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The Fate of the Turtle

A nybody truly interested in government, and therefore politics, should be cognizant above all that ours have already entered systemic failure. The management of societal affairs is on an arc to become more inept and ineffectual, no matter how either of the current major parties pretends to control things. Instead of Big Brother, government in our time turns out to be Autistic Brother. It makes weird noises and flaps its appendages, but can barely tie its own shoelaces.

The one thing it does exceedingly well is drain the remaining capital from endeavors that might contribute to the greater good. This includes intellectual capital, by the way, which, under better circumstances, might gird the political will to reform the sub-systems that civilized life depends on. These include: food production (industrial agri-business), commerce (the WalMart model), transportation (Happy Motoring), school (a matrix of rackets), medicine (ditto with the patient as hostage), and banking (a matrix of fraud and swindling).

All of these systems have something in common: they’ve exceeded their fragility threshold and crossed into the frontier of criticality. They have nowhere to go except failure. It would be nice if we could construct leaner and more local systems to replace these monsters, but there is too much vested interest in them. For instance, the voters slapped down virtually every major ballot proposition to invest in light rail and public transit around the country. The likely explanation is that they’ve bought the story that shale oil will allow them to drive to WalMart forever.

That story is false, by the way. The politicos put it over because they believe the Wall Street fraudsters who are pimping a junk finance racket in shale oil for short-term, high-yield returns. The politicos want desperately to believe the story because the background reality is too difficult to contemplate: an American living arrangement with no future.

The public, of course, is eager to believe the same story for the same reasons, but at some point they’ll flip and blame the story-tellers, and their wrath could truly wreck what remains of this polity. When it is really too late to fix any of these things, they’ll beg someone to tell them what to do, and the job-description for that position is dictator.

It’s certainly remarkable that the years since the troubles of 2008 have been so seemingly placid and uneventful, at least here in the USA — not so much if you live in the Middle East or Ukraine, or in the decaying economies of southern Euroland, or the septic failed states of Africa. The many formerly-middle-class Americans living in economic ruin apparently blame themselves when, for instance, they’re billed tens of thousands of dollars for some routine surgery performed “out of network” by a bureaucratic happenstance. They must be punch-drunk with cable news, or over-medicated. Don’t expect this national mood of paralysis and surrender to last indefinitely.

What troubles me at the moment is that when that mood snaps, it will be for a bad reason in the wrong way. Ferguson, Mo., is still sitting there like an unattended back-pack on the courthouse steps. Before Christmas, some kind of grand jury decision is going to come down. All the reality-based chatter points to the probable exoneration of Darren Wilson, the policeman who shot teenager Michael Brown. I expect the trouble arising out of that to be a lot worse than most people currently suppose, and then we’ll literally be off to the races. If that happens, it will be a huge and tragic diversion from the things that really matter to keep the project of civilized life going. In a way, it will be the true beginning of the end. The end of what? Of pretending that the people in authority know what they are doing.

If you think that President Obama is lonely and bereft now, just wait. Some excuse will be found to try an impeach him and then the nation will spend another two years conducting a three-ring circus while the shale oil “miracle” crashes and burns and the banking system melts away to nothing. It’s been fun watching Mitch McConnell get ready to preside over all of this. History could not have found a less sympathetic patsy.

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

433 Responses to “The Fate of the Turtle”

  1. SteveO November 10, 2014 at 9:23 am #

    “The public, of course, is eager to believe the same story for the same reasons, but at some point they’ll flip and blame the story-tellers, and their wrath could truly wreck what remains of this polity.”

    That won’t happen until the grocery stores are empty and the electricity has been off for a few weeks. Then it will be way, way too late.

    • Greg Knepp November 10, 2014 at 9:53 am #

      I agree; it will take immediate and palpable disaster to move the lumpen masses of this era. Just look at the pathetic Occupy and Tea Party movements compared to, say, the massive (and fairly effective) anti-war and civil rights movements of the 60s’.

      Oh, the quote of the week must go to the November 7th dailyimpact.net blog. Regarding the mid-terms the author writes “We the passengers of the Titanic just elected a crew that doesn’t believe in icebergs.:

      Snappy!

    • Neon Vincent November 10, 2014 at 10:02 am #

      It will take less than that to get Americans to act, All it will take is the interruption of their entertainment for long enough, and the people will clamor to stop whatever is in the way of their amusement, unless it is itself sufficiently diverting, and have their fun back. That’s why Detroit, in the middle of bankruptcy, had their summer fireworks show and holiday parade continue. That’s also why it’s not likely to happen soon. It’s too easy to keep the show going right now.

      The irony is that conventional economic news looks O.K. right now. Good news for business as usual. Too bad these are not business as usual times.

      • JL Eagan November 10, 2014 at 2:11 pm #

        I think that actually hits something on the head. Disrupt the entertainment (and, when I say this, of course I include sports), and then let’s see what happens.

        This reminded me of a bit from an old episode of M.A.S.H. . Radar O’Reilly says something that annoys Trapper John, who turns to him and says something like “listen, pal! I’ll clean your glasses, and then you’ll see where you are!”.

        If the entertainment and sports suddenly went poof, along with all the incredibly stupid masses of pseudo “news” ABOUT entertainment and sports, I wonder what sort of hypnosis might snap, with results that I’m not sure I could predict, exactly.

        Having said that, though, I have to say what some of you might already speculate, which is that there would be major uproar, but only to restore the disrupted amusements, with little awakening to anything else that people haven’t been noticing while fascinated with… whatever.

        JLE

      • JB November 12, 2014 at 7:46 am #

        I would like to point out that there is entertainment and THE entertainment. Now all sort of having fun are making people more blind to the reality that surrounds them. Take for example stand-up comedians. You have people like George Carlin who were spreading knowledge through comedy. Actually, comedians tend to play an important role in all sorts of regimes. We have to be aware of this distinction.

  2. cornpone2014 November 10, 2014 at 9:23 am #

    “It’s been fun watching Mitch McConnell get ready to preside over all of this. History could not have found a less sympathetic patsy.”

    I thought one had been found in the miserable prick Harry Reid!

    • lsjogren November 10, 2014 at 9:54 am #

      Reid would never accept being a patsy, he will scream till his dying days that everything that goes wrong is due to the Koch Brothers.

  3. newworld November 10, 2014 at 9:35 am #

    Face it Jim the Left screws up everything, take Ferguson for instance. A pretty decent event to begin the discussion of the militarization of the police and what does the Left do but screw it up with retarded racist politics. Using perhaps the most unsympathetic cast of characters in American political history since the Klan as the main actors. Not all the screaming Liberal Nazis with their Political Correctness can put lipstick on that pig, real dumb. Asians were breaking for the Stupid Party this election it was so bad.

    Face it the black racists are not the most sympathetic characters and certainly not the face of progressive sophistication, the Left understands this in Chicago so why can’t the national Democratic party and its flunky media realize this? But the D party keeps on keeping on with the Detroitization of American politics, they even make the Stupid party look good.

    • lsjogren November 10, 2014 at 9:57 am #

      One eternal principle is that the left will always pick the losing side of the argument on everything, even in those rare cases where it has a winning case.

      Ferguson is a good example. There are most certainly a number of cases of excessive force by law enforcement officers leading to tragic consequences.

      All of the evidence so far suggests that the Ferguson incident is NOT one of those cases.

      The incidents the left chooses to highlight the problem of police brutality almost always turn out to be bogus.

      • seawolf77 November 10, 2014 at 10:09 am #

        Oh please.

      • orbit7er November 10, 2014 at 12:12 pm #

        I watched racism in practice in my 90% white suburban area. I went to court to challenge a ticket and it was quite amazing to watch the proceedings. First off, there were all the affluent white plea bargainers with their lawyers negotiating down from egregious citations like speeding 40 MPH in a school zone. So long as they had a lawyer the prosecutor was glad to negotiate. But what was really amazing is that it seemed over half of the people in court were black in a very white area. There has never been any evidence that blacks driving in suburbs are any more likely to speed and certainly not at rates 10x that of white drivers. My coworker is black and been stopped a number of times…
        This is not to say all blacks are innocent just that there is absolutely no doubt of bias.

        • seawolf77 November 10, 2014 at 12:24 pm #

          No question about it. What shocked me my last journey into the court system was the preponderance of young people on marijuana charges. Young and black has to be the worse.

          • newworld November 10, 2014 at 3:03 pm #

            Have you no reading comprehension and must you go off into racist conspiracy theorizing? Yes please make the case that the police are corrupt and prone to over use of SWAT type crap and other brutalities. Believe it or not a good many whites were willing to stand with blacks at this point in time and this coming from the Right not the sad sack white kids of the Left. But NO the left went full fucking racist retard as on queue from their handlers (mainly white BTW).

            I live next to a city whose arrest records are pot this and pot that all the while in the seedier sections of town its gun battles between gangster half wits, nope go arrest the pot heads and take their cars, that is full on stupid and corrupt.

        • Janos Skorenzy November 10, 2014 at 1:40 pm #

          Blacks commit crime at a far higher rate than Whites. There is no reason to believe that their driving is any different.

          • Helen Highwater November 10, 2014 at 2:57 pm #

            You are so full of BS I don’t know how you can stand the thoughts that are in your head.

      • Janos Skorenzy November 10, 2014 at 1:42 pm #

        And Blacks leap to the bait: Whites never get stopped or shot by the Po-Leese! They will always be the weakest link in our society; always a ball and chain on our foot.

        • Subvert November 10, 2014 at 7:28 pm #

          Blacks are 10% of the Mercan population and 45% of it’s prison population. Naw, no racicm going on there… This country was founded on genocide and slavery, and blacks (who were brought here by the capital ownership class who are still in control, especially of your mind) are a ball and chain? Sounds like Karma to me. Any time you use violence to get what you want, you get the opposite result. This is one of the big lessons of history which you have obviously failed to learn.Shortsightedness is the weakest link in ANY society, not skin color.

          Change your name to Janus Sclerosis – the Two Faced god of both Stupid and Corrupt Ideas.

    • jonabark November 10, 2014 at 6:37 pm #

      Well Jim, You seem to be leading a pack of racist corn-pone Nazis yourself. Yuck.

      • seawolf77 November 11, 2014 at 1:02 pm #

        It is a bit ripe.

    • MikeMoskos November 11, 2014 at 10:34 pm #

      Stefan Molyneux, who runs what I’ll call a libertarian philosophy podcast, has a good analysis of the evidence in the Ferguson case. Good listen. The evidence looks really bad against the deceased; there will be no indictment.

      https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/fdr2829-what-pisses-me-off/id552010683?i=320464197&mt=2

      Oct 25th show.

  4. George November 10, 2014 at 9:43 am #

    “It’s been fun watching Mitch McConnell get ready to preside over all of this. History could not have found a less sympathetic patsy.”

    There’s really nothing to be done. Indeed, too many smart greedy people are far too firmly entrenched at the collective helm for it to be otherwise. At this point it all has fail catastrophically for all that is wrong to vanish. We, the citizens, regardless of status, haven’t the slightest ability to affect the outcome whatsoever. And if we can’t do that who can? No wonder the Ayatollahs proclaim the US to be the Great Satan!

    But how will the end begin (in earnest)? Well, all this saber-rattling that we’ve been witness to since the Ukraine unpleasantness ramped enough to make the news is bound to result sooner or later in an irreversible miscalculation. Somebody’s about to give somebody else a well-deserved black eye with all the world watching! Ha! And soon after that the illusions will give way to a very stark reality.

    • abbybwood November 10, 2014 at 5:19 pm #

      Just curious…which “somebody” do you suppose deserves a “black eye” in the case of Ukraine?

      The fact is that the United States and gasp! Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitros and Jeremy Scahill’s boss over at First Look and The Intercept, Pierre Omidyar, gave hundred’s of thousands of dollars toward the “coup” that happened there:

      http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37800.htm

      Of course Victoria “Fuck the EU!” Nuland was also right in the thick of the slaughter at Maidan Square.

      So, who deserves the black eye? Nuland? Omidyar?

      • Q. Shtik November 10, 2014 at 11:49 pm #

        Are you, abbybwood, by any chance, Cold N. under a new name?>

  5. orbit7er November 10, 2014 at 9:45 am #

    Of course the question is whether more taxes are needed to invest in public transit or LightRail to begin with rather than redirect the prodigious sums already invested in Auto Addiction into public transit.
    For example I was very disappointed to the see the Pinellas “Greenlight” initiative to finally build SOME LightRail in Pinellas Florida by Tampa,St Petersburg, Clearwater go down to a whopping defeat.
    Since my father and sister live there I visit on a regular basis so it would be most beneficial to have some Transit options. But what is astounding is the billions being spent on the monstrous project to
    build major highway flyovers of I-19 over major roads which actually create worse navigation with football sized intersections and cars zooming off I-19 at 60 miles per hour onto confusing Service roads into every store and mall with speeds of 25 miles per hour!

    “According to a Dateline NBC study, part of US 19 in Florida is the most dangerous road in the United States. A Florida Highway Patrol test period beginning in 1998 and ending in 2003, as mandated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, showed the stretch of US 19 from Pasco County to Pinellas County to average approximately 52 deaths a year, or 262 deaths in the 5 year duration of the study. 100 of these deaths were pedestrian related making US 19 the #1 worst road to walk on in these two counties.[4] Multiple efforts to improve US 19 have been suggested to the FDOT.”

    How about stopping this “improvement” and investing the money in either existing tracks or put tracks down I-19 instead?

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    • Florida Power November 10, 2014 at 11:08 am #

      Orbit — I live in Pinellas County and voted FOR the Greenlight (as well as FOR the Libertarian gubernatorial candidate and Medical Mairijuana — all lost). I think rather than wanting to drive to Wal Mart people (especially fixed-income) were afraid of the extra 1% sales tax, and the always unknown unknowns that plague large capital projects. I hear that the rail folks are not folding their tent, however, and hopefully this is just the bottom of the first inning. It’s a valid plan and the links are there to integrate Tampa as well. It’s a much better idea than the Florida High-Speed train — where leaving Tampa with a stop in Lakeland thence to DisneyWorld the train could never reach high speed anyway.

      • orbit7er November 10, 2014 at 12:21 pm #

        Do you have any idea how many billions have been wasted on the I-19 highway overpass fiasco? They need to stop that in its tracks before it does any more damage and redirect those funds to Rail.
        And I can understand senior citizens not wanting to pay more sales tax. On the other hand, seniors are most in need of an alternative to Auto addiction. I was shocked that my father, who has major vision problems not only got back his driver’s license but for years after it was temporarily suspended due to his vision problems.
        I am sure the Rail enthusiasts will continue.
        I have wondered since the 1970’s when they would get smart and build some sort of LightRail or Monorail over to Clearwater Beach which suffers major traffic jams on all good beach days and also has a serious lack of parking once you finally get across the Causeway. They should just put LightRail Local/Express right from Tampa and the airport down Route 60 on Gulf-to-Bay and all the way to Clearwater Beach. This would help downtown Clearwater a LOT but also the whole area with access to one of the best beaches in the world IMHO.

        • Florida Power November 10, 2014 at 4:11 pm #

          I differ with you on the I-19 fiasco. They are just building the road they should have built long ago: essentially a limited-access North-South route through the center of Pinellas County. The service road concept is much used in Texas to good effect. Yeah, it takes a wide swath of land, it’s ugly, but I was just in Austin and it works. Fact is the planners originally set aside that wide swath for US 19 and have been building it piecemeal forever, likely putting lots of road builders’ kids through college. If there are going to be automobiles — and I don’t see them going away anytime soon, least of all for reasons of fuel — might as well make it work.

          I am confident they will build the light rail. Heck, Miami has had light rail for years. It looked like the Pinellas plan had a good handle on the real estate already — no mean feat. Linking Clearwater Beach will happen, as will the link to TPA across 60 or even the Gandy bridge. The prelim engineering for the link with Orlando along I-4 for the bullet train has been done. Florida gets a lot of bad press but there are pockets of competence out there — for example with water resource management (why I voted for Wyllie, who was the only candidate against fracking in South Florida). There remain people of good will and patience who can promote a vision without demonizing their opposition, or selling out to the highest bidder.

  6. seawolf77 November 10, 2014 at 9:49 am #

    When the Twin Towers came down on 9/11 Naomi Wolf’s grandmother told her that they are doing here in America what they did in Germany, whose 9/11 was called the Reichstag Fire. Their Communists are our Muslims. Hitler declared martial law and became dictator and the rest as they say is history. Could it happen here? Sure. Will it look the same? Of course not. In the end when people are out of work and starving and selling their daughters as whores so they can eat, alot people are gonna be really pissed off.

  7. Karah November 10, 2014 at 9:50 am #

    What about the blacks in Florida? They have not gone to war over the latest shooting of an unarmed black boy (SUBB). Maybe it is the distractions from horrendously cruel black hazing rituals, sports star doping, and massive medicare/medicaid fraud. Those problems can not be blamed on the cops. Those crimes stem from the corruption of the masses and are reasons we need big brotha/sista. Until we see a movement across America that complains about law enforcement abuse on a massive scale…

    There is a concerted shifting of attention away from corrupt govt practices. More and more stories focus on how terrible Americans are to each other on the ground levels. My neck of the woods is experiencing more and more petty crimes and gun robberies. There is someone arrested every day according to the paper. We also have bad money that has disappeared from the town coffers but the culprits managed to hide it long enough to get out of office before anyone knew about the crime. Bridgegate has completely fallen off the radar. When is someone going to interview the people who were promised help? Stop pointing the camera at mr. chubby and focus on the people whomgot wronged!

    Terrorism is going to continue to be the story that holds it all together.
    It is funny that JHK uses the tactic to describe the reaction to a verdict in town shooting. Marching is not terrorism. Terror is one or a group targeting every American at random. The targets in Ferguson are very specific. If you are not black or involved in law enforcement then it does not effect your life. However, terrorists/shooters/bombers pop up anywhere!

    • GutenbergGuy November 10, 2014 at 5:06 pm #

      Excuse me, but the only people who can defraud the Medicare system are the providers – most notably corporate medical centers, folks like Florida’s re-elected governor.

      I myself have no explanation for why Americans vote for people who should at least be indicted.

      Oh, and I suspect that I-19 boondoggle will be under water (literally) soon enough, although that won’t stop the money flow.

      Si HI! to Mickey and Goofy for me.

      • Florida Power November 10, 2014 at 7:24 pm #

        The US 19 boondoggle was likely built with stimulus money. The real boondoggle was the connector between the Selmon Expressway and I-4, which was absolutely stimulus money — the Labor Secretary came down and cut ribbons and ate Cuban sandwiches in Ybor City.

        In balance, the dollar multiplier effect probably was more in evidence with these than the Solyndra debacle, but what’s a few billion among friends? Besides, we owe it (the DEBT) to ourselves.

      • Q. Shtik November 11, 2014 at 12:17 am #

        Si?

  8. Neon Vincent November 10, 2014 at 9:54 am #

    “For instance, the voters slapped down virtually every major ballot proposition to invest in light rail and public transit around the country.”

    That didn’t happen in Metro Detroit this year, although those proposals were on the ballot in May and August, not November. People actually voted to raise their property taxes to support public transportation. Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti voted to raise the property tax to increase service. It passed overwhelmingly. In August, there was a question on the ballot to raise the property tax for SMART (the suburban bus system) to replace the bus fleet. It passed as well.

    • Greg Knepp November 10, 2014 at 10:35 am #

      Hosannahs to Ann Arbor and Detroit.

      But it must be noted that these two bergs are in no way representative of the vast majority of main-stream American cities. They represent two extremes on the urban spectrum: the first having the luxuries of wealth and a reasonably educated populace, and therefore able to be more future-oriented, and the second being so desolate that, without some enlightened planning, it will have no future at all.

      • GutenbergGuy November 10, 2014 at 5:15 pm #

        Somehow the fact that two such divergent cities voted FOR public transportation should be worth something at least.

        Come to the SF Bay Area. See parking lots extending for miles and miles, for hours AM and PM – and those are the “freeways”! In a region supposedly full of very smart people. All sitting there burning gallons of oil.

        And down in the oh so smart Silicon Valley all those very smart people built an NFL stadium with NO transit access! Watch as the city of Santa Clara goes down the tubes of bond debt.

        Still no decent public transportation in the Silicon Valley. Just like when I was a kid growing up there. But now there’s over a million people trying to get around there.

        America has the most primitive, inefficient, expensive transportation infrastructure in the industrial world. Period.

        • Greg Knepp November 10, 2014 at 5:56 pm #

          Good point, Gutenberg; the fact that the two aforementioned towns are so very different suggests that most progress (and regress for that matter) begins at the fringes.

          The difference between Ann Arbor and San Francisco is not so much I.Q. as scale. Ann Arbor is of a medium size and therefore more manageable. Detroit, while being close to San Francisco in size, is motivated by a desperation that neither Ann Arbor nor San Francisco has experienced…yet.

          I spent last week in my old home town of Baltimore – the San Francisco of the East if you will. Both bergs are fascinating and textured indeed! But, like its West Coast counterpart, Baltimore seems doomed by its own ungodly sprawl.

  9. venuspluto67 November 10, 2014 at 10:08 am #

    Our so-called politics have become little more than a banal distraction from waiting for that proverbial other shoe to drop. When it does drop, will anyone really care about what the latest talking points from Faux News are?

  10. Smoky Joe November 10, 2014 at 10:22 am #

    Never seen an uglier time in our nation. The statistics and business elite celebrate a return to low unemployment and expanding markets. Yet on the ground, I am certain that most who read this know individuals who have not recovered economically, who are living month to month, who are piling up medical bills and can’t get into Obamacare’s open enrollment period, let alone the racket called privatized care in America.

    That explains the midterm rout of reasonable people by the fanatics. Yes, “their wrath could truly wreck what remains of this polity. When it is really too late to fix any of these things, they’ll beg someone to tell them what to do, and the job-description for that position is dictator.”

    I think we’ve just elected a bunch of would-be ones.

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    • cornpone2014 November 10, 2014 at 10:28 am #

      “That explains the midterm rout of reasonable people by the fanatics.”

      Seems to me like we left plenty of Left Leaning Tater-Dicks in office; just not a majority…

      • Smoky Joe November 10, 2014 at 1:10 pm #

        Stupidity knows no party. I called the far-left Dems of the early 70s idiots.

        Now it’s the turn of the anti-science, biblical-literal, Ayn-Randian Objectivist GOP mainstream to take the award. I would love to see Dwight Eisenhower in office now, or Harry Truman.

        Those days are gone gone gone.

        • newworld November 10, 2014 at 3:07 pm #

          I hear you and I also hear they believe in that great fraud the Blank Slate Theory, talk about faith based whackos.

          • Subvert November 10, 2014 at 7:57 pm #

            Sorry, but to me, believing that some stranger who doesn’t know or give a rat’s ass about you and who is beholden to the corporations who financed his election, will go 3000 miles away and do good things for you is the ultimate in faith based belief – AKA: democracy. There has never existed on this planet a true democracy because it’s like Unicorns: a complete fantasy.

            We’ve been doing this “representative government” thing for at least 5000 years now, are we really so dense that we still believe in this Happy Talking, Pollyanna bullshit? Politicians are STRANGERS, ergo, they are not going to do good things for you. The reality of life is that we only do good things for people we know and care about. Politicians don’t qualify on either of these axes. How many complete strangers have you taken a stand for or given great effort to in your life? My mamma told me not to even talk to strangers, so why the hell would I wntrust one with safeguarding the most important aspects of my life?

            The only system that has ever worked is anarchic social organization, hyper-local and completely voluntary, with no coesrion involved. Coersion is violence and violence brings about the opposite result of it’s intended user. Anarchy is the governance system used by the entire community of life on Earth – plants and animals both, and you don’t see coersion or poverty or prisons or wars or environmental degredation in a functional ecosystem. The global hegemony falling is the best possible thing that could happen to free thinking people because it will lead spontaneously to a hyper-localised anarchic arrangement by necessity. Three cheers for the Collapse of all we know.

  11. AKlein November 10, 2014 at 10:25 am #

    Hmmm. Well, let’s look at the bright side of all this that JHK foretells. How about, we all get to live, so to speak, in one of those video games that depict an utterly devolved world? Hell, the populace likes reality shows – so now maybe we get a country-wide reality show. Just in time for Christmas. Great timing.

    • Karah November 10, 2014 at 10:40 am #

      World made by hand as a video game?

      Has your agent looked into this option, Mr. Kunstler?

      You can find lots of examples of devolved worlds and the people who play them on Twitch.tv

  12. davidreese2 November 10, 2014 at 10:36 am #

    Agree with everything, Jim. Except that Obama will be impeached. Then again, you didn’t say that, only that an effort will be made to impeach him. I fear you’re correct on that one, too.

    • Petro November 10, 2014 at 10:46 am #

      There have been grounds to impeach and throw out of office every president since (and including) Dick Nixon. The fact that none of them were only has served to embolden those who follow.

      • orbit7er November 10, 2014 at 1:38 pm #

        I would agree.
        Obama should have been impeached for bombing Libya and starting a War there without even the figleaf of Congressional authorization let alone a Declaration of War.

        • Petro November 10, 2014 at 2:34 pm #

          Not to mention serving as judge, jury, and executioner of U.S. citizens deemed “foreign combatants;” and abuses of privacy laws & whistle-blower laws.

      • abbybwood November 10, 2014 at 5:31 pm #

        Since Gerald Ford “pardoned” Richard Nixon impeachment in the United States has been a non-starter.

        Even if Obama were to be impeached it would mean nothing in the grand scheme of things except that C-SPAN ratings would be through the roof with everyone watching the spectacle of it all. Thank God for the DVR so people would not have to miss work!

        Anyhow, Biden would pardon him and then the Republicans would have Joe “The Barker” to deal with for a while. Then they’d have Biden running for four more years as a “sitting president” in time of war. That could take the wind out of Hillary’s sails.

        Nothing would change. Obama would move on to write his book and go on his speaking tours with the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow and Co. and probably poor Michelle would run for Congress (and win).

        Same ol’ same ol’.

      • hineshammer November 10, 2014 at 6:02 pm #

        Umm, Clinton was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice.

    • GutenbergGuy November 10, 2014 at 5:38 pm #

      I think impeachment has become just another part of the bipartisan melodrama the two parties put on to distract us from what they are doing – together.

      IF there is an attempt to impeach Obama, then watch what legislation goes through during the same time.

      I’m not saying there’s a definite correlation, but we’ve gotten a LOT of Republican legislation from the last two Democratic Presidents. Maybe the impeachments and investigations are just part of that charade the parties put on so we won’t notice they stay far away from anything of substance. Instead they bicker over social issues.

      And all the time we get legislation like NAFTA and the repeal of Glass-Steagal, and a Republican health care bill . Instead of attending to the drama, we should make the Democrats answer for those things. As for the Republicans – they don’t even deserve our attention.

  13. Htruth November 10, 2014 at 10:36 am #

    JHK, The Republican/Democrat will continue but the bankster class will continue to thrive: http://youtu.be/95zDFh2JmPk

  14. volodya November 10, 2014 at 10:37 am #

    Buck Stud,

    I had wanted to post this in reply last week to one of your comments but there was this mysterious error message two days in a row… So, here it is:

    Some weeks back an article appeared I think in Zerohedge (or maybe it was on David Stockman’s site) about the cranial-deficients at the Fed and their amazement that American wages failed to “respond” the way that economic theory said they should respond in nominal terms as the economy tanks. That is, slide down the shitter.

    The Fed solution? Print money in the hopes of igniting price inflation thereby reducing wages in “real” terms.

    An aside: fucking amazing isn’t it? I don’t know about you but I wonder whether you have to be a retard to get a Phd in economics.

    Back to the issue at hand: how does this tie into immigration? The common agenda is pounding down wages. Or, as you say, betrayal of American labor. So you create classes of millions of marginalized workers (because they have no legal status in the US) willing to break their backs and literally work their fingers to the bone for chicken-feed.

    In oligarch eyes, these millions of illegal immigrants aren’t a “problem” to be solved, no, they’re an opportunity to be exploited. To the full. Millions of them. And the operative here is “exploit”.

    So, what are the prospects for – cough – immigration reform? Nada IMO. At least as the system is now. Both the Democrats and Republicans are in oligarch pockets, they will go through this absurd kabuki of one party proposing, the other party veto-ing. Will not matter one iota what party controls what governing institution.

    Now, anyone with a few functioning brain cells, that is anybody that gives a thought to matters that extend past the next quarter-end and the next election cycle, will wonder what all this portends.

    IMO, the oligarchs, having a talent for making money but not much else, are in the process of wrecking the productive and societal eco-system that sustains them. And us.

    Who comes out losing the most in the end? We all lose but IMO the oligarchs will lose the most. They have the furthest to fall.

    The oligarch class are diligently destroying the consumer market that sustains their businesses and the financial institutions they use to hoard their paper assets. They’ve taken several big swings at the pinata, the latest in the 2008-2009 debacle. With every swipe, with every Fed and Treasury sponsored rescue, things get more precarious.

    One result will be “dis-intermediation” as Greer calls it, that is, the excision of various parasitical entities in the productive process, all of them looking for a cut. Including a lot of oligarchs – think Wall Street.

    That small oligarchical group collectively set their interests against everyone else’s, they gave not one thought to the greater good – which includes their own.

    Some guys like Nick Hanauer (who talks about pitch-forks) and Colin Powell’s ex-chief of staff sound warning bells. There seems to be some awareness of trouble, of social de-stabilization.

    Has the boulder tipped too far over the edge? So, no matter what correctives, is it a question now of too little, too late? In the process of civilizational decline and societal disintegration (and eventual reformation), there seem to be certain inevitabilities. It’s not like we haven’t seen this movie before. Maybe, as you so eloquently put it, we really are so fucked.

    • Janos Skorenzy November 10, 2014 at 2:34 pm #

      Wait – you think Republicans don’t want the amnesty? You aren’t paying attention. They do. They are trying to keep up with the Democrats in their pandering. Terrified that the Hispanics will be make citizens and then never vote for them. So instead of fighting amnesty as their base wants them to – they’re anticipating defeat and trying to get on their good side. Appeasement in other words. Most unwise since they can’t compete with the Democrats when it comes to giving away the store – not without losing their base.

