Thursday, June 30, 2011

The New Colour of Racism in America is Black

Black Racism
Walter Williams laments the descent of young American blacks into hatred and racist violence against whites and Asians. This descent into racism is a natural result of the culture of resentment that has been force-fed young blacks for several decades, and is yet another sign of the desperate sickness of American black communities. In Walter Williams words:
Born in 1936, I've lived through some of our openly racist history, which has included racist insults, beatings and lynchings. Tuskegee Institute records show that between the years 1880 and 1951, 3,437 blacks and 1,293 whites were lynched. I recall my cousins and me being chased out of Fishtown and Grays Ferry, two predominantly Irish Philadelphia neighborhoods, in the 1940s, not stopping until we reached a predominantly black North or South Philly neighborhood.

Today all that has changed. Most racist assaults are committed by blacks. What's worse is there are blacks, still alive, who lived through the times of lynching, Jim Crow laws, and open racism who remain silent in the face of it.

Last year, four black Skidmore College students yelled racial slurs while they beat up a white man because he was dining with a black man. Skidmore College's first response was to offer counseling to one of the black students charged with the crime. In 2009, a black Columbia University professor assaulted a white woman during a heated argument about race relations. According to interviews and court records obtained and reported by Denver's ABC affiliate (12/4/2009), black gangs roamed downtown Denver verbally venting their hatred for white victims before assaulting and robbing them during a four-month crime wave. Earlier this year, four black girls beat a white girl at a McDonald's, and the victim suffered a seizure. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel ordered an emergency shutdown of the beaches in Chicago because mobs of blacks were terrorizing families. According to the NBC affiliate there (6/8/2011), a gang of black teens stormed a city bus, attacked white victims and ran off with their belongings.

Racist black attacks are not only against whites but also against Asians. In San Francisco, five blacks beat an 83-year-old Chinese man to death. They threw a 57-year-old woman off a train platform. Two black Oakland teenagers assaulted a 59-year-old Chinese man; the punching knocked him to the ground, killing him. At Philly's South Philadelphia High School, Asian students report that black students routinely pelt them with food and beat, punch and kick them in school hallways and bathrooms as they hurl racial epithets such as "Hey, Chinese!" and "Yo, Dragon Ball!" The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund charged the School District of Philadelphia with "deliberate indifference" toward black victimization of Asian students.

In many of these brutal attacks, the news media make no mention of the race of the perpetrators. If it were white racist gangs randomly attacking blacks, the mainstream media would have no hesitation reporting the race of the perps. Editors for the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and the Chicago Tribune admitted to deliberately censoring information about black crime for political reasons. Chicago Tribune Editor Gerould Kern recently said that the paper's reason for censorship was to "guard against subjecting an entire group of people to suspicion."

These racist attacks can, at least in part, be attributed to the black elite, who have a vested interest in racial paranoia. And that includes a President who has spent years aligned with people who have promoted racial grievance and polarization and appointed an Attorney General who has accused us of being "a nation of cowards" on matters of race and has refused to prosecute black thugs who gathered at a Philadelphia voting site in blatant violation of federal voter intimidation laws. _NewAmerican
Racial Violence Has Not Made It Into the Conversation About Race

More on America's sick culture of black racism:
The whole question of race is a dicey one. Pity the poor fool who wades into those troubled waters. Well, here goes. If a black person tells the truth -- namely, that in 2007, 99% of black problems are self-inflicted -- he is, like Bill Cosby and Thomas Sowell, dismissed as an Uncle Tom. If a white person tells the truth -- namely, that with a 70% illegitimacy rate, no amount of government hand-outs will do anything but provide the cancer victim with a very expensive band-aid -- he’s condemned as a racist.

When blacks say they wish to have a dialogue with whites, it only means that they want a forum at which to bash whites, while their victims provide a Greek chorus of mea culpas, provide the coffee and Danish, and drop a little something in the collection plate on their way out.

...if a person such as Bill Cosby says he’s ashamed of the promiscuity, drug use and illiteracy, that plague the black underclass, he’s called names. The real shame should be that millions of black kids are fatherless; that their taste in music is for anything that’s crude, lewd and loud; that their role models are too often basketball players who make more babies than baskets; whose language skills are embarrassingly abysmal; and that, although most of the street punks are peddling drugs for roughly the minimum wage, they regard it as a worthier, more manly pursuit than working at a 7/11 or, God forbid, going to church, school or a library.

Most whites in this country are not racist. In their heart, they agree with black comedian Chris Rock when he says, “I love black people, but I hate niggers,” even if they themselves are not allowed to make such an honest declaration. _Townhall

The black flash mob phenomenon is just a modest preview of the black racist violence which has been building up inside black communities. Pretending that violent black racists do not exist is becoming much more difficult, the signs are so widespread.

If a civilisation turns a blind eye to the rapid growth of barbarism inside its walls, perhaps it deserves its fate. But on the other hand, if particular facets of that civilisation are intentionally blinding the majority of citizens to this exploding barbarism, it is those facets of obfuscation which deserve the direst fate which their would-be victims can envision.

Why No One Really Knows What is Going On With China's Economy

China watchers may be a bit disturbed by ghost shopping centers, apartment buildings, and entire ghost cities. They may even be slightly bothered by the large volume of bad loans made by banks to non-viable state owned enterprises. But what should really be bothering China watchers is everything else that is going on in the economy, that not even China's government can keep up with.
A two-week tour this month through Fuzhou, Shanghai, Beijing and Chengdu highlights the extent to which local banks and governments are devising new and clever ways to supply money to capital-starved businesses without going through official channels. These new sources of capital raise doubts about Beijing's control over the financial system, as well as its ability to reduce inflation and forestall a crash in the property market.

...This problem is twofold: It is very difficult to capture information about nonbank sources of lending, which comprise everything from corporate balance sheets to unrecognized promises for future profits. Second, the bank regulators control only the banks, but not the whole economy. They are in a tug of war both with China's planning board—the National Development and Reform Commission—and local governments, all of whom have a vested interest in spending as much money as possible.

