JHK’s Three-Act Play
“The problem with the post-2007 world is that we are not in a cyclical recovery; we are in a structural depression defined as a sustained period of below-trend growth with no end in sight. The U.S. has caught the Japanese disease. Structural depressions are not amenable to monetary solutions, they require structural solutions.”
–James Rickards
Can anyone stabilize this bitch? At daybreak, anyway, the Federal Reserve governors were all bagging Z’s in their trundle beds. Maybe after a few pumpkin lattes they’ll jump in and tell their trading shills to BTFD. The soma-like perma-trance among those who follow markets and money matters appears to be ending abruptly with the recognition that sometimes robots and humans alike run shrieking to the exit. A pity when they get to the door and discover it opens onto a cliff-edge. Look out below.
All this trouble with money comes from one meta problem: aggregate industrial growth has ended. It has stopped more in some parts of the world than others, while in the USA it has actually been contracting. The cause is simple: the end of cheap energy, oil in particular. At over $70-a-barrel the price kills economies; under $70-a-barrel the price kills oil production. The bottom line is that, in the broadest sense, the world can no longer count on getting more stuff, except waste, garbage, political unrest, and the other various effects of entropy. From now on, there is only less of everything for a global population that has not stopped growing. The folks on-board are still having sex, of course, which has a certain byproduct.
This dynamic was plain to see a decade ago, but the people who run finance and governments thought it would be a good idea to maintain the appearance of growth via the usufruct mechanisms of central banking: ZIRP, QE, market intervention, and universal accounting fraud. It’s not working so well. Debt was generated in place of the missing growth, and now there is too much of it that can’t be repaid on a coherent schedule. Many nations, parties, and entities are in trouble with debt and the prospective defaults are starting to pile up like SUVs on a fog-bound highway. Greece is just the first one fishtailing into a guard-rail.
The magic moment will come when it becomes obvious that these systemic quandaries have no solution. The system itself is programmed for implosion, in particular and most immediately the banking sector, where most of the untruth and illusion is lodged these days. As it stands exposed, the people are compelled to shake off their faith in what it represents: order, authority, trust. Institutions fail and each failure acts as a black hole, sucking air, light, and even time out of the system.
In the natural course of things, structural reform can occur, but that natural course entails some degree of disorder and loss. If Deutsche Bank or Goldman Sachs founders a lot of people will be living in their cars — a first stop perhaps to not living at all. Sooner or later, though, the survivors will all have to live differently. Structural reform means, for instance, that you can no longer count on getting food the way you were used to getting it. No more 3000-mile Caesar salads and take-out tubs of Kung Po Chicken. That will be very traumatic in the early going. Eventually in the places where it is possible to grow food on a smaller scale, it will be done. Maybe not so much in the Central Valley of California anymore, but in other places: Ohio, Michigan, even New Jersey (“the garden state”). And once grown, it will be sold by means that differ from the supermarket.
Americans think that WalMart and its brethren are here to stay. They’re mistaken. Structural reform means reorganizing many layers of commerce around town centers — Main Streets — while the disintegrating strip malls await the salvage crews. Are we ready for that? Rebuilding local economies would put a lot of people back to work doing real things. All the blabber about “job creation” for the moment is only about increasing the share price of predatory corporations and the bonuses of their mendacious executives. Will the world miss them? Can we still make some things and move them around and put them up for sale? I think so.
Are you disturbed about the pervasive racketeering in health care (so-called) and higher education. Well, those grifts are eating themselves alive. Structural reform probably means far fewer and smaller colleges and far more and smaller local clinics free of the stupendous insurance chicanery that mystifies the public while it swindles them. There will be a lot of useful work for people who want to take care of other people, and certainly fewer MRIs.
Do you fear the end of mass motoring and the suburban infrastructure that it operates in? Maybe your children and their children will be happier in walkable neighborhoods — outlandish as that sounds. There is a hell of lot of rebuilding to do. It may not involve materials like strand-board and vinyl siding, but the newer and smaller buildings will probably last a whole lot longer and look better. And a lot of hands will be needed to do the work.
Will we ever again know banking on the JP Morgan scale? Not on any horizon I can imagine. But there are other ways to establish mediums of exchange, stores of value, and pricing mechanisms. You can be sure that banking will never again occupy 40 percent of gross economic activity in this land.
Today may not be the true event horizon for our diseased status quo, but it is probably, at least, the coming attraction trailer. Try not get puked on.
The third World Made By Hand novel
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(The Fourth and final is near completion)
“Kunstler skewers everything from kitsch to greed, prejudice, bloodshed, and brainwashing in this wily, funny, rip-roaring, and profoundly provocative page- turner, leaving no doubt that the prescriptive yet devilishly satiric A World Made by Hand series will continue.” — Booklist
My local indie booksellers… Battenkill Books (Autographed by the Author) … or Northshire Books…
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This blog is sponsored this week by Vaulted, an online mobile web app for investing in allocated and deliverable physical gold. To learn more visit:Kunstler.com/vaulted
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Paintings from the 2023 Season
New Gallery 15
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Jim, When are you going to do a Bruce Jenner interview? What do you think about same sex marriage? https://youtu.be/8VMgqp7v96c
Memo to Jim:
Missing “to” here?:
“Try not get puked on.”
Let’s hope Jim has the good sense not to bother making us read another word about Bruce Jenner or whatever his/her name is now. And personally I don’t give a rats ass what Jim thinks about same-sex marriage. People can think whatever they want about it but I don’t need to hear all their opinions, the Supreme Court says it’s okay and that’s good enough for me.
Likewise, nobody likely gives a flying fuck what you think either. If you don’t like JHK’s opinion on any given subject, feel free not to read it. Time for term limits on these fascists with robes called the Supreme Court Justices. But wait, that would mean all the inbreds and religious psychos from the south would keep voting in pro-corporate fascists that fuck them up the ass, just like they continue to do when they vote for mean spirited, far right winged politicians. Perverts and deviants being allowed to get married isn’t worth it, and if mentally disturbed men want to mutilate their genitals and take hormones that will hopefully bring on cancer, then let them pretend to be women as they lose their minds with old age. They are still born with XY chromosomes and will die with XY chromosomes.
Thank you Helen !
Bruce who?
Thanks for your insight, JHK
I agree with all you say, but I do think the globalism project has been the most destructive part of this equation.
We would have been much better off if we had kept manufacturing and jobs here instead of arbitraging the cost of labor in third world countries and although eventually all you say will happen I agree in the not-too-distant future, I believe it’s going to be far more destructive because we simply will not give up the ghost.
The TPP and TIPP and other forms of wealth and power redistribution are in full tilt making the situation more untenable than it would have been had we never adopted the global neoliberal theory along with the Neocon never ending war for profit scenario.
We have also privatized nuclear war where the PODUS isn’t necessarily the one with his finger on the button.
see: http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-privatization-of-nuclear-war/5458265
I believe we are sleepwalking into a disaster before the economy goes bust–perhaps as a cover-up of the dismal failure that is the “freemarket” fundamentalist world economy.
As always our attention will be on the naughty Russia who wants to reconstitute imperial reach while we continue keeping our 800 military bases around the world.
But of course this is all about the anathema to competition in a monopoly monoculture system..
It seems the United States government is guilty of a bad case of “projection” particularly relating to Russia:
“Projection is one of the defense mechanisms identified by Freud and still acknowledged today. According to Freud, projection is when someone is threatened by or afraid of their own impulses so they attribute these impulses to someone else. For example, a person in psychoanalysis may insist to the therapist that he knows the therapist wants to rape some women, when in fact the client has these awful feelings to rape the woman.”
Read more: http://www.alleydog.com/glossary/definition.php?term=Projection#ixzz3eTdUmW6m
I understand, but this isn’t projection. It’s about ginning up war for profit.
If you listen to my post about the privatization of nuc. war, it’s about circling Russia with NATO nations which are installed with our ABMs in order to stop Russia from retaliating to our first strike doctrine. Thank you Neoconservatives.
We are the pot that called the kettle black to a polity softened by the cold war to always see Russia as a threat.
How upset will we be if we do a first strike scenario?
We did it eight years ago in the beautiful coffee mountains of Costa Rica. Nearly all that you are recommending, within this sensational website, we have been and are continuing to do. Pura Vida (Pure Life) is real.
Costa Rica is getting its energy from renewable sources but also I am happy that they finally realized they also need Green Transit Rail and have finally restored Rail lines for bananas for passengers and I presume some freight. When I visited a few years ago, San Jose had no Rail and was a traffic disaster all over the city…
Curious. If the US economy “collapses” how will you support yourself in CR? If US currency becomes useless, what happens? I have wondered this every time I read that some courageous soul has made an escape. Have you established citizenship? Do you speak the language at a good level?
Wish you well.
Emigrate to another country. Easy, yes? The US government is now making it both harder for their tax slaves to flee and more expensive to renounce your citizenship. Likewise, you think you can hide your assets from the sons of bitches? They can and will confiscate it whenever and wherever they want, until there is nothing left to steal. http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2015/06/04/ukrainians-dispossessed-americans-next-paul-craig-roberts/
Curious, I understand that Costa Rica is going to rename itself Southern Southern California and is seeking to also to become a satellite of China. Most of the gringos in Costa Rica are still sucking off of the US”s tit mostly from pension plans and social security. They call themselves ex-pats but still retain U.S. citizenship. To be a true ex-pat you need to denounce your citizenship in the country you are from by definition. Costa Rica is slowly being taken over by the Chinese so I guess one would need to also learn Chinese and Spanish. It will be interesting to see what direction Costa Rica and the rest of Latin America go in the coming few years. Probably to hell in a hand basket as is by the way every other country on this planet. Meanwhile party like there is no tomorrow because the free easy ride is soon to be over.
China has been doing an end run around the LSM for decades. I think we have passed the tipping point for doing anything about it.
Do you remember the Long Beach Port screw up ? While congress played around with the idea a Captain in the Coast Guard boarded a Chinese cargo ship waiting for the deal to close. President Clinton had made the pledge to China it was a done deal. Ship was full of Milgear…….it would never have been inspected if the lease had happened. Captain got the boot because ship WAS in international waters. (BS)
Guess what : http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jan/19/business/la-fi-port-lease-20120119 General Butler idea America is protected from invasion because of logistics is over. Sad to say.
“The soma-like perma-trance among those who follow markets and money matters appears to be ending abruptly with the recognition that sometimes robots and humans alike run shrieking to the exit.”
Hint: There is no exit.
In Rome the masses were distracted and rendered politically docile with bread and circuses. In contemporary America, it’s a daily dose of mass media. Some should be advised to refrain from celebrating too vigorously a recent Supreme Court decision others consider controversial. Perhaps we should all stand vigilant lest that decision, the attendant celebrations, social and political discord it brought about, were collectively orchestrated to distract us just long enough for Wall Street to engineer another multi-trillion dollar swindle?
http://www.thesisa.org
“Some should be advised to refrain from celebrating too vigorously a recent Supreme Court decision others consider controversial.”
Which one? Not that it matters to me, I’m celebrating both as good news from the Supreme Court this week. I also marked what Pope Francis wrote about the environment in an encyclical. As someone who would be called a “cafeteria Catholic” if I were practicing, I felt a thrill of Schadenfreude at watching the people who would do so being even pickier at the serving line of doctrine than me!
This morning NPR had a story about the $73 Billion debt of Puerto Rico, another financial disaster. Of course Puerto Rico has tried the usual bloodletting nostrums of the plutocrats and financiers of endlessly increasing tax breaks. Which of course, as in Kansas, Wisconsin, MIchigan, New Jersey, has only made things worse!
Note that Minnesota, which increased its taxes and California, which also increased its taxes, are actually running budget surpluses.
North Dakota, well before the fracking boom, was financially the best off State due to its Public Bank which loaned out money to local farmers, businesses and students at reasonable rates.
In the age of Peak Oil and Climate Change we can NOT just solve things totally either individually or locally. We will need to restore shared reasonable public transit, schools, post offices, libraries, parks and expand that model to sharing tools, transportation, etc instead of every household with 3 cars, riding lawn mowers, table saws, etc…
Puerto Rico is likely the second domino in a long series that will soon fall. Once everyone finally faces the fact that the Greek debt can never be repaid, there will be a lot of sovereign defaults coming.
I sure hope we have a bit more time before the SHTF. My gardening skills are not good enough yet to be depended on for food.
Exactly right. The world has more debt than can ever be repaid because the debt is not a debt, it is our monetary system. Pay off all the debt and there is no money. This was concealable with growth. Without growth the scam is exposed. The limbs begin to die. The weakest ones first, cascading across the world in an ever taller series of dominos, from small to large to gigantic. Soon the world will know the source of their problems.
This year is our 8th year gardening, on a scale that we can, almost, feed ourselves.
Despite near drought, we harvested 300+ pounds (140 kg) of four varieties of potatoes, now preserved as frozen baked fries and many raw potatoes, stored in sand boxes.
One hundred two-person servings of tomato sauce, 40 pounds of dry pinto and white beans. Onions, pears, peppers, other stuff.
All accomplished on about 2,000 square feet of drip irrigated, sandy soil fortified by compost we produce, with some imported compost needed (probably for a few more years until soil improves).
No pesticides, no herbicides used. Yes, the bugs get some of the yield, but poison free produce. The pears make an excellent wine, ready in about six weeks.
We buy local the things we can’t produce. Still need coffee, though, can’t grow that here…
Keep trying, keep learning.
However, haven
JHK points out the intrinsic and subtle beauty of the morning after the night before. Yes, one is surrounded by the wreckage of the night’s orgy, but the simple beauty of the morning with its daylight is refreshing, and hopeful. That is, of course, if you’re so inclined to such perceptions.
I see it.
Fresh produce from NJ, no Walmart and strip malls, “the end of mass motoring and the suburban infrastructure”.
My dream is coming true.
‘Told you so…”
Can any of you Daily Kos posters tell us what will be the planned distraction for this week?
On the bright side we live in a continental wide Jonestown, I don’t know if Obamatown has that ring but here it is, the daily distractions while the garden plot fails to meet expectations and utopia is but a
Gantry like religious figure denying human reality while thugs enforce belief.
Its Greek Fail Monday my WAG the US markets finish in the green across most asset classes, and if not today this week will see solid green results. Why you ask, the Obamacult is still in fashion, there will be no one sitting down from the standing ovation (reference Stalin). As an aside Obama is the world’s greatest market timer, he called the bull market to the day, he is that good.
This weeks distraction is the battle of the flags. In one corner we have the Stars and Bars in the latest round of the 150 year old fight to eliminate the standard of the Confederacy. In the other corner we have the Stars and Stripes and the 239th birthday of the republic.
Plenty of senseless crap to keep the average ‘mercun occupied.
Once they get rid of that flag, no deranged violent kid will ever commit mass murder again.
Hey Beryl, you forgot to end your sentence with a winking smiley face ;o)
If Deutsche Bank or Goldman Sachs founders a lot of people will be living in their cars — a first stop perhaps to not living at all.
Living on less with every day bringing more of the living. This saga can only go one way; the question is how bad can it get. Once accelerated climate change kicks in, shortages and the current crowd being unable to do better than imitate their profligate parents, the only change that can possibly happen will be the change in the weather and death. Do you really expect any change from populations who have switched from the printed word to the video experience and the lack of experience it cultivates? Dream on.
Man’s days on earth may be numbered. Some think our days are about over and we will soon be dust blown about on hot empty winds over desolate desert wasteland.
Guy McPherson thinks so and you can see him here with k-dog. Yes the good looking guy is me.
http://chasingthesquirrel.com/
Even if Guy is only half right, years of annus horribilis await.
K dog, I hear you. Guy McPherson does say that, all probability he’s right. I read his book, Extinction Dialogues. It’s a thoughtful book, and its noted that, according to it, McPherson isn’t so harsh about the human race. But, the thought does come to mind, considering what has been done, and the way this culture operates,what with NFL players making millions, and other such imbecility, maybe this species should have “went into the woods” a long time ago. Am I being too harsh.
I have the book and am reading it now. 🙂
My, you are good looking.
If you truly believed Guy’s message, you’d be dead now. Suicide’s the only rational response to Guy’s message — if you believe it. Since most who say they respect and believe Guy’s message are still typing away, I can only conclude that they’re into Apocalypse Porn and appreciate a good scare-the-bejesus-outta-me campfire story.
I think you got it right. When my air conditioner fails in this heat and there is no hope of it coming back on, then out come the pills and the whiskey. Bottoms up. There is no way at my age I can survive by my own skills and wits. Even if I could grow food, I could not preserve it. There are very, very few people who might possibly hang on. Of the many, many people I know only one might pull it off but then when his insulin is gone so is he. I think each person of age should be issued “THE PILL”, and allow them to make their decisions when the time comes.
It takes a certain level of caloric intake to maintain enough energy to survive. You cannot fake that. Starvation was the biggest cause of death in WWII among civilians. It will be the same again.
I do not know where you are or what you are like.
‘Even if I could grow food, I could not preserve it.’
Ever hear of food dehydrators?
I have farmed [small farm]. It can be a tough life unless one is already rich or comfortable.
I am listening to ‘You Tube, Jsnips4’. He just mention JHK.
http://www.motherearthnews.com/real-food/canning.aspx
Chin up Fungus forward ! I will can on and switch from pills to wine and hootch 🙂 Live on it will piss many off.
Suicide is not the only way out; Guy is pretty much adamant about ‘living a life of excellence.’
Not into Apocalypse Porn, or thrilled with the ‘fine mess we are in’; like the folks playing on the deck of the Titanic*, some may find that being the best humans we can be during this time is a better option.
* There’s Godwin’s Law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law); I wonder if there is a ‘Peak Law’, that says if a conversation in the Peak OIl/Peak Everything goes on long enough, the Titanic will be mentioned at one point.
Did not know you had a blog, K-Dog. Thanks for the link.
I saw your comments last week on cluborlov blog and it seems he was nipping at your flanks a bit. Ouch.
I recently started watching Guy McPherson on youtube (Dimitri O. does not seem to like him much at all) and agree with most of his views.
Am currently reading “The End of the Long Summer” by Dianne Dumanoski (2009) and would recommend it for additional thoughtful views on the compelling questions about climate change.
We have met the enemy and he is Sen. Inhofe with his snowball.
In correspondence with Dmitry recently he said to me that Guy has a tendency to take things to extremes but that quality in itself is not such a bad thing. (his words)
I agree with Dmitry, a propensity to take things to extremes combined with a rational mind capable of changing in response to new evidence is not a failing at all, I’d even call it a healthy spark of life. Being open to change makes all the difference and after meeting him I can say Guy rows with both oars in the water.
I am just learning what Dr. McPherson’s message is all about but it seems to me it is: that scientists are conservative by nature and training and reluctant to express “extreme” viewpoints; that scientists that do speak the truth as they see it are soon punished; that the ICCP reports only contain the most conservative and cautionary views (especially the policy makers section); that many climate scientists are privately extremely worried (James Hansen, et al); that energy companies and others with vested interest in maintaining the status quo are controlling the message using lessons learned by the tobacco industry; that most people are dumber than rocks and know nothing about science and, frankly, don’t want to know (just gimme another Bud and change the damn channel to the Nascar races while you are up); that nature is wired with lots of booby traps like feedback loops that we know little about, etc.
Yes, as Guy explains the peer review process makes mainstream science conservative by nature and current models only account for carbon dioxide and don’t consider methane currently bubbling out of polar oceans. If positive feedback from this unconsidered effect pegs the climate change needle in the red zone we may well go extinct. Hubris says otherwise; but facts not desire is what will determine the outcome.
Nature bats last and the bases are loaded.
It is not so much that people are dumber than rocks though they often are that is true. The big issue is the propensity to ‘change the channel’ every time an unpleasant truth raises its ugly head. People who have endured a personal crisis of some kind are at least somewhat able to examine the unpleasant and see themselves with as flawed human beings. Such have grown realistic eyes. To the contrary anyone who has had a charmed life and has never been forced to look at themselves with critical eyes is likely to be a hopeless cornucopian who will perform extremly complicated mental gymnastics to maintain a comfortable view of reality and themselves. Emotional not intellectual capacity is the real mind killer.
Any country that has only five percent of the words population but has been sucking up twenty five percent of the worlds resources is a country with a lot of people who have had extremely charmed lives. This means a lot of people history would consider out of touch, bat-shit crazy, and weak.
But not to worry America, if the worst happens history will soon end and our culture will not be a laughing stock for all eternity.
Nobody will be around to laugh.
Pogo you nailed it. The science crowd will always underestimate. Bad to overshoot the data. Take any tipping point they have and half it. Better still cut the time factor by 75 %. That will be closer to the truth. Peace !
I’m good without Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs. I put the curse on both and they are fucked.
Here’s the backstory (again). I’m working at Bankers Trust Company (the derivatives barbarians). We screw all our clients (OK, so far), then Deutsche takes us over. First meeting with Deutsche ends with: “This will be the last meeting conducted in English”. I quit
I’m at Bank of New York (same profile, different address). Goldman puts their headquarters RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET, blocking my view of the Hudson.
So I feel vengeful (just natural) and put the ju ju on both.
If they go down, I’m buying the drinks.
The timing of the supreme court’s decision on “gay marriage” is noteworthy. Those among our ranks who try to be productive contributors wanted a sustainable, equitable economy. We got “gay marriage”. Is this the “change we can believe in?”
In the inverted totalitarian model the only changes that can be made are social in nature.
The rest is non-negotiable by either bought-off party in the rewards punishment scenario.
The only choice you have is globalism which is a program for ending the modern nation state. That would be defined as government adhering to the compact with the people and the 4th estate of journalism being the challenger of the status quo.
Say good bye to the gains of the American Revolution while a new Royalty of the .1% rule and buy power. Who confuse all issues with a strange form of Christianity that abhors all who are not rich.
Let’s not leave out absolute power of technocrats corporations and central private banks. That means all gov. functions and services will be privatized along with the public holdings, lands, prisons, military, space programs etc.
All while the little folk sling sticks and stones at each other’s phoney left/right parties.
I think for a pretty substantial component of the contemporary population, trying to fit with the structural reforms you are talking about will be a non-starter. I’m talking about the much larger than envisioned underclass in the US. For these folks, daily life consists of pervasive drug use, petty theft, and an active role in institutionalization– whether be it public funds or prisons.
For these people, and many others in the US today, getting involved in farming and jobs of “helping others”, just is not going to happen. I’d argue that their past performance of addiction and crime will only deepen and as the social net in the US becomes more and more frayed– what’s left of the US government turns into a deeper security state than what it already is.
So forget about ISIS, there is a large and significant part of the US population that are little more than feral animals.
