BMEWS
 
Sarah Palin's image already appears on the newer nickels.

calendar   Wednesday - December 09, 2015

Germans to Greeks.  Do as you’re told. Again. IMF wants monies on loan paid on time. lol!

Germany to Greece.  Shut up and do as you’re told.  Again.

Couldn’t resist that line.  That isn’t an exact quote but close enough.
Not that it’s a major story.  Just a short bit in the business section, which I rarely read.
But it caught my eye and attention. 

One headline reads;

Tension grows over IMF’s role in Greek program

Another reads;

Lay off the IMF, Germany warns.

Woo-hoo.  Is it to be war then?

To boil it down without reading the whole thing, which I’ll post for anyone interested.  And I am , cos I see it as a sit-com. 

Greece to IMF.  “What?  Pay back a loan?  Why?  How long has that been going on”? 

The German finance minister warned Greece not to question the involvement of the IMF in its bailout program.  This was after the Greek PM, Alexis Tsipras said the global lender was making unrealistic reform demands on Greece.

That’s it in a nutshell.

However … things got kind of messy and the German finance minister felt the Greeks needed some advice.
Here’s the longer version.

IMF’s role in Greek program

Tension between Greece and its lenders grew on Tuesday when German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble seized on comments by Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras regarding the involvement of the International Monetary Fund in the Greek bailout program.

During a TV interview on Monday night, Tsipras indicated that he is not keen on the IMF joining the program because of the demands it is likely to make.

“The Fund must decide if it wants a compromise, if it will remain a part of the program,” said Tsipras. “If it does not want to, it should come out publicly and say so.”

Speaking on the sidelines of Tuesday’s Ecofin meeting, Schaeuble slammed Tsipras’s stance. “It is not in Greece’s interests for it to question the IMF’s involvement in the bailout program,” he said.

· “I believe we negotiated at length with Mr Tsipras in July and August,” added Schaeuble. “I also believe that he signed the agreement and then held elections to get a mandate from the Greek people so he could implement what he signed.”

The German finance minister also indicated that he has the impression Tsipras is having second thoughts about adopting some of the measures demanded by Greece’s lenders.

“They should focus their attention on doing what they have to do,” he said. “As always, they are behind schedule. Maybe questioning the agreement is necessary for domestic reasons; he has a slim majority I have noticed. This may be the easy route but it is not in Greece’s interests.”

Schaeuble’s comments prompted an immediate response from Athens. “We remind that the Greek government is responsible for deciding what is in the country’s interests,” said government spokeswoman Olga Gerovasili.

“We expect the German Finance Ministry to separate its stance from the unacceptably tough stance of the IMF,” she added. “Europe should and is able to solve its problems on its own.”

Greek government sources believe that Schaeuble’s comments indicate there is a split within the German government over Greece.

SOURCE


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 12/09/2015 at 07:36 AM   
Filed Under: • DisastersEconomicsFinance and InvestingInternational •  
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calendar   Wednesday - October 07, 2015

Incoming!!

rasberry

Pot-a-pult at it again!

Border Patrol Seizes 1,377 pounds of pot that was launched over border



Stone the castle!  {I don’t think this is what they meant!}

Border Patrol agents seized 1,377 pounds of marijuana in dozens of bundles that the agency says had somehow been launched over the fence along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Agent Matthew Eisenhauer says agents using thermal-imaging cameras spotted the bundles apparently being launched over the border fence near Douglas Saturday night.

Agents responded and found approximately 80 bundles within 150 yards of the border.

Eisenhauer says officials aren’t sure how the bundles were launched over the border.

In previous incidents, smugglers have thrown drug bundles over the border or shot them over with devices such as air-powered cannons and catapults.

Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a frog! A frog??? Well, a flying Square Green Grouper. Don’t see many of them outside the Bahamas. ‘Specially not in west Texas.

Elsewhere in Narcoland Texas, other Border Patrol agents seized nearly a ton of grass when the mules got skittish and ran back home.

RIO GRANDE VALLEY – U.S. Border Patrol agents confiscated nearly 2,000 pounds of marijuana in three seizures early Friday morning, a more than $1.5 million worth of marijuana bust.

Early Friday, agents assigned to the Brownsville Station were advised of possible illegal activity on the eastside of Brownsville, CBP says. As the agents reached the area, they saw a white SUV driving north from the Rio Grande.

Border Patrol agents say the alleged marijuana driver noticed the agents and decided to make a U-turn, headed back to the river. The vehicle was then submerged in water. CBP says the driver swam back to Mexico, abandoning more than 1,100 pounds of marijuana.

