&&t the BUFFALOg

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Probably The Best Explanation I've Seen Of How Our Banking System Works

It's called fractional reserve banking. From The Cobden Centre

  • Person ‘A’ deposits $100 of cash into his instant-access bank account.
  • At this point, he signs over property rights to the bank – the bank gives him a promise to return on demand
  • The bank retains a small reserve (say $3), and lends out $97 to Person ‘B’
  • Both ‘A’ and ‘B’ both have a claim to instant access on this money.
  • In one move, the bank has turned $100 into £197 of useable money
  • ‘B’ buys a Widget from WidgeCo for $97
  • WidgeCo deposits the $97 with his bank ‘Z’.
  • Bank ‘Z’ now lends out around $94 to person ‘C’ keeping just under $3 as a ‘reserve’
  • Person ‘C’ borrows to buy computer, and pays $94 to ‘D’
  • Money supply has started its process of mushrooming:
  • ‘A’ Has the right to $100
  • ‘B’ has spent his claim to $97, and owns a widget
  • WidgeCo has a claim to $97
  • ‘C’ Has spent $94 and owns a computer
  • ‘D’ has a claim to $94
  • This process continues until there is no more money to lend


If any one person with a claim to their money exercises their right, the inverse pyramid collapses.

If person ‘A’ claims any more than $3 of his money, the inverse pyramid collapses.

In 2007/8 this money pyramid almost collapsed.



And Washington's entire effort since then has been to try desperately to prop it back up.

[Currency in the original post has been changed to dollars for my loyal -- and, for the most part American, readers.]

posted by Craig @ 6:14 PM   0 comments |

Thanksgiving's Coming

… and the turkeys are fighting back.

posted by Craig @ 5:40 PM   0 comments |

'Reid bill: 16M uninsured U.S. citizens pay a penalty tax. 8M uninsured illegal aliens do not.'

Doesn't seem fair, does it?

H.T. Instapundit

posted by Craig @ 4:17 PM   0 comments |

Public Debate

Kevin Drum marvels at the reaction to a government panel's recommendations on breast cancer screening.

Beyond the purely scientific aspect of the debate, one of the notable things about the reaction to the new mammography guidelines is the way it highlights how passionate minorities drive so many public debates. The USPSTF recommendation is based on large-scale costs vs. large-scale benefits, but the conversation that followed has been based mostly on personal stories. And you'll never hear any personal stories about the costs. Only the benefits.


Yes, just as anecdotes about socialized medicine in the UK and Canada have focused on the horror stories instead of the happy, annual [and free!] visit to the local GP. The question Kevin doesn't think to address is that mammograms and wait-times for surgery have never been part of our "national debate" and wouldn't be now if the Federal government wasn't attempting to take vastly greater control of our health care.

posted by Craig @ 11:46 AM   0 comments |

'US couple plead guilty to spying for Cuba over 30 years'

Wow. I'd have thought that qualified them for positions in the White House.

posted by Craig @ 7:38 AM   1 comments |

The Green Jobs Con

Beside the fact that "green" industry can only thrive with goverment subsidies and as-yet-uneconomical technologies, there's this:

Businesses involved in wind, solar power and other new forms of alternative energy almost by definition need relatively few workers for the amount of money invested, said David Swenson, an Iowa State University economist.

"What makes something green is an incredible investment in capital and technology and relatively little labor per dollar of investment," he said. "We're basically substituting lots and lots of technology for greenhouse gas-consuming industries."



The promises of a green economy are just as phony as the so-called "new" economy of the nineties. You remember, the one where you didn't actually have to produce anything but the value of the company skyrocketed anyway. That worked out well.

posted by Craig @ 7:31 AM   2 comments |

'The Day Global Warming Stood Still'

Indeed.

Now we have the German publication Der Spiegel, which is rapidly becoming the house organ for climate hysteria, weighing in again with the sad news that the earth does not have a fever so we really don't have to throw out the baby with the rising bath water.

In an article titled, "Climatologists Baffled By Global Warming Time-Out," author Gerald Traufetter leads off with the observation: "Climatologists are baffled as to why average global temperatures have stopped rising over the last 10 years." They better figure it out, Der Spiegel warns, because "billions of euros are at stake in the negotiations."



It really is all about the money.

Climate Depot's having a blast with the hacked email story: excellent round-up of MSM coverage.

I want to point out this Washington Post article that will form the template for continuing media coverage.

Kevin Trenberth, who heads the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., and wrote some of the pirated e-mails, said it is the implications rather than the content of climate research that make some people uncomfortable.

"It is incontrovertible" that the world is warming as a result of human actions, Trenberth said. "The question to me is what to do."

"It's certainly a legitimate question," he added. "Unfortunately one of the side effects of this is the messengers get attacked."



Ah, that's it. Global warming is definitely happening, you see, and the poor messengers are being attacked. Why, the emails simply reflect the passion of the researchers and any organization's emails would show similar hi-jinks -- like y'know, falsifying data and keeping their opponents from publishing.

