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  I promised you one more post from New York and here it is. I was invited by Sienna Ray &Co owner, Jaclynn Brennan, to visit her new shop in N.Y and I couldn't be more excited because I'm a fan of her leather bags creations. This is not the first time we meet. This year, I had the pleasure to be part of her wonderful project "wander(lust) ...around the world with sienna ray"(see the post here ), and to meet her in person at NYFW in september.
This  time while in N.Y, I visited her new shop located at 252 Mott Street and I also met the creator designer Natalie Kathleen, and what do you think we all talked about? Bags!!! Jaclynn had a surprise for me: she offered me a bag of my choice from her new collection and soon you will get to see what I picked (a versatile bag in a beautiful color & print)
You can also see here bags on her website HERE
This was my N.Y diary around Holidays Season!
I already miss you New York and I hope to see you soon...

Here's a chart of new private housing units authorized by building permits divided by the number of civilians employed.


Click to enlarge.

As seen in the chart, we're currently attempting to recreate the prosperity of the 1990s!




Source Data:
St. Louis Fed: Custom Chart

Click to enlarge.


Click to enlarge.

Red line? Blue Line?


See Also:
Extreme Initial Claims Danger v.28

Source Data:
St. Louis Fed: Initial Claims
DOL: Initial Claims

America's Faustian Deal With Obama
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
**************
Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome every time is the definition of insanity.  

By that definition, the American electorate is stark, raving, mad!

We are streaking toward that fiscal cliff at supersonic speed with little, if any, chance that we will be halted before the final plunge.

... And WE did it!  You and I -- the voters did it.  

Too often we look around for some one to blame when the defecation hits the rotary oscillator.  But this time, dear reader, we need look only in the nearest mirror for the culprit.

Now, I am not excusing my own culpability, either.  I am just as much to blame as anyone.  I can't get past the feeling that I didn't do enough -- or do MORE -- to try and convince more readers that the path Obama and the democrats have this nation on is leading us straight to perdition. That's my personal burden to bear.

We had four years to evaluate Mr. Obama's agenda, which is pure socialism.  He has told us AND PROVEN, in so many ways, that he is a rabid "wealth redistributionist." He is a statist, and, I believe, a Marxist. 

But, the American electorate decided that it was time for America to give up its leadership role and join the mass mediocrity of the remainder of the world's nations. So, in order to facilitate that "fundamental change" in America, we reinstated the Socialist-in-Chief, Obama.

Many democrats grudgingly admit that Obama is a socialist.  Others in the Democratic Party happily agree that Obama is a socialist because they themselves are socialists.  Much of the Democratic Party is now socialist to the core.

I've never been under any illusion about Obama's brand of socialism.  His is the deep, dark, sinister brand of socialism that enslaves, and finally, murders nations.

Oh, you may argue that Obama's is "... a big-government philosophy that uses wealth redistribution to fund a massive nanny state of cradle-to-grave entitlements." SOURCE: http://dailycaller.com/2011/11/21/obamas-brand-of-socialism/#ixzz2GAM36ytD

You'd be wrong.

See, Obama's brand of socialism is an "...  authoritarian socialism once seen in the Eastern Bloc countries (many of which are now free-market economies) and some nations in Central and South America. It’s used by harsh and oppressive authoritarian regimes that repress their people."  SOURCE:  http://dailycaller.com/2011/11/21/obamas-brand-of-socialism/#ixzz2GAOu5rdK

Think I'm wrong?  Wait a few months.  You are about to see the "pig in the poke" America bought on November 6th.  Once America goes off the fiscal cliff, the hammer will be brought down.

I'm concerned we are just months away from a collapse of our financial system with the US dollar taking a dive into worthlessness.  We are already in the first stages of a nationwide battle to disarm American so that only the government has weapons. 

Gun owners are going to lose this fight.  (At least partially.) I don't like it, but that is the way I see it.  The REASON of gun owners has no chance in an atmosphere that is charged through and through with EMOTION.  Emotion precludes clear thinking, the ability to weigh consequences -- both intended and unintended.  Emotion demands satisfaction regardless of the cost and the severity of the self-inflicted wounds emotional decisions ALWAYS render.

