Obama Has Perfected The Art of Buck Duck!

Just learned Obama's favorite rapper is Snoop Dog!
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When Obama sent back Churchill's Bust he must have misplaced Truman's "The Buck Stops Here" plaque.  (See 1 and 1a  below.)

Ah, but Obama has finally decided it was time to help arm  pro-American Syrian rebels  so they will not continue to be slaughtered or defeated by Assad.

This means Obama and Putin are now at opposite ends of the pole so when they meet in the next few days it will be interesting to see Obama's reaction having already told Putin, indirectly,  to wait til he was re-elected so he could be more flexible. I suspect the re-set button  has been broken since day one.

I also suspect Obama is now a day late and many weapons short. He has no cohesive plan and now that his red line was crossed his response seems more political than strategic and typically weak.

There are those who legitimately claim we have no strategic interest in the Syrian Civil War and if it were not for the fact that Iran is helping Syria, while Russia is standing in the wings, I might agree.  The real enemy is Iran.  The real threat still comes from Iran. We have nothing comprehensive vis a vis Iran so whatever allies we once had in The Middle East, they must be shaking their heads, scared out of their Mosques and expecting their own regime days are soon to be threatened. (See1b below.)

Meanwhile, it is obvious Obama continues confused.  The comments recently from former Amb. Bolton and President Clinton were scathingly accurate.  Bolton asked why should we be surprised since  we elected a community organizer to do a president's job and Clinton suggested Obama was a wuss.

Even middle roaders and millennials are deserting Obama. (See 1c below.)
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Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, may accomplish two things given the opportunity.

a)  He might force members of his own party to get realistic and understand the totality of our debt and the implications of same. and  b) He might finally be able to force the White House to also get realistic in debating what must be done to cover the growing and ominous shortfall longer term unfunded   entitlements are causing.

Kim Strassel points out, in an important op ed piece,  politicians generally  debate from their own mathematical comfort zone and historically ignore reality so they can have their way in fiscal matters.

Obama is one of the most egregious in regard to making the math  say what he wants.  Sen. Johnson takes the position that you have to tackle the entire long term deficit consequences to derive a practical solution.

More evidence of how politicians structure indexes which do not reveal the truth is exemplified by the inflation index. Based on what we are being told inflation is low but that is because the index does not capture food and fuel costs.  If you do not eat and have no job or take a vacation you are not impacted but I assume most people do eat and some even work.

Realism and intellectual honesty are in short supply in Disney East. Sen. Johnson is making a valiant effort to correct this abuse.  Good luck Senator! (See 2, 2a,  2b and 2c below.)
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The drip, drip,drip of the various scandals are beginning to not only let the air out of Obama's popularity balloon domestically  but they also will eventually undercut his credibility in dealing with the rest of the world, as if he ever had any after his first year in office.

Perhaps it is time to re-read Ed Klein's "Amateur." (See 3 and 3a below.)
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Dick
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1)The Buck Never Reaches Obama
By David Limbaugh


The Obama administration's handling of its multiple scandals paints a picture of those who believe they are above the law. There's a pattern of arrogance, dismissiveness, denial, scapegoating, stonewalling, lying, false professions of ignorance, assurances of accountability and punishing whistle-blowers.

The numerous parallels in the administration's handling of the Fast and Furious and Internal Revenue Service scandals alone are too striking to be coincidental. The recurring theme is that the buck never stops at the Obama White House.

With Fast and Furious, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives adopted an ill-conceived, indefensible plan to deliberately walk guns into Mexico with the hope that they would end up at scenes of crimes perpetrated by Mexican drug lords and thus lead to their arrests.

Under the plan, ATF agents were instructed to reject their training and not follow the weapons but wait until after crimes had been committed and people had been injured or killed with the weapons and then try to link them to the drug lords.

When the murder of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry led to the outing of this operation, everyone in the administration denied knowledge and approval of it.

The Department of Justice blamed U.S. attorneys and "rogue" ATF agents, though they are under the DOJ umbrella anyway. The ATF blamed Main Justice. The White House professed total ignorance, despite evidence that a key presidential aide had been directly informed. In fact, top Justice Department officials had to have been aware of the details of the operation through detailed wiretap affidavits they were required to approve. Emails further prove their knowledge, as well.