Arguably, this shadow banking system has a positive side. It is teaching wealthy Chinese how to evaluate the costs and benefits of recycling their savings into profitable projects, instead of leaving them in low-yielding bank deposits that could be funneled into useless investments. One of my former interns said her father, a metals trader in Shanghai, constantly receives investment proposals for private projects and probably has a good sense of what is a good and bad investment.

But the downside is more frightening. There is a rampant growth of credit, uncontrolled or even incalculable by the country's top leadership. This means the financial system is generating liabilities that could easily turn sour and, come some kind of crisis, prove difficult to clean up. Does this remind anyone of America's subprime crisis? _WSJ
This means that the numbers that you are shown may have very little to do with the actual state of affairs in China. The underlying reality may be better, or it may be worse, than what you are being told.

There is plenty or room for surprises, so beware.

Monday, June 27, 2011

US Local Governments Caught in Pension Death-Squeeze

Wages and benefits account for 30% of state general fund expenditures, according to data from the National Governors Association. But U.S. Census surveys show that in the typical town or school district, employee pay and benefits can consume from 70% to 80% of the budget.

Pensions are an enormous part of the problem. While pension payments now consume about 4% of state budgets, many municipalities are already spending 15% to 20% of their finances on pension costs.

...[in] Anaheim, pensions already account for 22% of its $252 million budget. San Jose's pension costs for police and firefighters have quadrupled in a past decade. Without reform, the city estimates that its yearly pension costs, $63 million in 2000, will swell to $650 million in 2015. _WSJ
These problems are exploding from California to Illinois to New York, and everywhere else where government employee unions hold a death's grip on state and local budget processes.

These skyrocketing rates of pension and benefit growth cannot be sustained for many more years. Angry -- and violent -- confrontations between taxpayers and government union thugs are likely to spread well beyond Madison, Wisconsin, and New Haven, Connecticut. In fact, virtually all of Mr. Obama's strongest support derives from special interests such as public employee unions and radical community and faux environmental groups. The combined agendas for each of these pillars of support for Mr. Obama toll a death knell for economic prospects for growth for US taxpayers individually and for the US as a whole.

If the voters of the world's sole superpower do not wake up soon to what is being done to them by their own government, they will eventually wake to find the sharp-wire strung around them in an ever tightening circle.

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Obama Administration Wants to Meddle With US Power Grid Safety Features To Accomodate Unreliable Wind and Solar Projects

Big wind and big solar power projects are inherently unreliable and exorbitantly expensive to incorporate into a fine-tuned power grid. Consequently, the US Obama administration plans to de-tune the power grid -- with unpredictable results -- so as to make it easier to "fit in" the sloppy, unpredictable power produced by wind and solar.
The group that oversees the U.S. power grid is proposing a change that has the potential to disrupt electric clocks in schools, hospitals and other institutions, according to a company presentation obtained by The Associated Press. It may also mess with the timing of traffic lights, security systems, sprinklers and some personal computer software and hardware.

...Joe McClelland, head of electric reliability for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission...said..."Let's see if anyone complains if we eliminate it." [the fine frequency control over the grid]

...In the future, more use of renewable energy from the sun and wind will mean more variations in frequency on the grid, McClelland said. Solar and wind power can drop off the grid with momentary changes in weather. Correcting those deviations is expensive and requires instant back-up power to be always at the ready, he said.

...Tim O'Brian, who heads the time and frequency division at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, expects widespread effects. _AP
It is a lot of trouble and risk just to incorporate highly unreliable and expensive power technology such as wind and solar into a power grid which has served the nation very well until now. But it is the sort of quasi-malicious "playing around to see what works and what fails" which we are coming to expect from the Obama administration.

More information from Anthony Watts

Thursday, June 23, 2011

New US Births Coming Mainly from Minorities: Higher Crime Rates Coming?

Update 25June11: This blog posting by Financial Armageddon reveals some of the crimes likely to grow more common as th US undergoes its rapid demographic transformation.

According to the latest US Census numbers, US minorities now produce most new babies in the country. This trend is expected to accelerate over time, and lead to ever greater ethnic diversity across most of the US, as the US white population ages and dies without replacing itself. What will this trend do to crime rates across the US?
The map above looks at imprisonment rates per 100,000 among non-hispanic whites (via Steve Sailer). When compared to imprisonment rates among US blacks in the map below, it is clear that black imprisonment rates are far higher.
Comparing black imprisonment rates shown in the map above with US hispanic imprisonment rates in the map below, clearly hispanic rates are lower than black rates, but still higher than white imprisonment rates.
Below, you see a comparison of offending rates for US homicide by race (black vs. white) over a 30 year time period (from US DOJ).
When looking at violent crime rates in various cities and communities by ethnic makeup, it is clear that the higher the proportion of blacks within a given city or community, the higher the violent crime rates, in general. This suggests that as the proportion of white citizens in US cities declines, to the extent that they are replaced by younger black citizens, crime rates are likely to rise.

Most hispanic newcomers to the US are from Mexico and Central America, from countries with rather high rates of violent crime in comparison to most parts of the US. As more US communities achieve ethnic makeups similar to those of Mexican and Central American communities, it is not unreasonable to expect to see similar levels of crime in the transformed American communities, over time, as these communities adjust to populations with higher poverty, less education, and higher levels of corruption in local government.

As more of wealth in the US becomes concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer whites (disregarding Asians for now), expect to see more secure gated communities, and a booming market in private security services of all kinds -- including anti-kidnap bodyguards and chauffeurs.

The combination of affirmative action, lax border security, and generous welfare benefits (in comparison to impoverished home countries etc), provide incentives for growth of a permanent underclass -- more prone to crime and other dysfunctional behaviours such as high rates of illegitimate births.

