Craft Beer can't resist the power of the Dark Side of the Force!

As all the hipsters line up for the next IPA, Anheuser Busch is slowly buying up micro breweries across the United States. Big market brands like AB and MillerCoors now own approximately 18% of the craft beer market. As the craft beer market continues to be consolidated we'll start to see the fickle micro brew junkies scramble to find their new "fav flave". In the end, there will be no where to run and no where to hide.

We shouldn't be afraid of this. The beer will be the same except that it will be more accessible and cheaper. Large scale distributors will be able to scale the production and will not compromise the quality. AB's acquisition of Goose Island Brewery has already been stirring an uproar and rumors of boycott. Reactions like this are silly. Don't buy in to this Occupy crowd. Keep drinking the beers that you like.

An Inverse Relationship

Gay rights continue to advance at the expense of religious freedom. In February of this year the Arizona legislature passed a bill that would have provided legal protection for businesses and individuals who refused service to customers based on religious objections. They felt a need to do this because of several instances in other states where business owners were being forced by law to violate their religious beliefs. (This has previously been discussed here.) In the case of a New Mexico photographer who refused to provide their services to a gay couple's commitment ceremony, they were sued and the case made it to the state supreme court. In the words of a supreme court justice of New Mexico who ruled against the photographer, they "are compelled by law to compromise the very religious beliefs that inspire their lives". This bill that would have prevented this from happening in Arizona and was vetoed by the governor of Arizona after much opposition from outside groups such as the NFL who were threatening to move Super Bowl XLIX from Arizona to California if the bill was passed.

It also appears that if you are a CEO of a large company you no longer have the right to support the belief that marriage should only be between a man and a woman--in other words, affirming the definition of marriage that has existed for thousands of years. The CEO of Mozilla Firefox had to resign because he supported proposition 8 in California that reaffirmed the definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman. Mozilla said that it stands for diversity and equality and therefore can not have a CEO that supports marriage as being between a man and a woman.

As society's acceptance and support of homosexuality increases religious freedoms are decreasing. Eventually, holding and expressing beliefs against homosexuality will lead to you never getting a job, loosing your current job, and eventually imprisonment. Being arrested for speaking out against homosexuality is already a fact of life in some European countries. (NBA players are being fined for gay slurs.) In the not-too-distant future, a blog post such as this won't be allowed to be posted on the internet. This slow acceptance and submission to an ever encroaching tyranny by a society is how countries end up like the old Soviet Union and China as it existed under Mao. While the tyranny in those countries were brought about by violence, this new tyranny--and undermining of the foundations of our society-- is being advanced in the name of "love", "diversity", "tolerance", and other feel-good words. Who can be against love in all its forms and manifestations?

Tool

I will see Tool on March 6th at the Moda Center. These guys have awesome music. I think they are critical thinkers who are in touch with their own spirituality. Their music is so sophisticated and psychedelic. I know that there are some questionable themes in their music but I respect their approach and point of view.

This will be a check mark on my bucket list. I'll bring my bic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfNxa3_GIDE

Brutal Conflict in Ukraine

Again, so many things to write about that it's overwhelming, and here's a topic on which the US can't do a great deal about, though certainly more than we're doing now.  But, this video is so shocking and incredible that I became motivated enough to write about it.

In the Ukraine, a deal was in the works to tie Ukraine's economy more closely to the EU's, moving it further out of the 'Soviet' orbit.  The pro-Russian government led by President Viktor Yanukovych nixed the idea, probably both because he was personally against it and also because of pressure from Putin, trying to keep a hold on the old Soviet Republics.  Ukraine is probably one of the most important/strategic ex-Soviet Republic and would be a great loss to Russia for it to fall out of their sphere of influence. 

The cancellation of the economic agreement with the EU provoked a large protest from ethnic Ukrainians (as opposed to Russian-Ukrainians).  As many know, ethnic Ukrainians are primarily in the western part of the country and ethnic Russians are primarily in the eastern part of the country.  Wikipedia has a great article breaking down the demographics of the country.  As can be seen, ethnic Ukrainians still make up 77% of the population. 