The administration claimed Fast and Furious was just a continuation of Operation Wide Receiver, a gun-walking operation that had begun under President George W. Bush. But that operation had been discontinued, and it differed from Fast and Furious in at least four significant ways.

Wide Receiver involved "controlled delivery." The agents would follow the weapons and seize them before they went into Mexico. In Wide Receiver, the Mexican authorities were fully apprised of the operation and cooperated with the ATF on interdiction, whereas with Fast and Furious, they were deceived and kept in the dark. Wide Receiver was on a much smaller scale. Maybe one-fourth the weapons were involved. And when weapons got away in Wide Receiver, the program was immediately discontinued, unlike with Fast and Furious.

Attorney General Eric Holder denied being behind Fast and Furious but was caught red-handed lying to Congress about when he found out about it. In May, he told Congress he'd learned about it just a couple of weeks before, yet he had received emails and memos some months earlier detailing the operation. He then claimed he had neither read nor been briefed about those emails. Even if true, this is wholly unacceptable nonfeasance for which he not only did not apologize but indignantly faced down his congressional inquisitors as if they were the ones at fault.

Top officials in the Justice Department, including Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, were caught lying in a Feb. 4, 2011, letter to Sen. Charles Grassley, in which they claimed the "ATF makes every effort to interdict weapons that have been purchased illegally and prevent their transportation into Mexico." On the very day Breuer approved of that letter, he was trying to convince Mexican authorities, who had previously been kept in the dark, that gun walking was a good idea. Under questioning from Rep. Trey Gowdy, Holder refused to admit the letter was "demonstrably and materially false" and said only that it "contained inaccuracies."

When Congress tried to get to the bottom of the scandal, which resulted in not only Terry's death but the injury or death of 200 Mexicans and the commission of 11 violent crimes in the United States involving 57 Fast and Furious weapons, Holder stonewalled. He used a concurrent investigation by the inspector general as an excuse to withhold from Congress some 74,000 documents concerning the matter. To protect Holder and fortify his stone wall, the most transparent president, Barack Obama, invoked executive privilege.

Fast-forward to the IRS scandal and compare the administration's reaction. In both scandals:

--Holder lied and then lied about his lying.

--The administration investigated itself and stonewalled congressional investigators.

--The administration denied culpability and knowledge and blamed the wrongdoing on rogue employees -- in Phoenix and Cincinnati, respectively.

--The administration blamed Bush. With Fast and Furious, Wide Receiver was the culprit. With the IRS scandal, it was the fault of a Bush appointee.

--Obama expressed shock and varying levels of outrage, promised to bring to account those responsible and then proceeded to do the opposite.

--Congressional Democrats obstructed and ran interference for the administration.

--Obama did his best to shield those accountable, rewarding the wrongdoers and, in some cases, punishing the whistle-blowers.

Congress must not be deterred by the administration's evasions. It must turn up the heat and be just as persistent in demanding accountability as the administration is in dodging it.

1a)Is it Still 1984?

By J.T. Hatter

Which of the latest Obama scandals annoys you the most? Me, I haven't gotten over Obamacare yet. Or the Sandy Hook attack on the Second Amendment. But lately my money's on the Big Brother scandal. That bothers me a lot. It's 2013 and we're sliding back to 1984. Big Brother Obama is watching you. But all of the scandals share a common element. They show the pattern -- the signature -- of how this administration operates. And I wonder how many people have picked up on it yet.

Obama told us the September 11, 2012 attack on the Benghazi "diplomatic mission" was caused by an amateurish anti-Muslim video on YouTube. We found out later the video had only been viewed a few dozen times in the two and a half months it was on the internet.

Obama told us Ambassador Stevens was on a diplomatic mission to review plans for a new cultural center for Benghazi. But whistleblowers report it was actually a bungled arms deal, another Fast and Furious. And this time Islamic extremists got the weapons, which include Stinger portable surface-to-air missiles. If so, there isn't a passenger jet in the world that is safe from them.

