I love Snopes. Of course, the devil is in the details:

"The editor of the biographical text about Barack Obama which was included in the booklet maintained that the mention of Kenya was an error on her part and was not based on any information provided to her by Obama himself:

"Miriam Goderich edited the text of the bio; she is now a partner at the Dystel & Goderich agency, which lists Obama as one of its current clients.

"'You're undoubtedly aware of the brouhaha stirred up by Breitbart about the erroneous statement in a client list Acton & Dystel published in 1991 (for circulation within the publishing industry only) that Barack Obama was born in Kenya. This was nothing more than a fact checking error by me — an agency assistant at the time," Goderich wrote. "There was never any information given to us by Obama in any of his correspondence or other communications suggesting in any way that he was born in Kenya and not Hawaii. I hope you can communicate to your readers that this was a simple mistake and nothing more.'

"A New York Times article about Barack Obama published in 1990, a year before the Acton & Dystel promotional booklet was issued, correctly identified his birthplace as Hawaii.

"A variant of this item paired the image shown above with the statement "Big Oops! Harvard Law Review did not cleanse its 1991 yearbook which states he was born in Kenya." As noted above, the biographical sketch pictured above was put out by a literacy agency; it was not part of any yearbook published by Harvard."

@newtboy,

Why do you insist on trying to contort things?

The stats I found showed 8% in mid 1930's....Before the war.
Provide a source then, I did and it's over 16% as of 1931.

You said the Palestinians stood alongside the Nazis....in 47?....so.....what Nazis?
I observed that the Arab revolt between 1936 and 1939 was led by the grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini. Who later found himself in Germany talking with Hitler and advocating a 'solution' for Palestine ala Italy and Germany. I didn't present an opinion for you to disagree with. I presented a statement of fact which stands regardless of whether you refuse to believe in it or not.

As for partition, stop trying to win points or something, it's inescapable that the partition agreement that the Jewish Palestinians accepted when they declared independence in 1948 was the 1947 UN Partition Plan, on account of the other partition agreements having not yet come into existence yet and all.

I didn't say the tensions didn't begin when Nazis existed, I said they were gone when the events you describe happened.
I think that was addressed earlier what with Arab uprising in the 30s, and the conflict between Arab and Jewish Palestinians continuing on from then all the way till it hit an all out civil war.

Nothing I'm saying here has to justify, forgive or declare Israel a saint and Arabs the sinners. I AM however pointing out some very basic facts that refute the argument that Jewish invaders just came in from Europe and seized Palestine from the Arabs as payback for the holocaust. That simply was not what happened.

Jews were unwelcome and persecuted in Europe long before WW2. Hitler wrote Mein Kampf in 1925, and he wasn't exactly putting pen to brand new ideas nobody had been circulating in Europe already. The Zionists for their part were also busy and in action long before WW2, in no small part for reasons above. The Zionists were absolutely looking to take back 'their' homeland and by invasion if need be. That doesn't mean every Jew in Palestine was a Zionist anymore than the above makes every European and Arab nazi sympathizers. The reality was a lot more muddled and complex.

In the end, the big events driving the Arab-Jewish civil war in Palestine was as you say, an inability of the immigrants to live together with the natives. So on that front we are well agreed. You seem content to place 100% of the blame on the immigrants(which I must insist we refer to as refugees given they are largely European Jews between 1940-1947). I disagree. I believe I've given adequate evidence to demonstrate that the inability to live together was as much to blame on the Arab Palestinians as it was on the Jewish. If we want to blame anyone in the whole mess, the strongest blame still lies with the Axis powers for creating the refugees in the first place.

It seems really strange from an outside perspective. It isn't all that long ago - at least in my memory - when certain types of American were almost celebrating that they were willing to torture and maim people if they 'got their answers'. Even if some of those people were innocent, it was an acceptable price to pay.

When Ed Snowden came out and told us that our governments were spying on us, trawling through our data and tracking our entire history online and in reality through surveillance cameras. The majority of America was against Snowden (in all the polls I've seen) - in any other day he would have been given the Nobel peace prize and celebrated as an all-time hero that stood up to impossible odds just to give the human race full disclosure on their 'freedom'. That's the stuff of legend, the stuff that people should be talking about in 1000 years time like we talk about Genghis Khan or something. Instead he was treated like a traitor and forced to live in exile in Russia because it was the only country that wouldn't hand him over to the torturing, controlling, law-breaking bastards he'd just made to look very stupid..... Gee, I wonder why he didn't want to face "criminal proceedings"? Nothing to hide, nothing to fear - except if you cross the wrong people?

