View 728 Thursday, June 14, 2012

Flag Day

Happy Birthday Roberta!

We were awakened early today by a call from our son Richard, to announce the birth of our grandson. That makes for a great birthday present for Roberta.

This says it all so I don’t have to:

Spengler says Forget Syria — Neutralize Iran:

http://pjmedia.com/spengler/2012/06/13/forget-syria-neutralize-iran/?singlepage=true

“There is a strong analogy between today’s civil war in Syria and the 1936-1939 civil war in Spain, as my PJ Media colleague Barry Rubin argued recently. The analogy may be even stronger than he suggests. Spain became a proxy war between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, and the West had no interest in the victory of either side. Syria is a proxy war between Sunnis and Shi’ites, and (to quote then Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir’s delicious line) we want them both to win.” <snip>

“The greatest strategic risk to the West in the Syrian conflict is the possibility that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards might intervene with the blessing of the beleaguered Assad regime and get control of the country’s chemical weapons stockpile, reportedly the world’s largest. That would change the strategic equation in the Middle East: Iran would have a WMD second-strike capability against Israel.” Hmm. I wonder where Mr. Goldman’s sympathies lie?

Then he quotes Daniel Pipes, here: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jun/12/stay-out-of-the-syrian-morass/

Quoting Mr. Pipes directly:

“If Sunni governments – notably those of Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar – choose to intervene on behalf of fellow Sunnis against Alawis, that is their prerogative, but Western states have no dog in this fight. . . . [P]rotracted conflict in Syria offers some geopolitical advantages:

“It lessens the chances of Damascus starting a war with Israel or reoccupying Lebanon.

“It increases the chances that Iranians, living under the thumb of the mullahs who are Assad’s key ally, will draw inspiration from the Syrian uprising and likewise rebel against their rulers.

“It inspires greater Sunni Arab anger at Tehran, especially as the Islamic Republic of Iran has been providing arms, finance and technology to help repress Syrians.

“It relieves the pressure on non-Muslims. Indicative of the new thinking, Jordanian Salafi leader Abou Mohamad Tahawi recently stated, “The Alawi and Shia coalition is currently the biggest threat to Sunnis, even more than the Israelis.”

“It foments Middle Eastern rage at Moscow and Beijing for supporting the Assad regime. Western interests suggest staying out of the Syrian morass.”

Spengler finishes with this: “In the case of Syria, whatever happens in that miserable ethnic patchwork of a country, the changeling brat of colonial cartographers, makes little difference to us–unless, of course, Iran is able to use Syria’s WMD for its own purposes. Iran is the threat, not Syria.”

Ed

John Quincy Adams, as Secretary of State under Monroe, said that our policy was to be the friends of liberty everywhere but the guardians only of our own. We do not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. The result was what became known as the Monroe Doctrine which guided US foreign policy until it was in essence abandoned by John Kennedy. (Note)

The interests of the United States are wider than they were in the time of President Monroe, and our capabilities are far greater. We have assumed greater international burdens. Even so, it would be well to consider what Adams said. The Monroe Doctrine was in part cutting our cloak to the measure of our cloth, but it also made sense then and now. Involvement in land wars in the Near and Middle East have not bee greatly profitable for the US, either in money, or in prestige, or in projection of power, or in safeguarding of national interests. But then I’ve been saying that since the first invasion of Iraq in the Kuwait affair, in which we restored the Kuwaiti Royal Family to power rather than establishing a Constitutional Democracy in the one place where we had the power to do it If ever we sought a monster to destroy… But that was in another time.

Do understand: in both Gulf Wars I was against commitment of ground troops, and in favor of heavy investment in development of our own energy resources: development of US energy would have allowed us to look at the Middle East in terms of our own interests, not as desperate seekers of oil. Of course once we committed the troops I was in favor of giving them the resources to win: the US does not have expendable Foreign Legions whose mission is to die but not win. But that too is long over.

Note

“The first of the brothers was often called Jack,

Who almost saved Cuber but then gave it back,

Along with a doctrine we got from Monroe,

Defending an outpost is non-U you know…”

From the Ballad of Ted Kennedy, by Poul Anderson

And I find this of interest.

I thought you may be interested in this study of climate change research data and modeling.

