JHK’s Three-Act Play
On Tuesday, when the Republican Party and its Tea Party chump-proxies re-conquer the sin-drenched bizarro universe of the US congress, they’ll have to re-assume ownership of the stickiest web of frauds and swindles ever run in human history – and chances are the victory will blow up in their supernaturally suntanned, Botox-smoothed faces.
But don’t cry for John Boehner, Barack Obama.
The President and his Democrats may have inherited this clusterfuck from the feckless George Bush but they flubbed every chance to mitigate any part of it, ranging from their failure to restore the rule of law in banking (by prosecuting the executives of major banks who oversaw the systematic swindle), to mis-directing our dwindling resources toward ends (such as “shovel-ready” new super-highways) that won’t promote a credible future for this society, to misleading the public in the fantasy that alt-energy will offset the disruptions of peak oil (and allow us to keep running suburbia, the US Military, and WalMart by other means).
It’s really too late for both parties. They’re unreformable. They’ve squandered their legitimacy just as the US enters the fat heart of the long emergency. Neither of them have a plan, or even a single idea that isn’t a dodge or a grift. Both parties tout a “recovery” that is just a cover story for accounting chicanery and statistical lies aimed at concealing the criminally-engineered national bankruptcy that they presided over in split shifts. Both parties are overwhelmingly made up of bagmen for the companies that looted America.
Alas, the damage is now so pervasive in money matters that the federal government could be toast as a viable enterprise, even if a new party or two spontaneously rose up out of the ruins of a plundered democracy. Anyway, one of them will not be the Tea Party, with its incoherent agenda and moron cadres who seek to put Jesus back in the US constitution, where he never was in the first place – though they don’t know that.
Nor is there any party on the left or even in the center with a clue or a moral compass. Its just one of those tragic moments in history – like 1850s America, when a strange vacuum of thought occupied the heart of political life, and the scene was cluttered up with mere place-holders like Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan. (Can you state a single idea or position, these political ciphers advanced?)
Where we stand now is on the cusp of another giant step into the abyss, since the latest storm of Foreclosure-Gate suggests pretty strongly that mega-tons of mortgage-backed securities are assured of blowing up, as well as the sundry derivatives of these things (CDOs, CDOs-squared, plus the massive fetid matter infesting the alternative cosmos of credit default swaps). If you follow the media-of-record like The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, you would have to conclude that there is no extant plausible notion among financial leaders as to how the fiasco of botched mortgage-and-title documentation can be resolved. After three weeks of emerging events around this debacle, the consensus among the power brokers is to pretend that there’s no problem, that the issue of missing, forged, post-dated, trashed, or non-existent paper related to claims on property can just be put aside, brushed under the rug, glossed over, ignored.
Let me tell you something: this problem is not going away. At the very least it is going to paralyze the real estate industry for as far ahead as anyone can see. For another thing, it could force the disclosure of what the banks are holding in their vaults in the way of worthless paper and expose their insolvency. For still another thing, it could lead to rafts of lawsuits that would additionally shove the banks toward collapse, demolish the claims that underlie our currency, call into question the meaning of property ownership per se that is the basis of Anglo-American law, and tie up the court system until kingdom come. In any case, every pension fund, state government, and insurance operation would be crippled. I could go on but you get the picture…. This might all sound extreme, but I repeat: nobody with any authority in this land has proposed a plausible way out.
By the way, I haven’t even touched on the totally insane but now accepted practices of the Federal Reserve attempting to stage manage the velocity of money by so-called quantitative easing – a.k.a. the US writing checks to itself – because even that nonsense assumes that everything else remains more or less stable.
This is what the two major parties can look forward to as we swing around into the Yuletide season and then into 2011. The proud winners of seats in congress and the senate might as well put on clown suits and little pointed hats on Wednesday morning and drive around the Washington monument in toy cars. There will be a desperate need for a new politics in this country, for people unafraid to tell the truth and act in the genuine public interest. If we can’t generate it from the saner quarters of this country where people think thoughts that comport with reality, I’m afraid we could see some generals step into the picture.
I write literally over the middle of the Pacific Ocean, en route from Australia where I spent the past week – not on vacation. It’s a reminder that there are a lot of other players in the wide world – not all of them nations on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
___________________________________
The sequel to my 2008 novel of post-oil America, World Made By Hand, is available at all booksellers now.
This blog is sponsored this week by Vaulted, an online mobile web app for investing in allocated and deliverable physical gold. To learn more visit:Kunstler.com/vaulted
|
Order now! Jim’s new book
Click here for signed author copies from Battenkill Books
|
Order now! Jim’s other new book
|
Paintings from the 2023 Season
New Gallery 15
GET THIS BLOG VIA EMAIL PROVIDED BY SUBSTACK
You can receive Clusterfuck Nation posts in your email when you subscribe to this blog via Substack. Financial support is voluntary.
Sign up for emails via https://jameshowardkunstler.substack.com
First!
“Both parties are overwhelmingly made up of bagmen for the companies that looted America.”
You are unnecessarily denigrating bagmen.
Both parties are looting the USA
Another excellent missive on our country’s abominable political condition. At 8:30 this morning I have to report for jury duty after receiving a summons to do so. What an excellent way to also elect our politicians. Someone on CNBC maid that same point last week. One term and gone. Then bring another person in. Would probably put a lot more common sense into the decision making and minimize the corruption of the current “gang” .
So the U.S. is about to enter “the fat heart of the long emergency”.
Well, maybe. But at the risk of being impolite, I’ll take this Halloween opportunity to point out that on July 16 of this year Kunstler specifically predicted “the markets themselves will roll over and puke, as I rather imagine they will between now and Halloween, if not next week”.
The S&P500 has risen 6.1% since Kunstler wrote that.
I regularly read Kunstler because he’s a hell of a great writer, with a keen ear for the English language, a eye for the good opening, and an instinct for the razor-sharp phrase that puts him in the same league with Hunter Thompson at his gonzo prime.
But by perpetually predicting the End of the World as We Know It at least one decade ahead of schedule (the approximate timing of Peak Oil is likely to be around 2020, in my opinion … and Peak Natural Gas and Peak Coal are considerably farther off on the horizon), people point at folks like Kunstler and dismiss the very crucial need for serious discussion of Peak Oil as an ongoing exercise in crying wolf.
Economically and socially, things are rarely as good as the the boosters will proclaim, but they are rarely are they as dire as the doomers warn, either.
The 21st century will be one long exercise in learning to get by with less abundance — especially for those of us in the “developed” world used to squandering ridiculous amounts of cheap energy — but it’s more likely to be a long, hairy skid down a steep, slick road than a sudden plunge off of the cliff.
Or, we may end this year with a Dow Jones average of 4,000 — as Kunstler has perpetually predicted since roughly 1812. Again, maybe. But let’s just say I’m glad Kunstler ain’t my economic advisor.
There is only one party. I think Jim has said it himself; it has two factions.
Somebody once said that it never pays to be more than ten minutes ahead of your time, and that’s just the problem with Kunstler, James Michael Greer, and other Peak Resource prognosticators.
But then, their followers don’t have to be quite so literal-minded and knee-jerk in their response. Greer suggested that it might be time to move back to the decimated Midwestern cities, like Detroit and St.Louis, that have taken such a beating in the cheap fuel era, while others have embraced the subsistence farming lifestyle. I don’t think so- this is no time to forsake a decent livelihood in a walkable city with good transit to go back to a place where you still need a car to get to any job and where you take your life in your hands standing on a street corner to wait for a bus. These folks are a little ahead of schedule, and not only are they cutting themselves out of economic opportunities that might permit them to get themselves more favorably positioned, but might be moving in the exact opposite direction they need to go.
The best adaption is to play it as it lays, while practicing the virtues that have always stood people in good stead in weird times, such as frugality and cooperation, while cultivating extreme flexibility. It might be a good time to hone your gardening skills and it is surely a good idea to downscale your lifestyle in order to save money and acclimate yourself to a low-energy lifestyle, but you might have to hold on to your car for a little while longer if your job is located 20 miles from a bus line, and you might not have the physical strength and stamina to farm. It is surely no time for anyone with a solid job and minimal savings to head for the hills. It might not exactly make sense to ignore the skills you need to make a decent living now in order to learn old skills for which there is not yet a need.
It certainly will not pay to spurn advanced technologies that could mitigate our situation substantially, and embrace the wasteful technologies of the nineteenth century, and it surely will not help us to regress to the social arrangements of the past. Burning whale oil for light is out of the question, burning wood for heat will deforest the continent in 2 years, and long dresses on women are a prodigious waste of fabric and get in the way of doing work.
The ride down the slope will be very choppy and full of surprises no one could have predicted. All we can do is be alert to signs that what we are doing, as individuals, is not working, and position ourselves so that we can be flexible and resilient in the face of whatever comes.
Eighth!!!
A rather frighting Halloween post, that one, Jim. One does wonder when an adult will intervene, and declare the obvious for all to hear and see. Right now Bill Black has been shouting fraud pretty loudly, as well as a lot of other folks, Jim included.
I look for some interesting moments next week, after the Tuesday election and whatever has been holding the pipes from bursting lets go. Things are pretty messed up on all fronts. I can’t see it all holding together until another election, not at this rate.
JHK said:
Jim, the military squandered their legitimacy long ago. The military is a dishonorable institution that is an unrepentant serial liar about the war crimes it is committing on a daily basis in violations of the Geneva Accords, the UCMJ, and standards of human decency.
The military also has no plan to solve problems of contract law, bad paper, etc. that you describe as a “web of frauds and swindles.”
Indeed the military is part of the problem. Out of control military spending and outright corrupt use of allocated funds (billions of which cannot be accounted for by any means) does not indicate that the military would have a clue about addressing the economic and legal problems of civil society.
“frightening” spelled correctly as tenth!
CORRECTION
The USA military is a dishonorable institution that is an unrepentant serial liar about the war crimes it is committing on a daily basis in violation of the Geneva CONVENTIONS, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and standards of human decency expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
I don’t believe that Kunstler is advocating for a military takeover, but expressing a fear that this could happen if this country should completely unravel politically and socially.
It’s a fear I share, and there exists a military force,extremely wealthy and very well-supported, though covertly, by both major parties, that is fully capable and absolutely willing to affect a military takeover of this country and install a Christian Military Government with all the repression, systemic brutality, and mass deep impoverishment that a military dictatorship usually produces.
Xe Services, formerly known as Blackwater, is fully up to the job and its founder, Eric Prince, is a fundamentalist Christian and one of the wealthiest people in the country. He would very willingly step into the role of a religious dictator.
Dr. Doom said: “after the Tuesday election and whatever has been holding the pipes from bursting lets go.”
It’s serious duct tape holding the pipes. Duct tape won’t let go and the ducts channeling money will be kept mended.
Laura said: “He would very willingly step into the role of a religious dictator. ”
He should get his name on a ballot and then refuse to offer any solutions, answer any questions from journalists, or make any public appearances … like the other successful candidates have done this election cycle.
“But by perpetually predicting the End of the World as We Know It at least one decade ahead of schedule (the approximate timing of Peak Oil is likely to be around 2020, in my opinion … and Peak Natural Gas and Peak Coal are considerably farther off on the horizon).”
Conventional crude oil (plus condensate) peaked in 2005. “All liquids” has been on a plateau from roughly 2004 until present. Plateaus are a flat-topped form of peak, not a step or ledge. Several agencies and groups see us leaving the plateau beginning in 2012-2015. One group calls for global peak coal next year, in 2011. More optimistic estimates say 2020-2030 for global peak coal. Peak natural gas is likely by 2020, but it matters more if it peaks in your sector of the globe more than oil or coal, as natural gas is piped.
Laura said: “I don’t believe that Kunstler is advocating for a military takeover, but expressing a fear that this could happen if this country should completely unravel politically and socially.”
Yes, I recognize that. And my point was the clusterfuck would continue unabated with generals in charge, since they have amply demonstrated their incompetence and immorality over the past 40 years.
Uh, NO.
But You’re Welcome to your opinion.(below)
Donny-Don said
“I regularly read Kunstler because he’s a hell of a great writer, with a keen ear for the English language, a eye for the good opening, and an instinct for the razor-sharp phrase that puts him in the same league with Hunter Thompson at his gonzo prime.”
Dear Jim,
I’ve been reading your comments for some years now, with increasing delight. Thankyou for them.
I see that you wrote this coming back from Australia, and I have one thing to ask you, Jim.
Please dont write a column on the happiness here. It would be too cruel. Here I am in Sydney, my vegetable garden planted, the year round lemon tree in fruit, the wistaria gone mad and every day, Jim, every single day, I thank that ancestor who stole horses in Ireland and rode it up to the local ( English ) squires manor and got the horse to kick the door in as a protest against the starvation of hundreds of people on his patch.
Transported as a convict to what turned out to be a paradise, (the irony of it) the line continued down to me, and here I am, where we’ve had our political nervous breakdowns, where no banks failed, where universal health care is superb and paid for by all Australians, without exception, taken out of my income at the rate of 1/5%, (I would happily pay more ) where I am mandatorily obliged to vote, (I love it ) where living in the hardest drought over the last 10 years, and having the rains come down has turned the whole big island into a golf course from Darwin to Hobart, from Byron Bay to Roebuck, well,.Jim… You get my drift. Please don’t write about the fat cattle and the wheatfields, or the incredible beauty of Sydney. I’m just asking, Jim.
whoa. 1.5% !!….
The salient point here is that nature abhors a vacuum – and often the vacuum-filler is the crudest, roughest, Ving Rhames gettin’ medieval on it’s ass, shape-shifter.
When there’s no choice, nature conspires to find one, and as JHK and others have pointed out, Nature always bats last. Thing is, nature didn’t mention that in the 8th and 9th innings, Nature’s prepared to execute triple-plays on us, so it’s not a late-game-comeback scenario worth waiting on.
When will the strong, crystallizing person emerge – from some unlikely provenance – to focus our attention in a realistic, action-generating movement? I’m not holding my breath for anytime soon – there are miles to go of sleepwalking, and promises to keep – to ourselves for a wake-up.
Too many shiny, consumer-culture objects still spinning to jolt us out of the slumber of go-along-to-get-along bliss – to the Walmart tune of… “Save More. Live Better”.
I posted last minute comments to Mika and Beantown on last week’s thread.
Oh, and I’ve got a little piece about how we got here called “The Power of Horse” ready for anyone who might be interested, over at Small Batch.
http://smallbatchgarden.blogspot.com/
Cheers!
What JHK is saying – and I agree – is that a paradigm shift is coming. It’s inexorable. When that happens we will be back to the basics and forced to live with obvious. Here’s an example. Let’s take the so-called “housing crisis.” There is no housing crisis, per se. People need to have houses in which to live. There are plenty of people who need housing. Surprisingly, there are plenty of unoccupied swelling units out there. Solution: match up those looking for shelter with those unused dwellings! So here’s the real problem: they can’t “afford” those dwelling! Now I ask, just exactly what does “afford” mean when the Feds just created close to a trillion dollars out of thin air to keep the “system” from melting down? Truly, that is their explanation for why the bailout had to be done – to keep the “system” from failing, meaning that the whole financial system would have imploded. Well, guess what! It’s imploding anyway! What are we going to have here – half the populace homeless while houses sit empty? That sounds like a broken system to me!
So, JHK readers, get ready for a monumental paradigm shift. Just imagine that much of what you worked for will be “worth” zilch and that many small people will seem to be getting something for nothing. If that bothers you, too bad. I see it coming. It’s inevitable. Oh, and by the way, the system did not really fail. It’s been failing all along and the drapes just came down so we will see it for its reality. That’s what happens with all unsustainable systems.
Asoka, the generals have been incompetent and immoral for quite a bit longer than 40 years. Please check out the essay that Major General Smedley D. Butler, USMC, wrote in 1935 – “War is a Racket”.
I would argue with you about the “incompetent” part of your statement, though. Immoral, for sure, incompetent, no. They have been very competent in the past several decades. Just look at the profits! Of course, there has been a bit of collateral damage, but hey, that’s the price you pay for progress.
Whether or not we are on the verge of systemic collapse, the die is cast. We WILL be contracting, powering down, relocalizing, and all much more involved in the production of food, fiber, and fuel in the coming years. On average we already are. Like Richard Heinberg says, energy descent is already upon us, it’s just not evenly distributed yet.
It’s fun to read Jim’s piece every week, and the idea that he cries for major cultural change while flying over the Pacific in a jet airliner, is amusing to me. (Am I creating enough positive response to justify the energy expense?) Kunstler sounds the alarm, prematurely or otherwise, it doesn’t matter, because if first-world humans want to be a part of the distant future, the time to get serious about it is now.
We will not solve the problems of population and ever-increasing technology with more population and technology. That should be easy enough to see. Instead what’s needed is a long hard look at every activity we engage in and why. Can we get away without bothering to do it at all?
There is an immense amount of conservation to be had from a concerted mental shift toward awareness. Toward behavioral innovation. Being aware that you left the tap running, or a light on in another room. Start there and see what presents itself. The government isn’t going to help you with this, because the government is owned by the corporations, and they aren’t interested in unprofitable solutions. Adaptation to energy descent is the epitome of unprofitable, but it is necessary, and the time to start making changes is now.
Doesn’t make a bit of difference who gets elected tomorrow. We the People need to be the change we wish to see.
I suppose it just doesn’t matter anymore – at least for me. Jim’s comments no longer make me sad, and that there’s the pity. Our sage voyager has taken us to the edge of the cliff, and there is no looking back.
Dear bloggers, last nite was my thirteenth anniversary…and I didn’t even get laid. Oh well, what the heck. I’m trying to restore an old candlestick, a distant reminder of my former youth and “grandeur”. It’s not working out too well, just as this QE isn’t going to save our sorry asses.
“All I have left is ruined finery.” That line is from an old Bette Davis movie, “Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte”. Jesus Christ. This Long Emergency is taking it’s toll on me as I watch and see the last vestiges of “modern times fade from my memory. Society, as we know it, is slowly drifting away, and we sit back, complacently, waiting for the next shit storm. Heaven fucking help us.
Sorry, end of quote. Slow curtain, the end….also courtesy of Miss Davis, a most splendid woman whom I miss greatly.
Jimbo! You’re right. Our plight is indeed desperate, but you missed the biggest news of last week.
It’s here: http://www.thenothingstore.com
By knowing what is going to happen, one can act rationally and stay relatively safe.
Laura, you are the voice of reason. I hear people suggesting that we ditch all investments, no matter how humdrum and sensible they are. It’s just sci-fi drama-seeking to fear that it’s all going to come down around our ears in a matter of months. Myself I’m still practicing my not yet obsolete commercial art skills via the not yet obsolete internet. Just as our Mr. Kunstler is still practicing weekly his self-publishing and also taking advantage of the not-yet-defunct airline industry to extend the range of his notoriety. Of course, I’m also practicing living on a shoestring, eating cheap and vegetarian, growing and preserving food, making lots of friends out here in the sticks. I’ve got all my bases covered and am open to all the possibilities, including really strange weather that could mess up the food supply with little notice.
Lynn
http://www.10in10diet.com/
For a small footprint and a small grocery bill
And the worst part, at least for me, is that even the indominable Miss Davis can’t save this motion picture from becoming the divine tragedy, for which the rest of us, most silently, are watching, as we careen down this most despicable slope.
“Let me tell you something: this problem is not going away.”
That statement made me chuckle. No, I don’t think it’s going away either. Unless, by “away” you mean passed off on unborn generations in deferment. That’s the basis of the American Dream — if you can’t make it in this day and time period, just fuck the next one. Hooray! Prosperity and GDP burritos for all my men!
Tommy Krenshaw
http://freedomguerrilla.com
Jim–
You are CORRECT, sir when it comes to third parties. I was a registered Green Party guy, but the last few years have seen the party subsumed with 9/11 conspiracy buffs and former Marxists who’ve been disowned by their Maoist friends (and believe me, it takes some doing to be too disagreeable to stay in the Workers World gang). When I’ve tried to broach the subject of Peak Oil, it all is instantly disparaged as another Big Business Conspiracy, there’s plenty of oil but Exxon doesn’t want to ship it, etc. Or worse, the EV morons come out and scream at me for sabotaging their vision of a plug-in Happy Motoring Nirvana (they believe almost to a man that power for their EV’s will come from the Electricity Fairy).
IOW, the denial of peak oil is not an issue of party politics–it is buried so deeply in the American psyche that most people can’t envision any future that doesn’t involve cars, fast food and Disney World trips every two years.
Great post as usual.
“IOW, the denial of peak oil is not an issue of party politics–it is buried so deeply in the American psyche that most people can’t envision any future that doesn’t involve cars, fast food and Disney World trips every two years.
Great post as usual”
I can envision such a landscape. I existed, long ago and far away. It was a different world, my friend.
The financial morass makes Peak Oil look pretty benign. Hey, at least the nutjobs who make the USA into the Republic of Gilead won’t have the fuel to invade Canada for those oil-sands.
I keep getting e-mail from Canadian friends asking “what is wrong with you people down there?”
My answer is some variation of “A wounded and dying lion is the most dangerous lion of all.”
“IOW, the denial of peak oil is not an issue of party politics”
Absolutely. My fellow lefties think that we’ll just invent new fuels so they can drive to Starbucks and the latest art-opening.
Peak Oil could have been a signature conservative issue, but the GOP has turned into a freak-show for Apocalyptic Christians and ecocidal weenies from suburbia.
On the other hand, I’ve met conservatives who are GOP heretics who “get it.” They know that fossil fuels are finite (why else are we drilling in the deep oceans?) and that we need to be conservative in the old sense of the word: saving not squandering, making do with less, rediscovering old ways of living that were not based on debt and consumption.
There are simply not enough of these brave souls about. Where’s Teddy Roosevelt when you need him?
Every election people are tricked into jumping back and forth between the two wings of the Republicrat party, as if their policies were any different from last time. They always have someone else to blame all their failures on, like China: http://news.lesswaiting.com/110110.shtml
I still read CFN weekly…
Keeping my head on straight one solar job after another though, not letting the DOOM AND GLOOM eat me yet…
I think PEAK OIL is the elephant in many of the rooms I’m attending lately…
Tripp Ticket and Lynn are my favorites…
Is it days, weeks, months or years left?
Live in the Moment, stay present.
I found myself worrying about future contact supplies this morning since my vision sucks…Should I get lasik?
And yea, voting, HA. Clown Suits, pointed hats, and Toy Cars was about right JHK…
What did we think End of Empire would look like?
JK, good story this week, but no one’s talking about your “talking points.”
Submitted for discussion:
1. Is it true that the documentation, or lack thereof will produce real estate industry paralysis? Or can it be ignored, as Jim suggests of the status quo?
2. Is there any way to investigate or understand the international perspective of the Federal Reserve’s policy of (QE) aka, printing money out of nowhere? Is there anyway to forecast how this policy affects various sectors of the US population?
Since both of these topics involve the specific understanding of historical economic and social activities are there better website, blogs to find information relevant to these subjects?
Clearly these two subjects could have transpired regardless of Peak Oil, why are they being discussed here?
What becomes increasingly clear from all the credible news which is available (ie: anything ouside of Faux News and the Alphabet Soups) is that we’re living through the collapse of American society, as well as possibly the wrold economy and so on. Yes, some things are still functioning — but remember the lights on the Titanic stayed on for a while even as that mighty ship slowly sank. The next stop is going to be the new Dark Age as people’s worlds extend to the edge of their village at most and places like Europe and China might as well be on the moon. America was Rome reborn and America is now living out Rome’s death.
http://leibowitzsociety.blogspot.com/
Republicans, tea baggers, right wing christians, fuckin’ dick armey, queen karl rove, bug juice tom delay, pay no attention the men behind the curtain Koch brothers, dead eye dick cheney heck of a job W, and all the rest of the vast texas,kansas, right wing conspiracy, are UN-DEMOCRATIC, that is they do not accept the results of an election unless they win. God help us all when they retake the House and cannot fix the leaks in the roof.
I think you freaking hit the nail on the head there, bud.
Why wait for government to save us? Or the banks or corporations? They’re not in a position to, and not really interested anyway. Better to take matters into our own hands and do what we can locally. Every step in building local community will be helpful as we move into the “fat heart of the long emergency.”
Some ideas and notice of a Local Futures conference here at http://www.RadicalRelocalization.com
From a recent column by Joe Stigtlitz in The Guardian:
…And this is one of the world’s most noted economists (and a Nobel laureate) saying this.
Amazing that we talk of Communism having failed, but we never talk about whether Capitalism has failed. What exactly would be the criteria? We already have one in seven living in poverty, and the highest number of incarcerated (not rate, abosolute numbers) in the world (surpassing both China and the old SU). While Communism had an opposing system waiting in the wings to step in, we have none, thus we never talk about failure the way we talked about Communism, but I would venture to say it has failed already.
“Nothing’s impossible I have found, for when my chin is on the ground, I pick myself up, dust myself off, and start all over again. Don’t lose your confidence, if you slip, be grateful for a pleasant trip, and pick yourself up, dust yourself off, start all over again. Work like a soul inspired, till the battle of the day is won. You may be sick and tired, but you’ll be a man my son. Will you remember the famous men, who had to fall to rise again, so take a deep breath, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, start all over again!”
Thanks, Cole Porter. Does our national character even have this type of chutzpah anymore. Go to Youtube and enter “Swingtime” for this beauty. Guess ya can tell I like the ol movies!
I’m glad we seem to have a consensus that both parties are to blame and that nothing much is going to change after electing a bunch of new bosses (“same as the old bosses”).
Outright military takeover is a likely possibility in the next few years. Actually, the military-industrial-congressional complex has been more or less in control since their minions assassinated John Kennedy to keep the military buildup happening. So we might as well face the facts of who’s in control.
This morning I got a wake-up call about what the Long Emergency will be like when it finally arrives back here. A friend in India wrote a short story about his village life and it well expresses what it will be like to return to performing all our work without the aid of oil-fueled machines.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=984-v5Mtx5U
This 12-minute film will make you think about the fantastic quality of life we are being rapidly scammed out of. Is oil all there is that is keeping most of us from a life of hopeless poverty? Or, is there some other factor that can spare us from falling so hard?
The time to prepare is now.
p.s. They let me out of the asylum every other weekend. Don’t be too scared. Halloween is over…sigh…
” It’s really too late for both parties. They’re unreformable. They’ve squandered their legitimacy just as the US enters the fat heart of the long emergency. Neither of them have a plan, or even a single idea that isn’t a dodge or a grift. Both parties tout a “recovery” that is just a cover story for accounting chicanery and statistical lies aimed at concealing the criminally-engineered national bankruptcy that they presided over in split shifts. Both parties are overwhelmingly made up of bagmen for the companies that looted America.” -JHK
Wonderful turns-of-phrase in incisive commentary, Mr. Kunstler!
These are the only aspects of the approaching shit-storm that give me some juicy schadenfruede moments. The vision of greasy politicos [quite purposely] maneuvering themselves into positions of irrelevancy and illegitimacy is truly amusing.
See ya in the funny-papers! (…in more ways than one.)
Ha! They should be letting you out more often; the supposedly “sane” people runnin’ thangs ’round here have sure fucked things up good ‘n’ proper, and could use a different perspective! ;o)
Have some fun, whatever you do.
“we’re living through the collapse of American society, as well as possibly the wrold economy and so on.”
And so on? You mean the galactic economy is next? ;o)
Neckflame #1. what a winner! I’m only 51st. Loser And by the way help us with the discussion? This isn’t just grade 3 here I hope.
This ain’t no disco. Ain’t no party, either….Sheryl Crowe,
Ain’t no country club either…this is L.A.
File this under the “Who the fuck cares
category. JFK’s speech writer (Sorenson) died. Loved JFK. I was horny constantly from ’60-’63. And then, well, you know….bad shit started to happen, and, and…..Oh shit! Just lost my train of thought. FUCK!
10 years ago, today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average on the NYSE, was floating near the 10,000 point mark.
The DJIA today is barely above that point.
Factor in inflation, and the 40% loss in value that the US Dollar has seen in global currency markets since the year 2000, and it is clear that the Dow Jones is *already* at the 4,000 point mark.
And has been.
For years.
Which means that Kunstler’s long standing prediction, (from the year 1812), was not so much a ‘prediction’ as it is an expression of current reality.
If you want to talk about the S&P 500, and its piddly 6.1% recent gain, since July 16th of this year, when it was all of a whopping 130 points higher than it is today…
Then fine, lets do that.
Today, as the US markets open, the S&P 500 is several *hundreds* of points *lower* than it was a decade ago.
Again, factor in a decade’s worth of inflation, and the 40% loss in value that the US Dollar has seen since the year 2000, and it’s clear that the S&P 500 is just as fucked as the DJIA is.
Now, from the day that President Clinton left office, had the DJIA lived up to its much touted ‘Historically the Dow, like clockwork, sees an annual gain rate of 10%’, (that every single Press Release that the NYSE has ever published says the DJIA has done since Day One), then today it’d be closing in at the 30,000 point mark.
Instead of it currently being @ ?rds of that mark, where it pathetically languishes today.
Happy All Saint’s Day.
“All I wanna do is to have some fun before I die!”
Seriously, I want more. Way more. I’ve got chillens, and grand chillens. I worry a lot about what will happen when grammy is no longer around to protect/provide. JFC! 🙂
“Since both of these [financial/fraud related] topics involve the specific understanding of historical economic and social activities are there better website, blogs to find information relevant to these subjects?” -bud
Here’s a good site that’s clear-eyed about such things, and refreshingly lacking in the typical “happy-growth-talk” that seems to form the bulk of most economic punditry…
http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/
Always interesting and informative. (Some of it is a bit arcane for me, but they do try hard to explain for dunces like myself. ;o)
NYC,
Thanks for clearing that persistent delusion away!
‘Bout fucking time a stake was driven through the heart of that blatant lie of “perpetually increasing value” and sumthin’ fer nuthin bullshit.
Another nice piece of work this week, JHK.
“….the fat heart of the long emergency…”
Wow, that’s a nice new metaphor!
It’s funny how many people take Nostradamus and “Hister” seriously while giving Nostradamus wide leeway as to specifics and times – yet expect JHK to be dead on accurate as to timing week after week.
As to some specifics for the week, Budizwzer asks:
========
1. Is it true that the documentation, or lack thereof will produce real estate industry paralysis?
=========
IMO, “paralysis” is a strong word. These guys who created this mess are “masters of paper,” and a lot of the problems in RE will be “papered over,” one way or another – though perhaps eventually for pennies on the dollar.
Owning real estate has real costs. We’ve got posters suggesting that empty McMansions be matched up with homeless people. Sorry, guys, but just paying the heat bill on an average McMansion is gonna break the budget of your average homeless panhandler – unless you know ahead of time that he’s got permission to rip up the hardwood floors for fireplace wood. (Which I have seen happen in a rental house owned by a friend.)
===========
AND
“2. Is there any way to investigate or understand the international perspective of the Federal Reserve’s policy of (QE) aka, printing money out of nowhere? Is there anyway to forecast how this policy affects various sectors of the US population?”
=============
I’d like to know a *real* answer – but, alas, this is a question for the “dismal scientists,” AKA economists, who have brain chips that prevent *real* answers.
Intuitively, QE has to cause the value of the US$ to drop internationally. Done *”properly”* this makes our exports cheaper and our imports more expensive. Done “*improperly*” and we just fall off a cliff that ends in $20.00/gallon gas and the US as an overpopulated banana republic.
=================
AND
“Clearly these two subjects could have transpired regardless of Peak Oil, why are they being discussed here?”
================
IMO, the failure of the US to deal with PO under Reagan (and our quarter-witted invasions under BushII) are part and parcel of our problems – including our economic problems.
Both parties are wedded/grafted to the idea of cheap oil and economic growth.
And I’d TRULY like to meet the GOP’er, postulated upthread, who wants to “conserve,” – energy or anything else – in the traditional sense of the word.
Good questions, Bud and others. Thanks for trying to keep JHK’s discussion “on-track” with his comments for the week!!
Another site run by people keenly aware of both the true scope of the financial mess as well as the looming resource shortage issue is financialsense.com
The folks there lean to the right on economic issues so if you believe in the hyper-Keynesian views of Krugman that we can fix the economy by flooding it with money, you won’t find it to your liking. Or if you are a political leftist, you will no doubt disapprove of their generally free-market orientation with regard to economic theory.
They do try to have guests on that provide differing opinions, as I recall they have had some stimulus advocates although not radical helicopter-drop types a la Krugman.
Prog,
Good points, as usual. Now forgive me, but it’s grammy’s nappy, nap nap time. 🙂
“We’ve got posters suggesting that empty McMansions be matched up with homeless people.”
In the coming age of scarcity, I can easily picture that one way housing issues will be dealt with is that McMansions, which are way oversized for the new economic world we’re in, may wind up being occupied by multiple families and/or individuals. That spreads the high utility costs among a number of people. And that’s still not a bad living situation compared to what people in poor countries are stuck with. Also this will increase the population density in suburban areas, which will facilitate more public transportation.
On the other hand, there is liable to be some major social friction between the remaining affluent residents of those communities and the new low-income residents.
I am so very tired of hearing the storyline similar to “The President and his Democrats may have inherited this clusterfuck from the feckless George Bush…” I was no fan of Bush and I am no fan of Obama. But please remember that a president submits a budget to congress. The democrats controlled congress for two years prior to Obama’s reign.
So if Obama inherited anything, it was a clusterfuck of the democrats doing. They approved the budgets that Bush put forth and Obama voted on those budgets, but I won’t bother looking up how Obama voted on those budgets since both parties are at fault. Jim assigns blame to both parties, but that particular meme (about Obama inheriting Bush’s mess) drive me up the wall.
I’m neither Republican nor Democrat, but Christie is looking pretty good to me. But I doubt he has the energy to try to clean up the mess in America.
Now that SCOTUS has provided constitutional protection for corporate purchase of elections, term limits have to come back into the picture as the only possible approach to alleviating the corrupting influence of money. If the swells don’t have the opportunity to come back for more terms, it’s within the realm of possibility that they might occasionally vote on behalf of the public interest, rather than the interests of their paymasters.
progressoconserve:
“And I’d TRULY like to meet the GOP’er, postulated upthread, who wants to “conserve,” – energy or anything else – in the traditional sense of the word.”
progresso, while not a GOPer I am a Republican-leaning independent. I gave up my car last year and rely on public transportation. I live in an apartment building in which my monthly electric bill (which includes heat) is $25 in the summer and $50 in mid-winter, so I am not burning much fossil fuel for heat.
As a Republican-leaning independent, I could be called a “GOP-er”, and I do believe in conservation.
But I do agree that the prevailing energy attitude of most conservatives is a “don’t worry be happy” outlook. I view those on the left as being just as delusional on energy, however, since they are absurdly optimistic about the potential for renewables to replace fossil fuels in the near term.
Housing stock of the type we have in America takes a middle class income to maintain, without which….well, just take a look at how neighborhoods throughout the “rust-belt” (uh, now elsewhere throughout America)quickly fell into disrepair following the de-industrialization and loss of middle class incomes. If your dwelling is stacked peat from the nearby bog you just patch it, but in suburbia you’d have to hope no one has beat you in scavenging nearby abandoned homes. More than that though, our infrastructure design has presumed extensive networks of continuous supply from distant sources. Compare that to small communities sustained by local sources — there’s much more recovery capability to disaster.
But really, this discourse is futile unless religious fundamentalist of all stripes and flavor can be persuaded to not follow edicts to have large families. To be honest, I cringe any time I see someone garbed in fundamentalist attire, taking that as clue that they probably subscribe to such edict — which is really the “long emergency” terror.
LSJO,
We’re already doing this to an increasing extent.
Two examples:
1. Section 8 housing subsidizes rents to low income families. Sometimes it works OK. Generally, it’s a landlord’s and a neighbor’s nightmare – in the real world.
2. Shadow tenants who pass background checks and then sublet to friends and companions of various stripes. This generally results in a landlord who can’t afford to operate his rental due to costs of maintenance and evictions.
My overriding point is that rentals and housesharing take deep pockets and careful management. It is FAR more than the average private property should take on.
Maybe the govt. can do it – they are handling everything else so well. 🙂
You crack me up….you didn’t get laid…sorry to hear that…join the club. Libido is a damnable thing.