      • Florida Power November 10, 2014 at 4:21 pm #

        Jeb Bush is fluent in Spanish. Gee, I wonder why he is risen from the dead all of a sudden? Then there is Marco Rubio, at one time a darling of the Liberty Movement but now a made man. A match made in heaven unless the Dems can come up with a Black Woman.

        Or maybe Charley Crist — lately disappointed in his Florida gubernatorial ambition — who could run his race as a trans-sexual. That’s about the only alternative he’s got left.

        • abbybwood November 10, 2014 at 5:39 pm #

          If Obama can go to China and make a deal for ten year visas:

          http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/11/10/362988551/in-china-obama-touts-visa-deal-progress-on-free-trade-pact

          Then he can do the same with a swipe of his pen with Mexico.

          Create a simple plan where all those who are here from Mexico illegally need to do is pop up “from under the radar”, fill out some papers and voila! They can be here for ten years and can work and get a legal driver’s license and pay taxes and get the ACA and VOTE, etc.

          Obama can do this (or something like it) and I’ll betcha he will.

    • Subvert November 10, 2014 at 8:40 pm #

      BINGO! I think you pretty much nailed it in your comments. Money runs everything and everything is a SCAM that benefits the 1% on the upswing and the downswing, because that’s how they set it up to work. That’s the basic reality of “civilization” and has been for 10,000 years. The populace failing to understand that has caused the Dominator Hierarchy to continue and spread like cancer on the Earth.

      I would respond that yes, you do need to be a retard to get a PHD in Economics, just like you have to be retarded to get a doctorate in any religious or political study. All three, after all, are Faith Based Religions. Economics is not a science as they like to call it. Show me how Scientific Method is used in Economics and I’ll believe it’s a science. Invisible Hand of the Market? Really? Sounds like religion to me. An “economy” is a legal fiction and all of it’s aspects are fictional too. “I wrote shit on paper, and all my cronies signed it, that makes it real!” This applies to economics, religion and politics equally. Pure Disney.

      I would also say that yes, it is entirely too late for corrective action, that bird has flown, and the Oligarchs will continue driving the entire planet into the grave in their greed-blind sociopathic rage for the mirage called “status”.

      BTW just ignore Janos, he’s a real nutjob who pops up only when issues of race apparently demand his ignorant racist comments.

      Cheers!

    • Buck Stud November 10, 2014 at 9:06 pm #

      Volodya,

      Interesting and thoughtful post. It’s funny, but you, Greer, JHK and so many others use different terms but all seem to be talking about Plato’s “drones”. I like Greer’s ‘parasites’ and Talaibi’s “vampire squid” as well. Whatever term a person uses this seems to be an eternal human affair.

      I think of it this way. Some people believe ‘the whole’ can be sliced up into “more”. They believe that sub dividing equates to more wealth based on numerical superiority. Enter entropy. One large pill sliced into half is a larger number and those sliced in half even greater still. But there reaches a point when attempting slice up even “more”only results in pill that crumbles and dissipates. I think we are fast approaching that point. As you write, the drones/ oligarchs “are in the process of wrecking the productive and societal eco-system that sustains them”.

      I was looking at this link earlier today and the top 1% now own nearly as much as the bottom 90%, speaking of falling far because no middle-class trunk remains:

      http://s140.photobucket.com/user/fladem/media/wealth_zpsc16726ee.gif.html

  15. russ November 10, 2014 at 11:50 am #

    I think you have touched on several good points. I think a primary problem is that the Wall Street/banking class truly believes that you no longer have to produce tangible products or service in order to make money. You just have to manufacture the money itself, or the things that pass for money – out of thin air, out of debt, out of pixels – and that that ability will ensure that your elite class will forever continue its dominant position.

    Consequently to the elites, those who as you say are sounding warning bells, are likely viewed as too old-fashioned and too stuck in the “tangible” world to be taken seriously.

    We have a mighty arrogant bunch running the show these days, who likely feel laws of geology and increased entropy do not apply to them, but only to the little worthless people.

    Just the kind of crowd that if our political institutions cannot rein in, then you’d really like to see Nature kick them to the curb.

    I kind of hope a few of the old gods are still around – in particular Nemesis. She may be very busy; hopefully very soon.

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    • AKlein November 10, 2014 at 12:29 pm #

      Russ, your points are certainly right on the money (no pun intended). I know several people who work for “the financial industry”. Or I should say I’m acquainted with them through the gym I go to. One in particular always proudly wears tee shirts from various financial firms – such as JP Morgan. These parasites imagine themselves great contributors to society. One can actually feel their sense of self-satisfaction and self-righteousness. In actuality they are simply catamites in the service of the pederasts at the Fed. Bonuses, baby, bonuses! Their “capital management” is really just sloshing around in all that bogus liquidity that the Fed creates. What a sham. Perhaps we need an American Pol Pot. Maybe we’ll get one. Who knows?

      • AKlein November 10, 2014 at 12:41 pm #

        After some thought on this, perhaps “catamites” is the wrong metaphor for the underlings in the “financial industry”. Better might be “spintriae”, who serviced the old doddard Tiberius as he devolved from running an empire into progressively demeaning perversions in his Pleasure Dome on Capriae.

      • hineshammer November 10, 2014 at 6:15 pm #

        “… in the service of the pederasts at the Fed.”

        I never knew that Janet Yellin and her cohorts were child molesters. Sheesh.

    • Subvert November 10, 2014 at 8:49 pm #

      Spot on Russ. Nature Laughs Last.

      None of this smoke n mirrors, funhouse bullshit will stand when the Base Resources of Soil, Water, Air and Minerals are depleted. Especially when the monetary system, finance and markets are in free fall. We’ll be roasting those self-satisfied, entitled bastards on spits before long. Mmmm, hedge fund manager flambe! (…with Fava beans and a nice Chianti…) LOL

      The Old Gods of field and forest are very much alive and will soon be kicking ass Clash of the Titans style. Release the Kraken!

  16. volodya November 10, 2014 at 11:57 am #

    They have nowhere to go except failure. – JHK

    Especially, in my opinion, the banking system.

    Why is it so messed up? Mostly because it rests on a foundation of lies. Corruption is at its very base. You can imagine some deceitful deity – say Satan at his slyest, most malevolent worst – having a hand in crafting this.

    And so ingrained, so institutionalized, so embedded in law, culture and common parlance are the lies, that there’s no longer any way to see them for what they are.

    If you confront a “banker”, that is anyone from your lowly “financial advisor” at your local bank branch to an exec, with the illogic and utter nonsense of just one of their lies, you would see their eyes do little discos of incomprehension. It’s as if you started talking in some obscure Martian dialect.

    You see, so fully invested are they in the lie, so dedicated to it, that the lie has become their reality. Or, rather, the matrix of lies has become their reality. They can no more renounce the lies than they can renounce their liver. It’s impossible, the lies are central to their existence.

    Remember the quarantined Planet Talos IV in that 1960s Star Trek episode?

    At the end of the day the fictional Talosians could at least distinguish between reality and illusion.

    • Beryl of Oyl November 10, 2014 at 12:59 pm #

      Speaking of banks, I notice that at my local banks, frequently the employees are young, female, recent immigrants. I learned from a young black woman who was negotiating the entry-level job market, that the reason for the high turnover in those jobs is because they are on some kind of production quota, and that as soon as they get one new crop of employees they are getting another. I keep hearing how business “can’t afford” full-time employees on a living wage, hence so many immigrants, who tend to live with their parents, I guess. What is odd is how banking is one of the businesses that can’t afford to pay for employees to suit their needs.

    • abbybwood November 10, 2014 at 5:42 pm #

      Did anyone catch this story about Maurice Greenberg of AIG fame suing the U.S. government for an additional $40 billion he feels he was underpaid??!:

      http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-aig-trial-20141109-story.html#page=1

      This is the chutzpah of the banking class. They have no morals and no shame.

  17. volodya November 10, 2014 at 12:37 pm #

    Karah,

    You say: More and more stories focus on how terrible Americans are to each other on the ground levels.

    You’re right, the coarsening of daily life isn’t a just figment of your right wing, delusional, demented, theocratic imaginings.

    Not that you’re in the slightest right-wing, delusional, demented, theocratic.

    But I’ve seen your type of observation attributed by wine sipping sophisticates to bible thumping Red State morons, you know, the type of people that believe in Adam and Eve, that want you to go to church and who apparently have no truck with hard statistical data that tells us in black and white that crime is no longer a problem even if the simple act of observation with your own two eyes tells you otherwise.

    We can make excuses for behavior, it’s genetic, it’s society, it’s poverty, it’s this, it’s that, but at the end of the day all of this IMO is bunk. You’re conscious, self- aware, you know what you’re doing.

    • AKlein November 10, 2014 at 12:49 pm #

      The Romans said “In vino veritas” (“In wine there is truth”) meaning that when drunk, if a person becomes violent, then that is actually his true nature. Same could be said of bad behavior. Ultimately, bad behavior is the work of a bad person. That’s just the way it is. We might make some exceptions for the young, who can often make mistakes. But beyond a certain age, you are what your behavior indicates.

    • Janos Skorenzy November 10, 2014 at 1:56 pm #

      Conservatives always believe crime is a problem. I’m not sure you know what you are saying. It’s Liberals who believe criminals are just misunderstood youfs. Is this some kind of convoluted argument that blames Conservatives for being right?

      Or perhaps you just failed to make yourself clear. In mid sentence you change subject – from Liberals to Conservatives. Perhaps you are trying to fool yourself? Have you read Julian Jaynes’ “Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind”?

      • AKlein November 10, 2014 at 2:17 pm #

        Janos, I’m not sure how you derive a conflicted conservative/liberal position from my musings. OK, so let me state my thoughts another way. Let me be clear; a person’s behavior is an indicator of the person’s motives and character. So bad behavior indicates a bad person. That said, there are some gray areas. Sometimes the context matters, sometimes it doesn’t. That’s why we have juries. This can particularly be true in the case of young persons. But don’t get me wrong on this. I heartily agree that in most cases “youfs” you speak of are generally just criminals. One more point. I think it’s very important to distinguish between violations of statutory law as opposed to natural law. But notwithstanding all my provisos, ultimately a person himself is responsible for his own reputation, regardless of context, extenuating circumstances, age, etc. Which is why Mom said to stay away from riff raff, lawbreakers, ruffians and so on.

        • Janos Skorenzy November 10, 2014 at 2:42 pm #

          No Al, look again. If I had been responding to you, my post would be indented to the right from yours. But it’s on a line with yours – which means I was responding to Volly just like you. See how your response to me is indented again? And mine now again? It’s wonderful: soon we would be off the page if they didn’t stop us.

          I appreciate you for not hating me for my advocacy for the White Race.

          • AKlein November 10, 2014 at 2:56 pm #

            Ah yes, right you are. Should have been more observant. But honestly, I did feel a bit ambivalent in my comments. Probably my innate motivation to be forgiving. That’s one of the characteristics that make it so easy for others whose baseness is not so tempered to take such advantage of us.

      • Subvert November 10, 2014 at 9:13 pm #

        Jeebus H. Chrystler you’re an IDIOT Janos! I really do stand in awe of your unattainable level ignorance and backwardness. The fact that you continue to frame things in Liberal/Conservative terms truly shows your ignorance. Both of those labels are obsolete and have been for decades. More Window Dressing that the self-interested elite use to blind simple minds like yours from the reality that Money is the only political party and the only god and always has been.

        So, MR. Conservative, answer me this – what exactly are “conserv-atives” Conserving? Certainly not the environment that keeps us all alive, not freedom which they squelch at every turn and certainly not equality. No, they only conserve the self-proclaimed “right” of the entitled elites to reign supreme and nothing else. And why do they all practice neo-LIBERAL economics? Hmmm, odd thing, that! The so called Liberals are the same, who are they LIBERATing? Again, nobody and nothing. You’re shooting at the wrong “enemy” as usual.

        And by the way, there is only ONE RACE of humans on this planet, the human race. But Dog forbid you recognize facts or scientific proof. Fact is, Mr White Race, YOU come from AFRICA! as do we all. Your genes have betrayed you, welcome to the Hood, Cuz.

    • GutenbergGuy November 10, 2014 at 5:47 pm #

      “You’re conscious, self-aware, you know what you’re doing.”

      So what’s your point?

      Below I see “bad behavior is the work of a bad person.”

      Ah! The world is such a simple place. I’m so glad.

  18. Tim Taylor November 10, 2014 at 12:45 pm #

    Howard gets it half right. The bumbling Humpty Dumpty is cratering. But what he misses is the massive shift to local that is already well underway. It’s not noticeable to many because private capital thwarts any efforts to actually make this shift on a production scale.

    There will be no dictator. What we are witnessing is that people are taking back their power from the state. That means Washington is becoming meaningless in our lives as well as people around the world. That Washington needs to exert its muscle so overtly and violently is a last gasp of the plutocracy to maintain its grip at any cost. They will fail. They will fail for the same reason a dictator will fail. Because it has been exposed that the state is run by idiots and people are far more qualified to make decisions about their own communities, families and themselves.

    • James Howard Kunstler November 10, 2014 at 1:24 pm #

      Don’t pretend you know me. Nobody calls me “Howard.”

      • dannyboy November 10, 2014 at 8:55 pm #

        Kunstler,

        My email to you today mentioned that I now only speak face-to-face.

        Otherwise I don’t know who I’m talkin’ to.

        Urban Animal

      • dermotmoconnor November 11, 2014 at 1:14 pm #

        Oh, so you DO read the comments? As a previous commenter said:

        “Well Jim, You seem to be leading a pack of racist corn-pone Nazis yourself. Yuck.”

        You might want to take issue with posts other than those that fail to name you correctly, because mister, you got way more serious issues on this thread. Take this specimen, who you should have banned a LONG time ago.

        Maybe if he calls you Howard, you’ll take action?

        Exhibit #3294

        Janos Skorenzy
        November 10, 2014 at 1:42 pm #
        And Blacks leap to the bait: Whites never get stopped or shot by the Po-Leese! They will always be the weakest link in our society; always a ball and chain on our foot.

    • GutenbergGuy November 10, 2014 at 5:51 pm #

      Everyone must be in shock today. Or some at least. Could it be the election? What did you expect?

      Running to simple explanations and simpler solutions.

      It’s understandable. Just not very productive.

  19. barbisbest November 10, 2014 at 12:46 pm #

    This has got to be one of the best posts yet. But to refer what we call us as a turtle, that’s insulting to a turtle.They’re exquisite creatures. Course we are a little slow on the uptake. Quite spell binding books those WMBH novels, like Dallas in reverse. We should get to that world soon, as hard as it is, we’d be better off, but we won’t so,

    well, I know that you’re in love with him
    Cause I saw you dancin in the gym
    you both kicked off your shoes
    O I love those rhythm and blues

    And as I watched him on the stage
    my hands were clenched in fists
    of rage, no angel born in hell
    Could break this Satan’s spell…

    Bye bye miss Amerian Pie
    Drove my Chevy to the levee but the
    levee was dry
    And good ole boys were drinking whiskey and rye
    singing soon will be the day that we cry.

    I aye was here

    • Janos Skorenzy November 10, 2014 at 2:48 pm #

      Nothing much good ever happened up on Choctaw ridge,
      Billy Joe McAllister jumped off the Tallahassee Bridge.

      • GutenbergGuy November 10, 2014 at 5:52 pm #

        It’s still a great story!

  20. FincaInTheMountains November 10, 2014 at 12:49 pm #

    Michael Khasin: Obama’s White House took over the FED after a criminal case in New York against Dominique Strauss-Kahn(DSK)

    There was only one financial elite in the world up to some time. And then the crisis hit. Because of what? The reasons are described by Adam Smith, who said that to support the deepening division of labor constant market expansion is necessary. The first market expansion happened as a result of the First World War, then in the Second. During the collapse of the Soviet Union was another expansion. And now it is over. How to save the situation? Need to stimulate demand – take more from already existing markets. How to do it? By giving money to the population using ever-cheaper credit. But today, the credit markets are oversaturated with debt. So, we need to change the financial system, to introduce a new currency and lend in it. And in 2011 International Monetary Fund had decided that the central bank of central banks would be created that will lend money in a special currency (SDR – Special Drawing Rights) and optimize the global monetary system. Since all politicians are on the take by financial system, they cannot refuse the offer.

    What to do for those who oppose that decision by IMF? (US nationally-oriented bureaucracy) They need to make sure that the IMF could not function. And then the head of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn is arrested in New York City, accused of raping a maid from Guinea. He leaves his post. My friends, who work in the presidential administration(of V.Putin), once called me and asked: “What is the case Strauss-Kahn?” I say, but what? You know, they say, up until the case of Strauss-Kahn the theme of creation of the Central Bank of Central Banks goes through all the international meetings of Heads of State: G8, G20 and so on. After his arrest, it suddenly disappeared.

    After Strauss-Kahn case emission (namely it, as I said, is the only salvation in times of crisis, when the structure of multinational companies economically unprofitable, and expand the markets is no longer possible) winds up in the hands of Obama’s White House in Washington. And nobody dares to rock the boat. Because everyone knows that if someone does, there would be immediately another maid from Guinea.

    And there split of elites had happened. The first group (Obama and company) are in favor of reformatting the entire financial system: make a few independent centers of currency based on the dollar, euro, yuan, and ruble. (Ruble would be based on strong expansion of the Customs Union).

    Another group (IMF), believes that they need to keep things the way they are and grab back the Federal Reserve System (the emission center of America). They began to move Larry Summers to the post of Fed Chairman. In the 90s years this figure gave recommendations on how to conduct reforms in Russia. Colorful personality. Even in the US he is considered a kleptomaniac. Obama and his team did not want this, and they said if you will interfere, we’ll arrange the 2014 crisis. And then the issue with Summers was resolved. He withdrew his candidacy. And the very next day after Putin delivers his speech to the “Valdai” which says that Russia needs a new identity, homosexuality – it’s not our profile and on and on. You know, where the wind blows?

    Two scenarios are possible. The first – a continuation of the current monetary system and writing off financial obligations through the war. The proponents of this scenario would strike on Syria in the hope that if Iran will strike Israel, will begin a new dust-up, and while all that is happening, you can write off a lot.

    Another team, played for Obama believes that in any case it is impossible to strike, and you need to create new currency zones. But now Obama’s is in complicated situation. He would not want the US to lose the lead. But if you read the last Obama’s speech to the UN, there he just says: “Guys, we no longer have the strength to keep the situation under control. If you do not help us, then we will leave the world in the same position and you will be worse off. “

    ====================================================

    May be after all, we’ll see expansion of States Infrastructure projects financed by cheap long Fed Credit in the last 2 years of Obama’s Presidency.

    Remember, the Fed is “independent” – so Obama hardly needs any consent from the dysfunctional Congress occupied by Koch brother’s republican “balance the budget and kill the people” morons.

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  21. Ghung November 10, 2014 at 1:09 pm #

    I noticed on the noon ‘news’ (local Atlanta news, no less) that the store owners in Ferguson are busy boarding up their store fronts in anticipation of the coming flashboom of folks, angry about just about everything; random events in nowheresville wreaking havoc for regular people who have little to do with anything much. The fractal nature of a fracturing society will likely be a case of the lucky and lucky-nots rather than the haves and have-nots.

    Meanwhile, our little pod of a community in Western NC went all in for the far right on promises that they will undo whatever progress we’ve made in the last few decades. We used to be conservative but balanced, unlike much of the South. I sure miss those ‘Blue Dog’ Democrats who’ve been gerrymandered into the oblivion of corporate lobbyisms.

    Uruguay is looking pretty nice these days.

    • Janos Skorenzy November 10, 2014 at 2:29 pm #

      Indeed, Uruguay is the Whitest Nation in South America. But its prosperity and Whiteness are just coincidence, right?

      • seawolf77 November 10, 2014 at 4:17 pm #

        That is called a non sequitor.

        • GutenbergGuy November 10, 2014 at 5:54 pm #

          Thank you.

        • Janos Skorenzy November 10, 2014 at 6:27 pm #

          So you’re saying it’s just a coincidence? And that conversely, Black countries and cities are the poorest and most violent? With Indians in the middle, closer to the Blacks materially but closer to us in terms of violence? With Mestizos closer to us materially, but closer to Blacks in terms of violence.

          Thank you.

  22. FincaInTheMountains November 10, 2014 at 1:16 pm #

    Yesterday was published an interim report on the state of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU). As of November 1, 2014 the volume of international reserves of Ukraine is $12.587 billion dollars. Even a month before international reserves amounted to $16.385 billion for the month a decrease by $3.798 billion, that is almost 25% in ONE MONTH.

    Foreign exchange reserves were spent on a few items of expenditure: the repayment of loans by “Naftogaz” (not to be confused with debt for gas!) To intervene in the inter-bank markets to support national currency, payments to the Europeans for reverse Russian gas supply , and the current portion of the national debt in favor of the EU and the IMF. And the new “European family” Ukrainians did not even thought to defer payments, despite the dire state of Ukrainian Finance.

    That is, the reduction of international reserves occurred before the start of ANY payments to “Gazprom” on the results of tripartite agreements. Accordingly, after the start of the new accounting period “Gazprom” has received from the Ukrainians $1.45 billion dollars, and their present volume is equal to $11.137 billion (not counting those 5-10 million to support national currency, which NBU daily spends on the inter-bank markets).

    WOW, with US help Ukraine is rapidly turning into another failed state in the middle of Europe. Anybody want to buy a country for cheap? Lots of stunningly beautiful white women.

  23. Sleeper Cell November 10, 2014 at 1:40 pm #

    “It’s been fun watching Mitch McConnell get ready to preside over all of this. History could not have found a less sympathetic patsy.”

    Indeed 😉 As a friend of mine recently put it, get ready for 2+ years of republican gay porn as Ted Cruz F-‘s Mitch McConnell.

    Perhaps they should give the speakership to Lindsey Graham. At least he would ENJOY the fucking

    • capt spaulding November 10, 2014 at 3:41 pm #

      Ted Cruz. Now there’s a slimy looking bastard if I’ve ever seen one.

      • seawolf77 November 10, 2014 at 4:12 pm #

        Amen to that. I bet one day he gets caught in flagrante delicto with a squid.

        • CancelMyCard November 11, 2014 at 10:07 am #

          Great image! I hope they get it on video!

          5 million YouTube hits in the 1st 24 hours.

  24. Beryl of Oyl November 10, 2014 at 1:44 pm #

    Bill Moyers was complaining about how Americans voted because of Big Money. No mention of how anything any Democrat did or did not do having anything to do with the election results. It’s gotten to the point where throwing people out of office doesn’t have any effect on either party.

    • GutenbergGuy November 10, 2014 at 5:58 pm #

      It will be interesting to see further analysis. There are lots of numbers to crunch. And since this was an off-year election a big question will be who didn’t vote and why – I think.

      Because I also think the challenge for 2016 will be to motivate those voters.

      • Florida Power November 10, 2014 at 7:06 pm #

        Motivate those voters to do what exactly? Vote for Goldman Sachs?

        • CancelMyCard November 11, 2014 at 10:10 am #

          Well, you WILL get a choice —

          EITHER Goldman Sachs

          OR J. P. Morgan

  25. pkrugman November 10, 2014 at 2:19 pm #

    “How does this tie into immigration?” –Volodya

    Volodya, being Canadian perhaps you do not know that there are 1.4 millions “dreamers” who are in danger of deportation and those dreamers’ rights must be protected. Obama should and will act unilaterally to protect them. He does not need Congress, which has refused to act for the last four years.

    Dreamers are not “illegals” who decided to cross the border. Their parents brought them when they were children. They deserve citizenship.

    The dreamers Obama wants to protect are immigrants who are under the age of 31; entered the United States before age 16; have lived continuously in the country for at least five years; have not been convicted of a felony, or a “significant” misdemeanor; and are currently in school, graduated from high school, earned a GED, or served in the military. Immigrants who meet these criteria will be protected by Obama’s unilateral action.

    I applaud Obama for acting on immigration after years of Republican obstruction and inaction.

    I think it is funny how CFN has this “nothing is getting done” refrain, yet since the election last week Obama has gotten the release of two white American Christians from North Korea, bombed a convoy of ISIL, wounding one of its main leaders, supervised the stopping of Ebola in the USA, improved the Affordable Care Act website even more for new enrollments, continued to block Republican attempts to build a pipeline across the USA to transport foreign oil to the world market (not benefiting the USA… but providing billions in profit to the Koch brothers), and Obama continued to put the screws to Putin. Obama also selected a top notch nominee to replace Holder as attorney general, made several appearances on news shows last week, held a press conference that lasted over an hour, met with congressional leaders to cheerfully outline his actions in the next two years, and is now in China working on new Asian alliances.

    Anybody who says government is dysfunctional is not paying attention. Obama is in good spirits and is fighting the good fight. He will accomplish even more in his last two years. Just watch.

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    • newworld November 10, 2014 at 3:25 pm #

      Thanks for the other side of the story, I might not like it but I find it necessary to view both points of view.

      But I’m going to agree with Jim on this and I will lay the blame on the construction of the Left itself. The Left is a rickety conglomeration of cults each of which finds power in inflicting Political Correctness upon us via the narrative of propaganda.

      PC is the amber of humanity, complete stagnation, but entropy never stops and Jim seems to never tire in reminding of this, so as the USA grinds to a halt via entropy of its gears and levers mechanisms the best the progs can deal us is stagnation, thou shall not critique the Left and its clients.

      Literally everyone on the Left can only critique powerless hillbillies as America grinds to a halt, hell Jim himself was for years blaming hillbillies for our woes.

    • GutenbergGuy November 10, 2014 at 6:06 pm #

      Replacing Holder is my favorite. I cannot believe some of the things that man has said!

  26. pkrugman November 10, 2014 at 2:34 pm #

    Oh, and I forgot to mention Obama is supporting “the strongest possible rules” to protect net neutrality (against the wishes of corporate America), which will preserve access and speed… to enable CFN’s bitch fest of anti-Obama comments.

    Obama is also asking for a ban on paid prioritization, a practice that allows companies to put service in the “slow lane” if a content provider doesn’t pay a fee. “If a consumer requests access to a website or service, and the content is legal, your ISP should not be permitted to block it,” Obama’s statement said. “Nor should ISPs be able to intentionally slow down some content or speed up others … based on the type of service or your ISP’s preferences.”

    Telecoms hate the idea. Ted Cruz hates the idea.

    Obama is standing up for you and me and everyone else who uses the internet. Republicans are standing with the multinational corporations.

    Still there are those on CFN who stupidly maintain there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between Democrats and Republicans.

    • Janos Skorenzy November 10, 2014 at 2:54 pm #

      Indeed, Obama is a great American in the same way Pope Francis is a great Catholic. Pope Francis isn’t a great Catholic or even a mediocre one. Nor is he a poor one. He isn’t one.

      • seawolf77 November 10, 2014 at 4:13 pm #

        You’re not supposed to answer when they ask ” Is the pope catholic?” It’s a rhetorical question.

        • hineshammer November 10, 2014 at 6:29 pm #

          That made me laugh out loud. Thanks.

      • Buck Stud November 10, 2014 at 8:40 pm #

        So you can’t give President Obama credit even he is clearly doing the right thing here and siding with Main Street. But it sounds like you side with the Messiah of the Tea Party below which is strange because a couple of weeks ago you’re claiming “right is right”–so much for that:

        “Net Neutrality” is Obamacare for the Internet; the Internet should not operate at the speed of government.”— Senator Ted Cruz

    • abbybwood November 10, 2014 at 6:44 pm #

      Since there is a good chance the Supremes will kill the ACA next June then Obama’s best bet for a “legacy” might be to make the Internet a “public utility” with equal access for everyone.

      • Buck Stud November 10, 2014 at 8:43 pm #

        A far more likely scenario is states will rush out and set up their own exchanges before throwing millions into the health care gutter. But that’s not going to happen: the big insurance companies are not going to look kindly on suddenly losing millions mandated customers.

    • Subvert November 11, 2014 at 8:28 pm #

      Please kindly tell me what IS the difference? When I look at the banks and corporations that “donate” to Rep’s and Dem’s campaigns I see the same ones, year after year, decade after decade. That “Soft Money” comes with plenty of strings. Nobody gives millions of dollars for free, without expectation of repayment in some form. When I look at their voting records, I see votes for the benefit of the same actors – the oligarchs. When I see the legislation they pass curtailing freedom and outlawing common sense and promoting the same old business as usual, status quo agendas I know they are no different. Their Actions bear this out.

      This is called DIVIDE AND CONQUER. It’s the oldest trick in the book. Just ask Machiavelli or Sun Tzu, of whom these politicians and their owners are students. You provide two “opposing” teams for people to root for and keep them busy fighting each other while you swoop in and rob them blind via those two teams. Generation after generation. Neato!

      Back in the good ‘ol Bush Jr days we had a completely Dem dominated Senate and Congress. They could have de-funded the Iraq war any time they wanted to, but did they? NO. Quite the opposite, they voted in lock-step with the Repugnicans and waved on every piece of legislation the Bushites proposed, including the Patriot Act, which Obama expanded and reinforced along with all of his “Execute-ive Orders” which fall in line with the same paradigm of domination and violent coercion for the benefit of the 0.01% who funded his campaign. Did that elitist-groomed rat bastard do ANYTHING he promised in his campaign speeches? Stopping the war, bringing the troops home, closing Guantanamo, developing sustainable energy and green jobs, and on and on. No, he, like every other scum sucking politician ever elected to any post in any country at any time appeased the money men who put him there. As per usual.

      So please wake up, and smell the rank coffee of corruption that infests any political system. You see, politicians are complete strangers. You don’t know them and they don’t know you. Ergo, expecting them to do something good for you is an incredibly naive and unrealistic expectation. The idea that a thing called representative democracy could ever work is a fool’s dream. Nowhere on this planet, at any time in human history can you find a democracy that was actually a democracy. It has never existed and never will because it’s a fantasy, dreamed up by idealistic people who don’t know how “civilization” really works.