Not too long ago freedom WAS an acceptable sacrifice for security.

When a lunatic got hold of an automatic rifle, killed 50 people and injured another 50, the prevailing argument seems to be "Hey, hey, let's not over react here, we can't sacrifice our freedom because of one terrorist act."

The only difference in this situation is that it isn't about "other people's" freedom and "my security" any more. It is about "my" freedom and "other people's" security.

You probably weren't one of those people, but I think it's fair to preface my comment with that contradiction.

I accept you have a decent point in this case; people shouldn't lose their freedom because the FBI made a mistake. But that's not the question being asked, let's talk about the general case rather than this specific one. The question is does legislation exist that will make mass shootings less common in the US? And I think the answer is yes, but I also think that culture is the biggest factor, not just access to guns.

As an example of what I mean - what if there were legislation that limited his ability to get hold of the weapon, registered that he had expressed an interest with the FBI who could then investigate based on his history? And maybe some other legislation could make it harder in general for him to just go and borrow one of his friends', or steal one from a local lax firing range, or whatever other illegal means exist to get hold of one.... perhaps because there were less in circulation, or those that were in circulation were more stringently secured?

At the end of the day it might not stop him getting hold of one, but it might make it harder and he might have second thoughts or make a mistake and be caught if it were harder. Hell, at least then the families of the dead would be able to say that a CRIME was committed when this fucking lunatic who had been under investigation was allowed to get access to a weapon that could so easily kill or maim a hundred people.

@greatgooglymoogly

Thanks for taking the time to watch it.

Like I said in my previous comment, this talk needs to take a lot of shortcuts, otherwise its length would surpass anyone's attention span.

So, point by point.

By "balanced budget", I suppose you refer to the federal budget. A balanced budget is not neccessarily a bad thing, but it is undesirable in most case. The key reason is sectoral balances. The economy can divided into three sectors: public, private, foreign. Since one person's spending is another person's income, the sum of all spending and income of these three sectors is zero by definition.

More precisely: if the public sector runs a surplus and the private sector runs a surplus, the foreign sector needs to run a deficit of a corresponding size.

Two examples:
- the government runs a balanced budget, no surplus, no deficit
- the private sector runs a surplus (savings) of 2% of GDP
- the foreign sector must, by definition, run a deficit of 2% of GDP (your country runs a current account surplus of 2% of GDP)

- the government runs a deficit of 2% of GDP
- the foreign sector runs a surplus of 3% (your current account deficit of 3%)
- your private sector must, by definition, run a deficit of 1% of GDP, aka burn through savings or run up debt

If you intend to allow the private sector to net save, you need to run either a current account surplus or a public sector deficit, or both. Since we don't export goods to Mars just yet, not all countries can run current account surpluses, so you need to run a public sector deficit if you want your private sector to net save. No two ways about it.

Germany runs a balanced public budget, sort of, and its private sector net saves. But that comes at the cost of a current account surplus to the tune of €250B. That's 250 billion Euros worth of debt other countries have to accumulate so that both the private and public sector in Germany can avoid deficits. Parasitic is what I'd call this behaviour, and I'm German.

If you feel ambitious, you could try to have both surplus and deficit within the private sector by allowing households to net save while "forcing" corporations to run the corresponding deficits. But to any politician trying that, I'd advise to avoid air travel.

As for the "devaluation of the currency", see my previous comment.

Also, she didn't use real numbers, because a) the talk is short and numbers kill people's attention rather quickly, and b) it's a policy decision to use debt to finance a deficit. One might just as well monetise it, like I explained in my previous comment.

Helicopter money would be quite helpful these days, actually. Even monetarists like AEP say so. If fiscal policy is off the table (deficit hawkery), what else are you left with...