You ever hear that thing about putting a penny in a jar in the first year of a relationship everytime you get it and then after that first year take a penny OUT of the jar every time you get it. They say you’ll never empty the jar.
Happy 13th.
Thank you! You forced a smile out of an old girl today. For that, I shall send you a bright, shiny penny!
“This 12-minute film will make you think about the fantastic quality of life we are being rapidly scammed out of.”
QUALITY of life? Things, gadgets, and geegaws do not remotely equate to quality of life.
Prelapsarian said:
“Now that SCOTUS has provided constitutional protection for corporate purchase of elections, term limits”
Well, the big money in this year’s election is about equal between the right wing astroturf groups and the public employee unions, so there is sort of a balance of power between the two big pigs in our economy, corporate fatcats and public employee unions.
I’m not sure term limits are needed much. It appears we have entered an era where every election is going to be a “throw the bums out” election from here out, for two reasons:
1). Our problems are so severe that even competent leadership would be hard pressed to make headway in solving them.
2). Neither party has shown any competence in dealing with those problems.
(Another way of summing up 1) and 2) is: “We’re Screwed”.
There is no reason to believe anything will get better with either the Democrats or Republicans in power, so as the economy remains in the toilet the public will throw out whichever bums happen to be in office.
(Note that the more intelligent political analyses of the 2010 elections have pointed out that it is going to be an Anti-Democrat election, not a Pro-Republican election.
If things are as bad as I expect they will be I believe all elections for the forseeable future will be “Anti whoever is in power”.
It is not clearcut how to apply the “throw the bums out” theory to 2012. Who will the public view as the bums, the Republican House or the Democratic President?
(I leave out the Senate because even though the Democrats look like they will hang onto control, a party switch by one or two conservative Democrats could reverse that. So I think it is really hard to judge which party is going to control the Senate)
@ Laura Louzader #7:
Excellent post, and one of the most intelligent things I’ve seen written in a long time. I agree with everything you said. It’s true that we don’t know when any such meltdown will occur, but I’m sure that it will occur financially before any kind of peak oil issues set in. Keep in mind, the Depression put one in four workers out of work and caused widespread poverty and indigence while the U.S. was the world’s largest producer of oil. The financial system is the most fragile of all, based as it is on emotion coupled with exponential debt. A rational economic system would solve these problems, but that is synomomous with ‘socialism’ in the United States.
A crash would be the best thing that could happen to us, because then there would be a mass impetus for real, substantial change. Without that, nothing will happen, and things will just get progressively worse, as they have for the bottom ninety percent of Americans for, oh, the last thirty years or so. Much worse is a slow decline, where the (manufactured government) unemployment rate inches up a few pecentage points each year, and the plateau is declared ‘the new normal’, while the shrinking pool of gainfully employed keep their heads down and continue at their jobs as if nothing is happening. It’s the ‘frog in boing water’ scenario. The employment situation will become a game of musical chairs; every time the music stops, there will be less people sitting, and more destitute people in the ‘discard’ pile who will become invisible. The media will continue to be one long production of Waiting for Godot, with Godot being economic prosperity. And you do remember how that one ends, don’t you?
If you are one of those lucky enough to still have an income, best to stay put, learn new skills, and save every penny. The most important transition will be in your head. You will become a dissident, a refusenik, or the remnant, to use phrases from various authors. Anyone who tells you what is going to happen is a liar, because nobody knows. I find people who think buying this or that investment, or stockpiling supplies thinking this will save them amusing. What happens when stockpiles run out? Who cares if you have a piece of paper that says you may have some gold in a vault somehwere? It’s typical American thinking that you can profit from a crash. In a crash, nobody profits. That’s the definition of a crash. If you’re so rich that a crash won’t hurt you, you probably aren’t worried, and thus you aren’t reading this.
As someone who lives in one of those rust belt towns, I find Greer’s suggestion fascinating. While we could use the help, there really is no safe haven inside U.S. borders. The best advice is to leave the United States if you can. We are the most oil-dependant nation, after all. We’ve had decades of cynical politicians playing divide and conquer with the electorate to remain in power, convincing heavily armed ‘Real Americans’ that the liberals and union members are Communists and lazy blacks and Mexicans want to steal all their money. Make no mistake, when the shit hits the fan, we Americans turn on each other in a heartbeat. We’ve been primed for it, and our trigger fingers are starting to itch. We blow each others’ brains out even in good times. As we turn on each other, the elites will, of course, laugh themselves silly in safety and luxury, ready to emerge from their suburban enclaves and buy up whatever is left after the ethnic cleansing has occurred. No, other countries are installing solar panels and pulling together (like, I’m guessing, Austrailia). Things will be tough, but they will survive. Places in Europe, Asia, and the former Commonwealth will be like the Soviet collapse, tough yet orderly. The U.S. will be more like Sarajevo circa 1992, or possibly Rwanda 1994.
I wish someone would give some advice on emigrating. To me, it seems a dauning task. It seems like the utlimate Catch-22: you can’t survive in a foreign country unless you have a job, but you can’t get a job unless you have a work visa. You won’t be given a work visa, however, unless you have a job. If you are independantly wealthy, it’s not a problem, but if you’re not in that category, what can you do?
You are or sound like, what we in our neighborhood referred to as a “wise broad”! Cheers!
“I view those on the left as being just as delusional on energy, however, since they are absurdly optimistic about the potential for renewables to replace fossil fuels in the near term.”
So many amazingly insightful ideas being tossed around this morning! But to start with I agree that the mainstream left is indeed absurdly optimistic about renewables. They can help ease the transition…in limited capacities…but they will never replace oil. Sorry, but the bang for the buck just isn’t there. Well said.
Finally some one else makes the obvious comparison:
“I regularly read Kunstler because he’s a hell of a great writer, with a keen ear for the English language, a eye for the good opening, and an instinct for the razor-sharp phrase that puts him in the same league with Hunter Thompson at his gonzo prime.”
Truly, these properties are what make JHK so readable. Great writing, big time insights.
Is this fun? Well, yes. He is so Damn CLEVER. But…we are talking about an epic collapse. Of the world we know and love. Will it be slow a la Peak Oil or will it be quick a la Enron which imploded when it was finally exposed? It seems that Bernanke will be a key player on part 2 – I mean WTF is quantitative easing anyway??
It is printing money we ain’t got. How long can that go on?
Budizwiser sez:
Since both of these topics involve the specific understanding of historical economic and social activities are there better website, blogs to find information relevant to these subjects?
Clearly these two subjects could have transpired regardless of Peak Oil, why are they being discussed here?
What makes this blog so….uh, fun, is that JHK is one of the VERY few people that ties it all together. We use TOO MUCH energy. We are Addicted (capital A) to too much GROWTH. We are TOO hard on Natural Resources. And We are NOT HUNGRY ENOUGH YET to make any substantive changes. And human character being what it is, we WILL DO ANYTHING not to change our prostrate comfortable position.
Capitalism is currently eating itself.
We are using up our finite energy resources at obscene rates.
We are lying to ourselves every day about what is sustainable.
JHK is one of the few to get it. And can write like Hunter S. Thompson.
What’s not to like???
The subject.
We are in deep, deep trouble.
I read this every Monday, whether I need it or not.
Rhino 149
“But really, this discourse is futile unless religious fundamentalist of all stripes and flavor can be persuaded to not follow edicts to have large families.”
I like the permaculture spin on the biblical edict:
Go forth and mulch apply!
So much more useful in our times.
2. Is there any way to investigate or understand the international perspective of the Federal Reserve’s policy of (QE) aka, printing money out of nowhere? Is there anyway to forecast how this policy affects various sectors of the US population? – Bud
I have no way to verify this but I’ve been hearing that a lot of the funny money the Fed is printing is going offshore and creating asset bubbles in developing countries like Brazil plus distortions in exchange rates for their currencies.
So in desperation some of these govts (also Korea, Indonesia) are creating controls on capital inflows.
“On the other hand, there is liable to be some major social friction between the remaining affluent residents of those communities and the new low-income residents.”
And there’s the rub…or we’d be doing it already.
“QUALITY of life? Things, gadgets, and geegaws do not remotely equate to quality of life.”
Here here! Especially those dang geegaws…
I’ve been saying much the same thing about stock markets except that I ignore the change in exchange rates.
Everytime I go to a bank to roll over a term deposit the bank rep goes into the yack yack yack about mutual funds. So if I’m in patient mood that day I tell them that major stock indices haven’t moved in nominal terms in ten years and after inflation they are DOWN 20 to 25% if you believe official inflation stats. So why on earth ould I throw away money in stocks or mutual funds?
Much the same story as 1966-1982 when the DOW went nowhere but when you figure the inflaton of the times it meant that your investments got crushed.
Plus the NASDAQ is down about 50% from the bubble highs of 1999/2000.
Colorful portrait of two party system futility, Jim.
To my fellow commentators and the blogger alike: please remember that, despite the apparent big picture futility, there are local and state races where the results could make or break the fulfillment of the sustainable community-level systems we need to survive the coming storm.
I am proudly voting tomorrow in the Maryland governors race. On the superficial partisan level I am supporting the Democrat. Beneath the surface, I am voting for a light rail project that will tie together and revive (really recycle) the pre-oil age systems of Baltimore rather than orienting the city toward suburban consumption of our precious remaining farmland. The republican (who is from a family of car dealers), who thinks that more buses on our crowded streets will achieve the same goals as light rail will, is meanwhile completely blind toward economic/ecologic reality!
If you are in Maryland, please consider the last paragraph. If you are not, remember there may be similar local races in your town. Even if it is as local and seemingly inconsequential as turning out for a village council candidate who wants to change zoning laws to make backyard gardening easier, PLEASE VOTE TOMORROW!!!
“Outright military takeover is a likely possibility in the next few years.”
Riiiight. Our military is going to “take over.” Every second home is armed to the teeth and a couple of million in uniform are going to “take over” 300 million people?
But even if they could why would enlisted people go along with it? “You want me to roll a tank through my old neighborhood and blow up mom and dad, Sarge? I don’t fucking think so.”
I’ve been wanting to say something like this, just understanding it intuitively, but I’m glad someone with more fiscal sense than I have beat me to it!
NYC Labrets, very well said!!
It isn’t just the two political parties that are morally and intellectually bankrupt.
If you read the few left sources available, like CounterPunch, half the time they’re as concerned with resurrecting consumer society as the right. Redistributing “wealth.”
America worships “business” from top to bottom. We look around at our hollowed-out cities and blame our local leaders for corruption, mis-educating our kids for the “jobs of the future” and not kowtowing sufficiently to business to attract more jobs.
Yet every notion of modern business involves removing more and more jobs locally, as does every notion of comfort and “efficiency.”
Bageant says it takes the equivalent energy of two men working two weeks to produce a loaf of bread.
“Real world”? My great aunt Fannie.
Aaaaand, right on cue. Time to get some real work done.
We have opened the door on a cold day in the hopes of warming the world with the heat of our house.
Now, we wonder why the house is cold.
“The republican (who is from a family of car dealers), who thinks that more buses on our crowded streets will achieve the same goals as light rail will, is meanwhile completely blind toward economic/ecologic reality!”
Please. The infrastructure for busses already exists. Light rail will involve tearing up existing neighborhoods (like, uhh there will be some homes and businesses in the way) and invariably bog down in unforeseen cost overruns involving monies that we do not have.
As for having more busses on the street, if you have lessened the number of cars (and as the cost of owning and operating a car increases you will have fewer drivers) having more busses is not necessarily a bad thing. Talk about being blind toward economic/ecologic reality.
Has anyone else noticed the increasing ‘unreasonable searches and seizures.’ I no longer travel by plane because of getting x-rayed and searched for no reason. And my metal water bottle was confiscated at the Cal Berkeley game last weekend. The noose is tightening via the new American KGB, oh excuse me, the ‘patriot act.’ The bars may be invisible but our panopticon corpament already has us under lock and key.
So your military is deplorable. Some guy said a while back that every country has an army on its soil, its own or someone else’s. So you have a choice.
You don’t like your army? Make the best of it, reform it, do something about it because you’d like other countries’ armies even less. You don’t like US hegemony? Do you think Chinese hegemony will be more to your taste?
I know what you’re going to say. You always choose the way of peace? That’s nice. So what.
Welcome to Hell, Honey. I’m Myrtle and I’ll be your tour guide. Now, if you’ll notice, off to the right……….no no, honey, don’t look up there…Our next attraction will be….ummmm ya know what? Let’s try out the rides in the rest if the parrrrk……….Ya know what, Honey, let’s leave this gosh- darned park and find a new one. yes, that’s what I said, a new park. Now if you’ll just follow me…..oh shit…….where are we supposed to go again?
Actually something could be done about Foreclosuregate and the banking mess. Declare a bank holiday on Friday. ATMs would still work, and you could still write checks and make deposits, but cleaning out an account would be blocked. Then have a full audit of of all the banks, do the 10 biggest ones over the weekend.
All Credit Default Swaps are frozen. All CDS holders are ordered to net out their exposure and post cash margin against any underwater positions.
All banks that are insolvent are immediately resolved, yes this may well mean that B of A and Wells Fargo cease to exist. The super banks like B of A have their deposit bearing division broken off into each Federal Reserve region. The securities and other non commercial banking provisions are left to die. All share holders will eat it, and bond holders will be required to make good on deposits. If and only if that is insufficient, then FDIC insurance kicks in. The forensic auditors will stay on for months examining for fraud and referring any they find to prosecutors.
The solvent banks (and resolved banks) re-open over the space of the next two weeks, starting with the ones that were solvent.
What happens to everyone and their positions?
Common stockholders in resolved banks are wiped out. Bondholders become either stockholders or may be protected. The 4 biggest banks have about three trillion in bondholder equity between them, it might even be possible to resolve the big 4 without any FDIC insurance and still leave a little money left over.
The MBS holders who bought fraudulent securities are made whole, thereby saving the pension funds that invested in these securities.
There would be no collapse of the banking system, the payments system or the economy. Those who were foolish enough to write “fog a mirror” loans would be forced to eat them.
While unemployment would be higher initially as employees of defunct banks no longer have a job there, they would soon find new jobs as replacement banks run under sound management principles are formed.
Just sitting here writing out my mortgage check. Not underwater yet, but shipping water fast. Our biggest problem is the tax man who, against all logic, has decided that every house in our town-ship has increased 12% in value. This despite the fact that nothing has sold in 18 months. How do you fight the county government? One thing you don’t want to do is go for a Sunday drive since “revenue enhancement” is steaming ahead full tilt. Doesn’t matter if you’re wearing a seat belt or not, it’s your word against theirs. Ohio is known for this. I’d much rather be in Texas or heavenly Kansas, by the way.
Jim, why on earth would you diss John Boehner for plastic surgery and not single out Nancy Pelosi who looks like she was carved from hardened ear wax?
Nicely put! Class act. Now, forgive me, but grandma is seeking herbal therapy about right now.
The banks will be protected as usual and this will all go away… swept under the proverbial rug.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Aimlow Joe was here.
http://www.aimlow.com
She looks EXACTLY like that elf who wants to be a dentist in “Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer” classic that comes on each year. Come on! Ya know I’m right! Not as cute though, sort of on the creepy, old, sick side. YUCK! 🙁
The average man on the street has never heard of peak oil and most believe there is enough oil left to last decades if not centuries. I can’t imagine the shock when the masses finally realize the party is over and we are going the way of the Roman Empire.
I can’t blame the political parties which, after all, are just telling us what we want to hear and giving us what we want. To get beyond all that and have a viable democracy, or representative democracy, requires an informed electorate.
Our electorate has become more uninformed every decade.
To paraphrase Janice Ian, “…they only get what they deserve…” / Gotta stop smokin the weed during the day! SHIT!
I think the dealer fucked me on the quarter I bought last week. Bitch! Now I’m gonna have to reach for the dreaded pain pill- the kind you can’t have a drink with-thank you so gosh darned fucking much! Oh yeah, Newfie…love ya! And you’re right. It’s going to shock the fucking living daylights out of them. I’m Myrtle, welcome to Hell. I’ll be your tour guide.
How about this: let’s say 10 years from now you have 50% unemployment, inflation is raging, interest is payable per week, Bernanke is talking about QE15, more massive bank bailouts are hours away, there are major breakdowns in food supply, hoarding has depleted store shelves and gas stations, local posses and militias are running rampant, and urban centres are ruined by rioting and gutted by fires.
So the generals might just respectfully suggest that congress and the presidency has lost legitimacy given the general state of affairs. Not that it’s their fault. No, no it was a long train of unfortunate circumstances that brought us here.
Nonetheless it might be better for congressmen, senators and the president and his cabinet to “resign” for their own safety of course and for the good of the country. In fact there are suitable, secure facilities arranged for their accommodation.
And needless to say this is a temporary measure until some people on Wall Street are brought to account, civil order is re-established and food is making its way back to grocery stores.
And then democracy will be restored under the respectful, well meaning supervision of your servants and protectors in uniform.
In fact that would be a good title for the general in charge, a man who is wise, reassuring, older, avuncular, a calm presence who knows just what to do: Servant and Protector.
Well said.
Hey buddy can you spare a little salt and pepper for my shoelace soup.
Oh Tzatza, I think you are quite the romantic. You think that the enlisted soldiers won’t send a tank shell through the houses in their old neighborhoods, huh? Well, that is easily handled. First, you send in troops from the East Coast into West Coast neighborhoods and vice versa, i.e. you make sure that the troops and the populace are strangers. Second, you propagandize the troops – and the populace – with how utterly bad the other is. Third, you punish those troops who won’t follow the orders to fire. Perhaps with summary execution – after all, the rules of martial law provide for execution for a whole list of offenses. Believe it, in no time you will have almost complete compliance with the orders.
The French protests have died down and the government has won the first round in downsizing. Germany contin ues to prop up the Euro for a while and Australia, China’s wheat and aluminum bitch basks at the feet of the master.
We know things are going to get worse here before they get better but we sit around and twiddle our thumbs arguing about how many dictators you can get on a seat in Congress.
I’ve stopped paying my mortgage. When Wells Fargo comes knocking I’m going to go head to head with them for a while and see if they really can enforce a foreclosure against me without the signed papers this foreclosure state requires. I expect The Law will be altered to give them the illegal right to get a “do over” on title transfers and I will be kicked out of “my” home. In the meantime I’m socking away $3,000 a month (two ounces of gold) and waiting to see where my civil disobedinece takes me.
It’s a strangely liberating thing, taking a stand against the corporate kleptocracy that wrecked my American Dream. When you’ve finished kvetching with the excellent Kunstler I’d recommend joining the eminently American form of social protest called strategic deafult. We are driving the banks cr-a-A-a-a-zy.
A partially failed state: a state that neither has the will or power to aid its citizens but does retain the ability to enforce the will of its corporate masters. This is nirvana for the masters, something that they aren’t going to change anytime soon. But what if there are no more resources to continue the American game any longer?
Will America revert to something like the golden times of the Wild West, like turning back the clock to 1870? Self-sufficient pioneers living by their wits and talents in wild lands where government and technology have collapsed? I don’t think it will be like that.
America today is like a corporation loaded with assets but running at loss: ripe for buy-out and dismemberment. To enable the wholesale stripping of assets legal ownership is being transferred. The new owners will soon come to collect. These will be your new masters. Protest this? To who? Your discredited government will be too weak, maybe is already too weak, to make any difference.
Your new masters aren’t going to be happy with independent communes or communities. Strict laws will be passed curtailing many of the freedoms you now take for granted and freedoms you imagine will be yours in the future. To overpopulated nations this is still the land of open space, space they need. Even without oil and high technology, we can be policed by their millions, tens of millions if necessary. Sadly, with the near complete breakdown of authority which we are likely to soon face, most of us will welcome the return of any kind of order.
“If you are one of those lucky enough to still have an income, best to stay put, learn new skills, and save every penny.”
I agree, but where do you put your pennies?
If you manage to save more than about 100,000 pennies ($1000.00) – it might be smart not to keep them in US dollars.
Think about things that WILL go up in US dollar terms and put your pennies there.
I can’t tell you what that would be!
If I could, I’d be out investing in that – this lovely afternoon – not saving the world by blogging. tm Bageant
TzaTza,
I respect the logic and points you make against my argument. However, before we regress toward the continuation of York Road/Ritchie Highway Happy Motoring swag here in Maryland, I just want to make some things clear. I’d just like you, and the community here, to consider two points:
1) Eminent domain – It is now illegal here in Maryland to take private homes and businesses for the improvement of a transportation corridor.
2) More buses are a cheap and efficient solution for maximizing your bang for a buck use of oil in the exurban regions – as described by commentators before me. However, in dense, 19th century era cities like Baltimore, you only have the use of 2 to 4 lane highways and they simply (both logically and ethically) cannot be expanded for the sake of destroying row-homes. Putting buses into these limited lanes to compete with cars only encourages people to use their cars, as car drivers do not have to delay and stop at every corner to unload/load passengers. Therefore, in the constraints of tight traffic, drivers save TIME. Please remember, in an era of needing to budget, that TIME=MONEY.
Yeah, and those new massas ain’t gonna look notin like we folk hear thank thay do. Cuz we ain’t gonna know em…and they aint gonna know us…not really………Just desserts for whites, or what?
I am afraid you and others have been played by the elite. Stocks (and most of the “risk assets” like commodities) do not represent economic values as they used to. They reflect the effects of the at whim fiat fiscal and monetary policies of our government. Specifically, risk assets like the SP500 move in opposite to the US Dollar(DX A0 – tick-by-tick most of the time). The recent rally of the SP500 since the Jackson Hole meeting in mid-August has been due to the market trying front-run Bernanke’s plan to debase the US Dollar again by printing trillions(?) more on November 3rd. I can assure you that if you measure the SP500 in Euro or gold, you will find instead of +6%, you have a negative number.
JHK’s calls on the markets have been basically correct. I think the markets are about to unglue, may be as soon as this week.
For your reference, please read Bill Gross’s November Investment Outlook.
http://www.pimco.com/Pages/RunTurkeyRun.aspx
Mr. Kunstler, I could have warned you exactly two years ago that your Democrats would prove no better able to manage affairs than the Republicans and that your partisan attacks of the time proclaiming the demise of the GOP were a complete waste of time, and as a matter of fact I did. Tomorrow’s GOP House victory was sealed the moment Obama was elected President. I hate to say I told you so, but here we are.
I only wish you could take off those blue-colored glasses completely… do you really think if Gore had been elected the USA would be in any better shape now? He might not have messed things up any worse, but I don’t think America would be in a fundamentally different spot today.
I read the stuff by Bill Gross.
Sounds like we’re all scrambling up a greasy pole on a sinking ship. Gross might make it to the top of the pole but all he’s doing is buying a few more gulps of air before the ship slips under the waves.
What Bernanke does not seem to grasp is that this problem will not be solved by printing more money. The underlying problem is offshoring American business. Like Greenspan before him Bernanke thought that printing money is the answer. All it did was to encourage reckless borrowing and speculation. The tragedy is that the problem we’re in now was so foreseeable.
From Wikipedia
“By 1850, most of the easily accessible gold had been collected, and attention turned to extracting gold from more difficult locations. Faced with gold increasingly difficult to retrieve, Americans began to drive out foreigners to get at the most accessible gold that remained. The new California State Legislature passed a foreign miners tax of twenty dollars per month, and American prospectors began organized attacks on foreign miners, particularly Latin Americans and Chinese.[26] In addition, the huge numbers of newcomers were driving Native Americans out of their traditional hunting, fishing and food-gathering areas. To protect their homes and livelihood, some Native Americans responded by attacking the miners. This provoked counter-attacks on native villages. The Native Americans, out-gunned, were often slaughtered.[27] Those who escaped massacres were many times unable to survive without access to their food-gathering areas, and they starved to death. Novelist and poet Joaquin Miller vividly captured one such attack in his semi-autobiographical work, Life Amongst the Modocs.[28]”
also from Wikipedia:
“Mining in Australia is a significant primary industry and contributor to the Australian economy. Historically, mining booms have also encouraged immigration to Australia. Many different ores and minerals are mined throughout the country.”
So, Austrailia is a better “Gold Rush”? Austrailia has its act together? So a nation built on abundant mineral turds is definitely better than say tired ole U.S.A? One part of the world full of European rejects is better than another part of the world with also said number of European rejects.
The clock is right twice in a 24 hour period….what hope/change is it that Jim seeks? I like to lay down a few Jim quotes..not this dire Jim but one who is part of the future galactic alliance of European rejects….if only the writings could have a more urgent sense of bouncy humour! After all we are just animals quickening the pace of Mother Earth’s reset button…
From IMDB:
Capt. Kirk: All right, you mutinous, disloyal, computerized half-breed. We’ll see about you deserting my ship.
Spock: The term “half-breed” is somewhat applicable, but “computerized” is inaccurate. A machine can be computerized, not a man.
Capt. Kirk: What makes you think you’re a man? You’re an overgrown jackrabbit. An elf with a hyperactive thyroid.
Spock: Jim, I don’t understand…
Capt. Kirk: Of course you don’t understand. You don’t have the brains to understand. All you have is printed circuits.
Spock: Captain, if you will excuse me.
[Tries to activate the transporter]
Capt. Kirk: [blocks Spock’s way and interupts] What can you expect from a simpering, devil-eared freak whose father was a computer and his mother an encyclopedia.
Spock: My mother was a teacher. My father an ambassador.
Capt. Kirk: Your father was a computer, like his son. An ambassador from a planet of traitors. The Vulcan never lived who had an ounce of integrity…
Spock: Captain, please don’t…
Capt. Kirk: You’re a traitor from a race of traitors. Disloyal to the core. Rotten! Like the rest of your subhuman race. And you’ve got the GALL… to make love to that girl!
Spock: That’s enough.
Capt. Kirk: Does she know what she’s getting, Spock? A carcass full of memory banks who should be squatting on a mushroom? Instead of passing himself off as a man? You belong in the circus, Spock, not a starship. Right next to the dog face boy!
[Spock begins beating the stew out of Kirk – he picks up a stool, ready to hit Kirk, then stops – the spore’s influence is gone]
Capt. Kirk: Had enough? I never realized what it took to get under that thick hide of yours. Anyhow, I don’t know what you’re so mad about. It isn’t every first officer who gets to belt his captain… several times.
Spock: You did that to me deliberately.
Capt. Kirk: Believe me, Mr. Spock. It was painful. In more ways than one.
[Grabs his hurting arm]
Spock: The spores. They’re gone. I don’t belong anymore.
Capt. Kirk: You said they were benevolent and peaceful. Violent emotions overwhelm them, destroy them. I had to make you angry enough to shake off their influence. That’s the answer, Mr. Spock.
Spock: That may be correct, Captain, but trying to initiate a brawl with over 500 crewmen and colonists is hardly logical.
Capt. Kirk: I had something else in mind. Can you put together a subsonic transmitter? Something we can hook into the communication station and broadcast over the communicators?
Spock: It can be done.
Capt. Kirk: Good. Let’s get to work.
Spock: Captain! Striking a fellow officer is a court-martial offense.
Capt. Kirk: Well, if we’re both in the brig, who’s gonna build the subsonic transmitter?
Spock: That is quite logical, Captain.
Gore was elected, the texas/oil/kansas vast right wing conspiracy stole the presidency. Yes we would be in a better place as we would not be in a quagmire in IRAQ w/thousands of american soldiers dead, and billions(stieglitz says trillions) of dollars wasted
“In the meantime I’m socking away $3,000 a month (two ounces of gold) and waiting to see where my civil disobedinece takes me.”
Q’s not here to yell at you for bringing down the country, and I say BRAVO! They deserve every empty envelope they get.
Now, if everyone else would be so kind as to join Scooter here in destroying what’s left of the banks, that would be great. Thanks.
They deserve it, and you all know they do. But would someone, dear christ-almighty, someone who has plenty of land, please rescue me from my moral high-road in the ghetto??
There are lots of sources of information on affordably getting out of the U.S., for example the magazines International Living and Live and Invest Overseas. They will try to get a magazine subscription out of you, and they have other products to sell, but if you just get on their email list eventually you will acquire a lot of useful free information. There are many places in the world where the cost of living is quite low and the quality of life is reasonably high. It’s doable for most anybody.
Well, you are absolutely correct. I can’t stand Republicans or Democrats, I can’t stand the liberal press. I don’t trust Fox News, because I feel they are trying to tag onto the Tea Party. I just joined the Tea Party movement near my neighborhood. They are just beginning and I think since they are not part of the POLITICAl Elite, (the people who went to Ivy League Schools,) and think they are mandated by god to be in government and tell us, the electorate, how to live, think and be. Unfortunately, they have LOST touch with basic America. The Tea Pary people are basically good people who are sick and tired of having the Politcal Elite give to their friends (bailouts) and screw the average american who they perceive as stupid, pigs and who really don’t know what is going on. Well, wake up. More and more people who HATE the Republicans and Democrats feel as though this may be the only way to get noticed and listened to. Tomorrow I am voting pure Republican, only because I hate the deomocrats for doing NOTHING to help us.
How is it that a nation of 300 milion can watch this orchestrated circus show go on and on and on, and do nothing about it. And the Red & Blue Circus Show has been going strong for over one hundred years now. I just don’t get it.
Conchscooter _
There are other discussion threads where “upstanding?” citizens will castigate you for banking your mortgage money until eviction.
I won’t do that and I doubt many people on CFN will.
If you’re hopelessly upside down on your mortgage, it’s the logical thing to do.
– Just be sure you factor some inflation and the intangibles of home ownership into your logic –
People who argue against it are (mostly) those who are (not yet?) upside down on their mortgages.
Lord only knows our CEO’s and banksters freely walk away from their obligations when it’s to their advantage.
Just be cautious, talk to a couple of lawyers, don’t be adversarial, and don’t tear the place up.
This is unsolicited *fatherly advice.* I’ve watched some of my sons friends “walk away” and there are some pitfalls.
Sorry, Rupert:
“I only wish you could take off those blue-colored glasses completely… do you really think if Gore had been elected the USA would be in any better shape now?”
=============
I think Gore had intelligence and independence that Bush lacked. He was visibly positioned to do something about energy. He probably wouldn’t have kicked over the game board in Afghanistan. He certainly wouldn’t have lost 5000 (and sadly counting) service men’s lives because, (paraphrased) “Saddam been talkin’ bad ’bout my Daddy!” OR maybe, “My Dick told me to!”
Maybe that’s why Gore *lost?*
=============
Rupert, I’ll bet you think the presidency of Ronald Reagan was a good thing, overall.
Which means one of your favorite things to say concerning Bush II is, “He kept us safe!”
And you will never believe both of those presidencies ineluctably led us to our present lack of good choices – Despite all logical argument to the contrary.
The Masters work the dialectic – they expand to contract; contract to expand. If chaos is allowed to errupt in the streets, the people will welcome a police state complete with curfews and showing your id upon request. Nay if it’s bad eneough, the people will demand it. Most of the sheeple welcome taking off their shoes at airports. Can’t have “Muslim Americans” given any special attention after all.
And never forget – even after Obama talked about creating a civil defence force just as strong as the US Military, the White Sheep still voted him in. You can’t do anything with such low mensch material. They are doomed to be food for the wolves. Only the Mountain Sheep with their long legs and curved horns have any chance at all.
The idea of the US military being used against armed civilians is a moot point.
You let the food run out and then the power go out for 72 hours. Almost no citizen will be prepared to “shelter in place” for longer than that.
Out of his home, the citizen would be easily separated from his weapons and his dignity.
The average American in these circumstances would be BEGGING FOR A SAVIOR – any savior.
Think about Katrina.
I’m not trying to be a buzz kill, only a realist concerning all this “military” talk.
And I’m almost certain the power will stay on and the Cheeze Doodles will continue arriving in most areas well on through the fat heart of The Long Emergency.
Unless something REALLY screws up, somewhere.
I have to disagree with the central message of this posting. Yes, we are probably about to witness the rise(or continuation?)of an idiocracy with the election of tea baggers and wingnuts who want to put Jesus back in the constitution. And, Obama has fallen short of fulfilling some expectations – most notably as JHK mentions, his failure to prosecute the executives of the biggest systematic swindle in history.
But to claim that the parties are all the same – essentially a bunch of crooks out to pickpocket us while killing the environment – is to ignore the concrete and positive actions of Obama and his crew. For perspective (and a few reminders), read : http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/220013
Before you denounce me as a Democratic political lackey … I’m not even American – and as a green card holder I get to pay taxes but not to vote. But to my very “Canadian progressive” sensibilities, it seems silly to throw out the baby with the bathwater – and end up with a Congress that will try to roll back his achievements and almost certainly block continued progress.
ANOTHERPLAYAGUY:
I haven’t seen the youtube video yet, cuz reading these, but I already know whatcha mean.
Quality of Life ? All this Electronic shit.
Ruining Our Brains and Nervous systems if you ask me. Enough Already. Overload. Attention Will Rogers !
proc…..
itts been noted that the USA is one welfare check stoppage away from anarchy.
now if the gubment wants marshall law all ‘they’ have to do is stop the foodstamps [1 in 7 on foodstamps]…
i know an xmarine, bus driver. he thinks as the narco terror spreads thru the usa our troops will have to go fight in mexico and thatll be a ‘perfect’ time to merge the 2 countries!
What I wonder about is why we hear nothing about acts of rebellion in this country. I’m quite sure there is more than one person out of 300 million who has acted out but all is quiet. Are we that pathetic or is it being covered up?
Pepper Spray
michell and hubby took 800? parasite bees to india.
michelle will meet with the hookers, i mean that literally.
rather then stay here and see the carnage wrought by unhappy citizens voting [the dems are trying to let the felons and illegals vote].
did you know that monster, i mean senator kennedy had a bill to allow any caldean move to the usa?
one lives across the street from me…hes an unemployed slob who according to his roomate gets disability and stays at ucla hospital for a month at a time. even has a disabled parking sticker for his car!
I don’t know about Canada, but our Founding Fathers felt a standing army was dangerous even if necessary. And they said categorically that America should avoid foreign wars and only fight to defend ourselves against foreign aggression. Do you really think that America has followed these wise dictates?
The Republicans can hoist the Flag all they want but they are warmongers totally out of touch with the Original Vision of the Founders. With your Neo Con mentality and desire to make the World safe for “Democracy”, I don’t know if you can understand this. But it’s true. Do the research and you will find out that I’m correct.
A canny salesman gets his mark to sell the product to himself but finding common ground and getting to “yes”. Similarly, once the ultimate sacrafice has been made, what brother, friend, or father is going to accept that their loved one died for nothing? The old Soldiers always say that no one understands but other soldiers. This may be true, but does it follow that the rest of us have no say? Or that the sacrafice sanctifies an unjust or unecessary war? Or since active soldiers cannot publicly criticize policy, many of them cannot comply without identifying with it and having it become their real attitude. In short, one way or another most veterans adopt the position of “my country right or wrong” – a completely idiotic and unworthy point of view.
according to radio the ‘panics’ starting in ‘strong’ markets like boston and frisco.
god i am starting to freak out from fear.
i can’t stand the feeling of wanting to BE somewhere else and being unable to GET there.
Wanting to be in a safer place. Knowing this IS coming down. Just scared of the violence i imagine we will be having more and more of.
and i live in a beautiful place. with too too many gangsters. more and more and more.
and so much denial going on.
“What I wonder about is why we hear nothing about acts of rebellion in this country.”
Timothy McVeigh
The IRS agent who crashed his plane into the IRS? building.
The guy who killed all those Unitarians
The muslim soldier who killed all those soldiers
Rebels (nuts) to the left and right?
This stuff hits the news, then gets ignored after a few days because it doesn’t *increase ratings.*
Ratings are about Octomom, Jennifer Anniston’s (fake?) boobs in her new movie, etc.
What the hell IS wrong with us?
Huh? parasite bees? I like the idea but I don’t know what it means. What happened to the African Bees which were supposed to arrive here from South America and make life here impossible?
Esoterically, the bee is a symbol of higher evolution; at which point socialism will become possible because natural. For now, let’s be content to be humble bumble bees who live in small communities and can sting and sting again to defend our community. Asoka may worship the noble self effacing honey bee who dies when it stings, but he himself in a carpenter bee without any sting at all. It lives by mimicing the industrious, self defending bumble bee, the White Yeomanry.
ive heard about all the iron etc going fron australia to china…
overall the ausies are smart..they should up the price.
look at what china did on rare earth exports!
pro..in usa 20,000 a year are murdered? yes?
theres the ‘issue/attention cycle’..folks want happy news and happy problems.
yes?
i was joking..the terms ‘worker bee’ but since they work as aides to the white house i see them as parasites! hence parasite bees
Pepper spray and Asia – I crossed my responses to you two.