      Civilization is a system set up by and for the profit of the few who are willing to initiate violence against others for power and profit. That is the essence of power in this system. It is expressed as “Power Over” as opposed to “Power With”. The willingness to use violence whether overt or covert, physical, economic or spiritual (as in using religions to brainwash the populace to comply with your wishes.) “Democracy” also engages in violent coercion to achieve its means, so how moral or ethical or indeed effective long term can any State ever be? Have you noticed that States (Empires) rise and fall constantly over the last 10,000 years? Why is this? Why has not ONE of them remained intact? That’s a 100% Failure Rate! over 10,000 years’ time!! I stand aghast at the willingness of people to believe in Stateism (and religion too) when all evidence to the fact that it doesn’t work surrounds up.

      Now, I respect and embrace Idealism for its ability to imagine a better future and solve problems, but I also know that reality rarely lines up with these wonderful ideas. I am in fact an Idealist on the Meyers-Briggs personality indicator, but I have also done decades of research that has shown me the truth of human history. It’s a hard pill to swallow for an idealist or indeed anyone who wants to trust in hope, but it is reality none the less. In my research I discovered that before 10,000 years ago, humans lived in an Anarchic social organization and that all plants and animals on Earth live by it as well. It is Nature’s system and is in operation all over the universe. It’s mankind’s systems that are a failure, not Nature’s. If we humans hope to return to a life in balance and societies that function as seamlessly and eternally as functional ecosystems, then we need to embrace this type of hyper-local, completely voluntary, coercion-free system of organization again. This is already happening on a massive grass roots scale under the noses of the frantic despots who see their control slipping away and don’t quite know why. People fear anarchy when they should fear governments. Anarchy is not “the absence of rules” it is “the absence of Rulers” and this is a very important distinction. Nature has rules, not rulers as well. You don’t see slavery, war, racism, inequality, poverty or environmental destruction happening in a functioning ecosystem that runs on anarchic principles, just in human systems of “government”, a word meaning Mind Control Govern = to control, Ment = the root word of mental, mind. Just as “Religion” means “to Bind Again” Re = to do again, Ligare = the Latin word meaning “to bind” as in Ligature. Is it any wonder we live in bondage? Sorry this got so long, but I hope it’s illuminating for you.

  27. zaphod42 November 10, 2014 at 2:55 pm #

    “Ferguson, Mo., is still sitting there …”

    It seems obvious to me that the decision is being delayed until the ‘dead of winter’ in Missouri, in the equally obvious hope that it will be too cold to riot then, and by the time the weather breaks the plebes will have forgotten about it, being diverted by some other banal misdirection – maybe a wardrobe malfunction during Dance with the Stars.

    Craig

  28. pkrugman November 10, 2014 at 3:23 pm #

    Janos, in 2016 we could have a return of Bush v. Clinton… but that is not the whole story.

    We will have at least 23 other candidates to choose from… representing conservative, libertarian, socialist, communist, labor, Trotskyite, democratic socialist, constitutional, independent, green, and other perspectives.

    If you believe a vote for Democrat or Republican is a wasted vote, then feel free to choose from plethora of alternatives to the two major parties. If people stop voting for Democrats and Republicans, they will stop being elected. Elementary, grasshopper.

    • Janos Skorenzy November 10, 2014 at 6:30 pm #

      Can we get equal funding, coverage, and media access please? Most people don’t even know there are more than two parties. And that’s not all their fault.

      • Florida Power November 10, 2014 at 7:14 pm #

        In Florida the Libertarian candidate was polling at 10% and was excluded from the debates. Yes, I know, he got 2% when the dust settled for what that’s worth.

        Instead of those self-satisfied “I Voted” stickers I want to wear an “I Counted The Votes — heh heh heh” sticker.

        Paper ballots counted by hand by antagonists at the local level is the only solution. We won’t get instant gratification, but I am happy to wait a week while it gets sorted out.

  29. pkrugman November 10, 2014 at 5:22 pm #

    “Thanks for the other side of the story…” — nsa

    Here is a third side of the story: Obama’s lawlessness in waging war.

    The war against the Islamic State is now illegal. The War Powers Resolution of 1973 gave President Obama 60 days to gain consent from Congress and required him to end ‘hostilities’ within 30 days if he failed to do so. This 90-day clock expired this week. –Yale Professor Bruce Ackerman

    And yet, there’s been no consent, and no end to the fighting.

    I believe the president must come to Congress to begin a war. I also believe the War Powers Act is misunderstood; President Obama acted without true constitutional authority even before the 90 days expired, since we were not under attack at that time. — Republican Senator Rand Paul

    For fighting ISIL without a declaration of war, Obama should be impeached by the Republican controlled Congress, if they disagree with fighting ISIL …

    Or, if the Congress wants war with ISIL, then the Republican controlled Congress should formally declare war and give Obama legal authority.

    The current war is illegal because the President does not have unlimited powers to wage war. The Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war.

    • GutenbergGuy November 10, 2014 at 6:13 pm #

      Of course, what you’re saying is they’ll continue their dance of death even over war policy.

      It won’t be about whether or not but who can yell the loudest insults across the school yard.

      Then again, I don’t think I’ve seen an actual political debate since – surprisingly enough – the Watergate hearings!

    • Subvert November 11, 2014 at 8:57 pm #

      Yet more proof that “people writing shit on paper” and getting their cronies to sign off on it does not reality make. When will humans stop believing in this Disneyland bunk called politics?

      What is a “law”? Unless it’s a Natural Law, say Gravity or Thermodynamics which cannot be disobeyed on pain of death or great misery, a human made “law” is just ink on paper. What makes us think that those who made up these fantasies will feel beholden to act in accordance with them? Or indeed that they are even desirable. Millennia of societal conditioning have put humans in the box and caused them not to even question the validity of both rules and rulers. I’ve been much happier since I gave up hope on these practices, please feel free to join me!

  30. BackRowHeckler November 10, 2014 at 6:12 pm #

    A few years back, amidst alot of mutual back slapping and ass kissing, almost all CT electricity production was switched over to natural gas. Coal and oil were abandoned. Why, after all, we are the ‘Saudi Arabia of natural gas’.

    Well today we learn our electricity bill is going up 12%. Why? Not enough natural gas, and no pipelines to get it here.

    –brh

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    • GutenbergGuy November 10, 2014 at 6:16 pm #

      It’s the “American Way” – or what a friend of mine used to call “lack of up-front planning.”

    • Janos Skorenzy November 10, 2014 at 6:33 pm #

      Don’t worry, the Keystone Pipeline is the first thing the Republicans are going to do. That 12% is a down payment on jobs for amnestied workers.

  31. pkrugman November 10, 2014 at 6:32 pm #

    Navy Plans Electromagnetic War Games Over National Park and Forest in Washington State

    http://truth-out.org/news/item/27339-navy-plans-electromagnetic-war-games-over-national-park-and-forest-in-washington-state

    “The US Navy aims to conduct its Northwest Electromagnetic Radiation Warfare training program, wherein it will fly 36 of its EA-18G “Growler” supersonic jet warplanes down to 1,200 feet above the ground in some areas in order to conduct war games with 14 mobile towers. Enough electromagnetic radiation will be emitted so as to be capable of melting human eye tissue, and causing breast cancer, childhood leukemia and damage to human fetuses, let alone impacting wildlife in the area.

    If it gets its way, this means the Navy would be flying Growler jets, which are electronic attack aircraft that specialize in radar jamming, in 2,900 training exercises over wilderness, communities and cities across the Olympic Peninsula for 260 days per year, with exercises lasting up to 16 hours per day.

    Your tax dollars at work.

    How many miles per gallons (or gallons per mile) do jet warplanes get?

    What energy crisis?

    • abbybwood November 10, 2014 at 6:49 pm #

      This whole “exercise” should be halted.

      As Obama likes to say, “Period”.

  32. pkrugman November 10, 2014 at 7:10 pm #

    “Don’t worry, the Keystone Pipeline is the first thing the Republicans are going to do. That 12% is a down payment on jobs for amnestied workers.” — Janos

    The Keystone Pipeline will create 2,400 temporary jobs. After 18 months there will be 50 permanent maintenance jobs left.

    This is not good for the Nation. It will take people’s property and create risks of spills. It is intended to transport Koch brothers’ Canandian tar sands to Koch brothers’ Texan refineries: foreign oil transported across America which will be sold on the world market, not for the benefit of the American Nation.

    • Janos Skorenzy November 10, 2014 at 10:18 pm #

      The spills are fine – the people will come and collect them with measuring cups and the oil collected will be either paid in the next bill or become tax write offs. The environmental damage will provide more jobs for Dreamers.

      In the Appalachians, people go out and collect coal that has fallen off trains. Same thing in Eastern Europe, Russia, everywhere. Why should our poor be denied this? As the Bible said, do not harvest the corners nor glean – leave it for the poor. Or are your patrons too greedy to not do at least that little? What did H.R Puffinstuff say? You can’t do a little but you can’t do enough.

  33. progress4what November 10, 2014 at 8:01 pm #

    “…. more local systems to replace these monsters, but there is too much vested interest in them. For instance, the voters slapped down virtually every major ballot proposition to invest in light rail and public transit around the country. The likely explanation is that they’ve bought the story that shale oil will allow them to drive to WalMart forever.” – jhk –

    Another explanation, equally likely, is that voters are beginning to understand that any more large government programs* are likely to be wasteful, corrupted, and counter-productive to the stated public goals used to market them as ballot initiatives.

    As an example, voters on the southside of Atlanta (in Clayton County, where I grew up but no longer live or own property, thank God) approved a ballot initiative that makes Clayton the FIRST expansion of MARTA, since MARTA was itself approved in only two metro counties back in 1971. (And to understand the scale involved here, you need to consider that Georgia has 159 counties.) There’s already grumbling that the promised rail lines may never be built, and that the promised bus lines are being phased in more slowly than they could be. Here’s what wiki has to say:

    “Clayton County residents approved the 1% Sales Tax to join MARTA. Limited bus service will be implemented March 2015. Bus service is expected to be completed by Fall 2016. The contract also includes provisions for future rail transit to the county by 2025.”
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Atlanta_Rapid_Transit_Authority#Clayton_County

    *large government programs, wasteful and counterproductive – Here, I think “obamacare,” the ACA, serves as a template. Overhyped and byzantine – thus far, the ACA has managed to add only 200,000 uninsured persons per state, mostly by expanding Medicaid coverage into a Medicaid program that already existed.
    Even low income and low information voters are unlikely to be benefiting from the ACA, on average.

    Most informed voters are reacting intuitively, rejecting bigger government as best they can. Too little, far too late, it appears.

    =============================

    Besides all this, mass transit is hardly more efficient that a modern gasoline powered passenger sedan, fully loaded, on a passenger-miles per gallon basis. Everyone on this thread seems to be ignoring this fact.

    • Karah November 10, 2014 at 8:40 pm #

      i agree mass transit is a joke because it has been politicized.

      it stems from the problems planning roads. empire of mud is cited because infrastructure does not just happen. it takes decades for roads and pipes to get built. it takes a shift in society. what do people care about and what can they afford?

      ferguson is an example of very old deeply engrained ruts of thought in that part of America. the story that the north was the salvation for blacks is a myth. they jumped from the frying pan into the fire.
      racism like fascism is a political tool and not what people really are, they have to be indoctrinated first. it takes years to do that!

      mass transit is an illusion in most parts of the country because it is not really representative of the literal masses. most americans drive everwhere and love it. the bus “system” is there to humor the disenfranchised (mostly children). it is another way to separate them from us. it gets all the riff raff off the streets and behind darkened ad covered windows.

    • Janos Skorenzy November 10, 2014 at 10:27 pm #

      People are terrified of mass transit, knowing full well what color of people it will discharge. Whole malls and neighborhood have been destroyed by the extension of mass transit. Lives are at stake here Prog – literally.

  34. Pucker November 10, 2014 at 8:31 pm #

    According to Sheldon Wolin in “Democracy Incorporated”, Machiavelli believed that the traditional ruling paradigm in which the feudal lords do whatever they want and the peasants just have to suck on it is no longer adequate as it is not stable. He conceived of a state in which the politicians sell the leadership’s policies to the people to get their support by the use of propaganda, etc. Apparently, many of the intellectuals in the US government are Machiavellians. Obama’s role was to scam the Left and the West African blacks in the US by selling policies largely benefitting the corporate oligarchy to the people, particularly the blacks. The black leadership in the US has been relying heavily upon racism to get poor black support. Because Obama’s policies have left blacks worse off economically and swimming in a cesspool of racism, Ferguson is blowback.

    • Florida Power November 11, 2014 at 10:29 am #

      Indeed, the net is ablaze with the MIT professor explaining that the lack of transparency in selling the ACA was necessary because of the stupidity of the American voter.

      In other words, we Mandarins know what’s best.

      What amazes me is the fact these people are aware they are being recorded and no longer care to hide their contempt for “the common man.” I nominate Pelosi for an Academy Award for her showing of support for the Occupy protestors.

  35. progress4what November 10, 2014 at 8:45 pm #

    “This (immigration) is not good for the Nation. It will increase population to beyond what American agriculture can support while reducing worker wages still further. It is intended to benefit huge corporations like those owned by the Koch brothers. Foreign immigrants in the US will work to benefit the world market only. None of this is for the benefit of the American Nation.”
    – pk, severely edited –

    PK, one should not be for the Nation in one post, and against it in the next, should one?

    For the record, I’m opposed to the Keystone pipeline. And I think all that Canadian tar sand oil should stay under the dirt forever.

    ========================

    And backrow, I was wondering 3 years ago what was going to happen to the cost of electricity when nat. gas ran low. Thanks for confirming my wondering. I’m also of the opinion that nat. gas could be a valuable and very low polluting transportation fuel. Too bad we’re mostly flaring it off above the Bakken or else burning it to produce electricity.

    You can burn coal, bunker oil, and all sorts of low-grade fuels to produce electricity, while cleaning up more of the pollution than you can in transportation.

    On another note – all this coal we’re not burning under all these new EPA regs – – – Isn’t that coal going to be exported to China, eventually?

    Peabody Coal is extracting from private property, right?
    EPA can’t suspend private property or stop exports, right?

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  36. pkrugman November 10, 2014 at 9:00 pm #

    “more large government programs* are likely to be wasteful, corrupted, and counter-productive” — P4W

    The largest government program wastes billions of dollars a year, yet you, P4W, support it: the U.S. military.

    And saying you want a “lean and mean military” is another obfuscation. You don’t go to war with the military you want. You go to war with the military you have.

    You support the largest government bureaucracy in history with both your taxes and your family tribe… some of whom are sucking at the Pentagon teat as we post.

    So don’t talk about your love of small government, P4W. Your actions say otherwise.

    =====================

    The Department is the largest employer in the world, with just over 3.2 million employees.

    The Department of Defense is responsible for 93% of all US government fuel consumption.

    The Department of Defense receives the highest level of budgetary resources among all Federal agencies, and this amounts to more than one-half of the annual Federal discretionary budget.

    SOURCE: United States Department of Defense Official website

    • progress4what November 10, 2014 at 9:27 pm #

      What’s your point, man?

      I agree the military should be a lot smaller. But we’ve gotta’ have a military. Cain and Able, and all that, you know?

      • orbit7er November 11, 2014 at 10:52 am #

        Costa Rica has had no military since Jose Figueres disbanded it in 1948. Subsequently Costa Rica has had no military coups and enjoyed stable democracy since with a reasonable standard of living for all its citizens since all the War money instead is spent on schools, clinics, parks (33% of the land is Parks!) and roads.
        When I visited while most people lived in small houses, all regions we visited had electricity, schools with children walking to and from school, and the ubiquitous soccer fields cut into every hillside.

  37. Pucker November 10, 2014 at 9:25 pm #

    Can it be entirely be an accident that the culturally non-American blacks in St. Louis want to lynch officer Darren Wilson rather than protesting for jobs, healthcare, education, etc. which would improve their lives? Why is the black leadership playing the race game?

    • progress4what November 10, 2014 at 9:34 pm #

      Why are pres. Obama (If I had a son…) and E. Holder playing the race game?

      1. To gin up the base, for 2016 and beyond?

      or

      2. It’s what they have always done and they can’t stop?

      Anybody have a better explanation? Because what the first black president in the history of the US should have said is that we will, all of us black and white, wait for the jury verdict and not resort to violent protest.

      Obama didn’t do that. Big chance to really lead – lost forever.

      • Buck Stud November 10, 2014 at 9:48 pm #

        Obviously the country is not yet at a place where each individual case can be seen for what it is. IOW, Michael Brown (hopefully that’s his name; I’m just guessing) has come to symbolize in the minds of many a more pervasive and general culture of police brutality. What you’re trying to argue is that the symbol is not the actuality in the same way that “Stop” on a stop sign is not the act of actually stopping. Which is a healthy way to see things I do agree but obviously were not a healthy society

        But how can a certain segment of society possibly stop and consider an alternative scenario when right in front of all eyes another young black man is shot at a gas station by another trigger happy police officer?( I presume you have seen this tape on TV although I have never read a mention of it here by yourself.)

        As for President Obama and what he has said or not said I simply don’t know. But maybe it might be time to go back and read ALL of his commentary on the topic.

        • progress4what November 10, 2014 at 9:55 pm #

          “… has come to symbolize in the minds of many a more pervasive and general culture of police brutality…”

          Fair enough. Ferguson would have been a great time to address this. Unfortunately, our President, some of our media, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, elected to make this about race instead of about police brutality.

          Most unfortunate, IMO.

  38. Buck Stud November 10, 2014 at 9:36 pm #

    The recent campaign of Mark Udall might go down as one of the dumbest run campaigns in recent memory. Day after day, week after week, month after month the one and only Udall campaign ad became a monotone mantra of the personhood, women’s right to choose cause. So much so that his GOP opponents termed him “Mark Uterus”.

    And yet, there was this delusion with Dem circles that the “Latino vote’ would save Udall the way it saved his fellow Senator Michael Bennet in 2010. When I suggested on the left wing blogs that this would not be the case I enraged Udall supporters/progressives not because I was anti Udall but because of my rationale.

    I asserted that Udall would not get enough of the Latino vote because his message would not resonate very strongly with a predominantly Roman Catholic constituency. Abortion rights is just not going to inspire the Latino vote.

    • progress4what November 10, 2014 at 9:49 pm #

      Yeah. Gay rights doesn’t seem to resonate very strongly among Hispanics, either.

      And the whole “immigration now, immigration forever” thing doesn’t resonate very strongly among LEGAL immigrants (the ones who are legally able to vote) either.

      Some of the Democratic grievance coalitions may be splitting, eh?

  39. pkrugman November 10, 2014 at 9:37 pm #

    “Because what the first black president in the history of the US” –P4W

    Obama was born from a white mother and his white grandmother was from Kansas! Obama has not done much for the Black community, not as much as he has done for whites and is about to do for Hispanics.

    Ben Carson, if elected, would be our first Black president.

    • progress4what November 10, 2014 at 9:46 pm #

      That’s some micro-fine hair splitting there, mr. rugsoaker.

      And we both forgot that B. Clinton was proclaimed by many as “the first black president of the United States.”

      And then there’s this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/18/black-presidents-6-united-states-obama_n_2711887.html

    • Janos Skorenzy November 10, 2014 at 10:32 pm #

      You’re trying to jump from one dark horse to another – knowing that this one is about to break a leg. Just last week you loved him. You should read Carville’s book “Sticking”. The man has a loyalty that you lack.

  40. ghostlimb November 10, 2014 at 9:55 pm #

    The indifference to passenger rail is surely in part due to a clinging desire to keep happy motoring just as it is. An equally insidious force at work here is commercial rail who are the #1 lobby against passenger rail and spend zillions to keep it out of the public eye and as unsupported as possible by the politicians whose pockets they line accordingly.
    Along with Big Trucking, commercial rail makes sure the passenger rail agenda is kept out of the public eye and as undesirable as possible.
    Passenger rail and the smart grid are two gigantic public works projects that need citizens’ full attention – instead, they’re afterthoughts, and for as much as they make perfect sense for a long-term view, geometrically more public will is required to overturn the rigged game them.

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    • progress4what November 10, 2014 at 10:09 pm #

      Passenger rail is just not that much more efficient that are passenger cars – especially when costs of “the last mile” are included.

      And all transportation requires energy. One can attempt to argue that big rail and big government could coerce access to fuel after individuals have lost that access – but if things get that far gone then the commute to work – whether by rail or Happy Motoring – is NOT going to be a factor for most of us here.

      Personally, I’m not expecting any more big passenger rail projects, certainly not outside of densely populated urban corridors.

      Here are the basic facts concerning energy required per passenger.
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_efficiency_in_transportation

  41. pkrugman November 10, 2014 at 10:16 pm #

    “That’s some micro-fine hair splitting there…” — P4W

    Not really. Ask your Black friends. Mr. Obama has gone out of his way to emphasize he is president of all the people and has neglected the Black community, to avoid appearance of being biased in their favor.

    Neither Obama nor Bill Clinton are fully Black because neither one had two Black parents.

    The next president of the United States, Ben Carson, had two Black parents (from Georgia, by the way). Ben Carson will be the first legitimately Black president in the history of the United States.

    http://www.runbenrun.org/faq

    There won’t be a white Christian male elected president in the foreseeable future. Demographics are against it. If the Republicans were smart they would run someone like Susanna Martinez or Mia Love.

    We have already had two centuries of white Christian male presidents. The next two centuries of presidents should be either female or persons of color (of any political party), just to even things out a bit.

    • progress4what November 10, 2014 at 10:26 pm #

      whatever.

  42. Karah November 10, 2014 at 10:39 pm #

    Read This: “Israel’s Arab Citizen Uprising
    http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/11/10/a-new-intifada-israel-s-arab-citizen-uprising-spreads.html?via=ios

    They relate it to Ferguson!

    You could go further and indict the religious leaders of the black and white people for breeding racism and polarizing the community for decades just like the israel palestine conflicts.

  43. progress4what November 10, 2014 at 10:46 pm #

    At the peak of rail travel in the US, 1945, with packed trains due to the war – pmpg (passenger miles per gallon) peaked at 83. So trains can be very efficient, but they have to be jam packed with people. And rail freight is super efficient, something like 480 ton-miles per gallon of diesel. But passenger rail can never be that efficient because people won’t act like freight; they need space to move around, space for dining facilities, space for sleeping on an overnight trip, etc. etc. I’ve seen figures for lightly loaded passenger trains giving a pmpg of less than 20.

    By contrast, a sedan getting 40 mpg and carrying 4 passengers will get 160 pmpg.

    And passenger aircraft average about 58 pmpg.

    Fully loaded passenger buses, at 300+ pmpg, beat everything including trains and planes. Fully loaded passenger cars come next in terms of efficiency, after the buses and ahead of the trains and planes.

    http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/energy/stories/fuel-efficient-transportation-an-overview

    • Florida Power November 11, 2014 at 3:50 pm #

      That may all be true and factual, but when I lived in Boston, I walked the 1/4 mile to the T station, changed at Back Bay going to Logan Airport, flew to Narita Tokyo, and exited public transportation at my hotel. I’d suffer the knowledge of some fuel inefficiency for the ease of letting others do the heavy lifting.

      I am impressed by your bus statistic. Unfortunately I see lots of empty buses riding around. When I lived in cities with trains I recollect many passengers.

      Maybe CFN should begin blowing the bus horn.

  44. pkrugman November 10, 2014 at 11:08 pm #

    “whatever.” — P4W

    This is a meaningful admission of defeat from you on immigration, P4W. Nonhispanic white males are a minority in the USA: 33.3% (2012). The non-Hispanic white male population in the United States has been declining since 1940s as a percentage of the total US population.

    Your resistance to immigration is futile, P4W. Immigration and miscegenation are winning the day, gracias a Dios.

    Strength through diversity is building a new diverse multicultural Nation. White privilege is dying. P4W, I am glad you are finally seeing the light.

    • progress4what November 10, 2014 at 11:24 pm #

      whatever.

      You are one reprehensible and race-obsessed troll, you know?

  45. Q. Shtik November 10, 2014 at 11:37 pm #

    Young and black has to be the [worse.] – Seawolf77
    ==============

    worst

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  46. Q. Shtik November 10, 2014 at 11:40 pm #

    the left went full fucking racist retard as on [queue] from their handlers – neworld
    ==========

    The pronunciation is identical but the word you want here is [cue.]

  47. Q. Shtik November 11, 2014 at 12:15 am #

    Bridgegate has completely fallen off the radar. – Karah

    Krugperson, take note^.

    … then it does not [effect] your life. – Karah

    [affect]

    • Karah November 15, 2014 at 6:34 am #

      I always wonder which one to use (affect/effect) because to me it should be both all the time. How can something be effectual if it does not affect you? Someone help me with this, please. Gas prices can be effected, people are affected…right?

      There’s a big difference between associating CC with the word “bridge gate” and following up on the story of “bridge gate”. That’s what people are trying to do when they question him about “bridge gate”, they are trying to follow up on the story. However, there is no story until the FED is done with the thorough investigation and we see someone led off in handcuffs. Until then, its business as usual.

      Watergate is another example of a story that did not end up with the President being led off in handcuffs. He resigned with dignity intact.
      Because, in the end, the actions he was guilty of existed in the alternate reality of white color politics. Where people are bought and sold all the time.

  48. Q. Shtik November 11, 2014 at 12:58 am #

    the coarsening of daily life isn’t [a just] figment – Volodya
    =============

    [just a]

    • malthuss November 11, 2014 at 1:50 pm #

      You missed this, ‘Some excuse will be found to try an impeach him and then the nation will spend another two years’.
      From this weeks post by JHK.

      • Q. Shtik November 11, 2014 at 5:38 pm #

        Actually I didn’t miss it but thought better of pissing off our host as I am just recently back from the isle of Elba.

        • malthuss November 12, 2014 at 9:23 pm #

          Chicken.

  49. pkrugman November 11, 2014 at 1:02 am #

    Bridgegate has completely fallen off the radar. – Karah

    Krugperson, take note^. — Ghost writer

    You take note, ghost. — Pat Kelly Rugman

    Liberation-Nov 4, 2014
    With Chris Christie tainted by the “bridge-gate” scandal, the Republican leadership is beginning to unify around former Florida Governor Jeb Bush

    Wall Street Journal-Nov 9, 2014
    Chris Christie is hitting the donor circuit, which may help him if he decides to run … The state Republican party is in debt from legal fees from the bridge scandal.

    DesMoinesRegister.com-Nov. 10, 2014
    You thought New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s bridge traffic jam scandal was bad? Now he can’t shake Gestation Crate-Gate.

    Philly.com-Nov 9, 2014
    Christie, a likely rival to Kasich and Walker, campaigned as chairman of the … a major bridge-related scandal a year ago, his temperament remains a source of …

    USA TODAY-Nov 6, 2014
    Chris Christie says he’ll announce his decision on a presidential campaign early next year, but Christie-watchers are … The George Washington Bridge scandal.

    The Jersey Journal – NJ.com-Nov 9, 2014
    Christie’s bridge-closing scandal and subsequent departures at the Port Authority, McHale lost several allies there. He retired from the agency last spring.

    Christian Science Monitor-Nov 5, 2014
    Christie helped the Republican Governors Association raise a … image that’s dogged him since the bridge-gate scandal, in which Christie aides diverted traffic in …

    • Q. Shtik November 11, 2014 at 5:51 pm #

      Krugperson,

      Going back a year…yes, a whole year has gone by and CC has neither been impeached nor gone to jail. My point then was that the scandal would blow over “like a fart in a windstorm.” OK, the scandal plagued him a bit more than I anticipated.

      I don’t think I implied he would be our next president….just that people actually like someone who comes across rough and gruff. I will venture that 9 out of 10 who heard him recently tell someone in his audience to “sit down and shut up” laughed and loved it. The common man is sick to death of political correctness.

  50. pkrugman November 11, 2014 at 1:23 am #

    “Unfortunately, our President, some of our media, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, elected to make this about race instead of about police brutality.” — P4W, obsessing

    It is about race. A large segment of the white American public believes they are in danger from blacks, especially young black men, who they think want to rape young white women. This is an old piece of American mythology that has been invoked to justify crimes against black men, going back to lynching. The perceived danger of blacks becomes very intense when blacks are harmed. And so today, whenever an unarmed black man is shot by a police officer and the black community protests, whites in the area buy more guns.

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  51. Pucker November 11, 2014 at 1:58 am #

    pkrugman wrote: “A large segment of the white American public believes they are in danger from blacks, especially young black men, who they think want to rape young white women.”

    I thought that white people are afraid of young black men raping old white women?

    Or was it old black men raping old white women?

    • seawolf77 November 11, 2014 at 9:37 am #

      I am from the south and white women can get away with anything by just raising the specter of the jungle boogie. There’s a reason white women love to date black men today. They share a common oppressor.

      • Janos Skorenzy November 11, 2014 at 1:39 pm #

        So White Women are oppressed by modern conveniences and luxuries? By having enough to eat and a nice bathroom? Did Blacks provide such things or did their “oppressors”. You are correct about how such foolish women feel, but you are down there with them evidently.

        Logically, some women try to have Western Civilization without Western men: they hire someone to kill to their husbands, being too weak or afraid to do it themselves. As for the race mixers, they should be required to stay with their paramours along with their mixed progeny once the Separation (most needed and earnestly longed for) is affected.

  52. Pucker November 11, 2014 at 2:00 am #

    Driving Miss Daisy….

  53. Pucker November 11, 2014 at 3:38 am #

    JHK made the following observation:: “The management of societal affairs is on an arc to become more inept and ineffectual, no matter how either of the current major parties pretends to control things. Instead of Big Brother, government in our time turns out to be Autistic Brother. It makes weird noises and flaps its appendages, but can barely tie its own shoelaces.”

    This observation is highly ironic given that in our corporate “Managed Democracy” (in contrast to a bona fide democracy) our revolving door corporate executive/ government leaders are supposed to be adept “managers”.

  54. Pucker November 11, 2014 at 3:39 am #

    Everything gets “managed” to the point of massive Blowback.

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  55. Reagan November 11, 2014 at 7:01 am #

    I thought the author would write about the election results but he must be too stunned by the electorate deciding to flush the liberals, “progressives,” and democrats down the drain. Maybe people are tired of lies and decided that the lesser of the two evils is the Republican party. Perhaps we will see the rise of those who speak the truth – Cruz, Paul, Lee, etc. – as younger and more morally inclined individuals flow into the Republican party. The news media is owned by the left and it’s nice to see that people have come to see these so-called media outlets – CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, HBO, etc. – for what they are: leftist political machines and brainwashing outlets.

