The Sunday 'Report;' 12/26/2010

What The National Pamphleteers DON'T Report:

Tea Party at Year's End
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
The Tea Party movement was one of the biggest political stories during the 2010 election season. From an electoral standpoint, the grassroots movement had it first impact by forcing long-time Senator Arlen Specter out of the Republican Party (and eventually out of the U.S. Senate). By the end of the season, several Tea Party candidates [....]
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/december_2010/tea_party_at_year_s_end
 
Harry Reid Ate The November Elections
December 21, 2010
The lame duck session has been a pathetic joke on Republicans and conservatives who thought they won the elections in November.  An illegitimate Democratic House and near filibuster-proof Democratic Senate have run roughshod on most issues, and several Republicans have helped them along.  Unfortunately, we have numerous weak links, some of whom will be gone in a couple of weeks and others of whom will no longer be links waiting to be broken.  Once the new Senate is seated, two or three Republican Senators cannot bust a filibuster, so the people who have held sway over our political landscape by virtue of [....]
http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.com/2010/12/harry-reid-ate-november-elections.html

More Stealth Reparations: Obama Enacts Van Jones’ Indian Energy Plan
December 22, 2010; by Ben Johnson
    The Obama administration’s actions last week proved, although Green Jobs Czar Van Jones is gone, his ideology continues to guide the White House. Barack Obama called the leaders of American Indian tribes to Washington to witness him sign a UN treaty that, if followed literally, would return the entire continental United States to tribal control. He is not prepared to go that far, but he has made a down payment on the pledge by offering stealth reparations to the tribes in exactly the manner advocated by Van Jones.
    Last Thursday, Obama held a summit with the tribal elders of 565 federally recognized American Indian tribes to sign the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. The treaty stipulates, [....]
http://floydreports.com/more-stealth-reparations-obama-passes-van-jones-indian-energy-plan/

Printing Money: Literally
Filed in Monetary Policy, Taxes on December 20, 2010
(This post is about the literal printing and issue of money. The next will cover money printing figuratively.)
     The holiday season is upon us and one thing is for sure: the public is demanding more folding money—cash—for shopping, although debit cards have no doubt cut into that ritual significantly. The public gets more cash by “cashing checks” or withdrawing cash from their accounts at banks and other financial institutions. They pay for their additional cash—coin and currency—by drawing down their checking and savings account balances.
The Public Determines the Amount of Money Printed
     There are seasonal patterns to the public’s demand for cash, the strongest being this time of year when retail shopping peaks. In January, the process will reverse as the public reduces its cash holdings in favor of deposits. Cash will flow back into the banks as the public exchanges it for deposits. It is important to note that the demand for cash—the coined and printed portion of our money supply—is entirely determined by public preferences. If the public wants more printed or coined money, it buys it with deposits. If the public wants less cash, it sells it for deposits.
The Role of Banks and Federal Reserve Banks
    As the public increases its cash holdings, inventories of cash at banks are drawn down. Banks then order more cash from their local Federal Reserve Banks, which has its own inventory of pre-circulated and newly-printed cash stored in large vaults. Banks pay for their additional coin and currency by drawing down their reserve deposits at the Fed. Just as the public’s holdings of money don’t change when [....]
http://economyblog.ncpa.org/printing-money-literally/

On Printing Money
by: Bob McTeer December 23, 2010
(This post is about printing money figuratively. It should be considered Part II of a previous post about the literal printing of money.)
    The biggest argument against the Fed’s new round of monetary easing, dubbed QE2, accuses the Fed of printing money, a rare draconian measure bound to create high inflation and a weak dollar.  The Fed, of course, does not literally print money. In my previous post, I explained the process of how money gets printed and into circulation. Elsewhere, I have argued that, whatever you call it, what the Fed is doing is different from traditional monetary policy only in its magnitude and pre-announcement of amount and timing.  Open market purchases by the Fed always create (print if you insist) new money. The main difference now is that a quantity [....]
http://seekingalpha.com/article/243477-on-printing-money?source=email_the_macro_view

