Getting the debt under control

Tax increases alone

If lawmakers opted to reduce the deficit strictly through tax increases, they would need raise more than $500 billion in new revenue, according to a Tax Policy Center study.

And they'd have to hike tax rates by a third to pull it off -- the bottom rate would go from 10% to 13.7%, and the top rate would rise from 35% today to 48%.

If they just wanted to raise the top three rates, they'd have to jack them up by 88%. So, for example, the top rate would rise from 35% to 66%.

To hit the deficit target by only raising rates on the highest-income households would require a far more drastic jump. Rates for individuals making more than $200,000 (or $250,000 for couples) would more than double, with the top rate approaching 77%.

All of these estimates don't account for how those taxpayers would behave when faced with higher taxes. If they did, the rate jumps would need to be even higher, said Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center.

Spending cuts alone

Trying to achieve the same deficit reduction without increasing taxes could be done by slashing spending.

But the cuts would be harsh. For instance, discretionary spending would need to be cut by 40%, according to an analysis by Sullivan. Discretionary spending pays for everything except Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and interest on the debt. In other words, it funds most federal government services and support, including defense, education and infrastructure.

Alternatively, lawmakers could just cut mandatory spending on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security by 25%.

Or they could just cut total spending -- both discretionary and mandatory -- by 13%.

Read the rest here.

Note: The above figures DO NOT balance the budget. They reduce deficits to levels that some suggest would be sustainable as a percentage of Debt/GDP. Color me skeptical.

Bill Gross is dumping Treasury Bonds

From The Business Insider, April 12, 2010:

Nine months ago, Bill Gross's Total Return Fund was 50% in US Treasuries. Now it's only 30%, the lowest percentage in the 23 year history of the fund, says Nelson Schwartz of the NYT.

Why is Gross dumping Treasuries?

Two primary concerns:

* Inflation
* The massive tidal wave of money the US needs to raise in the coming years, which will increase the supply of Treasuries (driving prices down and rates up).

More broadly, Gross believes that, while interest rates have now generally been declining for more than 25 years, we're now moving to an era in which rates will rise, not fall.

PIMCO has shifted money into corporate bonds and foreign bonds, including Germany.

Source

FYI Bill Gross is possibly the foremost bond trader in the United States. He is one of very few people in the financial world who when he speaks people on Wall Street stop what they are dong and turn up the volume on CNBC.

LA: Too broke to investigate murders

In January, Los Angeles Police Det. Nate Kouri was ordered to stop working.

One of the LAPD's most productive homicide investigators sat idle for six weeks, unable to follow any leads on old cases or pick up new ones. Kouri was not being punished for misconduct or for botching an investigation. He was benched for working too hard -- and he is not the only one.

With the city reeling from its worst financial crisis in decades, the LAPD has stopped paying officers overtime wages, except in rare situations. In lieu of cash, officials have implemented a strict policy of forcing cops to take time off when they accrue large amounts of overtime hours. Because of demanding work schedules that routinely require them to investigate a case into the night or through the weekend, homicide detectives have been among the first officers to be sent home in significant numbers.

Read the rest here.

The Better Pope?

...But there’s another story to be told about John Paul II and his besieged successor. The last pope was a great man, but he was also a weak administrator, a poor delegator, and sometimes a dreadful judge of character.

The church’s dilatory response to the sex abuse scandals was a testament to these weaknesses. So was John Paul’s friendship with the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, the founder of the Legionaries of Christ. The last pope loved him and defended him. But we know now that Father Maciel was a sexually voracious sociopath. And thanks to a recent exposé by The National Catholic Reporter’s Jason Berry, we know the secret of Maciel’s Vatican success: He was an extraordinary fund-raiser, and those funds often flowed to members of John Paul’s inner circle.

Only one churchman comes out of Berry’s story looking good: Joseph Ratzinger. Berry recounts how Ratzinger lectured to a group of Legionary priests, and was subsequently handed an envelope of money “for his charitable use.” The cardinal “was tough as nails in a very cordial way,” a witness said, and turned the money down.

This isn’t an isolated case. In the 1990s, it was Ratzinger who pushed for a full investigation of Hans Hermann Groer, the Vienna cardinal accused of pedophilia, only to have his efforts blocked in the Vatican. It was Ratzinger who persuaded John Paul, in 2001, to centralize the church’s haphazard system for handling sex abuse allegations in his office. It was Ratzinger who re-opened the long-dormant investigation into Maciel’s conduct in 2004, just days after John Paul II had honored the Legionaries in a Vatican ceremony. It was Ratzinger, as Pope Benedict, who banished Maciel to a monastery and ordered a comprehensive inquiry into his order.

So the high-flying John Paul let scandals spread beneath his feet, and the uncharismatic Ratzinger was left to clean them up. This pattern extends to other fraught issues that the last pope tended to avoid — the debasement of the Catholic liturgy, or the rise of Islam in once-Christian Europe. And it extends to the caliber of the church’s bishops, where Benedict’s appointments are widely viewed as an improvement over the choices John Paul made. It isn’t a coincidence that some of the most forthright ecclesiastical responses to the abuse scandal have come from friends and protégés of the current pope.

Read the rest here.

I could (and do) disagree with some of this article. But in general I would call it the first reasonably fair piece I have seen in the Times on this tragic subject. +Benedict was not, and is not perfect. He made mistakes. But unlike so many others the mistakes in his case were exceptions and not the rule. And unlike so many others he seems to have grasped the great danger to his church fairly early on and tried to attack it.

John Paul II was without doubt a great Pope who did much and whose personal sanctity has been much spoken of. But great leaders and even saints are sometimes not appreciated as such during their lifetime. More than a few have been reviled and suffered false and unfair accusations. With the passage of time I think history will be much kinder to +Benedict XVI than some now expect. He may indeed, as the author suggests, be remembered as the better Pope.

Rained out...

A long planned BBQ for today got canceled due to some uncooperative weather. So here I sit trying to decide between Volume II of Lord Norwich's history of Byzantium and a really good detective novel by Dan Mahoney. Hmmmm

American Consumers Face End of Era of Cheap Credit

Even as prospects for the American economy brighten, consumers are about to face a new financial burden: a sustained period of rising interest rates.

That, economists say, is the inevitable outcome of the nation’s ballooning debt and the renewed prospect of inflation as the economy recovers from the depths of the recent recession.

The shift is sure to come as a shock to consumers whose spending habits were shaped by a historic 30-year decline in the cost of borrowing.

“Americans have assumed the roller coaster goes one way,” said Bill Gross, whose investment firm, Pimco, has taken part in a broad sell-off of government debt, which has pushed up interest rates. “It’s been a great thrill as rates descended, but now we face an extended climb.”

Read the rest here.

Could Obama shift the Supreme Court to the right?

...Nonetheless, it’s entirely possible that a more conservative court could turn out to be Obama’s paradoxical legacy -- particularly if he only serves a single term. The likelihood of the court shifting to the right is greater than that of its moving leftward.

In part, this could have been predicted even before he took office. It reflects less about Obama than it does the identity of the departing justices, one liberal followed by another. The next oldest justice is Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 77. Conservatives are reaping the benefit of the Bushes, father and son, having selected justices who were relatively young. Justice Clarence Thomas was 43 when tapped, Chief Justice John Roberts was 50 and Justice Samuel Alito was 55.

Only in the case of a departure by 74-year-old Justice Antonin Scalia -- not likely to occur voluntarily during a Democratic presidency -- or Justice Anthony Kennedy, 73, would Obama have an opportunity to dramatically alter the court’s ideological makeup...

...By contrast, it’s likely, although not certain, that a Stevens replacement will be more conservative than the justice himself. If so, this would be largely in line with history. In an interview with Jeffrey Rosen for the New York Times Magazine in 2007, Stevens noted, “Including myself, every judge who’s been appointed to the court since Lewis Powell [chosen by Richard Nixon in 1971] has been more conservative than his or her predecessor.” Stevens excepted Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who replaced the more conservative Byron White.

