34 Signs That America Is In Decline

The United States is clearly in an advanced state of decline.  Many people around the world (and even inside America) rejoice at this, but not me.  I mourn for the country that I was born in and that I still love.

Yes, the United States has never been perfect, but the Republic that our Founding Fathers started truly has been a light to the rest of the world in a lot of ways over the centuries.  Unfortunately, our foundations are badly rotting and our nation is collapsing all around us.  Many Americans like to think that the United States is greater today than it has ever been before, but the truth is that America is like a patient that has stage 4 cancer that has spread to almost every area of the body.  Our nation is being destroyed in thousands of different ways, and more distressing news emerges with each passing day.  This article will mainly focus on the economic decline of America, but much could also be said about our social, political, moral and spiritual decline as well. 

We are simply not the same country that we used to be.  Americans are proud, selfish, greedy, arrogant, ungrateful, treacherous and completely addicted to entertainment and pleasure.  Our country is literally falling apart all around us, but most Americans are so plugged into entertainment that they can’t even be bothered to notice what is happening.  Most Americans seem to assume that we will always have endless prosperity just because of who we are, but unfortunately that simply is not true.  We inherited the greatest economic machine the world has ever seen and we have wrecked it, and now a very painful day of reckoning is approaching.  But most people will not understand until it is too late. Read more....

The Economic Case Against Winning a $500 Million Lottery

So you didn't win the lottery? That's fantastic news, says behavioral economics.

You'll probably find nothing in classical economics that tells you winning $500 million is bad. No sentence, no theory, no lesson. Nada. Money is a pretty good thing. You can use it to buy stuff. Stuff you want. Stuff that will bring happiness to you and the people you love. You don't need an econometrics class to know that sounds alright.

Here's the problem. A fuller understanding of motivation and money reveals a different picture of lottery winners. This isn't your old-fashioned "Money can't buy happiness" lesson.* This is your slightly newer "Winning the lottery can make you miserable" lesson.

To start, there's nothing wrong with buying a lottery ticket, so long as you understand what you're buying. When you buy a ticket in a $500 million lottery, your chances of winning are, roughly, one divided by infinity. You aren't buying a chance to win, because there is really no probability that you will win. You are buying the right to fantasize about winning. And that's okay.

It's winning that can get you in trouble.

Happiness is relative. This fact (or theory, really, since happiness studies is a fluid science) explains all sorts of surprising observations, such as why poor countries are as happy as rich countries; why Americans aren't more joyous than we were 40 years ago, despite considerably more money and better technology; and why, after some time, paraplegics and people who go blind in middle-age report average levels of life satisfaction. Read more....

U-Turn: Senate Moves to Eliminate Indefinite Detention Provision of NDAA

To screams and protests from the American people, Congress overwhelmingly supported passage of the National Defense Authorization Act which, among other things, allowed for the indefinite detention of Americans without charge or trial should they be arrested or held under suspicion of loosely-based definitions for domestic terrorism.

A super-majority 86% of Senators supported the measure, which was signed by President Obama while Americans partied on New Year’s Eve December 31st, 2011.

Now, under pressure from Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), members of Congress have re-assessed their positions on the amendment which allows the government to snatch up American citizens domestically and hold them in similar fashion to Guantanamo Bay detainees.

Senators who likely failed to read the bill before they found out what was in it back in 2011, have made a u-turn on one of its most controversial provisions.

    President Barack Obama opposed the measure, but ultimately signed it after an amendment to the act muddied the issue enough to make it debatable in courts. Obama pledged to never use the authority. Read more...

Why Finland's Unorthodox Education System Is The Best In The World

A new global league table, produced by the Economist Intelligence Unit for Pearson, has found Finland to be the best education system in the world.

The rankings combined international test results and data such as graduation rates between 2006 and 2010, the BBC reports.

For Finland, this is no fluke. Since it implemented huge education reforms 40 years ago, the country's school system has consistently come in at the top for the international rankings for education systems.

But how do they do it?

It's simple — by going against the evaluation-driven, centralized model that much of the Western world uses.

Finnish children don't start school until they are 7. Read more...

Is Our Debt Burden Really $100 Trillion?

The problem with budgeting 75 years into the future is that you end up with a lot of numbers that are much more meaningful to actuaries than to other living people

Wanna scare somebody about America's debt on the eve of the Fiscal Cliff? I mean, really scare somebody? Here's a trick. Don't talk about the debt. Talk about "unfunded liabilities."

The U.S. national debt comes out to about $16 trillion today. That's something. But it's nothing compared to the extra $87 trillion in unfunded liabilities to Social Security, Medicare, and federal pensions. Here's how that works. If you add up all of the U.S. government's promises to pay retirement and health care benefits for the next 75 years and subtract the projected tax revenue dedicated to those programs over the next 75 years, there is a gap. A $87 trillion gap -- in addition to a $16 billion hole.

"Why haven't Americans heard about the titanic $86.8 trillion liability from these programs?" Chris Box and Bill Archer ask in the Wall Street Journal. The authors blame the U.S. government for using shoddy accounting and for misleading the American public on their finances. In fact, the most misleading thing about that $87 trillion is the way the figure is often used in the media. Read more...

Cop Defends the First: “Obviously This Is Your Constitutional Right”

As America’s police state crackdown becomes more aggressive and expansive, finding protectors of the Constitution is getting to be much harder to come by.

But they’re out there, and every so often we are able to witness a shining example of what it means to be an American – to fearlessly exercise our god-given rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

In the Albany, NY airport, Ashley Jessica and Jason Bermas did just that. When handing out flyers detailing the TSA’s abuses and educating travelers on what the TSA can and cannot do, airport officials attempted to derail their activities by attempting to have them moved, detained and arrested. Bermas and Jessica stood their ground, citing city, state and federal law as guidance for their legal activities.

Airport public affairs director Douglas I. Myers would have none of it, and asked Sheriff’s deputies to step in.

Deputy Stan Lenic did.

But what came next was nothing short of shocking, especially in modern-day America, where law enforcement officials often overstep their authority and presume guilt over innocence.

    “Obviously this is your constitutional right, as far as we’re concerned you’re not breaking any laws,” Lenic tells Bermas. Read more...

Barack Obama: From Beginning to End

Intelligent people across the country are asking out loud whether another presidential term for Barack Obama actually will be as bad as we expect it to be.

Unfortunately, it probably will be.