The same dysfunctional and dysgenic (average US black IQ = 85, average US hispanic IQ approx. 90) processes are occurring across the developed world, from Europe to Oceania to North America. In Japan and South Korea -- where immigration is minimal -- populations are simply shrinking and fading away over time. Presumably nations of fading populations such as Japan and South Korea will not suffer the higher crime rates which more diverse and aging populations will suffer.

More: See Color of Crime for an analysis of black vs. white crime taken from official US DOJ data

From "Handbook of Crime Correlates, by Ellis, Beaver, Wright:"
Numerous studies have been conducted in the United States in which the proportions of black populations are correlated with the region’s crime rate....most of these studies have concluded that violent crime rates are significantly higher in neighborhoods and/or cities with the highest proportions of black residents, especially regarding violent offenses. _Ch3 p42


Blacks and Crime Rates, a lesson from Australia

See Wikipedia Race and Crime in the US

Steve Sailer: Mapping race and crime

US DOJ: Uniform Crime Reporting

One important note of caution: Police departments have been caught falsifying crime rate statistics in order to make it appear that crime-fighting efforts were more effective than they actually were. Observers should be aware that corruption in US governments at all levels is another parameter that could very well change to more closely approximate the levels seen in source countries.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Obama's Coming Double Dip Recession and How to Avoid Its Worst and Most Lasting Complications

Obama appears determined to drive the US economy into the trash dump. The policies of the Obama administration -- from designed energy starvation to crony fake stimulus payoffs to unions and radical organising groups etc etc -- are custom made to destroy the productive classes and to empower the parasitic classes. Economies cannot thrive under such conditions and policies. But if the Obama gang would only take the trouble to learn some lessons from earlier debacles -- such as the Carter recession -- perhaps it could blunt the worst effects of the coming Obama double dip recession-cum-depression.
A look at a past double-dip, the recessions of 1980 and of 1981-1982, suggests we are due...the 1980s experience points to something horrible: We need a recession to get a true recovery.

The trouble that time actually started in the 1960s. Back then, policy makers feared inflation less than a recession. Scholars alleged they knew how to manage "creeping inflation" before it morphed into "galloping inflation," the unstoppable animal. A famous economic textbook at the time, written by Paul Samuelson, claimed that inflation was all right as long as it stayed below 2 percent. John Kenneth Galbraith deemed inflation "a normal prospect." The view was that oil shocks, loose monetary policy, taxes, deficits and labor strikes were also mere obstacles to grow past.

In the mid-1970s, the inflation rate -- measured using the Consumer-Price-Index value for urban consumers -- crept above 5 percent, and it seemed to want to stay there.

Federal Reserve Chairmen Arthur F. Burns and G. William Miller tightened interest rates repeatedly over the decade's course, so that the prime rate, the interest rate charged by banks to creditworthy customers, climbed from 8.5 percent in February 1970, when Burns began in the job, to an astounding 11.75 percent in early August 1979, when Miller left office.

...The inflation rate moved above 10 percent regardless of the Fed's rate increases. This was partly because of energy prices, but only partly. The deeper problem was a shift in attitude.

Prices don't merely reflect what people think things ought to cost today; they also reflect what people expect items to cost tomorrow. Markets suspected that the future contained less growth and more inflation than advertised. They also suspected that the Fed would always hesitate to raise rates out of fear of hurting growth.

That suspicion was reinforced in 1978, when President Jimmy Carter signed the Humphrey-Hawkins Act, which mandated that the Federal Reserve strive for both full employment and stable prices.

Then, in the summer of 1979, with the inflation rate exceeding 10 percent, Carter appointed the inflation hawk Paul Volcker as Fed chairman...For weeks, Volcker worked hard to build consensus within the Fed for raising rates. He also summoned the Wall Street Journal's opinion editors, Robert Bartley and George Melloan, to lunch in the dining room of the New York Federal Reserve Bank to try to win their support. Then he held an unusual Saturday meeting of the Fed’s board of governors on Oct. 6. Afterward, the Fed announced it would raise the discount rate, which it charges banks that borrow at its window, to 12 percent.

When this news was announced that night, not everyone understood its importance. Pope John Paul II was visiting the U.S. at the time, and CBS asked the Fed spokesman, Joe Coyne, if their announcement mattered. “You'll remember this long after the pope has left town,” Coyne told the network.

Coyne was right. For what Volcker was really saying was: "We are not afraid to force recession, whatever the statute says. Our only job is to stop inflation."

...Volcker used his monetarist cover to tighten violently. Between summer 1979 and December 1980, the prime rate rose to 21.5 percent from 12 percent.

Why so high? To wring extra money out of the economy, certainly, but also to prove the Fed meant what it said. Volcker incurred the wrath of many. Homebuilders sent the Fed two-by-fours to symbolize the houses they were not building; car dealers sent in keys to unsold vehicles. "We were negotiating for a house when Mr. Volcker came along and knocked the struts from under us," a husband told the New York Times in 1980.

In the second dip, which officially began in summer 1981 and ended late in 1982, unemployment rose past 10 percent. "That recession resulted from the absolute necessity to kill inflation," George Melloan told me.

The Fed didn't move the discount rate below 5 percent until the 1990s.

Eventually, people became convinced that the U.S. was serious about inflation. And the lower interest rates that followed enabled millions of Americans to build, invest and buy homes. Volcker's work made the work of future presidents, Republican and Democrat, easier. _Bloomberg
In fact, much of the prosperity -- both true wealth-building and bubble-building -- of the US 1980s and 1990s was due to the renewed confidence in the US monetary system which Vocker's tough love approach earned. Unfortunately, under the "weak dollar policies" of Greenspan and Bernanke there has been far too much bubble-building and far too little genuine wealth-building in the US the last two decades.

