FRIDAY MORNING RAMBLE: The WikiLeaks Edition

It’s been a WikiLeaks week.  From secrets to soap opera, the WikiLeaks story has had everything a news organisation needs to make good copy. Quarter of a million documents to sift through and expose. And then there’s Assange, The Movie…

• Does the leaking make WikiLeaker Assange “a terrorist”? Judge Andrew Napolitano says …
  

 

• "Don't shoot the messenger for revealing uncomfortable truths," says Assange.
  Don't shoot messenger for revealing uncomfortable truths  - T H E  A U S T R A L I A N
• Last weekend, Ben Bernanke went on TV [watch it here] to defend the indefensible defend his decision to print money create money out of thin air help bail out the government buy government debt engage in more than $600 billion of quantitative easing. Apparently the deluge of bond-buying is supposed to bring down interest rates, by raising bond prices. So how would that help? And if so, why are U.S.  interest rates headed in the opposite direction? Maybe there’s one very good reason.
  Bernanke Fibbed His Way Through '60 Minutes'- Gary North
   The Fed's Bernanke: Hubris and Dissimulation – Bob Adelmann
• “Bernanke's emphasis in the interview was the costs of doing nothing, but he doesn't really address the costs of what was done…”
  No Doubt Ben Bernanke is Sincere, But What If He is Sincerely Wrong?
  - Peter Boettke, C O O R D I N A T I O N  P R O B L E M
• “As 60 Minutes pointed out, it's rare for a Fed chairman to give an interview; this was only Bernanke's second… It's such an unusual thing that I think it's a sign that the Powers That Be are really quite worried. As they should be…
  ”Bernanke is taking desperate measures to solve an acute problem. But their consequences will be disastrous – much, much more damaging than if he'd done nothing. Of course if he did nothing, the system would collapse through a deflation: bonds would default, banks would close. What will now happen is the currency itself is going to be destroyed, which is much worse…”
  ”Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid” - Doug Casey
• What happens when the author of “End the Fed” (here, being interviewed by Jon Stewart) gets the chair of the House committee with oversight of Bernanke’s Fed? No-one’s sure, but we’re hoping it’s like the meeting of matter and anti-matter.
  Ron Paul to Take Over Fed-Oversight Panel – W A L L  S T R E E T  J O U R N A L
• And guess what?
  More Than Half of Americans Want Fed Reined In or Abolished – B L O O M B E R G
• Because, is the Fed really creating “stimulus”? Os just asset bubbles.
  Fed Just Creating Asset Bubbles, Not Stimulus: – C N B C
• Um, is China the Greatest Bubble in World History? Just asking.
  China: The Greatest Bubble in World History? – PJTV
• Um, if the big-four Australian banks (the ones backing up our little islands) are so "strong, reliable and resilient," then why were they bailed out by The Fed? Why weren’t they letting on? And why, really, have they they often been unable to make payments recently? People are asking these questions.
  More on the Aussie Banking Bailouts – M O N E Y  M O R N I N G  A U S T R A l I A
  Popping The “Central Bank Bubble”– M O N E Y  M O R N I N G  A U S T R A l I A
  Secret Banking Business– M O N E Y  M O R N I N G  A U S T R A l I A
  NAB and Westpac’s Secret Bailout Revealed– M O N E Y  M O R N I N G  A U S T R A l I A
  Taking a Leak On The Banking System– M O N E Y  M O R N I N G  A U S T R A l I A
  What’s The Real Reason Behind NAB’s Glitch?– M O N E Y  M O R N I N G  A U S T R A l I A
• “One of the most pernicious and widespread economic fallacies is the belief that consumption is the key to a healthy economy.”
  Consumerism Is Keynesianism: Free-marketeers focus on production 
  – Steve Horvitz, T H E  F R E E M A N
• All this talk about how to change monetary policy. There’s one simple fact that the now-collapsed Great Moderation failed to take into account: You can have sound money, or you can have stable prices. But you can’t have both at the same time.
  Stable Prices or Sound Money – John Cochran, M I S E S  E C O N O M I C S  B L O G
• As currencies collapse, it’s worth realising that Carl Menger’s famous law of the marketability of money explains not just the origins of money, but also what happens when money units becomes unmarketable.
   On the Origins of Money – Carl Menger
• Speaking of sound money, there are several good chemical reasons why gold beat out all the other elements as the most marketable. [Hat tip Geek Press]
  A Chemist Explains Why Gold Beat Out Lithium, Osmium, Einsteinium ... – P L A N E T  M O N E Y

Econogeek Thought for the Day [hat tip Will Wilkinson]:
”Salma Hayek was put on earth by socialists to make us forget
what we're doing when searching for Friedrich photo references.”

• While Bernanke continues to dissemble, Jon Stewart laughs in the face of disaster. Literally:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Big Bank Theory
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog</a> The Daily Show on Facebook

• Obama says he and the GOP must find “common ground.” But what if there is none. And when does compromise just become sacrifice?
  No compromise possible with evil – Charlotte Cushman, T I M B E R J A Y
• Lou Reed’s response to Jesse Jackson’s request for “common ground” a generation ago might be a model for the correct response now.

