialism they have been taught in government schools and universities. But if you have neglected any aspect of their upbringing, they may be stuck in a leftist zomboid stupour for the rest of their lives.

Children in an affluent culture are apt to grow up lazy and dull-witted. Sometimes wise parents will intervene to help their children learn work values. Most parents are not wise.

And so society is stuck with a glut of mal-educated nincompoops, who have no idea why employers are not lining up to hire them. At this rate, the incompetency to competency ratio is going through the roof!

From the South, illegal aliens are pouring into the country, disrupting the census, and making a lot of taxpaying rule followers very unhappy. Unhappy enough to secede? Eventually.

More people are turning to the Tea Party movement. Enough to disrupt the mainstream parties? Could be.

The Tea Party is close to mainstream, common-sense values that a majority of Americans have always adhered to. But although the mainstream media hates this fact, the excesses of Obama - Pelosi are clearly creating openings for libertarians here and there.

Obama Pelosi Regime A Burning Shipwreck

Obama Pelosi is pushing for a $165 billion bailout of private union pension plans -- and why not? Unions -- both private and public -- helped put Obama Pelosi at the helm of this foundering ship of state. Consider it a prelude to a multi-trillion dollar bailout for exorbitantly generous public sector union pension and benefit packages, which are bankrupting several state, county, and city governments across the US.

Obama has ordered almost 3 dozen $500,000 a day exploratory oil rigs to shut down for at least 6 months -- but Obama is not offering to pay the almost $20 million a day fees that rig operators demand from oil companies for that many drill ships. $20 million a day for 183 days comes to about $3.7 billion of costs -- for nothing! Once these rigs are forced to leave US waters for lack of work, it may be many years before oil companies can get them back again. Was that the Obama - Pelosi plan all along?

By choking off domestic fuels and energy production, Obama - Pelosi is forcing US companies to buy from Saudi Arabia, Russia, Venezuela, and other state sponsors of terrorism. Way to go, Obama Pelosi!

The Obama Pelosi regime is clearly anti-private sector, anti-markets. As Europe's anti-market governments are being crushed under mountains of debt, shouldn't American politicians be learning something about the perils of anti-capitalism?

Although Obama Pelosi and its media minions have been chirping about an economic recovery for several months, this is not actually what a recovery looks like.

Obama Pelosi expect you to go down with the sinking ship, although they are amassing plenty of exportable personal wealth which they could take with them to Switzerland or some other haven, should they ever need to abandon ship themselves. As in "rats deserting a sinking ship."

Obama Will Need a New Hero as Chavez' Venezuela Implodes

Mr. Obama's friend and hero, Hugo Chavez, is leading a revolution to hell down in Venezuela. Perhaps Obama did not bow low enough to the caudillo, or did not offer him a big enough bailout?

There’s a simple reason for this: the implosion of Chavez’s self-styled “Bolivarian socialism” is accelerating.

Figures reported Tuesday by the Chavez-controlled central bank portrayed an economy that is completely out of sync with the rest of the region -- and perhaps unique in the world in the degree of its current distress. Gross national product fell by 5.8 percent in the first quarter, while inflation remained at 30 percent. Private investment plummeted by 27.9 percent as capital continued to flee the country.

Private economists suspect the economic contraction is even worse than what the official figures concede. But let’s assume they are correct. Venezuela’s crash compares with quarterly growth rates of 8 percent in Brazil, Argentina and Mexico. It comfortably exceeds the collapse of Greece, which contracted by 3 percent in the first quarter.

Inflation in Caracas is triple the next highest rate in Latin America (Argentina) and is more than double that of the next worst economy (Pakistan) among the 56 tracked by the Economist’s website. Even Zimbabwe, which used to be considered the world’s economic basket case, looks good compared to Venezuela: it is expecting 6 percent growth this year, while inflation is under 5 percent.

In short, economic recovery is taking hold across the world -- except in Chavez’s Venezuela. _WaPo

Well, to be honest, thanks in large part to Obama Pelosi, economic recovery is not really taking hold across the world. But nowhere else do we find such a rapid collapse of a once promising nation as in revolutionary Venezuela.

Obama Wants the US to be More Like Europe

Source
According to the chart, Europeans pay between 60% and 85% of their income to the central government. That does not leave very much for local taxes or basic expenses.

