From ekroposki at charter.net  Mon Mar  2 11:39:55 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Mon, 2 Mar 2009 11:39:55 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Archives?
Message-ID: <FBE0AA3FB64749DC98763F34D78171DE@YOURB88038198E>

Bill:

Are the archives working?

Ed K
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Mon Mar  2 11:47:44 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Mon, 2 Mar 2009 10:47:44 -0600
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Archives?
In-Reply-To: <FBE0AA3FB64749DC98763F34D78171DE@YOURB88038198E>
References: <FBE0AA3FB64749DC98763F34D78171DE@YOURB88038198E>
Message-ID: <400985d70903020847m19e1fc2fm51cf5a63b99a5b5@mail.gmail.com>

Ed,

Wondering the same thing.

Brad

On Mon, Mar 2, 2009 at 10:39 AM, Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net> wrote:
> Bill:
>
> Are the archives working?
>
> Ed K
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>

From flybrad at gmail.com  Mon Mar  2 20:49:00 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Mon, 2 Mar 2009 19:49:00 -0600
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Taxes - Things That Make You Go Duuuuuh!
Message-ID: <400985d70903021749t5a77ae08if99172c1a9eba669@mail.gmail.com>

Upper-Income Taxpayers Look for Ways to Sidestep Obama Tax-Hike Plan
President Would Slap More Taxes on Those Who Make Over $250K to Fund Health Care
By EMILY FRIEDMAN

March 2, 2009 ?

President Barack Obama's tax proposal  which promises to increase
taxes for those families with incomes of $250,000 or more -- has some
Americans brainstorming ways to decrease their pay, even if it's just
by a dollar.

A 63-year-old attorney based in Lafayette, La., who asked not to be
named, told ABCNews.com that she plans to cut back on her business to
get her annual income under the quarter million mark should the Obama
tax plan be passed by Congress and become law.

So far, Obama's tax plan is being looked at skeptically by both
Democrats and Republicans and therefore may not pass at all.

"We are going to try to figure out how to make our income
$249,999.00," she said.

"We have to find a way out where we can make just what we need to just
under the line so we can benefit from Obama's tax plan," she added.
"Why kill yourself working if you're going to give it all away to
people who aren't working as hard?"

Click Here for the Latest Business Stories From ABC News

The attorney says that in order to decrease her income she'll have to
let go of clients, some of whom she's been counseling for more than a
decade.

"This means I'll have to tell some of my clients we can't help them
and being more selective in general about who we help," she said. "I
hate to do it."

Obama's budget proposal calls for $989 billion in new taxes over the
next 10 years, most of which will be earned from increased taxes on
individuals who make more than $200,000 and from families who make
more than $250,000.

The expiration of the Bush administration's tax cuts at the end of
2010 would garner an estimated $338 billion, $179 billion would come
from the elimination of some itemized deductions for higher-income
taxpayers and $118 billion would be brought in from a hike in the
capital gains tax. The remaining $353 billion would come from taxes on
businesses.


Dr. Sharon Poczatek, who runs her own dental practice in Boulder,
Colo., said that she too is trying to figure out ways to get out of
paying the taxes proposed in Obama's plan.

"I've put thought into how to get under $250,000," said Poczatek. "It
would mean working fewer days which means having fewer employees,
seeing fewer patients and taking time off."

"Generally it means being less productive," she said.

"The motivation for a lot of people like me  dentists, entrepreneurs,
lawyers  is that the more you work the more money you make," said
Poczatek. "But if I'm going to be working just to give it back to the
government -- it's de-motivating and demoralizing."

Can Obama's Tax Plan Be Gamed?

Gary Schatsky, a financial adviser and the president of N.Y.-based
Objectiveadvice.com, said that it is possible to successfully remove
yourself from the bracket Obama plans to target in his new plan.

"It's very possible that there are plenty of things you can do with
general tax planning techniques  attempting to recognizes loses,
pushing gains to years when your income is lower and increasing
retirement plan contributions  to come below $250,000," said
Schatsky.

"But Obama's proposal has yet to be hammered out and the devil is in
the details," he added.

Because we have a marginal tax system, said Schatsky, what Obama's
plan means is that the amount of tax you pay on each incremental
dollar is higher only when your income is pushed into a higher tax
bracket.

"But to focus keeping your income below a quarter million dollars is
not going to have any spectacular magic for individual tax payers,"
said Schatsky. "The difference between $249,999 and $251,000 will
probably have zero tax impact."

Schatsky said that the incentive to get under $250,000 may be more so
if the tax plan outlines that an individual who goes over a prescribed
limit would face a reduced value of their itemized deductions.

"If the value of all your itemized deductions goes from a 33 percent
level to a 28 percent level than there would be a reason for people to
do dramatic things to reduce their incomes," said Schatsky.

Peter Morici, a professor of business at The Robert H. Smith School of
Business at the University of Maryland, agrees that while it may be
possible to sneak around the taxes, it won't be as simple as some may
think.

"You have to be pretty close to $250,000 in terms of your income to
get underneath it," said Morici.

Does Obama Tax Plan Promote Class Warfare?

Morici says that he believes Obama's tax proposal could spark a kind
of class war.

"What Obama is doing is pitting the poor against the upper middle
class," said Morici. "He'll tax the rich for the health benefits
everyone else wants."

Obama has said the new taxes on those making over $250,000 would go
toward a fund that would support a gradual move to universal health
care coverage.

Supporters of Obama's budget plans say that those who are at the top
and complaining need to look at the bigger picture.

"Those who are going to be taxed more are obviously going to complain
but I think they may miss the point," said Lisa Rotenstein, the chair
of the Harvard Healthcare Policy Group at the Institute of Politics.

"This could have broader implications for the American economy as a
whole  improved health care means a healthier workforce that is more
productive," said Rotenstein.

But Colorado dentist Poczatek says those who support the increase in
taxes misunderstand what it means for those who will end up paying
more.

"I'd like these people to know that we pay a lot of taxes, and have
been paying a lot of taxes through the past administration," said
Pcozatek.

"We make a lot of money, it's true, but we also already pay a lot of
taxes," she said.

"So maybe we got a little bit successful but we worked very hard," she
said. "It's taken us over 30 years and it didn't happen overnight.
Every day is a lot of work.

"We're working for it and we're still overtaxed."


From ekroposki at charter.net  Tue Mar  3 07:29:12 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Tue, 3 Mar 2009 07:29:12 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] He says a lot but does he say anything?
Message-ID: <3F2B881AF91E4040B4BC4A88FEEAA7CE@YOURB88038198E>

See:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/02/no_surrender.html

At least it is not completely negative.

EK
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Tue Mar  3 09:33:12 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Tue, 3 Mar 2009 08:33:12 -0600
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] He says a lot but does he say anything?
In-Reply-To: <3F2B881AF91E4040B4BC4A88FEEAA7CE@YOURB88038198E>
References: <3F2B881AF91E4040B4BC4A88FEEAA7CE@YOURB88038198E>
Message-ID: <400985d70903030633p2d3f94f1lc46e210919a8b88e@mail.gmail.com>

Ed,

It should be obvious to anyone paying attention, this isn't politics
as usual, ie, Dems vs Repubs, liberals vs conservatives, special
interests vs entrenched bureaucracies, etc. What we're witnessing is a
not so stealthy Marxist attempt to change the entire nation almost
overnight into a socialist state.  The market sees this and is acting
accordingly. I personally see some hope in the ground swell of protest
around the country, the declining polls, and the "buyers remorse" that
is gaining in strength. Will it be enough?  Maybe politically, but the
money that we don't have will be spent before anything can be done.
We'll pay for this class warfare with inflated dollars.  Expect to see
a substantial hike in the minimum wage soon.  It will be meaningless.
Everyone's money will be worth less.  As other pundits have noted,
warfare has been declared on business, savers, and earners.  Did
anyone expect anything less given The One's track record?  Oh silly
me, few bothered to look at the history of Dear Leader. There is the
ever so small hope that the Blue Dog Democrats could save us.  Don't
count on it!

Brad

On Tue, Mar 3, 2009 at 6:29 AM, Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net> wrote:
> See:
>
> http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/02/no_surrender.html
>
> At least it is not completely negative.
>
> EK
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>

From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Tue Mar  3 10:18:31 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Tue, 3 Mar 2009 09:18:31 -0600
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] He says a lot but does he say anything?
In-Reply-To: <3F2B881AF91E4040B4BC4A88FEEAA7CE@YOURB88038198E>
References: <3F2B881AF91E4040B4BC4A88FEEAA7CE@YOURB88038198E>
Message-ID: <6634e19e0903030718w1dd82917uf035f0f619ef5b8d@mail.gmail.com>

Ed,

I just gotta' chuckle somethimes.

Remember when everyone was bitching about GWB's deficit spending? Now The O
one comes along with his "stimulus" and every one thinks it's something
special, that it's somehow a "change". Well, for those that believe that,
here's a news flash. All of GWB's deficit spending was his version of a
"stimulus" package. In '01 when the economy tried to correct (I wish they
would have let it, then) GWB and the fed started injecting money, lowering
interest rates and passing big spending bills through congress, trying to
keep the economy "stimulated". What nobody can seem to get a grasp of is
that this is exactly the same road that the O one is headed down right now.

Change??? .... yeah right.

Here's another guy that doesn't see a lot of rosiness in the near future. As
an aside, some folks might want to check out some of the stuff they talk
about in this magazine. The knowledge may come in handy, just shortly.

http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/duffy116.html

Rik

*How do you save
freedom in America?*

*By Dave Duffy* [image: Dave Duffy]


Following is part of a letter I received from Ron Dugan of Nanty Glo,
Pennsylvania:

*"What is it that we can do to stop the loss of freedom in America? You can
have all the money, all the food in the world. But if you have no civil
rights and rights afforded by the Constitution, you have nothing."*

I agree! Unfortunately, I don't have an answer. Formerly I was optimistic
for freedom, but I am no longer. I see no bright beacons amid the
overwhelming gloom on the horizon. I think America is in real danger of
losing freedom.

Before, I had a fall-back position when it came to arguing that freedom
would ultimately triumph in America. It was her work ethic. No matter what
happened, I reasoned, Americans could work their way out of any problem,
political or economic. America's work ethic, I felt, was an unstoppable
force of nature sprung loose by our revolution to earn our freedom a quarter
millennium ago.

But I never anticipated two things: the remarkably swift advance of
socialism in America and the advent of Big Government bailouts, whereby
economic failure by individuals and companies is turned into a sordid
success by spreading the failures among the rest of us. I fear the bailouts
will be the death blow to America's work ethic.

My pessimism runs even deeper. I look around and see no great mass of people
clamoring for individual freedoms. I see no protests in the streets
demanding government stop its unwarranted entry into the marketplace, or
even stop the little things that have been occurring for years, such as the
systematic blockade of roads to see if motorists are drunk.

Socialism is on the march in America, just as it has been in Europe and
around the world for years with only the slight hiccup of the fall of the
Soviet Union. President Bush showed clearly that there is no longer a
difference between America's two main political parties, which together hold
a monopoly on power in America.

Look at the two perceived great problems facing humanity today: world
depression and man-made global warming, and look at how mankind responds to
them. I say perceived because one of them, man-made global warming, is not a
problem at all, but merely a convenient public relations creation of
socialism.

The first global problem, world depression, is serious. It is beginning to
look more and more like the Great Depression of the 1930s, which a study of
history would indicate should have lasted only a couple of years, but
instead lasted a decade because Big Government tried to "solve" it with its
various misguided make-work projects and wealth-transfer schemes. We are
going down that same path again because Big Government, and the overwhelming
majority of people who look to Big Government for guidance and safety,
either have not studied history for its lessons or misinterpret it?sometimes
out of ignorance and sometimes purposefully. Instead of letting markets
correct themselves, and letting poorly run businesses fail as we should in a
free society, we will repeat the disastrous mistakes of the past and bring
on another major depression. And depressions, history teaches us, open the
door to all sorts of tyrannical governments, just as it did for the Nazis,
Fascists, and Communists of the 1930s. Economic instability also, of course,
runs the risk of major war.

The second global problem, global warming, is not a man-made problem at all,
but a natural cycle of the earth, according to most scientific data that is
not skewed by activists and the media. Yet we have a worldwide socialist
solution for it, namely, transfer the wealth of successful and relatively
free nations to failed and unfree nations.

Rather than global warming, earth is probably due to enter its next ice age.
Global warming activists base their evidence on about a thousand years of
climate change, but they conveniently ignore the much more compelling
climate data of Antarctica ice cores which show temperatures and CO2 levels
for the last 400,000 plus years.

In a well developed scientific model known as the Milankovich cycles, it is
the tilt of the earth (varying over 41,000 years), the shape of earth's
orbit (varying over 100,000 years), and the earth's wobble (varying over
26,000 years) that accounts for most of earth's changing climate. This model
has been under refinement by climate scientists since 1842, and as recently
as 1999 the British journal *Nature* published a graph correlating
Antarctica ice cores taken in the 1990s with the Milankovich cycles. It
showed roughly 110,000-year cycles, with ice ages spanning about 100,000
years and warming trends lasting about 12,000. It has been 12,000 years
since the end of the last ice age, but let any scientist bring up the
possibility of global cooling rather than global warming too loudly and he
will not only be labeled a kook, but run the risk of losing funding at his
Big Government-supported university.

With communism dead, global warming is the new horse upon which socialism
now rides to victory over freedom. The socialist media repeats the mantra of
man-made global warming so often that most people now accept it as fact.

The free nations of the world seem hell bent on implementing socialist
solutions to both our free market economic glitch and our fabricated global
warming problem. We are willingly adopting socialist philosophies of how
societies should be organized. And socialism, as far as I have been able to
determine, is the antithesis of freedom.

How do you stop the loss of freedom in America?

I'm not sure we can. The only hope, I think, is to convince more people to
get back to where we were when Americans valued freedom above everything
else. Back then, we *demanded* it, and Big Government relented. Today we
must agree, again, that freedom is more important than anything else. I hope
there are enough of us.


On Tue, Mar 3, 2009 at 6:29 AM, Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net> wrote:

>  See:
>
> http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/02/no_surrender.html
>
> At least it is not completely negative.
>
> EK
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>
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From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Tue Mar  3 10:37:54 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Tue, 3 Mar 2009 09:37:54 -0600
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] He says a lot but does he say anything?
In-Reply-To: <3F2B881AF91E4040B4BC4A88FEEAA7CE@YOURB88038198E>
References: <3F2B881AF91E4040B4BC4A88FEEAA7CE@YOURB88038198E>
Message-ID: <6634e19e0903030737m1df11671h520bedea010de0c3@mail.gmail.com>

Oh, and Ed,

Don't think nobody is noticing and preparing to stand up and be heard. Check
out a couple links.

http://www.dailypaul.com/

http://www.reteaparty.com/

There's more out there, but these are the ones I look at regularly. The tea
party site has only been up for a week or so.

There is fast growing support here for more conservatism, especially among
younger people who are now realizing that they may have bought a pig in a
poke back in November. I think the O one will start to feel the sting of
this opposition shortly.

Rik

On Tue, Mar 3, 2009 at 6:29 AM, Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net> wrote:

>  See:
>
> http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/02/no_surrender.html
>
> At least it is not completely negative.
>
> EK
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Tue Mar  3 10:59:52 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Tue, 3 Mar 2009 09:59:52 -0600
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Immigration
Message-ID: <400985d70903030759q79bf9330gae1faebf77ad5854@mail.gmail.com>

Are we losing or have we already lost?  Brad

-  Eighty-seven percent of Chinese and 62% of Indians said they had
better opportunities for longer-term professional growth in their home
countries than in the U.S. Additionally, nearly half were considering
launching businesses and said entrepreneurial opportunities were
better in their home countries than in the U.S. -

Why Skilled Immigrants Are Leaving the U.S.
By Vivek Wadhwa Vivek Wadhwa 2 hrs 48 mins ago

As the debate over H-1B workers and skilled immigrants intensifies, we
are losing sight of one important fact: The U.S. is no longer the only
land of opportunity. If we don't want the immigrants who have fueled
our innovation and economic growth, they now have options elsewhere.
Immigrants are returning home in greater numbers. And new research
shows they are returning to enjoy a better quality of life, better
career prospects, and the comfort of being close to family and
friends.

Earlier research by my team suggested that a crisis was brewing
because of a burgeoning immigration backlog. At the end of 2006, more
than 1 million skilled professionals (engineers, scientists, doctors,
researchers) and their families were in line for a yearly allotment of
only 120,000 permanent resident visas. The wait time for some people
ran longer than a decade. In the meantime, these workers were trapped
in "immigration limbo." If they changed jobs or even took a promotion,
they risked being pushed to the back of the permanent residency queue.
We predicted that skilled foreign workers would increasingly get fed
up and return to countries like India and China where the economies
were booming.

Why should we care? Because immigrants are critical to the country's
long-term economic health. Despite the fact that they constitute only
12% of the U.S. population, immigrants have started 52% of Silicon
Valley's technology companies and contributed to more than 25% of our
global patents. They make up 24% of the U.S. science and engineering
workforce holding bachelor's degrees and 47% of science and
engineering workers who have PhDs. Immigrants have co-founded firms
such as Google (NasdaqGS:GOOG - News), Intel (NasdaqGS:INTC - News),
eBay (NasdaqGS:EBAY - News), and Yahoo! (NasdaqGS:YHOO - News).

Who Are They? Young and Well-Educated

We tried to find hard data on how many immigrants had returned to
India and China. No government authority seems to track these numbers.
But human resources directors in India and China told us that what was
a trickle of returnees a decade ago had become a flood. Job
applications from the U.S. had increased tenfold over the last few
years, they said. To get an understanding of how the returnees had
fared and why they left the U.S., my team at Duke, along with AnnaLee
Saxenian of the University of California at Berkeley and Richard
Freeman of Harvard University, conducted a survey. Through
professional networking site LinkedIn, we tracked down 1,203 Indian
and Chinese immigrants who had worked or received education in the
U.S. and had returned to their home countries. This research was
funded by the Kauffman Foundation.

Our new paper, "America's Loss Is the World's Gain," finds that the
vast majority of these returnees were relatively young. The average
age was 30 for Indian returnees, and 33 for Chinese. They were highly
educated, with degrees in management, technology, or science.
Fifty-one percent of the Chinese held master's degrees and 41% had
PhDs. Sixty-six percent of the Indians held a master's and 12.1% had
PhDs. They were at very top of the educational distribution for these
highly educated immigrant groups -- precisely the kind of people who
make the greatest contribution to the U.S. economy and to business and
job growth.

Nearly a third of the Chinese returnees and a fifth of the Indians
came to the U.S. on student visas. A fifth of the Chinese and nearly
half of the Indians entered on temporary work visas (such as the
H-1B). The strongest factor that brought them to the U.S. was
professional and educational development opportunities.

What They Miss: Family and Friends

They found life in the U.S. had many drawbacks. Returnees cited
language barriers, missing their family and friends at home,
difficulty with cultural assimilation, and care of parents and
children as key issues. About a third of the Indians and a fifth of
the Chinese said that visas were a strong factor in their decision to
return home, but others left for opportunity and to be close to family
and friends. And it wasn't just new immigrants who were returning. In
fact, 30% of respondents held permanent resident status or were U.S.
citizens.

Eighty-seven percent of Chinese and 79% of Indians said a strong
factor in their original decision to return home was the growing
demand for their skills in their home countries. Their instincts
generally proved right. Significant numbers moved up the organization
chart. Among Indians the percentage of respondents holding senior
management positions increased from 10% in the U.S. to 44% in India,
and among Chinese it increased from 9% in the U.S. to 36% in China.
Eighty-seven percent of Chinese and 62% of Indians said they had
better opportunities for longer-term professional growth in their home
countries than in the U.S. Additionally, nearly half were considering
launching businesses and said entrepreneurial opportunities were
better in their home countries than in the U.S.

Friends and family played an equally strong role for 88% of Indians
and 77% of Chinese. Care for aging parents was considered by 89% of
Indians and 79% of Chinese to be much better in their home countries.
Nearly 80% of Indians and 67% of Chinese said family values were
better in their home countries.

More Options Back Home

Immigrants who have arrived at America's shores have always felt
lonely and homesick. They had to make big personal sacrifices to
provide their children with better opportunities than they had. But
they never have had the option to return home. Now they do, and they
are leaving.

It isn't all rosy back home. Indians complained of traffic and
congestion, lack of infrastructure, excessive bureaucracy, and
pollution. Chinese complained of pollution, reverse culture shock,
inferior education for children, frustration with government
bureaucracy, and the quality of health care. Returnees said they were
generally making less money in absolute terms, but they also said they
enjoyed a higher quality of life.

We may not need all these workers in the U.S. during the deepening
recession. But we will need them to help us recover from it. Right
now, they are taking their skills and ideas back to their home
countries and are unlikely to return, barring an extraordinary
recruitment effort and major changes to immigration policy. That
hardly seems likely given the current political climate. The policy
focus now seems to be on doing whatever it takes to retain existing
American jobs -- even if it comes at the cost of building a workforce
for the future of America.

From flybrad at gmail.com  Tue Mar  3 12:31:52 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Tue, 3 Mar 2009 11:31:52 -0600
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] You Rich Bastards!
Message-ID: <400985d70903030931q3d86d11et374e2e874f701203@mail.gmail.com>

Video without comment.  Brad

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHRppvbiahM&eurl=http://tigerhawk.blogspot.com/2009/03/tigerhawk-tv-who-are-these-rich-people.html&feature=player_embedded

From ekroposki at charter.net  Wed Mar  4 06:32:14 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2009 06:32:14 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Sailing question for Rik
Message-ID: <59785EB2CA69470A9849036EE89ED59A@YOURB88038198E>

Rik,

Tell me about the 'Flicka'.  How does it sail.  Any problems with draft?  Do you have inboard or outboard?  How much room in cabin.

Ed K
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From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Wed Mar  4 10:20:14 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2009 09:20:14 -0600
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Sailing question for Rik
In-Reply-To: <59785EB2CA69470A9849036EE89ED59A@YOURB88038198E>
References: <59785EB2CA69470A9849036EE89ED59A@YOURB88038198E>
Message-ID: <6634e19e0903040720p20916716p1f695f7da036caca@mail.gmail.com>

Ed,

"Tell me about the Flicka".

I think our Flicka might just be as good a set of compromises as has ever
been put together in a 20 foot piece of buoyant plastic.... for the way we
like/want to use it.

"How does it sail?"

Compared to an R22, I would say it's not as nimble. It has a much more solid
feel to it. At any point of sail above a beam reach, if I have the sails
trimed decently and the wind is halfway steady, I can usually step away from
the tiller most any time I want and she'll just keep on going by herself.

With her weight and her very round hull shape, she is very sea kindly
considering her size.

The Flicka likes wind. On days when it's blowing 15 - 20 she's happy as a
clam and will pass up most boats her own size and many that are bigger,
because at 20 knots of breeze, if you want, she can still be carrying her
full main and 110 jib. Admitedly, at 20 knots, you have to be paying
attention and playing your sheets and stuff, but it can be done, usually
without making anyone too nervous. We have been out many days when we are
the only boat left on the lake because everyone else has got scared and gone
home. If I find I need a break from the action, she'll heave to and sit
quite nicely until I decide it's time to go back to work.

Yes, the way our boat is set up, she's not great in light air. Of course, I
have made no effort to improve that. I'm not big on carrying around a lot of
different sails and spending all the effort it takes to change them for each
condition. The phylosophy we try to live by is; if the wind ain't blowing,
it's time for lunch, or a nap. I believe the Flicka could be made to perform
at least close to an R22 in light air if one were to hang a 175 genny or
perhaps a UPS on her.

"Any problems with draft?"

The Flicka's draft spec is 3' 3". So, no not really. Yes, I have gotten
stupid a couple times and parked her on a sand bar, but because of the way
her keel is shaped, we have always been able to back her off again using
nothing more than the motor. I must admit, I do miss the "depth sounder"
effect the centerboard provided on the R22.

"Do you have inboard or outboard?"

Up until last fall we had a 9.9 Yamaha on our Flicka. That was a very fine
motor and was always dependable and very powerful. Perhaps more than is
needed. However, it is heavy as heck (110 lbs.) and it tended to make our
boat list to starboard unless I had the water tank on the port side full,
which we rarely do. This year I bought a 6hp Tohatsu 4 stroke (60 lbs.) for
her and so far, it seems to be plenty.

"How much room in cabin?"

For us, this is the most beautiful part of this boat. Being in the cabin of
this boat is not like "camping". You mostly don't have to move one thing so
that you can do something else. One person can sleep while the other is
cooking for instance and the galley is big enough so you actually have room
to work. When you go to bed, you walk over to the bed and sit down on it
.... no crawling around. Standing headroom all the time, wherever you want
to stand.

I have a good friend in Texas who owns a Seafarer 26 which is truly a
gorgeous boat to look at. He has done a wonderful job of restoring her.
However, I had the priveledge of going in her cabin last spring when we were
down there and the first thing that occurred to me was, WOW the sure isn't
much room in here. Beautiful as all the finishing was, it was no match for
the spaciousness of our Flicka.

Rik
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From bill at effros.com  Wed Mar  4 16:42:07 2009
From: bill at effros.com (Bill Effros)
Date: Wed, 04 Mar 2009 16:42:07 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Archives?
In-Reply-To: <FBE0AA3FB64749DC98763F34D78171DE@YOURB88038198E>
References: <FBE0AA3FB64749DC98763F34D78171DE@YOURB88038198E>
Message-ID: <49AEF5AF.9070804@effros.com>

http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/pipermail/swiftwatergazette/

Ed Kroposki wrote:
> Bill:
>  
> Are the archives working?
>  
> Ed K
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>   
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Wed Mar  4 18:26:00 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2009 17:26:00 -0600
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Old Flyers
Message-ID: <400985d70903041526l42d6dc65s742f145ae574bf09@mail.gmail.com>

Just stumbled across this in my daily web reading - click on the site
for the photos.  Brad

http://sippicancottage.blogspot.com/2009/03/my-father-asks-for-nothing.html

My father asks me for nothing, really. Every three months or so, I
take him to his doctor, who pokes about him wondering what keeps him
animated, and that's about it. He's grown frail, and has discovered
the joys of "Not Going." It takes a lot to get him to leave the
comfort and safety of his house. I was really surprised when he called
me on Saturday, because he asked me to take him somewhere.

My father was a ball gunner on a B-24J Liberator bomber in the Pacific
during WW2. He rarely spoke about that. My father and his confreres
considered themselves part of a thing greater than the sum of their
parts in it --or so it seems to me -- and more or less did what was
expected of them as a sort of unpleasant chore, kept themselves safe
as much as was practicable, amused themselves when possible, and got
back to being regular people as soon as they could.

As far as how practicable it was to keep safe hanging below a plane
filled with four hundred pound bombs with nothing but the ocean
beneath you to bore you and Japanese Zeros shooting at you to keep you
interested in the trip, you can draw your own conclusions.

My father said that the last B-24 in flying condition was going to be
at a little airshow nearby, and he wanted to go see it. Would I take
him?

As I said, my father is very frail. His heart is big but not useful.
His mind is sharp but not overused now. It takes quite a bit of effort
for him to get down the hall and into a car. And there was nothing I
could do to keep him from trying to climb in that plane when we got
there.

I didn't try, actually; I just was sort of amazed, and wondered how I
could help him. You entered the plane on a rickety jump ladder in the
tail, walked through the fuselage filled with wooden ammo boxes and
gun emplacemements, climbed around the retracted ball that was his
home for forty missions, and then had to walk on a catwalk less than a
foot wide between the bomb racks to get to the cockpit. All this for a
man who needs a walker.

We went along the side of the plane, creeping along at the pace my
father goes, my father assiduously avoiding walking between the
fuselage and the props -- a habit sixty years old and more -- and he
saw his chance. He ducked down and crept into the bomb bay.

Down came the hands. No one needed to be told who that man was, or why
he was there. Everyone behind paused to wait patiently and
respectfully, and everyone within reach helped me pick that old,
frail, brave man up to look on the nuts and bolts of that totem of his
distant life. And they thanked him, and they asked him questions, and
marveled at him. A Brigadier General and a sailor and a J.A.G. and
Vietnam vets by the handful pressed his hand for the piquant residue
of that life that might be on it.

He just looked for one familiar face that he had not brought with him,
but there were none.


My father asks for nothing.

From flybrad at gmail.com  Wed Mar  4 20:48:38 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2009 19:48:38 -0600
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Oil and Gas Investing
In-Reply-To: <400985d70902280513l5619f906vf393f2d0b993cf66@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70902280513l5619f906vf393f2d0b993cf66@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70903041748j505e15aakbc2f1ae2474b50dd@mail.gmail.com>

Yup!  I guessed this one correctly.  Our new Chief Tax Cheat, er,
Treasury Secretary made it official.  War has been declared on
domestic oil & gas production (see attached).  This is the statement
that should scare the hell out of you; "Geithner said the additional
taxes "can be absorbed" by the oil and gas companies, given the
billions of dollars they have earned from high energy prices."
Reality check, please,  Who will pay the carbon tax on power plants?
You will.  Who will pay the excise tax on domestic oil? You will.  You
can argue within reason why that may be a good idea, but don't blow
smoke up our arses! Companies don't pay taxes, they collect them and
pass them on to customers. Econ 101.

Brad

----------

US Treasury secretary attacks oil, gas tax breaks
Thu Mar 5, 2009 3:18am IST

By Tom Doggett

WASHINGTON, March 4 (Reuters) - U.S. oil and natural gas producing
companies should not receive federal subsidies in the form of tax
breaks because their businesses contribute to global warming, U.S.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told Congress on Wednesday.

It was one of the sharpest attacks yet on the oil and gas industry by
a top Obama administration official, reinforcing the White House
stance that new U.S. energy policy will focus on promoting renewable
energy sources like wind and solar power and rely less on traditional
fossil fuels like oil as America tackles climate change.

"We don't believe it makes sense to significantly subsidize the
production and use of sources of energy (like oil and gas) that are
dramatically going to add to our climate change (problem). We don't
think that's good economic policy and we think changing those
incentives is good for the country," Geithner told the Senate Finance
Committee at a hearing on the White House's proposed budget for the
2010 spending year.

The Obama administration's budget would levy an excise tax on oil and
natural gas produced in the Gulf of Mexico, raising $5.3 billion in
revenue from 2011 to 2019.

This new 13 percent tax on all oil and gas production in the Gulf
would only affect those companies enjoying a loophole that allows them
to avoid paying royalties on the energy supplies they drill. Companies
already paying royalties would get a tax credit.

Obama's budget would also place a $4 per acre annual fee on energy
leases in the Gulf that are designated as nonproducing. The budget
proposal projects the fee would generate $1.2 billion from 2010 to
2019.

Senator John Cornyn of Texas criticized the tax increases, saying they
would hurt independent energy companies that provide a large share of
U.S. oil and gas supplies.

"My view is that higher taxes on small and independent producers here
in America will make us more dependent on imported oil and gas while
we transition to cleaner energy alternatives, a goal we all share,"
said Cornyn. "And it will also hurt job retention and job creation in
the energy sector, which provides an awful lot of jobs in this
country."

Geithner said the additional taxes "can be absorbed" by the oil and
gas companies, given the billions of dollars they have earned from
high energy prices.

"The impact of these subsidies are very small relative to revenues
produced by U.S. oil and gas producers," he said. (Reporting by Tom
Doggett; editing by Jim Marshall)


----------------------------------

On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 7:13 AM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
> For someone who was a Senator from Illinois, Dear Leader sure doesn't
> seem to know much about oil and gas. ?The Illinois Basin oil field
> (which covers three states, IL, IN, and KY) was a prolific producer
> until about the mid 50's of the last century. ?It still produces a lot
> of oil but is considered a "mature field". ?The recent run-up in oil
> prices sparked new interest in the field with some new drilling
> (there's one being drilled on my nephew's land as we speak) and
> substantial investment in workovers and upgrades to older well heads.
> Here's a snapshot of some of the tax hikes coming -
>
> ? ?1) On people making more than $250,000.
>
> ? ? ? ?* $338 billion - Bush tax cuts expire
> ? ? ? ?* $179 billlion - eliminate itemized deduction
> ? ? ? ?* $118 billion - capital gains tax hike
>
> ? ?Total: $636 billion/10 years
>
> ? ?2) Businesses:
>
> ? ? ? ?* $17 billion - Reinstate Superfund taxes
> ? ? ? ?* $24 billion - tax carried-interest as income
> ? ? ? ?* $5 billion - codify ?economic substance doctrine?
> ? ? ? ?* $61 billion - repeal LIFO
> ? ? ? ?* $210 billion - international enforcement, reform deferral,
> other tax reform
> ? ? ? ?* $4 billion - information reporting for rental payments
> ? ? ? ?* $5.3 billion - excise tax on Gulf of Mexico oil and gas
> ? ? ? ?* $3.4 billion - repeal expensing of tangible drilling costs
> ? ? ? ?* $62 million - repeal deduction for tertiary injectants
> ? ? ? ?* $49 million - repeal passive loss exception for working
> interests in oil and natural gas properties
> ? ? ? ?* $13 billion - repeal manufacturing tax deduction for oil and
> natural gas companies
> ? ? ? ?* $1 billion - increase to 7 years geological and geophysical
> amortization period for independent producers
> ? ? ? ?* $882 million - eliminate advanced earned income tax credit
>
> ? ?Total: $353 billion/10 years
>
> To invest in private placements of oil and gas ventures you are
> required by the SEC to be a qualified "sophisticated" investor,
> meaning you have to have a taxable income of $250K for two years or
> more or a net worth of 1 million or higher. ?Investing in new wells is
> risky. ?Even investing in existing wells carries considerable risk,
> not the least of which is you don't have any control over the price of
> your product. ?Part of the risk is mitigated by being able to expense
> versus capitalize drilling and other front-end cash outlays. ?Over the
> years, we've heard about all the "special tax breaks" for oil and gas
> by the ignorant and the uniformed. ?You cannot avoid taxes, you can
> only delay them! ?If you look at the above list, it becomes obvious
> that the bulk of business tax reforms are aimed directly at domestic
> oil and gas production. ?It will kill the small producers. ?Was that
> the idea?
>
> Big Oil and Gas companies will continue to produce in other countries
> and sell their product on the world market. ?What is the incentive to
> produce or sell in the US given the tax penalties?
>
> Did I miss something in the news? ?Did our cars suddenly start running
> on something other than gasoline. ?Did OPEC suddenly decide they're in
> love with us and are going to start selling crude oil at cost?
>
> I'm sure to a lot of lefties, killing off domestic drilling makes them
> happy. ?If so, start celebrating, cause this sure as hell is going to
> do it!
>
> Brad
>


From flybrad at gmail.com  Wed Mar  4 22:19:47 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2009 21:19:47 -0600
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Another 1000 Market Points
Message-ID: <400985d70903041919p4d0a7d9dw86d1c864774ae2eb@mail.gmail.com>

Card check - an idea so bad even a liberal's liberal recognizes it as
bad policy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afjp4Cx-3W0

Dear Leader says he's going to do it (see attached).

Watch the market tank even further. Thank goodness I sleep with a
former Commie.  She can give me pointers on how to behave under
Obamao.

Brad

---------------

    * MARCH 4, 2009

President Tells Unions Organizing Act Will Pass



more in Politics ?
By KRIS MAHER

MIAMI -- President Barack Obama told AFL-CIO union leaders Tuesday in
a videotaped address that the controversial Employee Free Choice Act
will pass, signaling his full backing for legislation that makes union
organizing easier.

"We will pass the Employee Free Choice Act," President Obama told more
than 100 top labor officials in a closed-door meeting at the labor
federation's winter gathering in Miami, according to people at the
meeting.

The bill would make it easier for unions to recruit workers because it
would let them join unions simply by signing cards rather than through
secret-ballot elections in which companies can campaign against the
union. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business organizations
have been campaigning against the legislation.

The president's remarks were taped on Feb. 20, according to a White
House spokesman. Following his remarks, AFL-CIO officials held a
meeting with Labor Secretary Hilda Solis.

Separately, on Wednesday, the AFL-CIO is expected to ask the
administration to take a controlling stake in banks that receive
government funding and a more active role in restructuring their
balance sheets. "We believe the debate over nationalization is
delaying the inevitable bank restructuring, which is something our
economy cannot afford," reads a draft of an AFL-CIO statement. It is
the first time the labor group has advocated such a policy, said
Richard Trumka, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO. Mr. Trumka, a
member of the White House Economic Recovery Advisory Board, said
government control would be short-lived.

The Employee Free Choice Act is expected to be introduced in the
coming weeks in the Senate. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said in an
interview that to help get the bill through Congress, it could be
amended in the Senate, where support is narrower, before it reaches
the House. "We wouldn't be surprised if there were attempts to amend
the bill," he said.

Organized labor plans to mobilize workers in states where support is
weakest among Democratic lawmakers, lobby lawmakers directly and get
companies that support the bill to endorse it publicly. Labor leaders
didn't name companies targeted in this effort.

Business groups say they will intensify their lobbying against the
bill as it is introduced. Randel Johnson, vice president of labor
policy for the Chamber of Commerce, said the group will focus its
heaviest lobbying efforts on senators in about seven states, and that
an endorsement of the bill by a small number of companies "would not
affect the political dynamic," because employer opposition to the bill
is "overwhelming."

Write to Kris Maher at kris.maher at wsj.com


From flybrad at gmail.com  Wed Mar  4 22:51:46 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2009 21:51:46 -0600
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Cap-and-Trade
Message-ID: <400985d70903041951w770f1037xe8436b78205b158a@mail.gmail.com>

Rot Row, Rastro!  Even Michigan realizes they're on a runaway train
with no engineer at the helm.  The attached is from the Detroit News.
Is it just me, or is that halo on Chocolate Baby Jesus getting dimmer
by the day?

Brad

--------------

Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Editorial: Cap-and-trade plan will sink Michigan
The Detroit News

President Barack Obama's proposed cap-and-trade system on greenhouse
gas emissions is a giant economic dagger aimed at the nation's
heartland -- particularly Michigan. It is a multibillion-dollar tax
hike on everything that Michigan does, including making things,
driving cars and burning coal.

The president is asking for a system of government limits on carbon
emissions. The right to emit carbon would be auctioned off to generate
revenue for more government spending programs.

The president's budget projects receipts totaling $646 billion through
2019 from the sale of these greenhouse gas permits.

The goal, according to the president's budget outline, is to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide to 14 percent below
2005 levels by 2020.

Doing so will drive up the cost of nearly everything and will amount
to a major tax increase for American consumers.

Such a tax will hit the Midwest particularly hard, which is why House
Minority Leader John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, told the New York Times,
"let's just be honest and call it a carbon tax that will increase
taxes on all Americans who drive a car, who have a job, who turn on a
light switch, pure and simple."

The carbon tax will be paid by energy companies, manufacturers and
public utilities, who will pass the cost on to their consumers.
Michigan will be especially targeted. It gets 60 percent of its
electric power from coal plants, and the state's economy is still
reliant on heavy manufacturing such as car and truck assembly and auto
parts production.

Michigan will lose as carbon tax money is shifted to states with a
greater presence of high-tech and service businesses.

The proposed tax would take effect in 2012 and has the very real
potential to throw the nation back into recession, if indeed the
expected recovery has arrived by then. It's impossible to raise costs
for such basics as manufacturing and energy production by more than
half a trillion dollars over a decade and not have the effects felt
across the economy.

The nation's gross domestic product contracted at an annualized rate
of 3.8 percent in last year's fourth quarter -- the worst economic
record in nearly three decades. Is this really a good time to be
talking about a carbon tax? How will such talk impact investment
decisions?

Obama promises to use some of the revenues for tax relief for certain
workers and some of the rest for subsidies for alternative energy. But
that won't make up for the damage this huge new tax will do to the
economy, especially in Michigan.

A similar program in Europe hasn't worked. European automakers
complained about carbon dioxide limits the European Union proposed in
2007 as damaging to the economy.

The Obama cap-and-trade program will place even more of the economy
under the control of the federal government. The only upside is that
the negative impact it will have on economic growth and job creation
will take care of the carbon emissions problem, for sure.



Find this article at:
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090304/OPINION01/903040314

From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Thu Mar  5 00:31:49 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2009 23:31:49 -0600
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Cap-and-Trade
In-Reply-To: <400985d70903041951w770f1037xe8436b78205b158a@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70903041951w770f1037xe8436b78205b158a@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6634e19e0903042131v62b79b21n71edb7df2f4265b3@mail.gmail.com>

Brad,

I'm getting to the point where I really don't know what to say about all of
this anymore. To be honest, if anyone had told me what is going on right now
was even possible, I'd have said, naw, no way.... I would have been wrong!

I can not think of a time in my life when I actually feared for the survival
of our nation, but I have to tell you, I am there now.

I wonder how long it will be before there is an outcry for secession from
many of our states. I have to believe there are many who won't put up with
this nonsense much longer.

Rik

On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 9:51 PM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:

> Rot Row, Rastro!  Even Michigan realizes they're on a runaway train
> with no engineer at the helm.  The attached is from the Detroit News.
> Is it just me, or is that halo on Chocolate Baby Jesus getting dimmer
> by the day?
>
> Brad
>
> --------------
>
> Wednesday, March 4, 2009
> Editorial: Cap-and-trade plan will sink Michigan
> The Detroit News
>
> President Barack Obama's proposed cap-and-trade system on greenhouse
> gas emissions is a giant economic dagger aimed at the nation's
> heartland -- particularly Michigan. It is a multibillion-dollar tax
> hike on everything that Michigan does, including making things,
> driving cars and burning coal.
>
> The president is asking for a system of government limits on carbon
> emissions. The right to emit carbon would be auctioned off to generate
> revenue for more government spending programs.
>
> The president's budget projects receipts totaling $646 billion through
> 2019 from the sale of these greenhouse gas permits.
>
> The goal, according to the president's budget outline, is to reduce
> greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide to 14 percent below
> 2005 levels by 2020.
>
> Doing so will drive up the cost of nearly everything and will amount
> to a major tax increase for American consumers.
>
> Such a tax will hit the Midwest particularly hard, which is why House
> Minority Leader John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, told the New York Times,
> "let's just be honest and call it a carbon tax that will increase
> taxes on all Americans who drive a car, who have a job, who turn on a
> light switch, pure and simple."
>
> The carbon tax will be paid by energy companies, manufacturers and
> public utilities, who will pass the cost on to their consumers.
> Michigan will be especially targeted. It gets 60 percent of its
> electric power from coal plants, and the state's economy is still
> reliant on heavy manufacturing such as car and truck assembly and auto
> parts production.
>
> Michigan will lose as carbon tax money is shifted to states with a
> greater presence of high-tech and service businesses.
>
> The proposed tax would take effect in 2012 and has the very real
> potential to throw the nation back into recession, if indeed the
> expected recovery has arrived by then. It's impossible to raise costs
> for such basics as manufacturing and energy production by more than
> half a trillion dollars over a decade and not have the effects felt
> across the economy.
>
> The nation's gross domestic product contracted at an annualized rate
> of 3.8 percent in last year's fourth quarter -- the worst economic
> record in nearly three decades. Is this really a good time to be
> talking about a carbon tax? How will such talk impact investment
> decisions?
>
> Obama promises to use some of the revenues for tax relief for certain
> workers and some of the rest for subsidies for alternative energy. But
> that won't make up for the damage this huge new tax will do to the
> economy, especially in Michigan.
>
> A similar program in Europe hasn't worked. European automakers
> complained about carbon dioxide limits the European Union proposed in
> 2007 as damaging to the economy.
>
> The Obama cap-and-trade program will place even more of the economy
> under the control of the federal government. The only upside is that
> the negative impact it will have on economic growth and job creation
> will take care of the carbon emissions problem, for sure.
>
>
>
> Find this article at:
>
> http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090304/OPINION01/903040314
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
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From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Thu Mar  5 00:55:41 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2009 23:55:41 -0600
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Cap-and-Trade
In-Reply-To: <400985d70903041951w770f1037xe8436b78205b158a@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70903041951w770f1037xe8436b78205b158a@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6634e19e0903042155i5226f727l8991e3bcb309548e@mail.gmail.com>

Brad,

More of the same .... and on and on and on .........

Are these people EVER going to wake up???

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/03/bernanke-angry-aig-operated-like-hedge.html

The Fed needs to disappear.... it would be good, when they go, if they'd
take Obamao with them.

Rik

On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 9:51 PM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:

> Rot Row, Rastro!  Even Michigan realizes they're on a runaway train
> with no engineer at the helm.  The attached is from the Detroit News.
> Is it just me, or is that halo on Chocolate Baby Jesus getting dimmer
> by the day?
>
> Brad
>
> --------------
>
> Wednesday, March 4, 2009
> Editorial: Cap-and-trade plan will sink Michigan
> The Detroit News
>
> President Barack Obama's proposed cap-and-trade system on greenhouse
> gas emissions is a giant economic dagger aimed at the nation's
> heartland -- particularly Michigan. It is a multibillion-dollar tax
> hike on everything that Michigan does, including making things,
> driving cars and burning coal.
>
> The president is asking for a system of government limits on carbon
> emissions. The right to emit carbon would be auctioned off to generate
> revenue for more government spending programs.
>
> The president's budget projects receipts totaling $646 billion through
> 2019 from the sale of these greenhouse gas permits.
>
> The goal, according to the president's budget outline, is to reduce
> greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide to 14 percent below
> 2005 levels by 2020.
>
> Doing so will drive up the cost of nearly everything and will amount
> to a major tax increase for American consumers.
>
> Such a tax will hit the Midwest particularly hard, which is why House
> Minority Leader John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, told the New York Times,
> "let's just be honest and call it a carbon tax that will increase
> taxes on all Americans who drive a car, who have a job, who turn on a
> light switch, pure and simple."
>
> The carbon tax will be paid by energy companies, manufacturers and
> public utilities, who will pass the cost on to their consumers.
> Michigan will be especially targeted. It gets 60 percent of its
> electric power from coal plants, and the state's economy is still
> reliant on heavy manufacturing such as car and truck assembly and auto
> parts production.
>
> Michigan will lose as carbon tax money is shifted to states with a
> greater presence of high-tech and service businesses.
>
> The proposed tax would take effect in 2012 and has the very real
> potential to throw the nation back into recession, if indeed the
> expected recovery has arrived by then. It's impossible to raise costs
> for such basics as manufacturing and energy production by more than
> half a trillion dollars over a decade and not have the effects felt
> across the economy.
>
> The nation's gross domestic product contracted at an annualized rate
> of 3.8 percent in last year's fourth quarter -- the worst economic
> record in nearly three decades. Is this really a good time to be
> talking about a carbon tax? How will such talk impact investment
> decisions?
>
> Obama promises to use some of the revenues for tax relief for certain
> workers and some of the rest for subsidies for alternative energy. But
> that won't make up for the damage this huge new tax will do to the
> economy, especially in Michigan.
>
> A similar program in Europe hasn't worked. European automakers
> complained about carbon dioxide limits the European Union proposed in
> 2007 as damaging to the economy.
>
> The Obama cap-and-trade program will place even more of the economy
> under the control of the federal government. The only upside is that
> the negative impact it will have on economic growth and job creation
> will take care of the carbon emissions problem, for sure.
>
>
>
> Find this article at:
>
> http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090304/OPINION01/903040314
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Thu Mar  5 00:55:56 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2009 23:55:56 -0600
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Cap-and-Trade
In-Reply-To: <6634e19e0903042131v62b79b21n71edb7df2f4265b3@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70903041951w770f1037xe8436b78205b158a@mail.gmail.com>
	<6634e19e0903042131v62b79b21n71edb7df2f4265b3@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70903042155wf2daadfi831542046e527ce7@mail.gmail.com>

Rik,

I keep thinking to myself, "where are all the adults?"  Maybe there is
hope.  I see where Evan Bayh and Russ Feingold are breaking from the
fold.  Some of the Blue Dogs in the House are waking-up. Someone needs
to put a stop to this silliness!  You'd be hard pressed to kill off an
economy as quickly as this one is being slaughtered.  If that's the
plan, someone deserves recognition.  The market is obviously looking
down the road and doesn't like what it sees.  Who would? One of my
buddies called for a meeting at the Memphis Center for Peace and
Prosperity last week (otherwise known as RP Tracks Bar and Grill) with
a bunch of our usual crowd in attendance.  The environment there has
gotten so ugly I vowed to never go back.  All these young punk college
students have the "I won" attitude and aren't interested in listening
to anyone. I tried to politely explain to one young girl that I'd be
dead and gone but she would be paying for this nightmare for the rest
of her life. She didn't want to hear it - she and her buddies are
cocksure of themselves and their Dear Leader.  This is sad and pitiful
to witness.

Brad

On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 11:31 PM, Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Brad,
>
> I'm getting to the point where I really don't know what to say about all of
> this anymore. To be honest, if anyone had told me what is going on right now
> was even possible, I'd have said, naw, no way.... I would have been wrong!
>
> I can not think of a time in my life when I actually feared for the survival
> of our nation, but I have to tell you, I am there now.
>
> I wonder how long it will be before there is an outcry for secession from
> many of our states. I have to believe there are many who won't put up with
> this nonsense much longer.
>
> Rik
>
> On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 9:51 PM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Rot Row, Rastro! ?Even Michigan realizes they're on a runaway train
>> with no engineer at the helm. ?The attached is from the Detroit News.
>> Is it just me, or is that halo on Chocolate Baby Jesus getting dimmer
>> by the day?
>>
>> Brad
>>
>> --------------
>>
>> Wednesday, March 4, 2009
>> Editorial: Cap-and-trade plan will sink Michigan
>> The Detroit News
>>
>> President Barack Obama's proposed cap-and-trade system on greenhouse
>> gas emissions is a giant economic dagger aimed at the nation's
>> heartland -- particularly Michigan. It is a multibillion-dollar tax
>> hike on everything that Michigan does, including making things,
>> driving cars and burning coal.
>>
>> The president is asking for a system of government limits on carbon
>> emissions. The right to emit carbon would be auctioned off to generate
>> revenue for more government spending programs.
>>
>> The president's budget projects receipts totaling $646 billion through
>> 2019 from the sale of these greenhouse gas permits.
>>
>> The goal, according to the president's budget outline, is to reduce
>> greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide to 14 percent below
>> 2005 levels by 2020.
>>
>> Doing so will drive up the cost of nearly everything and will amount
>> to a major tax increase for American consumers.
>>
>> Such a tax will hit the Midwest particularly hard, which is why House
>> Minority Leader John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, told the New York Times,
>> "let's just be honest and call it a carbon tax that will increase
>> taxes on all Americans who drive a car, who have a job, who turn on a
>> light switch, pure and simple."
>>
>> The carbon tax will be paid by energy companies, manufacturers and
>> public utilities, who will pass the cost on to their consumers.
>> Michigan will be especially targeted. It gets 60 percent of its
>> electric power from coal plants, and the state's economy is still
>> reliant on heavy manufacturing such as car and truck assembly and auto
>> parts production.
>>
>> Michigan will lose as carbon tax money is shifted to states with a
>> greater presence of high-tech and service businesses.
>>
>> The proposed tax would take effect in 2012 and has the very real
>> potential to throw the nation back into recession, if indeed the
>> expected recovery has arrived by then. It's impossible to raise costs
>> for such basics as manufacturing and energy production by more than
>> half a trillion dollars over a decade and not have the effects felt
>> across the economy.
>>
>> The nation's gross domestic product contracted at an annualized rate
>> of 3.8 percent in last year's fourth quarter -- the worst economic
>> record in nearly three decades. Is this really a good time to be
>> talking about a carbon tax? How will such talk impact investment
>> decisions?
>>
>> Obama promises to use some of the revenues for tax relief for certain
>> workers and some of the rest for subsidies for alternative energy. But
>> that won't make up for the damage this huge new tax will do to the
>> economy, especially in Michigan.
>>
>> A similar program in Europe hasn't worked. European automakers
>> complained about carbon dioxide limits the European Union proposed in
>> 2007 as damaging to the economy.
>>
>> The Obama cap-and-trade program will place even more of the economy
>> under the control of the federal government. The only upside is that
>> the negative impact it will have on economic growth and job creation
>> will take care of the carbon emissions problem, for sure.
>>
>>
>>
>> Find this article at:
>>
>> http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090304/OPINION01/903040314
>> _______________________________________________
>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>>
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>


From flybrad at gmail.com  Thu Mar  5 01:06:33 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 00:06:33 -0600
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Cap-and-Trade
In-Reply-To: <6634e19e0903042155i5226f727l8991e3bcb309548e@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70903041951w770f1037xe8436b78205b158a@mail.gmail.com>
	<6634e19e0903042155i5226f727l8991e3bcb309548e@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70903042206r53e25edcoeb9435051160f1cc@mail.gmail.com>

Rik,

You're right!  It's time to let failed institutions, uh, fail.  The
"cure" for this illness is worse than the disease.  One of the things
I admire about my employer is that when they make a huge mistake (and
they've made many) they take a huge write-off and move on - no cooking
the books, no dragging out the pain over 120 accounting periods, just
fess-up and don't do it again in the same way. I can't help but think
if we had adult leadership who would explain in simple terms to the
American people that this is going to hurt really, really badly, ONE
TIME, and we won't do it again, we'll all be better off.  Ain't gonna
happen.

Brad

On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 11:55 PM, Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Brad,
>
> More of the same .... and on and on and on .........
>
> Are these people EVER going to wake up???
>
> http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/03/bernanke-angry-aig-operated-like-hedge.html
>
> The Fed needs to disappear.... it would be good, when they go, if they'd
> take Obamao with them.
>
> Rik
>
> On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 9:51 PM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Rot Row, Rastro! ?Even Michigan realizes they're on a runaway train
>> with no engineer at the helm. ?The attached is from the Detroit News.
>> Is it just me, or is that halo on Chocolate Baby Jesus getting dimmer
>> by the day?
>>
>> Brad
>>
>> --------------
>>
>> Wednesday, March 4, 2009
>> Editorial: Cap-and-trade plan will sink Michigan
>> The Detroit News
>>
>> President Barack Obama's proposed cap-and-trade system on greenhouse
>> gas emissions is a giant economic dagger aimed at the nation's
>> heartland -- particularly Michigan. It is a multibillion-dollar tax
>> hike on everything that Michigan does, including making things,
>> driving cars and burning coal.
>>
>> The president is asking for a system of government limits on carbon
>> emissions. The right to emit carbon would be auctioned off to generate
>> revenue for more government spending programs.
>>
>> The president's budget projects receipts totaling $646 billion through
>> 2019 from the sale of these greenhouse gas permits.
>>
>> The goal, according to the president's budget outline, is to reduce
>> greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide to 14 percent below
>> 2005 levels by 2020.
>>
>> Doing so will drive up the cost of nearly everything and will amount
>> to a major tax increase for American consumers.
>>
>> Such a tax will hit the Midwest particularly hard, which is why House
>> Minority Leader John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, told the New York Times,
>> "let's just be honest and call it a carbon tax that will increase
>> taxes on all Americans who drive a car, who have a job, who turn on a
>> light switch, pure and simple."
>>
>> The carbon tax will be paid by energy companies, manufacturers and
>> public utilities, who will pass the cost on to their consumers.
>> Michigan will be especially targeted. It gets 60 percent of its
>> electric power from coal plants, and the state's economy is still
>> reliant on heavy manufacturing such as car and truck assembly and auto
>> parts production.
>>
>> Michigan will lose as carbon tax money is shifted to states with a
>> greater presence of high-tech and service businesses.
>>
>> The proposed tax would take effect in 2012 and has the very real
>> potential to throw the nation back into recession, if indeed the
>> expected recovery has arrived by then. It's impossible to raise costs
>> for such basics as manufacturing and energy production by more than
>> half a trillion dollars over a decade and not have the effects felt
>> across the economy.
>>
>> The nation's gross domestic product contracted at an annualized rate
>> of 3.8 percent in last year's fourth quarter -- the worst economic
>> record in nearly three decades. Is this really a good time to be
>> talking about a carbon tax? How will such talk impact investment
>> decisions?
>>
>> Obama promises to use some of the revenues for tax relief for certain
>> workers and some of the rest for subsidies for alternative energy. But
>> that won't make up for the damage this huge new tax will do to the
>> economy, especially in Michigan.
>>
>> A similar program in Europe hasn't worked. European automakers
>> complained about carbon dioxide limits the European Union proposed in
>> 2007 as damaging to the economy.
>>
>> The Obama cap-and-trade program will place even more of the economy
>> under the control of the federal government. The only upside is that
>> the negative impact it will have on economic growth and job creation
>> will take care of the carbon emissions problem, for sure.
>>
>>
>>
>> Find this article at:
>>
>> http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090304/OPINION01/903040314
>> _______________________________________________
>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>>
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>


From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Thu Mar  5 01:09:04 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 00:09:04 -0600
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Cap-and-Trade
In-Reply-To: <400985d70903042155wf2daadfi831542046e527ce7@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70903041951w770f1037xe8436b78205b158a@mail.gmail.com>
	<6634e19e0903042131v62b79b21n71edb7df2f4265b3@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70903042155wf2daadfi831542046e527ce7@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6634e19e0903042209k1f45df3eje8b3040282d04780@mail.gmail.com>

Brad,

"This is sad and pitiful to witness."

Word!

Yes, you can tell a youngster that the bill will be on their back, but they
have no way to relate to that. They think they are paying taxes now. They
won't get it until they really are paying taxes. That's a few years up the
road for most.

Rik

On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 11:55 PM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:

> Rik,
>
> I keep thinking to myself, "where are all the adults?"  Maybe there is
> hope.  I see where Evan Bayh and Russ Feingold are breaking from the
> fold.  Some of the Blue Dogs in the House are waking-up. Someone needs
> to put a stop to this silliness!  You'd be hard pressed to kill off an
> economy as quickly as this one is being slaughtered.  If that's the
> plan, someone deserves recognition.  The market is obviously looking
> down the road and doesn't like what it sees.  Who would? One of my
> buddies called for a meeting at the Memphis Center for Peace and
> Prosperity last week (otherwise known as RP Tracks Bar and Grill) with
> a bunch of our usual crowd in attendance.  The environment there has
> gotten so ugly I vowed to never go back.  All these young punk college
> students have the "I won" attitude and aren't interested in listening
> to anyone. I tried to politely explain to one young girl that I'd be
> dead and gone but she would be paying for this nightmare for the rest
> of her life. She didn't want to hear it - she and her buddies are
> cocksure of themselves and their Dear Leader.  This is sad and pitiful
> to witness.
>
> Brad
>
> On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 11:31 PM, Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Brad,
> >
> > I'm getting to the point where I really don't know what to say about all
> of
> > this anymore. To be honest, if anyone had told me what is going on right
> now
> > was even possible, I'd have said, naw, no way.... I would have been
> wrong!
> >
> > I can not think of a time in my life when I actually feared for the
> survival
> > of our nation, but I have to tell you, I am there now.
> >
> > I wonder how long it will be before there is an outcry for secession from
> > many of our states. I have to believe there are many who won't put up
> with
> > this nonsense much longer.
> >
> > Rik
> >
> > On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 9:51 PM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Rot Row, Rastro!  Even Michigan realizes they're on a runaway train
> >> with no engineer at the helm.  The attached is from the Detroit News.
> >> Is it just me, or is that halo on Chocolate Baby Jesus getting dimmer
> >> by the day?
> >>
> >> Brad
> >>
> >> --------------
> >>
> >> Wednesday, March 4, 2009
> >> Editorial: Cap-and-trade plan will sink Michigan
> >> The Detroit News
> >>
> >> President Barack Obama's proposed cap-and-trade system on greenhouse
> >> gas emissions is a giant economic dagger aimed at the nation's
> >> heartland -- particularly Michigan. It is a multibillion-dollar tax
> >> hike on everything that Michigan does, including making things,
> >> driving cars and burning coal.
> >>
> >> The president is asking for a system of government limits on carbon
> >> emissions. The right to emit carbon would be auctioned off to generate
> >> revenue for more government spending programs.
> >>
> >> The president's budget projects receipts totaling $646 billion through
> >> 2019 from the sale of these greenhouse gas permits.
> >>
> >> The goal, according to the president's budget outline, is to reduce
> >> greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide to 14 percent below
> >> 2005 levels by 2020.
> >>
> >> Doing so will drive up the cost of nearly everything and will amount
> >> to a major tax increase for American consumers.
> >>
> >> Such a tax will hit the Midwest particularly hard, which is why House
> >> Minority Leader John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, told the New York Times,
> >> "let's just be honest and call it a carbon tax that will increase
> >> taxes on all Americans who drive a car, who have a job, who turn on a
> >> light switch, pure and simple."
> >>
> >> The carbon tax will be paid by energy companies, manufacturers and
> >> public utilities, who will pass the cost on to their consumers.
> >> Michigan will be especially targeted. It gets 60 percent of its
> >> electric power from coal plants, and the state's economy is still
> >> reliant on heavy manufacturing such as car and truck assembly and auto
> >> parts production.
> >>
> >> Michigan will lose as carbon tax money is shifted to states with a
> >> greater presence of high-tech and service businesses.
> >>
> >> The proposed tax would take effect in 2012 and has the very real
> >> potential to throw the nation back into recession, if indeed the
> >> expected recovery has arrived by then. It's impossible to raise costs
> >> for such basics as manufacturing and energy production by more than
> >> half a trillion dollars over a decade and not have the effects felt
> >> across the economy.
> >>
> >> The nation's gross domestic product contracted at an annualized rate
> >> of 3.8 percent in last year's fourth quarter -- the worst economic
> >> record in nearly three decades. Is this really a good time to be
> >> talking about a carbon tax? How will such talk impact investment
> >> decisions?
> >>
> >> Obama promises to use some of the revenues for tax relief for certain
> >> workers and some of the rest for subsidies for alternative energy. But
> >> that won't make up for the damage this huge new tax will do to the
> >> economy, especially in Michigan.
> >>
> >> A similar program in Europe hasn't worked. European automakers
> >> complained about carbon dioxide limits the European Union proposed in
> >> 2007 as damaging to the economy.
> >>
> >> The Obama cap-and-trade program will place even more of the economy
> >> under the control of the federal government. The only upside is that
> >> the negative impact it will have on economic growth and job creation
> >> will take care of the carbon emissions problem, for sure.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Find this article at:
> >>
> >>
> http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090304/OPINION01/903040314
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> >>
> >>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> >
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> >
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
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From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Thu Mar  5 01:33:41 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 00:33:41 -0600
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Cap-and-Trade
In-Reply-To: <400985d70903042206r53e25edcoeb9435051160f1cc@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70903041951w770f1037xe8436b78205b158a@mail.gmail.com>
	<6634e19e0903042155i5226f727l8991e3bcb309548e@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70903042206r53e25edcoeb9435051160f1cc@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6634e19e0903042233i867f5c0v92686a56e9064572@mail.gmail.com>

Brad,

At least there is one guy out there trying to defend us. He's been getting a
ton of air time lately. Will people begin to see the wisdom of his message
before it's too late??

Rik

http://www.dailypaul.com/node/85020
Ron Paul's Statement Introducing HR 1207 Posted March 4th, 2009 by Michael
Nystrom <http://www.dailypaul.com/user/1>

HR 1207 is Dr. Paul's recently introduced legislation to audit the Federal
Reserve, officially titled "The Federal Reserve Transparency
Act."<http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc111/h1207_ih.xml>The bill has
the following 11 bi-partisan cosponsors: Neil Abercrombie
[HI-1], Michele Bachmann [MN-6], Roscoe G. Bartlett [MD-6], Paul Broun
[GA-10], Dan Burton [IN-5], Walter Jones, Jr. [NC-3], Steve Kagen [WI-8],
Ted Poe [TX-2], Bill Posey [FL-15], Denny Rehberg [MT], and Lynn Woolsey
[CA-6]. If your rep is not among these 11, please contact him or her and
urge their support.

*Here's Dr. Paul's statement introducing the bill:*

Madam Speaker, I rise to introduce the Federal Reserve Transparency Act.
Throughout its nearly 100-year history, the Federal Reserve has presided
over the near-complete destruction of the United States dollar. Since 1913
the dollar has lost over 95% of its purchasing power, aided and abetted by
the Federal Reserve's loose monetary policy. How long will we as a Congress
stand idly by while hard-working Americans see their savings eaten away by
inflation? Only big-spending politicians and politically favored bankers
benefit from inflation.

Serious discussion of proposals to oversee the Federal Reserve is long
overdue. I have been a longtime proponent of more effective oversight and
auditing of the Fed, but I was far from the first Congressman to advocate
these types of proposals. Esteemed former members of the Banking Committee
such as Chairmen Wright Patman and Henry B. Gonzales were outspoken critics
of the Fed and its lack of transparency.

Since its inception, the Federal Reserve has always operated in the shadows,
without sufficient scrutiny or oversight of its operations. While the
conventional excuse is that this is intended to reduce the Fed's
susceptibility to political pressures, the reality is that the Fed acts as a
foil for the government. Whenever you question the Fed about the strength of
the dollar, they will refer you to the Treasury, and vice versa. The Federal
Reserve has, on the one hand, many of the privileges of government agencies,
while retaining benefits of private organizations, such as being insulated
from Freedom of Information Act requests.

The Federal Reserve can enter into agreements with foreign central banks and
foreign governments, and the GAO is prohibited from auditing or even seeing
these agreements. Why should a government-established agency, whose police
force has federal law enforcement powers, and whose notes have legal tender
status in this country, be allowed to enter into agreements with foreign
powers and foreign banking institutions with no oversight? Particularly when
hundreds of billions of dollars of currency swaps have been announced and
implemented, the Fed's negotiations with the European Central Bank, the Bank
of International Settlements, and other institutions should face increased
scrutiny, most especially because of their significant effect on foreign
policy. If the State Department were able to do this, it would be
characterized as a rogue agency and brought to heel, and if a private
individual did this he might face prosecution under the Logan Act, yet the
Fed avoids both fates.

More importantly, the Fed's funding facilities and its agreements with the
Treasury should be reviewed. The Treasury's supplementary financing accounts
that fund Fed facilities allow the Treasury to funnel money to Wall Street
without GAO or Congressional oversight. Additional funding facilities, such
as the Primary Dealer Credit Facility and the Term Securities Lending
Facility, allow the Fed to keep financial asset prices artificially inflated
and subsidize poorly performing financial firms.

The Federal Reserve Transparency Act would eliminate restrictions on GAO
audits of the Federal Reserve and open Fed operations to enhanced scrutiny.
We hear officials constantly lauding the benefits of transparency and
especially bemoaning the opacity of the Fed, its monetary policy, and its
funding facilities. By opening all Fed operations to a GAO audit and calling
for such an audit to be completed by the end of 2010, the Federal Reserve
Transparency Act would achieve much-needed transparency of the Federal
Reserve. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.


On Thu, Mar 5, 2009 at 12:06 AM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:

> Rik,
>
> You're right!  It's time to let failed institutions, uh, fail.  The
> "cure" for this illness is worse than the disease.  One of the things
> I admire about my employer is that when they make a huge mistake (and
> they've made many) they take a huge write-off and move on - no cooking
> the books, no dragging out the pain over 120 accounting periods, just
> fess-up and don't do it again in the same way. I can't help but think
> if we had adult leadership who would explain in simple terms to the
> American people that this is going to hurt really, really badly, ONE
> TIME, and we won't do it again, we'll all be better off.  Ain't gonna
> happen.
>
> Brad
>
> On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 11:55 PM, Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Brad,
> >
> > More of the same .... and on and on and on .........
> >
> > Are these people EVER going to wake up???
> >
> >
> http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/03/bernanke-angry-aig-operated-like-hedge.html
> >
> > The Fed needs to disappear.... it would be good, when they go, if they'd
> > take Obamao with them.
> >
> > Rik
> >
> > On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 9:51 PM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Rot Row, Rastro!  Even Michigan realizes they're on a runaway train
> >> with no engineer at the helm.  The attached is from the Detroit News.
> >> Is it just me, or is that halo on Chocolate Baby Jesus getting dimmer
> >> by the day?
> >>
> >> Brad
> >>
> >> --------------
> >>
> >> Wednesday, March 4, 2009
> >> Editorial: Cap-and-trade plan will sink Michigan
> >> The Detroit News
> >>
> >> President Barack Obama's proposed cap-and-trade system on greenhouse
> >> gas emissions is a giant economic dagger aimed at the nation's
> >> heartland -- particularly Michigan. It is a multibillion-dollar tax
> >> hike on everything that Michigan does, including making things,
> >> driving cars and burning coal.
> >>
> >> The president is asking for a system of government limits on carbon
> >> emissions. The right to emit carbon would be auctioned off to generate
> >> revenue for more government spending programs.
> >>
> >> The president's budget projects receipts totaling $646 billion through
> >> 2019 from the sale of these greenhouse gas permits.
> >>
> >> The goal, according to the president's budget outline, is to reduce
> >> greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide to 14 percent below
> >> 2005 levels by 2020.
> >>
> >> Doing so will drive up the cost of nearly everything and will amount
> >> to a major tax increase for American consumers.
> >>
> >> Such a tax will hit the Midwest particularly hard, which is why House
> >> Minority Leader John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, told the New York Times,
> >> "let's just be honest and call it a carbon tax that will increase
> >> taxes on all Americans who drive a car, who have a job, who turn on a
> >> light switch, pure and simple."
> >>
> >> The carbon tax will be paid by energy companies, manufacturers and
> >> public utilities, who will pass the cost on to their consumers.
> >> Michigan will be especially targeted. It gets 60 percent of its
> >> electric power from coal plants, and the state's economy is still
> >> reliant on heavy manufacturing such as car and truck assembly and auto
> >> parts production.
> >>
> >> Michigan will lose as carbon tax money is shifted to states with a
> >> greater presence of high-tech and service businesses.
> >>
> >> The proposed tax would take effect in 2012 and has the very real
> >> potential to throw the nation back into recession, if indeed the
> >> expected recovery has arrived by then. It's impossible to raise costs
> >> for such basics as manufacturing and energy production by more than
> >> half a trillion dollars over a decade and not have the effects felt
> >> across the economy.
> >>
> >> The nation's gross domestic product contracted at an annualized rate
> >> of 3.8 percent in last year's fourth quarter -- the worst economic
> >> record in nearly three decades. Is this really a good time to be
> >> talking about a carbon tax? How will such talk impact investment
> >> decisions?
> >>
> >> Obama promises to use some of the revenues for tax relief for certain
> >> workers and some of the rest for subsidies for alternative energy. But
> >> that won't make up for the damage this huge new tax will do to the
> >> economy, especially in Michigan.
> >>
> >> A similar program in Europe hasn't worked. European automakers
> >> complained about carbon dioxide limits the European Union proposed in
> >> 2007 as damaging to the economy.
> >>
> >> The Obama cap-and-trade program will place even more of the economy
> >> under the control of the federal government. The only upside is that
> >> the negative impact it will have on economic growth and job creation
> >> will take care of the carbon emissions problem, for sure.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Find this article at:
> >>
> >>
> http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090304/OPINION01/903040314
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> >>
> >>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> >
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> >
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Thu Mar  5 03:20:23 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 02:20:23 -0600
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words
Message-ID: <400985d70903050020k74c1dfd4pac7f0dcaf2bece60@mail.gmail.com>

Marines listening to their CIC.  No comment necessary.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2199501/replies?c=10

Brad

From ekroposki at charter.net  Thu Mar  5 09:47:09 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 09:47:09 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Hartwell Headwaters
Message-ID: <FA32ABD2CCB148B9A2689828559F04B5@YOURB88038198E>

Lake Hartwell is feed by several rivers.  These include the Tugaloo, Keowee, Twelve Mile, Six Mile, Chauga, Brasstown, et. al.  There are dams above Hartwell on some of these rivers to include:  Yonah, Tugaloo, Keowee, Little River, et al.  Above Keowee on the Keowee River there is the Jocassee Dam.  

Here is an interesting story about Lake Jocassee and Jocassee Dam.  Most boats that go on Jocassee Lake today are power boats and pontoon boats.  I used to canoe the lake getting into the far reaches just after it filled up.  The lake is owned by Duke Power and has limited housing in two areas.  It has one major state park, Devils Fork.  Above the lake on the Whitewater River is the Bad Creek Pumped Storage facility with the Bad Creek Lake on top of a mountain as a pumped storage hydro facility.  

Here is an interesting story of Jocasse Valley:

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2009/02/23/ntm.lake.jocassee.cnn

Thank Rummy for forwarding this reference.

Ed K
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Thu Mar  5 12:50:19 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 11:50:19 -0600
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Flying - She Hates Me
Message-ID: <400985d70903050950q3cbeb8daqd8e5296768ec1db5@mail.gmail.com>

STRONG LANGUAGE CONTENT WARNING!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eamnTyfkUBY

Remember Gary Powers?  A long time ago in a faraway place (not that
far, Germany, when it was still the West) a former SR-71 pilot (the
plane in the video is a U-2) and I were discussing peace and
prosperity one night in Frankfort. The short version of a long story
is, the proprietor hit our table with a baseball bat and ran us out.
Bob C (spy pilot) jumped-up and said, "having a little trouble with
your accent there at first partner, but I think we understand what
you're trying to say now".

Is that a tingle up my leg or am I drizzling down it?

Brad

From flybrad at gmail.com  Thu Mar  5 16:31:05 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 15:31:05 -0600
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Smartest President Evah!
Message-ID: <400985d70903051331x175548e4s8caebfb56f099917@mail.gmail.com>

Did anybody see Rush's speech at CPAC?  Hate the guy or not, he spoke
for and hour and twenty minutes off an outline from one note card.
Care to bet whether Barry could do that?

Brad

-------------------

 Obama's safety net: the TelePrompter
By: Carol E. Lee
March 5, 2009 01:04 PM EST

President Barack Obama doesn?t go anywhere without his TelePrompter.

The textbook-sized panes of glass holding the president?s prepared
remarks follow him wherever he speaks.

Resting on top of a tall, narrow pole, they flank his podium during
speeches in the White House?s stately parlors. They stood next to him
on the floor of a manufacturing plant in Indiana as he pitched his
economic stimulus plan. They traveled to the Department of
Transportation this week and were in the Capitol Rotunda last month
when he paid tribute to Abraham Lincoln in six-minute prepared
remarks.

Obama?s reliance on the teleprompter is unusual ? not only because he
is famous for his oratory, but because no other president has used one
so consistently and at so many events, large and small.

After the teleprompter malfunctioned a few times last summer and Obama
delivered some less-than-soaring speeches, reports surfaced that he
was training to wean himself off of the device while on vacation in
Hawaii. But no such luck.

His use of the teleprompter makes work tricky for the television crews
and photographers trying to capture an image of the president
announcing a new Cabinet secretary or housing plan without a pane of
glass blocking his face. And it is a startling sight to see such
sleek, modern technology set against the mahogany doors and Bohemian
crystal chandeliers in the East Room or the marble columns of the
Grand Foyer.

?It?s just something presidents haven?t done,? said Martha Joynt
Kumar, a presidential historian who has held court in the White House
since December 1975. ?It?s jarring to the eye. In a way, it stands in
the middle between the audience and the president because his eye is
on the teleprompter.?

Just how much of a crutch the teleprompter has become for Obama was on
sharp display during his latest commerce secretary announcement. The
president spoke from a teleprompter in the ornate Indian Treaty Room
for a few minutes. Then Gov. Gary Locke stepped to the podium and
pulled out a piece of paper for reference.

The president?s teleprompter also elicited some uncomfortable laughter
after he announced Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius as his choice for
Health and Human Services secretary. ?Kathy,? Obama said, turning the
podium over to Sebelius, who waited at the microphone for an awkward
few seconds while the teleprompters were lowered to the floor and the
television cameras rolled.

Obama has relied on a teleprompter through even the shortest
announcements and when repeating the same lines on his economic
stimulus plan that he's been saying for months ? whereas past
presidents have mostly worked off of notes on the podium except during
major speeches, such as the State of the Union.



Ari Fleischer, a former spokesman for George W. Bush, said while it?s
entirely a matter of personal style, using a teleprompter at these
smaller events has its drawbacks.

?It removes you from the audience in the room,? Fleischer said. When
speaking from notes, Fleischer said, the president can pick up his
head and make eye contact with those in the audience, as opposed to
focusing on the teleprompter to his left and right.

Bush, Fleischer added, ?would use the teleprompter for his major big
events, but when he would travel around the country or do events, he
would almost always work off of large index cards.?

The White House says Obama?s point of reference is insignificant.

"Whether one uses note cards or a teleprompter, the American people
are a lot more concerned about the plans relayed than the method of
delivery. This is not always true of the media," said Bill Burton,
deputy press secretary.

Obama has never tried to hide his use of a teleprompter. It was a
mainstay during the final months of his campaign. He brought it to
county fairs and campaign rallies alike ? and once had it set up in
the ring at a rodeo.

In a break from his routine, Obama did not use a teleprompter during
his pre-Inauguration speech at a factory in Bedford Heights, Ohio ?
and his delivery seemed to suffer. He paused too long at parts. He
accentuated the wrong words. And overall he sounded hesitant and
halting as he spoke from the prepared remarks on the podium.

As president, the stakes in what he says are higher. Governing is not
campaigning, and, as a former first-term senator, Obama has not held a
previous elected position where his words carried even close to this
level of influence.

?In this kind of environment, you don?t want to make mistakes ? on the
economy you?re talking about doing things that affect the markets,?
Kumar said.

But be it extra precaution, style or a mental crutch, Obama has shown
in the past that he needs the teleprompter. And while he still has his
prepared remarks placed on the podium in a leather folder, the White
House has shown no sign of trying to wean him off of it.

Before Obama entered a room in the Eisenhower Executive Office
Building on Wednesday to announce his crackdown on defense contracts,
a CNN reporter asked an Obama aide if the teleprompter could be moved
further away from the podium or lowered. The answer was an unequivocal
?no.?

?He uses them to death,? a television crewmember who also covered the
White House under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush said of
the teleprompter. ?The problem is, he never looks at you. He?s looking
left, right, left, right ? not at the camera. It?s almost like he?s
not making eye contact with the American people.?

Wednesday?s event posed another scenario photographers and television
crews have to work around. Obama had five others join him at the
announcement, including Sen. John McCain. The takeaway shot was of
Obama and McCain. But the teleprompter on Obama?s left was almost
directly in front of McCain.

?You couldn?t get a good angle on him with McCain,? said a White House
photographer who also covered Bush. ?So if there?s someone else
important in the frame, it?s hard to get a shot without the
teleprompter.?

? 2009 Capitol News Company, LLC


From flybrad at gmail.com  Thu Mar  5 19:07:47 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 18:07:47 -0600
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Energy?
Message-ID: <400985d70903051607h391cc24fmb264698e60d5c9b1@mail.gmail.com>

Today, Obambi killed Yucca Mountain.  Dead.  Forget Nukes.  The
Treasury Secretary has declared war on oil & gas.  Coal is getting hit
with cap-and-trade in 2012.  Now this from the AP -

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate's top Democrat is proposing special power
lines to carry renewable energy?like solar and wind power?from remote
places.

The Federal government would be able override states and direct where
the lines would go and who would pay for them.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada unveiled his proposal
Thursday. It is expected to become part of a broader energy bill the
Senate plans to take up in the coming weeks.

The green power lines would boost development of solar, wind and
geothermal energy projects otherwise cut off from the nation's
electric grid. It's also a proposal that Reid acknowledged in a news
release would give "an enormous boost" to his own state of Nevada
where companies are eyeing large solar projects.

ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION?

"The Federal government would be able override states and direct where
the lines would go and who would pay for them."

ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION?

So you, the consumer, have no say.  You, the citizen of a state, have
no say.  Dear Leader has in one day determined your fate.

ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION?

Do some reading on Chairman Mao if you want to see where this is
going.  Better yet, Google "Cloward and Piven". Oh what-the-hell, I'll
do your homework for you -

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/barack_obama_and_the_strategy.html

How about that stock market, baby? Doesn't it just love the new Messiah?

Oh shit, gotta go. A black Crown Victoria just pulled into the driveway!

Brad


From ekroposki at charter.net  Fri Mar  6 07:08:23 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Fri, 6 Mar 2009 07:08:23 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Challange to Paul or Rik
Message-ID: <589C927F978B4803ADFA433F984B25F0@YOURB88038198E>

I am no longer on the Rhodes List, but does either one of you have it to post Brad's email to the Rhodes List.

America runs on power, electricity, now where will it come from? and how much will it cost?  

Nuclear power is not evil.  When done correctly it is a good source of power.  Its wastes are an overblown issue.  Much of the fuel can and should be recycled as in France.  

Wind power is erratic at best. Storage and transmission are issues not resolved.  Solar is of limited productive capacity and then only when the sun shines.  Read Brad's rant:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ " ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Today, Obambi killed Yucca Mountain.  Dead.  Forget Nukes.  The
Treasury Secretary has declared war on oil & gas.  Coal is getting hit
with cap-and-trade in 2012.  Now this from the AP -

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate's top Democrat is proposing special power
lines to carry renewable energy-like solar and wind power-from remote
places.

The Federal government would be able override states and direct where
the lines would go and who would pay for them.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada unveiled his proposal
Thursday. It is expected to become part of a broader energy bill the
Senate plans to take up in the coming weeks.

The green power lines would boost development of solar, wind and
geothermal energy projects otherwise cut off from the nation's
electric grid. It's also a proposal that Reid acknowledged in a news
release would give "an enormous boost" to his own state of Nevada
where companies are eyeing large solar projects.

ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION?

"The Federal government would be able override states and direct where
the lines would go and who would pay for them."

ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION?

So you, the consumer, have no say.  You, the citizen of a state, have
no say.  Dear Leader has in one day determined your fate.

ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION?

Do some reading on Chairman Mao if you want to see where this is
going.  Better yet, Google "Cloward and Piven". Oh what-the-hell, I'll
do your homework for you -

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/barack_obama_and_the_strategy.html

How about that stock market, baby? Don't it just make you love the new Messiah?" 

Brad Haslett, Swiftwater Gazette



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Fri Mar  6 08:37:47 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Fri, 6 Mar 2009 07:37:47 -0600
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Challange to Paul or Rik
In-Reply-To: <589C927F978B4803ADFA433F984B25F0@YOURB88038198E>
References: <589C927F978B4803ADFA433F984B25F0@YOURB88038198E>
Message-ID: <6634e19e0903060537r3f7a326csff8688f65a15fafd@mail.gmail.com>

Ed,

I sent it over there. I suppose I'll get me ass chewed now ..... oh well.

Rik

On Fri, Mar 6, 2009 at 6:08 AM, Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net> wrote:

>  I am no longer on the Rhodes List, but does either one of you have it to
> post Brad's email to the Rhodes List.
>
>  America runs on power, electricity, now where will it come from? and how
> much will it cost?
>
> Nuclear power is not evil.  When done correctly it is a good source of
> power.  Its wastes are an overblown issue.  Much of the fuel can and should
> be recycled as in France.
>
> Wind power is erratic at best. Storage and transmission are issues *not *resolved.
> Solar is of limited productive capacity and then only when the sun shines.
> Read Brad's rant:
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ " ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> "Today, Obambi killed Yucca Mountain.  Dead.  Forget Nukes.  The
> Treasury Secretary has declared war on oil & gas.  Coal is getting hit
> with cap-and-trade in 2012.  Now this from the AP -
>
> WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate's top Democrat is proposing special power
> lines to carry renewable energy?like solar and wind power?from remote
> places.
>
> The Federal government would be able override states and direct where
> the lines would go and who would pay for them.
>
> Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada unveiled his proposal
> Thursday. It is expected to become part of a broader energy bill the
> Senate plans to take up in the coming weeks.
>
> The green power lines would boost development of solar, wind and
> geothermal energy projects otherwise cut off from the nation's
> electric grid. It's also a proposal that Reid acknowledged in a news
> release would give "an enormous boost" to his own state of Nevada
> where companies are eyeing large solar projects.
>
> ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION?
>
> "The Federal government would be able override states and direct where
> the lines would go and who would pay for them."
>
> ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION?
>
> So you, the consumer, have no say.  You, the citizen of a state, have
> no say.  Dear Leader has in one day determined your fate.
>
> ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION?
>
> Do some reading on Chairman Mao if you want to see where this is
> going.  Better yet, Google "Cloward and Piven". Oh what-the-hell, I'll
> do your homework for you -
>
> http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/barack_obama_and_the_strategy.html
>
> How about that stock market, baby? Don't it just make you love the new
> Messiah?"
>
> Brad Haslett, Swiftwater Gazette
>
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Fri Mar  6 08:38:17 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Fri, 6 Mar 2009 07:38:17 -0600
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Challange to Paul or Rik
In-Reply-To: <589C927F978B4803ADFA433F984B25F0@YOURB88038198E>
References: <589C927F978B4803ADFA433F984B25F0@YOURB88038198E>
Message-ID: <400985d70903060538s6be3ad00m5d5217cd993e0bef@mail.gmail.com>

Ed,

Think about this - can you imagine going into a company meeting and
suggesting they scrap all their working assets and start over with
something new and unproven?  You'd be humiliated and probably fired.
If Dingy Harry thinks solar and wind power from Nevada is such a great
idea, why don't we set-up a pilot project by powering Las Vegas 24/7
before we start stringing lines all over the country?  Why is nuclear
power so bad for us but OK for Iran.  What are their nuclear waste
plans?  Ship it all to Israel? Hey, I think "green" energy is great,
give me three bags full sir".  However, comma, let's not start another
government mandated ethanol type boondoggle.

Brad

On Fri, Mar 6, 2009 at 6:08 AM, Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net> wrote:
> I am no longer on the Rhodes List, but does either one of you have it to
> post Brad's email to the Rhodes List.
>
> America runs on power, electricity, now where will it come from? and how
> much will it cost?
>
> Nuclear power is not evil.? When done correctly it is a good source of
> power.? Its wastes are an overblown issue.? Much of the fuel can and should
> be recycled as in France.
>
> Wind power is erratic at best.?Storage and transmission are issues
> not?resolved.? Solar is of limited productive capacity and?then only when
> the sun shines.? Read?Brad's rant:
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ " ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> "Today, Obambi killed Yucca Mountain.? Dead.? Forget Nukes.? The
> Treasury Secretary has declared war on oil & gas.? Coal is getting hit
> with cap-and-trade in 2012.? Now this from the AP -
>
> WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate's top Democrat is proposing special power
> lines to carry renewable energy?like solar and wind power?from remote
> places.
>
> The Federal government would be able override states and direct where
> the lines would go and who would pay for them.
>
> Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada unveiled his proposal
> Thursday. It is expected to become part of a broader energy bill the
> Senate plans to take up in the coming weeks.
>
> The green power lines would boost development of solar, wind and
> geothermal energy projects otherwise cut off from the nation's
> electric grid. It's also a proposal that Reid acknowledged in a news
> release would give "an enormous boost" to his own state of Nevada
> where companies are eyeing large solar projects.
>
> ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION?
>
> "The Federal government would be able override states and direct where
> the lines would go and who would pay for them."
>
> ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION?
>
> So you, the consumer, have no say.? You, the citizen of a state, have
> no say.? Dear Leader has in one day determined your fate.
>
> ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION?
>
> Do some reading on Chairman Mao if you want to see where this is
> going.? Better yet, Google "Cloward and Piven". Oh what-the-hell, I'll
> do your homework for you -
>
> http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/barack_obama_and_the_strategy.html
>
> How about that stock market, baby? Don't it just make you love the new
> Messiah?"
>
> Brad Haslett, Swiftwater Gazette
>
> ________________________________
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>


From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Fri Mar  6 09:17:56 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Fri, 6 Mar 2009 08:17:56 -0600
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Got healthcare?
Message-ID: <6634e19e0903060617q23e3c073k8cb9dbd2b9e35cd4@mail.gmail.com>

All,

As long as we're on the subject of gov't control, I thought some of you
might find these views on healthcare enlightening.

___________________

http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/wew/articles/09/SwedensGovernmentHealthCare.htm

A MINORITY VIEW

BY WALTER E. WILLIAMS

RELEASE: WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4, 2009 AND THEREAFTER



*Sweden's Government Health Care*



            Government health care advocates used to sing the praises of
Britain's National Health Service (NHS). That's until its poor delivery of
health care services became known. A recent study by David Green and Laura
Casper, "Delay, Denial and Dilution," written for the London-based Institute
of Economic Affairs, concludes that the NHS health care services are just
about the worst in the developed world. The head of the World Health
Organization calculated that Britain has as many as 25,000 unnecessary
cancer deaths a year because of under-provision of care. Twelve percent of
specialists surveyed admitted refusing kidney dialysis to patients suffering
from kidney failure because of limits on cash. Waiting lists for medical
treatment have become so long that there are now "waiting lists" for the
waiting list.

            Government health care advocates sing the praises of Canada's
single-payer system. Canada's government system isn't that different from
Britain's. For example, after a Canadian has been referred to a specialist,
the waiting list for gynecological surgery is four to 12 weeks, cataract
removal 12 to 18 weeks, tonsillectomy three to 36 weeks and neurosurgery
five to 30 weeks. Toronto-area hospitals, concerned about lawsuits, ask
patients to sign a legal release accepting that while delays in treatment
may jeopardize their health, they nevertheless hold the hospital blameless.
Canadians have an option Britainers don't: close proximity of American
hospitals. In fact, the Canadian government spends over $1 billion each year
for Canadians to receive medical treatment in our country. I wonder how much
money the U.S. government spends for Americans to be treated in Canada.

            "OK, Williams," you say, "Sweden is the world's socialist
wonder." Sven R. Larson tells about some of Sweden's problems in "Lesson
from Sweden's Universal Health System: Tales from the Health-care Crypt,"
published in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons (Spring 2008).
Mr. D., a Gothenburg multiple sclerosis patient, was prescribed a new drug.
His doctor's request was denied because the drug was 33 percent more
expensive than the older medicine. Mr. D. offered to pay for the medicine
himself but was prevented from doing so. The bureaucrats said it would set a
bad precedent and lead to unequal access to medicine.

            Malmo, with its 280,000 residents, is Sweden's third-largest
city. To see a physician, a patient must go to one of two local clinics
before they can see a specialist. The clinics have security guards to keep
patients from getting unruly as they wait hours to see a doctor. The guards
also prevent new patients from entering the clinic when the waiting room is
considered full. Uppsala, a city with 200,000 people, has only one
specialist in mammography. Sweden's National Cancer Foundation reports that
in a few years most Swedish women will not have access to mammography.

            Dr. Olle Stendahl, a professor of medicine at Linkoping
University, pointed out a side effect of government-run medicine: its impact
on innovation. He said, "In our budget-government health care there is no
room for curious, young physicians and other professionals to challenge
established views. New knowledge is not attractive but typically considered
a problem (that brings) increased costs and disturbances in today's
slimmed-down health care."

            These are just a few of the problems of Sweden's single-payer
government-run health care system. I wonder how many Americans would like a
system that would, as in the case of Mr. D. of Gothenburg, prohibit private
purchase of your own medicine if the government refused paying. We have
problems in our health care system but most of them are a result of too much
government. Over 50 percent of health care expenditures in our country are
made by government. Government health care advocates might say that they
will avoid the horrors of other government-run systems. Don't believe them.

            The American Association of Physicians and Surgeons, who
published Sven Larson's paper, is a group of liberty-oriented doctors and
health care practitioners who haven't sold their members down the socialist
river as have other medical associations. They deserve our thanks for being
a major player in the '90s defeat of "Hillary care."

            Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason
University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by
other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators
Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

*COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.*
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Fri Mar  6 09:31:33 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Fri, 6 Mar 2009 08:31:33 -0600
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Obama as Captain
Message-ID: <400985d70903060631n2dcb0b18ya4116d7689f8bc05@mail.gmail.com>

Imagine you are a passenger on an airplane that has just departed LGA
airport in NYC.  One minute into the flight you hear loud thumps and
notice both engines are eerily quiet.

The Captain comes on the PA and announces (reading from a
teleprompter), "Ladies and Gentlemen, we've lost both engines.  But
don't worry, they're just like 'tracking polls' anyway.  We don't need
them.  I have these grand ideas on how to build an airplane that
doesn't need engines.  It will provide transportation free for
everyone even if you don't have the money to purchase a ticket. And
those people in First Class, we're going to force them to sit in
coach, just like you."

You'd be screaming at the top of your lungs, "JUST LAND THE DAMN AIRPLANE!"

So now we're riding on this "airplane" called the United States of
America which has created more wealth, taken in more poor, and freed
more enslaved than any other nation in the history of mankind.  And
our 'Captain' wants to scrap this ride, for what?  Name any system in
the history of mankind that has worked better.  I'm waiting.  Could it
be better?  Sure, let's debate the ways.  Could we better protect the
more fragile of our people and environment?  Sure, let's have a debate
and determine how much money we have and how much we can afford. But,
rule number 1,2, and 3 of flying an airplane is aviate, navigate,
communicate.  Captain Obama is doing things exactly ass backwards.
He's telling us everyday about why the airplane he's designed in his
head is so much better than the one we're currently on.

He sure as hell ain't no Sully.  The markets agree (see attached from the WSJ).

Brad

--------------------------

    * MARCH 6, 2009

Obama's Radicalism Is Killing the Dow
A financial crisis is the worst time to change the foundations of
American capitalism.



By MICHAEL J. BOSKIN

It's hard not to see the continued sell-off on Wall Street and the
growing fear on Main Street as a product, at least in part, of the
realization that our new president's policies are designed to
radically re-engineer the market-based U.S. economy, not just mitigate
the recession and financial crisis.
[Commentary] Martin Kozlowski

The illusion that Barack Obama will lead from the economic center has
quickly come to an end. Instead of combining the best policies of past
Democratic presidents -- John Kennedy on taxes, Bill Clinton on
welfare reform and a balanced budget, for instance -- President Obama
is returning to Jimmy Carter's higher taxes and Mr. Clinton's
draconian defense drawdown.

Mr. Obama's $3.6 trillion budget blueprint, by his own admission,
redefines the role of government in our economy and society. The
budget more than doubles the national debt held by the public, adding
more to the debt than all previous presidents -- from George
Washington to George W. Bush -- combined. It reduces defense spending
to a level not sustained since the dangerous days before World War II,
while increasing nondefense spending (relative to GDP) to the highest
level in U.S. history. And it would raise taxes to historically high
levels (again, relative to GDP). And all of this before addressing the
impending explosion in Social Security and Medicare costs.

To be fair, specific parts of the president's budget are admirable and
deserve support: increased means-testing in agriculture and medical
payments; permanent indexing of the alternative minimum tax and other
tax reductions; recognizing the need for further financial rescue and
likely losses thereon; and bringing spending into the budget that was
previously in supplemental appropriations, such as funding for the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The specific problems, however, far outweigh the positives. First are
the quite optimistic forecasts, despite the higher taxes and
government micromanagement that will harm the economy. The budget
projects a much shallower recession and stronger recovery than private
forecasters or the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office are
projecting. It implies a vast amount of additional spending and higher
taxes, above and beyond even these record levels. For example, it
calls for a down payment on universal health care, with the additional
"resources" needed "TBD" (to be determined).

Mr. Obama has bravely said he will deal with the projected deficits in
Medicare and Social Security. While reform of these programs is vital,
the president has shown little interest in reining in the growth of
real spending per beneficiary, and he has rejected increasing the
retirement age. Instead, he's proposed additional taxes on earnings
above the current payroll tax cap of $106,800 -- a bad policy that
would raise marginal tax rates still further and barely dent the
long-run deficit.

Increasing the top tax rates on earnings to 39.6% and on capital gains
and dividends to 20% will reduce incentives for our most productive
citizens and small businesses to work, save and invest -- with
effective rates higher still because of restrictions on itemized
deductions and raising the Social Security cap. As every economics
student learns, high marginal rates distort economic decisions, the
damage from which rises with the square of the rates (doubling the
rates quadruples the harm). The president claims he is only hitting 2%
of the population, but many more will at some point be in these
brackets.

As for energy policy, the president's cap-and-trade plan for CO2 would
ensnare a vast network of covered sources, opening up countless
opportunities for political manipulation, bureaucracy, or worse. It
would likely exacerbate volatility in energy prices, as permit prices
soar in booms and collapse in busts. The European emissions trading
system has been a dismal failure. A direct, transparent carbon tax
would be far better.

Moreover, the president's energy proposals radically underestimate the
time frame for bringing alternatives plausibly to scale. His own
Energy Department estimates we will need a lot more oil and gas in the
meantime, necessitating $11 trillion in capital investment to avoid
permanently higher prices.

The president proposes a large defense drawdown to pay for exploding
nondefense outlays -- similar to those of Presidents Carter and
Clinton -- which were widely perceived by both Republicans and
Democrats as having gone too far, leaving large holes in our military.
We paid a high price for those mistakes and should not repeat them.

The president's proposed limitations on the value of itemized
deductions for those in the top tax brackets would clobber itemized
charitable contributions, half of which are by those at the top. This
change effectively increases the cost to the donor by roughly 20% (to
just over 72 cents from 60 cents per dollar donated). Estimates of the
responsiveness of giving to after-tax prices range from a bit above to
a little below proportionate, so reductions in giving will be large
and permanent, even after the recession ends and the financial markets
rebound.

A similar effect will exacerbate tax flight from states like
California and New York, which rely on steeply progressive income
taxes collecting a large fraction of revenue from a small fraction of
their residents. This attack on decentralization permeates the budget
-- e.g., killing the private fee-for-service Medicare option -- and
will curtail the experimentation, innovation and competition that
provide a road map to greater effectiveness.

The pervasive government subsidies and mandates -- in health,
pharmaceuticals, energy and the like -- will do a poor job of picking
winners and losers (ask the Japanese or Europeans) and will be
difficult to unwind as recipients lobby for continuation and
expansion. Expanding the scale and scope of government largess means
that more and more of our best entrepreneurs, managers and workers
will spend their time and talent chasing handouts subject to
bureaucratic diktats, not the marketplace needs and wants of
consumers.

Our competitors have lower corporate tax rates and tax only domestic
earnings, yet the budget seeks to restrict deferral of taxes on
overseas earnings, arguing it drives jobs overseas. But the academic
research (most notably by Mihir Desai, C. Fritz Foley and James Hines
Jr.) reveals the opposite: American firms' overseas investments
strengthen their domestic operations and employee compensation.

New and expanded refundable tax credits would raise the fraction of
taxpayers paying no income taxes to almost 50% from 38%. This is
potentially the most pernicious feature of the president's budget,
because it would cement a permanent voting majority with no stake in
controlling the cost of general government.

>From the poorly designed stimulus bill and vague new financial rescue
plan, to the enormous expansion of government spending, taxes and debt
somehow permanently strengthening economic growth, the assumptions
underlying the president's economic program seem bereft of rigorous
analysis and a careful reading of history.

Unfortunately, our history suggests new government programs, however
noble the intent, more often wind up delivering less, more slowly, at
far higher cost than projected, with potentially damaging unintended
consequences. The most recent case, of course, was the government's
meddling in the housing market to bring home ownership to low-income
families, which became a prime cause of the current economic and
financial disaster.

On the growth effects of a large expansion of government, the European
social welfare states present a window on our potential future:
standards of living permanently 30% lower than ours. Rounding off
perceived rough edges of our economic system may well be called for,
but a major, perhaps irreversible, step toward a European-style social
welfare state with its concomitant long-run economic stagnation is
not.

Mr. Boskin is a professor of economics at Stanford University and a
senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He chaired the Council of
Economic Advisers under President George H.W. Bush.

From flybrad at gmail.com  Fri Mar  6 12:13:56 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Fri, 6 Mar 2009 11:13:56 -0600
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Homeless
Message-ID: <400985d70903060913v30162fdaq1ad4f842a8fd1b2f@mail.gmail.com>

Good point.  Where do they send the cell phone bill to if you're
homeless? Back when I flew Portland, Oregon a lot (one of my favorite
cities) and was constantly hit-up for money by "homeless" on the
street, I'd reply, "I'm on my way to eat, come with me and let me buy
you a meal".  Never was there a taker - not one. Now we want to
penalize those who give to soup kitchens by reducing their tax
deductions for their good heart.  Fine.  I'm sure the average
bureaucrat is more efficient than the average church group.  Didn't
witness that after Katrina but WTFDIK?

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/03/michelle-obama.html

Michelle is really wearing thin on me.  She's what, 7 years younger
than I am?  We both grew up in Illinois and both of our father's
worked in sewer and water.  Her's made $42,000 per year - Dad never
made near that.  She lived in a middle class neighborhood . Come visit
Brownstown, Illinois sometime Michelle and let's compare
neighborhoods.  I paid my own way through SIU and EIU and eventually
worked my way through college at UALR in Arkansas.  And you?  I could
have been admitted to Princeton based on my ACT scores.  You got there
how?  Did you pay for it?

These people are really wearing thin with me.  But, they're from
Chicago.  Growing up in downstate Illinois, one should be used to this
level of bullshit by now.

Or not!

