Download audio here

Download Podcast | iTunes | Podcast Feed

On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss news of possible unrest in China, recent changes in communist leadership and the failure of the Buffett Rule.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

Has There Been A Coup In China?
Bo Xilai is Gone. Now Can Beijing Keep its Balance?
Report: Buffett Rule would raise less than $50 billion over decade
‘Buffett rule’ fails its first test in Congress

Follow Brad on Twitter
Follow Ben on Twitter
Follow Francis on Twitter

Subscribe to The Transom

The hosts and guests of Coffee and Markets speak only for ourselves, not any clients or employers.

Vague Thorium regulation and fear of liability allows China’s (heavy) Rare Earth Elements (REEs) monopoly to persist. Already, China is restricting supply so that REEs will be completely consumed domestically.

Heavy REEs are key to high-tech manufacturing… Obama barely scratched the surface on their importance. There are plenty of heavy REE in US not just waiting to be mined, but sitting in tailing ponds and waste streams.

A petition has been launched: http://wh.gov/5OX

If anyone is looking for educational DVDs on this, here’s the cheap-as-possible product: http://kunaki.com/sales.asp?PID=PX00ZS3PW1&pp=1

If you have a means of distributing the DVD to representatives or candidates, I’m happy to ship some to you free. gordonmcdowell@gmail.com

The DVD gives an overview of how THORIUM can be consumed in a Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (to end our energy dependence), and WHY solar/wind don’t cut it.

Download audio here

Download Podcast | iTunes | Podcast Feed

On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson is joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss the China’s growing debt, how their government may fix it and Iran’s impact on the price of oil.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

The World Bank proposes tough medicine for China
Oil price volatility in focus at world energy forum
Delta’s Ben Hirst on the impact of speculation on the price of oil

Follow Brad on Twitter
Follow Ben on Twitter
Follow Francis on Twitter

Subscribe to The Transom

The hosts and guests of Coffee and Markets speak only for ourselves, not any clients or employers.

Download audio here

Download Podcast | iTunes | Podcast Feed

On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson is joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss the China’s growing debt, how their government may fix it and Iran’s impact on the price of oil.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

The World Bank proposes tough medicine for China
Oil price volatility in focus at world energy forum
Delta’s Ben Hirst on the impact of speculation on the price of oil

Follow Brad on Twitter
Follow Ben on Twitter
Follow Francis on Twitter

Subscribe to The Transom

The hosts and guests of Coffee and Markets speak only for ourselves, not any clients or employers.

Harry Reid may be on a mad dash to bring the radical Liebmerman/Collins/Rockefeller cybersecurity bill, but a broad spectrum of Republicans continue to fight. Democrats may have toned down its Internet Kill Switch provisions, but still is a massive power grab online, and the new SECURE IT act is a much better idea.

What I absolutely love about SECURE it is that it hits all the key points: It strengthens criminal penalties for breaking into servers. It strengthens criminal penalties for breaking into servers (Yes, I said that twice on purpose because it’s that important). It creates private sector information sharing incentives without regulating the private sector at large. It turns inward and gets government to audit its own practices.

These are all the right ideas and none of the wrong ideas. Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin is speaking only the common-sense truth when he says “This bill recognizes that industry is at the center of any solution. It’s a sensible step forward that allows industry to invest in innovation and job creation rather than compliance. Imposing a costly and bureaucratic regulatory regime is the wrong approach to national security. New regulations will slow down innovation and investment while companies wait years for the government to introduce outdated standards. The regulatory process simply cannot keep up with the rapid pace of technology.”

It tells you just how basic and correct this bill is when it has co-sponsorship from such a broad spectrum of the caucus: Ron Johnson as mentioned, John McCain, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Chuck Grassley, Saxby Chambliss, Lisa Murkowski, Dan Coats, and Richard Burr.

Support Ron Johnson and the team. We want this bill passed. The common-sense alternative to the power grab cybersecurity bill.

Read More →

Harry Reid may be on a mad dash to bring the radical Liebmerman/Collins/Rockefeller cybersecurity bill, but a broad spectrum of Republicans continue to fight. Democrats may have toned down its Internet Kill Switch provisions, but still is a massive power grab online, and the new SECURE IT act is a much better idea.

What I absolutely love about SECURE it is that it hits all the key points: It strengthens criminal penalties for breaking into servers. It strengthens criminal penalties for breaking into servers (Yes, I said that twice on purpose because it’s that important). It creates private sector information sharing incentives without regulating the private sector at large. It turns inward and gets government to audit its own practices.

