You know the saying “There are no accidents”. First, consider how the Left’s beloved fake-Native American, Elizabeth Warren, is an unusually wealthy member of Congress – probably worth over $6 million. Courtesy of ZH:

Next, consider how the Left’s beloved fake-Native American, Elizabeth Warren, opposes a bill to audit the Federal Reserve Bank.

I say the 2 things are connected. You see, Elizabeth Warren is a phony. That doesn’t only mean that she has repeatedly lied about her racial (non-)heritage for personal gain. It also means that she lies about being a populist who would support the little guy against Big Banking.

For the last 6 1/2 years, the Fed – the privately-owned, biggest bank of them all – has (in accordance with Obama’s wishes) pumped boatloads of newly-created cash into our financial markets, to make financial bubbles that benefit “the one percent” – who include the top earners of Big Government and Big Banking (plus Big Government’s general deficits being financed). And Elizabeth Warren has no real problem with any of that. She does claim to oppose it. But her actions tell another story.

If she really opposed it, she’d be leading the charge to get the Fed audited. Instead, Rand Paul leads the charge (and Ron Paul before him) – while she carps, or puts up obstacles. “Follow the money.”

Unrelated follow-up: After noting in early December that holiday spending was off to a weak start, I should note that indeed, December consumer spending plunged by the most since 2009, as people’s incomes stagnated. At least by *conventional* economic wisdom, that means a bad economy – and shouldn’t be happening.

NBC’s Brian Williams is taking some time off to try and extinguish the flames shooting out of his Dockers. A lot of people seem kind of upset that Brian Williams has been caught lying about… oh, riding in a helicopter that was hit by a missile, watching bodies float past his hotel room in New Orleans, being robbed at gunpoint while selling Christmas trees… and a bunch of other stuff.

But let me ask you a question… and I am quite serious about this… don’t progressive leftists lie about everything all the freakin’ time?

I’m not kidding. Pretty much everything that comes out of the mouth of a leftist… including “and” and “the” is probably a lie.

Don’t believe me? How about a stroll down Amnesia Lane.

“I did not have sex with that woman, Ms Lewinsky, not one time, ever!” – Progressive Democrat President B.J. Clinton

“If you like your plan, you can keep your plan.” – Progressive Leftist President Barack Hussein Obama.

“I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.” – Progressive Leftist Hillary Rodham Clinton

“We have learned something important since the days that I served in Vietnam.” – Progressive Leftist Senator Dick Blumenthal who did not serve in Vietnam (but Democrats elected him anyway, because lying is not a big deal).

“Somebody hacked my Twitter account!” – Progressive Leftist Anthony Weiner.

“Mitt Romney hasn’t paid taxes in ten years.” – Progressive Leftist Senator Harry Reid.

“One in five college women will be raped.” – Bogus claim promoted by radical feminists in order to strip men of civil rights.

“There have been 74 (or 90 or more) school shootings since Sandy Hook” – Bogus claim promoted by progressive leftists who want criminalize private firearms ownership.

“The murder of Matthew Shepard was an anti-gay hate crime.” – Lie.

“Trayvon Martin/Mike Brown was an innocent Black schoolboy murdered by a trigger-happy white racist protected by a racist society.” – Lie.

Yeah, Brian Williams is a liar. But who on the left isn’t? Name one.

When President Obama signed a federal “hate crimes” law in 2009, many people at the time were calling it The Matthew Shepard Act. There was just one problem: The murder of Matthew Shepard, while horrible and grotesque, wasn’t a hate crime (i.e., crime of bias). It had nothing to do with anti-gay bias until after the fact, when it suited many persons’ interests to make it seem like it did.

Matthew Shepard was a methamphetamine addict – and possibly a small-time meth dealer/courier – who was well-acquainted with his chief killer, Aaron McKinney. “Well-acquainted” meaning that McKinney and Shepard had done meth together more than once, had conducted business as small-time meth dealers/couriers, and yes, had occasionally even had sex with each other.

