Excellent read!-----Great Myths of the Great Depression

Great Myths of the Great Depression | Foundation for Economic Education
Many volumes have been written about the Great Depression and its impact on the lives of millions of Americans.
Historians, economists, and politicians have all combed the wreckage searching for the “black box” that will reveal the cause of this legendary tragedy.
Sadly, all too many of them decide to abandon their search, finding it easier perhaps to circulate a host of false and harmful conclusions about the events of seven decades ago.
How bad was the Great Depression?
Over the four years from 1929 to 1933, production at the nation’s factories, mines, and utilities fell by more than half.
People’s real disposable incomes dropped 28 percent.
Stock prices collapsed to one-tenth of their pre-crash height.
The number of unemployed Americans rose from 1.6 million in 1929 to 12.8 million in 1933.
One of every four workers was out of a job at the Depression’s nadir, and ugly rumors of revolt simmered for the first time since the Civil War.
Old myths never die; they just keep showing up in college economics and political science textbooks. 
Students today are frequently taught that unfettered free enterprise collapsed of its own weight in 1929, paving the way for a decade-long economic depression full of hardship and misery.
President Herbert Hoover is presented as an advocate of “hands-off,” or laissez-faire, economic policy, while his successor, Franklin Roosevelt, is the economic savior whose policies brought us recovery.
This popular account of the Depression belongs in a book of fairy tales and not in a serious discussion of economic history, as a review of the facts demonstrates.
The Great, Great, Great, Great Depression
To properly understand the events of the time, it is appropriate to view the Great Depression as not one, but four consecutive depressions rolled into one.
Professor Hans Sennholz has labeled these four “phases” as follows: the business cycle; the disintegration of the world economy; the New Deal; and the Wagner Act.[1]
The first phase explains why the crash of 1929 happened in the first place; the other three show how government intervention kept the economy in a stupor for over a decade.
Phase I: The Business Cycle
Phase II: Disintegration of the World Economy
Phase III: The New Deal
Phase IV: The Wagner Act

Rams Stiff St. Louis, Leave City with $144 Million Bill

Rams Stiff St. Louis, Leave City with $144 Million Bill - Hit & Run : Reason.com:
St. Louis residents no longer have a football team, but that doesn’t mean they will get to stop paying for one. 
While the Rams won a vote in mid-January to relocate to Los Angeles, St. Louis taxpayers will still be responsible for making $144 million in debt and maintenance payments for the Edward Jones Dome. 

Lewis Reed, the St. Louis Board of Alderman president, has asked the NFL for money to help pay off the debt, but he seems unaware of how the multi-billion dollar league operates. 

As Reason has reported in the past, stadium financing is one way the NFL holds cities hostage—either pay for a state-of-the-art facility or lose the prestige of having a professional football team. 
This has resulted in often lopsided stadium deals that leave cities (and their taxpayers) burdened with much of the debt. 

As Reuters points out:

Across the country, cities have gotten stuck with substantial costs after sports teams leave or even move across town. Often, local governments must pay bonds, maintenance costs, or demolition fees after a team is gone.

Houston’s iconic Astrodome, once dubbed the Eighth Wonder of the World, sits empty a decade after the facility housed 25,000 evacuees of Hurricane Katrina and nearly 20 years after the Oilers left. The Detroit Lions’ former Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan, was used sporadically after the team moved downtown in 2002, but shuttered for good when the inflatable roof was deflated.

St. Louis isn’t the only city that regrets it’s deal with the NFL. 
Reason’s Ed Krayewski wrote just a couple weeks ago that San Francisco residents are having buyer’s remorse after realizing that their agreement with the NFL to host a Super Bowl in exchange for a new stadium in Santa Clara, CA resulted in a $5.3 million bill for early lease termination. 
So why would any smart city want the NFL? 
Reason TV explored this question in the video below..."