Obama's quest for central control triggers new culture war

Problems with central planning

Forcing taxpayers to bail out exorbitant union pension plans

When judges join the unions -- there will be no justice

A hail of income redistribution from above

A Dearth of European Babies: Continental Decline

Time
Europeans want cradle to grave security guaranteed by the state. But lately there are a lot fewer cradles in Europe, with the EU beginning to look more like a continent-sized grave. What do you say to a continent that refuses to have enough children to replace its population -- yet is willing to riot and strike to prevent the state from reducing generous handouts and pensions? There is very little left to say.

Germany is shrinking — fast. New figures released on May 17 show the birth rate in Europe's biggest economy has plummeted to a historic low, dropping to a level not seen since 1946. As demographers warn of the consequences of not making enough babies to replace and support an aging population, the latest figures have triggered a bout of national soul-searching and cast a harsh light on Chancellor Angela Merkel's family policies.
According to a preliminary analysis by the Federal Statistics Office, 651,000 children were born in Germany in 2009 — 30,000 fewer than in 2008, a dip of 3.6%. In 1990, German mothers were having on average 1.5 children each; today that average is down to 1.38 children per mother. With a shortfall of 190,000 between the number of people who died and the number of children who were born, Germany's birth rate is well below the level required to keep the population stable.

...The Federal Statistics Office says Germany's population of 82 million could drop by up to 17 million over the next 50 years. Demographers fear a shrinking workforce will stymie growth and struggle to foot the bill for a rapidly aging population. "Germany's working-age population is likely to decrease 30% over the next few decades," says Kröhnert of the Berlin Institute for Population Development. "Rural areas will see a massive population decline and some villages will simply disappear — Germany will become a weak economic power in the future."_Time

There are limits to the state-supported urban lifestyle, and the shrinking populations of Europe, Russia, Japan, and other "advanced" nations are starting to feel the squeeze. Germany is very close to the point of no return.

But why focus on Germany? Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Russia, Japan, and Eastern Europe are worse off than Germany in almost every way.

But it is precisely for that reason that one must focus on Germany's demographic meltdown. Germany is the most successful country in Europe -- and yet it has chosen the path of childless national suicide. What hope, therefore, do the rest of the hyper-indebted, under-procreating, proudly entitled, union obligated state disasters of Europe have?

Not that North America is doing much better. California, Michigan, and Illinois are drowning in public sector union debt and corruption. New Jersey has the chance to save itself, with a rare governor willing to go out on the political limb to save the state -- even at the risk of his own career. And what do New Jersey's unions do? Threaten to strike, riot, and even joke about assassinating the governor. The California governator has turned into a wimp in the face of public sector union threats. The US president is a Chicago Way machine politician steeped in the corrupt, fascist, populist pandering, union dominated, self-defeating styles of government that are bringing so much of the western world down.

North American demographics are slightly better than Europe's, but that is due to immigration -- and the significantly higher birthrates of new immigrants to America compared to multi-generational North Americans.

Can new technology save the developed world from itself? Automated industry and commerce? Nanotechnological fabricators? New longevity procedures and technologies for longer and healthier lives? Artificial wombs to allow high achieving women to have children AND continue their career paths? A partial reversal of urbanisation, with new farm and ranch technologies that allow for more pleasurable and profitable urban lifestyles?

We need new frontiers, big new challenges that can bring out the atavist in the young and the young at heart. We need to find tasks and places that force us to tap the deep strength of the primitive drives within ourselves at the same time we are utilising advanced skills and technologies undreamed of even a few years ago. Most of all, we need to raise our children to seek these new challenges and risks.

What we are doing now clearly isn't working.

More:

Deep budget cuts are under way across Europe. Although the first round is focused mostly on government payrolls — the least politically explosive target — welfare benefits are looking increasingly vulnerable.
"The current welfare state is unaffordable," said Uri Dadush, director of the Carnegie Endowment's International Economics Program...."We have to adjust our social security systems in a way that they motivate people to accept regular work and do not give counterproductive incentives," German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told news weekly Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung on Saturday.

The uncertainty over the future of the welfare state is undermining the continent's self-image at a time when other key elements of post-war European identity are fraying. Large-scale immigration from outside Europe is challenging the continent's assumptions about its dedication to tolerance and liberty as countries move to control individual clothing — the Islamic veil — in the name of freedom and equality....