It’s probable that Shepard didn’t know the other convicted killer: McKinney’s then-recent acquaintance, Russell Henderson. But there’s evidence that Henderson wasn’t homophobic and, on the night of the killing, may have even taken a knock from McKinney as Henderson spoke up for Shepard (against McKinney’s raging, meth-fueled violence). Which, if true, would make Henderson’s *murder* conviction unjust. (He would still deserve a lesser conviction as an accessory.)

Shepard’s killing was most likely a criminal-style ‘debt collection’ by McKinney that went wrong because McKinney was a troubled and cruel person coming off of a multi-day meth binge. So, who fabricated the myth of a hate crime perpetrated on Shepard by two homophobic total strangers, and why? It was a combination of personal and political interests.

• McKinney’s higher-up meth connections wanted to remain hidden, and they would be able to kill McKinney (even in prison) if he squealed on them. Which meant: McKinney would desperately need to avoid naming them. Which meant: McKinney needed to hide his own meth dealings, and therefore, the true nature of his relationship with Shepard.
• As a short, little guy (135 lb) headed for prison in the late 1990s, McKinney also needed to hide his own bisexuality. Which, again, meant: hiding the nature of his relationship with Shepard.
• McKinney, his girlfriend and his lawyers all thought (at the time) that a “gay panic” defense, however unfaithful to reality, would be McKinney’s best shot at acquittal (or reduced charges).
• Certain friends of Shepard may have also wanted to distract people from their, and Shepard’s, meth use and dealings.
• Gay activist groups – ranging from GLAAD and HRC to what is now the Matthew Shepard Foundation – obviously gained benefits, both political and financial, from the myth.
• The media gained a big “story”.
• Once the public/media frenzy started over the (perceived) Shepard hate crime, Bill Clinton got involved in it – at least partly to try to blunt the impact of his Monica Lewinsky scandal. Shepard was attacked on 10/6/1998 and died on 10/12/1998 – roughly around the time Kenneth Starr released his reports and the House of Representatives opened its impeachment inquiry on Clinton.

All this, and more, is cited or documented in The Book of Matt, by Stephen Jiminez. It was published in 2013 and V the K posted on it. I had the book and recently, after talking with liberal friends who were still unaware of the revelations about Shepard, I finally read it.

Despite the horror of its subject, the book is a powerful work of investigative journalism. No such book can get everything right. But this one is readable, gripping, and honest about Jiminez’ own fears and doubts as he slowly comes to understand the falseness of the Shepard “hate crime” myth. The book weaves together a wealth of recollections and coherent detail from dozens of sources who knew Shepard or his dealings, including two of Shepard’s more important boyfriends. The book evaluates the credibility of its sources and, where that may be lacking, provides multiple sources for key claims. (more…)

In October 2013, I noted that the U.S. national debt leapt over $300 billion – the day after they raised the debt ceiling. It went from $16.75 trillion to $17.08 trillion, just days after President Obama had publicly lied that “…raising the debt ceiling…is not raising our debt. This does not add a dime to our debt.”

Update: Today, the U.S. national debt is about $18.01 trillion (or as this post is being written, $18,005,549,328,561.45).

$18 trillion! Up from $10.63 trillion when Obama took office on January 21, 2009. The Obama administration is 70% of the way to doubling the U.S. national debt – and still has two years to run!

But here’s the fishy part. Officially, the U.S. budget deficit for FY2014 was only $483 billion. If that’s true, our debt should have gone up a lot less. It should be just over $17.5 trillion.

There are two basic ways to measure the deficit.

1. The official number: What the government budget states as revenue minus spending.
2. The reality check: What the government had to borrow, to actually pay its bills.

Let’s take a look at the second one. I don’t have the exact numbers for the U.S. national debt for FY2014′s beginning vs. ending. But it should be obvious that, with the debt increasing by about $1 trillion from late October 2013 to end of November 2014, the real FY2014 deficit (covering twelve months from start of October 2013 to end of September 2014) had to be something larger than $483 billion. Otherwise, the FY2015 deficit would have to be $500 billion in just the last two months alone; and it isn’t.

