Emily Swanson — Drone Poll Finds Opposition To Use Against American Citizens In U.S., Even To Stop A Terrorist Attack

After an uproar this week when Attorney General Eric Holder wrote thattechnically speaking, the president might have the authority to kill an American citizen on U.S. soil using a drone in an "extraordinary circumstance," a newHuffPost/YouGov poll finds that Americans are deeply uncomfortable with the idea of drone strikes in the U.S., with half saying that ordering one would be unjustified even if it would prevent a terrorist attack.

Only 33 percent of respondents to the new survey believe there should be circumstances in which it is legal for the president to order a drone strike against an American citizen within the U.S., while 47 percent said it should be legal under no circumstances. Majorities of both Republicans and independents said that there were no circumstances under which ordering a drone strike against an American citizen on American soil should be legal, but Democrats were more likely to say that it should be legal under extraordinary circumstances, 43 percent to 32 percent.

The Huffington Post
Drone Poll Finds Opposition To Use Against American Citizens In U.S., Even To Stop A Terrorist Attack
Emily Swanson

Democrats on the wrong side of this one.

Richard Werner — Hitch-hiker’s guide to monetary infrastructure

The Financial Times published an excellent letter from Prof Richard Werner, Chair in International Banking, School of Management, University of Southampton, UK on March 5, 2013 entitled “Hitch-hiker’s guide to monetary infrastructure”.

Positive Money
FT: Hitch-hiker’s guide to monetary infrastructure

I am no longer linking directly to publications that charge for access, which includes the WSJ, NYT, and FT.

You can find the full letter here.

David Fields — A Short Note on Social Theory and Enquiry

Brief summary of the epistemological conditions that influence methodological options is the social sciences. Fields know how to pack a paragraph. Very nice.

Short translation: Everyone has a POV and that POV introduces epistemological presuppositions as methodological assumptions into all theoretical enquiry. Methodological assumptions function as norms in selecting and organizing data, for example, through prioritizing.

Naked Keynesianism
A Short Note on Social Theory and Enquiry
David Fields

David Fields — Neoliberal Theory of Society

Neoliberalism propels governments to adopt policies aimed at maintaining credibility in financial markets for the attraction and retainment of short-term capital. The recipe for disaster is fiscal restraint, tight monetary policy, and the protection of high interest rates to prevent inflationary pressures from undermining the value of real return on financial assets. Macroeconomic policy is supposed to be designed in such a way that the interests of those who own financial assets (wealthy households) are prioritized over those who are forced to sell their labor power for sustenance. As a result, the trigger threat of capital fight significantly limits the space for attention to social welfare to be embedded.

Short translation: Neoliberalism seeks to maximize return on capital in order to grow the capital stock and it seeks to do this by suppressing wages and social benefits and protections.

Naked Keynesianism
Neoliberal Theory of Society
David Fields | University of Utah, Sociology and Economics, PhD Candidate

Erika Bolstad — Report finds insurers unready for climate change-related disasters

The insurance industry is ill-prepared to handle climate change-related disasters, regulators and industry watchers warned Thursday, saying the business hasn’t evolved enough in the face of rising sea levels and extreme weather fueled by climate change.

Failure to plan for the effects of climate change might challenge the stability of one of the largest sectors of the world economy, said Mindy Lubber, the president of the sustainability nonprofit organization Ceres, which authored a report that looks at insurers in three states. There were 11 extreme-weather events that each caused at least a billion dollars in losses last year in the United States. Superstorm Sandy alone caused $50 billion in economic losses.

"If climate change undermines the future availability of insurance – something we’re already seeing in places like Florida – it threatens the economy and taxpayers as well," said Lubber, whose nonprofit encourages investors, companies and public interest groups to accelerate sustainable business practices....

Only 23 companies of the 184 required to make such disclosures have comprehensive climate-change strategies.... 
Of the 23 insurance companies with a comprehensive strategy to cope with climate change, 13 are foreign-owned, the study found.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/03/07/185159/report-finds-insurers-unready.html#storylink=cpy

US companies in denial?

McClatchy
Report finds insurers unready for climate change-related disasters
Erika Bolstad | McClatchy Newspapers

Nathan Tankus: Germany, the “German View” of Hyperinflation and the Ghettoization of Dissent

Money is a social construct. It also facilitates many complex, interrelated social relations. As a result, it’s difficult to pin down for the average person what the effects of a particular policy will be, especially with regard to economic policy. While inflation may have negative effects in certain times or places, it’s difficult to figure that out just by looking around a city or country. As a result when politicians or other figures with agendas want to talk about inflation, they inevitably go for the most visceral descriptions available. For some number of decades now, the example they go to do decry inflation is people carrying around “wheelbarrows full of money” to go buy something such as bread. One of their favorite examples is Weimar Germany. So let’s talk about it.