Obama bullied bank to pay racial settlement without proof: report

Obama bullied bank to pay racial settlement without proof: report | New York Post:
Newly uncovered internal memos reveal the Obama administration knowingly exaggerated charges of racial discrimination in probes of Ally Bank and other defendants in the $900 billion car-lending business as part of a “racial justice” campaign that’s looking more like a massive government extortion and shakedown operation.
So far, Obama’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has reached more than $220 million in settlements with several auto lenders since the agency launched its anti-discrimination crusade against the industry in 2013.
Several other banks are under active investigation.
That’s despite the fact that the CFPB had no actual complaints of racial discrimination — it was all just based on half-baked statistics.
A confidential 23-page internal report detailing CFPB’s strategy for going after lenders shows why these companies are forking over millions of dollars in restitution and fines to the government despite denying any wrongdoing.
The high-level memo, sent by top CFPB civil-rights prosecutors to the bureau’s director and revealed by a House committee, admits their methods for proving discrimination were seriously flawed from the start and had little chance of holding up in court.
Yet they figured they could muscle Ally, as well as future defendants, with threats and intimidation.
“Some of the claims being made in this case present issues, such as use of [race] proxying and reliance on the disparate-impact doctrine, that would pose litigation risks meriting serious consideration prior to taking administrative action or filing suit in district court,” the Oct. 7, 2013, memo addressed to CFPB chief Richard Cordray acknowledges.
“Nevertheless,” it added, “Ally may have a powerful incentive to settle the entire matter quickly without engaging in protracted litigation.”
At the time, the Detroit-based bank was seeking permission from the Federal Reserve to remain a financial holding company. 
Without regulatory approval, Ally risked losing key business lines, primarily its insurance subsidiaries.
Prosecutors also sought to use the Community Reinvestment Act as leverage against Ally.
At the time, the FDIC was reviewing the bank’s compliance with the anti- redlining law..."

KICK THE COCKROACHES OUT: Sweden To Deport 80,000 Muslim Refugees Over Migrant-Linked Violence — Freedom Daily

KICK THE COCKROACHES OUT: Sweden To Deport 80,000 Muslim Refugees Over Migrant-Linked Violence — Freedom Daily:

"Sweden will deport 80,000 migrants who arrived in the country last year and also had their asylum application denied.

Anders Ygemen, the country’s Interior Minister, said that the Swedish government had asked the police and other agencies to organize and enforce their removal."

MUST READ!-----DHS ordered me to scrub records of Muslims with terror ties

DHS ordered me to scrub records of Muslims with terror ties | TheHill
Amid the chaos of the 2009 holiday travel season, jihadists planned to slaughter 290 innocent travelers on a Christmas Day flight from the Netherlands to Detroit, Michigan.
Twenty-three-year old Nigerian Muslim Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab intended to detonate Northwest Airlines Flight 253, but the explosives in his underwear malfunctioned and brave passengers subdued him until he could be arrested.
The graphic and traumatic defeat they planned for the United States failed, that time.
Following the attempted attack, President Obama threw the intelligence community under the bus for its failure to “connect the dots.” 
He said, “this was not a failure to collect intelligence, it was a failure to integrate and understand the intelligence that we already had.”
Most Americans were unaware of the enormous damage to morale at the Department of Homeland Security, where I worked, his condemnation caused.
His words infuriated many of us because we knew his administration had been engaged in a bureaucratic effort to destroy the raw material—the actual intelligence we had collected for years, and erase those dots.
The dots constitute the intelligence needed to keep Americans safe, and the Obama administration was ordering they be wiped away.
After leaving my 15 year career at DHS, I can no longer be silent about the dangerous state of America’s counter-terror strategy, our leaders’ willingness to compromise the security of citizens for the ideological rigidity of political correctness—and, consequently, our vulnerability to devastating, mass-casualty attack.
Just before that Christmas Day attack, in early November 2009, I was ordered by my superiors at the Department of Homeland Security to delete or modify several hundred records of individuals tied to designated Islamist terror groups like Hamas from the important federal database, the Treasury Enforcement Communications System (TECS). These types of records are the basis for any ability to “connect dots...”