First one should have gone to pepperspray – so asia, here’s your response:
“proc…..
itts been noted that the USA is one welfare check stoppage away from anarchy.
now if the gubment wants marshall law all ‘they’ have to do is stop the foodstamps [1 in 7 on foodstamps]…”
If the gub’ment wants anarchy it’s a simpler process than what you suggest. They just have to – simply – turn off the power. Anarchy will follow – guaranteed.
Invading Mexico to control narcoterror is possible, I guess. Merging with Mexico is truly a terrifying idea, from where I sit.
Not even Bush III would do that – would he??
Israel is a de facto welfare state just like Puerto Rico. Unfortunately, the tail tends to wag the dog. Should we make them states? No, altho is would be nice to get some of our money back from the Jews in taxes. But the the other costs would be ruinous.
Why do Israelis vote such monsters into power? As for your other ideas, the Rothschilds controlled banking in America from a fairly early date. Certainly their agent Paul Warburg was instrumental in setting up the Federal Reserve – which put America on a count down to destruction. Jews are just as guilty as Gentiles in the destruction of America. They played the role of tempter (free money taken from the tax payers) and the Gentiles sucumbed. But the Gentiles are worse in a very real way since they betrayed their own people for gelt.
The only problem with your tale is the fact that the stock market is as fixed as the rest of this country. The only reason it is up this year, is due to the rise of a handful of currently popular stocks. Apple will be back under $100 in the near future. Perhaps “the near future” will be a Kunstler amount of time, in which case, my options (puts) will be worthless. Either way, good luck in the equities market, but I think the crash (DJIA at 1200) is near.
oh..at sites like fire andrea mitchell [greenspans wife] they note..LA Times notes immigrant rally 200 and ignore a tea party rally or whatever that gets 20,000 or so.
people are use to violence…killing unitarians doesnt shock them i guess.
Hope you had a nice nap and your husband showed up a day late with his “gift”!
Great article, unfortunately it’s totally correct, reading some comments makes me wonder why some even take the time to read Kunstler’s writing since they don’t believe it. It is likely before this era of lunacy is over the political parties we have will have melted into the ground. The good thing is many people WILL be getting an education on how not to do things, and maybe they will hang Ben Bernanke and Company from a flagpole on Times Square.
No, no, no – you’re not thinking outside the box here. We don’t need eminent domain – we already have all those nice roadways that will be empty of everything, including diesel powered buses. The whole point of having trains and streetcars is that they run on electricity, not diesel. There won’t be any fuel for buses when the military is confiscating it all. We have way too many lanes of highway for realistic future automobile use. Those lanes will be where trains run, not through anybody’s houses. In fact, smart municipalities are already (quietly) considering the idea. Dumb ones, like yours apparently, think passing laws against eminent domain will keep car dealers and drive-through fast food joints in business because people won’t be able to build rail lines – in other words, they’re both wrong and stupid, not to mention endangering the future of the community because they think they can just march the military in and take oil from anywhere they want. That option vanishes as soon as Baby Boomers realize their taxes can pay for their retirement and healthcare or pay for foreign resource wars, but not both.
“And never forget – even after Obama talked about creating a civil defence force just as strong as the US Military, the White Sheep still voted him in”
==========
Vlad, I was gonna make fun of you concerning Obama’s defense force – seeing as how they were not likely to be armed with artillery, fighter/bombers, or nuclear weapons. Also seeing as how the National Guard is deployed and/or worn out in Iraquistan.
============
But then you said this, “In short, one way or another most veterans adopt the position of “my country right or wrong” – a completely idiotic and unworthy point of view.”
=============
And now I don’t want to make fun of you because this is so damn true. Plus, the military carefully selects against “free-thinkers” and eliminates them from the ranks.
The Catch 22 is that no one in politics can be elected and criticize the military – unless they are ex-military. And no one who is ex-military in politics will criticize the military at all.
Maybe McCain could have done something. Wish he hadn’t picked that MoonBat as his running mate.
Well said, RHINO 149.
If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?
If an entire hunter-gatherer tribe is wiped out in the jungle and no one reports it, did it happen?
If a politician runs on peak oil, sustainable living, and a peaceful future, and the corporate media doesn’t report it, did it not happen?
I have linked to Green Party politicians running on sustainable living, taxing financial speculation, and establishing State Banks to get society off of private bank debt.
Apparently it didn’t happen.
I guess it’s more fun to bemoan the lack of quality people than it is to support them.
I know the way out of this morass, a way to throw of the yoke of the distracting and paralyzing gay marriage debate. This new Congress could be the Congress that enacts “The Egg and Sperm Civil Union Compromise” to end the wasteful, distracting debate about gay marriage and stop wasteful distracting research into genetic engineering and transhumanism.
Imagine the effect it would have to get beyond the endless argument about marriage and the environmental and economic rewards from stopping the research into same-sex procreation and genetic engineering of designer babies, which would become yet another boondoggle and historic misallocation of resources. Genetic engineering research already is a historic misallocation of resources, but it would just get worse if it actually succeeds in creating people for same-sex couples or with “better” genes.
And the marriage debate consumes so much energy, we need to pull the plug. Civil Unions that are defined as “marriage minus conception rights” would give all the rights of marriage and could be enacted quickly in all 50 states, and the word “marriage” would be preserved as meaning the couple is allowed and approved to conceive offspring together.
Hey Wage,
“If a politician runs on peak oil, sustainable living, and a peaceful future, and the corporate media doesn’t report it, did it not happen?”
I feel your pain. However, I think the larger problem is the two party system.
I know plenty of people on the right who blame Ross Perot (insert giant sucking sound) for Clinton’s win over Bush I.
I know plenty of people on the left who blame Ralph Nader for Bush II’s win over Gore.
The fact that the country might have been better off with Nader OR Perot is immaterial to the arguments.
I’ll happily vote for a Green party candidate if we ever manage to get one on the ballot in Georgia. But – but, if the race is close then I’ll probably vote for the lesser of the two weevils representing one of the two major parties.
The two party system should catch a lot of blame for the CF status of our N. 😉
“That option vanishes as soon as Baby Boomers realize their taxes can pay for their retirement and healthcare or pay for foreign resource wars, but not both.”
I put this exact choice before my Boomer step-dad, and he being one of the ones who wants to put Christ back in the Constitution, put forth the standard welfare first argument. Will it matter which is first when millions of people already living on shoestring soup are cut to nothing?
Whoa, Jim. You were in Australia and “not on vacation” — and you didn’t let your Australian readers know? Also didn’t see any mention of you in the media here.
I’ll try to let this be my last word concerning the “moot point” of the US military firing on US neighborhoods.
http://www.policeone.com/news/2831629-Civilian-cop-shot-Fort-Hood-gunman-many-times/
Did anyone else not think it odd that most (all?) of the law enforcement and EMS response to the Fort Hood shooting was civilian?
I mean, WTF, it’s a freakin’ MILITARY BASE. Can they not afford their own MP’s and ambulances anymore??
We’re certainly paying enough in taxes and deficit spending to cover these two vital functions.
I missed a book-signing here in town as well a while back. You have to check the Schedule tab on the homepage…
It will matter because foreign policy will look completely different to every other nation, especially China, as soon as they realize that the US is no longer able (or willing) to throw its military weight around. The Boomers are the largest voting block this nation has seen, and even though they are mostly public school educated they can’t fail to eventually realize every vote for a war anywhere is a death panel just waiting to happen – and it isn’t young people who will go to the chopping blocks first.
Let’s just hope the Mayans are correct. I have no doubt as they knew everything we do not know. Get off of my cloud, is what I’m saying. Let’s end this. A grand misguided experiment in bullshit. Our society missed the one thing the so-called “bible” got right: the love of money is the root of all evil. If you think you can argue with that, then you sir or madame are a moron…
Rhino 149 said: “I mean WTF is quantitative easing anyway?? It is printing money we ain’t got. How long can that go on?”
It can go on indefinitely. It has been going on for decades. Almost every country, including the United States, is on a system of fiat money, which the glossary defines as “money that is intrinsically useless; is used only as a medium of exchange”.
Useless money as a medium of exchange has been working beautifully. Were you around in the 1950’s and 1960’s. We were on fiat money then. 1990’s? Fiat money.
Sure there are ups and there are downs … except this time CFNers want to say the down is “epic” and “catastrophic” and “apocalyptic”.
The truth is: Things go up and things come down.
Relax and accept that. You can’t change it by complaining that we are “printing money we ain’t got.” Besides, the funny money works. Just watch QE and you will see.
..the Rothschilds controlled banking in America from a fairly early date. Certainly their agent Paul Warburg was instrumental in setting up the Federal Reserve – which put America on a count down to destruction. Jews are just as guilty as Gentiles in the destruction of America..
==
The Rothschilds is not “da Joos”. If anything, the Rothschilds are really the Catholic Church. Because the Rothschilds are nothing more than the money handlers for the Catholic Church.
Some say fiat money started under Roosevelt in 1933.
Others say fiat money started in 1971.
“The Bretton Woods system ended on August 15, 1971, when President Richard Nixon ended trading of gold at the fixed price of $35/ounce. At that point for the first time in history, formal links between the major world currencies and real commodities were severed”.
http://economics.about.com/cs/money/a/gold_standard.htm
Regardless, fiat money based on the US dollar worked through the 60’s and 70’s because the US was the world’s preeminent economy and a huge net exporter of tangible things.
Those conditions are no longer true.
Reagan’s and Bush II’s debt pipers must be paid.
One way or another, they will be.
Who’s ready for another tax cut????
Great post this week
The avarice is so great the world is not enough!
Drunk on full spectrum dominance in finance and military the world over, our oligarchy considers nothing other than making the fastest buck under the most fraudulent schemes imaginable. And they have the government apparatus to make it all possible. They must have read Gogol’s “Dead Souls” for inspiration –and that assumes they read anything.
One would think they’d wake up and change course in 2008, but not this bunch of ideologues. Our chance to get it right has come and gone.
Our duopoly does everything it can to keep plowing ahead with this scheme with some lip service to “We the people” and a few tweaks to warp things more than before.
All they know is that they’ve got to keep the gravy train running for a few, using the tax payers money to insulate them from the failures they are.
Happy election day tomorrow–we’ve got some really great statesmen (and women) to choose from.
I imagine I’ll end up feeling as if I had food poisoning by tomorrow’s end.
ProCon said: “Some say fiat money started under Roosevelt in 1933. Others say fiat money started in 1971.”
The USA has had several bouts with fiat money and we’ve done fine through all of them (sure there have been downs… and ups, which is to be expected. Between 1931 and 1945 the USA had a floating fiat currency. That was a period of down, then up.
Then, in 1963, the New Federal Reserve notes with no promise to pay in “lawful money” were released. No guarantees, no value. (This is also the year of the disappearance of the $1 silver certificate.) Just fiat money that has served us since then, through all the ups and downs and ups and downs.
Ah Tzataza, Al Klein is right. The army boys will follow their sargents. There are still old timers here in Berkeley who remember when Reagan called out the national guard. There’s nothing like a rifle in your face when you’re trying to get home to make you wake up and smell the roses.
Thanks, I did! No takers, as yet. WTF, I’m an ol bitch. Cheers!
As an antipodean, I’d love to hear your take on where the Land Down Under is at right now.
We avoided much of the GFC because we are the world’s quarry and everyone wants our minerals – especially China. But with US so in hock to China, it won’t take much to knock us sideways once the dominoes begin to fall.
Ouch, honey! Don’t bring on my hangover before it’s freaking due! Kids, for sure, don’t mix al hohol, pot, and pills. hell of a buzz, I will pay, but WTF! I am in my gosh darn 80Z ! Party on, dudes!
Dear Jim
dont let Australia fool you, its a mirage. we have debt to income levels 6:1 ..the highest in the world, all of our local industries have left for china without protest…if it wasn’t for ore in the ground we would be broke…we are on the eve of a recession as retail margins are at breakpoint due to ever increasing cheaper Chinese imports…the depression starts now!
I mentioned peak oil in a round about way to someone and they immediately came back with some ‘fact’ about new German cars that got (insert semi plausible number here) fuel efficiency.
As if this made everything ok….
They didn’t stop to think about how much it might cost to purchase one of these BMWs or whatnot, assuming they even exist.
Ah, ignorance…. and bliss….
Since the title of today’s post is “Now What” and since one or more of you prolific commentors already tied into the protests in France, I point to the announcement of a planned run on European banks December 7th , 2010:
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&biw=1440&bih=719&q=bank+run+december+7&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&fp=72646b5a906e32dd
And, if you haven’t already seen it, then the following contribution from thejuicemedia is a must see:
You shouldn’t regret it.
Here’s that thejuicemedia link:
http://www.youtube.com/user/thejuicemedia#p/u/12/NXbCwq4ewBU
Hey, just for the fun of it! Pull up on Youtube “smoke Get’s In Your Eyes” with fred and ginger….a real treat for you old and not so old folks. Where TF is my scotch glass? G.D. I hate getting old.
…. fiat money based on the US dollar worked through the 60’s and 70’s because the US was the world’s preeminent economy and a huge net exporter of tangible things.
Those conditions are no longer true.
The honest buying power of the US dollar and the working US middle class has been on a slow downward slide since the end of Bretton Woods in 1971. (By the way, one reason was so the debt of the VietNam war could be inflated away.)
JHK believes that slide is going to accelerate.
I see very little reality based evidence to the contrary.
http://www.imf.org/external/about/histend.htm
myrtlemay!! don’t eeeeven get me going!!
“Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries!
Don’t take it serious. It’s too mysterious.
You work, you save, you worry so
But ya can’t take your dough when ya go, go, go!
Keep repeating, “It’s the berries!”
The strongest oak must fall!
The best things in life to you were just loaned.
So how can you lose what you never owned?
Life is just a bowl of cherries!
So live and laugh at it all!” –published 1931
I love ya! I FOUND MY mf scotch. Cheers to y’all. BTW, do check out Fred and Ginger on Youtube. Freaking riot! Talk about CLASS!
Please give it another chance, if it didn’t make sense to you at first.
What now? The Egg and Sperm Civil Union Compromise Everything it does needs to be done, plus it will be a catalyst to taking action on other issues.
FYI pull up chris montez “let’s dance” on Youtube. I dare you to remain seated!
The link didn’t work for The Egg And Sperm Civil Union Compromise, but please Google it and learn what it is.
Jim, please help make it happen!
Whatever you say. I say it’s Mashed Potato Time. Dee Dee Sharp, 1962. (It’s okay, I’ll be dead soon.):)
“The financial morass makes Peak Oil look pretty benign.”
The financial morass IS Peak Oil. Did nobody notice that oil prices doubled from September 07 to September 08 ($74 in July 07 to $147 in Jul 08). Sure there was the occasional hurricane in the Gulf, but the real issue was the inability of global oil production to keep up with demand. Ever since demand crashed along with the banks and the stockmarkets in September of that year when business could not cope with doubled running costs, it has stayed below the critical level, occasionally rising enough to push oil prices into the $83 a barrel range. At that point a stockmarket correction invariably kicks in and reduces the amount of money available to spend on energy. This is the sawtooth plateau which preceeds the decline in both oil production and wealth.
IMHO it can go a number of ways from here – 1. The collective realisation that oil production cannot meet demand will surely push prices rapidly higher, resulting in a grander version of the 2008 GFC with disastrous consequences for western civilisation;
2. The current sawtooth plateau will give way to a sawtooth decline, which few people notice because they’re too busy celebrating the upswings to notice their net wealth evaporating. This may burst the latest ‘bubble’, wherever that may be, and push global economies into a steeper decline;
3. Business and western society generally will adapt slowly to increasing energy costs and wealth decline to ride out the storm with a new focus on fairness and frugality (yeah, right!!)
4. The US military will be let off the leash to seize the remaining large reserves in Iran, under the pretext of preventing Iran from developing a nuclear capability (or to hold Israel and Iran apart as a peacekeeping force, with benefits..!). This is most likely to happen in response to scenario 1, and would happen as oil prices first take off in the type of exponential climb we saw in 2007-08.
5. Any combination of the above and/or other circumstances that I can’t yet envisage.
Whatever, the firmly held belief among most folks that things will return to 2007 levels of growth and wealth over time is not going to be possible, so we must all prepare for the consequences of living in a civilisation which collectively refuses to accept that fact.
ProCon said:
The United States is a very good place to be in the world in terms of dollar purchasing power. The honest buying power of the very good fiat money we have in the USA is excellent.
ProCon said:
ProCon, do you think the people of the USA no longer make or export anything? A country’s GDP per capita, or the market value of all final goods and services produced per person, is one measure of the productive capacity available to meet the economic needs of the population.
http://www.bls.gov/fls/chartbook/section1.htm#chart1.1
Where else in the world would you rather live?
“We hear every damned day about how fragile our country is, on the brink of catastrophe, torn by polarizing hate, and how it’s a shame that we can’t work together to get things done. The truth is, we do! We work together to get things done every damned day! The only place we don’t is here (in Washington) or on cable TV!
But Americans don’t live here, or on cable TV. Where we live, our values and principles form the foundation that sustains us while we get things done–not the barriers that prevent us from getting things done.”
–Jon Stewart, Oct. 31, 2010
I’m sorry, I ran all the way home, just to say i’m sorry, I ran all the way! Sometimes, when I close my eyes, it’s 1960 again, just like in that movie, “Peggy Sue Got Married”. Where did the last fifty fucking years go? “Pay attention!” “Listen, you’re my girl, and you have to listen to me.” “You’re not getting any younger or prettier, Myrtle….just what exactly do you expect to do with the rest of your life?” Thanks, mom, dad, assorted husbands, boyfriends. You are now personally invited to kiss my ass. Yep, those were the days!
‘the Rothschilds are really the Catholic Church. Because the Rothschilds are nothing more than the money handlers for the Catholic Church’
you make a case for the CC using the [jewish?] rothschilds…
and perhaps Vlad sayd the reverse is true..the banksters used churches! AND GOVERNMENTS.
It’s my party, and I’ll freaking cry if I want to. Thanks, Miss Gore!
Al Klein said: “I would argue with you about the “incompetent” part of your statement, though. Immoral, for sure, incompetent, no.”
The military is supremely wasteful of fossil-fuel energy (I have training jets flying overhead wasting oil every day). The military is incompetent at energy conservation.
Even at what they are supposed to be competent at, which is fighting wars, the military failed in Vietnam after years of fighting. One measure of military incompetence is what is called “friendly fire” which is firing on your own troops. There were 8,000 incidents of friendly fire in Vietnam. Incompetence.
The military failed in Iraq, as measured by the stated goals of Bush. No stable democratic government was created.
The incompetent USA military has failed to defeat 100 Al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan. After years of fighting them, the Taliban is actually stronger.
Not that the USA military is incapable of winning. The military did handily defeat Grenada. Of course, the invasion was criticized by the United Kingdom, Canada and the United Nations General Assembly, which condemned it as “a flagrant violation of international law”.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1844547,00.html
Time Magazine 9/25/08
“America’s No. 1 Export: Debt”
We also export a lot of scrap metal, and raw materials – along with coal and agricultural products.
And lots and lots of war materials to all sides of any conflict with money to spend.
And some insanely stupid percentage of US GDP is in the “*financial services??*” industry.
There is no place I’d rather live than the US.
There is no place I will ever live other than the US.
But that does not mean I cannot take a HONEST look at the government and economic underpinnings of my own country.
That’s part of why I’m on CFN.
I’d rather not be impeded by optimism masquerading as *truth.*
==========
Speaking of which, AARP magazine just came out in their November issue detailing $60 BILLION worth of Medicare fraud yearly. That’s OVER 10% of total spending.
And the problem has been ongoing for 10 years, according to AARP.
Chilling criminality – meet chilling malfeasance!
“Our society missed the one thing the so-called “bible” got right: the love of money is the root of all evil.”
This is only one of the most obvious things. For example, chapter 28 of Deuteronomy, after verse 15, reads like {not literally – I’m talking content here} the blogs and their comments. I have heard verse 67 {paraphrased} come right out of people’s mouths.
I am beginning to fully understand exactly where JHK is coming from because I work for a major retail grocery chain here in once-beautiful Detroit, Michigan that’s in the process of reorganizing under a new name. For the past ten years my employer has been catering exclusively to price-conscious [i.e-broke ass] consumers without much luck. There are already too many grocery stores here in Motown going after the same frugal clientele according to the geniuses pay my wages, so let’s go after all those Yuppies who are willing and able to pay a premium for brie and imported prosciutto. This would make perfect sense if we were living in 1985, when high school dropouts working in the auto industry could live like tenured college professors, but this is 2010 and all that’s left of Motown’s former prosperity are vacant lots where the auto plants and the houses of the folks who worked in them once stood. But the folks who call the shots up here, along with their sycophants in the local media, would have you believe that another golden age is just around the corner. Meanwhile, plans for a light-rail line down Woodward are stalled because nobody can agree where the money to build it is coming from and even once-prosperous suburbs are beginning to look like the inner city.
If you’re in your 80z, then I salute you.
Are you saying Americans are Spock and TPTB are Kirk? And we’re getting our butts handed to us. Is that what dumbing down means?
Salute! And thanks to Cash for turning me on to TAMI. y’ALL sweet men. Couldn’t bear life without ya! Always!
ProCon said: “Time Magazine 9/25/08 “America’s No. 1 Export: Debt”
ProCon, I hate to burst your anti-USA bubble and your ranting about debt, but you are citing an article from Time that is talking about the results of the Bush administration’s incompetence.
We have a new President now, and Obama has been good for the USA. To update your pessimistic Time article, during the first half of 2010, United States exports were up 24.5% to US$481.8 billion from $387 billion for the 6 months of 2009. In spite of the economic disaster left by Bush, under Obama’s excellent administration American export gains were broad-based. Of the 233 countries where the United States ships its exports, 146 trade partners increased their purchases of U.S. exports.
It does make a difference in international relations and trade when you have an intelligent President like Obama who is looking out for the country as a whole and not just trying to get tax breaks for rich friends like Bush did in trashing the USA.
ProCon, please stop saying the USA doesn’t export anything. Please stop continuing the illusion that the USA is a poor debt-ridden country with nothing to offer the world. Please stop trashing the USA.
You’re missing the point. The Rothschild’s money was not theirs. And in those days, money was gold and silver. The gold and silver belonged to the Catholic Church. The Rothschilds are nothing more than a front for the Catholic Church. The Rothschilds allowed the Catholic Church to stay in the shadows while it manipulated the politics of Europe. The Rothschilds also served a diabolical double purpose, as they allowed the Catholic Church the aristocracy the criminal government mafias to scapegoat “da joos” for what was essentially their political and financial machinations.
The propaganda meisters like to always focus on the one or two token jews, but I can assure you, the token jews are just that. Behind every jew criminal there are a thousand and ten thousand non-jews criminals hiding and pointing the finger at da joo. The fact that all you ever hear in the news is Israel this and Israel that, and jew this and jew that, should tell who’s really in control. Because you’ll never hear about the real criminals, but you’re constantly bombarded with propaganda about the token jew.
I guess not enough Americans have been personally hurt by unemployment, or the financial mess, so that still, the balance of the citizenry is still ‘happy’ when it comes right down to it. Sure, 75% don’t like Congress, but watch: tomorrow the GOP will ‘win’ due to Democrats staying home from the polls, or Democrats punishing the party by voting Independent or for the GOP. We’re playing air ball as a country now, economic terrorists — known as bankers and Wall Street traders –have trashed the people and the economy, but Obama is worried about some printer cartridges and utters pronouncements that more of our freedoms must go to ‘make us safe.’ Economic terrorism and open borders are just fine, but watch out for those printer cartridges that just happened to come on the scene the weekend before the mid-terms.
I’m tired of living in this asylum. What about the rest of you? Had enough (yet) ?
And what about the Democrats—playing a game on us, with that same 2006 election stuff, then the 2008 election stuff: ‘if you think WE’RE bad, well just look across the aisle.’ So we get all scared and vote Democrats in and guess what? They continue W’s policies, every single one of them, and Obama becomes more like W than W was in terms of domestic, economic, and international policies.
Fool me once.
I still remember telling a MSN political blog how Obama was a sure win, but he would be G. W. Bush on steroids. Lefties there just laughed or attacked me. Well here we are. Now well “show em” and vote in a bunch of Republicans that are no better. (Except for maybe Rand Paul).
Great post Jim. One of the best I think.
From the West Coast – Santa Cruz, Calif. The Giants just kicked the Texas Rangers collective ass in the World Series. Making the experience all the more richly satisfying were several shots of incurious George W. Bush with his wife Laura sitting right behind home plate. I’m so glad that shithead’s team got their butts kicked. And by liberal San Francisco at that.
“We don’t burn our draft cards down on Main St.
Like them hippy folks in San Francisco do.”
-Merle Haggard
I was surprised at how strong of a visceral reaction I had to seeing that stupid bastard. I hadn’t seen or heard anything about that guy since he left office – and there he was sitting in the best seats in the house. His life has been one long and very rigged game. Does he even have a triple digit IQ?
Obama is so much more intelligent and yet nothing has changed. WE are so freaking DOOMED!!! I’ve had too much Pinot. Time for tea and bed.
JHK,
You outdid yourself with terse, accurate
candor. I’m glad you have now joined
those of us that are disenfranchised from
both parties. You nailed it when you said
that the Democrats have flubbed EVERY chance
of undoing the Bush damage. They have.
Indeed, the public at this time next year
after another year of one percent GDP growth
(after a near-Depression) might become restive
enough to get a little bit violent. Also, the
disingenuous economic statisticians are NOT
taking into account that when a US multinational
sells a widget in China it is counted in US
GDP GROWTH. How is that sort of legerdemain
allowed?
Keep up your crotchety screeds. I like when
you give no quarter because none ought be
given.
E.
Though I’m dissatisfied with the nature of
life in California at this time, I, too,
reveled in seeing the Rangers get bombed
in a series where their collective run
total in three of the five games was ONE.
Only ONE team had more futility than that
in a World Series when, in 1966, the LA
Dodgers were shut out three times by the
Baltimore Orioles (under the immortal and
crabby-as-hell-but-hilarious Earl Weaver).
Go Giants!!!!
E.
You’ve got a point there, Mika, and that’s
why the skeptics among us call the Catholic
Church by its “whisper” name … THE WHORE
OF BABYLON.
E.
antimatter said: “Obama becomes more like W than W was in terms of domestic, economic, and international policies.”
So does Bush criticizing Obama mean Bush is criticizing himself? Or is this really intricate kabuki theater?
Asoka said:
And with Obama we have now had NINE CONSECUTIVE MONTHS OF POSITIVE JOB GROWTH IN THE PRIVATE SECTOR, something George W. Bush could not manage. They don’t seem to have the same policies at all when it comes to private sector job creation. Obama’s performance is clearly superior.
Good morning CFers! Today gramma gets out of the pen! My dealer has a new shipment for which I must drive about 20 miles. Today’s golden oldie from youtube is “Please, Please Me”, by the Beatles. Of course, this is what I HOPE will happen upon smoking some of this fantastic weed. Hate to have to crank up the old Honda, but it will be brief (not too fond of driving these days). Shake it up, baby! Fun house time on election day. Talk about a house of mirrors! These shitheels won’t stop until they freaking bury this country and turn it into a third world fucking corn maze.
Oh, wait! They’ve already done that, haven’t they?
BTW, While I’m gone, ya’ll can play all my records and keep dancing all night!
200th! Can’t hap it.
Well, CFN’ers, happy days have arrived.
A certain overly frequent poster, well known for his anti-American rantings, has apparently seen the light.
I offer in evidence the following prose:
“ProCon, please stop saying the USA doesn’t export anything. Please stop continuing the illusion that the USA is a poor debt-ridden country with nothing to offer the world. Please stop trashing the USA”
Even though the sentiments attributed to me are out of context nearly to the point of insensibility, a breakthrough has been achieved.
I do believe a new convert to, “MY COUNTRY, RIGHT OR WRONG,” has been created.
I’d like to leave it at that.
Now, where is the IGNORE button on this thing? 😉
“You’ve got a point there, Mika…”
It’s not limited to the skeptics.
“It’s not limited to the skeptics.”
And it’s not limited to the catholic church heirarchy either.
“The military failed in Iraq, as measured by the stated goals of Bush. No stable democratic government was created.”
I think it’s telling that everyone expects TLE to “happen” suddenly, when 40 years after the fact we’re still debating why the US didn’t “win” in Vietnam…or Iraq…or Afghanistan.
We spend more on the military than the next 200 sovereign nations combined. If we were actually after “victory” it would come swiftly.
No prob.
What did you think of James? I thought he was on fire. I never get tired of that video. I’ve borrowed it from the library a couple of times. I think I’m going to shell out and buy it.
Loved him! Course, me and men…go figure. You can download parts of it from youtube. Just got back from the gym where I caught up with a friend (I think he’s about 45 or so, and he shamed me into voting (just chose one candidate- fuck those other bitches!) Now I must go start the Honda to visit my other friend. (she’s about 60- always sick- not that anyone freaking cares, hates her job…). I don’t think I would want to live and always be sick, but then ya never know what to expect when you reach into a box of chocolates. She works in a call center – which is totally brutal- listening to people bitch all day. Pays the bills I guess. That and her side “business” seem to keep her in pin money. Just another day on the farm. 😉
Ah, a confessional: I accept the charge, I’m a racist. How could I not accept it when so charged by those who believe the will of the sovereign citizenry should subordinate to that of foreign nationals. Those leveling the charge base it upon my unwillingness to have our nation’s immigration laws default to however many foreign nationals choose to ignore those laws. OK, I’m a racist.
I take it too that my degree of racism is heightened since I also don’t believe that our immigration laws should be “flipped” (or default) to amnesty due to the weight in numbers of those foreign nationals who are here in violation of our immigration laws.
I’m a racist since I don’t believe that the United States suffers a skin tonality deficiency, thus should base immigration policy on goal of correcting such skin tone deficiency no matter how much it would result in immigration ceilings being set at level beyond our nation’s ability to absorb the influx without dire economic, societal, cultural, infrastructural and ecological consequences. OK, I’m a racist.
There again I’m racist because I don’t believe that all policy going forward should be shaped as act of penance for perceived “wrongs” of US policy in the past, amounting, essentially, to the US citizenry surrendering national self determination through democratic process to any group claiming grievance.
OK too to the charge that in addition to being racist I’m also a xenophobe, based upon my objection to notion that the United States must adopt immigration policies that will bring its population into closer proportionate balance to the racial, ethnic, cultural and religious diversity distribution across the world at large.
And yes, I do argue for basing all future immigration policy on goal of “0” population growth so that can be preserved for future generations of citizens the intrinsic qualities of life now taken for granted but which would cease to exist due to continued population growth.
Yeah, I’m a racist a xenophobe. Add to that charge of my being nationalistic too.
For a laugh, check out on Youtube” The Partisans: Is Obama A Keynesian? Rally For Sanity”, 10/30/10. Ain’ it great to be an edumacated american?
Thank You for the reminder. It probably IS the only truth in the Bible. I think of the Bible as and I shouldn’t say this ‘the holey dribble.’
I am entitled to my opinion.
Money isn’t the Root of All Evil, the LOVE of Money is. I know people who think, as they say
“money is everything” and they have alot of it.
Don’t help people tho. Not with their $$$.
I really love this page / site / blog. Some intelligent beings (i am not one of them) on here.
Lots of different opinions. Something for everyone.
Still scared Sh******.
Especially the way people drive so dangerously like they are out to kill ya. they are. some are anyway.
Speaking of the way people drive, I just got back from visiting my friend, and it amazes me to see people race up to red lights! Yikes, can’t get to that stoplight fast enough. My old dad got on my case in a major way when I did this shit in his LaSalle (old car, btw, even then.)but I was only 16, twice dumber than I am now. My friend lives out in the sticks, so I can’t walk around like I do in the city. Major clusterfuck. Tried to get in and out while minding my ps and qs (don’t need granny to get arrested w/smokage. ) That would be a really nice item for the scandal sheet. Plus, having just parted with TWO presidents :), there will be more than a little belt tightening in our little corner of paradise.
Cave
Almost none of that makes you a racist or a xenophobe.
It may make you a nationalist, or maybe just a clear thinking person who understands population growth and its long term implications – for the planet and the US.
I still want someone to explain what’s wrong with a “lifeboat” scenario for the US – if EVERYONE’S gonna die otherwise.
Through lending what they didn’t really have, they got more than can ever be imagined. Kings and Presidents bowed to the Rothschilds to get money for war. In time, the Rothschilds learned to orchestrate wars to make money; certainly they were financing both sides in the Civil War. But whose side were they on? Their side. And they are ethnic Jews. Wasn’t at least one of them very prominent in the founding of Israel? Perhaps pictured on the currency?
A few token Jews? Oh really. How many of the big bankers and hedge, stockbrokers, and hedge fund managers are Jewsish? More than just a token few. Far more. You are just repeating Mr Kunstler’s mantra of Paulson, Paulson, Paulson… Admit the Truth that Jews are intimately involved in our downfall. And when it falls, they will tend to fare far better than Gentiles – they will just move somewhere else. They have no loyalty to America. John Stuart is neither American or Scottish. He’s Jewish. End of story.
The Hierarchs of the Catholic Church up to and including the Pope regularly meet with the Anti Defamation League of Bnai Brith – and abase themselves. It is disgusting beyond all power of words to describe. The Jews, Protestants, and Masons subveted the Church at Vatican Two just as the Jews subverted American Protestantism through Darbyism and Dispensationalism early in the 20th century. Christian Zionists are a profound source of Israeli Power and a major thereat to world peace. Imagine belonging to a religion in which you are a second class citizen; which considers “Joos” to be the chosen people. Real Christians know that the Jews broke their Covenant with God and now Christians are the Chosen, the Apple of His Eye. A Covenant is more than a simple promise – it’s more like a contract in which both parties are responsible. Contract is a little cold in connotation so the best metaphor is that of marriage. And both parties have obligations or the deal is off. Finally, any Jew who wants to can convert as Christianity is not a racial religion like Judaism or Hinduism. So no one is excluded per se – the Jews exclude themselves.
Why do the Jewish People let such an Evil Elite hide behind them? Because as Prof MacDonald points out, they benefit from the arrangement. So not all Jews are to be condemned but neither are they to be completely let off the hook either.
And yes, many Gentile Billionaires, both New Money and old Aristocrats, are in league with the Jewish Supremacists. Is not Gentile and Vandal equated in Masonic Ritual?
Allow me to share a gem going on in my little hamlet. Plans are in the mix to build (get ready, mix a drink, you ain’t gonna believe this, but)an ice skating rink. BTW, I live in the South! City Council here was more than a little muddled when they read about it in the local fishwrap. They didn’t even VOTE on it, indeed hadn’t even HEARD about it. The PTB are once again playing their little charades games. Oh, and one more thing: nobody knows where the money to build (not to mention maintain, operate, etc.) is coming from. Betcha bottom dollar I know where it’s coming from. Do ya like guessing games? I don’t. Personally I like to be kissed after getting f_cked. But hey, that’s just me.
Whoever “wins” this election is winning a booby prize. It’s like that old joke about a game show. First prize was a week’s vacation in Philadelphia. Second prize was two weeks in Philly. Kinda like Ford’s experiment with the Edsel.
Look up the quote Prog. He said just as well funded and powerful. That’s what he said. Sure it would have started small, like an Acorn. But it could well have grown into an Oak. It still might. Remember as Rahm said, never waste a crisis. Better yet, creat one and then just happen to have the solution. Remember, there are millions of unemployed minorities aching to get some payback agaisnt Whitey. Lead by by cool, dark skinned Whites, some bilingual, and of course some experienced Black and Hispanic military or police, a huge terror force could be created very quickly.