    • James Howard Kunstler November 11, 2014 at 9:31 am #

      I’m not stunned at all by the election results. The Democratic party needs to be either deeply reformed or allowed to die.

      • malthuss November 11, 2014 at 1:43 pm #

        New Americans vote Democrat, yes?
        USA had an amnesty under Raygun, Bill and now the ‘new mericans’ are crying for a HUGE amnesty, yes?

    • Buck Stud November 11, 2014 at 12:30 pm #

      Doubtful. The Dems’ took a battering in the 2010 mid terms and came back to win an electoral college landslide in 2012. The problem with the current Dem campaign beyond typically low mid tern turnout is have they have moved away form an economic populism message. In fact, the majority of the nation supports Dem economic policy when it is the TRADITIONAL Dem party message; the message that engendered the great American middle class

      But here is the greater truth. Since the advent of the Reagan Revolution economic stratification has only intensified to the point that the top one percent now owns as much wealth as the bottom ninety percent. This has not always been the case. In the link provided below one can see the stratification prior to the the full implementation of FDR economic policy and the increase in stratification in the aftermath of the structural economic changes ushered in during Reagan era:

      http://s140.photobucket.com/user/fladem/media/wealth_zpsc16726ee.gif.html

      The math don’t lie and the GOP mantra of more tax cuts for the rich and corporations will only result in further economic/class stratification. Rand Paul or Ted Cruz is only more of the same old repackaged GOP tripe.

      The demographics of the country does not favor the GOP. Old white folks–a key GOP voting bloc– keep on dying and the young offspring of the immigrants that Reagan legalized back in the 80s’ keep on registering to vote. The Dems also hold a strong advantage with voters under 40.

  56. Frankiti November 11, 2014 at 9:29 am #

    Another post brings the same sad ghosts haunting the trough.
    Spinning the conversation towards imbecilic theories on conspiracies, race, and nazis of course.

    What an echo chamber.

    • Janos Skorenzy November 11, 2014 at 6:24 pm #

      Remember Frank, in any group of three people two will be talking about the third when he’s not around. Is it a conspiracy? Of course. They breath together. It’s a part of life – a big part. You think the Elite don’t do it? Think they can’t keep secrets? Well, are you possessed by the urge to talk about your life to street people? Same thing by analogy – that’s how the Elite see us. They have no problem not talking to us. And they cross the world on a regular basis to talk with each other face to face in secret meetings.

  57. FincaInTheMountains November 11, 2014 at 9:34 am #

    Vladimir Matveev. Eurasia is on the eve of global reformatting

    In the context of the destruction of the world financial system two scenarios are developing that involve two versions of events. In the case of global reform based on mutual agreement that could keep the world from the global financial meltdown, there will be a set of new mutually acceptable global financial rules. Otherwise, the global financial system will be “reset”.

    A number of the world’s centers, major economic powers will lose the right to control the situation in the global financial system and the economy. As a result, a number of other centers and eastern countries with dynamic economies acquire chance to become equal or even dominant players in the new system.

    It is significant that the Russian oligarchs’ mass moving under the Rothschild Group and transfer their assets into Hong Kong dollars. In August 2014 saw a dramatic increase in the activity of all three issuing banks in Hong Kong, who began buying US dollars from the “Russian oligarchs”. This increase in dollar supply will provide the Rothschild group with additional leverage.

    Latest events in Hong Kong follow the patterns of the US orchestrated regime change operations tested in Ukraine, Egypt and Syria. Undermining of Russia, and China is going under the principle of destabilization on the perimeter. It is indicative that Hong Kong “burst into flames” at the time of increased armed opposition activity in the Northwest of China.

    Destabilization of Eurasia and the creation of the frozen conflict in Hong Kong are in the interests of USA. Designed to challenge Beijing and will undoubtedly impact on China’s economic growth and internal destabilization.

    Along with this, the Hong Kong recent events have shown that the confrontation in the world is not only at the level of the China-US and China-West, but also at the level of the backstage struggle within the global financial and economic elites. Rothschild Group and London are betting on China and its industrial development.

    Banks in London have a significant stake in the US Federal Reserve, but realizing the completion of this project, the British Commonwealth countries, including Britain, Canada, Australia and Singapore launched the process of transformation of the yuan into global reserve currency.

    Rothschild Group, which moved its center to Hong Kong – seeking to get away from the weakening dollar hegemony and create something like a ”gold standard” in sterling and yuan. Rockefeller Group strives to maintain its global dominance and prevent the global redistribution of the world wealth without her active participation. It acts to weaken China and aims to create a zone in the region of increased tension and conflict.

    Parallel HSBC bank of Rothschild Group continues to export gold to China in record amounts via Hong Kong. China is exploring the possibility for the formation of a new global financial system based on the gold standard.

    Regionalization and formation of 5-7 economical mega-regions is coming in place of the failed globalization. Powerful destabilization of Eurasia serves as a prelude to final denouement of 500-year old global financial pyramid. The US Federal Reserve is being transformed from the world lender into a Central Bank of the North American or Anglo-Saxon mega region.

    • FincaInTheMountains November 11, 2014 at 9:58 am #

      Some clarifications. There could be several types of “Gold Standard”. The most rigid (and most deflationary) would be a “direct gold standard”, when there would be a fixed amount of physical gold (owned or borrowed by Central Bank) to issue the paper or electronic unit of currency.

      The second one, more realistic, there would be a “certain percentage of gold coverage” by Central Bank of issued currency. Most likely, they would certainly lie about the percent of coverage.

      And finally, probably the best, is the original Breton Woods “gold standard” (before 1971), when Nations Central Bank were required to settle their country trade deficit by gold once a year – that given the balanced trade would require the minimum amount of gold to support such system and will force countries to keep their respective productive capacities at a high level.

      • seawolf77 November 11, 2014 at 11:36 am #

        The gold standard is not deflationary, it is price stability. In general the price of everything should go down over time as efficiency and productivity improvements kick in, but they don’t because of monetary policy. That in essence is the problem. People think the value of their house went up. Incorrect. The value of your dollars went down i.e. it takes more of them to do the same thing. At one time it took 20 little pieces of paper to buy an ounce of gold. Today it takes 1150 little pieces of paper.

        • FincaInTheMountains November 11, 2014 at 5:26 pm #

          seawolf77, before repeating fifth grade banalities after Peter Schiff and Jim Willie, put on you thinking hat for a minute.

          Lets say United States were to re-introduce the gold standard today under the price of say $1,200 per ounce.

          Current GDP (all goods and services) of the US is around 16 trillion dollars, so you’d need at least 33% of that amount in total dollars in circulation, so that would be about 5.3 trillion dollars. Expressed in ounces of gold under the current price US would need to have at least 4.4 billion ounces of gold, or around 138 thousand metric tons of gold – and that’s assuming that the gold price is not going to go up – which it would (probably, at least double)

          Are you sure that US has 138 thousand metric tons of gold in Fort Knox? If not, US will have to borrow it, probably from Rothschild Group or face a catastrophic GDP reduction.

          • seawolf77 November 11, 2014 at 6:25 pm #

            A catastrophic GDP reconstruction is needed. GDP should be based on production, not consumption. Your parameters are poorly constructed so they lead you to erroneous conclusions, sort of like looking at a map to try and figure out how to flush a toilet. The gold standard is tried and true, has stood the test of time, and just plain works. Anyone who argues against that is either misinformed, a propagandist, or just plain stupid. Take your pick.

        • FincaInTheMountains November 11, 2014 at 6:59 pm #

          I just love your “flush a toilet” example – extremely relevant to the subject of discussion.

          However, I could come up with another example, may be not so relevant, but still shedding some light on the “gold standard”.

          After Bismark introduced the Gold Deutsche Mark in 1873 (Part of his deal with Rothschilds to finance the 1870 Franco-Prussian War), the process of introducing the Gold Standard in Europe greatly accelerated.

          Introduction of Gold Standard in Europe coincided with the longest and most severe economic Depression in European history – Long European Depression of 1873–79, kicked off by the Panic of 1873, and followed by the Panic of 1893, book-ending the entire period of the wider Long Depression.

          But of course you are right and emotions and blind faith of gold stackers should be of defining priority and we should all commit an economic suicide for shiny pieces of mostly useless metal.

          • seawolf77 November 11, 2014 at 9:06 pm #

            While it may be true that economic activity was stagnant in the late 19th century in Europe, the argument that it was caused by the gold standard is specious. The Federal Reserve’s introduction coincided perfectly with the true beginning of the oil age, the world wars, which the bankers orchestrated. After the petroleumfication of world, one of the key objectives of the wars, oil production grew at a rate far surpassing the 2 % that gold production grows at, something like 7 % I think. So yes the argument could be made that the gold standard would have slowed growth in the new oil age. Now that cheap oil has peaked, growth is non existent and never to return. So what do we do now? Return to real money. Why? Because hard choices have to be made and can’t with fairy tale money. It is not shiny pieces of metal. It is real money. When a country is threatened what is the first action it takes? It moves, hides, protects its gold.

          • FincaInTheMountains November 12, 2014 at 5:57 am #

            “When a country is threatened what is the first action it takes? It moves, hides, protects its gold.” seawolf77

            I’d rather see the country protects its people – how about another “New Deal”.

  58. BackRowHeckler November 11, 2014 at 11:01 am #

    Some of the mob in St Louis are threatening ‘Days of Rage’ and countrywide mass violence they they don’t get the desired outcome from the Ferguson, MO grand jury.

    CFNers, I’m asking you, is this just hyperbole and bullsh#t, or is there something real here? Should we be worried, or will this blow over like everything else (or until something new comes along)?

    The mob is seeing red — Blood Red.

    brh

    • malthuss November 11, 2014 at 1:44 pm #

      Obama and the media will fan the flames of discord.
      You saw what happened with Trayvon and ‘If I had a son’ [gees what a demagogue Obama is].

  59. pkrugman November 11, 2014 at 11:37 am #

    Tomorrow congress returns and is going to consider the President’s request for a new AUMF. Congress will decide not only whether or not to endorse the war in Iraq and Syria but what restrictions, if any, to place on that war.

    With congressional hawks like John McCain set to take the reins of power in the Senate, there will be a push to send combat troops to fight ISIS, to expand the war into pursuing regime change in Syria, and to flood the conflict with American weapons.

    When will they ever learn that war does not work? War destroys infrastructure, creates widows and orphans and only makes things worse, as the past 13 years of war has demonstrated. Civilians are in the crossfire. Every civilian killed makes a political solution more difficult.

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    • BackRowHeckler November 11, 2014 at 12:35 pm #

      Hey PK ISIS needs to know that.

      Any way you can clue them in?

      brh

  60. volodya November 11, 2014 at 11:37 am #

    Beryl

    Maybe, to those immigrant women, those entry level jobs look good compared to the alternatives like retail or no work at all. Maybe it looks to them like an opportunity. And I’m not using the word “opportunity” ironically. Maybe they think that the name of some bank will buttress their CV and they think that, with some luck, it will lead to something better.

    Funny thing how we’ve made screwing people out of their money a “respectable” occupation.

    Back in the day grads came out of school and went to work designing, making and selling things that people used. Like washing machines.

    Where do such nice devices get made nowadays? Not here. So what does a youngster do? What do immigrants do?

    A lot of those naive, young college grads go to work in the service of the latest Wall Street scams. Many will, for now at least, get enough money to pay the bills, the more um “talented” will scoff outlandish piles of dough.

  61. volodya November 11, 2014 at 12:08 pm #

    GutenbergGuy

    What’s my point? Just this: that, unless you have the mind of a three year old, most of life is really straight forward.

    Hmmm … I have to say that your question leads me to think that you went to university.

    Did you? Are you one of those poor souls? Did you study the arts and humanities? Did the fine professors do their level best to mystify what really isn’t at all mysterious and obscure what’s really plain and clear?

    Too bad for you, I think that most people that attend one of those places really shouldn’t.

    According to some people (and IMO also) graduates are no better off, no more knowledge-able, no more able to observe, analyze and adapt after having blown tens of thousands of their parents’ and taxpayers money.

    You know what I think? Colleges and universities are there for self-glorification, to NOT shine a light but rather the opposite. And mostly they are there TO TAKE YOUR MONEY.

    • BackRowHeckler November 11, 2014 at 12:41 pm #

      V. what about professional training (i.e., military officer, medical doctor, civil engineer, attorney, accountants)? College is a must, no? Otherwise, we’re all dilettantes and amateurs, and everything gets all f#kked up!

      –brh

      • volodya November 11, 2014 at 12:50 pm #

        BRH, if college was there to not rip you off, if it was there to shed light on reality instead of the opposite I’d have a favorable attitude toward it.

        For these things advanced training is a must. It’s all in the execution. But why university? Why can’t some of these things be done in stand-alone vocational schools? Like accounting for example or business studies. Why do these things need to be done in mega-buck educational settings? Why do they need to be degreed?

        We need lowest cost, maximum benefit, maximum knowledge and skill. What we get is the opposite.

        • BackRowHeckler November 11, 2014 at 2:17 pm #

          V. what you suggest above, as applied to professional training, was pretty much the way is was done up until about the 1880s. Then things began to change.

          I did see an article recently stating in the 19th century many of the Big Corporations — Railroads, Canals, Shipyards, Steel Mills etc — were headed up by engineers trained at West Point or at Annapolis, and to a lesser extent MIT.

          –brh

      • malthuss November 11, 2014 at 1:48 pm #

        CPA work can be done from India and other places. China has a new ‘super internet’ about to happen [rumor has it].

        I know someone who spent 4 years getting an RN. She cannot find a nursing job.
        She relates ‘with the economy being what it is nurses are not retiring’.
        To which I will add all the ‘new americans’ working as LVNs and nurses aides do the work cheaper.
        Or as a nurse confided to me, ‘Filipinos have ruined nursing. Some cant even insert a feeding tube’.

        • BackRowHeckler November 11, 2014 at 2:28 pm #

          M., I’m really surprised to hear that.

          I figured there was always a demand for trained, certified medical people. I know here RNs are in demand and can pretty much name their price. Things must be different in other parts of the country.

          brh

  62. Buck Stud November 11, 2014 at 12:57 pm #

    I suppose if the current Democratic party ‘deserves to die’ it will make room for more Scalia’s and more Clarence Thomas’ and more John Roberts.

    And more politicians like this elected to congress politician from Colorado Springs Colorado –a hot bed of GOP fundamentalism:

    http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/meet-dr-chaps-gordon-klingenschmitt-colorados-new-anti-gay-demon-hunting-state-legislator

    I imagine that more than few posters on this increasingly right leaning site will consider the above politician their ideal representative.

    • Buck Stud November 11, 2014 at 1:00 pm #

      * Not congress but the Colorado State House*

  63. pkrugman November 11, 2014 at 2:26 pm #

    “I suppose if the current Democratic party ‘deserves to die’ it will make room for more Scalia’s and more Clarence Thomas’ and more John Roberts.” — Buck Stud

    Buck, you must know that some doomsters are nihilistically cheering for collapse to happen, bored with their lives, and jonesing for disaster, thinking people will be eventually be jolted into action, take up their pitch forks and march to Long Island to the evil banksters’ houses.

    Others, like some Marxists, want things to become worse in order to point out the “contradictions of capitalism,” thinking people will then embrace their brand of state socialism, rise up as the proletariat and overthrow the evil capitalists.

    Doctrinaire doomsters and strident Marxists: both are sick in my opinion. They show themselves indifferent to suffering, indeed, using it to justify their ideology, which of course, in their minds, is always described as just a description of “reality.”

    For Marxists history is dialectic, a natural evolution from capitalism to socialism. For doomsters our “decline” is a natural consequence of (take your pick) immigration policy, biological overshoot, human stupidity, etc. which leads CFN to say “we are fucked” … and really believe it.

    • Buck Stud November 11, 2014 at 4:01 pm #

      That’s an interesting post. And yes I have observed the same sentiment among doomsters who use terms like ‘making it through the bottleneck’ etc, etc, etc. They also wonder ‘how long TPTB can kick the can down the road’ or some similar cliche.

      But as you infer there are real living and breathing people who would die and suffer in these doomster scenarios. Everyday people instinctively and intuitively realize this so in essence they are the one who keep kicking the can down the road: they don’t want to witness the death of their sons, daughters and loved ones in Mad Max scenarios no matter how much the disaffected malcontents vicariously long for chaos and mayhem.

  64. barbisbest November 11, 2014 at 2:31 pm #

    Maybe Billi Jo McAllister did jump off the Talahatchee bridge but, that’s not as great of a song as Don McLeans American Pie, and i believe the reference to that song is very appropriate for this time. It’s like Mclean was a prophet. It was a great story then and it;s a classic song now. I met a girl who sang the blues,I asked her for some happy news.She just smiled and turned away.

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  65. pkrugman November 11, 2014 at 2:42 pm #

    “It’s impossible to exaggerate the contempt engendered by Obama among young idealists.” — Janos

    Janos, as much as I would like to see an Obama third term, I don’t think Obama is going to be on the ballot in 2016. Young idealists are more color-blind than you think and voted for Obama is 2008 and 2012, helping him win his first two terms.

    Do you think the same contempt you believe exists would be directed at a Black conservative like Ben Carson? Would you support a Black conservative president, Janos?

    • Buck Stud November 11, 2014 at 3:48 pm #

      P Kelly Rugman,

      Janos is a little bit confused, old and set in his ways. He counted his ideological chickens before they hatched as it were, grasping for the headline of his posted link to refute my post. But Janos apparently failed to read the rest of the article which basically concluded that among young people Dem popularity has actually surged that last six months, increasing to 20 percent. Ooops!

      • Janos Skorenzy November 11, 2014 at 6:26 pm #

        Right – that why you won the last election I guess.

    • Janos Skorenzy November 11, 2014 at 6:30 pm #

      I didn’t say they had contempt for Obama for his color but for his policies and character.

      Yes, so called Conservatives may now do the same thing: vote for Carson because he’s Black and they want to show how they’re just as cool as the Democrats.

      I’d rather a real Black Conservative get in rather than a White Liberal. But they are as rare as hen’s teeth. Perhaps the slightly crazy Alan Keyes. Carson is just a run of the mill hustler – he said Zimmerman should have been charged with “something”.

  66. pkrugman November 11, 2014 at 3:39 pm #

    “Hey PK ISIS needs to know that. Any way you can clue them in?” — BRH

    Dear BRH, is this some kind of trick to get me arrested?

    Dear Homeland Security, I know ISIL is a terrorist organization and contact with ISIL is prohibited. BRH is the one suggesting such contact with our enemy. For the record, I am refusing BRH’s treasonous suggestion.

    • BackRowHeckler November 11, 2014 at 6:25 pm #

      LoL!!

      • Janos Skorenzy November 11, 2014 at 9:13 pm #

        Nice try BRH. He’s too smart for that. We’ll need to set up a honey trap.

  67. barbisbest November 11, 2014 at 4:06 pm #

    It seems “the common good” went out with the hula hoop, about the time of McClean’s American Pie. And any democrat with half a brain knows they are the new republicans. It does need reform or abolished. We do need unstuck.

    The Game of Civilization, we are all, it would seem, such losers at it.
    But, we go on, chasing the dollar, never looking up or stopping to reflect, running over our children

    Wonder how evolution would have gone without Titusville, That’s thought provoking. As well as World Made by Hand as a video game. Good idea, along with Mr. K publishing a collection of his blogs. I’d buy that. 11-11

  68. MisterDarling November 11, 2014 at 4:51 pm #

    Happy Veteran’s Day, Veterans!

    I’m not saying this as a statement for or against the current crop of conflicts.

    I’m primarily interested in simply __Acknowledging__ that they happened, and that some of the people involved in fighting them live among us.

    Cheers Veterans!

    • Q. Shtik November 11, 2014 at 8:21 pm #

      I carry a somewhat watered down version of the term veteran. I served in the Air force 3 years in the early 60s and this qualified me to be called a Vietnam “Era” veteran even though I served nearly all my stint in Duluth, MN and never heard a shot fired in anger.

      • Janos Skorenzy November 11, 2014 at 9:11 pm #

        Fly Boy eh? Thanks! You were a traveling salesman too. Ever get to Cicero, IL? What’s it like? Better than Wheaton? I’m sure the suburbs of Chicago are a world unto themselves. A man could spend an entire life traveling them and never know them in full.

        • Q. Shtik November 11, 2014 at 11:03 pm #

          Fly Boy eh? – Janos
          =============

          Yeah, I flew an adding machine as the base Accounting and Finance Officer.

          I was never a traveling salesman but I was a traveling auditor and been a lot of places. I spent lots of time in Chicago but never in Cicero or Wheaton as I recall. What makes you ask about those places?

  69. MisterDarling November 11, 2014 at 5:06 pm #

    I liked JHK’s posting this week. Several sentences stood out particularly. Here’s one:

    “Instead of Big Brother, government in our time turns out to be Autistic Brother. It makes weird noises and flaps its appendages, but can barely tie its own shoelaces.”-J H K.

    And there’s the truth of the typical (in)-security state: It’s a last-ditch too-little-too-late desperate grasp to maintain power, by degenerate political elites on their way out. Cranking up the surveillance, threats and intimidation is tacit admission of strategic defeat.

    Think about it: They threw everything they could at controlling Iraq and Afghanistan, and they couldn’t hold them down – and these were nations with populations of 26 and 28 million, respectively.

    SO… How well are police-state programs going to work in a nation of 312+ million, that is many times larger geographically? It could only work if it was coupled with a solid economy – but that is precisely what they haven’t got working for them, and that is the primary causal factor for the process of destabilization in America…

    So, *good luck* with whatever you thought you were accomplishing, NSA.

    Oh, but the rats didn’t forget to make a little for themselves on the way out, did they:

    oh, isn’t that interesting?

    http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/10/22/keith_alexander_stock_trades_potash_aluminum_russia_china

    and also this:

    https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/10/24/nsa-official-implicated-potential-conflicts-interest-resigns/

    This is precisely a 3rd-World state of affairs. What a degenerate heap it is, really.

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  70. MisterDarling November 11, 2014 at 5:21 pm #

    Hello Volodya,

    re | “So, what are the prospects for – cough – immigration reform? Nada IMO. At least as the system is now. Both the Democrats and Republicans are in oligarch pockets, they will go through this absurd kabuki of one party proposing, the other party veto-ing. Will not matter one iota what party controls what governing institution.”-v.

    Agreed. I’ve been watching this ‘Kabuki’ for 30 years at close-range.

    “One result will be “dis-intermediation” as Greer calls it, that is, the excision of various parasitical entities in the productive process, all of them looking for a cut. Including a lot of oligarchs – think Wall Street.

    That small oligarchical group collectively set their interests against everyone else’s, they gave not one thought to the greater good – which includes their own.”-v.

    There’s a problem that is _fundamental_ to doing everything in your power to make a buck dismantling society and all its ‘bothersome’ safeguards, and then expecting your property-‘rights’ to be respected when that society collapses… It’s completely bizarre that there a so many nit-wits out there that don’t (can’t?) see how this works.

    “You see, so fully invested are they in the lie, so dedicated to it, that the lie has become their reality. Or, rather, the matrix of lies has become their reality. They can no more renounce the lies than they can renounce their liver. It’s impossible, the lies are central to their existence.” -v.

    Nice… It’s also a function of the eternal drive toward _wishful thinking_: would you *want* to know that what you considered a strength was a lot like a brain-eating parasite, which in turn channel most of its stolen nutrients to even larger parasites, which in turn…

    😉

    Nope. Most people would not. Thus, there are not many strong-willed ‘ex-hosts’ walking around.

    • AKlein November 12, 2014 at 7:10 am #

      Mr Darling, regarding your last two posts…
      OK, here’s the algebra which explains whats going on.
      Consider that I am in charge of society’s resources.
      I expend 100 units of the society’s resources to acquire 40 units of resources. Fantastically, In the process of this transaction 10 units of resource end up in my account. So, from a societal standpoint, the transaction is horrible; 60 units of resource lost. But on a personal basis, I am a big winner. In fact, my effective rate of return is infinite! It has cost me nothing to make 10 units of resource. Zero risk.
      This kind of scam can work until the societal framework breaks down, which it ultimately will, since such scams are liquidating the society’s assets.
      We have some real experts at this scheme here in the US.

      • MisterDarling November 12, 2014 at 9:05 am #

        re |”This kind of scam can work until the societal framework breaks down, which it ultimately will, since such scams are liquidating the society’s assets.”-AK.

        Precisely. This is the “economic predation” that Mr. Einstein predicted 60+ years ago. Or we can call it ‘parasitism’. But in this case the parasites aren’t leaving an environment intact to propagate their young into.

        So, maybe we should think of it as the economic equivalent of ‘The Road’ scenario: one where there’s no point in even pretending that anyone’s getting something out of it in the long-run, and the only people happy about it are those too short-sighed to understand that.

  71. FincaInTheMountains November 11, 2014 at 6:06 pm #

    CNO Greenert: Russian Navy ‘Very Busy in the Undersea Domain’
    http://news.usni.org/2014/11/04/cno-greenert-russian-navy-busy-undersea-domain

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Russian Navy’s submarine force has been more active this year against the backdrop of soured relationships with the West over the ongoing internal conflicts in Ukraine and the forced annexation of Crimea by Russia, U.S. Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. Jonathan Greenert said on Tuesday.

    The Pentagon seldom discusses submarine operations — of either allied or potential rivals — but there has been an obvious increase in Russian submarine operation over the last few years.

    “Although Moscow has made no attempt to conceal the fact that it plans to accelerate submarine operations, the audacity of some recent patrols exemplifies a troubling trend,” wrote Lt. Cmdr. Tom Spahn, USNR in a June 2013 article on Russian submarine forces in Naval Institute Proceedings.

    “In late 2012, an Akula allegedly remained undetected for several weeks while conducting operations in the Gulf of Mexico. Later that same year, a Sierra-2-class guided-missile submarine crept within a mere 200 miles of the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. In the Mediterranean, Russian submarines have similarly increased operations, likely including participation in a massive naval exercise off the coast of Syria in January 2013.”

    • FincaInTheMountains November 11, 2014 at 6:16 pm #

      Akula Project 971 Shchuka-B, meaning “pike”, NATO reporting name “Akula”, is a nuclear-powered attack submarine first deployed by the Soviet Navy in 1986.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akula-class_submarine

  72. progress4what November 11, 2014 at 7:10 pm #

    “….our “decline” is a natural consequence of (take your pick) immigration policy, biological overshoot, human stupidity, etc….”
    – pk rugman –

    “Everyday people instinctively and intuitively realize this so in essence they are the one who keep kicking the can down the road…”
    – buck stud –

    OK, boys, I have to interrupt this mutual admiration society of yours for a moment to say that most rational people understand that contemplating a thing, even preparing for a thing, is not what causes that thing to happen.

    • Janos Skorenzy November 11, 2014 at 9:58 pm #

      They were close before when Krugs wore another man’s face. Again Buck falls for the bait.

      • Buck Stud November 12, 2014 at 12:20 am #

        Lol, you two remind me of “art lovers” who only love a piece after they discover a famous artist made it. In other words, typical Americans in love with the cult of personality, first and foremost

        I, on the other hand, recognize a good post for what it is, not who wrote it.

  73. MisterDarling November 11, 2014 at 7:22 pm #

    Here’s a couple more nuggets of particular gleam from this week’s JHK post:

    “The one thing it does exceedingly well is drain the remaining capital from endeavors that might contribute to the greater good.”-J H K.

    There’s an odd verbalization frequently expressed when various levels of economic collapse are talked about: that ‘they’ (The Fed’, Central bankers, etc.) can just keep printing money “forever” to “keep things going” – or words to that effect.

    The problem with that is this “drain” that JHK refers to. Every minute of every day that’s spent throwing money at something unproductive (puffing up a portfolio non-performing loans for example), is time lost building something that actually will produce; like a project or business with jobs and paychecks that can actually be used to do something – besides go broke slower.

    It’s like treating a traumatic injury patient. The time to ‘apply the leaches’ is after the bleeding is under control – or actually never, if you live in a society progressed beyond 1820.

    At the end of the ride, Demand et al. collapses, and then so does everything else. This is where we are now. If you haven’t been paying attention, 2014 was like a Honduran ‘Christmas Eve’: just about anything with a pulse got slaughtered, what didn’t got ‘fixed’ and stuffed in a fattening pen.

    “All of these systems have something in common: they’ve exceeded their fragility threshold and crossed into the frontier of criticality. They have nowhere to go except failure.”-J H K.

    It’s interesting that folks don’t know what Collapse looks like on a graph. It’s when the line drops into a straight _downward_ direction. It’s the opposite of the market-hyperbolist’s fave: the upwardly asymptotic ‘Hockey-stick’ shape.

    What that drop-off is telling you _directly_ is that whatever was supporting the phenomenon being represented by the line on the graph just lost any support – it is in a state of ‘free-fall’ in other words. This is what Collapse is. For example: If you find yourself in a collapsing structure, then there is material – the fluffier the better, you hope – in free-fall under or over your head.

    I’ve seen collapse curves in global climate economic data.

    … Mind your Head.

    • AKlein November 12, 2014 at 12:25 pm #

      Yes, Mr Darling, what you are speaking about is called a “phase change” in physics. For example, nitrogen, as a gas, observes Boyle’s Law (p*v=k). But as soon as the temperature goes sufficiently low, nitrogen becomes a liquid or solid. A phase change has occurred. Boyle’s Law then no longer applies. In fact, it is meaningless (undefined) for a liquid or solid. There are plenty of examples in mathematics, chemistry and physics – and economics too – where a seemingly sudden inflection point can occur where the “old rules” no longer apply. Seemingly sudden because recent history would not predict it (i.e. extrapolation does not comport with experience.)

  74. progress4what November 11, 2014 at 7:36 pm #

    “I imagine that more than few posters on this increasingly right leaning site….” – buck –

    Buck, first question is whether that rightward lean is due to the website itself, or your perception of it. Just asking.

    And, IMO, it’s difficult to journey through life as a thinking person without having some ideas that resonate to the left, and other ideas that resonate to the right. Furthermore, if one’s political ideals don’t evolve and change, that may be evidence of a life lived without examination – and you know what they say about that.