As for your question related to the Fed, let me quote Eric Tymoigne on why MMT views both central bank and Treasury as part of the consolidated government:

"MMT authors tend to like to work with a consolidated government because they see it as an effective strategy for policy purpose (see next section), but also because the unconsolidated case just hides under layers of institutional complexity the main point: one way or another the Fed finances the Treasury, always. This monetary financing is not an option and is not by itself inflationary."

MMT principle: the central bank needs to be under democratic control, aka be part of government. The Fed in particular can pride itself on its independance all it wants, it still cannot fulfill any of its goals without the Treasury's help. It cannot diverge from government policies too long. Unlike the ECB, which is a nightmare in its construction.

Anyway, what does he mean by "one way or another the Fed finances the Treasury, always"? Well, the simple case is debt monetisation, direct financing. However, the Fed also participates by ensuring that Primary Dealers have enough reserves to make a reasonable bid on treasuries. The Fed makes sure that auctions of treasuries will always succeed. Always. Either by providing reserves to ensure buyers can afford the treasuries, by replacing maturing treasuries or buying them outright. No chance whatsoever for bond vigilantes. Betting against treasuries is pointless, you will always lose.

But what about taxation as a means to finance the Treasury? Well, the video's Monopoly example illustrated quite nicely, you cannot collect taxes until you have spent currency into circulation. Spending comes before taxation, it does not depend on it. Until reserves are injected into the banking system, either by the Fed through asset purchases or the Treasury through spending, taxes cannot be paid. Again, monetary financing is not optional. If the Treasury borrows money from the public, it borrows back money it previously spent.

Yes, I ignored the distribution of wealth, taxation, the fixation on growth and a million other things. That's a different discussion.

Well, cheers for sticking with it anyway, I really appreciate it.

It's a one hour talk on the deficit in particular, and most of what she says is based on MMT principles that would add another 5 hours to her talk if she were to explain them. With neoclassical economics, you can sort of jump right in, given how they are taught at schools and regurgitated by talking heads and politicians, day in and day out. MMT runs contrary to many pieces of "common sense" and since you can't really give 10 hour talks everytime, this is what you end up with – bits and pieces that require previous knowledge.

I'd offer talks by other MMT proponents such as William Mitchell (UNSW), Randy Wray (UMKC) or Michael Hudson (UMKC), but they are even less comprehensible. Sorry. Eric Tymoigne provided a wonderful primer on banking over at NEP, but it's long and dry.

Since I'm significantly worse at explaining the basics of MMT, I'm not even going to try to "weave a narrative" and instead I'll just work my way through it, point by point.

@notarobot

"Let's address inequality by taking on debt to increase spending to help transfer money to large private corporations."

You don't have to take on debt. The US as the sole legal issuer of the Dollar can always "print more". That's what the short Greenspan clip was all about. Of course, you don't actually print Federal Reserve Notes to pay for federal expenses. It's the digital age, after all.

If the federal government were to acquire, say, ten more KC-46 from Boeing, some minion at the Treasury would give some minion at the Fed a call and say "We need $2 billion, could you arrange the transfer?" The Fed minion then proceeds to debit $2B from the Treasury's account at the Fed (Treasury General Account, TGA) and credits $2B to Boeing's account at Bank X. Plain accounting.

If TGA runs negative, there are two options. The Treasury could sell bonds, take on new debt. Or it could monetise debt by selling those bonds straight to the Fed – think Overt Monetary Financing.

The second option is the interesting one: a swap of public debt for account credits. Any interest on this debt would be transfered straight back in the TGA. It's all left pocket, right pocket, really. Both the Fed and the Treasury are part of the consolidated government.

However, running a deficit amounts to a new injection of reserves. This puts a downward pressure on the overnight interest rate (Fed Funds Rate in the US, FFR) unless it is offset by an increase in outstanding debt by the Treasury (or a draw-down of the TT&Ls, but that's minor in this case). So the sale of t-bonds is not a neccessity, it's how the Treasury supports the Fed's monetary policy by raising the FFR. If the target FFR is 0%, there's no need for the Treasury to drain reserves by selling bonds.

Additionally, you might want to sell t-bonds to provide the private sector with the ability to earn interest on a safe asset (pension funds, etc). Treasury bonds are as solid as it gets, unlike municipal bonds of Detroit or stocks of Deutsche Bank.

