"This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people love the darkness instead of the light, because their hearts and their deeds are dark. Whoever does evil hates the light, and will not walk in it for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth is drawn to the light, and so what they have done may be seen plainly, in the light of the Lord."
John 3:19-21

Low-Cost Ultrasound Scanner Unveiled in UK

There still exists market needs for low-cost ultrasound devices. The challenge lies in developing them with good image quality. We are taking on it. We are interested in not only return and profit but also a positive return to society. From Al Jazeera:

Researchers in the UK have unveiled a low-cost ultrasound scanner that can be plugged into any computer or laptop to reveal vital information about the unborn child. The hand-held USB device, which is roughly the size of a computer mouse, costs just $65 to make – a far cry from most machines which can cost more than $300,000. "At the moment ultrasound machines tend to be very expensive and very large pieces of equipment that can only really be afforded in a hospital setting and mainly in the developed world,” Newcastle University researcher Jeff Neasham told Al Jazeera. The United Nations estimates that more than 250,000 women die each year from complications during pregnancy or childbirth. Almost all of them – 99 per cent – are in developing countries. In many cases, these could have been prevented if the women had had access to simple equipment like an ultrasound scanner. "Even simple imaging technology would allow us to diagnose things like breech birth or multiple births – straightforward complications in birth. Having the ability to identify these problems can make a real difference," Neasham said. To make the device as cheap as possible the researchers have moved much of the complexity into the PC. Instead of using an array of scanners – as found in more expensive models – the device has just one. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2012/09/201292782345838858.html

This Has Never Happened Before

From Zero Hedge:

Presented with little comment aside to ask rhetorically just how screwed up markets and macro data are to allow 'this' to happen...



For the first time in history, based on FRED data, the 30Y constant maturity yield is below the real GDP growth level...


http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-28/has-never-happened

Japan household spending slumps, output flat as tax pain persists

From Yahoo Finance:

Japanese household spending fell much more than expected and factory output remained weak in July after plunging in June, government data showed, suggesting that soft exports and a sales tax hike in April may drag on the economy longer than expected.

Household spending fell 5.9 percent in July from a year earlier, nearly double the drop forecast in a Reuters poll, as the higher levy and bad weather kept consumers at home instead of going out shopping.

Weak exports left companies with a huge pile of inventories, forcing them to continue cutting back on factory output, separate data showed.

Industrial output rose 0.2 percent in July, much less than a 1.0 percent increase projected in a Reuters poll, data by the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Trade showed. That was a tepid rebound from a 3.4 percent fall in June, the fastest drop since the March 2011 earthquake.

Japan's economy shrank at an annualized 6.8 percent in the second quarter from the previous three months, more than erasing the 6.1 percent first-quarter surge in the run-up to the sales tax hike.

Analysts generally expect Abe to approve another tax hike in December, but that decision promises to be politically divisive, coming just as the government hammers out details of a promised corporate tax cut.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/japan-household-spending-slumps-output-003826963.html

Google to set up start-up Campus in Seoul (구글, 창업지원 캠퍼스 아시아 최초 서울에 설립)

From Tech Times:

...the Campus will be built to deliver support to the country's budding entrepreneurs where there are no strings attached and no strict rules on business preferences. It will hold various programs such as Campus for Moms which caters to women with babies, and Campus EDU, which will conduct workshops and mingling opportunities with Google employees. Participants in the Campus will be provided with a wide range of opportunities.
Google has similar Campuses in London and Tel Aviv. There's also a plan to put up new Campuses in Warsaw and Sao Paulo. Google Campuses are the company's high profile marketing strategy. The London-based Campus had been successful in achieving the company's goal of driving tech entrepreneurship. On its first year, Google claimed that Campus London had successfully provided startup programs to around 70,000 participants and had supported 247 startups. All of these resulted to a combined investment of $56.2 million (£34 million). On its second year, it already had 22,000 members and has done a lot for the start-up community in London.
The Campus in Seoul, Korea is the third one by the company and the first one in East Asia. "As the first campus to be established in Asia, the size will be similar to Campus London," says Google in a press release. It adds that the Campus in Seoul, just like its sibling Campuses in London and Tel Aviv, has the main goal of creating a vibrant startup community.
Bridgette Beam, the Global Entrepreneurship Manager of Google said that the business sectors have no boundaries at the Campus. "An entrepreneur can even come up to and make an application that works only on the iOS platform, and not on the Android," adds Beam.
Choi Yang-hee, South Korea's ICT Minister, welcomed the idea of opening Campus Seoul. He added that this venture of Google will also help the country in its drive on creative economy which deals with producing unique business opportunities through the convergence of various industries.