Before the largest seizure, agents confiscated two smaller loads of marijuana in Garceno and Escobares, bringing the total amount seized to nearly 2,000 pounds.



Every year along about this time it all goes dry
There’s nothing ‘round for love or money that’ll get you high
Henry got pissed off and said he’d run to Mexico
To see if he could come back holdin’ 20 keys of gold.


Now the road to Acapulco is very far indeed.
It isn’t any better if you haven’t any weed.
Henry’s driving hard and straight on twisty mountain roads
Fifty people waiting back at home for Henry’s load.


And now he’s rollin’ down the mountain
Going fast, fast, fast
And if he blows it this one’s gonna be his last
Run to Acapulco to turn the golden keys
Henry keep your brakes on for this corner if you please!


rasberry


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 10/07/2015 at 01:55 PM   
Filed Under: • CrimeEconomicsInternationalMusic •  
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calendar   Friday - July 10, 2015

bloody fools

Greece: Do It My Way Or I’ll

Hold My Breath And Kick My Feet

George Will explains Greece for folks like me who simply can’t understand the news.

The hairy little plate breakers are having a tantrum. How dare anyone cut back on their standard of living, which is supported by endless deficit spending? How dare anyone even suggest that continued bail outs come with any conditions at all, like even being paid back for starters?

The EU exists to require nations to “pool” their sovereignties in unelected, unaccountable bureaucracies. The retrograde point of the EU is to leech from national parliaments powers that were hard-won over many centuries of struggle. National governments rendered unserious by the EU are apt to regress to adolescence, as with Syriza’s referendum — a tantrum masquerading as governance.

[Prime Minister Alexis] Tsipras is a peculiar phenomenon, a defiant mendicant. He urged voters to do what they did. In voting “no,” they asserted that Greece’s dignity is incompatible with loans that come with conditions attached. Tsipras’ Syriza Party insists, however, that dignity is compatible with perpetual dependency on the forbearance and productivity of others.

A defiant mendicant. “BWA”; Beggaz Wit Attitood. A beggar who’s a chooser, and if the choice ain’t right, abuser. Oh my, isn’t it easy to draw parallels with that one.  Now I understand.

Since joining the eurozone in 2001, Greece has borrowed a sum 1.7 times its 2013 GDP. Its 25 percent unemployment (50 percent among young workers) results from a 25 percent shrinkage of GDP. It is a mendicant reduced to hoping to “extend and pretend” forever. But extending the bailout and pretending that creditors will someday be paid encourages other European socialists to contemplate shedding debts — other people’s money that is no longer fun.

Greece, with just 11 million people and 2 percent of the eurozone’s GDP, is unlikely to cause a contagion by leaving the zone. If it also leaves the misbegotten European Union, this evidence of the EU’s mutability might encourage Britain’s “Euro-skeptics” when, later this year, that nation has a referendum on reclaiming national sovereignty by withdrawing from the EU. If Greece so cherishes its sovereignty that it bristles at conditions imposed by creditors, why is it in the EU, the perverse point of which is to “pool” nations’ sovereignties in order to dilute national consciousness?


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 07/10/2015 at 08:29 AM   
Filed Under: • EconomicsEUro-peons •  
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calendar   Thursday - July 02, 2015

fortunately, unfortunately

extending the previous post a bit ...



Now You See It
image


Now You Don’t
image




Using whatever today’s most flattering definition of unemployment is, the administration is giving themselves a great big pat on the back for getting it down to a piddly 5.3%. Huzzah!!

Unfortunately, those are only good numbers if you use the current labor participation market, which is the same size as the one in 1977. FORTY YEARS AGO.

The unemployment rate, which is derived from a separate Labor Department survey of households, was the lowest since April 2008, falling from 5.5 percent in May. The labor force shrank by 432,000 people last month, accounting for the bulk of the drop in joblessness.

The participation rate, which indicates the share of the working-age population in the labor force, decreased to 62.6 percent, the lowest since October 1977, from 62.9 percent. Labor force participation slumped among teens, with a more moderate decrease among men 20 years and older.

There were positive developments among those who had been struggling. The share of people out of work for 27 weeks or longer—the so-called long-term unemployed—dropped to 25.8 percent, the lowest since March 2009. The 2.8 point drop from May’s 28.6 percent was the biggest one-month decrease since records began in 1948.

Isn’t that also wonderful?? The long term unemployment rate is down to MERELY MORE THAN ONE IN FOUR, probably because that same 2.8 percent also said to hell with it and has stopped looking.