    As for me, I’m beginning to wonder if American society, itself, is not about to make a hard lurch to the right on a couple of issues. I follow http://www.newswhip.com/news-app/us for trending news. There’s a LOT of far right stuff trending on social media at any given moment. Of course, it’s mixed in with a bunch of sports news and a fair amount of entertainment drivel – but a trend may be aborning. We’ll see, won’t we?

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    • Buck Stud November 12, 2014 at 12:27 am #

      My impression stems from the fact that so many former posters no longer do so; Wage, Hancock and other names I can’t recall.

      And also, perhaps, because of the recent Israeli/Palestinian conflict in which JHK apparently alienated some voices from the left with his support of Israel.

      As far as political ideals ‘evolving’ I suppose that would depend on what direction the evolution moves toward . For example, the former ‘progressive’ now turned conservative ‘thinker’ whose change was ushered in by other right-wing posters here on CFN.

      Life doesn’t get any more examined than that, now does it Prog?

      • Buck Stud November 12, 2014 at 12:41 am #

        It’s late for me here…evolve or devolve in terms of individual political preference is subjective and typically motivated by self interest. For example, the formerly poor ‘progressive’ who inherits a very large sum of money and suddenly despises the estate tax. I would term that as devolving in relationship to the former ‘progressive’stance based upon, say, true genuine need of a economic safety net.

      • progress4what November 12, 2014 at 8:49 am #

        “For example, the former ‘progressive’ now turned conservative ‘thinker’ whose change was ushered in by other right-wing posters here on CFN.”

        That’s interesting, buck. What I discovered early on was that I was “progressive” in comparison with the culture of my region. When I exposed my ideas to the world at large on the internet – on this site and others – I learned I was a “moderate” on many things, a strong “liberal” on others, and a staunch “conservative” on others.

        Then, through pkrugman and the “asoka” I learned that there are “liberals” who simply will NOT be reasoned with – they want their way, consequences be damned. These are the sorts of LaRaza “liberals” who are driving immigration policy, admittedly at the behest of the National Chamber of Commerce.

        It’s a mean and short-sighted world, IOW. I’ll be thinking about this as I make my rounds today. More later, maybe. Thanks, buck.

  75. progress4what November 11, 2014 at 7:46 pm #

    Meanwhile, the NYTimes no less, says that the evidence for white policemen deliberately targeting young (armed or unarmed) black males is _ non-existent. _

    For some reason, you can’t copy/paste from a NYT article. Nevertheless, this thing is worth a read – to those with an open mind.

    One study showed that civilians and military are LESS likely to fire at a black perpetrator, whereas trained LEO’s fire at black perpetrators at the same rate as they to perpetrators of other races.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/31/sunday-review/race-and-police-shootings-are-blacks-targeted-more.html

  76. Q. Shtik November 11, 2014 at 8:01 pm #

    “Hey PK ISIS needs to know that. Any way you can clue them in?” — BRH

    Dear BRH, is this some kind of trick to get me arrested?

    Dear Homeland Security, I know ISIL is a terrorist organization and contact with ISIL is prohibited – Krugperson jousting with BRH

    =============

    I’m using the above exchange as a way to discuss the term ISIL vs ISIS.

    When the brutal group emerged on the scene a few months ago in the ME they were first identified as ISIS. For reasons not made entirely clear, our government began to call them ISIL. If you’ll take notice “the Administration” is diligent in using the term ISIL and NEVER using ISIS while, I would guesstimate, 80% of references in “the Media” and by the common man on the street have stuck with the original term ISIS. Since Krugs has not failed in using the term ISIL I would count him as either a consistent apologist for the administration or possibly an actual employee.

    I’m aware that the final S in ISIS stands for Syria while the L in ISIL stands for Levant but I don’t understand why this is such an important distinction for the Obama Admin.

    Can someone explain this for me?

  77. FincaInTheMountains November 11, 2014 at 8:07 pm #

    Jim Willie: Nov 10th: GLD as device to supply Shanghai, along with its “Gold in Motion” aspect (rock bottom ~650mt)… Bla bla bla …. Scotia Mocatta to be depleted, in service to Wall Street cabal, supplying the Big Four banks… … Bla bla bla …. comparison of Russia & China to US on gold, debt, resources shows US to be extremely weak… Bla bla bla …. Gold to move toward $2500-$3000 when Shanghai resets the gold price… Bla bla bla ….Gold to move toward $6000-$7000 so as to address the 4-fold increase in USD money supply… Bla bla bla ….Gold to move toward $12,000 so as to achieve some sort of Supply-Demand equilibrium… Bla bla bla … Gold to move toward $18,000 when stolen Swiss allocated gold accounts are replaced… Bla bla bla

    So what is it Jackass? $3000, $7000 or $18,000? Make up your friggin mind, Jim. And to think of it, the guy makes close to million a year in subscription fees by constantly helping his subscribers loosing their hard-earned “worthless paper fiat money”, while sitting in Costa Rica and screwing the Latin girls. And he’s got the audacity to say “I am not interested in declared gold price” – Hah? Excuse me.

    Don’t take me wrong, I am sure that the gold will keep its purchasing power, the question is – could you keep your gold?

    Yes, I know – buy physical, stash in your mother-in-law mattress and hope that the purchases you made over the Net or using your iPhone are not readily booked in special register in FED basement marked “useful idiots, who think we won’t be able to confiscate at least 99% of their stash”

    • Janos Skorenzy November 11, 2014 at 9:48 pm #

      Yes, an obscure part of old English Law has been maintained for its profitability. The Police can just take your stuff on the suspicion that “it” is guilty or to be used in crime or has been gotten thereby. I heard policemen in third world countries do similar things. And everyplace is a third world country now – even Russia. After all, can you prove that money in wallet is really yours? Got a receipt? Hand it over. You are free to go, but your money is guilty.

      Hilarious and sad video about such goings on:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kEpZWGgJks#t=123

    • seawolf77 November 14, 2014 at 9:27 am #

      At one time, and for about 80 years, it took 20 little pieces of paper to buy an ounce of gold. Then after the government took all the gold to keep for themselves, ostensibly for our own good, it took 35 little pieces of paper (albeit with more esoteric symbols on them) and this was good for nearly 40 years. Notice the time was cut in half. For the last 40 years the price has fluctuated wildly, obviously gold’s fault, and today it is about 1200 little pieces of paper for that same ounce of gold. This is 34 times more little pieces of paper in about 40 years. I’d say there’s something wrong with those little pieces of paper. but that’s just me. And Peter Schiff. And Jim Willie.

      • seawolf77 November 14, 2014 at 9:55 am #

        Here is the math from 1971:
        35 70 140 280 560 1120 Price of gold
        1971 1991 2001 2006 2008.5 2009.375 Year
        Seems to be right on schedule.

  78. Pucker November 11, 2014 at 9:55 pm #

    White people are buying shotguns. Can it get any worse?

    Residents in Ferguson, Missouri and neighboring cities are buying firearms to protect themselves against violence expected after a St. Louis County grand jury decides the fate of Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot and killed Michael Brown. On Monday, CNN interviewed a number of people in the town who recently purchased weapons and received training at a local shooting range.
    A local gun merchant told CNN customers bought 100 guns over the weekend. In nearby Bridgeton, the manager of a shooting range said gun sales are up 40 to 50% as of last week. Most of the weapons are home defense shotguns.

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    • Janos Skorenzy November 11, 2014 at 10:02 pm #

      And imagine if they indicted Wilson – Blacks would then know it was open season on Cops and Whites in general. The Black Mayor of Detroit’s failure to enforce the Law against his racial cohort lead to the mass White exodus.

      • seawolf77 November 11, 2014 at 10:24 pm #

        I think what you mean is that blacks would know the season had ended on them and began on white cops. Is that what you mean? I am a white college educated male, something that means nothing in Louisiana now. When you first feel the pressure of the police, watching your every move, passing in front of your house, reversing direction when they pass you on the street, pulling a trailer behind their cop car while you are riding a motorcycle, and in general being up your ass every chance they get, then you will know what it is like to be black. Until then, revel in your white supremacy. It’s all fleeting. You are 5 times more likely to be in jail in Louisiana then in Maine. 5 TIMES!!!! The most incarcerated place on the planet.

        • Q. Shtik November 11, 2014 at 11:19 pm #

          You are 5 times more likely to be in jail in Louisiana [then] in Maine.
          ===========

          [than]

          Sorry to keep pounding away on this. I can’t help it.

        • Janos Skorenzy November 11, 2014 at 11:46 pm #

          I don’t deny your experience. But Blacks do. They don’t think Whites ever get harassed or shot by the police. They aren’t your friend even though you are theirs. And that’s sad.

          • seawolf77 November 12, 2014 at 8:13 am #

            I never said I was their friend, I said they have a point. The police in this country are completely out of control, and they draw their ferocity and ruthlessness from some perceived brutality and moral turpitude of the young black man. This image has been created by our media, nurtured by people like you, and used like a get out of jail free card by the police for heinous acts against ALL people.

          • Janos Skorenzy November 12, 2014 at 2:12 pm #

            Perceived brutality and moral turpitude of the young Blacks? As if it’s not real? What planet are you on? Do you have access to the internet? Young Blacks are completely out of control – as all sane well informed people know. And yes, police are out of control as well. Some of that comes from the growth of the all powerful state and some of it comes from their experience with the animals on the street – of whatever color though obviously Blacks tend to be the worst and most numerous per capita.

            Mr Kunstler deals at length with Black nihilism at the end of “The Long Emergency”. In brief, he states that it will not be tolerated during the long emergency. Sooner or later Black rioters are going to be met with truncheons and rubber bullets – at the very least. And if the Government refuses to do this? Then citizens will have to do it themselves. You don’t realize it, but Blacks have been coddled for your entire life. They don’t realize it either, but they will.

            As someone from New Orleans you should know better than any. Remember Katrina and Black behavior? How they ransacked the city? How some Black cops helped them before they walked off the job? In the end a few heroic White Cops were the only ones left trying to hold down the city. And how the National Guard went door to door confiscating guns? How Whites defended their neighborhoods against Negro Marauders? It’s all there – a microcosm of things to come.

          • seawolf77 November 12, 2014 at 7:59 pm #

            What I remember about Katrina is a bunch of white redneck cops shooting a man of diminished mental capacity, in the back no less, and then circling the wagons to protect one another. I remember how the state dismissed the charges against the men, claiming they had been doing their job. I remember the Feds had to come in and prosecute and ultimately convict in a court of law all of these men for murder. As of someone from New Orleans I know indeed what happened at Katrina.

  79. Pucker November 11, 2014 at 10:09 pm #

    White people and shotguns—a marriage made in Heaven. White people love shotguns. I guess that the shotgun is the preferred weapon for white people because one can get drunk on bourbon or meth and still easily hit the target within 20 to 30 yards and then go back to watching the football game or go back to f.,..ck’n the fat girlfriend?

    • Janos Skorenzy November 11, 2014 at 11:55 pm #

      That’s an unbelievably ignorant thing to say even in jest.

      • Pucker November 12, 2014 at 12:56 am #

        Why do the Eastern Europeans and the Ukrainians have a fetish for US redneck culture?

        Estonian southern-metal band Redneck Rampage has released their first full studio album, “Shotgun Inc.”.

        Redneck Rampage was formed in 2007, and has since performed actively in Estonia and had some gigs around Europe. In 2009 the band released a demo-EP, “To Hell With…”. Their first full-length album, “Shotgun Inc.”, includes 12 original songs written in the period of 2009-2013.

        • Janos Skorenzy November 12, 2014 at 5:57 am #

          I don’t know. Maybe because their own cultures are dying after having received a mortal wound from Communism? Or perhaps the people were downtrodden even before then – never having the right to bear arms as peasants, that being reserved for the Aristocrats and their soldiers. Thus it may be indicative of a desire for liberation, albeit in a degenerate form like most other things in this Kali Yuga.

    • BackRowHeckler November 12, 2014 at 11:15 am #

      There’s a small shop just over the hill here in New Britain, CT, manufactures shotguns that retail for as much as $50,000 a gun. They resemble Parkers, as a matter of fact out Parker the original Parkers.

      I’ve been making the Turkey Shoot rounds past few weekends. Shotguns everywhere. i enjoy circulating thru the crowd and looking at all the different makes and models. One of the true joys in life is a good shotgun.

      brh

      • BackRowHeckler November 12, 2014 at 11:20 am #

        And i don’t think I’m a redneck either. A redneck who went to Wesleyan is a pretty funny concept.

  80. MikeMoskos November 11, 2014 at 10:39 pm #

    Check out this wonderful apartment building: Yours for $600K.

    http://detroit.curbed.com/archives/2014/11/historic-west-village-apartment-building-yours-for-600k.php

    Why are we all not in Detroit?

    Or why has the city not filled with gays renovating it?

  81. The Anti-Gnostic November 11, 2014 at 10:40 pm #

    “The end of what? Of pretending that the people in authority know what they are doing.”

    More to the point Jim, the end of the illusion that such disparate peoples could ever live together in a single polity. Why are you up there in upstate New York, after all?

    • Janos Skorenzy November 12, 2014 at 12:05 am #

      Exactly. Liberalism is a form of Gnosticism where the intellectuals separate themselves from matter symbolized by the unwashed masses. But add puritanism to the equation as they then condemn Whites who still have to deal with “nigredo” or Black Matter. Poor Whites don’t fit and they want them eliminated from their divine equation, their city on a hill.

      True Alchemy rejects Gnosticism. It states that before things can be properly combined, they must be properly separated. Thus there is nothing wrong with getting away from minorities – what’s wrong is the hypocrisy of not admitting that’s what you’re doing, which leads to the bizarre condemnation of Whites who can’t get away and have to defend themselves against the alien races.

  82. Pucker November 12, 2014 at 1:26 am #

    We haven’t heard JHK rant about NASCAR in a while. When I was a kid my Dad took me to the Taladega 500 once. I recall that the weather was unbearably hot and humid, and the redneck spectators all got pissed on cheap beer. The Nascar racing cars would woosh by making a terrible racket only to disappear down the race track. After an unbearably long hot and sweaty hiatus the racing cars would again woosh by as before. After several hours of the same, it suddenly ended and everyone went home. I guess that it makes sense?

    • Janos Skorenzy November 12, 2014 at 2:38 pm #

      So you hate your Dad? I don’t blame you. I hate him too for subjecting you to that. You wanted to be home reading a book.

  83. Newfie November 12, 2014 at 5:34 am #

    The IPCC just released their latest report. If we don’t go to zero emissions by 2100, the planet is going to “fry”. And this wonderful civilization will “fry” with it. Probably the IPCC is underestimating the time frame. And we’re going to “fry” a lot sooner. Climate change is the flip side of the peak oil “coin”. How come there is little to no discussion of this topic on this blog ? Are you all deniers ?

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    • malthuss November 12, 2014 at 9:15 pm #

      Others believe it [AGW] but it is becoming a harder sell. With so much cold weather.
      JHK mentions AGW in his book.

      I prefer ‘Wattsupwiththat’ blog.

      • Newfie November 13, 2014 at 7:42 pm #

        NOAA says 2014 is on track to become the warmest year on record.

  84. Cold N. Holefield November 12, 2014 at 7:15 am #

    I blame it all, for today at least but my blame can and will change tomorrow or sooner, on that Aspergian nerd Bill Gates and his shitty DOS operating system called Windows (to hell). He’s a sadist whose motivation for saving the poor benighted people of Africa is to torture them with his crappy, consistently and rapaciously hacker-exploited joke of an operating system for as long as humanly possible and beyond. Somebody waterboard* this “PC in every pot” bastard for all the grief he’s caused humanity. If it wasn’t for him, there wouldn’t be as many interconnections and collapse would have proceeded by now. Screw you, Gill Bates, and may God (where ever or who ever God is or isn’t) have mercy on your tainted soul because I sure don’t and won’t.

    That’s all. I hope everyone’s happy happy and in good health. It’s good to be BACK!

    *Just joking, of course. I don’t condone torture, but I do condone hoisting by ones own petard. May the retard BG find his petard and hoist himself on it, but no doubt as fickle Justice would have it, he uses OS X or Linux to avoid his long-awaited wrath.

  85. MisterDarling November 12, 2014 at 8:49 am #

    Lastly, I admire the wrap-up for the weekly JHK post. I more than adequately encapsulates:

    re |”The end of what? Of pretending that the people in authority know what they are doing.”-J H K.

    One thing that I’ve noticed during the past 30 years is that this mental ‘Rubicon’ is crossed at different times by different people.

    When I was younger I knew that the Cold War was over in the Spring of 1988. They had just emptied a forward outpost on what was then the ‘Czechoslovakian’-‘West German’ border so that they could pack one of the larger base-camps with troops… Why? Well, Bill Moyers was doing a TV show about the ‘modern military’ and they needed a lot more soldiers in every scene…

    So much for any ‘sense of urgency’. The “people in authority” weren’t even trying to pretend anymore.

    And of course there were the usual people in complete denial that this meant anything. Typically there’s a 40% chunk of the populace that cannot cognitively wrap their heads around an idea that challenges any fundamental assumptions.

    So, they said that this wasn’t a sign that whatever we thought we were doing on border with ‘The Warsaw Pact’, it was over. According to them nothing could change because it had “always” been that way and “always” would… It seems so odd to write this out, now. It’s clear that “always” for some folks is a very strange concept.

    There wasn’t any point in arguing about it back then. I just found better things to do with my time. By the Fall of 1989 there was no more ‘border mission’. And then there was no more ‘Czechoslovakia’.

    Fast-forward to 1999 when it was obvious to anyone with eyes to see that the Dot-Com ‘market’ was nothing more than a pump-and-dump scam… And that same 40% strenuously denied that it could go anywhere but up, Up, UP. Once again: no point in arguing, you just had to get busy moving your money.

    Similarly, we knew that “the people in authority” had no idea WTF they were doing in Iraq when they dismissed 800k Baathist troops back into the streets, alleys, fields and all those future ambush sites…That was in Spring 2003, if you recall.

    Or, there were those that knew that the housing market (and a whole lot more) had nowhere to go but structural collapse by mid-2004.

    The more experienced you become, the earlier in the game you can cross that line of knowing which way things will go, strategically.

    Regarding the past seven years in the States, I will say this: “It’s been fun watching”.

    • volodya November 12, 2014 at 11:54 am #

      The dot com pump and dump was pretty rank stuff. I heard some really astonishing numbers. Like 6 trillion.

      That is, six trillion bucks, sucker to shyster. Meaning that, in that whole debacle, people spent 6 trillion dollars buying fraudulent securities from Wall Street and other assorted criminals.

      I had conversations with people at the time, friends, colleagues etc about what was happening and what I saw was mind-bending levels of delusion. If you so much as cleared your throat and said “but”, people rolled their eyes.

      What was there that I didn’t understand people would ask. It’s not complicated they would say. They would look at me and shake their head and chuckle. You see, I was missing out, stocks are the “new currency”. Didn’t I hear Abby Joseph Cohen, didn’t I hear about “new paradigms”?

      Um, what about revenue, profit, cash flow … and they would laugh. I was living in the past.

      Well, they would say patronizingly, “you just don’t get it”. I was told numerous times that I was foolish, no retirement for me, I’d be working until 75.

      And what didn’t I get? Lots of stuff. most of it in fact. Expressions like “stocks are the new currency” baffled me. WTF does that mean? It all sounded like scam-talk.

      There was nothing much to “get”. A few dotcoms companies had viable businesses. But, in the main, it was a dot-con, a fraud, mind boggling in size.

      And I thought this is really the limit. It can’t get worse than this. Well, silly me. Hadn’t counted on the mass real estate hallucination soon to come.

      Here’s something else I don’t get. People get screwed by Wall Street but they keep going back. And keep getting screwed. Why don’t they learn?

      It’s been fun watching? I suppose, in a way. Nothing to do really except protect yourself and your interests as best you can, get out the lawnchair, crack open a cold one and watch the demolition derby.

  86. Cold N. Holefield November 12, 2014 at 8:58 am #

    Can someone explain this for me?

    As you imply, it’s all semantics. I think both ISIL and ISIS are limiting. The appropriate term should be IS which stands for Islamic State. The Islamic State, apparently, will not be limited by geography but rather by imagination. Therefore, I, from here on out, will refer to it as IS as PKRugrat aligns himself with the Obama Administration and the DNC in referring to it in limiting terms such as ISIL. It reveals their lack of understanding, or perhaps it’s just more misdirection to add to the ever-expanding sea of it.

    From what I gathered in my research, it has been referred to as ISIL by intelligence services long before it was referred to as ISIS. A good question is why the media, highly manipulated by intelligence services via Operation Mockingbird, uses the more limiting and containing term ISIS? It’s as though it wants us to be alarmed, yet the name it’s chosen for the renegade and nefarious entity indicates it’s a localized problem relegated to Iraq and Syria and not the broader Levant and the world at large.

    Colonel Mustard, unfortunately, also refers to it as IS. Purely coincidence, I assure you.

    • Q. Shtik November 12, 2014 at 12:40 pm #

      A good question is why the media, highly manipulated by intelligence services via Operation Mockingbird, uses the more limiting and containing term ISIS? – Cold N.

      ===============

      Yes, even the NY Times, which generally falls in line with everything the Obama Admin is doing, has NOT gotten aboard the ISIL train…they continue to use ISIS.

      Such hair-splitting doesn’t interest most people but words/terms mean something. I’d bet there were high level discussions on this subject in The Administration and at the NY Times.

      By the way, welcome back…where the hell you been?

    • BackRowHeckler November 12, 2014 at 2:10 pm #

      Some good intel there on ISIS, CNH. Thanks for posting that.

      Also some pretty decent stuff courtesy of Volodya, MDarling, and others.

      I like the way this comments sections builds on JHKs original Monday post, which is always interesting, and runs with it … stays fresh all week.

      brh

  87. Buck Stud November 12, 2014 at 11:51 am #

    For conspiracy theory aficionados it doesn’t get much better than this:

    http://mileswmathis.com/oj.pdf

    • Janos Skorenzy November 12, 2014 at 2:35 pm #

      Yeah really. It’s like they believe the most powerful people in the world go over the head of government and talk directly each other on a regular basis. In secret conclaves!

      Hillary been seen traipsing in to Bilderberg meetings, but that’s just more conspiracy theory, right? Even if it’s on film? Do you think maybe it was staged using a lookalike?

      Are you writing regularly to OJ? It’s terrible the way he was railroaded into prison – just like so many Black Men. And if he’s in prison, how can he keep looking for Nicole’s killer (on golf courses all across America)?

      • Buck Stud November 12, 2014 at 3:17 pm #

        It would be naive to think that the High And Mighty don’t sit down at dinner tables and pass envelopes of appreciation under the table. Nepotism and cronyism are par for the course and always has been. To what extent, however, remains the question.

        For instance, in the upcoming Supreme Court case on the federal subsidies concerning ‘Obamacare’ whose to say that some multi-billion dollar medical insurance companies don’t try and influence judicial members of the court. After all, mandated coverage is a huge boon to the insurance industry.

        A similar dynamic occurs in the extending of drug patents. A Phizer files suit in a particular friendly district and viola, patent extended and too bad for the generic drug makers and customers who will suffer economically as a result.

        But the aforementioned is just child’s play in terms of diabolical back room deals. If we only knew as they like to say.

        • Q. Shtik November 12, 2014 at 6:49 pm #

          Nepotism and cronyism are par for the course and always [has] been. – Dollar Stud

          ==============

          [have]

          • Number 6 November 13, 2014 at 1:45 am #

            whose to say – Buck Stud

            —————–

            who’s

            Surprised you missed that one, Q.

        • Janos Skorenzy November 13, 2014 at 4:19 am #

          Yeah damn those Corporate bastards! We need good Democrats to bring them to heel – someone like Hillary Clinton or Elizabeth Warren. Freddie or Jason, Godzilla or Mothra – place your bets. Which lady are you voting for Buck?

          I’d like to see a mud wrestling contest to be frank. But it’s unfair due to Hill’s age, so her body woman, the incomparable Huma Abedin, will have to step in for her. I find Huma very attractive but I still want Liz to win. I have my heart set on putting on paint and doing a “Native American” dance at her inauguration.

  88. volodya November 12, 2014 at 1:22 pm #

    Mister Darling

    Isn’t it odd how nobody seems to leave the public service poor?

    And yes, this mass surveillance is a joke, if the mighty United States of America couldn’t subdue a few lightly-armed, donkey-riding illiterates, who had to resort to cobbling together bombs from empty metal cannisters, exactly how mighty is it?

    What do they hope to accomplish even if, as some claim, the intent is to not only record telephone numbers but the telephone conversations themselves?

    They can’t even be honest about what is self-evident, that this “meta-data” isn’t “meta” in the slightest but rather highly specific information about individual calls. It’s like Hayden said, they kill people on the basis of “meta-data”. “Meta” my ass. But, oh, Hayden says, that’s not not WE do with THIS meta-data. Yeah? Blow me.

    IMO this has got pretty much bugger all to do with Muslim terror. At best it’s tangentially related. Rather, this has pretty much everything to do with domestic suppression and intimidation.

    Are you intimidated? Do you self-censor? I mean, this website and Greer’s and a multitude of others like Stockman’s and Zerohedge are all up and running. All these sites talk about matters the oligarchy DO NOT want talked about, depletion, corruption, collapse? Yet here they all are.

    They tried to get some rancher to cough up grazing fees and couldn’t. The full weight of the US government, the American judiciary and law enforcement and what did it come to? They had to back off in the face of a thousand armed sympathisers.

    I mean, good grief, they talk “American Empire”. An even bigger joke. They can’t bend a supposed ally – Israel – to do their bidding even when Israel is supposedly financially dependent . Here’s a thought: the United States is a shadow empire, a notional empire, an empire in name only, one that exerts influence only when it suits the aims of its – cough – vassals.

    Here’s another thought: Israel is in no way shape or form dependent on the US either financially or militarily. Do Americans want to pay Israel a couple billion a year? Israel will take it. But they sure as hell will not do as they’re told. No quid pro quo, no way for the US to enforce one.

    The Iranians openly laugh at Obama and the regime that he fronts. They send some genial, smiling buffoon on good-will tour to bamboozle the willfully blind about Iranian intentions. Talk about kabuki, what else would you call these nonsensical “negotiations” over Iranian nukes?

    Want to bet that within ten years the future ayatollah ceremoniously inveils his new Kebab bomb? Guess who’s going to be in attendance. If I had to guess I would say the leader of Russia (Putin or his puppet), the leader of China, a few other leaders of assorted, authoritarian piss-holes. Maybe even North Korea.

    All having a good dinner or two, with the best liquor and wine, all with the diligent attentions of the best looking “waitresses” and all having a good laugh at whatever loser happens to be in the Oval Office.

    And what will the future loser in the Oval Office do about it?

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    • FincaInTheMountains November 12, 2014 at 4:10 pm #

      ” If I had to guess I would say the leader of Russia (Putin or his puppet), the leader of China, a few other leaders of assorted, authoritarian piss-holes.”

      With a depleted resource of US Federal Reserve, with no clear program how to restore the industrial potential, with thoroughly brain-washed population I wonder how rapidly the former US empire will turn into another “assorted, authoritarian” piss-hole.

    • Q. Shtik November 12, 2014 at 6:44 pm #

      the future ayatollah ceremoniously [inveils] his new Kebab bomb?

      =============

      Since inveil means to cover with a veil I’d guess you should have written uninveil.

      • volodya November 13, 2014 at 10:31 am #

        typo

        should be “unveil” as in “reveal” or “uncover”

        as in “ha-ha-ha you morons we were developing nukes all along”

    • MisterDarling November 12, 2014 at 9:52 pm #

      Volodya,

      re | “IMO this has got pretty much bugger all to do with Muslim terror. At best it’s tangentially related. Rather, this has pretty much everything to do with domestic suppression and intimidation.”-v.

      Mr. Snowden stated as much. The US public has been treated as the greater threat for the past forty years. The rationalizations change, but the mission stays the same for these nitwits: choker-chain wage-earning Americans.

      re | “Are you intimidated? Do you self-censor? I mean, this website and Greer’s and a multitude of others like Stockman’s and Zerohedge are all up and running. All these sites talk about matters the oligarchy DO NOT want talked about, depletion, corruption, collapse? Yet here they all are.”-v.

      Okay, so I knew about most of the NSA situation for a long while before 2013. But it just wasn’t a good idea to talk about it back then. Very awkward to bring up in a conversation…

      Now that it’s out in the open and biting them in the *ss so hard and fast, it’s keeping them busier than a one-legged man at a butt-kicking contest… So, that changes the picture – a lot.

      And the beauty part of it is: they were advised not to go as far as they did, they did it anyway, and the come-uppance doesn’t rely on a broken political system. They’re having their buttocks handed to them by the globalized ‘free’ market.

      They enjoyed copious collaboration from the captains of hi-tech industry: Cisco, Microsoft, Apple, AT&T et al., Intel, IBM, etc. and now all of those corporations are facing steep declines in overseas revenue…

      Oh! So Sad!

      Too bad.

      Take Brazil for instance:

      http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-11-12/brazil-builds-its-own-fiber-optic-network-avoid-nsa

      There goes 35 Billion usd right down the flusher for just that one deal. Dilma got herself re-elected and she’s really still *P-O’d* to discover that she was NOT ‘in the loop’ about how far the NSA was up her digital c**ch… Nope. Not one bit.

      So, no more Microsoft on her government’s machines, f-u Cisco on those contract renewals, eff-off Apple, etc.

      Considering how much hi-tech stashes overseas:

      http://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/u-s-companies-now-stashing-2-trillion-overseas-n247256

      (ie., more than they do onshore)

      And how much they were counting on emerging markets for new growth, they really effed themselves when they decided to suckup and bow down to their new ‘friends’.

      And the NSA? Oh, they just utterly blew it. They’ve put it on display just how little credibility they deserve. They’ve compromised so much by trying to download it all…

      Upside? Yes, there is one:

      Whenever you start worrying about sociopaths ‘taking over’, just keep it cool and wait. *They* are the social predator that controls their own numbers… They can’t help it. If that wasn’t the case the rest of us wouldn’t still be here.

