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Well, this is not good…

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So coupled with the case of sudden Jihad syndrome out of Australia, we have something that is considerably concerning and interestingly not being advertised well within the news.

Last night Russia increased interest rates to 17%. Yes, those rates are Jimmy Carter era rates. Now why would they do something like that? Well here it is in graphical form:

Snapshot as of Dec. 16, 2014 0716 Pacific Time

Snapshot as of Dec. 16, 2014 0716 Pacific Time

The link will take you to the current Kitco rates. That’s right folks the Russian Ruble has damn near lost half its value in 30 days. There is a bunch of very interesting things if you think about it, and none of it comforting. Be ready cause winter is coming.

It is becoming apparent that the majority of the world has been printing money at a rate faster than the US and the US is making Zimbabwe look like thrifty spenders. How is that for “mental comfort”.

Can We Please Bring on the Apocalypse Already?

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I’ll let Tallahassee Explain.

Well life is now imitating art and soon that box of Twinkies on the shelf may very well be the last box of Twinkies.

Hostess Brands, the bankrupt maker of cream-filled pastries like Twinkies and Ho Hos, said on Friday that it planned to wind down its operations. The decision comes a week after one of the company’s biggest unions went on strike to protest a labor contract.

The unions were protesting a cut in pay which occurred because of increased operating costs.  I do find it funny that in this wonderful market, where I know many people who have taken pay cuts instead of raises, these people decided they were going to go on strike. Tell me geniuses, how is no income better than some income?  Have no fear though because I’m sure they will all be collecting unemployment from the government.  That means you and I get to pay them for their stupidity.

Doubly so since the company warned the union that they were going to have to liquidate and shutdown if they didn’t return to work.  Well, the union called the bluff with one minor mistake, the company wasn’t bluffing.

The last thing I need is freaking Twinkies but man they take me back to my childhood.  Thank’s for ruining a direct link back idiots.

Welcome to the demise folks.  This is what happens as government regulation gets to the point where businesses can no longer thrive or be profitable.  Things crash and augur into the ground.  Get ready folks because this is going to get worse, a lot worse.  Especially when you consider the number of people dependent on the government, when the hand outs stop, they’ll just attempt to take their handouts from others.

Atlas is starting to shrug and it seems a lot of people don’t even realize it.

Quote of the Day–11/15/2012

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The arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and assistance to foreign hands should be curtailed, lest Rome fall.

Cicero, 55 BC 

[So, what’s changed in the last 2067 years that some how makes this republic exempt?

My mom emailed this to me after the previous post on the budget.

"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed, lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work instead of living on public assistance."

She added the comment we have learned nothing in the last 2067 years.  She’s right.  Those who don’t learn from history are bound to repeat it.  The problem is though is you have a large segment of the population getting free stuff from the government.  They don’t want that to stop until every last drop is sucked out.

Get ready folks because the fall of the Roman Empire wasn’t exactly a fun ride.  -B  ]

Who Needs A Budget?

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Apparently Congress doesn’t need one says Patty Murray…

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) confirmed Thursday that she will seek the chairmanship of the Senate Budget Committee next year but told The Hill that she cannot commit to doing a budget.

This opens up the possibility that Senate Democrats will avoiding passing a budget resolution for the fourth year in a row.

Why doesn’t everyone just give up operating within a budget.  Since government doesn’t need to, why should I?  Hell the government can increase their debt limit too!  The credit agencies should just allow me to borrow as much money as I want.  If it isn’t a problem for the government why is it a problem if I do it?

Seriously, someone answer the question.  How is it OK for the government to keep writing check, using my name I might add for part of the bill, but they don’t need to have a budge to live within.  Not only do they not have a budget, but when they run out of money they just borrow more.

Most people I know are tightening their belts.  It appears Washington has decided to go Robb Allen and ditch the pants and belt.  Obviously they missed the part where Robb doesn’t do debt which is why he doesn’t need a belt.

So you want an AR…

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This isn’t as much a how-to buying guide but merely a disclaimer that right now is not the time to buy.

The most annoying thing about the post election panic is that it throws a wrench at planned purchases.  I was planning on buying more blasting ammo for Boomershoot, well when ammo started disappearing from shelves, that changed the time frame.  I did an inventory last night and confirmed, yes I needed more steel cased ammo. Since the new replacement ammo is lacquer coated steal rounds I picked up some P-Mags with it and had a nice long discussion with the owner since he’s also my neighbor.  Seriously, he lives 2 houses down from me on the opposite side of the road.

While chatting phones ring and emails come in.  The result of the calls and emails is that  I’m promptly helping them retag every AR in the place.  Now they weren’t gouging nearly as bad as they could, or probably even should.  But every rifle went up by at least an extra 100 bucks.  Now here’s why.  There is no replacement supply anywhere on the horizon, their friends were reporting they were sold out and couldn’t get replacement stock.  Their suppliers were sold out and back ordered for the foreseeable future.  Even manufactures are listing as back-ordered.  Given the sudden demand increase and a fixed supply, prices are going up.

So my advice is if you’re wanting an AR, now is probably not the best time to buy.  Prices will probably drop back now in 6 months and deliveries will move back to normal.

The same goes for ammo.  If you can survive on your current stock, do so.  Come spring thaw it will be back to normal rates and you’ll also have people trying to unload excess stock they didn’t need.  Right now a bunch of people are panicking and buying, but honestly if you wanted one for preparatory purposes, you should have done this a while ago.

