In a stunning worldwide move, the U.S. Federal Reserve in coordination with the European Central Bank, Bank of Canada, Bank of England, Bank of Japan, European Central Bank, Swiss National Bank and China’s Monetary Authority agreed to temporarily “dollarize” the euro. Facing a vicious bank liquidity crisis and a political nightmare; the German dominated European Central Bank (ECB) agreed to the virtual outsourcing of Europe’s monetary policy to the U.S. Federal Reserve. Although described as a precautionary arrangement for political cover; the “dollarization” of Europe has re-established the U.S. dollar as the world’s only reserve currency.

Twenty years ago, European nations sought to form their own reserve currency to limit the power of the United States in controlling their economic destiny. Following World War II, the U.S. took control of European monetary policy by pouring over $50 billion of cash into the war shattered economies. Over time, sovereign currencies were re-introduced; but the U.S. maintained dominance over each nation’s monetary policy through its reserve currency status.

In 1971, President Richard Nixon exercised this domination in a trade dispute with Europe and Japan by suspending the convertibility of the U.S. dollar into gold, setting wage and price controls, cutting taxes, and placing a 10% surcharge on all imports in an effort stimulate the U.S. economy by devaluing the exchange rate of the dollar. U.S. stock markets had their largest one day rally in history; while foreign stock markets crumbled. Four months later; the United States forced agreements for currency appreciation by Japan of 16.9%, Switzerland of 13.9%, Germany of 13.6%, France of 8.6%, and Britain of 8.6%. This effective devaluation of the dollar is credited as creating 700,000 American jobs and cementing President Nixon’s reelection in 1972.

Having suffered from such manipulation under America’s control over European financial affairs; in 1992 the nations of Europe began creating an economic integration that would lead to the introduction of the euro currency on January 1, 1999. Overnight, Europe became the largest trading block in the world and the euro with €890 billion in circulation became the world’s second reserve currency.

Prior to the introduction of the euro; the southern European nations of Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Spain (PIGS) regularly devalued their currencies to remain competitive with the highly industrialized and sophisticated northern European countries. The introduction of the euro permanently fixed exchange rates for all euro members; but gave the PIGS access to loans from northern banks at less than half their prior interest costs.

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Today, in 1945, the U.S. Senate voted to join the United Nations. They might want to rethink that vote.

As a child, I used to play with the neighbors across the street in one of the coolest sandboxes one could imagine. It was built into the landscape, with giant boulders lining the back and sides. Five kids could easily play in it, building sandcastles and manipulating bulldozers and dump trucks to their hearts content. Hours could go by before being called home to dinner. There was only one problem… neighborhood cats considered that magical place as their personal giant sized litter box. We were often told, sadly, that we could not play in it because of this ongoing problem.

These past few months, renting a home in a beach community has allowed my dog and I the opportunity to take a daily walk along the shore, where I hunt for shells, watch for porpoise, and occasionally exchange niceties with the fisherman who set up their poles in the sand, and with the locals who are also enjoying their surroundings. Every day, I thank my blessings that I’ve been given this chance to live in such surroundings but my happiness is often interrupted by dogs roaming the beach, unleashed, in violation of the rules which are clearly posted at each entrance. Not only do these dogs defecate on the sand but often they are not well behaved, running at leashed dogs, children, solitary walkers, and anyone within their proximity.

I do not fault the dogs. I am a dog lover and I understand that dogs are social creatures. My problem is with the owners who clearly do not consider that some dogs may respond aggressively to such provocation, children and adults may be afraid of their beloved pets, and some beachcombers may not want to worry about stepping on dog feces, let alone experience being showered by a dog shaking out its wet fur, when their intention is to savor the sand and water running between their toes. The worst offenders do not attempt to corral their dogs around other people and assume because their dogs are friendly, all is well with the world. They do not comprehend the compromise which allows both dogs and people to enjoy this pristine environment.

The Framers understood the importance of balance, which is clearly needed to allow for maximum individual rights but at the same time allows for people to live together in a community. They believed that factions or groups of people should not be able to impinge on the rights of others.

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Our nation will spend more than $40 trillion over the next ten years with at least $15 trillion in deficit spending, while Congress is arguing about how to reduce that deficit by all of 8% – really?  With this nonsense debate going on, Mr. Obama has abdicated his presidency and is now campaigning for reelection on a full-time basis.  The rest of the world, meanwhile, is simply falling apart.

