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  • Beyond 1984, right here in River City?

    George Rebane

    USpoliceYesterday’s 11am PST nationwide FEMA radio alert made many people of all political persuasions sit up and take notice.  It appears that the federal hardwired capability to control content on all broadcast media is now in place, is operational, and (here’s the interesting part) ready to be exercised with non-emergency content.

    Infowars.com reports (here) that this technology demonstration is just the first step in a systematic government takeover of all broadcast and internet media via existing executive orders.  The claim is made that the feds have already notified all radio stations to “prepare for multiple hours per day” of government programming.   Sorta like the street propaganda and patriotic music loudspeakers on city streets in totalitarian countries.

    Even though the technology exists and is in place, the whole affair seems a little farfetched; don’t we all have ‘Not in America!’ ringing in our ears?

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  • A Reader’s Complaint Answered

    George Rebane

    Mr Ben Emery is a regular RR reader who vigorously defends his Left/liberal ideology in these pages.  He recently issued a complaint about the content, viewpoint, and perhaps the form of this weblog.  His general lament is that RR’s scope of topics is too narrow and doesn’t cover the substance of the ideas discussed.   I believe his comments deserve a more extended answer that may also be of interest to other readers of this weblog.  This follows BenE’s complaint repeated below, which is also his ‘8nov11 09:12 AM’ comment to ‘The Liberal Mind – How much socialist, before being a ‘Socialist’?’.

    (more…)

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  • The Liberal Mind – How much socialist, before being a ‘Socialist’?

    George Rebane

    In debates on governance and other issues between what we today call the Right and the Left, we observe an interesting use of semantic camouflage that has been in practice for at least a century in the American public square.  The Right and its various political candidates proudly proclaim their socio-political ideologies under labels such as conservative, libertarian, capitalist, free-marketeer, and even rightwing.  And this no matter if they run/serve as Republicans or Libertarians or some other splinter rightwing political party.  The same can be said for the public proponents of these same ideologies that range from the private voter through national media pundits to humble political commentary bloggers like me.  We all wear our tenets on our sleeves.

    This is not the case with candidates from the Left.  Starting late in the 19th century, the intellectuals of the Left began to discern that a more, shall we say, nuanced sales pitch was required to sell their brand of collectivism to the voting public, no matter if they were Marxists, progressives, socialists, communists, … .  And after some early successes in installing such forms of governance and the inevitable tragedies that were then visited on the suckered populations, the Left largely abandoned the ‘nuanced’ phase of their promotions to ones of subterfuge, dissembling, and outright lies.

    (A humorous sidelight here is that often a Leftist who is labeled a ‘socialist’, ‘progressive’, ‘liberal’, … will rear up, and not only deny membership in such a benighted cohort, but actually accuse the labeler of name-calling, smearing him, or an outright attack on his character which will brook no such pejoratives.  And as a conservetarian, I may be forced to agree with him, at least in principle.)

    In America this policy was implemented in spades as the American Communist and Socialist Parties became the buffoons and off stage noise makers in our political dramas.  No Leftwing politician expecting to get elected advertised his true collectivist ideology.  Instead they ran as democrats (and Democrats), softly selling class distinctions and promoting a ballooning government into every quarter of our economy and personal lives.  Their populist fodder for the public ear was the ever present disparity of incomes and wealth that occur in a growing free market, capitalist society.  Class envy, as later confirmed by Kahneman and Tversky (q.v.), is a staple of human nature to be exploited, and exploited in spades.

    (more…)

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  • Local Government—An Oxymoron?!

    [This article on Agenda 21, emphasizing its history in the US, was sent to me by Judi Caler, co-founder of Reclaiming our American Rights (ROAR!).  It was also published in the Nov 2011 edition of the CABPRO News.  gjr]

    Judi Caler

    Several months ago, a young Executive Director of a community nonprofit volunteered to help a Grass Valley citizens group approach our local elected officials in order to affect public policy on an important issue. Having been a lobbyist and political activist in the past, I didn’t think I would learn anything new. I was wrong.

    Peoples’ lives are being hijacked, compliments of the United Nations and their Agenda 21 (AKA Sustainable Development); our young people, products of our public “educational” system, don’t understand how representative government was intended to work by the founders of our country. They have been indoctrinated to accept without question what is imposed upon them, and also to help impose that doctrine upon others.

