Tag Archives: Bullshit Artists

The IRS’s recycled hard-drive coincidence

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“Hanging out with Lois Lerner can be bad for your hard drive’s health.Mrs. Lerner, at the center of an Internal Revenue Service political scandal that sounds ever more jaily, lost her emails in a fortuitous electro-mechanical failure. Now we learn that April J. Sands, a onetime acolyte of Mrs. Lerner at the FEC, got into a political scandal of her own, and her hard drive went bust at just the right time, too.  Life in Washington is full of coincidences.  The administration’s defenders give the benefit of the doubt to the IRS and the Federal Election Commission. But is that appropriate? Sitting across the table from an IRS auditor, the taxpayer rarely gets the benefit of a doubt, and never of a coincidence.”

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jul/17/editorial-the-recycled-coincidence/

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When Zero’s Too High: Time preference versus central bankers

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“Central banking has taken interest rate reduction to its absurd conclusion. If observers thought the ECB had run out of room by holding its deposit rate at zero, Mario Draghi proved he is creative, cutting the ECB’s deposit rate to minus 0.10 percent, making it the first major central bank to institute a negative rate.  Can a central-bank edict force present goods to no longer have a premium over future goods?  Armed with high-powered math and models dancing in their heads, modern central bankers believe they are only limited by their imaginations.  More than half a decade of zero interest rates has not lifted anyone from poverty or created any jobs—it has simply caused more malinvestment.”

http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/when-zeros-too-high

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German Gold Stays in New York in Rebuff to Euro Doubters

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“Surging mistrust of the euro during Europe’s debt crisis fed a campaign to bring Germany’s entire $141 billion gold reserve home from New York and London. Now, after the Free Democratic Party, which flirted with bringing the gold home, dropped out of  Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition and was replaced by the Social Democrats, the government has concluded that stashing half its bullion abroad is prudent after all.  Ending talk of repatriating the world’s second-biggest gold reserves is a rebuff to critics including the anti-euro Alternative for Germany party, which says all the gold should return to Frankfurt so it can’t be impounded to blackmail Germany.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-23/german-gold-stays-in-new-york-in-rebuff-to-euro-doubters.html

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Homeland Security increases security for some U.S.-bound flights

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“The Department of Homeland Security announced Wednesday that it will require increased security on some international flights bound for the United States.  The flights, coming predominantly from Western Europe and the Middle East, will be subject to greater scrutiny of passengers and cargo, the department said, though officials did not spell out exactly what the increased security measures will entail.  U.S. intelligence officials estimate that as many as7,000 foreign nationals have flocked to Iraq and Syria to join the fight.  The concern is that the foreigners bearing Western passports could return home to attack their fellow citizens in the West.”

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/homeland-security-increases-security-for-some-u-s-bound-flights/

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The Federal Reserve: Asleep at the Switch

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“Yellen conceded that higher interest rates in 2003 and 2006 might have slowed the rate of home price growth that created the housing bubble.  But, she added, such increases wouldn’t have done much to quell the rapid rise in housing prices but would have ‘weakened households’ ability to repay previous debts.’ The net effect would have been to improve ‘household balance sheets only modestly.’  What’s most disturbing about her comments is that her central bank colleagues in other countries deeply disagree with this position. They argue that low rates caused by central bank stimulus programs may be sowing the seeds for the next financial crisis.”

http://www.investingdaily.com/20677/the-federal-reserve-asleep-at-the-switch-2/

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Finance Goes From Foe to Friend in Hollande Government

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“During his election campaign in 2011, President Francois Hollande famously called finance his ‘greatest adversary.’ In a speech today, French Finance Minister Michel Sapin called finance ‘a friend,” quickly specifying that he was talking about ‘good finance.’  The new stance comes as the president’s popularity is at a record low and his economic policies have drawn the ire of members of his own Socialist Party and of allied groups. Recovery remains anemic and joblessness is at a record high.  Global finance, however, has stuck with Hollande. Investors have piled into French bonds, giving Hollande’s government borrowing costs that are close to the lowest on record.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-06/finance-goes-from-foe-to-friend-in-hollande-government.html

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New York City’s ‘Affordable Housing’ Bonanza for the Rich

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“In May, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) unveiled a plan to build 80,000 new affordable housing units, ‘marshaling every corner of government and the private sector,’ he boasted, ‘in an unprecedented response’ to the city’s ‘crisis of affordability.’ De Blasio, who ran on a promise to reduce inequality, is now enabling upper middle class New Yorkers to tap into these subsidies to serve their housing needs. In a city in which one in five households lives below the poverty line, spending limited government dollars so professionals earning six figures don’t have to leave their favored neighborhoods is obscene.”

http://reason.com/archives/2014/07/03/new-york-citys-affordable-housing-bonanz/print

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Government Civil Liberties Panel Endorses NSA Surveillance

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EFF-awards-Apple-Google-perfect-privacy-scores-300x2071

“The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) issued a legally flawed and factually incomplete report late Tuesday that endorses Section 702 surveillance.  Hiding behind the ‘complexity’ of the technology, it gives short shrift to the very serious privacy concerns that the surveillance has rightly raised for millions of Americans. The board also deferred considering whether the surveillance infringed the privacy of many millions more foreigners abroad.  Rather than rein in government communications searches, the PCLOB simply asks the NSA to study the issue.”

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/flawed-oversight-board-report-endorses-general-warrants

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SWAT teams claim they’re private and immune from open records

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“According to the ACLU, the LECs are claiming that the 501(c)(3) status means that they’re private corporations, not government agencies. These agencies oversee police activities. They employ cops who carry guns, wear badges, collect paychecks provided by taxpayers and have the power to detain, arrest, injure and kill. They operate SWAT teams, which conduct raids on private residences. And yet they say that because they’ve incorporated, they’re immune to Massachusetts open records laws. The state’s residents aren’t permitted to know how often the SWAT teams are used, what they’re used for, what sort of training they get or who they’re primarily used against.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/06/26/massachusetts-swat-teams-claim-theyre-private-corporations-immune-from-open-records-laws/

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Violinists Barred from Flight Based On Airline’s Made-up ‘FAA Rule’

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“As they climbed the stairway to the US Airways Express commuter jet, a flight attendant reportedly handed them a blue slip stating that the FAA prohibits musical instruments on the plane, ‘which was stunning because we’re frequent fliers,’ he said.  When told that their violins would have to be checked, the musicians protested, which prompted a phone call to an airport ‘conflict resolution officer.’  While waiting, a frustrated Kendall said he learned from a colleague about a 2012 Federal law stating that passengers may carry a violin or other small instrument in the aircraft cabin provided there is space. They obtained copies of the law and presented it as they boarded their rescheduled flight.”

http://www.wqxr.org/#!/story/violinists-ejected-flight-perform-bach-tarmac/

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