National Post <http://www.nationalpost.com/>

Junk Science Week: Climate models fail reality test <http://opinion.financialpost.com/2012/06/13/junk-science-week-climate-models-fail-reality-test/>

Special to Financial Post, Financial Post Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Computer models utterly fail to predict climate changes in regions By Ross McKitrick A few years ago a biologist I know looked at how climate change might affect the spread of a particular invasive insect species. He obtained climate-model projections for North America under standard greenhouse-gas scenarios from two modelling labs, and then tried to …

Read more » <http://opinion.financialpost.com/2012/06/13/junk-science-week-climate-models-fail-reality-test/>

I can only say, See, I told you so…

I was looking for an exact quote of John Quincy Adams on being friends of liberty everywhere but guardians only of our own, and one reference Google turned up was http://www.jerrypournelle.com/archives2/archives2mail/mail173.html which is the mail for the week of October 1 – 7, 2001. I had to read darned near the whole week before I found out that the only source for the Adams quote in there was me, but it was an interesting read, considering that we had not yet invaded Iraq, and we were still discussing long range strategic notions. Of course it was all done a while ago. There’s a pretty good analysis by the late Joel Rosenberg on the Middle East at the time, and it is all more relevant to the current situation in Syria/Iran than you might think. Or not. It’s long, But it does remind me of why I have a mail bag for this site. Some good stuff in there.

This just in. A court in Egypt has in essence restored power to the Mamelukes, claiming that previous elections including the one that established Parliament were unconstitutional. Of course this will be taken to the streets; the question now is whom will the army obey? I don’t have any special sources, but we can speculate. The Mamelukes will have the support of Mossad, but of course no one will admit that. Most of the minorities including the Christians will probably be in favor of the Mamelukes; better the old guard which doesn’t want war with Israel than the new firebrands who do.

I have no predictions in this matter; but it is something to pay a lot of attention to.

View 728 Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Milton Friedman famously predicted the end of the Euro within ten years. It has lasted longer than that. In today’s Wall Street Journal it is argued that Friedman had the timing wrong but his prediction was correct: the Euro is doomed. O’Driscoll argues that Greece is out of money and will have no choice:

Absent a truly dramatic event, Greece will exit the euro not by choice but by necessity. It will do so not because the drachma (its old currency) is superior to the euro, but because the drachma is superior to barter. Greek standards of living, which have already fallen substantially, will fall further in the short- to medium-term. It will then be up to the Greek people to forge a new future.

Greece has no money to pay its overpaid civil servants anything at all; they still have to eat, and the grocers must [ay their bills, but no one has money. The only remedy will be to print drachmas. When Greece leaves the Euro the currency will still exist, but then will come Spain, with a much larger economy than Greece, and Spain is going to run out of money too.

Whether he is correct or not, I think some kind of runaway inflation is coming.

Regarding the Wisconsin state senate, the Wisconsin legislature is not in session and will not be before the November election.

I also note that San Diego and San Jose, two very blue California cities, have acted to curb the power of public employee unions. It was to repeal the curtailment of public employee union power that the Democrats opened the recall wars.

Tomorrow is Flag Day. Happy Birthday, Roberta.

Mail 728 Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Subject: Food Stamps aren’t credit cards

Jerry, I’m not sure you’re aware of this, but I’ve been kept alive for the last several years mostly because I’ve been on food stamps. I understand why you don’t like the way it’s run now, from a specialized debit (not credit) card, but I’d like to point out a few things you either may not be aware of or hadn’t considered.

First, let’s talk about how it used to work, long before I qualified.

If you were on food stamps, you’d get a booklet of script in the mail that you could use to buy food. Every time you went shopping, you had to make sure you had it with you and when you got to the check stand you had to separate things out into two different purchases: first, your food and second all of your ineligible items. After the first half was rung up, you’d hand your booklet to the checker who would remove the appropriate amount of script, rubber stamp it, put it in the register and give you more script as change. Then, the rest of your order would be rung up and paid for. This was a long, slow process that held up everybody else in the line.

Now, there’s no need to separate things because the register knows what’s eligible and what isn’t. You use your EBT (Electronic Benefit

Transfer) card just like any other debit card with the price of your food being deducted right then and there. Then, if needed, you pay for whatever isn’t covered. It’s also possible to have a cash balance on your card, but I’ve never been eligible for that, so I don’t know how that’s handled.

Yes, this way of doing things keeps recipients from being embarrassed by the fact that they’re on the dole, but that’s not the main reason for using it. It’s easier, faster and more accurate and you carry the card in your wallet, just like any other similar card. In fact, as I’m diabetic, that’s probably saved my life more than once because I’ve occasionally had to buy some juice, fruit or candy in a hurry because my blood sugar was getting dangerously low and I was too broke to buy anything with cash. Now, of course, that’s not as much of a problem, but there was a time when it was very much an issue for me.

