ONE OF THOSE DAYS

My employer did not close during the blizzard like conditions yesterday. Most employers in the Philly area and all schools were closed. I got up this morning at 5:15 as usual and prepared for a cold slog into work. This was a long johns day. It was 9 degrees and windy. But the sun was shining. I didn’t bother to check my work email while at home. Even though I now have a smart phone, I didn’t check that either.

I was on the road at 6:40 and had the best commute in years. Only 40 minutes to go the 30 miles. The Schuylkill was a dream. I was in a pretty good mood as I entered the parking garage. When I got out of my car I noticed all the lights were out in the University gym. Then I walked into my office suite and noticed I was the first one in, which was unusual. Then I sat down at my desk and opened my email to find out the University was closed. The message had been sent at 10:30 last night. I later checked my text messages on my phone to see a colleague, who knows I’m not the most tech savvy, had forwarded the news we were closed last night.

That was a real bummer. Who closes on a cold sunny day after staying open during a blizzard? I guess this classifies me as a dumbass. My ride home was not quite as good, as there was a 5 car fender bender accident on the Schuylkill. So, I spent about two hours of commuting for a one hour stay at work. I’m sure the day will get better from here on out. I’m always an optimist.

Continue reading “ONE OF THOSE DAYS”

BABY IT’S COLD OUT THERE

Guest Post by Martin Armstrong

Scientists in both Russia and China are warning of an Ice Age. The real scientists in Europe and America are yelling this too, but the press preaches about global warming because the government uses it for taxes. Too much money at stake to say, “Sorry, we got this one wrong!”Temperatures in Russia have plummeted, dropping to even -80 degrees Fahrenheit. This is very serious. The winters will keep getting colder and this is not good for economic growth.

Continue reading “BABY IT’S COLD OUT THERE”

“It’s Hot Out There” – Here’s Why In One Visualization

Tyler Durden's picture

“It’s not just warm, but very warm,” exclaims one east coast ski resort owner, adding “I can’t remember it ever being like this here.” But why? As WSJ reports, two weather occurrences – the Arctic Oscillation and El Niño – are combining to shake up temperatures from coast to coast in the U.S., bringing springlike conditions to the Northeast for much of this month and leaving parts of the West colder and wetter than usual.

Typically this time of year, Arctic Oscillation would bring cold air to the Eastern U.S., bringing temperatures down. But so far this year, the oscillation has stayed much farther north, allowing warm air from the south to fill the void, said Mike Halpert, deputy director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s climate prediction center.

 

Continue reading ““It’s Hot Out There” – Here’s Why In One Visualization”

F#%K AL GORE

Actual picture of Admin arriving at work this morning. Wind chill of NEGATIVE 16. Tell me those melting ice caps and polar bears in distress narratives again. I love those stories. Could someone release some more CO2 into the atmosphere and warm things up around here?

HEEERRREEE’S ADMIN!!!!


IT’S SO COLD……

I’ve never seen a ZERO on my car dashboard as the temperature in my lifetime. Until this morning. It was zero degrees, with a windchill of -15 degrees. And it is going to snow tonight. And then by Friday, it is supposed to get even colder. So tell me again about the melting ice caps. I love those stories. At least I’m not Boston Bob, with his seven feet of snow piled around his house.

Continue reading “IT’S SO COLD……”

IT’S COLD OUT THERE

It was six degrees with a wind chill of ten below this morning when I left for work. Why do government drones buy stop lights that completely fail when the temperature drops below 10 degrees? Do they actually think winter doesn’t happen in PA? The light to get on the PA Turnpike was completely out this morning. There are five lanes of traffic, with turning lanes, converging onto the turnpike.  There were reports from all over Phila. of lights being out or stuck in one position. All I ask of the government boobs is to fill pot holes and keep the stop lights functioning and they can’t do either. This country is a lost cause of incompetence, wrapped in ignorance, shrouded in apathy.

