A Goldman Sachs Alumnus Backs the Fed???

25 Wednesday Jan 2017

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Of course he does. That’s written somewhere. I think it’s a law.

U.S. Treasury Secretary nominee Steven Mnuchin isn’t jumping on the Republican bandwagon to audit the Fed.

In written questions by senators following his confirmation hearing on Thursday, Mnuchin was asked about his thoughts on “politicizing decisions made by the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and the benefits of an independent central bank.”

Mnuchin’s answer was crafted carefully.

“The Federal Reserve is organized with sufficient independence to conduct monetary policy and open market operations,” Mnuchin responded to Senator Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat. “I endorse the increased transparency we have seen from the Federal Reserve Board over recent years.”

This is a reminder that not every nominee has to be confirmed.

I wonder why the Senators didn’t ask Mnuchin about the real issues, like D.C. crowd size.

Speaking of crowds, there may soon be crowds headed for deportation. Trump is actually preparing to build that wall and to wall off sanctuary cities.

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Washington Post.

The Chewy Decimated System: The Book Business in 2017

24 Tuesday Jan 2017

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I was in a large Barnes and Noble in a large city several weeks ago – having a large time. The place was half coffee shop, half card store, and half toy store (as author Nick Cole discusses below). Some books were scattered around. Most were geared towards children, housewives, and people who cannot read. I saw writing on the walls.

No, this particular placement for the once vaunted science fiction section, a staple they kept so many bookstores alive with the trade of the faithful binge-buying junkie science fiction readers cleaning them out, is now relegated to the smelly back of the store. It seemed like some sort of discount holdover section no bookseller wanted to be sent into to organize. There was no love. It was forsaken.

The Toy Section (Yes. Toys. In a book store? Tells you everything, doesn’t it?) Took up a quarter of the store and was a swollen and corpulent mess with un-purchased excess from the recent Christmas season. Whole tables, where once New Releases and Staff Pick Impulse buys laid in seductive waiting for junkie readers and unsuspecting passers by, was now filled with mangled and dirty toys that had not sold. And probably won’t.

So what does this tell us writers.

Well, first off it tells you the big publishing is dead. They’re dead and they don’t even know it.

The book business is good. Very good. I’m working on two books right now (aren’t I always). And I’m helping a magazine compile a e-book for rapid publication – not sure if I’ll get credit there though 19/20ths of the work is mine.

The point is, books are booming. And it’s never been easier to write, publish, and sell one than it is now. So, why the demise of B&N? It’s because they’re run by the same idiots who doomed the major publishing houses. The big five will begin to fall any day – probably this year.

Look for major downsizing at B&N and then total closure. I expect Amazon will buy some or most of their online business. Amazon is the present and future of the book world. Small indie houses will still be around. Amazon may open large physical stores in a few select locations. As for 99% of the business, it will be done from the bookstore on your phone or computer – the same one you’re on right now.

As I wandered aimlessly through the coffee and toys a somewhat pleasant woman asked me if I needed help finding anything. I asked her: “Is there a bookstore around here.” I already knew the answer and didn’t bother listening to hers.

Put that in your book!

*Many thanks to Vox Day for covering this story first!

Executive Order Minimizing the Economic Burden of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Pending Repeal

24 Tuesday Jan 2017

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Whitehouse.gov is fully operational now, including Executive Order No.1.

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The White House.

EXECUTIVE ORDER

– – – – – – –

MINIMIZING THE ECONOMIC BURDEN OF THE PATIENT PROTECTION AND AFFORDABLE CARE ACT PENDING REPEAL

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. It is the policy of my Administration to seek the prompt repeal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Public Law 111-148), as amended (the “Act”). In the meantime, pending such repeal, it is imperative for the executive branch to ensure that the law is being efficiently implemented, take all actions consistent with law to minimize the unwarranted economic and regulatory burdens of the Act, and prepare to afford the States more flexibility and control to create a more free and open healthcare market.

Sec. 2. To the maximum extent permitted by law, the Secretary of Health and Human Services (Secretary) and the heads of all other executive departments and agencies (agencies) with authorities and responsibilities under the Act shall exercise all authority and discretion available to them to waive, defer, grant exemptions from, or delay the implementation of any provision or requirement of the Act that would impose a fiscal burden on any State or a cost, fee, tax, penalty, or regulatory burden on individuals, families, healthcare providers, health insurers, patients, recipients of healthcare services, purchasers of health insurance, or makers of medical devices, products, or medications.

Sec. 3. To the maximum extent permitted by law, the Secretary and the heads of all other executive departments and agencies with authorities and responsibilities under the Act, shall exercise all authority and discretion available to them to provide greater flexibility to States and cooperate with them in implementing healthcare programs.

