JHK’s Three-Act Play
E vents are moving faster than brains now. Isn’t it marvelous that gasoline at the pump is a buck cheaper than it was a year ago? A lot of short-sighted idiots are celebrating, unaware that the low oil price is destroying the capacity to deliver future oil at any price. The shale oil wells in North Dakota and Texas, the Tar Sand operations of Alberta, and the deep-water rigs here and abroad just don’t pencil-out economically at $45-a-barrel. So the shale oil wells that are up-and-running will produce for a year and there will be no new ones drilled when they peter out — which is at least 50 percent the first year and all gone after four years.
Anyway, the financial structure of the shale play was suicidal from the get-go. You finance the drilling and fracking with high-yield “junk bonds,” that is, money borrowed from “investors.” You drill like mad and you produce a lot of oil, but even at $105-a-barrel you can’t make profit, meaning you can’t really pay back the investors who loaned you all that money, a lot of it obtained via Too Big To Fail bank carry-trades, levered-up on ”margin,” which allowed said investors to pretend they were risking more money than they had. And then all those levered-up investments — i.e. bets — get hedged in a ghostly underworld of unregulated derivatives contracts that pretend to act as insurance against bad bets with funny money, but in reality can never pay out because the money is not there (and never was.) And then come the margin calls. Uh Oh….
In short, enjoy the $2.50-a-gallon fill-ups while you can, grasshoppers, because when the current crop of fast-depleting shale oil wells dries up, that will be all she wrote. When all those bonds held up on their skyhook derivative hedges go south, there will be no more financing available for the entire shale oil project. No more high-yield bonds will be issued because the previous issues defaulted. Very few new wells (if any) will be drilled. American oil production will not return to its secondary highs (after the 1970 all-time high) of 2014-15. The wish of American energy independence will be steaming over the horizon on the garbage barge of broken promises. And all, that, of course, is only one part of the story, because there is the social and political fallout to follow.
The table is set for the banquet of consequences. The next chapter in the oil story is more likely to be scarcity rather than just a boomerang back to higher prices. The tipping point for that will come with the inevitable destabilizing of Saudi Arabia, which I believe will happen this year when King Abdullah ibn Abdilaziz, 91, son of Ibn Saud, departs his intensive care throne for the glorious Jannah of virgins and feasts. Speaking of feasts, just imagine how the Islamic State (or ISIS) must be licking its chops at the prospect of sweeping over an Arabia no longer defined as Saudi! The Saudis are so spooked that they announced plans last week for a kind of super Berlin-type wall to be constructed along the northern border with Iraq. But that brings to mind a laughable Maginot Line scenario in which the masked invaders just make an end run around the darn thing. In any case, Saudi Arabia will already be disintegrating internally as competing clans and princes vie for control. And then, what will the US do? Rush in there shock-and-awe style? Bust up the joint? That’ll make things better, won’t it? (See American Sniper.)
Meanwhile, there will be plenty to contend with state-side. The next time there is a pratfall in the stock and bond markets and the TBTF banks — and there is sure to be — the rescue tricks are liable to be a whole lot more severe than the TARP, ZIRP, and QE hijinks of 2008-2015. Next time around, the federals are going to have to confiscate stuff, break promises, take away things, and rough some people up. The question is how much of this abuse will the public take? I take a certain comfort knowing how heavily armed America is. And not just the lunatic fringe. The thought of Hillary and Jeb out there beating the bushes for big money makes me laugh. They are so not going to happen. Just wait. For now, take this MLK holiday break to reflect on the fragility of our own country, and gird your loins for the week to come.
Note: JHK’s 2015 Forecast is available now at this link: Forecast 2015 — Life in the Breakdown Lane
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People are actually complaining about lower gas prices because they’re taking the profits out of shale well drilling. When people complain about low gas prices because it encourages mindless consumption and doesn’t encourage us to prepare for alternatives to fossil fuels, then I’ll listen. Of course, apart from Ed Schultz, no one in the media will give that crowd – the alternative-energy boosters – any air time.
“The table is set for the banquet of consequences.”
And revenge is a dish best served cold.
The engineers I work with get it (we have nothing do to with the oil industry besides our dependency on it), if oil stays below $80-100 for much longer then we are all in for big trouble in a year or two. However I don’t think they get (or are in denial of) the bigger picture regarding collapse – they thing big trouble is expensive food and $2.50/liter gas – which really would only inconvenience us, I could pay double for food and gas, but most people can’t, so the economy would suffer and our jobs would disappear. After all, my job is essentially to turn electricity and oil into consumer products. We are trying to develop a product that would be useful for the police/military (I work for a small consumer drone company) to hedge our bets.
I am personally not a huge fan of Kunstler, but I respect his work and hope he breaks into the mainstream soon. Here I am posting on his blog (and therefore contributing to his success).
I’m in my 50s and right off the top of my head I cannot think of a single financial bubble that when it was popped did not have serious consequences.
My first memory of a bubble was the get big or get out farmland bubble of the late 70s which probably begat the bubbles of the 80s to mask the effects and so on and so on they continue.
Inability to finance the next round of extraction through traditional means (ie, junk debt) means not collapse of extraction but replacement of the process with the financier of last resort, the US Gov. This might include nationalization of the resource in the interests of national security or some such excuse. It is only geological impossibility (ie, where it takes > 1 barrel in to get < 1 barrel out) that all of it ends. So I'd expect some intense and desperate effort with our without the banks.
The last figure I saw was $1 out for $1.17 in (i.e. a ROI of .85). Granted, that is with July prices, which are not reflective of real cost, because price discovery is no longer possible. However, it takes oil to mine the iron ore which is shipped to a smelter using oil, which is heated … etc., to build the rigs which drill for oil.
This defines an exponential process for costs versus a linear process for benefits. The two must meet, as you point out. I suspect that in the case of high priced oil they already have, but the fact is masked by poor accounting, because good accounting is very hard when price is no longer a good proxy for value.
I should have added that government intervention is unlikely, given that real returns are probably negative.
100% agree. But I sort of expect the Department of Defense to take over the whole show one of these days and take desperate action for a while until they can’t.
Sort of the final burst of a fireworks show.
Don’t know what that will look like but I’d hazard a guess that oil from the tar sands won’t be leaving the continent, deep oil from our new best buds in Cuba will be ours, etc, etc. -john
The numbers I have seen indicate we are at 1 for 1 today.
“It is only geological impossibility (ie, where it takes > 1 barrel in to get < 1 barrel out) that all of it ends."-john d.
There's a term for this: it's called a 'breakeven price'. Allow me to elaborate.
When Oil is in the 40-ish dollar-per-barrel range (Brent or WTI) oil sands, deep offshore wells, shale oil and a lot of dry-land deep conventional wells are no longer businesses, but a hobbies. IOW, they (as you point out) cost more to drill and maintain then they make. Their net-present-value is less than zilch and any money-lender worth their salt is going to know that immediately.
John, I do find the idea of federal government nationalization of the wells kind of interesting. I wouldn't put anything past them at this point. But the problem with that idea is that decades of mal-investment have removed *Demand* for fuel… Which is why the price is so utterly dependent on financial speculation. So once you've pumped the oil, what do you do with it? Fill tank farms? Make more plastic chairs?
You see, the current crash in prices is simply a matter of price discovery. We are all finding out how much oil is really 'needed' in a world where the wealthiest 1% hordes more capital than the remaining 99%, instead of keeping it in play in the tangible economy.
This is what happens when you forsake the tangible economy for the intangible – entirely notional – 'economy': there's no tangible *Demand* waiting to restart the boom-bust cycle when it all falls apart.
By the way, It's not just demand for oil that's down; copper and steel are down too.
In a way, we're already living in a 'World Made By Hand' without really knowing it.
EDIT: make that “hordes” instead of “hoards”… tsk
Heh! Classic… /s
Vice-versa on that last.
🙂
“In short, enjoy the $2.50-a-gallon fill-ups while you can, grasshoppers, because when the current crop of fast-depleting shale oil wells dries up, that will be all she wrote.”
It’s $2.50 where you are, as GasBuddy shows the average price for Albany, the nearest major city to you in its database, as $2.48, but it’s much lower elsewhere. The national average is $2.05 and here in Detroit it’s $1.83. In my old neighborhood, three stations were selling regular for $1.75 last Friday.
That written, I agree with you. As I’ve written here and elsewhere,when the price of oil goes up 50% or more in a year, the U.S. goes into recession. As soon as the shale plays start to dry up and the level of consumption goes up, that will happen. I expect that will begin late this year or early next. All it will take is a 12-month stretch of $80 oil after a 12-month stretch of $50 oil. We’re not quite halfway through the first, so the full effects may not hit until after the 2016 election. We might actually see Hillary vs. Jeb after all, although the winner may feel they got a booby prize.
“The next chapter in the oil story is more likely to be scarcity rather than just a boomerang back to higher prices.”
The economic catastrophe that will accompany that “next chapter” could look like a slow-motion version one of those nasty black ice pile ups that folks back east have been witness to during their morning commutes.
Increasingly these days, the mainstream media denotes this and that as a matter of national security, and since that national security bandwagon has been rolled out, why don’t we throw the price of oil elephant on that wagon where it belongs?
In fact, the price of oil is not only a matter of national security, but also a matter of global security. Isn’t it high time educated men and women the world over understand the process whereby the price of oil is determined, and no, I’m not suggesting we ask the economists, because their explanation of the mechanism is a blatant lie. They tell us it is determined by supply and demand in an open and free market, and that is a farce.
But what did anyone expect? Remove financial market regulations, and you’re sure to get Cowboys & Indians until the Cowboys take over and take charge. And that’s what we have. The Cowboys have the upper hand and are gaining momentum, and soon enough the land they’ve wrangled from the indigenous dopes will be metaphorically transformed into a denuded, toxic, unproductive, repulsive, uninhabitable wasteland where no one can live and play ever again.
Game Over? Don’t count on it — they’ll find many more end runs around the so-called natural laws of the universe. They are creative, you must give them that, and they’re diabolical. What will they do next? I can’t wait. This is such fun. For those who haven’t the capacity to see, or don’t care even if they can see, there are the Kardashians and the Seahocks.
A HREF=”https://catcherinthelie.wordpress.com/2014/09/26/the-game/”>The Game
The Game
We’ve been racing to the bottom for 30 or 40 years now, and it appears that the checkered flag is finally in sight.
“Next time around, the federals are going to have to confiscate stuff, break promises, take away things, and rough some people up.”
The problem is that the people the feds are going to take things away from and rough up aren’t the 1%ers that should be roughed up. They are going to take away things from the majority of us so they can give them to the bankers and rough us up when we object.
Yes the federals will do some roughing up but how much really? Not so much, for the power to object has been taken away. Taken away with hardly a soul to know that all that there is left to do is enjoy the show.
” They are going to take away things from the majority of us so they can give them to the bankers and rough us up when we object.”-steveO.
That’s the ‘beauty’ of the bail-in provisions signed into law in December. Simple depositors and pension-funders are reclassified as “unsecured creditors”. This time, when a bank flops they’ll just balance the books (or make a good faith attempt) by snagging cash from the people with the least clout.
See how that works? Isn’t it genius?
/s
Or maybe not. After all, what will the police unions say about it? Will they be exempt? All of them?
😉
“After all, what will the police unions say about it? Will they be exempt? All of them?”
The police and military will probably be exempt because they are the “Muscle” of the elites. The elites can’t risk their tin-starred Vinnies and Guidos being angry and disloyal to their Dons. They must retain their “soldiers” and “Lieutenants” to do their dirty work. They’re gonna need that muscle more than ever to handle the commoners who they robbed blind in bail-ins. (the media talking heads may also escape this robbery because the elite need their propagandists to continue selling the fantasy to the public)
Granted, the elites could “motivate” their continued loyalty with threats of unemployment, but then they’d have to deal with both the disgruntled ex-muscle who will seek retribution, and the discontent and less loyal forces that remain. Fear is not a good tactic to ensure loyalty and if they’re as smart as they think they are, they should know this. You gotta pay your soldiers or they point their guns at you. Rome experienced this with it’s armies in the last days of it’s TBTF empire too. It’s a clear historical pattern, ignored at their expense.
Solution: take your money out of the banks where the goons can’t get it.
“Granted, the elites could “motivate” their continued loyalty with threats of unemployment, but then they’d have to deal with both the disgruntled ex-muscle who will seek retribution, and the discontent and less loyal forces that remain. Fear is not a good tactic to ensure loyalty and if they’re as smart as they think they are, they should know this. You gotta pay your soldiers or they point their guns at you. Rome experienced this with it’s armies in the last days of it’s TBTF empire too. It’s a clear historical pattern, ignored at their expense.”-subv.
Agreed in principle. We keep learning what happens when you fire an entire security apparatus for the sake of ‘sending a message’: you end up meeting them again, just not the way you intended.
[Thank you Mr. Paul Bremer].
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Bremer#Disbanding_the_Iraqi_Army
What money?!
Credit unions are a far safer place to put your money.
I have pretty much done all my banking with my Credit Union for years now and it has worked great! No ATM fees, my daughters could get their own student accounts with no ATM fees, I
paid off my bank mortgage on my house with a Home equity account at 3% interest with $0 closing costs.
I then have used that Home Equity loan to fund investments in
energy efficiency which have already paid off in lower heating bills with my new new energy efficient furnace and triple pane windows, my solar carport making 90% of my electricity, etc.
I don’t think the Credit unions will screws its owners, ie we the depositors and shareholder members.
In all likelihood though the banks would come screaming and dispatching their legions of lobbyists against the Credit Unions as “unfair competition”. But they tried that a few years and lost. I doubt even the banks will be able to touch the Credit Unions with their natural banking (lol) of embedded political support…
You know, they may well do that in some places. But there will be other places where the locals and the government officials will team up and not protect the 1%. Where the elites have more power they will protect them for awhile but only until they see the damage being done.
I can’t help but think that it is more than a coincidence that the price of oil is declining as QE winds down. A lot of that money was going into commodity speculation – which is what the Fed wanted. A sort of “gimmicked” inflation that is now ending. But it is certainly telling that OPEC can no longer control it’s members and the biggest producers have said they will not ramp down production to reduce the supply.
“I can’t help but think that it is more than a coincidence that the price of oil is declining as QE winds down. A lot of that money was going into commodity speculation – which is what the Fed wanted. A sort of “gimmicked” inflation that is now ending.”-d.
And I agree with you. QE propped asset prices and encouraged commodity speculation. When QE was ‘cut’ (there’s still a ton of intervention from the Fed, especially against precious metals) price fell in response to lower demand… In spite of all the shenanigans.
Jim, you are correct to find Saudi Arabia as the lynchpin of our long-term futures. There is one “if” here: readers of Robert Baer’s book Sleeping with the Devil will recall how much payola–and there’s no other word for it–that the House of Saud funnels to extremists. It keeps them busy abroad.
As long as this source of funding reaches ISIS, they have no incentive, short-term, to try to overthrow the Kingdom. So any prediction of a takeover by these fanatics is premature. Long-term threat? Oh, yeah; it is the holy land for these guys. Yemen, with its own toxic maniacs, is next door too.
What if a power struggle follows the king’s death? Then all bets are off. I was wrong before, however, when Abdullah took power. I’d expected it all to fall apart then. And it will fall apart, with the big Saudi oilfields being well past peak and that source of payola diminishing. Our press never reported the 2007 leak that the Saudi Head of Exploration at Aramco let slip: Saudi reserves were overstated by as much as 40%. Only the Guardian in the UK reported it.
The Saudi lost his job, though he tried to retract what he had said to US sources: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2011/feb/08/saudi-oil-reserves-overstated-wikileaks
So the Saudis were prudent to try to crush US shale oil: if they can ride out the crash with their cash reserves, when oil bounces back, but US shale does not, the payola to the fanatics can continue.
There’s a method to that madness. Terrorism keeps defense budgets elevated and growing. American military first and foremost job is to protect the oil and make sure it keeps flowing. That essentially means protecting Saudi Arabia’s interests. By extension terrorism protects Saudi Arabia. So Saudi funding of terror groups is like them putting loose change in a parking meter. The money is trivial to them, but what it generates in protection …MARON.
Wow. What an apt metaphor…”like putting loose change in a parking meter.” It is chump-change to the Saudi royal family.
As long as Al Qaeda focuses on the “distant enemy” in the West and ISIS focuses on the “near enemy” in Syria and Iraq, all is well for the rich boys driving their European supercars in The Kingdom.
What a cock-up. It’s like the years before WW I, when every royal family was related to every other one and secret deals were made behind closed doors. Then a few stupid mistakes and outdated thinking brought it all down.
History rhymes.
Thanks for the link.
The Saudis may be providing some funding, but have no doubt that the US created ISIS for it’s own ends, like they created Al Qaeda. (named after a CIA/military database made for training the Taliban and Mujahedeen in Afghanistan during the Russian conflict in the 80’s. Al Qaeda means “The Base” which is what the soldiers called it.)
ISIS is just the next bogeyman in a long line. The Ministry of Perpetual War Profits in the US and Britain (MI5.MI6) trained, armed and financed this group that curiously arrived out of nowhere…with crisp, British accents no less! What happened to Al Q? Well they played their part, now it’s time for another actor on stage, forget them, the PTB already used the hook to pull ’em offstage. As long as the Saudis are allied with the US and both are funding and supporting them, ISIS will be on stage as the “baddy”. Those gnarly decapitation videos? Notice the small, bloody knives the executioners are holding. Do you really think you can hack through a human neck with one of those? It takes a hatchet or a cleaver to chop a chicken’s head off. Humans’ necks are 20 times the size of a chicken’s with lots more musculature. That’s why a sword, axe or guillotine have been the implements of choice for this job for centuries. Just another fake “enemy” to whip up support for endless Profits…ahem, wars. Old tricks are the best tricks and the elites never tire of the classics. Shame shit, new day. Start building your world made by hand and ignore the side show, it’ll just piss you off.
No one has the bigger picture in view. We are printing paper money to buy tangible items such as oil. If the so called authorities had brains, they would buy up the worlds oil and leave North American assets in the ground as a future store of energy in the event of war, etc. When the others have sold all of theirs for paper, we would have something to fall back on while finally making the change to renewable and a different way of life. The fast money traders are all about grabbing money now and leaving North America holding the bag. Our children will have that bag firmly in their grip.
The notion of energy “self sufficiency” is truly perverse, as you point out.
If we produce oil pedal to the metal, perhaps for a brief time we could actually produce all the oil we consume in the US. We would then be depleting reserves at a breakneck pace, and soon domestic production would plummet and we would rely on imports for a larger share of our consumption that would have been the case if we had not tried to produce up the yin yang.
I am mystified by how a human being with a brain can actually think the “self sufficiency” is a solution to anything. The only rationale I can think of is that they must believe that after we use up our resources we will simply “find a bunch more”.
Does it really matter? If we have high prices next month then it is our problem. If we have high prices 10 years out then it is our kids problem. If we have high prices 30 years out it is our grand kids problem. Face it folks, we live on a fixed planet and it is heading to a ‘World Made By Hand’ either sooner or later and the timing is rather insignificant.
I personally am converting my power tool wood shop business to a hand tool shop and teaching my grandkids how to saw, plane and nail. I tell them hand skills are important and like all grandkids, they don’t pay much attention (I never did either). We also installed a hand pump in the well. Yeah, I guess we are a Prepper, whatever that means.
Since there will be a lot of people blindsided by whatever happens, it may be necessary to defend what is yours. So we take the grandkids shooting most week ends weather permitting.
That’s my plan; YMMV.
Lindy
You could install about an 8kv solar system which would now cost you about 17K before tax credits. Add a battery storage system for another 5k, net about 16K after Fed credits. Then charge all of your power tools and your electric car – voila, good to go for at least 25yrs. If you do it yourself subtract another 3-4K. Don’t tell me its not possible cause I’ve just done it. BTW Nissan (Leaf) just said they’re coming out with a 200mi/charge electric for about 30K and there are others in the pipeline. After Elon finishes his $1B battery factory who knows where we’ll be down the cost curve. Do it now.
Like printing fiat currency to infinity and beyond… in a world with finite resources.
We need to keep clearly in mind what is real and what is not real. Oil is real. The non-negotiable need for oil to fuel the form of modern civilization we have adopted is real. Junk bonds are not real. Fiat money is not real. Even the value of gold is not real. They are abstractions. We agree among ourselves to treat them as if they were real but they are not.
When our reliance on an abstraction fails us, it’s a dangerous moment of course, as people panic and jockey for advantage in both the chaotic time of crisis, and in the anticipated new order that will eventually arise.
When the Housing Finance-fueled bubble burst and triggered the derivatives in 2007-2008, it appeared that the collapse of our cosmology of finance was at hand. By the “rules,” it should have been. But the rules of Finance are not, as is commonly believed, natural laws. They are communally-held abstractions. So we just changed those rules and carried on more or less as before.
That’s what we’re going to do here, too. We won’t stop needing oil. We aren’t going to automatically move to a sustainable economy and way of life because derivatives blow up and there isn’t any more junk-bond financing for oil extraction. We’ll change the rules again and come up with a new way to assign profit in return for the energy we need and have the physical ability to extract.
When EROEI drops to 1:1, however, then things will really change. EROEI is real. Financial abstractions are not.
“When EROEI drops to 1:1, however, then things will really change. EROEI is real. Financial abstractions are not.”-swmn.
This is completely true and utterly valid. However, we live in a real world where real people need to get paid in _real cash or bankable equivalent_ to do real things – by people who believe in and get paid for unreal activity.
So when the cash-flow stops for six months, a year, maybe two years what happens? Production stops. Restarting production costs money (or burns energy in a hypothetical cashless society). That cost must be factored into the EROEI calculation. That leaves a lot of inherently costly ‘exotic’ oil wells in the dust. In the meantime, discretionary and real *Demand* has fallen, so the oil that is pumped receives a lukewarm reception on the market, at best… And so on.
At this point you realize that we’re describing a deflationary down-spiral. In the short-term, ‘tactical’ sense you may really think that you’re getting somewhere, but you’re not. You’re actually going backwards due to opportunity cost.
That’s a really good point too. I’m not sure how this is going to play out, but I don’t think we’re going to leave the oil in the ground for the long term because our current financial system has painted itself into an abstract corner.
I could be wrong, though.
We agree in part: IF an organization of some type has a _real need_ for the stuff – to defend itself, or to do what Henry Ford described as the essential economic activities (growing stuff, transporting stuff & fabricating tools to do the first two things) – they will *find a way*.