Would Obama like to do it? Of course. No question. He is not only a Communist, but an Anti-Western, Anti-American, and Anti-White Racist. This is clear from his own writings (actually written by Bill Ayers whom Obama denies knowing) And after all this, the White Sheep still put him in. They are hopeless degenerates completely unworthy of being Americans and having the right to vote. If America had stayed true to its principles, such inferior beings wouldn’t be voting in the first place. Or teaching in Universities like the Terrorist Bill Ayers does. The corruption is beyond the power of the pen to describe. Only Divine Wrath can express it and only Divine Wrath can provide the cure at this late date.
All the media coverage of the elections was great. I liked the in-depth articles about how neither party was actually proposing any solution to the out-of-control campaign-contribution debacle.
And all the great commercials that presented critical analysis of today’s pressing social and fiscal problems, all the while offering great insight as well.
It is really a sign of the “information age” that so much knowledge could be distributed to the electorate so successfully in such short shrift.
Now the ever so thoughtful “American People” – who politicians know are the true decision-makers of political and social progress have spoken clearly and succinctly.
“We want everything, and don’t you fuckin’ Congress people tell us we can’t have it all.”
And don’t forget, the “other guy’s” payin’ for it.
Captain Jack, over n out –
Racist, Xenophobe, Nativist – these are words to be proud of. Put them together and you have a Patriot who is proud of his Nation and ready to defend it. People like Cash and Comrade Prog don’t understand the difference between Nations and Counties. A Country is merely a political structure, typically a Nation degenerated by alien immigration. A Nation is a People who have coalesced from Tribes into Unity. But the emphasis must always remain on the Tribe which has both a Genotype and a corresponding Culture. Immigration from genetically similar Tribes/Nations is possible if done in a measured way. But immigration from Alien Nations and Cultures can only result in weakening and ultimately destruction if not stopped early on.
It is too late for the US. But like Mongrelized Rome or Ancient Egypt, our Elite will continue to whip up the beaten dogs with talk of past National Glory. We aren’t a Nation anymore so let is pass over you like water off a duck’s back. The only purpose for America now is as a breeding ground for New Nations to split off from. We have every right to make sure one or more of these is White and proud of its Western Heritage. The coming disasters – Natural, Divine, and Man Made spells Opportunity for US.
I doubt that the founding fathers foresaw the rise of nazi-ism or communism. Plus, the way I see you guys is that the US wasn’t always the US you have now.
IMO a hundred years ago the US was a big country, but still hurt by the Civil War and internally divided. But a hundred years ago the big powers were European, a cluster of these powers were vying for supremacy. And still Britannia ruled the waves with Germany challenging it militarily.
So you may not like where the US is now with its military all over hell’s half acre and places in between. But what got the US in this place was not all its own doing. Much of it (in my opinion most of it) was because of the actions of the old European powers plus rising Asian powers especially Japan to which the US had to react.
Could the rise of Nazi-ism be ignored? I know you have a different view of Hitler and Fascism/Nazi-ism than I do but I don’t think so. You already know my thinking on this because we’ve discussed it so I won’t belabour it. The way I see it Roosevelt was determined that the Nazis be put in the grave and he gave all aid short of help until Pearl Harbour when Japan came knocking and Hitler did the unbelievable and declared war on the US.
Similarly I don’t think that communism could be ignored. Many will say that communism wasn’t the issue, the issue was good old fashioned Russian imperialism. OK whatever you want to call it but the regime was bestial and brutal and murdered millions. And most important it vowed to spread its ideology/methodology/influence worldwide. That OK by you? It’s not OK by me. And for a long time it looked like it had the upper hand and might win.
So what about the mess in the Middle East? Blame the Turks and blame the locals. They’re all grown ups who are all more than capable of screwing up their own affairs. There’s no need for the US bogeyman.
I don’t see the US as all powerful and all controlling, I don’t think there is just one monolithic Anglo American elite of greedy bankers controlling and scripting world events. I think the US got to this place as a result of “events dear boy, events” to paraphrase a British politician and these events were the doings of disparate groups, some elite and powerful and some not, some American but most not.
For instance, Hitler was a nobody and could have been stopped with a memorandum according to Churchill if Britain and France had acted early enough.
And while I agree the US is late in pulling back from the world militarily (a good ten years late IMO) I think we owe the good people of the US thanks for the millions of man years, trillions of dollars not to mention an ocean of American blood expended in facing down the Nazis and the Communists.
You may not like things the way things are and I’m not thrilled either but I think the alternatives are/were orders of magnitude worse.
BTW, this isn’t important but you talk about my neo con thinking. That’s an American term. My way of looking at things took shape in the years I spent in western Canada.
John Howard is a fucking idiot.
Check out a book titled The Imperial Cruise if you think the U.S. was merely reacting to Japanese aggression in the 1930s and ’40s. Under Teddy Roosevelt, we created, encouraged and nurtured Japanese imperialism in Asia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
We’ve been an actively expansionist imperial power since at least the Mexican War. I suppose there are some historians who think the Revolutionary War was in some part caused by our desire to expand westward and take the Indians’ land away from them, which the Brits didn’t want us to do.
People seem to have misinterpreted my post to be some sort of endorsement of the DJIA as a proxy for the health of the economy (not my argument) or some attempt to cheerlead for the current economy (also not my argument).
My post was simply an attempt to hold Kunstler accountable for one of his wildly inaccurate but verifiably specific predictions. Wildly inaccurate seems to describe all of his specific predictions, as far as I can tell. If I were that wrong that often, I could only get a job as a weather forecaster.
“It’s a reminder that there are a lot of other players in the wide world – not all of them nations on the verge of a nervous breakdown.”
All it takes is for one super armed nation to have that nervous breakdown and the rest of the players are fucked.
i think that ben and goerge etc ‘didnt have a crystal ball’…
and didnt see laws used for anchor babies, legal infanticide [all dem pres since carter are for ..2 of them if i remember right].
as far as mika [who accused ME of killing 6 million jews]:
‘Behind every jew criminal there are a thousand and ten thousand non-jews criminals hiding and pointing the finger at da joo’
in other words every jew a saint and every non jew a heathen!
who reading this is in australia?
a daffy friend just returned and claims ‘ their economy is booming and the govt sends people to brazil to try to get young families to move down under’
are you aware of PROP 5 [2009] soros gave 1/2 million dollars to?
are you aware of monster ted kennedys bill to allow any caldean to move here as a refugee?
the usa didnt ‘stand down communism’..read
‘i saw poland betrayed’ for craps sake,
r. gave half of europe to stalin!
we built the ussr via loans, trade,the UN etc.
it would have collapsed had it not been ‘funded and respected’.
as far as mika [who accused ME of killing 6 million jews]:
‘Behind every jew criminal there are a thousand and ten thousand non-jews criminals hiding and pointing the finger at da joo’
in other words every jew a saint and every non jew a heathen!
==
No. The words are very simple, and so is their meaning. I didn’t talk about saints. I talked about jew criminals and non-jew criminals.
And I made it very clear that if you do a headcount of all the jew criminals at GS, JPMorgan, the various banks and hedge funds, the mortgage swindlers at Freddy & Fanny, the gov mafia in Washington, the CIA, the other gov mafia bureaucracies, the MSM, the oil/car/military corporate mafia, and on and on, you’ll find that for every jew criminal there are in fact, not thousands or tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands, but millions of non-jew criminals. But they, of-course are anonymous. Whereas the jew criminals, you know by name and almost personally, because the media always focuses on them and points them out for you. Don’t you think that’s a little strange?
As far as accusing you of murder, I obviously did not. What I said (I’m paraphrasing, but pretty accurately) was: ‘give back the 6 million jews that you helped murder’. The ‘you’ being the US government. Obviously, if you, Asia, had any integrity, you’d acknowledge that I don’t for a second consider “the US electorate” as having any input in the decisions of the US government. The US government is a family run business, and I said as much many times. You, Asia, are not in that equation. And neither is “your money”; whatever welfare payments you receive from the US gov, that than gets circulated back to the US gov in the form of sales taxes.
However, I did make a strong assertion that related to you personally. And that assertion is that you are a shit head, that you always were a shit head, and that you’ll always be a shit head. I stand by that statement, and will continue to stand by that statement, ’til the end of time.
They have no loyalty to America.
==
I’m curious, what loyalty and to what country do you have? How many such “loyalty” have you had, and to what countries, so far in your oh so short a life, Vlad?
Prelapse says:
“Check out a book titled The Imperial Cruise if you think the U.S. was merely reacting to Japanese aggression in the 1930s and ’40s. Under Teddy Roosevelt, we created, encouraged and nurtured Japanese imperialism in Asia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.”
I wasn’t aware of that, I’ll check it out. That’s an interesting piece of history and we finally had to demolish the Japanese to end it.
How is that any different in principal from Reagan and the gang backing the AFGHANISTAN FREEDOM FIGHTERS against the Russians – only to have them turn around and bite us in the ass 20 years later?
If we’re ruled by an aristocratic elite – it is far and away the STUPIDEST bunch of sons of bitches that ever walked this tortured planet.
The difference is that unlike the defeat of Japan which is fixed in history – the outcome of the current Afghanistan excursion is still in doubt.
“We’ve been an actively expansionist imperial power since at least the Mexican War. I suppose there are some historians who think the Revolutionary War was in some part caused by our desire to expand westward and take the Indians’ land away from them, which the Brits didn’t want us to do.”
It is fun to play “what ifs” with history.
You are probably correct about the Brits holding us in check. This is partially because they would have valued *peace* with the French. The French could have turned their interest onto the Louisiana Purchase – instead of onto Napoleon and his wars. France was debauched and ruined by Napoleon – leaving a vacuum into which the Germans oozed – creating WWI and WWII.
And don’t forget the War for Southern Independence. There is no way the British Empire would have tolerated a thing like that in one of their colonies.
As Wage points out, every other country ON EARTH simply outlaws slavery and it goes away. Not us Americans – oh hell no!! – we have to fight a War and kill over a million men.
This leaves us with some sort of karmic guilt over slavery that seems destined to torment us forever – it is only getting worse and worse in many ways.
We’ve been CF’ing for a long, looong time.
Vlad, here’s what Obama said:
“We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”
I believe Obama meant “just as strong” as the military in a metaphorical sense, not a literal sense.
Obama certainly did not mean “just as strong” in the sense that this force would be armed with artillery, fighter/bombers, and nuclear weapons – which was my original point to you.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/07/obamas_civilian_national_secur.html
This guy, on this right wing website, agrees with me about this. I actually like most of his analysis.
I am very pleased with the election results tonight.
The question this week is “Now What?”
Oh, JMFC! When will the sleeping pill kick in? I’m done with these “election” shenanigans for the night. Rest well, CFNers. You’re going to need it.
I give JHK credit for CORRECTLY predicting the wonderful election outcomes… only days before the election:
Let it be noted that not all of JHK’s predictions fail to come true, and not all of JHK’s predictions are so far out as to be measured in Friedman units. JHK, I salute you!
I am giddy over the results. Oh, how sweet it is!
Yep, and “there ain’t no hearsts with luggage racks.” don henley sings.
it’s all on loan. nothing is forever.
Yer my girl ! hey i wonder if we are neighbors.
if i was handing out drivers’ licenses i tell ya what, probably be 70% less drivers. tailgaters, idiots. rude stupid careless everywhere.
it feels like ‘we’ ARE out to get eachother.
I do not drive that way. SO MANY do tho. pisses me off. and the CHP could care less. in most cases. we ARE on our own. i always watch out for myself AND others on the road. anyway, thanks for responding to me. that was exciting.
The USA has been going to war illegally for decades because the US Congress never officially declares war.
That could all change now with the new Republican Congress.
Well, come on all of you, big strong men,
Uncle Sam needs your help again.
He’s got himself in a terrible jam
Way down yonder in Iran
So put down your books and pick up a gun,
We’re gonna have a whole lotta fun.
And it’s one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don’t ask me, I don’t give a damn,
Next stop is ‘ol Iran;
And it’s five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain’t no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we’re all gonna die.
Come on Wall Street, don’t be slow,
Why man, this is war au-go-go
There’s plenty good money to be made
By supplying the Army with the tools of its trade,
But just hope and pray that if they drop the bomb,
They drop it on Ahmajinedad.
And it’s one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don’t ask me, I don’t give a damn,
Next stop is in Iran.
And it’s five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain’t no time to wonder why
Whoopee! we’re all gonna die.
Well, come on generals, let’s move fast;
Your big chance has come at last.
Now you can go out and get those reds
‘Cause the only good Muslim is the one that’s dead
And you know that peace can only be won
When we’ve blown ’em all to kingdom come.
And it’s one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don’t ask me, I don’t give a damn,
Next stop is in Iran;
And it’s five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain’t no time to wonder why
Whoopee! we’re all gonna die.
Come on mothers throughout the land,
Pack your boys off to ‘ol Iran.
Come on fathers, and don’t hesitate
To send your sons off before it’s too late.
And you can be the first ones in your block
To have your boy come home in a box.
And it’s one, two, three
What are we fighting for ?
Don’t ask me, I don’t give a damn,
Next stop is ‘ol Iran.
And it’s five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain’t no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we’re all gonna die.
What the Fuck Has Obama Done So Far?
http://whatthefuckhasobamadonesofar.com/
Obama 2012!
Just had to tell ya, I downloaded the “Life is just a bowl of cherries” song on youtube. Lovely recording of Mr. Rudy Vallee- who knew? Wayy before my time. Certainly worth a listen on my parents’ generation. “So live and laugh at it all!” Thanks!
For a good counter to the “Life is just a bowl of Cherries” tune, check out Jesse’s Cafe’ Americain (available this page under links)and play the “They Call Us the Working Class” song. Interesting!
“There is only one party. I think Jim has said it himself; it has two factions.”
Hummm – maybe the party is over….
The national Democrats really fouled up the waters for most all of the state elections “down-ticket”
at least in my region.
What was such a great idea about this health care plan – bought and paid for by insurance companies – that the whole Democratic party dove over a cliff for it?
Let’s get ready for two years of gridlock and noise, followed by a “*conservative*” majority CF.
Unless TSHTF first – sponsored inevitably by the people who brought us Ronald Reagan and the Bushes.
Have a great day of loving life and preparing for *change*!!
You say:
“Now you can go out and get those reds
‘Cause the only good Muslim is the one that’s dead”
A TINY bit of editing will make it more factually correct.
Change to:
“Now you can kill all those towel heads
‘Cause the only good Muslim is the one that’s dead”
A minor change I’ll admit – one that does not change the overall sentiment you expressed.
=====================
On another note, even with a 24 and a 28 year old
son – I’ve slowly stopped worrying about a return to the draft.
War has now been turned into something the US public appears to regard as extreme sport – like football, except with mortal danger.
So “we” all just root, root, root! for the Home Team – and otherwise go on about our (insert adverb??) lives.
My life is filled with the things that make life worth living, thank God.
But goddamnit, I am angry about the course this country of ours has been on since about 1979 or thereabouts.
And I fear we just took another downward turn yesterday.
As always, I am open to suggestions! 😉
Albert Einstein said “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results”. So two years after voting the Republicans out en mass, we put ’em back in the saddle again. Bush did the same thing with the country that he did with all his businesses. He ran it into the ground. It’s all problematic anyway, since both parties are hopelessly corrupted with corporate money and influence, nothing will be accomplished. Anybody who thinks differently is either a fool or hopelessly naive. Someone once said, “No matter how cynical I get, it’s never enough”, I concur.
ProCon said: “A TINY bit of editing will make it more factually correct.
Change to:
“Now you can kill all those towel heads
‘Cause the only good Muslim is the one that’s dead”
Excellent change, ProCon!
And yesterday was a big blessing in disguise. Mark my words: Obama’s re-election is now assured.
Vlad, this will be my last time on CFN ’till Sunday, but I will look for your response.
You say:
“…is beyond the power of the pen to describe. Only Divine Wrath can express it and only Divine Wrath can provide the cure at this late date.”
And I believe you’re not an Atheist, so I assume you speak without sarcasm.
And sadly, I agree with you – though we’ll certainly always argue over specifics.
The die was cast for US as a *”culture”* with the results of the American Revolution, or Pickett’s charge, the death of Kennedy, or the election of RR, or BushII, or Obama – or something that God (god?) wanted.
I don’t know what’s gonna happen – Well, DUH!
But I’m certainly hearing your position loud and clear, and including some of it in my future as I think appropriate.
‘Cause I’ll give up my free will when it’s pried out of my cold dead psyche.
Have a great week, CF’ers!!
OMG. I watched the video. Unbelievable. I know it’s a movie, and i also get that people live that way NOW. Powerful Video. Thanks for posting.
Compare that to the complete WASTEFULLNESS of US, and other Modern Countries.
We live in Disneyland, the people in that movie live in HELL. Is that gonna be US someday, sooner or later…
SO SAD. and Scary.
reminds me of the lyrics to yet another song “EVERYBODY KNOWS”…that the good guys lost”.
I have plenty to be thankful for, but this still really bothers me. this LIFE. The way people are treated, and have to live.
We don’t see this on the news.
An Open Letter to the newly elected Senators and Representatives:
http://www.hamburgersstand.com/406/an-open-letter-to-the-newly-elected-senators-and-representatives/
Very apt. Should be America’s national anthem.
Want to know how our [collective] “wealth” is waxing and compounding? Here ya be:
http://www.theburningplatform.com/?p=7028
Although I don’t agree with some people’s specifics on the holistic nature of the coming crash, I do agree that it will be due to the combination of the machinations of political, financial, and sociological forces, totaling an inexorable CF that will define TLE.
Soooo, lessee what we gots:
Financial collapse well underway;
Political tomfoolery well on the way to irrelevancy;
All that’s needed now is the REAL pain of a desperate populace, and all bets are off.
Which direction? [More] outward projection of military insanity, or neo-feudalism, or something completely unforeseen?
Where’d I put that crystal ball??? ;o)
Vlad,
Jewish nationalism is not Jewish supremacy. Why do you always wish to victimize and enslave Jews? Jews want to be masters of their own destiny, just like any other people. Why do you seek to deny Jews that which you grant to others? Is it a religious thing for you?
Btw,
NOVEMBER 2, 2010 10:33 PM is still waiting for an answer.
Election results are in. Cali voters decided to keep marijuana very illegal. I dont get it myself
[nor do i smoke], voters want brown/boxer but put smokers in jail!
‘They have no loyalty to America’
during operation desert storm congressman rahm went and did military service…in israel!
did you see what mika said about me? musta really ticked him off b
‘I don’t know what’s gonna happen’
yes you do, you just dont know WHEN!
I for one welcome our new Tea Bagger overlords.
What’s wrong with Boxer?
Electing Jerry Brown was basically just NOT electing Meg Whitman.
Damn, this is messed up. I actually agree with tzatza’s posts.
Light rail is a goddamn boondoggle in the states. Just look at the California high speed rail proposal. I’m not sure it counts as “light” but the problems are the same. No one wants a train in their backyard, and in this case the right of way already exists. It is also really expensive to buy up all the land, to do the tunneling, etc.
And the other post too about a military takeover being unlikely…I agree with that. (Of course, the police state is already here.) Though it is kind of irrelevant if people own guns. A military takeover could just proceed from the top. The new regime wouldn’t necessarily need to go go-to-door and confiscate all the guns, nor would they probably want to do this.
I guess a stopped clock is right twice a day.
JHK asks this week: “What Now?”
Here is the answer: continued recovery. The Fed has just announced that it will buy between $850 to $900 billion of U.S. government debt, also known as Treasuries, through June to spur the recovery.
They can print money forever. It may be called useless, fiat money by some but the reality is it serves as a legitimate and functional means of exchange, and has for decades.
This.
Turkle asks: “What’s wrong with Boxer?”
What’s wrong with Brown? He is fired-up, energized, full of desire to serve California. Brown has been called “fiscally incorruptible” … which means he doesn’t even know how to steal and is not in it for the money.
progressiveconservative,
Your name confuses me.
Turk..i see politicians as self promoters and BB just aint my type of gal!
this is from huffington post:
Virtually every incumbent who went down on Tuesday was a Democrat, from Blue Dog Reps. Baron Hill (Ind.) and Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin (S.D.) to progressive Sen. Russ Feingold (Wis.) and Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy (Ohio).
A rare Republican in this group was Rep. Joseph Cao.
Exit polls showed that voters were intensely worried about the state of the economy, frustrated with the federal government and didn’t hold a favorable view of either party. As the party in power, however, Democrats faced the majority of voters’ wrath
…….what americans worry??????????
asoka never ceases to amaze me….
politicians want to serve? baa
‘full of desire to serve’
What economist has ever argued that capitalism would provide anything even close to full employment?
I’m gonna butcher the oft-maligned John Keynes: “Capitalism does not provide the goods.”
Hell, if you total up everything the US government does, including direct employment, spending money on goods and services, pseudo-government organizations, public-private partnerships, Federal Reserve witchcraft, et al., it accounts for something like 50% of the country’s entire GDP.
Then there’s things like food stamps and social security that provide other people with resources to buy goods and services.
Not saying it is right or wrong. It is just a fact. Pure capitalism has never “worked” if you want it to provide jobs for everyone or even for most of the population.
Some people are just redundant.
Take tzatza for instance… 🙂
Maybe you read me wrong, or I wasn’t being clear. I am not that familiar with Jerry Brown and don’t really have much opinion of him one way or another. I was just saying that most people were really turned off by the kind of negative campaigning that Whitman ran (among other things) and so voted for “the other guy”.
The Jews have never set their borders in Palestine as they have designs on much of the Middle East. They think God gave them all the land from the Nile to the Euphrates. Don’t play the victim card with me – it’s old and frayed. Much of the Old Testament is just the story of the Jews inflicting horror on other peoples. Once they got back to Palestine, they began the whole cycle again.
Look at the story of Joseph. He rose high in the Pharoah’s sevice. The Egyptians were heavily taxed in grain against the seven years of famine to come. And then when the famine came, did Joseph and Pharoah simply feed the people? No they asked them to buy the grain – the grain which they already had given. And when they had no more to give, they had to sell themselves into slavery just to eat. Things were going so well for Joe that he invited his relatives to come on down and live off the Egyptians. Sounds like a classic Jewish takeover, complete with a corrupt gentile Elite benefiting from the deal. Luckily for the downtrodden Egyptians, that Pharaoh died and another arose, one who “knew not Joseph”. He made the Jews pay back their debt that they had stolen from the Egyptian People. Justice at last.
The parallel to our own situation is obvious. We also need a new Elite, one that “knows not Joseph”. The Jewish Dominance of our Press, Media, Culture and Banking must be broken if we are to regain our Freedom.
I disagree. We need to abolish the Fed like Ron Paul says. Then we can return to having thousands of different currencies (Bubba’s Big Bank Notes anyone?), plus the added bonus of bank panics every other week. Who needs FDIC? Not knowing whether or not your bank would actually have enough money for you injects a little excitement into your day-to-day finances.
Things were better then in the hay-days of Social Darwinism. Pure capitalism is the bee’s knees. I want to be a robber baron someday.
Your defence of the status quo is extreme as usual and increasingly outdated. Hitler posed no threat to the West. If we had united with him, we could have crushed Communism. The Jews would have had to leave – they already had Palestine lined up and they had also been offered Madagascar, part of East Africa, and a large chunk of Siberia. They made the worse choice as usual.
There are always reasons for war. But men of character would have made it a last option instead of the first. No one could have assailed us here. You dream if you think otherwise. WW1 got the ball rolling. Everyone now admits is was totally unnecessary. Of course the big money Jews wanted it – they and their despicable gentile allies get stronger with every war. They whispered in that poor fool Wilson’s ear that he could be the first president of the World. He was seduced and then he broke his trust with the American People to keep us out of war. FDR broke his word a few years later, but with much more eagerness. He artfully maneuvered Japan into attacking us. More and more people are coming around to this point of view. You will be the last to know the Truth. You are addicted to the good guys/bad guys view of Life. Thus in your mind America had the right to make a defeated Germany over in her own image – putting to death men who never fired a rifle and keeping Ezra Pound in a cage because he told them what I’m telling you now.
That you believe in God Almighty is your saving grace. Like Cash you overestimate us but at least you know that we have fallen away from the Glory that was. Cash believes in our glorious past but sans the Divinity. I think you know that such a Nation never was and never can be.
I just don’t fathom how you can look out upon our overpopulated, faith-based, drug addled, Global Warming, Peak Oiling, fractured, indebted, violence plagued, quickly desertifying, polluted, plastic-island-in-the-Pacific-the-size-of-Texas, every-other-third-worlder-with-an-AK, half-a-rotten-monkey-brain world and conclude that the Jews are the real problem behind everything.
The Jews so dominate in the area of foreign affairs that they are constantly in a state of war and insecurity to hold a piece of desert land the size of Delaware, of which they only have partial control.
They are so powerful and above it all that the entire Jewish population was nearly wiped out by an insane German man with a pencil mustache.
Riiiiight.
I mean seriously dude. Get a grip already. They are no worse than anyone else in this nut house.
“Hitler posed no threat to the West.”
Germany declared war on the United States you fucking nabob.
Between the Hitler worship, the religious mumbo-jumbo / quackery, and the Jew hating, you are a seriously fucked up person…more than most people even.
The power and success of America from the late 1700’s onward was due to its abundant resources: farmland, forests, oil, etc. America had them in abundance. Europe and Asia did not, or at least were far more picked over or spread between many different political entities in more hard-to-reach and exploit places. (See Catton’s “Overshoot”)
Secondarily, it being the new and undiscovered land, America tended to attract a certain type of ambitious and energetic person, mostly from among the Europeans, at least at first.
Religion was and is just a side show to the ecology and geography (haven’t you read “Guns, Germs, and Steel”?).
Notice how American fortunes began to turn somewhat roughly coincident with domestic Peak Oil production.
A coincidence? I think not.
“WW1 got the ball rolling. Of course the big money Jews wanted it.”
Exhibit #436 of why you are a complete moron.
Do you just make up this crap as you go along?
“Cheap oil allowed industrial humans to increasingly live on environmental credit for over a century. Now the bill is due and no amount of money can pay it. The calorie, pure heat expenditure as energy, is the only currency in which Mother Nature trades. Period.” -Joe Bageant
Jeeeeebus, Joe; now what???
Guess them newly-minted Republocrats are gonna have to change the physical laws of the universe… Hey! That’ll work; they’re “lawmakers” after all, ain’t they?
And then there’s this:
“If there can be a solution at this late stage, and most thinking people seriously doubt there can be a “solution” in the way we have always thought of solutions, it begins with powering down everything we consider to be the economy and our survival. That and population reduction, which nobody wants to discuss in actionable terms. Worse yet, there is no state sanctioned, organized entry level for people who want to power down from the horrific machinery of money. There are too many financial, military and corporate and governmental forces that don’t want to see us power down (because it would spell their death), but rather power up even more. That’s called “a recovery.” -J.B.
Damnitall, Joe, you’re startin’ to sound like that nutjob Kunstler! No state-sanctioned power-down? NOW WHAT??
(Pssst… notice how the awake-and-aware writers on the inter-tubes are all reaching similar conclusions? Oooopsie. Now what?)
anyone here want to consider what would have happened if germany had won ww2 ?
i doubt we would be having this conversation .
Well, I’m barely old enough to remember much about the war. I remember sitting in our living room, hearing air raid sirens, black out curtains firmly in place….and hearing …NOTHING. Felt mighty silly, but when you’re being led like sheep by the PTB, you don’t know any better.
I do think we wouldn’t be speaking or communicating in English. Even though much of what we saw in the news reels of the day clearly had a propagandistic flair, I knew that Hitler was evil, Hell-bent on destruction and dominion of the world. I also imagine we would be a colonized, well-regimented, complacent country; segregated according to race, then skill, etc. In another words, we would have looked a lot like Auswitch looked in l945. Now, I was still just a teen queen in ’45, I do remember the hot G.I.s in uniform. God, were they horny bastards! Oh well, I’m afraid I digress. Bottom line? The U.S. would have looked a lot like a colonized Haiti, IMO, of course.
MAO:
the krauts didnt act alone. wasnt it they+japan+italy and lots of supplies coming in from scandanavia [steel etc]? + portual and switzerland either helping them or trying to ignore them?
and bush doing their bidding on wall st?
had roosevelt given the usa to stalin maybe we wouldnt be having this conversation now.
File this under the “Not that Anyone Freaking Cares” file: During the war, my father’s older sister married well, and later became a mistress of some NAZI soldier. She was a well known socialite at the time. Quite the alcoholic, as it was later revealed. Family kept those little secrets under the rug for years. Didn’t learn about it until about fifteen years ago. Typical of that generation….don’t ask, don’t tell.
If Hitler had won, and Germany became a military empire with 700 military bases in 170 countries, they would be suffering from debt, inflation, pollution, and they would be facing running out of fossil fuels and the Long German Emergency and the German World Made By Hand, along with housing foreclosures, people thinking about overthrowing the German empire, clandestine German Tea Parties organizing resistance. China and India rising powers and Germans worried about the trade imbalance as more and more German stores fill up with cheap Chinese goods and China owns more and more of Germany’s debt. Turks would be aligning with Al Qaeda to bring down German twin towers in spectacular terrorist attacks. Germany unable to maintain control because they have overspent, are in debt, and are despised by some many in so many parts of the world. Eventually Germany would become Muslim and Sharia law would be imposed and Germany would become a civilized country again with Germans bowing down five times a day facing Mecca and showing their submission to Allah. We would all be speaking Arabic if Hitler had won.
I had the opportunity to visit Germany shortly after the war. It was decimated. The Rhine was about the only region that was spared. Dust, debris, crumbling, bombed-out shells which formerly held shop keepers and other occupants. Such beauty destroyed by a mad man. Still makes me cry when I remember the suffering of those poor, misguided victims.
Did Germany really lose? AS I see it the fascists just changed venue and set up shop in the US. What do we have now? A permanent war and armaments driven economy. A nearly if not complete merging of government with the corporations. A police state all ready to impose lockdown. Germany the nation lost but the ideology lives on. USA uber alles.
The Jews have never set their borders in Palestine as they have designs on much of the Middle East.
==
1/ OMG, are you really that stupid? They did set up borders, it was called Palestine!
There’s a signed treaty between Dr Haim Weizmann (the jewish representative, later to become Israel’s first president) and King Feisal Hussein (the arab representative, King of Iraq, Syria, Al Hejaz, and Sherif of Mecca). The 1919 Faisal-Weizmann treaty provided the foundation for League of Nations’ ratification of the Balfour Declaration and the San Remo resolution. What is Israel today is a carved out territory of less than a 1/4 of what was agreed upon. And the carving is still goes on.
2/ How is any of this, any of your business? What the fsck has Israel to do with you?
I’ve gotten so distracted around here lately, arguing about this or that with god-knows-who, that I’ve lost sight of the task at hand to some degree. Got back on track recently, and am sharing some update pics from Small Batch Garden. No theory, no philosophy, just photos of good work.
http://smallbatchgarden.blogspot.com
Hope you enjoy!
Tripp
LAST! (for now)
So weed is still technically illegal in CA. The dealers and dope growers must’ve voted in force.
What for now? You will still pay those inflated prices to get happy. Is Boone’s Farm still $1.98 a bottle? Probably not.
David Wilkerson in his book “The Vision” written in 1972 predicted the legalization of dope. Maybe in 2012.
Luckily for the downtrodden Egyptians, that Pharaoh died and another arose, one who “knew not Joseph”. He made the Jews pay back their debt that they had stolen from the Egyptian People. Justice at last.
==
1/ Where are you getting this nonsense from? Is this recorded in the Egyptian records? Are you just making this shit up?
2/ From what I remember, the Pharaoh, on learning of Joseph’s interpretation of his dream, decided to tax the Egyptians in grain. According to Joseph’s interpretation there were to be 7 years of plenty, and 7 years of famine. Now, let’s assume that Pharaoh did not tax his Egyptian subjects prior to Joseph coming on the scene (a ridiculous assumption, but for the sake of entertaining your perverted script, we’ll make that assumption), what we have is 7 years of taxation on account of Joseph’s interpretation of Pharaoh’s dream. Now let’s assume it is a really heavy tax and that 50% of whatever grain was produced was taxed into the Pharaoh’s granary. That will give 7/2 years or 3.5 years worth of grain from which the Egyptians who paid into the system can withdraw grain without the Social Security granary system going bust. Obviously, the Egyptians withdrew grain not for 3.5 years but for 7 years. The difference had to come from somewhere. Obviously, Egypt had to trade other goods for grain to make up the difference.
3/ Even if allow for your script and say the Egyptians got a “raw deal” by the Pharaoh’s tax, the alternative without the system would have been certain starvation and death. Being poor and alive, is still better than being dead.
4/ So instituting slavery for a whole people for hundreds of years, and then instituting genocide, for the perceived “bad” advice or misdeed of one person is what you call justice. And let’s not forget that Joseph did not force anybody to accept his interpretation of the dream. It was Pharaoh who was the final arbiter and decision maker. Joseph was just one of his many advisers. And yet is it interesting that Pharaoh and his clan get to escape your “justice”.
It is also very telling, Vlad, that after you accused others of disloyalty, that you refuse to answer my simple question to you as to whom your national loyalty belongs. How many and which countries are you “loyal” to, Vlad? Answer!
It looks to be, more and more, that you are exactly what you accuse others of being. A hypocrite, a liar, a racist supremacist, a global imperialist, a faux nationalist, a multiple passports lowlife welfare creep, a genocidal parasite and a disgusting blood-vulture. You are without honor and without principles. Your pathetic projections onto others are the psychological symptom of the most feeble and degenerate of minds. But I’m glad we finally sorted this out. You can finally look in the mirror and really see the real you.
Halloween: my daughter was in Watertown NY on the weekend. She said that the good people of Watertown do not go door-to-door trick-or-treat’n but go to the malls where each store puts out a bowl of candy.
how bizarre!
now in Ottawa, Halloween is a more supervised affair than it was but kids still go door-to-door
can someone explain?
THE HORRIBLE MEANING OF QE2
***************************
It means that your (increasingly debased)
taxpayer dollars are being used to buy up
$600 billion MORE in toxic bank assets.
If the markets were even slightly rational,
they would realize that QE2 signals that
banks are in FAR, FAR worse shape than anyone
in the Obama Administration, his cabinet, or
the Fed are letting on.
Bernanke is following the Japanese model of
allowing zombie banks to persist for an eternity
instead of allowing markets to clear by allowing
insolvent companies to go into receivership.
This guy’s claim to be a “… student of the
Great Depression” is the biggest hoax since
Bigfoot.
E.
Mika,
I related okay to Vlad some months ago when
I agreed with him that some ethnicities
(blacks, Hispanics) had way too much crime,
too little achievement, and bad representatives
who don’t attempt to improve these numbers
by perpetuating their “victimhood”.
However, now that I’ve seen him quote people
like Revilo Oliver (a stock-in-trade hater
of anything not crisply Teutonic) I knew that
his “sources” were revisionists who make up
facts on the fly. I’m sure that Vlad is
way booked up on the “Protocols of the Elders
of Zion” even though mainstream historians of
every political persuasion consider the
document a total fraud.
Vlad is a classic Stormfront.org guy who isn’t
willing to admit that the WHITE race might very
well be going downhill faster than any race right
now since we’re copying the WORST aspects of
ghetto/barrio/prison behavior, fashions, and
interpersonal mannerisms. I know this from
observational experience over the last decade
with Gen-Y students.
Sorry, Vlad, but sometimes people can appear
to be “correct” for a while for all the wrong
reasons. But when I saw references to guys
like Oliver, I knew that your sources were
intellectually disingenuous and cherrypicked
to back your point of view. You ceased to be
“special”.
E.
It would be better for you guys if the British military (or maybe even New Zealand) took over your country.
The US military are just plain dumb. Did you hear they tried rescuing some hostage and wound up killing her? They threw a fragmentation grenade into the room. Dumbos. The British SAS should have done the job, because they’re experts in that sort of thing. They use weapons with surgical precision and kill the captors ONLY.
Anyway, Howard, did you find Australia OK? (or not – too many people get drunk over here then complain about their $4000 mobile phone bill).
Did you visit New Zealand (main problem: the Leaky Homes Crisis costed at $23b)?
Are you going to write it up next week?