Read the rest here.

Trying to ease an almost unbearable grief

Continuing with today's rather morbid postings...

DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. — Shortly after 4:20 a.m. on Easter Sunday, a pair of flag-covered cases with the remains of two Marines, both killed the previous week in Afghanistan, were carried out of the belly of a C-17 into the sight of their waiting families.

As two mothers, a widow and a knot of other kin watched from the tarmac, the bodies of Sgt. Frank J. World, 25, of Buffalo and Lance Cpl. Tyler O. Griffin, 19, of Voluntown, Conn., were loaded into a large van. Marines in white gloves and camouflage fatigues gave a final salute in the dark chill, then marched in formation behind the van as it rolled slowly toward the base mortuary, the largest in the nation.

In the past year, as the remains of 462 service members along with nearly 2,000 relatives have passed through Dover, the experience on the flight line has become as common as it is excruciating. Now, to meet the demand and to accommodate what Dover officials expect to be increasing casualties from Afghanistan, the military has embarked on a building surge at this main entry point for the nation’s war dead.

In January, Dover opened the Center for the Families of the Fallen, a $1.6 million, 6,000-square-foot space of soft lighting and earth-toned furniture where parents, spouses, children, siblings and other relatives assemble before they are taken to the flight line. On May 1, there is to be a groundbreaking for a new $4.5 million hotel for families who need to spend the night. The same day, ground will also be broken on what Dover officials are calling a meditation center, a nondenominational space with an adjacent garden where relatives can pray or be alone.

Read the rest here.

Poland reeling and questions needing answers

In the wake of the catastrophic plane wreck it is worth noting just how much damage has been done to the Polish government and society.

In addition to the death of their president they have also lost the head of the country's central bank, a swath of very senior members of parliament from all of the parties, a significant number of senior staff to the President, a large number of leading figures from Polish society and culture, and perhaps most seriously; almost the entire top layer of Poland's national security team has been wiped out.

Both the civilian and military heads of the national defense forces were killed along with many of the most senior military commanders for each branch of the armed forces. It is difficult to see how a deliberate attempt by terrorists or a foreign enemy to decapitate the Polish national defenses could have been more successful. Indeed this very fact, coupled with Poland's long history of bad relations with Russia has already (and inevitably) got the usual conspiracy theorists fired up.

While I am not a fan of wild conspiracy theories (it looks like a terrible accident), all of this does beg a number of questions. Chief among them... What on Earth were they thinking putting so many senior government officials on one plane? I mean seriously. The lowest and most rookie security agent should know that this is a no no.

This is not a new concept. We in the United States have long understood that you don't put all your people in one place at any given time without truly exceptional reasons. The only two circumstances I am aware of where this occurs here is the annual State of the Union Address and the every four years Presidential Inaugural. In both of which cases extraordinary security measures are taken. At least as far back as the 1960's there were protocols against too many senior people being on the same plane. In 1963 during the fateful trip to Texas, President Kennedy and Vice-President Johnson both traveled to Dallas... on separate planes.

The Pope in the dock?

The anti-Catholic wingnuts are coming out of the woodwork now. Read this over at Alice's blog.

Tragedy in Russia - Poland

Reports are coming in that the plane of the President of Poland has crashed in Russia. Preliminary reports suggest there are no survivors. The Polish president, Lech Kaczynski, and his wife were enroute to Smolensk for ceremonies honoring the many thousands of Polish military officers and civil servants who were massacred by the Soviets under orders from Stalin during World War II. The ceremonies were to be held in the Katyn Forest, the site where the majority of the murders took place.

There is a long and very painful history of bad blood between Poland and Russia going back centuries. It is only in recent years that there have been signs of a thawing in Russo-Polish relations. Let us pray that this tragedy does nothing to harm relations between these two countries that both suffered from the twin horrors of invasion by the Nazis and prolonged oppression under the Communists.

May the memory of those killed be eternal. And may God grant comfort to those who mourn them.

Update: More preliminary reports state that there were 132 people on board the plane including the head of the Polish Army and other very senior members of the Polish government. All reports are confirming that there are no survivors.

This is a horrific disaster.

Update 0247 PDLT: A very preliminary list of some of the more important casualties include...

Lech Kaczyński - the President of Poland

Maria Kaczyńska - the First Lady

Ryszard Kaczorowski - last Polish President in exile

Jerzy Szmajdziński - Vice Speaker of the Lower House

Krzysztof Putra - Vice Speaker of the Lower House

Władysław Stasiak - chief of the President's Chancellary

Aleksander Szczygło - chief of the Office for National Security

Paweł Wypych - Presidential Secretary of State

Mariusz Handzlik - as above

Andrzej Kremer - vice Minister of Foreign Affairs

General Franciszek Gągor - Chief of Staff of the Polish Army

Przemysław Gosiewski - Prominent Politician

Zbigniew Wassermann - as above

Janusz Kochanowski - Polish ombudsman

Sławomir Skrzypek - Director of the Polish National Bank

Janusz Kurtyka -Chief of the Institute for the National Rememberance

Bishop Tadeusz Płoski - Roman Catholic field bishop of the Polish Army (head Catholic chaplain)

Archbishop Miron Chodakowski - Eastern Orthodox field bishop of the Polish Army

This is simply despicable

MOSCOW - Russia threatened to suspend all child adoptions by U.S. families Friday after a 7-year-old boy adopted by a woman from Tennessee was sent alone on a one-way flight back to Moscow with a note saying he was violent and had severe psychological problems.

The boy, Artyom Savelyev, was put on a plane by his adopted grandmother, Nancy Hansen of Shelbyville.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called the actions by the grandmother “the last straw” in a string of U.S. adoptions gone wrong, including three in which Russian children had died in the U.S.

Read the rest here.

All I can say is that as an American I am embarrassed. Actually as a human being I am embarrassed.

Venezuela's Hugo Chavez tightens his grip on power

...In March, intelligence agents arrested Oswaldo Álvarez Paz, a former presidential candidate, charging him with conspiracy after he said in televised remarks that Venezuela had become a haven for drug trafficking; he also supported a Spanish indictment asserting that officials here had helped Basque separatists train on Venezuelan soil.

Only days later, agents arrested Guillermo Zuloaga, the owner of the opposition television network Globovisión, after he criticized the government’s efforts to shut down media outlets that challenged the president. After an outcry by rights groups, Mr. Zuloaga was released on the condition that he could not travel outside the country.

Next, agents arrested Wilmer Azuaje, an opposition lawmaker, on charges of insulting and striking a police official during a heated discussion. Mr. Azuaje had in the past revealed corruption claims against Mr. Chávez’s siblings. Like Mr. Zuloaga, Mr. Azuaje was released, but the Supreme Court forbade him to discuss his arrest with the media.

The arrests have taken aim at some of Mr. Chávez’s most prominent critics ahead of legislative elections in September that put control of the National Assembly in play, and they illustrate Mr. Chávez’s attempts to tighten control over institutions like the judiciary.

Read the rest here.

Paul Krugman: We need to inflate our way out of debt

Give the man credit for being honest.

...Greece’s public debt, at 113 percent of G.D.P., is indeed high, but other countries have dealt with similar levels of debt without crisis. For example, in 1946, the United States, having just emerged from World War II, had federal debt equal to 122 percent of G.D.P. Yet investors were relaxed, and rightly so: Over the next decade the ratio of U.S. debt to G.D.P. was cut nearly in half, easing any concerns people might have had about our ability to pay what we owed. And debt as a percentage of G.D.P. continued to fall in the decades that followed, hitting a low of 33 percent in 1981.

So how did the U.S. government manage to pay off its wartime debt? Actually, it didn’t. At the end of 1946, the federal government owed $271 billion; by the end of 1956 that figure had risen slightly, to $274 billion. The ratio of debt to G.D.P. fell not because debt went down, but because G.D.P. went up, roughly doubling in dollar terms over the course of a decade. The rise in G.D.P. in dollar terms was almost equally the result of economic growth and inflation, with both real G.D.P. and the overall level of prices rising about 40 percent from 1946 to 1956.

