On demanding nothing and...

If an opposition of the a status quo demands nothing,
does the status quo have nothing give?

If the goal of a non-violent occupy movement with no demands
is to initiate positive change
... and the only way to initiate positive change
is to peacefully testify in mass without demands,
could occupation without demands increase the likleyhood
of creating positive change?

Can not demanding anything allow an unnamed movement
to evolve and re-evolve?

How can you win
if you don't have demands?

How can you lose?

Is the only way for a status quo to "win" against a demandless subculture
to eliminate the occupation by outlasting it,
or by force?

Could the only way for a demandless subculture to lose
be stopping started?

Is an offer of negotiation by a status quo
a win for a demandless occupation?

Is an uncalled for concession a win?

Could renegotiated undemanded concessions
indicate positive change?

How should Americans respond
if the economic and political leadership of both major political parties
in the greatest nation in the history of the world
overtly lowered and covertly hiked taxes simultaneously?

"For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent"

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

What could happen if a generation
of underemployed, underpaid, educated and indebted young adults
became disillusioned by their elders’ financial mismanagement
and sought to identify and punish those responsible?

Is dissent the highest form of patriotism?

Have the educated underemployed
instigated most rebellions?

In times of economic volatility
do the wealthy fight to preserve the status quo as some rich become poor
giving some underprivileged a chance to prosper?

How many advanced degrees are awarded annually worldwide
compared to American graduates
are there job openings for new workers to fill
and how much pay will who accept where for what, when and why?

What could happen if high school graduates
can’t afford or finance higher education
while indebted graduates can’t find jobs paying enough to cover bills?

What could happen
if a new generation of middle class college graduates can’t find jobs?

Have the powerful created symbols for the powerless to destroy
to turn tyranny into nationalism?

Have the powerless created symbols for the powerful to destroy
to create dissent by turning apathy into perceived oppression?

Can a nonviolent movement
survive against an information censoring violent opponent?

Is it worth giving unlimited power to a few
to create perceived safety for many?

Is stability a legitimate reason to repress justified dissent?

Should economic plans designed to fix large, complex predicaments
rely on those who created and profited from the initial problems
who may not have wanted to identify and confront them
when they were small, relatively unknown and lucrative?

If eighty-three of the nation's 100 largest corporations
had subsidiaries in offshore tax havens in 2007
and some of the companies received federal bailout funding…?

"Capitalism without financial failure is not capitalism at all

but a kind of socialism for the rich"

James Grant

.
If the government habitually bails out overextended businesses
is it good business to overextend?

If the government manipulates financial markets
to stimulate demand by lowering housing supplies and foreclosures
after too many borrowers acquired too much unsustainable debt
would intervention reward some borrowers,
homebuilders, appraisers, lenders and securitizers
who caused the problems in the first place?

Should shareholder and debt investors reap profits
from money borrowed from a nation’s children
to save companies responsible for creating the need to be bailed out?

If the natural cycle of laissez faire capitalism
revolves between risk and aversion
what should happen if government intervention perverts the process
to forestall short term economic pain?

At what point do bailouts do more harm than good?

Is the government penalizing well run businesses
by rewarding poorly managed firms with taxpayer money?

Can bailouts perpetuate problems instead of solve them?

Did some economic and political leaders bail themselves out of mistakes
with trillions of debt and newly created money
handed down to the unaware of following generations?

Did some stabilize financial markets in the short term
to defend political legacies and financial interests
regardless of long term consequences?

What is a capitalist democracy that subsidizes to eliminate failure?

Is the federal government stabilizing the economy
by borrowing from relatively younger voters and their children
who may not reap the prosperity of their parents?

If power can corrupt a few
can apathy devastate many?

If democracy is government by the people, plutocracy by the wealthy
oligarchy by a few, aristocracy by nobility, theocracy by clergy
corptocracy by business and autocracy by one
who has what where, and who’s on who’s side and why?

Should the majority protect the weak from the powerful?

If the National Football League’s revenue
comes from television contracts, licensed paraphernalia, and ticket sales
and divided up between the teams in two conferences
and special interest and corporate contributions
are relatively divided up between two political parties
depending on who currently holds more power
do most fans and constituents tend to cheer for their team
even though the financial foundations of both systems
enrich both sides of the same businesses
who exclude all and/or most of the nonaffiliated from participation?

Why are there only two powerful American political parties?

What should the electorate expect
from leadership dependent on the status quo?

Has the two party system
reached an unsustainable level of incompetence?

Can the wants of a few who know
outweigh the needs of many that don’t until a majority figures it out?

"The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe

if the people tolerate the growth of private power

to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself

That, in essence, is fascism

ownership of government by an individual

by a group or by any other controlling power"

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

.
Who writes most of the legislation regulating corporate America?

If candidates raise money for TV and print advertising
are political campaigns indirectly paying the salaries
of those relied on for unbiased analysis?

Why would those controlling information dissemination
want to promote political candidates proposing more regulation
military industry accountability, high income and corporate taxation
campaign finance reform and pharmaceutical advertising restrictions?