So yeah. Flatlined. Death spiral. Bullshit festival, Round 128. And we aren’t even going to mention all the jobs going to illegals, because the new slave class is another protected species, and guys like Trump who mention it must be subject to the Daily Two Minutes of Hate until they shrivel up and die.

Meanwhile, moderate level government employees bring down 6 figure incomes, television personalities earn hundreds of thousands per week, and the stock market is on an elevator ride to the stars. And you, you middle aged schlub, can go hang. You’ve “earned enough already” for a business “you didn’t build”, so it’s time to give way to utterly inexperienced diversity youth, who deserve a “comfortable living wage” for just showing up most of the time. Because. White privilege. You cisgender racist. Or something.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 07/02/2015 at 04:11 PM   
Filed Under: • Economics •  
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economic flatline

Gadzooks.

The highest interest rates you can get on your savings accounts or money markets is barely 1%. Almost all of them are under that, most of them way under that.  This is nothing new; it’s been like this for years now.

Your money has no earning power. Which figures, because it has no spending power either. Flatlined. How unexpected.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 07/02/2015 at 01:47 PM   
Filed Under: • Economics •  
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calendar   Wednesday - May 13, 2015

Crowder Gets His Fisk On

Sometimes you just have to take things apart a piece at a time. Steve Crowder goes after Obama’s “Poverty Summit” discussion ... because not everyone with a decent income is a “lottery winner” who can “afford” to “pay their fair share” of around 70% federal income tax. Plus state, local, school, property, sales, capital gains, motor vehicle excise, and all the other duck bites we’re nibbled to death with.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 05/13/2015 at 07:53 AM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat LeftistsEconomicsObama, The One •  
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calendar   Wednesday - February 04, 2015

Pollster Points Out The Holes

Jim Clifton, CEO of Gallup: 5.6% Unemployment Rate Is The Big Lie

Well no, really? Golly, us dumb and bitter flyover clingers never woulda figgered that one out, not ever. Certainly not 7 or even more years ago. Certainly not when we see the economy shrink by a third, leaving millions of trained, able, competent people washed up on the sidelines. Certainly not when we see waves of illegals, millions strong, flooding our nation to absorb the lower end jobs available, send the money out of our country, and leave disease and crime in its place. No, we never figured any of this out, not even those of us who managed to hang on to that corporate office job, although maybe forgoing a raise for the past 5 to 7 years to do it, while the ever expanding government kept right on giving itself raises and hiring more and more of the “right kind” of people. No, we never guessed any of this.


Here’s something that many Americans—including some of the smartest and most educated among us—don’t know: The official unemployment rate, as reported by the U.S. Department of Labor, is extremely misleading.

Right now, we’re hearing much celebrating from the media, the White House and Wall Street about how unemployment is “down” to 5.6%. The cheerleading for this number is deafening. The media loves a comeback story, the White House wants to score political points and Wall Street would like you to stay in the market.

...

There’s no other way to say this. The official unemployment rate, which cruelly overlooks the suffering of the long-term and often permanently unemployed as well as the depressingly underemployed, amounts to a Big Lie.

And it’s a lie that has consequences, because the great American dream is to have a good job, and in recent years, America has failed to deliver that dream more than it has at any time in recent memory. A good job is an individual’s primary identity, their very self-worth, their dignity—it establishes the relationship they have with their friends, community and country. When we fail to deliver a good job that fits a citizen’s talents, training and experience, we are failing the great American dream.




Thanks for finally coming clean, Mr. Pollster. For that we’ll allow you to put on your own blindfold and tie yourself to the post. You’re still getting the firing squad for misleading the people for years on end, taking part in the big charade.  It’s because of your absolute dishonesty, yours and your media cronies, that we’re in this mess, almost to begin with.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 02/04/2015 at 03:16 AM   
Filed Under: • EconomicsNo Shit, Sherlock •  
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calendar   Wednesday - January 14, 2015

Obama Slams EPA Brakes On Recovering Economy?

Cheap Gas? Obama: New Methane Limits For Fracking!!!

The Obama administration pushed new regulations Wednesday aimed at cutting methane emissions from the natural gas sector, calling the proposed rules a needed step to address global warming as industry groups warned the move would threaten “America’s energy renaissance.”

Relying once again on the Clean Air Act, the rules—the first of their kind—join a host of others that President Obama has ordered in an effort to slow global warming despite opposition in Congress that has only hardened since the midterm elections.

Although just a sliver of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, methane is more powerful than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere.

The White House set a new target for the U.S. to cut methane emissions by 40 percent to 45 percent by 2025, compared with 2012 levels. To meet that goal, the Environmental Protection Agency will issue a proposal affecting oil and gas production, while the Interior Department will update its standards for drilling to reduce leakage from wells on public lands.