Because he was as horrible, as disdainful of the Constitution and of decency, fair play and good judgment, as he was in the first four years, imagine what he can do now that he needs not worry about re-election. A look back serves as a reminder of how bad he has been already, so that good Americans can start figuring how to counter the worse Obama still to come. Herewith, then, lines from either opening or closing paragraphs of my prior columns on the Occupier in Chief, to remind us, as if we needed it, what we're dealing with.

Sept. 18, 2008: "Rhetoric aside, Obama is about as much in step with the majority of Americans as Britney Spears would be if she were trying to foxtrot with Fred Astaire.… Strip away Obama's deep-timbred voice and his puffball platitudes, and what remains is nothing more than an academic radical using Chicago machine politics to grab a power base and using smoke-and-mirrors to project a pleasing image."

Nov. 6, 2008: "It will take very focused, very intelligent, very skillful action by conservatives to stop this creeping subversion of a free society. This is a whole different political battlefield than any on which we've fought before. And we haven't yet found our Omar Bradley." Read more....

Economic Totalitarianism and the Fiscal Cliff

In an article titled We’re Heading For Economic Dictatorship, Janet Daley of the Ludwig von Mises Institute of Canada breaks down the economic totalitarianism we now face as the so-called “double-dip recession” rears its ugly head. Daley describes how economies manipulated by central banks ultimately terminate in redistributive socialism designed to loot the producers and impose a grinding austerity across the board.

“In this dystopian future there would have to be permanent austerity programs,” she writes. “This would not only mean cutting government spending, which is what ‘austerity’ means now, but the real kind: genuine falls in the standard of living of most working people, caused not just by frozen wages and the collapse in the value of savings (due to repeated bouts of money-printing), but also by the shortages of goods that will result from lack of investment and business expansion, not to mention the absence of cheaper goods from abroad due to import controls.”

Daley correctly compares what is now emerging in the West to what brought down the Soviet Union. She writes that the West will increasingly use “the social and political structures that the East employed. As the fixed pot of national wealth loses ever more value, and resources shrink, the measures to enforce ‘fair’ distribution must become more totalitarian: there will have to be confiscatory taxation on assets and property, collectivization of the production of goods, and directed labor.” Read more....

The Giant Currency Superstorm That Is Coming To The Shores Of America When The Dollar Dies

By recklessly printing, borrowing and spending money, our authorities are absolutely shredding confidence in the U.S. dollar.  The rest of the world is watching this nonsense, and at some point they are going to give up on the U.S. dollar and throw their hands up in the air.  When that happens, it is going to be absolutely catastrophic for the U.S. economy.  Right now, we export a lot of our inflation.  Each year, we buy far more from the rest of the world than they buy from us, and so the rest of the world ends up with giant piles of U.S. dollars.  This works out pretty well for them, because the U.S. dollar is the primary reserve currency of the world and is used in international trade far more than any other currency is. 

Back in 1999, the percentage of foreign exchange reserves in U.S. dollars peaked at 71 percent, and since then it has slid back to 62.2 percent.  But that is still an overwhelming amount.  We can print, borrow and spend like crazy because the rest of the world is there to soak up our excess dollars because they need them to trade with one another.  But what will happen someday if the rest of the world decides to reject the U.S. dollar?  At that point we would see a tsunami of U.S. dollars come flooding back to this country.  Just take a moment and think of the worst superstorm that you can possibly imagine, and then replace every drop of rain with a dollar bill.  The giant currency superstorm that will eventually hit this nation will be far worse than that.

Most Americans don’t realize that there are far more dollars in use in the rest of the world than in the United States itself.  The following is from a scholarly article by Linda Goldberg… Read more...

Be Careful Who You Sleep With

A few months ago I wrote an article for people with few recourses and needed alternative bugout ideas. Many people today have a difficult time paying off credit cards, mortgages and car loans without buying a second home – a run-to place. For many, this concept is so far out of reach that it stretches the imagination to Pluto. Like most people, we live a comfortable existence, but buying a second home while remaining debt-free is somewhere in Crazyville. It is to this group of people we speak.

When Stan was shown the “ideal” location for us in the U.S. while we still lived in Victoria, Australia, in order to meet this dream-vision, we had to start over financially. Painful? You have no idea. Stan had lived outside of America for 30 years, and Australia’s version of retirement did not transfer to the U.S. Consequently, when we were moved back home in 2001 – 6 months before 9-11 – financially we were like someone in their late teens. While many of our friends were retiring, we ramped up our work hours. Not fun? Believe it! Did we obey Stan’s God-given vision? Absolutely. Since we do not partake of government entitlements, in order to remain “free”, it was incumbent on us to work horrendous hours to earn our way.

Now fast-forward a decade.

We’re located in the southern portion of Colorado. We’re newbies to this area. No roots, no high school or university reunions within an arm’s reach. In essence, we are outsiders in every respect. So we understand what it means to live in a “foreign area”. Read more...

Game Show Legend Chuck Woolery: “The Real Assault Weapon is the Liberal Media”

Legendary game show host Chuck Woolery has a message for Americans, and he delivers it with an AR-15 in hand.

    There is no doubt that it’s a tragedy when anyone takes the life of another without cause.

    But to blame assault weapons for this tragedy would be like, well, blaming airplanes for the 9-11 attacks.

    The problem lies with the perpetrator, not the tool used to commit the crime.

As of right now, the Constitution is still the law of the land. And since we are a nation of laws and not men, we need to follow it carefully.

The second amendment allows for assault weapons. The left argues that the founding fathers didn’t even know what an assault weapon was. As usual, this argument is wrong again.

To say that the Constitution limits the kind of guns we can own would be like saying the Constitution limits the kind of religion people can practice.

Our founding fathers wanted every citizen to be armed equal to the army in case of takeover by a tyrannical government. They wanted us to have protection… from them! Read more....

The Madness Of a Lost Society: “One Last Fair Warning For Those With the Eyes to See and the Ears to Hear.”

Another ‘Black Friday’ has come and gone. And it has left us with further evidence of the complete madness of the populace of our nation. America has been dealt a fatal blow by corporate greed, Bankster malfeasance and the insidious nature of collectivism – and it’s all been done to us by design. This is the Madness of a Lost Society, one last ‘fair warning’ for those with the eyes to see and the ears to hear.

    November 23, 2012… Black Friday… revealed yet further evidence of the complete madness of the populace of our lost society.

    The underlying principles of modern consumerism as designed by Edward Bernays, the father of modern propaganda, is to create demand where there is no real need.

