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A Still Moment

     George W. Bush was onto something in the fall of 2008 when he remarked apropos of the Lehman collapse: “…this sucker could go down.”
     It’s my serene conviction, by the way, that this sucker actually is going down, right now, even as I clatter away at the keys — perhaps in slow motion, so that not many other bystanders have noticed yet, and the few who have noticed are mostly too crosseyed with nausea to speak.
     It’s perhaps useful to define even what we mean when we say “this sucker.” Everybody knows what a sucker is, of course — say, a Midwestern public employees’ union pension fund snookered into buying a fat slice of equity tranche in a Goldman Sachs-engineered CDO. But “this sucker” is something else: a rather large cargo of commercial relations, entailed obligations, hopes, expectations, habits of daily life — indeed millions of whole lives — loaded onto the rather creaky vessel we call modern civilization. “This sucker” was such an apt term coming from someone whose understanding of civilization was like unto that of a boy who found a PlayStation under the Christmas tree.
    It’s also perhaps useful to define what we mean by “going down.” To my mind it means an awful lot of money disappears and nobody can pay for anything and an awful of things that have kept going on promises to pay and to get paid will stop keeping going. I don’t think that the idea of money disappears — that is, paper certificates representing claims on future work — but there will be a lot less of it to go around.  Eventually the idea of money could go, too, at least in its current form as Federal Reserve notes. But mostly for some years it will just be a lot of people, companies, and governments who are broke.
     “Going down” will mean a society with no money and an infrastructure for daily life that requires gobs of money to run, and a populace too dazed, confused, and inflamed to do anything useful in the way of organizing new infrastructures for daily life for their new circumstances. In retrospect, the Great Depression of the 1930s will look like “The Philadelphia Story” compared to what we wake up to ten years from now.
     President Obama’s speech at Cooper Union last week was a remarkable performance. It managed to appear forceful and serious without containing any really serious or forceful proposals to discipline a banking system that is running a hostage-and-ransom racket on civilization. If this is finally what the Obama Experience is all about than his detractors have been right all along: he is a tool. Finance reform aside, there are still plenty of laws left on the statute books that could be applied to the frauds and rackets that ran absolutely amok on Wall Street the past few years. I would still like to know why buying CDS “insurance” against your own issue of bonds deliberately engineered to default is NOT a form of insider trading, to put it as simply as possible.
     The SEC action against Goldman Sachs is likely to open a Pandora’s box of troubles for that company, and perhaps all of the Too Big To Fail banks. But even so, I believe this sucker is going down before 99.9 percent of it is sorted out. Anyway, there was a lot about the SEC action that seemed curious, to put it mildly, from the timing of it, to the brevity of the document, to the strange fact that it emerged at all from an agency whose principal activity the past few years has been the viewing of internet porn, and which has otherwise behaved so indifferently in the face of numberless offenses to common decency, not to mention the public interest, that it might as well have been staffed by a thousand head of Holstein cows rather than licensed attorneys and graduates of accredited colleges.
     This sucker is going down because the train of bankruptcies underway has a remorseless self-reinforcing power to provoke more and more bankruptcies at every stop along the line as every promise to pay is welshed on. The mortgages will not be paid and securities will not pay their investors and the banks will choke on the bad paper promises in their vaults and the pension funds will not pay their beneficiaries and the states and counties and municipalities will go broke and not pay their employees and creditors, and the federal government will not be able to “print” new money in sufficient quantities fast enough to compensate for all the money not being paid up-and-down the line… and one morning we will wake up and discover that all those promises to pay were sham promises based on no productive activity whatsoever… and that will be a sad day. Perhaps the Dow Jones Industrial Average will hit 35,000 on that day.
     Nothing can stop this chain of bankruptcy. It’s already baked in the cake. There is probably some wish on the part of those in charge, like Mr. Obama, to try everything possible to postpone it.  And there is likewise surely a huge effort underway in the banking sector right now to cream off as much cash as possible so that when this sucker does go down they will bethink themselves better positioned to survive the consequences.
    Personally, I believe that the damage was mostly done during the tenure of poor dim George W. Bush, and his predecessor Bill Clinton. I suspect that Mr. Obama learned at the height of 2008 election campaign — during those days of the Lehman collapse and the TARP — just how completely the government — and the people of the USA — were in fact hostage to the banking system, and that it has been his unfortunate role to pretend that there is some other fate to bargain for besides this sucker going down. It is probably why he continues to smoke so much. He must be lighting one Marlboro off the tip of another, one after another, in whatever inner sanctum he repairs to when the midnight chimes toll around the White House.  It’s sad to think of this graceful, still rather young man going down in history as the chump-of-the-century, a reincarnation of Herbert Hoover on steroids, with sugar on top.
     Animosities brewing as they are among the white trash elements of the country, I just hope this sucker doesn’t resolve into an ugly bout of attempted ethnic cleansing. Certainly Obama’s racial make-up has inspired a revival of the Ku Klux spirit around the Nascar ovals. I’m sincerely worried that the misdeeds of people name Blankfein, Rubin, and Madoff could provoke a red-white-and-blue pogrom.
     The big mystery for the moment is how come a few good men of stature in important places have not stepped forward to say the right thing or do the right deed. How come no US congressperson challenged the knavish behavior of Republicans who condone malicious idiocy that they know to be false like the so-called “birther” activity. How come no putative “progressive” has called the Democrats on their disingenuous failure to call illegal immigrants what they are. How come no state attorney general has filed charges against TBTF bank misconduct even if the US attorney general lies in state over at the US DOJ. How come no political figure of any stripe has called for the resignation of Summers, Rubin, Gensler and other Goldman Sachs “sleepers” infesting high levels of government. How come Dylan Ratigan is the only visible figure in any major newsroom willing to identify the precise nature of the meta-swindle.
     When this sucker goes down, our primary task will be reorganizing American life on a much more local and de-complexified basis. It’s a very big assignment and especially daunting against a possible background of political disorder. The losses will be epic and the changes severe, but it doesn’t have to mean the end of recognizably American culture. There will be very little money around, and it may end up being a certificate b
acked by gold issued by a bank other than the Federal Reserve. Or maybe we’ll just be swapping stuff for the makings of dinner.
     So many forces are roiling around ‘out there’ now that it’s hard to believe that the authorities in government and banking can keep the illusion of normality going a whole lot longer. The possible litigation against Goldman Sachs-style frauds by a thousand aggrieved victims is enough to paralyze the system. Meanwhile, trillions in credit default swaps are ticking away like dirty bombs. Greece is going down, with Portugal, Spain, Ireland, and the UK standing by to go next. Nobody can pay their bills. Before long, the old folks won’t get their checks. Then the poor folks. Lately, I wonder if there will even be an election six months from now.
  

 ________________

A sequel to my 2008 novel of post-oil America, World Made By Hand, will be published in September 2010 by The Atlantic Monthly Press. The title is The Witch of Hebron.


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View all posts by James Howard Kunstler
James Howard Kunstler is the author of many books including (non-fiction) The Geography of Nowhere, The City in Mind: Notes on the Urban Condition, Home from Nowhere, The Long Emergency and the four-book series of World Made By Hand novels, set in a post economic crash American future. His most recent book is Living in the Long Emergency; Global Crisis, the Failure of the Futurists, and the Early Adapters Who Are Showing Us the Way Forward. Jim lives on a homestead in Washington County, New. York, where he tends his garden and communes with his chickens.

480 Responses to “A Still Moment”

  1. asia April 25, 2010 at 6:47 pm #

    ‘the illusion of normality going a whole lot longer’
    INDEED!
    and Vlad/Qtip/etc…does anyone know much about CECIL RHODES and the agenda of rhodes ‘scholars’?

  2. asia April 25, 2010 at 6:52 pm #

    ‘How come no putative “progressive” has called the Democrats on their disingenuous failure to call illegal immigrants what they are.’
    Jim, come on! the democrats would have died a quiet death long ago [1980?] had it not been for immigrants , legal or otherwise!
    see: f. wooldridge ‘ the next 100 million’.
    see: ‘alien nation’ by brimelow..and the lies of ted kennedy it exposes.
    TK wanted any caldean anywhere in the world to be able to move here as a ‘refugee’.

  3. ExtraO April 25, 2010 at 7:14 pm #

    Yes. Yes. Yes. This sucker IS going down. Just like the ‘unsinkable’ Titanic did about a hundred years ago. The difference this time is that the Titanic is not just some oversized tin motor launch chugging across the North Atlantic, but our entire globalized civilization going down the tubes all at once. In a kind of slow motion maybe, but simultaneous nonetheless. We are all of us products of our Titanic civilization as much as it is our product. Intertwined…it couldn’t exist without us, and we won’t continue to exist (for long) without it. The Titanic had survivors because they were rescued the next day by other ships in the vicinity. This time unless some space aliens show up in flying saucers, there isn’t gonna be anybody to pluck you out of the drink even if you make it into a lifeboat or a transition town or whatever.
    But prosecuting the banksters & etc., & reorganizing American life is just re-arranging the deck chairs, Jim. Unless this collapse completely obliterates any trace of American “civilization” it too will be for naught.

  4. nothing April 25, 2010 at 7:39 pm #

    Jimbo, it looks like the only difference between you and the Tea Party bunch is you believe Armageddon will come from not enough government, and they believe it will come from too much government. The End will look the same. Time will tell how it will all play out, but some things are obvious to all. Check out a couple Easy Predictions at http://www.thenothingstore.com

  5. politicky April 25, 2010 at 7:49 pm #

    *SIGH*

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  6. Puzzler April 25, 2010 at 8:36 pm #

    A long slide indeed, but with plenty of bumps along the way. Most people won’t take it seriously until there are interruptions in the supply of food and/or gasoline. The Awakening will come as a surprise to most — “why didn’t they warn us?”
    Dow at 35,000? Sure, why not. But it’ll probably hit 3,500 first. To those who think 35,000 is far fetched, consider that the Dow first hit 3,500 in May of 1993. Who then thought it would triple to where it is now? Tripling again from now takes it to 35,000.
    I would bet that at some point in the not too distant future the price of gold will cross the Dow; whether that point is 3,500 or 5,000 or 6,000 we’ll see.
    My crystal ball says “new war in the Middle East and oil shooting to $200 this summer.”
    Hang on to your saddles buckeroos, were in for real rough rodeo.

  7. popcine April 25, 2010 at 8:59 pm #

    I believe they are afraid, our congressmen and senators.
    That’s why they won’t come forward. They’re shell-
    shocked. You know, some commentators talk about the
    financial problems, and others about are too big, they
    overwhelm us.
    Besides JHK’s excellent suggestion that somebody (the
    Republicans) call for the resignation of Goldman Sachs
    affiliates from the White House, how about presenting a
    bill to China for the reimbursement of Americans who
    suffer from Chinese drywall Hydrogen Cyanide poisoning?
    Clearly, the time has come for protectionism to restore
    American employment. Protectionism is an old theme in
    American history. So why is it a dirty word? Because the
    losers would be the big multi-national corporations.
    What about man-made environmental poisons? These
    chemicals are in all our bodies. Fish contain mercury.
    One effect of global warming is the acidification of the
    oceans, which threatens plankton. Yes, there are
    solutions, but none that do not threaten established
    multi-national corporations. Congressmen and senators are
    afraid to be the first to speak; they need someone to
    lead them.
    Free speech? We haven’t even the courage to stand up to
    the Moslem mobsters who threaten us for asserting it. And
    how can there be freedom of religion without freedom of
    speech? I suppose Americans aren’t much inspired to
    defend the freedom of religion when Catholicism protects
    child molesters. And Scientologists are another mobster
    religion enjoying tax exemptions. And nut-case
    Protestants aren’t much better.
    Soon, Israel will attack Iran. Let’s get out of Asia,
    please somebody. Please God, get us out of this somehow.
    And by the way, JHK, how about a column about what the US
    military will look like when the world runs out of gas?
    

  8. tarwater April 25, 2010 at 9:06 pm #

    ” …oversized tin motor launch… ”
    The HMS Titanic was a very large ship for its time and _not_ made of tin, rather plates of supposedly high-grade steel riveted together. Unfortunately, or fortunately in the context of giving our time more nonsense to spin and churn, the plate steel was of inferior quality in the context of the cold water environment of the north Atlantic Ocean.
    Please… do due diligence research before you post.

  9. Al Klein April 25, 2010 at 9:14 pm #

    And while our economy and money go to hell, let us remember what’s happening on the oil front. I suggest everybody take a gander at the article here: http://www.countercurrents.org/arguimbau230410.htm Check out the graph. And, check out who agrees with the graph!

  10. asoka April 25, 2010 at 9:28 pm #

    “A closer look at the graph reveals that it was drawn on the assumption that the world’s existing conventional fields contain only 750,000 barrels at this time, enough to keep us going only 25 years.”
    Doesn’t this assume we sit around wringing our hands while saying “We are soooo fucked!”?
    And why is there an assumption that “unidentified projects” means petroleum-related projects?
    25 years is not “zero time” as the link tries to hammer home… (though my prediction is we have 47 years)

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  11. asoka April 25, 2010 at 9:34 pm #

    This week’s column is titled “A Still Moment”… ominous, scary, and a virtual repetition of so many other metaphors of years past, like when the roadrunner is suspended in air before realizing he has gone past the edge of the drop off and has no more firm ground under him.
    Just a quick look back at some previous JHK posts reveal other still moments. Year after year after year of still moments captured in prose. Yet real life is never still and always is changing.
    Jan. 26, 2009
    we’ve arrived at a moment when a lot of people have a hard time imagining the future.
    Jan. 19, 2009
    Cars will be around for a while, of course, but as an increasingly elite activity.
    Jan. 12, 2009
    What remains to be seen, of course, is whether the new spate of All-American red-white-and-blue Jew-hating will ramp up and turn into something I have been predicting for a while: “Corn-pone Nazism.”
    Jan. 5, 2009
     Those swindles began to unwind in 2007 and they now threaten to sink the USA as a viable enterprise.
    Aug. 8, 2002
    The Ponzi finances of all South America are unraveling faster than you can do the Macarena. Western markets are saturated. Credit cards are maxed out. … Is this the last summer of Happy Motoring?
    July 23, 2002
    At a roadside establishment called Ammo-World outside Billings, Montana, a laid-off WorldCom employee purchases a Ruger “Blackhawk” .357 revolver, an ISAPOR #1 Mark 3 grenade launcher (pre-owned), a Chinese-made SKS 7.62mm semi-auto rifle, and 100 pounds of Goex 4FBB military-grade blasting powder. The establishment’s policy painted in seven-inch block letters behind the cashier’s counter is “You’ll have to pry my rifle from my cold dead hands.”  Under it is a poster of the World Trade Center Tower Number One in mid-collapse. . . .
    July 10, 2002
    What I’m describing is a possible severe acceleration of trends that have, until now, been happening in slow motion — the fall after the long wobble. The unwinding in the US is liable to be especially severe, since American misbehavior, greed, and economic recklessness are behind the misallocation of global resources that demands now to be corrected. It seems to me that much of the wealth left after the workout will end up in Europe.
    July 2, 2002
    The now-perfunctory alarms have been sounded and we’re waiting for whatever the Fourth of July brings.  The truth is that many Americans feel absolutely impotent in the face of asymmetrical terrorist threats.
    June 6, 2002
    There’s bad hoodoo in the air.  The Indians seem determined to put an end to the dangerous monkey business emanating out of Pakistan.

  12. Laura Louzader April 25, 2010 at 10:03 pm #

    A thousand lawsuits against GS would NOT “paralyze the system”.
    Far from it. Successful suits against GS and other financial malefactors, and successful criminal prosecutions as well, are the first step in restoring the credibility of our financial markets, not to mention our justice system.
    As it is now, our system is nearly paralyzed by not only the sucking of capital from the system by mountains of unrepayable debt, but by the apprehension on the part of investors and the public that the entire system is rigged to fleece everyone but the people who profited from the construction of those mountains. There has to date been no substantive change in the way the street is doing business. Instead, the architects of this disaster have been rescued from the consequences of their malfeasance and insanity, and the government itself, which enabled it all to begin with by its implicit guarantees to backstop the bad bets, has now become the largest subprime lender and is underwriting the next monster wave of defaults- 24% of all recently underwritten (2008-2010 vintage) loans are delinquent or in default.
    The financial system will not begin to function normally and regain its credibility until the corruption and insanity of the past 30 years are flushed out of it. We’re in for a lot of pain from that process, and the longer we put it off, the worse it will hurt. The suits against GS are better than nothing, since the SEC is ineffectual against the fraud built into complex financial instruments that a bunch of lawyers are simply not trained to understand.
    And regarding the SEC and its lawyers- Harry Markopolos, the hedge fund manager who for 10 years besought the agency to investigate Madoff’s operation on the grounds that he could not possibly be generating the returns that he claimed, remarked that the reason the SEC will always be many steps behind the fruadsters is because the SEC people are LAWYERS, not financial people. “Securities lawyers never understand finance. They don’t have the math background. If you can’t do math and if you can’t take apart the investment products of the 21st century backward and forward and put them together in your sleep, you’ll never find the frauds on Wall Street,” Markopolos stated. Enough said.

  13. abbeysbooks April 25, 2010 at 10:30 pm #

    Meanwhile back at the ranch I have been working on a free wifi access for all of you. Cut your cable line or dish line and get it free.
    http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=330426738790&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT#ht_1508wt_1167 I am running an auction on ebay for the design plans if any of you are interested.
    For additional info try googling fab fi for more extensive coverage.
    Help cut the profits of the cable industry that is bilking us of millions of excess monthly fees.

  14. Miss Gayle April 25, 2010 at 10:43 pm #

    I’m very pessimistic about the whole thing.
    There’s not going to be any real shake-down on Wall Street. Goldman Sachs was chosen as the sacrificial goat for the show-trials to placate the “off with their heads” crowd only because they already got in trouble with the EU for their “creative” bookkeeping in Greece. Since they’re going down anyway, may as well kill two birds with one stone, right? Lehman and AIG were respective experiment to see what would happen if a major company in those arenas failed, and they didn’t like the results – hence the bailouts and/or mergers for just about everyone else. There will be no serious attempt at stopping the abuses on Wall Street. Wall Street owns Congress and most of the Presidential Administration, no doubt about it.
    Since the Boomers are very wedded to the idea that they are entitled to a cushy retirement unknown in the history of the human race, they can certainly not be expected to simply yank all their money away from the Fat Cat Robber Barons – after all, that would be, in their opinion, cutting off their own nose to spite their face. They still think they can salvage something out of this mess – they can’t actually grasp that there is really nothing to salvage. And since the Boomers outnumber the X-ers some 3 or 4 to one, there is no realistic chance that the unfunded benefits of SS and MC can be reigned in. By the time enough Boomers die off so that the X-ers and Y-ers have a chance to properly restructure entitlements and smack down Wall Street, it will be too late to do so. The *&$^ will have already hit the fan.
    Nor will the Boomers give up the massive and unsustainable military-industrial complex and US bases all over the world, regardless of how much the expense of US Imperailism is crippling the domestic economy and denying basic human rights like healthcare to non-Boomers. But hey, they have theirs, so they don’t care. No, they won’t give up their unsustainable (and contradictory) beliefs without a fight, and right now, there’s no way to win against their distorted and unrealistic priorities.

  15. welles April 26, 2010 at 12:32 am #

    Glad to see JHK’s groggily emerging from his Obama stupor after penning two ghastly epistles singing the virtues of the ObamaCon-Democrat cesspool. Neither of the ringmasters in the Two-Party-opoly cares a hoot for anyone’s interests than their own, the American people are merely a goose to be repeatedly fattened & slaughtered.
    Witness the Great Stimulus, 70% of which went to keep fat slob government ‘workers’ from losing their jobs — or went for payraises for the same losers. Hmmm, what’s it been a year since the Stimulus started? Haven’t noticed a lot of work being done…although we heard the Liar in Chief drone on ad vomitum about the millions of jobs ‘saved or created’.
    Note to everyone: 80-90% of mutual fund ‘managers’ can’t even beat the market, i.e. anyone with a pulse could do better than these self-aggrandizing, caviar-slurping pricks simply by buying an index fund, whose management fees are orders of magnitude lower than ‘actively managed’ mutual funds. Just buy real physical gold and hold it personally, you’ll do fine. It really is that simple.
    Thank god this sucker’s going down, we need a Long Laxative episode to purge the country of all the fatass, bloated people/finance/government/military/religion.
    By the way, what the fuck IS IT with all the gigantically FAT PEOPLE in this country?
    For god’s sake stop fucking eating already, I never see this overseas…

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  16. wagelaborer April 26, 2010 at 1:49 am #

    So Grandma will starve and poor people will be out on the street when the artificial money system collapses?
    Really? That’s the best we can do?
    As FDR said, “and yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts”
    http://wagelaborer.blogspot.com/2009/11/what-is-wealth.html
    We are capable of supplying everyone with a decent standard of living, but if the fiat money system isn’t functioning, neither can we.
    This makes no sense. I believe that we can cooperate to provide each other with a decent standard of living, if we drop the idea that we need leeches sucking off profit to make it all happen.

  17. indyamerican April 26, 2010 at 1:59 am #

    I think the events in Arizona tell a story about where we are headed as a nation. The seeds of future conflict are germinating there. As the economy continues to weaken, and the USD continues to be undermined by galactically enormous debt, we will see State Governments challenge the weakening hegemony of the Federal Government. The power of those that wish to see endless illegal immigration will wane with the collapse of their spending power. At some point individual US States will recognize the realities and take action to attempt to mitigate the disaster of our financial and economic collapse. Arizona is ahead of the pack. The realize that in order to fix our economy we must find a way to raise the incomes of our citizens. Just look at the formula for GDP. It tells the story of where we are, and what our real options are in the future. Either we protect American Jobs in every manner possible, or we will see continued national decline. Now it is just a matter of how long it takes for a majority of Americans to grasp the reality we face. Once that occurs, then things get interesting!

  18. Eleuthero April 26, 2010 at 4:12 am #

    I’m glad Jim balances out his progressivism
    with pragmatism like his insistence in calling
    illegal aliens ILLEGAL. However, I don’t
    understand why enforcement legislation is
    always vilified with some meme like “the
    birther” initiative. Gee, Jim, do you
    WANT the illegals to be ALLOWED to be
    illegal or do you actually want the rule
    of law??
    When do we stop bending over and taking it
    up the ass? After all, the illegals come
    here and breed like fleas and then get
    per-child welfare subsidies because of the
    INSANE law that a child born here from the
    womb of an illegal alien is LEGAL!?
    This kind of thinking is cut from the cloth
    that we should legalize marijuana usage but
    continue to send the growers to jail unless
    they’re from the very small minority that
    went to the trouble to get a state license
    to grow medical pot.
    On the other hand, I am heartened to see that
    Jim is awakening from his Obama fawning. You
    can’t hire foxes (Summers, Rubin, etc.) to watch
    the chicken coop and then claim that you’re going
    to “get tough” with investment banks.
    My theory? Obama’s “get tough” speech is an
    orchestrated “good cop, bad cop” show where
    he PREARRANGED with the TBTF companies to put
    on a “bread and circuses” show while letting
    them continue 99% of their current practices.
    The proof that I’m right will be “penalties”
    for companies like Goldman that are the
    equivalent of fining a Major League ballplayer
    $200 on a million dollar salary for steroid
    use. Those civil suits will get totally
    bogged down in legalese and “everyone does
    it” rationalizations.
    Eleuthero
    then

  19. Fouad Khan April 26, 2010 at 6:44 am #

    I don’t know about the disappearance of symbolic money and the return of barter. I think some form of digital currency will replace paper. The events of the last two decades; the information technology revolution makes me think uneasily of the idea of “technological determinism”. As a dearth of energy kills over-complex systems like modern aviation, the highly evolved, much more energy efficient (as compared to brick and mortar libraries and paper books for instance) information exchange system generally known as the internet will survive. And with it, probably the evolution of human science and technology.
    It seems the ever evolving blob called technology is better prepared to survive the end of energy-boon than any other forms of intelligence. It seems it has evolved just in time for peak oil.
    Paper currency, dead. Pixel currency, the next big thing.
    http://hurricanekatrinakaif.com

  20. judetennessee April 26, 2010 at 7:02 am #

    JHK-Obama today is the same guy you praised so lavishly in 2008 when obviously it was anyone but Hillary. Right? I became so angry with you then that I deleted you from my favorites. But,of course, you do get it right a lot of the time so I am forced to Google you every Modnay.
    No pol anywhere is going to tell the truth, they are already seduced by the time they reach office and will do/say anything to keeps the perks and the perceived power (watch The Candidate w/ Bobby Redford).
    Why are Americans so obese? It is a combination of Big Farm and Big Pharm-get them fat with subsidized carbs and keep them medicated with drugs. Read Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes. Right up there with Overshoot and The Long Emergency.
    We’re screwed and only have ourselves to blame. In our defense, we have Paleolithic brains but somehow have created this modern dystopia. God help us all.

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  21. Chris C April 26, 2010 at 7:37 am #

    “that it might as well have been staffed by a thousand head of Holstein cows rather than licensed attorneys and graduates of accredited colleges.”
    Jerry Rubin, a 60’s activist proposed a very similar concept and I truly believe it has merit. We would get the same for far less.

  22. Chris C April 26, 2010 at 7:39 am #

    “that it might as well have been staffed by a thousand head of Holstein cows rather than licensed attorneys and graduates of accredited colleges.”
    Jerry Rubin, a 60’s activist proposed a very similar concept and I truly believe it has merit. We would get the same for far less.

  23. Unconventional Ideas April 26, 2010 at 8:26 am #

    Jim,
    You have inspired me to look at the possibility of moving to a small town surrounded by lots of agricultural land.
    We’ve got one in mind not far from where we live now.
    The only meaningful things I see going forward are to organize a workable life on a local level
    My interest in national politics is at a lifetime low. Sure, I’ll watch what’s going on, but will no longer harbor any hope Washington can do anything meaningful for us.

  24. GoldSubject April 26, 2010 at 8:29 am #

    Goldman Sachs is experiencing a veritable siege. In due course this may turn out to be the turning point in the fortunes of the Investment Banking industry. Their protectors may decide to turn their backs on them, and if that happens, things will develop quickly from there.
    http://www.goldsubject.com/

  25. diogen April 26, 2010 at 8:34 am #

    >Cut your cable line or dish line and get it free.
    Abbey and/or others, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this a parasitic idea that will fail if large numbers of people attempt to use it? It’s predicated on SOME people paying cable companies to connect to the Web and using wireless routers inside their homes/buildings, that your antenna will essentially steal? If many cable customers go with your idea, there won’t be enough wireless broadcasts for your antennas to pick them up, right?

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  26. Andrew MacDonald April 26, 2010 at 8:46 am #

    “When this sucker goes down, our primary task will be reorganizing American life on a much more local and de-complexified basis.”
    So true and that’s the task today too. Don’t have “the answer” but some ideas for helping prepare ourselves and local community are here:
    http://www.radicalrelocalization.com/

  27. diogen April 26, 2010 at 8:50 am #

    >There is no reason to value some labor so much >more than others.
    and
    >But why should the labor of sewing skin be worth >so much more than that of sewing cloth?
    Wage, this is borderline non-sensical. It’s self-evident that some skills take a much greater investment in time, resources and intellectual capacity to master than others, and therefore they demand greater compensation. If there was no potential reward for cultivating skills and knowledge, there would be little incentive to pursue them. You’re right that some of the best-compensated people in our culture do NOT in fact have the highest or the most useful skills, but your blanket statement that all skills have equal value or equal worth are not serious.

  28. Lynn Shwadchuck April 26, 2010 at 8:51 am #

    “Or maybe we’ll just be swapping stuff for the makings of dinner.” That is right. And we’d better know how to thresh dry beans and what to do with rutabaga in January.
    Part of what makes it impossible for there to be a groundswell of action to change the direction things are moving is that there are a number of bad directions speeding simultaneously toward oblivion. I just finished Storms of my Grandchildren and James Hansen ends with the sentence, “This is our last chance”, while only predicting economic breakdown as a late-stage development of post-tipping points climate change. He’s concentrating on saving the Monarch butterfly, which is much like James Lovelock’s ‘Enjoy life while you can’.
    Myself, I feel somewhat prepared for harder times by having learned to live like a smart poor person, poorer than I actually am.
    Lynn
    http://www.10in10diet.com/
    Diet for a small footprint and a small grocery bill

  29. wardoc April 26, 2010 at 9:22 am #

    “Before long, the old folks won’t get their checks. Then the poor folks.”
    When we get to this point, likely sooner rather than latter, there will be no chance of maintaining any semblance of the Amerika we all thought we once knew. Once the easy money stops flowing completely (it has already slowed, substantially), the credit cards will become worthless, and the all the toys bought on credit will have to be given back to the banks so they can sell them for pennies on the dollar. At that point, the gloves will come off and we’ll see the true nature of humanity without the veneer of a sane and civil society; such civility is only maintained by the fear of losing one’s status, money and toys. When those things are gone the governors on behavior will come off; CRIME will become ubiquitous, just like it happened in Argentina when their currency collapsed, in Sarajevo, throughout Bosnia and Croatia and in Russia, after the wall fell. Nothing really new to others but very new to pampered and naive Amerikans who think bad things only happen “over there.”
    Your neighbors will become criminals and you will be their target, everywhere in every neighborhood in the former Amerika.
    Lock and load, and learn to aim……
    Wardoc

  30. Paul Kemp April 26, 2010 at 9:35 am #

    Jim, how can you say, “…how come a few good men of stature in important places have not stepped forward to say the right thing or do the right deed. How come no US congressperson challenged the knavish behavior of Republicans who condone malicious idiocy that they know to be false like the so-called “birther” activity.”?
    Has the media magic of ignoring Congressman Ron Paul to render him invisible also worked on you? He comments practically every day on some aspect of the many aspects of the Fed’s behavior that made the housing/financial bubble and the other Wall St. swindles possible. He even ran for president in 2008 — Don’t you remember him?
    Republican Congressman Ron Paul saves his comments for issues that are more important than the “birther” distractions.
    It’s kind of funny that you fell for the Obama schtick and voted for him, but now you can’t recall that there ever was a serious alternative candidate who has been hammering away daily on the issues you now, belatedly, find important.
    Keep up the good work on encouraging Obama and his Attorney General to do something about the fraud that allows Wall St. to continue to drain the Treasury and the personal finances of the people of the U.S. Don’t expect much response on getting him to turn on the people who put him into office, though.

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  31. ELOF April 26, 2010 at 9:41 am #

    There have been some politicians screaming about this for decades. The person who comes to mind is Rep. Ron Paul of TX. He’s been largely ridiculed for years as a self styled Cassandra. Whoops.

  32. mean dovey cooledge April 26, 2010 at 9:53 am #

    Where would Jim be without white trash nascar boogeymen? oh yeah, its the same meme the corporate media sells – a festering nest of home grown tim McVeighs out there about to blow cause there be a black man in the white house.
    enough already. why not stick with the ample and concrete examples of the real problems: over-centralization with the power in the hands of a very few elite with no allegiance to nations, law, or their fellow man?
    my husband just pulled out of the driveway and is heading back to the big city where he faces endless clients who will not, possibly can not pay him for work completed. and then there is the debt his company owes from trying to stay alive and make payroll during the *recovery*. Im the doomer of the family, so i wont be riding back with him.
    i stay here at our place in the mountains which i am on my second year of food gardening. I harvested head after head of spinach, romaine lettuce, buttercrunch lettuce and chard. Radishes of many colors, spring onions and baby carrots. I thinned the valentine mix of lettuce for a micro salad last night which would have been a special treat on any big city menu.
    my notion of wealth has shifted.
    clean air. fresh water. real food untouched by Monsanto. physical labor. no noise pollution. raising chickens. hiking in the 60% of wilderness in this county. learning to fish. and small town civility.
    say what you will about rural southern people (jim’s white trash) but i never had a latte-sipping cell-phone-holding over-coiffed slag flip me off from her Range Rover just because i happened to share the same unfortunate slab of asphalt.
    *********
    Tripp Ticket: you in here? I planted “Elizabeth” yesterday! There she sits waiting to fruit along with my southern varieties. Sunchokes in a barrel as per your advice. Comfrey didnt make it. :-(. Putting in the squash and beans just as soon as the nights arent too cold. later, gator!

  33. empirestatebuilding April 26, 2010 at 9:58 am #

    I was in Northern Manhattan on Friday night. Seeing Elvis Costello at the United Palace Theater. I was shocked at the 40k cars parked in the the streets. Twenty years ago this area was a mess. On Friday the streets were alive with very normal looking people, not the thugs and murderers of years ago. It was nice to see.
    Maybe the ship is going down, slowly but at least we enjoyed the ride. Some much more than others obviously. I am not optimistic, I would just rather feel some happiness in the face of doom. I have been out of work for almost a year now. I am blogging about it at http://www.aimlow.com
    Aimlow Joe

  34. 3rd Generation April 26, 2010 at 10:00 am #

    1. He IS a tool.
    2. He IS the ‘chump-of-the-century’, even if the world ends today. (Clever photo-op this weekend between Marlboros with the dead and doomed miners families though – very touching).
    3. There ARE NO ‘Good Men (or Women)of standing They are ALL bought and paid for crooks and liars.
    4. The Goldman Sachs Gangsters RUN America now. You just happen to live here, consumers.
    5. America is DEAD. The rotting, stinking shit-filled corpse will not yet fall dowm. Even a shark would take a bite and spit it back out. The only thing to do with America is to treat it like AIDS and run it through an industrial shredder at full throttle and bury the tailings in a cement wrapped sarcophagus in the middle of the ocean.
    Have a Great week unless you are run over and killed by an uninsured drunken illegal alien in a stolen car and killed or maimed.
    Good Night and Good Luck.

  35. Unconventional Ideas April 26, 2010 at 10:14 am #

    Asoka,
    Your point?????

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  36. Agriburbia April 26, 2010 at 10:15 am #

    Jim:”I suspect that Mr. Obama learned at the height of 2008 election campaign — during those days of the Lehman collapse and the TARP — just how completely the government — and the people of the USA — were in fact hostage to the banking system…”
    Yeah, that’s why Obama chose former investment banker Rahm Emanuel to be his Chief of Staff, not to mention former investment bankers Summers, Rubin, Gensler, Geithner, Kashkari, and who knows how many other Goldman and/or general inventment banking alums to work in his administration:
    “After serving as an advisor to Bill Clinton, in 1998 Emanuel resigned from his position in the Clinton administration and became an investment banker at Wasserstein Perella (now Dresdner Kleinwort), where he worked until 2002.[29] In 1999, he became a managing director at the firm’s Chicago office. Emanuel made $16.2 million in his two-and-a-half-year stint as a banker, according to Congressional disclosures.” – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahm_Emanuel#Career_in_finance
    “Open Secrets reported that Emanuel “was the top House recipient in the 2008 election cycle of contributions from hedge funds, private equity firms and the larger securities/investment industry”. – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahm_Emanuel#2008_Election

  37. lsjogren April 26, 2010 at 10:19 am #

    puzzler said:
    “Dow at 35,000? Sure, why not. But it’ll probably hit 3,500 first. To those who think 35,000 is far fetched, consider that the Dow first hit 3,500 in May of 1993. Who then thought it would triple to where it is now? Tripling again from now takes it to 35,000.”
    Puzzler, as an electrical engineer, I liken our monetary system to a “floating node”.
    Put a voltmeter to a copper wire that’s not connected to anything. The voltmeter will jump around because, with that wire not being connected to anything, it is “floating” and its voltage is indeterminate.
    Similarly, in our monetary system, the US Dollar is not connected to anything, therefore the price of anything can be expected to jump around like the needle on that voltmeter. (OK, that dates me but needle seems a little classier than an LED readout) So, Dow 3500, 35000 who knows what reading you are going to get from a floating node.

  38. zxcvbnm April 26, 2010 at 10:21 am #

    I know this will probably get me labeled as a nut on this forum, but Matthew chapter 24 in the bible has some interesting parallels with what’s going on these days.
    Wars and rumors of wars, check.
    Famines (soon!) and earthquakes in various place, check.
    “Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold”, just take a look around at the angry faces when you are out and about then, check.
    “For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again”, I think we all can agree with that, check.
    And the one line that leaves me with an ounce of hope (I know JHK hates that word) “If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened.”

  39. VJ April 26, 2010 at 10:23 am #

    There’s a storm coming in…and we’re done.

  40. dale April 26, 2010 at 10:25 am #

    Quiz says: “Socialism/communism lasted about 72 years in the USSR and then fell into utter collapse.”
    =====================================
    conflating communism and socialism as if they are the same thing is a little like equating fascism and capitalism. I think you might have benefited from a few more courses in social and political science and a few less in English grammer.

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  41. zerotsm April 26, 2010 at 10:38 am #

    Well, this is one boomer that wants to see the US out of Iraq and Afghanistan and the rest of the US military budget cut in half! Then eliminate the cap on Social Security contributions. The fat cats that make over $106,800 a year can certainly afford the 6.2% (OK some will argue that it’s really 12.4% since the salary will be decreased by the “employers share” of the tax).
    But don’t expect it from Obama, he’s going to try to keep the game going until he is out of office, then the next president will do the same thing, but eventually, some future president will be left holding the bag.

  42. culinarius April 26, 2010 at 10:46 am #

    Jim, whose fan I am. I’ve read all your books/play hot-off-the-press, but this blog is the first and foremost highlight of my week (with six l-o-n-g days between). Always, my eyes are opened wider and with more clarity about what’s happening after reading your blogs (admittedly, almost always). Your wit and humor never fail to give me smirks and chuckles throughout, but today your description of a chain-smoking president in his private quarters gave me a good, gut-busting laugh. Thank you, and thanks for your time invested in these blogs. They leave me wanting more–I know, I know; Jim does have a life beyond Klusterfuck.

  43. J Lee April 26, 2010 at 10:47 am #

    “I’m sincerely worried that the misdeeds of people name Blankfein, Rubin, and Madoff could provoke a red-white-and-blue pogrom.” The old canard of anti-semitism? Is that what Kunstler is really “worried” about? That instead of the black-white conflict or the urban-rural or the rich-poor conflict he is really worried that the focus might be on the jews? Kunstler are you trying to deflect some of that focus? Or are you really prepared to tell the truth?

  44. Joshua April 26, 2010 at 10:58 am #

    Agree with mean dovey cooledge. As much as I admire Jim’s writings, he is decades out of date with respect to the South. My experience is that the less well off are usually fine people; it is the faux upper middle and upper class who are the clueless assholes. Getting scareder and meaner, too.
    One other matter, which is related to surviving on self-grown food and the joys of clean air and water. Jim occasionally gloats about how Southerners will suffer when the air conditioning goes down. What are folks in New England and upstate New York going to do to keep warm in winter–chop down the Adirondacks?

  45. Qshtik April 26, 2010 at 11:05 am #

    To Asia, SNAFU and Wagelaborer,
    Near the end of last week’s (Where’s Rico?) comment section you will find replies from me to your posts.

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  46. Vlad Krandz April 26, 2010 at 11:11 am #

    White Trash, huh? Why are racial slurs against Whites permisable but not anyone else? Is this attitude going to lead to the promised land? Or is it a sign that we have been taken over by an alien elite?
    The “White Trash” – rural Whites of Scots-Irish and Geman descent, are still the predominat group in the Armed Forces. They are the ones who will save America or some portion of it if, it is to be saved at all. You want to be near them when the shit hits the fan and not Blacks, Latinos, or liberal,latte sipping, effete White Haters of other Whites.

  47. Qshtik April 26, 2010 at 11:17 am #

    We are capable of supplying everyone with a decent standard of living
    I love this. The mind and essence of the pure and true socialist are captured in the single word
    ” S U P P L Y I N G “

  48. silverdoctor April 26, 2010 at 11:18 am #

    In the same vein as Jim’s theme today, Teddy Kennedy said something before he died while in a small gathering of very intimate friends in Chris Lawford’s Manhattan apartment (WSJ, 10/27/08):
    “Teddy was expansive. If he hadn’t gone into politics he would have been an opera singer, he told them, and visited small Italian villages and had pasta every day for lunch. “Singing at la Scala in front of three thousand people throwing flowers at you. Then going out for dinner and having more pasta.” Everyone was laughing. Then, writes Mr. Lawford, Teddy “took a long, slow gulp of his vodka and tonic, thought for a moment, and changed tack. ‘I’m glad I’m not going to be around when you guys are my age.’ I asked him why, and he said, ‘Because when you guys are my age, the whole thing is going to fall apart.’ ”
    Mr. Lawford continued, “The statement hung there, suspended in the realm of ‘maybe we shouldn’t go there.’ Nobody wanted to touch it. After a few moments of heavy silence, my uncle moved on.”
    “Lawford thought his uncle might be referring to their family–that it might “fall apart.” But reading, one gets the strong impression Teddy Kennedy was not talking about his family but about . . . the whole ball of wax, the impossible nature of everything, the realities so daunting it seems the very system is off the tracks.
    “And–forgive me–I thought: If even Teddy knows . . .”
    I think, as a dying man, Teddy indeed knew.