But that scenario occurs in an environment vastly different than the one we’re in, where 70% of economic activity is retailing goods and services, most of which are entirely discretionary.
From what I understand the difference in production flow is virtually nill if EROEI is 80 or 40 0r 20. It’s only when you get close to the cliff of around 8 or 10 that production is impacted. And no one knows for sure where that cliff is.
I do agree that the upcoming presidential election, if it even happens this time, isn’t going to be the same old Lameness As Usual. If it came down to a contest between Hillary and Rand Paul, I would definitely vote for Rand Paul. Does Hillary Clinton have any idea how much of the Democratic Party’s much-ignored-and-abused liberal base simply can’t stand her?
Hillary is unpopular with the progressive base, who are the antithesis of “liberal”.
Why do people continue to consent to their lies?
Welcome my friends to the show that never ends. Call it a banquet of consequences if you wish but its going to look more a steaming plate of putrid and disgusting shit. Will it be just desserts for you or shall it be off to bed without any supper as one of the ones who really won’t be deserving it at all.
But deserve it or not it is going to happen. And the irony of it all is that by keeping some of the lunatics at the fringe, our fate was sealed. But this fact will be out of mind to the masters of power who while deserving a shit sandwich for their part in the coming clusterfuck with enough resources tucked away will make it through. Through the dark tunnel of a future about to be born.
“The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned.
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
Oh yeah, that’s how it must go. But first the Hawks will go to the Superbowl.
Go Hawks !!!!
How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat?!?!?!?!?
“Stand *Still* Laddy! …”
🙂
[chuckle]
It’s a great album.
Beautiful…
A technical question. Lots of people are predicting widespread defaults of junk bonds related to shale/fracking, and associated losses in derivatives. My question is….how does one detect that this is happening? What does one look for in the financial news, what companies to follow, to watch this all unfold in real time? For example, are there bond funds predominantly invested in bonds related to fracking?
I mean, if we are all going to hell in a Dodge, and can’t do anything about it, we may as well watch it unfold.
Companies go belly up.
I mean, if we are all going to hell in a Dodge, and can’t do anything about it, we may as well watch it unfold.
And enjoy the low price at the pump while it lasts. If it’s “to shit” either way, I’ll take the low gas price way for now and not look it in the mouth, even though I know it ain’t no gift horse and the effect is only temporary.
Bye, Bye United States and the rest of the world that copied us.
The prospect of what is coming next is rather terrifying. I don’t think anyone saw the collapse in oil price coming. I think most believed we were in for a gradual increase in price over time, painful but manageable. This is 10 times worse. Everyone thinks happy days are here again, the skies above are blue again, and when the hammer falls man it’s gonna hurt. It reminds me of what they did with JFK. They created arguably the most quintessentially optimistic moment in American history, and then they utterly shattered it.
Bite your tongue… being in the middle of the “oil patch” one here saw it coming a long time ago. Been informing those that aren’t too distracted to listen to reason… very few slowed down long enough to think about it. Pity when they finance new homes, $60K pickup trucks, boats, etc. It’ll be fire sale time soon.
Along the beautifully expensive San Francisco Peninsula in California the drought persists in its fury – the U.S. Drought Monitor for the State of California (National Drought Mitigation Center) Exceptional Drought rating for the State has increased seven points in the last week to 39.15 percent of the State being under Exceptional Drought, the highest rating. No coincident to the yet again deepening drought the canvas covers of many a male Baby Boomer’s unsmogged high performance 1950s and 1960s “muscle car” have come out from under the canvas wrap and the garage and are now in abundant evidence on the warm weekends. I expect the drought to persist and look forward to the soon-to-arrive day when these cars will once again be sequestered under their protective wraps, though the automobile crusher would be a far more appropriate termination.
So, what happens when ISIS gets around to looking at the new Saudi – cough – Maginot Line?
A beard scratcher for sure. Mostly about what in Allah’s name the Saudis were thinking. To go around it or go through it? Decisions, decisions…
I’ll bet the initial assessment will be 3hrs and 15 minutes. Two hours for a light desert brunch, an hour nap and 15 minutes, maybe less, knocking a big hole.
I doubt the Saudi princes and princesses will stick around. No, no worries, they’ll be long gone. No taste in that set for blood and gore, especially their own.
Yep, as soon as the ISIS Beheader-in-Chief sets his gaze on the Saudi border, the bags will be packed and loaded, jets screaming down the runway.
If I was a betting man I would bet the arrangements have long been made, applications filed, palms greased, approvals given, forms duly stamped. No problems at customs and immigration, yes, their foreign hosts (maybe American) will be waiting with open arms. After checking of course that the promised wire transfers were made. Trust, as Gorby said (or maybe it was Reagan) but verify. Especially with that gang.
Oh, and expect a Saigon moment in Riyadh with American choppers taking off the embassy roof and compound. And multitudes of desperate Saudis, like Vietnamese 40 years ago.
I saw the 1975 version on the evening news. Were you around?
“If I was a betting man I would bet the arrangements have long been made, applications filed, palms greased, approvals given, forms duly stamped. No problems at customs and immigration, yes, their foreign hosts (maybe American) will be waiting with open arms. After checking of course that the promised wire transfers were made. Trust, as Gorby said (or maybe it was Reagan) but verify. Especially with that gang.”-v.
Remember how the Kuwaiti elite spent the Gulf War partying in Cairo?
“Oh, and expect a Saigon moment in Riyadh with American choppers taking off the embassy roof and compound. And multitudes of desperate Saudis, like Vietnamese 40 years ago.
I saw the 1975 version on the evening news. Were you around?”-v.
‘Twas an interesting spectacle. And so were the media and the administration attempts at spinning it as a … what [?]… positive [?]… somehow.
Details change, game remains.
One here saw that on the evening news… back when news was what was happening… kinda. Though you’re admittedly not a betting man, you can safely bet your boots that the Saudi “royalty” started rolling up the magic carpets and have the Lears on standby as soon as the meeting between Obama and the Saudi PTB agreed that their (OPEC) flooding the market(s) with oil would cause significant harm to the Russian economy. Another shot heard ’round the world… and the Saudi “royalty” has been preparing to head for the hills… er, dunes.
Don’t forget the old “tunneling” approach too.
I got my eye on a hemi-powered RAM 1500 with heated leather seats. Only question is fire-engine red or jet black.
This reminds me of an old adage:
He who doesn’t RAM the goose, strokes The Goat.
I believe he is predicting the Great Tribulation. The Book of Revelation, or Apocalypse is an unveiling. It does not mean end of the world. What happened to the dinosaurs; now that was an end of a world, the death of a planet. What will happen to humans at the end of the oil age is more of a skin rash.
Except at the end, we will not have enough electricity to cool all the lovely nuclear power plants. Pop. Pop. No more population.
Oh, you brought up the ‘subject-which-must-not-be-discussed’; the fact that there’s no plan to unwind nuclear power-plants in the event of a generalized collapse. SO… maybe not a ‘world made by hand’ at all… b/c no ‘hands’.
“Events are moving faster than brains now”. andTechnology has advanced past our spiritual evolultion. Dangerous. Researchers have proven that too much computer time decreases childrens’ capacity for empathy. GREAT.!! Indeed, enjoy the low fuel prices. and the thought of Hillary being nominated on the Democratic side.What a blessing to us. Hillary, the brain in search of a soul. May the Great spirit or something larger than we bless the U.S.
Jim, this may turn out to be one of your more prescient blog posts, and it fits well with the saw-toothed oil plateau that you and other peak-oil thinkers have been postulating for at least a decade. I personally can’t unreservedly buy any of the current stories about why the price of oil has collapsed the way it has – the Saudis? Global demand? Russia? ISIS? Other? – but it does suggest another tooth in an up-and-down process of resource depletion, capital destruction, and conflict generation as the needle jiggles along near Empty. $5 gas and heating oil by Christmas 2016? Who knows?
As you know, I have been playing with one scenario – near publication now – where America temporarily subsides into an authoritarian petro-state, starved of capital, and then evolves into something else. See “Inter States” at http://interstates2040.wikispaces.com/home
Comments & critiques welcome.
“INTER STATES: Fossil Nation” coming out in E-book and paperback 2nd half of 2015.
I wrote my post before I saw your posting. It is just a little downthread, and you may find it interesting.
The US is really looking shabby…… Oil, or no oil, won’t change that.
As I see it, temporary low oil prices have something for everyone: each major country (USA, SA, Russia, and China), each of their major interests (finance, big oil, etc.), and each leader. Further, temporary low oil prices are consistent with each national stereotype. Therefore, temporary low oil prices we will have.
But after low oil prices have done their work, a new environment will emerge, and we will see who the better chess players are.
Why does everyone assume collapse/catastrophe? We’ve had a slow bleed ever since the 1970’s. A collapse/catastrophe is possible, but I think more likely the “slow bleed” will continue for a long time. The American people are very passive, put up with endless degradation and lies, and this will continue.
While I agree with your basic premise, there were several collapses. The entire decade of the 1970’s, the early 80’s, the early 90’s, 2008. In between the Reagan boom, the Clinton boom. Fundamentally, everything will change with oil scarcity. I think a 1970’s style collapse is a good bet. Gas lines. Inflation out the wazoo. Then it gets worse and it’s anybody’s guess what comes next. Certainly telecommuting. Certainly home gardens or “Victory Gardens.” Dramatic drop in meat consumption. Dramatic drop in entertainment.
Think about the way a building collapses: there are decades of “slow-bleed” – in this analogy dry-rot, pests, roof leaking, etc. – and then one day the structural supports go, and the whole thing is in the street.
In every system’s demise the longest drop is the last 1/4-1/3rd of structural integrity.
Like boiling frogs. There must be a line in the sand for the distracted… somewhere.
Have you ever been to France? I have. In France, I am an Austraulopthecine in the Land of Sapiens, below everyone there, where waiters pull rank.
Maybe it’s the Dr. Scholl’s, maybe they have a kind of advanced social x-ray vision, I don’t know, but they spot me a mile away.
I admit it, I just don’t have their exquisite refinement, their civilized connoisseur-ship. I just don’t. They can distinguish between thousands of different kinds of ham, sausages, cheese and wines. They have hundreds of words just for pâté. I don’t know how they do it. I am in awe.
I tell you, even their homeless look at me with disdain. I can see it in their eyes, those shoes monsieur, they disqualify you…
And I hang my head. I’m furious with my upbringing and the place I grew up in, people that told me to watch my hat size, that cooked and ate plain food, people that taught me that too much concern with clothes and appearances is unbecoming.
I shake my fist at corporate America, I curse television advertising.
And I despise groceries for selling me food I like.
Look at what they’ve done, I’m happy putting Kraft cheese slices on burgers. Why can’t I be like the French? Why can’t we ALL be like the French?
It’s the voyeur in me and the boor but I watch the French eat. I can’t help it. It’s fascinating and horrifying. They put things in their mouth that I think are vile, but that they consider delicacies. Snails? Fuck me. And that isn’t the worst of it, not by a long-shot. But, of course, in the end, I defer to their superiority.
Which maybe explains my reaction to those Hebdo cartoons. I’ve seen some. But again, French sophistication has it over me, they sense and see things that I can’t.
So, when they use their great discernment and they say “free speech” and they say “hate speech”, I have to take it on trust. What else can I do?
A very thoughtful post, V.
But don’t underestimate the US strengths: the USPTO, CDC Atlanta, Mayo Clinic, U of California, and distribution of goods as it has never been done before (on the wane, granted, but still the best in the world).
Remember what St Benedict said, the finest condiments are hunger and salt. Beyond that, nothing is needed. Ever have good bread when you were really hungry? Was it not a feast worthy of the gods?
Every front has a back. The more sophisticated in some ways, the more crude in others: they think Jerry Lewis is a comic genius. And they think the scatological Charlie Hebdo was not only funny, but clever.
And they think the scatological Charlie Hebdo was not only funny, but clever. – Janos
================
Nowhere but in your comment have I read that scatology was Charlie’s main vehicle for humor or satire. You have to admit though that shit can be funny.
I for one am glad that such a paper exists that calls into question ALL belief systems, particularly religion. And satire and sarcasm are such incredibly powerful weapons. Nothing can infuriate the target of these weapons more. (I nearly lost my job for unconsciously using sarcasm in, of all things, financial audit reports. Very unprofessional but, WOW, what an impact.)
Nothing can shine a brilliant light on stupidity more than well done satire. There can be no greater proof that the target needs to examine its belief systems if it feels driven to murder.
All that aside for the moment… let me be the first, Janos, to wish you a Happy MLK Jr. Day. I’m sure you are at home enjoying these federally mandated hours of respite from the daily grind as you contemplate with heartfelt empathy the plight of the American Negro. 😉
I think you drank the Kool-Aid.
Maurice Sinet, the cartoonist fired by Charlie Hebdo was dismissed for refusing to write an apology for what he wrote. not for what he wrote.
The editor, Val, was just as responsible for letting it go through.
Val was responding to pressure from Sarkozy and friends who somehow read anti-Semitism into a remark that Sine had made though took a bit of effort to read it that way.
Val wanted Sine to do the public groveling.
[Sine had responded to rumors that Sarkozy’s son converted to Judaism upon marrying a rich Jewess by saying the boy would go a long way.] In the end Charlie Hebdo paid Sine 40,000 Euros on the order of a labor tribunal for wrongful dismissal.
Charlie wants the National Front banned. They think they have the right to mock Judaism, but not the Right. Most of them are probably Jews so it makes sense. Jews can mock everything but no one can mock them.
Yes Janos, isn’t it time for you to say a few compassionate homilies about the “plight of the American Negro?”
C’mon now, Janos.. . “This is where the healing begins”.
😉
In my best Hebedo fashion I say, I projectile vomit on your healing.
Jerry Lewis was a comedian?
“So, when they use their great discernment and they say “free speech” and they say “hate speech”, I have to take it on trust. What else can I do?”-v.
LOL… Nicely done.
😉
I’m furious with my upbringing and the place I grew up [in], – Volodya
==================
Great post Vol…I smiled a lot.
If it’s self-improvement you seek you might consider dropping the word I bracketed in the excerpt above. It adds no more to your thought than if it were not there. In other words it’s superfluous.
How we get there and when we’ll arrive I have no idea,
but we appear destined to end up:
living in our broken-down, permanently parked vehicles (if you’re fortunate enough to have one), broke and hungry,
pre-occupied with getting food and water for the day while fending off
armed and desperate “fellow” Americans as well as out of control weather (i.e. the elements, which will be far more dangerous than they are currently due to climate chaos).
I’ll set the over/under at 8 yrs…
“Oh I was young and easy under the apple boughs and happy as the day was long” in those days but when?when?when? is the fourth turning so long expected a consumation devoutly to be wished? 1987. March 2000. September 2008. My first inkling 1972–and that means 40 years plus wandering in the wilderness. I have prepared all my life and not done a damn thing…
Let’s not lose the last point: Mr Kunstler just came out in favor of the 2nd Amendment as being the defender of the other nine. Welcome to Red America, home of the greatest riflemen in the world.
I wouldn’t try it, Janos.
Semi-automatics are no match for tanks, let alone the weapons of the 1980’s (helicopter gunships) or weapons of the 2000’s (surveillance), or weapons of the 2010’s (drones). And just possibly, the oldest weapons of all: blockade and starvation.
The Polish cavalry put grenades on the tip of their sabers and inserted them into the treads of tanks. Oh ye of little faith!
If guns don’t matter, then why are they so hell bent on disarming us? Have you seen the sniper movie? Do. Every US soldier is considered an enemy once he returns from abroad. I wonder if they mention that in the recruitment brochures?
But I agree: our best weapon is the Amish path of farm work and lots of kids. Let’s breed them out of existence. The Elite tend only to have one kid if any.
But what do you make of Mr Kunstler’s statement? I did notice how you shifted the whole thing on to me. But you aren’t getting off so easily. To judge is to be judged after all.
I was not trying to shift it all onto you, Janos. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
I was giving friendly advice where I thought it might be needed – you just might be energetic enough to do something yourself. K was writing in the passive mood, and needed no caution.
And how much did any of that matter in Afghanistan (population 28 million, roughly the size of Texas) or in Iraq (population 26 million, smaller than Afghanistan)?
The lower-48 contiguous states have 318+ million people to keep track of, and – thanks to decades of neglect – wide swathes of territory that convert into ‘no-go’ areas in the event of a life-support shut-off.
Surveillance and firepower are great problem-solvers at the tactical level, not the strategic… And that’s before we factor in security forces deserting or going renegade for pay/family/personal security reasons.
See, there really is a very good reason to avoid sucking an economy dry to the point of destabilization.
Iraq and regions of Afganistan had a sense of community. Much of the population was aware of realities like where food comes from. From these antecedents, freedom fighters can arise to bleed an invader.
I see no such social cohesion or widespread savvy as obtained there – I see a people readily controlled by supermarket checkouts. I agree about ‘no-go’ zones, but that just makes them easy to police; or should I say, easy to drone?
As for a reason to avoid sucking an economy dry, I quite agree. One need only recall Henry Ford’s thinking on the subject of economies of scale.
But, of course, I speculate. For all I know, you are closer to the truth.
Excellent points Mr.D.
As an military man I know the power of modern weapons systems, however, (and it’s a huge however) the contemporary landscape reveals that dedicated popular resistance can stalemate or even prevail over the most powerful forces.
Just a few ready examples for you to mull over:
– Ricepaddy-racer shod Vietnamese, Viet Minh, Viet Cong and NVA regulars defeated both the French and the U.S.A. in Indochina circa 1950s – 1970s.
– Those “good Muslim” fighters the “Mujahadin” defeated the Soviet Union, in that grave of empire Afghanistan, in the 1980s. Thoughtfully funded by the good ol’ U.S.A. and among the (un)intended consequences was Osama Bin Laden and the stirrings of both Al-Qaida and the Taliban. Nice job!
The Bush presidents (may God help us if there is another) caused the abortion that is currently rump Iraq (and the longest active military engagement in U.S. history btw: +25 yrs) and we can see the massive blood and treasure of the U.S.A. was spent for but a temporal “mission accomplished.”
And it appears that Hezbollah engages the Israelis to a bloody draw each time they play the real game.
Management rule #1 never underestimate the opponent.
The U.S.A in a state of pandemonium, revolution, or proposed conquest would be serious hell for any contestant.
Let’s not lose the last point: Mr Kunstler just came out in favor of the 2nd Amendment as being the defender of the other nine. – Janos
Do I have to point out that there are more than 10 amendments to the Constitution?
First ten are considered the Bill of Rights.
Reply to Mr.Darling. Oh yes, no way to decommission the nuclear power plants in collapse and no oil to keep them running, and/or, the workers can’t get there. Dilemma,no?. That would mean, bye bye-no mouths to feed.period. and climate change is worse than we’re being told. so… what’s the good news? Be happy now may be the best gig goin.
“Oh yes, no way to decommission the nuclear power plants in collapse and no oil to keep them running, and/or, the workers can’t get there. Dilemma,no?.”-barb.
Hi!
To be clear, I never said that there wasn’t a way (or several) to defuse the nuke-plants, just no *plan* to, that we know of. In a real pinch, it would be up to local and regional organizations (ad hoc or not) to save their own bacon. [*]
Not impossible, actually doable. But to do it we need to have it have it on the ‘to do’ list.
re | “what’s the good news? Be happy now may be the best gig goin.”-barb.
I don’t put a lot of faith in ‘fundamental hedonism’ as a problem-solver. This the same mind-set that the 1% have relied upon to mismanage things into the state they are now… And they still expect the macro-outcome to be someone else’s problem.
— — —
[*] Hmm, could be an interesting scenario for a novel, no? ;]
Yes, ISIS threatens Saudi Arabia from the north, and a wall is not going to stop them, any kind of wall, but just today, at Samaa, Yemen, on Saudi Arabia’s southern border, there was serious fighting around the presidential palace. The US Embassy is threatened and the Yemeni Govt. can fall any day, leaving the country open to Al Queada on the Arabian Peninsula.
The Saud king is in his 90s. It looks like his country is caught up in a classic pincer movement.
brh
I don’t know, heckler. Eight months ago there was desperate talk that Baghdad was going to fall into the hands of the Islamic State and it hasn’t happened. Perhaps the Islamic State will go the way of Ebola and eventually Charlie Hebdo — it’ll fade from the news cycle limelight and a year from now, you and I may say “hey, whatever happened to or with the Islamic State?” as we’ve done with Ebola. I’m not too worried. Bring it on — it’s what we’ve all be waiting for and hoping for — some real action in our own backyards that we can touch, feel and breath rather than perpetual empty threats of it.
Youre probably right, CNH.
The worst doesn’t usually happen.
Another day, another failed state;
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-19/yemeni-government-admits-it-has-lost-control-nation-amid-attempted-coup
I never did like French dressing, but I love French Fries and I’m betting you do too with that Kraft Singles-adorned hamburger.
But I agree: our best weapon is the Amish path of farm work and lots of kids. Let’s breed them out of existence. The Elite tend only to have one kid if any.
Just out of curiosity, how many have you contributed to the cause thus far? If none, it’s time to get busy, but you’ll have to put down the keyboard before you RAM the goose.
I have a house but no haus frau. I haven’t been able to find a woman who can cook, clean, is very good looking, and willing to worship me as a living god. Is this asking too much? I don’t think so.
So; you’re not very serious about begetting, in other words?
I haven’t been able to find a woman who can cook, clean, is very good looking, … willing to worship me as a living god…
================
and, oh yeah, has big tits.
Old one, an offering. A lens to see back thru the long years of your life; to understand how your mind was darkened and your perspective warped and how you were denied your heritage until I rolled away the stone of your tomb.
http://www.dailystormer.com/memory-lane-vintage-jew-propaganda/comment-page-1/#comment-1853908
Good things will happen if you change your outlook. Enjoy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFsmqobUZ7A
Love this essay. Can I vote for you, Jim? Please?
The new GOP congress certainly have their priorities in order. They wasted no time proposing legislation that “would amend the 1906 Antiquities Act to effectively block the President from designating any new national monuments without congressional approval and an extensive environmental review.”
Like Rush Limbaugh, most republicans would rather make money off of a picnic table or backyard deck that protect what’s left of the great forests.
Great group of fellas, that Grand Ol’ Party. The death of the shale oil boom couldn’t have happened to a most deserving cadre of hypocrites.