The American Petroleum Institute, which represents the oil and gas industry, decried the proposal—questioning why the government would seek new rules when methane emissions have fallen.

“Even with that knowledge, the White House has singled out oil and natural gas for regulation,” API President Jack Gerard said in a statement.

He predicted emissions would continue to fall without government intervention, but said, “another layer of burdensome requirements could actually slow down industry progress to reduce methane emissions.”

Further, he said new regulations “could threaten the shale energy revolution.”

“We need our government to implement sound policies, but this plan seems to be based on politics,” Gerard said.

Yeah, well, no kidding. Even when the economy had the audacity to start to heal, all based on the success of the petro industry DESPITE all this regime’s new rules and regulations and refusal to allow use of federal land, refusal to sign Keystone XL, and so on, now that gas is getting close to being affordable once again for the first time in ages and ages, now the leftist tree humper wants to throw another big speed bump in the way, to take away any hope we might finally have a bit of positive change? Because of Global Warming? As another polar vortex grips the nation for another winter, and snow falls in Saudi Arabia for the 3rd year in a row? That one? The one that doesn’t friggin’ exist?

How much is it going to take to throw this bum out?

Do I need to ask, whose side is this guy on?

The oil and gas industry has insisted such rules aren’t necessary because the industry is already working to reduce methane leakage. After all, methane is natural gas, so the less that leaks during production, the more of it that companies have left to sell.

“We’re doing a good job,” said Howard Feldman, the regulatory director at the American Petroleum Institute. He noted that existing pollution rules on smog-forming pollutants have had the added benefit of cutting methane. “We don’t think it’s necessary to go after methane in any way, shape or form.”

Well duh. Like business is going to just piss away income that they have the ability to collect? So they need new rules to stop them? What kind of commie thinking is that?


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 01/14/2015 at 03:02 PM   
Filed Under: • EconomicsObama, The OneOil, Alternative Energy, and Gas Prices •  
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calendar   Saturday - December 20, 2014

Foreigner Workforce

Jobses? You don need no steenkin jobses!

As Obama issues work permits to millions south of the border, foreigners are now 20% of our labor force. Meanwhile Americans, young, middle aged, and old, can go hang

Fewer US-Born Americans Have Jobs Now Than In 2007

Fewer Americans born in the U.S. have jobs now than were employed to November 2007, despite a working-age population growth of 11 million.

The amazing drop in employment highlights President Barack Obama’s slow recovery from the deep 2008 shock, but also spotlights many companies’ growing reliance on foreign migrant labor. [ ie the new slavery ]

Almost one in every two jobs added since 2009 have gone to foreign-born workers.

Nearly half the new jobs added (or saved!) under Obama have gone to outsiders. Nearly half.

The influx of foreign workers includes many foreign graduates. Their arrival is forcing many debt-burdened Americans graduates to start their careers in lower-wage jobs. Those American graduates will be stuck with lower wages for many years unless employers face a shortage of workers in the next few years.
...
White House officials have tried to argue that the inflow of foreign labor will boost productivity and create opportunities for American workers.

On Nov. 20, President Barack Obama announced he would provide work permits to five million illegal immigrants in the United States.

In the past, Obama has admitted that migrant workers threaten wages for lower-skilled Americans, including African-Americans.

Obama has also offered work permits to at least 50,000 Central American migrants who crossed the border in 2014 and to 110,000 Haitian immigrants.

Since 2012, Obama has also given work permits to 600,000 younger illegals, under the so-called “DACA” program.

Obama has also offered work permits to 100,000 additional guest workers and he announced Nov. 20 that he would increase the inflow of university trained guest workers for jobs sought by Americans graduates.

The only way to get America working again is to get Americans working again. I’m pretty tired of hearing this “jobs Americans won’t do” BS, because it’s only half true: no, they won’t do these jobs for illegally low wages. Pay at least a legal wage and see what happens. At the other end is the other canard, the “Americans don’t have the skills we want” which is complete and total horse manure, another half truth: No, they don’t have the skills you want, at the very low rate you’re willing to pay. And, because they are citizens and not H1-B visa holders, they can quit your crappy job and go somewhere else if working for you really sucks. Foreign workers can’t do that. If they quit, they get sent home (well, in theory anyway). So they’re stuck. No matter how much you abuse them. That ain’t right.