Naked Capitalism
Nathan Tankus: Germany, the “German View” of Hyperinflation and the Ghettoization of Dissent

Steve Keen: Krugman Doesn’t Understand IS-LM (Part I)

Here we go again.

Naked Capitalism
Steve Keen: Krugman Doesn’t Understand IS-LM (Part I)

(Warning: long and wonkish)

Jon Matonis — First Bitcoin Hedge Fund Launches From Malta

You knew it was coming.

Forbes
First Bitcoin Hedge Fund Launches From Malta
Jon Matonis
(h/t Ramanan)

Jen Alic — North Korean "Insanity" Part of Geopolitical Game

Method behind madness.

Oil Price
North Korean "Insanity" Part of Geopolitical Game

Jen Alic | ISA Intel

(h/t Zero Hedge)

Lakshman Achuthan: "The Entire West Is In The Yo-Yo Years"

ECRI's Lakshman Achuthan thinks we've hit stall speed. Sobering analysis of the economic fundamentals versus asset market performance. The economic term "recession" is about the former. Achuthan doesn't like what he sees of the fundamentals.

In 80% of the last 15 recessions you have had an associated bear market. That is why if you hear the word recession, you say, oh my gosh, we have to run to the hills in the equity market. But in three out of those 15 recessions, we had stock prices rise through the recession.

I suspect that the Fed has engineered artificial support for asset markets through low interest rates and QE to create inflationary expectations (even though there is no mechanism to account for it). This has had a euphoric effect on equities. When the economic fundamentals actually improve, then the Fed will start raising rates again, and rising interest rates affect margin cost and therefore dampen speculation in asset markets. It's difficult to tell what will happen when market behavior has been intentionally distorted.

Zero Hedge
"The Entire West Is In The Yo-Yo Years"
Tyler Durden

Bill McBride — Zelman: "Nirvana for housing"

CR Note: Obviously I'm also very positive on housing. And I'm positive on the overall economy too - and a key reason is, historically, housing is the best leading indicator for the economy. In the Business Insider interview late last year, I said: "I’m not a roaring bull, but looking forward, this is the best shape we’ve been in since ’97".

Calculated Risk
Zelman: "Nirvana for housing"
Bill McBride

Housing and employment turning around, but private debt levels are still elevated historically even after considerable deleveraging. The lackluster economic performance with the historical level of interest rates for an extended period is concerning, especially since asset markets have been appreciating based on low rates rather than fundamentals. So my conclusion is, meh.

Bill McBride — Employment Report Comments and more Graphs

The 236 thousand payroll jobs added in February is from the establishment survey (a survey of businesses for payroll jobs), but the unemployment rate is from the household survey. To help understand the decline in the unemployment rate, here is some data from the household survey....Overall this was a fairly solid report, but with the high unemployment rate, many workers unemployed for a long time, and the large number of part time workers, there is a long way to go.

Calculated Risk
Employment Report Comments and more Graphs
Bill McBride

If the participation rate increases, then it would take more jobs to reduce the unemployment rate.  If the participation rate continues to decline (or just flat lines for a couple of years), then it takes fewer jobs to reduce the unemployment rate.

Journalism and Innocent Fraud - STOP Reading Any and All Ad-Supported News?

Commentary by Roger Erickson

Jobs Fuel Stock Rally

? What are these people smoking? Most of the terms used don't adequately convey Situational Awareness, and Walter Shewhart specifically warned us, 80 years ago, that "Data without [full] context is meaningless."

No wonder most media expressed "surprise" over everything from Madoff to mortgage fraud to TARP to TBTP to Control Fraud. Most citizens are still in the dark!

Labor "FARCE" participation rate down.
Wholesale inventories growing.
Personal incomes bad & deteriorating.
Aggregate Demand is Degrading.

Yet most people are reading only the wrong sources, like the first headline above, about a "jobs rally?"  Why? Maybe because most journalists are reporting selectively useless data?

They only talk to yesterday's experts, who are ALWAYS wrong about tomorrow's change! What on earth happened to investigative journalism? For comparison, we place roadsigns to tell motorists what's coming ahead, not to affirm and reassure them about what they've already passed!