  49. Tituspullo8780 April 26, 2010 at 11:25 am #

    >>I would still like to know why buying CDS “insurance” against your own issue of bonds deliberately engineered to default is NOT a form of insider trading, to put it as simply as possible.
    *because these are OTC derivatives are not stocks, so the SEC has no real authority to regulate them. That’s the job of the CFTC (http://www.cftc.gov/index.htm) – Commodity Futures Trading Commission. If like to see how useless they are, take a look at their recent ‘investigation’ of manipulation of the Gold and Silver market but the US, JPMC and HSBC (*they are the same, I guess).
    >>Perhaps the Dow Jones Industrial Average will hit 35,000 on that day.
    *so the stock market will triple as a result of all this madness. learn to count JHK. Then you can move on to more complex financial predictions.
    >>The big mystery for the moment is how come a few good men of stature in important places have not stepped forward to say the right thing or do the right deed.
    Is that really a mystery to you? If it is, let me answer – they don’t want their professional reputations ruined, or worse yet, end up in a fatal ‘car crash’, suffer a sudden ‘heart attack’ and decide to commit ‘suidice’.
    You are allowed you rantings because, simply put, you(JHK) have NO CREDIBILITY in real circles of power. Sure, plenty of loonies populate your blog and postulate on the oil-inspired ‘end-times’, but most smart people that understand the rig have ZERO intention of coming clean because they are wedded to the system, and understand what the system will do to them if they decide to color outside the lines. Just to put a fine point on it – read this link: Mark Pittman, Reporter Who Challenged Fed Secrecy, Dies at 52 (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=afp8OC.OvRnI#). This guy is one of hundreds of people that blow whistles, and suddenly some life-ending tragedy befalls them. Oh, these tend to happen during slow news cycles, like Thanksgiving – when newsrooms have skeleton staffs.
    IF you are real, and you spill the beans on Peak Oil or any other gov. BS – death is but one tool. You can get audited, threatened, and all other manner of nastiness will befall you.
    You ask ‘why’ people don’t come forward? In the word – they aren’t stupid. Or – better put – not as stupid as you.

  50. Qshtik April 26, 2010 at 11:27 am #

    conflating communism and socialism
    Do I conflate? Well then I conflate. I am large. I contain multitudes. (paraphrase of WW)

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  51. culinarius April 26, 2010 at 11:28 am #

    I’m curious as to where (State? Region?) you are contemplating a move to as you are describing the area I live in. (Always looking for prep-minded neighbors–SE MN.)

  52. Funzel April 26, 2010 at 11:30 am #

    The only thing about Ron Paul that bothers me,when push comes to shove,he’d be using his “other”passport.

  53. Smokyjoe April 26, 2010 at 11:37 am #

    Clinton’s signing the repeal of the Glass–Steagall Act was criminal. W, a stupid man coming into office in a go-go era, was just too dumb to see that Clinton, Greenspan, and bankers’ buddies in Congress had sewn the seeds of a massive crisis.
    And the oil-addled, wanna-be-a-millionaire public sucked it all up until the house of cards fell.
    Put that in the history books.

  54. messianicdruid April 26, 2010 at 11:48 am #

    “It’s kind of funny that you fell for the Obama schtick and voted for him, but now you can’t recall that there ever was a serious alternative candidate who has been hammering away daily on the issues you now, belatedly, find important.”
    Thank You for repeating what many wish to ignore. RP has been saying it for 30 years. He also ran for President once before, and was ignored then also. He has been saying the these things, apparently to people who cannot hear, which has caused my “cramped with nausea”.

  55. miik April 26, 2010 at 11:55 am #

    I have heard Dennis Kucinich speaking up consistently over the years

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  56. Jim from Watkins Glen April 26, 2010 at 12:06 pm #

    This post elegantly describes the scurrilous behavior of our nation’s financial professionals. When it’s raining money, nobody asks where it came from. Then, we learn it was all a sham and we all got fleeced, so we go looking butts to kick. But how do you bite the only hand that’s been feeding you? We’ve built a system that relies on a constant parade of fast-money schemes that soon crumble. I’ve been having a similar argument for years with people who say things are okay because the U.S. still controls most of the world’s money. I’ve argued that moving columns of numbers around a spreadsheet isn’t really doing anything productive. The U.S is reduced to being good at financial slight-of-hand and blowing shit up with remote control drones. Both activities are intrinsically short-lived. My only advice is to remain aware that what we’re seeing is contraction and collapse being called things like “resurging economic growth” and other wishful malarkey. Get good at smaller, fewer, and closer to home.

  57. DeeJones April 26, 2010 at 12:07 pm #

    “that it might as well have been staffed by a thousand head of Holstein cows rather than licensed attorneys and graduates of accredited colleges.”
    At least we might get some milk.
    And Abby, people have been promoting some such thing for years, have you ever heard of the ‘Pringles can-tenna’? Why pay YOU when you can make it your self?

  58. welles April 26, 2010 at 12:19 pm #

    JHK opines“…and the federal government will not be able to “print” new money in sufficient quantities fast enough to compensate for all the money not being paid up-and-down the line…”
    No, clusterfucker, they CAN print “fast enough”, that’s the beauty of owning your own Printing Presses spewing Trillions in faith-based money. The Matrix is alive & humming along nicely, until Faith Runs Out.
    As for state/municipal gov’t/pension funds running out of ‘money’ — the Devils Pulling Levers over at the FED & The Gov’t will ultimately decide whether to let ’em suffer or ‘make them whole’ with a few taps on their keyboards.
    You really think ‘money’ has to be backed by anything other than ‘trust’? Ha! My boy, THAT’S THE WHOLE SCAM!

  59. bigbrush April 26, 2010 at 1:04 pm #

    There are many reasons to read Kunstler who sounds like a blues musician serenading a dark future yet to happen.As if his foghorn on the lonely coast of American demise gives us a solemn pleasure to at least have a notion of were we are going to be when the moment arrives , ship wreaked and in need of saving. To understand his motivation one only need to take a gander at his paintings, whereas the pleinaire daylight studies show the sunlit hope of the passing day in mostly neutral light with no compelling focus, it is his nocturnes that illustrate the ongoing struggle between dark and light with the radiant artificial signs of civilization the only apparent savior . There is a reason to guard against the darkness which for many is the ignorance of common sense.

  60. david mathews April 26, 2010 at 1:18 pm #

    I think the moment of America’s collapse has already reached me. It is a small thing, though, and something which I have already accepted as the outcome.
    The future will take care of itself.
    I told a person filling his Hummer H3 (with the engine running and the a/c on, by the way) that gasoline was going to be $5 a gallon next year. I told him that by wasting gasoline he was gambling with his very own life. But who can reason with an entitled American hyperconsumer?
    So it goes …
    http://www.flickr.com/dmathew1

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  61. ExtraO April 26, 2010 at 1:19 pm #

    Yo, tarwater:
    metaphor |?m?d??f?(?)r| |?m?d??f?(?)r|
    noun
    a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable : “I had fallen through a trapdoor of depression,” said Mark, who was fond of theatrical metaphors | her poetry depends on suggestion and metaphor.
    • a thing regarded as representative or symbolic of something else, esp. something abstract : the amounts of money being lost by the company were enough to make it a metaphor for an industry that was teetering.

  62. dryadsdad April 26, 2010 at 1:25 pm #

    The birther movement is promoted most heavily by Obama himself by not producing his birth certificate. No, a certificate of live birth is NOT a birth certificate and it proves nothing.
    If you of such faith in the guy could muster any skepticism about this Chicago politico, you’d demand he put an end to this highly divisive secrecy and just show the real certificate (if it exists).
    BTW, I had a certificate of live birth myself. It wasn’t accepted as proof of citizenship for a passport. I had to produce my birth certificate. So how can you possibly defend Obama’s refusal not to show his? Is it that deep inside you know the truth which is that he’s a 100% fake?

  63. Qshtik April 26, 2010 at 1:33 pm #

    Eleuth, although we got off to a bad start awhile back (with your refusal to keep typing when the sentence approached the right side of the comment box) I find myself in agreement with most of your (well-expressed) opinions … the current post being a prime example. One of the things you mention – the notion of “allowing” illegal immigration – I agree, is truly insane.

  64. Jersey New April 26, 2010 at 1:40 pm #

    Good writing today Jim.
    [Holder]”…lying in state over at DOJ” and “Goldman Sachs ‘sleepers’ infesting high levels of govt.”
    Classic Kunstlerisms.
    Also, I too, as other comments, thought about Ron Paul. Seems like everything he says makes sense. What is it exactly that he says (or is it how he says it?), that makes people not take him seroiusly?
    I hope you’ll comment on him in a future blog Jim.

  65. Cash April 26, 2010 at 1:47 pm #

    A Big Thinkers Conference on Big Problems just happened north of the border attended by thinkers with tall foreheads.
    What came of it? The essence was in this exchange in a hallway.
    A retired premier said to a former Prime Minister:
    “We’re fucked.”
    Replied the former Prime Minister:
    “The whole world is fucked.”

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  66. Freedom Guerrilla April 26, 2010 at 1:52 pm #

    I can imagine the complete denial that would swirl around a 35,000 DJIA. Banksters and Fraudsters would claim it to be some type of “engineered easing.”
    The Fed would tell us it’s a “necessary market correction.”
    The Executive Branch would mumble back and forth some bullshit about “strong dollar policy and the new jobs data” while guys like Pete Schiff and Ron Paul will be closing the chamber doors behind them.
    WTF? If bullshit were currency, we’d have plenty of wealth in this country.
    Tommy
    http://freedomguerrilla.com

  67. Tomcat16 April 26, 2010 at 1:53 pm #

    “If this is finally what the Obama Experience is all about than his detractors have been right all along: he is a tool.”
    My Gawd, the light comes on! YEA!! Glad to have you on board, Jim!

  68. constitutionorslavery April 26, 2010 at 1:59 pm #

    But I thought we were in recovery? I wonder if things actually happen as you predict, if people will finally get mad/realize they have been lied to, bent over, and taken. Or will they still sit in front of their T.V. and lap up the bullshit our “leaders” and media are telling us.
    I can see it now. Joe six-pack is watching football, eating scraps of food he found out of the Rocky Rococo dumpster, while the roof leaks and car is dead due to no cash to fix it. He looks up at the wife – “what did Obama say in his speech today? Is he going after the bankers again? I hope he gets a second term, the economy will REALLY start to take off. He is the first president who really seems to care about the average joe.”

  69. The Mook April 26, 2010 at 2:00 pm #

    This sucker is going down and it indeed will take awhile. Take Scott for example. Scott lives in Southeast Pennsylvania and has had to switch jobs due to the economy. He has been at his new job for about one year where he makes a “measley” $80,000 salary. His wife lost her “no factor in our GDP” job like so many more will at a steady rate. In the meantime, having three kids, he has managed to fall four months behind on his mortgage. He took his Infiniti SUV to the bank parking lot, and left the keys on the visor. He then made a call to the bank and told them he would do what he could, when he could, about the balance owed. Unfortunately, his wife’s car was co-collateral on both leases so the bank showed up the next day and repo’ed her car too. But in a typical American happy ending he took back the Duramax Chevy diesel he had sold to his father, since he could no longer afford the payments anyway. Yes, the chain letter is unraveling. In a related story on the wires last week, it was reported that the bank of “mom and dad” is rapidly approaching its discountinuance of no payback loans. Thank God the youngins have heroin to fall back on!

  70. curmedgeon April 26, 2010 at 2:54 pm #

    While Jim is probably right about the long term trends, doom is always right around the corner, say in the next 6 months, and it always has been for years. This kinda weakens the credibility to say the least.
    I suppose a “black swan” event could come along and tip us into the abyss, but in the meantime it’s assumed that change in the sense of “happy motoring suburban nirvana” coming to an abrupt end is just not going to happen in the way Jim talks about, but may happen incrementally. Imperial decay and decline
    seems to take time in history and that’s what this is all about.

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  71. Martin28 April 26, 2010 at 3:02 pm #

    >Since the Boomers are very wedded to the idea that they are entitled to a cushy retirement unknown in the history of the human race, they can certainly not be expected to simply yank all their money away from the Fat Cat Robber Barons – after all, that would be, in their opinion, cutting off their own nose to spite their face.

  72. funky April 26, 2010 at 3:02 pm #

    No, clusterfucker, they CAN print “fast enough”, that’s the beauty of owning your own Printing Presses spewing Trillions in faith-based money. The Matrix is alive & humming along nicely, until Faith Runs Out.
    yo welles –
    the bond market will prevent unlimited printing. the us is a debt junkie and our suppliers are foreign central banks.
    once the international debt model is broken, then the printing presses will kick into hyperdrive. but that day is years away . . .

  73. CowboyJack April 26, 2010 at 3:15 pm #

    Encouraging to see JHK finally naming Bill Clinton along with Bush as running things when “the damage was mostly done…” rather then just all Bush’s fault.
    I think Alan Greenspan, Bawney Fwank and Chris Dood should always be named as well as their contributions to this debacle were trememdous.
    Unfortunately, I agree with a previous poster about your comment of the “white trash element” and racism toward white folks being perfectly acceptable. But the same comment only changing the word “white” for “black” would have gotten your post labeled racist on the national news. What is fair about that.
    I also interpret that “white trash element” comment to be descriptive of your attitude of the TEA party folks. What snappy, short phrase might you use to describe the folks at ACORN?
    “Chump-of-the-Century” does not adequately describe Obama. “Liar-of-the-Century” is more apropo. It is really ok to call him what he is. Accurately describing this man does not mean you are a racist. It means that you are smart enough to recognize when a person in high office is lying through their teeth because he thinks you are too stupid to know he is lying to you. You can put lipstick on a liar, but he is still a liar. Admit it.

  74. CynicalOne April 26, 2010 at 3:25 pm #

    “Myself, I feel somewhat prepared for harder times by having learned to live like a smart poor person, poorer than I actually am.”
    Lynn,
    I enjoy your posts and your website. We are trying to do the same here. It’s a work in progress.
    The hens give us 6 eggs/day on average, we’ll have a few steers grazing the pasture in the next week or two – one for the freezer in late fall/early winter. The pond is stocked with fish.
    DH has built raised beds where two beautiful oak trees once stood before the ice storm a few years ago. They are now growing beautiful spinach, lettuces and radishes. Tomatoes, peppers, cabbage and asparagus are growing in the big garden, with squash, peas, beans, corn, and more to be planted this week as weather permits.
    Four rain barrels collect rainwater for the chickens and for watering the raised beds and various ornamental plantings.
    We purchased a front-load washer a couple of years ago which has lowered our water consumption considerably. Laundry is drying in the breeze on the clothesline DH built for me a couple of years ago.
    I mill fresh flour and make most of our bread, cook and bake most of our food “from scratch”.
    It amuses me how some of the folks who live around us complain about their electric bills and the cost/quality of food (and their weight!) but wouldn’t dream of doing any of the things we’re doing… and then drive 25 miles round trip, 2-3 times a week, to go to a gym to “work out”. lol!
    Good luck to them.

  75. Zev Paiss April 26, 2010 at 3:59 pm #

    Jim – I have to assume that the some of the power that be simply can’t believe that this house of cards will really come down. And the vast majority are just to scared because they do not understand how to present any kind of “positive” perspective on what we should or can do instead. It is the problem of the Emperor having no clothes.
    On another note I would like to strongly suggest that in your upcoming sequel, you include some example of someone who installed solar panels and has become the local “utility” even if all they do is offer rechargeable batteries for the folks in their part of the state.

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  76. ian807 April 26, 2010 at 4:19 pm #

    Jim,
    Nobody in government (including Mr. Obama) wants to talk about this, because nobody has any answers. I get the feeling sometimes when I watch C-Span that these guys aren’t talking so much as whistling by the graveyard.
    Just a few years ago, they were the all powerful elite. The smarter ones, the ones who’ve looked at our economy, and what’s happening with oil are scared – scared little boys and girls who don’t know what to do.
    Oh, none of them would admit that. Some won’t even admit that to themselves. Some are in such denial that they don’t even see the problem. Not so many now. Word’s getting around.
    And frankly, there’s nothing anybody *can* do. Nobody can create oil, or magically reduce the debt in a way that won’t wreck the economy.
    All we can do is wait for the storm.

  77. Bill Simpson April 26, 2010 at 4:24 pm #

    The ‘debt doesn’t matter’ idea, both in business and government, started gaining acceptance way back in the early 1980’s, as the baby boomers were starting to take control from the men who remembered the Great Depression, and fought in WW II. The boomers were better educated, and had a different mind-set. They were much more open to the financial unconventional. Fewer had a strict moral compass. As we will soon discover, liberalism is not a good concept in finance.
    The amazing thing is that only the coming of peak oil will cause the coming collapse, because the USA, being in possession of the world’s reserve currency, can, by issuing debt, create all the money it needs, for a far longer time than would seem logical, without having the system collapse.
    Many very smart people, got extremely wealthy by creating the debt that is now everywhere. I recently read an article in the NYT about a bunch of hedge fund fellows who took over a thriving matress company, then created needless company debt by selling bonds. They used some of the money that they got from selling the bonds, to pay themselves huge bonuses. The company is left with the debt. In what business school did they learn that? It is nothing more than legal looting. And some of the people who originated and sold subprime mortgages, are living on their own Caribbean islands.
    Jim is right. It’s going down, but not tomorrow. Not until $200 a barrel oil arrives. They can print money, but no one can make crude oil. Start your food stockpiling when it reaches $150 a barrel.

  78. mean dovey cooledge April 26, 2010 at 4:34 pm #

    The southern vernacular architecture had a foundation raised above ground with a design that allowed for cross-venilation. If youve ever seen a florida cracker style house you know what i mean. i dont have air conditioning and only august is rough but it is far from unbearable; ceiling fans help. so does “dealing with it”.

  79. erikSF99 April 26, 2010 at 4:54 pm #

    J Lee, no one needs to worry about anti-semitism. The neocons who laid out our U.S./Nato world war campaign were mostly Jews (see Gilad Atzmon, it’s okay for Jews to call themselves Jews but not for non-jews to call Jews Jews), the thieves of Wall Street, all the big financial cheeses of Obama’s administration, the Hollywood studio chiefs are Jews, AIPAC rules Congress and the media and read this from the great Israeli peace activists Uri Avnery: http://www.counterpunch.org/avnery08032004.html Six of the 7 oligarchs who plundered Russia were Jewish. This much trouble caused theoretically by “one” group already and this much theoretical control by them and no groundswell of anti-semitism is evident anywhere. It ain’t going to happen. There is no anti-semitism. That’s just trotted out–as you allude to in your comment–whenever someone heads for the source of the problems: our financial and political oligarchs, our congressional/industrial war machinery, apartheid in Israel, AIPAC. It’s more a convenient coincidence and benefit to themselves that all these people happen to be Jews. They always get to trot out the fear of resurgent anti-semitism if you point your finger their way. 98% of people have no idea of these (irrelevant) tribal groupings in places of power–and if those same powerful people would stop trotting out the worry over anti-semitism then we could get to 99.9%. If enough people ever wake up to defuse or take away the power of the American oligarchs anti-semitism will play no role whatsoever. And rightly so.

  80. Malahat April 26, 2010 at 4:58 pm #

    Does a “world made by hand” await us?
    As Thomas Friedman would say, the next six months will be crucial.

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  81. MINDfool April 26, 2010 at 4:59 pm #

    I try to be mindful but occasionally am mindfool.
    As I’ve noted before, while the scale is huge carbon petrochemicals can be synthesized using (solar?) energy:
    Olah’s Book:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol_economy
    Recent work on methanol synthesis from CO2
    (yes CO2):

    http://www.physorg.com/news159098987.html
    Energy is not a mystery. Thermodynamics is a well-understood science. Politics is not as well understood.

  82. Majella April 26, 2010 at 5:40 pm #

    So, why are we all so surprised about this? Andrew Jackson TOLD us all, 190 years ago, this would be the outcome of allowing the banks to own the power to create money…

  83. Chubbz Molinoire April 26, 2010 at 7:23 pm #

    Jim I have genuinely gotten a kick out of your “clusterfuck” diatribes, but I gotta call you out on a few things on your latest: First – no pension funds EVER buy “equity tranches” of CDO’s. Second, Obama as “Herbert Hoover on steroids”? WTF? Hoover has gotten a hugely bad rap. The man’s presidency was cursed, but he was perhaps one of the more admirable humans to ever sit in the oval office – a logistical genius whose efforts saved over a million lives from starvation post World War I in the low countries. look it up. yet people gush over FDR, who sold more souls down her river than anyone. And speaking of our current prez, just what the hell has “Sportin’ Life” obama ever done – aside from the dubious distinction of being the first ever editor in chief of the Harvard Law Review without so much as a “Note” or “Comment” to his name. The man is pure flim flam, as empty a suit as his predecessor, Bushling II.

  84. Chubbz Molinoire April 26, 2010 at 7:29 pm #

    actually, it was substandard RIVETS – the plates themselves were sound. – Chubbz, ex HT3, usnr

  85. asoka April 26, 2010 at 7:33 pm #

    Unconventional Ideas asks: “Your point?”
    Read curmedgeon. He conveyed my point perfectly…

    curmedgeon | April 26, 2010 2:54 PM While Jim is probably right about the long term trends, doom is always right around the corner, say in the next 6 months, and it always has been for years. This kinda weakens the credibility to say the least. I suppose a “black swan” event could come along and tip us into the abyss, but in the meantime it’s assumed that change in the sense of “happy motoring suburban nirvana” coming to an abrupt end is just not going to happen in the way Jim talks about, but may happen incrementally. Imperial decay and decline seems to take time in history and that’s what this is all about.

    Takes time… about 47 years. In that time it is possible humans will exhibit creativity and innovation and discovery as they have in past history. That possibility seems to be discounted in favor of a “We are so fucked” attitude that is paralyzing. That is my point. The same one I’ve had for years now in reading various ways things are about to imminently collapse and never do.

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  86. bproman April 26, 2010 at 7:39 pm #

    April showers bring May flowers and for just $6.66 you can order an extra large genetically modified corn cob pipe designed in our labratories by over worked and under paid workers just like you and me. Hurry now and we’ll throw in some imported wacky tabacky, as this offer is sure not to last. Visa and Mastercard accepted. Get it now before you get your pink slip.

  87. asoka April 26, 2010 at 8:04 pm #

    …aside from the dubious distinction of being the first ever editor in chief of the Harvard Law Review without so much as a “Note” or “Comment” to his name. The man is pure flim flam…

    PARTIAL LIST OF BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA’S WORK
    Obama, Barack. The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream. New York: Crown Publishers, 2006.
    Obama, Barack. The Politics of Hope: The Words of Barack Obama. Cape Town: Zebra Press, 2003.
    Obama, Barack. Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. New York: Times Books, 1995.
    Obama, Barack. “Bound to the Word – Guardians of Truth and Knowledge, Librarians Must Be Thanked for Their Role As Champions of Privacy, Literacy, Independent Thinking, and, Most of All, Reading.” American Libraries. 36. 7 (2005): 48.
    Obama, Barack. “EBONY’S 60th Anniversary – The Political Movement In Black America.” Ebony. 61. 1 (2005): 116.
    Obama, Barack. “The War We Need to Win: We Must Look for a Political Solution.” Vital Speeches of the Day. 73 (2007).
    Obama, Barack. “TIME TO TALK – America Will Have a Brief Window of Opportunity When Bush Leaves Office. To Take Advantage It Needs a President Unafraid to Meet with Friend and Foe Alike.” Newsweek. 12 (2007): 40.
    Obama, Barack. “Campaign 2008 – The First Articles in a Series Leading Up to the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election – Renewing American Leadership – After Iraq, We May Be Tempted to Turn Inward. That Would Be a Mistake. The American Moment Is Not Over, but It Must Be Seized Anew. We Must Bring the War to a Responsible End and Then Renew Our Leadership — Military, Diplomatic, Moral — To Confront New Threats and Capitalize on New Opportunities. America Cannot Meet This Century’s Challenges Alone; the World Cannot Meet Them Without America.” Foreign Affairs. 86. 4 (2007): 2.
    OBAMA, BARACK. “Only a Political Solution for Iraq.” New Perspectives Quarterly. 25. 2 (2008): 54-57.
    obama, barack. “Our Kids, Our Future.” Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education. 107. 2 (2008): 198-201.
    Obama, Sen Barack. “”A More Perfect Union”.” The Black Scholar. 38. 1 (2008): 17.
    Obama, Barack. “2008 Democratic National Convention: Keeping the American Promise.” Vital Speeches of the Day. 74 (2008).
    Obama, Barack. “A More Perfect Union: Racism.” Vital Speeches of the Day. 74 (2008).
    Obama, Barack. “Choices for a Rising Generation.” Teaching Tolerance. 34. 34 (2008): 45.
    Obama, Barack. “Organizing Essentials.” Social Policy. 38. 4 (2008): 8.
    Obama, Senator Barack. “Affordable Health Care for All Americans: The Obama-Biden Plan.” JAMA : the Journal of the American Medical Association. 300. 16 (2008): 1927.

  88. Eleuthero April 26, 2010 at 8:05 pm #

    I appreciate your kind words, Qshtik.
    Indeed, the idea to “overlook” certain
    illegalities in the USA while throwing
    the book at others is a mockery of the
    idea of JUSTICE.
    In his weekly missive, Jim was a bit
    disingenuous, I thought, when he thought
    that illegal aliens were ILLEGAL but then
    he crapped all over a state (AZ) that
    actually wanted to do something about it.
    I don’t think too many Americans have a
    perspective on how many BILLIONS of dollars
    for FREE healthcare and bi-lingual education
    are spent on illegals. Moreover, since
    illegals almost always get paid for jobs
    UNDER THE TABLE they are also defrauding
    the tax system leading to lower government
    revenues which leads to the cutting of
    services for LEGAL Americans.
    “Insane” almost doesn’t even go half way
    to describing such a system.
    Cheers,
    Eleuthero

  89. Mike Moskos April 26, 2010 at 8:07 pm #

    Well, this week Jim is sounding like Ron Paul and the folks at the Mises Institute (Austrian economics). They predicted this mess when the economy was going gangbusters based solely on the Fed’s counterfeiting of money (you can call it “printing” if you want). The only plus I can see is that Mr. Greenspan put up a lot of condo towers in the New Urbanist tradition here in Miami, which are revitalizing the nicer parts parts of the city.
    The operative moment was during the campaign when candidate Obama, in the tradition of social engineers worldwide, came out quickly for the bank bailouts. Candidate McCain went into hiding, presumably to consider his options: do I win this election here and now by opposing the bailouts and have a hell of the first 2-3 years as President, and watching the banking cartel do everything possible to ruin me personally and the economy generally or do I just go with the flow, “bailout” all comers and ensure the bankers still loan to the US government? We know he chose the latter and given the choice between two men essentially offering up the same plan, the voters went with the greater orator.
    One more thing: Herbert Hoover was also a big time social engineer/”do gooder” busy body. We remember him as a deer caught in the headlights, but he was nothing of the sort. Virtually everything FDR did was merely a massive intensification of what Hoover had started–FDR was just willing to venture much more into unconstitutional grounds.
    Remember, the next big bubble to blow is worldwide government debt (Greece is just the tip of the iceberg). When that baby blows, all that inflation we’ve been exporting (on the strength of holding the reserve currency) will hurl its way back to us. We won’t need peak oil to force dire change, each individual dollar will simply buy a whole lot less petroleum. Heck, it might actually reach what we might call its “true value” (you try to do what a barrel of petroleum can do for $80–not the poorest peasant in the world will work as cheap as petroleum does).

  90. sfnate April 26, 2010 at 8:32 pm #

    My confusion grows by the hour. On paper, it all seems simple enough: we got mugged by punks in suits and they used the cash to buy fancy cars and prostitutes. Same old story. Where I get lost is in trying to decide whether we should be grateful to the thieves for stealing a future that wasn’t really worth it anyway, or very afraid that we’ll find ourselves battling in the streets for toilet paper and toothpaste. These aren’t mutually exclusive: certainly we can be grateful that Rush Limbaugh and Jerry Springer and all the rest will be silenced forever by the rolling blackouts and the bankruptcy of their employers; and we can imagine how the shortages and deprivations will cause anger and frustration and violence. But suspended somewhere in between is the question of what we can become if the mythology of progress disintegrates into a fractured narrative of incoherent need. Everywhere you look you can see it starting to crumble: now, in Arizona, where the ethnic cleansing begins, not because the people who live there are evil, but because the banality and increasing hopelessness of their existence has driven them into the arms of a harsh and punitive legality, one that promises to arrest the decline of their falling status, even though there’s nothing that can be done now short of genocide to repair the present and return it safely to a past that never existed. But these things are happening now, and I’m baffled by how quickly this is all beginning to unravel, a carefully constructed western mythology just coming all to pieces, and yet everywhere people persist in their daily denial of the obvious, like the hapless citizens of Pompeii watching the volcanic plume grow, until finally the suffocating cloud of their ruin overtakes them, and shape of their ignorance is preserved forever beneath the ash. When they–who or whatever they are–finally excavate our story from the strata of history we are destined to occupy, I wonder what they will find in that still moment.

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  91. george April 26, 2010 at 9:04 pm #

    Who, but a person as skeptical as JHK, could have predicted that overpopulation, peak oil, a financial meltdown of biblical proportions and acute climate change would come to a head at exactly the same time and in such a way as to doom our very civilization?

  92. Tituspullo8780 April 26, 2010 at 9:26 pm #

    All you ‘gloom and doomers’ should stop slavishly listening to JHK’s warped financial predictions and bad economic analysis. Start thinking for yourselves.
    JHK has made too many dumb predictions about US economic collapse, which in his view – is always a few months off. The stock market is always getting ready to crash (in particular), and Walmart is always about to go out of business. He has pushed this crap for years. While he has some good ideas about what could transpire in the future as a result of Peak Oil, but he is not a Delphic seer.
    While you are at it – stop praying for The President, the Republicans, the gov. or the Tea Partiers to save you. Someone posted here that ‘Obama is an empty suit”. That nails it. Here is an articulate guy with about as much understanding of the problems facing this country as G.W. Bush had (*maybe even less). The crap just sounds better coming from an articulate, and well-dressed brother.
    Stop worrying about the impending collapse of society, and start thinking about ‘HOW YOU CAN PROFIT FROM PEAK OIL.’ There is a lot of money that can be made betting Peak Oil scenarios. I have done my best to invest in oil, nat gas, gold and silver (over the last 5 years – since I became aware of PO in a WSJ article.). Clearly I’m not a highly paid wall street professional. Despite that, I am $50K shy of hitting my first goal of a One million US and I’m not even 40. I started investing with $4000.
    The way I look at it, the more money I have, the easier it will help me protect you my wife, kids, and family from the worst effects of Peak Oil:
    – Possible supply chain failures
    – Gas shortages (I now own a Vespa, on top of my BMW. 75 miles to the gallonJ
    – I also want to buy some land soon, when I get afford it, and they equip it will a well, solar panels, and a few acres to produce food (*if it comes to that).
    So – stop praying for The President, the republicans, the gov. or the Tea Partiers to save you. Someone posted here that ‘Obama is an empty suit”. That nails it. Here is a well-meaning, articulate guy with about as much understanding of the problems facing this country as G.W. Bush had (*maybe even less). The crap just sounds better coming from an articulate and well-dressed brother.
    Instead of wasting time with JHK’s unchanging rant, read his books and move on to follow what money men are doing: Start with Richard Rainwater:
    The Rainwater Prophecy (http://tinyurl.com/gun9a) and then look at other investors are positioning themselves for Peak Oil. T.Boone Pickens, Jim Rogers, George Soros…even Warren Buffet seems to be positioning himself for Peak oil (check out his petro China investment, the mechanics of the BMI deal, or the recent BYD investment).
    So, re-focus your energy and makes some fat cash with the knowledge that you’ve picked up learning about peak oil. U can do it, and you can start today.
    I hope some of you are bright enough to listen, so good luck!

  93. welles April 26, 2010 at 9:31 pm #

    Wow, such hyperbole & mischaracterization of our admittedly dire predicament. Now we’ve got “…ethnic cleansing” in Arizona where “…nothing short of genocide” will fix matters.
    Also, we’ll soon face “…rolling blackouts” and people skirmishing in the streets over toilet paper shortages.
    And I’m really bummed that I’ll have to cancel The Rest of My Life because of “…acute climate change” & other Real Scary Stuff like “theres too many people on the planet [my made up quote]” and a conflagration of other calamities that have “…doom[ed] our very civilization.”
    Dudes, go back to your Dungeons & Dragons game with your dork friends who also live with their parents even though they’re in their 30’s & 40’s.
    Other than that you’re all okay, peace to you.
    But Jeeeeezus.

  94. keratomileusis April 26, 2010 at 9:59 pm #

    it’s interesting to see how this is all going down from japan, where contrition is always part of an admission of guilt, which refreshingly occurs with regularity irrespective of its sincerity. to wit, compare the reaction of toyota officials to that of enron or gsacks. one of the things i love about living here is that people always say “sorry” even though they are not fault, again irrespective of actual sincerity, but isn’t it nice to be “sorry” instead of denial?
    i love it when i am welcomed by a chorus of “irrashaimase!” (welcome) from the staff of any starbucks when i drop $3.80 for a cup of java. and oh yes, they say thank you when i leave…
    i’ll keep watching how this all “goes down” from the other end of the pacific, hoping, but not expecting… best to live each day as a gift, which it is…

  95. asia April 26, 2010 at 10:34 pm #

    Hey tinkerbell,
    ‘The Audacity of Hope’…Id say its audacious to be ‘hopeful’ now. as do many others who read here!

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  96. asia April 26, 2010 at 10:36 pm #

    ’80-90% of mutual fund ‘managers’ can’t even beat the market’
    How can one beat the market when they ARE the market?
    if or when people bail on MMF and MF, watch out!

  97. CaptSpaulding April 26, 2010 at 10:47 pm #

    To me, the term White Trash denotes an attitude rather than economic status. Plenty of poor people are decent folks doing the best they can. I came from a poor family and worked my way up in the world. Some of the poor people we lived around were White Trash indeed. Drinking, fighting, committing crimes, uneducated & proud of it. I lived in a shanty town, and was well aware of the nature of many of my neighbors. Many of them were just not very bright

  98. asoka April 26, 2010 at 11:50 pm #

    Several weeks ago I typed these words on CFN:
    Drill baby drill = Rape America First
    I criticized both Obama and Palin for their drill offshore strategies.
    Today the Coast Guard is confirming the presience of my words:

    Coast Guard crews raced to protect the Gulf of Mexico coastline Monday as a remote sub tried to shut off an underwater oil well that’s gushing 42,000 gallons a day from the site of a wrecked drilling platform.

    If crews cannot stop the leak quickly, they might need to drill another well to redirect the oil, a laborious process that could take weeks while oil washes up along a broad stretch of shore, from the white-sand beaches of Florida’s Panhandle to the swamps of Louisiana. The oil spill already stretches across more than 1,800 square miles of water in the Gulf Of Mexico

  99. asoka April 26, 2010 at 11:52 pm #

    Correction:
    Today the Coast Guard is confirming the prescience of my words

  100. asoka April 26, 2010 at 11:55 pm #

    asia, my blood brother, the darker the CFNers paint the picture, the more audacious hope becomes… thereby confirming Barack Obama’s prescience.

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  101. Eleuthero April 27, 2010 at 2:39 am #

    First, dude, bragging about your investment
    acumen and your bank account balance is tacky
    in the extreme. Can you spit farther, fuck
    longer, and does your American Express card
    limit exceed all metric numbers? Sheesh.
    Second, “geniuses” like you who only seek
    to PROFIT from problems are PART of the
    problem. Most investing is LUCK and
    that’s why even the greats like Mario
    Gabelli often fall on their ass for
    decades at a time. Buffett has been
    underperforming the S&P for some time
    now. Does that mean you’re better
    than they are? It just means you
    made the right bets at the right time.
    It doesn’t enhance the credibility of
    even a SINGLE other word you utter.
    Finally, we all have SOME arguments with
    some part of Jim’s missives but I doubt
    that Jim expects people to be DISCIPLES
    who wait with baited breath for every
    word he utters.
    Jim’s predictions are LONG TERM predictions
    and that is abundantly obvious from his
    “Long Emergency”. If he occasionally uses
    a bit of literary panache to claim that
    something is months away I can live with
    that if I agree with the overall direction
    he points at.
    Finally, after TWO stock market crashes in
    a decade and the phoniest recovery I’ve seen
    in my life (I am 58), it’s pretty cocky of
    you to proclaim him wrong when precedent
    appears to be on HIS side.
    That MONEY you suppose will protect you
    when crisis hits might not be worth a
    hammer, a hoe, or a wheelbarrow. Then
    again, since you see a future which is
    mainly just an orderly “tweak” of the
    present (i.e., with no damage to your
    brokerage accounts or the exchange
    value of your assets), it’s obvious
    that you’ve fallen prey to the same
    puffery that money seems to confer on
    all people who JUST obtained it.
    It always seems like it’s the NEW
    RICH who are so eager to show off
    a SMALL fortune while the OLD RICH
    actually seek to HIDE it.
    But, hey, thanks for the parody …
    whether you intended for your words
    to be that or not.
    Eleuthero

  102. Eleuthero April 27, 2010 at 2:48 am #

    What you DON’T see (not that anyone really
    does) is the PANIC represented in the
    decision to engage in radical, offshore,
    East Coast drilling.
    Obama’s controversial decision to drill
    may be politically incorrect but I’d
    make a sizable bet that it’s based on
    his energy advisors giving him the
    straight dope on the intermediate term
    future of supplies.
    I think his decision is wrong, too, but
    not for the same reasons as yourself.
    I think it’s TOO LATE for these reserves
    to make any difference.
    Yes, hope really IS audacious when there’s
    not much factual basis for it. So many
    of his ideas might have worked if we
    started on them THIRTY YEARS AGO. Like
    his high-speed rail plan. Those things
    are many millions of dollars PER MILE.
    Like we have the money. Sigh.
    If Obama were a REAL visionary, he’d
    be subsidizing LOCAL FARMING and the
    REAGRARIANIZAION OF CONCRETE. Dig that
    crap up and reclaim the earth!! Instead,
    he’s a shill for really expensive and
    economically infeasible (and belated)
    infrastructure projects that add almost
    nothing to true sustainability at a
    nationwide level.
    Eleuthero

  103. Eleuthero April 27, 2010 at 2:59 am #

    I appreciate a realist. These days,
    everybody sneers at them and mocks
    their “negativity”. However, just
    as the first step of an alcoholic’s
    recovery is admitting that he’s an
    alcoholic, one must admit just HOW
    negative circumstances are in order
    to have an appropriate sense of
    PANIC and ALARM.
    You’re right, Ian. If we try to go
    solar, our lack of MONEY will stop
    us long before resource shortages
    stop PV panel construction. Same
    with high-speed rail.
    We’ve waited so long that the “solution”
    to throw money at a bunch of hip-sounding
    projects is a cruel hoax. We don’t have
    a pot to piss in and the hyperinflation
    necessary to produce money from nowhere
    will create social disorder just like
    it did in Weimar, Germany.
    I completely agree with your “whistling
    past the graveyard” analysis. Completely.
    I think Obama is just a kind of front man
    for a KLEPTOCRACY which is trying to steal
    anything not tied down because the
    kleptocrats want to SURVIVE and they will
    use their means of power to ensure that.
    If Obama gave a real damn about the average
    American’s plight, he wouldn’t have kept
    Gates as his Defense Secretary, he wouldn’t
    have hired Summers, Rubin, Geithner, and
    other dirtbags, he wouldn’t have reappointed
    Bernanke, and his “tough guy” routine about
    the TBTF banks would have happened in April,
    2009 … NOT last week.
    Bread and circuses, my friend. Bread and
    circuses.
    Eleuthero

  104. scarlet runner April 27, 2010 at 8:44 am #

    The only bank I really trust is the soil. If you make regular deposits in the form of compost, minerals, humus and the like you generally get richer soil and a better return of nutritious food.