To quote Randy Wray: "And, indeed, treasury securities really are nothing more than a saving account at the Fed that pay more interest than do reserve deposits (bank “checking accounts”) at the Fed."

Point is: for a government that uses its own sovereign, free-floating currency, it is a political decision to take on debt to finance its deficit, not an economic neccessity.

"Weimar Republic"

I'm rather glad that you went with Weimar Germany and not Zimbabwe, because I know a lot more about the former than the latter. The very, very short version: the economy of 1920's Germany was in ruins and its vastly reduced supply capacity couldn't match the increase in nominal spending. In an economy at maximum capacity, spending increases are a bad idea, especially if meant to pay reparations.

Let's try a longer version. Your point, I assume, is that an increase in the money supply leads to (hyper-)inflation. That's Quantity Theory of Monetary 101, MV=PY. Amount of money in circulation times velocity of circulation equals average prices times real output. However, QTM works on two assumptions that are quite... questionable.

First, it assumes full employment (max output, Y is constant). Or in other terms, an economy running at full capacity. Does anyone know any economy today that is running at full capacity? I don't. In fact, I was born in '83 and in my lifetime, we haven't had full employment in any major country. Some people refer to 3% unemployment as "full employment", even though 3% unemployment in the '60s would have been referred to as "mass unemployment".

Second, it assumes a constant velocity of circulation (V is constant). That's how many times a Dollar has been "used" over a year. However, velocity was proven to be rather volatile by countless studies.

If both Y and V are constant, any increase in the money supply M would mean an increase in prices P. The only way for an economy at full capacity to compensate for increased spending would be a rationing of said spending through higher prices. Inflation goes up when demand outpaces supply, right?

But like I said, neither Y nor V are constant, so the application of this theory in this form is misleading to say the least. There's a lot of slack in every economy in the world, especially the US economy. Any increase in purchases will be met by corporations with excess capacity. They will, generally speaking, increase their market share rather than hike prices. Monopolies might not, but that's a different issue altogether.

Again, the short version: additional spending leads to increased inflation only if it cannot be met with unused capacity. Only in an economy at or near full capacity will it lead to significant inflation. And even then, excess private demand can easily be curbed: taxation.

As for the Angry Birds analogy: yeah, I'm not a fan either. But all the other talks on this topic are even worse, unfortunatly. There's only a handful of MMT economists doing these kinds of public talks and I haven't yet spotted a Neil deGrasse Tyson among them, if you know what I mean.

@RedSky

First, if it were up to me, you could take over as Minister of Finance in this country tomorrow. Our differences seem miniscule compared to what horrendous policies our last three MoF have pushed. The one prior, ironically, was dubbed the most dangerous man in Europe by The Sun.

We're in agreement on almost everything you mentioned in your last comment, so I'll focus on what I perceive differently.

First, I'd differentiate between fiscal stimulus and fiscal spending, the former being a situational application of the latter. As you said, fiscal stimulus during an economic crisis tends to be inadequate with regards to our macroeconomic objectives. You can neither whip out plans for major investments at a whim nor can you mobilize the neccessary resources quickly enough to make a difference and still be reasonable efficient. Not to mention that it only affects certain parts of the economy (construction, mostly), leaving others completely in the wind. So I'm with you on that one, it's a terribly inefficient and ineffective approach.

Automatic stabilizers work magnificently in this regard, but they barely take any pressure from the lower wage groups, especially if unemployment benefits come with a metric ton of strings attached, as is the case in Germany. A basic income guarantee might work, but that's an entirely different discussion.

The problem I see with merely relying on reasonable automatic stabilizers in the form of payments is that they do put a floor into demand, but do very little to tackle the problem of persistent unemployment due to a lack of jobs. As useful as training and education are, the mere number of highly educated people forced to work mundane jobs tells me that, at best, it doesn't work, and at worst pushes a systemic problem onto the individual, leading to immense pressure. Not to mention the psychological effects of being unemployed when employment is tauted as a defining attribute of a proper person -- aka the demonization of the unemployed.

It's still somewhat decent in Australia, but in Europe... it's quite a horrible experience.