Obama went before the United Nations on September 25 and told the world that, "The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam." At the time he was still peddling the YouTube video cover-up story. It was a dazzling performance. Millions fell for it.

Obama's IRS told us the political targeting of patriotic and Tea Party nonprofits was an isolated operation by two "rogue" "low-level" employees in the Cincinnati office. Then they told us the targeting wasn't politically motivated. Only we find out the IRS political targeting was a nation-wide operation that has been going on for years, and that a senior-level IRS task force ran the program from Washington, D.C. Our money is on Valerie Jarrett and Obama pulling the strings from the Oval Office.

"Nobody is listening to your telephone calls. That's not what this program's about."

Obama told us not to worry about government snooping into every aspect of our private lives. But then we find out there's a great deal to worry about, because Big Brother is monitoring the mail, email, phone calls, business transactions, and web use of every single citizen in the Land of Liberty. We discover that the NSA PRISM program monitors and records communications and user data from Apple, Google, Yahoo!, Facebook, Microsoft, Skype, Gmail, Hotmail, AOL, YouTube, and about fifty other companies. We learned that "They quite literally can watch your ideas form as you type." Big Brother is watching you. Right now. Under Obama, 2013 is 1984.

We live in a nation whose Supreme Court ruled that abortion is Constitutionally protected because women have a right to privacy. If privacy is so important that children can be legally killed to protect it, then how in the world can the Obama administration deprive us of all that we have?

Obama mandated that the IRS administer some of the most important elements of ObamaCare. The IRS will punish us if we do not comply. ObamaCare isn't about health care. It's about government control. It's about instituting socialism. When Senator Cornyn discovered that the IRS official in charge of the political targeting of patriotic nonprofits, Sarah Hall Ingram, was now responsible for administering IRS control over ObamaCare, he said,

"Now more than ever, we need to prevent the IRS from having any role in Americans' health carre. I do not support Obamacare, and after the events of last week, I cannot support giving the IRS any more responsibility or taxpayer dollars to implement a broken law."

Obama told Ohio State University graduates to "reject these voices" that warn of government encroachment on personal privacy, civil liberties and freedom. Obama tells us to trust him. Everything will be okay. Trust Obama? He recently said,

"You know, when I came into this office, I made two commitments that are more than any commitment I make: number one, to keep the American people safe; and number two, to uphold the Constitution. And that includes what I consider to be a constitutional right to privacy and an observance of civil liberties."

Paul Jacob of Townhall.com found the statement to be as laughable as most of us do. "You don't trust President Barack Obama?" he said in his article, "Be advised: President Obama finds "your lack of faith disturbing." Darth Vader would be proud. This Orwellian doublespeak is worthy of the man who singlehandedly constitutes the greatest threat ever to the American people's freedom, liberty, and Constitutional rights.

The common element to all these scandals is the administration's constant, deliberate, and arrogant pattern of deception. The goal? Clearly it is to undermine the Constitution and the rule of law to advance his socialist agenda.

From the attack on the First Amendment via Associated Press wiretaps and criminal conspiracy charges against Fox reporter James Rosen, to the Sandy Hook child massacre attack on the Second Amendment, we now have Obama and his progressive ilk going after every American's Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights to protection against unreasonable search and seizure and due process. The cover ruse for these attacks is Islamic terrorism. Or as the administration terms it: man-caused disasters. Trust Obama?

In the same speech, Obama brought up the very question his policies and actions have raised in the minds of all clear-headed Americans,

"If people can't trust not only the executive branch, but also don't trust Congress and don't trust federal judges to make sure we're abiding by the Constitution, due process, and rule of law, then we're going to have some problems here."

It is a question of trust. At this point few Americans trust their government and many fear it. This administration has established a pattern of deception aimed at undermining the Constitution and rule of law. How can there be trust when we are surrounded by so much deception?

Yes, we're going to have some problems here.

JT Hatter is the author of Lost in Zombieland: The Rise of President Zero, a political satire on the Obama administration. JT can be reached at jt@jthatter.com.