The Muslim Brotherhood is coming to power in Egypt, Iran is moving deliberately toward nuclear armament and Europe is proving that socialist democracies will fall at their own hand.  In the midst of this turmoil, the media has our people focusing on why the top 1% paying 50% of all federal taxes falls short of “their fair share” and why entitlements and government needs to keep growing.  We are missing the point – eliminate the noise and the real debate is simply whether our children live free or for the benefit of the state?

Let’s forget all the facts and figures about our growing debt and the increasing involvement of government in our lives and focus on the fundamental definition of liberty: liberty is the freedom from arbitrary control; it is freedom to exercise the unalienable rights endowed upon us by our Creator; it is freedom from oppressive power exerted by government; and it is freedom from all forms of tyranny.  While people demand that their neighbors who may be better off economically should be ordered – by law – to share their success with them, what they are really promoting is the ascendancy of the state over the people.  What they are missing is that they are demanding the suppression of liberty for their neighbors, themselves and their own children.

The systematic destruction of our economic strength through increased regulation, increased taxation on the job creators, a 50% increase in the national debt in just the last three years and an equal increase in the dependency on foreign governments to fund our debt has turned our nation upside down.  We have gone from the world’s last hope to a sideshow and find our great country powerless to help prevent ally nations from economic decline and powerless to stop the rise of tyrannical regimes.

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From the LATimes:

Most of the roughly 300 Occupy L.A. protesters were released from jail by Friday evening, with some immediately speaking out on the police raid that cleared their camp.

One speaker suggested that some of those arrested might need therapy. Several said they felt traumatized after witnessing police use nonlethal force and being forced to wait for hours in zip-tie handcuffs. Some displayed cuts on their wrists from the handcuffs. Others complained that they were forced to urinate in bags on the bus as they were transported to jails.

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From ThinkProgress:

The Richmond Tea Party has been alleging that it is being singled out for unfair treatment from the city of Richmond, Virginia after officials have opened a tax audit of the group. These Tea Partiers complain that the city has been much more lenient on Occupy Richmond (which recently faced arrests after resisting an eviction) and that 99 Percenters are getting preferential treatment.

Yet the Richmond Tea Party just got an unexpected ally in its claim against the city — Occupy Richmond. The group put out a statement defending the Tea Party group and criticizing possible politically-motivated retaliation against it by the city:

After the city accused the Richmond Tea Party of being overdue on tax filings,Occupy Richmond issued a statement saying “it would not surprise us” if the move was “retaliation” for the Tea Party’s criticism of Mayor Dwight Jones. [...] “The Tea Party and Occupy movements disagree on many, many issues,” Occupy Richmond’s Thursday statement said. “This should not stop all Americans from proudly standing together against government abuses.”

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Herman Cain will shortly announce whether or not he will continue his campaign for the GOP nomination. National Journal reports now that Cain has called all of his rivals ahead of his press conference, suggesting he will drop out of the race.

LiveStream from Breitbart.TV:

Live streaming by Ustream

Update: So far, this doesn’t feel anything like an event to end a campaign. That said, the Cain campaign has been nothing if not unorthodox, so you never really know until you know. Definitely interesting so far.

Update 2: He’s out. Hell of a speech, though. At the end of the day, this is a testament to why regular people no longer run for office.

Update 3: Why didn’t this Cain run for President?

Update 4: Cain just reinvented how to end one’s campaign for President. It is the new standard against which all others will be judged.

While some in the news media say Eric Holder’s involvement in the controversial ATF gun-running program known as Operation Fast and Furious is “only the tip of the iceberg,” Salt Lake City attorney Jesse Trentadue says he “was way ahead of the curve” in pointing out the attorney general’s involvement in shady activities.  He points to a scathing 4-page letter (PDF) he sent to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) Dec. 19, 2008, as proof.

In the letter, Trentadue told the chair of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee the following:

You need to know that Eric Holder, now nominated to become Attorney General, played a key role in covering up the torture-murder of my brother, Kenneth Michael Trentadue. You also need to know that Mr. Holder did this while serving as Deputy Attorney General and Acting Attorney General from 1997-2001.

This is not just my shocking opinion. It is also the opinion of many Americans. More importantly, it is supported by the Justice Department’s records and actions that came to light as a result of my family’s efforts to obtain a certain measure of justice for my brother’s murder.

