Mass Media
Survey of Broadcasting: Assignment 2: Question 6. Describe and define one theory about media impact.
Three theories concerning the effects or impact of mass media have evolved over time:
- Hypodermic Needle Theory: an early theory that posits that mass communications messages would have a strong and predictable effect on an audience member. The theory held that all people would more or less have the same reaction to a mass communication message.
- Limited-Effects Theory: a latter theory that posits that media have few direct and meaningful effects on the audience because of a variety of intervening variables. A mass communication message would have little impact.
- Specific-Effects Theory: a recent theory that posits that there are certain circumstances under which some types of media will have a significant effect on some audience members.
The hypodermic needle theory was given much credence due to the apparent success of propaganda before and after World War I and the fact that many people believed the radio show War of the Worlds was in fact reality and the success of Dr. Brinkley’s radio show selling patent medicines and cures for various aliments.
However, by the mid-1940s the hypodermic needle theory’s assumptions were called into question by experimental and survey research.
The limited effects theory focused on persuasion and political campaigns. Mass communication messages first influenced people known as opinion leaders and then flowed on to the rest of the audience. Research posited that media’s influenced people known as opinion leaders and then flowed on to the rest of the audience.
Research posited that media’s influence or impact was first filtered through a strainer of intervening variables, such as a person’s knowledge and beliefs and the influence of family, friends and peer groups. According to the limited effects theory, mass communications are simply one of many determinants of how an individual behaves.
Joseph Klapper’s book The Effects of Mass Communication summarizes the existing research with the generalization that mass communications does not ordinarily cause audience effects but instead functions primarily to reinforce existing conditions.
Klapper also noted that there are occasions when mass communications could exert a direct effect and where mediating factors reinforce change or when mediating factors are absent.
The mediating factors include the following:
- The exercise of opinion leadership
- The norms of groups to which the audience members belong
- The nature of mass media in a free enterprise economy
- Interpersonal dissemination of the content of communication
- Predispositions and the related processes of selective exposure and selective perception and retention.
Klapper considered that the two main intervening or mediating factors were selective exposure or people’s tendency to expose themselves to those mass communications which are in agreement with their attitudes and interests and
selective perception and retention or people’s inclination to organize the meaning of mass communication messages in accordance with their already existing views.
Most recent research on the impact or effects of mass communications tends to support the specific effects theory. Mass-media communications must compete with many other sources of influence such as family, friends, teachers, ministers and many others.
However, there are circumstances where specific types of media content may have a significant effect on a portion of the audience.
Harold Lasswell described the formula as follows:
- “Who (says) What (to) Whom (in) What Channel (with) What Effect.?”
Bernard Berelson succinctly summarizes the specific-effects theory of communication:
“Some kinds of communication, on some kinds of issues, brought to the attention of some kinds of people, under some kinds of conditions, have some kinds of effects.”
Background Articles and Videos
Mass Communication : The Hypodermic Theory of Mass Communication
Mass Communication : Why Is Persuasion Important in Mass Communication?
Mass Communication : Effects of Technology on Mass Communication
Media Effects
Selective exposure theory
“…Selective exposure theory is a theory of communication, positing that individuals prefer exposure to arguments supporting their position over those supporting other positions. As media consumers have more choices to expose themselves to selected medium and media contents with which they agree, then tend to select content that confirms their own ideas and avoid information that argues against their opinion. People don’t want to be told that they are wrong and they do not want their ideas to be challenged either. Therefore, they select different media outlets that agree with their opinions so they do not come in contact with this form of dissonance. Furthermore, these people will select the media sources that agree with their opinions and attitudes on different subjects and then only follow those programs.
Foundation of theory
Propaganda study
The Evasion of Propaganda
When prejudiced people confront anti-prejudice propaganda involuntarily, even though they might avoid the message from the first time, the process of evasion would occur in their mind. Cooper and Jahoda (1947) studied how the anti-prejudice propaganda can be misunderstood by prejudiced people. When the prejudiced reader confronted the Mr. Biggott cartoon, which contained anti-minority propaganda, their effort to evade their feelings and understand Mr. Biggott’s identification with their own identity would bring about misunderstanding. This kind of evasion occurs because of what individuals often face to accomplish uniformity in everyday life. There is a fear to be isolated from what they belong and also threat for shivering their ego. Therefore, the concept of selective exposure was in the same thread with small effect studies in mass communication in 1940s.
Cognitive dissonance theory
Before the selective exposure theory was put forward, Festinger(1957) published a book, Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, and explained the cognitive dissonance theory, which assumes that all human beings pursue consistency in their mind.
- Basic Hypotheses
- It is a state of mental unease and discomfort which helps explain selective perception. It is produced when new information contradicts existing beliefs, attitudes, social norms, or behaviors.
- Many times people favor consonance because their ideas flow freely into one another and do not create an unbalance. [2]
- The existence of dissonance, being psychologically uncomfortable, will motivate the person to try to reduce the dissonance and achieve consonance.
- When dissonance is present, in addition to trying to reduce it, the person will actively avoid situations and information that would likely increase the dissonance. [3]
Festinger’s cognitive dissonance theory, which was one of the roots of selective exposure, explained people’s effort to reduce their dissonance of something against their existing beliefs. Nonetheless, his theory was broad enough to be elucidated in general social behavior, not just for selecting medium and media contents. Festinger suggested situations that increase dissonance. Firstly, logical inconsistency brings about dissonance. If a person who believes it is not possible to build a device to leave Earth’s atmosphere observes man reach the moon, their belief and experience are dissonant with each other. Secondly, cultural morals entail dissonance. A person picks up a chicken bone with their hands, and it is dissonant with what they believe is formal etiquette. At this point, culture defines what is consonant and what is dissonant. Thirdly, if specific opinion is included in a more general opinion, dissonance should be followed. A person, who has been Democrat, prefers Republican candidates for certain election. This situation creates dissonance, because “Being a Democrat” needs to be attributed to favoring Democratic candidates. Lastly, past experience causes dissonance. If a person is standing in the rain, but is not wet, these two cognitions would be dissonant, because they might know standing in the rain leads to getting wet through past experience. Festinger (1957) also suggests the ways of reducing dissonance. For reducing dissonance, one may change a behavioral cognitive element or change an environmental cognitive element. However, sometimes, behavior change and environmental change do not help reducing dissonance. Festinger, then, suggested adding new cognitive elements. If people cannot reduce dissonance, they might seek new information, which is consonant with their beliefs or attitude; therefore, people might actively seek new information that would decrease dissonance and avoid new information that would increase dissonance. This third explanation of reducing dissonance is similar with selective exposure, which mass communication reinforces the existing opinion.
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- Another example of the Cognitive Dissonance Theory can be found in the article entitled, “Theories of Persuasion,” by Daniel J. O’Keefe. It describes the different theories of persuasion and how media outlets use them to their advantage to influence their audience. The author’s example is that people donate to the Red Cross because they believe in what it stands for which represents consonance. However, on the other hand, the author suggests that a person who smokes and also believes it causes cancer, would be an example of dissonance and hypocrisy. Many times people try to sway against dissonance because it puts them in an uncomfortable position. Therefore, these feelings of consonance and dissonance lead to the “Selective Exposure Theory” because some believe that people will select the media sources that agree with their opinions and attitudes on different subjects and then only follow those programs. [4]
Klapper’s selective exposure
Joseph Klapper (1960) considered mass communication do not directly influence people, but just reinforce people’s predisposition. Mass communications play a role as a mediator in persuasive communication.
- Klapper’s five mediating factors and conditions to affect people
- Predispositions and the related processes of selective exposure, selective perception, and selective retention.
- The groups, and the norms of groups, to which the audience members belong.
- Interpersonal dissemination of the content of communication
- The exercise of opinion leadership
- The nature of mass media in a free enterprise society. [5]
- Three basic concepts
- Selective exposure – people keep away from communication of opposite hue.
- Selective Perception – If people are confronting unsympathetic material, they do not perceive it, or make it fit for their existing opinion.
- Selective retention – Furthermore, they just simply forget the unsympathetic material.
Groups and group norms work as a mediator. For example, one can be strongly disinclined to change to the Democratic Party if their family has voted for Republican for a long time. In this case, the person’s predisposition to the political party is already set, so they don’t perceive information about Democratic Party or change voting behavior because of mass communication. Klapper’s third assumption is inter-personal dissemination of mass communication. If someone is already exposed by close friends, which creates predisposition toward something, it will lead increase of exposure to mass communication and eventually reinforce the existing opinion. Opinion leader is also a crucial factor to form predisposition of someone, lead someone to be exposed by mass communication, and after all, existing opinion would be reinforced. Nature of commercial mass media also leads people to select certain type of media contents. Klapper (1960) claimed that people are selecting entertainment, such as family comedy, variety shows, quizzes, and Westerns, because of nature of mass media in a free enterprise society.
Selective exposure in entertainment theory perspective
Selective exposure is an instinctive activity of human beings. Early human beings needed to be sensitive to the sounds of animals. This kind of exposure was closely related with their survival from an external threat. Survival is still a very crucial matter for human beings; however, selective exposure is also important for human beings for other purposes, such as entertainment.
“Selective exposure designates behavior that is deliberately performed to attain and sustain perceptual control of particular stimulus events.”
Affective-dependent theory of stimulus arrangement
Zillmann and Bryant (1985) developed affective-dependent theory of stimulus arrangement in the chapter of their edited book, Selective exposure to communication.
- Basic Assumptions
- people tend to minimize exposure to negative, aversive stimuli
- people tend to maximize exposure to pleasurable stimuli.
After all, people try to arrange the external stimuli to maintain their pleasure, which ultimately let people select certain affect-inducing program, such as music, movie, or other entertainment program. In other words, people manage their mood by selecting certain kind of entertainment to exposure themselves; mood management theory was also rooted by this affective-dependent theory.
Furthermore, people will select media based on their moods. An example of this is if a person is happy they would probably select a comedic movie. If they are bored they might choose action and if they are sad they might select tragedy or a depressing romance. These attitudes and moods also convince people to watch different news outlets based on how they feel. People with conservative beliefs tend to watch Fox news and Democrats usually watch MSNBC.
- Examples:
1**A person with liberal beliefs, who comes home from a hard day at work will probably turn on MSNBC. They would not be in the mood to fight with a news station that has conservative beliefs constantly being portrayed. 2**A woman who just broke up with her boyfriend would probably not be in the mood to watch a romantic movie and would therefore tend to pick a movie that falls into the genre of tragedy.
Selective exposure processes in mood management
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- Excitatory Homeostasis – Tendency of individuals to choose entertainment to achieve an optimal level of arousal.
- Intervention Potential – Ability of a message to engage or absorb an aroused individual’s attention or cognitive-processing resources.
- Message-Behavioral Affinity – Communication that has a high degree of similarity with affective state.
- Hedonic Valence – Positive or negative nature of a message. [7]
Critiques
- Possible influence by factors other than a person’s emotional state.
- Difficulty to measure long-term effect.
- Overlook the importance of cognitive processes.
- Not suit for information and education media.
- Possibility that negative stimuli provide enjoyment by overcoming it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_exposure_theory
Harold Lasswell
He is well known for his comment on communications:
- Who (says) What (to) Whom (in) What Channel (with) What Effect
and on politics:
- Politics is who gets what, when, and how.
and on aberrant psychological attributes of leaders in politics and business:
- Psychopathology and Politics
Lasswell studied at the University of Chicago in the 1920s, and was highly influenced by the pragmatism taught there, especially as propounded by John Dewey and George Herbert Mead. More influential, however, was Freudian philosophy, which informed much of his analysis of propaganda and communication in general. During World War II, Lasswell held the position of Chief of the Experimental Division for the Study of War Time Communications at the Library of Congress. He analyzed Nazi propaganda films to identify mechanisms of persuasion used to secure the acquiescence and support of the German populace for Hitler and his wartime atrocities. Always forward-looking, late in his life, Lasswell experimented with questions concerning astropolitics, the political consequences of colonization of other planets, and the “machinehood of humanity.”
Lasswell’s work was important in the post-World War II development of behavioralism.
Major works
- Propaganda Technique in the World War (1927; Reprinted with a new introduction, 1971)
- Psychopathology and Politics, (1930; reprinted, 1986)
- World Politics and Personal Insecurity (1935; Reprinted with a new introduction, 1965)
- Politics: Who Gets What, When, How (1935)
- “The Garrison State” (1941)
- Power and Personality (1948) …”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Lasswell
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Survey of Broadcasting: Assignment 1, Question 2:–Describe the economic and political dynamics that brought about the birth of RCA.–Videos
II. Describe the economic and political dynamics that brought about the birth of RCA.
A hundred years ago radio or the wireless was used as a point-to-point communications device similar to the use of the telegraph and telephone using wires.
Radio waves instead of wires were used primarily in maritime communications to send messages from ship to ship and ship to shore.
British-owned Marconi Company and its subsidiary, Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America, dominated the radio industry and controlled important patents including the Fleming value invented by John Fleming.
Sir John Ambrose Fleming
The Fleming value or vacuum tube consisted of a metal plate and thin wire enclosed in a glass bulb. The device enable the translating of an alternating current, like a radio wave, into direct current that could be detected by a radio receiver.
The challenge was the detection of weak radio signals by radio receivers. Lee De Forest solved this problem by his invention of the audion that amplified weak radio signals. This was accomplished using a modified Fleming value with a tiny wire grid between the wire and the plate. The wire grid acted as an amplifier and boasted weak radio signals millions of times so that radio signals could be easily detected.
Lee De Forest
AT&T Archives: Bottle of Magic
Radio Commentator Jean Shepherd Meets Lee De Forest During WW2
A small bit of Radio History, Lee De Forest Audion, Marconi
De Forest envisioned radio as a broadcasting medium where entertainment and information would be received by a wide audience with radio receivers.
This was in sharp contrast to the then use of radios as wireless telegraphy and telephony or a point-to-point communication device.
The Marconi Company sued De Forest for patent infringement in using the Fleming value.
Faced with legal challenges from both the Marconi Company and the stockholders of his own company, De Forest Radio Telephone Company, De Forest sold his right to the audion to American Telephone & Telegraph or AT&T.
AT&T in turn used the audion to amplify signals in long distant calls.
De Forest continued to manufacture audions to radio hobbyists and manufactured radios or wireless sets for the military in World War I.