Brad

From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Fri Mar  6 13:26:54 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Fri, 6 Mar 2009 12:26:54 -0600
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Challange to Paul or Rik
In-Reply-To: <400985d70903060538s6be3ad00m5d5217cd993e0bef@mail.gmail.com>
References: <589C927F978B4803ADFA433F984B25F0@YOURB88038198E>
	<400985d70903060538s6be3ad00m5d5217cd993e0bef@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6634e19e0903061026w470b9b30jda54afe407693df7@mail.gmail.com>

Ed,

Interesting .... I posted that rant at about 7:30am, 5 hours and not even a
"go away"

Rik

On Fri, Mar 6, 2009 at 7:38 AM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:

> Ed,
>
> Think about this - can you imagine going into a company meeting and
> suggesting they scrap all their working assets and start over with
> something new and unproven?  You'd be humiliated and probably fired.
> If Dingy Harry thinks solar and wind power from Nevada is such a great
> idea, why don't we set-up a pilot project by powering Las Vegas 24/7
> before we start stringing lines all over the country?  Why is nuclear
> power so bad for us but OK for Iran.  What are their nuclear waste
> plans?  Ship it all to Israel? Hey, I think "green" energy is great,
> give me three bags full sir".  However, comma, let's not start another
> government mandated ethanol type boondoggle.
>
> Brad
>
> On Fri, Mar 6, 2009 at 6:08 AM, Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net> wrote:
> > I am no longer on the Rhodes List, but does either one of you have it to
> > post Brad's email to the Rhodes List.
> >
> > America runs on power, electricity, now where will it come from? and how
> > much will it cost?
> >
> > Nuclear power is not evil.  When done correctly it is a good source of
> > power.  Its wastes are an overblown issue.  Much of the fuel can and
> should
> > be recycled as in France.
> >
> > Wind power is erratic at best. Storage and transmission are issues
> > not resolved.  Solar is of limited productive capacity and then only when
> > the sun shines.  Read Brad's rant:
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ " ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >
> > "Today, Obambi killed Yucca Mountain.  Dead.  Forget Nukes.  The
> > Treasury Secretary has declared war on oil & gas.  Coal is getting hit
> > with cap-and-trade in 2012.  Now this from the AP -
> >
> > WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate's top Democrat is proposing special power
> > lines to carry renewable energy?like solar and wind power?from remote
> > places.
> >
> > The Federal government would be able override states and direct where
> > the lines would go and who would pay for them.
> >
> > Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada unveiled his proposal
> > Thursday. It is expected to become part of a broader energy bill the
> > Senate plans to take up in the coming weeks.
> >
> > The green power lines would boost development of solar, wind and
> > geothermal energy projects otherwise cut off from the nation's
> > electric grid. It's also a proposal that Reid acknowledged in a news
> > release would give "an enormous boost" to his own state of Nevada
> > where companies are eyeing large solar projects.
> >
> > ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION?
> >
> > "The Federal government would be able override states and direct where
> > the lines would go and who would pay for them."
> >
> > ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION?
> >
> > So you, the consumer, have no say.  You, the citizen of a state, have
> > no say.  Dear Leader has in one day determined your fate.
> >
> > ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION?
> >
> > Do some reading on Chairman Mao if you want to see where this is
> > going.  Better yet, Google "Cloward and Piven". Oh what-the-hell, I'll
> > do your homework for you -
> >
> >
> http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/barack_obama_and_the_strategy.html
> >
> > How about that stock market, baby? Don't it just make you love the new
> > Messiah?"
> >
> > Brad Haslett, Swiftwater Gazette
> >
> > ________________________________
> > _______________________________________________
> > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> >
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> >
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Fri Mar  6 15:27:09 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Fri, 6 Mar 2009 14:27:09 -0600
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Snake Oil Salesmen
Message-ID: <400985d70903061227t15fe0914ma50c835b1191262e@mail.gmail.com>

Enough!  My old farm was just down the road from this fat fucks Belle
Meade mansion.  Yeah, I know, I know, lots of folks from the old list
did their "Foghorn" thing about me and all I supposedly bragged and
said.  Tell you what, you ostrich assholes, let's compare history and
experience. This idiot lives in a mega size-house with a gas heated
pool and spends the summers on a 70 foot house boat on Center Hill
Lake at the same dock where I used to keep my ski-boat.  Care to make
a bet?  I'm good for $1000 against any one of ALL of you and good for
$100,000 against  any single ONE of you. What an easy way to make up
for market losses.  Who's on? This is the Jimmy Swaggart of Global
Warming. This would be all BIG TALK and braggadocio if the stakes
weren't so high.  It reminds me of the old Nazi's I used to drink with
in Germany in the late 80's.  WE DIDN'T KNOW!  Bullshit!  You knew,
you just didn't have the balls to speak out.  We're watching our
country being sold down the socialist/environmental river and no one
has the balls to resist!  Wake-up SHEEPLE!  Am I pissing you off yet?
I hope so.  Write your Congressman.  Write your Senator.  Write your
Governor.  Believe it or not, they respond to letters.  Is the world
ending because of Global Warming?  Maybe.  This is the first year that
the Great Lakes are 95% frozen over in 40 years, but hey, I could be
wrong.  If you think Global Warming is real, then make a real change
in your lifestyle and quit asking me to make one in mine.  Frankly, I
think these people are full of shit!

Here's the latest from King Al -

http://online.wsj.com/video/economics-al-gore-talks-10-year-plan/4ECE5324-2FC6-43D0-9FDD-B2C0DC5395FF.html

Prove me wrong.

Brad

From bill at effros.com  Fri Mar  6 17:40:52 2009
From: bill at effros.com (Bill Effros)
Date: Fri, 06 Mar 2009 17:40:52 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Alabama and CON Board Bribery
Message-ID: <49B1A674.5010207@effros.com>

Brad,

Did you know Siegelman was convicted of CON Board bribery?

Court Upholds Most Charges Against Ex-Governor

March 7, 2009

By ADAM NOSSITER 
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/n/adam_nossiter/index.html?inline=nyt-per)

A federal appeals court panel in Atlanta upheld the bribery conviction 
of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman 
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/donald_siegelman/index.html?inline=nyt-per) 
on Friday, giving new weight to a prosecution that Democrats have 
contended was an example of the political use of the courts during the 
Bush administration.

The three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals was unanimous 
in ruling that there was enough evidence to convict Mr. Siegelman of 
bribery for having appointed a campaign contributor to a state hospital 
licensing board, rejecting his arguments that the testimony of a key 
aide who turned against him was not enough.

The judges threw out two lesser charges against Mr. Siegelman having to 
do principally with the actions of the businessman he appointed to the 
hospital board, Richard Scrushy 
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/richard_m_scrushy/index.html?inline=nyt-per), 
whose separate conviction was upheld. The judges thus rejected the 
prosecution?s contention that Mr. Siegelman had participated in a 
?broader self-dealing scheme.?

The appeals court judges also ordered that the former governor return to 
the trial court to be sentenced anew. He has already served nine months 
of his sentence, in a federal penitentiary in Louisiana.

After Mr. Siegelman was sentenced in 2007 to serve more than seven years 
in prison, Democrats in Congress, as well as several former state 
attorneys general across the country, have insisted that Mr. Siegelman 
was the victim of a political witch hunt by a partisan Department of 
Justice. Earlier this week, two top aides to President Bush, Karl Rove 
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/karl_rove/index.html?inline=nyt-per) 
and Harriet Miers 
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/harriet_e_miers/index.html?inline=nyt-per), 
agreed after a months-long standoff to appear before the House Judiciary 
Committee, which has been looking into the Siegelman case, among others.

Mr. Siegelman?s backers, and some legal experts, contended that the 
evidence against him was flimsy. But the appeals court judges, all 
appointed by Republican presidents, brushed past that claim. And at the 
outset of their 68-page opinion, they expressed great reluctance to 
interfere with the jury verdict, handed down nearly three years ago in a 
lower court in Montgomery, Alabama.

The Siegelman case, the judges wrote in their opinion, ?has arrived in 
this court with the ?sword and buckler? of a jury verdict,? adding that 
the verdict ?commands the respect of this court, and that verdict must 
be sustained if there is substantial evidence to support it.?

Mr. Siegelman?s lawyers expressed disappointment and said they would 
appeal the decision to the full circuit court of appeals. ?The court did 
emphasize very much that they didn?t want to interfere with a jury?s 
verdict, but the whole point of an appeal is there are times when an 
appelate court should,? said lawyer Sam Heldman. ?To say we honor the 
jury system is no answer at all to any questions legitimately raised on 
appeal,? he added.

The case turned largely on whether there had been an ?explicit? 
agreement between Mr. Siegelman and Mr. Scrushy for a seat on the 
hospital board in exchange for the $500,000 contribution, and the 
definition of the word ?explicit.? The government?s main evidence was a 
conversation between Mr. Siegelman and former aide Nick Bailey, as 
reported by Mr. Bailey.

Mr. Bailey testified to having asked, ?What in the world does is he 
going to want for that?? referring to the first installment of Mr. 
Scrushy?s $500,000 contribution. Mr. Siegelman is said to have replied, 
?the CON board,? referring to the hospital panel. Mr. Scrushy had 
already served on the board under previous governors.

The appeals court judges wrote that the jurors could legitimately have 
found an ?explicit? agreement by ?inferring actors? states of mind from 
the circumstances surrounding their conversation, from their actions, 
and from their words spoken at the time.?

The judges also rejected a defense argument that there had been improper 
contact between the jury and the prosecution.


From flybrad at gmail.com  Sat Mar  7 09:58:02 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2009 08:58:02 -0600
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Freedom
Message-ID: <400985d70903070658l3d30362am5bb54788bd3d154c@mail.gmail.com>

I generally stay away from debates on abortion. Like most people, I
have a personal opinion and will remain private.  Roe v Wade was bad
law in my opinion because it should have been settled by the states,
not by the courts, but that's just another opinion.  It has been on
the books for years and if turned back to the states, little would
change but perhaps in Utah and a handful of other states. But that is
not the point.  The point I want to make is this;  the Free-Choice
advocates are anything but about freedom or choice.  They want to
force their will upon others and may very well get their way.  Private
hospitals and doctors could be forced by law to perform services they
find unconscionable. Here's an article from a St. Louis website about
the dilemma Catholic hospitals are facing -

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/religion/story/E6E47067257DB95E862575710014DD57?OpenDocument

Great nations seldom fail from external attacks, they generally
collapse from within.  We are seeing freedoms of all kinds, freedoms
earned by blood and sacrifice, under attack from every direction.  The
freedom to vote for a union in the privacy of your home, away from
intimidation and threat, is one. Participating in an act that you
perhaps find morally reprehensible is another.  The list goes on.

On a second issue, we're on the precipice of losing our economic
freedom for a decade, perhaps forever.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/or_20090307_2566.php

We are beyond the point of liberal versus conservative, Republican
versus Democrat.  The choice before us is whether we keep alive the
American tradition of debate, reason, and compromise, or trade it for
a huge bureaucracy with the power to manage your affairs down to the
smallest detail.  We can't afford to wait until 2010 - the time for
action is now.  Write your Democratic Senators and Congressmen.  Ask
them to slow this process down.  Fix the fundamentals of the financial
markets first, then tackle the longer term issues in a thoughtful
manner.  Our way of life as we know it is under assault.  Freedom once
lost is almost impossible to regain.

Brad

From bill at effros.com  Sat Mar  7 10:17:26 2009
From: bill at effros.com (Bill Effros)
Date: Sat, 07 Mar 2009 10:17:26 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Freedom
In-Reply-To: <400985d70903070658l3d30362am5bb54788bd3d154c@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70903070658l3d30362am5bb54788bd3d154c@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49B29006.8070409@effros.com>

A little late.

Where were the Catholic Church and economic "centrists" during the 
campaign and election?

Freedom is not really that hard to regain if you have the people behind you.

Either the Catholic Church thought it had a deal with Obama, or it saw 
this coming and wanted an excuse to close its money-losing hospitals, 
just as it has been closing schools all over the place, having nothing 
to do with Obama or Freedom or anything else.

Catholic hospitals also have a tradition of ignoring DNR stipulations 
made by patients.

Let the Obamatons have their way for a while.  See where it leads them.  
I think people will soon tire of it.

B.



Brad Haslett wrote:
> I generally stay away from debates on abortion. Like most people, I
> have a personal opinion and will remain private.  Roe v Wade was bad
> law in my opinion because it should have been settled by the states,
> not by the courts, but that's just another opinion.  It has been on
> the books for years and if turned back to the states, little would
> change but perhaps in Utah and a handful of other states. But that is
> not the point.  The point I want to make is this;  the Free-Choice
> advocates are anything but about freedom or choice.  They want to
> force their will upon others and may very well get their way.  Private
> hospitals and doctors could be forced by law to perform services they
> find unconscionable. Here's an article from a St. Louis website about
> the dilemma Catholic hospitals are facing -
>
> http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/religion/story/E6E47067257DB95E862575710014DD57?OpenDocument
>
> Great nations seldom fail from external attacks, they generally
> collapse from within.  We are seeing freedoms of all kinds, freedoms
> earned by blood and sacrifice, under attack from every direction.  The
> freedom to vote for a union in the privacy of your home, away from
> intimidation and threat, is one. Participating in an act that you
> perhaps find morally reprehensible is another.  The list goes on.
>
> On a second issue, we're on the precipice of losing our economic
> freedom for a decade, perhaps forever.
>
> http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/or_20090307_2566.php
>
> We are beyond the point of liberal versus conservative, Republican
> versus Democrat.  The choice before us is whether we keep alive the
> American tradition of debate, reason, and compromise, or trade it for
> a huge bureaucracy with the power to manage your affairs down to the
> smallest detail.  We can't afford to wait until 2010 - the time for
> action is now.  Write your Democratic Senators and Congressmen.  Ask
> them to slow this process down.  Fix the fundamentals of the financial
> markets first, then tackle the longer term issues in a thoughtful
> manner.  Our way of life as we know it is under assault.  Freedom once
> lost is almost impossible to regain.
>
> Brad
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>   

From flybrad at gmail.com  Sat Mar  7 11:57:28 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2009 10:57:28 -0600
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Freedom
In-Reply-To: <49B29006.8070409@effros.com>
References: <400985d70903070658l3d30362am5bb54788bd3d154c@mail.gmail.com>
	<49B29006.8070409@effros.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70903070857o1f2fdf85u956988b69eb768ee@mail.gmail.com>

People are waking up, a bit late as you say (see attached article from
Forbes).  I just hope we can put the brakes on some if not most of
this spending before it is too late.  I fault Bush 43 for starting us
down this path and now these guys want to increase spending by some
unknown multiple.  You said in an earlier post that people flipping
hamburgers at McDonalds would be making $50,000 per year, and you are
correct. The people buying those burgers will be carrying three
different types of $100 bills in their pocket - old, new and newest
(this is not theory, I used to have to do that in Brazil just to buy
beer on the sidewalk a few years ago). We've spent over $400,000 per
person displaced by Katrina and still nothing has been rebuilt. Now,
under new management, we're going to solve all the social ills just
like The One did with public housing in Chicago.  Talk about an
opportunity for graft!

If you have the time to read it, I included some satire about
Buckley's father after the Forbes article.

Brad

Neither Moderate Nor Centrist
Peter Robinson, 03.06.09, 12:00 AM ET

"To see what is in front of one's nose," George Orwell famously
asserted, "needs a constant struggle."

Congratulations this week to three journalists who have finally taken
up that constant struggle: Christopher Buckley, David Gergen and David
Brooks. All three used to insist that Obama was some species of
centrist or moderate. Now that Obama has proposed the most massive
expansion of government in the history of the republic, each has
recognized that just conceivably he might have been mistaken.

A humorist--and, I should disclose, an old friend--Christopher Buckley
exercised his acute comic sense during the presidential campaign,
judging John McCain so thoroughly risible that the nation could hardly
do worse by electing Barack Obama. Now Buckley has developed a sense
of the tragic. In electing Obama, he admits, we may indeed have done
worse--a lot worse.

"The strange thing," Buckley wrote last week after listening to Obama
address Congress, "is that one feels almost unpatriotic, entertaining
negative thoughts about Mr. Obama's grand plan. ... One thing is
certain, however: Government is getting bigger and will stay bigger.
Just remember ... that a government that is big enough to give you
everything you want is also big enough to take it all away."

"Just remember"? Coming from someone who just remembered, the
exhortation might strike a lot of people as rich. But never mind.

Now a commentator for CNN, David Gergen served in a number of
administrations, first working in the White House all the way back in
the 1970s. To the extent that he possesses any coherent ideological
outlook--a fine question to ask of someone who took jobs from both
Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton--Gergen seems to share Alexander
Hamilton's view that the federal government requires, as Hamilton
expressed it, "energy in the executive."

During the campaign, Gergen praised Obama as a man of action. Now
Gergen argues that Obama is displaying a little too much action.

"We are in the midst of a global crisis ... that demands intense focus
and daily leadership by the president ...," Gergen wrote this past
week. "But ... [Obama's] ... ambition for reforms in other areas do
not allow him to give the economy his full attention." The financial
industry is reeling, Gergen asserted, "because there is still no
clearcut set of policies about how the government will rescue banks."
And "it is stunning that [Treasury] Secretary Tim Geithner does not
yet have a deputy secretary or any undersecretaries named, much less
on the job."

Energy in the executive is one matter. Zealotry in the executive is another.

Two personalities inhabit New York Times columnist David Brooks, who,
like Christopher Buckley, is a friend. One personality is that of the
idealist. On Inauguration Day, the idealist in Brooks claimed that
Barack Obama was "a pragmatist, an empiricist" who intended "to
realize the end-of-ideology politics. ..." The other personality
inhabiting Brooks is that of the realist. It takes a lot to rouse the
realist. Trillions of dollars, in fact.

"There is evidence," Brooks wrote last week about Obama's $3.6
trillion budget, "of a party swept up in its own revolutionary fervor.
... We end up with deficits that are $1 trillion a year and stretch as
far as the eye can see. ... [F]ederal spending as a share of GDP is
zooming from its modern norm of 20% to an unacknowledged level
somewhere far beyond

"Those of us who consider ourselves moderates--moderate-conservative,
in my case--are forced to confront the reality that Barack Obama is
not who we thought he was."

A couple of implications here are worth noting. The first is that a
deep, recurring pattern of American life has asserted itself yet
again: the cluelessness of the elite.

Buckley, Gergen and Brooks all attended expensive private
universities, then spent their careers moving among the wealthy and
powerful who inhabit the seaboard corridor running from Washington to
Boston. If any of the three strolled uninvited into a cocktail party
in Georgetown, Cambridge or New Haven, the hostess would emit yelps of
delight. Yet all three originally got Obama wrong.

Contrast Buckley, Gergen and Brooks with, let us say, Rush Limbaugh,
whose appearance at any chic cocktail party would cause the hostess to
faint dead away, or with Thomas Sowell, who occupies probably the most
unfashionable position in the country, that of a black conservative.

Limbaugh and Sowell both got Obama right from the very get-go. "Just
what evidence do you have," Sowell replied when I asked, shortly
before the election, whether he considered Obama a centrist, "that
he's anything but a hard-left ideologue?"

The elite journalists, I repeat, got Obama wrong. The troglodytes got
him right. As our national drama continues to unfold, bear that in
mind.

The second implication? That there remains at least a small chance
Congress will refuse to enact Obama's budget. In the House of
Representatives, Democrats hold a majority of 79 seats. Will enough
voters in enough Democratic districts become so disenchanted with
Obama that they force 40 House Democrats to vote against the
president's budget?

If even Christopher Buckley, David Gergen and David Brooks can at last
see what is in front of their noses, one may hope.

Peter Robinson, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at
Stanford University and contributor to RobinsonandLong.com, writes a
weekly column for Forbes.

---------------------
---------------------

I Daresay It Is Time We Deal With the Mutineers Aboard the S.S. Conservatism

[ed. note: a number of you have written requesting I invite T.
Coddington Van Voorhees VII back for another analysis of the sad state
of the conservative movement. After some cajoling and a bottle of
VSOP, he agreed.]

T. Coddington Van Voorhees VII
Editor, the National Topsider
Membership Chairman, The Newport Club

Much has been written about the fate of the conservative movement in
the months since last I corresponded with you. I won't belabor the
barrels of ink expended in the printing of its obituary, nor will I
bore you with further reading of its entrails. Suffice it to say the
grand old ship is in the doldrums, adrift in the electoral currents,
with nary a harbor on the horizon. But it is time we leave such map
room mopery aside and navigate a bold new course for the conservative
armada. One needn't have a 400-year old heirloom scrimshaw sextant for
this task; but, fortunately, I do.

It's quite a handsome instrument, I might add, skillfully hewn from
North Atlantic whalebone by some long forgotten crewman on De Gouden
Hoer, the sleek Dutch galleon that once transported great- great-
great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great-
great-grandfather Marinus Van Voorhees to the New World, safe beyond
the reach of the angry Amsterdam mobs who mistakenly blamed him for
some unpleasant business there involving tulip futures. According to
family legend grandpapa Marinus won it in a high stakes high seas game
of Kaiserspiel, trumping that unlucky crewman's queen-high flush with
his trusty pearl handled rapier. Although it doomed the crewman to a
tragic fate as shark chum in the Gulf Stream, his beautifully crafted
sextant has since proven a treasured family keepsake -- passed down
from generation to generation of Van Voorheeses as we migrated
westward with the great American expansion; from Newport to Greenwich
to Manhattan, and finally back east again to the summer compound in
Montauk.

Today the Van Voorhees family sextant rests proudly atop my private
shipboard desk. I'm admiring it now; there it sits, in its protective
crystal bell jar, alongside Marinus' rapier, both still bearing the
sanguinary patina of their provenance. They were, of course, the
deathbed bequest of my visionary father, T.C. Van Voorhees VI, rakish
founder of the National Topsider and the modern conservative movement.
Last year, after our final emotional handshake, he looked at me with
those anxious, fading eyes, and said:

    "the helm awaits, my lad; I trust you will steer it well. And, it
appears, I have soiled myself."

With that, old Dad slipped off this mortal coil. A sad moment, to be
sure, but I took comfort in the stoic grace with which he finally
relinquished control of both the conservative movement and his bowels.
His beloved sextant is a constant reminder of my grave responsibility
as conservatism's new helmsman, and a testament to the timeless truth
that fate favors the bold - and the well-bred.

This was, as you know, the theme of the National Topsider's exclusive
January conference at the private Breakers Club in Nassau where I
hosted a veritable murderer's row of top tory thinkers to diagnose the
troubles with conservatism. Dame Peggy Noonan was there, of course,
along with Kathleen Parker, Douglas Kmiec, and those two mighty Davids
of conservative intellect, Brooks and Frum. But enough of the
namedropping. The order of the day, after mixed badminton doubles, was
to formulate an Rx for our ailing patient. In this regard we were in
surprising accord: in order to survive, conservativism simply must
start appealing to a better class of people. The sad fact of the
matter, as we noted, is that one no longer finds admitted
conservatives in any of America's prestige zip codes nor the faculty
redoubts of her selective academies. During our Bahamian summit many
gambits were proposed to win back America's elite electoral precincts
from the left; sponsoring various hip hop colloquia at the better
Ivies, supporting integration of gays into Nascar, endorsing state
ownership of the means of production. Rod Dreher, whose sensational
exegesis "Crunchy Cons" sold well over 200 copies last year,
recommended a full embrace of the environmental movement, which as I
understand is quite the rage among youthful voters and the
trendsetting thespians of Hollywood. Good and bold ideas all, and
necessary steps to get the movement started again. But there remains a
daunting obstacle - namely, the benighted rubes who constitute so much
of our so-called "base," and whose existence make it nigh on
impossible to recruit their social betters.

That conundrum of electoral calculus was the topic of much discussion
two weeks ago, when my Nassau confreres and I were summoned to the
White House for an intimate repast with the new President and his
inner circle. Mr. Obama was radiant as ever, still basking in the
afterglow of his historic victory. I admit to a recent wobble or two
in my faith in him, as the severe beatings suffered by my various
family trusts have necessitated some unanticipated cutbacks in my
household staff. But that easy, commanding elegance was a bracing
reminder of why I endorsed Mr. Obama as the true conservative
presidential choice. After dessert (black walnut dacquoise with
sections of quince) we retired to the Blue Room where chief of staff
Rahm Emanuel entertained us with some droll tales of his days as
terpsichorean with the Mossad ballet auxiliary, even treating us to a
few thrilling, if f-bomb laced, arabesques. He was followed by Vice
President Joe Biden, who put on a fine display of his famed wit and
penchant for unpredictable cerebral infarctions. Amid the sparkling
bonhomie the President solicited our views on the causes of -- and
solutions to -- conservatism's sad state. Seizing the opportunity for
a tete-a-tete with the world's most powerful, popular, and beautiful
man, I explained the tragic plague of rubes who stand athwart our
modernization program.

"Why not just drive them out?" asked the President, elegantly French
inhaling his Marlboro Light 100. "Under the old bus, so to speak."

"Alas, were it so easy," interrupted Brooks, in a clumsy attempt to
draw Mr. Obama's attentions from me like some cocquettish debutante.
Parker, Noonan and Frum were too lost in orgasmic schoolgirl giggling
to offer anything more substantive. I ignored their embarrasing faux
pas and pressed on with my thesis.

"We've tried, Mr. President," I explained. "But there are unsavory
elements within the party who keep bringing them back in."

My reference, obviously, was to the self-styled luminaries of
"populism" who hang like a millstone around the Republican neck -- the
Sarah Palins, the Plumbing Joes, the Bobby Jindals, the Rush
Limbaughs, the motley middlebrow state college pretenders to the
conservative throne. A shared contempt for these arriviste oafs unites
the Nassau summitteers perhaps even more than our shared fondness for
a snifter of well-behaved armagnac VSOP. I have made no secret of my
feelings about la Palin and her grim brood of ill-mannered
snowbillies, as well that horrid toilet tinkerer from Toledo whose
fifteen minutes have somehow refused to expire. The recent emergence
of Bobby Jindal and Rush Limbaugh in the intraparty maelstrom yet
affords fresh opportunities for conservative dismality.

As for this Jindal fellow, who quite knows what to think? In the more
colorful days of my youth I took quite a shine to the mystics of the
East Indies, not to mention that culture's astonishingly encyclopedic
catalogues of sexual positions. As teenagers in 1968, my chalet mate
Kloonkie Von Wallensheim and I took a sabbatical from our studies at
Swiss finishing school for a stint at a Punjabi ashram, to learn
Accidental Transgression or similar hippie era hooey from Yogi Rama
Booboo, or somesuch fakir who now fades from memory; although, I
recall now in my maturity that was mostly a flimsy excuse we concocted
to our manservants for the chance to indulge in hallucinogenic benders
with John, Paul, George and Ringo. As a result I have a special
fondness for the subcontinent, and so was understandably intrigued
when I first heard about this young Hindu chap on the hustings in
Louisiana. It has long been my conviction that conservatives need to
reach out to the duskier demographics, and so I was eager to see how
he incorporated sitars and the Bhaghavad Gita into his State of the
Union response. But then I heard the fellow open his mouth and let
forth a non-stop torrent of the very same tired, twangy trailer park
taxophobia that placed the GOP into its current predicament; y'all
this, and it's yore munny that, more redolent of some ghastly
hillbilly bar-bee-cue stewpot than the exotically intoxicating curries
and saffrons I was led to expect. Where were the hypnotic entreaties
to Krishna? Shiva? Ganesh? The appeals to Universal consciousness and
the Bramin castes? Nowhere, I'm afraid, just the same old hackneyed
hayseed Hayekian Hee Haw delivered by a man who obviously hasn't the
slightest clue how to leverage a pigmentation advantage. The deluded
lad has ignited his birthright on a pyre, sent it down the Ganges, and
reincarnated himself as just another Bayou Babbitt. One need only look
at the blandly average ethnic composition of his audiences to realize
that, as an effective parry to the Democrats' brilliant racial
strategems, Mr. Jindal is most certainly a bust.

Where Jindal offers mere disappointment, the crystal set "dee jay"
buffoon Rush Limbaugh by contrast offers a horrifying one-stop object
lesson in all that ails Republicanism: the embarrassing bombast and
boosterism, the cheap anti-intellectual sophistry, the complete
failure to understand his place. For twenty years he has served up his
sad stew of red meat blandishments and powdered itch medications to a
declasse horde of gun-totin' Ozark lumpenproles and exurban strip mall
burghers, a blithering baritone soundtrack for legions of hinterland
idiots aimlessly wandering from one Wal-Mart to the next in their
blood curdling sport utility wagons. These are, as I have noted, the
selfsame steerage classes that makes it so difficult to sell first
class tickets aboard the S.S. Conservatism.

For his efforts I am told Mr. Limbaugh is somehow exceedingly well
compensated. Certainly, as a conservative, I shan't begrudge a man
making a good living, even those among the GOP's nouveaux riches.
Where I draw the line is when he uses his money to purchase the estate
adjoining Meticula, my family's ancient winter manor in Palm Beach.
Last year when I arrived for my annual January-March constitutional I
was stunned to discover Mr.Limbaugh as my new neighbor. Literally
stunned, as I was unceremoniously beaned by an errant ball from his
private golf course as I was supervising the tent arrangements for an
evening party in the gardens. Limbaugh had the minimum graces to drive
his cart to the fence and offer an apology, but the sight of the obese
cigar-puffing harlequin, clad in those garish chartreuse plaid plus
fours and tam o'shanter, compelled that I muster an entire lifetime of
good breeding to accept it. It should come as no surprise that I
summoned my property manager the next morning and ordered him to put
Meticula up for sale. It was a difficult decision, what with all the
Bernard Madoff unpleasantness that so afflicted the Palm Beach real
estate market and social calendar last year. For the life of me I
can't understand why Mr. Madoff is known as the "shame of Palm Beach"
while Mr. Limbaugh still maintains an address in that once-exclusive
village. Say what you will about the embattled financier Madoff, but
at least he had the good taste to inhabit only the better Democratic
clubs and progressive social circles. In any event, after 116 years in
Van Voorhees hands, Meticula has passed on to new ownership. I took
quite a financial bath in the bargain but it was worth it to escape
further exposure to Limbaugh. It was also useful in shoring up a few
recent liquidity problems in several of my trusts.

Alas, as a leader in the thinking wing of the GOP it has proven
impossible to completely avoid the predations of Mr. Limbaugh and his
slack jawed minions. Each day he rounds up a fresh wave of uncultured
baboons to the Republican cause, like some anti-intellectual Pied
Piper, making it harder and harder to reposition the party as an
upscale boutique brand. Our progressive competitors continue to pummel
us with accusations that Mr. Limbaugh is the presumptive leader of the
party; a charge, I might add, that he has been slow to deny. In fact,
during the recent CPAC meetings in Washington I watched on in abject
horror as Limbaugh held sway at the podium with a barrage of
anti-government invective, even repeating his shocking -- and
embarrassing -- imprecations against the success of Mr. Obama. More
shocking was the response of the audience, who as one hooted and
screeched their primate approval. One supposes the speech might have
been a delayed side effect of his painkiller addiction, but what, dear
God, accounts for the reaction of the mob? I shall leave this enigma
to greater minds than my own. We in the intellectual wing were left
only to clean up his mess, but even this charitable act resulted in
greater indignities; I read now that RNC chairman Michael Steele was
forced into a groveling apology for making the plain observation that
Mr. Limbaugh is reviled and despised by all right-thinking
conservatives. Despite our efforts the Limbauvian tumor seems only to
have metastasized, erupting as it did in the unsightly "tea party"
revolts which tormented the public squares last weekend. It has all
become, at last, far too much to countenance. Before we can steer the
S.S. Conservatism back to port I daresay we must now take leave of the
binnacle and force Limbaugh and the rest of the mutinous cretins back
to the orlop deck where they belong. At swordpoint, if necessary.

As I explained all this to President Obama, I assured him that there
are still many conservatives like us who patriotically wish him every
success, no matter what policies he has in mind. After extinguishing
his Marlboro he paused for a few moments, nodded, and assured me that
he would dispatch his staff and allies in the press to deal with the
Limbaugh problem, thereby clearing the Council of Nassau to forge a
new, improved, more fashionable Republican party.

In that instant my faith in Mr. Obama's innate conservatism was
reborn, for his offer of bipartisan kindness was a manifest sign that
he only has our best interests at heart. Yes, I know there remain some
conservatives of the better sort who have been shaken by the recent
distressing market turns as our gallant young admiral struggles to
find his sea legs and a coherent bank nationalization strategy. I
confess to such quiet misgivings myself, which I brought up in our
conversation. In response the President assured me that he would keep
my portfolio in mind in the next round of corporate bailouts. Let us
conservatives take comfort in that assurance, and in the fact that no
matter what new taxes he proposes, Mr. Obama has at least assembled a
cabinet with no personal enthusiasm for paying them. We must maintain
our faith that the President's inner conservative will eventually
emerge, and remain firm in the conviction that He works in mysterious
ways.

But, should the markets continue their unfortunate slide, I still have
my trusty heirloom sextant. The staff at Sotheby's remains confident
it will still command a pretty penny at auction!


On Sat, Mar 7, 2009 at 9:17 AM, Bill Effros <bill at effros.com> wrote:
> A little late.
>
> Where were the Catholic Church and economic "centrists" during the
> campaign and election?
>
> Freedom is not really that hard to regain if you have the people behind you.
>
> Either the Catholic Church thought it had a deal with Obama, or it saw
> this coming and wanted an excuse to close its money-losing hospitals,
> just as it has been closing schools all over the place, having nothing
> to do with Obama or Freedom or anything else.
>
> Catholic hospitals also have a tradition of ignoring DNR stipulations
> made by patients.
>
> Let the Obamatons have their way for a while. ?See where it leads them.
> I think people will soon tire of it.
>
> B.
>
>
>
> Brad Haslett wrote:
>> I generally stay away from debates on abortion. Like most people, I
>> have a personal opinion and will remain private. ?Roe v Wade was bad
>> law in my opinion because it should have been settled by the states,
>> not by the courts, but that's just another opinion. ?It has been on
>> the books for years and if turned back to the states, little would
>> change but perhaps in Utah and a handful of other states. But that is
>> not the point. ?The point I want to make is this; ?the Free-Choice
>> advocates are anything but about freedom or choice. ?They want to
>> force their will upon others and may very well get their way. ?Private
>> hospitals and doctors could be forced by law to perform services they
>> find unconscionable. Here's an article from a St. Louis website about
>> the dilemma Catholic hospitals are facing -
>>
>> http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/religion/story/E6E47067257DB95E862575710014DD57?OpenDocument
>>
>> Great nations seldom fail from external attacks, they generally
>> collapse from within. ?We are seeing freedoms of all kinds, freedoms
>> earned by blood and sacrifice, under attack from every direction. ?The
>> freedom to vote for a union in the privacy of your home, away from
>> intimidation and threat, is one. Participating in an act that you
>> perhaps find morally reprehensible is another. ?The list goes on.
>>
>> On a second issue, we're on the precipice of losing our economic
>> freedom for a decade, perhaps forever.
>>
>> http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/or_20090307_2566.php
>>
>> We are beyond the point of liberal versus conservative, Republican
>> versus Democrat. ?The choice before us is whether we keep alive the
>> American tradition of debate, reason, and compromise, or trade it for
>> a huge bureaucracy with the power to manage your affairs down to the
>> smallest detail. ?We can't afford to wait until 2010 - the time for
>> action is now. ?Write your Democratic Senators and Congressmen. ?Ask
>> them to slow this process down. ?Fix the fundamentals of the financial
>> markets first, then tackle the longer term issues in a thoughtful
>> manner. ?Our way of life as we know it is under assault. ?Freedom once
>> lost is almost impossible to regain.
>>
>> Brad
>> _______________________________________________
>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>


From flybrad at gmail.com  Sat Mar  7 12:31:55 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2009 11:31:55 -0600
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Obama's Spanish Lesson
Message-ID: <400985d70903070931u55272b5ewa987ba5d3072037e@mail.gmail.com>

Fast forward to 4:05 -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IVTEUFx2NE&eurl=http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/3/6/172928/8348&feature=player_embedded

Chavez said, "Obama vaya a lavarse ese palto".

"Obama, go wipe your ass!

Just listening to that makes me want to go the local CITCO station and
fill-up my tank.

Brad

From flybrad at gmail.com  Sat Mar  7 19:44:28 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2009 18:44:28 -0600
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Treasury Island
Message-ID: <400985d70903071644g4a45a081nb94420b440373342@mail.gmail.com>

IRS rules are difficult to understand.  That's why, despite having an
undergrad in accounting, I use Turbo-Tax.  Turbo-Tax was slow getting
their software updated for the GoZone (Katrina Recovery Act) rules in
2005, but when they did they were accurate and foolproof.  Geithner
couldn't figure out how to use Turbo-Tax out but "he's too important
not to hire". Others are not so impressed.  Once again, it is the
foreign press that does the homework.

Brad

--------------------

Obama's economic saviour savaged as Keating lets rip

Peter Hartcher
March 7, 2009 - 12:54AM
Advertisement

When Barack Obama announced his champion to rescue the world from
economic ruin, it was the first time most Americans had ever heard the
name Tim Geithner.

The initial impression was good. The stockmarket surged and the
pundits swooned. "Exactly a decade ago, he was Uncle Sam's golden-boy
emissary sent into the stormy centre of what was then the world's
worst financial crisis [the Asian crisis]," reported The New York
Post.

The paper gushed: "Just 36 at the time, he'd been raised in Asia and
knew the culture so intimately he scored successes and won confidences
that other diplomats couldn't match. Geithner earned widespread
plaudits for pulling together quarrelling Asian finance ministers into
a $US200 billion rescue of their economies."

"A fantastic choice," said a Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi analyst, Chris
Rupkey, as the Dow rose by nearly 6 per cent. Even one of Obama's
political rivals, the hard-bitten Republican senator Richard Shelby,
agreed Geithner was "up to the challenge".

If anyone in the US media had thought to ask a former Australian prime
minister for his assessment, they would have heard a different view.
And they would not have been so surprised at Geithner's performance
since.

In a speech to a closed gathering at the Lowy Institute in Sydney on
Thursday, Paul Keating gave a starkly different account of Geithner's
record in handling the Asian crisis: "Tim Geithner was the Treasury
line officer who wrote the IMF [International Monetary Fund] program
for Indonesia in 1997-98, which was to apply current account solutions
to a capital account crisis."

In other words, Geithner fundamentally misdiagnosed the problem. And
his misdiagnosis led to a dreadfully wrong prescription.

Geithner thought Asia's problem was the same as the ones that had
shattered Latin America in the 1980s and Mexico in 1994, a classic
current account crisis. In this kind of crisis, the central cause is
that the government has run impossibly big debts.

The solution? The IMF, the Washington-based emergency lender of last
resort, will make loans to keep the country solvent, but on condition
the government hacks back its spending. The cure addresses the
ailment.

But the Asian crisis was completely different. The Asian governments
that went to the IMF for emergency loans - Thailand, South Korea and
Indonesia - all had sound public finances.

The problem was not government debt. It was great tsunamis of hot
money in the private capital markets. When the wave rushed out, it
left a credit drought behind.

But Geithner, through his influence on the IMF, imposed the same cure
the IMF had imposed on Latin America and Mexico. It was the wrong
cure. Indeed, it only aggravated the problem.

Keating continued: "Soeharto's government delivered 21 years of 7 per
cent compound growth. It takes a gigantic fool to mess that up. But
the IMF messed it up. The end result was the biggest fall in GDP in
the 20th century. That dubious distinction went to Indonesia. And, of
course, Soeharto lost power."

Exactly who was the "gigantic fool"? It was, obviously, the man who
wrote the program, Geithner, although Keating is prepared to put the
then managing director of the IMF, the Frenchman Michel Camdessus, in
the same category.

Worse, Keating argued, Geithner's misjudgment had done terminal damage
to the credibility of the IMF, with seismic geoeconomic consequences:
"The IMF is the gun that can't shoot straight. They've been making a
mess of things for the last 20-odd years, and the greatest mess they
made was in east Asia in 1997-98, so much so that no east Asian state
will put its head in the IMF noose."

China, in particular, drew hard conclusions from the IMF's mishandling
of the Asian crisis. It decided that it would never allow itself to be
dependent on the IMF, or the US, or the West generally, for its
international solvency. Instead, it would build the biggest war chest
the world had ever seen.

Keating continued: "This has all been noted inside the State Council
of China and by the Politburo. And it's one of the reasons, perhaps
the principal reason, why convertibility of the renminbi remains off
the agenda for China, and it's why through a series of exchange-rate
interventions each day that they've built these massive reserves.

"These reserves are so large at $US2 trillion as to equal $US2000 for
every Chinese person, and when your consider that the average income
of Chinese people is $US4000 to $US5000, it's 50 per cent of their
annual income. It's a huge thing for a developing country to not spend
its wealth on its own development."

Is this some flight of Keatingesque fancy? The former deputy governor
of the Reserve Bank of Australia, Stephen Grenville, doesn't think so:
"After the Asian crisis, the countries of east Asia decided that they
would never go to the IMF again. The IMF is taboo in east Asia. Look
at the evidence. The revealed preference of the region is that no one
has gone to the IMF since, even when they needed the money."

And Asian capitals know that they have no real influence over the IMF
- while European governments enjoy 40 per cent of the voting power on
the IMF, Japan, China and the rest of east Asia put together have only
about 16 per cent. This is an artefact of the immediate postwar power
structure, when the IMF was set up.

Keating urges that the fund should be decapitated, with control
passing to the governments of the Group of 20 countries whose leaders
are to meet in London on April 2. The summit, which is to include
China, India and Indonesia as well as Australia, is meeting to
consider solutions to the global crisis.

As for The New York Post's claim that Geithner was the hero who
cajoled those quarrelsome Asians into agreeing to a $US200 billion
rescue, the key fact burned into the minds of Asian elites is that the
US was deaf to requests for funds. Washington did not contribute a
cent of its own money to any of the emergency packages. Japan and
Australia were the only nations that made loans to all three of the
stricken Asian countries.

Keating went on to argue that, by frightening the Chinese into
building their vast $US2 trillion foreign reserves, Geithner was
responsible for the build-up of tremendous imbalance in the world
financial system. This imbalance, in turn, according to Keating,
contributed to the global financial crisis which has since devastated
the world economy.

China invested most of its reserves in US debt markets. Keating again:
"So we have this massive recycling of funds into the system by [the
former US Federal Reserve chairman Alan] Greenspan's monetary policy
so even if you are greedy Dick Fuld [the former head of the collapsed
investment bank Lehman Brothers] or you are hopeless Charles Prince at
Citibank, you're being told there's an endless supply of money at a
low interest rate and no inflation. So of course the system geared up
to spend it.

"That is the fundamental cause of the problem - the imbalance is the
fundamental cause."

If Keating's opinion of Geithner had circulated in the US, the
Americans would not have been so surprised and disappointed with their
new Treasury Secretary. They quickly learned that he had failed to pay
$43,000 in taxes owing.

Then, when he announced his much-anticipated plan to rescue the US
banking system, share prices slumped by 4 per cent immediately and a
new round of weakness in the financial sector began. The pundits
turned savagely against him: "So much for the saviour-based economy,"
wrote Maureen Dowd of The New York Times. Senator Shelby changed his
mind: "Aggravating economic problems by contributing to marketplace
uncertainty about what steps the Government will take - is that what
this is?" he fumed.

US bank stocks weakened so much that nationalisation seems to be the
only remaining option to put them quickly out of their misery.

Australia's banks, by contrast, are strong, said Keating, because of
his decision as Treasurer to create the "Four Pillars" policy. This
requires that the four big banks remain separate, barred from taking
each other over. This prevented them "cannibalising each other", in
Keating's words. As protected species, they had no need to mount risky
takeovers to bulk themselves up defensively.

Their strength certainly wasn't due to the brilliance of their
managers, whom Keating described as "counterhopping clerks" who had
managed to work their way up the bank hierarchies. A further source of
the soundness of the Australian banks, he said, was that they had
learned well the lessons of risky speculative lending as a result of
"the recession we truly did have to have".

In sum, Tim Geithner is a gigantic fool, the IMF the gun that can't
shoot straight, Alan Greenspan a bungler. The big US banks were run by
the greedy and the hopeless, the Australian banks by counterhopping
clerks. It's a world of many villains. And only one hero.

Peter Hartcher is the Herald's political editor.

This story was found at:
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/obamas-economic-saviour-savaged-as-keating-lets-rip-20090306-8rk7.html

From flybrad at gmail.com  Sat Mar  7 20:59:09 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2009 19:59:09 -0600
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] It Ain't Your Money To Spend
Message-ID: <400985d70903071759w7db617eaie2f053bc034423e9@mail.gmail.com>

Good tea party music!

http://kathleensings.com/

From flybrad at gmail.com  Sat Mar  7 22:06:29 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2009 21:06:29 -0600
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] "Obama is overwhelmed"
Message-ID: <400985d70903071906o5eba5074nafc4a4c2aea629e@mail.gmail.com>

Once again, you have to read the foreign press to find the truth.  I
just finished Bernie Goldberg's "A Slobbering Love Affair".  All of
Goldberg's books on the MSM are good, this one as well.

 Apparently, Teleprompter Jesus is just too tired to give a proper
welcome to our closest allies.

Brad

-------------------

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/4953523/Barack-Obama-too-tired-to-give-proper-welcome-to-Gordon-Brown.html

From flybrad at gmail.com  Sat Mar  7 22:13:25 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2009 21:13:25 -0600
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] SAILING! - Zac Sunderland Update
Message-ID: <400985d70903071913p1549ed6bx42f5bb4f8cbe8764@mail.gmail.com>

http://news.aol.com/article/teen-sails-globe/373472

From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Sun Mar  8 00:53:53 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2009 23:53:53 -0600
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] "Obama is overwhelmed"
In-Reply-To: <400985d70903071906o5eba5074nafc4a4c2aea629e@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70903071906o5eba5074nafc4a4c2aea629e@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6634e19e0903072153j1cfdb8a9q490ed34b17ce82a6@mail.gmail.com>

Brad,

Damn, having a real job is a little tougher than hangin' out wit da
brothers, organizin' da community!

And everybody in Europe thought he was such a hero. A couple more snubs like
this and we'll be hearing about what a great statesman GWB was. At least he
had the gumption to get up and go to work.

Rik



On Sat, Mar 7, 2009 at 9:06 PM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:

> Once again, you have to read the foreign press to find the truth.  I
> just finished Bernie Goldberg's "A Slobbering Love Affair".  All of
> Goldberg's books on the MSM are good, this one as well.
>
>  Apparently, Teleprompter Jesus is just too tired to give a proper
> welcome to our closest allies.
>
> Brad
>
> -------------------
>
>
> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/4953523/Barack-Obama-too-tired-to-give-proper-welcome-to-Gordon-Brown.html
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Sun Mar  8 07:24:09 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Sun, 8 Mar 2009 06:24:09 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] "Obama is overwhelmed"
In-Reply-To: <6634e19e0903072153j1cfdb8a9q490ed34b17ce82a6@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70903071906o5eba5074nafc4a4c2aea629e@mail.gmail.com>
	<6634e19e0903072153j1cfdb8a9q490ed34b17ce82a6@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70903080424q327ac5e9r2e5121b198b48007@mail.gmail.com>

Rik,

Too much partying?  While Rome burns?

Brad

--------------
"We haven't seen this kind of entertaining in a really long time," Dee
Dee Myers, former White House press secretary to Bill Clinton,
said....."

Obama kicks up White House entertaining  	
Mar 2 12:09 PM US/Eastern
By DARLENE SUPERVILLE
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House is the place to be on Wednesdays.

Since the presidency changed hands less than six weeks ago, a burst of
entertaining has taken hold of the iconic, white-columned home of
America's head of state. Much of it comes on Wednesdays.

The stately East Room, where portraits of George and Martha Washington
adorn the walls, was transformed into a concert hall as President
Barack Obama presented Stevie Wonder with the nation's highest award
for pop music on Wednesday.

A week before that, the foot-stomping sounds of Sweet Honey in the
Rock, a female a cappella group, filled the East Room for a Black
History Month program first lady Michelle Obama held for nearly 200
sixth- and seventh-graders from around the city.

Cocktails were sipped during at least three such receptions to date,
all held on Wednesdays.

Bookending the midweek activity were a Super Bowl party for select
Democratic and Republican lawmakers and a dinner for governors, the
new administration's first black-tie affair. It was capped with a
performance by the 1970s pop group Earth, Wind and Fire. And a conga
line.

The flurry of entertaining is in keeping with the Obamas' promise to
make the White House a more open place for everyone.

The governors' dinner was "a great kickoff of what we hope will be an
atmosphere here in the White House that is welcoming and that reminds
everybody that this is the people's house," Obama told the state chief
executives after they had dined on Maryland crab, Wagyu beef,
Nantucket scallops and citrus salad.

"We are just temporary occupants. This is a place that belongs to the
American people and we want to make sure that everybody understands
it's open," he said.

At the dinner in the State Dining Room, the Obamas looked comfortable,
chatting and smiling with their guests. Afterward, they escorted the
governors down the hall to the East Room, which had been arranged with
few tables and chairs to encourage dancing to "September," "Boogie
Wonderland" and other hits from a musical group Obama listened to
growing up.

The conga line formed after the media were escorted out and,
apparently, after Obama had called it a night.

"Thank you also for waiting until I had left before you started the
conga line," the president told the governors the next morning. "I
hear it was quite a spectacle."

Some Obama guests say he immediately puts them at ease. He indulges
them and serves cookies, too.

"People like me felt comfortable in his presence," said Rep. Mike
Honda, D-Calif., a self-described "poor country boy" who said he felt
like a "freshman going to the senior prom" when he attended a White
House reception for leaders of the congressional caucuses.

"Sometimes when you're in the presence of the most powerful person in
the world, in the most powerful democracy in the world ... I was in
awe that I was comfortable," said Honda, chairman of the Asian Pacific
American Caucus. "I think that's his style and how he grew up, who he
is.

"He's down to earth and engaging," Honda said.

Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., was among those invited for the Super
Bowl. He said Obama, an avid sports fan, joined his guests for most of
the game between the Arizona Cardinals and ultimately triumphant
Pittsburgh Steelers.

"It wasn't a circumstance where he came in and said 'Hi' and then
left," Franks said. "He actually stayed and watched the game."

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn, said Obama was very cordial, and he and
the first lady made guests feel comfortable. The president talked to
everyone before the game started, she said, including a 12-year-old
boy who asked Obama where the bathroom was.

"My favorite part was when he personally served us cookies?oatmeal
raisin?when we were watching the game," she said.

The gathering in the White House theater over hot dogs and hamburgers
was one of several get-to-know-the-members events Obama held as he
lobbied Congress to support his nearly $800 billion economic recovery
package. His efforts produced no Republican votes in the House and
just three in the Senate, but Franks said he still appreciated the
Democratic president's efforts to reach out to the opposing party.

"I think the value of social interaction like this is not so much that
it co-opts anyone in any way. It certainly didn't in my case," said
Franks, who described his conversation with Obama at the party as
substantive. "I think it humanizes and personalizes opponents. We can
diminish politics and try to work together for what's right for the
country."

Michelle Obama is doing her own entertaining, too. When her husband
visited Canada last month, she organized a "girls' night" at the White
House with secretaries, policymakers and popcorn for a screening of
"He's Just Not that Into You," the first lady told People magazine.

Obama played the role of "first fan" at the Wonder tribute, and opened
up about his and his wife's common enjoyment of Wonder's music.

"As Stevie knows, I'm a huge fan. And he has been a great supporter,"
Obama said before presenting the award-winning singer-songwriter with
the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song from the Library of Congress.

He said Wonder's songs "became the soundtrack of my youth" and that in
them he "found peace and inspiration, especially in difficult times."

Obama presented the medal to Wonder, then wrapped the singer in a bear
hug. As the media were led out of the room, Wonder struck up "Signed,
Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours," which was a staple of Obama's campaign
rallies.


On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 12:53 AM, Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Brad,
>
> Damn, having a real job is a little tougher than hangin' out wit da
> brothers, organizin' da community!
>
> And everybody in Europe thought he was such a hero. A couple more snubs like
> this and we'll be hearing about what a great statesman GWB was. At least he
> had the gumption to get up and go to work.
>
> Rik
>
>
>
> On Sat, Mar 7, 2009 at 9:06 PM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Once again, you have to read the foreign press to find the truth. ?I
>> just finished Bernie Goldberg's "A Slobbering Love Affair". ?All of
>> Goldberg's books on the MSM are good, this one as well.
>>
>> ?Apparently, Teleprompter Jesus is just too tired to give a proper
>> welcome to our closest allies.
>>
>> Brad
>>
>> -------------------
>>
>>
>> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/4953523/Barack-Obama-too-tired-to-give-proper-welcome-to-Gordon-Brown.html
>> _______________________________________________
>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>>
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>


From flybrad at gmail.com  Sun Mar  8 08:34:14 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Sun, 8 Mar 2009 07:34:14 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Politics - Paybacks Are Hell
Message-ID: <400985d70903080534i45f7e6a6q3d88948d5b385e1d@mail.gmail.com>

ding...ding...ding...!  We have a winner!

http://www.devongenerally.com/

Maybe it should be ping...ping...ping..., since he's a former
submariner.  I want to see Arlan Spector's ass kicked, and kicked
hard.  I'm sending this kid a check.  Imagine, a Congress consisting
of working class people with common sense! Now, who's going to take
Snowe and Collins down?

Brad

From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Sun Mar  8 10:48:38 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Sun, 8 Mar 2009 08:48:38 -0600
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Supplly and Demand .... anyone??
Message-ID: <6634e19e0903080748vdd10667y6839ed96f4d2a8c3@mail.gmail.com>

Good morning All,

As usual, Mish is right on the money. What ever happened to supply and
demand, that all important element in determining price??

Yeah sure ..... free market..... right!!

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/03/rolling-dice-on-jobs.html

Rik
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Sun Mar  8 12:08:29 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Sun, 8 Mar 2009 11:08:29 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Supplly and Demand .... anyone??
In-Reply-To: <6634e19e0903080748vdd10667y6839ed96f4d2a8c3@mail.gmail.com>
References: <6634e19e0903080748vdd10667y6839ed96f4d2a8c3@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70903080908g3aa7a43aqf49855973ca10b86@mail.gmail.com>

Rik,

He's right on the money!  Very little of the "stimulus" bill is going
to infrastructure, but what is has already been earmarked for 100%
union workforces (and you can bet your ass that more than the usual
10% will be for minority set-asides).  But why stop there?  Why not
mandate that all construction workers on federal projects get paid
$100 per hour?  The winning contractor doesn't care.  You can make it
$1000 an hour and it won't matter, in fact, it would be better for the
winning contractor.  Labor is just one more cost component like steel
and concrete.  The bigger the cost of the job the better because you
shoot for a percentage of profit on the total cost anyway.  Bigger
cost - noooo problem.  The public may only get one mile of highway
built instead of ten, and the losing contractors and the unemployed
labor might have nothing else to do since there's only so much money
to go around, but for the winners, life is sweet!

Anyone who has ever run a hot dog stand or a paper route understands
this principle.  Guess that leaves out the Teleprompter Savior.

Brad

On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 9:48 AM, Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Good morning All,
>
> As usual, Mish is right on the money. What ever happened to supply and
> demand, that all important element in determining price??
>
> Yeah sure ..... free market..... right!!
>
> http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/03/rolling-dice-on-jobs.html
>
> Rik
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>

From flybrad at gmail.com  Sun Mar  8 12:25:14 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Sun, 8 Mar 2009 11:25:14 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Supplly and Demand .... anyone??
In-Reply-To: <6634e19e0903080748vdd10667y6839ed96f4d2a8c3@mail.gmail.com>
References: <6634e19e0903080748vdd10667y6839ed96f4d2a8c3@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70903080925n2ea3e036ncac6e58232155183@mail.gmail.com>

Rik,

You may not have seen this article when it first came out (below).  My
oldest son graduated from the Sam Walton School of Business at the
University of Arkansas and had been exposed to enough Wal-Mart execs
to know he didn't want to work that hard, even though he had a degree
in Marketing and was recruited.  To each his own.  He decided to stick
with construction after helping us launch in Katrina-land and is happy
with his choice.  Yeah, for free markets!

Brad

--------------------------

FLY ON THE WAL

By CHARLES PLATT

February 7, 2009 --

Some people, usually community activists, loath Wal-Mart. Others, like
the family of four struggling to make ends meet, are in love with the
chain. I, meanwhile, am in awe of it.

With more than 7,000 facilities worldwide, coordinating more than 2
million employees in its fanatical mission to maintain an inventory
from more than 60,000 American suppliers, it has become a system
containing more components than the Space Shuttle - yet it runs as
reliably as a Timex watch.

Sheltered by rabble rousers who forced Wal-Mart's CEO to admit it
"wasn't worth the effort" to try to open in Queens or anywhere else in
the city, New Yorkers may not fully realize the unique, irreplaceable
status of the World's Largest Retailer in rural and suburban America.
Merchandise from Wal-Mart has become as ubiquitous as the water
supply. Yet still the company is rebuked and reviled by anyone
claiming a social conscience, and is lambasted by legislators as if
its bad behavior places it somewhere between investment bankers and
the Taliban.

Considering this is a company that is helping families ride out the
economic downturn, which is providing jobs and stimulus while Congress
bickers, which had sales growth of 2% this last quarter while other
companies struggled, you have to wonder why. At least, I wondered why.
And in that spirit of curiosity, I applied for an entry-level position
at my local Wal-Mart.

*

Getting hired turned out to be a challenge. The personnel manager told
me she had received more than 100 applications during that month
alone, chasing just a handful of jobs. Thus the mystery deepened. If
Wal-Mart was such an exploiter of the working poor, why were the
working poor so eager to be exploited? And after they were hired, why
did they seem so happy to be there? Anytime I shopped at the store,
blue-clad Walmartians encouraged me to "Have a nice day" with the
sincerity of the pope issuing a benediction.

I found my first clue in the application screening process. A
diabolically ingenious quiz probed for my slightest hesitation or
uncertainty regarding four big no-nos of retailing: theft,
insubordination, poor timekeeping and substance abuse. (The quiz also
tried to make sure that I wasn't accident-prone.) After I cleared that
hurdle, I was called in for an interview. At the Flagstaff, Ariz.,
store where I applied, this took place in a vinyl-floored,
gray-walled, windowless room, tucked away at the back of the store and
crowded with people sitting on cheap folding chairs at cheap folding
tables. Some of these people were talking on phones, some were doing
job interviews, some were typing on computer terminals, and some
seemed to be eating lunch.

I sat at a table that was covered in untrimmed fabric under a
protective layer of sticky transparent vinyl, like a couch cover. I'd
seen better-looking decor at firehouse bingo evenings. Was Wal-Mart
going out of its way to emphasize its commitment to cost-cutting? I
guessed that the utilitarian ethic was so deeply embedded, it was just
taken for granted.

A friendly lady in her 50s, wearing the Wal-Mart Smile, sat opposite
me and started asking questions from a printed form. Meanwhile another
job applicant was going through his interview right behind me.
Privacy, apparently, was as unaffordable here as tasteful decor.

"Are you easy to work with?" the lady asked. Since I couldn't imagine
anyone being dumb enough to say "No," I concluded that the content of
my answer must be irrelevant, and the way I answered must be the real
issue. To judge from my interviewer's sunny demeanor, enthusiasm and
sincerity were key. Fortunately, I had no problem reflecting her
positivism, because I was becoming so fascinated with the Wal-Mart
phenomenon, I really did want to work there.

I managed to satisfy her expectations, and then went through two
additional interviews, followed by a drug test, before I received
formal approval. It may have been one of the most intense hiring
processes I've been through; hardly the schedule of a company that
didn't care who it hired, or employees who didn't care about getting a
job.

*

A week later, I found myself in an elite group of 10 successful
applicants convening for two (paid) days of training in the same
claustrophobic, windowless room. As we introduced ourselves, I
discovered that more than half had already worked at other Wal-Marts.
Having relocated to this area, they were eager for more of the same.

Why? Gradually the answer became clear. Imagine that you are young and
relatively unskilled, lacking academic qualifications. Which would you
prefer: standing behind the register at a local gas station, or doing
the same thing in the most aggressively successful retailer in the
world, where ruthless expansion is a way of life, creating a constant
demand for people to fill low-level managerial positions? A future at
Wal-Mart may sound a less-than-stellar prospect, but it's a whole lot
better than no future at all.

In addition, despite its huge size, the corporation turned out to have
an eerie resemblance to a Silicon Valley startup. There was the same
gung-ho spirit, same lack of dogma, same lax dress code, same
informality - and same interest in owning a piece of the company. All
of my coworkers accepted the offer to buy Wal-Mart stock by setting
aside $2 of every paycheck.

They were less enthused about health benefits, which offered minimal
coverage during our first six months. The full corporate plan would
kick in after that, but seemed to require significant employee
contributions. Still, my fellow trainees assured me that health plans
at other retail chains were even worse, and since the federal
government had raised the limits for Medicaid eligibility, that was an
option for people with children. (In the time since my experience at
Wal-Mart, the company has improved its health plans significantly.)
The assistant manager who served as our trainer was still in her 20s,
highly motivated, friendly, smart, and perceptive. Naturally she
overflowed with Wal-Mart positivism. In fact she projected the
feel-good sincerity of a Baptist running a bake sale.

Still, she wasn't afraid to tackle the topic of termination. During
our initial six months on the job, we would be on probation on a
"three strikes" basis. One major screw-up would trigger a session of
"verbal coaching." (Since positivism is endemic in Wal-Mart, words
such as "discipline" are seldom used. The goal is self-improvement.) A
second offense would trigger some written coaching. On the third
offense, the employee would be sent home to think long and hard about
what happened, and would have to come back the next day with a good
argument for not being fired. In effect, Wal-Mart would say, "You seem
to be a hopeless case. Now tell us why we're wrong." We were given
only a handful of outright prohibitions. No swearing in the store, for
instance - not even the word "damn," because some people might be
offended. No funny-colored hair or blatant skin piercings, because
some people might be offended. In fact almost all the rules devolved
to the sacred principle of never, ever offending a customer - or
"guest," in Wal-Mart terminology.

The reason was clearly articulated. On average, anyone walking into
Wal-Mart is likely to spend more than $200,000 at the store during the
rest of his life. Therefore, any clueless employee who alienates that
customer will cost the store around a quarter-million dollars. "If we
don't remember that our customers are in charge," our trainer warned
us, "we turn into Kmart." She made that sound like devolving into some
lesser being - a toad, maybe, or an ameba.

And so we came to the Wal-Mart Pledge. Solemnly, each of us raised one
hand and intoned: "If a customer comes within 10 feet of me, I'm going
to look him in the eye, smile and greet him." Having pledged
ourselves, we encountered the aspect of Wal-Mart employment that
impressed me most: The Telxon, pronounced "Telzon," a hand-held
bar-code scanner with a wireless connection to the store's computer.
When pointed at any product, the Telxon would reveal astonishing
amounts of information: the quantity that should be on the shelf, the
availability from the nearest warehouse, the retail price, and (most
amazing of all) the markup.

All of us were given access to this information, because - in theory,
at least - anyone in the store could order a couple extra pallets of
anything, and could discount it heavily as a Volume Producing Item
(known as a VPI), competing with other departments to rack up the most
profitable sales each month. Floor clerks even had portable equipment
to print their own price stickers. This was how Wal-Mart detected
demand and responded to it: by distributing decision-making power to
grass-roots level. It was as simple yet as radical as that.

We received an inspirational talk on this subject, from an employee
who reacted after the store test-marketed tents that could protect
cars for people who didn't have enough garage space. They sold out
quickly, and several customers came in asking for more. Clearly this
was a singular, exceptional case of word-of-mouth, so he ordered
literally a truckload of tent-garages, "Which I shouldn't have done
really without asking someone," he said with a shrug, "because I
hadn't been working at the store for long." But the item was a huge
success. His VPI was the biggest in store history - and that kind of
thing doesn't go unnoticed in Arkansas.

He was invited to corporate HQ as a guest at a management conference.
"It was totally different from what I expected," he told us. "I
thought it would be these fatcats talking about money, but no one even
mentioned money. All they cared about was finding new ways to satisfy
customers. I met everyone including the chairman of the company."

*

After my two days of instruction I returned for the first real day of
work. Inevitably, it was anticlimactic. The essence of life on the
sales floor should be obvious to anyone: It is extremely boring.

I had chosen the pet department, which sells goldfish, cat food, dog
food and accessories. As I patrolled the aisles, repositioning
misplaced items and filling gaps in the shelves, I realized that
Wal-Mart "guests" really are like guests. They are visitors who move
things around and create a mess before they go home. Cleaning up after
them was not very different from doing housework.

My amiable, laid-back department supervisor had been doing this kind
of thing for 15 years. When I asked him why, he took a moment to
process the question. He had to think back to other employers he'd
worked for in the distant past. None of them, he said, had treated him
so well.

What exactly did he mean by that?

His answer lay in the structure of the store. "It's deceptive, because
Wal-Mart isn't divided into separate stores like a mall," he said.
"But really, that's how it works. Each section is separate. This is -
my pet store! No one comes here and tells me how to run it. I could go
for weeks without a supervisor asking any questions." Here was the
unseen, unreported side of the corporate behemoth. Big as it was, it
was smart enough to give employees a feeling of autonomy.

During my few subsequent days as a Walmartian, everyone at every level
was friendly and decent toward me. No one had the slightest clue that
I might write about my experiences; no one even knew that I had a
former career as a journalist. Still, they behaved like poster
children for enlightened capitalism.

My supervisor reminded me unfailingly to take my mandatory two (paid)
quarter-hour breaks during each eight hours of working time. I was
cautioned never to abbreviate my lunch hour. Most of all I was
encouraged to educate myself using instructional videos on computer
terminals at the back of the store.

These videos served Wal-Mart's self-interest by teaching skills
ranging from customer service to the art of lifting heavy boxes
without hurting your back. I was paid to view them, and was rewarded
with an increased hourly rate when I finished the course.

My starting wage was so low (around $7 per hour), a modest increment
still didn't leave me with enough to live on comfortably, but when I
looked at the alternatives, many of them were worse. Coworkers assured
me that the nearest Target paid its hourly full-timers less than
Wal-Mart, while fast-food franchises were at the bottom of everyone's
list.

I found myself reaching an inescapable conclusion. Low wages are not a
Wal-Mart problem. They are an industry-wide problem, afflicting all
unskilled entry-level jobs, and the reason should be obvious.

In our free-enterprise system, employees are valued largely in terms
of what they can do. This is why teenagers fresh out of high school
often go to vocational training institutes to become auto mechanics or
electricians. They understand a basic principle that seems to elude
social commentators, politicians and union organizers. If you want
better pay, you need to learn skills that are in demand.

The blunt tools of legislation or union power can force a corporation
to pay higher wages, but if employees don't create an equal amount of
additional value, there's no net gain. All other factors remaining
equal, the store will have to charge higher prices for its
merchandise, and its competitive position will suffer.

This is Economics 101, but no one wants to believe it, because it
tells us that a legislative or unionized quick-fix is not going to
work in the long term. If you want people to be wealthier, they have
to create additional wealth.

To my mind, the real scandal is not that a large corporation doesn't
pay people more. The scandal is that so many people have so little
economic value. Despite (or because of) a free public school system,
millions of teenagers enter the work force without marketable skills.
So why would anyone expect them to be well paid?

In fact, the deal at Wal-Mart is better than at many other employers.
The company states that its regular full-time hourly associates in the
US average $10.86 per hour, while the mean hourly wage for retail
sales associates in department stores generally is $8.67. The federal
minimum wage is $6.55 per hour. Also every Wal-Mart employee gets a
10% store discount, while an additional 4% of wages go into
profit-sharing and 401(k) plans.

*

As for the horror stories: Let's take a couple of random examples.
Unpaid overtime? Maybe it happened at some stores in the past, but an
instructional video warned me that if anyone in management ever
encouraged such a heinous transgression, I should report him to his
superiors immediately. Illegal aliens? That particular news story
really referred to a cleaning company retained by Wal-Mart. The
cleaning company hired the illegals.

You have to wonder, then, why the store has such a terrible
reputation, and I have to tell you that so far as I can determine,
trade unions have done most of the mudslinging. Web sites that serve
as a source for negative stories are often affiliated with unions.
Walmartwatch.com, for instance, is partnered with the Service
Employees International Union; Wakeupwalmart.com is entirely owned by
United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. For years,
now, they've campaigned against Wal-Mart, for reasons that may have
more to do with money than compassion for the working poor. If more
than one million Wal-Mart employees in the United States could be
induced to join a union, by my calculation they'd be compelled to pay
more than half-billion dollars each year in dues.

Anti-growth activists are the other primary source of anti-Wal-Mart
sentiment. In the town where I worked, I was told that activists even
opposed a new Barnes & Noble because it was "too big." If they're
offended by a large bookstore, you can imagine how they feel about a
discount retailer.

The argument, of course, is that smaller enterprises cannot compete.
My outlook on this is hardcore: I think that many of the "mom-and-pop"
stores so beloved by activists don't deserve to remain in business.

When I first ventured from New York City to the American heartland, I
did my best to patronize quaint little places on Main Street and
quickly discovered the penalties for doing so. At a small appliance
store, I wasn't allowed to buy a microwave oven on display. I had to
place an order and wait a couple of weeks for delivery. At a
stationery store where I tried to buy a file cabinet, I found the same
problem. Think back, if you are old enough to do so, and you may
recall that this is how small-town retailing used to function in the
1960s.

As a customer, I don't see why I should protect a business from the
harsh realities of commerce if it can't maintain a good inventory at a
competitive price. And as an employee, I see no advantage in working
at a small place where I am subject to the quixotic moods of a sole
proprietor, and can never appeal to his superior, because there isn't
one.

By the same logic, I see no reason for legislators to protect Safeway
supermarkets with ploys such as zoning restrictions, which just happen
to allow a supermarket-sized building while outlawing a Wal-Mart
SuperCenter that's a few thousand square feet bigger.

Based on my experience (admittedly, only at one location) I reached a
conclusion which is utterly opposed to almost everything ever written
about Wal-Mart. I came to regard it as one of the all-time enlightened
American employers, right up there with IBM in the 1960s. Wal-Mart is
not the enemy. It's the best friend we could ask for.

Charles Platt is a former senior writer for Wired magazine.


On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 9:48 AM, Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Good morning All,
>
> As usual, Mish is right on the money. What ever happened to supply and
> demand, that all important element in determining price??
>
> Yeah sure ..... free market..... right!!
>
> http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/03/rolling-dice-on-jobs.html
>
> Rik
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>

From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Sun Mar  8 14:25:45 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Sun, 8 Mar 2009 12:25:45 -0600
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Supplly and Demand .... anyone??
In-Reply-To: <400985d70903080925n2ea3e036ncac6e58232155183@mail.gmail.com>
References: <6634e19e0903080748vdd10667y6839ed96f4d2a8c3@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70903080925n2ea3e036ncac6e58232155183@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6634e19e0903081125n197be131w38a49099e14bc347@mail.gmail.com>

Brad,

Yeah, I read that a while back. it's one of the few sensible commentaries on
Walmart that I've ever seen.

We used to go through that kind of thing all the time with the racing supply
business we used to run to help support our sprint car habit. People would
come to us, at the track, all the time needing this or that, RIGHT NOW. The
next thing they'd say would be, I can buy this from Speedway Motors or some
other large, out of state retailer for XXX dollars less. I'd just tell 'em,
by golly, you better get yourself on over to the Speedway Motors trailer and
get your part then. Then they'd say, but Speedway motors doesn't have a
parts trailer here. Then I'd say ..... EXACTLY. They'd usually look a little
confused about that time and take their part back to their pits. People
don't understand that a small business just can't compete on price with
somebody like Walmart. One needs to offer an added service that it's hard
for the large discount retailer to provide. It's tough though, because
almost everyone out there only looks at the price. Quality and/or extra
service don't seem to register as a value for them.

Rik

On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 10:25 AM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:

> Rik,
>
> You may not have seen this article when it first came out (below).  My
> oldest son graduated from the Sam Walton School of Business at the
> University of Arkansas and had been exposed to enough Wal-Mart execs
> to know he didn't want to work that hard, even though he had a degree
> in Marketing and was recruited.  To each his own.  He decided to stick
> with construction after helping us launch in Katrina-land and is happy
> with his choice.  Yeah, for free markets!
>
> Brad
>
> --------------------------
>
> FLY ON THE WAL
>
> By CHARLES PLATT
>
> February 7, 2009 --
>
> Some people, usually community activists, loath Wal-Mart. Others, like
> the family of four struggling to make ends meet, are in love with the
> chain. I, meanwhile, am in awe of it.
>
> With more than 7,000 facilities worldwide, coordinating more than 2
> million employees in its fanatical mission to maintain an inventory
> from more than 60,000 American suppliers, it has become a system
> containing more components than the Space Shuttle - yet it runs as
> reliably as a Timex watch.
>
> Sheltered by rabble rousers who forced Wal-Mart's CEO to admit it
> "wasn't worth the effort" to try to open in Queens or anywhere else in
> the city, New Yorkers may not fully realize the unique, irreplaceable
> status of the World's Largest Retailer in rural and suburban America.
> Merchandise from Wal-Mart has become as ubiquitous as the water
> supply. Yet still the company is rebuked and reviled by anyone
> claiming a social conscience, and is lambasted by legislators as if
> its bad behavior places it somewhere between investment bankers and
> the Taliban.
>
> Considering this is a company that is helping families ride out the
> economic downturn, which is providing jobs and stimulus while Congress
> bickers, which had sales growth of 2% this last quarter while other
> companies struggled, you have to wonder why. At least, I wondered why.
> And in that spirit of curiosity, I applied for an entry-level position
> at my local Wal-Mart.
>
> *
>
> Getting hired turned out to be a challenge. The personnel manager told
> me she had received more than 100 applications during that month
> alone, chasing just a handful of jobs. Thus the mystery deepened. If
> Wal-Mart was such an exploiter of the working poor, why were the
> working poor so eager to be exploited? And after they were hired, why
> did they seem so happy to be there? Anytime I shopped at the store,
> blue-clad Walmartians encouraged me to "Have a nice day" with the
> sincerity of the pope issuing a benediction.
>
> I found my first clue in the application screening process. A
> diabolically ingenious quiz probed for my slightest hesitation or
> uncertainty regarding four big no-nos of retailing: theft,
> insubordination, poor timekeeping and substance abuse. (The quiz also
> tried to make sure that I wasn't accident-prone.) After I cleared that
> hurdle, I was called in for an interview. At the Flagstaff, Ariz.,
> store where I applied, this took place in a vinyl-floored,
> gray-walled, windowless room, tucked away at the back of the store and
> crowded with people sitting on cheap folding chairs at cheap folding
> tables. Some of these people were talking on phones, some were doing
> job interviews, some were typing on computer terminals, and some
> seemed to be eating lunch.
>
> I sat at a table that was covered in untrimmed fabric under a
> protective layer of sticky transparent vinyl, like a couch cover. I'd
> seen better-looking decor at firehouse bingo evenings. Was Wal-Mart
> going out of its way to emphasize its commitment to cost-cutting? I
> guessed that the utilitarian ethic was so deeply embedded, it was just
> taken for granted.
>
> A friendly lady in her 50s, wearing the Wal-Mart Smile, sat opposite
> me and started asking questions from a printed form. Meanwhile another
> job applicant was going through his interview right behind me.
> Privacy, apparently, was as unaffordable here as tasteful decor.
>
> "Are you easy to work with?" the lady asked. Since I couldn't imagine
> anyone being dumb enough to say "No," I concluded that the content of
> my answer must be irrelevant, and the way I answered must be the real
> issue. To judge from my interviewer's sunny demeanor, enthusiasm and
> sincerity were key. Fortunately, I had no problem reflecting her
> positivism, because I was becoming so fascinated with the Wal-Mart
> phenomenon, I really did want to work there.
>
> I managed to satisfy her expectations, and then went through two
> additional interviews, followed by a drug test, before I received
> formal approval. It may have been one of the most intense hiring
> processes I've been through; hardly the schedule of a company that
> didn't care who it hired, or employees who didn't care about getting a
> job.
>
> *
>
> A week later, I found myself in an elite group of 10 successful
> applicants convening for two (paid) days of training in the same
> claustrophobic, windowless room. As we introduced ourselves, I
> discovered that more than half had already worked at other Wal-Marts.
> Having relocated to this area, they were eager for more of the same.
>
> Why? Gradually the answer became clear. Imagine that you are young and
> relatively unskilled, lacking academic qualifications. Which would you
> prefer: standing behind the register at a local gas station, or doing
> the same thing in the most aggressively successful retailer in the
> world, where ruthless expansion is a way of life, creating a constant
> demand for people to fill low-level managerial positions? A future at
> Wal-Mart may sound a less-than-stellar prospect, but it's a whole lot
> better than no future at all.
>
> In addition, despite its huge size, the corporation turned out to have
> an eerie resemblance to a Silicon Valley startup. There was the same
> gung-ho spirit, same lack of dogma, same lax dress code, same
> informality - and same interest in owning a piece of the company. All
> of my coworkers accepted the offer to buy Wal-Mart stock by setting
> aside $2 of every paycheck.
>
> They were less enthused about health benefits, which offered minimal
> coverage during our first six months. The full corporate plan would
> kick in after that, but seemed to require significant employee
> contributions. Still, my fellow trainees assured me that health plans
> at other retail chains were even worse, and since the federal
> government had raised the limits for Medicaid eligibility, that was an
> option for people with children. (In the time since my experience at
> Wal-Mart, the company has improved its health plans significantly.)
> The assistant manager who served as our trainer was still in her 20s,
> highly motivated, friendly, smart, and perceptive. Naturally she
> overflowed with Wal-Mart positivism. In fact she projected the
> feel-good sincerity of a Baptist running a bake sale.
>
> Still, she wasn't afraid to tackle the topic of termination. During
> our initial six months on the job, we would be on probation on a
> "three strikes" basis. One major screw-up would trigger a session of
> "verbal coaching." (Since positivism is endemic in Wal-Mart, words
> such as "discipline" are seldom used. The goal is self-improvement.) A
> second offense would trigger some written coaching. On the third
> offense, the employee would be sent home to think long and hard about
> what happened, and would have to come back the next day with a good
> argument for not being fired. In effect, Wal-Mart would say, "You seem
> to be a hopeless case. Now tell us why we're wrong." We were given
> only a handful of outright prohibitions. No swearing in the store, for
> instance - not even the word "damn," because some people might be
> offended. No funny-colored hair or blatant skin piercings, because
> some people might be offended. In fact almost all the rules devolved
> to the sacred principle of never, ever offending a customer - or
> "guest," in Wal-Mart terminology.
>
> The reason was clearly articulated. On average, anyone walking into
> Wal-Mart is likely to spend more than $200,000 at the store during the
> rest of his life. Therefore, any clueless employee who alienates that
> customer will cost the store around a quarter-million dollars. "If we
> don't remember that our customers are in charge," our trainer warned
> us, "we turn into Kmart." She made that sound like devolving into some
> lesser being - a toad, maybe, or an ameba.
>
> And so we came to the Wal-Mart Pledge. Solemnly, each of us raised one
> hand and intoned: "If a customer comes within 10 feet of me, I'm going
> to look him in the eye, smile and greet him." Having pledged
> ourselves, we encountered the aspect of Wal-Mart employment that
> impressed me most: The Telxon, pronounced "Telzon," a hand-held
> bar-code scanner with a wireless connection to the store's computer.
> When pointed at any product, the Telxon would reveal astonishing
> amounts of information: the quantity that should be on the shelf, the
> availability from the nearest warehouse, the retail price, and (most
> amazing of all) the markup.
>
> All of us were given access to this information, because - in theory,
> at least - anyone in the store could order a couple extra pallets of
> anything, and could discount it heavily as a Volume Producing Item
> (known as a VPI), competing with other departments to rack up the most
> profitable sales each month. Floor clerks even had portable equipment
> to print their own price stickers. This was how Wal-Mart detected
> demand and responded to it: by distributing decision-making power to
> grass-roots level. It was as simple yet as radical as that.
>
> We received an inspirational talk on this subject, from an employee
> who reacted after the store test-marketed tents that could protect
> cars for people who didn't have enough garage space. They sold out
> quickly, and several customers came in asking for more. Clearly this
> was a singular, exceptional case of word-of-mouth, so he ordered
> literally a truckload of tent-garages, "Which I shouldn't have done
> really without asking someone," he said with a shrug, "because I
> hadn't been working at the store for long." But the item was a huge
> success. His VPI was the biggest in store history - and that kind of
> thing doesn't go unnoticed in Arkansas.
>
> He was invited to corporate HQ as a guest at a management conference.
> "It was totally different from what I expected," he told us. "I
> thought it would be these fatcats talking about money, but no one even
> mentioned money. All they cared about was finding new ways to satisfy
> customers. I met everyone including the chairman of the company."
>
> *
>
> After my two days of instruction I returned for the first real day of
> work. Inevitably, it was anticlimactic. The essence of life on the
> sales floor should be obvious to anyone: It is extremely boring.
>
> I had chosen the pet department, which sells goldfish, cat food, dog
> food and accessories. As I patrolled the aisles, repositioning
> misplaced items and filling gaps in the shelves, I realized that
> Wal-Mart "guests" really are like guests. They are visitors who move
> things around and create a mess before they go home. Cleaning up after
> them was not very different from doing housework.
>
> My amiable, laid-back department supervisor had been doing this kind
> of thing for 15 years. When I asked him why, he took a moment to
> process the question. He had to think back to other employers he'd
> worked for in the distant past. None of them, he said, had treated him
> so well.
>
> What exactly did he mean by that?
>
> His answer lay in the structure of the store. "It's deceptive, because
> Wal-Mart isn't divided into separate stores like a mall," he said.
> "But really, that's how it works. Each section is separate. This is -
> my pet store! No one comes here and tells me how to run it. I could go
> for weeks without a supervisor asking any questions." Here was the
> unseen, unreported side of the corporate behemoth. Big as it was, it
> was smart enough to give employees a feeling of autonomy.
>
> During my few subsequent days as a Walmartian, everyone at every level
> was friendly and decent toward me. No one had the slightest clue that
> I might write about my experiences; no one even knew that I had a
> former career as a journalist. Still, they behaved like poster
> children for enlightened capitalism.
>
> My supervisor reminded me unfailingly to take my mandatory two (paid)
> quarter-hour breaks during each eight hours of working time. I was
> cautioned never to abbreviate my lunch hour. Most of all I was
> encouraged to educate myself using instructional videos on computer
> terminals at the back of the store.
>
> These videos served Wal-Mart's self-interest by teaching skills
> ranging from customer service to the art of lifting heavy boxes
> without hurting your back. I was paid to view them, and was rewarded
> with an increased hourly rate when I finished the course.
>
> My starting wage was so low (around $7 per hour), a modest increment
> still didn't leave me with enough to live on comfortably, but when I
> looked at the alternatives, many of them were worse. Coworkers assured
> me that the nearest Target paid its hourly full-timers less than
> Wal-Mart, while fast-food franchises were at the bottom of everyone's
> list.
>
> I found myself reaching an inescapable conclusion. Low wages are not a
> Wal-Mart problem. They are an industry-wide problem, afflicting all
> unskilled entry-level jobs, and the reason should be obvious.
>
> In our free-enterprise system, employees are valued largely in terms
> of what they can do. This is why teenagers fresh out of high school
> often go to vocational training institutes to become auto mechanics or
> electricians. They understand a basic principle that seems to elude
> social commentators, politicians and union organizers. If you want
> better pay, you need to learn skills that are in demand.
>
> The blunt tools of legislation or union power can force a corporation
> to pay higher wages, but if employees don't create an equal amount of
> additional value, there's no net gain. All other factors remaining
> equal, the store will have to charge higher prices for its
> merchandise, and its competitive position will suffer.
>
> This is Economics 101, but no one wants to believe it, because it
> tells us that a legislative or unionized quick-fix is not going to
> work in the long term. If you want people to be wealthier, they have
> to create additional wealth.
>
> To my mind, the real scandal is not that a large corporation doesn't
> pay people more. The scandal is that so many people have so little
> economic value. Despite (or because of) a free public school system,
> millions of teenagers enter the work force without marketable skills.
> So why would anyone expect them to be well paid?
>
> In fact, the deal at Wal-Mart is better than at many other employers.
> The company states that its regular full-time hourly associates in the
> US average $10.86 per hour, while the mean hourly wage for retail
> sales associates in department stores generally is $8.67. The federal
> minimum wage is $6.55 per hour. Also every Wal-Mart employee gets a
> 10% store discount, while an additional 4% of wages go into
> profit-sharing and 401(k) plans.
>
> *
>
> As for the horror stories: Let's take a couple of random examples.
> Unpaid overtime? Maybe it happened at some stores in the past, but an
> instructional video warned me that if anyone in management ever
> encouraged such a heinous transgression, I should report him to his
> superiors immediately. Illegal aliens? That particular news story
> really referred to a cleaning company retained by Wal-Mart. The
> cleaning company hired the illegals.
>
> You have to wonder, then, why the store has such a terrible
> reputation, and I have to tell you that so far as I can determine,
> trade unions have done most of the mudslinging. Web sites that serve
> as a source for negative stories are often affiliated with unions.
> Walmartwatch.com, for instance, is partnered with the Service
> Employees International Union; Wakeupwalmart.com is entirely owned by
> United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. For years,
> now, they've campaigned against Wal-Mart, for reasons that may have
> more to do with money than compassion for the working poor. If more
> than one million Wal-Mart employees in the United States could be
> induced to join a union, by my calculation they'd be compelled to pay
> more than half-billion dollars each year in dues.
>
> Anti-growth activists are the other primary source of anti-Wal-Mart
> sentiment. In the town where I worked, I was told that activists even
> opposed a new Barnes & Noble because it was "too big." If they're
> offended by a large bookstore, you can imagine how they feel about a
> discount retailer.
>
> The argument, of course, is that smaller enterprises cannot compete.
> My outlook on this is hardcore: I think that many of the "mom-and-pop"
> stores so beloved by activists don't deserve to remain in business.
>
> When I first ventured from New York City to the American heartland, I
> did my best to patronize quaint little places on Main Street and
> quickly discovered the penalties for doing so. At a small appliance
> store, I wasn't allowed to buy a microwave oven on display. I had to
> place an order and wait a couple of weeks for delivery. At a
> stationery store where I tried to buy a file cabinet, I found the same
> problem. Think back, if you are old enough to do so, and you may
> recall that this is how small-town retailing used to function in the
> 1960s.
>
> As a customer, I don't see why I should protect a business from the
> harsh realities of commerce if it can't maintain a good inventory at a
> competitive price. And as an employee, I see no advantage in working
> at a small place where I am subject to the quixotic moods of a sole
> proprietor, and can never appeal to his superior, because there isn't
> one.
>
> By the same logic, I see no reason for legislators to protect Safeway
> supermarkets with ploys such as zoning restrictions, which just happen
> to allow a supermarket-sized building while outlawing a Wal-Mart
> SuperCenter that's a few thousand square feet bigger.
>
> Based on my experience (admittedly, only at one location) I reached a
> conclusion which is utterly opposed to almost everything ever written
> about Wal-Mart. I came to regard it as one of the all-time enlightened
> American employers, right up there with IBM in the 1960s. Wal-Mart is
> not the enemy. It's the best friend we could ask for.
>
> Charles Platt is a former senior writer for Wired magazine.
>
>
> On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 9:48 AM, Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Good morning All,
> >
> > As usual, Mish is right on the money. What ever happened to supply and
> > demand, that all important element in determining price??
> >
> > Yeah sure ..... free market..... right!!
> >
> >
> http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/03/rolling-dice-on-jobs.html
> >
> > Rik
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> >
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> >
> >
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Sun Mar  8 16:32:07 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Sun, 8 Mar 2009 15:32:07 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Politics - Paybacks Are Hell
In-Reply-To: <400985d70903080534i45f7e6a6q3d88948d5b385e1d@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70903080534i45f7e6a6q3d88948d5b385e1d@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70903081332w346e4546le0118421064078d0@mail.gmail.com>

It's a twofer!

Rosanna is running for Rahm Emanuel's old seat.  Now get this; she's
the founder of the Illinois Minutemen!

http://www.rosannapulido2009.com/

Run Rosanna Run!  The check is in the mail!

Brad

On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 7:34 AM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
> ding...ding...ding...! ?We have a winner!
>
> http://www.devongenerally.com/
>
> Maybe it should be ping...ping...ping..., since he's a former
> submariner. ?I want to see Arlan Spector's ass kicked, and kicked
> hard. ?I'm sending this kid a check. ?Imagine, a Congress consisting
> of working class people with common sense! Now, who's going to take
> Snowe and Collins down?
>
> Brad
>


From flybrad at gmail.com  Sun Mar  8 18:00:06 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Sun, 8 Mar 2009 17:00:06 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Obama Makes Good On Iraq Campaign Promise!
Message-ID: <400985d70903081500y170da1ecl155efff92fc977c4@mail.gmail.com>

We're pulling out of Iraq.  That is good news!


Here's the story according to the AP -

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090308/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iraq

Here's the story according to the NYT's -

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/washington/13military.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

(I'll print the NYT article in case the link doesn't work)

Forgive me if I got my Presidents and time line mixed-up.  So far,
everything is going almost exactly according to the schedule that
General Petraeus gave the Congress in 2007. PS - Please don't tell the
MSM what I just told you. It might make The One (tm) look like he is
just following instead of leading.

Brad

--------------

July 13, 2008
U.S. Considers Increasing Pace of Iraq Pullout
By STEVEN LEE MYERS

WASHINGTON ? The Bush administration is considering the withdrawal of
additional combat forces from Iraq beginning in September, according
to administration and military officials, raising the prospect of a
far more ambitious plan than expected only months ago.

Such a withdrawal would be a striking reversal from the nadir of the
war in 2006 and 2007.

One factor in the consideration is the pressing need for additional
American troops in Afghanistan, where the Taliban and other fighters
have intensified their insurgency and inflicted a growing number of
casualties on Afghans and American-led forces there.

More American and allied troops died in Afghanistan than in Iraq in
May and June, a trend that has continued this month.

Although no decision has been made, by the time President Bush leaves
office on Jan. 20, at least one and as many as 3 of the 15 combat
brigades now in Iraq could be withdrawn or at least scheduled for
withdrawal, the officials said.

The desire to move more quickly reflects the view of many in the
Pentagon who want to ease the strain on the military but also to free
more troops for Afghanistan and potentially other missions.

The most optimistic course of events would still leave 120,000 to
130,000 American troops in Iraq, down from the peak of 170,000 late
last year after Mr. Bush ordered what became known as the ?surge? of
additional forces. Any troop reductions announced in the heat of the
presidential election could blur the sharp differences between the
candidates, Senators John McCain and Barack Obama, over how long to
stay in Iraq. But the political benefit might go more to Mr. McCain
than Mr. Obama. Mr. McCain is an avid supporter of the current
strategy in Iraq. Any reduction would indicate that that strategy has
worked and could defuse antiwar sentiment among voters.

Even as the two candidates argue over the wisdom of the war and
keeping American troops there, security in Iraq has improved vastly,
as has the confidence of Iraq?s government and military and police,
raising the prospect of additional reductions that were barely
conceivable a year ago. While officials caution that the relative calm
is fragile, violence and attacks on American-led forces have dropped
to the lowest levels since early 2004.

?As the Iraqi security forces get stronger and get better, then we
will be able to continue drawing down our troops in the future,?
Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates said in Fort Lewis, Wash., on
Tuesday. ?And I think that this transition of control and of
responsibility, primary responsibility for security is a process
that?s already well under way and based on everything that I?m hearing
will be able to continue.?

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the American commander in Iraq, has already
begun the review of security and troop levels. He and Mr. Bush
promised in April that such a review would take place. General
Petraeus is expected to be more cautious than some policy makers in
the administration and at the Pentagon might like. The officials,
speaking on condition of anonymity because they were discussing
military planning, said he was more likely to recommend a smaller
reduction, but still a withdrawal.

One senior administration official cautioned that the president, who
will have the final say, would be reluctant to endorse deep or rapid
reductions if they jeopardized his goal of establishing a stable and
democratic government in Baghdad.

Still, there is broad consensus in Washington and Baghdad that more
American forces can now leave Iraq and that more are needed in
Afghanistan.

?There hasn?t really been any discussion of numbers, and it?s
definitely based on conditions on the ground,? a military officer in
Baghdad said. And conditions, he went on, ?are a lot more favorable
than in December or April or even two months ago.?

General Petraeus, who will step down as commander in Iraq in
September, will soon take over as the commander of the United States
Central Command. In that position, he will oversee American forces and
operations throughout the Middle East and Central and South Asia,
including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Senate confirmed him
and his replacement as commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno,
to their new positions on Thursday.

The Pentagon has previously signaled that commanders wanted additional
troops in Afghanistan ? as many as 10,000 more than the roughly 32,000
there now ? but with two wars seriously straining the Army and Marines
in particular, officials have struggled to produce the extra forces.

A reduction of combat brigades in Iraq would free additional troops
that could instead be sent to Afghanistan, though officials said that
no additional forces would go until next year, when fighting is
expected to intensify with the arrival of spring.

Mr. Gates has already extended the deployment of a force of 3,200
marines in southern Afghanistan by one month, essentially until winter
arrives and closes many of the country?s mountain passes and remote
villages.

The Pentagon also announced the redeployment of the aircraft carrier
Abraham Lincoln and its support ships from the Persian Gulf to the
Arabian Sea to provide what one official described as greater air
power and surveillance for the mission in Afghanistan until next
spring.

?We have clearly seen an increase in violence in Afghanistan,? Mr.
Gates said at Fort Lewis, discussing the carrier?s redeployment. ?At
the same time, we?ve seen a reduction in violence and casualties in
Iraq. And I think it?s just part of our commitment to ensure that we
have the resources available to be successful in Afghanistan over the
long haul.?

Last year Mr. Bush accepted General Petraeus?s recommendation to
gradually withdraw the five extra combat brigades that he had ordered
to Iraq. The last of those, Second Brigade, Third Infantry Division,
is completing its withdrawal this month, bringing the number of combat
brigades to 15 and the overall troop levels to about 140,000.

If the withdrawals continued at the same pace, roughly one every 45
days, three more brigades could leave Iraq by the end of Mr. Bush?s
presidency.

In April, Mr. Bush approved the general?s plan to ?pause? the
withdrawals for 45 days, basically until mid-September, while
reviewing the effect of having fewer American troops in the country.
The Bush administration has been wrongly optimistic before about the
future of the war in Iraq. But with major military operations in
Basra, Baghdad?s Sadr City neighborhood, and Mosul, violence has
continued to drop, and Iraqi forces have increased their share of the
fighting.

The White House declined to discuss the withdrawals now under
consideration, but a spokesman, Gordon D. Johndroe, cautioned that
while the president hoped to bring more troops home, he would await
General Petraeus?s recommendation in September.

?For now,? he said, ?we will continue discussions with the Iraqis on
our shared goals of a reduced U.S. troop presence.?

Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.


From flybrad at gmail.com  Sun Mar  8 18:39:49 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Sun, 8 Mar 2009 17:39:49 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Obama Makes Good On Iraq Campaign Promise!
In-Reply-To: <400985d70903081500y170da1ecl155efff92fc977c4@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70903081500y170da1ecl155efff92fc977c4@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70903081539p626ceeeamc16d058afb8fe175@mail.gmail.com>

Sorry,  meant to include this chart -

http://tinyurl.com/d59ku5

This is the same chart presented to Congress in 2007.  Congratulations
to the good General for meeting his objectives.

Brad

On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 5:00 PM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
> We're pulling out of Iraq. ?That is good news!
>
>
> Here's the story according to the AP -
>
> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090308/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iraq
>
> Here's the story according to the NYT's -
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/washington/13military.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin
>
> (I'll print the NYT article in case the link doesn't work)
>
> Forgive me if I got my Presidents and time line mixed-up. ?So far,
> everything is going almost exactly according to the schedule that
> General Petraeus gave the Congress in 2007. PS - Please don't tell the
> MSM what I just told you. It might make The One (tm) look like he is
> just following instead of leading.
>
> Brad
>
> --------------
>
> July 13, 2008
> U.S. Considers Increasing Pace of Iraq Pullout
> By STEVEN LEE MYERS
>
> WASHINGTON ? The Bush administration is considering the withdrawal of
> additional combat forces from Iraq beginning in September, according
> to administration and military officials, raising the prospect of a
> far more ambitious plan than expected only months ago.
>
> Such a withdrawal would be a striking reversal from the nadir of the
> war in 2006 and 2007.
>
> One factor in the consideration is the pressing need for additional
> American troops in Afghanistan, where the Taliban and other fighters
> have intensified their insurgency and inflicted a growing number of
> casualties on Afghans and American-led forces there.
>
> More American and allied troops died in Afghanistan than in Iraq in
> May and June, a trend that has continued this month.
>
> Although no decision has been made, by the time President Bush leaves
> office on Jan. 20, at least one and as many as 3 of the 15 combat
> brigades now in Iraq could be withdrawn or at least scheduled for
> withdrawal, the officials said.
>
> The desire to move more quickly reflects the view of many in the
> Pentagon who want to ease the strain on the military but also to free
> more troops for Afghanistan and potentially other missions.
>
> The most optimistic course of events would still leave 120,000 to
> 130,000 American troops in Iraq, down from the peak of 170,000 late
> last year after Mr. Bush ordered what became known as the ?surge? of
> additional forces. Any troop reductions announced in the heat of the
> presidential election could blur the sharp differences between the
> candidates, Senators John McCain and Barack Obama, over how long to
> stay in Iraq. But the political benefit might go more to Mr. McCain
> than Mr. Obama. Mr. McCain is an avid supporter of the current
> strategy in Iraq. Any reduction would indicate that that strategy has
> worked and could defuse antiwar sentiment among voters.
>
> Even as the two candidates argue over the wisdom of the war and
> keeping American troops there, security in Iraq has improved vastly,
> as has the confidence of Iraq?s government and military and police,
> raising the prospect of additional reductions that were barely
> conceivable a year ago. While officials caution that the relative calm
> is fragile, violence and attacks on American-led forces have dropped
> to the lowest levels since early 2004.
>
> ?As the Iraqi security forces get stronger and get better, then we
> will be able to continue drawing down our troops in the future,?
> Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates said in Fort Lewis, Wash., on
> Tuesday. ?And I think that this transition of control and of
> responsibility, primary responsibility for security is a process
> that?s already well under way and based on everything that I?m hearing
> will be able to continue.?
>
> Gen. David H. Petraeus, the American commander in Iraq, has already
> begun the review of security and troop levels. He and Mr. Bush
> promised in April that such a review would take place. General
> Petraeus is expected to be more cautious than some policy makers in
> the administration and at the Pentagon might like. The officials,
> speaking on condition of anonymity because they were discussing
> military planning, said he was more likely to recommend a smaller
> reduction, but still a withdrawal.
>
> One senior administration official cautioned that the president, who
> will have the final say, would be reluctant to endorse deep or rapid
> reductions if they jeopardized his goal of establishing a stable and
> democratic government in Baghdad.
>
> Still, there is broad consensus in Washington and Baghdad that more
> American forces can now leave Iraq and that more are needed in
> Afghanistan.
>
> ?There hasn?t really been any discussion of numbers, and it?s
> definitely based on conditions on the ground,? a military officer in
> Baghdad said. And conditions, he went on, ?are a lot more favorable
> than in December or April or even two months ago.?
>
> General Petraeus, who will step down as commander in Iraq in
> September, will soon take over as the commander of the United States
> Central Command. In that position, he will oversee American forces and
> operations throughout the Middle East and Central and South Asia,
> including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Senate confirmed him
> and his replacement as commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno,
> to their new positions on Thursday.
>
> The Pentagon has previously signaled that commanders wanted additional
> troops in Afghanistan ? as many as 10,000 more than the roughly 32,000
> there now ? but with two wars seriously straining the Army and Marines
> in particular, officials have struggled to produce the extra forces.
>
> A reduction of combat brigades in Iraq would free additional troops
> that could instead be sent to Afghanistan, though officials said that
> no additional forces would go until next year, when fighting is
> expected to intensify with the arrival of spring.
>
> Mr. Gates has already extended the deployment of a force of 3,200
> marines in southern Afghanistan by one month, essentially until winter
> arrives and closes many of the country?s mountain passes and remote
> villages.
>
> The Pentagon also announced the redeployment of the aircraft carrier
> Abraham Lincoln and its support ships from the Persian Gulf to the
> Arabian Sea to provide what one official described as greater air
> power and surveillance for the mission in Afghanistan until next
> spring.
>
> ?We have clearly seen an increase in violence in Afghanistan,? Mr.
> Gates said at Fort Lewis, discussing the carrier?s redeployment. ?At
> the same time, we?ve seen a reduction in violence and casualties in
> Iraq. And I think it?s just part of our commitment to ensure that we
> have the resources available to be successful in Afghanistan over the
> long haul.?
>
> Last year Mr. Bush accepted General Petraeus?s recommendation to
> gradually withdraw the five extra combat brigades that he had ordered
> to Iraq. The last of those, Second Brigade, Third Infantry Division,
> is completing its withdrawal this month, bringing the number of combat
> brigades to 15 and the overall troop levels to about 140,000.
>
> If the withdrawals continued at the same pace, roughly one every 45
> days, three more brigades could leave Iraq by the end of Mr. Bush?s
> presidency.
>
> In April, Mr. Bush approved the general?s plan to ?pause? the
> withdrawals for 45 days, basically until mid-September, while
> reviewing the effect of having fewer American troops in the country.
> The Bush administration has been wrongly optimistic before about the
> future of the war in Iraq. But with major military operations in
> Basra, Baghdad?s Sadr City neighborhood, and Mosul, violence has
> continued to drop, and Iraqi forces have increased their share of the
> fighting.
>
> The White House declined to discuss the withdrawals now under
> consideration, but a spokesman, Gordon D. Johndroe, cautioned that
> while the president hoped to bring more troops home, he would await
> General Petraeus?s recommendation in September.
>
> ?For now,? he said, ?we will continue discussions with the Iraqis on
> our shared goals of a reduced U.S. troop presence.?
>
> Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.
>


From mweisner at ebsmed.com  Sun Mar  8 18:52:47 2009
From: mweisner at ebsmed.com (Michael D. Weisner)
Date: Sun, 8 Mar 2009 18:52:47 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Mr. Obama's appointment of Charles Freeman to
	be director of the National Intelligence Council
Message-ID: <CF824B35281B4F6C8F113D9C77F9BBAB@D9X7C761>

There seems to be no end to the problems with this new administration:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09067/953727-373.stm

Mike


With friends like this ...
Obama schmoozes Israel but will he be there when it counts?
Sunday, March 08, 2009
By Jack Kelly, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Few did more to reassure Jews it was "safe" to vote for Barack Obama than Martin Peretz, financier and editor-in-chief of The New Republic since 1974.

"Can friends of Israel -- and Jews -- trust Obama?" he asked in an article in January of last year.

His answer was yes. "Obama's points, which he has made many times, should reassure anyone who is concerned about what his presidency would mean for the security of Israel," Mr. Peretz wrote then.

In May of last year, Mr. Peretz assured Jews concerned about the endorsement of Mr. Obama by Hamas leader Ahmed Yousef that "Obama's own personal history and his political convictions predisposed him towards Israel."

Harvard professor Samantha Power has accused Israel of war crimes, and once recommended U.S. troops be sent to impose upon the Israelis a peace settlement by force. She's been appointed by President Obama to a senior foreign policy job at the White House. Mr. Peretz assured his readers in December that Ms. Power "truly, truly loves Israel and the people of Israel."

But Mr. Obama's appointment of Charles "Chas" Freeman to be director of the National Intelligence Council is causing Mr. Peretz second thoughts.

Mr. Freeman is a former diplomat who was ambassador to Saudi Arabia from 1989 to 1992. He also was an assistant secretary of defense in the first Clinton administration. Since 1997, he's been president of the Middle East Policy Council, a lobbying group funded mostly by Saudi Arabia.

As director of the National Intelligence Council -- a post which does not require Senate confirmation -- Mr. Freeman would be the official most responsible for preparation of National Intelligence Estimates -- the classified documents that give the president and Congress the intelligence community's assessments of the medium- and long-term threats to the security of the country.

