JHK’s Three-Act Play
Y es, there is such a thing as “the public,” a term that derives from the ancient Latin, populus (the people), via publicus (of the people), via old French, public — pertaining generally to the mass of adults dwelling in a polity, a society under (political) governance. In the USA, government is vested as a republic, also from the Latin, res publica, meaning the public thing, the vessel that contains the public.
I present these terms to clarify how our society is cracking up. The American public, we the people, lately swoon into a morass of multi-dimensional failure: failure to control their economic lives, to regulate their appetites and their bodies, to understand what is happening to them, to fend off the propaganda and distractions that disable them, and to properly express and direct their wrath at those elements of the polity who deserve it.
True, their awful, epic failures at this moment in history are largely engineered and aggravated by those who have captured the polity and turned it into a looting and racketeering engine. The net result, though, is a self-reinforcing circle of degradation that rots the collective ethos of the public while it destroys the vessel of the republic that contains it.
Societies that act as though they are hostage to these forces of degradation are able to pretend that they are helpless in the face of them; that the public bears no responsibility for its own choices or for the disintegration of the polity they live under. Hence, the current condition of the American public and its disgraceful government.
It’s not difficult to understand how Donald Trump becomes the instrument for the public’s wrath. Whatever his checkered career in land development amounts to, he is at least a freely-functioning and unfettered actor in the political arena. The public enjoys most of all his assertion of independence from the tremendous engine of grift that the republic has become. His arrant contempt for his rivals, and for the disgusting political process erected for the election contest, also thrills a big wad of the public. So far, his actual ideas for governing lack coherence, except for the rather general notion that uncontrolled immigration, and all the mendacious fakery associated with it, is a bad thing for the republic. Beyond that he offers only blustering claims that he is “very smart,” an “artist of deal-making,” a “patriot.”
Almost nothing so far can knock him down or take him out. Fox News tried in last week’s “debate” — which was not a debate at all, really, but a half-assed interrogation — by trying to set the female half of the public against him for his nasty remarks about women over the years. Of course, the dirty secret of both politics and the media is that the common backstage chatter among pols and TV news producers is every bit as vulgar and hateful as anything Trump said. In case you haven’t noticed, all of America has turned into a verbal sewer, especially the virtual public realm of television. I don’t remember anyone complaining about the comportment of the characters in Tony Soprano’s Badda-Bing Lounge. In fact, awards were heaped on the depiction of that behavior. That’s who we are now.
The rise and persistence of Trump raises a more pertinent question: why are all the other candidates such obvious shills for the implacable engine of grift that is destroying the Republic? Why has nobody with the possible exception of Bernie Sanders, called bullshit on the basic operations of the machine? Why have no other persons of real stature stepped forward to challenge the suicidal dynamic of the age?
There are many cycles in history, politics, and economics. One in particular afflicts the American public today: we’re at a cycle low for comprehending what is happening to us. Sometimes societies know very well what is going on and communicate it superbly. Such was the case in the late 1700s when American leaders filed divorce from Great Britain. Can you imagine any of the clowns onstage for the Fox News “debate” playing a role in writing the Federalist Papers? Obviously, the public and its putative representatives today don’t have a clue what is happening. And then, necessarily, they don’t have a clue what to do about it.
The foregoing assumes that they are honorable persons, though, which may not be the case. This is the chief gripe against Hillary Clinton, of course: that she is an unprincipled monster of ambition and little more. That would be my take on her, for instance. Among the Republicans (as in party) only Rand Paul stands out as not appearing to be some kind of puppet shilling for the grift machine. After all, the party is the very embodiment of that machine. And by trying to play nicely in its arena, Rand Paul may lack the fortitude to attack it.
I’m with those who think that the 2016 election campaign is going to be a wild spectacle beyond the current imaginings of news media. I’m serenely convinced that, among other things, the banking system is going to implode so hard and fast well before the nominating conventions that the nation will be in a state of near chaos. What’s out there now is just a tired dumb-show replaying the shopworn themes of an era that is about to slam to a close.
The third World Made By Hand novel
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Paintings from the 2023 Season
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What is happening in American politics cannot be called anything but chaos. And this chaos is a reflection of the crisis of American policy. The crisis that was created by the election campaign of 1992, when Bill Clinton, or rather, Hillary Clinton, who actually wears the pants in the family, pulled out of her sleeve Ross Perot, that violated all conceivable American elite gentlemen’s agreements that allow it to develop a national agenda at least on foreign policy issues between the elections.
Ross Perot as an independent candidate took 20% of George H.W. Bush vote and insured Clinton’s victory of the White House, and drove the American political system into a state of shock from which it has not come out so far. Shock all the more dangerous that the elections in 1992 were the elections that would determine a world in which the United States was the sole superpower, and George H.W. Bush was the last of the old guard of politicians who knew the true history of confrontation between the US and USSR, not the propaganda version cooked by joint efforts of masters of professional disinformation on both sides.
Moreover, George H.W. Bush has repeatedly said that he had some plan about the so-called victory in the Cold War, other than the unbridled looting and, most importantly, the humiliation of Russia, and the growth of a big baseball club to a planetary scale.
In the meantime, this is what we saw in the 90s, when the Clintons celebrated notorious victory in the Cold War with military operations in Bosnia, Macedonia, Haiti, the Central African Republic, Kuwait, Iraq, Albania, Sierra Leone, Cambodia, Guinea Bissau, Kenya, Tanzania, Afghanistan, Sudan, Liberia, East Timor, Kosovo, Serbia and began to discuss penalizing the Russia for failing to give a free hand to Chechen terrorist authorities.
And one can only wonder about hypocritical arrogance of Clinton, who, in spite of this list, accused George W. Bush of a disproportionate response to the events of 911.
I do not want to say that George Bush senior, becoming in 1992 the president of the United States, would provide Russian citizens with painless landing into capitalism and democracy – it is not the responsibility of the President of the United States.
But there is no doubt that his policy would be much more responsible. Anyway, George Bush Senior knew that the printing press is not the solution to all economic problems of the world and that integration processes in the post-Soviet space is not big bear aggression against the small skunks, but a natural integration process of a single economic system of the USSR and the real, and not imaginary, common history and culture of the Soviet people, under the period of post-imperial Russia.
Furthermore, the above trick with Ross Perot in conjunction with the transition of Senator McCain from Democratic to the Republican Party not only allowed the Clintons to arrange world politics in what we are seeing for the past twenty-five years, but also deprived the Democratic and Republican parties from distinct political philosophy different from the position of a competitor in the elections, and the political struggle has turned into a purely situational action, meaning of which American voters do not understand, largely because there is no meaning.
