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Each year the US Treasury Department collects trillions of dollars in taxes. Last year that amount was $2.449 trillion, and this year it is projected to bring in $2.902 trillion.

The Madness of Leadership
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
**************

"The day may dawn when fair play, love for one's fellow men, respect for justice and freedom, will enable tormented generations to march forth triumphant from the hideous epoch in which we have to dwell. Meanwhile, never flinch, never weary, never despair." ~ Winston Churchill

Did you know that Churchill was a depressive?  Oh, yes.  He struggled with depression most of his life. 

The world would be surprised, indeed, to know the depressives who became great leaders in politics, in arts and sciences, and yes, in religion, over the past decades and ages.

Why do you suppose that happened? 

I have a theory.   See, depressives are great "thinkers."  They tend to turn inward under stress.  Instead of relying wholly on advisers and an entourage of sycophants, they rely upon themselves and their own abilities and, for the religious among them -- they also lean heavily upon their God -- for they have learned, more than most men, I think, the inherent weakness of man from wrestling with that weakness every waking hour of their lives.

Despair, as Churchill mentioned above, was a condition he lived with almost daily.  He understood it as few did or do. 

But, here's the thing about recognizing despair and over coming it -- or enduring it -- if you will:  You no longer fear it -- and -- you learn that each bout survived makes you stronger much as a fiery crucible refines it's contents.

Having survived despair, the depressive knows the "worse that can happen" and his mind has broken the shackles that fear had previously imposed and he is free to think, to plan, to call forth his creative abilities, to attack whatever the problem is before him.  In Churchill's time and place it was World War Two.

I am convinced that Churchill learned to use the repressed anger and melancholic depression to his advantage.  That is what great men do, nay, that is what great human beings do!

John Adams, 2nd President of the United States and one of America's founding fathers was a depressive.  Charles Dickens, that great British writer was, too, a depressive.  So were/are Buzz Aldrin, American astronaut, the second man to set foot on the moon;  Hans Christian Andersen, Danish writer;  Dick Cavett, American talk show host;  Ray Charles, African-American singer;  Charles Darwin, British naturalist;  Bob Dylan, American singer-songwriter, poet and artist;  William Faulkner, American author;  Harrison Ford, American actor;  Ken Griffey Jr., American MLB player;  Ernest Hemingway, American writer;  Abraham Lincoln, American lawyer and politician, 16th President of the United States; John D. Rockefeller, American industrialist;  Leo Tolstoy, Russian writer;  Mohandas Gandhi,  leader of Indian nationalism in British-ruled India;  Mark Twain, American writer;   Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., American civil rights leader; Mike Wallace, American journalist on 60 Minutes;  and Boris Yeltsin, first President of Russia;  SOURCE:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_with_major_depressive_disorder            

Depressives tend to see the world as it really is.  As a rule, they do not fool themselves into believing they are "in control."  Normal people do.

Depressives are pragmatic and have the ability to adapt to a changing reality even when they don't particularly like it.  They don't care about society's "norm" and structures, nor do they care for doing "what is expected of them."  Example:  "When Neville Chamberlain returned from signing the Munich agreement with Hitler in 1938, only Churchill and a small coterie refused to stand and cheer in parliament, eliciting boos and hisses from other honorable members."  SOURCE:  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904800304576474451102761640.html

Churchill saw Chamberlain's blunder with the clarity and realism that many, if not most, "normal" persons lack.

Depressives also value, highly, other people's opinions.  That, alone, makes them next to unique! BUT -- a warning:  those empathetic depressives may not be out to defeat you as an opponent, but they are fixated upon showing you the error(s) of your ways and changing your mind along with your opinion!

Nassir Ghaemi, (runs the Mood Disorders Program at Tufts Medical Center in Boston)  in an article for the Wall Street Journal entitled:  "Depression in Command," said the following:  "When times are good and the ship of state only needs to sail straight, mentally healthy people function well as political leaders. But in times of crisis and tumult, those who are mentally abnormal, even ill, become the greatest leaders. We might call this the Inverse Law of Sanity."