Sec. 4. To the maximum extent permitted by law, the head of each department or agency with responsibilities relating to healthcare or health insurance shall encourage the development of a free and open market in interstate commerce for the offering of healthcare services and health insurance, with the goal of achieving and preserving maximum options for patients and consumers.

Sec. 5. To the extent that carrying out the directives in this order would require revision of regulations issued through notice-and-comment rulemaking, the heads of agencies shall comply with the Administrative Procedure Act and other applicable statutes in considering or promulgating such regulatory revisions.

Sec. 6. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or

(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

DONALD J. TRUMP

THE WHITE HOUSE,
January 20, 2017.

Two things of particular note in this Order. First, the repeal part – even makes it into the title! Love it. Second, and more immediately important for millions of $uffering taxpayers is Section 2:

“…the heads of all other executive departments and agencies (agencies) with authorities and responsibilities under the Act [TO INCLUDE THE IRS] shall exercise all authority and discretion available to them to waive, defer, grant exemptions from, or delay the implementation of any provision or requirement of the Act that would impose …  a cost, fee, tax, penalty, or regulatory burden on individuals…”

Shall means shall. One hopes the agency heads see the urgency here. Perhaps this will apply to 2016 income taxes and the insanely complex and utterly evil incomprehensible nonsense known as the “shared responsibility payment” (a.k.a. Damned Theft). This is the gun to the head provision of Obamacare, the one John Roberts found to just be another cozy little tax.

You might want to hold off on filing the 1040 until April to see how this plays out. Of course, as fast as Trump is moving, the whole law may be gone by then. I hope its ghost haunts Barry on the links.

The Not So Big Show

24 Tuesday Jan 2017

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One of my themes here is fitness. When I first kicked off in 2012 I was a large, oozy blob. By the time I reinvigorated things in 2013 I was down 40 or 50 pounds. It’s closer to 80 now, permanent, and I’ve never felt better.

Someone else is making big changes too. Paul White (a.k.a. The Big Show) of WWE(F) fame has recently shed 70 pounds. And he looks great.

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@BigShow / Twitter.

I haven’t watched raslin lately but I do recall when White debuted. He was around 500 pounds. Now, still seven feet tall, he’s under 400. You can bet he’s more dangerous than ever now. And he feel’s better for it.

Congratulations, Big Show!

Now, after you watch the next match, go to the gym.

 

Have Your “Democracy” and Eat It Too

24 Tuesday Jan 2017

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Remember way back, in 2016, when Donald Trump won the Electoral College vote in a near landslide? A Trumpslide? Then the forces of the globalist left decried a failure of democracy. Yes, they admitted, there is this system under the Constitution. But, they claimed, the voice of the people should trump (ha!) the process. It did not, so they burn cars, beat people, and litter streets.

Now comes the other foot. In England, last summer, the majority of the people voted to get out of the EU. Yesterday the Supreme Court ruled that BREXIT must first pass through Parliament. Now, it seems, democracy means sidelining the will of the people in favor of political process. Amazing how fast things change.

PM May is confident the process will go forward as planned. Britain wants out and out they will get. Period.

Even after the people are free and happy, the disgruntled globalists will still chirp away in bipolar frenzy. Perhaps if we ignore them, they will go away. If that doesn’t work, we may have to develop some sort of bug spray.

TPP, We Hardly Knew Ya (Thank God)

23 Monday Jan 2017

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Today, in another move suggesting he was dead serious about MAGA, President Trump killed the TPP, the Trans Pacific Partnership (a.k.a. SHAFTA).

WASHINGTON — President Trump formally abandoned the Trans-Pacific Partnership on Monday, pulling away from Asia and scrapping his predecessor’s most significant trade deal on his first full weekday in office, administration officials said.

Mr. Trump sharply criticized the partnership agreement during last year’s campaign, calling it a bad deal for American workers. Although the deal had not been approved by Congress, the decision to withdraw the American signature at the start of Mr. Trump’s administration is a signal that he plans to follow through on promises to take a more aggressive stance against foreign competitors.

He’s also talking seriously about renegotiating the giant sucking sound of NAFTA.

There’s nothing wrong with free trade – as long as it’s free. Trump’s plan to cut massive amounts of useless regulations will help level the American side of the playing field. These things work better when everyone is on equal terms. We haven’t been.

I was on an anti-TPP kick a year and a half ago. Then, people in the know were calling it the dirtiest deal you’ve never heard of. And that slogan was an Australian concern. They even made door hangers:

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Thanks again to Super Kiwi!

If the Aussies didn’t know much about TPP, you can bet most Americans knew nothing. The Act was, after all, locked away in a secret vault beneath the Capitol for most of its life. It was and would have done the following:

* The TPP was constructed in secret by corporations. Congress and the public had no input. This is fundamentally undemocratic and undermines transparency in government.