  105. diogen April 27, 2010 at 9:04 am #

    >Obama’s controversial decision to drill…based >on …straight dope
    Somehow I don’t think so. LOTS of money will be made by some folks in the process. It’s really sad because we still have an opportunity to mitigate the worst shock waves of the upcoming Peak Oil, and it’s ridiculously cheap: all Obama has to do is go on Nat’l TV, EVERY WEEK, and say “My fellow Americans, small cars are patriotic, salvage your children’s future and demand from your automakers and your legislators cars that go at least 40 miles per gallon”. Or something like that. What’s the use of his charisma and leadership if he can’t be a spark that starts a revolution? Masses follow the elites as someone here said. So, by drastically reducing transportation energy expenditures would free up capital to invest in the transportation systems with a future, be it rail, subways, or whatever. Half of the people I know drive trucks and SUVs that range from 8 mpg to 18 mpg, and almost all of them can function perfectly well with cars like Honda Fit or even the Smart car.
    It’s insane that people drive trucks as lifestyle vehicles… blindly driving toward a precipice, metaphorically speaking….
    So, Obama’s Energy Policy is all about big money, same old story…

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  106. wagelaborer April 27, 2010 at 9:53 am #

    Well, thanks for holding back Diogen.
    I agree that some professions take much more time and brains to master, that’s why I think people should be paid to go to school. If all labor were paid equally, even while in school, the belief that 6 more years of school entitles someone to decades of higher pay more than someone who didn’t go to school would dissipate.
    We all get approximately the same time here on Earth, unless hit by a car, so why should some people’s time be worth so much more?
    That doesn’t make sense to me.
    Plus, I know a carpenter with a doctorate in Philosophy, a painter with a master’s in English, and two more carpenters with bachelor degrees in Liberal Arts and History, respectively. They are smart and they spent time and money in college, but they are not compensated for it monetarily in this society, which promises great riches in return for investment in higher education. This is a farce, and a way for the FIRE to profit from young people.
    Perhaps you have to be a nurse to lose the reflexive doctor worship that so many have. The reason that doctors get paid so much is that the AMA restricts the supply, not that their education makes them so brilliant.
    And many of them are in it just for the money. Wouldn’t you rather have someone do it for the love of healing and not the love of money?

  107. asoka April 27, 2010 at 9:58 am #

    Like his high-speed rail plan. Those things are many millions of dollars PER MILE. Like we have the money. Sigh.

    Millions of dollars PER MILE? So, we could build 720 miles per day with what we are spending on war.
    http://www.costofwar.com/
    Wouldn’t take very many days and we would have a high speed rail system in place. It is only a question of priorities and I rarely hear any comment about the fiscal waste on war.

  108. wagelaborer April 27, 2010 at 10:01 am #

    It is dishonest of you to quote one sentence and not the next which shows very clearly that I am talking about a society in which everyone works and contributes to the common good, and not a society in which the evil guvment hands out goodies to the undeserving, as you seem to believe that socialism is.
    We have a society that is capable of feeding and sheltering everyone, and we have it although millions of people work at worthless and/or destructive jobs and millions more can’t find work and thousands suck off billions of dollars from the productive ones.
    So if we can do this with so many non-productive people, why can’t we do it if everyone worked in a productive way?
    Just because the fiat money is shut off. OK, now society has to collapse.
    That doesn’t make any sense to me.

  109. Colin April 27, 2010 at 10:01 am #

    “(” …oversized tin motor launch… ”
    The HMS Titanic was a very large ship for its time and _not_ made of tin, rather plates of supposedly high-grade steel riveted together. Unfortunately, or fortunately in the context of giving our time more nonsense to spin and churn, the plate steel was of inferior quality in the context of the cold water environment of the north Atlantic Ocean.
    Please… do due diligence research before you post.)”
    Sorry to have to out-pedant a pedant, but the Titanic was dedignated RMS (Royal Mail Ship) not HMS (His Majesty’s Ship).
    Due diligence eh!

  110. wagelaborer April 27, 2010 at 10:03 am #

    You’re that close to a million dollars and you can’t afford to buy land?
    Where you looking, Monte Carlo?

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  111. diogen April 27, 2010 at 10:04 am #

    >Wouldn’t you rather have someone do it for the >love of healing and not the love of money?
    Sure, but that would take a different species. We’re talking here about Homo Sapiens. That’s one of the problems with socialism/communism, they’re completely divorced from the reality of Human Nature. They “solve” this problem by stating the need to change Human Nature (a species to be called Homo Sovieticus or some such thing), but Human Nature is probably immutable, what do you think?

  112. wagelaborer April 27, 2010 at 10:10 am #

    Last year an inland hurricane hit here (once in a hundred year storm, they told us. Yeah, pre global warming, I’d say.)
    Anyway, the insurance company paid for a new roof, so I got a shiny metal one.
    We had 85 degree days last month, and the house stayed cool all day. Woohoo!
    I don’t use air conditioning either, but my house usually got VERY hot about 3pm, when I had shingles. Then it stayed hot until about midnight, even though I opened the windows and turned on the fans when night came.

  113. Qshtik April 27, 2010 at 10:12 am #

    That’s one of the problems with socialism/communism, they’re completely divorced from the reality of Human Nature.
    An adherent steps forward.

  114. wagelaborer April 27, 2010 at 10:13 am #

    I’m guessing that you’re being sarcastic, George, but Kevin Philipps wrote a book, (American Theocracy) about those very problems, plus right wing Christian nuts.
    http://www.amazon.com/dp/067003486X

  115. diogen April 27, 2010 at 10:15 am #

    >we could build 720 miles per day with what we >are spending on war.
    Also subways, rail lines, libraries, clinics on every block. Right now I’d just ask for sidewalks on all city streets and shelters and benches at city bus stops. The other day I saw the most undignified scene — an elderly lady was waiting at a bus stop, and there being no bench or shelter, she was sitting on the planting strip lawn, 24″ away from cars and huge trucks zooming by at 45 m/h. Most bus stops in this city have no benches/shelters. It was said about the old USSR that it was a 3rd-world country with the 1st-world theoretical science and military. I think in many ways we’re heading to be a 3rd-world country (outside a few wealthy cities and suburbs) with the 1st world military and corporate finance…

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  116. diogen April 27, 2010 at 10:17 am #

    >An adherent steps forward.
    You could’t be further away from reality, my friend. Perhaps your inference circuits are down today 🙂

  117. The Mook April 27, 2010 at 10:19 am #

    It is nice to here a rich guy apoligize. It certainly won’t happen in this country. And thank God for Toyota and Honda and even Datsun. Without them America would still be producing Pintos and K-Cars with Phase-1 emission controls. Not only that, they would still be breaking down every 15.000 miles. It is cute however, to see Howie Long standing next to Japanese clones. The only thing he says that is true is the fact that General Motors couldn’t make a decent lawn mower. For the record I own both American and Japanese vehicles and knock-on-wood, they all run well, if taken care of, these days.

  118. The Mook April 27, 2010 at 10:20 am #

    Hear

  119. Colin April 27, 2010 at 10:22 am #

    For me it all comes down to population. When I was born there were c.2.5 billion people on the planet, now there are nearly seven billion, and rising. A majority of these are exposed to the advertisers’ dream of the good life, and given that the good life we enjoy is built on diminishing and otherwise damaged resources, and cannot be sustained even for us, there is going to be universal anger and resentment when reality bites. It will bite hard too and nobody will be unaffected.
    I fear for those who think buying a farm somewhere away from a population centre will save them. Throughout history small farmers have been the first to suffer when the legions of the dispossessed and hungry go on the warpath; they will, I’m afraid, be enserfed and forced to work to feed the few who are prepared to kill indiscriminately and so take what they will.
    Look to the past and see the future.
    Crops need care and tending. A bunch of bandits can torch a field in seconds, if the peasants don’t agree to hand over all they have in return for their lives.
    Great historical revolutions, such as the American and the French, were underwritten by a rule of law and property ownership. The next revolution will be no such respecter: universal economic meltdown combined with hunger and cold are hard to control by law when the establishment administering it is destroyed.

  120. diogen April 27, 2010 at 10:28 am #

    >Great historical revolutions, such as the >American and the French, were underwritten by a >rule of law
    Which French revolution are you thinking of? The one with the guillotines and the rivers of blood in the streets, and Robespierre deciding who will live and who will die?
    I agree with you though, the countryside can get very messy when the law and order breaks down.

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  121. wagelaborer April 27, 2010 at 10:37 am #

    No, I think that humans contain multitudes.
    I think that we can be vicious, horrible creatures or kind and loving creatures, depending on our circumstances.
    As the capitalist economy collapses, we see a push for the nasty brutal response called fascism on Fox News and right wing radio.
    I prefer the kinder, gentler sharing approach.

  122. diogen April 27, 2010 at 10:43 am #

    >I prefer the kinder, gentler sharing approach.
    Of course, who doesn’t? Too bad our species preaches but doesn’t practice it…

  123. Tituspullo8780 April 27, 2010 at 10:44 am #

    Eleuthero. This thing about bragging, and old money versus new money is a joke. My guess is that you are neither. The tell? That you would actually consider less that a million to be wealth. It’s a bad payday at JPMC. But, I’ll address your points, since I think your blatant stupidity could hurt some of the people reading this.
    >>Buffett has been underperforming the S&P/no one can ‘really’ beat the market.
    Buffett’s specific problem is size, which he himself flagged over 5 years ago in one of Berkshire Hathaway’s annual reports. As an investor has more money to manage it becomes harder to beat the overall market. Why? Because your trades move the market itself and that process narrows your investment choices to fewer and fewer high market cap stocks. E.g. put a few billion into a small market cap stock and you send the price to the moon. Sell out, and you crash the price back to Earth. This is a problem I’m unlucky enough NOT to have.
    >>As for the rest of your hogwash about just ‘getting lucky’ with my bets.
    What you are referring to is Efficient Market Hypothesis (*Google it – for anyone that feels like finding out where this fool parrots his ideas). The idea is that no one can beat the market long-term because the market efficiently processes information and is correctly priced at all times. Or put another way – the stock market is basically unemotional. If you believe that, then piss off and go stay poor. Besides, there are more investment vehicles than just stocks. Try futures, calls, puts, precious metals, shorting stocks, etc.
    >>profiting from Peak Oil is part of the problem
    How do you figure that BS? To come to this conclusions – you would have to know the intentions of everything I do, and not plan to do, with whatever financial resources I have.
    Everyone gather around the campfire and listen to this:
    Do you believe that most people living in the US, Asia and Western Europe have become aware of Peak Oil? (*from scanning this blog, I think the answer is likely no).
    If your assumption is correct, then the markets have NOT fully digested Peak Oil as a market-moving factor. That is YOUR advantage in the market – you’re betting against people who don’t fully understand that Peak Oil will wreak tremendous havoc in the economy. Think about it like this – Every investment has a counter party – someone that is betting against you. I short sub MBS, someone on the other side is long MBS. That is how the market balances out.
    I think people who believe that Peak Oil is real and who are rational human beings, should profit from what they have figured out. That will help do more good in terms of alerting the rest of society to the grave danger that we currently face.
    It certainly will do more than pissing and moaning like a grumpy old man that we are screwed, and nothing can be done to fix it.
    BTW, JHK has made some startlingly bad calls on the market, and always has a bunch of idiots cheering his sideways view of reality (“Way to go, Jim. Great post!”) Go back and read his archives. Come up to speed on what you’re talking about Urethra or Eleuthero – whatever your handle is.

  124. Tituspullo8780 April 27, 2010 at 10:57 am #

    There is ‘land’ and there is ‘land’. I’m in CA, and believe that land price here have much further to fall. The places I’m looking may not be Monte Carlo – but given some of these outrageous prices I’ve seen – might as well be.
    I also think there is more to make in other assets right now. To your key point, I guess i could head off to Utah or something. Just not my preference.

  125. diogen April 27, 2010 at 11:07 am #

    Titus, don’t neglect to invest some of your wealth into weapons, and be prepared to hire mercenaries to use these weapons to defend you. You also need to build a castle in the middle of your farm to defend you. These days, you’d need 100’s of millions for that, so you have a long way to go… And with your attitude, I’d bet lots of peole will want to take what you have, so learn to sleep lightly…

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  126. Tituspullo8780 April 27, 2010 at 11:24 am #

    I don’t disagree that everyone should dramatically cut their own personal energy consumption. As for Obama getting on TV and telling everyone to go buy a prius (now that the US Gov. owns GM) is just not in the cards.
    Also, there is lots of money to be made off this. If you think that Peak Oil had something to do with the housing bubble, and subsequent crash – then you have already watched the first wave of extreme wealth destruction and wealth creation that resulted from PO.

  127. Tituspullo8780 April 27, 2010 at 11:27 am #

    I’ll keep that in mind Diogen.
    Why don’t you share your plans. Let me guess – an eco-village in Berkeley? Maybe we can re-reclaim peoples park and turn it into a farm. OR – are you joining a militia to fight for our right to party with AK-47s.
    Come on buddy. I want to hear your game plan…

  128. Cash April 27, 2010 at 11:37 am #

    Suckers going down alright. One reason is because when it comes to money the average joe cannot think in a straight line.
    Personal finances as presented by the bullshit artists in the financial industry are so twisty turny and upside downy no one can make any sense of anything they say. There’s a reason for that. It’s because nothing they say makes any sense. It’s all designed to separate you from your money.
    Here’s another Big Lie that helped create the mess we’re in:
    -paying your mortgage is “forced saving”.
    It is not forced saving, it is the opposite. It is forced spending.
    The spin you get from the real estate industry is that when you make a mortgage payment you are building equity. What you are actually doing is paying down debt and paying interest. People think of equity as the same thing as savings. It is not.
    Equity in your house is based on an opinion on what your house could sell for. An opinion, nothing more. Debt and mortgage interest, on the other hand, are hard numbers based on a contract.
    Actual saving is also a hard number based on a contract. You put cash in a bank account and every month you get a bank statement showing how much you have accumulated. This is money the bank owes you, enforceable in court and FDIC insurable.
    If instead of paying a mortgage you saved up and paid cash for a house, let’s say $200,000, what you are doing is depleting your savings to buy a house. You no longer have savings, you have a house.
    You say you have $200,000 in equity in your house. Based on what? On what you bought it for. The issue is, so what? That number is history, now you are in opinion territory. Times change and sometimes they change really fast.

  129. Tituspullo8780 April 27, 2010 at 11:59 am #

    Cash. Now you are talking! Keep up the killer posts.
    Pullo

  130. mean dovey cooledge April 27, 2010 at 12:49 pm #

    I see this a lot on CFN, the admonition that a farm out of the city center won’t save you from the mad maxian scenario. While i am a bit of a doomer, i am a doomer with a little “d”. I read this blog for its entertainment value and the often hilarious comment section. I do not think Kunstler is the Oracle ( especially on timing) but i do find lots of interesting ideas presented in these posts. If i was a hollywood screenwriter, i’d be all over this for my big summer box office mega-disaster.
    They way i see it, armageddon is already here: it manifests itself in Dancing with the Stars, celebrity worship, frankenfood, a klepto political class and relentless corporate malfeasance. I wasnt making much $ as a painter (surprise!) i thought, ‘well, what do i have?” i had land. paid for land. so i started putting it to use growing food. Maybe as a hedge against future loss of buying power – definitely as a hedge against Monsanto. along the way, i found i preferred this lifestyle. its one of the few labors i actually “own”…unlike the work we do on the books. If i get killed someday by locust people looking for food -well, c’est la vie. it would be a sh*tstorm at that point anyway.

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  131. Cash April 27, 2010 at 12:52 pm #

    We’ve seen enough psychos in glass and steel towers to know that “Trash” transcends categories of income and personal wealth. I think enough of us have seen execs advancing up the ladder leaving a trail of broken people in their wake. But for a wobble of the cosmic dice they’d be dead eyed killers on death row.

  132. Qshtik April 27, 2010 at 12:55 pm #

    You could’t be further away from reality, my friend.
    The words of your 10:04AM post to which I replied were quite similar to words I wrote two days ago and the thrust of those words was virtually identical.
    Your words:
    That’s one of the problems with socialism/communism, they’re completely divorced from the reality of Human Nature.
    My words at 4:18P on 4/25:
    This [socialism’s] goal …….. can never and will never be reached because of the relentless opposing force of human nature.
    It sounds to me, Dio, that we’re “on the same page.”

  133. mean dovey cooledge April 27, 2010 at 12:59 pm #

    I had some 85 degree days last week too….you might be close. Today its in the 60’s as it should be. I have a tin roof…when it was still silver it reflected sunlight well and cooled the cabin…now its rust and absorbs light. I am right on a rather large active creek so it stays pretty cool here. I will replace my old tin with metal as soon as i can though. What color is yours? theres some strategy for winter and for summer considering the landscape.
    But as i am sure you know from experience, your body becomes accustomed to natural temps if you give it a chance. now in the summer when i go into public spaces, usually i am freezing. I wonder how many people think about what that comfort costs, in every sense of the word. I get it, though. you wear a suit and work on the 18th floor of a glass building you need air. everything we did was based on endless cheap energy.

  134. wagelaborer April 27, 2010 at 1:31 pm #

    I’m in Southern Illinois. It’s 52, according to my window thermometer.
    Yeah, I was bragging on my roof at work and someone said that I’ll be cold in the winter.
    But-
    In the winter the sun is low and brief, so the effect on the roof is much less than in the summer. I have a southern overhang on my roof, which blocks the sun in the summer and lets it shine on my house in the winter.
    I chose Gavalume, which is a shiny metal. I chose it because Stephen Chu said that if we all had white roofs, we could stop global warming. I have my doubts about that, but, what the hell? I was getting a new roof anyway.
    My carpenter with the degree in Liberal Arts, talked me into a metal roof (which shows that he has extreme smarts) and I figured that a shiny one would reflect more light than a white one.
    You’re singing to the choir here about adjusting to the weather. My work overheats in the winter and overcools in the summer, which annoys the hell out of me.
    I do complain when I’m dressed for winter and walk into a store and end up sweating. Or in the summer when I’m barely dressed and walk into a 65 degree store. That’s just wrong.
    Sometimes I’ll get people who come in in the winter wearing T-shirts and I’ll ask them why? They usually brag that they keep their house heated to 85 or something. They have no shame, they don’t even realize that they might as well have said that they burn kittens to keep warm, in my eyes:)
    My thermostat is broken, so all winter I kept the heater off except in the morning and in the evening, to get it up to 58 degrees. The only time I really need heat is in the morning, before I put on my four layers of clothes, so I have a space heater in the bathroom. That works fine, and my gas bills stayed low.
    In the summer, I have strategically placed fans, and two big trees outside. That’s enough, except for in extreme heat, when I just wilt.

  135. diogen April 27, 2010 at 1:48 pm #

    Q, I misunderstood your “adherent steps forward” comment. Yes, we do agree that various Utopian ideas are great but for the pesky reality of human nature. Communism works for ants, termites and bees, but Mammals? Never. Sorry Wage, we’re a wrong species for any social organization that’s predicated on the abandonment of our individual instincts, good or bad.

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  136. diogen April 27, 2010 at 2:10 pm #

    >Dancing with the Stars, celebrity worship, >frankenfood, a klepto political class and >relentless corporate malfeasance.
    Well put, MDC. Don’t forget imperial militarism and my-religion-is-truer-than-yours mindset.
    I like your outlook. Do what you love most days, while producing something of value for daily life, and don’t worry too much about the worst-case scenarios, since in the end we’ll all end up in the same place anyway. If you can enjoy being alive on $$$$ less than the Masters of the Universe, the joke’s on them 🙂

  137. Qshtik April 27, 2010 at 2:20 pm #

    It is dishonest of you to quote one sentence and not the next
    Do I cherrypick? Well then I cherrypi … oh never mind … just kidding.
    Look Wage, here’s the thing. You have a good heart. You wish well for every person on the face of the earth. (Actually, though I know you doubt it, I do to.) The difference between us is that you think your egalitarian dream can be achieved via socialism while I don’t. Not only that, I don’t think your dream can be achieved by any economic system including capitalism although I believe capitalism will provide the best net results (varying degrees of prosperity for most).
    I believe, further, that you become extremely frustrated with a person like me for saying politically incorrect things that you fear in your heart are true.

  138. diogen April 27, 2010 at 2:24 pm #

    >Come on buddy. I want to hear your game plan…
    OK, I’ll let you in on it, but don’t tell anyone.
    No game plan. Other than enjoy being alive every day. We do grow most of our veggies in the backyard, but not as a hedge against uncertain future, but because we enjoy it. Now that we finished paying for kids’ education, the crumb-snatchers are on their own, we try to take a few big trips every year (saw Morocco a few months ago, here’s a country that won’t miss a beat when Peak Oil hits). The future is too uncertain to give up any joy today. And when the SHTF… well, we’ll join the Plymouth Colony in our neighborhood and contribute to the best of our ability to the common survival. I guess.

  139. dale April 27, 2010 at 4:39 pm #

    “I believe, further, that you become extremely frustrated with a person like me for saying politically incorrect things that you fear in your heart are true.”
    There are too many things wrong with this statement to even begin to address them fully, but I will briefly mention just a few.
    1.There is nothing “politically incorrect” about your views, they are disturbingly mainstream. In this day and age where “socialism” in this country is used as some sort of dirty word by an entire media network and dozens of popular commentators I think it’s time folks who call themselves “tea party” members or whatever, stop trying to depict themselves as shouting their views over the main chorus of opinion. If anything, their views get much greater coverage than they deserve in the media and elsewhere, based on their numbers.
    2. There is nothing very “human” all in all, about being entirely selfish. This seems much more like the behavior of lower animals or children at best. What evidence do you have of this being a part of some innate character we are unable to rise above? It seems to me we hold up the best in ourselves and regard our fellow humans most highly when they do exactly the opposite and demonstrate the sort of maturity that is compassionate and unselfish. To regard selfishness or self-centeredness as an irreversible element of our character, is nothing more than the worst sort of popular Darwinian psychobabble.
    3.Please Qshtik, spare us being subjected to your mind reading talents. You neither know that anyone else here is “frustrated with a person like (you)” or whatever, if anything, is in any of our hearts.

  140. Weaseldog April 27, 2010 at 6:02 pm #

    “We are capable of supplying everyone with a decent standard of living, but if the fiat money system isn’t functioning, neither can we.
    This makes no sense. I believe that we can cooperate to provide each other with a decent standard of living, if we drop the idea that we need leeches sucking off profit to make it all happen.”
    I’ve been hearing words to that effect since the 1970s. I’m sure people were saying them in the 19th century.
    Yes, we have the capacity to do better. Or at least a subset of society does. But collectively speaking, what you see around you is our very best effort.
    I’m seeing reports everywhere that the IMF may soon play a big role in feasting on our rotting…, I mean, helping us through this financial crisis. Everything continues on a predictable schedule.

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  141. Weaseldog April 27, 2010 at 6:07 pm #

    Highly Socialistic Mammals…
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_mole_rat
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meerkat

  142. asia April 27, 2010 at 6:21 pm #

    ‘For me it all comes down to population..’
    and for all on planet earth…but most REFUSE to recognize its a very closed system!
    Population of USA set to double from its 1960 level…as earth moves to 7 or 8 billion.
    any thoughts from anyone here about ‘dead microbiologists’?

  143. asia April 27, 2010 at 6:23 pm #

    Did you mean: Kevin Phillips
    [sorry Q beat you to it]….
    SO WHAT DID THE BOOK SAY?

  144. Solar Guy April 27, 2010 at 6:23 pm #

    We started a garden…
    Riding the Fuji back and forth to work ~once a week…
    Yaaawwn.
    Solar Installs are picking up…
    Eminent Domain in effect up the street. Nice houses all boarded up and no money to even begin construction on the new highway they were kicked out for…disgusting
    My mind often drifts to building an electric car lately…or maybe start with an electric bike…
    PUSH ON. DO GOOD. KEEP SMILING.

  145. asia April 27, 2010 at 6:25 pm #

    selfishness …depends how you devine it.
    i wouldnt call a hermit monk selfish, others would. Including luminaries like Meher Baba.

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  146. Qshtik April 27, 2010 at 6:35 pm #

    There is nothing “politically incorrect” about your views, they are disturbingly mainstream.
    If you believe in color coding the country is mostly “blue” – aka leftwing, aka socialist (see ’08 election results). Ergo, my views on socialism are un-PC, not mainstream. Take a look at the NY Times op-ed columnists Krugman, Dowd, Rich, Blow, to name just a few. If they leaned any farther left they’d topple over. The NYT is generally considered the greatest newspaper in the country.
    What evidence do you have of this being a part of some innate character we are unable to rise above?
    I have no copy and paste data. For that you would need to check with Asoka. All I have is what the two eyes in my head observe. And BTW, I don’t think of our character as flawed and needing to be risen above any more than cats need to stop being aloof and act more like dogs. We are what we are. If human nature is subject to change the pace is apparently glacial.
    You neither know that anyone else here is “frustrated with a person like (you)” or whatever, if anything, is in any of our hearts.
    That’s a hoot. Your entire post demonstrates your annoyance and frustration.

  147. Qshtik April 27, 2010 at 6:51 pm #

    depends how you devine it.
    Define or perhaps divine (used as a verb) but not devine (no such word). That’s payback for correcting Phillips before I had a chance ;o)

  148. george April 27, 2010 at 6:52 pm #

    Breaking News from the MSN homepage:
    “Stocks suffered their sharpest one-day losses since early February today. But it wasn’t the fault of Goldman Sachs (GS), whose shares closed up on the day.”
    “Instead, blame Greece and Portugal, whose long-term debt was downgraded by Standard & Poor’s this morning.”
    The whole Goldman Sachs looks like a tempest in a teapot compared to the prospect of the entire European Union going bust, doesn’t it JHK?

  149. Figaro April 27, 2010 at 6:52 pm #

    The country as I knew is on its last legs and there’s nothing anyone can do to save it.
    The Republican Party is encouraging every repulsive and disgusting aspect of the American character, aspects that were once hidden and suppressed but which are now openly and shamelessly flaunted in some twisted, insane parody of patriotism. Thanks to the Right, the corruption is so deep, so endemic that there’s no way it can be put back in the bottle. Like the Black Death this plague will just have to run its course after which the survivors, the rot burned out of them, can attempt to piece together some semblance of a just and equitable society.

  150. asia April 27, 2010 at 7:14 pm #

    O Divine one i stand corrected….
    THAT WAS VERY MUCH A FREUDIAN SLIP!!!
    and how bout markets rallying on ggod news of greek bailout????
    yahoo news:
    Many investors think Greece will have enough money to avoid default in the coming weeks, but the future is cloudier.
    Both Standard & Poor’s and the Greek finance ministry insisted that the country will have enough money to make the euro8.5 billion bond payments due on May 19.
    Even if it does, Greece faces years of austerity with living standards sharply reduced. Standard & Poor’s warned that the Greek economy was unlikely to be as big as it was in 2008 for another decade.
    …………what if they dont make payment?

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  151. asia April 27, 2010 at 7:17 pm #

    last week sone posted that Obama was rightwing..like nixon[?]
    Obama…for:
    abortion
    late abortion
    legal infanticide
    bankrupting the country
    amnesty [# 4? for usa]
    open borders
    refuses to salute flag
    AND LET US NOT AFTER SLAUGHTER AT FT HOOD HIS;
    dont rush to judgement statement

  152. asia April 27, 2010 at 7:20 pm #

    frankenfood,
    I was listening to public radio,,,,something about southern forests of Franken trees…it had to do with some bill on carbon or GW or something.

  153. ozone April 27, 2010 at 7:40 pm #

    “Yes, we have the capacity to do better. Or at least a subset of society does. But collectively speaking, what you see around you is our very best effort.”
    Ha! Pretty good, WD. I tend to agree, and thus would say we’re well and truly skeeee-rewwwed, eh?
    The plunge will be dizzying.
    I have always thought that the grasping, gorging, giddy greed would lead to our extinction via resource depletion, AND that massive fraud would “help” a lot by dissolving what remained of simple trust. Trust ain’t that simple in that it requires careful nurturing of a connective “web”. (I guess it relates to that maxim of the 3 ways to do “trade”/”business”: Fraud, theft, or fair dealing. Only the last will allow you to sit without your back to the wall. The other two, mmmmmm, not so much. ;o) )
    Soon, friends, soon… this “sucker” is going down. Take a quick peek at Arizona, where they’re about to get racially “purified”. Hope that goes well for them when they drive out all the cheap labor the right-wingers (and everybody else) have been abusing for yeeeeeears. Good luck, Dim-watts. (It’ll probably be the very LEAST of their worries, shortly.)

  154. ozone April 27, 2010 at 7:46 pm #

    Nicely said.
    I feel the same.
    Oh, hell, it’s snowing. Don’t that about tear it? Glad we don’t have too many plants out yet…

  155. Qshtik April 27, 2010 at 7:47 pm #

    Asia, here’s what I know so far. I left the house at 2:40PM to take a humongus walk. The DOW was down about 115 pts. When I got back home the markets were closed and the DOW had lost 213. I assumed the Golden Scrotum hearings were the cause but then I read that S&P lowered Greece’s dept rating to “junk” status and lowered Portugal too. I don’t know if this is the start of the long awaited correction (or worse) but if so it’s OK with me. I have my portfolio hedged with 3 inverse ETFs. As a result I only lost $95 today. I believe you can’t beat the negative feedback of failure (whether companies or countries) to help correct things for the future; i.e. “spare the rod and spoil the child.”
    As to any further insight … well … if I was that smart I’d be sippin pina coladas in the carribean.

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  156. John66 April 27, 2010 at 7:49 pm #

    Everywhere, from Europe to the United States to the state of California, they keep saying that all this debt was needed to deal with budget deficits.
    What’s wrong with taxing the rich? It’s like we’re doing everything else but that.

  157. John66 April 27, 2010 at 8:07 pm #

    I mean, do we really think that the rich are going to be investing any of their money in job-creating activities any time soon?

  158. asoka April 27, 2010 at 8:12 pm #

    LEGALIZE THE IMMIGRANTS NOW!
    IT’S THE ECONOMICALLY SENSIBLE THING TO DO
    IMMIGRANT ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS A NET GAIN

    The USC report notes that these lost wages also represent “a loss in income and sales taxes that local, state, and federal governments are unable to capture – including $310 million in income taxes for the state and $1.4 billion for the federal government last year.” In addition, if they were “granted legal status, California’s unauthorized immigrants could strengthen our national social safety net by bolstering Social Security and Medicare taxes by an additional $2.2 billion annually.” Moreover, “assuming that newly authorized workers improve education levels and English skills, as happened in previous reforms, wages would rise by another $8.6 billion; along with initial increases from authorization and the multiplier impacts, this is a total gain for California of $16 billion annually.”

    The USC study reinforces the findings of two other recent reports which also seek to quantify the economic benefits that would flow from comprehensive immigration reform. On January 7, the Immigration Policy Center (IPC) and the Center for American Progress (CAP) released Raising the Floor for American Workers, which estimates that comprehensive reform “would yield at least $1.5 trillion in cumulative U.S. gross domestic product over 10 years.” Moreover, comprehensive reform “also boosts wages for both native-born and newly legalized immigrant workers.” Similarly, an August 2009 report from the Cato Institute, Restriction or Legalization?, concluded that comprehensive reform would add roughly $80 billion to the U.S. economy per year.

    Despite their differing methodologies, these three studies reach remarkably similar conclusions about the economic benefits of creating both a legalization program for currently unauthorized immigrants, and flexible legal limits on future immigration that rise and fall with U.S. labor demand. So far, opponents of comprehensive reform have summarily dismissed the findings of these reports without actually analyzing them. But the evidence is clear: there is a great deal of economic benefit to be gained from measures that empower immigrant workers, consumers, and taxpayers in the middle of a recession. And there is no economic advantage in the pursuit of our current punitive immigration policies, which effectively beat down immigrants’ wages, spending, and tax payments.

    LEGALIZE THE IMMIGRANTS NOW!

  159. welles April 27, 2010 at 8:20 pm #

    Please stop with the vapid ‘tax the rich’ insanity. It doesn’t matter if you tax ‘the rich’ 100%, the politicians will SPEND 150%.
    We SPEND too much, got it? We’re in this galactic-sized crisis because we SPENT too much. You can’t solve a SPENDING crisis by TAKING WITHOUT END & SPENDING EVEN MORE.
    GodDAMN will everyone just please REDUCE, DOWNSIZE, SAVE, SPEND LESS, CUT BACK. Of course millions are, but of course not the beloved, execrable “government”.
    Muthafuckahs, I don’t NEED to be governed.

  160. rocco April 27, 2010 at 8:29 pm #

    http://rochester.ynn.com/content/top_stories/503056/rg-e-rate-hike-plan-irks-hearing-attendees/
    i LOVED THIS above story from our local Western NY cable news. Its just the begining. Hey I just convinced some neighbors to plant hazlenut and fruit trees and bushes great deals from the abor day foundation.

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  161. mean dovey cooledge April 27, 2010 at 9:21 pm #

    Youre talking about the eucalyptus -a non native species that sucks up water like a hoover and crowds out natives, of course. So a private company can make cellulose with the Euc’s and profit from putting genetically engineered trees into a public environment. because you are not going to stop wind and seeds. Once these poachers have finished destroying our common forest heritage, they’ll leave us holding a bag of expensive eradication programs and less indigenous trees. happens all the time
    malaleuca trees
    switch grass
    kudzu
    asian swamp eels
    many more. but here on CFN we see all this left -vs- right while the pirates that own them both slip away with the all booty. and thats they way they like it.
    I have no problem with a company growing real trees on their property for profit. i do have a problem with introducing genetically modified trees into a forest system. its criminal.

  162. asoka April 27, 2010 at 9:29 pm #

    welles, right on! There are 2.3 million prisoners being governed in prisons. Let’s set them free and cut back on government spending.
    There are millions of USA military on hundreds of bases all over the world costing us trillions of dollars. Let’s abolish the military like Costa Rica did in 1949 and cut way back on government spending.
    We’re giving huge subsidies to whole industries: dairy, farmers (to not grow crops), etc. Let’s abolish all those subsidies and cut back on government spending.
    What checks do you receive from the government? Disability? Social security? Whatever, send them back and tell them you don’t want their money… you want them to cut back on government spending.
    And those roads being repaired, and bridges, and water purification, and food and medicine inspections, etc. Stop all that ’cause you don’t need no stinkin’ government, right?
    Fire department? Schools? VA hospitals? Courts? Prisons? Police? What for? Close ’em down and cut back on government spending!

  163. asoka April 27, 2010 at 9:39 pm #

    I also want to eliminate Homeland Security, TSA (thousands standing around), ICE (Immigration/Customs), and all the national parks. We got to cut back on government spending, Muthafuckahs, I don’t NEED to be governed.
    I would like to keep the public libraries since they are practical socialism in action: to each according to his need, the public sharing of books. Libraries aren’t really that expensive.
    The Coast Guard has to go, though and we won’t need the IRS anymore… we’ll eliminate them to cut back on government spending.

  164. Qshtik April 27, 2010 at 9:42 pm #

    Greece’s dept rating
    Quick like a bunny before anybody spots it … make that debt rating ;o)

  165. asoka April 27, 2010 at 10:03 pm #

    welles, you got to be kidding about not taxing the rich. That is the way to have economic stability like in the 1950’s.
    Before the 1st Great Depression, Republicans slashed the top marginal Tax rate, leading to a bubble and a bust.
    From the 30s through the 70s, top marginal tax rates were around 90%, America saw its strongest middle class ever (hello, Detriot!) and there were no economic meltdowns or burst bubbles.
    Then, Reagan slashed the top marginal tax rates to around 20%, followed by Bush I cutting that rate even further to 15% and all that followed were burst bubbles, meltdowns and hardship for the middle class.
    Cutting taxes on the rich does not lead to “trickle down”, it leads to the rich taking more and more and more without giving anything back. It institutionalizes their greed and causes havoc for society at large, as we have seen with Bush II, Wall Street hedge funds and bank meltdowns.

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  166. nina April 27, 2010 at 10:56 pm #

    JHK: …How come no ———–?
    I told you last week. Honey traps and planes crashes.

  167. welles April 27, 2010 at 11:29 pm #

    Re-read my comment. I said it’s futile to tax ‘the rich’ if you SPEND more than you TAKE IN IN TAXES. This creates unserviceable DEBT. The ghastly crew of public ‘servants’ in Washington are spending TRILLIONS more than they TAKE IN; what they take is NEVER ENOUGH.
    Re marginal tax rates, do you HONESTLY THINK people will produce anything if they know they’ll just end up paying 90% tax on it? Go ahead & knock yourself out if you do.
    How did the US become the richest country on the planet without an income tax? Were there no roads, no medical care, no army, no electricity, no inventions, no agriculture, no cars, no railroads etc etc?
    How did we EVER SURVIVE without robbing people of their income?

  168. Qshtik April 27, 2010 at 11:42 pm #

    Muthafuckahs, I don’t NEED to be governed.
    Asoka, when I first read the above sentence in Welles’ post I thought to myself, I wish he had added three more words: “nearly so much.” Then I could have said “Welles, I’m in total agreement with your post.”
    If you catch Welles on some other day when he’s not frothing at the mouth I believe he would agree that there are some legitimate functions of government.
    You, Asoka, have mentioned many functions currently being performed by govt in a sarcastic way as if to say “of course we couldn’t do without these govt functions.” When you think it through however you realize there is very little beyond our physical security (military, police, courts, jails) that we need government for.
    I say:
    Free all political and victimless crime prisoners (drug dealers and users, prostitutes etc) and close many prisions.
    Keep the military but massively reduce our foreign presence.
    Eliminate all subsidies (like dairy, paying farmers not to plant etc) and all foreign aid. Aid to countries like Haiti due to natural disasters is a function for charitable institutions. Let’s end the practice of buying friendship.
    End illegal immigration and foster modest legal immigration.
    Your idea to have people send back their Social Security checks would be ridiculous after a lifetime of paying in. The govt should calculate every penny paid in by individuals plus the “employers portion” (which is actually part of the employee’s pay that simply never passed through their hands) and apply compound interest then send a check to the individual and end SS. Then individuals should be encouraged to start their own old age savings plans.
    Interstate highways, state and county roads etc appear to be legit government responsibilities but with enough thought on the subject by some smart people, maybe not. Likewise for bridges, water purification, food and medicine inspections and fire departments. But why on earth should the govt be involved in schools and hospitals?
    Homeland Security and Immigration/Customs are legit Govt functions.
    Let whatever is left of brick and mortar public libraries in 25 years be funded by philanthropists like Gates and Buffett. That sort of thing makes rich people feel good about themselves.
    While we’re at it, go to one very low flat tax rate, do away with all exemptions and deductions like mortgage interest, RE tax and charitable contributions. Eliminate capital gain, dividend and interest income taxes (it would massively encourage savings). Almost forgot – do away with the Federal Reserve (with a tip of the hat to Ron Paul).
    I could go on and on but you get the idea. Since I find politics and politicians revolting and the source of much of the world’s troubles you should not be surprised that I hate big govt.

  169. welles April 27, 2010 at 11:50 pm #

    …that’s what I meant to say, i.e. I don’t NEED to be governed so much.
    Peace to you all.

  170. killacommie April 27, 2010 at 11:52 pm #

    Jim, did I hear you right? “Graceful”??? Obama is “graceful”? WTF does that have to do with anything? You are so far beyond hope and beyond help. I’ll bet your shorts are sticky just thinking about this “graceful”, “young” President. (Gag!)
    Yes, Bush was deficient in so many ways. But Obama was a US senator in the period preceding the meltdown, voting for every abortion of a spending bill that came along, with all the other liberal members of the Senate and House, and half the Pubs, who are equally guilty. THEY are the culprits here. Bush was an idiot for not vetoing their putrid bills, but Congress writes the bills and passes the bills. So how do you get that crap about Obama inheriting this mess. He helped cause this mess, which by the way, Bush should have vetoed and didn’t. Damn both of them. Damn all of them. But wear out the machines of retribution on the most guilty first.

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  171. asoka April 28, 2010 at 12:14 am #

    killacommie said: “Damn all of them.”
    Even Bill Clinton. All of you so concerned about debt and government spending that exceeds revenue should idolize Bill Clinton. The man reduced government spending, was fiscally conservative, and balanced budget after budget until he finally left Bush with a BUDGET SURPLUS.
    Then Bush created $12 TRILLION debt.
    Obama has added another $1 TRILLION.
    So let’s hear praise for Bill Clinton … if it is true you are concerned about deficit spending.
    I suspect what you really want to do is tear down a Black man in the White House and all the talk about deficit spending is bogus.
    Bush $12 TRILLION
    Obama $1 TRILLION
    Why weren’t you tea partying during Bush’s terms?

  172. Eleuthero April 28, 2010 at 12:35 am #

    Hey IDIOT, a tactic like calling me
    “Urethra” is sandbox stuff. Once I
    saw that I knew that more than a
    brief reply was a waste of time on
    a scoundrel like you.
    I *live* by the principles of CONSERVING
    so don’t lecture me about “doing something”.
    My lifetime average annuals miles of driving
    is 5000 miles per year. Do you have any
    clue of how far away a real oil crisis
    would be if everyone followed my example
    instead of averaging 12,000 miles/year??
    I don’t engage in “boredom” buying where
    I throw something that is still serving
    me well because it “bores” me. So lecture
    someone who fits your ill-gotten inference.
    It’s not I, your dudeness.
    Finally, I didn’t say that a million bucks
    constituted wealth. However, you’re being
    disingenuous because you know damned well
    that my critique was that we don’t give a
    damn what you investing acumen and/or NAV
    is anyway? The sun shines on DOME dog’s
    ass every day. Big deal. YOU made a
    big deal of your acumen and I simply
    called you on it. Sorry that you have
    a hair-triggered temper.
    Your self-image is inflated, your critiques
    rely on inferences you can’t possibly know
    to be true, and the name-calling (especially
    a vulgarized one like “Urethra” takes us
    back to our days in 4th grade when we got
    a rush out of saying our first cuss word.
    Your posts, therefore, appear to be CONTENT
    FREE.
    Eleuthero

  173. killacommie April 28, 2010 at 12:38 am #

    Yeah, you’re right, Asoka. I don’t care about any of this. It’s all just an excuse to give me a chance to bitch about the black man being president. You found me out. I’m an evil white racist, the same as all the other evil white racists. We’re all the same, us racists.
    Jesus H. Christ. That the best you got?