While it is true that the startup ecosystem in Seoul is growing, it is still considered as very young. In this case, entrepreneurs are faced with certain issues such as lack of funding, mentorship, and exit opportunities. Hopefully, the Seoul Campus of Google will change all these by providing budding entrepreneurs with more opportunities and more room for growth.

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/14168/20140827/google-to-set-up-start-up-campus-in-seoul.htm

"Oh, the depth of the riches, the wisdom, and knowledge of God. How inscrutable are his judgements and how unsearchable his ways. For who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his advisor? Who has given the Lord anything for which he may be repaid? For from God, and through God, and for God, are all things, always."
Romans 11:33-36

The White Rose, In the Land of the Willfully Blind

From Jesse's Cafe:

This is one of my favorite leaflets from Die Weiße Rose. I enjoy their observation that "German intellectuals fled to their cellars, there, like plants struggling in the dark, away from light and sun, gradually to choke to death."

One cannot blame them in some ways, since from the very beginning the National Socialists were backing their words with violent street thugs in brown shirts. And so many among the very wealthy and the highly trained professional classes threw themselves into the arms of the powerful like hypocrites and whores.

But even if we rightfully condemn the failure of those whose obligation it is to speak, how often are we seeing this in our own time?

When the economy was very obviously building towards the financial crisis of 2008, how many economists were ignoring the bubble conditions, preferring to keep their noses in their statistics, a willful condition that I call data blindness. How many lawyers look at outrageous miscarriages of justice and say and do nothing? How many of those who have been blessed by circumstances sit back and smugly attribute their good fortune to their natural superiority as a the new ubermensch?

It is not safe to see too much, and even less safe for the career minded to speak out against the actions of powerful insiders who control the benefactions of position, and the perks of the privileged class.

It is much more judicious to hide one's nose in a selective book of statistics, ignoring the reality, and relying instead on being data blind or ideologically blind to what is really happening.

It is easier to say 'I didn't know of this injustice' and afterwards, 'who could see such a thing approaching?'

And then to do it all over again.

The White Rose
Second Leaflet
Munich, 1942

We will not be silent.

It is impossible to engage in intellectual discourse with National Socialist philosophy, for if there were such an entity, one would have to try by means of analysis and discussion either to prove its validity or to combat it. In actuality, however, we face a totally different situation.

At its very inception this movement depended on the deception and betrayal of one's fellow man; even at that time it was inwardly corrupt and could support itself only by constant lies. After all, Hitler states in an early edition of "his" book (a book written in the worst German I have ever read, in spite of the fact that it has been elevated to the position of the Bible in this nation of poets and thinkers): "It is unbelievable, to what extent one must betray a people in order to rule it."

If at the start this cancerous growth in the nation was not particularly noticeable, it was only because there were still enough forces at work that operated for the good, so that it was kept under control. As it grew larger, however, and finally in an ultimate spurt of growth attained ruling power, the tumor broke open, as it were, and infected the whole body.

The greater part of its former opponents went into hiding. The German intellectuals fled to their cellars, there, like plants struggling in the dark, away from light and sun, gradually to choke to death.

Now the end is at hand. Now it is our task to find one another again, to spread information from person to person, to keep a steady purpose, and to allow ourselves no rest until the last man is persuaded of the urgent need of his struggle against this system. When thus a wave of unrest goes through the land, when "it is in the air," when many join the cause, then in a great final effort this system can be shaken off.

After all, an end in terror is preferable to terror without end.

We are not in a position to draw up a final judgment about the meaning of our history. But if this catastrophe can be used to further the public welfare, it will be only by virtue of the fact that we are cleansed by suffering; that we yearn for the light in the midst of deepest night, summon our strength, and finally help in shaking off the yoke which weighs on our world.

We do not want to discuss here the question of the Jews, nor do we want in this leaflet to compose a defense or apology. No, only by way of example do we want to cite the fact that since the conquest of Poland three hundred thousand Jews have been murdered in this country in the most bestial way.

Here we see the most frightful crime against human dignity, a crime that is unparalleled in the whole of history. For Jews, too, are human beings - no matter what position we take with respect to the Jewish question - and a crime of this dimension has been perpetrated against human beings.