There will be a price to be paid. The sooner the underlying lessons of sound money policy are learned, the better position the US society will be in to pay that price and to go on to prosper.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Life in California: Not for the Easily Discouraged

I am including a long excerpt from Professor Victor Davis Hanson's latest PJ Media column. It details some of his struggles to survive in the face of a rampant parasitism settling over the "Golden State."
Last week was another somewhat depressing chapter in a now long saga of living where I was born. I returned to the farm from leading a European military history tour, and experienced the following — mind you, after a number of thefts the month prior (barn, shop, etc.):

1) I left my chainsaw in the driveway to use the restroom inside the house. Someone driving buy saw it. He slammed on the brakes, stole it, and drove off. Neat, quick, easy. Mind you there was only a 5-minute hiatus in between my cutting. And the driver was a random passer-by. That suggests to me that a high number of rural Fresno County motorists can prove to be opportunistic thieves at any given moment. The saw was new; I liked it — an off-the-shelf $400 Echo that ran well. I assume it will be sold off at a rural intersection in these parts, or the nearby swap meet for about $60. I doubt the thief was a professional woodsman who needed a tool of the trade to survive.

2) On the next night, three 15-hp agriculture pumps on our farm were vandalized — all the copper wire was torn out of the electrical conduits. The repairs to each one might run $500; yet, the value of the wire could not be over $50. I was told by neighbors that reports and descriptions of the law-breakers focused on youthful thieves casing the countryside — in official parlance a “gang,” and in the neighborhood politically-incorrect patois “cholos” — like the fellow who recently drove in, in his new lowered shiny red pickup (hydraulic lifters are not cheap), inquiring about buying “scrap” and “just looking” before I ran him out.

3) A neighbor has a house for sale. It is unoccupied and rather isolated. I saw someone approach it on Friday, and drove over to ensure he was lawful. It was the owner’s assistant, who lamented that someone had just stolen all the new appliances out of the house — carting off the refrigerator, dishwasher, stove, and microwave. But why? Do these miscreants wish a civilization of the sort that all houses must seem occupied all the time, or are otherwise considered “communal property” for the taking? Don’t the appliance thieves have homes, and if so, do they have locks on the doors to protect their investments from the likes of themselves?

...Highly paid and pensioned California teachers and professors are resembling bishops, knights, or rooks surrounded by a host of part-time, temporary, one-year-contract pawns, lacking the salary, security, and benefits of the kingpins. Yet the liberal establishment in education cannot continue in such an apartheid world of unionized winners and exploited subordinate losers, or public fiefdoms propped up by private toilers. It is a contradiction in terms, and there is no money to pay for it, despite the fiscal logic of its exploitation.

...I went to the warehouse local food store the other day, soaked it all in, and wondered: if everyone is on food stamps (actually computerized government plastic credit cards designed to avoid the old stigma of pulling out a coupon), are there still food stamps? We are nearing 50 million recipients. So what will come next? Food stamp A; food stamp category B? Super food stamps? Can 100 million receive them? 150?... _VDH
California is a preview of coming attractions for much of "blue state America." Greece is already there, and much of the rest of "entitlement minded" western Europe is well on the way.

As for the readers of this blog, it should not require stating that your decisions over the next few years are crucial. And I am not referring to your decisions while in the poll booth, although one should be aware of the ramifications of his actions in all circumstances. No, your response to the general demographic decline of your society will determine at what level the re-building can commence.

Monday, June 20, 2011

San Francisco is Doomed

The average city pension to SF retirees is $46,272, while the average per capita income of San Franciscans is $44,373. But as the private sector continues to flounder -- as more businesses choose to leave California entirely -- average private sector incomes are not likely to rise quickly. Government retirement income, on the other hand, is likely to sky-rocket as union negotiated payouts expand on a generously pre-programmed schedule. More from SFGate:
The average retiree from San Francisco city government earns an annual pension of $46,272, according to the San Francisco Employees' Retirement System. The average retiree who worked at least 30 years in city government earns an annual pension of $76,981.

The average pension for a retiree from the Fire Department is $108,552. From the Police Department? $95,016. And everybody else? $41,136.

The figures show most retirees aren't getting anywhere near the fat packages that outrage many city residents - like the $264,000 pension paid to former Police Chief Heather Fong last year. [ed.: This paragraph is disingenuous, as the upward trend for pension payouts is exploding upward, and out of control. Look at the trends -- where things are going. Not at where they have been.]

But city retirees are doing pretty well compared with working San Franciscans....Per capita income is $44,373.

Public Defender Jeff Adachi is gathering signatures to place a measure on the November ballot that would require city workers to pay far more of their salaries toward pensions. Currently, most pay 7.5 percent of their paychecks, but some highly paid employees would pay double that in bad economic years under Adachi's plan. _SFGate
San Francisco is a beautiful city, but it has been going downhill rapidly under a steady barrage of corrupt leftist city governments, in thrall to government employee unions.

But the same rapid decay is happening across the state of California, for largely the same reason. The same process of doom is ongoing in Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Michigan, and a number of other parts of the US which are committing ritualistic murder of taxpayers and private sectors in league with government unions.

Greece and much of western Europe are on the same decline plane, destined for financial ruin as a result of an excessive and pyramiding sense of entitlement and tax/regulation suppressed drive and enterprise.

Politically correct groupthink controls western media, governments, academia and popular culture. But reality has the final word.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Five Steps to a Healthy Economy Which Obama Can Never Take

Growing a healthy economy is a lot like growing a healthy garden. One must provide the proper environment for healthy growth and allow natural forces to do the rest. Here are five useful steps for growing a healthy economy, which go against everything Obama believes:
...the fountain of economic growth is to expand the opportunities for voluntary, mutually beneficial exchanges (MBE).

Lower tax rates do so by decreasing the barriers to domestic trade. Income, sales, profits, and capital gains taxes are the equivalent of tariffs on domestic economic activity. Lower tax rates, like lower tariffs, increase the opportunity for trade, or MBEs.