And now the voters just want to show the middle finger of the entire political system of the United States on both sides of the political spectrum, which makes Donald Trump something bigger than just Ross Perot 2.0
Actually, that this is the current phenomenon of Trump that he began as Ross Perot 2.0, suddenly discovering that he is not only 2 times bigger than the most popular of any other Republican candidate, but also enjoys considerable support of Obama’s Democrats, who are so sick of Hillary Clinton’s statement about her invincibility that this time they are ready to vote for the Republican candidate. And as an independent candidate, as Clintons originally intended, Donald Trump will be simply unbeatable, taking votes not only from the Republican candidate, but from Democratic candidate as well, which would guarantee to bury the American two-party political system as in the word “forever.”
And it creates a situation precisely because of political arrogance of Hillary Clinton, which otherwise cannot be called other than a chutzpah. And now, when it became clear that the fate of the candidate Clinton will be decided not at voting booths, but by US Justice Department, the Democratic Party has the only remaining popular candidate – Bernie Sanders, who absolutely does not excite the Democratic Party establishment. And the chances of his victory in the presidential race are very small, because unlike Trump he delights only the far left of the Democratic electorate and even the most moderate Republicans will not vote for him.
As a result the Democratic establishment, who were ready to prematurely celebrate their victory, are even more confused than the Republican establishment scared to death by its most popular candidate. And talk about the urgent nomination of Biden reflect that confusion as Biden is being prepared not as a rival to Hillary Clinton, but the second number of the Democratic Party, sitting on the bench. And Biden will come into play only if the US Department of Justice shows a red card to Hillary Clinton.
And all this happens against the backdrop of the unprecedented pressure by the Republicans on US Attorney Loretta Lynch, who is suggested to remove herself from the investigation of criminal activity of Hillary Clinton and appoint a special prosecutor, since she is personally obliged to Bill Clinton who appointed her in 1999, as AG of eastern New York. And if she jumps at the chance, and it is very likely she will, as Barack Obama does seem to be secretly supporting these Republican initiatives, the notorious red card would be something more than just a hypothesis.
Special piquancy of the situation makes the fact that Republicans last month persuaded themselves that Donald Trump is about to reach his ceiling at 10%, then 20%, then to 26 and even 29% … suddenly realized that the project “Ross Perrot 2.0” takes an unexpected turn. They are not only included Trump in the list of participants of televised debate as number one, but published data about the call of Bill Clinton on the eve of his announcement as a candidate from the Republican Party. And this move is aimed not so much to compromise Donald Trump in the eyes of the Republicans as to attract the sympathies of Democrats and split the Democratic electorate.
Indeed, Bill Clinton is not only still popular with the average American because of America’s economic prosperity in the 1990s, but recently has become famous for his friendship with George W. Bush and his attacks on President Obama – including his allegations that Obama stands for the green light to “Servergate” and the FBI and investigation.
But the most popularity Bill Clinton acquired recently, when he was asked about his participation in the election campaign of his wife and said that in order to participate in it, one must be constantly in a state of violent insanity. And, apparently, this applies not only to those who support it, but also to those who oppose it, even as the spoiler of the opposite party.
And in this situation, political chaos is the norm, not the exception.
http://regnum.ru/news/polit/1950389.html
Fincaln, the word count of your screed probably exceeds this week’s post by JHK, and he’s the reason we are all here on Monday mornings, not to digest your prepared political ramblings.
Maybe you should start your on blog and then drop links to it as Neon Vincent so skillfully does.
I agree, Pogo. My “conspiracy theory” is. With 17candidates and the Donald out front stirring the pot for eyeballs and notice, the repubs are their corporate paymasters are selling one idea over and over….Hillary bad, dems bad, Obama bad, vote for change. It doesn’t matter who just a red candidate. We will get this message over and over til the election. Citizens united gives the opportunity to flood the airwaves with attacks and if said loud and long enough they hope that it becomes”fact”.
Finc,
An honest and well-thought analysis…thank you.
Hear! Hear!
The last time we had this kind of riffed with a candidate not in the mainstream view of the RHINO controlled party was Ronald Reagan. Trump is being ignored rejected and demonized using the same methods they tried on reagan.
Look where that got them a Reagan landslide from all the crossover blue collar democrats who at the time were fed up with democratic taxes.
Republicans are so protective of the corporate welfare programs they are unable to produce winning candidates or platforms.
Trump has his own platform one that is resonating with not only a good share of republicans but also those Regan Blue Collar Dems
Another landslide victory is on the horizon for Republicans if they are smart enough to give up watching FOX party line
There are some younger people, not that politically oriented most of the time, who are interested in Bernie.
When I saw Bill Clinton on one of the talk shows, he was very tired from a trip to Africa, but it seemed to me that he was lacking enthusiasm for his wife’s campaign this time around.
Get your own blog Pensioner In Benidorm
the Fox guarding the Trump house
They’re trying to, at least. However, in this case, they’re more like Sir Robin against the Giant Chicken of Bristol. The smart move for Fox News would be to bravely run away!
Their audience has other options, one of which is to drink heavily, as Bluto in Animal House advised. To assist in that venture, I have Drinks for the candidates in tonight’s debate to go with the drinks for Trump I listed last week. Most of these, along with the drinking game rules, can be re-used for future debates, although the latest polls indicate that I’ll have to find rules and a recipe for Carly Fiorino. She appears to have won what is appropriately called the “Happy Hour” debate. The loser of last week? Chris Christie. Poor Fat Bastard fell out of the top 10 according to the latest NBC poll.
As for Trump’s refusal to rule out an independent candidacy, he could run afoul of Michigan’s sore loser law and end up ineligible for next year’s general election ballot if he takes too long to decide. The resulting legal fireworks would be interesting to behold.
“Fox guarding the Trump house” Very funny line, Marzo! How about a bumper sticker: “Trump, He’s What America Deserves”.
I would welcome the spectacle of Trump vs Biden; the debate on the Comedy Channel billed as: “Uptown clown versus downtown clown.”
Lastly, I think poetic justice calls for Gov Christie being dipped in orange paint and put out on the highway, serving 100 hours as a big fat traffic cone. Call it public service in lieu of jail time.