Mr. Freeman is a man of strong opinions. He thinks Hamas is a key to peace in the Middle East and Israel the chief barrier to it. He's been effusive in his praise of the Saudi king, whom he has described as "Abdullah the Great," and of a book by Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer on the "Israeli lobby," which has been denounced as riddled with factual errors and by some as anti-Semitic.

Mr. Freeman's fondness for tyrants goes beyond the Middle East. He supported the disabling of the "democracy movement" in Tiananmen Square in 1989. "The truly unforgivable mistake by the Chinese authorities was the failure to intervene on a timely basis to nip the demonstrations in the bud," Mr. Freeman said in a 2006 e-mail uncovered by the Weekly Standard.

"Chas Freeman is actually a new psychological type for a Democratic administration," Mr. Peretz wrote Feb. 25. "He has never displayed a liberal instinct and wants the United States to kow-tow to authoritarians and tyrants, in some measure just because they may seem able to keep the streets quiet ... That Freeman would be chosen to be the president's gatekeeper to national intelligence is an absurdity."

Another who assured Jews that Mr. Obama is their friend is Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic magazine. "Obama and I spoke over the weekend," he wrote last May. "He seemed eager to talk about his ties to the Jewish community, and about the influence Jews have had on his life."

More troubling than Mr. Freeman's hostility towards Israel is "the obvious inappropriateness of hiring a well-known advocate for the interests of Middle Eastern autocracies to produce national intelligence estimates for the Obama administration," Mr. Goldberg wrote Feb. 23.

Mr. Peretz and Mr. Goldberg treat the Freeman nomination as if it were an aberration. But placed within the context of the Obama administration's flirtation with the idea of attending the Durban II "Zionism is racism" "human rights" conference and the administration's plan to provide $300 million in aid for Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas, the Freeman nomination may be a more accurate reflection of the president's innermost feelings than the assurances he gave to Mr. Peretz and Mr. Goldberg during the campaign.

Jack Kelly is a columnist for the Post-Gazette and The (Toledo) Blade (jkelly at post-gazette.com, 412 263-1476).
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Sun Mar  8 20:23:26 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Sun, 8 Mar 2009 19:23:26 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Mr. Obama's appointment of Charles Freeman
	to be director of the National Intelligence Council
In-Reply-To: <CF824B35281B4F6C8F113D9C77F9BBAB@D9X7C761>
References: <CF824B35281B4F6C8F113D9C77F9BBAB@D9X7C761>
Message-ID: <400985d70903081723j4a30bda6ocf20346eb2f80d62@mail.gmail.com>

Mike,

Freeman is real popular in my house -

-    "[T]he truly unforgivable mistake of the Chinese authorities was
the failure to intervene on    a timely basis to nip the
demonstrations in the bud, rather than -- as would have been both wise
and efficacious -- to intervene with force when all other measures had
failed to restore domestic tranquility to Beijing and other major
urban centers in China. In this optic, the Politburo's response to the
mob scene at 'Tian'anmen' stands as a monument to overly cautious
behavior on the part of the leadership, not as an example of rash
action". . . . Chas Freeman -

HopenChange brother!

Brad







On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 5:52 PM, Michael D. Weisner <mweisner at ebsmed.com> wrote:
> There seems to be no end to the problems with this new administration:
> http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09067/953727-373.stm
>
> Mike
>
>
> With friends like this ...
> Obama schmoozes Israel but will he be there when it counts?
> Sunday, March 08, 2009
> By Jack Kelly, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
>
> Few did more to reassure Jews it was "safe" to vote for Barack Obama than
> Martin Peretz, financier and editor-in-chief of The New Republic since 1974.
>
> "Can friends of Israel -- and Jews -- trust Obama?" he asked in an article
> in January of last year.
>
> His answer was yes. "Obama's points, which he has made many times, should
> reassure anyone who is concerned about what his presidency would mean for
> the security of Israel," Mr. Peretz wrote then.
>
> In May of last year, Mr. Peretz assured Jews concerned about the endorsement
> of Mr. Obama by Hamas leader Ahmed Yousef that "Obama's own personal history
> and his political convictions predisposed him towards Israel."
>
> Harvard professor Samantha Power has accused Israel of war crimes, and once
> recommended U.S. troops be sent to impose upon the Israelis a peace
> settlement by force. She's been appointed by President Obama to a senior
> foreign policy job at the White House. Mr. Peretz assured his readers in
> December that Ms. Power "truly, truly loves Israel and the people of
> Israel."
>
> But Mr. Obama's appointment of Charles "Chas" Freeman to be director of the
> National Intelligence Council is causing Mr. Peretz second thoughts.
>
> Mr. Freeman is a former diplomat who was ambassador to Saudi Arabia from
> 1989 to 1992. He also was an assistant secretary of defense in the first
> Clinton administration. Since 1997, he's been president of the Middle East
> Policy Council, a lobbying group funded mostly by Saudi Arabia.
>
> As director of the National Intelligence Council -- a post which does not
> require Senate confirmation -- Mr. Freeman would be the official most
> responsible for preparation of National Intelligence Estimates -- the
> classified documents that give the president and Congress the intelligence
> community's assessments of the medium- and long-term threats to the security
> of the country.
>
> Mr. Freeman is a man of strong opinions. He thinks Hamas is a key to peace
> in the Middle East and Israel the chief barrier to it. He's been effusive in
> his praise of the Saudi king, whom he has described as "Abdullah the Great,"
> and of a book by Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer on the "Israeli lobby,"
> which has been denounced as riddled with factual errors and by some as
> anti-Semitic.
>
> Mr. Freeman's fondness for tyrants goes beyond the Middle East. He supported
> the disabling of the "democracy movement" in Tiananmen Square in 1989. "The
> truly unforgivable mistake by the Chinese authorities was the failure to
> intervene on a timely basis to nip the demonstrations in the bud," Mr.
> Freeman said in a 2006 e-mail uncovered by the Weekly Standard.
>
> "Chas Freeman is actually a new psychological type for a Democratic
> administration," Mr. Peretz wrote Feb. 25. "He has never displayed a liberal
> instinct and wants the United States to kow-tow to authoritarians and
> tyrants, in some measure just because they may seem able to keep the streets
> quiet ... That Freeman would be chosen to be the president's gatekeeper to
> national intelligence is an absurdity."
>
> Another who assured Jews that Mr. Obama is their friend is Jeffrey Goldberg
> of the Atlantic magazine. "Obama and I spoke over the weekend," he wrote
> last May. "He seemed eager to talk about his ties to the Jewish community,
> and about the influence Jews have had on his life."
>
> More troubling than Mr. Freeman's hostility towards Israel is "the obvious
> inappropriateness of hiring a well-known advocate for the interests of
> Middle Eastern autocracies to produce national intelligence estimates for
> the Obama administration," Mr. Goldberg wrote Feb. 23.
>
> Mr. Peretz and Mr. Goldberg treat the Freeman nomination as if it were an
> aberration. But placed within the context of the Obama administration's
> flirtation with the idea of attending the Durban II "Zionism is racism"
> "human rights" conference and the administration's plan to provide $300
> million in aid for Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas, the Freeman
> nomination may be a more accurate reflection of the president's innermost
> feelings than the assurances he gave to Mr. Peretz and Mr. Goldberg during
> the campaign.
>
> Jack Kelly is a columnist for the Post-Gazette and The (Toledo) Blade
> (jkelly at post-gazette.com, 412 263-1476).
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>

From flybrad at gmail.com  Sun Mar  8 20:35:36 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Sun, 8 Mar 2009 19:35:36 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Loan Sharks
Message-ID: <400985d70903081735o6bd14920qf73a45c9185e4cf8@mail.gmail.com>

Got my weekend briefing this morning from China.  I'd tell you my
sources are but I'd have to kill you.  The Chinese are having their
semi-annual kahuna meeting this week.  Word on the street is they've
been reading Will Rogers - "don't worry about the return on your
investment, worry about the return of your investment".  They want a
plan that explains how we're going to pay back what we already owe.
Who we gonna borrow from next?  Kenya?

The story will be out in the Asian press in a few days and I'll send
you a link.  The NYT's will have the story in, oh, you can Google it
in a few years under "bankruptcy".

Have a nice day!

Brad

From mweisner at ebsmed.com  Sun Mar  8 20:27:45 2009
From: mweisner at ebsmed.com (Michael D. Weisner)
Date: Sun, 8 Mar 2009 20:27:45 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Mr. Obama's appointment of Charles
	Freemanto be director of the National Intelligence Council
References: <CF824B35281B4F6C8F113D9C77F9BBAB@D9X7C761>
	<400985d70903081723j4a30bda6ocf20346eb2f80d62@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <AFC74101EF24464A8A65FAA8742369F3@D9X7C761>

Brad,

It seems that we all have heard his name too many times before.  I just 
wasn't aware that he was joining the "boyz" in the "Have it their way" 
world.

Mike

From: "Brad Haslett" <flybrad at gmail.com> Sunday, March 08, 2009 8:23 PM
> Mike,
>
> Freeman is real popular in my house -
>
> -    "[T]he truly unforgivable mistake of the Chinese authorities was
> the failure to intervene on    a timely basis to nip the
> demonstrations in the bud, rather than -- as would have been both wise
> and efficacious -- to intervene with force when all other measures had
> failed to restore domestic tranquility to Beijing and other major
> urban centers in China. In this optic, the Politburo's response to the
> mob scene at 'Tian'anmen' stands as a monument to overly cautious
> behavior on the part of the leadership, not as an example of rash
> action". . . . Chas Freeman -
>
> HopenChange brother!
>
> Brad
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 5:52 PM, Michael D. Weisner <mweisner at ebsmed.com> 
> wrote:
>> There seems to be no end to the problems with this new administration:
>> http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09067/953727-373.stm
>>
>> Mike
>>
>>
>> With friends like this ...
>> Obama schmoozes Israel but will he be there when it counts?
>> Sunday, March 08, 2009
>> By Jack Kelly, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
>>
>> Few did more to reassure Jews it was "safe" to vote for Barack Obama than
>> Martin Peretz, financier and editor-in-chief of The New Republic since 
>> 1974.
>>
>> "Can friends of Israel -- and Jews -- trust Obama?" he asked in an 
>> article
>> in January of last year.
>>
>> His answer was yes. "Obama's points, which he has made many times, should
>> reassure anyone who is concerned about what his presidency would mean for
>> the security of Israel," Mr. Peretz wrote then.
>>
>> In May of last year, Mr. Peretz assured Jews concerned about the 
>> endorsement
>> of Mr. Obama by Hamas leader Ahmed Yousef that "Obama's own personal 
>> history
>> and his political convictions predisposed him towards Israel."
>>
>> Harvard professor Samantha Power has accused Israel of war crimes, and 
>> once
>> recommended U.S. troops be sent to impose upon the Israelis a peace
>> settlement by force. She's been appointed by President Obama to a senior
>> foreign policy job at the White House. Mr. Peretz assured his readers in
>> December that Ms. Power "truly, truly loves Israel and the people of
>> Israel."
>>
>> But Mr. Obama's appointment of Charles "Chas" Freeman to be director of 
>> the
>> National Intelligence Council is causing Mr. Peretz second thoughts.
>>
>> Mr. Freeman is a former diplomat who was ambassador to Saudi Arabia from
>> 1989 to 1992. He also was an assistant secretary of defense in the first
>> Clinton administration. Since 1997, he's been president of the Middle 
>> East
>> Policy Council, a lobbying group funded mostly by Saudi Arabia.
>>
>> As director of the National Intelligence Council -- a post which does not
>> require Senate confirmation -- Mr. Freeman would be the official most
>> responsible for preparation of National Intelligence Estimates -- the
>> classified documents that give the president and Congress the 
>> intelligence
>> community's assessments of the medium- and long-term threats to the 
>> security
>> of the country.
>>
>> Mr. Freeman is a man of strong opinions. He thinks Hamas is a key to 
>> peace
>> in the Middle East and Israel the chief barrier to it. He's been effusive 
>> in
>> his praise of the Saudi king, whom he has described as "Abdullah the 
>> Great,"
>> and of a book by Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer on the "Israeli 
>> lobby,"
>> which has been denounced as riddled with factual errors and by some as
>> anti-Semitic.
>>
>> Mr. Freeman's fondness for tyrants goes beyond the Middle East. He 
>> supported
>> the disabling of the "democracy movement" in Tiananmen Square in 1989. 
>> "The
>> truly unforgivable mistake by the Chinese authorities was the failure to
>> intervene on a timely basis to nip the demonstrations in the bud," Mr.
>> Freeman said in a 2006 e-mail uncovered by the Weekly Standard.
>>
>> "Chas Freeman is actually a new psychological type for a Democratic
>> administration," Mr. Peretz wrote Feb. 25. "He has never displayed a 
>> liberal
>> instinct and wants the United States to kow-tow to authoritarians and
>> tyrants, in some measure just because they may seem able to keep the 
>> streets
>> quiet ... That Freeman would be chosen to be the president's gatekeeper 
>> to
>> national intelligence is an absurdity."
>>
>> Another who assured Jews that Mr. Obama is their friend is Jeffrey 
>> Goldberg
>> of the Atlantic magazine. "Obama and I spoke over the weekend," he wrote
>> last May. "He seemed eager to talk about his ties to the Jewish 
>> community,
>> and about the influence Jews have had on his life."
>>
>> More troubling than Mr. Freeman's hostility towards Israel is "the 
>> obvious
>> inappropriateness of hiring a well-known advocate for the interests of
>> Middle Eastern autocracies to produce national intelligence estimates for
>> the Obama administration," Mr. Goldberg wrote Feb. 23.
>>
>> Mr. Peretz and Mr. Goldberg treat the Freeman nomination as if it were an
>> aberration. But placed within the context of the Obama administration's
>> flirtation with the idea of attending the Durban II "Zionism is racism"
>> "human rights" conference and the administration's plan to provide $300
>> million in aid for Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas, the Freeman
>> nomination may be a more accurate reflection of the president's innermost
>> feelings than the assurances he gave to Mr. Peretz and Mr. Goldberg 
>> during
>> the campaign.
>>
>> Jack Kelly is a columnist for the Post-Gazette and The (Toledo) Blade
>> (jkelly at post-gazette.com, 412 263-1476).
>> _______________________________________________
>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> 


From flybrad at gmail.com  Sun Mar  8 21:04:19 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Sun, 8 Mar 2009 20:04:19 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Mr. Obama's appointment of Charles Freeman
	to be director of the National Intelligence Council
In-Reply-To: <CF824B35281B4F6C8F113D9C77F9BBAB@D9X7C761>
References: <CF824B35281B4F6C8F113D9C77F9BBAB@D9X7C761>
Message-ID: <400985d70903081804n18437cffs939553756349f78a@mail.gmail.com>

Mike,

Here's something to occupy your time for days.  "Google" Khalid
Abdullah Tariq al-Mansour.

I've attached one small blurb. I can name 10 more associates just as
interesting, so can Bill E.  Fasten your seatbelt.  Remember Valerie
Jarret?  She was supposed to be the Senator from Illinois instead of
Burris before Blago got busted. Care to guess where she was born?  If
you guessed Iran you win the prize.  This Bammy guy sure knows a lot
of Middle Easterners for a guy from Hawaii.

Brad

----------------


Khalid Abdullah Tariq al-Mansour is a Muslim lawyer and a black
nationalist who made news in 2008 when it was revealed that he had
been a patron of Barack Obama and had recommended the latter for
admission to Harvard Law School in 1988.

Before becoming a Muslim, al-Mansour in the 1960s was named Don
Warden. He was deeply involved in San Francisco Bay Area racial
politics as founder of a group called the African American
Association. A close personal adviser to Huey Newton and Bobby Seale,
al-Mansour helped the pair establish the Black Panther Party but later
broke with them when they entered coalitions with white radical
groups.

In the mid-1970s al-Mansour met Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Tatal, who
today is best known for having offered a $10 million donation toward
9/11 relief efforts in 2001 -- an offer that was rejected by New York
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani when the prince suggested that the terrorist
attacks were an indication that America ?should re-examine its
policies in the Middle East and adopt a more balanced stand toward the
Palestinian cause.? Al-Mansour?s relationship with the prince
eventually led to al-Mansour?s hiring as attorney to King Saud. He has
since been an adviser to Saudi billionaires who fund the spread of
Wahhabi extremism in America.

Al-Mansour is an outspoken hater of the United States, Israel, and
white people generally. In recent years he has accused the U.S. of
plotting a ?genocide? designed ?to remove 15 million black people,
considered disposable, of no relevance, value or benefit to the
American society.? He has told fellow blacks that ?whatever you do to
[white people], they deserve it, God wants you to do it and that?s
when you cut out the nose, cut out the ears, take flesh out of their
body, don?t worry because God wants you to do it.? Alleging further
that Palestinians in Israel ?are being brutalized like savages,? he
accuses the Jews of ?stealing the land the same way the Christians
stole the land from the Indians in America.?

On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 5:52 PM, Michael D. Weisner <mweisner at ebsmed.com> wrote:
> There seems to be no end to the problems with this new administration:
> http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09067/953727-373.stm
>
> Mike
>
>
> With friends like this ...
> Obama schmoozes Israel but will he be there when it counts?
> Sunday, March 08, 2009
> By Jack Kelly, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
>
> Few did more to reassure Jews it was "safe" to vote for Barack Obama than
> Martin Peretz, financier and editor-in-chief of The New Republic since 1974.
>
> "Can friends of Israel -- and Jews -- trust Obama?" he asked in an article
> in January of last year.
>
> His answer was yes. "Obama's points, which he has made many times, should
> reassure anyone who is concerned about what his presidency would mean for
> the security of Israel," Mr. Peretz wrote then.
>
> In May of last year, Mr. Peretz assured Jews concerned about the endorsement
> of Mr. Obama by Hamas leader Ahmed Yousef that "Obama's own personal history
> and his political convictions predisposed him towards Israel."
>
> Harvard professor Samantha Power has accused Israel of war crimes, and once
> recommended U.S. troops be sent to impose upon the Israelis a peace
> settlement by force. She's been appointed by President Obama to a senior
> foreign policy job at the White House. Mr. Peretz assured his readers in
> December that Ms. Power "truly, truly loves Israel and the people of
> Israel."
>
> But Mr. Obama's appointment of Charles "Chas" Freeman to be director of the
> National Intelligence Council is causing Mr. Peretz second thoughts.
>
> Mr. Freeman is a former diplomat who was ambassador to Saudi Arabia from
> 1989 to 1992. He also was an assistant secretary of defense in the first
> Clinton administration. Since 1997, he's been president of the Middle East
> Policy Council, a lobbying group funded mostly by Saudi Arabia.
>
> As director of the National Intelligence Council -- a post which does not
> require Senate confirmation -- Mr. Freeman would be the official most
> responsible for preparation of National Intelligence Estimates -- the
> classified documents that give the president and Congress the intelligence
> community's assessments of the medium- and long-term threats to the security
> of the country.
>
> Mr. Freeman is a man of strong opinions. He thinks Hamas is a key to peace
> in the Middle East and Israel the chief barrier to it. He's been effusive in
> his praise of the Saudi king, whom he has described as "Abdullah the Great,"
> and of a book by Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer on the "Israeli lobby,"
> which has been denounced as riddled with factual errors and by some as
> anti-Semitic.
>
> Mr. Freeman's fondness for tyrants goes beyond the Middle East. He supported
> the disabling of the "democracy movement" in Tiananmen Square in 1989. "The
> truly unforgivable mistake by the Chinese authorities was the failure to
> intervene on a timely basis to nip the demonstrations in the bud," Mr.
> Freeman said in a 2006 e-mail uncovered by the Weekly Standard.
>
> "Chas Freeman is actually a new psychological type for a Democratic
> administration," Mr. Peretz wrote Feb. 25. "He has never displayed a liberal
> instinct and wants the United States to kow-tow to authoritarians and
> tyrants, in some measure just because they may seem able to keep the streets
> quiet ... That Freeman would be chosen to be the president's gatekeeper to
> national intelligence is an absurdity."
>
> Another who assured Jews that Mr. Obama is their friend is Jeffrey Goldberg
> of the Atlantic magazine. "Obama and I spoke over the weekend," he wrote
> last May. "He seemed eager to talk about his ties to the Jewish community,
> and about the influence Jews have had on his life."
>
> More troubling than Mr. Freeman's hostility towards Israel is "the obvious
> inappropriateness of hiring a well-known advocate for the interests of
> Middle Eastern autocracies to produce national intelligence estimates for
> the Obama administration," Mr. Goldberg wrote Feb. 23.
>
> Mr. Peretz and Mr. Goldberg treat the Freeman nomination as if it were an
> aberration. But placed within the context of the Obama administration's
> flirtation with the idea of attending the Durban II "Zionism is racism"
> "human rights" conference and the administration's plan to provide $300
> million in aid for Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas, the Freeman
> nomination may be a more accurate reflection of the president's innermost
> feelings than the assurances he gave to Mr. Peretz and Mr. Goldberg during
> the campaign.
>
> Jack Kelly is a columnist for the Post-Gazette and The (Toledo) Blade
> (jkelly at post-gazette.com, 412 263-1476).
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>


From flybrad at gmail.com  Sun Mar  8 22:24:22 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Sun, 8 Mar 2009 21:24:22 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Obama Makes Good On Iraq Campaign Promise!
In-Reply-To: <400985d70903081539p626ceeeamc16d058afb8fe175@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70903081500y170da1ecl155efff92fc977c4@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70903081539p626ceeeamc16d058afb8fe175@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70903081924n1fb5e840ifc5447649e769da8@mail.gmail.com>

Update (and then I'm going to bed - you run the world)

First, lest you think I find nothing positive about Chocolate Baby
Jesus (CBJ), here's what he's said he was going to accomplish in the
first 50 days and has.

1 - End farm subsidies

2 - Extend tax credits for homeowner energy improvements (I'm
upgrading to a SEER 16 A/C system and getting a $1500 tax rebate.

3 - Normalizing relations with Cuba

4 - He's talking to the Taliban  (Items 3 & 4 drive the 'hard right'
nuts but it is good policy)

There's some more but they it can wait.  CBJ (Obama) is not to blame
for being manipulative (he is) as much as the MSM is for providing
cover.  While we're on the subject of troop deployments, read this
update - http://www.mudvillegazette.com/031579.html

The brief summary is that CBJ  said he was diverting a unit destined
for Iraq to Afghanistan .  That much is true. The "rest of the story"
(RIP Paul Harvey) is the unit being diverted studied Arabic for 11
months in preparation for their service in Iraq.  THEY ARE BEING
REPLACED IN IRAQ WITH ANOTHER UNIT.  So what's the net effect?
Nothing - it's all smoke and mirrors and the MSM is participating with
the illusion either through incompetence or collusion.  These units
all talk to each other and the truth eventually gets out - to those
who pay attention.

>From the beginning of the Iraq war, Michael Yon has been the most
reliable source. When he said we were losing in Iraq we were losing,
and when he said we were winning, we were winning (the MSM was
clueless the whole time).  He's in Afghanistan now and here is his
site at http://www.michaelyon-online.com/ (I'll post the latest at the
end). He agrees with the Taliban policy but read what he has to say
about torture.

Bottom line here folks, you don't know Jack by reading the MSM.  They
have an agenda.

Brad

-------------------

09 March 2009

President Obama talks straight on Afghanistan.  We are not winning.
This bit of truth has been reported clearly on this website since
early 2006.  In fact, not only are we not winning, we are losing.
Pakistan is a far bigger and more important problem than Afghanistan.
On the global scale, Afghanistan is tantamount irrelevant so long as
we can deny sanctuary to people who will use that land as a base to
attack us.

General Petraeus and others believe that reaching out to moderate
elements is important.  Part of the strategy not described in the
transcript below is to negotiate from a position of strength, which
means much aggressive fighting ahead this year.  At the moment, the
Taliban and associated groups realize that their negotiating positions
? those who might care to negotiate ? are improving month by month.
We must kill a lot of these guys to help the more moderate enemies
realize there is incentive to negotiate.  This course carries great
risk of alienating more Afghans, especially as more U.S. troops clog
the roads and inevitable mistakes occur.  We need more people, but
more people on the ground are almost guaranteed to also alienate more
Afghans.  Our shelf life in Afghanistan is limited by numerous
factors.  We must make a significant turnaround, in my estimate, by no
later than late 2010.  There are tough times ahead, and no guarantees.

President Obama also mentions renditions and torture.  (I am working
on a couple of dispatches on torture.)  Some enemies should never be
released.  We should keep them until they die, but care should be
taken to make sure we have the right people.  In past years, we have
sometimes released the wrong people.  After release they have returned
to the battlefields and killed people.

Please read this transcript.

Transcript
Reassurance on the Economy, and Addressing Afghanistan

And please make sure that President Obama realizes that we are paying
attention.  If his administration releases prisoners who attack or
kill U.S. citizens, the responsibility will be on his shoulders.

If you have not read my dispatch ?Gates of Fire? about a released
prisoner shooting a U.S. soldier, please do.

On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 5:39 PM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
> Sorry, ?meant to include this chart -
>
> http://tinyurl.com/d59ku5
>
> This is the same chart presented to Congress in 2007. ?Congratulations
> to the good General for meeting his objectives.
>
> Brad
>
> On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 5:00 PM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
>> We're pulling out of Iraq. ?That is good news!
>>
>>
>> Here's the story according to the AP -
>>
>> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090308/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iraq
>>
>> Here's the story according to the NYT's -
>>
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/washington/13military.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin
>>
>> (I'll print the NYT article in case the link doesn't work)
>>
>> Forgive me if I got my Presidents and time line mixed-up. ?So far,
>> everything is going almost exactly according to the schedule that
>> General Petraeus gave the Congress in 2007. PS - Please don't tell the
>> MSM what I just told you. It might make The One (tm) look like he is
>> just following instead of leading.
>>
>> Brad
>>
>> --------------
>>
>> July 13, 2008
>> U.S. Considers Increasing Pace of Iraq Pullout
>> By STEVEN LEE MYERS
>>
>> WASHINGTON ? The Bush administration is considering the withdrawal of
>> additional combat forces from Iraq beginning in September, according
>> to administration and military officials, raising the prospect of a
>> far more ambitious plan than expected only months ago.
>>
>> Such a withdrawal would be a striking reversal from the nadir of the
>> war in 2006 and 2007.
>>
>> One factor in the consideration is the pressing need for additional
>> American troops in Afghanistan, where the Taliban and other fighters
>> have intensified their insurgency and inflicted a growing number of
>> casualties on Afghans and American-led forces there.
>>
>> More American and allied troops died in Afghanistan than in Iraq in
>> May and June, a trend that has continued this month.
>>
>> Although no decision has been made, by the time President Bush leaves
>> office on Jan. 20, at least one and as many as 3 of the 15 combat
>> brigades now in Iraq could be withdrawn or at least scheduled for
>> withdrawal, the officials said.
>>
>> The desire to move more quickly reflects the view of many in the
>> Pentagon who want to ease the strain on the military but also to free
>> more troops for Afghanistan and potentially other missions.
>>
>> The most optimistic course of events would still leave 120,000 to
>> 130,000 American troops in Iraq, down from the peak of 170,000 late
>> last year after Mr. Bush ordered what became known as the ?surge? of
>> additional forces. Any troop reductions announced in the heat of the
>> presidential election could blur the sharp differences between the
>> candidates, Senators John McCain and Barack Obama, over how long to
>> stay in Iraq. But the political benefit might go more to Mr. McCain
>> than Mr. Obama. Mr. McCain is an avid supporter of the current
>> strategy in Iraq. Any reduction would indicate that that strategy has
>> worked and could defuse antiwar sentiment among voters.
>>
>> Even as the two candidates argue over the wisdom of the war and
>> keeping American troops there, security in Iraq has improved vastly,
>> as has the confidence of Iraq?s government and military and police,
>> raising the prospect of additional reductions that were barely
>> conceivable a year ago. While officials caution that the relative calm
>> is fragile, violence and attacks on American-led forces have dropped
>> to the lowest levels since early 2004.
>>
>> ?As the Iraqi security forces get stronger and get better, then we
>> will be able to continue drawing down our troops in the future,?
>> Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates said in Fort Lewis, Wash., on
>> Tuesday. ?And I think that this transition of control and of
>> responsibility, primary responsibility for security is a process
>> that?s already well under way and based on everything that I?m hearing
>> will be able to continue.?
>>
>> Gen. David H. Petraeus, the American commander in Iraq, has already
>> begun the review of security and troop levels. He and Mr. Bush
>> promised in April that such a review would take place. General
>> Petraeus is expected to be more cautious than some policy makers in
>> the administration and at the Pentagon might like. The officials,
>> speaking on condition of anonymity because they were discussing
>> military planning, said he was more likely to recommend a smaller
>> reduction, but still a withdrawal.
>>
>> One senior administration official cautioned that the president, who
>> will have the final say, would be reluctant to endorse deep or rapid
>> reductions if they jeopardized his goal of establishing a stable and
>> democratic government in Baghdad.
>>
>> Still, there is broad consensus in Washington and Baghdad that more
>> American forces can now leave Iraq and that more are needed in
>> Afghanistan.
>>
>> ?There hasn?t really been any discussion of numbers, and it?s
>> definitely based on conditions on the ground,? a military officer in
>> Baghdad said. And conditions, he went on, ?are a lot more favorable
>> than in December or April or even two months ago.?
>>
>> General Petraeus, who will step down as commander in Iraq in
>> September, will soon take over as the commander of the United States
>> Central Command. In that position, he will oversee American forces and
>> operations throughout the Middle East and Central and South Asia,
>> including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Senate confirmed him
>> and his replacement as commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno,
>> to their new positions on Thursday.
>>
>> The Pentagon has previously signaled that commanders wanted additional
>> troops in Afghanistan ? as many as 10,000 more than the roughly 32,000
>> there now ? but with two wars seriously straining the Army and Marines
>> in particular, officials have struggled to produce the extra forces.
>>
>> A reduction of combat brigades in Iraq would free additional troops
>> that could instead be sent to Afghanistan, though officials said that
>> no additional forces would go until next year, when fighting is
>> expected to intensify with the arrival of spring.
>>
>> Mr. Gates has already extended the deployment of a force of 3,200
>> marines in southern Afghanistan by one month, essentially until winter
>> arrives and closes many of the country?s mountain passes and remote
>> villages.
>>
>> The Pentagon also announced the redeployment of the aircraft carrier
>> Abraham Lincoln and its support ships from the Persian Gulf to the
>> Arabian Sea to provide what one official described as greater air
>> power and surveillance for the mission in Afghanistan until next
>> spring.
>>
>> ?We have clearly seen an increase in violence in Afghanistan,? Mr.
>> Gates said at Fort Lewis, discussing the carrier?s redeployment. ?At
>> the same time, we?ve seen a reduction in violence and casualties in
>> Iraq. And I think it?s just part of our commitment to ensure that we
>> have the resources available to be successful in Afghanistan over the
>> long haul.?
>>
>> Last year Mr. Bush accepted General Petraeus?s recommendation to
>> gradually withdraw the five extra combat brigades that he had ordered
>> to Iraq. The last of those, Second Brigade, Third Infantry Division,
>> is completing its withdrawal this month, bringing the number of combat
>> brigades to 15 and the overall troop levels to about 140,000.
>>
>> If the withdrawals continued at the same pace, roughly one every 45
>> days, three more brigades could leave Iraq by the end of Mr. Bush?s
>> presidency.
>>
>> In April, Mr. Bush approved the general?s plan to ?pause? the
>> withdrawals for 45 days, basically until mid-September, while
>> reviewing the effect of having fewer American troops in the country.
>> The Bush administration has been wrongly optimistic before about the
>> future of the war in Iraq. But with major military operations in
>> Basra, Baghdad?s Sadr City neighborhood, and Mosul, violence has
>> continued to drop, and Iraqi forces have increased their share of the
>> fighting.
>>
>> The White House declined to discuss the withdrawals now under
>> consideration, but a spokesman, Gordon D. Johndroe, cautioned that
>> while the president hoped to bring more troops home, he would await
>> General Petraeus?s recommendation in September.
>>
>> ?For now,? he said, ?we will continue discussions with the Iraqis on
>> our shared goals of a reduced U.S. troop presence.?
>>
>> Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.
>>
>


From flybrad at gmail.com  Mon Mar  9 12:28:37 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Mon, 9 Mar 2009 11:28:37 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Stem Cell Research
Message-ID: <400985d70903090928o684b04efr8b94bb022978468e@mail.gmail.com>

So the tide has turned -

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090309/ap_on_go_pr_wh/obama_stem_cells

Or not!  Where the hell is W these days?  Dallas?  Crawford?  Who the
hell cares, he's the Ex-President.  Do a Google search on the 'Dickey
Amendment'.  Dicky was a right-wing, Republican, bible-thumping
Congress Critter from Beryl Anthony's old district in South Arkansas
(probably handled snakes, truth be known) who slipped in a rider to a
bill signed by President Clinton in 1995  limiting stem cell research.
 Bush 43 enhanced those restrictions, saying at the time (and I'm
loosely paraphrasing here) "I hope this is the right choice". In
reality, research continued on the stem cell lines that Clinton and
Bush left alone and was never impeded in other countries on any line
of stem cells.  What Clinton and Bush did was stop the spending of
YOUR dollars on things other people found morally reprehensible to
them, right or wrong.  Now, President Obama is the ultimate arbitrator
of (w)right and wrong.  Let's hope he didn't learn that from sitting
in the Good Rev. Wright's pew after 20 years, but hey, who's to say
Wright is wrong about anything? Jews, White Boyz, Chickens? What is
the (w)right answer?  I don't have a clue.  But don't read what you
read in the press at face value.  They have an agenda.

Brad

From tootle at charter.net  Mon Mar  9 20:04:23 2009
From: tootle at charter.net (tootle)
Date: Mon, 9 Mar 2009 20:04:23 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Tax Toons
Message-ID: <F57A7AF0413548E3806E7DFE51206418@YOURB88038198E>



 

 



















































 

 



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From flybrad at gmail.com  Tue Mar 10 07:56:46 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 06:56:46 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Econ101 - The Other Shoe
Message-ID: <400985d70903100456q41362fc5o76950e65c7e2445@mail.gmail.com>

You may recall, I predicted several weeks ago that if things didn't
turn around, every retired municipal employee was at risk.  This
hardly took any insight, the evidence that several states were
technically insolvent was everywhere.

http://www.chrismartenson.com/blog/looming-pension-disaster/14565

Warren Buffet is not one to panic, but even he's had enough of Dear
Leader, and Buffet was an early supporter (the highlights on his
interview are posted at the bottom). video here -

http://www.cnbc.com/id/29595047/

This ain't rocket science.  If you want capital to flow back into the
markets, eliminate the capital gains tax for a period and watch what
happens.  Timmy, I know doing your taxes is tough even with Turbo-Tax,
but hey, don't you have degrees in Asian Studies and International
Economics?  You speak Chinese, correct?  How bout you get your ass on
a jet to Beijing and ask the Chinese how they put their banking system
back together when they were in deep shit about a ten years ago?  Or,
ask the Japanese what they did wrong during the Lost Decade. Why all
this re-inventing the wheel crap?

What is happening here is becoming painfully obvious.  We have a
Marxist as the POTUS. That, or he's clueless - and I don't think he's
clueless.  Card Check is going to be discussed in the Senate next
week.  If that passes you'll really see the markets tank.  Enjoy the
show, comrades!

Brad

-------------

    BUFFETT: ...And, Joe, it--if you're in a war, and we really are on
an economic war, there's a obligation to the majority to behave in
ways that don't go around inflaming the minority. If on December 8th
when--maybe it's December 7th, when Roosevelt convened Congress to
have a vote on the war, he didn't say, `I'm throwing in about 10 of my
pet projects ... [snip] ...

    JOE: Yeah, but you might--might not have fixed...

    BUFFETT: But I say...

    JOE: You might not--you might not have fixed global warming the
day after--the day after D-Day, Warren.

    BUFFETT: Absolutely. And I think that the--I think that the
Republicans have an obligation to regard this as an economic war and
to realize you need one leader and, in general, support of that. But I
think that the--I think that the Democrats--and I voted for Obama and
I strongly support him, and I think he's the right guy--but I think
they should not use this--when they're calling for unity on a question
this important, they should not use it to roll the Republicans all.

    JOE: Hm.

    BUFFETT: I think--I think a lot of things should be--job one is to
win the war, job--the economic war, job two is to win the economic
war, and job three. And you can't expect people to unite behind you if
you're trying to jam a whole bunch of things down their throat. So I
would--I would absolutely say for the--for the interim, till we get
this one solved, I would not be pushing a lot of things that are--you
know are contentious, and I also--I also would do no finger-pointing
whatsoever. I would--you know, I would not say, you know,
`George'--`the previous administration got us into this.' Forget it. I
mean, you know, the Navy made a mistake at Pearl Harbor and had too
many ships there. But the idea that we'd spend our time after that,
you know, pointing fingers at the Navy, we needed the Navy. So I
would--I would--I would--no finger-pointing, no vengeance, none of
that stuff. Just look forward. ..[snip] ...

    BUFFETT: Well, I was going to mention to Joe that you've heard
this comment recently from some Democrats recently that a `crisis is a
terrible thing to waste.'

    BECKY: Yeah.

    BUFFETT: Now, just rephrase that and since it's, in my view, it's
an economic war, and--I don't think anybody on December 7th would have
said a `war is a terrible thing to waste, and therefore we're going to
try and ram through a whole bunch of things and--but we expect
to--expect the other party to unite behind us on the--on the big
problem.' It's just a mistake, I think, when you've got one overriding
objective, to try and muddle it up with a bunch of other things.

P.S.: He's against "card check." ("I think the secret ballot's pretty
important in the country.") ... 7:19 P.M.

From bill at effros.com  Tue Mar 10 08:12:29 2009
From: bill at effros.com (Bill Effros)
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 08:12:29 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Econ101 - The Other Shoe
In-Reply-To: <400985d70903100456q41362fc5o76950e65c7e2445@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70903100456q41362fc5o76950e65c7e2445@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49B6592D.2050004@effros.com>

Brad,

He's clueless--2 in a row--unbelievable.

B.



Brad Haslett wrote:
> You may recall, I predicted several weeks ago that if things didn't
> turn around, every retired municipal employee was at risk.  This
> hardly took any insight, the evidence that several states were
> technically insolvent was everywhere.
>
> http://www.chrismartenson.com/blog/looming-pension-disaster/14565
>
> Warren Buffet is not one to panic, but even he's had enough of Dear
> Leader, and Buffet was an early supporter (the highlights on his
> interview are posted at the bottom). video here -
>
> http://www.cnbc.com/id/29595047/
>
> This ain't rocket science.  If you want capital to flow back into the
> markets, eliminate the capital gains tax for a period and watch what
> happens.  Timmy, I know doing your taxes is tough even with Turbo-Tax,
> but hey, don't you have degrees in Asian Studies and International
> Economics?  You speak Chinese, correct?  How bout you get your ass on
> a jet to Beijing and ask the Chinese how they put their banking system
> back together when they were in deep shit about a ten years ago?  Or,
> ask the Japanese what they did wrong during the Lost Decade. Why all
> this re-inventing the wheel crap?
>
> What is happening here is becoming painfully obvious.  We have a
> Marxist as the POTUS. That, or he's clueless - and I don't think he's
> clueless.  Card Check is going to be discussed in the Senate next
> week.  If that passes you'll really see the markets tank.  Enjoy the
> show, comrades!
>
> Brad
>
> -------------
>
>     BUFFETT: ...And, Joe, it--if you're in a war, and we really are on
> an economic war, there's a obligation to the majority to behave in
> ways that don't go around inflaming the minority. If on December 8th
> when--maybe it's December 7th, when Roosevelt convened Congress to
> have a vote on the war, he didn't say, `I'm throwing in about 10 of my
> pet projects ... [snip] ...
>
>     JOE: Yeah, but you might--might not have fixed...
>
>     BUFFETT: But I say...
>
>     JOE: You might not--you might not have fixed global warming the
> day after--the day after D-Day, Warren.
>
>     BUFFETT: Absolutely. And I think that the--I think that the
> Republicans have an obligation to regard this as an economic war and
> to realize you need one leader and, in general, support of that. But I
> think that the--I think that the Democrats--and I voted for Obama and
> I strongly support him, and I think he's the right guy--but I think
> they should not use this--when they're calling for unity on a question
> this important, they should not use it to roll the Republicans all.
>
>     JOE: Hm.
>
>     BUFFETT: I think--I think a lot of things should be--job one is to
> win the war, job--the economic war, job two is to win the economic
> war, and job three. And you can't expect people to unite behind you if
> you're trying to jam a whole bunch of things down their throat. So I
> would--I would absolutely say for the--for the interim, till we get
> this one solved, I would not be pushing a lot of things that are--you
> know are contentious, and I also--I also would do no finger-pointing
> whatsoever. I would--you know, I would not say, you know,
> `George'--`the previous administration got us into this.' Forget it. I
> mean, you know, the Navy made a mistake at Pearl Harbor and had too
> many ships there. But the idea that we'd spend our time after that,
> you know, pointing fingers at the Navy, we needed the Navy. So I
> would--I would--I would--no finger-pointing, no vengeance, none of
> that stuff. Just look forward. ..[snip] ...
>
>     BUFFETT: Well, I was going to mention to Joe that you've heard
> this comment recently from some Democrats recently that a `crisis is a
> terrible thing to waste.'
>
>     BECKY: Yeah.
>
>     BUFFETT: Now, just rephrase that and since it's, in my view, it's
> an economic war, and--I don't think anybody on December 7th would have
> said a `war is a terrible thing to waste, and therefore we're going to
> try and ram through a whole bunch of things and--but we expect
> to--expect the other party to unite behind us on the--on the big
> problem.' It's just a mistake, I think, when you've got one overriding
> objective, to try and muddle it up with a bunch of other things.
>
> P.S.: He's against "card check." ("I think the secret ballot's pretty
> important in the country.") ... 7:19 P.M.
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>   

From flybrad at gmail.com  Tue Mar 10 08:35:47 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 07:35:47 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Econ101 - The Other Shoe
In-Reply-To: <49B6592D.2050004@effros.com>
References: <400985d70903100456q41362fc5o76950e65c7e2445@mail.gmail.com>
	<49B6592D.2050004@effros.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70903100535v12236fcax4c0e11683e0a8af3@mail.gmail.com>

Bill,

Did you read Buchanan's latest analysis? (below)  I watched Evan Byah
give an interview last night, he's already breaking ranks.  I wouldn't
be surprised to see him run in 2012 and I hope he does.  The Blue Dogs
are all facing re-election in less than 20 months and they're starting
to get more vocal. The GOP is completely rudderless but at least most
everyone is staying on the boat. Eric Cantor is doing a great job in
his minority role. Someone has to put a stop to Maobama and get him
focused, if that's possible.  He's been successful at getting 28 out
of 44  appointments past the Senate and there's only 700+ more to go.
Something tells me we're not going to get the "best and the brightest"
because sane and rational people won't want to be associated with this
shipwreck.

Brad

------------------

March 10, 2009
Lyndon Baines Obama
By Patrick Buchanan

It was the winter of conservative discontent.

Barry Goldwater had gotten only 38 percent of the vote, and his party
had suffered its worst thrashing since Alf Landon fell to FDR in 1936.

Democrats held 295 House seats, Republicans 140. They held 68 Senate
seats to Republicans' 32, and 33 governors to the GOP's 17.

Democratic registration was twice that of the GOP. The liberal press
was gleefully writing the obituary of "The Party That Lost Its Head."

Decades might pass, it was said, before the GOP recovered from its
fatal embrace of right-wing radicalism and foolish rejection of the
leadership of Govs. Nelson Rockefeller and William Scranton.

Wrote Robert Donovan in the opening lines of his book, "The Future of
the Republican Party":

"The devastating defeat of Barry Goldwater at the hands of voters in
all sections of the country but the Deep South has damaged, weakened
and tarnished the party. For years to come ... the two-party system
will be crippled."

Donovan and all the rest were wrong. The GOP came roaring back in 1966
to capture 47 House seats and eight new governorships. In 1968, Nixon
led the party out of the wilderness and into a White House it would
hold for 20 of the next 24 years.

Full of hubris in 1965, Lyndon Johnson had seized his moment. He had
launched a Great Society that would outdo his beloved patron FDR. He
would dispatch 500,000 troops to Vietnam to "bring the coonskin home
on the wall" and create a "Great Society on the Mekong." Those were
heady days of "guns-and-butter."

By 1968, LBJ's coalition was shredded. Gov. George Wallace had torn
away the populist right. Sens. Gene McCarthy, George McGovern and
Robert Kennedy had rallied the antiwar left against him. LBJ and
Hubert Humphrey were left to preside over a shrinking center.

Why did LBJ fail? He overloaded the circuits. He tried to do it all.
He misread a national desire for continuity after Kennedy's death as a
mandate for a lunge to the left and a great leap forward with the
largest expansion of government since the New Deal.

By 1968, racial riots had torn apart almost every great city.
The most prestigious campuses had been rocked by student violence.
Thousands of antiwar demonstrators had taken to the streets. And 100
to 200 body bags were coming home from Vietnam every week.

By the winter of 1968, Lyndon Johnson was a broken president.

History never repeats itself exactly. But Barack Obama is making the
same mistakes today that LBJ made in 1965.

He has ordered 17,000 more U.S. troops into Afghanistan, as the
situation deteriorates and the NATO allies pull out. He has no exit
strategy. He has read a repudiation of George Bush as a mandate for a
government seizure of wealth and power that exceeds anything attempted
in the Great Society.

Fully half of the $3.55 trillion in spending Obama will preside over
this year will not be covered by tax revenue but by red ink. The money
will have to be borrowed from abroad or printed by the Fed.

Not only is Barack running a deficit four times as large as Bush's
largest, he has called for $1 trillion in new taxes on America's most
successful, who have already seen their savings and pensions ravaged.

He wants a cap-and-trade system to deal with a global-warming or
climate-change crisis many scientists believe is a hoax. He is going
to provide health care for all, including immigrants, millions of whom
arrive uninsured every year. He is going to plunge scores of billions
more into education, though education has eaten up the wealth of an
empire, as SAT scores sink further and further below the apogee of
1964, before LBJ and the feds barged in. He is going to ask Congress
for authority to spend another $750 billion rescuing the banks.

He is going to find the cure for cancer. He is going to ensure every
kid gets a college education. He is going to drop half of all
wage-earners off the tax rolls, while the top 2 percent, who already
pay 40 percent of all income taxes, are forced to cough up more.

Obama is misreading the election returns. When America voted to cancel
the White House lease of Mr. Bush, it did not vote Barack Obama a
blank check.

By misinterpreting his mandate, Obama has accomplished something John
McCain could not -- unite the Republican Party and instill in it a new
esprit de corps. For the Obama budget is an insult to the core belief
of the party -- that free people, not coercive government, should
shape the character of society.

By daring Republicans to fight on the issue of a $1.75 trillion
deficit, Obama has liberated the GOP from any obligation to him. He
has come out of the closet as a radical liberal spoiling for a fight
over an agenda of radical change.

Sooner than any might have thought, we have clarity.

On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 7:12 AM, Bill Effros <bill at effros.com> wrote:
> Brad,
>
> He's clueless--2 in a row--unbelievable.
>
> B.
>
>
>
> Brad Haslett wrote:
>> You may recall, I predicted several weeks ago that if things didn't
>> turn around, every retired municipal employee was at risk. ?This
>> hardly took any insight, the evidence that several states were
>> technically insolvent was everywhere.
>>
>> http://www.chrismartenson.com/blog/looming-pension-disaster/14565
>>
>> Warren Buffet is not one to panic, but even he's had enough of Dear
>> Leader, and Buffet was an early supporter (the highlights on his
>> interview are posted at the bottom). video here -
>>
>> http://www.cnbc.com/id/29595047/
>>
>> This ain't rocket science. ?If you want capital to flow back into the
>> markets, eliminate the capital gains tax for a period and watch what
>> happens. ?Timmy, I know doing your taxes is tough even with Turbo-Tax,
>> but hey, don't you have degrees in Asian Studies and International
>> Economics? ?You speak Chinese, correct? ?How bout you get your ass on
>> a jet to Beijing and ask the Chinese how they put their banking system
>> back together when they were in deep shit about a ten years ago? ?Or,
>> ask the Japanese what they did wrong during the Lost Decade. Why all
>> this re-inventing the wheel crap?
>>
>> What is happening here is becoming painfully obvious. ?We have a
>> Marxist as the POTUS. That, or he's clueless - and I don't think he's
>> clueless. ?Card Check is going to be discussed in the Senate next
>> week. ?If that passes you'll really see the markets tank. ?Enjoy the
>> show, comrades!
>>
>> Brad
>>
>> -------------
>>
>> ? ? BUFFETT: ...And, Joe, it--if you're in a war, and we really are on
>> an economic war, there's a obligation to the majority to behave in
>> ways that don't go around inflaming the minority. If on December 8th
>> when--maybe it's December 7th, when Roosevelt convened Congress to
>> have a vote on the war, he didn't say, `I'm throwing in about 10 of my
>> pet projects ... [snip] ...
>>
>> ? ? JOE: Yeah, but you might--might not have fixed...
>>
>> ? ? BUFFETT: But I say...
>>
>> ? ? JOE: You might not--you might not have fixed global warming the
>> day after--the day after D-Day, Warren.
>>
>> ? ? BUFFETT: Absolutely. And I think that the--I think that the
>> Republicans have an obligation to regard this as an economic war and
>> to realize you need one leader and, in general, support of that. But I
>> think that the--I think that the Democrats--and I voted for Obama and
>> I strongly support him, and I think he's the right guy--but I think
>> they should not use this--when they're calling for unity on a question
>> this important, they should not use it to roll the Republicans all.
>>
>> ? ? JOE: Hm.
>>
>> ? ? BUFFETT: I think--I think a lot of things should be--job one is to
>> win the war, job--the economic war, job two is to win the economic
>> war, and job three. And you can't expect people to unite behind you if
>> you're trying to jam a whole bunch of things down their throat. So I
>> would--I would absolutely say for the--for the interim, till we get
>> this one solved, I would not be pushing a lot of things that are--you
>> know are contentious, and I also--I also would do no finger-pointing
>> whatsoever. I would--you know, I would not say, you know,
>> `George'--`the previous administration got us into this.' Forget it. I
>> mean, you know, the Navy made a mistake at Pearl Harbor and had too
>> many ships there. But the idea that we'd spend our time after that,
>> you know, pointing fingers at the Navy, we needed the Navy. So I
>> would--I would--I would--no finger-pointing, no vengeance, none of
>> that stuff. Just look forward. ..[snip] ...
>>
>> ? ? BUFFETT: Well, I was going to mention to Joe that you've heard
>> this comment recently from some Democrats recently that a `crisis is a
>> terrible thing to waste.'
>>
>> ? ? BECKY: Yeah.
>>
>> ? ? BUFFETT: Now, just rephrase that and since it's, in my view, it's
>> an economic war, and--I don't think anybody on December 7th would have
>> said a `war is a terrible thing to waste, and therefore we're going to
>> try and ram through a whole bunch of things and--but we expect
>> to--expect the other party to unite behind us on the--on the big
>> problem.' It's just a mistake, I think, when you've got one overriding
>> objective, to try and muddle it up with a bunch of other things.
>>
>> P.S.: He's against "card check." ("I think the secret ballot's pretty
>> important in the country.") ... 7:19 P.M.
>> _______________________________________________
>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>


From bill at effros.com  Tue Mar 10 08:54:12 2009
From: bill at effros.com (Bill Effros)
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 08:54:12 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Econ101 - The Other Shoe
In-Reply-To: <400985d70903100535v12236fcax4c0e11683e0a8af3@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70903100456q41362fc5o76950e65c7e2445@mail.gmail.com>	<49B6592D.2050004@effros.com>
	<400985d70903100535v12236fcax4c0e11683e0a8af3@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49B662F4.7000908@effros.com>

Clueless.



Brad Haslett wrote:
> Bill,
>
> Did you read Buchanan's latest analysis? (below)  I watched Evan Byah
> give an interview last night, he's already breaking ranks.  I wouldn't
> be surprised to see him run in 2012 and I hope he does.  The Blue Dogs
> are all facing re-election in less than 20 months and they're starting
> to get more vocal. The GOP is completely rudderless but at least most
> everyone is staying on the boat. Eric Cantor is doing a great job in
> his minority role. Someone has to put a stop to Maobama and get him
> focused, if that's possible.  He's been successful at getting 28 out
> of 44  appointments past the Senate and there's only 700+ more to go.
> Something tells me we're not going to get the "best and the brightest"
> because sane and rational people won't want to be associated with this
> shipwreck.
>
> Brad
>
> ------------------
>
> March 10, 2009
> Lyndon Baines Obama
> By Patrick Buchanan
>
> It was the winter of conservative discontent.
>
> Barry Goldwater had gotten only 38 percent of the vote, and his party
> had suffered its worst thrashing since Alf Landon fell to FDR in 1936.
>
> Democrats held 295 House seats, Republicans 140. They held 68 Senate
> seats to Republicans' 32, and 33 governors to the GOP's 17.
>
> Democratic registration was twice that of the GOP. The liberal press
> was gleefully writing the obituary of "The Party That Lost Its Head."
>
> Decades might pass, it was said, before the GOP recovered from its
> fatal embrace of right-wing radicalism and foolish rejection of the
> leadership of Govs. Nelson Rockefeller and William Scranton.
>
> Wrote Robert Donovan in the opening lines of his book, "The Future of
> the Republican Party":
>
> "The devastating defeat of Barry Goldwater at the hands of voters in
> all sections of the country but the Deep South has damaged, weakened
> and tarnished the party. For years to come ... the two-party system
> will be crippled."
>
> Donovan and all the rest were wrong. The GOP came roaring back in 1966
> to capture 47 House seats and eight new governorships. In 1968, Nixon
> led the party out of the wilderness and into a White House it would
> hold for 20 of the next 24 years.
>
> Full of hubris in 1965, Lyndon Johnson had seized his moment. He had
> launched a Great Society that would outdo his beloved patron FDR. He
> would dispatch 500,000 troops to Vietnam to "bring the coonskin home
> on the wall" and create a "Great Society on the Mekong." Those were
> heady days of "guns-and-butter."
>
> By 1968, LBJ's coalition was shredded. Gov. George Wallace had torn
> away the populist right. Sens. Gene McCarthy, George McGovern and
> Robert Kennedy had rallied the antiwar left against him. LBJ and
> Hubert Humphrey were left to preside over a shrinking center.
>
> Why did LBJ fail? He overloaded the circuits. He tried to do it all.
> He misread a national desire for continuity after Kennedy's death as a
> mandate for a lunge to the left and a great leap forward with the
> largest expansion of government since the New Deal.
>
> By 1968, racial riots had torn apart almost every great city.
> The most prestigious campuses had been rocked by student violence.
> Thousands of antiwar demonstrators had taken to the streets. And 100
> to 200 body bags were coming home from Vietnam every week.
>
> By the winter of 1968, Lyndon Johnson was a broken president.
>
> History never repeats itself exactly. But Barack Obama is making the
> same mistakes today that LBJ made in 1965.
>
> He has ordered 17,000 more U.S. troops into Afghanistan, as the
> situation deteriorates and the NATO allies pull out. He has no exit
> strategy. He has read a repudiation of George Bush as a mandate for a
> government seizure of wealth and power that exceeds anything attempted
> in the Great Society.
>
> Fully half of the $3.55 trillion in spending Obama will preside over
> this year will not be covered by tax revenue but by red ink. The money
> will have to be borrowed from abroad or printed by the Fed.
>
> Not only is Barack running a deficit four times as large as Bush's
> largest, he has called for $1 trillion in new taxes on America's most
> successful, who have already seen their savings and pensions ravaged.
>
> He wants a cap-and-trade system to deal with a global-warming or
> climate-change crisis many scientists believe is a hoax. He is going
> to provide health care for all, including immigrants, millions of whom
> arrive uninsured every year. He is going to plunge scores of billions
> more into education, though education has eaten up the wealth of an
> empire, as SAT scores sink further and further below the apogee of
> 1964, before LBJ and the feds barged in. He is going to ask Congress
> for authority to spend another $750 billion rescuing the banks.
>
> He is going to find the cure for cancer. He is going to ensure every
> kid gets a college education. He is going to drop half of all
> wage-earners off the tax rolls, while the top 2 percent, who already
> pay 40 percent of all income taxes, are forced to cough up more.
>
> Obama is misreading the election returns. When America voted to cancel
> the White House lease of Mr. Bush, it did not vote Barack Obama a
> blank check.
>
> By misinterpreting his mandate, Obama has accomplished something John
> McCain could not -- unite the Republican Party and instill in it a new
> esprit de corps. For the Obama budget is an insult to the core belief
> of the party -- that free people, not coercive government, should
> shape the character of society.
>
> By daring Republicans to fight on the issue of a $1.75 trillion
> deficit, Obama has liberated the GOP from any obligation to him. He
> has come out of the closet as a radical liberal spoiling for a fight
> over an agenda of radical change.
>
> Sooner than any might have thought, we have clarity.
>
> On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 7:12 AM, Bill Effros <bill at effros.com> wrote:
>   
>> Brad,
>>
>> He's clueless--2 in a row--unbelievable.
>>
>> B.
>>
>>
>>
>> Brad Haslett wrote:
>>     
>>> You may recall, I predicted several weeks ago that if things didn't
>>> turn around, every retired municipal employee was at risk.  This
>>> hardly took any insight, the evidence that several states were
>>> technically insolvent was everywhere.
>>>
>>> http://www.chrismartenson.com/blog/looming-pension-disaster/14565
>>>
>>> Warren Buffet is not one to panic, but even he's had enough of Dear
>>> Leader, and Buffet was an early supporter (the highlights on his
>>> interview are posted at the bottom). video here -
>>>
>>> http://www.cnbc.com/id/29595047/
>>>
>>> This ain't rocket science.  If you want capital to flow back into the
>>> markets, eliminate the capital gains tax for a period and watch what
>>> happens.  Timmy, I know doing your taxes is tough even with Turbo-Tax,
>>> but hey, don't you have degrees in Asian Studies and International
>>> Economics?  You speak Chinese, correct?  How bout you get your ass on
>>> a jet to Beijing and ask the Chinese how they put their banking system
>>> back together when they were in deep shit about a ten years ago?  Or,
>>> ask the Japanese what they did wrong during the Lost Decade. Why all
>>> this re-inventing the wheel crap?
>>>
>>> What is happening here is becoming painfully obvious.  We have a
>>> Marxist as the POTUS. That, or he's clueless - and I don't think he's
>>> clueless.  Card Check is going to be discussed in the Senate next
>>> week.  If that passes you'll really see the markets tank.  Enjoy the
>>> show, comrades!
>>>
>>> Brad
>>>
>>> -------------
>>>
>>>     BUFFETT: ...And, Joe, it--if you're in a war, and we really are on
>>> an economic war, there's a obligation to the majority to behave in
>>> ways that don't go around inflaming the minority. If on December 8th
>>> when--maybe it's December 7th, when Roosevelt convened Congress to
>>> have a vote on the war, he didn't say, `I'm throwing in about 10 of my
>>> pet projects ... [snip] ...
>>>
>>>     JOE: Yeah, but you might--might not have fixed...
>>>
>>>     BUFFETT: But I say...
>>>
>>>     JOE: You might not--you might not have fixed global warming the
>>> day after--the day after D-Day, Warren.
>>>
>>>     BUFFETT: Absolutely. And I think that the--I think that the
>>> Republicans have an obligation to regard this as an economic war and
>>> to realize you need one leader and, in general, support of that. But I
>>> think that the--I think that the Democrats--and I voted for Obama and
>>> I strongly support him, and I think he's the right guy--but I think
>>> they should not use this--when they're calling for unity on a question
>>> this important, they should not use it to roll the Republicans all.
>>>
>>>     JOE: Hm.
>>>
>>>     BUFFETT: I think--I think a lot of things should be--job one is to
>>> win the war, job--the economic war, job two is to win the economic
>>> war, and job three. And you can't expect people to unite behind you if
>>> you're trying to jam a whole bunch of things down their throat. So I
>>> would--I would absolutely say for the--for the interim, till we get
>>> this one solved, I would not be pushing a lot of things that are--you
>>> know are contentious, and I also--I also would do no finger-pointing
>>> whatsoever. I would--you know, I would not say, you know,
>>> `George'--`the previous administration got us into this.' Forget it. I
>>> mean, you know, the Navy made a mistake at Pearl Harbor and had too
>>> many ships there. But the idea that we'd spend our time after that,
>>> you know, pointing fingers at the Navy, we needed the Navy. So I
>>> would--I would--I would--no finger-pointing, no vengeance, none of
>>> that stuff. Just look forward. ..[snip] ...
>>>
>>>     BUFFETT: Well, I was going to mention to Joe that you've heard
>>> this comment recently from some Democrats recently that a `crisis is a
>>> terrible thing to waste.'
>>>
>>>     BECKY: Yeah.
>>>
>>>     BUFFETT: Now, just rephrase that and since it's, in my view, it's
>>> an economic war, and--I don't think anybody on December 7th would have
>>> said a `war is a terrible thing to waste, and therefore we're going to
>>> try and ram through a whole bunch of things and--but we expect
>>> to--expect the other party to unite behind us on the--on the big
>>> problem.' It's just a mistake, I think, when you've got one overriding
>>> objective, to try and muddle it up with a bunch of other things.
>>>
>>> P.S.: He's against "card check." ("I think the secret ballot's pretty
>>> important in the country.") ... 7:19 P.M.
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>>
>>>
>>>       
>> _______________________________________________
>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>
>>     
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
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>   
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From ekroposki at charter.net  Tue Mar 10 10:14:44 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 10:14:44 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Basic Economics
Message-ID: <3B7957E587FC444D84FD96DB1D76B3A8@YOURB88038198E>

I recall the comment on the Rhodes list that called Obama a 'friggin genius.  If you are a true Communists at heart, then what he is doing is fine.  But Marxism in any form fails human kind.  

I do not know if he is clueless, but it is obvious he does not care nor is able to understand what really works.  He has that inner circle attacking but they have no comprehension of reality, just lust for power.

I heard an interesting side note the other day, referring to Henry Kissinger supporting a new world order.  That started with a speech he made in London in January.  See:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=85442

Ed K
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From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Tue Mar 10 11:03:56 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 10:03:56 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Basic Economics
In-Reply-To: <3B7957E587FC444D84FD96DB1D76B3A8@YOURB88038198E>
References: <3B7957E587FC444D84FD96DB1D76B3A8@YOURB88038198E>
Message-ID: <6634e19e0903100803n3f6dd87y510abf90dcc0b455@mail.gmail.com>

Ed,

Well hell ..... Looks like we can add Kissinger to the "clueless" list too,
eh.

How can he possibly imagine that our forefathers risked all to form this
country, only to have some asshole like him talk about letting the very
people we were trying to get away from have a say in running it??? BS...
What is the fascination with the way Europeans do things?? Even in these
trying times our economy is still stronger, our standard of living is still
higher and will doubtless remain so. What is better about how they live???
Shit, half the countries in Europe are about on the verge of going tits up.

Rik

On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 9:14 AM, Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net> wrote:

>  I recall the comment on the Rhodes list that called Obama a 'friggin
> genius.  If you are a true Communists at heart, then what he is doing is
> fine.  But Marxism in any form fails human kind.
>
> I do not know if he is clueless, but it is obvious he does not care nor is
> able to understand what really works.  He has that inner circle attacking
> but they have no comprehension of reality, just lust for power.
>
> I heard an interesting side note the other day, referring to Henry
> Kissinger supporting a new world order.  That started with a speech he made
> in London in January.  See:
>
> http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=85442
>
> Ed K
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Tue Mar 10 11:51:44 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 10:51:44 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Finally! A Government That Works
Message-ID: <400985d70903100851q48278589q8a3153f720481c69@mail.gmail.com>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrBaV5MvX_4&eurl=http://www.fox8.com/wjw-news-medina-fart,0,2761320.htmlstory&feature=player_embedded

From flybrad at gmail.com  Tue Mar 10 22:55:08 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 21:55:08 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Dear Barry - Gift Giving Tips From the
	President
Message-ID: <400985d70903101955w5287fec9ye74a1ee78281764b@mail.gmail.com>

Dear Barry:

I've had a bit of a bad luck patch over the last month (losing my job,
watching my 401k completely disintegrate, etc., etc.) and ended up
relocating from a high rise in Lincoln Park to a new neighborhood
along the Fullerton underpass on the Kennedy Expressway. I was a bit
worried about the move at first, but my new neighbors have been great.
In fact on move-in day they greeted me with a grocery cart "welcome
wagon" containing some lovely and practical gifts like cans of Sterno,
cardboard, fortified wine, and a hypo-allergenic harmonica.  I would
like to show my appreciation with thoughtful "thank you" gifts. Can
you recommend something nice that won't break my budget ($3.00 total
for 6 gifts)? Please help!

Barbara in Chicago

Dear Barbara:

With my busy schedule of entertaining foreign dignitaries and
celebrities at the White House, I know how important a well chosen
gift can be. Two weeks ago, for example, we received a visit from
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The Prime Minister brought a few
housewarming gag gifts including a pen set made from a boat, a framed
paper thing from another boat, and some old books by Churchill (not
Ward, but that English guy). Obviously we wanted to return the nice
gesture so I sent my interns out on a scavenger hunt for an
appropriate present. They couldn't find anything in the West Wing, but
luckily Costco was open and was running a 25-for-the-price-of-10
clearance sale in the DVD department. You should have seen Mr. Brown
light up when he opened that sack of classic titles like "Wizard of
Oz" and "Baby Geniuses 2." I like to think those DVDs helped cement
our Anglo-American "special relationship" even if, as he mentioned to
me, they probably wouldn't work in his European player. Thinking
quickly, I told the PM I would send him an American DVD player as soon
as I earned enough cash-back points on my Costco card. Crisis averted,
but that episode taught me a valuable lesson: always keep a stock of
gifts handy in case some foreign poobah or supreme religious figure or
failing industry leader pops by for coffee. As a result, I make sure
the Oval Office closet is filled with pre-wrapped Sham-Wows and
Snuggle blankets and trillion dollar bailout packages for whatever
gift emergency might arise.

Sometimes, though, the occasion calls for a gift with the warm
"personal touch" that reflects the personality and tastes of the
recipient. For example, my wife Michelle is very involved with
fashion, fitness, and beauty, so for our 10th anniversary I gave her a
Norelco heavy duty personal ear and nose hair groomer. Sure, it was
expensive, but that glare of delight in her eyes was more than enough
payback for the $89.95 price plus $20 for shipping and monogramming.
When I sent Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to meet with a Russian
delegation last week, she brought along a cute novelty "panic button"
from Spencer Gifts that my staff relabeled with the Russian word for
"Reset" as a humorous token of America's new gentler approach to
diplomacy. Even though they pointed out the word actually translates
as "Vaporize," the Russians still had a good laugh because I think
they understood where we were coming from. It was such a hit that
later this year when we meet with the Iranians we are planning to
bring along a Big Mouth Billy Bass that sings "Don't Worry Be Happy"
in Farsi. If there's anything I've learned about international
relations, it is to bring a fun gift and leave the attitude and
preconditions behind.

But let's get back to your situation. At $0.50 per gift I'm afraid
there aren't a lot of good shopping options. You might think about
buying your neighbors a couple shares of GM, Citicorp or the New York
Times Company, but even if you could afford the transaction fees the
shares would probably continue to deteriorate out there in the
elements. The Dollar General nearby on Belmont stocks a big selection
of weather-proof plastic utensils and sponges, but at $1 each you will
probably have to pare back your gift list. My advice is to focus your
generosity on those underpass neighbors who control the biggest voting
blocs. Happy gifting!

From flybrad at gmail.com  Tue Mar 10 23:10:35 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 22:10:35 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Mr. Obama's appointment of Charles Freeman
	to be director of the National Intelligence Council
In-Reply-To: <CF824B35281B4F6C8F113D9C77F9BBAB@D9X7C761>
References: <CF824B35281B4F6C8F113D9C77F9BBAB@D9X7C761>
Message-ID: <400985d70903102010w1dbd20b4paf8c6bf3b6d05f82@mail.gmail.com>

Mike,

Teleprompter Jesus needs to buy a bigger bus.  It must be getting a
bit crowded under there by now.  Here's a film about an "oppressor"
nation you won't see on the MSM -

http://tinyurl.com/bm5slr

Brad

On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 5:52 PM, Michael D. Weisner <mweisner at ebsmed.com> wrote:
> There seems to be no end to the problems with this new administration:
> http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09067/953727-373.stm
>
> Mike
>
>
> With friends like this ...
> Obama schmoozes Israel but will he be there when it counts?
> Sunday, March 08, 2009
> By Jack Kelly, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
>
> Few did more to reassure Jews it was "safe" to vote for Barack Obama than
> Martin Peretz, financier and editor-in-chief of The New Republic since 1974.
>
> "Can friends of Israel -- and Jews -- trust Obama?" he asked in an article
> in January of last year.
>
> His answer was yes. "Obama's points, which he has made many times, should
> reassure anyone who is concerned about what his presidency would mean for
> the security of Israel," Mr. Peretz wrote then.
>
> In May of last year, Mr. Peretz assured Jews concerned about the endorsement
> of Mr. Obama by Hamas leader Ahmed Yousef that "Obama's own personal history
> and his political convictions predisposed him towards Israel."
>
> Harvard professor Samantha Power has accused Israel of war crimes, and once
> recommended U.S. troops be sent to impose upon the Israelis a peace
> settlement by force. She's been appointed by President Obama to a senior
> foreign policy job at the White House. Mr. Peretz assured his readers in
> December that Ms. Power "truly, truly loves Israel and the people of
> Israel."
>
> But Mr. Obama's appointment of Charles "Chas" Freeman to be director of the
> National Intelligence Council is causing Mr. Peretz second thoughts.
>
> Mr. Freeman is a former diplomat who was ambassador to Saudi Arabia from
> 1989 to 1992. He also was an assistant secretary of defense in the first
> Clinton administration. Since 1997, he's been president of the Middle East
> Policy Council, a lobbying group funded mostly by Saudi Arabia.
>
> As director of the National Intelligence Council -- a post which does not
> require Senate confirmation -- Mr. Freeman would be the official most
> responsible for preparation of National Intelligence Estimates -- the
> classified documents that give the president and Congress the intelligence
> community's assessments of the medium- and long-term threats to the security
> of the country.
>
> Mr. Freeman is a man of strong opinions. He thinks Hamas is a key to peace
> in the Middle East and Israel the chief barrier to it. He's been effusive in
> his praise of the Saudi king, whom he has described as "Abdullah the Great,"
> and of a book by Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer on the "Israeli lobby,"
> which has been denounced as riddled with factual errors and by some as
> anti-Semitic.
>
> Mr. Freeman's fondness for tyrants goes beyond the Middle East. He supported
> the disabling of the "democracy movement" in Tiananmen Square in 1989. "The
> truly unforgivable mistake by the Chinese authorities was the failure to
> intervene on a timely basis to nip the demonstrations in the bud," Mr.
> Freeman said in a 2006 e-mail uncovered by the Weekly Standard.
>
> "Chas Freeman is actually a new psychological type for a Democratic
> administration," Mr. Peretz wrote Feb. 25. "He has never displayed a liberal
> instinct and wants the United States to kow-tow to authoritarians and
> tyrants, in some measure just because they may seem able to keep the streets
> quiet ... That Freeman would be chosen to be the president's gatekeeper to
> national intelligence is an absurdity."
>
> Another who assured Jews that Mr. Obama is their friend is Jeffrey Goldberg
> of the Atlantic magazine. "Obama and I spoke over the weekend," he wrote
> last May. "He seemed eager to talk about his ties to the Jewish community,
> and about the influence Jews have had on his life."
>
> More troubling than Mr. Freeman's hostility towards Israel is "the obvious
> inappropriateness of hiring a well-known advocate for the interests of
> Middle Eastern autocracies to produce national intelligence estimates for
> the Obama administration," Mr. Goldberg wrote Feb. 23.
>
> Mr. Peretz and Mr. Goldberg treat the Freeman nomination as if it were an
> aberration. But placed within the context of the Obama administration's
> flirtation with the idea of attending the Durban II "Zionism is racism"
> "human rights" conference and the administration's plan to provide $300
> million in aid for Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas, the Freeman
> nomination may be a more accurate reflection of the president's innermost
> feelings than the assurances he gave to Mr. Peretz and Mr. Goldberg during
> the campaign.
>
> Jack Kelly is a columnist for the Post-Gazette and The (Toledo) Blade
> (jkelly at post-gazette.com, 412 263-1476).
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>

From flybrad at gmail.com  Wed Mar 11 07:54:04 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2009 06:54:04 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Answering The Phone At 3 AM
Message-ID: <400985d70903110454k1714aca9w7fab964d8864c960@mail.gmail.com>

Remember Hillary asking, "who do you want answering the phone at 3
AM"?  Hell, they can't answer the phone at 3 PM.  From the UK Daily
Mail (has anyone noticed that the "magic" has worn off in the foreign
press is or it just me?)

Brad

---------------

Special relationship? Obama's people won't even answer the phone,
whines Downing Street

By Ian Drury
Last updated at 7:20 AM on 11th March 2009



Sir Gus O'Donnell

Sparking a transatlantic rift?: Sir Gus O'Donnell is usually very
guarded about his comments

He has a reputation for being the archetypal senior civil servant
professional, unflappable, and, above all, discreet.

But Sir Gus O'Donnell risked sparking a transatlantic tiff today with
an imprudent remark about Downing Street's relations with the White
House.

The head of the civil service, Sir Gus said the handover to President
Barack Obama's administration was severely hindering preparations for
next month's G20 summit.

In an extraordinary blunder, the usually-guarded Sir Gus said no-one
in the U.S. Treasury department was answering telephone calls.

He said it meant the Government was finding it 'unbelievably
difficult' to hold discussions ahead of the meeting of world leaders
in London.

Even though the world was in the grip of the worst economic crisis in
decades - top of the G20 agenda - Number 10 was having trouble getting
in touch with key personnel, said the Cabinet Secretary.

'There is nobody there,' he told a civil service conference in Gateshead.

'You cannot believe how difficult it is.'

The comments will certain anger Sir Gus's paymasters in Downing
Street, as well as raising eyebrows in irritation in the White House.

Gordon Brown has been careful to cement his relationship with President Obama.

Last week he became the first European leader to visit Washington
since the Democrats re-took office.

Sir Gus's remarks were quickly removed from the Whitehall &
Westminster World website, whose publisher Dods organised the
conference.


Gordon Brown was welcomed with a modest reception during his visit to
see Barack Obama last week

He also faced a private rebuke for the injudicious comments, although
the Prime Minister's official spokesman was at pains to make clear the
words had been taken 'out of context'.

Nevertheless, it risked opening a spat with Washington. Downing Street
aides had already been left frustrated by the White House's handling
of arrangements for the Prime Minister visit to the States last week,
where he addressed both Houses of Congress.

British officials had to refute claims Mr Brown had been 'snubbed'
after a press conference with President Obama was downgraded to a few
questions in the Oval Office.

In his speech, Sir Gus criticised the U.S. system of each new
administrations appointing their own senior civil servants.

It would be 'absolute madness' to introduce similar measures in the UK
because it was hamper the progress of ongoing projects such as the
Olympics.

'You get to a certain point, and you can't go any further,' said Sir Gus.

'If there's a change of administration, you're out, and a whole new
bunch of people come in who probably haven't been in government
before.'

President Obama has been criticised in the U.S. for taking so long to
fill key positions in the Treasury.

Every key position in the department with the exception of the
Treasury Secretary - equivalent to the British Chancellor - remained
vacant.

The Prime Minister's official spokesman said: 'You have to put Gus
O'Donnell's remarks in their proper context.

'He was speaking at a public services conference. His remarks were
taken out of context. He was explaining the benefit of having the
British system of a permanent civil service.

'We have very good relations with the Obama administration on G20 and
other issues, as was shown by the very substantive discussions we had
with President Obama and his team last week.'

From flybrad at gmail.com  Wed Mar 11 08:15:14 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2009 07:15:14 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Mr. Obama's appointment of Charles Freeman
	to be director of the National Intelligence Council
In-Reply-To: <CF824B35281B4F6C8F113D9C77F9BBAB@D9X7C761>
References: <CF824B35281B4F6C8F113D9C77F9BBAB@D9X7C761>
Message-ID: <400985d70903110515x657f4e37j2175f36c438cd662@mail.gmail.com>

Mike,

Well, the "Newspaper of Record" finally got around to covering the
story (below).  How much coverage did Freeman get before today?  Zip,
Zero, Nada!  Boy, those New York Times readers sure are an informed
lot.  Here's the line of reasoning from the first sentence:

 "blamed pro-Israel lobbying groups, saying they had distorted his
record and campaigned against him."

Uh, hey Times, I know research and all that stuff is hard for a
bankrupt newspaper, but you might want to visit with a few Chinese
immigrants (I know they're hard to find in NYC but may I suggest you
start in, uh, Chinatown?),  Just ask some questions, get other
opinions, that kinda thing. Sure, times are hard and money's tight,
but try using G-O-O-G-L-E!

Brad

--------------------------

March 11, 2009
Nominee Ends Bid for Key Job in Intelligence
By MARK MAZZETTI

WASHINGTON ? Charles W. Freeman Jr., the Obama administration?s choice
for a major intelligence post, withdrew his name on Tuesday and blamed
pro-Israel lobbying groups, saying they had distorted his record and
campaigned against him.

Mr. Freeman had come under sharp criticism for his past statements
about Israel as well as for his association with the Saudi and Chinese
governments.

Mr. Freeman?s withdrawal from consideration as chairman of the
National Intelligence Council came just hours after Dennis C. Blair,
the director of national intelligence, vigorously defended him and
said that his comments had been taken out of context.

In a message to colleagues and friends, first posted Tuesday evening
on Foreign Policy magazine?s Web site, Mr. Freeman blamed pro-Israel
groups for the controversy, saying the ?tactics of the Israel Lobby
plumb the depths of dishonor and indecency and include character
assassination, selective misquotation, the willful distortion of the
record, the fabrication of falsehoods, and an utter disregard for the
truth.?

Joshua Block, a spokesman for the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee, a lobbying group, said Tuesday that his organization had
not taken a formal position on Mr. Freeman?s selection and had not
lobbied Congress members to oppose it.

A former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Mr. Freeman had in recent years
questioned Washington?s steadfast support for Israel. He had also been
deputy chief of mission at the American Embassy in Beijing. His
critics unearthed past statements that they contended had seemed to
support the crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen
Square in 1989.

Critics in Congress also questioned Mr. Freeman?s financial ties to
China; he had served for four years on the board of the state-owned
China National Offshore Oil Corporation. He also led the Middle East
Policy Council, a Washington-based group that receives financial
support from the Saudi government.

In the intelligence post, Mr. Freeman would have overseen the
production of national intelligence estimates, which represent the
consensus of the government?s 16 intelligence agencies.

Opposition to Mr. Freeman?s appointment had been building on Capitol
Hill, and several lawmakers said they had been lobbying the White
House to withdraw its support for Mr. Freeman.

On Tuesday morning, Mr. Blair told the Senate Armed Services Committee
that Mr. Freeman?s strong views and ?inventive mind? would be
important ingredients in producing sound intelligence assessments
rather than ?precooked pablum judgments.?


On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 5:52 PM, Michael D. Weisner <mweisner at ebsmed.com> wrote:
> There seems to be no end to the problems with this new administration:
> http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09067/953727-373.stm
>
> Mike
>
>
> With friends like this ...
> Obama schmoozes Israel but will he be there when it counts?
> Sunday, March 08, 2009
> By Jack Kelly, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
>
> Few did more to reassure Jews it was "safe" to vote for Barack Obama than
> Martin Peretz, financier and editor-in-chief of The New Republic since 1974.
>
> "Can friends of Israel -- and Jews -- trust Obama?" he asked in an article
> in January of last year.
>
> His answer was yes. "Obama's points, which he has made many times, should
> reassure anyone who is concerned about what his presidency would mean for
> the security of Israel," Mr. Peretz wrote then.
>
> In May of last year, Mr. Peretz assured Jews concerned about the endorsement
> of Mr. Obama by Hamas leader Ahmed Yousef that "Obama's own personal history
> and his political convictions predisposed him towards Israel."
>
> Harvard professor Samantha Power has accused Israel of war crimes, and once
> recommended U.S. troops be sent to impose upon the Israelis a peace
> settlement by force. She's been appointed by President Obama to a senior
> foreign policy job at the White House. Mr. Peretz assured his readers in
> December that Ms. Power "truly, truly loves Israel and the people of
> Israel."
>
> But Mr. Obama's appointment of Charles "Chas" Freeman to be director of the
> National Intelligence Council is causing Mr. Peretz second thoughts.
>
> Mr. Freeman is a former diplomat who was ambassador to Saudi Arabia from
> 1989 to 1992. He also was an assistant secretary of defense in the first
> Clinton administration. Since 1997, he's been president of the Middle East
> Policy Council, a lobbying group funded mostly by Saudi Arabia.
>
> As director of the National Intelligence Council -- a post which does not
> require Senate confirmation -- Mr. Freeman would be the official most
> responsible for preparation of National Intelligence Estimates -- the
> classified documents that give the president and Congress the intelligence
> community's assessments of the medium- and long-term threats to the security
> of the country.
>
> Mr. Freeman is a man of strong opinions. He thinks Hamas is a key to peace
> in the Middle East and Israel the chief barrier to it. He's been effusive in
> his praise of the Saudi king, whom he has described as "Abdullah the Great,"
> and of a book by Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer on the "Israeli lobby,"
> which has been denounced as riddled with factual errors and by some as
> anti-Semitic.
>
> Mr. Freeman's fondness for tyrants goes beyond the Middle East. He supported
> the disabling of the "democracy movement" in Tiananmen Square in 1989. "The
> truly unforgivable mistake by the Chinese authorities was the failure to
> intervene on a timely basis to nip the demonstrations in the bud," Mr.
> Freeman said in a 2006 e-mail uncovered by the Weekly Standard.
>
> "Chas Freeman is actually a new psychological type for a Democratic
> administration," Mr. Peretz wrote Feb. 25. "He has never displayed a liberal
> instinct and wants the United States to kow-tow to authoritarians and
> tyrants, in some measure just because they may seem able to keep the streets
> quiet ... That Freeman would be chosen to be the president's gatekeeper to
> national intelligence is an absurdity."
>
> Another who assured Jews that Mr. Obama is their friend is Jeffrey Goldberg
> of the Atlantic magazine. "Obama and I spoke over the weekend," he wrote
> last May. "He seemed eager to talk about his ties to the Jewish community,
> and about the influence Jews have had on his life."
>
> More troubling than Mr. Freeman's hostility towards Israel is "the obvious
> inappropriateness of hiring a well-known advocate for the interests of
> Middle Eastern autocracies to produce national intelligence estimates for
> the Obama administration," Mr. Goldberg wrote Feb. 23.
>
> Mr. Peretz and Mr. Goldberg treat the Freeman nomination as if it were an
> aberration. But placed within the context of the Obama administration's
> flirtation with the idea of attending the Durban II "Zionism is racism"
> "human rights" conference and the administration's plan to provide $300
> million in aid for Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas, the Freeman
> nomination may be a more accurate reflection of the president's innermost
> feelings than the assurances he gave to Mr. Peretz and Mr. Goldberg during
> the campaign.
>
> Jack Kelly is a columnist for the Post-Gazette and The (Toledo) Blade
> (jkelly at post-gazette.com, 412 263-1476).
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>


From flybrad at gmail.com  Wed Mar 11 08:43:16 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2009 07:43:16 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Car Sales Up!
Message-ID: <400985d70903110543k63f75095wdfe65771b6ebd0d5@mail.gmail.com>

Man, wouldn't it be great if we had a Treasury Secretary with a
background in Asian Studies and spoke Chinese?  He could just pick-up
the phone and call China to ask, "how the hell do you guys do it?  We
sure need to get sales moving in our country".

Brad

------------------

China February Auto Sales Rise 25% After Tax Cuts (Update1)


By Tian Ying

March 10 (Bloomberg) -- China vehicle sales surged 25 percent in
February, the first gain in four months, after the government cut
taxes on some models, helping the country extend its lead as the
world?s largest auto market this year.

Sales of passenger cars, buses and trucks climbed to 827,600, the
China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said today in Beijing.
The tally in the first two months rose 2.7 percent to 1.56 million,
compared with a 39 percent decline to 1.35 million in the U.S.

China has halved retail taxes on small cars and drawn up plans to give
out vehicle subsidies in rural areas to revive demand after auto sales
rose at the slowest pace in a decade last year. Combined with the
country?s wider 4 trillion yuan ($585 billion) economic stimulus
package, the policies have caused General Motors Corp. to roughly
double its forecast for China?s nationwide auto market growth this
year.

?Consumers are regaining confidence because of the government?s
stimulus policies,? said Ricon Xia, an analyst at Daiwa Research
Institute in Shanghai. ?Still, vehicle sales may fluctuate in the
coming months.?

Sales this month will likely be better than in February, Xiong
Chuanlin, vice secretary-general of the automakers group, told
reporters in Beijing today. The body is ?cautiously optimistic? about
full-year sales, he added.

Snow, New Year

The February sales jump, the biggest in 18 months, was also helped by
an earlier Lunar New Year holiday. The weeklong break was in January
this year compared with February last year. Snowstorms across much of
China also disrupted the market in 2008.

Passenger-car sales, including sport-utility and multipurpose
vehicles, rose 24 percent last month to 607,300, the association said.
In the first two months, the tally climbed 5.8 percent to 1.22
million.

Sales of cars with engines or 1.6 liters or less jumped 19 percent in
the first two months. Their market share gained by 7.71 percentage
points.

Rising sales and production cuts by automakers has caused the nation?s
stockpile of unsold vehicles to fall to the lowest in two years last
month, the grouping said.

Commercial-vehicle sales fell 6.9 percent in first two months as the
sector received less government support than passenger cars, the group
said. Truckmakers are now seeking similar stimulus plans, it added.

GM Forecast

GM, the biggest overseas automaker in China, raised its forecast for
the nation?s market growth this year to a range of between 5 percent
and 10 percent from an earlier prediction of less than 3 percent, GM
Asia-Pacific President Nick Reilly, said last week.

India, the world?s second-most populous nation, also had an increase
in February auto sales, the first gain in five months, as emerging
markets avoid the world of the global recession.

By contrast, GM is shuttering plants in the U.S. and seeking a
government bailout on tumbling demand. GM?s domestic sales collapsed
51 percent in the first two months as the industrywide sales rate
dropped to the lowest level since 1981 amid the recession.

In China, the government halved sales taxes on cars with engines of
1.6 liters or less starting from Jan. 20. It?s also providing 5
billion yuan in subsidies to spur auto sales in rural areas. That has
particularly benefited GM?s SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile Co. venture, the
largest minivan-maker in China, Reilly said. The carmaker expects its
own China sales growth to outperform the market by as much as 3
percentage points this year, he added.

Volkswagen AG, the second biggest automaker in China, said last month
that it plans to double local sales by adding at least four new models
a year until 2018. The carmaker sold 1.02 million vehicles in China
last year.

To contact the reporter on this story: Tian Ying in Beijing on
ytian at bloomberg.net
Last Updated: March 10, 2009 03:49 EDT


From flybrad at gmail.com  Wed Mar 11 11:31:46 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2009 10:31:46 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Mark -to-Market
Message-ID: <400985d70903110831gfcfa168y32c3858b91d01762@mail.gmail.com>

Fear not, those of you stupid enough to hang with the market as I did,
we're in good company.  Warren Buffet didn't anticipate this train
wreck either.  In an interesting turn of events, he's now embracing a
suspension of mark-to-market accounting for banks (see below). Buffet
is not a classical entrepreneur, he's a political one and damn good at
the art.  An early supporter of Obama, he now questions his judgment.
Buffet doesn't create anything, he searches for undervalued assets
that others have created, hence the moniker "political entrepreneur".
Since Buffet holds billions in bank assets, I'm guessing his
reluctance to ask for a suspension of mark-to-market in the early days
was because he thought other (political) solutions were in his best
interests.  Now that he's had 50 days to assess the Obama
administration, he's open to solutions other than political ones.

First, yesterdays stock market rally was good news and take good news
any way you can get it!  It was a positive direction for the wrong
reasons (Citi profits).  Citi reported a positive "operating profit".
Hell, all the banks have had operating profits.  This is like
reporting that XYZ airlines reported a quarterly profit but neglected
to mention that their entire jet fleet will require new wings in a few
months.  The devil is always in the details of financial statements.
Start with the notes, assumptions, and contingent liabilities starting
on the last page and read backwards.  Only then do the numbers mean
anything.

These "bad assets" are still associated with real sticks and mud.
They have value to someone.  Rather than let the marketplace return
them to their real value, Obama appropriated 275 Billion dollars so
you can bailout your imprudent neighbor.  Wrong approach. Suspending
mark-to-market will, with the stroke of a pen, "recapitalize" banks
and ultimitely allow them to work themselves out of a hole of their
own making.  The shareholders and bondholders will pay for the
mistakes instead of the taxpayer.

Someone give Warren my cellphone number, will ya?  He seems to have
lost it again.

Brad

------------


WSJ


    * MARCH 11, 2009

Buffett's Unmentionable Bank Solution

      By HOLMAN W. JENKINS, JR.



Last week's post mortem on the Fannie and Freddie takeover was
received better than we might have expected. A few readers assumed
Eddie Lampert and Bill Miller, fund managers who lost money when Fan
and Fred were seized, and whose letters to their own investors we
quoted, were engaged in special pleading.


In fact, the nationalization of Fannie and Freddie is water over the
dam. The men's perspective may be one of pain, but it is historical
pain.

Now comes Warren Buffett, a big investor in Wells Fargo, M&T Bank and
several other banks, who, during his marathon appearance on CNBC
Monday, clearly called for suspension of mark-to-market accounting for
regulatory capital purposes.

We add the italics for the benefit of a House hearing tomorrow on this
very issue. Mark-to-market accounting is fine for disclosure purposes,
because investors are not required to take actions based on it. It's
not so fine for regulatory purposes. It doesn't just inform but can
dictate actions that make no sense in the circumstances. Banks can be
forced to raise capital when capital is unavailable or unduly
expensive; regulators can be forced to treat banks as insolvent though
their assets continue to perform.

What happens next is exactly what we've seen: Their share prices
collapse; government feels obliged to inject taxpayer capital into
banks simply to achieve an accounting effect, so banks can meet
capital adequacy rules set by, um, government.

(This sounds silly, but has been a big part of government's response so far.)

CNBC, sadly, has been playing a loop of Mr. Buffett's remarks that
does a consummate job of leaving out his most important point. Nobody
cares about the merits of mark-to-market in the abstract, but how it
impacts our current banking crisis. And his exact words were that it
is "gasoline on the fire in terms of financial institutions."

Depressing bank stocks today, he said, is precisely the question of
whether banks will be "forced to sell stock at ridiculously low
prices" to meet the capital adequacy rules.

"If they don't have to sell stock at distressed prices, I think a
number of them will do very, very well."

He also proposed a fix, which CNBC duly omitted from its loop, namely
to "not have the regulators say, 'We're going to force you to put a
lot more capital in based on these mark-to-market figures.'"

Mr. Buffett obviously understands where we are today, though it seems
to elude many of those kibitzing about "nationalization," "letting
banks fail" and other lagging notions. Since last year, our banking
system no longer rests on capital, but on government guarantees. With
those sweeping guarantees in place to protect their depositors and
bondholders, banks now are able to earn princely spreads above their
cost of funds, however questionable their balance sheets.

Banks will "build equity at a very rapid rate with the spreads that
exist now," Mr. Buffett said. With the possible exception of
Citigroup, he added, "the banking system largely will cure itself."

Notice he didn't call for subsidizing hedge funds to buy toxic assets.
He didn't call for more government capital injections -- which are not
merely redundant when comprehensive guarantees are in place, but
positively destructive of the ultimate goal of moving back toward a
system based on private capital.

Mr. Buffett didn't utter the unstylish words "regulatory forbearance,"
but letting banks earn their way out of trouble under an umbrella of
government guarantees is precisely that.

Hank Paulson started down just this road last July. Bank stocks
soared. Then he turned on a dime. Washington needed somebody to punish
and felt it couldn't impose haircuts on uninsured depositors and
bondholders. That left only shareholders, who have been allowed to
face vast dilution and/or government takeover based on mark-to-market
regulatory capital standards.

Yet the truth is, you get little or no moral hazard bang from
punishing bank shareholders. Equity investors, by definition, accept
the risk of losing 100% of their stake in return for unlimited upside.
Go ahead and wipe out shareholders: Markets will turn around and
create the next 50-to-1 leveraged financial institution as long as the
potential return outweighs the risk.

The only real fix for moral hazard, in some future regulatory
arrangement, would be truly to dispel the belief of bondholders and
uninsured creditors that they will be bailed out.

That's a subject for another day. The recent devastation of bank
equity values wasn't inevitable but was a choice (an addled and
perhaps not entirely conscious one) by policy makers trying to make
sure bank shareholders didn't benefit from the massive safety net
rolled out for banks.

As strategies go, it was a terrible one. It greatly increased the toll
the banking crisis imposed on the economy, and the cost that fixing
the banks will impose on taxpayers. But there's still a chance to
avoid a disastrous, taxpayer-financed government takeover of the
banking system. The alternative, just as Mr. Buffett spelled it out,
begins with forbearance on capital standards.

From bill at effros.com  Wed Mar 11 12:31:54 2009
From: bill at effros.com (Bill Effros)
Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2009 12:31:54 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Mark -to-Market
In-Reply-To: <400985d70903110831gfcfa168y32c3858b91d01762@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70903110831gfcfa168y32c3858b91d01762@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49B7E77A.6030701@effros.com>

Brad,

Buffet owns insurance companies, one of the first to be bailed out; in 
addition to banks, the second to be bailed out.  His support of Obama 
has paid off handsomely, as has the support of most of the special 
interest groups that put their money where Obama's mouth was.

Without mark to market we get stupid uncontrolled government guaranteed 
investing -- when they mark to irrational exuberance we get what we got.

A lot of those homes won't ever be lived in again.  Their market value 
is zero.  The sooner we force banks to reflect that value on their 
balance sheets, the better off we all will be.

Many stocks on the stock market are not worth what people are paying for 
them -- their entire value is based on the assumption that government 
will bail them out -- however we permit the banks to "mark to market" 
and continue showing these values.  This sword cuts both ways.

Get out of the stock market; get out of real estate speculation; get out 
of debt while you still have the chance--the shit is nowhere near the 
fan, and accounting gimmicks are not going to solve the problem.

B.



Brad Haslett wrote:
> Fear not, those of you stupid enough to hang with the market as I did,
> we're in good company.  Warren Buffet didn't anticipate this train
> wreck either.  In an interesting turn of events, he's now embracing a
> suspension of mark-to-market accounting for banks (see below). Buffet
> is not a classical entrepreneur, he's a political one and damn good at
> the art.  An early supporter of Obama, he now questions his judgment.
> Buffet doesn't create anything, he searches for undervalued assets
> that others have created, hence the moniker "political entrepreneur".
> Since Buffet holds billions in bank assets, I'm guessing his
> reluctance to ask for a suspension of mark-to-market in the early days
> was because he thought other (political) solutions were in his best
> interests.  Now that he's had 50 days to assess the Obama
> administration, he's open to solutions other than political ones.
>
> First, yesterdays stock market rally was good news and take good news
> any way you can get it!  It was a positive direction for the wrong
> reasons (Citi profits).  Citi reported a positive "operating profit".
> Hell, all the banks have had operating profits.  This is like
> reporting that XYZ airlines reported a quarterly profit but neglected
> to mention that their entire jet fleet will require new wings in a few
> months.  The devil is always in the details of financial statements.
> Start with the notes, assumptions, and contingent liabilities starting
> on the last page and read backwards.  Only then do the numbers mean
> anything.
>
> These "bad assets" are still associated with real sticks and mud.
> They have value to someone.  Rather than let the marketplace return
> them to their real value, Obama appropriated 275 Billion dollars so
> you can bailout your imprudent neighbor.  Wrong approach. Suspending
> mark-to-market will, with the stroke of a pen, "recapitalize" banks
> and ultimitely allow them to work themselves out of a hole of their
> own making.  The shareholders and bondholders will pay for the
> mistakes instead of the taxpayer.
>
> Someone give Warren my cellphone number, will ya?  He seems to have
> lost it again.
>
> Brad
>
> ------------
>
>
> WSJ
>
>
>     * MARCH 11, 2009
>
> Buffett's Unmentionable Bank Solution
>
>       By HOLMAN W. JENKINS, JR.
>
>
>
> Last week's post mortem on the Fannie and Freddie takeover was
> received better than we might have expected. A few readers assumed
> Eddie Lampert and Bill Miller, fund managers who lost money when Fan
> and Fred were seized, and whose letters to their own investors we
> quoted, were engaged in special pleading.
>
>
> In fact, the nationalization of Fannie and Freddie is water over the
> dam. The men's perspective may be one of pain, but it is historical
> pain.
>
> Now comes Warren Buffett, a big investor in Wells Fargo, M&T Bank and
> several other banks, who, during his marathon appearance on CNBC
> Monday, clearly called for suspension of mark-to-market accounting for
> regulatory capital purposes.
>
> We add the italics for the benefit of a House hearing tomorrow on this
> very issue. Mark-to-market accounting is fine for disclosure purposes,
> because investors are not required to take actions based on it. It's
> not so fine for regulatory purposes. It doesn't just inform but can
> dictate actions that make no sense in the circumstances. Banks can be
> forced to raise capital when capital is unavailable or unduly
> expensive; regulators can be forced to treat banks as insolvent though
> their assets continue to perform.
>
> What happens next is exactly what we've seen: Their share prices
> collapse; government feels obliged to inject taxpayer capital into
> banks simply to achieve an accounting effect, so banks can meet
> capital adequacy rules set by, um, government.
>
> (This sounds silly, but has been a big part of government's response so far.)
>
> CNBC, sadly, has been playing a loop of Mr. Buffett's remarks that
> does a consummate job of leaving out his most important point. Nobody
> cares about the merits of mark-to-market in the abstract, but how it
> impacts our current banking crisis. And his exact words were that it
> is "gasoline on the fire in terms of financial institutions."
>
> Depressing bank stocks today, he said, is precisely the question of
> whether banks will be "forced to sell stock at ridiculously low
> prices" to meet the capital adequacy rules.
>
> "If they don't have to sell stock at distressed prices, I think a
> number of them will do very, very well."
>
> He also proposed a fix, which CNBC duly omitted from its loop, namely
> to "not have the regulators say, 'We're going to force you to put a
> lot more capital in based on these mark-to-market figures.'"
>
> Mr. Buffett obviously understands where we are today, though it seems
> to elude many of those kibitzing about "nationalization," "letting
> banks fail" and other lagging notions. Since last year, our banking
> system no longer rests on capital, but on government guarantees. With
> those sweeping guarantees in place to protect their depositors and
> bondholders, banks now are able to earn princely spreads above their
> cost of funds, however questionable their balance sheets.
>
> Banks will "build equity at a very rapid rate with the spreads that
> exist now," Mr. Buffett said. With the possible exception of
> Citigroup, he added, "the banking system largely will cure itself."
>
> Notice he didn't call for subsidizing hedge funds to buy toxic assets.
> He didn't call for more government capital injections -- which are not
> merely redundant when comprehensive guarantees are in place, but
> positively destructive of the ultimate goal of moving back toward a
> system based on private capital.
>
> Mr. Buffett didn't utter the unstylish words "regulatory forbearance,"
> but letting banks earn their way out of trouble under an umbrella of
> government guarantees is precisely that.
>
> Hank Paulson started down just this road last July. Bank stocks
> soared. Then he turned on a dime. Washington needed somebody to punish
> and felt it couldn't impose haircuts on uninsured depositors and
> bondholders. That left only shareholders, who have been allowed to
> face vast dilution and/or government takeover based on mark-to-market
> regulatory capital standards.
>
> Yet the truth is, you get little or no moral hazard bang from
> punishing bank shareholders. Equity investors, by definition, accept
> the risk of losing 100% of their stake in return for unlimited upside.
> Go ahead and wipe out shareholders: Markets will turn around and
> create the next 50-to-1 leveraged financial institution as long as the
> potential return outweighs the risk.
>
> The only real fix for moral hazard, in some future regulatory
> arrangement, would be truly to dispel the belief of bondholders and
> uninsured creditors that they will be bailed out.
>
> That's a subject for another day. The recent devastation of bank
> equity values wasn't inevitable but was a choice (an addled and
> perhaps not entirely conscious one) by policy makers trying to make
> sure bank shareholders didn't benefit from the massive safety net
> rolled out for banks.
>
> As strategies go, it was a terrible one. It greatly increased the toll
> the banking crisis imposed on the economy, and the cost that fixing
> the banks will impose on taxpayers. But there's still a chance to
> avoid a disastrous, taxpayer-financed government takeover of the
> banking system. The alternative, just as Mr. Buffett spelled it out,
> begins with forbearance on capital standards.
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>   

From flybrad at gmail.com  Wed Mar 11 13:50:08 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2009 12:50:08 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Mark -to-Market
In-Reply-To: <49B7E77A.6030701@effros.com>
References: <400985d70903110831gfcfa168y32c3858b91d01762@mail.gmail.com>
	<49B7E77A.6030701@effros.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70903111050o6fb22446mfc5300a5caa676d0@mail.gmail.com>

Bill,

Well sir, according to your view of world events and finance, we
should probably go back to the gold standard, huh?

Never mind - may have answered my own question there. I just found out
this week that my wife's grandfather and family survived the Great
Leap Forward and all the other "Great Leaps" because of the family's
hidden gold stash.

What, am I just now trustworthy with that kind of info?