Reducing government spending, especially on transfer payments, tax credits and the like, also increases the opportunities for growth. Government cannot increase MBEs by taking money from some people, and then handing it to others. These are involuntary, or one-side exchanges, and therefore generally decrease our wealth and economic activity.

Monetary stability is also critical for the discovery of MBEs. The more certain we are about the future buying power of the dollar, the easier it is to do business, invest and save. Hence, more business gets done, and more jobs get created.

The rule of law is a vital government function that increases opportunities for MBEs. Upholding contracts, protecting property rights, prohibiting arbitrary use of government power to seize one’s property or to give the politically connected unfair advantage in the marketplace all contribute to economic growth.

Regulations which reduce the risk of fraud by requiring full disclosure or promulgating financial accounting standards reinforce the rule of law. By contrast, regulations that seek to dictate economic outcomes, such as price controls, impose involuntary exchanges, and thereby shrink the opportunities for MBEs. Regulations that restrict economic activity directly reduce economic growth by forbidding exchanges that otherwise would have occurred. _Forbes
Obama and his gang fail on every point, and fail as badly as one could possibly fail. The ideology which drives the Obama agenda pushes the economy away from healthy and sustainable growth, toward cronyist favouritism and top-down fiat. The Obama way cannot continue for long without serious catastrophe.

Persons who voted for Obama were either particularly stupid, particularly young and inexperienced, particularly uninformed and indoctrinated, or particularly greedy for power and advantage. Anyone who imagined that an Obama agenda would revive the US and global economy and provide a healthier environment for markets and trade, was deluded. For a few of them, there is time to learn and change.

Monday, June 13, 2011

Rosenberg: US Crash in 2012 Roubini: China Crash in 2013


David Rosenberg of Gluskin, Sheff, & Associates, predicts a 99% chance of another US recession in the year 2012.

Nouriel Roubini predicts that China is in for a "hard landing" by the year 2013.
"I was recently in Shanghai and I took their high-speed train to Hangzhou," he said, referring to the new Maglev line that has cut traveling time between the two cities to less than an hour from four hours previously.

"The brand new high-speed train is half-empty and the brand new station is three-quarters empty. Parallel to that train line, there is a also a new highway that looked three-quarters empty. Next to the train station is also the new local airport of Shanghai and you can fly to Hangzhou," he said.

"There is no rationale for a country at that level of economic development to have not just duplication but triplication of those infrastructure projects." _Reuters


Roubini also sees the Eurozone in crisis, and possibly heading for a breakup.

The twin processes of debt and demography are poison for both Europe and the US. China's problems lie largely in the corrupt command economy's political constraints and inability to allow market forces to work their creative destruction. China's government appears addicted to the "broken window fallacy," which can create impressive GDP numbers but is hugely wasteful of resources -- human and otherwise. Ghost cities, ghost super-trains, ghost highways, and ghost shopping malls are the least of China's problems.

In no small part due to the US Obama administration's anti-market bias and ultra-cheap dollar policies, the global economy is experiencing multiple simultaneous and interactive shocks and aftershocks.

Getting rid of Obama will do very little good, however, unless the entire bandwagon of catastrophe that brought Obama into office is likewise disposed of. That bandwagon is massive, with a historical momentum that appears unstoppable. Debt and demographic decline can only smooth the way for the monstrosity.

That is why it is so important for future oriented individuals to plan for the possibility of a sustained economic collapse due to dysfunctional government -- as occurred in Zimbabwe, Cuba, the USSR, Mao's China, modern day Venezuela, etc etc etc.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Obama Backers Pore over Palin emails, Brawl at McDonalds

Telegraph

Backers of US President Barack Obama are eagerly poring over thousands of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin's emails, desperate to find incriminating details sufficient to disqualify her from all politics and public affairs. And what have they found so far?
One can only assume that the Left-leaning editors who dispatched teams of reporters to remote Juneau, the Alaskan capital, to pore over the emails in the hope of digging up a scandal are now viewing the result as a rather poor return on their considerable investment.

If anything, Mrs Palin seems likely to emerge from the scrutiny of the 24,000 pages, contained in six boxes and weighing 275 pounds, with her reputation considerably enhanced. As a blogger at Powerline noted, the whole saga might come to be viewed as “an embarrassment for legacy media”. _Telegraph
Most readers of the emails are likely to grow more sympathetic to the plucky little woman from Wasilla, AK, when they learn about all the death threats directed her way by supporters of the current US President.

But we all know that Obama supporters tend to be a bit energetic and rowdy at times -- all in good fun, of course. Consider a recent brawl at a San Jose, CA, McDonald's. Dozens of Obama supporters -- over 100 persons according to witnesses -- enthusiastically took part in the melee, resulting in two stabbings and a certain amount of property destruction.

Meanwhile, in Washington D.C., the Obama administration itself is busy destroying America's energy infrastructure, business infrastructure, economic and financial infrastructure, and the infrastructure of law which up until Obama had given native born Americans and immigrants the opportunity to work hard and develop their potential.

The United States of America -- the world's leading economy and only military superpower -- is being led by a group of people best known for their public antipathy toward the American constitution, American business and commerce, and the generally staid and stable American way of life and personal opportunity.

It is easier to destroy than to create, and it is the practise of destruction which seems to appeal most to Obama supporters and the Obama administration itself.

American voters will have to decide how much longer they will be forced to watch this government of destruction continue in its catastrophic march to the sea.

Thursday, June 09, 2011

Three Ugly Sisters of Bureaucracy Paint a Bleak Future

When a government is almost exclusively interested in its own growth and self-preservation at the expense of the people and private institutions it is meant to serve, a poisoned stew of dystopia is on the menu for as long as it takes to dismantle that government.
...the fake recovery is vanishing, the dollar keeps falling against anything of real value, and the average guy on the street is realizing limited benefit for his share of the debt and inflation burdens. How is this possible?