    These people are victims of Bernays, and most of them cannot be reached.

    They cannot be helped.

    They will be among the tens of millions of Americans who will fall victim to unimaginable hardship, suffering and hunger during the coming collapse.

    This micro-doc is not for them. Most of them do not possess the intellectual curiosity to seek it out. Read more....

Top Economists Told Obama that Economic Recovery Required a Reduction In Private Debt

We’ve extensively documented that too much private household debt is killing our economy.

While Ben Bernanke and other economists who are running our economic policy literally believe that the amount of private debt doesn’t matter and isn’t even important to quantify, economists at the “central banks’ central bank” – the Bank of International Settlements – and many other leading economists say that  high levels of private debt create a tremendous drag on the economy.

And Obama can’t plead ignorance.

Business Insider notes today:

    A number of economists privately told Obama that his recovery policies were weak in one key area: They didn’t do enough to address the mountain of homeowner debt.

The Washington Post reported yesterday:

    One year and one month before President Obama won reelection, he invited seven of the world’s top economists to a private meeting in the Oval Office to hear their advice on what do to fix the ailing economy. “I’m not asking you to consider the political feasibility of things,” he told them in the previously unreported meeting. Read more....

Establishment Screams: Avoid Fiscal Cliff and Borrow, Borrow, Borrow!

All of official Washington and their media lapdogs are shaking in fear of the so-called “fiscal cliff” that is looming January 1, counseling that the economy needs to continue its wild trillion-dollar deficit spending habits into the indefinite future.

The possibility that the federal deficit might not be as large next year has the establishment frightened, especially Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. “The realization of all of the automatic tax increases and spending cuts that make up the fiscal cliff, absent offsetting changes, would pose a substantial threat to the recovery — indeed, by the reckoning of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and that of many outside observers, a fiscal shock of that size would send the economy toppling back into recession,” Bernanketold the New York Economic Club November 20. He instead urged Congress to avoid fiscal reality, even as he acknowledged that “the federal budget is on an unsustainable path.”

Of greater importance is continuing deficit spending and currency inflation, which will somehow magically cure the economy and deficit, according to Bernanke: “Preventing a sudden and severe contraction in fiscal policy early next year will support the transition of the economy back to full employment; a stronger economy will in turn reduce the deficit and contribute to achieving long-term fiscal sustainability.” Of course, this is the same prescription Bernanke has advised since becoming Fed chairman in 2006, with less than spectacular results. Read more...

Beyond Collapse: Surviving and Rebuilding Civilization From Scratch

The following excerpt from Beyond Collapse: Surviving and Rebuilding Civilization From Scratch has been graciously provided by author TJ Miller. You may know TJ by his online persona, Odd Questioner. He has been a long-time friend and contributor to this web site, as well as many other preparedness communities. As his handle suggests, TJ takes a different approach to the ‘problem’ of surviving when the system as we know it falls apart.

Sure, you can stock up food, and guns and thousands of dollars worth of other supplies – but if that’s your entire plan, then you’re going to be in serious trouble, especially if we’re talking about a paradigm shift spanning years or decades.

Supplies eventually run out and Murphy’s law often turns the best laid plans into catastrophe. If you haven’t taken the time to explore all of the possibilities and how you may deal with them as they happen, then in all likelihood you will be, as TJ notes in his book, “as good as dead and/or exploited.”

Beyond Collapse is an extensive guide, covering everything from why we should prepare, how a collapse may happen, what civilization may look like in its aftermath, and what steps you can take to not only prepare ahead of time, but how you’ll survive and thrive during the reconstruction and rebuilding that follow. Read more....

Experts: New Health Rules Show Obamacare Will Raise Costs

The federal government has issued a series of sweeping new rules and regulations surrounding Obamacare — benefits that health-industry experts fear could end up costing Americans more.

The proposed regulations, revealed Tuesday by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Department of Health and Human Services, will begin in 2014. They mandate:

    Health insurance companies will be prohibited from discriminating against individuals because of a pre-existing or chronic condition;

    Insurers will only be allowed to vary their premiums within limits, with rates being based on age, tobacco use, family size, and geography;

    They will also prohibited from denying coverage or charging higher premiums based on an enrollee’s current or past health problems, their sex, their job or the industry they work in;

    People for whom coverage is unaffordable, and young adults, will have access to a catastrophic coverage plan;
    Policies and standards spelling out essential health coverage benefits are being set to give states more flexibility to implement Obamacare. They will allow consumers to be able to compare health plans. Standards for Medicaid benefits are also being established; Read more....

Laboratories of Democracy

The lesson of the 20th century is that Marxism was tried and tried and tried, and failed and failed and failed. But that lesson is lost on the true believer Barack Obama and his Democrat Party. Supposedly a forward looking progressive, Obama is dragging America back into cutting edge ideas from the late 19th century, already proven wrong to everyone except those in Obama’s freeze dried corner of American culture.

What else can we make of the spectacle of our re-elected, conquering, Democrat hero president -- the cultural progeny of a 1960s radical American rejectionist mother and the openly Communist Kenyan she embraced to be Obama’s father -- demanding multiple, explosive, income tax rate increases to make “the rich” pay their “fair share,” even though those very same rich already pay virtually all federal income taxes? The 51 percent that re-elected Obama will soon receive a lesson in economics: the renewed recession, soaring unemployment, declining tax revenue, and record-shattering deficits that those foolish tax increases will produce.

America’s Rational Remnant

But there are oases of rationalism found in the 25 states now governed under total Republican control, with a Republican governor, state senate, and state house. America is conducting a national experiment on capitalism versus socialism among these increasingly partisan states. Compare the fiscal and economic performance, for example, of Democrat-controlled California, Illinois, and New York, to that of Republican-controlled Texas, Florida, and Virginia, not to mention Indiana and Wisconsin. Read more....

Running of the Sheep 2012: “Look At You Slaves Lined Up For Your Chinese Goods”

It’s the 2012 Annual Running of the Sheep in America, and this year has shaped up to be much like those of Black Friday’s past – long lines, stampedes, fights, pepper sprayings, shootings, arrests and total madness.

Watch as Americans the country over fight for cheap, off-brand, worthless products that’ll be broken by this time next year.

“I will stab one of you motherf**kers!”