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2015/01/20150108_freeze2.jpg

Climate Model Predicts Very Cold Winter in Northern Hemisphere; Another Record Breaker?

Guest Post by Mike Shedlock

There is a huge buildup up snow in Siberia this year like last. Meteorologists believe that portends another brutal winter.

Bloomberg reports Climate Model Predicts Very Cold Winter in Northern Hemisphere.

About 14.1 million square kilometers of snow blanketed Siberia at the end of October, the second most in records going back to 1967, according to Rutgers University’s Global Snow Lab. The record was in 1976, which broke a streak of mild winters in the eastern U.S. In addition, the speed at which snow has covered the region is the fastest since at least 1998.

Taken together they signal greater chances for frigid air to spill out of the Arctic into more temperate regions of North America, Europe and Asia, said Judah Cohen, director of seasonal forecasting at Atmospheric and Environmental Research in Lexington, Massachusetts, who developed the theory linking Siberian snow with winter weather.

“A rapid advance of Eurasian snow cover during the month of October favors that the upcoming winter will be cold across the Northern Hemisphere,” Cohen said in an interview yesterday. “This past October the signal was quite robust.”

Cold air builds over the expanse of snow, strengthening the pressure system known as a Siberian high. The high weakens the winds that circle the North Pole, allowing the cold air to leak into the lower latitudes. The term Polar Vortex actually refers to those winds, not the frigid weather.

Cohen said he first noticed the relationship between the Eurasian snow cover and larger weather patterns while doing post-doctoral work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the 1990s.

It came about by chance because the original assignment was to look at the North American snow cover, Cohen said. He changed it to Eurasian and “when we investigated further it turned out it was Eurasian snow cover that was the dominant influence.”

Last year, 12.85 million square kilometers covered Eurasia at the end of October. By January, waves of frigid air were pummeling the U.S. Prices for natural gas, a heating fuel used by half of American households, rose to a five-year high in February.

“The big early snowbuild will definitely set things up for a cold back half of the winter,” said Todd Crawford, a meteorologist at commercial forecaster WSI in Andover, Massachusetts.

Another Record Breaker?

Model theory makes sense to me. And if so, this winter could be as bad as last year’s record breaker (or worse).

Beware, the Ice Age Cometh

Bring on the warmth!

Mike “Mish” Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Cold Climate Disaster Coming Our Way

Situation on the territory of Gabrovo Municipality seems to deteriorate with every passing hour: Mayor (ROUNDUP)

This is a serious warning: An early build-up of snow in the northern hemisphere suggests that governmental units, charities and families should be prepared for the possibility of extended periods of colder and/or snowier weather relative to average  this winter. This would especially be a factor in the mid-South where they are not used to getting much snow in the winter. Budgets are going to be busted with snow removal. Many families will struggle with increased heating bills.

We continue to have a huge build-up of snow in the northern areas of the Northern Hemisphere. From Canada across Siberia to northern Europe, snow has come significantly earlier than average.  There is a strong correlation between early snow cover in eastern Asia and cold/snowy winters in the eastern U.S. Air that sits over all that snow is going to be cold and getting colder as the sun continues to retreat to the south until we reach the Winter Solstice on Dec. 21.

In Great Brittan heavy and persistent snow, freezing gales and sub-zero temperatures threaten to grind the country to a standstill for up to FIVE MONTHS, horrified long-range weather forecasters have warned. The impending bout of extreme weather will come as a shock and forecasters have warned Britons should not to be lulled into a false sense of security by the recent mild conditions. January is currently showing signs of temperatures hitting “record-breaking” lows meaning parts of the country could see the mercury plunge to -27C (-17F).

The greatest human disaster of the last thousand years is upon us and governments are asleep at the helm. A train is barreling down the tracks headed right for the peoples of earth yet there are those who lie and say the train is moving away. As they cry about the heat, it is getting colder at a dangerous rate. The planet is losing heat even though things are heating up with volcanoes and earthquake activity.

