From the India Times:

The presidential entourage will have 40 aircraft, including the Air Force One that will ferry the president. There will be six armoured cars, including four Barack Mobiles and a Cadillac.

Cadillac is equipped with a mini communication centre to enable Obama to be in touch with the White House, US vice president and the US strategic command. It also has the US nuke launch codes and it can withstand a chemical or germ warfare and a bomb attack.

Two secret service command posts will be set up in Delhi and Mumbai to act as the communication nerve centres. These will monitor the president’s movement with real time satellite monitoring.

Three Marine One choppers will be reassembled in India to ferry the president and his family and to evacuate them in case of any emergency.

We can’t afford the imperium.

This could be the battery that the electric car is waiting for. Demonstrated range of 375 miles at 55 mph, and the real killer, 6 minute recharge (with high current DC source). The technology is already in production, and daily use, for forklifts.

Frau Merkel refused to follow the Fed’s Keynesian lead on “quantitative easing” and the Congress’ on “stimulus.” We now see the results of ignoring the dicta of the Keynesians:

German unemployment fell slightly in October, dropping to its lowest level in 18 years as the impact of persistently strong growth in Europe’s top economy continued to filter through to the jobs market.

It seems to take a tough woman to stand up to the boys’ clubs and sort out the political and economic messes. Think Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir, Margaret Thatcher and now Angela Merkel.

Back in March of 2009, I wrote a piece outlining the steps that I would take to correct America’s economic slide. The first bullet on the list was:

Rebuild the nation’s balance sheet by encouraging savings and penalizing consumption. The primary tool for doing this would be the replacement of the income tax with a consumption tax

There is now a growing movement to do just this. Called the “FairTax,” the idea is increasingly mentioned in conservative media.

The FairTax plan is a comprehensive proposal that replaces all federal income and payroll based taxes with an integrated approach including a progressive national retail sales tax, a prebate to ensure no American pays federal taxes on spending up to the poverty level, dollar-for-dollar federal revenue neutrality, and, through companion legislation, the repeal of the 16th Amendment.

The FairTax Act (HR 25, S 296) is nonpartisan legislation. It abolishes all federal personal and corporate income taxes, gift, estate, capital gains, alternative minimum, Social Security, Medicare, and self-employment taxes and replaces them with one simple, visible, federal retail sales tax administered primarily by existing state sales tax authorities.

Right thing to do.

Thanks to Financial Armageddon:

Well one of those lines is going to move to converge on the other one. I think I know which one.