What I Learned In Paris-2012 Part VI

Published: Fri, 06/22/12

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In This Issue:

What I Learned In Paris—2012 Part VI By Richard C. Young

Top-Ranking Countries Worth Knowing About By E.J. Smith

AG Holder Boxed in on Fast and Furious The Editors

MQ-4C Triton Unmanned Aircraft The Editors

The Hong Kong of New England By E.J. Smith

Outrage: Food Stamp Reform Defeated in Senate The Editors

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If Greece is pushed out of the euro, expect more volatility. The magnitude of the damage from a Greek exit will depend on the policy response.— Read more in the May Client Letter on Younginvestments.com.

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What I Learned In Paris—2012 Part VI

Cuisses de grenouilles, pamplemouse, lapin, jambon, oeufs—probably names that do not just roll off your tongue. When you are at your newest favorite Paris bistro or shopping for your night’s dinner on Rue de Buci (6^th), Marche Raspail (6^th), or Rue Cler (7^th), it’s a good idea to have your bistro French down so you don’t have to request a menu in English or deal in a fog with a French-only-speaking market vendor. If you have your bistro French down or are working with Eating & Drinking in Paris by Andy Herbach, you’ll recognize frog’s legs, pineapple, rabbit, ham and eggs. Food in France is a whole new ballgame for most Americans. There is simply no comparison between the French and American food experience when talking fresh, local and unprocessed. Savvy locals shop only at the daily street markets or, when in the 7th, at La Grande Epicerie au Bon Marche, the mother of all gourmet food shops. Paris street markets and specialty food shops are stuffed with still freshly baked baguettes, hanging rabbits, Camembert cheese and butter from Normandy, produce from Provence, Bresse chicken, Cros de la Geline poultry, Salers and Charolais beef, oysters from Brittany, sole from Normandy, and Burgundy wine from Puligny Montrachet, Mersault, St.Aubin, Aloxe Corton and Vosne Romanee. (Burgundy, not Bordeaux, ranks near the top on my survival/alternative investment roster.)

Unlike in the States, Paris bistros and restaurants will frequently source their menu offerings, making your choice of evening fare a most pleasing venture ( Paris restaurant at Hotel Lutetia menu). According to law, menus must be posted outside. As such, you can enjoy a scouting walk to potential dining candidates and scope out the menu for each in advance of reserving. Unlike in the States, Paris restaurants and bistros will most often emphasize Price Fix, featuring either two or three courses. In France, Entrée refers to the first course and the designation Plat refers to your main course. A menu designation s.c. (service compris) indicates that your tip is included, which is most often the case. It is not required, but as an extra, you can leave a couple of 1 or 2 euro coins. To kick off your gastronomic French adventure, I strongly advise you order a copy of Andre Domine’s Food of France. If you cannot find this title, order instead Culinaria France by Domine.

Bon appétit,

Dick

What do Finland, Sweden, Norway, Singapore, and Switzerland have in common? They outrank the U.S. when it comes to protection of property rights. In the 2012 International Property Rights Index, they are the top five, and the U.S. is 18th of 130 countries.

The index, published by the Property Rights Alliance in affiliation with Americans for Tax Reform, focuses on physical, legal, and intellectual property rights. It turns out that countries with the highest grade are wealthier and grow faster than the rest.

What’s so important about property rights? They benefit the rich and the poor. As Amity Shlaes points out in her Forbes column “Property Uber Alles: Own It”:

The Arab Spring saw a new kind of martyr—the martyr to property rights. On Dec. 17, 2010 a Tunisian fruit dealer, Mohamed Bouazizi, had two crates of pears, one crate of bananas and three crates of apples, as well as a secondhand scale, confiscated by municipal regulators an hour before he set himself on fire. You don’t have to approve of suicide to notice that the erosion of property rights, generally regarded as a mundane event, seemed to have fueled great despair in this case. The story reminds us of an often forgotten truth: The poor care about property just as much as—possibly more than—the rest of us.

The reason for the U.S. rank of 18th is that we rank 50th in the subcategory of political stability. That subcategory should be our strongest since we’re founded on the principle that government exists to promote our general welfare—and not be the impediment to our property rights that it currently is.

>> read more

AG Holder Boxed in on Fast and Furious

“Darrell Issa , Chairman of The House Oversight Committee, announced that he has decided to move forward with a vote to consider a report holding Eric Holder in contempt of Congress over the Attorney General’s failure to hand over documents related to the ‘Fast and Furious’ investigation. The vote on a resolution is scheduled at 10 a.m. on Wednesday.