The point here is that, at least in my opinion, going back to the old way of using script for food stamps would make shopping for food more difficult for everybody, not just for the recipients, because handling it is a longer, slower process than the new debit card is.

The question is, why is it our obligation to keep you alive? In your case I certainly agree that it’s a good idea, and I don’t regret that part of our taxes go to this; I’d far rather pay for your top ramen and cabbage than for bunny inspectors or furniture safety inspectors or a cubicle worker who can’t tell you precisely what he does. The question is whether government ought to be paying for welfare at all.

Now I know in your case that you’re a veteran and pretty damned frugal and a very useful friend to have around, and once one accepts the notion that government ought to keep people going when they’re perfectly willing to work and pretty good at what they know how to do, but don’t have credentials of the kind demanded –

And there things get complicated. If we had a lot less Mickey Mouse in the jobs system, you’d be working, since I know for a fact that you’ll take what work you can get.

Given that I can’t change all that – your point is well made. If we are to have a welfare system, it ought to be as convenient as possible for those who have to implement it, and that most certainly includes the clerks at Ralph’s or Von’s. And God forbid that we try to set up some kind of government run distribution system; that would really be disastrous.

Moreover, I for one don’t really want to bring embarrassment or shame to welfare recipients. What would be the point? Those who really are embarrassed probably shouldn’t be, and those who should be probably don’t care much. Religion commands us to give to those who ask of us, and in fact my guess is that were the Food Stamp system made voluntary on tax forms – check here to give $200 to the Food Stamp Program (which as near as I can calculate is about what the program costs taxpayers) – it would probably be funded, and those voluntarily funding it would not want it to include embarrassment. I remember growing up in the Depression when families (not mine; we were pretty well off compared to everyone around us) sometimes had to go on welfare.

Edmund Burke reminds us that for a man to love his country, that country ought to be lovely; and it certainly would not be a lovely country if we had people literally starving. It would be lovelier yet if the system of support were more voluntary – charity is actually more beneficial to the giver than to the receiver – but that’s another argument. Those who advocate that it is the duty of the Republic to support everyone at some basic minimal level do not invoke religious arguments. Indeed, most of them reject the whole notion of religion as an influence on political behavior.

And that, I think, is sowing the wind.

Thank you for making me think about this. I can recall having something like this conversation with my father when I was six years old.

The problem is that once you admit entitlements exist – that some are obligated to support others, will they, nil they – where do those obligations end? For every entitlement is an obligation laid on someone.

We know one source of obligations, and it is told in the story of the beggar at the rich man’s gate. But that is not a political argument.

I sent this to my friend, who says

Excellent. Your reply highlights the two problems that many liberals (and all Liberals) can’t see: how do we help the deserving without subsidizing the indolent and even more important, how do we pay for it?

I like your idea of allowing taxpayers to earmark part of their taxes for this type of thing but I suspect that you’d get more money from the right than from the left because most Liberals are only interested in sharing other people’s wealth. (Oh, no, that’s different! I *have* two shirts!)

It always comes down to the basic question of deserving and undeserving poor, and we must be willing to reopen that debate. We once could talk about such things. As to the story, it is here.

"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

Dear God! I’d almost forgotten.

http://paulinhouston.blogspot.com/2012/06/tear-down-this-wall.html

It was twenty-five years ago today when President Ronald Reagan issued that challenge to Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev, in a speech by the Brandenburg Gate on 12 Jun 1987.

. . .

Can you imagine ANY of that from the current occupant of the White House?

Paul Gordon

It was a moment of importance, and a turning point in the Cold War. And today you do not see the wall at the Brandenburg Gate.

Bunny Inspectors and Firefighters

You noted, "Since they haven’t laid off the Bunny Inspectors, I doubt that they’re serious about any of this."

Mitt Romney was on Fox last night pointing out that the federal government doesn’t hire teachers and firefighters, the states and cities do.

But the federal government is the employer of bunny inspectors, no?

Isn’t that why they’re harder to get rid of?

–Mike

TARP had money for local government hires – actually Clinton began the practice of sending money for the first years of state employees after which the states and cities were on their own for funding. Charming idea.