Global cooling is hard reality, it is no one’s fantasy. It is not a computer model that creates mental fabrications and estimates of reality without touching on reality itself. Global cooling means cold and lots of it. That means lots more energy to keep warm if you live outside the tropics.

Look at the following video to get a peek at the speed of cooling that is going on. It will show you the northern ice pack; how fast it grew in a recent ten-day period. In the southern hemisphere, we just finished winter, and saw record sea ice form around Antarctica. I can feel that from here in the subtropics, for I live at the furthest point east in all of the Americas in Brazil. Looking down the globe from here it’s a straight ocean run to the ice pack ten thousand odd miles to the south.

Millions of us better start recalculating our lives. Certainly hundreds of towns and cities will have to recalculate their budgets for snow removal. Heating bills will have to be recalculated. Just imagine what will happen to many economies and the retail business if people cannot get out of their homes during the holidays.

It is understandable if it is hard to grasp the full danger here. First, the governments have everyone looking the other way so no one prepares. People in Bulgaria, as we shall see below, are already suffering from what I am talking about and it is still early fall.

Think of it this way to get your mind around it. A hurricane is headed directly toward you and it is going to be a whopper. First thing you do is run to the market and clear out the shelves, stocking up on everything you can think of in a hurry. No time to think because everyone else is running.

Now the size! This storm is going to hit the entire northern hemisphere at the same time starting now and building up and continuing for the next six months. In Bulgaria winter and unending snow of at least 40 hours duration is burying them right now taking their power as well. Even without record snow, record cold will be a storm on millions of lives.

Russia, China, Europe, Canada and the United States will be the worst hit. Crops have already been destroyed from early snow and cold. Do I have to put on a blue jacket and saddle up like Paul Revere yelling the cold is coming the cold is coming? Ebola will be the least of our problems.

I have been writing about global cooling for about seven years. It is that length of time at least since a long list of scientists have been warning us about what is going on. Obviously, we have not been listening and we have these loud obnoxious political sound machines out on all the streets blasting out warning of global warming.

Time Magazine and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced a week ago. “The earth “could be” heading for its warmest year on record. Last month was the warmest September in 135 years of record keeping, with the global average temperature 60.3 degrees Fahrenheit (15.72 degrees Celsius), the Associated Press reports. May, June and August were also record-breaking months. NOAA climate scientist Jessica Blunden told AP it was “pretty likely” that 2014 would be the hottest year since measurements began.

Hard science is staring us right in the face. The sun is in retreat and it does that from time to time without fail. We have had Ebola and war threaten us but now the concern is going to shift week by week to the cold, snow and ice. I would not want to be without a BioMat during a long cold winter. Only problem is they depend on electricity.

US having coldest year on record-2014

This image shows that US is having coldest year on record-2014 “The most widespread heat occurred in 1931, when more than 98% of stations were over 90 degrees.” The percentage of US HCN stations to reach 90 degrees was the smallest on record this year, with four of the five coolest years occurring above 350 PPM CO2.

Winter in Fall

Burgas and Gabrovo remain in distress

Gabrovo and Sevlievo declare emergency in Bulgaria because of extremely severe winter conditions at the end of October with two full months remaining before winter officially arrives. More than fifty villages have no electricity. All roads and passes in the region are blocked. The main roads in the country are closed, trains are stopped, and thousands of subscribers are without electricity. Heavy snow did not stop for ten hours, along with hurricane winds and freezing temperatures. 40 people, including 20 children, were stranded for four hours at the train station after trains stopped moving in the region. Authorities have mobilized all civil protection teams, fire and police, and 50 snowplows. However, their work is hampered by the columns of stranded cars.