Mr. Ghaemi continues:  "Great crisis leaders are not like the rest of us; nor are they like mentally healthy leaders. When society is happy, they toil in sadness, seeking help from friends and family and doctors as they cope with an illness that can be debilitating, even deadly. Sometimes they are up, sometimes they are down, but they are never quite well.

When traditional approaches begin to fail, however, great crisis leaders see new opportunities. When the past no longer guides the future, they invent a new future. When old questions are unanswerable and new questions unrecognized, they create new solutions. They are realistic enough to see painful truths, and when calamity occurs, they can lift up the rest of us."  SOURCE:  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904800304576474451102761640.html

So, where DOES their strength come from?   "Their weakness is the secret of their strength," according to Mr. Ghaemi.  I believe him.

I am now, and have been for most of my life, acquainted with a number of depressives.  One thing I have found to be -- oh, so true -- is their honestly in answering a probing question.   Many depressives are reluctant to offer an answer to an unasked question, but, when the question is PUT to them, they tend to reply with clarity, realism, pragmatism, truthfulness, and on occasion, biting humor. 
When asked for a suggested solution to a problem, they will often surprise by offering a creative solution that defies the normal thinking patterns and can be -- and often is --  described as being "out of the box."

Consider this:  In 2006 an article was published by psychiatrists at the Duke University Medical Center which reviewed the biographies of American presidents from 1776 to 1974. This study, which was published in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease analyzed the historical data of 37 presidents looking for symptoms of mental illness as defined by the criteria of the DSM-IV, the Diagnostic Statistical Manual. What they found was startling. According to the Duke researchers, 49% of former presidents had experienced some form of mental illness. Depression was the most common type of presidential mental illness (24%) which some experts say is a high percentage compared with the national average.

 Here is a list of the presidents who have been diagnosed with depression through analysis of historical data:

John Adams

Thomas Jefferson

James Madison

John Quincy Adams

Franklin Pierce

Abraham Lincoln

Calvin Coolidge
SOURCE:  (We highly recommend that you read this article.  You'll find it at:    http://www.healthcentral.com/depression/c/84292/150467/7-depression

There is an old saw that says:  "Have you ever noticed that when all hell breaks loose, and destruction is assured, there always seems to be one person who steps forward with all the right answers, who knows EXACTLY what to do to save the day?  Have you ever noticed that, more often than not, that person is insane?"

I hope that through these humble scribblings you can now see the truth in that old "saying."  

It is also true that while it my not pay to be nuts, quite often it REALLY does help!

© J. D. Longstreet

Click to enlarge.

Economics is not rocket science. It just looks like it sometimes.

Jet Fuel


Source Data:
EIA: Petroleum
St. Louis Fed: Population

The following chart shows what the consumer price index has done since hitting the bottom in December of 2008. I have added a 2nd order polynomial trend line in red (excluding the temporary deflationary deviation from February 2010 to April 2011).


Click to enlarge.

It's an awesome display of gravity if ever I've seen one.

September 26, 2013
Where Is the Panic Over Deflation?


September 30, 2013
Warning - Deflation Will Take the Most by Surprise


In my very humble opinion, ZIRP is going to be with us for what will seem to be an eternity, just like it was in Japan. It is also my very humble opinion that our stock market won't like much better than Japan's did. Not right away perhaps, but eventually.



This is not investment advice.

Source Data:
St. Louis Fed: CPI
St. Louis Fed: Nikkei Stock Average vs. Discount Rate for Japan

The Building Where Little But Political Posturing Gets Done - 2013

Tiring of the predictable sophistry and political hyperbole Rational Nation USA offers the following NPR piece as a informational data point for the last minute political junkies who continue to believe the sky will fall in should the feral government shutdown at midnight. It has happened before (more than once) and yet we all survived and the markets didn't crash. Sleep well tonight. Irrespective of the 11th hour outcome, whatever that may be, life, as well as the world will continue on pretty much as we've all become accustomed to. Pleasant dreams.