Someone may say that the Jews deserve their fate. This assertion would be a monstrous impertinence; but let us assume that someone said this - what position has he then taken toward the fact that the entire Polish aristocratic youth is being annihilated? (May God grant that this program has not yet fully achieved its aim as yet!)

All male offspring of the houses of the nobility between the ages of fifteen and twenty were transported to concentration camps in Germany and sentenced to forced labor, and all the girls of this age group were sent to Norway, into the bordellos of the SS!

Why tell you these things, since you are fully aware of them - or if not of these, then of other equally grave crimes committed by this frightful sub- humanity? Because here we touch on a problem which involves us deeply and forces us all to take thought.

Why do German people behave so apathetically in the face of all these abominable crimes, crimes so unworthy of the human race? Hardly anyone thinks about that.

It is accepted as fact and put out of mind. The German people slumber on in their dull, stupid sleep and encourage these fascist criminals; they give them the opportunity to carry on their depredations; and of course they do so.

Is this a sign that the Germans are brutalized in their simplest human feelings, that no chord within them cries out at the sight of such deeds, that they have sunk into a fatal consciencelessness from which they will never, never awake?

It seems to be so, and will certainly be so, if the German does not at last start up out of his stupor, if he does not protest wherever and whenever he can against this clique of criminals, if he shows no sympathy for these hundreds of thousands of victims. He must evidence not only sympathy; no, much more: a sense of complicity in guilt.

For through his apathetic behavior he gives these evil men the opportunity to act as they do; he tolerates this "government" which has taken upon itself such an infinitely great burden of guilt; indeed, he himself is to blame for the fact that it came about at all...

Please make as many copies of this leaflet as you can and distribute them.

http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.kr/2014/08/reprise-white-rose-in-land-of-blind.html

Elizabeth Warren: What Happened to the Middle Class?

 Dr. Warren is well known for her work on the U.S. middle class.  I did a couple of postings on that.

From Jesse's Cafe:

You cannot possibly fix it if you don't know what happened.

http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.kr/2014/08/elizabeth-warren-what-happened-to.html

30 Facts That Prove The American Middle-Class Is Being Destroyed

From Zero Hedge:

The 30 statistics that you are about to read prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the middle class in America is being systematically destroyed.  Once upon a time, the United States had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world, but now that is changing at a staggering pace.  Yes, the stock market has soared to unprecedented heights this year and there are a few isolated areas of the country that are doing rather well for the moment.  But overall, the long-term trends that are eviscerating the middle class just continue to accelerate. 
1. In 2007, the average household in the top 5 percent had 16.5 times as much wealth as the average household overall.  But now the average household in the top 5 percent has 24 times as much wealth as the average household overall.
2. According to a study recently discussed in the New York Times, the "typical American household" is now worth 36 percent less than it was worth a decade ago.
3. One out of every seven Americans rely on food banks at this point.
4. One out of every four military families needs help putting enough food on the table.
5. 79 percent of the people that use food banks purchase "inexpensive, unhealthy food just to have enough to feed their families".
6. One out of every three adults in the United States has an unpaid debt that is "in collections".
7. Only 48 percent of all Americans can immediately come up with $400 in emergency cash without borrowing it or selling something.
8. The price of food continues to rise much faster than the paychecks of most middle class families.  For example, the average price of ground beef has just hit a brand new all-time record high of $3.884 a pound.
9. According to one recent study, 40 percent of all households in the United States are experiencing financial stress right now.
10. The overall homeownership rate has fallen to the lowest level since 1995.
11. The homeownership rate for Americans under the age of 35 is at an all-time low.
12. According to one recent survey, 52 percent of all Americans cannot even afford the house that they are living in right now.
13. The average age of vehicles on America’s roads has hit an all-time high of 11.4 years.
14. Last year, one out of every four auto loans in the United States was made to someone with subprime credit.
15. Amazingly, one out of every six men in their prime working years (25 to 54) do not have a job at this point.
16. One recent study found that 47 percent of unemployed Americans have “completely given up” looking for a job.
17. 36 percent of Americans do not have a single penny saved for retirement.
18. According to one survey, 76 percent of all Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.
19. More than half of all working Americans make less than $30,000 a year in wages.
20. Only four of the twenty fastest growing occupations in America require a Bachelor’s degree or better.
21.  In America today, one out of every ten jobs is filled by a temp agency.
22. Due to a lack of decent jobs, half of all college graduates are still relying on their parents financially when they are two years out of school.
23. Median household income in the United States is about 7 percent lower than it was in the year 2000 after adjusting for inflation.
24. Approximately one out of every four part-time workers in America is living below the poverty line.
25. It is hard to believe, but more than one out of every five children in the United States is living in poverty in 2014.
26. According to one study, there are 49 million Americans that are dealing with food insecurity.
27. Ten years ago, the number of women in the U.S. that had jobs outnumbered the number of women in the U.S. on food stamps by more than a 2 to 1 margin.  But now the number of women in the U.S. on food stamps actually exceeds the number of women that have jobs.
28. If the middle class was actually thriving, we wouldn’t have more than a million public school children that are homeless.
29. If you can believe it, Americans received more than 2 trillion dollars in benefits from the federal government last year alone.
30. In terms of median wealth per adult, the United States is now in just 19th place in the world.