I’ve often said that bureaucrats and politicians have an extremely limited playbook consisting of taxation, regulation, and inflation. These three ugly sisters of bureaucracy effectively serve to steal from people, make things more difficult for them, and rob them of their purchasing power… and yet they’re dressed up as solutions instead of problems.

Consider the case of Illinois– the state is completely insolvent and running out of cash quickly. It doesn’t have the luxury of printing its own currency, and is thus being forced to deal with its fiscal reality… much like Greece.

Rather than trying to make their state more competitive in order to attract talent and capital, they’ve opted for the old playbook… starting with taxes...

...$10 trillion in the hole and facing a steep downward trend, the US government is either looking at substantially higher borrowing costs, substantially higher inflation, or both. Investors are getting jittery about loaning money to the United States, so they will either demand a higher return, or the Federal Reserve will hyperinflate the currency to mop it all up.

Regardless of the scenario, Congress will reach deep into this playbook until they chase away every productive citizen and company they can… In fact, it’s already happening.

The number of people renouncing US citizenship has been more than doubling year-over-year for the last several years. Meanwhile, many businesses are moving overseas, or at least focusing on international operations and shifting profits offshore.

It’s easy for companies to move… much more difficult for people who have emotional ties, fear, anxiety, etc. that maintains their geographical inertia. As such, it will ultimately be the individual citizens remaining behind who will be exploited like malnourished milk cows to pay for the destruction. _Simon Black on ZeroHedge

Because government bureaucrats and politicians put themselves (and their cronies) first and their constituents last, they never even consider doing the right thing. Reducing the size of government interference in markets and private decisions -- to allow individuals' assets and economic markets to grow based upon sound and sustainable economic principles -- would give nations such as the US, Greece, and Spain a new lease on life. But government functionaries can no longer do the responsible thing -- even if they wanted to -- because dependency upon government payouts, preferences, and benefits has grown too high for too many people. The riots in Peoria might even come to rival those in Athens or Paris, once government union organisers and other quasi-collectivist groups had time to bus in the shock troops and stir up local government beneficiaries.

In other words, the trend is set in stone, unless responsible citizens and officials collaborate to strip governments of their power to bribe voters and potential rioters with unsustainable phantom assets -- either borrowed or inflated. Because when the three ugly sisters get finished painting the landscape, you will come to envy those who were able to escape the trap in time. Who is John Galt?

Wednesday, June 08, 2011

The Obama Economy is Even Worse than You Thought

The policies of the Obama administration have led to the weak condition of the American economy. Growth during the coming year will be subpar at best, leaving high or rising levels of unemployment and underemployment.... The picture is even gloomier if we look in more detail. Estimates of monthly GDP indicate that the only growth in the first quarter of 2011 was from February to March. After a temporary rise in March, the economy began sliding again in April, with declines in real wages, in durable-goods orders and manufacturing production, in existing home sales, and in real per-capita disposable incomes. It is not surprising that the index of leading indicators fell in April, only the second decline since it began to rise in the spring of 2009.

...The economy will continue to suffer until there is a coherent and favorable economic policy. That means bringing long-term deficits under control without raising marginal tax rates—by cutting government outlays and by limiting the tax expenditures that substitute for direct government spending. It means lower tax rates on businesses and individuals to spur entrepreneurship and investment. And it means reforming Social Security and Medicare to protect the living standards of future retirees while limiting the cost to future taxpayers.

All of these things are doable. But the Obama administration has not done them and shows no inclination to do them in the future. _WSJ
There is no guarantee that an economy will thrive, even if an oversized government like that of the US did everything right. But when a bloated monstrosity such as the US federal government does everything wrong -- as under Obama -- it is almost impossible for the economy to thrive.

The US under Obama has become a depressing drag on the world's economic prosperity, as the headstrong tunnel-visioned techniques of revolutionary community organising are applied to the controls of the world's only superpower.

Better make sure your parachute is packed properly.

Monday, June 06, 2011

Why do Blacks Commit More Crime?

Blacks make up only 12.2% of the US general population, yet constitute roughly 47% of the US prison population. Why are blacks so prone to committing crime?
About one in 33 black men was in prison in 2006, compared with one in 205 white men and one in 79 Hispanic men. Eleven percent of all black males between the ages of 20 and 34 are in prison or jail...From 1976 to 2005, blacks committed over 52 percent of all murders in America. In 2006, the black arrest rate for most crimes was two to nearly three times blacks’ representation in the population. Blacks constituted 39.3 percent of all violent-crime arrests, including 56.3 percent of all robbery and 34.5 percent of all aggravated-assault arrests, and 29.4 percent of all property-crime arrests.

...The evidence is clear: black prison rates result from crime, not racism. America’s comparatively high rates of incarceration are nothing to celebrate, of course, but the alternative is far worse. The dramatic drop in crime in the 1990s, to which stricter sentencing policies unquestionably contributed, has freed thousands of law-abiding inner-city residents from the bondage of fear. __CityJournal
So again, why do blacks commit so much crime? Clearly, poverty is not the main reason. Blacks make up 24% of the poor US population but commit 40% of violent crime.

Looking at genetics as a determinant of crime:
The case for a genetic contribution to criminality is conclusive. What remains to be figured out are exactly which genes contribute to criminality and how they exert their effects . These questions will be addressed with the tools of molecular biology, and it will be far more difficult to assail the results as "biased". __Gnxp
So it would be wrong to consider ethnicity as a cause of criminality, although a correlation exists. Rather within the broader ethnic groups, there likely exist gene clusters which influence behaviour in such a way as to make criminal activity more likely.

What about IQ? Can the 1 SD difference in IQ distribution means between US blacks and whites lead to the enormous differences in criminal behaviour between the groups? Low IQ correlates positively with rates of arrest and incarceration. But poor Executive Function probably correlates much more positively with crime than IQ, just as high executive function correlates more positively with ultimate life success than does IQ.

Better research is needed on this issue, to separate the different correlations, correcting for confounders, and utilising the best and most recent information from studies of genetics, IQ, executive function, and other related factors.