Kenneth was killed in Oklahoma City in August of 1995. My family has spent over 13 years investigating my brother’s gruesome murder, including bringing a wrongful death lawsuit in federal court in 1997. In that case, the Justice Department hid and destroyed evidence that would have exposed my brother’s murders, and we believe that Mr. Holder was directly involved in those acts of obstruction of justice.

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As Eric Holder’s December 8th testimony before Congress draws near, more and more lies surrounding Fast and Furious are crumbling to the ground. From new evidence that appears to indicate that President Obama knew about the operation as early as May 2010, and that he gave directives for action against Mexican cartels a year prior (March 2009), to even newer evidence that the DOJ may have “deliberately misled” Congress via a Feb. 4th memo denying the ATF had “‘sanctioned’ or otherwise knowingly allowed the sale of assault weapons.”

The Feb. 4th memo was written by Assistant Attorney General Ron Weich, and it’s purpose now seems to have been simply to carry water for Holder & Co. It is countered by a newly uncovered memo by ATF Agent Gary Styer, written Feb. 3rd, which talked about how Fast and Furious pushed agents out of their comfort zone, it “divided and isolated” them, and resulted in guns being sold and/or transferred without being adequately followed and/or traced.

In other words, the promise of tracing the thousands of guns sold and then walked via Fast and Furious was a façade. Wrote Styer: “It is unheard of to have an active wiretap investigation without full time dedicated surveillance units on the ground.”

Yet like so many other agents before him, Styer says that when ATF agents complained about the way Fast and Furious was being conducted, those agents’ concerns were “widely disregarded.”

Folks, Holder’s house of cards isn’t just crumbling to the ground, rather, it’s on fire.

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The Register reports on a study from the December issue of Science:

By analysing ancient algae found in deep-sea core samples, Professor Matthew Huber and his colleagues determined that the mile-thick ice which now covers the south polar continent formed around 34 million years ago. At that stage the atmosphere held much more CO2 than it does now, some 600 parts per million (ppm) as opposed to today’s level of 390 ppm.

Although the Antarctic ice sheet formed while CO2 levels were more than 33% higher than today, Washington spends heaps of cash on CO2-reduction boondoggles each year. Antarctica isn’t the only icy show in town, but Prof. Huber described the threat of CO2 melting an ice sheet in terms that would make Al Gore spew brimstone:

“If we continue on our current path of warming we will eventually reach that tipping point,” he says. “Of course after we cross that threshold it will still take many thousands of years to melt an ice sheet.”

Evidence or not, President Obama, the EPA, and congressional Democrats know their priorities: We have seen the enemy, and his name is Carbon Dioxide. Evil activities like “producing energy,” “building things,” and “going places” need to be taxed and regulated further, or Carbon Dioxide wins! If this means the sort of government control Progressives wanted anyway, well, shucks, we’ll just have to make government bigger.

How well are “deniers” countering the decades-long drumbeat from global warming alarmists? A 12/01 Pew Research Center report tells the sad story:

The science isn’t nearly settled enough to slaughter thousands of jobs and billions of dollars on the enviro-altar, as Climategate 2.0 should prove (again). For more, refer to the work of Anthony Watts, Steven Hayward, Jeff Id, and Dr. Tim Ball, who makes the following point:

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Friday, President Obama reacted to the Senate’s failure to pass his gimmicky Payroll Tax Cut Extension:

“We need to get this done. And I expect that it’s going to get done before Congress leaves. Otherwise, Congress may not be leaving and we can all spend Christmas here together.”

Apparently, Congress will be adjourning to Hawaii, because the White House announced tonight that Barack Obama will take a 17 day vacation in Hawaii over the holidays. Can’t let a payroll tax extension get in the way of a few rounds on the links. Nice work if you can get it.

Every day, a new low.

Wisconsin governor Scott Walker says he’s used to pro-government labor union protesters showing up at every one of his public appearances. So it was no surprise that a few dozen were on hand at something as noncontroversial as the lighting of the Capitol Christmas Tree. But did some of these protesters display the Nazi salute as Walker began to speak?

Here is a still photo, from a different vantage point, which was posted by Republican State Senator Alberta Darling on her Facebook Page.  The Senator wrote: In addition to turning their backs on not just Scott Walker, but also some of our brave veterans; protestors thought it was amusing to give a Nazi salute at a Christmas tree lighting ceremony. Just disgusting.