Funny you should mention that. There is an issue right now, in Schenectady, where a woman who runs a charity which basically babysits children of such ferals, and she is having an issue with the city. It seems that after the burned-out crack den next door to her building was finally torn down, she took possession of it, or thought she did, and with help from the children the mess was cleared up for a community garden.
Now the city government is saying “not so fast”. They claim it was a “misunderstanding”, and they need that valuable piece of real estate back, in case they have a buyer. A supervised green space where people can learn to produce their own food, and where not hungry, but rather malnourished, children will learn to eat fresh vegetables, and the government wants it back.
In ‘The Good Olde days’ people took care of their children.
Now taxpayers have to support social services — Head Start, day care, breakfast-lunch-dinner programs for the children of Blacks and Immigrants.
[I assume thats what ‘ferals’ are, Blacks].
I believe that the term refers to black people, but in the neighborhoods that will use the garden I’m referring to, there are white people and black people. The underclass in our country has been completely integrated for decades.
The people who are always clamoring about ‘racism’ and segregation in our country are the same people who participate in it.
Yes, Tim Wise, etc usually live in the best [Whitest] areas.
Michael Moore, etc etc.
The Clintons talked ‘diversity’ BUT moved to a [get this] 99% White NYC suburb.
Sorry, dude, but there are plenty of white ferals.
Viktor Frankl posited that there are but two “races”; the decent and the indecent. Anybody who has lived as an adult for a few years in a polyglot society should be able to grasp the verity of Frankl’s proposition. We can argue with facts back and forth as to which racial group has a greater percentage of the indecent, often demonstrating significant correlation. Alas, the consequence of such putatively logical behavior relegates the decent among them to perdition. Must we accept this as “collateral damage?” This should be deeply disturbing to anyone with compassion.
No, the ‘ferals’ I refer to are a polyracial underclass. There are plenty of these types of people in the countryside, btw.
“daily life consists of pervasive drug use…”
Opiates and pot are mostly imported. The collapse of globalism will really change the availability of the illegal drugs of choice.
Pot is not imported. It’s grown locally in grow rooms, mostly hydroponically. It’s too heavy to be profitable to import.
That’s my educated guess, at least.
Importing M from Mexico is a multi billion dollar industry.
I suppose that is possible, although in most parts of the country, weed is grown and distributed locally. I think a monetary equivalent amount of weed is probably 50-100 times greater volume than blow, so much harder to smuggle in in volume.
An 8 ball is $150 bucks. 8 of them is an ounce. An ounce of high quality cannabis (It is not marijuana, which is Mexican slang hung on this plant by William Randolph Hearst) is $400-500. Compressed cannabis is easily as portable as cocaine, if not more so. Profit margins for both are over 10,000%, although it is usually higher for cannabis. Most of it comes from Mexico and California.
Not the stuff I….. I mean some people I know acquire. Very local and not compressed in any way.
Not just pot, the “black tar” heroin is big business too.
… and they grow some good cannabis in Colorado. Grows wild where I am now, but not high quality.
methamphetamines & synthetics are being homemade all over the US.
Perhaps the availability of heroin would be harder to come by with a collapse in the global trade markets, but there are many other street drugs out there readily available.
Only one word Jim, “bicycle”!
http://www.mb.com.ph/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/unggoy.jpg
Bicycle is only good if you’re physically fit. What happens to those who can’t ride bikes?
the essay mentioned sex.
that’s nice
Ford Motor Company announced with little notice a new initiative called ‘Mobility.’ The future of the company is in car sharing, Smart Watch apps and Electric Bikes.
That’s about all you need to know about the future of Oil/Energy. The 1% is planning accordingly.
In major urban areas the only ones who can get carry permits are the 1% or friends of the 1%. That’s not an insignificant fact considering the bleak future discussed here and at other venues with similar themes and sentiments.
true for nyc
JHK’s long-term vision is very appealing, and not as depressing as some of the Collapse scenarios he and others have set before us earlier.
Why we think one could sustain an economic system based on ever-increasing growth is beyond me. Now we are at the limits. Even if oil were infinite and burning fossil fuels did not change the climate, we still would have to cope with the Earth’s limited carrying capacity.
Getting to what Jim describes is going to be painful. Yes, as a few commenters here point out, there is a huge unskilled (or wrongly skilled population) that will never adapt. They’ll turn to crime and marauding, but that means we will need to adapt, too.
That will mean local militias, expanded “deputy police,” and roadblocks/checkpoints. I do not like to think about this, but maybe we all should. The change will be slo-mo, and that will give those of us with resilience and skills the time to plan and adapt ahead of those who will not survive.
Because millions will not. “Preppers” won’t, either, unless they build strong communities NOW, while we have modern communications and abundant fuel at our disposal. Lone wolves get picked off by a mob.
So get away from the computer and learn some “old skills” that will make you valuable to these communities in the rough times to come.
Smoky Joe, bravo, well said!
It always bothered me, how many parents, back in the late 80’s, early 90’s, wanted their kids to learn “computers” in school. Why didn’t they know better?
Why didn’t they know better?
Because everybody wants to be told what to do and everyone qualified to do any worthwhile telling is told to sit down and be quiet. Only irrational exuberance in the current and future greatness of America is and has been acceptable media fodder for thirty years. Now the only mirror Americans are capable of looking in is the rear view mirror of a car or their own reflection in the pond of Narcissus. The thought that we might ever err is old school.
Success, survival? We have an App for that. Just press a button on your touch screen. No need to stir or add water. Just press.
With no leaders to follow people follow idiots.
“…Why didn’t they know better?…” Very good question. I don’t know for sure – maybe there were a few hints along the way, but as a society we sure missed them. Think back to the “go go 60s” when parts of Europe were suffering a “brain drain” because their best and brightest wanted to come here. Think space race. Think college students in the ’60s saying ‘oh, I’m going to go into R & D’, as though that would be some everlasting career choice for lots of new grads. That ended with the first oil price shocks of the early 70s. Did we ever see an end to that; did we ever know what made things tick, or acted as the limit on their ability to keep ticking?
For years and years we’ve emphasized education in relatively abstract forms of knowledge. We’ve always emphasized the “ABCs” in school (well, we used to). But I did read an article once that suggested emphasizing the functions of water and soil very early on to children, because their ability to manage those substances wisely is at the heart of a stable, fair society.
We NEVER emphasized anything like that. After World War II, we showed the Japanese how to farm, and drove tractors around to show them how it’s done. And people like Fukuoka looked at that and wondered “what makes the tractor run, and is that really going to last that long?”, and decided maybe seed balls would be better.
But concepts like that never made it to the general population, and only now do a few people think about them or try to practice them. If that had been part of our training, as much as the ‘ABCs’, and we hadn’t put up such a wall between us and natural things, we might have realized long ago what could and could not last.
Maybe that’s a partial answer as to our not knowing any better.
we are fascinated with technology
look at e-phones zombie land
The only trouble is, a sustainable model of social organization such as Kunstler’s would be impossible to realize with a human population at the scale it is now.
If the human race transitions to a sustainable future, part of the process will be a die off of most of the human population.
That’s the grim part of the equation.
Precisely. We’re a macro version of Easter Island. We’ve been building Moai for years while we continue cutting down all the trees and the topsoil erodes away. Pretty soon, we’re going to be faced with a planet that could probably sustain one billion people holding seven billion. That’s a pretty unsavory game of musical chairs if you ask me.
Too late, we surpassed the 7*10^9 humans squatting on Spaceship Earth in early 2012.
If the human race transitions to a sustainable future, part of the process will be a die off of most of the human population.
Straight-up Malthusian Doctrine.
thus the atomic bomb
For sure. A couple of names come to mind – William Catton, Jr., and “Chainsaw Al” Dunlap. Catton wrote a book in the early 1980s called “Overshoot”, in which he noted that our use of resources and industrial growth was fast outstripping the Earth’s ability to supply these, and that the only logical thing to do was cutback.
A quarter of a century later, he realized nobody had paid any attention to the overshoot problem, and wrote another book called “Bottleneck: Humanity’s Impending Impasse”.
Well, here we are, and the drastic reduction in our population that Catton tried to prevent if we had cut back moderately much earlier on is staring right at us.
What we did in essence, was what companies on the ropes did in the early to mid 1990s. Their executives could see the trouble, but didn’t want the blood or the blame on their hands, so they called in a specialist like “Chainsaw Al” – a little portion from Wiki
“…To that end, he believed in making widespread cuts, including massive layoffs, in order to streamline operations. By firing thousands of employees at once and closing plants and factories, he drastically altered the economic status of such corporations as Scott Paper and Crown Zellerbach. He sold Scott Paper to Kimberly-Clark in 1995 for $7.8 billion and walked away with a $100 million golden parachute…”
Business out-sourced the problem of needed reductions to guys like “Chainsaw Al”. We could have tried to put the brakes on the overshoot problem ourselves to try to do it humanely, but we outsourced it to Mother Nature instead.
Did we think “Chainsaw Al” was tough? We ain’t seen nothing yet.
By the way, the dedication page of “Bottleneck” says “…May future generations of people inhabiting this planet be descended from the most hubris-free members of each preceding generation…”
Never happen. Which is one main reason why our future looks so grim.
not if you start printing some money, but don’t give that money printing machine to every one then you would have INFLATION
Exactly. Mr Zimmerman’s brave defense of his community is the future. Of course the useless babblers supported the feral over the vigilant citizen.
old skill?
tell that to millions of texting idiots, their manual dexterity and skill begins and ends at texting.
Being There, love your comment about globalization being detrimental. You’re right. But, this too, was planned to some degree in all likelihood. Here’s a thought, reindigenize the planet. I gather that’s what JHK means in effect when he advocates for relocalization. It’s a good post this week.
Janos, I wasn’t being derogatory about people in Georgia when I made the comment about Deliverance having been set there. I was just stating fact. WV does always seem to get a bad rap, poor state. And their women shave their heads to bring attention to the plight of their mountaintops being blown to bits, so that the fing District has lights, and some of us have AC too, no doubt. I would have shaved my head too if I’d have known at the time. I could still do that in honor of Larry Gibson. OMG Larry Gibson. Thought about taking up residence in his little shack. (anyone know who Larry Gibson is?) To answer your question, I am many things, a mystic, a lady, the offspring of an extremely intelligent Detroit native, an environmentalist.Yep, many things, like many people. Janos, BTW, when you said anyone looking at Cheney’s face all their life wouldn’t want to be with a man… you’re brilliant. That would make anyone swear off men.
Michigan Native, I quote the judge who said there are white people, black people and there are niggers. The same is true with northerners and southerners. But, maybe generalization about either isn’t such a good idea. I agree with what you say, there are a lot of redneck, stupid southerners, and that’s extremely unfortunate. It may be good advice too to turn off the TV and pick up a good book to read. David Korten’s Change the Story, Change the Future comes to mind.
Rock on Julia Butterfly Hill, and don’t rest peacefully Larry Gibson. Come back as soon as you can, or maybe not!
It seems like our President didn’t mind generalizing about white people, based on the actions of Dylann Roof.
An immigrant I know cannot believe that the POTUS said what he did and that nobody called him out on it.
When Barrys voice is on NPR, I turn it off.
What did he say now?
And the White house as rainbow house, gees.
Yeah, but he sure knows how to carry a tune. He was fantastic singing Amazing Graceland even though I haven’t listened to it and never will.
Janos, I left out Fool and amateur fhilospher. Speaking of philosophers, Rudolph Steiner wrote “He who would create the new must be able to endure the passing of the old in full tranquility.” Easier said than done perhaps.
To elaborate on last week’s comment about frightened children, Marianne Williamson writes, we pretend the speed of this world doesn’t affect our children, but we suspect it does. We leave them in front of television and computer screens for hours at an early age that their brains would have to be affected. And they are folks! She saw a note written by a 10 year old, to wit ” I am a total f-ing nervous wreck.”
Clearly we have problems here!! Also an interesting article in Sierra club news recently, that WIFI is a contributing factor to autism, among other nasties. Also, studies have linked excessive computer use, i.e., video games and the like, leads to a decrease in childrens’ capacity for empathy. Well, that’s progress. Maybe Steiner was right when he said nature should be incorporated in early childhood education.
My best to you Janos.
Of course one shouldn’t let kids use these things unsupervised. Woz doesn’t – neither did Steve Jobs. Equally obvious is how destructive Gay couples raising children will be – far worse than PC Faery Tales. It’s like being raised by Boogie Men or Women.
What about Yoko Ono? She strongly supports the Georgia Guidestone philosophy and is heavily invested in Timber. Isn’t such a witch enough to make people swear off women? And of course Hillary is every man’s ex-Wife…
“Hillary is every man’s ex-wife”… top shelf!
Barb et.al.,
Check out a black man’s rant about this:
Very funny but poignant.
JHK sez,
“This dynamic [of economic suicide by poisoning] was plain to see a decade ago, but the people who run finance and governments thought it would be a good idea to maintain the appearance of growth via the usufruct mechanisms of central banking: ZIRP, QE, market intervention, and universal accounting fraud. It’s not working so well. Debt was generated in place of the missing growth, and now there is too much of it that can’t be repaid on a coherent schedule. Many nations, parties, and entities are in trouble with debt and the prospective defaults are starting to pile up like SUVs on a fog-bound highway. Greece is just the first one fishtailing into a guard-rail.”
Certainly. And the usual non-response by those profiting handsomely (in both wealth and power) is what we can expect. Eventually, it will be wrested from them if they should insist on continuing with the mystical incantations (contracts) that give them the “lifestyle to which they’ve become accustomed”.
I too would suggest getting out ahead of this trend, but the propaganda/media manufactured consent suggests the course they’ve ‘banked’ on, so the transition to something practical and reasonably sustainable is going to be uglier than anyone (besides a homicidal maniac) would wish, IMO.
Ps. to JHK,
Thanks for ‘usufruct’. The perfect choice of wording in context, and one I’d never stumbled across!
No, Oz, Jim has written yooz-u-fuct several times in the past.
Que,
Ha! Pretty good. 🙂
I do believe I’ve tried to twist and turn that little concept this way and that a time or two my own damn self!
For more on usufruct (and structural change), I highly recommend Murray Bookchin’s “The Ecology of Freedom.”
English Spoken Here…..almost two weeks have passed and JHK has chosen not to preach about the failure of Ebonics in the Charleston Shootings,
“Why? Because Euro American whites have been programmed to “not offend” at all costs………and African Americans are too invested in their own excuse-for-failure industry, wringing money from offense-o-phobic whites.
I guess Dylann Roof didn’t get the memo about not offending Black Folk.
What Dylan Roof did get was the Red Queen. He’s not the only one. There are lots of Red Queens in circulation these days just waiting to be turned over. At least one per week now.
I think he got the other memo, the one about how privileged he was, over and over.
A lot of young white men I know, are getting a little sick of having blame heaped on them for sins they didn’t commit, and are sick of being envied for advantages they didn’t receive. They aren’t vicious and violent, so those who would start a race war will once again be disappointed. They will have to milk this one nut for all he’s worth.
Yes, young Dylan couldn’t live with the criminalization of the White Race. And he did get the Black crime statistics right. A lot of White people know even if you don’t. But they have more going on in their lives to throw them away like the “nut” did.
Uslabor
Your comment is impertinent. (“English Spoken Here”)
How dare you suggest that I chose not to discuss Ebonics in any relation to the Charleston shooting.
I speak Ebonics as a second language but I sound phony, although I love challenges
Ebonics is not a language, it’s a dialect – big difference!
Americans think that WalMart and its brethren are here to stay.
It may be, Walmart at least, but not in its current form. I’ve always suspected, it’s just a hypothesis really, that Walmart stores are built with a dual use in mind. One of those uses hasn’t come to fruition yet, but we’re fast approaching the switchover to Walmart’s other use — dispensaries of Soylent Green or our daily bread.
Look at all the empty check-out lines at Walmart. Most of them are never used concurrently meaning Walmart built in tremendous over-capacity. But, that’s not Walmart’s style. Walmart is a penny pincher and doesn’t do anything it can’t extract profit from currently. And yet they overspent on excess capacity they’re not using. It’s uncharacteristic of their operating philosophy — unless there was another reason for that over-capacity.
We’ll see. That can be said about any of this. We’ll see. Or maybe we won’t. Many of us won’t be alive to see, no doubt — and that’s probably a good thing. If we are, at least we get some “Marriage Equality” with that Soylent Green — something the poor souls in the movie bearing the same name didn’t have. So, it’s not all bad.
CNH,
Interesting observation. In our little berg on the Oregon Coast, population 16K and change (35K population, including county), we have a WallyWorld with almost 40 check-out lanes.
And the Soy can help turn us all into female worker insects or male drones. Bruce Jenner got some royal jelly which made him into a queen.
Another classic JHK essay.
Tools, knowledge, skills and experience in doing simple things will be the “currency” of the future.
I recall something James wrote years ago when he was building a cabin on an island on some late in NY. It was something like “I have a few good tools and know how to keep them sharp and use them”. Not a direct quote. I, too, will keep my old hand tools for the long emergency and will pass them on to grandsons for they will need them for certain.
Wasn’t me but I like it. Stay sharp.
James
Killer post,Jim.
About a third of the way in I started thinking “Event Horizon.”
Then got hit with : “Today may not be the true event horizon for our diseased status quo, but it is probably, at least, the coming attraction trailer. Try not get puked on.” right between the eyes !
Time seems to slow down as one starts the unstoppable journey into a Black Hole. I fear we will think, we have all the time in the universe – just before we are crushed.
We are all Greece.
let’s print some money for Greece
Read “A Canticle For Leibowitz” to see what might be coming.
Structural problems require structural solutions. Seems axiomatic. So why do we cringe when we hear it. I think we are still enamored with this petroleumified world we live in, certainly, but the single biggest thing that keeps us from changing is the feeling or belief that our leadership could not possibly have brought us to this god awful place. Once you realize that was the plan, it gets easier to imagine. Oil is the first global problem, and remarkably it exists right next to climate change, and all the people who brought us the former vehemently deny the latter. We know there is a risk. Yet we drive on.
This post had me at “Can anyone stabilize this bitch?” [LOL] 😉
Mister Kunstler waxes eloquent upon a subject he’s quite familiar with. There’s not a lot to comment about except this particular line: “Institutions fail and each failure acts as a black hole, sucking air, light, and **even time** out of the system.”-J H K, my emphasis.
The “even time” line is especially poignant now from a planning perspective. The least comprehensible thing about Collapse phenomena to the inexperienced is the TIME factor.
As I’ve mentioned several times in the past, Collapse is not a smoothly symmetrical occurrence. Things do not come down at the same speed they went up.
As Mr. Orlov correctly observes, Collapse is “an asymmetric, lopsided curve, in which the upward slope is gradual but the downward slope is steep and cliff-like. In this model, capital does not gradually decay as resources run short; it collapses”-o.
There are those who assume that the elite know what they are doing, or have some ‘master plan’ up their collective sleeves. They assume that because the elite seem unperturbed by each new turn of events, things must be under control. History suggests that such thinking is dead wrong. Literally.
If it were actually true that the political and/or economic elite never misstep then the daughters of once unquestioned Roman Patricians would have remained un-raped, fearsome Aztec and Mayan nobles would have remained un-impaled, Hitler would have died of old age and Mussolini wouldn’t have been throat-slit, mutilated and hung by his heels like a slaughtered hog.
In other words, History would be completely different.
Once again, do not expect a ‘graceful’ decline. When the wherewithal of Capital’s accumulation has been let to rot for decades, don’t expect a safe and smooth ride to the airport, en route to your “100k acres” of prime Argentinian grazing land… And if you do get to the other side, don’t be surprised when they ask “who the F*CK are you?” when you arrive to claim your prize.
At that point, it may dawn on you that you’re a long way from home.
Cheers!
James is just too good, but is he right? is getting his crystal ball from China?
MD,
“When the wherewithal of Capital’s accumulation has been let to rot for decades, don’t expect a safe and smooth ride to the airport, en route to your “100k acres” of prime Argentinian grazing land… And if you do get to the other side, don’t be surprised when they ask “who the F*CK are you?” when you arrive to claim your prize.”
But, but, but… I’ve got the duly signed and notarized contract and bill of sale right here that says I own this land… now youse gauchos GTFO!!
Ahhhhahahahaha! I still find it to be the very height of puzzlement that high muckity-mucks think that any of these paper promises will be honored in a time of upheaval and chaos. When “the law” is generally recognized to be legalized fraud, that shit gets flushed first.
(Thanks for a post that reiterates how real life and call-and-response amongst the youman beasties goes.)
K Dog-that climate change thing… Homo sapien- the most intelligent species on the planet, a ha ha ha ha? Ah, it may consider then, since military endeavors are one of the biggest contributors to C02 in the atmosphere, the next ME may be the last for our beautiful planet. Like I was saying, maybe, just maybe, certain species should have gone “into the woods” a long time ago. In any case, we may get the chance to get reindigenized, may we not. Best wishes again to our species.
But, then again, the solution is usually inside the problem. Ooy, that’s kinda spooky. Interesting that the last couple weeks people have been relating to me dreams about wildlife in bed with them. One woman told me about a dream of a lizard in bed with her, another, a turtle. I didn’t ask them, they just told me. What Janos, no comment from the smart butt section. Get back at me.
Yeah there’s a movie out about the animals going to war against humanity. I don’t agree with bestiality, Barb. But I’m sure the pervs are gearing up for the next struggle.
sharp teeth
If only you had said “that climate change thingy” all would have been forgiven.
“The most intelligent species on the planet”
Elephants know better!
One of the more vexing aspects of time in relation to collapse is the prediction of a specific date when collapse will happen. There is now a date: Sept. 13, 2015, although given the nature of how events unfold, it could be anywhere from Sept. 6 to Sept. 27, in any event it will be September 2015 when the collapse happens.
Cheers!!!
Cheers! Back atcha wpa–ccc. It can really be hell being a mystic. People offering tales of dreams of wildlife in bed with them. It’s getting weird out here.
You have to stop going to bed with yourself. Just like many people can’t trip alone or shouldn’t, you shouldn’t be sleeping alone.
ooops, the collapse just happen my AZZ just fell off
I have hope that the fed may know what it is doing. Bernanke said, ““The Fed can’t create more oil” in 2011.
http://www.aei.org/publication/bernanke-the-fed-cant-create-more-oil
I hope the fed can’t be more straight forward with us because ‘people need their illusions’. I even have some hope that the federal government has a clue, but I admit that is a smaller hope.
My biggest hope is that enough of the government and the powerful understand the shrinking worldwide Resources/Population ratio and reality to morph us into a more sustainable world without greater resource wars. I think the U.S. invasion of the Middle East is a resource war. This hope may be too much.