  174. asoka April 28, 2010 at 12:46 am #

    US Ambassador Christopher Hill said Monday that he is concerned that the process of forming a government is taking too long, and that elements of disorder may take advantage of the power vacuum to destabilize the country.
    Too long?
    When did we invade and occupy Iraq? How many years ago? Only to have it continue unstable, with no steady electricity or water, which Sadaam was able to supply.
    All the thousands of USA soldiers who died in Iraq died in vain. And on top of everything Sadaam was holding Iran in check. Now Iran is ascendant in the region.

  175. asoka April 28, 2010 at 12:48 am #

    “You found me out.”
    Yes, I did. You were incapable of saying anything laudatory about Bill Clinton’s fiscal discipline.
    You are busted.

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  176. Vlad Krandz April 28, 2010 at 1:29 am #

    I don’t care who you are – Lloyd Blankfein is the Enemy of all human life on this planet whether you’re White, Black, Brown or “other”. Except maybe the Jews, maybe. You can see it on his face – no real humanity whatsoever, just an imitation of it. Just like bacteria move towards sugar, Blankfein and Co move towards money. Morality is a joke to such “people”. And psychopaths can recognize other psychopaths – and cooperate with them. Such is the story of Golman Sachs and the rest of our financial system.

  177. Vlad Krandz April 28, 2010 at 1:39 am #

    Please post your address – I want to move in with you. You have no choice and no right to say no. We are all one. Everything you have is mine and vice versa or is that versa vice? Oh don’t worry, we’ll work that part out when I get there.
    I am you and you are me and we are all together. Remember the personal is political. All politics are local. What could be more local, more politically correct, than me moving to your locale? It’ll be like I’m an illegal immigrant – you will get points! I’ll even talk broken Spanglish.

  178. cowswithguns April 28, 2010 at 1:42 am #

    I see Vlad took offense to the term “white trash,” saying it’s racist against white people. I would agree that it’s racist, but I contend that it’s actually racist against minorities. For to use a term like “white trash,” you imply that such white people are not the norm or rejects, and that white people are normally upstanding people. But you never hear the term “black trash” thrown around. And that could point to a racist mindset in our country surrounding browns and blacks — e.g., the down-and-out black skid-row drunk isn’t “black trash,” rather, he’s simply black because that’s the way all of them are.”
    So, really, it should be black people who should take offense to the term “white trash.”

  179. Vlad Krandz April 28, 2010 at 2:08 am #

    The Far Right has been right about just about everything, in essence if not in all the details. There is a New World Order. It is increasing its power through the International Bankers who control not only the economies, but the politcal systems throughout most of Western World. The Bankers and the Politicians are openly hostile to Nation States and their traditional cultures. And they mean to undermine them. All of this was predicted decades ago by the Far Right – and they were laughed to scorn by Liberal Egotists and Ignoramuses.
    The Banking Class is mostly Jewish – at least people here are starting to get that. The Far Right has also stated that America is ruled via the Federal Reseve which is owned by European Jews connected to the Rothschilds. Can anyone dare say categorically that this is not true? It will almost surely be proven if the Fed is ever publicly audited. As to the members of the New World Order, that is a bit trickier. The Jews seem to be very well represented, but they may not be completely dominant. An open question in any case.
    Other correct predictions: that the hand over of power to Blacks would be a disaster for Southern Africa. And that the same disaster awaits America to the extend it happens here. That Blacks are a lower race and that not too much can be expected from them and certainly they should be denied any power over Whites. Revenge and bitterness are their response to any weakening of our will not gratitude and forgiveness.
    Any attempt to oust the American Bankers will cause a war. The last time WW2 was the result of such an action. The whole Jewish World will unite as one by any such attempt – and it doesn’t matter if you ignore the fact that they are Jewish. They aren’t going to ignore the fact that they are Jewish and that their power is being threatened.

  180. SNAFU April 28, 2010 at 9:00 am #

    How old are you Welles? From the technique of opening mouth and allowing ignorance to fall out, which you espouse, I would guess 20’s to early 30’s. Perhaps if you would take the time to read about the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s tax rates and the standards of living experienced by the majority of Americans, which Asoka correctly attempted to lead you to, you might, not likely but possibly, comprehend the rip off by the rich which was put into full blower by the “great communicator”. (“Full blower” USAF speak for maximum afterburner)
    So you think we all need to stop spending and downsize. I agree and those that take far more than their share are the “rich”. I agree wholeheartedly with Asoka they are the ones to start with especially those hoovering up the corporate welfare.
    You don’t think you need to be governed eh? Me thinks you would not have fared well in the old West when shooting an undesirable in the back was the preferred technique for settling disputes among the “ungoverned men”.
    SNAFU

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  181. The Mook April 28, 2010 at 9:27 am #

    We can’t tax the rich. They will take their ball and go home. The biggest bunch of pussies ever gathered in one country and everyone is scared to death of them.

  182. dale April 28, 2010 at 10:06 am #

    “All I have is what the two eyes in my head observe.”
    ===================================
    ….and where your head is pointing is pretty subjective.
    About 2,000 years ago people were commonly murdered in Circus Maximus for the pleasure of others. Torturing people and enslaving them was pretty “politically correct” in those days as well. Perhaps the next step in evolution is demonstrating caring for all those around us. I suspect that if we don’t, we won’t survive.
    “That’s a hoot. Your entire post demonstrates your annoyance and frustration.”
    ====================================
    Quiz….you have no idea how difficult it would be for you to frustrate me.

  183. Weaseldog April 28, 2010 at 10:27 am #

    George said, “The whole Goldman Sachs looks like a tempest in a teapot compared to the prospect of the entire European Union going bust, doesn’t it JHK?”
    GS and other banks have been working together to collapse nations for profit, for decades.
    They bribe politicians to get their operatives installed in positions of power, (Tim Gheitner for example), then set the nation on the course to bankruptcy. Then when it’s ruined enough, those same operatives sign up for loans and austerity measures.
    With Austerity measures, the banks are given full control of the nation’s economic system and assets.
    1. One third of all government revenue is funneled straight into the banks.
    2. Government owned assets are sold off to personal friends of bankers at fractions of a penny on the dollar. This would be things like Federal lands, railway right of ways, roads, water and sewage treatment plants. (Often the facilities are shut down or poorly maintained after, until they close).
    3. Private and government pensions, 401ks, IRAs and like are seized and given to the banks as tribute on the debt.
    4. Savings and checking accounts are closed and funds seized.
    5. The currency is swapped out (in a limited amount), to eliminate any chance someone is holding large quantities of cash.. Gold and silver may be seized.
    As a for instance in 2001, in Argentina, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs had huge losses in derivatives. They shut down lending to businesses and told the gov that if they didn’t get a bailout, then they couldn’t go back to normal lending practices. They got their bailout, but didn’t start lending again. Instead they asked for and demanded an endless stream of bailouts and other concessions. The gov gave them the oil industry, the railway networks, the trains, etc… The banks sold all of this off and the nation is circling the drain. Still the banks continue to feed.
    Same banks, same bankers that are running the USA and Greece.
    No, GS isn’t a tempest in a teapot. It’s the hurricane. It’s the reason Greece is circling the drain.

  184. Qshtik April 28, 2010 at 10:28 am #

    Asoka, this long copy-and-paste has more holes in it than a swiss cheese. I wish when you copy such stuff off the internet you would clearly identify the source so I know where to direct my scoffing derision … besides yourself, of course.

  185. Qshtik April 28, 2010 at 11:02 am #

    From the 30s through the 70s, top marginal tax rates were around 90%, America saw its strongest middle class ever (hello, Detriot!) and there were no economic meltdowns or burst bubbles.
    Your view of cause and effect reminds me of people in the markets who actually rely on such nonsense as the level of women’s hemlines and the so-called “Super Bowl Indicator” as predictors of market direction. Or my sister-in-law (the credit union board member) who won’t drink Coke because a friend of hers drank a Coke and the next day came down with a case of pink-eye. The poor dears don’t recognize the difference between correlation and coincidence.

  186. Qshtik April 28, 2010 at 11:17 am #

    A quick scan of your underlying source – the Immigration Policy Center – shows that organization has “an agenda” which is not the fair and unbiased airing of all sides of a complex issue … much like yourself.

  187. SNAFU April 28, 2010 at 11:28 am #

    Qshtik, Qshtik, Qshtik, where to start do I “cherry pick” or “broad brush”? How about some of each. (a statement not a question) As I said of you last week “you have raised the flags of your true colors”.
    From your reply to me last week you stated “The worse thing we could do would be to create a perfectly level playing field. It would be soul-deadening for everyone to the Nth degree.”
    What a crock of shit! A level playing field is the espoused mantra of conservative free market capitalists world wide. My interpretation of their and your definitions of such is that a level playing field in your reality means a “Government” policy that gives you and yours a leg up and fuck everyone else.
    “I hope I haven’t given you the impression that I am wealthy and surrounded by luxury.”
    Were you not one and the same posting from Bahrain or Dubai or some other Arab country (I did not take time to look op your posts) a month or so back. Seems I recall you were all hyped up about an automated warm water ass washer that eliminated the need for toilet paper and could not wait to get home and have one installed in your NJ abode. I point you to Asoka’s well researched views about the standards of living in the US from the 50’s to the 70’s when the wealthy were taxed according to their ability to pay not their ability to plunder.
    “BTW, I can get away with using words like “always” and “never” because I won’t have to answer for them till the end of eternity.”
    WTF does this sentence mean? Are you implying that you will live to the end of eternity (which is when?; heat death of our universe?). Or are you a BAC who is convinced that you will reside in heaven for all time? Your illogical statement here is too far off my reservation for me to comprehend.
    Your response to Asoka today continues your flag waving ad nauseum:
    “When you think it through however you realize there is very little beyond our physical security (military, police, courts, jails) that we need government for.”
    I am still chuckling over this pile of merde you had the audacity to toss out as a cogent thought.
    You say:
    “Free all political and victimless crime prisoners (drug dealers and users, prostitutes etc) and close many prisions.”
    We have political prisoners in the good old USA?
    Drug dealing is a victimless crime?
    prisions? perhaps you meant prisons.
    “Keep the military but massively reduce our foreign presence.”
    Do you prefer the Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) only philosophy?
    “Eliminate all subsidies …… Let’s end the practice of buying friendship.”
    Hell yes let us go back to boom and bust agriculture. Who needs friends you can buy? Bomb the bastards into being our friends; that philosophy has worked well since the 1960’s
    “End illegal immigration and foster modest legal immigration.”
    Who is going to put in your warm water ass washer, pick your vegetables, kill pluck and slaughter your chickens …….? Me thinks the biggest reason illegals are afforded easy access to the US is because corporate interests demand it.
    Once again Qshtik your true flags are snapping in the brisk breeze.
    SNAFU

  188. Cash April 28, 2010 at 11:35 am #

    Asoka, Whether or not it’s economically sensible to legalize these people is beside the point really. I would say that as a practical matter there is no real choice. So do something like an amnesty for a certain period ie 24 months and get people signed up.
    I think that the US govt neglected or declined to guard the borders especially the southern border of the country.
    But I would also say that as a practical matter a country that doesn’t control its borders is not long for this world. At the same time as this amnesty it has to get control of its borders.
    The people that walked across this unguarded border settled into your country, many of them years or decades ago and no serious effort was made to remove them and require them to seek residence in the US via legal channels.
    Meanwhile these people (call them what you want, illegals, immigrants, migrants, whatever, it doesn’t matter) established lives in the US, many raised and are raising families there.
    I would say that the US govt has defacto given them the right to reside in the US because of its failure to act. This failure wasn’t a one day failure or oversight, it was decades in duration. Why it failed to act doesn’t matter. It’s academic at this point and has been for a long time.
    There is no practical way to move or remove millions (maybe tens of millions) without inflicting a humanitarian disaster.
    Plus the US govt is bankrupt and does not remotely have the resources (unless you repatriate all your military) to chase down and physically remove so many millions.

  189. Qshtik April 28, 2010 at 11:42 am #

    Talk about fucked up – Just moments into the trading day, Bob Pisani on the floor of the NYSE reported just how far things had deteriorated in Greece: All of their Air Force pilots pulled a sick-out in protests of lower pay plans.

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  190. welles April 28, 2010 at 12:05 pm #

    The top marginal tax rates in the USSR were 100% in the 30’s thru the 90’s and that resulted in lots of prosperity. So you’re right, the more we take from everyone who’s producing, the more prosperous we become.
    My beef’s not with the rich per se, they of course use their wits and others’, to avoid paying. In my previous comments I repeatedly capitalized the word ‘SPENDING’ to indicate that that’s the problem. We’re giving up enough tribute & more to the miscreants in Washington, it’s just that THEY won’t STOP SPENDING more than they take. So it’s a futile game.
    And you’re also right that all forms of governance, fire department & police service, civil protection, in fact all advances that make up modernity, only occured after the IRS was established. Pre income-tax no great cities sprang up, no hospitals could operate, no great factories built, and no crops grown.
    I’m all for giving 10% in income tax, NO MORE, if you can’t make do with 10%
    People who’re corrupt on the inside need laws on the outside.
    Peace to you all, prosper & be free.

  191. Qshtik April 28, 2010 at 12:13 pm #

    Snaf, I could amuse myself for the rest of the day by answering your reply point by point but instead I’ll let my original post just stand there on its own two legs … except for my misspelling of “prison.” That, I truly regret.
    BTW, thanks for the new addition to my vocabulary: merde
    I’m sure I’ll have occasion to work it into some future post.
    P.S. The ass washer (called a hand bidet) was cold water and I installed it myself. Easy to do and its a great invention. How the US could be so far behind (pun intended) the rest of the world baffles me.
    P.P.S I wonder why it is that when a person’s “true colors” are mentioned it is always intended pejoratively.

  192. Qshtik April 28, 2010 at 12:31 pm #

    Perhaps the next step in evolution is demonstrating caring for all those around us.
    Is it Perhaps or is it Definitely? I had already marked you down in the column of those who believe in the perfectibility of human nature. Should I cross out that entry or footnote it as “maybe?”

  193. John66 April 28, 2010 at 12:35 pm #

    No, Welles. Spending is not the problem. It is the solution. You’re letting your ideology cloud your judgment.
    Inflation-adjusted workman’s wages have remained relatively stagnant since 1975, while the cost of living has done nothing but increase. In an effort to make up the difference, we take out debt. This wasn’t “living beyond our means.” This is simply, as the phrase says, “the cost of living.”
    If the free market doesn’t want to put money in the pockets of the consumer, then there is no other option but for the government to spend. If the free market doesn’t want to create jobs, then the government needs to do so.

  194. welles April 28, 2010 at 12:36 pm #

    Bjork: It’s Definitely Maybe

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  195. John66 April 28, 2010 at 12:38 pm #

    Roughly speaking, the point at which household debt isn’t 100% of income is when consumers hit the $40,000 a year mark. THAT’S the bottom line.

  196. Cash April 28, 2010 at 12:38 pm #

    Why Germany dumped the mighty Deutschmark in favour of the Euro baffles me. If I were a German pensioner or worker I would want to be paid in the German currency and not have to share one with those corrupt and lazy southerners.
    Now they’re talking about German taxpayers bailing out Greece. Was there ever anything in the long history of human affairs more foreseeable than this? Does anyone blame Angela Merkel for demanding that Greece present a viable financial plan before coughing up a sliver of German tax money? How about for starters getting Greek taxpayers to actually pay tax?
    There’s an old saying in the banking business: your first loss is your least loss ie don’t try to string along a bad loan. The sooner you act the sooner you recognize your loss the smaller your loss will be.
    I think same goes with the Euro. Get rid of Greece, make them refloat the drachma, same with Portugal and maybe Italy. There will be pain ie currency and bond markets going nuts but the longer they try to string along deadbeats and bail them out the worse the economic damage to everyone else in the longer term.

  197. John66 April 28, 2010 at 12:41 pm #

    In other words, on average you need to be making $40,000 a year before you can live debt-free and still live a good life.

  198. NoGoodBoyo April 28, 2010 at 1:25 pm #

    “…I would want to be paid in the German currency and not have to share one with those corrupt and lazy southerners.”
    Oh yah, those corrupt and lazy southerners, the dark ones…not like the good white northerners. Plus, if you go far enough south, whadya got? …Arabs!…and farther south still? Why, nigg…..er Africans, I mean. Corrupt and lazy.
    I like your style, Cash. A big broom. Why get specific? “Southerners” will do fine. Kill em all and let God sort it out. So simple and kind of a self-righteous thrill too! Here, let me try one:
    Everyone living west of Winnipeg is a square-headed, emotionally repressed, brainwashed, humorless, churchifed, hayseed bigot who smells faintly of pig manure. Everybody. No exceptions.
    Hey, I feel better already!
    [i]Salutations de Montreal[/i]

  199. ozone April 28, 2010 at 1:30 pm #

    Cash sez:
    “Unless the US can rebuild its productive capacity then relative poverty is the way of the future. Ramshackle housing, hunger, sickness, threadbare clothes, walking to work (if you can find work) is the way it will be. Tighten your belts.”
    Agreed; and as in all things, shades of success and failure will be mixed in, according to the availability of inputs. I’m convinced that a centralized/governmental effort to “rebuild productive capacity” will not be forthcoming, due to slavish devotion to the status quo (including its’ myriad corruptions).
    So, localized economies will be our touchstones… and I don’t see too much of Arizona (or the other “dry” states) having a chance of producing anything but destitute wanderers.
    And, yes, belts everywhere will be permanently tightened, and no “recovery” is coming. (My personal prediction.)

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  200. asia April 28, 2010 at 1:47 pm #

    Thanks….nice name u have.
    it was part of a phoney ‘climate change’ bill,
    i missed some of the radio show so i appreciate you filling us in.

  201. lpat April 28, 2010 at 1:50 pm #

    “Progressives” don’t talk about “illegal immigrants” because absolutely everything attaching to the issue is disingenuous at best, dishonest as a rule. Immigration is “illegal” for exactly the same reasons that drugs are illegal. It serves the interests of our Lords and Masters (L&M) for them to be so. The two issues are tragically intertwined.
    Immigration—we’re really talking mainly about Mexicans and others from Latin America—is illegal because it serves to drive down the wages of undocumented workers and, coincidently, of American workers. You sure don’t have much worry about “illegals” unionizing, do you? Low wages benefit our L&M.
    Drugs, on the other hand, are illegal because it’s the only way to drive up the price of what would otherwise be cheap, plentiful and effective intoxicants. Marijuana is a weed that would thrive uncultivated in every corner of America except perhaps Death Valley. Subjecting drugs to prohibition means you’ve got an “industry” that brings in sufficient gobs of cash to assure that crime continues to be organized and that every judge, official and policeman can be bought off six times over. Local police jurisdictions are awash in the cash that drug seizures generate. Unionized prison guards are quite content to grow the prison population.
    Mainly, though, our Lords and Masters love illegal immigrants and drugs because they feed the one abiding American passion that is guaranteed to keep the great idiot unwashed at one another’s throats: racism.
    My understanding is that studies of usage patterns in white, black and brown communities are pretty comparable. That is, whites use and deal drugs at least as much as African-Americans and Latinos do. Yet we’ve spent the last three or four decades building and filling our prisons predominantly with people of color. And the attempt to interdict drugs at their source has been a perfect cover for interfering ever more deeply in Latin American affairs—where we are deathly afraid that a viable model of socialism will find fertile ground if left unmolested. That’s our real fear.
    Our “intelligence” agencies and our military have devastated Latin America. As have our agricultural policies and exports of corn. That’s what’s been behind the waves of immigration, legal or not. Quit fucking with Latin America. Let them solve their own problems without US interference, and you’ll see much of the immigration dry up.
    Without addressing fundamental causes the only solutions are to frog march the US further down the road toward a police state by stopping people who “look” Latino to ask for their papers, further militarizing the boarder patrol, more and more surveillance at the boarder, more fencing, on and on.
    BEFORE any efforts are made to further “secure the boarders,” Congress AND the President should legally proscribe and criminalize any further US military or intelligence involvement in Latin America, including training of Latin American military and intelligence personnel. Additionally, they should proscribe and criminalize all “Drug War” related activity in Latin America.
    Finally. Very few will say so out loud of course, but much of the hysteria about illegal immigration is fueled by the 1965 reform of immigration reform which finally opened America to a much more fair legal immigration of people of color, from every corner of the globe.
    Yes. One strong implication of what Kunstler has to say is that we should work to re-develop and protect local American industries and jobs—for American citizens. Our failure to do so has devastated not just Detroit but nearly every city in the country, especially those in what was our industrial heartland, Akron, Cleveland, Pittsburg, on and on. America, however, is now exactly the melting pot that we have always claimed it to be. We have citizens of every shade and hue the earth has ever spawned. Our only hope of ever living in peace is to grow beyond racism. Re-focusing our attention and our economy locally—without reverting to an atavistic nativism—is going to be horribly challenging.
    P.S. Don’t you know that descendents of Native Americans toss sleepless in their beds every night of the world, thinking: “If only our forefathers had thought to pass laws against the immigration of the pesky white skins.”
    I do a lot of genealogy. It’s quite instructive to watch an animated census map depicting the counties in Georgia evolve from the east coast, spreading west and expanding as “Indian Territory” continues to shrink. And as we stole the land from the Indians, we recorded the deeds in the county deed books in flowery legalisms: “To have and to hold the said bargained premises with them the said H N _____ & William M. _______ together with all the rights members and appurtenances thereto belonging or in anywise appertaining to the same to them their heirs Executors administrators and assigns in fee Simple.”
    Law serves two functions. It keeps our Lords and Masters from ripping one another’s jugulars out over competing property claims, and it keeps us great unwashed in our place (bent over).

  202. Cash April 28, 2010 at 1:51 pm #

    Italy is so corrupt even the cats have pimps. My parents are from that neck of the woods and we have a lot of family living there.
    Organized crime infects and degrades life and it’s not just the Mafia but criminal societies on the mainland that are even more cut throat and ruthless than Sicilian gangs. The gangs have innumerable collaborators, enablers and sympathisers without which they couldn’t do business. Are political parties there the political arm of the gangs or are the gangs the military arm of political parties. Take your pick.
    I don’t buy this crap that it’s just a few bad people that sully every one else’s good name. Corruption there is culturally ingrained, a way of life.
    In Greece also, if you want anything done you pay a bribe. Heard of the fakilaki (little envelope)? Tax evasion is a way of life (like Italy).
    I also spent years living west of Winnipeg so I am familiar with those folks. I like them, they’re my kind of people.

  203. asia April 28, 2010 at 1:53 pm #

    ‘the US govt neglected or declined to guard the borders especially the southern border of the country’
    curious, when the USA is fighting 2 undeclared wars and terrorists keep bombing / killing us citizens here and abroad.

  204. Cash April 28, 2010 at 2:07 pm #

    I agree it’s curious. It’s gone on for too long for it to not be deliberate. Like Ipat says, it keeps wages down.
    Like somehow nobody can seem to find Bin Laden after years of “effort”. Very curious, that. I’ll bet he has tea with the President of Pakistan.
    There’s a local greasy spoon run by an Afghan immigrant and his wife. He’s a really rough peasant but very sharp. So’s his wife. Muslim but serves up a really tasty pork souvlaki. I’ve had a few chats with him about the state of affairs there. He says that if they find Bin Laden the movie’s over. Wise words those.

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  205. Qshtik April 28, 2010 at 2:08 pm #

    “Southerners” will do fine. Kill em all and let God sort it out.
    NoGood, I suspect finance is not your forte. If you were to listen/watch CNBC all day as I do you would realize that the problems with the Euro are mainly in the southern tier of countries, namely Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy. The one other basket-case which is not southern is Ireland. The five combined are known affectionately as the PIIGS. So when Cash makes reference to those corrupt and lazy “southerners” he is simply using the language of TV financial journalism. Of course the TV folks are too PC to say “corrupt and lazy.” The listener is assumed to be smart enough to read between the lines. So, calm that ire you’re throwing at Cash.

  206. dale April 28, 2010 at 3:06 pm #

    “Should I cross out that entry or footnote it as “maybe?”
    ==================================
    Whatever I believe, one thing is for sure. We won’t better ourselves, either individually or as a species, as long as we take as a certainty that whatever we are at our worst, is the best we can ever be.

  207. MINDfool April 28, 2010 at 3:08 pm #

    Vlad,
    Not for Nothing, are you familiar with Ellsworth Huntington and his 1946 book, “Mainsprings of Civilization,” and his 1919 book “Red Man’s Continent,”… The former is a great read and tries to tie much of things in history together. Some reviews are not too kind, but no one doubts its epic nature.

  208. NoGoodBoyo April 28, 2010 at 3:15 pm #

    Like most of your posts, Squish, this one is another shovelful of pompous horseshit. What you suspect about me, after a single post, is of zero interest to me, having looked at dozens of yours, and having found them generally puerile in the extreme.
    As usual, your lecture on how to watch TV and what journalists really mean is the pedantry of an interfering busybody.
    Wherever did you get the idea that you are an eminence grise around here? And at what point did Cash make you his official spokesman and fartcatcher? And who made you the playground monitor in charge of “calming that ire?”
    Kindly keep your condescension to yourself.

  209. asia April 28, 2010 at 3:20 pm #

    ‘Mainly, though, our Lords and Masters love illegal immigrants and drugs because they feed the one abiding American passion that is guaranteed to keep the great idiot unwashed at one another’s throats: racism.’
    O please,…the ‘r’ word.

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  210. asia April 28, 2010 at 3:23 pm #

    ‘P.S. Don’t you know that descendents of Native Americans toss sleepless in their beds every night of the world, thinking: “If only our forefathers had thought to pass laws against the immigration of the pesky white skins.”’
    Im only PART native so i cant speak for the tribes…
    in answer to that id say NO! but they do or should wonder what their reservations ill be like as Mexicos narco terrorists take over here.

  211. asia April 28, 2010 at 3:25 pm #

    Who is going to put in your warm water ass washer, pick your vegetables, kill pluck and slaughter your chickens …….? Me thinks the biggest reason illegals are afforded easy access to the US is because corporate interests demand it.
    I read that the prisons are 1/3 to 1/2 immigrants..so who would fill the prisons?
    Us has more imprisoned than other nations? yes?

  212. asia April 28, 2010 at 3:27 pm #

    boarders
    its borders dingbat..when they land in clubfed they are ‘boarders,”
    [ again DivineQ sorry but i got there first]

  213. Qshtik April 28, 2010 at 3:34 pm #

    whatever we are at our worst
    I keep trying to drive home this point but I suspect I am wasting my breath: “at our worst” or “at our best” are irrelevant terms. We are what we are.
    If you look at two photos of lions and in one the lions are ripping apart a young Impala and in the other they are snoozing and nuzzling one another in the shade of a tree, which photo shows lions at their worst?
    If your answer is that humans are special and they’re not lions then we have no need for further debate.

  214. NoGoodBoyo April 28, 2010 at 3:38 pm #

    I don’t buy this crap that it’s just a few bad people that sully every one else’s good name. Corruption there is culturally ingrained, a way of life.
    Bah. So your family is from there. That says nothing, except perhaps that your family are…um, well-connected.
    All the gangsters, even with their enablers and sympathizers included, represent a tiny minority preying on a much larger majority. It’s ludicrous to pretend that everyone is in the mafia.
    As for petty corruption, tax evasion, etc., show me a locality where there is none. Is there a black market in Germany? You bet there is. Are there tax cheats in Canada? Hundreds. British fiddling the accounts? French under the table payoffs? Of course.
    I repeat: tarring all Southerners with the same brush is bigotry.

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  215. John66 April 28, 2010 at 3:41 pm #

    I blame the outsourcing of the American manufacturing sector on the American consumer.
    Always considering price as the main determinant in their purchasing decisions, consumers purchased their way out of jobs.
    So now, they’re buying stuff that they used to make on credit cards they can’t afford.
    I don’t know who they’re expecting will buy all of these goods and services if they keep fucking with our wages!
    Welcome to the third world, folks!
    No big catastrophe ahead…just a slow and painful descent into a much lower standard of living.

  216. Qshtik April 28, 2010 at 3:45 pm #

    its borders dingbat
    I believe I’ve spawned another spelling ball-buster.

  217. Qshtik April 28, 2010 at 4:00 pm #

    Soooo, aside from all that are me and the old lady still on for dinner with you guys this Saturday??
    P.S. I think OEO/Zzz/NotMommy has returned from the grave.

  218. Tituspullo8780 April 28, 2010 at 4:42 pm #

    >> Hey IDIOT
    I’m curious Urethra. What is the difference between me making fun of your lame handle, and you calling me an idiot (in all caps no less :- ), ‘your dudeness’ and a scoundrel?
    Let me guess. It is only name-calling if someone does it to you. You on the other hand, can spew derogatory comments, cal names, and that is…maturity? Who is in 4th grade here, pal?
    So what should we call you then: the Devil’s Scrub or Siberian Ginseng Man (*yes folks, sadly, this is where Eleuthero got his name from – an herbal remedy. Take a look for yourselves: http://tinyurl.com/24tjyva ).
    If anything, you should thank me for helping you come up with a new handle. Urethra is both edgy and somewhat cool. People will immediately understand what it is, and they will also accurately assume that your posts are a load of piss. Perfect!
    >>re: I only drive 5000 miles a year, and I even reuse tin foil! (2, often 3 times!!)
    What does that have to do with my response to you? You might have me mixed up with some other person you are in a flame war with. Perhaps more Siberian Ginseng will help improve your failing memory :-).
    Since you mention it though, I do think people who are aware of Peak Oil should do their part to conserve energy. That’s pretty basic.
    The irony (again) is that you blast me for ‘bragging’ about my investment prowess, and then you proceed to brag about only eating up 200 gallons of gas a year, as opposed to the evil people who use, say, 480 gallons. I lived in NYC for years and didn’t own a car. So f’ing what.
    >>the rest of your BS and investing Peak Oil
    Your original attack on me centered on my encouraging people who understand Peak Oil to invest. To use their knowledge and conviction to help themselves financially.
    You then accused me of bragging about my investment chops (*which I simply wasn’t), then you declared that I’m ‘part of the problem’ (*an assertion you still have not backed up or explained), you also implied that you are ‘old money’ by contrast (which is a joke), and then ranted about JHK having a long term view of things. You also peppered in some of your limited comprehension of a BS investment theory, and then basically said that anyone that beats the market is just plain lucky. I feel sorry for the poor half-wit kids you spawned to replace yourself. It must have been tough having to grow up with such a dope for a father.
    Let’s take your assertions one-by-one and see if together – we can get your head around my rather basic points :
    >>Peak Oil Investing
    *My view is that market participants that understand PO as an event with drastic economic consequences have an intrinsic advantage. I say this because I do not believe that the market has fully priced in Peak Oil yet. I am encouraging people who understand Peak Oil to press their advantage. Some of these people may be unemployed, or be working jobs with limited employment security, or jobs that Peak Oil will eventually destroy. For these folks – having some extra financial resources could help them out.
    Acting on this information does not require genius – just an empirical view of the worlds energy supply. The point is to help people, not to brag.
    >>‘part of the problem
    How so? Despite your claims of strict limits on your driving, and your ‘conservative’ attitude towards consumerism – how am I worse than you?
    I think you confuse my post as having something specific to do with you. You dislike the idea of someone or anyone profiting from these events (*someone other than you, that is). It’s all about you. Typical baby boomer crap. I’m curious – do you have a bumper sticker on your Ford Taurus that says, “I’m Spending my Kids Inheritance”. You seem like the type who be into bumper stickers.
    >> BS investment theory/successful investors are just plain lucky!
    Where to start. First, I like your use of NAV – net asset value. However, that is a term typically used to describe the value of a company, not a person. That would be Net Worth. I suppose by throwing NAV into your post that supposed to make me think that you have some clue about financial markets. It did the opposite. You again revealed yourself as a poser.
    If you think that all market beating investors are just lucky coin flippers, then you should take your DMV paychecks to the nearest Indian Casino, or maybe a dog-track. You can test how lucky you are. But do yourself a favor, and stay out of the markets. While your at it, don’t pretend like you know anything about them. It just makes you look pathetic.
    >> JHK having a long term view of things.
    Yes he does. He’s also a condescending guy who dislikes suburbia, and won’t mind seeing it come to an end. He is entitled to his views, and at least he can say, that they belong to him (Unlike you). On the other hand, he has made numerous short term financial predictions that have proven quite inaccurate. No big deal – it’s just the truth. But it seems that people like you, my friend, can’t tolerate anyone that deviates from the JHK party line. To that I say, learn to accept alternative points of view. You might get something useful out of it.
    Here endeth the lesson, Urethra. I hope you learned something.
    If not, I hope some other people on this board get the message that they can help themselves with the knowledge they already have in the palm of their hands. That knowledge is golden.

  219. world awry April 28, 2010 at 5:09 pm #

    “The big mystery for the moment is how come a few good men of stature in important places have not stepped forward”
    WOULD NOT THE MEDIA DEMONIZE THEM?? AND WHO CONTROLS THE MEDIA?? SO…WHO WOULD VOTE FOR THESE MEN OF STATURE???

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  220. angelfire April 28, 2010 at 6:17 pm #

    World Awry: Yes, indeed! Anyone remember Dennis Kucinich? Remember anything the media reported about his statements during the candidate debates? When asked why he voted against the “Patriot Act”, he said “I read it”. What a revelation. He was against industry “out-sourcing” jobs, and really, now, how can we do anything to heal this country if there are no manufacturing jobs??? He was for the elimination of health insurance companies — and aren’t they just middlemen???– to be replaced with medicare-type health coverage. It’s truly upsetting that the man was ignored.
    And there’s Bill Moyers. What a light he sheds — and his program is going off the air!! What’s left? Fox?
    The media IS fixed, and we’re a country FULL OF PEOPLE WHO DON’T THINK CRITICALLY, and don’t look for more than one source for information.

  221. asia April 28, 2010 at 6:27 pm #

    AF:
    yes, but WHY was ‘the media’ asking him?
    wasnt it only he and cynthia mc kinnon who voted against. so indeed they were REALLY going against the grain.
    [wish i had the divine ones ability to BOLD ‘really’]

  222. Mo Rage April 28, 2010 at 6:58 pm #

    And so many people decidedly are NOT paying attention.
    They keep thinking any time now, it’s going to go back to “normal”.
    They just aren’t sure when.
    Mo Rage
    the blog

  223. Qshtik April 28, 2010 at 7:25 pm #

    [wish i had the divine ones ability to BOLD ‘really’]
    Asia, to bold do the following: immediately before the word or phrase you want bolded type:
    the less than sign
    followed by capital B
    followed by the greater than sign
    then type the word or phrase to be bolded (no spaces)
    then, immediately after the word or phrase type
    the less than sign
    followed by a forward slash
    followed by capital B
    followed by the greater than sign
    If you want to italicize do the same as above except instead of capital B use a lower case i
    Try doing a post as follows:
    This is a test
    This is a test

  224. welles April 28, 2010 at 8:08 pm #

    Mutual fund managers are NOT ‘THE MARKET’. The Market means, if you bought a basket of stocks in proportions representing the S&P 500 companies, or the Russell 5000 companies. So you’d own 500 stocks mirroring the S&P 500, or, in the case of the Russell 5000, you’d literally own 5000 stocks via shares in a mutual fund.
    That type of mutual fund, known as an index fund, doesn’t even require a human fund manager. And index funds beat 80-90% of active fund managers.
    Nice scam the investment industry has going, gulling people into buying mutual funds with exhorbitant management fees, which funds’ performance pales in comparison to index funds whose fees are 90% lower.
    That difference in management fee means $10-40k less for you at retirement.
    Just buy gold, I’m really tired of saying it, been admonishing folks to do just that since 2002. For normal folks, the stock market’s returned just about ZERO between 2000-2010, while gold’s up what, 300%+ ?
    I reserve the right to be wrong.
    Peace to you Asia

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  225. Puzzler April 28, 2010 at 8:13 pm #

    Qshtik, don’t teach Asia how to bold when he can’t even capitalize the first word of each sentence.

  226. Cash April 28, 2010 at 8:19 pm #

    I did not say everyone was in the Mafia. There are many organized crime groups in Italy and not all are Sicilian or Sicilian derived. Neither did I say everyone was a member of one of those criminal groups.
    Neither did I say that all corruption in that country was all connected to organized crime. What I did say was that it is culturally ingrained and widespread (like Greece). My exact words were, “Italy is so corrupt even the cats have pimps” which is maybe a colourful way of making the point.
    Tax evasion in places like Italy and Greece is nothing like what you see here. In those places it’s a national sport. In Canada and the US we are innocent, pink cheeked girl scouts in comparison.
    There is no place on earth with no corruption but there are places on earth where it is much more widespread. Maybe you need to get out more.

  227. Cash April 28, 2010 at 8:21 pm #

    OEO etc? I think you you may be right. Thanks for the support by the way.

  228. Cash April 28, 2010 at 8:23 pm #

    I blame the outsourcing of the American manufacturing sector on the American consumer. – john66
    I agree that was a strong element. Sometimes it looks like a chicken/egg scenario.

  229. lpat April 28, 2010 at 9:54 pm #

    O please, indeed. None so blind….

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  230. asoka April 28, 2010 at 10:19 pm #

    More immigrants are needed to resolve deficit

    it’s not just legal immigrants who contribute to the plus side of the Treasury’s balance sheet. In fact, undocumented immigrants are even more lucrative for the government, particularly Social Security. Many undocumented workers have payroll taxes automatically withheld from their wages, but because they use fake numbers, never collect the benefits.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/28/bill-clinton-sees-more-im_n_555415.html

  231. CaptSpaulding April 28, 2010 at 10:54 pm #

    In my view, the base of what made the US & it’s citizens well to do was the fact that we were the world’s leading manufacturer. You could get out of H.S., and go to work in a factory & work your way up to making a decent wage. Millions of people did it, and the Govt. profited through taxes. Those days are gone, and if they don’t come back then we are all done. I was born in 1945, and I’ve witnessed the good times and now the bad, and when the jobs started going to China, I knew it was the beginning of the end. Without those factory jobs for the blue collar workers, we’re not gonna make it.

  232. Vlad Krandz April 28, 2010 at 11:37 pm #

    Any Amnesty will just encourage more illegals to come through. And the whole point of illegals is that they work cheap. Once they are legalized, they can no longer be exploited so much. So more illegals must be brought in to keep the party going. You talk as if it’s just something that happened…No doing nothing was intentional – a conspiracy by both the Right and the Left. The Right got cheap labor and the Left got constituents. It’s amazing that the Republicans can’t seem to understand this, at least at the lower levels. They will never get the Mexican vote because they can never pander as well as the Democrats. The Republican reward is campaign funds from the farm lobby. This is a small windfall politically speaking compared to what the Democrats get. But that’s what their big contributors want so that’s what they have to do -or so they think. Actually if the Republicans became the party of White America no one could stand before them. But they will never do so – it’s not in the Big Picture that the Higher Ups desire. And they don’t care about who wins – Dems vs Repubs is just theater which they indirectly direct. They fund both sides in other words. Once you do that, you can’t lose.
    Cash man, they gots to go. Human Rights Disaster? It’s all ready a Human Rights Disaster -for us. You have to choose. Caring about everyone equally all at once is the end of any Nation. As has been said, Liberalism is the Death Song of the West. We come first. You can care about the Mexicans once they’re back in Mexico. Compassion for an Enemy is fine – once they’re defeated. Not before. Eisenhower deported a million of them once they were no longer needed. It’s no big deal once your heart is in the right place.

  233. Vlad Krandz April 29, 2010 at 12:06 am #

    If you’re uncomfortable living on conquered land then you should leave. America was made possible by the conquest of the Indians and their displacement. Any other understanding is fatuous. Many of the Indians have accepted the situation and have become good Americans serving with honor in the Armed Forces. And Southwestern Tribes dread the coming takeover by Mexico – their lands were granted to them by the United States not Mexico.
    Thus your romantic views serve no one – except the Liberals and their minority clients of the moment. The living, breathing Native Americans of today are not served by romantic notions about their past – which was full of conqests and dispossesions of each other. If they had united, they could have stopped us from taking over America. And if Whites do not unite now, America will be taken from us in turn.

