Author: VD

I find it a bit tiresome when people leap in and start pontificating about supposed certainties that some of the best minds in the business aren’t sure about, so here’s an easy way of helping us keep track of the single most important economic question of the day. If you’re an inflationist, then provide everyone with one definite consequence of the inflation you expect. If you’re a deflationist, tell us one obvious consequence of future deflation.

For example, if there is inflation, I expect the US dollar price of gold to increase to beyond its inflation-corrected 1980 peak of $2,325. If there is deflation, I expect total credit market debt outstanding to shrink and total credit market debt/GDP to fall below 200 percent. If everyone who has an informed opinion on the matter contributes and we all agree upon the indicators, we’ll have a nice, detailed list of checkboxes to contemplate as the situation unfolds.

My feeling is that the initial indicators have favored the deflationary scenario, since I would have expected much higher CPI and gold prices with the explosion in M2 and interest rates at effective zero.

And for the pedantic, inflation here is defined as “a general increase in the money supply. Often confused with its primary symptom, an increase in the general level of prices. The Consumer Price Index is the primary statistical measure of price levels, not inflation per se.” Deflation, obviously, is a general decrease in the money supply.

Steve Sailer suggests that the Atlantic Monthly 50 is less than authoritative, at least from an Internet perspective.

The Atlantic Monthly has put together a list it calls The Atlantic 50, which it describes as “the columnists and bloggers and broadcast pundits who shape the national debates:” At a reader’s suggestion, I looked up on Google Trends the number of searches for each name on this list. “steve sailer” came in ahead of 19 of The Atlantic 50.

I have to admit, I was a little surprised that I managed to edge out Steve by his alternative metric. But then, I am remarkably handsome, so if you take out the women who come merely to bask in the radiance of my arrogance and the Queer Party Friends, I’m sure he’d have the advantage.

The budding scandal about the disappearing global warming data doesn’t surprise me in the least. The whole thing has been an obvious scam from the beginning. What it demonstrates is that science hasn’t merely been corrupted, it has been co-opted. It is rapidly becoming obvious that due to the increased dependence upon government funding by scientists, they can be expected to provide information of approximately the same reliable quality as employees at the Department of Motor Vehicles provide service.

In the early 1980s, with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy, scientists at the United Kingdom’s University of East Anglia established the Climate Research Unit (CRU) to produce the world’s first comprehensive history of surface temperature. It’s known in the trade as the “Jones and Wigley” record for its authors, Phil Jones and Tom Wigley, and it served as the primary reference standard for the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) until 2007. It was this record that prompted the IPCC to claim a “discernible human influence on global climate.”…

Warwick Hughes, an Australian scientist, wondered where that “+/–” came from, so he politely wrote Phil Jones in early 2005, asking for the original data. Jones’s response to a fellow scientist attempting to replicate his work was, “We have 25 years or so invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?”

Reread that statement, for it is breathtaking in its anti-scientific thrust. In fact, the entire purpose of replication is to “try and find something wrong.” The ultimate objective of science is to do things so well that, indeed, nothing is wrong.

Then the story changed. In June 2009, Georgia Tech’s Peter Webster told Canadian researcher Stephen McIntyre that he had requested raw data, and Jones freely gave it to him. So McIntyre promptly filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the same data. Despite having been invited by the National Academy of Sciences to present his analyses of millennial temperatures, McIntyre was told that he couldn’t have the data because he wasn’t an “academic.” So his colleague Ross McKitrick, an economist at the University of Guelph, asked for the data. He was turned down, too.

I think Vox’s Second Law applies here: If a government agency says X, then Not-X is true. I’m just wondering which would be considered the bigger science scandal. The AGW/CC fraud or the so-called Moon landings if the discovery of Moon water turns out to prove that Man never landed there.

On a related note, assuming Krugman’s Keynesianism doesn’t destroy his reputation once it becomes clear that this second stimulus plan has failed because economic theory is over the average NYT reader’s head, this conclusion to his column today should eventually suffice: “The claim that climate legislation will kill the economy deserves the same disdain as the claim that global warming is a hoax. The truth about the economics of climate change is that it’s relatively easy being green.”

I’m sorry, but if you still haven’t figured out the need to keep your children out of the clutches of the NEA indoctrination squads, you deserve what’s going to happen to them. The sad thing is, they don’t. The creepiest part is the line about how everyone is “equal in his sight”.