The situation in Gabrovo Municipality seems to deteriorate with every passing hour after more than 35 hours of continuous snowfall. The heavy snowfall is cutting power in more and more settlements as their number by the moment is over 90. Three living districts in Gabrovo are also without electricity. Last time I checked it was 44 hours of continuous snow. The post-storm situation following this past week remains critical. Drinking water is unfit for human use due to turbidity of the local lake. About 50 villages and districts in the county town are still without electricity. The dire situation remains in force.

The amount of available grain will decline as temperatures get cooler. Even if you’re able to harvest it, if the wheat is covered with snow when you harvest it, once that snow melts and turns to water, the seeds become moldy. Russia has slashed its wheat crop forecast. Same conditions in the Ukraine – early snows damaged the corn. Sorghum, flax, millet, buckwheat, it doesn’t matter which grain you’re talking about, if it gets wet it’s unusable. As snows arrive earlier with a cooling phase on Earth, grain harvests and planting will be affected.

Even in Hawaii it is cold. Despite the volcanic action in Hawaii over the past few days, the islands of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea experienced a rare and very early snowfall two weeks ago. While snowfall on the big island is nothing new, commonly seen on the mountains on Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea, seeing snow this early in the season on the mountains is somewhat rare. It is exceptionally cold for October in Hawaii.

Moreover, what do we have served up for weather these coming days in the United States from AccuWeather?

Depending on its path, the storm could dump major snowfall over part of New England and as far south as the mountains of northern Georgia, leaving fallen trees and downed power lines in its wake. “A shocking blast of cold air and the potential for snow will highlight the weather for millions in the Eastern states this Halloween into the first weekend of November, says accuweather.com.

“The highest elevations of West Virginia may receive between 1 and 2 feet of snow,” says AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Elliot Abrams. Meanwhile, a different storm will dump rain on the Pacific coast as far south as Southern California, where snow levels could drop to 5,000 feet.

CHILLY WINTER AHEAD FOR EUROPE

Putin will be in the driver’s seat come Winter. The EU will rue the day they agreed to the U.S. economic sanctions against Russia. When they are freezing their asses off and their economies are a shambles in January, the sanctions will be lifted. Book it Dano.

Europeans can count on Russia to supply all the gas they need to stay warm this winter, according to Vladimir Putin. But the President warned that any action by Ukraine to disrupt the transit of fuel, will be felt across the EU. Read More: http://on.rt.com/sax0ov

I HATE SPRING PART ONE

It’s officially been Spring for 3 days now.

The wind chill this morning is 9 degrees.

I froze my balls off walking from my parking garage to my office.

Forecast for the rest of today – shitty and cold.

Forecast for tomorrow – shittier, colder and snow.

 

 Could I please get some global warming around here? Someone call Al Gore. I hate Spring.

THE BROKEN LIMB & BURST PIPE FALLACIES

“Economics is haunted by more fallacies than any other study known to man. This is no accident. While certain public policies would in the long run benefit everybody, other policies would benefit one group only at the expense of all other groups. The group that would benefit by such policies, having such a direct interest in them, will argue for them plausibly and persistently. It will hire the best buyable minds to devote their whole time to presenting its case. And it will finally either convince the general public that its case is sound, or so befuddle it that clear thinking on the subject becomes next to impossible.

In addition to these endless pleadings of self-interest, there is a second main factor that spawns new economic fallacies every day. This is the persistent tendency of man to see only the immediate effects of a given policy, or its effects only on a special group, and to neglect to inquire what the long-run effects of that policy will be not only on that special group but on all groups. It is the fallacy of overlooking secondary consequences.” Henry Hazlitt – Economics in One Lesson

 

Saturday was the first day since a double shot of snow and ice storms hit the Philadelphia metro area on Monday and Wednesday I had a chance to drive around Montgomery County and witness the devastation firsthand. Over 750,000 homes lost power at the height of the ice storm on Wednesday and over 100,000 remained without power this past weekend. The mainstream media has become such a farce and propaganda machine for vested interests, it is essential to verify with your own eyes everything they report as fact. Their purpose is to entertain the consciously ignorant, exaggerate threats to keep the low IQ multitudes fearful, and function as mouthpieces for the ruling class. Deceitful corporate executives, mendacious government apparatchiks, and oblivious teleprompter reading media talking heads have been utilizing cold weather as an excuse for every poor earnings announcement, horrific employment report, and dreadful decline in retail sales. It certainly has nothing to do with decades of stagnant household income, awful monetary and fiscal policies, or the consequences of Obamacare.  