Not until wealthy folk along the costs of Florida feel the Atlantic ocean in their living rooms will they believe that sea level is rising. Even then, they will consider it a liberal plot.
on the Florida coast snow birds have 50 to 100 years before water licks their doors, we all be dead by then, regardless everybody in FLA is in deep denial, wouldn’t you?
They don’t want to hear it, just like telling someone that they MAY die of cancer, or that Mich McConnell is high on Bourbon and magic mushrooms
It may be less than 50 to 100 years the way things are going. It has been hot and humid with daily rain there for more than a month. Stifling for humans but alligators I hear are loving it. In the election ahead alligators may be the ones going door to door canvassing in Florida. Heat having damped out human activity.
“It has been hot and humid with daily rain there for more than a month.”
That’s called summer in FL. I’ve lived it most of my life.
Hot and humid Florida summers have nothing to do with phony global warming, climate change or whatever fabricated climate theory you prefer. But if you can convince all of those lefty snowbirds that their condos will be flooded and they need to move back to NY, NJ or wherever, all of us in Florida would be very grateful.
“nothing to do with phony global warming” I agree with you. It might, however, have something to do with real global warming.
“climate change” As I reminded another poster last week, “global warming” was rebranded as “climate change” by no less a mind than George III of Washington.
“whatever fabricated climate theory” From this I assume that you prefer non-fabricated climate theories. Since something fabricated is by definition made-by-artifice, and a theory can only be produced by a sentient being, I am at a loss to understand what you mean. Could you perhaps give an example of your preferred type of non-fabricated theory?
As a stranger to Florida, I would love to learn.
What, and be left with nothing but semi-literate hicks like you? No thanks.
K9–It’s not rain falling on Florida that will cause coastal land to be inundated. It’s the rise in sea level caused by heating of ocean water, in turn causing that water to expand. Also, the melting of glaciers, polar ice caps, and the Greenland ice mass will cause sea level rise.
I must clarify this: the melting of the Antarctic ice cap will raise sea level. The melting of the arctic ice cap will not change the sea level because the north pole ice cap is floating on the ocean, while the south pole ice cap rests on land. Likewise, glaciers and the Greenland ice mass rest on land, so their melting will raise sea level.
You can demonstrate this principle by floating some ice cubes in a glass of water, marking the water level on the glass, then waiting for the ice to melt. The water level will not change.
Recreational fishing in the Keys has moved more and more from the Gulf side to the cooler, deeper waters of the Atlantic. Some of our reefs, resplendent in Techicolor just 25 years ago, now look like barren rock moonscapes today.
For the few remaining reefs which have held on, it’s not getting any better with water temperatures many days this Summer above or close to 90 degrees Farhenheit:
http://keysnews.com/node/68760
“The long, hot, windless summer days are beginning to take their toll on the Florida Keys’ coral reef.
Many corals are beginning to “pale,” which can be a precursor to bleaching, said Mote Marine Laboratory coral biologist Cory Walter, who oversees Mote and the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary’s Bleach Watch program.
Extremely warm water temperatures can result in coral bleaching. When water is too warm, corals will expel the algae, called zooxanthellae, living in their tissues, causing the coral to turn completely white. Corals can survive a bleaching, but they are under more stress and are subject to mortality and diseases.
A total of 21 Bleach Watch reports were received during the past two weeks with 18 reports indicating isolated colonies exhibiting signs of paling, Walter said. The remaining two reports indicated that no significant signs of coral bleaching were observed. At those sites where paling was reported, the overall percentage of corals exhibiting signs of heat stress was mostly 1 to 10 percent, but one Lower Keys shallow inshore site noted 50 to 75 percent of corals affected. The majority of paling observations consisted of isolated colonies of boulder corals.”
Well according to what Dr. James Hansen along with 16 other top climate scientists now believe, the “wealthy folk along the costs of Florida” won’t have to wait too long. It will happen much sooner than they believed 10 or 15 years ago.
I bought at 16 ft 19 years ago 700 ft from Gulf of Mexico hoping to be waterfront by now. The best laid plans of mice and men…
Yes, rain of biblical proportion lately. If there were any creative political vision the 94 million or so who choose not to work could be assigned the task of assembling the nationwide water redistribution grid and we could re-charge the Ogallala aquifer or feed the Colorado from the recent excess here. I’m sure that political accountants would throw it out in favor of warfare against anyone, somewhere. Somehow those numbers always work.
By the way a lot of the folks along the Atlantic where sea levels may be rising (possibly the entire peninsula is just tilting down toward the East) are liberals, or at the least they vote Democratic. It’s the home of Debbie Wasserman Schultz. That’s why it was so hilarious during the hanging chad spectacle in 2000 that these types “voted” for Pat Buchanan on a ballot designed by their own Party apparatchniks.
“a ballot designed by their own Party apparatchnik” I thought I heard that she was a registered Repub who moled the Dems. Or is my memory failing me?
Your memory may be failing, if the Wikipedia entry on Theresa LePore is accurate. She switched to No Party Affiliation following the 2000 election, which I can imagine led some to conclude she was never really a Democrat at heart. Republican mole is deliciously conspiratorial, but perhaps a stretch given the total lack of evidence.
Well, how about this evidence? She gave Thanksgiving Day off for the re-counters, causing them to miss the deadline. (ABC News: /abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=122175).
Does that sound deliciously impartial to you?
Sorry, I should have said, “It is reported that …” My error.
our current economic system is designed to keep the poor poor and the rich richer. Our current economic system is based on theories that don’t make much sense, they are punitive in nature, arcane, and anti social. Economics is similar to religion but much worse in the sense that you can be righteous and still burn in its hell.
Excellent post today. Dysfunctional is the word that comes to mind. But let’s face it, the world is dysfunctional. I believe there is something innate in the human spirit that desires a sort of secret, hiddenness to life. It wants the truth about the machinery of governing to be layered in mendacity and obfuscation. It is who we are. It is why we have affairs. It is why we love gangsters. It is why we cheat and steal. No doubt the media reinforces the notion that it is more fun and interesting to be this way. I’m not sure about the path to happiness. I don’t think the media advertises that. Most of the people on TV shows are morbidly miserable. Money is the dirty stinky grease of this machine. The notion that we trade our lives for these stinky little pieces of paper is quite nauseating.
Indeed, “Money is the dirty stinky grease of this machine.”
Where the hell is Howard Beale when we need him? Oh, I just remembered, they killed him for speaking out against the machine.