Anyway, my point is that I'd rather see a lot more fiscal spending (permanent!) in the shape of public sector jobs. A lot of work cannot be valued properly by the market; should be done without the expectation of a return of investment (hospitals, anyone?); occurs in sectors of natural monopolies -- all of that should be publicly run. A job guarantee, like your fellow countryman Bill Mitchell advocates quite clearly, might be an approach worth trying out. Economy in the shit? More people on the public payroll, at rather low (but living wage!) wages. Do it at the county/city level and you can create almost any kind of job. If the private sector wants those people instead, they'd have to offer better working conditions. No more blackmail through the fear of unemployment -- you can always take a public job, even if it is at a meagre pay.

I should probably have mentioned that I don't buy into the notion of a stable market. From where I am standing, it's inherently unstable, be it through monopolies/oligopolies, dodging of laws and regulations (Uber), impossibility to price-in externalities (environmental damage most of all) or plain, old cost-cutting leading to a system-wide depression of demand. I'm fine with interfering in the market wherever it fails to deliver on our macroeconomic objectives -- which at this point in time is almost everywhere, basically.

Healthcare is all the rage these days, thanks to the primaries. I'd take the publicly-run NHS over the privately-run abomination in the US any day of the week. And that's after all the cuts and privatizations of the last two decades that did a horrible number on the NHS. Fuck ATOS, while we're at it.

Same for the railroad: the pre-privatization Bundesbahn in Germany was something to be proud of and an immeasurable boost of both the economy and the general standard of living.

In the mid/long run, the effects of automation and climate change-induced migration will put an end to the idea of full employment, but for the time being, there's still plenty of work to be done, plenty of idle resources to be employed, and just nobody to finance it. So why not finance it through the printing press until capacity is reached?

As for the Venezuela comparison: I don't think it fits in this case. Neither does Weimar Germany, which is paraded around quite regularly. Both Venezuela and Weimar Germany had massive supply-side problems. They didn't have the production capacity nor the resources to meet the demand they created by spending money into circulation. If an economy runs at or above its capacity, any additional spending, wherever it comes from, will cause inflation. But both Europe and the US are operating faaar below capacity in any measurable metric. You mentioned LRAS yourself. I think most estimates of it, as well as most estimates of NAIRU, are off quite significantly so as to not take the pressure off the wage slaves in the lowest income sector. You need mass unemployment to keep them in line.

As you said, the participation rate is woefully low, so there's ample space. And I'd rather overshoot and cause a short spike in inflation than remain below potential and leave millions to unneccessary misery.

Given the high level of private debt, there will be no increase in spending on that front. Corporations don't feel the need to invest, since demand is down and their own vaults are filled to the brim with cash. So if the private sector intends to net save, you either have to run a current account surplus (aka leech demand from other countries) or a fiscal deficit. Doesn't work any other way, sectoral balances always sum up to zero, by definition. If we want to reduce the dangerous levels of private debt, the government needs to run a deficit. If we don't want to further increase the federal debt, the central bank has to hand the cash over directly, without the issuance of debt through the treasury.

As for the independant central bank: you can only be independant from either the government or the private sector, not both. Actually, you can't even be truly independant from either, given that people are still involved, and people have ideologies and financial ties.

Still, if an "independant" central bank is what you prefer, Adair Turner's new book "Between Debt and the Devil" might be worth a read. He's a proponent of 100% reserve banking, and argues for the occasional use of the printing press -- though controlled by an inflation-targeting central bank. According to him, QE is pointless and in order to bring nominal demand up to the level we want, we should have a fiscal stimulus financed by central bank money. The central bank controls the amount, the government decides on what to spend it on.

Not how I would do it, but given his expertise as head of the Financial Services Authority, it's quite refreshing to hear these things from someone like him.

As always, my views are just a layman's perspective with no claims to expertise.

@RedSky

You correctly point out the intent of the reform, to stop fractional banking which they diagnosed as a primary driver of volatility within the financial sector. They want to revert back to a system where the banks were intermediaries the way you described it: deposit leads to loan, in this case at a maximum ratio of 1:1, no leveraging.

Unlike the current system where bank deposits are mostly created by banks themselves -- the act of lending creates deposits. In fact, deposits are liabilities of the banks, not assets. Reserves are assets, but they are only traded between entities with accounts at the central bank. And, in normal times, are provided quite freely by the central bank in exchange for other assets.