Cop: “I got the Walmart Shift”

    Via LiveLeak: This guy got slammed so hard he went straight out.Man put two games under his shirt because his grandson got knocked down and hurt in the rush and he needed his hands to help his grandson. A cop saw and immediately arrested him for shoplifting. The man was cooperating while the cop was putting on the handcuffs. The cop out of no where tripped the man and bashed his head nose first into the ground knocking him out and there is blood everywhere. The cop did not know how to care for the man so someone that was there shopping had to help get blood out the mans airways. Read more....

The ObamaCare Battle Is Far From Over

With the defeat of Mitt Romney, Obamacare dodged a presidential repeal bullet, but serious threats to the sweeping reform of healthcare remain.  In fact, given that the most important piece of domestic legislation in nearly fifty years was enacted on a party-line vote, it should not be surprising that as the bill approaches implementation, many difficult challenges are only now appearing.   And, with repeal of the measure still leading in public opinion polls 50%-44%, proponents are hard-pressed to claim that the recent election answered all the questions.  In fact, as the extensive reforms and regulations—13,000 pages and growing—sink into government, business and private lives, challenges will come from dozens of angles.

For starters, the success of Obamacare depends heavily on state governments, since health and welfare is constitutionally a state matter.  And right now, many states are not ready to play ball.  Republicans dominate the statehouses, with 30 Republican governors and, as Governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia has said, “Where there are unfunded mandates on the states or there is trampling of the 10th Amendment or undermining of federalism that hurts the state or costs us money, then we’ll fight it.”  One such battleground is whether states will establish their own healthcare exchanges and so far 15 states have said they will not do so.  The feds have extended the deadline for a decision by another month, hoping to persuade a few more governors, but there is very little upside to states for taking on this essentially administrative role for Washington. Read more....

Economic IQ test: If the national debt doesn’t matter, then why are we still paying federal income taxes?

The U.S. federal government is over $16.2 trillion in debt. But that doesn’t really matter, we’re told, because the Federal Reserve — a private banking monopoly — can create an unlimited quantity of dollars to keep buying up the U.S. debt. This is called “QE unlimited,” meaning unlimited quantitative easing (money creation).

On top of that, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner recently suggested we simply eliminate the debt ceiling altogether and launch America into INFINITE debt.

This program of fiscal suicide is already under way. The Federal Reserve announced a few weeks ago that it would begin buying up to $80 billion a month in U.S. debt, continuing indefinitely.

At the same time all this is going on, the government insists it needs to confiscate an ever-expanding portion of your income in order to increase “government revenue.” Current federal tax “revenues” (which is a warped word to use for taxes in the first place) are at roughly $2.4 trillion a year.

But hold on just a second… and here’s the IQ test, are you ready?

If the Federal Reserve can just create trillions of dollars a year in new money and hand it over to the federal government, then why are tax revenues needed at all? Read more...

Life and Times of the Thanksgiving Turkey: He Never Saw It Coming

The Black Swan Theory is used by Nassim Nicholas Taleb to explain the existence and occurrence of high-impact, hard-to-predict, and rare events that are beyond the realm of normal expectations. One example often put forth by Taleb is the life and times of the Thanksgiving Turkey.

The turkey spends the majority of its life enjoying daily feedings from a caring farmer. Weeks go by, and it’s the same thing day-in-day-out for the Turkey. Free food. Open range grazing. Good times all around.

The thinking turkey may even surmise that the farmer has a vested interest in keeping the turkey alive. For the turkey, it is a symbiotic relationship. “The farmer feeds me and keeps me happy, and I keep the farmer happy,” says the turkey. “The farmer needs me, otherwise, why would he be taking care of me?”

This goes on for a 1,000 days.

Then, two days before Thanksgiving on Day 1,001, the farmer shows up again. Read more....

Twinkicide: Death By Liberalism

Twinkicide.

Death by Liberalism.

This time it's Twinkies.

In October it was Newsweek.

Who's next? What does this lemming-like liberal instinct mean for America?

What is it that bakers and editors had in common as they looked into the abyss that would spell their own professional death? And then jumped?

Answer: They'd rather be dead than Not Liberal. Unfortunately for the rest of us -- they are not alone. Worse, they are in charge.

Presented with multiple opportunities to survive in a jobless economy -- the bakers and editors willingly jumped into the abyss that would kill their own professional way of life. Forever.

With all the brio of Paul Newman and Robert Redford as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid cornered by the law and yelling "Ohhhhhhhhhh Sh……………t" as they presumably jumped to their deaths, both the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers union -- a.k.a. the 18,500 Americans who make Twinkies and other Hostess company products -- and the editors who produced the once economically viable newsmagazine Newsweek faced a stark choice. Adapt to survive and prosper -- or kill businesses that are respectively 85 years old and 80 years old. Thus killing their own jobs.

Either be fair and balanced in their union demands for baking and delivering Twinkies. And fair and balanced for their editorial product in producing a Newsweek magazine that once presented itself as just the news of the week.

Or die.

The bakers union and the magazine editors chose death. Read more....

Let’s Not Panic Over Romney’s Defeat

I know most people would like to forget about the election, but as someone who supported Mitt Romney throughout the primary campaign -- taking a lot of flak from Spectator readers in the process -- I would like to defend his effort and make a few comments about the future of the Republican Party.

First of all, Romney ran a damned good race. He was up in the polls by as much as 7 points (Gallup) going into the last week. Where he got sandbagged was Hurricane Sandy. The storm captured the nation's attention and pushed the election off the front page. It gave President Obama a chance to act presidential (with vague memories of President George Bush Jr.'s initial inaction on Hurricane Katrina reverberating in the background) and to shake hands with Chris Christie. Now I don't fault Christie either and don't see any nefarious plot to maneuver for 2016. A governor has to act on behalf of his state. Parts of New Jersey were devastated, and if Christie had snubbed Obama, it would have put thousands of his constituents in immediate danger -- and been interpreted as his fault as well.

So let's just call it an Act of God. Maybe the fates were shining down on President Obama. Polls showed that people who made up their minds the day they voted broke 7 percent for Obama -- a sharp reversal of the usual pattern. I think the storm probably made the difference. Read more....

The First 12 Hours of a US Dollar Collapse (The Day the Dollar Died)

A newly released short-film by the National Inflation Association gives us a preview of what the first 12 hours of a US dollar collapse may look like.