1b) Israeli Minister: Iran Building 'Arsenal' of Nukes

A high-ranking Israeli official asserts that the world is still underestimating Iran's potential nuclear threat and warns that Tehran goal's is not simply to build a weapon, but to produce dozens of nukes annually.

"We must speak of an Iranian nuclear arsenal, not just a bomb," Israeli International Relations Minister Yuval Steinitz said in a speech at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

"If they get the bomb, they will get many nuclear bombs."

Steinitz said Iran poses a much greater threat than North Korea: "North Korea has local ambitions, but Iranian ambitions are global. Iranian leaders are speaking about a changing balance of power between Islam and the Western world, of a new era of global Islamic hegemony."

Steinitz said Iran's nuclear industry is already bigger than that of North Korea and Pakistan, "and if indeed the Iranians reached their objective of spinning some 54,000 centrifuges at the Natanz nuclear facility, that alone would allow them to create the fissile material needed for 20-30 bombs per year," the Jerusalem Post reported.

Tehran's ultimate goal, Steinitz added, is to build "hundreds of nuclear bombs in a decade or two," a development that would change the course of "global history."

The minister also expressed concern over Russia's deal to sell S-300 air-defense systems to Syria, warning that they could wind up in the hands of Hezbollah and could be transferred to Iran.

1c)CNN Poll: Majority Doesn't Trust Obama, Approval Rating Suffers Severe Drop


President Barack Obama’s approval rating dropped a shocking 8 percentage points over the last month -- one of sharpest, fastest plunges in his presidency, according to a new CNN poll released early Monday morning.

For the first time in Obama's time in office,  more than half of the public doesn’t feel that the president is honest and trustworthy, the CNN/ORC International poll showed.

Specifically, Obama's approval rating stands at 45 percent, down from 53 percent in mid-May, CNN reported. A shocking 54 percent of respondents told pollsters they disapprove of how Obama is handling his job. That was up 9 points in just a month. 

It's the first time in CNN polling since November 2011 that a majority of Americans have had a negative view of the president, CNN reported.

The severe drop in Obama's approval rating was fueled by a sharp 17-point drop among Americans under 30, according to the poll. That's particularly discouraging heading into 2014 because Democrats have felt they have a lock on the youth vote after the 2012 elections.

"The drop in Obama's support is fueled by a dramatic 17-point decline over the past month among people under 30, who, along with black Americans, had been the most loyal part of the Obama coalition," CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said.

The president also dropped 10 points among independent voters, from 47 percent last month to 37 percent. Obama's disapproval among independents jumped 12 points to 61 percent. Again, more bad news for Democrats because those independents are especially important in mid-term elections in which older, more conservative Americans predominate.

The network pointed to several major scandals as evidence for the drop. 

"The White House has been under siege over telephone and Internet surveillance, the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative groups, its handling of the terror attack on the U.S. consular post in Benghazi, Libya, and the Justice Department's collecting journalists' phone records as part of the government's investigation into leaks of classified information," CNN reported.

"It is clear that revelations about NSA surveillance programs have damaged Obama's standing with the public, although older controversies like the IRS matter may have begun to take their toll as well," Holland told the network.

The poll also found:

• A slight majority disapproves of the actions of the man who leaked the NSA documents. A majority of respondents also believe Edward Snowden, who fled to Hong Kong, should be brought back to the United States and prosecuted.
• Six in 10 disapprove of how Obama is handling government surveillance of U.S. citizens. That's higher than the 52 percent who disapproved of George W. Bush on the same issue in 2006, when government surveillance was also in the headlines.
• Obama's approval rating on terrorism, although still above 50 percent, has taken a 13-point hit since mid-May.
• The president's approval rating on domestic issues like the economy, immigration and the deficit dropped by 2 to 4 points, within the poll's sampling error.

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2)

Rebooting the Budget Talks

Republican senators insist that Democrats admit there is a problem before talking about fixes.

By Kim Strassel

Step No. 1 in any recovery program is admitting a problem. Think of this week's reboot in budget talks as a Republican effort to push Democrats into rehab.

White House officials and GOP senators met quietly this week to talk budgets. The discussions were vastly different from those in the past. The GOP, with a lead from Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, is demanding that before anybody talks fixes, both sides first admit there's a problem.