• So, um, who is this Sarah Palin then?
  Who is Sarah Palin? - PJTV
• It seems like a long time since he was “The One.” A rapidly-aging Obama’s now taken to lashing his own supporters. Poor baseless bloke…
  

• Why is he lashing his own? Sinclair Davidson explains that it all goes back to George Bush…
  Read my Lips – C A T A L L A X Y  F I L E S
• You want to know what the global warming lobby really want? “It’s seldom that it’s spelt out so clearly…”
  What the AGW lobby want – C A T A L L A X Y  F I L E S
• When Andrew Bolt’s good, he’s very good: “THE great global warming scare is dying not with a bang, or even a whimper. Try a great horse laugh.
     Right now, 20,000 activists, politicians and carpetbaggers are meeting in the Mexican resort city of Cancun.
      They are there for the latest United Nations conference on how to make everyone else cut the emissions caused by, for instance, flying a population the size of a small city to a Mexican beach.
      These are the emissions we’re told are heating the world so dangerously that Europe is now gripped by one of the coldest winters of a generation.
      Indeed, it’s so bad that Vicky Pope, a warming pundit from Britain’s Met Office, was trapped in London by the snow that the Met’s climate models failed to predict, and so couldn’t fly to Cancun to explain how very hot the world in fact was…”
  The great warming scare turns into a greater joke – A N D R E W  B O L T
• And over 1000 international scientists are happy to have their names recorded as dissenters on the myth of man-made global warming.
  Shredding the “climate consensus” myth – W A T T S  U P  W I T H  T H A T
• The Cancun coterie fall for the old "dihydrogen monoxide" petition as well as signing up to cripple the U.S. economy.
  UN climate kooks want to cripple US economy and ban H2O - W A T T S  U P  W I T H  T H A T
• Basic economics rebut flatulent science: “If Pacific islands are being washed away due to climate change-induced floods, how come land prices are stable?”
  Cancun: islands in the climate storm – Eero Iloniemi, S P I K E D
• “At a time of great doubt about climate change, policymakers must magic up more ‘evidence’ of manmade mayhem.”
  Cancun: scavenging around for scientific fact – Ben Pile, S P I K E D

Quote of the week? [hat tip Kate]
"Give me your tired, your poor, Your
huddled masses yearning to watch Glee"*

• This new online NZ tax calculator reveals where your tax goes, dept by dept. Although it strangely decides that we’re all being taxed at only 16% (we wish!) interesting to see which govt department comes in as the fourth most hungry for your cash
  Tax Calculator, 2010 – S O U T H G A T E  L A B S
• What the calculator doesn’t show is how much of your money goes to lobbyists. Betcha didn’t know the govt is giving around 100 different organisations millions of dollars to lobby the government on alcohol policies. Nice scam. So if politics is the art of the possible, what does it mean when governments pay lobbyists to lobby them?
  Anti-smoking spending  - K I W I B L O G
• Here’s how all take-home Intro Philosophy exams should look. See how you do.
  Introduction to Philosophy Exam [PDF] - Stephen Hicks
• Speaking of which, I enjoyed this short account of one of the most exciting (but rarely told) stories in all history—told in an unlikely venue.
   The Rediscovery of Aristotle – T H E  C H R I S T I A N  R E A D E R
• If the Soviet Union hadn’t existed, we wouldn’t have stories like this one exposing the lunacy and the waste of central planning.
  The Absurdity of Central Planning – Bill Bonner
• The waste continues, even in so-called “free trade” deals!
  China Free Trade Mess – Daniel Silva, I M P O R T E R’ S  I N S T I T U T E
• Things are changing in Britain—and, goddamit, don’t they need to!
  Grant your own planning permission, government tells homeowners – T E L E G R A P H
• Jim Rogers: "All Of You Who Have MBAs Have Made Mistakes" And You Should Be Farmers Instead http://bit.ly/etulAE
• Congratulations to Auckland-based motivational designer and publisher Inspirationz Inc., who the American CBS network reckon produced one of the six most motivational videos released to the internet in 2010.
  “Produced by Wellington filmmaker Shahir Daud whose film Double Happy was screened at the Montreal Film Festival earlier this year, and written and directed by Inspirationz’s managing director Terry Verhoeven, IGNITE YOUR SOUL was released as part of a catalogue launch to showcase Inspirationz’s inaugural wall-art and print designs.”
  The Best Motivational Videos of 2010 – Geoffrey James, C B S  B-Net
  IGNITE YOUR SOUL! – i n s p i r a t i o n z !
  
• And speaking of motivational, check out @gazal Dhaliwal's neat video for the Atlas Shrugged Video Contest.
  
• Thought about what you’re going to buy your nieces, nephews and friends’ kids this year?
  Celebrate a rational holiday with the Atheist Christmas Coloring Book – M I N D  P O S T S
• Art Carden explains the Grinch who had a Coasean Christmas.
  How Economics Saved Christmas – Art Carden, F O R B E S
• How many opportunities have you missed out on because you spent too long tying your shoes? Don’t do it again. [Hat tip GeekPress]
  

• Enthusiastic Maths Kid is back. This time, he wants to teach you how to to differential calculus. True story. See:
  
  

• Now, I warn you, this is insidious…

• Popular at our house round dinner times, this week… and (unlike David Cross) he can play, this chap …

• Must be about time for brunch…

Have a great weekend!
PC