Cool, Educational Economic Rap Video

I think Melkor posted the first part of this rap video. This video is about the debate between John Maynard Keynes and Friedrich A. Hayek. The world economic system is based on the Keynesian economic model. This website has a fifteen minute video on Keynes.

“The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.” Keynes

"For the masses of men do not create their own ideas, or indeed think through these ideas independently; they follow passively the ideas adopted and disseminated by the body of intellectuals." Hayek

Happy Mother Earth Day And Happy Birthday To Lenin

As you may know it is Earth Day, but this year is a very special one because "Mother Earth is finally having her rights recognized". The UN is pushing for the Earth to have the same rights as humans. A very moving message--no this did not come from the Onion as far as I know--follows from the main proponent of the fight to give Earth her rights:

'Sixty years after adopting the [Universal Declaration of Human Rights], Mother Earth is now, finally, having her rights recognized,' said President Morales, immediately following the Assembly’s unanimous adoption of a resolution designating 22 April each year as International Mother Earth Day (A/63/L.69).

Action to that end had never been more vital, as the toll of years of environmental degradation and callous exploitation of the planet’s natural resources and ecosystems could no longer be ignored, he said. The incremental yet increasingly obvious impacts of manmade climate change were putting Mother Earth at even more peril, as in his region alone the snow capped peaks of the Andean mountain range were receding every day; islands were buffeted by ever-more violent storms; and arid areas were becoming even drier.

'We are strangling the planet -– strangling ourselves,' President Morales declared, stressing that, for too many years, the world had been held captive by the seductive notion of capitalism. However, it was now clear that “we don’t own the planet, we belong to it,” he said, calling for the twenty-first century to be dedicated to protecting and supporting Mother Earth and her ecosystems.

Some 60 years after activists had fought so hard to win acknowledgement of human rights worldwide, including social, economic, political and cultural rights, Mother Earth was now having her rights recognized, he continued. Indeed, animals and plants -- all living creatures and beings -- had rights that deserved to be respected and protected. Those that had supported the text in the Assembly would be heralded for their historic action, he said, expressing the hope that, as the twentieth century had been called 'the century of human rights', this new era would be known as the “century of the rights of Mother Earth'.

Continuing, President Morales said that, by proclaiming the International Day, United Nations Member States now had the opportunity to begin laying out a Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth. Such a Charter must enshrine the right to life for all living things; right to regeneration of the planet’s biocapacity; right to a clean life -- for Mother Earth to live free of contamination and pollution; and the right to harmony and balance among and between all things.

As you celebrate Earth Day, also take time to remember Vladimir Lenin whose birthday happens to be the same day as Earth Day. Lenin is the main inspiration for those environmentalist fighting for a cleaner environment by hasting the overthrow of capitalism. I recommend hugging a tree, turning your lights off for one hour, and reading "The Communist Manifesto" in honor of this great day.

S&P Downgrades U.S. Outlook To Negative

"Standard & Poor's on Monday downgraded the outlook for the United States to negative, saying it believes there's a risk U.S. policymakers may not reach agreement on how to address the country's long-term fiscal pressures. " Or you can read the statement straight from S&P. Note this downgrade happened in 1996, but now America faces a much grimmer situation. This is one more warning from a reputable source: military leaders, congressmen, hedge fund managers, the Secretary of The Treasury, the CBO, and others of where America is headed. (I would have posted some of what the statement said but the copy and paste feature is not working properly.)

One third of all U.S. wages come from the government. An unprecedented amount of American's are dependent on government money to meet their most basic needs. The majority, 40%, of American's don't pay federal income tax. Food, shelter, and other basic physiological needs, the very base of Maslow's hierachy of human needs, are more addictive than any drug out there: if you don't get these needs you die. The vast number of Americans are not going to easily give up these basic necessities. This is exactly what will be required for meaningful economic reform to take place. If this reform takes place, social cohesion will be lost. America has been headed down this path for a long time. A cultural revolution will have to occur before America can reverse course.

Read the sobering statement about the economic reality that America faces. The next couple of years is going to an important inflection point that determines whether America's and the world's economy is going to survive or crash in the coming decades. (I am already convinced of which outcome this will be. All you have to do is look at American culture.) Get educated about economics and stayed informed by keeping abreast of economic news so that you can come to your OWN conclusion--you must know what you believe. A good easy book to read is "Economics In One Lesson". Invest your money wisely, pay down your debts, brush up on survival psychology--not that things are going to get to the point where society will completely collapse-- by knowing terms like analysis paralysis, inattentional blindness, the 10-80-10 rule and other terms as your life stands to be turned upside down; get a couple month's worth of food supply; and be weary of people that promise a magic solution to your economic problems. Or the easy thing to do is to just ignore everything and continue with your life.