      Cheers!

      😉

  89. Cold N. Holefield November 12, 2014 at 2:43 pm #

    By the way, welcome back…where the hell you been?

    Thanks. I’ve been in the pipeline filling my time — and shotgun shopping. Rabbit season is upon us. For me, every day all day is rabbit season, so it’s imperative to have an effective and reliable shotgun handy at all times.

    Ebola let us all down. It turns out it isn’t much more than a river in Africa despite the hype. I had such high hopes. Like Fred Sanford, I thought it was the Big One (not really), but like so many system challengers before it, and no doubt many to come after it, as fate would have it Ebola, like IS, isn’t up to snuff.

    I’m not sure what we’re going to do to get this collapse gig rolling. Maybe an asteroid or a comet — oh wait, strike that since the EU today has landed a spacecraft (is it still called this these days or have they given it a more euphemistic label?) on a hurtling comet, so there goes that formerly “unpredictable” option.

    We’re running out of options and I’m beginning to think there’s No Way Out. Oh well, if there’s no way out, I’m kicking back and enjoying the show until I draw my last breath. I would have anyway — kicked back and enjoyed the show.

    Were there refreshments at the event where you asked JHK to release you from your banishment? I find such encounters unbearable without a few nips to loosen me up (if they don’t have any (refreshments) I bring a flask — concealed, of course) — but just a few, because otherwise I end up bringing the whole house down, and that’s rarely, but sometimes, a good thing.

  90. BackRowHeckler November 12, 2014 at 3:10 pm #

    Pucker this is for you.

    Ode to the Winchester Model 12,

    by John Keats

    A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
    Its loveliness increases; it will never
    Pass into nothingness; but will still keep
    A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
    Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

    brh

    • MisterDarling November 13, 2014 at 1:03 am #

      Hi BRH,

      I know this poem by a different name?

      http://www.online-literature.com/keats/463/

      The only reason that I mention this is b/c this line: “A thing of beauty is a joy forever:” was a constant refrain of childhood… Generally by my father, and generally in reference to women and good luck, not firearms…

      😉

      Thanks for bringing it up, though.

      Cheers!

  91. Buck Stud November 12, 2014 at 7:23 pm #

    Does anybody ever wonder what type of people sit in these chairs watching “The Duke”? Those chairs look like they only want the very best sitting in them: Upright , proper, regal. And there’s more than one row so can the viewers can pretend they are at real live commercial movie theater with the anticipation of upcoming attraction previews and buttered popcorn stirring the ambiance.

    Oh and look, a real old timey movie projector sitting up there on the shelve– how nostalgic, sigh.

    It’s all so damn perfect that I imagine Ward and June Cleaver snuggling sweetly to the roar of a lion as the dimmer switch dims.

    And no doubt there’s a 10,000 dollar bottle of European wine sitting in a nearby cellar waiting to be uncorked if the occasion really warms up. And don’t worry about any snow in the driveway either; that 5000 dollar a month heating bill melts the falling snow the moment it touches the outdoor driveway.

    Yes, life is good.

    http://st.houzz.com/simgs/8901851b007da86d_4-2405/traditional-home-theater.jpg

    • Q. Shtik November 12, 2014 at 9:00 pm #

      a real old timey movie projector sitting up there on the [shelve]

      ==============

      [shelf] is singular

      Shelve is a verb as in: “Mary shelved her numerous trinkets on every available shelf.”

      • Buck Stud November 12, 2014 at 9:13 pm #

        Actually, I saw more than one shelf with projector equipment –three to be exact–so it should have been plural. But thank you so much “Laoshr” Q 🙂

  92. Pucker November 12, 2014 at 9:32 pm #

    We haven’t seen K Dog for a while. He might have been picked up for chasing cars again? If so, he might be interested in the following seminar:

    Attorneys interested in animal law will learn about valuation and damages applicable in civil cases, including state comparisons and new trends for companion animals. The class will also address the replevin options for retrieving a wrongfully taken animal (how do I get my dog back?), veterinary malpractice (what happens when my animal is hurt by the vet?), along with vicious dog (what can happen if my dog bites someone?) and police dog shootings (what can I do if the police shoot my dog?), among others. The course will also include a period for question and answer.

    Key topics to be discussed:
    Law Addressing Animals (Federal, State, County & Municipal)
    Animal Valuation (Companion Animal Trends v. Market Value Standards)
    Available Damages in Animal Cases (Intentional v. Unintentional/Negligent Acts)
    Replevin Cases (How Do I Get My Dog Back?)
    Veterinary Malpractice (& other applicable Vet licensing laws)
    Dangerous/Vicious Dog Cases (Breed Bans, Penalties & Administrative Review)
    Dog Shootings (Police Misconduct & Intentional Cruelty)

  93. Q. Shtik November 12, 2014 at 9:43 pm #

    BRH, Puck and Cold N.

    While in Florida in regard to the recent sudden death of my brother I came across two guns hidden away in the inner sanctum of his closet. One was a 12 gage shotgun that went way back to a brief fling he had with duck hunting some 50 plus years ago. It was a Western Field which I presume was an inexpensive weapon. The other, which I had no idea he possessed, was a Mossberg, 22 long target rifle made in New Haven.

    I wondered “what the hell am I going to do with these?” I’m not a gun person. I googled pawn shops and the map showed them all to be clustered in the same area in a poor black section that my daughter would describe as “ghetto.” Not “a ghetto,” just “ghetto.”

    I chose from the listing, for obvious reasons, a place named AB Pawn and Gun. Upon entering I was stunned by its huge size and immaculate order. On display was every imaginable item that the locals brought in to fund a bottle for the weekend, primarily jewelry and guns…enough guns to outfit a good-sized terrorist cell.

    The staff were right out of Pawn Stars. Every one bearded and pierced and tatted to a fair thee well. And each one carried a holstered pistol on his hip.

    I brought in my brother’s two guns. The gentleman expertly handled the shotgun, looked to insure there were no cartridges in it, turned it this way and that and opined that it wasn’t worth much since it had lost all its “bluing.” The 22 still retained its bluing. He said I’ll give you $175 for the two of them. I said well, you know I’m going to take whatever I can get because there’s no way I’m gonna drive back to New Jersey carrying a couple of illegal guns BUT, I said, I don’t want to tell my friends back in Jersey that I just caved and took the first figure you offered so how about $185? He smiled and said “yeah, I think I can go the extra 10 bucks.

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    • BackRowHeckler November 13, 2014 at 10:14 am #

      You made yourself a pretty good deal, Q.

      ‘Western Field’ was a trade name used by the Stevens Arms Company in Chicopee, MA, back in the day. Stevens once employed 20,000 people onsite, in their plant along the Connecticut River. During WW1 the factory was taken over by the Government to manufacture Mosin Nagants for Russia in their war against Germany. That was pretty much the end of Stevens as an independent company, which began in 1865. Savage Arms, another Mass. company, bought the name around 1929 and you can still buy guns to this day that bear the name ‘Stevens’.

      A few years back I was working on a project and took a ride up to Chicopee to see what was left of the plant where 20,000 people were once employed. There wasn’t much to see.

      brh

  94. Pucker November 12, 2014 at 9:44 pm #

    I think that it was the Apartheid white South Africans who perfected the shotgun as a weapon? I read somewhere that they developed an automatic rapid fire 12 gauge shotgun with a12 shot cylindrical magazine. It fires metal pellets and it can shoot through cars. The South Africans named it “The Street Sweeper”.

    • malthuss November 13, 2014 at 1:38 am #

      ‘Apartheid white South Africans ‘. Gawd. Look at what words are in caps and which one is not. Bwaaaa.

      • Janos Skorenzy November 13, 2014 at 4:22 am #

        Yeah this guy has serious issues because he was raised as a redneck and it didn’t take. Now he hates Whites unless they hate themselves. The Liberal disease in other words.

    • Janos Skorenzy November 13, 2014 at 5:04 am #

      You think this is funny too? Eh, funny man? Can you imagine this worthy man’s last moments? Visualize yourself as him. Still laughing?

      http://www.dailystormer.com/elderly-white-store-owner-beaten-to-death-by-despicable-black-coward/

  95. Pucker November 12, 2014 at 10:33 pm #

    My dad once took me to Simmons Sporting Goods in Bessemer, Alabama to check out the new .50 caliber pistol that had just hit the market. The shop was in a bad part of town and the windows of the stand alone building were encased in black iron bars. The customers were literally psychos. They had a great selection of firearms though as well as good deals on hunting and fishing gear for the whole family.

  96. Steven W. Maginnis November 12, 2014 at 11:45 pm #

    In Maryland, voters just elected Republican Larry Hogan as their new governor. Larry Hogan opposes expansion of the Baltimore light rail line to the suburbs and wants to spend money on highways instead. This will benefit a strip mall/tract housing developer named . . . Larry Hogan! :-O

  97. FincaInTheMountains November 13, 2014 at 3:03 am #

    Famous British female terrorist “White Widow” was eliminated by sniper-volunteer from Russia

    Samantha Lewthwaite, international terrorist wanted by Interpol, who fought in the one of the Ukrainian punitive battalions, was eliminated by sniper-volunteer from Russia.

    According to reports, Samantha “White Widow” Lewthwaite fought on the side of the Kiev’s volunteer battalion “Aydar” as a sniper. She was eliminated about two weeks ago near the town of Debaltsevo, a hub transport point between Lugansk and Donetsk by a Russian sniper.

    Samantha Lewthwaite, widow of the suicide bomber Jermaine Lindsay (converted to Islam under the name Abdul Jamal), man who blew up a train in the London Subway in 2005. After the death of her husband left for Somalia, where she became a member of the radical Somali terrorist group “Al-Shabab” and organized an attack on a shopping mall in Nairobi (Kenya), which killed many civilians, including women and children. US intelligence agencies have announced a reward of 5 million dollars for aid in the apprehension of the White Widow.

    “Terrorist International” with obvious links to British intelligence is circling Ukrainian conflict.

    • FincaInTheMountains November 13, 2014 at 3:13 am #

      Here’s link to NY Post article:

      http://nypost.com/2014/11/12/accused-terrorist-white-widow-killed-by-russian-sniper/

    • FincaInTheMountains November 13, 2014 at 3:24 am #

      “Muslim terrorist” – is not calling of Islam, it is a lucrative career.

    • Janos Skorenzy November 13, 2014 at 4:33 am #

      Oh you like military stuff? What’s the name of that Finnish sniper who killed 700 or so Russians during the Winter War? What a glory that was, eh? A victory for free men everywhere.

      Were the Germans Hitler’s willing executioners? Only if the Jews were Stalin’s.

      Fight against the chains Finc is always forging for us. Use your net and trident!

  98. Janos Skorenzy November 13, 2014 at 4:28 am #

    The mainstream media admits the simple truth: America is finished, brought down by Capitalist greed unrestrained by Patriotism or any other kind of morality. China is just pandering to the dying giant. It never intends to honor that ridiculous carbon emission treaty. Whose going to make them? America? We’ll be on our last leg by then. Just give the faggots the assurances they crave so they keep betraying their country.

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/eamonnfingleton/2014/11/12/obama-in-china-taking-candy-from-a-baby/?partner=yahootix

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    • FincaInTheMountains November 13, 2014 at 5:10 am #

      You should look deeper than “gloom and doom” articles in Forbes. May be it is the “End Of the World” – but for existing Finance International (International Financial Elite) – who owns all major publications, including Forbes.

      As for the world – it will continue. America is still leading in new emerging technologies and industries of the 6th technological order which is, according to Russian Academic Sergey Glaziev are growing at a very healthy 30 – 70 percent annual rate.

      • Janos Skorenzy November 13, 2014 at 1:50 pm #

        You’re changing the subject. The article is talking about the American Nation not “American” International Corporations. Surely you are smart to enough to see the difference? Same thing in Australia: all kinds of things are invented there but are immediately offshored to maximize profit.

        http://www.vault-co.blogspot.com/2014/11/is-australia-still-lucky-country.html

    • Greg Knepp November 13, 2014 at 10:48 am #

      Janos: Superb article from Forbes – not exactly a left-wing rag after all.

      “From an East Asian point of view, the United States is already, in its political dynamics, a third world country.”

      This is a must read…many thanks for your keen eye!

  99. FincaInTheMountains November 13, 2014 at 4:58 am #

    Russia warns of ‘WTO death’ if no trade solution at G20

    Russia on Friday warned of the imminent “death” of the World Trade Organization if developed and developing nations don’t come to an agreement at the upcoming Group of 20 summit in Australia. Russian President Vladimir Putin will participate at the G20 summit in Brisbane on November 15-16. His representative at the summit – known as the G20 sherpa – said the gathering will address a number of top issues like trade, stressing that the interests of developing nations would have to be taken into account.

    http://www.brecorder.com/business-a-economy/189/1240454/

    WTO (originally GATT) – one of three Breton Woods Institutions created in 1944. The other 2 are International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank.

    In early 2010s there was an attempt by International Financial elite to repeat the famous Jekyll Island trick and transform IMF into a “world lender of last resort” on a world-wide scale. Under that plan the US Fed, who now de-facto acts as a single world emission center, would be transformed to being just another “member bank” with emission quotas being handed down by IMF. Under existing rules, the emission quotas are handed down by the FED to most of the World’s Central Banks (including Russian).

    Those plans were stopped in their tracks by infamous New York Police operation against Dominique Strauss-Kahn in 2011, rendering IMF not-functional.

    The alternative to that plan is creating 5-7 Regional emission centers, where City of London banks hope to take a key position in serving as intermediaries in “ForEx operations” between new world currencies.

    • MisterDarling November 13, 2014 at 9:34 am #

      Hello FitM,

      Apparently the Brisbane G20 meeting has this on it’s agenda:

      http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-11-12/russell-napier-declares-november-16-2014-day-money-dies

      What is that? Oh, only the formal recognition of something that was agreed upon two years ago at the BIS: re-designation of bank deposits as ‘unsecured credit’… That’s all. That should be comforting to savers… /s

      About Mssr. Strauss-Kahn: Yes, it’s terrible when ‘visions’ collide, but there’s already a central organizing body of central banks; The BIS based in Switzerland, and to the BIS, ‘The Fed’ is just another member – and not the senior one either.

      Mssr. Kahn knew what he was getting into.

  100. Cold N. Holefield November 13, 2014 at 6:11 am #

    BRH, Puck and Cold N.

    Q., you have much greater nerve than I do, and that’s saying something. After watching Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction in 1995, I could never, and will never, set foot in a pawn shop (I never had set foot in a pawn shop prior to watching the movie). That scene with The Gimp is the stuff of flashback nightmares. Here’s a link in case you’ve never seen the movie. I’m not a Tarantino fan, I’m not a fan period, but I do like some of his movies and Pulp Fiction was one of them. I’m not a movie soundtrack person, but I do own the soundtrack to this movie — it’s the only soundtrack of any movie I own. Of course, I don’t know where it is right now so perhaps this post will prompt me to find it and play it today or this week sometime. Whilst it’s playing the background I’ll be thinking of how closely you danced to this pernicious flame Q., and I’ll shudder with nervous laughter. Life is a gamble, and you have no choice but to throw the loaded dice.

    Bring Out The Gimp

    *For those of you who can’t stand Tarantino and/or don’t appreciate any of his creations, 20 hours ago he’s promised that his next movie, his tenth, will be his last. I’m not sure how and why someone makes such a promise. Does he have early onset Alzheimers and therefore knows that after his next and last movie he’ll be well on his way to babbling incoherently and shitting and pissing his pants? If not, he can’t make such a promise and honor it. That’s Hollywood for you. Promises promises.

    • Buck Stud November 13, 2014 at 1:43 pm #

      It’s a good soundtrack; always did like ‘Son Of A Preacher Man’. And the dance scene in which Travolta brushes eyes with Uma Thurmond teases the audience with the prospect of a full out ‘Saturday Night Fever’ dance orgasm was very tastefully restrained. But Tarantino reverted back to form and post-modern cliche with blown out brains as nothing but a joke, a mere slip on the ice or stubbing of the toe.

      His opening scene in a hypothetical”Michelangelo” movie would feature Big Mike laying naked in bed with two of his young male assistants after a hard day of carving stone. In other words, he’s just another philistine American punk, petty and small.

      • Buck Stud November 13, 2014 at 3:40 pm #

        *lying*

      • Cold N. Holefield November 13, 2014 at 4:09 pm #

        It’s a movie Buck, an expression, so I don’t care to restrain the creator in his treatment of violence, suffering and death. I welcome many perspectives — life would be too dull without that diversity of imagination. He does do what you say, but so what? It’s his movie, his expression, not mine so why hem it in with your expectation of how violence, suffering and death should be treated? Just go with it. Let it ride. Ingest it and puke it back out if you find it intolerable, but please don’t tell him he was wrong.

        I agree Tarantino is a dick, but who isn’t? I pretty much think everyone’s a dick to some degree — some obviously are more dickish than others. Tarantino seems pretty dickish if you’re not in his inner circle. Even then he’s probably still a dick, just not as big a dick with his friends. He and Samuel L. Jackson seem to be chummy. Jackson’s in every other one of his movies.

        Anyway, there’s this as an addendum for anyone interested. Good stuff. I love me some Jungle Boogie.

        Pulp Fiction Soundtrack

        • Buck Stud November 13, 2014 at 8:25 pm #

          I’m not advocating any type of restraint/censorship toward Tarantino etc just throwing out my own cheap two cent critique. To me his type of art is similar to the convoluted dramatics of the Hellenistic Period when Greece was past it’s better days. It seems the worse things get, the more humans contort and twist with bombast and drama. Maybe it has something to do with that feeling of being in quicksand metaphorically speaking: thrashing to survive and all the while realizing the futility of the effort.

          And that sense of futility seeps through aesthetically in modern day America. Blow a guys brains out in the back seat of a car? No problem, nothing really matters now. In fact, have a good laugh about it. And yes, people in the theater thought it was funny too. I thought it was disgusting but maybe I’m the one with the problem.

          BTW, I enjoy your blog; you obviously put a lot of time, effort and thought into your pieces.

  101. FincaInTheMountains November 13, 2014 at 8:52 am #

    (CNN) — Russia plans to send long-range bombers to patrol the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, the nation’s defense minister said, in what may be Moscow’s latest provocative maneuver.

    The patrols would bring the flights close to the United States’ territorial waters.

    http://edition.cnn.com/2014/11/13/world/europe/russia-bombers-plan/index.html

    It is a common mistake to think that Russia possesses only antiquated turbo-prop Tu-95 “Bear” bomber (which is analog to B-52), Russia has Tupolev Tu-160 supersonic “Blackjack” – the world’s largest combat aircraft, largest supersonic aircraft and largest variable-sweep aircraft built. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-160

    • FincaInTheMountains November 13, 2014 at 9:17 am #

      Russia is moving to counterbalance the military threat to Russian Western borders created by NATO expansion to the East European Countries, US system of Missile Air Defense seeking to achieve “first strike capability” and military conflict in Ukraine.

      It creates more balanced negotiating position on the verge of reformatting the world’s trade and financial systems.

    • Cold N. Holefield November 13, 2014 at 9:20 am #

      What does Putin’s Russia finka it’ll accomplish with this provocative maneuver besides a sore chest from all the pounding and beating of it? Until you have a goose of your own that can lay golden eggs, you don’t kill the only goose that can lay them. Russia will not nuke the American gift horse in the mouth despite its adolescent antics. Putin’s Russia will taunt, prance and puff up its chest, but it’s all for show. Putin’s got a prolonged case of mid-life crisis. Dictators are comical when they live past their fifties. Retire already, Vlad. Build a library in your name and learn to paint. Your first painting can be a commemorative rendition of George W. Bush — the man who saw your soul by looking deep into your eyes.

      • FincaInTheMountains November 13, 2014 at 9:39 am #

        Cold, are you trying to psychoanalyze Putin, pragmatic leader of Russian Empire? That is hilarious.

        • Cold N. Holefield November 13, 2014 at 9:44 am #

          Hardly. I’m just stating the obvious and offering sound advice. What do you have against libraries and paintings?

          • FincaInTheMountains November 13, 2014 at 9:46 am #

            Nothin. I love paintings. Libraries kinda obsolete with Internet thou.

  102. Cold N. Holefield November 13, 2014 at 9:52 am #

    I imagine it’s getting pretty cold in Ukraine. Are millions freezing and starving to death as was predicted would happen if Kiev didn’t capitulate? I didn’t think so. The threats of imminent doom are a dime a dozen those days. Perhaps they always were, but they seem to be ubiquitous these days.

    Meanwhile, there are asteroids and comets to lasso.

    Git Along Little Dogies

    • malthuss November 13, 2014 at 11:55 am #

      ‘threats of imminent doom are a dime a dozen those days’.

      You sure have a way with words.

  103. FincaInTheMountains November 13, 2014 at 10:02 am #

    “The threats of imminent doom are a dime a dozen those days. ” Cold

    I am 100% with you on that, Cold. The world is just changing and may be we gona get a more fair version of it for our kids.

    I think the real problem is that outgoing world elites – Finance International – are loosing the fight and going away and since they own the majority of Main-Stream Media and finance most of the “alternative media” they’re trying to project their coming fate on the rest of us.

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    • beantownbill. November 13, 2014 at 10:56 am #

      Or maybe people are just batshit crazy; or have such low self-esteem that they always feel the world is coming down on their heads.

  104. BackRowHeckler November 13, 2014 at 10:40 am #

    Does anybody know how its possible to ‘curb greenhouse gas emissions by 26%’ in the US by 2020 without liquidating about half the American population?

    China doesn’t have to do anything until 16 years from now. Most likely they’re getting a good belly laugh out of all this back at the Politburo.

    This makes for some good headlines in the NYTimes and some fervid, hopeful discussion (like last night) on the PBS New Hour, by my guess is that this will all be forgotten about within a week or two, never to be mentioned again.

    brh

    • malthuss November 13, 2014 at 11:58 am #

      Ask Bill Ayers. According to this, his books is dedicated to Sir Sirhan.

      http://www.dcclothesline.com/2014/11/12/behind-obamas-mysterious-rise-presidency/

    • FincaInTheMountains November 13, 2014 at 4:48 pm #

      I have a good idea. How about US buy some Russian Siberian natural gas – to do that we gonna put a pipeline over the Bering Strait on to Alaska and down to mainland USA. While we are it, why not to build a rail and auto road to connect two continents and increase mutual trade, not mutual hostilities.

      • BackRowHeckler November 13, 2014 at 5:50 pm #

        I’ve got this book around here by George Kennan — the original George Kennan, grandfather of the Cold War guy in the 40s and 50s — takes place in 1863 when he was part of a team sent to survey a path for telegraph lines from NYC, out to San Francisco, up the west coast into Alaska, across the Bering Straights to Siberia, across Russia, into western Europe, across the English Channel and finally to London. Kennan was part of a team that actually went to Siberia and ended up crossing Russia and turning up in Paris several years later. Despite all the sacrifice and hard work the plan was abandoned because an engineer from Stockbridge, Mass. found a way to lay an unbreakable cable across the Atlantic instead.

        –brh

        • BackRowHeckler November 13, 2014 at 5:53 pm #

          ‘Tent Life in Siberia’, George Kennan

        • BackRowHeckler November 13, 2014 at 5:53 pm #

          ‘Tent Life in Siberia’, George Kennan

  105. Cold N. Holefield November 13, 2014 at 1:09 pm #

    Does anybody know how its possible to ‘curb greenhouse gas emissions by 26%’ in the US by 2020 without liquidating about half the American population?

    Give Al Gore some Gas-X, or in the least hook a hose up to his mouth and ass and sequester his noxious and prodigious greenhouse gases deep within the Earth.

    I hear ya, brh. The only way it can be done other than depopulating is to further outsource all manufacturing abroad, namely to China. And there’s the rub — as you’ve indicated, China gets a special dispensation. Gee, I wonder why (not really)?

    If China’s emissions aren’t reduced concomitantly, it’s a joke. Frankly, it’s a joke either way. I hate to say it, but in order to keep expanding and growing, it will have to be nuclear, but not nuclear the way it’s been done historically. Perhaps the future will be a World Made by Curies and Becquerels versus a World Made by Hand. We’ll see, or more than likely most of us won’t — I doubt any of us will live to see it.

    • Janos Skorenzy November 13, 2014 at 2:03 pm #

      No, coal is king. Nuclear is only for advanced peoples who have transcended the corporation or economic tribalism. Not even the Japanese have been found responsible enough. Coal must be made sexy with a steampunk aesthetic.

  106. contrahend November 13, 2014 at 3:16 pm #

    http://www.fastcoexist.com/3037992/this-company-wants-to-build-the-worlds-largest-solar-installation-in-the-sahara

    This, coupled with the Denmark-Norway wind-energy storage, is showing how we will invent our way out of depleting fossil fuels.

    Technology is great.

    We are in the age of energy ascent.

    kontrahend

  107. Pucker November 13, 2014 at 6:13 pm #

    I think that it is Joe Bageant’s excellent book “Deer Hunting with Jesus” that includes a chapter on the dietary habits of rednecks. I recall that that chapter opens with the image of an obese redneck woman with big tits in a wet t-shirt that reads: “One Million Battered Women and No Tartar Sauce!”.

    • Janos Skorenzy November 13, 2014 at 6:31 pm #

      Joe is always the last resort of Liberal Haters. That was his target audience, his niche market.

      • Buck Stud November 13, 2014 at 8:13 pm #

        Janos excellent article that you posted earlier:

        http://www.forbes.com/sites/eamonnfingleton/2014/11/12/obama-in-china-taking-candy-from-a-baby/?partner=yahootix

        On this particular issue–trade policy–there really doesn’t seem to be much difference between the two major political parties: Yes, there has been Perot and a few stragglers–Buchanan, Sanders–from each party who protest now and then but from Clinton on it’s been one sell out after another.

        I do wonder, though, how those on the right such as Limbaugh etc, manage to rationalize these policies if the truly love America as much as they claim? Is it the “free” before the trade that grabs them? And how can any honest person possibly think that an American worker can compete with a 5 dollar a day foreign worker without drastically marginalizing American society?

        But even more perplexing, how can China hitch it’s wagon to the United States long term in the current dynamic? Haven’t they heard of the Henry Ford mantra that workers need to be able to afford the products being built?

        Fin seems to think America will triumph in the ensuing years via it’s technological capability but I think the America that benefits will be limited: some corporations and tech companies/share holders but certainly not Main Street as a whole.

        • Janos Skorenzy November 13, 2014 at 11:46 pm #

          Well then there should be no mystery as to how I’ve come to be who I am. I believe in the Nation state when it is worthy of reverence – when it serves its people and preserves their culture. Obviously America ceased to be that kind of place a long time ago. And obviously Capitalism had a lot to do with it. And yes, the Founders were too much into commerce and thus our Foundations weren’t the best from the very beginning. They seemed better than they were because we had a whole continent to conquer and exploit. That’s no longer true and the flaws of the system are now glaring.

          So I like half of Rush and despise the other half. Does he know any of this? And how much? He knows more than he lets on. That’s all I’m sure of. And he does seem to loathe the Republican sell out of America but it’s meaningless since he wont critique Capitalism which made them the way they are.

          And of course Marxism is a non-starter since it has contempt for all tradition and religion – with a special venom for Whites and Western Culture. So? So it must be National Socialism, not German but American – each nation has its own consistent with its own unique traditions. Yes, Fascism has tended towards militarism and hero worship – but remember, its nations have been attacked every time they have arisen. A new philosophy out of Europe called Identitarianism moderates some of these extremes; as does Conservatism at its best in people like Burke and Lovecraft. Fascism is the modern Nation at war, but war isn’t the whole of life. The Nazis were too warlike as are the American Republican Capitalists.

          • Buck Stud November 14, 2014 at 3:56 pm #

            Your political thoughts devoid of the racial aspect is actually quite subtle. In fact, it reminds me of the more ‘pure’ types of conservatism.

            Interesting that you declare Marxism a non-starter in one breath and they announce National Socialism as the saving grace in the next. In short, your political longings are forlorn and futile (and so are the longings of many others, truth be told).

            Selling a National Socialist agenda in this country is akin to threading the eye of the needle while going a 160 mph. Or filling a paper cup of water during a Tsunami. Or raking leaves during a hurricane.

            In other words, the longing for your particular type of Nation is an impossible dream and deliberately so. You’re an outsider not meant to belong and so you exhort that which will never occur thereby keeping you isolated–just the way you like it.. I know your type only too well.

          • Janos Skorenzy November 14, 2014 at 6:59 pm #

            My ideals may be unlikely to be realized here in America as it stands, but they are nonetheless, the correct ones. And obviously race is part of culture since culture is always the culture of a particular people. I have never seen “Man” only a Frenchman, American, Englishman, etc. The different European Nations can integrate together because they share a common culture. That’s not to say it was easy, just possible. That’s not possible for Blacks – they are too different. And it’s not possible for White Muslims from say Bosnia. I never said culture per se didn’t matter. We’re not fanatics like you guys who say race is nothing.

            What is theoretically possible may be in Fact, impossible. The French and the English can’t get along in Canada. And the Germanics and the French can’t get along in Belgium. Yet these cultures are both White and were once Christian. The way things work out has to also be respected – and taken from there.

            Americans always take an issue by issue approach to politics. They hate reasoning from principles down to policy. Thus they can’t see we are on a dead end street with a cliff at the end of it. Liberals and Communist want to go over at top speed. “Conservatives” want to go slower – giving the Elite time to milk the system until the end and then relocate.

    • BackRowHeckler November 14, 2014 at 10:59 am #

      I wonder what the dietary habits are of the metro faggot hipster I saw toodling thru St. Marks Square a few weekends ago, carrying a designer purse and wearing a pork pie hat? Pea Sprites? Organic lettuce?
      brh

  108. Pucker November 13, 2014 at 8:13 pm #

    Some blue collar white people once asked Obama what his favorite food is? He replied: “Hot dogs and hamburgers.” (Actually, I read that he prefers salmon.) Bill Clinton’s favorite was a cheese burger, fries and a grape soda on the way back to the Arkansas governor’s mansion after an afternoon jog over to Jennifer Flower’s nearby apartment for a quickie. Bill had her on the state payroll.