"When buying and selling are controlled by legislation

the first thing to be bought and sold are legislators"

P J O'Rourke

Do some politicians pacify the electorate with platitudes
while promising the status quo to those enjoying legislated benefits?

If a few contribute
the majority of large campaign donations that many can’t afford
who works for whom
and what do the few expect in return that most probably won’t receive?

Can special interest groups manipulate consumer behavior
by influencing government with campaign contributions?

Has corruption of the political, capitalist and information systems
negatively influenced economic performance and consumer behavior
through legislation, budget appropriation, regulation and taxation
to benefit a few at the expense of many?

Why do most who argue the relatively wealthy pay more taxes
than most as a percentage of income
exclude Social Security, Medicare and other federal, state and local income,
sales, property, toll road, license, permit, communications
entertainment, fuel, transportation and utility ect…taxes?

What % of income does who really pay?

Was it justifiable for the baby boom
to promise themselves trillions worth of unfunded benefits
like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid
for future generations to pay for?

Why would some of one generation
want to covertly confiscate another’s wealth?

If you found the present negatively affecting the future
should you try to fix it?

If Bill Gates and Warren Buffett make about 5% on dividends and 5% oncapital gains on about $100 billion, did they stop by the White Houseto thank Obama for giving them what could be an extra $1,477,351,600over 2 years, by charging America’s children about $1,600 a piece?

President Obama met with Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett
in the Oval Office this morning.

...During the visit, they also discussed ideas for growing the economy
and making America more competitive including investment in education
to better prepare the next generation
and investing in innovative areas with opportunity for growth.

USA Today

If Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are worth about $100 billion,
and make about $10 billion per year between long term capitol gaines and dividend interest
could they save about $1,477,351,600 over two years if Obama’s Tax Deal passes?

…….……………………….…………..…Tax Cuts Extended…………….Tax Cuts Expired

Dividends and LT Capital Gains………..$10,000,000,000…………………$10,000,000,000?

Tax Liability……………………………….…..$749,741,250 ……….$1,488,417,050?

Average Tax Rate………………………………..14.99%…………………..……. 29.77%?

$749,741,250 – $1,488,417,050 = about $738,675,800 x 2 years = about $1,477,351,600?

Tax Plan: Tax Cuts Extended vs. Tax Cuts Expired    
Tax Year:  2011
AMT Patch:  AMT Patch in effect

Tax Calculator

 

If about 1,699,000 US households make more than $250,000,
and their portion of the tax cuts cost $120 billion
are America’s elected leaders
about to charge everyone’s kids $1,600 each
to give Bill Gates and Warren Buffett about $1,477 billion?

$120,000,000,000 / 75,000,000 Kids = $1,600 per American Child?

Please Disseminate: Search Directions to Compare Greensboro and Guilford County Real Estate Revaluation Assessment Outcomes

Guilford County GIS Data Viewer

Click on Parcel Search in the upper right hand side of the page linked above.

Updated with Search Directions: A Comparison of Four

Greensboro and Guilford County Real Estate Revaluation Assessment Outcomes:

Guess Who?

We recieved our 2012 Revaluation Assessed Value Today.

Enter number and street, without "drive" or "court" after

and then click search.

Click on Tax Appraisal Information on the right hand side
and a new window will come up.

The new tax value is in the bottom right corner.

Click on Tax bill in the upper right area,
which should open a new window.

Clicking on the top link with lots of numbers under the headings on the left
should bring up another window with the old value in the middle on the left.

Divide.

Subtract.

Compare.

If credit peaksdoes employment, globalization and peace?

 We have lent a huge amount of money to the US

so of course we are concerned about the safety of our assets

 

Frankly speaking, I do have some worries

 

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao

 

US Insists China Fears Over Debt Unfounded

The Wall Street Journal

 

If Executive Order 6102, signed on April 5, 1933

let the Federal Reserve confiscate gold for $20.67 per troy ounce

and the government raised the price to $35 not long after

 

did the US government devalue the dollar by 41%?

 

The Gold Reserve Act of 1934…

changed the value of the dollar in gold

from $20.67 to $35 per ounce

 

This price remained until August 15, 1971

when President Richard Nixon

announced that the United States

 would no longer convert dollars to gold at a fixed value

thus abandoning the gold standard for foreign exchange

 

Wikipedia

Have the leaders of most emerging economies

essentially been stealing their citizens’ savings

by lending money to developed economies

to keep currency exchange rates relatively low

to encourage more sales of manufactured goods?

 

If global central bank foreign exchange reserves more than tripled

as the US dollar fell by ~50% since 2000

did Americans buy manufactured goods from foreign nations

with IOUs that are now worth about half as much?

 

Who is the largest holder of US Treasury debt?

 

What could happen

if a generation of underemployed, underpaid

educated and indebted young adults

become disillusioned by their elders’ financial mismanagement

and seek to identify and punish those responsible?

If capitalism is supposed to involve creative destruction, should ingenuity retard without entropy?