Unfortunately, Greece can’t expect a similar performance. Why? Because of the euro...

Read the rest here.

I will note for the record that Krugman also ignores the brutally high taxes we had during and after the war (top bracket of around 90%).

It's Wednesday and guess what I had for supper...

Quote of the day

The way to crush the bourgeois is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.
– V.I. Lenin

Just wondering...

Does anyone have any info on what is going on with Alex over at ROCOR UNITED? That used to be one of my favorite sources for all things dealing with the Russian Church. And the blog, formerly extremely active, last posted back on February 7th with not a word since. Several queries and emails have gone unanswered. Drop me a line or comment if you have any information. I hope there is nothing serious behind the very abrupt silence.

You know it's bad when...

Even the San Francisco Examiner is getting it. (Hat tip T-19)

This is hardly news to anyone who has been paying attention for the last 10 years or more. Successive administrations and Congresses of both political parties have been playing fast and loose with the fiscal well being of the country. Neither party has had the courage to be honest with the American people. And as far as I can tell that has not changed. The simple truth is that there is no such thing as a free lunch.

For decades we have been living on the national credit card. We have been fudging the books to make the debt look smaller than it really is. (Hint: It’s not $12 Trillion. It’s somewhere between $60-100 Trillion if you calculate entitlements that we have made promises for without money.)

We have been running the public Treasury like a giant ponzi scheme. It’s as if Bernie Madoff has been the Secretary of the Treasury for each administration going back at least to the 1980’s. We borrow money and spend it frivolously. When the bill is due we borrow more money, and pay just enough to cover the interest on the existing debt and then blow the rest frivolously. And we keep repeating this over and over. And the book keeping in Washington, had they been subject to the kind of accounting standards mandated for private businesses, would have gotten all of our former presidents and most members of Congress sent to prison for fraud.

I think every President and member of Congress going back to the 80’s has known what was going on. And I think they all said a quick prayer every night before bed to the effect of “Dear God, please let me be out of office before this all blows up.”

Well now that day has finally come. The party is over. The bar is closing down. And the tab is due.

+Benedict XVI names conservative Archbishop as likely successor to LA's Mahony

Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday named a Texas bishop to take over the archdiocese of Los Angeles after Cardinal Roger M. Mahony's expected retirement next year.

The pontiff appointed Jose Gomez as co-adjutor archbishop of Los Angeles, an assisting position that essentially puts him first in line to succeed Mahony, who reaches the mandatory retirement age of 75 for bishops in February.

Gomez is archbishop of San Antonio, a post he took up five years ago, during the last few months of John Paul II's papacy. Gomez, 58, is also a member of Opus Dei, the controversial group favored by John Paul II for its conservative teachings.

Read the rest here.

The Catholic blogs are also running with the story. The Archdiocese of LA has a very bad reputation among conservative Catholics and it is almost impossible to imagine any appointment that would not be an improvement over Card. Mahony. There are a number of reports circulating that when told of his pending promotion (the see typically comes with a red hat) +Gomez responded "What have I done to offend the Holy Father?"

Britain prepares for General Election

LONDON — Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Tuesday called a long-awaited national election for May 6, launching what is likely to be the most unpredictable ballot in almost two decades. The opposition Conservatives and the third major party, the Liberal Democrats, took immediate aim at Mr. Brown’s controversial leadership qualities, seen by many pundits as a potential liability for the governing Labour Party.

After a final meeting of his cabinet, Mr. Brown drove to Buckingham Palace to ask Queen Elizabeth II to dissolve Parliament — a ceremonial step at the start of a month of hectic and highly personalized campaigning that will decide whether Labour wins a fourth consecutive term in office or is forced to return power to the Conservatives after 13 years.

Read the rest here.

Enough Gloom & Doom: David Brooks sees sunshine

...The demographic growth is driven partly by fertility. The American fertility rate is 50 percent higher than Russia, Germany or Japan, and much higher than China. Americans born between 1968 and 1979 are more family-oriented than the boomers before them, and are having larger families.

In addition, the U.S. remains a magnet for immigrants. Global attitudes about immigration are diverging, and the U.S. is among the best at assimilating them (while China is exceptionally poor). As a result, half the world’s skilled immigrants come to the U.S. As Kotkin notes, between 1990 and 2005, immigrants started a quarter of the new venture-backed public companies.

The United States already measures at the top or close to the top of nearly every global measure of economic competitiveness. A comprehensive 2008 Rand Corporation study found that the U.S. leads the world in scientific and technological development. The U.S. now accounts for a third of the world’s research-and-development spending. Partly as a result, the average American worker is nearly 10 times more productive than the average Chinese worker, a gap that will close but not go away in our lifetimes.

This produces a lot of dynamism. As Stephen J. Rose points out in his book “Rebound: Why America Will Emerge Stronger From the Financial Crisis,” the number of Americans earning between $35,000 and $70,000 declined by 12 percent between 1980 and 2008. But that’s largely because the number earning over $105,000 increased by 14 percent. Over the past 10 years, 60 percent of American adults made more than $100,000 in at least one or two of those years, and 40 percent had incomes that high for at least three.

Read the rest here.

Israeli Civil Rights groups under pressure

JERUSALEM — Leaders of some of Israel’s most prominent human rights organizations say they are working in an increasingly hostile environment and coming under attack for actions that their critics say endanger the country.

The pressure on these groups has tightened as the country’s leaders have battled to defend Israel against accusations of war crimes, the rights advocates say, raising questions about the limits of free speech and dissent in Israel’s much vaunted democracy.

“Over the years, in a variety of international arenas,” said Hagai El-Ad, executive director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, “it was key for Israeli officials to say, ‘Yes, there are many problems, perhaps even abuses; however, we have a strong, vibrant civil society with a plethora of voices and we are very proud of that.’

“It is inconsistent to make those statements and at the same time create a situation that colors us as traitors in the public eye.”

Read the rest here.

Easter in Russia

Easter Liturgy at Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow

Tea party: Much noise, but an impact in November?

WASHINGTON - They heeded a pamphleteer's call for "manly opposition to the machinations of tyranny" — the 60 American colonists who stormed Griffin's Wharf and emptied 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor. And with that, a revolution brewed.

Now, more than two centuries later, come the angry throngs of the modern-day tea party. They've gotten the nation's attention. Can they foment their own revolution?

Not yet.

The Associated Press reviewed tea party operations in almost every state, interviewing dozens of local organizers as well as Democratic and Republican strategists to produce a portrait of the movement to date — and its prospects for tilting this November's elections.

The bottom line:...

Read the rest here.

Note: The AP has updated this story and the above post was modified to reflect this.

A Lutheran(!) take on the recent anti-Catholic hysteria

...Ratzinger belongs to the centrist mass of Roman Catholics who accept Vatican II, but decline to see the Council (as do Küng & Co.) as a brutal rupture with the foregoing tradition. To understand his papal programme (inasmuch as we may talk of such a thing), we must realise that he is endeavouring to steer his massive ecclesial ship back into a centrist channel after a good forty years of disastrous leftward lurch—just consider the pitiful liturgical shambles that emerged from Paul VI’s Novus Ordo of 1969, causing Hermann Sasse to remark in his last years how Rome had suddenly “canonised St. Zwingli.” A few years ago, in his new capacity as Pope Benedict XVI, Ratzinger coined the phrase “hermeneutic of continuity” to describe an approach to Vatican II that seeks to interpret its documents in harmony with what went before. A major task awaits orthodox Lutheran theology in the shape of updating Chemnitz’s Examen Concilii Tridentini by performing the same service for the documents of Vatican II. Applying the hermeneutic of continuity to these texts, a Chemnitz of our time would discern areas of interconfessional agreement and rapprochement, on the one hand, and of ongoing dissent and debate, on the other.