I agree, but the environmental movement lost its balls too for fear of being called “rayciss”. Fuckers sold out to immigration proponents like la Raza, Big Banks, Big Business and Big Jews. I say….for what? They navel-gaze, beat their breasts, rend their raiment into washcloth and ashes…..for what? The wetbacks who totally trash the SW border? Who are so stupid, they utterly wiped out beavers in their deserts? Once virtually the entire North American Southwest was populated with dry-season beaver ponds up to 20 feet deep around the lodges and in the flatlands, over fifty MILES wide after the monsoons.
These ponds were the reason huge herds of longhorns could thrive in utterly hellish heat and aridity. The slow receding of the waters during the dry-season brought forth lush grasses and reeds. Fish in abundance, game in abundance and the stupid metizos raped it all for short-term profit. Fuck them and the Sierra club Tijuana donkey show they belly-ride in.
Interesting angle Bless. I haven’t thought of the environmental movement, or lack thereof, as having a racial aspect. But it makes sense that more people results in more environmental degradation. And, people who are economically marginalized such as illegal immigrants probably do not have much concern for environmental issues. As Janos wrote last week, when the going gets really tough, start using coal and the hell with environment; freezing is far worse.
Big Biz has us coming and going. Pit environmental issues against faux-egalitarian causes such as unlimited immigration via classic divide and conquer strategy.
Nice word painting of the SW beaver ponds and it sounds like you’ve had some up close experience. It’s hard to be thankful for such experience, however, when it’s needlessly destroyed. Perhaps it’s best to have never seen such beauty.
A lot of people hate beavers because their work floods meadows but yeah, they are amazing. Is this why the Mestizos killed them? Or was to eat them or something? And if was because of the flooding, wouldn’t the White Ranchers and farmers be doing the same thing?
Great picture: Beaver dens are much more complex and well built than Black African structures. I’ve heard there’s one in Northern Canada that can be seen from space and houses hundreds of Beavers.
http://www.dailystormer.com/economists-cant-figure-out-why-the-children-of-successful-black-fail-always/
Eat them and sell the fur. As for white ranchers in arid areas, I just look at them in total disgust. Here is a source of water for your cattle in the dry season, WTF is wrong with you, are you a fucking retard indio? It’s one of the few times I have to stand by the beaver-lovin’ dykes. (Watch the video)
Desert Beavers
It’s a little long, but just watch the carpet-mucher practically sink up to her titties. It’s a fucking desert, the crick was just ankle deep the year before the beavers got there. The rodents literally cobbled together cowshit, scrap wood, brush, rocks and mud to turn that wash-out gully into a permanent oasis. Imagine every single desert crick, both permanent and seasonal, with beaver families up and down them.
Their ponds recharge the water table like gang-busters, every single piece of good, high water table, high fertilized farmland is because of beavers. What the fuck were we thinking?
I was reading up about Siberia, it’s estimated about 90% of the ungulates there are going to freeze and starve to death both because the snowfall has been horrendous (3 feet) and it is bitterly cold. If we still had bison, mammoths and woolly rhinos there, the death rate would be far lower, simply because these animals are very good snowplows. I know, sounds off-topic, but it never fails to amaze me how easily humans destroy the keystones species.
If I wanted to worship an animal as a God, it would be the beaver, hands down, no question.
Go easy on the Beaver.
Just watched the news, and they show people in mideastern countries freaking out about Charlie Hebdo, rioting in some instances. Sounds like the whole Muslim world is pissed off with satirical pictures of Mohammed being printed. Is it jihad time yet?
Huh? How is today’s low oil price destroying the possibility to deliver oil in the future “at any price”?
JHK is a great writer, but an economics moron. The current oil price collapse will lead to the end of being able to deliver oil at $45/barrel once the US fracking industry shakes out, yes. But they’ll be back on their feet when oil returns to $90/barrel, as it inevitably will within a few years.
It’s called “supply and demand”. It’s called boom and bust (which has been the history of the oil market for the last 150 years). It’s called how the market works when the supply & demand equation gets thrown out of balance.
I don’t get why JHK is so clueless. Peak oil is coming, but it’s still years away from hitting us broadside. Does Kunstler even GET that low prices means production is dwarfing demand? The very opposite of oil scarcity?
I guess that’s why Kunstler has successfully predicted 17 of the last two recessions. LOL. By ignoring his annual forecast of a Dow 4500 by year’s end, I’ve become borderline rich. Reality is a harsh mistress.
Because the oil drilling is financed with money that comes from investors. If these investors get burned i.e. it will be much harder to get financing for future drilling. After the dot.com bubble burst, it was a lot harder to bring IPO’s to the market. Now Google, Facebook, Alibaba and others did come, but these offerings were much higher quality and far less risky. the same will be true for oil if the shale bubble in fact pops. Only the highest quality, lowest risk plays will get funded.
More on sarcasm from today’s NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/20/us/scalia-lands-at-top-of-sarcasm-index-of-justices-shocking.html?_r=0
“But they’ll be back on their feet when oil returns to $90/barrel, as it inevitably will within a few years.”-drG.
So – (just out of curiosity) – why is it inevitable that oil will be priced at “$90/barrel” (either WTI or Brent)?
re | “Does Kunstler even GET that low prices means production is dwarfing demand? The very opposite of oil scarcity?”-drG.
If demand for oil is being overwhelmed by supply, then why is the price of copper, iron ore and the volume of global shipping (re: Baltic Dry Index) falling? All of these are bottom-line, hard-to-fake measures of economic activity.
By the way; if demand was inflexible, why would employment being falling year-over-year in the US & elsewhere? Wouldn’t it be ‘full speed ahead’? Wouldn’t the retail sector be booming if demand was firm? Wouldn’t we be reeling in the midst of a consumer-spending bonanza right now, instead of holding a death-watch for the next big-box chain to flop?
We’ve lost a lot of aggregate demand since 2008 that we have never gotten back.
The hard-stats suggest that it’s not over-Supply, but under-Demand responsible for the collapse in oil prices. Prices were artificially high due to speculation back-stopped by QE from the Federal Reserve.
Will oil prices go back up? Very likely yes – probably to $70/barrel, but by that time demand will have dropped further and prices will drop again, and again, and again. Ratcheting lower each time (better-case scenario).
This is what a deflationary down-spiral looks like.
I don’t believe the guv’ment will be too interested in nationalizing oil production for the citizens. They will however be exceedingly interested in a steady, uninterrupted supply for the military. Where that will take them I don’t know, but all options are open.
Jim didn’t mention it, but someone out there has a theory that the drop in oil prices is because our Majesty Janet cut off quantitative easing (counterfeiting en masse). Makes sense. Other things might be at play though.
MD, that is a good conventional economic analysis. But I suspect that conventional economics is quite irrelevant to what is happening today.
Specifically, I suspect that every major market in every jurisdiction is manipulated directly by the most interested governments. Am I not correct to note that an SEC filing identified numerous sovereign governments who bought and sold secretly? That means that price discovery, the basis of market capitalism, is impossible.
Hence, conventional economic theory no longer applies to the global economy of 2015.
In the case of oil, I would guess that USA, SA, Russia, and China are the big influences, and low prices, in the short term, are of advantage to each. Similarly for the other industrial commodities.
We can only wait for the consequences to hit the fan, and see who has been truly advantaged, or perhaps, disadvantaged least. Then we will find out who are the chess masters, and who are the dupes.
“Specifically, I suspect that every major market in every jurisdiction is manipulated directly by the most interested governments. Am I not correct to note that an SEC filing identified numerous sovereign governments who bought and sold secretly? That means that price discovery, the basis of market capitalism, is impossible.”-sauer.
Interesting point of view – it’s one that I considered before circling back to the one I outlined above. I seriously doubt that “governments” – or any other interested parties for that matter – have sufficient leverage to sway the ‘global market’ (such as it is at this point). The preponderance of evidence (reported through official channels or confirmed empirically) say otherwise.
Two highly accessible examples of the disconnect between governmental aspirations and reality:
It was obvious to those on the ground in Baghdad in 2005 that the USA had already lost control of a situation, which by that time had “turned more corners than a 100-year hooker made of rubik’s cubes”.
It was obvious to those in Afghanistan in 2006 that it was already game-over, despite all protestations to the contrary and pipe-dreams about turning it into the “next South Korea” (actual quote of a decision-maker).
At this point in my life and level of experience, I apply the same rule-of-thumb to governmental organizations [*] that I do to most men: they mean *half* of what they say and *do* a quarter of that (at best).
— — —
[*] In all actuality, and as matter of political analysis the idea of a ‘government’ actually _functioning_ as one is most often a hoax and a farce. When reductive analysis is applied, it generally turns out that the ‘government’ in question is nothing more than one decision-making family, or a few of them… The world is a far bigger clusterf*ck than almost anyone realizes.
MD, I must completely disagree with your basic premise, that governments have (in)sufficient leverage to sway the global market.
Governments control central banks. They print money. If they want, they print more money. In the US, the president appoints the FED chairman, and the FED prints money by the trillions (that we know of). Do you think that a pension fund here and a hedge fund there has anything like these resources?
As for the ineptitude of governments, I think that you over-generalize from those who directed the invasion of Asia, and those who are obvious sociopaths. Your water is clean, your appliances rarely kill, the USPTO is the envy of the world, etc. Where politicians cannot tread, the record is good, if uninspired.
That said, the global problems (warming, nuclear) are obviously beyond the capacity of democratically elected governments, and beyond the ken of those who control them- to say nothing of the open dictatorships – so I absolutely agree with your final remark, “The world is a far bigger clusterf*ck and almost anyone realizes.”
“Governments control central banks. They print money. If they want, they print more money. In the US, the president appoints the FED chairman, and the FED prints money by the trillions (that we know of). Do you think that a pension fund here and a hedge fund there has anything like these resources?”-Sauer.
Sir, you are articulate and rational. This is relatively rare to come across in this age or any other. My retort to your paragraph above is that governments are captured (almost all of them by this point) by a few multi-billionaires [*]. The political class to a greater extent has been relegated to a managerial role.
In 2008 we saw precisely who controlled whom. The political process was tossed to the curbside for the sake of a few plutocrats – in every way.
It doesn’t get any clearer than that.
— — —
[*] These are people that are above the law, for all intents and purposes. it’s not a matter of idle conjecture, but uncomfortable fact.
Thank you for the compliment, and I address you in a similar vein.
Yes, the political class is controlled and circumscribed. So, at the risk of offending our host, I shall repost the essence of a previous comment.
Low oil prices have something for everyone: major interested countries (USA, SA, Russia, and China), each of their major interests (finance, big oil, etc.), and each leader. In my opinion.
The question is, “Which set of planners got it right?”
That is a summary of my thoughts on the subject – what do you think?
I believe youse two have distilled these various shenanigans down to the essential nub: Who benefits at the very *highest*/*final* level… and who are they?
Thanks, that surely shovels the bullshit out of the barn, and it’s a relief to see that critical thinking is not yet dead!
It’s MLK day. According to the authors of “The Bell Curve” until quite recently most jobs in the US did not require a high IQ and could be performed by anyone. People with high IQs were spread evenly throughout the population, and people with high IQs could be found among house wives, carpenters, factory workers, etc. With new high tech economy, we now have a “Cognitive Elite”. Unfortunately, there is substantial credible evidence that black people as a group have much lower IQs than whites or Asians, and low IQs among black children do not improve with special education.
Welcome to the real world Puck. You have taken the red pill. Soon you will see the real world has been turned into a wasteland. And you will realize who did it.
I post this every year on MLK day. This year I dedicate it to Puck for having the courage to read something he didn’t already agree with.
http://www.counter-currents.com/2015/01/the-case-for-skepticism-about-martin-luther-king-3/#more-52607
Truthseekers will have no choice. Inevitably they will stumble on the Human Biological Diversity (HBD) sphere. The Mano-sphere, the Jewish Question sphere among many other topics and it’s gonna slaughter a lot of their sacred cows. They will go through the stages of grief as they mourn the loss of their innocence. Then move on.
This process is increasing very rapidly. The tone online is nothing like it was just 4 years ago. Not everyone who is awakening is “up to speed” but they are getting there.
This is a fascinating article anatomy of hate
As is this one. Stephen Goodson
I link these two articles for several reasons. They showcase a mix of decent journalism (to a point) and that most white racists are actually more educated and intelligent as well as ensconced in the perceived middle to upper class stratum. Racism among lower class whites is in decline and has been since the “wigger revolution” of 1995.
The reason for that is easily understood. The white gentile middle to upper class has pulled away from the bread and butter working class whites and viciously destroyed them. Since they are “the wrong kind of whites”.
One million Muslims and Orthodox Christians in the streets of Grozny
Over a million people – Muslims and Orthodox Christians – have taken to the streets of Grozny(capital of Chechnya) to protest against caricatures of Prophet Mohammed by the Charlie Hebdo Magazine.
Their Slogans were:
“We love Prophet Mohammed”
“No to Mohammed cartoons”
“Islam is a religion of peace and creation”
“Violence is not the method”
Orthodox priests from Chechnya and other regions joined the demonstrators
Would you like it politely or prefer your teeth punched out?
Kiev has derailed the peace talks in Astana, arranged provocation in Volnovakha using its armed forces, added to its long list of war crimes artillery shelling of peaceful neighborhoods of Donetsk. And then, along with another 10,000 hypocrites Peter Poroshenko (Porno-Shenko) left on showy march in Kiev with a slogan “Je suis Volnovaha” pretended to have forgotten that it was he who ordered to kill the residents of Donbass using artillery systems.
If Kiev wanted to show Russia that it is completely inadequate and incapable of negotiations, it did it. Monkey in the blue-yellow rags ran around the house with a burning torch, breaking dishes and vases, trying to set fire to the curtains. Finally, the men of the house with a heavy sigh went looking for a gun.
Vladimir Putin on Friday night tried to reach a collective madness of Kiev regime with proposal to remove heavy artillery. At the same time Putin has shown the world that until recently he was trying to resolve the conflict peacefully. But Kiev refused – and did not even try to offer something in return. The only answer Kiev gave was violent attacks on peaceful homes.
Kiev did not want peace. Kiev wanted war. As it was demanded by American handlers. As it was demanded by “Ukrainian Patriots”.
American puppets in Kiev tried to arrange a provocation before 19th of January, when meeting of the European Council on Foreign Relations was scheduled. January 19 meeting will address the relationship of the European Union and Russia. For the US, the main goal – the final wedge between Europe and Russia. For Kiev Junta is the last hope to endure at least another year.
Kiev did everything in its power to have military instruments applied to it – exactly theses by Karl von Clausewitz: “War – a continuation of politics by other means.” When diplomatic methods do not work, military instruments have to be applied to return the yellow-blue monkey into a sane state.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation with a quiet sadness said: “We urge all members of the international community to demand from the Ukrainian authorities to move away from the logic of confrontation, unconditionally renounce the policy of the military suppression of the South-East of Ukraine to finally implement their commitments to start full-fledged constitutional reform with equal participation of all regions of the country.” Why sad? Because in NovoRussia the military instruments of coercion to bring adequacy to Kiev have already started to work.
Huge columns of military machinery were noticed near Snejnoye moving toward the front lines staffed with lots of experts in “mass entertainment”. Entertainment that would be provided in such quantities, that Kiev would not be able to clap since its hands will be cut off and stuffed deep up its ass.
Kiev, by the way, quickly realized that it crossed the line and may lose too much.
America knows when the war is going to start and Russia – how it is going to end.
“Would you like it politely or prefer your teeth punched out?”-FitM.
+
“Huge columns of military machinery were noticed near Snejnoye moving toward the front lines staffed with lots of experts in “mass entertainment”. Entertainment that would be provided in such quantities, that Kiev would not be able to clap since its hands will be cut off and stuffed deep up its ass.”-FitM.
FitM, I can tell that you have strong feelings about all of this. From a tactical standpoint it might be irritating, from a strategic standpoint? Not so much.
The people nominally ‘in-charge’ in Kiev have their backs against the wall and they believe that they have nothing to lose, so why wouldn’t they try some last-minute heroics? In the best-case scenario they get a pyrrhic victory, their NATO backers develop other priorities and two years from now ‘Gospodin POCCNR’ knocks on the door, says “Kak’ Dela!” and drops off some ‘flowers’… 😉
They simply do not matter at this point. That fact that US/NATO leadership is on the ground there says all that needs to be said about where they’re headed, as well.
I wonder if you were able to reason that cool if that was your neighborhood under the multiple rocket launchers – the “Grads”.
FitM, I’ve *been* in multiple rocket-launcher barrages.
Here’s something.
In GB no new power plants in decades, and Brits in southern England told to expect rolling black outs and brown outs. Seems ‘renewables’ are not doing the job, and the main renewable ordinary people are turning to for warmth is wood, stripping parks and woodlands of trees.
Something similar is happening in Germany too. Germans have abandoned nuclear power and coal is out. After Russia cuts off natural gas supplies, which is happening now, we’ll see if a modern industrial state can power up on windmills and solar panels. Good luck, ha!
France gets 80% of its electricity from Its nuclear power plants, so remains in good shape.
brh
From Alstom’s website,
“In the UK, Alstom is responsible for the construction of four of the six new gas-fired power plants in the UK providing close to 6 GW of new electrical power to the UK grid once complete. Our service business offers traditional spare part supply and field service support to full operation and maintenance management in the UK, Ireland and other countries in which Alstom’s OEM legacy fleet is active.”
There is also a new nuclear plant underway too. Though labours usual incompetence has delayed it by years!
Apart from scare stories in the media, point to any actual blackouts.
Just so you know as well the UK does not buy gas from Russia either!
Try commenting from the world of reality not your doomer fantasy.
Just reporting on what I read in FT of London.
Over a million people – Muslims and Orthodox Christians – have taken to the streets of Grozny(capital of Chechnya) to protest against caricatures of Prophet Mohammed by the Charlie Hebdo Magazine.
Ummm, who cares if these morons who find life and happiness an offense protest? I don’t, Bob Dole doesn’t and the American people don’t. Let them protest. What’s the point? Do they think their “protest” will actually have any kind of effect except making them appear sillier than they already appear? Instead, they should be protesting the atrocities committed against them by Putin when he massacred entire towns and villages pacifying Chechnya.
how about the ‘Black Lives Matter’ protesters up in Boston a few days ago, college students, chaining themselves to metal posts on the freeway during morning morning rush hour, stopping traffic and causing chaos?
Emergency vehicles couldn’t get thru, that is, ambulances.
brh
Same applies to these fools. They should also be instead, protesting Putin’s atrocities in Chechnya rather than stating the obvious for no apparent reason other than it’s fashionable to protest these days every time the wind blows. The reason is not the motivation — it’s ancillary.
Leading Muslim clergy in Russia proper stand with Putin and say Orthodoxy is the prime metaphysic behind Russian identity.
Christians in the Caucasus and Russia proper return the favor and join Muslims in denouncing the Islamophobic cartoons of the post-Christian West and its Zionist-dominated NSA-snooping occupier.
Such an organic tandem of Eurasian Tradition is an aspect of what frightens and repulses the Elite of the American Empire which wishes to keep Europe decadent and alienated from Russia– and. naturally Holefield sides with this sinister Elite in his repeated Russophobic comments.
nice post, tt.
Hole-filled should probably request a raise. Those think-tank “folks” have plenty of lucre; they could share a pittance, wouldn’t you think? 😉
After Russia cuts off natural gas supplies
Russia’s not going to cut off the gas. It’s economy is tanking. It can’t afford more self-inlfiicted sanctions. It needs all the revenue it can muster if it intends on keeping Ukraine out of European hands.
What will be interesting is if Russia plays the same games with China once it starts supplying it with gas in 2018. China won’t be as easily pushed around. If there is ultimately a war, it won’t be between America and China or America and Russia, but rather it will be between Russia and China and Russia will finally be done for good when it’s over — thank God.
The Chinese and Russians have never fought each other in thousands of years living right next to each other. Get serious and think white.
I once suggested to a Russian artist friend that perhaps he should consider taking up Tai Chi Chuan to alleviate some health issues he was experiencing. He immediately waved that suggestion aside and I sensed it was because he absolutely had no respect or like for the Chinese.
This Russian was a member of the Soviet Artists Union and had marble sculptures exhibited in the Ministry Of Culture. In the mid part of the last century many Chinese artists would train in the Russian academies which were, ironically enough, the only real proponents of classical art back in those days as the U.S, scene was under the AB EX sway of Greenburg, Pollack, de Kooning, Diebenkorn, etc. In short, the Soviets were propagating the French Academy/École des Beaux-Arts tradition in order to political facilitate Social Realism propaganda and the Chinese were their underlings, artistically speaking. Foolishly, this Russian artist had a warped sense of hierarchically superiority which he invoked in waving off one of the crown jewels of Chinese culture.
But the technical artistic training in the old Soviet Union was second to none. Young children trained from an early age and rigorously at that. This particular artist told me that Stalin’s granddaughter was a classmate and arrived by limousine at the Moscow Institute of Art.
The state and training of the current Russian Army, the Chinese will be setting up deckchairs on the beaches of the Crimea before they organise themselves!
http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2015/01/19/bridge-collapse-75-south/22031429/
The collapse is underway. Oy vey.
I saw that… I guess there was less holding that old thing up than they thought when they started demo-ing it. Condolences to the family of the “construction worker” (probably laborer) who went down with it.
Well, this is what happens when you let things go for forty or fifty years. We were supposed to be floating around on ‘hovercars’ by now. Who would of thought that load stresses would increase instead of decrease, with all the new technology we were supposed to have?
Maybe this is the answer to America’s race problem?:
Rapid progress in genetics is making “designer babies” more likely and society needs to be prepared, leading scientists have told the BBC.
Dr Tony Perry, a pioneer in cloning, has announced precise DNA editing at the moment of conception in mice.
He said huge advances in the past two years meant “designer babies” were no longer HG Wells territory.
Other leading scientists and bioethicists argue it is time for a serious public debate on the issue.
Designer babies – genetically modified for beauty, intelligence or to be free of disease – have long been a topic of science fiction.
Maybe the “designer babies” will come with the equivalent of ‘genetically modified’ chip to orchestrate thought control…you know, a new and improved generation of Stepford wives, blue eyes and all.
Communism went belly-up. The Civil Rights Movement went off-the-rails. I guess that the next disastrous crack at creating a Utopia with be technology related a la Michael Creighton?
“blue eyes and all.:-buck.
And what [pray tell] is wrong with having blue-eyed babies, Buck?