Look at the big picture:
1) Worldwide salaries are between 100 to 800 dollars a month, even for service, health care, doctors, engineers, scientists, etc. By worldwide I mean India, China, Indonesia, Mexico, Turkey, Brazil, Russia, and others. The USA, EU, JAPAN and west in general etc. can in no possible way compete against these salaries no matter what they do, think or think they deserve: the workers of the rich countries must understand that the inequality between the first world and second or third world is over. Now either accept low pay (by western standards) or remain unemployed. The USA is particularly very high paid even compared to EU and JAPAN, at least paid twice as much on average. This is in no way sustainable anymore, in fact the jobs are going out of the USA and to where workers cost little money.
2) Automation, technology and internet etc. have rendered the world both smaller and have streamlined and eliminated and will increasingly eliminate many jobs no matter what. The USA cannot fool themselves that just hiking up the cost of college and health care can create those high paying jobs, this will not last and cannot last: in most of the world college and health care are either free or cost anywhere from 1/3 to 1/10 the cost in the USA.
3) Small businesses and all this startup myth, innovation myth, etc. will in no way create millions of real jobs that are needed. Remember even the rest of the world is researching and trying to grab a piece of the market pie, look at South Korea, they are heading towards world dominance in consumer electronics, etc.
What is needed is a huge decline in costs of real estate, houses must cost no more than 100,000 dollars in all of the USA, and I mean high quality 3 bedroom house, or a rent of no more than 200 dollars a month. If not, the USA is no longer competitive worldwide as housing forces companies to pay huge salaries compared to the rest of the world to allow people to pay high prices of rents or mortgages. Health care must be single system, government managed, close all private health care crap, do like in Europe or Canada, if you have the cash and want the private thieves and doctors you are free to pay as much as you want to the private system, if you are a normal slob like 90% of us, than it must be free like in Europe or JAPAN. If not, the USA is no longer competitive worldwide as health care forces companies to pay huge insurance and salaries compared to the rest of the world.
This is how it stands, this is what Obama should tell the people, this is the truth. But since people are idiots and suck, etc. nothing will change and everything will simply go to hell.
EightM,
What really resonated with me was the stuff
you said about the “startup myth”. Indeed,
I live in the heart of this myth … Silicon
Valley.
Most startups have NOTHING to do with idealistic
people innovating for the human race. That ended
a long time ago. Now it’s about riches for people
who create marginal benefit. Biotech is the most
evil in this regard. The market goes gaga for
stupid companies like Dendreon who, at tremendous
expense, created a prostate cancer drug that
prolongs life by FOUR MONTHS. No cure. No
five extra years. FOUR MONTHS.
Biotech soaks up most of the venture money now
and yet look at all of the unfulfilled promises
from the 1980s. It’s all marginal benefit at
great, MALINVESTED cost. Compare this to simple
breakthroughs like the polio vaccine, diptheria
vaccine, smallpox vaccine, antibiotics which
instantly cure everything from bubonic plague
to strep throat. Not one biotech “miracle” has
approached these miracles and yet money that
could be going to fixing urban plumbing or
upgrading electric grids or feeding the poor
is, instead, enriching more DWEEBS in tiny
companies.
As to the rest of your post, I can’t really
disagree. It’s like we’re determined to
pretend that we’re still top dog while we’re
23rd in infant mortality, 17th in life
expectancy, downwardly mobile in the global
IQ race, and with degraded public institutions
which rob from society. This game of “pretend”,
to future historians, will just be shrugged off
as the complacent fatness of all dying empires.
C’est la vie.
E.
Can I take a stab at it? Sometimes old broads can make astute observations.
Halloween- no more going door to door.
We, as a country, no longer know our neighbors. Mother isn’t setting out plates of cookies and glasses of milk for her kids and their friends after they play tag football in the yard.
The corporations (malls) own everything…even us. So logically, why wouldn’t they inject their venomous selves into an otherwise kooky holiday.
As children, we were told EXACTLY which houses to visit (porch lights on, we knew them, etc. ) Some cranky (mostly old folks) frankly didn’t want to be bothered and either didn’t turn on front porch lights or left a dish of candy. An okay solution, except some of us got greedy (sound familiar?) and took ALL the candy, leaving nothing for the rest of the trick-or-treaters.
Sometimes the people we kids visited were weird, or just a little tipsy (cocktail hour starts around 5 doncha know).
Not the brightest idea, this Halloween business, except that the candy companies (yep, the corporations again, took it over). Remember the ’70s? Supposed razor blades found in apples? Could it be, and I wonder, that Hershey or MARS planted that little item and leaked it to the press? I mean really. And everybody knows that candy is far better for children than apples (look what happened to Snow White, for chrisakes!)
Happy Thursday CFNers! I think I’ll choose Bobby Darin’s “Mack the Knife” as today’s golden oldie. “Could it be our boy’s done something rash?” Nearly emptied my purse full of coins into juke boxes over this delightful ditty.
Oh, and that shark BITES, with his TEETH, babe. Yeah, he sure as fxck does!
Yep, when it comes to mortgage bubbles, insider trading, CDOs/CDSs and all the other hubble-bubble-boil-n-troubles stirred up by Wall Street playa shenanigans…
(Trick or treat has this time really come home to roost)
Puts me in mind of this…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8ljgDgYsmQ
And that’s the beauty of film-clips – they say so much more – than you can with uber-paragraphs of know-it-all w#nker waffle…
Though I guess what many long and wish for when reading Jim’s healing words for the CFN’ers collective is okay, armageddon’s a coming – so contenders bring it on…
Let’s get this party cooking, and time for some savvy political leader no-nonsense b#llsh#t free clarity!!
And that’s just the problem folks… as we’re only, ever so gently into the beginnings of the descent downwards, as we fly off the cheap abundant energy curve – this will take at least another two decades or so to fully evolve…
Before its really crystal-clear that tis truly SHTF time. Till then its a ping-pong, wobbly drop of recession, blip stall, then another recession, blip stall (repeat as needed recipe) as we bounce ever lower on the ebbs and flows of central bankster QE’ing that will only benefit the city whiz few… with falls and rallies sucking up the cash of dazed and confused.
In fact what’s most likely to evolve (short-term) is more conflict betwixt the growing have-nots, increased economic volatility and disagreement about whom is really to blame?
And the godly like (give us a sign) US sheeple will wave in Sarah-drill baby drill-Palin, to cure there current bi-party flaccidity blues…
So while we all think on this, and then how this political move might go down in China, as we all globally realise that those royal uber-rich camel-f#ckers in the Middle-East have been lying for decades about the oil reserves held there, and that the real jokes on us, let’s just refresh ourselves with the coming timeline…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrrVpf45w5E
So what’s the best case scenario solution for readers here?
Well 10 years ago you moved to a low numbers, capable resilient community area. If you didn’t – you started your own. Then you built up your own farm, using a reduced energy spectrum, powered by water, wind, wood and sun. Installed the best-life photovoltaics you could muster, a heavy-duty battery bank for storage, and a heated greenhouse for extending the growing season if in northern climes. Since when you’ve been growing as many vegetables as you can, while raising some of your own meat and eggs, to trade as needed.
(And you’re an able-bodied, blood thicker than water Husband/Wife team)
The clues to all this lurk within the Witch of Hebron. What do you mean…. you haven’t been doing this for the last decade or so?
Oh dear!
Be seeing you
*Sniggers*
I often check out the on-line real estate ads (habit I picked up from dad, riding around in the LaSalle Sundays after church) and see that people are STILL asking INCREDIBLE prices for their homes…worse, some poor fools are still BUYING these over priced, vinyl clad, ticky tacky craker boxes. I wonder when the general public will ever awaken from this dream and realize just how badly they’ve been FUCKED. (sorry- taken to the cleaners would be more polite, wouldn’t it?)
I think that if and when they do wake up, in masses, THAT is when TSHTF, and you will see some not so pretty little dramas begin to pan out. Get good seats, CFNers. This is going to be good. Pass the popcorn and move over, would ya?
Spelling- Sister Anna Maria would be SO PISSED!
cracker boxes.
Flashback (happens to me all the time) to when I was a teen, riding on the old Paoli Local on the Main Line. Asked the man at the station about a train’s arrival and he said, “I’m sorry, dear, but that train left the station over an hour ago.” Could that perhaps serve as a metaphor for our little situation in this country?
Wow! That sounds like decent advice. And let me tell you that transition is indeed immensely easier with a dedicated partner. I couldn’t do this without my wife.
Loved the Youtube clip: “Don’t push your luck, kid. I’ve drowned bigger cats than you!” LOL!
And if I hear ONE more person say to me, “I want my country back!”, I’m gonna have to try really hard not to bitch slap them and say, “NO, ya can’t! Ya aren’t EVER gonna get your country back. And ya aren’t EVER gonna leave it, either! You work for THE MAN, bitch! So stop crying and get the fuck back to work! BTW, we’re going to have to cut your hours, lower your wages. Times are tough, ya know. Get over it! Prosperity is just around the gosh darned corner, so shut the fuck up!”
“”I’m sorry, dear, but that train left the station over an hour ago.” Could that perhaps serve as a metaphor for our little situation in this country?”
I think so. Everyone keeps looking for a big shebang, some “first broken window” scenario, and then (and only then) will the shit hit the fan in earnest. But the plasticity of a planet-sized economy, coupled with a powerful elite well-versed in chaos and game theory, indicates to me a managed descent (to the extent possible) that preys on our life-long trend of landscape amnesia.
If the masses can be distracted by ever-faster shinier objects, and given just enough money to stay alive and redeposit into the formal economy, TPTB can probably continue their global resource rape for some time to come.
“Surely no one will notice that the labor kibble is worse than worthless to the human brain, and hey, that might actually work to our advantage!”
But our supposed advantage, as cluster-fuckers, is that we’re supposed to have some sort of legitimate relationship with reality, and that it should inform the plans we’re laying. As jibes with Alexandra’s post, they say the best time to plant a fruit tree was 10 years ago.
Without that level of foresight, I’ll just throw out that there’s no time like the present, train previously departed or otherwise.
“Ya aren’t EVER gonna get your country back.”
No, you can’t have your country back, whatever that means to whoever is crying these words into their beer. But for the first time in a long time (500 years?) we can get our humanity back. We can cooperate, and forge a new and informed populace, completely independent of the mass manipulation. I think that’s even better than having my country back.
Or is that just too much to ask of first world humans?
The more plugged in one is, the more one plays the role intended for them by the information brokers.
Unplug and listen to what the wind has to say.
Sage advice.
“Or is that just too much to ask of first world humans?”
Reminds of Lloyd Price’s gem, “Just Because”. Gotta get to the gym. Yesterday was a “do nothing” day…sort of like Congress, Washington, etc. Except they do a good job of lying. Yep, that’s about it.
from:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=173202
eran as right wing thug.
[quote=”Eran”]
I think this is the wrong way to look at it. The US and the West in general was able to sustain high levels of pay because of its productivity. At the end of the day, the reason we want to be paid is so we can buy stuff. The stuff we buy has to be produced. A fair system allocates stuff based on contribution to its production. People in the US were highly paid, not because there was no competition, but because they are highly productive.
There is absolutely no reason why western levels of personal productivity cannot spread (as they are starting to) to the rest of the world. The result would be huge global productivity boom from which everybody will benefit. If the job of a Western health care professional, engineer or scientist can be done more cheaply by a colleague in India, that’s a great gain to society. To see that, imagine a great technological advance in Artificial Intelligence that allows computers to replace doctors in reading radiograms. Would you oppose such an advance because of its impact on the salary of radiologists? If such attitudes were applied consistently through history, we would still be digging for roots with our fingernails. If not, what’s the difference between being replaced by a machine, and being replaced by a cheaper foreign competitor? In either case, society as a whole benefits, because the same products and services can be provided more cheaply.[/quote]
check out:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=173035
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=172950
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=172704
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=172688
Define productivity in a service economy. It is undefined as 70% of the US economy is services meaning, doctors and hospitals, insurance companies, financial services, education – colleges, etc. There is no way at all to define any concept of productivity in these realms, in fact the word is a bunch of BS. You can define it in manufacturing only, number of hours worked, output of item, end of story, the ruling class has brainwashed everyone that they are working in some kind of imaginary factory “producing” something, whereas nothing is being really produced, except for status relationships, fights, and a terribly inefficient use of resources, just look at financial services creating subprime loans, health care creating a hugely inefficient system of haves and have nots and creating work for thousands of lawyers (what is productive of having millions of lawyers in the US ?), education is not even defined as everyone has a different idea of what a person should know, etc.
[quote=”Eran”]Freeing entrepreneurs to search amongst almost-infinite variety of ways to satisfy consumer’s wants is the best way to do that. Trying to imposing elite’s (whether political or intellectual) visions of what and how such goods should be supplied is a recipe for disaster.
As per my previous answer, I wouldn’t pretend to know what is needed. There is no doubt that artificial elevation of housing prices is hugely damaging. Two main sources for high housing prices are (a) artificially-low long-term interest rates (just made worse by the Fed’s QE2), and (b) artificial restrictions on housing supply through zoning, “green belts”, etc. Compare stratospheric housing prices in the politically-strangled California to relatively modest prices in Texas.[/quote]
This is right wing ideology, in that the jobs have to magically appear because entrepreneurs will create all these new huge industries. Nothing further from the truth, jobs are created, on purpose, according to what a society needs, as understand by science, not because we all need iphones. We also need cheap rents, public transportation and free health care. The free market created the most expensive health care on earth that sucks, subprime loans, huge home prices, unemployment, etc.
The free market sucks, we need to create huge government programs, trips to mars, we need to give out free salaries to all and cheap rents.
The myth of the startup, of “future jobs”, was based on that one time quirk that was the microprocessor, personal computer, software and then internet. This occurred only once and did create millions of jobs, just like the introduction of the car and jet travel did. But there are no new huge technological transformations on the radar in the future, and especially, if anything, they will kill as many jobs as possible by automating work by computers. Even if they do create new jobs, they will kill many more in the process.
in fact from:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=172688
[i]”I find it incredible that so many economists and smart people still believe that “More Demand for Goods and Services will Create More Employment”.
This no longer holds:
1) We live in mostly automatic societies – economies where most work is no longer needed, is automated, is optimized and will continually be further automated, optimized; the goal of any organization or company is to decrease, and decrease as much as is possible the number of employees it has, and this is what they will do no matter what;
2) Even if you do need “More Employees”, there are today so many options on the table: build factories in third world countries for people making 100 dollars a month salary; hire temp people for a month or two (heck even a year and then ax them) at low wages (since people have diminishing bargaining power, as being unemployed means your power is ZERO, you must accept whatever the Employer offers), make people work from the Internet (information workers beware), in this way you can choose from a pool of about 500 million people worldwide and choose the cheapest and best (Russian programmers are cheap and good), etc;
3) Even when demand increases, the relationship to Employment is non-linear, meaning that if a factory needs to build 30 % more cars it will not hire 30% more people, but jack up the working hours, working turns, and maybe hire a few temps (more like 3 or 4 % more). The same thing happens in Services and actually in Services most of the work is so phony and unnecessary that if demand increases I wouldn’t be surprised that they can make due with even less people, a negative relationship;
4) What we have today worldwide, in the globalized economy is a huge amount of Work Availability in terms of people that could potentially work, and a much smaller Need for this work, and the Need for this work is constantly going down with automation – computers – optimizations while the Availability is constantly increasing;
5) There is no counter force, no union, no nothing that is on the side of employees, the only thing that is happening is to make employees fight amongst each other for the breadcrumbs that will remain;
6) Services are supposed to create Employment, but only if people value or think the Services are worth the price: many are starting to doubt the real worth of “call centers”, Health Care Thieves of All Kinds, Education and Training towards imaginary jobs and positions that no longer exist, etc.
I find it amazing that in the Developed world there still are so many people “working”, I expect Unemployment to skyrocket in the USA, EU and JAPAN.
The only real solution to all of this is FREE SALARIES, that is what is needed, salaries of 1,000 dollars a month and CHEAP RENTS, rents of 200 dollars a month, no buying homes anymore or Home Ownership myth and crap. And a huge modern BUS transportation system, BUS MASS TRANSIT system (either public or private, doesn’t matter). I honestly cannot see how on earth, with present day technology and optimizations and the present combination of social forces, how on earth Employment is supposed to go up.”[/i]
If the US was an expansionist imperial power why didn’t you send your forces north and rob everything in sight?
This is where I cannot fathom the argument that the US is an imperial power. You had/have an undefended treasure chest in Canada, the world’s richest land mass and you neglect to conquer it.
We have everything an imperial power could want: lots of wide open spaces, huge amounts of fertile land, fresh water, mind boggling deposits of oil, coal, natural gas, potash, minerals etc etc.
Yes, we sell you stuff. That’s the point. We SELL you stuff, we make a good living at it, you don’t steal it. If you guys were the evil empire you would have stolen it a long time ago, you would have ripped this country out from under our feet and we would be an oppressed, marginalized people on our own turf. We are not.
If the US is an expansionist, imperial power it has to be the most blind, incompetent empire in history.
Not that I’m trying to give anybody any ideas. What I’m doing is trying to rehabilitate you guys in your own minds.
Who says “we” don’t own Canada already?
The days of open aggression are mostly gone, especially between kindred peoples, but that doesn’t affect who is pocketing the profits rolling out of the ground and forests of Canada.
What I mean is, there’s no need to destroy what’s left of our credibilty just to get our fingers in that pie. We buy your stocks, we own your corporations, done deal, no bad blood.
And we retain a powerful ally in the process. Or at least a powerful resource base when we need it.
from:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=173202
” felix dakat wrote:The number of people making more than $50 million a year increased fivefold from 2008 to 2009. Last year investors and executives at the nation’s 38 largest companies earned a record $140 billion. Goldman Sachs paid bonuses to its employees that averaged nearly $600,000 per person, the best year since it was founded in 1869. If you are one of these people, the economy is doing fine.”
Equivalent to 14 million 800 dollar a month jobs. That is where the jobs went, but that is because those 14 million unemployed don’t have the “right skill set”, didn’t “innovate enough”, “aren’t productive enough”, didn’t create the next Intel or Apple or IBM, etc.
Whereas those million or so who made 140,000 dollars actually did all of this…
What I’m trying to do is point out that the US is not the all powerful hegemon that people think it is. That has been the well established opinion for as long as I can remember. I just don’t buy it and I haven’t for a long time.
In my view there are other powers in the world, other elites with their own resources, militaries, bases of political support. The US is powerful, maybe for a while the most powerful, but it is only one of these powers.
IMO too many of you guys overestimate your own power and influence, you are unnecessarily harsh in your view of your own country, you under-estimate the power and influence of other countries and too many of you sugar coat the actions of non Americans.
Vlad says I have a good guys/bad guys view of things. What I have is a better guys/worse guys view of things. You guys are the better guys.
“The free market sucks, we need to create huge government programs, trips to mars, we need to give out free salaries to all and cheap rents.”
No, capitalism sucks. The free market proper is synonymous with the laws of nature. And it will ever determine what works and what doesn’t. At least in the long view. A lot of the future you promote is simply a continuation of our deviance from the laws of nature, reliant on massive subsidies of cheap easy energy. As that dissipates, humanity will come back in line with natural law, and as we can clearly see already, capitalism will wither.
The book I recommended, The Imperial Cruise, makes the case that most U.S. imperialism historically has been rooted in a sense of superiority over non-Aryan races,and rationalized by the necessity to civilize these barbarians. That rationale wouldn’t apply to Canada.
The part about the most “incompetent empire in history” — you got that right. We never seem to learn that we suck at occupation, and need to stick with the more proven M.O. of installing a dictator that will make sure nothing interferes with bidness.
Vlad is a classic Stormfront.org guy who isn’t
willing to admit that the WHITE race might very
well be going downhill faster than any race right
now since we’re copying the WORST aspects of
ghetto/barrio/prison behavior, fashions, and
interpersonal mannerisms.
==
The “white race” is simply devolving to what it was not so very long ago. An ignorant forest dwelling savage race. Vlad likes to spew venom and complain about this devolution, but this devolution is exactly the agenda of Stormfront.org. Only Vlad, the talking nazi parrot, is too stupid to understand things for what they are.
But there’s also a lot of Canadian investment in the US. The profits roll both ways. I’ve worked for US companies with Canadian subsidiaries. I’ve also worked for Canadian companies with US subsidiaries.
Resource royalties roll into Canadian govt coffers, not US govt coffers. Where US companies have operations here, they pay income taxes to Ottawa and the provinces per the Canada US tax Treaty. The reverse is also true.
Where US interests own Canadian businesses there was willing sale of the shares in the business, the shares were not stolen or extorted. The reverse is also true.
A couple years ago a Canuck company tried to sell its robotics and satellite business to a US firm. The sale was disallowed by the Canuck govt because of national security concerns. There are rumours the company is back in play. My guess is the result will be the same.
BHP Billiton just tried to buy Potash Corp, a huge potash producer that exploits deposits in Saskatchewan. A strategic resource if there ever was one. A shitstorm of protest ensued from all over the country. Yesterday the Canuck govt disallowed that sale also.
between the politics – the economics -the sociology, there must be some way to get a handle of the types of events or “happenings” necessary to get some folks attention
the recent election was pretty much business as usual – to some it means something – the the few that have money it means they shop in a different line – to others yet – it meant absolutely nothing
i wonder about some of the learned cat-callers, like the recent rants on “concentration of wealth” and “organized politics” and the loss of any chance of democratic reform or blow back
this space was supposed to to be an outlet for digression regarding how the PTB are letting fat people use up the oil
this space was supposed to supply ideas about addressing or otherwise enduring the cool down with more grace and dignity
i guess what i want to know is when and if any cracks among the “fat people’s” unifed front against the rest of us will show? some people though obama was the man – but sheesh – he looks like a nigger now
so how does it work? i mean the fat people can’t be all monolithic – can they? i mean pretty soon some fat people will act up against some of their own won’t they? how far off is that?
Bud, I think the end game of capitalism is very similar to poker. As long as there are “marks” remaining at the table, the best players will continue to gang up on them. Once they’re gone, then the short stack among the elite will get worked, and so on, down to one winner. For the players this should be extremely exciting, but for the rest of us, I’m not sure we’ll give a rat’s ass. Or we shouldn’t anyway. That’s where we’re still getting it wrong I think.
Inflation runs out of control, the numbers get ever bigger, like the fiat chips at the table “coloring up.” And meanwhile, the rest of us are at a bar-b-que, sampling the neighbor’s latest seasonal ale.
I think the power elite will wake up one day to the realization that, despite their fat stacks, they have become irrelevant. That’s my daydream anyway…
Tripp
“Once they’re gone, then the short stack among the elite will get worked”
Bernie Madoff as an early recipient?
This business about feeling superior to non whites and non aryans I can believe especially since it was common and socially acceptable to think and talk this way all over the western world.
The way I look at it, given American military might and its wide deployment, especially since WW2, the US has been parsimonious in its actual use. I think that part of it is an aversion to it because of the casualties suffered by the US in WW1 and WW2 but also because you had the Soviets and Chinese as adversaries.
It’s no secret that the Soviets and Chinese had/have no regard for human life. If you were going to get into a direct confrontation with them it would be exceedingly expensive and bloody.
IMO it’s always less expensive to buy off your enemies than to fight them. But you don’t want always to be held to ransom. It’s like the Fonz said. To be recognized as a tough guy not to be messed with sometimes you have to hit somebody (I’m paraphrasing). But war is always the last resort.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkT7Jo4Pp_U
THE LAST RESORT BY THE EAGLES / DON HENLEY
Bustin J, maybe you don’t understand my proposal.
Google “The Egg And Sperm Civil Union Compromise”
“Equal Protections, Natural Conceptions”
Resolve the marriage debate ASAP, so we can focus our attention on the Long Emergency.
Doesn’t it seem just as arguable that children of illegal aliens in our country have already garnered benefit of inordinate US generosity? Consider; having had the privilege of a life start (or term of tenentcy)in our first world nation haven’t they accrued advantage beyond estimate over children in the countries of their parents’ origin? By this accounting our national generosity should be celebrated rather than impugned.
Extending this line of reasoning further: As a generous nation doesn’t it behoove us to disperse the children of illegal aliens back to those nations of parental origin, so that the advantages they’ve acquired while here can be shared and realized in those otherwise disadvantaged countries as added national treasure? After all, proponents for amnesty are quick to claim that these children — as well as their illegal immigrant parents — enrich our nation immeasurably. There again, isn’t it unfair of us, a richer nation already, to be robbing poorer nations by not sending back what should be regarded as theirs,….by legal entitlement?
“Anti-immigrant” is an epithet from which Americans shy, conditioned as we are by the phrase “We are all immigrants”. Most Americans willingly acknowledge the fact that immigration restrictions of the past often were framed out of racist sentiments, and that many of us would not be here had we not been of European extraction.
Proponents for amnesty are exploiting that sensitivity hoping that the American public is conditioned to submit without full discussion of the broader ramifications of amnesty. That is why they frame opposition as anti-immigrant rather than as anti illegal immigrant.
Many Americans seem to have embraced the nation’s racist past as a personal guilt, but then see possibility of atonement only by reverse ordinance of national exorcism through surrender of sovereignty. What if approach to framing national policy was slanted primarily to declaration of mea culpa, with legislation framed to the exclusive purpose of restitution to any party wishing to identify itself among the harmed?
Palliative this course might feel to some, but the past is not changed at all. Instead, it will be disastrous in terms of government administrative purpose of responsibly balancing budgetary outlay to meet the broad array of national needs going forward.
In this sense promoters of amnesty have self arrogated themselves to Inquisitor (as in Spanish Inquisition of the 16th Century), presuming to position themselves to decide for the nation what action will serve to expiate its racist past. Their judgment is that our nation is no longer entitled to either sovereignty or democratic process on behalf of its citizenry.
Consequently, immigration policies (crafted and enacted by representatives elected to office by citizens) must default to however many foreign nationals choose to come here in disregard of them.
Essentially, citizens should relinquish the sovereign privilege of directing the nation’s destiny.
Anyone for self flagellation?
So “capitalism” is creative destruction: then I love capitalism, what we need is to build a few billion mega skyscrapers across the earth and then nuke them all to dust with a few million hydrogen bombs, and let the cycle repeat every 10 years. The collateral damage, as a few bilion people is irrelevant, that is why we need huge population explosion, maybe just automate making people in huge genetic engineering factories that create them and grow them and program their brains in a few minutes, and the cycle repeats. And then we extend to the solar system, nuke all the planets, build and destroy skyscrapers like crazy, and then finally nuke the SUN with trillions of hydrogen bombs, KILL MOTHER NATURE, it dosn’t deserve to live in my book.
And create huge “car engine” accelerators that smash colliding car engines in high speed magnetrons that are a few 100km wide. Let’s rush to get Mother Nature on the run, watch out, Science, Technology and Progress are out to get you.
Matter goes on a field trip: the universe wants to have some fun, this is mind over matter big time.
Since no one really has a clue, everyone on earth generally sucks, I am the only one who knows the real solution, so listen up young man Odumbo, activate the following program immediately:
1) 100 new rockets to Mars, manned missions within the year 2020.
2) 1 million huge skyscrapers across the USA, in all of the major cities within the year 2020.
2) 100 million new high quality homes built by the federal government having cheap rents, 200 dollars a month (2,000 sq ft – 180 sq m area) 3 bedrooms.
3) Free basc salaries to all.
4) Free health care to all.
5) A huge program for the future, progress, space exploration, modified brains, technological singularities.
6) End all wars.
7) A huge mass transit system across the USA, with BUSES, diesel – electric, chevy volt system.
Do you want a smoke DJ ?
AMEN.
So “capitalism” is creative destruction: then I love capitalism, what we need is to build a few billion mega skyscrapers across the earth and then nuke them all to dust with a few million hydrogen bombs, and let the cycle repeat every 10 years. The collateral damage, as a few billion people is irrelevant, that is why we need huge population explosion, maybe just automate making people in huge genetic engineering factories that create them and grow them and program their brains in a few minutes, and the cycle repeats. And then we extend to the solar system, nuke all the planets, build and destroy skyscrapers like crazy, and then finally nuke the SUN with trillions of hydrogen bombs, KILL MOTHER NATURE, it dosn’t deserve to live in my book.
And create huge “car engine” accelerators that smash colliding car engines in high speed magnetrons that are a few 100km wide. Let’s rush to get Mother Nature on the run, watch out, Science, Technology and Progress are out to get you.
Matter goes on a field trip: the universe wants to have some fun, this is mind over matter big time.
Since no one really has a clue, everyone on earth generally sucks, I am the only one who knows the real solution, so listen up young man Odumbo, activate the following program immediately:
1) 100 new rockets to Mars, manned missions within the year 2020.
2) 1 million huge skyscrapers across the USA, in all of the major cities within the year 2020.
2) 100 million new high quality homes built by the federal government having cheap rents, 200 dollars a month (2,000 sq ft – 180 sq m area) 3 bedrooms.
3) Free basc salaries to all.
4) Free health care to all.
5) A huge program for the future, progress, space exploration, modified brains, technological singularities.
6) End all wars.
7) A huge mass transit system across the USA, with BUSES, diesel – electric, chevy volt system.
Do you want a smoke DJ ?
AMEN.
Since you are part and parcel of nature, 8M, I’m going to assume that you are either suicidal or simply cracked in the head. Either way, you’re now on my scroll-past list.
Cheers!
right wing thug answers:
Eran wrote:
Define productivity in a service economy.
There is really no difference, in principle. With either goods or services, productivity refers to the value (preferably measured using a stable yardstick like gold, rather than the ever-manipulable fiat dollar) of economically-valuable products of the economy.
While it might be easier to count widgets than hair-cuts, the critical stage of agreeing on the value of each is the same – it has to do with how much others are willing to (freely) pay for the product (good or service).
As I noted above, how do you compare computers to cars? You have to find a common denominator, normally money. The same denominator could be used to value people’s service productivity. Where is the difference?
I am not sure what you have in mind. When you get treated by a doctor, get a haircut or get served in a restaurant, these are not “status relationships” but actually valuable services for which people are willing to pay.
Each of those industries has suffered hugely from government meddling. Financial services react to artificially-low interest rates, moral hazard due to government bailouts, and the need to circumvent silly regulations. Health care in America is completely dominated by government payment programs (Medicare, Medicaid), tax-code distortions and barriers to entry through drug and professional licensing. Education is obviously all government dominated, both directly in government-run schools, and indirectly through student loans that help subsidize tuition fees balooning.
The point I made above, to which I hope you respond, is that job creation is meaningless. Any government can create as many jobs as it wants by fiat. The issue is productive jobs. The more productive people are, the higher their real pay. Government can print money and use it to employ people to dig and re-fill holes all day. Everybody would have a “well paying job”, but nobody would have anything to eat.
What government actually does with our money is only marginally better. It wastes it on projects that the market (i.e. the system where people actually put their money where their mouth is) have rejected.
The only real solution to all of this is FREE SALARIES
Would you mind explaining?
—————————————
I answer:
All this BS about government intervening or big business buying government, etc. This is meaningless, the government has to provide cheap rents, free salaries and free health care. This must be forced, this must be done explicitly, on purpose, this must be demanded, with weapons if necessary.
You are wrong on all accounts: services have no value, can’t be measured, and most jobs in services are in offices where people just play the office politics game, we are not talking about concrete things like a hotel, restaurant or barber, these are obviously easy to see, understand and measure.
Don’t confuse and switch arguments: restaurants, barbers and hotels are mostly saturated markets, they will not create millions of jobs needed, and worldwide at least 100 million jobs are needed, so you have to just give the salaries out for free. People are willing to pay for what they have been brainwashed to pay for, like high home prices and lawyers so they can fight each other and have fun: people must be educated and consume what is really necessary, not what the capitalist bosses want you to buy from them.
Your right wing thug ideology has failed and is failing millions in the USA, this myth of the automatic market creating jobs and values is bogus, nothing is automatic, it must be forced.
List me 10,000 sectors that can create 10,000 jobs automatically, because it is an unmet need, some new and incredible need no one ever thought about, that will generate high paying jobs (at least 40,000 dollars a year?), some new sectors that will generate 8 hour a day jobs, that require 8 hours of specific information transformations and or physical transformations that no one has ever thought about, that is not a saturated market, that can’t be automated by computers or optimized or done in third world countries at 100 dollars a month salaries, and especially that will last more than just a few years like all of those dot com compaines that went bust after thinking about all the jobs they would create. If you can, then you are our hero, thanks for telling us about all those activites that are needed and no one ever thought about.
I answer:
All this BS about government intervening or big business buying government, etc. This is meaningless, the government has to provide cheap rents, free salaries and free health care. This must be forced, this must be done explicitly, on purpose, this must be demanded, with weapons if necessary.
You are wrong on all accounts: services have no value, can’t be measured, and most jobs in services are in offices where people just play the office politics game, we are not talking about concrete things like a hotel, restaurant or barber, these are obviously easy to see, understand and measure.
Don’t confuse and switch arguments: restaurants, barbers and hotels are mostly saturated markets, they will not create millions of jobs needed, and worldwide at least 100 million jobs are needed, so you have to just give the salaries out for free. People are willing to pay for what they have been brainwashed to pay for, like high home prices and lawyers so they can fight each other and have fun: people must be educated and consume what is really necessary, not what the capitalist bosses want you to buy from them.
Your right wing thug ideology has failed and is failing millions in the USA, this myth of the automatic market creating jobs and values is bogus, nothing is automatic, it must be forced.
List me 10,000 sectors that can create 10,000 jobs automatically, because it is an unmet need, some new and incredible need no one ever thought about, that will generate high paying jobs (at least 40,000 dollars a year?), some new sectors that will generate 8 hour a day jobs, that require 8 hours of specific information transformations and or physical transformations that no one has ever thought about, that is not a saturated market, that can’t be automated by computers or optimized or done in third world countries at 100 dollars a month salaries, and especially that will last more than just a few years like all of those dot com companies that went bust after thinking about all the jobs they would create. If you can, then you are our hero, thanks for telling us about all those activites that are needed and no one ever thought about.
JHK once noted the stupidity of ‘food aid to Haiti’.
Mexico and Haiti etc can continue to over populate and dump some of the ‘huddled masses’ on us!
anyone want to comment on the recent us elections?
ditto!
E. said: “It’s like we’re determined to
pretend that we’re still top dog while we’re
23rd in infant mortality, 17th in life
expectancy..”
Actually, we are nowhere near 17th in life expectancy. In 1950 the U.S. was 5th in life expectancy. In 1999 we were 24th, as ranked by the WHO. Now we are 49th.
SOURCE:
U.S. Slips to 49th in Life Expectancy
http://www.healthcare-now.org/us-slips-to-49th-in-life-expectancy/
Cash said: “The way I look at it, given American military might and its wide deployment, especially since WW2, the US has been parsimonious in its actual use.”
Parsimonious? Only if your country has not been bombed by the USA.
Here is a list of the countries bombed by the United States since the end of the Second World War.
Note that these countries represent roughly one-third of the people on earth:
Afghanistan 1998, 2001-
Bosnia 1994, 1995
Cambodia 1969-70
China 1945-46, 1950-53
Congo 1964
Cuba 1959-1961
El Salvador 1980s
Korea 1950-53
Guatemala 1954, 1960, 1967-69
Indonesia 1958
Laos 1964-73
Grenada 1983
Iraq 1991-
Iran 1987
Kuwait 1991
Lebanon 1983, 1984
Libya 1986
Nicaragua 1980s
Pakistan 2003, 2006-
Panama 1989
Peru 1965
Somalia 1993, 2008
Sudan 1998
Vietnam 1961-73
Yemen 2002, 2009
Yugoslavia 1999
Asoka, you could make up another list of the countries whose governments have been overthrown by the USA since World War 2, like Iran, Chile, etc.
I would not use the word “parsimonious” to describe the multitudinous USA military, CIA, and covert illegal paramilitary operations against other countries.
Asoka, you could make another list of countries where the USA has bombed, invaded, and occupied said countries for years, or where troops are still stationed despite “host” country objections, like Colombia, whose Constitutional Supreme Court ruled the USA occupation of seven Colombian military bases to be illegal… but the USA is still there.
India…on a billion a week!
