global warming

No warming trend in raw surface temperature data

You have all seen those GISS graphs of global warming.  Anthony Watt checked the raw data on which they are based. The cooked data shows warming, the raw data shows cooling. Of course this does not mean the data is necessarily fraudulent – but the adjustments are largely guesswork, so when they compile these graphs, they are merely guessing that the earth has warmed.

economics

The cause of the crisis

Capitalism and free markets are prone to bubbles, and a great deal more prone to bubbles when speculators can expect that the government will print as much money as needed to keep the bubble going, but bubbles do not in themselves lead to massive financial defaults, because normally lenders only lend to people who are in a position to repay, even if the bubble pops. If one reads what purport …

economics

The crisis

Fred Thompson argues the solution is thrift – which exactly what the government is trying to prevent. Obviously he is right – and yet wrong, for one person’s savings have to be another person’s obligations. What we need is a financial system that mobilizes savings for sound investments – such as mortgages on reasonably priced houses secured by twenty percent down payments, mortgages on farmlands, mortgages on mines and oilfield …

politics

Why do all large organizations skew left authoritarian?

Constant drew my attention to the fact that Fox news, originally created to provide an alternative to the Mainstream Media orthodox ideology, is joining it, which led me to reflect on the tendency of big corporations to go left authoritarian and support socialism, gun control, political censorship, government health, and so on and so forth – as for example, the failure of the owners of shipping lines to allow deadly …

economics

Global Average temperatures to 2008-October

This is the running twelve month average world temperature, as measured by satellites, as reported by The National Space Science and Technology Center. World temperature change in centigrade degrees. It goes up, it goes down. If there is any trend, the trend is less than the decade to decade fluctuations, and is not at all apocalyptic. This differs from other graphs you may have seen because it starts at the …

economics

Why iceland went bust – and why the US went bust

The usual answer, of course, is the evils of capitalism: this country’s banks – virtually unregulated – to borrow more than 10 times their country’s gross domestic product from the international wholesale money markets. Watch as a Graf Zeppelin of debt propels its self-styled “Viking Raiders” across the world’s financial stage, accumulating companies like gamblers hoarding chips. In fact, of course, the government regulators made lots of easy money available …

economics

China’s boom

China in the 20th century had two major revolutions, a civil war, a World War, The Great Leap Forward [sic], mass starvation, the Cultural Revolution, arguably the most tyrannical dictator ever and he didn’t even brush his teeth, and now they are going from rags to riches without even a business cycle burp.  While the world plunges into major recession, China is suffering a barely noticeable hiccup, and has become …

party politics

The lesson of the 2008 American Presidential election

You win elections from the base, not the center.  Obama appealed to the Democrat base, the Democrat wing of the Democrat party, and the lunatic wing of the Democrat of the Democrat party,  Just as Reagan appealed to the Republican party base. McCain tried to appeal to the wobbly Democrat wing of the Democrat pary – mainly by spitting on the Republican party base. McCain followed in the path of …

economics

How many CRA loans, how much affirmative action payout?

From 2000 to 2007, blacks and hispanics received six hundred and thirteen billion dollars more in home purchase mortgages than they would have received had they received the same proportion of the money that they received in 1999 – a figure that strikingly resembles the total cost of the bailout. In 1999, people warned that CRA loans, affirmative action loans, racial quota loans, began to endanger the financial system Fannie …

economics

The crisis in unregulated financial markets

Observe that the unregulated Credit Default Swap market is now working just fine, despite handling gigantic money flows, such as the failure of the Icelandic banks, that shake other markets, despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that more highly regulated markets have frozen up. What went wrong in a short while ago in unregulated markets was that  people in an unregulated market would look at a highly regulated participant …