What's Cooking at Our House: Chinese-Style Onion Flatbread

This pan-fried flatbread has a unique layered, chewy texture that is more like a savory bread than a pancake.

This scallion (green onion) flatbread is a popular street food in the less glitzy neighborhoods in China. We first tasted it in Shanghai in 2000.

This flatbread is also called scallion pancake, but pancake confuses two different Chinese recipes: one is a batter that is poured into a skillet (like conventional pancakes) while the other is a pizza-type dough that is rolled out and pan-fried.
This pan-fried flatbread has a unique layered, chewy texture that is more like a savory bread than a pancake.

Roll/stretch out the dough, smear with sesame oil, lightly salt to taste and generously sprinkle on the finely sliced green onions. Some people add a few pepper flakes for zest. (For context, this cutting board is about 13 inches square.)



Roll up the flattened square:



Crimp the seam and the ends of the roll:



Spiral the roll into a snail shape, and then crimp the end into the "snail."



Let the dough rest for 10 minutes, flour the board, press the spiral flat with the palm of your hand and then use a rolling pin to flatten the dough to skillet-size:



Lightly oil the skillet and cook the flatbread on both sides for about 3-5 minutes over medium heat. Slice into pieces and serve.



Well-known chef Martin Yang provides this recipe and video:
Cong You Bing (Scallion Pancakes)

Here's another recipe to review: we use much less salt than either of these recipes:

Pan-Fried Scallion Bread From Barbara Tropp's book The Modern Art of Chinese Cooking

While this may look a bit daunting to beginners (it certainly did to me), it's basically a pizza dough that is quick to mix and easy to roll out. Those who make their own pizza crusts will see this as a variation of flatbread that is pan-fried rather than baked.

The preparation of this flatbread lends itself to sharing the various tasks or cooking with kids. Each of the multiple steps teaches a basic skill that can be applied to other recipes, and the flatbread is forgiving and not finicky.

"A healthy homecooked family meal and a home garden are revolutionary acts." 

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The Nearly Free University and The Emerging Economy:
The Revolution in Higher Education

Reconnecting higher education, livelihoods and the economyWith the soaring cost of higher education, has the value a college degree been turned upside down? College tuition and fees are up 1000% since 1980. Half of all recent college graduates are jobless or underemployed, revealing a deep disconnect between higher education and the job market.

It is no surprise everyone is asking: Where is the return on investment? Is the assumption that higher education returns greater prosperity no longer true? And if this is the case, how does this impact you, your children and grandchildren?


We must thoroughly understand the twin revolutions now fundamentally changing our world: The true cost of higher education and an economy that seems to re-shape itself minute to minute.

The Nearly Free University and the Emerging Economy clearly describes the underlying dynamics at work - and, more importantly, lays out a new low-cost model for higher education: how digital technology is enabling a revolution in higher education that dramatically lowers costs while expanding the opportunities for students of all ages.

The Nearly Free University and the Emerging Economy provides clarity and optimism in a period of the greatest change our educational systems and society have seen, and offers everyone the tools needed to prosper in the Emerging Economy.

Read Chapter 1/Table of Contents

print ($20)       Kindle ($9.95) 

---

Things are falling apart--that is obvious. But why are they falling apart? The reasons are complex and global. Our economy and society have structural problems that cannot be solved by adding debt to debt. We are becoming poorer, not just from financial over-reach, but from fundamental forces that are not easy to identify. We will cover the five core reasons why things are falling apart:

1. Debt and financialization
2. Crony capitalism
3. Diminishing returns
4. Centralization
5. Technological, financial and demographic changes in our economy

Complex systems weakened by diminishing returns collapse under their own weight and are replaced by systems that are simpler, faster and affordable. If we cling to the old ways, our system will disintegrate. If we want sustainable prosperity rather than collapse, we must embrace a new model that is Decentralized, Adaptive, Transparent and Accountable (DATA).

We are not powerless. Once we accept responsibility, we become powerful.

Read the Introduction/Table of ContentsKindle: $9.95       print: $24 

Thank you, Jeff N. ($50), for your extraordinarily generous contribution to this site -- I am greatly honored by your steadfast support and readership.

Thank you, Steven C. ($5/month), for your exceptionally generous subscription to this site -- I am greatly honored by your support and readership.

Read more...

The Federal Reserve: Masters of the Universe or Trapped Incompetents?

Suppose the Fed was actually little more than a collection of incompetents trapped in a broken system that is beyond repair.

For a variety of reasons, the Federal Reserve is viewed by many as the financial Master of the Universe. Given how the media hangs on every pronouncement and the visible power of the Fed's policies to move markets, this view is understandable.

But suppose rather than being masters of all things financial, the Fed was actually little more than a collection of incompetents trapped in a broken system that is beyond repair. Many reasons have been proposed to explain the Fed's policies,and most (including my own expressed here) focus on the Fed's need to protect the banking sector and the Status Quo, lest the whole rotten contraption collapses in a heap of worthless derivatives and various Ponzi schemes.