#
PRESIDENT OBAMA TO HOLD POST-ELECTION PRESS CONFERENCE TODAY …
Nov 3, 2010 … Obama may also address his $200000000 (That’s $200 million) per day trip to India. The ten-day trip to India will see the president …
http://www.thecypresstimes.com/article/…OBAMA…TODAY/35721 – Cached
#
YankeePhil: New Delhi reports Obama trip costing US $200000000 per …
Nov 2, 2010 … New Delhi reports Obama trip costing US $200000000 per day. The US would be spending a whopping $200 million (Rs. 900 crore approx) per day …
yankeephil.blogspot.com/…/new-delhi-reports-obama-trip-costing-us.html – Cached
#
Nice Trip For You & Your Buds For $200000000 a day – Survivalist Forum
19 posts – 13 authors
Is that the daily price of the Bush I, Bush II and Bush III (Obama) endless 30 Years …. He was at a table with a 10ft sign that read “$200000000 A DAY”. …
http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?p=2056776
Get more discussion results
#
Links on “200000000 Against Obama’s Vision of America” | Facebook
Dale Gwynn 200000000 Against Obama’s Vision of America: Tax Day for most of us… Pay day for some?? Morning Bell: How Tax Day Became Payday | The Foundry: …
http://www.facebook.com/posted.php?id=111043822
yes asoka the US military is way too big and way too deadly
Asoka, you could make another list of countries where the USA has trained personnel from those countries in techniques of torture and counterinsurgency at the School of the Americas in Georgia. That way the USA can accomplish its torture through USA-trained torturers without actually having to do the dirty work themselves.
http://www.soaw.org/
Asoka, you could make another list of countries where the USA has set up secret torture prisons where they keep people who have been kidnapped (what the USA calls “extraordinary rendition”) and another list of countries where the USA intentionally ships prisoners, knowing full well that in those countries the prisoners will be tortured.
Asoka, you could make up another list of countries, a very long list, where the USA has done arms trade to groups on both ends of the political spectrum, from Nicaraguan contras to Osama bin Laden.
Asia, the US military is big, deadly, and incompetent, which makes it dangerous.
There were 8,000 incidents of “friendly fire” in Vietnam the the USA armed forces.
Armed forces are not supposed to kill their own soldiers and competent armed forces don’t. Incompetent armed forces “make mistakes”…
“anyone want to comment on the recent us elections?”
A lot of Americans are even dumber and more masochistic than I had previously supposed. They also apparently have the long-term memories of guppies. It is a wonder of electioneering that the Republicans, the party run by and for the benefit of the uber rich, was able to convince so large a chunk of the population to vote for them. On the one hand, you have a party that started two disastrous wars and crashed the economy, and the other wants to….wait for it….waaaaaait….reform health care and stimulate the economy with free government helicopter dollars. Which one should I vote for? Hmmmmm, gimme a minute. Ima put on my tri-cornered hat.
I’m also noticing that people’s views don’t exactly make a whole lot of sense. They say they want “smaller government” and then harp on the government for not turning the economy around completely and creating thousands of new jobs. Well motherfucking duh…how does the idea of small government square at all with it creating massive numbers of jobs out of thin air?
Then they also say they want to pay fewer taxes and that entitlements and welfare should be cutback…but don’t raise their Medicare premiums, even though Medicare is the #1 worst offender in terms of unfunded mandates. Yeah, that makes a whole lot of sense. Cut all the entitlements….except mine.
What’s that you say…tax cuts to the top 1% will create more jobs?
Whip me more, please!
The US military-industrial-corporate complex has a lot going for it. It provides jobs for people to build bombs. And we always need more bombs, because we usually blow up the old ones (at least the bunker busters…can’t get enough of those). The armed forces also provide fun employment opportunities for millions of demented lower middle class hicks who otherwise would be on welfare living in a trailer park, working at Kentucky Fried Chicken, or perhaps occupying a prison cell. The US military also makes the world safe for multi-national corporations to face rape any fossil fuel endowed nation of our choice and steal their valuable Go Juice, all the while reducing population of said countries so they don’t suck up the resources we need to drive the Hummer down to the Shop-and-Stop. Excellent American citizens like Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld love all the government money shoveled into their pseudo-para-military private corporations. This is neo-fascistic socialism at its finest. Personally, I don’t see the problem. A little institutionalized violence and amorality (well a lot actually) goes a long way. What, are you some kind of Commie Pinko Pussy Cheese Eating Surrender Monkey, asoka? These people protect you when you sleep at night and also when you’re in the grocery store checkout aisle. How dare you insult these noble warriors who would gladly die for your freedoms?
When my job went to China a few years back, I slowly realized that what was happening was that the third world (China and the rest) had learned to manufacture as well as us. Once they developed that ability, I, as an American had to compete with people making $5 bucks an hour and I can’t. No amount of tax cuts is gonna change that fact. Nobody is gonna start a factory to manufacture anything over here when they can do it for much less somewhere else. Therein lies the problem, and I don’t think it’s one we can resolve. Unless we are willing to live like the Chinese, our competitive edge is gone. They can manufacture every bit as well as we can, and of course for them, that $5 bucks an hour is a step up in the world.
They can manufacture every bit as well as we can,..
==
You got to be kidding. Every bit as well as you can? They run circles around you! Big CERN certified Large Hadron Collider fscking circles! And at about that speed too.
I’ve just emerged from my pre-winter hibernation.
I didn’t bother to vote; what’s the point. Show me a rational, honest, selfless, compassionate and competent politician or wannabe pol and I’ll vote for him or her.
At least I already know for whom I’ll vote for president in 2012: My cat. I’m going to write him in on the ballot. Lest you think I’m crazy, I’ll tell you he is qualified. He was born and raised in this country, and has never stepped foot on foreign soil, so he fits the American citizen criterion. He’s over 35 in cat years.I’m not sure the Constitution states that a candidate must be a homo sapiens. My cat is a person, though – a feline person.
Although he is selfish, not selfless, and totally lacks compassion, he has some very desirable traits. He fiercely defends his own territory but doesn’t invade other cats’ territories. He isn’t influenced by others, he’s truly an independent. He openly tells you what he wants, no dissembling. He’s very independent and believes in being self-sufficient. He doesn’t like automobiles, and if elected president, would ban them; walking is where it’s at for him.
Tell me if you can find a better candidate.
That’s the only the publicly known list. The actual list is MUCH much more extensive than that. And it would include Israel, Canada, Britain. And if Cash thinks different, he should check to make sure he has the proper electrical charge between his brain synapses.
You’d be drop-dead productive, too, if you had that kind of government breathing down your neck.
Let’s not forget the UN, Bill. Better we install tavarish comrade Koshinka as Secretary General.
Very true. Or you could take a gun and shoot the fsckers down, Rabin style.
What they manufacture is pretty cheap; it falls apart rather quickly in my experience anyway.
By the way, are you on speed or something? You’re rather tightly wound, dude…
CaptSpaulding said: “Unless we are willing to live like the Chinese, our competitive edge is gone. They can manufacture every bit as well as we can, and of course for them, that $5 bucks an hour is a step up in the world.”
I don’t think we should be giving tax breaks to multinational corporations that ship jobs overseas, much less to communist countries like China. With respect to China, if we are going to engage in trade then we should also insist on labor standards and human rights. Why support the abuse of Chinese workers just because they can make cheap shit to sell in Walmart? We should also insist on the opening of Chinese markets fully to American goods, and the fulfillment of legal contracts with American businesses, proceeding surely but carefully, in such a way that does not trigger a trade war.
That’s because it’s american designed. Planned obsolescence. Designed to fail by design.
By the way, are you on speed or something? You’re rather tightly wound, dude…
==
The Canadian gov forgot to spray their supply of American made chem trails in my neighborhood today.
Your Demopublican choice this election was between the corpulent, hallucinogen-spiked-tea drinking Mad Hatters; the corrupt, phoney, arrogant-prick give-it-all-away-to-the-entitled poor; and the corrupt, phoney, arrogant, fascist give-it-all-away-to-the entitled corporate execs.
Fascism or socialism, what to choose, what to choose.
Stupidity reigns.
You are right on.
There is no doubt that artificial elevation of housing prices is hugely damaging. Two main sources for high housing prices are (a) artificially-low long-term interest rates (just made worse by the Fed’s QE2), and (b) artificial restrictions on housing supply through zoning, “green belts”, etc. — Eran the right wing thug.
Forget that. Australia have high (7%) interest rates and prices are still insane.
The answer is low deposit rates.
Many banks will lend on a 5% deposit, and before the GFC, a few banks were even lending out 106% of value (ie negative deposit).
Now in the good days, you needed 20% deposit (or more) and realistically speaking it’s hard to come up with more than $20k, therefore anyone selling a house for more than $100k will have a hard time.
But then the banks did a sneaky.
They said “we’re going to help more people with the Australian Dream of home ownership” and drop the deposit to 10% or 5%. Now Mr & Mrs Selfish (who could only ever get $5k together) are in!!! But then so are all their selfish friends, and the real estate market is flooded with buyers and prices go up.
Now the market has “settled” at $400k. A 5% deposit is … $20k. The same $20k that gave you a 20% deposit before. It’s too hard to come up with the 20% deposit ($80k), so lots of people go in with just the 5%.
We have this huge debate about why so many people go in with so little deposit, or why they take huge mortgages.
I blame the banks, and the lack of government regulation stipulating a minimum deposit.
NOTE: Above analysis ignores natural inflation.
“…proceeding surely but carefully, in such a way that does not trigger a trade war.”
I wouldn’t worry about a trade war between us and China. They probably need us more than we need them. After all, we are the Daddy Warbucks to the whole world; and besides food and other basics, what else is univerally needed but American weapons? We’ll always have our own captive markets. And there will always be other nations willing to make the cheap, poisonous, useless goods that Americans desire.
Regardless of whether the US is good or evil or both, most of the rest of the world has come to dislike or hate us. In this regard it would be proper to state that unless there is voluntary fair trade and two-way open markets, we will impose tariffs to create those conditions.
How often does your cat vote?
(check out the case of Curacao Fischer Catt being put on the roll)
“I blame the banks, and the lack of government regulation stipulating a minimum deposit.”
That’s exactly what happened (and is still happening) here in the USA.
He votes early and often,just like good Bostonians.
My situation is different. My cat is not on the election roll; he just would be a write-in candidate. He’s so independent he won’t even register as an independent.
I’m breaking my silence, or maybe I’m just a CFN addict swiftly falling back into addiction.
Cash, you said:
I very much respect what you have to say, but I believe you may find a different perspective interesting.
The above quote is basically a central theme of your posts. You have articulated it numerous times from numerous angles. Not that I am criticizing. It’s is impossible to keep from repeating one’s self and all of us CFNers are repetitious, me, you and all others up to and including eightm at the extreme end of the spectrum.
While I think all of what you say is true, it is only true IF the USA is basically the same nation as it was in the post WWII-era 1945-1980, when much of the Cold War occurred, certainly the most dangerous parts when the Soviets were strongest.
OTOH, IF the USA has been undergoing a subtle long-term transformation from what it was to whatever we will become when the transition period is over and TLE begins in earnest, then your assumptions no longer hold true.
What IF this transformation, to shall we say Teabag America, otherwise known as “Corn-Pone Hitler’s” America has resulted in a brand new marketing scheme to revive a very old concept, RW Authoritarianism, Neofeudalism, Inverted Totalitarianism, or whatever you want to call it, since it is a snake that easily sheds it’s skin and reinvents itself throughout history.
Since this version is new, it doesn’t have an official name yet. Since it’s marketing scheme is clearly one relaying primarily on deception and highly advanced marketing/mass psychology rather than the kind of in-your-face primary barbaric brutality that “old school” tyrannies on both the Left (Mao’s China, USSR, etc.) and Right (Nazi Germany, the Shah’s Iran, Medieval Europe, etc.) share, one would expect it to be less overtly violent to reflect the relative nonviolence and softness of modern oil-driven Western Civ.
To sum up, what I am saying is that I believe that your view as quoted above is something like the old saw about Generals always being ready to fight the last war. While you look backwards at what the USA was (with all our faults, flaws and atrocities committed as Resident Impediment correctly pointed out), you might be better served by looking at what it is right now and what the trends show we are most likely becoming.
I’ll do you a favor and let you in on a secret. The Canadian-American Anschluss is already under way, also by other cutting-edge methods. How do I know this? Because what Harper and his Canadian Bushies are doing to you is what was done to us under the 12 years of Bush I (Reagan was pretty much their senile puppet, in hindisght).
Here’s how it will go. Right now, as we chat, corporate and RW authoritarian forces are chipping away insidiously, quietly and very subtly at the foundations of canada’s constitution and mechanisms of governance. Initial attacks have likely already come. I don’t follow Canadian politics closely but even from occasional looks and with the power of hindsight, having seen it happen here, it is clear that some form of it is going on there.
Media and judiciary are two places that will be hit early, for they pave the road for greater depreadations to come. Basically, the attacks resemble a case of AIDS. Your national constitutional and media defenses will be one by one be disabled. Then the REAL Orwellian lunacy begins.
By the time they install the unverifiable touchscreen voting (if that’s how the Canadian Version goes, I cannot guess specifically what adaptions will be made to fit to the Canadian national character and founding mythos to sell you your own chains, which has already occurred in the USA) it’s already over for you.
Don’t think it can’t happen to YOU. That’s what I used to think. Then it happened to the USA. I think being so confident that it CAN’T happen to you, makes it more likely that it WILL happen to you.
———————————
Given the perspective I just outlined, either the US is the most blind, incompetent empire in history, or the most brilliant, clever, relatively pleasant for the victims (for as long as Cheap Energy holds out), plausibly deniable, cutting-edge, using-more-economic-brutality-than physical-brutality, “soft tyranny” empire that ever was.
A kinder and gentler product of the Age of Cheap, Abundant Energy and the very unique founding mythology and character of the USA’s people.
http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/20080515_chalmers_johnson_on_our_managed_democracy/
Consider this, please, and I’d like to hear what you think about what I just posted.
Good morning CFN’ers! Today’s golden oldie is none other than “Wheel of Fortune”, circa 1952. If you choose to listen on Youtube, you might think about the U.S. and its capricious disregard for the global community. Just a thought.
Miss Kay Starr deserves credit for a most excellent song.
Interesting comments on U.S. vs. Canada. Here’s where ya got me:
“Media and judiciary are two places that will be hit early, for they pave the road for greater depreadations to come. Basically, the attacks resemble a case of AIDS. Your national constitutional and media defenses will be one by one be disabled. Then the REAL Orwellian lunacy begin.”
First, btw, “Q”, if he were still around, would kick your ass for not spelling “depredations” correctly. He’s not here, so I guess for now you’re safe. Believe me, he’ll come after your ass. He’s done it to me! But fear not. I wonder if perhaps a house of the Wicked Witch of the West or East fell on him.
Second, I think you are completely correct about the media/corporate clusterfuck – a mess that makes my head ache and my heart as well.
Ya got me at the AIDS thing, too. How clearly I remember then that Americans were quick to ostracize queers before the discussion got back on topic: where did it come from and how does it spread?
Btw, personally, I think we Americans are some where in the middle of your perspective. Cheers.
omg, CORRECTION: somewhere. “Q”, wherever you are, I’m sorry!
Worldwide stock market increased 4% in the last week or so. This is equivalent to 4 trillion dollars more of value present in the private corporation system worldwide. You can pay 40 million free salaries of 10,000 dollars a year (considered the highest range of salary in 90% of the world) for 10 years just with that small stock value increase. That is how jobs are created, that is how an unmet demand (cheap rents, free health care and free salaries) is met. Not with the BS of “productive” work or new businesses creating jobs.
Exactly what unmet demand produced 4 trillion dollars of worth out of nothing ? What new industry has been created, what new innovation or breakthrough has been created to increase corporate wealth by so much ? Did you notice anything getting better in the world in the last few days ? No, it is just money those 10 million or so rich thieves in the world rob from the poor, as usual, and tell the poor and unemployed they are not “productive”, they are not in “productive jobs”, they don’t “innovate”, they don’t have the right “skill set”, and so on.
What a bunch of BS is this “unmet demand” crap: it is not your local barber that will create jobs and unmet demand, it is huge government programs, like millions of skyscrapers and 100 of rockets to manned missions to Mars that will create real demand and real jobs by the millions. Just like wars create jobs by the millions.
Worldwide stock market increased 4% in the last week or so. This is equivalent to 4 trillion dollars more of value present in the private corporation system worldwide. You can pay 40 million free salaries of 10,000 dollars a year (considered the highest range of salary in 90% of the world) for 10 years just with that small stock value increase. That is how jobs are created, that is how an unmet demand (cheap rents, free health care and free salaries) is met. Not with the BS of “productive” work or new businesses creating jobs.
Exactly what unmet demand produced 4 trillion dollars of worth out of nothing ? What new industry has been created, what new innovation or breakthrough has been created to increase corporate wealth by so much ? Did you notice anything getting better in the world in the last few days ? No, it is just money those 10 million or so rich thieves in the world rob from the poor, as usual, and tell the poor and unemployed they are not “productive”, they are not in “productive jobs”, they don’t “innovate”, they don’t have the right “skill set”, and so on.
What a bunch of BS is this “unmet demand” crap: it is not your local barber that will create jobs and unmet demand, it is huge government programs, like millions of skyscrapers and 100 of rockets to manned missions to Mars that will create real demand and real jobs by the millions. Just like wars create jobs by the millions.
Worldwide stock market increased 4% in the last week or so. This is equivalent to 4 trillion dollars more of value present in the private corporation system worldwide. You can pay 40 million free salaries of 10,000 dollars a year (considered the highest range of salary in 90% of the world) for 10 years just with that small stock value increase. That is how jobs are created, that is how an unmet NEED (cheap rents, free health care and free salaries) is met. Not with the BS of “productive” work or new businesses creating jobs.
Exactly what unmet NEED produced 4 trillion dollars of worth out of nothing ? What new industry has been created, what new innovation or breakthrough has been created to increase corporate wealth by so much ? Did you notice anything getting better in the world in the last few days ? No, it is just money those 10 million or so rich thieves in the world rob from the poor, as usual, and tell the poor and unemployed they are not “productive”, they are not in “productive jobs”, they don’t “innovate”, they don’t have the right “skill set”, and so on.
What a bunch of BS is this “unmet NEED” crap: it is not your local barber that will create jobs and unmet NEED, it is huge government programs, like millions of skyscrapers and 100 of rockets to manned missions to Mars that will create real demand and real jobs by the millions. Just like wars create jobs by the millions.
$5 an hour?! Try $5 a DAY.
“give-it-all-away-to-the-entitled poor”
Buddy, you don’t know jack crap. This is part of the problem with people like you. You think the government spends 79% of its money on food stamps and welfare when this is a tiny part of the budget.
Medicare is the largest entitlement program, and it is aimed at the middle class. Heck, anyone can get Medicare once they hit the right age.
The military is another huge spender, and that is mostly aimed at the lower middle and middle classes in terms of employment. It is also a gravy train for the wealthy.
America also loves low corporate tax rates (actually no corporate tax rates for the big ones) along with relatively low income taxes in the upper brackets (e.g. beyond X amount of money which used to be taxed at very high rates…95%). Now who do you think this benefits?
Then there is Social Security, another program which everybody eventually uses once they hit the right age.
Where do the poorest people in America end up?
On the streets, in prison, or dead.
America also features a huge disparity between the top 1%, the top 5%, and the top 10% versus the bottom 99%, etc. It is one of the worst (if not the worst) of all developed countries in this regard. This is because progressive income taxation has been gutted by the political interests of the rich and politically powerful over the years. Simply look at what the income tax rates were in the 1950’s for the very wealthy. Hint: extremely high compared to today.
Also, how do the wealthy get their money? Capital gains. What is the capital gains tax? It is 15%.
I mean, hell, the income tax was originally designed to ONLY tax corporations. And do you know how much GM or BP themselves paid in taxes last year?
I think it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 0 dollars.
And then you might say, well, 40% of Americans pay no taxes. Right….it is because they have virtually no assets. The bottom 40% (or so) has less than 1% of the total income and net worth.
Seriously, get a clue already. You’ve drunk the Republiclown Kool-aid.
Good old America.
28% of households with less than $500 in their savings accounts.
25% of mortgages underwater.
At least 15% without health insurance (for the moment).
The bottom 50% has, oh I dunno, 2.5% of the money.
But if you’re in the top 1%, life is pretty grand. They got 90% of the assets.
Ain’t plutocracy great?
What amazes me is how totally stupid, idiotic and clueless the western countries are (USA, EU and JAPAN): the solutions to the economy are so simple it is laughable and the Chinese are simply applying it: create the jobs by the millions, build skyscrapers, factories, colleges, get people a salary and get them occupied, end of story. But we in the west have this idiotic “moralistic” view of work having to be “productive”, “valuable”, etc. all abstract concepts that mean nothing. We have to have inequality for a minority to feel superior to a majority of slobs, we need all these mental creations and justifications, we need profits (money creating more money out of nothing: or was that out of cheap labor somewhere in the world?) another insane mental creation, etc.
A communist dictatorship, like China, can care less, THEY JUST DO IT, build factories, produce anything and everything you can, give free health care, free salaries, etc. Who cares if there is inequality there too, of course there is, there will always be, but it is totally irrelevant.
We need huge government programs, or else we will end up creating jobs through wars.
right wing thug eran says:
“How do you explain the difference between the (relative) prosperity of the Chinese people today, and their near-starvation in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s? They were under a communist dictatorship then and now. They built factories and produced things then and now.
What changed?”
I answer:
An unknown number of things changed between then and now, such as technology, globalization, the continued growth of the world economy as a whole, and so many other factors that it would take an encyclopedia and tens of economic and sociological researchers to explain.
The main point, is that they are not tied down to some abstract ideology, some idea of work and jobs and profits and all kinds of imaginary crap: they use all kinds of systems, public or private, export to rich countries, have “inefficient” state companies, use entrepreneurs whenever and wherever useful, etc. A very mixed system, and even most of the west is quite mixed.
So there is no one system or magic bullet for the economy, you use all kinds of systems all together, all mixed, who cares: I am all for the small businesses creating jobs, but also for large public programs hiring millions if the small startups can’t pull it off. And then maybe the cycle repeats, small guys hire, governments don’t need to hire so much until the next time, etc.
But all the economists are brainwashed with this one track mind, this only model, productivity, startups, innovation, etc. which is just a fairyland in their minds.
Just go out and build billions of skyscrapers, billions of Man trips to Mars and Venus, etc.
Thank you for that, 8m!
It’s all about “ideologies” and how they don’t ever work in practice. China was in the hands of Mao in those years and of course they couldn’t build the society they are today under that kind of totalitarianism.
Now we are stuck with an ideology, (Neoliberalism the Milton Friedman Chicago School of Business) that is hindering us. Our think tanks and Intelligencia are ardent supporters of this global privatization model now we can’t move ahead to make the changes in a system that can’t continue over the long haul. We are barely able to pull off the QE2, but most likely, at some point the rest of the world won’t let the dollar remain as the global fiat currency. When that happens–hold onto your hats!
right wing thug Eran wrote:
“Only one thing changed – government let go (a little) of the economy. Humans are amazing. Just give them an opportunity, even a limited one, and they thrive. They innovate, take advantage of opportunities, come up with millions of different ideas.
There isn’t a single example of a freed market that didn’t do well. There isn’t a single example of a centrally-planned one that did.
You are suggesting huge government projects (in addition to allowing some private initiative). How will we feed the workers in those projects? How will we provide them with clothes, shelter and other goods and services they would require?
The goods and services people want have to be produced. Free markets allocate production to meet people’s needs and wants. Arbitrary government project waste people’s efforts without producing what they actually want. The result – Soviet-style prosperity.”
Totally false. Compare India that has been operating exactly as you say, free market, little government intervention, no laws, no environmental laws, no unions, etc. Totally free and capitalistic and is still amongst the poorest in the world. Their standard of living is not even 1/10 that of China that is a government managed economy with some free markets. Then you have the really free markets of African nations like Somalia, Ethiopia, those are the freest on earth and are starving.
India is much closer to your crappy – imaginary fairy tale model with “millions of ideas” (totally insane, an economy only really needs just a few basic things, the rest are optionals like movies, TV, video games, iphones, etc.), it is poor will remain much poorer than China that has highways, high speed trains, infrastructure, skyscrapers, etc.
All large infrastructure projects need large organizations and corporations, it doesn’t even matter if public or private. Big corporations, like in the USA (look at health care) have a fist strong hold on the economy just like big governments. Free yourself from the ideology, we need mixed systems with a bit of everything.
from:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=173202
right wing thug writes:
“Eran wrote:Only one thing changed – government let go (a little) of the economy. Humans are amazing. Just give them an opportunity, even a limited one, and they thrive. They innovate, take advantage of opportunities, come up with millions of different ideas.
There isn’t a single example of a freed market that didn’t do well. There isn’t a single example of a centrally-planned one that did.
You are suggesting huge government projects (in addition to allowing some private initiative). How will we feed the workers in those projects? How will we provide them with clothes, shelter and other goods and services they would require?
The goods and services people want have to be produced. Free markets allocate production to meet people’s needs and wants. Arbitrary government project waste people’s efforts without producing what they actually want. The result – Soviet-style prosperity.”
I answer:
Hey f*cktard, as*wipe, moron, f*ckweed, I said any combination of private – public, any amount of either as long as it works. There are a million combinations between government jobs and private jobs, some places more, some less, in some time interval more private, and in another more government, any combination is good. We need a great mix of all kinds of systems, so don’t put words in my mouth and go back and read all those threads I wrote and all of them on this site. There are 100 pages probably, get educated, moron.
Brilliant article on hypocrite Republican deficit wars: http://www.lewrockwell.com/margolis/margolis212.html
“It will be interesting to see how all the flag-waving Republican “patriots” will react when asked to pay for the wars they so passionately support from the safety of their sofas, and at no apparent cost.”
After some of the conversations BeantownBill and I have had, I thought some of you might enjoy my blog post this morning:
http://smallbatchgarden.blogspot.com/2010/11/what.html
Some moron broke my car window last night and managed to get the face off my CD player, but not the business bits. Probably because he or she noticed what an old piece of shit it was. Hopefully they learned something about us.
Damn it.
Hancock, good to hear from you. I’m going to give you my unvarnished view on this thing so don’t take offence if I say some uncomplimentary things about my good buds to the south. My view of my own compadres up here is not much better.
“No major politician or party has so much as publicly remarked on the existence of an American empire.” – Wolin
IMO the reason is that there’s no such thing.
I think Wolin is overcomplicating things. What he sees is nothing more than manifestations of good old fashioned sloth and indifference in the general populace, greed and stupidity in our economic elites. But he does put a creative tag on it.
Let’s say this idea of inverted totalitarianism has some validity. Let’s say it came about somehow, whether by the machinations of shadowy people with a pile of money or whether it came about by happenstance as a result of social, economic and political developments. It would only work if your elites had the wit and malice to make use of it. Maybe some have the malice but none of them have the wit.
Your captains of industry are incompetent buffoons, your financial elite make your captains of industry look like Einsteins, your political elite come knee high to the other two. The comined effort and wisdom of all these guys was to let panting 30 year olds at trading desks have at the finacial system and bring it down. And it ain’t over yet. IMO we’re in the 2nd inning of this game.
Americans reduced their military industrial complex to a sad joke. It’s done. Stick a fork in it. A big piece of the industrial half sits in China, offshored there, and under Chinese control. This was not the work of evil geniuses in their New York mansions. It was the work of morons, buffoons in clown costumes. I’ll bet the Chinese can’t believe their luck. What the idiots that engineered this handover didn’t ask themselves is what good is the military half of the complex without the financial support of the industrial half? Americans gutted their economy and castrated themselves militarily. They handed a treasure trove of productive capacity, knowledge and wealth to the Butchers of Beijing.
You are totally correct: the US is changing. I made this point to Vlad in another post, that if you look at the US as it was in 1945 and again in 1970 you’d think it was two different countries. Twenty five short years, one short generation and you went from Iwo Jima and Normandy and Glenn Miller to ‘hell no we won’t go” and Woodstock.
In my view Americans don’t have the stomach anymore for the rough stuff or the will to run an empire. Nor the financial, nor the industrial capacity to do it. This so called war in Iraq cost the US as many deaths in several years of fighting as several DAYS of fighting would cost tiny Canada in WW1. Yet the American people are supposedly “exhausted”. You are no such thing, you still have more than a million men under arms, you have nukes, subs, ships, tanks, planes up the ying yang. Yet you cannot subdue pissant Iraq never mind a gang of toothless farmers in Afghanistan. The US is a paper tiger. It is no imperial power. Not even close.
In contrast, Rome was a true imperial power. When Julius Caesar marched his troops into Gaul they proceeded to kill 1 million people (out of a population of 4 million). The dispirited survivors duly started speaking Latin, paid their taxes and knuckled under Roman law and Roman Govt. In case any of them didn’t get the lay of the land they’d find their asses nailed to a crucifix on a roadside as an example to the others.
This anschluss has been talked about up here for 50 years. It’s been a hot wire topic in our political discussion for as long as I can remember. We’ve been over it and over it and over it. One of the big issues in our politics has been the Free Trade Agreement first with the US and then with Mexico. It was a bitterly contested issue in the Canuck election of 1988. This was seen by a lot of people especially in the industrial Great Lakes basin as getting too close to the metaphorical elephant (you guys).
Believe me, living in a place whose population and economy are roughly the size of California but spread along a ribbon of settlement thousands of miles long which is 80% frozen all the time you are acutely aware of what your neighbour is up to.
But this anschluss won’t happen. Our so called Conservative Party sits well to the left of Hillary Clinton. We’re way, way too far left even for liberal, lefty Democrats never mind Republicans. There’s 34 million of us. Even if you factor in this electoral distraction/apathy/misdirection, whatever you want to call it, inherent in this inverted totalitarianism there is no way the Republican parts of your country, never mind the Tea Party types, will acquiesce to sharing a common political/national space with this many of us. 34 million is thirty four million too many. We’re not the semi literate farm workers that come up from southern climes, we would upend your politics.
Stephen Harper was one of the architects of the Reform party (no relation to the US version). It was and is a western based party that has its roots in the Social Credit movement in Western Canada during the Depression years. It had its modern genesis in the 1980s as a result of Central Canadian Liberal and especially Quebec Liberal politicians clubbing the Western resource based economy for the relative advantage of the central Canada. It was nasty. I was there, I saw it and I suffered through it.
As a result there is a deep east-west divide in this country. The word Liberal is absolute electoral poison in the west. You think Quebec alienation is a problem up here? Western separatism, quiet for now, IMO is a much bigger problem. You see it manifested in moves made in concert by the three western based provinces to create their own policy space. Harper is a creature of western grievance and alienation.
Believe me, Harper is not everyone’s cup of tea and a lot of easterners use the same slander as you did. But he’s no Bushie. He’s no neo con, no republican wanna be. Not even remotely. His way of thinking came from different roots.
So that was your intro to Canuck politics.
My favourite part of the article:
It has taken a long time, but under George W. Bush’s administration the United States has finally achieved an official ideology of imperial expansion comparable to those of Nazi and Soviet totalitarianisms. – Chalmers
I put the above quote up here because I got a good chuckle out of it.
You’re right Hancock, I do repeat myself. I try not to but sometimes I feel compelled to argue with what others say and also I feel compelled to defend you guys. A lot of your own seem to think it’s cool to take an adversarial stance against their own country just for the applause they get from their peers. Not included in this are people like Vlad. I don’t think he criticises just to look cool or hip. You guys have enough enemies outside your country. If I thought the criticisms were justified I’d shut up.
“Ya got me at the AIDS thing, too. How clearly I remember then that Americans were quick to ostracize queers before the discussion got back on topic: where did it come from and how does it spread?”
Interestingly, one of the doctors who co-discovered AIDS came out recently stating that HIV isn’t that big a deal. Not for anyone with a healthy immune system anyway. Just another virus.
Another point of interest, HIV invades cells via the same trick the Black Plague used. So Indo-Europeans who are descendents of plague survivors also have a genetic immunity to HIV.
All those people wasting away with AIDS, totally convinced that they were dealing with a killer disease. Shows how powerful the human brain is, doesn’t it?
Oh, and a nurse cured cancer with herbs back in the 1880s too. But try convincing the multi-billion dollar oncology racket of that one!
[More to 8M than you Myrtle]:
Oil has made life more complicated, not less. Slowing down and realigning with natural law has the double bonus of simplifying our lives, and repairing our biospheric life support system. See a positive feedback loop developing?
Just living is plenty. I don’t know how in the world I ever had time for a job. Increasing activity for the sake of activity is a mind-numbingly stupid idea. And it certainly doesn’t need to be bold-faced every time it’s proposed. It’s not nearly that important.
8M, your ideas aren’t worth the keystrokes, much less the bold face. Give it a rest, dude.
Kind of funny that eightm thinks that the US can just have a gigantic building boom like China. China is doing this because it is rich right now. It has virtually no debt. It has trillions in US bonds. It has bought up an insane amount of raw materials.
Whereas the US is broke. The stimulus money mostly went to just keeping people from being fired. The infrastructure projects are pretty basic, like fixing roads and bridges. There’s no way we could fund the kind of massive public works that China is putting up right now. We don’t have the cash.
‘you have a party that started two disastrous wars and crashed the economy’
well none can honestly argue that the wars were from the ‘demon’ crats…
but i dont see gatt nafta as from the pen of bill clinton so i dont see the dems as the party of the middle class, or whats left of it
you as turkle can argue that the dems are ‘our guys’..naaaa..the kennedys, clintons and now the 200 milion dollar a day vacation guy.
its one to 3 dollars a day…not 50$ a day pay rate in the turd world
what did you do?
Just living is plenty. I don’t know how in the world I ever had time for a job. Increasing activity for the sake of activity is a mind-numbingly stupid idea.
And a COMPLETE WASTE OF ENERGY.
EXCELLENT WAY OF PUTTING LIFE INTO WORDS.
Love it. THX.
By the looks at the election,it appears the public handed the stinking republican created Limburger back to the Repughs.That was the best thing,that could happen to those “nice”guys.We’ll see what their destructive agenda will bring us besides continued corruption ,theft and misery upon the snoring American people,deprived of proper education and leadership.
Dems are best we got, for better or for worse. I’m not saying they’re perfect or that there aren’t rich fat cats in that party. But they at least seem to have the interests of the middle and lower classes in mind (e.g. the vast majority of people), or at least this is what they publicly espouse when they propose legislation and so forth.
The Republicans, on the other hand, don’t even really disguise their contempt for the pleebs. They are constantly crying for tax cuts…and for whom? What’s a few hundred more dollars in Joe Shmoe’s pocket when he can’t pay for health care, child care, or housing? It is peanuts. On the other hand, the very rich love tax cuts, because they stand to keep a lot more dollars even with just a few percentage points of lowered tax rates.
Repubs cry foul about “entitlements.” Well, what are they really saying? They mean welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, and the like, e.g. the programs that prevent many people from simply falling into the oblivion of extreme poverty, where they would basically be living on the street. Republicans don’t give a shit about these people. In fact, the worse off they are, the better. More meat for the prison-industrial complex.
They howl over Obama-care, which when you look at the parts, provides many things that people have been wanting for years. But the rich don’t want to pay any more money for anyone else’s health care. The uber rich don’t even need health insurance. But anyone from the upper middle class down will likely encounter in their life a situation where they would not be able to pay their medical bills without subsidized health
insurance. That’s why the vast majority of seniors need Medicare. They could not pay their medical bills, and the private insurance industry would go broke if they had to insure these older people.
Then there is always talk of making the government smaller, cutting services, etc. (Not of course, the military, which is somehow sacrosanct). Well, who does this benefit? Given that so many government programs are aimed towards the middle and lower class, it should be obvious that cutting out the social safety net is designed to allow even more tax breaks for the wealth. They don’t give a shit. They have private security guards and walled compounds.
Yes, everyone is out for themselves. Many politicians are particularly selfish and self-aggrandizing. But to say that the Dems are basically the same as the Republicans is nonsense. They don’t espouse the same philosophies, don’t propose similar bills/solutions/etc., and don’t act the same.
On the other hand, the corporate capture and influence in government spans the two parties. No doubt about that. I guess you could say the Dems at least throw the people a bone now and again or aren’t at least directly antagonistic like the Repubs. Or if they are the latter, they try to hide it.
NAFTA? I don’t know. There are a lot of reasons for the shitty job market and the economy.