Click here to Watch The Day the Dollar Died:

The States Fight in the Last Ditch Against Obamacare

Last July, I wrote that the states still had the power to kill Obamacare, despite the Supreme Court's gross dereliction of duty in Florida v. HHS. My point was that the insurance exchanges required by PPACA are the key to its success or failure, and that the law grants the states enormous power in the way they are set up. The ostensible purpose of these exchanges is to provide “marketplaces” where people without health insurance can acquire subsidized coverage. Ironically, the law doesn’t actually require states to set up these bureaucracies. Yet, as Sally Pipes and Hal Scherz note, “only state-based exchanges … may distribute credits and subsidies.”

In other words, if the states refuse to set up exchanges, they cut off the subsidies and tax credits that are the lifeblood of Obamacare. Moreover, states that decline to set up these enabling bureaucracies will also be protecting their business communities from job-killing federal penalties -- even if the federal government comes in and sets up its own exchanges in those states. The Cato Institute's Michael Cannon explains, "defaulting to a federal exchange exempts a state's employers from the employer mandate -- a tax of $2,000 per worker per year." This is why more than half of the 50 have opted not to set up state-run exchanges.

Last Friday, three more governors officially announced their refusal to set up state-run Obamacare exchanges. Ohio's John Kasich, Wisconsin's Scott Walker, and Maine's Paul LePage all released statements indicating that they would not assist the Obama administration in its effort to socialize health care in their states. All three governors made their decisions based on the knowledge that, even if they cooperate on the exchanges, they would have little control over how the exchanges are operated. As Cato's Cannon puts it, "[A] state-created exchange is not a state-controlled exchange. All exchanges will be controlled by Washington." Read more...

Government Sets Its Sights on Private Retirement Accounts: “Giant Effort to Redistribute the Wealth of America’s Older Citizens”

A new effort by the Obama administration, Congress, the Treasury Department and labor unions aims to fundamentally alter how Americans plan and save for retirement.

Warnings have been popping up over the last several years about the possibility of re-appropriating the $3.5 Trillion sitting in private retirement and spreading those funds around to Americans who are deemed less fortunate.

This couldn’t possibly happen in America, right? At one time, most Americans also believed heath care mandates that force Americans at the barrel of a gun to surrender portions of their earnings into a universal system for all would never happen. Well, it did.

And now, those who would control and regulate every aspect of our lives are making a new push; one whose efforts will ultimately end in the seizure and redistribution the personal retirement savings of every American who has ever put money into a 401(k) or IRA.

This is no longer in the realm of conspiracy, but rather, public record.

    A recent hearing sponsored by the Treasury and Labor Departments marked the beginning of the Obama Administration’s effort to nationalize the nation’s pension system and to eliminate private retirement accounts including IRA’s and 401k plans, NSC is warning. Read more....

Over 250 Gold Robberies in Stockton Since April: Police Taken By Surprise

With the price of gold reaching all time highs as recently as this summer, it’s not just investors who are paying attention.

Predators who have nothing left to lose are as equally interested in the asset. It’s not only a portable store of value, but just about every American has some type of gold in their possession, be it in the form of a coin, wedding ring, or necklace.

In Stockton, California, where skyrocketing crime has left over 60 people dead this year, police and city officials are being overrun with reports of gold chain robberies. Since April there have been over 250 such armed robberies, culminating in the September death of a man who just happened to be taking a casual stroll through a local park.

As a result of rising crime in the city, residents are being more cautious, with many of them choosing to stay at home rather than risk being assaulted or murdered in a city that has seen its coffers bankrupted and its public workforce gutted.

    Almost everyone walking the park knows the story of Armando Pina — even two months after the deadly broad-daylight gold chain robbery that ended his life, parkgoers said. Read more....

53 Percent Of All Young College Graduates In America Are Either Unemployed Or Underemployed

If you are in college right now, you will most likely either be unemployed or working a job that only requires a high school degree when you graduate.  The truth is that the U.S. economy is not coming anywhere close to producing enough jobs for the hordes of new college graduates that are entering the workforce every year.  In 2011, 53 percent of all Americans with a bachelor's degree under the age of 25 were either unemployed or underemployed.  Millions upon millions of young college graduates feel like the system has totally failed them. 

They worked hard in school all their lives, they went into huge amounts of debt in order to get the college education that they were told they "must have" in order to get a good job, but after graduation they found that there were only a handful of good jobs for the huge waves of college graduates that were entering the "real world".  All over America, college graduates can be found waiting tables, flipping burgers and working behind the register at retail stores.  Unfortunately, the employment picture in America is not going to get significantly better any time soon.

All over the United States, "middle class jobs" are being replaced by "low income jobs" and young college graduates are being hurt by this transition more than almost anyone else.  Massive numbers of young college graduates are now working jobs that do not even require a high school degree.  Some of the statistics about young college graduates are absolutely astounding.  The following is from a recent CNBC article.... Read more....

Government Website For Immigrants: Come To America And Take Advantage Of Our Free Stuff

A website run by the federal government (“WelcomeToUSA.gov“) encourages new immigrants to the United States to apply for welfare benefits.  This website is run by the Department of Homeland Security and it says that it “is the U.S. Government’s official web portal for new immigrants.”  So your tax dollars were used to build and maintain a website that teaches immigrants how to come into this country and sponge a living off of federal welfare programs paid for by your tax dollars.  What in the world is happening to us?  Yes, we will always need some legal immigration.  We are a nation of immigrants and immigration has been very good to this country. 

But at a time when there are millions upon millions of American citizens out of work and at a time when we are absolutely drowning in debt, do we really need to encourage millions more immigrants to come over and take advantage of our overloaded social welfare programs?  WelcomeToUSA.gov actually encourages new immigrants to apply for food stamps, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, Supplemental Security Income and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.  Of course not all immigrants are eligible for all of those programs, but if an immigrant can get over to the U.S. and just get signed up for a couple of programs they can enjoy a higher standard of living doing nothing here than they can working at a low paying job back home.  We have created a perverse system of incentives that makes it very attractive to people all over the world to do whatever they can to hitch a ride on “the gravy train” and take advantage of all of the benefits that they possibly can. 

And once immigrants get on welfare, many of them never leave.  For example, one study discovered that 43 percent of all immigrants who have been in the United States for at least 20 years were still on welfare.  We can’t even take care of our own citizens, and yet more immigrants hop on to the safety net every single day.  At some point the safety net is going to break and then we won’t even be able to take care of the struggling Americans that really need it. Read more....

When Law and Order Break Down: “People Are Afraid Right Now. You Can See It In Their Faces.”

Cities from coast-to-coast are facing unprecedented budget deficits that have left government officials with no choice but to strip police forces to a bare minimum. We now regularly hear about new ‘records’ being broken in the resulting crime waves that follow.