General Electric or GE was also interested in radio.
GE held the patent rights to the high-speed alternators that produced electrical current with much higher frequencies than ordinary generators.
These alternators were used as continuous radio-wave generators.
Reginald Fessendon had invented this alternator design and demonstrated that the human voice could be carried by continuous radio waves generated by this transmitter.
Reginald Fessendon
GE had also improved the vacuum tube used in radios.
Westinghouse, a major rival of General Electric, was also interested in radio. Westinghouse had acquired the patent rights to both an improved vacuum tube and the heterodyn radio receiver that was invented by Reginald Fessenden.
Also, Edwin Armstrong had improved the audion by developing a positive feedback regenerative circuit that increased radio wave reception by regeneration amplification.
Edwin Armstrong
RCA Radio Model RC Operation
This RC radio is among one of the first products marketed by RCA in and about 1921. Westinghouse produced this RC radio for RCA. It is a battery set and uses three 01A vacuum tubes. The circuit is Edwin Howard Armstrong first major discovery, the regenerative circuit patented in 1914.
In summary, the patents for radio transmitters and receivers were held by a number of companies and individuals including British Marconi, American Marconi, General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T), Lee De Forest and Edwin Armstrong.
For radio to advance in the future would require the pooling of these patents among economic competitive rivals.
When the United States entered World War I in April 1917, the Federal Government gave the United States Navy the responsibility for all radio operations.
The United States Navy took over all commercial radio stations including forty-five commercial and eight high-powered stations owned and operated by American Marconi.
The Navy also assumed responsibility and full liability for all patent infringement.
Thus companies doing radio research and development were free to pool discoveries to develop a better radio system.
This resulted in better radio transmitters, radio receivers and vacuum tubes when War World I ended in November 1918.
After the war, the United States Navy wanted to retain its control and monopoly over their radio system.
However, public sentiment was against this idea. The Navy then announced it was no longer responsible for patent infringement law suits.
This immediately lead to the patent problems that existed prior to the outbreak of the war.
The Marconi Company was trying to purchase from General Electric the exclusive use of the high-powered alternators developed during World War 1.
Should the Marconi Company be successful, it would dominate the radio transmitter market in America.
The United States Federal Government went to GE to come up with a solution to the situation. GE did not want to sell its alternators to the Marconi Company and the U.S. Government was opposed to Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America controlled by the British Marconi Company to dominate the radio industry in America.
Given this economic and political pressure, the Marconi Company agreed to sell American Marconi to a new American company, Radio Corporation of America or RCA.
The stockholders of Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America exchanged their stock for shares of stock in RCS and British Marconi got cash from General Electric.
RCA was born on October 17, 1919 when Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America became RCA.
RCA viewed radio not as a medium for mass communications by broadcasting but as a point-to-point communications device like the telegraph or telephone.
The RCA business model was focused on making money by sending wireless telegraph and telephony to Europe, Latin America and Asia.
The patent infringement and law suit problem was solved by GE and RCA entering into a cross-licensing agreement which allowed each company to use the other company’s discoveries.
Since AT&T still owned the De Forest audion patent, the U.S. government pressured AT&T to sign a cross-licensing agreement with RCA.
Westinghouse, a major GE rival, also held several important radio related patents. With GE having a major ownership stake in RCA, Westinghouse started its own wireless company, International Radio Telegraph Company.
GE offered Westinghouse a large stake in RCA in exchange for placing Westinghouse’s patents in the patent pool.
By 1921, the major stockholders of RCA were GE with 30% of the shares, Westinghouse with about 20%, AT&T with about 10% and another 4% held by the United Fruit Company.
The cross-licensing of patents solved the existing patent problem. The radio industry was divided up with AT&T’s Western Electric subsidiary manufacturing radio transmitters, GE and Westinghouse manufacturing radio receivers or equipment, and RCA selling the radio receivers and equipment.
What the architects of RCA had failed to recognize is the future of radio was in broadcasting–mass communications.
Radio broadcasting took off in the roaring 20s and continues today.
Background Articles and Videos
Radio History
1920’s the radio
When Radio Was #1
When Radio Was #2
When Radio Was #3
When Radio Was #4
When Radio Was #5
When Radio Was #6
When Radio Was #7
The beginning of Commercial Radio
RCA
“…RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. Currently, the RCA trademark is owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor. The trademark is used by Sony Music Entertainment and Technicolor, which licenses the name to other companies like Audiovox and TCL Corporation for products descended from that common ancestor.[2]
Origins
RCA’s organization by General Electric
On August 4, 1914, the United Kingdom and France declared war on the German Empire and Austria-Hungary, following the German and Austrian invasions of their neighbors, including Serbia and the Russian Empire, which started World War I. Radio traffic across the Atlantic Ocean increased dramatically after the western Allies cut the German transatlantic submarine communication cables (telegraph-only at that time, well-before the first transatlantic telephone cable connected the United States with France in 1956.) Germany, Austria-Hungary, and their allies in Europe (the Central Powers) maintained contact with neutral countries in the Americas, such as the United States, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Peru via long-distance radio communications, as well as via telegraph cables owned by neutral countries such as the Netherlands and Denmark.
In 1917, the U.S. Federal Government took charge of the patents owned by the major companies involved in radio manufacture in the United States in order to devote radio technology to the war effort. All production of radio equipment was allocated to the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, and the U.S. Coast Guard. The U.S. Department of War and the U.S. Department of the Navy sought to maintain a Federal monopoly of all uses of radio technology. However, the wartime takeover of all radio systems ended with the tabling of a bill to continue this by the U.S. Congress sometime in the latter part of 1918. {World War I ended on November 11th.)
The ending of the Federal Government’s monopoly in radio communications did not prevent the Departments of War and of the Navy from creating a national radio system for the United States.[3] On April 8, 1919, the naval and Admiral W. H. G. Bullard and Captain Stanford C. Hooper met with executives of the General Electric Corporation (G.E.) to ask that their corporation to discontinue selling any of its Alexanderson alternators (used in the high-power amplitude modulation radio transmitters of that era) to the British-owned Marconi Company, and to its subsidiary, the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America.
The gist of the Army’s and Navy’s proposal was that if G.E. created an American-owned radio company, then the Army and Navy would be able to bring into effect a monopoly of long-distance radio communications via this company. This marked the beginning of a series of negotiations through which G.E. would buy the American Marconi company and then incorporate what would be called the Radio Corporation of America.[4]
Establishment
The argument by the Department of War and the Department of the Navy that the usable radio frequencies were limited, and hence needed to be appropriated for use before other countries, such as the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Canada monopolized them, collapsed in the mid-1920s following the discovery of the practicality of the use of the shortwave radio band (3.0 MHz though 30.0 MHz) for very long-range radio communications.[7]
The first chief executive officer of RCA was Owen D. Young;[8] David Sarnoff became its general manager. The documents of incorporation of RCA explicitly required it be mostly owned by Americans. RCA took over the marketing of the radio equipment of G.E. and Westinghouse Westinghouse, and in follow-on agreements, RCA also acquired the radio patents that had been held by Westinghouse and the United Fruit Company. As the years went on, RCA either took over, or produced for itself, a large number of patents, including that of the superheterodyne receiver.
Over the years, RCA continued to operate international telecommunications services, under its subsidiary RCA Communications, Inc., and later the RCA Global Communications Company. …”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Corporation_of_America
John Ambrose Fleming
“…Sir John Ambrose Fleming (29 November 1849 – 18 April 1945) was an English electrical engineer and physicist. He is known for inventing the first thermionic valve or vacuum tube, the diode, then called the kenotron in 1904.[1] He is also famous for the left hand rule (for electric motors). …”
“…After leaving the University of Nottingham in 1882, Fleming took up the post of “Electrician” to the Edison Electrical Light Company, advising on lighting systems and the new Ferranti alternating current systems. In 1884 Fleming joined University College London taking up the Chair of Electrical Technology, the first of its kind in England. Although this offered great opportunities, he recalls in his autobiography that the only equipment provided to him was a blackboard and piece of chalk. In 1897 the Pender Laboratory was founding at University College, London and Fleming took up the Pender Chair after the £5000 was endowed as a memorial to John Pender, the founder of Cable and Wireless.[4] In 1899 Fleming became Scientific Advisor to the Marconi Company and soon after began work on the designing the power plant to enable the Marconi Company to transmit across the Atlantic.
In November 1904, he invented the two-electrode vacuum-tube rectifier, which he called the oscillation valve. He would later patent this invention.[5] It was also called a thermionic valve, vacuum diode, kenotron, thermionic tube, or Fleming valve. The Supreme Court of the United States later invalidated the patent because of an improper disclaimer and, additionally, maintained the technology in the patent was known art when filed.[6] This invention is often considered to have been the beginning of electronics, for this was the first vacuum tube.[7] Fleming’s diode was used in radio receivers and radars for many decades afterwards, until it was superseded by solid state electronic technology more than 50 years later.
Fleming retired from University College, London in 1927 at the age of 77. He remained active, becoming a committed advocate of the new technology of Television which included servicing as the first president of the Television Society.
John Ambrose Fleming (1906)
In 1906, Lee De Forest of the U.S. added a control “grid” to the valve to create a vacuum tube RF detector called the Audion, leading Fleming to accuse him of copying his ideas. De Forest’s device was shortly refined by him and Edwin H. Armstrong into the first electronic amplifier, a tube called the triode. The triode was vital in the creation of long-distance telephone and radio communications, radars, and early electronic digital computers (mechanical and electro-mechanical digital computers already existed using different technology). The court battle over these patents lasted for many years with victories at different stages for both sides. Fleming also contributed in the fields of photometry, electronics, wireless telegraphy (radio), and electrical measurements. He coined the term Power Factor to describe the true power flowing in an AC power system. He was knighted in 1929, and died at his home in Sidmouth, Devon in 1945. His contributions to electronic communications and radar were of vital importance in winning World War II. Fleming was awarded the IRE Medal of Honor in 1933 for “the conspicuous part he played in introducing physical and engineering principles into the radio art”.
Note from eulogy at the Centenary celebration of the invention of the thermionic valve:
- One century ago, in November 1904, John Ambrose Fleming FRS, Pender Professor at UCL, filed GB 190424850 in Great Britain, for a device called the Thermionic Valve. When inserted together with a galvanometer, into a tuned electrical circuit, it could be used as a very sensitive rectifying detector of high frequency wireless currents, known as radio waves. It was a major step forward in the ‘wireless revolution’.
In November 1905, he patented the “Fleming Valve” (US 803684 ). As a rectifying diode, and forerunner to the triode valve and many related structures, it can also be considered to be the device that gave birth to modern electronics.
In the ensuing years, valves quickly superseded “cat’s whiskers” and were the main device used to create the huge electronics industry that we take for granted today. They remained dominant until the transistor took dominance in the early 1970s
Today, descendants of the original valve (or vacuum tube) still play an important role in a range of applications. They can be found in the power stages of radio and television transmitters, in some high-end audio amplifiers, as detectors of optical and short wavelength radiation, and in sensitive equipment that must be “radiation-hard”. …”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ambrose_Fleming
Lee De Forest
“…Lee De Forest (August 26, 1873 – June 30, 1961) was an American inventor with over 180 patents to his credit. De Forest invented the Audion, a vacuum tube that takes relatively weak electrical signals and amplifies them. De Forest is one of the fathers of the “electronic age”, as the Audion helped to usher in the widespread use of electronics. He is also credited with one of the principal inventions which brought sound to motion pictures.
He was involved in several patent lawsuits and he spent a substantial part of his income from his inventions on the legal bills. He had four marriages and 25 companies, he was defrauded by business partners (as well as defrauding business partners himself), and he was once indicted for mail fraud, but was later acquitted.
He typically signed his name “Lee de Forest.”
He was a charter member of the Institute of Radio Engineers, one of the two predecessors of the IEEE (the other was the American Institute of Electrical Engineers).
DeVry University was originally named DeForest Training School, after Lee De Forest, by its founder Dr. Herman A. DeVry, who was a friend and colleague of De Forest’s.
“…Audion
In January 1906, De Forest filed a patent for diode vacuum tube detector, a two-electrode device for detecting electromagnetic waves, a variant of the Fleming valve invented two years earlier. One year later, De Forest filed a patent for a three-electrode device that was a much more sensitive detector of electromagnetic waves. It was granted US Patent 879,532 in February 1908. The device was also called the De Forest valve, and since 1919 has been known as the triode. De Forest’s innovation was the insertion of a third electrode, the grid, between the cathode (filament) and the anode (plate) of the previously invented diode. The resulting triode or three-electrode vacuum tube could be used as an amplifier of electrical signals, notably for radio reception. The Audion was the fastest electronic switching element of the time, and was later used in early digital electronics (such as computers). The triode was vital in the development of transcontinental telephone communications, radio, and radar after Nikola Tesla’s and Guglielmo Marconi’s progress in radio in the 1890s, until the 1948 invention of the transistor.
De Forest had, in fact, stumbled onto this invention via tinkering and did not completely understand how it worked. De Forest had initially claimed that the operation was based on ions created within the gas in the tube when, in fact, it was shown by others to operate with a vacuum in the tube. The American inventor Irving Langmuir of General Electric Corp. was the first to correctly explain the theory of operation of the device, and also to significantly improve it.
In 1904, a De Forest transmitter and receiver were set up aboard the steamboat Haimun operated on behalf of The Times, the first of its kind.[3] On July 18, 1907, De Forest broadcast the first ship-to-shore message from the steam yacht Thelma. The communication provided quick, accurate race results of the Annual Inter-Lakes Yachting Association (I-LYA) Regatta. The message was received by his assistant, Frank E. Butler of Monroeville, Ohio, in the Pavilion at Fox’s Dock located on South Bass Island on Lake Erie. DeForest disliked the term “wireless”, and chose a new moniker, “radio”. De Forest is credited with the birth of public radio broadcasting when on January 12, 1910, he conducted experimental broadcast of part of the live performance of Tosca and, the next day, a performance with the participation of the Italian tenor Enrico Caruso from the stage of Metropolitan Opera House in New York City.[4] [5]
De Forest came to San Francisco in 1910, and worked for the Federal Telegraph Company, which began developing the first global radio communications system in 1912. California Historical Landmark No. 836 is a bronze plaque at the eastern corner of Channing St. and Emerson Ave. in Palo Alto, California which memorializes the Electronics Research Laboratory at that location and De Forest for the invention of the three-element radio vacuum tube.