 

We were taught in Economics 101

that countries could not for long sustain large ever-growing…deficits

 

…our country has been behaving like an extraordinarily rich family

that possesses an immense farm

 

In order to consume 4% more than they produce

 that's the…deficit

we have, day by day been both selling pieces of the farm

and increasing the mortgage on what we still own

 

Warren Buffett

 

Are the few who rationalize

considered mentally challenged

if most chose to suspend reality?

 

Is the responsibility of a country’s citizens

to protect their country from it’s  government?

 

If the American people ever allow [preditors]

 to control the issue of their currency

 first by inflation, then by deflation

 the [preditors] that will grow up...

will deprive the people of all property

until their children wake-up homeless

 on the continent their fathers conquered

 

…If a nation expects to be ignorant and free

 in a state of civilization

 it expects what never was and never will be

 

Thomas Jefferson

What does a carnivore look for in the face of its prey and why?

If mold continues to multiply after eating half a piece of cheese
what happens when demand exceeds supply?

Are there times when compromise isn’t appropriate?

Should you do what you need to whether you like it or not
sooner than later?

Is the definition of civilized changing again?

I don't care if I follow your rules, if you can cheat, so can I

I won't let you beat me unfairly, I'll beat you unfairly first

Ender Wiggin
Fictional Military Strategist

Why do survivors survive?

Is stability a legitimate reason to stifle justified dissent?

On Resource War

Calling All Future-Eaters

The human species during its brief time on Earth has exhibited a remarkable capacity to kill itself off.

 The Cro-Magnons dispatched the gentler Neanderthals.

The conquistadors, with the help of smallpox, decimated the native populations in the Americas.

Modern industrial warfare in the 20th century took at least 100 million lives, most of them civilians.

...Homo sapiens, as the biologist Tim Flannery points out, are the "future-eaters."

In the past when civilizations went belly up through greed, mismanagement and the exhaustion of natural resources, human beings migrated somewhere else to pillage anew. But this time the game is over. There is nowhere else to go.

The industrialized nations spent the last century seizing half the planet and dominating most of the other half. We giddily exhausted our natural capital, especially fossil fuel, to engage in an orgy of consumption and waste that poisoned the Earth and attacked the ecosystem on which human life depends. It was quite a party if you were a member of the industrialized elite. But it was pretty stupid.

Collapse this time around will be global. We will disintegrate together. And there is no way out. The 10,000-year experiment of settled life is about to come to a crashing halt. And humankind, which thought it was given dominion over the Earth and all living things, will be taught a painful lesson in the necessity of balance, restraint and humility.
There is no human monument or city ruin that is more than 5,000 years old.

 Civilization, Ronald Wright notes in "A Short History of Progress," "occupies a mere 0.2 percent of the two and a half million years since our first ancestor sharpened a stone."

..."Whether human beings would still be a force on the planet, or even survive, is a moot point," ...Clive Hamilton in his book "Requiem for a Species...writes. "One thing is certain: there will be far fewer of us."

We have fallen prey to the illusion that we can modify and control our environment, that human ingenuity ensures the inevitability of human progress and that our secular god of science will save us. The "intoxicating belief that we can conquer all has come up against a greater force, the Earth itself," Hamilton writes. 

...We face a terrible political truth. ...Decisions about the fate of the planet and human civilization are in the hands of moral and intellectual trolls...

...lobbyists make the laws. Their public relations firms craft the propaganda and trivia pumped out through systems of mass communication. Their money determines elections. Their greed turns workers into global serfs and our planet into a wasteland. ...They cannot be reformed or trusted.

...We will either defy the corporate elite...or see ourselves consumed.

Time is not on our side.

...The future, if we remain passive, will be wrested from us by events.

Chris Hedges
Common Dreams

Treason

"...treason is the crime that covers some of the more serious acts of betrayal
of one's sovereign or nation.

A person who commits treason is known in law as a traitor.

Oran's Dictionary of the Law (1983) defines treason as
"...[a]...citizen's actions to help a foreign government overthrow, make war against,
 or seriously injure the [parent nation]."

In many nations, it is also often considered treason
to attempt or conspire to overthrow the government,
even if no foreign country is aided or involved by such an endeavour.

...the word "traitor" may also be used to describe a person
who betrays...their own political party, nation, family, friends, ethnic group,
team, religion, social class, or other group to which they may belong.

...the term "traitor" is used in heated political discussion
– typically as a slur against...officials in power
who are perceived as failing to act in the best interest of their constituents."

Wikipedia

How could US Senator Charles E. Schumer explain why he voted to charge each and every US child about $1,600 each to give New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg what could be about $295 million in Tax Cuts over two years?

If about 1,699,000 US households make more than $250,000, and their portion of the tax cuts is about $120 billion...?

If US congressman Darrell Issa is worth about $303 million and makes about 5% of his net worth per year, could he charge every US child $12,000 to vote himself about $1,387,836 in Tax Cuts over two years?

Could US Senator John Kerry charge every US child $12,000 to vote himself about $500,036 in Tax Cuts over two years?

If Britney Spears makes about $64 million per year, could she bring in another $5,876,704 from President Obama's Tax Deal over the next two years?

