A War on Christmas?

Once again, the War on Christmas has been raised, especially around the Washington State incident. I normally don't watch Fox News but last night I saw a portion of the Mike Huckabee Show.



This portion is around 7:30 long and was, while quite humorous, largely incorrect. First I shall describe the WA case. The governor asked for groups to bring in items for the Christmas season. There was a Jewish, Christian, and other displays. One brought a lot of attention. This was a sign placed up by an atheist group. The sign was simple as stated that there was no god, etc and it was placed up there as well. This was not anti-Christmas, but a profession of what an atheist position is.

I shall now go through the video. If you care to watch and read commentary, you may have to pause the video. In the first twenty seconds, I begin to laugh. Firstly, to my knowledge, the atheist did not request that spot and even if they did, they did the sign is not an attack at Christians but all forms of religion including Hinduism, Taoism, Islam, Judaism, Paganism, etc. The picture is below.

As any person can see, it is a simple sign. It is not intended to attack but to invoke thought. Now in those seconds he states that "Why are so many people offended by a holiday that brings joy to millions of people?" This is easily answered. To the millions of pagans, perhaps the overlooking of their holiday in favor of Christianity is offensive. They were there first. Perhaps Muslims and Jews are offended by our display. The statement is ridiculous. Atheist are not offended but are simply putting forth their view. It just comes to light more because Christians start to look around more.

At 3:25, the religion correspondent stated that atheist do this to offend Christian! This is hilarious and quite horrid. I give my views whenever any one asks for them. More Christians feel that they need to do more to help others come to Christ during the winter season because they have time off and such. Really, it is a horrid misrepresentation. Then to add credibility to here previous statement, at 3:48 she states that to make atheist books more popular, these attacks are done to get publicity to make them sell better. Now I know some religious people like to say that if you don't bow down to the right god/goddess you are going to be immoral and hateful and spiteful and commit horrendous crimes; but, this is ridiculous. Atheist groups are going to challenge Christians when they are out on the street to convert people and are going to have their views represented as well in a public place to make the media cover atheism to increase revenue for fellow atheists. Now, I've heard some crazy conspiracy theories and this is just too funny to take seriously. Look at her face though, she believes this. She also states the bus signs as well. Yes, they came from England and have moved here. No, they didn't start here like it sounds. I also don't see how this ties in as the bus signs were done in the fall, if i recall, correctly.

Then, John Gibson states that atheist are getting in the face of religious people. Yes, we do. However, this is because many religious get in the face of us first. At 4:35 the sign above is apparently insulting on purpose. To a believer, perhaps and yet when I was a believer, I viewed this as another opinion. Then at 4:45, Mike states that atheist should, in his opinion, have an official holiday on April 1st. Lovely, I am to be tolerant of your beliefs on no evidence, and you can be intolerant of mine that are evidence based, due to a lack. That is a classic double standard.

In my observation, especially participating in the Mill Ave. Resistance, I have been doing the same thing since I got there. It is not a war on Christmas, it is a presenting of ideas. Christians make it a war by stating that their side is right and everyone else is wrong or misguided. That makes sides. Atheist usually want to talk rationally about their ideas, and most do. It is only when the religious refuse to do so and attack back, that the so called "war" appears.

The Dollar Index Collapse - End of a Currency

I know that many people will look at this title and perhaps laugh. I am here to say otherwise.

I reference the Dollar Index because this is a general measure of the strength of the US dollar in comparison to a basket of foreign currencies (the euro (EUR), Japanese yen (JPY), Pound sterling (GBP), Canadian dollar (CAD), Swedish krona (SEK) and Swiss franc (CHF)). A index value that is high means a dollar that is strong and is seen to be anti-inflationary. This is a number around 85-110, low 80's is a decent number and below 80 is generally the sign of a weaker dollar. However, what is a real sign is the drop of the currency over a couple months. In other words, how fast the currency drops.

Now the dollar is the reserve currency of the world, which lends it strength on the global market. Now, the dollar had a value of 87.8 on 11/19/2008, and it fell to 85.5 on 12/10/2008. This is a fine decline as it remains fairly high and has only dropped 2.3 points. As of today, 12/18/2008, the dollar index is at 79.6. That is a drop of 5.9 points in just over a week! You can see this for yourself here. This is a terror for the US dollar.

This is a sharp and rapid decline for a international currency. This is what I see as the end of the US dollar as the reserve currency of the global market and the emergence of a new currency of perhaps set of currencies, such as the Swiss franc, British pound, Swedish krona and the Japanese yen. However, this is not a factor for us, the American citizens, because America has gone the way of Argentina in 1975-1990, the stagflation period. From my observations, the money supply of the US has expanded, or has been inflated, to far to be pulled back at the beginning the onset of sharply rising prices. We, as Americans, are going to witness the inflationary boom and the hyperinflationary bust of the US economy, and we shall feel the destruction of printed money.