...Demographers and economists began warning decades ago that social welfare was doomed by the aging of Europe's baby boomers. Some governments had been trimming and reforming, but now almost all are scrambling to close deficits in order to prevent a wider collapse of confidence in the euro...

...Southern European countries that have not moved toward reforming welfare in the same ways are paying a steep price. _SFEx

Cross posted from Al Fin

A Government of Sleazy Clowns

Gold is down..... Oil is down. [Stocks are down. (AF)] The euro is down. Mortgage rates are down. Mortgage applications are down.

The main thing that is up is mortgage payment skipping. At least 10% of American households missed a monthly mortgage payment during the first three months of 2010. This is an all-time high in the post-World War II era. The rate was 9.1% in the first quarter of 2009. It rose to 9.5% in the final quarter. The trend is ominous. Americans will stop making payments on every other category of debt before they skip a mortgage payment. The fact that they are skipping mortgage payments indicates that they are in very tight straits. _GaryNorth

And the future doesn't look a lot better -- not with the current crop of university students, graduates, and the monkey-minded professors who are lobbing balls of shite into their heads:

Universities are sending young achievers out into the world with the words of rabid leftists ringing in their heads. It's a dismal picture, given the future the [leftists] running Washington have created.

...universities are no longer places to question authority, but cheerleaders for the establishment. It's a sad sight, given that it is graduates who will in the end be forced to foot the bill for these big-government excesses and warped values. _IBD

We are living in a "dumbed-down" world from top to bottom, of course. Parents abdicate their duties to raise their children to popular media and a leftist-curricula government educational establishment. Children are pampered, indoctrinated, have their self-esteem pumped up -- and are never really challenged, never pass through a distinct rite of passage separating childhood from youth. A bumper crop of Peter Pans and Cinderellas are flooding into the world, with no idea how to think, or what to do with themselves.

And that is just the way Obama Pelosi wants it. Because now that they've got the system twisted into the shape they like, who is ever going to be able to challenge them now, with the dumbing down of all future generations assured?

And the Obama Pelosi establishment intends to milk the taxpayer and the productive sector for every penny. And they don't mind breaking a few laws or traditions to do it:

From the G.M. bondholders, to the Black Panthers at polling stations, to ACORN to these assaults on private citizens, Obama is running a Hugo Chavez-style thugocracy. Like Chavez, he gets non-official "allies" to act as his henchemen and do the intimidation work. Obama provides the narrative and tells the story of "greed" while the SEIU provides the muscle. This is about power, not prosperity. _AndreaTantaros

Obama Pelosi's friends in the public sector unions are very happy with the way things are going. To make sure that the unions keep all of their friends in congress where they can do them the most good, the unions plan to spend $100 Million to grease the "wheels" for the 2010 mid-term election.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) plans to spend in excess of $50 million during the 2010 campaign, part of which will fund “a massive incumbent protection program,” according to Gerry McEntee, president of the union.

AFSCME spent roughly $67 million on its political activities in 2008. But the $50 million slated for the 2010 elections is the largest expenditure the union will make in a midterm election, according to union officials. The money will go to help defend the union’s top tier of eight Senate seats and 34 House members.

“We have got to protect the incumbency in the House. We have got to protect the incumbency in the Senate,” McEntee said. “It is going to be hard. Those tea-baggers are out there. There is an anti-incumbency mood out there.”

…The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) plans to spend $44 million in total on its 2010 election program. The union spent $85 million on its 2008 campaign, according to union officials. _The Hill_via_Gateway

That $100 million will be money well spent for the public sector unions, since the largesse of government extends all the way down from the federal level to the states, and to counties and municipalities. All of these levels of government are sinking under debt and pension obligations to public sector employee unions. Thousands of bankruptcies would be inevitable if not for the ability to get federal bailouts. It's like one big happy (crime) family! Only the taxpayer suffers, and if you're the unions: who cares about the taxpayer?

The Obama Pelosi criminal way needs only one thing more: a steady supply of uneducated, untrainable, and highly manipulable future voters -- by the millions. And it doesn't have to look far to the South to find them.

Various estimates put the illegal immigrant population in the U.S. between 10 and 20 million. One argument says we can't round up and deport all those people. That argument differs little from one that says since we can't catch every burglar, we should grant burglars amnesty. Catching and imprisoning some burglars sends a message to would-be burglars that there might be a price to pay. Similarly, imprisoning some illegal immigrants and then deporting them after their sentences were served would send a signal to others who are here illegally or who are contemplating illegal entry that there's a price to pay.