Law enforcement officials in Chicago, for example, have said that their city has deteriorated into a domestic war zone with gang violence leaving scores of people dead on a regular basis. Murder, rape, robbery and assault have skyrocketed in bankrupt Stockton, California, suggesting that local governments are quickly losing control.

In New Jersey, the city of Camden may soon be granted the dubious distinction of being the poorest and most violent city in America.

    On a walkway 20 feet away, a middle-aged man lies dead, shot in the throat and head, sprawled on his back beside a battered 10-speed bicycle. His face is masked in blood that gleams bright red in the crime scene photographer’s flash.

    Johnson watches tight-lipped as investigators comb the grass for shell casings. “Kids play out here. Average people live here,” he says. “I’m shaking. It’s getting too close.” Read more....

Barack Obama: Dying to Give a Damn

http://www.thecomingdepressionblog.com/barack-obama-dying-to-give-a-damn/

The title of this post is harsh.  But the one I first considered was even more so: “Barack Obama, go to Hell.”  I am so glad I didn’t vote for this man for president.  At the time I cast my vote I did it thinking I was doing the right thing.  But in my heart regretting it.  If I had voted for him, now I my heart would be turning bitter as gall.

Here is what this sorry excuse for a leader had to say today in Thailand:

    “There is no country on earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders. So we are fully supportive of Israel’s right to defend itself from missiles landing on people’s homes…

    Let’s understand what the precipitating event here was that’s causing the current crisis, and that was an ever-escalating number of missiles that were landing not just in Israeli territory but in areas that are populated.”

I also discovered this statement which appears to have been made separately and covers related, but different ground:

“Israel has every right to expect that it does not have missiles fired into its territory,” President Barack Obama said at a news conference in Bangkok at the start of a three-nation visit to Asia. Read more....

Obama Defends Israel's Right To Defend Itself

As violence in the Gaza Strip continues, President Obama remarks on the Israeli-Hamas conflict while in Thailand. He said, "[T]here is no country on earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders. So we are fully supportive of Israel's right to defend itself from missiles landing on people's homes."

Noting that Israel increased its response after what the NY Times described as "persistent Palestinian rocket fire," Obama said, "Let's understand what the precipitating event here was that's causing the current crisis, and that was an ever-escalating number of missiles that were landing not just in Israeli territory but in areas that are populated."

The death toll in Gaza is now at 67, according to BBC, and Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system has reportedly intercepted missiles aimed at Tel Aviv.

The AP reports, "An Israeli envoy held talks with Egyptian officials Sunday on a ceasefire":

    Egypt has been leading international efforts to broker a truce since Israel launched its offensive five days earlier aimed at stopping Gaza rocket attacks. But Israel and Gaza's militant Hamas rulers remain far apart on any terms. Read more...

A Carbon Copy of a Bad Idea

With the exception of an attempt by New York Mayor Bloomberg to divert attention away from his city's woeful lack of disaster preparedness, global warming didn't rate a mention in the presidential election campaign -- but it returned soon after with a vengeance. Karl Rove hadn't stopped arguing over the Ohio result when various voices affiliated with the losing party (such as several scholars from the American Enterprise Institute and Greg Mankiw, a Harvard economist who advised Mitt Romney) began suggesting that a carbon tax was a really good idea going forward. There are good reasons for conservatives to contemplate how their approach to young single women, gays, and immigrants might have contributed to recent defeats, but there is no reason to think that a switch on energy policy -- which is really economic and industrial policy -- might help. A carbon tax would punish the middle class and harm the broader economy now and going forward. It should be defeated the same way as cap-and-tax was defeated.

The first argument advanced in favor of a carbon tax is that it would help reduce emissions that allegedly cause global warming. This is why NASA atmospheric scientist James Hansen occasionally moonlights as an economist to push a carbon tax. Yet a carbon tax that is set high enough to significantly affect emissions would be devastating to American household budgets. A lower carbon tax will have no noticeable effect on emissions.

As Chip Knappenberger of New Hope Environmental Services recently demonstrated, even a complete elimination of U.S. carbon emissions today would not detectably affect global temperatures or sea level in 2050 or 2100. Only a globally harmonized carbon tax could do anything to reduce emissions to the levels which alarmist scientists say are necessary, and the experience of the failed Kyoto Protocol shows that developing nations will not accept anything that reduces their prospects for economic growth. Therefore, a U.S. carbon tax will not do anything to stave off or even mitigate whatever threat global warming might present. Read more....

Check Out All The New Taxes You're Going To Pay To Pay For Obamacare...

Now that Barack Obama has been reelected, Obamacare will become reality.

This means that a lot more people in the United States will have health insurance.

If the program works as it is supposed to, it also means that the growth of healthcare spending overall will eventually slow.

Both of those are good.

But, in the near term, Obamacare also means a lot of people will be paying more taxes and higher insurance premiums.

(You didn't think Obamacare was free, did you?)

Here are some of the new taxes you're going to have to pay to pay for Obamacare:

    A 3.8% surtax on "investment income" when your adjusted gross income is more than $200,000 ($250,000 for joint-filers). What is "investment income?" Dividends, interest, rent, capital gains, annuities, house sales, partnerships, etc. Thanks to the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, taxes on dividends will rise rise from 15% to a shocking 43.8% on January 1st, unless Congress cuts a deal with respect to the fiscal cliff. (WSJ) Read more....

Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom

There is an unbelievably great song by the black blues man John Lee Hooker called simply, "Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom," as in "Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom, Gonna shoot you right down....". It plays an important part in the super great new James Bond movie, Skyfall, which you must see right now. I mean immediately. Wifey and I saw it twice over the weekend even though we had to sit in row 2 on the aisle.

This is a perfect movie. Daniel Craig is the best Bond ever. Javier Bardem is a villain for the ages. This movie does not have as incredibly great an opening chase scene as Casino Royale, which is the best chase scene of all time. But it has Bardem, and man, oh, man, is he good.

I keep thinking about that "Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom," song because of the Petraeus/Holder/Obama super scandal that is sweeping the nation's capital. And the nation. "Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom," it just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

"Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom," the DCI has been telling big time lies by omission, has been doing spycraft Internet games with his mistress, using Gmail, again, which my computer pals tell me a ten year old can hack, leaving sexually explicit messages for her in a draft file that they can both access. And we are supposed to believe he's known her for eight years and this affair just started a year ago? When they were together in Kabul for long periods away from her hubby and his loyal wife? Are you kidding me? And ended a few months ago voluntarily? Are you really sure we are that stupid? Read more....