I beleve that your Comment resonates with Kunstler’s conclusion:
“the nation will be in a state of near chaos.”
I still don’t see what you’re seeing.
DB,
I believe that would be due to the fact that corruption, rot and ruin are never evenly distributed, nor evenly spread as a topic of serious discussion.
Thank you. You are very correct in your observation.
Jeb’s bizarre reply during the August 6th debate when he was asked whether US soldiers’ sacrifice in the Iraq War was in vain?: “Knowing what we know now. The invasion was a mistake. But I’m not sorry that as Governor of Florida I personally made an effort to call all of the families of the deceased soldiers whose telephone numbers that I could find in Florida.”
Shouldn’t Jeb have suggested to his brother, George W. Bush, Jr that he should make amends in some way other than accepting a US$100,000 fee from a charity serving an Iraq War veterans for a 30 minute speech?
The Iraq war was a thousand billion dollar hog-trough feed for the military-industrial complex – why begrudge George a measly hundred K? Mere crumbs from the feast……
Isn’t Tony Blair over there making a pile for himself as well? Nobody talks about it.
JHK: “I’m with those who think that the 2016 election campaign is going to be a wild spectacle beyond the current imaginings of news media. What’s out there now is just a tired dumb-show replaying the shopworn themes of an era that is about to slam to a close.”
Jim, I’d say the entire election process is nothing more than American Idol. You have a collective bunch of losers who either have never worked a day in their lives outside of a Government job or I would not trust to run a 7-11 store.
I’d say for comedic value, lets hire Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul to moderate the debates. Let’s have Ryan Seacrest have the public call in those votes for your favorite candidate. Let’s have a semi-final and final round of this shit political sideshow.
Count me as disinterested in who the f##k wins. It won’t make a difference and it’s been that way for the last several decades. It’s just now becoming apparent that we are all part of The Truman Show.
American Idol judges are what I’ve been telling people the Fox debate moderators were trying to be. Simon Cowell’s making the show about him was part of the reason people tuned in to Idol. I don’t think “journalists” today know that Idol was entertainment and the debate was supposed to be something else.
Fincain, what a crock of bull hockey.
As I said last week, Finca: considering that English is your second (or third, or fourth . . .) language, you do amazing work. Amazingly good that is.
Evelyn, the name is Finca in the mountains, not Fincain. Finca means farm in Spanish. I think the farm is in Costa Rica. Correct me if I’m wrong.
You stand corrected…
Spectacle it sure is, as in Guy Debord’s brilliant (if Marxian) analysis: The Society of the Spectacle.
#4 – The spectacle is not a collection of images, but a social relation among people, mediated by images.
And with near absolute control of politics and media and finance (among other most important social structures) the Evil-Bastards-In- Charge love the circus. Keeps the hoi poloi well amused and at the same time out of the loop. That’s the part of the spectator and we know that, too, is what we have become.
And I completely agree Seawolf – it’s all about the $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$!
Well done JHK. It does indeed seem like we’re attending some vast worn out badly conceived theatre, watching a juggernaut of our own making over which we now have perhaps no control. Can the course of this monstrosity be altered, the chances seem vanishingly remote.
” Can the course of this monstrosity be altered [?]…”
baird,
No, it must collapse of its own weight, like the rotten Potemkin facade that it is. Although late in the day, it’s time to chart your own course. If you’re aware enough of the idiocy around you to read Kunstler’s railings against it, you’re certainly qualified to veer from its suicidal crowd-crush. “Just do it” may be the patented catch-phrase of a shitheaded corporation, but fuck them, make it just one more reason to adopt it as your own for the future good of you and yours. We don’t know if humanity will survive the depredations of its own, but we can give it a shot through like-minded associations that don’t involve ‘more of the same’.
Hello Ozone & Co.,
re |”No, it must collapse of its own weight, like the rotten Potemkin facade that it is. Although late in the day, it’s time to chart your own course. If you’re aware enough of the idiocy around you to read Kunstler’s railings against it, you’re certainly qualified to veer from its suicidal crowd-crush.”-oz.
I’m in agreement. Yes, ‘t’wouldn’t it be *nice* if there a legitimate and effective political process available to The Public? If there were we certainly wouldn’t be seeing as much apathy and rage about this bacchanalia of BS being shoveled at us.
We can still make choices – we can choose to not allow our time to be wasted by idiots foisting this cr*p upon us. We should – as you say: “fuck them” and bypass their nonsense.
— — —
[*] Sorry, a system of payoffs and groveling does not qualify.
Baird:
Can the course of this monstrosity be altered, the chances seem vanishingly remote.
Can the course of this monstrosity be altered? The chances seem vanishingly remote.
All writers need an editor. I’m not an exception to that rule
Right you are, haste makes waste 🙂
“What’s out there now is just a tired dumb-show replaying the shopworn themes of an era that is about to slam to a close.”
Wishful thinking from one who despises the current state of affairs. Change will come when it comes but for now clowns continue to erupt from the miniature media clown car under the big top three ring circus called America. Crazy times may not be coming to an end and it may be a ‘you ain’t seen nothin yet’ kind of situation with crazy times just begun. As said; a banking crisis won’t produce sanity. It will produce chaos and lack of understanding. Someone in a crazy clown suit, the same kind crazy clown suit bankers themselves wear will emerge to make a joke of us in history books yet to be written.
It will be a time where it will be observed that no one rose to the occasion to provide a path to a rational future because that has become impossible. Impossible in a land where speech is still free enough, but where free talk can now only be whispered. Whispers which nobody can hear over the shrill whistle of calliope music.
“As said; a banking crisis won’t produce sanity. It will produce chaos and lack of understanding. Someone in a crazy clown suit, the same kind crazy clown suit bankers themselves wear will emerge to make a joke of us in history books yet to be written.” K-Dog
K-Dog, this resonates with Kunstler’s: “I’m serenely convinced that, among other things, the banking system is going to implode so hard and fast well before the nominating conventions that the nation will be in a state of near chaos.”
I just don’t see what you guys are seeing.
Perhaps if you can look back at what happened eight years ago you might see what we are seeing.
Trusted by virtue of being able to fill a suit but otherwise being a total unknown he was elected president. He then directed the same bankers who created a monumental banking crisis to fix it because they were ‘experts’.
It is your mess you clean it up does not work on adults. Someone should have told him that. That parental strategy only works on small children who feel bad when they do something wrong. Bankers who lack conscience don’t take responsibility for their actions. They expect to be bailed out and get a free ride. Pleasing daddy is the furthest thing from their psychopathic minds.
