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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 27-Jun-2013
27-Jun-13 World View -- Gun sales explode, thanks to Obama's anti-gun campaign

Web Log - June, 2013

27-Jun-13 World View -- Gun sales explode, thanks to Obama's anti-gun campaign

Wall Street stocks gain on bad U.S. economic news

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

Gun sales explode, thanks to Obama's anti-gun campaign
Violence flares again in China's Xinjiang province
Israel approves new West Bank settlements on eve of John Kerry visit
Wall Street stocks gain on bad U.S. economic news

Gun sales explode, thanks to Obama's anti-gun campaign

3D printer printing a cup -- it could just as easily have been a gun

3D printer printing a cup -- it could just as easily have been a gun

President Barack Obama has been more successful than former NRA president Charlton Heston or current NRA president Wayne LaPierre in making guns available to a lot more people. Thanks to President Obama and his anti-gun campaigns, gun sales are exploding well into record territory. Gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson reports that its gun sales are up a whopping 42% this year. According to the CEO:

"While we significantly increased our production capacity in fiscal year 2013, we remain capacity constrained, as we have for the past five quarters. We plan to continue intelligently increasing capacity in fiscal year 2014."

If Obama were going to run for president again, I'm sure that Smith & Wesson would want to contribute to his campaign, because Obama is very good for the gun business -- better than George Bush or any recent president, and better than the NRA. Furthermore, Obama can point to the gun industry as a place where he personally can take credit for creating jobs -- jobs for gun manufacturers, gun distributors, gun retailers, and owners of gun practice ranges. Thanks to Obama, it's just guns, guns and more guns. When Obama's opponents point to his failures to create jobs, he can shut his critics up by pointing to his spectacular success with creating jobs in the gun industry.

Smith & Wesson's business is so good that they're capacity constrained, but 3D printers are quickly filling the gap. Cody Wilson, head of Texas nonprofit Defense Distributed, has demonstrated a 3D-printed gun that can be used hundreds of times before failing, and has published the blueprints (CAD file) on his web site. The whole gun control issue became even more farcical last month, when the U.S. State Dept. ordered Cody to remove the blueprints from his web site. But no matter, they're now available elsewhere on the internet.

When I wrote about 3D printed guns in December, 3D printers cost many thousands of dollars, and 3D-printed guns could not survive more than a few shots. I said at the time that the technology would quickly become much better and much cheaper, and it already has. Staples, for example, is selling the Cube 3D Printer for prices starting at $1200, and the $1000 barrier should be broken very soon. So President Obama is helping create jobs in another way, as people get into the business of 3D-printing and selling their own guns, if not legally, then in the black market. (By the way, I've been told that you can sell a 3D printed gun legally if you sell it in parts that the buyer has to assemble.) CNN and NY Daily News and Staples - 3D Printers

Violence flares again in China's Xinjiang province

Xinjiang province, in northwest China, is about as far away from Beijing as you can get and still be in China, so it's not surprising the the ethnic Uighurs are extremely dissatisfied by having the distant Beijing government tell them how to run their lives, how to dress, and how to practice (or not practice) their Sunni Muslim religion, while at the same time, discriminating against Uighurs in favor of the mainstream Han Chinese. Early Wednesday morning, a mob of Uighurs began attacking Han Chinese, including civilians, police officers, and other government employees. After nine were killed, the police shot dead ten of the rioters, and arrested three. The attack may have been prompted by the fourth anniversary of the mob attack by Uighurs on July 5, 2009, which left 197 people dead and 1,600 injured. China has a policy of resettling masses of Han Chinese in Xinjiang, in order to dilute the Uighur population and to assimilate them. A similar policy in Tibet has met with no success. The Uighurs are from the same central Asian Turkic ethnic group as the people of Turkey are, and in 2009, Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, accused the Chinese government of genocide, and demanded that they end their policy of assimilation. Global Times (Beijing) and AFP

Israel approves new West Bank settlements on eve of John Kerry visit

Israel has approved construction permits on Wednesday for 69 new homes in East Jerusalem, in an area taken over by Israel in the 1967 war with Palestinians. The approval comes one day before U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is due to arrive in Israel, with the intention of reviving the "peace process" between Israel and the Palestinians. The approval might therefore be interpreted as a thumb in the eye of President Barack Obama, who has asked Israel to freeze settlement building in order to revive the peace talks. As I've said repeatedly for the last ten years (see "Mideast Roadmap - Will it bring peace?" from 2003), a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians is impossible, since they're headed for a new genocidal war re-fighting the 1949 war between Arab and Jews that followed the partitioning of Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel. Jerusalem Post

Wall Street stocks gain on bad U.S. economic news

I just love this. The economic news was bad on Wednesday because of data showing the U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 1.8 percent in the first quarter, well below expectations for gross domestic product to grow at a 2.4 percent annual rate. Investors believe that the economic news was so bad that the Fed will be forced to continue its $86 billion per month quantitative easing program for longer than expected, and so Wall Street stocks gained 1%. (See "23-Jun-13 World View -- The 'experts' scramble to explain the stock market plunge".) The bad economic news means that you and I and "the 99%" will be harmed financially, but the continued quantitative easing will mean that "the 1%" investors and politicians will continue to be able to use the quantitative easing money to make more money for themselves. Reuters

(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 27-Jun-13 World View -- Gun sales explode, thanks to Obama's anti-gun campaign thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (27-Jun-2013) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 27-Jun-2013 27-Jun-13 World View -- Gun sales explode, thanks to Obama's anti-gun campaign

Gun sales explode, thanks to Obama's anti-gun campaign

Violence flares again in China's Xinjiang province

Israel approves new West Bank settlements on eve of John Kerry visit

Wall Street stocks gain on bad U.S. economic news

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 27-Jun-2013
27-Jun-13 World View -- Gun sales explode, thanks to Obama's anti-gun campaign