"This is all about forcing the reality of just how big the hole gets," says Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn, one of a dozen Republicans who met on Tuesday with White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and other officials.

If this seems simple, even obvious, you don't live in Washington. For years, the parties have been sparring over budget "solutions": higher tax rates, caps on spending, "chain-weighted CPI," closing "loopholes." The fisticuffs continued despite the fact that no one has ever had a debate—much less agreed—on how mammoth federal liabilities will be in the out years.

That neglect has been a gift to Democrats, allowing them to talk only within the coming 10-year budget window—the period before entitlement programs go nuclear. The White House gets to claim it is committed to preserving Social Security and Medicare, as the president offers token adjustments to make the programs look better in the near-term. To this day, Mr. Obama insists we need a mere $1.5 trillion more in deficit reduction (for a supposed grand total of $4 trillion) to make everything hunky-dory.

 This math myopia led Mr. Johnson, the businessman-accountant elected in 2010, to dig into official figures and projections and produce an eye-popping slide show that is now making the Washington rounds. The Johnson figures, which I obtained, present two (modest) scenarios.

The first, which assumes our current path of spending grows by population plus inflation (an unheard-of restraint), shows the U.S. government shelling out $72 trillion more than it takes in by 2043, pushing debt up to 140% of GDP. The second, which assumes that mandatory and defense spending instead grow at their 20-year average percentage of GDP, puts the country $107 trillion in the hole in 30 years.

"I'm happy to talk about solutions, but only after we've defined this," says Mr. Johnson, when I called to ask about his effort. "Let's agree on how big it is. Then we can plug in fixes and see how much of the problem each one solves. This effort is about finally telling the American people the truth."

Mr. Johnson's figures expose how paltry are the entitlement fixes most in vogue. Take "chain CPI," Mr. Obama's supposed enormous concession to use a more accurate measure of inflation to slow the growth of Social Security benefits. Even a full-blown version of chain CPI (which Mr. Obama is not endorsing) would trim, according to the score from the Social Security trustees' 2012 report, about $2 trillion off a projected $10.5 trillion Social Security deficit over 30 years. And the other $8.5 trillion?

Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, who has pushed for a deficit-reduction plan, ran his own list of the "toughest bipartisan proposals" for reforming Social Security and Medicare against the Johnson numbers. He found that they shaved $13 trillion off the $72 trillion figure. "As tough as these measures are, they still aren't enough," Mr. Corker told me. "Ron's charts are illuminating."

The White House isn't thrilled with this change in emphasis. The president's team came to Tuesday's meeting with their own charts, which focused only on 30-year projections of debt-to-GDP ratios.

Their calculations were far rosier than Mr. Johnson's. Somebody's methodology is funky. The next step is agreeing on assumptions.

Politically that would be big, as it could help smoke out Democrats. Mr. Obama will occasionally murmur that entitlements are a concern, even as he raps the GOP for wanting to kill granny. Forcing Democrats to acknowledge the entitlement danger makes that strategy harder. It also potentially increases the GOP's negotiating leverage if it can carry its message to the public and gain support for more dramatic action.

The bigger political value may be on the GOP side, since Mr. Johnson's numbers are giving Republicans some common ground at a moment of potential anarchy. The president is clearly looking to pick off a handful of GOP senators for a "big deal" that encompasses more tax hikes. The Johnson numbers are reminding Republicans that the president's "big deal" is piddling in the only area that matters: entitlements. That could help unify them going forward.

This could help Republicans—if they remember the point of this exercise. The fear among some in the GOP is that even if the White House can be pushed to acknowledge big numbers, Mr. Obama will use them to argue for even bigger tax hikes. The president's definition of "balance" is always to demand the parties split the difference. Yet no matter what ratio of cuts-for-taxes Mr. Obama offers, it swings government spending as a percentage of GDP vastly higher than the historic average of 20%.

So while illuminating the 30-year problem is important, so too is framing it. In whatever budget debate comes, the GOP also needs to be illustrating another obvious point: that unsustainable entitlement programs are responsible for this fiscal hole—not a lack of tax revenue. The Johnson numbers could be a potent tool, if used well.

