Media Manipulation

I know nothing about this group, but I thought that you would find this video about how our Media is controlled of interest. 

When Does The Fecal Matter Hit the Circular Air Circulation Device?

Is This Krugman? I must just be stupid. Paul Krugman has a Nobel Prize in Economics, surely he must know what he is talking about? In a recent column, "Nobody Understands Debt," : 

In 2011, as in 2010, America was in a technical recovery but continued to suffer from disastrously high unemployment. And through most of 2011, as in 2010, almost all the conversation in Washington was about something else: the allegedly urgent issue of reducing the budget deficit.

So the fact that for every dollar the government spends 42 cents is borrowed is not a cause for concern. The fact that the government debt to GDP ratio for the first time is over 100% is no cause for alarm. Really? Here is part of his argument:

And while they’ve been waiting, those rates have dropped to historical lows. You might think that this would make politicians question their choice of experts — that is, you might think that if you didn’t know anything about our postmodern, fact-free politics.

Yes in the short term Krugman does have a valid point. Even a radical cutter like me would go about the needed reforms gradually, over 5 years or so. 

Lord Keynes was famously asked about what the effect of his policies would be in the long term. He said "In the long run we are all dead." Of course Keynes is dead and we are living in his long term. We cannot continue to kick the can down the road forever. This is far better than allow a crisis to occur and be forced to either print money or drastically cut government spending all at once. 

Of course Krugman thinks we can. 

Deficit-worriers portray a future in which we’re impoverished by the need to pay back money we’ve been borrowing. They see America as being like a family that took out too large a mortgage, and will have a hard time making the monthly payments.

...

First, families have to pay back their debt. Governments don’t — all they need to do is ensure that debt grows more slowly than their tax base. The debt from World War II was never repaid; it just became increasingly irrelevant as the U.S. economy grew, and with it the income subject to taxation.

To a degree Krugman is right. However we are living in a time where the tax base is NOT growing as rapidly as the debt, nor is it likely to grow that fast anytime soon. The Japanese have been stuck in this scenario for 20 years and their debt to GDP ratio is over 200%. This cannot be sustained. The Japan example does tell us that the US has a few years before the proverbial "fecal matter hits the circular air circulation device." 

I have been saying that this is 4 to 8 years. It could be longer, or it might be shorter. The question is asked in environmental circles. If you have a pond and it takes 30 days for the lily plant to cover the pond, and the lily plant grows 50% every day, on what day is the pond 1/2 full? The answer is on day 29. The point they are making is that with exponential growth the problem is not recognized until it may be too late. 

We may not have much warning when the bond buyers quit buying. In fact if the US attacks Iran, I can see Russia and China quit buying bonds and selling the ones they have. The problem is inevitable, if things continue as they are, but the exact time of the crisis is not predictable. 

Even with the unrealistic growth predicted by the Congressional Budget Office, even with the Office predicting the Bush tax cuts expiring next year (a 4 trillion tax increase), the Office is still projection a 13 trillion dollar increase in the debt over ten years. (This is from July 2011)

This almost doubles the debt in ten years. 

Here is a debt chart from the interestingly-named site Babylontoday.com 

The chart is a little out of date, US Government debt debt is now 15 trillion.

Here is the projected government debt over the next few years. 

(If you notice this chart includes State and Local government debt, but does not include government guaranteed debt like Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac.) 

Let’s say the debt does double over the next ten years and interest rates also double. What will that do to the deficit? Let’s do the math. 

From a little google research it appears that the percentage of interest of government expenses is 6%. Since we borrow 42 cents for every dollar that is spent that means the percentage of the interest of total government revenue is 6/58 or roughly 10%. So if interest rates go from the historic low of 2% they are now to 4%, and the debt doubles, that means the ratio of the interest payments to government revenue will go up to 40%. Obviously this is a back-of-the-envelope kind of calculation that ignores economic growth. The point is that we have reached a point where the current deficit of the US Government is not sustainable. 

Krugman is right, "no one" understands debt. No one in government, and especially no one that writes for the New York Times understands debt. 

Skunk Skin Britches

One of my favorite songs. I had the 45! 

Apparently MySpace still exists.

