SO WHAT IF THE ARCTIC OCEAN MELTS?
The sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is approaching its annual nadir. By early September each year about two thirds of the ice cap has melted, then the sea begins to freeze again.
This year looks unlikely to set a record for melting, with more than four million square kilometers of ice remaining, less than the average in the 1980s and 1990s, but more than in the record low years of 2007 and 2012. (The amount of sea ice around Antarctica has been increasing in recent years, contrary to predictions.)
Meanwhile, the habit of some scientists of predicting when the ice will disappear completely keeps getting them into trouble. But would it matter if it did all melt one year? Here’s the point everybody seems to be missing: the Arctic Ocean’s ice has indeed disappeared during summer in the past, routinely.
And when it did, during a period known as the “Early Holocene Insolation Maximum” (EHIM), it was the best thing that ever happened to humanity. Here’s why.
Join the forum discussion on this postWHY WOULD THE IRS FOLKS HAVE A TAX THAT LOSES THEM MONEY?
Would you be in favor of a tax that loses money for the government, and penalizes entrepreneurship, job creation and economic growth?
Only muddy-brained or mean-spirited people would favor such a tax -- yet many such people are found in the Internal Revenue Service and Congress. The tax that I am referring to is the capital gains tax, and even more specifically, the capital gains tax as it is applied to the sale of commodities.
A capital gains tax liability occurs when you sell an asset for more than you paid for it. The asset could be stocks, bonds, real estate, art, or gold and other commodities.
Most commodity prices have fallen, after reaching a cyclical high at the beginning of the Great Recession, which means, even in nominal terms (not-inflation-adjusted), the capital gains tax on commodities is a net revenue loser for the government.
The issue is of renewed importance because of the rise of new, private digital-like monies (e.g., bitcoin).
THE CLINTON WITNESS PROGRAM
HALF-FULL REPORT 08/26/16
Good grief. What a disastrous, horrible, no-good lousy week this has been… for The PIAPS.
I’m sure you need cheering up after this depressing news, and if listening to a masterful British orator won’t do it, nothing will:
Nigel Farage, however, was the least of Shrillary’s worries this week. On Wednesday (8/24), the New York Post’s cover story was A Nation for Sale under Hillary Clinton. But this isn’t a Post scoop – this is an exposé of the Clinton Foundation’s naked criminality by the media’s gold-standard flagship, the Associated Press itself. Every newspaper in the country uses an AP newsfeed. As such, it cannot be ignored by the Libtard Media and it is utterly devastating.
Trump was fully justified to declare that, “It is now clear that the Clinton Foundation is the most corrupt enterprise in political history.”
Jack Kelly had a marvelous column this week on Journalists as Presstitutes. They are intentionally biased for the left, willful propagandists and shills for the Democrats.
There is another way they presstitute themselves that you should know about, for it will give you a deep insight into how journalism really works. We use a current story about Turkey in the New York Times as a prime example.
How’s this for a headline in this morning’s (8/26) London Daily Express: Favorite to be Next Dutch Prime Minister Vows to Ban the Koran and Close All Mosques. Yep, that’s Geert Wilders. He and his Dutch Freedom Party lead every poll there is by double digits, and the election is soon.
We have the HFR’s favorite judge, favorite Olympian, and Hero of the Week. Here we go.
WHERE THE SOVIET UNION STILL EXISTS
Tiraspol, Transnistria. Lenin lives. At least he still does here in the strangest country in Europe, as it insists on pretending it is a part of the Soviet Union.
We are in a landlocked and isolated sliver of Moldova that wanted no part of the breakup of the USSR in the wake of Berlin Wall falling in November 1989.
This is where the Soviet Union still exists – and where the people consider themselves Soviet citizens. They idolize Putin – and thus idolize Trump for being Putin’s friend.
JOURNALISTS SHOULD BE CALLED PRESSTITUTES
Where can you go to get accurate, timely, unbiased information about what’s happening in America and the world? Where can you find news reported in depth and in context, without spin?
Except for TTP -- nowhere.
The two things essential for the preservation of a free society are an educated populace and a free press, Jefferson said.
“If a nation expects to be ignorant & free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was & never will be,” he said. "Our liberty cannot be guarded but by the freedom of the press, nor that be limited without danger of losing it."
Liberty is on life support chiefly because (most of) those responsible for the education of our children are not teaching them what they need to know to be good citizens, and because so many in the news media are lap dogs, not watchdogs.
The news media are intentionally biased, said 70 percent of respondents to a survey conducted last year by USA Today and the Newseum Institute, a 15 percent increase over the year before.