And history is about to rhyme.
“Perhaps if you can look back at what happened eight years ago you might see what we are seeing.
Trusted by virtue of being able to fill a suit but otherwise being a total unknown he was elected president.” – K-Dog
============================================
I believe that your explanation is exaggerated, and therefore we aren’t heading for chaos:
Dannyboy, your logic seems a bit flawed. Even if K-dog’s explanation is exaggerated, that doesn’t necessarily have any bearing on whether we are, or are not, heading for chaos. If the ship of the Republic is taking on water, it’s sure to go down at some point unless things change. So if no change, then all one can argue about is when it will go down, not if. Regarding Obama’s election, I think it’s obvious that he was rammed through into the Oval Office similar to the way Dubya was rammed down our throats. Another way of looking at this is that no real statesman wants the job. Thus we are left with poseurs and “little” men, and women, vying for the job. In this way our situation is very similar to what the Romans experienced from CE 250 and after (approximately). All the candidates who might have been capable were too busy accumulating wealth to be bothered with public office. As someone else on this site wrote, we are seeing history rhyme right now, methinks.
“I believe that your explanation is exaggerated, and therefore we aren’t heading for chaos:”
Dannyboy,
I believe that your sense of well-being and self-worth are contingent upon your comment’s hoped for veracity…Chaos is alive and well not 50 blocks from your admittedly “upscale Manhattan neighborhood”. Also, “not seeing what we are seeing” is becoming a theme repeated in your posts. Perhaps Barb might offer a cornea?
Many years ago, your parents may have convinced you that there is no “Boogeyman”…their assurances were not necessarily accurate…and you, sir, are whistling past the graveyard of history’s rude lessons.
How did Simon and Garfunkel put it? A man sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest.
I’m willing to entertain decline. But these predictions of chaos etc do seem extreme. Most people who comment here truly believe that hell in a handbasket is where we’re heading. I’ll try to view from that perspective.
So far though, I ain’t seeing that. I could be wrong.
Dannyboy,
then we have no differences…accept decline, and we can only argue a timeline. Living in an area, one is slow to feel the cumulative impact of a decline…like a frog being slowly boiled. I maintain that there already is chaos above 110th street…very high crime, random incidents of violence, a place where even Saints (at least the white ones) fear to tread. The disenfranchised are restless, their hatred of the reinter class, the whites of any class, and the educated class, palpable. Chaos does not have to look like a Hollywood leader for a Tom Cruise flic…it may manifest itself in other ways, much less dramatic, although equally horrifying.
Bernie Sanders is currently being excoriated for not standing up to the female “thugette” that disrupted his speech. I know why he didn’t defend his right to speak…because there is not a fucking thing you can say to someone who is predisposed to insult…his actions were correct…you can’t argue with chaos…just get the hell out of the way…as did Sanders, and, years ago, our Host. Live by that example.
“you can’t argue with chaos…just get the hell out of the way…as did Sanders, and, years ago, our Host. Live by that example.” -elysianfield
=============================================
k
b c’n ya….
The relevant ‘Boxer’ lyrics:
“I have squandered my resistance
For a pocketful of mumbles
Such are promises
All lies and jest
Still, a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest”
To which I finish with;
Oh whoa, oh whoa, oh oh oh.
We really are not heading for chaos. Chaos is already here. It’s just that chaos speaks a message that almost nobody cares to hear. So chaos, an elephant in the room is disregarded in cornucopian fantasies and diversions of many a varied kind.
Oh I thought it was “All lies in Jest”. It should be.
Dannyboy, I have been a longtime reader of Kunstler’s blog. This is the first time I have commented. JHK and I see things in a very similar manner, with a few elements of our respective viewpoints in conflict. He obviously loves small towns in the Northeast with trains and walkable communities. I love the car culture and widespread spaces of the Southwest where I live. To a certain extent, never the twain shall meet. In most other fields, however, we are in complete agreement. America has lost its mind. Most of the population is in complete denial.
I think JHK sometimes likes to cut to the chase a bit prematurely. The chaos may not be so sudden, and he certainly cannot predict its precise time frame. Wall Street is headed for a crash. The crash of ’08 was handled quite ineffectively by our leadership. You have asked how we see these things. The answer lies in how far back you have been paying close attention. I wrote a book about it, beginning with a timeline of America’s economic development and ending with the madness surrounding the 2008 election. (Look up Paradigm Shift: The Palin Matrix at Amazon if you want to learn more.) JHK may not be precisely on target with his prediction of banking chaos before next year’s election, but I cannot name another writer who seems to be closer to the total truth of things than James Howard Kunstler.
Floyd:
I love the car culture . . . America has lost its mind.
================
Surely the car culture is the primary symptom of America having lost it’s mind.
its
The car culture is a very complex subject with many facets. Regions of the country are vastly different. Do not assume that everyone who enjoys cars as a hobby is blind to the future realities, either.
“The car culture is a very complex subject with many facets. Regions of the country are vastly different.” – Floyd M. Orr
I’m with you on this. I keep a car in Manhattan. Way different experience!
Floyd, I’m interested in your Palin Matrix. From reviews on Amazon it seems readers of your book finish it with an understanding of how we arrived to be inmates of the present day American funny farm. It is a complicated story I’m sure with multiple reasons for the current madness and I’m interested in what you have written about how it all came to be.
k-dog,
I wouldn’t presume to speak for you, sprawl or others however it’s clear to me that we will not emerge from the next few decades in anything resembling sustainable conditions. There is simply too much inertia and denial and ignorance about the totality of our circumstances. It’s nearly impossible for most of us to see beyond our own limited landscapes much less grasp what must be done.
K-Dog, my background and career are in psychology and the financial industry. Cars are one of my hobbies. JHK is concerned with the effect of oil supplies on our society. I agree with him in general on that issue, but I am somewhat more obsessed with the financial strangulation of the middle class and income inequality.
My notion has always been that America took a severely wrong turn in 1968-70. The left wing became obsessed with identity politics, and a little later, the right became enamored of The Southern Strategy. I think both these actions, leading us down a path of emotion-driven psychological extremes, have led to our coming demise. Most Americans are simply floating down the River of Denial while the 1% leads us to the slaughter.
with his prediction of banking chaos before next year’s election,
===============
Nominating conventions, not election.