Happens all the time!

posted by Craig @ 6:59 AM   0 comments |

Bending The Cost Curve

Another day, another Democrat tax to pay for Healthapalooza.

In an attempt to illustrate the real world consequences of reform's taxes, Senate Republicans are pointing out a provision that would tax the makers of swine flu vaccines and drugs. The provision raises $2.3 billion annually from drug makers who sell their products through government programs.


Surely, even liberals can understand that taxing medicine, medical devices and private insurance policies will make the cost of health care go up. Can't they?

posted by Craig @ 6:50 AM   0 comments |

Saturday, November 21, 2009

If Obama Doesn't Make Up His Mind About Afghanistan

'They Will Kill Us All'

I bet he's thinking it sucks to have real responsibilities.

posted by Craig @ 6:13 PM   0 comments |

Global Warming Hacks Hacked

The best round-up anywhere of the hacked global-warming files. The American press will do its best (which actually isn't that good) to hush this all up, but I think it may be the game-changer we've been waiting for. In the perhaps-now-immortal words of Senator Inhofe to Barbara Boxer, "we won".

[UPDATE:] I'm not saying that it's over just like that. The debate will go on for years. But this will be a momentum-changer. The Democrats will have to work a lot harder now to justify their economy-killing carbon emissions crap.

[UPDATE UPDATE:] The Associated Press takes notice.

[UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE:] Of course, baloney like this will spew forever.

‘Climate change pushes poor women to prostitution, dangerous work’

posted by Craig @ 5:52 PM   0 comments |

'Rules For Revolution'

David Horowitz has put together a pamphlet titled Rules for Revolution which is well worth the 56 page read. It's based on the now-famous Rules for Radicals put together by Saul Alinsky. Those of us on the right have been vaguely aware of the guy since it became known a decade ago that Hillary Clinton had written her college thesis on his theories.

And, of course, Alinsky's become even more well-known in the last year since Obama took the presidency and the media spilled the beans, so to speak, on how his rules had been adapted to the campaign. What Horowitz has done is to explain the background behind Alinsky's influence on the left and how it affects today's politics.

In my experience conservatives are generally too decent and too civilized to match up adequately with their radical adversaries, at least in the initial stages of the battle. They are too prone to give them the benefit of the doubt, to believe there is goodness and good sense in them which will outweigh their
determination to change the world. Radicals talk of justice and democracy and equality. They can’t really want to destroy a society that is democratic and liberal, and more equal than others, and that has brought wealth and prosperity to so many people. Oh yes they can. There is no goodness that trumps the dream of a heaven on earth. And because America is a real world society, managed by real and problematic
human beings, it will never be equal, or liberal, or democratic enough to satisfy radical fantasies - to compensate them for their longing for a perfect world, and for their unhappiness in this one.


It's downloadable in PDF format here, and it's a fascinating, chilling and eye-opening read. I'm not kidding -- the thing's a page-turner; and it's time we all wake up and read it.

posted by Craig @ 8:24 AM   0 comments |

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Inhofe To Boxer: We Won



Heh.

posted by Craig @ 8:35 PM   0 comments |

Thank You Congress, May We Have Another?

Despite New York State's dysfunctional government and now de facto one-party rule, our elections have remained remarkably free of the corruption and scandal found in many other parts of the country. Much of that, I suspect, has been due to the almost-universal use of the legendary lever-style voting machines which provided reliable vote counts for more than a century.

Alas, due to Congress's Help America Vote Act of 2002, New York has been forced to retire the old machines in favor of something new. After the left erupted in outrage (it was mostly the media doing the erupting), following Gore's loss in 2000, the federal government rushed through legislation requiring new voting methods across the entire country. The discrepancies in Florida had been due to voter ignorance, but, Congress decided that technology could conquer stupidity.

Now, faced with a bad choice, I do think that Albany picked the best system among its many options by selecting paper ballots coupled with a computerized vote-counter. But in its first important test -- the special election for the 23rd Congressional District -- a lot of questions are being raised.

The computerized voting machines used by many voters in the 23rd district had a computer virus - tainting the results, not just from those machines known to have been infected, but casting doubt on the accuracy of counts retrieved from any of the machines.
Read the whole thing.

I can't say, based on this one article, that a virus actually contaminated the election, but the change to a semi-computerized system has certainly introduced a new danger into our electoral process. The old mechanical machines could also be tampered with, but only one machine at a time. The new ones, replete with phone connections and USB ports, are much more vulnerable to mass disruption.

Thanks to our members of Congress and their desperate need to appear to do "something" in the face of a phony crisis, we are now on the verge of New York State's first important election scandal in recent memory.

posted by Craig @ 7:31 PM   0 comments |

'A failed presidency is now unavoidable'

That's probably an overstatement. Nothing is unavoidable, though it is a human trait to assume that what is happening now will continue. But just as Sarah Palin has three years to turn her public perception around; so does Mr. Obama have time to change his approach to the office. There is, however, one significant difference -- Palin realizes she must. Obama doesn't.

posted by Craig @ 7:25 PM   0 comments |

Add The Coming Civil Unrest To The Democrats' Problems

As state governments (New York's included) face mounting deficits and dwindling tax receipts, the goodies granted by decades of economic prosperity will have to be yanked from the children's hands. And they won't like it.