Many journalists abuse trust placed by pushing agendas. They strive to shape public opinion rather than simply to inform it. The vast majority of presstitutes shill for Democrats and left wing causes.
AMERICA NEEDS A FOREIGN POLICY AS SERIOUS AS IRAN’S
Let’s state it clearly: Washington’s policy regarding state sponsors of terrorism is schizophrenic. As a result, our government is failing in its duty to protect Americans from terrorism.
It is not as if we need evidence of what nations are sponsoring terror attacks against us. Whether the attacks of 9-11, the Khobar Towers bombing, and the attacks on our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, Iran was the prime culprit, in addition to the thousands of American soldiers maimed and killed by IED’s strewn all over Iraq and Afghanistan by Iranian agents.
If the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, Obama’s Iran nuclear deal)) was truly able to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons, looking the other way while Iran builds ballistic missiles and supports terrorism might be considered unpalatable, but nonetheless necessary if that were the only choices before us.
But the JCPOA only delays Iran from reaching its goal of becoming a nuclear-armed state sponsor of terrorism—which all evidence suggests is happening rapidly. The effect on Middle East security is already devastating.
By our inaction, we are helping Iran create a Shia crescent from Iran to Iraq to Syria to Lebanon and to the Mediterranean Sea, an arc dominated by Iran and its terror proxies that jeopardizes the entire Middle East and especially the US allied oil producing states.
CHINA’S DEAD MONEY TRAP
Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People's Bank of China
China is at mounting risk of a Japanese-style "liquidity trap" as monetary policy loses traction and the economy approaches credit exhaustion, forcing a shift towards Keynesian fiscal stimulus.
Officials at the Chinese People’s Bank (PBOC) have begun to call for a fundamental change in strategy, warning that interest rate cuts have become an increasingly blunt tool. They cannot easily stop companies hoarding cash or halt the slide in private investment.
Sheng Songcheng, the PBOC’s head of analysis, set off a storm last month by warning that the economy had “started to show some signs of being caught in a liquidity trap.”
Caixin magazine said last week (8/16) Chinese companies are hoarding record sums of “dead money” rather than spending it. The growth rate of private investment has dropped to 2.1% over the last seven months, the lowest since global financial crisis.
The International Monetary Fund warned in June that China’s corporate debt has reached 145% of GDP. “Vulnerabilities are still rising on a dangerous trajectory. They must be addressed immediately,” it said. China’s entire financial system is clearly out of kilter.
DON’T JUST DO SOMETHING – STAND THERE!
A Spotless Sun
Climate change projects spend enormous sums with no effect. They have not only been a waste of money, they have done real harm.
Some trillions of hard-earned taxpayer dollars have been spent to combat global warming over the last three decades. Has the expenditure of all of this money reduced global temperatures from where they would have otherwise been? No, at least not to a measurable degree.
The major governments of the world have undertaken a public policy which to date has cost far more than any benefits. The rebuttal by the advocates of all of this government spending is to say it is nothing more than a down payment on what needs to be done and the benefits will accrue to future generations.
British scientist Valentina Zharkova and her team at Northumbria University in the United Kingdom have produced a new model enabling unprecedentedly accurate predictions of the sun’s solar cycle. She recently presented her findings in an address to the Royal Astronomical Society, Heartbeat of the Sun from Principal Component Analysis and prediction of solar activity on a millenium timescale.
The model predicts that a coming periodic reduction in the sun’s magnetic radiation will soon lead to major global cooling.
22 RULES FOR A GOOD OLD AGE
These are rules to live a full and savored old age. The last is the most important. But you won’t fully appreciate it until you’ve read all the others first.
- It's time to use the money you saved up. Use it and enjoy it. Don't just keep it for those who may have no notion of the sacrifices you made to get it. Remember there is nothing more dangerous than a son or daughter-in-law with big ideas for your hard earned capital. Enjoy the present moment. The sand in the clock may run out at any moment.
- Stop worrying about the financial situation of your children and grandchildren. You've taken care of them for many years, and you've taught them what you could. You gave them an education, food, shelter and support. The responsibility is theirs to earn their way.
- Keep a healthy life with moderate exercise (like walking every day), eat well and get your sleep. It's easy to become sick, and it gets harder to remain healthy. Keep in touch with your doctor, get tested even when you're feeling well. Stay informed.
- Always buy the best, most beautiful items for your significant other. The key goal is to enjoy your money with your partner. One day one of you will miss the other, and the money will not provide any comfort then. Enjoy it together.