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  234. asia April 29, 2010 at 12:11 am #

    my people were slaughtered1 I can only speak for myself. i dont want any more immigrants to the USA.
    weve taken in 100 million in less than 50 years.
    and you know it is by design. no accident in it.
    what about emma laz and that dreadful poem. please share.
    If you’re uncomfortable living on conquered land then you should leave…all lands were conquered.
    advice to JFK..nation of immigrants…ALL Nations are!

  235. asia April 29, 2010 at 12:12 am #

    WTF?????????????????????????????

  236. asia April 29, 2010 at 12:12 am #

    Please Qshtik, spare us being subjected ..
    Hes admitted he likes to inflame peeps here.

  237. asia April 29, 2010 at 12:16 am #

    I meant…..much of stocks are owned by MF [ and the little peeps leona disparaged….vlad did you know she was jooish?]
    in other words if MF own 51% off all DOW,they MF are much of the market..so how can they beat their own churn/burn game????
    isnt that the problem Magellan had as it got huge?

  238. asia April 29, 2010 at 12:18 am #

    ‘Human Rights Disaster? It’s all ready a Human Rights Disaster -for us’
    certainly for the 3,000 peeps murdered by illegals [gawd knows how many by legal immigrants ] each year.
    as ive noted here Ph arizona is the kidnap capital of the world supposedly….and its mex x mex kidnappings.

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  239. asia April 29, 2010 at 12:21 am #

    lie:
    ‘Quit fucking with Latin America. Let them solve their own problems without US interference, and you’ll see much of the immigration dry up.’
    baaa
    the population there is skyrocketing even as they dump some of the surplus on USA.
    see: brimelow and p.erhlichs various books.

  240. asia April 29, 2010 at 12:23 am #

    indeed if the WSJ says so!
    since when are citizens ‘consumers’..since when is a nation just ‘ an economy’..eh

  241. Vlad Krandz April 29, 2010 at 12:25 am #

    The Sicilians are very eloquent and funny when they get deep into their cups. Apparently some of the FBI tapes are a hoot. The Irish Mob, such as it was, was very hard to bring down. Their modus operandi was: never write when you can speak, never speak when you can nod, and never nod when you can blink. The Jews were hugely influential with the Mafia apparently. But they have moved onto bigger and better scams. And their Mob activities have been dropped down the memory hole by their Co-Ethics in Hollywood. But they are quite comfortable slandering Italians.
    Did you see the clip of Gordon Brown? Oh it’s rich! What an outrageous Liberal Elitist Snob and Swine. He dismissed the concerns of a life long Labor Supported and assasinated her character to boot. I’d much rather be ruled by a Mafia like the Sicilians rather than these vicious frauds. As you know, the Mafia once at least, had a moral code and supported the people against their oppressors.

  242. Vlad Krandz April 29, 2010 at 12:56 am #

    The Statue of Liberty was a gift from the French People in honor of our successful revolution. Only later was it defaced by the Emma Lazarus poem. But the Spin Masters have made the monument and the poem synonomous – a blatant distortion of history. One is reminded of the Jefferson Memorial which makes Jefferson seem like he didn’t want Blacks sent back to Africa.
    You identify as Native American? I can sympathize – I would prefer a simple way of life to the current American monstrousity. I simply state a historical fact when I say that America was founded on Indian dispossesion – just like Israel was founded on Palestinian disposession. Whether it was moral or not is another question entirely – and a very complex one. I make an exception with the Aztecs who were utterly evil. I certainly don’t feel that way about the vast majority of the tribes or civilizations of Ancient America. And Cortes had alot of help – the subject tribes rallied by the tens of thousands to his standard.
    Many Whites are enamoured of the Native Americans, the Germans especially. You see in this, we are yearning for our own tribal past. But as much as we can learn from the them, we cannot be Native American. We must go forward and backwards simultaneously to find a genuine way that can sustain us. The future will be like the past, but hopefully on a much higher level of the spiral. I tried to give this to Tripp, but he’s stuck on hating his own people and thus wants to wipe away thousands of years of Western History. And where would that leave us? A people without a past is a people without a future.

  243. asoka April 29, 2010 at 1:15 am #

    asia: “certainly for the 3,000 peeps murdered by illegals”
    asia, are you referring to 9/11?
    All those Saudi immigrants with box cutters were here legally and were enrolled taking flying lessons.

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  244. asoka April 29, 2010 at 1:29 am #

    ALL THOSE TRILLIONS SPENT ON THE MILITARY ARE WASTED

    A Pentagon report presented a sobering new assessment Wednesday of the Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan, saying that its abilities are expanding and its operations are increasing in sophistication, despite recent major offensives by U.S. forces in the militants’ heartland.

    WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER
    And war spending increases the deficit (especially in a long protracted unsuccessful war).
    We need to reduce spending, right welles?
    USA out of Afghanistan now!

  245. wagelaborer April 29, 2010 at 2:06 am #

    Thank you, Dale, for taking up the gauntlet while I was out.
    It is indeed amusing to watch straight white Christian males bemoan their oppressed status.
    The entire corporate media feeds us the glorification of capitalism daily, but qhstick insists that he holds maverick views. Downright rouge.
    The tea parties get amazing amounts of media time, whereas anti-war protesters, pro single payer advocates, and the poor people’s march now in progress from New Orleans to Detroit get bupkis.
    I wonder why.

  246. Eleuthero April 29, 2010 at 2:26 am #

    Scoundrel is a noun which perfectly
    describes a person who calls another
    person “Urethra” on a blog as his
    primary gambit of discourse.
    I think it’s totally valid to call you
    both a scoundrel and an idiot because
    of this tactic and because your line
    of reasoning in a crisis is “how can
    we make money from this”.
    “How can we make money from this” describes
    the reason for: 1) The TWO stock market
    crashes within ten years, 2) The existence
    of vermin like Blankfein, 3) The something
    for nothing mentality of the flotsam and
    jetsam that pass for “citizens” in the
    current version of the USA. Apparently,
    you are all too proud to join the ranks
    of the “financially obsessed”.
    The thing about NAMECALLING, sir, is that
    it be ACCURATE. I am not, nor will I ever
    be, a “Urethra”. I ignored the rest of
    your post because I’m not interested in
    the opinions of avaricious people with
    limited and vulgar personalities.
    I don’t care what you think about Peak
    Oil, Obama, or any other topic. I think
    you’re about self-aggrandizing YOU and
    your greed. Whatever else you may think
    issues forth from these central truths
    so I don’t care if you’re “right for
    the wrong reasons” on ANY topic.
    We’re through. That’s the message.
    Eleuthero

  247. Eleuthero April 29, 2010 at 2:33 am #

    Watching Lloyd Blankfein on Bloomberg was
    nauseating. First, the Bloomberg reporter
    (Eric Schatzker) threw Blankfein nothing
    but SOFTBALLS. He didn’t even come CLOSE
    to asking about the disinformation dispensed
    to countless customers of GS.
    Blankfein was given a pulpit to sound like
    he LOVES the SEC and its role as a public
    watchdog and to sound off like he’s “God”
    i.e., he “cares” about every sparrow that
    falls off a wire.
    This interview was truly a double-play of
    brown-nosing on the part of the reporter
    and Bloomberg giving free air time to
    Blankfein to sound like he’s the head
    of Scottrade.
    Surely, there’s much material for excellent
    farce that can issue forth from such parodies.
    Eleuthero

  248. wagelaborer April 29, 2010 at 2:37 am #

    Vlad, you are so transparent. I in no way implied that there should be forced sharing of living quarters. You just want to move in with me.
    I said that if every able-bodied person worked in a productive constructive capacity, we could have a very comfortable life for everyone with reduced hours of labor for all.
    But if you really want to know where I live, rent the movie “Poor White Trash”.
    Yes, it was filmed right here in Southern Illinois. Next town over.
    But those tricky rich film makers told us that the movie was going to be called “Good Bye Sunrise”.
    Must of been Jews.
    After the good ol’ boys bragged about bagging the bit parts, those deceiving bastards renamed it!
    It’s actually a pretty entertaining movie.
    And two weeks after we saw it, my son and I were climbing the steps to the courthouse featured in the movie, due to a little scuffle he had with the law. I called my boy “poor white trash”, and he took offense.
    As you would, I’m sure.

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  249. Nickelthrower April 29, 2010 at 2:43 am #

    i stay here at our place in the mountains which i am on my second year of food gardening. I harvested head after head of spinach, romaine lettuce, buttercrunch lettuce and chard. Radishes of many colors, spring onions and baby carrots. I thinned the valentine mix of lettuce for a micro salad last night which would have been a special treat on any big city menu.
    my notion of wealth has shifted.
    clean air. fresh water. real food untouched by Monsanto. physical labor. no noise pollution. raising chickens. hiking in the 60% of wilderness in this county. learning to fish. and small town civility.
    say what you will about rural southern people (jim’s white trash) but i never had a latte-sipping cell-phone-holding over-coiffed slag flip me off from her Range Rover just because i happened to share the same unfortunate slab of asphalt.

    wow, you really hate city people don’t you? Can’t you see that if things go the way you believe that they will that tens of millions of starving “latte-sipping” city folk are going to be visiting your little isolated farm. Yup, they are going to harvest your garden for you and there will be nothing you or your small community will be able to do because, and I’ll say it again, TENS OF MILLIONS OF STARVING PEOPLE WILL BE VISITING SMALL FARMS ALL ACROSS AMERICA.
    Now, you might think that you can somehow protect your farm but your neighbors will be protecting their farms and you will be by yourself (or with a few people perhaps) and it will be terribly difficult to protect your little garden 24/7 365 days a year.
    It is time to leave your little garden and work towards preventing the collapse of civilization because the tidal wave of famine that will come will leave no family untouched.

  250. Eleuthero April 29, 2010 at 3:48 am #

    Though I am a “fan” of Jim’s, I agree with
    you that Jim’s assessment of rural people
    from “un-hip” areas is WAY off base. I live
    in the SF Bay Area and I’m so sick of it that
    I’m retiring from my teaching gig in one year
    and moving back to my birthplace … PA.
    The Bay Area is chock-a-block with exactly
    the sort of people you describe i.e.,
    cafe intellectuals who stare at their Iphones
    and laptops and look at conversation as an
    imposition, status-mongers who imagine that
    they are “liberal”, and puffed up artistes
    who imagine that their hipness can make up
    for their shallowness and cliqueyness.
    Allegedly, the Bay Area is “liberal” but it’s
    just the sort of liberalism I detest. My two
    closest friends are both liberals but they
    didn’t line up to buy an Ipad, they hate New
    Age thinking, and they’ve never been climbers
    of anyone’s social ladder. They simply manifest
    Enlightenment ideals, that’s all.
    If there was ONE aspect of Jim’s line of talk
    that I’d change, it’s his continual talk about
    “corn pone” this, that, and the other. Sorry,
    Jim, but those effete people that are likely
    MOST of the people you meet at those Bookstores
    to pass on your message are often philosophical
    hypocrites. Many drive gas hogs. Most have a
    carbon footprint bigger than a Yeti because
    they are OPULENT, not poor. You’ve got to
    be more evenhanded by describing a kind of
    “California poser” disingenuous with at least
    as much bile as you describe other forms of
    ignorance.
    Eleuthero

  251. Tituspullo8780 April 29, 2010 at 3:59 am #

    Urethra / Eleuthero
    I checked out some of your other post, to see if they were the same ‘caliber’ of dribble directed at me. My lord…what a masterful intellect you have. I’ll bet a brain as big as yours is well versed with the works of Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, and Glen Beck. It’s also clear that you are, “mad as hell and not going to take it anymore!”
    You have so many beefs:
    Illegal immigrants, that “breed like fleas” (your words)
    These people who work under the table to game the IRS
    Costing us honest americans billions in free healthcare, making government ‘services’ less available to hard working REAL americans (*I’m guessing you take advantage of as many government services as you can – including food stamps).
    and your assertion that the US constitution is ‘insane’ for granting citizenship to people with the temerity to be born in this country to parents of illegals. What’s with that shit, Urethra?
    You are also after the bankers.
    Evil investment bankers who run the ‘Kleptocracy’ in concert with the politicians
    These Goldman guys who want to steal everything not nailed to the floor. Crooks.
    Tarp, to big to fail banks, ect.
    Oh, let’s not forget anyone taking jobs away from hard-working americans. Sadly, I work in a business that forces me to compete with people from all over the world – so I don’t moan about protectionism. I’m ok competing.
    There is so much that you are against. I’m curious – what exactly are you for?
    From your writing, I get the impression that your anger may be related to a nasty case of latent homosexuality. Are you attracted to men Urethra?
    Is that what got you so riled up about my response? Mind you, I don’t judge you for your sexual preference. I just think you might want to consider coming out of the closet to your family – it might mitigate your intense anger a bit, and help prevent that first or second heart attack. Then you can fulfill some of your freaky fantasies about buffed black men in ass-less chaps :-).
    What do you think? Am I close?
    10 bucks says the Eleuthero handle mysteriously disappears from this board after all these ass whippings, especially now that we all know that his name came from a funky type of ginseng. Good luck!

  252. Martin Hayes April 29, 2010 at 6:16 am #

    I’ve always assumed Eleuthero’s handle derives from the Greek for “freedom”. In John Fowles’ The Magus there is mention of Greek partisans in the Second World War using the word “eleutheria” (freedom) as a battle cry.

  253. diogen April 29, 2010 at 9:12 am #

    >if every able-bodied person worked in a >productive constructive capacity, we could have a >very comfortable life for everyone
    Wage, you should’ve written “IF” instead of “if”.
    The reality is, of course, that MANY able-bodied people don’t want to work in productive capacity. I know several people who faked or exaggerated injuries to receive disability. I also know people who just don’t want to work because they’d rather watch TV all day long. And what about the people who work in non-productive capacity (gambling and various other vice industries, some MBA’s I know and other assorted “managers”, many if not most lawyers, sub-prime mortgage salespeople, etc.?
    That’s one of the problems with various Utopian ideas like communism/socialism, they disregard the reality and are predicated on some bug “IF”. How do you propose to deal with that?
    >we could have a very comfortable life for >everyone with reduced hours of labor for all.
    We could do it with well-regulated Capitalism as well, if for example we didn’t waste trillions on unnecessary foreign wars, prisons for non-violent offenders, tax-giveaways for rich leeches, and numerous other black holes in our public and private budgets (like millions spent on buying cell-phone ring tunes 🙂

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  254. mean dovey cooledge April 29, 2010 at 9:17 am #

    You know, its a literary device. I describe a recognizable type in humorous terms and you take that straight to the red zone on the hate-o-meter? Look at the hostility you blew back on me. I wouldnt presume to tell anyone on this forum how to conduct their life or how to approach collapse. There is no one way. for anything!
    “TENS OF MILLIONS OF STARVING PEOPLE WILL BE VISITING SMALL FARMS ALL ACROSS AMERICA.”
    you and George Romero should get together.
    Like i SAID, if that *unlikely* scenario happens, it happens. i spend zero time worrying about it. Youre supposed to enjoy life. its a gift.

  255. diogen April 29, 2010 at 9:43 am #

    >I would prefer a simple way of life to the current >American monstrosity.
    Vlad, the complex way of life was created by people with high IQ. Since you stated many times that we whites have higher IQ than blacks and various other assorted dark-skinned people, and it makes us superior and them inferior, you’re paying the price for our superior IQ.
    Let me tell you another anecdote about a lower IQ person. We were in Morocco a few months ago, lost on the streets of Fez. We asked a passer-by, a dark-skinned man, to help us find the Medina. He looked around nervously, hesitated, but finally motioned us to follow him. Apparently it was in a direction different from where he was going. He went about 20 minutes out of his way, we couldn’t talk to him, so we just followed him. When we saw the Medina, we offered him some money, but he smiled and shook his head no, then walked off in the opposite direction. Later we found out that there are SEVERE penalties in Morocco for “non-licensed guides” to offer any assistance to tourists, including stiff fines and prison!!! (this was done to protect tourists from scammers that was hurting tourism).
    The guy was obviously a fool to take such risk for total strangers, must be low IQ, eh?
    There you go Vlad.

  256. budizwiser April 29, 2010 at 9:47 am #

    I’ve been out and about in the heartland – the “fly over country” – that makes up much of America. (haven’t read anything since Monday morning)
    Stopping back in to skim and scan so many posts left me with an impression that there has been an increase in the intensity or vehemency of the postings. More urgency, more emotion seems to be coming through from regulars as well as new-comers.
    So what’s up? Last week I mused whether the GS investigations could create a template for “regular folk” to take some legal pitchforks to a couple of hundred other financial entities and cause an increase in Tums sales among all the Master Market Fuckers.
    After reading a review of the situation(s) and the perspectives put forth in this BLOG I realize a new sense of discombobulation with regard to which monstrous destruction of social/personal well-being I should fear the most.
    Please, Clusterfuckers, help me to remember just what aspect of life should keep me awake tonight?
    So many of you make so many meaningful points. How does a modern-man deal with the daily onslaught disingenuous contradictions spewed continuously by leaders and media of all stripes and philosophies?
    Thanks.

  257. dale April 29, 2010 at 9:51 am #

    If your answer is that humans are special and they’re not lions then we have no need for further debate.
    =================================
    Yes, that would be the difference between you and I, I guess. I do believe that, among other things, we were gifted with the ability to make ethical and moral distinctions beyond the capability of most animals. That you seem to think otherwise is sort of unbelieveable to me. Good luck with that, I’ll not contest that you are a savage animal in the future.

  258. diogen April 29, 2010 at 9:54 am #

    >10 bucks says the Eleuthero handle mysteriously >disappears from this board after all these ass >whippings
    Man, you’re one arrogant dude!
    Eleuthero, I’ll gladly pay you $20 to not disappear, but I don’t think it would be necessary.
    And Titus, your homo allegation is exactly what one would expect of an adolescent jock posing as a thoughtful adult. Perhaps it’s your own sexual ambiguity? Yeah, this is it, that’s why you’re trying to prove your manhood with your financial brilliance.

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  259. Qshtik April 29, 2010 at 9:55 am #

    Did you see the clip of Gordon Brown?
    Vlad, the paragraph that begins with the sentence above must be missing a word or have some words scrambled. I can’t make sense of it. Also, please provide a link to the “clip.” I’m curious to see what has caused such contempt in you.

  260. Celsius 233 April 29, 2010 at 9:57 am #

    Ashes, ashes, we all fall down…

  261. diogen April 29, 2010 at 10:09 am #

    >I’m curious to see what has caused such contempt in >you.
    Didn’t see the clip… perhaps it was a revelation that Gordon Brown has a black fifth cousin thrice removed? Or a 15th-century jew in his bloodline?

  262. Qshtik April 29, 2010 at 10:10 am #

    Downright rouge.
    I do not use rouge nor any other cosmetics although I sometimes enjoy painting my toenails … shhh, don’t tell anybody.

  263. Qshtik April 29, 2010 at 10:22 am #

    Must of been Jews.
    Must have been Jews.

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  264. Qshtik April 29, 2010 at 10:36 am #

    the same ‘caliber’ of dribble
    drivel

  265. Qshtik April 29, 2010 at 10:48 am #

    there is mention of Greek partisans in the Second World War using the word “eleutheria” (freedom) as a battle cry.
    I believe the Greeks protesting in the streets today are using the same battle cry but now it translates as “we want freedom to continue the Welfare State on the backs of the more industrious people to the north and to retire at 60.”

  266. Cash April 29, 2010 at 10:52 am #

    Vlad, I knew you would object to the amnesty part. I agree you are just encouraging illegals. That’s why I talked about controlling the borders, if you’re going to have an amnesty, going forward, you have to have borders that cannot be breached.
    Do what has to be done on the Rio Grande ie build machine gun towers, mine fields, get the Israelis to show how it’s done if necessary, whatever, but the borders have got to be controlled.
    The thing is how on earth are you going to ferret out maybe 20 million people and move them all? My preferred option would also be to boot out all illegals. But how? I think it’s much lower cost to keep them out in the first place.
    But like you say you need people in leadership positions that don’t work against the interests of the country. I think that’s the biggest problem. You have leaders that are letting the US get fucked black and blue in a multitude of ways by Wall Street, big business, the Chinese, illegal immigrants and on and on. You guys see yourselves as a superpower but I see the US more and more as a punching bag.
    But you have company. As I’ve said before the elite in this country especially in the Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal triangle see a good Canadian as one that diligently works against Canada, who takes an adversarial stance against it, who loathes the boys and girls that serve in its military, who takes a prosecutorial stance against them. It’s a disease of the mind.
    I agree with you that you have a disaster bubbling away for the US and the sooner you guys get serious the better. Sharing a continent with you guys is like sleeping with the proverbial elephant. You guys twitch and we get crushed.

  267. Cash April 29, 2010 at 10:56 am #

    “we want freedom to continue the Welfare State on the backs of the more industrious people to the north and to retire at 60.” – Q
    Earlier still if they can get away with it.

  268. Qshtik April 29, 2010 at 10:57 am #

    Wage, you should’ve written “IF” instead of “if”.
    Precisely, Dio. I was thinking of emphasizing the word “if” to Wage but then I thought “what’s the use?”
    Loved the line about $millions$ for ring tones.

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  269. Qshtik April 29, 2010 at 11:06 am #

    what aspect of life should keep me awake tonight?
    Drinking regular coffee just before you go to bed.

  270. Cash April 29, 2010 at 11:13 am #

    I saw the Gordon Brown clip. He has a disease of the mind, this disease infects people’s thinking on this side of the pond also, especially in this country. It will be the end of us. The basis for nationhood is control of a land area by an exclusive group, whose members control who gets in. If you cannot or will not get with that you will not have a country.
    That’s fine with many people who don’t give a damn about their country or who see nationhood as a source of terrible evil but they refuse to realize that the nation is your life support ie the system of laws, customs, personal relationships plus use of the land and resources. It’s where we grow food, build houses, run businesses, raise families. Without a nation is chaos.

  271. The Mook April 29, 2010 at 11:16 am #

    Literary device? I’d say it’s filler in a drunkards pathetic story. How do these authors become famous for total garbage. “The white sails represent freedom…..”. BULLSHIT!

  272. Qshtik April 29, 2010 at 11:17 am #

    the difference between you and I,
    the difference between you and me,
    But be that as it may … I would think it would be obvious to you by now that what is moral and ethical, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

  273. diogen April 29, 2010 at 11:27 am #

    Well put Cash. It puzzles me who’s more responsible for neglecting the control of our borders, the left or the right? The lefties say “come in and take what you want”. The righties say “keep out” but open the door wide so they can profit from cheap labor. The difference appears to be: the left is misguided, and the right is hypocritical, and BOTH are responsible…

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  274. Cash April 29, 2010 at 11:35 am #

    War is not the answer? Really?
    War got rid of slavery in your country, the Confederacy, Nazi-ism, fascism, Japanese militarism. Would you have preferred that the Japanese still be in power all over Asia raping and murdering, the Nazis still be exterminating what they consider lesser breeds, that black people still be working on plantations?
    You’re black aren’t you? I’ve met black tax executives working for large banks, black financial managers just to name a couple of examples. Without the civil war do you seriously think they would be in these positions of power? It wasn’t affirmative action either. One of these black people was my wife’s boss’s boss. This guy was/is brilliant. The two guys I worked with in charge of consolidating financial results at US HQ are accounting titans, walking reference books for FASB pronouncements, their minds are subtle, sharp and quick. But no matter how brilliant, these guys would be picking cotton without the sacrifice of 1861-1865.

  275. Tituspullo8780 April 29, 2010 at 11:51 am #

    Here’s a direct quote from Eleuthero’s 4/26 post
    “When do we stop bending over and taking it up the ass?”
    *There are a few other comments, plus his rage expressed towards anyone that disagrees with him, that make me think he’s probably a repressed homosexual. I’m guessing his real question is “when can HE bend over and take it in the ass?” Don’t take my word Diogen – look for yourself.
    Besides, I’m not making any value judgements other than he should consider being more truthful with himself and those around him. He likes guys – so what?
    >>Arrogance
    Perhaps I am. No more so than any of the folks who start flame wars with people they disagree with. I throw a little info. up once in a blue moon, and you can take it for what it is.
    What bothered me about Urethra is that he made some outrageously ill-informed statements that could actually screw people over. These things begged for correction. He also implied some things about himself that were obviously untrue.
    I suspect he figured out how much I enjoyed his tirade against me. I cut to close to the bone when I pointed out that it’s evident he’s a wage slave geezer, and not a well paid one.
    >> your $20
    Don’t worry. He’ll be back as soon as he can figure out how to get a new WordPress handle (*however, that might take the old man a while).
    >>I am adolescent jock.
    You guys crack me up on this one. You call the poster a child for making an observation about someone (*which you take as an insult, of course). Then, you proceed to call that person names – specifically that this person is a kid…?
    “Maybe you’re a young jock?” or “maybe you’re the fag”.
    You miss the irony that YOU are doing the thing you are accusing me of.
    Like I said before, I make no value judgements about sexual orientation. If I were gay, I’d just tell you. Who cares who shags who? Welcome to 2010 Diogen.

  276. Qshtik April 29, 2010 at 11:58 am #

    He dismissed the concerns of a life long Labor Supported and assasinated her character to boot.
    Cancel my request for the link re Gordon Brown, I found it.
    If your sentence had read Labour supporter it would have been perfectly clear.
    However, Brown is no more a Swine than any other politician. This is what happens all day long in the lives of politicians. They cannot speak their minds. That’s why I loathe politics and politicians. Imagine if you knew every word ever uttered (much less thought) by Obama, Bush, Lincoln or Washington. It would not be pretty. This explains why we are all here at this blog where we can speak our minds with the protection of anonymity.

  277. Tituspullo8780 April 29, 2010 at 12:01 pm #

    Cash nailed it.
    I’m as a big a John Lennon fan as the next guy, but sadly, war is occasionally necessary.
    The Nazis had an atomic bomb program going, and if they hadn’t tried to put so many jews in ovens, they might have had more success with it. Look at what they managed to pull off with the V2 program. much of that scientific talent went to the US and eventually Nasa after the war.
    Imagine Hitler with nukes. Unthinkable.

  278. asoka April 29, 2010 at 12:26 pm #

    DEMOCRATIC FINANCIAL REFORM: FOCUS ON CONSUMERS
    1) a chief appointed by the president
    2) an independent source of funding
    3) the authority to write consumer rules
    4) ability to enforce them against unscrupulous lenders.
    REPUBLICAN COUNTER PROPOSAL ON FINANCIAL REFORM: FOCUS ON INSTITUTIONS
    (released this week)
    1) a council led by the heads of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Federal Reserve.
    2) the council issues rules
    3 the council supervises “our nation’s largest financial institutions, large non-bank mortgage originators, and other financial services providers who have violated the consumer protection statutes”
    3) the council enforces the rules
    NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS? THINK AGAIN.

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  279. Nickelthrower April 29, 2010 at 12:34 pm #

    Greetings,
    *You know, its a literary device. I describe a recognizable type in humorous terms and you take that straight to the red zone on the hate-o-meter? Look at the hostility you blew back on me.*
    Really? You made a long post where you negatively typecast city dwellers and then went on and on about gardening. Now, since this blog and the responses deal directly with The Long Emergency one can only assume that your gardening (since you did go on and on and on about it) must be related to The Long Emergency.
    Next, it is not uncommon for people to suggest ways to survive The Long Emergency and it is also not uncommon for people to suggest that a tiny plot of land far away from the *latte-sippers* will somehow protect them and their families.
    Finally, if you look up my responses on this and other Clusterf*ck blogs you’ll see that I almost always respond to the person that thinks that the backyard garden will somehow carry them through this emergency.
    I suppose that there are some people that just enjoy gardening but if that is true then they need to post about it on a gardening site and not here.
    Youre supposed to enjoy life. its a gift.

  280. Cash April 29, 2010 at 12:38 pm #

    From what I’ve read the Mafia will soon be a quaint remnant of an innocent past. There are criminal organizations eating the Mafia’s lunch from societies on the Italian mainland like the Ndrangheta, Camorra, Corona Sacra Unita and these guys are supposedly much more ruthless. There’s a really good book on the Camorra titled Gomorrah by Robert Saviano. He grew up in Naples, ground zero for the Camorra. He’s now in hiding. Unlike what certain commenters seem to think, you don’t have to be um… “well connected” to know these things, you just have to be um…moderately well informed.
    To me, Italy is not so much a nation state as it is this kind of fictional entity. The dialect that is my mother tongue is as different from Italian as is Portuguese. The people speaking dialects 50 miles from where my parents grew up are utterly unintelligible to me and I to them. These old languages are still taught in school as heritage languages. The different regions on the Italian map like Tuscany, Lazio, Umbria correspond to ancient pre Roman tribal territories.
    There are regionalist, separatist, autonomist parties based variously on distrust of Rome, loathing of southerners, local pride etc.
    There is a real animosity between north and south. Northerners call southerners africani and southerners call northerners tedeschi. There is a political party based in the north (Lega Nord or Northern League) that advocated autonomy at dfferent times for northern Italy based in Lombardy or to establish a new entity called Padania.
    Anyway the place is a fucked up mess. Like Greece, they fudged their national accounts to get into the Euro zone. Their tax collection and compliance is a disaster.
    A former colleague of mine who is a tax lawyer in Milan (he handled my employer’s corporate taxes in Italy) said that tax audits in Italy typically start with police vans full of auditors and machine gun toting cops pulling up to your office. Then they cordon off the office like a crime scene. The first you hear of an impending audit is when they burst through the door.
    Contrast that to Canada. The first you hear of an impending corporate audit is typically a telephone call from your friendly local Canada Revenue Agency office who politely ask when it would be convenient to come in. Not nearly as exciting.

  281. Belisarius April 29, 2010 at 12:58 pm #

    I’m hoping the likely revolution/devolution will be less murderous than the French revolution but who can know. I am reminded of a line from the Terminator movies…”the future is not set..no fate but what we make”. Modern farmers are in much better shape than medieval peasants. Historically farmers were usually denied use of arms and could do little about depredations of bandits or foraging military units. In most of USA the tools and training for defense are available for those who are willing to take on the responsibity. Many farmers hunt and are better marksmen than the average predator. Cooperative local farmers groups could have a few veterans, aux police, EMTs, radio Hams, etc.(with help from official sherrif/police if/while possible) to form the backbone of an emergency response team. Most all will have to practice marksmanship first aid and secure communications to make this work but it is doable

  282. jerry April 29, 2010 at 1:01 pm #

    What we have is a nation of corporate predators willing to destroy the nation any way they can. From Lehman to Goldman to Massey Energy to BP to Exxon, they are all predators. None are in jail for life. Their companies still getting rich.
    Goldman is now trying to make a deal with the SEC. Where is the RICO statute? Where is Holder’s outspoken voice? Where is Obama’s outrage and determination to take down the nation’s predators?
    Where is our anti-trust brigade?
    People are blindly walking into that good night. In Toronto, Ontario, Canada, it does not feel like there was an economic meltdown. Their core city is building tall buildings like crazy. From apartment/condos beginning from $3 million per unit, to beautiful hotels. The city is boom with construction, yet the news people talk of a housing bubble. UH DUH!
    This unwinding will likely take a long time. A slow burn. Be ready.
    http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com

  283. Cash April 29, 2010 at 1:08 pm #

    Yeah imagine Hitler with with nukes propelled by V2s.
    Sometimes I think that Hitler came close to pulling off a victory. Maybe if he didn’t invade the Soviet Union, maybe if he waited till he had more U boats or had built an invasion force to conquer England. Who knows. I think the war was a catastrophe, it bled Europe and Asia dry but it could have been a lot worse.

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  284. diogen April 29, 2010 at 1:23 pm #

    >You miss the irony that YOU are doing the thing you >are accusing me of.
    Yep, an old Psych prof taught us to use the tactics of the person we’re debating, he believed it was effective. Old school thinking?
    However, since you conceded you’re arrogant, you made any further arrows from me unnecessary, I made my point and now I’m at peace 🙂

  285. asia April 29, 2010 at 1:46 pm #

    THANKS

  286. asia April 29, 2010 at 1:48 pm #

    THANKS

  287. The Mook April 29, 2010 at 1:53 pm #

    Was it formerly you and I? I thought it was in the sixties. Anyway, I get a kick out of Grandpa sitting at the table next to me when he corrects the teenagers: “It’s you and I you snotnose, how are you ever going to get in a good college?”

  288. asia April 29, 2010 at 1:54 pm #

    Not in the least.
    each year o wise one, how many murders in USA?
    how many killers are immigrants?
    how many are illegals?
    how many immigrants or illegal immigrants are in uUS prisons?
    when its a one day event [911] then it makes world news.
    when its the bologna family on thaksgiving in a sanctuary city how much buzz does it get?

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  289. asia April 29, 2010 at 2:01 pm #

    Eleuthero …..
    has so many beefs..and you dont?
    “mad as hell and not going to take it anymore!”?
    him or u?

  290. diogen April 29, 2010 at 2:09 pm #

    >Was it formerly you and I?
    See, Mook, it’s a bit more complicated, but not very. Here’s an example: between you and me, you and I are wasting too much time on this website.
    It all depends on whether the pronoun is used as subject or object. In other languages that retained inflection such things are more obvious, but old English (once a highly inflected Germanic language), lost most of its grammar complexities over time for various reasons (Norman conquest, various other invaders such as Vikings, etc. )
    I won’t bore you with things like Dative and Nominative cases, bot if curious you can Google/Wiki it and it may clarify things for you.

  291. asoka April 29, 2010 at 2:28 pm #

    Thanks, diogen. I was wondering when somebody would get around to mentioning the difference between subject and object in relation to prepositions. Your example was perfect. I learned about the object of prepositions in the eighth grade in the public schools. We diagrammed sentences, too.
    People who cannot speak or write English properly should be stopped, (“Your papers, please”), and be detained from further abuse of the language.
    A guy was stopped in Arizona and the police requested his papers. He presented his driver’s license and his social security card. The police said that wasn’t sufficient and requested his birth certificate. He had to call his wife, and she brought it. Then he was released. The story didn’t say what ethnicity he was (German, Irish, Polish, Italian, etc.) but it doesn’t matter. Police can stop anyone they consider suspicious, for any reason, at any time.
    Welcome to America 2010.

  292. asia April 29, 2010 at 2:29 pm #

    Steinberg is outraged at the lack of morals, not in cali but in arizona!
    gee if the ACLU/UCLA dont like it must be good for the USA:
    A twice-deported Guatemalan man who entered the country illegally last May and returned to Frederick faces child sex abuse and rape charges, according to the Frederick County Sheriff’s Office.
    The allegations involve a 10-year-old girl, according to the Frederick County state’s attorney’s grand jury indictment list.
    Fernando Lopez-Ramirez is being held without bail at the Frederick County Adult Detention Center, authorities said. He is also being detained under an immigration enforcement program the sheriff’s office implemented in 2008.
    The Frederick Police Department served Lopez-Ramirez on March 17 with a warrant charging him with second-degree rape, second- and third-degree sex offense, and sex abuse of a minor, according to a sheriff’s office news release. He was also served with an arrest warrant for failing to appear on a charge of driving without a license.
    Lopez-Ramirez was deported after his arrest in Frederick in October 2008 on the driving charge. While he was released on that charge, officers determined he was in the United States illegally and he was incarcerated for a month before being sent back to Guatemala.
    In February 2009, border agents in Douglas, Ariz., captured Lopez-Ramirez and he was again deported to Guatemala, only to return a few months later.
    And
    WE HAVE A MORAL OBLIGATION!!!!!!!!!!!!! [ I can hear the goosesteps a cha chunking]
    first appear.
    On Tuesday, seven members of the Los Angles City Council signed a proposal for a boycott that urged the city to “refrain from conducting business” or participating in conventions in Arizona. Also on Tues, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom imposed an immediate moratorium on city employees traveling to Arizona.
    And California Senate leader Darrell Steinberg said the state should consider a boycott of Arizona. He sent a letter to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, asking which Arizona businesses and government agencies California does business with.
    The root of the movement appears to be moral opposition to Arizona’s new law. “We have a moral obligation to deliver an unequivocal message to lawmakers in Arizona that California does not condone its conduct,” Mr. Steinberg wrote. The law (SB1070) allows police officers to question anyone they suspect of being an illegal immigrant, and makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally.
    There’s a feeling, proponents of the boycotts say, that acting against Arizona will be a wake up call to Arizona citizens and will discourage other states from enacting similar laws.
    “This is a draconian enforcement approach that, if expanded [to] other states, would have a crippling effect on the entire national economy,” says Raul Hinjosa-Ojeda, an associate professor of Chicana/Chicano studies at UCLA who researches the economics of immigration. “The general public is going to see the negative effect this has on the business community and will begin asking themselves, ‘Do we really understand what our legislature just did? Is this really worth the cost

  293. Qshtik April 29, 2010 at 3:02 pm #

    Was it formerly you and I?
    No, the rules haven’t changed.
    Generally it’s I at the beginning of a sentence and me at the end.
    Example:
    Jane and I were getting it on in the back seat of the car. Sally rapped on the window and asked if she could join Jane and me.
    In both cases mentally remove “Jane and” and the correct word – I or me – will become obvious.

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  294. diogen April 29, 2010 at 3:22 pm #

    >Generally it’s I at the beginning
    >of a sentence and me at the end.
    Hmm… contrary to your rule, Q: Squeezing in between Kathy and me, Laura felt cozy, and it was OK, decided Kathy and I.

  295. Weaseldog April 29, 2010 at 3:25 pm #

    “Cash nailed it.
    I’m as a big a John Lennon fan as the next guy, but sadly, war is occasionally necessary.
    The Nazis had an atomic bomb program going, and if they hadn’t tried to put so many jews in ovens, they might have had more success with it.”
    So Hitler did a good thing in starting WWII? It was a good and noble war, and Hitler is a hero for kicking it off?
    I’m of the opinion (a minority one), that the world would’ve been better off if Germany never kicked off WWII. Other people do disagree with me and exclaim that WWII made the USA great! And so we owe a big debt to the hero Adolph Hitler for starting the war, so we the USA could also be heroic.
    Perhaps the USA should start another civil war today. Imagine the benefits! East vs West or North and South again, no matter. If we had waves of armies and militias sweeping through towns and cities, killing, raping and burning, slaughtering millions of Americans, the benefits a hundred years from now would be fantastic!

  296. Qshtik April 29, 2010 at 3:33 pm #

    decided Kathy and I.
    That’s why I said generally. Your sentence construction is not the most common. Most would have said “Kathy and I decided it was OK.”
    Enough of this … I was just bustin balls.

  297. diogen April 29, 2010 at 3:34 pm #

    Asoka, this is a regrettable incident (there will be more like it, I’m afraid), but when the pendulum swings too far, it will swing too far coming back as well… Most reasonable folks would agree that a lack of consistent immigration policy and enforcement caused many social problems for us, and unfortunately other social problems will be caused by rectifying the errors of our ways. If only we had cops with perfect judgement and lack of prejudice 🙂

  298. diogen April 29, 2010 at 3:36 pm #

    >Enough of this … I was just bustin balls.
    Relax, me too.. (just kidding: so was I 🙂

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  299. Cash April 29, 2010 at 7:32 pm #

    So Hitler did a good thing in starting WWII? It was a good and noble war, and Hitler is a hero for kicking it off? – Weaseldog
    You have it backward. Maybe go back and read the posts. Yes the world would have been better off without WW2 having happened. But without armed resistance to Germany and Japan they could well have developed nukes and the outcome would be unthinkable. Same idea re the Confederacy. Without the civil war what would have been the outcome? How much longer would slavery have persisted?

  300. Mr. Purple April 29, 2010 at 7:52 pm #

    And now, peak phosphorous!
    http://www.miller-mccune.com/science-environment/the-story-of-pee-8736/

  301. Tituspullo8780 April 29, 2010 at 8:11 pm #

    You missed the point. Cash clarified. Let’s see if it takes 🙂

  302. Tituspullo8780 April 29, 2010 at 8:17 pm #

    Asia,
    Name my beefs. Since I have so many, this should be easy. Quick…the clock it running.
    TP
    (*also, are you Urethra / Eleuthero in drag?)

  303. Tituspullo8780 April 29, 2010 at 8:27 pm #

    Diogen,
    You’re an easy one to please, as am I. Kool and the gang, brother.
    Even better, you get to keep your $20 bucks :-), so now we’re both at peace.
    TP

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  304. messianicdruid April 29, 2010 at 10:34 pm #

    {John} Lennon read a book on {Gracho} Marx. Imagine 3 stooges in an egg fight. You say hell know I say goodbye.

  305. asoka April 29, 2010 at 11:36 pm #

    There are no illegal people in the United States.
    People cannot be illegal. They can commit illegal acts, but they cannot be “illegal”.
    We need to go after the employers who have illegally hired undocumented workers. People will stop crossing the border when employers stop offering them employment.