A crowd of more than 500 demonstrators rushed [UCLA's] Covel Commons on Wednesday to protest a proposed 32 percent student fee increase. They were met by dozens of university police, some of whom were outfitted in riot gear. At one point, protesters broke through police barricades that surrounded the main entrance to Covel. Officers responded to the stampede of students and union workers by extending the metal barricades around the entrance and using nightsticks and Taser guns to force the crowd back.


And those are just college kids; I can't imagine what the public employee unions will do.

posted by Craig @ 6:10 PM   2 comments |

Should We All Pay For Their Daycare?

Nation needs to invest in high-quality day care

Current research published by the National Alliance for Childhood supports the importance of play as a vehicle for learning, social interaction, developing imagination and integrating life’s experiences. Through play, children develop the self-regulation essential for success in school and in life.

It seems that while playing, children employ their “executive function,” which is all about decision-making. They need environments — indoors and outdoors — that are conducive to creative play with materials that are open-ended enough for them to exercise their imagination.



Hey, I'm all in favor of children playing -- I employed my "executive function" a lot when I was a kid -- right down the street from where Mom was. At home. You see, Mom didn't go to work until I was in high school. And we were a poor family by today's standards; her income would have been a real blessing.

But my parents had the quaint idea that if you had kids, their parents should take care of them all day. Now, I understand that there are unfortunate situations that require both parents (or, alas, the only one) to work, but for a lot of Americans, this is a choice and not a necessity.

It seems to be the norm nowadays for twenty-something couples to expect a nice house, new cars, vacations and, oh yeah, kids, too. To have all that, both of them have to work. That's fine with me -- but don't ask me to "invest" in their children's day-care so they can live the American dream a couple decades sooner.

posted by Craig @ 5:40 PM   0 comments |

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

'Thousands cheer Palin in Mich. for book tour'

Something I suspect we're going to hear over and over during the next couple months. She's in the right place at just the right time.

posted by Craig @ 9:13 PM   0 comments |

Welcome Back Carter

Obama goes to China. Might as well have stayed home.

posted by Craig @ 8:39 PM   0 comments |

Welcome To The New Openness

Not so different, after all, from the old openness.

Meet the Obama EPA, and its new suppressing, paranoid style. It was the president who once ripped the Bush administration for silencing scientific critics, and it was EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson who began her tenure promising the agency would operate like a "fishbowl." But that was before EPA realized how vastly unpopular is its plan to usurp Congress and regulate the economy on its own, based on its bizarre finding that CO2 is a danger to health.

Faced with unhappy members of Congress, dissenting employees, an opposition business community, and a backlash on the science, Mrs. Jackson is no longer a fan of open government. The goal now is to rush the agency regulations through as quickly as possible, squashing threatening dissent and deflecting troublesome questions.



Now, that's change you could have expected.

posted by Craig @ 8:10 PM   0 comments |

The Ultimate Result Of Zero Tolerance

From Surrey, England:

A former soldier who handed a discarded shotgun in to police faces at least five years imprisonment for “doing his duty”. Paul Clarke, 27, was found guilty of possessing a firearm at Guildford Crown Court on Tuesday – after finding the gun and handing it personally to police officers on March 20 this year. The jury took 20 minutes to make its conviction, and Mr Clarke now faces a minimum of five year’s imprisonment for handing in the weapon. In a statement read out in court, Mr Clarke said: “I didn’t think for one moment I would be arrested.”

… The court heard how Mr Clarke was on the balcony of his home in Nailsworth Crescent, Merstham, when he spotted a black bin liner at the bottom of his garden. In his statement, he said: “I took it indoors and inside found a shorn-off shotgun and two cartridges. “I didn’t know what to do, so the next morning I rang the Chief Superintendent, Adrian Harper, and asked if I could pop in and see him. “At the police station, I took the gun out of the bag and placed it on the table so it was pointing towards the wall.” Mr Clarke was then arrested immediately for possession of a firearm at Reigate police station, and taken to the cells.

… Prosecuting, Brian Stalk, explained to the jury that possession of a firearm was a “strict liability” charge – therefore Mr Clarke’s allegedly honest intent was irrelevant. Just by having the gun in his possession he was guilty of the charge, and has no defence in law against it, he added.

… Judge Christopher Critchlow said: “This is an unusual case, but in law there is no dispute that Mr Clarke has no defence to this charge. “The intention of anybody possessing a firearm is irrelevant.”



This is how a free people is eventually brought to its knees. When doing the right (and, in this case, politically-correct) thing can result in a jail sentence for violating the letter of a poorly-conceived law, no citizen will do anything without first asking permission. And that's exactly as the law-designers would have it.

In the United States, this has up till now mostly been confined to zero-tolerance policies in the public schools. If you or your child encounters it, don't back down. This petty tyranny spreads like a virus, as the English are only now finding out.

Hat tip to Cato via Coyote Blog

posted by Craig @ 7:52 PM   0 comments |