The Man Who Would Not Be King
Published on February 5, 2007
by Matthew Spalding, Ph.D.
    George Washington is one of the most recognized figures in U.S. history. But familiarity breeds contempt. More often than not, Washington is an old painting on the wall - solemn, impersonal and distant - or the subject of childhood stories and nursery rhymes. We all know that he chopped down a cherry tree and had wooden teeth.  The actual Washington is much more compelling. We can all see the brilliant flourishes of Jefferson's pen, Madison's constitutional handiwork or the success of Hamilton's economic policies, and that can cause us to overlook or underestimate the magnitude of Washington's achievement. Yet he really was, as Washington's greatest biographer, James Flexner, put it, the "indispensable man" of the American founding.
    Remember that we look at history with the luxury of knowing what happened. What might seem inevitable or obvious in hindsight was more often than not a bold course, the outcome of which was uncertain at best. We must recapture this sense of contingency and daring if we are to understand Washington.  A soldier by profession and a surveyor by trade, Washington was first and foremost a man of action. He was at every important intersection of the American founding; his decisions and practical wisdom were crucial to the success of the effort at every stage. And at every moment - from the time he [....]
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Commentary/2007/02/The-Man-Who-Would-Not-Be-King

Silver Stealth in Gold Bull
by: Marco G.;  October 03, 2010
    I’ll bet that you the reader thought that the Gold Bull was strong in September, didn’t you? Yes, Gold was strong gaining in price by 5% over the month and hitting a high of $1315 USD on September 30th before closing at $1308 for the end of the month. Well, would it surprise you to know that Silver made the stronger moves in September gaining 12.4% for the month and hitting a high of over $22.08 USD before closing at $21.78 for the end of the month.
Silver Stealth Bull
    Silver is following the higher priced Gold in the Bull market for precious metals this fall. In the Google Trends chart following, the search [....] 
http://seekingalpha.com/article/228171-silver-stealth-in-gold-bull

Assault Weapons and the Truth
The Obama administration has nominated an anti-gun zealot as the U.S.’s top gun cop.
     The Obama administration is moving into high gear in putting gun-control advocates into important government positions. The administration’s nominee to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE), Andrew Traver, should be of particular concern. His attacks on the civilian use of so-called assault weapons raise real questions about his willingness to distort the truth for political purposes. The person nominated to be the nation’s top gun cop shouldn’t use inaccurate descriptions to scare people into supporting gun control.
    Mr. Traver is the special agent in charge of the BATFE’s Chicago field division. Therefore, he knows what was covered by the federal assault-weapons ban that sunset in 2004. But in November 2009, NBC interviewed Traver and reported: “Traver says the power and randomness of the heavy caliber, military-style weapons make them so dangerous not only to people, but to police. They’re so powerful, body armor can’t withstand a hit, and they’re so difficult to control, their bullets often get sprayed beyond the intended targets, striking innocent victims even when they’re in their own homes.”
    The list of problems with Mr. Traver’s claims is very long. If he really believes that these weapons fire unacceptably “heavy caliber” bullets, he is going to have to ban virtually all rifles. Small-game rifles — guns designed to kill squirrels and rabbits without destroying too much meat — typically fire .22-caliber bullets, which are only slightly smaller than the .223-caliber bullets fired by the M16 (used by the U.S. military since Vietnam) and the newer M4 carbine (used in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars). Deer-hunting rifles fire rounds that are very similar to those used by the AK-47.  Speaking of M16s, M4s, and AK-47s, [....]
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/254264/distorting-truth-john-r-lott-jr