* It is a trade deal that increases corporate power and CEO bonuses.

* Thousands of jobs out-sourced to countries that do not respect human rights or worker’s rights.

* It allows transnational corporations to sue countries if they believe they have been harmed (sometimes speculatively) in a trade agreement written by corporations and behind closed doors.

* Expands the deregulation of banks, hedge funds and insurance companies. Remember the Wall Street crash of 2008 due to deregulation? Regulations keep corporations honest and prevent them from harming us.

* Harms environmental regulations in counties that are part of the TPP.

In their great haste and Satanic secrecy it seems Congress actually forgot to pass the thing. Rather, they simply voted the President necessary powers to implement as he saw fit. That applies to any President. And this one does not see fit.

Say goodbye to the worse deal you never heard of. Good riddance.

CUT Regulations??? This Could Be Huge

23 Monday Jan 2017

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President Trump expressed interest in cutting federal regulations by 75%, maybe more. This is, if true, astounding.

President Donald Trump told business leaders on Monday he believes he can cut regulations by 75 percent or “maybe more.”

At the White House with 10 senior executives, he repeated his campaign pledges to roll back corporate rules, arguing that they have “gotten out of control.” A White House spokesman did not immediately respond to a request to elaborate on which rules Trump will target or how the 75 percent was calculated.

“We’re going to be cutting regulation massively,” but the rules will be “just as protective of the people,” Trump told reporters at the meeting that included Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk and Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank.

Democrats and interest groups have expressed concern about Trump’s plans to roll back Obama administration environmental protections and pull out of the landmark Paris climate accords, among other regulatory pledges.

This statement may have one or more Washingtonian meanings. Normally, in GPO-speak, it could signal cutting the growth of regulation by 75% (and then not doing even .01%). That would be big by itself as the regs grow like kudzu in the moist Georgia heat.

It could mean slashing regs primarily afflicting those businesses present at the meeting with Trump. Still big.

Or, Trump may actually want to trim the hell of the C.F.R. This would be almost unimaginable.

Regulation is one of the big three tools (the others being taxation and inflation) that government uses to maintain control of everything. None (not as many) of those jobs and factories are coming back to the U.S. if the insane level of regulation isn’t reduced. One thing that makes China, etc. so much cheaper for business is the lack of the EPA, FCC, OSHA, IRS, etc., etc., etc.

Cutting these by 75% – or even 7.5% – would go a long way and dove-tail well with Trump’s statements on trade and taxes.

That would only leave the lethal inflation monster. Part of that is Congressional overspending, the other part is the Federal Reserve. Both parts are connected by design – both to each other and to the other robbery/murder tools. If Trump throws around veto threats and encourages a Fed audit, this could go beyond huge.

This could all get interesting in a hurry. It almost seems like the man really does want to MAGA. Developing…

Eric Peters on How We Got Here

23 Monday Jan 2017

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This weekend the moms got mad and marched on Washington. Well, probably not so many moms – they have families to manage. Mad women. Womyn. Unhinged, incoherent, blue-haired womyn. Demanding something. Razors or bombing the White House or something. Demonstrating their collective right to litter freely.

Peters launched his own protest against actual lost rights, specifically the Fourth and Fifth Amendments as applied to motoring.

America is in trouble because Americans got lazy. Not so much physically but morally. They began to care more about some passing thing than about the things that truly matter; the things that made America unlike other places.

Better than other places.

Things like principles; the plain meaning of words. The Fourth and Fifth Amendments, especially. Which were (past tense deliberate) laws written to articulate and protect principles that matter.

…

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No clovers. EPAutos.

Worth a read. And we’re only some 30 or so years into this madness. There is still time to reverse it. That is, if we care to. This will require getting off the mental couch. Ours, not the blue-hairs’ “mental” couch.

Patient Freedom From Obamacare?

22 Sunday Jan 2017

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That’s what they may call it, the Patients’ Freedom Act of 2017. Or something like that.

Happy halftime from the AFC Championship game. What a great game and what a great performance, earlier, by Atlanta.

And this could be a happy day for long-suffering taxpayers in America. The details on the PFA17 are sketchy but President Trump’s first executive order may take the gun-to-your-head teeth out of Obama’s miserably failed tax collection plan, aka Obamacare.

The Trump administration may no longer enforce a rule requiring individual Americans to carry health insurance or pay a penalty if they do not, a senior White House official said on Sunday Speaking on ABC’s “This Week” program, Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, said President Donald Trump “may stop enforcing the individual mandate.”

Separately, on CBS’ “Face the Nation” show, she reiterated Republican promises that no one would lose their health insurance under Obamacare while a replacement is being developed.