We have become a delusional state dependent upon fallacies to convince ourselves our foolhardy beliefs, ludicrous economic policies, corrupt captured political system, and preposterously fraudulent financial system are actually based on sound logic and reason.  Some fallacies have been perpetrated intentionally by the ruling class to manipulate, sway and deceive the populace, while others have been willfully employed by millions of techno-narcissistic iGadget addicted zombies as a substitute for thinking, reasoning and taking responsibility for the course of our nation.

You have men who constitute the unseen true ruling power of the country making a conscious and intentional effort to peddle fallacies to the masses in order to manipulate, mold, and corral them in a manner beneficial to the ruling power, financially, politically, and socially. The ruling class has been hugely successful in their capture of the public mind, creating a vast majority of the willfully ignorant who desperately grasp at fallacious concepts, beliefs, and storylines in order to avoid dealing with reality and being accountable for their actions and the actions of their leaders.   

The fallacy being flogged by government drones and the legacy media about companies not hiring new employees because it has been cold and snowy during the winter is beyond absurd, except to someone who lives in the cocoon of Washington D.C. or regurgitates words processed on a teleprompter by paid minions of the ruling class. If you live in the real world, run a business, or manage employees, you understand weather has absolutely nothing to do with your decision to hire an employee. An organization takes weeks or months to hire employees. They don’t stop hiring because it snowed on Wednesday or the temperature was below normal. The contention that hiring has been weak for the last two months due to weather is outlandish and based upon flawed logic and warped reasoning. It is so illogical, only an Ivy League economist could believe it.

The other fallacy being pontificated by retail executives in denial, cheerleaders on CNBC and the rest of the propaganda press is weather is to blame for terrible retail sales over the last quarter. Again, this argument is specious in its conception. The retail executives use weather as an excuse for their failure in execution, hubris in over-expanding, and arrogance in pursuit of quarterly earnings per share and bonuses. CNBC and the rest of the Wall Street media pawns must provide lame fallacies for the corporate fascists regarding our downward economic path or the masses my wake up to reality. Protecting and expanding the wealth of the parasitic oligarch class is the one and only purpose of the corporate media.

Think about whether cold and snow in the winter will really stop purchases by individuals. If you need a new shirt for work or a pair of sneakers and it snows on Wednesday, you will wait until Saturday to make the purchase. Groceries will be consumed and replenished whether it is cold and snowy, or not. If an appliance or car breaks down, weather will be a non-factor in the new purchase decision. The proliferation of on-line retailing allows everyone to shop from the warmth of their homes. If anything, bad winter weather often spurs stocking up of groceries and the purchase of items needed to contend with winter weather (salt, shovels, coats, hats, gloves). Only an asinine spokes-model bimbo on CNBC could non-questioningly report the press release excuses of retailers. Critical thinking skills and journalistic integrity are non-essential traits among the propaganda mainstream press today.

Revealing the truth about pitiful employment growth and dreadful retail sales would destroy the fallacy of economic recovery stimulated by the monetary policies of the Federal Reserve and fiscal policies of the Federal government. The ruling class must perpetuate the myth that central bankers pumping $3.2 trillion of debt into the veins Wall Street banks and Obama dumping $6.7 trillion of debt onto the shoulders of future generations in order to cure a cancerous disease created by debt, has revived our economy and cured the disease. The unseen governing class cannot admit their traitorous actions have impoverished the working middle class, destroyed small businesses, depleted senior citizens of their savings, and warped our economic system to such an extent that recovery in now impossible. If the ignorant masses were to become sentient, the ruling class would become lamppost decorations.