It has taken a while to show up, but the long-expected contraction of total credit market debt outstanding has finally begun. The effect is disguised somewhat due to the GDP revisions that reduced Debt/GDP from the previously reported 375 percent to 373 percent, but the raw debt figures show a clear, albeit small, decline.

Q1 2009 373.2 percent $52,915 billion
Q2 2009 373.3 percent $52,793 billion

To put into perspective how even such a small decline such as this $122 billion one is unusual, the Fed’s Z1 report shows how debt rose to the present level from $13.8 trillion in 1990 by increasing more than $500 million per quarter and at a quarterly rate of $921 million since 2004. Debt expansion even continued through 2008 and the first quarter of 2009, although it slowed to a rate of $579 billion per quarter.

This decrease in total credit market debt may be the first sign of the debt-deleveraging process that Steve Keen of Debtwatch has already detected taking place in Australia now starting to roll in the USA.

“We are currently deleveraging at the 4% rate, and debt has fallen from 165% of GDP in March 2008 to 159% today–a 6% fall as a percentage of GDP, as noted above.”

Note that this $122 billion decline in total debt has taken place despite a large $390 billion increase in state, local, and federal debt and another $40 billion increase in corporate debt. However, it is NOT the household sector that is driving the deleveraging, although households did shed nearly $133 billion of debt in the first half of the year. The primary contributor is the financial sector, which has reduced its debt burden by $562 billion since peaking at the end of 2008, most of it in the second quarter. This suggests that the next stage in the global economic contraction is on deck and ready to begin in earnest once the markets turn south again.

It is science:

Since man first touched the moon and brought pieces of it back to Earth, scientists have thought that the lunar surface was bone dry. But new observations from three different spacecraft have put this notion to rest with what has been called “unambiguous evidence” of water across the surface of the moon…. Finding water on the moon would be a boon to possible future lunar bases, acting as a potential source of drinking water and fuel.

The novel had many flaws, but it’s still lightweight fun. My favorite scene is Aboard Assault Shuttle LST(N)-14, 7 November 2069, 06:00 GMT. The OC and I would write a much better book were we to do it again, but nevertheless, it has its moments.

Speaking of books, I just learned that Summa Elvetica is now available on Kindle, in case you’ve got one. My fiction writing would appear to have improved a bit in the twelve years that separate the two novels, as the latest review gives SE five stars: “There have been a few fantasy authors who have “role reversed” fantasy races (Orcs as protagonists, Dragons having just cause against humans) which I always enjoy, but I haven’t read an author yet who elevates the intrinsic meaning of the races in this manner. Not even close. Aside from an unfortunate naming convention, the work is unburdened, brisk and deep. But I guess if LOTR could survive the Saruman/Sauron “confusion”, Summa Elvetica will have no problem rising in standing over the years. Especially if Beale follows it up with more tales of spiritual controversy in the realm of “true” medieval fantasy. A riveting tale, well-told and driven by, and to, greatness.”

I’m delighted, of course, to discover that some readers regard the book so highly, and very much appreciate the time that they have taken to post reviews on Amazon. However, I would also like to point out that the naming convention to which I think the reviewer is referring, however unfortunate, is not of my invention. The confusing similarity between the two major characters’ names merely reflects the fact that one owns the other. Roman slaves were often named in the possessive form of their owner, for example, Caesaris belonged to Caesar.

And scientists don’t lie about science:

The head of research at one of the world’s leading scientific institutions, in Switzerland, has resigned after it emerged that data about hydrocarbon structures had been tampered with…. The science world is no stranger to scandal – in 2002, a committee from Bell Labs in the USA found Jan Hendrik Schön, one of the rising stars of physics, guilty of 16 charges of misconduct after he manipulated and misrepresented data in his research on microelectronics and superconductivity. It emerged that none of the most significant physical results of his experiments had been witnessed by any of his co-authors or colleagues.

Prof Victor Ninov from the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in California claimed in 1999 to have discovered chemical element 118, before he was fired amid allegations his data was faked.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, the scientific frauds that have been discovered and admitted to are almost surely dwarfed by the number that have successfully eluded the “rigorous” process of peer review. And it tends to indicate that attempting to construct an objective moral standard for Man based on science would not merely fail, but prove downright disastrous.

R wonders what would qualify:

I’d very much appreciate it if you would elaborate on what you would consider a falsification of Christianity.