Look.  It's not just a fiscal cliff we are approaching.  It is a sanity cliff.   America is about to go crazy. 

I've been writing for years now that there is an undercurrent of rage permeating American society today and it is nearing the surface.  One small fissure and it will boil to the surface with devastating results.  Another recession might do it, but frankly, I tend to think the left's move to disarm America will be the tipping point.

There are reports circulating now that the government has been preparing, for rather a long time, for another civil war within America.  Munitions and war fighting materiel have been prepositioned at strategic locations around the country in preparation for just such an eventuality.  

There was a time in the not so distant past when I would have laughed at such speculation.  But not any more -- not now.

It's really quite simple.  Half the country is willing, and even eager, to follow Obama into socialist ruin.  The other half will have to be forced to follow, in chains, if necessary.

I agree.  It sounds like a plot for a made for TV movie. But I am very afraid we are actually living in the early days of just such a breakdown in American society.  I have repeatedly reminded younger Americans that current events in America resemble the early days of Bolshevism in Russia, which, as we know, eventually became Soviet Socialist Russia and finally the Union of Soviet Socialist Russia. 

America is in a state of "becoming."  With Obama's leadership there can be no doubt that whatever America becomes -- it WILL be socialist/Marxist.

As I watched the subdued Christmas celebrations this year, it became obvious to me that we KNOW something is ending in America.  You can see it written on the faces of the crowds on the streets. There is a "melancholia" about Americans today.  It is a form of depression and the shrinks tell us depression is suppressed anger.  So, we are back to that anger I mentioned earlier.

As we slouch fearfully toward a new year and a new national identity, we are truly a house divided with each side locked in a marriage that is strangling the life out of both sides.  It is the nature of socialism.  It does that.  It murders nations.

A huge portion of America would happily leave the United States, and found a new country, even now, just for the opportunity to continue to pursue their dreams. But the socialists are hell bent on dragging us down into oblivion with them -- because they cannot allow us to prosper and put the lie to their promised Utopia.  Misery loves company, you know.

There can be no doubt the deal struck with Obama on November 6th is a Faustian deal.  We traded America's soul for a promise, a PROMISE,  mind you, of a collectivist's portion of a meager harvest where the workers are few and the shirkers are many.  It is an untenable deal doomed to utter failure -- and WE did it.

© J. D. Longstreet

by: Les Carprnter
Rational Nation USA
Liberty -vs- Tyranny


In the wake of the Sandy Hook tragedy in which 20 innocent children lost their live to a sick and mentally unstable individual the subject of gun control has remained center stage.

This is understandable, and as it should be. The pursuit of finding improved methods to better identify unstable individuals and thereby keep firearms out of the hands of such individuals is a worthy pursuit.

As we consider how to deal with increasing societal violence we must find a happy medium that will both improve public safety and preserve our second amendment rights. It can be done, if both sides of the gun control debate will start listening to each other rather talking AT each other.

We have heard from the NRA's Wayne LaPierre, who has offered essentially the same solution as the organization did in 2007. Put armed police guards in every school in America. Not anything most suburban and rural Mom's and Dad's will be comfortable with.

 Senator Dianne Feinstein will be introducing a bill  in 2013 to strengthen gun control legislation. It is by no means perfect, and it leaves questions unanswered, yet it is something from which to build a bipartisan consensus. Assuming of course the goal is to effectively reduce the incidents of death by gun violence n America.

Here then is a summary of the bill Senator Feinstein will be introducing to the Senate in 2013. Rational Nation USA, in publishing the Senator's proposal is not making a statement either in support of or against the bill as outlined.