So if an Obama supporter tries to say “The Dear Leader has reduced the deficit to $483 billion!”, you say: Then why did the national debt rise by roughly a trillion, over that same period? BALONEY.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration has found yet another way of lying to us. I’m becoming convinced that all of the ‘headline’ statistics put out by this administration are manipulated to the point where they’re a fraud, at least partly.

Hey, did you know Jonathan Gruber was paid over a million dollars to concoct the lies used to deceive the public about Obamacare? And have you ever thought about how deception is at the heart of every element of the left-wing agenda? Just to cite a few examples:

1. “Comprehensive Immigration Reform”

What they claim: The Gang of 8 Bill that passed the senate will tighten border security and legalize illegal immigrants only after they meet really tough requirements: background checks, hefty fines, back taxes, learning English.

Why it’s a lie: The tough “border security” provisions in the Gang of 8 bill amount to a requirement that the Executive Branch submit a plan for securing the border; and the penalty for not submitting a plan is that Congress will form a bipartisan committee to find out why they didn’t submit a plan. And all of those “really tough requirements” can be completely waived by the Executive Branch. The only thing the Gang of 8 bill guarantees is Amnesty, which happens regardless.

(more…)

HotAir pointed out yesterday that “Consistent liberals” are most likely to block others on social media for disagreeing with them politically.

Hence, my question. I’m honestly divided. In this complicated world, we’ve all known some lefties who are plain jerks, while some other lefties may be fairly nice people – apart from their never wanting to hear or know of any information that could make them question their prejudices.

I ran into the second kind of person just the other night, at my dad’s. “Cynthia” is a highly-educated neighbor in his retirement community, very nice in terms of watching out for my dad’s disabled girlfriend, and with a pleasant demeanor. So far, “not a jerk.”

But narrow-minded. As one example, she’ll dismiss (as in, will not hear) any information of Sarah Palin being anything other than a total dummy. Which is funny because the prominent Obama supporter and former “green jobs czar”, Van Jones, has now admitted in essence that the Left lied to people about Palin in the 2008 campaign:

“Sarah Palin .. people forget. She had the Democratic party shaking in our boots in 2008. She came out, she gave that speech at the convention. That was, hands down, one of the best convention speeches – not by a woman, by anybody in 2008. People were running for the hills…

Now it can be told! Now it can be told! We were scared!”

It must help the Democrats that their most officially ‘educated’ supporters are among their most dogmatically-gullible supporters. The Democrats can lie to such people and they won’t even care. For another example, we have President Obama’s recent admission that the Democrat candidates who are staying distant from him this year are engaged in a lie:

Well look, here’s the bottom line. We’ve got a tough map. A lot of the states are contested this time are states that I didn’t win. And so some of the candidates there – it is difficult for them to have me in the state…

The bottom line is though, these are all folks who vote with me. They have supported my agenda in Congress…These are folks who are strong allies and supporters of me, and you know, I tell them, I said, ‘you know what? You do what you need to do to win.’

Dogmatically-gullible people: They enable the Democrats to get away with it. Some of them are jerks, some of them are nice – but narrow-minded.

Remember how the Left used to chant “Bush lied, people died” and claim that Iraq under Saddam Hussein didn’t have any chemical weapons, and the whole Iraq War was ginned up to make money for Dick Cheney and Halliburton?

Yeah, it turns out pretty much all of that was a lie.

But, hey, just because the left spend the entire Bush presidency lying for political purposes doesn’t mean they aren’t totally being honest when they tell us that Global Warming is the most dangerous threat our country faces, the borders are totally secure, and unemployment is only at 6%.

Hat Tip: GayPatriot Bruce for the screencap.

A lot of gay people seem determined to live in a fantasy world of oppression; where everyone hates them and is only barely restrained from committing violence against them. The leadership of the Democrat Party and the gay rights movement fosters and encourages this delusion as it is both politically and monetarily valuable to them.

In this world of fantasy and delusion, Christians are nailing gay people to fenceposts every day while their churches cheer this on. But what do actual Christians … as opposed to deranged gays and their cynical leadership… have to say about violence against gay folk?