Earlier in the day, Issa met with Holder and other top Democrats and Republicans on the Judiciary Committees. In a statement Issa wrote, ‘Today, the attorney general informed us that the department would not be producing those documents. The only offer they made involved us ending our investigation.’”-From David Harsanyi at Human Events

>> read more

MQ-4C Triton unmanned aircraft

Northrop Grumman Corporation unveiled the first U.S. Navy MQ-4C Triton Broad Area Maritime Surveillance unmanned aircraft in a ceremony June 14th at the company’s Palmdale, Calif., manufacturing facility. Keeping with the tradition of naming surveillance aircraft after Greek sea gods, the Navy named the aircraft Triton, the messenger of the sea.

“Northrop Grumman is proud to provide our U.S. Navy customer with the MQ-4C Triton unmanned aircraft, a key element of the BAMS UAS program, representing the future of naval aviation and a strategic element of the U.S. Navy,” said Duke Dufresne, Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems sector vice president and general manager for unmanned systems. “The BAMS UAS program will revolutionize persistent maritime intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. We are honored to serve the U.S. Navy and our nation’s allies in the quest to build and maintain a strong and cooperative global maritime domain.”

The Northrop Grumman BAMS UAS is a versatile maritime intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance system to support a variety of missions while operating independently or in direct collaboration with fleet assets. When operational, BAMS will play a key role in providing commanders with a persistent, reliable picture of surface threats, covering vast areas of open ocean and littoral regions as the unmanned segment of the Navy’s Maritime Patrol Reconnaissance Force.

“Today is a significant day for the BAMS team,” said Rear Adm. Bill Shannon, program executive officer, unmanned aviation and strike weapons. “The work they have done and will continue to do is critical to the future of naval aviation. Their efforts will enable the BAMS system to provide the fleet a game-changing persistent maritime and littoral intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capability.”

Currently, BAMS-D (demonstrator), a Block 10 RQ-4 equipped with maritime sensors, is being used by the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet. BAMS-D provides a glimpse of the full persistent capabilities that the Triton’s 360-degree Multi-Function Active Sensor (MFAS) radar will bring to the fleet. The MFAS is a 360-degree field-of-regard active electronically scanned array radar designed for maritime surveillance. The X-Band two-dimensional sensor features a combination of electronic scanning and a mechanical rotation, allowing the radar to spotlight a geographic area of interest for longer periods to increase detection capabilities of smaller targets, particularly in sea clutter. The MFAS radar is produced by Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems.

The BAMS UAS program is managed by the Navy’s Program Executive Office (Unmanned Aviation and Strike Weapons), Persistent Maritime Unmanned Aircraft Systems Program Office (PMA-262), at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md.

>> read more

The Hong Kong of New England

The food stamp program was originally intended to support the poorest 2% of Americans. Today around 14% of Americans receive food stamps. The program is one of the government’s fastest growing. Senator Jeff Sessions proposed amendments to the Farm Bill to curb food stamp abuses, but liberals in the Senate defeated his attempt at reform. Below is a letter from Sen. Sessions on the defeat of his proposal.

It is disappointing that the Senate majority rejected modest attempts to reform the single largest growing major expense in the federal budget. Food stamp spending has quadrupled since 2001, and has doubled since 2008. The food stamp budget now makes up 80 percent of the farm bill and will remain at more than double pre-recession levels for the next ten years. It is one of nearly 80 overlapping federal welfare programs providing low-income support, including 17 for nutrition. An individual on food stamps may receive as much as $25,000 in low-income support for their household.

My amendments would have made two modest but critical reforms to the food stamp program: preventing states from waiving eligibility requirements, and eliminating bonus pay provided to states for deliberately swelling the rolls. It is stunning that the Democrat majority—at a time when we are borrowing forty cents of every dollar we spend—would object to providing even this small degree of financial accountability. It is, however, an encouraging sign of progress that this amendment, unlike last year, did receive bipartisan support and a larger vote total.

This is not only a financial issue but a moral issue. One in 7 Americans are on food stamps. Under this bill, no fewer than 1 in 9 Americans will be on food stamps at any point in the next ten years. Left unattended, the safety net can turn into a restraint. Welfare support can, over time, become damaging to both the Treasury and the recipient. Those administering the program seem determined to place the largest number of people possible on welfare support. Is not a better goal to see how many Americans we can help achieve financial independence?—Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL)