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Encapsulating all that is wrong with the raise-your-stock-price-by-hyperbole-alone strategy of most new ‘tech’ firms, Tesla’s recent claim of a “5.4 Stars – out of 5” safety rating from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) perhaps takes the biscuit. But as Jalopnik reports, the NHTSA is not standing for the lies anymore and has issues a statement explaining to car-makers that NHTSA does not award higher than a 5-star rating – advertisers should avoid “double” 5-star rating, numbers greater than 5, and using the terms “perfect,” “safest,” “flawless” or “best in class” are misleading. What will Elon Musk do now?

 

 

Via Jalopnik,

To be fair to Tesla, the Model S did score incredibly well in the safety tests, proving the inherent safety possible in a modern rear-engine design, incorporating as it does such a substantial frontal crumple zone to absorb collision energy. Tesla’s justification for the extra 0.4 star (astronomically, I think that would be a white dwarf, right?) is explained in their press release:

NHTSA does not publish a star rating above 5, however safety levels better than 5 stars are captured in the overall Vehicle Safety Score (VSS) provided to manufacturers, where the Model S achieved a new combined record of 5.4 stars.

which still means Tesla did their own thing with the ratings standard. If they had the data that gave them the number, you can’t really blame them for trying, but safety rating standards are one of those things that are important enough to keep everyone playing with the same tools. So that means no more than 5…

 

and the NHTSA’s response…(PDF here)

NHTSA does not award higher than a 5-star rating. Thus, advertisers should not use terms such as “double” 5-star rating when a vehicle has received a 5-star rating for both the driver and the right-front passenger seating positions. An advertisement should not claim that a vehicle earned a rating higher than 5-stars.

 

…

 

Language referring to “doubling,” “tripling” or “quadrupling” of a star rating is misleading…

 

Words such as “perfect,” “safest,” “flawless” or “best in class” to describe a particular star rating or the Overall Vehicle Score received by the vehicle are misleading…

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/7PjNDg224qM/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Submitted by Simon Black of Sovereign Man blog,

In George Orwell’s seminal work 1984, there’s a really great scene early in the book between Winston (the main character) and Syme, a low-level functionary at the Ministry of Truth.

Syme is working on the 11th Edition of the Newspeak Dictionary, and he explains to Winston how the Ministry of Truth is actually removing words from the English vocabulary.

In Newspeak, words like -freedom- have been struck from the dictionary altogether, to the point that the mere concept of liberty would be incommunicable in the future.

I thought about this scene recently as I was testing out Google’s new Ngram Viewer tool.

If you haven’t seen it yet, Google has digitized over a million books that were printed as far back as 1500, and they’ve made the contents searchable within their own database.

The Ngram Viewer allows you to search for particular keywords. And you can see over time how prevalent the search terms were for particular years.

Out of curiosity, I searched for the term “gold” in English language books starting in 1776.

As one would expect back in the 18th and 19th centuries when gold was actually considered money, the instances of the word ‘gold’ favored prevalently in English language books at the time.

The trend continued into the early part of the 20th century.

But then something interesting happened in the mid-1930s. The use of the word ‘gold’ in English language books reached its peak… and began a steep, multi-decade decline.

Further investigation shows that the peak actually occurred in 1933. And as any student of gold in modern history knows, 1933 was the same year that the President of the United States (FDR) criminalized the private ownership of gold.

It remained this way for four decades. And by the time Gerald Ford repealed the prohibition on gold ownership, the concept of gold being money had been permanently struck from the American psyche, just as the Orwellian Newspeak dictionary had done.

By the mid-1970s (and through today), people have become readily accepting of the idea that money was nothing more than pieces of paper conjured at will by central bankers.

The good news is that, according to Google’s data, there seems to be slight uptick in the number of instances of the word ‘gold’ in English language books over the last 10-years or so.

No doubt, this probably has a lot to do with gold’s seemingly interminable rise relative to paper currency.

One can hope that the trend will hold… that more people will wake up to the reality that the central-bank controlled fiat currency system is a total fraud.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/wG1Kyn_WO_Q/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Yesterday, Ukraine was faced with a historic choice: “go West” by signing a new trade pact with the European Union and align against its former master the USSR… or “East”, and go back, at least symbolically, to mother Russia. To Europe’s shocked amazement, the Ukraine picked “East” in yet another very visible win for Vladimir Putin in what has just been the former KGB spy’s year. Sure enough, Putin spokesman’s welcomed “the desire to improve and develop trade and economic cooperation” with a “close partner”. Europe on the other hand, was shocked and appalled at this unprecedented snub: “This is a disappointment not just for the EU but, we believe, for the people of Ukraine,” EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said in a statement. Ah yes, because Europe’s unelected dictators are so concerned with the popular choices of wayward “democracies.”