AM Fruitcake

History for February 8

History for February 8 - On-This-Day.com:
William Tecumsen Sherman 1820 - Union General during U.S. Civil War, Jules Verne 1828, Lana Turner 1921 


Jack Lemmon 1925, James Dean 1931, John Williams 1932 - Composer, conductor 


1861 - The Confederate States of America was formed. 


1896 - The Western Conference was formed by representatives of Midwestern universities. The group changed its name to the Big 10 Conference. 


1904 - The Russo-Japanese War began with Japan attacking Russian forces in Manchuria. 


1910 - William D. Boyce incorporated the Boy Scouts of America. 


1963 - The Kennedy administration prohibited travel to Cuba and made financial and commercial transactions with Cuba illegal for U.S. citizens. 


1980 - U.S. President Jimmy Carter announced a plan to re-introduce draft registration. 


1985 - "The Dukes of Hazzard" ended its 6-1/2 year run on CBS television. 


1993 - General Motors sued NBC, alleging that "Dateline NBC" had rigged two car-truck crashes to show that some GM pickups were prone to fires after certain types of crashes. The suit was settled the following day by NBC. 

The Paris Attacks 'Mastermind' Made 2 Horrifying Revelations...Obama NEEDS TO Listen

The Paris Attacks 'Mastermind' Made 2 Horrifying Revelations...Obama NEEDS TO Listen:

"If there were ever an “I told you so” moment regarding President Obama’s plan to flood the country with Muslim immigrants seeking asylum from civil war and terrorism in the Middle East, this could certainly be it.

New information just revealed about the murderous mastermind of the Paris terror attacks in November confirms the worst suspicions of critics fighting Obama’s plan to resettle tens of thousands of Syrian refugees in the United States despite fears that the migrants cannot be adequately vetted."

Michigan Man Accused of Supporting Islamic State Planned to Attack Church: ‘It’s My Dream to Behead Someone’ | TheBlaze.com

Michigan Man Accused of Supporting Islamic State Planned to Attack Church: ‘It’s My Dream to Behead Someone’ | TheBlaze.com:

"DETROIT (TheBlaze/AP) — Authorities have arrested a 21-year-old Michigan man whom they accuse of supporting Islamic State militants and plotting — as well as practicing — to attack a Detroit church.

Khalil Abu-Rayyan, of Dearborn Heights, appeared Thursday in U.S. District Court in Detroit and is jailed pending a Monday hearing. He hasn’t been charged with terrorism-related crimes but has been investigated since May and faces marijuana and gun charges."

How FBI blocks whistleblower fighting dismissal; new bill could help others

How FBI blocks whistleblower fighting dismissal; new bill could help others - The Washington Post
Sometimes Uncle Sam’s rules and regulations just don’t make sense.
Take the case of Darin Jones, a former FBI employee who said he was fired after making whistleblower disclosures about a $234,000 awards ceremony, improper procurement spending and a conflict of interest involving a former assistant director and computer help desk contract among other complaints.
“I was wrongfully terminated from my GS-15 Supervisory Contract Specialist in retaliation for whistleblowing on August 24, 2012, the last day of my one year probationary period,” Jones said.
This story isn’t about whether his allegations are right or wrong, but how the FBI and the Justice Department treats employees who, in good faith, make allegations about waste, fraud and abuse.
Jones’s appeal of his dismissal was rejected because he took his allegations to the wrong place. 
He went to his supervisors, which is reasonable in a rational world.
But the FBI has a list of appropriate places for staffers to take allegations, like the Office of Inspector General and the Office of Professional Responsibility. Jones’s boss wasn’t on the list.
It’s kind of like the FBI refusing to investigate a child’s kidnapping because the parents first called the local police.
In too many cases, FBI whistleblowers are treated like the wrongdoers the FBI hunts, instead of the concerned citizens the FBI needs.
Unlike most other federal employees, FBI staffers who fight adverse personnel actions are subjected to what can be an interminable in-house process, with no outside appeal allowed..."