If Michael Bloomberg makes 5% per year on $20 billion, and pays half his taxes on long term capitol gaines and half on dividend interest, could he bring in an extra $295 million over two years with Obama's Tax Deal?

If Rush Limbaugh makes about $78 million per year, could Obama's Tax Deal give him about $15,324,704 more over the next two years?

If there are about 75 million kids in the United States of America, will congress and the president charge them $12,000 a piece to bail out the financial mismanagement of their parents?

Can any American legislator who votes for a $900 billion deficit increase run as a "fiscal conservative" in 2012?

How could some American legislators opposed to raising the debt ceiling, vote to increase the nation's deficit by $900 billion over 2 years?

Why should Americans believe the folks who missed it last time, for a strategy that is going to borrow about $12,000 per American child?

"...We should keep in mind President Obama's governing assumption about the economy,
which is that we are in a recovery that is just not proceeding as fast as we need it to.

...If his assumption is correct, a stimulus -- any stimulus,
even one he acknowledges is inadequate or based on the wrong kind of measure
-- that gets us through the next few months
 until the economy "turns around" and "gets moving again"
is a victory.

The problem comes about if it turns out
Obama's governing assumption about the economy is not correct.

In that case,
what he has just agreed to is a massive transfer of private sector debt to the public sector,
and a prolonged period that will see many millions of hitherto middle class Americans
in great economic distress while the federal government does nothing
-- beyond sending out unemployment checks...

The people advising Obama on economic affairs
did not think the financial crisis two years ago would be as bad as it was,
and did not foresee unemployment and underemployment rising to the levels we see today.

This does not guarantee they are wrong about a recovery that just hasn't moved fast enough.

Nor does the historical fact that recessions following asset price crashes
tend to take much longer to turn around than cyclical recessions
like those of twenty and thirty years ago.

The evidence, though, suggests that Obama's hopeful talk
about what the tax cut compromise means
contains a very large component of wishful thinking
-- not just about the politics, but also about the economy."

JB

$12,000 per American Child "Obama Tax Cut Plan would Increase Taxes for the Poor"

"...the plan would actually slightly increase taxes for the poorest Americans, economists say -- at a time when some leaders in Washington are trying to bring attention to the nation's widening income disparity.

...the "Make Work Pay" credit enacted under Mr. Obama's stimulus plan would be allowed to expire, and a one-year payroll tax cut would be enacted in its place.

Those on the bottom rung of the income ladder, however, are at a disadvantage. Individuals making under $20,000 per year or households making under $40,000 would receive more money from the "Make Work Pay" credit, since the two percent payroll tax cut would amount to less than $400 or $800.

The difference amounts to just a couple hundred dollars per year...

..."A few dollars a week can mean your bus fare getting to work"...

"If you're making only making $10,000 a year, you're only getting $200 a week
-- and $4 out of $200 is serious money"

"It is a big deal if it's the difference between having lunch one day or not having lunch that day,
or putting breakfast on the table for the kids."

...Mr. Obama campaigned on the platform of revising the tax code to address income disparity.

"This turns that on its head""

Stephanie Condon

"...Under the agreement reached with Republicans, the top 1 percent will receive breaks of about $70,000."

"...families with an income near the median of $55,000 would owe about $2,700 less in taxes than if the Bush-era cuts had been allowed to expire.
 
A two-income couple earning $146,000 would owe about $7,000 less than if the tax cuts were allowed to expire, and about $3,400 less than they did in 2009.
 
...the $120 billion payroll tax reduction...will nonetheless lead to higher tax bills for individuals with incomes below $20,000 and families that make less than $40,000.
 
The estate tax — which was allowed to lapse this year and was scheduled to resume at a rate of 55 percent on most assets above $1 million — will be reinstated under less onerous terms. Estates over $5 million will be subject to a 35 percent tax.
 
The proposal will also maintain the current rates on dividends and capital gains, averting scheduled increases to ordinary income and 20 percent, respectively.
 
The marginal tax rate on high incomes will also remain unchanged.
 
The top brackets had been scheduled to increase to 36 percent and 39.6 percent, from 33 percent and 35 percent.

Is the tax package borrowing from future taxpayers
to pacify the present populace?

...Under the agreement reached with Republicans, the top 1 percent will receive breaks of about $70,000."
 
DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI

"In the United States, the scent of decline is in the air."

Imperial overreach, political polarization,
and a costly financial crisis are weighing on the economy.
 
Doomed to slow growth, the US of today,
like the exhausted Britain that emerged from World War II,
will be forced to curtail its international commitments.
 
This will create space for rising powers like China,
but it will also expose the world to a period of heightened geopolitical uncertainty.
 
...It was not simply that America and Germany grew faster than Britain after 1870.
 
...Over the long course of British modernization,
the industrial classes were absorbed into the establishment.
 
...Britain failed to put in place an effective competition policy.
 
In response to the collapse of demand in 1929,
it erected high tariff walls.
 
Sheltered from foreign competition,
industry grew fat and lazy.
 