Governor of Wisconsin

Hi Jerry-

In contrast to your celebratory comments, the Wisconsin recall election was a disaster. Lehman (D) narrowly defeated Van Wanggaard (R-Racine), giving the Democrats control of the Wisconsin State Senate. The AP has not called the race yet, but with all precincts reporting Lehman leads by 779 votes. Living just across the border from Wisconsin, and having spent abundant time in the state, my assessment of the likely outcome of this election was that there really was no chance at all that Governor Walker would be recalled, as most Wisconsinites (even liberal Democrats) believe that recall elections should be reserved solely for the recall of crooks and lunatics. Wisconsin liberals are now highly aroused and focused on retaining the US Senate seat currently held by retiring Senator Herb Kohl. The major consequence here may be that there are now lots of new Democratic voters registered in Wisconsin; Tammy Baldwin (D) will very likely ride Obama’s coattails and defeat the excellent (presumptive) Republican candidate, former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson.

You continue to focus on executives (Presidents and Governors) at the expense of legislators. I fear that many other Conservatives are currently making the same error, using extreme litmus tests for conservatism as a means of excluding candidates who might actually be electable. Case in point: based on what I’m hearing from friends in another neighboring state, it looks like Joe Donnelly (D) will almost certainly defeat Richard Mourdock (R) to replace Richard Lugar as Senator from Indiana. Unless conservatives get a clue here, we may get a liberal neocon President (Romney) plus a Democratic Senate and a Democratic House. Have the Republicans completely lost their bearings? Are the Conservative Wisemen all Drunk or Demented? What the hell happened to the Republican "big tent?" This is truly frightening.

As I’ve mentioned to you before, I consider gerrymandering to be the major threat facing our Republic. Stupidity of Republican political strategists is perhaps a close second…

-Steve=

One does what one can. Of course control of Congress is important, but it is also important that you really control it, not just have a Party majority. Under Gingrich the Republic was safe even with Clinton in the White House. Once he was gone and the Establishment Republicans took over again – Newt was never part of them and they damned well knew it – then a Republican majority with Bush headed us toward ruin. Then the voters turned the Republicans out of Congress, and the Democrats continued, and then came 2008.

You may be correct about Wisconsin and you may not. I have no special knowledge there. I do know that there is now a chance to turn Wisconsin around.

All politics is local, and the only way to take back your government is through local effort. Self government requires that good people be willing to be part of government. And I think this may be a better year than you know. We have come to the brink of disaster but we are not there yet. Now is the time to redouble our efforts. If the Tea Party can learn to play a ground game, the republic is not lost.

Always true

Although it’s raising taxes to pay for non-military budget items you’ve written about, I happened to read this speech today and this line of Churchill’s otherwise suits your theme perfectly —

http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/speeches/speeches-of-winston-churchill/108-army-reform

Expenditure always is popular; the only unpopular part about it is the raising of the money to pay the expenditure

Socialism is always seductive. It works until you run out of other people’s money.

I love freefall

I’ve been reading from where Sam and Helix take the "mugged" robot to Florence for repair. If there is an antidote for debugging simulations all day, Freefall is it.

Phil

For those who don’t know, Freefall is a cartoon series. Begin with http://freefall.purrsia.com/fcdex.htm and the first episode, because it will not make sense if you plunge in anywhere toward the end. The entire series only takes up a couple of months in story time, and a lot happens. Just begin. The first few episodes aren’t very interesting and some is mere slapstick, but then it begins to take hold, and after that it’s interesting all the way. A couple of things to note. Sam is wearing an environment suit, and he is neither human nor humanoid, and while his race is intelligent it is not technological. You’ll learn that in the story. I have read it from the beginning, and as I say, after the first dozen or two episodes it begins to take hold. It won’t make as much sense at first as it will later, but that’s by design. I won’t give away more.

Global warming helps Arctic algae suck CO2:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/08/phytoplankton_bloom/

“[A] vast CO2-sucking phytoplankton bloom has been discovered beneath Arctic ice . . .”

"This wasn’t just any phytoplankton bloom," Stanford University marine scientist Kevin Arrigo told <http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2012/0607/Beneath-Arctic-ice-scientists-find-an-ecosystem-never-imagined-video> The Christian Science Monitor. "It was literally the most intense phytoplankton bloom I’ve ever seen in my 25 years of doing this type of research."

Curiouser and curiouser. You’d almost think that a global homeostatic mechanism had evolved in the last half billion years or so – ever since our biosphere almost froze to death.