These are all the right ideas and none of the wrong ideas. Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin is speaking only the common-sense truth when he says “This bill recognizes that industry is at the center of any solution. It’s a sensible step forward that allows industry to invest in innovation and job creation rather than compliance. Imposing a costly and bureaucratic regulatory regime is the wrong approach to national security. New regulations will slow down innovation and investment while companies wait years for the government to introduce outdated standards. The regulatory process simply cannot keep up with the rapid pace of technology.”

It tells you just how basic and correct this bill is when it has co-sponsorship from such a broad spectrum of the caucus: Ron Johnson as mentioned, John McCain, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Chuck Grassley, Saxby Chambliss, Lisa Murkowski, Dan Coats, and Richard Burr.

Support Ron Johnson and the team. We want this bill passed. The common-sense alternative to the power grab cybersecurity bill.

Read More →

Dr. Daniel Fine of the New Mexico Center for Energy Policy discusses North Carolina’s approach to shale gas and hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.” Fine offered these comments during a Feb. 27, 2012, presentation to the John Locke Foundation’s Shafesbury Society. Video courtesy of CarolinaJournal.tv. Watch full-length video of JLF events here:

Dr. Daniel Fine discusses North Carolina’s approach to shale gas and hydraulic fracturing and takes on the enviromentalists (two minutes)—
http://youtu.be/4Lbn9diK1PA
The full one hour video can be seen here–>”North Carolina?s approach to natural gas fracking” —>http://lockerroom.johnlocke.org/2012/02/27/north-carolinas-approach-to-natural-gas-fracking/

Dr. Daniel I. Fine works with the New Mexico Center for Energy Policy. He is a longtime research associate at the Mining and Minerals Resources Institute, MIT. Fine is also a policy adviser on nonconventional oil and gas. He is co-editor of Resource War in 3-D: Dependence, Diplomacy and Defense, and has contributed to Business Week, the Engineering and Mining Journal and the Washington Times. Fine has testified on strategic natural resources before the U.S. Senate committees on Foreign Affairs and Energy and Natural Resources. In this speech, he discusses “Shale Gas Wars: From Pennsylvania to North Carolina.”

GOP Presidential Candidate Newt Gingrich gave a speech in Nashville, TN. In this speech he addressed what he felt America should do about the current situation in Afghanistan.

We are not going to fix Afghanistan. It is not possible,” Gingrich said. “These are people who have spent several thousand years hating foreigners. And what we have done by staying is become the new foreigners. “This is a real problem. And there are some problems where you have to say, ‘You know, you are going to have to figure out how to live your own miserable life … because you clearly don’t want to learn from me how to be unmiserable.’ And that is what you are going to see happen.”

(HT: Atlanta Journal Constitution)

I would like to add further that Former Speaker Gingrich could revise and extend his remarks to include, Egypt, Libya and Syria as well. If that sounds like cruelty, justice often entails cruelty. Nothing can be less compassionate than giving large groups of people exactly what they condignly deserve.

Read More →

GOP Presidential Candidate Newt Gingrich gave a speech in Nashville, TN. In this speech he addressed what he felt America should do about the current situation in Afghanistan.

We are not going to fix Afghanistan. It is not possible,” Gingrich said. “These are people who have spent several thousand years hating foreigners. And what we have done by staying is become the new foreigners. “This is a real problem. And there are some problems where you have to say, ‘You know, you are going to have to figure out how to live your own miserable life … because you clearly don’t want to learn from me how to be unmiserable.’ And that is what you are going to see happen.”

(HT: Atlanta Journal Constitution)

I would like to add further that Former Speaker Gingrich could revise and extend his remarks to include, Egypt, Libya and Syria as well. If that sounds like cruelty, justice often entails cruelty. Nothing can be less compassionate than giving large groups of people exactly what they condignly deserve.

Read More →

Like Beijing, Hong Kong faces a “leadership transition” this year. In the 15 years since control of the island passed from Great Britain to China, successive rulers have been chosen by a committee of officials–and while large for a committee (1,200 people), this body is only a fraction of Hong Kong’s 7.1 million inhabitants, who have no voice in their government.

But that may be changing. The anointed candidate, Donald Tang, is embroiled in a political scandal that can only be called epic, a sort of caricature of the party boss involving blatant infidelities and a secret, luxury underground bunker with wine cellar and health spa–as well as high-end junkets courtesy of Hong Kong’s business community, eager to curry favor with the ostensible heir-apparent. But Mr. Tang’s corruption and flagrant disregard for the rules that control the lives of the vast majority has finally proven too much even for this authoritarian political structure, and the people of Hong Kong are demanding he step down and an alternate candidate be put forward.

All this might be a tempest in a tea pot, if the People’s Republic of China were not also facing a “transition” of its own.

Read More →