Budget Battle, 38 Billion In Cuts, And America's Future

The Democrats and Republicans agreed to make the "largest cuts in history" to the budget. The actual cuts were around 2 billion,

Of the $38 and a half billion dollars in cuts, $12 billion in cuts from three previous stopgap continuing resolutions. In other words, old money. Twelve billion dollars of the 38 and a half came from old CRs, three stopgaps. Ten billion came from the previous continuing resolution. Now, we talked about this yesterday. It had been said that $10 billion of it was from a previous CR. We couldn't find any documentation. We did overnight. And the number of real cuts in this continuing resolution that was agreed to on Friday night was $2 billion.

Mark Levin's take: "It is an historic scam".

Inflation is actually around 10%, "Inflation, using the reporting methodologies in place before 1980, hit an annual rate of 9.6 percent in February, according to the Shadow Government Statistics newsletter." It came from CNBC.

In light of the inability to cut government spending and to get its debt under control, here is an article to give you a heads up to what is coming.

Some more news in Egypt and the rise of Islam as the dominate political force there.

Some News

Some news to keep abreast of the changes occurring in the world. Portugal is seeking a bailout from the European Union after its Parliament rejected austerity measures,

Portugal's prime minister said Wednesday his country has asked for financing assistance from the European Union due to its high debts and difficulty raising money on international markets.[...]Portugal becomes the third financially troubled eurozone country after Greece and Ireland to request assistance from Europe's bailout fund and the International Monetary Fund.[...] Such an announcement had long been expected as Portugal, one of the 17-nation eurozone's smallest and weakest economies, struggled to finance its economy. Following a rejection of additional austerity measures by its parliament last month, Portugal has seen its borrowing costs rise to unsustainably high levels.

It looks like another EU country has fallen. Instead of making very painful budget cuts, Portugal has decided to receive a bailout. This will no doubt require that Portugal cede some of its sovereignty to the larger international governing body as happened in the case of Ireland and Greece. This bit of news needs to be put into the larger context of the EU debt sovereign debt crisis and Dominique Strauss-Kahn's recent speech to understand what how this piece fits into the still nebulous large puzzle that is being put together. Every time period is one of change so this transformation is nothing new.

The IMF managing director has made some comments on the direction that the global economy is headed,

In a speech entitled “Global Challenges, Global Solutions”[...] Mr. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), called for a new approach to economic policymaking in the wake of the recent global crisis. He singled out three areas for improvement: a new approach to macroeconomic and financial sector policies, a new approach to social cohesion, and a new approach to cooperation and multilateralism.[...]Middle East, noting that it is going through an 'historic transformation' as 'citizens are seeking greater freedom, and a fairer distribution of economic opportunities and resources'.[...]'In designing a new macroeconomic framework for a new world', he stated, 'the pendulum will swing—at least a little—from the market to the state, and from the relatively simple to the relatively more complex'.[...]Mr. Strauss-Kahn called for policymakers to pay more attention to inequality and social cohesion. 'The lethal cocktail of prolonged high unemployment and high inequality can strain social cohesion and political stability, which in turn affects macroeconomic stability.' He suggested that inequality, which was a factor in the Middle East, might also have been among the root causes of the global crisis, and that sustainable global growth is associated with more equal income distribution.[...]Mr. Strauss-Kahn stressed the virtues of enhanced cooperation and multilateralism in the post-crisis world, noting that 'the great challenges of today all require a collective solution'. [ All emphasis is mine.]

I disagree with some of what is stated in this speech, most notably that in the new global economic framework the state will have a larger role, but my disagreement does not negate the realities of the world that we live in nor does it mean that this should not happen. The lost of social cohesion due to high unemployment, inflation, and overall bad economy will pose a very real threat to global stability, the Middle East and Europe are a prime example. This unequal distribution of wealth, "inequality", being spoken of sounds like the main theme of "The Communist Manifesto". This problem begs the question: who or what entity will solve this inequality? Government or the private sector? Well the pendulum is swinging a new direction. The challenges that the world faces will require "collective solution". If the nations of the world, the collective, are all socialist, then what will that solution be?

Americans took a pay cut because of inflation, "You may not have noticed it when you opened up your paycheck last month, but you just took a pay cut. Wages in America are flattening as inflation surges, therefore real income growth is actually negative, according to the latest data from the Labor Department. " If I had to make a guess I would say that real inflation will peak around thirty percent.

And El Baradei of Egypt has decided to challenge Israel's right to exist and promise to declare war on them. There is nothing like a peaceful uprising of the youth in the name of democracy.

Some interesting and exciting news.