Automakers See China Driving 2011 Sales
December 23, 2010
By Don Miller
    The world's largest carmakers, including Toyota Motor Corp. (TM), General Motors Co. (GM) and Volkswagen AG (VLKAY.PK), expect China's red-hot economy to keep auto sales rolling at a record pace in 2011, making it the third year in a row the Red Dragon will top the U.S. in car sales.  China's vehicle sales jumped 46% in 2009, dethroning the United States as the world's largest auto market and ending more than a century of American dominance that started with the Model T Ford.  The nation's sales of passenger cars, buses and trucks rose to 13.6 million in 2009, the fastest pace in at least 10 years, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. At the same time, U.S. sales tumbled 21% to 10.4 million, the lowest level since 1982, according to Autodata Corp.
    China's vehicle sales have surged since 1999 as its gross domestic product (GDP) growth averaged more than 9% a year, helping U.S. automakers make up for slumping demand in the West. China's vehicle sales surged 30.45% in the first half of the year to 7.18 million units, compared with 5.6 million for the United States.  "China is becoming the center stage of development for the 21st century global auto industry," Bill Russo, a Beijing- based senior adviser at Booz & Co., told Bloomberg. "Economic growth has directly translated into growth in automobile sales."  Fatih Birol, chief economist for the International Energy Agency (IEA) says that today 700 out of every 1,000 people in the United States and 500 out of every 1,000 in Europe own cars. But in China, only 30 out of 1,000 people own cars. And Birol thinks that figure [....]
http://seekingalpha.com/article/243424-automakers-see-china-driving-2011-sales?source=email_global_markets

Bloomberg Counters Gold’s Run With Absurd 'Hit-Piece'
by: Wall St. Cheat Sheet December 23, 2010
By Jordan Roy-Byrne
    Monday morning I was greeted via my inbox with a Bloomberg report on Gold (NYSE:GLD). Bloomberg has a series called “The Dark Side of Gold.” Its important to note this isn’t the first time the news organization has attempted a hit-piece on Gold. I wrote about this exactly one year ago and identified the cases and examples of Bloomberg’s gold bashing.  The crux of the biased series (one that even makes CNBC blush) is how Gold ETF’s are responsible for Gold’s rise and contributing to a bubble. It is insinuated that because the ETF’s are easily tradeable, a torrent of sell orders would cause Gold could to fall sharply, ala 1980.  Gold’s rise actually has very little to do with the GLD ETF. It really is a non-factor when you consider any of the following reasons: Threat of sovereign debt defaults, debt monetization in Europe, Japan and US, 0%-1% interest rates, commodity bull market, and falling gold production. The GLD ETF is an effect of the bull market, not a cause. The same is true with mutual funds during the bull market in the 1980s and 1990s.
    In the two minute preview video, Bloomberg’s Carol Masser makes two ridiculous claims in a span of about four seconds. She claims that prior to the Gold ETF, only “conspiracy theorists” were buying Gold and that it cost a “fortune” because of holding costs and commissions. This is nothing other than failed [....]
http://seekingalpha.com/article/243445-bloomberg-counters-golds-run-with-absurd-hit-piece?source=email_stocks_and_sectors


Buffett's Favorite Auto Stock
by: StreetAuthority
December 24, 2010
by Andy Obermueller
    When I went to the Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.B) annual meeting in 2009, there was something I really wanted to do.  No, it wasn't a chat with Warren Buffett.  That's almost impossible at the yearly "Woodstock for Capitalists," and only first-timers make the trek to Omaha, Nebraska, to see Buffett anyway. Longtime shareholders make the trip to listen to Berkshire's vice chairman, Charlie Munger.  But even speaking with the inimitable Munger, who's probably the smartest guy in U.S. business, wasn't at the top of my list.  I really wanted to see a floor model of one of Berkshire's newest acquisitions -- the BYD (BYDDF.PK) car.
    You see, all of Berkshire's companies display their wares in the exhibition hall at the Qwest Center in Omaha, from the GEICO gecko to Fruit of the Loom, and tucked off to one side was a BYD vehicle, complete with a leather interior, an atypical option for BYD cars, which are barebones and compete on price.
Hundreds of attendees, mostly younger men, were doing the same thing I was doing -- snapping pictures of the engine with my iPhone.
    BYD is a Chinese company, one that Buffett took a major stake in at Munger's behest back in 2008. Buffett sent his top scout -- a guy named David Sokol -- to China to meet with the company's CEO, who showed him BYD's electric cars and, just as important, the highly efficient car batteries the company builds.  The battery fluid in the power cells is [....]
http://seekingalpha.com/article/243538-buffett-s-favorite-auto-stock?source=email_stocks_and_sectorsTil Next Sunday....