Bans the sale, transfer, importation, or manufacturing of:

•  120 specifically-named firearms

•  Certain other semiautomatic rifles, handguns, shotguns that can accept adetachable magazine and have one military characteristic

•  Semiautomatic rifles and handguns with a fixed magazine that can accept more than 10 rounds

          Strengthens the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban and various state bans by:

• Moving from a 2-characteristic test to a 1-characteristic test

•  Eliminating the easy-to-remove bayonet mounts and flash suppressors fromthe characteristics test

•  Banning firearms with “thumbhole stocks” and “bullet buttons” to addressattempts to “work around” prior bans

Bans large-capacity ammunition feeding devices capable of accepting more than
10 rounds.

Protects legitimate hunters and the rights of existing gun owners by:

•  Grandfathering weapons legally possessed on the date of enactment

•  Exempting over 900 specifically-named weapons used for hunting orsporting purposes and

• Exempting antique, manually-operated, and permanently disabled weapons

Requires that grandfathered weapons be registered under the National Firearms
Act, to include:

•  Background check of owner and any transferee;

•  Type and serial number of the firearm;

•  Positive identification, including photograph and fingerprint;

• Certification from local law enforcement of identity and thatpossession would not violate State or local law; and

•  Dedicated funding for ATF to implement registration

Not perfect, most certainly their are legitimate questions to be asked and needed answer to the same. What is important, at least IMNHO, is that we ask the questions and in the spirit of making things better (without violating our 2'nd amendment rights) we find a reasonable solution.

Captain Fogg over at The Swash Zone  says it best. At least IMNHO.

O' course Bill Cody didn't use a Glock, but he could have bought anything from a Gattling gun to one of the newly popular Mauser and Colt and Browning autoloading pistols every bit as deadly and some more than the plastic gun in the picture. Maybe he did, but I doubt it. Guns are much harder to come buy these days. I don't know how to make it harder unless we require licensing.

Shooting exhibitions were the most popular spectator sport before we learned to watch steroidal men beat each other half to death while we get drunk and cheer. I have it on good authority (my own)that the old showman wasn't death's blue eyed boy unless death is a Buffalo.

But all kidding aside, I have no cowboy origins or fantasies and I think the love of the power firearms convey is just plain old "will to power" humanity we inherited from the other apes. I think it's more that weapons have been restricted to the gentry in Europe for so many thousands of years, it seems natural to them as it seemed natural to change that for the colonials who damned well needed them to survive.

Looking at magazines from 50 or 60 or more years ago, gun ads were everywhere with images of boy scouts holding Ithaca 49 saddle guns, red shirted men in canvas canoes shooting ducks with shotguns and deer with rifles.
After bear? You're not going to want a single shot weapon really.

You know, that's still the real world for some people. In Australia crocodile hunters use spears and ropes. In Louisiana, Swamp Men use repeating rifles or pistols and they have a much higher life expectancy. I have a feeling outdoorsmen all over this huge and empty country fear legitimately that their lives are going to be controlled by people who have no clue and no care for them or their "obsolete" lives.

I hope that's not true, but in a country where boys don't grow up reading Stuart Edward White and Baden Powell and Hemingway and Faulkner and think Central Park is 'nature:' where people's first and only exposure to firearms is in lurid TV coverage of murders, I think it may become so -- with one size fits all laws and stereotypes about people of the "gun culture."

There's a difference between being part of a culture obsessed with anger and acting it out, where people love military looking vehicles and half believe in apocalypse movies with zombies in the streets and who build underground bunkers with booby traps -- a difference between Rambo and Daniel Boone and if I can use that prejudiced term "gun Culture" I think there are several.

And how often have we heard that we need gun control without any clue as to what that might constitute, about what has been done and what effects have been had? What gun owner, what sportsmen or women can fail to ponder what might be suggested next when nearly all the rhetoric not only paints them with the same bloody brush and the same, sometimes outrageously prejudicial and always wrong language? Sniper rifles, automatic weapons, cop killer bullets and of course everything from a slingshot ball up is "high velocity"

Sorry, I agree that the NRA is fond of playing word games and fallacies and fear mongering, but perhaps this is one of those times when we're nearly as bad and by looking at only one aspect of why people buy and use guns we're engineering the conclusion.

I'd like to know why there was a big surge of buying in 2011 and why it came from Democrats and women, while Republican males ownership has remained more steady in the last decade?