“For the 20 million who rely upon the Affordable Care Act in some form, they will not be without coverage during this transition time,” she said.

On Friday Trump signed an executive order concerning the 2010 healthcare law, urging U.S. agencies to “waive, defer, grant exemptions from, or delay the implementation” of provisions deemed to impose fiscal burdens on states, companies or individuals.

Healthcare experts had speculated that Trump could expand exemptions from the individual mandate.

This is fantastic news for any healthy person who has the crazy idea that their money is actually their money. I tried to find the Order. Here’s what they have out so far:

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Come on, POTUS Trump. Don’t leave us hanging. And don’t keep us paying.

Details, again, are a little short. Hopefully so to will be the duration of this horrible law. Developing…

 

 

Throwing Sucker Punches and Books

22 Sunday Jan 2017

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There’s been much speculation about and comparison between the inaugural crowds in D.C. for Donald Trump versus Hussein Obama. Everyone has an opinion though none have precise numbers. I’ve seen citation to photographs, bus permits, and subway tokens. The White House addressed the issue (hilariously) during an impromptu first press briefing yesterday.

If Trump had a lower turnout than Obama there may be many reasons why. Popularity? Possibly. Weather? Probably not. There’s the issue of Trump supporters being more likely to have jobs and businesses to attend to. And then there were the thousands of wild, violent savages running amok in D.C. yesterday and Friday.

Maybe you’ve seen some footage. There was representation of every anti-American, anti-civilization group in existence: Snowflakes. BLM. Feminists. “Anarchists”. Communists. LGBBQXYZ. SDS. More communists. The Weathermen. Oakland fans. General socialists. Abortionists. Anti-white. The “Pizza” crowd. La Raza. Pokemon zombies. Anti-Christian. NAMBLA. Ordinary felons. Madonna. Satanists. ISIS. Soccer hooligans. The Klingon Liberation Front. Opportunistic looters. I think I even saw an “Impeach Earl Warren” sign out there.

They attacked the police. They attacked bystanders. They attacked each other. They smashed windows. They attacked McDonalds. They attacked Starbucks. The burned limousines. They burned smaller cars. They burned newspaper boxes. They burned Trump hats and t-shirts. If it would hold a flame, they burned it. They threw rocks at the Secret Service. One sucker punched European Peoples civil rights activist Richard Spencer as he calmly spoke to ABC. Others caused author Mike Cernovich to get pepper-sprayed by the cops.

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A gentleman eloquently discusses the pros and cons of the Trans Pacific Partnership. The Daily Mail / AP.

They spoke of bombing the White House. They screamed and chanted. They blocked traffic. They blocked pedestrians. They shoved reporters. They menaced regular citizens. They threatened hotels. The defecated in the streets. The smoked irregular cigarettes. The only thing they forgot to do was bathe.

Who in his right mind would wish to endure such madness in order to hear a politician – any politician – speak?

Now, according to The Mail, 230 of the rioters face felony rioting charges.

Most of the 230 rioters arrested after violent protests erupted in Washington D.C. following Donald Trump’s inauguration will be charged with felony rioting, federal prosecutors said on Saturday.

The charge carries a punishment of up to ten years in jail and a $25,000 fine.

Thousand of protesters launched a violent rampage just blocks away from the White House as anti-Trump demonstrators smashed store windows, set fire to cars and threw bricks at police.

These thugs have been accustomed to no consequences whatsoever from their violent behavior. In the rare cases of arrest, they are generally given wrist-slaps – further “micro aggressions” about which to rant and complain (while smoking MJ and still not bathing). The thought of a ten-year sentence, a felony record, and loss of the ability to vote against future Republicans never crossed their drug-addled minds.

I do not know how the charges break down. And I’m not looking into it. I assume, given the events and location, they are a combination of federal and local D.C. (federal). I think the blanket charge is “felony rioting”. To be consistent, here, I do not see “rioting” delineated in the Constitution. However, as I am the last reader of the Old Parchment, that does not matter. Few of the detained will raise that defense anyway; none successfully. A new legal reality for the denizens of the unreal world.

Part of the new reality is the plea deals and sentencing guidelines lurking within the halls of justice [SIC]. Those will account for circumstances and likely result in probation, short terms of incarceration, and suspended sentences. The odds are even against restitution for all the damages.

One hopes the scofflaws learn at least one of several available lessons here. No matter what your issues are, it’s wrong to attack people in the streets. It’s wrong to burn private property. Real Americans are rising again, beyond sick of these juvenile shenanigans. All those cops were there as much to protect the leftists from real Americans as to arrest the leftists. All of those cops had guns. It could have been 230 body bags. It still might be.

So, there we have it. In Amerika some throw rocks. Some throw punches and kicks. Others throw the book at the other throwers. I throw words from a keyboard.