Ed

One does wonder how we got from ice ball to our middle earth…

Rosary Denied???

*rolls eyes*

<.>

A Minnesota high school student who wears rosary beads to school in support of his cancer-stricken grandmother was ordered to pocket them by school district officials, who said the beads could be a symbol of gang membership.

</>

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/06/07/minnesota-student-banned-from-wearing-rosary-beads-to-school/

Anything could be a sign of gang membership.  What if gangs all wore t-shirts and jeans, would we have to go about naked so idiots could feel safe?  This is ridiculous and, more to the point, it infringes on this person’s Constitutionally protected rights. 

—–

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

.

Evaluation of the tough counter terrorism president

Jerry,

Reading your site’s comments and reading about President Obama’s ‘EVOLUTION’ to taking brave, tough actions against terrorism, to me it is obviously just part of gearing up a campaign for November’s election that really been going on since 2008- from ‘getting’ bin laudin, to attacking iran et al with computers and drones; everything seems so insincere and desperate; inadvertently today I saw a few minutes of the first lady campaigning on comedy central, she was quite on point, the whole ‘show’ was so well polished; sadly people take things as served up by either side (your old ‘creeps’ & ‘nuts’) and just seem to so entrenched in their beliefs.

Much of the non-fox media is to some degree biased towards President Obama as is certainly much of the current government; everything such as economic forecasts & reports will have a pro Obama slant; and corrections to initial reports are given far less emphasis then the original, optimistic reports. Certainly bin Ladin, like Saddam Hussein before him, were both bad men and the world is a better place without them, but just as certainly if a Bush were president there would have been no end to loud attacks about assassinations; Seal team 6 and drone operators would be demonised, even indicted, along with Republicans instead of praised for their work with our great President leading from the podium,,,,,,, I will admit President Obama does orate well, but to me it seems like an actor or more likely a comedian, like Jerry Seinfeld, I watch him stop for applause to gauge the reaction.

The last 3.5 years have been photo ops, speeches and fund raisers; I shudder to think of an Obama not worried about reelection.

Alan Rosenberg

Have Cop’s eyes arrived?

A staple from Mr. Niven’s world, the Cop’s Eyes provided constant surveillance over the population.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jun/7/big-brothers-all-seeing-eye/

Now where’s my transfer booth?

Wayne Fiebick

Climate scientists see ‘tipping point’ ahead

As we’ve speculated, with the recent contrary reports to the AGW alarmists, their rhetoric ramps up:

Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/08/climate_disruption_tipping_point/

Climate scientists see ‘tipping point’ ahead

‘The Day After Tomorrow’ may come the day after tomorrow

US Navy uncloaks stealthy underwater solar cells

If these can be made to work well, this will be quite an achievement

Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/07/navy_underwater_solar_cells/

US Navy uncloaks stealthy underwater solar cells

Energy capture up to nine meters down

By Iain Thomson in San Francisco <http://forms.theregister.co.uk/mail_author/?story_url=/2012/06/07/navy_underwater_solar_cells/>

Posted in Physics <http://www.theregister.co.uk/science/physics/> , 7th June 2012 19:35 GMT <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/07/>

Scientists at the US Navy Research Laboratory (NRL) are developing solar cells that can work effectively up to nine meters underwater, powering marine systems for long periods of time.

Big data is not just for the boardroom, but for the battlefield as well, and military planners are working on using a lot more stealthy sensors and systems that need power without carrying batteries or sticking a solar panel out of the water. But light isn’t very effective at penetrating seawater, and conventional solar cells that rely on silicon aren’t very good at catching what little light that does.

"The use of autonomous systems to provide situational awareness and long-term environment monitoring underwater is increasing," said Phillip Jenkins, head of NRL Imagers and Detectors section, in a statement <http://www.nrl.navy.mil/media/news-releases/2012/photovoltaic-cells-tap-underwater-solar-energy> [1]. "Although water absorbs sunlight, the technical challenge is to develop a solar cell that can efficiently convert these underwater photons to electricity."

While the amount of light penetrating seawater falls off rapidly with depth, what little that does get down is in a fairly narrow spectral band. The scientists focused on this area using gallium indium phosphide (GaInP) solar cells, similar to those used by satellites, which are highly efficient in visible-light wavelengths, and perform far better than run-of-the-mill photovoltaics in the blue/green portion of the spectrum predominant in seawater.