Remember that when all is said and done it really is just about politics and political brinkmanship. Of course the interesting factor is this... We continue to reelect the same strain of political buffoons over and over again. Go figure...

Public Service Announcement - In seven days, the federal government runs out of money.

While the Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed a resolution Friday that keeps the government funded through Dec. 15, the measure also defunded President Obama's signature health care law — which means it has virtually no chance of passing the Democratic-controlled Senate.

If a budget resolution doesn't hit President Obama's desk before Oct. 1, that's a big problem: The government will be forced to close its doors.

With that prospect looming, here are eight things you should know about the possible shutdown:

It won't be the first time

Since a new budgeting process was put into place in 1976, the U.S. government has shut down 17 times. Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan each dealt with six shutdowns during their terms in office, lasting anywhere from one day to 2 1/2 weeks.

The last actual shutdown came in 1996 — though the government came close during budget negotiations in 2011.

The last shutdown lasted three weeks

The three-week shutdown that lasted from Dec. 16, 1995, to Jan. 6, 1996, ranks as the longest in U.S. history. As a result, about 284,000 federal workers were furloughed, and around 475,000 essential employees went without a paycheck, although they were eventually reimbursed.

They weren't the only ones inconvenienced. Some benefits for military veterans were delayed, and cleanup at more than 600 toxic waste sites was stopped. The government also shut down for six days in mid-November 1995, initially resulting in the furlough of 800,000 federal employees. The Congressional Research Service reported the shutdowns cost taxpayers a combined $1.4 billion.

Only the "essentials"

Only federal employees deemed "essential" would continue to come to work during a shutdown. Employees who qualify as essential include those involved in national security, protecting life and property and providing benefit payments.

That means members of the military, border control agents, air traffic controllers, the FBI and the TSA are among those who would remain on duty. The president and members of Congress are also exempt from furlough and must decide which of their respective staff members to keep around during a shutdown.

The checks are in the mail

Even in the event of a shutdown, Social Security beneficiaries will still find their checks in their mailboxes and doctors and hospitals will receive Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements. However, if the government does not resolve the budget situation by Nov. 1, those entitlement program payments could be delayed by up to two weeks.

Even in a shutdown, the Postal Service delivers

One reason Americans will get their entitlement checks: A government shutdown would not hit the operations of the U.S. Postal Service. Government agencies that the Treasury Department does not directly fund, like USPS, would be relatively unaffected in the short term by a shutdown . Some postal employees would very likely face furlough, but it wouldn't be enough to completely close down the agency.

National parks and museums? Forget it

Have plans to visit a national park or go sightseeing in the nation's capital? You might want to cancel them. During the Clinton-era shutdowns, 368 national parks closed, resulting in the loss of 7 million visitors. In Washington, D.C., the public would be unable to visit the monuments and museums that millions of tourists flock to every year. The Capitol building would remain open, though.

Visa and passport delays

Those hoping to enter or leave the country during a shutdown would most likely experience some difficulty. The government was unable to process around 200,000 pending passport applications and a daily average of 30,000 visa and passport applications by foreigners during the 1995-96 shutdowns. This would result not only in a headache for would-be travelers but a loss in millions for the airline and tourism industries.

Who would be blamed for a shutdown?

Generally speaking, no one comes out looking good if the government shuts down. A Pew Research poll conducted Sept. 19-22 shows 39 percent of Americans would blame Republicans if a shutdown were to occur, compared with 36 percent who would fault the Obama administration and 17 percent who would hold both sides responsible. According to a Pew poll from a comparable period during the 2011 budget battle, the public spread the blame around nearly identically.