I know most of us consume far more resources than we need. I even think most of us could be happier with less effort at gathering resources (money) and less consumption. But changing the habits and beliefs of a large society is not quickly or easily done. Sadly, it is most quickly done during time of great suffering.
From my personal experience and reading about the Japanese EDO period I believe the U.S. could easily be run with far less energy and non-renewable resource consumption and still have a general increase in happiness provided the ‘Great American Middle Class’ was resurrected and the wealth of the oligarchs was greatly diminished. Inequality breeds disharmony.
I wonder if our ancestors won’t call this the ‘Age of Waste’?
the fed can print all the money they want if the conservatives let them.
unfortunately when you think of your nation/ country as a giant business then you are fuk….
I wonder if our ancestors [descendants] won’t call this the ‘Age of Waste’?
I just woke up from a very long nap.
1. Are we still all “Charlie Hebdo”?
2. Is it too late to do the Ice Bucket Challenge?
3. Why are there so many songs about rainbows?
https://www.yahoo.com/tv/nbc-cutting-ties-to-donald-trump-over-derogatory-122779736580.html
Wow, the Trumpster may be for real. Ok folks, we have out candidate. Now the time to close your eyes, hold your nose and vote your ideas – if you really meant them. We have a genuine Nationalist here. I hate him too because of his war mongering for Israel, but he’s got so much of the rest of it right.
The ancient Roman Senate always let Caesar wear a wreath to hide his bald head. Just so, we will always let King Donald wear his hair piece (what a coup for the Leftist who snatches it off!) Caesar’s men loved him, making up songs about “our bald headed lecher”. Caesar was an unusual Roman who cared little about food, but very Roman in his inordinate lust. But until this sapped his strength, he was a superman in the field, often too impatient for his scouts to return, he would go out himself and return before they did.
I say he pays a critter handsomely to sit still on his head. At some point the critter will exclaim: “You’re fired!”
Yes the Donald I believe is not a free trade acolyte and wants to rebuild a tariff (barrier to entry) for products which have been made offshore while selling to the American market.
—That is one good thing I can say about the hopeless narcissist, but then who isn’t one in this pathetic lineup of PODUS PR wannabees?
Oh and do you really think anyone’s gonna let him re institute tariffs?
Can you spell private jet crash? They’ve killed better than Trump.
somebody should teach him that you can’t run a nation like a busisness
But you can run a business into the ground like you run a nation.
One of these days the electorate (or maybe Trump’s lawyers) will tell him that he’s fired from the presidential campaign, but that’s not happening soon. First, he combed in second in New Hampshire behind Jeb Bush. He also was in second behind Bush in a national poll. Just a few days ago, he was behind Walker by a hair in Michigan. Looks like the “Trump Bump” is still working for him.
“Walmart is a penny pincher and doesn’t do anything it can’t extract profit from currently.” — Cold
========
I wonder which is cheaper: put in 40 now and use 20 on a rotating basis? Or put in 20 now, and tear up the whole store to add 20 later?
Walmart is evidently penny pinching on the contracts it makes with third party suppliers, but is not penny pinching in its initial investment in sales infrastructure.
“Wow, the Trumpster may be for real.” — Janos
Yes, the Trumpster may be the corn-pone dictator of whom JHK has spoken in past years.
If only Trump would give the VP spot to Sarah Palin. She appears to be stumping for the position and is very compatible ideologically.
the Trump is just a loud mouth repubblican
Yes, we can only hope he is the Corn Pone one. How about Ann Coulter for the Veep? Dr Anne!
“Maybe…they’ll jump in and tell their trading shills to BTFD.”
Perhaps, finally, there are no more ‘Greater Fools’ left to instruct the trading shills to ‘Buy The F*cking Dip’, who are instead ‘Bolting To the F*cking Doors!’ As a Purdue Boilermaker alum, I’m thinking, ‘Boiler The F*ck Down!’ and after five seasons of Game of Thrones, it’s time for Daenerys Targaryen (Khaleesi) to ‘Back off The F*cking Dragons!’
Everyone, just “Back The F*ck Down!”
-TNT
buy low sell high
Oh. I kind of wondered what ‘BTFD’ meant. I had the ‘TF’ figured out, natch, but the ‘D’ means ‘dip’. OK.
Let’s see if they come back with Spicy Cheddar Jack Cauliflower, Cajun Black Bean with Red Bell Pepper, or Warm Broccoli and Cheese Dip.
Gotta be one of those.
Then all will be right in the world.
At first I thought it was “Batten the Fucking Door”. WTF? ROTFL!!!
Janos,
Graffiti found on a Pompeii wall: “Caesar, every woman’s husband and every man’s wife”.
yes Romans used both ends
Hmmm, Where is EvelynV to explain this genetic anomaly?
Yes, I know. But just because a Great Man has such foibles is not excuse for you to do it too.
The better Romans fought against their degeneracy. Marcus Aurelius told of how his father had overcome going to the Games and his penchant for boys.
Let Greece print its own money, all independent nations can do that.
What the EU is doing is equivalent to usury.
Japan debt is 200 time that of Greece.
The national debt will never be payed back so why worry.
The idea of accounting for the money we need to run our society is ridiculous.
Debt is one nation richness.
The national debt is used by conservatives as scare crow a ghost to scare voters so they will vote for the, but you got to be an idiot not to know that you can’t balance the budget without hurting the economy.When are we going to wake up?
the Feds have the money printing machine, let’s use it, we don’t need permission from no one.
As those AHoles say we are the richest nation on the planet, so let’s be it.
As long as that money go for good use.
the bottom line is: debt will never be payed off, that money is no longer real, trades and goods is all that matters.
Europe is running on fumes and loan sharking, Germany, IMF, and ECB leading in a new financial mafia role
No money created by debt is ever real. Money loaned into existence at interest will always – by definition – be less than the National Debt. Such a Debt could never be paid off. The people end up having to sell their homes, bodies, and very selves as the Ancient Egyptians had to do under the monstrous Joseph.
Hey Marzo, Europe may be ‘running on fumes’, but hundreds of thousands of ‘migrants’ from Africa, Asia and the ME are daily risking their lives, crossing the Med in rickety boats, desperate to get into what they think is the promised land, where the streets are paved with gold, and everybody spends their lives sitting around sidewalk cafes drinking chilled white wine and eating roast beef.
The EU is accepting all of them, and need to find some $$$ real fast. Indeed, tens of thousands of these refugees have landed in Greece, are in Greece right now, not really giving a sh-t, or even aware of, any ‘debt crisis’.
brh
And as Greece closes its Banks n Stock Market, the EU forces Syrian – mussie “refugees” on it.
The first thing Greece needs to do is get rid of that Cross on their national flag. Symbols are important. What to replace it with? Hammer and Sickle, Muslim Crescent, Rainbow?
brh
Why? You don’t like Christianity?
Here is the Greek symbol, the Meandros. The Golden Dawn uses it but did not invent it by any means. From it you can get the Cross or the Swastika. Which way do you want to go? Don’t stay on the fence so long that the wood enters into your soul.
https://images.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search;_ylt=A86.J7yVUpJVkicASMgPxQt.;_ylu=X3oDMTEzODltNzAxBGNvbG8DZ3ExBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDRkZHRTAxXzEEc2VjA3Nj?p=Meandros+Symbol%2C+Meaning&fr=yhs-avg-fh_lsonsw&hspart=avg&hsimp=yhs-fh_lsonsw
Dmitriy Sedov. “Idiot’s guide to bestiality in US”.
It all started in 2003, when the US has lifted a ban on same-sex relationships between servicemen. The American army has fully tasted the sweetness of newly-found freedom, but soon a new problem arose.
Entertainment with the likes quickly become boring, and novelty seeking nature rushed to the four-legged creatures. Sheep and donkeys in Afghan villages, with a frightened squeal ran in all directions at the sight of people in US military uniforms…
However, it was, so to speak, self-directed activity, which has not yet had a legislative consolidation. In those archaic days in America physically expressed affection to cloven-hoofed animals was considered illegal.
Such suppression of personal freedom eventually came to be seen in the United States as a violation of basic human rights, or more precisely – the right to love nature in all its manifestations. This restriction of freedom weighed heavily on the psyche, had a harmful effect on patriotism, and undermined faith in the rightness of their cause.
Due to the fact that military psychologists have established a link between low combat capability of US forces in Afghanistan and the prohibition to enter into intimate relationship with small and large cattle, in 2011 the US Senate passed a law that abolished the punishment for sex with animals.
The US Army, which is a typical slice of American society, was opened to new exciting opportunities. Now, for example, couple of homosexual drill sergeants could take on the sexual education of a donkey and thus diversify the dull and somewhat monotonous gay sex.
Advantages of the new legislation began to be felt quickly, and soon, I suppose, it will be further developed. If earlier it was believed that the desire of a lonely widow to marry her doberman was considered a psychiatric deviation, now this particular romantic association could get a required legal regulation.
Then the “Golden Ass” of Apuleius all of a sudden acquire value not only as a literary masterpiece of the Roman era, but also as an “Idiot’s guide to bestiality in US”.
For Gods sake Fincain its not that bad.
Good hyperbole, tho.
Right now NATO is forming up ‘Tranny’ Divisions’, in what used to be called Fort Bragg, named after the Confederate General, but now called Fort Caitlyn Jenner, flying the rainbow flag, the best the west has to offer, prepared to engage Ivan in the Bloodlands between eastern Europe and the Russian Steppe, in their kit not a small Bible, cigarettes and a camillus knife, no, but mascara, nylons to cover hairy legs, and a small photo of President Obama, Messiah and Patron Saint … led not by Patton or Pershing, but Randy Taylor, Gay General, and proud of it, goddammit!
Prepare to be dazzled by tolerance, diversity, inclusiveness, understanding, and some of the most outrageous combat boots and lipstick you’ve ever seen.
brh
brh, I know you think it is funny, but there are gay and transgendered individuals in the special forces (though they may not be out). Be careful about what you say in public. Do not make the mistake of dissing military men (or women) to their faces. Your disrespectful for our armed forces is unpatriotic.
Ebonics is not a language, it’s a dialect – Greg Knepp
=============
Why after 200 – 400 years in this country do Blacks speak a language (or dialect, if you prefer) that is distinctive to their race?
As Jim pointed out a few weeks ago, speaking Ebonics is probably the single greatest cause of Black failure to advance socially and economically. Many others have made this same obvious and commonsensical observation including the great author, linguist and one time community college professor, David Foster Wallace.*
I believe this failure to absorb SAE (Standard American English) is a matter of WON’T, rather than CAN’T. It is flat out deliberate.
Yesterday Bobby Jindal was being interviewed on (I believe) Meet The Press. He is the Governor of Louisiana and a first generation (Asian) Indian American. Both parents migrated from India. Jindal has ZERO Indian accent. How can a first generation Indian speak perfect SAE while a 15th generation African American can’t. The answer is they CAN, but refuse. It is unbelievable and incredible that an entire race (at least 9 out of 10) would choose to shoot themselves in the foot like this.
* A movie about DFW titled The End of The Tour is due to be shown in theaters beginning 7/31/15.
The Quebecois made the same mistake as you are making – as if language is the key to all. After their partial separation from Canada, they made a huge deal about being French with the French language as the center of that. To this end, they imported huge numbers of Haitians and Francophone Black Africans. Now their cities are awash in gang wars, welfare, drugs, and miscegenation. The French Language isn’t some magic that makes Blacks into Europeans. Genetics is the center of Culture, not Language. White behavior can be expected from White people – as long as the rest of the culture is transmitted. And of course, language is a big part of That Rest.
I didnt know the French Canadians thought Haitians would benefit Canada.
How dumb.
Haiti is shit.
Why not? Liberals all worship Blacks. Every White country has been conquered by this evil.
I did check for Quebecs population breakdown by RACE.
I could not find.
But I did find one that has ‘Nationality’.
Africans and Haitians in Quebec, 2 or 3%.
The company I work for hires a few ex offenders each year, a program partnered with the State,
One night last week a guy we call ‘Big Sam’ didn’t show up. Where’s Big Sam? His son got shot but he’s not dead, won’t be in. i knew Big Sam’s father had been shot to death, and Big Sam himself was shot in the leg some years back, I saw the scar. It healed up pretty good. It seems like its a generational thing, this gunplay. the kid is going to survive by all indications, two rounds to the stomach, must’ve been a small cal. weapon, a .22 or .25 most likely.
This is what life is like now in these small cities, hobbsian, all against all, no quarter given, and none asked.
brh
I walked by Episcopal Church today.
No stars and Stripes.
No Stars n Bars.
Rainbow Flag on display.
Thats so gay!!!!
I don’t see many authentic ‘by hand’ craftspeople arriving in a post-collapse world because the transition from one economy to the other will kill most of them off.
After all, in the final dying days of our current economic paradigm, I don’t see ‘by hand’ professionals getting enough commissions to survive the transition.
As a result, once the “A World Made By Hand” actually arrives it may be more a world of reinventing the wheel: a lot of knowledge and skill will have been lost.
Implicit in the romanticizing of ‘made by hand’ is that any former office worker will be able to pick up a hand tool and ‘get er done’ . Which, paradoxically, is a diminution of ‘by hand’ trades and crafts, IMO.
On the other hand, I don’t really believe that JHK or others are diminishing ‘made by hand’ trades and skills. But I do wonder if most people realize how long it takes and how difficult it can be to become good at ‘made by hand’ skills.
Read “Book Your Own Fucking Life” about how anybody can just pick up instruments and play music. Good music? Who are you to judge? Who is anybody? It’s music if I say it is and the critic in the local free alt paper agrees with me (incredible how much power they have – are they journalists?) One I have him or her on my side, the local consumers will shell out the dollars and once they do that, they have to justify doing that by loving it.
I’ve just described the whole paradigm of modern art – which prides itself on being ugly. It has never been so succinctly described before. You want more depth? Google “participation mystique”, read some books, or take some classes. I did so you don’t have to. The above is the essence, the pith, the Quintessence of Wisdom in 40,000 verses.
Finc and BRH,
Yes it is that bad…..Fort Bragg is now routinely referred to as Fort Fag, and the USS Ike is referred to as the USS Dike…….
Interesting anecdotal data point on Greece-
An acquaintance from Greece has a mom there, who started seeing this stuff a while ago. She started stockpiling coffee, and then a bit of sugar, rice and so on. People thought she was crazy.
Now, not so much.
“Can we still …? I think so.” Oh, James, you are such an optimist.
The date was December, 1999. Those niggling realizations that the Universe is all about ENERGY and that humanity was on a diet of demonstrably finite quantities of the stuff finally sent me out for answers.
The quest by chance soon lead me here, http://dieoff.com/page1.htm. Jay had already, even at that relatively early date, put it together.
My quest expanded, garnered hundreds of bookmarked links, and eventually consumed over the next 14+ years in excess of 3500 hours of my time in diverse research.
So, what was predicted by numerous wise people out there in the ether zone so many years ago is now coming to pass as it has been for quite some time, and James has just provided his eloquent summary of some of the major effects. All that is really missing in James’ review is the finality of it all, that there is no world made by hand waiting for us to embrace.
Everything is on schedule – “they” actually “know” what they are doing – and the meek will have to wait another 5000-25000 years to inherit the earth while the elites play their last round. Until then, try to stay out of the sun, stay out of the nuclear radiation, stay out of the way, and stay fed. Otherwise, just move towards the center and smile. It’s all downhill from here and this train wreck is gathering speed.
Or not.
Why the Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage could lead to civil war
The Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 in favor of same sex marriage in all 50 states. My friends, we are witnessing the end of federalism in our nation. In a single vote, 5 folks basically just told the states to “stick it.”
Furthermore, we are in effect nullifying the First Amendment.
Consider this: what happens when a gay couple goes into a church wanting to plan a ceremony and the pastor says no? We now have a conflict between the First Amendment and individual behavior.
With this ruling, the Supreme Court is essentially saying individuals have civil rights based on their sexual behavior, and setting up a monumental battle with the free exercise of religion. This could well be the straw that breaks the camel’s back – that camel being the up till now silent, passive Americans who have been cowed into “tolerating” societal changes that go counter to their fundamental beliefs.
The Supreme Court’s decision could make churches refusing to comply “private institutions engaging in commerce,” and therefore subject to laws already in place. Refusal to perform a same-sex wedding would put a church out of business. Current trends seem to flow against conservative religious institutions. All the elites that set and propagate cultural consensus are aligned in support of same-sex marriage – the Entertainment Establishment, Information Establishment, Academic Establishment, and Political Establishment.
The SCOTUS decision on same-sex marriage is not about the issue itself — it is about individual religious freedom and the imposition of the State’s will against faith. After all, it is the original reason why the Pilgrims fled England. And since there is no place for men and women of faith to retreat — they will make a stand. This ain’t first century Rome.
http://allenbwest.com/2015/06/why-the-supreme-court-ruling-on-gay-marriage-could-lead-to-civil-war/
This caused such outrage that required special explanations of President Obama and his promise not to allow using of the Supreme Court decision for religious persecution of Christians in US. While he remains the President, that is. And if Hillary Clinton becomes president, she said that “America’s religious organizations have to adapt to the requirements of US law.”
Thus the US presidential election in 2016 will not end peacefully, moreover in two weeks begin military exercises in which the US military suppress separatism in Texas and California, and Texas have already started mobilizing the State Guards to “watch” over the maneuvers. And all this is happening against the background of attempts to ban the Confederate flag.
Americans “will make a stand” -?-
I really, really doubt that.
A lazier mass of self-indulgent, fat bastards has never existed and I speak in the first person plural.
I see no idealism. Morals are used as weapons of control rather than individual guides.
Leisure is the national religion.
In another time, perhaps…
‘self-indulgent, fat bastards has never existed’.
Clearly you have not been to Africa.
Or even Haiti.
Why the Trans Pacific and Trans Atlantic trade deals are not what everybody thinks they are
The spectacular rise of China began exactly when the US opened for it its vast internal market. Initially, the production of the most simple products moved to China, then more complicated. Later the engineering offices started to move to China. And now (oh, horror!) the financial technologies started to move to China – the main instrument of world governance.
Several years ago Americans finally realized that the lowering of the prices of goods by transferring production to China can become too expensive. With their own hands they raised a geopolitical rival. Then the decision was made to return the production from China to the United States. And reindustrialization US was expected to proceed on a new basis: with the widespread introduction of robots and fully automated production. Partial or complete transfer of production from China to the United States began: Apple, General Electric, Whirlpool Corporation, Master Lock, Caterpillar Inc., NCR, Otis Elevator Company, and many others – about 250 companies. Moreover, back to US, closer to customers, moved the Chinese company Lenovo Group Ltd.
Once the dependence of the US market on Chinese imports would be largely eliminated, Americans will introduce protectionist measures against Chinese products and hinder Chinese exports to other countries. Fortunately, America has enough agents of influence everywhere, and the ocean trade routes are controlled by the US Navy.
But not everything is going smoothly. There are huge debt problems and a large number of people living on social benefits. The American market is absolutely insufficient for reindustrialization in crisis. To reach production volumes, allowing achieving the desired level of profitability, America also needs foreign markets. And what is the biggest solvent market in the world? It is the European Union. It is the same EU which Chinese New Silk Road project aims at. It turns out that the American eagle and the Chinese dragon set their sights on the same prey. Only one will get it.
America has its own alternative to the New Silk Road. Even two. The first is a Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement. The second is the Transpacific Free Trade Agreement. Atlantic Free Trade Area – is a “customs union” of the US and the EU. The negotiations on mutual abolition of duties and other trade barriers between the United States and the European Union have been going for a long time and with varying degrees of success. The political elites of Europe, firmly tied to the interests of the United States, tend to accept US terms. Recently, the warm support of US plans was expressed by Angela Merkel.
However, in Europe there are other forces. Opposition political organizations, trade unions and other professional societies, associations of producers of goods and services, other public organizations rightly believe that the abolition of barriers to trade with the United States would be a disaster for Europe. US production is not only stronger than the European, but also has much smaller tax burden than European congested by huge social obligations. The arrival of US goods to Europe will turn it into something that “old” Europe has already did to Bulgaria and the Baltic states, where, after entering the European Union there was a complete de-industrialization.
The fact is that Europe has its own “China”. It is Germany. After the removal of internal customs borders of the European Union, Germany has become the most economically strong state and began to gradually strangle the industry of less developed southern European and then Eastern European countries. Under the conditions of the crisis of underdeveloped periphery of the European Union begins to emerge picture of “two-story” European Union. The “core” of the European Union will make the strongest economy of the “old” Europe, while others will be their markets. As long as they can serve as such.
US want to eat the EU. But the “pray”, unable to resist the “master of the world”, plans to survive at the expense of eating other European parts. But this is only if they can get rid of the “free trade” with the United States. Cooperation with China to the EU is preferable because it significantly lags behind Europe in the field of new technologies and scientific developments. In other words, in a game with China Europe has somewhat of a tramp card.
The information about Pacific free trade zone has become known recently, as talks on its creation have been carefully kept secret. Australia, Japan, Canada, Chile, Mexico and Vietnam should be the part of it. This project is to stop the expansion of China to the south.
But that is not all. In order to prevent Chinese access to Europe, the United States “set fire” to transit states. Middle East and the Arab Maghreb are already largely thrown into chaos. Access from the south of Europe is difficult. Ukraine has burst into flames. Now, it seems, the problem starts in Armenia. The next step is Central Asia. The situation there is extremely explosive. It may be the case that the Chinese simply have nowhere to pass.
http://regnum.ru/news/polit/1937818.html
Finca,
“But not everything is going smoothly. There are huge debt problems and a large number of people living on social benefits. The American market is absolutely insufficient for reindustrialization in crisis.”
Well yeah, that’s why we need to implement the austerity measures that the Troika has demanded Greece accept. I wonder what will happen when Americans are forced to take the same medicine that they insist the rest of the known world guzzle down without complaint?
This oughta be good.
Rustle up some popcorn while it can still be obtained in microwave-able packets, because when the brownouts start, very few are going to know how to pop it up in a pot over an actual fire… Um, I see trouble a’brewin’.
The fake civics war between the duopoly parties played with the ferocity of a football game you just bet your last $$ to play will turn into the real deal.
A few years ago someone in Russia reiterated by Putin produced a map of what the US map would look like once the US collapsed and let’s just say it will be split up by region.
Needless to say the East will be part of Europe…..hmmmm
food for thought.
Hey Fincain, when do you have time to do any actual farming?
brh
My wife does the farm management, I do the feed factory. There are 4 employees on the farm, and 3 employees +2 contractors on the factory. Usually, things go smooth enough, so my intervention is required for doing the books and paying the bills.