As, in company with his predecessor on the papal throne, Ratzinger has occupied Rome’s middle ground, significant differences of interpretation and emphasis have certainly existed between the close colleagues. With his undying commitment to Gaudium et spes, Woytyla was some degrees to the “left” of Ratzinger, who is very much a man of Lumen Gentium, the Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church in the Modern World. As he approved my copious quotations from Ratzinger in the CLD volume on Eschatology, the sainted Robert Preus commented to me that Raztinger (whom he respected) was “more Catholic in the best sense” than the Pope under whom he served.

By the way, the world still hates, loathes, & detests Christ and His Church!

In addition to the unremitting hostility directed at him from the Modernist wing of his own Communion, even prior to his election as Pope, Ratzinger was a favourite target of the unbelieving world’s impassioned hatred for Christ Jesus our Lord and the members of His mystical body. Some years ago, the British Daily Telegraph (which at one time had the reputation of being a “quality” newspaper) reported that the then cardinal had committed a terrible “gaffe” by publicly expressing hope for the conversion of the Jews. Fancy that, a Christian wishing salvation for a sizeable group of his neighbours, a faux pas indeed! A Google search has confirmed my memory that British journalists were likewise incensed by the then cardinal’s comparison of Buddhism with spiritual autoeroticism. How scandalous that a Christian spokesman should speak candidly of religions that offer a spurious salvation!

The Canadian mainstream media were frenziedly sharpening their knives against Joseph Ratzinger in the weeks when he was a strong candidate to succeed John Paul II. His papacy was barely a few hours old when the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) evening news ran a segment on an aged Italian woman (a “good Catholic”, of course) who stood crestfallen amid a jubilant crowd as Benedict XVI appeared on the balcony of St. Peter’s, walking dejectedly away as she realized that women’s ordination, contraception, sexual licence, abortion on demand, and all that good stuff would still be denied the papal seal of approval. That bloody hatchet job had been carefully prepared way ahead of a cardinal’s booming “Habemus papam—reverendissimum dominum Josephum Cardinalem Ratzinger” from the balcony!

Read the rest of a very good essay here.
Hat tip Fr. Z.

Although I am not Roman Catholic it seems fairly obvious that the MSM and all of the current Pope's rather long list of detractors (that list could also serve to identify many of those responsible for the disasters of the last 40+ years) are taking the opportunity presented by the recurrent scandals to strike out at Benedict XVI. Rarely have I seen anyone so unjustly maligned in what appears to be a highly coordinated attack of slander and calumny. Clearly the long knives are coming out.

It would be a brave man indeed (and rather foolish) who would try to defend the Catholic Church's handling of the sexual abuse of children. Indisputably the church as an institution failed miserably. And one could further make a fairly strong argument that more than a few bishops enabled this horror by repeatedly shuffling these sexual deviants around and covering up for them. I will even go so far as to say that there are some who, were it not for their pointy hat, would likely have been jailed for aiding and abetting in serious crimes.

But there is simply no way to fairly lay this at Ratzinger's feet. And the efforts by the press to do so have only heightened awareness of their dreadful anti-Catholic prejudice. He is probably the closest thing Rome can point to as something of a hero in this sorry mess. For years he vainly tried to sound the alarm in Rome. And when the crisis finally broke it was he who was put in charge of trying to clean house, a thankless job if ever there was one

How this translates into responsibility for covering up the scandals is something that only the warped imagination of the mainstream media and their allies among the 1960's hippie Catholics could contrive.

Play Ball!

In addition to being Easter Sunday yesterday kicked off the 2010 baseball season. And for at least a day all was right in the world. The Yankees lost 9-7.

The Ecstasy of Fiscal Policy

Let’s say you’re a political consultant. You’re sitting there in your West Hollywood bondage-themed strip club with party donors picking up the tab, and, of course, you’re thinking about what a great country this is. Swept up in the spirit of gratitude, you decide you’d like to give back. You’d like to solve the country’s looming fiscal catastrophe.

The heart of the problem, you figure, is that unlike yourself, Americans have grown complacent and careless. For 200 years, they lived precarious lives. There were boom and bust economic cycles, devastating epidemics and natural disasters that came without warning. These conditions instilled a sense of prudence. The thought of running up excessive debt filled them with moral horror.

But over the past years, life has become secure. This has eroded the fear of debt, private and public. In 1960, the nation’s personal debt amounted to 55 percent of national income. By 2007, it had risen to 133 percent of national income.

In 1960, a politician would have been voted out of office if he had allowed the federal debt to double in a decade. Now politicians are likely to get voted out of office if they try to prevent it.

These days, voters want low taxes — about 19 percent of G.D.P. And they want high spending — over 25 percent of G.D.P. by 2020. As a result, federal debt, which stood at 41 percent of G.D.P. two years ago, is forecast to balloon to 90 percent of G.D.P. in 2020, according to the Congressional Budget Office. By that time, interest payments on the debt alone would be $900 billion a year.

Read the rest here.

Bright Monday

I was looking for an appropriate icon for the day, but figured why not be honest. This is what today means for a lot of us. On which note there is no fasting this week. If my memory is correct this is the one week out of the year where fasting is not merely optional but actually forbidden. (Readers more knowledgeable in church canons will correct me if I am wrong.) Also kneeling and full prostrations are prohibited both in church and at home until Pentecost.

The joy of the feast to all of you...

CHRIST IS RISEN!

Christ is risen; and you O death are annihilated!

A blessed Pascha and happy Easter to all.

Great & Holy Friday

We briefly interrupt our Holy Week hiatus to draw your attention to a haunting rendition of the 15th Antiphon for the Matins of Great and Holy Friday chanted by the late Archbishop +Job (memory eternal).

A very big hat tip to Fr. Joseph who posted this over at OrthoDixie. I gather it has been making the rounds on the Orthodox blogosphere and deservedly so.

Holy Week Recess

Barring something urgent or time sensitive there will be no blogging until Bright Monday at the earliest. I will still be checking email now and then but responses may be slower than usual. Comments will be on moderation to prevent spamming during the down time. Wishing all a blessed Holy Week and the joy of the Resurrection...

Under the mercy,
John

Where is he now?

Back in August of last year blogdom suffered a great loss when Michale Liccione announced a new job in New York City and closed up shop over at Sacramentum Vitae. Via T-19 I note he has resurfaced as a columnist with First Things magazine. I look forward to reading other articles by him.

Odds and ends

As a follow up to my tongue in cheek apology, I note that Owen the Ochlophobist has picked up on the recent Roman Catholic liturgical horror show (brought to you courtesy of Cardinal Mahony). His comments as usual are both insightful and right on the mark. Caution; ecumenically minded Orthodox (and Catholics) are not likely to appreciate some of his observations. For the record I fully agree with them.

As almost anyone reading a blog online must be aware, there has been a terrible terrorist attack in Moscow. Many people have been killed and injured. Please keep our brothers and sisters in Russia in your prayers as they deal with this disaster.

Finally we are now into Holy Week and blogging is going to start winding down. After today (barring something really urgent or time sensitive) there will be no blogging until Bright Monday at the earliest. I wish everyone a blessed Holy Week and the joy of the Resurrection.

Can Obama avert a fiscal catastrophe?

Last summer President Obama told me that once health reform became law, he could pivot to the "broader structural changes" needed to bring the federal deficit under control.

Without health reform, he said during a July telephone interview, there would be no hope for fiscal reform. With it, he would be in a position to "start laying out a broader picture about how we are going to handle entitlements in a serious way."

Well, it's been six days since he signed the bill, and he still hasn't saved Social Security.

Just kidding. We can give him another day or two.

But the long-term threat is no joke, as Obama has acknowledged many times. If Obama does not pivot, the country will be in serious trouble.

Read the rest here.

Color me skeptical, very very skeptical.