The Roman Catholic Church position: “The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.”

The United Methodist Church: ““We affirm that God’s grace is available to all. We will seek to live together in Christian community, welcoming, forgiving and loving one another, as Christ has loved and accepted us. We implore families and churches not to reject or condemn lesbian and gay members and friends…. Moreover, we support efforts to stop violence and other forms of coercion against all persons, regardless of sexual orientation.”

The Episcopal Church: “In 1976, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church declared that “homosexual persons are children of God who have a full and equal claim with all other persons upon the love, acceptance, and pastoral concern and care of the Church.”

The Southern Baptist Church: While wrestling with the issue of whether homosexuality is compatible with membership in the church, nowhere does the SBC call for gay people to be subjected to violence.

The LDS Church: “The Church has advocated for rights for same-sex couples regarding “hospitalization and medical care, fair housing and employment rights, or probate rights, so long as these do not infringe on the integrity of the traditional family or the constitutional rights of churches.”7 In Salt Lake City, for example, the Church supported ordinances aimed at protecting gay residents from discrimination in housing and employment… We are to love one another. We are to treat each other with respect as brothers and sisters and fellow children of God, no matter how much we may differ from one another.”

In the real world, no Christian denomination advocates for violence against gay people. Not even the Westboro Baptist Street Theatre Troupe advocates violence against gay people.

On the other side.

(more…)

They said Christians would not be forced to participate in gay marriages. They lied.

They said there would be no push to normalize paedophilia. They lied.

They said gay marriage would not lead to a push for polygamy. They lied.

So, seeing as the gay left has lied about everything else…

Bestiality remains out of the mainstream for now, although some on the hedonist left are a bit ahead of the curve.

So, GOP Chairman Reince Preibus said this…

“I don’t think [marriage equality] is a top here issue for the midterms,” he said. “I think long term it’s an issue in regard to what we need to do in the country to have a strong economy, a strong defense and a strong society.”

And the left is claiming he said this…

RNC Chairman thinks marriage equality is a threat to our economy and national security.

Huh?

Hey, they said Mitt Romney was going to outlaw tampons and their voters believed it. They said Sarah Palin claimed she could see Russia from her house, and their voters believed it.

Lying works.

B.J. Clinton was in Arkansas campaigning for Mark Pryor… another one of those ‘Dynasty Democrats’ like the Udall Brothers, the Kennedies, and Mary Landrieu … who inherited their seats from their politically powerful families. And in defending Obama’s economic record, he said this.

The economy is coming back but nobody believes it yet because you don’t feel it. But remember what I said four years ago — or two years ago — in Charlotte. Financial crises take an average of 10 years to get over. We just crossed over and we’re now creating more jobs above where we were before the crash.

So, basically, he is saying the economic prosperity of the Clinton years was just the Reagan policies kicking in 10 years later.

Nice of him to finally admit it.

Oh, and that bit about “we are creating more jobs then we did before the recession” is bullsh-t. Last month, for example, the economy created 240,000 (mostly part-time and temporary) jobs… but 315,000 people left the workforce, and the percentage of Americans working is at a historical low.

If inflation is about rising consumer prices, deflation means falling prices. If you have watched CNBC or any financial TV these last few years, you have seen people often raising the bogeymen of either deflation or his new buddy, “too-low inflation”. (A printed example here.)

The people raising these bogeymen are there to help Big Government and Big Banking. They gain from pro-inflation policies – such as high government spending and deficits, zero percent interest rates, massive money-printing (to cover the government’s deficits and boost the financial markets).

Who loses from such policies? You, the person with a productive job. Each year, the dollars you get from your wages, salary, pension or savings hardly go up – and buy you less than the year before. You’re the sucker at the poker game, and they frighten you into going along.

In reality, falling prices – or the steady, stable prices of “too-low inflation” – are a help to consumers in good times and bad. What sane person doesn’t benefit from (and desire) everyday low prices?