Middle years
The United States Attorney General sued De Forest for fraud (in 1913) on behalf of his shareholders, stating that his claim of regeneration was an “absurd” promise (he was later acquitted). Nearly bankrupt with legal bills, De Forest sold his triode vacuum-tube patent to AT&T and the Bell System in 1913 for the bargain price of $50,000.
De Forest filed another patent in 1916 that became the cause of a contentious lawsuit with the prolific inventor Edwin Howard Armstrong, whose patent for the regenerative circuit had been issued in 1914. The lawsuit lasted twelve years, winding its way through the appeals process and ending up before the Supreme Court in 1926. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of De Forest, although the view of many historians is that the judgment was incorrect.[6]
Radio pioneer
In 1916, De Forest, from experimental radio station 2XG in New York City, broadcast the first radio advertisements (for his own products) and the first Presidential election report by radio in November 1916 for Charles Evans Hughes and Woodrow Wilson. A few months later, DeForest moved his tube transmitter to Highbridge, Bronx. [7] Like Charles Herrold in San Jose, California — who had been broadcasting since 1909 with call letters “FN”, “SJN”, and then “6XF” — De Forest had a license from the Department of Commerce for an experimental radio station, but, like Herrold, had to cease all broadcasting when the U.S. entered World War I in April 1917. From April 1920 to November 1921, DeForest broadcast from station 6XC at the California Theater at Market and Fourth Streets in San Francisco. In late 1921, 6XC moved its transmitter to Ocean View Drive in the Rockridge section of Oakland, California and became KZY.[8][9]
Just like Pittsburgh’s KDKA four years later in November 1920, DeForest used the Hughes/Wilson presidential election returns for his broadcast. The New York American installed a private wire and bulletins were sent out every hour. About 2000 listeners heard The Star-Spangled Banner and other anthems, songs, and hymns. DeForest went on to sponsor radio broadcasts of music, featuring opera star Enrico Caruso and many other events, but he received little financial backing.
In April 1923, the De Forest Radio Telephone & Telegraph Company, which manufactured De Forest’s Audions for commercial use, was sold to a coalition of automobile makers, who expanded the company’s factory to cope with rising demand for radios. The sale also bought the services of De Forest, who was focusing his attention on newer innovations.[10] …”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_De_Forest
Reginald Aubrey Fessenden
“…Reginald Aubrey Fessenden (October 6, 1866 – July 22, 1932), a naturalized American citizen born in Canada, was an inventor who performed pioneering experiments in radio, including early—and possibly the first—radio transmissions of voice and music. In his later career he received hundreds of patents for devices in fields such as high-powered transmitting, sonar, and television. …”
“…The development of a rotary-spark transmitter was something of a stop-gap measure, to be used until a superior approach could be perfected. Fessenden felt that, ultimately, a continuous-wave transmitter—one that produced a pure sine wave signal on a single frequency—would be far more efficient, particularly because it could be used for quality audio transmissions. His design idea was to take a basic electrical alternator, which normally operated at speeds that produced alternating current of at most a few hundred hertz, and greatly speed it up in order to create electrical currents at tens of kilohertz. Thus, the high-speed alternator would produce a steady radio signal when connected to an aerial. Then, by simply placing a carbon microphone in the transmission line, the strength of the signal could be varied in order to add sounds to the transmission—in other words, amplitude modulation would be used to impress audio on the radio frequency carrier wave. However, it would take many years of expensive development before even a prototype alternator-transmitter would be ready, and a few more years beyond that for high-power versions to become available.
Fessenden contracted with General Electric to help design and produce a series of high-frequency alternator-transmitters. In 1903, Charles Proteus Steinmetz of GE delivered a 10 kHz version which proved of limited use and could not be directly used as a radio transmitter. Fessenden’s request for a faster, more powerful unit was assigned to Ernst F. W. Alexanderson, and in August, 1906 he delivered an improved model which operated at a transmitting frequency of approximately 50 kHz, although with far less power than Fessenden’s rotary-spark transmitters.
The alternator-transmitter achieved the goal of transmitting quality audio signals, but the lack of any way to amplify the signals meant they were somewhat weak. On December 21, 1906, Fessenden made an extensive demonstration of the new alternator-transmitter at Brant Rock, showing its utility for point-to-point wireless telephony, including interconnecting his stations to the wire telephone network. A detailed review of this demonstration appeared in The American Telephone Journal.[2]
A few days later, two additional demonstrations took place, which appear to be the first audio radio broadcasts of entertainment and music ever made to a general audience—maybe. (Beginning in 1904, the U.S. Navy had broadcast daily time signals and weather reports, but these employed spark transmitters, transmitting in Morse code). On the evening of December 24, 1906 (Christmas Eve), Fessenden used the alternator-transmitter to send out a short program from Brant Rock. It included a phonograph record of Ombra mai fu (Largo) by George Frideric Handel, followed by Fessenden himself playing the song O Holy Night on the violin. Finishing with reading a passage from the Bible: ‘Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men of good will’ (Gospel of Luke 2:14).[3] He petitioned his listeners to write in about the quality of the broadcast as well as their location when they heard it. Surprisingly, his broadcast was heard several hundred miles away, however accompanying the broadcast was a disturbing noise. This noise was due to irregularities in the spark gap transmitter he used.[4]
On December 31, New Year’s Eve, a second short program was broadcast. The main audience for both these transmissions was an unknown number of shipboard radio operators along the East Coast of the United States. Fessenden claimed that the Christmas Eve broadcast had been heard “as far down” as Norfolk, Virginia, while the New Year Eve’s broadcast had reached places in the Caribbean. Although now seen as a landmark, these two broadcasts were barely noticed at the time and soon forgotten— the only first-hand account appears to be a letter Fessenden wrote on January 29, 1932 to his former associate, Samuel M. Kinter.[3] There are no known accounts in any ships’ radio logs, nor any contemporary literature, of the reported holiday demonstrations.
(Broadcasting historian James E. O’Neal, in a series of articles on the Radio World website [5] ,[6] suggests that Fessenden, writing a quarter-century after the fact, may have confused the dates; O’Neal suggests Fessenden was remembering instead a series of tests he’d conducted in 1909.)
There is solid historical evidence, however, that Fessenden’s demonstrations of “wireless telephony” were well know at the time. Documentation of Fessenden’s demonstration of radio-transmitted voice is provided by a New York Time’s article, dated Sunday, September 1, 1907, titled: “Telephoning at Sea”. It announced that the “Navy Department is about to install wireless telephone apparatus on all battleships destined for the Pacific, this Fall. Practicable wireless telephony over a distance of five miles in all weathers is guaranteed by the company furnishing the instruments. Under favorable conditions, it is reported, a much greater distance for communication is possible.” The article accurately describes the science involved, saying: “The Hertzian waves will penetrate opaque substances, and the amplitude and intensity of the waves may be so varied as to reproduce faithfully the vibrations of the human voice.” The same article further states that: “recently, the Fessenden wireless system demonstrated the practicability of transmitting spoken words from a tall mast at Brent Rock to Plymouth, twelve miles away.” [7] Intense competition among developers of wireless technology, and the expectation of possible government contracts may have limited the scope of public promotion of the apparatus features and capabilities.
Fessenden’s broadcast foreshadowed of the future of radio. (Although primarily designed for transmissions spanning a few kilometers, on a couple of occasions the test Brant Rock audio transmissions were apparently overheard by NESCO employee James C. Armor across the Atlantic at the Machrihanish site). …”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reginald_Fessendon
Edwin Howard Armstrong
“…Edwin Howard Armstrong (December 18, 1890 – January 31, 1954) was an American electrical engineer and inventor. Armstrong was the inventor of modern frequency modulation (FM) radio.
Edwin Howard Armstrong was born in New York City, New York, in 1890. He studied at Columbia University and later became a professor there. He invented the regenerative circuit while he was an undergraduate and patented it in 1914, the super-regenerative circuit (patented 1922), and the superheterodyne receiver (patented 1918).[2][3]
“…Work and patent disputes
Howard Armstrong contributed the most to modern electronics technology. His discoveries revolutionized electronic communications. Regeneration, or amplification via positive feedback is still in use to this day. Also, Armstrong discovered that Lee De Forest’s Audion would go into oscillation when feedback was increased. Thus, the Audion could not only detect and amplify radio signals, it could transmit them as well.
While De Forest’s addition of a third element to the Audion (the grid) and the subsequent move to modulated (voice) radio is not disputed, De Forest did not put his device to work. Armstrong’s research and experimentation with the Audion moved radio reception beyond the crystal set and spark-gap transmitters. Radio signals could be amplified via regeneration to the point of human hearing without a headset. Armstrong later published a paper detailing how the Audion worked,[5] something De Forest could not do. De Forest did not understand the workings of his Audion.
Armstrong’s discovery and development of superheterodyne technology made radio receivers, then the primary communications devices of the time, more sensitive and selective. Before heterodyning, radio signals often overrode and interfered with each other. Heterodyning also made radio receivers much easier to use, rendering obsolete the multitude of tuning controls on radio sets of the time. The superheterodyne technology is still used today.
Armstrong is possibly best known for his discovery of wide-band frequency modulation. FM was born of a request by David Sarnoff of RCA as a means to eliminate static in radio reception. While Sarnoff was understandably impressed with Armstrong’s FM system, he also understood that it was not compatible with his own AM empire. Sarnoff came to see FM as a threat and refused to support it further.
Many of Armstrong’s inventions were ultimately claimed by others in patent lawsuits. In particular, the regenerative circuit, which Armstrong patented in 1914 as a “wireless receiving system,” was subsequently patented by Lee De Forest in 1916; De Forest then sold the rights to his patent to AT&T. Between 1922 and 1934, Armstrong found himself embroiled in a patent war, between himself, RCA, and Westinghouse on one side, and De Forest and AT&T on the other. At the time, this action was the longest patent lawsuit ever litigated, at 12 years. Armstrong won the first round of the lawsuit, lost the second, and stalemated in a third. Before the Supreme Court of the United States, De Forest was granted the regeneration patent in what is today widely believed to be a misunderstanding of the technical facts by the Supreme Court.[6]
By early 1923, Armstrong was a millionaire as a result of licensing his patents to RCA.[4]
In 1946 the FCC’s decision to use Armstrong’s FM system as the standard for NTSC television sound gave Armstrong another chance at royalty payments. However, RCA refused to pay royalties and encouraged other television makers not to pay them either. …”
…FM Radio
Even as the regenerative-circuit lawsuit continued, Armstrong was working on another momentous invention. While working in the basement laboratory of Columbia’s Philosophy Hall, he created wide-band frequency modulation radio (FM). Rather than varying the amplitude of a radio wave to create sound, Armstrong’s method varied the frequency of the wave instead. FM radio broadcasts delivered a much clearer sound, free of static, than the AM radio dominant at the time. (Armstrong received a patent on wide-band FM on December 26, 1933.[7]
In 1922, John Renshaw Carson of AT&T, inventor of Single-sideband modulation (SSB modulation), had published a paper in the Proceedings of the IRE arguing that FM did not appear to offer any particular advantage.[8] Armstrong managed to demonstrate the advantages of FM radio despite Carson’s skepticism in a now-famous paper on FM in the Proceedings of the IRE in 1936,[9] which was reprinted in the August 1984 issue of Proceedings of the IEEE.[10]
Today the consensus regarding FM is that narrow band FM is not so advantageous in terms of noise reduction, but wide band FM can bring great improvement in signal to noise ratio if the signal is stronger than a certain threshold. Hence Carson was not entirely wrong, and the Carson bandwidth rule for FM is still important today. Thus, both Carson and Armstrong ultimately contributed significantly to the science and technology of radio. The threshold concept was discussed by Murray G. Crosby (inventor of Crosby system for FM Stereo) who pointed out that for wide band FM to provide better signal to noise ratio, the signal should be above a certain threshold, according to his paper published in Proceedings of the IRE in 1937.[11] Thus Crosby’s work supplemented Armstrong’s paper in 1936.
Armstrong conducted the first large scale field tests of his FM radio technology on the 85th floor of RCA’s (Radio Corporation of America) Empire State Building from May 1934 until October 1935. However RCA had its eye on television broadcasting, and chose not to buy the patents for the FM technology.[12] A June 17, 1936, presentation at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) headquarters made headlines nationwide. He played a jazz record over conventional AM radio, then switched to an FM broadcast. “[I]f the audience of 50 engineers had shut their eyes they would have believed the jazz band was in the same room. There were no extraneous sounds,” noted one reporter. He added that several engineers described the invention “as one of the most important radio developments since the first earphone crystal sets were introduced.”[13]
In 1937, Armstrong financed construction of the first FM radio station, W2XMN, a 40 kilowatt broadcaster in Alpine, New Jersey. The signal (at 42.8 MHz) could be heard clearly 100 miles (160 km) away, despite the use of less power than an AM radio station.[14]
RCA began to lobby for a change in the law or FCC regulations that would prevent FM radios from becoming dominant. By June 1945, the RCA had pushed the FCC hard on the allocation of electromagnetic frequencies for the fledgling television industry. Although they denied wrongdoing, David Sarnoff and RCA managed to get the FCC to move the FM radio spectrum from (42-50 MHz), to (88-108 MHz), while getting new low-powered community television stations allocated to a new Channel 1 in the 44-50 MHz range. In fairness to the FCC, the 42-50 MHz band was plagued by frequent tropospheric and E-layer stratospheric propagation which caused distant high powered stations to interfere with each other. The problem becomes even more severe on a cyclical basis when sunspot levels reach a maximum every 11 years and lower VHF band signals below 50 MHz can travel across the Atlantic Ocean or from coast to coast within North America on occasion. Sunspot levels were near their cyclical peak when the FCC reallocated FM in 1945. The 88-108 MHz range is a technically better location for FM broadcast because it is less susceptible to this kind of frequent interference. (Channel 1 eventually had to be deleted as well, with all TV broadcasts licensed at frequencies 54 MHz or higher, and the band is no longer widely used for emergency first responders either, those services having moved mostly to UHF.)