 http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-21/30-facts-prove-american-middle-class-being-destroyed

A step closer to bio-printing organs: scientists bio-printed vascular networks

From 3ders:

Scientists from the Universities of Sydney, Harvard, Stanford and MIT have bio-printed artificial vascular networks mimicking the body’s circulatory system that are necessary for growing large complex tissues.

Using a high-tech ‘bio-printer’, the researchers fabricated a multitude of interconnected tiny fibres to serve as the mold for the artificial blood vessels. They then covered the 3D printed structure with a cell-rich protein-based material, which was solidified by applying light to it. Lastly they removed the bio-printed fibres to leave behind a network of tiny channels coated with human endothelial cells, which self organised to form stable blood capillaries in less than a week.
The study reveals that the bioprinted vascular networks promoted significantly better cell survival, differentiation and proliferation compared to cells that received no nutrient supply.
“At the moment, we are pretty much printing ‘prototypes’ that, as we improve, will eventually be used to change the way we treat patients worldwide.” says study lead author and University of Sydney researcher, Dr Luiz Bertassoni….
“While recreating little parts of tissues in the lab is something that we have already been able to do, the possibility of printing three-dimensional tissues with functional blood capillaries in the blink of an eye is a game changer,” he says.
“Of course, simplified regenerative materials have long been available, but true regeneration of complex and functional organs is what doctors really want and patients really need, and this is the objective of our work.”

http://www.3ders.org/articles/20140701-a-step-closer-to-bio-printing-organs-scientists-bio-printed-vascular-networks.html

The Great Chinese Exodus: Brain Drain and Capital Flight

From WSJ:

Today, China's borders are wide open. Almost anybody who wants a passport can get one. And Chinese nationals are leaving in vast waves: Last year, more than 100 million outbound travelers crossed the frontiers.

Most are tourists who come home. But rapidly growing numbers are college students and the wealthy, and many of them stay away for good. A survey by the Shanghai research firm Hurun Report shows that 64% of China's rich—defined as those with assets of more than $1.6 million—are either emigrating or planning to.

The decision to go is often a mix of push and pull. The elite are discovering that they can buy a comfortable lifestyle at surprisingly affordable prices in places such as California and the Australian Gold Coast, while no amount of money can purchase an escape in China from the immense problems afflicting its urban society: pollution, food safety, a broken education system. The new political era of President Xi Jinping, meanwhile, has created as much anxiety as hope.

First-generation businessmen—the ones who powered China's economic rise—now dream of a secure retirement. That means legal safety in places like the U.S. and Canada.

Last year, the U.S. issued 6,895 visas to Chinese nationals under the EB-5 program, which allows foreigners to live in America if they invest a minimum of $500,000. South Koreans, the next largest group, got only 364 such visas. Canada this year closed down a similar program that had been swamped by Chinese demand.

Beijing makes a crucial distinction between ethnic Chinese who have acquired foreign nationality and those who remain Chinese citizens. The latter category is officially called huaqiao—sojourners. Together, they are viewed as an immensely valuable asset: the students as ambassadors for China, the scientists, engineers, researchers and others as conduits for technology and industrial know-how from the West to propel China's economic modernization.

In 1989, when the Tiananmen Square massacre triggered an outflow of traumatized students and shattered the Party's image among overseas Chinese communities, the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office kicked into high gear with a propaganda campaign to repair the damage. It proved highly successful.

But China's cross-border political activities are creating unease. Consider Australia—one of the most popular destinations for Chinese students, emigrants and tourists, and a country where Mandarin Chinese is now the second-most widely spoken language after English.