  306. asoka April 29, 2010 at 11:57 pm #

    IMMIGRANTS ARE A DRIVING FORCE IN USA COMPANIES

    A study released earlier this year by the UC Berkeley School of Information and Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University tracked the educational backgrounds of immigrant entrepreneurs who were key founders of technology and engineering companies from 1995 to 2005. The report, Education, Entrepreneurship and Immigration, shows a strong correlation between educational attainment-particularly in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math-and entrepreneurship. It concludes that immigrants are an increasingly significant driving force in creating new U.S. businesses and intellectual property. Among the findings:
    25.3% There was at least one immigrant key founder in 25.3% of all engineering and technology companies established in the U.S. between 1995 and 2005.
    $52 billion. The study estimated that, nationwide, immigrant-founded companies generated more than $52 billion in 2005 sales and created nearly 450,000 jobs as of 2005. The majority of these immigrant entrepreneurs came from India, United Kingdom, China, Taiwan, Japan and Germany.

    OPEN THE DOORS TO IMMIGRANTS. LET THEM IN. THEY ARE OUR FUTURE. DO NOT FEAR THE IMMIGRANTS, LEGAL OR ILLEGAL … THEY WANT TO WORK AND THEY ARE NET CONTRIBUTORS TO OUR ECONOMY. WE NEED THEM.

  307. Eleuthero April 30, 2010 at 12:07 am #

    >10 bucks says the Eleuthero handle mysteriously >disappears from this board after all these ass >whippings
    ++ Man, you’re one arrogant dude!
    ++ Eleuthero, I’ll gladly pay you $20 to not
    ++ disappear, but I don’t think it would
    ++ necessary.
    ++ And Titus, your homo allegation is exactly what ++ one would expect of an adolescent jock posing
    ++ as a thoughtful adult. Perhaps it’s your own
    ++ sexual ambiguity? Yeah, this is it, that’s why ++ you’re trying to prove your manhood with your ++ financial brilliance.
    Exactly, Diogen, exactly. First I’m “Urethra”
    then when that doesn’t gain traction he comes
    on with the homo stuff. This guy is a little
    kid tossing turds in a sandbox. When he’s not
    tossing gratuitous vulgarities he’s puffing his
    chest out with boasts.
    Regrettably, it’s these kinds of people that
    usually kill blogs in the long run. In the
    blogosphere, the bad inevitably drives out
    the good because people who would never have
    the nerve or the power to say such crap to
    your face act all “manly” with all the
    anonymity provided by the Internet.
    I don’t care how many such posts he makes
    about me or how many names he calls me. I’m
    not going to reply to him directly. He
    doesn’t deserve the privilege of learned
    discourse.
    Finally, the last thing I’m going to do is
    brag about my accomplishments in life or
    tell him how many women I’ve boinked women
    so that I can shut him up. That’s precisely
    what such cretins want because they’re just
    jonesing for a fight. It’s about dominance/submission and never about co-equal
    idea sharing.
    The meek may inherit the earth but every large
    blog I’ve ever belonged to ultimately bites the
    dust because of trolls like this. It only
    supports my thesis that the Internet actually
    does more to separate people than it does to
    bring them together. And I’ll permit myself
    this one “brag”: I have taught people how to
    program the Internet FROM THE TRANSPORT LAYER
    ON UP and was on the Internet in 1978 when it
    was the ARPANET. Therefore, I certainly have
    vast experience in watching the creation and
    destruction of blogs. Three decades plus worth.
    Eleuthero
    Eleuthero

  308. Eleuthero April 30, 2010 at 12:25 am #

    Asoka,
    No one doubts that “immigrants are a
    driving force …” in American industry
    but that does NOT mean that all immigrants
    are equally worthy or that they come from
    equally worthy countries.
    Most Indian and Chinese H1B visa workers
    in the high tech industry in America are
    very able, extremely hard workers, and,
    if anything, probably have lower crime
    rates than Anglo natives of the US.
    Because they have H1B work visas, they
    pay taxes and their visits to the doctor
    are covered by their employers either
    wholly or partially.
    Mexican immigration is in no way equal
    to or similar to this. IN NO WAY!!!
    Illegal immigration results in higher
    health insurance costs for all the
    INSURED WORKERS. Illegal immigration
    reduces government tax revenues because
    such immigrants are usually paid “under
    the table”. Finally, Mexicans have a
    crime rate, both property and violent
    crime, which is FAR higher than it is
    for the native population and for the
    H1B workers cited above.
    I’ve pointed out this flaw in your
    thinking before i.e., you make arguments
    that sweep with an incredibly broad brush
    so that you don’t have to be bothered with
    details such as the ones I’ve presented
    above.
    It’s simply an error in logical inference
    to state that if SOME immigrants make
    excellent contributions to American
    culture, therefore ALL immigrants are
    equally worthy of assimilation and
    naturalization.
    I think it ought to be done on a CASE
    BY CASE basis. Tests should be given
    for English competency and a rudimentary
    knowledge of American law. Background
    checks of criminal records in the country
    of origination should be made. These
    are inherently sensible steps but I’m
    pretty sure that you wouldn’t like the
    results just as I’m fairly sure you
    don’t like the results when the Univ.
    of California went to a completely
    color-blind, ethnicity-blind admission
    system.
    I’m sorry that you don’t believe that
    there are failed cultures and there are
    successful cultures but all of recorded
    history proves this beyond doubt and the
    cultures that succeed/thrive are the very
    ones whose inventions we use every day
    and who labors make the most difference
    in the most ways, both historically and
    currently.
    Eleuthero

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  309. Tituspullo8780 April 30, 2010 at 12:29 am #

    Hello Again 🙂
    You really are a bitter old queen. You pick fights, name call, make lame and poorly substantiated arguments, and religiously choose to ignore larger – slightly more complex issues. So many of your statements are just a rehash of others thinking.
    Then of course, you refuse to defend these positions on moral grounds. You imply that somehow you are more ethical than those you choose to argue with. Your posts are littered with a litany of generalizations about groups ranging from ‘café liberals’, ‘bankers’ to ‘illegal aliens’. I’m guessing in your more private moments, your rants take a racist turn.
    Your posts here simply expose a bitter old civil-servant, who gets off on anger and plagiarizing the ideas of other people (JHK in particular). You even steal some of the phrases and his language outright.
    Some might consider a plagiarist such as yourself to be a ‘scoundrel’, perhaps even an ‘idiot’. I do. What is your take on someone so lacking in originality?
    You refuse to address any serious issues I raise head on because they fall outside the range of topics that JHK, or maybe Fox news, has equipped you to respond to. If you’re left to think on your own, you have no intellectual ammo.
    So, you stick to your age-old horse s#$t about how offended you are about being called “Urethra”. But you endlessly rack your brain for new names to hurl at me (or search google for synonyms of the word ‘greedy’) rather than addressing the issues. Well, I’ll try one last time to penetrate that thick skull of yours by addressing the issues:
    >>Making money off a crisis describes 2 stock market crashes, yada yada yada
    You are a public school teacher. I don’t know what you teach, other than it’s probably not English or Math. Technically then, you leach off the government till. You provide a government mandated ‘service’ and are part of a system for poorly socializing children. You talk openly about retiring back to PA on your government pension. (*no way you teach at a University)
    I’m curious – have you ever given any thought to how that pension is funded? Do you understand the relationship between Calpers and “vermin like Blankfein” (*your words) Or – the relationship between government policy and these market dislocations you mention? You should think about these things. Once you connect the dots – a principled guy like you should refuse to take that pension. Go out and work in the private sector in a job that adds value to society. One thing. I think good teachers are an invaluable resource. However, they are a rare species in public schools.
    >>something for nothing mentality.
    This assumes that all investing is easy, just push a button and instant riches appear. No work required. If that were the case, everyone would be rich. I argue that investment in real, tangible economic activity is the basis for the economic system that you, Urethra, happily skim from. It’s also work.
    Capital accumulation, saving and investing are the seeds from which companies grow. They grow, and they hire private sector employees that your state government taxes to provide you with your lush retirement. Many of the folks getting taxed to pay the wages of an intellectual incompetents such as yourself, don’t have the benefit of a defined pension plan like you do. That being the case, where do you get off complaining about investment strategies that you don’t comprehend, or the ‘greed’ of others.
    I’m curious Urethra. In all your rantings and ravings, have you ever stopped to consider whether or not this arrangement is fair? Why should some poor guy pushing a broom have to get taxed to pay a useless clown like you to kick back and do nothing.
    Perhaps you are the greedy one, in that you assume that someone else should work in the private sector so that you can retire in comfort. One last thing about your pending ‘retirement’ – if it’s denominated in US dollars – it probably won’t be worth very much by the time you start collecting it. Imagine a world where a coke is $15 bucks, and gallon of gas is $20. What do you do then Urethra?
    What is plan B? Something tells me that sociology teachers won’t be in high demand in that sort of economic environment. If you happen to buy what JHK is selling, then a US dollar hyperinflation is not just a likely outcome, it’s probably inevitable.
    I’m feeling very good as I type this, just reflecting on your rejection of my modest advice. That advice might have saved you from experiencing severe poverty in the very near future.
    I hope you remember that when you feast on your first can of cat food, because with your ‘soon-to-be’ shitty retirement – you may not be able to afford much more. It’s just too fitting.
    With that, I bid you a fond farewell Urethra! Enjoy your retirement.
    p.s. You may want to start stock up for the big move to PA. My mothers cat is particularly fond of the Tuna flavored stuff. Perhaps you should give it a try: http://www.friskies.com/Wet-Cat-Food/Default.aspx

  310. Vlad Krandz April 30, 2010 at 12:45 am #

    Dark skin doesn’t automatically mean a low IQ btw. There was an ancient Caucasian People in India who were very dark skinned (darker than most African Americans) yet they created an advanced civilization that was smashed by the more primitive, fair skinned Aryan invaders. Because of this civilization, alot of people now deny that the invasion took place at all, but it obviously did. And then people like Asoka will think that the smart dark skins were Blacks – which they were not. You can still see some of them today, dark skinned yes, but with magnificient high foreheads and “White” features. And there are alot of very low dark skinned types in India – Australoid types who have never developed anything. These are the monkeys mentioned in the Ramayana.
    As for your supercillious ending – all spiritual traditions have always maintained that sanctity can be developed by humble people who have the right attitude. A very high IQ is not everything. A person can develop spiritually with just an average IQ if their heart is good. Like Dale, you can make a good begining by giving up your hatred of people like me who speak forbiden truth.

  311. asoka April 30, 2010 at 1:01 am #

    Eleuthero, to base immigration upon one’s economic capacity to contribute is distasteful. Immigrants who do not contribute $$$$ do contribute in other ways.
    But even in ecnonomic terms your negative comments about Latino immigrants seem to be based upon your own ignorance of the facts. The U.S. Census Bureau’s Survey of Business Owners: Hispanic-Owned Firms: 2002 indicated that the number of Hispanic-owned businesses in the United States grew to nearly 1.6 million in 2002. Those Hispanic-owned businesses generated about $222 billion in revenue.
    You are the one who seems to be generalizing about a whole group of immigrants and then are consciously discriminating against them. I am the one saying to welcome them all in an indiscriminate manner.
    A 2006 Pew Hispanic Center study found evidence that increasing immigration levels have not hurt employment prospects for American workers.
    Furthermore, in 2009, a study by the Cato Institute, a free market think tank, found that legalization of low-skilled illegal resident workers in the US would result in a net increase in US GDP of $180 billion over ten years.
    IMMIGRANTS FROM ALL GROUPS WANT TO WORK.
    ALLOW THE IMMIGRANTS IN: DO NOT FEAR THEM.

  312. Vlad Krandz April 30, 2010 at 1:04 am #

    Now you’re talking – dogs, machine gun towers, etc. They are already fleeing from Arizona. The governor of Utah is afraid they are going to set up shop there, so he’s thinking about a similar law. In fact, if we just enforced the laws already on the books, most of them would go home of their own accord. E Verify on the job with draconian penalties against employers would finish the job. But as you know, the real battle is in the minds and souls of our own people. I don’t think we have what it takes anymore. Based on the past, I assume the new law will be squelched. Instead of Mexicans fleeing, it will be the Whites. And the Mexicans will follow them wherever they go. Because as Vicente Fox said, where there is Mexicans, there is Mexico. And who wants to live in Mexico. Not Mexicans. They just want to talk about how great they are while they take advantage of people who really can make things work.

  313. asoka April 30, 2010 at 1:11 am #

    “Instead of Mexicans fleeing, it will be the Whites.”
    Of course… the Mexicans are just re-taking their own land. They remember the Alamo. Nothing can stop the chicano takeover of the southwest.

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  314. Vlad Krandz April 30, 2010 at 1:17 am #

    Sorry for the troublesome error, Q. I’d rather be ruled by honest thieves, like Sicilian Mafia or Pornographers than these hypocrites. So we can vote – big deal. I’d much rather that we just be left alone to live our lives than this bogus, illusory right to vote.
    They’ve also taken away our right to vote in the courts. Originally, you could vote against a law by finding someone innocent even if they had broken it. But they hated that the people had a voice and buried it a long time ago. By right, they should be explaining this to every jury.

  315. asoka April 30, 2010 at 1:30 am #

    DRILL BABY DRILL IDIOTS PALIN AND STEELE ARE SILENT

    “Drill, baby, drill! And drill now!” Steele memorably chanted at the Republican National Convention in 2008. “Do you want to put your country first? Then let’s make decisions about our security based on what keeps us safe and not on what’s politically correct,” he told the crowd.

    And during that year’s vice presidential debate, Palin told Joe Biden, “You even called drilling — safe, environmentally-friendly drilling offshore — as raping the outer continental shelf. There — with new technology, with tiny footprints even on land, it is safe to drill and we need to do more of that.”

    DRILL BABY DRILL = RAPE AMERICA FIRST

  316. Martin Hayes April 30, 2010 at 4:01 am #

    You really are a bitter old queen.
    Eleuthero doesn’t want to engage with you, Titus, because it would not be a meeting of minds. Communication is only possible between equals.
    Not in this case intellectually, I don’t think, but because Eleuthero, if I’m reading him correctly, thinks you have the morals of an alley cat.
    Yes, Eleuthero knows perfectly well, I’m sure, that life isn’t fair, and a good thing, too, because if it were, you and most of your cronies would be in jail.

  317. Qshtik April 30, 2010 at 8:06 am #

    you and most of your cronies would be in jail.
    Martin, when you refer to Titus’s “cronies” who are you speaking of?

  318. Scourge of Modernity April 30, 2010 at 8:07 am #

    It’s nice to see Kunstler finally sees that Obama is a tool. He’s still a bit naive about race and the “birthers,” unfortunately.

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  319. Martin Hayes April 30, 2010 at 8:14 am #

    Qshtik, who knows? Pirates always work in gangs. Oh, but then I forget: you seem to admire piracy. 🙂

  320. diogen April 30, 2010 at 8:35 am #

    >Like Dale, you can make a good begining by >giving up your hatred of people like me
    Vlad, you couldn’t be more worng — I don’t hate you, and I don’t even hate your ideas, and I don’t even disagree with ALL of your notions. I only reject some of the aspects of your obsession with race, ethnicity and tribalism. What bothers me most is that you condemn and demonize INDIVIDUALS who happen to belong to certain racial or ethnic categories. I think most people are tempted to generalize sometimes, but most people have an innate sense of fairness, this is one of the most quintessential American cultural traits. I’ve travelled a lot to various countries around the world, and I saw a lot of tribalism, ethnic hatred or bigotry, and as a reasonably objective outsider I also saw that they were mostly unsubstantiated. Sure, some Gypsies and Kurds steal from Rumanians and Turks, but even Rumanians and Turks admit that there are decent Gypsies and Kurds. I have had conversations with Greeks and Turks who would say totally bogus lies about each other, because their mentality is stuck in the past centuries. To use an old cliche, people like that are driving looking in the rearview mirror. Such views do not offer any solutions, they only promote existing problems, and probably create new ones.
    So, my life experiences cause me to reject your implications that ALL blacks are inferior, ALL jews are schemers and thieves, ALL whites are superior, ALL mexicans are whatever. Those things may be true of some of them, but it goes against my nature to condemn all individuals belonging to racial or ethnic groups.
    This is really the only area of my disagreement with you, so for you to say that I hate you is some sort of persecution delusion (which surfaces up quite clearly at times in your posts).
    I understand you have romantic notions of race, tribe, clan, etc. But I don’t see how we can create pragmatic solutions to our many problems while guided by our worst instincts. These people (blacks, jews, latinos) are here to stay whether we like them or not, and if you marginalize and treat them unfairly, you will only promote more bahaviors that you hate them for in the first place.
    Sorry for the long post, and don’t delude yourself that I hate you — if I did, I wouldn’t even be talking to you.

  321. Qshtik April 30, 2010 at 8:45 am #

    Qshtik, who knows?
    This is your answer? I notice that the casting of vague aspersions is your stock in trade. There is no clear follow-up. There is no pinning you down. First it’s cronies and now pirates. And then I am lumped in as an admirer of piracy. Where do you get this shit?
    And before it fades into the ether … you have yet to make a case why Dubai bringing in cheap labor via 3 year work contracts is exploitation. Sounds like a better system than letting people wade in to your country willy nilly.
    I’m starting to believe that maybe you were exploiting the Sri Lankan woman. She was hired to pick up after you but the mental torture of your vague bullshit was not in the contract.

  322. Martin Hayes April 30, 2010 at 8:54 am #

    Why would I want to be pinned down? I’m a believer in the morning, and an atheist by nightfall.
    Are you so vexed this early in the morning? Put down that coffee cup!
    You were teasing me last week, and made me grumpy; help me finish this sentence: if you can’t take it …
    Cronies, pirates. I’m really not expecting to be taken seriously.
    As to Dubai and the maid, give me time to marshal my thoughts.

  323. Qshtik April 30, 2010 at 9:30 am #

    Why would I want to be pinned down?
    What it comes down to is that you’ve developed a set of beliefs over a lifetime and you’re not about to seriously entertain any conflicting arguments.

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  324. Martin Hayes April 30, 2010 at 9:38 am #

    Try me. I’m open to them all. I enjoy them all. Oh the delicious irony of being accused of being some dullard incapable of changing his mind. Geez, Eleuthero is right: the net doesn’t bring people together; just drives them apart. I like to express myself forcefully, it’s true, but that doesn’t mean I’m some hidebound ideologue.
    Sorry to leave off here, Qshtik. Busy debugging a high-voltage circuit, and then I’m going to take my customary mid-afternoon nap.

  325. diogen April 30, 2010 at 10:01 am #

    >developed a set of beliefs over a lifetime and >not about to entertain conflicting arguments.
    Yes, Sam Adams and Stella are the best beers on the planet, possibly the universe, and if you claim otherwise you’re a moron with the intelligence of an earthworm, and your sisters make buses look attractive.

  326. Cash April 30, 2010 at 10:03 am #

    Asoka,
    If you advocate opening the doors to illegal immigrants to the US no doubt you’re ok with the reverse, millions of Americans crossing the border into Mexico or other Latin American countries, setting up shop, starting up businesses, setting up house keeping, perhaps taking vacant land, starting farms, putting the land to productive use and no one in Mexico should object and the Mexican govt should allow this.
    No one in these countries should scream that they are being taken over by illegal Americans, that this is covert American imperialism.
    You have to be fair after all. Am I correct?

  327. Cash April 30, 2010 at 10:11 am #

    I heard what Vicente Fox said. The reverse should also be true and this point should be made by American leaders: if illegal Mexican immigration into the US is ok by Fox, so should illegal American immigration into Mexico be ok, where there are Americans there is America, speaking English, living by American laws and customs, protected by the might of the US military and the reach of the US govt.
    But to refute Fox or to make that point would require American leaders to show some cojones and to stop working against their own country. Can’t have that.

  328. Qshtik April 30, 2010 at 10:16 am #

    You are vague, not dull.
    A friend of mine liked being vague too. He would always answer my questions with a question … like you do. I said Steve, why do you always answer my questions with a question? He said, “Why not?”

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  329. Martin Hayes April 30, 2010 at 10:27 am #

    Stella? All right! Would you believe me if I told you I’ve never tried one? And, get this, I’ve never eaten at McDonald’s.
    Do I detect a little hostility towards me? If so, I’m happy to go somewhere else.

  330. Qshtik April 30, 2010 at 10:29 am #

    Sam Adams and Stella are the best beers on the planet … and your sisters make buses look attractive.
    LOL! There’s nothing like the universal incontestable truth with an ad hominem tossed in like a cherry on top.

  331. Cash April 30, 2010 at 10:42 am #

    You’ve never eaten at McD’s? Amazing! I’m curious now. Why not? Where do you live? I’m not mocking, you’re the first person I’ve known since my late Grandmother and my aunt (who is finicky beyond belief) who hasn’t eaten at McDs.
    Even my parents ate there a couple times but complained of digestive upset afterwards and after those two times never went back. Must have been the lethal fat and salt content.
    BTW you’re not missing anything. IMO a burger made at home in a frying pan is better by a wide margin plus takes no time and no skill and it’s a whole lot cheaper, plus you get to have a beer with it which you can’t do at McDs.

  332. Cash April 30, 2010 at 10:44 am #

    Martin and Q, have you guys ever tried Bass or Moretti? From the UK and northern Italy respectively. IMO really good.

  333. Martin Hayes April 30, 2010 at 10:52 am #

    Cash, for what it’s worth, I have genuinely never eaten anything from McDonald’s. I went into a McDonald’s once, in Vancouver, to sign a lease agreement, and that’s it.
    My “philosophy” of burger making is dead simple: ground steak, not too lean, with nothing added. Not even salt. Outdoor grill is best, obviously, but a heavyweight oven-top skillet is amazingly good. Put on the burger and wait. Then wait some more. Let the tension rise. Wait a bit more. Then flip.
    What’s Bass?

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  334. diogen April 30, 2010 at 10:56 am #

    >Do I detect a little hostility toward me?
    Martin, WHY in the world would you say that? I haven’t even talked to you in some time, and my last reply to you, whenever it was, was nothing but friendly, even if I joked about you and the Sri Lankan beauty. I’m puzzled.

  335. Martin Hayes April 30, 2010 at 10:59 am #

    All right, I confess. I shagged the Sri Lankan woman silly. Happy now?

  336. diogen April 30, 2010 at 11:01 am #

    >My “philosophy” of burger making is simple: >ground steak, not too lean, nothing added.
    NOTHING ADDED? You’re a savage! Garlic, onions, soy sauce, charcoal grill. And if you disagree, I’ll call you offensive names and make allegations about your sisters and buses.

  337. diogen April 30, 2010 at 11:03 am #

    >I shagged the Sri Lankan woman silly. Happy now?
    I hope you’re joking, I couldn’t care less, it was just friendly ribbing (along with Q, I didn’t quite understand your guilt about her, but I really don’t care one way or another).

  338. Martin Hayes April 30, 2010 at 11:13 am #

    Diogen, you suck as a chef, and I’ll tell you why. Take as an analogy the difference between flavored yoghurt, which has had sugar, etc, mixed into it, and plain yoghurt with a light dusting of, preferably, castor sugar. The magic of the latter is the contrast between the two happening right on your tongue. The former is ruined because no magic can happen. The contrasting elements have been combined and thus been neutralized.
    Similarly, you want the burger patty to be just what it is, nothing more and nothing less. Then, you let its delicate juices mingle with mustard, cress, sharp-tasting tomato, onions, and what have you, right on your tongue. See?
    By putting the onions in the patty, you have fatally neutralized any potential alchemy. But if you must put something in the patty, try a little freshly ground nutmeg.

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  339. Cash April 30, 2010 at 11:16 am #

    Bass is an old brewery company in the UK. Main product is Bass Pale Ale. You used to be able to get it in bars. LCBOs used to carry it (not any more). Moretti you can get at both LCBO and Beer Stores.

  340. Martin Hayes April 30, 2010 at 11:18 am #

    No, of course I didn’t. Sigh. English humor. My guilt about the woman is my poor handling of my dissatisfaction, that’s all. I was too gruff.
    It’s not about big-deal issues like worker exploitation, which I shouldn’t have mentioned because it just clouded what I was trying to get across. Just that I didn’t treat her enough as a person. Plus, it made me realize that it’s easy, all too easy, to turn into a bad boss.

  341. diogen April 30, 2010 at 11:19 am #

    Hmm, nutmeg… Sri Lankan specialty? JUST KIDDING!
    Will definitely give it a try.
    Agree on plain yogurt.

  342. Cash April 30, 2010 at 11:20 am #

    You shagged her, good for you. We expected nothing less.
    OK Asoka keep your shirt on, we’re just kidding.

  343. Cash April 30, 2010 at 11:30 am #

    I’m with you there, plain meat is best. Nutmeg I’ll try.
    Ever tried Indian versions ie with stuff like cumin, coriander etc?

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  344. Qshtik April 30, 2010 at 11:33 am #

    What’s Bass?
    A bass is a fish or, to be more precise, one of various kinds of fish found in both fresh and salt water, e.g. Large Mouth (fresh) and Black (salt). Therefore, your question might more correctly have been worded, “What are Bass?”
    I hope this clarifies Cash’s comment;o)

  345. Cash April 30, 2010 at 11:34 am #

    I’ll bet that the odds are that you were the best boss she’s had. You’re probably worrying too much. And no we don’t think you laid a mitt on her.

  346. Qshtik April 30, 2010 at 11:44 am #

    I’m with you there, plain meat is best. Nutmeg I’ll try.
    You can always tell when it’s getting late in the week. We are far-afield from JHK’s hand-wringing on steroids.

  347. Martin Hayes April 30, 2010 at 11:56 am #

    I couldn’t be serious now if I tried, what with the carnival show of the British election going on. No one is talking about peak oil. There’s a surprise. Come to that, I have yet to see a single mention in the British press about the precipitous decline in North Sea oil production. One or two stories have probably crept in, unseen by me, buried on page four or in the business section. This place is la-la land.
    But we’ve all had a good laugh, at least, now that Gordon Brown has shown the unbridgeable gulf between the governed and the government. Brown’s “bigotgate” gaffe took place in a Lancashire mill town not far from where I live. It’s all on YouTube, if you’re interested.

  348. asoka April 30, 2010 at 11:57 am #

    THE ECONOMIC RECOVERY IS HAPPENING… IN THE PRIVATE SECTOR
    Spending by consumers rose by the fastest pace in three years, the Commerce Department said Friday . That helped the economy grow at a 3.2 percent pace in the January-to-March quarter. It marked the third straight quarterly gain as the United States heals from the longest and deepest recession since the 1930s.
    NOW SOME WILL SPIN THIS, QSHTIK WILL ACCUSE ME OF TAKING IT “OUT OF CONTEXT”. THERE IS NO CONTEXT. GAIN IS GAIN. GAIN IS NOT LOSS.
    IT IS WHAT IT IS: THREE QUARTERS OF CONSECUTIVE GAIN, WHICH I BELIEVE IS THE DEFINITION OF THE END OF THE RECESSION.
    OBAMA’A ECONOMIC RECOVERY PLAN HAS BEEN SUCCESSFUL. DEAL WITH IT.

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  349. asoka April 30, 2010 at 12:50 pm #

    Correction:
    OBAMA’S ECONOMIC RECOVERY PLAN HAS BEEN SUCCESSFUL. DEAL WITH IT, JHK.

  350. asia April 30, 2010 at 1:11 pm #

    faiths dont unite they divide..look at Israel

  351. asia April 30, 2010 at 1:15 pm #

    Agreed.
    does the same apply in the physical world? azatlanders driving the middleclass into the center of the USA?

  352. asia April 30, 2010 at 1:18 pm #

    ‘All those Saudi immigrants with box cutters were here legally and were enrolled taking flying lessons. ‘
    gawd what a moron you are!

  353. asia April 30, 2010 at 1:22 pm #

    youve got it worng

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  354. diogen April 30, 2010 at 1:26 pm #

    >youve got it worng
    “Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.”

  355. asia April 30, 2010 at 1:26 pm #

    With our number at 7 Billion peak everthing or anything doesnt surprise me.
    for those who didnt go to the link…briefly:
    Unremarked and unregulated by the United Nations and other high-level assemblies, the world’s supply of phosphate rock, the dominant source of phosphorus for fertilizer, is being rapidly — and wastefully — drawn down. By most estimates, the best deposits will be gone in 50 to 100 years.
    Worse, phosphorus production could peak in just two decades, according to new research from Australia and Sweden. That’s when demand could outstrip supply, playing out a familiar scenario of scarcity, price shocks, riots, starvation and war.

  356. asia April 30, 2010 at 1:29 pm #

    Mexico and its corrupt govt have been ‘working’ the USA for a long time.
    their #2? revenue stream is $ sent back from el norte…
    of course you have it right. see asokas comment on conquista..he celebrates the fall of the usa.

  357. diogen April 30, 2010 at 1:35 pm #

    And you think this is bad? For Chinese and Indian men it’s Peak Women!!! For various evil reasons, there are MILLIONS more men than women, and what happens when a man can’t get hisself a wife? He turns into a vicious insane predator with one thing on his mind. Phosphates, ha!
    “The problem of too many men and not enough women in Chinese villages is likely to become much worse, a leading researcher in the field has warned.
    China has 32m more men aged under 20 than women, according to a paper published last month by Therese Hesketh, of University College London. Her latest research suggests that rural areas – where the imbalance is at its greatest – will be further affected because women are “marrying out” into cities”
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/19/china-gender-ratio-women-men

  358. budizwiser April 30, 2010 at 1:41 pm #

    Did not want to rip off the whole FT article – when Roubini speaks – better pay attention –
    JK – the “black swans” are circling, how fitting if the “sucker going down” starts from Ancient Greece…..
    The crisis will spread without a Plan B
    ByNouriel Roubini and Arnab Das
    Published: April 29 2010 21:58 | Last updated: April 29 2010 21:58
    The past weekend’s spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund in Washington focused on the Greek sovereign debt crisis – the first such crisis in living memory to concern a high-income country, and in the eurozone no less. Even more telling than the shift of focus from emerging markets is the widening divide in the views of those institutions and governments leading efforts to secure an orderly resolution.

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  359. The Mook April 30, 2010 at 2:01 pm #

    Thanks. I knew I got yelled at back then but it was always for using me and you!

  360. The Mook April 30, 2010 at 2:05 pm #

    Wow. Actually I wouldn’t care if it was me, Jane and Sally. Sally, Jane and I or Jane and me or I and Sally! Thanks for the clarification, I will try to abide by the rules.

  361. asoka April 30, 2010 at 2:06 pm #

    budiwizer, Roubini is an idiot. He is a blowhard who talks a lot and once in a great while he is right.
    Roubini predicted a recession in 2004, he predicted a recession in 2005, he predicted a recession in 2006, and he predicted a recession in 2007. He was wrong four years in a row. In 2008, his prediction came true. Well, a stopped clock is correct twice each day.
    Roubini is the Boy Who Cried Wolf.

  362. Qshtik April 30, 2010 at 2:10 pm #

    “Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch
    Good one Dio … that’s funny.

  363. Qshtik April 30, 2010 at 2:50 pm #

    Roubini is the Boy Who Cried Wolf.
    I don’t know what Roubini said in the FT article to which you and Budi refer – I’ll look it up later – but I did hear Maria Bartiromo interview him yesterday and I would categorize his words as modestly doomish. Of course, this is his shtick. He makes his living in the same doom and gloom cottage industry as JHK.
    But, Asoka, let’s take one of your left wing favorites – Paul Krugman. For the first time in my memory he admits he may have been wrong about something. Here are a few sentences from his column in today’s NYT:
    Until recently, most analysts, myself included, considered a euro breakup basically impossible … blah … blah … So is the euro itself in danger? In a word, yes. … a chain reaction that starts with a Greek default and ends up wreaking much wider havoc looks all too possible.

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  364. dale April 30, 2010 at 3:10 pm #

    “For the first time in my memory he admits he may have been wrong about something.”
    =====================================
    I don’t read him often enough to know how often he admits he’s been wrong, but even once is a refreshing contrast from most of the political/economic idiots who populate the media.
    I mean really….has Ben Stein ever been right about anything? And that guy STILL writes columns that get published. The only area that I can think of which has less accountability than the print media is that bizarre zone of complete ideological unreality which surrounds the CNBC blowhard Kudlow.

  365. asoka April 30, 2010 at 3:22 pm #

    Qshtik: “Paul Krugman. For the first time in my memory he admits he may have been wrong about something. ”
    Maybe in your memory, but it’s not the first time. Krugman is an academic and doesn’t pretend to be an prophet. He willingly accepts new data and changes according to the data.
    When has Roubini ever publicly admitted he is wrong?

  366. Qshtik April 30, 2010 at 3:54 pm #

    He willingly accepts new data and changes according to the data.
    Cite me an example please.
    When has Roubini ever publicly admitted he is wrong?
    I don’t know. I haven’t read columns by Roubini. I only hear interviews and have difficulty following him due to rapid speech, non-existant pauses (even at the end of sentences), a lack of facial and body english as further clues to his gist, and an odd (to me) Italian (?) accent. I’ll bet Cash could follow him. What do you think Cash? Is Roubini full of shit?

  367. Qshtik April 30, 2010 at 4:53 pm #

    that bizarre zone of complete ideological unreality which surrounds the CNBC blowhard Kudlow.
    It is fascinating to see at this blog how differently we all view the world. There are no two alike.
    I believe you, as a worshiper of Marx, see Kudlow as a “blowhard” because he champions capitalism and is directly associated with Wall St. I see him as knowledgeable about all things financial but, as an over-the-top optimistic and elfin dandy of uncertain sexual preference, not my favorite financial journalist.
    Strike the sexual preference remark. I just did a Wiki and see that he’s married. Interestingly, he is Catholic, formerly Jewish.
    All in all I find the entire crew on CNBC to be exceptionally bright and far ahead of their competition … what you would refer to as a bunch of capitalist tools.

  368. MINDfool April 30, 2010 at 5:45 pm #

    I couldn’t resist:
    existant should be existent;
    Common misspelling

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  369. asoka April 30, 2010 at 6:31 pm #

    Now here is an idea that had not occurred to me, about train travel.
    Bullet trains in China that “slow down” to 250 km/hr (140 mph) to allow passengers to get off the train and to take on new passengers.
    Passengers get on and get off, at each station along the way, but the train never goes slower than 250 km/hr. I could not believe this possible until I saw it in this video:
    http://www.elespectador.com/noticias/elmundo/articulo200905-china-desarrolla-tren-no-se-detiene-subir-o-bajar-pasajeros
    My apologies to monoglots; the sound track is in Spanish, but you can see how the passengers get on and leave the train while the train continues to go 250 km/hr.
    Kudos to the Chinese for this truly new idea.

  370. asoka April 30, 2010 at 6:40 pm #

    ASOKA: He willingly accepts new data and changes according to the data.
    QSHTIK: Cite me an example please.
    ASOKA:

    But the world changed when George W. Bush was elected in 2000, and what is arguably the worst administration in the history of the United States took office. It seemed to shake Krugman to the core. He now says of his polemics in the 1990s,”I was wrong obviously. If I’d understood where politics would be now, it would have been quite different.” –Paul Krugman
    http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=790

  371. asoka April 30, 2010 at 7:23 pm #

    STATE DISCRIMINATION IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL

    Meanwhile, in a move that was more covert until the Wall Street Journal uncovered it, the Arizona Department of Education has told schools that teachers with “heavy” or “ungrammatical” accents are no longer allowed to teach English classes.

    I took French and Spanish from native-English speakers. My teachers had “heavy” accents. Will they no longer be allowed to teach?
    I wonder if this will work the other way and those who are native English speakers will not be allowed to teach German, French, Spanish, etc.?
    If not, this would seem to be another unconstitutional measure aimed squarely at HISPANICS.
    Where are all the Tea Party folks (who swear they are not racist)? Why are they not “defending the constitution”? Hispanics, even legal, lawfully employed Hispanics, are under attack.

  372. Tituspullo8780 April 30, 2010 at 8:11 pm #

    I don’t think Roubini is an economic seer, but he has more on the ball than Paul Krugman. Krugman has made some strange suggestions in his career and his unwavering commitment to Keynesian deficit spending is frightening.
    He recently published an article advising Greece to inflate away their massive debt burden through currency debasement. He complained about the German influence at the ECB was preventing this inflationary approach from being applied.
    If Greece and by extension, the ECB took Krugman’s advice, they would basically be ripping off anyone holding Greek sovereign debt through the debasement of their bonds purchasing power. Krugman essentially advised government engineered theft from creditors, as if the people who lent Greece money were the problem – not the irresponsible government spending that came out of Athens.
    If the Eurozone is serious about protecting the value of the Euro long-term, they would point the greeks back to the mandated economic requirements to be a Eruo-based country and tell them to either get in line, or kick them out.
    Kicking them out of the Eurozone would be uncomfortable for the greek populace, however a greater good would be served. The primary European currency would be defended, and the Euro would be seen as a more credible store of wealth.
    Germany seems to have a strong residual memory of how tough hyper-inflation is on people, and the potentially terrible political consequences that can result. They manage their economy accordingly. It seems unfair they should have to shoulder the burden of bailing out less fiscally responsible countries to ensure their own national currency doesn’t crack up again.
    Back to Krugman, the man is pretty comfortable with government sanctioned theft. Enough so that he advocates it.
    I also don’t think he fully appreciates how similar our (the US) fiscal position is to the greeks, the main difference being that our debt and fiscal imbalances are far worse. We are spared the consequences (in the short term) because we currently manage the world’s reserve currency and we own the printing press.
    Krugman seems incapable of envisioning a world where the US destroys it’s reserve currency status with continued massive borrowing, extreme deficit spending and unsustainable accumulated debt.
    The dollar could lose it’s value/purchasing power in a very short period of time, and amazingly, he’s also arguing China should allow the Yuan to be revalued upwards, and event that would invariably speed the dollars demise.
    In practical terms – that would mean an “across the board” pay cut for all Americans whose paychecks are denominated in US dollars. Chinese imports would become much more expensive in USD terms. I think Krugman means well…however the ideas he clings to are out of touch with reality.

  373. Qshtik April 30, 2010 at 8:16 pm #

    Wherever did you get the idea that you are an eminence grise around here?
    I wanted to be an eminence Spain but they wouldn’t buy it; then I tried for eminence Portugal – no dice; so finally I had to settle for eminence grise.

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  374. ozone April 30, 2010 at 8:23 pm #

    “Tests should be given
    for English competency and a rudimentary
    knowledge of American law.”
    Ouch! What do we do with the millions of American citizens who fail these tests? Send ’em to Alabama? ;o)

  375. Qshtik April 30, 2010 at 8:25 pm #

    existant should be existent;
    Yeah … I will go to my grave yearning for a rule regarding ant vs ent.

  376. asia April 30, 2010 at 8:54 pm #

    Mays newsweek is 54? pages….so maybe joel klein/ben stein arent so in vogue.
    krugman writes for the LATimes so i know what they look for in editorials[BS].

  377. Qshtik April 30, 2010 at 9:20 pm #

    He now says of his polemics in the 1990s,”I was wrong obviously.
    This is what I would call a “left-handed” admission of being wrong. It is actually a device for restating a previous postion but hyperbolically. Although the admission involved Galbraith it came down to this (paraphrasing Krugman): “I felt W would prove to be a bad president but I must admit I was wrong because W turned out to be not merely bad but arguably the worst of all time.”
    I know about such wording because I am known in our family for “left handed compliments” such as telling my wife’s good friend Susan “you are a lot smarter than you look.”

  378. asoka April 30, 2010 at 9:32 pm #

    ASOKA: He willingly accepts new data and changes according to the data.
    QSHTIK: Cite me an example please.
    FROM KRUGMAN’S OWN NY TIMES BLOG:

    Update: I was wrong to say that Portugal had a housing bubble. It experienced huge capital inflows, and its banks are overextended, but this didn’t show up in property prices.

    Qshtik, do you find it so difficult to believe that an academic like Krugman can admit he was wrong when the data show he was wrong? Or do you only listen to folks like Bush and Limbaugh and Beck who never admit they were wrong?

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  379. lpat April 30, 2010 at 9:47 pm #

    O, please! as asia would say. The old “love it or leave it” bullshit again.
    Everybody’s got the story about the theft of America. So few, alas, really savor the delicious hypocrisy of how we slather on the legalisms to try to plaster over the theft, how we use the law to cloak ourselves in righteousness.
    “And if Whites do not unite now, America will be taken from us in turn.” Dude. You’re fucked. My understanding is that African-Americans are only a few short years away from being a smaller percentage of the overall population than Latinos. I understand that white folks’ majority status is out the window a few years after that. Demographic inevitability. Running off to the European motherland ain’t gonna work for you either.
    The European Age of Exploration (Conquest, &c., &c.) opened the world up. The tiny trickle of Europeans that colonized and exploited the world is reserving now with a flood of immigration. Unintended consequences.
    I served jury duty once, guarded by a squat ex-Marine sheriff’s deputy who essentially said, apropos of current Mexican immigration that “We whupped’m once, if they want to go again I’m ready.” Sorry. Not how the “war” is being fought.
    I’m comfortable here, more comfortable with a non-majority white population. You’re the one of needs to search frantically for a lily white piece of isolated real estate. It ain’t here, babe.
    Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye….