After WWII, repeated shifts between Labour and Conservative governments
led to stop-go policies that heightened uncertainty and created chronic financial problems.
 
...The country failed to develop a coherent policy response to the financial crisis of the 1930’s.
 
Its political parties, rather than working together to address pressing economic problems,
remained at each other’s throats.
 
The country turned inward.
 
Its politics grew fractious, its policies erratic, and its finances increasingly unstable.
 
In short, Britain’s was a political, not an economic, failure.
 
And that history, unfortunately, is all too pertinent to America’s fate.
 
Barry Eichengreen
Professor of Economics and Political Science
University of California, Berkeley.

"Will the Federal Reserve Cause a Civil War?"

"What is the most likely cause today of civil unrest?

...November 3rd is when the Federal Reserve's next policy committee meeting ends, and if you thought this was just another boring money meeting you would be wrong.

It could be the most important meeting in Fed history, maybe.

The US central bank is expected to announce its next move to boost the faltering economic recovery. ...Chairman Ben Bernanke has indicated in recent speeches that the central bank plans to try to drive down already low-interest rates by buying up long-term bonds.

If a nation prints more money
like cutting a 16 inch pizza into 12 slices instead of 8
is each slice worth less?

A number of people both inside the Fed and out believe this is the wrong move.

What if the pizza shrinks while the number of slices rise?

...the blog, Zerohedge wrote, paraphrasing a top economic forecaster David Rosenberg, that it believed the Fed's plan is not only moronic, but "positions US society one step closer to civil war if not worse."

...with the Tea Party gaining followers, the idea of civil war over economic issues doesn't seem that far-fetched these days.

Nations are not ruined by one act of violence
but quite often, gradually, and almost imperceptibly
by the depreciation of their currency through excessive quantity

Nicolas Copernicus
Discovered Earth was not the center of the Universe

...the Fed's early November meeting is an important one. Here's why:

...Ben Bernanke has been recently talking about something called "quantitative easing." That's when the Fed basically creates money to buy the long-term bonds...

Why did the Athenians create more money
by decreasing gold and silver coin content
during the Peloponnesian war?

...the Fed made a similar move during the height of the financial crisis when it bought mortgage bonds.

Why did the Roman Empire reduce currency size and silver content
to increase the quantity of money during war against Hannibal?

...a number of presidents of regional Fed banks, not all of which get to vote at Fed policy meetings, have recently come out against Bernanke's plans. Some say it sets bad policy. Others think it will stoke inflation, which might be the point.

...Here's how Zerohedge justifies its prediction of why the Fed's Nov. 3rd meeting will lead to violence:

In a very real sense, Bernanke is throwing Granny and Grandpa down the stairs - on purpose.

He is literally threatening those at the lower end of the economic strata, along with all who are retired, with starvation and death, and in a just nation where the rule of law controlled instead of being abused by the kleptocrats he would be facing charges of Seditious Conspiracy, as his policies will inevitably lead to the destruction of our republic.

If there are at least 15,000 professional American Economists
and less than 1% foresaw the financial crisis
should many financial industry prognosticators be relied on
for economic recovery expectations?

...Lower rates do tend to favor borrowers over savers. And the largest borrowers in the country are banks, speculators and large corporations. The largest spenders in our country though tend to be individuals. Consumer spending makes up 70% of the economy. And the vast majority of consumers are on the low-end of the income scale.

Little by little, business is enlarged with easy money

With the exhaustless reservoir
of the Government of the United States furnishing easy money
the sales increase, the businesses enlarge, more new enterprises are started
the spirit of optimism pervades the community

Everyone is making money, everyone is growing rich

It goes up and up…until finally someone whose judgment was bad
someone whose capacity for business was small, breaks
 and as he falls he hits the next brick in the row, and then another
… and down comes the whole structure

That is what happened to greater or less degree
before the panic of 1837, of 1857, of 1873, of 1893 and of 1907

Elihu Root
US Senator, Nobel Laureate

...Some smart people, though, including Meltzer, it appears, and Rosenberg do think the path of quantitative easing that the Fed looks likely to embark on is the wrong move. John Taylor, a top Fed scholar at Stanford, says eventually you will have to pull the support out, and when you do a year from now when the economy is recovering he thinks it could be quite disruptive. So even if you don't double dip now, you might double dip then. And even if you don't it would make for a slow recovery. Others, such as Raghuram Rajan, who has became famous for warning about the possibility of a financial crisis back in 2005, believe low-interest rates could be creating new bubbles in say gold or commodities.

No State shall… make any Thing but gold and silver Coin
 a Tender in Payment of Debts

Article I, Section 10, Clause 1
The Constitution of the United States

So it seems clear what the Fed is likely to do.

How the economy, the militias and the rest of us react is up in the air.

The count down is on. T minus 15 days to Fedamageddon."

Stephen Gandell

Have American legislators and the Federal Reserve
been abusing the dollar’s status as a reserve currency
to avoid overtly raising domestic taxation
by covertly taxing US dollar denominated assets like oil
by over-printing money?