Anyway, "Vollgeld" places the ability to create money exclusively in the hands of the central bank. Controlling the amount of money in circulation was a concept most central banks were eager to drop during the '90s, since it never worked. Demand for credit is volatile, central control is inflexible, even if they could somehow quanfity the need for it ex ante -- which they can't. Hell, they can't even do it ex post. You can't quantify the need for additional money beyond what's already in circulation if the central bank's action set the conditions for a dynamic development in the first place. You can't know in advance what increases in production need to be financed, you can't know how demand for liquidity evolves over time. The quantity theory of money was buried for a reason, it ignores reality.

Anyway, I applaud the proponents of Vollgeld for pointing out the dysfunctionalities of our fractional reserve system as well as how questionable it is, ethically, to hand over so much power to a small cabal of financial elites. In fact, I'm quite ecstatic to hear them point out that a nation with a sovereign, free-floating currency does not need to finance deficits through banks -- how very MMT of them. Go OMF!

But their proposed solutions are a fallback to "the market will stabilise itself if left alone, a completely independant central bank will keep the quantity of money in circulation at just the right amount". This hands-off approach resulted in absolute devastation whenever it was applied. They want to turn the state into a regular economic subject that has to adapt to the amount of money currently in circulation. It's (the illusion of) control by technocrats, where you get to disguise policies against the masses as "economic neccessities". Basically the German Eurozone on steroids.

As for the absolute independence of the central bank: you are right, that is not strictly part of the Swiss Vollgeld initiative. But it's what almost every proponent of Vollgeld within the German-speaking circles argues for, including major drivers behind the initiative. Can't let politicians have control over our central bank or else they'll abuse it for populist policies.

They are true believers in technocrat solutions, completely seperate from democratic control.

PS: I cut down my ranting to a minimum of MMT arguments, given that many people see it as just a different sort of voodoo economics.

Edit: Elizabeth Warren's 21st Century Glass Steagal Act strikes me as a rather promising way to solve a great number of problems with the financial industry without going back into the realm of monetarism.

Italy:
Renzi is creating the conditons for a new bubble? Through deficit spending on... what? Unless they start building highways in the middle of nowhere like they did in Spain, I don't see any form of bubble coming out of deficit spending in Italy. The country's been in a major recession for quite some time now, with no light at the end of the tunnel and a massive shortfall in private spending. But meaningful deficit spending requires Renzi to tell Germany and the Eurogroup to pound sand -- not sure his balls have descended far enough for that just yet.

Referendum in Switzerland:
"Vollgeld". That's the German term for what the initiators of this referendum are aiming for: 100% reserve banking. It's monetarism in disguise, and they are adament to not be called monetarists. But that's what it is. Pure old-fashioned monetarism. Even if you don't give a jar of cold piss about all these fancy economic terms and theories, let me ask you this: the currency you use is quite an important part of all your daily life, isn't it? So why would anyone in his or her right mind remove it entirely from democratic control (even constitutionally)?
If you want to get into the economic nightmares of it, here are a few bullet points:
- no Overt Monetary Financing (printing money for deficit spending) means no lender of last resort and complete dependence on the market, S&P can tell you to fuck off and die as they did with PIIGS
- notion that the "right amount of money in circulation" will enable the market to keep itself in balance -- as if that ever worked
- notion that a bunch of technocrats can empirically determine this very amount in regular intervalls
- central bank is supposed to maintain price stability, nothing else -- single mandate, works beautifully for the ECB, at least if you like 25% unemployment
- concept is founded in the notion that the financial economy is the source of (almost) all problems of the "real" economy, thereby completely ignoring the fact that decades of wage suppression have simply killed widescale purchasing power of the masses, aka demand

Visegrad nations:
From a German perspective, they are walking on thin ice as it is. The conflict with Russia never had much support of the public to begin with, but even the establishment is becoming more divided on this issue. Given the authoritarian policies put in place in Poland recently and the utter refusal to take in their share of refugees, support might fade even more. If the Visegrad governments then decide to push for further conflict with Russia, Brussels and Berlin might tell them, very discreetly, to pipe the fuck down.