Via: Memeorandum
and Memeorandum

By Findalis of Monkey in the Middle


Hat Tip to Creeping Sharia


MIDDLE EAST historian Tom Holland told a briefing in London last night that the world is watching the effective extinction of Christianity from its birthplace.In an apocalyptic appraisal of the worsening political situation in the region, a panel of experts provided a mass of evidence and statistics for the end of the region’s nation states under the onslaught of militant Islam.‘In terms of the sheer scale of the hatreds and sectarian rivalries, we are witnessing something on the scale of horror of the European Thirty Years War,’ said Holland.‘It is the climax of a process grinding its way through the twentieth century – the effective extinction of Christianity from its birthplace.’The event titled ‘Reporting the Middle East: Why the truth is getting lost’ at the National Liberal Club in Whitehall, sought answers to the ‘anaemic’ coverage of attacks on Egypt’s Christians on 14 August.
Pre-planned destruction of scores of ancient churches, monasteries, schools, orphanages and businesses had gone unreported for days across the West, Nina Shea, Director of the Hudson Institute Religious Freedom Centre in Washington said.

After the Islamists swept multiple elections during the first revolution in 2011, US newspapers asking how it would change Egypt suggested merely that women would be prohibited from wearing skimpy clothes, and Sharm el-Sheikh would close as a tourist destination.

This was ‘utterly trivial’ she said.  Persecution of Copts, who dated their church to Gospel writer St Mark in Alexandria, was at its worst since the fourteenth century, with ‘horrific levels of violence’.
‘It has been the worst persecution in 700 years against the oldest, largest remaining Christian minority in the Middle East.’

The media had failed to ask the most basic questions, she said.  ‘Why were the Copts singled out, what was the significance and purpose of the attacks?’

A fourth-century church dedicated to St Mary – whom Muslims were supposed to revere – and that was a UNESCO World Heritage site, had been destroyed and designated as a Muslim prayer space.
It was 200 years older than the Bamyan Statues in Afghanistan, yet the mainstream media had ignored its demise.

Yet there was enough evidence to show that the violence was part of a plan to ‘drive out the Copts, to terrorize them into leaving’, she added.

Lapido Chief Executive Dr Jenny Taylor who organized the event which was co-hosted with foreign policy think tank Henry Jackson Society, said the media’s job was impeded by ‘secular blinders’.
They tended to report the Middle East’s religions as a ‘variant of a Westminster debate’ with ‘left-wing underdogs versus right-wing overdogs and the Christians getting lumped in with the overdogs if they get mentioned at all.’

Holland said Egypt was not a developing nation, which needed help to emerge as a Western democracy but had been the world’s first state, with a civilization on a level with China and Iran.  In Roman times, it had been the world’s bread basket.

Now it was the single largest importer of wheat anywhere on the planet.

In answer to a question from the floor he agreed there had been what felt like ‘silence’ from Western churches, governments and indeed Western Muslims after the attacks, which belied Islamist propaganda that the West colluded with Christians.

Shea also spoke about Syria.

Christians in Syria were now ‘caught in the middle’, she said.  There was a shadow war against them by rebels, with jihadis and al-Qaeda factions deliberately attacking Christians.

‘When they conquer a town they set up sharia courts and mini sharia states.  The Christians are fleeing.  Given the choice to be killed or to leave, they leave.  If they stay, the jizya tax is imposed, and then raised.  If they cannot pay they are killed.’

She said Christians dared not go to refugee camps run by rebels as they would be recruited to fight.
The so-called Damascus Plan drafted by the Free Syrian Army for after the war ends, included retribution killings against any who did not oppose Assad.


I feel sorry for the Churches of the Middle East.  In every Muslim nation  they are being destroyed.  In Bethlehem, under the Palestinian Authority, Christians have gone from a majority population of 85% to a minority population of 10%.  Pretty soon the only Christians in the city will be the priests, nuns, and tourists.  Already the Palestinian Authority has decided to turn the Church of the Nativity into a mosque.  The Church of the Nativity is one of the holiest sites in the Christian world.  Yet there will be no protests when this happens.