Brad

On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 11:31 AM, Bill Effros <bill at effros.com> wrote:
> Brad,
>
> Buffet owns insurance companies, one of the first to be bailed out; in
> addition to banks, the second to be bailed out. ?His support of Obama
> has paid off handsomely, as has the support of most of the special
> interest groups that put their money where Obama's mouth was.
>
> Without mark to market we get stupid uncontrolled government guaranteed
> investing -- when they mark to irrational exuberance we get what we got.
>
> A lot of those homes won't ever be lived in again. ?Their market value
> is zero. ?The sooner we force banks to reflect that value on their
> balance sheets, the better off we all will be.
>
> Many stocks on the stock market are not worth what people are paying for
> them -- their entire value is based on the assumption that government
> will bail them out -- however we permit the banks to "mark to market"
> and continue showing these values. ?This sword cuts both ways.
>
> Get out of the stock market; get out of real estate speculation; get out
> of debt while you still have the chance--the shit is nowhere near the
> fan, and accounting gimmicks are not going to solve the problem.
>
> B.
>
>
>
> Brad Haslett wrote:
>> Fear not, those of you stupid enough to hang with the market as I did,
>> we're in good company. ?Warren Buffet didn't anticipate this train
>> wreck either. ?In an interesting turn of events, he's now embracing a
>> suspension of mark-to-market accounting for banks (see below). Buffet
>> is not a classical entrepreneur, he's a political one and damn good at
>> the art. ?An early supporter of Obama, he now questions his judgment.
>> Buffet doesn't create anything, he searches for undervalued assets
>> that others have created, hence the moniker "political entrepreneur".
>> Since Buffet holds billions in bank assets, I'm guessing his
>> reluctance to ask for a suspension of mark-to-market in the early days
>> was because he thought other (political) solutions were in his best
>> interests. ?Now that he's had 50 days to assess the Obama
>> administration, he's open to solutions other than political ones.
>>
>> First, yesterdays stock market rally was good news and take good news
>> any way you can get it! ?It was a positive direction for the wrong
>> reasons (Citi profits). ?Citi reported a positive "operating profit".
>> Hell, all the banks have had operating profits. ?This is like
>> reporting that XYZ airlines reported a quarterly profit but neglected
>> to mention that their entire jet fleet will require new wings in a few
>> months. ?The devil is always in the details of financial statements.
>> Start with the notes, assumptions, and contingent liabilities starting
>> on the last page and read backwards. ?Only then do the numbers mean
>> anything.
>>
>> These "bad assets" are still associated with real sticks and mud.
>> They have value to someone. ?Rather than let the marketplace return
>> them to their real value, Obama appropriated 275 Billion dollars so
>> you can bailout your imprudent neighbor. ?Wrong approach. Suspending
>> mark-to-market will, with the stroke of a pen, "recapitalize" banks
>> and ultimitely allow them to work themselves out of a hole of their
>> own making. ?The shareholders and bondholders will pay for the
>> mistakes instead of the taxpayer.
>>
>> Someone give Warren my cellphone number, will ya? ?He seems to have
>> lost it again.
>>
>> Brad
>>
>> ------------
>>
>>
>> WSJ
>>
>>
>> ? ? * MARCH 11, 2009
>>
>> Buffett's Unmentionable Bank Solution
>>
>> ? ? ? By HOLMAN W. JENKINS, JR.
>>
>>
>>
>> Last week's post mortem on the Fannie and Freddie takeover was
>> received better than we might have expected. A few readers assumed
>> Eddie Lampert and Bill Miller, fund managers who lost money when Fan
>> and Fred were seized, and whose letters to their own investors we
>> quoted, were engaged in special pleading.
>>
>>
>> In fact, the nationalization of Fannie and Freddie is water over the
>> dam. The men's perspective may be one of pain, but it is historical
>> pain.
>>
>> Now comes Warren Buffett, a big investor in Wells Fargo, M&T Bank and
>> several other banks, who, during his marathon appearance on CNBC
>> Monday, clearly called for suspension of mark-to-market accounting for
>> regulatory capital purposes.
>>
>> We add the italics for the benefit of a House hearing tomorrow on this
>> very issue. Mark-to-market accounting is fine for disclosure purposes,
>> because investors are not required to take actions based on it. It's
>> not so fine for regulatory purposes. It doesn't just inform but can
>> dictate actions that make no sense in the circumstances. Banks can be
>> forced to raise capital when capital is unavailable or unduly
>> expensive; regulators can be forced to treat banks as insolvent though
>> their assets continue to perform.
>>
>> What happens next is exactly what we've seen: Their share prices
>> collapse; government feels obliged to inject taxpayer capital into
>> banks simply to achieve an accounting effect, so banks can meet
>> capital adequacy rules set by, um, government.
>>
>> (This sounds silly, but has been a big part of government's response so far.)
>>
>> CNBC, sadly, has been playing a loop of Mr. Buffett's remarks that
>> does a consummate job of leaving out his most important point. Nobody
>> cares about the merits of mark-to-market in the abstract, but how it
>> impacts our current banking crisis. And his exact words were that it
>> is "gasoline on the fire in terms of financial institutions."
>>
>> Depressing bank stocks today, he said, is precisely the question of
>> whether banks will be "forced to sell stock at ridiculously low
>> prices" to meet the capital adequacy rules.
>>
>> "If they don't have to sell stock at distressed prices, I think a
>> number of them will do very, very well."
>>
>> He also proposed a fix, which CNBC duly omitted from its loop, namely
>> to "not have the regulators say, 'We're going to force you to put a
>> lot more capital in based on these mark-to-market figures.'"
>>
>> Mr. Buffett obviously understands where we are today, though it seems
>> to elude many of those kibitzing about "nationalization," "letting
>> banks fail" and other lagging notions. Since last year, our banking
>> system no longer rests on capital, but on government guarantees. With
>> those sweeping guarantees in place to protect their depositors and
>> bondholders, banks now are able to earn princely spreads above their
>> cost of funds, however questionable their balance sheets.
>>
>> Banks will "build equity at a very rapid rate with the spreads that
>> exist now," Mr. Buffett said. With the possible exception of
>> Citigroup, he added, "the banking system largely will cure itself."
>>
>> Notice he didn't call for subsidizing hedge funds to buy toxic assets.
>> He didn't call for more government capital injections -- which are not
>> merely redundant when comprehensive guarantees are in place, but
>> positively destructive of the ultimate goal of moving back toward a
>> system based on private capital.
>>
>> Mr. Buffett didn't utter the unstylish words "regulatory forbearance,"
>> but letting banks earn their way out of trouble under an umbrella of
>> government guarantees is precisely that.
>>
>> Hank Paulson started down just this road last July. Bank stocks
>> soared. Then he turned on a dime. Washington needed somebody to punish
>> and felt it couldn't impose haircuts on uninsured depositors and
>> bondholders. That left only shareholders, who have been allowed to
>> face vast dilution and/or government takeover based on mark-to-market
>> regulatory capital standards.
>>
>> Yet the truth is, you get little or no moral hazard bang from
>> punishing bank shareholders. Equity investors, by definition, accept
>> the risk of losing 100% of their stake in return for unlimited upside.
>> Go ahead and wipe out shareholders: Markets will turn around and
>> create the next 50-to-1 leveraged financial institution as long as the
>> potential return outweighs the risk.
>>
>> The only real fix for moral hazard, in some future regulatory
>> arrangement, would be truly to dispel the belief of bondholders and
>> uninsured creditors that they will be bailed out.
>>
>> That's a subject for another day. The recent devastation of bank
>> equity values wasn't inevitable but was a choice (an addled and
>> perhaps not entirely conscious one) by policy makers trying to make
>> sure bank shareholders didn't benefit from the massive safety net
>> rolled out for banks.
>>
>> As strategies go, it was a terrible one. It greatly increased the toll
>> the banking crisis imposed on the economy, and the cost that fixing
>> the banks will impose on taxpayers. But there's still a chance to
>> avoid a disastrous, taxpayer-financed government takeover of the
>> banking system. The alternative, just as Mr. Buffett spelled it out,
>> begins with forbearance on capital standards.
>> _______________________________________________
>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>


From bill at effros.com  Wed Mar 11 14:19:30 2009
From: bill at effros.com (Bill Effros)
Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2009 14:19:30 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Mark -to-Market
In-Reply-To: <400985d70903111050o6fb22446mfc5300a5caa676d0@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70903110831gfcfa168y32c3858b91d01762@mail.gmail.com>	<49B7E77A.6030701@effros.com>
	<400985d70903111050o6fb22446mfc5300a5caa676d0@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49B800B2.1040209@effros.com>

Brad,

It's difficult for individuals to make money in gold when your country 
is working on a gold standard.

I like things just the way they are.

It seems to me the last time we discussed this, which was not all that 
long ago, I could buy gold in the low $800s.  I just checked, and gold 
is now in the low $900s.

If the banks had done nothing more than convert their assets at market 
value into gold, we would all be much better off today -- and gold would 
be selling for much more.

It's still not too late for individuals.

Are you listening, Brad?

B.



Brad Haslett wrote:
> Bill,
>
> Well sir, according to your view of world events and finance, we
> should probably go back to the gold standard, huh?
>
> Never mind - may have answered my own question there. I just found out
> this week that my wife's grandfather and family survived the Great
> Leap Forward and all the other "Great Leaps" because of the family's
> hidden gold stash.
>
> What, am I just now trustworthy with that kind of info?
>
> Brad
>
> On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 11:31 AM, Bill Effros <bill at effros.com> wrote:
>   
>> Brad,
>>
>> Buffet owns insurance companies, one of the first to be bailed out; in
>> addition to banks, the second to be bailed out.  His support of Obama
>> has paid off handsomely, as has the support of most of the special
>> interest groups that put their money where Obama's mouth was.
>>
>> Without mark to market we get stupid uncontrolled government guaranteed
>> investing -- when they mark to irrational exuberance we get what we got.
>>
>> A lot of those homes won't ever be lived in again.  Their market value
>> is zero.  The sooner we force banks to reflect that value on their
>> balance sheets, the better off we all will be.
>>
>> Many stocks on the stock market are not worth what people are paying for
>> them -- their entire value is based on the assumption that government
>> will bail them out -- however we permit the banks to "mark to market"
>> and continue showing these values.  This sword cuts both ways.
>>
>> Get out of the stock market; get out of real estate speculation; get out
>> of debt while you still have the chance--the shit is nowhere near the
>> fan, and accounting gimmicks are not going to solve the problem.
>>
>> B.
>>
>>
>>
>> Brad Haslett wrote:
>>     
>>> Fear not, those of you stupid enough to hang with the market as I did,
>>> we're in good company.  Warren Buffet didn't anticipate this train
>>> wreck either.  In an interesting turn of events, he's now embracing a
>>> suspension of mark-to-market accounting for banks (see below). Buffet
>>> is not a classical entrepreneur, he's a political one and damn good at
>>> the art.  An early supporter of Obama, he now questions his judgment.
>>> Buffet doesn't create anything, he searches for undervalued assets
>>> that others have created, hence the moniker "political entrepreneur".
>>> Since Buffet holds billions in bank assets, I'm guessing his
>>> reluctance to ask for a suspension of mark-to-market in the early days
>>> was because he thought other (political) solutions were in his best
>>> interests.  Now that he's had 50 days to assess the Obama
>>> administration, he's open to solutions other than political ones.
>>>
>>> First, yesterdays stock market rally was good news and take good news
>>> any way you can get it!  It was a positive direction for the wrong
>>> reasons (Citi profits).  Citi reported a positive "operating profit".
>>> Hell, all the banks have had operating profits.  This is like
>>> reporting that XYZ airlines reported a quarterly profit but neglected
>>> to mention that their entire jet fleet will require new wings in a few
>>> months.  The devil is always in the details of financial statements.
>>> Start with the notes, assumptions, and contingent liabilities starting
>>> on the last page and read backwards.  Only then do the numbers mean
>>> anything.
>>>
>>> These "bad assets" are still associated with real sticks and mud.
>>> They have value to someone.  Rather than let the marketplace return
>>> them to their real value, Obama appropriated 275 Billion dollars so
>>> you can bailout your imprudent neighbor.  Wrong approach. Suspending
>>> mark-to-market will, with the stroke of a pen, "recapitalize" banks
>>> and ultimitely allow them to work themselves out of a hole of their
>>> own making.  The shareholders and bondholders will pay for the
>>> mistakes instead of the taxpayer.
>>>
>>> Someone give Warren my cellphone number, will ya?  He seems to have
>>> lost it again.
>>>
>>> Brad
>>>
>>> ------------
>>>
>>>
>>> WSJ
>>>
>>>
>>>     * MARCH 11, 2009
>>>
>>> Buffett's Unmentionable Bank Solution
>>>
>>>       By HOLMAN W. JENKINS, JR.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Last week's post mortem on the Fannie and Freddie takeover was
>>> received better than we might have expected. A few readers assumed
>>> Eddie Lampert and Bill Miller, fund managers who lost money when Fan
>>> and Fred were seized, and whose letters to their own investors we
>>> quoted, were engaged in special pleading.
>>>
>>>
>>> In fact, the nationalization of Fannie and Freddie is water over the
>>> dam. The men's perspective may be one of pain, but it is historical
>>> pain.
>>>
>>> Now comes Warren Buffett, a big investor in Wells Fargo, M&T Bank and
>>> several other banks, who, during his marathon appearance on CNBC
>>> Monday, clearly called for suspension of mark-to-market accounting for
>>> regulatory capital purposes.
>>>
>>> We add the italics for the benefit of a House hearing tomorrow on this
>>> very issue. Mark-to-market accounting is fine for disclosure purposes,
>>> because investors are not required to take actions based on it. It's
>>> not so fine for regulatory purposes. It doesn't just inform but can
>>> dictate actions that make no sense in the circumstances. Banks can be
>>> forced to raise capital when capital is unavailable or unduly
>>> expensive; regulators can be forced to treat banks as insolvent though
>>> their assets continue to perform.
>>>
>>> What happens next is exactly what we've seen: Their share prices
>>> collapse; government feels obliged to inject taxpayer capital into
>>> banks simply to achieve an accounting effect, so banks can meet
>>> capital adequacy rules set by, um, government.
>>>
>>> (This sounds silly, but has been a big part of government's response so far.)
>>>
>>> CNBC, sadly, has been playing a loop of Mr. Buffett's remarks that
>>> does a consummate job of leaving out his most important point. Nobody
>>> cares about the merits of mark-to-market in the abstract, but how it
>>> impacts our current banking crisis. And his exact words were that it
>>> is "gasoline on the fire in terms of financial institutions."
>>>
>>> Depressing bank stocks today, he said, is precisely the question of
>>> whether banks will be "forced to sell stock at ridiculously low
>>> prices" to meet the capital adequacy rules.
>>>
>>> "If they don't have to sell stock at distressed prices, I think a
>>> number of them will do very, very well."
>>>
>>> He also proposed a fix, which CNBC duly omitted from its loop, namely
>>> to "not have the regulators say, 'We're going to force you to put a
>>> lot more capital in based on these mark-to-market figures.'"
>>>
>>> Mr. Buffett obviously understands where we are today, though it seems
>>> to elude many of those kibitzing about "nationalization," "letting
>>> banks fail" and other lagging notions. Since last year, our banking
>>> system no longer rests on capital, but on government guarantees. With
>>> those sweeping guarantees in place to protect their depositors and
>>> bondholders, banks now are able to earn princely spreads above their
>>> cost of funds, however questionable their balance sheets.
>>>
>>> Banks will "build equity at a very rapid rate with the spreads that
>>> exist now," Mr. Buffett said. With the possible exception of
>>> Citigroup, he added, "the banking system largely will cure itself."
>>>
>>> Notice he didn't call for subsidizing hedge funds to buy toxic assets.
>>> He didn't call for more government capital injections -- which are not
>>> merely redundant when comprehensive guarantees are in place, but
>>> positively destructive of the ultimate goal of moving back toward a
>>> system based on private capital.
>>>
>>> Mr. Buffett didn't utter the unstylish words "regulatory forbearance,"
>>> but letting banks earn their way out of trouble under an umbrella of
>>> government guarantees is precisely that.
>>>
>>> Hank Paulson started down just this road last July. Bank stocks
>>> soared. Then he turned on a dime. Washington needed somebody to punish
>>> and felt it couldn't impose haircuts on uninsured depositors and
>>> bondholders. That left only shareholders, who have been allowed to
>>> face vast dilution and/or government takeover based on mark-to-market
>>> regulatory capital standards.
>>>
>>> Yet the truth is, you get little or no moral hazard bang from
>>> punishing bank shareholders. Equity investors, by definition, accept
>>> the risk of losing 100% of their stake in return for unlimited upside.
>>> Go ahead and wipe out shareholders: Markets will turn around and
>>> create the next 50-to-1 leveraged financial institution as long as the
>>> potential return outweighs the risk.
>>>
>>> The only real fix for moral hazard, in some future regulatory
>>> arrangement, would be truly to dispel the belief of bondholders and
>>> uninsured creditors that they will be bailed out.
>>>
>>> That's a subject for another day. The recent devastation of bank
>>> equity values wasn't inevitable but was a choice (an addled and
>>> perhaps not entirely conscious one) by policy makers trying to make
>>> sure bank shareholders didn't benefit from the massive safety net
>>> rolled out for banks.
>>>
>>> As strategies go, it was a terrible one. It greatly increased the toll
>>> the banking crisis imposed on the economy, and the cost that fixing
>>> the banks will impose on taxpayers. But there's still a chance to
>>> avoid a disastrous, taxpayer-financed government takeover of the
>>> banking system. The alternative, just as Mr. Buffett spelled it out,
>>> begins with forbearance on capital standards.
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>>
>>>
>>>       
>> _______________________________________________
>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>
>>     
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>   
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Wed Mar 11 21:43:57 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2009 20:43:57 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Foreclosures
Message-ID: <400985d70903111843j64e4b42bj92bd1f9340e55f29@mail.gmail.com>

Not exactly widespread, eh?

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/2009-03-05-foreclosure_N.htm

From bill at effros.com  Wed Mar 11 22:38:38 2009
From: bill at effros.com (Bill Effros)
Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2009 22:38:38 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Foreclosures
In-Reply-To: <400985d70903111843j64e4b42bj92bd1f9340e55f29@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70903111843j64e4b42bj92bd1f9340e55f29@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49B875AE.9090109@effros.com>

A bit misleading.

This is per 1000 households and it's old information.

The dark blue sections are the ones where the problems first became 
obvious.  From what I'm hearing, people all over the country are now 
figuring out their homes are not worth what they owe, and it's stupid to 
keep paying principal and interest on properties that will eventually be 
foreclosed anyhow.

B.



Brad Haslett wrote:
> Not exactly widespread, eh?
>
> http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/2009-03-05-foreclosure_N.htm
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>   

From flybrad at gmail.com  Wed Mar 11 23:22:41 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2009 22:22:41 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Foreclosures
In-Reply-To: <49B875AE.9090109@effros.com>
References: <400985d70903111843j64e4b42bj92bd1f9340e55f29@mail.gmail.com>
	<49B875AE.9090109@effros.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70903112022w14bbfd6je56c5150761c299e@mail.gmail.com>

Bill,

Check my math.  If you take 275 Billion and assume an average house
cost of $275K, the gubmint could just outright buy 1 million homes.
Do you have any idea what the raw numbers are on foreclosures? This
idea of helping people upside down isn't going to work, they'll be
upside down again in no time. The money is already appropriated, now
the only question is what kind of boondoggle it morphs into.  From
what I've witnessed after Katrina, the houses will deteriorate before
the regs are finalized.

Brad

On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 9:38 PM, Bill Effros <bill at effros.com> wrote:
> A bit misleading.
>
> This is per 1000 households and it's old information.
>
> The dark blue sections are the ones where the problems first became
> obvious. ?From what I'm hearing, people all over the country are now
> figuring out their homes are not worth what they owe, and it's stupid to
> keep paying principal and interest on properties that will eventually be
> foreclosed anyhow.
>
> B.
>
>
>
> Brad Haslett wrote:
>> Not exactly widespread, eh?
>>
>> http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/2009-03-05-foreclosure_N.htm
>> _______________________________________________
>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>


From bill at effros.com  Wed Mar 11 23:46:47 2009
From: bill at effros.com (Bill Effros)
Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2009 23:46:47 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Foreclosures
In-Reply-To: <400985d70903112022w14bbfd6je56c5150761c299e@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70903111843j64e4b42bj92bd1f9340e55f29@mail.gmail.com>	<49B875AE.9090109@effros.com>
	<400985d70903112022w14bbfd6je56c5150761c299e@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49B885A7.9010402@effros.com>

The problem is nobody is checking anybody's math.  No matter how you 
figure it, it doesn't add.

I would be surprised if there are fewer than 10-15 million under water 
homes at this point, and more to come.

I would guess at least a million of them will eventually be bulldozed.

Let's take as a given that nobody gets back what they put into any home 
unless it's still worth more than they borrowed.

Still, you don't have enough money to come up with an equitable plan, 
and as soon as you start conceding that the underwater homes will never 
be sold for a reasonable fraction of the price they were borrowed 
against, you lower the value of all the other homes, everywhere by 
allowing the underwater borrowers to take less than they owe.

Who's left to pay more?  There are no buyers left for unsubsidized 
homes, so you've got to subsidize them, too.

Forget about the morality of the situation.  There simply isn't enough 
tea in China to make everyone whole, and all of these schemes will do 
nothing more than ensnare more and more home owners at greater and 
greater taxpayer expense which will finally create inflation and prices 
will move up...but who knows how long it will be before that happens?

The more they prolong the agony, the longer it takes.

But there's no help for it, so just do what's best for you and your 
family. 

That's the best you can do for others, too.

B.



Brad Haslett wrote:
> Bill,
>
> Check my math.  If you take 275 Billion and assume an average house
> cost of $275K, the gubmint could just outright buy 1 million homes.
> Do you have any idea what the raw numbers are on foreclosures? This
> idea of helping people upside down isn't going to work, they'll be
> upside down again in no time. The money is already appropriated, now
> the only question is what kind of boondoggle it morphs into.  From
> what I've witnessed after Katrina, the houses will deteriorate before
> the regs are finalized.
>
> Brad
>
> On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 9:38 PM, Bill Effros <bill at effros.com> wrote:
>   
>> A bit misleading.
>>
>> This is per 1000 households and it's old information.
>>
>> The dark blue sections are the ones where the problems first became
>> obvious.  From what I'm hearing, people all over the country are now
>> figuring out their homes are not worth what they owe, and it's stupid to
>> keep paying principal and interest on properties that will eventually be
>> foreclosed anyhow.
>>
>> B.
>>
>>
>>
>> Brad Haslett wrote:
>>     
>>> Not exactly widespread, eh?
>>>
>>> http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/2009-03-05-foreclosure_N.htm
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>>
>>>
>>>       
>> _______________________________________________
>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>
>>     
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>   
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Thu Mar 12 07:38:13 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Thu, 12 Mar 2009 06:38:13 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Medicine - Your Tax Dollars At Work
Message-ID: <400985d70903120438v35b1353emb9459df45ce75943@mail.gmail.com>

Here's a perfect example of spending 19 Billion dollars on a problem
that's already been solved.  Many people think of WalMart as some kind
of trailer trash, IQ75, first cousin breeding, Ozark Mountain
hillbilly outfit, not realizing it is one of the most high tech
companies and leaders in supply chain logistics in the world.  They
have been focused on delivering health-care for some time and already
have reduced drug costs for millions.  Now they are turning their
attention to a common problem - medical record keeping.  I've got two
different friends, both immigrants, one a Filipino the other Indian,
who recently went into private practice as physicians.  Record keeping
is an enormous issue for them and WalMart recognized the need.  Who
will produce the better product or service, the feds or WalMart? My
bet is that by the time the feds are blowing through your 19 billion,
the WalMart template will be the accepted standard  and the entire fed
effort will be wasted - unless of course their product is dictated by
law as the standard.  That won't surprise me either.

Brad

----------------------

 Wal-Mart plans to market digital health records system
By Steve Lohr
Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Wal-Mart Stores is striding into the market for electronic health
records, seeking to bring the technology into the mainstream for
physicians in small offices, where most of America's doctors practice
medicine.

Wal-Mart's move comes as the Obama administration is trying to
jumpstart the adoption of digital medical records with $19 billion of
incentives in the stimulus package.

The company plans to team its Sam's Club division with Dell for
computers and eClinicalWorks, a fast-growing private company, for
software. Wal-Mart says its package deal of hardware, software,
installation, maintenance and training will make the technology more
accessible and affordable, undercutting rival health information
technology suppliers by as much as half.

"We're a high-volume, low-cost company," said Marcus Osborne, senior
director of health care business development at Wal-Mart. "And I would
argue that mentality is sorely lacking in the health care industry."

The Sam's Club offering, to be made available this spring, will be
under $25,000 for the first physician in a practice, and about $10,000
for each additional doctor. After the installation and training, the
continuing annual costs for maintenance and support will be $4,000 to
$6,500 a year, the company estimates.

Wal-Mart says it had been exploring the opportunity in health
information technology long before the recent presidential election.
About 200,000 health care providers, mostly doctors, are among Sam
Club's 47 million members. And the company's research showed the
technology was becoming less costly and rising interest among small
physician practices, according to Todd Matherly, vice president of
health and wellness at Sam's Club.

The financial incentives in the administration plan ? more than
$40,000 per physician over a few years, to install and use electronic
health records ? could accelerate adoption. When used properly, most
health experts agree, the migration from paper to digital records can
curb costs and improve care.

But especially among physicians in small offices, many doubt the
wisdom of switching to electronic health records, given their cost and
complexity. Only about 17 percent of the nation's physicians are using
computerized patient records, according to a government-sponsored
survey published last year in The New England Journal of Medicine. The
use of electronic health records is widespread in large physician
groups, but three-fourths of the nation's doctors work in small
practices, of 10 physicians or fewer.

But Wal-Mart has the potential to bring not only lower costs but an
efficient distribution channel to cater to small physician groups.
Traditional health technology suppliers, experts say, have tended to
shun the small physician offices because it has been costly to sell to
them ? a large market in total, but scattered.

"If Wal-Mart is successful, this could be a game-changer," observed
Dr. David Brailer, former national coordinator for health information
technology in the Bush administration.

In the package, Dell is offering either a desktop or a tablet personal
computer. Many physicians prefer the tablet PC because it more closely
resembles their familiar paper note-taking and makes for easier
communication with the patient, since the doctor is not behind a
desktop screen.

eClinicalWorks, which is used by 25,000 physicians, mostly in small
practices, will provide the electronic record and practice management
software, for billing and patient registration, as a service over the
Internet. This software-as-a-service model can trim costs considerably
and make technical support and maintenance less complicated, because
less software resides on the personal computer in a doctor's office.

Dell will be responsible for the installation of the computers, while
eClinicalWorks will handle the installation, training and maintenance
for the software. Wal-Mart is using its buying power for discounts on
both the hardware and software.

Wal-Mart's role, according to Osborne, is to put the bundle of
technology into an affordable and accessible offering. "We're the
systems integrator, an aggregator," he said.

The company's test bed for the technology it will soon offer
physicians has been its own health care clinics, staffed by
third-party physicians and nurses. Started in September 2006, Wal-Mart
now has 30 such clinics in stores in eight states. Those clinics make
use of the technology the company will be offering physicians. "That's
where the learning came from, and they were the kernel of this idea,"
Osborne said.


From ekroposki at charter.net  Thu Mar 12 09:03:35 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Thu, 12 Mar 2009 09:03:35 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Medical Record Keeping
Message-ID: <D12835E1D90A42F2AA754B9DE7156B4A@YOURB88038198E>

Brad:

McKesson has been developing and selling software for medical record keeping for years now.  Many hospitals and clinics use their software and systems.  No they do not give it away, but they do provide service and advice how to use it to comply with laws, especially controlled substances.  Wall mart would be a Johnny come lately, geared so that they are the distributor and control the flow of product.  Have you heard of big brother.  Or adhesion contracts?

Ed K
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From ekroposki at charter.net  Thu Mar 12 12:35:07 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Thu, 12 Mar 2009 12:35:07 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] How the Bailout money is being used
Message-ID: <CA1C29D96A3349358E0DF3F7A2D23BE1@YOURB88038198E>

See how your bailout money is being used:

http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/mar2009/gb2009039_431274.htm

Yes, Mr. President...

Ed K
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From mweisner at ebsmed.com  Thu Mar 12 13:54:35 2009
From: mweisner at ebsmed.com (Michael D. Weisner)
Date: Thu, 12 Mar 2009 13:54:35 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Medicine - Your Tax Dollars At Work
References: <400985d70903120438v35b1353emb9459df45ce75943@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <D528E1AC81F74D438E2E45A88FE7DF03@ebsoffice>

Brad,

Your phrase "a perfect example of spending 19 Billion dollars on a problem
that's already been solved" is all too true.  I work with the
www.WorldVista.org in an effort to bring the VAMC developed Vista EMR
(developed with YOUR $$$ in the 70's & 80's).  The open source software is
FREE!!!   I have been fighting with closed vendors for years since they tie
the physician to them for ever, even if the vendor goes out of business.
There have been horror stories of the loss of all medical records when the
computer system is upgraded or changed.  At least there is a worldwide
community for WorldVista and a service industry to support the physician.

We already spend the money, now let's take advantage of the investment
rather than reinventing the wheel.  The last thing we need is Wal-Mart
getting into the EMR business.

Mike

From: "Brad Haslett" <flybrad at gmail.com> Thursday, March 12, 2009 7:38 AM
Here's a perfect example of spending 19 Billion dollars on a problem
that's already been solved.  Many people think of WalMart as some kind
of trailer trash, IQ75, first cousin breeding, Ozark Mountain
hillbilly outfit, not realizing it is one of the most high tech
companies and leaders in supply chain logistics in the world.  They
have been focused on delivering health-care for some time and already
have reduced drug costs for millions.  Now they are turning their
attention to a common problem - medical record keeping.  I've got two
different friends, both immigrants, one a Filipino the other Indian,
who recently went into private practice as physicians.  Record keeping
is an enormous issue for them and WalMart recognized the need.  Who
will produce the better product or service, the feds or WalMart? My
bet is that by the time the feds are blowing through your 19 billion,
the WalMart template will be the accepted standard  and the entire fed
effort will be wasted - unless of course their product is dictated by
law as the standard.  That won't surprise me either.

Brad

----------------------

 Wal-Mart plans to market digital health records system
By Steve Lohr
Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Wal-Mart Stores is striding into the market for electronic health
records, seeking to bring the technology into the mainstream for
physicians in small offices, where most of America's doctors practice
medicine.

Wal-Mart's move comes as the Obama administration is trying to
jumpstart the adoption of digital medical records with $19 billion of
incentives in the stimulus package.

The company plans to team its Sam's Club division with Dell for
computers and eClinicalWorks, a fast-growing private company, for
software. Wal-Mart says its package deal of hardware, software,
installation, maintenance and training will make the technology more
accessible and affordable, undercutting rival health information
technology suppliers by as much as half.

"We're a high-volume, low-cost company," said Marcus Osborne, senior
director of health care business development at Wal-Mart. "And I would
argue that mentality is sorely lacking in the health care industry."

The Sam's Club offering, to be made available this spring, will be
under $25,000 for the first physician in a practice, and about $10,000
for each additional doctor. After the installation and training, the
continuing annual costs for maintenance and support will be $4,000 to
$6,500 a year, the company estimates.

Wal-Mart says it had been exploring the opportunity in health
information technology long before the recent presidential election.
About 200,000 health care providers, mostly doctors, are among Sam
Club's 47 million members. And the company's research showed the
technology was becoming less costly and rising interest among small
physician practices, according to Todd Matherly, vice president of
health and wellness at Sam's Club.

The financial incentives in the administration plan - more than
$40,000 per physician over a few years, to install and use electronic
health records - could accelerate adoption. When used properly, most
health experts agree, the migration from paper to digital records can
curb costs and improve care.

But especially among physicians in small offices, many doubt the
wisdom of switching to electronic health records, given their cost and
complexity. Only about 17 percent of the nation's physicians are using
computerized patient records, according to a government-sponsored
survey published last year in The New England Journal of Medicine. The
use of electronic health records is widespread in large physician
groups, but three-fourths of the nation's doctors work in small
practices, of 10 physicians or fewer.

But Wal-Mart has the potential to bring not only lower costs but an
efficient distribution channel to cater to small physician groups.
Traditional health technology suppliers, experts say, have tended to
shun the small physician offices because it has been costly to sell to
them - a large market in total, but scattered.

"If Wal-Mart is successful, this could be a game-changer," observed
Dr. David Brailer, former national coordinator for health information
technology in the Bush administration.

In the package, Dell is offering either a desktop or a tablet personal
computer. Many physicians prefer the tablet PC because it more closely
resembles their familiar paper note-taking and makes for easier
communication with the patient, since the doctor is not behind a
desktop screen.

eClinicalWorks, which is used by 25,000 physicians, mostly in small
practices, will provide the electronic record and practice management
software, for billing and patient registration, as a service over the
Internet. This software-as-a-service model can trim costs considerably
and make technical support and maintenance less complicated, because
less software resides on the personal computer in a doctor's office.

Dell will be responsible for the installation of the computers, while
eClinicalWorks will handle the installation, training and maintenance
for the software. Wal-Mart is using its buying power for discounts on
both the hardware and software.

Wal-Mart's role, according to Osborne, is to put the bundle of
technology into an affordable and accessible offering. "We're the
systems integrator, an aggregator," he said.

The company's test bed for the technology it will soon offer
physicians has been its own health care clinics, staffed by
third-party physicians and nurses. Started in September 2006, Wal-Mart
now has 30 such clinics in stores in eight states. Those clinics make
use of the technology the company will be offering physicians. "That's
where the learning came from, and they were the kernel of this idea,"
Osborne said.

_______________________________________________
SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette



From bill at effros.com  Thu Mar 12 17:40:40 2009
From: bill at effros.com (Bill Effros)
Date: Thu, 12 Mar 2009 17:40:40 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] F.B.I. Raids Former Office of Obama Official
Message-ID: <49B98158.9040303@effros.com>



F.B.I. Raids Former Office of Obama Official

March 12, 2009

By REUTERS

Filed at 5:13 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The FBI raided the former office of Obama 
administration official Vivek Kundra and arrested two people in a 
corruption probe on Thursday, but Kundra is not a target of the 
investigation, a spokeswoman for Washington's mayor said.

The FBI searched the offices of the District of Columbia's chief 
technology officer, a post formerly held by Kundra, as part of an 
investigation into employee corruption there, spokeswoman Mafara Hobson 
said.

President Barack Obama 
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/barack_obama/index.html?inline=nyt-per) 
named Kundra, 34, last week to be the federal government's chief 
information officer, responsible for overseeing government computer systems.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs 
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/robert_gibbs/index.html?inline=nyt-per) 
called the investigation a "serious matter" and declined further comment.

Yusuf Acar, who works in the city's technology office, and another man, 
Sushil Bansal, were arrested on bribery and other charges, according to 
court documents.

Acar describes himself as the information office's chief security 
officer in a video posted on its website.

Bansal is a former Washington government employee who heads Advanced 
Integrated Technologies Corp., a technology firm that has won contracts 
from the city's technology office.

He won the Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2008 from an association of 
Indian-Americans. The company could not immediately be reached for comment.

According to court documents, Acar was accused of conspiring to commit 
bribery, fraud, money laundering and conflict-of-interest violations 
while Bansal was accused of conspiring to commit bribery and money 
laundering.

According to the documents, they allegedly took part in a variety of 
schemes, including billing for so-called "ghost employees," that 
involved stealing money from the government of the District of Columbia.

(Additional reporting by Jim Vicini and Ross Colvin, Editing by Patricia 
Zengerle and Todd Eastham)

From flybrad at gmail.com  Thu Mar 12 18:03:06 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Thu, 12 Mar 2009 17:03:06 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] F.B.I. Raids Former Office of Obama
	Official
In-Reply-To: <49B98158.9040303@effros.com>
References: <49B98158.9040303@effros.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70903121503p6e3e74e1q9cdee1a375fd7ec4@mail.gmail.com>

Bill,

Beat me to it, I was going to suggest to that maybe we should hold off
on the medical records ideas until we see who can stay out of prison
and who can't.  For those with ADHD, the Blago trial hasn't even
started and Rezko is still singing.  Does this country know how to
pick leaders, or what?

Brad

On Thu, Mar 12, 2009 at 4:40 PM, Bill Effros <bill at effros.com> wrote:
>
>
> F.B.I. Raids Former Office of Obama Official
>
> March 12, 2009
>
> By REUTERS
>
> Filed at 5:13 p.m. ET
>
> WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The FBI raided the former office of Obama
> administration official Vivek Kundra and arrested two people in a
> corruption probe on Thursday, but Kundra is not a target of the
> investigation, a spokeswoman for Washington's mayor said.
>
> The FBI searched the offices of the District of Columbia's chief
> technology officer, a post formerly held by Kundra, as part of an
> investigation into employee corruption there, spokeswoman Mafara Hobson
> said.
>
> President Barack Obama
> (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/barack_obama/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
> named Kundra, 34, last week to be the federal government's chief
> information officer, responsible for overseeing government computer systems.
>
> White House spokesman Robert Gibbs
> (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/robert_gibbs/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
> called the investigation a "serious matter" and declined further comment.
>
> Yusuf Acar, who works in the city's technology office, and another man,
> Sushil Bansal, were arrested on bribery and other charges, according to
> court documents.
>
> Acar describes himself as the information office's chief security
> officer in a video posted on its website.
>
> Bansal is a former Washington government employee who heads Advanced
> Integrated Technologies Corp., a technology firm that has won contracts
> from the city's technology office.
>
> He won the Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2008 from an association of
> Indian-Americans. The company could not immediately be reached for comment.
>
> According to court documents, Acar was accused of conspiring to commit
> bribery, fraud, money laundering and conflict-of-interest violations
> while Bansal was accused of conspiring to commit bribery and money
> laundering.
>
> According to the documents, they allegedly took part in a variety of
> schemes, including billing for so-called "ghost employees," that
> involved stealing money from the government of the District of Columbia.
>
> (Additional reporting by Jim Vicini and Ross Colvin, Editing by Patricia
> Zengerle and Todd Eastham)
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>

From bill at effros.com  Thu Mar 12 18:12:30 2009
From: bill at effros.com (Bill Effros)
Date: Thu, 12 Mar 2009 18:12:30 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] F.B.I. Raids Former Office of
	Obama	Official
In-Reply-To: <400985d70903121503p6e3e74e1q9cdee1a375fd7ec4@mail.gmail.com>
References: <49B98158.9040303@effros.com>
	<400985d70903121503p6e3e74e1q9cdee1a375fd7ec4@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49B988CE.4030800@effros.com>

Never mind, we've got to set up some kind of vetting awards!

The good news is the FBI isn't telling the administration what it's up to.

Did you see the Maxine Waters story?

She's always been a real piece of work:

Congresswoman With Ties to Bank Helped Seek Funds

March 13, 2009

By ERIC LIPTON 
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/l/eric_lipton/index.html?inline=nyt-per) 
and JIM RUTENBERG 
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/jim_rutenberg/index.html?inline=nyt-per)

WASHINGTON --- Top banking regulators were taken aback late last year 
when a California congresswoman helped set up a meeting in which the 
chief executive of a bank with financial ties to her family asked them 
for up to $50 million in special bailout funds, Treasury 
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/t/treasury_department/index.html?inline=nyt-org) 
officials said.

Representative Maxine Waters 
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/w/maxine_waters/index.html?inline=nyt-per), 
Democrat of California, requested the September meeting on behalf of 
executives at OneUnited, one of the nation's largest black-owned banks. 
Ms. Water's husband, Sidney Williams, had served on the bank's board of 
directors until early last year and has owned at least $250,000 in stock 
in the institution. Treasury officials said the session with nearly a 
dozen senior banking regulators had been intended to allow 
minority-owned banks and their trade association to discuss the losses 
they had incurred from the federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie 
Mac. But Kevin Cohee, OneUnited's chief executive, instead seized the 
opportunity to plead for special assistance for his bank, federal 
officials said.

"Here you had a tiny community bank that comes in and they are not 
proposing a broader policy --- they were asking for help for 
themselves," said Steve Lineberry, a former Treasury aide who attended 
the meeting. "I don't remember that ever happening before."

Ms. Waters declined on Tuesday to comment on the meeting, or to say if 
her husband still owns OneUnited shares. Her staff released two letters 
that showed the meeting was initially called to discuss industry 
concerns broadly, not matters related just to OneUnited.

The congresswoman, a member of the House Financial Services Committee, 
did not disclose her ties to OneUnited to Treasury officials, who said 
they learned of them only later.

"It angers me," said one former Treasury official, asking that his name 
not be used because he had not been authorized while at Treasury to 
speak about the gathering. "You got to know you have to be careful when 
you are dealing with people who you have personal relations with."

While OneUnited did not get the $50 million it requested, the bank did 
become among the first minority-owned institutions to receive a cash 
infusion --- $12 million --- in December through the Treasury's bank 
bailout effort, called the Troubled Asset Relief Program 
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/credit_crisis/bailout_plan/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier).

The aid surprised some bank analysts because the bailout was intended 
for healthy banks, and OneUnited was then considered to be in precarious 
condition. In addition, it had been harshly criticized by regulators in 
2007 for failing to give a sufficient number of loans to lower income 
residents in Miami, while favoring wealthier customers there. And the 
F.D.I.C. sanctioned the institution in October 2008 for "unsafe or 
unsound banking practices," including excessive compensation for Mr. 
Cohee. The bank had provided him with a 2008 Porsche SUV and maintained 
his $6.4 million beachfront compound in Santa Monica. Calif., with views 
of the Pacific and a spa and pool.

Critics of OneUnited, which is based in Boston and has branches in poor 
neighborhoods of Los Angeles and Miami, say the episode shows how 
special access arranged through a lawmaker with financial ties to the 
bank had compromised the integrity of the federal bailout effort.

"A member of Congress should not be helping out a family friend, 
especially one they share business ties with" said Kenneth H. Thomas, a 
Florida banking consultant who has filed complaints with federal 
regulators about OneUnited's lending practices. "The folks who really 
need help here is the community served by OneUnited --- a community that 
is starving for credit. "

Mr. Cohee and Treasury officials said the TARP money had nothing to do 
with the intervention by Ms. Waters. Mr. Cohee also suggested that 
criticism of his operations by federal banking regulators was racially 
motivated.

"This is where the race issue comes in," he said.

Ms. Waters and Mr. Cohee have been outspoken advocates for fair 
treatment of African-Americans and other minorities by the nation's 
banks --- "silver rights," Mr. Cohee called it during an interview in 
his Los Angeles office, where he prominently displays a photograph of 
him with the congresswoman. Indeed, in Los Angeles the bank has won 
praise for its record of helping minority businesses and lower-income 
residents.

Their interests first intersected in 2002, when Mr. Cohee was involved 
in a bidding war for Family Savings, a small, black-owned bank in Ms. 
Waters' South Los Angeles District.

As a white-owned Illinois bank initially emerged as the winner, Ms. 
Waters made clear through the local news media that she opposed any deal 
in which Family would fall out of African-American hands. She was 
credited when the bank abruptly changed course and gave Mr. Cohee 
another chance to submit a winning bid.

"It's very helpful if you have a community-based transaction to have the 
real or implied support of Maxine," said Wayne-Kent A. Bradshaw, the 
former president of Family Savings, who preferred the initial deal. 
"She's a star in the community."

The acquisition nearly doubled the size of Mr. Cohee's bank, making it 
among the nation's largest African-American-owned banks.

Less than two years later, Mr. Cohee named Mr. Williams, Ms. Waters' 
husband, to the bank's board. A former professional football player and 
ambassador to the Bahamas, Mr. Williams was working as a business 
consultant, pulling in hundreds of thousands of dollars over a 
several-year period working with some of Ms. Waters's political allies, 
according to disclosure forms.

Mr. Williams accepted no compensation from the bank, to avoid any 
appearance of a conflict, Mr. Cohee said. But as a director, Mr. 
Williams was required to hold stock. Accordingly, he acquired between 
$250,000 and $500,000 worth, records show. Mr. Cohee said that Mr. 
Williams paid for the stock himself, although Ms. Waters and Mr. Cohee 
would not say how much he paid for the stock. He would not say whether 
Mr. Williams sold the shares after leaving the board last April. 
Attempts to reach Mr. Williams through his wife's office were 
unsuccessful. He did not return a call left at his Los Angeles office.

The federal takeover of Fannie and Freddie last fall was a near-fatal 
blow to One United. The bank, like many others around the United States, 
had invested some of its capital in preferred stock of the two mortgage 
companies.

After the federal intervention, the stock became nearly worthless and 
OneUnited lost almost $50 million. That left the bank dangerously under 
capitalized.

Ms. Waters had been in regular contact with Henry M. Paulson Jr. 
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/henry_m_jr_paulson/index.html?inline=nyt-per), 
then the Treasury secretary, urging him to hire minority contractors to 
advise the federal government on investments and to move more 
aggressively to head-off a rash of forced evictions of people defaulting 
on their mortgages, Treasury officials said.

It was in one of those conversations that she asked Mr. Paulson to host 
a gathering at Treasury of representatives from minority-owned banks to 
discuss their losses related to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the 
officials said.

OneUnited officials, including Mr. Cohee, had separately been pressing 
for such a meeting, requesting it on behalf of the National Bankers 
Association, a Washington-based group that represents minority-owned 
banks. Its incoming chairman was a OneUnited executive, Robert Cooper. 
But it was only after Ms. Waters intervened that the session was 
approved, Treasury officials said.

At the meeting were representatives from the offices of Representative 
Barney Frank 
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/f/barney_frank/index.html?inline=nyt-per) 
and Senator John Kerry 
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/john_kerry/index.html?inline=nyt-per), 
both Democrats of Massachusetts, the home state of OneUnited, along with 
Ms. Waters's chief of staff. As the hour-long meeting got underway, 
Treasury officials were surprised as Mr. Cohee and Mr. Cooper focused 
the discussion on their bank, not broader industry problems, 
participants said. Mr. Cohee made it clear that he wanted the federal 
government to somehow make up for their $50 million loss.

"They wanted money --- cash," said a former Treasury Department official 
who attended the meeting but asked not to be named, because he was not 
authorized to speak to reporters. "That is why they were there. It was 
very, very explicit."

No commitment was made at the meeting, federal officials said.

But Ms. Waters intervened again, in early December, calling Treasury to 
request a second meeting to ensure that minority-owned banks received a 
chunk of the $700 billion worth of bailout funds recently approved by 
Congress, according to Michael Grant, president of the National Bankers 
Association. At a Dec. 4 meeting, he and Mr. Cooper of OneUnited urged 
Treasury to release some of the bailout funds to their members.

Two weeks later, OneUnited received its $12 million TARP allocation. 
That money was approved by a five-member committee that included Anthony 
Ryan, then the Treasury department's Undersecretary for Domestic 
Finance, who had been present at the September meeting.

The Wall Street Journal has previously reported that Mr. Frank had urged 
Treasury to act on the application, although in an interview last week 
he noted that he had no financial connection to the institution. On 
Thursday, The Journal reported the financial connections between Ms. 
Waters's husband and OneUnited, as well as her role in requesting the 
Treasury meeting.

Treasury Department officials said neither political influence nor the 
appeals by OneUnited executives played a role in their decision to award 
the funds to the bank. They noted that the bank had met its requirement 
to raise roughly $20 million in private funds before receiving the aid. 
Officials from the F.D.I.C., which recommended that OneUnited get the 
money, said that based on the "entire spectrum of financial and other 
supervisory information," about OneUnited, it felt that allocating the 
bailout funds to the bank was appropriate.

Mr. Cohee said he resents any suggestion that Ms. Waters played a direct 
role in this aid --- or that she did anything out of the ordinary for 
the bank simply because her husband had been on its board.

"Ms. Waters is an important advocate for minorities and minority issues 
and an indispensable part of Los Angeles communities," he said. "But we 
derived no benefit whatsoever from any activity related to her. And she 
did not really do anything. There is nothing that she did that impacted 
the process."


Brad Haslett wrote:
> Bill,
>
> Beat me to it, I was going to suggest to that maybe we should hold off
> on the medical records ideas until we see who can stay out of prison
> and who can't.  For those with ADHD, the Blago trial hasn't even
> started and Rezko is still singing.  Does this country know how to
> pick leaders, or what?
>
> Brad
>
> On Thu, Mar 12, 2009 at 4:40 PM, Bill Effros <bill at effros.com> wrote:
>   
>> F.B.I. Raids Former Office of Obama Official
>>
>> March 12, 2009
>>
>> By REUTERS
>>
>> Filed at 5:13 p.m. ET
>>
>> WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The FBI raided the former office of Obama
>> administration official Vivek Kundra and arrested two people in a
>> corruption probe on Thursday, but Kundra is not a target of the
>> investigation, a spokeswoman for Washington's mayor said.
>>
>> The FBI searched the offices of the District of Columbia's chief
>> technology officer, a post formerly held by Kundra, as part of an
>> investigation into employee corruption there, spokeswoman Mafara Hobson
>> said.
>>
>> President Barack Obama
>> (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/barack_obama/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
>> named Kundra, 34, last week to be the federal government's chief
>> information officer, responsible for overseeing government computer systems.
>>
>> White House spokesman Robert Gibbs
>> (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/robert_gibbs/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
>> called the investigation a "serious matter" and declined further comment.
>>
>> Yusuf Acar, who works in the city's technology office, and another man,
>> Sushil Bansal, were arrested on bribery and other charges, according to
>> court documents.
>>
>> Acar describes himself as the information office's chief security
>> officer in a video posted on its website.
>>
>> Bansal is a former Washington government employee who heads Advanced
>> Integrated Technologies Corp., a technology firm that has won contracts
>> from the city's technology office.
>>
>> He won the Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2008 from an association of
>> Indian-Americans. The company could not immediately be reached for comment.
>>
>> According to court documents, Acar was accused of conspiring to commit
>> bribery, fraud, money laundering and conflict-of-interest violations
>> while Bansal was accused of conspiring to commit bribery and money
>> laundering.
>>
>> According to the documents, they allegedly took part in a variety of
>> schemes, including billing for so-called "ghost employees," that
>> involved stealing money from the government of the District of Columbia.
>>
>> (Additional reporting by Jim Vicini and Ross Colvin, Editing by Patricia
>> Zengerle and Todd Eastham)
>> _______________________________________________
>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>
>>     
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>   
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Fri Mar 13 08:37:16 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2009 07:37:16 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] China Doesn't Buy It!
Message-ID: <400985d70903130537y1aa6e0aax48bc9b947e63e9e0@mail.gmail.com>

"Inside China there has been a lot of debate about whether they should
continue to buy Treasuries."

Well duuuuh!   China has been sending "polite" messages for weeks that
they see through this scam and aren't interested in being paid back in
inflated dollars. Did the Sec. of the Treasury think that based on his
Asian Studies degree and time spent living in China that the Chinese
are stupid?  I think now would be a good time to invest in WD-40
because those printing presses are going to need a lot of lubrication.
 Maybe ink and paper would be good investments as well. Why didn't
someone in the American media just pick-up a Beijing phone book and
call the first Wong, or Shen, or Kung their finger landed on and ask?
A month ago our Dear Leader told us we were facing the worst disaster
since the Great Depression, and that we may not recover from it if we
don't spend a Trillion dollars we don't have immediately on welfare,
health-care, green energy, etc. Now that the money we don't have has
been committed but not yet spent, Dear Leader tells us things are not
so bad. I'm confused, but this is my first Great Leap Forward
experience so that's understandable. The Chinese have "been there,
done that" and they ain't buying.

Someone else run the world for a few days.  We're taking Cora to
Disney World for Spring Break this afternoon. If I have to listen to
fantasy talk from someone with big ears, I prefer M-I-C-K-E-Y!

Brad

-------------------

Mar 13, 6:21 AM (ET)

By JOE McDONALD


BEIJING (AP) - China's premier expressed concern Friday about its
massive holdings of Treasuries and other U.S. debt, appealing to
Washington to safeguard their value, and said Beijing is ready to
expand its stimulus if the economy worsens.

Premier Wen Jiabao noted that Beijing is the biggest foreign creditor
to the United States and called on Washington to see that its response
to the global slowdown does not damage the value of Chinese holdings.

"We have made a huge amount of loans to the United States. Of course
we are concerned about the safety of our assets. To be honest, I'm a
little bit worried," Wen said at a news conference following the
closing of China's annual legislative session. "I would like to call
on the United States to honor its words, stay a credible nation and
ensure the safety of Chinese assets."

Wen's comments foreshadowed possible appeals to President Barack
Obama, who will meet with Chinese President Hu Jintao at a London
summit of leaders of the G-20 group of major economies on April 2 to
discuss the global financial crisis.


Analysts estimate that nearly half of China's $2 trillion in currency
reserves are in U.S. Treasuries and notes issued by other
government-affiliated agencies.

Washington is counting on China to continue buying Treasuries to fund
its $787 billion stimulus package. Last month, visiting Secretary of
State Hillary Rodham Clinton sought to reassure Beijing that
government debt would remain a reliable investment.

"They are worried about forever-rising deficits, which may devalue
Treasuries by pushing interest rates higher," said JP Morgan economist
Frank Gong. "Inside China there has been a lot of debate about whether
they should continue to buy Treasuries."

The comments come as finance ministers and central bankers of the G-20
gather in London this weekend to discuss the crisis and possible
remedies.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is pressing for a new
coordinated stimulus but European governments are reluctant to take on
more debt before they see how current plans are working. The Europeans
want to emphasize the need for greater regulation of markets,
including a crackdown on tax havens and increased control over hedge
funds.

In Beijing, Wen expressed confidence China can emerge from its slump
"at an early date," and said the government is ready to expand its 4
trillion yuan ($586 billion) stimulus to boost growth in the world's
third-largest economy.

Communist leaders worry about rising job losses and possible unrest
amid a trade slump that saw Chinese exports fall 25.7 percent in
February from a year earlier. They have promised to spend heavily to
create jobs and boost exports.

"We already have our plans ready to tackle even more difficult times,
and to do that we have reserved adequate ammunition," Wen said. "That
means that at any time we can introduce new stimulus policies."

In nearby Japan, Prime Minister Taro Aso called Friday for a fresh
stimulus to help lift the world's second-largest economy out of "an
unprecedented economic crisis." The comments helped spark a rally in
Japan's stock market, where the Nikkei 225 stock index surged 5.2
percent.

China's Wen and other officials point to rising bank lending, power
demand and other signs the stimulus is taking effect. But growth in
retail sales is weakening, suggesting it has yet to spur private
sector spending and investment, which analysts say will be key to its
success.

Wen said Beijing can meet its 2009 growth target of 8 percent, despite
skepticism by private sector economists, who expect as little as 5
percent. That would be the strongest of any major country but could
lead to more waves of job cuts.

"I really believe we will be able to walk out of the shadow of the
financial crisis at an early date," he said. "After this trial, I
believe the Chinese economy will show greater vitality."

The premier promised to focus on job creation and give more help to
smaller companies, which he said generate 90 percent of Chinese new
employment.

"We will pay all attention possible to this issue and we will never
overlook this issue," he said.

Wen said Beijing wants the London summit to focus on the plight of
poor countries.

"We must see to it that we show concern for developing countries, and
help developing countries - the least-developed ones in particular -
become an important topic on the agenda," he said.

From bill at effros.com  Fri Mar 13 08:49:10 2009
From: bill at effros.com (Bill Effros)
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2009 08:49:10 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] China Doesn't Buy It!
In-Reply-To: <400985d70903130537y1aa6e0aax48bc9b947e63e9e0@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70903130537y1aa6e0aax48bc9b947e63e9e0@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49BA5646.5050703@effros.com>

Have fun at Disney World.

Of course it's been many many years since I've been there, but we used 
to get up very early to arrive at opening time.  We could just walk from 
one ride to the next for a couple of hours, starting at the most popular 
and avoiding any ride with a line.  When there's no line you can do the 
best rides over and over if you want to.

You know how old I am, so you know how long ago that was -- don't know 
if this trick still works -- but it's something to consider.

B.

PS -- How do you suppose China plans to finance its own deficit  spending?

PPS -- If Chinese exports to the US decline, how will China be able to 
buy an increasing quantity of US debt to finance our increasing deficit 
spending?





Brad Haslett wrote:
> "Inside China there has been a lot of debate about whether they should
> continue to buy Treasuries."
>
> Well duuuuh!   China has been sending "polite" messages for weeks that
> they see through this scam and aren't interested in being paid back in
> inflated dollars. Did the Sec. of the Treasury think that based on his
> Asian Studies degree and time spent living in China that the Chinese
> are stupid?  I think now would be a good time to invest in WD-40
> because those printing presses are going to need a lot of lubrication.
>  Maybe ink and paper would be good investments as well. Why didn't
> someone in the American media just pick-up a Beijing phone book and
> call the first Wong, or Shen, or Kung their finger landed on and ask?
> A month ago our Dear Leader told us we were facing the worst disaster
> since the Great Depression, and that we may not recover from it if we
> don't spend a Trillion dollars we don't have immediately on welfare,
> health-care, green energy, etc. Now that the money we don't have has
> been committed but not yet spent, Dear Leader tells us things are not
> so bad. I'm confused, but this is my first Great Leap Forward
> experience so that's understandable. The Chinese have "been there,
> done that" and they ain't buying.
>
> Someone else run the world for a few days.  We're taking Cora to
> Disney World for Spring Break this afternoon. If I have to listen to
> fantasy talk from someone with big ears, I prefer M-I-C-K-E-Y!
>
> Brad
>
> -------------------
>
> Mar 13, 6:21 AM (ET)
>
> By JOE McDONALD
>
>
> BEIJING (AP) - China's premier expressed concern Friday about its
> massive holdings of Treasuries and other U.S. debt, appealing to
> Washington to safeguard their value, and said Beijing is ready to
> expand its stimulus if the economy worsens.
>
> Premier Wen Jiabao noted that Beijing is the biggest foreign creditor
> to the United States and called on Washington to see that its response
> to the global slowdown does not damage the value of Chinese holdings.
>
> "We have made a huge amount of loans to the United States. Of course
> we are concerned about the safety of our assets. To be honest, I'm a
> little bit worried," Wen said at a news conference following the
> closing of China's annual legislative session. "I would like to call
> on the United States to honor its words, stay a credible nation and
> ensure the safety of Chinese assets."
>
> Wen's comments foreshadowed possible appeals to President Barack
> Obama, who will meet with Chinese President Hu Jintao at a London
> summit of leaders of the G-20 group of major economies on April 2 to
> discuss the global financial crisis.
>
>
> Analysts estimate that nearly half of China's $2 trillion in currency
> reserves are in U.S. Treasuries and notes issued by other
> government-affiliated agencies.
>
> Washington is counting on China to continue buying Treasuries to fund
> its $787 billion stimulus package. Last month, visiting Secretary of
> State Hillary Rodham Clinton sought to reassure Beijing that
> government debt would remain a reliable investment.
>
> "They are worried about forever-rising deficits, which may devalue
> Treasuries by pushing interest rates higher," said JP Morgan economist
> Frank Gong. "Inside China there has been a lot of debate about whether
> they should continue to buy Treasuries."
>
> The comments come as finance ministers and central bankers of the G-20
> gather in London this weekend to discuss the crisis and possible
> remedies.
>
> U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is pressing for a new
> coordinated stimulus but European governments are reluctant to take on
> more debt before they see how current plans are working. The Europeans
> want to emphasize the need for greater regulation of markets,
> including a crackdown on tax havens and increased control over hedge
> funds.
>
> In Beijing, Wen expressed confidence China can emerge from its slump
> "at an early date," and said the government is ready to expand its 4
> trillion yuan ($586 billion) stimulus to boost growth in the world's
> third-largest economy.
>
> Communist leaders worry about rising job losses and possible unrest
> amid a trade slump that saw Chinese exports fall 25.7 percent in
> February from a year earlier. They have promised to spend heavily to
> create jobs and boost exports.
>
> "We already have our plans ready to tackle even more difficult times,
> and to do that we have reserved adequate ammunition," Wen said. "That
> means that at any time we can introduce new stimulus policies."
>
> In nearby Japan, Prime Minister Taro Aso called Friday for a fresh
> stimulus to help lift the world's second-largest economy out of "an
> unprecedented economic crisis." The comments helped spark a rally in
> Japan's stock market, where the Nikkei 225 stock index surged 5.2
> percent.
>
> China's Wen and other officials point to rising bank lending, power
> demand and other signs the stimulus is taking effect. But growth in
> retail sales is weakening, suggesting it has yet to spur private
> sector spending and investment, which analysts say will be key to its
> success.
>
> Wen said Beijing can meet its 2009 growth target of 8 percent, despite
> skepticism by private sector economists, who expect as little as 5
> percent. That would be the strongest of any major country but could
> lead to more waves of job cuts.
>
> "I really believe we will be able to walk out of the shadow of the
> financial crisis at an early date," he said. "After this trial, I
> believe the Chinese economy will show greater vitality."
>
> The premier promised to focus on job creation and give more help to
> smaller companies, which he said generate 90 percent of Chinese new
> employment.
>
> "We will pay all attention possible to this issue and we will never
> overlook this issue," he said.
>
> Wen said Beijing wants the London summit to focus on the plight of
> poor countries.
>
> "We must see to it that we show concern for developing countries, and
> help developing countries - the least-developed ones in particular -
> become an important topic on the agenda," he said.
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>   

From flybrad at gmail.com  Fri Mar 13 09:30:43 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2009 08:30:43 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] China Doesn't Buy It!
In-Reply-To: <49BA5646.5050703@effros.com>
References: <400985d70903130537y1aa6e0aax48bc9b947e63e9e0@mail.gmail.com>
	<49BA5646.5050703@effros.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70903130630i3756a083y8e3157f76c9a778c@mail.gmail.com>

Bill,

They have a thing now that may not have existed when you were there
called "Fast Pass". You get a reservation for a time window to the
most popular rides.  The system won't allow you to hold more than one
reservation at a time. This is Cora's 3rd or 4th trip so she knows the
park pretty well - we just follow along.  Thank goodness she's grown
out of her infatuation with Ariel.  I waited in line 90 minutes so she
could spend 15 seconds with a big-boobed redhead in a mermaid costume.
 Come to think of it, it wasn't all that bad! Disney is spending 24
Billion building a new park in Shanghai as we speak.

As the article pointed out, China has 2 Trillion in currency reserves
they can blow through before they start deficit spending.  Of course,
half of that is held in US dollars and that is what they are worried
about.  US trade is a huge component of their foreign exchange but
China has been building business relationships all over the Pacific
Rim.  According to my conversation with Jia last summer, about 70% of
their manufacturing capacity is for internal consumption.  That last
30% of capacity is where they make their money. Their leadership is
facing huge social problems and unrest in the Pearl River Delta
because so many jobs have been eliminated and workers are being forced
to go home to the countryside.  China is still primarily an agrarian
society so there's a lot of countryside to go home to.  It is easy to
lose sight of that fact when you're inside a modern city like Beijing
or Shanghai.  Take a train anywhere outside the city and you're
reminded that there are still 900 million peasants.

To answer your second question, China won't buy US debt if they're not
selling to the US. That is why all the bold talk about protecting
American workers by limiting free trade is so much BS.  It didn't work
with Smoot-Hawley in the 30's and it sure as hell won't work now if we
plan to borrow our way to prosperity.  Go to any premier hotel in any
major city in China and you'll find a lot more Europeans and Asians
from developed countries than Americans.  We tend to think of
ourselves as the center of the universe - the Chinese don't.

We did some extensive homework over the weekend on Chinese tax law.
My employer has a bid out to expand the pilot domicile in Hong Kong
(which mans the hub in Guangzhou - two hours away).  Hong Kong has
separate laws from the Mainland but both are favorable to ours.  We've
decided to stay put for the time being because of Cora's educational
needs.  Down the road - who knows.  I've got a friend from my Bonanza
list who lives there and would offer me access to his airplane.  The
sailing there is pretty good as well.  The biggest downside is the
pollution.  China has a lot of work to do in that area but they're
slowly working on the problem.  We didn't solve our acid rain and
polluted river issues overnight and neither will they.  Most
certainly, they won't wreck their economy looking for an immediate
fix.  I'm all in favor of "green energy" but it won't happen overnight
and it won't happen by the government deciding who the winners and
losers are.  We may very well wreck our economy by trying though.

Brad



On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 7:49 AM, Bill Effros <bill at effros.com> wrote:
> Have fun at Disney World.
>
> Of course it's been many many years since I've been there, but we used
> to get up very early to arrive at opening time. ?We could just walk from
> one ride to the next for a couple of hours, starting at the most popular
> and avoiding any ride with a line. ?When there's no line you can do the
> best rides over and over if you want to.
>
> You know how old I am, so you know how long ago that was -- don't know
> if this trick still works -- but it's something to consider.
>
> B.
>
> PS -- How do you suppose China plans to finance its own deficit ?spending?
>
> PPS -- If Chinese exports to the US decline, how will China be able to
> buy an increasing quantity of US debt to finance our increasing deficit
> spending?
>
>
>
>
>
> Brad Haslett wrote:
>> "Inside China there has been a lot of debate about whether they should
>> continue to buy Treasuries."
>>
>> Well duuuuh! ? China has been sending "polite" messages for weeks that
>> they see through this scam and aren't interested in being paid back in
>> inflated dollars. Did the Sec. of the Treasury think that based on his
>> Asian Studies degree and time spent living in China that the Chinese
>> are stupid? ?I think now would be a good time to invest in WD-40
>> because those printing presses are going to need a lot of lubrication.
>> ?Maybe ink and paper would be good investments as well. Why didn't
>> someone in the American media just pick-up a Beijing phone book and
>> call the first Wong, or Shen, or Kung their finger landed on and ask?
>> A month ago our Dear Leader told us we were facing the worst disaster
>> since the Great Depression, and that we may not recover from it if we
>> don't spend a Trillion dollars we don't have immediately on welfare,
>> health-care, green energy, etc. Now that the money we don't have has
>> been committed but not yet spent, Dear Leader tells us things are not
>> so bad. I'm confused, but this is my first Great Leap Forward
>> experience so that's understandable. The Chinese have "been there,
>> done that" and they ain't buying.
>>
>> Someone else run the world for a few days. ?We're taking Cora to
>> Disney World for Spring Break this afternoon. If I have to listen to
>> fantasy talk from someone with big ears, I prefer M-I-C-K-E-Y!
>>
>> Brad
>>
>> -------------------
>>
>> Mar 13, 6:21 AM (ET)
>>
>> By JOE McDONALD
>>
>>
>> BEIJING (AP) - China's premier expressed concern Friday about its
>> massive holdings of Treasuries and other U.S. debt, appealing to
>> Washington to safeguard their value, and said Beijing is ready to
>> expand its stimulus if the economy worsens.
>>
>> Premier Wen Jiabao noted that Beijing is the biggest foreign creditor
>> to the United States and called on Washington to see that its response
>> to the global slowdown does not damage the value of Chinese holdings.
>>
>> "We have made a huge amount of loans to the United States. Of course
>> we are concerned about the safety of our assets. To be honest, I'm a
>> little bit worried," Wen said at a news conference following the
>> closing of China's annual legislative session. "I would like to call
>> on the United States to honor its words, stay a credible nation and
>> ensure the safety of Chinese assets."
>>
>> Wen's comments foreshadowed possible appeals to President Barack
>> Obama, who will meet with Chinese President Hu Jintao at a London
>> summit of leaders of the G-20 group of major economies on April 2 to
>> discuss the global financial crisis.
>>
>>
>> Analysts estimate that nearly half of China's $2 trillion in currency
>> reserves are in U.S. Treasuries and notes issued by other
>> government-affiliated agencies.
>>
>> Washington is counting on China to continue buying Treasuries to fund
>> its $787 billion stimulus package. Last month, visiting Secretary of
>> State Hillary Rodham Clinton sought to reassure Beijing that
>> government debt would remain a reliable investment.
>>
>> "They are worried about forever-rising deficits, which may devalue
>> Treasuries by pushing interest rates higher," said JP Morgan economist
>> Frank Gong. "Inside China there has been a lot of debate about whether
>> they should continue to buy Treasuries."
>>
>> The comments come as finance ministers and central bankers of the G-20
>> gather in London this weekend to discuss the crisis and possible
>> remedies.
>>
>> U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is pressing for a new
>> coordinated stimulus but European governments are reluctant to take on
>> more debt before they see how current plans are working. The Europeans
>> want to emphasize the need for greater regulation of markets,
>> including a crackdown on tax havens and increased control over hedge
>> funds.
>>
>> In Beijing, Wen expressed confidence China can emerge from its slump
>> "at an early date," and said the government is ready to expand its 4
>> trillion yuan ($586 billion) stimulus to boost growth in the world's
>> third-largest economy.
>>
>> Communist leaders worry about rising job losses and possible unrest
>> amid a trade slump that saw Chinese exports fall 25.7 percent in
>> February from a year earlier. They have promised to spend heavily to
>> create jobs and boost exports.
>>
>> "We already have our plans ready to tackle even more difficult times,
>> and to do that we have reserved adequate ammunition," Wen said. "That
>> means that at any time we can introduce new stimulus policies."
>>
>> In nearby Japan, Prime Minister Taro Aso called Friday for a fresh
>> stimulus to help lift the world's second-largest economy out of "an
>> unprecedented economic crisis." The comments helped spark a rally in
>> Japan's stock market, where the Nikkei 225 stock index surged 5.2
>> percent.
>>
>> China's Wen and other officials point to rising bank lending, power
>> demand and other signs the stimulus is taking effect. But growth in
>> retail sales is weakening, suggesting it has yet to spur private
>> sector spending and investment, which analysts say will be key to its
>> success.
>>
>> Wen said Beijing can meet its 2009 growth target of 8 percent, despite
>> skepticism by private sector economists, who expect as little as 5
>> percent. That would be the strongest of any major country but could
>> lead to more waves of job cuts.
>>
>> "I really believe we will be able to walk out of the shadow of the
>> financial crisis at an early date," he said. "After this trial, I
>> believe the Chinese economy will show greater vitality."
>>
>> The premier promised to focus on job creation and give more help to
>> smaller companies, which he said generate 90 percent of Chinese new
>> employment.
>>
>> "We will pay all attention possible to this issue and we will never
>> overlook this issue," he said.
>>
>> Wen said Beijing wants the London summit to focus on the plight of
>> poor countries.
>>
>> "We must see to it that we show concern for developing countries, and
>> help developing countries - the least-developed ones in particular -
>> become an important topic on the agenda," he said.
>> _______________________________________________
>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>


From bill at effros.com  Fri Mar 13 09:44:10 2009
From: bill at effros.com (Bill Effros)
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2009 09:44:10 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] China Doesn't Buy It!
In-Reply-To: <400985d70903130630i3756a083y8e3157f76c9a778c@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70903130537y1aa6e0aax48bc9b947e63e9e0@mail.gmail.com>	<49BA5646.5050703@effros.com>
	<400985d70903130630i3756a083y8e3157f76c9a778c@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49BA632A.8010809@effros.com>

Oh, I love Hong Kong -- I may have some "Hello China -- Goodbye GB" 
T-Shirts left over from the turn-over -- what's your size?

Begger's Chicken!

I'll note the fast pass for my grand children -- thanks.

Obama is clueless -- he just reads what others write.  The economists 
surrounding him are committed to their positions and now must play them 
out, ignoring the fact that when Bush was deficit spending they 
condemned him--now they have taken the position that he didn't spend 
enough soon enough.

Of course it won't work.

You gotta admire Ron Paul for a lot of things.

But just like Rik, being right ain't enough.

Protect your own.

B.



Brad Haslett wrote:
> Bill,
>
> They have a thing now that may not have existed when you were there
> called "Fast Pass". You get a reservation for a time window to the
> most popular rides.  The system won't allow you to hold more than one
> reservation at a time. This is Cora's 3rd or 4th trip so she knows the
> park pretty well - we just follow along.  Thank goodness she's grown
> out of her infatuation with Ariel.  I waited in line 90 minutes so she
> could spend 15 seconds with a big-boobed redhead in a mermaid costume.
>  Come to think of it, it wasn't all that bad! Disney is spending 24
> Billion building a new park in Shanghai as we speak.
>
> As the article pointed out, China has 2 Trillion in currency reserves
> they can blow through before they start deficit spending.  Of course,
> half of that is held in US dollars and that is what they are worried
> about.  US trade is a huge component of their foreign exchange but
> China has been building business relationships all over the Pacific
> Rim.  According to my conversation with Jia last summer, about 70% of
> their manufacturing capacity is for internal consumption.  That last
> 30% of capacity is where they make their money. Their leadership is
> facing huge social problems and unrest in the Pearl River Delta
> because so many jobs have been eliminated and workers are being forced
> to go home to the countryside.  China is still primarily an agrarian
> society so there's a lot of countryside to go home to.  It is easy to
> lose sight of that fact when you're inside a modern city like Beijing
> or Shanghai.  Take a train anywhere outside the city and you're
> reminded that there are still 900 million peasants.
>
> To answer your second question, China won't buy US debt if they're not
> selling to the US. That is why all the bold talk about protecting
> American workers by limiting free trade is so much BS.  It didn't work
> with Smoot-Hawley in the 30's and it sure as hell won't work now if we
> plan to borrow our way to prosperity.  Go to any premier hotel in any
> major city in China and you'll find a lot more Europeans and Asians
> from developed countries than Americans.  We tend to think of
> ourselves as the center of the universe - the Chinese don't.
>
> We did some extensive homework over the weekend on Chinese tax law.
> My employer has a bid out to expand the pilot domicile in Hong Kong
> (which mans the hub in Guangzhou - two hours away).  Hong Kong has
> separate laws from the Mainland but both are favorable to ours.  We've
> decided to stay put for the time being because of Cora's educational
> needs.  Down the road - who knows.  I've got a friend from my Bonanza
> list who lives there and would offer me access to his airplane.  The
> sailing there is pretty good as well.  The biggest downside is the
> pollution.  China has a lot of work to do in that area but they're
> slowly working on the problem.  We didn't solve our acid rain and
> polluted river issues overnight and neither will they.  Most
> certainly, they won't wreck their economy looking for an immediate
> fix.  I'm all in favor of "green energy" but it won't happen overnight
> and it won't happen by the government deciding who the winners and
> losers are.  We may very well wreck our economy by trying though.
>
> Brad
>
>
>
> On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 7:49 AM, Bill Effros <bill at effros.com> wrote:
>   
>> Have fun at Disney World.
>>
>> Of course it's been many many years since I've been there, but we used
>> to get up very early to arrive at opening time.  We could just walk from
>> one ride to the next for a couple of hours, starting at the most popular
>> and avoiding any ride with a line.  When there's no line you can do the
>> best rides over and over if you want to.
>>
>> You know how old I am, so you know how long ago that was -- don't know
>> if this trick still works -- but it's something to consider.
>>
>> B.
>>
>> PS -- How do you suppose China plans to finance its own deficit  spending?
>>
>> PPS -- If Chinese exports to the US decline, how will China be able to
>> buy an increasing quantity of US debt to finance our increasing deficit
>> spending?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Brad Haslett wrote:
>>     
>>> "Inside China there has been a lot of debate about whether they should
>>> continue to buy Treasuries."
>>>
>>> Well duuuuh!   China has been sending "polite" messages for weeks that
>>> they see through this scam and aren't interested in being paid back in
>>> inflated dollars. Did the Sec. of the Treasury think that based on his
>>> Asian Studies degree and time spent living in China that the Chinese
>>> are stupid?  I think now would be a good time to invest in WD-40
>>> because those printing presses are going to need a lot of lubrication.
>>>  Maybe ink and paper would be good investments as well. Why didn't
>>> someone in the American media just pick-up a Beijing phone book and
>>> call the first Wong, or Shen, or Kung their finger landed on and ask?
>>> A month ago our Dear Leader told us we were facing the worst disaster
>>> since the Great Depression, and that we may not recover from it if we
>>> don't spend a Trillion dollars we don't have immediately on welfare,
>>> health-care, green energy, etc. Now that the money we don't have has
>>> been committed but not yet spent, Dear Leader tells us things are not
>>> so bad. I'm confused, but this is my first Great Leap Forward
>>> experience so that's understandable. The Chinese have "been there,
>>> done that" and they ain't buying.
>>>
>>> Someone else run the world for a few days.  We're taking Cora to
>>> Disney World for Spring Break this afternoon. If I have to listen to
>>> fantasy talk from someone with big ears, I prefer M-I-C-K-E-Y!
>>>
>>> Brad
>>>
>>> -------------------
>>>
>>> Mar 13, 6:21 AM (ET)
>>>
>>> By JOE McDONALD
>>>
>>>
>>> BEIJING (AP) - China's premier expressed concern Friday about its
>>> massive holdings of Treasuries and other U.S. debt, appealing to
>>> Washington to safeguard their value, and said Beijing is ready to
>>> expand its stimulus if the economy worsens.
>>>
>>> Premier Wen Jiabao noted that Beijing is the biggest foreign creditor
>>> to the United States and called on Washington to see that its response
>>> to the global slowdown does not damage the value of Chinese holdings.
>>>
>>> "We have made a huge amount of loans to the United States. Of course
>>> we are concerned about the safety of our assets. To be honest, I'm a
>>> little bit worried," Wen said at a news conference following the
>>> closing of China's annual legislative session. "I would like to call
>>> on the United States to honor its words, stay a credible nation and
>>> ensure the safety of Chinese assets."
>>>
>>> Wen's comments foreshadowed possible appeals to President Barack
>>> Obama, who will meet with Chinese President Hu Jintao at a London
>>> summit of leaders of the G-20 group of major economies on April 2 to
>>> discuss the global financial crisis.
>>>
>>>
>>> Analysts estimate that nearly half of China's $2 trillion in currency
>>> reserves are in U.S. Treasuries and notes issued by other
>>> government-affiliated agencies.
>>>
>>> Washington is counting on China to continue buying Treasuries to fund
>>> its $787 billion stimulus package. Last month, visiting Secretary of
>>> State Hillary Rodham Clinton sought to reassure Beijing that
>>> government debt would remain a reliable investment.
>>>
>>> "They are worried about forever-rising deficits, which may devalue
>>> Treasuries by pushing interest rates higher," said JP Morgan economist
>>> Frank Gong. "Inside China there has been a lot of debate about whether
>>> they should continue to buy Treasuries."
>>>
>>> The comments come as finance ministers and central bankers of the G-20
>>> gather in London this weekend to discuss the crisis and possible
>>> remedies.
>>>
>>> U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is pressing for a new
>>> coordinated stimulus but European governments are reluctant to take on
>>> more debt before they see how current plans are working. The Europeans
>>> want to emphasize the need for greater regulation of markets,
>>> including a crackdown on tax havens and increased control over hedge
>>> funds.
>>>
>>> In Beijing, Wen expressed confidence China can emerge from its slump
>>> "at an early date," and said the government is ready to expand its 4
>>> trillion yuan ($586 billion) stimulus to boost growth in the world's
>>> third-largest economy.
>>>
>>> Communist leaders worry about rising job losses and possible unrest
>>> amid a trade slump that saw Chinese exports fall 25.7 percent in
>>> February from a year earlier. They have promised to spend heavily to
>>> create jobs and boost exports.
>>>
>>> "We already have our plans ready to tackle even more difficult times,
>>> and to do that we have reserved adequate ammunition," Wen said. "That
>>> means that at any time we can introduce new stimulus policies."
>>>
>>> In nearby Japan, Prime Minister Taro Aso called Friday for a fresh
>>> stimulus to help lift the world's second-largest economy out of "an
>>> unprecedented economic crisis." The comments helped spark a rally in
>>> Japan's stock market, where the Nikkei 225 stock index surged 5.2
>>> percent.
>>>
>>> China's Wen and other officials point to rising bank lending, power
>>> demand and other signs the stimulus is taking effect. But growth in
>>> retail sales is weakening, suggesting it has yet to spur private
>>> sector spending and investment, which analysts say will be key to its
>>> success.
>>>
>>> Wen said Beijing can meet its 2009 growth target of 8 percent, despite
>>> skepticism by private sector economists, who expect as little as 5
>>> percent. That would be the strongest of any major country but could
>>> lead to more waves of job cuts.
>>>
>>> "I really believe we will be able to walk out of the shadow of the
>>> financial crisis at an early date," he said. "After this trial, I
>>> believe the Chinese economy will show greater vitality."
>>>
>>> The premier promised to focus on job creation and give more help to
>>> smaller companies, which he said generate 90 percent of Chinese new
>>> employment.
>>>
>>> "We will pay all attention possible to this issue and we will never
>>> overlook this issue," he said.
>>>
>>> Wen said Beijing wants the London summit to focus on the plight of
>>> poor countries.
>>>
>>> "We must see to it that we show concern for developing countries, and
>>> help developing countries - the least-developed ones in particular -
>>> become an important topic on the agenda," he said.
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>>
>>>
>>>       
>> _______________________________________________
>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>
>>     
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>   
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From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Fri Mar 13 10:20:32 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2009 09:20:32 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] China Doesn't Buy It!
In-Reply-To: <49BA632A.8010809@effros.com>
References: <400985d70903130537y1aa6e0aax48bc9b947e63e9e0@mail.gmail.com>
	<49BA5646.5050703@effros.com>
	<400985d70903130630i3756a083y8e3157f76c9a778c@mail.gmail.com>
	<49BA632A.8010809@effros.com>
Message-ID: <6634e19e0903130720g37580870ja58aec354f41c7d2@mail.gmail.com>

Brad, Bill,

Speaking of Ron Paul ....

He's sponsoring a bill right now that would enable the auditing of the Fed.
Myself, I can't imagine anyone better to audit right at the minute.

Here's a link to petition your congressman to get behind this as
co-sponsors.

http://www.campaignforliberty.com/campaigns/auditthefed.php?projid=16

Here's a list of congressmen already on the bandwagon.

http://www.dailypaul.com/node/85929

The RNC called me up the other day looking for more money. I have to admit
sending them some before the election, hoping to avoid having The O One
become our Messiah, sort of a "lesser of two evils" kind of thing. I told
them that they had sure better get to thinking a lot more like Ron Paul if
they ever wanted to see any more of my money.

Rik

On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 8:44 AM, Bill Effros <bill at effros.com> wrote:

>  Oh, I love Hong Kong -- I may have some "Hello China -- Goodbye GB"
> T-Shirts left over from the turn-over -- what's your size?
>
> Begger's Chicken!
>
> I'll note the fast pass for my grand children -- thanks.
>
> Obama is clueless -- he just reads what others write.  The economists
> surrounding him are committed to their positions and now must play them out,
> ignoring the fact that when Bush was deficit spending they condemned
> him--now they have taken the position that he didn't spend enough soon
> enough.
>
> Of course it won't work.
>
> You gotta admire Ron Paul for a lot of things.
>
> But just like Rik, being right ain't enough.
>
> Protect your own.
>
> B.
>
>
>
>
> Brad Haslett wrote:
>
> Bill,
>
> They have a thing now that may not have existed when you were there
> called "Fast Pass". You get a reservation for a time window to the
> most popular rides.  The system won't allow you to hold more than one
> reservation at a time. This is Cora's 3rd or 4th trip so she knows the
> park pretty well - we just follow along.  Thank goodness she's grown
> out of her infatuation with Ariel.  I waited in line 90 minutes so she
> could spend 15 seconds with a big-boobed redhead in a mermaid costume.
>  Come to think of it, it wasn't all that bad! Disney is spending 24
> Billion building a new park in Shanghai as we speak.
>
> As the article pointed out, China has 2 Trillion in currency reserves
> they can blow through before they start deficit spending.  Of course,
> half of that is held in US dollars and that is what they are worried
> about.  US trade is a huge component of their foreign exchange but
> China has been building business relationships all over the Pacific
> Rim.  According to my conversation with Jia last summer, about 70% of
> their manufacturing capacity is for internal consumption.  That last
> 30% of capacity is where they make their money. Their leadership is
> facing huge social problems and unrest in the Pearl River Delta
> because so many jobs have been eliminated and workers are being forced
> to go home to the countryside.  China is still primarily an agrarian
> society so there's a lot of countryside to go home to.  It is easy to
> lose sight of that fact when you're inside a modern city like Beijing
> or Shanghai.  Take a train anywhere outside the city and you're
> reminded that there are still 900 million peasants.
>
> To answer your second question, China won't buy US debt if they're not
> selling to the US. That is why all the bold talk about protecting
> American workers by limiting free trade is so much BS.  It didn't work
> with Smoot-Hawley in the 30's and it sure as hell won't work now if we
> plan to borrow our way to prosperity.  Go to any premier hotel in any
> major city in China and you'll find a lot more Europeans and Asians
> from developed countries than Americans.  We tend to think of
> ourselves as the center of the universe - the Chinese don't.
>
> We did some extensive homework over the weekend on Chinese tax law.
> My employer has a bid out to expand the pilot domicile in Hong Kong
> (which mans the hub in Guangzhou - two hours away).  Hong Kong has
> separate laws from the Mainland but both are favorable to ours.  We've
> decided to stay put for the time being because of Cora's educational
> needs.  Down the road - who knows.  I've got a friend from my Bonanza
> list who lives there and would offer me access to his airplane.  The
> sailing there is pretty good as well.  The biggest downside is the
> pollution.  China has a lot of work to do in that area but they're
> slowly working on the problem.  We didn't solve our acid rain and
> polluted river issues overnight and neither will they.  Most
> certainly, they won't wreck their economy looking for an immediate
> fix.  I'm all in favor of "green energy" but it won't happen overnight
> and it won't happen by the government deciding who the winners and
> losers are.  We may very well wreck our economy by trying though.
>
> Brad
>
>
>
> On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 7:49 AM, Bill Effros <bill at effros.com> <bill at effros.com> wrote:
>
>
>  Have fun at Disney World.
>
> Of course it's been many many years since I've been there, but we used
> to get up very early to arrive at opening time.  We could just walk from
> one ride to the next for a couple of hours, starting at the most popular
> and avoiding any ride with a line.  When there's no line you can do the
> best rides over and over if you want to.
>
> You know how old I am, so you know how long ago that was -- don't know
> if this trick still works -- but it's something to consider.
>
> B.
>
> PS -- How do you suppose China plans to finance its own deficit  spending?
>
> PPS -- If Chinese exports to the US decline, how will China be able to
> buy an increasing quantity of US debt to finance our increasing deficit
> spending?
>
>
>
>
>
> Brad Haslett wrote:
>
>
>  "Inside China there has been a lot of debate about whether they should
> continue to buy Treasuries."
>
> Well duuuuh!   China has been sending "polite" messages for weeks that
> they see through this scam and aren't interested in being paid back in
> inflated dollars. Did the Sec. of the Treasury think that based on his
> Asian Studies degree and time spent living in China that the Chinese
> are stupid?  I think now would be a good time to invest in WD-40
> because those printing presses are going to need a lot of lubrication.
>  Maybe ink and paper would be good investments as well. Why didn't
> someone in the American media just pick-up a Beijing phone book and
> call the first Wong, or Shen, or Kung their finger landed on and ask?
> A month ago our Dear Leader told us we were facing the worst disaster
> since the Great Depression, and that we may not recover from it if we
> don't spend a Trillion dollars we don't have immediately on welfare,
> health-care, green energy, etc. Now that the money we don't have has
> been committed but not yet spent, Dear Leader tells us things are not
> so bad. I'm confused, but this is my first Great Leap Forward
> experience so that's understandable. The Chinese have "been there,
> done that" and they ain't buying.
>
> Someone else run the world for a few days.  We're taking Cora to
> Disney World for Spring Break this afternoon. If I have to listen to
> fantasy talk from someone with big ears, I prefer M-I-C-K-E-Y!
>
> Brad
>
> -------------------
>
> Mar 13, 6:21 AM (ET)
>
> By JOE McDONALD
>
>
> BEIJING (AP) - China's premier expressed concern Friday about its
> massive holdings of Treasuries and other U.S. debt, appealing to
> Washington to safeguard their value, and said Beijing is ready to
> expand its stimulus if the economy worsens.
>
> Premier Wen Jiabao noted that Beijing is the biggest foreign creditor
> to the United States and called on Washington to see that its response
> to the global slowdown does not damage the value of Chinese holdings.
>
> "We have made a huge amount of loans to the United States. Of course
> we are concerned about the safety of our assets. To be honest, I'm a
> little bit worried," Wen said at a news conference following the
> closing of China's annual legislative session. "I would like to call
> on the United States to honor its words, stay a credible nation and
> ensure the safety of Chinese assets."
>
> Wen's comments foreshadowed possible appeals to President Barack
> Obama, who will meet with Chinese President Hu Jintao at a London
> summit of leaders of the G-20 group of major economies on April 2 to
> discuss the global financial crisis.
>
>
> Analysts estimate that nearly half of China's $2 trillion in currency
> reserves are in U.S. Treasuries and notes issued by other
> government-affiliated agencies.
>
> Washington is counting on China to continue buying Treasuries to fund
> its $787 billion stimulus package. Last month, visiting Secretary of
> State Hillary Rodham Clinton sought to reassure Beijing that
> government debt would remain a reliable investment.
>
> "They are worried about forever-rising deficits, which may devalue
> Treasuries by pushing interest rates higher," said JP Morgan economist
> Frank Gong. "Inside China there has been a lot of debate about whether
> they should continue to buy Treasuries."
>
> The comments come as finance ministers and central bankers of the G-20
> gather in London this weekend to discuss the crisis and possible
> remedies.
>
> U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is pressing for a new
> coordinated stimulus but European governments are reluctant to take on
> more debt before they see how current plans are working. The Europeans
> want to emphasize the need for greater regulation of markets,
> including a crackdown on tax havens and increased control over hedge
> funds.
>
> In Beijing, Wen expressed confidence China can emerge from its slump
> "at an early date," and said the government is ready to expand its 4
> trillion yuan ($586 billion) stimulus to boost growth in the world's
> third-largest economy.
>
> Communist leaders worry about rising job losses and possible unrest
> amid a trade slump that saw Chinese exports fall 25.7 percent in
> February from a year earlier. They have promised to spend heavily to
> create jobs and boost exports.
>
> "We already have our plans ready to tackle even more difficult times,
> and to do that we have reserved adequate ammunition," Wen said. "That
> means that at any time we can introduce new stimulus policies."
>
> In nearby Japan, Prime Minister Taro Aso called Friday for a fresh
> stimulus to help lift the world's second-largest economy out of "an
> unprecedented economic crisis." The comments helped spark a rally in
> Japan's stock market, where the Nikkei 225 stock index surged 5.2
> percent.
>
> China's Wen and other officials point to rising bank lending, power
> demand and other signs the stimulus is taking effect. But growth in
> retail sales is weakening, suggesting it has yet to spur private
> sector spending and investment, which analysts say will be key to its
> success.
>
> Wen said Beijing can meet its 2009 growth target of 8 percent, despite
> skepticism by private sector economists, who expect as little as 5
> percent. That would be the strongest of any major country but could
> lead to more waves of job cuts.
>
> "I really believe we will be able to walk out of the shadow of the
> financial crisis at an early date," he said. "After this trial, I
> believe the Chinese economy will show greater vitality."
>
> The premier promised to focus on job creation and give more help to
> smaller companies, which he said generate 90 percent of Chinese new
> employment.
>
> "We will pay all attention possible to this issue and we will never
> overlook this issue," he said.
>
> Wen said Beijing wants the London summit to focus on the plight of
> poor countries.
>
> "We must see to it that we show concern for developing countries, and
> help developing countries - the least-developed ones in particular -
> become an important topic on the agenda," he said.
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing listSwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.comhttp://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>
>        _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing listSwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.comhttp://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>      _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing listSwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.comhttp://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Fri Mar 13 11:43:44 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2009 10:43:44 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] China Doesn't Buy It!
In-Reply-To: <6634e19e0903130720g37580870ja58aec354f41c7d2@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70903130537y1aa6e0aax48bc9b947e63e9e0@mail.gmail.com>
	<49BA5646.5050703@effros.com>
	<400985d70903130630i3756a083y8e3157f76c9a778c@mail.gmail.com>
	<49BA632A.8010809@effros.com>
	<6634e19e0903130720g37580870ja58aec354f41c7d2@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70903130843k2bad58b2l73a2de8192613730@mail.gmail.com>

Rik,

Here's another article that makes you go, duuuuh!  As we've discussed
before, capital flows where it is treated the kindest.  Whatever makes
people think they can create "heaven on earth" with the right savior
is beyond me.  To listen to the Teleprompter Jesus crowd we can all
throw away our life vests in a few months because The One is going to
teach us all how to walk on water. I love the statement from Carl
Levin's office about "offshore abuses" - like avoiding giving your
money away you earn for taking big risks is an "abuse".

Brad

----------------

RPT-FEATURE-Corporate oil booms in low-tax Switzerland
Thu Mar 12, 2009 9:04am EDT

* Companies seek Swiss domiciles despite tax row

* U.S. political climate may be helping

* Appeal as corporate location may outlast offshore dispute

By Sam Cage

ZUG, Switzerland, March 12 (Reuters) - The tidy towns and mountain
vistas of Switzerland are an unlikely setting for an oil boom.

Yet a wave of energy companies has in the last few months announced
plans to move to Switzerland -- mainly for its appeal as a low-tax
corporate domicile that looks relatively likely to stay out of reach
of Barack Obama's tax-seeking administration.

In a country with scant crude oil production of its own, the virtual
energy boom has changed the canton or state of Zug, about 30 minutes'
drive from Zurich, beyond all recognition. Its economy was based on
farming until it slashed tax rates to attract commerce after World War
Two.

It still has a chocolate-box old town with views over a lake to the
high Alps, but is now surrounded by gleaming corporate offices --
including commodity trader Glencore and oil refiner Petroplus --
shopping malls and housing developments.

Local authorities say about 13 percent of full-time jobs in Zug canton
are in the raw materials sector.

Over the past six months companies including offshore drilling
contractors Noble Corp and Transocean, energy-focused engineering
group Foster Wheeler and oilfield services company Weatherfield
International have all announced plans to shift domicile to
Switzerland.

"Switzerland has a stable and developed tax regime and a network of
tax treaties with most countries where we operate," Transocean Chief
Executive Bob Long said in a statement in October, when it announced
its move. "As a result, the redomestication will improve our ability
to maintain a competitive worldwide effective corporate tax rate."

Guido Jud, head of Zug's tax office, said about 1,200 companies had
set up shop there in 2008 -- in line with the long-term average,
though it is difficult to assess how many of those are foreign
companies until they file tax returns.

Swiss cantons are free to set their own tax rates. For example in Zug,
corporate tax is about 16 percent but can fall as low as 9.5 percent
for companies that do most of their business outside Switzerland. That
compares with an average global corporate tax rate of 25.9 percent,
according to consultancy KPMG.

"One trend that we see is that particularly Bermuda-based companies
are now moving to Switzerland," said Martin Frey, a partner at law
company Baker & McKenzie. "That may only partly be obviously for tax
reasons, but also for security reasons and the fact that the Obama
administration may go after them."

CORPORATE APPEAL

The moves come as the Alpine country is under pressure to stop
providing a haven to rich individuals who have been illegally dodging
taxes: the U.S. political climate could be contributing to the
corporate relocations as authorities seek to crack down on tax
avoidance and boost their own revenues.

A bill introduced in the U.S. Congress in March targeting "offshore
tax dodges" by individuals and companies names Switzerland among tax
havens for evaders.

Offshore tax abuses cost the U.S. Treasury an estimated $30-60 billion
in lost revenues from corporation tax, plus $40-70 billion from
individuals, according to the office of Senator Carl Levin, who is
sponsoring the bill.

Switzerland holds around $2 trillion of estimated global undeclared
assets, according to the Boston Consulting Group. Revenue generated
from this could be squeezed as a U.S. probe of its biggest bank UBS
dilutes banking secrecy.

Yet analysts say the Swiss, whose GDP in 2008 was about 530 billion
Swiss francs ($460 billion) according to the International Monetary
Fund, are less likely to meet opposition to the low-tax regimes that
draw foreign companies: these are deemed less harmful tax avoidance,
rather than evasion.

"They are still making some money by having lower taxes on companies,"
said Lee Sheppard, contributing editor to Tax Notes, a tax journal
based in Washington DC.

"But they're not ever going to be making the amount that other
governments are annoyed about losing."

Analysts note that because Switzerland has its own tax treaty with the
United States, blacklisting it at a corporate or individual level
could cause unproductive diplomatic incidents.

Low-tax jurisdictions like Bermuda or the Cayman Islands look more
vulnerable because they have less diplomatic clout, which is prompting
some companies to head for Switzerland.

The European Commission, the European Union's executive body, has said
the tax regimes in cantons like Zug, Schwyz and Obwalden are a form of
state aid: it wants Switzerland to end favourable treatment of
foreign-earned profits.

Switzerland, which is not a member of the EU, denies the cantons'
special status violates its free trade deal with the bloc and rejects
negotiations with Brussels on fiscal matters.

But it has pledged to consider some other company taxation regulations
the EU has objected to, such as the status of foreign companies,
aiming to ensure these go beyond thinly staffed headquarters to invest
and create jobs in Switzerland.

CONTINUING TREND

Baker & McKenzie's Frey thinks more companies will shift to
Switzerland, and Zug's Jud also highlighted the country's neutrality
and reliability as an attraction to energy companies who do business
in less stable countries.

"We are not reckoning on an unusually strong boom, but a continual and
sustainable growth on the scale of the last few years and decades,"
Jud said.

Companies say Switzerland's attractiveness as a corporate location
goes beyond tax to include easy and efficient transport, a high
quality of life high and well-trained staff.

In the current climate, the attractions for the companies that move
clearly outweigh one drawback: by making the switch they potentially
sacrifice inclusion in stock market indexes such as the closely
watched benchmark Standard & Poor's 500.

"In the past and most recently with Transocean, Standard & Poor's has
ruled that the process of redomesticating to Switzerland renders a
company 'ineligible for continued inclusion' in the S&P 500," said
Macquarie Research analyst Angie Sedita in a note.