Political correctness is the enemy of the truth in this area. The dishonest tendency to blame racism for differential rates of arrest and incarceration, rather than facing the truth that crime rates do vary generally by ethnic group, prevents the type of research that could get to the heart of the matter. A long term solution is impossible without the type of honest exploration that I suggest.

Sailer: Imprisonment Rates Vary Wildly by Race

From a posting published previously on Al Fin

Sunday, June 05, 2011

Blacks and Crime

Image Source

Is it actually true that blacks commit more crime than other races? Perhaps this is merely a racist stereotype meant to cast blacks in a bad light? To the world traveler, it seems as if crime is worse in areas of higher black populations, generally. South Africa, Haiti, Jamaica, Detroit, and cities across the Americas and Europe. Perhaps the crime experienced up until now is just a preview of what is coming to areas where black populations are building rapidly?
* “Blacks commit more violent crime against whites than against other blacks.” Forty-five percent of the victims of violent crime by blacks are white folks, 43 percent are black, 10 percent are Hispanic.

* Blacks are seven times as likely as people of other races to commit murder, eight times more likely to commit robbery and three times more likely to use a gun in a crime.

* “Blacks are an estimated 39 times more likely to commit violent crime against a white person than vice versa, and 136 times more likely to commit robbery.” (If decent black folks have trouble hailing a cab, and they do, these numbers may help explain it.)

* Black-on-white rape is 115 times more common than the reverse.

Even the two most famous sexual assaults by white men on black women in the last two decades � the Tawana Brawley and Duke rape cases � turned out to be hoaxes. _Buchanan_quoted from_The Color of Crime
The short list above was derived from official US government crime statistics, but published in The Color of Crime as a detailed report by a private group. Political correctness prohibits most people and organisations from publishing such simple -- but distinctly not politically correct -- statistics on race and crime.

The mainstream media will not report these documented facts to the public at large. Academics in Black Studies departments or otherwise, will not pass this information along to their students, although it would be helpful for them to know -- for their safety as well as their edification. Why can't western societies handle the truth?
Unless black leaders—real or media-created—muster the will to address the crime epidemic among black youth....the ongoing carnage will almost inevitably include an infinitesimal number of accidental police shootings of unarmed men. Criminal activity among young African-Americans is the poison of cities and of race relations; _CityJournal
Can we sort through all the carnage, intimidation, and hostility to discover the source of all this black crime?
My black crime problem, and ours, is that for most Americans, especially for average white Americans, the distance is not merely great but almost unfathomable, the fear is enormous and largely justifiable, and the black kids who inspire the fear seem not merely unrecognizable but alien. Not that we can’t understand where they come from, when we stop to consider. After all, the child is father to the man: and think how many inner-city black children are without parents, relatives, neighbors, teachers, coaches, or clergymen to teach them right from wrong, give them loving and consistent discipline, show them the moral and material value of hard work and study, and bring them to cherish the self-respect that comes only from respecting the life, liberty, and property of others. Think how many black children grow up where parents neglect and abuse them, where other adults and teenagers harass and harm them, where drug dealers exploit them. Not surprisingly, in return for the favor, some of these children kill, rape, maim, and steal without remorse. And around goes the negative feedback loop: reasonable fear feeds unreasonable white race hostility, whose reality in turn feeds unreasonable black paranoia about the justice system. _CityJournal
That is one valid point: with an illegitimacy rate of 70%, most black children lack for mature and wise guidance in their upbringing. How can they learn self control, and develop frontal lobe executive function, when the opportunity for training into responsibility and productivity is squandered? 40 years after affirmative action and the elimination of legal discrimination, is the problem caused mainly by passive neglect?

There is another reason being overlooked which makes the problem even worse. It is the active cultivation of hostility and hatred which is purposely cultivated within black communities by black-oriented newspapers, radio, community organisers, religious clerics from their pulpits, black "leaders", academics, politicians, and mainstream media. The hatred and hostility are carefully cultivated into a wild resentment which often has no other outlet besides violence.

If this picture of the mental life in too many western black communities reminds you of life in Gaza, Beirut, Baghdad, Jakarta, Manila, and tribally divided Africa, it is because purposely fueled human resentment, hostility, and violence, is associated with tribal juxtaposition and multicultural societies. It is the way that ambitious but underperforming men and women within a poorly-functioning community can achieve power and revenge against the better functioning community.

Children in these communities, from their earliest consciousness, are fed stories of outsider violence and abuse against the people of the community. Young minds are filled with tales of injustice and monstrous crimes against people like themselves -- until the young minds swell with resentment and hostility against the perpetrators. The process continues in the schools, churches, and even into colleges, universities, and public media.

The narrative which feeds into the resentment and hatred is finally the only narrative which is able to penetrate the mind and take root. At that point, bitterness is inevitable, although violence is not. But if the right combination of circumstances converge, violence eventually becomes more likely than not. If the boy falls in with the wrong crowd, if he's both quite suggestible and dull-minded, if the humanity of the victims has been systematically removed from his mind over the years -- violence becomes more likely.

Once a habit of using violence as a means to an end develops, barriers to greater violence in the future tend to shrink and fall. Any society which has allowed things to get this far in large numbers of child-men, is in for a nasty experience. Any society that allows things to continue like this, generation after generation, is a sick society that is apparently unconcerned over its own ultimate destiny.

Multiculturalism itself could be seen as a big part of the problem. Within the advanced western world, multiculturalism is almost inevitably accompanied by greater crime. Watch the crime rates soar, as Europe becomes more multicultural. Predictable, certainly, but apparently no one is willing to address the issue. Certainly Europe's low birth rates among Europeans creates a vacuum -- and a societal need -- which less affluent immigrants will wish to fill.

The "culture of resentment" which accompanies multiculturalism is going to be very difficult to arrest and subdue, since it appears to be so universal among humans. And resentment leads to violence and other crime, among the impressionable, and those who think they can get away with it.