But the immediate economic impact of the shift, whatever its technical merit, was devastating to early FM broadcasters. This single FCC action would render all Armstrong-era FM receivers useless within a short time as stations were moved to the new band, and it also protected both RCA’s AM-radio stronghold and that of the other major competing networks, CBS, ABC and Mutual. Armstrong’s radio network did not survive the shift into the high frequencies and was set back by the FCC decision. This change was strongly supported by AT&T, because loss of FM relaying stations forced radio stations to buy wired links from AT&T.
Furthermore, RCA also claimed invention of FM radio and won its own patent on the technology. A patent fight between RCA and Armstrong ensued. RCA’s momentous victory in the courts left Armstrong unable to claim royalties on any FM receivers, including televisions, sold in the United States. The undermining of the Yankee Network and his costly legal battles brought ruin to Armstrong, by then almost penniless and emotionally distraught. Eventually, after Armstrong’s death, many of the lawsuits were decided or settled in his favor, greatly enriching his estate and heirs—but the decisions came too late for Armstrong himself to enjoy his legal vindication.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )News Journal: Number 34, November 12, 2010: TSA–Thousands Standing Around To Trained Sexual Assaulters To Tyrants Scanning Americans–Videos
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, housses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
~United States Constitution, Fourth Amendment
If you are planning to fly this Thanksgiving or Christmas holiday to visit family and friends, you might want to seriously consider driving or taking a bus instead of flying or just stay home.
The American people’s rights under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution “to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures…” is being challenged by the Transportation Security Administration of the United States Government.
When you go to through airport security you must first pass through a metal detector then a full body radiation scan.
If you elect not to have the full body radiation scan, you are called a opt outer and subject to a perverted pat down of your entire body including genitals, breast and buttocks by the government gropers of the TSA.
Woman, children, and the disabled in wheel chairs may have to go through both the full naked body radiation scan and the perverted pat down.
You choices are as follows when you opt out:
Full naked body radiation scan Perverted pat downs Interrogation and possible detention, arrest and lawsuit Leave airport and drive to destination Just stay home
More and more Americans are electing to just stay home and save the time, money and invasion of their bodies and property and the legal molestation of their children by Federal Government Employees.
The American people should respond to the use of full naked body radiation scans and perverted pat downs by simply not travelling on commercial airlines.
The commercial airlines and not the Government should be responsible for security and safety on an airline flight.
When the airlines and the travel industry experience significant drops in their revenues and profits, they will insist the full naked body scans and pat downs not be used and current TSA employees become employees of the airline and not the government.
Time for Congress to revisit the whole subject of TSA, government unions, and unreasonable searches and seizures.
Metal detectors and thermal detectors are fine.
Airport Security and Screening on Fox News Channel profiling Thermal Matrix and the ACT System
End the full naked body radiation scans.
End the perverted pat downs.
End the Transportation Security Administration or TSA.
Stop unreasonable searches and seizures.
Start profiling passengers and target those who have the higher probability of being terrorists or suicide bombers.
Give the airlines the responsiblity for security and screening passengers.
Airline Attack Highlights Israel’s Security Success
Terminate Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano for approving these unreasonable searches.
Demand that your local airport opt out of TSA and select another company to perform security.
Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano
Pushes Perverted Pat Downs and
Full Naked Body Radiation Scans
TSA Posts Airport Screening Manual Online
TSA Manual Posted on the Internet
Senator Collins questions TSA officials on security procedure posting
TSA Fondles Women and Children Refusing Airport Naked Body Scanners
TSA airport full body scanner: a perverts dream come true.
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TSA Child Porn or Protection ?
Invasive TSA Airport Pat-Down
TSA Gropping People With New Pat Down Procedure-Getting Lawsuits
Air Travelers Not Happy With New TSA Security Measures
LIVE DEMONSTRATION OF NEW BODY AIRPORT SCANNER
TSA installs full-body scanners at Boston Logan International, other airports nationwide
TSA Body Scanners Deprive Americans of their Dignity
Scanners Too Revealing?
Woman Claims Security at DC Airport Beat Her Up
Airline Pilot to TSA: ‘No Groping Me and No Naked Photos!’ DNA Damage, Cancer Risk
Full-Body Scanners Damage Human DNA
Alex’s Encounter with TSA During Latest Trip to California
Paul Watson Discusses TSA Agents Gone Wild on The Alex Jones Show 1/2
Paul Watson Discusses TSA Agents Gone Wild on The Alex Jones Show 2/2
EPIC FOIA – Feds and TSA save and transmit Body Scan images
TSA pulls pants off 71 y/o man with knee implant
Full Body Scanner Images Stored
Paul Watson Feds Caught Storing Body Scan Images at Florida Courthouse Security Checkpoint
TSA not screening screeners
Nude Protest: Airport Body Scanners in Germany
Airport scanner – TheBikerSite
Funny Body Scanner
EXCLUSIVE: TSA Unveils New Genital Visualizers
Background Articles and Videos
Feds admit storing checkpoint body scan images
by Declan McCullagh
“…For the last few years, federal agencies have defended body scanning by insisting that all images will be discarded as soon as they’re viewed. The Transportation Security Administration claimed last summer, for instance, that “scanned images cannot be stored or recorded.” Now it turns out that some police agencies are storing the controversial images after all. The U.S. Marshals Service admitted this week that it had surreptitiously saved tens of thousands of images recorded with a millimeter wave system at the security checkpoint of a single Florida courthouse. This follows an earlier disclosure (PDF) by the TSA that it requires all airport body scanners it purchases to be able to store and transmit images for “testing, training, and evaluation purposes.” The agency says, however, that those capabilities are not normally activated when the devices are installed at airports. Body scanners penetrate clothing to provide a highly detailed image so accurate that critics have likened it to a virtual strip search. Technologies vary, with millimeter wave systems capturing fuzzier images, and backscatter X-ray machines able to show precise anatomical detail. The U.S. government likes the idea because body scanners can detect concealed weapons better than traditional magnetometers. This privacy debate, which has been simmering since the days of the Bush administration, came to a boil two weeks ago when Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that scanners would soon appear at virtually every major airport. The updated list includes airports in New York City, Dallas, Washington, Miami, San Francisco, Seattle, and Philadelphia. …” Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20012583-281.html#ixzz14ztWIFHJ
Pilots and passengers rail at new airport patdowns
By Jeremy Pelofsky
“…Executives from the travel industry, including online travel sites, theme parks and hotels, were set to meet Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Pistole on Friday to discuss their concerns that security is crimping travel. “We have received hundreds of e-mails and phone calls from travelers vowing to stop flying,” said Geoff Freeman, an executive vice president of the U.S. Travel Association, which set up the meeting with the Obama administration officials. “You can’t talk on the one hand about creating jobs in this country and getting this economy back on track and on the other hand discourage millions of Americans from flying, which is the gateway to commerce,” he said. Privacy groups have challenged the new body scanners in court, saying they are a violation of privacy and illegal. Lawmakers plan to hold hearings on aviation security next week when they return to Washington. Some travelers are also livid about how children are being screened. During a trip last Sunday by a father and son through Orlando airport in Florida, the 8-year-old boy was selected for extra screening by TSA after going through the metal detector. The father said the officer described the procedure before conducting it. Then he patted down the boy in the open security area, using the backside of his hands to check his genital area, he said. “I didn’t think it was going to be as horrible as he was describing,” said the boy’s father, Bill, who works as a lobbyist in Washington and did not want his full name used. …” http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6AA55S20101111?ref=nf
U.S. Marshals Service Storing Naked Body Scanner Images
Kurt Nimmo “…Now it turns out police agencies, including the U.S. Marshals Service, are storing naked body scanner images too. In response, the advocacy group Electronic Privacy Information Center has filed a lawsuit asking a federal judge to grant an immediate injunction and putting a kibosh to the intrusive and unconstitutional snoop program. Fresh food that lasts from eFoods Direct Despite the revelation, the TSA steadfastly maintains that naked body scanners are delivered to airports with the image recording functions disabled. “We’re not recording them,” TSA spokeswoman Sari Koshetz told CNET on Wednesday. “I’m reiterating that to the public. We are not ever activating those capabilities at the airport.” Let’s get serious here. Naked body scanners are obviously being used to compliment existing dossiers on Americans. The NSA, FBI, CIA, and multitudinous government agencies have long profiled all aspects of the lives of American citizens. Images captured by naked body scanners, including images of genitals, are merely the next logical step in this process. …” http://www.infowars.com/u-s-marshals-service-storing-naked-body-scanner-images/
Transportation Security Administrion
PROCUREMENT SPECIFICATION FOR WHOLE BODY IMAGER DEVICES FOR CHECKPOINT OPERATIONS
“…3.1.1.1.2 Privacy TSA policy dictates that passenger privacy is maintained and protected during passenger screening. To ensure passenger privacy safeguards arc in place, WEI systems will prohibit the storage and exporting of passenger images during normal screening operations. When not being used for normal screening operations, the capability to capture images of non-passengers for training and evaluation purposes is needed. To ensure that image capturing maintains passenger privacy, the WEI will provide two distinct modes of operation: Screening Mode and Test Mode as defined in 3.1.1.3.1. During Screening Mode, the WEI shall (6) be prohibited from exporting passenger image data, including via STIP. During Test Mode, the WEI shall (7) not be capable of conducting passenger screening. The WBI shall (8) prohibit local storage of image data in all modes. The WEI shall (9) employ 256-bit encryption for image data in accordance with Fcderal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 197 Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). http://epic.org/open_gov/foia/TSA_Procurement_Specs.pdf
Are airport full body scanners a danger?
Jane Jamison
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) “Technology Review” reports the technology can harm human DNA:
The airport scanning technology creates a “picture” of the passenger’s body. Clothing is not really visible. Body parts, or any “additions” or augmentations to the body, such as an implanted plastic bag of explosives, are visible. …”
TSA Screeners Frequently Miss Fake Bombs!
How the airport body scanner is used
TSA – Three Simple Steps
TSA – Laptops and Electronics
TSA – Why ID?
TSA – Traveling with Children
AT X-ray and Advanced Belts: TSA Checkpoint Evolution
Composure Benches: TSA Checkpoint Evolution
“…The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was created as part of the Aviation and Transportation Security Act passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush on November 19, 2001. The TSA was originally organized in the U.S. Department of Transportation but was moved to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on March 25, 2003. The agency is responsible for security in all modes of transportation.[1] …”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_Security_Administration
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )News Journal: Number 33, November 9, 2010: Tea Party Movement Expects Republican Party To Balance The Budget By Cutting Spending Now!
Debt Clock
Economics 101 – It’s Simple to Balance The Budget Without Higher Taxes!
Deficits are Bad, but the Real Problem is Spending
Meltzer Says U.S. Economic Programs Have Been `Foolish’
Ron Paul – Dr. Allan Meltzer
No Compromise: Issa, Ryan and Cantor Will Cut Runaway Federal Spending
Eric Cantor Discusses Tax Rates, Ending Earmarks & Cutting Spending On Fox News Sunday
Rand Paul: GOP must consider military spending cuts
Ron Paul on the Deficit, Government Spending, and Military Industrial Complex (1988)
The tea party movement is expecting the Republican Party to balance the Fiscal Year 2011 and 2012 budgets or face the consequences or fate in 2012 of the big spending Democrats in this past election.
Instead the Republican Party is talking about a Fiscal Year 2008 level of total outlays of about $3 trillion dollars.
This is definitely an improvement over President Obama’s estimated budget deficits exceeding over $1,000 billion in FY 2010 and FY 2011.
However, it still would not come close to balancing the budget in FY 2011 where tax revenues are expected to be about $2,567 billion.
Unfortunately the deficit would be about $400 billion for the total combined on-budget and off-budget.
Refer to the following receipts and outlay estimates at:
Table 1.1—SUMMARY OF RECEIPTS, OUTLAYS, AND SURPLUSES OR DEFICITS (−): 1789–2015
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals/
The total estimated tax revenues for FY 2011 and FY 2012 are $2,567 billion and $2,926 billion respectively for the combined on-budget and off-budget.
The total estimated outlays for FY 2011 and FY 2012 are $3,834 billion and $3,755 billion respectively for the combined on-budget and off-budget.
The total estimated deficits for FY 2011 and FY 2012 are $1,267 billion and $828 billion respectively for combined on-budget and off-budget.
To balance the combined on-budget and off-budget the FY 2011 outlays would need to about the level of Fiscal Year 2005 of $2,472 billion.
To balance the combined on-budget and off-budget the FY 2012 outlays would need to about the level of Fiscal Year 2008 of $2,983 billion.
Either balance the budget or face the consequences in 2012.
Stop dithering.
Start shutting down entire Federal Departments, agencies and programs.
Milton Friedman on Libertarianism (Part 4 of 4)
Pass the FairTax and limit future outlays or expenditures for the total on-budget and off-budget to 80% of previous year’s tax revenue from the FairTax.
The FairTax: It’s Time
The remaining 20% of FairTax revenues would go to pay down the debt.
Time for some real change and hope.
Stop spending our future and balance the budget.
Stop Spending Our Future – The Crisis
Background Articles and Videos
Keynesian Economics vs. Austrian Economics
Keynesian Predictions vs. American History | Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
Why You’ve Never Heard of the Great Depression of 1920 | Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
Warren Harding and the Forgotten Depression of 1920
by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
“…The economic situation in 1920 was grim. By that year unemployment had jumped from 4 percent to nearly 12 percent, and GNP declined 17 percent. No wonder, then, that Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover – falsely characterized as a supporter of laissez-faire economics – urged President Harding to consider an array of interventions to turn the economy around. Hoover was ignored.
Instead of “fiscal stimulus,” Harding cut the government’s budget nearly in half between 1920 and 1922. The rest of Harding’s approach was equally laissez-faire. Tax rates were slashed for all income groups. The national debt was reduced by one-third. The Federal Reserve’s activity, moreover, was hardly noticeable. As one economic historian puts it, “Despite the severity of the contraction, the Fed did not move to use its powers to turn the money supply around and fight the contraction.”2 By the late summer of 1921, signs of recovery were already visible. The following year, unemployment was back down to 6.7 percent and was only 2.4 percent by 1923.
