Damn interesting?

[charles royer]

The Dutch Tulip Bubble of 1637
The later part of the 20th century saw its share of odd financial bubbles. There was the real-estate bubble, the stock market bubbles, and the dot com bubble, just to name a few. In each instance of price inflation people paid exorbitant amounts for things that shouldn’t have been worth anything like the going price. And each time people stood around afterwards and said “What were we thinking?”

One has to believe that the same thought occurred to the Dutch in the 17th century when they settled down after their bout with tulipomania, wherein the humble tulip bulb began to sell for prices to make New York Realtors blanch.

As much as the tulip is associated with Holland, it is not native there. Rather it was introduced in 1593 by a botanist named Carolus Clusius, who brought it from Constantinople. He planted a small garden, intending to research the plant for medicinal purposes. Had Clusius’s neighbors been morally upright, the tulip might still be a rare exotic in the gardening world. Instead they broke into his garden and stole some of his bulbs in order to make some quick money, and in the process started the Dutch bulb trade
http://www.damninteresting.com/the-dutch-tulip-bubble-of-1637/
Just sayin!

[kevin kiernan]

There is so much truth in that....WOW. And the Patriots from the Malheur Refuge know this to be fact. They lived through it.. Except for LaVoy...He was murdered by the establishment.

[The Bull]

Atlas > The Bull August 17, 2016 at 9:30am

"Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken.

You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals.

Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone?

But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be
much easier to deal with."

[The Bull]

Turkey and the West: The drift apart More than 70% of Turks suspect America of having a hand in July’s coup attempt. Many Western governments were slow to condemn the putsch, fuelling suspicions that they were waiting to see how it would play out. And Turkish politicians accuse the West of being more critical of Turkey’s response to the coup than of the carnage that accompanied it. Turkey’s drift away from the West is accelerating, writes our Turkey correspondent http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21705286-europe-and-americas-r...

[The Bull]

The FBI Knew Jihadis were Targeting Garland, Texas Free Speech Event

by Robert Spencer | 11 Aug 2016 | Religion | 2 Comments

The jihadis were stopped and killed before they could commit mass murder at the Muhammad Art Exhibit and Cartoon Contest in defense of the freedom of speech. Is it possible that Obama’s FBI was hoping for a different outcome? Would that really be surprising? Is there any other explanation for the fact that they knew the jihadis were coming to kill, but did not send a team to stop them?

From “Pamela Geller–Undercover FBI Agent Told Garland Jihadist: ‘Tear Up Texas,’” by Pamela Geller, Breitbart, August 8, 2016:

http://capitalismmagazine.com/2016/08/the-fbi-knew-jihadis-were-tar...

[The Bull]

Sexual Assault Pledge Scrubbed by Hillary Clinton’s Campaign

by Spencer Irvine on August 16, 2016

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How convenient, huh? The liberal media isn’t covering this scrub job by the Clinton campaign after allegations of sexual assault and rape have re-emerged in the news:

On a page dedicated to “Campus sexual assault” on HillaryClinton.com, this passage from the Democratic presidential candidate used to be prominently featured last year: “I want to send a message to every survivor of sexual assault: Don’t let anyone silence your voice. You have the right to be heard. You have the right to be believed, and we’re with you.”

But by February of this year, those lines had been deleted, according to BuzzFeed News

[The Bull]

The Real Existential Threats of 2016

By Patrick J. Buchanan • August 16, 2016, 12:05 AM

The crisis that South Carolina statesman John C. Calhoun had posthumously predicted in his “Disquisition on Government” has also come to pass.

The country would divide into two parties, Calhoun said. One would be the party of those who pay the taxes to government, the other the party of those who consume the benefits of government.

The taxpayers’ party would engage in constant clashes with the party of the tax-consumers.

In 2013, the top 1 percent of Americans in income paid 38 percent of all income taxes. The bottom 50 percent of income-earners, half the nation, paid only 3 percent of all income taxes.

A question logically follows: If one belongs to that third of the nation that pays no income taxes but receives copious benefits, why would you vote for a party that will cut taxes you don’t pay, but take away benefits you do receive?

Traditional Republican platforms ask half the country to vote against its economic interests. As a long-term political strategy, that is not too promising.

During the New Deal, FDR’s aide Harold Ickes declared in what became party dogma, “We shall tax and tax, spend and spend, and elect and elect.”

And so they did, and so they do. But this is a game that cannot go on forever.

For, as John Adams reminded us, “There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/buchanan/the-real-existentia...

[jack ludwig]

Bull to make the information more of value, breakdown the party affiliation  for the 1% tax payers and then breakdown the party affiliation of the remaining 49% that pay 59% of the taxes. I think you will find very similar numbers between registered  democrats, republican and independents in each tax bracket.

[The Bull]

Great Idea jack however I do not like to edit other peoples work this peace was written by Pat Buchanan .  Do you have those statistics? I would think that party affiliation would be fairly obvious.

[jack ludwig]

I once researched this information several years back. It is not easy to obtain this information because as you know tax information is private. However, there is enough data out there that a very resourceful individual can put together some interesting figures. I was quite surprised to learn that among the 1% most wealthy individuals their estimated tax liability is not much different between party affiliation. The lower you go down the economic scale, let say $25K and below the majority is skewed more towards the democrats but it is not as significant as you would expect. I will try to find that paper again but will not be an easy search. You can help Bull or anyone else by just googling several different tax engine searches. 

[charles royer]

According to the Justice Department, certain donations to the Oscar winner's charity came directly from a multibillion-dollar embezzlement drama in Southeast Asia.
Set up not as a nonprofit but instead as a donor-advised fund (DAF) attached to the California Community Foundation, which is a nonprofit, the LDF therefore is not required to file itemized public disclosures about its own revenue, expenditures and disbursements. "It's difficult to characterize the giving of the DiCaprio Foundation because its status as part of the CCF makes it impossible to look at its finances," industry trade journal Inside Philanthropy noted in 2015.

Despite repeated efforts, DiCaprio, 41, the LDF and the CCF all declined to fully answer fundamental questions related to transparency and accountability of the foundation — a decision that disappoints charity experts consulted by THR. "Everything might be perfectly fine, but we don't know," says Aaron Dorfman, president of the Washington, D.C.-based National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, of the LDF.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/leonardo-dicaprio-malaysi...

[The Bull]

Research by the political scientist Martin Gilens in his book “Affluence and Influence: Economic Inequality and Political Power in...” shows that the wealthy tend to be more liberal than the Republican Party on social issues. By and large, the wealthy are not religious, favor abortion rights and support gay rights.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/30/wealth-inequality-and-...

[The Bull]

Why is it important for the President to never lie to the American public?

1967 Lindon Johnson reported to congress that On Aug. 4, 1964, North Vietnamese torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin were alleged to have attacked without provocation U.S. destroyers that were reporting intelligence information to South Vietnam. President Lyndon B. Johnson and his advisers decided upon immediate air attacks on North Vietnam in retaliation; he also asked Congress for a mandate for future military action. On Aug. 7, Congress passed a resolution drafted by the administration authorizing all necessary measures to repel attacks against U.S. forces and all steps necessary for the defense of U.S. allies in Southeast Asia.

50,000 soldiers gave their lives in Viet Nam because the administration lied or to be kind exaggerated the events of Aug 4. to congress

Retired Vietnamese general Vo Nguyen Giap, in a 1995 meeting with former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, categorically denied that the North Vietnamese had attacked the U.S. destroyers on Aug. 4, 1964, and in 2001 it was revealed that President Johnson, in a taped conversation with McNamara several weeks after passage of the resolution, had expressed doubt that the attack ever occurred.