In terms of cars, Americans are simply behind the times compared with the Germans and the Japanese, who make better vehicles (at least autos). So that explains the floundering of that industry over the last 20-30 years. We have also transferred a lot of our manufacturing base to China, along with technical know-how. And what do we get back for it? We get really cheaply priced goods, so it isn’t like there isn’t some benefit to this arrangement. Not that many factories have moved to Mexico, or at least if they did, they’re now in China. Mexico is a pretty shitty place to do business, with bad infrastructure, and it is just plain dangerous nowadays.
Now large scale immigration from Mexico, both legal and illegal, has something to do with the soft US job market. Mexican immigrants, and immigrants from other countries, have largely taken over the lower levels of the service industry: food industry, cleaning/janitorial, farm work, etc. And these aren’t necessarily the worst jobs in the world either, but a Mexican immigrant will be willing to work for less money with fewer benefits and complain less than your average born-and-bred American. Ditto Asian immigrants. Because, let’s face it, they come from hard scrabble places, and in comparison, working for minimum wage or more in a service job is not too bad in comparison. It has fuck-all with businesses, corporations, or individuals being overtaxes. Small businesses and corporations get so many tax breaks that it is amazing. Many corporations pay ZERO income tax on their profits, which is ass backwards. Income tax was initially designed to ONLY tax corporations, or at least tax them primarily.
Unchecked and illegal immigration makes a very soft job market. It is one of the reasons we have 10% unemployment right now. Why hire a worker legally when they will want a decent salary, health care, etc. (and who can blame them?). On the other hand, you can get an immigrant FOB who basically cannot complain about what a business will do to them. They will work like slaves for peanuts, with no health insurance or other benefit, not to mention living multiple families to one house/apartment.
In particular, the black community has suffered as immigrants have pushed them out of the low-skilled jobs that they occupied traditionally. Ditto any native born American in the middle and lower classes. Ditto teenagers. They simply cannot compete with peasants from the third world who will take whatever they can get, will work illegally, etc.
I also think we have outsourced too much of our manufacturing to other countries. This is not only bad for the job market. It creates complicated and unneeded dependencies on a far flung, fragile distribution network that is almost entirely driven by cheap fossil fuels (JHK talks about this a lot). We will find in the long term that this was an extremely dangerous and stupid thing to do.
Also, and I don’t care what the Republicans say, having the kind of tax structure we do has impeded our economy. Wealth redistribution can, in many cases, benefit the economy greatly. Because what do the rich spend their money on? Yes, sometimes they start businesses, etc. But many simply sit on massive piles of cash and other assets. Whereas middle or lower class people tend to spend their money on goods and services. They upgrade what they have. They buy new things. They put money into their small businesses or start new ones. Altogether, this leads to a healthy economy with a broad base of middle class spending. That is why during the 1950’s there was such a period of strong economic growth. It was NOT because of small government, at least not if that means low taxes for the rich. The income tax on millionaires was incredibly high on income after the first X amount (sorry don’t know the exact tax brackets), something like 90-95%. This money was reinvested in national infrastructure projects like the national highways. It was used to provide free education and cheap housing.
The rich do not stop producing when they are highly taxed. That is BS. The world is not an Ayn Rand novel. The desire to earn money is still present, even with high levels of tax on the rich. Trickle down economics is basically bullshit.
I’m not even saying we need to return to that tax structure. But the kind of system we do have is reminding me more and more of feudalism. There are the rich and privileged nobility and royal families and the rest of us peasants. American society is becoming more and more like this. Historically, this arrangement has lead to revolution. The only reason there isn’t more of this fomenting now is that people have more diversions, they have been lead to believe that the current structure is in their interest (e.g. middle class Republicans), and they are still relatively wealthy (at least in their own minds).
And, yes, many in America are still relatively well off, even those in the lower class. But there is a large and growing population at the very bottom (think inner city ghettos, trailer parks, homeless, prison population, etc.). I wonder just how big this group will be until people wake up. I see America becoming more and more what many third world world societies look like and what many are trying to grow out of: an extremely rich upper class with the vast majority of people living oppressed, poor existences at the whim of their rich masters. It is called a plutocracy. We really have this already. Read that Citibank plutocracy memo mentioned in “Capitalism: A Love Story”. It is all right there.
Turkle, Turkle, get a grip! I denigrated the corporate fascists as well. But you miss the point – I guess in my heavy-handed, sarcatic way I didn’t make myself clear. The point is that taxes inherently are immoral. It is not moral to take away property (in this case, money) from people without them agreeing to it of their own free will. How many people would pay the amount of taxes they do if the government said, “Hey, this is the amount of taxes we’d like you to pay us, but if you don’t, that’s ok?”
When this country was founded there was a social contract between the federal government and its citizens that stated the government would protect them from harm, but it never said it would provide a great variety of services. And there was no tax on income.
BTW, I am not a Republican nor a Democrat nor a Libertarian nor a Green or Tea Partier.
I have a job, because I don’t want to be poor. I don’t want to live in my parent’s basement. I don’t want to live in a cardboard box on the street. I want to have a decent place to lay my head at night or just to chill. I want to be able to travel freely. I want to be able to buy nice things. I want to eat well. I want good medical care. I want to do interesting things with my time in an interconnected network of other people. I don’t want to directly depend on the charity of others simply in order to survive. I want to be relatively independent.
It is best when you can do something fun that you love. But hardly anyone gets to do this. And a lot of things that are fun will not earn you much or any money. That’s why they aren’t considered work, and you don’t get paid for doing them.
I mean, wtf, if you’re not working, someone is paying your bills unless you’re living on a hippie commune or something.
Not to say I don’t respect your choice. If you can live in a cabin in the woods a la Walden, the more power to you. I have a degree of admiration for that lifestyle. But that’s pretty freaking hard scrabble. Plus, those damn property taxes. Most people can’t do it. I’m one of them.
Cheers.
It’s probably pretty tough being a non-materialist in a materialist world. Given the neighborhood you’re in, do you think it was wise to leave such a message?
“Just go out and build billions of skyscrapers, billions of Man trips to Mars and Venus, etc.”
Well, I’m not sure if you’re being serious here, but I will act like it. You exhibit the classic thought patterns of pure cornucopian thinking, e.g. pure antinomian thinking and cargoism.
Humanity is bumping up against resource limits, just like yeast do in a closed container or reindeer on an island. We are animals, and our population overshoot and the subsequent crash is very much in the realm of established ecological principles.
You should check out William Catton’s book “Overshoot.” (I’m on my second read through.) He was a bit ahead of his time, but not by much. He argues that the exuberant era of super-abundance is ending. We are entering a period of scarcity, the post-exuberant age.
For instance, China, all by itself, has caused big spikes in the prices of raw materials, because they are buying up so much steel, concrete, etc. to grow their economy by building out their cities and infrastructure. This has meant that other countries cancel their own projects, because the price of basic building materials has gotten so high. The world really is a zero sum game, non-withstanding fantasies of endless growth created by the endless supply of fiat money “printed” by central banks.
And even with all of China’s economic growth, the average Chinese person is still a rural peasant. They will NEVER have the standard of living that we do, not even close. Because there aren’t enough resources on the planet for them to do it. Okay, maybe there are, but this would last for all of 5 years. Then there would be…shazam…no more oil.
The earth is a finite sphere with a limited amount of “stuff” on it. You can’t act like there aren’t real limits to growth. Well, you can, but it is foolish and wrong. Unfortunately, in our current economic system, you can go a long way by pretending this isn’t the case and that the magic gravy train will roll on forever and ever, fueled by our desires.
The industrial period will prove to be just a blip on the radar once cheap fossil fuels are gone, the metals are mined out, the soils are depleted, the oceans are dead, water is scarce, etc.
GeoDestinies is another good book you should check out for scientific arguments that the modern way of civilization is completely unsustainable in the long term.
Most poor people on this planet…will never get much wealthier. Many are destined to get a lot poorer. It is simply a fact. The populations of places like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Haiti, much of Africa, etc. are stuck where they are at and likely will be forever. Because population is increasing exponentially while available resources are declining. Do you remember the Food Crisis from a couple years back? Expect events like that time ten going forward in the 21st century, in multiple realms.
I’m not saying that the world is going to go Mad Max overnight. The scenario will take time to unfold, maybe even hundreds of years (though I doubt it will take that long), and it will have numerous ups and downs. But the collapse theme has a lot more validity to it as a long term outlook than Star Trek fantasies of endless growth and prosperity and unlimited space flights to Mars and Venus.
I wasn’t busting on you for repeating yourself. I am higher on the “repeating themselves” scale than you, anyway…or lower, depending on how you look at it 🙂
But that’s how I can tell what is your central theme, and vice versa for you of my central thesis. Hint: It’s the Aristocracy! 😛
We are going to have to agree to disagree, because our last two posts were sort of at cross-purposes, talking past each other and each making the same points.
While I don’t fully agree with all of Wolin’s thesis in that America has seen other expressions of [i]demos[/i] besides the New Deal 30s or his very negative view of our founding and constitution.
Wolin’s comment that you chuckle about, against the backdrop of the largely self-made, purposeful, and looting nature of the Global Banking Crisis bailed out with $16 trillion taxpayer dollars or so, is it really so crazy?
Banksters, mostly Wall-Street Americans, basically looted the entire global financial system, trashed Greece and countless other countries and liquidated how many tens of trillions in wealth diverted into how many Swiss, Luxem., and Caymans accounts?
In terms of dominating the world and doing with it as you please, Bush for the looting and Obama for finishing the Global Bankster Jackpot hard sell (all they needed was a new spokesmodel for the Sponsors and it sold like hotcakes, just like “austerity” will, which is just another word for more looting of the bottom and middle to vacuum up to the very tippy top), could Hitler have dreamed of making a greater global impact, even though his impact was PHYSICALLY much more painful, even he could never have dreamed of looting the whole world LEGALLY to the tune of tens of trillions of dollars (even in 1938 dollars)?
In an era in which physical conquest is impractical the new modality is economic conquest in the world of rapid electronic finance and multi-billion dollar hedge funds. This is necessary because of the very softness of Western Civilization that we BOTH seem to agree upon because Western Civ won’t take the tens of thousands of casualties necessary to do old-school physical conquest.
Can’t you see how your observation about not being able to take casualties dovetails 100% into my observation as to why old-school conquest & tyranny can’t be done, not just because of that but because of the USA’s nature, history, and especially our Founding Myths?
You yourself brought up the reason why the game has changed, yet still insist upon standing your rhetorical Maginot Line, waiting for the frontal assault up the valley, while the RW Authoritarian tanks move easily through the woods that were impenetrable to artillery and armor in the Last War.
I’m not going to change your mind, but now you can’t say you’ve never been told. Perhaps in the years to come, this conversation and perhaps others like it will help you see far enough in advance that maybe it helps you deal with it better than others. What specifically I cannot say, but listen for the termites chewing through the foundations of you constitutional and media defenses. It all looks so reasonable at first, particularly frfom a more conventional wisdom & centrist viewpoint that you have and I once had, long ago.
At first.
History proves conclusively that nations moving towards totalitarianism don’t tolerate nor leave be free nations sitting right on your doorstep. No, you won’t hear the rumble of American tanks moving up I-40.
Nor will you hear the soft whispers of corporate money and RW authoritarian power in your seats of power. Whatever the specifics of your politics, you WILL be attacked, with power, money and RW propaganda. Your national and media defenses will gradually be stripped over the next two decades.
And one day you will wish, as I do now, those gutless Liberals you deride hadn’t abandoned the white working class and turned into such effete wussies, creating a vacuum into which RW Authoritarian power structures flowed on a sea of Rich Man’s Money.
Cash,
This is a very well-written comment (kudos to you), but there are parts of it which do not square with reality.
The US has the most powerful military on the planet right now. It has hundreds of bases throughout the world and spends more on the military than the rest of the world combined.
You argue that China now has the same or better manufacturing expertise as the United States. When it comes to consumer products, possibly. But when it comes to military hardware, weapons, etc., this is definitely not the case. All the major manufacturers are still based in the United States. The work is spread around to many different political districts as high-end pork. The bombs, guns, tanks, drones, airplanes, etc. are mostly still manufactured in the States (afaik).
Also, the world simply does not accept the kind of bloodbaths that it once did when two nations go to war. The instant dissemination of news to all corners of the globe, the democratization of information sharing via the internet/camcorders/etc., and the 24-hour news cycle has ensured that everyone knows what everyone else is up to. Consequently, the US would be a pariah state if it simply went into Iraq or Afghanistan and eliminated 1/4 or more of the population, which it most assuredly could do with the push of a few buttons. The goal has been to attempt to subdue the most violent elements of these societies in a more “surgical” fashion, all the while attempting to rebuild and remake their societies. There is also a huge element of graft, whereby companies like Halliburton and the rest benefit from military engagements, regardless of any outcome.
The epic tragedy of the situation is that you cannot remake an entire nation from the outside without completely defeating it, as you say (and even then the barbarians eventually conquered Roman). This is exactly what would have to happen to “subdue” Iraq or Afghanistan. Sure, the United States was able to remake Japan and Germany after WWII but only after completely and utterly vanquishing them on the battlefield and in their own countries. There weren’t even any cities left in these two countries after that war. They had all been completely demolished by air power.
Now take Iraq. There was a huge outcry over the United States wrecking Fallujah and killing a few thousand people. Can you imagine what would have been the response if this had been done to the whole country? It would have been a political disaster. You simply cannot wage a war in this fashion and get away with it these days. Even then, we are fighting an enemy that has as a core belief the idea that fighting against their enemies will send them straight to heaven. I don’t think the Germans or Japanese ever had such delusions.
And, non-withstanding the outcry and whining (largely an effect of media amplification), the United States is fully prepared to engage in larger conflicts than Iraq and Afghanistan. The issue is now that there is no draft. But one could be instituted in a time of great duress. Notice that there has been far LESS outcry about these conflicts than from Vietnam, even with a vastly increased amount of discussion and media coverage.
I would go farther than Chalmers. The US has far MORE power than the Nazis ever did. US nuclear weapons could annihilate the entire planet in 10 minutes.
I’m not saying any of this is good. But to call the US a “paper tiger” is just silly. I think the real issue is that the age of military might as the main arbitrator of national power is long since over. Or at least warfare is becoming more diffuse (e.g. terrorism, “security”, ethnic conflicts, etc.). So the US military is not so much weak or ineffectual. It is just mostly superfluous, because it is all geared up to fight WWIII (e.g. vs Russia). Well, WWIII is never going to happen, but we still have a military that is all geared up to fight that war.
China has conquered the United States already by manufacturing its cheap goods, taking the manufacturing expertise, and buying our bonds. The Saudis have trillions of dollars and massive assets in the States. They both own us. And it took not one shred of military power from either to accomplish this.
Then you go on about how the American financial elite were simply idiots. What you ignore in this is the very real thread of fraud and malfeasance that goes back at least as far as the Savings and Loan Crisis. I’m thinking Bernie Madoff. For every one of him, how many got away and now have fat offshore bank accounts? Same for Goldman Sachs. The financial crash has hardly effected the elites, who were able to siphon off billions in wealth into their corporations and banks. I don’t believe you can chalk it all up to pure stupidity…more like unchecked greed.
I dunno man. You sound a lot like a Libertarian.
The age of agrarianism is over. Small, limited government does not work in a highly populated, city-based civilization. And it never has. It only works when most people are or can be mostly self-sufficient and don’t need the government for much of anything, e.g. when most people live on farms or (maybe) in small rural towns. And only 2% of the population or less lives on a farm these days.
Furthermore, the type of system you propose or at least idealize, where the government does not “steal” from anyone, leads to massive accumulations of private wealth with corresponding inequalities between rich and poor. You basically argue for Social Darwinism, which is the most purely amoral system one could suppose. This has never worked in the long term. People’s irrational desires of unlimited primitive accumulation, coupled with a capitalist system, equates to a winner take all morality. This means that in an unchecked capitalist system, many would end up in the position of simply starving to death, as they would be superfluous and without assets to purchase food. But at least it would fulfill a fantasy that property or assets should never be redistributed by the state, no matter how lopsided was the distribution of these assets.
There is nothing sacrosanct about all types of property, and many times people don’t really “earn” anything. For instance, the money that sits in a millionaires bank account was created out of thin air by the Federal Reserve. Banks are allowed to take money from the Federal reserve at a fractional interest rate and then make loans at a higher interest rate, at the whim of the federal government. Is this money purely the bank’s property? This is a fuzzy matter to me. The only reason that there is so much money and wealth in our society is because the government generates and backs it. It isn’t like the tax collector is going around taking 1/3 of your crops or 1 out of every 5 cattle. Protection of real physical property is still strongly enshrined in law, as is protection of most monetary assets. (And really, taxes in America aren’t that high if you make a decent income. Move to Europe if you want to bitch about high taxes.)
Then the other problem is that when the government abdicates responsibility for providing services and “taking care” of the population, the private sector steps in to fill the void. But this only works effectively sometimes in certain kinds of sectors. The private sector does some things superbly well, e.g. the manufacture of products and simple, short-term services. But it does other things poorly. That’s why so many of our essential services are public: fire, police, mail, etc. It simply doesn’t work to leave this kind of stuff up to the “free market” or even up to individuals. A pool of individuals, all looking out purely for themselves and sharing no assets between them with the most minimal government possible, is not a nation or a society. It is anarchy. You wouldn’t even want to live in this society.
It is really a give and take. Of course government often oversteps its bounds, but there is no way a complex, crowded, technological society can function effectively under the kind of limited, ineffectual government you so lionize.
The government also provides jobs when the private sector simply cannot do it. There is nothing inherent in capitalism that provides anything close to a livelihood for all the participants in a society. Under pure capitalism, superfluous people who cannot make a “profit” would be allowed to simply whither up and die. How much more amoral could you possibly get? To my mind, since we have constructed a system in which you cannot survive without money, everyone should be entitled to at least a basic job, whether it be publicly provided or not. This means that sometime property must be redistributed to some degree or another. Because these people at the bottom won’t simple dry up and blow away. If they need food and can’t get it, they’ll simply come and take it from whoever has it.
And BTW, many of the “Founding Fathers” were far more statist than you might suppose. Benjamin Franklin, for instance, thought that all “excess property” should revert to the state. Jefferson often said things like someone’s property should be redistributed after their death, and there should be no inheritance. They were aware of a lot of these issues I discuss above. They were more Leviathan than not. Modern governance is not simply a matter of the government providing a little protection and then “getting out of the way” so people can work their free market magic. It has NEVER been that simple. (Look at Rome, etc.) The US Constitution actually establishes a strong central government, responsible for “promoting the general welfare.” This Republican meme that the Constitution somehow argues convincingly for a “government that governs the least” is at complete odds with the actual language of that document. What you might argue is that we are more federalist now, as the Constitution outlines a more state-centric system that we have gotten away from over the years. But these individual states are still governments, are they not?
Most of the civilizations that we point back to in history as worthy of admiration or respect are defined by their strong, often dominating governments. I don’t know if this is a good or bad thing, but it is the truth. A minimalist government is not the ultimate key to human prosperity and happiness, or at least, not for the vast majority of people on this planet.
Various types of government exist because of the energetic reality present at that moment in history. Large, complex, multi-ethnic states exist because there is enough energy in the system to keep these highly unstable arrangements from disintegrating.
As that energetic reality changes I have no doubt that a sort of neo-tribalism will evolve. In other words, countries, and even cities, will balkanize in an unprecedented way, because the free energy necessary to avoid that end won’t be available, or affordable. Timeline’s debatable, but the result is almost guaranteed I think.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Vlad is mostly right on this subject. He’s obviously a raging racist, in a society that isn’t fond of such people (because we still live in a different energetic reality), but his vision of the future is not as far off as one might think at first.
I see neo-tribalism arranging itself more along ideological lines, schools of thought, than along skin color or ethnicity. And Vlad is with his peeps. Good for him. Keeps him out of my neighborhood.
Interesting thought Tripp, but what makes you think that a world with a lot less energy would necessarily devolve into decentralized tribalism?
The Roman Empire lasted for hundreds of years, and this at a time when there was no method of long distance communication or travel. News took weeks to disseminate. It took months to travel long distances. Nevertheless, this complex, multi-ethnic society held together for a long time.
I think empires run by dictators are just as likely of an outcome during the energy decline. We will still have long distance communication of some kind or another. Some (maybe not many) will still be able to travel long distances quickly. So I don’t see the kind of outcome you predict as a particularly likely scenario, though it might have some limited amount of truth to it in certain geographic regions.
Still, people will cry for protectors from the neo-barbarians. What better candidate to provide that protection than a neo-empire?
This idea that it’s typical to sit down and discuss the pros and cons of this type of government or that, and then come to some sort of consensus is way off the mark I think. The federal government we have in the U.S. today is probably not the republic the founding fathers envisioned. But no one consciously changed it; it just evolved along the trends of access to energy, and more narrowly-human, power. As that reality changes, so too will the type of government we live under. Perhaps radically. But slowly. Incrementally. Organically.
We won’t just shelve one for the other. Unless our energetic reality demands it.
Rome was a high energy society too. Instead of oil they had slaves. Lots of them.
They persisted for many centuries after their fall too in the form of the Roman Catholic church, but that was during an era of rising energy, wasn’t it?
I think my thoughts are more accurate in the long view. What happens in the interim is anyone’s guess. I imagine it will be terribly rocky for a while. But with some idea of long term outcomes, based on observation of natural systems and isolated cases in human history, I think we can help steer future scenarios toward a preferred outcome.
Exactly Cash: we don’t have the guts for the rough stuff anymore – which is why we are going to be destroyed. But Americans still hate – they hate the people who do have the stomach for it. It’s a superiority trip, one deeply rooted in our history. A Western Town would be in the grip of criminals, the weak sheriff unable to control them. A hanging judge and a fast draw sheriff would get put in and take care of the shit. Then the “good people” would forget but not forgive. More good people would move in. They would all get together and vote out the barbarans with nary a twinge of gratitude.
Humans are flawed and because of this, we need to cut them some slack. But they are not helpless.
I think the weak point in your argument is assuming that large groups of people can’t get by without constant help from an outside source (the government). This attitude – that people are like children – is, whether you realize it or not, demeaning and arrogant. I’m not picking on you, for this is a common belief, but it is the root of many of our society’s problems. These may not have arisen if people stopped wringing their hands and worrying that the populace needs to be controlled.
I, too, think the world will balkanize, although I’m not sure along which lines. Large governments are unnatural, and not only inefficiently burn physical energy, but emotional and spiritual, as well.
Oh come on, you still complain of hate at this late date – after we’ve been sold down the river? It’s perfectly natural to hate now, if fact there’s likely something wrong with people who don’t. You have plenty, disgust is a form of hatred. And you direct it in many of the right directions. But you’ve never done YOUR homework on race – I can tell. If you did read Jenson, Rushton, the Bell Curve, etc, a man of your intellect would be forced to concede the Truth, however distasteful it was to his previous instincts. Or have you done so, and are just too timid to admit it? Or perhaps you must protect your career? Many people don’t have what it takes to live a dual life so they end up believing even to themselves what is requered of them.
Yeah the Protocols are pretty good even if a forgery. Surely you understand the difference between being factual and being true? After all the propaganda the Jews have thrown at us why shouldn’t we throw some back?
As far as the Truth: do you not belive they have a death grip on our Culture? On Banking? On Foreign Policy? On Media? That they believe we are savages as Mika says? That they are resolved to miscegenate Northern Man out of existence? That in their reality shows and advertisements they are always putting Blacks and Blondes together? Or do you think that’s just coincidence? Or do you like it?
Get a grip Man and admit the Truth if only to yourself. Whites have rights, foremost among them the right to survive. The Founding Fathers believed all of this so don’t rave on about “Nazis” and all that. And why we’re on the subject, why do you believe the Jews exactly? The people who said Palestine was a Land without a People for a People without a Land? Do you believe all that crap about lamp shades and soap? About the “six million”? (no Holocaust scholar believes this number, but it continues to be forced on us as the que (sp?) was forced on the Chinese by the Manchus. It’s a token of submission to believe it and verbalize it)
Finally, I’ve admitted to you before that Whites are fucked, actually imitating the Blacks gang members. The program of corruption described in the Protocols has been wildly successful. It’s True even if not factual. Read it and you may find yourself impressed with its insights.
Check out Tim Wise on the Daily Kos, Nov 3rd if you want a timely reminder of what the Jewish “hard core” really think of us. He talks frankly of our genocide. Since you are in Education you probably know that this liberal, Jewish hater goes around preaching hatred of Whites to cheering White Students. Now he goes even farther. And he’s right: they know all about us and we know nothing of them. Anyone who does know gets attacked as Lindbergh was (just for saying that the Jews wanted us in WW1) or just as you attacked me.
Sorry I can’t give you a link. I don’t have my system set up yet and this library computer wont let me.
Vlad,
While nutty, you are not a bad writer.
I really wish you’d focus more on things that matter like ecology and geography rather than the rather less important cranial and pigmentation characteristics of the human animal, which you have, if anything, over-analyzed and fretted about to the point of personal pathology.
The 6 million number is pretty accurate. A lot of well-documented sources quote numbers around there, and MANY Holocaust scholars would not find it unreasonable. (What “reputable” scholars are you talking about, anyways?) The Nazis kept meticulous records, many of which were recovered intact, including numbers sent to gas chambers on a daily, train records, etc. Anyways, what’s the point in disputing it, really, even if it is too high? I don’t see what you’re getting at, even if the number isn’t accurate. Why single out Jewish people as particularly evil or malevolent? They aren’t. If you lived in and experienced the real world, you would realize this. But you’ve built up this conspiracy and paranoia in your head, so this “vast Jewish conspiracy” seems so real to you. It is classic paranoid style thinking.
Also, I guess I don’t see why you’re so focused on race. I don’t see any one “race” as being that much better or worse than another. You extrapolate from the different IQ bell curves of various groups….what exactly? We all behave pretty much the same. We eat, sleep, survive, and die. We all use up lots of resources in an unsustainable fashion. We’re all part of an overpopulated planet and are mostly superfluous. Singling out one race or another as your scape goat is just silly, and it says far more about you than them.
Rights are fictions. No one has a right to anything. Rights only exist in a certain governmental framework. So, yes, I suppose the “whites” (a big muddy racial grab bag if there ever was one) have as much right to exist as anybody else. But what’s your point? Survival is not a matter of rights. It is a matter of strength, of yourself and the society you are embedded into. Rights have got nothing to do with it.
And WTF are you angry about? Here you are spending your idle time on the internet. You’re able to communicate to people across the entire planet. You have probably never known the deep deprivation, hunger, or terror of the kind experienced by people throughout history. You live in a first world country, with first world comforts, sleep on a comfortable bed, and presumably have all the niceties and conveniences offered by 21st century society. You get to ride around on the ocean of cheap oil. You could choose to spend your free time in any number of enjoyable, gainful pursuits.
Yet here you are putting your time and energy getting all worked up about “The Jews” like a deranged neo-Nazi. It’s pathetic, really. Take a good long look in the mirror. It is not about them. It is about you.
Hooray for you Turkle. You appear to be pretty intelligent, so why haven’t you yet figured out the real reasons for Vlad’s racism and anti-semitism??: He has a small penis and he’s afraid his IQ doesn’t “measure up” to members of other tribes.
Regarding AIDS, not only did the AIDS researcher say HIV is a common virus that people with healthy immune systems can fight, if we’re talking about the same guy (whose name escapes me), he was a world-class immunologist who lost his career for saying it. Is now teaching Biology 101.
Same goes for a British TV journalist who wrote a book about him & his theories. No longer employable.
One of his theories is that people who are in high-risk groups for AIDS all have one thing in common – compromised immune systems.
Three groups affected by AIDS – gay men, hemophiliacs & Haitians.
Gay men often use “poppers” a drug which relaxes the, um, sphincter muscles. Poppers are also known to destroy the immune system over time.
Hemophiliacs now have a powerful drug available to them that allows them to live at least until adulthood, typically around the early 30’s. This same drug also devastates the immune system over time.
And the Haitians…well, they’re really a devastatingly poor population. Ditto for the people of Africa. And poor people often struggle to get adequate food. Starvation and associated illnesses don’t do much for the immune system over time.
But AIDS is a big bidniz.
And BTW, herpes is curable too. With BHT. The stuff they use in potato chips.
“Interesting thought Tripp, but what makes you think that a world with a lot less energy would necessarily devolve into decentralized tribalism?”
Here’s why: because according to widely accepted anthropological studies, about 150 people is the maximum number of folks any one person can keep up with – names, occupation, family, etc. At this level, which is basically the tribal level, societies are self-regulating. That is, everyone knows everyone, and is therefore accountable to everyone. It’s in one man’s interest to not kill another man because he would be found out and dealt with accordingly. You can’t get away with much at the tribal level of organization. It encourages honor.
Let’s think of this as a comparison of food chains, tribes representing the shortest food chain that we are likely to see in such a highly populated world. Band organization is probably distant history for the most part.
So in that tribe of less than 150 people, there is no need for policemen, or lawyers, or judges, no kleptocrats whatsoever actually. Everyone is involved in acquiring food, even the big man. Which is not a hereditary title, but conveyed solely on the merit of personal character. In ecological terms, these kleptocrats represent parasites on the production system. That is, they are not directly involved in food production, and so have to be fed by the labors of other members of society. Ostensibly in return for a service of equal or greater value. Ostensibly.
Which takes us to the chiefdom level of societal organization. Because there are now roughly several thousand citizens at this level of political organization, they can’t possibly know and respect each other, so 3rd party arbitrators need to be employed – the police, lawyers, and so forth. Another layer of organization, another link in the food chain, but this time it’s a new apex consumer class predating the producing class below, and every link up the food chain requires not an arithmetic but a logarithmic expansion of energy.
On top of this, new heights of political organization always demand monument building to solidify and consolidate their power, organized group projects like temples and state houses. The chief is now typically ordained by the local deity, and the title passed on through heredity title, thus creating a permanent entitled class above the rest of the bureaucracy. Another logarithmic expansion of energy flow up the food chain.
Without burdening the comments section further with a discussion of state or even empire level organization, one can see quite plainly that larger political organizations require exponentially more energy to maintain. (Think trial, appellate, and supreme court systems, with their level upon level of production capacity-draining kleptocrats.)
With the knowledge you have of peak oil, and understanding as you do that energy will now become increasingly difficult to capture, what sense does it make to assume that we won’t begin the balkanization process, slowly heading back through state, chiefdom, and on to tribal level political organization?
Again, who knows the timeframes here. I don’t have a crystal ball, more’s the pity. But I understand ecosystem energetics fairly well, and I know that dwindling energy resources will remove apex predators from the food chain (something to celebrate in my opinion), in human societies just as in more classically-natural populations. Because the easiest way to cut pork is by removing the head first. Besides the awful effects of DDT, this is one of the main reasons birds of prey suffered from human expansion. They were apex predators who had their food chains undermined/usurped by us.
As a logical extension of this argument, one could almost assume that the greater a society’s monument building is, the longer the food chain supporting it, and the more energetically unstable it is. That’s why I don’t worry too much about the Chinese. Or 8M’s nature-free techno-fantasy nightmare world.
So yeah, I feel pretty confident that my macro perception of our trajectory is fairly well informed. Micro? Hard to say. But I think it’s fair to assume that saving the planet relies on our getting small and getting local as quickly as we can. Because every link in the food chain that we remove cuts energy use logarithmically too. Which is why this might take a while. But me, I’m just ready to get back to something a lot less complicated. Some of us are simply skipping the hassle and actively building our tribe now.
Who would’ve ever thought of Vlad as avant-garde?
“And BTW, herpes is curable too. With BHT. The stuff they use in potato chips.”
So eating BHT-free organic potato chips is actually maladaptive in a herpes-infested world? Who knew??
Wonderful post! Thank you for expanding so eloquently on my out-of-hand musings.
I always like to occasionally check in on what nonsense the RW Lie Machine has cooked up for it’s deluded and gullible RW Authoritarian Followers.
So very predictble, as authoritarianism always is, be it Left or Right. Thanks, Vlad, for the laugh.
What laugh, you ask? Why Tim Wise on Nov 3rd’s Daily that Vlad had his panties in a bunch about saying it was an Elder of Zion or maybe a Junior of Zion (A Xylene of Xion?) revealing the true nature of Jewish evil and exhorting the physical destruction of white people.
As usual (yawn) figuring out where the stupid RW Lie for ignorant RW Authoritarian Followers was, didn’t take very long. It’s a wonder Vlad and the Teabaggers can feed and dress themselves in the morning.
So, I read the actual article and what do I find within?
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/11/3/916577/-An-Open-Letter-to-the-White-Right,-On-the-Occasion-of-Your-Recent,-Successful-Temper-Tantrum
See what happens when one actually reads the article before one comments on it? One gets filled with evil lib’rul FACTS. Can’t have that, now can we?
Or like the big nonsensical hoo-hah over the “Cloward-Piven Strategy” that the RW Lie Machine has ginned up for Corn-Pone Hitler’s Favorite Idiots.
Pick a dusty tome written decades ago by a couple obscure sociologists who hold little status or power even within the academic community and NONE within politics or government and point to it as proof of a vast Left-Wing Conspiracy?
I might as well pick a 40 year old copy of Auto-World and point to an article about Ford’s attempt to corner the sports car market and have Glenn Beck explain to the mentally handicapped (apologies to the mentally handicapped for comparing them with Teabaggers) that it’s the Protocols of the Elders of Ford and proof of their great plot to take over the world!
It would be comical if it wasn’t so tragic for our nation and our future as a species. Make no mistake, because it’s far too late in the game to mince words about it. The RW Lie Machine tells such transparent lies for one reason only: they know they can get away with it. They have the dumbest, meanest, most gullible audience since the Nuremburg Rally.
I mean gosh, who would be evil and lib’rul enough to actually READ WISE’S ARTICLE? Might contract some of that there Liberal fact stuff on you. And Lib’rul fact stuff can lead to all sorts of things, including having a thought for yourself and maybe doing a little evil lib’rul fact-checking.
Man, I wish your bunch was smarter, Vlad, with even the tiniest bit of savvy or critical thinking skills. Just so the lies would sometimes, just SOMETIMES be stuff that might take an intelligent third-grader more than five minutes to see through.
It’d be more entertaining on the rare occassions when I am decide to at random check and make sure the RW Lie Machine is still lying at a Nazi/Soviet rate, which is 99%+ of the time.
The record remains intact. And the RW Lie Machine rolls remorselessly on, impervious to fact, reality, or truth…on to the next Ridiculously Transparent Lie for Gullible Idiots.
“eating BHT-free organic potato chips is actually maladaptive in a herpes-infested world? Who knew??”
Now *that* is funny!
Sadly, BHT comes in pill form. So I can’t Rx potato chips in good conscience.
Turkle said:
Turkle don’t be taken in by the kabuki theatre that was aimed at tearing down Obama in order to win back control of the House.
Now that Republicans have control of the House you will see that they will NOT try to dismantle Obama-care, even though they will make noises.
The Obama-care policy is a capitalist health care scheme that Big Pharma endorsed that will guarantee millions of new clients and enrich the corporate health CEOs… no way those who control Republicans are going to allow Republicans to dismantle Obama-care policies which the CEOs wrote to benefit themselves.
SOURCE: http://www.newsweek.com/2010/11/05/why-healthcare-reform-will-survive.html
Didn’t take the Republicans/Tea Baggers more than 24 hours in power to change their strident anti-Obama-care positions… to positions which favor the rich, instead of favoring health care for the middle class.
Turkle said: “Consequently, the US would be a pariah state if it simply went into Iraq or Afghanistan and eliminated 1/4 or more of the population, which it most assuredly could do with the push of a few buttons.”
But isn’t the result the same whether those people are killed outright or driven out of the country by war?
SOURCE: http://wapo.st/d9o943
This news report is from 2007. Many more Iraqis have probably left Iraq since then, and the bloodshed still has not eased, as this week’s massacres of Shiites showed.
There has been a massive effort at ethnic cleansing that has affected millions. The USA paid the Sunnis to do the cleansing in a most brutal fashion.
The USA deserves to be a pariah nation for provoking the displacement of millions of Iraqi nationals, for paying for ethnic cleansing, and for outright killing of hundreds of thousands of civilians, as the release of 400,000 of USA daily war logs revealed … raw battle field reports logged by the USA soldiers who did the killings.