The Mysteries of Finance: What Do Canadians Know that Americans Don't?

HALIFAX, N.S. I have just arrived in Canada to participate in the Halifax International Security Forum and find myself suitably impressed with my surroundings.

It is my first visit north of the border in more than a decade and it is abundantly clear that the Canadian economy has been outperforming. The markets concur. Canada’s success is notably symbolized by, for instance, the Canadian dollar — the “loonie” — which is up more than 55 percent against the U.S. dollar in the last ten years. It is chastening to note that just since the beginning of the Wall Street crisis in late 2008 alone it has gained more than 25 percent.

So what do the Canadians know that Americans don’t? One thing surely is that you can’t have a healthy economy if you have a sick financial system. The fact is that the Canadian banking system has not suffered a serious crisis since the 1930s. Compare that to the pattern of rapidly recurring crises that have rocked the U.S. banking system since the 1980s.

So how do the Canadians do it? They believe unashamedly in firm regulation and, unlike most of the rest of the English-speaking world (perhaps their Francophone minority had something to do with this), they have generally refused to follow America’s lead in financial faddishness. Read more....

Blame It on the American Peopl

Bill O'Reilly of Fox News and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal have added their voices to the swelling chorus of second-guessers saying the Mitt Romney ran the race badly and therefore "deserved to lose" to Barack Obama on Nov. 6.

But here's a simpler and, I think, better explanation. There is no magic that dictates that the American people in their infinite wisdom will always make the right choice, and in this instance they 'doubled down' (to use one of the president's favorite expressions) in returning a very bad president to the White House -- one who had already shown himself to be incapable of providing competent (let alone inspiring) leadership in domestic and foreign affairs.

This happened despite the fact that Mitt Romney ran an exceptionally decent (as opposed to nasty) campaign, while President Obama ran an exceptionally nasty (as opposed to decent) campaign.

In his speeches and ads, Obama assaulted Romney's record as a businessman -- accusing him of everything from lying under oath, to being unpatriotic (lacking in "economic patriotism"), to causing to the death of laid-off steel worker's wife.

Obama made his primary theme one of envy, resentment, and class warfare. In one speech after another, he ignored the central truth that the American free enterprise system is based on voluntary exchange for mutual benefit, and he claimed instead that it is based on the rich exploiting the poor… and on profit-seeking businesses looking for every opportunity to cheat their customers on the far side, and their employees on the near side. Read more....

Strategic Relocation: Where To Go When It Hits the Fan

Joel Skousen, one of the world’s foremost experts on home security, retreat preparedness and strategic relocation, says that no preparedness plan is complete unless you’ve taken into account the single most critical threat we face during a widespread emergency.

    The number one threat that I concentrate on. It’s not terrorism, it’s not natural disaster, it’s not even government or war.

    The major threat is population density.

    Because every crisis that threatens, even a local crisis, can turn exponential because of close proximity to people who cannot help themselves. Even good people panic in a crisis…

The obvious answer would be to move to a rural area and out of the way of hungry, thirsty and desperate masses of people. But, that’s easier said then done. The majority of Americans, even though they’d do it in a heartbeat if given the opportunity, simply don’t have the available resources to get out of Dodge and live the life of an off-the-grid  homesteading survivalist.

    Frankly, this is not easy.

    It’s not easy because very few people can go and leave their jobs, and go out into rural areas where there’s safety. Read more....

Does Obama Doom America?

The refrain started many weeks, even months, before the election, but its frequency and intensity has increased nearly exponentially since Nov. 6.

"I don't know if we can survive another four years of this," people say. Or, "do you think we can survive four more years of this?" Even Bill Kristol, not prone to defeatism, speculated on what might happen "even if America can survive the next four years of Obama." [Emphasis added.] The words aren't coming from alarmists. They come in face-to-face conversations, or in emails, or on the phone. They come from Washington, from New York, from New Jersey, from Minnesota, from Alabama, from New Orleans -- from all over. Serious, ordinary people, some of whom live and breathe politics and some of whom pay almost no attention to current affairs, aren't panicking or exaggerating. They are really worried about what this man in the White House will do now. And they're really worried about whether America as we know it can survive.

It is not an idle worry. Barack Obama and his minions play for keeps. And they are playing for a vastly different America than the one with which we have been accustomed for 224 years of this constitutional republic. Fight a war in Libya without even asking for a congressional resolution? No problem. Appoint executive officers without Senate approval, when the Senate is still in session? Sure. Issue executive orders directly contrary to law, on multiple occasions? Of course. Refuse to enforce duly constituted laws? Check. Repeatedly question the very legitimacy of the Supreme Court? Check. Refuse to honor congressional subpoenas and legitimate Freedom of Information requests? Ignore court orders (about offshore drilling) so flagrantly that you are found officially in contempt of court? Insult or even abandon allies? Whisper to foreign leaders of traditionally adversarial lands that you will have "more flexibility" after re-election? Deliberately cover up deadly mistakes on the Mexican border and in North Africa? Check, check, check, check, and check. Read more....

The Classified Report DHS Doesn’t Want You To See: “The Electric Power Delivery System… Could Be Severely Damaged By A Small Number of Well-Informed Attackers”

In 2007 the National Academy of Sciences completed an extensive review of the national power grid infrastructure in a 164 page report titled Terrorism and the Electric Power Delivery System. In it the NAS detailed a wide array of physical, personnel and cyber vulnerabilities that could pose a significant risk to the national security of the United States.

Even though the report was originally written for public release, notes Madison Ruppert of End the Lie, the entire document was almost immediately classified by the Department of Homeland Security and hasn’t seen the light of day until this week. That release came after five years of committee reviews, reversals, deliberations and pressure from the Academy itself.

The contents of the report make it clear why DHS wanted to keep it out of public view, as it illustrates severe deficiencies within the whole of the national power grid infrastructure.

So serious are the problems, that a coordinated attack by just a few people in just a few critical components could wreak such havoc that the effects would be measured in hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives: Read more....

Flashback: Analyst Says Break-Up of USA Will Be Triggered By Economic and Moral Degradation

Amid hundreds of thousands of signatures calling for secession of individual states from the United States of America, one can’t help but consider the past warnings of former KGB analyst and Russia’s head of the Foreign Ministry for Diplomats, Igor Panarin, who in 1998 theorized that the United States could potentially break up into six autonomous regions.