We need to shift the investor view back to seeing the value of a company in what they produce, how well they are run, and where they’re poised to go, instead of merely looking at how much they’re returning per share this quarter. We need to take the long view.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 12/20/2014 at 10:37 AM   
Filed Under: • Economics •  
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calendar   Friday - December 05, 2014

BILLED AS THE WORLD’S MOST BEAUTIFUL GIRL. AT 9.

Well, this outta get tongues wagging. Not sure what I think.

The make up ppl say she isn’t even wearing actual lipstick.  Read the article for info on that.

There is no question in my mind that although she is already becoming a successful pre teen model, this is one very beautiful young girl.
Now come the serious question.

Can her look be seen as a sexy one?

Her mother says no and that anybody who sees her daughter as “sexy” is a pedophile.

Not so sure I agree.  I think a pedophile prefers children to begin with. Least that’s what I have read.  They target children almost exclusively. 

However, I think there’s a huge difference between criminal behavior or leanings to that, and seeing the image here as quite a sexual appearance for a 9 year old.

See the link and take a good look at all the photos.

One thing is certain tho.  She doesn’t get these looks from mummy.  There’s a goddess at work here somewhere.

image

EXCLUSIVE - ‘You must think like a paedophile to see sex in these pictures… go see a doctor’:  Mother of world’s most beautiful girl defends ‘provocative’ images that show her nine-year-old daughter in hotpants

Kristina, aged nine, is ‘world’s most beautiful girl’ with supermodel career
Mother posts images to millions of followers oan Facebook and Instagram
But critics say the pictures of nine-year-old in shorts are too provocative
Men have posted comments such as ‘sexy legs’ and mum was attacked
Today Glikeriya hits back at ‘paedophile critics’ with sick imaginations

By Will Stewart In Moscow for MailOnline

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The mother of a child supermodel dubbed ‘the most beautiful girl in the world’ has attacked ‘paedophiles’ who say she is sexualising her daughter by posting provocative pictures of her.

Kristina Pimenova is just nine years old but has become a worldwide sensation after pictures of her triggered a storm of criticism on Facebook and Instagram.

Today her mother Glikeriya Pimenova, who runs the social media accounts and posted the pictures, hit back in an exclusive interview with MailOnline, saying: ‘I do not accept those accusations about sexualisation of my child.

‘I am certain in my mind all her photographs are absolutely innocent. I have never asked her to take this or that pose, and in fact I must say she does not especially like it when I am photographing her, so I do it quickly and when she doesn’t notice.’

Innocent pictures of Kristina, whose impressive achievements have already seen her starring in adverts for Armani, Roberto Cavalli and Benetton, became the subject of disturbing comments online.

But Glikeriya, 39, told MailOnline: ‘You must think like a paedophile in order to see something sexual in these pictures, so it is time for you to see a doctor.

‘Some years ago I posted a picture of little Kristina on the beach in the Maldives hugging her three soft toys and laughing.

‘She was holding all her toys in front of her chest and hugging them, and you know what comments I got to this picture?

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‘’Oh, she is covering her breasts because she thinks she has something to hide!’ Can you believe it? I think people who post something like this have serious psychological problems.’

Sipping fruit tea and clearly stung by the accusations, Glikeriya insists ‘All her ‘poses’ are natural. She is just a little girl who is attracting a lot of attention and unfortunately some of this attention is coming from strange people with huge personal problems, keen to throw dirt at anyone.’

Glikeriya insists the problem is a minority who visit their own prejudices onto entirely innocent and beautiful pictures.

Her portfolio from a remarkable six year ‘career’ is simply astonishing, including Vogue and Armani, yet critics see a dark side with one commentator branding a photo of her in shorts as ‘creepy’ while a male user wrote worryingly: ‘I like it’.

Sitting in a fashionable Uzbek restaurant in the elite Krylatskoe district of Moscow, Glikeriya calmly sought to correct what she sees as the misplaced criticisms of her own motives, and her daughter’s poses.

‘We lived in France when I was expecting Kristina,’ explained Glikeriya, dressed simply in jeans, a pink jumper and Loius Vitton scarf. At the time, her husband played for FC Metz.

‘I went to Moscow to give birth and soon afterwards returned to France, so Kristina was born in Russia,’ she said.

‘Until the age of three we lived in France and I was astonished to see the amount of attention she attracted from people who saw her.

‘In any public place we visited, people just surrounded her and keep repeating ‘Oh, such a sweet child’, ‘look at her’, and similar comments.

‘Kristina really enjoyed such attention but it was only abroad, I am afraid. When we came back to Russia it was a shock for my child.

‘I remember she was sitting in her pram as I pushed her, and she kept smiling to everybody who passed by, but nobody cared. She turned to me with pure shock on her face - what’s wrong?