2a)Foreigners Flee From US Government Bonds in April, Treasury Says

Foreign investors dumped U.S. government debt in April and were net sellers of all long-dated U.S. securities for the third consecutive month, the U.S. Treasury said on Friday.

Selling was heavily concentrated in Treasury bonds and notes, with overseas investors unloading $54.5 billion, the first net outflow in seven months. Private investors alone sold $30.8 billion - the largest one-month outflow on record.

Overall, foreigners sold $37.3 billion in long-term U.S. securities, the largest outflow in at least three years. March's outflow was revised slightly to $13.4 billion.

"Demand for U.S. securities was much weaker in April," said Gennadiy Goldberg, U.S. strategist at TD Securities. He said the scope of Treasury sales was "somewhat surprising given the fresh bout of European uncertainty observed in the month," referring to a European Union rescue of Cypriot banks.

Official investors, including central banks, were also net Treasury sellers in April. China, the largest foreign U.S. creditor, slashed its holdings by $5.4 billion to $1.265 trillion. Japan sold $14 billion, leaving its total holdings at $1.114 trillion.

However, foreigners bought $23 billion of debt issued or guaranteed by the biggest U.S. mortgage financing agencies, including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Goldberg said that suggests "some foreign accounts may have been repositioning into agency securities in a reach for yield."

Indeed, the yield on 10-year benchmark Treasury notes fell as low as 1.67 percent in April as markets worried about the strengths of the U.S. recovery and fears that Cyprus' problems could worsen the euro zone's debt crisis.

"Somebody was buying (Treasurys) and I don't think it was the Fed alone," Goldberg said. "Some of it was a domestic flight to safety."

U.S. equities remained in demand in April, with foreigners snapping up $11.2 billion after buying $6.8 billion in March.

Including short-dated assets such as bills, overseas investors bought $12.7 billion in April compared with $2.1 billion in March.

© 2013 Thomson/Reuters. All rights reserved.


2b) From 1913 to 2013 the dollar has lost 58% of its value!  I have a chart depicting same but am unable to post it but will forward to anyone who is interested.

A Safe Place for Your Cash… OUTSIDE the U.S. Dollar By Dr. Steve Sjuggerud Monday, June 17, 2013