In brief, according to the Washington Post, Panarin says that mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation will trigger a civil war and the collapse of the dollar.

Over a decade after he made his controversial predictions, many who ignored his warnings are now taking note. With U.S. economic growth in an unabated decline, and ethnic and political groups polarized like never before, Panarin’s prescient theories may soon become reality.

    I emphasized [in 1998] the three main reasons which, in my opinion, could lead to the collapse of the U.S.

    The first one is the moral and psychological factor and the stress of the American population.

    The second one is the financial and economic problems. Read more....

The Anatomy of a Breakdown

If we can all agree on one thing, it’s that the government and disaster organizations alike grossly underestimate how dependent the majority of the population is on them during and after a disastrous event takes place. We need not look any further than the last major disasters that have occurred to find our answers: the Haitian earthquake that occurred in 2010, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the 2011 super tornado of Joplin, MO, and even as recently as Hurricane Sandy.

As preppers are well aware, when the needs of the population cannot be met in an allotted time frame, a phenomena occurs and the mindset shifts in people. They begin to act without thinking and respond to changes in their environment in an emotionally-based manner, thus leading to chaos, instability and a breakdown in our social paradigm.

When you take the time to understand how a breakdown behaves and how it progresses, only then can you truly prepare for it.

The Anatomy of a Breakdown

    This glimpse into a systemic breakdown is based on an isolated, limited disaster or event where emergency responders have been deployed. I must emphasize that all bets are off if the event is wide spread, affecting multiple tens of millions of people simultaneously. Read more....

Pay Me In Gold: Lawmaker Requests Compensation In “Money That Has Intrinsic Value”

Some lawmakers are finally getting it, with the latest example coming from Jerry O’Neil, a state congressional representative in Montana.

At one time a trivial matter for O’Neil, he says he now understands the damage being done by the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy and the over $16 trillion in U.S national debt.

In a letter to Montana’s Legislative Services, the congressman notes that the U.S. Constitution  prohibits the payment of debts in anything but gold and silver, and says that his oath to the Constitution and the people he represents can only be honored if the government pays his legislative salary to him, “in gold and silver coins that will still have value when the U.S. dollar is reduced to junk status.”

The full copy of the letter (pdf) is available below:

    November 12, 2012
    State of Montana Legislative Services
    Central Services Office
    Post Office Box 201706
    Helena, Montana 59620-1706

    Re: Legislator Compensation

    Dear Legislative Services:

    Last week I was re-elected to serve the people of House District 3 as their Representative in the Montana Legislature. Once again it will be my privilege to take the oath of office, promising to obey and protect the United States Constitution and the Constitution of Montana. Read more....

McGrath: There Is a Disaster Coming. Get Ready For It.

Do you think the government will be there for you in the middle of a crisis?

If they can’t handle the emergency response after a Category 1 hurricane, what will this country look like when the economic and fiscal crisis comes to a head?

What happens if the US dollar comes under attack from foreign creditors who choose to no longer accept it in trade? How will we as a nation import oil and food in such a scenario?

What if monetary easing by the Federal Reserve causes price increases so drastic that current employee wages or nutritional assistance allotments provide only a couple of days worth of food?

What if states and local municipalities are so broke that they withhold pay from government employees like police officers and emergency medical responders?

We’re talking about the potential for an absolute credit freeze that will make the situation in New York spread across this country almost overnight.

Ask yourself this question: Are you prepared to take care of yourself? Read more...

Ron Paul’s Farewell to Congress: “The Answers Are To Be Found In More Liberty”

This may well be the last time I speak on the House Floor. At the end of the year I’ll leave Congress after 23 years in office over a 36 year period. My goals in 1976 were the same as they are today: promote peace and prosperity by a strict adherence to the principles of individual liberty.

It was my opinion, that the course the U.S. embarked on in the latter part of the 20th Century would bring us a major financial crisis and engulf us in a foreign policy that would overextend us and undermine our national security.

To achieve the goals I sought, government would have had to shrink in size and scope, reduce spending, change the monetary system, and reject the unsustainable costs of policing the world and expanding the American Empire.

The problems seemed to be overwhelming and impossible to solve, yet from my view point, just following the constraints placed on the federal government by the Constitution would have been a good place to start. Read more....

Breaking Down Centi-Millionaire 'Papa' John Schnatter's Obamacare Math

Papa John Schnatter is no fan of Obamacare. The CEO of Papa John’s International has occasionally railed against the reform for months. Leading up to the election, he was a Mitt Romney supporter and fundraiser. Now that the election is over, he’s doubling down on his claim that the health care reform will force his company to increase pizza prices by 10-14 cents a pie. He estimates that Obamacare will end up costing his company $5-8 million annually.

The issue: the Affordable Care Act dictates that full-time employees (30 hours or more per week) at companies with more than 50 workers need to be provided health insurance. Schnatter has further claimed that some employers will cut employee hours to avoid providing them with healthcare.

His remarks have sparked anger on the internet, one thread on social news site Reddit, titled “There are plenty of places to get cheap s***** pizza in the world- Anyone else on reddit ready to boycott Papa John’s?” has captured more than 21,000 up-votes and 4,500 comments. A host of Facebook groups with the same idea have cropped up in the past 48 hours.

Meanwhile, shares in Papa John’s International have been tumbling since last Thursday, falling from $51.70 at market close Wednesday to $49.22 on Monday, a 4.2% drop. Read more....

Diving Off the Fiscal Cliff

Even with hugely higher taxes we'll still be marching toward default -- and the military cuts will make war more likely.

On or about the end of this year, some big things will be happening with federal government income and outlays. These are commonly referred to as "the fiscal cliff." Although these changes are complicated, I can simplify them a bit by leaving some small items out.

Basically, the substantial tax cuts George Bush put through on personal income, on dividends, on estates, on capital gains, will expire. That means taxes, especially for upper income persons and for those with large holdings of stocks, and with large estates, will go up quite dramatically. Some estimates put the total increase in the neighborhood of eight to nine percentage points for a high income earner.

The effect on stocks will be large, since the rate in dividends -- a large part of the return on stocks -- will more than double. That will make stocks less valuable by a goodly margin. Look out below.

The total intake from these tax increases is likely to be in the range of very roughly $250 billion (and I emphasize that this is a rough number) in 2013. There will also, slightly later, be the Obamacare tax hikes on high earners, which will add about 3.5 percentage points to the income tax rate for those with what the Obama regime dubs high income earners. Read more....