Members of Protestant right-wing militia are charged with sedition

Nine members of a "Christian" militia have been charged with sedition and conspiracy to murder police officers in the hopes of sparking an armed insurrection against the United States. As I have noted on many threads going back years, the rhetoric of our politics in this country has been drifting into dangerous territory. Extremism and extremist beliefs are going mainstream. Just glancing at the comments on a thread dealing with this topic over at Free Republic one can note more than a few people who are clearly in sympathy with these lunatics.

When you deny the legitimacy of the President of the United States, and call members of one of the two main political parties "traitors" this is what is going to happen. At some point people will start to believe you and someone will reach for a gun.

Russia considers a holiday commemorating the Baptism of Rus

The government has proposed a new national holiday, Baptism of Rus Day, in what could be viewed as a victory of the Russian Orthodox Church in the clericalization of Russian life.

The government has submitted a bill to the State Duma that would introduce the Baptism of Rus Day on July 28, when Russian Orthodox believers commemorate Prince Vladimir, who christened Rus in 988, a Duma source told Itar-Tass on Friday.

Culture Minister Alexander Avdeyev proposed the holiday at a government meeting in February, supporting an idea voiced earlier by the church, Itar-Tass said.

The church has seen its clout grow in recent years. It has long pushed for the study of its doctrines in public schools, and next month, grade school students in 19 Russian regions will begin religious studies that focus on the four faiths labeled "traditional" in federal law: Russian Orthodoxy, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism, RIA-Novosti reported in early March.

Source.

What do you see?

US Money supply 1998-2009
(click for full size)

What does this bring to mind?

When I look at this chart I feel myself sucked into a time warp. Suddenly it's 1972. Everyone is throwing a big party. The good times are rolling. But on the bridge I see Leslie Nielson looking through his binoculars at a massive wall of liquidity steam rolling towards him and his ship...

Rule Britannia

HMS Astute Britain's new super submarine

OK this is a little off my usual topics. But the former navy sailor in me started drooling when I read this. It appears that the British lion still has some roar left, and maybe a few sharp teeth.

She could prowl the depths of the oceans without stopping for her entire 25-year lifespan, her sleek curves undetected. She generates her own oxygen and fresh water from the surrounding sea, never has to refuel and never needs to break the surface. Indeed, the only reasons for her to come up after 90 days on patrol are to restock with food and to help preserve the sanity of her crew.

Astute is the world's most technologically advanced submarine, and remains a great British achievement despite overspends and delays. It is the stealthiest Royal Navy submarine ever to go to sea and its highly advanced Sonar 2076 system - capable of detecting the QE2 leaving New York all the way from the English Channel - is superior to the U.S. Navy equivalent. It can carry 38 weapons - heavyweight Spearfish torpedoes and Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles. The latter have a range of 1,000 nautical miles - enough to reach 96 per cent of the planet's populated areas from the sea.

Read the rest here.

What Happens When Congress Fails to Do Its Job?

In 2008 Barack Obama almost asked Evan Bayh to be his running mate. It was "a coin toss," recalls David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager. Bayh lost that toss, but the fact that he was a finalist—much as he'd been for John Kerry four years earlier—was proof that he was doing something right in his day job as junior senator from Indiana. His future seemed bright.

Last month he announced his retirement.

There was no scandal. Bayh wasn't plagued by poor fundraising or low poll numbers. Nor is fatigue a likely explanation: at 54, Bayh is fairly young, at least when you're grading on the curve that is the United States Senate.

What drove Bayh from office, rather, was that he'd grown to hate his job. Congress, he wrote in a New York Times op-ed, is "stuck in an endless cycle of recrimination and revenge. The minority seeks to frustrate the majority, and when the majority is displaced it returns the favor. Power is constantly sought through the use of means which render its effective use, once acquired, impossible."

The situation had grown so grim, Bayh said, that continued service was no longer of obvious use. Americans were left with a bizarre spectacle: a member of the most elite legislative body in the most powerful country in the world was resigning because the dysfunctions of his institution made him feel ineffectual. "I simply believe I can best contribute to society in another way," Bayh explained, "creating jobs by helping grow a business, helping guide an institution of higher learning, or helping run a worthy charitable endeavor."

This is what it's come to, then: our senators envy the influence and sway held by university presidents.

Read the rest here.

I apologize

I used to tell people that Roman Catholics had abandoned serious Lenten penances. No more. I would rather keep the monastic fast all year than endure this for 2 hours. Lord have mercy!

So where are the Orthodox works of charity?

That's a question often asked of Orthodox (especially by Catholics). Of course in the United States we are relatively few in numbers and only beginning to deal with our scandalous jurisdictionalism. And in many parts of the world the Orthodox Church is either under the thumb of hostile governments (i.e. most of the Middle East) where Christian charity is severely restricted, or recovering from long periods of persecution (most of Eastern Europe). That said where the Church has been allowed to operate without interference from hostile entities these works are visible. And we can pray that one day we may see something similar here in N. America.

In Greece the church now operates and maintains:

- 20 nurseries and kindergartens
- 84 homes for the elderly
- 13 hospitals for the chronically ill
- 30 different institutions
- 8 institutions for people with disabilities
- 54 camping areas
- 33 youth institutions
- 10 hospital clinics
- 6 hostels
- 36 orphanages/boarding schools
- 195 soup kitchens
- 44 schools of iconography
- 136 schools teaching Byzantine and European music
- 47 different schools
- 35 blood banks
- 1 home for the blind
- 13 school dormitories
- 7 mental health institutions

Source.

Israeli British relations are severely strained

Israel is in a tight spot these days. It has ticked off two of its most prominent allies. The United States has made no secret of its pique over Israel's calculated (I use the word deliberately) insult of Vice-President Biden during his recent visit there. As noted in the preceding post President Obama communicated very clearly his deep anger over Israeli intransigence and their offensive behavior towards an ally during the recent visit by PM Binyamin Netanyahu to Washington.

However it is not just the United States that are seriously annoyed with Israel right now. Great Britain, another long standing ally, is furious that the Israeli secret intelligence service Mossad used at least a dozen fraudulent British passports for members of their murder squad sent to assassinate Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai in January. Mr. Mabhouh was allegedly a high ranking member of Hamas, a terrorist organization.

Israel's refusal to even discuss the matter so angered the British that they have taken the extremely unusual step of expelling an Israeli diplomat believed to be the London station chief of Mossad. Britain is demanding assurances from Israel that they will not forge or otherwise abuse British passports in the future. Thus far Israel has failed to respond to the demands which Britain has labeled as non-negotiable.

US-Israeli Relations: From chilly to frigid

For a head of government to visit the White House and not pose for photographers is rare. For a key ally to be left to his own devices while the President withdraws to have dinner in private was, until this week, unheard of. Yet that is how Binyamin Netanyahu was treated by President Obama on Tuesday night, according to Israeli reports on a trip viewed in Jerusalem as a humiliation.

After failing to extract a written promise of concessions on settlements, Mr Obama walked out of his meeting with Mr Netanyahu but invited him to stay at the White House, consult with advisers and “let me know if there is anything new”, a US congressman, who spoke to the Prime Minister, said.

“It was awful,” the congressman said. One Israeli newspaper called the meeting “a hazing in stages”, poisoned by such mistrust that the Israeli delegation eventually left rather than risk being eavesdropped on a White House telephone line. Another said that the Prime Minister had received “the treatment reserved for the President of Equatorial Guinea.”

Read the rest here.

What is happening to the Republican Party?

From a Harris Poll released yesterday...

• 24% of Republicans (and 14% of Americans) think Obama may be the Anti-Christ.

• Two thirds of Republicans -- 67 percent -- and 40 percent of Americans overall, believe that Obama is a socialist.

• A majority of Republicans -- 57 percent -- and 32 percent overall believe that Obama is a Muslim.

• 45 percent of Republicans, and 25 percent overall, believe that Obama was "not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president."

• 38 percent of Republicans, and 20 percent overall, say that Obama is "doing many of the things that Hitler did."
  