However, this week it is a fucking nightmare – we had an accident with the truck, one employee had a dislocated shoulder and is out for a week – I still pay his salary. Have to do some physical myself. Will definitely go red for this month.
BRH: It was pointed out several months ago that finca is a Spanish word for farm. So we should call him Finca, not Fincain. His handle is Finca in The Mountains
Finca,
First you use “prey” correctly, but later use “pray”; so you were right 50% of the time on that word. Also, tramp card should be trump card.
Yes, I know English is not your first language. How many languages do you speak or read, by the way?
Also, Therian, where are you? Isn’t it your self-assigned task to call educated folks like me and Q “prissy”? Miss you.
I’m trying my own “living by hand” and it’s not going well. But I think I could survive. I’ve set myself a challenge to build basic furniture and shelter without power tools and I did that.
The trick to DIY survival in a suburban backyard is to keep it very simple. Start by growing legumes like beans and peas and keep a few chickens. If you can do that you’ll have eggs and vegatables. None of that is too hard in a temperate climate. (God only knows what you guys with snowy winters will do.)
The real problem will be protecting what you have from the hungry neighbours. That will require getting together, co-operating, exchanging, sharing and bartering. Then your neighbour’s best interest is to keep you alive and productive.
That’s my plan anyway.
Anybody here on CFN are familiar with making high-protein animal feed using yeast cultures? I’d appreciate you pointing me in the right direction.
Finca,
I don’t know about yeast cultures but I have been researching black soldier fly larva. BSF for short. If you are looking for high protein chicken feed this would do it. There are quite a few videos on youtube about raising them.
Try this one. Part 1 of 7. http://m.youtube.com/?#/watch?v=n6kxKpNrKa0
I also like kombucha and that creates a Scoby (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast). I have read that you can do some interesting things with the scoby. Maybe animals like it. Good luck.
Not a bad plan. At least you have a plan, Mercpi.
More than you can say for me.
“The real problem will be protecting what you have from the hungry neighbours. That will require getting together, co-operating, exchanging, sharing and bartering. Then your neighbour’s best interest is to keep you alive and productive.”
I have only one word to express my thoughts regarding your survival strategy…”Lordofthefuckingflies”…you have my sympathy.
EF,
Are you trying to tell us that you prefer your “divide and conquer” on a smaller, perhaps neighborhood, scale?
Next question: How many of your neighbors do you know?
Third question: If you do know your neighbors, how many of them do you actually like or participate in home projects with?
Thanks for your participation in our Critical Consequence of Casual Clusterfuck survey!
We might then infer how you came by your insouciant attitude of cannibalistic savagery by the answers to these basic questions of nearby community……. or maybe it’s just the type of movies you prefer to watch.
“We might then infer how you came by your insouciant attitude of cannibalistic savagery by the answers to these basic questions of nearby community……. or maybe it’s just the type of movies you prefer to watch”
Ozone,
No, it was my years of law enforcement in an inner-city ghetto. I have 5 neighbors within a mile of me, and I know four of them. I participate in projects with one of them (cattle butchering, etc.), and have helped repair tractors, etc. for others.
There is but a thin veneer of civility in this country, it’s population is not used to adversity of the sort that is potentially existential…and they are armed. I’m sorry, but I have no faith in the basic goodness of humanity when challenged. It is, indeed, a warm and fuzzy notion that good men will band together for the common good, but history, as FTM has stated, is not a teacher, but a punisher. In the long term, alliances will form, in the short term, not so much.
I believe there is a recipe for survival, however, and it is to become mobile and hostile…I will be neither, and do not expect to long survive what a systemic crash might provide. Was I bent seeing the worst that humanity can offer? Yesssss….
Yes, it incredible how silly otherwise sophisticated people get about democracy and “community”. It’s their religion, the faith of the faithless. Whatever you want to say about my beliefs, at least I don’t expect them to be fulfilled on this plane.
It’s painful to watch Ozone and others evince a credulity that would shame a savage.
EF,
Thanks. That was an unaffected, honest answer.
I shall prepare for wanderers that you have warned me of. I still feel I can count on some to make common cause when kill or be killed/eat or be eaten shambles and slithers over the broken infrastructure. It won’t matter too much to me whether I live or die if it gets that vicious/hopeless.
(Honestly? I’m sure a goodly number of reavers will be former enforcers. I don’t expect to “match up” but the vagaries of battle sometimes fall to blind luck. …And somebody’s got to tump all that kit.)
I like chickens … especially with a suitable sauce over them.
Eat a chicken and you have one meal. Let it scratch around eating insects and worms and you have a small meal every day for 4 or 5 years.
Or do you plan on eating the insects and worms yourself with that sauce of yours?
Egg layers recycle the inedible to the edible.
The next chapter in the saga is for the USA to outsource its military and defense industry to China. Finish replacing all US workers with robots, also made and programmed in China. The final chapter is to outsource the US government to China.
Ah, indeed, goat.
We already are outsourcing our military defense industry to a country we’re trying to challenge in the South China seas, but you forgot the other side of the globalist system.
The foreign privatized interests in buying up our real estate, and infrastructure here in the USA.
Not only are we getting high skill workers on B1 visas to take our engineering jobs for less salary than the US educated citizens would expect, but our highest level jobs are expected to go to the elite from the US as well as any other country with an wealthy elite, further locking in wealth disparity for generations to come.
This is really worth listening to:
http://hgsss.org/smart-talk-with-andrew-mazzone-and-dr-gregory-clark/
No. Once we “normalize” relations with Cuba, all the manufacturing will go there. mark my words.
Sure if they’re cheaper than China no doubt. We’ll get those casinos operating there before ya know it.
The only thing I’ve ever thought was truly outsource-worthy is our government. Most of those positions are un-fire-able so you’re guaranteed the least productive workers. Our private sector workers are actually terrific which is why Honda and other Asian carmakers build plants in Tennessee and South Carolina where those “ignorant” Confederates live.
Welcome back Mr. T.
Weren’t those Asian car makers looking for non-union workers, when they built their factories in those southern states?
“What? You don’t like Christianity?”
Jeesh, Janos!
Can’t the BackRowHeckler indulge in a little snark and sarcasm every once in awhile?
I’ve said it before and will say it again, you need a better sense of humor. Lighten up a little bit. You seem to take all this BS too seriously, for example, arguing with Dannyboy (who seems to have a fine sense of humor) all last week. What does all this amount to anyway? Just words in cyberspace.
Gay marriage, just the phrase itself is oxymoronic, but what else can you expect from a corrupted place like this? We’re oxymoronic. It all seems so apocalyptic, men marrying men, until a little research reveals Homosexuals make up 1.7% of the population, Trannies .3%! We’re being hoaxed! Its the Medicine Show, and while the man up on stage hawks his Elixir, his partner circulates thru out the crowd, picking your pockets.
brh
Yes, the USA is being turned into a Freak Show. The president is a bad actor [and stupid, his grades in school prove that].
But what happens when people cant afford the price of admission to the show?
Mister Obama shows that even someone with a 102 IQ can be Mister President. He’s the “Vacation President”.
thank you. i appreciate your complement.
i do attempt humor.
sometimes it works
and sometimes, not.
What denomination are you?
Humor plays FAR too big a part in American life. That being said, no one enjoys a good laugh better than Janos Skorenzy. We must have very different senses of humor if you couldn’t see how gleefully I eviscerated Danny again and again.
you eviscerated yourself
again, and again, and…
BRH,
While searching for the jazz station last Sunday afternoon I accidentally landed on an NPR broadcast in which they were discussing last weeks SCOTUS gay marriage decision. I learned from this broadcast that the LGTV community believes that ‘significant issues’ still need to be addressed despite the their recent legal victory. One issue that was mentioned was “tran-phobia”. I presume this means that the other 98% of the population ( being generous to “the community”) is very much in need of education/sensitivity training. I’m sure the money to conduct this educational need will appear from somewhere.
Also on that program was the specter of robotics in the not so distant future. While some proponents agreed that unemployment as a result of robotics will be unfortunate, the upside and happy future they will bring has too much upside not to push forward.
They mentioned robotics infiltrating modern medicine which translated that even surgeon better beware–robots do not make mistakes! But the real kicker was physicians are seeing the handwriting on the wall and their new mantra is increasingly about the importance of “the human touch”: A warm caring hand if you will.
Funny I never recall hearing so much emphasis on “bedside manner” in the past but surely economics is not driving a kinder and gentler era of physicians–it must be a coincidence.
After I had had enough of NPR I finally found the jazz station and was treated to this particular gem:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOB0MfiNIkU
Deck chairs on the Titanic.
Didn’t the Titanic sink or something?
Mark Murphy, new to me.
Sounds a little like Sinatra in the 50s.
Thanks for that, Buck.
brh
Happy Birthday Grace Lee Boggs – co-founder of the Boggs Center and author of The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the 21st Century
Living in cars? Yeah, I can hardly think of a better catalyst for change. Living in cars and maybe going without food.
They say that ISIS has 3,000 jihadis from Tunisia. Now, as the birthplace of the Arab Spring via the self-immolation of fruit-vendor Bouazizi, what else would you expect?
I mean, Tunisian officialdom’s pocket-picking thievery was so oppressive, so pervasive that it drove one man to suicide. Did anyone think that Bouazizi would be the only chap that was pissed off?
What should we learn from this? Maybe the lesson is that you can push people only so far. Maybe that economic systems built on swindles and rackets have no future, that sooner or later there’s an event horizon from which there’s no turning back. Like, for instance, the suicide of a fruit-vendor. Are the billionaires listening? I doubt it.
Now, common sense would tell you that having multitudes of hungry, idle young men is a very dangerous thing. After all, what was the genesis of National Socialism? Or Communism. Do the billionaires have any common sense? Not that I can see.
What do such movements offer? They know what young men want: respect, self respect, some prospects in life, something to look forward to, something to live for.
In extremis, young men will rally round a cause. Even a doomed cause. Because barring some decent prospects and something to live for, they’ll settle for a reasonable sounding cause to die for. Or even an unreasonable sounding cause. How many young Germans died for their mad leader? Look at what they did to Europe. How many ISIS recruits want to be martyrs?
So, there you have it, two examples of what happens when people get pushed too far. Do you think the oligarchs would learn from this?
Nope, I think the billionaire set is so focused on their own profit and wealth maximization as a guiding principle that they scoff at any urging for caution, forethought, forbearance and self-restraint. Which is what I’m urging anyways.
But any urging for half a thought to the people around them, as far as the oligarchs are concerned, is pussy-talk. This is for weak, lazy ninnies that deserve what they get, who deserve to get culled from the gene pool.
No, the guiding principle of blind greed is too embedded. Businesses and governing and regulatory institutions are all on the same page.
Stop sawing the limb they’re sitting on? No chance, no matter what, the oligarchs think they’ll be fine, that they’ll come out on top. No, they’ll keep sawing, they won’t listen, not to anybody.
Or they do what the Koch brothers are doing when they started to finance the tea party. By doing that they are skilfully redirecting the rage of some members of the poor to other members of the poor.
The Nazis did something very similar. In most cases, the Jews in control of banks and industry escaped the consequences of nazi rage. They just fled the country. The Jews who paid the ultimate price were generally as poor and downtrodden as their attackers.
While divide and conquer can be a succesful diversionary tactic that will work for a time, it will never solve the underlying problems.
Janos-you’re just jealous. These women who told me about their dreams of turtles in their beds are very educated and lucid. Maybe the collective consciousness is telling us we will be going back to the rhythms of nature, no. If we’re that lucky.
K-dog, you’re right, elephants know better and other, more intelligent species actually work together in many instances, not like our stupid hyper individualistic species. Like Jane Goodall said in Surviving Progress, it’s counter productive from an evolutionary standpoint to destroy your habitat.
Janos, I know deep down, you’re a great guy, right.
Feminism is based on the hatred of femininity and the absolute soul wrenching envy of men. Freud scores again in retrospect with his theory of penis envy. And if women are to become men, men must make way by becoming women – thus the non-stop war against Men and Masculinity. Masculinity is only good when it comes from women – like say Janet Reno or her girlfriend who moved men’s offices into the rest room.
I am a good guy – not a nice one. Nice just means weak and unwilling to tell the truth. Women wont give nice guys the time of day. After all, they want men who make more money than they do. That’s the rhythm of their nature – like females of any species who go with the victor.
For the umpteenth time: spirituality has nothing to do with “nature”. Buddha Nature, yes. English is very poor in terms connected with consciousness. Thus the same word is used for completely different things. People below a certain level of IQ and Education will find this confusing. And even people above this level will find it confusing to try and talk to each other about it. It’s unfortunate: our language just isn’t evolved in this direction.
Actually nature and spirituality are in essence very connected. The psychomotive system is the individual ” will to live” the individual thought which animates the body. So we can call it the soul. While nature the universal “will to live” of which the soul is the individual representation can be called spirit.
As Rumi, Yogananda, and countless others have said: the Spirit is sleeping in minerals and plants, dreaming in animals, beginning to awaken in the higher animals but only in Man is it really awake – but only to the level of the self conscious mind. The task of “spiritual life” is to take it beyond the mind back to its own level – the Source.
Yes all life is spirit in that it can’t be reduced to chemicals. But obviously such spirit is not Spirit (self consciously that is. Metaphysically nothing can be apart from spirit). Again, the paucity of the English language. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was richer in this regard back in Chaucer’s time.
Barb,
An audiobook favorite of mine is “The Elephant Whisperer: My Life with the Herd in the African Wild” by Lawrence Anthony. While the genre (animals?, outdoors?, Africa?) is not my usual domain, I found it delightful, as has everyone I’ve recommended it to. An audible.com rating of 4.6/5 is rare for a book with well over 2,000 reviews. The narrator, Simon Vance, is one of the best and scores an even higher 4.7. A few minutes of listening will have you convinced his is the voice of Anthony himself. You’ll not only be struck by the high intelligence of the species, as your post acknowledged, but also by the range of their emotions and the depth of their bonds to their offspring and other members of their herd, as well as to Anthony. A thrilling experience!
-TNT
File under Cultural Decay or Heroic Anarchism?
http://www.macon.com/2015/06/29/3821075_report-macon-wal-mart-mob-wanted.html?rh=1
Those pesky “teens” are back and attacking a Wal Mart in Dixie.
Now there’s food for cognitive dissonance.
Good for them. Now watch all the inbreds, the shotgun, hound dog, and pick up truck types come rushing to defend Walmarts.
Doubtful. WalMart pulled the Confederate battle flag from the shelves during last week’s paroxysm of goodness.
Well, kinda both and neither.
Hey! A *mash-up* if you will!
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/confederate-flag-furor/confederate-flag-clash-south-carolina-statehouse-ends-arrest-n384206
We’ll let others on the comment board tell us what *really* happened, so there’s no need to think about this trifle at all. 😉
When you have ample resources which in economic talk are called factors of production and a scarcity in the market place then you have a situation conducive for the holy grail of economic growth. When markets be they goods and services or labour markets are saturated then growth is curtailed . As growth is the holy grail contraction brings a cold icy fear into the bowels of economic think tanks. Economic contraction has a way of feeding on itself aka as self reinforcing feedback loops. Of course there is another scarcity that is very very bad for economic growth and that is actual physical factors of production scarcity. Price system ideology doesn’t deal well with physical reality. The fiat money system is about selling a dream.
The Care and Feeding of a Financial Black Hole
Dmitry Orlov wrote a good one on the Black Hole……oh indeed how do we keep on going when we’re bankrupt……
read this and find out.
http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-care-and-feeding-of-financial-black.html#more
Black Smash Mob in Macon. At least they weren’t smashing White heads this time. Is that what Harper Lee and the whole tradition of Liberal Gentility was expecting would be the fruit of equality? Any barbs Barb?
http://www.amren.com/news/2015/06/report-macon-wal-mart-mob-wanted-to-see-how-much-damage-it-could-do/
Democracy is lost on such as these. The lower races must be ruled with a rod of iron – or set free to go their own way in their own country. Lover of Liberty that I am, I opt for the latter.
You missed my mention above. Delicious dissonance Perhaps they were angry at the Confederate Battle Flag having been removed from sale following the SC event?
Those niggling realizations – Toktomi
================
It hasn’t got much mention in the press but in a fit of political correctness the universities that comprise the Ivy League are pushing to have the following words stricken from all English language dictionaries:
niggard
niggardly
niggle
niggling
nigrescent
nigrify
nigretude
nigrosine
For the time being they will let stand the African country names Niger and Nigeria. ;o)
…and so what about ‘renege’?
-TNT
“The fiat money system is about selling a dream.” — bob
No more so than the dream that gold has any inherent value. It is just a metal found in the earth with no intrinsic value… only a shared dream makes it valuable.
Same with greenbacks, federal reserve notes, etc. Having an imagined “physical” backup (a worthless metal called gold) does not make the perceived value of the backup any less a dream.
On Sept. 5, 2011 gold was selling for $1,900 an ounce. If you bought into the gold dream in Sept. 2011, your investment has lost value big time. The gold money system is about selling a dream.
0000
And yet, it moves…
The Central Banks purchase gold.
The Sovereigns purchase gold.
Why is there a price and why is it posted/fixed daily? Worldwide?
True, voices as disparate as Martin Armstrong and Anne Barnhardt don’t dismiss gold so much as relegate it to a lesser status as merely a market unto itself following its own cycles. Barnhardt is correct in stating all money is fiat. Armstrong is correct in stating that wealth is the productive capacity of national populations.
And yet,…
By the way — how’s that “the debt is an abstraction” thing going? Got any Greek converts yet?
Yeah – it would have been much better to purchase shares of pets.com, or webvan.com or drkoop.com. Because no one will ever want to use physical gold for jewelry or trinkets, ever again. And gold has no purpose in modern electronics, either – per your silly post.
God (god?), you are a transparent shill for some nasty human forces, wpa.soka.com. – and, sadly, you don’t even seem to know it. http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010/technology/1003/gallery.dot_com_busts/8.html
Yep, it’s down to about $1200, or a loss of about 35%. It’s a short term fluctuation that I can live with.
Note that it is still worth something. Unless someone actually robs you, then your investment in gold will never decline to nothing, unlike shares or money.
When travelling through Bolivia in 1987 I exchanged 50c for a $1,000,000 dollar note. I keep it as reminder of how fickle and worthless government issue currency can become.
“Americans think that WalMart and its brethren are here to stay. They’re mistaken. Structural reform means reorganizing many layers of commerce around town centers — Main Streets — while the disintegrating strip malls await the salvage crews. Are we ready for that?” – jhk –
No, jhk, no one can possibly be ready for that. It’s certainly going to happen, though, on some time scale – unless something much worse happens. The pure Hell embodied in the transition should be enough to frighten any sentient being presently living on the US landmass. Some of them aren’t that smart, though. We’ve already heard from a couple, here, and just this week.
And thank you for the week’s work, JHK.
For old times sake. Commenting the way it used to be done at Clusterfuck Nation. the screen color was different and there was only a single thread. The first thing one had to do was quote the person they wished to reply to. Like this:
barbisbest June 29, 2015 at 10:55 am #
K dog, I hear you. Guy McPherson does say that, all probability he’s right. I read his book, Extinction Dialogues. It’s a thoughtful book, and its noted that, according to it, McPherson isn’t so harsh about the human race. But, the thought does come to mind, considering what has been done, and the way this culture operates,what with NFL players making millions, and other such imbecility, maybe this species should have “went into the woods” a long time ago. Am I being too harsh.
Italics haven’t changed and to make it work one had to use a dash of HTML. Super easy but I was the only one who did it here.
Yes, I have a signed copy. I’m reading it but paused because I read this blog:
A Parable Of Self Destruction
The article has two comments and no surprise I made one of them:
Reminds me I have a copy of “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds that is unread. I dug it up so I could finish this comment. Now I’ll power down and read.
We have a rhyme of history going on. It concerns John Law.
In 1716 Law established The Banque Générale in France, three-quarters of the banks capital consisted of government bills and government notes The Banque Générale was the first central bank of France. Seems a previous administration (Louis XIV) had blossomed France’s nation debt to untenable levels. After balancing the books the surplus from the GNP could only service a tenth of one percent of the total debt. At the time the Duke of Orléans was running France as the current King (Louis XV)was an infant. His solution to the budget dilemma was to step into Law’s bank and print money. Law and the Duke of Orléans were actually very tight friends. They got tight together, but the sad part is Law actually knew how the bank should be run. Law was a really smart guy. Yet in the face of his friend, the Regent of France, Law was weak and he let the Duke print money. Lots of money.
Things did not go so well and Law had to flee France.
Does any of this sound Familiar?
This is how this week started:
“This dynamic was plain to see a decade ago, but the people who run finance and governments thought it would be a good idea to maintain the appearance of growth via the usufruct mechanisms of central banking: ZIRP, QE, market intervention, and universal accounting fraud. It’s not working so well.
And now, back to reading Extinction Dialogues.
“I believe that the term (feral) refers to black people, but in the neighborhoods that will use the garden I’m referring to, there are white people and black people. The underclass in our country has been completely integrated for decades.” – beryl of oyl –
Beryl, I’ve been hearing this sentiment all my life. I used to believe it. Then I used to want to believe it. Now I call bull shit. http://demographics.coopercenter.org/DotMap/index.html US society is more geographically segregated by race and class than it has ever been. I’d like someone to offer some evidence that proves me wrong, but I don’t believe that’s possible, in this case.
“Collapse now and avoid the rush” has some unfortunate overtones, almost never explored by the liberal-leaning sites of the blogosphere.
I will look carefully at opposing evidence, if anyone offers any.
Nice comment to barbisbest, k9. http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/systemic-turmoil-structural-reform/#comment-241672 If you ever want me to read one – that’s the only way to make sure I do; put it at the bottom of the thread.
I visited your website Monday. The tracker software was working hard to keep track of your hits -most all linked off Monday’s CFN, and from all over the world. Fascinating.
And you may just be better looking than McPherson. hahahohohehe!
Thank You.
On your previous comment. “Collapse now and avoid the rush” only means to adopt a lifestyle which will be disrupted the least when the rush of collapse comes and consumes life as we know it.
I had an a-ha moment a while back when I realized that double meanings mean that, something has two meanings. Not three for or five interpretations. Just ask yourself how would that be done?
So collapse now, grow your own food, take care of you and yours. Yes there are negative overtones to it. Positive ones too. Overtones can come in infinite variety. Meanings in only one or two.
“God (god?), you are a transparent shill for some nasty human forces, wpa.soka.com” — P4W
P4W, you are fighting with a ghost who has not been here since 2013. I am not going to respond in kind to your namecalling. It has become almost comical that you continue to confuse me, wpa–ccc, with someone else. But that is what makes this blog quixotic. Carry on.