After discovering water pipes at my rental property had burst due to the extreme cold weather and witnessing the widespread damage caused by the mid-week ice storm, I immediately thought how overjoyed my favorite Keynesian, Ivy League, Nobel Prize winning, New York Times scribbler, Paul (destruction is good) Krugman must be. All this destruction and devastation will be a tremendous boost to the economy according to Krugman and his ilk. This intellectually deceitful, morally bankrupt, despicable excuse for a human being spoke these words of wisdom three days after the 9/11 attacks:   

“Ghastly as it may seem to say this, the terror attack – like the original day of infamy, which brought an end to the Great Depression – could even do some economic good.  So the direct economic impact of the attacks will probably not be that bad. And there will, potentially, be two favorable effects. First, the driving force behind the economic slowdown has been a plunge in business investment. Now, all of a sudden, we need some new office buildings. As I’ve already indicated, the destruction isn’t big compared with the economy, but rebuilding will generate at least some increase in business spending.”

He had expanded his broken window beliefs to broken buildings, broken nations, and a broken people. You can’t keep a cunning Keynesian down when they need to propagate discredited fallacies in order to feed their own ego and promote foolish debt fueled spending by government, consumers and corporations as a solution to all economic ills. It makes no difference to a statist like Krugman that Frederic Bastiat had obliterated the preposterous notion that destruction and the money spent to repair the destruction was a net benefit to society, 164 years ago in his essay – That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen. Bastiat’s logic is unassailable. Only the most highly educated Princeton economists don’t get it.    

Have you ever witnessed the anger of the good shopkeeper, James B., when his careless son has happened to break a pane of glass? If you have been present at such a scene, you will most assuredly bear witness to the fact that every one of the spectators, were there even thirty of them, by common consent apparently, offered the unfortunate owner this invariable consolation – “It is an ill wind that blows nobody good. Everybody must live, and what would become of the glaziers if panes of glass were never broken?”

Now, this form of condolence contains an entire theory, which it will be well to show up in this simple case, seeing that it is precisely the same as that which, unhappily, regulates the greater part of our economical institutions.

Suppose it cost six francs to repair the damage, and you say that the accident brings six francs to the glazier’s trade – that it encourages that trade to the amount of six francs – I grant it; I have not a word to say against it; you reason justly. The glazier comes, performs his task, receives his six francs, rubs his hands, and, in his heart, blesses the careless child. All this is that which is seen.

But if, on the other hand, you come to the conclusion, as is too often the case, that it is a good thing to break windows, that it causes money to circulate, and that the encouragement of industry in general will be the result of it, you will oblige me to call out, “Stop there! Your theory is confined to that which is seen; it takes no account of that which is not seen.”

It is not seen that as our shopkeeper has spent six francs upon one thing, he cannot spend them upon another. It is not seen that if he had not had a window to replace, he would, perhaps, have replaced his old shoes, or added another book to his library. In short, he would have employed his six francs in some way, which this accident has prevented.

I wonder whether the myopic focus on only immediate impacts and inability of ideologues to understand unintended consequences is premeditated or just erroneous reasoning. The broken window fallacy can now be extended to broken limbs and burst pipes across the Northeast. Huge trees have been toppled, limbs and branches are strewn on the properties of homeowners across the region, homes and businesses have been physically damaged, and power outages wrecked profits at small businesses. Society has gained no benefit whatsoever from the mass destruction wrought by these storms. Thi

s weather induced ruin exposes GDP calculations as useless and misleading regarding the true economic health of the nation. The hundreds of millions in destruction will not be factored into the GDP calculation, but the spending by homeowners and businesses to remove downed trees, fix broken roofs, replace burst pipes and clean-up debris will be factored positively in the GDP calculation. The inevitable politician response will be increased government spending to repair damage to infrastructure. This will also be additive to GDP. Krugman will get a tingle up his leg.