An alternative view is that the members of the Fed have been selected for incompetence by a system that fosters incompetence by its very nature, i.e. a centralized power center.

Longtime correspondent Harun I. recently offered this explanation of the incompetence of those atop the heap:

Regarding the competence of the Deep State and Federal Reserve:When one merges the Peter Principle and Pareto Principle one realizes that, not only are they incompetent, it is inevitable. Complexity does not equal competence. And because complexity is a form of leverage it does not require a majority of systems inoperable to fail. 

Modern developed civilizations rest upon several inverted pyramids. How many people out of any random sampling know how to produce their own food, make their own clothing, build their shelter, or tap into their own water source? As complexity increases and the division in labor grows increasingly in areas that have nothing to do with core survival the civilization becomes increasingly incompetent. 

Since a civilization is a hierarchal system, its leaders (the vital few) will eventually be incompetent. Inverted pyramids and inept leadership are a toxic mix. As history would indicate this situation eventually disintegrates then reorganizes... to be repeated.

Another key characteristic of such centralized systems is the way they trap participants, even those at the top. Analyst Catherine Austin Fitts has discussed this attribute, for example, in this interview: Catherine Austin Fitts on Wall Street's Corruption, the Austrian School and Who's 'Really' in Charge.

One way to think about this is to ask: let's say the voting members of the Fed knew that the best way to re-start sustainable growth was to normalize interest rates by ending the Fed's zero-interest rate policy (ZIRP) and quantitative easing.
Even if they knew these changes would ultimately profit the banking sector and the economy as a whole, could they withstand the pressure that would be exerted by everyone benefiting from the Status Quo?

I have long maintained that the Fed's vaunted independence is actually contingent, i.e. the Fed is a political entity and as a result it responds to political pressure like any other political entity. And like any hierarchy, it is prone to group-think and the urge to conform to norms.

This raises another question: even if the voting members of the Fed wanted to fix the nation's broken financial system, do they have the ability to do so?

I have posited that whatever consensus/group-think dominated the various factions that comprise the Deep State has eroded, and the cracks of profound disunity are opening between powerful factions in the Deep State.

Rather than Masters of the Universe, the Fed's governors are increasingly looking more like deer caught in the headlights of a transformation they cannot understand, much less control.

Is the Deep State Fracturing into Disunity? (March 14, 2014)

Why Is Our Government (and Deep State) So Incompetent? (March 6, 2014)

The Fed Has Failed (and Will Continue to Fail), Part 1 (March 11, 2014)

How The Fed Has Failed America, Part 2 (March 12, 2014) 

---

The Nearly Free University and The Emerging Economy:
The Revolution in Higher Education

Reconnecting higher education, livelihoods and the economyWith the soaring cost of higher education, has the value a college degree been turned upside down? College tuition and fees are up 1000% since 1980. Half of all recent college graduates are jobless or underemployed, revealing a deep disconnect between higher education and the job market.

It is no surprise everyone is asking: Where is the return on investment? Is the assumption that higher education returns greater prosperity no longer true? And if this is the case, how does this impact you, your children and grandchildren?


We must thoroughly understand the twin revolutions now fundamentally changing our world: The true cost of higher education and an economy that seems to re-shape itself minute to minute.

The Nearly Free University and the Emerging Economy clearly describes the underlying dynamics at work - and, more importantly, lays out a new low-cost model for higher education: how digital technology is enabling a revolution in higher education that dramatically lowers costs while expanding the opportunities for students of all ages.

The Nearly Free University and the Emerging Economy provides clarity and optimism in a period of the greatest change our educational systems and society have seen, and offers everyone the tools needed to prosper in the Emerging Economy.

Read Chapter 1/Table of Contents

print ($20)       Kindle ($9.95) 

---

Things are falling apart--that is obvious. But why are they falling apart? The reasons are complex and global. Our economy and society have structural problems that cannot be solved by adding debt to debt. We are becoming poorer, not just from financial over-reach, but from fundamental forces that are not easy to identify. We will cover the five core reasons why things are falling apart:

1. Debt and financialization
2. Crony capitalism
3. Diminishing returns
4. Centralization
5. Technological, financial and demographic changes in our economy

Complex systems weakened by diminishing returns collapse under their own weight and are replaced by systems that are simpler, faster and affordable. If we cling to the old ways, our system will disintegrate. If we want sustainable prosperity rather than collapse, we must embrace a new model that is Decentralized, Adaptive, Transparent and Accountable (DATA).

We are not powerless. Once we accept responsibility, we become powerful.

Read the Introduction/Table of ContentsKindle: $9.95       print: $24 

Thank you, William H. ($25), for your extremely generous contribution to this site -- I am greatly honored by your support and readership.