This is the end of a currency, the end of the dollar and overall the end of American imposition on the globe. Americans will not be able to bribe countries with foreign aid, use force with a military that is not funded to move about, and the international community will have a higher standard of living, especially in the emerging and producing markets of China, Japan, India, and other industrialized nations such as Russia. The United States will cease, so to speak, to be a global influence on the world.

Now, the dollar may strengthen, as in staying fairly level on the dollar index, for the next couple months, perhaps till February of next year; however, this temporary hold will not last past February of next year. The dollar by this time will begin its sharp descent and it could loose up to another 25-55 points! We, as Americans, will witness times perhaps worse than the Great Depression. I have currently prepared my pens and paper so that I may write about this event.

I salute you, my fellow Americans, and I hope to see you in the coming destruction. Be prepared to put the country back together and produce as much as possible that is of high quality to sell to the world. I warn again, as I have for the past year, GET OUT OF THE DOLLAR!

Happy Solstice!

Winter Solstice Is Here - Hatred for the Holidays?

Well, as the title says, the winter solstice is upon us. While I, an atheist, enjoy the culture presented during this time I also find it odd. Christians have christmas, and they come out and a charitable and donate and do all those good things, then, once the season is over, the hype of doing good, for the most part, seems to fade away. Pagans have the solstice upon them, and I truely hope that if Cthulhu exists, they appease him so that I may continue living. However, this is not the focus of this post. In general, everyone this time of year becomes a bit kinder, in my observations, to those they don't know. However, as always there are fundamentalist nutters that make generalities useless. Below, is a link to a certain website that is this. They are hateful for the holidays.

Hatred for the Holidays

This links to a absolutely horrid church, Westboro Baptist Church. They have made some Christmas Carols, so to speak. This one is Santa Clause will take you to Hell. An absolutely horrid work.

This is the general question I propose. Why do people need a certain time of year to remind them to be loving to others and those they don't know? As an atheist I strive to be kind to those I don't know and at least attempt to understand them. I know many religious people who do the same. However, the general population, and perhaps even those that I know, need some event or holiday to remind them. Why do people choose to cause hatred and fear, to fuel persecution and violence any time of the year?

I apologize for the poor rambling that is fairly unintelligible halfway through this post. I happened to be listening to that like above while writing. Time to go listen to some Cthulhu Carols. They can be found here.

Enjoy the holidays!

An Introduction and Beginning

Salutations to you, the reader, and your fellows across the vast internet. Since you have stumbled here, I, the author, would be greatly honored if you continued to read my first blog here.

I am devoting this blog to economic issues mostly concerned with the current economic problems with the global and United States markets. I shall also be devoting this blog to my observations on atheism and my debates and talks on Mill Ave. in Tempe, AZ with the preachers out on the avenue. I shall also cover other issues as i see fit, but this in general will be what my tiny space upon this internet shall be about.

Well then, onto economics and the collapse of the US dollar and thereby the US market. While this is a general overview, I shall elaborate more later on in future posts.

To understand what is occuring within the US markets, we must delve into the depths of the market and look at what is truely happening within the system and not at the market fluxuations on a day to day basis. What is occuring in the US market is the market forces correcting the overspending of the American citizen.

Why is this happening? Well, we, as Americans, have a fiat currency. This currency is based on how much your currency is in demand, in other words, how much of your currency is needed by others to purchase your products from your country. The better your exports and the more your exports, the more you money is in demand, therefore the more your currency is worth. The dollar is special though, it has reserve currency status. This means that alll foriegn debt and international exchanges are done through dollars. This keeps demand high allowing for Americans to purchase more than they would normally be able to. Now, our economy is going down because we are overextended because we produce less and have no "real" wealth or products. This makes our currency worth less. Now due to our overleverage and overborrowing, we must repay our debts. Normally this would be done by production and a swift correctionary recession. However, the American public wants to not do so; they want their free lunch for all, extra cake and to eat it to without paying a dime. Someone always pays for everything, some way.

We are printing our money to pay our debts, this causes inflation. Now because of the deleveraging of American trust funds in global markets and having to pay off their Americna customers and inverstors, the causes high demand for our currency. This causes a deflationary reaction. This causes deflationary and inflationary forces to compete. Unfortunately for the American economy, the deleveraging is temproary and will probably not last very much longer, no farther I believe than Feburary or March. This will cause inflationary forces to reign and cause prices to go up and wages fairly flat due to the recession.

With all the unfunded bailouts, now of the car companies and the banking industry, who is coming to beg next? No matter what, this will not save the American economy, it will destroy it. All hail the American economic policy, Socialized Corpratism.

However, I now digress from my tirade on the horrid nature of the American economy. Below is a video. It is of a stock broker, Peter Schiff of EuroPacific Capital. I throughly enjoy his analysis. This is a video compilation of his predictions over 2006-2007 and I would like you to see the accuracy with what he has stated. He subscribes to the same economic theory that I do, Austrian Economics, put forth by Ludwig von Mises, Fredrick Hayek and Murray Rothbard.

Enjoy! It is a bit long, about ten minutes. I shall go more in depth on the issues at a later date.

JDM