😉
Q, glad you enjoyed the post, thanks for the pointer, and, to fess up, I made a mess of “Australopithecine”.
For those unfamiliar with the term, Australopithecines were hominids that lived in Africa about 3 million years ago. They stood about 4 feet tall, walked erect more or less like we do and had a brain size roughly like that of a chimp. At least that’s what I’ve read.
Janos, When you’re hungry everything is good. I’ve eaten sandwiches of white bread, butter and brown sugar. You can do wonders with salt, vegetable oil and a frying pan.
Start your intentional communities, find your group. JHK’s correct. Many people won’t live. People don’t eventually. The table has been set for a banquet of consequences for sure. Good luck to us.
JHK hope you have good neighbors. Your fans hope the new book is going well. Hopefully some will get to read it.
One more prediction, Rush Limbaugh for president 2016. civilizations get what they deserve.
To a new year, and to those who make it to the World Made by Hand, I raise a toast to you. Salut. I aye was here
And Janos, I’m not very good at sarcasm but I try my hand at it once in a while anyways. So, maybe I better clarify after all this blather about French – ahem – “sophistication”.
I see this supposed sophistication as akin to the French Resistance. That is to say, overblown. Much overblown. Having said that I don’t want to minimize those French that put their asses on the line.
You see, I remember a time when French gals didn’t shave their armpits and when the French had a rep for bathing very sparingly. Kind of ruined me.
And this next bit is nasty but what the hell, I see all this concern and obsession with couture and cuisine and arts as signs that the French have truly had the biscuit and are not long for this world. To me this is a retreat into frivolity and fluffery, stuff that really, truly does not matter. I see it as national senility, declining vitality. No vigor to do the stuff that does matter, projects that take vision and energy and intellect.
This is France’s civilizational façade: the Eiffel Tower, runway collections, astronomically pricey bottles of perfume and wine.
In the meantime though, I have to admit they take a lot of people in. Really great con job. For a while they had me fooled. When I was a young fella, with limited experience of this world, I heard things. Like “au jus”. “Jus” pronounced like “shoe” except with a “zh” sound.
And I wondered WTF is “au jus”. They said it with such an air. I felt like a bumpkin. Very intimidating.
And then I found out what it was. Thin gravy. But, you see, you have to take the example, you have to close your eyes, look like you’re concentrating, and say things like “merveilleux”. And I said to myself I can get tired of this bullshit real fast.
Then there’s “ganache”. Again, I first heard this term when I was young. And, because of its perilous sonic proximity to a commonly used slang term (for the sake of clarity: “gash”, I didn’t want to actually say it, sorry ladies) I had visions of unspeakable carnal delights. When I found out what ganache actually was it was such a let-down. Chocolate syrup. Big hairy deal, right?
But the sound and the way they say it. Such a ring to it, such confidence, such mastery. So, the French put their noses in the air and the rest of us believe in our own inferiority. And we defer to the French, we call Paris the world capitol of this and that.
Bah humbug.
I’ve had my fill. I can’t distinguish between seven dollar Spanish plonk and bottles costing hundreds. And frankly Scarlett…. But, you know what? I’ll bet that the supposed connoisseurs (doesn’t it figure it’s a French word) can’t tell the difference either.
Well V, you sucked me right in.
When you suggested that one can’t judge a culture from the outside, I thought it unusual for this blog, and praiseworthy – but now I see I was mistaken about the author. Sorry about that.
Well I’ll be serious too. They’ve created a whole anti-metaphysic metaphysic to back this stuff up. A la Focault and Co, there is no essence, only details. There is no substance, only style. So? So glory in these. Needless to say, I think they’re wrong. And if they truly had the joire de vivre they wouldn’t have fallen for political correctness and brought in millions of Muslims as reparations. But that being said, there would be nothing wrong with style and taking joy in the details, if one had substance already. All these things could just enhance or express the fundamental.
And some of their details are good. Focusing on the little things does enhance life. They love their little butchers and bakers, so they kept the big box stores out of the city centers. Impressive. And at least for some, the obsession with taste cross pollinates with eating fresh and organic food. And they walk more.
A French woman who owns a bookstore seemed to be falling for more, so I read a book about French Women and their Cult of Beauty. How they refuse, simply refuse, to become fat, to become Americanized. They love their pastries and will over eat during the Holidays – and then do penance to recover. The author relates how a French girl come back from a semester in America and the first thing her father said to her was, “You look like a sack of potatoes.” Welcome home! Also it said they reject the hatred of men inculcated by so much of American Feminism.
Much of this would be lost on me too, but I can’t discount that the lack may be in me. I can appreciate good bread as opposed to the regular. If I can’t appreciate good wine, is that to say there is no such thing? The French woman was too old and I wasn’t interested physically. But I would have been if she was younger. As the poet said, she touched nothing that she did not adorn. And the way she said my name! With that accent!
Did you find their arrogance overwhelming? I’ve heard that it’s not so bad in non-tourist areas and in the more rural areas, the people are quite friendly. In any case, even if they are decadent, they deserve better than the hideous fate the EU has reserved for them.
“You see, I remember a time when French gals didn’t shave their armpits and when the French had a rep for bathing very sparingly. Kind of ruined me.”-v.
German women are just catching onto the whole ‘shave unnecessary body-hair’ thing. Still see fuzzy-pits north of the Rhine.
“And I said to myself I can get tired of this bullshit real fast.”-v.
LOL! Yes volodya, rather funny… BUT, you can’t judge France by Paris and it’s culture.
Out in the provinces there still is that vitality and ‘bullshit not spoken here’ attitude. Burgundy is fantastic, and historic and rustic and ridiculously beautiful with wine and women that’ll rock your socks off (or just check out how they’re getting it done in Morvan, upslope from Jura district).
My first exposure to le Francais was scrambling around a forty-foot (actual) Morbihan Lugger that my father’s Breton pals had sailed across in. They were as lusty and rugged a breed of men as they came, chomping down food and passing the bottle around the deck, teaching me nautical French. I still smile when I remember them.
My point is that France is a big place, and it has more than one culture, even more than one ‘French language’ (Occitan anyone?).
volodya, I grok what you’re saying, but I’ll be damned if you don’t come off like the Puritan spinsters and congregants who are the recipients of Babette’s Feast.
What’s the deal with this American Sniper movie? It’s a comedy, right?
American Liar
Do any of you CFNerds happen to know the etymology of the word “Pussy”? Thanks.
What did Neil Armstrong say when he lost his virginity?
I don’t know, but the idea of him going to the moon was one hell of a giant leap for mankind.
I don’t know……the eagle has landed?
“but rather it will be between Russia and China and Russia will finally be done for good when it’s over — thank God.” — Cold N. Holefield
It is not surprising that the president of Nicaragua, Ortega asked to cover channel constructed facilities with Russian military power.
According to the agreement between Nicaragua and Russia from 2 January 2015, Russian warships will be in the territorial waters of Nicaragua. The aircraft will be able to observe the construction of the century and coastal waters from the sky. The creation of the infrastructure necessary for security purposes will also be handled by Russia. This role of Moscow, which may actually be in the “backyard” the United States and even in pair with Beijing, Washington is unlikely to enjoy. (Apparently, neither does Cold), However, the time to retreat for Russia, after US sanctions imposed, had passed. Moscow can argue “environmentalists” and other American envoys, ready to exploit the idea of a color revolution in Nicaragua (by the way, on December 24, there were mass protests related to the construction of the channel). The option of “Nicaraguan Maidan” Russia is covering as well – security authorities of the Russian Federation already cooperate in countering “color revolution” scenarios with the Nicaraguan counterparts.
Nice week’s work, jhk. You talk about how low oil is going to collapse the fracking industry. And you are correct about this, I believe. Perhaps we should hope to be so lucky though, all things considered.
One of my kids told me he had spent this morning talking with a man who had done environmental mitigation work in the Bakken shale drilling areas. This guy talked about how densely packed the drilling rigs were. And then he told my son (who’s never been an earthy-crunchy environmental type) that “all that fracking is fucking up the underlying hydrology in very bad ways. There are unknown impacts of fracking that will be showing up for the next 20 years, or longer.” This is from an “industry insider,” if you will.
“I take a certain comfort knowing how heavily armed America is. And not just the lunatic fringe. The thought of Hillary and Jeb out there beating the bushes for big money makes me laugh. They are so not going to happen.” – kunstler –
This is my favorite part of the week’s missive, for a couple of reasons. For one thing, you give a nod to the positive benefits of the 2nd amendment. And yeah, the bulk of armed America is nothing like the lunatic fringe. If it all ever does come apart, the best place to be is going to be somewhere in the well armed middle.
I hope you’re right about Jeb and Hill. I feel manipulated, despite my best efforts. I think Hillary will self-destruct long before election day. The though of Jeb as pres. makes me want to upchuck, daily for 8 years. Maybe I could put that on YouTube, as a form of, literally, visceral protest. The only good thing about Jeb is that he makes Mittens look good, in comparison. (And the fact that the MSM has us all driveling forth about the 2016 election, already, shows us how screwed we in the US really are.
Thanks for the week’s work, JHK.
“Janos, When you’re hungry everything is good. I’ve eaten sandwiches of white bread, butter and brown sugar. You can do wonders with salt, vegetable oil and a frying pan.” – v –
Quote of the week, v! May be the best advice I’ve seen on the internet this year. It’s too bad that it’s impossible to store fats and oils for very long periods of time. Same goes for gasoline.
Wish I could bury 8,000 gallons of gasoline and ten 55 gallon drums of cooking oil for my great grandkids. They could parley it into their own post-collapse kingdom, with reasonable luck.
“but rather it will be between Russia and China and Russia will finally be done for good when it’s over — thank God.”
– cold, on the war that ends human life –
What is it with your hatred of Russia, cold? Seriously?? You need to try to explain yourself. You’re looking nutty as a fruitcake, on this subject.
“In GB no new power plants in decades, and Brits in southern England told to expect rolling black outs and brown outs” – brh –
And yet the British “leadership” continue to allow the place to be packed more and more full of legal, illegal, and quasi-legal migrants.
Without massive inflows of food and energy, the UK couldn’t support 30% of its present (and growing!) population.
Screwed they are becoming, mateys! Great leadership, eh?
“Interesting angle Bless. I haven’t thought of the environmental movement, or lack thereof, as having a racial aspect.” – buck –
Come on, buck! How many times have I posted this like, about how one Jewish billionaire single-handedly killed the Sierra Club, as a worthwhile US environmental organization?
http://www.susps.org/
link, not “like”
Yes, but you never followed up to learn the incredible extent of Jewish power in the United States. Perhaps you listened to the Orangutan who said Charlton Heston, “Don’t go down that beach – you wont like what you find.” So you didn’t.
Regarding these bits of terror-funding potentates:
” In any case, Saudi Arabia will already be disintegrating internally as competing clans and princes vie for control. And then, what will the US do? Rush in there shock-and-awe style? Bust up the joint? That’ll make things better, won’t it? (See American Sniper.)” — JHK
Wellsir, now we gots durn good reasons for rushing in and breaking shit! Hurrah!:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-20/obamas-partners-yemen-overthrown-presidential-palace-falls-local-militiamen
These friendly neighbors of the Sauds sound benign enough; who could resist a bunch with the charming moniker of “Houthis” (Hooties)? Reminds me of Woodsy Owl.
Another fine success in “partnerin’ up” with our trusted plutocrats in Yemen; guess it’s time to declare victory in the Greater M.E. and retreat with all due haste…
Ps. Will our revered CIC mention this little stumble on the road to freedom and democracy and ISIL-snuffing in the Stake Through the Onion speech tonite? Hmmm, not so far.
Hello Oz’ & All,
…While we were bombing…
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-18/islamic-state-has-more-tripled-its-territory-syria-us-started-airstrikes
Thanks to the wonders of US Air-Power ISIS TRIPLED it’s territory.
Isn’t that *awesome*?
… /s
[yes, I’m being sarcastic]
Hello Sauerkraut,
“Yes, the political class is controlled and circumscribed. So, at the risk of offending our host, I shall repost the essence of a previous comment.
Low oil prices have something for everyone: major interested countries (USA, SA, Russia, and China), each of their major interests (finance, big oil, etc.), and each leader. In my opinion.
The question is, “Which set of planners got it right?”
That is a summary of my thoughts on the subject – what do you think?”-sauer.
I don’t think that this is a planned event – especially after the events of last week at the SNB [*]. Central Banks (and the people behind them) have been flailing with ever-increasing ferocity for the past seven years. There’s a reason for that. They’ve finally realized that they’re out of ammunition.
They can stimulate speculation and prop up whole classes of assets, but they can’t find it in themselves to rebuild demand, and at this point I’m not sure that would be possible anyway.
— — —
[*] They probably hit the ‘panic-button’ in anticipation of this weeks QE-rollout from the ECB, since it’s now their turn at ‘the spigot’…
I agree, it is not planned as an international low oil price conspiracy. Rather, I suspect that there is simply a confluence of perceived advantage, with two or a few actors getting together, and others acting according to their own interests.
For example, perhaps OPEC thinks low prices are to their advantage to break the high price producers, while the USA wants to hurt Russia. Deal? Meanwhile, Russia thinks it is to their advantage to watch the derivative towers tumble. All the kings and princes also have their own lesser agendas; e.g. how far would Obama go to protect the Frackers and their generous GOP support? Then all the major interests behind the thrones have their needs, perhaps to break the high priced competition or simply to profit from chaos.
As for stimulating demand, that should be easy, given the will. However, there seems to be no will amongst the major interests to invite even the 0.1% to the free lunch. All that is necessary to reignite demand (in the short term) is to send free money to someone other than the 0.001%. Or have I missed something?
I suspect that the central banks are flailing because they cannot quite wrap their minds around giving free money to anyone but their cronies (dressed up in appropriately arcane pseudo-scientific economic jargon, naturally); but that may be an uncharitable and incorrect view.
Just my thoughts.
“I agree, it is not planned as an international low oil price conspiracy. Rather, I suspect that there is simply a confluence of perceived advantage, with two or a few actors getting together, and others acting according to their own interests.”-sauer.
In the case of the oil glut (b/c supply is clearly overrunning demand) it’s not just the Russians that are losing out. Even the Saudis are feeling the pain. They’re running the biggest budget-deficit they ever have and it’s widening. Why? There’s a mad dash to sell what they have before the price drops lower – which lowers the price further. It’s panic-selling, plain and simple. Here’s a quote from Zero Hedge:
“”And what comes next are liquidation sales, as the sellers suddenly rush to find any bid before the next seller does. This in many ways mirror what is going on with the global crude market, as lower prices force even more supply, leading to even lower prices, until finally the source itself is taken out back and quietly put of their misery.”-ZH
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-21/americas-ultra-luxury-housing-bubble-has-burst-deals-have-slowed-trickle
That article focused on luxury-condo market cavitation, while drawing parallels, but we’re seeing it across the board – after the better part of a decade spewing QE.
“As for stimulating demand, that should be easy, given the will. However, there seems to be no will amongst the major interests to invite even the 0.1% to the free lunch. All that is necessary to reignite demand (in the short term) is to send free money to someone other than the 0.001%. Or have I missed something?”-sauer.
The speeches being made (under the protection of “3,000” Swiss Military people) Davos say all that needs to be said about how they feel, and what they understand about the current situation. They received Oxfam’s memo and they are shocked… That they don’t have more global wealth. What do they want now? Why, the *rest* of it, naturally;
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-20/billionaires-shocked-learn-they-only-control-half-worlds-wealth
This is the straight-forward “social predation” that albert Einstein predicted.
They don’t give a damn about ‘the economy’, and in all likelihood they wish you, I and everyone reading this would just go die.
Thanks for revisiting this omni-important thread again, youse two. I find it heartening that there are some “out there” who retain the ability to focus.
Thanks Oz’. Strategic considerations matter.
“Strategy without tactics is the longest route to victory. Tactics without Strategy is noise before defeat”.- SunTzu.
OR, in a more gritty mode:
“You take care of Business, or Business take care of *you*…”
😉
In the quiet eddies of CFN the debate goes on and on about whether issues like oil prices, 9/11, etc. are conspiracies or not conspiracies.
Meanwhile Obama is showing leadership for change we can believe in, to benefit all Americans.
Obama is contrasting his positive proposals with Republican naysayers. Obama’s approval ratings are going up because he is fired up and ready to go. In contrast, Congress seems to have forgotten how to legislate to benefit non-millionaires of the middle class. Obama surges forward, not waiting on Congress to make up their minds. Obama is on the move.
Among the “yes we can!” president’s proposals and actions:
-Sweeping reform of the immigration rules by executive order.
-A move toward normalizing relations with Cuba.
-Reaching a climate-change pact with China.
-Two free years of community college funded mostly by federal government.
-Expanded sick and family leave for workers and a higher minimum wage.
-Tax increases for the top earners and tax breaks for the middle class.
-Lower mortgage insurance premiums to make it easier to buy a home.
-Increased access to low-cost, high-speed broadband.
-New funding to train workers in cybersecurity.
-Setting aside $100 million to expand apprenticeships for workers.
-Tailoring some $750 million in new federal grants to support early learning for preschoolers, while easing rules to qualify for free school meals.
Yeah Asoka/PKrugman its wonderful. It really is.
aint life grand?
Wussup wit da new name Krug?
*Come Janos! Let us join our comrade “wpa–ccc” in praise of our Maximum Leader, in the name of all that is Right and Good!*
/s
Actually, this comment reads like the ‘sock equivalent of robo-dailing. Get it together ‘sock. Make *some* attempt at matching the tone of the community, or you just might lose that contract.
I also liked the president’s speech and the moves he’s making.
I could do with less cheese ball stuff like the obligatory verbal fellatio of the armed forces.
As for Paul Krugman, wow, I can’t believe more people aren’t reading him. He’s been kicking Anti-Keynsian ass for years now. He deserved the Nobel and Obama’s people should have been applying his remedies since 2008.
They messed up real bad 2008-2012 as a majority looking for things to compromise on.
“Ummm, who cares if these morons who find life and happiness an offense protest? I don’t, Bob Dole doesn’t and the American people don’t. Let them protest. What’s the point? Do they think their “protest” will actually have any kind of effect except making them appear sillier than they already appear?” — Cold N. Holefield
Or take the Charlie Hebdo psy-ops in Paris, which, for anyone paying attention, was eerily reminiscent of the Boston Marathon bombing almost two years ago. Boston still hasn’t got rid of all of the idiotic “Boston strong” stickers (no, Boston was not destroyed by a few firecrackers and a few amputee actors bursting bags of fake blood to pretend that they just had a leg blown off). And now Paris is festooned with eerily similar “I am Charlie” stickers. Killing a handful of innocents is, of course, standard procedure: few real atrocities help render the “conspiracy theory” version of the events unthinkable for anyone under imperial mind control because, you see “They are the good guys” and “good guys” don’t do such things. But that mind control is slipping away, and even some national leaders—such as Turkey’s Erdogan—publicly declared that the event had been staged. Also similarly, the supposed perpetrators were summarily executed by the police before anyone could find out anything about them. It’s become quite clear by now that such events are being cooked up by the same bunch of not-terribly-creative hacks. They seem to be recycling the PowerPoints: delete Boston; insert Paris. But the French have defended their right to insult Moslems (and Christians) with impunity (but these rights are sure to be taken away when nobody is looking)—but not the inexplicably important Jews or gays, mind you, because that will get you a prison term.
Score another one for the empire!
http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2015/01/whiplash.html
Orlov admits Jews are those who cannot be criticized: impressive. What else does he say about them?
He’s wrong about WW2 though: a huge Russian army was massing on Germany’s border. So Hitler stuck first as any decent general would.
Erdogan? That is laughable. He cuts a dashing figure in your narrative here, one step ahead of the illuma-nasties.
Your breathless conspiracy theories and subsequent fantasy worldview is wholly delusional.
Caricaturists and cartoonists have taken notice. The pencils are being sharpened, and the world will soon know why the pen is mightier than the sword.
Barack Obama said that the Russian economy due to US sanctions “is in tatters.” Barack Obama said a lot of other silly things, for example, he stated that the US has the principle that big countries can not attack the small countries, neither Iraq nor Libya nor Yugoslavia …
In any case, the words of Barack Obama are extremely valuable due to the fact that even those in Russia who yesterday mocked “the Kremlin’s propaganda,” started after such statements reluctantly admit – yes, indeed, States consider Russia as the enemy and lead the war against their country.
How can we interpret the Obama’s words about the Russian economy “torn to shreds” ?
The first conclusion. Obama is tired of confrontation and is looking for an excuse to get closer to Russia. Indeed, what is the point to introduce further sanctions against Russia if its economy is “in tatters” already? US need to give Russian bear a big warm condescending hug, and show some pity. Sit side by side, waiting for him to let the last breath out from wounds inflicted by Uncle Sam.
The second conclusion. Obama buried the American project in Ukraine. Last week in Donbas, we see a provocation after provocation, fighting has actually gone into the hot phase – while Kiev clearly overestimated its strength and is forced to retreat.
If Obama was looking for an excuse to transfer some arms to Ukraine or infiltrate Ukraine with the next batch of “instructors”, he should have said that Russia just sent several of their armored divisions to Donbass. But no: Obama is silent, as if in Ukraine, nothing happens. Characteristically, silent as fish is “independent” Western media.
Meanwhile, back in New Haven, 3 Yalies, happily skipping down the Canal Trail in the city on Monday afternoon, were relieved of their backpacks, cell phones, wallets and jewelry, by 2 ‘Youths’ on bikes, brandishing handguns, “Youths’, of course, a code word to obfuscate the truth.
Whether or not these were the same Yalies who, several weeks ago, staged a spectacular lefty street theater event “Black Lives Matter’ ‘Die In’, on the streets of New Haven, blocking traffic and causing chaos downtown, I don’t know.
It really sweet, isn’t it?
These are Ivy Leaguers, the elite, future rulers of not only America, but the World.
brh
Also, Big Doings in Davos!!
82 billionaires in attendance!
The Americans showing up, looking out for you, making the best deal for American they can.
1700 private jets flying in, carrying the elite, in Switzerland to discuss, among other things, Global Warming!
(Is it possible just one of these dooshbags will burn up more fossil fuel taxiing around the runway in his Gulfstream at Zurich Airport than you’ll burn up all year driving around town in your F250. Believe me, when there’s no more fuel for your Ford Truck, they’ll still be plenty for trips to Davos in Gulfstream jets)
brh
Gotta tell ya, BRH, I love the contempt you are so good at conveying. The spelling of “dooshbags” made me LOL.