Here's Williams' suggestion in a nutshell. Start strict enforcement of immigration law, as Arizona has begun. Strictly enforce border security. Most importantly, modernize and streamline our cumbersome immigration laws so that people can more easily migrate to our country. _WalterWilliams

WHOOOPS!!! Dreadfully sorry. I must have allowed that politically incorrect Walter Williams to insert his opinion, instead of printing the ever-so-correct opinion of Obama Pelosi on immigration. I'm running out of space, so I will just summarize: Obama Pelosi says "Let everybody in as long as they're impoverished, ignorant, and likely to stay that way. That way we can be assured that they will vote for us -- because we will always give them free goodies and take care of them."

Obama Pelosi happens. It happens because enough voters were stupid enough to let it happen. If you're part of the thugocracy or the idiocracy, you are happy with Obama Pelosi. If not, you will either fight back, go Galt, jump in a lake, or find somewhere else to live.

President Bacharach Obamanopolis of the US of Greece

BankruptingAmerica
Check out this short, informative, and clever video from Bankrupting America, showing how Greece-like Obama's America is becoming. Check out their blog.

For more information, check out the US National Debt Clock

The Federal debt is growing too large too quickly for most human minds to comprehend the global hazard that is being created.

Obama's Clownish Presidency Likely to Prove Memorable

Public Sector Unions are Bankrupting America

World leaders suddenly looking like clueless chumps

US not immune to violent protest by public sector union thugs

President Obama to followers: "You are getting sleepy. Mine is the only voice you hear. Nothing else exist but the sound of my voice . . .

Both mortgage delinquencies and rising jobless claims cast doubt on any near-term recovery from Obama depression.

Doug Hornig and Susan Beverley look at the phenomenon of Americans living abroad.

Governor Brewer of Arizona tells Obama and Napolitano to "Do your job!" (video)

Obama bungles another one

Obama's green jobs myth

H/T News Alert and Reverse Spins

Kentucky Opthalmologist Rand Paul Invites Obama to Campaign

Rand Paul invited President Obama to campaign in Kentucky -- for his opponent!!!
The CNN video above presents a sharp contrast between the hysterical polemics of the current Obama Pelosi regime's Democratic Party, and a thoughtful citizen-politician from the land of Daniel Boone.

H/T News Alert

The Pathological African American Community Gets Worse

The wealth disparity between black and white families in the US is only a symptom of the worsening pathology within black communities. Thomas Shapiro at Brandeis released a study that followed 2,000 black and white families between 1983 and 2007 (PDF).

White families saw “dramatic growth” in their financial assets, from a median value of $22,000 in 1983 to $100,000 in 2007; black families experienced only the slightest growth in wealth during this same period, measured in 2007 dollars. This held true even at higher income levels. Middle-income whites, for instance, accumulated $74,000 in assets by 2007, as opposed to high-income black families, whose median assets totaled just $18,000 in 2007.

...the recession fell even more heavily on blacks, as the average black family has far more of its wealth wrapped up in a home. _NYT_via_ImpactLab

The Guardian newspaper also took a look at this issue:

A typical white family is now five times richer than its African-American counterpart of the same class, according to a report released today by Brandeis University in Massachusetts.

White families typically have assets worth $100,000 (£69,000), up from $22,000 in the mid-1980s. African-American families' assets stand at just $5,000, up from around $2,000.

A quarter of black families have no assets at all. The study monitored more than 2,000 families since 1984. _Guardian_via_NextBigFuture

How can one explain this disparity? You cannot explain it without looking at the rampant social pathology in the black community. Almost 50% of African American women have genital herpes, with rates of syphilis, gonorrhea, and HIV also extraordinarily high among African Americans. About 70% of African American children are born out of wedlock -- a situation which correlates closely with higher poverty, drug abuse, and crime rates. Blacks occupy an inordinate number of prison cells across the country (and the developed world). Victimology and self-pity are almost ubiquitous among American blacks -- which helps to explain the huge African American vote percentage for Obama.

Ever since the Moynihan Report was released in 1965, there has been a rising awareness of the unbelievable levels of social pathology among American blacks. Unfortunately, the situation has gotten measurably worse over that time period -- largely due to US government policies that were supposed to improve the condition of blacks.