There are numerous possibilities, including:

1) The discovery of Jesus Christ’s body.
2) An intact Temple in Jerusalem.
3) The end of war or poverty.
4) The elimination of the Christian Church.
5) Immortality science.
6) A demonstrated ability to avoid Biblical sin.
7) The destruction of the Jewish people.

These are all material things, easily and objectively observable. It is incorrect to claim that religion is magically beyond scientific observation. God may be, but it’s readily apparent that most religions, including Christianity, are not.

Republicans argue over who should be kicked out of the party first, Glenn Beck or Ron Paul?

We need to focus on Paul before we can get to Beck. What makes Paul a crackpot who we should cast out from Conservatism? Sure, he’s got some economic crackpot ideas about the Gold Standard and the Federal Reserve. But are those banishment worthy? No. They’re intellectual junk food, not intellectual poison. I don’t like them but I’m not going to say someone shouldn’t be allowed to be part of the movement because they advocate them. Paul gets cast out because of his insane foreign policy views. He’s an absolute isolationist who wants us to cut off our support and alliance with Israel. His foreign policy is all but in line with the anti-war Left. John Podhoretz fisked this issue of Paul as an anti-Semite for Commentary back in 2007 and isolated several reasons why people could regard Paul as an enemy of the Jews. (Though Podhoretz himself disagreed with the overall assessment.) So that’s the central problem with Paul.

Good, boot them both out, as I would like to see them establish a genuine alternative to the bi-factional ruling party, an isolationist, hard money, Constitution-respecting, sovereignty-defending American Freedom Party that combines the best of the Constitution Party and the Libertarian Party. Look at the modern Republican media “conservative”. Their primary concerns are: 1) defending the Federal Reserve monopoly, 2) protecting Wall Street from the consequences of its actions, 3) maintaining Empire abroad, 4) Israel uber alles. There’s no rational reason for any actual American conservative, let alone a libertarian, to give these “conservative” views any consideration whatsoever. It’s increasingly obvious that the label “conservative” has been hijacked in a manner similar to the way that “liberal” was captured decades ago.

The Other McCain has the links, just in case you’re interested in the Beck-Levin catfight. I couldn’t care less about it, since none of them, Beck included, appear to be sentient enough to have recognized the only relevant point. Ron Paul happens to be entirely correct, and no matter how highly these “conservatives” think of the Federal Reserve system, Wall Street’s perverted parody of capitalism, and the Pax Americana, all three are going to collapse sooner than any of them dream possible. Israel, on the other hand, should be all right, but the sooner the Israelis stop relying on American Jews and Christian Zionists to funnel US taxpayer money to them, the better off they’ll be. Welfare didn’t help the inner city and it’s not helping Israel either.

Other than Ron Paul, I have no use for the lot of them or their mad dominance-humpery. I don’t watch television or listen to the radio anyhow. As for the two-party system that concerns them so deeply, well, I’m with Demosthenes:

“You used, men of Athens, to pay taxes by Boards: today you conduct your politics by Boards. On either side there is an orator as leader, and a general under him; and for the Three Hundred, there are those who come to shout. The rest of you distribute yourselves between the two parties, some on either side. This system you must give up: you must even now become your own masters….”

I am pleased to be able to say that I have never cast a vote for either a Republican or a Democrat for president. When I look at the choices I have been presented by the two parties over the course of my voting eligibility, George Bush, Michael Dukakis, Bill Clinton, Bob Dole, George W. Bush, Al Gore, John Kerry, John McCain, and Barack Obama, there is not a single candidate I regret not voting for.

76 Mounds View Meerkats (2-0)
54 Burns Redbeards (0-2)

64 Valders Valkyries (2-0)
53 Masonville Marauders (0-2)

82 Judean Front (2-0)
62 Winston Reverends (0-2)

68 Bane Silvers (2-0)
58 Black Mouth Curs (1-1)

78 Alamo City Spartans (1-1)
42 Greenfield Grizzlies (0-2)

The Meerkats’ season is off to a most excellent start, beginning as it has with wins over Nate and the White Buffalo. I’m a little concerned about my starting RBs, though, as both Portis and Forte are underperforming to a shocking degree. I’d like Sproles a lot better if Tomlinson wasn’t due to come back soon. Harvin, on the other hand, has been a pleasant, if not entirely unexpected, surprise. And with three good quarterbacks on the roster, I should be able to trade for a more effective RB in a week or two.