World Trade War 2010

"China to Halt Some Exports to U.S.

China, which has been blocking shipments of crucial minerals to Japan for the last month, has now quietly halted shipments of those materials to the United States and Europe, three industry officials said on Tuesday.

The Chinese action, involving rare earth minerals that are crucial to manufacturing many advanced products, seems certain to further intensify already rising trade and currency tensions with the West.

...“The embargo is expanding” beyond Japan, said one of the three rare earth industry officials, all of whom insisted on anonymity for fear of business retaliation by Chinese authorities.

They said Chinese customs officials imposed the broader restrictions on Monday morning, hours after a top Chinese official summoned international news media Sunday night to denounce United States trade actions.

China mines 95 percent of the world’s rare earth elements, which have broad commercial and military applications, and are vital to the manufacture of products as diverse as cellphones, large wind turbines and guided missiles. Any curtailment of Chinese supplies of rare earths is likely to be greeted with alarm in Western capitals, particularly because Western companies are believed to keep much smaller stockpiles of rare earths than Japanese companies.

China experts said on Tuesday that Beijing’s assertive stance on rare earths might also signal the ascendance of economic nationalists, noting that the Central Committee of the Communist Party convened over the weekend.

...Industry executives said there had been no signal from Beijing of how long rare earth shipments intended for the West would be held by Chinese customs officials.

...Word of the blocked shipments emerged from industry executives on Tuesday after an official China newspaper reported earlier in the day that Beijing planned next year to further reduce its annual export quota for rare earths.

The signals of a tougher Chinese trade stance come after American trade officials announced on Friday that they would investigate whether China was violating World Trade Organization rules by subsidizing its clean energy exports and limiting clean energy imports. The inquiry includes whether China’s steady reductions in rare earth export quotas since 2005, along with steep export taxes on rare earths, are illegal attempts to force multinational companies to produce more of their high-technology goods in China.

Despite a widely confirmed suspension of rare earth shipments from China to Japan, now nearly a month old, Beijing has continued to deny that any embargo exists.

Industry executives and analysts have interpreted that official denial as a way to wield an undeclared trade weapon without creating a policy trail that could make it easier for other countries to bring a case against China at the World Trade Organization.

So far, China seems to be taking a similar approach in expanding the embargo to the West.

Wang Baodong, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said on Tuesday that the Chinese government was putting new restrictions on the mining, processing and export of rare earths to protect the environment. But he said that China was not violating any W.T.O. rules in doing so and that it was not imposing an embargo or trying to use rare earths as a bargaining chip.

“With stricter export mechanism gradually in place, outbound shipments to other countries might understandably begin to feel the effect,” Mr. Wang said in an e-mail. “But I don’t see any link between China’s reasonable rare earth export control policy and the irrational U.S. decision of protectionist nature to investigate China’s clean energy industries.”

...The Chinese government office that oversees rare earth policy...has emerged as a bastion of economic nationalism.

...China reduced in July its export quota for rare earths for the second half of the year by 72 percent. Exporters had only six weeks’ of quotas left when China imposed its unannounced embargo on shipments to Japan.

China is preparing further reductions of up to 30 percent in its 2011 quotas compared with quotas issued in 2010..."

Keith Bradsher
New York Times

Russian Wheat Export Ban = Riots in Mozambique?

The flapping of a single butterfly's wing today produces a tiny change…
…so, in a month's time,
a tornado that would have devastated the Indonesian coast doesn't happen,
or maybe one that wasn't going to happen does.

Ian Stewart
The Mathematics of Chaos

"U.N. Raises Concerns as Global Food Prices Jump
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

With memories still fresh of food riots set off by spiking prices just two years ago, agricultural experts on Friday cast a wary eye on the steep rise in the cost of wheat prompted by a Russian export ban and the questions looming over harvests in other parts of the world because of drought or flooding.

Food prices rose 5 percent globally during August, according to the United Nations, spurred mostly by the higher cost of wheat, and the first signs of unrest erupted as 10 people died in Mozambique during clashes ignited partly by a 30 percent leap in the cost of bread.

If too many Gazelles relative to water and grass lead to fewer Gazelles,
do fewer Gazelles  =  fewer Cheetahs?

...It is an issue not limited to Russia alone. Harvest forecasts in Germany and Canada are clouded by wet weather and flooding, while crops in Argentina will suffer from drought, as could Australia’s, according to agricultural experts. The bump in prices because of the uncertainty about future supplies means the poor in some areas of the world will face higher bread prices in the coming months.

If water was money and grass was credit
and Cheetahs and Gazelles were people,
who would be who?

Food prices are still some 30 percent below the 2008 levels, Mr. Abbassian said, when a tripling in the price of rice among other staples led to food riots in about a dozen countries and helped topple at least one government.

Did shortages of arable land and food
coincide with many Rwandan Hutus eliminating many Tutsis?

...In June, Russia was predicting a loss of just a few million metric tons due to hot weather, but by August it announced it would lose about one-fifth of its crop. Wheat prices more than doubled in that period.