But I feel intimidated and drowned out by people who keep illustrating Nietzsche's observation that every word is a prejudice and don't know a Glock from a Glockenspiel.

Hardly anyone who spent his best years paddling remote lakes and rivers and spending weeks in the woods or ordinary afternoons hiking his own land likes to be described as an anachronism or a drug store cowboy because he liked having a rifle with him when a long, long way from anyone else and the same thing goes for Country Club sportsmen and professional target shooters or hunters or Biathlon contestants and if that kind of life dies, replaced by a Western clone of iron fisted Singapore in all its suffocating safety, something American will die and I want no part of that future.

No, I'm not against gun legislation because it's gun legislation or because I'm from the NRA and I think that's true of a great many people. I resent the constant equation. I just don't want more faith put in any more fake bans and trigger locks and waiting periods and arguments about "saturday night specials" and automatic weapons that aren't and all that stuff that did nothing whatsoever but provide false security.

I just don't have faith in the naive proposals, the lack of concrete plans based on concrete data and I'm against the state of mind that assumes everything is getting worse and worse and life is more dangerous than ever - where not only is one in a million too much but the price of civilization is life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

I've yet to hear anyone ask why Americans' private dreams seem to be military and apocalyptic and we see it in their Hummers and AK's and their shootouts. Buffalo Bill made a living with guns and guns were everywhere, but I've not heard of school shootings by him or Annie Oakley or anyone else back over a hundred years ago.

I wanna know what's changed, why everyone is afraid and I don't want to ban first and ask questions later pardner.

Certainly there are reasonable solutions that will address the concerns we all have over firearm safety and keeping firearms, to the greatest extent possible, out of the hands of the mentally unstable and criminals. Most Americans value the right to "keep and bear arms." At the same time it is admittedly hard to understand why any law abiding citizen needs an arsenal of semi automatic assault weapons with extended magazines for either 1) home protection or 2) hunting.

Via: Memeorandum

A last outfit post from New York but not the last post from there.
On the 3rd day of our trip we decided to take a walk on Brooklyn Bridge, a place that both love. We then visited Guggenheim Museum where we saw Picasso's black and White art, an impressive collection of drawings and paintings, and once again went shopping in home decoration department at MOMA store.
The days are flying so fast when you have a great time but in the same time we were glad to come back home to spend Holidays with our loved ones.






                                                                            Jacket: Joe Fresh/ I also love this one Here
                                                                            Sweater: Tommy Hilfiger
                                                                            Ankle boots: Sam Edelman/ similar Here 
                                                                            Bag:3.1 Phillip Lim/ option Here 
                                                                            Sunglasses: thanks to zeroUV/ Here
                                                                            Jeans: thanks to Lulu's.com/ similar Here 

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas yesterday surrounded by your loved ones! We did, and here are some photos with us, our tree decorations and presents. I was happy and thankful to receive wonderful gifts from my beloved husband and from friends. I'm grateful also for your entire support and comments during this entire year. I truly appreciate it ! Lots of love to all of you and Merry Christmas!




                                                                            I was wearing:

                                                                            Trousers: J. Crew/ similar Here
                                                                            Moccasins: Calvin Klein/ option Here 
                                                                            Top: Carolyn Taylor 
                                                                            Cuff bracelet: thanks to Robyn Rhodes/ Here  
                                                                              

Click to enlarge.

NAFTA couldn't get us to 100%? Shocking! Shocking I tell you.



What Christmas would be complete without a feast, a chart, an exponential trend failure, some sarcasm, and a video?

Source Data:
St. Louis Fed: Custom Chart

I had grand plans to have a whole house tour and shovel out one last dose of Christmas cheer. However, the cheer of real life got in the way and I'm having too much fun to sit still long enough to put together a proper tour. So these pictures will have to do.







Merry Christmas and see you in the new year!!

Click to enlarge.



