Nobel Economics Laureate, Princeton University economic professor, and New York Times columnist, Paul Krugman defines the sides.

"One side of American politics considers the modern welfare state — a private-enterprise economy, but one in which society’s winners are taxed to pay for a social safety net — morally superior to the capitalism red in tooth and claw we had before the New Deal.

It’s only right, this side believes, for the affluent to help the less fortunate.

The other side believes that people have a right to keep what they earn, and that taxing them to support others, no matter how needy, amounts to theft.

That’s what lies behind the modern right’s fondness for violent rhetoric: many activists on the right really do see taxes and regulation as tyrannical impositions on their liberty.

There’s no middle ground between these views.”  Paul Krugman

We were bombed with Rare Earths material after yesterdays post.

The most complete and still easy to read was this here  Daily Reckoning.au (that's the Daily Reckoning's Australian page) post from 2008.

Evidently Carol K. is even more anal about saving links than even we are.

Which makes us both pleased for ourselves and worried for Carol.

Tony K. (no relation) sent a very nice piece from InvestmentU.com and Tony D'Altorio on how to invest in Rare Earth elements, which seemingly blows up Byron King's premise that you can't.

What Byron actually said is that there are no publicly traded Western companies for Rare Earth investing with an up and running mine.

We had forgotten about  InvestmentU.com.

Shame on us.

Click on the photo below for the entire piece.

Thanks to all for all the links, we're on it.

I haven't skulked Zero Hedge for a couple of weeks or more.

Big mistake.

For about the first 90 seconds here, you're gonna wish you could throttle either or both of these little bears.

Hang in there.

By the end you'll know for damn sure who needs strangling.

Trust me on this one.

The much maligned New York Times has come up with some wonderful and instructive interactives over the past several months, this one stands among the best.

You are in charge.

Enact your plan to cut the deficit, the interactive does the math for you.

Click the image below to link up the site.

Recommended.

From Good.is.

Thanks to Charley D. for this one.

 You Have No Idea How Big Africa Really Is (But This Map Does)

It's about 11.7 million square miles, which is really big—big enough to fit the United States, China, India, Japan, and much of Europe within its borders. And that's precisely what Kai Krause did with this inventive map, "The True Size of Africa," which he describes as his contribution to "the fight against rampant Immappacy."

Click on the above map for the entire piece.

The Facebook part of our little group has gone all pensive on us.

What the hell, we're nothing if not indulgent.

Here's a little what if thinking from three of the best.

 “What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your loneliest loneliness, and say,

'This life which you live must be lived by you once again and innumerable times more; and every pain and joy and thought and sigh must come again to you, all in the same sequence.

The eternal hourglass will again and again be turned and you with it, dust of the dust!'

Would you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse that demon?

Or would you answer, 'Never have I heard anything more divine'?”

"What if nothing exists and we're all in somebody's dream?'

"What if this is as good as it gets"

From the Telegraph.co.uk.

Click the photo below for the entire piece.

Climate change game launched

An educational computer game in which users have to save the world from climate change offers an interesting solution – decide the problem is overpopulation and design a virus to kill millions.

Ya know what I find to be most interesting in all of this?

The fact that you never hear about any of the Greens calling for a suicide pact amongst themselves.

Benefits would accrue from a minor decline in the world's population, a disproportionate decline in methane emissions as these gas bags expire, and finally their own pain would end.

It would be a classic win-win solution.

More than once now, I've plugged Richard Russell and his fine site Dow Theory Letters.

As though he needs it.

The following perfectly simple explanation of how to read a chart, perfectly illustrates his value.

Question -- Are charts really of any use?

Answer -- You might as well ask the question, "Are maps of any use?" And the answer is "Yes, both charts and maps are useful with one caveat, you must know how to read them."

Let's take a current example. Below I show a daily chart of the Dow going back three months. The first thing I see is that long blue ascending trendline. It continues higher until it hits what I call a consolidation box. The box is defined by a horizontal line at its top and another one at its bottom. So far, the Dow is "caught" in the middle of the box; it hasn't broken out to the upside or the downside. 

Then I see the red arrow at RSI. The arrow points to RSI heading down. Next I see another red arrow at MACD at the bottom of the chart. Here we see MACD rolling subtly over. In both cases, RSI and MACD appear to be ready to sink lower. This suggests that the Dow will break out below the box.

 If the Dow does break below the box, where is it likely to stop? The first support appears to come in at around 10800 on the chart. That is where the last decline halted when it touched the rising trendline. Often, moving averages will provide mysterious support and resistance levels during advances and declines. Today, the 50-day moving average for the Dow comes in at 10671. This should represent a resistance level on the downside. Below that we have the 200-day MA, which comes in at 10523. 

And that's the valuable information this single daily chart of the Dow provides us with. So are charts useful? Do they serve any real purpose? I'm convinced that they do. But like an explorer with a map, you have to know how to use charts.

Piece of cake.

The Harry Schultz Newsletter Junior came out today.

I'm not going to recommend it only because his is a pay site and Mr. Schultz is very frail and is in the process of transferring his fine newsletter to the Aden Sisters whom I do highly recommend.

Anyway, Mr Schultz references the following quote which has been popping up with accelerating frequency lately and attributes it to Benjamin Franklin.

With all due respect, I don't think this is a Ben Franklin quote, but I can't find evidence one way or the other.

Which of course doesn't change the fact that I believe every last word of the following to be absolute truth.

This goes double for members of Congress, Senators, the entirety of the United Nations, many Mayors and City Council members, political hacks in general, most pundits, and for damn sure every single last scum sucking piece of excrement within the upper management of the world's largest banks (past, present and future).

Just my opinion.

We eulogized Smart Little Lena a month or so ago here.

As stated in that eulogy, he was among the greatest equine athletes of all time.

Below are the baby pictures of his five cloned offspring.

Four of these colts will be sold as four year olds at this year's NCHA futurity sale.

I personally like #4, Dave ..... seriously, Dave.

I don't know ............ he looks like a good guy.

They are being sold because differences of opinion regarding the ethics of the cloning and subsequent use of the cloned colts broke out within the syndicate that owned him, and landed everybody in court.

The above jpeg links to to a pay site article at Nature Biotechnology entitled Nuclear Transfer Saddles Up, that I just know for sure you are are going to want to read over and over again.

Maybe not.

These here gears here  links to an article about a cloned daughter of Docs Serendipity, another great champion cutting horse.  It offers some conversation about genetics vs. environment that's not very tough reading.

I liked it.

This little gear here  will take you to a very easy to read article which explains why these babies' white markings are all different.

I went looking around for a coherent discussion regarding the ethics of all of this ..... never found it.

Aside from the fact that all of this stuff just causes me to marvel, I really don't even know what I think about it.