In buoyant times, inclusion in such indexes has offered access to
equity capital. But the S&P 500 has fallen more than 50 percent since
October. (Additional reporting by Braden Reddall in Houston; Editing
by Sara Ledwith) ($1=1.158 Swiss Franc)

On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 9:20 AM, Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Brad, Bill,
>
> Speaking of Ron Paul ....
>
> He's sponsoring a bill right now that would enable the auditing of the Fed.
> Myself, I can't imagine anyone better to audit right at the minute.
>
> Here's a link to petition your congressman to get behind this as
> co-sponsors.
>
> http://www.campaignforliberty.com/campaigns/auditthefed.php?projid=16
>
> Here's a list of congressmen already on the bandwagon.
>
> http://www.dailypaul.com/node/85929
>
> The RNC called me up the other day looking for more money. I have to admit
> sending them some before the election, hoping to avoid having The O One
> become our Messiah, sort of a "lesser of two evils" kind of thing. I told
> them that they had sure better get to thinking a lot more like Ron Paul if
> they ever wanted to see any more of my money.
>
> Rik
>
> On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 8:44 AM, Bill Effros <bill at effros.com> wrote:
>>
>> Oh, I love Hong Kong -- I may have some "Hello China -- Goodbye GB"
>> T-Shirts left over from the turn-over -- what's your size?
>>
>> Begger's Chicken!
>>
>> I'll note the fast pass for my grand children -- thanks.
>>
>> Obama is clueless -- he just reads what others write.? The economists
>> surrounding him are committed to their positions and now must play them out,
>> ignoring the fact that when Bush was deficit spending they condemned
>> him--now they have taken the position that he didn't spend enough soon
>> enough.
>>
>> Of course it won't work.
>>
>> You gotta admire Ron Paul for a lot of things.
>>
>> But just like Rik, being right ain't enough.
>>
>> Protect your own.
>>
>> B.
>>
>>
>>
>> Brad Haslett wrote:
>>
>> Bill,
>>
>> They have a thing now that may not have existed when you were there
>> called "Fast Pass". You get a reservation for a time window to the
>> most popular rides.  The system won't allow you to hold more than one
>> reservation at a time. This is Cora's 3rd or 4th trip so she knows the
>> park pretty well - we just follow along.  Thank goodness she's grown
>> out of her infatuation with Ariel.  I waited in line 90 minutes so she
>> could spend 15 seconds with a big-boobed redhead in a mermaid costume.
>>  Come to think of it, it wasn't all that bad! Disney is spending 24
>> Billion building a new park in Shanghai as we speak.
>>
>> As the article pointed out, China has 2 Trillion in currency reserves
>> they can blow through before they start deficit spending.  Of course,
>> half of that is held in US dollars and that is what they are worried
>> about.  US trade is a huge component of their foreign exchange but
>> China has been building business relationships all over the Pacific
>> Rim.  According to my conversation with Jia last summer, about 70% of
>> their manufacturing capacity is for internal consumption.  That last
>> 30% of capacity is where they make their money. Their leadership is
>> facing huge social problems and unrest in the Pearl River Delta
>> because so many jobs have been eliminated and workers are being forced
>> to go home to the countryside.  China is still primarily an agrarian
>> society so there's a lot of countryside to go home to.  It is easy to
>> lose sight of that fact when you're inside a modern city like Beijing
>> or Shanghai.  Take a train anywhere outside the city and you're
>> reminded that there are still 900 million peasants.
>>
>> To answer your second question, China won't buy US debt if they're not
>> selling to the US. That is why all the bold talk about protecting
>> American workers by limiting free trade is so much BS.  It didn't work
>> with Smoot-Hawley in the 30's and it sure as hell won't work now if we
>> plan to borrow our way to prosperity.  Go to any premier hotel in any
>> major city in China and you'll find a lot more Europeans and Asians
>> from developed countries than Americans.  We tend to think of
>> ourselves as the center of the universe - the Chinese don't.
>>
>> We did some extensive homework over the weekend on Chinese tax law.
>> My employer has a bid out to expand the pilot domicile in Hong Kong
>> (which mans the hub in Guangzhou - two hours away).  Hong Kong has
>> separate laws from the Mainland but both are favorable to ours.  We've
>> decided to stay put for the time being because of Cora's educational
>> needs.  Down the road - who knows.  I've got a friend from my Bonanza
>> list who lives there and would offer me access to his airplane.  The
>> sailing there is pretty good as well.  The biggest downside is the
>> pollution.  China has a lot of work to do in that area but they're
>> slowly working on the problem.  We didn't solve our acid rain and
>> polluted river issues overnight and neither will they.  Most
>> certainly, they won't wreck their economy looking for an immediate
>> fix.  I'm all in favor of "green energy" but it won't happen overnight
>> and it won't happen by the government deciding who the winners and
>> losers are.  We may very well wreck our economy by trying though.
>>
>> Brad
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 7:49 AM, Bill Effros <bill at effros.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Have fun at Disney World.
>>
>> Of course it's been many many years since I've been there, but we used
>> to get up very early to arrive at opening time. ?We could just walk from
>> one ride to the next for a couple of hours, starting at the most popular
>> and avoiding any ride with a line. ?When there's no line you can do the
>> best rides over and over if you want to.
>>
>> You know how old I am, so you know how long ago that was -- don't know
>> if this trick still works -- but it's something to consider.
>>
>> B.
>>
>> PS -- How do you suppose China plans to finance its own deficit ?spending?
>>
>> PPS -- If Chinese exports to the US decline, how will China be able to
>> buy an increasing quantity of US debt to finance our increasing deficit
>> spending?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Brad Haslett wrote:
>>
>>
>> "Inside China there has been a lot of debate about whether they should
>> continue to buy Treasuries."
>>
>> Well duuuuh! ? China has been sending "polite" messages for weeks that
>> they see through this scam and aren't interested in being paid back in
>> inflated dollars. Did the Sec. of the Treasury think that based on his
>> Asian Studies degree and time spent living in China that the Chinese
>> are stupid? ?I think now would be a good time to invest in WD-40
>> because those printing presses are going to need a lot of lubrication.
>> ?Maybe ink and paper would be good investments as well. Why didn't
>> someone in the American media just pick-up a Beijing phone book and
>> call the first Wong, or Shen, or Kung their finger landed on and ask?
>> A month ago our Dear Leader told us we were facing the worst disaster
>> since the Great Depression, and that we may not recover from it if we
>> don't spend a Trillion dollars we don't have immediately on welfare,
>> health-care, green energy, etc. Now that the money we don't have has
>> been committed but not yet spent, Dear Leader tells us things are not
>> so bad. I'm confused, but this is my first Great Leap Forward
>> experience so that's understandable. The Chinese have "been there,
>> done that" and they ain't buying.
>>
>> Someone else run the world for a few days. ?We're taking Cora to
>> Disney World for Spring Break this afternoon. If I have to listen to
>> fantasy talk from someone with big ears, I prefer M-I-C-K-E-Y!
>>
>> Brad
>>
>> -------------------
>>
>> Mar 13, 6:21 AM (ET)
>>
>> By JOE McDONALD
>>
>>
>> BEIJING (AP) - China's premier expressed concern Friday about its
>> massive holdings of Treasuries and other U.S. debt, appealing to
>> Washington to safeguard their value, and said Beijing is ready to
>> expand its stimulus if the economy worsens.
>>
>> Premier Wen Jiabao noted that Beijing is the biggest foreign creditor
>> to the United States and called on Washington to see that its response
>> to the global slowdown does not damage the value of Chinese holdings.
>>
>> "We have made a huge amount of loans to the United States. Of course
>> we are concerned about the safety of our assets. To be honest, I'm a
>> little bit worried," Wen said at a news conference following the
>> closing of China's annual legislative session. "I would like to call
>> on the United States to honor its words, stay a credible nation and
>> ensure the safety of Chinese assets."
>>
>> Wen's comments foreshadowed possible appeals to President Barack
>> Obama, who will meet with Chinese President Hu Jintao at a London
>> summit of leaders of the G-20 group of major economies on April 2 to
>> discuss the global financial crisis.
>>
>>
>> Analysts estimate that nearly half of China's $2 trillion in currency
>> reserves are in U.S. Treasuries and notes issued by other
>> government-affiliated agencies.
>>
>> Washington is counting on China to continue buying Treasuries to fund
>> its $787 billion stimulus package. Last month, visiting Secretary of
>> State Hillary Rodham Clinton sought to reassure Beijing that
>> government debt would remain a reliable investment.
>>
>> "They are worried about forever-rising deficits, which may devalue
>> Treasuries by pushing interest rates higher," said JP Morgan economist
>> Frank Gong. "Inside China there has been a lot of debate about whether
>> they should continue to buy Treasuries."
>>
>> The comments come as finance ministers and central bankers of the G-20
>> gather in London this weekend to discuss the crisis and possible
>> remedies.
>>
>> U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is pressing for a new
>> coordinated stimulus but European governments are reluctant to take on
>> more debt before they see how current plans are working. The Europeans
>> want to emphasize the need for greater regulation of markets,
>> including a crackdown on tax havens and increased control over hedge
>> funds.
>>
>> In Beijing, Wen expressed confidence China can emerge from its slump
>> "at an early date," and said the government is ready to expand its 4
>> trillion yuan ($586 billion) stimulus to boost growth in the world's
>> third-largest economy.
>>
>> Communist leaders worry about rising job losses and possible unrest
>> amid a trade slump that saw Chinese exports fall 25.7 percent in
>> February from a year earlier. They have promised to spend heavily to
>> create jobs and boost exports.
>>
>> "We already have our plans ready to tackle even more difficult times,
>> and to do that we have reserved adequate ammunition," Wen said. "That
>> means that at any time we can introduce new stimulus policies."
>>
>> In nearby Japan, Prime Minister Taro Aso called Friday for a fresh
>> stimulus to help lift the world's second-largest economy out of "an
>> unprecedented economic crisis." The comments helped spark a rally in
>> Japan's stock market, where the Nikkei 225 stock index surged 5.2
>> percent.
>>
>> China's Wen and other officials point to rising bank lending, power
>> demand and other signs the stimulus is taking effect. But growth in
>> retail sales is weakening, suggesting it has yet to spur private
>> sector spending and investment, which analysts say will be key to its
>> success.
>>
>> Wen said Beijing can meet its 2009 growth target of 8 percent, despite
>> skepticism by private sector economists, who expect as little as 5
>> percent. That would be the strongest of any major country but could
>> lead to more waves of job cuts.
>>
>> "I really believe we will be able to walk out of the shadow of the
>> financial crisis at an early date," he said. "After this trial, I
>> believe the Chinese economy will show greater vitality."
>>
>> The premier promised to focus on job creation and give more help to
>> smaller companies, which he said generate 90 percent of Chinese new
>> employment.
>>
>> "We will pay all attention possible to this issue and we will never
>> overlook this issue," he said.
>>
>> Wen said Beijing wants the London summit to focus on the plight of
>> poor countries.
>>
>> "We must see to it that we show concern for developing countries, and
>> help developing countries - the least-developed ones in particular -
>> become an important topic on the agenda," he said.
>> _______________________________________________
>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>>
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>>
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>>
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>>
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>


From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Fri Mar 13 12:05:03 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2009 11:05:03 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] China Doesn't Buy It!
In-Reply-To: <400985d70903130843k2bad58b2l73a2de8192613730@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70903130537y1aa6e0aax48bc9b947e63e9e0@mail.gmail.com>
	<49BA5646.5050703@effros.com>
	<400985d70903130630i3756a083y8e3157f76c9a778c@mail.gmail.com>
	<49BA632A.8010809@effros.com>
	<6634e19e0903130720g37580870ja58aec354f41c7d2@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70903130843k2bad58b2l73a2de8192613730@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6634e19e0903130905s1d10e06er70ee96cd5b314fb8@mail.gmail.com>

Brad,

Yeah, I saw that. I would imagine that the O one will do his best to close
up havens like these. I'm pretty sure he'll get an education. The question
is .... is he teachable.

Money ALWAYS goes where it is treated the best .... Always.

If he should happen to get the Swiss to bend to his will, it will certainly
be no surprise when a country (or 2 or 3) that he either has less political
leverage against, or just plain doesn't give a shit, will show up to take
their place.

Not everyone is crazy about working for the collective.

Rik

On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 10:43 AM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:

> Rik,
>
> Here's another article that makes you go, duuuuh!  As we've discussed
> before, capital flows where it is treated the kindest.  Whatever makes
> people think they can create "heaven on earth" with the right savior
> is beyond me.  To listen to the Teleprompter Jesus crowd we can all
> throw away our life vests in a few months because The One is going to
> teach us all how to walk on water. I love the statement from Carl
> Levin's office about "offshore abuses" - like avoiding giving your
> money away you earn for taking big risks is an "abuse".
>
> Brad
>
> ----------------
>
> RPT-FEATURE-Corporate oil booms in low-tax Switzerland
> Thu Mar 12, 2009 9:04am EDT
>
> * Companies seek Swiss domiciles despite tax row
>
> * U.S. political climate may be helping
>
> * Appeal as corporate location may outlast offshore dispute
>
> By Sam Cage
>
> ZUG, Switzerland, March 12 (Reuters) - The tidy towns and mountain
> vistas of Switzerland are an unlikely setting for an oil boom.
>
> Yet a wave of energy companies has in the last few months announced
> plans to move to Switzerland -- mainly for its appeal as a low-tax
> corporate domicile that looks relatively likely to stay out of reach
> of Barack Obama's tax-seeking administration.
>
> In a country with scant crude oil production of its own, the virtual
> energy boom has changed the canton or state of Zug, about 30 minutes'
> drive from Zurich, beyond all recognition. Its economy was based on
> farming until it slashed tax rates to attract commerce after World War
> Two.
>
> It still has a chocolate-box old town with views over a lake to the
> high Alps, but is now surrounded by gleaming corporate offices --
> including commodity trader Glencore and oil refiner Petroplus --
> shopping malls and housing developments.
>
> Local authorities say about 13 percent of full-time jobs in Zug canton
> are in the raw materials sector.
>
> Over the past six months companies including offshore drilling
> contractors Noble Corp and Transocean, energy-focused engineering
> group Foster Wheeler and oilfield services company Weatherfield
> International have all announced plans to shift domicile to
> Switzerland.
>
> "Switzerland has a stable and developed tax regime and a network of
> tax treaties with most countries where we operate," Transocean Chief
> Executive Bob Long said in a statement in October, when it announced
> its move. "As a result, the redomestication will improve our ability
> to maintain a competitive worldwide effective corporate tax rate."
>
> Guido Jud, head of Zug's tax office, said about 1,200 companies had
> set up shop there in 2008 -- in line with the long-term average,
> though it is difficult to assess how many of those are foreign
> companies until they file tax returns.
>
> Swiss cantons are free to set their own tax rates. For example in Zug,
> corporate tax is about 16 percent but can fall as low as 9.5 percent
> for companies that do most of their business outside Switzerland. That
> compares with an average global corporate tax rate of 25.9 percent,
> according to consultancy KPMG.
>
> "One trend that we see is that particularly Bermuda-based companies
> are now moving to Switzerland," said Martin Frey, a partner at law
> company Baker & McKenzie. "That may only partly be obviously for tax
> reasons, but also for security reasons and the fact that the Obama
> administration may go after them."
>
> CORPORATE APPEAL
>
> The moves come as the Alpine country is under pressure to stop
> providing a haven to rich individuals who have been illegally dodging
> taxes: the U.S. political climate could be contributing to the
> corporate relocations as authorities seek to crack down on tax
> avoidance and boost their own revenues.
>
> A bill introduced in the U.S. Congress in March targeting "offshore
> tax dodges" by individuals and companies names Switzerland among tax
> havens for evaders.
>
> Offshore tax abuses cost the U.S. Treasury an estimated $30-60 billion
> in lost revenues from corporation tax, plus $40-70 billion from
> individuals, according to the office of Senator Carl Levin, who is
> sponsoring the bill.
>
> Switzerland holds around $2 trillion of estimated global undeclared
> assets, according to the Boston Consulting Group. Revenue generated
> from this could be squeezed as a U.S. probe of its biggest bank UBS
> dilutes banking secrecy.
>
> Yet analysts say the Swiss, whose GDP in 2008 was about 530 billion
> Swiss francs ($460 billion) according to the International Monetary
> Fund, are less likely to meet opposition to the low-tax regimes that
> draw foreign companies: these are deemed less harmful tax avoidance,
> rather than evasion.
>
> "They are still making some money by having lower taxes on companies,"
> said Lee Sheppard, contributing editor to Tax Notes, a tax journal
> based in Washington DC.
>
> "But they're not ever going to be making the amount that other
> governments are annoyed about losing."
>
> Analysts note that because Switzerland has its own tax treaty with the
> United States, blacklisting it at a corporate or individual level
> could cause unproductive diplomatic incidents.
>
> Low-tax jurisdictions like Bermuda or the Cayman Islands look more
> vulnerable because they have less diplomatic clout, which is prompting
> some companies to head for Switzerland.
>
> The European Commission, the European Union's executive body, has said
> the tax regimes in cantons like Zug, Schwyz and Obwalden are a form of
> state aid: it wants Switzerland to end favourable treatment of
> foreign-earned profits.
>
> Switzerland, which is not a member of the EU, denies the cantons'
> special status violates its free trade deal with the bloc and rejects
> negotiations with Brussels on fiscal matters.
>
> But it has pledged to consider some other company taxation regulations
> the EU has objected to, such as the status of foreign companies,
> aiming to ensure these go beyond thinly staffed headquarters to invest
> and create jobs in Switzerland.
>
> CONTINUING TREND
>
> Baker & McKenzie's Frey thinks more companies will shift to
> Switzerland, and Zug's Jud also highlighted the country's neutrality
> and reliability as an attraction to energy companies who do business
> in less stable countries.
>
> "We are not reckoning on an unusually strong boom, but a continual and
> sustainable growth on the scale of the last few years and decades,"
> Jud said.
>
> Companies say Switzerland's attractiveness as a corporate location
> goes beyond tax to include easy and efficient transport, a high
> quality of life high and well-trained staff.
>
> In the current climate, the attractions for the companies that move
> clearly outweigh one drawback: by making the switch they potentially
> sacrifice inclusion in stock market indexes such as the closely
> watched benchmark Standard & Poor's 500.
>
> "In the past and most recently with Transocean, Standard & Poor's has
> ruled that the process of redomesticating to Switzerland renders a
> company 'ineligible for continued inclusion' in the S&P 500," said
> Macquarie Research analyst Angie Sedita in a note.
>
> In buoyant times, inclusion in such indexes has offered access to
> equity capital. But the S&P 500 has fallen more than 50 percent since
> October. (Additional reporting by Braden Reddall in Houston; Editing
> by Sara Ledwith) ($1=1.158 Swiss Franc)
>
> On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 9:20 AM, Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Brad, Bill,
> >
> > Speaking of Ron Paul ....
> >
> > He's sponsoring a bill right now that would enable the auditing of the
> Fed.
> > Myself, I can't imagine anyone better to audit right at the minute.
> >
> > Here's a link to petition your congressman to get behind this as
> > co-sponsors.
> >
> > http://www.campaignforliberty.com/campaigns/auditthefed.php?projid=16
> >
> > Here's a list of congressmen already on the bandwagon.
> >
> > http://www.dailypaul.com/node/85929
> >
> > The RNC called me up the other day looking for more money. I have to
> admit
> > sending them some before the election, hoping to avoid having The O One
> > become our Messiah, sort of a "lesser of two evils" kind of thing. I told
> > them that they had sure better get to thinking a lot more like Ron Paul
> if
> > they ever wanted to see any more of my money.
> >
> > Rik
> >
> > On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 8:44 AM, Bill Effros <bill at effros.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Oh, I love Hong Kong -- I may have some "Hello China -- Goodbye GB"
> >> T-Shirts left over from the turn-over -- what's your size?
> >>
> >> Begger's Chicken!
> >>
> >> I'll note the fast pass for my grand children -- thanks.
> >>
> >> Obama is clueless -- he just reads what others write.  The economists
> >> surrounding him are committed to their positions and now must play them
> out,
> >> ignoring the fact that when Bush was deficit spending they condemned
> >> him--now they have taken the position that he didn't spend enough soon
> >> enough.
> >>
> >> Of course it won't work.
> >>
> >> You gotta admire Ron Paul for a lot of things.
> >>
> >> But just like Rik, being right ain't enough.
> >>
> >> Protect your own.
> >>
> >> B.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Brad Haslett wrote:
> >>
> >> Bill,
> >>
> >> They have a thing now that may not have existed when you were there
> >> called "Fast Pass". You get a reservation for a time window to the
> >> most popular rides.  The system won't allow you to hold more than one
> >> reservation at a time. This is Cora's 3rd or 4th trip so she knows the
> >> park pretty well - we just follow along.  Thank goodness she's grown
> >> out of her infatuation with Ariel.  I waited in line 90 minutes so she
> >> could spend 15 seconds with a big-boobed redhead in a mermaid costume.
> >>  Come to think of it, it wasn't all that bad! Disney is spending 24
> >> Billion building a new park in Shanghai as we speak.
> >>
> >> As the article pointed out, China has 2 Trillion in currency reserves
> >> they can blow through before they start deficit spending.  Of course,
> >> half of that is held in US dollars and that is what they are worried
> >> about.  US trade is a huge component of their foreign exchange but
> >> China has been building business relationships all over the Pacific
> >> Rim.  According to my conversation with Jia last summer, about 70% of
> >> their manufacturing capacity is for internal consumption.  That last
> >> 30% of capacity is where they make their money. Their leadership is
> >> facing huge social problems and unrest in the Pearl River Delta
> >> because so many jobs have been eliminated and workers are being forced
> >> to go home to the countryside.  China is still primarily an agrarian
> >> society so there's a lot of countryside to go home to.  It is easy to
> >> lose sight of that fact when you're inside a modern city like Beijing
> >> or Shanghai.  Take a train anywhere outside the city and you're
> >> reminded that there are still 900 million peasants.
> >>
> >> To answer your second question, China won't buy US debt if they're not
> >> selling to the US. That is why all the bold talk about protecting
> >> American workers by limiting free trade is so much BS.  It didn't work
> >> with Smoot-Hawley in the 30's and it sure as hell won't work now if we
> >> plan to borrow our way to prosperity.  Go to any premier hotel in any
> >> major city in China and you'll find a lot more Europeans and Asians
> >> from developed countries than Americans.  We tend to think of
> >> ourselves as the center of the universe - the Chinese don't.
> >>
> >> We did some extensive homework over the weekend on Chinese tax law.
> >> My employer has a bid out to expand the pilot domicile in Hong Kong
> >> (which mans the hub in Guangzhou - two hours away).  Hong Kong has
> >> separate laws from the Mainland but both are favorable to ours.  We've
> >> decided to stay put for the time being because of Cora's educational
> >> needs.  Down the road - who knows.  I've got a friend from my Bonanza
> >> list who lives there and would offer me access to his airplane.  The
> >> sailing there is pretty good as well.  The biggest downside is the
> >> pollution.  China has a lot of work to do in that area but they're
> >> slowly working on the problem.  We didn't solve our acid rain and
> >> polluted river issues overnight and neither will they.  Most
> >> certainly, they won't wreck their economy looking for an immediate
> >> fix.  I'm all in favor of "green energy" but it won't happen overnight
> >> and it won't happen by the government deciding who the winners and
> >> losers are.  We may very well wreck our economy by trying though.
> >>
> >> Brad
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 7:49 AM, Bill Effros <bill at effros.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> Have fun at Disney World.
> >>
> >> Of course it's been many many years since I've been there, but we used
> >> to get up very early to arrive at opening time.  We could just walk from
> >> one ride to the next for a couple of hours, starting at the most popular
> >> and avoiding any ride with a line.  When there's no line you can do the
> >> best rides over and over if you want to.
> >>
> >> You know how old I am, so you know how long ago that was -- don't know
> >> if this trick still works -- but it's something to consider.
> >>
> >> B.
> >>
> >> PS -- How do you suppose China plans to finance its own deficit
>  spending?
> >>
> >> PPS -- If Chinese exports to the US decline, how will China be able to
> >> buy an increasing quantity of US debt to finance our increasing deficit
> >> spending?
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Brad Haslett wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> "Inside China there has been a lot of debate about whether they should
> >> continue to buy Treasuries."
> >>
> >> Well duuuuh!   China has been sending "polite" messages for weeks that
> >> they see through this scam and aren't interested in being paid back in
> >> inflated dollars. Did the Sec. of the Treasury think that based on his
> >> Asian Studies degree and time spent living in China that the Chinese
> >> are stupid?  I think now would be a good time to invest in WD-40
> >> because those printing presses are going to need a lot of lubrication.
> >>  Maybe ink and paper would be good investments as well. Why didn't
> >> someone in the American media just pick-up a Beijing phone book and
> >> call the first Wong, or Shen, or Kung their finger landed on and ask?
> >> A month ago our Dear Leader told us we were facing the worst disaster
> >> since the Great Depression, and that we may not recover from it if we
> >> don't spend a Trillion dollars we don't have immediately on welfare,
> >> health-care, green energy, etc. Now that the money we don't have has
> >> been committed but not yet spent, Dear Leader tells us things are not
> >> so bad. I'm confused, but this is my first Great Leap Forward
> >> experience so that's understandable. The Chinese have "been there,
> >> done that" and they ain't buying.
> >>
> >> Someone else run the world for a few days.  We're taking Cora to
> >> Disney World for Spring Break this afternoon. If I have to listen to
> >> fantasy talk from someone with big ears, I prefer M-I-C-K-E-Y!
> >>
> >> Brad
> >>
> >> -------------------
> >>
> >> Mar 13, 6:21 AM (ET)
> >>
> >> By JOE McDONALD
> >>
> >>
> >> BEIJING (AP) - China's premier expressed concern Friday about its
> >> massive holdings of Treasuries and other U.S. debt, appealing to
> >> Washington to safeguard their value, and said Beijing is ready to
> >> expand its stimulus if the economy worsens.
> >>
> >> Premier Wen Jiabao noted that Beijing is the biggest foreign creditor
> >> to the United States and called on Washington to see that its response
> >> to the global slowdown does not damage the value of Chinese holdings.
> >>
> >> "We have made a huge amount of loans to the United States. Of course
> >> we are concerned about the safety of our assets. To be honest, I'm a
> >> little bit worried," Wen said at a news conference following the
> >> closing of China's annual legislative session. "I would like to call
> >> on the United States to honor its words, stay a credible nation and
> >> ensure the safety of Chinese assets."
> >>
> >> Wen's comments foreshadowed possible appeals to President Barack
> >> Obama, who will meet with Chinese President Hu Jintao at a London
> >> summit of leaders of the G-20 group of major economies on April 2 to
> >> discuss the global financial crisis.
> >>
> >>
> >> Analysts estimate that nearly half of China's $2 trillion in currency
> >> reserves are in U.S. Treasuries and notes issued by other
> >> government-affiliated agencies.
> >>
> >> Washington is counting on China to continue buying Treasuries to fund
> >> its $787 billion stimulus package. Last month, visiting Secretary of
> >> State Hillary Rodham Clinton sought to reassure Beijing that
> >> government debt would remain a reliable investment.
> >>
> >> "They are worried about forever-rising deficits, which may devalue
> >> Treasuries by pushing interest rates higher," said JP Morgan economist
> >> Frank Gong. "Inside China there has been a lot of debate about whether
> >> they should continue to buy Treasuries."
> >>
> >> The comments come as finance ministers and central bankers of the G-20
> >> gather in London this weekend to discuss the crisis and possible
> >> remedies.
> >>
> >> U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is pressing for a new
> >> coordinated stimulus but European governments are reluctant to take on
> >> more debt before they see how current plans are working. The Europeans
> >> want to emphasize the need for greater regulation of markets,
> >> including a crackdown on tax havens and increased control over hedge
> >> funds.
> >>
> >> In Beijing, Wen expressed confidence China can emerge from its slump
> >> "at an early date," and said the government is ready to expand its 4
> >> trillion yuan ($586 billion) stimulus to boost growth in the world's
> >> third-largest economy.
> >>
> >> Communist leaders worry about rising job losses and possible unrest
> >> amid a trade slump that saw Chinese exports fall 25.7 percent in
> >> February from a year earlier. They have promised to spend heavily to
> >> create jobs and boost exports.
> >>
> >> "We already have our plans ready to tackle even more difficult times,
> >> and to do that we have reserved adequate ammunition," Wen said. "That
> >> means that at any time we can introduce new stimulus policies."
> >>
> >> In nearby Japan, Prime Minister Taro Aso called Friday for a fresh
> >> stimulus to help lift the world's second-largest economy out of "an
> >> unprecedented economic crisis." The comments helped spark a rally in
> >> Japan's stock market, where the Nikkei 225 stock index surged 5.2
> >> percent.
> >>
> >> China's Wen and other officials point to rising bank lending, power
> >> demand and other signs the stimulus is taking effect. But growth in
> >> retail sales is weakening, suggesting it has yet to spur private
> >> sector spending and investment, which analysts say will be key to its
> >> success.
> >>
> >> Wen said Beijing can meet its 2009 growth target of 8 percent, despite
> >> skepticism by private sector economists, who expect as little as 5
> >> percent. That would be the strongest of any major country but could
> >> lead to more waves of job cuts.
> >>
> >> "I really believe we will be able to walk out of the shadow of the
> >> financial crisis at an early date," he said. "After this trial, I
> >> believe the Chinese economy will show greater vitality."
> >>
> >> The premier promised to focus on job creation and give more help to
> >> smaller companies, which he said generate 90 percent of Chinese new
> >> employment.
> >>
> >> "We will pay all attention possible to this issue and we will never
> >> overlook this issue," he said.
> >>
> >> Wen said Beijing wants the London summit to focus on the plight of
> >> poor countries.
> >>
> >> "We must see to it that we show concern for developing countries, and
> >> help developing countries - the least-developed ones in particular -
> >> become an important topic on the agenda," he said.
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> >>
> >>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> >>
> >>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> >>
> >>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
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> >
> >
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From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Fri Mar 13 12:26:52 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2009 11:26:52 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] China Doesn't Buy It!
In-Reply-To: <400985d70903130843k2bad58b2l73a2de8192613730@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70903130537y1aa6e0aax48bc9b947e63e9e0@mail.gmail.com>
	<49BA5646.5050703@effros.com>
	<400985d70903130630i3756a083y8e3157f76c9a778c@mail.gmail.com>
	<49BA632A.8010809@effros.com>
	<6634e19e0903130720g37580870ja58aec354f41c7d2@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70903130843k2bad58b2l73a2de8192613730@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6634e19e0903130926k76d88dcfh8a9ac2000c2ab1ce@mail.gmail.com>

Brad,

Who'd a thunk it. There is at least one hidden pocket of common sense left
in the world ..... Kiwi land, of all places.

Further down, it looks like congress might be starting to take the hint that
has been blaring in there ears since the beginning of this new "deficit
debacle". I hope they've got the balls to keep it up .... not holding my
breath though.

This from Mish

Rik
____________________________

You Can't Spend Your Way Out of the Crisis

With the Fiscal Insanity Virus Rapidly Spreading The
Globe<http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2008/12/fiscal-insanity-virus-rapidly-spreading.html>I
had nearly given up hope of finding common sense at a high level
anywhere.
Nonetheless, I am pleased to report that I found an amazing display of
honest to goodness common sense in New Zealand.

Kohn Key, New Zealand's prime minister, says You Can't Spend Your Way Out of
the Crisis <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123638162497057661.html>.

"We don't tell New Zealanders we can stop the global recession, because we
can't," says Prime Minister John Key, leaning forward in his armchair at his
office in the Beehive, the executive wing of New Zealand's parliament. "What
we do tell them is we can use this time to transform the economy to make us
stronger so that when the world starts growing again we can be running
faster than other countries we compete with."

That idea -- growing a nation out of recession by improving productivity --
puts Mr. Key and his conservative National Party at odds with Washington,
Tokyo and Canberra. Those capitals are rolling out billions of dollars in
stimulus packages -- with taxpayers' money -- to try to prop up growth.
That's "risky," Mr. Key says. "You've saddled future generations with an
enormous amount of debt that then they have to repay," he explains. "There
is actually a limit to what governments can do."

Mr. Key's program focuses first on personal income tax cuts, which -- given
that the new top rate, as of April 1, will be 38% -- are still high,
especially when compared to Hong Kong and Singapore. "We just think it's
good tax policy to lower and flatten your tax curve," he says. "People will
move in labor markets and they look at their after-tax incomes."

Much of Mr. Key's reform agenda hinges on his belief that he has to prepare
his country to compete in the global economy. "The world, whether we like it
or not, will become more and more borderless," he says. That means
Wellington is planted firmly behind free trade. "The sooner Doha is
completed," Mr. Key says, referring to stalled global trade talks, "the
better from our point of view."

Mr. Key chuckles when I ask him about the "Buy American" provision tucked
into the Obama administration's stimulus package. The previous government's
"Buy New Zealand" campaign got a "lukewarm" reception, he recalls. "There
are so many component parts manufactured in different parts of the world,
you're chasing your tail the whole time about where something's actually
made."

Key's Common Sense Platform


   - Cutting Taxes
   - Embracing Free Trade
   - Reducing Regulation
   - Understanding there is a limit to what government can do


Meanwhile back in the US, there is good news of sorts.

The Proposed Budget Is Lacking Votes

In the "Good News Unlikely To last" category I note that Obama needs more
votes for his budget<http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Senator-says-Obama-needs-more-apf-14611411.html>
.

The Democratic chairman of the Senate Budget Committee says that President
Barack Obama lacks the votes to see his budget plan for next year passed by
Congress, at least in its current form.

Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota tells reporters that situation might change
once lawmakers meet to discuss compromises for the plan.

Having met Wednesday with Obama in the White House, Conrad says that the
president realizes Congress will insist on changing his ambitious plan for
the budget year that begins in October.

Unfortunately, it is highly likely that enough spineless Republicans will
eventually join forces with the "If I Only Had A Brain" Democrats and this
senseless budget will pass.

With the notable exceptions of Rep. Ron Paul of Texas and Senator Shelby of
Alabama ....

When it comes to knowing how to deal with this recession and having the
courage to carry out the plan, Congress is displaying the common sense of an
earthworm attempting to climb a tree along with the backbone of a bowl of
jello minus the bowl.

Senator Shelby, it's clear you have the common sense, so please muster up
the courage to filibuster the budget monstrosity as well as any additional
taxpayer funded bailouts that are proposed.

Contact Your Senators And Legislative Representatives

Please contact your representatives and tell them to stop the madness and
start displaying some common sense. Here is the Online Directory For The
111th Congress <http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/>.


On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 10:43 AM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:

> Rik,
>
> Here's another article that makes you go, duuuuh!  As we've discussed
> before, capital flows where it is treated the kindest.  Whatever makes
> people think they can create "heaven on earth" with the right savior
> is beyond me.  To listen to the Teleprompter Jesus crowd we can all
> throw away our life vests in a few months because The One is going to
> teach us all how to walk on water. I love the statement from Carl
> Levin's office about "offshore abuses" - like avoiding giving your
> money away you earn for taking big risks is an "abuse".
>
> Brad
>
> ----------------
>
> RPT-FEATURE-Corporate oil booms in low-tax Switzerland
> Thu Mar 12, 2009 9:04am EDT
>
> * Companies seek Swiss domiciles despite tax row
>
> * U.S. political climate may be helping
>
> * Appeal as corporate location may outlast offshore dispute
>
> By Sam Cage
>
> ZUG, Switzerland, March 12 (Reuters) - The tidy towns and mountain
> vistas of Switzerland are an unlikely setting for an oil boom.
>
> Yet a wave of energy companies has in the last few months announced
> plans to move to Switzerland -- mainly for its appeal as a low-tax
> corporate domicile that looks relatively likely to stay out of reach
> of Barack Obama's tax-seeking administration.
>
> In a country with scant crude oil production of its own, the virtual
> energy boom has changed the canton or state of Zug, about 30 minutes'
> drive from Zurich, beyond all recognition. Its economy was based on
> farming until it slashed tax rates to attract commerce after World War
> Two.
>
> It still has a chocolate-box old town with views over a lake to the
> high Alps, but is now surrounded by gleaming corporate offices --
> including commodity trader Glencore and oil refiner Petroplus --
> shopping malls and housing developments.
>
> Local authorities say about 13 percent of full-time jobs in Zug canton
> are in the raw materials sector.
>
> Over the past six months companies including offshore drilling
> contractors Noble Corp and Transocean, energy-focused engineering
> group Foster Wheeler and oilfield services company Weatherfield
> International have all announced plans to shift domicile to
> Switzerland.
>
> "Switzerland has a stable and developed tax regime and a network of
> tax treaties with most countries where we operate," Transocean Chief
> Executive Bob Long said in a statement in October, when it announced
> its move. "As a result, the redomestication will improve our ability
> to maintain a competitive worldwide effective corporate tax rate."
>
> Guido Jud, head of Zug's tax office, said about 1,200 companies had
> set up shop there in 2008 -- in line with the long-term average,
> though it is difficult to assess how many of those are foreign
> companies until they file tax returns.
>
> Swiss cantons are free to set their own tax rates. For example in Zug,
> corporate tax is about 16 percent but can fall as low as 9.5 percent
> for companies that do most of their business outside Switzerland. That
> compares with an average global corporate tax rate of 25.9 percent,
> according to consultancy KPMG.
>
> "One trend that we see is that particularly Bermuda-based companies
> are now moving to Switzerland," said Martin Frey, a partner at law
> company Baker & McKenzie. "That may only partly be obviously for tax
> reasons, but also for security reasons and the fact that the Obama
> administration may go after them."
>
> CORPORATE APPEAL
>
> The moves come as the Alpine country is under pressure to stop
> providing a haven to rich individuals who have been illegally dodging
> taxes: the U.S. political climate could be contributing to the
> corporate relocations as authorities seek to crack down on tax
> avoidance and boost their own revenues.
>
> A bill introduced in the U.S. Congress in March targeting "offshore
> tax dodges" by individuals and companies names Switzerland among tax
> havens for evaders.
>
> Offshore tax abuses cost the U.S. Treasury an estimated $30-60 billion
> in lost revenues from corporation tax, plus $40-70 billion from
> individuals, according to the office of Senator Carl Levin, who is
> sponsoring the bill.
>
> Switzerland holds around $2 trillion of estimated global undeclared
> assets, according to the Boston Consulting Group. Revenue generated
> from this could be squeezed as a U.S. probe of its biggest bank UBS
> dilutes banking secrecy.
>
> Yet analysts say the Swiss, whose GDP in 2008 was about 530 billion
> Swiss francs ($460 billion) according to the International Monetary
> Fund, are less likely to meet opposition to the low-tax regimes that
> draw foreign companies: these are deemed less harmful tax avoidance,
> rather than evasion.
>
> "They are still making some money by having lower taxes on companies,"
> said Lee Sheppard, contributing editor to Tax Notes, a tax journal
> based in Washington DC.
>
> "But they're not ever going to be making the amount that other
> governments are annoyed about losing."
>
> Analysts note that because Switzerland has its own tax treaty with the
> United States, blacklisting it at a corporate or individual level
> could cause unproductive diplomatic incidents.
>
> Low-tax jurisdictions like Bermuda or the Cayman Islands look more
> vulnerable because they have less diplomatic clout, which is prompting
> some companies to head for Switzerland.
>
> The European Commission, the European Union's executive body, has said
> the tax regimes in cantons like Zug, Schwyz and Obwalden are a form of
> state aid: it wants Switzerland to end favourable treatment of
> foreign-earned profits.
>
> Switzerland, which is not a member of the EU, denies the cantons'
> special status violates its free trade deal with the bloc and rejects
> negotiations with Brussels on fiscal matters.
>
> But it has pledged to consider some other company taxation regulations
> the EU has objected to, such as the status of foreign companies,
> aiming to ensure these go beyond thinly staffed headquarters to invest
> and create jobs in Switzerland.
>
> CONTINUING TREND
>
> Baker & McKenzie's Frey thinks more companies will shift to
> Switzerland, and Zug's Jud also highlighted the country's neutrality
> and reliability as an attraction to energy companies who do business
> in less stable countries.
>
> "We are not reckoning on an unusually strong boom, but a continual and
> sustainable growth on the scale of the last few years and decades,"
> Jud said.
>
> Companies say Switzerland's attractiveness as a corporate location
> goes beyond tax to include easy and efficient transport, a high
> quality of life high and well-trained staff.
>
> In the current climate, the attractions for the companies that move
> clearly outweigh one drawback: by making the switch they potentially
> sacrifice inclusion in stock market indexes such as the closely
> watched benchmark Standard & Poor's 500.
>
> "In the past and most recently with Transocean, Standard & Poor's has
> ruled that the process of redomesticating to Switzerland renders a
> company 'ineligible for continued inclusion' in the S&P 500," said
> Macquarie Research analyst Angie Sedita in a note.
>
> In buoyant times, inclusion in such indexes has offered access to
> equity capital. But the S&P 500 has fallen more than 50 percent since
> October. (Additional reporting by Braden Reddall in Houston; Editing
> by Sara Ledwith) ($1=1.158 Swiss Franc)
>
> On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 9:20 AM, Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Brad, Bill,
> >
> > Speaking of Ron Paul ....
> >
> > He's sponsoring a bill right now that would enable the auditing of the
> Fed.
> > Myself, I can't imagine anyone better to audit right at the minute.
> >
> > Here's a link to petition your congressman to get behind this as
> > co-sponsors.
> >
> > http://www.campaignforliberty.com/campaigns/auditthefed.php?projid=16
> >
> > Here's a list of congressmen already on the bandwagon.
> >
> > http://www.dailypaul.com/node/85929
> >
> > The RNC called me up the other day looking for more money. I have to
> admit
> > sending them some before the election, hoping to avoid having The O One
> > become our Messiah, sort of a "lesser of two evils" kind of thing. I told
> > them that they had sure better get to thinking a lot more like Ron Paul
> if
> > they ever wanted to see any more of my money.
> >
> > Rik
> >
> > On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 8:44 AM, Bill Effros <bill at effros.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Oh, I love Hong Kong -- I may have some "Hello China -- Goodbye GB"
> >> T-Shirts left over from the turn-over -- what's your size?
> >>
> >> Begger's Chicken!
> >>
> >> I'll note the fast pass for my grand children -- thanks.
> >>
> >> Obama is clueless -- he just reads what others write.  The economists
> >> surrounding him are committed to their positions and now must play them
> out,
> >> ignoring the fact that when Bush was deficit spending they condemned
> >> him--now they have taken the position that he didn't spend enough soon
> >> enough.
> >>
> >> Of course it won't work.
> >>
> >> You gotta admire Ron Paul for a lot of things.
> >>
> >> But just like Rik, being right ain't enough.
> >>
> >> Protect your own.
> >>
> >> B.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Brad Haslett wrote:
> >>
> >> Bill,
> >>
> >> They have a thing now that may not have existed when you were there
> >> called "Fast Pass". You get a reservation for a time window to the
> >> most popular rides.  The system won't allow you to hold more than one
> >> reservation at a time. This is Cora's 3rd or 4th trip so she knows the
> >> park pretty well - we just follow along.  Thank goodness she's grown
> >> out of her infatuation with Ariel.  I waited in line 90 minutes so she
> >> could spend 15 seconds with a big-boobed redhead in a mermaid costume.
> >>  Come to think of it, it wasn't all that bad! Disney is spending 24
> >> Billion building a new park in Shanghai as we speak.
> >>
> >> As the article pointed out, China has 2 Trillion in currency reserves
> >> they can blow through before they start deficit spending.  Of course,
> >> half of that is held in US dollars and that is what they are worried
> >> about.  US trade is a huge component of their foreign exchange but
> >> China has been building business relationships all over the Pacific
> >> Rim.  According to my conversation with Jia last summer, about 70% of
> >> their manufacturing capacity is for internal consumption.  That last
> >> 30% of capacity is where they make their money. Their leadership is
> >> facing huge social problems and unrest in the Pearl River Delta
> >> because so many jobs have been eliminated and workers are being forced
> >> to go home to the countryside.  China is still primarily an agrarian
> >> society so there's a lot of countryside to go home to.  It is easy to
> >> lose sight of that fact when you're inside a modern city like Beijing
> >> or Shanghai.  Take a train anywhere outside the city and you're
> >> reminded that there are still 900 million peasants.
> >>
> >> To answer your second question, China won't buy US debt if they're not
> >> selling to the US. That is why all the bold talk about protecting
> >> American workers by limiting free trade is so much BS.  It didn't work
> >> with Smoot-Hawley in the 30's and it sure as hell won't work now if we
> >> plan to borrow our way to prosperity.  Go to any premier hotel in any
> >> major city in China and you'll find a lot more Europeans and Asians
> >> from developed countries than Americans.  We tend to think of
> >> ourselves as the center of the universe - the Chinese don't.
> >>
> >> We did some extensive homework over the weekend on Chinese tax law.
> >> My employer has a bid out to expand the pilot domicile in Hong Kong
> >> (which mans the hub in Guangzhou - two hours away).  Hong Kong has
> >> separate laws from the Mainland but both are favorable to ours.  We've
> >> decided to stay put for the time being because of Cora's educational
> >> needs.  Down the road - who knows.  I've got a friend from my Bonanza
> >> list who lives there and would offer me access to his airplane.  The
> >> sailing there is pretty good as well.  The biggest downside is the
> >> pollution.  China has a lot of work to do in that area but they're
> >> slowly working on the problem.  We didn't solve our acid rain and
> >> polluted river issues overnight and neither will they.  Most
> >> certainly, they won't wreck their economy looking for an immediate
> >> fix.  I'm all in favor of "green energy" but it won't happen overnight
> >> and it won't happen by the government deciding who the winners and
> >> losers are.  We may very well wreck our economy by trying though.
> >>
> >> Brad
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 7:49 AM, Bill Effros <bill at effros.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> Have fun at Disney World.
> >>
> >> Of course it's been many many years since I've been there, but we used
> >> to get up very early to arrive at opening time.  We could just walk from
> >> one ride to the next for a couple of hours, starting at the most popular
> >> and avoiding any ride with a line.  When there's no line you can do the
> >> best rides over and over if you want to.
> >>
> >> You know how old I am, so you know how long ago that was -- don't know
> >> if this trick still works -- but it's something to consider.
> >>
> >> B.
> >>
> >> PS -- How do you suppose China plans to finance its own deficit
>  spending?
> >>
> >> PPS -- If Chinese exports to the US decline, how will China be able to
> >> buy an increasing quantity of US debt to finance our increasing deficit
> >> spending?
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Brad Haslett wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> "Inside China there has been a lot of debate about whether they should
> >> continue to buy Treasuries."
> >>
> >> Well duuuuh!   China has been sending "polite" messages for weeks that
> >> they see through this scam and aren't interested in being paid back in
> >> inflated dollars. Did the Sec. of the Treasury think that based on his
> >> Asian Studies degree and time spent living in China that the Chinese
> >> are stupid?  I think now would be a good time to invest in WD-40
> >> because those printing presses are going to need a lot of lubrication.
> >>  Maybe ink and paper would be good investments as well. Why didn't
> >> someone in the American media just pick-up a Beijing phone book and
> >> call the first Wong, or Shen, or Kung their finger landed on and ask?
> >> A month ago our Dear Leader told us we were facing the worst disaster
> >> since the Great Depression, and that we may not recover from it if we
> >> don't spend a Trillion dollars we don't have immediately on welfare,
> >> health-care, green energy, etc. Now that the money we don't have has
> >> been committed but not yet spent, Dear Leader tells us things are not
> >> so bad. I'm confused, but this is my first Great Leap Forward
> >> experience so that's understandable. The Chinese have "been there,
> >> done that" and they ain't buying.
> >>
> >> Someone else run the world for a few days.  We're taking Cora to
> >> Disney World for Spring Break this afternoon. If I have to listen to
> >> fantasy talk from someone with big ears, I prefer M-I-C-K-E-Y!
> >>
> >> Brad
> >>
> >> -------------------
> >>
> >> Mar 13, 6:21 AM (ET)
> >>
> >> By JOE McDONALD
> >>
> >>
> >> BEIJING (AP) - China's premier expressed concern Friday about its
> >> massive holdings of Treasuries and other U.S. debt, appealing to
> >> Washington to safeguard their value, and said Beijing is ready to
> >> expand its stimulus if the economy worsens.
> >>
> >> Premier Wen Jiabao noted that Beijing is the biggest foreign creditor
> >> to the United States and called on Washington to see that its response
> >> to the global slowdown does not damage the value of Chinese holdings.
> >>
> >> "We have made a huge amount of loans to the United States. Of course
> >> we are concerned about the safety of our assets. To be honest, I'm a
> >> little bit worried," Wen said at a news conference following the
> >> closing of China's annual legislative session. "I would like to call
> >> on the United States to honor its words, stay a credible nation and
> >> ensure the safety of Chinese assets."
> >>
> >> Wen's comments foreshadowed possible appeals to President Barack
> >> Obama, who will meet with Chinese President Hu Jintao at a London
> >> summit of leaders of the G-20 group of major economies on April 2 to
> >> discuss the global financial crisis.
> >>
> >>
> >> Analysts estimate that nearly half of China's $2 trillion in currency
> >> reserves are in U.S. Treasuries and notes issued by other
> >> government-affiliated agencies.
> >>
> >> Washington is counting on China to continue buying Treasuries to fund
> >> its $787 billion stimulus package. Last month, visiting Secretary of
> >> State Hillary Rodham Clinton sought to reassure Beijing that
> >> government debt would remain a reliable investment.
> >>
> >> "They are worried about forever-rising deficits, which may devalue
> >> Treasuries by pushing interest rates higher," said JP Morgan economist
> >> Frank Gong. "Inside China there has been a lot of debate about whether
> >> they should continue to buy Treasuries."
> >>
> >> The comments come as finance ministers and central bankers of the G-20
> >> gather in London this weekend to discuss the crisis and possible
> >> remedies.
> >>
> >> U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is pressing for a new
> >> coordinated stimulus but European governments are reluctant to take on
> >> more debt before they see how current plans are working. The Europeans
> >> want to emphasize the need for greater regulation of markets,
> >> including a crackdown on tax havens and increased control over hedge
> >> funds.
> >>
> >> In Beijing, Wen expressed confidence China can emerge from its slump
> >> "at an early date," and said the government is ready to expand its 4
> >> trillion yuan ($586 billion) stimulus to boost growth in the world's
> >> third-largest economy.
> >>
> >> Communist leaders worry about rising job losses and possible unrest
> >> amid a trade slump that saw Chinese exports fall 25.7 percent in
> >> February from a year earlier. They have promised to spend heavily to
> >> create jobs and boost exports.
> >>
> >> "We already have our plans ready to tackle even more difficult times,
> >> and to do that we have reserved adequate ammunition," Wen said. "That
> >> means that at any time we can introduce new stimulus policies."
> >>
> >> In nearby Japan, Prime Minister Taro Aso called Friday for a fresh
> >> stimulus to help lift the world's second-largest economy out of "an
> >> unprecedented economic crisis." The comments helped spark a rally in
> >> Japan's stock market, where the Nikkei 225 stock index surged 5.2
> >> percent.
> >>
> >> China's Wen and other officials point to rising bank lending, power
> >> demand and other signs the stimulus is taking effect. But growth in
> >> retail sales is weakening, suggesting it has yet to spur private
> >> sector spending and investment, which analysts say will be key to its
> >> success.
> >>
> >> Wen said Beijing can meet its 2009 growth target of 8 percent, despite
> >> skepticism by private sector economists, who expect as little as 5
> >> percent. That would be the strongest of any major country but could
> >> lead to more waves of job cuts.
> >>
> >> "I really believe we will be able to walk out of the shadow of the
> >> financial crisis at an early date," he said. "After this trial, I
> >> believe the Chinese economy will show greater vitality."
> >>
> >> The premier promised to focus on job creation and give more help to
> >> smaller companies, which he said generate 90 percent of Chinese new
> >> employment.
> >>
> >> "We will pay all attention possible to this issue and we will never
> >> overlook this issue," he said.
> >>
> >> Wen said Beijing wants the London summit to focus on the plight of
> >> poor countries.
> >>
> >> "We must see to it that we show concern for developing countries, and
> >> help developing countries - the least-developed ones in particular -
> >> become an important topic on the agenda," he said.
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> >>
> >>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> >>
> >>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> >>
> >>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> >>
> >>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> >>
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> >
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> >
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
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>
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From ekroposki at charter.net  Fri Mar 13 18:39:01 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2009 18:39:01 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Rush Limbaugh and Obama
Message-ID: <E8CA769399684E2DA61EA56A9546D30B@YOURB88038198E>

When driving I will listen talk radio or sports talk (we have a good local sports talk show on WCCP called 'Road Rage').  None of the music stations hold my attention.  Sometime in the recent past there was a Rush Limbaugh tirade about how negative Obama was.  It is interesting to hear Obama the last few days.  He is making a noticeable change in his language.  After all the recent trash talk about Limbaugh by the White House and DNC and their surrogates, low and behold they are following Rush Limbaugh.  

Want to bet that they do not admit the change?  

Ed K
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From ekroposki at charter.net  Sat Mar 14 09:04:03 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Sat, 14 Mar 2009 09:04:03 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] 60 years later, the language does not change
Message-ID: <35BAC2C8AAA8469586F5FB047F69964F@YOURB88038198E>

This morning's newspaper had headlines, "Obama plans new model for economy".  

As a kid I remember so well the newspaper headlines, Soviet Union announces new 5 year plan.  Some years later I recall the Chinese news releases announcing the great leap forward.

In 2008, I read in the forward of a book by Whittaker Chambers, 'Witness', an explanation of why this approach is used by Marxist.  It is important that Chambers, an American who became a Communist explained some fundamental concepts of Marxism.  Essentially he said that Marxism sought to replace religion and belief in a higher being with the idea that man is the most intelligent animal therefore man could devise the ultimate state for man to be in, an that state is Marxism.  

In today's world many claim to be progressives, middle of the roaders, and advocates of less fortunate.  These beliefs upon accurate analysis hold partial Marxist concepts.  To true Marxist, those who accept these halfway beliefs are workers for the cause.  They are helping achieve the ultimate Marxist state.

For those who still will stop and ask why, I say look at the results of Soviets' 5 year plans and Mao's great leap forward.  Or if you can look at the results of other national socialist such as National Socialism under Hitler, Cuba under Castro, etc.  Understand they were social economic systems based on Marxist concepts.

In the history of mankind, where has the greatest advancement for the betterment of mankind occurred?  Which system became the envy of the world?

There was a political economic system devised in America based on freedom, capitalism, and a true balance of political power.  This system did not have or envision central planning.  It did not envision politicians and bureaucrats deciding on 'plans' for the future. It did allow for a sheriff, that is police preventing crooks from running rampant. 

A little analysis of recent history shows that the U. S. Government interfered with the mortgage market by compelling loans to marginal mortgagees.  It failed to police the manipulation of financial instruments based those marginal mortgages.  

Would have a responsible bank made such loans without government coercion?  Would investors bought such financial investments without nefarious collusion?  

So now Obama will give America its first 5 year plan.  I am sorry, I do not buy that comment that he is a "friggin genius".  Rather I see a glib advocate of Marxism.  

I do see the loss of American freedom and acceptance of Marxist dictatorship.

Ed K
"Dew knot trussed yore spell chequer two fined awl yore mistakes." Brendan Hills 






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From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Sat Mar 14 10:45:27 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Sat, 14 Mar 2009 09:45:27 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Rush Limbaugh and Obama
In-Reply-To: <E8CA769399684E2DA61EA56A9546D30B@YOURB88038198E>
References: <E8CA769399684E2DA61EA56A9546D30B@YOURB88038198E>
Message-ID: <6634e19e0903140745we92aba4l40183151f2576ba7@mail.gmail.com>

Ed,

I mostly listen to talk myself these days. Although I agree with much of
what Rush Limbaugh talks about, I don't care much for his show. Lately, I
have been paying particular attention to the financial news and have many
times bashed the major network financial shows for the poor, or just plain
ignorant interpretations of the market's activities they seem to want the
lumpen-investorate to fall for. While I'm not always a fan of John Stewart,
it was certainly entertaining today to watch him rip Jim Cramer from CNBC a
new ass. Here's a link to the u-tube video.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-985633373642723856&ei=qou7SffKM5CSwgOCl4zpBA&q=john+stewart+jim+cramer&emb=1

Rik

On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 5:39 PM, Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net> wrote:

>  When driving I will listen talk radio or sports talk (we have a good
> local sports talk show on WCCP called 'Road Rage').  None of the music
> stations hold my attention.  Sometime in the recent past there was a Rush
> Limbaugh tirade about how negative Obama was.  It is interesting to hear
> Obama the last few days.  He is making a noticeable change in his language.
> After all the recent trash talk about Limbaugh by the White House and DNC
> and their surrogates, low and behold they are following Rush Limbaugh.
>
> Want to bet that they do not admit the change?
>
> Ed K
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>
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From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Sat Mar 14 11:34:01 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Sat, 14 Mar 2009 10:34:01 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Rush Limbaugh and Obama
In-Reply-To: <6634e19e0903140745we92aba4l40183151f2576ba7@mail.gmail.com>
References: <E8CA769399684E2DA61EA56A9546D30B@YOURB88038198E>
	<6634e19e0903140745we92aba4l40183151f2576ba7@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6634e19e0903140834u4b32cf74vc04de40314d06be6@mail.gmail.com>

Ed,

Another point I guess I forgot to make. I have been appalled for a long time
at the gov'ts (both GWB and now Obama) insistence that we, the public,
should just place our life saving in the hands of the "financial advisors"
and pretend that the stock market is like a great big savings account.
Millions of near retirees are going to now NOT retire, thanks to their
misguided faith in what the gov't had been recommending to them. I can't
begin to describe how it saddens me to watch all this going on. On the other
hand, Even though I tried to explain to some folks I know that this was
coming, I couldn't get them to act ... they were just so convinced that the
easy money would just keep on coming forever.

Lately, I thank God everyday that I didn't fall for the gov'ts "retirement
plan".

Frankly, the gov'ts unwillingness to ever paint the financial picture as
anything but rosy borders on criminal in my mind. Obama is proving to be no
better in this regard than any of the previous administrations. I guess I
have to give him credit for at least trying to be honest at first. Finding
that honesty didn't improve the markets, or his approval ratings, he had to
revert to the same old same old....

I don't understand people's aversion to a market correction. What's wrong
with being able to once again invest in things at reasonable prices?? I
welcome the correction. I know there's goning to be some good deals out
there shortly.

Rik

On Sat, Mar 14, 2009 at 9:45 AM, Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Ed,
>
> I mostly listen to talk myself these days. Although I agree with much of
> what Rush Limbaugh talks about, I don't care much for his show. Lately, I
> have been paying particular attention to the financial news and have many
> times bashed the major network financial shows for the poor, or just plain
> ignorant interpretations of the market's activities they seem to want the
> lumpen-investorate to fall for. While I'm not always a fan of John Stewart,
> it was certainly entertaining today to watch him rip Jim Cramer from CNBC a
> new ass. Here's a link to the u-tube video.
>
>
> http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-985633373642723856&ei=qou7SffKM5CSwgOCl4zpBA&q=john+stewart+jim+cramer&emb=1
>
> Rik
>
> On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 5:39 PM, Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net>wrote:
>
>>  When driving I will listen talk radio or sports talk (we have a good
>> local sports talk show on WCCP called 'Road Rage').  None of the music
>> stations hold my attention.  Sometime in the recent past there was a Rush
>> Limbaugh tirade about how negative Obama was.  It is interesting to hear
>> Obama the last few days.  He is making a noticeable change in his language.
>> After all the recent trash talk about Limbaugh by the White House and DNC
>> and their surrogates, low and behold they are following Rush Limbaugh.
>>
>> Want to bet that they do not admit the change?
>>
>> Ed K
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>>
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>
>>
>
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From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Sat Mar 14 22:42:21 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Sat, 14 Mar 2009 21:42:21 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Free markets?? maybe not for long
Message-ID: <6634e19e0903141942n66e580d1s520e5b1bec3a2244@mail.gmail.com>

Hello All,

This under the heading of, be afraid ..... be very afraid.

And wouldn't you know, of all the people our noble messiah could choose
from, he'd pick Barney Frank for the job. If you remember from an earlier
episode, Mister Frank was the head of the committee of simple minded
dunder-heads that couldn't imagine that there could be any problem forming
at fanny mae and freddy mac.

Folks, if the thought of this doesn't make the little hairs on the back of
your neck stand up .... you are completely numb.

Is John Galt in the house?
Rik

http://dailycapitalist.com/2009/03/11/obama-administration-plans-major-new-controls-over-economy/#more-388

Obama Administration Plans Major New Controls Over Economy

*Barney Frank charged by Obama to draft new regulatory scheme for financial
companies.*

The Obama Administration is poised to implement radical new financial
controls over the US economy. Instead of financial and banking decisions
being made by many individuals acting in the free market, an elite group of
bureaucrats will issue edicts that will affect the well being of all
Americans. These new rules will change the way our financial markets
operate, especially relating to risk. The ability of commercial banks,
investment banks, equity partnerships, and hedge funds to create innovative
financial products will be severely restricted.

<http://dailycapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/bernanke_4.jpg>

Fed Chairman Bernanke, and, at the behest of President Obama, House
Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank are now working on a plan
to regulate the economy to control financial institutions in a way not seen
since the days of FDR?s New Deal.

According to news reports from the Wall Street
Journal<file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Jeff/Local%20Settings/Temp/WindowsLiveWriter-429641856/987D204A890B/%E2%80%A2http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123668789696582707.html?mod=article-outset-box>
:

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said regulators should be given broad
new powers to oversee financial markets, reflecting the Fed?s evolving view
that a more aggressive government hand is needed to ensure the future safety
of the financial system.

Among his recommendations were tougher capital requirements for big banks,
limits on investments by money-market mutual funds, and the introduction of
some mechanism that would allow the U.S. to wind down big financial
institutions and possibly run them temporarily.

? The recommendations were largely consistent with measures being pushed by
House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D., Mass.), who is
expected to be a key architect of the new financial regulation. There was
one exception. Mr. Frank has said any changes would have to discourage
?excessive risk taking? by executives, which he argues helped fuel the
financial crisis. Mr. Bernanke didn?t touch on compensation practices in his
speech.

Mr. Frank said he was supportive of Mr. Bernanke?s proposed outline. He said
the speech reinforced for him why the Federal Reserve should be given powers
to broadly oversee the safety of the entire financial system. Currently,
various regulators oversee discrete parts. ?I don?t know who else could do
it,? Mr. Frank said.

President Barack Obama has charged Mr. Frank with developing an outline of
how a new system would work in time for the Group of 20 meeting in early
April.<http://dailycapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/barney-frank-smiling.jpg>

These political leaders are using this crisis to further their long held
desire to increase federal control of the economy. This is no secret:
liberals such as Mr. Frank have strong beliefs about the positive role of
government in the economy. They believe capitalism is inherently unstable
and that the guiding force of the government is necessary to protect
citizens from its perceived ravages. They believe they are capable of making
certain economic decisions that should not be entrusted to its citizens,
such as bankers and investors.

While many commentators brand this as socialism, it is in fact more akin to
Italian fascism. This system is often referred to as ?national
corporatism<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism#Economic_policies>,?
and exists when a government with unlimited power harnesses private industry
and labor to perform their political goals.

We have pointed out on this blog that the current economic
problems<http://dailycapitalist.com/2008/10/03/the-law-of-unintended-consequences/>were
*caused  *by government action and the very politicians who now wish to gain
further power. Accepting the fact that our current leaders will not change
course, and that they don?t understand economics or the consequences of
their actions, we should explore the implications of their proposed new
economic rules.

1. Appointment of a financial czar.

As I predicted in my August, 2008
article<http://dailycapitalist.com/2008/08/25/president-obama-appoints-nobel-laureate-mcfadden-to-head-new-financial-risk-commission/>,
a czar will be appointed<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/11/business/economy/11fed.html?_r=1>to
oversee what Mr. Bernanke calls the ?future safety of the financial
system.? The czar will be given broad, undefined powers to regulate
financial markets. This regulation will cover commercial banks, investment
banks, insurance companies, non-bank mortgage lenders, rating agencies,
hedge funds, equity investment companies, money managers, pension funds,
mutual funds, and any person, entity, or scheme they think will present a
?systemic risk? to the economy.

2. Activities of financial companies will be subject to increased
supervision and restrictions.

Certain activities will come under special regulation. Specifically
innovative instruments such as credit default swaps, derivatives, and other
?complex products? will be sharply curtailed, inspected, and regulated
before they are allowed to be sold. This regulation scheme will be similar
to SEC rules governing the issuance of securities but companies will be
required to meet strict
rules<file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Jeff/Local%20Settings/Temp/WindowsLiveWriter-429641856/987D204A890B/%E2%80%A2http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123668789696582707.html?mod=article-outset-box>regulating
risk-taking, risk management standards, and will be held to ?high
capital and liquidity standards.? They have no idea whether or not meeting
these standards will prevent systemic risk or prevent another financial
crisis.

3. The newly regulated institutions will be required to meet debt to
capital ratios like banks.

Hedge funds and equity investment funds no longer will be allowed to
leverage investments beyond certain debt-capital ratios even though private
investors are risking their own capital. Also, executive pay will be
restricted so they are not perceived as to be taking unwarranted risk with
their investors? capital (read: ?rolling the dice?). This is a substantial
change for these funds which are basically unregulated because they are
private partnerships with sophisticated investors. This will reduce capital
for these funds and, consequently, to the U.S. investment market.

4. A substantial new regulatory bureaucracy will be created to implement
these mandates.

The new czar will hire hundreds, if not thousands, of financial experts,
lawyers, economists, and bureaucrats. New products would have to be run by
the czar for approval. Companies would have the burden to show that their
offering or financial structures would do no harm based on rules and
regulations established by the czar. There would be lawyers specializing in
getting products through. There would be administrative judges and appeals
to federal courts. CCH and WestLaw would publish volumes of rules and
regulations, decisions, and opinion letters. This system used to be called
?byzantine? after the heavily bureaucratic, and now dead, Byzantine Empire.
It?s harder to see this concept when it?s in your own backyard.

5. Commercial banks will not be allowed to undertake investment bank
functions.

Nouriel Roubini and other commentators believe commercial banks will in the
future operate more like utilities. They will undertake only the money,
savings, checking, credit cards, and personal loan banking functions.
Something similar to Glass-Steagall will be enacted. Now that many
investment banks are becoming banks, they will undertake many of the riskier
activities that banks had been performing in sophisticated financial
transactions. Hedge funds and equity firms will emerge as the new investment
banks, taking over the functions of the likes of Goldman, Morgan, and
Merrill. Insurers will go back to performing insurance functions.

6. Financial innovation will be stifled and the U.S. and the U.K. will
gradually lose their status as the preeminent financial centers.

As Nasim Taleb put
it<http://video.aol.com/video-detail/taleb-sees-nationalization-of-bank-utility-functions/286568419>,
in the last 10 years financial centers are becoming more distributed
worldwide. Dubai, Mumbai, and Shanghai have emerged as powerful centers of
finance. If the U.S. over-regulates its financial markets, it is likely that
innovative financial products will emerge from other money centers.
Companies and entrepreneurs from around the world will, as they always do,
go to the money. Don?t bet on worldwide cooperation for unified financial
regulations.

This new regulation will be another example of the law of unintended
consequences. This is the idea that well intentioned actions, such as these
proposed regulations, often result in consequences quite different from what
was intended. It happens so often with economic regulations. In this case,
our political leaders see an economic crisis without understanding its
causes and figure that if they pass the right laws, all will be well. Hoover
and FDR thought they were doing the right thing and we ended up with a
depression that didn?t lift until well after WWII when many of the New Deal
rules were repealed. The leaders of Japan thought they were following the
correct Keynesian remedies to pull out of their crash in the ?90?s and Japan
ended up with 14 years of economic stagnation.

The free market has proven its ability to create and distribute wealth
fairer than any other economic system in the history of the world. It has
proven its ability to foster and demand political freedom. At what point
does the piling on of new controls on top of all the others tip the scale
from dynamic capitalism to stagnation and decline? The life blood
of capitalism is free access to capital and I feel lightheaded.
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Sat Mar 14 23:22:58 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Sat, 14 Mar 2009 22:22:58 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Free markets?? maybe not for long
In-Reply-To: <6634e19e0903141942n66e580d1s520e5b1bec3a2244@mail.gmail.com>
References: <6634e19e0903141942n66e580d1s520e5b1bec3a2244@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70903142022t3bd4e0cdx569aa190b94ff7ce@mail.gmail.com>

Rik,

Oh for Chris' Sake, what's next?  You know what makes the hair
stand-up on the back of my head?  People still listen to and believe
in these assholes.  So these dumbshits are going to raise the capital
gains tax.  What FREAKING capital gains have taken place in the last
six months to tax?  Are people really this stupid?  Don't answer that
question - we know the answer.  People get the government they
deserve.  They elected a radical, racist, Marxist, near-do-well who
"makes them feel good".  I hope they feel good in the soup line.  Dumb
bastards!

Strong letter to follow tomorrow after I'm Mickeyed out at Wally World.

Brad

On Sat, Mar 14, 2009 at 9:42 PM, Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello All,
>
> This under the heading of, be afraid ..... be very afraid.
>
> And wouldn't you know, of all the people our noble messiah could choose
> from, he'd pick Barney Frank for the job. If you remember from an earlier
> episode, Mister Frank was the head of the committee of simple minded
> dunder-heads that couldn't imagine that there could be any problem forming
> at fanny mae and freddy mac.
>
> Folks, if the thought of this doesn't make the little hairs on the back of
> your neck stand up .... you are completely numb.
>
> Is John Galt in the house?
> Rik
>
> http://dailycapitalist.com/2009/03/11/obama-administration-plans-major-new-controls-over-economy/#more-388
>
> Obama Administration Plans Major New Controls Over Economy
>
> Barney Frank charged by Obama to draft new regulatory scheme for financial
> companies.
>
> The Obama Administration is poised to implement radical new financial
> controls over the US economy. Instead of financial and banking decisions
> being made by many individuals acting in the free market, an elite group of
> bureaucrats will issue edicts?that will affect the well being of all
> Americans. These new rules will change the way our financial markets
> operate, especially relating to risk. The ability of commercial banks,
> investment banks, equity partnerships, and hedge funds to create innovative
> financial products will be severely restricted.
>
> Fed Chairman Bernanke, and, at the behest of President Obama, House
> Financial Services Committee?Chairman Barney Frank are now working on a plan
> to regulate the economy to control financial institutions in a way not seen
> since the days of FDR?s New Deal.
>
> According to news reports from the Wall Street Journal:
>
> Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said regulators should be given broad
> new powers to oversee financial markets, reflecting the Fed?s evolving view
> that a more aggressive government hand is needed to ensure the future safety
> of the financial system.
>
> Among his recommendations were tougher capital requirements for big banks,
> limits on investments by money-market mutual funds, and the introduction of
> some mechanism that would allow the U.S. to wind down big financial
> institutions and possibly run them temporarily.
>
> ? The recommendations were largely consistent with measures being pushed by
> House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D., Mass.), who is
> expected to be a key architect of the new financial regulation. There was
> one exception. Mr. Frank has said any changes would have to discourage
> ?excessive risk taking? by executives, which he argues helped fuel the
> financial crisis. Mr. Bernanke didn?t touch on compensation practices in his
> speech.
>
> Mr. Frank said he was supportive of Mr. Bernanke?s proposed outline. He said
> the speech reinforced for him why the Federal Reserve should be given powers
> to broadly oversee the safety of the entire financial system. Currently,
> various regulators oversee discrete parts. ?I don?t know who else could do
> it,? Mr. Frank said.
>
> President Barack Obama has charged Mr. Frank with developing an outline of
> how a new system would work in time for the Group of 20 meeting in early
> April.
>
> These?political?leaders?are using this crisis to further their long held
> desire to increase federal control of the economy. This is no secret:
> liberals such as Mr. Frank have strong beliefs about the positive role of
> government in the economy. They believe capitalism is inherently unstable
> and that the guiding force of the government is necessary to protect
> citizens from its perceived ravages. They believe they are capable of making
> certain economic decisions that should not be entrusted to its citizens,
> such as bankers and investors.
>
> While many commentators brand this as socialism, it is in fact more akin to
> Italian fascism. This system is often referred to as ?national corporatism,?
> and exists when a government with unlimited power harnesses private industry
> and labor to perform their political goals.
>
> We have pointed out on this blog that the current?economic problems were
> caused ?by government?action and the very politicians who now wish to gain
> further power. Accepting the fact that our current leaders will not change
> course, and that they don?t understand economics or the consequences of
> their actions, we should explore the implications of their proposed new
> economic rules.
>
> 1. Appointment of a financial czar.
>
> As I predicted in my August, 2008 article, a czar will be appointed to
> oversee what Mr. Bernanke calls the ?future safety of the financial system.?
> The czar will be given broad, undefined powers to regulate financial
> markets. This regulation will cover commercial banks, investment banks,
> insurance companies, non-bank?mortgage lenders, rating agencies, hedge
> funds, equity investment companies, money managers, pension funds, mutual
> funds, and any person, entity, or scheme?they think will present a ?systemic
> risk? to the economy.
>
> 2. Activities of financial companies will be subject to increased
> supervision and restrictions.
>
> Certain activities will come under special regulation. Specifically
> innovative instruments such as credit default swaps, derivatives, and other
> ?complex products? will be sharply curtailed, inspected, and regulated
> before they are allowed to be sold. This regulation scheme will be similar
> to SEC rules governing the issuance of securities but companies will be
> required to meet strict rules regulating risk-taking, risk management
> standards, and will be held to ?high capital and liquidity standards.? They
> have no idea whether or not meeting these standards will prevent systemic
> risk or prevent another financial crisis.
>
> 3. The newly regulated institutions will be required to meet debt to
> capital?ratios like banks.
>
> Hedge funds and equity investment funds no longer will be allowed to
> leverage investments beyond certain debt-capital ratios even though private
> investors are risking their own capital. Also, executive pay will be
> restricted so they are not perceived as to be taking unwarranted risk with
> their investors? capital (read: ?rolling the dice?). This is a substantial
> change for?these funds which are basically unregulated because they are
> private partnerships with sophisticated investors. This will reduce capital
> for these funds and, consequently, to the U.S. investment market.
>
> 4. A substantial new regulatory bureaucracy will be created to implement
> these mandates.
>
> The new czar will hire hundreds, if not thousands,?of financial experts,
> lawyers, economists, and bureaucrats.?New products?would have to be run by
> the czar for approval.?Companies would have the burden to show that their
> offering or financial structures would do no harm based on rules and
> regulations established by the czar. There would be lawyers specializing in
> getting products through. There would be administrative judges and appeals
> to federal courts. CCH and WestLaw would publish volumes of rules and
> regulations, decisions, and opinion letters. This system used to be called
> ?byzantine? after the heavily bureaucratic, and now dead, Byzantine Empire.
> It?s harder to see this concept when it?s in your own backyard.
>
> 5. Commercial banks will not be allowed to undertake?investment bank
> functions.
>
> Nouriel Roubini and other commentators?believe commercial banks will in the
> future operate more like utilities. They will?undertake only?the money,
> savings, checking,?credit cards, and personal loan?banking functions.
> Something similar to Glass-Steagall will be enacted. Now that many
> investment banks are becoming banks, they will undertake many of the riskier
> activities that banks had been performing in sophisticated financial
> transactions. Hedge funds and equity firms will emerge as the new investment
> banks, taking over the functions of the likes of Goldman, Morgan, and
> Merrill. Insurers will go back to performing insurance functions.
>
> 6. Financial innovation will be stifled and the U.S. and the U.K. will
> gradually lose their status as the preeminent financial centers.
>
> As Nasim Taleb put it, in the last 10 years financial centers are becoming
> more distributed worldwide. Dubai,?Mumbai, and Shanghai have emerged as
> powerful centers of finance. If the U.S. over-regulates its financial
> markets, it is likely that innovative financial products will emerge from
> other money centers. Companies and entrepreneurs from around the world will,
> as they always do, go to the money. Don?t bet on worldwide cooperation for
> unified financial regulations.
>
> This new regulation will be another example of the law of unintended
> consequences. This is the idea that well intentioned actions, such as these
> proposed regulations, often result in consequences quite different from what
> was intended. It happens so often with economic regulations. In this case,
> our political leaders see an economic crisis without understanding its
> causes and figure that if they pass the right laws, all will be well. Hoover
> and FDR thought they were doing the right thing and we ended up with a
> depression that didn?t lift until well after WWII when many of the New Deal
> rules were repealed. The leaders of Japan thought they were following the
> correct Keynesian remedies to pull out of their crash in the ?90?s and Japan
> ended up with 14 years of economic stagnation.
>
> The free market has proven its ability to create and distribute wealth
> fairer than any other economic system in the history of the world. It has
> proven its ability to foster and demand political freedom.?At what point
> does the piling on of new controls on top?of all the others tip the scale
> from dynamic capitalism to stagnation and decline? The life blood
> of?capitalism is free access to capital and I feel lightheaded.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>


From ekroposki at charter.net  Sun Mar 15 06:33:48 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Sun, 15 Mar 2009 06:33:48 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Sunday parable
Message-ID: <A5E74A4DFD7049ACB04CD82CF5F5EDE4@YOURB88038198E>

 
The Pied Piper 

There once was a Pied Piper who said "We live in the greatest country in the world. Help me change it!" 

*And the people said, "Change is good!" 

Then he said, "We are going to tax the rich fat-cats,".. 

*And the people said "Sock it to them!" 

"And redistribute their wealth."

*And the people said, "Show me the money!" 

And then he said, "Redistribution of wealth is good for everybody" 

*And Joe the plumber said, "Are you kidding me?" 

And Joe's personal records were hacked and publicized. 

*And one lone reporter asked, "Isn't that Marxist policy?" 

And she was banished from the kingdom! 

Then someone asked, "With no foreign relations experience, how will you deal with radical terrorists?" 

And the Pied Piper said, "Simple. I'll sit down and talk with them and show them how nice we really are and they'll forget that they ever wanted to kill us all!" 

The n the Pied Piper said, "I'll give 95% of you lower taxes."  

*And one, lone voice said, "But 40% of us don't pay ANY taxes." 

So the Pied Piper said, "Then I'll give you some of the taxes the fat-cats pay!"      

*And the people said, "Show me the money!" 

Then the Pied Piper said, "I'll tax your Capital Gains when you sell your homes!"  

 *And the people yawned and the slumping housing market collapsed. 

And he said, "I'll mandate employer- funded health care for EVERY worker and raise the minimum wage." 

*And the people said, "Gim'me some of that!" 

Then he said, "I'll penalize employers who ship jobs overseas."  

*And the people said, "Where's my rebate check?" 

Then the Pied Piper actually said, "I'll bankrupt the coal industry and electricity rates will skyrocket!" 

*And the people said, "Coal is dirty, coal is evil, no more coal!  But we don't care for that part about higher electric rates." 

So the Pied Piper said, "Not to worry.  If your rebate isn't enough to cover your expenses, we'll bail you out.  Just sign up with ACORN and your troubles are over!"  Then he said, E2Illegal immigrants feel scorned and slighted.  Let's grant them amnesty, Social Security, free education, free lunches, free medical care, bilingual signs and guaranteed housing." 

*And the people said, "Ole`! Bravo!" And they made him King! 

And so it came to pass that employers, facing spiraling costs and ever-higher taxes, raised their prices and laid off workers.  Others simply gave up and went out of business and the economy slowed even further.  

Then the Pied Piper said, "I am the Messiah and I'm here to save you!  We'll just print more money so everyone will have enough!"  But our foreign trading partners said, "Wait a minute.  Your dollar isn't worth what it was.  You'll have to pay more."  

*And the people said, "Wait a minute. That's not fair!" 

And the world said, "Neither are these other, idiotic programs you've embraced.  You've become a Socialist state and a second-rate power.  Now you'll play by our rules!" 

*And the people said, "What have we done?" ............. But it was too late!!!

If you think this is a fairy tale, open your eyes and ears.  It's happening RIGHT NOW! 

-------------- next part --------------
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Sun Mar 15 07:10:27 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Sun, 15 Mar 2009 06:10:27 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Sunday parable
In-Reply-To: <A5E74A4DFD7049ACB04CD82CF5F5EDE4@YOURB88038198E>
References: <A5E74A4DFD7049ACB04CD82CF5F5EDE4@YOURB88038198E>
Message-ID: <400985d70903150410h2accb292y6dc29e9a816abf2d@mail.gmail.com>

Ed,

What a sad situation we have gotten ourselves in to.  The only people
who can save us from communism is the Communists.  I'm betting China
says no to all this foolishness.  They've been polite so far, things
will get ugly soon.  They see through all this silliness and they're
not going to invest any more money in it.

Brad

On Sun, Mar 15, 2009 at 5:33 AM, Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net> wrote:
>
> The Pied Piper
> There once was a Pied Piper who said ?We live in the greatest country in the
> world. Help me change it!?
>
> *And the people said, ?Change is good!?
>
> Then he said, ?We are going to tax the rich fat-cats,???
>
> *And the people said ?Sock it to them!?
>
> ?And redistribute their wealth.?
>
> *And the people said, ?Show me the money!?
>
> And then he said, ?Redistribution of wealth is good for everybody?
>
> *And Joe the plumber said, "Are you kidding me??
>
> And Joe?s personal records were hacked and publicized.
>
> *And one lone reporter asked, ?Isn?t that Marxist policy??
>
> And she was banished from the kingdom!
>
> Then someone asked, ?With no foreign relations experience, how will you deal
> with radical terrorists??
>
> And the Pied Piper said, ?Simple. I?ll sit down and talk with them and show
> them how nice we really are and they?ll forget that they ever wanted to kill
> us all!?
>
> The n the Pied Piper said, ?I?ll give 95% of you lower taxes.?
>
> *And one, lone voice said, ?But 40% of us don?t pay ANY taxes.?
>
> So the Pied Piper said, ?Then I?ll give you some of the taxes the fat-cats
> pay!?
>
> *And the people said, ?Show me the money!?
>
> Then the Pied Piper said, ?I?ll tax your Capital Gains when you sell your
> homes!?
>
> ?*And the people yawned and the slumping housing market collapsed.
>
> And he said, ?I?ll mandate employer- funded health care for EVERY worker and
> raise the minimum wage.?
>
> *And the people said, ?Gim?me some of that!?
>
> Then he said, ?I?ll penalize employers who ship jobs overseas.?
>
> *And the people said, ?Where?s my rebate check??
>
> Then the Pied Piper actually said, ?I?ll bankrupt the coal industry and
> electricity rates will skyrocket!?
>
> *And the people said, ?Coal is dirty, coal is evil, no more coal! ?But we
> don?t care for that part about higher electric rates.?
>
> So the Pied Piper said, ?Not to worry. ?If your rebate isn?t enough to cover
> your expenses, we?ll bail you out. ?Just sign up with ACORN and your
> troubles are over!? ?Then he said, E2Illegal immigrants feel scorned and
> slighted. ?Let?s grant them amnesty, Social Security, free education, free
> lunches, free medical care, bilingual signs and guaranteed housing.?
>
> *And the people said, ?Ole`! Bravo!? And they made him King!
>
> And so it came to pass that employers, facing spiraling costs and
> ever-higher taxes, raised their prices and laid off workers. ?Others simply
> gave up and went out of business and the economy slowed even further.
>
> Then the Pied Piper said, ?I am the Messiah and I?m here to save you! ?We?ll
> just print more money so everyone will have enough!? ?But our foreign
> trading partners said, ?Wait a minute. ?Your dollar isn?t worth what it was.
> ?You?ll have to pay more.?
>
> *And the people said, ?Wait a minute. That?s not fair!?
>
> And the world said, ?Neither are these other, idiotic programs you?ve
> embraced. ?You?ve become a Socialist state and a second-rate power. ?Now
> you?ll play by our rules!?
>
> *And the people said, ?What have we done?? ????????????? But it was too
> late!!!
>
> If you think this is a fairy tale, open your eyes and ears. ?It?s happening
> RIGHT NOW!
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>


From bill at effros.com  Sun Mar 15 10:08:33 2009
From: bill at effros.com (Bill Effros)
Date: Sun, 15 Mar 2009 10:08:33 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Free markets?? maybe not for long
In-Reply-To: <400985d70903142022t3bd4e0cdx569aa190b94ff7ce@mail.gmail.com>
References: <6634e19e0903141942n66e580d1s520e5b1bec3a2244@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70903142022t3bd4e0cdx569aa190b94ff7ce@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49BD0BE1.5020006@effros.com>

"ne'er do well," as in "never do well"

B.



Brad Haslett wrote:
> Rik,
>
> Oh for Chris' Sake, what's next?  You know what makes the hair
> stand-up on the back of my head?  People still listen to and believe
> in these assholes.  So these dumbshits are going to raise the capital
> gains tax.  What FREAKING capital gains have taken place in the last
> six months to tax?  Are people really this stupid?  Don't answer that
> question - we know the answer.  People get the government they
> deserve.  They elected a radical, racist, Marxist, near-do-well who
> "makes them feel good".  I hope they feel good in the soup line.  Dumb
> bastards!
>
> Strong letter to follow tomorrow after I'm Mickeyed out at Wally World.
>
> Brad
>
> On Sat, Mar 14, 2009 at 9:42 PM, Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com> wrote:
>   
>> Hello All,
>>
>> This under the heading of, be afraid ..... be very afraid.
>>
>> And wouldn't you know, of all the people our noble messiah could choose
>> from, he'd pick Barney Frank for the job. If you remember from an earlier
>> episode, Mister Frank was the head of the committee of simple minded
>> dunder-heads that couldn't imagine that there could be any problem forming
>> at fanny mae and freddy mac.
>>
>> Folks, if the thought of this doesn't make the little hairs on the back of
>> your neck stand up .... you are completely numb.
>>
>> Is John Galt in the house?
>> Rik
>>
>> http://dailycapitalist.com/2009/03/11/obama-administration-plans-major-new-controls-over-economy/#more-388
>>
>> Obama Administration Plans Major New Controls Over Economy
>>
>> Barney Frank charged by Obama to draft new regulatory scheme for financial
>> companies.
>>
>> The Obama Administration is poised to implement radical new financial
>> controls over the US economy. Instead of financial and banking decisions
>> being made by many individuals acting in the free market, an elite group of
>> bureaucrats will issue edicts that will affect the well being of all
>> Americans. These new rules will change the way our financial markets
>> operate, especially relating to risk. The ability of commercial banks,
>> investment banks, equity partnerships, and hedge funds to create innovative
>> financial products will be severely restricted.
>>
>> Fed Chairman Bernanke, and, at the behest of President Obama, House
>> Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank are now working on a plan
>> to regulate the economy to control financial institutions in a way not seen
>> since the days of FDR?s New Deal.
>>
>> According to news reports from the Wall Street Journal:
>>
>> Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said regulators should be given broad
>> new powers to oversee financial markets, reflecting the Fed?s evolving view
>> that a more aggressive government hand is needed to ensure the future safety
>> of the financial system.
>>
>> Among his recommendations were tougher capital requirements for big banks,
>> limits on investments by money-market mutual funds, and the introduction of
>> some mechanism that would allow the U.S. to wind down big financial
>> institutions and possibly run them temporarily.
>>
>> ? The recommendations were largely consistent with measures being pushed by
>> House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D., Mass.), who is
>> expected to be a key architect of the new financial regulation. There was
>> one exception. Mr. Frank has said any changes would have to discourage
>> ?excessive risk taking? by executives, which he argues helped fuel the
>> financial crisis. Mr. Bernanke didn?t touch on compensation practices in his
>> speech.
>>
>> Mr. Frank said he was supportive of Mr. Bernanke?s proposed outline. He said
>> the speech reinforced for him why the Federal Reserve should be given powers
>> to broadly oversee the safety of the entire financial system. Currently,
>> various regulators oversee discrete parts. ?I don?t know who else could do
>> it,? Mr. Frank said.
>>
>> President Barack Obama has charged Mr. Frank with developing an outline of
>> how a new system would work in time for the Group of 20 meeting in early
>> April.
>>
>> These political leaders are using this crisis to further their long held
>> desire to increase federal control of the economy. This is no secret:
>> liberals such as Mr. Frank have strong beliefs about the positive role of
>> government in the economy. They believe capitalism is inherently unstable
>> and that the guiding force of the government is necessary to protect
>> citizens from its perceived ravages. They believe they are capable of making
>> certain economic decisions that should not be entrusted to its citizens,
>> such as bankers and investors.
>>
>> While many commentators brand this as socialism, it is in fact more akin to
>> Italian fascism. This system is often referred to as ?national corporatism,?
>> and exists when a government with unlimited power harnesses private industry
>> and labor to perform their political goals.
>>
>> We have pointed out on this blog that the current economic problems were
>> caused  by government action and the very politicians who now wish to gain
>> further power. Accepting the fact that our current leaders will not change
>> course, and that they don?t understand economics or the consequences of
>> their actions, we should explore the implications of their proposed new
>> economic rules.
>>
>> 1. Appointment of a financial czar.
>>
>> As I predicted in my August, 2008 article, a czar will be appointed to
>> oversee what Mr. Bernanke calls the ?future safety of the financial system.?
>> The czar will be given broad, undefined powers to regulate financial
>> markets. This regulation will cover commercial banks, investment banks,
>> insurance companies, non-bank mortgage lenders, rating agencies, hedge
>> funds, equity investment companies, money managers, pension funds, mutual
>> funds, and any person, entity, or scheme they think will present a ?systemic
>> risk? to the economy.
>>
>> 2. Activities of financial companies will be subject to increased
>> supervision and restrictions.
>>
>> Certain activities will come under special regulation. Specifically
>> innovative instruments such as credit default swaps, derivatives, and other
>> ?complex products? will be sharply curtailed, inspected, and regulated
>> before they are allowed to be sold. This regulation scheme will be similar
>> to SEC rules governing the issuance of securities but companies will be
>> required to meet strict rules regulating risk-taking, risk management
>> standards, and will be held to ?high capital and liquidity standards.? They
>> have no idea whether or not meeting these standards will prevent systemic
>> risk or prevent another financial crisis.
>>
>> 3. The newly regulated institutions will be required to meet debt to
>> capital ratios like banks.
>>
>> Hedge funds and equity investment funds no longer will be allowed to
>> leverage investments beyond certain debt-capital ratios even though private
>> investors are risking their own capital. Also, executive pay will be
>> restricted so they are not perceived as to be taking unwarranted risk with
>> their investors? capital (read: ?rolling the dice?). This is a substantial
>> change for these funds which are basically unregulated because they are
>> private partnerships with sophisticated investors. This will reduce capital
>> for these funds and, consequently, to the U.S. investment market.
>>
>> 4. A substantial new regulatory bureaucracy will be created to implement
>> these mandates.
>>
>> The new czar will hire hundreds, if not thousands, of financial experts,
>> lawyers, economists, and bureaucrats. New products would have to be run by
>> the czar for approval. Companies would have the burden to show that their
>> offering or financial structures would do no harm based on rules and
>> regulations established by the czar. There would be lawyers specializing in
>> getting products through. There would be administrative judges and appeals
>> to federal courts. CCH and WestLaw would publish volumes of rules and
>> regulations, decisions, and opinion letters. This system used to be called
>> ?byzantine? after the heavily bureaucratic, and now dead, Byzantine Empire.
>> It?s harder to see this concept when it?s in your own backyard.
>>
>> 5. Commercial banks will not be allowed to undertake investment bank
>> functions.
>>
>> Nouriel Roubini and other commentators believe commercial banks will in the
>> future operate more like utilities. They will undertake only the money,
>> savings, checking, credit cards, and personal loan banking functions.
>> Something similar to Glass-Steagall will be enacted. Now that many
>> investment banks are becoming banks, they will undertake many of the riskier
>> activities that banks had been performing in sophisticated financial
>> transactions. Hedge funds and equity firms will emerge as the new investment
>> banks, taking over the functions of the likes of Goldman, Morgan, and
>> Merrill. Insurers will go back to performing insurance functions.
>>
>> 6. Financial innovation will be stifled and the U.S. and the U.K. will
>> gradually lose their status as the preeminent financial centers.
>>
>> As Nasim Taleb put it, in the last 10 years financial centers are becoming
>> more distributed worldwide. Dubai, Mumbai, and Shanghai have emerged as
>> powerful centers of finance. If the U.S. over-regulates its financial
>> markets, it is likely that innovative financial products will emerge from
>> other money centers. Companies and entrepreneurs from around the world will,
>> as they always do, go to the money. Don?t bet on worldwide cooperation for
>> unified financial regulations.
>>
>> This new regulation will be another example of the law of unintended
>> consequences. This is the idea that well intentioned actions, such as these
>> proposed regulations, often result in consequences quite different from what
>> was intended. It happens so often with economic regulations. In this case,
>> our political leaders see an economic crisis without understanding its
>> causes and figure that if they pass the right laws, all will be well. Hoover
>> and FDR thought they were doing the right thing and we ended up with a
>> depression that didn?t lift until well after WWII when many of the New Deal
>> rules were repealed. The leaders of Japan thought they were following the
>> correct Keynesian remedies to pull out of their crash in the ?90?s and Japan
>> ended up with 14 years of economic stagnation.
>>
>> The free market has proven its ability to create and distribute wealth
>> fairer than any other economic system in the history of the world. It has
>> proven its ability to foster and demand political freedom. At what point
>> does the piling on of new controls on top of all the others tip the scale
>> from dynamic capitalism to stagnation and decline? The life blood
>> of capitalism is free access to capital and I feel lightheaded.
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>
>>
>>     
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>   
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From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Sun Mar 15 14:57:49 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Sun, 15 Mar 2009 13:57:49 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] I wish I could make the O one read this.
Message-ID: <6634e19e0903151157h5f286e3ao84f065c854586322@mail.gmail.com>

Good afternoon All,

Oh how I wish I could sit down with the O one and MAKE him read articles
like this. If he truly cared about the country he is "leading" (trying to
take over?) I can't imagine he wouldn't want to understand such things. As
it is, it appears that making things truly better for the average citizen is
perhaps, not really what his programs are about.

Rik

http://www.mises.org/story/3370

Change" Under Obama: From Dumb to Dumber and From Bad to Worse

*Mises Daily* by George
Reisman<http://www.mises.org/articles.aspx?AuthorId=143>| Posted on
3/9/2009 12:00:00 AM

A recent article in *The New York Times* quotes President Obama as saying,
"I don't buy the argument that providing workers with collective-bargaining
rights somehow weakens the economy or worsens the business environment. If
you've got workers who have decent pay and benefits, they're also customers
for business." (March 2, 2009, p. B3.)

The President's statement reveals a great deal about his understanding or,
more correctly, lack of understanding of economics.

Collective bargaining is the joining together, typically through the
instrumentality of a labor union, of all workers in a given occupation or
industry for the purpose of acting as a single unit in seeking pay and
benefits. It is an attempt to compel employers to deal with just one party ?
i.e., the labor union ? and to come to terms agreeable to that party or to
be unable to obtain labor.

The imposition and maintenance of collective bargaining necessarily depends
on compulsion and coercion, i.e., on the use of physical force against both
employers and unemployed workers. This coercion is necessitated, in
substantial measure, precisely by the seeming success that collective
bargaining can achieve.

That success is measured in terms of the rise in wage rates that it
achieves. That rise in wage rates is all that labor union leaders and their
ignorant supporters are aware of.

Precisely this "success," however, is the cause of major problems. The first
is that higher wage rates reduce the quantity of labor that any given amount
of capital funds can employ. For example, at a wage of $20,000 per year, $1
million of payroll funds can employ 50 workers for a year. But at a wage of
$25,000 per year, it can employ only 40 workers for a year. With every
further rise in the wage, correspondingly fewer workers are able to be
employed.

Higher wage rates also serve to raise costs of production and thus the
selling prices of the products that the higher-paid workers are producing.
These higher selling prices reduce the quantities of the products that
buyers are able and willing to buy. And thus, whether as the result of the
reduced purchasing power of capital funds in the face of higher wage rates
or the reduced quantities of products demanded by customers in the face of
higher product prices, the effect of collective bargaining is a reduced
quantity of labor employed, i.e., unemployment.

It is shocking, indeed, frightening, that the President of the United
States, whose main concern at the moment is supposedly with overcoming mass
unemployment and preventing its getting worse, does not understand that any
policy that drives up wage rates drives up unemployment.

The unemployment that collective bargaining causes is what explains why it
is necessary to resort to coercion against wage earners in order to maintain
the system. The self-interest of the unemployed is to find work, and to
accept lower wage rates as the means of doing so. And taking advantage of
that fact is to the self-interest of employers. Thus there are two parties,
unemployed workers and employers, whose self-interest lies with a reduction
in the higher wage rates achieved by collective bargaining.

If these parties are free to act in their self-interest, the system of
collective bargaining must break down. How are they to be prevented from
acting in their self-interest?

The answer is *physical force*. Stepping outside the system of collective
bargaining must be made illegal if the system is not to break down. That
means employers and unemployed workers must be threatened with fines or
imprisonment for acting in their self-interest and withdrawing from the
system of collective bargaining. In the last analysis, they must be
threatened with the specter of armed officers ready to cart them off to jail
if they disobey the requirements of the system, and to club and shoot them
should they physically resist being carted off to jail. (It is not always
necessary that the physical force that imposes and maintains collective
bargaining come directly from the government. It can often come from labor
unions that the government chooses not to prosecute when their members
physically assault strikebreakers, surround factories and refuse to allow
entry or exist, start fires, set off stink bombs, shoot out tires, and
perform other acts of vandalism and intimidation.)

In saying, "I don't buy the argument that providing workers with
collective-bargaining rights somehow weakens the economy or worsens the
business environment," President Obama confesses to not knowing that
collective bargaining raises prices and causes unemployment. He confesses to
not knowing that it raises costs and prices not only through the imposition
of artificially high wage rates, but also in imposing on employers the use
of unnecessary labor, sometimes as many as four or five workers to do the
job that just one could do.

(A classic example of this is the insistence on the use of a carpenter,
plumber, electrician, tile setter, and drywaller to make a simple repair in
a bathroom, merely because the separate labor unions involved claim each
operation as belonging to their respective members exclusively, i.e., claim
a monopoly on that type of operation.) He confesses to not knowing how the
enormous difficulties that labor unions put in the way of firing incompetent
workers are responsible for such phenomena as so-called Monday-morning
automobiles. That is, automobiles poorly made for no other reason than
because they happened to be made on a day when too few workers showed up, or
too few showed up sober, to do the jobs they were paid to do. The
automobiles companies were unable to fire such workers without precipitating
a crippling strike, to which the system of compulsory collective bargaining
gave them no alternative.

Collective bargaining, with its imposition of higher costs and prices and
lower product quality, is at the root of the destruction of the American
automobile industry and many other American industries. President Obama not
only chooses not to know this, but selects union leaders as his companions,
including the leader of the United Automobile Workers Union. (*The
Times*article from which I quoted him is accompanied by a photograph
that shows
him, in what appears to be a round of golf, with Ron Gettelfinger, who is
the president of the U.A.W., James Hoffa, who is the president of the
Teamsters, and John Sweeney, who is the president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. The
article notes that "Mr. Sweeney has visited the White House at least once a
week since Inauguration Day.")

The reader should keep in mind the coercive nature of collective bargaining.
Then he should consider Mr. Obama's observation that "If you've got workers
who have decent pay and benefits [as the alleged result of collective
bargaining], they're also customers for business."

This statement makes about as much sense as declaring that people who are
successful at sticking up gas stations are also customers of gas stations.

Moreover, the workers who are unemployed by collective bargaining are not
customers of business, or not very good customers (they can't afford to be).
And the products offered by business to its customers are poorer and more
expensive because of collective bargaining. This is something, it must be
stressed, that reduces the buying power of the wages of workers throughout
the economic system, i.e., reduces what economists call their "real wages."
Mr. Obama needs to forget the nonsense he believes about collective
bargaining and paying extortionate wages somehow benefiting business and
learn to understand how *it harms wage earners*, how it harms every wage
earner who must pay more and get less as the result of legally enforced
collective bargaining. He must learn to understand how it also harms every
worker who must earn less as the result of being displaced by collective
bargaining from the better paying jobs he could have had if wage rates in
those lines had not been driven artificially still higher by collective
bargaining and thus reduced the number of workers who could be employed in
them and thereby forced those workers into lower paying jobs. He must learn
to understand how it also harms every worker who must earn less as the
result of being displaced by collective bargaining from the better paying
jobs he could have had if wage rates in those lines had not been driven
artificially still higher by collective bargaining and thus reduced the
number of workers who could be employed in them and thereby forced those
workers into lower paying jobs.

Unfortunately, it does not seem very likely that Mr. Obama will ever learn
any of this. He appears to be so charmed by the use of compulsion and
coercion that he and his supporters in Congress are ready to unleash a reign
of outright mass intimidation against American workers.

In a bow to Orwell's *1984* and its world filled with such slogans as "war
is peace," "freedom is slavery," and "love is hate," Obama and his henchmen
are readying "the Employee Free Choice Act." This is an act designed
precisely to *end* employee free choice, by depriving workers of the benefit
of a secret ballot in deciding whether or not they want to join a union. In
the words of *The Times* article, this is "a bill that unions hope will add
millions of new members by giving workers the right to union recognition as
soon as a majority of employees at a workplace sign pro-union cards. The
bill would take away management's ability to insist on a secret ballot
election."

Here we have it. *Obama is against the secret ballot*. No, he's not yet
announced any opposition to the secret ballot in elections for public
office. But there's absolutely no difference in principle between being
against the secret ballot in elections concerning whether or not to unionize
and being against it in elections for public office. In both cases, it is a
matter of subjecting people to intimidation if they express a choice that is
opposed to the one that an organized, powerful group wants them to make. In
this case, that group would be the union goons who would distribute the
"pro-union cards" that workers would be asked to sign or refuse to sign in
their presence. Are Obama and his followers really so naive as not to know
that any worker who would reject joining a union in these circumstances
would, at a minimum, be exposing himself to ostracism and the chance of
substantial personal economic loss in the event the union gained recognition
and he is on record as having opposed it?

Be assured, they are not so naive. They look forward to the intimidation.
They look forward to it in the recognition that that is what is required to
swell the ranks of the unions once again.

The wider principle here is the readiness of Obama and his associates to
resort to intimidation to further their goals. It is the method of street
thugs and of dictators. That is what is present in their attempt to deprive
workers of the secret ballot in deciding whether or not to unionize.

The last occupant of the White House often gave the impression of having an
inadequate command of the English language and of experiencing great
difficulty in speaking in grammatical sentences and using words in
accordance with their proper meaning. The present occupant of the White
House speaks impeccable English, with crisp, clear pronunciation.
Nevertheless, his actual knowledge ? of economics, of the meaning of
individual rights, and of the nature of government ? appears to lag far
behind that of his bumbling predecessor.
 <http://www.mises.org/store/Capitalism-P188.aspx>

$95 $80 <http://www.mises.org/store/Capitalism-P188.aspx>

Furthermore, while Bush may be accused of disregarding the rights of foreign
terrorists at war with the United States, Obama is out to disregard the
rights of peaceful, productive American citizens. This is apparent not only
in his readiness to deprive American workers of the secret ballot in union
organizing elections, but also in his efforts to dramatically raise the
taxes of everyone earning more than $250,000 per year, in an attempt to
achieve a substantial redistribution of income. It is also evident in his
policies on energy and healthcare as well.

In sum, the "change" that Obama promised his mesmerized supporters in the
election campaign, and is now in process of actually delivering, is nothing
more than change from dumb to dumber and from bad to worse.

Copyright ? 2009, by George Reisman. George Reisman, Ph.D. is the author of
*Capitalism: A Treatise on
Economics*<http://www.capitalism.net/Capitalism/CAPITALISM_Internet.pdf>(Ottawa,
Illinois: Jameson Books, 1996) and is Pepperdine University
Professor Emeritus of Economics. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Goldwater
Institute. His web site is www.capitalism.net and his blog is
www.georgereisman.com/blog/. A pdf replica of his book can be downloaded to
the reader's hard drive simply by clicking on the book's title, above, and
then saving the file when it appears on the screen.
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From ekroposki at charter.net  Sun Mar 15 15:44:43 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Sun, 15 Mar 2009 15:44:43 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] I wish I could make the O one read this.
Message-ID: <9C04EBBB84C74F80B1384B3811BE6F28@YOURB88038198E>

Rik,

Obama is a true believer in Marxism.  Your author on capitalism and free enterprise are non truths. 

Remember, he believes Marxism is right and you will become a Marxist.  History is not important.  Truth about human success and failure are not important.

Freedom is even less important.

Ed K
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Mon Mar 16 08:44:21 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2009 07:44:21 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Going Galt Illegal?
Message-ID: <400985d70903160544o737b762cs652bba0bf9f8ad77@mail.gmail.com>

If part of your Going Galt program is perhaps to open a truck farm,
you may want to know about this -

http://www.naturalnews.com/025824.html

Every trip to Gulfport I stop by a little Vietnamese seafood store and
buy shrimp fresh off the boat.  During the summer, we buy our
vegetables from some Hmong truck farmers who settled in West Tennessee
and run a very successful co-operative.  This bill would designate
these folks as "food factories" and subject them to endless federal
oversight.

Is there no stopping the federal power grab from the states and individuals?

Brad

From flybrad at gmail.com  Mon Mar 16 08:56:55 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2009 07:56:55 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Going Galt Illegal?
In-Reply-To: <400985d70903160544o737b762cs652bba0bf9f8ad77@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70903160544o737b762cs652bba0bf9f8ad77@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70903160556j4907c6b0v9514c792b407337c@mail.gmail.com>

Forgot to add this small detail.  Does the name Rep. DeLauro (sponsor
of the bill) ring a bell?
She's the gal who has provided free (as in no taxes were paid) housing
to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel for the last several years.

Off to spend another day with Mickey!

Brad

On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 7:44 AM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
> If part of your Going Galt program is perhaps to open a truck farm,
> you may want to know about this -
>
> http://www.naturalnews.com/025824.html
>
> Every trip to Gulfport I stop by a little Vietnamese seafood store and
> buy shrimp fresh off the boat. ?During the summer, we buy our
> vegetables from some Hmong truck farmers who settled in West Tennessee
> and run a very successful co-operative. ?This bill would designate
> these folks as "food factories" and subject them to endless federal
> oversight.
>
> Is there no stopping the federal power grab from the states and individuals?
>
> Brad
>


From ekroposki at charter.net  Mon Mar 16 11:01:15 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2009 11:01:15 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Internet Comparisons...
Message-ID: <2FE384CAAC6544E6BF5FFD4C1C3ABECB@YOURB88038198E>

See:  http://www.youtube.com:80/watch?v=xIHz5tevLAw

Ed K
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From ekroposki at charter.net  Mon Mar 16 19:51:59 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2009 19:51:59 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Tartan 30
Message-ID: <C9DC923CEEC142878A61C6156DF383DD@YOURB88038198E>

This site has the story of a rebuild of a Tartan 30.  

http://t30makeover.com/index.html

After you read what went into rebuilding a 1973 boat, then go to 'musings' and then 'we are blue water sailers'.  

Follow the race, worth the read to sailors.

Ed K
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From ekroposki at charter.net  Tue Mar 17 06:56:13 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 06:56:13 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] How to get unlost...
Message-ID: <B25B8ECF25FC4141AE783E476206FB7F@YOURB88038198E>

And now the internet gives instructions on how to get unlost:

http://www.howcast.com/videos/22128-How-To-Tell-Directions-Without-a-Compass

Ed K
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From bill at effros.com  Tue Mar 17 09:29:00 2009
From: bill at effros.com (Bill Effros)
Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 09:29:00 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] How to get unlost...
In-Reply-To: <B25B8ECF25FC4141AE783E476206FB7F@YOURB88038198E>
References: <B25B8ECF25FC4141AE783E476206FB7F@YOURB88038198E>
Message-ID: <49BFA59C.8020609@effros.com>

Nice, Ed,

I'll have to look for my Japanese translated instructions that came with 
a watch I bought many years ago..."How to Use Your Watch as a Compass".