Inflationists claim that if consumer prices decline (as in deflation) or fail to rise (as in too-low inflation), the economy will suffer, because people will postpone buying consumer goods. You should ask: Really? When has the prospect of next year’s stable-or-lower prices ever stopped people from buying what they need and desire now?

Prices have been stable-or-declining for years on computers, smartphones, flat screen TVs, eye LASIK operations, game consoles, and more. Have people stopped buying them? Quite the opposite. Or suppose that prices stayed the same, or even went down, for gasoline, food, rent, health care and education. Would that hurt you and your family, or help you?

Inflationists also claim that deflation (or too-low inflation) means economic depression. And we’ve had an occasional episode, such as the Great Depression, where deflation was *correlated* with depression.

But remember the saying, “correlation isn’t causation.” In the Great Depression, the deflation actually helped a lot of people. By making paychecks go farther, it kept the number of people who were turned out of homes, starved, etc. from being even larger than it was.

And we’ve all been carefully ‘educated’ to forget that deflation and/or low inflation are historically *more correlated with good times*. Via Zero Hedge and The Cobden Centre, here is a chart on that. It shows how deflation prevailed in America in the 19th century, which century overall was the greatest for economic growth in our history.

Cobden Centre gives the source, and further notes:

In their research article ‘Deflation and Depression: Is There an Empirical Link?’ of January 2004, Federal Reserve economists Andrew Atkeson and Patrick Kehoe found that “..the only episode in which we find evidence of a link between deflation and depression is the Great Depression (1929-1934). We find virtually no evidence of such a link in any other period.. What is striking is that nearly 90% of the episodes with deflation did not have depression. In a broad historical context, beyond the Great Depression, the notion that deflation and depression are linked virtually disappears.”

Which makes sense, because in the real world, economic progress means lower prices. As more things are produced with greater efficiency for lower costs, their prices drop – so that you can afford to buy them. It’s a good thing.

What frightens the inflationists is that if we stop the money-printing and other bad policies, they’re out of jobs. The government would have to balance its budget; so the government would probably have to cut spending (i.e., bureaucrats). Companies would have to cut unproductive consultants. Universities would have to cut economists, among others.

Interest rates would have to rise (to historically-normal levels). Real estate prices would come down (making homes more affordable). Stock and bond prices would come down (hurting Wall Street, but making retirement more affordable on Main Street). Bad investments would have to be liquidated (like some bad debts, or the craziest of the “green” or “dot-com 2.0″ companies).

And, to allow for real growth and recovery, government would have to restrain itself (removing its jackboot from the economy’s throat; which Europe and even Japan have still not done). But at the end of it, we’d have a healthy economy where the working person can make ends meet; their wages, salary, pension or savings will buy them a good life. Which we don’t have, today.

It’s no coincidence that pro-inflation policies are pro-debt, anti-freedom policies. What we have today is the debt-bloated, gasping economy that you get after decades of such policies. An economy where the TV commentators tell you with a straight face that fast-rising prices (which make YOUR life harder) are required and, if we don’t keep inflation up at 2% a year or more, the world will collapse.

They’re partly right; their world (built on decades of bad policies) might collapse. But yours wouldn’t. Always remember the difference between their interests, and yours. Or who gains from inflation – and who loses.

In saner times of yore, people who spent their entire income were put down as spendthrifts, and people who didn’t were praised as savers.

It was well understood that savers financed the world’s productive capital and so helped to create the Industrial Revolution. The IR used capital to boost the productivity of labor, so that human beings could enjoy good stuff like higher living standards, longer lives, middle-class education and retirement, an end to infant mortality and child labor, etc.

In today’s crazy times, language is turned on its head (to keep the craziness going as long as possible). Savers are now called hoarders, people who hoard money.