It is instructive to compare the American response in this period to that of Japan. In 1920, the Japanese government introduced the fundamentals of a planned economy, with the aim of keeping prices artificially high. According to economist Benjamin Anderson, “The great banks, the concentrated industries, and the government got together, destroyed the freedom of the markets, arrested the decline in commodity prices, and held the Japanese price level high above the receding world level for seven years. During these years Japan endured chronic industrial stagnation and at the end, in 1927, she had a banking crisis of such severity that many great branch bank systems went down, as well as many industries. It was a stupid policy. In the effort to avert losses on inventory representing one year’s production, Japan lost seven years.”3
The U.S., by contrast, allowed its economy to readjust. “In 1920–21,” writes Anderson, “we took our losses, we readjusted our financial structure, we endured our depression, and in August 1921 we started up again. . . . The rally in business production and employment that started in August 1921 was soundly based on a drastic cleaning up of credit weakness, a drastic reduction in the costs of production, and on the free play of private enterprise. It was not based on governmental policy designed to make business good.” The federal government did not do what Keynesian economists ever since have urged it to do: run unbalanced budgets and prime the pump through increased expenditures. Rather, there prevailed the old-fashioned view that government should keep spending and taxation low and reduce the public debt.4 …”
http://www.lewrockwell.com/woods/woods125.html
Historical Tables
Historical Tables provides data on budget receipts, outlays, surpluses or deficits, Federal debt, and Federal employment over an extended time period, generally from 1940 or earlier to 2011 or 2015.
Table 1.1—SUMMARY OF RECEIPTS, OUTLAYS, AND SURPLUSES OR DEFICITS (−): 1789–2015
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals/
High Taxes and High Budget Deficits
The Hoover–Roosevelt Tax Increases of the 1930s
by Veronique de Rugy, Fiscal Policy Analyst, Cato Institute
“…Conclusion
The tax increases of the 1930s coincided with large
deficits and economic stagnation. While the monetary and
trade policy mistakes of the 1930s are now widely
understood, the tax policy mistakes are less appreciated.
As Congress grapples with today’s budget deficit and
mediocre economic growth, it should look to the tax cuts
of the 1920s for inspiration rather than the failed “budget
balancing with high taxes” approach of the 1930s.”
http://www.cato.org/pubs/tbb/tbb-0303-14.pdf
Can GOP Shrink Government Spending?
Ron Paul in San Francisco – Amazing Speech!
Republicans roll out “Pledge to America”
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Banking Cartel’s Public Relations Campaign Continues:Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke On The Record
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )News Journal: Number 28, October 16, 2010: The Obama Depression Deepens–Federal Reserve Executes–QE II Plan–“Operation Pawnshop”–$2,500 Billion In Quantitative Easing–Money Printing–Will It Be Enough?
Non-conventional vs. Traditional Federal Reserve System Building
“Credit expansion is the governments foremost tool in their struggle against the market economy. In their hands it is the magic wand designed to conjure away the scarcity of capital goods, to lower the rate of interest or to abolish it altogether, to finance lavish government spending, to expropriate the capitalists, to contrive everlasting booms, and to make everybody prosperous.”
“The final outcome of the credit expansion is general impoverishment.”
~Ludwig von Mises
Peter Schiff – It’s Scary How Clueless Bernanke Is
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End the Fed | Ron Paul
The primary goal of the Federal Reserve System is price stability or the avoidance of inflation for the U.S. economy.
However, unlike other central banks, the Federal Reserve also was given several other goals by Congress:
“The goals of monetary policy are spelled out in the Federal Reserve Act, which specifies that the Board of Governors and the Federal Open Market Committee should seek “to promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates.” …”
Since the Fed already has a zero interest rate policy or ZIRP with the Federal Funds rate target range of between 0.0% – .25% and a low inflation rate for the time being under 2%, the Federal Reserve now turns it monetary policy tools on the persistent high unemployment rates, now at 9.6% and headed once again to 10% or more.
Year | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Annual |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2000 | 4.0 | 4.1 | 4.0 | 3.8 | 4.0 | 4.0 | 4.0 | 4.1 | 3.9 | 3.9 | 3.9 | 3.9 | |
2001 | 4.2 | 4.2 | 4.3 | 4.4 | 4.3 | 4.5 | 4.6 | 4.9 | 5.0 | 5.3 | 5.5 | 5.7 | |
2002 | 5.7 | 5.7 | 5.7 | 5.9 | 5.8 | 5.8 | 5.8 | 5.7 | 5.7 | 5.7 | 5.9 | 6.0 | |
2003 | 5.8 | 5.9 | 5.9 | 6.0 | 6.1 | 6.3 | 6.2 | 6.1 | 6.1 | 6.0 | 5.8 | 5.7 | |
2004 | 5.7 | 5.6 | 5.8 | 5.6 | 5.6 | 5.6 | 5.5 | 5.4 | 5.4 | 5.5 | 5.4 | 5.4 | |
2005 | 5.3 | 5.4 | 5.2 | 5.2 | 5.1 | 5.0 | 5.0 | 4.9 | 5.0 | 5.0 | 5.0 | 4.9 | |
2006 | 4.7 | 4.8 | 4.7 | 4.7 | 4.6 | 4.6 | 4.7 | 4.7 | 4.5 | 4.4 | 4.5 | 4.4 | |
2007 | 4.6 | 4.5 | 4.4 | 4.5 | 4.4 | 4.6 | 4.6 | 4.6 | 4.7 | 4.7 | 4.7 | 5.0 | |
2008 | 5.0 | 4.8 | 5.1 | 5.0 | 5.4 | 5.5 | 5.8 | 6.1 | 6.2 | 6.6 | 6.9 | 7.4 | |
2009 | 7.7 | 8.2 | 8.6 | 8.9 | 9.4 | 9.5 | 9.4 | 9.7 | 9.8 | 10.1 | 10.0 | 10.0 | |
2010 | 9.7 | 9.7 | 9.7 | 9.9 | 9.7 | 9.5 | 9.5 | 9.6 | 9.6 |
http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet
The Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, communicated in an October 15, 2010 speech in Boston what the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) unconventional monetary policy was targeting– maximum employment–by printing more money and purchasing Treasuries and other bonds:
“…In short, there are clearly many challenges in communicating and conducting monetary policy in a low-inflation environment, including the uncertainties associated with the use of nonconventional policy tools. Despite these challenges, the Federal Reserve remains committed to pursuing policies that promote our dual objectives of maximum employment and price stability. In particular, the FOMC is prepared to provide additional accommodation if needed to support the economic recovery and to return inflation over time to levels consistent with our mandate. …”
Translation, the Fed will be printing more money starting in November to expand the money and credit supply by purchasing Treasury securities including bills, notes and bonds in the market as well other assets such as bonds with the objective of lowering the unemployment rate.
http://nowandfutures.com/key_stats.html
The Fed will be attempting to “inflate” the economy out of the current “jobless recovery” into another economic boom.
Call it quantitative easing, credit easing or “nonconventional” monetary policy, I call it overdosing on interventionism.
Quantitative Easing–Videos
What is the size, scope and duration of the “quantitative easing” or overdosing on interventionism ?
How big will the Fed’s weekly habit be?
My guess it will start “small” with $2 to $5 billion per week and gradually increase to about $15 billion per week?
How long will the Fed persist in this habit before going cold turkey?
At least twelve to forty-eight months or until the unemployment rate is below 6% and core inflation is over 2%.
This will require another massive expansion of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet.
How much will it take?
My guess is a 1% reduction in the U-3 official unemployment rate would take a minimum of $600 billion per year ($200,000 money or credit expansion times 3,000,000 new jobs in one year)
A 4% reduction in the unemployment rate from 10% to 5% or the creation of about 12,000,000 new jobs would require a minimum of $2,500 billion dollars over four years.
The U.S. official unemployment rate as measured by U-3 is again headed towards 10% with over 15,000,000 Americans unemployed.
The private sector needs to create between 250,000 and 300,000 jobs per month to reduce the official unemployment rate by just .1%.
Currently the private sector is creating less than 100,000 jobs per month.
The United States needs between 100,000 to 150,000 jobs to absorb new entrants into the labor market due to the population growth. There are currently over 1.1 million unemployed new entrants that have not found their first job.
Another 150,000 to 200,000 jobs is are needed to reduce the unemployment by .1%.
Unfortunately, the persistent unemployment problem is even worse.
The U-6 total unemployment rate increased from 16.7% in August to 17.1% in October 2010.
With a total civilian labor force of about 155 million, a 17.1% unemployment rate means that over 26,500,000 Americans are looking for full-time jobs.
This represents over twice the number of unemployed Americans, about 13 million, during the worse month of the Great Depression, March 1933.
Assume it takes a minimum of $200,000 increase in the money and credit supply to create one new job.
Assume it takes 250,000 new jobs per month to reduce the unemployment rate by .1% or 3,000,000 jobs per year to reduce the unemployment rate by 1.2%.
Then the Federal Reserve would need to expand the money and credit supply by about $600 billion per year.
If the objective is to reduce the unemployment rate official unemployment rate U-3 from about 10% to 5% then the Federal Reserve would need to expand the money and credit supply by about $2,500 billion over a forty-eight month period.
I fully expect both the U-3 and U-6 unemployment rates to rise by at least .1 to .2% per month for next three to six months.
This would bring the official unemployment rate or U-3 over 10% during the first quarter of 2011 and the total unemployment rate or U-6 over 18% by the start of the second quarter of 2011.
This would represent over 15 million Americans unemployed and over 28 million seeking full-time unemployment.
This in turn will mean the U.S. economy is entering a “new” recession or a “double dip recession” with declining and most likely negative growth rates in the second and third quarter of 2011 and an increased probability of deflation or a declining general price level for goods and services.
Therefore the case for an expansionary monetary policy is still strong and increasing.
With the Federal Funds rate essentially zero, the Federal Reserve will be purchasing assets such as Treasury securities and agency mortgage-backed securities starting in November and continuing for a least six months until the U.S. unemployment rates are down by at least 1% to 2% or more and growth in production or the gross national product is at least above 3% to 4%.
Assuming the Federal Reserve purchases $12 billion in assets or securities each week, the total amount of the quantitative easing will be about $2,500 billion over the next forty-eight months to bring the official unemployment rate U-3 to about 5%.
The Federal Reserve cannot count upon the central bank of Communist China, the People’s Bank of China, to appreciate the Yuan by more than 5% to 10% per year relative to the U.S. dollar to encourage U.S. exports and reduce Chinese imports to the United States.
The real problem is Federal government spending that should be drastically cut until a balanced or even surplus budget is the result.
The Bush tax rate cuts in 2001 and 2003 need to be made permanent as well.
Until such fiscal economic policies are actually implemented, the only monetary policy “bullets” that the Federal Reserve has left is quantitative easing or money printing to purchase assets by expanding their balance sheet.
The Federal Government has for the last two years run deficits exceeding 1,000 billion each year and totaling over $2,500 billion not counting interest and this is likely to continue for at least one or two years until the U.S. economy fully recovers and the unemployment rates are well below 7%.
These budgetary deficits need to be financed by the Treasury Department issuing Treasury bills, notes and bonds.
The Federal Reserve will monetize some of these Treasury debts as part of its quantitative easing operations to the extent other buyers of Treasuries cannot be found.
What is the size or quantity of the quantitative easing?
I do not expect this to be announced, but at least $2,500 billion may be needed in the next forty-eight months to avoid another recession, significantly reduce unemployment to under 6%, and increase the growth of the economy above 4%.
Will such a “nonconventional” monetary policy work?
Only if the Congress and the President drastically cut the Federal Budget so it balances, do not increase taxes, and repeal Obama care.
In other words,this “nonconventional” monetary policy strategy of asset purchases or quantitative easing is not very likely to work any time soon.
The problem with government intervention into the economy is it always requires even more government intervention to correct past mistakes.
Both fiscal and monetary policy are generating massive uncertainty and a lack of confidence by consumers and businesses results in the deferral of consumption and investment expenditures and the hiring of new employees.
Bernanke understands this for he wrote in his Ph.D. dissertation at M.I.T.:
“…increase uncertainty provides an incentive to defer investments in order to wait for new information.”
Massive increases in the size and scope of the Federal government has resulted in huge budgetary deficits and proposed tax increase during a “jobless recovery”.
These deficits must be financed and the Federal Reserve will make sure that Treasury debt in the form of bills, notes and bonds will be purchased by printing more money as needed.
The Federal Reserve “nonconventional” monetary policy of printing more money is essentially government intervention into the economy to accommodate the U.S. Government’s Department of the Treasury need in financing massive government deficits
The Federal Open Market Committee will purchase Treasuries, mostly short-term Treasury bills but some notes and bonds in exchange for Federal Reserve Notes or money.
While the Fed’s cover story may be that this is needed to reduce unemployment, the real objective is financing massive Federal government spending and deficits. This is similar to what was done from 1942 to 1951 where Treasury long-term government bond yields were fixed at very low levels to finance World War II.
In fact, the Federal Reserve will be debasing the U.S. dollar by reducing the purchasing power of the dollar.
End the Fed | Ron Paul
This is a hidden tax paid by all the American people.
The cost of exports will rise as the U.S. dollar depreciates relative to other foreign currencies.
The price of petroleum will significantly rise and Americans will be paying over $3 a gallon in 2011 and over $4 a gallon in 2012.
The increases in petroleum and gasoline prices will in turn impact food prices.
The Federal Reserve uses a core personal consumption expenditure (PCE) price index approach in measuring and setting inflation targets, which excludes food and energy. The core personal consumption is a less volatile inflation or price measure than a change in total personal consumption expenditures which includes energy and food.
However, the American people need to eat and use gasoline to power their cars and heating oil to warm their homes.
The American people do not tolerate fools, even educated fools of the ruling class, for very long when they are losing their jobs, homes, health care and retirement plans and their children and grandchildren cannot find jobs or complete their college education.
The Second American Revolution has started.
On Tuesday November 2, 2010, election day, a shot will be heard around the world that even the world’s central bankers will be able to hear, if not fully comprehend.
During which the Federal Open Market Committee or FOMC will meet to decide when and how much quantitative easing or credit easing is needed to create jobs, avoid another recession and finance the U.S. government massive deficits.
The U.S. economy is in a liquidity trap where conventional monetary policy is ineffective and “nonconventional” monetary policy cannot work effectively until the appropriate fiscal policies are a reality and working.
The U.S. economy is slowly drowning in a flood of government intervention that has simply failed in generating jobs and high rates of economic growth and wealth creation.
The American people are paying the price for our ruling class’s continuing failures.