I think the government was surprised by the ferocity of the protest against Yanukovych's move.  Protesters claimed central Kiev, taking control of the main square and many government buildings.  In so doing, we see effective use of the shield wall in modern times

Note that the combatants are relatively evenly matched in this photo, with the police having better equipment, but not decisively so.  So, long as the conflict is confined to clubs, shields, Molotov cocktails, and tear gas, the protesters can effectively fight the police.  However, as the video shows above, once firearms are brought into the conflict, the shield wall becomes useless.  But in the video, notice the bravery of the protesters.  They're being shot, their brothers are being maimed and killed, and still they move forward.  Would we have that kind of bravery in America?  I don't know.

NBC news has a good article on what has been happening, though it doesn't talk about the causes of the conflict much.

This morning, Fox news reports Yanukovych has fled Kiev for the Eastern/Russian part of Ukraine. 

This shows that Stalin's brutal ethnic cleansing of Ukrainians from the eastern part of Ukraine has paid off, as we wouldn't even be having this discussion, this conflict wouldn't even be happening, if he hadn't done this, along with displacement of local populations and replacement with Russians all over the Soviet Republics. 

Meanwhile, another brutal conflict is kicking into high gear in the Western Hemisphere, but since it includes Obama's socialist buddies, the bootlicking media is silent.

Addendum:
The excellent website War Is Boring analyzes how this protest movement succeeded.  I think their final paragraph had the main reason:

But if there’s anything that tipped the balance, at least for now, it’s the protesters’ willingness to fight. “I’m ready to fight for my human rights and my country, and the better life of my country,” a women’s brigade fighter told Al Jazeera. “Even to death.”

Not being intimidated and showing the bravery they showed in the video above showed they couldn't be cowed.  That's been the difference, at least so far.

Our Fearless Leader!

The main focus of our leader?!?!?! MINIMUM WAGE INCREASES!

That was the best he could muster?

Taper

The Federal Reserve--the central economic planning committee--announced that it will begin tapering its QE program, which has been in place since the financial crisis, by 10 billion per month. The Fed will do this by reducing its purchases of treasuries by 5 billion per month to 40 billion per month and reducing its purchases of mortgage backed securities by 5 billion per month to 35 billion per month. The Fed also announced that it would keep the federal funds rate, interest rates, at or near zero for longer than they had originally planned. This offsets some of the effect of the 10 per month reduction in asset purchases. Chairman Bernanke was careful to characterize this reduction in asset purchases as not tightening monetary policy and noting that it was still highly accommodative. He said that further reductions or increases in QE was possible: “asset purchases are not on a preset course, and the Committee's decisions about their pace will remain contingent on the Committee's outlook for the labor market and inflation as well as its assessment of the likely efficacy and costs of such purchases”. 

The markets did not have the same reaction to the Fed's tapering decision that it had to the Fed's hint earlier this year that tapering might happen: the stock market was up on the news and gold and silver prices were down. The general consensus among the majority of the market participants is that tapering is a positive development. They believe that the Fed's move signals an improving economy and that a return to normal monetary policy is just around the corner: in the words of Bernanke, there is light at the end of the tunnel.

 According to Marc Faber:

'The Fed will never end QE for good,... They will continue because these programs, once they're introduced, usually keep on going.'
'The economic recovery, or so-called recovery, by June of next year, will be in the fifth year of the recovery,' Faber said. 'So at some stage the economy will weaken again, and at that point, the Fed will argue, 'Well, we haven't done enough, we have to do more.''
'The Federal Reserve—all of them—could be sitting on a barrel of dynamite, and then pouring gasoline on top of it, and then light a cigar with matches, throw the match into the gasoline, and then not notice that there is any danger,' Faber said. 'That is the state of mind of the professors at the Fed, who never worked a single [day] in business.'
And while Faber actually believes that a reduction in QE could happen, he wouldn't view it as a true tapering, as he says it will be a largely meaningless, one-time move that will eventually be reversed as the economy worsens.
'They may do some cosmetic adjustments, but in my view, within a few years, the asset purchases will be substantially higher than they are today,' Faber said.

