Peter Bromberg's UnBlog

Before you get excited about the last minute Euro-Deal and the 340 point rally in the Dow, consider this: Wall Street has been dancing to Greece's whistle. If Greece says 'jump,' Wall Street jumps, if Greece says 'Sorry, false alarm,' Wall Street cries. This has been going on for about 2 years now, and it's getting pretty tired. Shame on you if you think everything's going to be fine just because Greece and/or its European pretend-to-be saviors announce another plan to come up with a plan. Greece is broke and has no significant revenue sources to pay off its debt. Foreign investors own about $385 billion worth of Greek government debt. Many banks and governments that own Greek debt are at the brink of insolvency already, so Greece's inability to pay its debt may push other countries and their banks into insolvency. You can't trust statements from European officials because they are trying to prevent panic. Panic will make any kind of solutions m...

This is a great letter, and it is real. To All My Valued Employees, There have been some rumblings around the office about the future of this company, and more specifically, your job. As you know, the economy has changed for the worse and presents many challenges. However, the good news is this: The economy doesn't pose a threat to your job. What does threaten your job however, is the changing political landscape in this country. Of course, as your employer, I am forbidden to tell you whom to vote for - it is against the law to discriminate based on political affiliation, race, creed, religion, etc. Please vote for who you think will serve your interests the best. However, let me tell you some little tidbits of fact which might help you decide what is in your best interest.First, while it is easy to spew rhetoric that casts employers against employees, you have to understand that for every business owner there is a backstory. This back story is often neglected and over...

Kevin Drum, writing in Mother Jones , proposes 5 “Myths” about some common economic issues that he claims aren’t true.  Liberal writers often suffer from a kind of confirmation bias when making such statements. This is the tendency for people to favor information that confirms their preconceptions or hypotheses regardless of whether the information is true. Let’s have a look at what Mr. Drum says, and I’ll provide my own “confirmation bias” to show that the statements are either false, or not wholly accurate: Myth #1 The Stimulus Failed The central theme of this assertion revolves around what FDR did during the Great Depression. Mr. Drum asserts (correctly) that FDR tackled the depression with inflation, easy monetary policy, and government spending. Then in 1937 spending was cut and monetary policy tightened up.    Mr. Drum reports that in 1938 the austerity program was abandoned and the economy started to grow again. What he doesn't report is that  FDR ra...

The purpose of the Petition Project is to demonstrate that the claim of “settled science” and an overwhelming “consensus” in favor of the hypothesis of human-caused global warming and consequent climatological damage is wrong. No such consensus or settled science exists. As indicated by the petition text and signatory list, a very large number of American scientists reject this hypothesis. Publicists at the United Nations, Al Gore, and their supporters frequently claim that only a few “skeptics” remain – skeptics who are still unconvinced about the existence of a catastrophic human-caused global warming emergency. It is evident that 31,487 Americans with university degrees in science – including 9,029 PhDs, are not "a few." Moreover, from the clear and strong petition statement that they have signed, it is evident that these 31,487 American scientists are not "skeptics." These scientists are instead convinced that the human-caused global war...

  I am often scolded by my liberal friends about how this past recession (2008) was different, we almost had an economic collapse, it was as bad or worse than the Great Depression, and various other items all underscoring the need for "more stimulus". They claim that we tried lower tax rates, etc. A quick look at the composition of the stimulus spending in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (see chart) reveals that the major portion of the spending was to transfers to state and local governments (mostly used for fiscal relief, which is temporary), transfers to persons (temporary) and "Tax Cuts" - almost all of which were temporary in nature. Temporary measures simply cannot provide permanent economic growth. They run out (as they already have), and you end up with more of the original problem that has never been solved in the first place. Plus - an even bigger debt burden. There are not many cases of economic collapse in modern histo...

Many Americans are confused or simply ignorant about the history of Israel and "Palestine".  The following information is offered to provide some historical context, and is derived from several good sources. A common misperception about Israeli sovereignty  is that all the Jews were forced into the Diaspora by the Romans after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in the year 70 C.E. and then, 1,800 years later, suddenly returned to Palestine demanding their country back. In reality, the Jewish people have maintained ties to their historic homeland for more than 3,700 years. The Jewish people base their claim to the Land of Israel on at least four premises: 1) the Jewish people settled and developed the land; 2) the international community granted political sovereignty in Palestine to the Jewish people; 3) the territory was captured in defensive wars and 4) God promised the land to the patriarch Abraham. Even after the destru...

Endorphins are among the brain chemicals known as neurotransmitters, which function to transmit electrical signals within the nervous system. At least 20 types of endorphins have been demonstrated in humans. Endorphins can be found in the pituitary gland, in other parts of the brain, or distributed throughout the nervous system. Stress and pain are the two most common factors leading to the release of endorphins. Endorphins interact with the opiate receptors in the brain to reduce our perception of pain and act similarly to drugs such as morphine and codeine. In contrast to the opiate drugs, however, activation of the opiate receptors by the body's endorphins does not lead to addiction or dependence. In addition to decreased feelings of pain, secretion of endorphins leads to feelings of euphoria,well-being and the ability to "think" clearly - precisely what software developers need to do!  It's a known fact that chili, jalapeno and similar peppers stimulate the se...

If supply is solid and demand is solid, how can it be that oil prices are skyrocketing? President Obama offered his thought recently, explaining that “we [speculators] think that maybe there's a 20 percent chance that something might happen in the Middle East that might disrupt oil supply, so we're going to bet that oil is going to go up real high. And that spikes up prices significantly."  He even announced a special “commission” to investigate and root out oil speculators. Is Obama right about speculators being the cause of high gas prices, and that supply and demand are balanced (as he also stated)? Let’s take a closer look: The above  two charts from the International Energy Agency’s latest report show quite clearly that world oil demand is currently outstripping world oil supply. And it will get worse over the near term. If countries cannot get oil at good prices, their economies begin to suffer. Prices of everything go up. With Fed Chairman Ben Bernank...

Current wisdom in Washington is that we need to raise taxes (particularly on “the rich”).  Here’s why it won’t work. President Obama’s deficit policy speech today emphasized that if government spending breaches a trigger level, tax increases should be triggered. He has it 100 percent backwards . I’ll explain. We have a current tax policy that taxes higher income people more as a percentage of their income than those in lower income brackets. This is true even if you look at all Federal taxes, not just income taxes.  The following chart, based on data from the liberal-leaning Tax Policy Center , makes this clear: It can be seen that the highest earning group, at $212,666 and up, pays 40.3% of all Federal taxes, while the middle group (from $35,347 to $64,490 income) pays less than one quarter of that, at 10% of all Federal Taxes. These are facts, they don’t lie. But somehow the current Administration seems to think that higher income earners aren’t paying e...

You climb the stairs Looking for a sign That will tell you where to go But you never find it You retrace your steps And realize it's cold and you've left your jacket Somewhere And now you cannot go back Because you don't know where You come into a station People mill about A train comes screeching around an impossible curve the last car is blown open like shrapnel from a bomb You turn away This is not the train And no one gets on You were looking for The art museum Somewhere in your mind you know how to walk there but now you're lost You cannot go forward You cannot go back You stare into someone's face And realize it is an old friend from high school But you ask his name and he says something unintelligible You are dreaming and Awake in the dream familiar subway sounds Welcome to the subway to nowhere