From The Washington Post:

Embattled presidential candidate Herman Cain is inviting his top supporters and donors to Atlanta on Saturday for a meeting in which he will give them advance word of whether he intends to continue his campaign, sources close to the campaign said Friday.

One supporter who has been summoned to the private session said he believes that Cain is likely to announce he is ending his candidacy.

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In another sign of the #Occupy movement flying off the tracks of relevancy, the movement’s next major campaign – a planned shutdown of shipping ports on the entire west coast – is explicitly opposed by International Longshoreman’s Union, the union that the shutdown is purporting to support. However, statements from an Occupy leader indicate that the Union may be bluffing in order to avoid further legal trouble in an ongoing dispute they have with a Portland grain export facility.

The website WestCoastPortShutdown.org says that the planned direct action on December 12^th is being coordinated by at least ten different Occupy movements, including the recently decamped Los Angeles, Oakland and Portland movements as well as scrawny groups like Occupy Oxnard. More specifically, the Port Shutdown is being spearheaded on by Occupy Oakland and activist / artiste Boots Riley.

The site lays out some big goals…

On December 12, the occupy movements in different cities will stage  mass mobilizations to march on the ports, create community pickets, and effectively shutdown the hubs of commerce, in the same fashion that Occupy Oakland shut down the Port of Oakland on November 2nd, the day of our general strike.

And their raison d’être is, as always, ‘solidarity with the 99%.’

We present this call to you because we believe it is time the occupation movement begins to work together to carry through coordinated, pinpointed actions. We want  to disrupt the profits of the 1% and to show solidarity with those in the 99% who are under direct attack by corporate tyranny.

But apparently the anarchy loving Occupy movement didn’t clear all of this with the heads of the unions theey are supposed to be in solidarity with. A Portland Trubune article headlined Unions: We don’t support Occupy port shutdown and subtitled Longshoremen say they will not participate in planned Dec. 12 West Coast protest appears to lay out a case for conflict between Occupy and the ILWU.

“We support the goals of the Occupy protesters but we are not supportive or participating in the shutdown of the West Coast ports,” says Jeff Smith, president of the International Longshoreman and Warehouse Union Local 8. The union represents workers who load and unload ships at the port, and also move freight in and out of it.

And the same article later quotes ILWU Local 8 president Smith saying succinctly…

“This is a third-party strike. We have to go to work,” says Smith.

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Photo credit: Bill Clark/Roll Call

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), chair of the House Budget Committee, also leads the Prosperity PAC, a political action committee devoted to supporting his ideas for reform and to helping candidates who share them.

As the 2012 election approaches, Rep. Ryan is focuing his Prosperity PAC on grassroots education initiatives designed to change the terrain of national debate about the country’s fiscal future, and to elect reform-minded candidates to Congress.

Recently, the Prosperity PAC released a new memorandum on health care policy. It shows that health care costs are the primary cause of rising national debt, and proposes patient-centered, market driven solutions to reduce those costs.

Specifically, the Prosperity PAC advocates premium support for Medicare, block grants to states for Medicaid, and tax reform that will enable patients to buy portable insurance plans.

I spoke with Rep. Ryan this morning about the Prosperity PAC’s latest effort.

Tell us about what the Prosperity PAC is doing about health care policy.

We’re trying to get activists informed and educated about what it takes to repeal and replace the President’s health care law, how health care costs are a driver of debt, and how health care policy is an indicator of economic and personal freedom in the future.

Our purpose is to get activists motivated, to bring people to Congress who will fight for these reforms–not those who will go wobbly when things get tough. We want to get committed reformers to Congress to help stave off a debt crisis, and to get grassroots activists informed about what changes are necessary.

The Supreme Court is going to rule on ObamaCare this term. If all or part of the law is repealed, would that change your agenda?

Even if we assume that in June 2012, the whole thing goes down, we are not going to get an agreement on new legislation with this President and this Senate in the fall of a presidential election. What we have to do is get Republican candidates to commit to an agreement on reform so that when we win next November, it will be a win for limited government and economic freedom. We believe that health care is the lynchpin of it all, and so during the campaign season is when you want make sure we have men and women running for Congress who know the stakes, who are ready and willing to do the right thing, and who are committed so that when they get to Washington they follow through.