Thanks Q.
“Also, Big Doings in Davos!!-brh.
Yes, it is a big deal. Davos has more bearing on the ‘political process’ these days than the past 30 years of ‘state of the union’ addressii…
What is it with your hatred of Russia, cold? Seriously?? You need to try to explain yourself. You’re looking nutty as a fruitcake, on this subject.
Explain myself? I have a blog with 51 blog posts, soon to be 52 ( a new blog post entitled American Diaper will be posted soon), all posted in less than a year. I’ve explained enough for three lifetimes, maybe more. But for you, I’ll boil it down to this; I find most people, and groups of people, bores. Satire makes them, and it, more enhanced and interesting. Of all people and groups, communists are the most loathsome and the most boring. They are simply intolerable. I don’t know if I’d call my reaction to them hatred — I think comically disgusted is a better characterization of my feeling and sentiment towards communists.
Are you a communist, p4w? If not, why do you coddle and enable them and their bullshit propaganda? Is it because you’re a “Red” State guy? More irony for the irony grist mill. My observation is that in these alleged End Times, the tables have turned/flipped and the heretofore avowed and rabid anti-communists of that mid 20th century McCarthyite bygone era are now communist sympathizers and as such the term Red State takes on a completely different meaning. The Russians aren’t coming, they’re already here — they’ve always been here — they’re the heartbeat of America, not Chevrolet.
I’m making my way through your blog posts now. But if that’s all you’ve got to say, then I might save myself the time. Seriously, you seem to be pretty smart otherwise. All you’ve got to say is nothing more than a reiteration of the fucking Red Scare? Surely you can do better than that?
Nice call, backrow. That’s definitely the individual you mention. He’s the only one on CFN who has consistently supported the most divisive president in US history. (And he, as asoka, pkrugman, and now ccc – wpa has most definitely forgotten JHK’s prohibition on multiple ID’s @ CFN.)
The only long lasting “good” impact of the Obama presidency is going to be an increase in the number of Republicans. And I say this despite the fact that I don’t even care much for Republicans, especially the Chamber of Commerce type.
It was actually funny to watch the SOTU last night. The number of Repubs has visibly increased. There wasn’t much applause for the Pres. from either side. Most people looked bored, most of the time. Some looked pissed off. Ruth Bader Ginsberg looked like she was falling asleep or having a mild stroke.
Fun times!
Rush says the poor, struggling woman who embodies America is a former Democrat Party worker. A plant in other words. Thus the question becomes, why didn’t they treat her better?
And speaking of the power of billionaires to ruin the US –
Did you see that George Soros gave $33 million to organizations dedicated to stirring up racial division concerning the deaths of Michael Brown.
I’d been wondering how all those out of towners kept showing up at all of those “spontaneous” demonstrations.
Come to find out it was because Soros was paying for it.
Fun times.
http://www.theroot.com/articles/news/2015/01/report_george_soros_spent_33_000_000_to_bankroll_ferguson_protests.html
=======================
While we’re at it – who do you suppose was paying for all of those children (“children” who were mostly male, and mostly teenage) to make their way across Mexico, only to show up at the US border wearing clean clothes and carrying no travel supplies?
Some other billionaire? Maybe Soros? Maybe Gelbaum?
Anything to destroy the US as a cohesive polity is good, I guess? Right, wpa/ccc?
“Come on, buck! How many times have I posted this like, about how one Jewish billionaire single-handedly killed the Sierra Club, as a worthwhile US environmental organization?”
What can I say Prog; Bless’ post caught my eye. Maybe it was the panache and elan which delivered the beaver pond visual. Or maybe it had the visceral feel of a first hand account and not that of the strategic ideologue.
I’m probably projecting, but I sensed a true love of the land in his post, a certain sentiment not unlike that in the below link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCYfdMwPBi0
When I was a kid I accompanied my grandfather on fishing trips to the Miracle Mile section of the North Platte River in Central Wyoming. The fishing in those days was absolutely incredible. It was not uncommon, especially in the fall spawning season, to land 5 to 10 pound German brown trout on a regular basis and the much larger fish on rare occasions.
In retrospect I now view those times with a nostalgic fondness. Pronghorn antelope could be enticed to gallop along side the pickup truck at 50 mph and there is nothing like the smell of sagebrush after a Wyoming thunderstorm. But at the time, it seemed more like a job. Everyday we were up before the sun because the ‘best fishing’ was about to occur. And he always made me walk around with a trash bag collecting the trash of other fisherman/campers which really put me in a foul,foot dragging mood. And when moving along lazily in my waders, he would bark “pick up your feet and quit shuffling like a damn colored guy”.
One time after tangling my fishing line yet again–my god, does the wind ever blow in Wyoming–my grandfather was trying to untangle my fishing line mess and going on and on complaining how he had never seen anyone so consistently tangle their fishing line as I seemed to do. Standing over him at one of these moments I thought to myself, “what would happen if I crushed a rock into the back of his skull”? Of course, I felt guilty in the aftermath but I had plenty of time to repent because after each and every trip we hit the local Catholic church in Laramie.
Despite all of his faults he was a decent hard working man but definitely a product of the times. One one hand, he was no doubt a racist and on the other, a true lover of nature and quite possibly the most meticulously organized person I have ever met. No nut, bolt, or washer ever went to waste and he had baby food jar lids screwed to his garage overhangs and the jars which attached with their inventoried content.
And he was an FDR Dem because back in those days Main Street really knew who buttered their bread; they still had recollection of the hard earned labor movement which their descendants now take for granted and worse, deliberately undermine. These types are pretty much long gone now.
Buck, if your artwork is half as good as your writing, you have something.
You have a gift.
brh
Thanks BRH, but you’re way too kind. I just don’t have the patience or inclination to let those first thoughts sit and simmer and then come back and refine and condense. My thoughts/articulations are too clunky,confused and fat;not sleek, smooth and clear like so many of the writers I admire–JHK for one.
But I do think I have a pretty good memory and I like to recall some of those good ol’ boy moments of the past.
My dad had those jars of nails screwed in too. And of course, a racist. Thank God for Fathers and Grandfathers. Even when you have to rebel against them, at least you have something to rebel against. Imagine the boys today growing up with no male model at all. It must be like being in a room full of jello. Nothing solid to lean on or go against. Just foolish, stressed out, hate filled women.
Like most children in abusive family situations you tend to pull your punches:
“Despite all of his faults he was a decent hard working man but definitely a product of the times. ”
Based on your assessment and being completely objective, your father was not a decent man; he was an oppressive idiot, and his past time- of inflicting injury on non-native fish stocked by the federal government- is a stupid and counterproductive to the adjective “lover of nature”. But don’t worry, that is completely normal.
Like most children in abusive family situations you tend to pull your punches:
“Despite all of his faults he was a decent hard working man but definitely a product of the times. ”
Based on your assessment and being completely objective, your father was not a decent man; he was an oppressive idiot, and his past time- of inflicting injury on non-native fish stocked by the federal government- is a stupid and counterproductive to the adjective “lover of nature”. But don’t worry, that is completely normal. The older generations were conflicted. Everywhere a viable way of life was staring them in the face; their many easily correctable faults; but they were hostage to false values and principles which intensified the schism between hubris and right action, sound reason and madness.
TGaIToLDSP,
It was my grandfather and truth be told I never felt ‘abused’ mentally or physically, although he was stern, demanding and cutting at times.
IMO,there is no abuse as scathing as that delivered from the self righteous ironically enough: the castigating Catholic, the internet pygmy settling old scores –you know the type.
Anyway, are fishermen who “inflict injury on native fish’ any more deserving of the term ‘nature lover’ than those who murder or injure govt stocked fish? Or what about people who actually eat fish, can they term themselves nature lovers or are all fishermen unworthy of the term?
Buck, that is a rather nice little vignette… Could stand to see a few more of those, as and when convenient.
Nicely done.
Reply to Mister Darling,what I meant to say was be happy now, not fundamental hedonism. Just be happy right at this moment. I don’t believe hedonism is an answer either, and obviously I care about matters or I wouldn’t comment here. From what I gather it takes 10 years to decommission a nuke plant, and if oil’s getting scarce, how are we to do that. And how many operating nuclear power plants are there in the U.S.? Just saying. CFN, documenting the apocalypse and making it seem fun. But really, endings are beginnings so, who knows, maybe something new will begin. Made me start questioning why we’re here in the first place. Is it to gather up as much we can, subjugate others? Hmm. What I’ve been reading, it’s to learn lessons, lessons about love and other garbage, she writes with laugh,
Hello Barb,
“Reply to Mister Darling, what I meant to say was be happy now, not fundamental hedonism. Just be happy right at this moment.”-b.
Please don’t develop an idea that I’m a perma-frowned ‘doomer’. I have a lot to be grateful for, and I am grateful for it. That being said, none of it came cheap.
“From what I gather it takes 10 years to decommission a nuke plant, and if oil’s getting scarce, how are we to do that. And how many operating nuclear power plants are there in the U.S.? Just saying.”-b.
So, here’s list of reactors in the US:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_reactors#United_States
You’ll notice that there’s a lot of them, not only for power but civilian and military “research”.
Regarding how long it takes to decommission a site (well enough that it prevents a meltdown, and the fissile material doesn’t kill everything in line-of-sight in “gamma-shine event”, or permanently poison the water table); it can take a lot less than “years” under emergency conditions. That doesn’t mean ‘safe’ in the conventional sense, nor does it mean pretty. Dozens might have to die so that hundreds of thousands can live.
“But really, endings are beginnings so, who knows, maybe something new will begin. Made me start questioning why we’re here in the first place. Is it to gather up as much we can, subjugate others? Hmm.”-b.
I agree. Assuming we can surmount certain deal-killing ‘hurdles’ it’s not all downside. We’re living in a state of techno-barbarism at the moment. I has occurred to me that there a lot of less technologically advanced scenarios that are more _civilized_ than these.
🙂
Anyway, the world’s apparently at peak uranium too. You know, peak everything.Attempts to extract a vein of it through Virginia failed recently. The people in SW VA took that venture down, as poor as they are, probably very rich in truth. For now anyway. It’s lightly snowing, grateful for warmth, in all likelihood brought to me today by, nuclear power.
I Do fast the 11th of every month with Harvey Wasserman to bring attention to Fukishima Mister Darling, and then one other day. Why don’t you join me? Please stay away from antibacterial soaps. It’s now in all our nation’s waterways and in 75% of adults’ bloodstreams and it causes muscle weakness. World’s going to kingdom come and she’s worried about anti-bacterial soap, go figure.
“I Do fast the 11th of every month with Harvey Wasserman to bring attention to Fukishima Mister Darling”-barbisbest.
Thanks Barb’. I did know about this!
Cheers!
EDIT: “did _not_ know”…
heh!
Cheers again!
😉
Swiss bankers never been blamed for any populism or irresponsibility, even more so of incompetence. Rather, they are probably the best financial experts in the world. Then why the country that for many years had a stable budget surplus and reserves went to such a destructive step for their own economy? And they did it almost overnight. On 12 January there were no signs of trouble, and after only 4 days – kaboom!
Accurate information on this subject is not yet available. Most likely, it will appear later. But now we can make a suggestion. Between 12 and 16 of January Swiss bankers have learned something that makes all of these losses quite reasonable. Probably from the series – it’s better to lose some now than to lose everything later. And since from the very beginning it was exclusively about the franc/euro pair, it begs completely unambiguous conclusion: CNB found out “SOMETHING” about the immediate future of euro as a world currency.
If we assume for a moment that the euro collapses catastrophically, then it drags down the franc which was tied to Euro to the full depth. Switzerland, of course, is a rich industrial country, but do not forget that in the global economy it is a drop in the ocean. Some $600 billion GDP in Switzerland will be able to do nothing against $15,669 billion of the entire European Union.
We could only draw the only conclusion that is not contrary to the whole incident. Is not so important, for whatever reason – because of the risk of a Greek exit from the euro zone, or because of the upcoming plans of the ECB QE – the euro itself is bound for an extremely serious crisis. And very soon. The crisis is so close, there was no time to develop a cunning maneuvers and bypass plans. Swiss bank pros decided to jump the ship. That is why they untied the franc from Euro without any considerations to potential losses to the Swiss economy (and others).
On the TV on MLK Day, there were several black leaders advocating the use of violence. How ironic! Many people surmise that it all ends in “Glory”, “Redemption”, and “Heaven”. But, as the ancient Greeks correctly observed, Life is Tragic, and most projects end in tragedy. I wonder why the universe was designed this way?
Africa is one of the most violent places on Earth. Well all of Earth now is violent.
Why should Africans be less violent here? Same high testosterone.
One just killed a child for laughing at him.
Another burned their baby to death.
And white Americans kill tens, hundreds, or thousands directly every day via the MIC “just because” and we’re too stupid and/or lazy to deal with it. Not to mention the thousands that are killed anonymously domestically or otherwise everyday due to economic conditions imposed by American hegemony on the behalf of our mostly white European descendant corporate/political elite. Oops! That fucking mirror is a bitch!
We had a local restaurant chain in New England, called ‘Friendly’s’. They had good ice cream … I used to like to stop in for a burger and coffee, fries, the clam chowder was good … I’d take my nephew there for Sundaes after an event like a good report card or helping out in the yard. A few years back they filed bankruptcy but kept operating some of the restaurants; a few months ago the local one closed abruptly, no warning. For years a couple of handicapped guys worked in the place doing dishes, sweeping up, bussing tables; everybody knew them, they were there all the time, like a second home. Saddest thing today I was in the village I see these two same guys standing in front of the empty building looking very lost. I talked to them and it didn’t seem like they knew what’s really happened. I’ve seen this before in the era when the industry was closing up in this valley and an era had come to an end. In places like The Collins Company, maker of edge tools, 4 generations of the same family had worked in the plant over a period of 140 years. Nobody could believe it was gone.
brh
Remember Frost’s poem where the seasonal worker came back to die? His wife was angry (she always was it seems) asking why did he have to come here. He told her this was the place he felt most at home. What a compliment to them if she could have but seen it.
Have you read Dostoyevsky’s diary? Are you willing to go down the beach to look upon your gods more closely?
I’ve read Van Gogh’s letters to his brother, Theo.
That’s just not good enough. Don’t let the apes lobotomize you like they did to the other astronaut.
Believe it or not–I know a bloke who many years ago worked in a New England fried chicken franchise called “Friendly’s”. He said that he resented the clientele, particularly on busy days like “Super Bowl Sunday”. To get even, he said that he’d urinate in the large sink in the back of the kitchen in which they mixed the cole slaw. Since hearing this story I never eat the cole slaw.
Very interesting BRH. And I also looked up the edge tool company you mentioned and came up with this:
http://connecticuthistory.org/world-renowned-maker-of-axes-the-collins-company-of-canton/
Some bad-ass craftsmen/workers no doubt:
Yeah Buck, my dad worked there. Everybody in town did.
brh
Since hearing this story I never eat the cole slaw.
Interesting choice for the name of the restaurant for your example. What a coincidence. I also ran across a bloke who worked at Friendly’s (it’s not a fried chicken franchise) who told me he put his feces in the batter used to coat the fried chicken. This was after we convicted him on pedophilia charges. Needless to say, I don’t eat out anymore, not even at IHOP.
Yes, Kali Yuga is coming down hard now. Everyone is becoming a Jessie Jackson, who admitted he used to spit in the food of White patrons. White Liberals didn’t seem to mind this or even hear it. Somethin’s really wrong with those folks.
What’s even more bizarre is I have a draft blog post in my WordPress drafts folder I started working on in July of this past summer and the title is Friendly’s. Either the heckler is much more resourceful than he lets on, or he’s unconsciously channeling or it’s a coincidence. I’m not certain what probability percentage to put on each option and if it is Door Number Three what are the odds of that coincidence? One of the halmarks of Teh Singularity is that coincidences and unexplainable anomalies become commonplace. FYI, I need to delete the draft because my mind has moved to greener, or at least I perceive them as greener, pastures.
Also, I’m reading Faulkner right now — As I Lay Dying. I’m not so sure we want to go back to that time — or forward to that past, but I guess we don’t have much of a choice. The current will take us where it will like a riptide. Fight it, and you drown. Go with it, and you just might survive.
Ever be shopping in a big box and as you go to check out realize that you are part of a wave of shoppers doing likewise? It’s hard not to be part of a wave since life happens in them. But is it going toward the rocks or back out into the ocean of life? Or is it a wave of lemmings being forced off the cliff by Disney movie makers?
An amazing man who used to sit on benches studying the coincidence waves that passed by him.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Kammerer
“The current will take us where it will like a riptide. Fight it, and you drown. Go with it, and you just might survive.”-cold.
In the case of an actual “riptide” the most effective response is to swim *sideways*… parallel to the beach, perpendicular to the direction of the current;
http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/oceanography/rip-current2.htm
I’m wondering it might also work in a historical riptide.
😉
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/01/20/393935/Iran-Russia-sign-defensemilitary-deal
Eurasia begins to consolidate its power against the threat from Oceania. Action-Reaction. Persecution by Blacks in the American Prison system lead to the rise of the Aryan Brotherhood. And as Mr Kunstler pointed out, continued attacks by Blacks against Whites will lead to reprisals at some point. In India, three Muslims were burned alive after a Hindu boy was found dead in a Muslim village. Action-Reaction. Nothing comes from nothing. Will you not understand?
http://www.infowars.com/anonymous-state-of-the-union-warning-to-obama/
Good Anonymous about the Lie Machine called by some as Barack Obama. Future Historians will call his Presidency as the beginning of the countdown to the end of America.
Like most, you’re way too late to the party Janos. In truth, Billy Bob, if not Ronny RayGun was the beginning. Everything else since has just been conveniently disguised as part of the slide.
“In truth, Billy Bob, if not Ronny RayGun was the beginning. Everything else since has just been conveniently disguised as part of the slide.”-d-a.
By the numbers, it looks like somewhere in the 1968-1972 timeframe is when they initiated the ‘economic assassination’ of the US. But my money is on 1980 – when Ronald came in [*] – as their first completely pwned ‘Zoolander’ candidate.
— — —
[*] With his “sleepy lizard” eyes according toe Gore Vidal.
[*] With his “sleepy lizard” eyes according toe Gore Vidal. – MD
====================
Taint-breathed Gore Vidal certainly had an acid tongue.
Yes, the Jews have been dreaming of World Conquest for more than 2000 years at least. And they may be just the outer group or patsies for an even more sinister Elite, much as the Masons are.
You little Ronnie Ray Gun libtardism is thus put in its proper context – without disagreeing with you of course. As Buddha said, things are not what they appear, nor are they otherwise.
January 20 two important events happened. First meeting of defense ministers of Russia and Iran. Second Shiite insurgents capture the presidential palace in Sanaa, capital of Yemen. Both events have a strong anti-Saudi focus. And both are directly linked to Iran.
Iran and Saudi Arabia have always been antagonistic. Opponents in the geopolitics, competitors in the market of hydrocarbons and irreconcilable ideological enemies – the centers of two completely different Islamic sects. We must not forget that Saudi Arabia is a monarchy (and absolute), and Islamic Iran is still a republic that overthrew their monarch.
Until recently, their confrontation took place in the mode of low intensity “cold war”, but sharply escalated when the Saudis in collusion with Washington began to roll down the price of oil. January 13, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at a rally in Bushehr announced that the country that causes a collapse in commodity prices, will regret their actions. A week later came back to haunt the Shiite militants in Yemen, which is a threat not only to the local government, but also for the Saudis.
Riyadh cannot be blamed for the fact that it had overlooked the threat. It took action, and, apparently, very peculiar. Militants that shot cartoonists at “Charlie Hebdo” tried to emphasize their relationship is with the Yemeni rebels. The calculation here is simple: France has a very strong Marine Expeditionary Force, which played a role in the destruction of Libya. Shocked by what happened, Paris, by the logic of the authors of a terrorist attack, had to send their ships to Yemen and to provide military assistance to the Government in the suppression of Shiite rebellion, while the Iranian military aid to rebels have not gained momentum. Using the same Shia of Yemen as a bargaining chip, Tehran has already announced a hypothetical possibility of negotiations with Riyadh. The meaning of “negotiations” is about clear: Al Saud will be presented with an ultimatum: either oil prices return to a reasonable level, or problems with the Shiites rebels will take to the next level.
What awaits us if between Saudi Arabia and Iran war will break out in full? The probability of this is low, but in the long term it is viewed as possible, especially if the royal house would continue its risky game to oust competitors from the market. In the event of a major military conflict Strait of Hormuz out of the Persian Gulf will be immediately mined and world oil prices skyrocket.
As to the Russian-Saudi relations, they had been almost always bad for the last few decades. Suffice to recall Saudis feeding arms and money to the Islamists in Chechnya and many other episodes. The General Staff of the USSR at one point considered the bombardment of the Kingdom. Now that looks like a fantasy, but doesn’t hurt considering the possibility. A targeted attack on the Russian economy may well be interpreted as an unfriendly act with the relevant conclusions. The least Russia could do is to block Western response to Iran mining up the Strait of Hormuz.
A new stage of cooperation between Moscow and Tehran looks exactly as possible anti-Saudi alliance, and by al-Saud would do well to remember that when going for someone else’s head, watch for your own.
http://cont.ws/post/72594/
Since “American Sniper” has been referenced this week some might find the below interesting:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/01/no_author/american-liar/
You might also enjoy this:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/01/american-sniper-makes-tarantinos-over-the-top-movie-our-sad-reality/
Thanks for the referral link Mister D. I also ran across this link from the Rockwell piece and it’s a far more comprehensive look in the character/motivations/veracity of Chris Kyle than the Rockwell piece.
I’m not quite sure what to make of his post-war claims etc. It seems he very well may have been suffering from PTSD along with a healthy dose of narcissism. Either way, a fascinating set of circumstances which elicit an equally fascinating set of opinions:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/06/03/in-the-crosshairs
The Mexican woman at the Mexican takeaway place this evening asked me: “Do you want some sour cream on your tamale?”
“Yeah…but hold the Pussy Farts, please. They kinda freak me out.”
Gotta tell ya, Pucker, I love the contempt you are so good at conveying. The term “Pussy Farts” made me wince and roll my eyes.
Also, if your fartwork is half as good as your writing, you have something.
You have a gift.
Cold
Pussy farts are the dessert for any proper Hispanic meal! After munching on the delicious lil’ cultito cakes first, of course! Try imagining that on a fat-assed, corn-fed, anglo American woman! As the 20 somethings say: Eww!