Quote of the Day – Joe Huffman(11/5/2012)

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Don’t ever be at a loss for words when someone whines about the rich getting richer. Don’t try to explain that it doesn’t or shouldn’t matter if some people get rich or that it means there is opportunity for others to get rich. Handle it as Ms. Thatcher did. Follow it up by forcefully making the case that if the gap between the rich and the poor is a valid cause for government and/or social action then they will never be satisfied until fully equality is achieved. And there are those that admit what they demand is fully equality in just those words. But what they cannot seem to comprehend is that fully equality can only be approximated by everyone being in extreme poverty. Full equality comes with death. And it should come as no surprise the political left is well acquainted with death on a very large scale.

(Emphasis mine.)

Joe Huffman – Quote of the day – Margaret Thatcher
November 4th, 2012

[Go read the whole thing.  That which I emphasized above is the money shot and is worth remembering.  Because that is exactly what many would like to bring upon all of us. -B]

Adventures in Venture Capitalism

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It’s been known for a while that green-energy is suspect and has serious issues.  Yet our fearless leader has shoved more money at failed projects that most could comprehend.  If this man ran a venture capitalist firm his clients would have left long ago because he was driving them to be broke.

What exactly am I talking about, well here’s a list of companies that have failed that received funding from Obama.

  1. Evergreen Solar ($24 million)*
  2. SpectraWatt ($500,000)*
  3. Solyndra ($535 million)*
  4. Beacon Power ($69 million)*
  5. AES’s subsidiary Eastern Energy ($17.1 million)
  6. Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)
  7. SunPower ($1.5 billion)
  8. First Solar ($1.46 billion)
  9. Babcock and Brown ($178 million)
  10. EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)*
  11. Amonix ($5.9 million)
  12. National Renewable Energy Lab ($200 million)
  13. Fisker Automotive ($528 million)
  14. Abound Solar ($374 million)*
  15. A123 Systems ($279 million)*
  16. Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($6 million)
  17. Johnson Controls ($299 million)
  18. Schneider Electric ($86 million)
  19. Brightsource ($1.6 billion)
  20. ECOtality ($126.2 million)
  21. Raser Technologies ($33 million)*
  22. Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)*
  23. Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)*
  24. Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million)*
  25. Range Fuels ($80 million)*
  26. Thompson River Power ($6.4 million)*
  27. Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)*
  28. LSP Energy ($2.1 billion)*
  29. UniSolar ($100 million)*
  30. Azure Dynamics ($120 million)*
  31. GreenVolts ($500,000)
  32. Vestas ($50 million)
  33. LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ($150 million)
  34. Nordic Windpower ($16 million)*
  35. Navistar ($10 million)
  36. Satcon ($3 million)*

*Denotes companies that have filed for bankruptcy.

Total waste?  $8.108 Billion dollars.  Yes that’s billion with a B.  People keep insisting that to fix the budget problem we need to make massive cuts to the big pieces of the pie.  What people don’t seem to understand is that the biggest pieces are all the small tiny pieces added together.

Look at all that money that’s been wasted.  Debt that has now been laid upon our children and working class.  For what?  So that some donors to the Obama administration can go buy a new vacation house?  So that some leftist can feel good about his view on the environment and forcing others to pay for his moral views?

Seriously, why is anyone even thinking about continuing to vote for a man who so willingly and blatantly has been robbing the American public blind.  Not only is he robbing them but selling your children into slavery.  There is no such thing as a free lunch yet everyone seems to think they’re getting one.

That stimulus so heavily lobbied for has $80 billion in politically tied energy projects.  Yet we see how those projects actually worked, not to mention how it actually delayed existing projects.  Over 1900 investigations have begun to look into waste, further costs to the American tax payer.

To put this into even greater perspective, 10% of the funding for energy projects provided by the stimulus is nothing but waste.  That’s to a cost $25.82 per every man, woman and child, just in waste.  If you just count the tax payers, it’s an extra $70.81 in cost.  If you don’t believe me, do the math yourself.  Here’s where I got the numbers for population and taxpayers.  To take it further we have another 6 trillion in debt overall, that comes out to be another $51,000 dollars for every man, woman, and child.  The overall debt burden in this country is enough for most people to buy a house, again, every man, woman, and child, even babies.

Lets look at the issue in another way focusing on spending during 2012 overall:

Under Obama, for every $7 we’ve had, we’ve spent nearly $11 (or, to be more exact, $10.95).  That’s like a family that makes $70,000 a year — and is already knee-deep in debt — blowing nearly $110,000 a year.

Joe also put it really well a while ago before we ended up even further in this hole:

If your family income were $50,000 then:

Now that has brought the spending problem into a better perspective, let me ask, why is the out of control spending and economy not at the fore front of the presidential race?  I hope all of you who continue to not see a problem with this reckless spending and endless growth of government are happy selling your soul and children’s soul into slavery.  Because you honestly have no business writing checks your ass can’t cash and putting your kids name or my name on it.  Period.

Quote of the Day – Stephen Moore (10/17/2012)

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For well more than one of every three Americans, April 15th isn’t tax payment day, it’s payday from Uncle Sam.

Stephen Moore – Who’s the Fairest of Them All?
October 9th, 2012

[It is deeply disturbing that 40% of income earners didn’t pay income taxes but instead received payments.  I keep hearing people use the term “fair share” and well as I used all so often lately:

What is fair about one group of people paying out taxes while another group collects a part of them for themselves?  Fair would be a flat tax, hell a flat income tax would even be a better start than what we have now. -B]