"Chinese Australians are being lectured, monitored, organized and policed in Australia on instruction from Beijing as never before," wrote John Fitzgerald of Swinburne University of Technology, one of the country's foremost China experts, in an article published by the Asan Forum, a South Korean think tank.

In the U.S., a vigorous debate has broken out in academic circles about the role on American campuses of Confucius Institutes, which are sponsored by the Chinese government and offer Mandarin-language classes, along with rosy cultural views of China.

China must be exceedingly careful not to leave too many fingerprints on its political activities offshore. For a start, it has an official policy of noninterference in the internal affairs of other countries. But it also puts established overseas Chinese communities at risk by raising the issue of their national loyalties. That is particularly true in Southeast Asia, where the Chinese of a previous era were often viewed with suspicion as a communist fifth column.

Still, the sheer volume of China's outbound travel these days, and its massive economic impact, gives it new leverage. In the global market for high-end real estate, Chinese buying has become a key driver of prices. According to the U.S. National Association of Realtors, Chinese buyers snapped up homes worth $22 billion in the year ending in March.

Australia called a parliamentary inquiry to find out whether local households were being priced out of the market by Chinese money. (The conclusion: not yet.)

The Chinese government has no desire to slow the flow of students. Its attitude is simple: Why not have the Americans or Europeans train our brightest minds if they want to? President Xi's own daughter went to Harvard.

As always with China, the numbers awe. In his memoirs, Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former national security adviser, recalls a meeting between President Jimmy Carter and Deng. Human rights were on Mr. Carter's agenda, and he started needling the Chinese leader about Beijing's tight emigration policies. "Fine. We'll let them go," Deng snapped. "Are you prepared to accept 10 million?"

Not even Deng could have imagined the human torrent his "open door" reforms would eventually unleash. Try 100 million—and counting.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/the-great-chinese-exodus-1408120906?mod=WSJ_hp_RightTopStories
 

"Go in through the narrow gate. The gate to destruction is wide, and the road that leads there is easy to follow. Most will go through that gate. But the gate to life is narrow. The road that leads there is so arduous to follow that only a few people are determined enough to struggle to find it." 
Matt 7:13-14

Sumi Jo Singing Bella Fantasia While waiting for Pope Francis in Seoul on Aug 15th

Nomi Prins: All the President's Bankers

I posted on Nomi Prins before at this link  http://innovationandeconomicanalysis.blogspot.kr/2012/01/nomi-prins-bailouts-downgrades.html

From Jesse's Cafe:

This is a walk through the twentieth century, and how the United States became, by design, a combination military, industrial, and financial global superpower. And how the US dollar hegemony was created over a number of political administrations by groups of well connected, powerful families and friends.

It may seem a bit long, but she opens it for questions about the 48 minute mark, so it really is not. Nomi speaks briskly with many fact laden vignettes and scenarios that help to explain how the current system has evolved.

The facts she brings out about the 50's onwards were sometimes new to me, and absolutely fascinating. About minute 40 she shows the culmination of this historical process with the Clinton Whitehouse, and begins to describe where we are today, and how it appears that the problem will be insoluble without some major events taking place to change this alliance in power between the financial and the political.

The talk served to solidify some of my own thinking, and removed some of the shadows of doubt that I have had about where things are going and why.

She does is not able to delve into the international ties between the global central Banks, particularly between London and New York. She instead concentrates on what she might call 'the Big Six' of American Banks, which is a large enough subject itself.

I strongly recommend that you listen to it if you are at all interested in this subject.

Or if you have the time to invest, you may wish to read her book which also sounds very interesting. I have not done so yet, and I am not sure when I could get to it.

But this video is a very good start, and will probably make you much better informed than 90 percent of the people out there. Whether that is a good thing or not is another matter.

Matt Taibbi: Griftopia (audiobook)

Free audiobook. Where have these been all my life.

I am not much for listening to audiobooks. Alas, the droning of a human voice tends to make me fall asleep, a feature of my being that I have often put to good use with headphones on international flights.

But after the first ten minutes I was hooked on this one. Taibbi's verbal fireworks and colorful images kept me interested, and gave me a wonderful alternative to watching the latest professional wrestling antics and extended infomercials on financial television today. Without headphones. Old habits die hard.