  380. Qshtik April 30, 2010 at 10:04 pm #

    My teachers had “heavy” accents.
    Since you were “taking” French and Spanish we can assume you were not a native speaker of those languages … so how did you know that you were being taught a heavy accent version? You didn’t. For all you knew you may have been learning a version that would make you incomprehensible to a typical native speaker.
    In a perfect world language teachers would be teaching gramatically correct English, German, French, etc and as close to accent free as possible. To deny this would be just plain foolish.
    You may recall my discussion with Abbeysbooks several months ago about her teaching standard English to black students but telling them, in effect, to hang on to their black vernacular. I was appalled and felt this was terrible advice. A short while later I ran into a discussion of this very topic by David Foster Wallace (one of the greatest writers ever) in one of his essays contained in his book “Consider the Lobster.” He describes his trials and tribulations with both the school administration and the black college students he was teaching Standard American English. It is a must read for anyone interested in this topic.
    Asoka, somehow everything you espouse amounts to the watering down and dumbing down of American culture.

  381. asoka April 30, 2010 at 10:09 pm #

    “…to search frantically for a lily white piece of isolated real estate. It ain’t here, babe.”
    Nope. And there is no where in these united states that whites can go to escape, because we can legally go wherever we want… we can and will go everywhere… and the frightened whites will have no sanctuary, no peace, until they learn to live with their non-white neighbors. Miscegenation rules, baby! The younger generations are hip.

  382. asoka April 30, 2010 at 10:16 pm #

    Qshtik said: “so how did you know that you were being taught a heavy accent version? You didn’t.”
    At the time I didn’t, though I knew my teachers were midwesterners who had never traveled out of state and spoke English with a southern accent.
    Then when I traveled out of country, became fluent, I knew that what I had been taught was not good.
    But those white teachers will not be removed from teaching languages they only speak with heavy accents.
    The law in Arizona is directed toward Hispanics who have a heavy accent in English.
    All I’m saying is it should cut both ways. If you are going to remove the Hispanics from teaching English because of their accent, then you should also remove the whites who teach foreign languages with heavy accents. But white privilege rules… for now.

  383. welles April 30, 2010 at 10:41 pm #

    My uncle lived most his life in the woods pretty much a hermit, up in Pennsylvania. About 1998 my parents took him from his dilapidated ‘house’ to the train station to send him to Florida to see his brother. On the way they stopped at a McDonald’s.
    According to the story, he was chomping on a hamburger and remarked ‘This is pretty good, what’s the name of this place again?’.
    He died a few days later.

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  384. budizwiser April 30, 2010 at 10:43 pm #

    I cant claim any seer status, yet I put more stock in some crap from some people.
    My big downfall was in thinking that people would actually give a shit about trillions of dollars of worthless derivatives.
    I thought this passion play would begin a month or two into the big “O” administration.
    Boy was I full of shit.
    Living with contradictions – its beyond my frail personality.
    Signed,
    Just Passing Through

  385. Qshtik April 30, 2010 at 10:55 pm #

    Update: I was wrong to say that Portugal had a housing bubble.”
    From what you’ve posted, Krugman’s admissions appear to deal with the inconsequential (like me admitting I should have typed ent instead of ant … big whup). If/when employment resumes its decline, the economy goes into a double dip, the DOW drops significantly below 6500, gold rises to $2K/oz, infation goes hyper, and/or the dollar loses reserve currency status, etc, etc. I would like to see Krugman write in the NYT that events he never believed possible have, indeed, come to pass and it has shaken his longheld beliefs to the core … in short the idea that a financially troubled country can spend its way to prosperity. Plus, he returns his Nobel to the committee with a shamed face.
    His speculation today about the very real possibility of Greece defaulting, a domino effect, and then the Euro going down the toilet is a fine piece of front running events so he will not have to hear quite so much the words “I told you so.”

  386. asoka April 30, 2010 at 10:58 pm #

    “Signed,
    Just Passing Through”
    Budiwizer, we are all just passing through. And “giving a shit about trillions of dollars of worthless derivatives” would not make any difference about how we are passing through.
    None of us has any control as individuals over things like “sovereign debt,” credit default swaps, and other things people on CFN like to worry about… just as my using capital letters to scream at Obama about Afghanistan will not make any difference. We are wasting our time here if we have any illusion that we are going to change anything.
    I read a quote from E. B. White that goes something like this: “Each morning I wake up torn between wanting to improve (save) the world and wanting to enjoy (savor) the world. This make it difficult to plan my day.”

  387. diogen April 30, 2010 at 11:06 pm #

    >remove the Hispanics from teaching English
    >because of their accent, then you should also >remove the whites who teach foreign languages
    >with heavy accents
    Asoka, there’s a key difference: you’re comparing *foreign* languages with the primary language of the North-American culture. Like it or not, but language is the primary unifying factor in any society. In my travels overseas, whenever I’d run into a native English speaker (from whatever English-speaking country), we had in instant connection. Unity is important in a country, and English language is probably one of the last remaining factors that unify us. With all the division, polarization, antagonism, cultural and political differences that divide us, our common language is probably the only thing that unites us. It would be a tragic loss for the future of the North-American culture (sans Mexico) to marginalize standard English and relegate it to the status of one of the languages instead of THE language of this culture. Without the common language we’re doomed. I can say this credibly because English isn’t my native language. I was a supporter in the 1970’s of the Constitutional amendment to make English the only official language of the United States, too bad it didn’t happen. It’s false egalitarianism to defend residents of the U.S. who won’t speak the language of the country where they chose to make their home. I’d go as far as deny American Citizenship to candidates who do not speak fluent English. The English language test of the citizenship exam is a joke, I know folks who obtained American Citizenship and they are practically illiterate when it comes to English. Without speaking the language of the nation, they CAN NOT be informed citizens who make intelligent decisions about the destiny of their chosen country.

  388. diogen April 30, 2010 at 11:17 pm #

    Asoka, once I ran into a black American guy in Sweden, he spoke standard American English and we instantly bonded despite our racial and age differences, without knowing anything else about each other. This is the power of common language.
    Just look at Quebec and the rest of Canada, or Belgium, or a number of other countries where the lines in the sand are drawn between speakers of different languages. Encroachment of Spanish is the single most damaging thing to the future of the U.S. as we know it. If it continues, prepare for the next civil war, and I hate being a prophet of doom.

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  389. Qshtik April 30, 2010 at 11:22 pm #

    All I’m saying is it should cut both ways.
    I agree. Next problem, who will be the abiters?

  390. NoGoodBoyo April 30, 2010 at 11:26 pm #

    From what you’ve posted, Krugman’s admissions appear to deal with the inconsequential (like me admitting I should have typed ent instead of ant … big whup). If/when employment resumes its decline, the economy goes into…
    You asked him to cite an example. He gives you two perfectly legitimate examples. You should learn to swallow once in a while. This weaseling about with adding conditions, moving the goalposts after the fact, makes you look like a schoolboy. As does the subsequent speculative fantasy about what you would like to see Krugman do in the event of bla bla bla. Which is the real aim of that post and most of your others: to see yourself in print. You’re like a public masturbator in a trench coat. You spew for your own enjoyment but you need that audience, the thrill of attention. You are a tiresome, narcissistic windbag.

  391. Qshtik April 30, 2010 at 11:41 pm #

    Diogen, every thing you say is true about the problem of Spanish encroaching on English here in the US. The further irony is that English has become the single dominant language world wide at the very moment WE are turning away from it. Within the past week I read in the Times how the proud French have virtually given up on the French language as being dominant in diplomacy and elsewhere. The French use English. Same thing in India. They have a big debate going on as to whether English should be mandatory in all schools and at all levels. The outcome seems to be a forgone conclusion. Eventually all Asian Indians will speak English. Just when the world unifies behind English we will be saying, Sorry, no habla Ingles.

  392. Qshtik April 30, 2010 at 11:49 pm #

    You are a tiresome, narcissistic windbag.
    And you are NotMommy returned from your latest banishment. Welcome back, and let the MORONIC FUCTARDS resume.

  393. asoka May 1, 2010 at 12:05 am #

    diogen: “Without the common language we’re doomed.”
    The idea that a single language is what unites a country is, in my opinion, ridiculous (as in laughable).
    I have spent considerable time in India. India has 18 languages officially recognized in its constitution, and India is not doomed. (Constitution of India. Articles 29, 30, 120, 210, 343-351 as amended in the 21st and 71st Amendments)
    India is on its way to becoming a world superpower and may one day surpass the United States, especially if the USA continues trying to suppress its multicultural richness and impose anglo values and language.

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  394. NoGoodBoyo May 1, 2010 at 12:42 am #

    And you are NotMommy returned
    No, I am not. His was a different style. If you were half as clever as you think, you would see that, mister big self-appointed language expert. He did coin the term SquishDick, though, for which I, for one, am grateful.
    I have a question: if someone has already explained about subjective and objective case (you and I, you and me, etc), why do you need to explain it again an hour later? And badly, at that. Scurrying in to retain your official Language Monitor status, no doubt, a self-appointment to a position invented by you to give yourself an excuse to rattle off one inanity after another all the live-long day. Non, mais, it’s too pathetic.

  395. Qshtik May 1, 2010 at 1:20 am #

    I have a question … etc
    I have an answer: It is all for the purpose of annoying you NotMommy and apparently it’s working.
    He (i.e. you) did coin the term SquishDick … for which I (i.e. you), for one, am (i.e. are) grateful.
    And so am I. A clever and hilarious piece of name calling. I don’t understand Eleuthero getting upset with the name Titus layed on him either. It’s clever … go with it. I called Hancock1863 HanJob1863 the other day … I thought that was pretty good.

  396. NoGoodBoyo May 1, 2010 at 1:54 am #

    Tax evasion in places like Italy and Greece is nothing like what you see here. In those places it’s a national sport. In Canada and the US we are innocent, pink cheeked girl scouts in comparison.
    But it’s not for lack of trying. The fact is that we get away with less only because our coercive institutions, the IRS, Revenue Canada, etc. are more efficient and rigorous than those in the Mediterranean countries and elsewhere. It’s not because we in the great white North and the West are morally superior, which is what your whole line of argument insinuates. When it comes to the fiddle, German hearts and American and French are as black as those of the Italians and Greeks.
    Considering the anti-government and anti-taxation rhetoric being endlessly burped up by you and your ideological brethren, shouldn’t these tax cheats and ungovernables be your blue-eyed heroes? Certainly, where I come from, a man will openly brag about under-the-table wages, or ‘cash, no receipt’ and other larceny and it occurs to none of his audience (the fleeced) to protest.
    _____________________
    “Tax and social security fraud are estimated to be costing the (French) taxpayer up to €40 billion a year in lost revenues.”
    “The contract signed yesterday allows Nordic tax authorities access to information on taxes paid and deposits made by Nordic citizens in the Bahamas and will help them track and assess those trying to hide taxable assets overseas.”
    “The UK is backing calls to force multi national companies to reveal precisely how much tax they pay in each jurisdiction they operate in. The move is being hailed as a significant breakthrough towards ending tax secrecy.”
    “The German intelligence service paid £3.75 million to an informant for a confidential, possibly stolen, list of German account holders at a bank in the tax haven of Liechtenstein.
    The cloak and dagger tactics were used to secure information needed to catch 700 suspects implicated in the country’s biggest tax fraud. Members of Germany’s economic elite are suspected of salting away £3 billion in total.”

  397. Tituspullo8780 May 1, 2010 at 3:39 am #

    – – I don’t understand Eleuthero getting upset with the name Titus layed on him either. It’s clever …
    Thanks. I didn’t get that either at first. Urethra is a fun handle. I have to admit, the guy taking time to explain to me why he isn’t an actual urethra was pure comedy:
    Eleuthro: “The thing about NAMECALLING, sir, is that it be ACCURATE. I am not, nor will I ever be, a “Urethra”.
    Funny, but the real issue isn’t the fake handle. I hit a nerve with my response and the ALL CAP ATTACK made it clear he was seriously pissed. So it’s probably best to lay off the poor guy. Besides, he’s not into it for any serious debate.
    Sort of like the fellow that said I should be jailed, along with my cronies. The cronies were subsequently defined as ‘pirates’. (my compatriots can be found here: http://www.talklikeapirate.com/)
    Arrrr!

  398. Eleuthero May 1, 2010 at 6:18 am #

    I can tell, Diogen, that you are a
    TRUE liberal which is a rarity these
    days. False egalitarianism is the
    very essence of the phony liberalism
    that dominates the Democratic party
    in this millenium.
    Your reply to Asoka about language
    as a unifying factor was excellent.
    However, Mr. Asoka is quite the
    spin doctor in attempting wriggle
    out of rhetorical corners into
    which he has painted himself.
    The good liberalism that existed
    until a couple of decades ago
    espoused the values of the
    Enlightenment. Those values did
    not include the reverse meritocracies
    and anti-intellectualism (e.g., the
    Self Esteem Movement) that now
    pervade modern liberal thinking.
    That’s why I am a “man without a
    party”. I can’t stand what now
    passes for liberalism but I certain
    won’t sign up for the plutocracy that
    the Republicans appear to worship.
    Eleuthero

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  399. diogen May 1, 2010 at 8:59 am #

    >The idea that a single language is what unites a >country is, in my opinion, ridiculous
    Asoka, in my opinion, your opinion is plain wrong.
    I doubt there’s harmony in India between linguistic groups, but even it it were, I could (but won’t bother) give you literally DOZENS of examples where societal fault lines follow language lines. Belgium is a great example, where otherwise civilized Flemish and French speakers go incendiary when the question of language comes up. Google “belgium breakup”. Flanders and Wallonia are seething with resentment against each other. Remember Quebec separatism fever? It’s interesting, I just Googled “language conflicts” and Google suggested Belgium, Canada and INDIA. Wikipedia even has an article about India:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Language_conflict_in_India
    So perhaps you weren’t observant enough in your travels in India. But of course, you didn’t speak the languages, how could you really understand what’s going on below the surface?????
    I don’t want to argue with you on this anymore, all I can tell you is I believe my eyes: same language unites people (even of different ethnicities), and different languages divide people (as the Babel metaphor suggests). For you to argue this point is pure demagoguery and fantasy.
    What else besides the common language do we have in this “diverse” country that makes it possible for us to really understand each other? It’s hard enough for us to understand each other when we speak the same language (just look at you and many other posters here), if you didn’t speak the same language you’d be aliens to each other.
    Even slight regional accents of the same language often alienate people from each other, imagine what incomprehensible languages do.
    I speak several languages, so I’m no xenophobe, but I see great danger for the United States of America if Spanish continues to gain momentum as the alternative language for a large portion of the population. Think pragmatically, Asoka, instead of ideologically.

  400. Qshtik May 1, 2010 at 11:03 am #

    A beautiful explanation of your position regarding language Dio. How could Asoka or anyone fail to see the truth of it.

  401. Qshtik May 1, 2010 at 11:26 am #

    Re: tax evasion
    The other takeaway from your post Zzzz – that I hope is not missed by Asoka, Wagelaborer and other lovers of Big Govt – is that there is a near universal impulse for people to hang on to what they’ve earned and spend it as they, not Big Govt, desire. As Gordon Gecco might have said, “selfishness” for lack of a better term is human nature. Concern for the self is good and does not imply unconcern for others.

  402. asoka May 1, 2010 at 11:28 am #

    diogen: “I don’t want to argue with you on this anymore…”
    Good, I don’t want to argue either… and it saves me having to document how many people who share the same language have murdered each other in civil wars and how obviously having a common language is not the primordial consideration when speaking of unity.
    If having one language was so important don’t you think the framers of the constitution might have mentioned it?
    What unites us in the united states is ideology: the preamble to the constitution does NOT say:
    “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do hereby ordain and establish ENGLISH AS THE OFFICIAL AND ONLY LANGUAGE TO BE USED IN these United States of America.”

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  403. Vlad Krandz May 1, 2010 at 11:32 am #

    What are we going to tell your husband? Of course he’s a bohemian who believes in free love -all you lefties are. But sometimes the personality isn’t up to the ideology. Look at poor Madame Trotsky after Mr Trotsky slept with Frieda Kahlo. Here’s what we do: I’ll tell him I’m from the Agricultural Dept investigating farm animal rape that you called in. I’ll stay for dinner with lots of wine. And then I just wont leave. Hopefully he’ll take it gracefully. If not…

  404. asoka May 1, 2010 at 11:35 am #

    THIS IS NOT OUR ORGANIZING PRINCIPLE:

    Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Foreign Language enters the land and becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute an ENGLISH ONLY OFFICIAL LANGUAGE

  405. Qshtik May 1, 2010 at 11:46 am #

    I don’t want to argue either… and it saves me having to document how many people who share the same language have murdered each other
    Your rebuttal is sooooo lame.

  406. asoka May 1, 2010 at 11:48 am #

    Qshtik, civil wars in countries are fought because people are divided ideologically, not linguistically.

  407. asoka May 1, 2010 at 11:52 am #

    What unites people in the USA is a common belief in maximizing freedom. I take that to mean the freedom to speak in any language you choose. Any attempt to impose an “official” language is an abridgment of freedom.

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  408. Vlad Krandz May 1, 2010 at 12:06 pm #

    Great way to destroy a country guy. Any country. OUR COUNTRY. Just in source hundreds of thousands of Asians to work for cheaper than American Engineers, Doctors, and IT’s. Sure. All the jobs White Americans wont do, right? And this after outsourcing our manufacturing base. And after in sourcing millions of illegals to do our manual labor and service jobs. So what exactly are White Americans supposed to do? Blacks too but for that matter. Think it through again. You have alot of commonsense and can do better than this.
    Real nations maintain their borders, their currency, their language, their trade balances, and their workers. Just like our trade imbalance, this in sourcing is another scheme that benefits a few and destroys the many. Of course, one could object to treating people, CITIZENS, as nothing more than capital. But that’s getting into advanced and evil Fasicsm that challenges the reign of Economics over the life of man. So let’s not go there. One final Parthian Shot though: as far as I have heard, other nations are not doing the same thing. They are not looking to undercut their workers by importing millions of White Americans. Such a notion would be fantastic to India or Pakistan. Nor do they give away their markets without a fair return in trade. So much for Libertarian Fantasies.
    Excessive individualism benefits individuals, not Nations. Any nation that surrends to it will not be able to compete against nations who stand together. That after all, defines what a Nation is. If a nation can’t stand together, then it no longer is a nation. As the Russian Ambassador said to the Czar regarding the Austo-Hungarian Empire, “We are allied to a corpse”. Too much diversity. Does this sound familiar? And you want to bring even more in. And they want to come too. As Deng Xao Ping said, “How many do you want”? And you think they will have any loyalty to the Corpse? That they will revive it? Isn’t it more likely that they will try to make it over in their own image? Like old Ireland, we have become sword land – the strongest will prevail. Well, Whites have at least as much right as all the other groups to grab what we can.

  409. Vlad Krandz May 1, 2010 at 12:25 pm #

    Well at least you didn’t call me a White Supremacist so maybe we’re making progress. Ok, once again: I don’t believe all Blacks are dumb or bad. But I do generalize. You have to. It’s called thinking. It’s also the basis for statistics. Statistically, 15% of Blacks are at the White Average IQ of 100. And there are very, very few who can compete at the level of Graduate School – or should even be there at all. Such things require an IQ above 130. There are almost no Blacks at this level. The practical consequences? Turning our educations system inside out for these people was crazy. At the level of high school, it meant putting our children in with a bunch of dumb, violent, resentful Blacks. At the level of college, it mean dumbing courses so some Blacks could get through. At the level of graduate school, it meant affirmative action and denying qualified Whites a place so less qualified Blacks could get in.
    Another example: Some 14 year old kids could drive safely. But we generalize that most can’t so we don’t allow any of them to. Get the principle? You deny the forest for the sake of the trees. I see the tree Dio, but I wont deny the forest. I have worked with Africans and like many of them (they are more normal than African Americans) And I have met smart Blacks, I admit the reality when it appears. I’m not in denial, you are.
    As for actual friendship, it happened in the past before my Awakening. I would steer clear now because of my beliefs. And yes, it feels weird to really like someone and now they would hate you if they knew what you believed. But that cannot be helped – I didn’t create the world and racial inequality. Orthodox Jews, Muslims, and Black Racists live this dual life as well. They all hate either: gentiles, infidels, or Whites or consider us subhuman unless in the case of Muslims, we convert.

  410. NoGoodBoyo May 1, 2010 at 12:43 pm #

    A beautiful explanation of your position regarding language Dio. How could Asoka or anyone fail to see the truth of it.
    How? If it was wrong. Which it is.
    Asoka never said there was linguistic harmony between Indian language group. That is Diogen putting words in his mouth. Asoka merely pointed out that the simultaneous existence of multiple languages was no impediment to operating a successful country. It’s a truism that a common language unites people (usually in xenophobic self-righteousness), but it’s not an essential condition. The example given of Quebec and Belgium actually prove his point. Is it necessary to point out that the united states of Europe, for example, accommodates umpteen languages and that the average Frenchman or German can speak three or four?
    And let us be honest. Those arguing the merits of enforcing the use of a common language have their own language in mind as the candidate for that position. If the emerging lingua franca of the world happened to be Chinese instead of English, they would be singing a very different tune.
    The days of the northern European stranglehold on every aspect of North American culture are waning, as was inevitable. But English, lucky for us, as an international currency, is not likely to disappear soon and certainly not in America. Behind the paranoia expressed by Diogen and others, that without rigid enforcement of the anglo monoculture, “we’re doomed”, is the fear among some Americans that events in the years ahead might oblige them to get off their fat, narcissist asses and learn something that, for once, isn’t all about them.

  411. Cash May 1, 2010 at 12:54 pm #

    “Considering the anti-government and anti-taxation rhetoric being endlessly burped up by you and your ideological brethren – boyo
    Wrong boyo, you don’t know my ideology.
    “When it comes to the fiddle, German hearts and American and French are as black as those of the Italians and Greeks.” – Boyo
    You are entitled to your opinion. We’ll just have to differ on this.

  412. Cash May 1, 2010 at 1:10 pm #

    He wasn’t full of shit about the housing mess.
    Economics IMO has as much validity as a “science” as does alchemy or phrenology. I realized this near the end of my second year in university majoring in the field. What economists are capable of doing is seeing very wide, broad trends and then applying simple common sense which anyone can do.
    When Roubini said that housing was in a bubble in the US all he had to do was compare housing prices in various markets in the US to household incomes in those markets.
    My father, who is a graduate of the fifth grade from a rural one room schoolhouse in fascist Italy, watches financial news shows and analyzes what’s being said. From 2003 – 2006 what we constantly heard was that house prices in many markets in the US were very high but that economic fundamentals would support them. It really is different this time one commenter said. Yes, said my father, it’s always different but it always ends the same ie a bust. His conclusion was not much differrent than Roubini’s.

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  413. dale May 1, 2010 at 1:28 pm #

    “Wall St. I see him as knowledgeable about all things financial”
    ===================================
    Q,
    You betray a complete lack of objectivity. Anyone who watched this ideological clown and kept track of his predictions would have no trouble admitting he is wrong so often it’s absurd.
    I’m not a Marxist, as you suggest. In fact it is always those who shout labels at others the loudest who are the most incapable of judicious reasoning. I often come down on the side of what use to be called conservative…now, only head exploding fanatics think they are worthy of the term.

  414. Qshtik May 1, 2010 at 1:45 pm #

    You betray a complete lack of objectivity.
    Am I “incapable of judicious reasoning?” Well then I am “incapable of judicious reasoning.” I am large, I contain blah blah blah.

  415. Qshtik May 1, 2010 at 2:13 pm #

    I have this conflict going on inside as to why I continue jousting with Asoka (and like minds) when any fool can see it’s a hopeless cause. And now the ghost of NotMommy (if not the flesh and blood) has reappeared to haunt us all. With some luck, in the future I’ll be able to break off from this obsession and CFN in general … though, God knows, I love those Monday morning JHK rants.

  416. Cash May 1, 2010 at 2:22 pm #

    Re multilingualism
    My former employer had the idea of moving to Budapest the corporate accounts payable function from Canada, the UK, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium. The idea was efficiency through centralization and cost saving in a lower wage jurisdiction.
    The thought was that in Europe people are multilingual. Except they weren’t. It was a disaster. The Hungarians did not speak or read Italian, German or French or anything else worth a damn except Hungarian. They were incapable of deciphering invoices in foreign languages. They were functionally illiterate in English. Their emails to me were unintelligible. My colleagues in Italy sent me copies of their memos to HQ in Texas (who were the authors of this debacle) outlining the long long list of disasters stemming one main source: the Hungarian employees were not remotely multilingual.
    We did a do-over. Canada’s accounts payable were transfered to India where many educated people can read and speak English. Their written English was good, their accents were tough at first. They learned to speak slowly so we could understand them. The Indian employees were up to speed after a 6 to 8 month break in period and were efficiently processing several thousand invoices per month totalling maybe 300 million per year in expenditures.
    My former employer had operations in dozens of countries. The German colleagues in our department were miserable in English. The Italians and French were somewhat better. The Dutch were like Englishmen with funny accents. The best in English were our Chinese compadres in Hong Kong.
    I have many relatives in Italy many of whom are university educated (the younger generation). With a few their English is ok for getting around but they couldn’t function in an Anglo workplace. Some can speak a little bit but are a long ways from being functionally literate.
    We had people from all over the world working in Canadian HQ. Some were expats on temporary assignment, some were permanent residents. All were very literate in English, many came from former British colonies, a few came from the Arab world and mainland China. These people were highly skilled and educated.
    I’ve done a lot of travelling in Europe. What I found was that knowledge of English even in large cities was not common. Some people can speak a few words. In Munich we went to a restaurant where we communicated essentially in sign language. Same type of thing in most places.
    I took French in school from grades 5 to 12. The language is very close to my first language (an Italian dialect) so I picked it up very quickly. In the decades since I have not used it once in the workplace, I did not need it in Quebec because everyone spoke English and so as a result I have almost completely forgotten it.
    What I’m saying is IMO bilingualism is a difficult thing for most people, multiligualism almost impossible. Unless you use a language frequently you will not learn it worth a damn or, as in my situation, you forget it.

  417. Qshtik May 1, 2010 at 2:22 pm #

    his predictions ….. he is wrong so often it’s absurd.
    This is true even of geniuses. As Yogi famously said: “Prediction is very hard, especially about the future.”

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  418. Qshtik May 1, 2010 at 2:33 pm #

    Re multilingualism
    Nice personal anecdote Cash but, of course, it will do you no good. The naysayers will be on you like flies on shit.

  419. Cash May 1, 2010 at 2:39 pm #

    I think that if you don’t continue jousting you leave the field open for ways of thinking that you see as destructive. So I think verbal combat serves a purpose, you let people know that others do not agree with them and as a consequence they shouldn’t assume that their thinking will prevail.
    One example: the Province of Ontario just revealed new standards for sex education in Ontario schools. I don’t know who the educational bureaucracy conferred with in formulating the new standards but they created a gigantic shitstorm of protest ie they wanted to teach grade school kids details of lubrication etc. Stuff that every ten year old needs to know. You can imagine how this was received in conservative immigrant households ie from the Islamic world.
    The result was that the Province did the fastest back down in the history of politics. In about 48 hours the new policy was bye bye.

  420. asoka May 1, 2010 at 3:06 pm #

    Qshtik: “With some luck, in the future I’ll be able to break off from this obsession and CFN in general”
    Because I have been waiting years for JHK’s predictions to happen (TSHTF, stock market at 4,000, etc.) I previously announced I would leave CFN, if TSHTF had not occurred in 12 years.
    I figured 12 years (plus all the previous years) waiting for something that doesn’t happen is enough, especially since it is being breathlessly announced Monday mornings week after week. A guy can only sustain so much fear mongering.
    Now I am revising my wait time downward, to 7 years more. Maybe around about the end of Obama’s second term I’m out of here.

  421. asoka May 1, 2010 at 3:08 pm #

    I was waiting breathlessly in 1999 for JHK’s Y2K predictions to come true. Didn’t happen. And the reason it didn’t happen is actually a sign that there is hope, that human beings can martial resources, solve problems, and avoid catastophes.

  422. Cash May 1, 2010 at 3:14 pm #

    Flies on shit – yeah I know but I don’t care.
    I’ve heard for half my life this stuff that all Europeans are these cosmopolitan, cultured, multilingual people that go to the opera and ballet. Problem is I know Europeans, I’ve worked with them, I have family there, I’ve travelled a lot there so I get to formulate my own conclusions.
    Same thing on Americans. I’ve done a lot of travelling in the US, I have family there also, I worked for much of my life with and for Americans. So I get to disagree when people say that Ameicans are ignoramuses about the world. The business about Europeans being fluent in several languages was a real fuck up but in general Yanks have been a mind boggling success all over the globe. Why? Because your country has had millions of man years of experience and knowledge of the world outside the US. Why? Because of WW1, WW2, the Vietnam War, Korean War plus your multinational businesses. There is no other people on this planet or in history as knowledgeable about the world as are Americans.
    Do Americans everything about the world? No. Is the average American well versed about cultures outside the US? Probably not. So what. Americans live in a continent sized country, in country sized states. How much should the average American know? How much does the average Asian or European or Canadian know?
    Torontonians think of themselves as cosmopolitan sophisticates because we have so many immigrants. I’ve lived here for decades and I’ve gotten to know and work with a lot of people. Torontonians do not know shit about the world or their own country. They are clueless about people they live shoulder to shoulder with.
    What I’ve found is that conventional wisdom is about three quarters dead fucking wrong.

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  423. Qshtik May 1, 2010 at 5:26 pm #

    all Europeans are these cosmopolitan, cultured, multilingual people
    Back in my Tavern Pool League days I hung out Friday nights at The Bottle and Cork. Around this time each year there would be a sudden influx of Irish nationals into the bar. I learned that they were a crew brought in to do asphalt repair work on our beat-to-shit highways following the winter. They were around long enough (maybe 2 mos.) that they brought their wives and girlfriends. By night’s end the accumulation of empty beer bottles and cigarette butts crushed out on the floor was astounding. The women were generally busty and provocatively dressed. They were a raucus bunch but they stayed with their own. They had brogues right out of Angela’s Ashes but there was very little conversation with us American locals. I tried to break through this invisible wall. I said something like “Your country has quite an amazing and extensive literary tradition. I just finished reading The Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man and loved it but Ulysses is a very difficult read. What do you think about James Joyce’s stream-of-consciousness style of writing?” Without ever uttering a word he stared at me like I was insane.

  424. Tituspullo8780 May 1, 2010 at 6:10 pm #

    Asoka,
    >>I was waiting breathlessly in 1999 for JHK’s Y2K predictions to come true.
    If that is accurate, it’s a sad acknowledgment.
    JHK is in the pessimism porn business. His belief that the Y2K bug would shut down society was born more from his biased outlook than empirical research or reality.
    A less biased observer of that particular problem would have looked at the tremendous amount of Y2K remediation work happening prior to the date change, not to mention the explosion of enterprise hardware and software sales in the 4 years leading up to the rollover date. An alarm was sounded on Y2K, and afterwards – government and private industry pulled together to fix it – all over the world.
    Y2K breakdowns presented a nightmare scenario for thousands of individual organizations. However, there was a clear path to fixing the problem and a hard expiration date. A deadline that had to be met in order to avoid catastrophe.
    But just because JHK was so far off the mark the last time around, doesn’t mean he has it completely wrong on Peak Oil. And even worse, Peak Oil presents society with a slow boil scenario. Information on it is being parsed out piecemeal into the popular consciousness, and it’s obscured by the symptoms of it’s arrival – severe economic dislocation, inflation, energy wars, ect. There is no ‘universally’ accepted Peak Oil date, given that OPEC countries don’t allow a 3rd party, independent accounting of oil reserves.
    Based on what little credible OPEC information that is available and the reserve numbers posted by the major publicly traded integrated oil companies, I think we passed Peak back in ’05. (*Matt Simmons Twilight in the Desert is a must read for anyone with a serious interest in Peak Oil).
    All this brings me back to Qshtik’s conflict about continuing arguments with imprecise minds that in the end, are somewhat pointless.
    I would think that the unifying thread tying everyone together on Kunstler’s comment board is a concern about Peak Oil and the potential consequences (macro and micro)
    We should be trading info. on this key issue we’ve picked up from other sources, debating possible mitigation scenarios or alternative energy sources, and yes – how we can personally avoid getting slammed by Peak Oil if it does manage to create big economic and political dislocations. The US doesn’t seem to have it’s act together, and that does not bode well for us given how much energy we use as a nation.
    On the personal front. Are there countries that have a better handle on this energy situation that might make sense to move to? Who is more, or less prepared? How do you protect, or grow personal wealth in this environment? These seem like good topics to get into.
    But instead of serious, informed debate and trading of relevant information that can help us as a community of the ‘informed’ on Peak Oil – you get right versus left debates about language, ethnicity, illegal immigration, GS, good versus bad ‘liberals’, on and on.
    I’m not saying we should approach this stuff with a complete lack of humor. I’m not even suggesting we avoid politics completely, as that is unfortunately relevant to the Peak Oil problem.
    I would just suggest to the smarter folks on this board that they would be doing themselves a favor by staying out of useless arguments with people you know are hopelessly incapable of accepting an empirical or rational contradiction of some deeply felt ideological belief. It may feel good in the short term, esp. when you’re whipping around an obvious moron, but it’s ultimately a waste time.

  425. asia May 1, 2010 at 6:33 pm #

    Duhhhh…
    people whove shared the same bed for decades can end up at each others throats.
    wasnt there a case recently where a desperate housewife killed bill over the fball game on the tube?
    and JK:
    ‘ George W. Bush was onto something in the fall of 2008 when he remarked apropos of the Lehman collapse: “…this sucker could go down’
    maybe GW was fakin the ‘sur–prisse’…the powers that be want the USA to go down?

  426. asia May 1, 2010 at 6:39 pm #

    Ive read of the koreans, with lowest b’rate on the planet ‘stealin wimmen’…the koreans also have the purest or 2nd purest bloodline on the planet.
    reduced to gettin viet and chinese wimmen.
    far as the ‘ little princes’ of china goes, with their ‘culture’ all i can say is it serves em right.
    there are also charities for the ‘ abused foreign women’ in korea.
    koreans really are racist!I read of the street children, half white or black, children of the hookers and Koreans dump female babies in alleys.
    I know, a friend of mines wifes life started that way.
    that being said gender imbalance now is greatest in india not china.

  427. asia May 1, 2010 at 6:43 pm #

    India has over 100 languages, official or not.
    Perhaps more of India will go the way of kasmir.
    Is india ‘doomed’. I hope not, but they have let GMO crops in and are suburbanizing.

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  428. asia May 1, 2010 at 6:47 pm #

    there are businesses that specialize in bringing in indian doctors.
    i live in LA, home to millions. in elsegundo theres one such biz. 2 of my neighbors [not friends] worked for it.
    FLY EM IN AND GET EM TO PASS THE TEST!!!!

  429. Puzzler May 1, 2010 at 6:49 pm #

    Well stated on what we should be talking about. Instead we get Asoka’s cheerleading about Barack the Magic Negro, or Vlad and Asia with their racist tripe.
    This discussion board needs a moderator to keep it on topic. It’s too much work wading through the horseshit looking for a pony.

  430. Workingman1 May 1, 2010 at 8:15 pm #

    I find it repulsive that our current President portrays all who disagree with him as fringe radicals. This is America we don’t get down on our knees and bow to kings. It is all about control and power. Make people so stupid and dependent that you keep your power and control.
    Give them a daily dose of propoganda telling them they must spend more tax money to solve problems.
    We are facing the biggest ecological disaster of all time,the socialists in Washington are driving us off the cliff into financial ruin.
    Why should we trust big government with absolute power that corrupts absolutely. Oh yeah I forgot, so we can have nice roads… Obama is the poster boy for the empty suite weak sheep yuppy money grubing society we have become. Civilization?

  431. Tituspullo8780 May 1, 2010 at 10:07 pm #

    >>Well stated on what we should be talking about. Instead we get Asoka’s cheerleading about Barack the Magic Negro, or Vlad and Asia with their racist tripe.
    Sadly…you are absolutely correct, Puzzler.
    Look no further than the posts after my last attempt to get people to actually engage on the matter of Peak Oil. You see a volley of Asia’s idiotic posts on everything from “the koreans also have the purest or 2nd purest bloodline on the planet” to gabbing about “businesses that import Indian doctors”.
    I mean really, you can’t make this shit up. I dare you to try.
    As for a moderator, I don’t think JHK wants one – but it would promote a more logical stream of discourse.
    Let’s be fair then:
    Asoka – if you want to discuss the marvels of Barrack, then stick to his meager efforts on energy. That makes sense to debate here. If you want to discuss immigration – why not do it in the context of people moving from 3rd world countries to the US use up more energy when they get here, making our Peak Oil problems worse. Again, a worthwhile subject.
    Asia, Urethra/Eleuthro – There are plenty of web sites that cater to bigots of every flavor, and also deal squarely with immigration issues. Whoever you hate most – jigs, kikes, spics, rag heads, chinks of every variety and of course – chauvinist pigs, evil whitey, honkeys and bankers. (quick clarification there – bankers constitute an ethnic group to be hated on to Eleuthro).
    If your race, ethnic, or gender issue has SOMETHING to do with Peak Oil – cool, go ahead and post it. If not, find another web site that caters to your particular prejudice and post your little heart out.
    In general, let’s TRY posting about Peak Oil. Even something related to Peak Oil would be great. We have a huge oil spill in The Gulf of Mexico at the moment. It looks like a frickin mess. Anyone what to try that subject?

  432. NoGoodBoyo May 1, 2010 at 11:03 pm #

    What I’m saying is IMO bilingualism is a difficult thing for most people, multiligualism almost impossible. Unless you use a language frequently you will not learn it worth a damn or, as in my situation, you forget it.
    You spilled a lot of ink chasing after my statement about European multilingualism, which was nothing but an afterthought add-on and not a particularly germane one at that.
    The important fact about official multilingualism is not whether the citizen can speak several or all the official languages but whether he can function satisfactorily in the official language of his choice, and more broadly whether a country can function with its citizens using multiple languages. And the answer is clearly that it can.
    Your (anecdotal) evidence about Euro multilingualism, while actually quite interesting and an eye-opener, admittedly, laments a failure to speak a second language so as to accommodate the (English-speaking) outsider, which is not the issue, and not relevant to the original discussion (the statement made that ‘if we lose the common language, we’re doomed”)

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  433. diogen May 1, 2010 at 11:16 pm #

    >and yes – how we can personally avoid getting >slammed by Peak Oil
    Titus, I admire your energy and can-do attitude, but this analogy comes to mind: you’re in a boat with another guy who’s drilling a hole in the bottom of the boat on his end. No matter how well you take care of your end of the boat, the sucker is going down no matter what. If there’s misery and deprivation all around you, I just don’t see how you can avoid it. I suppose you can get an underground bunker built (you may have to kill the guys who built it for you, surely they’ll remember) and stock it up with food for ??? years, (did you see BLAST FROM THE PAST flick?) but short of that I just don’t see how you can protect yourself against the hordes of starving or desperate people. Sooner or later someone will see that you’re still eating while they’re starving.
    I think we sink or swim together… so I’m trying to enjoy life TODAY rather than worry too much about the collapse. Had it not been for my kids, I’d even enjoy, in a macabre and morbid-fascination-sort-of-way, the headlong mindless march of humanity toward the cliff… That said, however, owning a place in the country with a bit if acreage may or may not give you a way to survive while the civilization is winding down, and it may be fun to enjoy it until “then”…

  434. diogen May 1, 2010 at 11:32 pm #

    >Are there countries that have a better handle
    >on this energy situation that might make
    >sense to move to?
    Yeah, I’ve seen a few countries that live much lower on the energy pole (most recently Morocco), but they only want you there while you have money to spend to help them out, if the times get lean they’ll quickly show you the door (if you’re lucky). Being a foreigner in a foreign land in troubled times is a very precarious existence. These guys living in Costa Rica are fine today, but if/when the SHTF, they will be like deer with targets painted on them.
    Your best bet is to make sure your own lifeboat stays afloat rather than looking for someone else’s raft to jump into. In my opinion 🙂

  435. diogen May 1, 2010 at 11:43 pm #

    >If having one language was so important don’t
    >you think the framers of the constitution
    >might have mentioned it?
    Asoka, you’re the master of specious argument. The framers didn’t mentioned any of what’s in the Bill of Rights either, or any of the other amendments.
    And it’s disingenuous and grandstanding of you to proclaim that our love of freedom unites us. First, your fellow travelers of socialist/communist persuasion would abolish most of our freedoms in the first 24 hours. Second, vast majority of immigrants aren’t coming here for our freedoms, they’re coming here to either obtain employment or go on the dole (except for me of course, I came here for hot women).
    Anyway, I finally came to see you as nothing more than an ideologue and a demagogue, and a virtuoso of vacuous argument. Other than that, you’re a nice guy, I’m sure.