The only place in the Middle East where there is total and free religious liberty is Israel.  Yet the Christian Churches will not praise Israel for this, but condemns the Jewish State instead.

Between 1949 and 1955 every Arab nation forcibly removed most of the Jews from their nations.  They laughed doing so, saying:

First the Saturday people.
Then the Sunday people.

In most of the Arab world there are not enough Jews to satisfy their blood lust.  For instance there are only 9 Jews in Egypt.  (All elderly women.)  So now it is the turn of the Sunday people to leave.  And like with the Jews, the world is remaining silent.

Until Christian and World leaders cry out and demand a stop to the persecution, the murders, the rapes, the torture of their fellow Christians, the Muslims will keep doing what they want and laughing while we just sit back and do nothing.

Happy Monday y'all! I'm still recovering from an A+ weekend but I've got one more party in me. That's why I'm over at The Pink Pagoda joining in on the Blue and White Monday party.


Come over and join in on the fun.

A New Political Party Aborning?
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
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© J. D. Longstreet

Click to enlarge.

The future's too bright.

Merriam Webster: Pretension


This post inspired by robj's comment at Calculated Risk.

Source Data:
St. Louis Fed: Federal Surplus or Deficit [-] as Percent of Gross Domestic Product

Click to enlarge.

Monthly retail and food services sales per capita is shown in blue.
Annual median household income is shown in red.

Please factor in that neither series is adjusted for inflation. You are therefore looking at the raw data in all its grandeur.

We must be incredibly optimistic as a society. I say this because the following is what Google offers me as search results.

1. 8,870,000 search results for "Pent-Up Demand"
2. 230 search results for "Pent-Down Demand"

As for the latter, my blog currently holds the top search result. Hurray! And with this post, I'm looking to expand my dominance of the "Pent-Down Demand" analysis market! Most excellent! Sigh.



If you're happy and you know it, pent demand!
If you're happy and you know it, pent demand!
If you're happy and you know it
And you really want to show it
If you're happy and you know it, pent demand!

Next up... Stomping our feet and turning around! Woohoo!

September 5, 2013
August Retail Sales Shy of Hopes


Where have we heard that before?

"The reason those guys don't want to report same-store sales is because they're in a lot of trouble. They have a broken business model, and they would sorely wish analysts would pay less attention to what they're doing. They're trying to hide." - Peter Morici, 2008

And on that note, I am officially reducing my short-term inflation outlook (as seen in the upper left corner of my blog) to boringly flat just in time for the 2013 Christmas season. It's just a gut feel, nothing more.

This is not investment advice.

Source Data:
St. Louis Fed: Custom Chart

September 29, 2013
Golden era of farm prosperity in Iowa, nation at an end

The following chart shows the median price of new homes sold divided by the median household income.


Click to enlarge.

HUD: Affordable Housing

Who Needs Affordable Housing?

More people than you might realize.

May 2013
REALTOR: Not a High-Wire Act


Parabolically increasing home prices relative to income for the win! It's the greater fool's greatest tool!

Source Data:
St. Louis Fed: Custom Chart

The following chart shows the median household income of Washington, D.C. divided by the median household income of the United States.


Click to enlarge.

Exponential growth! It's only a matter of time before our "investment" pays off! Genius!

The Next Biggest Boom Towns In The U.S.


Let's all move to Columbia! Yes!

And when I say Columbia, I don't mean the state capital of South Carolina. There's some sort of "plague" going on there. For the love of all that is holy, stay away!

September 19, 2013
Declining income, rising poverty plague SC economy


I also don't mean that we should move to the Mall of Columbia. That's just silly talk. We don't need to live in a Banana Republic quite yet. Give it a few more years!

And let's not forget the country of Columbia. It would make a very poor substitute for the flourishing District of Columbia.