Earlier this month, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis published an analysis of our moribund economy, called What Does Money Velocity Tell Us about Low Inflation in the U.S.? The key sentences:

…the unprecedented monetary base increase driven by the Fed’s large money injections through its large-scale asset purchase programs [ed: Quantitative Easing, or "QE"] has failed to cause at least a one-for-one proportional increase in nominal GDP… [ed: though it has certainly boosted the financial markets for "the one percent"]

During the first and second quarters of 2014, the velocity of the monetary base2 was at 4.4, its slowest pace on record. This means that every dollar in the monetary base was spent only 4.4 times in the economy during the past year, down from 17.2 just prior to the recession…the sharp decline in velocity…has offset the sharp increase in money supply, leading to the almost no change in nominal GDP…

The answer lies in the private sector’s dramatic increase in their willingness to hoard money instead of spend it. Such an unprecedented increase…has slowed down the velocity of money…

(Emphasis added.) Get it? If only people would spend all their money, again and again – rather than hoarding it because they need it for bills, or worry about the future – THEN the economy would grow. THEN the Dear Obama-Yellen’s plans would work.

In reality, the economy is restrained by excessive debt and even more, by lack of freedom. As government gets bigger and consumes (or takes over) more of the economy, the private sector shrinks. As government plans, regulates and intervenes more heavily, the private sector gets sicker, lazier and more fearful. Just as Big Government creates more problems than it ever solves, the opposite – Freedom – ultimately solves more problems than it creates.

But that’s not what Establishment economists, politicians, bureaucrats and media want people to know. They’d rather blame, in this example, people who “hoard”. Look for the scapegoating of so-called hoarders to become a drumbeat, as the economy continues to languish into the 2016 election.

If we hit a new financial crisis, they’ll also be sure to scapegoat mysterious “speculators”, as President Nixon did in the 1971 crisis. But they’ll never put the blame where it belongs: on 8+ decades of money-printing and Big Government.

This Weekend, feminists held one of their infamous “Slut Walks” in Chicago where they engaged in unhinged man-bashing while walking around dressed like trashy skanks… because that (along with demanding that other people pay for their contraception) is what Modern Feminism has been reduced to. (And of this the Feminists are very, very proud.)

As someone clever pointed out, it’s interesting that the Feminist chose Chicago for their “Smash the Patriarchy” message, because nowhere has the Patriarchy been more successfully smashed than in the inner cities. Households led by fathers have become exceedingly rare,  single women raise families without husbands, and very few people participate in capitalist enterprises; the inner cities have become Radical Feminist utopia.

How’s that working out for them?

Sapphic radical leftist Sally Kohn says that referring to people who are in the United States illegally as “Illegal Immigrants” is racist and whatnot.

Opponents of immigration reform attack undocumented immigrants as “illegal immigrants.” Even worse, like anti-immigration extremists, some prominent elected officials use the term “illegals.”

Once upon a time, the n-word and f-word were utterly acceptable terminology in undermining not only the basic rights but basic humanity of black people and gay people.

Not the same thing? Of course it is. [Edited for clarity]

The Left’s War on Language continues unabated.

Commenter Steve notes that a shooting at the SFO Gay Pride parade has been blamed on people who had nothing to do with the actual shooting.

Three suspects from the East Bay have been implicated in connection with a shooting in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood that injured a woman, police said Thursday.

Kawme Williams, 18, of Oakland; Robert Smith, 20, of Hayward; and a 15-year-old Antioch boy were taken into custody after the shooting, which happened at the close of the Pride parade and celebration about 6:30 p.m. Sunday, police said.

The article doesn’t provide the race/ethnicity of the shooters…. which means, we can all safely assume the race/ethnicity of the shooters.

In the very first comment, a left-liberal nutjob blames republicans and the NRA.

How many senseless gun deaths and injuries will be enough for republicans and the NRA?

Until the left can actually find an actual Republican NRA member who commits a hate crime, they’ll just have to continue blaming them all by proxy.

Twice in the last couple of weeks, leftists have compared something Conservatives believe in to being tantamount to supporting child pornography.

First, windbag New York Senator Chuck Schumer compared Texas Senator Ted Cruz’s support of the First Amendment to support for Child Pornography.

“Are you against anti-child pornography laws?” Schumer asked of Cruz, who was not present in the chamber at the time. “Is he against anti-child pornography laws? Is he an absolutist?” Schumer continued.