After quantitative easing or “operation pawn shop” fails and the value of the U.S. dollars is further debased, a period of inflation will follow and the Obama Depression will become an inflationary depression–a black swan.
“To be told that the Fed did what it could isn’t much comfort to a family who loses its house to foreclosure, a businessman forced into bankruptcy, a sixty-five-year-old whose retirement fund is devastated, a would-be borrower turned away by a beleaguered bank, a new college grad who can’t find a job, any job. For those victims and all the others, a final verdict on the Fed’s response to the Great Panic must await the health of the U.S. economy in 2010 and 2011 and beyond.”
~David Wessle, In Fed We Trust, Ben Bernanke’s War On the Great Panic, page 266.
“It is indeed one of the principal drawbacks of every kind of interventionism that it is so difficult to reverse the process.”
“Economics does not say that isolated government interference with the prices of only one commodity or a few commodities is unfair, bad, or unfeasible. It says that such interference produces results contrary to its purpose, that it makes conditions worse, not better, from the point of view of the government and those backing its interference.”
~Ludwig von Mises
Roubini: U.S. Running Out of Options to Stimulate Economy
Roubini On Double Dip
Nassim Nicholas Taleb – What is a “Black Swan?”
Background Articles and Videos
Peter Schiff “We Should Save ‘Person Of The Year’ For People Who Do Good!
Ron Paul: Allow The Free Market, Not The Fed, To Set Interest Rates
Maynard Keynes Inventor of Quantitative Easing
The Financial Crisis and the Death of Macroeconomics | Joseph T. Salerno
Government’s Response to the Crisis: A Fantastic Success, for Government | Robert Higgs
Why You’ve Never Heard of the Great Depression of 1920 | Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
Keynesian Predictions vs. American History | Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
Our Wise Overlords Are Just Here to Serve Us | Thomas E. Woods. Jr.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb Angry
16. The Evolution and Perfection of Monetary Policy
Crisis and Capitalism
Understanding the Financial Crisis
The Psychology of the Financial Crisis
Money, Banking and the Federal Reserve
How to Abolish the Federal Reserve
Speech
Chairman Ben S. Bernanke
At the Revisiting Monetary Policy in a Low-Inflation Environment Conference, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Boston, Massachusetts
October 15, 2010
Monetary Policy Objectives and Tools in a Low-Inflation Environment”…
“…However, possible costs must be weighed against the potential benefits of nonconventional policies. One disadvantage of asset purchases relative to conventional monetary policy is that we have much less experience in judging the economic effects of this policy instrument, which makes it challenging to determine the appropriate quantity and pace of purchases and to communicate this policy response to the public. These factors have dictated that the FOMC proceed with some caution in deciding whether to engage in further purchases of longer-term securities.
Another concern associated with additional securities purchases is that substantial further expansion of the balance sheet could reduce public confidence in the Fed’s ability to execute a smooth exit from its accommodative policies at the appropriate time. Even if unjustified, such a reduction in confidence might lead to an undesired increase in inflation expectations, to a level above the Committee’s inflation objective. To address such concerns and to ensure that it can withdraw monetary accommodation smoothly at the appropriate time, the Federal Reserve has developed an array of new tools.7 With these tools in hand, I am confident that the FOMC will be able to tighten monetary conditions when warranted, even if the balance sheet remains considerably larger than normal at that time.
Central bank communication provides additional means of increasing the degree of policy accommodation when short-term nominal interest rates are near zero. For example, FOMC postmeeting statements have included forward policy guidance since December 2008, and the most recent statements have reflected the FOMC’s anticipation that exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate are likely to be warranted “for an extended period,” contingent on economic conditions. A step the Committee could consider, if conditions called for it, would be to modify the language of the statement in some way that indicates that the Committee expects to keep the target for the federal funds rate low for longer than markets expect. Such a change would presumably lower longer-term rates by an amount related to the revision in policy expectations. A potential drawback of using the FOMC’s statement in this way is that, at least without a more comprehensive framework in place, it may be difficult to convey the Committee’s policy intentions with sufficient precision and conditionality. The Committee will continue to actively review its communications strategy with the goal of providing as much clarity as possible about its outlook, policy objectives, and policy strategies.
Conclusion
In short, there are clearly many challenges in communicating and conducting monetary policy in a low-inflation environment, including the uncertainties associated with the use of nonconventional policy tools. Despite these challenges, the Federal Reserve remains committed to pursuing policies that promote our dual objectives of maximum employment and price stability. In particular, the FOMC is prepared to provide additional accommodation if needed to support the economic recovery and to return inflation over time to levels consistent with our mandate. Of course, in considering possible further actions, the FOMC will take account of the potential costs and risks of nonconventional policies, and, as always, the Committee’s actions are contingent on incoming information about the economic outlook and financial conditions. ..”
Bernanke sees case for more Federal Reserve easing
“… Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Friday offered his most explicit signal yet that the U.S. central bank was set to ease monetary policy further, but provided no details on how aggressively it might act.
Bernanke warned a prolonged period of high unemployment could choke off the U.S. recovery and that the low level of inflation presented an uncomfortable risk of deflation, a dangerous downward slide in prices.
“There would appear — all else being equal — to be a case for further action,” Bernanke said at a conference sponsored by the Boston Federal Reserve Bank.
With overnight interest rates already close to zero, many economists expect the Fed to launch a fresh round of bond purchases, perhaps on the order of $500 billion, to push borrowing costs lower at its next policy meeting on November 2-3.
Prices for longer-dated U.S. government debt fell after Bernanke’s remarks as investors bet the Fed would be successful in generating more inflation. Stocks were mixed while the dollar briefly hit an eight-month low against the euro.
Bernanke said the central bank could bolster its economy and inflation-lifting efforts by indicating a willingness to hold interest rates low for longer than currently expected.
The Fed pushed overnight rates to zero in December 2008 and then bought $1.7 trillion in U.S. government and mortgage-linked bonds to offer more support for the economy.
Officials have said further asset buying, or quantitative easing, would be the course they would most likely pursue to spur a stronger recovery.
Bernanke indicated Fed policymakers were still weighing how aggressive they should be, leaving markets to guess as to the details of any operation. …”
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Bernanke-says-sees-case-for-rb-4235164349.html?x=0&.v=3
Personal consumption expenditures price index
“…he PCE price index (PCEPI) (or PCE deflator, PCE price deflator, Implicit Price Deflator for Personal Consumption Expenditures (IPD for PCE) (by the BEA), Chain-type Price Index for Personal Consumption Expenditures (CTPIPCE) (by the FOMC )) is a United States-wide indicator of the average increase in prices for all domestic personal consumption. It is indexed to a base of 100 in 2005. Using a variety of data including U.S. Consumer Price Index and Producer Price Index prices, it is derived from the largest component of the Gross Domestic Product in the BEA’s National Income and Product Accounts, personal consumption expenditures.
The less volatile measure of the PCE price index is the core PCE price index which excludes the more volatile and seasonal food and energy prices.
In comparison to the headline United States Consumer Price Index, which uses one set of expenditure weights for several years, this index uses a Fisher Price Index, which uses expenditure data from both the current period and the preceding period. Also, the PCEPI uses a chained index which compares one quarter’s price to the last quarter’s instead of choosing a fixed base. This price index method assumes that the consumer has made allowances for changes in relative prices. That is to say, they have substituted from goods whose prices are rising to goods whose prices are stable or falling.
The PCE rises about one-third percent less than the CPI, a trend that dates back to 1992. This may be due to the failure of CPI to take into account substitution. Alternatively, an unpublished report on this difference by the BLS suggests that most of it is from different ways of calculating hospital expenses and airfares.[1] …”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_consumption_expenditures_price_index
Black Swan Theory
“…The Black Swan Theory or “Theory of Black Swan Events” was developed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb to explain: 1) the disproportionate role of high-impact, hard to predict, and rare events that are beyond the realm of normal expectations in history, science, finance and technology, 2) the non-computability of the probability of the consequential rare events using scientific methods (owing to their very nature of small probabilities) and 3) the psychological biases that make people individually and collectively blind to uncertainty and unaware of the massive role of the rare event in historical affairs. Unlike the earlier philosophical “black swan problem”, the “Black Swan Theory” (capitalized) refers only to unexpected events of large magnitude and consequence and their dominant role in history. Such events, considered extreme outliers, collectively play vastly larger roles than regular occurrences.
Black Swan Events were characterized by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his 2007 book (revised and completed in 2010), The Black Swan. Taleb regards almost all major scientific discoveries, historical events, and artistic accomplishments as “black swans” — undirected and unpredicted. He gives the rise of the Internet, the personal computer, World War I, and the September 11 attacks as examples of Black Swan Events.
The term black swan was a Latin expression — its oldest known reference comes from the poet Juvenal’s characterization of something being “rara avis in terris nigroque simillima cygno” (6.165).[1] In English, this Latin phrase means “a rare bird in the lands, and very like a black swan.” When the phrase was coined, the black swan was presumed not to exist. The importance of the simile lies in its analogy to the fragility of any system of thought. A set of conclusions is potentially undone once any of its fundamental postulates is disproven. In this case, the observation of a single black swan would be the undoing of the phrase’s underlying logic, as well as any reasoning that followed from that underlying logic.
Juvenal’s phrase was a common expression in 16th century London as a statement of impossibility. The London expression derives from the Old World presumption that all swans must be white because all historical records of swans reported that they had white feathers.[2] In that context, a black swan was impossible or at least nonexistent. After a Dutch expedition led by explorer Willem de Vlamingh on the Swan River in 1697, discovered black swans in Western Australia[3], the term metamorphosed to connote that a perceived impossibility might later be disproven. Taleb notes that in the 19th century John Stuart Mill used the black swan logical fallacy as a new term to identify falsification.
Specifically, Taleb asserts[4] in the New York Times:
What we call here a Black Swan (and capitalize it) is an event with the following three attributes.
First, it is an outlier, as it lies outside the realm of regular expectations, because nothing in the past can convincingly point to its possibility. Second, it carries an extreme impact. Third, in spite of its outlier status, human nature makes us concoct explanations for its occurrence after the fact, making it explainable and predictable.
I stop and summarize the triplet: rarity, extreme impact, and retrospective (though not prospective) predictability. A small number of Black Swans explains almost everything in our world, from the success of ideas and religions, to the dynamics of historical events, to elements of our own personal lives.
Coping with black swan events
The main idea in Taleb’s book is not to attempt to predict Black Swan Events, but to build robustness against negative ones that occur and being able to exploit positive ones. Taleb contends that banks and trading firms are very vulnerable to hazardous Black Swan Events and are exposed to losses beyond that predicted by their defective models.
Taleb states that a Black Swan Event depends on the observer—using a simple example, what may be a Black Swan surprise for a turkey is not a Black Swan surprise for its butcher—hence the objective should be to “avoid being the turkey” by identifying areas of vulnerability in order to “turn the Black Swans white”.
Identifying a black swan event
Based on the author’s criteria:
- The event is a surprise (to the observer).
- The event has a major impact.
- After the fact, the event is rationalized by hindsight, as if it had been expected.
Taleb’s ten principles for a black swan robust world
Taleb enumerates ten principles for building systems that are robust to Black Swan Events:[10]
- What is fragile should break early while it is still small. Nothing should ever become Too Big to Fail.
- No socialisation of losses and privatisation of gains.
- People who were driving a school bus blindfolded (and crashed it) should never be given a new bus.
- Do not let someone making an “incentive” bonus manage a nuclear plant – or your financial risks.
- Counter-balance complexity with simplicity.
- Do not give children sticks of dynamite, even if they come with a warning.
- Only Ponzi schemes should depend on confidence. Governments should never need to “restore confidence”.
- Do not give an addict more drugs if he has withdrawal pains.
- Citizens should not depend on financial assets or fallible “expert” advice for their retirement.
- Make an omelette with the broken eggs.
In addition to these ten principles, Taleb also recommends employing both physical and functional redundancy in the design of systems. These two steps can be found in the principles of resilience architecting. (Reference: Jackson, S. Architecting Resilient Systems: John Wiley & Sons. Hoboken, NJ: 2010.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory
Federal Reserve System: Purposes and Functions
http://www.federalreserve.gov/pf/pdf/pf_complete.pdf
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Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )News Journal: Number 26, October 15, 2010: Printing More Money (Quantitative Easing) and The Coming Currency War and Decline In The Purchasing Power of The U.S. Dollar–Robbing The American People–Videos
“True, governments can reduce the rate of interest in the short run. They can issue additional paper money. They can open the way to credit expansion by the banks. They can thus create an artificial boom and the appearance of prosperity. But such a boom is bound to collapse soon or late and to bring about a depression.”
“The gold standard alone makes the determination of moneys purchasing power independent of the ambitions and machinations of governments, of dictators, of political parties, and of pressure groups.”
~Ludwig von Mises
Jim Rogers Currency Wars
“IMF Meeting Stokes Fear of Currency War”
Grant Says Quantitative Easing Is Just Money Printing: Video
Global Currency War Brewing
Is The World On The Verge Of A Currency War?
Daniel Rosen: Currency War
IMF Meeting Stokes Fear of Currency War
Webster Tarpley: “There’s a currency war!”
Heller Says `Very Difficult’ for Fed to Boost Growth: Video
Feldstein Predicts Dollar to Weaken, Boosting Exports: Video
Japan cooperates with US on international currency issues – NHK 101010
US House committee approves China currency bill – NHK 100925
US criticizes China, Japan over currency interventions – NHK 100917
Clyde Prestowitz discusses valuation of Chinese currency
Mar 24 10 Hearing on China’s Exchange Rate Policy, C. Fred Bergsten Opening Statement
Mar 24 10 Hearing on China’s Exchange Rate Policy, Clyde Prestowitz Opening Statement
The Truth About The Economy: Total Collapse
Ron Paul in September 14, 2007
The Federal Reserve System is a banking cartel that benefits the large banks at the expense of the American people.
Cartel economists and so-called experts cannot replace the market by attempting to fix the price of money or the dollar.
Abolish the Federal Reserve System.
Abolish fiat paper currency.
Establish a new United States currency backed by gold.
Milton Friedman on Monetary Policy – 1/3
Milton Friedman on Monetary Policy – 2/3
Milton Friedman on Monetary Policy – 3/3
This is necessary to stop the financing of massive Federal Government deficits by the Federal Reserve that is purchasing U. S. Treasury bills and notes with Federal Reserve Notes by printing money or the monetarization of government debt.