The instructions explained how to use an analog watch face, point 12:00 
north, and convert the numbers on the watch face to compass directions.

However, the Japanese sold me a digital watch. 

So there was a second sheet of paper inside, explaining how to imagine 
the digital watch had an analog face before following the instructions 
for "How to Use Your Watch as a Compass".

What is even more amazing to me, is when I read stories about cruising 
couples whose GPS goes out when they are in the Atlantic and cannot see 
land.  Some of these people have died on their boats because they 
couldn't figure out that the United States had to be due West, and that 
the sun (in all probability) set in the West.

B.



Ed Kroposki wrote:
> And now the internet gives instructions on how to get unlost:
>  
> http://www.howcast.com/videos/22128-How-To-Tell-Directions-Without-a-Compass
>  
> Ed K
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>   
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From bill at effros.com  Tue Mar 17 09:33:24 2009
From: bill at effros.com (Bill Effros)
Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 09:33:24 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] White House News:
Message-ID: <49BFA6A4.6030606@effros.com>

*_White House News:_*
*
It has just been reported that the head gardener at The White House has 
been dismissed after 28 years of loyal service to the many US presidents.*


*When interviewed the gardener protested his innocence and said "All I 
know is I was walking past the Oval Office and I asked, "Has anyone seen 
the spade or the hoe".*


*The next thing I knew I was fired.*
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From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Tue Mar 17 13:57:13 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 12:57:13 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] No defaults ..... Bad???
Message-ID: <6634e19e0903171057n736f50fagc2f285b14f821dd5@mail.gmail.com>

Good afternoon All,

Caught a little news blip today that had me chuckling to myself.

Under the heading of, damned if you do, damned if you don't. Or, sometimes
you just can't win .....

Rik

________________

Punished For Prudence

One might think that a bank with no foreclosures, no loan losses, and no
loan loss provisions would be top rated. If so one would think wrong. The
clowns at the FDIC gave a negative rating to such a bank last week.

Please consider Community bank finds paranoid a smart
bet<http://boston.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2009/03/16/story3.html?b=1237176000%5E1793570&page=1>
.

Joseph A. Petrucelli is one of the most cautious bankers in America. In
fact, Petrucelli is so cautious that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
recently criticized his bank for not lending enough. The FDIC?s negative
review of East Bridgewater Savings Bank?s loan volume is an anomaly in
today?s current banking scene as lenders reel from their role in offering
too many cruddy mortgage products to borrowers with weak credit.

Bad or delinquent loans? Zero.

Foreclosures? None.

Money set aside in 2008 for anticipated loan losses? Nothing.

?We?re paranoid about credit quality,? Petrucelli said. The 62-year-old
chief executive has run the bank since 1992.

Still, the FDIC slapped East Bridgewater Savings with a rare ?needs to
improve? rating after evaluating the bank under the Community Reinvestment
Act. FDIC examiners also faulted East Bridgewater for not advertising and
marketing its loan products enough.

Congratulations go to Sheila Bair and the FDIC for helping take asininity to
new heights.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
<http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/>
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From mweisner at ebsmed.com  Tue Mar 17 15:38:56 2009
From: mweisner at ebsmed.com (Michael D. Weisner)
Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:38:56 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] No defaults ..... Bad???
References: <6634e19e0903171057n736f50fagc2f285b14f821dd5@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <E22ACAD403CB4C5D829134787EE47EAC@ebsoffice>

Rik,

Sounds like a place that Hank Reardon once ran...

Mike
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Eric Sandberg 
  To: Swiftwater Gazette List 
  Sent: Tuesday, March 17, 2009 1:57 PM
  Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] No defaults ..... Bad???


  Good afternoon All,

  Caught a little news blip today that had me chuckling to myself.

  Under the heading of, damned if you do, damned if you don't. Or, sometimes you just can't win .....

  Rik

  ________________

  Punished For Prudence

  One might think that a bank with no foreclosures, no loan losses, and no loan loss provisions would be top rated. If so one would think wrong. The clowns at the FDIC gave a negative rating to such a bank last week.

  Please consider Community bank finds paranoid a smart bet.

    Joseph A. Petrucelli is one of the most cautious bankers in America. In fact, Petrucelli is so cautious that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. recently criticized his bank for not lending enough. The FDIC?s negative review of East Bridgewater Savings Bank?s loan volume is an anomaly in today?s current banking scene as lenders reel from their role in offering too many cruddy mortgage products to borrowers with weak credit.

    Bad or delinquent loans? Zero.

    Foreclosures? None.

    Money set aside in 2008 for anticipated loan losses? Nothing.

    ?We?re paranoid about credit quality,? Petrucelli said. The 62-year-old chief executive has run the bank since 1992.

    Still, the FDIC slapped East Bridgewater Savings with a rare ?needs to improve? rating after evaluating the bank under the Community Reinvestment Act. FDIC examiners also faulted East Bridgewater for not advertising and marketing its loan products enough. 
  Congratulations go to Sheila Bair and the FDIC for helping take asininity to new heights.

  Mike "Mish" Shedlock
  http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com




------------------------------------------------------------------------------


  _______________________________________________
  SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
  SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
  http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
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From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Tue Mar 17 19:28:48 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:28:48 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] No defaults ..... Bad???
In-Reply-To: <E22ACAD403CB4C5D829134787EE47EAC@ebsoffice>
References: <6634e19e0903171057n736f50fagc2f285b14f821dd5@mail.gmail.com>
	<E22ACAD403CB4C5D829134787EE47EAC@ebsoffice>
Message-ID: <6634e19e0903171628g678377fqef212317010b5469@mail.gmail.com>

Mike,

Yep. As I recall, the bureaucrats didn't do a damned bit better by him.

Is there a John Galt in the house?

Rik

2009/3/17 Michael D. Weisner <mweisner at ebsmed.com>

>  Rik,
>
> Sounds like a place that Hank Reardon once ran...
>
> Mike
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com>
> *To:* Swiftwater Gazette List<SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, March 17, 2009 1:57 PM
> *Subject:* [Swiftwater Gazette] No defaults ..... Bad???
>
> Good afternoon All,
>
> Caught a little news blip today that had me chuckling to myself.
>
> Under the heading of, damned if you do, damned if you don't. Or, sometimes
> you just can't win .....
>
> Rik
>
> ________________
>
> Punished For Prudence
>
> One might think that a bank with no foreclosures, no loan losses, and no
> loan loss provisions would be top rated. If so one would think wrong. The
> clowns at the FDIC gave a negative rating to such a bank last week.
>
> Please consider Community bank finds paranoid a smart bet<http://boston.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2009/03/16/story3.html?b=1237176000%5E1793570&page=1>
> .
>
> Joseph A. Petrucelli is one of the most cautious bankers in America. In
> fact, Petrucelli is so cautious that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
> recently criticized his bank for not lending enough. The FDIC?s negative
> review of East Bridgewater Savings Bank?s loan volume is an anomaly in
> today?s current banking scene as lenders reel from their role in offering
> too many cruddy mortgage products to borrowers with weak credit.
>
> Bad or delinquent loans? Zero.
>
> Foreclosures? None.
>
> Money set aside in 2008 for anticipated loan losses? Nothing.
>
> ?We?re paranoid about credit quality,? Petrucelli said. The 62-year-old
> chief executive has run the bank since 1992.
>
> Still, the FDIC slapped East Bridgewater Savings with a rare ?needs to
> improve? rating after evaluating the bank under the Community Reinvestment
> Act. FDIC examiners also faulted East Bridgewater for not advertising and
> marketing its loan products enough.
>
> Congratulations go to Sheila Bair and the FDIC for helping take asininity
> to new heights.
>
> Mike "Mish" Shedlock
> http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
> <http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Wed Mar 18 02:02:03 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2009 01:02:03 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] White House News:
In-Reply-To: <49BFA6A4.6030606@effros.com>
References: <49BFA6A4.6030606@effros.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70903172302k293f9120q9f11d4786b2b45d8@mail.gmail.com>

Bill,

Obviously, you need some sensitivity training. Here's a great
conference for you to attend -

http://benhooks.memphis.edu/obamaconference.html

You can fly into Memphis and I'll loan you my car and put you up for
the weekend.  I'd attend with you but that's the weekend I'm scheduled
to wash my wife's car.

Brad

2009/3/17 Bill Effros <bill at effros.com>:
> White House News:
>
> It has just been reported that the head gardener at The White House has been
> dismissed after 28 years of loyal service to the many US presidents.
>
>
> When interviewed the gardener protested his innocence and said "All I know
> is I was walking past the Oval Office and I asked, "Has anyone seen the
> spade or the hoe".
>
>
> The next thing I knew I was fired.
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>

From flybrad at gmail.com  Wed Mar 18 03:54:55 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2009 02:54:55 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Yo Gubmint at Work?
Message-ID: <400985d70903180054j2bafb075o57fcfee0fd7d7df1@mail.gmail.com>

The One (tm) is flying to LA on Wednesday and leaving Thursday.  After
35 years of professional flying, I've had an encounter or two with Air
Force One.  They are always a major PITA, but never last more than 15
minutes and the biggest downside is a major re-route.  Here's the map
for LA for WED and THU for restricted areas -

http://www.aopa.org/images/whatsnew/newsitems/2009/notams/9-9620.gif

The guys on my Bo list in the LA area are major pissed because they
are basically grounded for two whole days.  Unprecedented, or is that
un-Presidented?  Never in the history of our republic has a 'brother
aviator' been so important.

Brad

From ekroposki at charter.net  Wed Mar 18 06:20:27 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2009 06:20:27 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Times-Examiner
Message-ID: <35C5A39A10204B36905F790A46E7C704@YOURB88038198E>

The Times Examiner is a weekly newspaper in Greenville County South Carolina.  It has been around for years.  It was started as a weekly newspaper for three small towns in south eastern Greenville County.  I came across this article published last fall.  Interesting read:

Written by Bob Dill     

Sep 24, 2008 at 12:00 AM  

Meet the Real Obama and Cult of Alinsky

"The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun." (Ecclesiastes 1:9 KJV) 

 

It is becoming readily apparent that the "change" being proposed vaguely by Sen. Barack Obama is nothing new. It is simply the old Marxism and socialism with a new twenty-first century  multicultural face and a New Age twist created by Sixties radical Saul Alinsky and his fellow travelers that is effectively deceiving millions of dumbed-down and brainwashed young adults. 

 

Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York was being grilled on one of the Sunday morning television programs regarding the differences between Senators Obama and McCain. Giuliani insisted the Obama tax plan was motivated by his intentions to "redistribute wealth." On more than one occasion he mentioned the name of Sol Alinsky. That name jogged my memory. 

 

Long term readers of The Times Examiner will recall many articles regarding the deceptive and unethical "Delphi Technique" and the specialized application of the technique applied specifically to teachers called the "Alinsky Method." 

 

In her 1991book Educating for the New World Order, Beverly K. Eakman describes the Delphi technique and Alinsky method in detail. The technique is used in situations where the "community organizer, change agent, advocate, agitator or facilitator"   desiring to achieve change uses proven psychological techniques and deception to manipulate groups of people to agree to something they currently oppose. The technique works and the targets rarely, if ever, know they are being manipulated. If they suspect it, they don't know how, unless they are aware of the technique and how the organizer and facilitator uses it to manipulate unsuspecting individuals and groups. It has been used effectively on parents in the School District of Greenville County in the past with facilitators trained by a change agent from California. The technique is currently being used quietly by those preparing to implement UN Agenda 21 disguised as a long- term plan for Greenville County created by local citizens.     

 

The socialist and communist radicals of the 60s have had four decades to test their theories, infiltrate the American institutions of learning, media, religion, business and government and select the charismatic leaders they believe have the skills to deceive the voters of America and seize power without shedding their blood. 

 

The technique used is called the "Alinsky Method," advocated, taught and documented by Saul Alinsky, author of the 1971 book called Rules for Radicals. In his book, Alinsky was critical of some Sixties radical leftists for scaring away potential converts in conservative communities. He taught that true revolutionaries do not flaunt their radicalism by creating open insurrection. Alinsky taught his followers to "cut their hair, put on a suit and tie and infiltrate the system from within." 

 

The David Horowitz and Richard Poe book, The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party, traced the rise of Alinsky's political influence since the 1930s. They write that Alinsky excelled at wooing wealthy financiers to provide start-up funds for his Industrial Areas Foundation, a school for radical community organizers. 

 

There is a mountain of evidence that George Soros, Hillary Clinton and the mother and maternal grandparents of Barack Obama were students of the Alinsky method of community organizing. 

 

Richard Poe writes in The Turrish Weekly that Obama, who never met Alinsky in person, was "trained by Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation," and that "Obama spent years teaching workshops on the Alinsky method." Poe further states that Obama "In 1985 began a four-year stint as a community organizer in Chicago, working for an Alinskyite group called the Developing Communities Project. Later, he worked with Acorn and its offshoot Project Vote, both creations of the Alinsky network." 

 

FOX News has reported that Acorn has been caught this summer involved in massive voter registration law violations in several states. 

 

As early as 1945, Alinsky was able to influence government officials. Agnes Meyer, wife of the publisher of the Washington Post wrote a six-part series on Alinsky titled, The Orderly Revolution. It made Alinsky famous. President Truman reportedly ordered 100 reprints of the articles. Soon Alinsky was able to get his hands into the federal treasury. 

 

During the turbulent anti-war Sixties Alinsky wielded enormous power behind the scenes. When President Johnson launched his War on Poverty in 1964, Alinsky followers infiltrated the program, steering federal money into Alinsky projects. 

 

Alinsky wrote that he had an "understanding" with Attorney General Robert Kennedy, who supported Alinsky's Jackson style "shakedown" of Eastman Kodak in 1966. 

 

Alinsky recruited a young high school student named Hillary Rodham. They met through a radical church group. Hillary wrote an analysis of "Alinsky Methods" for her thesis at Wellsley College, where, according to Richard Poe, "every professor was a Marxist at that time." 

 

After graduating from Yale Law School in 1974, Hillary received a prestigious appointment to the House Judiciary Committee's Watergate investigation team on the recommendation of Marian Wright Edelman and her husband. Edelman happens to be a follower of Alinsky, having served on the Board of Trustees of Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation. Edelman has been termed by some as Hillary's "ideological soul mate." Hillary was friends with Alinsky until his death in 1972. 

 

"Barack Obama is also an Alinskyite, trained by Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation," Poe writes, although Obama never met Alinsky personally. 

 

The Alinsky method of organizing is characterized by deception and camouflage. While trying to build coalitions of black churches in Chicago, Obama did not attend church. 

 

His lack of church involvement negatively impacted his effectiveness. He found it necessary to become an instant churchgoer in order to infiltrate churches. 

 

Poe states that the fact that both Senators Clinton and Obama share an Alinskyite background tells us two things: "They are leftists, dedicated to overthrowing our Constitutional system," and "They will go to any length to conceal their radicalism from the public." That is the Alinsky Method.    

 

 
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From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Wed Mar 18 09:52:55 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2009 08:52:55 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] 2nd amendment rights next??
Message-ID: <6634e19e0903180652s548e8816ke4398c95e17a90f5@mail.gmail.com>

Brad,

Read this, this morning. Seems like that could affect you.

Oh but he's not gonna' take away our guns..... yeah, in a pigs ass ....

Transparency in gov't??? Is that what you call this??

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/17/guns-on-a-plane-obama-secretly-ends-program-that-l/

EDITORIAL: Guns on a plane Obama secretly ends program that let pilots carry
guns
Tuesday, March 17, 2009

   - Comment<http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/17/guns-on-a-plane-obama-secretly-ends-program-that-l/#comments>
   - Print<http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/17/guns-on-a-plane-obama-secretly-ends-program-that-l/print/>
   - Font Size
   - Share <http://www.washingtontimes.com/mailfriend/79/362267/1ddf275e24/>
   - Got a Question?<http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/17/guns-on-a-plane-obama-secretly-ends-program-that-l/#ask>
   - You Report<http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/you_report?previous=%2Fnews%2F2009%2Fmar%2F17%2Fguns-on-a-plane-obama-secretly-ends-program-that-l%2F>
   - Click-2-Listen<javascript:OpenC2LWindow('WashingtonTimes','news_2009_mar_17_guns-on-a-plane-obama-secretly-ends-program-that-l',m_nwamp3_file,'OAS_sitepage='+OAS_sitepage,'WashingtonTimes','','Production');void(0);>

 Buzz up!<http://buzz.yahoo.com/article/washington_ti859/http%253A%252F%252Fwww.washingtontimes.com%252Fnews%252F2009%252Fmar%252F17%252Fguns-on-a-plane-obama-secretly-ends-program-that-l%252F>

After the September 11 attacks, commercial airline pilots were allowed to
carry guns if they completed a federal-safety program. No longer would
unarmed pilots be defenseless as remorseless hijackers seized control of
aircraft and rammed them into buildings.

Now President Obama<http://www.washingtontimes.com/themes/?Theme=Barack+Obama>is
quietly ending the federal firearms program, risking public safety on
airlines in the name of an anti-gun ideology.

The Obama administration this past week diverted some $2 million from the
pilot training program to hire more supervisory staff, who will engage in
field inspections of pilots.

This looks like completely unnecessary harassment of the pilots. The 12,000
Federal Flight Deck Officers, the pilots who have been approved to carry
guns, are reported to have the best behavior of any federal law enforcement
agency. There are no cases where any of them has improperly brandished or
used a gun. There are just a few cases where officers have improperly used
their IDs.

Fewer than one percent of the officers have any administrative actions
brought against them and, we are told, virtually all of those cases ?are
trumped up.?

Take a case against one flight officer who had visited the Virginia
Department of Motor Vehicles within the last few weeks. While there, the
pilot noticed that federal law enforcement officers can, with the approval
of a superior, obtain a license plate that cannot be traced, a key safety
feature for law enforcement personnel. So the pilot asked if, as a member of
the federal program, he was eligible. The DMV staffer checked and said ?no.?
The next day administrative actions were brought against the pilot for
?misrepresenting himself.? These are the kinds of cases that President Obama
wants to investigate.

Since Mr. Obama's election, pilots have told us that the approval process
for letting pilots carry guns on planes slowed significantly. Last week the
problem went from bad to worse. Federal Flight Deck Officers - the pilots
who have been approved to carry guns - indicate that the approval process
has stalled out.

Pilots cannot openly speak about the changing policies for fear of
retaliation from the Transportation Security Administration. Pilots who act
in any way that causes a ?loss of confidence? in the armed pilot program
risk criminal prosecution as well as their removal from the program. Despite
these threats, pilots in the Federal Flight Deck Officers program have
raised real concerns in multiple interviews.

Arming pilots after Sept. 11 was nothing new. Until the early 1960s,
American commercial passenger pilots on any flight carrying U.S. mail were
required to carry handguns. Indeed, U.S. pilots were still allowed to carry
guns until as recently as 1987. There are no records that any of these
pilots (either military or commercial) ever causing any significant
problems.

Screening of airplane passengers is hardly perfect. While armed marshals are
helpful, the program covers less than 3 percent of the flights out of
Washington D.C.'s three airports and even fewer across the country. Sky
marshals are costly and quit more often than other law-enforcement officers.


Armed pilots are a cost-effective backup layer of security. Terrorists can
only enter the cockpit through one narrow entrance, and armed pilots have
some time to prepare themselves as hijackers penetrate the strengthened
cockpit doors. With pilots, we have people who are willing to take on the
burden of protecting the planes for free. About 70 percent of the pilots at
major American carriers have military backgrounds.

Frankly, as a matter of pure politics, we cannot understand what the
administration is thinking. Nearly 40 House Democrats are in districts were
the NRA is more popular than House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. We can't find any
independent poll in which the public is demanding that pilots disarm. Why
does this move make sense?

Only anti-gun extremists and terrorist recruits are worried about armed
pilots. So why is the Obama administration catering to this tiny lobby at
the expense of public safety?
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Wed Mar 18 10:54:20 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2009 09:54:20 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] 2nd amendment rights next??
In-Reply-To: <6634e19e0903180652s548e8816ke4398c95e17a90f5@mail.gmail.com>
References: <6634e19e0903180652s548e8816ke4398c95e17a90f5@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70903180754q74d36a0cq18fea54ebdd3f142@mail.gmail.com>

Rik,

Believe it or not (of course you can believe it) I'm not allowed by
law to comment on the subject (that's left over from the Bush years).
I am allowed to comment on other gun issues, however. Aren't you
worried about the Secret Service packing heat?  What if they
accidentally discharged a weapon and hurt an innocent bystander? And
what about the military?  Isn't it a bit discomforting to know that
all those soldiers are carrying weapons?  Wouldn't it be much safer to
arm them with flowers and copies of "The Audacity of Hope"?

"Pigs ass"?  Better not buy that pigs ass from a farmer's market, that
too will soon be regulated by the stormtroopers from the new Food
Safety Administration. And BTW, how is the farmer supposed to kill the
pig anyway, wait for its natural death?

Hello Stalin, hello Mao, buy your ammo, buy it NOW!

Brad

2009/3/18 Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com>:
> Brad,
>
> Read this, this morning. Seems like that could affect you.
>
> Oh but he's not gonna' take away our guns..... yeah, in a pigs ass ....
>
> Transparency in gov't??? Is that what you call this??
>
> http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/17/guns-on-a-plane-obama-secretly-ends-program-that-l/
>
> EDITORIAL: Guns on a plane
>
> Obama secretly ends program that let pilots carry guns
>
> Tuesday, March 17, 2009
>
> Comment
> Print
> Font Size
> Share
> Got a Question?
> You Report
> Click-2-Listen
>
> Buzz up!
>
> After the September 11 attacks, commercial airline pilots were allowed to
> carry guns if they completed a federal-safety program. No longer would
> unarmed pilots be defenseless as remorseless hijackers seized control of
> aircraft and rammed them into buildings.
>
> Now President Obama is quietly ending the federal firearms program, risking
> public safety on airlines in the name of an anti-gun ideology.
>
> The Obama administration this past week diverted some $2 million from the
> pilot training program to hire more supervisory staff, who will engage in
> field inspections of pilots.
>
> This looks like completely unnecessary harassment of the pilots. The 12,000
> Federal Flight Deck Officers, the pilots who have been approved to carry
> guns, are reported to have the best behavior of any federal law enforcement
> agency. There are no cases where any of them has improperly brandished or
> used a gun. There are just a few cases where officers have improperly used
> their IDs.
>
> Fewer than one percent of the officers have any administrative actions
> brought against them and, we are told, virtually all of those cases ?are
> trumped up.?
>
> Take a case against one flight officer who had visited the Virginia
> Department of Motor Vehicles within the last few weeks. While there, the
> pilot noticed that federal law enforcement officers can, with the approval
> of a superior, obtain a license plate that cannot be traced, a key safety
> feature for law enforcement personnel. So the pilot asked if, as a member of
> the federal program, he was eligible. The DMV staffer checked and said ?no.?
> The next day administrative actions were brought against the pilot for
> ?misrepresenting himself.? These are the kinds of cases that President Obama
> wants to investigate.
>
> Since Mr. Obama's election, pilots have told us that the approval process
> for letting pilots carry guns on planes slowed significantly. Last week the
> problem went from bad to worse. Federal Flight Deck Officers - the pilots
> who have been approved to carry guns - indicate that the approval process
> has stalled out.
>
> Pilots cannot openly speak about the changing policies for fear of
> retaliation from the Transportation Security Administration. Pilots who act
> in any way that causes a ?loss of confidence? in the armed pilot program
> risk criminal prosecution as well as their removal from the program. Despite
> these threats, pilots in the Federal Flight Deck Officers program have
> raised real concerns in multiple interviews.
>
> Arming pilots after Sept. 11 was nothing new. Until the early 1960s,
> American commercial passenger pilots on any flight carrying U.S. mail were
> required to carry handguns. Indeed, U.S. pilots were still allowed to carry
> guns until as recently as 1987. There are no records that any of these
> pilots (either military or commercial) ever causing any significant
> problems.
>
> Screening of airplane passengers is hardly perfect. While armed marshals are
> helpful, the program covers less than 3 percent of the flights out of
> Washington D.C.'s three airports and even fewer across the country. Sky
> marshals are costly and quit more often than other law-enforcement officers.
>
> Armed pilots are a cost-effective backup layer of security. Terrorists can
> only enter the cockpit through one narrow entrance, and armed pilots have
> some time to prepare themselves as hijackers penetrate the strengthened
> cockpit doors. With pilots, we have people who are willing to take on the
> burden of protecting the planes for free. About 70 percent of the pilots at
> major American carriers have military backgrounds.
>
> Frankly, as a matter of pure politics, we cannot understand what the
> administration is thinking. Nearly 40 House Democrats are in districts were
> the NRA is more popular than House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. We can't find any
> independent poll in which the public is demanding that pilots disarm. Why
> does this move make sense?
>
> Only anti-gun extremists and terrorist recruits are worried about armed
> pilots. So why is the Obama administration catering to this tiny lobby at
> the expense of public safety?
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>


From flybrad at gmail.com  Wed Mar 18 11:38:29 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2009 10:38:29 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Teleprompter Jesus
Message-ID: <400985d70903180838x3453171ev162a8b0e01a71520@mail.gmail.com>

First, a short film -

http://tinyurl.com/dfozyj

And now for a short story -

    WASHINGTON - Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen was just a few
paragraphs into an address at a St. Patrick's Day celebration at the
White House when he realized something sounded way too familiar. Turns
out, he was repeating the speech President Barack Obama had just
given...

    But Cowen was 20 seconds into his second address when it dawned on
him that he was giving word for word the speech that Obama had just
read from the same teleprompter.

This isn't funny anymore folks!  This guy can't even say "hello"
without a teleprompter.  Who's the "brains" behind this operation?

Brad

From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Wed Mar 18 12:00:29 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2009 11:00:29 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] 2nd amendment rights next??
In-Reply-To: <400985d70903180754q74d36a0cq18fea54ebdd3f142@mail.gmail.com>
References: <6634e19e0903180652s548e8816ke4398c95e17a90f5@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70903180754q74d36a0cq18fea54ebdd3f142@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6634e19e0903180900vac940f0p7469e110c6f24289@mail.gmail.com>

Brad,

"buy your ammo, buy it NOW!"

Yep, been workin' on that. I imagine, someday "they'll" come lookin' for it.
When they do, I expect they better bring some help. My mood is getting
uglier by the day.

Honestly, will there be enough left of this country after four years of
Obama's "leadership" to salvage??? The amount of damage he has been able to
accomplish in only 2 months is mind boggling. What will it look like after
four years??

Rik

On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 9:54 AM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:

> Rik,
>
> Believe it or not (of course you can believe it) I'm not allowed by
> law to comment on the subject (that's left over from the Bush years).
> I am allowed to comment on other gun issues, however. Aren't you
> worried about the Secret Service packing heat?  What if they
> accidentally discharged a weapon and hurt an innocent bystander? And
> what about the military?  Isn't it a bit discomforting to know that
> all those soldiers are carrying weapons?  Wouldn't it be much safer to
> arm them with flowers and copies of "The Audacity of Hope"?
>
> "Pigs ass"?  Better not buy that pigs ass from a farmer's market, that
> too will soon be regulated by the stormtroopers from the new Food
> Safety Administration. And BTW, how is the farmer supposed to kill the
> pig anyway, wait for its natural death?
>
> Hello Stalin, hello Mao, buy your ammo, buy it NOW!
>
> Brad
>
> 2009/3/18 Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com>:
> > Brad,
> >
> > Read this, this morning. Seems like that could affect you.
> >
> > Oh but he's not gonna' take away our guns..... yeah, in a pigs ass ....
> >
> > Transparency in gov't??? Is that what you call this??
> >
> >
> http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/17/guns-on-a-plane-obama-secretly-ends-program-that-l/
> >
> > EDITORIAL: Guns on a plane
> >
> > Obama secretly ends program that let pilots carry guns
> >
> > Tuesday, March 17, 2009
> >
> > Comment
> > Print
> > Font Size
> > Share
> > Got a Question?
> > You Report
> > Click-2-Listen
> >
> > Buzz up!
> >
> > After the September 11 attacks, commercial airline pilots were allowed to
> > carry guns if they completed a federal-safety program. No longer would
> > unarmed pilots be defenseless as remorseless hijackers seized control of
> > aircraft and rammed them into buildings.
> >
> > Now President Obama is quietly ending the federal firearms program,
> risking
> > public safety on airlines in the name of an anti-gun ideology.
> >
> > The Obama administration this past week diverted some $2 million from the
> > pilot training program to hire more supervisory staff, who will engage in
> > field inspections of pilots.
> >
> > This looks like completely unnecessary harassment of the pilots. The
> 12,000
> > Federal Flight Deck Officers, the pilots who have been approved to carry
> > guns, are reported to have the best behavior of any federal law
> enforcement
> > agency. There are no cases where any of them has improperly brandished or
> > used a gun. There are just a few cases where officers have improperly
> used
> > their IDs.
> >
> > Fewer than one percent of the officers have any administrative actions
> > brought against them and, we are told, virtually all of those cases ?are
> > trumped up.?
> >
> > Take a case against one flight officer who had visited the Virginia
> > Department of Motor Vehicles within the last few weeks. While there, the
> > pilot noticed that federal law enforcement officers can, with the
> approval
> > of a superior, obtain a license plate that cannot be traced, a key safety
> > feature for law enforcement personnel. So the pilot asked if, as a member
> of
> > the federal program, he was eligible. The DMV staffer checked and said
> ?no.?
> > The next day administrative actions were brought against the pilot for
> > ?misrepresenting himself.? These are the kinds of cases that President
> Obama
> > wants to investigate.
> >
> > Since Mr. Obama's election, pilots have told us that the approval process
> > for letting pilots carry guns on planes slowed significantly. Last week
> the
> > problem went from bad to worse. Federal Flight Deck Officers - the pilots
> > who have been approved to carry guns - indicate that the approval process
> > has stalled out.
> >
> > Pilots cannot openly speak about the changing policies for fear of
> > retaliation from the Transportation Security Administration. Pilots who
> act
> > in any way that causes a ?loss of confidence? in the armed pilot program
> > risk criminal prosecution as well as their removal from the program.
> Despite
> > these threats, pilots in the Federal Flight Deck Officers program have
> > raised real concerns in multiple interviews.
> >
> > Arming pilots after Sept. 11 was nothing new. Until the early 1960s,
> > American commercial passenger pilots on any flight carrying U.S. mail
> were
> > required to carry handguns. Indeed, U.S. pilots were still allowed to
> carry
> > guns until as recently as 1987. There are no records that any of these
> > pilots (either military or commercial) ever causing any significant
> > problems.
> >
> > Screening of airplane passengers is hardly perfect. While armed marshals
> are
> > helpful, the program covers less than 3 percent of the flights out of
> > Washington D.C.'s three airports and even fewer across the country. Sky
> > marshals are costly and quit more often than other law-enforcement
> officers.
> >
> > Armed pilots are a cost-effective backup layer of security. Terrorists
> can
> > only enter the cockpit through one narrow entrance, and armed pilots have
> > some time to prepare themselves as hijackers penetrate the strengthened
> > cockpit doors. With pilots, we have people who are willing to take on the
> > burden of protecting the planes for free. About 70 percent of the pilots
> at
> > major American carriers have military backgrounds.
> >
> > Frankly, as a matter of pure politics, we cannot understand what the
> > administration is thinking. Nearly 40 House Democrats are in districts
> were
> > the NRA is more popular than House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. We can't find
> any
> > independent poll in which the public is demanding that pilots disarm. Why
> > does this move make sense?
> >
> > Only anti-gun extremists and terrorist recruits are worried about armed
> > pilots. So why is the Obama administration catering to this tiny lobby at
> > the expense of public safety?
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> >
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> >
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
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From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Wed Mar 18 12:12:33 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2009 11:12:33 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Teleprompter Jesus
In-Reply-To: <400985d70903180838x3453171ev162a8b0e01a71520@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70903180838x3453171ev162a8b0e01a71520@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6634e19e0903180912yd486b22if9864d12cf88810b@mail.gmail.com>

Brad,

"Who's the "brains" behind this operation?"

I think that article Ed posted earlier might have some answers to this
question.

I am watching the grassroots opposition grow faster than I would have ever
believed possible. I can hardly imagine this will go on much longer before
we begin to see some serious confrontation. Can't come to soon, in my mind.

Rik

On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 10:38 AM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:

> First, a short film -
>
> http://tinyurl.com/dfozyj
>
> And now for a short story -
>
>    WASHINGTON - Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen was just a few
> paragraphs into an address at a St. Patrick's Day celebration at the
> White House when he realized something sounded way too familiar. Turns
> out, he was repeating the speech President Barack Obama had just
> given...
>
>    But Cowen was 20 seconds into his second address when it dawned on
> him that he was giving word for word the speech that Obama had just
> read from the same teleprompter.
>
> This isn't funny anymore folks!  This guy can't even say "hello"
> without a teleprompter.  Who's the "brains" behind this operation?
>
> Brad
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
-------------- next part --------------
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Wed Mar 18 12:41:18 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2009 11:41:18 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] 2nd amendment rights next??
In-Reply-To: <6634e19e0903180900vac940f0p7469e110c6f24289@mail.gmail.com>
References: <6634e19e0903180652s548e8816ke4398c95e17a90f5@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70903180754q74d36a0cq18fea54ebdd3f142@mail.gmail.com>
	<6634e19e0903180900vac940f0p7469e110c6f24289@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70903180941l6357e9d3g62bd073dc1ae82c8@mail.gmail.com>

Rik,

Where are all the adults in the Congress?  Maybe if enough pressure is
put on the Blue Dogs in the House and the moderate Dems in the Senate
this train wreck can be avoided - then there's 2010 if that's not too
late.

Pick any article at random about The One in any MSM media outlet and
read the comments.  The new "Red Guard" is out in force way beyond
their actual numbers.  Hell, we even had an admitted Obama troll on
the R-22 list for goodness sake.  Go to any college campus and offer
an alternative viewpoint via your exercise of "free speech". There's a
lot of Kool-Aid drinkers and Acorn is getting billions more in
funding.  We're in deep shit. The 'Civilian Defense Corps' hasn't even
cranked-up yet.

Fan and I drove straight home from Orlando yesterday (12 hours) and
entertained ourselves by comparing the "progress" of Obamaland and the
Cultural Revolution.  Our conclusion was that this new breed of
zealots is giving communism a bad name.  The proper term for where
we're heading is Totalitarianism. We also revisited the Hong Kong
option, which is a real alternative for us because of our employer.
Just when I think we're overreacting, I read the next day's news and
realize just how screwed we as a nation really are.

I'm off to the hangar to tinker with my airplane while it is still
legal.  My friends on the Bo list in the Los Angeles area are shutdown
today. Never in my 35 years of flying have I witnessed such
heavy-handed control of airspace except for the five days of lock-down
immediately after 9/11.  Now I know what it was like for the Chinese
when the Great Helmsman's train passed through town.

Brad

2009/3/18 Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com>:
> Brad,
>
> "buy your ammo, buy it NOW!"
>
> Yep, been workin' on that. I imagine, someday "they'll" come lookin' for it.
> When they do, I expect they better bring some help. My mood is getting
> uglier by the day.
>
> Honestly, will there be enough left of this country after four years of
> Obama's "leadership" to salvage??? The amount of damage he has been able to
> accomplish in only 2 months is mind boggling. What will it look like after
> four years??
>
> Rik
>
> On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 9:54 AM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Rik,
>>
>> Believe it or not (of course you can believe it) I'm not allowed by
>> law to comment on the subject (that's left over from the Bush years).
>> I am allowed to comment on other gun issues, however. Aren't you
>> worried about the Secret Service packing heat? ?What if they
>> accidentally discharged a weapon and hurt an innocent bystander? And
>> what about the military? ?Isn't it a bit discomforting to know that
>> all those soldiers are carrying weapons? ?Wouldn't it be much safer to
>> arm them with flowers and copies of "The Audacity of Hope"?
>>
>> "Pigs ass"? ?Better not buy that pigs ass from a farmer's market, that
>> too will soon be regulated by the stormtroopers from the new Food
>> Safety Administration. And BTW, how is the farmer supposed to kill the
>> pig anyway, wait for its natural death?
>>
>> Hello Stalin, hello Mao, buy your ammo, buy it NOW!
>>
>> Brad
>>
>> 2009/3/18 Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com>:
>> > Brad,
>> >
>> > Read this, this morning. Seems like that could affect you.
>> >
>> > Oh but he's not gonna' take away our guns..... yeah, in a pigs ass ....
>> >
>> > Transparency in gov't??? Is that what you call this??
>> >
>> >
>> > http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/17/guns-on-a-plane-obama-secretly-ends-program-that-l/
>> >
>> > EDITORIAL: Guns on a plane
>> >
>> > Obama secretly ends program that let pilots carry guns
>> >
>> > Tuesday, March 17, 2009
>> >
>> > Comment
>> > Print
>> > Font Size
>> > Share
>> > Got a Question?
>> > You Report
>> > Click-2-Listen
>> >
>> > Buzz up!
>> >
>> > After the September 11 attacks, commercial airline pilots were allowed
>> > to
>> > carry guns if they completed a federal-safety program. No longer would
>> > unarmed pilots be defenseless as remorseless hijackers seized control of
>> > aircraft and rammed them into buildings.
>> >
>> > Now President Obama is quietly ending the federal firearms program,
>> > risking
>> > public safety on airlines in the name of an anti-gun ideology.
>> >
>> > The Obama administration this past week diverted some $2 million from
>> > the
>> > pilot training program to hire more supervisory staff, who will engage
>> > in
>> > field inspections of pilots.
>> >
>> > This looks like completely unnecessary harassment of the pilots. The
>> > 12,000
>> > Federal Flight Deck Officers, the pilots who have been approved to carry
>> > guns, are reported to have the best behavior of any federal law
>> > enforcement
>> > agency. There are no cases where any of them has improperly brandished
>> > or
>> > used a gun. There are just a few cases where officers have improperly
>> > used
>> > their IDs.
>> >
>> > Fewer than one percent of the officers have any administrative actions
>> > brought against them and, we are told, virtually all of those cases ?are
>> > trumped up.?
>> >
>> > Take a case against one flight officer who had visited the Virginia
>> > Department of Motor Vehicles within the last few weeks. While there, the
>> > pilot noticed that federal law enforcement officers can, with the
>> > approval
>> > of a superior, obtain a license plate that cannot be traced, a key
>> > safety
>> > feature for law enforcement personnel. So the pilot asked if, as a
>> > member of
>> > the federal program, he was eligible. The DMV staffer checked and said
>> > ?no.?
>> > The next day administrative actions were brought against the pilot for
>> > ?misrepresenting himself.? These are the kinds of cases that President
>> > Obama
>> > wants to investigate.
>> >
>> > Since Mr. Obama's election, pilots have told us that the approval
>> > process
>> > for letting pilots carry guns on planes slowed significantly. Last week
>> > the
>> > problem went from bad to worse. Federal Flight Deck Officers - the
>> > pilots
>> > who have been approved to carry guns - indicate that the approval
>> > process
>> > has stalled out.
>> >
>> > Pilots cannot openly speak about the changing policies for fear of
>> > retaliation from the Transportation Security Administration. Pilots who
>> > act
>> > in any way that causes a ?loss of confidence? in the armed pilot program
>> > risk criminal prosecution as well as their removal from the program.
>> > Despite
>> > these threats, pilots in the Federal Flight Deck Officers program have
>> > raised real concerns in multiple interviews.
>> >
>> > Arming pilots after Sept. 11 was nothing new. Until the early 1960s,
>> > American commercial passenger pilots on any flight carrying U.S. mail
>> > were
>> > required to carry handguns. Indeed, U.S. pilots were still allowed to
>> > carry
>> > guns until as recently as 1987. There are no records that any of these
>> > pilots (either military or commercial) ever causing any significant
>> > problems.
>> >
>> > Screening of airplane passengers is hardly perfect. While armed marshals
>> > are
>> > helpful, the program covers less than 3 percent of the flights out of
>> > Washington D.C.'s three airports and even fewer across the country. Sky
>> > marshals are costly and quit more often than other law-enforcement
>> > officers.
>> >
>> > Armed pilots are a cost-effective backup layer of security. Terrorists
>> > can
>> > only enter the cockpit through one narrow entrance, and armed pilots
>> > have
>> > some time to prepare themselves as hijackers penetrate the strengthened
>> > cockpit doors. With pilots, we have people who are willing to take on
>> > the
>> > burden of protecting the planes for free. About 70 percent of the pilots
>> > at
>> > major American carriers have military backgrounds.
>> >
>> > Frankly, as a matter of pure politics, we cannot understand what the
>> > administration is thinking. Nearly 40 House Democrats are in districts
>> > were
>> > the NRA is more popular than House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. We can't find
>> > any
>> > independent poll in which the public is demanding that pilots disarm.
>> > Why
>> > does this move make sense?
>> >
>> > Only anti-gun extremists and terrorist recruits are worried about armed
>> > pilots. So why is the Obama administration catering to this tiny lobby
>> > at
>> > the expense of public safety?
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>> >
>> > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>> >
>> >
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>>
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>


From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Wed Mar 18 13:06:31 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2009 12:06:31 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] 2nd amendment rights next??
In-Reply-To: <400985d70903180941l6357e9d3g62bd073dc1ae82c8@mail.gmail.com>
References: <6634e19e0903180652s548e8816ke4398c95e17a90f5@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70903180754q74d36a0cq18fea54ebdd3f142@mail.gmail.com>
	<6634e19e0903180900vac940f0p7469e110c6f24289@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70903180941l6357e9d3g62bd073dc1ae82c8@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6634e19e0903181006r4fa50da6q972cab9ecf9a2102@mail.gmail.com>

Brad,

With "adults" like this, we don't need too many enemies. I wonder what will
happen when the Chinese tell us they are no longer interested in owning our
debt. I doubt it'll be good ....

This from the Agora, 5 Minute Forecast.

Rik
_______________

?We do want foreign capital to come in here and we want private capital,?
our favorite stammering rep, Barney Frank, said yesterday. After emerging
from a House Financial Services Committee meeting, Frank found a few mics to
spit into? and the off-the-cuff pontifications proffered forth. This was our
favorite:

*?We just had the Chinese raising the specter of not buying our Treasuries.
Well, that would be troubling. I think they?re bluffing, personally.?*

Ha!

Bluffing? We thought bluffing meant you were acting strong despite a lousy
hand? like this:

This game is played with the cards up? and China?s holding all aces.


On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 11:41 AM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:

> Rik,
>
> Where are all the adults in the Congress?  Maybe if enough pressure is
> put on the Blue Dogs in the House and the moderate Dems in the Senate
> this train wreck can be avoided - then there's 2010 if that's not too
> late.
>
> Pick any article at random about The One in any MSM media outlet and
> read the comments.  The new "Red Guard" is out in force way beyond
> their actual numbers.  Hell, we even had an admitted Obama troll on
> the R-22 list for goodness sake.  Go to any college campus and offer
> an alternative viewpoint via your exercise of "free speech". There's a
> lot of Kool-Aid drinkers and Acorn is getting billions more in
> funding.  We're in deep shit. The 'Civilian Defense Corps' hasn't even
> cranked-up yet.
>
> Fan and I drove straight home from Orlando yesterday (12 hours) and
> entertained ourselves by comparing the "progress" of Obamaland and the
> Cultural Revolution.  Our conclusion was that this new breed of
> zealots is giving communism a bad name.  The proper term for where
> we're heading is Totalitarianism. We also revisited the Hong Kong
> option, which is a real alternative for us because of our employer.
> Just when I think we're overreacting, I read the next day's news and
> realize just how screwed we as a nation really are.
>
> I'm off to the hangar to tinker with my airplane while it is still
> legal.  My friends on the Bo list in the Los Angeles area are shutdown
> today. Never in my 35 years of flying have I witnessed such
> heavy-handed control of airspace except for the five days of lock-down
> immediately after 9/11.  Now I know what it was like for the Chinese
> when the Great Helmsman's train passed through town.
>
> Brad
>
> 2009/3/18 Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com>:
> > Brad,
> >
> > "buy your ammo, buy it NOW!"
> >
> > Yep, been workin' on that. I imagine, someday "they'll" come lookin' for
> it.
> > When they do, I expect they better bring some help. My mood is getting
> > uglier by the day.
> >
> > Honestly, will there be enough left of this country after four years of
> > Obama's "leadership" to salvage??? The amount of damage he has been able
> to
> > accomplish in only 2 months is mind boggling. What will it look like
> after
> > four years??
> >
> > Rik
> >
> > On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 9:54 AM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Rik,
> >>
> >> Believe it or not (of course you can believe it) I'm not allowed by
> >> law to comment on the subject (that's left over from the Bush years).
> >> I am allowed to comment on other gun issues, however. Aren't you
> >> worried about the Secret Service packing heat?  What if they
> >> accidentally discharged a weapon and hurt an innocent bystander? And
> >> what about the military?  Isn't it a bit discomforting to know that
> >> all those soldiers are carrying weapons?  Wouldn't it be much safer to
> >> arm them with flowers and copies of "The Audacity of Hope"?
> >>
> >> "Pigs ass"?  Better not buy that pigs ass from a farmer's market, that
> >> too will soon be regulated by the stormtroopers from the new Food
> >> Safety Administration. And BTW, how is the farmer supposed to kill the
> >> pig anyway, wait for its natural death?
> >>
> >> Hello Stalin, hello Mao, buy your ammo, buy it NOW!
> >>
> >> Brad
> >>
> >> 2009/3/18 Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com>:
> >> > Brad,
> >> >
> >> > Read this, this morning. Seems like that could affect you.
> >> >
> >> > Oh but he's not gonna' take away our guns..... yeah, in a pigs ass
> ....
> >> >
> >> > Transparency in gov't??? Is that what you call this??
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >
> http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/17/guns-on-a-plane-obama-secretly-ends-program-that-l/
> >> >
> >> > EDITORIAL: Guns on a plane
> >> >
> >> > Obama secretly ends program that let pilots carry guns
> >> >
> >> > Tuesday, March 17, 2009
> >> >
> >> > Comment
> >> > Print
> >> > Font Size
> >> > Share
> >> > Got a Question?
> >> > You Report
> >> > Click-2-Listen
> >> >
> >> > Buzz up!
> >> >
> >> > After the September 11 attacks, commercial airline pilots were allowed
> >> > to
> >> > carry guns if they completed a federal-safety program. No longer would
> >> > unarmed pilots be defenseless as remorseless hijackers seized control
> of
> >> > aircraft and rammed them into buildings.
> >> >
> >> > Now President Obama is quietly ending the federal firearms program,
> >> > risking
> >> > public safety on airlines in the name of an anti-gun ideology.
> >> >
> >> > The Obama administration this past week diverted some $2 million from
> >> > the
> >> > pilot training program to hire more supervisory staff, who will engage
> >> > in
> >> > field inspections of pilots.
> >> >
> >> > This looks like completely unnecessary harassment of the pilots. The
> >> > 12,000
> >> > Federal Flight Deck Officers, the pilots who have been approved to
> carry
> >> > guns, are reported to have the best behavior of any federal law
> >> > enforcement
> >> > agency. There are no cases where any of them has improperly brandished
> >> > or
> >> > used a gun. There are just a few cases where officers have improperly
> >> > used
> >> > their IDs.
> >> >
> >> > Fewer than one percent of the officers have any administrative actions
> >> > brought against them and, we are told, virtually all of those cases
> ?are
> >> > trumped up.?
> >> >
> >> > Take a case against one flight officer who had visited the Virginia
> >> > Department of Motor Vehicles within the last few weeks. While there,
> the
> >> > pilot noticed that federal law enforcement officers can, with the
> >> > approval
> >> > of a superior, obtain a license plate that cannot be traced, a key
> >> > safety
> >> > feature for law enforcement personnel. So the pilot asked if, as a
> >> > member of
> >> > the federal program, he was eligible. The DMV staffer checked and said
> >> > ?no.?
> >> > The next day administrative actions were brought against the pilot for
> >> > ?misrepresenting himself.? These are the kinds of cases that President
> >> > Obama
> >> > wants to investigate.
> >> >
> >> > Since Mr. Obama's election, pilots have told us that the approval
> >> > process
> >> > for letting pilots carry guns on planes slowed significantly. Last
> week
> >> > the
> >> > problem went from bad to worse. Federal Flight Deck Officers - the
> >> > pilots
> >> > who have been approved to carry guns - indicate that the approval
> >> > process
> >> > has stalled out.
> >> >
> >> > Pilots cannot openly speak about the changing policies for fear of
> >> > retaliation from the Transportation Security Administration. Pilots
> who
> >> > act
> >> > in any way that causes a ?loss of confidence? in the armed pilot
> program
> >> > risk criminal prosecution as well as their removal from the program.
> >> > Despite
> >> > these threats, pilots in the Federal Flight Deck Officers program have
> >> > raised real concerns in multiple interviews.
> >> >
> >> > Arming pilots after Sept. 11 was nothing new. Until the early 1960s,
> >> > American commercial passenger pilots on any flight carrying U.S. mail
> >> > were
> >> > required to carry handguns. Indeed, U.S. pilots were still allowed to
> >> > carry
> >> > guns until as recently as 1987. There are no records that any of these
> >> > pilots (either military or commercial) ever causing any significant
> >> > problems.
> >> >
> >> > Screening of airplane passengers is hardly perfect. While armed
> marshals
> >> > are
> >> > helpful, the program covers less than 3 percent of the flights out of
> >> > Washington D.C.'s three airports and even fewer across the country.
> Sky
> >> > marshals are costly and quit more often than other law-enforcement
> >> > officers.
> >> >
> >> > Armed pilots are a cost-effective backup layer of security. Terrorists
> >> > can
> >> > only enter the cockpit through one narrow entrance, and armed pilots
> >> > have
> >> > some time to prepare themselves as hijackers penetrate the
> strengthened
> >> > cockpit doors. With pilots, we have people who are willing to take on
> >> > the
> >> > burden of protecting the planes for free. About 70 percent of the
> pilots
> >> > at
> >> > major American carriers have military backgrounds.
> >> >
> >> > Frankly, as a matter of pure politics, we cannot understand what the
> >> > administration is thinking. Nearly 40 House Democrats are in districts
> >> > were
> >> > the NRA is more popular than House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. We can't find
> >> > any
> >> > independent poll in which the public is demanding that pilots disarm.
> >> > Why
> >> > does this move make sense?
> >> >
> >> > Only anti-gun extremists and terrorist recruits are worried about
> armed
> >> > pilots. So why is the Obama administration catering to this tiny lobby
> >> > at
> >> > the expense of public safety?
> >> >
> >> > _______________________________________________
> >> > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> >> > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> >> >
> >> >
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> >> >
> >> >
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> >>
> >>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> >
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> >
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Thu Mar 19 09:48:20 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2009 08:48:20 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] When China Moves The World Moves
Message-ID: <400985d70903190648w71a7044asc46d009c6d4fdefe@mail.gmail.com>

There's a great scene in the opening minutes of "The Soong Sisters"
(you can rent it from Netflix) where Charlie Soong (educated at
Vanderbilt University) is lecturing his daughters circa 1900 and says,
"When China moves, the world moves".  Ai-ling Soong married HH Kung,
the Finance Minister of China after the fall of the last dynasty,
Ching-Ling Soong married Dr. Sun YatSen, and May-Ling Soong married
Chaiang Kai-Shek. It's a great movie and a good primer on early 20th
Century events in China. Charlie anticipated China's rise in power and
a hundred years in their culture is nothing. Well folks, China is
moving.  The US has been living on borrowed money and borrowed time
for a good while now, and our answer to events is to borrow massive
amounts of more money?  The Chinese are about to say NO!  Our
Teleprompter Savior and his minions can promise all they want, China
is about to pull the power cord from his teleprompter.

These are too long to cut-and-paste.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/KC14Dj04.html

http://atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/KC18Cb02.html

http://atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/KC18Cb01.html

We are whistling past the graveyard Boys and Girls. Until we accept
the fact that we have to de-leverage as individuals and as a nation,
we're courting disaster. China putting a stop to this nonsense may be
our best hope.

Brad

From ekroposki at charter.net  Thu Mar 19 10:34:52 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2009 10:34:52 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Asprin
Message-ID: <509AD4F68B8641D8873D5FA96C756007@YOURB88038198E>

JUST HEARD THAT OBAMA IS GOING TO IMPOSE A 40% TAX  ON ASPIRIN BECAUSE IT WORKS

EK
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From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Thu Mar 19 11:42:16 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2009 10:42:16 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Asprin
In-Reply-To: <509AD4F68B8641D8873D5FA96C756007@YOURB88038198E>
References: <509AD4F68B8641D8873D5FA96C756007@YOURB88038198E>
Message-ID: <6634e19e0903190842u1fbdc6dele6f684c9619dfb94@mail.gmail.com>

Ed,

Whew!! Thank God I don't work anymore!!

No worries, eh.

Got Gold?
Rik

2009/3/19 Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net>

>  *JUST HEARD THAT OBAMA IS GOING TO IMPOSE A 40% TAX  ON ASPIRIN BECAUSE
> IT WORKS*
> **
> EK
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>
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From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Thu Mar 19 11:56:59 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2009 10:56:59 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] When China Moves The World Moves
In-Reply-To: <400985d70903190648w71a7044asc46d009c6d4fdefe@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70903190648w71a7044asc46d009c6d4fdefe@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6634e19e0903190856g4b34c428v9d6b645c2b80358c@mail.gmail.com>

Brad,

Been wondering for a while, just how long the Chinese would keep sticking
their head in our noose.
But hey, Barney Frank thinks they're bluffing and EVERYBODY knows that ol'
Barn knows what he's talkin' about. I mean look how he predicted the
troubles at fanny mae and freddie mac .... oh, wait .....

Is Barney gonna' die soon???.... Please??? It's pretty obvious the good but
apparently not too bright people of Massachusetts aren't likely to get rid
of him anytime soon. What a waste of perfectly good air. Can we get Gore to
make a power point presentation about this problem?? We could present it as
opportunity for him to make another 100 million.

Got Gold?
Rik

On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 8:48 AM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:

> There's a great scene in the opening minutes of "The Soong Sisters"
> (you can rent it from Netflix) where Charlie Soong (educated at
> Vanderbilt University) is lecturing his daughters circa 1900 and says,
> "When China moves, the world moves".  Ai-ling Soong married HH Kung,
> the Finance Minister of China after the fall of the last dynasty,
> Ching-Ling Soong married Dr. Sun YatSen, and May-Ling Soong married
> Chaiang Kai-Shek. It's a great movie and a good primer on early 20th
> Century events in China. Charlie anticipated China's rise in power and
> a hundred years in their culture is nothing. Well folks, China is
> moving.  The US has been living on borrowed money and borrowed time
> for a good while now, and our answer to events is to borrow massive
> amounts of more money?  The Chinese are about to say NO!  Our
> Teleprompter Savior and his minions can promise all they want, China
> is about to pull the power cord from his teleprompter.
>
> These are too long to cut-and-paste.
>
> http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/KC14Dj04.html
>
> http://atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/KC18Cb02.html
>
> http://atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/KC18Cb01.html
>
> We are whistling past the graveyard Boys and Girls. Until we accept
> the fact that we have to de-leverage as individuals and as a nation,
> we're courting disaster. China putting a stop to this nonsense may be
> our best hope.
>
> Brad
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
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From ekroposki at charter.net  Wed Mar 18 10:46:33 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2009 10:46:33 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] This for Brad to translate - A more cautious
	view on the Bakken oil fields
Message-ID: <AC63CF8C2DB0477A89B7BE4643293A1C@YOURB88038198E>

The Oil Drum | The Bakken Formation: How Much Will It Help?A more cautious view on the Bakken oil fields.  After Brad's translation, I do not expect good news.  At the very least it should take Brad a few minutes to review and translate.

Ed K



 



The Oil Drum

Discussions about Energy and Our Future


     DrumBeat: April 26, 2008
     The Oil Drum
     If you think the oil situation is bad..
     
     

The Bakken Formation: How Much Will It Help?
Posted by Gail the Actuary on April 26, 2008 - 9:00am
Topic: Supply/Production
Tags: bakken, bakken shale, williston basin [list all tags] 

This is a post by Piccolo, a petroleum engineer working in the petroleum industry.

The Bakken formation in North Dakota and Montana has generated a lot of buzz in the past year. Reserve numbers in the billions of barrels, even tens or hundreds of billions show up in press reports and blogs. Now the USGS has weighed in with a comprehensive assessment of the resource. So just how much will this oil accumulation help the world's largest importer of oil? Is it time to relax or is this just another small blip in the long-term decline of domestic production? We'll examine these questions and others below the fold, using data from the IHS database.



 

Figure 1 - Location of the Bakken Formation in the Williston Basin, adapted from esask.uregina.ca/entry/williston_basin.html

Overview of the Bakken 

The Bakken formation is an oil-bearing strata covering parts of Montana, North Dakota, and Saskatchewan. Oil was first produced from the Bakken more than 50 years ago. Production was mainly from a few vertical wells until the 1980's when horizontal technology became available. Only recently after the intensive application of horizontal wells combined with hydraulic fracturing technology did production really take off.

The Bakken is one of many hydrocarbon producing formations in the Williston Basin, a sedimentary basin covering parts of three states and two provinces. The total layer of sediments in the basin can be up to 15,000 ft thick, and within that, the Bakken itself reaches a maximum thickness of about 150 ft., but is thinner in most areas. The depth to the top of the Bakken can vary from a few thousand feet in Canada to more than 10,000 feet in the deeper areas in North Dakota. In terms of geologic age, it was deposited during the upper Devonian and Lower Mississippian periods about 360 million years ago. The entire stratigraphic column for the Williston Basin is shown below. Figure 2 indicates 15 primary producing formations in the basin, including the Bakken.



 

Figure 2 - Williston Basin stratigraphic column from Wikipedia

The Bakken shale consists of three members, the upper, middle, and lower. The upper and lower members are similar, and can be characterized as a gray or black organic-rich shale. The middle member is more like a conventional reservoir with siltstones, sandstones, dolostones, and limestones. The middle member has been a target for many horizontal wells, but more recently the upper and lower horizons are also being seen as important reservoirs. For a more complete description of the Bakken, see the 2001 USGS study Diagenesis and Fracture Development in the Bakken Formation, Williston Basin: Implications for Reservoir Quality in the Middle Member, by J Pitman, L Price, and J LeFever.

Two key properties of reservoir rock are porosity and permeability. Porosity is a measure of how much "empty" volume the rock has space available to store hydrocarbons, water, or gas. Really good formations can have porosities of 20% to 30% or more. Permeability is a measure of how easily fluid can flow through the rock. The best reservoirs have permeabilities of 1 to 5 darcies or more. (1 Darcy = 1000 millidarcies: better reservoirs are usually measured in darcies, and poorer reservoirs in millidarcies.) These high porosities and permeabilities can be found in many world class prolific oil and gas fields, such as the offshore Gulf of Mexico, the North Sea, and Saudi Arabia. 

The majority of currently producing reservoirs in the onshore US are by contrast much "tighter." A pretty good reservoir might have porosities of 10% to 15% and permeabilities of 1 to 100 millidarcies (0.001 to 0.1 darcy). Reservoirs with those properties by and large would be considered very desirable reservoir in most of the onshore US and Canada. Moving downward on the scale of reservoir quality, many thousands of wells in the US are now being drilled in so-called "resource plays." These are thick, laterally extensive reservoirs usually covering thousands of square miles, and filled with hydrocarbons, but they are difficult to exploit. The Bakken Shale, along with formations like the Barnett, Fayetteville, and Woodford shales fall into this category. Permeabilities can be in the range of .00001 to .01 millidarcies, with porosities in the range of near zero to maybe 10% or a bit higher.

Porosity and permeability can vary widely and unpredictably over short distances. There are many stories on oil field lore about dry holes drilled next to prolific producing wells, with little explanation geologically about why this might occur. This phenomenon is one of the primary risks that oil producers take when they drill wells, especially in new areas or highly variable reservoirs.

The Pittman/Price/LeFever study cited above reports a wide range of measured permeabilities and porosities in the Bakken, but the average is low. One part of the report gives the average porosity and permeability for the middle Bakken as being 5% and 0.04 millidarcies. 

In many of these very tight reservoirs, natural fractures play a big role. These are natural cracks which have low porosity but can have permeabilities one to several orders of magnitude greater than the rock fabric or matrix. Most of the better wells in the Bakken have encountered abundant natural fractures.

Even with an extensive natural fracture system, often times additional help is needed to create an economic well. This is where hydraulic fracturing comes in. Fluid, sometimes with sand or other material ("proppant") is pumped at high pressure into the formation. The pressure is high enough to create large artificial fractures that can extend hundreds of feet from a wellbore. Proppant holds the fracture open, and creates a permeable channel to allow hydrocarbons to flow to the wellbore. Production in many, or perhaps most, of the producing formations in the US is improved by hydraulic fracturing. When hydraulic fracturing is combined with horizontal wells (and high enough commodity prices), many of the shale or resource plays become economic to produce. 

Oil in Place and Reserves

To understand how much oil might be producible from the Bakken, we need to get there in a couple of steps.

The first step is "oil in place." The Bakken is postulated to be both source rock and reservoir. Over millions of years organic matter is cooked under heat and pressure to produce hydrocarbons. In many areas, the oil created by the source rock slowly migrates to another location where it is trapped and later found as an oil or gas reservoir. In the case of the Bakken, these layers contain source material, but the hydrocarbon was cooked in place and little or none of the created hydrocarbon migrated to other potential reservoir rocks. The Pittman/Price/LeFever study estimates the volume of oil generated at 200 to 400 billion barrels, which we can more or less equate to an estimate of oil in place.

The next step is to estimate how much oil could be recovered (produced). For a reservoir such as this, the range of recovery can very widely. Good reservoirs with "water drive" can have recoveries of more than 30% of oil in place. As reservoir quality decreases, so does recovery factor. In very tight reservoirs, recovery would probably be in the range of less than 1% to around 10%, depending on many factors like porosity, permeability, presence of fractures, well spacing, etc.

In the good areas of the Bakken, with higher porosity and lots of fracture permeability, the recovery might range as high as 5% to possibly 15%. Typically only a few areas, or "sweet spots," will have recovery this high. Outside the sweet spots, recoveries are likely to be much lower; the reservoir quality will deteriorate, with lower porosity, lower permeability, and fewer fractures, and/or thinner beds of reservoir rock. In these areas, recovery will probably be less than 5% of the oil in place, and in some areas less than 1%. Estimating recovery factor in shale reservoirs is more an art than a science; only after several years of production, and with very good data, can a reliable range of recovery be estimated.

In the less favorable and thinner areas of the reservoir, even though it might be technically possible to recover 1% or 2% of the oil in place, the risk may be too high to for an operator to be willing to spend $3 to $5 million or more, with no assurance that the well will pay out. In this case the "technically recoverable" reserves might be 1% of oil in place, but the economically recoverable reserves are 0% if an operator is not persuaded to risk capital to drill a well. 

Some of the recent articles have suggested a Bakken recovery as high as 50%, but that is highly doubtful in my view. Recoveries that high only occur in a few really good world class reservoirs, and, even there, often require secondary or tertiary recovery techniques. 

The USGS 2008 estimate

The discussion above now gives us a context with which to understand the recently released USGS estimate. So far, only a two-page summary of findings was released. We do not have access yet to the detailed report that backs up the summary, but we can make a number of inferences from the information provided.

The USGS summary indicates that their estimates are "undiscovered, technically recoverable oil and gas resources of the Bakken Formation in the United States." The term "undiscovered" suggests that the currently known reserves have been excluded from their totals. "Technically recoverable" has not been defined in the USGS summary; we will need to wait for the detailed report to find out their definition. In the mean time, one reasonable definition might be "the volume of hydrocarbons that theoretically could be produced if enough wells were drilled to drain the entire known area of Bakken oil accumulation". 

We can contrast "technically recoverable" to "economically recoverable," a term which can be taken as the amount of producible reserves that will give a reasonable return on capital invested. The volume of economically recoverable reserves will change as oil price, cost of wells, etc. vary. In reality, some of the areas of poorer reservoir will never be drilled because of poor economics: the cost and risk will not be offset by the expected recovery of oil. It is true that more of these marginal areas will be exploited as the price of oil rises. 



 

Table 1 - Probabalistic estimate of "undiscovered, technically recoverable oil", from the 2008 USGS Bakken Assessment (Note: MMBO=Million Barrels of Oil, BCF=Billion Cubic Feet)

The USGS estimated reserves probabilistically, as indicated by the P95, P50, P5, and mean values on the table above. (P95, for example, indicates that there is a 95 percent chance that the reserves value given will exceed this value.) Using the mean value as a representative number for the distribution, the USGS estimate that there are 3,649 million barrels of technically recoverable oil in the entire US Bakken accumulation. Associated with the oil production are 1,850 billion cubic feet of natural gas and 148 million barrels of NGL's. On an equivalent energy basis, about 90% of the energy value is in the oil, with the remaining percentage in the gas and NGL's.

Ok, so now we have an estimate of undiscovered reserves. How does that compare to known or discovered reserves? Our estimate is that the Bakken has produced about 111 million barrels so far in North Dakota and Montana. Although it's a rough guesstimate, we could say that perhaps 3 times to 5 times the produced volume constitutes "discovered resources." This would include the "proven" category of remaining production from existing wells, plus the immediate areas around the wells, plus additional area that is more speculative but could yield some production. Let's be clear that the term "total discovered resource" is very fuzzy. Who is to say where the discovered technically recoverable reserves stop and the undiscovered resources begin?

Using the round numbers of 300 to 500 million barrels of oil discovered resources, we can then say that the mean USGS undiscovered resources are 7 to 12 times the size of the already discovered resources. Using the combined undiscovered and discovered resource estimates, we can take a stab at the implied recovery factor. If we choose the value of 500 million barrels for discovered resources, we find that the implied recovery factor (oil produced / oil in place) is 1.0 % = (3,649+500/400,000) to 2.1% = (3,649+500/200,000). 

Will Bakken ever produce as much as 4.1 billion barrels (= 3,649+500 million barrels), the amount suggested by the USGS estimate? It seems very unlikely. Production so far has been 111 million barrels. If the industry is able to discover several more prolific areas such as the Elm Coulee field in Montana (43 million barrels, or 38% of the Bakken oil recovered to date), it might be possible to increase this recovery to 500 million barrels, or 4.5 times the current production. Is total production of 500 million barrels likely? It's difficult to say. The USGS estimate is vastly higher than this, so much less likely. 

If 500 million barrels turns out to be the ultimate recovery, the recovery factor would range from 0.13% to 0.25% of estimated oil in place. This very low percentage recovery of the estimated oil in place is not unreasonable if one considers that many of the more marginal areas of the field are likely to be deemed sub-economic and will never be drilled and produced. Technology improvements that will inevitably be made during an era of high energy prices will undoubtedly render some of this more marginal oil recoverable, but the total recovery is still likely to be low.

The USGS numbers are notable for their apparent certainty of the size of the undiscovered resources. The p5/p95 ratio is one measure of the spread or uncertainty of a probabilistic estimate. The USGS oil numbers show ratios of 1.2 to 1.9, which is quite surprising. These low ratios imply that the USGS is highly confident in their recoverable resource estimates. One would have thought that a 5X or 10X spread in this ratio would be more plausible considering that 85% to 90% of the resources has not yet been discovered. Perhaps when the detailed report is released, the logic behind this narrow range will be revealed. In the mean time, I remain highly skeptical that such a large resource with an unknown variability of fracture density, porosity, and recovery factor, and other factors, can be quantified with such precision.

If we could actually produce 3.6 billion barrels of undiscovered oil forecast at the P50 level by USGS, how much would this equate to? The US uses about 7.6 billion barrels of oil products a year, according to EIA data. This is equivalent to just under six month's US oil use, spread over a very long period, probably 20 years or more. If total production amounts to only 500 million barrels, as I have suggested, this would equate to about 23 days worth of United States oil usage, spread over many, many years. 

Looking at future production another way, the recent peak in production has been 75,000 barrels of oil per day (discussed in more detail below). Even if operators are able to triple this amount, the resulting production of 225,000 barrels a day (which would be a considerable challenge), will amount to only about 1.1% of US oil consumption, assuming the US uses about 20.7 barrels of oil a day, based on EIA data. 

If we can reach 225,000 barrels of oil per day, the history of Bakken suggest this level would be short-lived - the peak production will probably last for a year or less - because as we shall see below, total Bakken production can be expected to decline to 50% or less of its peak rate within a few years, because of the steep decline rate of individual wells. 

Bakken production history

To understand historical Bakken production, we utilized a commercially available production database (IHS) that contains monthly production for all Bakken wells in Montana and North Dakota. This database, while not in exact agreement with state data, is accurate enough to discern general trends. A cross check of state records indicates that the total production and well numbers for the individual states indicated by the database are within a few percent of those recorded by the individual states. 



 

Figure 3 - Bakken Montana and North Dakota daily production rates since 1971

The production history of the Bakken in Montana and North Dakota (Figure 3) can be divided into three phases, a) vertical well production prior to 1985, b) the first wave of horizontal well production up to 2004, and c) the second wave of horizontal production since 2004. Clearly the second wave of horizontal production has had a huge impact, which can be credited to several improvements over the technology of the 1990s. These improvements include, among other things the ability to drill longer horizontal and multilateral wells from a single vertical wellbore, and improved hydraulic fracturing technology. The first wave of horizontal well technology boosted Bakken production to an April 1991 peak of 11,790 barrels of oil per day (BOPD). Constrast that with the most recent peak in October 2007 of 75,000 BOPD.

As a quantification of the importance of horizontal wells, the proportion of Bakken horizontal wells (including multilateral), as a percentage of total wells, increased from 0% in 1980, to 50% in 1990, 78% in 1995, and 95% today. 



 

Figure 4 - Bakken Montana and North Dakota daily production rates since 1971, with number of producing wells

If we consider the number of wells being drilled, and how it affected production, a key point arises from Figure 4. There is distinct peak and rapid decline of production in 1991, even though the number of wells increased for two more years after the production peak. This is one of the harsh realities of oil and gas production, especially in tight, fractured reservoirs. The wells may individually reach peak production rates of 500 barrels of oil per day (BOPD), 1,000 BOPD, or more, but the peak is normally very short lived because it is followed by a rapid decline that can be anywhere from 20% to 60% per year for the next couple years. After an initial rapid decline, the well may produce at low rates and less decline for many years afterward, but usually high well rates anywhere close to the original rate can never be achieved. Combining many wells with this high rate / rapid decline characteristics means that it may be possible to achieve a high field production rate, but only for a short time, and drilling additional wells often will not be enough to offset the overall field decline.

Production of wells in a field is usually log-normally distributed. A few wells produce at high rates, and most of the wells produce at less than average rates. In a typical field the best 20% of wells pay for the other 80%. It's a numbers game - unless one is lucky enough to hit a big well on the first try, one needs to stay in the game long enough to drill enough wells to achieve an acceptable statistical average. 

The field decline during the period of February 1993 to February 1997 is about 25% per year. If many new wells were not being drilled and put into production during this decline period, the overall decline would be considerably steeper. Note that after January 1997, the decline flattens somewhat; this would be the beginning of the long "tail" period of production from existing wells, characterized by low producing rates with shallower decline.



 

Figure 5 - Bakken Montana and North Dakota average daily production per well since 1971, with number of producing wells

If we consider average production per well (Figure 5), we find that its behavior may be predictive of later field decline. The average production per well is simply the total reported Bakken production for the period, divided by the total number of wells producing during the period. If a well is drilled and goes on production in a certain period, the well count goes up by one, and the well's production gets added to the total. If a well becomes uneconomic during the period, and the operator stops producing the well, the well count goes down by one. In any given month, wells that come on at high rates of say, 1,000 BOPD, are averaged with wells already on production that may be producing 100 or 50 BOPD. If there is a population of wells already producing and on decline, bringing on more wells at temporarily high rates (the 1,000 BOPD may last for one month or two months max in most cases) will only raise the average production slightly.

For the first wave of horizontal technology, the per-well production peaked in August 1990 at 71 BOPD per well, with 142 wells producing. The per-well production then declined, even though additional wells were brought on production for the next 4 years. In August 1994, the peak well count of 235 wells was reached, but by then the average per well rate was only 22 BOPD. Interestingly and perhaps alarmingly, the 2nd wave of Bakken horizontal well production reached in August 2005 a peak per-well rate 116 BOPD per well, with 433 wells on production. Based on production in the early 90's this may portend a near term decline in Bakken total production. As of October 2007, however, the total Bakken production rate was still rising rapidly.

Even if Bakken production should peak in the next year or two, this doesn't necessarily mean a permanent decline in production. Past history shows that some combination of new technology, new discoveries, and higher prices could lead to another uptick in production. 



 

Figure 6 - Bakken Montana and North Dakota daily production rates since 1971, with average well rate

Comparing per well rates and total producing rates in Figure 6, there was an eight-month lag from the peak per well rate in August 1990 to the peak Bakken production rate in April 1991. As was mentioned above the peak in total Bakken rate occurred in spite of the fact that wells continued to be drilled and brought on production during the next four years. We are now 26 months past the August 2005 per-well peak, so that's encouraging. That's 26 months up to October 2007, the last month plotted in this graph.



 

Figure 7 - Bakken Montana and North Dakota daily production rates vs. cumulative oil produced

Looking at the total Bakken production vs. the cumulative production (Figure 7) will allow us to approximate produced volumes of the two waves of horizontal technology. The first wave production curve indicates that if no new wells were drilled, the ultimate recovery would have been about 41 million barrels. The second wave of horizontal technology did indeed dwarf the first wave, and we can say that so far the second wave has added about 70+ million barrels of production. 

The first wave of horizontal technology peaked at about 20 million barrels, with an ultimate recovery of about double that, or 41 million barrels. Using this analogy, if the industry were able to keep up the current rate of increase for the next two years, and reach a peak production at 150 million barrels cumulative recovery, ultimate recovery could reasonably be estimated as being around 300 million barrels, without additional new waves of development.

What's next for the Bakken?

Bakken production is trending upward and should continue for some time. The October 2007 production of 75,000 BOPD equates to 27 million barrels per year, a substantial amount by most measures for the US onshore sector. This only amounts to about 0.4% of US consumption (using a base of 20,700 BOBP, based on EIA data), or 0.6% of US imports. 

Drilling activity in the Bakken continues at a frenetic pace. It's difficult to predict how long the upward trend in production will continue. Over the long term, economics will play a significant role in determining how much production will be expanded. 

Conclusions

1. The Bakken shale has produced about 111 million barrels of oil during the last 50+ years in Montana and North Dakota.

2. Total Bakken production is still rising, and producing at the rate of 75,000 BOPD in October 2007. 

3. Because of the highly variable nature of shale reservoirs, the characteristics of the historical Bakken production, and the fact that per-well rates seem to have peaked, it seems unlikely that total Bakken production will exceed 2x to 3x current rate of 75,000 BOPD. 

4. The latest boom in Bakken production is driven by the application of horizontal wells and hydraulic fracturing technology, which has added about 70 million barrels of production in 7 years. Ultimate recovery of the already-drilled wells should be at least double this volume.

5. The USGS estimates the mean volume of technically recoverable hydrocarbons to be 3,649 million barrels of oil. This is roughly 7 to 12 times the size of already known resources.

6. Based on current production and areas likely to be drilled, the USGS estimate of technically recovery resources seems optimistic.

7. The Bakken potential resource, while large by US onshore field standards, will have only a minor effect on US production or imports. Using 2006 US imports and consumption for comparison, the Bakken undiscovered resource of 3,649 million barrels of oil, if subsequently discovered and fully developed, would provide us with the equivalent of six months of oil consumption or 10 months of imports, spread over 20 or more years. In reality, the reserves developed are likely to be many times smaller than this value.

8. The October 2007 production rate of 75,000 BOPD amounts only 0.4% of US oil consumption, or 0.6% of imports. 

9. Per-well Bakken production peaked in August 2005 at 116 barrels a day, and was down to 79 barrels a day in October 2007. If the Bakken production history in the 1990s can be used as a guide, the peaking of per-well production may portend a peak in total Bakken production.

118 comments on The Bakken Formation: How Much Will It Help?
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NeverLNG on April 23, 2008 - 9:24am 

Thanks for the superb rundown on Bakken. I'll read it carefully later -- but it certainly is in accord with other things I have read. 

I just went through there on Amtrak Empire Builder -- there is a huge buzz in North Dakota about the possibility of vast riches to be had. I fear there will be massive disappointment when the reality hits.

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Khebab on April 23, 2008 - 9:31am 

Thanks for this great analysis! what is the quality of the oil recovered (API gravity, etc.)?

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Piccolo on April 23, 2008 - 10:39am 

A recent presentation by Julie LeFever gives an API of 39 to 46 degrees, i.e. very good oil quality.

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Will Stewart on April 23, 2008 - 9:55am 

Not surprisingly, the hype about the Bakken's potential ends up being hype after all. Even if the Bakken's could be produced at peak levels starting right now (which it can't), it would only delay global peak production by approximately 6 weeks; so much for the "Saudi Arabia" of Northern Plains that oil company surrogates have attempted to spin.

Thanks to Gail for deftly extracting pertinent trends from the fast-moving data stream.

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Gwydion on April 23, 2008 - 1:34pm 

You know how the old saying goes: A gold mine is a hole in the ground with a liar on top. Something similar might be said for oil too. However, we've talked about this a bit previously on this site and up until now I've been pretty skeptical but now that I've read this I'm fairly impressed. Even if this does nothing for global supplies, or make a dent in the U.S. imports, this will be a boon for the economy of these states. Or rather, it will be a boon to the finances of those who lease the land the wells are on and the few people who are actively engaged in extracting and shipping the oil. Yet, translating mineral wealth into a diversified economy has always been a challenge for the western states.

*edit* Actually, now that I think about things in a more consumption sort of capacity, does anybody know if it would make gasoline locally cheaper for this area? If I remember correctly, ND is at the end of the distribution chain.

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july1406 on April 26, 2008 - 11:54am 

Interesting guess that ND is at the end of supply chain/pipelines. Thought I would point out for the benefit of TOD readers, especially US readers, that ND, Montana etc... are more or less at the start of the big Cdn pipelines not so much at the end of the old gulf/SE lines. 

The amazing thing about this, though, is that our Cdn lines do not actually serve our own industrial heartland in the east. All the Alta lines go into the US, mainly toward Chicago or over the mountains to the Pacific coast. We import almost all our oil in the East in tankers, plus a little Cdn offshore production. 

Companies are actually starting to reverse some of the old gulf/WT lines to get "dilbit" synthetic crude to the hubs.
That leaves Eastern Canada with no SPR (yes, zero) and no local onshore production if you exclude Petrolia in Southern Ontario where the first wells were dug around 1850, before Titusville. 

My GGGGrandfather is buried there (Oliver Simmons). His tombstone dated +/-1880 identifies him as a petroleum engineer. He was into refining/fractionating with Imperial. Needless to say, we're past our peak! We store vast gas there now in shallow dolomitized pinnacle reefs.

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Gail the Actuary on April 23, 2008 - 10:31am 

I wrote a note in one of the Drumbeats about needing someone to look into this (or some other issues) further. Piccolo wrote me an e-mail saying he was interested in doing some investigation. It wasn't until I saw a draft of the report that I knew for sure that he really could provide a lot better analysis than most of what is available.

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Will Stewart on April 23, 2008 - 12:19pm 

I missed the attribution at the top, and only saw Gail's name. Good work, Piccolo.

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mdsolar on April 24, 2008 - 1:50pm 

Gail,

Thanks for following up on this and thanks Piccolo for delving in. It will be good to look harder once the USGS report is available, but I'm pretty pleased so far that this does not look like a huge amount of carbon. Nor does it look like it will bring down the price of oil. I still worry that the natural gas will be wasted on tarsands though. Perhaps the royalty income will spur some alternative energy development at the state level, which would be a positive development.

Chris

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KansasCrude on April 23, 2008 - 11:41am 

Thanks great report on the opportunities in the Bakken. Do your estimates include only the Bakken or also the Williston Basin. I have tended to notice the two discussed interchangably but it appears from your analysis they are separate as the Bakken is contained within the Williston Basin. Do you have any ideas on the Williston basins' productive capability?

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Piccolo on April 23, 2008 - 5:44pm 

This only includes the Bakken in the US. The Bakken is a subset of all the production in the Williston Basin, but it's the hottest play going at the moment in the Williston. It would not be difficult to do the same exercise for the Williston, but we'll leave that for another day.

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Gail the Actuary on April 23, 2008 - 8:07pm 

There are probably quite a few different types of analyses that could be done like this.

It would seem like it would on other oil locations, like Gulf of Mexico, or shallow water separate from deep water in the Gulf of Mexico.

It might also work on natural gas, as with Barnett Shale in Texas.

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garyp on April 23, 2008 - 9:54am 

Just to say, there are significant character set issues with this article, with ' in place of apostrophes throughout.

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Gail the Actuary on April 23, 2008 - 10:21am 

I am having that problem as well. I think it may be something to do with the crash last night and possibly the Safari browser. I notified Super G, and he has notified Gaia Host.

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garyp on April 23, 2008 - 10:27am 

The page claims "charset=utf-8" - but if I was guessing I'd suggest a unicode translation issue. It's not Safari since I'm using Firefox and in any case the three characters seem 'baked in' to the source.

A quick search and replace should solve it, if someone has appropriate access.

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Gail the Actuary on April 23, 2008 - 11:10am 

I got the problem fixed (unless I missed some). I also made a couple of the figures a little more legible.

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slinky on April 23, 2008 - 10:25am 

world's We' "empty" "tighter." ???

I think somebody cracked this site or your computer.

Just what is your point? We can breath a sigh of relief and go back to bau? Let's just keep burnin' it away. Let's keep sending Co2 up into the only air we have to breath. Let's further retard any rational discussion concerning how society at large might transition to a localized, sustainable, and meaningful form of existing on the only planet we were given to exist upon.

This article reaks of subtrafuge. To hi heaven. So what if it peaks or doesn't? It will peak, and before it's physically possible TO peak, because there's this little bugger of an economic glitch in the system that will slam the door shut on any peak consideration as to this current clutch at the straw of Bakken. It peaked before they started extraction. How long have THEY known about that formation. THEY didn't bother developing the process to extract said ff because at the time of discovery and realization, it wasn't economically feasible, THEN. And it is now? No, it's even less so now, by far. 

Leave it be. Spend your energy learning how to compost, how to live from sun up to sun down, with no electric lighting. How to walk 5 to 10 miles to gather what it is you need to stay alive. Teach your children how to hunt, trap and fish, how to plant seeds, how to stay warm in a relentlessly cold winter season, if you choose to remain in winter like lattitudes. Teach your children how to aleaviate cold/flu symptoms with items that don't come off a grocery store shelf in a cardboard box. 

Extreme view? Not for these times. This peak/depletion of ff energy is exponentially growing, and it's not the elephant in the room, it's THE ROOM. The elephant is the pitiable effort to forestall the inevitable, wasted energy, but that's the hallmark of the naked ape. We cerainly are unique on this planet. No other life form wastes energy like a human. We are the only life form which, given the choice, will SH*T where it sleeps and eats.

Rant over.

Jeff

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Geckolizard on April 23, 2008 - 12:04pm 

Your last name wouldn't happen to be Kunstler, would it?

Seriously, getting angry at the problem is a great first step, but actions do speak louder than words.

My actions:

1) Bought a Prius last week (or rather, ordered it since there's a 3-4 month waiting period for these) and dumping gas-guzzling 9 year old car once that comes in

2) Trying to convince my wife to rent (Not buy... Not with the current mortgage mess) a house in the middle of town

3) Looking at options to relocate my family to said house (see #2) within walking distance of work

4) Bikeriding. Lots of it. (Great way to lose weight). It's free, convenient, and a great way to make small trips. (And how many folks here on this page use their bike? Yeah, didn;t think a whole lot of you would say yes.)

5) Eliminating debt where possible

And yes, the world can be f*cked with PO, but I have decided not to be a victim.

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VeloVol on April 23, 2008 - 12:37pm 

  Bikeriding. . . . It's free

Incorrect. My bank account begs to differ.

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Kevster on April 23, 2008 - 1:27pm 

Bike riding is free; bike owning may not be!

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Will Stewart on April 23, 2008 - 1:32pm 

Relative to roughly $5000 - $9000 per year to own and operate a car in the US, bikeriding is as close to zero as it gets, unless one walks or hitch-hikes. If you want to buy a $2000+ bike, don't complain about the expenses.

Riding a bike is a an excellent way to save costs for the majority of commuters; it means lifestyle changes, but being 'addicted to oil' means breaking the habit will not be easy.

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Geckolizard on April 23, 2008 - 1:32pm 

Ok, correction VV: It's Fossil Fuel free...

Er, wait...

There's the alumninum for the frame of my bike, made from ore mined with machines running on FF, and then assembled in a factory with machines running on electricity from FF... Tires? Might be made from oil themselves...

There's food that I eat, brought to me from a farm using machines using FF to plant, harvest, process, and transport said food... Oh, and not to meniton fertilizer for said food, made from... You guessed it... Fossil Fuels... But, I'd probably be eating most of this regardless if I use my bike, so MARGINALLY it's probably pretty cheap (i.e. the extra food I would need to eat to power my bike is probably less than the extra fuel I would need to drive my car). And I can plant the food myself in a garden and reduce the FF impact.

Alright, once my bike is paid for (which was, like, 6 years ago), it's free to run (almost). There's maintentence... But I would be paying for that with a car anyway (And a LOT more with a car, mind you...)

OK VV! Not free, but less expensive than the alternative.

But I do get the benefit of better health and quality of life due to the excercise (Until I get a gasp of exhaust from a Hummer that just spent >$100 to fill up.)

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dtbks on April 23, 2008 - 4:15pm 

In another post somewhere I did an order of magnitude calculation that showed that a human and an (good, modern) internal combustion engine are roughly equivalent in thermodynamic efficiency. The difference with a car is that you are dragging around 2000lb of sheet metal wherever you go. The food eaten to ride a couple of miles is PRACTICALLY ZERO in terms of the net energy input, as compared to driving a car around.

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Nick on April 23, 2008 - 4:34pm 

"a human and an (good, modern) internal combustion engine are roughly equivalent in thermodynamic efficiency."

Which suggests that an electric motor is likely to be substantially better than human power, right? Of course, you have to include the health benefits of aerobic exercise...

I'd be curious to see a re-posting of your calculations.

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dtbks on April 28, 2008 - 8:23am 

It took me a week to find that calculation on TOD, but I FOUND IT!!! You can view it here

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moabite on April 23, 2008 - 3:23pm 

I can't resist jumping in here. I have been riding my bikes at various levels since I was 5 years old (I am now 48). I've raced, toured, commuted, wrenched. 

There are millions of perfectly good bikes hanging in people's garages. You can pick up a great bike from the 70's or 80's for $100. I'm not talking Huffy quality here. Bike snobs see downtube shifters on a road bike, or thumb shifters on a mountain bike and refuse to even look at it. I recently bought a full Campagnolo road racing bike from the 70's in great condition for $90. I put about $100 into tires and minor repairs, and it will now last me decades. I've seen great old mountain bikes go for $50. Honestly, for commuting, an 80's/mid-90's Bridgestone or Raleigh or Schwinn or Trek mountain bike will give you years of service for almost no cost. Find a rigid fork, good steel framed brand name and just ride. craigslist is great for finding cheap bikes. I realize that in some locales used bikes are tougher to find, but they are everywhere if you look. I am lucky to live in Colorado, where craigslist has overtaken the classifieds and paper bulletin boards of the past. There are hundreds of bikes posted on craigslist in Denver every day. Examples just from today and yesterday:

http://denver.craigslist.org/bik/653482449.html
http://denver.craigslist.org/bik/653262295.html
http://denver.craigslist.org/bik/652655833.html
http://denver.craigslist.org/bik/652643816.html
http://denver.craigslist.org/bik/651792771.html
http://denver.craigslist.org/bik/651720068.html

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VeloVol on April 24, 2008 - 12:03am 

To clarify: cycling as a basic form of transportation can be cheap. But if you get the bug become a cycling enthusiast, hold on to your wallet. Plus you can end up driving quite a bit to do rides here and there. But this is a whole different topic.

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Carolus Obscurus on April 26, 2008 - 1:41pm 

How true.

My 'Specialized' S-Works cost me so much I had to sell my top-of-the-range Opel Zafira and replace it by a cheapo Citroen C1.

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dtbks on April 23, 2008 - 4:09pm 

Dude, I'm with you. The problem of exponential growth does not only apply to finite oil reserves, but to everything we do. I was going to suggest that maybe the problem is that your perspective is inappropriate to the oil drum, but then I re-read the subtext: "Discussions about energy AND OUR FUTURE." So maybe everyone here should be paying attention to you comments instead of thinking that exponential graphs and logistic curves are only applicable to oil production.

An amusing side note: I keep both full size and dwarf hamsters. The full size hamsters are very meticulous about picking their crap out of their nest/sleeping pile and putting it in a neat stack in the corner. On the other hand, dwarf hamsters are terrible and pretty much crap, pee, and sleep in the same spot. Arg! I think I'm going to give the little buggers a bath...

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eric blair on April 24, 2008 - 10:03am 

How to walk 5 to 10 miles to gather what it is you need to stay alive. 

I challenged Airdale when he produced such a wackjob position, and I am going to challenge you on the same grounds.

On a planet with 6 billion, there is not enough 'space' for man to be a hunter gatherer. 

(one square mile is 640 acres - so they guy is either suggesting the taking of others property, trespassing, or owning a whole lot of acres - amounts of land far beyond the ability of most people to pay for. A simple search engine query gives kilometers (10 to 700 square miles) of land per person for hunter gatherers)

Extreme view? Not for these times.

No, your view is out of touch. Badly out of touch. And peddling snake oil.

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Dave Cohen on April 23, 2008 - 11:15am 

Nice job, Picolo.

I came to the same conclusions as you did, saying that production would peak somewhere in excess of 100,000 barrels per day but likely never matching peak output from Thunder Horse (250,000 b/d). I also said that peak rates from the Middle Bakken won't come for another 5-10 years.

As you say, longer term production will depend on the number of wells drilled. A few thousands wells will be required to boost production to the eventual peak in the low hundreds of thousands of barrels per day.

I didn't have access to the IHS database, so I got some useful data from this article. Your graphs are excellent.

-- Dave

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westexas on April 23, 2008 - 11:20am 

Regarding the prior "estimates" for URR in the 200 Gb to 400 Gb range, from a near zero permeability sometimes fractured shale and from a sometimes productive silty sandstone, I concluded that someone had discovered a new branch of physics--one that allowed us to recover more than 100% of OOIP from said near zero permeability shales and silty sandstones. 

Of course, I did notice that most of the 200 Gb plus proponents helpfully cited the stock of one specific company in the play. 

BTW, very good work.

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Piccolo on April 23, 2008 - 11:27am 

Thanks to all who posted above. The editor, Gail the Actuary, deserves a lot of credit for whipping this story into shape.

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GreyZone on April 23, 2008 - 11:46am 

I want to thank both you and Gail for this story. It is timely and very useful as a rebuttal to those who hawk the falsehoods of the Bakken being another Saudi Arabia.

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jackafuss on April 24, 2008 - 7:19am 

I thank you for the fine work. My bone of contention is in regard to the recoverable reserves. We know there is a huge gap between the technically recoverable reserves and the economically recoverable reserves. Obviously, as supplies get tighter, this gap will gradually close. Indeed, there has been a significant increase in the number of profitable wells just in the past couple of months. Perhaps, more importantly, the amount that can be recovered technically will jump again. The last jump was created by an improvement in fracturing technology. The one before was from horizontal drilling. There will be other developments. The work being done to develop methanogens holds great promise. One can dream that the day will come when natural gas is the steady product of fast working "bugs". Who knows what the next innovation will be? In the mean time, various sources coming online and the increased incentives to conserve should solve the short term problem.

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Twilight on April 24, 2008 - 8:23am 

  there is a huge gap between the technically recoverable reserves and the economically recoverable reserves. Obviously, as supplies get tighter, this gap will gradually close

This neglects entirely the issue of rate of production. So yes, someday, maybe a large percentage of that oil will be recovered - but that may be a long, long time from now. Does that substantially change our situation?

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jackafuss on April 26, 2008 - 11:13am 

Yes. The law of innovation is that innovations occur when there are people willing to pay for them. The most recent jump in production has been a combination of innovation and the increase in economic incentive. This combination has made vast areas worth the expense and effort to develop. New oil production is just like new corn production, the price of corn went up last year and the acres under production reached an all time peak, but give farmers a couple of years and land that is now fallow will be growing corn.

The number of working rigs is up several times over the past 5 years or so. Just like what happened from 1974 to 1980, it took a while to gear up but the massive investments made resulted in supplies over taking demand. If one looks only at the investments made in Canada for the past 5 years, one sees how much serious money is going into development. Five years ago, Canada invested something like 5 billion and last year somewhere around 15 billion. The big increases in production there have just started to accumulate. Billions have been spent on Thunder Horse, in the Gulf of Mexico, without a drop of production but it will start late this year at 250,000 bpd and grow to 1.1 million in a few years. Surely you would admit the Bakken increase of the past few years exceeds all expectations from just a few years ago.

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Gail the Actuary on April 26, 2008 - 12:49pm 

I'll agree on the investment. We have to wait and see on the production. The oil sands aren't yet ramping up much, despite huge investment. I can believe Thunder Horse starting late this year (delayed since 2005!) at 250,000 barrels. I will believe 1.1 million when I see it.

Regarding Bakken exceeding all estimates--The problem is that it still isn't very much in total, although from an individual company perspective, it might be what they were expecting.

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Kiashu on April 26, 2008 - 7:29pm 

  The law of innovation is that innovations occur when there are people willing to pay for them.

I think it's fair to call that a "guideline" rather than a "law". Calling it a "law" implies a steady and endless progression in engineering, which to some people means that eventually we'll be getting our oil from the hydrocarbon seas of Titan. 

Um, probably not.

Firstly, eventually technical limits will be reached if only from the laws of physics, chemistry and biology. I mean, if it were simply a matter of spending money we'd have a cure for cancer by now.

Secondly, people may never be willing to pay enough for that thing. They may have other things to spend their money on, as I discussed in The Freezing Point of Industrial Society. If incomes stayed the same but fuel became (say) $50 a gallon, would this lead to innovation in oil extraction or... more trains? 

I mean, there comes a point when it's just not worth the trouble. Exactly where that is, that's hard to say. But it's somewhere between Bakken and Titan ;)

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advancednano on April 23, 2008 - 11:40am 

EOG Resources 2007 bakken reserve estimate is 80 MMBO.
http://www.eogresources.com/about/letter_shareholders.html

Plenty of other companies (Marathon, Hess, Conoco etc...) also have significant Bakken production and reserves. So I think the 500 MBO estimate will be exceeded.

Plus this does not include the Canadian side of the Bakken.

Getting higher recovery out of the Bakken seems like an easier challenge than the Colorado shale.

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westexas on April 23, 2008 - 11:45am 

And there is always the chance that the proponents of the "New Physics" are correct.

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tonyw on April 23, 2008 - 4:49pm 

The tip sheets i saw were quoting a cost of $16/barrel, maybe it's a new paradigm:-)

How come Canadian states don't have names?

Why is our oil under their snow?

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Engineer-Poet on April 23, 2008 - 10:05pm 

  And there is always the chance that the proponents of the "New Physics" are correct.

Speaking of which, and thinking of advances like THAI... is there enough combustible material in the Bakken shale for fire-flooding to work materially better than just draining liquids?

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Gail the Actuary on April 23, 2008 - 10:30pm 

I thought the idea of the fire in THAI was to liquefy the oil that was too viscous to flow otherwise. This oil is very liquid (API = 40+), so heating it wouldn't make any difference.

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Engineer-Poet on April 25, 2008 - 11:06pm 

It would turn most of the oil into a vapor which could escape from the rock much more easily than liquid; there would be no need for some other fluid to displace it, it would only need to be allowed to expand and find an exit.  At least in theory, this could make a considerable difference.

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Gail the Actuary on April 26, 2008 - 12:50pm 

Perhaps, but this is not the THAI method. The THAI method catches the liquid that drips out through the sand. You would need a new method to catch the vapor.

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Engineer-Poet on April 26, 2008 - 5:47pm 

Gail, when I use the words "advances like", I don't mean precisely the same method.  You can stop picking that nit now.

Catching vapor is easy.  It's called a "condenser".  Non-condensible gases such as carbon monoxide (produced at the flame front) could be processed to useful products somewhere else.

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mbnewtrain on April 24, 2008 - 12:26am 

How would THAI work in such a tight rock formation as Bakken, having nearly zero porosity? Toe to Heel Air Injection works because the oil sands are such a loose material with good flow when heated. Bakken even has trouble maintaining flow when fractured, as a blog describing some of the plays showed most wells have 50% production decline in first year.

Furthermore, THAI is having serious air pollution issues with initial tests on Canadian tar sands. I can't find the article on THAI problems, but it was posted on the Drumbeat about a month ago.

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elwoodelmore on April 24, 2008 - 5:18am 

"Toe to Heel Air Injection works because......"

um............thai is not by any means a proven technology.

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Piccolo on April 23, 2008 - 12:00pm 

It would be a wonderful thing if the 500 MMBO were exceeded. It's a moderately long way from 111 MMBO to 500 MMBO, but if there are several EOG-equivalent areas out there, and if their reserve numbers are more or less in the "proven" category, then we might make it. 

It should be said that neither the USGS analysis or my analysis considers Canadian reserves.

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R W Reactionary on April 23, 2008 - 12:14pm 

I don't know where you are going with this analysis. Per well production should drop if older wells remain in production. Am I missing something?

It seems to me that the ultimate recovery for the Bakken is going to be dependent on the number and area of the sweet spots that are discovered. If the entire Bakken was one massive Elm Coulee [it clearly isn't] it would be a super giant. If there are ten Elm Coulees lurking in the thousands of square miles ... your numbers are low.

It also appears to me that the economics of a [5,000 foot?] vertical well [and some of the formation is much less than the 9000 feet usually quoted] even with a massive frac job over a hundred and fifty feet of pay --- are excellent based on the numbers you quoted. Once again, to me the question is how much of the Bakken has reasonable permiability, porosity, and the upside prospect of encountering some natural facturing.

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Piccolo on April 23, 2008 - 12:24pm 

Your a correct that if older wells remain on production, the per-well rate should drop. I believe that is what figures 5 and 6 show.

Yes indeed that is the question- how many more Elm Coulee's and other big sweet spots will be found. Let's hope there are many out there waiting to be found. In any case, it will take a lot of these to get anywhere near the mean reserve estimate of the USGS study.

Regarding vertical fracced wells, it is certain that operators would be drilling and fraccing vertical wells if the economics those were better. However, the proportion of active horizontal & multilateral wells is up to 95% of the total, and vertical wells are the remaining 5%. Certainly they would cost less to drill, so this indicates to me that horizontals/multilaterals must yield highly superior economics. Intuitively, one can arrive at that by comparing one lateral, 5000 ft of exposure to the formation, or two laterals, 10000 ft of exposure, to a vertical well with less than 100 ft. of exposure.

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MUDLOGGER on April 23, 2008 - 3:57pm 

Intriguing post.

Never heard of Bakken till it started to sprout like a rash over the last few months.

Cost per foot drilled would be a useful metric , So might thousands of barrels over thousands of feet. Both with comparisons over time since I am sure that rigs and crews and specialists will get more expensive rather than less.

Anyway, I think I would rather be a day rate driller than a stockholder.

Good night.

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Robert Marston on April 23, 2008 - 12:18pm 

A fantastic article investigating the limits of the Bakken Formation. I'm curious about blogs like these:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/01/bakken-and-torquay-formations-saudi.html

That say things like this:

"Bakken oil is currently about 100,000 barrels per day and seems to be heading to 250,000 barrels per day by the end of 2008. It could take 4-6 years to get a million or two million barrels per day. So it will take time to develop the fields and get the pipelines and other infrastructure. A continued build up of oilsand oil, the Gulf of Mexico oil and continued increase in biofuels. Shifting the US off of non-North American oil imports is still a big job even with the Bakken oil. However, it could be part of a substantial shift and allow more time for the development of more nuclear and other power sources and for more efficiency from thermoelectrics, ultracapacitor/battery hybrid and electric vehicles."

I tried to find some validation for the current figure of 100,000 barrels per day and managed to dig up this:

"The Bakken boom

300 Number of North Dakota wells in the field in 2006.

457 Number of wells at the end of 2007.

137,000 Barrels per day production in the state in January.

148,500 Daily production record, set in 1984, expected to be surpassed this year."

http://www.star-telegram.com/business/story/575614.html

Of course, there is no way to distinguish Bakken production from other resources. 

And then, of course, there is Wikipedia:

"The greatest Bakken oil production comes from Elm Coulee Oil Field, Richland County, Montana, where production began in 2000 and is expected to ultimately total 270 million barrels. In 2007, production from Elm Coulee averaged 53,000 barrels per day - more than the entire state of Montana a few years earlier.[5]"

Fine to focus on the primary producer in the field but it doesn't give a total production estimate which leaves a big gap.

So the 2008 total field production data remains a bit of a mystery with a lot of wild claims, punctuated by variable and spotty information. The oil field recovery and production estimates seem to be trending nicely with EROEI -- full of conjecture and misinformation.

One final point -- the more you look at the way analysts figure out how much oil is in place and recoverable looks more like voodoo than science. In all, this kind of analysis makes back of napkin look like state of the art. 

If anyone has good sources on production figures for Bakken in the recent (2008) timeframe, I'd be all eyes.

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Piccolo on April 23, 2008 - 12:54pm 

My analysis goes only to October 2007, and clearly production was rising at that point. I looked at the available data for November and December, but did not believe it to be complete. There usually about a 6 month lag before production data becomes available for analysis. So perhaps in July we can look at this again.

It would be great if the Bakken could make it to 250,000 BOPD. However,at the rate of increase shown during the last year it would take at least 5 years to get to 250,000 BOPD. In the mean time the average rate per well seems to be dropping. That needs to be reversed if much higher total Bakken rates are to be achieved.

In the quoted figure of 100,000 BOPD, it's difficult to tell if that happens to be more recent data than Oct. 2007, or maybe it includes Canadian production. I do not now how high Canadian Bakken production is. I would say, though, that in my sampling of web sites that have commented on the Bakken, many do not seem to have a lot of technical depth. Either that, or they are believers in the "New Physics" thing.