And of course, the left-wing media took their cue, as Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart decided to compare support for the Second Amendment and support for the Washington Redskins to support for Child Pornography.

And this all makes perfect sense to the left. If you think political speech should not be regulated by Congress, you must support child rape. If you support a Constitutional, Human Right of self-defense, you must support child rape. If you support

It’s a strategy that has served the left perfectly well so far. Are you opposed to Government-run health care? You must be a racist who hates blacks. Do you think voters should have to show ID to protect the integrity of the vote? You must be a racist who hates blacks. Do you think people should pay for their own contraception? You, sir, are practically a rapist.

And these idiotic ad hominems work. Good Lord, we have a stupid, stupid electorate.

I have an “inflation update” post coming. Before that one, let’s review what inflation is.

Most people think it’s price increases. People have been trained to think that way (which I’ll address in a bit). But it’s not. Inflation is depreciation of the money, which may then result in price increases.

In olden times, money was physical metal. For example, the UK’s “pound sterling” was once an actual 12 ounces of 92.5% silver metal.

Over the centuries, they made it a paper note, and then they kept diluting the value of the note, until today it’s worth a tiny fraction of a pound of silver. A troy pound of sterling silver today would be worth about £126 (or about $210). In other words, they shaved off 125/126 of the pound’s value, over the centuries. That’s inflation.

Likewise, the U.S. dollar. It was once defined as about 1/20 ounce of gold. To say it another way, gold was fixed at $20.67/ounce until 1933, meaning that the U.S. Treasury would really give you near-an-ounce of gold, if you demanded it in exchange for a $20 paper note. But today, gold is around $1250/ounce. Today, (1) the dollar is NOT a fixed amount of gold, and (2) if you were to exchange it, on today’s date you would find that a dollar gets you about 1/1250 ounce of gold, or about 1/62 as much as before. That’s inflation.

When the money is depreciated like that, it takes more units to represent another value – a loaf of bread, a gallon of gas, a car you want to buy, medical services, etc. So, inflation tends to mean higher prices. People call the higher prices, inflation. Except it’s not; it’s only a symptom of inflation.

Think of it this way. When you have a flu, your temperature may be 102 degrees. That’s a symptom, not a disease. The flu virus is your disease. Likewise, when the government (or central bank) depreciates the money, prices may be seen at higher levels. That’s a symptom, not a disease. The depreciation is the disease.

Why do governments depreciate the money? Because it’s a hidden tax. It means the government can spend more, without having to openly raise taxes. The government is always the number one beneficiary of inflation; always the real reason it’s done.

The government gets the most benefit if people don’t understand inflation, or think clearly about it. If people understood inflation, then everybody would raise the prices of their labor, goods and services, the moment they saw the government (or central bank) depreciating the money. So the government’s added spending would not go as far. The government would still benefit from being able to repay its debts in depreciated money. But overall, the government would get that much less bang for its inflated/depreciated buck.

Thus, the government – and its acolytes in media, Wall Street and academia – have a vested interest in people NOT understanding inflation. And so they spew a lot of crap about it. They muddy the waters with false doctrines – including the one I’m correcting (that inflation-is-about-the-price-increases-and-we-have-not-had-any-price-increases-you-idiot).

Another false doctrine they spew is that we somehow *need* inflation, because deflation (opposite of inflation) is somehow bad for people and scary. Deflation is bad – to the beneficiaries of inflation, namely Big Banking and Big Government. But not to average Americans. I may address that one, in a future post.

Despite trillions in economic “stimulus” which have pushed the stock market to record highs, the U.S. economy officially shrank by 1% in the first quarter.

Real gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States — decreased at an annual rate of 1.0 percent in the first quarter according to the “second” estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis…

The GDP estimate released today is based on more complete source data than were available for the “advance” estimate issued last month.

If second quarter GDP does the same, the economy will officially be in a recession.

But surely the problem isn’t with the economy? Now in its fifth “summer of recovery” – yes fifth, so there! – and with the official unemployment rate dropping, surely the economy is fine?