Although blacks are actually worse off than they were 5 years ago, large numbers of blacks report that they feel better off since Obama was elected. It should not likely take very long for such optimism to reverse, as the appalling truth about Obama's effect on the economy finally hits home.

When a semi-hermetic community is riven by social pathology and venereal disease, when its economic and social status is declining decade by decade (despite massive government programs specially designed to benefit them), and when this community can only succeed by the legal theft of assets from more productive citizens outside that community -- that community is in serious trouble, and needs a reality check.

But in today's politically correct environment that panders to underperforming groups, such a reality check is most unlikely.

An Ambitious, but Deeply Bitter, Hate-Filled President

The ambition of the US President, Barack Obama, apparently knows no limits.   Smashing his way through the US economy like a mad bull in a china shoppe, Obama aims to seize as much control of as many sectors of the private economy as he can.

From health care to energy to banking to automobile manufacture to mining to housing -- even to coveting the private retirement savings 401K accounts of individual workers -- Obama's greed for power is virtually unlimited.

Unable to conceive -- much less see -- the misery and hardship that his policies have already caused, Obama pushes ahead with a killing agenda of ideology-driven destruction and power mongering.

Dr. Elaina George has written a recent piece in Big Government which looks more closely at this phenomenon:

Health care reform is the latest piece of the puzzle to be put in place. If you add this to what has happened in the financial industry and the banking industry a bigger picture begins to emerge. With the proposed financial regulations, there seems to be a movement towards the consolidation of power in a few institutions, systematically removing free competition, setting up the too big to fail phenomenon, thereby giving people less choice that will ultimately cost everybody more in the long run.

...It is not hard to visualize a future where there will only be a certain number of hospitals that are able to provide care for specialized diseases such as cardiac care, or orthopedic surgery. If that happens, access will be restricted since patients will be limited as to where they will be able to go to receive their care. If there was only one specialty heart center in the city and only a certain number of doctors on staff, by definition, there will be a limited number of patients that can be treated at any specific time. Unfortunately, these changes will likely lead to the de facto rationing of care. In addition to the problem of access, costs will likely go up because of the lack of competition.
The demise of Lehman Brothers and the consolidation of other large financial companies have led to very few winners in the financial industry – the biggest of which is Goldman Sachs. The banking industry has seen a few surviving large institutions such as Chase and Citibank. What the larger banks didn’t acquire in mergers, the FDIC removed by taking over and closing hundreds of smaller and community banks. Makes you wonder if the credit unions will be next on the list.
Like the banking industry and financial industry the biggest and most powerful entity will survive and competition will be crushed. _BigGovernment

The reckless push toward Obamacare in the US Congress and in the media, took no account of the potential dangers of the legislation. Now we are beginning to see that rather than increasing the availability of medical care, the "Obamacabre" legislation will have the opposite effect.

Obama's prejudice in favour of hypercentralised control of all economic and political activity is quasi-totalitarian in nature. Being raised by a single mother who was a hard core Marxist left young Barry with a simmering hatred of Europe and the United States. An idealistic (but unrealistic) love of the third world along with a heightened sense of historical western exploitation and oppression of third world peoples, gives President BO very little room for concern about the welfare of US citizens. An innate narcissism bordering on solipsism means that Mr. Obama is barely aware of the concerns of others outside himself, and bitterly resents the intrusion of outside concerns into his inner realm of self-worship.

As the real world -- which Obama acknowledges only grudgingly -- begins to crash around him as a result of his own incompetent leadership, some very interesting things are likely to happen inside Mr. Obama's head, and in its immediate vicinity. Things that will only increase Obama's bitterness and hatred of the outer world.

Be prepared for turbulence ahead.

Obama Leads US Into Perfect Storm of Debt

US to be hit with perfect storm of debt

US Debt shock to hit as soon as 2013

April 2010 US govt. deficit 4 times higher than April 2009 deficit -- alarming trend.

US is following in Greece's footprints

California is already Greece

No sign of recovery at retail or employment levels in private sector

US commercial real estate to get slaughtered in 2010

President Obama subscribes to the "spend your way out of debt" philosophy. He, along with the lipsticked PIIGS of Europe, believe that there is no economic problem which cannot be solved by doubling down on spending.