Granted, you can sell more soap with ads tagged to familiar news. That's exactly the trap.

Hence ad-driven & eyeball-driven & profit-driven source & story selection ALWAYS misinforms, precisely by increasingly lagging accelerating change. That's a BAD combination! Firewalls between journalists & advertisers are as essential as the extinct firewalls between commercial/investment banking were - or those that used to exist between services and risk ratings. Journalism as it is augments Future Shock by always directing attention back instead of forward to what's patently unfamiliar. If we could rely on always extinct credentials, we wouldn't need evolution!

How many journalists ever hear about Sampling Theory? It applies to Situational Awareness too, not that they'd know. To provide a useful service, adaptive change in journalism has to match or exceed situational change.

More than anything else, that means honestly and adequately RE-SAMPLING all available sources daily, to update Situational Awareness. It's treasonousally useless - and Innocent Fraud at best - to simply reaffirm overadaptation to situations that no longer exist.

To keep an electorate informed well enough to surf ongoing reality, everything about journalism has to change ... FASTER. The whole field is hurting our country more than helping, by only preaching to the choir instead of honestly informing about change that is emerging - or is even long past.

The dollar has NOT gone down since the 1970s.

I saw in an earlier post that Randy Wray was interviewed by Thom Hartmann, where the question was posed, "Why has the dollar fallen so much since the 1970's?"

Well, it didn't. Take a look. This is the dollar index against a broad basket of currencies.

The dollar may have gone down against the major currencies, but when viewed against a broad basket of currencies, it didn't go down, it went up.

The statement that the dollar went down after we went off the gold standard is commonly put out there, but it is wrong.

Here's the link to the Fed data for anyone that's interested. Enjoy.

Michael Stephens — The Way We Talk (and Don’t Talk) About Money

Video by Victoria Chick, student of Hyman Minsky, "Why don't economists understand money?" and link to Randy Wray's working paper, "Money."

Multiplier Effect
The Way We Talk (and Don’t Talk) About Money
Michael Stephens

Thom Hartmann interviews Randy Wray

Why has the dollar depreciated so much since the 70's? p1

Why has the dollar depreciated so much since the 70's? p2

Why has the dollar depreciated so much since the 70's? p3

Why has the dollar depreciated so much since the 70's? p4

Why has the dollar depreciated so much since the 70's? p5

Why has the dollar depreciated so much since the 70's? p6

Warren Mosler interviewed

Washington's Blog — Are Attorney General Holder’s Statements on Banks and Drones Connected?

Connecting the dots.

Washington's Blog
Are Attorney General Holder’s Statements on Banks and Drones Connected?
WashingtonsBlog

And who has the high ground on this? Rand Paul, preparing for his 2016 bid.

Daniel Little — New thinking about social systems

There is a great deal of important international work underway today within the philosophy of social science on the general topic of social ontology. How do social structures relate to the actions of socially situated actors? How does causation work in the social realm? Can we say anything rigorous about the nature of "levels" of the social world -- micro, meso, and macro? And is there such a thing as an "emergent" social property or entity?

Understanding Society
New thinking about social systems
Daniel Little | Chancellor, University of Michigan at Dearborn

Ralph Musgrave — Richard Werner says government should borrow from private banks – I’m baffled.

I didn't realize that Prof. Werner went insane. Or is this a sudden onset? Pity.

Why not just privatize the Bank of England again, and leave the banks alone in setting Libor? Then maybe they would feel warm and fuzzy and lend more.

Ralphonomics

Richard Werner says government should borrow from private banks – I’m baffled.
Ralph Musgrave

Washington's Blog — The Government Has It Bass-Ackwards: Failing To Prosecute Criminal Fraud by the Big Banks Is Killing – NOT Saving – the Economy

Failure to Prosecute Fraud Causes Economic Downturns

Washington's Blog
The Government Has It Bass-Ackwards: Failing To Prosecute Criminal Fraud by the Big Banks Is Killing – NOT Saving – the Economy
WashingtonsBlog

David Ruccio — Economics is a science?!

The next time some mainstream economist stands up and says “Economics is a science” and, because it is a science, “We know what the effects of implementing this policy are,” just send them to the current debate about the minimum wage. 

Catherine Rampell does a good job illustrating the absurdity of the view that economics is a science. There aren’t many topics in economics that have been the focus of as much theoretical modeling and empirical research as the minimum wage. And there simply isn’t any kind of consensus—among mainstream economists, let alone among all economists—about the effects of raising the minimum wage.