...In early August, Russia announced an export ban that it would review at the end of the year, but Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin announced Thursday that the ban on grain exports would extend into 2011. The price of wheat jumped again, and that has had a spillover effect into other grains like corn and soybeans. The forecast for the global rice harvest has also dropped, although it is still expected to be higher than in 2009 and should be a record...

Only seven meals separate civilization from potential anarchy.

Josette Sheeran
UN World Food Program

 

...After two days of rioting set off by price increases for bread and utilities like electricity and water, the streets in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, were largely calm on Friday.

...Price increases have been much sharper in Mozambique than in most of the world because the government kept prices artificially low before elections last year...

What could happen if there’s enough food but some can’t afford it,
or governments can’t provide it?

As with any commodity, questions of wheat shortages spur speculation and hoarding, and experts suggest both are at play...

 

But the world also has to come to grips with changing weather patterns due to climate change, argued Prof. Per Pinstrup-Anderson, an expert in international agriculture at Cornell University.

You're captives of a civilizational system
that more or less compels you to go on destroying the world
 in order to live.

Daniel Quinn
Postulated correlations between  population growth
and natural resource consumption

“We are going to have much bigger fluctuations in weather and therefore the food supply than we had in the past, so we are going to have to learn how to cope with fluctuating food prices,” Professor Pinstrup-Anderson said."

New York Times

How many need and/or want how much of what,
where is half way, who’s got what’s left, who gets cut off when,
who will compete with who for what’s left,
and how is who most likely to win?

John Fund on Pollster Scott Rasmussen

...Whose judgment do you trust more:
that of the American people or America's political leaders?

Has the federal government become its own special interest group?

Do government and big business often work together
in ways that hurt consumers and investors?

Those who identify with the government on two or more questions are defined as the political class...

Before the financial crisis of late 2008, about a tenth of Americans fell into the political class,
while some 53% were classified as in the mainstream public.

The rest fell somewhere in the middle.

Now the percentage of people identifying with the political class
has clearly declined into single digits,
while those in the mainstream public have grown slightly.

A majority of Democrats, Republicans and independents all agree
with the mainstream view on Mr. Rasmussen's three questions.

"The major division in this country is no longer between parties
but between political elites and the people,"

Scott Rasmussen

His recent polls show huge gaps between the two groups.

While 67% of the political class believes the U.S. is moving in the right direction,
a full 84% of mainstream voters believe the nation is moving in the wrong one.

The political class overwhelmingly supported the bailouts of the financial and auto industries,
the health-care bill, and the Justice Department's decision to sue Arizona
over its new immigration law.

Those in the mainstream public just as intensely opposed those moves...

..."[Obama] kept citing Congressional Budget Office projections
that his [healthcare] plan would save money and cut the deficit...:
60% thought it would raise the deficit
and 81% thought it would cost more than CBO projected."...

..."This will be the third straight election
in which people vote against the party in power,"...

Scott Rasmussen

 

John Fund
Wall Street Journal

 

If Gazelles need water and grass,
and Cheetahs need water and Gazelles,
and an abundance of sustenance leads to more Gazelles,
should more Gazelles and water lead to more Cheetahs?

If too many Gazelles relative to water and grass lead to fewer Gazelles,
do fewer Gazelles  =  fewer Cheetahs?

If Cheetahs and Gazelles were people,
who would be who?

George Hartzman

Reason Foundation from Wall Street Journal: China Real Estate Bubble? Profound.

China's Looming Real-Estate Bubble

A massive Keynesian spending program has misallocated capital and set the stage for a crisis.

...there is mounting evidence that Beijing has misallocated vast amounts of capital, touching off a real-estate crisis that could yet drag the world's second-largest economy down to earth.

When the global marketplace went into meltdown mode two years ago and Chinese exports dropped off, Beijing mounted a stimulus several times bigger relative to the size of its economy than in this country. It announced a four trillion yuan ($586 billion) stimulus for infrastructure projects and housing developments. Some of the stimulus was used to encourage local governments to lend money to state-owned companies to develop housing complexes, roads and bridges, on the theory that these are big employment generators because they boost heavy manufacturing—steel, cement—and other sectors of the economy.

Beijing also lowered capital reserve requirements for its state-owned banks ordering them to dole out loans to "support growth." Though official data are unreliable, in 2009 Beijing apparently handed out somewhere close to 10 trillion yuan in new loans—more than twice the year before—and expanded the country's total loan portfolio and money supply by one-third...

...Fueled in part by this massive injection of liquidity, housing prices that had started dropping due to the recession began to soar again. Over the past year they increased nearly 12%, according to the latest figures from China's National Bureau of Statistics. So many middle-class Chinese (especially young couples wishing to move out of their parents' home) are being priced out of the market that their travails became the subject of a popular TV series called "Dwelling Narrowness." Beijing banned the show, fearing it would cause unrest.
 
...almost 25% to 30% of private commercial and housing stock in China is vacant. Entire cities, such as Ordos in inner-Mongolia, erected literally from scratch, stand empty.