Turkey:
Wildcard. He mentioned how they will mess with Syria, the Kurds and Russia, but forgot to mention the conflict between Turkey and the EU. As of now, it seems as if Brussels is ready to pay Ankara in hard cash if they keep refugees away from Greece. Very similar to the deal with Morocco vis-a-vis the Spanish enclave. As long as they die out of sight, all is good for Brussels.

I would add France as a point of interest:
They recently announced that the state of emergency will be extended until ISIS is beaten. In other words, it'll be permanent, just like the Patriot Act in the US. A lof of attention has been given to the authoritarian shift of politics in Poland, all the while ignoring the equally disturbing shift in France. Those emergency measures basically suspend the rule of law in favour of a covert police state. Add the economic situation (abysmal), the Socialist President who avoids socialist policies, and the still ongoing rise of Front National... well, you get the picture.

Regarding the EU, I'll say this: between the refugee crisis (border controls, domestic problems, etc) and the economic crisis, they finally managed to convince me that this whole thing might come apart at the seams after all. Not this year, though, even if the Brits decide to distance themselves from this rotten creation.

New, just released ocean temperature data has shown a dramatic increase in temperatures in the Northern Pacific, and a dramatic decrease in surface temperatures in the Northern Atlantic. As I understand it, those readings are not consistent with normal 'El Nino' patterns. Could this be the beginning of the end of thermohaline circulation? If that happens we'll be facing unavoidable, unpredictable, worldwide, disastrous climate change in short order.
Without the current created by the thermohaline circulations, the oceans die. Equatorial waters become much hotter...fast...and arctic and Antarctic waters become much colder...fast. Ocean organisms can't live through that kind of change, not in any sizeable way anyway. Without the oceans, the entire food web dissolves and we die.
On top of that, without the currents bringing oxygen to the lower oceans, they become anoxic. The bacteria that live in those deep waters will feed on the dead sea life and create toxic gases (hydrogen sulfide) which have, in the past, completed the extinction events by wiping out nearly all life. Once that starts, it's unstoppable and is the end. Let's hope these readings are just an over active El Nino.

What we do today has little to no effect for 50-100 years. That makes us at least 50 years too late to solve this problem, and we are still exacerbating it rather than solving it to this day.
We're hosed.
If you plan on having children in this climate, you are a child abuser IMO, and are adding to the problem with that one action more than almost any other action normal people perform. Your children will most likely not survive to old age, and absolutely won't experience the same quality of life you have.

good message but it was all wrong. In children you start with a rescue breath and then chest compressions. The compressions shown here were too slow and no where near deep enough to generate circulation and it's not useful to give such a gentle image as it might stop people giving proper compressions in future.

In reality it's vigorous and its not unusual to get rib fractures as a result.
e.g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZVfVKA10lk

He is focusing only on weight loss. Exercise has many other benefits than weight loss alone, including better cardiovascular circulation, and reduced risk of heart disease...

To claim that the collective non-consumption of 3%ish of the country is not taken into account in meat production is a pretty dim outlook of the intelligence of food executives. Of course one vegetarian doesn't make much difference. Neither does one vote or one person's taxes. If you're railing against incremental action, you'll have problems with a lot more than people's dietary choices.

On the other hand, the business about soy consumption is a baffling new argument circulating the internet. I say baffling, because it only takes about 15 seconds of hard thinking to debunk. (Hint: animals eat soy, you eat animals). Almonds, of course, are as optional for vegans as everyone else.

But all of this is a sideshow. The real point is that I make choices that do no one any harm and make me feel better. You on the other hand apparently go sifting through the internet for arguments against my lifestyle, fail to subject those arguments to even cursory critical thinking in your zeal, and parrot them on a video sharing community while proudly declaring your loathing for people like me.

I think this says a lot more about your relationship to eating animals than it does about mine.

Haven't seen this one in circulation yet:

Dear Chancellor Merkel,

The never-ending austerity that Europe is force-feeding the Greek people is simply not working. Now Greece has loudly said no more.

As most of the world knew it would, austerity has crushed the Greek economy, led to mass unemployment, a collapse of the banking system, made the external debt crisis far worse, with the debt problem escalating to an unpayable 175% of GDP. The economy now lies broken with tax receipts nose-diving, output and employment depressed, and businesses starved of capital.