The church shooter wanted to spark a race war but targeted the wrong people. Instead of generating hate and violence, the shooter received forgiveness in the courtroom from the families. Your comments are hateful, targeted to an old CFN ghost. They have nothing to do with me. I forgive you for your continued misidentification.
wpa–ccc
I’ve been explaining about the fraudulent banking system ’til I turned blue, and finally it’s coming to pass. Not possible to create endless fictional “value” in a world with finite resources, … “the prospective defaults are starting to pile up like SUVs on a fog-bound highway. Greece is just the first one fishtailing into a guard-rail”. Beautiful. Only a matter of time until the dominoes start to fall. Good piece JHK.
Nope, not faulty wiring, not lightning… it is racism, pure and simple.
“There has been a rash of fires at predominantly black churches in the weeks following the June 17 massacre in Charleston. In the past two weeks, six of those fires occurred in Southern states, USA Today noted. Of these, three are confirmed as arson. Federal officials are looking into whether some of the cases may be hate crimes.
There is a long history of arson attacks on black churches in America, as The Atlantic recently detailed. The attacks are often racially motivated, “a highly visible attack on a core institution of the black community, often done at night, and often motivated by hate,” writer Emma Green wrote.
The series of church fires began just days after the the Charleston shooting, invigorating a conversation on the issue of deep-seated racism in America.”
Funny how all the wires became faulty and lightning strikes happened at the same time, right after the massacre in the Charleston church.
“Greece is just the first one fishtailing into a guard-rail. Only a matter of time until the dominoes start to fall.” — Arrow
So we are not counting Iceland or Argentina or any of the other countries who have defaulted and lived to tell the tale? Why did the world not end?
Why did the dominoes not fall in those other cases of national default?
Greece is a member of NATO, which is inextricably linked to US dollar hegemony along with the World Bank and the IMF. The system following WW2 is unraveling and a new system will evolve. Farmers will continue to farm, doctors will continue to practice medicine, lawyers will continue to practice law, writers will write, and politicians will prevaricate.
Iceland threw the bums out. Argentina is simply tragedy writ large over a century. It’s been a long time since the phrase “as wealthy as an Argentine” had any relevance.
wpa–ccc,
I’m not familiar with Argentina’s situation but have followed Iceland’s for the past several years. Well-traveled family members were visiting Iceland in May and I referred back to several e-mail exchanges we had discussing their experiences. In a nutshell, they loved the country, found it spectacularly beautiful, describing it as the New Zealand of the northern hemisphere, but were surprised at how expensive it was compared to other countries they had visited recently (this coming from residents of San Francisco!) and in light of the reported ‘economic difficulties, of which, they saw no evidence.
So what happened? If not libertarian, the people and government are at least much more independent-minded than their socialist Europe neighbors. The best recent example was their response during the 2007-2008 international banking crisis. A lot of countries (governments) were in dire straits financially and were allowing the IMF and international bankers to come in and dictate onerous “austerity” measures to ensure repayment (ala economic hit men). Unlike other countries in such circumstances, Iceland told them to f*ck off and told them they (globalist bankers) were the ones that created the mess, so it was their problem, not Iceland’s. They were not going to allow them to fix it on the backs of Icelanders and make them their economic serfs. Score one for the people!
Today Iceland is enjoying a healthy recovery and the government is in better shape fiscally than most. It’s truly a great story, although one generally distorted by the elitists.
-TNT
“Funny how all the wires became faulty and lightning strikes happened at the same time, right after the massacre in the Charleston church.” –wpa–ccc
If faulty wiring or lightning strikes were causing the burning down of Black churches, one could expect blazes in white churches from the same causes. But there has been no upsurge in white churches burning after the failed June 17 Charleston massacre.
White churches are not burning because there isn’t a 150 year old violent Black supremacist movement with a morally depraved history of torching, bombing, and shooting of white churches.
Well…BBC just reported on the latest church fire…Arson not suspected. Go figure.
Russian academician Askar Akayev: “I do not really love the United States, but they are on a trajectory of growth”
Q: At what point of the crisis are we today?
If we talk about the global economy – yes, the Western world reached the bottom of the crisis. And it happened in 2014. The crisis began exactly in the most developed economies of Western world, it began in the United States, then moved to the European continent, and then took over the rest of the world. In 2014, the United States actually have entered the path of recovery. And this we have shown in our studies a few years ago – the United States were at the “bottom” in 2013-2014, in 2015 – growth, and the year 2017-2018 begins the transition to a sustainable path of long-term growth for 15-20 years. The US has already reached the potential level of the growth rate of 3% per year. For the US, it’s very good.
Q: Then why today a lot of talk that the US economy is in crisis, the world economy is in crisis?
No, this is a misconception. I will explain why. The US economy is now gone into growth. America has stubbornly worked on reindustrialization for the past 10 years. The US economy has indeed become unbalanced, since 30-40 years ago began the move of industrial enterprises to developing countries in search of cheap labor and profits. Indeed, they were placed production in China, Latin America, and Africa where labor is cheap, and made enormous profits. But! It turned out that they have lost millions of jobs at home, and skilled jobs. And it has led to distortions. The structure of the economy has deteriorated. I must say that in the United States now is achieving successful reindustrialization. In recent years, tens of thousands of enterprises have come back. But! They did not return to the old technology that they introduced there in China, Latin America, and Russia. No. The returned companies are adopting technologies of the sixth technological order which would persist until mid-century. The NBIC-based technologies – nano-, bio-, information and cognitive technologies. These technologies are interesting in that they interact with each other; they create a powerful synergy effect. America, what would I say … I do not really love the United States, but it is a fact. America thanks to re-industrialization, through technological superiority today entered the path of sustainable growth. It has emerged from the crisis. That’s it!
Q: And Europe?
Europe is now in a state of bifurcation and non-equilibrium …. It has not yet been able to reach “the bottom of” the crisis, and there is no impulse to exit. The European economy could go into decline, depending on external conditions, and can go on the rise. Europe did not lose the industry. First of all, the locomotive of Europe – Germany. Germany and France. Here are two leaders. They did not engage in de-industrialization. And so they have no problems of re-industrialization.
Q: But today, the European leaders are already openly talking about the negative impact of the introduction of anti-Russian sanctions, especially on the European economy itself.
America has engaged Europe and Russia in sanction war. Europe suffers the most. Because the European economy is in such a state that … Europeans cautiously extended the sanctions until the end of the year – it is a signal that the next year they will cancel the sanctions because they also realized that they have the most negative effect on Europe itself. America does not suffer, it only wins since they are entering areas vacated by Russia.
Q: Transatlantic partnership?
Yes. Therefore, Germany, France are losing… From the Eastern European countries – Poland, Hungary…
Yesterday began working structure, which has every chance to kill one of the two monstrous creatures of the Bretton Woods conference in 1944, which resulted in the US financial hegemony over the entire world. With proper organization of work, AIIB could send the World Bank to the dustbin of history. It will be followed by the IMF, which is quite possible to be replaced by “BRICS currency pool.”
Actually why do we need AIIB (as well as new Development Bank of BRICS and “BRICS currency pool”)? Before the advent of alternative financial institutions, any country that wanted to take on the development of infrastructure, or the economy as a whole and did not have enough capital to do it, there was only one way out: to bow to the World Bank, the IMF and smaller regional organizations of the same size, such as the Asian Development Bank. Money made available on onerous terms: privatization, deregulation, liberalization and eternal love to a white “massah” from Washington.
BRICs in general, China in particular, and (more recently) some EU countries engaged in the construction of alternative schemes of international finance, which would not be sick with “Washington Consensus” and engage in “shock therapy” in relation to the experimental economies.
At the same time three projects are in development: AIIB, New BRICS Development Bank and “BRICS currency pool.” The AIIB which was originally conceived as a competitor and replacement of the Asian Development Bank (regional US), has started first but in the process it became clear that it will be more convenient for the Europeans to enter. For London, Berlin and Luxembourg to become members of the organization with the label BRICS would be not too kosher, and “Asian Infrastructure Bank” – is quite normal.
The most voting shares is hold by China – 26.06%, next India – 7.51%, then Russia – 5.93%
http://crimsonalter.livejournal.com/63277.html
I’m watching BBC this morning, and it looks like its going to be a tough transition for the Greeks, being used to the Govt. subsidized, Mediterranean, laid back way of life as they are. (One I’m familiar with, having married into a Spanish family, and spent considerable time there.) It really is a pleasant way live, beginning but not ending with the mild climate and good weather almost year round. For example, I heard on a talk show this morning a commentator state that in Greece almost everybody works for the Government, the average workday ends at 2:30 pm, vacation time lasts all summer, retirees get not 12 but 14 monthly retirement checks each year, and you can get full a full retirement package with as little as 15 years on the job. That’s all pretty sweet, but it not sustainable over the long run, as we are finding out. Greece still has all the natural resources its always had, mainly the sea and a people who initiated the concept of the western world. Some rough times are ahead but Greece will probably be better off on their own, with their own currency, and running their own affairs.
brh
Many there do not pay taxes.
Hence the need for gov to get money elsewhere.
Sounds familiar?
Nope, not faulty wiring, not lightning… it is racism, pure and simple. — wpa–ccc
Really? So I take it you’ve done a full report on it and have furnished the Obama Administration with a copy? Do you have a copy of it posted at your blog? Do you have a blog? If not, why not? I would enjoy reading your expanded thoughts, so it’s curious to me that someone so opinionated as you doesn’t have their own website.
I’ll say to you what I’ve said to Rabia. For the record, for now at least, I like Rabia even though I may not agree with her on, and about, everything. I wish more people like Rabia would visit this comment section and comment to it to provide some balance and break up the sock puppet monopoly that’s entrenched. Vulnerable dupes like Dylan Roof get their start at venues like this comment section and then are lured down the rabbit hole of no return w/ the likes of Janos and you as their guide. Your screen name plays the Bad Cop. Click on the following link twice to blow up the small print.
https://twitter.com/CNHolefield/status/616209869100593152
As a possible cause, Rabia forgot to mention what is commonly referred to as “Jewish Lightening.”
http://www.counter-currents.com/2015/06/would-dylan-roof-exist-in-a-decent-society/#comments
However much we condemn the evil act of Dylan Roof, we cannot separate ourselves form this young man. Through him the White Race responded to its torment. We must try to understand his act and makes the necessary changes to prevent future such outrages – just as we would do if a Black youth did something similar.
his sis GoFundMe page has been Go FukMe ed.
Florida Power,
to pick up a thread from your above post, to what do you attribute Argentina’s ongoing economic troubles? I think at an earlier point in history Argentina was as wealthy as any European country, with just as many amenities. They’re blessed with an abundance of natural resources, and have large populations of Germans, Spaniards and Italians. What went wrong in Argentina?
brh
Argentine advice for Greece: ‘Default Now!’
Here in Argentina, when we watch the terrible things that are happening today in Greece, we can only exclaim, “Hey!! That’s exactly what happened in Argentina in 2001 and 2002…!”
A decade ago, Argentina too went through a systemic Sovereign Public Debt collapse resulting in social turmoil, worker hardship, rioting and street fights with the police.
Some months before Argentina exploded, then-President Fernando de la Rúa – forced to resign at the height of the 2001 crisis – had called back as finance minister the notorious pro-banker, Trilateral Commission member and Rockefeller/Soros/Rhodes protégé Domingo Cavallo.
Cavallo was the gruesome architect of Argentina’s political and economic capitulation to the US and UK when he was President Carlos Menem’s foreign minister and economy minister in the ’90s. Menem and Cavallo are primarily responsible for Argentina’s signing of a formal Treaty of Capitulation with the UK/US after the 1982 Falklands War, opening up our economy to unrestricted privatization, deregulation and grossly excessive US Dollar-indebtedness, almost tripling our sovereign debt in a few short years (see my February 11, 2012 article British Laughter in the Falklands).
http://www.asalbuchi.com.ar/2012/02/argentine-advice-for-greece-default-now/
I think the usual dose of leftist populism coupled with mismanagement within the context of the cold war. But I am no student of Argentina. My comments were informed only by reports of popular commentators at the turn of the 20th C who wondered whether the next great hemispheric power would be the USA or Argentina.
Interesting.
Argentina bears some looking into, see what lessons can be learned.
brh
Behold Venezuela today. Resource-rich. Cannot keep toilet paper in stock. Leftist populism leveraging what’s left of the cold war division of spheres of influence.
I had family who spent time from the late 50s into the 60s in Buenos Aires and loved it. But I think they had reliable supplies of toilet paper.
An old classmate of mine posted this to Facebook.
https://scontent-lga1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xap1/v/t1.0-9/10296666_482245925239530_6071053860470366919_n.png?oh=03a47d48238426a2093bfd194baeb31d&oe=56220629
Why would he want ANY immigrants? USA was built and in a depression at that point.
Relevant to this week’s post, the shenanigans in Greece are a cautionary tale for the USA. Not in the obvious ways, but more in the nature of the narrative.
As of now, it looks like the Greek government is wavering, despite all the blatherings of the MSM and alternate media. Everyone seems to have their own opinion. Opinions are cheap, facts ought to be free. At this moment, no one can say exactly for sure how events will unfold.
My point is, we can’t say what our country will be like next month, let alone in five or ten years. All speculation about our future is just that: speculation. All our comments about race, the economy, the elite – everything is just guesses. And therefore, ought to be stated as such, rather than as facts.
Driven as I am by my obsession with grammar, usage, punctuation, spelling, etc……… I note that one journalist on CNBC (Bob Pisani) pronounces Tsipras (Prime Minister of Greece) as ‘sip-ris’ while another on that show (Michele Caruso Cabrerra) says ‘seep-ris.’ Is anyone here familiar enough with the Greek language to clear this up for me? Which is correct, sip or seep?
I will appreciate it if no one responds “who gives a shit?”
If the Greece votes in favor to show middle finger to the lenders in response to their ultimatum, Greece has every chance to turn into an open wound, and a headache for the European bureaucrats. If the Greeks themselves do not decide to withdraw from the Euro zone, they cannot simply be thrown out – there is no legal mechanism for doing that. And to create such a mechanism for the Brussels bureaucracy would be: a) difficult b) will take a long time c) scary – they will be blackmailed by other countries to use such mechanism. It is a bad political omen for a structure to design its own legal liquidation procedure – it could be used pretty soon.
As a result, the Greeks will be able for a while just to blackmail the EU demanding compensation for having to stop poisoning Eurozone with their presence. It promises to be a very ugly divorce with smashed kitchen dishes and blackened eyes.
Greece is the epicenter of the political crisis of the EU as a structure, and only secondarily – temporary epicenter of the world’s economic crisis. In terms of direct economic losses right now (in 2012 was a different situation), Greece crisis may swipe at European supranational institutions (ECB, EFSF, TARGET2), but in general, the EU banking system is more or less protected from toxic Greek assets by their transfer to the balance of state institutions (in fact, the balance of the European taxpayers).
http://politrussia.com/world/rekviem-po-evropeyskoy-439/
For what it is worth, no matter what deal is struck, Iran will continue to pursue “the bomb.” I have believed this from day one and after reading portions of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich I am even more convinced.
Hello Marzo,
re: “James is just too good, but is he right? is getting his crystal ball from China?”-m.
James understands the strategic situation, knows that and can articulate that. From a planning perspective it’s not much good for exact dates – but if it were it wouldn’t be strategic, it would be much shorter-term and tactical in nature, wouldn’t it?
Regarding crystal balls and China, the next two years look very interesting for them, don’t they?
WHAT HAPPENED WITH GREECE? Stay in EU?
Hello Ozone!
re: “But, but, but… I’ve got the duly signed and notarized contract and bill of sale right here that says I own this land… now youse gauchos GTFO!!”-oz.
I find that the type of people who benefit from lawlessness are the last to get the irony when the tables turn. Seems like it’s incomprehensible to them that it could ever happen.
Have you ever seen that “this isn’t happening!” expression? I have.
and: “Ahhhhahahahaha! I still find it to be the very height of puzzlement that high muckity-mucks think that any of these paper promises will be honored in a time of upheaval and chaos. When “the law” is generally recognized to be legalized fraud, that shit gets flushed first.”-oz.
This is more evidence of their sociopathology, but it also has to do with the fact that apex social-predators are the last to know when the situation is untenable – they’re surrounded by sycophants and die-hard supporters who can’t imagine life without scraps from masters table. By the time they DO realize that things are bad, it’s far too late.
Consider all the reassurances that Czar Nicholas received when the Bolsheviks were coming for him… But if he had been the type to actually get out there and get answers for himself, none of it would have been happening in the first place. He could have seen his children have children.
Isolation is strategic weakness.
MD,
A trenchant post, as things appear to be getting a bit shaky on the “war by other means” (tm BT) front. (Actual invasions have proven ineffective lately… thus the trumped up, paid and prodded internal divisions and armed insurrections.)
Capitulation by treaty? The phrase, “It’s not worth the paper it’s printed on”, comes to mind.
You say,
“Isolation is strategic weakness.”
Damn straight. And a heapin’ helpin’ of Hubris doesn’t get the axle greased either. (Is this why we’re being set against one another — victim vs. victim? To make sure that we, at the least, *feel* isolated against the power and wisdom of the overarching State? I dunno; well beyond my analytic credentials. 😉 )
Jim
It’s very interesting to have been following your block watching the Greek situation unfold
It strikes me that the Greek prime minister is doing a very good job and a service to Europe. Having a referendum is a master stroke. He’s saying this ‘solution’ from the IMF is not going to work. We don’t want one more bilge pump on a sinking Greek ship. What we want is a repair to the hull, or we’ll downsize by taking the lifeboats! If the Euro cargo goes down with that sucker, so be it
The Euro bankers, and worse, the IMF can go swivel
Cheers
Rob
The current debt crisis in Greece is a result of shutting down all production competing with similar industries in the countries included in the EU earlier.
Loans were given to Greece for the maintenance of the unemployed as a result of industry shutdown while attempting to create new jobs.
Additional jobs places could not be created because almost every production potential in Greece, would be a competitor of one that already exists in Old Europe.
It is not unlike the story of grants for the purchase of insulin abroad. They were provided for many countries that produced their own insulin. Grants were provided only for the time necessary to strangulate the domestic insulin production with cheap imports and were canceled immediately after closure of domestic insulin industry.
Shell CEO: US shale has been stymied by Saudi Arabia
“I think they [the Saudis] have been quite successful, if you like, in making it very clear to shale oil companies as well as their financiers that they cannot forget the price risk,” he said. “The industry will remember it for some time.”
But, he added, if US crude prices remained in the $50 to $60 a barrel range, then it would be hard to justify substantial new spending on infrastructure and drilling. Extracting “more marginal” barrels would need higher oil prices, he said.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/af4a24aa-1f3b-11e5-ab0f-6bb9974f25d0.html#axzz3efNtrCAl
Is Saudi Arabia Leaving The U.S. Behind For Russia?
The news from the recent St. Petersburg Economic Forum, which took place from June 18 to 20, inspired a torrent of speculation on the future direction of energy prices.
But the real buzz at the conference was the unexpected but much publicized visit of the Saudi Deputy Crown Prince, as an emissary of the King. The Prince, who is also his country’s Defense Minister, carried the royal message of a direct invitation to President Putin to visit the King, which was immediately accepted and reciprocated, with the Prince accepting on behalf of his father.
That could mean that, at the very least, Russia would have a voice in the cartel’s (OPEC’s) policy decisions on production. And if so, it would be a voice on the side of stable but rising prices.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/saudi-arabia-leaving-u-behind-215428719.html
“Those who have endured a personal crisis of some kind (we all know one who hasn’t) are at least somewhat able to examine the unpleasant and see themselves as flawed human beings. Such have grown realistic eyes.” I agree K dog. Those who have never endured a personal crisis may be less likely to see the real. But, those who have are not flawed human beings. It seems so strange, but probably so with this culture, you don’t see anything about Texas in the news, how it is recovering from the floods, or Fukishima, or anything really serious. The land of hopium. We should have marijuana for our “going out” party.
Yes, this post mentions sex and the by-product, population. It reminds one of the game in the 60’s, How many people can you fit in the telephone booth. Population, how many people in Dubai? How many millions there alone? Maybe they should try another hobby, like macrame! Seriously!!! According to a relative, the geneticist, 20% of the world’s population are descendants of Genghis Khan. That could be a large part of our problem.
A woman’s prerogative to change the subject, or was that change her mind? Anyway, JHK writes, about a year ago, we’ll become ISIS. (reading comprehension, a blessing and a curse) If one considers the region of Baltimore recently, and the city in Missouri with the rioting, not to mention Charleston, ad infinitum, we are already ISIS, are we not.
In a place where anything goes and nothing matters to coin JHK’s phrase, except of course the almighty dollar, that 20% of us are descendants of Genghis Khan comes to mind. That may be the best explanation for it all.
Kdog, I liked Korten’s Change the Story, Change the Future. It’s a recommended read. Does anyone know the way to Medievalville. Another fad from the sixties, let’s all stick out their thumbs.
Hey Kdog – I appreciate the part in McPherson’s book where he says there’s no point in hating humanity, or inhumanity as it were, we’re all guilty of being part of that. Yep, a full 20% of people on earth descendants of Genghis. A fifth!
In the land where anything goes and nothing matters, ask a 10 year old if he can identify any species of tree or who the governor of his or her state is. There’s a good chance, s/he can’t do it. But, they can run a video game, gauran-damnteed. Most of us are perfect examples of ignorance is bliss. Nothing matters, not people, planet, or the pfuture (the p’s not silent, its Ppp-future) Only k-ching.
Best to you k-dog, keep reading, keep rocking.
” Can anyone stabilize this bitch? ” No. What a slomo slide to a different world. Should be a good ride. Grab the reins and hang on.
“What a slomo slide to a different world. Should be a good ride. Grab the reins and hang on.”
“You’ve paid for the ticket, now take the ride….” Hunter S. Thompson
I heard something interesting on one of the main news networks, (DW I think). It showed the standard footage of Greek pensioners struggling to get past one another into a Greek bank to withdraw what little they were allowed.
Thing is this, some of the pensioners were told by bank employees that their pension payment hadn’t been deposited.
Now, given that the Greek government didn’t bother making its 1.7 billion euro debt repayment as was promised, you’d think they’d have some funds in store. Nope, some pensioners were SOL.
Where’d the money go?
Anyway, I read on another site that Greek banks are walking dead, that they have a huge percentage of non-performing (hoplelessly delinquent) loans on their books, worthless Greek government bonds as assets etc etc etc.
Which means that it’s not just the Greek government that’s rotted through but Greek banks too.
Even if creditors wrote down Greek government debt to zero (and they might as well as the prospect of repayment at this point looks pretty much like zero) what about Greek banks? How do you clean up that mess? Who pays for it? Germany?