Money flows to where it's treated best… that's one of the surest rules in finance. And it is key to picking currencies. Right now, money is treated better in Canada than in just about any other major country on the globe. And with the setup we have today, you could make as much as 27% over the next 12 months. Let me show you what I mean… Canadian politicians aren't as dumb with their country's money as U.S. politicians are. For example, there's talk in the government of eliminating its deficit by 2015. No politicians in the U.S. are talking about doing that any time soon. Also, while central banks around the world have cut interest rates to near zero, Canada has held interest rates at 1%. One percent doesn't sound like much, but behind Australia, it's the second-highest interest rate among major currencies. In short, Canada is treating money well. The thing is, investors consider the Canadian dollar a "commodity currency." When commodities are strong, the Canadian dollar should be strong. But lately, commodities are down and gold prices have crashed. So everyone expects the Canadian dollar to continue to fall. The chart below tells the story. It shows the "Commitment of Traders" (COT) report. This measures real bets futures traders have on the Canadian dollar, right now. When the blue line is high, traders are bullish… When it's low, traders are bearish. As you can see, the Canadian dollar is hated today. It has only been more hated once in its history… in 2007. From trough to peak in 2007, the Canadian dollar soared against the U.S. dollar… Everyone is betting against the Canadian dollar… And historically, when you reach points like this – when there's nobody left to be against a currency like this – then it goes up in value. In my True Wealth newsletter, we're taking this bet… I recommended buying the Canadian dollar through the stock market… by buying the CurrencyShares Canadian Dollar Trust (FXC). As I write, FXC is at around $98. Its two-year low is around $94. We can limit our risk to just 3.8% by using $94 as our stop loss. Compared to that, our upside potential is great… The last time we saw this setup, the Canadian dollar soared 27% in less than a year. We could see a similar return this time around. Heck, I'd be happy to take a 15% gain in less than a year here. Even with 15%, the "reward-to-risk" ratio on this trade is fantastic… 15% upside with 3.8% downside. That is a 4-to-1 reward-to-risk ratio. That's excellent! Now is a great moment to get some of your money outside of U.S. dollars. And shares of FXC are an easy way to make the trade. The timing is perfect: Canada is treating money well. And it's as hated now as it was at its low in 2007. Our odds are about as good as they get in the financial markets… It's time to buy. Good investing, Steve 2c)Jim Rogers Shy on Stocks and Gold, High on Sugar Investor Jim Rogers said he’s not optimistic on global stocks, given central bank stimulus measures are providing an "artificial" boost to prices. "Quantitative easing is going to end," Rogers, chairman of Singapore-based Rogers Holdings, said in an interview in Kuala Lumpur Thursday. "Either the central bankers are going to wake up to reality and stop this insanity of printing money all over the world or the market is going to say 'we don’t want your paper money' anymore." Equities around the world plunged this month after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said May 22 U.S. policy makers could scale back debt purchases that have driven demand for higher-yielding assets. The Bank of Japan refrained from adding to its stimulus this week, contributing to a 3.4 percent slide in the Nikkei 225 Stock Average. The MSCI World Index dropped 1.4 percent. Rogers said he sold Japanese shares in May. He's buying the euro and Swiss franc, and selling U.S. and Australian dollars given the European Central Bank is printing less money than its major counterparts. On commodities, Rogers sees opportunities in items with "depressed" prices, such as sugar. Sugar has dropped 14.6 percent this year to 16.61 cents per pound, data compiled by Bloomberg show. In comparison, the Standard & Poor’s GSCI Agriculture Index of eight commodities declined 11.2 percent in 2013. Depressed Prices Rogers, speaking at a conference in Kuala Lumpur earlier Thursday, said he wasn't buying gold yet, as the market needed a correction and hasn't reached a firm bottom. Bullion has lost 17 percent in 2013, with prices reaching a two-year low of $1,321.95 on April 16 after rallying for the past 12 years in the longest bull run in at least nine decades. "I would start by looking at things that are depressed rather than things that are going through the roof," Rogers said in the interview. The World Bank lowered its 2013 global growth forecast to 2.2 percent from 2.4 percent Wednesday, saying a "recovery remains hesitant and uneven." Bernanke said stimulus could be reduced if the jobs market shows signs of sustained improvement. Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser has called for tapering of the bond purchases as soon as the central bank's next meeting on June 18-19. The South African rand, Brazilian real, Mexican peso and Australian dollar are leading declines among the world's major currencies in the last month, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The yen, Swiss franc and euro are the best performers. The Asia Dollar Index, which tracks the greenback against six major counterparts, fell 0.3 percent Thursday and is down 1.2 percent since June 7. The yen rallied to its strongest level in two months Thursday. “I’m looking around for another currency, another place to put money,” Rogers said. