Australia’s political turmoil continues

As I explained in the previous blog entry, and as I link to the source once again,

http://libertygibbert.wordpress.com/2011/08/27/parliament-on-a-knife-edge-part-iii-julias-haute-couture/

the politics of Australia continue to heat up and various movements and counter-movements have now resulted in a combination of censorship from Julia:

who is the current PM of Australia.  This type of censorship of scandal surrounding a person in power is nothing new and we witnessed this indeed in the US a couple of time in recent years first with Richard Nixon and finally with Bill Clinton.  This is what makes this incident so interesting.  notably, the threats of lawsuits and libel complaints against anyone who reports news is rather telling and the fact that it took media outlets a day to get the truth out is also slightly perplexing, but at the very least the media relented and decided to print the news anyway.

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Alan Krueger and Obama attempt to save the economy

The man who is slated to save the economy as being the head of the jobs commission (CEA) with President Obama:

Photo from: http://swampland.time.com/2011/08/29/alan-krueger-obamas-new-top-economist/

Will he be able to save the country and still keep the president’s motivations and political ambitions as he wants him?  Or the better question I tend to seriously think that applies: Does any president ever believe they can actually “Create” more jobs than they destroy?  Whether you increase defense spending or stimulus spending, you end up in every case destroying more jobs than you could ever hope to create due to the fact that Government is ALWAYS going to be less efficient than private enterprise.

Economics of oil and the American Dream

A new hurdle has been passed for the Keystone Pipeline, as expected it was ran through on a Friday Afternoon when DC and New York City was evacuating for an incoming hurricane.  Seems they save “bad” decisions for the environment for when news will not report it.  Typical to say the least:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/transcanadas-keystone-pipeline-clears-hurdle-2011-08-26?reflink=MW_news_stmp

Picture courtesy of http://www.oilempire.us/tarsands.html

But let’s get out of the gutter and talk facts.  I like facts.  They are the bread and butter of reality and they paint a picture which will never be wrong.  For instance, in the above picture some people see evil.  I see jobs, taxes, and production.  Some people see hell.  I see human ingenuity, environmentalism, and above all else a work ethnic from Canada.  We can argue over the semantics all day long, but what you see in production is up to the person.  But the reality here is that these oil sands have produced a vibrant economy in a location in Canada that is exploding in population growth, and other jobs are making this the most prosperous of the Canadian provinces.   What is it that you see when you see that picture?  I will leave that for now and go on to explain how its irrelevant whether this pipeline is built, the oil will still be sold and someone will buy it.

We may be able to pick the reality we see from pictures such as this, but human ingenuity should never be questioned and the right of people to work should never be up to activists who spend their time just trying to take apart jobs and dismantling economies all in the name of the “Greater Good.”

Politics down under, what is happening in Australia!?

I think its time to spread the word on what is going on halfway across our globe in the land down under.  For most Americans, these issues are probably unheard of, but I think this is important as it shows how politicians the world over are all the same.  Same type of person, halfway across the world….

First off, I like this article about recent scandals: http://libertygibbert.wordpress.com/2011/08/19/parliament-on-a-knife-edge-part-ii-end-this-nonsense-now/

From that same story:

Apperantly, using a Labor credit card, a sitting member of parliament has been bailed out by his political party and they have allowed this certain individual to continue to pay for other things not just sex.  This is because under law a sitting member of parliament can NOT be bankrupt.

And some interesting back-story to fill in the details of why this apparently minor scam matters:

Wind Power, figuring out the actual cost

First, a little explanation.  The costs of wind are very difficult and it took me at least 10 hours to come up with a reliable figure.  This is because the subsidies involved are built into cost estimates from official sources from both the Federal Government and Wind Turbine manufacturers.  In addition, you will see a very optimistic view on replacement costs of parts that break and on the O/M – that is operating and maintenance of wind turbines.  One worker can basically be hired for a farm of say 4 wind turbines after they are installed.  No, I do not have links, this is based on deduction and is an educated guess.  Its based on the premise that the amount of work needed fits what the Government says it should.  This is rather optimistic as things tend to go wrong.  But for the sake of argument, I take the Government figures as they are and assume they are correct.  Even overly optimistic, the Government figures do not figure in ALL the costs when figuring out the end cost to the consumer. Needless to say,  I do not like optimism without decent explanation, so yes, I was encouraged to dig and dig I did.

A discourse on the current recession and on economic cyles

Economics is one of my favorite subjects.  (namely macro-economics mind you.)  This is because trends can be found and you can use these trends to make numerous predictions and better yourself especially if you do not get too greedy and realize that above all else no matter how you invest money, it’s a risk.

Now we as a country (US) are in a recession that looks to be getting worse.  But I want to take a moment an analyze what recessions are in general and what causes economic activity to bottle up so to speak in cycles.  This will explain everything that we are seeing and I will explain to everyone what I think the future holds.

And the Elephant in the room is…..SS

Today,  both the US’s credit rating was down-graded and the stock market took a rather swift tumble.  Here is a news story (The first found by google on this subject.) to perhaps explain the daily events better than I care to.

http://www.kget.com/news/local/story/Stocks-fall-after-credit-downgrade/Y7EKi_p9w0y41YLgLOOhvw.cspx

This was rather expected.  After numerous countries around the world had their stock-markets take serious tumbles since the end of last week when the growth reports for Q2 were released, we have seen rather big drops.  Add to this the credit rating downgrade and you get the perfect scenario for a big drop in stocks.  This by all means probably shows that the next weeks is going to see overall a near reproduction of this over a 4 day period.  The question of the hour then is obviously what is the Government going to do about it?