Rickards is right in that the problems are “structural”, meaning they’re not problems of bankers making derivatives bets with one another that don’t have any connection to economic activity. Wall Street fraud and flimflam IOW.
And Rickards is also right in that the solution isn’t one of monetary policy. You can have QE and ZIRP and NIRP forever and make no headway ever.
Sooner or later European governments will realize that the hundreds of billions of worthless Greek bonds they’re holding have to be written off. Who eats it? German pensioners? French pensioners? Somebody will. I can’t imagine they’ll be too happy about it.
This folks is what you call “contagion”.
What does collapse look like? This is what collapse looks like.
“Even if creditors wrote down Greek government debt to zero” — V
Nope, can’t be done, period. Greece needs to be punished and punished severely, or everybody would default.
Maybe politically it can’t be done. Or be seen to be done. But what do you do with Greek bonds that aren’t collecting interest or principal repayments?
A “write-down” is just book-keeping. In the meantime, how do creditors enforce their claims? What do they seize? What alternatives do they have? Invasion? A land-grab? Round-up Greeks and make them work as slaves?
Maybe in earlier eras they’d inflict war and death and destruction and military occupation as a prelude to mass confiscation of assets. What assets to Greeks have? Even if Greece had steal-able assets (in a lot of cases military action isn’t much more than robbery on a huge scale) the question is this: Is Europe up to it?
“Invasion? A land-grab? Round-up Greeks and make them work as slaves?”
No, nothing drastic like that. The Greek bad paper is already safely parked up in European-taxpayers funded institutions, so they’d have to be dealt with like the multi-trillion US debt will be eventually dealt with – written down one way or another.
But you could probably forget about any emergency backup for Greek banks if they run out of cash – that’s the tab that Greek people will have to pay by loosing their pensions and savings.
So, as usual, the lille’ people will get screwed up on both sides, fat rats already ran for the cover with their hefty bribes and commissions.
Mercpl, of course you’re right about divide and conquer. The poor against other poor is one way.
Many ways to do this. For example, distract and conquer.
How? Make sure you push the right buttons. Same-sex marriage is a made to order distraction. Never fails. Distracts and divides people along factional lines, the young and the cool and the hip against the old and the intolerant and the uneducated.
At least that’s how the “left” sees it. From the “right” it’s the righteous true Americans against un-American degenerates.
And, while everybody is furious over an issue that affects a minuscule number of people, they steal everything in sight, loot people’s pensions, drain their bank accounts.
“Hip”? What’s that? Is sex with animals hip? Or Children? No? What makes you think it wont be in a few years? Hasn’t “hip” proved to be a moving line? I remind thee we already have children choosing their own gender. Not adolescents, children. I remind thee that sex with 14 year olds was common at various times – in marriage. Do you really think the Elite couldn’t resurrect that sans the marriage part?
You are assuming that the Elite have no Culture, Values, and Class Consciousness of their own. In fact they do. The Judeo-Masons are violently opposed to all traditional values, especially the overtly Christian.
It only affects a miniscule number of people? Oh that’s completely wrong. It affects how children are schooled and who can adopt them. It affects everyone and everything. Many Gay activists have admitted their ultimate intention is to destroy marriage. And one of the few true things they say is that Straights were already doing that themselves. Here’s a thoughtful piece about the latter.
https://heartiste.wordpress.com/2015/06/28/comment-of-the-week-the-norm-equalization-case-against-gay-marriage/
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/07/02/clarence-thomas-is-a-clown-in-blackface-says-gay-activist-takei/
George Takei – flamer, hater, and all around nasty piece of work.
How come the “Supreme’s” didn’t tack on a clause for poligamy, polyandry, allowing also marriage to and between simian-forms too?
Why not just mix it all in one big pot, marry whatever is your preference! Think this would create another distraction?
Choices must be expanded, except in the national political arena.
Don’t worry. It all on the agenda.
brh
The New Abnormal.
“How come the “Supreme’s” didn’t tack on a clause for poligamy, polyandry, allowing also marriage to and between simian-forms too?” — jayrome
What’s the rush? Why not extending the pleasure of sticking it up to all of us?
New unemployment in June states it at just 5.3%. I know what everybody’s thinking – that’s cooked government books. But I sometimes wonder. Why would Russian academicians, two in a row, with no vested interest in lying for US are stating that US are actually quite ahead in implementing technologies of sixth technological order?
I also get some independent confirmation: I’ve been out of US technology job market for more than 10 years now (aside for doing some private contracts for long-term acquaintances of mine) – now all of a sudden I am getting quite a few resumes and interviews requests from head-hunters I don’t even know – probably from 10-year old databases.
What if we are all really full of it and things, at least in some respects, are looking up? I mean all those fucking chicken and dairy farms….
Wouldn’t that be funny?
Yes,
I try, without much success, however, to remember that the older one gets, the more cynical and negative. Regarding the employment numbers, I once read that 200K jobs have to be created each month just to absorb the population coming of age and entering the work force…so the numbers do not reflect much relief for the currently unemployed, or overall employment prospects.
“How come the “Supreme’s” didn’t tack on a clause for poligamy, polyandry, allowing also marriage to and between simian-forms too?” –jayrome ,,,
Marriage is a human institution. We have the right to redefine what marriage is. In the past it was one man and one woman, and the woman was often forced, or sold, and became the property of the man. No more.
The new definition of marriage is between two consenting adult homo sapiens.
Nobody, except you, is talking about marriage as polygamy, polyandry, or between simian-forms. Not a single supreme court justice is talking about legalizing anything other than marriage equality for two consenting adult homo sapiens.
Traditional man-woman marriages are still allowed, so you still have the same rights as before. Nothing has been taken from you. Why do you object to others having the same rights you enjoy?
Now there is legal marriage equality. Does that somehow affect you negatively? How?
wpa-ccc
Because people are afraid of change. They want to stay in the same old comfort zone. They feel secure that way. Radical change – and allowing gay marriage is radical to those of a conservative nature – terrifies some people.
And what do people do when they are terrified? Their flight or fight impulse kicks in.
Right. The old “homophobia” scam. We aren’t afraid of them – we don’t approve of them or their lifestyle.
Judaism condemns Homosexuality. No exceptions.
Now there is legal marriage equality. Does that somehow affect you negatively? How? – wpa
==============
It doesn’t so much affect ME but I think, ultimately, it will affect one of my 3 kids… the one who is single.
I have been in a traditional (male/female) marriage for 42 years and have enjoyed the lower taxes resulting from filing a joint return. I have never believed this was fair to single people who pay more. Now there will be more people (same sex marrieds) filing jointly and shifting more burden on to singles. There is a similar health insurance angle to same sex marriage.
If I ruled the world all tax preferences would be eliminated by eliminating income as a basis for taxes and replacing it with a single percentage consumption tax.
Beside the money angle there is the undeniable fact that same sex marriage just gives some of us the creeps.
“And what do people do when they are terrified?” — beantown
“Terrified” is not a word I would associate with CFNers like janos, malthuss, or back row heckler.
Or do they make joking insults about our military men and women– lesbians, gays, bisexuals, questioning, intersex, transgendered and asexuals– just as a defense mechanism to cover up their inner terror? I doubt it.
Whatever the root cause, opponents of marriage equality have lost none of the rights they possessed before the Supreme Court decision in favor of marriage equality. Marrying someone of the same sex is now a right, but it is an option, it is not an obligation. From whence the terror?
wpa–ccc
Thank you for telling off this name caller. The real issue is the children. Not being raised by Sodomites needs to become a right.
““Terrified” is not a word I would associate with CFNers like janos..”
That is EXACTLY the word I would use.
Fearing EVERY difference in humans! Color, religion, philosophy, and on and on. How else do you explain this hatred?
Hate throwing is not bold.
Throwing shit around a blog is not brave.
So much for the First Amendment, eh? You guys don’t need that crap anymore now that you are on top.
Need a Kidney?
Your hate is protected in a country that allows freedoms. Stop trying to redefine who is allowed personhood. Every color, religion, nationality is considered equal. Why are you so f’d up about that?
Interesting James Rickards quote. I just wish I believed in James Rickards who has falsified his resume hugely. And if he did NOT falsify his resume, why should we believe a guy who claims to be an ex deep CIA insider? However, the more you look into his claims about his self importance the more his claims are bullshit about who he once was.
Therian,
I have read several of Rickard’s books. In one, he explained how he was once contacted to participate in a “war game scenario” involving economic metrics. He was never an employee of the Agency, if I recall correctly what he wrote…just another guy in a panel discussion. “CIA Analyst” does bring more panache to a resume then “…and I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night….”
Janos, if your true concern is for the children, then you should oppose heterosexual marriage. The vast majority of pedophiles and child molesters are heterosexual males. The overwhelming majority of sex abuse criminals are heterosexual males.
“Dr. William C. Holmes, Assistant Professor of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, authored a study in the December 1998 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association that indicated that 98 percent of all male perpetrators who had sexually abused boys were identified in their families and communities as heterosexual.
Researcher Carole Jenny found, in a 1994 study, that “a child’s risk of being molested by his or her relative’s heterosexual partner is 100 times greater than by someone who might be identified as homosexual.” Of the 93,000 sexually abused kids in the US in 1999 (the last year of available statistics), half of the children were sexually abused by their parents (Sandusky), while other relatives committed 18 percent of the offenses.
In other words, sexual orientation isn’t a factor in determining child sexual abuse.
The research is clear that the sexual orientation of an adult is not a factor in the analysis of child abuse. The American Psychological Association, the National Association of Social Workers, the American Academy of Child Psychiatrists and the Child Welfare League of America all have policy statements stating there is no correlation between homosexuality and child abuse.”
wpa–ccc
Homos molest more per capita. Obviously once they get even more access, the level of molestation will skyrocket.
You seem to be advocating for an end to the family. No doubt having people born in test tubes and raised in social centers will do wonders for society. Read Hellstrom’s Hive by Frank Herbert.
I read it. “Sexual stumps” still give me the Heebee-jeebies.
you can’t run a nation like a busisness – Marzo
=================
Why not?
Because many necessary services don’t turn a profit – like roads, street lights, public transportation, etc. It costs a lot to have a civilization.
What was the name of that little rat bastard who wanted to run a war like a business? Didn’t want to give the troops armor for their transports, saying you go with what you have. That went over like a lead balloon. Don Rumsfeld. He’s also involved with saccharine or something horrible like that. What an utter waste of space and degradation of the Two Armed Form of God.
you can’t run a nation like a busisness – Marzo
=============
Why not? –Q.
=============
“you can’t increase the national bottom line by firing workers or paying them less. A nation’s workers—its citizens—are also both its shareholders and its main customers.
A country’s economic success is measured not by the profit its government makes, but by the wealth it returns to its citizens. It’s not the same thing.”
–ROBERT DE NEUFVILLE
Amen, Neuf – whoever you are. There is no Wealth but Life.
He [Trump] also was in second behind Bush in a national poll. – Neon V.
===============
What I can’t figure out is, by what logic Jeb is running in FIRST. It certainly isn’t oratory, charisma, looks or brashness.
Speaking of candidates, I got a chuckle reading that Christie said he’s not running for “Prom King” and that people shouldn’t be expecting to hear from him “what they’d like to hear.”
I don’t think either Trump or Christie is electable even as dog catcher but I sincerely hope they can shine a bright light on the revolting political correctness of all the rest.
Did you watch any of the Harry Potter movies? Why do people “want’ Jeb? Because they know his name and because they think everyone else is going to vote for him so they wont be “lonely”. In other words, they’re “Muggles”. Democracy means rule by Muggles – who not only fear to go where eagles dare but can’t even conceive of it.
Even in the most favorable states, neither Bush nor Trump nor Clinton has been able to draw 10,000 to hear them speak, like Bernie Sanders has.
Just sayin’
wpa–ccc
When and where did Bernie pull 10,000. State your source.
Never mind, I Googled it. The figure (in Wisconsin) according to HIS staffers was 9600.
It’s not the same thing.” – wpa quoting somebody
===============
First of all, I asked Marzo, not you.
Second, who the frig is –ROBERT DE NEUFVILLE?
Third, someone needs to tell RDN the definition of “the bottom line.”
Q., it was MORE than 10,000, confirmed….
The Sanders campaign has confirmed that the crowd was a record by quoting the Associated Press estimate of 10,000 attendees.
PoliticusUSA can independently confirm that there were 10,000 people inside the event and scores more who had to listen to Sen. Sanders speak on speakers that were set up outside of the venue.
Sanders received 13,000 RSVPs for his event, and he nearly doubled the previous high for any 2016 presidential candidate.
Anyone who didn’t believe that the candidacy of Bernie Sanders was for real was given a 10,000 person reality check in Madison.
Update: The attendance number of 10,000 has been confirmed and PoliticusUSA has exclusive video of the crowd.
http://www.politicususa.com/2015/07/01/exclusive-video-historic-10000-crowd-bernie-sanders-madison-rally.html
Socialism SOUNDS great. Hitler drew something like 200,000 to see and hear him speak about “National Socialism.” Another 120,000 listened by loudspeaker. After the first 13 years of the thousand year Reich it all ended in misery.
Humans are not social animals like ants and bees. They are far more individualistic. I know that breaks your heart but…….. just sayin’.
You left out the economic miracle which lead to the all out effort to crush Germany.
It’s hard to kick against the pricks, is it not? Your mind is not your own until you make it so.
This from a man who quotes every hate writer as his Gospel and provides links to losers as his Source.
So did you dress up as a Mexican dressed up as a Hasid the other day to protest Gays? Good on ya, boychik.
“Your mind is not your own until you make it so.” – Janos
“This from a man who quotes every hate writer as his Gospel and provides links to losers as his Source.” dannyboy
“So did you dress up as a Mexican dressed up as a Hasid the other day to protest Gays? Good on ya, boychik.” janos
this janos can’t even have a SINGLE original thought. He’s got to go delusional and try some religious or Mexican tangent.
Janos, if you didn’t constantly hate, what would you do? Try it.
You obviously don’t think Gays are equal or you wouldn’t have protested them. And you obviously don’t think Mexicans are equal or you would have protested yourselves.
Refuting you is as easy as taking Japanese Beetles off Roses. And as necessary.
Janos,
Again…
wtf are you talking about???
“You obviously don’t think Gays are equal or you wouldn’t have protested them.” – Janos
I NEVER protested Gays.
“And you obviously don’t think Mexicans are equal or you would have protested yourselves.” – Janos
I have done NO PROTESTING FOR OR AGAINST.
You are fucking delusional.
Do you really think we here in Ft. Meade and Langley are going to install a commie jew as even titular head of the greatest republic ever? Better the syphilitic Clinton moonbat or the drug addled Bush for advancing our global agenda…….full spectrum dominance of every aspect of human existence.
“Never mind, I Googled it. The figure (in Wisconsin) according to HIS staffers was 9600.” — Q.
Q., HIS official website is using the AP figure of 10,000, though we know the RSVP was 13,000 and the 10,000+ overflow had to listen from outside.
Are you quoting a secondary source, which was supposedly citing “HIS staffers”? Because the 9,600 you cite is contradicted by Bernie Sanders official website:
https://berniesanders.com/news/10000-at-madison-coliseum/
It was probably closer to 11,000 with all the overflow outside the venue.
Nobody else in the 2016 campaign has ever come close to even 10,000, even in the most friendly conservative parts of the country.
Whatever, it was a lot of people…… but at the end of the day they will be disappointed.
HIS official website is using the AP figure of 10,000, – wpa
================
If my staffers estimated 9,600 and AP said it was 10,000 I’d go with the 10,000 figure too.
“If my staffers estimated 9,600 and AP said it was 10,000 I’d go with the 10,000 figure too.” — Q
=======
The AP figure was independently verified by PoliticusUSA exclusive video.
You have a crystal ball that says there won’t be rallies of 20,000, then 50,000, that result in enough electoral votes… to win… at the end of the day?
Tomorrow is the 4th of July, and many Americans think that Lincoln signed the Declaration of Independence to declare the North’s independence from the South.
What I can’t figure out is, by what logic Jeb is running in FIRST. –Q
=====
Actually, Bush may now be second to Trump in New Hampshire, depending on the sample size and the margin of error. A Suffolk University poll of Granite State Republicans released last week found 11 percent backing Trump, and 14 percent for Bush. If the margin of error was 3%, it could actually be Trump with 14% and Bush with 11%. Just sayin’
Q., you say Hitler was a politician, had large crowds, and won. Sanders is a politician, has large crowds, and Sanders could also win and become president. You do the math:
In Iowa Bernie Sanders’ support has increased from:
5% in February 2015
15% in May 2015
33% in July 2015
The USA needs a Socialist President like Sanders. Socialism is working just fine in many countries. In the USA socialist programs are working just fine. For example, Medicare and Medicaid are socialistic programs. That’s indisputable. They are both based on the principle of having government take money from one group of people, and share it with another group of people.
We need more socialism, more sharing, not less. Tax the super rich heavily (use Eisenhower’s marginal tax rate of 91%) … and REDISTRIBUTE the wealth (to Constitutionally promote the general welfare) to those in need who earn less than $50,000 for free education, susidized health care, child care, housing, etc.
Hey Robin Hood, you don’t need to explain to me how socialism works, I get it.
Alexander Zapolskis: The Middle East fire is spreading
It looks like a fire in the Middle East is gaining momentum. For the umpteenth time it confirms the validity of the adage that war is much easier to start than to finish. The United States needed to find a tool in the war against al-Assad of Syria. Here and now, as quickly as possible and more radical the better. Perhaps the US administration was not interested even in medium-term consequences. It was necessary to confirm US status as the coolest dude on the block. It grabbed the first thing that turned up under the arm – Islamic radicals.
However, in the region, the level of social and ideological development of which is somewhere in the Middle Ages, no one else could be found. Iraq, Syria, Libya were secular projects, in which the state was founded on the principles of separation of religion from the state. In general, US wanted to create a small handful of managed guerillas, and got the Islamic state instead. They wanted to put a little pressure on the Saudis, who have become too much independent, and even ruined the American shale project and instead got the guerrilla movement, which began to take control of the territory of Saudi Arabia.
Today, the newscasts reported the capture by military-political movement “Free citizens of Najran” (en-Ahrar Najran) of airport in the city of Najran – the capital of the eponymous province in the south of Saudi Arabia. The movement appeared recently, but has already managed to gain power and make connections with Huthis in neighboring Yemen. It stands for complete separation of the province from the SA. As a result of ill-conceived intervention into the Yemeni conflict, the Saudis are now forced to bomb their own airport. The war came to the Saudis’ own house.
First, judging from the pace of expansion of the conflict in the coming three to five years after the collapse of the whole prevailing colonial system formed as a result of disastrous for the Europeans Second World War, geopolitical configuration in the Middle East will collapse.
Today, the region has five major centers of power: Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel, plus a vast area of chaos in Libya and North Africa, in particular Sudan and Somalia, as well as clearly disintegrating Iraq. If the rebels manage to take away the Saudi oil fields, the kingdom, existing only on oil production would likely cease to exist.
Secondly, one of the sources of funding is the illegal sale by Islamic State Iraqi oil at bargain prices. While the scope of it is small, but the more oil fields are in the hands of the IS, the more oil smuggling will put pressure on the world oil prices.
Moreover, in addition to the above, there is another important factor – the specific scenario of economic and political crisis in the EU. The fact that the economy of the European Union in the near future will be shaken – is obvious. The question is how big. The main consumers of oil in the world are advanced industrialized countries, primarily in Europe. The economic crisis will lead to industrial decline, thereby seriously reducing the demand for petroleum products. In conjunction with the pressure of oil contraband, it may lead to even more serious decline in oil prices. According to available information IS sells oil at 24-25 dollars per barrel. Current official quote is 63.5 dollars. Thus, we cannot exclude it from dropping to $50 or even lower.
However, the most important thing is that the only player who is extracts a real practical benefit from the chaos in the region, is the Islamic State. And the more former states fall apart in the region, the less chance to oppose it on the ground. Neither US nor NATO nor the European Union wish to face off ISIS in ground battles, and air strikes alone will not do the job. Thus, the chance to create a radical Islamic state all the way from Egypt to Somalia has been steadily rising. Along with that there is increasing threat of an armed invasion of the Islamic State directly into Europe and Central Asia. And Israel? Israel, in this case will be simply washed away.
Don’t forget the “Sampson option”. If Israel’s doom becomes imminent, they’ll turn the Mideast into a glass lake,and maybe even save a few bombs for Russia and China.
You left out Western Europe. Why? Bad optics? Uh, yeah! But we deserve it because the West hasn’t done enough for Israel. Nothing could be enough since they and the Jewish People are God on Earth.
Stump Porn is a perfectly respectable and growing aspect of adult entertainment. There are rumors that some people have operations to meet this demand. Hey, the Market is a hard master. The Cold One approves. O Brave New World that has such peeps in it!
Gazprom’s Dangerous New Nord Stream Gas Pipeline to Germany
Nord Stream is part of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s strategy to regain control of Eastern Europe and rebuild the Soviet Empire. Comply or freeze.
Germany may not have much in the way of natural resources of its own, but with Russia’s help, it is becoming an energy hub of Europe! Increasing quantities of Russian gas are flowing through Germany before being distributed to countries like the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Britain. In this way Germany leverages the power of Russia. Western Europe also is becoming dependent on Germany for gas supplies too.
The presence of a deal between these two nations is not a sign of peace. Like the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, and so many others before it, it is a sign of exactly the opposite. Both of these nations are looking to secure their shared border—so they can pursue their imperialistic aims elsewhere! IT IS A PRECURSOR TO WAR! That is the way they operate!
https://www.thetrumpet.com/article/12862.4.0.0/world/energy/war-drums-gazproms-dangerous-new-nord-stream-gas-pipeline-to-Germany
That is the point of view of American War Party.
Just how many “Fincains of the Mountain” are there? Do you work in shifts?
It just isn’t possible for one man to post around the clock, on dozens of different subjects, and run a farm at the same time. That’s my observation, anyway.
brh
“It just isn’t possible for one man to post around the clock, on dozens of different subjects”
Thanks for the compliment, brh!
Finca,
I’m new here, but I like your posts.
-TNT
I’m new here, but I like your posts. – TNT to Finca
================
Probably because TNT is Putin’s brother-in-law.
Q,
The jury is still out on you, but “who the frig is –ROBERT DE NEUFVILLE?” is a great start.
-TNT
(And I haven’t passed on any intel to Vlad yet.)
He has one hand on the plough and the other on his device – reminiscent of the Romans of old who had a trowel in one hand and a sword in the other. In other words, he is probably an operative, perhaps for the Russian Government.