Thank you, Larry M. ($25), for your exceptionally generous contribution to this site -- I am greatly honored by your support and readership.

Read more...

To Eliminate Flight 370 Theories, Start with a Ruler, Pencil and Map

No conventional scenario accounts for the methodical disabling of the communications systems, the bizarre altitude changes and professional navigation to way points, or the presumed turn south and a flight path that extended to at least 8:11 a.m.

UPDATE ON POSSIBLE DEBRIS: the 24-meter (79-feet) object is located far to the south of the search field indicated on the map below. The remote area is known as a floating junkyard, so while this could be yet another false lead, it appears to be the only credible lead at this point: If this is the debris of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, what happens next?

Every plausible theory about what happened to Flight 370 has to not only fit the most reliable facts (radar tracks and satellite data) but basic geography. A widely circulated scenario proposed by Chris Goodfellow theorizes that a fire (from either a smoldering front tire or electrical fire) filled the cockpit with smoke and caused the pilots to head for the nearest major runway which happened to be to the west on Langkawi.

The reason why the transponder and ACARS systems were deactivated is the pilots pulled all the fuses in an attempt to control the electrical fire.

In Goodfellow's reconstruction, this gallant effort failed and the pilots were overcome by fumes and lost consciousness. The aircraft then flew on the westward heading on autopilot until it ran out of fuel and crashed into the sea.

THis scenario has been critiqued on a number of points: Here's What Pilots Think About The New Idea That The Missing Plane Flew For Hours After A Fire Killed The Pilots documents that full-face oxygen masks were easily accessible, nixing the notion that the pilots could not possibly have had time to radio air traffic control.

A “Startlingly Simple Theory” About the Missing Airliner is Sweeping the Internet. It’s Wrong addresses other problems with the scenario.

I've prepared a map with the "it has to be somewhere along this line" arc based on satellite data and Flight 370's last known west-bound heading. This heading has been confirmed by both Malaysian and Thai military radar.

If the pilots lost consciousness and the aircraft continued west on autopilot, the 777 would have been approaching India before its fuel ran out and and it ditched into the sea. This is not even close to the arc traced by the satellite transmission at 8:11 a.m.



The satellite data also conflicts with theories that have Flight 370 being diverted to Diego Garcia, a U.S./British military base 1,200 southwest of Sri Lanka, which is well away from the arc.

The problem is that various pieces of data do not support conventional scenarios based on past losses of commercial airliners. We can start with the fact that the Boeing 777 is one of the safest aircraft in commercial use. The only fatalities occurred quite recently as a result of pilot error.

The fire scenario in which pilots can't find time to radio ATC (air traffic control) but they manage to navigate multiple way points using the flight computer is not plausible. Not only do the masks and the safety record of the 777 make this a stretch (not to mention that a DC-8 is not necessarily a useful analogy to a 777) it's not yet clear (due to conflicting reports) whether the pilots could deactivate the ACARS system from the cockpit; some reports suggest that requires opening a floor compartment in the aisle outside the cockpit.

The methodical disabling of the two separate communications systems is inconsistent with an emergency that allowed the pilots enough time to change course via the flight computer, navigate to way points and change altitude.

The bizarre altitude changes (climbing to 45,000 feet, well beyond the aircraft's designed ceiling and then descending to 23,000 feet, according to Malaysian military radar) and lengthy flight path along navigational way points do not align with the pilot suicide scenario. In the two previous instances of pilot suicide (both denied by the host nations for reasons of face), the suicidal pilot dove the aircraft into the sea early in the flight.

The complex flight path westward does not align with this unless the pilot was aiming to ditch the aircraft beyond the reach of recovery. And if this were the goal, why climb to 45,000 feet and then descend to 23,000?

My pilot sources report that the 777 (along with all other commercial aircraft) are designed to fly within a narrow envelope of efficiency to conserve fuel. It's pushing the envelope hard to take an almost fully loaded airliner above its designed ceiling (around 43,000 feet). What possible motivation could there have been for this action, and the subsequent drop to 23,000 feet?

A struggle with hijackers comes to mind, but there is no solid evidence that any of the passengers or other crew members had the motivation or training to hijack the aircraft and either fly the 777 in the professional manner demonstrated or coerce the pilots to disable the communications systems and proceed west.

The passage over known Malaysian military bases suggests to some observers that the pilots may have been trying to draw a response, i.e. force the Malaysian Air Force to scramble fighters, but this did not happen.

That leaves a struggle between captain and co-pilot as one explanation for the wild changes in altitude, but if that occurred, the rogue pilot retained control and the communication systems remained off.

Since there is no evidence (after 12 days) that Flight 370 headed north and landed or crashed on land, official speculation has turned to the southern arc.