"Chinese treat homes like gold bars buying multiple units as a store of value," notes Mr. Chovanec. Chinese avoid the stock market because it is still volatile and risky, and banks and bonds offer a low yield. Hence, Chinese are content to buy homes and let them sit because, thanks to the absence of property taxes, holding costs are negligible. Having never experienced a housing slump since China privatized its housing market in the 1990s, they believe that home prices only rise...

...backers of China's stimulus believe there won't be any serious economic downside when the bubble bursts...

...While Chinese homeowners are not generally leveraged, those who buy second homes do finance them. And developers, including local governments and state-owned companies, are massively leveraged. This poses a big problem—Shen Minggao, Citigroup's Hong Kong-based China economist, estimates in Bloomberg Businessweek that at least 2.4 trillion yuan of the stimulus is already in nonperforming loans.

China's autocrats understand that they have a bubble on their hands. They've mandated minimum down payments of 50% on second homes and are considering property taxes to rein in speculative purchases. However, this will mean that the houses put on the market will find fewer buyers.

Beijing is in a dilemma. It can cut spending and rein in its monetary expansion, releasing over time capital for more productive endeavors (especially if it opens up hitherto closed investment options) and putting the economy on a healthier footing. However, that would mean slower growth, lower home values, rising unemployment and potential political unrest. Alternatively, it can buy a few more years of faux-growth and stability by propping up the real-estate market—and risk making the day of reckoning far worse when it arrives...

...Pouring liquidity into real estate is the Keynesian equivalent of digging ditches and filling them with stones...

Shikha Dalmia and Anthony Randazzo
Reason Foundation
Wall Street Journal

Why would who want to target Iraqi public sector banks?

Two suicide bombers detonated cars laden with explosives outside the Trade Bank of Iraq, ...one of the public sector's most active financial institutions and at the forefront of efforts to encourage foreign investment..., killing 26 people in the latest attack to raise concerns about the nation's stability after an inconclusive election.

A week earlier, gunmen and suicide bombers laid siege to the central bank in Baghdad, killing 18 people and fueling fears that insurgents are trying to exploit a political vacuum that followed the March 7 election which produced no outright winner.

...Security officials blamed the June 13 central bank attack on Sunni Islamist insurgents linked to al Qaeda...

They said that attack was also an attempt to reignite violence between majority Shi'ites and once dominant Sunnis after the election, which has yet to produce a new government.

Reuters, June 20, 2010

If Gulf of Mexico oil production declines from regulatory intervention

and Middle East oil production declines via internal strife

and/or American/Israeli military strikes against Iran...? 

If Chinese labor unrest = higher prices, could more Developing Economy worker instability limit future economic investment and growth?

We can ignore reality
but we cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality

Ayn Rand

Time to defend Chinese workers' rights

Wherever exists exploitation and suppression, rebellion erupts. If the exploited are a majority of the society, the revolt draws even nearer and comes with a louder bout.

For the past 30 years witnessing China's meteoric rise, multinationals and upstart home tycoons have rammed up their wealth making use of China's favorable economic policies as well as oversight loopholes. In sharp contrast, tens of millions of Chinese blue-collar workers who have genuinely generated the wealth and created the prosperity have been left far behind.

The enjoyment of power is fatal to the subtleties of life

Ruling classes degenerate by reason
of their lazy indulgence in obvious gratifications

Alfred North Whitehead

According to the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, a quarter of Chinese workers have not had a raise in pay in the past five years...It is logical to claim their livelihood is actually on decline taking in account the price rises in the years.

Hence, there came the widely-reported mass labor strike at Japan's Honda's joint venture production line in Guangdong Province to demand for a higher pay, and the spate of rising employee suicides crippling Taiwan's Foxconn Technology Group's mainland plant in Shenzhen City.

...Honda finally agreed to a 24 percent pay rise to the workers who returned to work last week. Also, Foxconn management has agreed to workers' uniform pay rise of 30 percent.

The pay rises are long overdue. They should have come prior to workers' took radical measures.

Have most revolts been instigated by some with less who want more
against those with more?

George Hartzman

...When the exploited laborers are forced to toil extra time, work under huge pressure and earn disproportional tiny wages -- often at less than 1,500 yuan (US$220) a month in China, the disappointment and frustration gather and grow to anger, and eventually revolts break out.

...it's totally unfair and unruly for businesses to seek exorbitant profits at the cost of their employees.

...Isn't business's overexploitation of employees disgraceful? Isn't Chinese workers' demand for a higher pay justified? (As a matter of fact, Japanese employees in that Honda plant are paid 50 times more than the average Chinese workers).

The most dangerous moment for a bad government
is when it begins to reform

Alexis de Tocqueville

...as the country has raked in stacks of foreign currencies as reserves, and businesses and tycoons had deep pockets, the welfare of vast laborers has been hardly improved.
 
...Only when the low-paid, long-neglected and voiceless are taken care of by the government, the blue-collar workers' unrest, now brewing in some factories, won't cascade, spread and form crushing waves.

Li Hong
People's Daily Online (China)

I am he
as you are me
and we are all together

John Lennon and Paul McCartney