Head of Rosneft Igor Sechin: The Era of Cheap Oil is Not Coming
Market manipulations are without doubt main reason of low oil prices, despite presence of certain fundamental factors. The analysis shows that in the world there are no exporting countries and corporations – oil producers capable in the medium term to maintain low oil prices.
As there is no resource base to ensure cheap oil for the global economy. Cheap oil is inevitably will be replaced by expensive and very expensive. The essence of oil price manipulation is not the arrival of “era of cheap oil”, but the struggle for the redistribution of the future resource base. It should be added that the US administration does use its arsenal of pressure on Saudi Arabia, including the notorious ISIS, to force it to increase investment in production and dumping oil on the Asian markets.
It should probably be noted that if the much anticipated and predicted economic and societal collapse does indeed occur (in whole or in large part), it ain’t gonna matter much whether oil is “affordable” in relative terms or not, since it will most likely simply be UNAVAILABLE to most of us at any price, what with the myriad of transportation, distribution, and other logistical issues involved.
Thank you, DA… For some reason people keep overlooking demand destruction when SHTF for a months at a time. Demand does not just ‘snap back’ “inevitably” after getting jack-hammered.
Does anyone know anything about this new Clint Eastwood movie, American Sniper, that everyone’s raving about and that’s breaking box office records?
Is it about Charles Whitman (an ex-Marine), the Texas Belltower Sniper, or is it about Lee Boyd Malvo, the DC/Beltway Sniper? Would American Beauty be a better title for this movie even though that title’s already been taken?
I was going to link to a YouTube clip showing the sniper scene in the desert from the movie Hurt Locker, but interestingly enough, or not, the only clips I could find made sure to edit out the part where the Iraqi sniper (or “the enemy” sniper) picks off the three intelligence operatives before the patrol unit that stumbled upon the spies can figure out what the hell’s going on and where the shots are coming from. Instead, any clips of this scene only show the American shooters picking off the Iraqi sniper. When “they’re” doing the sniping, it’s cowardly and ignoble and unworthy of even a YouTube appearance, but when “we’re” doing the sniping it’s heroic and glorious and high fives all the way around. The Hurt Locker showed it for the cowardly act it is, thus proving that conventional war, if it ever was, is no longer about noble gallantry, but about kills, regardless of who or what the victims are, at any price. These are no Gladiators. Give me Russell Crow who took on lions with his bare hands, not these pussies who hide in nests, suited up to the hilt, from a mile away and never look their foe in the eye before taking their life. Snipers are closer to drone operators than they are to gladiators. It’s nothing to be proud of, and it’s certainly not heroic, or no more heroic than the maintenance staff changing the oil and tires on the Humvees, and yet we don’t see any Clint Eastwood movies about that, do we? American Mechanic.
Perhaps the Islamic State will counter with its own rendering, directed by Steven Spielberg no doubt if the price is right, called Iraqi Sniper. If they did, I’m betting it breaks the attendance records set by American Sniper. Don’t laugh — all is possible in this crazy, “brave” new world we live in.
‘American Sniper’ Is Almost Too Dumb to Criticize
Sniper is a movie whose politics are so ludicrous and idiotic that under normal circumstances it would be beneath criticism. The only thing that forces us to take it seriously is the extraordinary fact that an almost exactly similar worldview consumed the walnut-sized mind of the president who got us into the war in question.
PG-rated two-hour cinematic diversion about a killing machine with a heart of gold (is there any film theme more perfectly 2015-America than that?) who slowly, very slowly, starts to feel bad after shooting enough women and children
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/american-sniper-is-almost-too-dumb-to-criticize-20150121?page=2
Have you seen ‘Enemy at the Gates’, with Jude Law and Ed Harris, about German and Russian snipers at Stalingrad?
Pretty good movie!
brh
Yeah, I think I’ve seen it on HBO – but can’t recall too many details – just another Hollywood movie. Overall, the quality of HBO programming is down the shitters. Thanks God, they stopped doing that awful vampire series – “True Blood” or something…
Recently on Turner Classic they’ve shown “In and Out” – watched it with some sense of nostalgia – the era before total cell [smart?] phone madness. Was kinda interesting to watch it after so many years and so many perception-changing events.
Very professionally made piece of advertisement.
On Russian cable they’ve shown an old Soviet-era fairy tale movie, in black-and white – probably made in the 50s – based on Russian folk fairy tale.
Bottom line – the Czar dispatches some security guards to arrest the Main Hero(MH). In American movie MH would kick some ass using unthinkable carate moves. In Russian movie, MH starts playing accordion and guards can’t help but burst into uncontrollable dancing. After a while, exhausted, they surrender to MH. MH has a pity on them and voluntarily lead them back to the Czar’s palace. Method of transportation – a large brick wooden stove.
Have an ‘ex’ who loved that movie. She’d read three books about the Battle of Stalingrad, and could lecture me at length about the gritty details.
But what she really liked to do was fast-forward to the scene where Rachel Weisz and Jude Law get cozy under a pile of blankets in some basement-bunker. . . There’s always a reason.
😉
Thanks for the review link. Haven’t seen the movie, but suspected as much as the review surmised after listening to a glowing review from a wanna be former military acquaintance of mine who practically spewed in his shorts in ecstasy.
I also work for a large public/private organization with a large veteran contingent who, in an internal mail list communication, waxed poetic about the wondrous beauty of said Hollywood tripe. Propaganda, no matter how beautiful, by any other name, and all that…
I’m actual retired military, and I find all this mindless hero worship for decidedly questionable ends just fucking unseemly.
Seconded… I’m really in no mood to watch Hollywood f-it-up. I don’t even stay in my seat for the trailers.
Have not seen the movie but have heard first hand from someone who would know that special forces snipers make $500,000 a year killing people in Iraq from Blackwater. Glorifying paid assassins is not my cup of tea, but most Americans gulp it down like a chocolate milkshake.
Reported today former police officer Darren Wilson will not be indicted by the Feds for violating Mike Brown’s civil rights in Ferguson, Mo. in August last year.
What to make of that?
I’m wondering if this decision will kick off more rioting.
brh
I sure hope it does — the news cycle is in a boring lull right now and we need something exciting to fill the void, although I find rioting boring now — it’s old hat. We’ve been-there-done-that. Once you’ve seen one QT burn you’ve seen them all burn. We need some new material to make it more interesting.
Its always a good time for a riot.
did you see the new video released today of the looting in Ferguson?
I’ve never seen people move so fast, or grab so much stuff!
that is, once the door was smashed in, which really didn’t take too long, just a few seconds.
brh
Two shootings in Hartford past few days; what makes these notable is the number of rounds absorbed by the victims.
Victim #1: a street robbery in middle of the afternoon on a public street, 6 rounds to the head.
Victim #2: package store owner, 5 rounds to the chest.
That’s a lot of bullets for just 2 people, a little excessive I think.
brh
If those bullets were $2,000 dollars a pop, I’m betting not as many shots would have been fired, if any shots at all. So much for “one shot.”
In case you forgot, Americans don’t need to go to the other side of the world to look at a failed state (or those teetering on the edge). We can just look South…
1. “98.3% of crimes go unpunished” in Modern Mexico;
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/ultimas/2014/09/30/en-primer-ano-de-gobierno-de-epn-quedaron-impunes-93-8-de-delitos-perpetrados-3893.html
If you don’t speak it, just cut-n-paste it into Google Translate.
2. Drones: they’re not just for spying and killing anymore;
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/meth-filled-drone-crashes-in-mexican-border-town/
The ‘good news’? There’s definitely a limit to the Power of The State… The bad news? The strongest (effective) opposition comes from OC.
OR, we can just look in the mirror. Imagine that!
Shhhh! I didn’t want to go there!
😉
Thanks Prog that’s high praise indeed assuming of course that you weren’t being sarcastic. Once, a long time ago, I was as hungry as can be and down to a potato and a beet and not too partial to beets. But I had to eat and so I cut up and boiled both. And my mouth watered at the smell of that fucking beet that took forever to cook. As Janos said – hunger and a bit of salt – and that lowly potato and beet became a banquet of the gods.
One last word on France. I get it, France isn’t just one thing. Yes, I have a tendency to over-generalize. And, OK, maybe I’m being too hard on them. Who was it that said when you point the finger three point back at you.
Now, having said that, reality is a far bigger prick than I am. It’s nasty, it lurks and deceives and does all kinds of shit you don’t expect. Sometimes there’s not much you can do either individually or as a society because we live in the present, we forget the past and we can’t see the future. But there are some things we can do, I mean, we aren’t completely helpless.
I’m not an expert on Charlie Hebdo as I’ve seen only a few of the cartoons. Janos referred to Hebdo as scatological, well, the ones I’ve seen looked to me like the journalistic equivalent of crapping on the sidewalk. No great powers of observation or analysis were evident, so deep humor or irony. Maybe my untrained eye missed it all.
Or maybe there was nothing there. In which case WTF was with “Je Suis Charlie”. OK, sympathy for the dead. I get that. Even if the images were insulting there’s no call for shooting the cartoonists. Seventeen dead over what exactly?
But. Yeah, I know, there can’t be any “but” attached. I’ve heard that too. BUT the only way we get along in tightly packed and crowded centers is to mind our manners. That is to say, this thing we call “freedom”, whether it’s freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, you know the list, has to come with an exercise of civility and common sense.
Would a white man want to exercise his “Freedom” and march down the street in a black neighborhood and call out “nigga, nigga, nigga….”. Probably not. It wouldn’t be wise. Even if he has the “right” to do it. If he’s lucky the men in white coats will show up and take him in for observation. Or, he might catch a beating. If he’s not lucky at all some black guy is going to stick one in his guts.
Freedom of speech? Yes, that freedom is wonderful. I would say that in most countries in this crummy world this site wouldn’t exist, the PTB would have shut it down long ago, the commenters tracked down and beaten or worse.
But why do the inheritors of this vaunted French civilization give something like Hebdo the time of day? Millions out marching? OK, defiance towards a diseased death cult is fine. I’m with that. I have no time for assholes that kill cartoonists or shoot traffic cops in the back.
But “Je suis Charlie”? Seriously?
Face up instead to the direct challenge posed by the people that pulled off this outrage. You can argue that what happened was just a sideswipe from the greater conflict within Islam itself. Or maybe it isn’t. And what if it isn’t? What’s the plan, man? Maybe those killers were just the leading edge of something bigger. This is going to take analytical skill and exercise of judgment that I haven’t seen much in evidence lately. And no, it doesn’t necessitate the gathering of this ridiculous “meta-data”.
France has produced some wonderful stuff in the intellectual realm, great thinkers, mathematicians, scientists, its contributions to civilization have been outsized. But it isn’t just what you’ve DONE. What’s in the past is in the past. You can’t use it to hide from the present. The glories of Greek civilization, all their advances in philosophy and architecture and mathematics, didn’t save them from Roman legions.
The French better start thinking what they’re about. There’s alternative civilizational traditions with huge achievements of their own. And competing ways of thinking and modes of living right in their midst. We can argue until the end of time whether the killers were in any way representative. Some would say absolutely not. Some would say that to exclude Islam from the mix is just nonsense.
In any case, enough with the retreat into the irrelevant, this farcical posturing and obsession with stuff that doesn’t matter just to hide from the really hard stuff that does matter.
Regarding Islam I once knew an Apache from New Mexico whose white wife had been stepping out on him. He was rather distraught to say the least even mentioning something about a snide ‘penis size’ comment his wife had made and which seemed particularity devastating to his male self-image.
Anyway, I ran into this couple about six months later and she was wearing a burqa! He seemed to have a little more cock in his walk and rooster in his spine. This was about four months before 9/11 so I suspect that his religious masquerade was probably a short term marriage panacea.
I’ve heard it said that American Indian men don’t have much sexual capacity. Perhaps that was part of the problem. Like should marry Like and produce Like. That’s how diversity is maintained, eh?
False flag delusion all the way. We can argue about the meaning of any number of things, but arguing about false flag events is not only pointless, but purely a diversion.
France has produced some of the leading intellectuals of the New European Right. This gentleman is clear seeing on many fronts.
http://www.counter-currents.com/2015/01/jihadist-carnage-in-paris-part-1/
Finca,
I’m sure you’ve already learned about this. Even the pro-Kiev media is carrying it:
http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/donetsk-airport-overrun-by-rebels-say-army-volunteers-378037.html
So, you should be happy now, no?
😉
The only thing that would make me happy if Kiev stop using the airport as a platform for shelling Donetsk residential districts. That madness, totally ignored by Western media that is so concerned about killing a dozen cartoonists-provocateurs in Paris, go to stop.
Billy Graham says that there’s No-Fuck’n-Way! anyone would be able to get into Heaven if not for Jesus sacrificing himself for Humanity on the Cross. I wonder where this leaves Jewish people?
Although, it should be noted that Billy said that from the bowels of Christian hell, where he now resides for telling such lies in the first place. I grew up listening to that dipshit, who my grandmother was quite taken with. Grandpa, not so much.
I got rid of mine by just throwing it out the car window into the river as I was driving over the bridge at night.
Gun laws in the United States create a complex web of requirements rarely understood by clients, let alone professionals who advise them. This webinar discusses federal firearms law, possession and transfer issues related to the Gun Control Act of 1968 and the National Firearms Act of 1934, the role of Gun Trust and other planning in helping gun owners to comply with these laws and avoiding the “accidental felony” in the process. We discuss the essential elements of a gun trust, a gun trust system, advanced planning opportunities, and selected issues that arise but that might not be obvious to a practitioner. We review issues for estate and trust administration. Executors of Estates, Trustees of Trusts and their attorneys and other advisors can easily make costly, potentially criminal mistakes concerning administration of firearms. Finally, we present an illustration of gun owner needs to spotlight the practice opportunity.
Have any of you CFNerds read Huckabee’s new book “Guns, Grits, and Gravy”?
I didn’t realize this until I recently read Murray’s “Coming Apart”, but it seems that until the 1960’s the US, despite all of the trumpeting of individualism, had a remarkably homogeneous class and social structure in which the ruling class basically lived the lives of common ordinary blue collar folks. This is no longer the case, according to Murray, and the “Cognitive Elite” now lives in a world of its own divorced from the masses. In Chinese Communist parlance, this contradiction between the ruling class and ordinary people is the premise for revolution.
http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Grits-Gravy-Mike-Huckabee-ebook/dp/B00JCYDKDE/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1421961968&sr=1-1&keywords=huckabee&pebp=1421961970228&peasin=B00JCYDKDE
Mr Pseudo Blue Collar Former Fat Assed Wanna Be Prez from the Land of Hogs says things could be different if we’d only vote for him? Seems like Billy Bob and his adopted wife HillBillary have that pseudo territory covered already, but good luck to him all the same. The good ol’ American Hustle thrives all the same.
One of these days, I’m going to check out one of those weird “Medical Marijuana Clinics” here in California. What’s the deal with the doctors who write prescriptions for Weed? Are they legitimate certified physicians? Should one address them as “Doctor” or call them “Bro”?
Good point. I hope to find out one of these days.
It is cannabis. CANNABIS. Marijuana is Mexican slang promulgated by William Randolph Hearst in his media empire to disparage this incredible plant.
Even the time-honored profession of ‘drug mule’ is being automated…
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-22/smuggling-drugs-across-mexican-border-theres-drone
🙂
Love it! Now there’s a great use of technology!
Who liberated Auschwitz in 1945?
Russian President Vladimir Putin was not invited to official events on the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
The Foreign Minister of Poland Grzegorz Schetyna decided to compete in impudence and ignorance with his “big brothers” from US State Department and made following statement:
“This Ukrainian Front, First Ukrainian Front and Ukrainians freed concentration camp in Auschwitz. There were Ukrainian soldiers on that January day, and they opened the gates of the camp, and they released the prisoners”.
Probably, any more or less educated person knows that “Ukrainian”, “Belarusian” and “Baltic” fronts of the Red Army were not named after the places of formation, but after places where they had to fight and liberate.
Who liberated Auschwitz has long been well known:
On January 27, operating as part of the 1st Ukrainian Front of the Red Army, 60th Army under the command of Colonel-General Kurochkin liberated Auschwitz concentration camp and saved its prisoners from imminent death.
The most disgusting part is that Grzegorz Schetyna just could not have been ignorant of those facts. He was born in 1963, so graduated high school in “socialist” times. Moreover, in 1990 he became a graduate of the philosophical and historical faculty of the University of Wroclaw. He knows who and how actually liberated Auschwitz. So, he is consciously and blatantly lying, deceiving the younger generation.
hey everyone, the Saudi king just died. Fasten your seatbelts.
Crown Prince Salman announced as King , his successor – Prince Mukrin. Both men – sons of the founder of the Kingdom Abdelaziz.
Everything so far goes strictly by the routine. But now there is a situation in which the sons of Abdelaziz in fact ended. Still have a few princes of this generation, but they are not considered as a possible successors. Dynasty should immediately begin to consider the future transfer of power to the next generation.
As a rule, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia occupies the post of first deputy prime minister (head is the king), his successor – the post of second deputy prime minister. Prince Mukrin held that post to date and now moved in the Saudi hierarchy by one level up, taking the post of first deputy prime minister.
Whoever becomes the second deputy prime minister, with a huge degree of probability will be a new candidate for the top job. It is for this post the main struggle is unfolding between the clans within the dynasty. The new king Salman – is representative of Sudairy clan, who once again came to the supreme power in the country, which gave rise to it after King Abdullah. Clan Sudairy already is the most influential in the dynasty, today it has received an additional advantage.
Nevertheless, within the Al Saud have at least three major parties of the most influential princes. The question is – who will become the founder of a new branch of the dynasty, and who will be forever deprived of this right. At stake is so much that the struggle does not promise to be light.
But so far everything remains under control and goes according to plan.
hey everyone, the Saudi king just died. Fasten your seatbelts.
Nah — Saudi Arabia’s disintegration won’t happen that quickly. It’ll take twenty years, at least, but I would say by 2050 it will be no more.
Why do you say? Most have it that this is a pivotal event in the here and now.
The new ruler will be the last from the House of Saud.
I hope that the deceased Saudi King is enjoying himself, wherever he is?
Which Religion would have more broad popular appeal?: a Religion that promises an eternal life in paradise filled with young voluptuous virgins, or a Religion in which the after-life consists of working at a car wash?
I’ve always preferred the belief – knowledge really – that whatever comes next is simply unknowable, and that whatever I might come to believe about the matter at any given time is likely neither here nor there.
Additionally, anything “learned” via religion, is simply belief transferred in from someone else’s (alleged) experiences. And I’ve likewise always subscribed to the belief that the only truly valid experiences are my own.
There is much to keep a eye on in that part to the world. Europe economic situation is getting worse. The U.S. and European Union are pushing Russia into a corner and they may just come out fighting.
Which by the way seems to be just what some key people in our country want.
Then there is the Middle East with today’s Saudi news, Yemen’s Prime Minister gave up the fight against El Quiada today. Along with Syria, Eraq , Iran, and who knows who else, the whole place is a powder keg .
We could very well be into some sort of WW III situation in a heartbeat.
The next couple years are very critical in this respect.
This was a timely post. It seems like we have just had an early kick off to the Game of Thrones in the oil patch.
“Game of Thrones in the oil patch.”-nate.
I think that I like this comment about the coming cluster-fuck in *Wahabistan* the best… The Saudi legal code is nearly identical to ISIS, they rival each-other in how many heads they cut off for petty, ridiculous or made-up offenses. I don’t make short-term predictions about the Middle-East [*] but I can’t see why the world wouldn’t be a better place without either group.
— — —
[*] Simply b/c all the players are lying… *a lot*…
As usual, a great read. I look forward to reading your weekly posts.
So, now the Saudi Arabian King is dead. It will be interesting to see if what you predict unfolds.
Meanwhile, listen to this poor scientist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANBHZfH4l6M
A “Giant Sucking Sound” from the American liquidity vacuum cleaner just got a little louder – The ECB announced 1.1 trillion Euro QE
Following the Fed and the Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank picks up the baton of printing fiat money.
60 billion Euros a month or so from March 2015 to September 2016, which implies the emission of more than 1.1 trillion euros. Purchase of government bonds (from 2 to 30 years) of the euro area and the official European institutions. Redemption is proportional to the size of markets of the euro area in accordance with the National Bank shares in the capital of the ECB, i.e. more from France and Germany.
The immediate result of announcement of the ECB’s intentions became an outflow of capital from the European markets and the growth of US stock indices – Europe seems obediently, on orders from Fashington(Q, this is not a typo), commits an act of economic suicide. Euro against the dollar fell to the lowest level in the last 11 years. The Swiss jumped off the sinking ship just in time by untying Frank from Euro.
The fact that the Bylaws of ECB directly prohibits it from buying government obligations (that is supposed to be the privilege of the private banks) was not considered a showstopper – in our post-democracy world who pays respect to “Rule of Law”.
In the absence of new resources to be denominated in US Dollars, the Breton Woods system starts to devour its own flesh.
on orders from Fashington(Q, this is not a typo),
=================
OK, you wrote Fashington on purpose…I’m guessing that’s a play on the word fascist?
But what about “… just in time by untying [Frank] from Euro.” Who is this fellow Frank you are referring to?
Yes, Mr. Q, I suck in English. But at least I suck in three languages, you, guys, mostly suck in one.
But anyway, keep up good work of teaching us, poor savages, the intricacies of The Great Imperial Language.
Yemen’s president, cabinet resign amid Shiite rebels standoff
Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi has resigned under pressure from Shiite rebels who seized the capital in September and have confined the embattled leader to his home for the past two days.
Presidential officials said Hadi resigned after being pressured to make concessions to the rebels, known as Houthis. He had earlier pledged political concessions in return for the rebels withdrawing from his house and the nearby presidential palace, but Houthi fighters remained deployed around both buildings throughout the day.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/01/22/shiite-rebels-remain-deployed-outside-yemeni-presidents-house-despite/
It is not the exclusive West privilege to use the Islamic rebels to achieve their geopolitical objectives, Iran after striking a military deal with Russia is raising the heat right on Saudis southern border.
This morning is like walking into the kitchen and finding the dead corpse of a cockroach. You know they are there but still disturbed a little to see it…and then relieved. Then you clean it up and forget about it again.
Speaking of cockroaches, the MSM is engaging in non-stop debate, speculation and hand-wringing over the New England Patriots and “De-Flate Gate”.