If interest rates rise, little by little, the US government may find itself in the situation where over half its budget is devoted to interest on its debt. The other half will be devoted to entitlement spending. The next half will have to pay for the military -- as a number of new wildfire wars are likely to break out across the landscape. And the final half will pay for discretionary spending. As you can see, a budget with four halves will involve a lot of defict spending. Which means that the interest on US govt. debt will keep climbing from 55% to 60% to 65% and on and on until the rickety structure collapses -- or something else gives.

There is no wisdom nor discipline to restrain spending, within the Obama Pelosi government. The US government -- as it stands -- will only continue to make things worse at an accelerating rate.

What you do, knowing what the US government is doing, will determine how you ride the coming perfect storm of debt.

LA Teachers Hold Revolutionary Rallies to Inspire Students

H/T News Alert

We knew they had to be teaching something besides traditional instruction in schools -- very few high school graduates are prepared for college. The teaching of revolution is in keeping with the ideals of many curriculum designers at university teachers' colleges -- or schools of "education" as they are called.

Most immigrants from Latin America wanted to escape this type of radical fomenting of violence which they came to know all too well in El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Mexico. But the radical pseudo-intellectuals of the dieoff.left never get enough violence or death. It is what they are all about.

Leftists Scream "Racist!!!" and Secretly Hate Poor People

H/T News Alert

Do leftists secretly hate poor people? Well, not only poor people. Leftists actually hate all people except themselves. They would be happy to eliminate hundreds of millions -- if not billions -- of their fellow humans via a great human dieoff.org. Presumably, only leftists would remain, to rule over a pristine nature in a most enlightened manner.

[Leftists] claim to combat poverty in two principal ways.

First, they use the force of government (e.g., income taxes) to take money from those who have earned it in order to give it to the poor.

Second, they restrict people’s use of their property to enable the poor to have access to such property.

What [leftists] fail to understand, however, is that the very means they choose to combat poverty – socialism and interventionism – actually exacerbate the problem that they claim to address. Their war on poverty hurts the very people they say they are trying to assist. _lewrockwell

Leftists fail to understand that wealth must be created before it can be redistributed. Consequently, leftists do not know when to stop. Leftists are unable to detect when their policies are having such a negative effect on wealth creation, that there will be progressively less and less wealth to spread around.

In leftist countries, people do not want to have children, and birthrates are declining precipitously. As populations shrink, human capital goes away, and yet another form of wealth is destroyed by leftist policies.

The US Constitution was explicitly designed to put limits on what government could do to the people. But government does not like to be constrained, so corrupt bureaucrats and elected officials have been tearing away at Constitutional protections of citizens' rights for over a century. The Obama - Pelosi reich is the epitome of anti-constitutional regimes.

The Tea Party grassroots opposition to O-P fascism is frightening to leftists. They need to destroy grassroots anti-leftist populism by any means necessary. But opposing leftism is seen as a matter of survival to many American democrats, independents, and republicans. So they will not give up so easily.

Will Obama become the fascist in public that he has always been in private?

Islamic Terrorists at Times Square, Greek Communists Riot, Kill

Although leftists and Islamists are the ones rioting, murdering, and terrorising, you can always count on politicians, academics, celebrities, and the media to keep trying to blame grass roots Tea Party activists for being violent.

[satire]Eric Holder and a gang of Justice thugs worked unsuccessfully on the Times Square terror suspect for 36 hours straight, attempting to get him to renounce Islam and join the American Tea Party movement. The Obama administration is desperate to create an "Oklahoma City bombing" style boost to the president's badly sagging poll numbers. Getting Faisal Shahzad to join the Tea Party would be a huge public relations win for Obama - Pelosi, and it is unlikely that AG Holder will let up on his efforts any time soon. [/satire]



Greek leftist freeloaders are unwilling to live within their means. So they riot and murder to express themselves.

Given the public sector pension disaster developing in the US, we may see union thugs and leftist activists committing the same crimes in American cities soon.

H/T Reversespins

California Being Murdered by Unions and "Concerned Politicians"

Arnold Schwarzenegger is concerned about the environment. He is so concerned about the environment that he is pushing a catastrophic "cap and trade" law on the state, and has forbidden all off-shore oil drilling off the California coast. But that is not the worst of California's economic downfall.