CNBC’s Cramer & Liesman will rave about the unexpectedly strong GDP in the first quarter as proof the economy is doing great. The fallacy that GDP growth and stock market gains are beneficial to the average American will be flogged by the propaganda press at the behest of the ruling class until the last vestiges of national wealth are confiscated by the oligarchs. In the real world, the destruction caused by the harsh winter weather will not benefit society one iota. GDP will reflect the immediate short-term seen impact of the cleanup and repair of property damage. GDP will ignore the unseen opportunity costs which were lost and the long-term consequences of expenditures made to put property back in the condition in which it started. Destruction does not create profit, except in the Keynesian world of Krugman and his Ivy League educated sycophant cronies.

There are 2.5 million households in the Philadelphia metro area. There are hundreds of thousands with trees down, pipes frozen, gutters smashed, roofs leaking and electrical infrastructure damaged. An individual homeowner with a couple of large trees down will need to pay $500 to $1,000 for a tree service to remove the debris from their property. Considering the median household income in Montgomery County, PA is $75,000, that is not an insubstantial sum.

The homeowner did not anticipate this expenditure and will react by not dining out, taking a shorter vacation, not buying that new couch, or not investing in their small business. A landlord who has to repair busted pipes will incur added expense, resulting in less profit. Less profit means less taxes paid to the state and federal government, exacerbating their budget deficits. The landlord will defer replacing that old air conditioner for at least another year. Multiply these scenarios across the entire Northeastern United States and you have the long-term negative financial implications outweighing the short-term boost to GDP.

The Keynesian fallacy of increased economic activity being beneficial is annihilated by the fact homeowners and business owners are left in the same condition as they were prior to the storms, while the money spent to achieve the same property condition was not spent on other goods and services that would have truly expanded the economy. The fallacious government engineered GDP calculation will portray destruction as an economic boost. Keynesian worshiping economists and government bureaucrats observe this tragedy as only between two parties, the consumer who is forced to repair their property and is denied the pleasure of spending their money on something more enjoyable and the tree service company who experiences a positive impact to their business. They exclude the appliance store, restaurant, or hotel that did not receive the money spent on repairing the property. It is this third unseen party who is left out of the equation. It is this third party that shows the absurdity of believing destruction leads to profit and economic advancement. The national economic output is not increased, but highly educated government drones and Wall Street captured economists will point to GDP and disseminate the fallacy.

This leads us to government in general and the fallacy that government spending, government borrowing, and government programs are beneficial to society and the economy. Legalized plunder of the populace through income taxes, real estate taxes, sales taxes, gasoline taxes, cigarette taxes, license fees, sewer fees, tolls, and a myriad of other ass raping techniques is used to subsidize crony capitalist special interests, the military industrial complex, faux wars on poverty, drugs and terror, a failed public education system, vote buying entitlement programs, and a tax code written to benefit those who pay the biggest bribes to the corrupt politicians slithering around the halls of congress.

Government is a criminal enterprise designed to take from the weak and powerless while benefitting the connected and powerful. The government extracts the earnings of citizens and businesses at the point of a gun and redistributes those funds to special interests; funding boondoggles, wars of choice, foreign dictators, and the corporate and banking interests who control the puppet strings of Washington politicians. State organized and legal plunder designed to enrich everyone at the expense of everyone else is the delusional fallacy permeating our cultural mindset today.

President Obama declared my region a disaster area, allowing for government funds to supposedly help in the cleanup efforts. Again, the fallacy of government intervention benefiting society is unquestioned by the ignorant masses. Local and State governments are required by law to balance their budgets. The never ending progression of storms and record cold temperatures has already blown the winter storm budgets of transportation departments across the region. Gaping potholes are swallowing vehicles and will need to be repaired.