Let’s consider several scenarios. Suppose President Obama wins re-election with a Republican Congress– (more…)

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss today’s unemployment report, the record duration of unemployment, and why the headline number of 8.6% isn’t as good as it sounds.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

BLS Employment Survey – November, 2001
Economy Creates 120,000 Jobs, Rate Tumbles to 8.6%
Treasuries Fall on Unemployment Rate Drop

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Since the publishing of Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer’s book, Throw Them All Out, support for the STOCK (Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge) Act to ban members of Congress from using private information for personal profit has jumped from four cosponsors to 131. Yet in the wake of yesterday’s Senate hearings on the subject, several Capitol Hill observers are asking: does the bill, in the present forms being considered, go far enough?

Hardly, say insider trading experts and Washington watchers.

UCLA Law Professor Stephen Bainbridge calls some versions of the bill under consideration “bizarre and toothless.” Equally unimpressed with the bill’s language is Atlantic Monthly senior editor Megan McArdle. “Will someone please guard the damn guardians?” writes McArdle.

One member of Congress who is pleased with the STOCK Act is Rep. Nancy Pelosi. Yesterday, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who has come under fire for having acquired Visa IPO shares that resulted in a 203% profit while thwarting critical credit card reform bills, appeared to shrug off the urgency of passing the bill. “I would hope that it’s not as necessary as the whoop-de-doo over it makes it seem. But I do think that we all disclose what we do.” And Speaker of the House John Boehner’s comments yesterday seemed to leave open the question of whether such legislation is even needed. “The hearings are a step in the right direction to determine whether there’s a need for such a bill to move. We’ll let those hearings proceed,” said Boehner.

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President Obama recently told a group of CEO’s that America had “been a little bit lazy” about “selling America and trying to attract new businesses into America.” Is this the case, or has the quality of the product simply declined? America’s descent in the Heritage Index of Economic Freedom would certainly tend to suggest that it’s the latter. The reality is that laziness is not to blame for any increasing unattractiveness to foreign investors; government policy is.

There are two looming policies, in particular, that are threatening foreign investment in the US. One of those is the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), passed in 2010 in an effort to raise revenue for the HIRE Act through greater tax enforcement. The other is an IRS proposed regulation which would require reporting of interest payment information on foreign depositor accounts, despite the fact that the US has no use for the information. Both policies are misguided, counterproductive, and will drive investment out of the US.

FATCA is designed to compel foreign financial institutions to become deputy tax collectors for the IRS. By 2014, these institutions will be expected to have implemented expensive new data collection and reporting systems, and those that have not complied will face a 30% withholding tax on US source payments to the institution. As if those costs aren’t enough, FATCA also conflicts with local privacy laws in many countries, placing FFIs in an impossible position. Already, institutions are deciding that it makes more sense to simply drop their US clients and disinvest in US markets than to continue jumping through IRS hoops. The result is billions in lost foreign investment, and there is only more to come.

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OLYMPIA, Wash. – Hundreds of protesters are converging on the state capitol in Olympia, Washington to protest cuts in K-12 education spending, and promote various plans to restore that funding.

We wish we could be on hand to join the protest – but for very different reasons. The teachers unions and Occupy crowd want higher taxes on those they call rich. Gov. Christine Gregoire wants a sales tax increase or the unthinkable – a school year shortened by four days.

Those are the only two choices they’re offering. What a crock!

The fact is the state of Washington, like the entire nation, is embroiled in a vicious economic recession. That means people are making less money and paying fewer taxes. And that, in turn, means government institutions like public schools are facing financial problems.

When a private sector company has money problems, it necessarily cuts costs. While we realize that Washington schools have already cut a lot from their budgets, we doubt they’ve looked under every rock.

Every school district in the state should open its teachers union collective bargaining agreement and start identifying costs that could be frozen or cut.

We guarantee there are many, including automatic, annual step raises for teachers (regardless of performance), free or low-cost employee insurance coverage, free or low-cost retirement pensions, reimbursement for unused sick or personal days, seniority bonuses, retirement bonuses, longevity bonuses, salaries and benefits for union officials who do not teach, etc.

The list of pricey provisions in a typical teachers union contract is quite long. That’s why most school districts spend 75-80 percent of their budgets on labor costs.

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