In order to reach the southern reaches of the arc, Flight 370 had to have turned south sometime after Malaysian and Thai military radar lost contact with the 777 around 2:30 a.m. Once again, this decision (the only possible choice left if the northern route has been ruled out) does not align with hijacking aimed at stealing the aircraft or holding the passengers hostage, given the paucity of potential landing sites. And if the presumed hijacking was intended to be an act of terrorism that murdered all 239 people on board, why fly the 777 six hours beyond the point when the presumed hijackers took control of the cockpit?

While it is certainly possible that the pilots were incapacitated by some event after they turned the aircraft south and the 777 flew on autopilot until it crashed somewhere close to this arc, the fact that the aircraft was obviously being piloted up to that turn south only deepens the mystery.

No conventional scenario accounts for the methodical disabling of the communications systems, the bizarre altitude changes and professional navigation to way points, or the presumed turn south and a flight path that extended to at least 8:11 a.m., almost six hours after the aircraft flew beyond the Malaysian military radar's range.

As noted in my previous entries on Flight 370, it is possible that the U.S. Navy's SOSUS (Sound Surveillance System)(Wikipedia) may be active in the region of interest. According to this article on the Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS), an advanced version was put in place in the mid-2000s.

On 26 April 1999 Lockheed Martin Corp., Manassas, Va., was awarded a $107,031,978 firm-fixed-price contract for Phase II of a deep water, undersea surveillance system. This system is a long life, passive acoustic surveillance system that can be configured for multiple mission applications. It has the capability to provide long-term barrier and field acoustic surveillance, long-range acoustic surveillance coverage of open ocean areas, and acoustic surveillance in areas with high ambient noise. This contract contains one option, which, if exercised, would bring the total cumulative value of this contract to $153,234,288.

Although there is no public indication that the SOSUS system detected an acoustic signal that could have been Flight 370 crashing into the sea, we can anticipate that no public announcement would be made. Rather, various naval assets would be directed to search in the appropriate area.

Unfortunately, even if the black box is recovered, we may never know what transpired in the cockpit from 1:00 a.m. on, as the black box only records the previous two hours of cockpit voice data (it records 25 hours of other flight data). If the aircraft was on autopilot those last two hours (or was flown by a silent human pilot), there may well be little record of events in the cockpit prior to the two-hour mark.

It increasingly appears to be a mystery that will never be solved with any certainty.

My previous entry on Flight 370:
Finally, a Plausible Scenario of What Happened to Flight 370 (March 17, 2014) 


Thanks to Roy M., M33 and others for correcting my egregious error on the map. 

---

The Nearly Free University and The Emerging Economy:
The Revolution in Higher Education

Reconnecting higher education, livelihoods and the economyWith the soaring cost of higher education, has the value a college degree been turned upside down? College tuition and fees are up 1000% since 1980. Half of all recent college graduates are jobless or underemployed, revealing a deep disconnect between higher education and the job market.

It is no surprise everyone is asking: Where is the return on investment? Is the assumption that higher education returns greater prosperity no longer true? And if this is the case, how does this impact you, your children and grandchildren?


We must thoroughly understand the twin revolutions now fundamentally changing our world: The true cost of higher education and an economy that seems to re-shape itself minute to minute.

The Nearly Free University and the Emerging Economy clearly describes the underlying dynamics at work - and, more importantly, lays out a new low-cost model for higher education: how digital technology is enabling a revolution in higher education that dramatically lowers costs while expanding the opportunities for students of all ages.

The Nearly Free University and the Emerging Economy provides clarity and optimism in a period of the greatest change our educational systems and society have seen, and offers everyone the tools needed to prosper in the Emerging Economy.

Read Chapter 1/Table of Contents

print ($20)       Kindle ($9.95) 

---

Things are falling apart--that is obvious. But why are they falling apart? The reasons are complex and global. Our economy and society have structural problems that cannot be solved by adding debt to debt. We are becoming poorer, not just from financial over-reach, but from fundamental forces that are not easy to identify. We will cover the five core reasons why things are falling apart:

1. Debt and financialization
2. Crony capitalism
3. Diminishing returns
4. Centralization
5. Technological, financial and demographic changes in our economy

Complex systems weakened by diminishing returns collapse under their own weight and are replaced by systems that are simpler, faster and affordable. If we cling to the old ways, our system will disintegrate. If we want sustainable prosperity rather than collapse, we must embrace a new model that is Decentralized, Adaptive, Transparent and Accountable (DATA).

We are not powerless. Once we accept responsibility, we become powerful.

Read the Introduction/Table of ContentsKindle: $9.95       print: $24 

Thank you, Lewis D. ($50), for your supremely generous contribution to this site -- I am greatly honored by your steadfast support and readership.

Thank you, Delsina M. ($5/month), for your exceptionally generous subscription to this site -- I am greatly honored by your support and readership.

Read more...

Pay Our Pensions Or We'll Throw You in Jail: the Legalization of Looting

Rather than deal forthrightly with the reality that unrealistic promises made to their employees cannot be honored, local government has pursued a strategy of legalizing looting.