Hearing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger tout his job-killing environmental law at a time California is hemorrhaging jobs couldn't help but be demoralizing and confusing for the state's citizens and businesses.

Recent polls show Californians in a deep funk over the state's prospects. A new study of corporate leaders in Chief Executive magazine shows why. Asked to rank states by business climate, CEOs put California dead last. Texas was No. 1.

For those who live in California, reading the remarks of the CEOs is as eye-opening as it is depressing. For example:

• "Texas is pro-business with reasonable regulations while California is anti-business with anti-business regulations."

• "California is terrible. Even when we've paid their high taxes in full, they still treat every conversation as adversarial. It's the most difficult state in the nation. We have actually walked away from business rather than deal with the government in Sacramento."

• "The leadership of California has done everything in its power to kill manufacturing jobs in this state. If we could grow our crops in Reno, we'd move our plants tomorrow."

Not so happy, are they? Want more specifics? Here are just a few:

• "Among the highest state income and sales taxes in the nation."

• "Unemployment ... of 12.6%, one of the highest in the nation."

• "State politics seem consumed with how to divide a shrinking pie rather than how to expand it."

• "Union density is increasing, contrary to national trend, from 16.1% of workers in 1998 to 17.8% in 2002."

• "Unfunded pension and health care liabilities for state workers top $500 billion and the annual pension contribution has climbed from $320 million to $7.3 billion in less than a decade."

...California's long-term job losses are downright ugly. Since 2001, while politicians dither and spend, 634,000 factory jobs have disappeared along with 34% of the industrial base. From 2003 to 2007 alone, according to the Milken report, 79,000 jobs were lost due to excessive regulation and too-high taxes.

But if California's private companies are suffering, its public sector sure isn't. From 2001 to 2009, California lost 235,000 net private-sector jobs, but gained 163,700 government jobs. Those cushy union jobs also pay more than comparable private jobs and provide gold-plated benefits. Now Californians find they actually have to pay for this foolishness. _IBD

If you have your retirement savings in a 401K, you may feel safe. But should you? What if the Obama administration decides to confiscate all private 401K accounts and lump them all into a government retirement program? Would you feel better then?

In February, the White House released its “Annual Report on the Middle Class” containing new regulations favored by Big Labor including a bailout of critically underfunded union pension plans through “retirement security” options.

The radical solution most favored by Big Labor is the seizure of private 401(k) plans for government disbursement -- which lets them off the hook for their collapsing retirement scheme. And, of course, the Obama administration is eager to accommodate their buddies.

Vice President Joe Biden floated the idea, called “Guaranteed Retirement Accounts” (GRAs), in the February “Middle Class” report.

In conjunction with the report’s release, the Obama administration jointly issued through the Departments of Labor and Treasury a “Request for Information” regarding the “annuitization” of 401(k) plans through “Lifetime Income Options” in the form of a notice to the public of proposed issuance of rules and regulations. (pdf) _HE

The Obama administration is really quite clever -- if you consider laying landmines all over the countryside against individual initiative and enterprise to be clever.

The foul anti-liberty landscape that is being created by Obama - Pelosi is the worst type of pollution conceivable. It will take all the ingenuity of the brightest and most freedom-loving Americans to find a way out of this Obama death trap.

A Bubbular Web of Debtful Collapsification

The first domino is Greece. It owes nearly $10 billion to Portuguese banks, and with Portugal already falling two notches in S. & P.’s ratings and facing higher borrowing costs, a default by Greece would be a staggering blow. Portugal, in turn, owes $86 billion to banks in Spain; Spain’s debt was downgraded one notch last week.

The numbers quickly mount. Ireland is heavily indebted to Germany and Britain. The exposure of German banks to Spanish debt totals $238 billion, according to the Bank for International Settlements, while French banks hold another $220 billion. And Italy, whose finances are perennially shaky, is owed $31 billion by Spain and owes France $511 billion, or nearly 20 percent of the French gross domestic product. _NYT

NYT
The bubbleheads are all being bailed out, but they remain bubbleheads all the same. Which means the same problem will come back again more inflated -- only we will all be in a poorer position to do anything about it by that time. Meanwhile, back in the USA:

The banking system is financing the government deficit through leverage, which is how the US can handle a 12% deficit with a very low savings rate. Bloomberg has finally caught up with the story without, however, mentioning the most important source of financing for the Treasury: offshore banks.