US Navy solar cell performance underwater

New cells focus on what little light you can get in the vasty deep

The team now estimates that a square meter of these cells would generate 7W of power at 9.1 meters of depth, with better performance – of course – at shallower depths. The team suggests they’d be most effective in coastal regions on low-power applications to replace monitoring stations using fixed power lines. ®

View 728 Tuesday, June 12, 2012

I bought a new iPhone last week, betting that there wouldn’t be a big upgrade at the Apple Developer conference, and that seems to have worked out all right. The new Apple Mac Book Pro is a genuine improvement over the older ones, but it’s not an improvement I much need. It does have Thunderbolt, which would be useful, and it is certainly a much better machine than the Mac Book Pro I have: one of my Mac using friends says it’s the best Road Warrior machine around. Fast, vast memory, and capable of being used on the road for the kinds of things you could only do with big tower machines now – and with a terrific screen resolution. If you’re on the road a lot and doing high powered work, the new Mac Book Pro is what you need. For most of us, the Air remains the right machine to carry.

Regarding the new iPhone, I haven’t yet had time to try out Sari, the intelligent assistant. She seems daunting , and I have other stuff to learn first. Among them is scanning – it does that well, and I am now looking forward to getting the check deposit app working, which will save me so time getting stuff to the bank. Of course walking down to the bank is a useful form of exercise.

The camera on the new iPhone is wonderful, but when you’re in bright sunlight, you can’t see the screen: just point the thing where you think you want to photograph and snap away. The auto features work well enough. Inside you can see what you’re doing. I am told that some have decided they don’t need pocket cameras at all now, because the iPhone is more than good enough, but I am not convinced. The camera you have with you is the one you are going to use, and while the iPhone is always with me, it’s not really there in bright sunlight.

My ancient Sony pocket camera isn’t bad, and I can sort of see the screen in bright daylight unlike the iPhone screen. The iPhone is a much better camera, but I suspect I’ll replace the little pocket Sony with something in the under $200 class. I’m open to recommendations on that. I’ve seen some pretty good ones. I like the little flat Sony I have with its optical zoom but it is still thin enough to be in a pocket. Better would be something with a viewfinder, but I doubt there is anything like that that would work.

Anyway I’m looking forward new apps for my new iPhone.

Pictures from my new iPhone taken at the top of the hill, no shade available. Couldn’t see a thing on the camera screen, but sort of aimed it in the general direction and shot. Niven managed to get one of me that way.

It appears that the administration doesn’t know some pretty simple interconnected facts.

Government spending is taxation. It is paid for either by direct taxation (reduction of capital or income or both taken from the populace) or deficit financing. Deficit spending has to be paid for, and is almost always – we may as well say always – paid off in part by inflation. For all practical purposes, deficit financing is inflation.

Inflation is a tax on thrift, savings, and those who have annuities either as retirement funds or from direct purchase of annuities; in any event a tax on fixed incomes and savings. It can be quite drastic. In China not long after World War II there was an enormous overnight inflation that essentially wiped out the savings of everyone with money in the bank, from those with very little to multi-millionaires; it essentially ended the stake anyone had in the Nationalist government. No one had much of anything. And of course in Germany there was the hyperinflation that resulted in it being cheaper to burn banknotes for heat than to buy coal or kindling wood with it.

Any inflation is bad. As inflation approaches 10% it gets far worse. If you want less of something tax it: if you want less saving, tax it, and tax any income on savings. We’re doing that, and with deficit financing, which is inflation, we are doing a lot more although it hasn’t shown quite yet. It will.

This isn’t all that controversial. Nor are the facts on income disparity: confiscation of essentially all the top wealth won’t stop inflation. And a 10% inflation rate reduces the wealth of the poor at an extreme rate. So-called inflation adjustments to entitlements can hide that for a while, but since that too must be paid for by deficit financing it can’t go on for all that long.

We shake our heads at the plight of the PIGS, Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Spain, but we’re not doing so well ourselves. We owe a lot of money to ourselves – “We owe it to ourselves” was the great cry designed to relieve concern about national debt back in New Deal days – but we owe a lot to others, too. That includes China.

The President is concerned that the public sector isn’t so good, because we’re laying off much needed government employees. The private sector is doing fine. We just need more revenue enhancement for the public sector. Where it will come from is one of those details we need not be concerned about. After all, the private sector is doing fine. I can pay more. It can pay its share. And we need no worry a bit about the growing national debt.

That seems to be the message we are getting from the White House.

If something cannot go on forever, it will stop. One way or another.