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  109. Steven W. Maginnis November 13, 2014 at 11:59 pm #

    Democrats + 2016 = Whigs + 1852.

  110. Pucker November 14, 2014 at 1:50 am #

    It’s not true! It’s all lies!

    Homosexual Spirit OUT!!!!!

    Heal!!! Heal!!!! Heeeeaaallllll!!!!!!!!!!

    http://www.ohio.com/news/local/ernest-angley-s-grace-cathedral-rocked-by-accusations-involving-abortions-and-vasectomies-1.531094

  111. FincaInTheMountains November 14, 2014 at 4:03 am #

    It turned out that almost HALF of Ukrainian State reserves – 6 billion dollars – were invested in the stock of “LEHMANN BROTHERS”

    Speaking about adding insult to the injury.

  112. FincaInTheMountains November 14, 2014 at 4:19 am #

    A quote from Bismarck: “I know hundreds of ways to lure the Russian bear from its den, but none to get him back.”

  113. Cold N. Holefield November 14, 2014 at 6:33 am #

    So I like half of Rush and despise the other half. Does he know any of this? And how much? He knows more than he lets on. That’s all I’m sure of. And he does seem to loathe the Republican sell out of America but it’s meaningless since he wont critique Capitalism which made them the way they are.

    He raises some pertinent points and tackles some legitimate issues, but his purpose is to misinform and misdirect. Many of his criticisms of the Dems are valid, but his modus operandi is to present the dilemma as paper versus plastic. He’s binary, by design, in his approach.

    You’re correct that Crony Capitalism is off limits for and to him. It’s what fuels him, so unlike the Russian Bear, Rush doesn’t look his gift horse in the mouth. Any criticism of the hand that created him and feeds him, and from the looks of Rush he’s suitably well-fed (he has a beautiful wife), is sacrilegious.

    Rush is purely a CIA invention. He may not be fully witting of this fact, but if you review his career, you will see the CIA, in this case in the form of William Casey and friends, inculcated the conservative media starting in the late seventies as a dualistic bind for those who might intellectually try to slip from the feedlot. It was, and is, preferred as an alternative but it’s anything but. It’s a ruse to keep you in the feedlot, albeit in another section with a different shade of knee-deep mud and manure, to await your orderly slaughter.

    Finally, people like Rush don’t want real change or progress. Why, you might ask? Because his entertaining griping is his bread & butter. It’s literally and metaphorically what feeds his soul and body. It’s his special purpose in life. It defines him. Rush without that is Bear Bryant without Alabama football — DEAD. What makes me laugh is that most who listen to this joker don’t, and will never, grok what he’s all about even when presented with overwhelming evidence. That’s the power of prejudice — there’s nothing more powerful in the multi-verse.

    Don’t get me wrong, the PC Liberals who tune into PBS and NPR are even worse. Despite their feigning intellectualism, they just as easily, or more easily, succumb to manipulation and exploitation of their pre and post conceived notions. The fact that they believe they are above the fray and somehow more objective and impartial is laughable. They are rubes of the 1st degree — black belts if you will. I fart in their general direction.

    ABC and the rise of Rush Limbaugh

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  114. contrahend November 14, 2014 at 7:15 am #

    Anyone who believes in a plastic shill like ernest angley….god help us all. is it that easy to control what people think and do…on a tax-free basis…i’m all in…

    same situation here in brazil, these large churches with their endless live miracles are booming like crazy. of course, every miracle must be accompanied by crying, and virtually always has a financial angle. what a surprise.

    Here’s the most cogent observation on God:

    He’s all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can’t handle money!

    http://www.rense.com/general69/obj.htm

    kontrahend

  115. budizwiser November 14, 2014 at 8:20 am #

    Hey – what’s the deal with this BLOG?

    JK – how come you have never addressed my ongoing attention to “disposable energy consumption.?”

    It has become increasingly apparent that there is so much energy wasted – err “consumed” in non-essential economic activity that the so called “peak oil” model will have to reshaped into a decades-long “max-plateau” ……

    Maybe you’ll still garner some accolades or footnotes in some historical markings by 2050 or 2070 – when the population of the Earth finally outstrips the energy produced for things like Nascar and the NFL or MLB – that’s when the “real peak” talk will start..

    Do you remember reading the 1950 copy of National Geographic? The one with the 2010 predictions?

    • beantownbill. November 14, 2014 at 9:49 am #

      I wrote this great reply to your post, but my iPad froze and I lost everything I had written. Suffice it to say that I used to post more often here, but I’m not interested that much in the superficialities of politics. Politics is a game that’s been played forever, and I’m bored by it. To me, it’s much more important to speak of energy, for that is what will ultimately determine the fate of our species.

  116. contrahend November 14, 2014 at 10:14 am #

    All together, Google’s 14 renewable power facilities will be able to generate 2 billion watts (gigawatts) of energy, enough to power 500,000 homes or all of the public elementary schools in New York, Oregon, and Wyoming for one year, the company said.

    http://www.google.com/green/energy/investments/

    Well now, first they laughed, then they scoffed, then we won. This is just the beginning of the tipping point.

    We are in the age of energy ascent.

    kontrahend

    • FincaInTheMountains November 14, 2014 at 1:52 pm #

      Made a little calculations. My assumptions :

      Average house has a $150/Month Electric Bill
      Investment should return 3%

      So, they invested $145 million, so at 3% they should get back at least $630,000/Month

      10,000 houses would make in payments $1.5 Million dollars
      Subtract ROI of $630,000, so we have remaining $870,000 a month

      They maintain that it would create 650 jobs, or $1,338 / month per job or around $8/hour.

      And that NOT including transmission fees. Something does not pan out here.

  117. FincaInTheMountains November 14, 2014 at 2:38 pm #

    MOSCOW, November 14 – RIA Novosti. Head of the self-proclaimed republic of Donetsk Alexander Zaharchenko informed about the movement of a large number of Ukrainian military hardware and troops to the frontiers of the Donetsk People’s Republic.

    =========================================
    Order for new offensive came down from Washington.
    Obviously August flogging was not enough.

    • FincaInTheMountains November 14, 2014 at 2:48 pm #

      According to Bismarck, that would be an excellent way to lure the Russian bear from its den

      • BackRowHeckler November 14, 2014 at 3:35 pm #

        Hey FC what about the Russian bombers flying around the Gulf of Mexico? Will they be actually be carrying bombs? Or is the whole things just for show, a little bravado on Putin’s part? The cold war aside, this reminds me of the German plan, around the turn of the last century, to land 300,000 troops on the east coast, 100,000 on Long Island, 100,000 on Virginia Beach and 100,000 in Jacksonville, Florida, and drive all the way to the Mississippi River. The Kaiser dispatched a few squadrons of dreadnoughts to cruise up and down the Atlantic Coast and the Caribbean to feel us out. At the time we had a President with backbone, not a metro-spineless worm, Teddy Roosevelt, and the Germans thought better of it.

        This was pretty much unknown until revealed in Edmund Morris’s 2nd volume of TRs biography.

        brh

        • FincaInTheMountains November 14, 2014 at 5:19 pm #

          Task of the bombers is to guarantee MAD concept – Mutual Assured Destruction – they are suppose to deliver a retaliatory second strike. Not sure if they are capable of delivering first strike – need to study the Nuclear Strategic Doctrine of US and RF.

          But yes, they are carrying nuclear-tipped cruise missile, that’s the whole point, otherwise they’d be destroyed in first 10 minutes of hostilities without doing much damage.

          They are NOT part of any possible invasion, they have different priorities.

          If shit hits the fan the first strike would be delivered most likely by SLBMs – Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles – that, as far as i know, is true for both sides.

        • FincaInTheMountains November 14, 2014 at 5:47 pm #

          Aside for Nuclear Triad, there are some other not-so-pretty options in works by all parties. The most terrifying for US would be a “Sakharov Solution” – an innocent looking party-cruise ship deposits a termonuclear device from its bottom 50 miles offshore, capable of generating Tsunami wave 1000 feet high, washing everything out from East Coast to Nebraska.

          http://www.debatepolitics.com/history/166444-king-torpedo-and-plan-sakharov-old-war.html

  118. Buck Stud November 14, 2014 at 3:59 pm #

    Finally a true conservative –not some Tea Party lunatic imbecile–willing to the the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about President Obama:

    http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/obama-is-a-republican/

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    • Janos Skorenzy November 14, 2014 at 4:44 pm #

      Buck, everyone is now working for the Globalist Bankers – whether they know it or not. Obama is a Communist and Communism was funded by them. The Democrat Party is now largely Communist in its ideals and policies. And Communism does not and cannot work – but it can tear down Republics and Middle Classes very well. And that’s why they created it. They want all power and wealthy everywhere. Nations get in the way of that, as do middle classes.

    • Janos Skorenzy November 14, 2014 at 5:24 pm #

      Outing Obama was a big step for Buck. He frames it in a very silly way of course but I applaud the step. There are many of his former comrades who refuse to as much – and would prefer to see America ruined as long as Obama’s “legacy” as the first Black President remained untarnished.

      • Buck Stud November 14, 2014 at 10:31 pm #

        I wasn’t ‘outing’ President Obama; I was simply providing another perspective from the right. The author provides a list of legislative/policy issues which validate his thesis. You, on the other hand, just term him a communist with absolutely zero examples/proof.

        Why don’t you provide some examples to make your case just as the esteemed conservative did in his piece?

        • Janos Skorenzy November 15, 2014 at 2:51 pm #

          Buck c’mon. It’s an axiom like 2+1=1+2 in Mathematics. It’s obvious from all his policies, connections, upbringing (by Communists), and appointments. You’re being silly again and/or obstructive.

          It’s as if an apprentice showed up to work with you and started disputing the use of a hammer and chisel or file. “What good is that going to do?”

          The definition of an axiom is something which all reasonable men can agree upon. Once agreed upon, work can begin based on these shared observations. So you’re not being reasonable. Stop the grubering.

  119. FincaInTheMountains November 14, 2014 at 6:09 pm #

    “Is this in response to something America did” Janos

    Yes, it is. It is a response to NATO expansion right to RF Borders, it is a response to US deploying anti-missile systems right on the Russian border with a lame excuse of “containing missile threat from Iran and N.Korea”, it is a response to de-facto taking over Ukraine with the plans to park US fleet in Crimea, pushing Russian Fleet out and turning Ukraine into a platform for future anti-Russian aggression using network-centric military operations.

    “Check this out:http://www.dailystormer.com/jews-boast-of-organizing-and-financing-ukrainian-volunteer-battalions/

    “I’m sure you condemn this action, but I still want to hear you do it. Let’s hear it.” Janos

    Yes, there seems to be at least part of Jewish Hasidim community in Dnepropetrovsk who supports punitive Kolomoyskiy battalions.
    However, there is also big part of Jewish community, especially in Kharkov, who strongly oppose it.

    • Janos Skorenzy November 14, 2014 at 6:38 pm #

      If so, Vlad showed admirable forbearance since those things started years ago.

    • Janos Skorenzy November 14, 2014 at 6:48 pm #

      Thank you for your response anent Jews. I wanted to hear about the Conspiracy to conquer the world. I wanted caviar and you gave me potato soup. Nonetheless I am not deterred. As your Theodore Herzl said, the Jews are a Nation without borders. He eve admitted Anti-Semitism was sometimes rational since Jews often had interests which conflicted with the interests of the nations in which they were domiciled. That Jews do not always agree about everything in no wise disproves Herzl’s points which are also my own. See his journals if you have any doubts.

      Jews write the best Anti-Semitic copy. We just have to find it and link to it. You have aided me in this venture and I look forward to more collaboration in the future. All Nationalists can agree on certain points. The Zionists threaten the Jewish nation and must be contained.

  120. FincaInTheMountains November 14, 2014 at 7:55 pm #

    Janos, sorry, but you’re full of it. No matter what I say, you’d still see a Jewish conspiracy everywhere.

    During all my life I personally never came across any Jewish conspiracy to conquer the world, and the only Jewish Organisation I ever dealt with was Jewish Family and Community Service (JFCS) in Chicago where my ex-wife worked in mid-90s.

    When Yugoslavian crisis happened and Kosovo Muslims started to come as refugee to Chicago, it was JFCS who was assigned a task to settle them.

    And they did a darn good job at it, because they were more efficient, stealing way less money compare to other organisations, like Polish Catholic Immigration service my friends went through – wounded up in some flop-house in uptown Chicago.

    I am a grand son of a man who fought Nazis in WWII and ended war in Berlin and son of a man who flew sorties against Romanian oil fields (Romania was collaborating with Hitler) and ended the war on a construction site building first Soviet nuke.

    So, please, don’t give me that shit.

    • Janos Skorenzy November 14, 2014 at 9:05 pm #

      Thanks for the energy of your attack! Your most deadly weapon is what the Rabbis call “dynamic silence”. This is what you usually do – in other words, you ignore me.

      Now obviously Jews are the main impetus behind the flooding of all White Countries with 3rd Worlders. This is social justice? Needed to work – with double digit unemployment and automation growing by leaps and bounds? That was a plausible excuse in the beginning, but it have grown thin indeed now. Yet the flood continues. But you know all this! Here is a reference for those who don’t. A Spectre named Barbara is haunting Europe….

      http://www.whyileftsweden.com/?p=198

      Now that’s we’ve gotten that out of the way. Why do you do it? Because the fewer natives there are, the more powerful you become. And once just another group, we can never “threaten” you all again – threaten you in our own nations no less. And yes, many White Liberals are on board. Your “Herr Doctors” of the Frankfurt School did a masterful job over here and the Cultural Critiquers did the same over in Europe to convince Whites of their guilt and how they have no right to feel even a smidgeon of pride. And due to our Christianity, we bought it all. So Whites gleefully throw each other under the bus so they can feel like decent people. It’s so so very ugly and evil.

      There is no doubt that you all are doing it, but do you know that you are? After all, aggression can be unconscious. Do you personally know that your theory of a pan Asiatic Russian Civilization means the death of any real Russia? Do you really believe that Russia can be Russia without any Russians or with them reduced to a small minority of dispossessed peasants – as is happening to Whites in America? White Nationalists differ, but most of us agree that the unconscious aggression must become conscious at some point, at least at the level of the Elite.

  121. beantownbill. November 14, 2014 at 8:43 pm #

    @ Janos re your earlier reply to my post:

    Genocide of any group is wrong, period. However, if someone is seeking social justice, is it automatically considered genocide? In this case it’s not clear if this is genocide, IMO. People are NOT created equal, but they do have the right to start the race equally along with anyone else. If they then fall by the wayside despite their best efforts, well, c’est la vie. But they shouldn’t be held back when the starter’s pistol goes off.

    WRT to “Interstellar”, I will be seeing it soon. Did you see it?

    • Janos Skorenzy November 14, 2014 at 9:21 pm #

      Social Justice types in power play favorites. Always. How not since there is only limited resources? I used to work in a Catholic Center. I worked in the bookstore but they sometimes used me as a receptionist. One nun used to break her appointments with homeless people so she could attend meetings for El Sal-va-Dor. Those refugees were hot back then and were much more important than the White homeless of Boston. How did that make such a homeless person feel I wonder – to be stood up by someone who is supposed to be selfless? Our Religion demands that our Religious be beyond such pettiness, but the liberals ones can’t help themselves. Imagine then the favoritism of Liberals with no restraints at all. Thus we see the White Elderly of Britain allowed to freeze to death in favor of the “sexy” Muslims. Norway and Sweden are much colder but their elderly don’t freeze to death – yet. In Sweden, Whites are just kicked out of their public housing to make room for Somalis – homes they may have been in for decades. So no, I expect less and less equal opportunity for my people in the years to come. And much of it due to the triumph of your people who hate mine. And even worse, the utterly bizarre Cult of self hatred that has arisen among Whites partly due to Jewish influence, but partly due to the secularization of Christian self abnegation.

      Saw it yesterday. Very strangely put together, the plot is not consecutive but it fits since they are dealing with relativity. Not an action movie by any means but there are some good action scenes. Then what? Call it a visionary piece, very deep and inspiring. I think you’ll like it. Also it explores the depths of human emotions and how they might endure these vast gulfs of time and space. The energy problem is alluded to but not really gone in to. It’s implied that if a certain quantum problem can be solved, then the energy problem is solved as well. I have no idea if that’s true.

      • beantownbill. November 14, 2014 at 9:38 pm #

        Your experience at the Catholic center is a perfect example of what I mean by starting the race equally. it’s important to state that what I said was wrt to American citizens, and possibly to legal immigrants going through the citizenship process. While I sympathize with those being persecuted in their native countries, I really don’t condone illegally entering America. My father’s family entered the country legally. My great uncle, who was a citizen sponsored them? He was allowed to because America was accepting immigrants at that time if they had a sponsor. If my family didn’t have a sponsor, they probabl

        • beantownbill. November 14, 2014 at 9:47 pm #

          I’m having trouble with my iPad.. To continue. They probably wouldn’t have been let in and I wouldn’t have been born to bug you. And that’s more or less how it should be today, but with complete review of each immigrant and probably with a quota. Homeless citizens should have come first. If the nun wanted to help the San Salvadorans, she should have done it in her own free time. And that’s the problem with liberal socialism.

          • Janos Skorenzy November 15, 2014 at 1:26 am #

            So you admit this Nusbaum women is a monster in other words. Or is she beyond reproach now that she’s joined the Tribe?

  122. beantownbill. November 14, 2014 at 9:23 pm #

    @ Fincaln:

    Funny thing, my wife worked at JFCS in Boston.

  123. pkrugman November 14, 2014 at 10:29 pm #

    Test to see if I am still not banned.

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    • nsa November 14, 2014 at 10:50 pm #

      We here in Ft. Meade are monitoring your posts….but allowing them to flow through unimpeded.

  124. FincaInTheMountains November 15, 2014 at 4:11 am #

    According to this article http://vz.ru/society/2014/11/14/715349.html
    the bombers DO NOT carry nuclear weapons, merely conducting training operations:

    “During the patrol pilots not only learn to navigate in unfamiliar airspace, refuel in the air, conducting electronic reconnaissance, as well as work out the use of weapons (planes fly without the missiles, but the targets are fixed by on-board radars, their coordinates are entered in the on-board computer). Pilots flight hours have increased from 40 to 140 hours per year. It is almost comparable with hours flown by Americans – 180 hours.”

    Bottom line, the article maintains that the flights of the strategic bombers are conducted just to get on parity with their American counterparts.

  125. FincaInTheMountains November 15, 2014 at 4:56 am #

    Donetsk: An american glance

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oV1dHMEft8k

  126. FincaInTheMountains November 15, 2014 at 5:44 am #

    Russia Stations Warships Off Australian Coast Ahead Of G-20 Summit
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/14/russia-g20_n_6156950.html

    Are we expecting some heated discussions?

  127. beantownbill. November 15, 2014 at 8:10 am #

    @Janos:

    Nussbaum doesn’t seem to be someone I would like. She’s the shrill, humorless type liberal I try to avoid. But her beliefs hardly make her a monster; you know, some people would call you a monster for your own beliefs. Monstrousness is in the eye of the beholder, I guess.

    • Janos Skorenzy November 15, 2014 at 2:36 pm #

      Are you kidding? She’s trying to turn all of Western Culture into a suicide cult. For example, because Marcus Aurelius said some thing about all men are brothers because God is their Father, therefore he would endorse flooding White Nations with non-Whites. She goes thru philosophical literature to find things she can isolate and distort so as to corrupt the minds of her students. She’s a monster – one loved by Liberal Jews who share her agenda.

      As I surmised, she is now “off limits” because she’s Tribe. I love the way you narrowed the discussion onto my personal example so as not to talk about the original post. Liberals will always play favorites and try to be better than ordinary Whites, just as Jews consider themselves better. Having no minorities around would take a lot of the wind out of their sails. Then they could go abroad to help them or stay here and help their own people (oh horror!). Christ said, Go out and teach all men. He said nothing about bring all men here and replace your own people. These people are at best lazy and more often than not, monsters.

      But yes, in their twisted view any nationalist is a monster. That doesn’t give me a moments pause. We’re in the right – obviously. I’m capable of personal humility, but I wont be humble about the rights of my people. That would be weakness, and we’ve had quite enough of that. You can keep your moral relativism – which you don’t believe for a second when it comes to Jews and their rights.

  128. Cold N. Holefield November 15, 2014 at 8:11 am #

    While I sympathize with those being persecuted in their native countries, I really don’t condone illegally entering America.

    Legally? So a bunch of oligarchic plutocrats get together and undemocratically determine immigration policy and legislate it into existence and call it legal, and you condone that yet don’t condone “illegal” immigration? Alrighty then.

    I don’t condone undemocratic immigration (yet I understand it and what inculcated it), but my opinion, and your opinion, doesn’t count. It wasn’t solicited nor is it wanted. The PTB enjoy the benefits of both “legal” and “illegal” immigration — both of which are entirely undemocratic because most informed, intelligent, critically-thinking citizens (not very many of these around so democracy’s not possible anyway) would not condone immigration as it’s currently practiced — both “legally and illegally.”

    For more elaboration and clarification see this post:

    Coming To America — The Melting Pot

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  129. Cold N. Holefield November 15, 2014 at 8:24 am #

    some people would call you a monster for your own beliefs

    …and/or a joke. I prefer the latter.

    Monstrousness is in the eye of the beholder, I guess.

    Wiser words were never typed. Many people consider Bill Gates a hero and a success story. To me he is a monster. He changed humanity more than Hitler could have dreamed of doing, and not for the better as many opine. Because of Gates and Jobs, there are no more Gates and Jobs. Wrap your head around that.

    Steve Jobs, and many tech pioneers and CEO’s, didn’t/don’t let their kids be consumed by the technology they spawned. But their technology, and the companies that pander it, creatively manipulate and coerce a world of Yemeni-like rubes to consume their technology 24/7 as though it’s Khat.

    Steve Jobs Was a Low-Tech Parent

  130. Cold N. Holefield November 15, 2014 at 8:30 am #

    Bottom line, the article maintains that the flights of the strategic bombers are conducted just to get on parity with their American counterparts.

    I’m not impressed. It’s so Khrushchev. Annette Funicello’s dead — somebody please inform Vlad & Co.

    What would be impressive is if Putin’s Russia could make a Malaysian Airlines’ plane vanish into thin, or thick, air. If they could do that, then, and only then, will they get my full attention.

    • FincaInTheMountains November 15, 2014 at 10:43 am #

      Your “free press” has already made it all but vanish into thin air, at least from the coverage. Be impressed with that.

    • Buck Stud November 15, 2014 at 11:14 am #

      How about if Puitin’s Russia could illuminate the 5th ring in a long planned Olympic opening ceremony?

      But, good or bad, that’s Russian unpredictability for you; the vodka induced snafu and the incredible national precision embodied in ballet or hockey. The greater the dissonance, the greater the harmonic rebound. The United States used to have something of this idiosyncratic and diametric characteristic but we have ossified into something predictably middle and stiff: not capable of falling low with grace not quite capable of jumping to the moon. A shrinking elasticity if you will.

    • Janos Skorenzy November 15, 2014 at 2:40 pm #

      I loved her as a young boy. Those mouse ears! You can go to hell. In other news, Oswald Mosley on Globalism. Some of the early Fascists knew that these devils planned to flood White Countries with Coloreds.

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NqG2lAojNQ&feature=youtu.be

      • Janos Skorenzy November 15, 2014 at 2:42 pm #

        Oops (Uppsala)! I didn’t know it was going to flare out like that. It usually doesn’t. How does one know when it will and when it wont? Nice uniforms.

        • Buck Stud November 15, 2014 at 8:14 pm #

          Boy Janos, you sure know how to pick em:

          “Lord Curzon had to be persuaded that Mosley was a suitable husband, as he suspected Mosley was largely motivated by social advancement in Conservative Party politics and her inheritance…During this marriage he had an extended affair with his wife’s younger sister Lady Alexandra Metcalfe, and with their stepmother, Grace Curzon, Marchioness Curzon of Kedleston, the U.S.-born second wife and widow of Lord Curzon of Kedleston.”

          LMAO!

          • Janos Skorenzy November 15, 2014 at 9:07 pm #

            Your petty bourgeois morality is tiresome. He was an Aristocrat – a fourth cousin to the Queen. You need to go live in Paris, learn to wear a beret, drink wine, eat croissants, read poetry in cafes, etc.

            Or do you want to me to prove that a triangle has three sides?

          • Buck Stud November 15, 2014 at 10:01 pm #

            Ha…and you can line dance down Soul Train under the stern eye of Don Cornelius…I recommend you start with War’s “Ballero” for a thoroughly inclusive experience.

      • Cold N. Holefield November 15, 2014 at 3:29 pm #

        You can go to hell.

        I’m already there — or I should say here. They were right, it’s toasty, to say the least. No clothes required. When I arrived, there was an intolerable midget running around saying “the pain, boss, the pain” over and over. He still does, but I’ve learned to ignore it and tune the bastard out.

        By the way, you have a reservation. I saw it in the book when I signed in. I’ll see you soon and when I do, we can finally wrestle like real gladiators.

        • Janos Skorenzy November 15, 2014 at 9:11 pm #

          That’s Ok. I’ll skip it. I’m headed to Purgatory. You’ll be descending to the lower levels of Hell – which are Cold like your Heart.

  131. contrahend November 15, 2014 at 8:45 am #

    Average house has a $150/Month Electric Bill
    Investment should return 3%
    So, they invested $145 million, so at 3% they should get back at least $630,000/Month
    10,000 houses would make in payments $1.5 Million dollars
    Subtract ROI of $630,000, so we have remaining $870,000 a month

    the project feeds enuf energy to supply 500,000 houses, so 50x your figure

    and that makes it profitable

    kontrahend

    • FincaInTheMountains November 15, 2014 at 10:36 am #

      Here is exact quote from the article you linked to:

      “We agreed to fund $145 million with SunEdison to finance a 82 MW solar facility in Kern County, California. This project will generate enough energy to power 10,000 homes. The energy from this project, which has been contracted to Southern California Edison, will help California meet its goal of increasing the amount of energy procured from renewable sources. The project sits on an old oil and gas field and will also create over 650 jobs.”

  132. Q. Shtik November 15, 2014 at 11:31 am #

    he was guilty of existed in the alternate reality of white [color] politics. – Karah

    ===============

    [collar]

    As to affect and effect, as I have admitted many times, I have no expertise in grammar. I couldn’t begin to explain why it is affect in one instance and effect in another. I simply hear it in my head and know (95% of the time) which is correct. Personally, I have a problem with who/whom.

  133. MisterDarling November 15, 2014 at 12:14 pm #

    So…

    When demand collapses even for coal, what should that tell us?

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-11-14/depression-level-collapse-demand-historic-first-glencore-shuts-coal-mines-3-weeks

    😉

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    • BackRowHeckler November 15, 2014 at 10:23 pm #

      Not only that, CNH, but another Big Casino is closing soon in Atlantic City, the 5th since last summer.

      Looks like the day of the Gambling Casino as a panacea for all our economic ills is about over. We’ll have to move on to some other scam to keep us going for awhile longer.

      Q how about weighing in on Atlantic City. It’s in your neighborhood, no?

      —————————————————————————————–

      I’m curious if the 4-5 million illegals Obama is granting amnesty to on Monday will become eligible for welfare i.e. Section 8 housing, WIC, foodstamps, EBT cards etc. on tuesday? Is there enough money in the Welfare Budget to support all these people? Also, after this, how many more are coming? Is there enough $$$ in the welfare budget to take care of the whole 3rd world, about 5 billion people?

      –brh

      • BackRowHeckler November 16, 2014 at 3:42 am #

        oops sorry, that Mister Darling.

  134. Cold N. Holefield November 15, 2014 at 12:47 pm #

    Your “free press” has already made it all but vanish into thin air, at least from the coverage. Be impressed with that.

    It’s no more my “free press” than it’s your “free press.” I don’t and won’t lay claim to that bullshit. On the scale of respectability, it’s a bit more professional than the Russian press which is pretty much tabloid trash.

    There’s too many sensationalized stories to keep circling back on the ones you think are important, Finca. The explanation for the press’s current disinterest is no more than that, so no, I’m not impressed. It’s to be expected.

  135. Buck Stud November 15, 2014 at 3:52 pm #

    An interesting article from a GOP politico who has a completely different, and far less rosy the 2014 elections:

    http://blog.chron.com/goplifer/2014/11/the-missing-story-of-the-2014-election/

    But after reading the article I wanted to know more about the author and came away surprised at what I read. There really are some conservatives who get it:

    http://blog.chron.com/goplifer/2014/11/a-republican-agenda-that-could-win-nationally/

  136. contrahend November 15, 2014 at 4:01 pm #

    We signed an agreement to invest $103 million in Mount Signal Solar, a 265.7 MW solar photovoltaic plant in Imperial County, California. This project will generate enough energy to power 80,000 homes.

    sorry, you were right about the 10,000 homes. but here~s another google solar project with much better numbers – $103m / 80,000 homes.

    another nail in the coffin of peak energy hysteria.

    kontrahend

    • FincaInTheMountains November 15, 2014 at 4:53 pm #

      Interesting. Those two projects wildly vary on their estimates in amount of energy being consumed by an average house and how much it costs in capital investments per 1 MW of energy.

      In first example, they allocate around 8 KW per house, in the second – just 3.3 KW of energy per house – is it for some kind of second sort citizens?

      In first example it costs $1,768,292 per one MW in investment

      In the second, just $388,679 per one MW in investment

      Why is that?

    • Q. Shtik November 15, 2014 at 6:12 pm #

      another nail in the coffin of peak energy hysteria – Contra

      =============

      Cheap oil is good for the consumer but bad for oil companies AND solar companies.

      Yesterday I clicked on stock symbol RIG (Transocean) and noticed the stock has dropped 53% from its high. The first 2 news headlines for the day read as follows:

      . Offshore drilling companies delay projects amid oil glut

      . More write downs seen in Transocean’s future.

    • FincaInTheMountains November 16, 2014 at 2:19 am #

      I am still of opinion that so called alternate energy – solar and wind – are a head fake designed to take public attention away from the real solution – latest generation nuclear – fast neutron fission(already in production) and fusion (in design).