  436. NoGoodBoyo May 2, 2010 at 12:27 am #

    Wrong boyo, you don’t know my ideology.
    You’ve been posting your ideas here for months. Just from this one thread alone it can be seen that you are a nationalist and patriot, wedded to the idea of the nation state and a subscriber to the ‘our-military-can do-no-wrong’ screed.
    You believe that prairie folk (without exception apparently) are essentially upstanding and worthy and good, while urban easterners are (without exception, apparently) elitist and subversive and have diseased minds. Torontonians, notably, are know-nothings. All of them, apparently. None having travelled to Budapest or having relatives in Italy, like some folks.
    Your reporting of the Ontario sex education “scandal” was hardly neutral and places you well over onto the right on the Grundy scale.
    Your unseemly admiration for the Israelis and their apartheid-enhancing wall-building technology and your enthusiasm for machine gun towers and minefields to be used not against soldiers but rather peasants speaks volumes about your fundamental humanity.
    And of course, as you argued, you believe that individual human character traits like dishonesty, deviousness, sloth, etc. can be attributed to whole cultures.
    This is what I found in this thread during the short amount of time I cared to dedicate to the search. I know for a fact that there is tons more of the same out there in previous commentaries.
    These utterings illuminate your ideology quite vividly. The more you post, the more dots there are to connect.

  437. asoka May 2, 2010 at 1:28 am #

    “First, your fellow travelers of socialist/communist persuasion would abolish most of our freedoms in the first 24 hours.”
    Pure scare tactics. Obama was supposed to put us all in FEMA camps after he took away our guns and we hear everyday how he is a socialist. You are just trying to scare people.
    Name one group that came to the USA from the 1500’s on because they were looking for less freedom than they had in the “old country”. The thing that unites us is a desire to live free.
    If you spend any time around immigrants, you will get the same thing even if they don’t use the word freedom. They will say they came because in the USA there is more “economic opportunity” i.e. more freedom to earn a living wage.
    You are the one being specious if you are denying freedom is the organizing principle of the USA. Read the Declaration of Independence, read the preamble to the Constitution. Freedom from tyranny, freedom from oppression. The came looking for self-governance.

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  438. asoka May 2, 2010 at 1:41 am #

    “Give them a daily dose of propoganda telling them they must spend more tax money to solve problems.
    We are facing the biggest ecological disaster of all time,the socialists in Washington are driving us off the cliff into financial ruin.”
    You can deride “big government” all you want, but when private industry has a crisis it cannot handle, say an oil spill BP couldn’t handle, what did BP do? At first BP was all bravado saying they could handle, don’t worry it isn’t that big a problem. But “big government” kept an eye on it and it became clear it was a big problem and did require government intervention.
    BP went crying, through the media, to big government and Obama had the Coast Guard and other agencies swing into action, because private industry (and that includes the largest firms like BP) cannot function without the help of big government. Once again, it is clear government is a problem solver, a solution to big problems the private sector cannot handle.
    Thankfully, Obama made it clear that government will help solve the problem, but the costs do not correspond to the taxpayers: BP has to pay.

  439. asoka May 2, 2010 at 1:55 am #

    “Asoka – if you want to discuss the marvels of Barrack, then stick to his meager efforts on energy. That makes sense to debate here.”
    I will begin by rejecting your premise that Obama’s efforts on energy have been “meager”. I can provide plenty of evidence, if you are unaware of the facts.
    It is not appropriate to begin a discussion with such a partisan statement (“meager efforts”), without providing any evidence at all.

  440. Eleuthero May 2, 2010 at 4:32 am #

    You didn’t read my reply to Asoka
    correctly. My reply to Asoka intended
    to convey the idea that not all groups
    of immigrants are equal. I think you’d
    agree with that being statistically-
    minded as you are.
    As for the “destruction” of our country
    by the Indian and Asian immigrants I
    praised, I think you ought to be MORE
    concerned with how WHITE KIDS are trying
    to be more “ghetto” than the children of
    Indian and Asian H1B guest workers.
    I challenge you, Vlad, to look at the
    names of VALEDICTORIA OF BAY AREA HIGH
    SCHOOLS IN JUNE. You wouldn’t be very
    heartened at the names. About 70% of
    them are Indians/Asians.
    Vlad, I think you know that I am certainly
    not a classic liberal “noble savage
    worshipper”. That should be abundantly
    clear. But just as I contend that the
    elders and leaders of the Black and
    Hispanic communities are not looking
    at their constituencies OBJECTIVELY,
    I think that Americans of European
    extraction are watching their kids
    become WHITE TRASH … even in tony
    areas like Palo Alto and San Francisco
    with hardly a whimper.
    If you are to maintain your “bully pulpit”
    you must demonstrate an objective ontology
    of your own race. We cannot rest on our
    laurels. We cannot say that because
    we created the civilizations of the past
    we get to relax, dumb down, ghetto up,
    and be as anti-intellectual as the more
    troubled American ethnic groups.
    History shows that complacency of a
    dominant culture leads to dissolution
    and depravity. And as a teacher and
    a social observer who spends a lot of
    time in public venues, I’ve never seen
    white people, especially YOUNG WHITE
    GIRLS, look worse, act trashier, or
    empathize more with low-class elements
    than at any time in my life.
    I’ve gone on record on this blog as
    saying that the European cultures have
    created most of the concepts that go
    into almost every single invention we
    enjoy from the flush toilet to the
    integrated circuit to the hi-fi stereo
    to the polio vaccine.
    However, I’ve got to be straight with
    you. I think you need to get out more
    and see how our European-Americans are
    doing RIGHT NOW.
    I think you’ll agree that how things
    actually are RIGHT NOW has primacy over
    how things WERE in, say, 1950. The
    elders, teachers, and parents in Anglo
    communities had better step up to the
    plate and light a fire under their
    youth NOW. Otherwise, all you’ll have
    is nostalgia about our former intellectual
    and cultural dominance.
    So … do you or do you not agree that
    Anglo culture is in STEEP DESCENT at
    this very moment?? I claim that if you
    don’t see it … you’re NOT WATCHING.
    Eleuthero

  441. Workingman1 May 2, 2010 at 6:19 am #

    Yes I will continue to blast big government. It is corrupt and wasteful. And when Obama starts with his dictator antics of suppresseing free speech he shows his true colors.
    The oil spill is a tragedy, and we will borrow more money WE DON’T HAVE from the Chinese to help with the clean up. God help us…

  442. Workingman1 May 2, 2010 at 6:49 am #

    Look at the great job big government did at
    FNMA. Social justice “homes for all”
    Doesn’t matter if you can pay for it or not.
    “It is your right”
    Frank Raines should be in jail for cooking the books. Instead he pocket 90 million at the taxpayers expense.Fake Accounting= Fake profits = Fake Bonuses. No matter he went to Harvard and has strong connections in BIG GOVERNMENT.
    We just can’t live without BIG GOVERNMENT and its effectiveness can we ASOKA. After all who would take care of our roads and bridges and oil spills… ASOKA–Where were OUR BIG GOVERNMENT WATCHDOGS like Barney Frank? Where were the Republican prior to that? Why aren’t these people held accountable? They are work together to keep their power, and to keep people like you docile.

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  443. diogen May 2, 2010 at 7:53 am #

    Nogoodboyo, I think you completely mis-read or intentionally mis-characterized Cash, many of the the things you attributed to him are completely contrary to how he comes across to me, which is thoughtful, balanced and fair. Is it possible that your ideology is a filter for your perception?
    THe common language discussion was not an abstract argument, it was specific to how the incroachment of Spanish will change the United States. My thesis was that without the English Language Amendment to the Constitution, we will cease to be the United States of America as we’ve known it for 200+ years. There will be a Latino nation within the American nation, and that would not be good for the Unity within the United States. How long will it be before majority Mexicans in Arizona will elect Mexican politicians bringing Mexico’s political culture to the U.S.A?
    I never said that individuals aren’t free to speak any language they choose, that is ludicrous.

  444. diogen May 2, 2010 at 7:58 am #

    Asoka, more specious arguments.
    >Pure scare tactics. Obama was supposed to put us >all in FEMA camps.
    Obama is no socialist, in now way I ever implied that.
    >Name one group that came to the USA from the 1500’s >on because they were looking for less freedom
    I’m talking about the masses of illegal immigrants of the 21st Century, not 1500’s. And some legal immigrants from alien cultures who are not interested in genuine NATURALIZATION in the U.S. and therefore should be rejected.

  445. asoka May 2, 2010 at 10:35 am #

    DIOGEN: “My thesis was that without the English Language Amendment to the Constitution, we will cease to be the United States of America as we’ve known it for 200+ years.”
    There is no USA “as we’ve known it for 200+ years”
    You are defending a fiction. Or, are you arguing we should go back to having 13 colonies?
    Since its inception the USA has been in a state of constant flux, first through expansion, now through demographic makeup. Yet you pretend to take some frozen mental image you have of what the USA should be in your mind, and judge what it is now by that mental image.
    It is what it is. And if that means majority Mexican voters in southwestern states, then that is what it is.
    Or, are you now rejecting the principles of self-governance enshrined in founding documents, now that whites are no longer the majority?
    To be an American means to accept change, to accept the will of the people, to live and let live. It doesn’t mean fighting everyone else here to insist on white anglo saxon protestant (WASP) values be imposed on the entire population.
    WASPs tried valiantly, in their inherently inhuman and uncivilized way, to enslave, exploit, and commit genocide on all the peoples not like them. Now some want to impose English as a National Language. But WASPs, and their brainwashed fellow travelers, have failed and, thankfully, the WASP reign of terror is ending.
    The new America is multicultural and multilingual. Love it or leave it (as the WASPs used to say) … or you can just continue to bitch and moan and foolishly lament the death of YOUR FICTIONAL CONCEPTION of America.

  446. NoGoodBoyo May 2, 2010 at 11:41 am #

    >Is it possible that your ideology
    >is a filter for your perception?
    Of course it is, for christ’s sake. How could it be otherwise? We are all ideologues on this bus. We all have a framework we are trying to build and to defend. Ideology is another of those words that while essentially a neutral technical term has been hijacked by people like the odious (ideologue) Glenn Beck and corrupted into another right-wing Pavlovian bell, an invitation, for the ignoramuses to think ‘communism’. “I’m saying ideologue, but I really mean commie liberal muslim socialist faggot terr’ist.”
    Like so many disconnects coming out of that camp, it would be funny if it wasn’t so utterly, pathetically stupid.
    >Nogoodboyo, I think you completely mis-read or intentionally >mis-characterized Cash,
    It’s all in the record, pal. There is nothing to misread or mis-characterize.
    >many of the the things you attributed to
    >him are completely contrary to how he comes across to me, which >is thoughtful, balanced and fair.
    Well, is it possible that your ideology is a filter for your perception?
    Cash is thoughtful and articulate and with a great deal of practical experience, which I respect. And he’s not a prating fool, like some of our colleagues. But he subscribes to ideas that I disagree with. These ideas aggregate, more or less, into a position on the ideological spectrum that is recognizable, not to say tediously familiar, and is in my view unsatisfactory and rejectable. If you think they are balanced and fair….interesting choice of words… then, my son, there is nothing I can do to save you.

  447. Tituspullo8780 May 2, 2010 at 12:06 pm #

    Dio,
    I agree to an extent about the ‘live-for-today’ model, however, that does not have to preclude some personal planning for the future. I moved out of Manhattan and back to CA, in large part, because NYC seemed like a particularly bad place to be if the lights were to go out. (911 wasn’t enough to get me out of the city. Peak Oil was)
    RE Travel: I have some guilt about it, but I’ve spent time in Indonesia, China, and have made a few trips to the UK in the last few years. I’m spending 3 weeks in Italy this summer – attending a friend’s wedding and then checking out the country. For a history buff, visiting Rome for the first time is a big deal for me. It’s a tremendous luxury to be able to visit a place like Morocco….I’ve never been, but my fiance went a few years back and loved it.
    Modern air travel is a technical miracle, and I’m amazed by the amount of complaint you hear from people about flying. Getting as much travel in while you still can makes sense – esp. if it may become unaffordable for anyone with a sub $20 million net worth. Seeing certain places first hand can also help provide context for what is going on around you.
    The people I met in Shanghai gave me more perspective on why the US is getting it’s economic ass kicked in by Asia. We had an interpreter for a few days whose English was probably better than mine. Despite her being a liberal arts major, her understanding of economics and business was impeccable.
    She spoke intelligently on the impact of US Federal Reserve policy on the Chinese economy, and accurately assessed that the US was basically exporting currency inflation through he RMB/dollar peg (China created the peg, but the US is taking full advantage). I can’t find college kids in the states that comprehend that, unless they want to work in finance. Even then it’s a toss up. There was also a seemingly free flow of accurate economic information in Chinese newspapers, CNBC Asia, ect. More so, I think, than in the US.
    re: US information gov. flow: I think the US government is goosing the numbers on everything from GDP, real unemployment levels, to the true rate of inflation. Does anyone really believe that the US economy grew at a 3.2% clip last quarter, or that the Q4 ’09 growth was 5 plus % with a near negative inflation rate? How do you reconcile that with gold over a grand and oil at $85 plus a barrel. Okay – you don’t criticize the government in China but otherwise, I saw a lot of economic freedom.
    Anyway, you’re right. I don’t feel that Peak Oil represents a hopeless scenario. We are staring into the abyss, no doubt, but we don’t necessarily have to fall in. The first step in solving a problem is admitting you have one. Have we done that in the US?
    As far as being a ex-pat is concerned – I also think that’s a question worth exploring. Norway is socialistic, but they are also sitting on top of tremendous oil reserves, and a small, seemingly peaceful populace.
    The UK might make sense – their share of North Sea production is past peak and they are now an oil importing nation. But they seem to have some awareness of Peak Oil in the Energy discourse. They also have a government with staying power, a populace not prone to paranoia, and natural barriers to immigration if they want to shut off the spigot at some point in the future.
    5 years back, some Islamic nuts blew up a subway station 2 blocks away from our London office. When I finally got through to the guy that worked for me there, he was cool as a cucumber and basically said, “that’s life”. I saw coverage of old british women being interviewed on the BBC right after that incident, and her response to it was “we didn’t let Hitler get to us, we’re certainly not giving in to this lot”. I could have kissed that old lady.
    Posters with the phrase “Stay Calm and Carry On” came up all over the UK during the WW2 air raids – when Hitler was bombing the hell out of London. (*I put a reprint of one up in my office).
    I would contrast that Brit attitude with the hysteria I saw in NYC and all over the US post 911. The patriot act, the homeland security BS, full body searches for granny and 13 year old girls at the airports, massive and largely foolish government spending to ‘fight terror’.
    Anyway, we don’t have to agree on everything – but at least we’re tangentially TALKING about Peak. Let’s keep it up!
    Titus

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  448. Vlad Krandz May 2, 2010 at 12:33 pm #

    Yes, I agree that Anglo Culture is in steep descent. This is no striking admission from on my part: I have touched on the sleazing of America in my writings before. The corruption of youth, both boys and girls, is criminal. The media has alot to answer for. All this is a common theme in White Nationalism. When war commences, many Whites will be fighting with the Blacks and Hispanics.
    But now back to you – you didn’t answer any of my points. Instead you seem to have replied to my anwer to Diogen. So I ask my question again, using your own words to frame it. How does letting in hundreds of thousands of Asian Professionals help the White Youth of America? Wont it just discourage them even more? How does having their parents out of work or thrown into degrading temp work help the situation? How does having Hispanics and Carribeans doing all the service jobs help our Youth? What summer jobs can they get? Hint: Once aliens rise to management, they only hire their countrymen or Co-ethnics at best. How does this foster responsibility for our youth?
    First our service and labor jobs were given away. Then our manufacturing went to Asia. And they brought in Asians to take over our best jobs. Dude, it’s a nightmare. And then you decry the youth of America after they have been betrayed so foully, their futures erased. Is the bringing in of the Asians the solution for “America” or is it in fact the coup de grace, the final betrayal of America and her youth?
    Expand upon your ideas please. What is your view of what a Nation is supposed to be. An outdated concept replaced by putting together all the schmart people? That’s the vdare idea. It’s interesting I admit, but it’s not a nation and it’s not sustainable. It certainly would be a good way to start all over though, say a space colony or a colonization of another world. I just don’t see that happening in the here and now with the Asians. They are by and large, very ethnocentic. If you don’t see that, it’s you who have the blinders on. We are being colonized in other words. We are the new Native Americans.

  449. asoka May 2, 2010 at 12:36 pm #

    WORKINGMAN1: “And when Obama starts with his dictator antics of suppresseing free speech”
    Obviously you have never lived in a country where a dictator suppresses free speech. Hyperbole. Weak.

  450. Workingman1 May 2, 2010 at 1:06 pm #

    It is on the way.
    Again power and control.
    When you toil daily to hand over your earnings to wasteful irresponsible governments.
    They have you so brainwashed to think it is your duty. NO it is our duty to shine the light on the liars and thieves you occupy our governmnet in both parties. It is our duty to vote in representatives that don’t abuse the publics trust. We are the government, and THEY are our servants, not our masters.
    This has nothing to do with RACE. Just truth.

  451. asoka May 2, 2010 at 1:10 pm #

    VLAD: “All this is a common theme in White Nationalism. When war commences, many Whites will be fighting with the Blacks and Hispanics.”
    This supposed “war” has been fantasized about for decades. But, if it does commence, White Nationalists will be arrested, read their rights, and imprisoned … after receiving due process.
    Though, as a fringe group of domestic terrorists another fate could be in store for White Nationalists.
    What are you waiting for Vlad? It only takes one person with conviction to start a raging blaze of violent resistance to the terrible totalitarian, socialist, tyrannical dictatorship under which we live. Thank goodness the foreign-born dictator Obama hasn’t shut down our access to internet … yet.
    Or, Vlad, are the White Nationalists afraid of losing those evil big government social security checks, or theirr VA benefits, their unemployment checks, their Medicare, their disability checks, etc.
    What good does your “awakening” do if it is not followed by action to liberate the poor downtrodden Whites from the evil oppression of low-IQ non-whites? Aren’t you smart enough to figure out how to gain back your freedom?

  452. Tituspullo8780 May 2, 2010 at 1:18 pm #

    Hi Asoka,
    Feel free to reject whatever you want, but my comment was far from partisan. Trust me on this – I see more similarities than differences between Dems and Republicans, and that’s part of the problem.
    Just look at the policy continuity from the reign of W. to your man Barry – a continuation of bail outs of “to-big-to-fails” (from the major banks, GM, the housing industry with additional crazy tax breaks for home buyers/not to mention the Fed keeping interest rates at basically zero). Forever war’ in Iraq and – this one blew me away – an ESCALATION of the war in Afghanistan. W. jacked up Medicare benefits when it was clear we could not afford the bennies we were already on the hook for, and Barry took us all the way over into a complete government clusterfuck of healthcare.
    Mind you, Barrack didn’t put medical insurance companies out of business (*despite his rants against them), he EXPANDED their business. Big pharma scored with his healthcare legislation as well – just like they did under Bush. If Obama is such a departure from Bush – why not just push through a single payer healthcare system instead of this mash-up of expensive, bad policy.
    And, let’s not forget why we are here – ENERGY. Here’s a link to Obama’s energy plan. http://tinyurl.com/2eccjcp It’s 8 pages long, and a quick read.
    So Asoka – and I’m going to paraphrase you here, please feel free to “reject my premise that Obama’s efforts on energy have been “meager”. You go on to say that you can provide plenty of evidence, if I’m unaware of the facts.
    Here are a couple of facts pulled directly from his plan:
    – Fact: there is no mention of Peak Oil anywhere in this document.
    Fact: he wants to provide a ‘rebate’ to consumers to help out with the gas bill, to be financed with a windfall profits tax on energy companies ($500 for individuals and $1,000 for a married couples). So, he wants to tax the suppliers of Energy and at the same time, potentially goose energy demand by delivering subsidies to consumers. Does that sound wise from a Peak Oil perspective? Or – does that sound like a guy looking to get elected by promising goodies.
    Fact: He wants a carbon trading system to reduce energy demand. I doubt that will do much more than massively enrich the folks who want to build these carbon trading exchanges (*can you say, Goldman and JP Morgan?)
    Fact: He wants to “Crack Down on Energy Speculation”. The biggest ‘speculators’ in the energy markets are companies that use tremendous amounts of energy. Airlines will be my primary example. The smart airlines buy cheaper futures contracts on fuel, so they can take delivery and more predictably manage their fuel costs. If you ‘cut out the speculator’ (btw, where have we heard that before?), you would drive prices for all forms of energy even higher than they are now. I think we better get some pretty solid energy alternatives in place before we willingly jam oil prices higher than they already are.
    It’s all right there. There is some wackiness about investing $150 billion in clean tech, which will magically result in creating 5 million “green energy” jobs. Well, they committed to $800 billion in stimulus spending last year that has resulted in zero job growth (*the unemployment rate went up since that legislation went through).
    I could go on, but I really want you to point out the ‘facts’ that I’m missing about Barrack and Energy.
    To Everyone reading this – here is a link directly to Barry’s energy policy: http://tinyurl.com/2eccjcp
    If I’m so off the mark on the President’s game plan to help the US address our energy problems – then it should be NO problem for Asoka to forcefully contradict my incorrect characterization of this president’s Energy plan. That is, if it is incorrect. After all, Asoka made it clear that I’m unaware of the facts.
    If Asoka does not reply, arbitrarily changes the issue, or pulls a ‘Urethra’ and proffers some lame-ass excuse for not wanting to defend his position on Obama’s energy plan – then feel free to forcefully call Asoka out for this.
    Asoka – you have the stage…
    Titus

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  453. Workingman1 May 2, 2010 at 1:30 pm #

    Here is my health care plan:
    Eat this list of the planets 10 healthiest foods.
    Turkey
    Tomatoes
    Berries
    Broccoli
    Salmon
    Spinach
    Oats
    Nuts
    Garlic
    Citrus
    Along with walking and maybe a little regular exercise. Just common sense, and the population would be healthier and we would not need a government taking money from Citizens who should have enough sense to take care of themselves. Maybe the constant Big Pharma advertising would disappear from the media.
    Many of the items of the list could be grown yourself even in pots.

  454. Tituspullo8780 May 2, 2010 at 1:44 pm #

    Hi Eleuthro,
    Gr8. So what the heck does any of these recycled, socio-cultural observations have to do with Peak Oil or Energy issues?
    Your point – that white kids are emulating black ghetto culture is older than I am. Elvis was playing ‘black music’ and there was hysteria in the 50’s and early 60’s about the influence of Rock and Roll on teenagers that was a variation of you argument.
    N.W.A was accused of bringing white kids into ghetto culture back in the 80’s. (google them).
    Here’s a more recent example – a movie called Havoc that was released in 2005: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0285175/
    “Plot summary (Titus -excerpted/in case you can’t afford to rent): In Los Angeles, Allison Lang is a bored girl from a white, upper class dysfunctional family that acts and dresses like a slut. Her wealthy boyfriend and friends are totally influenced by the hip-hop culture, behaving like rappers, dressing and imitating their lifestyle. When they decide to drive to East L.A. for fun, they meet a Latin gang of drug-dealers and Allison and her best friend Emily become fascinated with their “gangsta” lifestyle. Later they return to the ghetto to visit and excite Hector and his friends, expecting to join their 16th Street gang.”
    So Urethra, if you insist on boring us with a rehash of someone else’s ancient observation – add a little flair. Come up with something original dude. Your personal experience being mugged by a wanna-be white rapper perhaps?
    Otherwise, try posting something..no, anything on the topic of Peak Oil.
    With love and affection,
    Titus

  455. Tituspullo8780 May 2, 2010 at 1:51 pm #

    Asoka,
    Pointing out that White Supremacy is bad, and as a group, they have some wacky ideas is really fascinating. I would have to watch the Maury Povich show to come up to speed on that notion. That is, if you weren’t around to point it out.
    What does that have to do with energy issues. Don’t you have some ‘facts’ about Obama’s energy plan you want to point out to everyone. We are waiting with bated breath…
    Titus

  456. Tituspullo8780 May 2, 2010 at 1:58 pm #

    No debate from me on your health plan.
    Interestingly, I went to a health care conference a few years back that one of my execs. was keynoting at. The audience was made up mostly of doctors. The presentation was pushing electronic health records, and that all docs should use them (*sound familiar?).
    One of the doctors stood up durring the Q&A, and said that if he could “prescribe” a proper diet – he could knock 80% of their health problems. This doc got a huge round of laughter and applause from the other docs in the room.
    I think you, and that old doctor nailed it 🙂

  457. Cash May 2, 2010 at 2:10 pm #

    Asoka, in your opinion do American citizens have the right to cross the border of whatever country they like, let’s say Mexico, and take up residence there by the millions or tens of millions, without asking permission of the Mexican govt? Should the Mexican people acquiesce to these illegal Americans’ presence in Mexico? Should they be ok with these Americans working in Mexico, not paying taxes, requiring services be provided in English, requiring that their kids be educated in English? Would you see it as anti American if Mexicans object to an incursion like this?

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  458. Workingman1 May 2, 2010 at 2:13 pm #

    We live in a time when common sense and simple ways are just not even acknowledged.
    We could carry that type of thinking over into our taxes, and effective government.
    Anyway, also add to that a spoonful of cod liver oil chased by black strap molassas everyday and you have your omega3’s Vitimin A&D. Not expensive and great for you…
    We make everything so complex and call it itelligence.

  459. Cash May 2, 2010 at 2:42 pm #

    Interesting. You can read a book about swimming or you can jump in the water. Best way to learn about a people is to go there or do as you did, talk to them. Or you can read about them in which case you’re relying on someone else’s eyeballs and biases.

  460. asoka May 2, 2010 at 2:45 pm #

    “Pointing out that White Supremacy is bad”
    If you had been following along, or if you even read carefully, I never used the words “white supremacy” or “white supremacist” because Vlad does not self-identify with those labels.

  461. SNAFU May 2, 2010 at 2:55 pm #

    “You can deride “big government” all you want, but when private industry has a crisis it cannot handle, say an oil spill BP couldn’t handle, what did BP do? At first BP was all bravado saying they could handle, don’t worry it isn’t that big a problem. But “big government” kept an eye on it and it became clear it was a big problem and did require government intervention.
    Thankfully, Obama made it clear that government will help solve the problem, but the costs do not correspond to the taxpayers: BP has to pay.”
    Agree with your premise that BP quickly discovered they could not control their oil spilling into the Gulf; however, my take on their PR response was prevarication not bravado.
    Disagree with your contention that BP has to pay or will ever pay for the real damages this spill will cause. As depicted in the BP Environmental Assessment Report prior to obtaining approval to start drilling they stated it is “unlikely that an accidental surface or subsurface oil spill would occur”. BP will fight tooth and nail with every lawyer they can hire to avoid paying for this disaster. One guess as to who the lucky bastards to pick up this tab will be, once again.
    What was that Palin, Conservative/Republican mantra “Drill Baby Drill”? If the worst case scenario of this oil slick rounding the tip of Florida and heading up the East Coast occurs, the next mantra may well be “Conserve Baby Conserve”.
    Perhaps the Conservative/Republican punching bag President, Jimmy Carter, may be viewed with the respect he has long deserved. As I recall his speech to America about conserving energy was met with derision and and a boot out of the White House in favor of the Great Communicator.
    SNAFU

  462. asoka May 2, 2010 at 3:15 pm #

    Titus you are getting off to a very bad start. You have directed everyone to a link which goes to a speech given in August 2008, before Obama became president. You have conveniently ignored the actual accomplishments that have actually taken place when Obama was actually president. And you have not referenced his actual plan.
    For example, you did not mention the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act which included more than $80 billion in clean energy investments and included $11 billion for a bigger, better, and smarter grid that will move renewable energy from the rural places it is produced to the cities where it is mostly used, as well as for 40 million smart meters to be deployed in American homes.
    Maybe this is not as sexy as PEAK OIL, but it certainly is related: Obama provided $5 billion for low-income home weatherization projects and $4.5 billion to green federal buildings and cut our energy bill, which also, by the way, saves taxpayers billions of dollars.
    Like a giant oil tanker the unemployment question took a little longer to turn around. Yes, unemployment went up, but now it is coming down. You just were not patient enough. You also neglected to mention Obama has provided $6.3 billion for state and local renewable energy and energy efficiency efforts and $600 million in green job training programs – $100 million to expand line worker training programs and $500 million for green workforce training.
    You probably don’t have the patience to appreciate potential long-term benefits of Obama providing $2 billion in competitive grants to develop the next generation of batteries to store energy.
    Obama also increased, for the first time in more than a decade, the fuel economy standards for Model Year 2011 for cars and trucks so they will get better mileage, saving drivers money and spurring companies to develop more innovative products. There is a PEAK OIL connection there, if you can connect the dots.
    And Obama’s focus is not just on cars. HE issued a memorandum to the Department of Energy to implement more aggressive efficiency standards for common household appliances, like dishwashers and refrigerators. Through this step, over the next three decades, we’ll save twice the amount of energy produced by all the coal-fired power plants in America in any given year.
    The link you gave was to a speech in 2008, so, of course, it did not reference the program Obama unveiled to develop the renewable energy projects on the waters of our Outer Continental Shelf that produce electricity from wind, wave, and ocean currents. These regulations will enable, for the first time ever, the nation to tap into our ocean’s vast sustainable resources to generate clean energy in an environmentally sound and safe manner. There is a PEAK OIL connection there, too.
    But, by sleight of hand, you referenced a document that could not have presented Obama’s funding of an actual plan, because Obama was not even president in 2008.
    And, Titus, it is wrong of you to imply that Obama is ignorant of PEAK OIL. If you recall, Obama is the commander in chief of the armed forces and in that capacity he commanded General Mattis to investigate the possible effects of PEAK OIL on military readiness, which General Mattis did and published the results in a 76 page document called the Joint Operating Environment report released Feb. 18, 2010 by the United States Joint Forces Command.
    I could go on, though this post is long now. And I will go on, if you insist on berating Obama and making false claims about Obama’s energy policy or about his supposed ignorance of PEAK OIL. You don’t have the facts.

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  463. asoka May 2, 2010 at 3:28 pm #

    Cash asks: “do American citizens have the right to cross the border of whatever country they like”
    You know the answer to this question. They do not.
    I have made clear my position that nation states and borders should not exist.
    In fact, since the moon shot of the Earth we know that the earth does not have those borders.
    I want people to have the freedom of movement to explore the entire planet and to settle and live wherever and whenever they choose without having to get permission from their jailers, without having to show papers.
    I respect your opinion, if you believe this is unworkable. All I am asking is that you give me the same respect.

  464. asoka May 2, 2010 at 3:39 pm #

    workingman1, at last something we agree on. \
    Excellent health care plan.

  465. Cash May 2, 2010 at 3:52 pm #

    Cash is thoughtful and articulate and with a great deal of practical experience, which I respect. – Boyo
    Thank you, you are very literate and articulate yourself.
    whether a country can function with its citizens using multiple languages. And the answer is clearly that it can – Boyo
    Sometimes. Sometimes they go the route of Belgium where Flemish and Walloons despise each other. Or they can go the route of Canada where Quebecers elect separatists to federal and provincial parliament and where Quebec separatism has tied up our national agenda and distorted our politics for decades. Or it can end up in flames like the Balkans where tens of thousands died.
    …your reporting of the Ontario sex education “scandal”… – Boyo
    Who said it was a scandal? It was a really big misjudgement but the point was that people speaking up had an effect.
    Your unseemly admiration for the Israelis and their apartheid-enhancing wall-building technology and your enthusiasm for machine gun towers and minefields to be used not against soldiers but rather peasants speaks volumes about your fundamental humanity. – Boyo
    Wrong Boyo. I do not admire or give the slightest damn about the Israelis or the Palestininans for that matter. Not my fight nor anyone esle’s but their own. The sooner everyone leaves them to it the sooner they’ll make peace.
    I will direct to you the question I directed to Asoka: do you think it OK for millions or tens of millions of American citizens to walk undocumented across the border into Mexico, take up residence in Mexico, live and work there, not pay taxes etc, Would it be racist for the Mexican people to object to this incursion?
    “laments a failure to speak a second language so as to accommodate the (English-speaking)… Boyo
    It doesn’t lament any such thing.
    a subscriber to the ‘our-military-can do-no-wrong’ screed. – Boyo
    Wrong again. You’re reading what you wish I said not what I’ve actually said.
    you are a nationalist and patriot, wedded to the idea of the nation state – Boyo
    You are correct.
    wrt to national corruption see http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/nov/17/corruption-index-transparency-international
    You have this idea that I am a right winger. Wrong Boyo, I am no such thing.
    If you want to put me in an ideological spectrum call me a lefty ie I want to see a country that is un-stratified socially and economically, where there is respect for civil rights, where people value and respect the country’s anglo saxon and western heritage. You might ask why. Because this country’s anglo culture and western heritage has been a tremendous success and served us well. If it didn’t serve us well I would advocate shitcanning it in a New York minute. The big horrific exception being the Indians whose treatment is a stain on our national honour.
    I do not want to see a country where the country’s economic elites do everything they can to work against this country’s interests and to degrade ordinary people’s quality of life. Our oligarchs, despite what they think, are not at liberty to do what the fuck they want without regard for national boundaries, laws, customs, national interests ie their annual bonuses are not the be all and end all.
    If my own take on things is unpalatable to you, well, that’s your privilege and I’m not bothered. We are entitled to our own opinion. This is not a dictatorship after all and diversity applies to opinion as well as to race.

  466. Cash May 2, 2010 at 4:13 pm #

    Absolutely I respect you Asoka, that’s why I give you the time of day. Your attitudes are not uncommon, I saw a bit of a talk show this morning (McLaughlin Group) where some panelists appeared to have attitudes similar to yours on the issue of Mexican migrants.
    So the question is why do Americans not have the right to cross national boundaries? Maybe I’m confused but if Mexicans can cross into the US why can’t Americans cross into Mexico?
    If you want to advocate the abolition of national boundaries I’m all ears. What system would you have in its place?

  467. Cash May 2, 2010 at 4:17 pm #

    many of the the things you attributed to him are completely contrary to how he comes across to me, which is thoughtful, balanced and fair. – Dio
    Thanks for the compliment Dio. My wife, on the other hand, is convinced she’s living with a moron. I’m going to show her this.

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  468. asia May 2, 2010 at 6:30 pm #

    “the koreans also have the purest or 2nd purest bloodline on the planet
    Im taking DNA,,,,has nothing to do with ‘ racism’

  469. asia May 2, 2010 at 6:34 pm #

    Peak Oil!
    ‘Perhaps the Conservative/Republican punching bag President, Jimmy Carter, may be viewed with the respect he has long deserved..’
    Prophets find no honor in their own land. and those 40 years and older would have to admit thier foolishness for ignoring peak oil when JC warned us.

  470. asia May 2, 2010 at 6:38 pm #

    Heres why:
    2 outa 3 aint bad!
    1…A
    2…R
    3…Z
    in looking at asokas posts of last 2? days he objects to ‘nations’ in one and in another says what unites US citizens is ‘ love for freedom’ or some such!

  471. NoGoodBoyo May 2, 2010 at 10:46 pm #

    I responded in detail to your long post, but it’s a thousand words, the two posts interleaved……too long and tedious to upload here. I kept it all on file, but I will only address one comment now:
    Cash sed:
    > I will direct to you the question I directed to Asoka: do you to walk undocumented across the border into Mexico, take >up residence in Mexico, live and work there, not pay taxes etc, >Would it be racist for the Mexican people to object to this >incursion?
    Well you could argue that it already happened and the result is called Texas.
    But the answer is absolutely yes, provided identical inverse circumstances prevail.
    That is, if Mexico were the hemispheric hegemon, and had been interfering in US affairs for two hundred years, (including invasions, land theft, puppet governments, and the resultant immiseration and exploitation of the peasantry); if Mexico had been running an open-door policy since WWII that openly encouraged any American to come south and pick lettuce for slave wages without uttering the words ‘illegal immigrant’ for fifty years. But most importantly and most relevant to this current explosion of illegal immigration: if Mexico had finagled a trade agreement that quickly allowed the cheap corn of Mexican agribusiness to destroy the American domestic corn industry, leaving millions of American peasants with no livelihood, then yes, I think it would be okay for Americans to walk wherever and do whatever it might take in order to feed their children.
    The elephant in the room, of course, as always, is the question of incentive. People don’t leave their babies and risk their lives to go take a flier in America, have some fun, maybe raise a little hell, see if there might be a few days’ work happening. No way. They go, full of dread, lonely and intimidated, risking jail, beatings, death, because they know for sure that work is to be had. Because that work is openly provided by American companies who know exactly who they are hiring, what it saves them and who they are betraying. Where is the outrage against them? Where are the fines and the jail sentences for employers? Where is the public condemnation of the meat packing corporations and the construction companies? The hypocrisy is sickening.

  472. Cash May 3, 2010 at 10:51 am #

    I would argue that Mexico is no tiny, helpless victim (population 100 million plus), that Mexicans are grown ups just like us, that they have all of our intellectual and moral faculties, that their European mother country was a world power, that it bequeathed to them a long intellectual and cultural tradition, that they had the capacity to found glittering civilizations long before Europeans arrived, that they inherited from their Indian forebears a long history of intellectual achievement and that if Mexico is a royally screwed up mess the place to look for causes and solutions is within Mexico, and not blame outsiders. They made their own problems and they can fix their own problems, there is no need for an American ogre.
    I don’t know you well enough to comment on your own attitudes but I’ve said in other places that blaming the problems of places like Mexico on Americans and Europeans sounds too much to me like triumphalism and superiority. I’ve had a lifetime of dealing with peasants (my parents and grandparents, relatives and their friends) that come from a place as impoverished and messed up as Mexico. A stones throw away was Switzerland and France, two advanced western countries. The fact that my parents came from a wretched place was the fault of their own society. There was more than enough intellectual horsepower in that place to change and to learn from places that, like I said, are a stone’s throw away. But until WW2 upended things they refused. Peasant culture is a stubborn thing. That was their own fault.
    European civilization (including the US) for the time being (and just for the time being) is top dog. It wasn’t always thus and won’t be in the future. Don’t be too incontinently generous in apportioning blame to the US and the West for the world’s ills. Non western societies are composed of adults like us and there is enough cretinism in non western society to account for what ails them.
    We think we control the world but we do not. Example is Afghanistan. Barefoot peasants against the might of the NATO and the US military and guess who’s winning?
    Having said all this I agree the main fault for the level of illegal immigration is in the US ie failure to control the borders and willingness to hire illegals at slave wages. Like I said in previous posts it’s a question of money, of US big business working against the interests of their own country.

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  473. asia May 3, 2010 at 8:23 pm #

    tysons a billionaire..and i think he financed bill c . they are from the same state.

  474. One Smart Dude May 4, 2010 at 2:50 am #

    Um, while the CDS (credit default swap) is a CFTC derivative, the underlying bond upon which it is based and that was designed in the “insider trading” manner described by Jim is most definitely under the purview of the SEC. In fact, it is that exact jurisdictional basis upon which the civil suit was filed.
    So, the moral of the story is that if you are going to be a smart-ass and attack someone, you better know what the hell you are talking about!
    Jim, how about a Facebook feed so we can share both the madness and the truth of your thoughts with a wider audience more readily?

  475. asia May 4, 2010 at 4:24 pm #

    yes..there is a ‘we hate kunstlers geography book’ page there!

  476. ak May 10, 2010 at 3:58 am #

    479 Comments total as of 2010-05-04 13:24 (Pacific)
    More than 1 comment by:

    62 &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp Qshtik
    54 &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp asoka
    45 &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp asia
    38 &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp diogen
    37 &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp Cash
    24 &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp Tituspullo8780
    15 &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp Vlad Krandz
    13 &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp Eleuthero
    11 &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp Martin Hayes
    11 &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp NoGoodBoyo
    10 &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp wagelaborer
    10 &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp welles
    8 &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp The Mook
    7 &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp dale
    6 &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp John66
    6 &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp mean dovey cooledge
    6 &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp Workingman1
    4 &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp ozone
    4 &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp Weaseldog
    3 &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp budizwiser
    3 &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp lpat
    3 &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp MINDfool
    3 &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp Puzzler
    3 &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp SNAFU
    2 &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp CaptSpaulding
    2 &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp Chris C
    2 &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp Chubbz Molinoire
    2 &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp Colin
    2 &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp culinarius
    2 &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp ExtraO
    2 &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp george
    2 &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp killacommie
    2 &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp messianicdruid
    2 &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp Nickelthrower
    2 &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp Unconventional Ideas

  477. Team SP November 10, 2010 at 4:17 am #

    life has changed a lot in last decade. specially in political area. hope we can go forward as a nation, without the predator instinct.

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