    Agenda 21 is the 1992 United Nations plan for the global elite to control every facet of our lives—what we have, what we do, where we live, where we go, what we eat, etc. President George H.W. Bush signed Agenda 21 for the United States along with the leaders of 178 other nations. It was deliberately designed as a non-binding “soft law” document, not a treaty, so as to avoid the Senate confirmation process.

    President Clinton followed up by creating the President’s Council on Sustainable Development (PCSD) by Executive Order in 1993 for the purpose of implementing Agenda 21 in the United States. He thus laid the foundation to restructure our political process to conform to a one world government.

    To further carry out Agenda 21, President Obama, by Executive Order in June 2011 established the White House Rural Council to exercise control over rural America in education, food supply, land use, water use, recreation, property, energy, and the lives of 16% of the U.S. population.

    The PCSD produced “Toward A Sustainable America” in 1999. Among its 16 “We Believe” statements is Number 8:

    “We need a new collaborative decision process that leads to better decisions; more rapid change; and more sensible use of human, natural and financial resources in achieving our goals.”

    In other words, the constitution was getting in the way of their plans. The “old” political process involved private citizens lobbying their local elected officials to adopt policy; vigorous open debate on both sides; and an eventual public vote by elected officials. Sustainable Development couldn’t take hold across America if this process were allowed to continue. And so the “consensus” or “visioning” process was born.

    The consensus process bypasses local government officials, and cumbersome argument and debate; early participants are handpicked and friendly. Through stakeholder meetings, the public is given the impression that a broad spectrum of the community’s citizenry is engaged.

    A typical stakeholder meeting is run by a highly trained, highly paid facilitator. His or her job is to drive a consensus sympathetic to the desired outcome of the project and marginalize any opposition. Stakeholders are persons or groups with no legal interest in the property in question, such as environmental nonprofits, dictating the use of that property to the owner. Shills are sometimes hired to join in the “consensus.”

    The new process is most often accompanied by a government grant that local elected officials rarely reject, especially if the local community has been told that the grant is awarded to help usher in “sustainability.” Organizations such as the American Planning Association are provided funding to produce plans and procedures that are ready-made for local governing bodies to approve.

    Only after the plan is essentially developed is the governing body called upon to give it the force of law by a formal vote. If the governing bodies do not vote as expected, the threat of a lawsuit is not uncommon. Once the new decision-making process has been established, it can be used to develop policy in all areas embraced by sustainable development, i.e. economics, social justice, education and the environment.

    There can be no accountability to the people when public policy is developed by government-funded advocacy groups, administrators or bureaucrats. Individual freedom is lost as property rights are eroded. Local authority is thus removed from elected officials, and control moves up to the regional or state level or higher. Top-down government management of local communities is achieved.

    To find Agenda 21 operating in your community, watch for the buzzwords (partial list): sustainable, social justice, smart growth, public/private partnership, common good, collaborative, vision/visioning, affordable, livable, walkable, consensus, stakeholder, International, regional, endangered species…

    Reclaiming Our American Rights (ROAR!) is a Nevada County citizens group fighting Agenda 21. We have available a new slide show presentation entitled “What Is Sustainable Development?” It is intended as an introduction to Agenda 21, a subject we need to understand if our freedoms are to survive. To join ROAR or to arrange a showing for your group, big or small, please contact us at unagenda21@hotmail.com.

    Judi Caler lives in Nevada City. She founded AnimalSave and co-founded ROAR!

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  • When the Music Stopped…

    [I received the follwing in an email from an old friend and fellow artillery officer with whom I served in Germany many years ago.  gjr]

    (For those who  are unaware: At all military base theaters, the National Anthem is played  before the movie begins.)

    This is written from  a Chaplain in Iraq:

    I recently attended  a showing of 'Superman 3' here at LSA Anaconda. We have a large auditorium  that we use for movies as well as memorial services and other large  gatherings.

    As is the  custom at all military bases, we stood to attention  when The National  Anthem began before  the main feature.  All was going  well until three-quarters of the way through The National  Anthem, the music  stopped.

    Now, what would  happen if this occurred with 1,000 18-to-22-year-olds back in the  States?  I imagine that there would be hoots, catcalls, laughter, a few  rude comments, and everyone would sit down and yell for the movie to begin. Of  course, that is, only if they had stood forThe National  Anthem in the first  place.

    Here in Iraq 1,000 soldiers  continued to stand at attention, eyes fixed forward. The music started again,  and the soldiers continued to quietly stand at attention.  Again, though,  at the same point, the music stopped. What would you expect 1,000 soldiers  standing at attention to do??  Frankly, I expected some laughter, and  everyone would eventually sit down and wait for the movie to  start.