So when it comes to Columbias, one stands above the rest. Stick with what works! The future's so bright there that I gotta wear shades!

See Also:
Sarcasm Disclaimer

Source Data:
St. Louis Fed: Custom Chart

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

Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost, to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

It's here America!

The anticipated government shutdown.

With 31+ hours to shutdown the melodrama continues.

And, America braces itself to deal with the result of the childish temper tantrums and Green Egg and Ham infantile pastime of one Senator Cruz from the Lone Star state.

The networks, infatuated with the melodrama continue to repeat, ad nausea the same talking points from the Sheeples of BOTH infantile parties and their childish leadership.

As expected the American people, not to mention the entire world financial markets, are held hostage as a result of infants crapping their pants in delight over childish BS.

America grew up.

Its politician and ELECTED representatives and LEADERS fail to understand what exactly maturity means.

Such is the condition that exists when idiots enamored with the thought of wielding power over the people is recognized in the minds of those without reasoning ability.

America... You have gotten EXACTLY that which you have chosen, either through design or ignorance. In either case the result is the same and no one has the right to complain or bitch about the reality they have chosen for their country and themselves.

Worth Considering - Americans like the idea of representative democracy, but they have little liking for the practices, institutions and politicians that make representative democracy work. Nor are they tolerant of the processes, which require debate (viewed as bickering), compromise (viewed as selling out), advocacy (viewed as posturing) and stalemate (viewed as obstructionism). They do not trust government to do the right thing, they are cynical about elected public officials who are supposed to represent their interests, and they feel that the legislative system as it operates is wide open to special interests but not to the public. The political system gets low marks from most Americans.

There are many reasons for these negative public perceptions. The virtues of representative democracy are not self-evident. The processes in Congress, state legislatures and city councils are messy and difficult to fathom, even to insiders. In their efforts to draw readers, the media focus on conflict and overemphasize negative events. All too often, politicians run against the political system and the people in it. At the same time, significant societal changes have taken place, and culture wars have broken out in American society. Although expectations of what government can do have risen, notions about why and how government should perform have become more heterogeneous and conflicting.

The accumulation of negatives fuels public discontent and disenchantment. No particular incident, specific charge, single newspaper story or television portrayal makes a huge difference, but years of battering have eroded support for the political system. This climate of cynicism is deadly to representative democracy. It hinders the recruitment to elective public office of talented and concerned people, many of whom no longer will risk having their characters assailed and their reputations damaged. It weakens the bonds between citizens and their representatives. It makes consensus more difficult to achieve, because trust is in such short supply. It hinders steady and pragmatic solutions, while encouraging posturing, scapegoating and quick fixes. It erodes the representative assemblies that have served us remarkably well for more than 300 years. It puts our system of representative democracy in peril, even though we have nothing else we would rather have in its place, and nothing that would serve nearly as well.

This publication offers engaged Americans an alternative view of representative democracy by providing a more accurate and positive perspective. It is based on six operating principles of representative democracy as it is practiced throughout the nation. The first two principles focus on representatives as individuals, and the latter four emphasize representation as a system. The treatment of each operating principle includes both a discussion of what the public perceives and a discussion of how politicians and institutions work.

The authors of this guide believe that the system and its participants work well-by no means perfectly, but well-and better than any realistic alternative. Of course, there are problems with legislatures and with legislators that need attention. Of special concern are the conduct of political campaigns, the business of campaign finance and conflicts of interest, partisanship and incivility in the legislature. These concerns should not be taken lightly. Yet, they should not detract from an appreciation of a system that, while currently the envy of the world, is misperceived and unappreciated here at home.

Perhaps, just maybe, if we are lucky, our elected officials will see themselves and recognize they are failing. If not... VOTE THE BASTARDS AND BITCHES OUT OF OFFICES.

The Zombie drug from Russia is also known as Krokodil or desomorphine.