As a longtime reader of JHK, I was deliberately padding the time frame a bit. Kunstler has been predicting the dire consequences of peak oil and other disasters for a long time. He has yet to hit the mark of it actually happening. I think he could easily be right about the coming banking crash… or he could once again be too pessimistic in his expectations.
My opinion is that Kunstler’s way to pessimistic in his predictions.
Most Commenters agree with him here.
“What’s out there now is just a tired dumb-show replaying the shopworn themes of an era that is about to slam to a close.”
The sooner the better.
And the cliché that never gets old and shopworn flies from my keyboard.
Be careful for what you wish for. You just might get it.
And the backdrop for all of this buffoonery?
An environment that has likely become too toxic to support civilization. Commonly referred to as “Climate Change” it commanded no time during last week’s debate.
This isn’t a headache that can be dealt with by downing a couple aspirin. This may already be a stage four cancer.
As long as there’s some semblance of civilization there’s a miniscule possibility that some effective herculean effort could be orchestrated but once the complex interwoven systems that underpin civilization start to fail, we can kiss it all goodbye. If the urgency of this cannot be discussed, we may as well write it all off and accept our fate.
What??? Climate change commanded no time during last week’s ‘debate’.
I’m shocked, how could such a thing be? If it was a debate CC should have come up if only to mock the understanding of one’s opponent. Perhaps it was something which was called a debate but that was really something else; like a media circus devoid of substance. Full of sound and fury signifying nothing and nothing else but that.
I agree with you George, but beg to differ with your assertion that climate change “commanded no time during last week’s debate”.
I kicked over a small hornet’s nest when I commented that the number one problem is population increase followed by number two, climate change.
Until these two are addressed, attempting to solve any other problem such as infrastructure, transportation, energy, finance, economy, etc., is only applying band-aids when triage is needed.
Jeb believes we just let thousands of people wander in at will, and then comes up with a dismissive “I don’t know whether we need to spend half a billion on women’s health” remark. The media called it a gaffe, but it wasn’t a gaffe, he doesn’t know anything about health care spending and also hasn’t bothered to think about how women and children are going to get health care when they arrive here sick.
He wants to add to a problem, and not think for a moment about the consequences.
Incredibly – he’s just as much of a bumbler as his brother. And since no one ever told him not to, he went ahead and married the cleaning lady. Now she dictates his immigration policies.
In complete agreement w you, Pogo.
I’ll add that those are two problems we
show no sign whatsoever of addressing.
And because they both require lots of lead
time, it looks pretty certain we will not address them.
When will the consequences hit home?
Who knows, but to think it won’t be in the
next 5 – 30 years seems foolish.
Pogo,
I don’t think that government or the people want population control policies.
Unless those who like to be seen praying at the altar of climate change emulate the Archdruid, please check your hypocrisy meter.
I think one of the underlying themes of the Blog this week is:
“Stubborn Belly Fat! It’s Not Your Fault!!!”
JHK suggests: well, it most certainly is your fault for the lifestyle choices you are making and the crap you are putting into your body.
Similarly, if you believe AGW then you are hypocritical if you own a car and use electrical power. You are the change. Make it happen.
“if you believe AGW then you are hypocritical if you own a car and use electrical power”
Wrong. There are other reasons to own a car and use electrical power. They are:
1. despair
2. attempting to convert the ignorant, by using cars and electricity
3. accepting that the wicked and the ignorant will doom us all, regardless of our actions
I am in one of these camps, but it changes from day to day.
Couldn’t agree more. I am so friggin’ sick of hearing liberals spouting about climate change and how unenlightened the deniers are, while they continue to drive fat SUV’s, consume everything in sight and use electricity like there’s no tomorrow. The Archdruid preaches, “Collapse now and avoid the rush.” I’ve been collapsing in place slowly for a couple years. Less driving, using a clothesline, growing my own food and keeping chickens for eggs. I’m not saving the planet, but I’m at least somewhat walking the walk.
You have to love climate change conferences wherein the sanctimonious celebrity attendees arrive on private jets. Climate Change is clearly for the little people only.
By their fruits shall you know them.
I’m confused, FP. Are you saying that an imperfect messenger changes reality?
‘that the public bears no responsibility for its own choices or for the disintegration of the polity they live under’ Yes, nations do, in some respect, get the government they deserve and civilizations make their choices and usually, eventually run amok. Look at the Egyptian Empire at the end of the Ptolemic dynasty. But, in defense of the average person, we were all born in to this lying *ss paradigm. Paradigms are, after all, what you think before you think!!! And this one, just got worse and worse, what with computers and video games with death, death, death for the dumbing down of the polity!!
In any case, Yeats was most likely right, the center wont hold. I wish sometimes the south would have won the Civil War, not for the continuation of slavery, but so you didn’t have this huge unwieldy monstrosity. (like the choice of words). So, I’m sure there are inhabitants of the north who would make a good leader of the Northeastern States of America.
The question remains, how to have a reality based nation. That is the riddle, in search of an answer, of our time.
It is well documented that the Civil War was not fought to end Slavery but to Preserve the Federation who derived a majority of its tax revenues from the agricultural Southern States. Population increases in the Northern Industrialized states required more taxes not less to keep that game going.
Lincoln himself said on more than one occasion he was not promoting the end of slavery but preventing the breakup of the republic
Mastman, you greatly oversimplify the causes which sparked, and then fueled, the U.S. Civil War. One must look at the society, politics, and economics of both the North and the South. One explanation will not serve for both regions, nor for the whole war itself. There is also the matter of the decision to oppose with war the South’s secession—the North could have said, “fine, leave, don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out” (this is the only matter your post really addresses). Preservation of slavery was, indeed, a huge motivation for the South to secede in 1860. It is one of the first items listed in the documents which lay out their case for doing so. To say slavery had nothing to do with the Civil war is to repeat discredited nonsense.
What you think before you think. That’s good.
“Fincain, what a crock of bull hockey” — EvelynV
Just a humble attempt o put together a working hypothesis that tries to fit in all known facts.
If you have a better one, please present it. I promise to refrain from any derogatory comments.
Don’t expect too much, Fin…Evelyn has blood coming out of her whatever.
Part of this is that we’ve forgotten (both by ourselves, and by our culture) that we should be citizens first, not consumers. When you use the word ‘citizen’, it means you have rights *and* responsibilities. Our consumer society (Cheeze Doodles and all) is based on that root word – consumption, without any other elements of rational thought, responsibility, or logic.