    No!. . . You could  have heard a pin drop while every soldier continued to stand at  attention.

    Suddenly, there was  a lone voice from the front of the auditorium, then a dozen voices, and soon  the room was filled with the voices of a thousand soldiers, finishing where  the recording left off: "And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in  air, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.  Oh,  say, does that Star Spangled Banner yet wave, o'er the land of the free, and  the home of the brave."

    It was the most  inspiring moment I have had in Iraq, and I wanted you  to know what kind of U.S. Soldiers are  serving you!  Remember them as they fight for us!

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  • Greece in freefall

    George Rebane

    [This is the transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 4 Novemeber 2011.]

    Greece is the latest socialist country to illustrate the results of not living within its means.  There is a long line of other European countries right behind Greece, ready to follow it off the cliff.  And then there are we, having followed the same course, planning on more of the same, and sitting on the other side of a wide ocean, firm in the belief that none of that will reach across and hurt us.

    In Europe politicians like Merkel and Sarkozy have cobbled together a bailout of cash to Greece that will postpone collapse until they can retire from office with minimally bruised legacies.  Then that cradle of western civilization and democracy can crash and burn for all they care.  And you can bet that it will, if not before.

    In modern times Greece has had a muddy history that became more muddled after the end of WW2.  When Germany was defeated, Greece entered into a decades’ long conflict between its communist and fascist factions.  Ultimately, the former communists won and put the country on a socialist path of government entitlements and corruption that drove out its capitalist wealth producers and created one of the world’s worst business environments.  Taxes were then increased, driving much of the economy underground, and state revenues never came close to paying for the goodies demanded by the unions and dispensed to buy votes.

    DrachmasTo make ends meet, Greece started borrowing from its eurozone neighbors.  Countering their own agreements, European banks started lending the amounts required to build and maintain Greece’s Ponzi economy.  Europe’s banks were lending to Greek banks, which then bought government bonds guaranteed by the Greek government.  Except that someone, actually a lot of people, forgot that Greece could not work its way out from under its growing mountain of debt.  And it could not print any of the faith-based money needed to even pay interest on that debt.  Its currency was the euro, and only the European Central Bank in Frankfurt could print that stuff.  So what to do?

    Well, they raised taxes and cut government spending.  Doing that convinced big guys like Germany and France to continue lending, but after a while the pain in Greece became so bad that, led by unions, people took to the streets and gave us all those flaming and smoky videos on the evening news.  This was definitely not kicking the can down the road, so Germany and France got worried that Greece might default on its loans, and prematurely pull out of the eurozone, thereby making the current spate of politicians look bad.

    Instead, they settled for a halfway solution, letting Greece stiff its lenders at 50%, and guaranteed more loans from northern European banks to the same guys who sometimes wear tutus and powder puffs on their pumps when they’re not rioting for more government entitlements.  Angie and Nicky figured that they’d have the muscle to print more euros when it comes time to bail out their domestic banks now papering their restrooms with Greek bonds.

    In the meantime Greece’s Papandreou threatened a referendum on the next round of austerity and borrowing.  After all, it’s the democratic solution, and we all know where democracy came from.  This caused everyone who owns stocks and bonds to run in circles scream and shout.  What if those damn Greeks reject the whole bailout deal and say to the world, ‘If a can must be kicked down the road, we’ll do it ourselves, thank you very much.  We’re going back to drachmas, which we can print to our hearts desire.’

    Of course, Greece will then have trouble borrowing from the corner paycheck cashing outfit.  But at least they’ll be able to go down the tubes doing it their way.  Now what does all that have to do with the price of beer in Brooklyn?

    When Greece chucks the euro and defaults on its European bank loans, more euros will start rolling off the presses in Frankfurt and inflation takes off.  And remember, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, and others are still standing in line for their bailouts, because they also ran out of other people’s money, and had to pile on huge debts.  In the meantime our banks have loans to European banks, so their bad debts will also hit our banks, and require another round of bailouts, or we suffer the fallout from their failures.

    Bottom line?  No matter how much you think you deserve other people’s money, you can’t demand your way out of debt.  Those now occupying our streets have yet to learn that lesson.

    My name is Rebane, and I also expand on these and other themes in my Union columns, and on georgerebane.com where this transcript appears.  These opinions are not necessarily shared by KVMR.  Thank you for listening.