Real-World Economics Review Blog

Economics is a science?!

David Ruccio | Professor of Economics, University of Notre Dame

Are WE Ready to Let This Make a Difference This Time?

Commentary by Roger Erickson

Attention couch potato nation. Here's another reason to git yer arse off the couch. Are you game for an effort that actually matters?

Winslow Wheeler: Treason They Name is F-35A — We Expect Hagel to “Do A Cheney”

Have we seen this all before? Sure.

It Was 30 Years Ago Today. And that wasn't the first, or even the last time.

The best way to rob any institution is to own it, regardless of whether it's a bank, priesthood, arms contractor, DoD, hospital, insurer, pharmaceutical, Congress, POTUS or SCOTUS. Comically, WE, collectively, own all those institutions! With a minimal effort, we could rob the robbers right back, so fast they'd never know what hit 'em. How? We'd invent a secret process, code named "REGU".
REGU is too secret to divulge here. However, to use it, we simply need to start acting like an owner. Do you prefer to regu early, regu now, or regu-late? If you prefer an ounce of prevention over a pound of cure, then it's simply a matter of preparation.

Where do YOU start?Are you ticked off by the arrogance of the Mil-Industrial-Congressional-Complex?

Do you realize that dominance of the MICC simply means that there isn't any viable CICC? (Citizen's Industrial Congressional Complex, aka Democracy - to care for the general welfare of the people.)

What'cha gonna do about that? Just settle back with more Bud & Cheetos and wait for diabetes to kick in?

There are ~3140 counties in the USA. To make a CICC a viable complex, we can't tell anyone what to do in their local county. We can only point out that we need a citizen's alternative to the GOP/DNP duopoly owned by the 1%. Instead of telling each other what to do, let's instead set some consensus outcome targets, and then amaze ourselves with our distributed ingenuity. If every eligible voter in the USA bribes one another with $1, that's ~140 million in campaign donations right off the bat, and collectively it won't cost us a single penny! Just talk to each other, and quit funneling organizational fees to the uber-merchant class.

Let's keep in touch daily, and compare notes on how our nationwide CICC is shaping up.

Saranya Kapur — Bitcoin Ready To Go Mainstream With First U.S. Exchange

The new PayPal?

Forbes
Bitcoin Ready To Go Mainstream With First U.S. Exchange
Saranya Kapur | Forbes Staff

Mark Gongloff — Eric Holder Admits Some Banks Are Just Too Big To Prosecute

When the Attorney General of the United States admits some banks are simply too big to prosecute, it might be time to admit we have a problem -- and that goes for both the financial and justice systems.

Eric Holder made this rather startling confession in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, The Hill reports. It could be a key moment in the debate over whether to do something about the size and complexity of our biggest banks, which have only gotten bigger and more systemically important since the financial crisis.

"I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy," Holder said,according to The Hill. "And I think that is a function of the fact that some of these institutions have become too large."

Holder's comments don't come as a total surprise. His underlings had already made similar confessions to The New York Times last year, after they declined to prosecute HSBC for flagrant, years-long violations of money-laundering laws, out of fear that doing so would hurt the global economy. Lanny Breuer, formerly in charge of doling out the Justice Department's wrist slaps to banks, told Frontlineas much in the documentary "The Untouchables," which aired in January.

Some observers have defended the Justice Department, suggesting that prosecuting law-breaking banks would amount to a death penalty that could upset the financial system and trigger another recession -- although nobody really knows if it would do any such thing. But by not prosecuting law-breaking banks, and confessing to its terror of prosecuting those banks, the Justice Department has waved a big checkered flag to the biggest banks to go ahead and break all of the laws they want.

The Huffington Post
Eric Holder Admits Some Banks Are Just Too Big To Prosecute
Mark Gongloff

And these are the institutions that the federal government has delegated its money creation power to?

Holder confirms that both capitalism and democracy have broken down. It looks like the only viable option to preserve democracy, eliminate privilege  and reestablish the rule of law is to nationalize the banking system by turning it into a public utility with only government having the money power.

The private sector has demonstrated that it cannot handle the money power responsibly and has grown so large that it cannot be controlled from within or without. It's a herd of rogue elephants on the rampage, where the great beasts have to compete ruthlessly with each other to survive.