Source

I have been a lifelong Republican and am very close to de-registering from the party. For sometime now it has been increasingly clear to me that the GOP is falling under the influence of extremists, conspiracy theorists and people that should be dismissed as members of the lunatic fringe.

Paul Krugman (a man with whom I rarely agree about anything) made an observation that strikes me as pretty on the mark.

“In the short run, Republican extremism may be good for Democrats, to the extent that it prompts a voter backlash. But in the long run, it’s a very bad thing for America. We need to have two reasonable, rational parties in this country. And right now we don’t. “

Source

Just in case there was any doubt

Members of Mother Grove Goddess Temple will celebrate at 7 p.m. Saturday with A Breath of Appalachian Spring: A Ritual in Celebration of the Spring Equinox, in the parish hall of the Episcopal Cathedral of All Souls in Biltmore Village.

Saturday's event is open to all faith traditions, said Byron Ballard, wiccan priestess and a member of the temple. Mother Grove “isn't a wiccan group, though some of us are wiccans,” she said.

Read the rest here.

If you are an Episcopalian, don't start walking for the exit. RUN!

Hat tip Fr. Z.

Justice

If you can call it justice, the man we convicted of first degree murder during my recent stint on jury duty was sentenced. He got 53 years to life. He will be a very old man before he is even eligible for parole. Personally I hope they never let him out. What he did was evil. And he has no remorse.

Religious discrimination in the Army

At 2 o'clock on a Monday morning, the sound of angry pounding sent Army Spec. Zachari Klawonn bolting out of bed.

THUD. THUD. THUD.

Someone was mule-kicking the door of his barracks room, leaving marks that weeks later -- long after Army investigators had come and gone -- would still be visible.

By the time Klawonn reached the door, the pounding had stopped. All that was left was a note, twice folded and wedged into the doorframe.

"F--- YOU RAGHEAD BURN IN HELL" read the words scrawled in black marker.

The slur itself was nothing new. Klawonn, 20, the son of an American father and a Moroccan mother, had been called worse in the military. But the fact that someone had tracked him down in the dead of night to deliver this specific message sent a chill through his body.

Before he enlisted, the recruiters in his home town of Bradenton, Fla., had told him that the Army desperately needed Muslim soldiers like him to help win the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Yet ever since, he had been filing complaint after complaint with his commanders. After he was ordered not to fast and pray. After his Koran was torn up. After other soldiers jeered and threw water bottles at him. After his platoon sergeant warned him to hide his faith to avoid getting a "beating" by fellow troops. But nothing changed.

Then came the November shootings at Fort Hood and the arrest of a Muslim soldier he'd never met: Maj. Nidal M. Hasan, who is charged with killing 13 people and injuring more than 30 in a massacre that stunned the nation. And with it, things only got worse.

Staring at the note in his hands that dark February morning, Klawonn trembled with panic and frustration. His faith, he believed, had made him a marked man in the Army. Now the November rampage had only added to his visibility.

Read the rest here.

This is a very disturbing story. If even half of what is reported in here is accurate there has been a monumental failure on the part of the Army in general and this young soldier's chain of command in particular. That a commanding officer would respond to persistent reports of religious harassment, intimidation and even threats by suggesting that the soldier move off base "for his own safety" is a direct indictment of the entire chain of command. It is an admission that the CO has lost control of his unit. He should be summarily relieved of command and cashiered. I would also suggest that Non-Judicial Punishment (in the Navy we called it Mast) should be imposed on the more junior members of this soldier's chain of command with reprimands and demotions handed out as appropriate.

As a veteran who had a good friend in the Navy who happened to be Muslim, I am disgusted by this. Heads need to roll and a message needs to be sent. Anyone who can't conduct themselves in a professional manner and respect other people's personal religious beliefs has no place in the armed forces of the United States period.

The Democrats Rejoice...

But David Brooks does not...

Parties come to embody causes. For the past 90 years or so, the Republican Party has, at its best, come to embody the cause of personal freedom and economic dynamism. For a similar period, the Democratic Party has, at its best, come to embody the cause of fairness and family security. Over the past century, they have built a welfare system, brick by brick, to guard against the injuries of fate.

If you grew up, as I did, with a Hubert Humphrey poster on your wall and a tradition of Democratic Party activism in your family, you recognize the Democratic DNA in the content of this bill and in the way it was passed. There was the inevitable fractiousness, the neuroticism, the petty logrolling, but also the basic concern for the vulnerable and the high idealism.

And there was also the faith in the grand liberal project. Democrats protected the unemployed starting with the New Deal, then the old, then the poor. Now, thanks to health care reform, millions of working families will go to bed at night knowing that they are not an illness away from financial ruin.

For apostates like me, watching this bill go through the meat grinder was like watching an old family reunion. One glimpse and you got the whole panoply of what you loved and found annoying about these people.

Read the rest here.

The NY Times discovers Greek Rite Catholics... (because their clergy are not celibate)

RUDNO, Ukraine — Let the rest of Europe be convulsed by debates over whether the celibacy of Roman Catholic priests is causing sex abuse scandals like the one now unfolding in Germany. Here in western Ukraine, many Catholic priests are married, fruitful and multiplying — with the Vatican’s blessing.

The many feet scampering around the Volovetskiy home are testament to that.

The family’s six children range from Pavlina, 21, to Taras, 9. In the middle is Roman, 16, who wants to be a Catholic priest when he grows up. Just like his father.

Dad is the Rev. Yuriy Volovetskiy, who leads a small parish here and whose wife, Vera, teaches religious school. The Volovetskiys serve in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, which believes that celibate priests are not necessarily better priests.

Ukrainian Greek Catholics represent a branch of Catholicism that is distinct from the far more prevalent Roman Catholic one. The Ukrainian church is loyal to the pope in Rome, and its leader is a cardinal and major archbishop.

But it conducts services that resemble those in Eastern Orthodox Christianity. In religious terms, it follows the Eastern Rite, not the Latin one that is customary in Roman Catholicism.
.
Historically, the Vatican appears to have tolerated the traditions and attitude toward celibacy of the so-called Eastern Rite Catholics in order to retain a foothold in regions where Orthodox Christianity has dominated. But this exception suggests that the Vatican view on celibacy is not as rigid or monolithic as it might otherwise appear.

Read the rest here.

A Radical's Platform

There has been much hysteria of late over the recent health care reform bill. Cries of socialism and communism and freedom lost, the end of the Republic etc. This of course is hardly new. It is in fact as old as the Republic. Every major reform has faced virulent and often hysterical opposition.

A case in point...

He was denounced as a socialist and a radical. He was despised as a traitor to his class. In 1912 then former President Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt ran for president against Woodrow Wilson and his own handpicked successor William H. Taft. He lost (badly). What follows are a few highlights from the platform of an arch-radical.

• Presidential candidates of parties to be determined by popular primary election and not back room deals.

• Election of U.S. Senators by popular vote instead of by state legislatures.

• Universal suffrage for women.

• A short ballot limiting the number of offices up for election.

• A stringent corrupt practices act applied to primaries as well as general elections.

• Publication of campaign contributors.

• Availability of public initiatives, referendums and recall.

• Recall of judicial decisions.

• Simplifying the process for amending the Federal Constitution.

• Strengthening the Pure Food Act.

• Establishment of a National Health Department.

• The establishment of a minimum wage.

• The right to organize unions and collective bargaining.

• Establishment of an eight hour work day.

• Strict work place safety laws.

• Prohibition of child labor.

• Outlawing night work for women.

• At least one day of rest per week for all wage earners.

• The protection of home life against the hazards of sickness, irregular employment and old age through the adoption of a system of universal social insurance adapted to American use.

• Prison reform and strict regulation of convict labor.
  

• A non-partisan tariff commission.

• Development and control of the Mississippi River.

• Conservation of forests, water and natural resources.

• Federal regulation of banks, the stock market and financial exchanges.

• Outlawing of insider trading.

• Financial transparency for all publicly traded corporations.