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  • Greece and the 100% haircut (updated 5oct2011)

    George Rebane

    We hear that Greece’s financial situation is so dicey that they now have to pay over 270% yearly interest on their bonds.  The ten-year US Treasury today closed at 4.88% per annum.  Everyone who reads RR knows that Greece is teetering on the edge of default and pulling out of the eurozone.  Being prone to financial engineering, this set me thinking about the chance (probability) that Greece will go belly up during a certain future time interval, say, in the next 12 months.  The interest yields on the two bonds should contain enough information to tease out this number given that the US Treasury is still considered a safe haven or risk-free investment.

    So I pulled out my trusty pencil with the big eraser strapped to one end, and set myself down to push a few squigglies.  The question I sought to answer is ‘Given the market interest rate for a risky and a risk-free bond, what probability of default in a specified future interval does the market implicitly assess to a risky borrower?’  Well, it turns out that there is a very definite answer to that question, and the market’s probability of default is given by –

    DefaultProb
    Where Q is the default probability, iR and iRF are risky and risk-free annual interest rates, and T is the interval from the present to some future time expressed in years.

    Plugging in the above interest rate numbers and looking out one year, we get 0.93 or 93% as today’s market assessment of Greece defaulting some time during the next twelve months.  One can, of course, work the formula backward and answer the question ‘If I believe the probability is X% that Greece will default during the next year, what interest rate should I demand on their bonds?’  The answer to that is computed from –

    RiskyInterestRate

    Where the mathematically astute will recognize 1-Q as the probability that the risky borrower will NOT default.  ln is the natural logarithm (to the base e = 2.7182… ).

    You can now put those formulas into a spreadsheet and have all kinds of fun figuring out how solid a certain corporation is, given the interest they have to pay on their bonds.  And you can plot Q, their probability of default, against T, which you would expect to increase over longer periods into the future.  Using the above numbers, I’ve done that for Greece.

    DefaultProbFig

    Again, technically inclined investors will recognize that these formulas can now be used in allocating assets and designing a portfolio.  If there is qualified interest in their derivation, I’ll write up my scribbles into a readable pdf and attach it as a download to this post.  Enjoy.

    [5oct2011 update]  A reader emailed me that the risk-free rate really closed at 2.04% instead of the 4.88% I used above.  My eyes must have been crossed when I looked at that rate to get the example for this post.  Nevertheless, I reran the calcs with the 2.04%, and as expected, the results were essentially the same as they were higher only in the third decimal place.  This is because the two interest rates enter the formula as a difference, which in this case did not change very much at all.  H/T to the attentive reader.

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  • Ruminations – 1nov2011 (updated)

    George Rebane

    California’s carbon calamity is cranking up to full speed, destroying jobs and driving companies to other lands and states.  CARB is now the loose cannon in the state’s economy, putting into full force the dictates of AB32 (q.v.).  Even the unions are screaming about job losses and arguing that California’s carbon tax n’ spend will not affect global warming in slightest.  Meanwhile the green Europeans are rethinking the carbon calamity that they were planning for themselves.  More in ‘California’s New Green Tax’.  Oh yes, and we mustn't forget about the new industry of carbon tax farming coming to California.  Don't know about tax farming? then read this little ditty.

    Who are the top 1% earners around here?  Russ Steele sent me a Dept Commerce census data covered in the Sac Bee (here).  Sounds about right.  The Occupiers ought get right in there and ferret out those people who are taking food out of the mouths of us 99% folks.  Is there no justice left in the world??!!

    Our beloved Union couldn’t shoot straight on complex stuff like global warming.  Their article on physicist Richard Muller’s discovery that global temps have gone up in the last 50 years is supposed to be a big black eye for the “climate change deniers”.  I’m not aware of too many such deniers.  To be sure, there are skeptics of anthropogenic global warming, but it appears that reporting on such bright lines that separate the ‘deniers’ from the ‘skeptics’ is a still a bit difficult for a small understaffed newspaper.  No problem, the local Left was happy dancing in the streets.

    The prominent proto-communist truthout.com is lamenting that police are acting with unwarranted brutality in the various cities where occupying is taking place.  In a “true democracy” police would act in a manner that support the law breakers.  “So imagine how it could be different, if we had a government designed to serve the people rather than keep them in their place. In a country with a true democratic culture the local governments would be serving these people and honoring their right to dissent and protest. They would instinctively be showing up at protests like this and offering to help with any sanitation problems, etc, setting up public toilets, and other services. They would even be offering tents. If there are security problems in the occupy camps a city would be posting police in the encampment to help the people there, with a clear mission to serve them.”  (emphasis in the original, read article here)  Maybe the cops could even soil their own cars so as not to overly inconvenience the occupiers sitting in their police supplied porta-potties.