Money printing or quantitative easing decreases the purchasing power of the money supply–debasing of the currency– robbing the American people.
Will the Federal Reserve System and fiat paper money be abolished?
Not any time soon.
The result will first be a longer and deeper recession lasting well into 2013.
In 2013 the Federal Reserve System will be 100 years old.
The Federal Reserves System will celebrate by achieving by then the devaluation of the dollar by 99%.
In other words one dollar in 1913 will be worth 1 cent in 2013.
If this is monetary stability, one wonders what inflation really is.
Time to do away the Federal Reserve System for incompetence.
I do not expect the unemployment rate to fall below 8% for U-3 until 2013 at the earliest.
As unemployment slowly declines in 2011 and 2012, there will be at first a gradual increase in the general price level that will accelerate in 2013.
This will be due the inability of the Federal Reserve to reverse quickly enough its very aggressive expansive monetary policy.
In 2011 and 2012 import prices will rise as the Federal Reserve attempts to devalue the dollar compared with other national currencies in an attempt to expand exports by making them cheaper.
The price of a gallon gasoline in the United States will first rise above $3 in 2011 and $4 in 2012 mainly due to the devaluation of the U.S. dollar.
As Communist China gradually lets the value of its currency rise in value relative to the U.S. dollar, exports from China will rise in price. This means higher prices for goods imported into the U.S. from China.
The decline in the value or purchasing power of the dollar in 2011 and 2012 combined with unemployment rates exceeding 8% will mean further losses for the Democratic Party in 2012 including the Presidency.
The American people are rightfully mad as hell at the ruling class and political elites in Washington D.C.
Power of the Market – How to Cure Inflation 1
Power of the Market – How to Cure Inflation 2
Power of the Market – How to Cure Inflation 3
Ron Paul on the Federal Reserve and Government Deficit Spending
The Gold Standard in Theory and Myth by Joseph Salerno
“The gold standard has one tremendous virtue: the quantity of the money supply, under the gold standard, is independent of the policies of governments and political parties. This is its advantage. It is a form of protection against spendthrift governments.”
“Inflationism, however, is not an isolated phenomenon. It is only one piece in the total framework of politico-economic and socio-philosophical ideas of our time. Just as the sound money policy of gold standard advocates went hand in hand with liberalism, free trade, capitalism and peace, so is inflationism part and parcel of imperialism, militarism, protectionism, statism and socialism.”
~Ludwig von Mises
9. Consolidated Statement of Condition of All Federal Reserve Banks
Assets, liabilities, and capital | Eliminations from consolidation |
Wednesday Oct 6, 2010 |
Change since | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Wednesday Sep 29, 2010 |
Wednesday Oct 7, 2009 |
|||
Assets | ||||
Gold certificate account | 11,037 | 0 | 0 | |
Special drawing rights certificate account | 5,200 | 0 | 0 | |
Coin | 2,114 | + 3 | + 124 | |
Securities, repurchase agreements, term auction credit, and other loans |
2,101,199 | + 7,113 | + 216,329 | |
Securities held outright 1 | 2,051,716 | + 7,403 | + 456,429 | |
U.S. Treasury securities | 819,072 | + 7,403 | + 49,887 | |
Bills 2 | 18,423 | 0 | 0 | |
Notes and bonds, nominal 2 | 752,832 | + 7,390 | + 52,364 | |
Notes and bonds, inflation-indexed 2 | 42,318 | 0 | – 2,270 | |
Inflation compensation 3 | 5,499 | + 13 | – 207 | |
Federal agency debt securities 2 | 154,105 | 0 | + 20,294 | |
Mortgage-backed securities 4 | 1,078,539 | 0 | + 386,248 | |
Repurchase agreements 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
Term auction credit | 0 | 0 | – 178,379 | |
Other loans | 49,483 | – 290 | – 61,721 | |
Net portfolio holdings of Commercial Paper Funding Facility LLC 6 |
0 | 0 | – 41,059 | |
Net portfolio holdings of Maiden Lane LLC 7 | 28,510 | + 40 | + 2,206 | |
Net portfolio holdings of Maiden Lane II LLC 8 | 15,674 | – 201 | + 1,213 | |
Net portfolio holdings of Maiden Lane III LLC 9 | 22,782 | – 258 | + 2,616 | |
Net portfolio holdings of TALF LLC 10 | 601 | 0 | + 601 | |
Preferred interests in AIA Aurora LLC and ALICO Holdings LLC 11 |
26,057 | + 324 | + 26,057 | |
Items in process of collection | (84) | 463 | + 98 | + 310 |
Bank premises | 2,222 | – 7 | + 1 | |
Central bank liquidity swaps 12 | 61 | 0 | – 49,770 | |
Other assets 13 | 95,313 | + 2,248 | + 11,389 | |
Total assets | (84) | 2,311,231 | + 9,358 | + 170,016 |
Note: Components may not sum to totals because of rounding. Footnotes appear at the end of the table. 9. Consolidated Statement of Condition of All Federal Reserve Banks (continued)
Assets, liabilities, and capital | Eliminations from consolidation |
Wednesday Oct 6, 2010 |
Change since | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Wednesday Sep 29, 2010 |
Wednesday Oct 7, 2009 |
|||
Liabilities | ||||
Federal Reserve notes, net of F.R. Bank holdings | 918,609 | + 4,849 | + 42,489 | |
Reverse repurchase agreements 14 | 64,440 | – 2,930 | + 1,540 | |
Deposits | (0) | 1,253,413 | + 6,593 | + 113,645 |
Term deposits held by depository institutions | 2,119 | 0 | + 2,119 | |
Other deposits held by depository institutions | 1,000,014 | + 15,875 | + 33,477 | |
U.S. Treasury, general account | 49,530 | – 8,299 | + 18,525 | |
U.S. Treasury, supplementary financing account | 199,962 | + 1 | + 70,006 | |
Foreign official | 1,345 | – 1,066 | – 540 | |
Other | (0) | 444 | + 84 | – 9,940 |
Deferred availability cash items | (84) | 2,598 | + 410 | – 182 |
Other liabilities and accrued dividends 15 | 15,029 | + 91 | + 6,468 | |
Total liabilities | (84) | 2,254,089 | + 9,014 | + 163,961 |
Capital accounts | ||||
Capital paid in | 26,687 | + 1 | + 1,798 | |
Surplus | 25,881 | + 6 | + 4,500 | |
Other capital accounts | 4,575 | + 338 | – 242 | |
Total capital | 57,142 | + 344 | + 6,055 |
Note: Components may not sum to totals because of rounding.
1. Includes securities lent to dealers under the overnight and term securities lending facilities; refer to table 1A.
2.Face value of the securities.
3. Compensation that adjusts for the effect of inflation on the original face value of inflation-indexed securities.
11. Refer to table 8.
14. Cash value of agreements, which are collateralized by U.S. Treasury securities, federal agency debt securities, and mortgage-backed securities.
15. Includes the liabilities of Maiden Lane LLC, Maiden Lane II LLC, Maiden Lane III LLC, and TALF LLC to entities other than the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, including liabilities that have recourse only to the portfolio holdings of these LLCs. Refer to table 4 through table 7 and the note on consolidation accompanying table 10.
Minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee September 21, 2010″…At the conclusion of the discussion, the Committee voted to authorize and direct the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, until it was instructed otherwise, to execute transactions in the System Account in accordance with the following domestic policy directive:
“The Federal Open Market Committee seeks monetary and financial conditions that will foster price stability and promote sustainable growth in output. To further its long-run objectives, the Committee seeks conditions in reserve markets consistent with federal funds trading in a range from 0 to 1/4 percent. The Committee directs the Desk to maintain the total face value of domestic securities held in the System Open Market Account at approximately $2 trillion by reinvesting principal payments from agency debt and agency mortgage-backed securities in longer-term Treasury securities. The System Open Market Account Manager and the Secretary will keep the Committee informed of ongoing developments regarding the System’s balance sheet that could affect the attainment over time of the Committee’s objectives of maximum employment and price stability.”
The vote encompassed approval of the statement below to be released at 2:15 p.m.:
“Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in August indicates that the pace of recovery in output and employment has slowed in recent months. Household spending is increasing gradually, but remains constrained by high unemployment, modest income growth, lower housing wealth, and tight credit. Business spending on equipment and software is rising, though less rapidly than earlier in the year, while investment in nonresidential structures continues to be weak. Employers remain reluctant to add to payrolls. Housing starts are at a depressed level. Bank lending has continued to contract, but at a reduced rate in recent months. The Committee anticipates a gradual return to higher levels of resource utilization in a context of price stability, although the pace of economic recovery is likely to be modest in the near term.Measures of underlying inflation are currently at levels somewhat below those the Committee judges most consistent, over the longer run, with its mandate to promote maximum employment and price stability. With substantial resource slack continuing to restrain cost pressures and longer-term inflation expectations stable, inflation is likely to remain subdued for some time before rising to levels the Committee considers consistent with its mandate.The Committee will maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent and continues to anticipate that economic conditions, including low rates of resource utilization, subdued inflation trends, and stable inflation expectations, are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels for the federal funds rate for an extended period. The Committee also will maintain its existing policy of reinvesting principal payments from its securities holdings.The Committee will continue to monitor the economic outlook and financial developments and is prepared to provide additional accommodation if needed to support the economic recovery and to return inflation, over time, to levels consistent with its mandate.”
Voting for this action: Ben Bernanke, William C. Dudley, James Bullard, Elizabeth Duke, Sandra Pianalto, Eric Rosengren, Daniel K. Tarullo, and Kevin Warsh.Voting against this action: Thomas M. Hoenig.Mr. Hoenig dissented, emphasizing that the economy was entering the second year of moderate recovery and that, while the zero interest rate policy and “extended period” language were appropriate during the crisis and its immediate aftermath, they were no longer appropriate with the recovery under way. Mr. Hoenig also emphasized that, in his view, the current high levels of unemployment were not caused by high interest rates but by an extended period of exceptionally low rates earlier in the decade that contributed to the housing bubble and subsequent collapse and recession. He believed that holding rates artificially low would invite the development of new imbalances and undermine long-run growth. He would prefer removing the “extended period” language and thereafter moving the federal funds rate upward, consistent with his views at past meetings that it approach 1 percent, before pausing to determine what further policy actions were needed. Also, given current economic and financial conditions, Mr. Hoenig did not believe that continuing to reinvest principal payments from SOMA securities holdings was required to support the Committee’s policy objectives.It was agreed that the next meeting of the Committee would be held on Tuesday-Wednesday, November 2-3, 2010. The meeting adjourned at 1:10 p.m. on September 21, 2010. …”
http://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/fomcminutes20100921.htm
Background Articles and Videos
Marc-Faber– FedsPrinting to Create Final Crisis 8-3-2010
Quantitative easing
Marc Faber Sees Fed Introducing `Massive’ Quantitative Easing
Ron Paul: If You Care About The Poor You Have To Look At Monetary Policy
The Gold Standard Before the Civil War | Murray N. Rothbard
Monetary Policy, Deflation, And Quantitative Easing
“…Aren’t the excess bank reserves inflationary?
Potentially yes, but currently no. Even though banks are earning a meager 25 basis points on their reserves, that is not sufficient incentive to keep large quantities of excess reserves uninvested or unloaned. As they were in the mid-1930s, massive excess reserves are the result of banker fear and uncertainty. The banking system has been saved, but it hasn’t been made whole yet. Bankers continue to worry about reserve levels and liquidity levels and capital levels. They are willing to lend, but only very conservatively to credit-worthy borrowers. Also, much of the slowdown in bank lending comes from low demand for loans by highly qualified borrowers.
The idea that the excess reserves held on banks’ balance sheets should be “mopped up” to prevent them being used in inflationary ways later is a very dangerous idea. They are there voluntarily because bankers feel they are needed. To remove them would cause further bank retrenchment, as it did in the 1930s when the Fed decided to “mop up” the excess reserves of that time.
As the economy and confidence improves, banks will begin using their excess reserves more aggressively. At that point, the Fed will have to be very careful not to stifle that desirable activity on the one hand or let it get out of hand and become inflationary on the other hand. Since they have lots of good, two-handed economists, I think they can pull it off. ..”
http://www.dailymarkets.com/economy/2010/07/30/monetary-policy-deflation-and-quantitative-easing/
The Founding of the Federal Reserve | Murray N. Rothbard
If you work to earn money you need to watch this
Quantitative Easing
“…The term quantitative easing (QE) describes a monetary policy used by central banks to increase the supply of money by increasing the excess reserves of the banking system. This policy is usually invoked when the normal methods to control the money supply have failed, i.e the bank interest rate, discount rate and/or interbank interest rate are either at, or close to, zero.
A central bank implements QE by first crediting its own account with money it creates ex nihilo (“out of nothing”).[1] It then purchases financial assets, including government bonds, agency debt, mortgage-backed securities and corporate bonds, from banks and other financial institutions in a process referred to as open market operations. The purchases, by way of account deposits, give banks the excess reserves required for them to create new money, and thus hopefully induce a stimulation of the economy, by the process of deposit multiplication from increased lending in the fractional reserve banking system.
Risks include the policy being more effective than intended, spurring hyperinflation, or the risk of not being effective enough, if banks opt simply to sit on the additional cash in order to increase their capital reserves in a climate of increasing defaults in their present loan portfolio.[1]
“Quantitative” refers to the fact that a specific quantity of money is being created; “easing” refers to reducing the pressure on banks.[2] However, another explanation is that the name comes from the Japanese-language expression for “stimulatory monetary policy”, which uses the term “easing”.[3] Quantitative easing is sometimes colloquially described as “printing money” although in reality the money is simply created by electronically adding a number to an account. Examples of economies where this policy has been used include Japan during the early 2000s, and the United States, the United Kingdom and the Eurozone during the global financial crisis of 2008–the present, since the programme is suitable for economies where the bank interest rate, discount rate and/or interbank interest rate are either at, or close to, zero.
Concept
Ordinarily, the central bank uses its control of interest rates, or sometimes reserve requirements, to indirectly influence the supply of money.[1] In some situations, such as very low inflation or deflation, setting a low interest rate is not enough to maintain the level of money supply desired by the central bank, and so quantitative easing is employed to further boost the amount of money in the financial system.[1] This is often considered a “last resort” to increase the money supply.[4][5] The first step is for the bank to create more money ex nihilo (“out of nothing”) by crediting its own account. It can then use these funds to buy investments like government bonds from financial firms such as banks, insurance companies and pension funds,[1] in a process known as “monetising the debt“.