Taibbi takes an icepick to the façade of American politics, and the vagaries of its financiers. And like another polemicist Hitchens, is able to wield his words with great effect and to delight of his readers. Alas, sometimes he forgets to save the sword for injustice, and on occasion becomes the kind of condescending, major league ***** he generally derides, about spiritual matters and the preferences and sincere beliefs of others of which he has little or no understanding, like a little boy who is restless in his seat and doesn't matter who knows about it.

Or the raw American tourist who travels abroad for the first time, and makes fun of the way in which the people dress, talk, and their unfamiliar local customs. The difference is between that of a wit and a boor, and that is a line that is easily crossed, as in telling some genuinely funny stories about human foibles, and then going for the big finish by throwing your shit-encrusted boots up on the dining room table for a laugh. But at least he is still resisting the elitist and all-judging allure of the neo-cons, which Hitchens was unable to do towards the latter part of his career. The show must go on.

Enjoy.

"The important thing to remember about the Alan Greenspan era is that despite all the numbers and the inside-baseball jargon about rates and loans and forecasts, his is not a story about economics. The Greenspan era instead is a crime story. Like drug dealing and gambling and Ponzi schemes, bubbles of the sort he oversaw are rigged games with preordained losers and inherently corrupting psychological consequences. You play, you get beat, in more ways than one.

Greenspan staked the scam, printing trillions upon trillions of dollars to goad Americans into playing a series of games they were doomed from the start to lose to the dealer. In the end the printed wealth all disappeared and only the debts remained. He probably did this just because he wanted to see his face on magazine covers and be popular at certain Upper East Side cocktail parties. His private hang-ups in this way shaped the entire scam of modern American politics: a pure free market for the suckers, golden parachutes for the Atlases...

There are really two Americas, one for the grifter class, and one for everybody else. In everybody-else land, the world of small businesses and wage-earning employees, the government is something to be avoided, an overwhelming, all-powerful entity whose attentions usually presage some kind of financial setback, if not complete ruin. In the grifter world, however, government is a slavish lapdog that the financial companies that will be the major players in this book use as a tool for making money. The grifter class depends on these two positions getting confused in the minds of everybody else. They want the average American to believe that what government is to him, it is also to JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs.

The fact that an unapologetic fat cat like Kudlow—one who talks and acts and dresses like a fat cat—can, when convenient, throw on the mantle of a populist revolt and get away with it reassures us that for all the talk about pitchforks and revolutions and fighting back, the Tea Party movement remains in thrall to the authority of the rich and powerful. Which renders the so-called movement completely meaningless...

The new America, instead, is fast becoming a vast ghetto in which all of us, conservatives and progressives, are being bled dry by a relatively tiny oligarchy of extremely clever financial criminals and their castrato henchmen in government, whose job is to be good actors on TV and put on a good show...Our leaders know we’re turning into a giant ghetto and they are taking every last hubcap they can get their hands on before the rest of us wake up and realize what’s happened.”

http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.kr/2014/08/matt-taibbi-griftopia-audiobook.html

Japanese GDP Plunges 6.8% As Consumer Spending Collapses By Most On Record

From Zero Hedge:

Compared to the 3.6% drop in GDP when Japan last hiked its consumption tax in 1997, today's Q2 GDP collapse of 6.8% annualized is an utter disaster (even if it is slightly better than the expected -7.0% expectations thanks to a surge in the deflator). Inventory additions added 1.0% growth. Consumer Spending collapsed 5.2% QoQ - the most on record. Of course, in the traditional of Keynesian hockey-sticks, this XX% collapse in Q2 is expected to surge back to a 2.5% growth figure in Q3 and lead Japan to the holy grail once more.. only it didn't quite work out that way last time for Japan. Simply put this is the worst posible outcome for bulls, small beat not enopugh to rejuice QQE. As a gentle reminder of just what happened in 1997 - the last time Japan hiked taxes - we provide the eerily analog chart below...

Japanese GDP growth was almost twice as bad as the last time Jap[an hiked its taxes...





As Consumer Spending collapsed...





Here come the hockey-sticks...





* * *

Let's hope the last 10 months was just coincidentally 90% correlated to 1997!!




http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-12/japanese-gdp-plunges-68-consumer-spending-collapses-most-record

"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, the rulers of the darkness in this world, and spiritual wickedness in high places. Therefore, take on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to withstand these days of evil and, all things having been done, to remain standing...And pray that freedom of utterance remains, that we may proclaim the good news. Pray that we may declare it without shame and with courageous love, as we ought to do."
Ephesians 6:11-20

Greatness In a Dark Time

From Jesse's Cafe:

Some say that most of the time everyone wants to be great, because they have a natural desire for acceptance, recognition, and praise. Perhaps this is so.