The gradual erosion of civil liberties, legal rights and government ethics are connected: our rights don't just vanish into thin air, they are expropriated by government: Federal, state and local. Though much is written about the loss of civil liberties at the Federal level, many of the most blatantly illegal power grabs are occurring in local government.

This expropriation is under the radar of the average citizen because the process slowly chips away the fundamentals of legality and justice: bit by bit, due process and the rights of the individual have been eroded by state and local governments until the fundamental Constitutional protections simply cease to exist.

When local government looting is legalized, the entire system is illegal. Here are three recent examples of blatantly illegal looting by local governments.
First up: privatizing the collection of traffic fines and probation to create a modernized debtor's prison. We turn to The Nation for the story:

The Town That Turned Poverty Into a Prison Sentence Most states shut down their debtors’ prisons more than 100 years ago; in 2005, Harpersville, Alabama, opened one back up.

What happened to Ford in the small town of Harpersville was tangled and unconstitutional-- but hardly unique. Similar tales have been playing out in more than 1,000 courts across the country, from Georgia to Idaho. In the face of strained budgets and cuts to public services, state and local governments have been stepping up their efforts to ensure that the criminal justice system pays for itself. They have increased fines and court costs, intensified law enforcement efforts, and passed so-called “pay-to-stay” laws that charge offenders daily jail fees. They have also begun contracting with “offender-funded” probation companies like JCS, which offer a particularly attractive solution—collection, at no cost to the court. 

Harpersville’s experiment with private probation began nearly ten years ago. In Alabama, people know Harpersville best as a speed trap, the stretch of country highway where the speed limit changes six times in roughly as many miles. Indeed, traffic is by far the biggest business in the town of 1,600, where there is little more than Big Man’s BBQ, the Sudden Impact Collision Center and a dollar store. 

In 2005, the court’s revenue was nearly three times the amount that the town received from a sales tax, Harpersville’s second-largest source of income. Fines had become key to Harpersville’s development, but it proved difficult to chase down those who did not pay. So, that year, Harpersville decided to follow in the footsteps of other Alabama cities and hire JCS to help collect. 

It was a system of extraction and coercion so flagrant that Alabama Circuit Court Judge Hub Harrington likened it to a modern-day “debtors’ prison.” 

Her fines for the three charges added up to $2,922, court papers show. Ward sentenced her--and others who said they couldn’t pay their full fines that day-- to probation. Once a means of allowing convicted offenders to stay out of jail on the condition of good behavior, probation had now become a court-sanctioned tool for debt collection.
Burdette reported to the JCS office in nearby Childersburg, where she paid her probation officer $100. Of that, $45 went toward her fine, $10 toward a one-time “start-up fee,” and the last $45 went to JCS as a monthly fee for service.

Next up: illegal search and seizure under the pretext of traffic violations. As if "driving while black" isn't bad enough, now "driving with cash" is pretext enough to be stripped of your rights and your property stolen by local government:

Lawsuits over cash seizures settled in Nevada

Tan Nguyen of Newport, Calif., and Michael Lee of Denver said in lawsuits filed in U.S. District Court in Reno they were stopped last year on U.S. Interstate 80 near Winnemucca about 165 miles east of Reno under the pretext of speeding. They said they were subjected to illegal searches and told they wouldn't be released with their vehicles unless they forfeited their cash. 

The lawsuits claimed the cash seizures were part of a pattern of stopping drivers for speeding as a pretext for drug busts in violation of the Constitution. 

Nguyen was given a written warning for speeding but wasn't cited. As a condition of release, he signed a "property for safekeeping receipt," which indicated the money was abandoned or seized and not returnable. But the lawsuit says he did so only because Dove threatened to seize his vehicle unless he "got in his car and drove off and forgot this ever happened." 

"He wasn't charged with anything. He had no drugs in his car. The pretext for stopping him was he was doing 78 in a 75," John Ohlson told KRNV-TV. "It's like Jesse James or Black Bart," he told AP in an interview last week. 

The district attorney's statement said both men were stopped legally and that "every asset that was seized pursuant to those stops was lawfully seized."

Exhibit # 3: guilty until proven innocent: State of California seizes cash from "suspected" tax evaders with no evidence, no court action, no recourse. I have documented in detail how the jackboot of the State of California has pressed on the necks of thousands of law-abiding citizens whose only crime was moving out of California.

The State of California presumes anyone moving out of the state who still has a source of income in California--for example, a few dollars of interest earned on a bank account--owes California income tax on all their presumed income, even if they have filed income tax returns in another state.

If this isn't the acme of illegal seizure and denial of basic rights, i.e. presumed innocent until proven guilty, then what is?

Here is one reader's account of how this legal looting works: I wrote about this inWelcome to the United States of Orwell: Law-Abiding Taxpayers Are Treated as Criminals While the Real Criminals Go Free (March 27, 2012).