Turned on the local news this morning, one inanity after another, with the theme being the 4th of July holiday, the angle on almost every story about the police “keeping us safe”, DUI Checkpoints, seatbelt checkpoints, Cell phone use checkpoints, “be prepared to have your bags checked in public places including bus and train stations”, police will be conducting random body searches at this or that venue, warnings about illegal fireworks, firing guns into the air (a favorite activity with our new ‘Hispanic Americans’) warnings about this, warnings about that, increased police presence here, increased police presence there …
Then they end the report with “Happy Independence Day”.
brh
Freedom: Intended for mature audiences only.
Which kind of backs up my theory that televised ‘News’ is increasingly a form of ‘Social Control’, working hand in glove with state power to enforce whatever PC and legal mandates are prominent at the time.
Yes, but it rubs both ways. The media is used to fracture, fragment & distract society so there is no chance of solidarity and egalitarianism — organic egalitarianism, not the foisted, phoney unnatural version of it bandied about by pretentious leftist shitbirds. Therefore, all the “conservative” outlets are as much a part of it as all the “liberal” outlets. Camps — separate and unequal and the Elite cackle with laughter.
In the late 90s a group of Russian high-ranking military-intelligence officers developed a theory about how the world is actually being run. It is called “Sufficiently General Control Theory”, or the Concept of Public Safety.
According to that theory there exists a group of “wizards” that over the course of history acquired and developed the special knowledge about the levers of power and control that could be exerted over the human society as a whole. Not unlike the Second Foundation, described in A. Asimov famous series of novels, they exert their power through indirect levers of control mainly by creating appropriate informational and, accordingly, emotional human field. It is called non-structural methods of governance, when the control is exercised not using structural Institutions of Power – more characteristic of National Elites. According to the theory, the group was originated in ancient Egypt, if not earlier. Currently, the group’s headquarters are in Zurich, Switzerland.
The term which is applied to that collective small group is “Global Predictor”, they create a general psycho-historical informational/emotional space and later, make small corrections into the execution.
According to the Sufficiently General Theory of Control, all means of control can be divided into general groups which are arranged hierarchically from the most effective to the least. Such instruments of influence on society, whose reasonable use allows control over its life and death, are:
1. Information of worldview nature, or methodology, which, once adopted, allows one to build – individually and socially – their «standard automations» of identification of particular processes within the completeness and integrity of the World, and to define in their individual perception the hierarchical order of these processes in their mutual interconnection. This information is the foundation for the culture of thinking and for the completeness of control activities, including intra-social absolute power both on regional and global levels.
2. Information of annalistic, chronological nature, in all domains of Culture2 and all domains of Knowledge. It allows one to see the direction in which processes are developing, and to correlate particular domains of Culture as a whole and of branches of Knowledge. To those whose worldview is based on the sense of proportion (measure, Russian: mera) and is conformable to the World, this information allows identifying particular processes while filtering the «chaotic» flow of facts and phenomena through the worldview «sieve» – subjective human measure of identification.
3. Information of fact-descriptive nature: description of particular processes and their interconnections constitutes the substance of information of the third priority, which includes the faith-teachings of religious cults, secular ideologies, technologies and facts of all domains of science.
4. Economic processes, as an instrument of influence subordinated to purely informational instruments of influence through finances (money), which embody a totally generalized type of information of economic nature.
5. Genocide practices, affecting not only current generations, but also future generations to come, eliminating the genetically-based potential for acquisition and development by them of the cultural heredity of their ancestors. These practices include: nuclear blackmail – threat of use; alcohol, tobacco and other kinds of narcotics, food additives, all ecological pollutants, some medicines and vaccines – real use; «gene engineering» and «biotechnologies» – potential danger.
6. Other instruments of influence, mainly by force – weapons in the traditional sense of this word: those killing and crippling human beings, destructing and exterminating material and technical objects of civilization, cultural monuments and bearers of their spirit.
As you could see, the money does not play the most important part in the hierarchy of methods of control, but only occupies the fourth place. So the popular theories of “banksters” taking over the world are, essentially, incorrect.
Now if we take a look at the recent advent of aggressive homosexuality of the Western World, we could immediately see it is positioned on the Fifth Priority – “Genocide practices, affecting not only current generations, but also future generations to come”. Why the Global Predictor has chosen that particular instrument is anybody’s guess.
Well, gee I don’t know. The technocrats may think they’re guiding our perceptions of reality, but methinks it’s not working all too well.
Judging from the vast “realities” and “truthiness” we accept of how we all construct a world view.
Things were way more harmonic in the 50’s and 60’s, but too many people got burned by the acceptance of the status quo to buy into the reality thing….,and the winner and loser scenario of our switched economy, I hardly see anyone walking in lock-step.
In fact we’re all over the map and that doesn’t lead to harmony.
Well, BT, at least you can’t deny obvious and well expressed synchronization of advancing the “gender technologies” in Western Europe and USA.
These particular technologies are being advanced by all structural means in Russia as well, they just meet a more consistent resistance from the general Russian society, supported by the Kremlin.
You would be surprised at number of times Putin had to personally intervene in the legislative process of Russian Duma (Parliament) to prevent “Juvenile Justice” laws to get enacted in Russian Federation.
As you may well know, the “Juvenile Justice” is aimed at the same target – destruction of the traditional family.
“Sufficiently General Control Theory”, or the Concept of Public Safety”
Naaah, If you believe that, then you would believe in other preposterous theories, like the moon landing, and the Protocols….
Well, we can’t just keep bouncing off the walls, we need some logical starting point – and if enough historical facts fit the bill, we could build from there.
But some common design is clearly seen in “gender technologies”, and executed with enviable consistency over a very long period of time.
The theory could get some correction later on with new facts.
The cheesy melodrama Wayward Pines is great metaphor for our own society. There are no crickets in Wayward Pines. There are no pines in Wayward Pines. There is no Wayward Pines. We are Wayward Pines. Fuck it!
Cold, you are highly attuned to things I didn’t even know existed…… like Hae Min Lee and Wayward Pines.
That is one of the reasons reality is a lie. So many realities — which one’s the right one, or is there a right one? Fuck it!
Socialism is working just fine in many countries. — wpa–ccc
============
That sounds so nice when you say it that it must be true. But, alas, that which looks good on paper and in sounds wonderful in speeches doesn’t necessarily work out all that well in practice. Take France, for example. No one would argue that France doesn’t have Socialist tendencies, but as we see in the following article, the best of intentions most always, if not always, beats a path to hell.
http://www.metropolitiques.eu/The-New-French-Ghettos.html
“I hardly see anyone walking in lock-step.” – BT
Executing full control over a society requires not only knowledge about the highest priorities of control means, but also action within them. Accordingly, it is impossible to avoid the influence of informational means of control. One can run away from war, not to use drugs (including alcohol and tobacco), theoretically one can isolate themselves economically by doing their own farming. Yet no one is able to replace the whole mankind with their own person, which is why one living in society will have to take it, and those who rule it, into consideration.
The position of CPS (Concept of Public Safety) is that real and true democracy is possible only when everyone knows and understands HOW and WHAT FOR society is ruled. That is, everyone must master all means of ruling, and consciously support with their activity the goals standing before them as a member of society, and before society as a whole. But in order to achieve the unity of goals of the whole society, the achievement of a certain culture of world-understanding by every member of society is necessary.
Local sustainability is the answer for many reasons. The latest reason is this:
A few weeks ago while shopping in Walmart (I live in a rural area), there was a guy ranting in the front of the store about our local Congresscritter who had just voted to take country-of-origin labeling off meats. This guy was your typical conservative redneck down to the giant Don’t Tread on Me tattoo.
After checking on what he said, I found that the House of Reps voted not only to not label meat but to not label poultry and fish either–the result of having the IMF and international corporations sue the U.S. for those very labels, win the lawsuits, and cost us tens of millions.
Instead of changing the damn trade treaties to protect us, these worthless pieces of shit are caving into big business. Should this also pass the Senate, I plan to boycott supermarkets and big box stores and buy meat and poultry from either local farmers or from my tiny town’s one and only store which I know gets its meat from a local slaughterhouse.
Agenda 21 will – if put in force- will be the ‘Death Knell’ of yr ability to do cash biz w small ethical organic farmers.
And yr, ‘This guy was your typical conservative redneck down to the giant Don’t Tread on Me tattoo’. Ergo he is the enemy? You didnt talk to him? You felt better than him?
Seems like ‘your typical conservative redneck’ was more ahead of the curve than you.
Cold, you may be thinking of France in the 60s or 70s or 80s, when there were stronger socialist tendencies. Now France is more capitalist, and capitalism creates a wealth gap, hence the poverty you linked to.
The French government’s role in the economic sphere is much less than before, especially because of the requirements of the European Union (EU). Since the early 1990s, French companies have faced competition from their European counterparts with less help from the government. In an effort to privatize the state-owned industries, the government is selling off its shares in France Telecom and Air France, along with companies from the insurance, banking, and defense industries. … Capitalist tendencies are making France worse and worse. France needs more socialism, too, to return to the good old socialist days you must be remembering… before the capitalist ghettos formed.
http://news.yahoo.com/woman-shot-death-busy-san-francisco-tourist-attraction-071710472.html#
Killed by an illegal Mexican animal. Vote Trump!
http://www.mediaite.com/online/orthodox-jews-cant-protest-gay-pride-parade-hire-mexicans-instead/
Strangely strange: simultaneous both admirable and not admirable. A rebuke to almost every poster here. And finally, a vivid example of the essence of traditional Judaism. Bizarrely, the Mexicans were dressed up as Orthodox Jews. Why? So actual Jewish boys wouldn’t be corrupted by the parade. If only we cared as much about our children, eh?
One Orthodox Rabbi opined a few years ago that if a Jew needed a kidney it would be fine to just grab a passing Gentile and take it from him. Jews are just more important, more holy since Gentiles are intrinsically not holy at all.
Janos, all that proves is that this particular Rabbi is a putz. Why are you of such high opinion of Jews to believe that there no raving lunatics among us like in any other nation?
No. It follows logically from their Doctrine that Non-Jews aren’t human. He is just being fearlessly logical. In past ages, they wouldn’t dare say such a thing publicly. Now that their co-ethnics control so much of America, why do they have to fear?
I admit that most Jews don’t hold this position and perhaps not even all Orthodox.
Janos,
IT IS YOU WHO BELIEVES THAT NON-WHITES ARE INFERIOR.
Why do you find these tangential anecdotes to prove your insane beliefs? You only convince the nuts, who are already in your nuthouse.
Nuts, eh? Words of fire!
I’m sorry I misremembered Rabbi Ginsberg’s words. He said Jews had the right to take a Gentile’s liver not kidney.
Janos,
Trying to elude the reality (in your case, All of Reality) is ineffective. I suspect that you did understand that I wasn’t accusing you of a misquote.
I was pointing out that you seek THE MOST FRINGE PEOPLE to quote. Your attraction to EXTREMISTS isn’t new, it is the fact that you quote them as some sore of authority is what’s nuts.
Those fringe extremists are authorities only to you. You deserve your “Following”.
“…It follows logically from their Doctrine…” – Janos
can you believe that this fucking idiot continues to interpret Jewish Doctrine? Who would accept Jewish Doctrine interpreted by Janos???
“I admit that most Jews don’t hold this position and perhaps not even all Orthodox.” – Janos
It is Janos who holds this crazy position (because only a crazyman believes that Whites are human and other religions, races, colors are not.
Dannyboy,
Permit me to say that the majority of your answers to Janos involve Ad Hominem attacks…I know you can do better. I suspect, also that now, again, I will be painted with the same brush…as a camp follower, running dog lickspittle, sycophantic neo-Nazi revanchist, self-hating non-Aryan secularist, etc. Can we step-up the dialog?
America was informally turned over the Jewish Law a few years ago – the code of Noah or so called Noahide Laws. One of them is against Idolatry. And since Christ is an Idol, the legal basis for the persecution of Christians is now on the books should this ever be enforced.
http://revisionistreview.blogspot.com/2014/04/non-jewish-soul-comes-from-three.html
The revelation about the beliefs of Rabbi Schneerson is based on the original work of Israel Shahak, a Jew. He is mostly forgotten or unmentioned now, but he was admired deeply by Said and was once a favorite of Chomsky. Schneerson is no anomaly, but upholds the basics of Talmudic Judaism as it developed in the Middle Ages, replete with an extreme contempt for Non-Jews and a particular hatred for Christians.
“America was informally turned over the Jewish Law a few years ago – the code of Noah or so called Noahide Laws. One of them is against Idolatry. And since Christ is an Idol, the legal basis for the persecution of Christians is now on the books should this ever be enforced.” – Janos
More ‘Jewish Scholarship” from a Hater. I explained earlier how distorted your understanding of Indian Philosophies is. Once again, I will remind you that YOU DISTORT JEWISH SCHOLARSHIP AS WELL.
Is there some agenda behind this?
Could it be your seething hatred?
“I plan to boycott supermarkets and big box stores and buy meat and poultry from either local farmers or from my tiny town’s one and only store which I know gets its meat from a local slaughterhouse.” — sharonsj
==================
You could do all that… or you could simplify and become a vegan, eliminating the meat labeling problem completely from your life.
“According to a report done by the Humane Society entitled “The Impact of Industrialized Animal Agriculture On World Hunger,” nearly 80 percent of the world’s soybeans and up to 50 percent of the world’s corn are fed to animals killed for meat instead of directly to humans. Because of this, the meat industry competes with humans for food.
And it’s not just food: Resources such as land and water are being wasted for the production of farmed animals. A meat-based diet uses up to 20 times more land than a vegan diet, contributes to deforestation and degrades the land it does use. Meat production also wastes water: Nearly 2,400 gallons of water go to produce one pound of meat, whereas only 25 gallons would be required to produce one pound of wheat.
The statistics on meat production’s impact on climate change are astounding, as well. According to the United Nations, the livestock sector contributes 18 percent globally to greenhouse gas emissions.”
“Why Don’t Vegans Care About People?”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anjali-sareen/vegan-lifestyle_b_1771404.html
I eat vegetarian.
“Don’t forget the “Sampson option”. If Israel’s doom becomes imminent, they’ll turn the Mideast into a glass lake,and maybe even save a few bombs for Russia and China.”
Nobody in the right mind would do that. Actually, there was a lot of talks of possibility of repatriating Jews back to Ukraine, Crimea in particular. A lot of Russian Jews actually started in Russia precisely in Ukraine, including my family – the Kharkov region. And trust me, any Jew would prefer living under Russia over living under Islamic State.
There is a Jewish autonomous region in Far East of Russia, but quite frankly not many Jews are living there – around 30 thousand.
I also get some independent confirmation: I’ve been out of US technology job market for more than 10 years now (aside for doing some private contracts for long-term acquaintances of mine) – now all of a sudden I am getting quite a few resumes and interviews requests from head-hunters I don’t even know
—————–
This is not surprising, Finca, given the strength of the economic recovery. President Obama’s economy has added 12.8 million private sector jobs over 64 straight months of job growth. These are not burger-flipping minimum wage jobs.
The link below is the bikini graph of what Obama’s economic recovery looks like. The Bush year is in red.
John Ellis Bush (Jeb) could return us to the Bush economy. The banks would love it!
http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/bikini-graph-private-sector-June-2014.jpg
“Nobody in the right mind would do that.” — Finca
Who thinks fanatics are in their right mind? Isn’t that why so much concern over the ayatollahs in Iran getting nukes? Israel already has nukes and they will use them in self-defense, maybe in Sept. of this year.
Elul 29 comes every seven years (Shemitah years) on the Hebrew calendar
Elul 29 in 2001 was Sept. 17, 2001, the beginning of the economic calamity associated with 9/11 and the lowering of interest rates by the Fed resulting in the collapse of the stock market Sept. 17, 2001
Elul 29 on the Hebrew calendar in 2008 was Sept. 29, 2008, and marked the next big crash, Sept. 29, 2008.
Shemitah Signs of the Seven Year Cycle
1973: Oil shock crash and end of Bretton Woods
1980: Hard Recession begins
1987: Stock Market crash
1994: Bond Market crash
2001: Stock Market crash and 9/11
2008: Stock Market crash
2015: Elul 29 is Sept. 13… perhaps the next big economic crash, perhaps not. It could just be the much awaited rapture, or it could be something much worse, a black swan so big we cannot even imagine.
In the spirit of CFN, I predict doom. You have been warned.
A couple years from now when Obama leaves office you’ll have to get up off your knees and wipe off your nose and mouth with the back of your sleeve.
brh
US petulance toward Belt, Road self-defeating
The recent round of China-US Strategic and Economic Dialogue followed by the September state visit to Washington of Chinese President Xi Jinping provided the Obama administration with an opportunity to amend its peculiar position toward China’s “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) initiative.
Since the 2013 unveiling of the Silk Road economic belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, traversing the Eurasian landmass and the surrounding waterways, China has put meat on the bones of the project, announcing major energy and transportation infrastructure initiatives in Southeast Asia, Central Asia and South Asia, including a recent $46 billion pledge to Pakistan, and it plans to do the same in the Persian Gulf, Eastern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean.
To fund OBOR projects it has created dedicated financial institutions like the Silk Road Fund and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). It even announced a stock index to track the performance of shares of companies which have business related to the initiative.
To all of this Washington responded with roaring silence. US officials refrain from commenting on the initiative in public or even mentioning it by name. Instead, Washington exercises soft power tactics intended to disrupt China’s plan, like the futile opposition to the AIIB and the efforts within the IMF to block the yuan from attaining the status of reserve currency. The excuse is always the same: China is not responsible enough, not transparent enough and not accountable enough to lead the international development agenda.
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/929909.shtml
=====================================================
Sometimes Chinese media provide international experts to speak on the most pressing topics of international politics. Sometimes (not always!), these experts can afford to write what the Chinese experts would like to write, but politeness does not allow. In this context, it is interesting that in the article written by the American-Israeli expert Gal Luft a message is clearly traced: the Chinese New Silk Road project can become the detonator of the war.
Gal Luft – is an expert in international affairs, is on a list of America’s best and brightest by Esquire magazine, operates in dozens of NGOs from organizations working to reduce US dependence on oil imports and ending EMET – Israeli organization, which aims to “educate the American politicians about the dangers of radical Islam.” He was invited as a witness/expert to the meeting of the US Congress. He is a senior advisor to the government’s Council for US energy security.
In his article Luft calls on the American political elite to find a way to engage with China, to find a way to integrate the United States to the Chinese New Silk Road project and to understand that the rise of China does not necessarily weaken America.
The text feels like the voice of one crying in the wilderness. The aggressive segment of American elite, which now has a major impact on its foreign policy, not able to think in terms that Luft offers.
The strongest piece of text is a very interesting description of the mechanism of economic integration of Eurasia as a detonator of war:
But the bigger problem is that US frosty attitude toward the OBOR initiative raises the risk of great power confrontation down the road. Historically, game-changing transnational infrastructure projects have typically evoked suspicion and hostility among powers. In the late 19th century Britain’s Cape Town-to-Cairo Railway project conflicted with the French-planned East-West Railway, almost leading to an Anglo-French war in Africa.
The Russo-Japanese War of 1905 was precipitated, in part, by the Japanese determination to strike before the Trans-Siberian Railroad, which would considerably strengthen Russia’s hold in East Asia, could be completed. Imperial Germany’s scheme to build the Berlin-Baghdad Railway to solidify its leverage over the crumbling Ottoman Empire contributed to the outbreak of WWI.
Only Russian nuclear umbrella over China can become a reliable brake on history repeating itself.
http://crimsonalter.livejournal.com/64346.html
Sadly the US is so bound by the Neoliberal and Neoconservative ideology that it can’t do anything but produce chaos in war and finance around the world.
It’s just to lucrative for a tiny handful of people that they just can’t stop themselves so full spectrum dominance it is, and with little imagination or creativity behind it.—AND NO MONEY since its in the hands of the new Royalty of oligarchs.
So it must indeed be painful for our dear leaders to see someone else offering the world something we once did decades ago…..
Yes a wounded animal, even if the attacker is itself is a dangerous creature and I hope we don’t fall headlong into something heinous and destructive because no one else on earth is allowed to offer an alternative.
Women used to have shoes called ‘pumps’, not as elegant as high heels, kind of like squared off high heels with shorter heels, more practical than high heels in that they were easier to walk around in at work or in the city, my aunt had a pair of pumps, red ones. I have it in good authority that the Tranny Divisions in Obamas New Model American Army, training right now at Fort Caitlyn Jenner, formerly Fort Bragg, will be issued pumps as a replacement for combat boots, Red Pumps, Ruby Red. This will give our fighting trannies, in the new model US Army, where straight white men need not apply, a sense of style, and distinguish them from the Ladies Division, and the Gay Brigades, who will get their own stylish combat boots.
Let’s hope they get good traction on the muddy ground of the Russian Steppe, the hard desert sands of Syria, and the rocky beachheads in the Pacific where the Chinese are building man made islands in the middle of the ocean, to refuel warships and launch bomber aircraft. Every soldier, specially the infantryman knows the importance of taking care of his feet.
brh
I heard that Lou Bloom from the movie “Nightcrawler” is now running Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Hillary is like the over-the-hill TV news anchor desperate for ratings.
“Let’s hope they get good traction on the muddy ground of the Russian Steppe, the hard desert sands of Syria, and the rocky beachheads in the Pacific where the Chinese are building man made islands in the middle of the ocean” — brh
——————-
Funny story, brh! We are a third world country now with a third world military. We have no more manufacturing to make tanks and fighter jets because we have outsourced productive infrastructure. We can’t keep up with the Chinese military. The Chinese own us. We are fat and lazy and defenseless, in case anyone wants to invade. But the good thing about being a third world country is nobody is really interested in attacking an empty shell of a country full of useless perverts. /sarcasm off
How am I doing, brh? Am I getting it now?
“We are fat and lazy and defenseless” — wpa
Statue of David returned to Italy after three years in the US:
http://nextnature.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/michelangelos_david_530.jpg
Tell me if this is just science fiction, or what:
much of the F-35s (our new jet fighter-bomber) software was manufactured in China, and it is programmed to self destruct at the push of a button in Peking, and blow the jet up in mid air flight.
brh
Most likely it’s a crap. I heard about a “bug” in jet navigational software that would turn aircraft upside-down while crossing the equator, but that’s just another programming “oops”.
The level of software engineering is still sufficiently high in US (and relatively cheap) to allow domestic software production, especially for national security projects.
Greece is being beaten not for the debts, but for Russia
So, everything will be decided on July 5 in the Greek referendum with only one Shakespearian question: to pay or not to pay? That is the debt of 320 billion Euros to creditors, of course.