The problem must be that our government officials aren’t measuring GDP correctly. After all, truth is a social construct, right? Just rig the GDP counting methods until officials produce a number that “proves” the economy is growing, and have President Obama declare it’s true, and it will be true.

They did things that way in 2013. For example, when Obama simply declared that his irresponsible budget proposal was “fiscally responsible”. Or when they suddenly declared the GDP to be $550 billion higher after deciding that GDP should include future government pension promises, money lost on failed movies, and so forth.

Italy gets the idea. Italy will start to count cocaine sales, prostitution and smuggling as part of their GDP.

The UK is also working on it. Contribution of drug dealers and prostitutes to the UK economy boosted GDP by £10bn according to estimates.

For the first time official statisticians are measuring the value to the UK economy of sex work and drug dealing – and they have discovered these unsavoury hidden-economy trades make roughly the same contribution as farming.

You see? In this modern world, when a hooker helps a Kennedy get to sleep at night, she contributes as much to national wealth as a farmer growing food for someone’s table.

Obama needs to get on this (so to speak). That way, The Party can prove that the economy is always growing. /sarc

It seems Jeff and I have been doing more than a few posts lately cataloguing the angry derangement of the left. All of this anger, shrillness, violent pathology, intolerance, rage, and rejection of logic coming from those who claim to be the most peceaful, tolerant, and rational members of society creates a paradox. How can a progressive claim to be rationale, and yet consistently favor discredited and unsustainable economic policies? How can a progressive claim to be tolerant, yet demand that all contrary opinion be shouted down and dissidents be jailed? How can a progressive claim to believe all races are equal, but demand that blacks and hispanics be treated as inferiors that need to be condescended to and acccommodated because they just can’t be expected to perform as well as white people if all are treated equally?  And the greatest paradox of all; how are progressive leftists so blind to their own contradictions and hypocrisy?

(Progressive Leftist: “Um, because You’re a RACIST!!!”)

John C. Wright Attempts to explain:

The theory must explain, first, the honest decency of the modern liberals combined with their astonishing indifference, nay, hostility to facts, common sense, and evidence; second, it must explain their high self-esteem (or, to be blunt, their pathological narcissism) combined not merely with an utter lack of accomplishment, but with their utter devotion to destructiveness, a yearning to ruin everything they touch; third, it must explain their sanctimoniousness combined with their applause, praise, support, and tireless efforts to spread all perversions (especially sexual), moral decay, vulgarity, and every form of desecration; fourth, their pretense of intellectual superiority combined with their notorious mental fecklessness; fifth, it must explain both their violence and their pacifism; sixth, the theory must explain why they hate the very things they should love most; seventh, the theory must explain why they are incapable of comprehending an honest disagreement or any honorable foe.

The essay attempts to arrive at this theory, and as such, has to cover a lot of ground, and uses a lot of big words and philosophical concepts that would be utterly lost on the typical progressive Obama-voter. But it sort of comes down to this.

How can anyone continue to be a Leftist for a week, much less for a lifetime?

The answer, allow me to remind the patient reader, grows out of their theory. Again, their theory of knowledge is that there is no knowledge, no truth, only bigoted opinion. The only way to avoid bigotry is to avoid judgment and the use of reason. Avoiding reason necessitates a theory of morality that denies cause and effect. No vice causes loss, no virtue causes happiness. Hence life is a random roulette wheel. If there are no vices and virtues, not even the intellectual virtues of honest thinking, then no independent thought is desired or permitted. Instead, all thoughts are determined by social cues. Thought is collective.

…

The whole point of Liberal theory from start to finish is to form earplugs to smother the ringing of that alarm clock called reality.

…

The Leftists are people who abandon their innate intelligence and moral stature and who  deliberately make themselves to be stupider than average, less moral and upright and decent than average, who at once combine the worst features of a self-deceived fool and a self-deceiving conniving con-man. The only thing that saves them from the constant pain of the dentist drill of their conscience, the constant clamor of their wretched self-esteem telling them that they do not deserve to live, the only thing, indeed, keeping them alive, is their false and inflated sense of sanctimony.