Stephen C. Webster — Massive ACLU initiative aims to measure police state’s growth

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said Wednesday that chapters in 23 states have filed over 255 open records requests pertaining to the militarization of local police departments around the country since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, in what the group is calling its most concentrated effort yet to assess the growth of America’s police state.

You will probably want to read the whole piece. It is short and suggests how out of hand this is getting, especially with the assertion of the AG that drones can be used to assassinate Americans on US soil. So much for Obama as constitutional law professor. He joins John Yoo as a traitor to constitutional law.

It's no wonder that advocates of Second Amendment rights are so vocal. This is not just paranoia, even though there may be a lot of paranoia involved, too.

The Raw Story
Massive ACLU initiative aims to measure police state’s growth
Stephen C. Webster

Our Only Real Goal is Operational Agility

Commentary by Roger Erickson

Our Only Real Goal is Operational Agility

Why progressives lose the debt argument every, single, time

There's no one in the progressive movement (other than some MMT folks) that have a serious rebuttal (no...a refutation) to the conservative, deficit hawk, argument. Even Paul Krugman, who is quite prolific when it comes to challenging the conservative arguments on deficits, government spending, entitlements and such, will set himself up for destruction each and every time when says things like, "The debt is not a problem in the short term, but we need to get long-term structural deficits under control."

It is that "long-term" stuff that undermines his efforts.

Once progressives agree with conservatives that there IS a problem, never mind if it has to be addressed now or later, then conservatives just easily come back and say, well, if you agree there is a problem, then why don't we just fix it now and be done with it?

Until we get a progressive that understands our monetary system; that understands the FACT that we can't go broke and that deficits add to the financial balances of the public, and go on to become part of the inheritance (and wealth) of current and future generations, as opposed to being a burden...until that happens, we will lose every, single, time.

Economic illiterate and degenerate, Bill O'Reilly, rips another meek Progressive

Economic illiterate and degenerate blowhard Bill O’Reilly went ballistic on his show the other night, screaming at liberal Fox News whipping boy Alan Colmes and shouting “bull-blank.” (Utterly ridiculous, bull-blank? Seriously?)

O’Reilly called Colmes a “liar” because he said that Colmes couldn’t name one program that has seen a reduction in spending even though Colmes repeatedly stated, Medicare, which saw a $10 billion dollar reduction in FY 2012 vs FY 2011. In addition, Medicaid was down by $23.7 billion, NASA down by $1 billion, Federal salaries (not a program, but still a target of fiscal conservative ire) down by almost $3 billion and there’s more. The numbers are there.

While O’Reilly did the typical bully job on meek Colmes, Colmes deserved it for doing the usual liberal/progressive thing of not having any facts to back up his arguments. The progressive leadership (of which Colmes is a part due to his media presence) is a BIG part of the reason why the movement is not going anywhere. It is easily countered or destroyed by the "bull-blank" conservative dogma.

Here's the video.

Wolf Richter — The Fear of Nuremberg Trials For Corrupt Italian Politicians

Former Italian senator Sergio De Gregorio confirmed over the weekend that he’d been bribed by Silvio Berlusconi in 2006. “The Cavaliere paid me,” he told La Stampanonchalantly about the €3 million he’d received. “Of course I took the money, as I clarified to the prosecutors,” he said.

Utterly frustrated with this sort of daily display of corruption in their country, 8.7 million angry Italians from all walks of life voted for Beppe Grillo’s 5-Star movement. While 25.5% of the popular vote isn’t nearly enough to govern without being part of a coalition, which he has so far rejected, it’s enough to give the political establishment conniptions—and show that anger and frustration finally count.

“The existing political class must be expelled immediately,” he told the New York Times. Hence his refusal to form a coalition. He wants the political system to collapse. From it, he’d construct “something new,” something truly democratic. “We can change everything in the hands of respectable people,” he explained.

But wasn’t it reckless to try to destroy the system? “How can we be accused of destroying something that’s already destroyed?” he asked. “They’ve devoured the country, and now they can’t govern.” He called Berlusconi of the right-leaning PDL a “psycho dwarf” and Pier Luigi Bersani, the top honcho of the left-leaning Democratic Party, “a dead man walking.”

Italy’s political system would collapse, he told the German online magazine Focus. “I give the old parties six months, and then it’s over.” In the subsequent elections, the 5-Star movement could get enough votes to govern—and to clean house.

The Testosterone Pit
The Fear of Nuremberg Trials For Corrupt Italian Politicians
Wolf Richter