Prime Minister Tsipras gave a voice to the people, which, in general, is well within the norms of democracy. But he did give a not so subtle hint on his own opinion on the issue repeatedly in recent weeks, reminding the world how long Greece struggled against the power of the Ottomans, and how it has suffered from the German occupation without getting a single drachma in reparations.
Naturally, the EU partners are concerned, and colleagues in the euro zone – even more. Already pre-estimated what will cost the EU withdrawal of Greece from the single currency area, and from the “Commonwealth of twenty-eight” as a whole. Already it is clear that both “yes” and “no” vote in the Greek referendum will not return any money to Europe. Firstly, they are none present, and secondly, there is no desire to pay back, and thirdly, there is no need to do so. Do you want to keep us in the EU and the euro area? Take us the way we are. We still are not paying.
From a gentleman’s point of view, the behavior is ugly and improper. From the perspective of a member of the EU is absolutely normal. Because if you look at the table of debts of the Commonwealth countries, it appears that Greece is virtually the same as the others. The ones who are mired in the debts with no prospect of return not less than Athens. But they sit quietly and do not make a fuss.
For UK to pay off their debt, they need to work for four years, without spending any single hard-earned shilling on anything. Even on the food. External debt of UK is 396% of GDP. In Germany it is 159%, France – 236%, In Greece – 234%, Belgium – 338%, Austria – 194%, Portugal – 232%. So, in what respect the blessed land of Greece is different from the others, no less blessed?
Recalculation of external debt per capita shows even that the situation in Greece is much better than in many of its EU partners. Every Greek, newborn or adult, owes foreign creditors $52,776. A citizen of Germany – $70,583; France – $81,061; Austria – $98,746; Denmark – $105,349; Belgium – $136,276. You can list all the member states of the EU, but the above is already enough to conclude that
Greece is getting beaten not really for the debt or unwillingness to pay on the loan – the entire EU live so. Greece is on the pencil in Brussels for three different reasons.
Athens just is tired of all that Euro directives, all those fishing quotas, production of yogurt quotas, compulsory acceptance of African immigrants sailing across the sea on a raft quotas, etc. Solving the question “to pay or not to pay” in favor of the second, Greece pushes itself to the exit. First, the euro zone, and then the Union. Or, if they find it more profitable, to remain in the Commonwealth, but get rid of debt payments. Just on the principle “all whom I owe I forgive.” And with this option the EU will have to agree because it will be cheaper than try expelling the Greece. But some Greeks themselves are increasingly remembering that they were once a sovereign state. And there will be nothing to be ashamed of in returning back to that.
The second, but again not the main reason – the victory of the left in the elections. And not the “domesticated” socialists with election of whom almost nothing changes, but the real reformers who promise to review existing for centuries rules of wealth distribution.
Third (and this time the principal) is the fact that Greece had a swing towards Russia. This is to a large extent due to the common for the two countries Christian Orthodoxy, but mostly – because cooperation with Russia is more profitable than all the goodies of Brussels. Athens for the EU – not even a suitcase without a handle, which EU agrees to carry on so that the “evil empire in the East” will not get it. Athens – such a tricky rivet in the design of European house, which seems not to be visible, but if you pull out that rivet, cracks will go on the walls and the destruction of the entire house becomes inevitable.
http://regnum.ru/news/polit/1939479.html
Finca,
Good catch on the external debts of *all* of the EU members. Business as usual, eh?
Unsurprisingly, there’s a smell of burning insulation on the electrical wiring, signaling an imminent fire in the bowels of the system, and a real fear of “cross-contamination” as more short-circuiting occurs.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-03/fearing-spillover-ecb-moves-shield-neighboring-banks-greek-meltdown
The windup quote:
“It certainly appears as though the whole “Greece is contained” line is yet another example of a vacuous attempt to calm a panicked public by issuing hollow assurances from on high and compelling the media to parrot them to the masses in order to obscure the real risks — a strategy which works until the soup line photos start showing up on social media.”
I guess we must have some massive failures for there to be any chance of a re-examination of how we organize things and what is worthy of respect or shaming. (Which would also determine who our friends and enemies might be; a very important distinction IMO.)
Klintonites vs Bushes: election campaign enters a new stage
Fight between Heads of Clans was caught up on camera:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=110&v=ayv_dPUPuZQ
Happy 4th of July, everybody!!
Don’t look now but somebody stuck a pin in China’s stock market bubble. Down 25-30% over the last few weeks.
So now the Financial Times is reporting that Greek banks are considering 30% “haircuts” for depositors with over 8,000 euros.
Bail-ins baby, bail-ins.
Yeah, yeah, sure, they’re insured for 100,000. Too bad the fund doesn’t have enough in it to cover it all. Deposits are safe says Tsippy. And if it turns out to be bullshit he can say it’s all Germany’s fault. More particularly Merkel.
Besides, the REALLY big money is long gone. And if it isn’t gone by now it’ll find a way out. Somehow. Don’t worry, the monetary authorities will find a way to protect the oligarch. They’ll hold open the back door and keep watch while the elites clean out the vaults. Which is what REALLY matters, right?
So, who do they stick it to? Greek grandmas and grandpas, who else? They don’t matter.
Well, it won’t be the first time governments have reneged on their promises and/or allowed ordinary people to be reamed when it comes time for “austerity”. And it won’t be the last.
China has experienced a collapse in 2007, when the market dipped by 70% without catastrophic consequences for the economy and financial system, but then the Chinese were playing only with their own cash and not on borrowed money. Now everything is slightly different.
Fortunately, the Chinese economy does not depend on the performance of stock markets as much as the US economy, but the hard collapse may cause serious social problems, and even heavily cut any hopes of economic growth.
What will happen if they continue to collapse?
It will hurt Chinese banks, Chinese financial companies and Chinese, who invested in the market and now, instead of buying new Lenovo tablet will pay the debts and think that it is all fault of Xi Jinping.
Chinese investors represent a crazy mix of capitalists and communists in one bottle. When the market rises, they demand that the Politburo removed itself from festivities and did not prevent them from making money (preferably without taxes), but when the market is falling, they wave their party cards and urgently require Politburo to provide them with profits so they won’t lose faith in a bright future.
OXI
K dog- nice picture of you and the ‘mcpherson’. How’d you get a picture with him anyway, you sly dog?
Happy 4th K dog.
Just saw the ending of Prophets of Doom again. Here’s a goody from that piece. The generation that ignores history has no past and no future. perhaps we are that generation. ” If our hearts were in the right place, we may not have all the problems that we do.’ Stanislov Grof (thanks stan) from the film Fall and Winter. jhk should’ve probably been in that one.
Saw a pie eating contest today – my first. It soon become obvious that the real contest was between two guys who were experienced (add italics). The secret to winning is to have no dignity whatsoever and bury your face completely into the pie. The Black Pig was ahead at first but flagged and began to look sick. The White Pig was a bit slower but stronger and showed no signs of discomfort at any point. He brought it home.
A thought: do Blacks have an advantage because of their flatter noses and more protuberant lips? Is it racist to ask? If so, is it racist to ask why they are so good at so many sports? Is science racist when it inquires into racial subjects? And does this not indicate that the very word has become just another nonsense word?
Ask William Shockley, Nobel Laureate, if science can be racist, or at least impolitic. You could also ask Galileo, but you are unlikely to get a coherent answer, as he is both Italian, and dead. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on his last speaking tour of the United States was treated shabbily by his host’s attendees, when he asked why the Holocaust cannot, by law, be questioned in Germany (as I recall). He asked why it could not be studied, as can most other subjects (save race in the US). The answer is obvious, in that those subjects have been settled and are basic cosmic truths, and are accepted by the scientific community and laity without argument. I suspect you could add Eugenics to that list.
Yes, all great men. Shockley put his affairs in order before he entered the fray – he knew he was going to be crucified. Too bad the hapless Watson didn’t take a cue from his predecessor. The Revolution was instituted from above. It emerged in fully grown in the echelons of our Society, like Athena springing from Zeus. Thus Shockley faced the full brunt of it even though it was too early for most other White Americans to appreciate his trial. Likewise Churchill and Powell were shouldered aside when they stood against mass colored immigration into Britain. Ironic since Churchill had helped defeat the very group that stood for the integrity of Europe.
Ah, Mahmoud. What is he up to these days? He made some great points on that tour: If Germans and Europeans in general feel bad about what they did to the Jews, why didn’t they set up Israel in Germany? Why torture the Palestinians?
Scientology is also illegal in Germany, but not Islam and goodness knows what else.
Which pose more danger to Germans, Scientology, or Immigrants and Islam?
Greece referendum: United States vs China
The Greek vote is a choice between “YES” (consent to the terms of the creditors, resignation of Sytiza government ) and “NO” (showing a finger to creditors)
Despite that the Greek leaders claim that the referendum does not raise the question of the exit from the EU, we are talking precisely about that. Staying in the euro area after the failure to comply with an ultimatum to the European Commission and the European Central Bank, of course you can, but for Greece there is no way to oblige the ECB and the European Commission to supply those Euros to Greece necessary to pay pensions, salaries and provide budget expenditures.
Legal mechanisms to exclude countries from the EU do not exist, but eurocrats could make it very painful to stay.
Nobel laureate in economics and the chief architect of the economic policy of the Obama’s White House Mr. Paul Krugman says:
“It’s reasonable to fear the consequences of a “no” vote, because nobody knows what would come next. But you should be even more afraid of the consequences of a “yes,” because in that case we do know what comes next — more austerity, more disasters and eventually a crisis much worse than anything we’ve seen so far.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/03/opinion/paul-krugman-europes-many-disasters.html?_r=0
It turns out that the mouthpiece of the American establishment Krugman supports a “NO” vote.
What about Chinese? Most recently, on July 2, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang during his visit to Brussels was forced to reassure European partners that were very afraid that China will start dumping bonds of European countries against the backdrop of the crisis in Greece, thus finishing off the European economy.
“China has promised the EU that it will keep the European debt, arguing that the Greek debt crisis is a headache for Beijing, too.” Specifically for Greece, Li Keqiang said: “Our common position is for Greece to remain in the euro area”, adding a call for the continuation of talks between Greece and its creditors.
Apparently, China votes “YES”.
http://crimsonalter.livejournal.com/64688.html
Seems petty and short-sighted for China, who sadly learned capitalism at the knee of Milton Friedman.
Too bad China doesn’t break from the Neolib model and rise to the power of a great nation with an alternative Capitalistic vision which exhibits economic determinism as we once did.
The world needs a vision that we once offered.
BT, forget ideology, talk pragmatic interests of the Nations. China needs infrastructural East Mediterranean entry to United Europe, and if Greece fits the bill it has all chances to become part of “One Belt, One Road” Chinese initiative and get Chinese financing for building infrastructure.
Apparently, Tsipras had hoped to find in China financing in the event of a complete breakup with the EU. When Chinese Premier firmly in position “Greece – in the Eurozone”, he is pushing for a “YES” vote.
That’s a good point. China has its eyes on a number of silk road projects….will all roads lead to Beijing?
What will the US do to stop them?
25% of the US Defense budget is unaccounted for.
http://secretspaceprogram.org/catherine-austin/
There’s enough money off-budget that they could collapse the overt economy and keep it going through the covert economy.
25% of the US Defense budget is unaccounted for.
http://secretspaceprogram.org/catherine-austin/
“The world needs a vision that we once offered.” — BT
For now, while we are looking for something better, our vision and ideology should be: Build better infrastructure, preserve the existing Unions, including USA, EU and Eurasian Union – USSR 2.0
US Presidential election: “211 in progress.”
Greece does not need another non-repayable loans, but income-generating projects that in modern complex world could be brought in only with cooperation with other international partners. Obviously that subsistence agriculture is not one of those, but ship-building and port-building and modernization could be a good start, along with continental high-speed railroad lines to other European countries.
The French Revolution began with the fact that the state budget went bankrupt and a broad representation of territories was convened, that was not assembled for more than one hundred years. Revolution and counter-revolution gave rise to a difference of right and left politics. Right – this is the tip of the new economy and the government, the Left – We the People. People could be easily brought up to the cause of destruction of the state, but the construction – is a quite different matter…
Tsipras is already on the left. It remains to be seen if he could become a conservative as well – i.e. adopt the policy of building a modern state, not its destruction (Revolution) – the value of civilization and the historical purpose of production and development. If he can do it, Greece will become a political leader in Europe.
ATHENS, July 5 – RIA Novosti, Gennady Melnik. Most Greeks in the referendum says NO to creditors’ claims, according to data of sociologists placed at the disposal of RIA Novosti.
According to one opinion poll, the difference is 7-8%, according to the second – 4%.
Meanwhile, as experts note, the results may correct in the second half of the day.
“We can confidently say that the victory of the “NO” vote is determined, – told RIA Novosti source that organizes data surveys.
Economist Intelligence Unit: If Greece votes “NO”
Greece would be left with no source of funding, and no partners with which to negotiate. Other potential partners, including Russia and China, are unlikely to be willing to intervene. A further default on July 20th would become almost certain.
http://country.eiu.com/article.aspx?articleid=613293645&Country=Greece&topic=Politics
Well, the forecast of a team of analysts working for a company that is 50% owned by FT and 50% by certain “group of private investors,” including the Rothschilds, is absolutely clear.
In contrast to Paul Krugman, in the event of a Greek exit from EU they predict an apocalypse without any light at the end of the tunnel.
Mr. Webster Tarpley, so often quoted by me on this blog, is cheering up the Greek NO vote as a rejection of Austerity an favor of what? Famine? Or a new Color Revolution by “Black Colonels”? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_military_junta_of_1967%E2%80%9374)
Is Webster getting old or he’s too on somebody’s payroll?
https://twitter.com/WebsterGTarpley/
“Can anyone stabilize this bitch?” — JHK
We now know the answer is yes. How did we make it to Sunday without a collapse? How did we avoid an economic crash to a 4,000 Dow.
A return to medieval plague and massive die out was at our doorstep and then we defeated ebola (anyone remember ebola?).
Greece voted NO! The sky did not fall.
The USA defeated Japan in the women’s FIFA final to become world champions. USA! USA!
Bernie Sanders is hinting at who will be in his cabinet.
All is well with the world. The proverbial can has been successfully kicked down the road another week…
There was no nuclear attack on the USA during the 4th of July celebrations. We can be thankful for small things.
July 6, Monday morning, we will all be scared again by fresh predictions of doom… but now we know we will make it through next week because the bitch is stabilized.
After reading the Comments on Clusterfuck Nation for the last couple of weeks, I have concluded that most Commentors are the disaffected, drawn to the doomer essays.
There are definitely a large percentage of disaffected racists etc. They seem to thrive on the thought that their life happened to them, and that Others caused their misfortunes.
Myself, I prefer to read Kunstler and make plans to succeed.
Dannyboy,
Disaffected drawn to the “doomer” essays.
Well, I am not disaffected, but otherwise guilty as charged. As old as I am, and nearing the precipice, I see things in a negative light, considering the US economy, world tensions, Malthusian considerations, state of the Educational system in this country, the inexorable march of computerization and global commerce removing jobs from the US that can never return, except on the very long term. I fear for the Republic, as well as humanity. Remember that even those who are schizophrenic sometimes have people after them. The only way, that I honestly see, that could give an individual a positive outlook is…ignorance.
Regarding the charges of racism…I would like, from you or anyone, a working definition of the term… The term is, as currently used, so nebulous that it means nothing at all.
Racism is the act of thinking that entire groups are inferior because of their color, religion, race, part of the world…
I can’t even list all the groups defined by racist as inferior, because the racists are hard to understand.
I’ll reply to your interest in negativity and positivity (acceptance v action) in a separate Comment.
Let’s talk about the Active v Passive response. As I wrote earlier, I read Kunstler because he is informative, not because I am looking for some pessimistic doom; rather I want to be informed of the challenges we face. Kunstler does a good job of that.
I respond to Kunstler’s prognostications with action plans. He helps me organize to minimize the impact of the dangers ahead.
For example, the decision I face is where to have a primary residence and where to have a getaway is important. Kunstler writes a great deal about the upcoming oil shortages, capital constraints and the impact on food, transportation, manufactured goods, etc. He and I debate my decisions (currently one urban and one well-protected away place).
I continue to gather this information, but only for the purpose of making my own decisions. What others decide is, of course up to them and their circumstances. I only object to those who seize on these problems and blame others for their own situation. There’s a reason it is the own situation. (And they should ‘own’ it).
“What will the US do to stop them?” — BT
I don’t know. Secretly support Tsipras? Who the fuck is that guy, really?
In news that is sure to bring a smile to BRH’s face, the lead man at the Pentagon asserted that America should get used to a ‘perpetual state of war’ as ‘the new normal’.
I imagine the Defense/ Perpetual State of War Industry are licking their chops over this news, And I also imagine that the economics of the new normal will cause no concern for right-wing conservatives such as BRH who never misses an opportunity to bemoan the economic ability of greater society to afford satanic union pensions.
But isn’t this exactly what Eisenhower and more recently, Ron Paul, Paul Craig Roberts and others have warned against–a malignant paradigm which creates economic incentives and resultant a state of perpetual war that inevitably and uncontrollably metastasizes within the host organism–America?
Interestingly, curiously–coincidentally?–Hillary Clinton was shaken a fist at China within days of the Pentagon announcement.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/defense/dempsey-urges-preparation-never-ending-war-before-retiring-20150702
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article42294.htm
I went to that link, OZ, interesting to see how the US conquers the world with its 450,000 gender neutral (man) army, about the same number of trrops Grant and Sherman had to trap Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia at Appomatox Court house in 1865.
brh
Hillary Clinton – or Hitlery Clinton will say and do whatever it takes to hold or gain power, right?
“Perpetual State of War” …
Buck, I think we’ll be sitting this one out, the next war that is, meaning straight white males from small towns and rural areas … the one thing we’ve learned (from the MSM mostly) in the past 5 years or so is that the best soldiers are women, gay, or tranvestites.
This is their big chance, see how they do, Obama’s new model American PC army, outfitted with red pumps, and outrageous mascara.
brh
“Saddam’s control of Iraq’s massive oil reserves posed a direct challenge to US hegemony. Naturally, Saddam had to be removed and over a million people killed” — Ozone
Yes, Iraq provides a whopping 4 percent of global production… in a world awash with oil.
Yes, it is “official”: It Is NO:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/greece-votes-referendum-future-euro-042002010.html#
I hope you’re happy, Paul Craig Roberts…. 😉
Cheers!
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-07-03/greece-is-doing-democracy-wrong
Noah Feldman doesn’t approve of the vote.
“we have just witnessed Greece stand up to a truly vile campaign of bullying and intimidation, an attempt to scare the Greek public, not just into accepting creditor demands, but into getting rid of their government. It was a shameful moment in modern European history, and would have set a truly ugly precedent if it had succeeded.
But it didn’t. You don’t have to love Syriza, or believe that they know what they’re doing — it’s not clear that they do, although the troika has been even worse — to believe that European institutions have just been saved from their own worst instincts. If Greece had been forced into line by financial fear mongering, Europe would have sinned in a way that would sully its reputation for generations. Instead, it’s something we can, perhaps, eventually regard as an aberration.
And if Greece ends up exiting the euro? There’s actually a pretty good case for Grexit now — and in any case, democracy matters more than any currency arrangement.” — Paul Krugman
Détente 2.0?
Today, American news feed reminds of the times of detente. Firstly, Vladimir Putin’s congratulations sent to Barack Obama in connection with the US Independence Day, suddenly received a great press, which, in particular, mentioned that “the US-Russian dialogue is the key to global stability.”
And the logical stress in these articles is not just a dialogue – a nuclear exchange can also be considered a dialogue – but mutually respectful dialogue on the basis of equality of High Contracting Parties. And it is truly amazing in light of the tone in which Western press spoke about Russia in the past two years.
Secondly, in order to make the similarity of the current situation with Détente complete, that message goes in combination with a number of articles that simply choke up with delight in connection with the US-Russian cooperation in space, including the successful launch of the Soyuz with the Progress to the ISS. Just like “Soyuz-Apollo 2.0” of some kind.
It’s hard not to see the system in that the aforementioned Russian-American salute in honor of Independence Day of the United States coincided with the second arrest warrant of Hillary Clinton’s mail server from which she allegedly wiped off her official correspondence as US Secretary of State. And this time it will be harder to get out of this order, as it has been proved that she did not return all her correspondence to the State Department. In particular, she hid 15 emails to her assistant and confidant Blumenthal, exposing her financial interests in the so-called Libyan revolution.
That is, she deliberately hid from the investigation into the murder of the US ambassador in Libya Stevens very substantial evidence of her guilt, and not only in a criminal disregard for the safety of US diplomats, but also in her extracting personal benefit using position of US Secretary of State.
And such accusations are answerable not just to US voters, but to law enforcement authorities.
http://regnum.ru/news/polit/1939848.html
Brighton Beach rumors
The concert dedicated to the Independence Day of the United States, ended with Imperial Russian National anthem “God Save the Tsar!” in Russian.
Tchaikovsky’s overture “1812”, without which Washington cannot perform any concert of this level and on this occasion, this time was performed with choral part, where “God Save the Tsar!” sounds quite clearly.
Moreover, this “mistake” was recognized almost immediately and soon began a search for the guilty, during which it became clear that the choral part was included in the performance of the overture at the request of President Obama.
That’s great, it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes, an aeroplane –
Lenny Bruce is not afraid. Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn –
world serves its own needs, regardless of your own needs. Feed it up a knock,
speed, grunt no, strength no. Ladder structure clatter with fear of height,
down height. Wire in a fire, represent the seven games in a government for
hire and a combat site. Left her, wasn’t coming in a hurry with the furies
breathing down your neck. Team by team reporters baffled, trump, tethered
crop. Look at that low plane! Fine then. Uh oh, overflow, population,
common group, but it’ll do. Save yourself, serve yourself. World serves its
own needs, listen to your heart bleed. Tell me with the rapture and the
reverent in the right – right. You vitriolic, patriotic, slam, fight, bright
light, feeling pretty psyched.
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.
Six o’clock – TV hour. Don’t get caught in foreign tower. Slash and burn,
return, listen to yourself churn. Lock him in uniform and book burning,
blood letting. Every motive escalate. Automotive incinerate. Light a candle,
light a motive. Step down, step down. Watch a heel crush, crush. Uh oh,
this means no fear – cavalier. Renegade and steer clear! A tournament,a tournament, a tournament of lies. Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives and I decline.
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.
The other night I tripped a nice continental drift divide. Mount St. Edelite.
Leonard Bernstein. Leonid Breshnev, Lenny Bruce and Lester Bangs.
Birthday party, cheesecake, jelly bean, boom! You symbiotic, patriotic,
slam, but neck, right? Right.
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine…fine…