‘But I knew she was cute and decided to give it a try. I browsed the internet and found the model agency for children with the most attractive and easy to understand website, and sent them Kristina’s photographs.

‘We were invited for a chat and she was added to their database. Her first photo session took place a little before her fourth birthday. When she turned four, we had our first portfolio done.’
I do not accept those accusations about sexualisation of my child
Glikeriya Pimenova

Her ‘career’ exploded as Kristina’s image was demanded both in Russia and worldwide. Her daughter’s Facebook has more than 2.1 million likes, and she has 315,000 followers on Instagram.

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CONTINUES HERE WITH MORE PIX COMMENTS AND VIDEO


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 12/05/2014 at 09:21 AM   
Filed Under: • Art-PhotographyEconomicsEye-CandyFinance and InvestingFamily •  
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calendar   Friday - November 14, 2014

a national food policy?

Shades of Stalin!

How we produce and consume food has a bigger impact on Americans’ well-being than any other human activity. The food industry is the largest sector of our economy; food touches everything from our health to the environment, climate change, economic inequality and the federal budget. Yet we have no food policy — no plan or agreed-upon principles — for managing American agriculture or the food system as a whole.

That must change.

I’d have to disagree. Why we allow people who think like this to continue drawing breath? THAT must change. Leave us alone!

If you like what ObamaCare is doing for health insurance, you will love what a federal program to control what we eat does for food, as it takes into account “the environment, climate change, economic inequality” et cetera ad nauseam.

A federal stranglehold on how food is produced, distributed, and consumed will allegedly guarantee the following:

● All Americans have access to healthful food;
● Farm policies are designed to support our public health and environmental objectives;
● Our food supply is free of toxic bacteria, chemicals and drugs;
● Production and marketing of our food are done transparently;
● The food industry pays a fair wage to those it employs;
● Food marketing sets children up for healthful lives by instilling in them a habit of eating real food;
● Animals are treated with compassion and attention to their well-being;
● The food system’s carbon footprint is reduced, and the amount of carbon sequestered on farmland is increased;
● The food system is sufficiently resilient to withstand the effects of climate change.

In this time of illegal immigration I think first we have to define ‘All Americans’. And what is this ‘our public health and evironmental objectives’? Define ‘toxic’? I don’t see people keeling over dead-right-there (DRT) from bad stuff in the food. As for the production of our food, it is already transparent. Anybody can take a tour of a slaughter house or processing center. I just bought 1/4 of a cow. 170# of various cuts, hamburger, tongue, liver, etc. I’ve taken two tours of the farm. I’ve been behind the scenes at the local butcher’s. I’ve been to pig farms, chicken farms. It’s already transparent. All you have to do is request a tour and go. As for the marketing? By definition that’s transparent. You see it on TV, you hear it on radio.

Food industry already pays a fair wage.

“…a habit of eating real food.” I’m certain I’ve never eaten imaginary food. Last time I saw that trick was in the movie ‘Hook’.

Animals are already treated with compassion.

Carbon footprint? I still can’t get anyone to show me a ‘carbon footprint.’

Climate has always changed. The ‘food system’ — whatever that means — has always survived.

This has been tried before, and it worked wonderfully, according to Walter Duranty of the New York Times. Joseph Stalin used it suppress resistance to collectivization in the Ukraine. This was called the Holodomor.

Only those with a vested interest in the status quo would argue against creating public policies with these goals.

If you like going to the supermarket and seeing the shelves covered in food that you want to eat at a price you can afford, you have a vested interest in the status quo. If you want to stand in line for a bowl of gluten-free government gruel, don’t bother putting up any resistance to endlessly encroaching liberalism.

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National Food Policy worked for Stalin.

Liberal Masterminds Demand National Food Policy


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Posted by Christopher   United States  on 11/14/2014 at 04:49 PM   
Filed Under: • Big BrotherCommiesDaily LifeDemocrats-Liberals-Moonbat LeftistsEconomicsFREEDOMGovernmentInsanityJack Booted ThugsNanny StateOppression •  
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calendar   Tuesday - November 11, 2014

One From Rich

Mises’s greatest contribution: his demonstration that socialism cannot function as a rational economic system and that private ownership of the means of production is necessary if value is going to be maximized and waste is going to be minimized in the production process.

...

Mises’s arguments, and the arguments of those who have followed him, do not merely undermine arguments for pure, global socialism. They also undermine arguments for interventionism more generally.

A nice little essay about, and with links to, the works of an actual modern liberal, economics theorist Ludwig von Mises.