According to Jim Rogers:

At the moment they are buying a trillion dollars a year – that’s a trillion with a “T” – of assets. Eventually we will see that they stop that if they do or slow it down.

What will probably happen is that they will slow it down at first to see what happens, and if things aren’t too bad at first – and they probably won’t be too bad at first – well what is likely to happen is they will slow it down, things will drop, and then they will rally and the Federal Reserve will say “Hey, this is not so bad, we can do it.” And they’ll cut some more. Things will drop again and then rally, because it will take a while for people to really believe how bad it can get, or will get. And so eventually they will try to cut [QE], it will finally cause the collapse...

Peter Schiff said in September:

We also must understand that even if the Fed were to deliver a small reduction in bond purchases, such a move would change nothing. The Fed would still be continuously adding to its enormous balance sheet while presenting no credible plans to actually withdraw the liquidity. As I have pointed out many times, it simply can't do so without pushing the economy back into recession. Although this would be the right thing to do, you can rest assured that it won't happen.

We should also recall where this all began. When QE1 was first launched Bernanke talked about an exit strategy. At the time I maintained the Fed had no exit strategy. But now questions about an exit strategy have been replaced by much more delicate taper talk. But easing up on the accelerator without ever hitting the brakes will not stop the car or turn it around.

Following this playbook, the Fed will likely maintain the pretense that tapering is a near term possibility and that it has a credible plan on the shelf to bring an end to QE.

The mainstream view that the economy is improving is most certainly incorrect. Much of the economic data such as the unemployment numbers, inflation, and GDP are determined by questionable and subjective methodologies and in the case of the unemployment numbers, manipulated. The inflation number that is used to adjust the GDP number is most likely lower than the real inflation leading to an overestimation of economic growth. Additionally, politicians are incapable of slowing the rate of growth of the national debt. This lack of ability to make any meaningful reforms is evident by looking at the latest budget deal where the republicans caved on the budget and actually eliminated parts of the sequester that cut spending with the hopes of future, insignificant cuts that won't materialize, as evident by examining the history of such deals.

The markets now believe that the economy is improving and are expecting the Fed to continue to reduce QE. When the Fed is forced to increase QE the market participants will possibly realize that the Fed can not exit its QE program. Overall, the Fed's decision to start tapering has moved the date up that the economic crisis will happen.

When You Want To Send a Message...

Send a Buff!

Yes, RTP&GG should be all over the ObamaCare debacle; it is a lot of fun to watch; but I'm too lazy to work up a story right now.  Instead, I'll do a quick one I was tickled about: the US sending two B-52s over the Senkaku Islands, to let China know that we don't respect their Air Defense zone and to show them we're not to be trifled with.  Countries aren't intimidated by boats and tiny planes.  It takes a noisy, smoke belching, huge Buff to truly intimidate.  So, we are standing strong with one imperialist Asian power against another (a stance I completely agree with):  From USA Today:

"We will take steps against any attempt to change the status quo by use of force as we are determined to defend the country's sea and airspace," Abe said.
For the United States' part, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the Chinese action represents a "destabilizing attempt to alter the status quo" and "will not in any way change how the United States conducts military operations in the region."
To that end, the U.S. Navy arrived in force Tuesday off the coast of Japan for a complex exercise in which Japanese naval ships and U.S. fighter jets, warships and submarines will practice scenarios for a possible attack on Japan.

Lots of papers covered this, but USA Today had a cool picture of a B-52, so I used it.

I hope that there were lots of advanced radar receivers on the planes to see what kind of threat radars the Chinese would paint them with, so that this was an intel run as well as a show of defiance.

OK, for those who actually want to get the context of this, here's a map:

As you can see, our Jarheads in Okinawa are close to the crisis.  Click on the map to get labels for the overlapping Chinese and Japanese Air Defense and Exclusive Economic zones.