Source Data:
St. Louis Fed: Vehicle Miles Traveled per Capita

by: Les Carpenter
Rational Nation USA
Liberty -vs- Tyranny

Roman Colosseum

Greek Acropolis

Two arguably great ancient world cultures. Reason and senatorial governance. Two cultures that yet today have influence on western thinking and philosophy. Three giants in the realm of philosophy arose from ancient Greece, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Rome, arguably the world's greatest empire was ultimately doomed to decline and ultimate collapse, primarily the result of self destructive behaviors. Fast forward to 2012. America, arguably (once) the freest, most prosperous, and influential nation in the modern world is facing decline, just as the great nation states of Greece and Rome before them. In fact if one looks to history they will see that history is replete with examples of nations that achieved the apex of influence and power, only to experience decline and be replaced by another rising influential power. Today America is at that crucial tipping point where we either will decline or rise to new heights. The choices we make now as a nation will determine either descent or a climb to new heights.

There is a war being fought today in America. An internal war between the ideological forces of the far left progressive movement and the far right right conservative movement. On a fiscal, social, military, foreign affairs, and most everything else there is little to no common ground or desire to compromise. It is winner take all or go down trying. The rhetoric and tactics employed by both sides is intentionally counter productive to finding consensus. Driving this insanity are the ones who have the most to gain by keeping the nation divided and at each others throats. In a single word they are, the oligarchs that control the world economy and stimulate the results that keep them in power.

Both the ideologues of the left and right are being used and manipulated by forces (the oligarchs) they choose to ignore and thus fail to understand. Simply put, those who hold the real power behind the throne(s) are playing the this country, as well as the remainder of the world  like a fiddle. And we are falling for it. Without resistance.

There are multitudes of posts on conservative sites as well as progressive sites that serve to destroy, rather than to work to define common ground and determine the course most likely to result in success. But none of this apparently matters any longer as we are so busy working tearing things apart we haven't the time to build monuments to rational thinking and common sense. There doesn't seem to be any real desire to find common workable ground. Finding that solutions are evidently just too much work for Americans and their elected officials.

I am of a fiscal conservative and classical liberal mindset. I have strong libertarian social leanings, and I actually understand that compromise is what is often required to achieve a workable consensus so something of value gets done. It is evident that in today's winner take all political climate stalemate has become the accepted norm.

 As mentioned earlier there are those unseen forces that have everything to gain by keeping Americans divided. They have everything to lose if we ever actually look beyond the simple and realize we have more in common than we have differences. Being primarily of the fiscal conservative/libertarian social mindset I must say I am as distraught by many who share my beliefs and their refusal to find compromise  as I have been  with the progressives who seek to tear all things conservative and libertarian asunder.

This nation is IMNHO at the crossroads. The choices we make now will affect us, our children, and grandchildren for years to come. We can go forward together, voicing our views, attempting to persuade those with a different view to change to our why of thinking, yet at the same time recognizing that compromise (from both sides) is necessary, and in fact desirable in finding and implementing workable solutions. This is lacking in both parties and in both movements (progressive and conservative) today.

Maybe it is too late. Maybe the nation has become so fractured the damage is irreparable I hope not.

We have overcome great obstacles as a nation in the past. There is no reason we cannot do so again. The divisiveness that has almost become a national trademark can only be overcome if we once again see ourselves as one nation. It is time. Lets start on a course that will restore our fiscal integrity, preserve the individual freedoms and liberty we all cherish, conservatives and liberals alike.

There is something that should be understood by understood by conservatives, President Obama presents no greater or lesser threat to America than GWB did before him. To understand this requires an understanding of concepts. Obama is not a communist, he is really no more socialist than others who came before him, he is no more fascist than GWB,  and for those conservatives that have yet to catch up, he was elected President by a majority of the people. Just sorta, kinda, exactly like the founders intended. Now, get over it. There is work to be done. America needs solutions that ALL its people can buy into and support. In a nation the size of the USA, with our level of maturity (chronological anyway), and diversity requires the willingness to compromise. Both progressives and conservatives seem to have forgotten this.

Going off the grid for now. Everyone have a Merry Christmas, be thinking about how we can solve problem through dialog with one another.