Social Conservatism Is Not Important

Is this the best approach to end abortion? I am thinking about this issue as Rick Santorum, poster boy for social conservatives, leads in a statistical tie for first place in Iowa and next week is the New Hampshire primary. “But, Dennis,” I can just hear you saying, “How can this not be important?” Yes, it is important in many ways. Late term abortion is a blight on the nation. There have even been cases that I would describe as infanticide. But abortion and other social issues are not issues that can be solved by politics. 

Do you really think that a state like California is going to vote to ban abortions? Is a state like New York going to pay any attention to any Federal law banning it? Are there enough anti-abortion voters to elect 2/3 of the Congress and the state legislatures to pass a constitutional amendment? And even if it did pass, why do we think anyone in the liberal states will pay attention to it? We happily ignore the constitution as it is. Will the Supreme Court ever overturn Roe v. Wade? I think the answer to all these questions is no. (An historical note: the original Roe decision still banned late term abortions.) 

In the historical section of the Bible the various kings are listed. Often the king’s reign is summed up like this: he was a good king but allowed the high places to continue. Why did the king do this? The high places were a direct threat to the authority and control he had over the central sanctuary. I am sure the reason was the king felt he could not do anything about it. 

The high places were a combination of brothels and centers of cultic worship. The idea was to signal the gods by sympathetic magic to have sex by having cultic sex with prostitutes—both male and female, both heterosexual and homosexual. The idea was that unless the gods had sex there would be no rain. Usually the initiates were slaves raised to that life with the male babies often being castrated in infancy. 

While there were attempts to abolish this practice—King Josiah was the most successful—these attempts ultimately failed. At the end of Judah’s political independence the prophet Ezekiel in chapter 8 describes the temple: 

 ⁵ Then he said to me, “Son of man, look toward the north.” So I looked, and in the entrance north of the gate of the altar I saw this idol of lust.

 Typical Household Asherahs⁶ And he said to me, “Son of man, do you see what they are doing—the utterly detestable things the Israelites are doing here, things that will drive me far from my sanctuary? But you will see things that are even more detestable.”

(Note that in verse 5 I replaced the NIV’s jealousy with lust. The Hebrew can go either way. It is not certain what the image of lust is, but it is probably an erect phallus or a asherah used as an idol in temple prostitution—done right in the temple of God.)  

Only after the destruction of Judah did the people’s hearts change as they returned from exile. The prophet Jeremiah predicted this in chapter 31:

 ³¹ ”The days are coming,” declares the LORD, 
   ”when I will make a new covenant 
with the people of Israel 
   and with the people of Judah. 
³² It will not be like the covenant 
   I made with their ancestors 
when I took them by the hand 
   to lead them out of Egypt, 
because they broke my covenant, 
   though I was a husband to them,” 
            declares the LORD. 
³³ ”This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel 
   after that time,” declares the LORD. 
“I will put my law in their minds 
   and write it on their hearts. 
I will be their God, 
   and they will be my people. 
³⁴ No longer will they teach their neighbor, 
   or say to one another, ‘Know the LORD,’ 
because they will all know me, 
   from the least of them to the greatest,” 
            declares the LORD. 
“For I will forgive their wickedness 
   and will remember their sins no more.”

This was fulfilled on the return from exile in Babylon. (This passage is also a prediction of the reformation that the early church brought to a corrupt political religious establishment of the first century.) 

It took a thousand years for the people of God to eliminate cultic prostitution. Hopefully it will not take that long for our current cultural malaise to be healed. Note that it took the destruction of their nation, and exile to Babylon. Only when they left Babylon were their hearts changed. 

Will our nation need to be “destroyed” before we, as a group, leave “Babylon”? I hope so, if that is what it takes—but I am guardedly pessimistic that America can avoid this by repenting before our destruction. 

If America can repent, it will not be through politics. It will be through the preaching of the Gospel. 

Remember the proverb:

A man convinced against his will,

Is of the same opinion still. 

Politics can, by force, change the outer appearance. Only repentance, and only God, can change hearts.  

If I Had A Vineyard

It is interesting to whom she applies the scripture. Personally, I apply it to the West.