When we (the CFN folk) rightly use words like ‘spectacle’ and ‘theater’ to describe the current situation, it follows that the people in the audience are receiving what gets put out, and voting with emotions, rather than logic, just as they would in any other entertainment venue.
Let’s bring back the word ‘citizen’; not ‘resident’, not ‘voter’, not ‘participant’ but CITIZEN. It brings up a completely different set of responses and correct behaviors, rather than what we’ve got now. There are others who have mentioned this; I made a comment on it a few weeks back; there are links to a few who have done an extended riff on this.
https://peakfuture.wordpress.com/2015/07/13/citizen-not-consumer/
From what gets discussed here, I’d say the folks in the CFN world are trying to be citizens, in the true sense of the word, and for that, I’m glad.
peakfuture,
I love what you wrote…until “From what gets discussed here, I’d say the folks in the CFN world are trying to be citizens, in the true sense of the word, and for that, I’m glad.”
I find most Comments are Consumer Complaints. Like CFN is The Consumer Complaint Department.
Where you see ‘Citizen Responsibility’, I don’t.
And citizens must be financially solvent, intelligent, and well educated – in other words not the majority. And certainly not felons and bums like the Bum and Chief so strongly desires.
If we make citizenship something special, it will be valued. If every idiot and her sister can vote, your vote is canceled out by the mob – so who cares?
This is why Ben Carson’s closing statement was stellar.
Well, at least folks here see the issues; as much ranting as there is here, I think people here do see that things aren’t on the right track. We might have different takes on it, but I’d take a room of CFN’ers vs a random assortment of folks. At least the folks here see the issues.
People here see the issues because most of them read books & educate themselves. Here there is an unusual representation of the public, because by and large, most other people don’t read anything but the sports. For example, how many people outside of this website have read a book such as Camp of the Saints? If people don’t read and learn about what’s going on, then we are condemned to fail.
‘Camp of the Saints’ is widely regarded by white supremacists and is right up there with the ‘Turner Diaries’. Janos may know more about this than I. I’ don’t wear that collar. I expect Janos will be here soon and perhaps he will have something to say about ‘Le Camp des Saints’.
I understand that tens of thousands of migrants are in Greece alone trying to get a little bit of the good life that was advertised as the “European Union.” Sort of like Club Med – free housing, health care, schooling, food and a nice stipend. The Greeks themselves have a tremendous amount of citiaens suffering poverty, hunger and unemployment due to the “financial crisis” of the last five years. Yeah but they just settled with the Banksters for some more “loans.”
Why should they – any nation – be forced to take care of anyone else besides their own when they cannot even take care of their own?
This is happening all over Europe.
See, inter alia, Calais “immigration” follies and the busy Italian Coast Guard.
A flood of Illegal immigrants (just like here in the U.S.A.) running away from the most disgusting countries and cultures, rather than fighting for their families, homes and lives to change it.
Perhaps you should volunteer to take into your own home an illegal alien family or two.
Raspail is a prophet whether you like it or not.
So if you don’t want your nation overrun by the Third World you are a “White Supremacist” – the embodiment of all evil in other words?
C’mon Kdog try harder – you’re better than this or at least you can be.
Dude, chill out. I wasn’t insulting you and said you might have something to say. My understanding of you is that you are not a racist but want white people to have more pride and respect for their culture. If you are a racist than correct my misunderstanding.
I don’t want immigrants, third word or otherwise, from any country that is not taking in as many Americans as citizens it ships over here. We are overpopulated with not enough jobs to go around as it is.
Well you have to define it – and there are many definitions. By the current White Studies definition, I am absolutely a racist since I have pride in my heritage and believe Whites actually exist. But the dictionary definition, I’m not when it comes to Asians but I probably am when it comes to Blacks.
I’m obviously not a White Supremacist since I admit Blacks can run faster and East Asians are smarter.
What I’m trying to say is, you need to keep reading even after your formal education has ended. I’m talking about guys like Dmitry Orlov, and how about The Geography of Nowhere by JHKunstler? I don’t give a shit what anybody reads or what they do with the information. What I do care about is that not enough people read anymore & because of that, we will make bad decisions when it comes to dealing with problems that occur.
Sports is a step above what many folks read. For some it’s Cait, Miley, and Bey.
I know some people who support Hillary, despite her stench of corruption, because they think she’ll toss them more crumbs from the table than the others. This is what we’ve come to. We’re not men; we’re dogs begging for crumbs from the table.
“We’re not men; we’re dogs begging for crumbs from the table.”
Get some dignity and growl man. You have a right to a doggie dish. Forget the crumbs!
Dignity? Time to go full feral.
Jump on the friggin counter or table and take the whole steak off of the plate and eat it.
That is what it will come too. Just ask your Chow CHow.
The hate by the public of what their leaders are doing to this county is going to go beyond support of Trump and Sanders. The big time protests will come as the media continues to promote the losers and crooks over the will of the people.
People are finally awakening to the fraud that is our government from the POTUS all the way down to the Supreme Court. I intentionally said “all the way down to the court” because at this time they are nothing more than a rubber stamp for all the things wrong passed down from the rest of the gang that holds us by the throat.
Sanders and Trump know the decline in the West is due to oil price, expensive wars, illegal immigration,outsourced jobs all in a down job market. All these issues reduce the spending power of the public.
Globalism is in fact the culprit and Larry Kudlow can criticise Import tariffs all he wants but that is the only thing that will bring back jobs and help shore up the treasury and provide the jobs we need.
If Trump and Sanders are both run out of this election by the MSM watch out
What has reduced the spending power of the people is the theft of the spending power through inflation of the money supply to pay for it all.
You get what you pay for is a lie. You don’t get what you don’t pay for is reality.
Inflation of the money supply is a symptom of a diseased economy, created by the ills of oil price / supply, expensive wars, and outsourced jobs. As pointed out by mastman.
Reaganomics (the industrial mining of the middle class) is killing us. as intended.
I don’t know who to credit, maybe Kunstler but I always wonder is this our summer of 1939 in Europe sipping coffee at the outdoor cafe’s not having any idea what is to come. I do think that summer will occur someday, but nobody knows when.
An appreciated reference for a feeling one cannot just quite put their finger on,
It may have been Jan Morris who wrote that the sentiment in Great Britain just before the Great War, was akin to a late summer afternoon garden party with the attendant sounds of the gentle clicking of croquet balls; tinkling of tea spoons; and sinuous swirling of cigar smoke in the dappled sunlight on an expansive porch
What shortly followed was the greatest, bloodiest conflagration ever.