      I admit that I do not have engineering experience in large solar or wind installations, but small one designed for a single off-grid solution just don’t work for a very simple reason – you are not guaranteed to have power when you need it. So, on top of solar and wind (plus expensive and high-maintenance battery bank and power inverter) you would still need a gasoline (or better diesel) generator.

      Bottom line, your electric bill for maintenance and fuel will go up threefold on top of a headache of maintaining a very complex system.

      I have a very wealthy friend who owns a cacao plantation on the Island, and he could afford a very fancy solar + wind system on his off-grid plantation. The wind just don’t work (it does, but very little) and solar sort of worked for a time up until the rainy season hit. Last time I called they were sitting on diesel generator(expensive!).

      For my business I need a lot of heat to dry the palm nuts – so the best solution suitable for local conditions I found was a pyrolysis-based wood burning stove – it produces around 50 – 60KW of heat equivalent and requires an energy input – around 500W to run forced air fans. It has two cameras – one, air-tight is for slow-burning wood and production of wood-gas, another for mixing gas and air and burning the mixture – sort of blast furnace. It is very efficient and burns up to 95% of wood and creates over 2000F temperature.
      Scrap wood is way cheaper than gas.

      Unfortunately, I don’t have means to transform that heat to electricity – the best way to do it would be a modern Stirling closed-cycle engine. There is a good NASA design, and there was suppose to be one in mass production, but I can’t find one for reasonable price. Last quote I got was like $60,000 for 3KW engine.

      Everything else are just toys for people who could afford them.

      • beantownbill. November 16, 2014 at 12:52 pm #

        You have been very good at discussing the real, relevant issues.

        Practical solar energy use is not currently effective. It’s real future, if it is to have one, is in the development of solar power satellites (SPS). SPS could supply much of human energy needs, but of course this will never happen in the near future because people are too stupid to demand it. A little hint: If you want to become one of the world’s wealthiest persons, find a very bright solar engineer, partner up with a space exploration company (like Space X) and a far-seeing, technology-bent venture capitalist, and put up an SPS.

        Fusion energy has been 50 years in the future forever, but it seems we are getting closer to achieving it in a shorter time period.

        I agree that nuclear is probably the best way to provide more energy, given the world’s current situation, but I’d rather see next-generation Cesium-reactors, which the Chinese are supposedly working on at a rapid pace. Maybe we should let them develop a working reactor and then steal their design. After all, the Chinese have been doing it to us for years.

        Finally, oil can come from other sources than fossil fuels. We can even make it ourselves. Our solar system is filled with organic compounds. Yeah, getting them here economically seems far-fetched, but technologically feasible. Why not be bold and try it?

        The point is, if we are ever “so fucked”, it won’t be because the laws of nature and science prevent us, it will be because of our blindness.

  137. pkrugman November 16, 2014 at 2:32 am #

    “I’m curious if the 4-5 million illegals Obama is granting amnesty to on Monday will become eligible for welfare i.e. Section 8 housing, WIC, foodstamps, EBT cards etc.” — BRH

    I am curious how many of those amnestied will make life-saving discoveries, become special forces in the military, start businesses and pay taxes and save social security.

    Read up on the dreamers. They did not come here as takers… any more so than your family did. But they certainly have the right to receive small business loans or serve in the military, just as you family does.

    • BackRowHeckler November 16, 2014 at 3:45 am #

      Then why is such a goddam mess where they come from? And where they live here, transformed almost overnight from middle class neighborhoods to ramshackled ghettos?

      brh

  138. FincaInTheMountains November 16, 2014 at 3:14 am #

    Academic Glaziev: Why Russia? Part 1.

    The escalation of the international military-political tensions are caused by the change of technological structures and cycles of capital accumulation, in which there is a deep restructuring of the economy on the basis of fundamentally new technologies and mechanisms for the reproduction of capital. Such periods, as the 500-year experience of the development of capitalism shows, are accompanied by drastic destabilization of international relations, destruction of the old and formation of the new world order, which is accompanied by the wars between the old and the new leaders for market dominance.

    Illustrative examples of such periods in the past include: Dutch war for independence from Spain, which resulted in the center of the development of capitalism has moved from Italy (Genoa) to Holland; Napoleonic Wars, after which the dominance shifted to Great Britain; First and Second World War, as a result of which the dominance of the capitalist world was transferred to the United States, and the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, after which they captured the global leadership through excellence in the development of new, based on microelectronics, information and communication technological systems and the establishment of monopolies on world’s money emission.

    Today in the in the wake of growth of new technological order, China is getting ahead and the accumulation of capital in Japan creates opportunities to move the center of capital reproduction into Southeast Asia.

    Faced with the over-accumulation of capital in the financial pyramids and obsolete industries, as well as the loss of markets for their products and the decline in the share of the dollar in international transactions, the US seeks to hold the lead through the ignitions of wars to weaken both competitors and partners. Trying to control Russia, Central Asia and the Middle East, the United States is seeking a strategic advantage in managing the supply of hydrocarbons and other critically important natural resources. Control over Europe, Japan and Korea provides dominance in the creation of new knowledge and the development of advanced technologies.

    Subjectively, the anti-Russian aggression is explained by irritation of American politicians with independent foreign policy of Russian President on the broad Eurasian integration: from the creation of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEC) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to initiatives to build a harmonious trade zones and humanitarian cooperation between Europe and Asia (common economic space from Lisbon to Vladivostok). US fears of forming independent from them global circuits of expanded capital reproduction, especially BRICS.

    Russia’s historical experience in the organization of global integration projects induces a surge of American Russophobia. It is characterized by the demonization of President Vladimir Putin, which Washington believes to be the main culprit of the loss of control over Russia and Central Asia, and his independent foreign policy is seen as a key threat.

    In the fevered imagination of American geopolitics they revive traditional Anglo-Saxon scheme of global world domination through the weakening and collapse of major independent states, and the establishment of control over transcontinental communications.

    And in the worst traditions of British geopolitics of the past two centuries Russia is chosen as a key target of aggression because of its size and geographical location, as well as the direction of the first strike – Ukraine, cutting of which off from Russia is seen as a necessary condition for the Russian defeat for at least 200 years. Add to the mix a fear of US establishment of resurgence of the Soviet Union.

    Despite the apparent absurdity of what is happening in Washington, this exacerbation of paranoid delusions of the Anglo-Saxon world domination has objective reasons.

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    • Janos Skorenzy November 16, 2014 at 4:15 am #

      Ah, the Heartland Theory of McKinder.

      He who controls Eastern Europe controls the Heartland,
      He who controls the Heartland controls the World Island,
      He who controls the World Island controls the World.

      Now the Heartland begins East of the Volga. Where is the Volga in relation to Ukraine? And why does the Heartland have to be controlled from the West, why not the East I wonder.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Geographical_Pivot_of_History

    • beantownbill. November 16, 2014 at 12:07 pm #

      The concept of a “New World Order” (NWO) has been demonized by American conservatives, who equate the NWO with a global conspiracy created by powerful elites to grab the world’s physical and financial resources, and to institute a modern form of feudalism.

      In reality, a NWO really will come into existence, but only as a result of further technological advances, and any planet-wide restructuring of the current global political makeup will occur because of such new technologies, rather than because a group of multi-billionaires decided to take over the world.

      If anything remotely called a NWO conspiracy exists, it would be because these uber-wealthy individuals have always understood what the future will bring – they ain’t stupid, after all – and have made plans to take advantage of new opportunities as they arise. In the meantime, the American public is too ignorant, narcissistic and slothful to take any self-helpful action like the opportunistic billionaires are doing.

      • Janos Skorenzy November 16, 2014 at 5:32 pm #

        H.G Wells said countless men would die fighting the creating of the World State. Some of the best men too, he admitted.

        You don’t seem to have absorbed the America Ideal or the premises that underlie it. Absolute Power breeds Tyranny. How can anyone doubt that?

        The Billionaires are the real policy makers now. I can’t see how anyone can doubt that.

  139. FincaInTheMountains November 16, 2014 at 4:28 am #

    Academic Glaziev: The war of technological orders

    Global crisis we are experiencing today, which replaced long economic boom in developed countries, is a natural manifestation of the long cycles of economic activity, known as the Kondratieff waves. At the heart of each of them is the life cycle of the technological structure – complexly related manufactures components with the corresponding institutions that form a self-reproducing economy.
    To date, the global economic and technological development (starting with the industrial revolution in England), five life cycles of successive technological structures could be distinguished, including the currently dominating informational order.

    The elements of the new technological order, the growth of which will ensure the economic recovery of the advanced countries to the new wavelength could be seen already: biotechnology based on advances in molecular biology and genetic engineering, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence systems, global information networks and integrated high-speed transportation systems. Their implementation provides a manifold increase in production efficiency, reducing its energy and capital.

    Currently, the new technological order emerges from the embryonic development into the growth phase. Its expansion is constrained by both small scale and by insufficient relevant technologies, and the unwillingness of the socio-economic environment for their widespread use. However, despite the crisis, the cost of development of new technologies and scale of their applications grow with the rate of about 20-35 percent per year.

    Further development of the crisis will be determined by a combination of two processes – the destruction (replacement) of the structures of the old technological order and the formation of new structures. The collection of works by the chain of product life cycle (from basic research to market) requires a certain amount of time. The market will be conquered by those who know how to pass this process faster and produce a product at a higher level and better quality.

    The faster the financial, economic and political institutions are rebuilt in accordance with the needs of the growth of new technologies, the sooner will the rise of a new long wave. In this change, not only the technological structure of the economy, but also its institutional system, as well as the composition of the leading firms, countries and regions. Succeed those who will be able to get in on the early stages. And vice versa – the late entrance will make it increasingly expensive and the opportunity will be closed at the phase of maturity.

    Studies show that in periods of global technological shifts in the wake of the growth of the new technological order opened a “window of opportunity” to lift developing countries have succeeded in preparing the preconditions of its formation. Unlike the advanced countries that are facing a crisis of over-accumulation of capital in obsolete industries, they have the opportunity to avoid a mass depreciation of capital and focus it on the cutting-edge areas of growth. To retain leadership advanced countries are resorting to techniques based on shear force in foreign-economic policy. During these periods there is a dramatic increase of military-political tensions, the risk of international conflict. This is evident by the tragic experience of the two previous structural crisis of the world economy.

    The Great Depression of the 30s due to reaching of limits of growth of technological order dominated by “coal and steel” was overcome by militarization of the economy, which resulted in a catastrophe of the Second World War. The latter has not only stimulated economic restructuring with extensive use of the internal combustion engine and organic chemistry, but also entailed a radical change in the entire world order: the destruction of the then core of the world economy (European colonial empires) and the formation of two opposing global political and economic systems. Leadership of American capitalism in entering new long wave of economic growth was achieved by extraordinary growth in defense contracts for the development of new technologies and the influx of global capital to the United States and destruction of productive capacity of its key competitors.

    Depression mid 70’s – early 80’s, due to the exhaustion of opportunities for growth in this technological order, led an arms race in outer space with a wide use of information and communication technologies that formed the core of the new technological order. The subsequent collapse of world socialist system, which failed to move to a new technological order, allowed the leading capitalist countries to take advantage of its resources to perform a “soft landing” to a new long wave of economic growth. The export of capital and brain drain from the former socialist countries, colonization of their economies have facilitated the restructuring of the world capitalist system. On the same wave of growth climbed newly industrialized countries that managed to create key industries in and to lay the background of their rapid development on a global scale. Political result of these structural transformations became liberal globalization with US dominance and US Dollar as the main reserve currency of the world.

    • Buck Stud November 16, 2014 at 11:20 am #

      “The elements of the new technological order, the growth of which will ensure the economic recovery of the advanced countries to the new wavelength could be seen already: biotechnology based on advances in molecular biology and genetic engineering, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence systems, global information networks and integrated high-speed transportation systems.”

      Economic recovery and artificial intelligence systems in the same sentence–reads like an optimistic stretch to my eyes?

      In a pseudo-meritocratic society such as ours where the predominant belief is people ‘make their own bed’ and ‘get what they deserve’ how would the dynamic of one human servicing one hundred robots result in an economic recovery?

      Obviously the math wouldn’t support such an assertion in our current society. Displaced workers–such as the former grocery checkout person now unemployed as people scan their own groceries– would suddenly find themselves without merit and stigmatized with entitlement signs around their necks. In other words, the former checkout lane person is now a bum, grovelling for welfare.

      I recall the ‘I Love Philosophy’ poster from a while back –I recall a screen name of ‘Spider’ along with some other goofy names– who drew a lot of ridicule and ire from the more ‘pragmatic’ posters. And yet this dynamic is exactly what he was referring and why he asserted that ‘free rent and salary’ was the only rational answer to such a conundrum.

      • Buck Stud November 16, 2014 at 11:38 am #

        Also, how does immigration fit into an economic dynamic of ‘excess capacity’ with workers displaced as a result of technology also competing with low wage imports for the remaining jobs?

        I just can’t envision the ‘economic recovery’ that the author asserts will occur via technological breakthroughs.

        Of course, the investor class, ingesting short term carrots that block long-range vision, will tout and champion technological breakthroughs as economic panaceas.

      • FincaInTheMountains November 16, 2014 at 1:01 pm #

        “Economic recovery and artificial intelligence systems in the same sentence–reads like an optimistic stretch to my eyes?”

        I don’t think you could really base an economic recovery on creation of bunch of “robot-like” positions which your example of checkout-clerk really is. Economic recovery only could be based on creation of high-paying, specialized jobs requiring years of education and training and high-level of creative thinking.

        Obviously the social structure of the new, highly developed and efficient society could be different than the one we have now, the fears of joblessness could be eliminated with “social dividends”, not welfare, the society would be more concerned of developing of its human capital in the ways I can’t possibly imagine, rather than developing its monetary capital. We could also start expanding into outer space, colonizing the nearest planets first.

        That could be a whole different discussion. But for sure, you really can’t stop the progress due to the fact that it will take the miserable job of a checkout clerk at the Walmart.

      • beantownbill. November 16, 2014 at 1:35 pm #

        Technological advancement has built up such momentum that it is now self-sustaining unless humanity wipes itself out – and if so – any discussions will be moot.

        Therefore it is incumbent upon mankind to adapt to the inevitable. What we call “jobs” will become almost extinct. The check-out counter employee, the bank teller, the warehouse laborer and the barista will go the ay of the dinosaur. It’s already happening. We can attach any value we want to this state of affairs, but bottom line, employment for 90% of the population will be gone. The mantra will be” change or die”.

        Being an inherent optimist, I don’t think this is necessarily bad. It’s the price we pay for experiencing great change.

        • Janos Skorenzy November 16, 2014 at 5:27 pm #

          It’s bad. Because of the way we are, no provision will be made for those who lose their jobs. Are we ready to really create a welfare state? Which means the Elite will have to dig into their profits and share? I don’t think they want to and they don’t do things they don’t want to.

          A really advanced Civilization would discuss whether such a change was good for people first. With sufficient social capital, such a civilization could and would say no if the answer was no. Technology is only good when used well after all. Japan said no to guns for centuries until the West forced its way in.
          So if we don’t have the social capital to talk about such changes first, do we have social capital to talk about socializing the profits? Doubtful but possible. Switzerland has been discussing giving people a social credit or share of the collective profits. I can’t see that happening here.

          Personally I’m good at finding things to fill my leisure hours. Many would be at their wits end though with too much leisure. Hopefully there would still be enough odd jobs for people like that to do – and get paid of course.

      • Q. Shtik November 16, 2014 at 1:42 pm #

        I don’t think the ridicule was so much about the ‘free rent and salary’ as it was about building “trillions of skyscrapers.”

  140. FincaInTheMountains November 16, 2014 at 5:07 am #

    Property owners cut power supply

    By Thanos Tsiros
    http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite2_1_09/11/2014_544446

    More than 1.3 million properties across Greece have been left without power upon their owners’ demand in recent years, cross-checking by the General Secretariat of Public Revenue and the Hellenic Electricity Distribution Network Operator (DEDDIE) has shown.

    Given that the number of active users of the power network stood at 7,385,000 at the end of 2013, it appears that a very high number of property owners, possibly up to 18 percent, have at least one property where the power connection has been cut in their name.

    The reasons for having a property’s power supply cut are as would be expected: not having to pay local authority levies, the exemption of those properties from the used property assets that tax authorities take into account when determining each taxpayer’s income status, and not having to pay the various charges tagged onto electricity bills, such as the fixed payment to the power company, the levy for the state broadcaster etc.

    However the main reason for property owners’ decision to have their supply cut has been the property levy tagged onto electricity bills from 2011 to 2013.

  141. Cold N. Holefield November 16, 2014 at 12:18 pm #

    In the meantime, the American public is too ignorant, narcissistic and slothful to take any self-helpful action like the opportunistic billionaires are doing.

    Does that “American public” include you? Does it include the “legal” and “illegal” immigrants? Or is it related solely to the trailer park, NASCAR Redneck set? “American public” is an awfully broad brush, so some clarification is in order. Also, did you stop to consider the “American public”, whatever that is or whatever that comprises, has been indoctrinated and socially engineered to be ambivalent, acquiescent, impressionable and unmotivated thus making it much easier for those with means, influence and power who know to circumvent this indoctrination, and direct it actually, to not only see the future, but to conjure it considering they have little to no resistance from the rubes they’ve created to do their bidding?

    • beantownbill. November 16, 2014 at 1:11 pm #

      The American public includes every American, including me and you. I could have been more specific because obviously not every citizen is guilty of the traits I described or I could have said, ” the American public, generally speaking”, but come on, you’re belaboring the point. It seems obvious to me most people would understand what I was saying. BY THE WAY, I count myself as one of the slothful ones.

      Freud described the Pleasure Principle, which to me, along with advanced technology, are the real reasons we are in trouble as a society. Saying we are being manipulated and brainwashed is a rather poor, negative description of humans.

      • Cold N. Holefield November 16, 2014 at 1:35 pm #

        Saying we are being manipulated and brainwashed is a rather poor, negative description of humans.

        It’s not negative, that’s just your perception. We evolve, or we evolved, because we reformed and adapted in response to external and internal stimulation. In other words, we were manipulated into multiple and unique iterations of existence. It’s to our credit that we rolled with the stimulation. But here’s the catch (haha). Some of the more clever amongst us figured out this proclivity and exploited it for their own gain. The mechanism for doing that is out of the bottle and freely available to use for those in a position to do so (and they do). For those who aren’t cognizant of their malleable propensity and the mechanism of indoctrination and social-engineering in play, well, they’re not much more than trained poodles at this point.

        There is no “we” btb, at least not imo. Those who would prefer to be other, and actually are other than what you describe as the “American public”, are quickly isolated and ostracized, so in order to maintain a balance, those amongst us who know of what I type capitulate, at least partly, to maintain some form of peace and social connection.

        In the sense I’ve described above, one can hardly call it a choice. How to solve this conundrum, or pickle if you will, is another story. I don’t have that answer or answers, but I can see the pickle clearly, and it’s a Claussen crisp & juicy dill.

  142. Q. Shtik November 16, 2014 at 2:04 pm #

    Q how about weighing in on Atlantic City. It’s in your neighborhood, no? BRH

    ==========

    Not really, it’s about a hundred mile drive. I wouldn’t be interested if it was just 50 miles.

  143. progress4what November 16, 2014 at 2:24 pm #

    “…the “American public”,……, has been indoctrinated and socially engineered to be ambivalent, acquiescent, impressionable and unmotivated thus making it much easier for those with means, influence and power who know to circumvent this indoctrination, and direct it actually, to not only see the future, but to conjure it…..”

    Perhaps it was ever thus, cold. Being “Americans,” and all born in the 20th century (unless we have a precocious 14 year old commenting @ CFN) this is all we have ever known, so it seems normal to us.

    Why most/all of Western Europe seems stricken by this malaise at the same time as us, though, undercuts the idea that this is a strictly US problem.

    And that was a nice takedown of Rush Limbaugh and talk radio as well, cold. But you forgot to mention that Rush, Hannity, and the rest of that gang are entertainers, FIRST, last, and always. I’d like to see any of them propose more solutions. Maybe there aren’t any solutions, anymore, but if Rush et al go to much into to solutions and too little into pandering to their base – they harm their own bottom lines. (And this being 21st century America, NOBODY does that!)

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  144. progress4what November 16, 2014 at 2:42 pm #

    I’ve been really occupied with spreading the word about Pres. Obama’s potential amnesty of the 6 million+/-. It seems like political posturing to me, but I’m sure something bad will be done. And the illegal immigrants are just a tiny part of the problem of population growth in the US. We could legalize ALL the illegals and it would barely equal 4 years of current US population growth. And all the growth is due to LEGAL immigrants and their children.

    That thing Obama pledged with the Chinese on CO2 reduction can NEVER happen – as long as the population growth continues. Even if we all (as is likely) mostly end up huddled in cities, basking in the glow of LED lights, staring at iPads, and waiting to die – we’ve still got be fed and watered. Humans on Earth are on an unsustainable course and picking up speed.

    US “leadership” seems determined to overpopulate the US so that we can crash with the rest of humanity. The biggest problem with “leadership” is that they think 50 years is a long time, and that they are convinced that “we will think of something.”

    Go ahead and gloat rugsoaker. Somebody might as well enjoy the unfolding disaster.

  145. Cold N. Holefield November 16, 2014 at 2:52 pm #

    I wouldn’t be interested if it was just 50 miles.

    Not even for the famous Salt Water Taffy and syringes littering the beaches?

    Medical debris hits A.C., Brigantine beaches

  146. Cold N. Holefield November 16, 2014 at 2:57 pm #

    P4W, I agree with what you’ve posted, but I did mention that entertainment was and is his/their FIRST priority per the quoted sentence below. I guess I should have elaborated more on it, but it was there in my layer cake with a load of other luscious ingredients.

    Because his entertaining griping is his bread & butter.

  147. FincaInTheMountains November 16, 2014 at 4:07 pm #

    Opinion: Nobody wanted the war. The war was inevitable.

    http://politrussia.com/control/putin-i-koala-realnye-itogi-g20-666/

    The only one momentous event in the history of the summit in Australia to remember: Putin hugged a koala. Nothing more extraordinary happened. Everything goes on.

    There are two iron rules in international politics:

    1. Whatever else they talk about, they always talk about money
    2. Politics is the concentrated expression of economics

    Putin precisely outlined the main and the only serious theme of the summit – the reform of the IMF. For the laymen and even for many “experts” absolutely unclear why Moscow and the entire group of BRICS, so actively trying to “put the squeeze” on US in terms of a change of control at the IMF, because from their perspective it some strange relic of the 90s nobody has any interest in. Indeed, G20 as communicational format of top countries was established primarily to produce redistribution of spheres of influence in the context of the global financial crisis, and changing the format of control over the IMF has been a key element of that.

    Take it as a granted: in the next year or two, the world will be covered by the next wave of the crisis, because the structural problems that led to the first wave of 2008 have not been eliminated. The second wave was delayed by relatively coordinated actions of the international community, in order to avoid the division of the post-crisis world in ugly and chaotic form of World War or the most severe series of regional conflicts. G20 was designed as a peace conference, but after the war, and instead of war.

    In the context of the crisis it became apparent that the list of the leaders of the world economy and global politics will remain more or less the same, only the balance of power and the sphere of influence will change. Roughly speaking, all become poorer, but some countries will feel better than others.

    And these impoverished leaders can “buy” minor players literally for pennies, swapping “credits” (or any form of financial / economic support) to have access to resources and political control.

    Since none of the existing global political elite wanted to radically change the global financial structure, the IMF was setup to be used as a tool for coordinated redistribution of spheres of influence.

    Full external control in exchange for a minimum cash infusion on draconian conditions.

    As a result, in 2010, the G20 reached a compromise: US dumps “controlling interest” of the IMF and that colonialist tool comes under collective management, in which China, Russia, India, Brazil, Germany, France, Turkey, etc. will get a bigger role to steer the regional operations of the Fund. For this concession, the United States had the right to retain complete freedom to play pranks on their continent, and indeed the whole world harnessed to help the American economy “to make a soft landing” in the context of the crisis.

    Much of the American elite perceived the deal with hostility. It is about these issues Obama said when asked Medvedev to “tell Vladimir” that after the elections he will have more opportunities.

    It turned out badly – the radical part of the American elite has arranged Obama “quiet coup-d’etat” intercepted control over the army and foreign policy. Apparently, Obama could have been “squeezed” on a personal level – blackmail or just the threat of physical liquidation. Congress has blocked Obama’s decision about the IMF, and the White House has defaulted on the agreements and began to run large-scale series of regional wars and Kiev’s Maidan with an eye to the complete preservation of American hegemony in the post-crisis period.

    The most interesting thing is that the US is in this context has almost no allies. EC only works “under the sticks,” and even Canada launches offshore yuan settlement center and want to sell their oil for yuans. Qatar makes similar movements.

    In April 2014, G19 put US ultimatum: Washington should give control of the IMF before the end of the year, otherwise all arrangements are off. The ultimatum was even reflected in official statements to the media. BRICS began to prepare a parallel financial system: New Development Bank and the pool of foreign exchange reserves for the replacement of the IMF. US response we see in Ukraine, Syria and actions of ISIS.

    Putin arrived at the G20 summit, not only as the Russian leader, but also as an informal speaker of BRICS – very hard and respected politician who promotes the interests of developing countries. It was in this capacity, Putin bluntly stated that the United States violated the agreement on IMF, and that political factors affected the price of oil, and that Russia is ready for any scenario cases. No wonder that Putin causes a psychosis in Anglo-Saxon politicians and the media. Putin’s calm and ironic manner drives them insane.

    Russia meets the new wave of global turbulence in very good shape, the envy of many other countries. Three key parameters, Russia boasts positive values: 1. Trade balance – in the black. We sell the world more than we buy from other countries. 2. Energy balance – in the black. We have more energy than needed for our economy. US, Japan, China and the whole of Europe cannot boast of energy self-sufficiency. 3. Food balance – in the black. Except for the beef we produce approximately how much you need or may be engaged in exporting. Russia – one of the largest grain exporters in the world, what could not be boasted by USSR.

    World in a crisis could live without iPhones, but not without grains or oil.

    Meeting in Australia was the last chance to negotiate before canceling the peace agreements reached in 2010. Putin has clearly stated that it was not possible to agree: Obama was not able to deliver the implementation of the agreement on the US side of the IMF deal. Now we are waiting for the era of turbulence, economic, political and military. BRICS will try to be a point of stability in the impending chaos.

    After it became clear that the effort on the IMF will not come through, the Russian leader arranged the plans to work with colleagues in the BRICS and left. And what more to say? Need to prepare for a massive economic war.

    The only one momentous event in the history of the summit in Australia to remember: Putin hugged a koala.

  148. progress4what November 16, 2014 at 6:26 pm #

    Here you go, buck:

    https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/11/13/art-surveillance-explored-artists/

    No one in the article mentioned inserting CCD devices in the pupils of the eyes of stone sculpture; or in the crevices and knots of old oak. I’ll give you that idea, free of charge. ;’)

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    • Buck Stud November 16, 2014 at 8:40 pm #

      Lol…did you see the tapestry that the author found so enticing and compelling?

      It didn’t do anything for me; n fact, it would look like a colorful door mat if placed on the ground. So much current and fashionable art depends on the accompanying text to provide meaning and context… it’s more literature and politics than visual art.

      Many of these narrative driven pieces pumped out of academia are, pretentiously, for the sake of novelty. But that very impetus often becomes cliche and formulaic, not to mention another conceptual imposition that encumbers the possibility of a more pristine perceptual experience. Just my cheap opinion though.

      • Q. Shtik November 16, 2014 at 9:41 pm #

        It didn’t do anything for me; n fact, it would look like a colorful door mat if placed on the ground. So much current and fashionable art depends on the accompanying text to provide meaning and context – Buck

        =============

        This is how I feel about Jackson Pollock drip art, to name but one example.

        In like fashion let me mildly disparage the new sci-fi flick, Intertstellar. I found it to be a large dose of eardrum-busting noise drowning out incomprehensibly faint dialog.

  149. pkrugman November 16, 2014 at 11:23 pm #

    “Go ahead and gloat…” –P4W

    P4W, there is nothing to gloat about. Obama is five years late and is legalizing far too small a number of “dreamers” with all kinds of restrictions and punishments attached… Instead of legalizing all the 34 million “illegals” through an IMMEDIATE AMNESTY.

    Only a small number of legal immigrants are allowed by law. As specified by the Immigration Act of 1990, an annual limit of between 416,000 and 675,000 currently exists for the combined total of family-sponsored preference, employment-based preference, and diversity immigrants. Which leads to practically no population growth because Obama deports almost as many as are allowed in legally, something you never bother to mention in your anti-immigrant propaganda.

    The Obama administration deported a record 438,421 unauthorized immigrants in fiscal year 2013, continuing a streak of stepped up enforcement that has resulted in more than 2 million deportations since Obama took office, newly released Department of Homeland Security data show.

    So it is far too little, far too late. Obama should have granted a blanket amnesty to all 34 million, instead of just certain dreamers. Obama is only addressing those who meet strict criteria and pretends that is actually doing something for immigrants. It is smoke and mirrors… A drop in the bucket. You should be ashamed of your alarming and fact-free anti-immigration statements, P4W.

    • Q. Shtik November 16, 2014 at 11:56 pm #

      You should be ashamed of your alarming and fact-free anti-immigration statements, P4W. – Krug

      =============

      Krug should be ashamed of his “unauthorized” immigrants euphemism.

  150. Cold N. Holefield November 17, 2014 at 6:17 am #

    In like fashion let me mildly disparage the new sci-fi flick, Intertstellar.

    Thanks for validating my suspicions about this movie. I saw the previews and wasn’t intrigued. It doesn’t interest me in the least, so considering your opinion of it coupled with what I already suspected, I won’t even bother to check it out when it’s released to Netflix. Sounds like it’s the same ‘ol same ‘ol run-of-the-mill over-the-top special effects garbage that is 80% of what Hollywood has to offer these days. Most movies produced by Hollywood these days are not intended for an audience with an IQ greater than 100, and if your IQ’s greater than 120 be prepared to be not only not interested but downright irritable if cajoled into watching one of these crappy creations by friends and/or loved ones.

    As for the fate of the turtle — how about soup? I loves me some turtle soup. Not too much sherry — but just the optimal amount to give it an added rich dimension.

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