Reuters adds, “European officials were dismayed. Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, a veteran of east-west diplomacy, tweeted: “Ukraine government suddenly bows deeply to the Kremlin. Politics of brutal pressure evidently works.”” Well that, or a rational choice by a country that at least has the option of saying no to the European Pandorafornia Hotel… Box – to most others this choice has been irrevocably eliminated by the unelected banker-supported Brussels bureaucrats.

More on the backstory:

Ukraine had been due to sign a wide-ranging trade and cooperation agreement with the EU on November 29 which would have tugged it westwards and away from Russia’s sphere of influence. Brussels said the deal would have boosted investment in the cash-strapped country of 46 million people.

 

Earlier, EU officials said President Viktor Yanukovich had cited fears of losing massive trade with Russia when he told an EU envoy this week that he could not agree terms.

 

Yanukovich’s prime minister issued the dramatic order to suspend the process in the interests of “national security” and renew “active dialogue” with Moscow. EU officials, who had hoped the president’s complaints in recent days were a last-minute bargaining tactic, saw little chance of saving the deal.

For Europe, a pact with the Ukraine would have had profound symbolic implications:

Luring it westward has been a strategic objective for the EU, to tear down the last remnants of the old Iron Curtain.

 

But shuttle diplomacy was dogged for months by EU pressure for Yanukovich to release jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko, who European leaders consider a political prisoner.

 

Moscow meanwhile had threatened retaliation for Kiev’s moves west, raising fears it could cut energy supplies in new “gas wars”.

Ah, gas. And rather Gazprom’s unprecedented monopoly power. Not to mention the cause for the near-break out of World War III when Europe desperately sought a gas pipeline outlet to Qatar just to avoid the Russian dominance over its energy needs. As is well-known by now, Europe failed, as did the US and Saudi Arabia. Putin won. Again.

Ukraine’s parliament, dominated by Yanukovich’s allies, prepared the way for the announcement by rejecting a series of bills that would have satisfied the EU by letting Tymoshenko out of prison to travel to Germany for medical treatment.

 

Shortly afterwards, Prime Minister Mykola Azarov issued the order on suspending the EU process. Talks would be revived with Russia, other members of a Moscow-led customs union and the former Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States.

 

European governments, especially those dominated by Moscow during the Cold War, have been keen to anchor Ukraine’s bulk and population closer to the West, though others have doubted whether corruption and oppression make it a viable partner.

Promptly following the announcement, Europe piled on, adding threats to amazement:

Sweden’s Bildt foresaw Ukraine’s economy declining and said the rupture would “kill” Kiev’s foreign investment prospects. EU officials told Reuters that when Yanukovich met the EU’S point man on Ukraine, Stefan Fuele, on Tuesday, the Ukrainian leader had said he could not agree to the deal.

 

It would, he said, cost Kiev $500 billion in trade with Russia over the coming years, while implementing demands for Ukraine to adopt EU legal and other standards would cost another $104 billion. Some EU diplomats had viewed that stance as brinkmanship, an effort to secure better terms.

Or math. Which is why only Germany, which is the last rational European actor had the most delicate words:

Germany’s Westerwelle spoke of wishing that Ukraine would share the EU’s values and choose a “European path of development” but made clear that was up to Kiev.

 

“Our interest in good relations with Ukraine is unbroken and our offer of a real partnership still stands,” he said in a statement. “The ball is in Kiev’s court. It is their sovereign right to decide on their path freely.”

Regardless of the latest political humiliation for Europe, there was one clear winner that day.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/fQ-ptZ0qgww/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Expenditure on social benefits in the EU fell to 29.1% of GDP in 2011 from 29.7% in 2009, Eurostat said yesterday. However, do not feel too bad for the broad European social state. While France (as one might expect) nears the top of the list with over 33% of GDP spent on “social benefits”, Bloomberg’s Niraj Shah notes that it is Denmark that spends the most on welfare at 34.3% of GDP, and Latvia spent the least, 15.1%. Of course, in the new normal, as in the US, retirees accounted for the majority of the trasnfer payments with an average of 46% of total expenditure while unemployment benefit accounted for 6%. Interestingly, Greece nears the top of the list with almost 31% of GDP spent on welfare.

 

 

Source: Bloomberg

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/M9PTxkOFiwM/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Expenditure on social benefits in the EU fell to 29.1% of GDP in 2011 from 29.7% in 2009, Eurostat said yesterday. However, do not feel too bad for the broad European social state. While France (as one might expect) nears the top of the list with over 33% of GDP spent on “social benefits”, Bloomberg’s Niraj Shah notes that it is Denmark that spends the most on welfare at 34.3% of GDP, and Latvia spent the least, 15.1%. Of course, in the new normal, as in the US, retirees accounted for the majority of the trasnfer payments with an average of 46% of total expenditure while unemployment benefit accounted for 6%. Interestingly, Greece nears the top of the list with almost 31% of GDP spent on welfare.

 

 

Source: Bloomberg

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/M9PTxkOFiwM/story01.htm Tyler Durden