We never witnessed that same type of laser focus when it came to Wall Street shenanigans.Oh well, ‘everybody’ does it; it’s the American way. Or has Hud quipped, ‘take the sinners away from the saints and you’re lucky to end up with Abraham Lincoln’! (ignore the silly political posturing from this great “Hud” clip):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsqUCDDprQE
King Abdullah on stage naked dancing with several young voluptuous virgins]
“Work’n at the Car Wash…
Work’n at the Car Washer….”
I’m shoveling some road-apples out of my barn, okay? (Partisan cleavers to the two-sided monopoly beware.) This brief article reflects my thoughts on matters of political perception.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/01/23/hope-dies-last-obamas-sotu-platitudes/
Take yet another solemn pause and think of how your children are going to deal with what’s [inevitably] coming, as there is no will by the PTB to change anything but the amount of things under their thumbs.
As M.D. has averred, we’d be best to swim *perpendicular* to a current that wishes to drown us all.
Yup, King Abdullah is dead, and Yemen has no Government.
Up north ISIS is knocking on the back door, softly now, but getting harder.
How do you like it now, Gentlemen?
brh
Gentlemen, gentlemens.
Meanwhile, we got trouble brewing right here … right here in River City.
Remember that Package store Owner who took 5 rounds to the chest, well he survived. Turns out he’s a much beloved member of the black community and he’s talking. He identifies his assailant as a Hispanic Gang Member.
I expect down on Park Street, in a Latin American neighborhood, right near where I work, very soon, a body or two will turn up on a sidewalk, full of holes, eating dirt.
That’s the way it is down there now, blood for blood, and eye for an eye, a life for a life.
Here in the USA.
How do you like it now, Gentleman?
brh
Nothing cleans up a forlorn hood like some good old fashioned gentrification. But you have to start somewhere. Go rent out a cheap building and turn it into a coffee house with comfy chairs, live music, poetry recitals. Recruit a Pilates instructor, New-Age book store, Re-birthing center to join in the cause and start having Friday night art walks once a month. Soon enough an aromatherapy shop will pop up along with an acupuncture clinic, Alexander Technique practitioner and who knows, maybe even a Colonic Irrigation Therapy Institute. You’ll know you hit the big time when the sports bar franchises start buying up the place and raising rents. No more gang bangers and no more of the founding artists/shop owners who will soon be priced out of the hood too. The Friday night art walk will have been transformed into the snotty yuppie drunk brigade stumbling out of sports bars and sushi dens. They’re just no winning these days.
Pretty funny Buck.
Funny because its true.
Most of the former industrial towns and cities round these parts have tried to re invent themselves as Art Colonies (with varying degrees of success. Being pretty close to Manhattan helps alot)
brh
On a FB neighborhood page I frequent there is a lot of discussion regarding gentrification. A large number of people from this page, mostly Chicano, angrily lament the rising rents and large influx of white hipsters. Put another way, many are not at all shy about expressing their resentment of white people because, in fact, it’s mostly white people who are now moving in and Latino/Chicano people who are leaving their treasured hood. At the same time, many are cashing out big time on their homes. One frequent lament is that now that white people are in the hood the police show up a lot more eager and prompt.
And of course, being hipsters they frequently rename sections of the hood with arcane names from the early part of the last century and beyond; it just sounds so damn trendy and distinctive. When the news is good and upbeat, the hipster name is the one used in the news. When bad, it’s the name the former Chicano residents used.
But the biggest irony is the architectural transformation. Now the new and improved neighborhood is positively ugly. The Jetson’s sterile square block aesthetic is replacing beautiful old Victorians at every turn and on every block . And the hipsters are laying out big bucks for this junk.
I’ve always thought of Hipsters as pretty harmless creatures, overgrown college students not quite ready grow up all the way.
Maybe I’m wrong.
brh
So Buck, it’s the SF Mission District that’s being lamented?
A few years back ‘Whole Foods’ and / or ‘Trader Joes’ was to open a store in a Black area of Portland.
What county are you in? Not all people welcome gentrification.
http://benswann.com/black-activitists-and-politicians-force-trader-joes-grocery-out-claim-it-would-attract-too-many-whites/
It could be anywhere Mister D:)
http://www.theonion.com/articles/report-nations-gentrified-neighborhoods-threatened,2419/
Malthus,
Did I write that ‘all people welcome immigration? I don’t believe I did; in fact, not even close. But thanks for posting the link.
In the case of the Mission District of San Francisco the gentrification plan started in the early-90’s before the Great Trustafarian Migration, and it started on the Valencia Street corridor (one block uphill).
Once that beach-head of yuppification was established, they colonized Noe (another block uphill) as an ideal nesting ground and hatchery, consolidated, and then pushed onto Mission Street itself upon the completion of the new (at that time) Police Station… Just in time for the first wave of Dot-Commies.
It was all very heavy-handed and intentional. One month in the early 90’s the district was cruising along at a low rumble and the next month there were police roadblocks and 200% more police activity in the area stirring things up, confiscating cars, flaring up rivalries and making people desperate.
In the long-view it was all very delusional and unnecessary. They aren’t “cleaning up” squat. You don’t clean up a radioactive area with a nuke (by analogy). And the ‘Silicon Valley’ isn’t spreading into SF. It’s contracting…
Cheers!
Correction: Replace “Noe” with Dolores.
I just received the following message from King Abdullah from the beyond:
“Mmmmm….Feels Good!!!!!”
Just for you guys to know, scientists have moved the doomsday clock to 3 minutes to midnight. Humanity, enjoy your last 180 seconds on this Earth.
Will do Bill.
But hasn’t that Doomsday Clock been trending toward Old Angel Midnight for about 60 years now?
brh
Yes, but the last I heard, the clock was at 5 minutes to midnight – so it’s kinda inching toward destruction like in the real world, but.as any clock, though, it can always be re-set.
I’ve been under the assumption that it’s been 3 minutes to midnite, ever since I heard the following tune, ~30 years ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYK0HD4p8F0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-0icQQZ-6g
Echoes of madness, indeed (how would *you* like your commercials?)… Keep up the good socks (you’s)!!!
haha, oh *SH!* – I stripped the headers…
WTF!
China, Russia Plan $242 Billion Beijing-Moscow Rail Link
China will build a 7,000-kilometer (4,350-mile) high-speed rail link from Beijing to Moscow, at a cost of 1.5 trillion yuan ($242 billion), Beijing’s city government said on the social networking site Weibo.
The rail line seeks to facilitate travel across Europe and Asia, Beijing’s municipal government said Jan. 21 in a post on Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter. The journey from Beijing to Moscow would take “two days” on a route passing through Kazakhstan, the post said.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-22/china-russia-plan-242-billion-beijing-moscow-rail-link.html
The “Big Eurasia” is being built despite desires of US to bury this new global political project. And the new high-speed railway line is another “BRICK” toward her.
Novorossia army went on the offensive on all fronts
The head of Donetsk Republic Alexander Zakharchenko said: “DNR will no longer try to talk armistice to Kiev. Attempts to talk about a truce on our part will no longer be taken. We are now going to see how the Kiev will react. Kiev does not understand that we can advance on three fronts simultaneously. Will no longer be any truce, will not be any more rotations”.
This is result of a blown meeting in Astana on January 15 between Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany thanks to Charlie Hebdo provocation in Paris. (Reminder, Paris event took place 2 days after President Hollande called for peace talks on Ukraine and ending anti-Russian sanctions)
In a few weeks they will start talking peace again, but conditions will be much less favorite to Kiev and EU.
ISIS!
Okay, so that got you attention… 😉
It’s news like this:
http://rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/23012015
That make you ask: So, what is the “anti-ISIS coalition” doing, anyway?
Gaius Julius Caesar. 58th BC. Rome had long ceased to be a republic, but not yet officially became known as the Empire.
Gallic War. Julius originally possessed an army of four legions (about 20,000 people), within several years captured the territory of 500 thousand square kilometers, with total population according to various estimates from 10 to 20 million people.
How did he do it? He send his emissaries to the leaders of various Gallic tribes, they seduce the elite of these tribes with beautiful clothes, delicious food, orgies, and / or simply bribed them.
Then the Romans pitted the tribes against each other. They told them that this tribe deserves to be the main, it is better than others, it can join the charms of the Roman civilization, and the neighbors are weak, ignorant, cowardly and deceitful towards them.
Tribes began to fight among themselves, and when they have been mutually weakened and exhausted, then came the Roman legions and finished the ”winners”.
And intervention in the affairs of the Gaul is perfectly described by the quote: “… the entire Gaul is filled with Roman citizens, none of the coin in Gaul can move without leaving a trace in the cash book of Roman citizens …”.
By the way, “Notes on the Gallic War” are nothing like the notes of great general, but rather accounting report – when and how much was spent on the orgy, gifts, “the presentation of the Roman way of life” and direct bribes to local elites.
As a result, in just a few years Gaius Julius amassed enormous wealth through plundering and several million Gauls (including “close to Roman culture” allies of the Romans) were turned into slaves.
Barack Obama. 2015 AD. The United States has long ceased to be a republic, but not yet formally recognized its imperial status.
Slavic wars. Barack Obama (and his predecessors) sends their ambassadors in Slavic countries. Ambassadors sought out among elites avid to flattery, eager for power and wealth, ready to betray the interests of their countries, and made them “supporters of the Western way of life.”
And then did everything possible to bring these corrupt and venal elite to power. In Russia and Belarus it did not work (so far, but they keep trying), but in Ukraine it did. Playing on the passion for “unconventional sex” and outright greed they brought their stooges to power.
All key positions in the power and the economic bloc of the government of Ukraine are occupied by the American proxies who completely took control of the country. None of the administrative decision in Ukraine is taken without the direct knowledge and approval of the United States.
And now they’re being played off against their neighbors, being told that the Ukrainians are superior to their neighbors, exceed their civilization, and the neighbors are weak, ignorant and evil.
http://alexandr-rogers.livejournal.com/289003.html
The Hastati’s lament:
https://soundcloud.com/ozonecreator/soldier-for-the-empire
You sound a bit like Powerman 5000’s Spider. He’s Rob Zombie’s little brother. Your voice is Ok but what you were doing didn’t “grab” me so I didn’t listen to the end. Don’t really like that kind of music – too discordant or something. The Music of chaos and dissolution. Have you ever though of going acoustic and traditional like Sting?
I can’t think of a higher recommendation for a piece than a “negative review” from little vladdie (Arbiter of all that is worthy of being read, listened to and thought).
Quoth the firehose blog-blaster:
” Don’t really like that kind of music – too discordant or something. The Music of chaos and dissolution.”
Well, duh, then my work is done. Not all music is purposed toward soothing the savage breast. In this case, the subject matter quite obviously fits the mood, but somebody doesn’t want their “beautiful mind” disturbed I guess. Well and good; I ain’t no proselytizer/demagogue, just an observer.
No, no, we need music that “fortifies the spirit” as Mr Kunstler put it – and the kind that he plays. Why make things worse by aping the times acoustically? That’s the mistake our generation made. I agree not all music is just light or fun – that’s where Marches come in and things like the Horst Wessel Lied, Roddy McCorley – or some American equivalent yet to be written. Or Blues. Or the sad ballads of the British Isles, etc.
If the Grid is going to be going down, shouldn’t you be “prepping” by going acoustic now?
You are enrage. Acoustic folk and folk rock will help. Amped up Discordia will not. Remember that plants exposed to the Rolling Stones died. But Plants liked the Beetles and Beethoven, actually leaning towards the speakers. How do you think they would react to your music?
I am certainly not about to debate aesthetic opinions with someone who creates nothing but bitter BS from the dregs of a failed ideology and a Himmleresque mythos steeped in terror and lust for power over others. The point (as per usual) is that you know nothing about me or what I do… and you don’t intend to; I’m just a convenient foil for your constant divisive bloviations and prevarications. For instance, how do you know I *don’t* engage in playing traditional songs on traditional instruments? Your assumptions and mischaracterizations are ridiculous and laughable. (BTW: Nope, I’m not enraged at all, which likely discomfits you more than anything I might say. You’re more to be pitied than censured.)
Where do you get this stuff? Caesar had some of the longest and most brutal campaigns in military history. At the Battle of Alesia he had at least 60,000 men and probably more like 100,000. In that battle he invented the term “No Man’s Land,” by building a fort around a fort. Then when threatened by an relieving army, he built a fort around a fort around a fort.
The Battle of Alesia took place in September, 52 BC. I am describing 58th BC, 6 years before the The Battle of Alesia.
You see, you have to count backward when dealing with BC.
Graffiti found on a Pompeian wall, before the invention of the rattle can…….”Caesar, every husband’s wife and every wife’s husband……..”
I was also referring to the Venetian tactic of pitting enemy against enemy. I have never heard of Caesar using such tactics. He was a military strategist.
Listen, seawolf, get serious. You don’t go from commanding 20 thousand men to commanding 60 to 100 thousand men in just 6 years by simply being “military strategist”. It’s a fairy tale. You need some serious resources (like cash) behind you.
If I am not mistaken, the Venetian Republic was founded by Roman nobility escaping the collapse of Roman Empire. They’ve got to keep some old political tricks of their predecessors.
By the way, the Venetians invented the current political regime of the United States – I am not referring to the Republic, but to Oligarchy.
Saying it has to be is not an answer, it’s a cop out. I have read extensively on Caesar. He never pitted tribe against tribe. He wiped one tribe out completely and utterly, and the other tribe was too terrified to even face him. He was not only ruthless, but brilliant on the battlefield; the greatest general since Hannibal or Alexander the Great. Caesar was above such tactics. He was a force of nature, not a political opportunist.
Double fencing? Are you suggesting that’s what we should do along our Southern Border? After all, one of the things that brought Rome down was mass Illegal Immigration.
Yes. You even admitted that Jews dominate the Ukrainian Government. Thanks for that. You use the Truth against itself, but that can be used against you when you do it.
In the 1970s, there was a popular American TV show called “Fantasy Island”. Other popular American TV shows at the time included “The Brady Bunch”, “The Partridge Family”, “Gomer Pyle USMC”, “The Six Million Dollar Man”. My favorites were “All in the Family”, “Samford and Son”, and “Kung Fu”.
Idiocy flowers anew in Washington. Well, you know, life being short and so many stupid things to do, they have to get a move on. No time to waste. And so they can check one more thing off their list.
That one thing being the Republican invitation to Netanyahu to speak before Congress without so much as a courtesy call to the White House and specifically to Obama.
I get ideological differences. I understand bitterness over past slights. I don’t like people that consider themselves my betters routinely calling me retrograde, or simple minded or stupid or under-educated.
But this isn’t a schoolyard. See, if this was a schoolyard and there were taunts and the boys here were actually boys, it would be settled in a fist-fight. Fist fights work, they’re a time tested method of settling issues. In a SCHOOLYARD.
But there wasn’t even a fist fight. If only. They went at it like pre-teen girls. It was hideous. You’ve seen it, the “I’m having a party and you’re not invited” type of social aggression. That’s the best case scenario for this debacle.
The worst case scenario is that it’s a demonstration of an unwillingness to acknowledge the constitutional and customary authority of a duly elected President.
Doesn’t anybody know how to play this game? What do they intend to do, set up an alternative Presidency, a competing Washington? Who’s going to be the anointed one? John Boehner?
What message was there for the outside world? Don’t pay attention to the pretty black boy in the White House? He’s of no account, we don’t listen to him, he’s a dilettante, we’re the big dogs?
So Josh Earnest said it’s a departure from protocol. Yeah, to say the least. The Republicans may not like the direction that Obama takes with Iran and Israel. And that’s fine, people can have legitimate differences. But, if you don’t like Obama’s approach, win the next fucking Presidential election. The last I checked, Obama was the winner.
And WTF was Netanhayu thinking?
So Pucker, did you ever watch “Barney Miller”?
Hello Volodya,
Last things first:
re | “And WTF was Netanhayu thinking?”-v.
Netanyahu doesn’t think, he *reacts*. He’s the product of a long race to the bottom of the leadership pool in Israel. So that means that he feels comfortable in the House & Senate. He’s treating the outgoing POTUS like he the did previous two-termer – like they don’t matter.
re | “What message was there for the outside world? Don’t pay attention to the pretty black boy in the White House? He’s of no account, we don’t listen to him, he’s a dilettante, we’re the big dogs?”-v.
The rest of the world will get the real message (“it’s a two-parter!”) 1- they’re cracking under pressure and 2- now Obama has officially entered the ‘lame-duck’ part of a presidency stuck on autopilot.
What else is new? Ariel Sharon said “We control America.” He was right.
Do you dispute they own the Media? And that translates to control of the Media and of course from there to control of America itself?
Herzl said, Jews are a Nation without borders. Do you get that? So why Israel then? A safe place, free from extradition for starters.
Aw Dude we’re so passed that. You think he really is the Prez? Did you look at his birth certificate? A crude forgery. Now watch as you are tempted to call me a tea bagger. Your mind has been trained to be insane. It’s up to you to tame it and take it back.
[Deflategate]
Apparently, Tits are easier to foddle if they’re deflated.
https://homes.yahoo.com/news/own-five-mansions-guy-wants-150056064.html
Americans have to lower their expectations he says. Not him and his of course. Greene: Tribe of course. Note ethnicity of his wife. They are starting to marry Asians (especially Chinese) to facilitate entry into those cultures. When they abandon America, they will leave it a broken and dying shell, dropped onto the bloody snow for the Jackals and Vultures to gnaw on.
What a disgusting excuse for a human being. And the temerity is hard to fathom.
On the other hand, who really cares what this degenerate has to say or think? I certainly don’t. Truth be told, most of the very wealthy are philistines at the end of the day. Like the low wage secretary who fellated her way into the upper economic realms and ostentatiously parades around with her “designer” in the aftermath.
You don’t think there’s an overlap between extreme wealthy and power? Just a little bit maybe?
In fact, we live in a Plutocracy and guys like this call the shots. That’s why you should care.
Knock it off with the condescension; everybody knows that. But what exactly does Janos think he’s going to do about it, type away on message boards?
We’re not even a flea in the world of these types so it’s best to just accept one’s fate. Those people don’t even own a Stihl, much less attempt to repair the carburetor on one. But out of necessity the lowly one’s have to learn to do themselves. And there a certain satisfaction in doing so. If you learn to repair tools, harden and temper a piece of steal for example, one is entering and viscerally experiencing a sacred realm of traditional human existence. Whereas the man of means bypasses this types of experience because they can ‘afford to do so’.
In other words, learn to cultivate and cherish the recursive nature of one’s life. I’m certainly not destined for any mountaintop but perhaps I can learn to enjoy digging deeper on each successive go around. Besides, I hear there might be some treasures down there.
I feel like I have to type this: *steel* and *he*
I didn’t mean to condescend, it just bear endless repetition. After all, that’s how we got here. There’s nothing subtle or sacred about the average human mind or our average state of consciousness. Watch They Live, We Sleep.
Our messages aren’t subtle. They’re Men Bad. Women Good. Blacks Good. Whites Bad. And so on. Did you ever wonder why Cassandra received so little opposition when she arrived here? Did I not make the path smooth for the Goddess? Did I now wear you all down – even as water wears down stone? And the hardest of stones is Ozone – but I will triumph in the End.
What do you think of 3D printing? They’re beginning to make cars with it. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Craftsman and I’m glad the Fall is coming so he can return.
I do not think Billionaires need to marry to get a green light into a culture.
The cultures [or what is left of them] are ruled by that ‘Billionaires Boys Club’.
He may have married her because he finds her attractive.
Same with Zuckerberg.
He may have married her because he finds her attractive. – Malthuss
==============
Yes, Malth, it’s literally as simple as ^that^. I can state with near certainty that Green’s choice of a spouse was not part of a 2000+ year conspiracy to rule the world.
East Asians aren’t as far gone as Whites are in this regard. Not by a long shot. So the Jews will have to employ their old art, mimicry. So when they begin to dominate China and things begin to fall apart, the Chinese wont be able to see them since they will look a lot like them by then.
That’s always fascinated me. There has to be a high “boil off rate” akin to the Amish rumspringa* where a good proportion of Jewish kids simply leave the Tribe. There must’ve been a lot of sitting shiva down the millenia. I suspect the less insular, clannish teens just get sick of hearing the goy are cattle-apes and settle down with the first cute goy they can. That concentrates the more clannish, insular genetics even further within the Tribe.
*The Amish always expect at least 10% of their children every generation to go join the English.
And Janos, you are absolutely correct, without you, there is no Cassandra; no matter how sweet and polite she is, her views would be dismissed and excoriated and all the science she links would be derided as “hate facts”. It is folks like you that busted open the doors into wider fora. And folks like you and Cassandra that turned many rosy-glassed minds like mine onto real science and sociopolitical realities.
As I’ve said before, Whites are waking up at an astounding pace. Conversations that used to be the domain of Stormfront and /pol/ @ 4Chan (before Moot was cucked by a Jewess) are now see on all the mainstream rags.
Back to the ‘Econ Beat’ for a tic:
As you may have heard, over in Europe they’re getting ready to spew their of QE into the global speculation market. Mike Whitney had something pithy and direct [*] to say about that;
“Let’s say you’re diagnosed with colorectal cancer. But instead of going to a professional for help, you decide to treat yourself with glycerol suppositories and high doses of Vitamin C.
Well, then, you’re probably going to die, right?”-M W.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/01/23/money-for-stocks-zilch-for-the-economy/
— — —
[*] I’ve been reading Mike since 2004. ‘Pithy & Direct’ seems to just be the way that he rolls…
” I’ve been reading Mike since 2004.” — MD
Me too. Although he still worships at the altar of Growth, he gets the underlying dynamics almost *always*. Once he lets go of that religion and starts to grok contraction, we might [collectively] benefit from his perspicacious warnings
Agreed.
“Saying it has to be is not an answer, it’s a cop out. I have read extensively on Caesar. He never pitted tribe against tribe.” seawolf
As we are getting into a deeper area, may be you have noticed that I put a reference link at the bottom of my post, obviously not claiming to be an author of that article, just a interpreter from Russian.
Would you like me to contact the author of that article and ask some particular question or clear up some misunderstanding?
But before we do that, I need to know if you have read the “Notes on the Gallic War” (I admit that I have not) and if the words “…are nothing like the notes of great general, but rather accounting report – when and how much was spent on the orgy, gifts, “the presentation of the Roman way of life” and direct bribes to local elites.” have been completely false.
If you want to, we can get to the bottom of it.