The humanitarian impact has been colossal – 40% of children now live in poverty, infant mortality is sky-rocketing and youth unemployment is close to 50%. Corruption, tax evasion and bad accounting by previous Greek governments helped create the debt problem. But the series of so-called adjustment programs has served only to make a Great Depression the likes of which have been unseen in Europe since 1929-1933. The medicine prescribed by the German Finance Ministry and Brussels has bled the patient, not cured the disease.

Together we urge you to lead Europe to a course correction before it is too late for Greece and for the Eurozone. Right now, the Greek government is being asked to put a gun to its head and pull the trigger. Sadly, the bullet will not only kill off Greece’s future in Europe. The collateral damage will kill the Eurozone as a beacon of hope, prosperity, and democracy, and could lead to far-reaching economic consequences across the world.

In the 1950s Europe was founded on the forgiveness of past debts, notably Germany’s, which generated a massive contribution to post-war economic growth, peace, and democracy. Today we need to restructure and reduce Greek debt, give the economy breathing room to recover, and allow Greece to pay off a reduced burden of debt over a long period of time. Now is the time for a humane rethink of the punitive and failed programme of austerity of recent years and to agree to a major reduction of Greece’s debts in conjunction with much needed reforms in Greece.

We urge you to take this vital action of leadership for Greece and Germany, and also for the world. History will remember you for your actions this week. We expect and count on you to provide the bold and generous steps towards Greece that will serve Europe for generations to come.

Yours sincerely,

Heiner Flassbeck, former State Secretary in the German Federal Ministry of Finance;

Thomas Piketty, Professor of Economics at the Paris School of Economics;

Jeffrey D. Sachs, Professor of Sustainable Development, Professor of Health Policy and Management, and Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University;

Dani Rodrik, Albert O. Hirschman Professor of Social Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton;

Simon Wren-Lewis, Professor of economics, Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford University

See, this is why it needs to be shown the rise in joules, and a total energy rise in the entire planetary system, not just some arbitrary surface temperature rise....because people like you (no insult intended here) genuinely see the small relative figure and think...eh its no big deal.

Its a huge deal.

We are losing gigantic chunks of the otherwise permanent ice shelf in south and north arctic areas.

With those gone, we have otherwise what would have been massive mirrors, which reflect light...now acting as big old heating blankets (the water is effectively a black body to sunlight, absorbs it like no other..).

That right there is called a positive feedback loop. You start with something small, and within no time (geologically speaking), its in runaway growth.

The frozen tundra in greenland is home to enormous pockets of trapped methane....not for much longer. (source: http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v8/n1/abs/ngeo2305.html)

Methane's impact on global warming (i.e. energy RETENTION within our planetary weather system) is 25 times greater than an equivalent amount of C02. (source: http://epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/ch4.html).

Further to this video, when you heat up the ocean systems beyond a certain threshold, the natrual pumping systems which circulate warm surface water to the deeper parts of the ocean for cooling, just flat out stop working. (source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19895974), leading to the slow heat-death of a vast swath of temperatue sensitive biomes....which, when they are active and growing healthily, actually contribute to c02 depletion (carbon based lifeforms 'use up' carbon to be 'made').

...I could go on, but you see....even just a cursory glance at some of the 'smaller' impacts is pretty compelling enough to consider the phrase 'no big deal' a bit of a misnomer.

Do your research....it is catastrophic, and it is likely to happen in your lifetime (if you are under 30 atm).

Your grandchildren and great grandchildren will be living in a drastically different global environment.

No biggie though, cause we got electric cars coming online in the next 30 years or so

The Royal Canadian Mint is a Canadian Crown Corporation, and operates under the legislative basis of the Royal Canadian Mint Act. As a Crown Corporation, it is 100% owned by the Government of Canada, which is its sole shareholder. It also serves the public’s interest while mandated to operate “in anticipation of profit”, meaning that it functions in a commercial manner and does not rely on taxpayer support to fund its operations.

The government department responsible for the Royal Canadian Mint is the Department of Finance. There are currently 10 members of the Mint’s Board of Directors, and 12 members on its Executive Team.[14] The Royal Canadian Mint has four lines of business: Bullion and Refinery Service, Canadian Circulation, Foreign Business, and Numismatics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Canadian_Mint