Obama Goes Out Of His Way To Remove American Flag In The White House... ⋆ US Herald

Obama Goes Out Of His Way To Remove American Flag In The White House... ⋆ US Herald:

"The American flag has been replaced with a bright yellow drape. For whatever reason, Obama is separating himself from the American identity.

Moreover then the obvious visuals and change in décor of the White House, is how Obama has “transformed America” around the world, changing the balance of power and tilting it towards Russia and China, and ailing America with a recognized terrorist state, that of Iran and purposely distancing himself from the middle east’s only true democracy Israel."

Just Say No to Wind Turbines – Birds and Blades

Just Say No to Wind Turbines – Birds and Blades:
Wind energy is not free, not efficient, not safe for humans, not environmentally friendly... 
Wind energy is viewed by many as an alternative energy panacea.
Is it?
Many issues arise from wind turbine power generation.
The wind is touted as free, non-polluting, efficient, a CO2 reduction technique, environmentally friendly, safe for humans, and effective against climate change.
Let’s review today’s facts. 
Please feel free to request primary source material for each of these observations.
The rare earth neodymium is the magnet at the top of the turbine tower.
Chinese rare earth mines kill and maim thousands of workers each year.
Those who survive have extremely high cancer rates.
The mine tailings for the rare earth mines are the most polluted, poisoned places on Planet Earth, according to Chinese environmental organizations.
Visit Baotou, Inner Mongolia, on Google to see the vast polluted lake of poison.
Infrasound, sound below 20 MHz, sickens many who live near wind turbines.
Wind turbine flicker makes others sleepless or ill. 
While turbine set backs are encouraged, little enforcement ensues.
Those people with health complaints are ignored.
More than 260 people have died in wind turbine structural liberations—crash and burns—around the world.
There have been 1,700+ such structural liberations during the past decade.
Significant amounts of pollutants are released during a turbine fire.
The wind industry receives massive tax support (public supported profits!), while rate payers see massive price increases. 
Prices are guaranteed, even when wind does not blow.
...A $40 increase in a monthly electricity bill takes food off the table for poor children and the elderly.
Wind turbines offer intermittent power.
The wind blows irregularly.
Turbines spin only with the wind.
The power grid demands constant power sourcing.
Stand-by generation comes from coal, natural gas, and nuclear power.
These cause increased CO2 emissions, as they must spin in reserve, whether they are in use or waiting. 
Thousands of tons of CO2 are emitted by these stand-by power sources. 
This completely defeats the very climate advantage sought.
Turbines are inefficient. 
At best they convert 12-20% of the potential energy available into electricity.
Their rated capacity overstates their functional capacity by a significant margin.
Yet operators are paid based upon their rated capacity.
Lots more here.
Read on.

More 'cli-fi' in the college classroom: Great (and and not-so-great) climate doomsday stories

More 'cli-fi' in the college classroom: Great (and and not-so-great) climate doomsday stories - The College Fix:
It seems my article from last Saturday about the use of “cli-fi” — climate fiction — stories in various college courses attracted a bit of attention.
...The University of Winnepeg’s Heather Snell’s course description for a class which includes cli-fi is another example:
We study various theoretical and critical strategies for reading YA [Young Adult] texts, including feminist, queer, transgender, postmodern, posthuman, postcolonial, critical race, cli-fi and ecocritical; 
cultural assumptions about children and childhood; trends in educational theory and practice; 
the economic and political contexts of the production, consumption and marketing of YA texts for young adults; and popular culture and media for young adults."