• Nationalization of Alaskan railroads.

• A larger navy

• Fortification of the Panama Canal.

Is health-care reform constitutional?

With the House set to vote on health-care legislation, the congressional debate on the issue seems to be nearing its conclusion. But if the bill does become law, the battle over federal control of health care will inevitably shift to the courts. Virginia's attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli II, has said he will file a legal challenge to the bill, arguing in a column this month that reform legislation "violate[s] the plain text of both the Ninth and Tenth Amendments." On Friday, South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster and Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum announced that they will file a federal lawsuit if health-care reform legislation passes.

Will these cases get anywhere? Here is a guide to the possible legal challenges to a comprehensive health-care bill.
The individual mandate.

Can Congress really require that every person purchase health insurance from a private company or face a penalty? The answer lies in the commerce clause of the Constitution, which grants Congress the power "to regulate commerce . . . among the several states." Historically, insurance contracts were not considered commerce, which referred to trade and carriage of merchandise. That's why insurance has traditionally been regulated by states. But the Supreme Court has long allowed Congress to regulate and prohibit all sorts of "economic" activities that are not, strictly speaking, commerce. The key is that those activities substantially affect interstate commerce, and that's how the court would probably view the regulation of health insurance.

But the individual mandate extends the commerce clause's power beyond economic activity, to economic inactivity. That is unprecedented. While Congress has used its taxing power to fund Social Security and Medicare, never before has it used its commerce power to mandate that an individual person engage in an economic transaction with a private company. Regulating the auto industry or paying "cash for clunkers" is one thing; making everyone buy a Chevy is quite another. Even during World War II, the federal government did not mandate that individual citizens purchase war bonds.

If you choose to drive a car, then maybe you can be made to buy insurance against the possibility of inflicting harm on others. But making you buy insurance merely because you are alive is a claim of power from which many Americans instinctively shrink. Senate Republicans made this objection, and it was defeated on a party-line vote, but it will return.

Read the rest here.

Watch Bond Market, Not Bank Lending or Velocity

A few weeks ago we wrote about the true cause of hyperinflation, which is a major break or failure in the bond market. It has nothing to do with demand, bank lending or the velocity of money as many have suggested. It is a confidence issue. It is not a rise in inflationary expectations but a loss of confidence in a country being able to repay its debts. As confidence is lost, interest rates rise. Monetization occurs when the cost of servicing the debt consumes too much of the overall budget, so that the government can’t provide basic services or loses its ability to function on a day-to-day basis.

The important point to note is that deflationary forces lead to hyperinflation. Once again, it is not demand, bank lending or increased velocity. Those things do not trigger severe inflation; they merely can be a symptom after the trigger. And by the way, increased velocity is basically another form of increased demand. Fundamentally, they are no different.

Is anyone paying attention to the first domino in the sovereign debt crisis? Take a look at this Bloomberg story - Iceland’s Economy Shrinks 8% as Prices rise by 11%.

Deflationary forces are causing severe inflation, as Iceland’s government is bankrupt. Moreover, bank lending in both the US and the UK has been sliding, yet we see price inflation increasing in the UK and starting to pickup in the US. Even amidst deflation in the private sector, Gold has risen to an all time high against both the Dollar and the Pound and also the Euro.

Read the rest here.

Romanian Orthodox Church to depose priests who divorce

The Romanian Orthodox has decided to strip clergymen who divorce of their priestly duties.

Church spokesman Constantin Stoica says the decision to defrock priests who divorce will apply to all. But he says that those whose marriages broke up because their wives committed adultery will find other employment within the church.

Stoica said Friday that the decision was triggered after the number of divorced priests reached 500 out of a total of 16,000.

Those already divorced or remarried will not be defrocked. But they will not be promoted to high positions and will not be able to teach at theological schools and universities.

More than 85 percent of Romania's 22 million population are Orthodox believers.

Source

Japan's Debt May Lead to Default or Hyperinflation

Via the Japan Times:

Prominent economist Yukio Noguchi is one of the few who correctly predicted the collapse of Japan's bubble economy in 1987, warning the preceding euphoria was based on a major distortion in land prices. Now the doomsday prophet is making another terrifying prediction: Japan is likely to be devastated by a snowballing public debt that will bankrupt its government and trigger catastrophic hyperinflation.

"There is little hope," Noguchi said in an interview with The Japan Times at Waseda University's Graduate School of Finance in Tokyo. "Japan's fiscal conditions are so bad, it can no longer be fixed without causing inflation. I'm very pessimistic." Noguchi is not the only one deeply fretting the debt.

They may still be a minority, but an increasing number of economists and market players are voicing deep concerns about Japan's fiscal sustainability and fear catastrophe may strike in the near future. Compared with Greece, Japan's gross government debt is far worse, at 181 percent of gross domestic product — the highest among the developed countries. Greece's debt-to-GDP ratio is 115 percent.

Japan's present debt-to-GDP ratio is only comparable with what it was at the end of World War II. At that time, the only way the government could reduce the debt was through hyperinflation, which wiped out much of the people's wealth with skyrocketing prices. "I can't tell exactly what will happen (this time), but what actually happened after the war was that the price level surged 60 times in just over four years," Noguchi said. "If the same thing happens again, a ¥10 million bank account will have the same net value of just ¥100,000 today. It's actually possible," he warned.

The alarmists even include Ikuo Hirata, chief editorial writer of the Nikkei business daily.

Hirata predicts the huge debt will eventually force the Bank of Japan to purchase Japanese government bonds on a massive scale, eroding market confidence and pushing up long-term interest rates. A rise in long-term interest rates of even a few percentage points would sharply increase debt-servicing costs on the bonds and critically damage the government's already precarious finances.

"The curtain of the tragedy will be raised next year," Hirata warned in a Nikkei article on Dec. 21.

Read the rest here.

Anathema!

Given recent events I had considered posting some commentary on the latest insanity from the Episcopal Organization. However, on reflection I realized I had nothing new to say on the matter. I wrote a piece that I am going to copy below back on November 17 2006 and after looking it over have concluded that it remains my opinion today. Some of the names and numbers are a bit dated, but broadly speaking I have been given no reason to alter my position.

Some thoughts on losing a war...

One of the few programs on television I watch religiously is on the Sci Fi channel. It’s called Battlestar Galactica. This is a remake of the campy late 1970’s series of the same name. But while the older series was a cross between space opera and silly comedy the new series is incredibly gritty, well written and blessed with superb acting. It is also dark. When I say dark, I mean midnight black. The motto of this program could be “remember it’s always darkest just before it gets even more hopeless.” Most television programs tend to end on a happy note. If that’s what you’re looking for DO NOT watch this program. Allow me a small example from the pilot miniseries.

(WARNING!!! PLOT SPOILER AHEAD FOR THOSE WHO MAY WANT TO GO OUT AND RENT THE DVD)

The pilot is set in an unknown time and corner of the universe with humans living on twelve planets in a solar system called “The Colonies.” A long time ago we are told in the written prologue, they made a race of machines called Cylons to serve them. But the machines rebelled and there was a war that eventually ended in a draw. The Cylons left and had not been heard from in a generation. Meanwhile The Colonies are seen as an advanced society that is relatively democratic, peaceful and prosperous. Then the Cylons came back.

In the space of roughly 24 hours in their time (about 3 1/2 hrs on DVD) the twelve colonies are annihilated. I mean gone, as in wiped out. Genocide is an often overused term. This program shows what a real genocide might look like. The home worlds are obliterated in a massive surprise attack with nuclear weapons raining down on cities. The Colonial Fleet is also destroyed except for a lone ship called the Galactica, a sort of space age aircraft carrier/battleship.

The Galactica survives the initial massacre by a stroke of luck and retreats to the far corner of the solar system to rearm. While there a handful of civilian space ships arrive lead by the erstwhile Secretary of Education, now President of The Colonies, Laura Roselyn with perhaps 50,000 survivors left from a civilization of probably tens of billions of people.