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Robert Marston on April 23, 2008 - 1:57pm 

Piccolo, I think you did a fantastic job putting together the most recently available, valid information :D. One can always strive to get current figures on what is happening now but it's really just a shot in the dark. I'm not happy to wait until July, but I understand the reality of figures publication and validation. I guess impatience is what I get for living in the information age :). 

For my part I agree that Bakken ever reaching 250,000 bbl/day is very optimistic. I am unaware of any 'new physics' changing reality in today's universe. But I'm still a bit curious about the entire Bakken Basin and how it will all play out.

Best hopes for more data come July!

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Khebab on April 23, 2008 - 1:07pm 

How much do it costs to drill one well? I guess the costs are going up too.

I'm trying to guess what is the net profit of a 1,000 barrels per day well at $100 per barrel.

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louisc on April 23, 2008 - 1:59pm 

That's quite a read .. even the third time !
It is not 300 billion (whatever) barrels of 'easy oil'is it.
Therefore it cannot fundamentally shift the overall economics of
food and fuel costs.
I wonder if there'll be any measurable benefit to the tax payer
in the UK when we try and build for and then host the Olympics
in 2012 ?

I think 'No' would be the short answer to that.

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Piccolo on April 23, 2008 - 2:25pm 

A recent data point from someone in the know is that the current Bakken horizontals are costing in the range of $5 million.

A look at the data in Richland Col, Montana, which includes Elm Coulee field, shows that about 1/6 of 600 or so wells that have produced Bakken oil (including now inactive wells) have already produced over 200,000 barrels, and most of those are still producing. The average of all wells appears to be over 100,000 barrels. This is extraordinarily good for an onshore US field.

200,000 barrels x $100/bbl x 75% revenue interest = $15 million. After tax and operating cost, a good percentage of the Bakken wells in this field would appear to be highly economic. EOG states in a link posted above that their North Dakota Bakken play is the "highest rate of return play in our drilling program."

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JonFreise on April 23, 2008 - 8:13pm 

Hi Piccolo,

Is it possible to get access to your data on the ultimate recovery per well drilled? 

A rough calculation of EROI would be:

100,000 bbl ultimate recovery per well.
$5 million drilling cost

6.1 EROI

If the average URR per well is closer to 200k then double the EROI.

Not factored in is operating cost for the wells (but they seem very short lived so drilling costs may dominate) and the number of failed wells. 

EROI of 6 and this is the hottest thing in US drilling.

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Piccolo on April 23, 2008 - 8:34pm 

Ultimate recovery for each well would take a little while to come with and is not part of the dataset I have.

How are you getting EROI? I can't think of any combination of the numbers provided to get to 6.1.

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JonFreise on April 23, 2008 - 9:08pm 

I may have misunderstood what you posted. I thought it was expected URR per well. But it was production to date average? 

Here is how I do the calculation:

Find the URR for a well. Convert that into gigajoules. (6.1 Gj per BOE is the value I used).

Take the dollar cost to drill the well. Convert that into gigajoules. The conversion is done by using the energy intensity of an industry in j/$. In the case of the oil and gas industry, for 2005 that was 20e6j/$. Drilling is about twice as energy intense as the US average. The energy intensity value came from Dr. Hall's EROI nat gas paper.

So 100k bbl out per well = 6.1e5Gj and $5 mil to drill the well = 1e5Gj

EROI = 6.1e5Gj/1e5Gj = 6.1.

So what would be really useful is a distribution of the URR for wells drilled and $ distribution for wells drilled. Then we could create a really good estimate of EROI.

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Gail the Actuary on April 23, 2008 - 9:07pm 

When we sent a draft of this post to Heading Out for his review, he commented that he had heard someone working in Bakken claim that they were able to drill horizontal wells for less than $3 million. I presume if they were doing fracturing, that would add to the cost.

I haven't seen the actual data, but my guess is that there is a distribution of wells - some producing well over 200K, some 100K, and some much less. It would be worthwhile trying to figure out what a real average is, including any "dry holes" that still are part of the overall cost.

The production in these wells is clearly dropping off very quickly. If the average production per well is 79 barrels a day (October 2007) and we could assume that they could get the equivalent of this rate for three years (probably it really would be longer, but the average would be lower than this), then we would be talking about 79 x 365 x 3 = 86,505 barrels per well. With the rapid drop off, I am wondering if it would be even lower than this - perhaps 60 x 365 x 3 = 65,700 per well.

We might get to the 6 EROI, but with a lower cost per well and lower output. It would be worthwhile trying to investigate what is really happening.

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Gail the Actuary on April 23, 2008 - 10:21pm 

After I looked at this a different way, I think my estimate of the average production per well may be too low.

If you look at Figure 7, one way of making an estimate is by determining the number of barrels of oil added by horizontal wells, divided by the total number of horizontal wells including drop-outs.

The number of barrels added by horizontal wells looks to be at least 140 million barrels - that is, the 70 million to date since horizontal wells were begun multiplied by two. It could also be higher than that, but for now assume that peak horizontal production is now.

How many horizontal wells would be drilled to produce the 140 million barrels? Clearly it is not just the horizontal wells currently in operation (95% x 951) = 903 wells. There would also be some drop-outs on the way up, some dry wells, and some holes drilled on the way down. If there were no drop-outs, dry wells, or holes drilled on the way down, the average would be 155,000 barrels per well.

One can only guess at drop outs on the way up and number drilled on the way down. If the total were something like 300, one would get 903+300 = 1,200 wells. If production were 140 million barrels, this would come out to something like 117,000 barrels a well. If the number is a lot higher than 300, it would bring the average down. 

This isn't a very good method, but gives the idea that it would be possible for average production to be 100,000 a well or higher. It doesn't seem like one could get to average production of 200,000 barrels per well, unless peak is long way off, so the total production is much higher than 140 million barrels. In that case, the total number of horizontal wells would be much higher also.

Looking at more refined data would be much better than this approach, but I thought it might provide some insights.

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JonFreise on April 24, 2008 - 12:20am 

Good idea.

If I rerun the calc with 120,000 URR per well and 3 million drilling cost then we get an EROI of 12.

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Antoinetta III on April 24, 2008 - 2:11am 

To add some perspective to all this:

"..production would peak somewhere in excess of 100,000 barrels per day but likely never matching peak output from Thunder Horse (250,000 b/d)." Posted by Dave Cohen

100,000 barrels a day. This represents (approximately) a whopping one eighth of one percent of daily world consumption, considering an All-Liquids total of around 85 million BPD.

************************

"9. Per-well Bakken production peaked in August 2005 at 116 barrels a day, and was down to 79 barrels a day in October 2007." From Original Post

79 barrels a day? Nothing more than glorified stripper wells.

************************

"The number of barrels added by horizontal wells looks to be at least 140 million barrels" 

"The production in these wells is clearly dropping off very quickly. If the average production per well is 79 barrels a day (October 2007) and we could assume that they could get the equivalent of this rate for three years (probably it really would be longer, but the average would be lower than this), then we would be talking about 79 x 365 x 3 = 86,505 barrels per well. With the rapid drop off, I am wondering if it would be even lower than this - perhaps 60 x 365 x 3 = 65,700 per well." Posted by Gail the Actuary

140 million barrels = approx. 40 hours of world consumption.

86,505 barrels over the lifetime of a well? Didn't wells in the early days in Texas and Saudi Arabia pump out this much in just several weeks?

***********************

To paraphrase Dorothy: "Well, Toto, its pretty clear we aren't in Saudi Arabia anymore."

Antoinetta III Posted on Oil Drum 4-23-08

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elwoodelmore on April 24, 2008 - 5:42am 

'......had heard someone working in Bakken claim that they were able to drill horizontal wells for less than $3 million."

encore operating company made that claim in their recent analyists meeting. 

opertators on the north side of 4540 are claiming they can drill and complete,
shallower, bakken wells for $1 million (and with shorter laterals on 160 ac spacing).

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Khebab on April 24, 2008 - 12:05pm 

The THAI process looks like a better investment to me even at $60/barrel, about 1,200 barrels/day for a well pair over maybe 5 years:

  ALBERTA THAI PROJECT

  well cost (2 1500' injectors and a
  500 meter horizontal leg well) 7,500,000.00
  Geological and Generation 1,000,000.00
  pipeline and infrastructure 1,000,000.00
  land costs 15,000.00
  10% fudge factor 915,000.00
  total well costs per unit 10,430,000.00

  Gross Revenues
  Assumptions, 5.2 year or 1,898 days
  $60/bbl net price
  1200 bbl/day net production per unit 2,272,600 bbl
  Gross sales prices $136,656,000.00

  expenses
  royalties
  1% until pay-out 104,300.00
  25% for rest of productive life 34,137,925.00
  5% operating expenses 6,832,000.00
  total expenses 42,074,225.00

  therefore net to investors= 8:1

won't solve the peak oil problem though.

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elwoodelmore on April 24, 2008 - 5:33am 

brigham exploration, bexp, stated in their april 18 analyists meeting that the break even point(on a discounted cf basis) for a horizontal well is 158k barrels. bexp uses about $5 million for drilling and completion costs. encore operating made the claim in their analyists meeting from a few weeks ago that they can drill and complete a horizontal bakken well for closer to $ 3 million.

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advancednano on April 23, 2008 - 3:55pm 

The numbers I have seen range from $1.7 million (petrobank in Saskatchewan) to 6 million (EOG) per well.

The payback seems to be in 3-11 months. For several of the active regions they are getting 80+% successful and profitable wells.

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elwoodelmore on April 23, 2008 - 2:21pm 

a few comments and a few questions.

pitman,price and lefever make a claim in their paper (at least implicitly) that the natural fractures in the bakken are horizontal. what are your thoughts on this, and do you have an explaination for this truely wierd (if true)phenomenon ?

you make the statement:
"The pressure is high enough to create large artificial fractures that can extend hundreds of feet from a wellbore"

are you claiming that the hydraulicly created fractures are also horizontal ? 

if not, then a (vertical) fracture that can extend hundreds of feet from a wellbore would likely result in excessive water production.

you also state:
"but the hydrocarbon was cooked in place and little or none of the created hydrocarbon migrated to other potential reservoir rocks.*"

well, i disagree. the oil produced in canada is (according to price,etal)outside the thermal maturity window and if it didnt migrate there, how did it get there? i believe price acknowledges that oil produced from the lodgepole is bakken sourced. others claim that madison produced oil is bakken sourced, price disagrees, i dont know.

also the elm coulee field is interpreted as a stratigraphic trap. without oil migration there would be no trap, no need for a trap.

aside from these questions, doubts, i think you did a great job of pulling all the current information on the bakken together.

footnote: i sold my few shares of brigham exploration earlier in the week.

*i assume this statement is based upon price's opinion

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Piccolo on April 23, 2008 - 5:38pm 

A rule of thumb is that hydraulic fractures should be horizontal above about 2000 or 3000 ft, and vertical below that depth. The reason for this is the magnitude of overburden stress (the weight of overlying sediments) compared to the X and Y direction stresses at the same depth. Above 3000 ft. the overburden stress is the least of the 3 stresses, so the fracture is horizontal.

At depth, almost all induced fractures are vertical. In some areas with very high horizontal stresses, perhaps the induced fracture could be horizontal at depth. From work that I've seen by Schlumberger, their model also shows vertical hydraulic fractures in the shale. It may be possible for natural fractures to be horizontal, but really, the same laws of physics should apply.

The question of sourcing of the Bakken, I can't give a detailed opinion on except to say that my read of the Price study seems to indicate that it was sourced in place. Maybe I need to go back and look at that.

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dzlsabe on April 23, 2008 - 3:09pm 

Isnt this area exactly where a huge amount of wind-power is/or should be developed? Certainly both projects would dovetail.

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Starship Trooper on April 23, 2008 - 3:23pm 

I think the USGS uses a standard definition for technically recoverable...i.e., the technology exists and can be employed to recover said material. It does not include a cost consideration and for that reason technically recoverable is always more than economically recoverable values.

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Gail the Actuary on April 23, 2008 - 4:26pm 

I am coming to this conclusion also. I had never stopped to think how far apart the two could be, until recently. The difference could explain quite a lot.

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roy on April 23, 2008 - 4:42pm 

Piccolo,
Thanks for a very detailed review of Bakken and it's prospects. I confess I skimmed at lot of the material. 

Still one question I don't see discussed: What does the need for all these quite low-flow wells do the the overall expected EROEI for the whole formation?

Thanks,
Roy

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westexas on April 23, 2008 - 5:00pm 

And how many low flow unconventional oil and gas wells does it take to offset the declines from older, higher quality conventional reservoirs? And do we have the manpower and equipment to drill, complete and operate the wells?

Or, as I have put it, there is a huge difference between oil companies making money in conventional and unconventional plays in post-peak areas and making a real difference in total production. 

Any way you slice it, IMO it is not a good idea to be on the wrong side of the consumer/producer equation regarding food & energy.

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JonFreise on April 23, 2008 - 8:23pm 

I did a simple calculation just upthread. About 6-12 EROI. And the best technology we have. What this means to me is that by the time there is no oil left on the market (2030 or so) there won't be any US oil left with EROI higher than the 5 minimum Hall estimates is required. 

ELP and Electrified Rail!

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Piccolo on April 23, 2008 - 8:40pm 

If I understand your question correctly, the low-flow wells come with the territory. Before a well is drilled, there is usually a fairly wide error bar in predicting how much it will produce. After it's drilled, operators will produce the well to the economic limit, when revenue equals operating expenses. 

Before drilling, the calculated EROI on a low flow rate well is low. After drilling, if the energy used to drill is considered to be "sunk energy" (like sunk cost), then the EROI per new barrel produced is high.

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roy on April 24, 2008 - 11:09am 

Re "sunk energy"

>From a non-specialists perspective, I wouldn't ignore the energy cost of drilling a new well as "sunk energy", especially as it seems the main trade off might be EROEI vs flow rate. The more wells drilled the higher the flow and the lower average life of the wells. No? With fewer wells and longer well lifetimes we have much lower yearly production but higher EROEI and perhaps greater total extraction. (With due apologies to experts for not considering porosity, viscosity, distance between wells, etc.)

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Enviro Tech on April 23, 2008 - 8:40pm 

Piccolo, 

I must echo the thanks of others. Not being a Petroleum P. Eng, I rely on expertise such as yours to piece together the myriad of information that is out there to help filter out the noise that is the MSM. 

I would ask, if anyone has the info, (or can point me to the info) to help flesh out the facts on the Canadian portion of this Bakken field. Sadly since Stoneleigh has been focusing on the Automatic Earth, there has been no action in TOD Canada. 

Thanks again to all that make this site what it is, and the (generally) open discussion that we can have.

Best Hopes the American Government keeps focused on the oil elsewhere and forgets about what is lying under the ground just a few hundred miles north....

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elwoodelmore on April 24, 2008 - 5:52am 

you can get some of this info from the websites of publically traded companies. petrobank comes to mind. there is also a royalty trust, i believe cresent point energy trust, that is active in this area. there are others.

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Relayer on April 23, 2008 - 8:55pm 

A quite illuminating read and an excellent addition to the grist that must be milled when looking at this area. I had spent time at the ex-Amoco refinery in Mandan, N.D. (now Tesoro I believe) in the early and mid 90s and my recollection of their outlook for the future was not awe inspiring.

The boost in attention given to this area, to me anyway, simply points out the lack of better prospects to turn to elsewhere, sigh.

Thank you very much Piccola and Gail for the time you spent on this excellent post!

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Gail the Actuary on April 23, 2008 - 9:14pm 

Your comment about not having better prospects elsewhere was exactly my comment about Brazil's Tupi last year. The fact that people are excited about this gives us an idea how little is available with reasonable effort elsewhere.

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fromke on April 23, 2008 - 9:39pm 

Is there a site that does the same for wind and solar that the oil drum does. It's like watching the ship sink with all this discussion of how much. The only question of concern is how long before the price escalates to cause the dislocations that will bring down the economy.

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Peak_a_Boo on April 23, 2008 - 9:43pm 

I am familiar with the environmental impacts being argued about the Canadien tar sands...what is the environmental issues with the Bakken drilling underway with horizontal wells and hydrolic fracturing?

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jackafuss on April 26, 2008 - 8:07pm 

The percentage of US electricity produced by Solar went up from .064% in 2002 to .070% in 2006. The percentage by wind went from .105% to .258%. The amount from fossil fuels went from 83.994% to 85.307%. 

Wind and solar may be big in the future but they each have a long way to go to warrant the amount of attention and subsidy they get. California will spend $2.9 Billion to encourage roof top solar. This type of spending is nothing but political vote buying. It does nothing to advance the science of solar energy. The subsidy to corn farmers is doing nothing to solve the problem but it is causing poor people to go hungry. 

The TOD site is a great site because it follows the Willie Sutton Law, which is to spend your time and effort where the money is.

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BrianT on April 26, 2008 - 9:10pm 

Jack: This doesn't get mentioned enough with all the solar and wind hype. These minor increases were in the context of a 500% increase in oil prices. At the current rate wind and solar won't be material overall even when oil is at $1000 a barrel.

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DaveMart on April 27, 2008 - 4:58am 

I'd agree that many get carried away about wind and solar, and as far as I am concerned the notion that we can power the whole of society any time soon on renewables is not founded on reality.
However, that is not to say that major inputs will not come from wind and solar where they are a good resource.
To date most of the solar, for instance, has been built in locations like Germany, which is about as unsuitable as you can get for it.
This has resulted in utterly cost-ineffective demonstration projects, eco-bling whilst the real heavy lifting remains coal burn.
You are in a different ball-game though when you use resources where they are appropriate, and costs have now dropped to a point where, for instance, for peak energy use in hot areas solar should fit the bill, particularly with rising NG prices:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=solar-power-lightens-up-with-thin-fi...

IOW now that it is approaching economic levels in some circumstances, then future build will be orders of magnitude bigger.

Although it was unrealistic in Germany, and will be for the foreseeable future, the build there has enabled costs to be driven lower so that more favoured regions will shortly be able to feed in a major new source.

The rise of solar energy should be similar to the explosive growth in the aluminium industry as costs dropped - in the US alone out of a total electricity production of around 1000GW, just 450GW is base-load - there is a heck of a lot of peaking power up for grabs.
The economics get still better as you can build solar where it is actually needed, rather than transport it large distances:
http://www.nanosolar.com/blog3/2008/04/16/municipal-solar-power-plants/
If you put in the current 35% or so growth rate, then it doesn't take long for the present insignificant fraction to become very significant indeed.

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Engineer-Poet on April 27, 2008 - 7:39am 

  in the US alone out of a total electricity production of around 1000GW, just 450GW is base-load

Total generation is closer to 460 GW average, not 450 GW base-load.  I'm not sure what fraction of the total is base load, but it's way short of 95%.

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DaveMart on April 27, 2008 - 12:00pm 

Correction noted.
Thanks - I am a lot more familiar with UK figures.

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Engineer-Poet on April 27, 2008 - 7:43am 

  The percentage by wind went from .105% to .258%.

Re-check your arithmetic.  The totals for wind are given at the EIA and come to 0.27% in 2002, 0.64% in 2006.  Installed generation increased more than 50% in 2007, so wind generation probably came to around 1% last year.

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Schrodinger1 on April 24, 2008 - 2:21am 

Thanks very much for this post. The Bakken reminds me of the emergence of the Barnett shale back in 2000. The Barnett is a tight gas reservoir which has seen enormous production growth and has made a real difference to the outlook for gas production in North America. Back in 2000 nobody predicted how big the Barnett was going to get and many were not very impressed with it.

While there are clearly serious challenges in exploiting the Bakken the technology involved and the understanding of the field is only going to improve in future years. Technically and economically recoverable reserves are likely to rise over time as rock fracturing technology improves.

Even if that happens the Bakken is not going to be big enough by itself to overturn the case for peak oil. A 30 billion barrel field would only make a one year difference to the timing of peak oil. However, if there are other "Bakkens" in other parts of the world then these kinds of tight reservoirs could have a big impact on the peak oil story. This story and the deep water story are areas which peak oil advocates need to pay attention to.

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rohar1 on April 24, 2008 - 6:41am 

I'm in Regina (largest city at the top of the Bakken Play) and there is a lot of land aquisition activity and hype going on in Saskatchewan over the Bakken.
Bakken oil formation has industry gushing
Petrobank Bakken page
Saskatchewan Record land sales eclipsing Alberta's
Reece Energy Acquires Saskatchewan Land

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Gail the Actuary on April 24, 2008 - 2:07pm 

>From Petrobank article:

  The economics are attractive in the Bakken play. At least four wells per section can be drilled. Drilling and completion costs are approximately $1.7 million per well, and according to our independent reserve evaluator, proved plus probable reserves are 100,000 barrels of oil per well, representing less than 10 percent recovery of original oil-in-place, are well below our internal estimates of well potential. This leaves considerable upside potential for improved recoveries. The economics are further enhanced by high realized oil prices due to the high quality oil and the Saskatchewan government's royalty holiday of 35,000 barrels per well.

>From Saskatchewan Record land sales eclipsing Alberta's

  More importantly, Saskatchewan land sales are generating far more revenues per hectare than Alberta. While Alberta is averaging $357 per hectare in land sale revenues in 2008, Saskatchewan is generating an average of just over $2,600 per hectare this year -- the highest in Western Canada.

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Piccolo on April 24, 2008 - 5:07pm 

It should be noted that the reservoir depths in Saskatchewan are considerably shallower than those on the US side; hence the lower well costs.

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Gail the Actuary on April 25, 2008 - 9:06am 

In case readers didn't understand, your analysis is really looking at the US side of the Bakken. The Canadian side is in addition. If the US side is not too large, it is probably reasonable to assume that the Canadian side isn't too large either, but total Canadian Bakken production could be larger than US Bakken production, especially if the Canadian side is less deep.

One thing that strikes me is that some individual companies may do well in Bakken, even if total production is not huge in relationship to US or world oil usage. The ones that are likely to do best are the ones in the most favorable areas - areas where wells are less deep and have better reservoir characteristics.

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weatherman on April 26, 2008 - 2:28pm 

Won't Saskatchewan be over the moon. All these years of bieng Alberta's resource poor relation and now this comes along.

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jjlalaska on April 24, 2008 - 1:13pm 

Check out Ryland Oil news release re discovery. Geologist w/RYD was the guy who made Elm Coulee happen. I would love to hear comments form anyone w/oil background on the news. Here is the link to Sedar go to the April 23 English News Release:

http://www.sedar.com/DisplayCompanyDocuments.do?lang=EN&issuerNo=00003293

akguy

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rn on April 24, 2008 - 11:40pm 

Curious what are the prospects moving east of Mountrail into ward county. There is the lonetree field about 25 miles east of the austin field that i believe is mission canyon. The usgs report didnt count anything in ward county as continuous. I dont think htere has been many holes ever poked below mission canyon there. Thoughts?

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elwoodelmore on April 25, 2008 - 8:11am 

there is a rumor that the behm/edwards well in 33-154-88 is a dry hole (er.....that would be an economic dry hole but maybe not a technical dry hole). this may define the eastern limit of the parshall field. 

a discussion of the behm/edwards can be found here:
http://bakkenshale.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2008-01-01T00%3A00%3A...

i think that some operators are still looking, at least buying acerage in dunn county.

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Piccolo on April 25, 2008 - 2:05pm 

There are some USGS slides about their methodology posted here. 

Unfortunately they talk in generalities, and don't give any specifics on the details of how they came up with the Bakken numbers.

Also on slide 18 they say that, to the end of December 2007,
- 105 MMBO was produced
- Montana and North Dakota produces 200,000 BOPD and 26 MMBO per year.
- North Dakota alone produces 70,000 BOPD.

Comparing to my analysis, 

- I estimated about 111 MMBO produced. It is not surprising that the numbers do not agree exactly. "Official" state production numbers will not agree exactly with the numbers in the database I used.
- The 200,000 BOPD must be a summation of individual well peak rates or something. I estimate Montana and North Dakota together produced about 75,000 per day at the end of 2007, which is 27 MMBO per year, which is close to their 26 MMBO figure.
- There is no way that North Dakota alone produces 70,000 BOPD from the Bakken. That is close to the Bakken total for both Montana and North Dakota.

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elwoodelmore on April 25, 2008 - 2:27pm 

nd produced a little over 20,000 bpd from the bakken for all of 2007.

https://www.dmr.nd.gov/oilgas/stats/statisticsvw.asp

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Gail the Actuary on April 26, 2008 - 12:58pm 

According to the ND website stats, there were 457 wells producing the oil in North Dakota Bakken. Calculating it out, the average daily production in North Dakota was 44 barrels a day, which is lower than Picollo's average. This is to not too surprising, if it is the deeper and less productive area.

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Piccolo on April 25, 2008 - 2:47pm 

Here's an unsettling thought.

The current administration has been involved in documented suppression and distortion of the findings of government scientists.
The EPA is perhaps the best example along with James Hansen of NASA. I have also heard mentioned of pressure on the EIA related to production and imports, and the Bureau of Labor statistics, related to inflation, although I do not have links about those. 

This type of interference begs the question of whether the USGS Bakken number is a political number or is based on true science. As I mentioned in my post, the very low p5/p95 ratio strikes me as unrealistic because it is way too small. Is this a symptom of pressure to arrive at a certain "right" answer? Truly I hope not, but this is not out of the realm of reason considering other similar behavior by the administration.

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elwoodelmore on April 25, 2008 - 8:41pm 

the usgs has historically been engaged in the privatization of us assets. i dont have much actual history of the usgs, but i know for certain that they were instrumental in opening the western us to mineral exploration.
so it is not too surprising if they are pimping the bakken. look who is a major benificiary..............(drum roll)..........halliburton !!! sound familiar ?
it seems a little unbelievable that cheney could have that much influence, but look at what is happening in iraq. BIG profits for howco(nobody uses that term much anymore). the model that seems to fit this administration best is the looting of the treasury model(look at the national debt in the last 8 yrs).

anyhow i think the usgs has done a good job at what they do. and in the interest of full disclosure, about 1/4 of my pseudo-retirement income is derived from a prospect i developed based on a usgs study (olive-1957).

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Kiashu on April 26, 2008 - 7:46pm 

I don't think we need conspiracy theories of one man's corporate buddies asking him to get agencies to give the "right" reports. When you work in a big organisation, corporate or public, you know what the bosses want to hear. 

Some people will just go along saying what they think is the truth regardless, but those people tend not to get promoted. Most people know how to pull with the rest of the team and not rock the boat. 

So it seems that if you work in the USGS, you know that the bosses want to hear optimistic reports. I'm no geologist, but surely at some point in these reports there are some educated guesses going on. So... you can do an educated guess on the conservative side, or an educated guess on the generous side. One will get you praise from the bosses, the other will get you a meeting where they grill you. Which do you choose?

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Gail the Actuary on April 26, 2008 - 1:09pm 

I can think of a lot of people who are unhappy with a lot of other agencies. The FDA has done nothing to keep the food supply in reasonable shape. It is just what will make a profit for those selling the food. There are any number of harmful chemicals that are included in food, that we know perfectly well are harmful. On the other side, the omega 3 fatty acids that we need have been removed, because they don't keep well without refrigeration. No wonder we have so much depression and ADHD! As far as I can see, it is basically a bad food problem.

The Autism Society of America has felt the CDC was suppressing information about mercury and vaccines. More recently, we have the formaldehyde in the trailers problem that CDC and FEMA were jointly involved with.

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jackafuss on April 26, 2008 - 9:00pm 

Before we hang the administration for malice, we should remember Hanlon's Razor: "never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity". 

It took a massive dose of "group think" for America to agree to starve hungry people while putting corn oil in gasoline tanks. Corn oil: a weak, high cost fuel that wins votes in the Iowa Caucuses. 

Yes, the "big boys" are out to make big profits and the big money is in oil. The massive subsides going to a number of alternative projects will make other players very rich but these are tiny relative to the future profits from oil. The most recent run up the price of oil is going to encourage a lot of drilling and fracturing. The cost per barrel is still small compared to the equivalent cost of alternatives.

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InJapan on April 26, 2008 - 5:11pm 

  Here's an unsettling thought.

I guess I do not find it too unsettling, because it is business as usual for a high visibility government agency. Having worked in one before, political pressure (sometimes from Congress, not the Administration) was the norm.

And that is probably as it should be, given the "government" of the US is not supposed to be an entity separate from the citizenry. That is, the EPA serves those whom it regulates.

I skimmed the comments from the EPA employees in that study (to which you had linked.) What leaps off the page is that the co-mingling of the scientific work with the policy work is causing grief. The approach to improve this would be to separate the scientific work out into its own unit, while the policy setting unit could (should) make public whether it accepts (in whole or part) the work of the scientific unit. However, to make changes like this will require Congress to change the set up of the EPA (and maybe the DoI.)

So, would it surprise me that the USGS estimate had been influenced by political parties (the prime suspects being the congressional delegation from ND and MT)? No, but such influence can often be subtle and not explicit, so that if you think you can uncover a smoking gun you likely will become frustrated.

So we are left with the realization that estimates are just that, and one definition of an "estimate" is a "judgment of the value", and I believe the word shares the same Latin root as the word "esteem". These are human actions, fully suspect to human foibles.

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red-dog on April 26, 2008 - 4:10pm 

Some thoughts on Bakken production in Canada

1. The sweet spots get drilled first, so the areas of the Bakken that yield higher IP's per well will give you a faster payout on investment and also a higher NPV per well. Currently, everyone is chasing the sweet spots, but the less prolific areas will get drilled later on.

2. Costs in SE Saskatchewan are running around $1.9 million per horizontal well drilled, completed and tied-in, including a share of capital costs for production facilities and gas processing, and also including 7-10 x 15 tonne multi-stage fracture stimulation job. The reason it's cheaper in Canada is that its shallower at about 1,600 m depth. Most horizontals have a single lateral 1,500 to 1,600 m in length.

3. In the Viewfield area of SE Sask, production rates from the newer Bakken wells (2007-2008) have averaged 12,000 bbls in the first 3 months, with first year production around 33,000 barrels. Revenues are enhanced by 15% from liquids-rich solution gas recovery, so with oil prices of $85.00, you get a net price of $98.00 per boe from which deduct $25.00 for lifting costs, royalties and production taxes, so payout is less than 1 year. Horizontal wells also qualify for reduced Crown royalty on the first 37,000 barrels of oil produced, which will accelerate payout by about 1 mo. on Crown leases. Discounted Revenue to Investment Ratio can be as high as 4 to 1.

4. At Viewfield, individual well production rates decline from an IP of around 190 bopd, to 100 bopd after 3 months, to 60 bopd after 1 year and is expected to level out at around 50 bopd after 18 months, followed by a long slow steady decline of around 10 percent per year. Ultimate recovery by natural depletion is expected to be 175,000 bbls of oil per well, of which 25% will occur in the first 18 months. Initially 4 wells per sq mile, and indications are for recovery of 15% of OIP by natural depletion.

5. By accumulating a large land position, oil companies can stage their development over a longer period of time in order to avoid having to build larger production facilities and pipelines than will be needed after the inital flush production period. It appears that producers in SE Sask will gradually build production over the next 5-6 years, with peak annual production at approximately 8% of ultimate recovery, and average individual well rates at around 50 bopd at peak field production, as compared to individual well peak rates of 190 bopd at start of production. For a field with 1 billion barrels of recoverable oil, this would mean peak production of approx. 220,000 bopd. 

6. There are other areas of Bakken development in SE Sask, but the Viewfield area is the most active, and appears to cover an area of 1,500 sq mi, with oil in place of over 6 billion bbl. This area alone could have 900 million barrels of recoverable oil, and peak production of 200,000 bopd (230,000 boepd).

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JonFreise on April 26, 2008 - 7:20pm 

Hi Red-Dog,

Very useful info. Can you tell us more about what is included in "lifting costs"? I want be sure I understand that this is running pumps. Is it also paying for transport down pipelines? Do you have any information on how much of that $25 is lifting cost and how much is taxes and royalties? Any links to this kind of information on line?

Without lifting costs, the energy return in quite good on energy invested about 28. Including them, it drops to 8 to 1. 

This is where energy accounting ends up telling a very different story from regular accounting. A $ of gasoline has a huge number of BTU in it. Same with a $ of steel. So it is very easy to use a lot of energy without spending very many $. That makes things profitable in $ that are not nearly as good in energy.

These are very rough estimates. Without detailed accounting, it is the best we can do.

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red-dog on April 26, 2008 - 9:45pm 

Hi back JonFriese,

Lifting costs include running pumpjacks, oil batteries and include field labour and maintenance. It doesn't include transportation of the oil to the purchaser. It also does not include depreciation of equipment or other non-cash expenses.

Lifting costs are approx. $10 per bbl, taxes and royalties are approx. 15% of value of oil and natural gas.

Probably 2/3 of costs are fixed, so later on in the life of the field, as average well production declines, the cost per barrel will trend upward.

I am pretty sure that the Bakken play will give a significantly positive energy return, but I am of the opinion that pre-tax economic return on capital employed is the best indicator of project viability.

I have ventured the opinion in the past that a revenue-neutral refundable energy tax could be the way to measure energy content of goods and services. 

red-dog

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elwoodelmore on April 27, 2008 - 6:39am 

rd, yes very useful info. 92% decline for 3 mos, followed by 49% decline for 9 mos,followed by 30% decline for 6 mos and 10% decline thereafter. this appears to be the same "general" trend from wells on the nd side of the border, except with higher and probably more variable initial rates. 

wells drilled in the sweet spots, such as viewfield in sask,elm coulee, mt and parshall,nd will return very attractive economics. quick payout followed by long and steady production at lower rates. 

presumably your 4 to one discounted pv is based on a constant oil price, with potential for even higher prices in the future. 

the jury is still out on other areas. i am assuming a lot of economic dry holes(vs "technical" dry holes) will be drilled.

if you would, who are some of the players on the north side of the border?

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advancednano on April 27, 2008 - 9:32am 

Crescent Point 30,000 bopd + and Petrobank 12000 bopd + from Bakken in Saskatchewan are I think the two biggest players
Tristar has about 10,000 bopd in Southeast Saskatchewan and 650 net drilling locations.

MLI/NAL [Manufacturers Life Insurance/NAL Oil and Gas Trust (NOIGF.PK)] partnership acquired two private companies, Tiberius Exploration and Spear Exploration, for a total of $115 million. The new partnership receives 3,336 acres of land, 2.1 million barrels of P+P reserves and a current 925 barrels of daily production.

http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/04/saskatchewans-portion-of-bakken.html

http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/02/marathon-oils-bakken-play.html

http://biz.yahoo.com/ccn/080311/200803110448018001.html?.v=1

http://seekingalpha.com/article/65909-the-bakken-trend-increasing-in-value

>From the end of 2007, incomplete survey of 56000 barrels of oil per day from known Canadian companies plus the rapidly rising 75,000 barrels of oil per day identified from the Oct 2007 database for North Dakota and Montana. So already 131,000 barrels of oil per day plus from Canada + USA Bakken at the end of 2007. 

In the range of 300+ wells being drilled on the Canadian side in 2008. 

Petrobank indicated that its initial production Thai project should be producing 10,000-15,000 bopd late 2009. Expansion to 100,000 bopd in 2010 and after.

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red-dog on April 27, 2008 - 3:17pm 

4 to one pv ratio (actual 3.7) based upon oil price of $85 per barrel oil, no price escalation or cost inflation. This is for sweet spot at Viewfield with inital production of 190 bopd, 12,000 bbl oil in first 3 months, 175,000 bbl oil recoverable, plus 15% revenue boost for rich solution gas.

Current oil price is around CA$120/bbl, using this constant price gives pv ratio of 5.5.

Of course if oil price stays high, we are likely to see a lot of inflation, both due to high demand for oilfield equipment and services, and also due to higher costs of nearly everything else because of energy costs embedded in other goods and services. Also potential for high general inflation because of huge monetary stimulation especially in US UK and EU, led by monetisiation of ABS from the central banks buying the toxic paper in exchange for Treasuries.

Safer to evaluate assuming recession and lower oil prices and hopefully low inflation (crossed fingers here).

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red-dog on April 27, 2008 - 6:41pm 

This is a resource play, and at a high enough price, much of the Bakken area within the Williston Basin could be economically developed. At current oil prices a lot of technical dry-holes could still be economic. 

Take for example a well drilled outside the sweet spot in an area where OOIP per sq mi is only 2.0 million bbl, or 40% of the Viewfield area, and recovery is only 10% or 50,000 bbl per well. This well will still probably produce on the order of 9,500 bbl oil and recover 50% of investment in first 18 months, at current netbacks, and probably achieve full payout in just over 3 years. 

Remaining reserves after payout of 30,000 bbl will generate some positive return on investment. 

Ergo, an economic well once drilled, however a technical dry-hole, because no further wells will be drilled in the area as the economic hurdle rate will not have been met.

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DownSouth on April 28, 2008 - 7:59am 

Thank you, Piccolo, for an excellent report and to The Oil Drum for publishing this information.

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118 comments on The Bakken Formation: How Much Will It Help?
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From ekroposki at charter.net  Fri Mar 20 14:59:12 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Fri, 20 Mar 2009 14:59:12 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Rik - is there a rumble out there?
Message-ID: <656DB48DD5FD43468F07E6D755D7BC0B@YOURB88038198E>

http://www.youtube.com:80/watch?v=jeYscnFpEyA&feature=channel_page

Ed K
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Fri Mar 20 16:48:48 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Fri, 20 Mar 2009 15:48:48 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Teleprompter Jesus
Message-ID: <400985d70903201348v77ebdab5u9e2865be90c009d1@mail.gmail.com>

Well damn the bad luck - I thought my DC-10 career was over because
the airplane only serve two cities in the last month, St. Louis and
New Orleans, and they couldn't possibly run out of pilots. NOT!  I
just got assigned a 3 day layover in the French Quarter.  My brother
is coming over and meeting-up with me and another contractor from NOLA
for the weekend.  You guys will have to run the world!

Here's the new seal for the POTUS -

http://mikemoody.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/totus1.png

Have fun ya'all.  I will!

Brad

From ekroposki at charter.net  Sun Mar 22 19:08:10 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 2009 19:08:10 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] 2 Brazilian soldiers
Message-ID: <7C731D1727DE4A3ABC80D8B154547792@YOURB88038198E>

       

      2 Brazilian soldiers
       
       
       
      The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff briefed the President this morning.  

         

      He told President Obama that 2 Brazilian soldiers were killed in Iraq.  

      To everyone's surprise, all the color drained from Obama's face. 

        

      Then he collapsed into his desk chair, head in his hands, visibly shaken, almost in tears.  

      Finally, as he attempted to compose himself, he whispered, "Just how many is a brazilian?"  

      This is not surprising, since he obviously has no understanding of billion or trillion, either.
        

       

       
     
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From ekroposki at charter.net  Sun Mar 22 19:50:18 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 2009 19:50:18 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Brad check in!
Message-ID: <ED1341271ABF413FA75471BB074EFDBE@YOURB88038198E>

Brad,

Tell us you were not in the far east.

Ed K
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Sun Mar 22 20:55:17 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 2009 19:55:17 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Brad check in!
In-Reply-To: <ED1341271ABF413FA75471BB074EFDBE@YOURB88038198E>
References: <ED1341271ABF413FA75471BB074EFDBE@YOURB88038198E>
Message-ID: <400985d70903221755o616c784btfd88cdb20d69cbb3@mail.gmail.com>

Ed,

Spent last night lost on Bourbon Street in New Orleans.  Spent today
lost on a big time 'mother of all carbon footprint' boats out to Ship
Island near Gulfport, MS with big brother and business partner,
Brother Gary and a fellow contractor and his wife.  I'm back in NOLA
(Sunday night) on my last of the "last nights" in the DC-10.  The new,
new Far East tour won't start till this fall.  I'll rejoin the world
starting tomorrow morning with some new directions.  The third week of
April I'm headed back to Orlando as a guest participant of the
Advanced Baron Seminar (twin-engine version of my personal airplane)
and I need to "brush-up" a bit since I haven't flown a Baron in 27
years. These guys are all wealthy Baron owners and expect something
other than standard BS for their money. All this time off is killing
me!

Brad

2009/3/22 Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net>:
> Brad,
>
> Tell us you were not in the far east.
>
> Ed K
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>

From flybrad at gmail.com  Sun Mar 22 21:42:13 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 2009 20:42:13 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Brad check in!
In-Reply-To: <ED1341271ABF413FA75471BB074EFDBE@YOURB88038198E>
References: <ED1341271ABF413FA75471BB074EFDBE@YOURB88038198E>
Message-ID: <400985d70903221842y781ff3b3mecd589621910ec87@mail.gmail.com>

Ed,

Now I'm up to speed - my contractor friend just called me and alerted
me about the news.

Pray for the families.

Brad

2009/3/22 Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net>:
> Brad,
>
> Tell us you were not in the far east.
>
> Ed K
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>

From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Sun Mar 22 22:10:34 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 2009 21:10:34 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Brad check in!
In-Reply-To: <400985d70903221755o616c784btfd88cdb20d69cbb3@mail.gmail.com>
References: <ED1341271ABF413FA75471BB074EFDBE@YOURB88038198E>
	<400985d70903221755o616c784btfd88cdb20d69cbb3@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6634e19e0903221910p1d2af31w6749a01e42473184@mail.gmail.com>

Ed, Brad,

What'd I miss?

Rik

On Sun, Mar 22, 2009 at 7:55 PM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:

> Ed,
>
> Spent last night lost on Bourbon Street in New Orleans.  Spent today
> lost on a big time 'mother of all carbon footprint' boats out to Ship
> Island near Gulfport, MS with big brother and business partner,
> Brother Gary and a fellow contractor and his wife.  I'm back in NOLA
> (Sunday night) on my last of the "last nights" in the DC-10.  The new,
> new Far East tour won't start till this fall.  I'll rejoin the world
> starting tomorrow morning with some new directions.  The third week of
> April I'm headed back to Orlando as a guest participant of the
> Advanced Baron Seminar (twin-engine version of my personal airplane)
> and I need to "brush-up" a bit since I haven't flown a Baron in 27
> years. These guys are all wealthy Baron owners and expect something
> other than standard BS for their money. All this time off is killing
> me!
>
> Brad
>
> 2009/3/22 Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net>:
> > Brad,
> >
> > Tell us you were not in the far east.
> >
> > Ed K
> > _______________________________________________
> > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> >
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> >
> >
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Sun Mar 22 22:28:45 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 2009 21:28:45 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Brad check in!
In-Reply-To: <6634e19e0903221910p1d2af31w6749a01e42473184@mail.gmail.com>
References: <ED1341271ABF413FA75471BB074EFDBE@YOURB88038198E>
	<400985d70903221755o616c784btfd88cdb20d69cbb3@mail.gmail.com>
	<6634e19e0903221910p1d2af31w6749a01e42473184@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70903221928v6f13143ch822a482773dce437@mail.gmail.com>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6cMK9LUnzI

Rik,  you know as much now as I know.  No word yet on who the crew
members were - Japanese news confirms both dead.  The industry boards
don't have any info except high winds - 47 knots - no info on the
crosswind component.  The MD-11 is the same airplane as mine but with
computers to replace the third man.  This will be our first fatality
in 36 years of flying.

I'm going out on the town - update first thing in the morning.

Brad

2009/3/22 Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com>:
> Ed, Brad,
>
> What'd I miss?
>
> Rik
>
> On Sun, Mar 22, 2009 at 7:55 PM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Ed,
>>
>> Spent last night lost on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. ?Spent today
>> lost on a big time 'mother of all carbon footprint' boats out to Ship
>> Island near Gulfport, MS with big brother and business partner,
>> Brother Gary and a fellow contractor and his wife. ?I'm back in NOLA
>> (Sunday night) on my last of the "last nights" in the DC-10. ?The new,
>> new Far East tour won't start till this fall. ?I'll rejoin the world
>> starting tomorrow morning with some new directions. ?The third week of
>> April I'm headed back to Orlando as a guest participant of the
>> Advanced Baron Seminar (twin-engine version of my personal airplane)
>> and I need to "brush-up" a bit since I haven't flown a Baron in 27
>> years. These guys are all wealthy Baron owners and expect something
>> other than standard BS for their money. All this time off is killing
>> me!
>>
>> Brad
>>
>> 2009/3/22 Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net>:
>> > Brad,
>> >
>> > Tell us you were not in the far east.
>> >
>> > Ed K
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>> >
>> > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>> >
>> >
>> _______________________________________________
>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>>
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>


From flybrad at gmail.com  Mon Mar 23 11:06:59 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 10:06:59 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Brad check in!
In-Reply-To: <400985d70903221928v6f13143ch822a482773dce437@mail.gmail.com>
References: <ED1341271ABF413FA75471BB074EFDBE@YOURB88038198E>
	<400985d70903221755o616c784btfd88cdb20d69cbb3@mail.gmail.com>
	<6634e19e0903221910p1d2af31w6749a01e42473184@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70903221928v6f13143ch822a482773dce437@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70903230806v59d32435r758ef342f4f9f075@mail.gmail.com>

Here's the update - there is no update.  An MD-11 crashed on landing
and the pilots were killed.  Call me back in two years and I'll tell
you the whole story.  God be with the wife and children of the pilots
'Gone West'.

Brad

On Sun, Mar 22, 2009 at 9:28 PM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6cMK9LUnzI
>
> Rik, ?you know as much now as I know. ?No word yet on who the crew
> members were - Japanese news confirms both dead. ?The industry boards
> don't have any info except high winds - 47 knots - no info on the
> crosswind component. ?The MD-11 is the same airplane as mine but with
> computers to replace the third man. ?This will be our first fatality
> in 36 years of flying.
>
> I'm going out on the town - update first thing in the morning.
>
> Brad
>
> 2009/3/22 Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com>:
>> Ed, Brad,
>>
>> What'd I miss?
>>
>> Rik
>>
>> On Sun, Mar 22, 2009 at 7:55 PM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Ed,
>>>
>>> Spent last night lost on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. ?Spent today
>>> lost on a big time 'mother of all carbon footprint' boats out to Ship
>>> Island near Gulfport, MS with big brother and business partner,
>>> Brother Gary and a fellow contractor and his wife. ?I'm back in NOLA
>>> (Sunday night) on my last of the "last nights" in the DC-10. ?The new,
>>> new Far East tour won't start till this fall. ?I'll rejoin the world
>>> starting tomorrow morning with some new directions. ?The third week of
>>> April I'm headed back to Orlando as a guest participant of the
>>> Advanced Baron Seminar (twin-engine version of my personal airplane)
>>> and I need to "brush-up" a bit since I haven't flown a Baron in 27
>>> years. These guys are all wealthy Baron owners and expect something
>>> other than standard BS for their money. All this time off is killing
>>> me!
>>>
>>> Brad
>>>
>>> 2009/3/22 Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net>:
>>> > Brad,
>>> >
>>> > Tell us you were not in the far east.
>>> >
>>> > Ed K
>>> > _______________________________________________
>>> > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>>> > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>>> >
>>> > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>> >
>>> >
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>>>
>>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>
>>
>


From ragdollelle at yahoo.com  Mon Mar 23 12:20:03 2009
From: ragdollelle at yahoo.com (elle)
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 09:20:03 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Brad check in!
Message-ID: <245701.99225.qm@web111215.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>


Brad,

I feel great sorrow for the families of the pilots but am very glad you were not flying that plane.

elle

--- On Mon, 3/23/09, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Swiftwater Gazette] Brad check in!
> To: SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> Date: Monday, March 23, 2009, 11:06 AM
> Here's the update - there is no
> update.? An MD-11 crashed on landing
> and the pilots were killed.? Call me back in two years
> and I'll tell
> you the whole story.? God be with the wife and
> children of the pilots
> 'Gone West'.
> 
> Brad
> 
> On Sun, Mar 22, 2009 at 9:28 PM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6cMK9LUnzI
> >
> > Rik, ?you know as much now as I know. ?No word yet
> on who the crew
> > members were - Japanese news confirms both dead. ?The
> industry boards
> > don't have any info except high winds - 47 knots - no
> info on the
> > crosswind component. ?The MD-11 is the same airplane
> as mine but with
> > computers to replace the third man. ?This will be our
> first fatality
> > in 36 years of flying.
> >
> > I'm going out on the town - update first thing in the
> morning.
> >
> > Brad
> >
> > 2009/3/22 Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com>:
> >> Ed, Brad,
> >>
> >> What'd I miss?
> >>
> >> Rik
> >>
> >> On Sun, Mar 22, 2009 at 7:55 PM, Brad Haslett
> <flybrad at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Ed,
> >>>
> >>> Spent last night lost on Bourbon Street in New
> Orleans. ?Spent today
> >>> lost on a big time 'mother of all carbon
> footprint' boats out to Ship
> >>> Island near Gulfport, MS with big brother and
> business partner,
> >>> Brother Gary and a fellow contractor and his
> wife. ?I'm back in NOLA
> >>> (Sunday night) on my last of the "last nights"
> in the DC-10. ?The new,
> >>> new Far East tour won't start till this fall.
> ?I'll rejoin the world
> >>> starting tomorrow morning with some new
> directions. ?The third week of
> >>> April I'm headed back to Orlando as a guest
> participant of the
> >>> Advanced Baron Seminar (twin-engine version of
> my personal airplane)
> >>> and I need to "brush-up" a bit since I haven't
> flown a Baron in 27
> >>> years. These guys are all wealthy Baron owners
> and expect something
> >>> other than standard BS for their money. All
> this time off is killing
> >>> me!
> >>>
> >>> Brad
> >>>
> >>> 2009/3/22 Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net>:
> >>> > Brad,
> >>> >
> >>> > Tell us you were not in the far east.
> >>> >
> >>> > Ed K
> >>> >
> _______________________________________________
> >>> > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> >>> > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> >>> >
> >>> > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> >>> >
> >>> >
> >>>
> _______________________________________________
> >>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> >>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> >>>
> >>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> >>
> >>
> >
> 
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> 


      



From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Mon Mar 23 12:21:42 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 11:21:42 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] More reading for the messiah
Message-ID: <6634e19e0903230921p7e254b73q2f9af22cf01155fb@mail.gmail.com>

Good Morning All,

Found a good article this morning laying out the basics of where our gov'ts
policies should be directed during times like these. I doubt our Messiah
reads these people, in fact, it's pretty obvious he doesn't......  Sure wish
he would.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. We're headed down it at
increasingly reackless speeds.

Our gov'ts motto should be changed to "Do No Harm"

Rik

_________________________

http://mises.org/story/3373
A Free and Prosperous Commonwealth

*Mises Daily* by John P.
Cochran<http://mises.org/articles.aspx?AuthorId=224>| Posted on
3/20/2009 12:00:00 AM
[image: Breadline by George Segal] "Breadline"
life-sized statue by George Segal

In the *Wall Street Journal* of March 5, 2009, Daniel Henninger asks "Has
Obama Buried Reagan?"<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123621098187034487.html>While
much of the current debate has focused around stimulus and the current
crisis, Henninger argues that the correct response to the misguided stimulus
and the budget proposal that increases (estimates are based on a very rosy
forecast of economic growth) the measured size of the federal government
relative to GDP from 20% in 2007 to 27.7% for fiscal 2009 to 24.1% for 2010,
and then remaining higher than 22% for nearly a
decade,[1]<http://mises.org/story/3373#_edn1>is to "relearn the core
idea ? handed down ? by Ronald Reagan. That idea was
economic growth." A return to long-run thinking based on sound economic
principles and the fundamentals of classical liberalism is long overdue.

While much of the rhetoric defending and supporting the stimulus bill has
given the appearance that the "Democrats are willing to bet the entire US
economy on a 1931 theory known as the Keynesian multiplier," the crisis has
really given cover for a sweeping agenda to drastically enhance and grow the
role of government, especially the federal government.

Recessions come and go. The consequences can be temporarily tragic,
especially for those on the margins of the economy, but recession is also
the corrective phase that lays the foundation for a return to sustainable
growth.[2] <http://mises.org/story/3373#_edn2> Assuming current
interventions and policy mistakes (stimulus) do not rise to the 1929?1939
levels,[3] <http://mises.org/story/3373#_edn3> the current recession may be
a typical recession with a 1?3% decline in real GDP for 6 to 18 months,
followed by a return to healthy growth. These costs are insignificant
compared to the impact of policies that retard growth for
decades.[4]<http://mises.org/story/3373#_edn4>Based on the best theory
and supported by historical evidence, it must be
recognized that drastic change to the heart and core of the US economy ?
embedded in legislation already passed or moving through Congress ? is
clearly growth retarding.
 <http://www.mises.org/store/Economics-in-One-Lesson-P33.aspx>

First let's see what theory says about growth. Henninger's suggestion that
those seeking to articulate and defend a growth agenda should turn to
Hazlitt's *Economics in One
Lesson*<http://www.mises.org/store/Economics-in-One-Lesson-P33.aspx>or
Friedman's
*Free to Choose <http://books.google.com/books?id=_e3aAj66xZQC>* is
acceptable. However, Ludwig von Mises has provided an even better starting
point for generating a "free and prosperous commonwealth." It is *Liberalism:
A Socio-Economic Exposition<http://www.mises.org/store/Liberalism-P280.aspx>
*.[5] <http://mises.org/story/3373#_edn5>

The book is a blueprint for and a defense of a social order based on
voluntary social cooperation through a free market where the "sphere of the
conduct of the affairs of state" is a "system of representative" but limited
government. Mises believed that government had a key but limited role in his
free and prosperous commonwealth.
<http://www.mises.org/store/Economic-Policy-Thoughts-for-Today-and-Tomorrow-P207.aspx>

In *Economic Policy: Thought for Today and
Tomorrow<http://www.mises.org/store/Economic-Policy-Thoughts-for-Today-and-Tomorrow-P207.aspx>
*, Mises argued that in this limited role, government "ought to do all the
things for which it is needed and for which it was established."

 Government ought to protect the individuals within the country against the
violent and fraudulent attacks of gangsters, and it should defend the
country against foreign enemies. These are the functions of government
within a free system, within the system of the market economy. (p. 37)

While a federal government that consumes 20% of GDP (as ours did in 2007) is
highly interventionist and far from the Misesian ideal, the significant
expansion envisioned by the current administration moves the country closer
to the boundary of socialism where, despite a democratic foundation, the
government becomes totalitarian: "nothing is outside its sphere and
jurisdiction."

What does history tell us about the likely consequences of this budgetary
and regulatory expansion, which includes significant nonbudgeted costs to
business and the private sector? Two studies from the late 1990s are
informative. In a 1998 *Cato Journal* paper (vol. 18, no. 2, pp. 163?190),
Gwartney, Holcombe, and Lawson examine "The Scope of Government and the
Wealth of Nations."[image: Download
PDF]<http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj18n2/cj18n2%E2%80%931.pdf>Also
in 1998, Richard K. Vedder and Lowell E. Gallaway prepared a report
for
the Joint Economic Committee, then chaired by Jim Saxton, titled "Government
Size and Economic Growth<http://www.house.gov/jec/growth/govtsize/govtsize.htm>
."

Both studies begin with the idea that some government is necessary. A
limited-range provision of services by government and even expansion of
these services may enhance economic growth. Vedder and Gallaway adopt a
framework around a concept called the "Armey
Curve."[6]<http://mises.org/story/3373#_edn6>Output will be low and
growth very limited in the absence of a system of
rule of law and protection from external predators. Output may be low and
growth nonexistent where government monopolizes the allocation of resources
and other economic decisions. Per the argument, the provision of limited and
proper government services at first enhances economic growth and development
under conditions of diminishing returns. Further expansion of government,
enhanced by expansion into things government cannot do well, leads to
negative returns ? government reduces growth or growth potential.

Gwartney et al. make a similar argument, again consistent with Mises, using
the concept of core functions of government. Their core is limited, but
slightly broader than Mises's; it includes, in addition to Mises's
protection from plunder and fraud, a "provision of a limited set of goods
that for various reasons markets may find it difficult to provide."
Following their analysis, provision of core functions of government enhances
growth, while expansion of government beyond the core eventually retards
growth.

What conclusions can we draw from these studies about growth prospects for
the future of the US economy? Gwartney et al. conclude, "[t]he findings of
this paper show a strong and persistent negative relationship between
government expenditures and growth of GDP, both for the developed countries
of the OECD and for a larger set of 60 nations around the world." They add
that "increases in the size of government have slowed economic growth. More
rapid growth is possible, but higher potential growth can only be achieved
if we are willing to reduce the relative size of government."

Their results suggest growth in government expenditures relative to GDP of
10% reduces the growth rate of GDP by about 1%. Gallaway and Vedder come to
very similar conclusions. In a study based on US historical data on federal
spending as a percent of GDP, they find that the "Armey Curve" peaks when
federal spending equals about 17.45% of GDP. Based on their study, every 1%
increase of the spending-to-GDP ratio beyond this point, by my calculation,
results in a 0.375% decrease in the growth rate of GDP.

Besides the enormous debt burden the current deficit-financed expansion of
government imposes on our grandchildren, what is the potential impact on
future living standards? According to the March 5, 2009, *Wall Street
Journal*, the budget assumes the recession is mild and ends this year with a
decline in real GDP of 1.2%. Growth resumes at 3.2% for 2010 and is cooking
at 4% by 2010?2013. Currently we have a nearly 14.3 trillion dollar economy.
If the economy actually grew at 4% on average for a ten-year period, GDP
would be $21.15 trillion in constant dollars. But, even estimating on the
low side, federal spending will be increased from 20% to 22% of GDP; this
would reduce the average growth rate by 0.75. Growth would be not 4% but
3.25%, resulting in a GDP of not $21.15 trillion but only $19.68 trillion ?
or an almost 6.9% decrease over what growth would have been if federal
outlays had remained at 20%.

Over the same period, our population of approximately 306 million people is
expected to grow to approximately 334 million based on 0.9% projected growth
rate. This would represent a decline in real per capita GDP of approximately
$4,400 in just the tenth year alone. The *Wall Street Journal* predicts (and
as any reasonable person would expect, based on past expansions of
government) that the cost per person in lost welfare could be significantly
more. *The cost in lost freedom may be immeasurable.*

Even if the current stimulus and budget proposal have short-term benefits in
terms of measured GDP, the results will be temporary. And, by these
estimates, they would come at a significant long-run cost to the economy.
This estimate of lost welfare is most likely significantly on the low side.
The current recession is beginning its fifteenth month, one month less than
the 1981?1982 recession and with less significant job loss to date. There
has also been less significant job loss than during the 1973?1975 recession,
which also lasted 16 months.

As pointed out in the *Wall Street Journal* "Review and
Outlook"<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123629834716846367.html>of
March 6, 2009, "Recessions don't last forever, but bad policies can
prolong the pain."

While the current interventions and policy mistakes (stimulus) aimed at
easing the pain of the recession and stimulating recovery have not as yet
risen to the 1929?1939 levels, the plan has little in it to encourage
private-sector recovery.

Recovery and growth are impeded, not stimulated, by the threat of less
competitive labor markets, regulatory uncertainty, cap-and-trade energy
policy, the threat of increased protectionism, certain higher tax burdens in
the future, especially on capital income, and the use of the tax system
explicitly for purposes of redistribution of income.

The threat of massive inflation is real and significant. Economic responses
to past policy shifts that are similar in nature are not encouraging. The
Great Society of Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s brought us the stagnation and
inflation of the 1970s and early 1980s. Japan endured a decade-long slump.
[7] <http://mises.org/story/3373#_edn7> And, as Michael Boskin reminds us in
"Obama's Radicalism is Killing the
Dow"<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123629969453946717.html>(
*Wall Street Journal*, March 6, 2009), "On the growth effects of a large
expansion of government, the European social welfare states present a window
on our potential future: standards of living permanently 30% lower than
ours."

The correct road to recovery is the path to a "free and prosperous
commonwealth."
 <http://www.mises.org/store/Liberalism-P280.aspx>

$30 $24 <http://www.mises.org/store/Liberalism-P280.aspx>

Such a path would include a return to sound money, competitive markets, and
the rule of law with a total level of government spending and tax burden
that, as suggested by Gwartney et al.*,* is no more than 15% of GDP.

Mises would most likely go even lower.

As Adam Smith put it many years ago in a 1755 paper,

 Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence
from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable
administration of justice; all the rest being brought about the natural
course of things. All governments which thwart this natural course, which
force things into another channel or which endeavor to arrest the progress
of society at a particular point, are unnatural, and to support themselves
are obliged to be oppressive and tyrannical.

We owe our children and grandchildren better. We owe them a free and
prosperous commonwealth. History and theory show us the way to achieve both.
John Cochran is dean of the Business School at Metropolitan State College of
Denver.
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From tootle at charter.net  Mon Mar 23 19:51:32 2009
From: tootle at charter.net (tootle)
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 19:51:32 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Comment on Sec't of Treasury...
Message-ID: <067D0BD8780D4283B36AE2D7F7C60868@YOURB88038198E>

See this utube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAdJLLmpWBU&feature=channel_page

Ed k
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Tue Mar 24 01:53:31 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2009 00:53:31 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] More reading for the messiah
In-Reply-To: <6634e19e0903230921p7e254b73q2f9af22cf01155fb@mail.gmail.com>
References: <6634e19e0903230921p7e254b73q2f9af22cf01155fb@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70903232253x9ddb264j6c8ab21797aa4891@mail.gmail.com>

Rik,

The Chinese don't buy it and why should they?  This is nonsense.  OK
everyone, congratulate yourself for electing the first affirmative
action President.  Now can we get serious and end this nonsense?

Brad

----------------

China calls for new reserve currency

By Jamil Anderlini in Beijing

Published: March 23 2009 12:16 | Last updated: March 24 2009 00:06

China?s central bank on Monday proposed replacing the US dollar as the
international reserve currency with a new global system controlled by
the International Monetary Fund.

In an essay posted on the People?s Bank of China?s website, Zhou
Xiaochuan, the central bank?s governor, said the goal would be to
create a reserve currency ?that is disconnected from individual
nations and is able to remain stable in the long run, thus removing
the inherent deficiencies caused by using credit-based national
currencies?.

Analysts said the proposal was an indication of Beijing?s fears that
actions being taken to save the domestic US economy would have a
negative impact on China.

?This is a clear sign that China, as the largest holder of US dollar
financial assets, is concerned about the potential inflationary risk
of the US Federal Reserve printing money,? said Qu Hongbin, chief
China economist for HSBC.

Although Mr Zhou did not mention the US dollar, the essay gave a
pointed critique of the current dollar-dominated monetary system.

?The outbreak of the [current] crisis and its spillover to the entire
world reflected the inherent vulnerabilities and systemic risks in the
existing international monetary system,? Mr Zhou wrote.

China has little choice but to hold the bulk of its $2,000bn of
foreign exchange reserves in US dollars, and this is unlikely to
change in the near future.

To replace the current system, Mr Zhou suggested expanding the role of
special drawing rights, which were introduced by the IMF in 1969 to
support the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate regime but became less
relevant once that collapsed in the 1970s.

Today, the value of SDRs is based on a basket of four currencies ? the
US dollar, yen, euro and sterling ? and they are used largely as a
unit of account by the IMF and some other international organisations.

China?s proposal would expand the basket of currencies forming the
basis of SDR valuation to all major economies and set up a settlement
system between SDRs and other currencies so they could be used in
international trade and financial transactions.

Countries would entrust a portion of their SDR reserves to the IMF to
manage collectively on their behalf and SDRs would gradually replace
existing reserve currencies.

Mr Zhou said the proposal would require ?extraordinary political
vision and courage? and acknowledged a debt to John Maynard Keynes,
who made a similar suggestion in the 1940s.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009

2009/3/23 Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com>:
> Good Morning All,
>
> Found a good article this morning laying out the basics of where our gov'ts
> policies should be directed during times like these. I doubt our Messiah
> reads these people, in fact, it's pretty obvious he doesn't......? Sure wish
> he would.
>
> The road to hell is paved with good intentions. We're headed down it at
> increasingly reackless speeds.
>
> Our gov'ts motto should be changed to "Do No Harm"
>
> Rik
>
> _________________________
>
> http://mises.org/story/3373
>
> A Free and Prosperous Commonwealth
>
> Mises Daily by John P. Cochran | Posted on 3/20/2009 12:00:00 AM
>
> "Breadline"
> life-sized statue by George Segal
>
> In the Wall Street Journal of March 5, 2009, Daniel Henninger asks "Has
> Obama Buried Reagan?" While much of the current debate has focused around
> stimulus and the current crisis, Henninger argues that the correct response
> to the misguided stimulus and the budget proposal that increases (estimates
> are based on a very rosy forecast of economic growth) the measured size of
> the federal government relative to GDP from 20% in 2007 to 27.7% for fiscal
> 2009 to 24.1% for 2010, and then remaining higher than 22% for nearly a
> decade,[1] is to "relearn the core idea ? handed down ? by Ronald Reagan.
> That idea was economic growth." A return to long-run thinking based on sound
> economic principles and the fundamentals of classical liberalism is long
> overdue.
>
> While much of the rhetoric defending and supporting the stimulus bill has
> given the appearance that the "Democrats are willing to bet the entire US
> economy on a 1931 theory known as the Keynesian multiplier," the crisis has
> really given cover for a sweeping agenda to drastically enhance and grow the
> role of government, especially the federal government.
>
> Recessions come and go. The consequences can be temporarily tragic,
> especially for those on the margins of the economy, but recession is also
> the corrective phase that lays the foundation for a return to sustainable
> growth.[2] Assuming current interventions and policy mistakes (stimulus) do
> not rise to the 1929?1939 levels,[3] the current recession may be a typical
> recession with a 1?3% decline in real GDP for 6 to 18 months, followed by a
> return to healthy growth. These costs are insignificant compared to the
> impact of policies that retard growth for decades.[4] Based on the best
> theory and supported by historical evidence, it must be recognized that
> drastic change to the heart and core of the US economy ? embedded in
> legislation already passed or moving through Congress ? is clearly growth
> retarding.
>
> First let's see what theory says about growth. Henninger's suggestion that
> those seeking to articulate and defend a growth agenda should turn to
> Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson or Friedman's Free to Choose is
> acceptable. However, Ludwig von Mises has provided an even better starting
> point for generating a "free and prosperous commonwealth." It is Liberalism:
> A Socio-Economic Exposition.[5]
>
> The book is a blueprint for and a defense of a social order based on
> voluntary social cooperation through a free market where the "sphere of the
> conduct of the affairs of state" is a "system of representative" but limited
> government. Mises believed that government had a key but limited role in his
> free and prosperous commonwealth.
>
> In Economic Policy: Thought for Today and Tomorrow, Mises argued that in
> this limited role, government "ought to do all the things for which it is
> needed and for which it was established."
>
> Government ought to protect the individuals within the country against the
> violent and fraudulent attacks of gangsters, and it should defend the
> country against foreign enemies. These are the functions of government
> within a free system, within the system of the market economy. (p. 37)
>
> While a federal government that consumes 20% of GDP (as ours did in 2007) is
> highly interventionist and far from the Misesian ideal, the significant
> expansion envisioned by the current administration moves the country closer
> to the boundary of socialism where, despite a democratic foundation, the
> government becomes totalitarian: "nothing is outside its sphere and
> jurisdiction."
>
> What does history tell us about the likely consequences of this budgetary
> and regulatory expansion, which includes significant nonbudgeted costs to
> business and the private sector? Two studies from the late 1990s are
> informative. In a 1998 Cato Journal paper (vol. 18, no. 2, pp. 163?190),
> Gwartney, Holcombe, and Lawson examine "The Scope of Government and the
> Wealth of Nations." Also in 1998, Richard K. Vedder and Lowell E. Gallaway
> prepared a report for the Joint Economic Committee, then chaired by Jim
> Saxton, titled "Government Size and Economic Growth."
>
> Both studies begin with the idea that some government is necessary. A
> limited-range provision of services by government and even expansion of
> these services may enhance economic growth. Vedder and Gallaway adopt a
> framework around a concept called the "Armey Curve."[6] Output will be low
> and growth very limited in the absence of a system of rule of law and
> protection from external predators. Output may be low and growth nonexistent
> where government monopolizes the allocation of resources and other economic
> decisions. Per the argument, the provision of limited and proper government
> services at first enhances economic growth and development under conditions
> of diminishing returns. Further expansion of government, enhanced by
> expansion into things government cannot do well, leads to negative returns ?
> government reduces growth or growth potential.
>
> Gwartney et al. make a similar argument, again consistent with Mises, using
> the concept of core functions of government. Their core is limited, but
> slightly broader than Mises's; it includes, in addition to Mises's
> protection from plunder and fraud, a "provision of a limited set of goods
> that for various reasons markets may find it difficult to provide."
> Following their analysis, provision of core functions of government enhances
> growth, while expansion of government beyond the core eventually retards
> growth.
>
> What conclusions can we draw from these studies about growth prospects for
> the future of the US economy? Gwartney et al. conclude, "[t]he findings of
> this paper show a strong and persistent negative relationship between
> government expenditures and growth of GDP, both for the developed countries
> of the OECD and for a larger set of 60 nations around the world." They add
> that "increases in the size of government have slowed economic growth. More
> rapid growth is possible, but higher potential growth can only be achieved
> if we are willing to reduce the relative size of government."
>
> Their results suggest growth in government expenditures relative to GDP of
> 10% reduces the growth rate of GDP by about 1%. Gallaway and Vedder come to
> very similar conclusions. In a study based on US historical data on federal
> spending as a percent of GDP, they find that the "Armey Curve" peaks when
> federal spending equals about 17.45% of GDP. Based on their study, every 1%
> increase of the spending-to-GDP ratio beyond this point, by my calculation,
> results in a 0.375% decrease in the growth rate of GDP.
>
> Besides the enormous debt burden the current deficit-financed expansion of
> government imposes on our grandchildren, what is the potential impact on
> future living standards? According to the March 5, 2009, Wall Street
> Journal, the budget assumes the recession is mild and ends this year with a
> decline in real GDP of 1.2%. Growth resumes at 3.2% for 2010 and is cooking
> at 4% by 2010?2013. Currently we have a nearly 14.3 trillion dollar economy.
> If the economy actually grew at 4% on average for a ten-year period, GDP
> would be $21.15 trillion in constant dollars. But, even estimating on the
> low side, federal spending will be increased from 20% to 22% of GDP; this
> would reduce the average growth rate by 0.75. Growth would be not 4% but
> 3.25%, resulting in a GDP of not $21.15 trillion but only $19.68 trillion ?
> or an almost 6.9% decrease over what growth would have been if federal
> outlays had remained at 20%.
>
> Over the same period, our population of approximately 306 million people is
> expected to grow to approximately 334 million based on 0.9% projected growth
> rate. This would represent a decline in real per capita GDP of approximately
> $4,400 in just the tenth year alone. The Wall Street Journal predicts (and
> as any reasonable person would expect, based on past expansions of
> government) that the cost per person in lost welfare could be significantly
> more. The cost in lost freedom may be immeasurable.
>
> Even if the current stimulus and budget proposal have short-term benefits in
> terms of measured GDP, the results will be temporary. And, by these
> estimates, they would come at a significant long-run cost to the economy.
> This estimate of lost welfare is most likely significantly on the low side.
> The current recession is beginning its fifteenth month, one month less than
> the 1981?1982 recession and with less significant job loss to date. There
> has also been less significant job loss than during the 1973?1975 recession,
> which also lasted 16 months.
>
> As pointed out in the Wall Street Journal "Review and Outlook" of March 6,
> 2009, "Recessions don't last forever, but bad policies can prolong the
> pain."
>
> While the current interventions and policy mistakes (stimulus) aimed at
> easing the pain of the recession and stimulating recovery have not as yet
> risen to the 1929?1939 levels, the plan has little in it to encourage
> private-sector recovery.
>
> Recovery and growth are impeded, not stimulated, by the threat of less
> competitive labor markets, regulatory uncertainty, cap-and-trade energy
> policy, the threat of increased protectionism, certain higher tax burdens in
> the future, especially on capital income, and the use of the tax system
> explicitly for purposes of redistribution of income.
>
> The threat of massive inflation is real and significant. Economic responses
> to past policy shifts that are similar in nature are not encouraging. The
> Great Society of Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s brought us the stagnation and
> inflation of the 1970s and early 1980s. Japan endured a decade-long
> slump.[7] And, as Michael Boskin reminds us in "Obama's Radicalism is
> Killing the Dow" (Wall Street Journal, March 6, 2009), "On the growth
> effects of a large expansion of government, the European social welfare
> states present a window on our potential future: standards of living
> permanently 30% lower than ours."
>
> The correct road to recovery is the path to a "free and prosperous
> commonwealth."
>
> $30 $24
>
> Such a path would include a return to sound money, competitive markets, and
> the rule of law with a total level of government spending and tax burden
> that, as suggested by Gwartney et al., is no more than 15% of GDP.
>
> Mises would most likely go even lower.
>
> As Adam Smith put it many years ago in a 1755 paper,
>
> Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence
> from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable
> administration of justice; all the rest being brought about the natural
> course of things. All governments which thwart this natural course, which
> force things into another channel or which endeavor to arrest the progress
> of society at a particular point, are unnatural, and to support themselves
> are obliged to be oppressive and tyrannical.
>
> We owe our children and grandchildren better. We owe them a free and
> prosperous commonwealth. History and theory show us the way to achieve both.
>
> John Cochran is dean of the Business School at Metropolitan State College of
> Denver.
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>


From flybrad at gmail.com  Tue Mar 24 04:58:25 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2009 03:58:25 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Brad check in!
In-Reply-To: <245701.99225.qm@web111215.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
References: <245701.99225.qm@web111215.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70903240158p1e5615f7ld1e745c1f732561f@mail.gmail.com>

Elle,

Flying is supposed to be safe - it is safe.  It is one of the most
boring professions one could choose and not nearly as challenging as
something like teaching school.  Teaching flying is a bit more
interesting but still basically boring.  It is supposed to be that
way, otherwise, no one would climb on an airplane.  That said, the
number one killer is complacency, and number two is brief moments of
neglect.  I have no idea what happened here and won't know for at
least two years. Luck threw me a sweet deal over the weekend with one
more trip in the DC-10 to New Orleans.  We had a ball on the boat we
took out yesterday and every day I get to spend laughing with my
brother is a day spent in paradise. We'd probably be wealthy if we
could stop giggling for five minutes.

I feel so bad for the families.  You worry about flyers when they go
off to war and get shot at (most of my contemporaries are Vietnam War
and Gulf War 1 guys) and now I fly with a lot of 'kids' who are Gulf
War 2 vets.  You are supposed to go to work at your civilian job and
come home at the end of the day.

What is it about this teacher thing that is so alluring?  I've been
out of instructing for two weeks and am already 'busting my ass' to
put together 15 minutes of material for the seminar I'm teaching in
three weeks as a volunteer. Faking being President of the United
States would be an easier task!

Brad

On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 11:20 AM, elle <ragdollelle at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Brad,
>
> I feel great sorrow for the families of the pilots but am very glad you were not flying that plane.
>
> elle
>
> --- On Mon, 3/23/09, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> From: Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com>
>> Subject: Re: [Swiftwater Gazette] Brad check in!
>> To: SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>> Date: Monday, March 23, 2009, 11:06 AM
>> Here's the update - there is no
>> update.? An MD-11 crashed on landing
>> and the pilots were killed.? Call me back in two years
>> and I'll tell
>> you the whole story.? God be with the wife and
>> children of the pilots
>> 'Gone West'.
>>
>> Brad
>>
>> On Sun, Mar 22, 2009 at 9:28 PM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6cMK9LUnzI
>> >
>> > Rik, ?you know as much now as I know. ?No word yet
>> on who the crew
>> > members were - Japanese news confirms both dead. ?The
>> industry boards
>> > don't have any info except high winds - 47 knots - no
>> info on the
>> > crosswind component. ?The MD-11 is the same airplane
>> as mine but with
>> > computers to replace the third man. ?This will be our
>> first fatality
>> > in 36 years of flying.
>> >
>> > I'm going out on the town - update first thing in the
>> morning.
>> >
>> > Brad
>> >
>> > 2009/3/22 Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com>:
>> >> Ed, Brad,
>> >>
>> >> What'd I miss?
>> >>
>> >> Rik
>> >>
>> >> On Sun, Mar 22, 2009 at 7:55 PM, Brad Haslett
>> <flybrad at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>> Ed,
>> >>>
>> >>> Spent last night lost on Bourbon Street in New
>> Orleans. ?Spent today
>> >>> lost on a big time 'mother of all carbon
>> footprint' boats out to Ship
>> >>> Island near Gulfport, MS with big brother and
>> business partner,
>> >>> Brother Gary and a fellow contractor and his
>> wife. ?I'm back in NOLA
>> >>> (Sunday night) on my last of the "last nights"
>> in the DC-10. ?The new,
>> >>> new Far East tour won't start till this fall.
>> ?I'll rejoin the world
>> >>> starting tomorrow morning with some new
>> directions. ?The third week of
>> >>> April I'm headed back to Orlando as a guest
>> participant of the
>> >>> Advanced Baron Seminar (twin-engine version of
>> my personal airplane)
>> >>> and I need to "brush-up" a bit since I haven't
>> flown a Baron in 27
>> >>> years. These guys are all wealthy Baron owners
>> and expect something
>> >>> other than standard BS for their money. All
>> this time off is killing
>> >>> me!
>> >>>
>> >>> Brad
>> >>>
>> >>> 2009/3/22 Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net>:
>> >>> > Brad,
>> >>> >
>> >>> > Tell us you were not in the far east.
>> >>> >
>> >>> > Ed K
>> >>> >
>> _______________________________________________
>> >>> > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> >>> > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>> >>> >
>> >>> > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>> >>> >
>> >>> >
>> >>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> >>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> >>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>> >>>
>> >>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> _______________________________________________
>> >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>> >>
>> >>
>> >
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
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>>
>
>
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>
>
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From ekroposki at charter.net  Tue Mar 24 07:32:16 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2009 07:32:16 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] New international monetary exchange
Message-ID: <4A97D62B42F149D4AEC449A13695AD4F@YOURB88038198E>

Brad:

And would this new exchange be run by people with integrity like Geitner, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid???

Ed K
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From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Tue Mar 24 09:52:55 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2009 08:52:55 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] More reading for the messiah
In-Reply-To: <400985d70903232253x9ddb264j6c8ab21797aa4891@mail.gmail.com>
References: <6634e19e0903230921p7e254b73q2f9af22cf01155fb@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70903232253x9ddb264j6c8ab21797aa4891@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6634e19e0903240652l59d2e373p7bbe7812d8d703e0@mail.gmail.com>

Brad,

I sittin' here trying to think of one good reason why we'd want to be
involved in that ..... can't come up with one.

Next they'll be wantin' a world king.

I sure can empathize with the Chinese. I'd be nervous in their position too.
But hey, in the states, people paid too much for houses for a few years
thinking they could only appreciate.... they didn't. Nobody had a gun at the
head of the Chinese when they bought all our debt, thinking it could only
appreciate ....

You pays your money, you takes your chances.

I wonder, over all the years, how much bad debt we in the US have written
off from damned near every other country in the world. seems like what goes
round comes round, eh. If I were the Chinese, I wouldn't be bettin' my last
buck on the Euro either. Let's face it, a fiat currency is only going to be
stable as long as legislators are responsible, which as we know, is only
until they are elected.

Rik

On Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 12:53 AM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:

> Rik,
>
> The Chinese don't buy it and why should they?  This is nonsense.  OK
> everyone, congratulate yourself for electing the first affirmative
> action President.  Now can we get serious and end this nonsense?
>
> Brad
>
> ----------------
>
> China calls for new reserve currency
>
> By Jamil Anderlini in Beijing
>
> Published: March 23 2009 12:16 | Last updated: March 24 2009 00:06
>
> China?s central bank on Monday proposed replacing the US dollar as the
> international reserve currency with a new global system controlled by
> the International Monetary Fund.
>
> In an essay posted on the People?s Bank of China?s website, Zhou
> Xiaochuan, the central bank?s governor, said the goal would be to
> create a reserve currency ?that is disconnected from individual
> nations and is able to remain stable in the long run, thus removing
> the inherent deficiencies caused by using credit-based national
> currencies?.
>
> Analysts said the proposal was an indication of Beijing?s fears that
> actions being taken to save the domestic US economy would have a
> negative impact on China.
>
> ?This is a clear sign that China, as the largest holder of US dollar
> financial assets, is concerned about the potential inflationary risk
> of the US Federal Reserve printing money,? said Qu Hongbin, chief
> China economist for HSBC.
>
> Although Mr Zhou did not mention the US dollar, the essay gave a
> pointed critique of the current dollar-dominated monetary system.
>
> ?The outbreak of the [current] crisis and its spillover to the entire
> world reflected the inherent vulnerabilities and systemic risks in the
> existing international monetary system,? Mr Zhou wrote.
>
> China has little choice but to hold the bulk of its $2,000bn of
> foreign exchange reserves in US dollars, and this is unlikely to
> change in the near future.
>
> To replace the current system, Mr Zhou suggested expanding the role of
> special drawing rights, which were introduced by the IMF in 1969 to
> support the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate regime but became less
> relevant once that collapsed in the 1970s.
>
> Today, the value of SDRs is based on a basket of four currencies ? the
> US dollar, yen, euro and sterling ? and they are used largely as a
> unit of account by the IMF and some other international organisations.
>
> China?s proposal would expand the basket of currencies forming the
> basis of SDR valuation to all major economies and set up a settlement
> system between SDRs and other currencies so they could be used in
> international trade and financial transactions.
>
> Countries would entrust a portion of their SDR reserves to the IMF to
> manage collectively on their behalf and SDRs would gradually replace
> existing reserve currencies.
>
> Mr Zhou said the proposal would require ?extraordinary political
> vision and courage? and acknowledged a debt to John Maynard Keynes,
> who made a similar suggestion in the 1940s.
>
> Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
>
> 2009/3/23 Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com>:
> > Good Morning All,
> >
> > Found a good article this morning laying out the basics of where our
> gov'ts
> > policies should be directed during times like these. I doubt our Messiah
> > reads these people, in fact, it's pretty obvious he doesn't......  Sure
> wish
> > he would.
> >
> > The road to hell is paved with good intentions. We're headed down it at
> > increasingly reackless speeds.
> >
> > Our gov'ts motto should be changed to "Do No Harm"
> >
> > Rik
> >
> > _________________________
> >
> > http://mises.org/story/3373
> >
> > A Free and Prosperous Commonwealth
> >
> > Mises Daily by John P. Cochran | Posted on 3/20/2009 12:00:00 AM
> >
> > "Breadline"
> > life-sized statue by George Segal
> >
> > In the Wall Street Journal of March 5, 2009, Daniel Henninger asks "Has
> > Obama Buried Reagan?" While much of the current debate has focused around
> > stimulus and the current crisis, Henninger argues that the correct
> response
> > to the misguided stimulus and the budget proposal that increases
> (estimates
> > are based on a very rosy forecast of economic growth) the measured size
> of
> > the federal government relative to GDP from 20% in 2007 to 27.7% for
> fiscal
> > 2009 to 24.1% for 2010, and then remaining higher than 22% for nearly a
> > decade,[1] is to "relearn the core idea ? handed down ? by Ronald Reagan.
> > That idea was economic growth." A return to long-run thinking based on
> sound
> > economic principles and the fundamentals of classical liberalism is long
> > overdue.
> >
> > While much of the rhetoric defending and supporting the stimulus bill has
> > given the appearance that the "Democrats are willing to bet the entire US
> > economy on a 1931 theory known as the Keynesian multiplier," the crisis
> has
> > really given cover for a sweeping agenda to drastically enhance and grow
> the
> > role of government, especially the federal government.
> >
> > Recessions come and go. The consequences can be temporarily tragic,
> > especially for those on the margins of the economy, but recession is also
> > the corrective phase that lays the foundation for a return to sustainable
> > growth.[2] Assuming current interventions and policy mistakes (stimulus)
> do
> > not rise to the 1929?1939 levels,[3] the current recession may be a
> typical
> > recession with a 1?3% decline in real GDP for 6 to 18 months, followed by
> a
> > return to healthy growth. These costs are insignificant compared to the
> > impact of policies that retard growth for decades.[4] Based on the best
> > theory and supported by historical evidence, it must be recognized that
> > drastic change to the heart and core of the US economy ? embedded in
> > legislation already passed or moving through Congress ? is clearly growth
> > retarding.
> >
> > First let's see what theory says about growth. Henninger's suggestion
> that
> > those seeking to articulate and defend a growth agenda should turn to
> > Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson or Friedman's Free to Choose is
> > acceptable. However, Ludwig von Mises has provided an even better
> starting
> > point for generating a "free and prosperous commonwealth." It is
> Liberalism:
> > A Socio-Economic Exposition.[5]
> >
> > The book is a blueprint for and a defense of a social order based on
> > voluntary social cooperation through a free market where the "sphere of
> the
> > conduct of the affairs of state" is a "system of representative" but
> limited
> > government. Mises believed that government had a key but limited role in
> his
> > free and prosperous commonwealth.
> >
> > In Economic Policy: Thought for Today and Tomorrow, Mises argued that in
> > this limited role, government "ought to do all the things for which it is
> > needed and for which it was established."
> >
> > Government ought to protect the individuals within the country against
> the
> > violent and fraudulent attacks of gangsters, and it should defend the
> > country against foreign enemies. These are the functions of government
> > within a free system, within the system of the market economy. (p. 37)
> >
> > While a federal government that consumes 20% of GDP (as ours did in 2007)
> is
> > highly interventionist and far from the Misesian ideal, the significant
> > expansion envisioned by the current administration moves the country
> closer
> > to the boundary of socialism where, despite a democratic foundation, the
> > government becomes totalitarian: "nothing is outside its sphere and
> > jurisdiction."
> >
> > What does history tell us about the likely consequences of this budgetary
> > and regulatory expansion, which includes significant nonbudgeted costs to
> > business and the private sector? Two studies from the late 1990s are
> > informative. In a 1998 Cato Journal paper (vol. 18, no. 2, pp. 163?190),
> > Gwartney, Holcombe, and Lawson examine "The Scope of Government and the
> > Wealth of Nations." Also in 1998, Richard K. Vedder and Lowell E.
> Gallaway
> > prepared a report for the Joint Economic Committee, then chaired by Jim
> > Saxton, titled "Government Size and Economic Growth."
> >
> > Both studies begin with the idea that some government is necessary. A
> > limited-range provision of services by government and even expansion of
> > these services may enhance economic growth. Vedder and Gallaway adopt a
> > framework around a concept called the "Armey Curve."[6] Output will be
> low
> > and growth very limited in the absence of a system of rule of law and
> > protection from external predators. Output may be low and growth
> nonexistent
> > where government monopolizes the allocation of resources and other
> economic
> > decisions. Per the argument, the provision of limited and proper
> government
> > services at first enhances economic growth and development under
> conditions
> > of diminishing returns. Further expansion of government, enhanced by
> > expansion into things government cannot do well, leads to negative
> returns ?
> > government reduces growth or growth potential.
> >
> > Gwartney et al. make a similar argument, again consistent with Mises,
> using
> > the concept of core functions of government. Their core is limited, but
> > slightly broader than Mises's; it includes, in addition to Mises's
> > protection from plunder and fraud, a "provision of a limited set of goods
> > that for various reasons markets may find it difficult to provide."
> > Following their analysis, provision of core functions of government
> enhances
> > growth, while expansion of government beyond the core eventually retards
> > growth.
> >
> > What conclusions can we draw from these studies about growth prospects
> for
> > the future of the US economy? Gwartney et al. conclude, "[t]he findings
> of
> > this paper show a strong and persistent negative relationship between
> > government expenditures and growth of GDP, both for the developed
> countries
> > of the OECD and for a larger set of 60 nations around the world." They
> add
> > that "increases in the size of government have slowed economic growth.
> More
> > rapid growth is possible, but higher potential growth can only be
> achieved
> > if we are willing to reduce the relative size of government."
> >
> > Their results suggest growth in government expenditures relative to GDP
> of
> > 10% reduces the growth rate of GDP by about 1%. Gallaway and Vedder come
> to
> > very similar conclusions. In a study based on US historical data on
> federal
> > spending as a percent of GDP, they find that the "Armey Curve" peaks when
> > federal spending equals about 17.45% of GDP. Based on their study, every
> 1%
> > increase of the spending-to-GDP ratio beyond this point, by my
> calculation,
> > results in a 0.375% decrease in the growth rate of GDP.
> >
> > Besides the enormous debt burden the current deficit-financed expansion
> of
> > government imposes on our grandchildren, what is the potential impact on
> > future living standards? According to the March 5, 2009, Wall Street
> > Journal, the budget assumes the recession is mild and ends this year with
> a
> > decline in real GDP of 1.2%. Growth resumes at 3.2% for 2010 and is
> cooking
> > at 4% by 2010?2013. Currently we have a nearly 14.3 trillion dollar
> economy.
> > If the economy actually grew at 4% on average for a ten-year period, GDP
> > would be $21.15 trillion in constant dollars. But, even estimating on the
> > low side, federal spending will be increased from 20% to 22% of GDP; this
> > would reduce the average growth rate by 0.75. Growth would be not 4% but
> > 3.25%, resulting in a GDP of not $21.15 trillion but only $19.68 trillion
> ?
> > or an almost 6.9% decrease over what growth would have been if federal
> > outlays had remained at 20%.
> >
> > Over the same period, our population of approximately 306 million people
> is
> > expected to grow to approximately 334 million based on 0.9% projected
> growth
> > rate. This would represent a decline in real per capita GDP of
> approximately
> > $4,400 in just the tenth year alone. The Wall Street Journal predicts
> (and
> > as any reasonable person would expect, based on past expansions of
> > government) that the cost per person in lost welfare could be
> significantly
> > more. The cost in lost freedom may be immeasurable.
> >
> > Even if the current stimulus and budget proposal have short-term benefits
> in
> > terms of measured GDP, the results will be temporary. And, by these
> > estimates, they would come at a significant long-run cost to the economy.
> > This estimate of lost welfare is most likely significantly on the low
> side.
> > The current recession is beginning its fifteenth month, one month less
> than
> > the 1981?1982 recession and with less significant job loss to date. There
> > has also been less significant job loss than during the 1973?1975
> recession,
> > which also lasted 16 months.
> >
> > As pointed out in the Wall Street Journal "Review and Outlook" of March
> 6,
> > 2009, "Recessions don't last forever, but bad policies can prolong the
> > pain."
> >
> > While the current interventions and policy mistakes (stimulus) aimed at
> > easing the pain of the recession and stimulating recovery have not as yet
> > risen to the 1929?1939 levels, the plan has little in it to encourage
> > private-sector recovery.
> >
> > Recovery and growth are impeded, not stimulated, by the threat of less
> > competitive labor markets, regulatory uncertainty, cap-and-trade energy
> > policy, the threat of increased protectionism, certain higher tax burdens
> in
> > the future, especially on capital income, and the use of the tax system
> > explicitly for purposes of redistribution of income.
> >
> > The threat of massive inflation is real and significant. Economic
> responses
> > to past policy shifts that are similar in nature are not encouraging. The
> > Great Society of Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s brought us the stagnation
> and
> > inflation of the 1970s and early 1980s. Japan endured a decade-long
> > slump.[7] And, as Michael Boskin reminds us in "Obama's Radicalism is
> > Killing the Dow" (Wall Street Journal, March 6, 2009), "On the growth
> > effects of a large expansion of government, the European social welfare
> > states present a window on our potential future: standards of living
> > permanently 30% lower than ours."
> >
> > The correct road to recovery is the path to a "free and prosperous
> > commonwealth."
> >
> > $30 $24
> >
> > Such a path would include a return to sound money, competitive markets,
> and
> > the rule of law with a total level of government spending and tax burden
> > that, as suggested by Gwartney et al., is no more than 15% of GDP.
> >
> > Mises would most likely go even lower.
> >
> > As Adam Smith put it many years ago in a 1755 paper,
> >
> > Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of
> opulence
> > from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable
> > administration of justice; all the rest being brought about the natural
> > course of things. All governments which thwart this natural course, which
> > force things into another channel or which endeavor to arrest the
> progress
> > of society at a particular point, are unnatural, and to support
> themselves
> > are obliged to be oppressive and tyrannical.
> >
> > We owe our children and grandchildren better. We owe them a free and
> > prosperous commonwealth. History and theory show us the way to achieve
> both.
> >
> > John Cochran is dean of the Business School at Metropolitan State College
> of
> > Denver.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> >
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> >
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
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From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Tue Mar 24 09:59:05 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2009 08:59:05 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] New international monetary exchange
In-Reply-To: <4A97D62B42F149D4AEC449A13695AD4F@YOURB88038198E>
References: <4A97D62B42F149D4AEC449A13695AD4F@YOURB88038198E>
Message-ID: <6634e19e0903240659v3fa19921qadc36d473a070566@mail.gmail.com>

Ed,

No, probably not, but I'm sure they'll be able to find someone equally as
stupid and probably even more arrogant.

Rik

2009/3/24 Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net>

>  Brad:
>
> And would this new exchange be run by people with integrity like Geitner,
> Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid???
>
> Ed K
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Tue Mar 24 12:12:49 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2009 11:12:49 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] More reading for the messiah
In-Reply-To: <6634e19e0903240652l59d2e373p7bbe7812d8d703e0@mail.gmail.com>
References: <6634e19e0903230921p7e254b73q2f9af22cf01155fb@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70903232253x9ddb264j6c8ab21797aa4891@mail.gmail.com>
	<6634e19e0903240652l59d2e373p7bbe7812d8d703e0@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70903240912p66c83fedr72b75e76e268d4f5@mail.gmail.com>

Rik,

Sometimes you look at things and everything appears so simple you just
want to scream.  I've watched that landing in Narita twenty times and
keep screaming "GO AROUND!".  Sometimes things are screwed-up beyond
repair - all you can do is survive to fight another day. So here we
are with this screwed-up economy which is pretty simple after you
strip all the social bullshit away.  People over borrowed.  A bunch of
Harvard and Yale types thought they perfected the perfect scam,
loaning money to dumb asses and packaging bad debt for sale to other
idiots who thought they were too smart for their own good (real estate
only goes up, right?) We created the perfect economic storm for some
kid from Hawaii with a dysfunctional childhood married to an
ungrateful woman who grew-up in a nice neighborhood and was handed a
first class education on an affirmative action platter.  And they are
going to save the world?  People really are this STUPID! All we can do
is survive to fight another day.

The Chinese have their own problems but one thing they are not is
stupid.  They're looking at what is going on in our country and asking
themselves, "are you people crazy?"

Yes, would be the answer. Here's the solution in a nutshell - let
bankrupt companies go bankrupt.  Let people who can't afford their
homes lose them.  SUCK IT UP!

Sometimes when solutions appear too simple it is because they are
right in front of your nose and appear too simple. The Chinese are
stalling for time because they hate to lose money.  Chocolate Baby
Jesus is pursuing policies that have failed every time they've ever
been tried in the history of mankind. Every - single - time! But
somehow he's 'special'.

We are so screwed!

Brad


2009/3/24 Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com>:
> Brad,
>
> I sittin' here trying to think of one good reason why we'd want to be
> involved in that ..... can't come up with one.
>
> Next they'll be wantin' a world king.
>
> I sure can empathize with the Chinese. I'd be nervous in their position too.
> But hey, in the states, people paid too much for houses for a few years
> thinking they could only appreciate.... they didn't. Nobody had a gun at the
> head of the Chinese when they bought all our debt, thinking it could only
> appreciate ....
>
> You pays your money, you takes your chances.
>
> I wonder, over all the years, how much bad debt we in the US have written
> off from damned near every other country in the world. seems like what goes
> round comes round, eh. If I were the Chinese, I wouldn't be bettin' my last
> buck on the Euro either. Let's face it, a fiat currency is only going to be
> stable as long as legislators are responsible, which as we know, is only
> until they are elected.
>
> Rik
>
> On Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 12:53 AM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Rik,
>>
>> The Chinese don't buy it and why should they? ?This is nonsense. ?OK
>> everyone, congratulate yourself for electing the first affirmative
>> action President. ?Now can we get serious and end this nonsense?
>>
>> Brad
>>
>> ----------------
>>
>> China calls for new reserve currency
>>
>> By Jamil Anderlini in Beijing
>>
>> Published: March 23 2009 12:16 | Last updated: March 24 2009 00:06
>>
>> China?s central bank on Monday proposed replacing the US dollar as the
>> international reserve currency with a new global system controlled by
>> the International Monetary Fund.
>>
>> In an essay posted on the People?s Bank of China?s website, Zhou
>> Xiaochuan, the central bank?s governor, said the goal would be to
>> create a reserve currency ?that is disconnected from individual
>> nations and is able to remain stable in the long run, thus removing
>> the inherent deficiencies caused by using credit-based national
>> currencies?.
>>
>> Analysts said the proposal was an indication of Beijing?s fears that
>> actions being taken to save the domestic US economy would have a
>> negative impact on China.
>>
>> ?This is a clear sign that China, as the largest holder of US dollar
>> financial assets, is concerned about the potential inflationary risk
>> of the US Federal Reserve printing money,? said Qu Hongbin, chief
>> China economist for HSBC.
>>
>> Although Mr Zhou did not mention the US dollar, the essay gave a
>> pointed critique of the current dollar-dominated monetary system.
>>
>> ?The outbreak of the [current] crisis and its spillover to the entire
>> world reflected the inherent vulnerabilities and systemic risks in the
>> existing international monetary system,? Mr Zhou wrote.
>>
>> China has little choice but to hold the bulk of its $2,000bn of
>> foreign exchange reserves in US dollars, and this is unlikely to
>> change in the near future.
>>
>> To replace the current system, Mr Zhou suggested expanding the role of
>> special drawing rights, which were introduced by the IMF in 1969 to
>> support the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate regime but became less
>> relevant once that collapsed in the 1970s.
>>
>> Today, the value of SDRs is based on a basket of four currencies ? the
>> US dollar, yen, euro and sterling ? and they are used largely as a
>> unit of account by the IMF and some other international organisations.
>>
>> China?s proposal would expand the basket of currencies forming the
>> basis of SDR valuation to all major economies and set up a settlement
>> system between SDRs and other currencies so they could be used in
>> international trade and financial transactions.
>>
>> Countries would entrust a portion of their SDR reserves to the IMF to
>> manage collectively on their behalf and SDRs would gradually replace
>> existing reserve currencies.
>>
>> Mr Zhou said the proposal would require ?extraordinary political
>> vision and courage? and acknowledged a debt to John Maynard Keynes,
>> who made a similar suggestion in the 1940s.
>>
>> Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
>>
>> 2009/3/23 Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com>:
>> > Good Morning All,
>> >
>> > Found a good article this morning laying out the basics of where our
>> > gov'ts
>> > policies should be directed during times like these. I doubt our Messiah
>> > reads these people, in fact, it's pretty obvious he doesn't......? Sure
>> > wish
>> > he would.
>> >
>> > The road to hell is paved with good intentions. We're headed down it at
>> > increasingly reackless speeds.
>> >
>> > Our gov'ts motto should be changed to "Do No Harm"
>> >
>> > Rik
>> >
>> > _________________________
>> >
>> > http://mises.org/story/3373
>> >
>> > A Free and Prosperous Commonwealth
>> >
>> > Mises Daily by John P. Cochran | Posted on 3/20/2009 12:00:00 AM
>> >
>> > "Breadline"
>> > life-sized statue by George Segal
>> >
>> > In the Wall Street Journal of March 5, 2009, Daniel Henninger asks "Has
>> > Obama Buried Reagan?" While much of the current debate has focused
>> > around
>> > stimulus and the current crisis, Henninger argues that the correct
>> > response
>> > to the misguided stimulus and the budget proposal that increases
>> > (estimates
>> > are based on a very rosy forecast of economic growth) the measured size
>> > of
>> > the federal government relative to GDP from 20% in 2007 to 27.7% for
>> > fiscal
>> > 2009 to 24.1% for 2010, and then remaining higher than 22% for nearly a
>> > decade,[1] is to "relearn the core idea ? handed down ? by Ronald
>> > Reagan.
>> > That idea was economic growth." A return to long-run thinking based on
>> > sound
>> > economic principles and the fundamentals of classical liberalism is long
>> > overdue.
>> >
>> > While much of the rhetoric defending and supporting the stimulus bill
>> > has
>> > given the appearance that the "Democrats are willing to bet the entire
>> > US
>> > economy on a 1931 theory known as the Keynesian multiplier," the crisis
>> > has
>> > really given cover for a sweeping agenda to drastically enhance and grow
>> > the
>> > role of government, especially the federal government.
>> >
>> > Recessions come and go. The consequences can be temporarily tragic,
>> > especially for those on the margins of the economy, but recession is
>> > also
>> > the corrective phase that lays the foundation for a return to
>> > sustainable
>> > growth.[2] Assuming current interventions and policy mistakes (stimulus)
>> > do
>> > not rise to the 1929?1939 levels,[3] the current recession may be a
>> > typical
>> > recession with a 1?3% decline in real GDP for 6 to 18 months, followed
>> > by a
>> > return to healthy growth. These costs are insignificant compared to the
>> > impact of policies that retard growth for decades.[4] Based on the best
>> > theory and supported by historical evidence, it must be recognized that
>> > drastic change to the heart and core of the US economy ? embedded in
>> > legislation already passed or moving through Congress ? is clearly
>> > growth
>> > retarding.
>> >
>> > First let's see what theory says about growth. Henninger's suggestion
>> > that
>> > those seeking to articulate and defend a growth agenda should turn to
>> > Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson or Friedman's Free to Choose is
>> > acceptable. However, Ludwig von Mises has provided an even better
>> > starting
>> > point for generating a "free and prosperous commonwealth." It is
>> > Liberalism:
>> > A Socio-Economic Exposition.[5]
>> >
>> > The book is a blueprint for and a defense of a social order based on
>> > voluntary social cooperation through a free market where the "sphere of
>> > the
>> > conduct of the affairs of state" is a "system of representative" but
>> > limited
>> > government. Mises believed that government had a key but limited role in
>> > his
>> > free and prosperous commonwealth.
>> >
>> > In Economic Policy: Thought for Today and Tomorrow, Mises argued that in
>> > this limited role, government "ought to do all the things for which it
>> > is
>> > needed and for which it was established."
>> >
>> > Government ought to protect the individuals within the country against
>> > the
>> > violent and fraudulent attacks of gangsters, and it should defend the
>> > country against foreign enemies. These are the functions of government
>> > within a free system, within the system of the market economy. (p. 37)
>> >
>> > While a federal government that consumes 20% of GDP (as ours did in
>> > 2007) is
>> > highly interventionist and far from the Misesian ideal, the significant
>> > expansion envisioned by the current administration moves the country
>> > closer
>> > to the boundary of socialism where, despite a democratic foundation, the
>> > government becomes totalitarian: "nothing is outside its sphere and
>> > jurisdiction."
>> >
>> > What does history tell us about the likely consequences of this
>> > budgetary
>> > and regulatory expansion, which includes significant nonbudgeted costs
>> > to
>> > business and the private sector? Two studies from the late 1990s are
>> > informative. In a 1998 Cato Journal paper (vol. 18, no. 2, pp. 163?190),
>> > Gwartney, Holcombe, and Lawson examine "The Scope of Government and the
>> > Wealth of Nations." Also in 1998, Richard K. Vedder and Lowell E.
>> > Gallaway
>> > prepared a report for the Joint Economic Committee, then chaired by Jim
>> > Saxton, titled "Government Size and Economic Growth."
>> >
>> > Both studies begin with the idea that some government is necessary. A
>> > limited-range provision of services by government and even expansion of
>> > these services may enhance economic growth. Vedder and Gallaway adopt a
>> > framework around a concept called the "Armey Curve."[6] Output will be
>> > low
>> > and growth very limited in the absence of a system of rule of law and
>> > protection from external predators. Output may be low and growth
>> > nonexistent
>> > where government monopolizes the allocation of resources and other
>> > economic
>> > decisions. Per the argument, the provision of limited and proper
>> > government
>> > services at first enhances economic growth and development under
>> > conditions
>> > of diminishing returns. Further expansion of government, enhanced by
>> > expansion into things government cannot do well, leads to negative
>> > returns ?
>> > government reduces growth or growth potential.
>> >
>> > Gwartney et al. make a similar argument, again consistent with Mises,
>> > using
>> > the concept of core functions of government. Their core is limited, but
>> > slightly broader than Mises's; it includes, in addition to Mises's
>> > protection from plunder and fraud, a "provision of a limited set of
>> > goods
>> > that for various reasons markets may find it difficult to provide."
>> > Following their analysis, provision of core functions of government
>> > enhances
>> > growth, while expansion of government beyond the core eventually retards
>> > growth.
>> >
>> > What conclusions can we draw from these studies about growth prospects
>> > for
>> > the future of the US economy? Gwartney et al. conclude, "[t]he findings
>> > of
>> > this paper show a strong and persistent negative relationship between
>> > government expenditures and growth of GDP, both for the developed
>> > countries
>> > of the OECD and for a larger set of 60 nations around the world." They
>> > add
>> > that "increases in the size of government have slowed economic growth.
>> > More
>> > rapid growth is possible, but higher potential growth can only be
>> > achieved
>> > if we are willing to reduce the relative size of government."
>> >
>> > Their results suggest growth in government expenditures relative to GDP
>> > of
>> > 10% reduces the growth rate of GDP by about 1%. Gallaway and Vedder come
>> > to
>> > very similar conclusions. In a study based on US historical data on
>> > federal
>> > spending as a percent of GDP, they find that the "Armey Curve" peaks
>> > when
>> > federal spending equals about 17.45% of GDP. Based on their study, every
>> > 1%
>> > increase of the spending-to-GDP ratio beyond this point, by my
>> > calculation,
>> > results in a 0.375% decrease in the growth rate of GDP.
>> >
>> > Besides the enormous debt burden the current deficit-financed expansion
>> > of
>> > government imposes on our grandchildren, what is the potential impact on
>> > future living standards? According to the March 5, 2009, Wall Street
>> > Journal, the budget assumes the recession is mild and ends this year
>> > with a
>> > decline in real GDP of 1.2%. Growth resumes at 3.2% for 2010 and is
>> > cooking
>> > at 4% by 2010?2013. Currently we have a nearly 14.3 trillion dollar
>> > economy.
>> > If the economy actually grew at 4% on average for a ten-year period, GDP
>> > would be $21.15 trillion in constant dollars. But, even estimating on
>> > the
>> > low side, federal spending will be increased from 20% to 22% of GDP;
>> > this
>> > would reduce the average growth rate by 0.75. Growth would be not 4% but
>> > 3.25%, resulting in a GDP of not $21.15 trillion but only $19.68
>> > trillion ?
>> > or an almost 6.9% decrease over what growth would have been if federal
>> > outlays had remained at 20%.
>> >
>> > Over the same period, our population of approximately 306 million people
>> > is
>> > expected to grow to approximately 334 million based on 0.9% projected
>> > growth
>> > rate. This would represent a decline in real per capita GDP of
>> > approximately
>> > $4,400 in just the tenth year alone. The Wall Street Journal predicts
>> > (and
>> > as any reasonable person would expect, based on past expansions of
>> > government) that the cost per person in lost welfare could be
>> > significantly
>> > more. The cost in lost freedom may be immeasurable.
>> >
>> > Even if the current stimulus and budget proposal have short-term
>> > benefits in
>> > terms of measured GDP, the results will be temporary. And, by these
>> > estimates, they would come at a significant long-run cost to the
>> > economy.
>> > This estimate of lost welfare is most likely significantly on the low
>> > side.
>> > The current recession is beginning its fifteenth month, one month less
>> > than
>> > the 1981?1982 recession and with less significant job loss to date.
>> > There
>> > has also been less significant job loss than during the 1973?1975
>> > recession,
>> > which also lasted 16 months.
>> >
>> > As pointed out in the Wall Street Journal "Review and Outlook" of March
>> > 6,
>> > 2009, "Recessions don't last forever, but bad policies can prolong the
>> > pain."
>> >
>> > While the current interventions and policy mistakes (stimulus) aimed at
>> > easing the pain of the recession and stimulating recovery have not as
>> > yet
>> > risen to the 1929?1939 levels, the plan has little in it to encourage
>> > private-sector recovery.
>> >
>> > Recovery and growth are impeded, not stimulated, by the threat of less
>> > competitive labor markets, regulatory uncertainty, cap-and-trade energy
>> > policy, the threat of increased protectionism, certain higher tax
>> > burdens in
>> > the future, especially on capital income, and the use of the tax system
>> > explicitly for purposes of redistribution of income.
>> >
>> > The threat of massive inflation is real and significant. Economic
>> > responses
>> > to past policy shifts that are similar in nature are not encouraging.
>> > The
>> > Great Society of Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s brought us the stagnation
>> > and
>> > inflation of the 1970s and early 1980s. Japan endured a decade-long
>> > slump.[7] And, as Michael Boskin reminds us in "Obama's Radicalism is
>> > Killing the Dow" (Wall Street Journal, March 6, 2009), "On the growth
>> > effects of a large expansion of government, the European social welfare
>> > states present a window on our potential future: standards of living
>> > permanently 30% lower than ours."
>> >
>> > The correct road to recovery is the path to a "free and prosperous
>> > commonwealth."
>> >
>> > $30 $24
>> >
>> > Such a path would include a return to sound money, competitive markets,
>> > and
>> > the rule of law with a total level of government spending and tax burden
>> > that, as suggested by Gwartney et al., is no more than 15% of GDP.
>> >
>> > Mises would most likely go even lower.
>> >
>> > As Adam Smith put it many years ago in a 1755 paper,
>> >
>> > Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of
>> > opulence
>> > from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable
>> > administration of justice; all the rest being brought about the natural
>> > course of things. All governments which thwart this natural course,
>> > which
>> > force things into another channel or which endeavor to arrest the
>> > progress
>> > of society at a particular point, are unnatural, and to support
>> > themselves
>> > are obliged to be oppressive and tyrannical.
>> >
>> > We owe our children and grandchildren better. We owe them a free and
>> > prosperous commonwealth. History and theory show us the way to achieve
>> > both.
>> >
>> > John Cochran is dean of the Business School at Metropolitan State
>> > College of
>> > Denver.
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>> >
>> > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>> >
>> >
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>>
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>


From flybrad at gmail.com  Tue Mar 24 13:58:22 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2009 12:58:22 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Politics - Are You People Really This Stupid?
Message-ID: <400985d70903241058w6346feaboa7c7c43c389f15da@mail.gmail.com>

I'll answer the question for you - people are stupid.