Or, as Rich put it,

“The champions of socialism call themselves progressives, but they recommend a system which is characterized by rigid observance of routine and by a resistance to every kind of improvement. They call themselves liberals, but they are intent upon abolishing liberty. They call themselves democrats, but they yearn for dictatorship. They call themselves revolutionaries, but they want to make the government omnipotent. They promise the blessings of the Garden of Eden, but they plan to transform the world into a gigantic post office. Every man but one a subordinate clerk in a bureau.”

-- Ludwig von Mises


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 11/11/2014 at 12:15 AM   
Filed Under: • EconomicsPhilosophy •  
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calendar   Saturday - November 01, 2014

Middle of the Night posts: Gas is Cheap

Man oh man, you know we’ve been living with over the top prices for too long, when the price of gas finally drops to merely only a dollar a gallon more than what it ought to cost, and the news articles are asking “What does this mean?” Well, to be short, and crude, it means the trickle down has gone down your leg and is forming a puddle on the floor. In terms of world economics.

Around our end of Hunterdon County, and up into Warren County, regular gas, cash price, around $2.69/gal now. That’s down $0.06 since last week, but a month ago it was over $3, and hadn’t been below that since ... forever? Since Bush? Seems like.

Gas to be under $3 for 1st time in 4 years: Why, what it means, and how it compares to milk

( I don’t know about you, but my car runs like crap on milk. )

NEW YORK – The sight is so surprising that Americans are sharing photos of it, along with all those cute Halloween costumes, sweeping vistas and special meals: The gas station sign, with a price of $2-something a gallon. [ really? Those New Yorkers must be visiting New Jersey. NY’s 75¢/gal tax will keep their gas way over $3 for a long time to come. What cracks me up is that if the price really bottoms, and the rest of us are paying $1.50, NY gas will still be >$2, and the people just might realize for once how seriously their state is sticking it to them at the pump; at that price, the state tax is a solid third of the pump price. Add in the fed tax, and we’re looking at just about half. Sucks, huh? ]

“It’s stunning what’s happening here,” says Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service. “I’m a little bit shocked.”

The national average price of gasoline has fallen 33 cents in October, landing Friday at $3.00, according to AAA. Kloza said the average will fall under $3 by early Saturday morning for the first time in four years.

When the national average crossed above $3 a gallon in December of 2010, drivers weren’t sure they’d ever see $2.99 again. Global demand for oil and gasoline was rising as people in developing countries bought cars by the tens of millions and turmoil was brewing in the oil-rich Middle East.

Now demand isn’t rising as fast as expected, drillers have learned to tap vast new sources of oil, particularly in the U.S., and crude continues to flow out of the Middle East.

Seasonal swings and other factors will likely send gas back over $3 sooner than drivers would like, but the U.S. is on track for the lowest annual average since 2010 — and the 2015 average is expected to be lower even still.

Here are a few things to know about cheap gas:

— Crude prices came off the boil. Oil fell from $107 a barrel in June to near $81 because there’s a lot of supply and weak demand. U.S. output has increased 70 percent since 2008, and supplies from Iraq and Canada have also increased. At the same time, demand is weaker than expected because of a sluggish global economy.

— In the past, a stronger economy in the U.S., the world’s biggest consumer of oil and gasoline, typically meant rising fuel demand. No longer. Americans are driving more efficient vehicles and our driving habits are changing. Michael Sivak of the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute calculates that the number of miles traveled per household and gallons of fuel consumed per household peaked in 2004.

The article goes on further, but those first two points cover it:

* Despite all of Obola’s efforts to stop drilling and fracking, US oil companies are tapping into massive quantities of new hydrocarbons. And while this is great, and where the energy stimulus money OUGHT to have gone (new refineries, Keystone XL, etc) to make America stronger, right now Obamanomics (tax and spend, borrow and waste, steal and bloat) is helping flatline the whole world.

* While some of us do have newer, more fuel efficient vehicles, a huge number of us no longer have jobs, or the Big Career job that was worth the Big Commute. The Walmart is right here on the other side of town, within bicycle distance if the weather isn’t too bad. Did you want paper or plastic?

Oh, and milk? Beats me. It’s 4 in the morning. Go read the article. Milk prices suck, having tripled in teh past 5 years I think. She-it, a friggin’ quart here costs $1.99 I think. If I don’t think about it, my brain wants to tell me that milk costs $2.49/gal. And I know that’s a few years out of date.

Gasoline is cheaper than milk again. In September the national average price of milk was $3.73 per gallon. The annual average for milk is on track to be more expensive than the annual average for gasoline for the first time since 2011.