“I know everybody likes to say, ‘Oh, that’s cable news, it’s all the same. Fox and MSNBC, mirror images of each other.’ Let this lay that to rest forever. Hosts on Fox News raise money for Republican candidates. They endorse them explicitly, they use their Fox News profile to headline fundraisers. Heck, there are multiple people being paid by Fox News now to essentially run for office as Republican candidates….They can do that because there’s no rule against that as Fox. They run as a political operation; we’re not.”
–Rachel Maddow on Olberman’s suspension without pay for engaging in “free speech” in the form of campaign contributions.
Not that anyone seems to care on CFN, since “we are all fucked” according to the CFN mantra, but Obama has achieved 10 consecutive months of private sector job growth. Bad news for those, like JHK, who use metaphors like Wiley Coyote suspended in mid air or metaphors like we are staring at an economic abyss. If that were true, we would have had 10 consecutive months of decreasing job numbers. We would be in an economic Depression right now, unemployment would be at 70%, CEOs would be jumping out of skyscrapers, and the Dow would be at 4,000. But none of that is happening, because Obama has been good for the USA economy and the numbers prove it. Facts are stubborn things.
Today’s employment report shows that private sector payrolls increased by 159,000 in October, continuing ten consecutive months of private sector job growth. While job growth was substantially higher than in past months and higher than analysts expected, the pace was not enough to reduce the overall unemployment rate, which remained at 9.6%. [not 70%]
In addition to the increase in October, the estimates of private sector job growth for August and September were revised up by a total of 93,000. Since last December, private sector employment has risen by 1.1 million. Over the last quarter, including today’s revisions, private sector employers added an average of 122,000 jobs per month.
Now What? Looks Like Apple Continues to be the Leader
Now What? Bank of America going down?
I told a certain someone (who is an accountant and can probably appreciate the magnitude of a 96.8 Billion dollar hole) to move his money out of Bank of America and into the Credit Union where his sister-in-law works.
For his sake, I hope he moves his money out of Bank of America before it crashes. I’m not sure the new Republican-controlled Congress is going to be in the mood for another Bank of America bailout. Especially when Bank of America is now on the low-end of the price to book ratio and may be going broke.
Now What? Bank of America going down? – asoka
Good question.
You always have to keep the antennas up.
I recently saw Paul Krugman on the telly talking about job numbers numbers and he was taking a dim view of things. His approach was to compare these numbers to the job creation numbers during the Clinton years. He said that in that time there was an average of 230,000 jobs per month created for 8 straight years. I’m not sure if I quoted him correctly because we were in the middle of getting grub and I was distracted but that was the gist of it.
If the administration uses common sense in formulating policy I think this mess is fixable but it will take years. IMO first thing is to stop this policy of printing money. That’s what got us into this mess.
But it’s not all up to Obama. There’s only so much any govt can do especially if your captains of industry and their buddies on Wall Street are morons.
For anyone interested, there’s a more polished response to Turkle’s question upthread at my blog this morning:
http://smallbatchgarden.blogspot.com/2010/11/why-neo-tribalism-is-ultimately.html
Cheers!
Hancock,
I don’t under-estimate the influence of the financial and business elite in Washington. I’ve expended a lot of time on this site ranting about the lies, fraud and thievery perpetrated by those grotesque homunculi on Wall Street so I’m with you there.
“Totalitarianism” to me is much too strong a word to describe what is happening in the US. So is the word “empire” or “imperialism”. If you want to talk about disproportionate influence exercised by certain people or certain groups of people in Washington then I’m all for it. After all Rahm Emmanuel won’t pick up the phone if you or I call but I would give Bill Gross at PIMCO a fighting chance. And Billy Bob Tauzin was the point man in writing up Obama-care laws not you or me or anyone like us.
I think people who lived through the lunacies of Nazi-ism or Stalinism or Maoism would be better qualified to talk about totalitarianism. It’s a question of definition. In a previous post I talked about people I had met, one of whom was taken as a schoolboy during the insanities of the Cultural Revolution in Communist China to witness executions at a playing field, another who lost most of her family in the Ukraine to Stalin’s policy of genocide. I think if they were in on this discussion they’d have some pretty robust views on what constitutes totalitarianism.
I don’t mean to sound like I’m disparaging American power or influence because clearly Americans have both. But I wouldn’t overstate it. To me it’s not an “either-or” proposition it’s rather a question of “more or less”.
I think we’re seeing the US and its place in the world through different lenses. I’m an outsider, I never grew up steeped in the idea of my country’s power and exceptionalism so I’m not emotionally attached to the concept nor viscerally opposed. When I travelled through the US I would see servicemen in uniform all around. Very impressive.
But then I see the US trying to exert its military power and getting its ass kicked first by skinny brown men in black pajamas and then by illterate turbanned farmers. Some empire. I’m repeating myself but IMO the people of the United States do not have the ruthlessness to run an empire. When they try to project military power they mess it up. Americans were once good at it but no more.
The pattern of failure you see again in the economic realm but for different reasons. IMO it’s not for lack of ruthlessness but rather an excess of witlessness. The people of the US (and this is true of both the man in the street and the elites in boardrooms) forgot that economic success is built on work and saving. I don’t think this financial debacle was planned because I don’t think that people on Wall Street have the ability to think past the next bonus. Nor do I think the bailout was the work of some malevolent group that thought this whole thing through. I don’t think they’re that bright. I think that the accounts we all heard of bankers and bureaucrats thrashing about at 2 am in blind panic were probably accurate. It squares with my own experience of people in the managerial class.
I spent much of my life working for large multi-nationals in different industries. I’ve had exposure to people in executive ranks and I’m just not impressed with their brilliance. They had certain attributes that vaulted them to the top but I have to say an excess of raw intelligence, wisdom or managerial ability was not in the inventory (ie how in hell did Dubya get to be pres – same phenom in the corporate world). So when I hear the term “managed democracy” it gives me the giggles. During much of my so called career I’ve watched bosses take once successful large businesses and screw them up. I think this has been the story of much of North American business in the last 30 or 40 years. These guys cannot even manage the businesses thay were hired to manage never mind manage something as unamenable to direction as the public square.
Time will tell if your view is right. As some wise man said if the facts change I change my mind. I’m a cynic and skeptical of established wisdom and the powers that be so I can change my mind on the issue.
I think basically you have it in that our discussion is about our own underlying assumptions and about, of all things, semantics.
Basically you say that totalitarianism can’t be totalitarianism without the stinking masses of piled up bodies and brutal direct physical oppression.
And I agree with that. I agree with that perspective as it has applied to every era of human history up until the relatively brief hiatus of the Age of Cheap Abundant Energy. I absolutely agree.
If this was the year 500 BC or 50 BC, I would agree with you. If this was the year 50 AD or 500 AD I would agree with you. In 1580, 1780, or 1880 I would agree with you.
And you know what? It is a fair certainty that if we were having this conversation in 2080 or 2180 AD, I would probably agree with you.
But not now. And really, there’s not much more to say that isn’t both of us repeating ourselves. Except to shake hands, as it were, and agree to disagree.
We both share a similar characteristic in that if the facts change, we change our minds. At this point, with more than twenty years of personal observation, experience, and research since I was a young man, it would take a whole lot of facts to convince me right now that I’ve got it wholly wrong.
Not because I am immune to changing my worlview, but when one has a mass preponderance of evidence, it takes an equally massive preponderance of evidence to make a skeptic doubt.
I’m pretty sure we agree on that, also.
So I know I can’t convince you, nor would I try. Only facts, the unfolding of time and reality can convince you. In this we are the same, too, I think.
Thus, let me leave you with something for your fact pile, which one day I hope will lead you to an awakening in time to maybe help keep Canada out of the hands of RW Authoritarians, who believe you me are 100 times worse than those gutless, ineffectual Liberals you deride.
Welcome to the unsung Teabagging Hero of the 2010 USA midterm “election” (and I use that term loosely)…NEUROMARKETING!
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/feb/10/science/sci-polbrain10
Turk
You are correct that the US still has the manufacturing capacity for military hardware. That’s half the equation. What the US no longer has is the financial capacity to build the military hardware. In my view the reason for that is that too much of your manufacturing capacity was offshored to China and other places. In so doing too much of your labour force became unemployed, too much of your economy disappeared and with it the tax base that financed these military expenditures.
To me, the military/industrial complex consisted not just of defence contractors on the industrial side of the complex but also those industrial operations that employed so many people and other businesses that paid the taxes that financed the military.
You’re right that the US has nukes galore in its arsenal. I don’t want to sound snarky but so what? What good are they? No one is afraid of them because everyone, me included, believes that the odds of their being deployed are vanishingly small. They sit there as militarily useless as a box of fireworks.
I agree with you about the US being sensitive about world opinion. If the US had been more ruthless it could have stopped the Iraqi insurgency in its tracks and there would have been no need for that “surge”. For example, the US could have flattened Fallujah and levelled Najaf and I think that the contrary elements in Iraqi society would have got the message that at the other end of an armed insurrection is certain death and mass destruction. As Napoleon said, and I’m paraphrasing, if you’re going to take Vienna, take Vienna. Not everyone there is a lunatic suicide bomber.
In fact I think it was this sensitivity towards world opinion and not only that but sensitivity to American casualties that led Bush and his boys to hit back after 9/11 at the easy low lying fruit instead of the real bad actors, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. They couldn’t take 9/11 lying down but they had political realities back home to worry about.
So I’m agreeing with you that the method of subduing fanatics (bombing the crap out of them) like Nazis and Japanese militarists (who by the way I see as every bit as dedicated as Muslim suicide bombers ) will no longer be used.
It’s not so much that these methods can’t be used. But they won’t be because as you say, and I agree here also, that the US now has foreign paymasters, in Beijing especially, who Americans are now answering to (he who pays the piper calls the tune). The big question is how long the Chinese are going to keep funding the Pentagon budget.
Notice that Iran is busy firing up its nuclear reactor. The failure to stop them will reverberate for decades if not centuries. This is a lesson, to not only the US but also its potential adversaries, about American impotence.
This is one hell of a way to build an empire.
Cash said: “Notice that Iran is busy firing up its nuclear reactor. The failure to stop them will reverberate for decades if not centuries.”
What’s with the Iran bashing? Iran is not an aggressor nation. Iran has not threatened or invaded any of its neighbors. Iran has defended itself against Saddam Hussein and has provided arms to the freedom fighters in Iraq, but has shown no territorial or imperialist ambitions.
Ahmadinejad (who does not run Iran) did say in a public speech that “those in power in Isreal will one day fade away” (in other words, the meaning was: “this too shall pass, nobody stays in power forever”) His statement, which used passive intransitive verbs in Persian, was mistranslated into English with active transitive verbs as: “we will wipe Israel off the map” which he in no way said nor implied.
It is so damn easy to manipulate people with talk of war once you convince them a threat exists.
Iran is a threat to no one except its own citizens, and they are the ones who will change the government and determine future Iranian nuclear policy. Cash says “The failure to stop them will reverberate for decades if not centuries” as if it is a crime, as if it is dangerous for a nation to have nuclear power plants to produce energy.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/apgnpF
OK man, you asked for it: for the starts read all my posts on this site, maybe thee are 30 or 40 from 2009 (?) and all of those of nameta9, old6598 (scientists) at http://www.ilovephilosophy.com.
They all tell it how it is: all of you, and most of the world is hung on some kind of resource scarcity myth: you all think energy, minerals, land etc. is running out, nothing further from the truth. All of these are increasing exponentially because of technology, IT, research, science, optimized manufacturing, robots in factories, genetic engineering food for all, etc. Population is slowing wy down, we won’t even hit 10 billion in 50 years, when the carrying capacity of the earth (and eventually solar system) is in the order of thousands of trillions.
It is very easy, in fact too easy to give all the basics to a really puny 10 billion people on earth: they just need some food, a decent house, some heating cooling, a TV (which you find many even in the favelas of rio), etc. A few basic crappy items, it is easy as pie to give this to all, basically for free: and that is the point, all these debates don’t understand that our society has undergone a phase transition into decent living conditions for all at a very small price. But since this is so hard to grasp, given thousands of years of scarcity due to low technology, we just can’t accept it, and keep on fighting each other as if there were limitations.
THERE ARE NO LIMITATIONS, THERE IS WAY MORE THAN ENOUGH FOR EVERYONE, FOR THOUSANDS OF TRILLIONS, ALL THIS TALK OF SCARCITY JUST AIDS THE RULING CLASS SO AS TO MAKE POOR PEOPLE FIGHT AGAINST EACH OTHER OVER IMAGINED SCARCITIES.
There are hundreds of technologies to extract energy, to build skyscrapers, to build anything and anyway you want: there are millions of people idle, if you activate them, you can produce everything anyone will ever need for milleniums.
Canada provided nuclear technology to India, a fellow member of the British Commonwealth, who swore up and down that the technology would never be used for nuclear weapons. That worked out well didn’t it? Now we have two nuclear armed South Asian adversaries at daggers drawn both of which are impoverished, totally corrupt, terrorist infested and one of which was distributing nuclear technology. Very naughty. Or maybe that too was malicious American propaganda.
Now to Iran.
From Wikipedia:———————————–
The translation presented by the official Iranian Government press Islamic Republic News Agency translated the statement as “wiped off the map” this was challenged by Arash Norouzi, who says the statement “wiped off the map” was never made and that Ahmadinejad did not refer to the nation or land mass of Israel, but to the “regime occupying Jerusalem”. Norouzi translated the original Persian to English, word for word, with the result, “the Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time.”[12] Juan Cole, a University of Michigan Professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian History, agrees that Ahmadinejad’s statement should be translated as, “the Imam said that this regime occupying Jerusalem (een rezhim-e eshghalgar-e qods) must [vanish from] the page of time (bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad).
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) translates the phrase similarly, as “be eliminated from the pages of history”
end of wikipedia———————————-
OK whatever, “one day will fade away” or “vanish from the page of time” or or “be eliminated from the pages of history” however you want it.
You’re right Asoka. This is all a dreadful misunderstanding, Iran is a friend of Israel, Ahmadinejad didn’t say it, he didn’t mean it, he wasn’t there and besides he was pushed. And he’s not a holocaust denier either. He’s a former Jew after all so, I mean, really.
You’re entitled to your opinion but to me Iran looks like a regime run by loons.
Cash said: “Ahmadinejad didn’t say it, he didn’t mean it, he wasn’t there and besides he was pushed.”
Ahmadinejad is not Iran’s Supreme Leader. He is a bureaucrat called “president”.
More importantly, Iran’s neighbors have been invaded and occupied by hostile forces, a very menacing development, even though Iran itself is not, and has not been, a threat to its neighbors.
Cash said: “You’re right Asoka. This is all a dreadful misunderstanding, Iran is a friend of Israel…”
I think you intend this to be a taunt, but you are speaking the truth here. Iran is a friend of Israel, despite differences with the current regime, which will eventually fade away.
Plural of millenium = millenia, just as media is the plural of medium, and data is the plural of datum. This stuff is important because if you don’t have a grasp of the minutiae, how can you possibly have the slightest grasp of complex systems thought like ecology? I’m an ecologist. That’s a kind of scientist, just so you know. Your two ilovephilosophy cub scouts are most likely biotech junkies or QM nutters. Almost guaranteed to be gamers of some brain-damaged, wholly out-of-touch variety.
Just for the record, I’m not talking about a world of scarcity. That’s where we live now. TVs and protein paste for all is the epitome of scarcity. I’m talking about a world of abundance. A world where humans play an appropriate role inside Nature from whence we evolved, and to where our constituent elements will return when we die. A world where humans can strive to become net producers instead of wanton consumers. As animals, our role in the great scheme is that of consumer, but our appetite has created a situation where we need to become better than our station.
Are you familiar with the Fertile Crescent? Yeah, that’s the cradle of civilization in a region that includes parts of modern day Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, southeastern Turkey, and the western fringe of Iran. It’s where agriculture was born 10,000 years ago, mostly because of its concentration of easily-domesticable wild wheat and barley. And today it is, well, you’ve seen it on your TV, a harsh, dry, salt-encrusted desert. 90% of it is damn near useless. The last forest in the region was cut down early last century in Jordan. Forest transpiration creates rain, rain is needed to grow crops, and irrigation, including hydroponic systems, is a lot more energy-intensive, not to mention ultimately completely reliant on rainfall. We’re hovering somewhere north of 30% planetary deforestation today, and the rain is becoming a lot less reliable, as the Maasai in Tanzania will be quick to support, as will my personal friends from Australia who are currently looking for a new home that actually gets a reasonable amount of rain. Human activity and climate change are adding 75 square miles of desert a day to planet Earth. Not exactly what I think of as sustainable for a growing population. If our population growth curve is slowing down and reversing, (and I also believe that it is), it is because of the energetic reality in which we live. It’s hard to raise more children on declining energy resources. Look around man, our species doesn’t possess the insight to curb its own population! Does the percentage of the human population that even talks about the concepts we’re discussing here even register on the scale? Much less the percentage that actually acts on that knowledge?
Look, if Jesus is coming back to save us from ourselves, then that means that we truly do have dominion over the rest of life on Earth, and it means that it is there exclusively for our use and enjoyment, so by all means let’s trash the place. Surely the almighty will pile on extra rewards/virgins for behavior like that. But for anyone with half a working brain, that scenario rings deafeningly unlikely.
You couldn’t touch Venus, it’s deadly poisonous and inhospitable, Mercury is a roasting rock hurdling around the Sun at breakneck pace, and Mars has little more to offer. Certainly nothing worth the energy to get there and bring back. There’s no unobtainium, dude; it was just a movie. (A movie that was actually meant to get you thinking about protecting Earth!) Earth is the baby bear’s “just right” for life to evolve and thrive. These are quite simple energetic realities to grasp. Visiting Mars is fun, it’s fascinating, I read all about it in National Geographic, but it isn’t a “solution” by any maddening stretch of the imagination. And people who say otherwise are as out of touch with reality as it gets. If we can’t live in harmony with a planet as supple and hospitable as Earth, I can guarantee you Mars will have nothing for us.
The social decay we see all around us (for example, I see you) is a product of biospheric breakdown. “Type II” diabetes was called “adult-onset” diabetes a mere decade ago, before the fat little children started getting it; cancer is only about 180 years old; and arthritis is only as old as agriculture, and no amount of convenient mathematics is going to change that trend. Only fundamental changes in our behavior will. And apparently that will only come when it is absolutely demanded of us by physical and market realities. [The support for humans being just another biological population, and not enlightened eternal beings, seems overwhelming to me.] There is indeed a paradigm shift to be had, but it is most definitely grounded in the natural world. You have to go there first before you can find it.
Disclaimer: Since I don’t read 8M’s nonsense anymore, this “response” is intended for general audiences;o)
Irans nukes >>> doesnt public radio say ‘ dont worry’?
and TURKLE:
‘You argue that China now has the same or better manufacturing expertise as the United States. When it comes to consumer products, possibly. But when it comes to military hardware, weapons, etc., this is definitely not the case’
turk, you argue the dems are our friends…didnt cliton give them the ‘ crown jewels’ of our restricted technology and no major newpaper write much about this transfer? yet the papers prattle
over celebs and wetbacks rights!
libs here dont like Vlads posts….at least in his hatefilled rants he warns folks about whats really happening….we are lemmings
Now large scale immigration from Mexico, both legal and illegal, has something to do with the soft US job market.
i couldnt disagree more….we are a society not an economy
we are humans, citizens or aliens, not ‘consumers’
Nonsense.
months later you are still promoing apple with yr
‘dont worry be happy’ nonsense.
a year? ago you said the economy was great, since apple had a great quarter!
‘Saudi Arabia’…can we bite the hand that greases us?
Asoka, my boy, the reason for the Iran bashing is simple. We want their oil, just like we want the Iraqis’ oil. But we want the moral high ground too. Thus, both of them must be “evil”. And one more point, the “we” in the above sentences doesn’t include you, or me, or most of the people who are forced into paying for this grand cause. Finally, look around you. How many of the populace’ rice bowls are filled by the military industrial complex? You can bet they will keep their mouths shut no matter how outrageous the lies and atrocious the behavior of their master. There’s the one thing you can depend on: no matter how stentorian their attestations of honor and fairness, they have feet of clay.
Trip reported: “If we can’t live in harmony with a planet as supple and hospitable as Earth, I can guarantee you Mars will have nothing for us.”
Aye, theres the rub.
Iran is an imperialist jihadi terror state. It uses terror on the various peoples it has subjugated under its control. People interested in freedom, would want Iran broken into its natural ethnic constituents. Same for Iraq and Syria. Iran, like Iraq and Syria, should not be allowed anywhere near nuclear technology.
I fucking KILL you!
Mika said: “Iran is an imperialist jihadi terror state.”
Mika, to wage a true jihad is to “strive” or “struggle” in the way of God, using the most peaceful methods available.
This means, foremost, striving to improve your soul, not your earthly circumstance. This internal struggle for righteousness is known as the “greater jihad.” Any effort to change something outside oneself is part of the “lesser jihad,” which centers on the struggle to achieve worldly justice.
While these two jihads represent two very distinct concepts, there are many places where they intersect, places where striving for earthly justice promotes a more virtuous soul, and vice versa.
In the words of the Prophet Muhammad, “The greatest jihad is speaking truth in the face of an unjust ruler.” Islam permits violence only as a last resort and in self-defense, and it is by far the lowest expression of jihad.
A true jihadist strives for peace and justice; a true jihadist never starts a fight, and a true jihadist defends herself and her people from oppression in the best way she knows how.
Sojourner Truth, Mohandas Gandhi and Malcolm X would all be considered jihadists. As would José Martí, Aung San Suu Kyi, Martin Luther King, Simon Wiesenthal, Patrice Lumumba and Nelson Mandela.
As would Shirin Ebadi, Mehdi Karroubi and millions of nameless Iranians who are risking their lives today in the fight for a free Iran tomorrow.
Countless Iranians have taken to the streets to speak truth in the face of their unjust rulers since the highly-disputed June 2009 presidential election, after which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed victory with the blessing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.
These pro-democracy demonstrators are the founders of Iran’s “Green Movement,” and whether they know it or not, they are model jihadists. In the face of bullets, teargas, batons and water-hoses, they are fighting for the freedom of their souls and the freedom of their people.
In spite of the government warnings, illegal detentions and even executions of “rioters” who the regime has charged with being “enemies of God,” the Iranian “Greens” refused to back down. And to their credit, they did so in a largely non-violent and highly Islamic way.
Here is what Mika’s way of thinking leads to:
The United States would lose any confrontation with Iran. The USA should not confuse Iraq & Afghanistan (countries weakened by years of war and UN sanctions) with Iran.
Iran is not an aggressor nation, but does have capability to retaliate (probably including nuclear response). Any attack would work against the pro-democratic forces trying to bring down the theocratic government in Iran. An attack would unify Iranians (and allies of Iran) against the United States.
The United States is a weak nation, with weak people, a weak military, a weak economy, a nation divided and broke, and not capable of defeating Iran. An attack on Iran would be madness.
We should be supporting pro-democracy Iranians against the totalitarian Islamic fundamentalists.
Jim,
I think is but a simple statement you hit the nail on the head. “There will be a desperate need for a new politics in this country, for people unafraid to tell the truth and act in the genuine public interest.” But… do you realize that most of the public don’t want to hear the truth. Hard times are ahead and everyone needs to pitch in and do their share and suck it up a it? Come on. Let’s get real. The only thing that will change the majority of people and how they think is pain and suffering. Welcome to the beginning of the Greater Depression. Most people are dumber than rocks and wish to remain that way. So be it. No politician who wants to be re-elected will tell the truth. With the Re-pubicans in power in the house we have at least a 2 year reprieve on major collapse. I am glad for those 2 years. Even if the Re-pubicans take over the House, Senate, and White House next election they will not do what needs to be done. It would be the end of their political careers. As long as the politicians are working for themselves we will not see the change we need. Screw the stupids and batten down the hatches tis going to be a rough and long ride.
Engineer, your thoughts are spot on. And you are certainly correct about needing to batten down the hatches. But reflecting back, I’m impressed how long this unsustainable charade has been kept operative. Apparently originally the system was built pretty well, otherwise it wouldn’t have been able to endure the abuse it’s been dealt in the last 20 or so years. Personally, I think the reason for this remarkable momentum is that we had a core cadre of rational, responsible and competent adults running things. Call them the “A” team. They are now going or gone – retired or dead. We are now falling below the minimum percentage of “A” team members necessary to keep the system working. Their positions at the controls have been replaced by the irresponsible, irrational, incompetent and GREEDY.
Nascar Anyone?
www2.oanow.com/news/2010/nov/07/2/ohio-race-fan-finds-religion-talladega-track-ar-1060625/
From the AP
Ohio race fan finds religion at Talladega track
I’ve posted this before, but after my depressing scenario about the human-created deserts of the Middle East, I thought it might be worth reposting as a little hopeful pick-me-up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sohI6vnWZmk
Australian permaculture guru, Geoff Lawton, rehabilitated this flat 10-acre, hyper-arid, hyper-saline, 400m below sea level site in Jordan, that reaches 130F in the summer, with our techniques.
If we can do it there, it can be done anywhere. There’s no better example out there of the power of concerted and thoughtful human efforts directed at repairing the mess we’ve made.
Enjoy and be hopeful!
Game, Set and Match
I like to refer to our political gyrations as game, set and match, because in evidence we see a clear movement toward the same goals by both parties. It’s like a game where someone sets up a shot and then the others on the team follows it through. (more like volleyball than tennis but I like the reference anyway).
Once everyone accepted the ideas fostered by neoliberalism and globalism, it was a fait a compli.
In other words when Kissinger and Nixon went to China and everyone in China learned English, you know they were preparing for what was to come. Nobody learns a new language so different from their own for nothing. When I went to China in 1988 every educated young person could speak the Queen’s English beautifully. They were capable of discussing war, politics, aesthetics–pretty impressive for those who only took English at school for four years!
Don’t sell the American power elite short. Don’t think they don’t know what they’re doing. Someone mentioned that Clinton gave over military tech. secrets to the Chinese. You are absolutely correct on that. They left computers open so the Chinese could get what they needed. But don’t get confused by party names. It doesn’t matter who’s in control in the larger scheme of things. The presidents are just the water boys for the founding families and the plutocrats.
They won’t get in power or stay in power if they don’t follow through. Like Kabuki theater the Reps and Dems play their parts and you are to think the Dems have no backbone. Maybe they don’t want to stay in power—ever think of that?–It might be time for the republicans to give social security to Wall St.
They have a philosophical context or ideology and they are moving it forward with every president we’ve had since Nixon. Each step of the way has opened us up to what we’re now experiencing.
If it looks like they’re fumbling it’s because they want you to believe that. In the meantime they have set up the US hegemony globally in the military and financial arena. I always mention Milton Friedman by name and the Chicago School of business because I think anything else is too general. If you ever read the “Shock Doctrine” you will know how they destroy the economies in other countries and feed off the public domain in favor of privatization.
Now they’re doing it here, so just observe their moves and understand their motives. Of course they destroyed our economy by putting into a counter intuitive mode. From the greatest creditor nation with a demand-side economy to the greatest debtor nation with a supply side economy.
Now the feckless W is coming out and defending his use of water boarding. He will tell the people how important torture is in getting information. Keep in mind, they think you forget, they think you won’t know how they revise history for public consumption. In the time of W there were plenty of CIA and other interrogators that came out and said they got no useful information by the practice, but as usual facts just get in the way.
Inverted totalitarianism is what Chris Hedges calls our present state.
We should be supporting pro-democracy Iranians against the totalitarian Islamic fundamentalists.
==
I agree. The way to do that is thru economic, technology, and political sanctions. And that means no nuke technology for the mullahs, or for any autocratic jihadi regime for that matter.
The United States would lose any confrontation with Iran.
==
LOL! You have no fscking idea what the US military is really capable of. The US would crash the Iranians faster than you can blink an eye. Not that I advocate such an approach, I want the US out of the ME. But let’s keep things real.
“For his sake, I hope he moves his money out of Bank of America before it crashes. I’m not sure the new Republican-controlled Congress is going to be in the mood for another Bank of America bailout. Especially when Bank of America is now on the low-end of the price to book ratio and may be going broke.” -asoka
Ha! I’m quite sure that the repuplocrats are in the “mood” for another bailout of their bank-buds; but how they’ll spin it (so’s it doesn’t look like they’re doing what they’re doing) should be more than entertaining. (For those paying attention, it’ll be instructive as well.)
Good point about getting funds well away before the empty edifice crumbles.
Videos on Max Keiser site are excellent today…its all about the gold and how money is no longer an asset.
Also discussing Iran as next front (to bolster economy?)
Check out first Jim Willie and then Damon Vrabel
http://maxkeiser.com/
This seems so simple that I should’ve already gotten this quantified, but just tonight it struck me what we power-downers and relocalization junkies are really doing.
We’re marking things off the list. If the proverbial shit were to hit the fan, and all the goods and services in your area (including gasoline) were to start dropping like flies, what would you put all your effort into first?
Food and Water. No question about it, you’d have to reinvent your food supply chain immediately. And hopefully have an alternate source of water if needed. OK, so learn to garden, and do it organically, because all of a sudden the fertilizer supply is cut off too. After all, most fertilizers are just derivatives of fossil fuels. That actually happened in Cuba already, so not as far fetched a scenario as you might think at first. They dealt with it quite well, but they were also a very communal culture to begin with, where we really, really aren’t. We talk to (at?) each other every week, but I’ve only met one person on this list in the flesh. How many have you met? This is your tribe, but only while the system runs. This will be a lot more culturally-difficult for Americans than it was for Cubans.
What’s next? Somewhere in here we should’ve gotten a fire going, but if we all shifted back to a wood-burning economy, our forests wouldn’t last more than a decade tops. So start thinking about alternatives, whether it’s a super hi-efficiency rocket stove, planting fast growing coppicing trees, a solar oven, or heating thermal mass in the house, and water with compost. We can’t get used to a wood-burning economy, period. Deforestation reduces rainfall, and at a time when aquifers are drying up and saltwater intrusions are common along coastlines (i.e. where everybody lives), that’s a bad direction to head. So reserve some headspace for this issue, and confront it like a grown-up.
Alright so we’re thinking hard about food, water, hot water, heat and cooking fuel. We should probably also approach this problem from the other side, the behavioral side, if we’re really going to have a chance. If you’re facing severe shortages of energy, fertility, and water, you’ll have to adapt your habits as well as your technologies. Forget about eating corn. It’s too needy. And not that nutritious really. Focus on nutrient density and perennial crops that require less energy input (no tilling or planting, little weeding and fertilizing, deeper roots/less water, etc). I’m always surprised at how satisfied I am by small amounts of really high-quality food. I’m talking fruit and nut trees; berry bushes, vines, and canes; self-seeding and perennialized annual crops, like potatoes, sweet potatoes, and sunchokes in the south. Mushrooms are like adding another tier to your medicine cabinet and food pyramid for free; they don’t take up any additional space in the garden, they create rather than degrade topsoil, and several very tasty species are suitable for garden/orchard cultivation. Get into mushrooms. I know sporadic poster “Lewis Lucan Books” has written me to talk about his little mushroom enterprise out west.
We need mushrooms everywhere, and you could probably grow them in your bathroom if you had nowhere else. Nice oak logs, leaned into a small closet with a humidifier and tile floor, producing medicine fit to do battle with cancer, and outstanding flavor and nutrition to bring into your diet. Shiitake. Protein, minerals, B vitamins, top shelf. Grow some. I sell inoculated 40″ logs around 5″ in diameter for $20 apiece. Cost me about $4.50 and half an hour to make. And I’m taking my time. After 5 or 6 years of production, you’re left with humus for the garden as the only “waste” product from the original $20 log.
Your ecosystem is starting to close up by this point, and your community of local producers and like-minded allies expanding. You’re removing entire links from your food chain, cutting out middle men left and right, and reducing your energy consumption logarithmically each step of the way.
At about this time, you realize that what you’re doing is mentally running down the list of interruptions in goods and services that could really screw up your world, and taking each one back under your own control, one at a time. When the grocery store fails, I’ll barely notice. That’s our goal for 2011 anyway. No more supermarket, ever, by Winter Solstice next year. No matter how many Friedman units “the big crash” is away. Achieving something like that is raw power. Growing and acquiring all of your food from your own bioregion castrates the system that would prefer to “quantitatively ease” you without any lube. It’s horribly addictive – not needing the brokers anymore. Every calorie you produce for yourself, or consciously avoid spending, puts control back into your own hands, and takes it from TPTB. And there’s not a damn thing they can do about it.
Thanks for the post, Trip. Nourishment on many levels; food for thought, to be sure!
Do you have any links for growing potatoes? I’ve been wanting to start growing some next year. And post your website again if you would. Thanks.
Tripp, I continue to be impressed by your knowledge base and your writing ability. Thanks. I’m thinking what you are saying is good for people who have a quarter an acre or more of land, but getting out of the commercial food chain is probably more difficult for those in more urban areas, and some tight suburban areas, where gardening may be limited largely to container gardening. Still, every little step to become free from the system will pay dividends some unknown number of Friedman units from now.
Many interesting posts above by many
who see through the bread and circuses
acts of the two parties and their bankster
sponsors.
I hope some of you had a chance to see
David Stockman speak about QE2 on Bloomberg.
I’m surprised Bloomberg had the balls to put
him on since the multinational sponsors of
the mainstream media don’t want you to know
that their toxic assets are being counter-
balanced with PUBLIC debt. That’s what
Treasuries are … the total extent to
which your children are on the hook for
these goddamned stopgaps.
We could virtually bail out the entire US
population with QE2 but, no, it’s in the
form of Treasuries that landed in the
vaults of Goldman and the other primary
broker dealers. The telegraphing of QE2
has led to huge commodity speculation
which means HIGHER PRICES for food and
fuel in the here and now. It won’t create
a single job.
QE2 revealed, even more than QE1, what a
criminal enterprise the Federal Reserve
system is. It has NOTHING to do with
“inflation targetting” or “demand creation”.
It’s about hiding toxic assets with sanitized
public debt.
Cry the beloved country.
E.
I want to be FIRST…
Not last!
Debt, thanks for the kind words. I’m starting to put together a blog post about potatoes, sweet potatoes, and sunchokes, massive self-seeding carbohydrate crops that is, and will post the link here when it’s ready.
In the meantime here is the link again, as you requested:
http://www.smallbatchgarden.blogspot.com
Cheers!
Last.
Last.
“but getting out of the commercial food chain is probably more difficult for those in more urban areas,”
Doesn’t have to be. Just buy from regional producers whenever possible. Grow some herbs in a sunny window. Little things like organic herbs can add a ton of vitamin and mineral nutrition (and medicine) to your diet. I watched a video of a guy last night whose major point was that you can’t just start gardening after a food supply chain collapse. It’s very knowledge intensive, especially at first, and takes years to develop and master. So I say plant SOMETHING as soon as possible, just to get a feel for it.
Thanks, Asoka!
so this could effect the progress of the economy growth? can us found and develop its infrastructures like china?
Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan. (Can you state a single idea or position, these political ciphers advanced?)
Actually Upstate New Yorker and Whig Party Fillmore, who accidentally became 13th President when bigtime Mississippi Whig slaveowner and Mexican “war hero” Zack Taylor choked on a meal of milk and raw veggies, oversaw some significant events in U.S. history:
1) Compromise of 1850:
* Admit California as a free state. (Hence Fillmore St. in SF) (Tipped the Senate balance against the slave states for the first time)
* Settle the Texas boundary and compensate the state for lost lands.
* Grant territorial status to New Mexico.
* Place federal officers at the disposal of slaveholders seeking escapees—the Fugitive Slave Act. (Sparked active militant resistance to slavery in the North, leading to Bloody Kansas and John Brown)
* Abolish the slave trade, but not slavery, in the District of Columbia.
2) Appointed Brigham Young as the first governor of the Utah Territory in 1850. Young then named his new Utah capital “Fillmore”, in the county of “Millard”, Utah.
3) Sent Commodore Matthew C. Perry to open Japan to Western trade. This set off the chain of events that led to the modernizing Meiji regime in Japan.
4) Was one of the founders of the University of Buffalo (now SUNY Buffalo)
5) Started the White House library when he found the White House devoid of books.
After his Presidency, NY based Millard Fillmore led the “American Party” Know-nothing faction of the Whig Party.
Not bad for a “Know-Nothing” Presidential candidate.