I received a letter last year that we owed the state of California's Franchise Tax Board $90,000 for taxes in the year 2008.We replied to the Franchise Tax board in a similar manner as RT stating that:
-- Did not reside in California in 2008
-- Did not file a State income tax return in California in 2008
-- Did not have any outstanding tax issues with California in 2008
-- Did no business in California in 2008
-- Owned no property in California in 2008
The CA Franchise Tax board responded by putting a lien on us in the state - fortunately, our banks and assets have no business in CA or I am certain our accounts would have been robbed as well.
After a great deal of uncertainty and angst, I found an accountant in CA who advised us that we needed to file a complete CA tax return for 2008 even though we did not owe any tax. We filed the return and received a response that we owed the state $625 to cover the State's collection fees. We paid the fee and within two weeks received a "refund" check for the $625. 

On reflection, we felt as if we had been "held up" by some powerful gangsters and if it had not been for an honest tax accountant we would have suffered much financial damage.

In other words, honest taxpayers are reduced to begging the predatory state of California to return their own money. Meanwhile, the bagmen for the local government thieves, Wells Fargo and Bank of America, among others, get to keep the $100 fee they charged the taxpayer for stealing their money. If this isn't Orwellian, then what do you call it? "Legal"? If this is legal, legality has lost all meaning.

For more on the blatantly illegal seizures of cash from people who aren't even residents of California and who filed income tax returns in another state, please read:

Welcome to the Predatory State of California--Even If You Don't Live There (March 20, 2012)

The Predatory State of California, Part 2 (March 21, 2012)

Just as pernicious as outright looting is the growing dependence of local government on fines and related rip-offs. Correspondent Joel M. recently submitted this article which features New York City officials whining that the recent snow storm deprived them of sorely needed revenues from parking fines.
Costs Have Piled Up Along With the Snow of a Difficult Winter (NYT.com)

"If the winter was costly for individuals, it was even more so for municipalities. The snow triggered repeated suspensions of New York City’s alternate-side-of-the-street parking rules, delighting car owners but costing the city an average of $270,000 a day in potential fines, officials said. That added up to $4.3 million during a three-week stretch in February alone, money that would have gone to help pay for city services, including the fire and police forces, city officials said."

Everyone who believes local government is "here to fill potholes and help disadvantaged people" needs to wake up and ask what kind of government we have when due process has been replaced with "legal" looting. Is local government focused on serving citizens or on funding public employee pensions and healthcare benefits?

The erosion of ethics of those in government service is as pernicious as the rise of legal looting. Let's be honest, shall we? Those in local government tasked with collecting all these forms of legal looting are "just doing my job," but how many protest the process? How many public employee unions are outraged by the legal looting that fills the coffers of their pension funds?

For context, government employees constitute about 15% of the employed workforce in the U.S.: 22 million out of 142 million. Unlike the other 85%, their employer can legalize looting on their behalf.



Local government spending has soared for decades.



So has local government debt.



Promises were made to local government employees by craven, bought-and-paid-for politicos that cannot possibly be honored in a stagnating economy with widening wealth inequality. But rather than deal forthrightly with that reality, local government has pursued a strategy of legalizing looting.

From the point of view of the hapless tax donkeys and debt-serfs being looted, this strategy boils down to a stark threat: Pay Our Pensions Or We'll Throw You in Jail.

Here's the deal: government is supposed to serve the people, not the insiders. Please read the above news stories; can anyone claim that legalized looting is OK because the "ends" (public services) justify the "means" (legalized looting)? How many public employees care about where the money that funds their paycheck, pension and healthcare benefits comes from?

Maybe public employees should start caring about where the money is coming from, because taxation approved by elected officials or direct voter approval is one thing, and legalized looting is another. If you don't care that your pay/pension/benefits may be partly funded by legalized looting, perhaps you should start caring.

Remember that we (the general public) can't pull you over and "legally" steal your cash, nor can we order Wells Fargo to go into your bank account and "legally" steal your money without court review, evidence of wrongdoing or recourse. We can't award private collection agencies the powers reserved for representative government and rig the probation system into a cash cow that benefits us.

Please don't trot out the "good German" excuse: I only take orders. You're the ones who are pulling the levers of the legalized looting machine; us tax donkeys and debt-serfs are on the receiving end. Given that special interests own the state legislatures, the tax donkeys and debt-serfs have only three choices: opt out, move out or stop paying, and fill your modern debtors' prisons to the brim. 

---

The Nearly Free University and The Emerging Economy:
The Revolution in Higher Education

Reconnecting higher education, livelihoods and the economyWith the soaring cost of higher education, has the value a college degree been turned upside down? College tuition and fees are up 1000% since 1980. Half of all recent college graduates are jobless or underemployed, revealing a deep disconnect between higher education and the job market.

It is no surprise everyone is asking: Where is the return on investment? Is the assumption that higher education returns greater prosperity no longer true? And if this is the case, how does this impact you, your children and grandchildren?