Lunch video-----WINDY Landings || Awesome Go Arounds || Madeira

Noon-toon

Obama Claims Jefferson Wanted Peace With Muslims... But Hides The REAL Truth

Obama Claims Jefferson Wanted Peace With Muslims... But Hides The REAL Truth:

"In a world chock-full of deviousness, it’s hard to know what’s true, what’s false, and what’s missing. One thing for sure, a lot was missing from President Barack Obama’s address at a Baltimore mosque on Wednesday."

Panthers Beat Broncos in Subsidy Bowl 50

Panthers Beat Broncos in Subsidy Bowl 50 | Economics21
As anticipation for Super Bowl 50 builds, one winner has already been decided.
When it comes to what team treats its local taxpayers better, the Carolina Panthers blew out the Denver Broncos.
To determine the winner, we can compare the burdens of direct taxpayer subsidies for the teams’ stadiums.
The Broncos received $400 million (adjusted to 2016 dollars) for Sports Authority Field, or 75 percent of the total cost.
Taxpayers gifted the Panthers $165 million, or 30 percent of Bank of America Stadium’s total bill.
Here’s the breakdown for both teams.
(If your team lost in the playoffs, check out my analysis of the Bengals, Seahawks, Steelers, and Vikings here and Cardinals and Patriots here).
Denver Broncos
The Denver Broncos play at Sports Authority Field at Mile High Stadium.
Taxpayers took on a $300 million share of the $400 million cost of the stadium when construction began in 2002.
One of the ways this public financing was paid for was through a 0.1 percent sales tax that was applied to taxpayers in six Colorado counties until 2012.
Even though taxpayers funded the majority of the stadium, they are forced to split the $6 million annual profits from naming rights 50-50 with the Broncos.
Instead of the operating revenues going back to the taxpayers, Sports Authority Field’s proceeds go to the Broncos’ billionaire owners, the Bowlen family.
Carolina Panthers
The Panthers' home field since 1996, Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina, was billed as "privately financed," even though the city provided $40 million for land, and the county provided $10 million for building relocation.
In April 2013 the Charlotte City Council voted unanimously to give the Panthers $87.5 million to upgrade their stadium and renovate luxury suites.
In exchange for this handout, the Panthers promised to stay in Charlotte for six more years.
One of the reasons for the package's unanimous approval was a fear that the team would pack up and move to the Los Angeles area.
Maybe now that the St. Louis Rams and the San Diego Chargers are moving to Los Angeles, the commonly-used bargaining chip of threatening to move a NFL team there will finally be off the table. 
However, NFL owners are professionals at extracting public funds. 
Rumor has it that the Oakland Raiders are considering a move to Las Vegas, so it is likely that taxpayer extortion will continue.
Publicly-funded stadiums are not unique to the Broncos and Panthers.
All but two NFL stadiums received direct subsidies for their stadiums (the Jets’ and Giants’ Meadowlands and Patriots’ Gillette Stadium are the exceptions).
The NFL is by far the most valuable sports team in the world.
Team owners do not need taxpayer aid to turn a profit, yet this problem is only growing.
Public funding for stadiums completed in the 2000s was 70 percent higher than for those completed in the 1990s.
League-wide, about 70 percent of the capital cost of NFL stadiums has been provided by taxpayers, not NFL owners.
To see one other example, let’s also take a look at the stadium that will host Super Bowl 50, Levi’s Stadium.
San Francisco 49ers
Read on!

Super Bowl 50 By The Numbers

Super Bowl 50 By The Numbers | WalletHub®:
"This year the National Football League celebrates the golden anniversary of its biggest game – the big game – in our nation’s Golden City.
And as an estimated one million fans descend upon the San Francisco Bay Area for Super Bowl 50, giving new meaning to the term “gold rush,” the game’s past and present prepare to collide.
Not only is Super Bowl 50 a salute to West Coast football, underscoring the recent announcement that two franchises will be moving to the Los Angeles area with the first West Coast Super Bowl since 2002, but it also has the potential to mark a clear transfer of power from elder statesmen such as Broncos Quarterback Peyton Manning to the likes of his young and charismatic Panthers counterpart Cam Newton. In short, has “Omaha” fully given way to “dabbing”?"