Government spokespersons and politicians tell the public not to worry. The government will come to the rescue, even when the funds officially run out. They won’t react the way a family would react to a budget overage, by cutting spending in another area. We have had mild winters in the recent past when the winter road budgets were far under. Did the government set aside this surplus for winters like the one we are currently experiencing? Of course not – they spent it on some other boondoggle program or useless shovel ready bridge to nowhere. Government politicians and their lackeys do not look beyond their 2 year election cycle.

The government budget overages due to winter storms will show up in the GDP calculation as a positive impact. A snowplow pushing snow to the side of the road and a crew filing a pothole has put the roadway back into the condition it was prior to the bad weather. The roadway is exactly the same. The money spent could have been used to pay down debt, fund the government pension shortfalls which will overwhelm taxpayers in the foreseeable future, or be given back to citizens to spend as they choose. There has been no net benefit to society.

No government spending provides a net benefit to society. Every government program, law, regulation, subsidy, tax or fee gives rise to a series of effects. The immediate seen effect may be favorable in the eyes of myopic politicians and an ignorant populace, but most government intervention in our lives proves to be fatal and unsustainable in the long-term. Whatever short-term benefits might accrue is far outweighed by the long-term negative implications on future generations. All government expenditures are foisted upon the public either through increased taxation or state created surreptitious inflation.         

We have a country built on a Himalayan mountain of fallacies. We are a short-term oriented people who only care about our present situation, giving no thought about long-term consequences of our policies, programs, laws or actions. Critical thinking skills, reasoning abilities, and a basic understanding of mathematical concepts appear to be beyond our grasp. We’d rather believe falsehoods than deal with the harsh lessons of reality. We choose to experience the severe penalties of burying our heads in the sand over using our God given ability to think and foresee the future consequences of our irrational choices. We suffer from the ultimately fatal disease of ignorance, as described by Bastiat.

This explains the fatally grievous condition of mankind. Ignorance surrounds its cradle: then its actions are determined by their first consequences, the only ones which, in its first stage, it can see. It is only in the long run that it learns to take account of the others. It has to learn this lesson from two very different masters – experience and foresight. Experience teaches effectually, but brutally. It makes us acquainted with all the effects of an action, by causing us to feel them; and we cannot fail to finish by knowing that fire burns, if we have burned ourselves. For this rough teacher, I should like, if possible, to substitute a more gentle one. I mean Foresight.

It’s a big country and one fallacy doesn’t fit all. Some fallacies are committed purposefully by evil men with evil intent. The Wall Street financial elite, big corporations, big media and their politician puppets fall into this category. Other fallacies are executed by people whose salary depends upon the fallacies being believed by the masses. Middle level bankers, managers, journalists, and bureaucrats fall into this category. And lastly you have the willfully ignorant masses who would rather believe fallacies than look up from their iGadgets, Facebook, and Twitter and think. The thing about fallacies is they eventually are buried under an avalanche of reality. If you listen closely you can hear the rumble of snow beginning to give way on the mountaintop. Fallacies are about to be crushed and swept away by the real world of consequences.

“Wall Street had been doing business with pieces of paper; and now someone asked for a dollar, and it was discovered that the dollar had been mislaid.  It was an experience for which the captains of industry were not entirely prepared; they had forgotten the public.  It was like some great convulsion of nature, which made mockery of all the powers of men, and left the beholder dazed and terrified.   In Wall Street men stood as if in a valley, and saw far above them the starting of an avalanche; they stood fascinated with horror, and watched it gathering headway; saw the clouds of dust rising up, and heard the roar of it swelling, and realized it was only a matter of time before it swept them to their destruction…

But it is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon him not understanding it.”

Upton Sinclair – The Moneychangers

 

I HATE WINTER

Our next round of global warming has just begun. Temperatures will be plunging into the single digits, with wind chills of 10 degrees below zero. As an added benefit we are getting 9 to 16 inches of snow. I really need to move south. This global warming shit is getting old.