    Dana Perino of Fox News is historically challenged.  A couple of days ago in a gush she identified Steve Jobs as being “the best innovator in world history.”  The poor lady had not heard of Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, …, and thousands of other engineers and scientists whose fundamental discoveries changed the world.  Jobs, while no doubt a great product designer and marketer, was not in the same league with these historical giants.  Maybe there’s now a new politically correct definition of ‘innovator’ that puts Jobs into the top spot.

    What happened in Greece between last Friday and this Monday to make the Dow climb 2.86% and then dive 2.26%?  Actually nothing, and that’s the quandary.  The market’s volatility attributed to the ups and downs of the next Greek financial palliative seems to be insane.  It doesn’t matter what the eurozone economical biggies (Germany, France) or the European Central Bank do or don’t do.  Greece will default on its sovereign debt, bet the ranch on it.  That paragon of union dominated socialism is so deep in the hole that Europe doesn't have a rope long enough to get them out.

    The markets can’t be so dumb in the aggregate that they take seriously the impact of Nick calling Angela a ‘fatso’ and Angela calling Nick ‘shorty’ on Greece’s certain default.  It doesn’t matter how big of a check Greece gets to service its debt, even with the contemplated haircuts to the bond holders, Greece cannot grow out of its financial excesses, it has to default sooner than later.  Now if I know this, then all the money mavens in the world must know it.  Therefore the markets are being moved by something entirely different, and the media pundits writing headlines are either stupid (not ignorant), or they’re trying not to tell us something important – like the US is really headed for Depression2.

    [update]  Today the Dow fell another 2.48%, ostensibly because Greek's proposed austerity measures, as the terms of the last EU bailout, will be turned down by the Greeks as they vote in a just announced referendum on said terms.  Now, dear reader, does it really matter in the scheme of things whether the pampered Greeks accept or reject the terms?  What changed?

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  • Obama now ‘The Divider’

    George Rebane

    The Great Divide (and search RR) has been a subject of interest and debate among readers.  Our friends from the Left honor me with accusations of being a lone rogue in shining a light on the path that appears to be tearing the country apart.  Unfortunately as thinkers and commentators across the country have pointed out, the notion of such a division, the Great Divide, is an enterprise shared by people of many political and ideological colorations.

    A recent piece on this is from Peggy Noonan – ‘The Divider vs the Thinker’ – that appeared in the 29oct11 WSJ.  In it she compares and contrasts President Barack Obama’s current efforts with those of Representative Paul Ryan.  What caught my eye in her analysis was the similarity of concepts that she highlights with those in RR.  Her overarching introduction immediately gets to the heart of the matter –

    People are increasingly fearing the divisions within, even the potential coming apart of, our country. Rich/poor, black/white, young/old, red/blue: The things that divide us are not new, yet there's a sense now that the glue that held us together for more than two centuries has thinned and cracked with age. That it was allowed to thin and crack, that the modern era wore it out.

    The glue of which she speaks was the “shared knowledge” of our past, especially that there was something “providential” about our beginnings.   Overwhelmingly, we had “a general understanding that we were something new in history, a nation founded on ideals and aspirations — liberty, equality — and not mere grunting tribal wants. We were from Europe but would not be European: No formal class structure here, no limits, from the time you touched ground all roads would lead forward. You would be treated not as your father was but as you deserved.”

    From whatever future awaits us, she opines that we will look back at this as the “Great Coming Apart” during which we suffered stresses and strains where “half the country isn’t speaking to the other half”, quoting a moderate Democrat.

    (more…)

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  • Lucy Pearl at Seven Months

    George Rebane

    Just so that everyone understands that the ideas debated on RR are not without consequence, I want to remind everyone that I have six grandchildren and one great-grandchild – Lucy Pearl, the little darlin that you see below.  What we talk about in these pages is important, and doubly so for her and her parents.  I don’t do this just to pound my pud.  It is part of the legacy that all who contribute here leave for whatever search engines may excavate these thoughts tomorrow or generations from now.  In these times, this is what we thought and said.  It’s good to reflect on that because you also, dear reader, have to consider your own arrows into the future.  To the extent that your contributions mold and express your worldview, our chatter is not idle.

    LucyPearl_Oct2011

     

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74 comments on Beyond 1984, right here in River City?