For example, in introducing its QE programme, the Bank of England bought gilts from financial institutions, along with a smaller amount of relatively high-quality debt issued by private companies.[6] The banks, insurance companies and pension funds can then use the money they have received for lending or even to buy back more bonds from the bank. The central bank can also lend the new money to private banks or buy assets from banks in exchange for currency.[citation needed] These have the effect of depressing interest yields on government bonds and similar investments, making it cheaper for business to raise capital.[7] Another side effect is that investors will switch to other investments, such as shares, boosting their price and thus creating the illusion of increasing wealth in the economy.[6] QE can reduce interbank overnight interest rates, and thereby encourage banks to loan money to higher interest-paying and financially weaker bodies.
More specifically, the lending undertaken by commercial banks is subject to fractional-reserve banking: they are subject to a regulatory reserve requirement, which requires them to keep a percentage of deposits in “reserve”,[citation needed]: these can only be used to settle transactions between them and the central bank.[7] The remainder, called “excess reserves”, can (but does not have to be) be used as a basis for lending. When, under QE, a central bank buys from an institution, the institution’s bank account is credited directly and their bank gains reserves.[6] The increase in deposits from the quantitative easing process causes an excess in reserves and private banks can then, if they wish, create even more new money out of “thin air” by increasing debt (lending) through a process known as deposit multiplication and thus increase the country’s money supply. The reserve requirement limits the amount of new money. For example a 10% reserve requirement means that for every $10,000 created by quantitative easing the total new money created is potentially $100,000. The US Federal Reserve‘s now out-of-print booklet Modern Money Mechanics explains the process.
A state must be in control of its own currency and monetary policy if it is to unilaterally employ quantitative easing. Countries in the eurozone (for example) cannot unilaterally use this policy tool, but must rely on the European Central Bank to implement it.[citation needed] There may also be other policy considerations. For example, under Article 123 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union[7] and later the Maastricht Treaty, EU member states are not allowed to finance their public deficits (debts) by simply printing the money required to fill the hole, as happened, for example, in Weimar Germany and more recently in Zimbabwe.[1] Banks using QE, such as the Bank of England, have argued that they are increasing the supply of money not to fund government debt but to prevent deflation, and will choose the financial products they buy accordingly, for example, by buying government bonds not straight from the government, but in secondary markets.[1][7]
HistoryQuantitative easing was used unsuccessfully[8] by the Bank of Japan (BOJ) to fight domestic deflation in the early 2000s.[9] During the global financial crisis of 2008–the present, policies announced by the US Federal Reserve under Ben Bernanke to counter the effects of the crisis are a form of quantitative easing. Its balance sheet expanded dramatically by adding new assets and new liabilities without “sterilizing” these by corresponding subtractions. In the same period the United Kingdom used quantitative easing as an additional arm of its monetary policy in order to alleviate its financial crisis.[10][11][12]
The European Central Bank (ECB) has used 12-month long-term refinancing operations (a form of quantitative easing without referring to it as such) through a process of expanding the assets that banks can use as collateral that can be posted to the ECB in return for Euros. This process has led to bonds being “structured for the ECB”[13]. By comparison the other central banks were very restrictive in terms of the collateral they accept: the US Federal Reserve used to accept primarily treasuries (in the first half of 2009 it bought almost any relatively safe dollar-denominated securities); the Bank of England applied a large haircut.
In Japan’s case, the BOJ had been maintaining short-term interest rates at close to their minimum attainable zero values since 1999. With quantitative easing, it flooded commercial banks with excess liquidity to promote private lending, leaving them with large stocks of excess reserves, and therefore little risk of a liquidity shortage.[14] The BOJ accomplished this by buying more government bonds than would be required to set the interest rate to zero. It also bought asset-backed securities and equities, and extended the terms of its commercial paper purchasing operation.[15]
RisksQuantitative easing is seen as a risky strategy that could trigger higher inflation than desired or even hyperinflation if it is improperly used and too much money is created.
Quantitative easing runs the risk of going too far. An increase in money supply to a system has an inflationary effect by diluting the value of a unit of currency. People who have saved money will find it is devalued by inflation; this combined with the associated low interest rates will put people who rely on their savings in difficulty. If devaluation of a currency is seen externally to the country it can affect the international credit rating of the country which in turn can lower the likelihood of foreign investment. Like old-fashioned money printing, Zimbabwe suffered an extreme case of a process that has the same risks as quantitative easing, printing money, making its currency virtually worthless.[1]
…”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing
Federal Open Market Committee
“…About the FOMCThe term “monetary policy” refers to the actions undertaken by a central bank, such as the Federal Reserve, to influence the availability and cost of money and credit to help promote national economic goals. The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 gave the Federal Reserve responsibility for setting monetary policy.The Federal Reserve controls the three tools of monetary policy–open market operations, the discount rate, and reserve requirements. The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is responsible for the discount rate and reserve requirements, and the Federal Open Market Committee is responsible for open market operations. Using the three tools, the Federal Reserve influences the demand for, and supply of, balances that depository institutions hold at Federal Reserve Banks and in this way alters the federal funds rate. The federal funds rate is the interest rate at which depository institutions lend balances at the Federal Reserve to other depository institutions overnight.Changes in the federal funds rate trigger a chain of events that affect other short-term interest rates, foreign exchange rates, long-term interest rates, the amount of money and credit, and, ultimately, a range of economic variables, including employment, output, and prices of goods and services.
Structure of the FOMC
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) consists of twelve members–the seven members of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System; the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York; and four of the remaining eleven Reserve Bank presidents, who serve one-year terms on a rotating basis. The rotating seats are filled from the following four groups of Banks, one Bank president from each group: Boston, Philadelphia, and Richmond; Cleveland and Chicago; Atlanta, St. Louis, and Dallas; and Minneapolis, Kansas City, and San Francisco. Nonvoting Reserve Bank presidents attend the meetings of the Committee, participate in the discussions, and contribute to the Committee’s assessment of the economy and policy options.The FOMC holds eight regularly scheduled meetings per year. At these meetings, the Committee reviews economic and financial conditions, determines the appropriate stance of monetary policy, and assesses the risks to its long-run goals of price stability and sustainable economic growth.For more detail on the FOMC and monetary policy, see section 2 of the brochure on the structure of the Federal Reserve System and chapter 2 of Purposes & Functions of the Federal Reserve System.
2010 Members of the FOMC
- Members
- Ben S. Bernanke, Board of Governors, Chairman
- William C. Dudley, New York, Vice Chairman
- James Bullard, St. Louis
- Elizabeth A. Duke, Board of Governors
- Thomas M. Hoenig, Kansas City
- Sandra Pianalto, Cleveland
- Sarah Bloom Raskin, Board of Governors
- Eric S. Rosengren, Boston
- Daniel K. Tarullo, Board of Governors
- Kevin M. Warsh, Board of Governors
- Janet L. Yellen, Board of Governors …”
http://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/fomc.htm
FEDERAL RESERVE statistical release
H.4.1
Factors Affecting Reserve Balances of Depository Institutions and
Condition Statement of Federal Reserve Banks
Why Chinese Currency Manipulation Is America’s Fault April 15, 2010
“…Unfortunately, the token appreciation that is probably now in store won’t help very much. For one thing, Beijing has played this game before. China first started diversifying its currency reserves away from the dollar (which weakens currency manipulation) in July 2005, and from then until July 2008 allowed the yuan to rise from 8.28 to the dollar to 6.83, where it has since been held nearly steady. But this appreciation, while showcased by China, was purely nominal; after adjusting for inflation, the change was far smaller: about two percent.
How does China manipulate its currency? Mainly by preventing its exporters from using the dollars they earn as they wish. Instead, they are required to swap them for domestic currency at China’s central bank, which then “sterilizes” them by spending them on U.S. Treasury securities (and increasingly other, higher-yielding, investments) rather than U.S. goods. As a result, the price of dollars is propped up — which means the price of yuan is pushed down — by a demand for dollars which doesn’t involve buying American exports.
The amounts involved are astronomical: as of 2008, China’s accumulated dollar-denominated holdings amounted to $1.7 trillion, an astonishing 40 percent of China’s GDP. The China Currency Coalition estimated in 2005 that the yuan was undervalued by 40 percent; past scholarly estimates have ranged from 10 to 75 percent.
Why is this America’s fault? Because China’s currency is manipulated relative to our own only because we permit it, as there is no law requiring us to sell China our bonds and other assets. We could, in fact, end this manipulation at will. All we would need to do is bar China’s purchases, or just tax them to death.
This would be neither an extreme nor an unprecedented move. It is roughly what the Swiss did in 1972, when economic troubles elsewhere in the world generated an excessive flow of money seeking refuge in Swiss franc-denominated assets. This drove up the value of the franc and threatened to make Swiss manufacturing internationally uncompetitive. To prevent this, the Swiss government imposed a number of measures to dampen foreign investment demand for francs, including a ban on the sale of franc-denominated bonds, securities, and real estate to foreigners. Problem solved. (It did not even damage Switzerland’s standing as an international financial center, a key worry at the time.) …”
“…So the real underlying problem is that America doesn’t generate enough savings on its own to meet its voracious appetite for borrowing. China’s savings rate, thanks to deliberate suppression by the Chinese government of its people’s opportunities to spend what they earn, is an astonishing 50 percent. Ours was negative four percent in the last Federal Reserve report on the subject. We are—Oh, how Mao would have loved this!—decadent. …”
http://seekingalpha.com/article/198825-why-chinese-currency-manipulation-is-americas-fault
Recording–Videos
Digital Recording 1
Digital Recording 1-2
Digital Recording 2 (Things To Know)
Digital Recording 2-2 (Things To Know)
Digital Recording 2-3
Digital Recording 3 (Mastering Room)
Digital Recording 4_1 (Connection)
Digital Recording 4_2 (Connection)
Digital Recording 4_3 Connection
1. In audiotape recording, electrical signals are transduced into magnetic signals during the recording phase. during playback the magnetic signals are transduced back into electrical signals.
2. In analog recording, signals are oriented on the tape in patterns analogous to the waveform of the original signal. The signal is continuous–it is always “on”.
3. Most recording tape is composed of a thin, plastic ribbon of polyester; microscopic needle like magnetic particles; a binder of synthetic varnish so the particles adhere to the polyester; and a back coating to reduce slippage.
4. Open-reel analog audiotape comes in two thicknesses: about 1 mil for digital tape and 1 1/2 mil for analog tape. The 1 1/2 mil tape is preferred for analog recording because it reduces the chance of print-through. Digital audio-tape does not have to be as thick as analog because the digital system has to deal only with 1s(the presence of a pulse) and 0s(the absence of a pulse). Therefore, thickness in not a factor in the tape’s signal-to-noise ratio and its ability to reproduce dynamic range.
5. Open-reel audiotape comes in four widths–1/4, 1/5, 1, and 2 inch. The width of analog cassette tape is 3/20 inch. Typically, the 1/2-inch width is used with digital multi-track 5-DAT machines and the 2-inch tape is used with analog multitrack recorders.
6. Tape should be handled carefully. The tape surface can be sullied by fingerprints, smoke, and dust, and the tape reels can be damaged by being stacked one upon the other. Tape should be stored tails out in a controlled environment o 68 degrees F, plus or minus 5 degrees, and 40 percent humidity, plus or minus 5 percent.
7. The three essential sections of a tape recorder are the tape transport system, the magnetic heads, and the record and playback electronics.
8. A number of controls operate the transport: the power switch, variable-speed control, play, record, stop, fast-forward, rewind, and the tape edit control.
9. An important function of the transport system is to maintain the tape movement at a precise, constant speed. A change in the transport speed could result in audible changes in a recording’s frequency. Slow changes are called wow; faster changes are called flutter.
10. Most professional analog tape recorders run at one or more speeds: 7 1/2, 15, and 30 inches per second (ips); 15 and 30 ips are standard with analog multitrack recorders. Generally, the faster the speed, the better the sound quality.
11. Professional analog tape recorders have at least three heads: erase, record, and playback. Most modern recorders also have a head for time code.
12. because the magnetic particles on tape respond to magnetization nonlineraly (they cannot make sense of the information carried by the input signal), the record head has a high-frequency bias current that linearized the magnetic information so it can be encoded on the tape.
13. A 2-inch headstack houses 16 or 24 separate heads and can record or play back 16 or 24 tape tracks. There are a few analog multitrack recorders with 32 channels and, hence, 32 separate heads on the 2-inch headstack.
14. The position of the heads is critical, and any change in their physical alignment–zenith, height, tangent, wrap, or azimuth–adversely affects sound quality.
15. Heads must also be electronically aligned regularly. They should be demagnetized and cleaned before each session and during long sessions.
16. Multitrack audiotape recorder have a variety of features, including Sel Sync, which temporarily changes selected tracks on the record head into the playback mode. This permits various elements in a recording to be taped synchronously at different times.
17. Analog videotape recorders encode analog video as well as audio that may be analog, frequency modulated, or digital.
18. There are three types of film: silent, sound, and magnetic.
19. Silent film carries no sound intormation. Sound film carries both picture and optical sound. Magnetic film contains all sound and no picture. Magnetic film comes in either full coat or stripe coat.
20. Sound quality in 16 mm magnetic film is mediocre. In 35 mm it is a little better, but with such enhancements as Dolby processing digital audio, and surround sound, 25 mm audio quality is excellent.
21. Digital audio uses a numerical representation of the sound signal’s actual frequency and amplitude. In analog, frequency is the time component, and amplitude is the level component. In digital, sampling is the time component, and quatization is the level component.
22. Sampling takes periodic samples (voltages) of the original analog signal at ficed intervals and converts them into digirtal data. The rate at which the fixed intervals sample the original signal each second is called the sampling frequency.
23. As samples of the waveform are taken, these voltages are converted into discrete and assigned value. This process is known as Quantization.
24. The basic steps in the digital recording process are: antialiasing, sample and hold, analog-to-digital conversion, signal coding, and data storage.
25. The basic steps in digital reproduction are: demodulation, error correcting, digital-to-analog conversion, sample and hold, and low-pass filtering.
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