What about this very Al Fin article? Could it not be said that this article feeds into the same type of resentment? Certainly it can be said. But ongoing and future crime is a real issue of current concern, unlike the slavery of the 1700s and early to mid 1800s, or the lynchings and KKK inspired violence of 50 to 150 years ago.

And what am I suggesting be done? More violence and hatred? Certainly not. The idea is to eradicate the hatred and violence, not to propagate more of it. But a society where acceptance of this violence-inducing resentment is endemic, and often encouraged, is a sick society which must be changed. Be aware that in changing such a sick society -- where the sickness saturates the government, the media, the academy, the unions, political activists, other special interests, the mainstream punditry -- the reaction against such change is apt to find expression in acts of violence.

But the change is coming, because the status quo cannot continue without leading to more uncontrolled violence, like the LA riots and the ongoing "simmering violence" in virtually every city with an appreciable black population.

In the US, a temporary prosperity due to the 1980s Reagan reforms of government temporarily reversed the Carter-Nixon malaise. But Mr. Obama has arrived on the scene just in time to accelerate the ongoing regress to the Carter rules of government and long lasting malaise and growing polarisation and resentments.

If the defenders of the status quo use violence against those who want a more peaceful future, an unfortunate propagation of constraints is likely to be triggered. Even peaceful reformers and ordinary people can only take so much violence against them. Chaos is unpredictable, but it often appears that a limited chaos is likely whatever path is chosen.

The first step would seem to be to stop the indoctrination into resentment, which so often leads to violence. Can that be done? Ask the purveyors of large-scale resentment if they are willing to give up their livelihoods. It is worth asking, if for no other reason than to receive an answer to your question.

Taken from an earlier posting on Al Fin

Friday, June 03, 2011

Violent Flash Mobs in North America Typically Black

Take a group of people with low impulse control, high resentment, relatively low intelligence and executive function, and a tendency to violence -- then throw in smart phones and a need to commit group mayhem -- and you may have created a new public art form and recreational activity. It might just catch on in your home town!
It is the black passage of Spring again. Social networking can be an accessory to break the law. This time a group a black youths outbreak of violent behavior causes destruction at a Dunkin’ Donuts stores in Greenwich Village, NYC, more than $2,000 in damage.

In Las Vegas, NV, the beginning of May it was a local convenient store that was the black people’s target. They steal $600 in Food in 3 Minutes.

In Center City Philadelphia, upscale Rittenhouse Square area ,a flash mob breaks out, in an H&M clothing store on Chestnut Street. There is an increased police presence in Center City amidst concerns of possible “flash mobs.”
These are reported occurrences of black flash mobs destruction in the month of May, 20111.

I have been viewing it in Philadelphia for years now. It is rough in that City. Black youths inciting vicious conduct in formation of large groups, that threaten and disregard the lives of people, property and a way of life.

I am a racist? Are they white youths? No, I am calling it the way I see it. Obama’s entitlements has come full circle. _Source
More on this phenomenon:
Mobs of black youths have taken to randomly attacking pedestrians and businesses. This problem is nightmarish in its implications: a subset of the population has no self-control, was not raised to control violent impulses, and evidently gets pleasure out of hurting other people -- particularly people of other races. This type of person usually has done nothing to create anything of value, but rather destroys for pleasure. They organize using social media, and their goal is mayhem. They have been coddled and socialized by the welfare state and public education system. With an aggressive sense of entitlement, and no regard for others, they will predictably become more violent. The mobs reflect an undesirable character type, and the vast majority of those in "flash mobs" are of the same race. _Source


Notice how the mobsters are euphemistically described as "teenagers," with no further details. This is a typical media tactic of PC obfuscation.
Followup to an earlier "Bump and Run" posting:
The Denver 'Bump and Run bandit' has been identified, but something is missing from the verbal description of the accused: his race! How can the public be on the lookout for a dangerous fugitive when critical information is withheld? Notice the difference between the descriptions of the two perpetrators below:
Denver police yesterday identified the so-called “Bump and Run” bandit who is wanted in connection with several robberies.

Police have identified the alleged thief as Ronald Davis. He is currently wanted for Investigation of Aggravated Robbery in connection with several “bump and run robberies.”

In two Denver cases, the suspect believed to be Davis approached victims on foot with a large kitchen knife, demanded valuables and fled. In one case the suspect used a vehicle to “bump” the rear of a female victim’s car.

Once the victim got out to view the damage, the suspect pushed the victim out of the way and reached in the victim’s car and took her purse and then fled in a vehicle. Anyone with information is asked to call the Denver Police Department at 720-913-2000.



‘Pirate bandit’ sought

Police are on the lookout for a so-called “Pirate Bandit” who robbed a Walgreens last month in Colorado Springs.

A suspect wearing an eye patch, wig and beard robbed a Walgreens, 920 N. Circle Drive, of prescription drugs on May 22. He had a gun and demanded a pharmacist to fill a bag with prescription drugs, according to police. The suspect is described as a white man in his 20s with brown eyes who weighs approximately 150 pounds.

Police are asking anyone with information to call them at 719-444-7000. _DenverDailyNews

Here is another example:
DENVER - Police hope they're getting closer to making an arrest in the "Bump and Run Bandit" case.

Denver Police want to talk to 43-year-old Ronald Davis about several robberies between April 23 and May 1.

Police say in one case, the victim's car was "bumped" from behind by a black or dark blue Acura coupe, or similar vehicle. Once the victim got out to view the damage, the suspect grabbed the victim's purse and drove off.

In two other cases, the suspect walked up to the victims with a large kitchen knife and demanded valuables.

If you have any information about this case, call Crime Stoppers at 720-913-STOP (7867). You could be eligible for up to a $2,000 reward if your information leads to someone being arrested and charged in this case. _9News
Political correctness gone amok. Photographs of the suspect show him to be obviously black, but that information is withheld in written and verbal descriptions.