There she meets the commanding officer of the Galactica, Bill Adama who quickly makes it clear he has only one interest. He wants to get back into the fight as quickly as possible. A stunned President Rosalyn asks him if he is serious. To which Adama replies with his own question. “What do you suggest we do? Run?” And that’s when Rosalyn gives the money quote that is at the heart of my post.

“Yes. We run. I respectfully suggest it’s the only sane thing to do. We leave and we don’t come back. I am not sure if you realize this, but the war is over. And we lost.”

(SPOILER OVER… SAFE TO RESUME READING)

There are today in the Episcopal Church (TEC) 110 dioceses and a significant number of retired bishops. Of those perhaps a dozen are at least somewhat orthodox (small “o”). Five are in open resistance to their own church, with one (San Joaquin) contemplating secession from TEC. The rest are to varying degree heretics or even apostates. The number of orthodox Christians left in TEC is not known but it’s unlikely that they comprise more than 10% of the clergy in most dioceses. There are exceptions to be sure. But in the big picture they are an extreme and dwindling minority in a denomination which has elected an apostate as its presiding bishop. How many times have we all heard of the few clergy and laymen who courageously soldier on against all odds, dreaming of a restoration?

My question is at what point does one step back and say the cause is lost? The few bishops who have not become formal heretics in TEC must at some point retire or die. Do you think the people running the show will tolerate many more Bishop Schofields? They came very close to taking steps to remove him as Bp of San Joaquin, and may yet do so. How long can one remain in communion with heretical or apostate bishops knowing them to be such? Even if your own bishop is one of the few, he (and by extension you) is in communion with heretics. Leaving is painful. But fighting for a cause that is lost can be more painful. It can warp one’s faith and allow bitterness and anger to intrude itself into the soul. Better to accept this defeat and focus on where to go for spiritual nourishment. For the Protestant minded there is no shortage of denominations available. Pick one.

For the catholic minded, that is to say those seeking The Church and not a denomination there are logically two choices, Orthodoxy or Rome. But wherever you go one thing needs to be said plainly though with love and empathy for the pain of this fact. Staying in TEC is no longer a moral option for an orthodox Christian. There is no longer any reasonable hope of reversing the fortunes of this fight. To believe otherwise is to be willfully blind to the truth. “The war is over. And we lost.”

Matthew 10: 14-15
14 And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet.
15 Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city.

Feast of St. Patrick Enlightener of Ireland

Happy St. Patrick's day to all my fellow Irish both in blood and spirit.

No more posting today. And remember Guinness is not wine. :-)

Peter Schiff dismantles Paul Krugman on China and the dollar

Russian police claim priest's murderer is dead

(Reuters) - Prosecutors claimed on Tuesday to have solved the high-profile slaying of a Russian Orthodox priest in Moscow, saying a man shot dead by police in the Dagestan province was carrying the gun used to kill the priest.

The November killing of Daniil Sysoyev, who had reported receiving death threats for preaching to Muslims, threatened the delicate relations between Russia's dominant Orthodox Church and its large Muslim minority.

A masked man shot Sysoyev in his church in an attack prosecutors said at the time was likely motivated by religion. Sysoyev had converted Muslims to Christianity and criticized Islam.

After Sysoyev's death, Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill praised his missionary activity and "zealous works in the field of preaching the word of God." Law enforcement authorities had been under pressure to find his killer.

On Tuesday, the investigative branch of the Prosecutor General's office said a man killed by police in an exchange of gunfire in Dagestan, a violence-plagued province in Russia's North Caucasus, was carrying the gun that killed Sysoyev.

Read the rest here.

FED to keep interest rates exceptionally low for "extended" period

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) issued its policy statement today. They reaffirmed the Federal Reserve's intention to keep interest rates extremely low for what they termed an "extended" period. Most economists interpret that term to mean at least six months. This means that FED which has kept interest rates at near zero since the early stages of the economic crisis has no plans to tighten up on the nations money supply anytime soon. The supply of money is already at an all time high.

In response to this news Wall Street was up modestly, while the US Dollar Index fell below $80. Gold and silver were both up by more than 1.5% on the COMEX as concerns over potential inflation were revived among investors.

Google defies Chinese censorship

BEIJING - Web sites dealing with subjects such as the Tiananmen Square democracy protests, Tibet and regional independence movements could all be accessed through Google's Chinese search engine Tuesday, after the company said it would no longer abide by Beijing's censorship rules.

Despite a report in the China Daily that Google China was still filtering content on its search engine and the firm's own insistence that its policies had not changed, people in Beijing found that it wasn't necessarily the case.

NBC News, using the publicly accessible Internet, tried searching for three sensitive topics normally blocked in China.
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The first phrase typed into Google.cn was "Xinjiang independence," and the top result was a Wikipedia entry about the East Turkestan independence movement.

The second search attempted was the "Tibet Information Network," a former non-profit group that was critical of China's policies in the region.

When NBC News in Beijing did a search for the words “Tank Man” in Chinese characters, the iconic image did appear. But it was only one image came back as a result, not several like you likely find on U.S. based Internet search.

And when “June 4,” the term used for the Tiananmen protests in China, was searched with Chinese characters, again just one image of the Tank Man appeared.”

For the final search, "Tiananmen Square massacre" was typed in, deliberately choosing the more controversial phrase instead of "Tiananmen Square incident."

Once again, a long list of results appeared, detailing the military crackdown on protesters on 4 June 1989. The famous picture of a lone man blocking a line of tanks was among them.

Read the rest here.

Health Care Battle: Has the GOP made a serious tactical error?

Last week the GOP was confronted by a plan on the part of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to pull a political fast one on health reform. Her plan was to pass the reconciliation bill before passing the Senate version of the bill. This would have made garnering the votes from her sharply divided caucus much easier. In order to block this the Republicans appealed to the Senate's Parliamentarian for a ruling on whether one can present for a vote a bill on reconciliation for another bill not yet passed. The GOP won that battle when the parliamentarian ruled that before amendments can be presented for the process known as reconciliation (to avoid a GOP sponsored filibuster) the original bill MUST first be both passed by the House and signed by the President into law.

The GOP was ecstatic. They had just stopped a political flanking attack, and they felt sure made it much harder for House members to vote for a bill that nearly everyone agrees is horribly flawed. I believe they may have been mistaken.

Recall that the Senate bill contains provisions for special kickbacks and sweetheart deals for a few states like Louisiana and Nebraska as well as provisions that are deeply unpopular with most mainstream Americans. IF the House does pass the original Senate bill which is now their intention, and the president then signs said bill it will become the law of the land with all its warts. Then will come the various amendments to this bill which the Democrats want passed by reconcilaition since the GOP has vowed massive resistance to any meaningful health care reform. The GOP intends to challenge every letter of every word in the amendments invoking what is called the "Byrd Rule" (so named for Senator Robert Byrd D-WV who devised the system to prevent an end run around the Senate filibuster for anything other than purely fiscal matters). If they are successful they will effectively kill many, possibly most, of the amendments to the Senate bill.

But wait.

Recall that the Senate's bill will have already been passed by the House and signed by the President. The GOP will now be in a different situation. National universal health insurance (however deeply flawed) will now be the law. What the GOP will be fighting are amendments to fix universally recognized problems with the legislation. Do they want to go on record trying to preserve the "Louisiana Purchase" or the "Corn Husker Kickback" that they so justly lampooned last summer and fall?

I think the Republicans miscalculated and will find themselves in a situation where they are going to have to accept at least some of the amendments presented by the House. Otherwise they will be raked over the coals for their hypocrisy in November. Also confronted with the reality of universal health insurance being law and the extreme unlikelihood of ever being able to repeal it, I suspect they may moderate their position and offer to let some of the amendments go through, perhaps in exchange for some of their own being added. We will see.

One thing however seems clear. If the Democrats can get the votes to pass the Senate's bill as is, the GOP will find it politically challenging to continue their policy of just say "NO."