...The PIIGS crisis no doubt helped, as European banks shifted towards safer American debt......To say this is unsustainable is a meaningless statement: nothing like this ever has been tried before in the United States of America. The banking system is in harness to the government, and in terror of federal prosecution for whatever past misbehavior the Justice Department chooses to define as a criminal offense after the fact. Not to excuse the banks’ depredations, but there is a frighteningly arbitrary element in the application of what passes for law here. At some point Americans must save, as the largest retirement wave in history begins–unless, of course, no-one retires until age 75. _SeekingAlpha

Things might just work themselves out -- in the US, and Europe -- if not for that dratted demographic deflation, the population implosion. Where the smarter people of the world voluntarily die off to make way for larger numbers of the populations that can not possibly run a high tech infrastructure on their own.

The 20th century Bismarckian welfare state has run out of people to stick it to. In America, the feckless insatiable boobs in Washington, Sacramento, Albany and elsewhere are screwing over our kids and grandkids. In Europe, they've reached the next stage in social democratic evolution: There are no kids or grandkids to screw over. The United States has a fertility rate of around 2.1 – or just over two kids per couple. Greece has a fertility rate of about 1.3: 10 grandparents have six kids have four grandkids – i.e., the family tree is upside down. Demographers call 1.3 "lowest-low" fertility – the point from which no society has ever recovered. And, compared with Spain and Italy, Greece has the least-worst fertility rate in Mediterranean Europe.

So you can't borrow against the future because, in the most basic sense, you don't have one. Greeks in the public sector retire at 58, which sounds great. But, when 10 grandparents have four grandchildren, who pays for you to spend the last third of your adult life loafing around?

...Over 30 percent of German women are childless; among German university graduates, it's over 40 percent. And for the ever-dwindling band of young Germans who make it out of the maternity ward there's precious little reason to stick around.....Germans, who retire at 67, are now expected to sustain the unsustainable 14 monthly payments per year of Greeks who retire at 58. _OCRegister

All of which sounds a lot like private sector workers who must work until 70 to pay for the luxurious retirements of public sector workers who retire at 50 or 55. Simply unsustainable.

Sweden: The Leftist's Poster Child of Socialist Utopia

What if instead of comparing tiny Sweden to the giant USA, you instead compared Swedish Americans to Swedish Swedes? How would the two groups compare?

Sweden is often held up by American pundits and experts as a kind of Utopia, a country to be emulated. As is often the case when dealing with Utopias however, the complexities of history, culture and policy frequently are shoved aside.

... The 4.4 million Americans with Swedish origins are considerably richer than the average American. If Americans with Swedish ancestry would form their own country their per capita GDP would be $56,900, more than $10,000 above the earnings of the average American.

The old Sweden, in contrast, has not done as well in economic terms. In 1960 taxation stood at 30 percent of GDP, roughly where the US is today. As taxes rose, economic growth decreased, with Sweden dropping from being the 4th richest country in 1970 to being the 12th richest in 2008. Swedish GDP per capita is now $36,600, far below the $45,500 of the US, and even further behind the $56,900 of Swedes in America.

A Scandinavian economist once stated to Milton Friedman: "In Scandinavia we have no poverty." Milton Friedman replied, "That's interesting, because in America among Scandinavians, we have no poverty either." Indeed, the poverty rate for Americans with Swedish ancestry is only 6.7%, half the U.S average. Economists Geranda Notten and Chris de Neubourg have calculated the poverty rate in Sweden using the American poverty threshold, finding it to be an identical 6.7%. _NewGeography

In other words, something in the Swedes themselves causes them to be successful -- when they have the freedom to do so.

In Sweden, 20% of working age Swedes are on public assistance simply because it has become easier to live that way, rather than to keep trying to get jobs that have been destroyed by the socialist system. After Obama - Pelosi has its way with the American economy, young Americans will come to the same sad conclusion.

Opportunity destruction has reached its limits in nations such as Zimbabwe and North Korea, but leftist social democracies such as Sweden are driving the same road a bit more slowly. Just throw in a few million more Muslim immigrants to stir the pot a bit and add a breaking strain to the societal infrastructure, and Sweden will get there.

The US will take a bit longer, but if Obama - Pelosi policies are not totally destroyed within the next few years, the downward collapse should proceed rapidly by the late 2010s.