And in a dark and pathological time this means that everyone wants to have power. Power becomes the standard of value, the coin of the realm in a deeply fallen world.  And in such a perverse world the only virtue is greed. 

So they who serve the world want to be tough guys, unafraid, quick and intemperate on the attack, harsh.  Yes that is the mark of power, of one of the formidable wielders of weapons. As if there can be any just weapon that we may take up on our own, that is not given to us by the Lord for His purpose.

If by some chance that person may also wish to serve God, then they may desire that they could take up the sword like an avenging angel, and smite those enemies of God, who are all too often those who merely annoy and offend them. This is because their idea of what it is to be a human being has been subtly poisoned by the times; in their brokenness they exalt themselves.

And all too often that feeling of offense simply becomes a blind hatred of 'the other.' The other may merely be the different, and interfering 'do-gooders' who try to help them, and finally all of the weak.  The will to power despises weakness.  Then they are no longer of God, but have given themselves over to the darkness.  And they fully become its creatures.  Those who take up the sword for their own purposes in God's name will die by it in a death without redemption.

This is a subtle but very effective snare, a sin wholly against the Spirit. We embrace the world and its values not in our love of it, but in our hatred of it as we see it. And so we grasp that same sword of power wielded by the forces of darkness in high places. And we use it as wewill with intoxication, and are lost.

 

This is not service, or greatness, not as counted in God's economy. This is a willfulness and a destruction of the self that comes from sin, but that in its own insidious way may encompass many of the trappings of a religion: the ornaments of ritual, and symbols, and all the showiness, the noise and pomp of human office-- but always and remarkably devoid of God's love. 

 

We may love the services and outward manifestations as we prefer them, the old and familiar or the hip and modern or whatever our personal preference may be, but come to hate the very Church that gives them life and meaning.  We destroy our beloved because we will to possess, to compel, not to love.

 

Worldly power is a perversion of heavenly power in that it expresses itself in the ability not to create and fulfill life, but to diminish and destroy it. And it exults in what it thinks is its power over life, which is death. How much money, how much power is enough? The will to power is a pathological sickness, that becomes all consuming and insatiable.  And thereby in the excesses it anoints its angels of death.

Be on your guard always, and do not allow yourselves to be among those simple ones who will be taken in during the dark times, as the love of many grows cold. Stand firmly, but humbly, to the end. And you will have your greatness.

"Do you desire to be great? make yourselves little. There is a mysterious connexion between real advancement and self-abasement. If you minister to the humble and despised, if you feed the hungry, tend the sick, succour the distressed; if you bear with the froward, submit to insult, endure ingratitude, render good for evil, you are, as by a divine charm, getting power over the world and rising among the creatures. God has established this law. Thus He does His wonderful works.

His instruments are poor and despised; the world hardly knows their names, or not at all. They are busied about what the world thinks petty actions, and no one minds them. They are apparently set on no great works; nothing is seen to come of what they do: they seem to fail. Nay, even as regards religious objects which they themselves profess to desire, there is no natural and visible connexion between their doings and sufferings and these desirable ends; but there is an unseen connexion in the kingdom of God. They rise by falling...

Let this be the settled view of all who would promote Christ's cause upon earth. If we are true to ourselves, nothing can really thwart us. Our warfare is not with carnal weapons, but with heavenly. The world does not understand what our real power is, and where it lies. And until we put ourselves into its hands of our own act, it can do nothing against us. Till we leave off patience, meekness, purity, resignation, and peace, it can do nothing against that Truth which is our birthright, that Cause which is ours, as it has been the cause of all saints before us.

But let all who would labour for God in a dark time beware of any thing which ruffles, excites, and in any way withdraws them from the love of God and Christ, and simple obedience to Him...

Such is the rule of our warfare We advance by yielding; we rise by falling; we conquer by suffering; we persuade by silence; we become rich by bountifulness ; we inherit the earth through meekness; we gain comfort through mourning; we earn glory by penitence and prayer. Heaven and earth shall sooner fall than this rule be reversed; it is the law of Christ's kingdom, and nothing can reverse it but sin."

John Henry Newman

" ...if I can help somebody as I pass along, If I can cheer somebody with a word or song, if I can show somebody he's travelling wrong, then my living will not be in vain."

Martin Luther King