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3)ALERT: Have you seen the latest joke that's being passed around, all over the Internet? It's called "The 'Who's On First?' Routine As Told By The Obama White House", and it goes like this: Bob: "Did you hear about the Obama administration scandal?" Jim: "You mean the Mexican gun running?" Bob: "No, the other one." Jim: "You mean SEAL Team 6 Extortion 17?" Bob: "No, the other one." Jim: "You mean the State Dept. Lying about Benghazi?" Bob: "No, the other one." Jim: "You mean the voter fraud?" Bob: "No, the other one." Jim: "You mean the military not getting their votes counted?" Bob: "No, the other one." Jim: "You mean the president demoralizing and breaking down the military?" Bob: "No, the other one." Jim: "You mean the Boston Bombing?" Bob: "No, the other one." Jim: "You mean the president wanting to kill Americans with drones in our own country without the benefit of the law?" Bob: "No, the other one." Jim: "You mean the president arming the Muslim Brotherhood?" Bob: "No, the other one." Jim: "The IRS targeting conservatives?" Bob: "No, the other one." Jim: "The DOJ spying on the press?" Bob: "No, the other one." Jim: "Sebelius shaking down health insurance executives?" Bob: "No, the other one." Jim: "The NSA monitoring our phone calls, e-mails and everything else?" Bob: "No, the other one." Jim: "The president's ordering the release of nearly 10,000 illegal immigrants from jails and prisons and falsely blaming the sequester?" Bob: "No, the other one." Jim: "The president's threat to impose gun control by Executive Order in order to bypass Congress?" Bob: "No, the other one." Jim: "The president's repeated violation of the law requiring him to submit a budget no later than the first Monday in February?" Bob: "No, the other one." Jim: "The president's unconstitutional recess appointments in an attempt to circumvent the Senate's advise-and-consent role?" Bob: "No, the other one." Jim: "The State Department interfering with an Inspector General investigation on departmental sexual misconduct?" Bob: "No, the other one." Jim: "HHS employees being given insider information on Medicare Advantage?" Bob: "No, the other one." Jim: "Clinton, the IRS, Clapper and Holder all lying to Congress?" Bob: "No, the other one." Jim: "I give up! ... Oh wait, I think I got it! You mean that 65 million low-information voters stuck us again with the most corrupt administration in American history?" Bob: "THAT'S THE ONE!" 3a)President Obama Continues to Fail as CEO By Peter Morici  President Obama is failing as CEO of the U.S. government. His appointment of Susan Rice to be his top national security advisor and other missteps indicate he views the fallout from recent scandals as a political challenge, rather than a management failure. Nothing could be less true or more damaging. Revelations about the IRS targeting conservative groups, the Justice Department broadly searching the emails of journalists and recent revelations indicate systemic management dysfunctions and a culture of contempt for the protections of individual rights and the limits on the executive power required by the Constitution. His stockholders — the American people — are rapidly losing confidence in his management. In a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, 55 percent of respondents said IRS targeting of conservative groups raised doubts about the broader honesty and integrity of his administration. Yet, Obama is behaving as if all the turmoil on Capitol Hill and the media come down to Republican gaming in preparation for the 2014 congressional elections. By appointing Rice, who misled Americans into believing the murder of U.S. diplomats in Benghazi was the result of spontaneous street demonstrations when the State Department simply knew otherwise, as National Security Advisor, he is challenging the GOP to stop him if they can, instead of committing to get to the root of recent scandals and fixing what is broke. Similarly, the president sent up three very liberal nominations for the pivotal D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, where the constitutionality of many presidential actions is determined. The plan, crafted with Democratic senators, is to force their Republican colleagues into blocking those appointments, make the GOP appear obstructionist and distract attention from all the scandals. At the heart of Obama's problems is his aloof style, impatience with critiques and disdain for the rules of the game. For example, in a clear disregard for the separation of powers, his administration is training Democratic members of Congress and their staff to help sign up constituents for health insurance under Obamacare. Wrong on two counts: signing up Americans is clearly an Executive Branch responsibility, which should be kept out of the hands of politicians, and it appears Americans who have Democratic representatives are more entitled to government benefits than are those who vote Republican. Similarly, we learn that Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., specifically asked the IRS to investigate conservative groups in 2010, which led to terrible harassment. Yet, the president has not encouraged his Democratic colleagues to better discipline their more visceral political instincts. Over and over again, the president has demonstrated by word and action an attitude of whatever it takes to move forward his progressive agenda. In the federal agencies and on Capitol Hill, this cultivates impatience and disregard for thoughtful people who have honest disagreements with him and their constitutional rights. Now his second-term agenda is threatened by growing distrust and lack of confidence in the honesty and fundamental integrity of his administration, and with more than three years remaining, that is a terribly dangerous brew. Any good CEO would root out the abuses at the IRS, Justice Department and elsewhere, put in place reasonable standards of performance and expectations for the use of managerial discretion and establish mechanisms to both evaluate managers' performance and insulate them from inappropriate outside interference — for the IRS, the likes of Durbin. To win back the confidence of all Americans, the president must forthrightly take responsibility for government agency missteps and abuses and explain what he is doing to fix them — this is no time to lead from behind. Instead the president continues to treat the multiplying crises and escalating concerns about his leadership as a political game — this to the great peril of our liberties, security and ultimately the legitimacy of our Republic.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------