2016’s Best & Worst Cities for Football Fans

2016’s Best & Worst Cities for Football Fans | WalletHub®:

"To call yourself a true fan of football is to acknowledge that the sport is more than a game: it’s a sacred American tradition.
You’re not just a spectator but also a participant.
You don’t just proudly wear your team’s jersey, perfect your game-day chili or tailgate with fellow fans.
You must roar like an American when your team scores a touchdown — or express supreme dismay when their asses are handed to them on a platter.
But to show your passion for the sport, you need the best seats in the house.
With Super Bowl 50 upon us, WalletHub’s number crunchers compared the 245 of the largest U.S. cities based on 18 key metrics, ranging from the number of NFL and college football teams to average ticket prices. 
Check out the rankings below and our Super Bowl 50 By the Numbers infographic for more interesting facts about the biggest sporting event of the year."

Man's Hilarious Letter to Editor on "12 Reasons I Voted Democratic" Goes Viral...

Man's Hilarious Letter to Editor on "12 Reasons I Voted Democratic" Goes Viral...:

"Anderson’s conclusion was probably the best part of the whole letter: “No trees, Spotted Owls or Red Cock-headed Woodpeckers were harmed in the sending of this message.”

Although entertaining, it’s also quite depressing because most of these points actually illustration how many Democrats think — if that’s the right word — when deciding how to vote."

The Krispy Kreme Bacon Donut Dog Is Unlike Any Hot Dog You’ve Seen Before

The Krispy Kreme Bacon Donut Dog Is Unlike Any Hot Dog You’ve Seen Before – UPROXX:
This mouth-watering beast of a hot dog is being offered to fans at Wilmington Blue Rocks games this season.
For now, it’s being dubbed the “Krispy Kreme Donut Dog,” though the team (a minor league affiliate of the Kansas City Royals) is looking for more creative names on social media.
The hot dog is sandwiched in between a glazed Krispy Kreme donut, packed with a whole lot of bacon and topped with raspberry jelly.
It’s one of those things where you get fat just looking at it.
See.
Ten pounds right there.
The team has yet to release caloric information, but let’s just say that it exceeds your weekly allowance of fat, sugar, saturated fat, empty calories and everyone just gained five more pounds reading this.

AM Fruitcake

History for February 7

History for February 7 - On-This-Day.com:
Sir Thomas More 1478, John Deere 1804, Sinclair Lewis 1885 


Gay Talese 1932, Garth Brooks 1962, Ashton Kutcher 1978 


1795 - The 11th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified.


1893 - Elisha Gray patented a machine called the telautograph. It automatically signed autographs to documents.


1913 - The Turks lost 5,000 men in a battle with the Bulgarian army in Gallipoli.


1922 - DeWitt and Lila Acheson Wallace offered 5,000 copies of "Reader's Digest" magazine for the first time.


1943 - The U.S. government announced that shoe rationing would go into effect in two days.


1944 - During World War II, the Germans launched a counteroffensive at Anzio, Italy.


1984 - Space shuttle astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart made the first untethered space walk.


1985 - "New York, New York" became the official anthem of New York City.

Glenn Beck Explains Why He Believes California Flipped From a Red State to a Blue State | Video | TheBlaze.com

Glenn Beck Explains Why He Believes California Flipped From a Red State to a Blue State | Video | TheBlaze.com:

"Beck believes the reason President Barack Obama has not aggressively pursued immigration reform is because he has to “flood this country with people” for the upcoming presidential election.

“With what this president is doing, he knows now, the amnesty thing is in trouble. I’ve got to flood this country with people. So now he’s telling people, ‘Stand down,’ and he’s flooding our nation. Our culture is at stake,” Beck concluded."