Yes absolutely I am curious. He was the man who defined the age, his wife Cleopatra eerily resembled my ex-wife with her Streisand like szhnaze, he was accused of being Jesus Christ, he was bi-sexual and proud of it, but I have never heard Caesar be accused of being Machievellan. Now that would be news.
Wasn’t that Mark Antony with Cleopatra for a wife? Glad you reject the Black Cleopatra meme. Keep fighting.
No Mark Antony was boinkin J-Lo.
OK I love statistics, but dig this. America is 5% of world population. We use 20% of world’s oil. We consume 50% of the world’s pharmaceuticals, and this is the kicker, 80 % of the world’s pharmaceutical narcotics. Over 100,000 people die every year from prescription drugs. America is a drug orgy.
I’ve been looking at Billionaire interviews coming out of Davos; ‘Global warming’ appears to be some kind of billionaire hobby horse. It shows you’re down with the people even as you cruise the Med in your 120 ft. diesel powered yacht. Billionaires apparently want their world Squeaky Clean! Say you’re Bill Gates cruising over the US continent in your private 777, sipping champaigne, reading Rolling Stone. You look down from your lofty perch and espy a Dodge Power Wagon moving across the landscape, raising dust, dirtying up your pristine planet. What’s more, you suspect there’s a shotgun on the rack in the Dodge pickup, and it ain’t a Boss, Purdey or vintage Parker either, but a Remington 870 pump you can get at discount at Walmart for $259.00! What the hell is this? Everybody agrees firearms are for the police, army, and billionaires private security details. The billionaires at Davos agree, everything wrong is the fault of recalcitrant (white) Americans, who must be taken to task.
Meawhile, with crises brewing up across the planet, some of them existential (do i need to spell them out) our esteemed President finds time for a smarmy, ass kissing interview with a Youtube, green lipstick wearing artiste named Glo Well Green.
The world cries out for leadership.
At least we know where we’re not going to find it.
How do you like it now, gentlemens?
brh
“I have never heard Caesar be accused of being Machievellan. Now that would be news.” — seawolf77
Let me repeat my question before we go dig deeper: Have you read books by Caesar or about Caesar?
For instance, have you read this: https://archive.org/stream/caesarscommentar00caes#page/6/mode/2up
?
Caesar invented the book when he put his record of the Gallic Wars on a rolodex. That as far as I know was the only book he wrote. I have not read it. I have read books about Caesar written by others.
The world cries out for leadership.
Hell yeah! And more heroes. Chris Kyle for president. He can serve from Six Feet Under and lead America to victory in the never-ending battle to save the planet from savagery and Jewish bankers — one sniper target at a time. At that rate, it may take a million or more years, but there’s infinite beauty in the precision of it.
Greatest American Hero
Skip the boring ghostwritten Commentaries by the first of the Roman dictators, Julius, and go to the finest history ever written…..The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius penned about 100 AD. This exceptional record documents the fall of the Republic resulting in the first of the epic western Police States….the second being the Papacy and the third being the present age of entirely despotic Occult Technocracy. The splendor, the cruelty, the perversion, the torture….the original warfare-welfare police state.
Thanx for the advice. Just ordered it from Amazon. Excellent observation about the “true” Third Reich.
“The splendor, the cruelty, the perversion, the torture….the original warfare-welfare police state.”-nsa.
Nicely cited, n.
Yes, there are those that will argue that the Persian Empire was the prototype, but Imperial Rome became the template… An empire run by people who actually *think* like True Imperials… Splendid, is it not?
😉
/s
“Caesar invented the book when he put his record of the Gallic Wars on a rolodex. That as far as I know was the only book he wrote. I have not read it. I have read books about Caesar written by others.” — seawolf77
Well, then, your position (actually, as well as mine) is not yours, but the “others”. I hate to spend a week reading through, what appears to be pretty boring narrative, so I sent the private message to the author of the original text asking for at least couple of quotes from the original confirming his position. We’ll see how it goes.
But just at a first glance, Caesar appears to describe a lot of his activity during the Gallic wars that is not pure military, but political. Specifically, multiple times taking hostages from the families of local nobility was a standard procedure by Caesar to insure compliance.
Not all music is purposed toward soothing the savage [breast]. – Ozone
===============
It’s [beast], not breast.
Wrong you are, Teach.
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/252000.html
OK, I’ll stand corrected…
however, in my own defense, note this from YOUR link:
“this phrase is commonly misreported as ‘music has (or occasionally ‘hath’) charms to soothe the savage beast’. In fact, at the time of writing (Nov 2006) there are twice as many listed for the incorrect version of the phrase as for the correct one.”
It is one of those situations where common usage, though wrong, has overwhelmed the original. Take for example pronunciation of the word “forte”… 9 out of 10 times not the original.
I thank you for filling me in on this interesting detail since I would not want to go to my grave gravely misinformed.
Americans have to lower their expectations he says. Not him and his of course. Greene: Tribe of course. Note ethnicity of his wife. They are starting to marry Asians (especially Chinese) to facilitate entry into those cultures. – Janos
==============
That’s all well and good Janos but what about the deflated footballs?
Seriously Janos, I can envision a Greene you tube some years hence where an interviewer asks him “how is it a good Jewish boy came to marry an Asian woman?” and Green responds “to facilitate entry into those cultures.”
Janos, you are endlessly imaginative.
…and speaking of Greens’$ billions, unless they (his billions) are ill-gotten why do you and Buck give a shit what he chooses to spend it on?
Unless? Saints preserve us. They create money out of nothing and then get real assets, including human blood, sweat, and tears from this scam. Where have you been?
And they will plunge the World into WW3 if anyone tried to reform the system.
Of course Mr Greene may be as innocent of all this as the wind driven snow. I’ll give you that. But I wouldn’t bet on it and I certainly don’t like banking on it.
That’s how they gained entry into ours – or one of the ways at least. You are unimaginative – a far worse condition. Read Joe Biden’s speech where he says Jews are the essence of America. So if you don’t like America, you shouldn’t like………
But you like America. And by that you stand condemned.
http://www.politico.com/politico44/2013/05/biden-jewish-heritage-is-american-heritage-164525.html
A few highlights from Joe’s speech.
Here, here – SEE the inner Enemy: the will to power? No, the will to superficiality, a trait that has dogged Americans for the last century or so, only getting worse as the decades roll on.
Imagine if any of the major issues got a fraction of the coverage Deflate Gate is getting.
No one has mentioned that Greece is holding an election today and the outcome could have dire consequences.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2015/jan/25/greek-election-syriza-confident-of-victory-live-updates
Personally I think the consequences will be like ‘bridgegate’…i.e. blow over like a fart in a wind storm.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/16/us/studying-and-living-jewish-asian-intermarriage.html?_r=0
Note the article state that Jewish Culture is preserved – even though technically the vast majority of these couples are Jewish Male/Asian Female and the offspring not Jewish. That will be overlooked as they overlooked it when taking over European Culture. There is even talk now of officially changing this doctrine.
You’ll believe the “Good Gray Lady” but not your Kinsman. And that is the small tragedy redolent of the much greater one of White Extinction.
http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2014/12/influencing-how-jews-are-seen-in-china-its-all-about-nobel-prizes-and-tolerance-of-dissent/
Alas poor Yorick (Q)! Wrong again. I kick his skull back into the grave from which it hopped. Put more dirt on it this time boys – we got a hopper here.
Janos writes:
“No, no, we need music that “fortifies the spirit” as Mr Kunstler put it – and the kind that he plays. Why make things worse by aping the times acoustically? That’s the mistake our generation made. I agree not all music is just light or fun – that’s where Marches come in and things like the Horst Wessel Lied, Roddy McCorley – or some American equivalent yet to be written. Or Blues. Or the sad ballads of the British Isles, etc.
If the Grid is going to be going down, shouldn’t you be “prepping” by going acoustic now?
You are enrage. Acoustic folk and folk rock will help. Amped up Discordia will not. Remember that plants exposed to the Rolling Stones died. But Plants liked the Beetles and Beethoven, actually leaning towards the speakers. How do you think they would react to your music?”
——————————————————
Well the title of Ozone’s song is “Soldier For The Empire” so what type of sound do you believe would be a synonymous formal embodiment of that title? Surely not some type of pastoral, meditative sound?
And what do mean by ‘fortifying the spirit’? A soldier marching into battle is most likely not going to be listening to chamber music to fortify their spirit. IOW, your comment implies a type of sound which reflects the task at hand: drums for the pugilistic spirit, or Luther Vandross for a seductive Saturday night on the couch.
Or is the purpose of art to lift eyes up off the ground and elevate the spirit? Personally I agree with you, why aurally reflect the cacophony of the times? On the other hand, isn’t that exactly what Gershwin invokes, the bustling energy of the teeming metropolis?
Art reflecting life or life lead by art? What it is Janos?
Get busy living or get busy dying. He has prepped in all other areas, now let him apply the same life affirming principles to this area. Or is he too addicted to the Big Stage and Sound? I sympathize with him – most coffee houses are dismal indeed. The golden age of Folk is over, thankfully. It was Jewish after all, though some of them were good musicians of course. The real Folk Tradition of our People is still there though.
“The golden age of Folk is over, thankfully.”
I don’t know Janos, I think we could use more Bonnie Dobson types to sing songs. (And she is one of those women who has become even more beautiful as she’s aged–if you’re inclined to do a Google image search.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgl0YfJiz80
(And she is one of those women who has become even more beautiful as she’s aged–if you’re inclined to do a Google image search.) – Buck
================
Well, I am informed by Google that Bonnie is precisely 8 days older than me so if she is getting more beautiful with age she must be drop-dead gorgeous by now.
“Well the title of Ozone’s song is “Soldier For The Empire” so what type of sound do you believe would be a synonymous formal embodiment of that title? Surely not some type of pastoral, meditative sound?-buck.
Interesting observation, B. Downrange people find their musical tastes changing. In my case Danny Elfman’s soundtrack for the 1999 version of “Sleepy Hollow” was a constant refrain… Humming it, whistling in under my breath, etc.
But when I was on R&R, I blasted Rob Zombie into my eardrums constantly. The virile tone & ferocity of the music matched the mood of the transition from the combat zone, through the hellish artificiality of the tent-city in Kuwait, and from thence into sedate prettiness of Germany and Catalunia.
Lastly (and as the combat tour wore on) I had a bunch of girly-indie-rock shipped over – just so I could hear female voices and intonations – because I was overdosing on the sound of young and/or immature men, and I needed a psychological counterpoint to all that humanoid barking and nonsense…
🙂
and from thence into sedate prettiness of Germany and [Catalunia]. – MisterDarling
===========
It’s [Catalonia] but that nit-pick aside, it is obvious to me that Janos must NEVER find something to praise in the work of Ozone, his ideological nemesis.
I call this ‘the Autobahn effect.” If Hitler is considered the author of the Autobahn we must diligently avoid praising that superhighway.
I used “Catalunia” as one of the spelling variants favored by Catalan speakers, & because that’s the way that it’s pronounced in Catalan and across the border by Occitan speakers…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalonia
[example of catalan pronunciation]
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Catalunia
[2nd & 3rd citations down]
http://www.holidaylettings.co.uk/catalunia/
[an example of ‘catalunia’ in common usage]
I used “Catalunia” as one of the spelling variants favored by Catalan speakers, & because that’s the way that it’s pronounced in Catalan and across the border by Occitan speakers…
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalonia
[example of catalan pronunciation]
[2] http://www.holidaylettings.co.uk/catalunia/
[an example of ‘catalunia’ in common usage]
Well there Mr. D, you were a soldier in a combat zone; the real deal.Thanks for sharing that. Much respect.
And there you are Buck. And thank you.
Isn’t it ridiculous that there are people who demand that you post your “name, rank & serial number” when there are at least 100k easily identifiable and documentable details that only combat vets from that era would know, and can use to authenticate each other – without posting their “serial number”? [*]
There’s just a LOT that gets left out of the movies, tv-shows and even documentaries – so it’s not easy to fake the experience. In addition, when you’re downrange you notice what a small club it is. Combat Arms units are not a representative slice of American society. It’s a collection of demographically narrow slivers, so you have a pretty good idea of the stuff that they would notice, remember and comment on… And that becomes another way to authenticate purported vets.
— — —
[*] … which is SSN these days… So why would anyone demand that be published?
Both and neither. As Buddha said life is not as it appears, nor is it otherwise. Sometimes they arise together in simultaneity. The pen is mightier than the sword in that it comes first. But unless the sword is picked up in its defense it is as Q might say, “An art in the wind.”
The poor French drew cartoons of pencils as missiles going against the terrorists. These boyos aren’t long for this world unless they wise up. A pen is a pen and a sword is sword. Learn how they interact but don’t confuse the two.
In Tribal Black Africa a boy playing a flute near a field of men working would be asked to stop or go elsewhere – the flute is an instrument of air and the mind, not earth and muscles. Men working need a drum or something of Beat. Sometimes African Blacks would make music with their own work implements as did Blacks on the plantations and chain gangs. Much finer music came out of such poverty and earthy environments than out of Jewish owned studios. The Black Men needs to stay close to the Earth if he is to stay sane.
FitM (and everybody else interested in the Ukrainian extinction burst),
You couldn’t have missed this;
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-25/out-my-face-please-why-are-us-soldiers-mariupol
“Out of my face please!” Aahhhh… to be unattached, expendable and plausibly-deniable again! The good old days!
/s
[yeah, no thanks ;]
/s – MisterDarling
================
MD, you frequently end a post with “/s” … What does it mean?
It means this:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=%2Fs
That’s good to know…I could use it on just about everything I write.
And – so that we can more deeply appreciate the concept – it means this:
http://www.reactiongifs.us/wow-sarcasm-thats-original-dr-horrible/
🙂
Take a walk on the poor side. (this just tickled me and I thought I’d share)
I saw something crazy on CNN’s GPS with Fareed Zakaria. It showed the global corporatists at Davos going to a fake village of the poor. In their suits and jackets, they had to perform menial tasks to see how the billions of poor live on this planet.
If they didn’t get enough of these menial tasks done in time, they had to take off their jackets and give them to their village boss.
This was an exercise in compassion for the poor.
How do you think this will translate in any real re-thinking of the global economy?
In the medieval arcana describing the Infernal Powers, each demonic potentate had a feudal rank (archduke, baron, etc.) and one or several names descriptive of their domain, power and ‘potencies’; “Lord of the Flies”, “Father of Lies” etc.
In the case of the ‘demon lord’ controlling Barack Obama, “King of Empty Gestures” may be the most appropriate appellation. . .
Consider:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/01/23/the-king-of-empty-gestures/
If I remember correctly – I must be nearing the 8th year of stopping by – and posting at this BLOG…….
My perspective suggests that understanding the present circumstances – and predicting any future events is even more remote than I deemed in 2008.
Many respected reports have been found out to be well off their prognostications. (even those scripted from the most conservative sources)
I think that we all fail at respecting the enormous scale of our [global] existence.
My personal experience supports the notion that there is just so much incredible waste of currently harvested resources – that forecasting any consequences of “peak” anything is useless.
And some point – timing and priorities trump eventualities.
Okay, so nothing can be anticipated or planned for, because it’s all so big and random… Well now! What a relief!
🙂
No point in planning anything then, and the whole science and industry of Risk Management can be sent home now!
Thanks for that, Bud’!
Cheers!
/s
Suck It, Troika!
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-25/syriza-defeats-samaras-to-win-greek-election-exit-poll.html
😉
[obviously we’ll have to see how it pans out, but it doesn’t hurt to celebrate the little victories, now and then…;]
Cheers!
Suck It, Troika! – MD
===========
From your link: “Overwhelmingly the Greek people voted against austerity policies,” the party said.
Yippee! Back to sipping coffee at outdoor cafes in mid-day!
Actually Q, I think it’s increasingly likely that The Troika will give the Greeks the boot, because after all is said and done it’s not worth the effort, and *then* they’ll start writing down Italy and Spain’s debt-load.
Upshot: Greece will be a Balkan State once again, and with Turkey turning its back on Europe (after a 51 year flirtation) Cyprus’s devolution will be a fait accompli.
By The Way: please don’t think that I don’t appreciate your editorial exertions in CFN. Someone has to keep us on our toes and honest…
😉
http://www.infowars.com/american-boots-on-the-ground-in-ukraine/
No, volodya, no sarcasm at all concerning my compliment about your post. A little bit of hunger makes marginally tolerable food taste very good indeed. I think way too many “preppers” burn themselves out trying to rotate foodstuffs that they think their families will find desirable. This is because they have never, themselves, been hungry enough to appreciate your advice. Give it time.
Buckstud – too bad you’ve spent all these years considering me a “doctrinaire dilettante,” or however you put it – on the subject of overpopulation and the US environment. If only I had written you a pretty story about dead beavers, you would have joined https://www.numbersusa.com/ with me long ago – and the world would now be a far better place. (haha. moderate sarc on/off) Or s:/, as MD likes to put it.
And thanks for asking about that, q. I was wondering. You’re young, MD, or else really trendy. Watch out for FOB-style slang, as an identifier, BTW. What Q would call “fatigues,” you call BDU’s, for a random example. Things change. Give it time.
Also, buck, thanks for that story about wanting to hit your granddad in the head with a rock. My own granddad was a lifelong, gentleman dirt farmer of the very old school. He died when I was 8. I still cherish memories of trying to “help” him farm. Walking behind his mule drawn plow, watching for arrowheads in the cool Southern clay. God only knows, what I would give for a few days of his advice around my place this spring! But, as you suggest, if he’d lived until I was 14 – maybe I would have wanted to bash in his head with a rock.
(JK, Granddad!)
I kept one of my own grandsons this weekend. Wore me out enough that I admitted to my wife that grandkids are harder than kids. My own kids were stuck with me ’till they were 18, and I knew I had to have their respect and had to let the rest of it all fall into place. The paradigm is different for a grandkid – ‘specially a grandson I think.
And damn, but that boy loves his media. He actually cried because I made him stop watching some infernal thing called “Disney Infinity,” to come to the table for dinner. And this dinner consisted of the homemade pizza that he helped put the cheese and pepperoni on. I was a little chagrined, to put it mildly. I hope we can work it out without him hitting me in the head with a rock. Right now, with him at less than 6, I’ve still got pounds and strength on him. But things change. Mutual respect is important. Give it time.
P4W, are you aware that NumbersUSA CEO and founder is Roy Beck, who was mentored by John Tanton?
Internal memoranda to the staffs groups Tanton founded showed Tanton warning of
** a coming “Latin onslaught”
** questioning whether Latinos were as “educable” as others
** worrying that Latinos were outbreeding whites
Tanton told a reporter that whites would soon develop a racial consciousness, and the result would be “the war of all against all.”
Tanton hired and worked alongside Wayne Lutton, who has held leadership positions in four white supremacist hate groups.
Tanton published and endorsed a racist book on immigration, and he published numerous white supremacist tracts.
Tanton compared immigrants to bacteria that will continue growing until the population crashes, and sneered at immigrants’ “defecating and creating garbage.”
Over the course of some 20 years Tanton had corresponded with Holocaust deniers, former Klan lawyers, and leading white nationalist thinkers.
Tonton has promoted the work of an infamous anti-Semitic professor, Kevin MacDonald. At one point, pursuing his interest in eugenics, the utterly discredited “science” of breeding a better human race, Tanton tried to find out if Michigan had laws allowing forced sterilization. His concern, Tanton wrote in a letter of inquiry, was “a local pair of sisters who have nine illegitimate children between them.”
These and other revelations came from an examination of Tanton’s correspondence, which is housed at the Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in Tanton’s home state. The same library contains Tanton’s correspondence with Beck, letters that illuminate their close relationship.
Roy Beck of NumbersUSA has never denied his mentorship by Tanton.
From occupation of Afghanistan to occupation of Europe?
Army plans to shift 3,000 troops to Europe
The Army plans to send a brigade of tanks and fighting vehicles into Europe by the end of this year, according to the top Army commander in the region.
More than 150 tanks and fighting vehicles will go to Germany and other countries in Europe as part of the Army’s plan to bolster its presence on the continent.
The shift comes as the war in Afghanistan winds down and more resources and troops are available for service in Europe.
“By the end of 2015, we will have an entire heavy brigade combat team of equipment — that’s enough tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles, self-propelled Howitzers, engineer vehicles, on and on, for three battalions and a reconnaissance squadron plus all the enablers,” Lt. Gen Frederick “Ben” Hodges, Commander of U.S. Army Europe, told The Hill.
The move is also meant to reassure European allies worried about Russia, which has tanks positioned on the eastern border of Ukraine.
http://thehill.com/policy/defense/229105-army-plans-to-shift-3000-troops-to-europe
Ukrainian migrant workers “occupy” the Russian construction sites in the Arctic and Siberia
Truly funny news came from Ivano-Frankovsk region of Ukraine, the breeding ground for Ukrainian nationalism: On January 19, the day before the official start of the mobilization campaign, about a thousand men from Perehinske went to work abroad – to Russia. 26 buses with migrant workers went to Krasnoyarsk. This was announced at the meeting focused on mobilization, which was held today in the Ivano-Frankovsk Regional Administration with the participation of military commissars of all areas of the region, representatives of law enforcement agencies and public activists. Of 17,400 inhabitants of Perehinske, including about 7,000 men of military age, in 23 years of Ukrainian independence in the army served only one resident of the village, i.e. 15% of men of military age of one of the western regions of Ukraine instead of “war with Russia” have left to work in Russia. Symptomatically. The question arises – who occupies whom? Is it time to gather Russian Security Council about the divisions and battalions of Ukrainian migrant workers who occupy the Russian construction sites in the Arctic and Siberia?
http://www.regnum.ru/news/polit/1888002.html
I have tried to read as much as possible about peak oil and don’t have any firm convictions of where we are headed. US barrels consumed per day has remained at 19 million for a few years. We seem to be able to extract about 10 million a day here in the US. I cant get a firm read on how much is left in the middle east. The entire news media reports we are going to be a net exporter to the world, our oil worries are over, and peak oil was a myth. FIrst peak in world was estimated at 2005/2006/ Now its 2012/2103. Peak oil in the US was supposedly 1970 and yet we are still extracting 1/2 of our daily use here in the USA. Anybody care to comment on peak oil fact or fiction? I am not so much focused on the economics, I am more interested in the actual useable stuff here on earth. I do not believe in sustainables of any consequences replacing oil, pure fiction, but are we going to run dry in a decade? Two? three?