We must thoroughly understand the twin revolutions now fundamentally changing our world: The true cost of higher education and an economy that seems to re-shape itself minute to minute.

The Nearly Free University and the Emerging Economy clearly describes the underlying dynamics at work - and, more importantly, lays out a new low-cost model for higher education: how digital technology is enabling a revolution in higher education that dramatically lowers costs while expanding the opportunities for students of all ages.

The Nearly Free University and the Emerging Economy provides clarity and optimism in a period of the greatest change our educational systems and society have seen, and offers everyone the tools needed to prosper in the Emerging Economy.

Read Chapter 1/Table of Contents

print ($20)       Kindle ($9.95) 

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Things are falling apart--that is obvious. But why are they falling apart? The reasons are complex and global. Our economy and society have structural problems that cannot be solved by adding debt to debt. We are becoming poorer, not just from financial over-reach, but from fundamental forces that are not easy to identify. We will cover the five core reasons why things are falling apart:

1. Debt and financialization
2. Crony capitalism
3. Diminishing returns
4. Centralization
5. Technological, financial and demographic changes in our economy

Complex systems weakened by diminishing returns collapse under their own weight and are replaced by systems that are simpler, faster and affordable. If we cling to the old ways, our system will disintegrate. If we want sustainable prosperity rather than collapse, we must embrace a new model that is Decentralized, Adaptive, Transparent and Accountable (DATA).

We are not powerless. Once we accept responsibility, we become powerful.

Read the Introduction/Table of ContentsKindle: $9.95       print: $24 

Thank you, Jon J. ($50), for your massively generous contribution to this site -- I am greatly honored by your steadfast support and readership.

Thank you, James D. ($50), for your exceptionally generous contribution to this site -- I am greatly honored by your steadfast support and readership.

Read more...

The Five-Year Fantasy Is Ending

Since these monetary/fiscal fixes (i.e. distortions) didn't address the real issues, all they can possibly do is increase the magnitude of the next collapse.


For five long years, we have pursued the fantasy that we could return to "growth" without having to fix or change anything. The core policy of the fantasy is the consensus of "serious economists," i.e. those accepted into the priesthood of PhD economists protected by academic tenure or state positions: what we suffered in 2009 was not the collapse of leveraged crony-state financialization but a temporary decline of "aggregate demand" and productive capacity.

The solution, the economic witch doctors asserted, was simple: replace temporarily slack private demand with government-funded demand (deficit spending) and flood the impaired financial system with liquidity (i.e. free money) and increase the incentives to borrow money.

In other words, the "serious economists" solution was to transfer all the interest earned by savers to the banks and push households to buy more low-quality junk from Asia on credit. This expansion of demand (for more of anything-- "serious economists" don't differentiate between a 13th pair of shoes and a single replacement pair of shoes--and they absolutely love building McMansions in the middle of nowhere) would push businesses to borrow money from banks (that's good because banks will profit, and "serious economists" want banks to skim enormous profits to keep the financial sector healthy) and expand their production and payroll.

None of this made any sense, of course, because the "serious economists" completely misread the problem. The key characteristic of science is predictable, repeatable results. Yet "serious economists" failed to predict both the 2008 global financial meltdown and the failure of their Keynesian Cargo Cult policies: zero interest rates, limitless liquidity and pushing households and enterprises to borrow more money.

There is simply no way this track record justifies economics as a science. It is at best a pseudo-science. The number of astrologers who predicted the 2008 crash far exceeds the number of "serious economists" who did so, yet the priesthood still claims the mantle of science.

Add the fallacies of "serious economists" to the resistance of the Status Quo to any reduction in their skimming operations and you get the fantasy that the only solution needed was to print trillions of dollars and give the dough to government and financiers. Five years on, "growth" has been extremely anemic, and no honest observer can deny the reality that the "recovery" is so fragile and dependent on free money that any normalization--raising interest rates, ceasing Federal Reserve quantitative easing and reducing the Federal deficit to $200 billion from $600 billion--would instantly toss the economy into a deep recession and trigger a collapse in stocks and bonds.

Absolutely nothing was done to address the structural causes of the meltdown and the erosion of the middle class and upward mobility. Was anything done to reverse the soaring costs of higher education? No--the crisis was papered over by the Federal government taking over much of the student loan debt-serf industry. You call this a solution?

How about financial reform? What exactly did the 2,319-page monstrosity of corrupted Federal power, the “Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act" actually accomplish? Did it abolish the 'too big to fail banks" or did it simply enable them to prosper at the expense of the consumer?

What If We're Beyond Mere Policy Tweaks? (February 6, 2012)

How about the 2,074-page Affordable Care Act (ACA), a.k.a. ObamaCare? Did that fix the underlying problems with sickcare? No--it simply created more regulatory distortions and a subsidy for the uninsured to join the bloated monstrosity of sickcare, speeding the bankruptcy of the entire system.