Fine. What-evs. I can remember milk at 79¢/gal, but that’s ancient. I know that $15 used to fill up my 1997 Saturn’s 12 gallon tank at some point, and that was with real gasoline, not this wimped out ethanol added crap. But I’ll get on board here: let’s get gas down to $1.29/gal. And milk back to $1.49. Because honestly, only cheap food, cheap fuel, and lower taxes are going to get the economic fires burning again.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 11/01/2014 at 02:53 AM   
Filed Under: • EconomicsInflation and High PricesOil, Alternative Energy, and Gas Prices •  
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calendar   Wednesday - July 16, 2014

Pork Fight!!

Corn Farmers VS Beet Farmers

Battle Over Ethanol Subsidy



How about we just cancel the dopey program and you can both go back to growing soybeans?


An ethanol plant in Nebraska corn country is pumping out fuel made from sugar beets, and corn farmers are suing to stop it – a small-town dispute that offers an unusual take on the debate over the market-distorting impact of sugar and corn subsidies.

The dispute in Aurora, population about 4,400, brings into conflict two of the largest U.S. farm programs, one promoting sugar production and the other corn-based ethanol. Aventine Renewable Energy Holdings Inc, a privately held Illinois firm, is reaping profits producing ethanol with cheap sugar, thanks to a U.S. Agriculture Department subsidy of beet sugar.

Local corn farmers, who benefit from a government rule that forces oil companies to blend ethanol into gasoline, say in court documents that Aventine’s action violates an agreement to use their grain exclusively as a feedstock for the firm’s recently reopened plant in Aurora. Aventine denies any wrongdoing, saying it has abided by its contract.

The irony of the situation is not lost on George Hohwieler, president and chief executive of the Aurora Cooperative Elevator Co. that is at loggerheads with Aventine.

“Hamilton County, Nebraska, by any measure is one of the most productive corn-producing counties in the world,” he said. “The message being sent to the marketplace is that they’re making ethanol out of sugar.”

In fact, Aventine’s use of beet sugar is the first large-scale production of sugar alcohol in Nebraska since bootleggers used boxcars of sugar to make moonshine during Prohibition in the 1920s and 1930s.

Aventine chief executive Mark Beemer said the farmers’ coop was being short sighted in suing the company. “We’ve been very blunt. This is just a very short-term pathway to get the plant open and then convert back to corn ethanol,” he said.

The rare intersection of the two farm programs in Aurora illustrates the unintended impact federal farm subsidies can have on market activity.

One such initiative, the Feedstock Flexibility Program, last year enabled buyers like Aventine to purchase below-market sugar at government auctions, then use it as feedstocks in their ethanol plants, putting the sugar in competition with corn.

Under the federal sugar program, the government guarantees minimum prices for sugar loans, paying processors 24 cents per lb for beet sugar, or 19 cents for cane sugar, if sugar prices fall below those benchmarks. The USDA then must auction the sugar for non-food purposes.

Aventine was the biggest buyer at USDA auctions last fall, purchasing some 660 million pounds of beet sugar.

Beemer said the firm earned up to 50 cents a gallon on each of the 80,000 gallons it churned out daily while burning beet sugar. If the supplies last through August, as expected, that could amount to a nearly $4 million profit for Aventine, according to a Reuters calculation.

Beemer declined to comment on the profitability of the Aurora operation.

I think it’s time to not only end this stupid ethanol program but to end price supports for just about all farm products. If we’ve got enough shale oil and gas these days to make the stuff into motor oil, then we ought to have plenty enough to make gasoline. Not to mention that everyone’s cars run better and get better mileage on pure gasoline. Or the infrastructure impact that corrosive ethanol is having. Or that the idiotic ethanol subsidy has caused a MASSIVE spike in food prices across the planet.

Stupid is as stupid does, and this program has been known to be a total loser since the very beginning. DUMP IT.

But now it’s even worse. When I see one kind of greedy grower fighting another kind of greedy grower for a bigger slice of needless government pork, egged on by another government program that not only supports prices and stifles free market trading and another that subsidizes wasting food, I want to chew lead and spit bullets. Well I would, but the EPA has forced all the lead mines to close here. We’ve got centuries worth, but we can’t mine or process any of it any longer. Thanks EPA. And don’t get me going on the whole coal fiasco either.

NO ethanol subsidy. NO price support for sugar. NO Sugar Act to eliminate international competition. NO forced below market price sales of perfectly fine but temporarily excess sugar. NONE OF IT. Greedy bastiges.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 07/16/2014 at 10:10 AM   
Filed Under: • EconomicsGovernmentOil, Alternative Energy, and Gas Prices •  
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