------------------

Obama seeks filter-free news
Jonathan Martin Jonathan Martin Tue Mar 24, 4:24 am ET

At a time when his Washington honeymoon is turning into a hazing,
President Barack Obama and his team are launched on a strategy to sail
above the traditional White House press corps by reaching out to
liberal commentators, local reporters and ethnic media.

The highest-profile moments in the new approach have been well-noted,
such as the president giving an interview to progressive radio host Ed
Schultz and Obama calling on a reporter from the liberal-leaning
Huffington Post at his first news conference.

But those moves are only part of a much larger strategy aimed at
communicating directly with audiences the White House believes are
more sympathetic to the president?s agenda ? and one in which much of
the work is being done by Obama?s top advisers.

On the day Obama released his ambitious spending plan, the
administration put White House budget director Peter Orszag on a
conference call with liberal-leaning writers. Senior administration
aides have followed up by promoting the budget to local radio talk
shows during morning drive time.

Jared Bernstein, Vice President Joe Biden?s economic adviser and a
favorite of the labor-liberal wing of the Democratic Party, also held
a conference call with friendly reporters.

White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has done conference calls with
black and Hispanic media outlets.

Obama himself plans to meet soon with liberal bloggers, according to
an administration official. With little fanfare, he?s already sat for
interviews with Black Enterprise magazine, Telemundo and Los
Angeles-based Hispanic radio host Eddie ?Piolin? Sotelo.

In many ways, Obama?s effort is simply the latest expression of a
familiar phenomenon. It is the perennial hope of presidents ?
especially early in their administrations ? that they can escape the
filter of an often-skeptical Washington press corps and communicate
directly with a target audience.

But Obama now has advantages not enjoyed by some of his predecessors,
from Richard Nixon to Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, who were most
scornful of the motives of Washington reporters.

Obama can exploit the fact that the traditional newspapers and
networks are weakened by competition from cable and the Web, and by a
faltering business model. What?s more, the proliferation of outlets
has been embraced in recent years by a newly energized liberal base ?
eager to match the decades-old success of conservatives in building
media channels to circumvent what they see as a biased or
trivia-minded Washington press corps.

Obama has a special stake in encouraging this movement. The campaign
that vaulted him to power began mostly outside his party?s Washington
establishment and was based heavily on the strength of his personality
and promises to change the capital?s culture.

At his first news conference, for instance, his aides seated Schultz
in the front row and called on reporter Sam Stein from The Huffington
Post.

Unlike some of his predecessors, however, Obama and his aides tend not
to boast about their media strategy or publicly exalt in how they are
confronting or marginalizing the traditional news media.

To the contrary, Obama has continued to engage aggressively with the
establishment outlets. The New York Times recently had an interview,
and CBS News? ?60 Minutes? has conducted two long interviews with
Obama since Election Day.

These sessions reflect Obama?s belief, according to aides, that in a
fragmented media universe, presidents must communicate nearly
constantly across an array of platforms, both traditional and new.

?You?ve got lots of people that aren?t cable junkies or news junkies,?
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said, explaining the thinking
behind the tailored media strategy. ?This gives us the opportunity to
reach a little bit different of a segment.?

Another top aide used a sports analogy for the comprehensive strategy:
?Flood the zone.?

Other presidents have been more defiant toward the Washington media.
Nixon went to war with the establishment press and dispatched Vice
President Spiro Agnew to issue flamboyant denunciations of the
?nattering nabobs of negativism? and to sneer at ?a small band of
network commentators and self-appointed analysts? who dared to
interpret White House news.

Clinton, appearing before a Washington media banquet in the first
months of his presidency in 1993, explained why he could ?stiff? the
White House press corps.

?Because Larry King liberated me by giving me to the American people
directly,? Clinton said in a lead-balloon moment that failed as humor,
since it seemed obvious that he was not really joking.

Bush?s team did little to disguise its skepticism of the establishment
media, which it regarded as hostile and out of touch. Aides set the
White House TV sets to Fox News, dispatched Vice President Dick Cheney
to do regular interviews with radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh and Laura
Ingraham and brought in niche outlets such as Runner?s World and Field
& Stream for sit-downs with the president.

Obama has recognized that the potential of niche media goes far beyond
political channels. Last week, he brought ESPN to the White House Map
Room to show off an oversized bracket with the president?s picks for
the NCAA basketball tournament.

Yet it?s the ideologically oriented outlets that offer some of the
best opportunities for pinpoint rifle shots.

The Schultz program, heard on more than 100 stations, is a good example.

Gibbs would only say that Obama was doing shows like Schultz?s because
he?s ?a good audience for us.?

But another source in the White House said that doing such a program
allows the administration to stroke a friendly audience that doesn?t
now hear from the president on a regular basis.

Further, in a sign of how much a White House can now target its
message, it?s also not lost on Obama officials that the prairie
populist Schultz has a major following in North Dakota ? home state of
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, a Democrat who may need
a push to get behind the president?s budget.

Dan Bartlett, Bush?s White House communications director, said that he
and his counterparts in the Obama administration were simply following
the path of their audience.

?The lagging role of the mainstream media has prompted people to seek
information from a wide variety of outlets that are often now aligned
with their personal interests,? he said.

That can mean hoops fanatics or duck hunters, but it also often now
means political partisans.

?The president has to be careful to tend to his base,? said Dee Dee
Myers, press secretary in Clinton?s first term. ?A lot of what he?s
doing, like giving trillions to corporations, is not that popular on
the left flank of the Democratic base. So going to places like Ed
Schultz or engaging the Huffington Post or MoveOn is a way to say,
?Look, we get it; we?re talking to a lot of the people who brung us.??

Just as Obama acknowledged on Schultz?s show that people are ?rightly
concerned? with the amount of money being sent to Wall Street, Bush
and his top advisers would often take their case to sympathetic
outlets, including twice inviting conservative talk show hosts to
broadcast from under tents on the White House lawn.

?If you?re trying to pass a piece of legislation like No Child Left
Behind, you want conservatives to support it,? said former Bush White
House press secretary Dana Perino.

Going on opinion shows ?allows you to more discreetly mobilize people
for certain causes,? said Bartlett.
?It?s like mainlining into a vein ? you?re getting the drugs where
they need to go,? he said.

Adds Perino: ?If they saw you on Rachel Maddow, maybe they?ll pick up
the phone the next day and call their member of Congress and urge them
to get behind health care, for example.?

The around-the-filter strategy began under Nixon, notes Martha Joynt
Kumar, a Towson University political science professor and expert on
presidential communications.

?Nixon created the Office of Communications, and they would send out
copies of the president?s speeches directly to various groups,? Kumar
said, referring to what is now the media affairs office.

The idea then, as now, was to reach certain groups directly and
without the interpretation of an at times cynical Washington press
corps.

The difference is that 40 years after Nixon, there are far more
avenues to avoid the capital?s often insular media.

But Kumar, who has been attending White House events since 1975 for
her research, said presidents still can?t avoid the reporters who
cover him day in and day out.

Clinton may have boasted at the start of his term about the
irrelevance of the capital?s media, but he eventually found out the
power they still enjoyed.

?It was the Washington press corps that nailed him on Lewinsky,? noted Kumar.


From ekroposki at charter.net  Tue Mar 24 19:19:39 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2009 19:19:39 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Baseball anyone
Message-ID: <24CFFF2C5BAB4124A7750406034523DF@YOURB88038198E>

How fast is a fast ball?

See:

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=sh-strasburg032409&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

Ed K

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From ekroposki at charter.net  Tue Mar 24 19:26:56 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2009 19:26:56 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] now a Newspaper Bailout?
Message-ID: <F82AB5A2D6444573A4B9488AE9051ADD@YOURB88038198E>

We all know how fair public radio is.  Now a bill has been introduced into Congress to allow newspapers to operate like would you believe, Public Radio.

It is the Newspaper Revitalization Act!  by Senator Benjamin Cardin.

Ed K
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Tue Mar 24 21:50:14 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2009 20:50:14 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] now a Newspaper Bailout?
In-Reply-To: <F82AB5A2D6444573A4B9488AE9051ADD@YOURB88038198E>
References: <F82AB5A2D6444573A4B9488AE9051ADD@YOURB88038198E>
Message-ID: <400985d70903241850o107800f9id3a0e9f4d35fa312@mail.gmail.com>

Ed,

Time for a revolution!  Nothing from these idiots surprise me, here's
the latest on Obama's Storm Troopers -

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-1388

What the hell is happening to our once great country?

Brad

2009/3/24 Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net>:
> We all know how fair public radio is.? Now a bill has been introduced into
> Congress to allow newspapers to operate like would you believe, Public
> Radio.
>
> It is the Newspaper Revitalization Act!? by Senator Benjamin Cardin.
>
> Ed K
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>


From ragdollelle at yahoo.com  Tue Mar 24 21:59:50 2009
From: ragdollelle at yahoo.com (elle)
Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2009 18:59:50 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Brad check in!
Message-ID: <361051.61558.qm@web111208.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>


>What is it about this teacher thing that is so alluring?  I've been
>out of instructing for two weeks and am already 'busting my ass' to
>put together 15 minutes of material for the seminar I'm teaching in
>three weeks as a volunteer. 

Teaching is like nothing else on earth when you have a group who is excited about learning & "comes along" with you...or even gallops ahead...when everyone is engaged. Unfortunately, that is so often not the case.

The county in which I live in Va has proposed closing school after Memporial Day (for budget reasons) since the state SOL testing will be over by then.....the testing tail is now wagging this dog...something they said would never happen. The tests were only to be a baseline..now they have become the standard....the lowest possible denominator.

elle


--- On Tue, 3/24/09, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Swiftwater Gazette] Brad check in!
> To: SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> Date: Tuesday, March 24, 2009, 4:58 AM
> Elle,
> 
> Flying is supposed to be safe - it is safe.? It is one
> of the most
> boring professions one could choose and not nearly as
> challenging as
> something like teaching school.? Teaching flying is a
> bit more
> interesting but still basically boring.? It is
> supposed to be that
> way, otherwise, no one would climb on an airplane.?
> That said, the
> number one killer is complacency, and number two is brief
> moments of
> neglect.? I have no idea what happened here and won't
> know for at
> least two years. Luck threw me a sweet deal over the
> weekend with one
> more trip in the DC-10 to New Orleans.? We had a ball
> on the boat we
> took out yesterday and every day I get to spend laughing
> with my
> brother is a day spent in paradise. We'd probably be
> wealthy if we
> could stop giggling for five minutes.
> 
> I feel so bad for the families.? You worry about
> flyers when they go
> off to war and get shot at (most of my contemporaries are
> Vietnam War
> and Gulf War 1 guys) and now I fly with a lot of 'kids' who
> are Gulf
> War 2 vets.? You are supposed to go to work at your
> civilian job and
> come home at the end of the day.
> 
> What is it about this teacher thing that is so
> alluring?? I've been
> out of instructing for two weeks and am already 'busting my
> ass' to
> put together 15 minutes of material for the seminar I'm
> teaching in
> three weeks as a volunteer. Faking being President of the
> United
> States would be an easier task!
> 
> Brad
> 
> On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 11:20 AM, elle <ragdollelle at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > Brad,
> >
> > I feel great sorrow for the families of the pilots but
> am very glad you were not flying that plane.
> >
> > elle
> >
> > --- On Mon, 3/23/09, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> >> From: Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com>
> >> Subject: Re: [Swiftwater Gazette] Brad check in!
> >> To: SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> >> Date: Monday, March 23, 2009, 11:06 AM
> >> Here's the update - there is no
> >> update.? An MD-11 crashed on landing
> >> and the pilots were killed.? Call me back in two
> years
> >> and I'll tell
> >> you the whole story.? God be with the wife and
> >> children of the pilots
> >> 'Gone West'.
> >>
> >> Brad
> >>
> >> On Sun, Mar 22, 2009 at 9:28 PM, Brad Haslett
> <flybrad at gmail.com>
> >> wrote:
> >> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6cMK9LUnzI
> >> >
> >> > Rik, ?you know as much now as I know. ?No
> word yet
> >> on who the crew
> >> > members were - Japanese news confirms both
> dead. ?The
> >> industry boards
> >> > don't have any info except high winds - 47
> knots - no
> >> info on the
> >> > crosswind component. ?The MD-11 is the same
> airplane
> >> as mine but with
> >> > computers to replace the third man. ?This
> will be our
> >> first fatality
> >> > in 36 years of flying.
> >> >
> >> > I'm going out on the town - update first
> thing in the
> >> morning.
> >> >
> >> > Brad
> >> >
> >> > 2009/3/22 Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com>:
> >> >> Ed, Brad,
> >> >>
> >> >> What'd I miss?
> >> >>
> >> >> Rik
> >> >>
> >> >> On Sun, Mar 22, 2009 at 7:55 PM, Brad
> Haslett
> >> <flybrad at gmail.com>
> >> wrote:
> >> >>>
> >> >>> Ed,
> >> >>>
> >> >>> Spent last night lost on Bourbon
> Street in New
> >> Orleans. ?Spent today
> >> >>> lost on a big time 'mother of all
> carbon
> >> footprint' boats out to Ship
> >> >>> Island near Gulfport, MS with big
> brother and
> >> business partner,
> >> >>> Brother Gary and a fellow contractor
> and his
> >> wife. ?I'm back in NOLA
> >> >>> (Sunday night) on my last of the
> "last nights"
> >> in the DC-10. ?The new,
> >> >>> new Far East tour won't start till
> this fall.
> >> ?I'll rejoin the world
> >> >>> starting tomorrow morning with some
> new
> >> directions. ?The third week of
> >> >>> April I'm headed back to Orlando as a
> guest
> >> participant of the
> >> >>> Advanced Baron Seminar (twin-engine
> version of
> >> my personal airplane)
> >> >>> and I need to "brush-up" a bit since
> I haven't
> >> flown a Baron in 27
> >> >>> years. These guys are all wealthy
> Baron owners
> >> and expect something
> >> >>> other than standard BS for their
> money. All
> >> this time off is killing
> >> >>> me!
> >> >>>
> >> >>> Brad
> >> >>>
> >> >>> 2009/3/22 Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net>:
> >> >>> > Brad,
> >> >>> >
> >> >>> > Tell us you were not in the far
> east.
> >> >>> >
> >> >>> > Ed K
> >> >>> >
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> >>> > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> >> >>> > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> >> >>> >
> >> >>> > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> >> >>> >
> >> >>> >
> >> >>>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> >>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> >> >>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> >> >>>
> >> >>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >>
> _______________________________________________
> >> >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> >> >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> >> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> >> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> > http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> >
> 
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> 


      



From ekroposki at charter.net  Wed Mar 25 19:47:39 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Wed, 25 Mar 2009 19:47:39 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Resignation making the rounds
Message-ID: <59AFC6D9C5624C4D86CC164ACD910366@YOURB88038198E>

Yes, Barney this really helps:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/opinion/25desantis.html?_r=2&ref=opinion&pagewanted=all

Ed K
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Wed Mar 25 20:59:55 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Wed, 25 Mar 2009 19:59:55 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Resignation making the rounds
In-Reply-To: <59AFC6D9C5624C4D86CC164ACD910366@YOURB88038198E>
References: <59AFC6D9C5624C4D86CC164ACD910366@YOURB88038198E>
Message-ID: <400985d70903251759m5dbab9efm55f26b36a70db604@mail.gmail.com>

Ed,

What is really disgusting about all this grandstanding is Barney,
Dodd, POTUS IWun and all the others know exactly what was in the deal
with AIG.  Geithner wrote it for goodness sakes. Then, Obama goes on
national TV and tells bold face lies about it, and the press puts up
with this BS. BTW, did you read today where another Geithner nominee
removed his name from consideration?  No one in their right mind who
understands the slightest thing about markets wants to join a cruise
on the Titanic after it has hit the iceberg.

Brad

2009/3/25 Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net>:
> Yes, Barney this really helps:
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/opinion/25desantis.html?_r=2&ref=opinion&pagewanted=all
>
> Ed K
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>

From flybrad at gmail.com  Thu Mar 26 07:01:00 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 06:01:00 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] US Debt Becoming Sub-prime
Message-ID: <400985d70903260401m4917d20bp527b3e1bad66bc0d@mail.gmail.com>

You knew this was coming, but who would believe it would come so fast?
 Great Britain just had a treasury auction fail for the first time in
10 years.  US treasury yields are rising (buyers want more for their
risk).  The Chinese are moving to shorter and shorter terms and are
threatening to stop buying all together. Geithner basically agrees
with the Chinese one minute on the long-range value of the US Dollar
and then has to quickly back track to keep the dollar from falling any
further as Wall Street reacts to his comments.  No one is home at the
US Treasury Department and no one with any expertise wants to work
there. The POTUS makes a speech and "answers" 13 questions but says
nothing. Read the transcript, don't listen to it, read it!  The man
says nothing of substance.  There have been a few bright spots in the
economy and we may (emphasis on the may) be turning the corner.  But
then there is that issue of all this debt - the largest amount in the
history of the world, larger than ALL the debt combined from George
Washington to George W Bush. If that worries you, if you don't
understand it, you are not alone. It doesn't make sense to China
either. Forget the MSM figuring any of this out, they don't understand
business or finance and besides, they're too busy washing the
Messiah's feet.  We are sooooo screwed!

Brad

----------------

Treasuries Fall on Supply Concern as Seven-Year Sale Looms


By Dakin Campbell and Susanne Walker

March 25 (Bloomberg) -- Treasury 10-year note yields rose the most in
more than two weeks after an auction of $34 billion in five-year notes
drew a higher-than-forecast yield, spurring concern record sales of
U.S. debt are overwhelming demand.

U.S. securities dropped even after the Federal Reserve today bought
$7.5 billion of Treasury notes, its first targeted purchases of U.S.
securities since the early 1960s. The five- year auction drew a yield
of 1.849 percent, higher than the 1.801 percent forecast in a
Bloomberg News survey of eight trading firms. The Treasury will sell
$24 billion of seven-year notes tomorrow.

?In light of all the supply that?s in the market it?s not a surprise
that yields have moved back up,? said Jeffrey Caughron, an associate
partner in Oklahoma City at The Baker Group Ltd., which advises
community banks investing $20 billion of assets. ?You don?t want to
fight the Fed in this market environment. Even though there is
enormous supply, the Fed will do what it can to keep a cap on yields.?

The 10-year note yield rose eight basis points, or 0.08 percentage
point, to 2.78 percent at 4:40 p.m. in New York, according to BGCantor
Market Data. The price of the 2.75 percent security due in February
2019 fell 21/32, or $6.56 per $1,000 face amount, to 99 23/32.

Yields have now gained 24 basis points in the five days since the
Fed?s March 18 announcement it would buy Treasuries sent yields down
47 basis points, the most since 1962.

Five-Year Auction

The 30-year bond yield gained 10 basis points today to 3.73 percent,
while the current five-year note yield appreciated eight basis points
to 1.81 percent.

The bid-to-cover ratio, which gauges demand by comparing the number of
bids to the amount of securities sold, fell to 2.02 from an average
2.18 at the previous 10 sales.

The Treasury Department is selling a record $98 billion in notes this
week, eclipsing the record $94 billion auctioned the week ended Feb.
27. The U.K. failed to attract enough bidders today at an auction of
1.75 billion pounds ($2.55 billion) of gilts for the first time in
almost seven years.

President Barack Obama?s government is selling record amounts of debt
to revive economic growth, service deficits, and cushion the failures
in the financial system. Debt sales will almost triple this year to a
record $2.5 trillion, according to estimates from Goldman Sachs Group
Inc.

Orders for U.S. durable goods unexpectedly rose by 3.4 percent in
February, the Commerce Department said today in Washington. Purchases
of new homes in the U.S. unexpectedly jumped in February, increasing
4.7 percent to an annual pace of 337,000 after a 322,000 rate in
January, Commerce said.

Fed Purchases

?Better than expected economic data, failure of the long- end auction
in the U.K. and low demand at the five-year Treasury auction; all
these factors combined are leading to higher yields,? said Anshul
Pradhan, an interest-rate strategist in New York at Barclays Capital
Inc., another primary dealer.

The Fed said it purchased $7.5 billion of U.S. debt spread among 13 of
the possible 19 securities eligible for purchase. The notes mature
from February 2016 to February 2019, the Federal Reserve Bank of New
York said in a statement today. Nearly $22 billion was submitted to
the central bank in the first day of buying, the New York Fed said.

?We are really not seeing any kind of meaningful support for the
Treasury market,? said Kevin Flanagan, a Purchase, New York-based
fixed-income strategist for Morgan Stanley?s individual investor
clients. ?Conventional wisdom in the market is that the Fed will
concentrate on the five- to 10-year or the seven- to 10-year sector.?

?Poor Communication?

The Fed joins central banks in the U.K. and Japan in extraordinary
purchases of government debt. U.S. policy makers announced the
decision last week to buy $300 billion of government debt in the next
six months along with a plan to more than double purchases of housing
debt to $1.45 trillion, hoping to reduce rates on home loans.

The dollar fell the most in almost a week against the euro on concern
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner supported a Chinese plan to blunt
demand among global central banks for the U.S. currency. The dollar
weakened as much as 1.2 percent to $1.3651 per euro, the biggest
intraday decline since March 19, before trading at $1.3601 at 4:20
p.m. in New York.

Geithner later affirmed the dollar?s role as the world?s reserve currency.

?The poor communication from the Treasury department has complicated
the market for Treasuries,? said Baker Group?s Caughron.

Failed Auction

The U.K.?s effort to buy government debt wasn?t enough to prevent
today?s failed auction of 40-year gilts, the first time that the
government failed to attract enough bids at a sale of debt since 2002.
Investors bid for 1.63 billion pounds ($2.4 billion) of 4.25 percent
notes, less than the 1.75 billion pounds offered.

?The failed gilt auction doesn?t bode well for Treasuries,? said
Michael Franzese, head of government bond trading for Standard
Chartered in New York.

Average 30-year fixed mortgage rates were about 2.29 percentage points
more than 10-year Treasury yields, versus 1.57 percentage points five
years ago. Mortgage rates declined to 4.98 percent in the week ended
March 19, according to Freddie Mac, the mortgage-finance company under
U.S. government control.

TED Spread

Treasuries lost 1.68 percent this year, according to Merrill Lynch &
Co.?s Treasury Master Index. U.S. debt was down 3.4 percent before the
Fed announced its purchase program last week.

The difference between what banks and the Treasury pay to borrow money
for three months, the so-called TED spread, widened to 1.04 percentage
point from 91 basis points on Feb. 10. It reached a two-month high of
1.13 percentage point on March 13. The spread averaged 36 basis points
in 2006 before credit markets began to decline the next year.

To contact the reporters on this story: Dakin Campbell in New York at
dcampbell27 at bloomberg.net; Susanne Walker in New York at
swalker33 at bloomberg.net
Last Updated: March 25, 2009 16:49 EDT


From flybrad at gmail.com  Thu Mar 26 08:48:49 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 07:48:49 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Chicago Goes To Washington
Message-ID: <400985d70903260548s689d6e9ey2e1217cfa4cc4c8d@mail.gmail.com>

Did anyone listen to Blago on WLS yesterday?  He sure is cocky! In
other news,  here's an interesting article about 'Tiny Dancer' and how
he made money from Freddie.  Why doesn't I-Wun put him in charge of
Treasury?  Tiny Dancer only made 16 million in three years as an
investment banker with no previous experience.

Brad

--------------

www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/obama/chi-rahm-emanuel-profit-26-mar26,0,5682373.story
chicagotribune.com
Rahm Emanuel's profitable stint at mortgage giant
Short Freddie Mac stay made him at least $320,000

By Bob Secter and Andrew Zajac

Tribune reporters

March 26, 2009

Before its portfolio of bad loans helped trigger the current housing
crisis, mortgage giant Freddie Mac was the focus of a major accounting
scandal that led to a management shake-up, huge fines and scalding
condemnation of passive directors by a top federal regulator.

One of those allegedly asleep-at-the-switch board members was
Chicago's Rahm Emanuel?now chief of staff to President Barack
Obama?who made at least $320,000 for a 14-month stint at Freddie Mac
that required little effort.

As gatekeeper to Obama, Emanuel now plays a critical role in
addressing the nation's mortgage woes and fulfilling the
administration's pledge to impose responsibility on the financial
world.

Emanuel's Freddie Mac involvement has been a prominent point on his
political r?sum?, and his healthy payday from the firm has been no
secret either. What is less known, however, is how little he
apparently did for his money and how he benefited from the kind of
cozy ties between Washington and Wall Street that have fueled the
nation's current economic mess.

Though just 49, Emanuel is a veteran Democratic strategist and
fundraiser who served three terms in the U.S. House after helping
elect Mayor Richard Daley and former President Bill Clinton. The
Freddie Mac money was a small piece of the $16 million he made in a
three-year interlude as an investment banker a decade ago.

In business as in politics, Emanuel has cultivated an aggressive,
take-charge reputation that made him rich and propelled his rise to
the front of the national stage. But buried deep in corporate and
government documents on the Freddie Mac scandal is a little-known and
very different story involving Emanuel.

He was named to the Freddie Mac board in February 2000 by Clinton,
whom Emanuel had served as White House political director and vocal
defender during the Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky scandals.

The board met no more than six times a year. Unlike most fellow
directors, Emanuel was not assigned to any of the board's working
committees, according to company proxy statements. Immediately upon
joining the board, Emanuel and other new directors qualified for
$380,000 in stock and options plus a $20,000 annual fee, records
indicate.

On Emanuel's watch, the board was told by executives of a plan to use
accounting tricks to mislead shareholders about outsize profits the
government-chartered firm was then reaping from risky investments. The
goal was to push earnings onto the books in future years, ensuring
that Freddie Mac would appear profitable on paper for years to come
and helping maximize annual bonuses for company brass.

The accounting scandal wasn't the only one that brewed during Emanuel's tenure.

During his brief time on the board, the company hatched a plan to
enhance its political muscle. That scheme, also reviewed by the board,
led to a record $3.8 million fine from the Federal Election Commission
for illegally using corporate resources to host fundraisers for
politicians. Emanuel was the beneficiary of one of those parties after
he left the board and ran in 2002 for a seat in Congress from the
North Side of Chicago.

The board was throttled for its acquiescence to the accounting
manipulation in a 2003 report by Armando Falcon Jr., head of a federal
oversight agency for Freddie Mac. The scandal forced Freddie Mac to
restate $5 billion in earnings and pay $585 million in fines and legal
settlements. It also foreshadowed even harder times at the firm.

Many of those same risky investment practices tied to the accounting
scandal eventually brought the firm to the brink of insolvency and led
to its seizure last year by the Bush administration, which pledged to
inject up to $100 billion in new capital to keep the firm afloat. The
Obama administration has doubled that commitment.

Freddie Mac reported recently that it lost $50 billion in 2008. It so
far has tapped $14 billion of the government's guarantee and said it
soon will need an additional $30 billion to keep operating.

Like its larger government-chartered cousin Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac
was created by Congress to promote home ownership, though both are
private corporations with shares traded on the New York Stock
Exchange. The two firms hold stakes in half the nation's residential
mortgages.

Because of Freddie Mac's federal charter, the board in Emanuel's day
was a hybrid of directors elected by shareholders and those appointed
by the president.

In his final year in office, Clinton tapped three close pals: Emanuel,
Washington lobbyist and golfing partner James Free, and Harold Ickes,
a former White House aide instrumental in securing the election of
Hillary Clinton to the U.S. Senate. Free's appointment was good for
four months, and Ickes' only three months.

Falcon, director of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise
Oversight, found that presidential appointees played no "meaningful
role" in overseeing the company and recommended that their positions
be eliminated.

John Coffee, a law professor and expert on corporate governance at
Columbia University, said the financial crisis at Freddie Mac was
years in the making and fueled by chronically weak oversight by the
firm's directors. The presence of presidential appointees on the board
didn't help, he added.

"You know there was a patronage system and these people were only
going to serve a short time," Coffee said. "That's why [they] get the
stock upfront."

Financial disclosure statements that are required of U.S. House
members show Emanuel made at least $320,000 from his time at Freddie
Mac. Two years after leaving the firm, Emanuel reported an additional
sale of Freddie Mac stock worth between $100,001 and $250,000. The
document did not detail whether he profited from the sale.

Sarah Feinberg, a spokeswoman for Emanuel, said there was no conflict
between his stint at Freddie Mac and Obama's vow to restore confidence
in financial institutions and the executives who run them. At the same
time, Feinberg said Emanuel now agrees that presidential appointees to
the Freddie Mac board "are unnecessary and don't have long enough
terms to make a difference."

Former President George W. Bush voluntarily stopped making such
appointments following Falcon's assessment of their uselessness.

In an interview, Falcon said the Freddie Mac board did most of its
work in committees. Yet proxy statements that detailed committee
assignments showed none for Emanuel, Free or Ickes during the time
they served in 2000 or 2001. Most other directors carried two
committee assignments each.

Contrary to the proxy statements, Feinberg said she believed that
Emanuel served on board committees that oversaw Freddie Mac's
investment strategies and mortgage purchase activities. But Feinberg
acknowledged she had no official documents to back up that assertion.

The Obama administration rejected a Tribune request under the Freedom
of Information Act to review Freddie Mac board minutes and
correspondence during Emanuel's time as a director. The documents,
obtained by Falcon for his investigation, were "commercial
information" exempt from disclosure, according to a lawyer for the
Federal Housing Finance Agency.

Emanuel's board term expired in May 2001, and soon after he launched
his Democratic congressional bid.

One of Emanuel's fellow directors at Freddie Mac was Neil Hartigan,
the former Illinois attorney general. Hartigan said Emanuel's primary
contribution was explaining to others on the board how to play the
levers of power.

He was respected on the board for his understanding of "the dynamics
of the legislative process and the executive branch at senior levels,"
Hartigan recalled. "I wouldn't say he was outspoken. What he was, was
solid."

By the time Emanuel joined Freddie Mac, the company had begun to
loosen lending standards and buy riskier sub-prime loans. It was a
practice that later blew up and contributed to the current foreclosure
crisis.

In his investigation, Falcon concluded that the board of directors on
which Emanuel sat was so pliant that Freddie Mac's managers easily
were able to massage company ledgers. They manipulated bookkeeping to
smooth out volatility, perpetuating Freddie Mac's industry reputation
as "Steady Freddie," a reliable producer of earnings growth. Wall
Street liked what it saw, Freddie Mac's stock value soared and top
executives collected their bonuses.

Another focus of Freddie during Emanuel's day?and one that played to
his skill set?was a stepped-up effort to combat congressional demands
for more regulation.

During a September 2000 board meeting?midway through Emanuel's
14-month term?Freddie Mac lobbyist R. Mitchell Delk laid out a
strategy titled "Political Risk Management" aimed at influencing
lawmakers and blunting pressure in Congress for more regulation.
Through Delk's initiative, Freddie Mac sponsored more than 80
fundraisers that raised at least $1.7 million for congressional
candidates despite a federal law that bans corporations from direct
political activity.

Emanuel spokeswoman Sarah Feinberg said Emanuel "can't remember the
meeting or topic" but might have been in attendance when Delk outlined
his plans. Feinberg downplayed the significance of the fundraiser
thrown for Emanuel, which brought in $7,000, stressing that it was but
one of many hosted by Delk. The event stood out in at least one
respect, however.

The Freddie Mac-linked events were mostly for Republicans, and only a
handful benefited Democrats like Emanuel. "Rahm was a good friend of
mine. He was on Freddie Mac's board. He was very much supportive of
housing," said Delk, who resigned under pressure in 2004.

Then-Freddie Mac CEO Leland Brendsel also hosted a fundraising lunch
for Emanuel's 2002 campaign that netted $9,500 from top company
executives. Brendsel was later ousted in the accounting scandal.

Federal campaign records show that Emanuel received $25,000 from
donors with ties to Freddie Mac in the 2002 campaign cycle, more than
twice the amount collected that election by any other candidate for
the U.S. House or Senate.

Emanuel joined the House in January 2003 and was named to the
Financial Services Committee, where he also sat on the subcommittee
that directly oversaw Freddie Mac. A few months later, Freddie Mac
Chief Executive Officer Leland Brendsel was forced out, and the
committee and subcommittee launched hearings to sort out the mess,
spanning more than a year. Emanuel skipped every hearing,
congressional records indicate.

Feinberg said Emanuel recused himself "from deliberations related to
Freddie Mac to avoid even the appearance of favoritism, impropriety or
a conflict of interest."

bsecter at tribune.com

azajac at tribune.com


From mweisner at ebsmed.com  Thu Mar 26 09:24:46 2009
From: mweisner at ebsmed.com (Michael D. Weisner)
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 09:24:46 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] The new economic definitions
Message-ID: <16AC83959F5947F786BA7AB42F0806B5@D9X7C761>

These new economic definitions just came into my inbox:

RECESSION:      When your neighbor loses his job

DEPRESSION:    When you lose your job

RECOVERY:       When Obama loses his job

Hmmm ... 

From ekroposki at charter.net  Thu Mar 26 10:36:53 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 10:36:53 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] US Debt Becoming Sub-prime
References: <8A4921F11ED24553B6CAD8BB87BF34D2@YOURB88038198E>
	<3653DAA37B274FA097E34FB9F222099F@rhodes>
Message-ID: <6FD4030543EE4952A6968BD406AF1920@YOURB88038198E>

Thank you for your reply and comments.

How does your reply deal with people who put their savings into available financial securities and retirement plans?  The value of such savings and the future value has been destroyed by the current mess and will be greatly further devalued by proposed spending?  

A devaluation of the dollar will place wealth in the hands of those in possession of physical assets, such as big buildings?  And not the little guy as you suggest.

As to who has all the marbles, it seems like Obama's choice of Geitner as Secretary of Treasury keeps the marbles in the hands of the guys who created the current mess.

How does redistribution thru taxes make new marbles?  It seems to me taxation only controls who has the existing marbles?

Anyway, it is good to see you in the office on Thursday.  Yes, I know it would be better if you were on the floor out in the plant giving directions on getting work done.  Maybe with warmer weather the boat market will increase.  And the price of gas is supposed to go up, so maybe the market will be in alternative fuels such as sail power.

Ed K


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: stan 
  To: Ed Kroposki 
  Sent: Thursday, March 26, 2009 10:00 AM
  Subject: Re: US Debt Becoming Sub-prime


  it is really not fair for me to get into any arguments on why we are in this mess since I have the age advantage - but I will repeat myself for the hell of it:

  It's all just a game    and like the game of marbles, when one player gets all the marbles the game is over   -  it you do not redistribute  - no more game;   and eventually, "off with their heads".

  when wealth is redistributed upward (as it has all this time) no one cringes at the word.     when those who understand say, time to redistribute wealth in the other direction, there is a lot of cringing and label calling.    

  we need republican Ike back again with his 90% tax rates

  ss

    (see Brad's email of 3-24-09)
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From ekroposki at charter.net  Thu Mar 26 10:43:22 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 10:43:22 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] The new economic definitions
Message-ID: <50AF94198DB0436FAAA879BE0CB590D3@YOURB88038198E>

Mike:

The problem with your last definition is that cannot occur for 3.75 years.  In the meantime the sheep are following aimlessly.  Or least not aiming in what some think the best direction.  But they are aiming in the direction of his beliefs.  

Ed K
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Thu Mar 26 17:52:33 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 16:52:33 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Duhhhhh!
Message-ID: <400985d70903261452s56b93e40o14a435b802e5ca77@mail.gmail.com>

This "just" in from a NOV07 Scientific American magazine article -


The Secret to Raising Smart Kids
Hint: Don't tell your kids that they are. More than three decades of
research shows that a focus on effort?not on intelligence or
ability?is key to success in school and in life

By Carol S. Dweck

A brilliant student, Jonathan sailed through grade school. He
completed his assignments easily and routinely earned As. Jonathan
puzzled over why some of his classmates struggled, and his parents
told him he had a special gift. In the seventh grade, however,
Jonathan suddenly lost interest in school, refusing to do homework or
study for tests. As a consequence, his grades plummeted. His parents
tried to boost their son?s confidence by assuring him that he was very
smart. But their attempts failed to motivate Jonathan (who is a
composite drawn from several children). Schoolwork, their son
maintained, was boring and pointless.

Our society worships talent, and many people assume that possessing
superior intelligence or ability?along with confidence in that
ability?is a recipe for success. In fact, however, more than 30 years
of scientific investigation suggests that an overemphasis on intellect
or talent leaves people vulnerable to failure, fearful of challenges
and unwilling to remedy their shortcomings.

The result plays out in children like Jonathan, who coast through the
early grades under the dangerous notion that no-effort academic
achievement defines them as smart or gifted. Such children hold an
implicit belief that intelligence is innate and fixed, making striving
to learn seem far less important than being (or looking) smart. This
belief also makes them see challenges, mistakes and even the need to
exert effort as threats to their ego rather than as opportunities to
improve. And it causes them to lose confidence and motivation when the
work is no longer easy for them.

Praising children?s innate abilities, as Jonathan?s parents did,
reinforces this mind-set, which can also prevent young athletes or
people in the workforce and even marriages from living up to their
potential. On the other hand, our studies show that teaching people to
have a ?growth mind-set,? which encourages a focus on effort rather
than on intelligence or talent, helps make them into high achievers in
school and in life.

The Opportunity of Defeat
I first began to investigate the underpinnings of human motivation?and
how people persevere after setbacks?as a psychology graduate student
at Yale University in the 1960s. Animal experiments by psychologists
Martin Seligman, Steven Maier and Richard Solomon of the University of
Pennsylvania had shown that after repeated failures, most animals
conclude that a situation is hopeless and beyond their control. After
such an experience, the researchers found, an animal often remains
passive even when it can affect change?a state they called learned
helplessness.

People can learn to be helpless, too, but not everyone reacts to
setbacks this way. I wondered: Why do some students give up when they
encounter difficulty, whereas others who are no more skilled continue
to strive and learn? One answer, I soon discovered, lay in people?s
beliefs about why they had failed.

In particular, attributing poor performance to a lack of ability
depresses motivation more than does the belief that lack of effort is
to blame. In 1972, when I taught a group of elementary and middle
school children who displayed helpless behavior in school that a lack
of effort (rather than lack of ability) led to their mistakes on math
problems, the kids learned to keep trying when the problems got tough.
They also solved many of the problems even in the face of difficulty.
Another group of helpless children who were simply rewarded for their
success on easy problems did not improve their ability to solve hard
math problems. These experiments were an early indication that a focus
on effort can help resolve helplessness and engender success.

Subsequent studies revealed that the most persistent students do not
ruminate about their own failure much at all but instead think of
mistakes as problems to be solved. At the University of Illinois in
the 1970s I, along with my then graduate student Carol Diener, asked
60 fifth graders to think out loud while they solved very difficult
pattern-recognition problems. Some students reacted defensively to
mistakes, denigrating their skills with comments such as ?I never did
have a good rememory,? and their problem-solving strategies
deteriorated.

Others, meanwhile, focused on fixing errors and honing their skills.
One advised himself: ?I should slow down and try to figure this out.?
Two schoolchildren were particularly inspiring. One, in the wake of
difficulty, pulled up his chair, rubbed his hands together, smacked
his lips and said, ?I love a challenge!? The other, also confronting
the hard problems, looked up at the experimenter and approvingly
declared, ?I was hoping this would be informative!? Predictably, the
students with this attitude outperformed their cohorts in these
studies.

Two Views of Intelligence
Several years later I developed a broader theory of what separates the
two general classes of learners?helpless versus mastery-oriented. I
realized that these different types of students not only explain their
failures differently, but they also hold different ?theories? of
intelligence. The helpless ones believe that intelligence is a fixed
trait: you have only a certain amount, and that?s that. I call this a
?fixed mind-set.? Mistakes crack their self-confidence because they
attribute errors to a lack of ability, which they feel powerless to
change. They avoid challenges because challenges make mistakes more
likely and looking smart less so. Like Jonathan, such children shun
effort in the belief that having to work hard means they are dumb.

The mastery-oriented children, on the other hand, think intelligence
is malleable and can be developed through education and hard work.
They want to learn above all else. After all, if you believe that you
can expand your intellectual skills, you want to do just that. Because
slipups stem from a lack of effort, not ability, they can be remedied
by more effort. Challenges are energizing rather than intimidating;
they offer opportunities to learn. Students with such a growth
mind-set, we predicted, were destined for greater academic success and
were quite likely to outperform their counterparts.

We validated these expectations in a study published in early 2007.
Psychologists Lisa Blackwell of Columbia University and Kali H.
Trzes?niewski of Stanford University and I monitored 373 students for
two years during the transition to junior high school, when the work
gets more difficult and the grading more stringent, to determine how
their mind-sets might affect their math grades. At the beginning of
seventh grade, we assessed the students? mind-sets by asking them to
agree or disagree with statements such as ?Your intelligence is
something very basic about you that you can?t really change.? We then
assessed their beliefs about other aspects of learning and looked to
see what happened to their grades.

As we had predicted, the students with a growth mind-set felt that
learning was a more important goal in school than getting good grades.
In addition, they held hard work in high regard, believing that the
more you labored at something, the better you would become at it. They
understood that even geniuses have to work hard for their great
accomplishments. Confronted by a setback such as a disappointing test
grade, students with a growth mind-set said they would study harder or
try a different strategy for mastering the material.

The students who held a fixed mind-set, however, were concerned about
looking smart with little regard for learning. They had negative views
of effort, believing that having to work hard at something was a sign
of low ability. They thought that a person with talent or intelligence
did not need to work hard to do well. Attributing a bad grade to their
own lack of ability, those with a fixed mind-set said that they would
study less in the future, try never to take that subject again and
consider cheating on future tests.

Such divergent outlooks had a dramatic impact on performance. At the
start of junior high, the math achievement test scores of the students
with a growth mind-set were comparable to those of students who
displayed a fixed mind-set. But as the work became more difficult, the
students with a growth mind-set showed greater persistence. As a
result, their math grades overtook those of the other students by the
end of the first semester?and the gap between the two groups continued
to widen during the two years we followed them.

Along with Columbia psychologist Heidi Grant, I found a similar
relation between mind-set and achievement in a 2003 study of 128
Columbia freshman premed students who were enrolled in a challenging
general chemistry course. Although all the students cared about
grades, the ones who earned the best grades were those who placed a
high premium on learning rather than on showing that they were smart
in chemistry. The focus on learning strategies, effort and persistence
paid off for these students.

Confronting Deficiencies
A belief in fixed intelligence also makes people less willing to admit
to errors or to confront and remedy their deficiencies in school, at
work and in their social relationships. In a study published in 1999
of 168 freshmen entering the University of Hong Kong, where all
instruction and coursework are in English, three Hong Kong colleagues
and I found that students with a growth mind-set who scored poorly on
their English proficiency exam were far more inclined to take a
remedial English course than were low-scoring students with a fixed
mind-set. The students with a stagnant view of intelligence were
presumably unwilling to admit to their deficit and thus passed up the
opportunity to correct it.

A fixed mind-set can similarly hamper communication and progress in
the workplace by leading managers and employees to discourage or
ignore constructive criticism and advice. Research by psychologists
Peter Heslin and Don VandeWalle of Southern Methodist University and
Gary Latham of the University of Toronto shows that managers who have
a fixed mind-set are less likely to seek or welcome feedback from
their employees than are managers with a growth mind-set. Presumably,
managers with a growth mind-set see themselves as works-in-progress
and understand that they need feedback to improve, whereas bosses with
a fixed mind-set are more likely to see criticism as reflecting their
underlying level of competence. Assuming that other people are not
capable of changing either, executives with a fixed mind-set are also
less likely to mentor their underlings. But after Heslin, VandeWalle
and Latham gave managers a tutorial on the value and principles of the
growth mind-set, supervisors became more willing to coach their
employees and gave more useful advice.

Mind-set can affect the quality and longevity of personal
relationships as well, through people?s willingness?or
unwillingness?to deal with difficulties. Those with a fixed mind-set
are less likely than those with a growth mind-set to broach problems
in their relationships and to try to solve them, according to a 2006
study I conducted with psychologist Lara Kammrath of Wilfrid Laurier
University in Ontario. After all, if you think that human personality
traits are more or less fixed, relationship repair seems largely
futile. Individuals who believe people can change and grow, however,
are more confident that confronting concerns in their relationships
will lead to resolutions.

Proper Praise
How do we transmit a growth mind-set to our children? One way is by
telling stories about achievements that result from hard work. For
instance, talking about math geniuses who were more or less born that
way puts students in a fixed mind-set, but descriptions of great
mathematicians who fell in love with math and developed amazing skills
engenders a growth mind-set, our studies have shown. People also
communicate mind-sets through praise. Although many, if not most,
parents believe that they should build up a child by telling him  or
her how brilliant and talented he or she is, our research suggests
that this is misguided.

In studies involving several hundred fifth graders published in 1998,
for example, Columbia psychologist Claudia M. Mueller and I gave
children questions from a nonverbal IQ test. After the first 10
problems, on which most children did fairly well, we praised them. We
praised some of them for their intelligence: ?Wow ? that?s a really
good score. You must be smart at this.? We commended others for their
effort: ?Wow ? that?s a really good score. You must have worked really
hard.?

We found that intelligence praise encouraged a fixed mind-set more
often than did pats on the back for effort. Those congratulated for
their intelligence, for example, shied away from a challenging
assignment?they wanted an easy one instead?far more often than the
kids applauded for their effort. (Most of those lauded for their hard
work wanted the difficult problem set from which they would learn.)
When we gave everyone hard problems anyway, those praised for being
smart became discouraged, doubting their ability. And their scores,
even on an easier problem set we gave them afterward, declined as
compared with their previous results on equivalent problems. In
contrast, students praised for their effort did not lose confidence
when faced with the harder questions, and their performance improved
markedly on the easier problems that followed.

Making Up Your Mind-set
In addition to encouraging a growth mind-set through praise for
effort, parents and teachers can help children by providing explicit
instruction regarding the mind as a learning machine. Blackwell,
Trzesniewski and I recently designed an eight-session workshop for 91
students whose math grades were declining in their first year of
junior high. Forty-eight of the students received instruction in study
skills only, whereas the others attended a combination of study skills
sessions and classes in which they learned about the growth mind-set
and how to apply it to schoolwork.

In the growth mind-set classes, students read and discussed an article
entitled ?You Can Grow Your Brain.? They were taught that the brain is
like a muscle that gets stronger with use and that learning prompts
neurons in the brain to grow new connections. From such instruction,
many students began to see themselves as agents of their own brain
development. Students who had been disruptive or bored sat still and
took note. One particularly unruly boy looked up during the discussion
and said, ?You mean I don?t have to be dumb??

As the semester progressed, the math grades of the kids who learned
only study skills continued to decline, whereas those of the students
given the growth-mind-set training stopped falling and began to bounce
back to their former levels. Despite being unaware that there were two
types of instruction, teachers reported noticing significant
motivational changes in 27 percent of the children in the growth
mind-set workshop as compared with only 9 percent of students in the
control group. One teacher wrote: ?Your workshop has already had an
effect. L [our unruly male student], who never puts in any extra
effort and often doesn?t turn in homework on time, actually stayed up
late to finish an assignment early so I could review it and give him a
chance to revise it. He earned a B+. (He had been getting Cs and
lower.)?

Other researchers have replicated our results. Psychologists Catherine
Good, then at Columbia, and Joshua Aronson and Michael Inzlicht of New
York University reported in 2003 that a growth mind-set workshop
raised the math and English achievement test scores of seventh
graders. In a 2002 study Aronson, Good (then a graduate student at the
University of Texas at Austin) and their colleagues found that college
students began to enjoy their schoolwork more, value it more highly
and get better grades as a result of training that fostered a growth
mind-set.

We have now encapsulated such instruction in an interactive computer
program called ?Brain?ology,? which should be more widely available by
mid-2008. Its six modules teach students about the brain?what it does
and how to make it work better. In a virtual brain lab, users can
click on brain regions to determine their functions or on nerve
endings to see how connections form when people learn. Users can also
advise virtual students with problems as a way of practicing how to
handle schoolwork difficulties; additionally, users keep an online
journal of their study practices.

New York City seventh graders who tested a pilot version of Brainology
told us that the program had changed their view of learning and how to
promote it. One wrote: ?My favorite thing from Brainology is the
neurons part where when u [sic] learn something there are connections
and they keep growing. I always picture them when I?m in school.? A
teacher said of the students who used the program: ?They offer to
practice, study, take notes, or pay attention to ensure that
connections will be made.?

Teaching children such information is not just a ploy to get them to
study. People do differ in intelligence, talent and ability. And yet
research is converging on the conclusion that great accomplishment,
and even what we call genius, is typically the result of years of
passion and dedication and not something that flows naturally from a
gift. Mozart, Edison, Curie, Darwin and C?zanne were not simply born
with talent; they cultivated it through tremendous and sustained
effort. Similarly, hard work and discipline contribute much more to
school achievement than IQ does.

Such lessons apply to almost every human endeavor. For instance, many
young athletes value talent more than hard work and have consequently
become unteachable. Similarly, many people accomplish little in their
jobs without constant praise and encouragement to maintain their
motivation. If we foster a growth mind-set in our homes and schools,
however, we will give our children the tools to succeed in their
pursuits and to become responsible employees and citizens.


From flybrad at gmail.com  Thu Mar 26 17:56:44 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 16:56:44 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Duhhhhh!
Message-ID: <400985d70903261456g468ab726se98d9cef84e1e7fc@mail.gmail.com>

This "just" in from a NOV07 Scientific American magazine article -


The Secret to Raising Smart Kids
Hint: Don't tell your kids that they are. More than three decades of
research shows that a focus on effort?not on intelligence or
ability?is key to success in school and in life

By Carol S. Dweck

A brilliant student, Jonathan sailed through grade school. He
completed his assignments easily and routinely earned As. Jonathan
puzzled over why some of his classmates struggled, and his parents
told him he had a special gift. In the seventh grade, however,
Jonathan suddenly lost interest in school, refusing to do homework or
study for tests. As a consequence, his grades plummeted. His parents
tried to boost their son?s confidence by assuring him that he was very
smart. But their attempts failed to motivate Jonathan (who is a
composite drawn from several children). Schoolwork, their son
maintained, was boring and pointless.

Our society worships talent, and many people assume that possessing
superior intelligence or ability?along with confidence in that
ability?is a recipe for success. In fact, however, more than 30 years
of scientific investigation suggests that an overemphasis on intellect
or talent leaves people vulnerable to failure, fearful of challenges
and unwilling to remedy their shortcomings.

The result plays out in children like Jonathan, who coast through the
early grades under the dangerous notion that no-effort academic
achievement defines them as smart or gifted. Such children hold an
implicit belief that intelligence is innate and fixed, making striving
to learn seem far less important than being (or looking) smart. This
belief also makes them see challenges, mistakes and even the need to
exert effort as threats to their ego rather than as opportunities to
improve. And it causes them to lose confidence and motivation when the
work is no longer easy for them.

Praising children?s innate abilities, as Jonathan?s parents did,
reinforces this mind-set, which can also prevent young athletes or
people in the workforce and even marriages from living up to their
potential. On the other hand, our studies show that teaching people to
have a ?growth mind-set,? which encourages a focus on effort rather
than on intelligence or talent, helps make them into high achievers in
school and in life.

The Opportunity of Defeat
I first began to investigate the underpinnings of human motivation?and
how people persevere after setbacks?as a psychology graduate student
at Yale University in the 1960s. Animal experiments by psychologists
Martin Seligman, Steven Maier and Richard Solomon of the University of
Pennsylvania had shown that after repeated failures, most animals
conclude that a situation is hopeless and beyond their control. After
such an experience, the researchers found, an animal often remains
passive even when it can affect change?a state they called learned
helplessness.

People can learn to be helpless, too, but not everyone reacts to
setbacks this way. I wondered: Why do some students give up when they
encounter difficulty, whereas others who are no more skilled continue
to strive and learn? One answer, I soon discovered, lay in people?s
beliefs about why they had failed.

In particular, attributing poor performance to a lack of ability
depresses motivation more than does the belief that lack of effort is
to blame. In 1972, when I taught a group of elementary and middle
school children who displayed helpless behavior in school that a lack
of effort (rather than lack of ability) led to their mistakes on math
problems, the kids learned to keep trying when the problems got tough.
They also solved many of the problems even in the face of difficulty.
Another group of helpless children who were simply rewarded for their
success on easy problems did not improve their ability to solve hard
math problems. These experiments were an early indication that a focus
on effort can help resolve helplessness and engender success.

Subsequent studies revealed that the most persistent students do not
ruminate about their own failure much at all but instead think of
mistakes as problems to be solved. At the University of Illinois in
the 1970s I, along with my then graduate student Carol Diener, asked
60 fifth graders to think out loud while they solved very difficult
pattern-recognition problems. Some students reacted defensively to
mistakes, denigrating their skills with comments such as ?I never did
have a good rememory,? and their problem-solving strategies
deteriorated.

Others, meanwhile, focused on fixing errors and honing their skills.
One advised himself: ?I should slow down and try to figure this out.?
Two schoolchildren were particularly inspiring. One, in the wake of
difficulty, pulled up his chair, rubbed his hands together, smacked
his lips and said, ?I love a challenge!? The other, also confronting
the hard problems, looked up at the experimenter and approvingly
declared, ?I was hoping this would be informative!? Predictably, the
students with this attitude outperformed their cohorts in these
studies.

Two Views of Intelligence
Several years later I developed a broader theory of what separates the
two general classes of learners?helpless versus mastery-oriented. I
realized that these different types of students not only explain their
failures differently, but they also hold different ?theories? of
intelligence. The helpless ones believe that intelligence is a fixed
trait: you have only a certain amount, and that?s that. I call this a
?fixed mind-set.? Mistakes crack their self-confidence because they
attribute errors to a lack of ability, which they feel powerless to
change. They avoid challenges because challenges make mistakes more
likely and looking smart less so. Like Jonathan, such children shun
effort in the belief that having to work hard means they are dumb.

The mastery-oriented children, on the other hand, think intelligence
is malleable and can be developed through education and hard work.
They want to learn above all else. After all, if you believe that you
can expand your intellectual skills, you want to do just that. Because
slipups stem from a lack of effort, not ability, they can be remedied
by more effort. Challenges are energizing rather than intimidating;
they offer opportunities to learn. Students with such a growth
mind-set, we predicted, were destined for greater academic success and
were quite likely to outperform their counterparts.

We validated these expectations in a study published in early 2007.
Psychologists Lisa Blackwell of Columbia University and Kali H.
Trzes?niewski of Stanford University and I monitored 373 students for
two years during the transition to junior high school, when the work
gets more difficult and the grading more stringent, to determine how
their mind-sets might affect their math grades. At the beginning of
seventh grade, we assessed the students? mind-sets by asking them to
agree or disagree with statements such as ?Your intelligence is
something very basic about you that you can?t really change.? We then
assessed their beliefs about other aspects of learning and looked to
see what happened to their grades.

As we had predicted, the students with a growth mind-set felt that
learning was a more important goal in school than getting good grades.
In addition, they held hard work in high regard, believing that the
more you labored at something, the better you would become at it. They
understood that even geniuses have to work hard for their great
accomplishments. Confronted by a setback such as a disappointing test
grade, students with a growth mind-set said they would study harder or
try a different strategy for mastering the material.

The students who held a fixed mind-set, however, were concerned about
looking smart with little regard for learning. They had negative views
of effort, believing that having to work hard at something was a sign
of low ability. They thought that a person with talent or intelligence
did not need to work hard to do well. Attributing a bad grade to their
own lack of ability, those with a fixed mind-set said that they would
study less in the future, try never to take that subject again and
consider cheating on future tests.

Such divergent outlooks had a dramatic impact on performance. At the
start of junior high, the math achievement test scores of the students
with a growth mind-set were comparable to those of students who
displayed a fixed mind-set. But as the work became more difficult, the
students with a growth mind-set showed greater persistence. As a
result, their math grades overtook those of the other students by the
end of the first semester?and the gap between the two groups continued
to widen during the two years we followed them.

Along with Columbia psychologist Heidi Grant, I found a similar
relation between mind-set and achievement in a 2003 study of 128
Columbia freshman premed students who were enrolled in a challenging
general chemistry course. Although all the students cared about
grades, the ones who earned the best grades were those who placed a
high premium on learning rather than on showing that they were smart
in chemistry. The focus on learning strategies, effort and persistence
paid off for these students.

Confronting Deficiencies
A belief in fixed intelligence also makes people less willing to admit
to errors or to confront and remedy their deficiencies in school, at
work and in their social relationships. In a study published in 1999
of 168 freshmen entering the University of Hong Kong, where all
instruction and coursework are in English, three Hong Kong colleagues
and I found that students with a growth mind-set who scored poorly on
their English proficiency exam were far more inclined to take a
remedial English course than were low-scoring students with a fixed
mind-set. The students with a stagnant view of intelligence were
presumably unwilling to admit to their deficit and thus passed up the
opportunity to correct it.

A fixed mind-set can similarly hamper communication and progress in
the workplace by leading managers and employees to discourage or
ignore constructive criticism and advice. Research by psychologists
Peter Heslin and Don VandeWalle of Southern Methodist University and
Gary Latham of the University of Toronto shows that managers who have
a fixed mind-set are less likely to seek or welcome feedback from
their employees than are managers with a growth mind-set. Presumably,
managers with a growth mind-set see themselves as works-in-progress
and understand that they need feedback to improve, whereas bosses with
a fixed mind-set are more likely to see criticism as reflecting their
underlying level of competence. Assuming that other people are not
capable of changing either, executives with a fixed mind-set are also
less likely to mentor their underlings. But after Heslin, VandeWalle
and Latham gave managers a tutorial on the value and principles of the
growth mind-set, supervisors became more willing to coach their
employees and gave more useful advice.

Mind-set can affect the quality and longevity of personal
relationships as well, through people?s willingness?or
unwillingness?to deal with difficulties. Those with a fixed mind-set
are less likely than those with a growth mind-set to broach problems
in their relationships and to try to solve them, according to a 2006
study I conducted with psychologist Lara Kammrath of Wilfrid Laurier
University in Ontario. After all, if you think that human personality
traits are more or less fixed, relationship repair seems largely
futile. Individuals who believe people can change and grow, however,
are more confident that confronting concerns in their relationships
will lead to resolutions.

Proper Praise
How do we transmit a growth mind-set to our children? One way is by
telling stories about achievements that result from hard work. For
instance, talking about math geniuses who were more or less born that
way puts students in a fixed mind-set, but descriptions of great
mathematicians who fell in love with math and developed amazing skills
engenders a growth mind-set, our studies have shown. People also
communicate mind-sets through praise. Although many, if not most,
parents believe that they should build up a child by telling him  or
her how brilliant and talented he or she is, our research suggests
that this is misguided.

In studies involving several hundred fifth graders published in 1998,
for example, Columbia psychologist Claudia M. Mueller and I gave
children questions from a nonverbal IQ test. After the first 10
problems, on which most children did fairly well, we praised them. We
praised some of them for their intelligence: ?Wow ? that?s a really
good score. You must be smart at this.? We commended others for their
effort: ?Wow ? that?s a really good score. You must have worked really
hard.?

We found that intelligence praise encouraged a fixed mind-set more
often than did pats on the back for effort. Those congratulated for
their intelligence, for example, shied away from a challenging
assignment?they wanted an easy one instead?far more often than the
kids applauded for their effort. (Most of those lauded for their hard
work wanted the difficult problem set from which they would learn.)
When we gave everyone hard problems anyway, those praised for being
smart became discouraged, doubting their ability. And their scores,
even on an easier problem set we gave them afterward, declined as
compared with their previous results on equivalent problems. In
contrast, students praised for their effort did not lose confidence
when faced with the harder questions, and their performance improved
markedly on the easier problems that followed.

Making Up Your Mind-set
In addition to encouraging a growth mind-set through praise for
effort, parents and teachers can help children by providing explicit
instruction regarding the mind as a learning machine. Blackwell,
Trzesniewski and I recently designed an eight-session workshop for 91
students whose math grades were declining in their first year of
junior high. Forty-eight of the students received instruction in study
skills only, whereas the others attended a combination of study skills
sessions and classes in which they learned about the growth mind-set
and how to apply it to schoolwork.

In the growth mind-set classes, students read and discussed an article
entitled ?You Can Grow Your Brain.? They were taught that the brain is
like a muscle that gets stronger with use and that learning prompts
neurons in the brain to grow new connections. From such instruction,
many students began to see themselves as agents of their own brain
development. Students who had been disruptive or bored sat still and
took note. One particularly unruly boy looked up during the discussion
and said, ?You mean I don?t have to be dumb??

As the semester progressed, the math grades of the kids who learned
only study skills continued to decline, whereas those of the students
given the growth-mind-set training stopped falling and began to bounce
back to their former levels. Despite being unaware that there were two
types of instruction, teachers reported noticing significant
motivational changes in 27 percent of the children in the growth
mind-set workshop as compared with only 9 percent of students in the
control group. One teacher wrote: ?Your workshop has already had an
effect. L [our unruly male student], who never puts in any extra
effort and often doesn?t turn in homework on time, actually stayed up
late to finish an assignment early so I could review it and give him a
chance to revise it. He earned a B+. (He had been getting Cs and
lower.)?

Other researchers have replicated our results. Psychologists Catherine
Good, then at Columbia, and Joshua Aronson and Michael Inzlicht of New
York University reported in 2003 that a growth mind-set workshop
raised the math and English achievement test scores of seventh
graders. In a 2002 study Aronson, Good (then a graduate student at the
University of Texas at Austin) and their colleagues found that college
students began to enjoy their schoolwork more, value it more highly
and get better grades as a result of training that fostered a growth
mind-set.

We have now encapsulated such instruction in an interactive computer
program called ?Brain?ology,? which should be more widely available by
mid-2008. Its six modules teach students about the brain?what it does
and how to make it work better. In a virtual brain lab, users can
click on brain regions to determine their functions or on nerve
endings to see how connections form when people learn. Users can also
advise virtual students with problems as a way of practicing how to
handle schoolwork difficulties; additionally, users keep an online
journal of their study practices.

New York City seventh graders who tested a pilot version of Brainology
told us that the program had changed their view of learning and how to
promote it. One wrote: ?My favorite thing from Brainology is the
neurons part where when u [sic] learn something there are connections
and they keep growing. I always picture them when I?m in school.? A
teacher said of the students who used the program: ?They offer to
practice, study, take notes, or pay attention to ensure that
connections will be made.?

Teaching children such information is not just a ploy to get them to
study. People do differ in intelligence, talent and ability. And yet
research is converging on the conclusion that great accomplishment,
and even what we call genius, is typically the result of years of
passion and dedication and not something that flows naturally from a
gift. Mozart, Edison, Curie, Darwin and C?zanne were not simply born
with talent; they cultivated it through tremendous and sustained
effort. Similarly, hard work and discipline contribute much more to
school achievement than IQ does.

Such lessons apply to almost every human endeavor. For instance, many
young athletes value talent more than hard work and have consequently
become unteachable. Similarly, many people accomplish little in their
jobs without constant praise and encouragement to maintain their
motivation. If we foster a growth mind-set in our homes and schools,
however, we will give our children the tools to succeed in their
pursuits and to become responsible employees and citizens.


From flybrad at gmail.com  Thu Mar 26 18:02:35 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:02:35 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Duhhhhh!
Message-ID: <400985d70903261502m2ed3b760s9a0bf1d5fc7608ec@mail.gmail.com>

This "just" in from a NOV07 Scientific American magazine article -


The Secret to Raising Smart Kids
Hint: Don't tell your kids that they are. More than three decades of
research shows that a focus on effort?not on intelligence or
ability?is key to success in school and in life

By Carol S. Dweck

A brilliant student, Jonathan sailed through grade school. He
completed his assignments easily and routinely earned As. Jonathan
puzzled over why some of his classmates struggled, and his parents
told him he had a special gift. In the seventh grade, however,
Jonathan suddenly lost interest in school, refusing to do homework or
study for tests. As a consequence, his grades plummeted. His parents
tried to boost their son?s confidence by assuring him that he was very
smart. But their attempts failed to motivate Jonathan (who is a
composite drawn from several children). Schoolwork, their son
maintained, was boring and pointless.

Our society worships talent, and many people assume that possessing
superior intelligence or ability?along with confidence in that
ability?is a recipe for success. In fact, however, more than 30 years
of scientific investigation suggests that an overemphasis on intellect
or talent leaves people vulnerable to failure, fearful of challenges
and unwilling to remedy their shortcomings.

The result plays out in children like Jonathan, who coast through the
early grades under the dangerous notion that no-effort academic
achievement defines them as smart or gifted. Such children hold an
implicit belief that intelligence is innate and fixed, making striving
to learn seem far less important than being (or looking) smart. This
belief also makes them see challenges, mistakes and even the need to
exert effort as threats to their ego rather than as opportunities to
improve. And it causes them to lose confidence and motivation when the
work is no longer easy for them.

Praising children?s innate abilities, as Jonathan?s parents did,
reinforces this mind-set, which can also prevent young athletes or
people in the workforce and even marriages from living up to their
potential. On the other hand, our studies show that teaching people to
have a ?growth mind-set,? which encourages a focus on effort rather
than on intelligence or talent, helps make them into high achievers in
school and in life.

The Opportunity of Defeat
I first began to investigate the underpinnings of human motivation?and
how people persevere after setbacks?as a psychology graduate student
at Yale University in the 1960s. Animal experiments by psychologists
Martin Seligman, Steven Maier and Richard Solomon of the University of
Pennsylvania had shown that after repeated failures, most animals
conclude that a situation is hopeless and beyond their control. After
such an experience, the researchers found, an animal often remains
passive even when it can affect change?a state they called learned
helplessness.

People can learn to be helpless, too, but not everyone reacts to
setbacks this way. I wondered: Why do some students give up when they
encounter difficulty, whereas others who are no more skilled continue
to strive and learn? One answer, I soon discovered, lay in people?s
beliefs about why they had failed.

In particular, attributing poor performance to a lack of ability
depresses motivation more than does the belief that lack of effort is
to blame. In 1972, when I taught a group of elementary and middle
school children who displayed helpless behavior in school that a lack
of effort (rather than lack of ability) led to their mistakes on math
problems, the kids learned to keep trying when the problems got tough.
They also solved many of the problems even in the face of difficulty.
Another group of helpless children who were simply rewarded for their
success on easy problems did not improve their ability to solve hard
math problems. These experiments were an early indication that a focus
on effort can help resolve helplessness and engender success.

Subsequent studies revealed that the most persistent students do not
ruminate about their own failure much at all but instead think of
mistakes as problems to be solved. At the University of Illinois in
the 1970s I, along with my then graduate student Carol Diener, asked
60 fifth graders to think out loud while they solved very difficult
pattern-recognition problems. Some students reacted defensively to
mistakes, denigrating their skills with comments such as ?I never did
have a good rememory,? and their problem-solving strategies
deteriorated.

Others, meanwhile, focused on fixing errors and honing their skills.
One advised himself: ?I should slow down and try to figure this out.?
Two schoolchildren were particularly inspiring. One, in the wake of
difficulty, pulled up his chair, rubbed his hands together, smacked
his lips and said, ?I love a challenge!? The other, also confronting
the hard problems, looked up at the experimenter and approvingly
declared, ?I was hoping this would be informative!? Predictably, the
students with this attitude outperformed their cohorts in these
studies.

Two Views of Intelligence
Several years later I developed a broader theory of what separates the
two general classes of learners?helpless versus mastery-oriented. I
realized that these different types of students not only explain their
failures differently, but they also hold different ?theories? of
intelligence. The helpless ones believe that intelligence is a fixed
trait: you have only a certain amount, and that?s that. I call this a
?fixed mind-set.? Mistakes crack their self-confidence because they
attribute errors to a lack of ability, which they feel powerless to
change. They avoid challenges because challenges make mistakes more
likely and looking smart less so. Like Jonathan, such children shun
effort in the belief that having to work hard means they are dumb.

The mastery-oriented children, on the other hand, think intelligence
is malleable and can be developed through education and hard work.
They want to learn above all else. After all, if you believe that you
can expand your intellectual skills, you want to do just that. Because
slipups stem from a lack of effort, not ability, they can be remedied
by more effort. Challenges are energizing rather than intimidating;
they offer opportunities to learn. Students with such a growth
mind-set, we predicted, were destined for greater academic success and
were quite likely to outperform their counterparts.

We validated these expectations in a study published in early 2007.
Psychologists Lisa Blackwell of Columbia University and Kali H.
Trzes?niewski of Stanford University and I monitored 373 students for
two years during the transition to junior high school, when the work
gets more difficult and the grading more stringent, to determine how
their mind-sets might affect their math grades. At the beginning of
seventh grade, we assessed the students? mind-sets by asking them to
agree or disagree with statements such as ?Your intelligence is
something very basic about you that you can?t really change.? We then
assessed their beliefs about other aspects of learning and looked to
see what happened to their grades.

As we had predicted, the students with a growth mind-set felt that
learning was a more important goal in school than getting good grades.
In addition, they held hard work in high regard, believing that the
more you labored at something, the better you would become at it. They
understood that even geniuses have to work hard for their great
accomplishments. Confronted by a setback such as a disappointing test
grade, students with a growth mind-set said they would study harder or
try a different strategy for mastering the material.

The students who held a fixed mind-set, however, were concerned about
looking smart with little regard for learning. They had negative views
of effort, believing that having to work hard at something was a sign
of low ability. They thought that a person with talent or intelligence
did not need to work hard to do well. Attributing a bad grade to their
own lack of ability, those with a fixed mind-set said that they would
study less in the future, try never to take that subject again and
consider cheating on future tests.

Such divergent outlooks had a dramatic impact on performance. At the
start of junior high, the math achievement test scores of the students
with a growth mind-set were comparable to those of students who
displayed a fixed mind-set. But as the work became more difficult, the
students with a growth mind-set showed greater persistence. As a
result, their math grades overtook those of the other students by the
end of the first semester?and the gap between the two groups continued
to widen during the two years we followed them.

Along with Columbia psychologist Heidi Grant, I found a similar
relation between mind-set and achievement in a 2003 study of 128
Columbia freshman premed students who were enrolled in a challenging
general chemistry course. Although all the students cared about
grades, the ones who earned the best grades were those who placed a
high premium on learning rather than on showing that they were smart
in chemistry. The focus on learning strategies, effort and persistence
paid off for these students.

Confronting Deficiencies
A belief in fixed intelligence also makes people less willing to admit
to errors or to confront and remedy their deficiencies in school, at
work and in their social relationships. In a study published in 1999
of 168 freshmen entering the University of Hong Kong, where all
instruction and coursework are in English, three Hong Kong colleagues
and I found that students with a growth mind-set who scored poorly on
their English proficiency exam were far more inclined to take a
remedial English course than were low-scoring students with a fixed
mind-set. The students with a stagnant view of intelligence were
presumably unwilling to admit to their deficit and thus passed up the
opportunity to correct it.

A fixed mind-set can similarly hamper communication and progress in
the workplace by leading managers and employees to discourage or
ignore constructive criticism and advice. Research by psychologists
Peter Heslin and Don VandeWalle of Southern Methodist University and
Gary Latham of the University of Toronto shows that managers who have
a fixed mind-set are less likely to seek or welcome feedback from
their employees than are managers with a growth mind-set. Presumably,
managers with a growth mind-set see themselves as works-in-progress
and understand that they need feedback to improve, whereas bosses with
a fixed mind-set are more likely to see criticism as reflecting their
underlying level of competence. Assuming that other people are not
capable of changing either, executives with a fixed mind-set are also
less likely to mentor their underlings. But after Heslin, VandeWalle
and Latham gave managers a tutorial on the value and principles of the
growth mind-set, supervisors became more willing to coach their
employees and gave more useful advice.

Mind-set can affect the quality and longevity of personal
relationships as well, through people?s willingness?or
unwillingness?to deal with difficulties. Those with a fixed mind-set
are less likely than those with a growth mind-set to broach problems
in their relationships and to try to solve them, according to a 2006
study I conducted with psychologist Lara Kammrath of Wilfrid Laurier
University in Ontario. After all, if you think that human personality
traits are more or less fixed, relationship repair seems largely
futile. Individuals who believe people can change and grow, however,
are more confident that confronting concerns in their relationships
will lead to resolutions.

Proper Praise
How do we transmit a growth mind-set to our children? One way is by
telling stories about achievements that result from hard work. For
instance, talking about math geniuses who were more or less born that
way puts students in a fixed mind-set, but descriptions of great
mathematicians who fell in love with math and developed amazing skills
engenders a growth mind-set, our studies have shown. People also
communicate mind-sets through praise. Although many, if not most,
parents believe that they should build up a child by telling him  or
her how brilliant and talented he or she is, our research suggests
that this is misguided.

In studies involving several hundred fifth graders published in 1998,
for example, Columbia psychologist Claudia M. Mueller and I gave
children questions from a nonverbal IQ test. After the first 10
problems, on which most children did fairly well, we praised them. We
praised some of them for their intelligence: ?Wow ? that?s a really
good score. You must be smart at this.? We commended others for their
effort: ?Wow ? that?s a really good score. You must have worked really
hard.?

We found that intelligence praise encouraged a fixed mind-set more
often than did pats on the back for effort. Those congratulated for
their intelligence, for example, shied away from a challenging
assignment?they wanted an easy one instead?far more often than the
kids applauded for their effort. (Most of those lauded for their hard
work wanted the difficult problem set from which they would learn.)
When we gave everyone hard problems anyway, those praised for being
smart became discouraged, doubting their ability. And their scores,
even on an easier problem set we gave them afterward, declined as
compared with their previous results on equivalent problems. In
contrast, students praised for their effort did not lose confidence
when faced with the harder questions, and their performance improved
markedly on the easier problems that followed.

Making Up Your Mind-set
In addition to encouraging a growth mind-set through praise for
effort, parents and teachers can help children by providing explicit
instruction regarding the mind as a learning machine. Blackwell,
Trzesniewski and I recently designed an eight-session workshop for 91
students whose math grades were declining in their first year of
junior high. Forty-eight of the students received instruction in study
skills only, whereas the others attended a combination of study skills
sessions and classes in which they learned about the growth mind-set
and how to apply it to schoolwork.

In the growth mind-set classes, students read and discussed an article
entitled ?You Can Grow Your Brain.? They were taught that the brain is
like a muscle that gets stronger with use and that learning prompts
neurons in the brain to grow new connections. From such instruction,
many students began to see themselves as agents of their own brain
development. Students who had been disruptive or bored sat still and
took note. One particularly unruly boy looked up during the discussion
and said, ?You mean I don?t have to be dumb??

As the semester progressed, the math grades of the kids who learned
only study skills continued to decline, whereas those of the students
given the growth-mind-set training stopped falling and began to bounce
back to their former levels. Despite being unaware that there were two
types of instruction, teachers reported noticing significant
motivational changes in 27 percent of the children in the growth
mind-set workshop as compared with only 9 percent of students in the
control group. One teacher wrote: ?Your workshop has already had an
effect. L [our unruly male student], who never puts in any extra
effort and often doesn?t turn in homework on time, actually stayed up
late to finish an assignment early so I could review it and give him a
chance to revise it. He earned a B+. (He had been getting Cs and
lower.)?

Other researchers have replicated our results. Psychologists Catherine
Good, then at Columbia, and Joshua Aronson and Michael Inzlicht of New
York University reported in 2003 that a growth mind-set workshop
raised the math and English achievement test scores of seventh
graders. In a 2002 study Aronson, Good (then a graduate student at the
University of Texas at Austin) and their colleagues found that college
students began to enjoy their schoolwork more, value it more highly
and get better grades as a result of training that fostered a growth
mind-set.

We have now encapsulated such instruction in an interactive computer
program called ?Brain?ology,? which should be more widely available by
mid-2008. Its six modules teach students about the brain?what it does
and how to make it work better. In a virtual brain lab, users can
click on brain regions to determine their functions or on nerve
endings to see how connections form when people learn. Users can also
advise virtual students with problems as a way of practicing how to
handle schoolwork difficulties; additionally, users keep an online
journal of their study practices.

New York City seventh graders who tested a pilot version of Brainology
told us that the program had changed their view of learning and how to
promote it. One wrote: ?My favorite thing from Brainology is the
neurons part where when u [sic] learn something there are connections
and they keep growing. I always picture them when I?m in school.? A
teacher said of the students who used the program: ?They offer to
practice, study, take notes, or pay attention to ensure that
connections will be made.?

Teaching children such information is not just a ploy to get them to
study. People do differ in intelligence, talent and ability. And yet
research is converging on the conclusion that great accomplishment,
and even what we call genius, is typically the result of years of
passion and dedication and not something that flows naturally from a
gift. Mozart, Edison, Curie, Darwin and C?zanne were not simply born
with talent; they cultivated it through tremendous and sustained
effort. Similarly, hard work and discipline contribute much more to
school achievement than IQ does.

Such lessons apply to almost every human endeavor. For instance, many
young athletes value talent more than hard work and have consequently
become unteachable. Similarly, many people accomplish little in their
jobs without constant praise and encouragement to maintain their
motivation. If we foster a growth mind-set in our homes and schools,
however, we will give our children the tools to succeed in their
pursuits and to become responsible employees and citizens.


From ekroposki at charter.net  Thu Mar 26 08:14:19 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 08:14:19 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] What is a Physicist view of this article?
Message-ID: <9F818692AE8043029121A85A5C89FD26@YOURB88038198E>

Ron Lipton, PhD:

What is a physicist view of this article:

http://portal.acs.org/portal/acs/corg/content?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=PP_ARTICLEMAIN&node_id=222&content_id=WPCP_012362&use_sec=true&sec_url_var=region1&__uuid=d1be091f-7a88-4bda-aa35-c93d62466b96

Ed K






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From flybrad at gmail.com  Fri Mar 27 08:50:08 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Fri, 27 Mar 2009 07:50:08 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] US Too Deep In Debt For EU
Message-ID: <400985d70903270550p147ad1a9yd531348ac8aa3851@mail.gmail.com>

What a clever way to turn a nation away from Jefferson's vision of
individuals seeking their own prosperity to a totalitarian state -
bankrupt it! Let me remind you, 38% of our citizens do not pay federal
taxes and well over 50% are net beneficiaries of federal government
largess.  These people think they are going to get something for free.
 Your children and grand-children will suffer under the yoke of
massive debt for the rest of their lives.  For what, free health care?
 Free education?  They could pay retail for education on student loans
and the real cost would be less.  Try and see a medical specialist in
Canada and see how long it takes - Fan has a friend in Vancouver,
Canada that's been waiting to see an arthritis specialist for seven
months. When my mother-in-law was diagnosed with kidney failure here
in the US (paid for by us out of pocket) she returned to China and got
her dialysis started immediately because my family knows the right
people and who to payoff. Government can't provide healthcare it can
only ration healthcare.  People are fools to think this massive debt
will improve the quality of their lives.  What price for your soul and
your freedom?

Brad

--------------

March 26, 2009
Gregg: U.S. couldn't even join EU due to debt levels
@ 8:51 am by Michael O'Brien

The United States wouldn't even be eligible to enter the European
Union if it wanted to because of its debt levels, Sen. Judd Gregg
(R-N.H.) claimed Thursday.

"We won't even be able to get into the EU if we wanted to," Gregg said
this morning on MSNBC, "because our government is so large and so
huge."

The European Union's Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) adopted in 1997
requires a budget deficit to be less than three percent, and requires
a national debt beneath 60 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

"We've been lectured by France on the fact that we're not fiscally
responsible right now," Gregg, the would-be commerce secretary, noted
with incredulity.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the yearly budget
deficit would fall well beyond that threshold in coming years.

Still, Gregg expressed resignation with the likelihood that the Obama
administration's proposed budget would emerge successfully from
Congress.

"He's in charge, and they've got the votes here in Congress," he said.

From ekroposki at charter.net  Fri Mar 27 09:14:25 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Fri, 27 Mar 2009 09:14:25 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] US Too Deep In Debt For EU
Message-ID: <9A873A5ABF8842B0AE72E6C5BB1B6F8E@YOURB88038198E>

Brad,

You have been around me too long.  Now you are sounding like me.  

I have thought about running for public office, but do not have the patience for putting up with dumb people.  My language would cause public anguish.  

However, you my friend, should consider the obligation.  If you decide to run for an office, I have organization experience and would willingly help.  

Bye the way, last fall we posted emails about Ayn Rand, Yaron Brooks, John Galt, etc.  In searching the web site, http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=index
I filed a request somewhere for more information.  They sent me a small paperback book called the "Ayn Rand Sampler'.  While I was familiar with a few of her writings, she has many more listed in this little sampler book.  Check it out.

Ed K
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Fri Mar 27 09:43:48 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Fri, 27 Mar 2009 08:43:48 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Global Warming
Message-ID: <400985d70903270643i6aae247bt3751690ade7012b9@mail.gmail.com>

Long read but worth it -

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/magazine/29Dyson-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&hp

From flybrad at gmail.com  Fri Mar 27 11:12:20 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Fri, 27 Mar 2009 10:12:20 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] US Too Deep In Debt For EU
In-Reply-To: <9A873A5ABF8842B0AE72E6C5BB1B6F8E@YOURB88038198E>
References: <9A873A5ABF8842B0AE72E6C5BB1B6F8E@YOURB88038198E>
Message-ID: <400985d70903270812u73de392fj8f6f9a905cc6aafb@mail.gmail.com>

Ed,

What office would I run for in Shelby County?  I'm White - Shelby
County doesn't elect White people.  State Representative or Senator?
I sure as hell don't have time for that.  US Congress?  I'm very happy
with my congressman, Marsha Blackburn.  Mayor?  I'm happy with how my
community of roughly 40,000 is run.  The Mayor just announced that 12
city employees would be laid off to reduce the budget to a point where
taxes wouldn't have to be raised.  Shelby County, on the other hand,
just raised the appraisal on my house (didn't know home values had
gone up recently).

Here's a video from Congressman Price from Georgia recorded yesterday.
 Price was a physician in private practice before joining the
Congress.  It is worth the 3 and 1/2 minutes of your time -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fy0yq0r99k&feature=player_embedded

Brad

2009/3/27 Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net>:
> Brad,
>
> You have been around me too long.? Now you are sounding like me.
>
> I have thought about running for public office, but do not have the patience
> for putting up with dumb people.? My language would cause public anguish.
>
> However, you my friend, should consider the obligation.? If you decide to
> run for an office, I have organization experience and would willingly help.
>
> Bye the way, last fall we posted emails about Ayn Rand, Yaron Brooks, John
> Galt, etc.? In searching the web site,
> http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=index
> I filed a request somewhere for more information.? They sent me a small
> paperback book called the "Ayn Rand Sampler'.? While I was familiar with a
> few of her writings, she has many more listed in this little sampler book.
> Check it out.
>
> Ed K
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>


From flybrad at gmail.com  Fri Mar 27 12:05:25 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Fri, 27 Mar 2009 11:05:25 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Gone West
Message-ID: <400985d70903270905h78683dc6u6fd617b390048840@mail.gmail.com>

We used to be such a small community - everyone knew everyone.  Now
we're 4600+ and scattered around the globe by schedules and domiciles.
 Here are two tributes to fallen brother aviators -

http://obit.porterloring.com/obitdisplay.html?id=651425&listing=Current

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/03/hillsboro_pilot_dies_in_fedex.html

May you enjoy an eternal tailwind my friends!

Brad ...

High Flight
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

	Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee
No 412 squadron, RCAF
Killed 11 December 1941

From mweisner at ebsmed.com  Fri Mar 27 13:22:01 2009
From: mweisner at ebsmed.com (Michael D. Weisner)
Date: Fri, 27 Mar 2009 13:22:01 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Gone West
References: <400985d70903270905h78683dc6u6fd617b390048840@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <BD700DC77DE54B3193E7492C27EEF663@ebsoffice>

Amen

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Brad Haslett" <flybrad at gmail.com>
To: "Letters to the Editor" 
<swiftwatergazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com>
Sent: Friday, March 27, 2009 12:05 PM
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Gone West


> We used to be such a small community - everyone knew everyone.  Now
> we're 4600+ and scattered around the globe by schedules and domiciles.
> Here are two tributes to fallen brother aviators -
>
> http://obit.porterloring.com/obitdisplay.html?id=651425&listing=Current
>
> http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/03/hillsboro_pilot_dies_in_fedex.html
>
> May you enjoy an eternal tailwind my friends!
>
> Brad ...
>
> High Flight
> Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
> And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
> Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
> Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
> You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
> High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
> I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
> My eager craft through footless halls of air.
> Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
> I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
> Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
> And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
> The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
> Put out my hand and touched the face of God.
>
> Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee
> No 412 squadron, RCAF
> Killed 11 December 1941
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
> 


From ekroposki at charter.net  Sat Mar 28 07:27:09 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Sat, 28 Mar 2009 07:27:09 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Article of the Day
Message-ID: <5046CA04AD4E439BA2688EF829B69D77@YOURB88038198E>

Motivational article of the Day:

http://pccapitalist.wordpress.com/2009/03/27/the-hell-with-our-constitution-by-walter-williams/

Ed K
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From ekroposki at charter.net  Sat Mar 28 08:05:58 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Sat, 28 Mar 2009 08:05:58 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] And the song goes on...
Message-ID: <E6F05E5360DD41679D12F08A68BA44BD@YOURB88038198E>

For those of us who been on the inside of American Health Care and understand a modicum of economics, Walter says it again:

Sweden's government health care 
By Walter Williams 

     
     
     
     
     

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Government health care advocates used to sing the praises of Britain's National Health Service (NHS). That's until its poor delivery of health care services became known. A recent study by David Green and Laura Casper, "Delay, Denial and Dilution," written for the London-based Institute of Economic Affairs, concludes that the NHS health care services are just about the worst in the developed world. The head of the World Health Organization calculated that Britain has as many as 25,000 unnecessary cancer deaths a year because of under-provision of care. Twelve percent of specialists surveyed admitted refusing kidney dialysis to patients suffering from kidney failure because of limits on cash. Waiting lists for medical treatment have become so long that there are now "waiting lists" for the waiting list. 


Government health care advocates sing the praises of Canada's single-payer system. Canada's government system isn't that different from Britain's. For example, after a Canadian has been referred to a specialist, the waiting list for gynecological surgery is four to 12 weeks, cataract removal 12 to 18 weeks, tonsillectomy three to 36 weeks and neurosurgery five to 30 weeks. Toronto-area hospitals, concerned about lawsuits, ask patients to sign a legal release accepting that while delays in treatment may jeopardize their health, they nevertheless hold the hospital blameless. Canadians have an option Britainers don't: close proximity of American hospitals. In fact, the Canadian government spends over $1 billion each year for Canadians to receive medical treatment in our country. I wonder how much money the U.S. government spends for Americans to be treated in Canada. 


"OK, Williams," you say, "Sweden is the world's socialist wonder." Sven R. Larson tells about some of Sweden's problems in "Lesson from Sweden's Universal Health System: Tales from the Health-care Crypt," published in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons (Spring 2008). Mr. D., a Gothenburg multiple sclerosis patient, was prescribed a new drug. His doctor's request was denied because the drug was 33 percent more expensive than the older medicine. Mr. D. offered to pay for the medicine himself but was prevented from doing so. The bureaucrats said it would set a bad precedent and lead to unequal access to medicine. 


Malmo, with its 280,000 residents, is Sweden's third-largest city. To see a physician, a patient must go to one of two local clinics before they can see a specialist. The clinics have security guards to keep patients from getting unruly as they wait hours to see a doctor. The guards also prevent new patients from entering the clinic when the waiting room is considered full. Uppsala, a city with 200,000 people, has only one specialist in mammography. Sweden's National Cancer Foundation reports that in a few years most Swedish women will not have access to mammography. 


Dr. Olle Stendahl, a professor of medicine at Linkoping University, pointed out a side effect of government-run medicine: its impact on innovation. He said, "In our budget-government health care there is no room for curious, young physicians and other professionals to challenge established views. New knowledge is not attractive but typically considered a problem (that brings) increased costs and disturbances in today's slimmed-down health care." 


These are just a few of the problems of Sweden's single-payer government-run health care system. I wonder how many Americans would like a system that would, as in the case of Mr. D. of Gothenburg, prohibit private purchase of your own medicine if the government refused paying. We have problems in our health care system but most of them are a result of too much government. Over 50 percent of health care expenditures in our country are made by government. Government health care advocates might say that they will avoid the horrors of other government-run systems. Don't believe them. 


The American Association of Physicians and Surgeons, who published Sven Larson's paper, is a group of liberty-oriented doctors and health care practitioners who haven't sold their members down the socialist river as have other medical associations. They deserve our thanks for being a major player in the '90s defeat of "Hillary care." 




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From flybrad at gmail.com  Sat Mar 28 10:35:06 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Sat, 28 Mar 2009 09:35:06 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Global Warming
In-Reply-To: <400985d70903270643i6aae247bt3751690ade7012b9@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70903270643i6aae247bt3751690ade7012b9@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70903280735x1fe25fq5415ae24ebea2af4@mail.gmail.com>

Just got this from a fellow pilot -

Flew a trip a couple of weeks ago and my flying partner told me that
he was somewhere in Florida and heard a story from an FBO CSR about Al
Gore.  Seems his G-IV was down for maintenance and they chartered an
older G-II which guzzles a lot of fuel and belches a lot of smoke.
The handling instructions for the FBO requested that upon arriving at
the ramp the crew would shut the airplane down with the PAX on board
and the FBO would tow the airplane into the hangar.  They were then
instructed to shut the hangar door so that the entourage could deplane
in private and enter a couple of Toyota Prius's.  The CSR was upset
that she forgot to snap pictures of the event with her cell phone.

Brad

On Fri, Mar 27, 2009 at 8:43 AM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
> Long read but worth it -
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/magazine/29Dyson-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&hp
>

From flybrad at gmail.com  Sat Mar 28 10:47:25 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Sat, 28 Mar 2009 09:47:25 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Article of the Day
In-Reply-To: <5046CA04AD4E439BA2688EF829B69D77@YOURB88038198E>
References: <5046CA04AD4E439BA2688EF829B69D77@YOURB88038198E>
Message-ID: <400985d70903280747u535f5f4an9de3fd29b22c2fb8@mail.gmail.com>

Ed,

Interesting article here on "freedom of assembly" -

http://www.winknews.com/news/local/42019772.html

Tea parties?  What tea parties?  They're happening all over the
country and the MSM refuses to cover them.

Brad

2009/3/28 Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net>:
> Motivational article of the Day:
>
> http://pccapitalist.wordpress.com/2009/03/27/the-hell-with-our-constitution-by-walter-williams/
>
> Ed K
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>

From ekroposki at charter.net  Sat Mar 28 10:48:47 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Sat, 28 Mar 2009 10:48:47 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Global Warming
Message-ID: <3646DC0CBA194183B4732B4C9E2D3EFA@YOURB88038198E>

He might suggest that it is celebrity status.

I would suggest it is his lack of integrity.

Elmer Gantry rides again.

Ed K
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Sat Mar 28 22:21:10 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Sat, 28 Mar 2009 21:21:10 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] How Did You Spend Earth Hour?
Message-ID: <400985d70903281921y7cdf5249j65b1a3ea38aa59f9@mail.gmail.com>

We celebrated with the following short clip -

http://cei.org/human-achievement-hour

Our household is pretty energy conservative already (it doesn't hurt
to have a Chinese energy czar running things) and we plan to take
advantage of the $1500 tax credit available to upgrade one of our air
conditioners to a 16+ SEER system this Spring (the upstairs unit does
most of the work).  Our vent-free gas fireplace insert has saved us
roughly $100 a month this winter besides being pleasing to look at and
to warm your butt with on cold mornings.  We replace burned-out light
bulbs with "curly" bulbs.  I'm not sure there's enough savings to
justify the extra cost but I don't have to replace bulbs nearly as
frequently.

However, sit in the dark for an hour?  No thank you. In the South we
get enough of that during the annual ice storm.

Brad

From flybrad at gmail.com  Sat Mar 28 22:55:32 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Sat, 28 Mar 2009 21:55:32 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Germans Say Nein!
Message-ID: <400985d70903281955m625bc34eqbd369b5faf0ac3a6@mail.gmail.com>

Finally, some adults in Europe are starting to say what the Chinese
have been saying for weeks -

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/G20/article5993184.ece

You don't get out of debt by borrowing more money.

Brad

From ekroposki at charter.net  Sun Mar 29 07:36:06 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Sun, 29 Mar 2009 07:36:06 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Daniel Hannan MEP: The devalued Prime Minister
	of a devalued Government
Message-ID: <0A50FD2DAD93491CBE6694AC42B260D4@YOURB88038198E>

Across the pond he sounds like us?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94lW6Y4tBXs

Ed K
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From ekroposki at charter.net  Sun Mar 29 09:11:07 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Sun, 29 Mar 2009 09:11:07 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Anchoring
Message-ID: <6C810E46ACB54C719E8C92BE95D00C52@YOURB88038198E>

It helps to know how to anchor and how to extract anchor.  As I recall, Bill E is the anchor expert.  Time for him to review his knowledge?

See:
http://www.wral.com/news/national_world/national/story/4827668/

Ed K
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From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Sun Mar 29 09:27:07 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Sun, 29 Mar 2009 08:27:07 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Daniel Hannan MEP: The devalued Prime
	Minister of a devalued Government
In-Reply-To: <0A50FD2DAD93491CBE6694AC42B260D4@YOURB88038198E>
References: <0A50FD2DAD93491CBE6694AC42B260D4@YOURB88038198E>
Message-ID: <6634e19e0903290627g19f59d7bw3df3048b1c9de450@mail.gmail.com>

Ed,

Now, that old boy's got some stones, eh.

Sounds like Ron Paul with an English accent ..... to my rapidly increasing
chagrin, nobody's listening to him either.

Yesterday the RNC sent me a survey, asking what I thought they should change
to better reflect my feelings on how this country needs to be run. There
must have been a hundred multiple choice questions, but nowhere to right one
simple answer: Look down the isle and see what Ron Paul is doing!

If we want to cure these problems we find ourselves immersed in, it seems to
me we should be looking to someone who was bright enough to have seen them
coming.

Rik

The govt's new motto: Do no harm

2009/3/29 Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net>

>  Across the pond he sounds like us?
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94lW6Y4tBXs
>
> Ed K
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>
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From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Sun Mar 29 11:02:37 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Sun, 29 Mar 2009 10:02:37 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] How Did You Spend Earth Hour?
In-Reply-To: <400985d70903281921y7cdf5249j65b1a3ea38aa59f9@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70903281921y7cdf5249j65b1a3ea38aa59f9@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6634e19e0903290802j6fb7b8c3g76eb493368b8ddef@mail.gmail.com>

Brad,

I try hard to ignore the useless noise from people that come up with these
stupid symbolic wastes of time.

Here's somebody (besides you :-) ) that agrees.

Rik

http://mises.org/story/3397

The Law of Intended Darkness

*Mises Daily* by Jason King <http://mises.org/articles.aspx?AuthorId=1207> |
Posted on 3/27/2009 12:00:00 AM
[image: Ear