America's Hidden 8% VAT: Sickcare (May 10, 2012)

The jewel in the Keynesian Cargo Cult's crown is the "wealth effect" created by the spectacular rise in the stock market. Nothing like a doubling of stocks to make everyone feel wealthier and more likely to spend, spend, spend--oops, except only the top 5% of households own enough financial assets to even notice.

This spectacular rise is supposedly based on corporate profits, which have soared to new heights. Roughly 11% of the nation's GDP (gross domestic product) is now corporate profits.



Financial sector profits have been equally wonderful:



Compare those spikes to GDP, which has registered a much more modest increase since 2008.



How could corporate profits have soared on such anemic growth? There are several rarely addressed causes.

1. The weak U.S. dollar greatly increased profits earned overseas when stated in dollars. In 2002, 1 euro of profit earned by a U.S. global corporation equaled $1 in profit when converted to U.S. dollars. That same 1 euro profit swelled to $1.60 a few years ago and still garners $1.37 in profit today. That's a 37% premium based not on profits being higher but on currency arbitrage.
Given that most U.S. global corporations earn 50% or more of their sales and profits overseas, this is an enormous factor in rising profits.

2. The Federal Reserve's flood of free money washed over the entire global economy, sparking an orgy of investment and consumption in emerging markets. Some percentage of this flowed to U.S. corporations, which have compensated for weak domestic sales with strong growth in emerging markets.

Both of these conditions are at risk of reversal. The Fed's modest "tapering" of its liquidity flood triggered a near-collapse in the emerging markets, and the U.S. dollar's weakness is based on a rising yen and euro. Given the systemic problems in Japan and Europe, this five-year trend could reverse.

Two other factors deserve mention. Some of these corporate profits result from dodgy accounting, not actual net profit. Much of the rise in stocks can be attributed to corporate buy-backs where the companies borrow billions of dollars for next to nothing and then buy back their own shares, driving share prices higher.

In summary, the five-year fantasy that free money would fix all the distortions and systemic problems is drawing to a close. Why can't the fantasy run forever? The two-word answer: diminishing returns. Handing out subprime auto loans works at first because it pulls demand forward: anyone who wants or needs a new car buys one now, rather than put the purchase off a year or two. Eventually the marginal buyers default and demand falls off, and the distortions cause an even greater collapse in demand and auto loan quality.

This pattern of diminishing return from all the fake fixes can be found in every nook and cranny of the global economy. Papering over structural problems with free money works for a while, but since these monetary/fiscal fixes (distortions) didn't address the real issues, all they can possibly do is increase the magnitude of the next collapse.

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The Nearly Free University and The Emerging Economy:
The Revolution in Higher Education

Reconnecting higher education, livelihoods and the economyWith the soaring cost of higher education, has the value a college degree been turned upside down? College tuition and fees are up 1000% since 1980. Half of all recent college graduates are jobless or underemployed, revealing a deep disconnect between higher education and the job market.

It is no surprise everyone is asking: Where is the return on investment? Is the assumption that higher education returns greater prosperity no longer true? And if this is the case, how does this impact you, your children and grandchildren?


We must thoroughly understand the twin revolutions now fundamentally changing our world: The true cost of higher education and an economy that seems to re-shape itself minute to minute.

The Nearly Free University and the Emerging Economy clearly describes the underlying dynamics at work - and, more importantly, lays out a new low-cost model for higher education: how digital technology is enabling a revolution in higher education that dramatically lowers costs while expanding the opportunities for students of all ages.

The Nearly Free University and the Emerging Economy provides clarity and optimism in a period of the greatest change our educational systems and society have seen, and offers everyone the tools needed to prosper in the Emerging Economy.

Read Chapter 1/Table of Contents

print ($20)       Kindle ($9.95) 

---

Things are falling apart--that is obvious. But why are they falling apart? The reasons are complex and global. Our economy and society have structural problems that cannot be solved by adding debt to debt. We are becoming poorer, not just from financial over-reach, but from fundamental forces that are not easy to identify. We will cover the five core reasons why things are falling apart:

1. Debt and financialization
2. Crony capitalism
3. Diminishing returns
4. Centralization
5. Technological, financial and demographic changes in our economy

Complex systems weakened by diminishing returns collapse under their own weight and are replaced by systems that are simpler, faster and affordable. If we cling to the old ways, our system will disintegrate. If we want sustainable prosperity rather than collapse, we must embrace a new model that is Decentralized, Adaptive, Transparent and Accountable (DATA).

We are not powerless. Once we accept responsibility, we become powerful.

Read the Introduction/Table of ContentsKindle: $9.95       print: $24 

Thank you, Mike S. ($50), for your stupendously generous contribution to this site -- I am greatly honored by your steadfast support and readership.

Thank you, Kenneth B. ($50), for your spectacularly generous contribution to this site -- I am greatly honored by your support and readership.

Read more...