It IS late summer now, isn’t it?
Winter is coming, but damn, it’s slow. For several years now I have looked for signs of disaster with my rose colored glasses off and every time I go the airport -lines and people everywhere. Vacation condos maxed out at $2,400/wk, can’t find a restaurant without a wait on Friday night, new construction with trendy new apartments at $900-$1700/month in my flyover country town. Government contracts for mega-bucks to do virtual and “vital” security tasks that require only more and more funding to avoid the inevitable blowback. Peak oil and it only getting cheaper in price. Craft brewery’s growing so fast they are displacing the daily wine tastings at every Tom,Dick, and Harry shop. It takes an act of faith to “see” disaster. I played golf Friday and couldn’t find a parking place, they were having a retired military tournament and all the new F-150s and GMC Yukons with fancy SUV’s suggested the E-9s were not hurting for a ride–they couldn’t ALL be colonels. Can it all just stop? Or perhaps there is SO MUCH WASTE that can squeezed out of this thoughtless consumerism that we have decades of thoughtlessness before somebody has to care about our ridiculous politics.
“It takes an act of faith to “see” disaster.”
and CFN is the choir…
Hello RocketDoc,
re | “It takes an act of faith to “see” disaster.”-rd.
It doesn’t take any “faith” at all – if you’re one of the people tasked with securing the ramparts… You just go to work and you *know* what’s coming, assuming you don’t work with ‘eyes wide-shut’ (some try to).
You can see where we were, how much there was & how much we have left to keep getting it done. It’s very simple, straightforward and it’s only gone in one direction over the past 40 years.
Cheers!
Too true.
Try visiting Detroit, Arbor Hill/West Albany, Hamilton Hill, parts of Missouri, any of the older inner cities in America. This is what Mr. Kunstler is talking about. There IS an illusion of prosperity and good times in suburban America. It HAS already just stopped in many areas, and you keep hearing silly explanations like “rust belt, loss of manufacturing” which are factors, but not reasons.
Beryl, have you actually been to Detroit lately (or at all?). Sure, there are decrepit post-industrial areas, and meadows where neighborhoods once stood. But the big party Mr. Darling describes above is taking place even in a lot of places right inside the city limits of Detroit, not just its suburbs. I think all you folks who picture Detroit as one vast, post-apocalyptic wasteland would be quite surprised if you visited. (But don’t mistake me for someone who thinks huge weekend influxes of hipsters—among others, of course—is going to somehow return the city to its 1950s heyday and “save” it).
Everything looked pretty rosy in 2005 too. But there are some blips on the radar, not that any US “news” organization would cover them.
China’s stock market is only staying out of free fall because of the extreme measures the government is taking. Measures like forbidding margin calls and short selling.
House flipping has become a rage again in the US, but the number of months it takes to flip a house is approaching the high it hit in 2007. The housing market has used up its stock of “credit worthy” buyers and is giving loans to anyone who passes the mirror test.
China just devalued the renminbi because of the large inventory of unsold goods they have. The world consumer base is tapped out and just doesn’t want anymore crap.
This doesn’t mean that the wheels are coming off tomorrow, but the early warning signs are out there.
Fincaln, the word count of your screed probably exceeds this week’s post by JHK — Pogo
It is a fair point, but we should both agree that the last word belongs to Mr. Kunstler himself. I am running this small project to get American audience more familiar on the different dimension of world events that are being discussed here, and some time it requires lengthier posts than allowed by the Twitter standards.
So, unless Mr. Kunstler says otherwise, I will continue and for those who don’t like seeing my posts, I recommend the use of a mouse with a good scrolling wheel.
go Fincain!
CFN is open territory. Kinda’ like the Wild West.
From you lips to God’s ear. The Sun shines on both the good and the wicked. And I am one of His beloved Sons.
This is the second Comment that I agree with. Can you do the math and figure the percentages?
Yet you would silence me if you could. Do you think the Universe would not punish you for that? Thank your God that you failed.
What is Art Garfunkel doing these days?
http://www.jewornotjew.com/profile.jsp?ID=250
Pensioner in Benidorm… lots of time on his hands and the noonday sun in Alicante means indoor time copying and pasting on the computer.
Fincaln, it was a good post and I agree with most of it. I don’t know how much Clinton was responsible for Ross Perot throwing his hat in the ring. I like to think of old Ross as a pretty ornery cuss like his old man was(a mule trader I think in Texarkana), with a mind of his own. He was right about the “giant sucking sound” too.
BTW, “screed” does not have a negative connotation and I did not mean it as such. I only wanted to point out that you were preempting JHK blog.
Well, I certainly sympathize with this sentiment, but it brings to mind the misuse of the term “citizen” by the Committee of Public Safety during the French Revolution. Perhaps all we need to speak of are good and decent persons without distinguishing their position in a social grouping.
What other term can we use, then? Yeah, ‘citizen’ can get hijacked like any other term. ‘Participant’ sounds too voluntary; ‘resident’ sounds like you are a member only due to your mailing address.
On a related note – someone asked me “What happens after democracy?” One thought I’ve been toying with is that perhaps what we get in the future is a “feudal republic”; a hybrid of feudalism with a bit of what we’ve got now; something where you get a voice, but everyone in the food chain has got serious responsibilities as well, and the title “citizen” is something hard-earned. Maybe when life gets hard, this sort of thing will occur organically. Again, this is just me “thought doodling”; I’m not political scientist, for sure, and certainly can’t figure out what will happen as time goes on.
The Archdruid, John Michael Greer has sketched a few probable ideas, of course.
The debate was more of a limbo contest, where the object is to lower the bar as far as possible.
Paragraphs #2 and #4 of today’s blog were especially insightful.
Trump: the Criticizer, the rowdy clown who spilled the beans, but again, where are his policy plans? Apparently he has a huge and growing following, but what will he really do should he land in the Oval office? The image he presents makes me think he would immediately turn this place into North Korea. A NK with too many ugly options available at his fingertips.
He is the logical extension and result of what we’ve already become.
oh, oh
if we get what we deserve, we better watch out!
For heaven’s sake, Obama The Magnificent has done a splendid job of midwifing the Surveillance State you fear. He didn’t start it, but he has done nothing to stop it. And if you happened to be on Lois Lerner’s Enemies List you were sure to feel the wrath of the most feared arm of The State — The IRS. Guilty until proven innocent.
I should cease since the minions of the Magnificent One have been known to pester bloggers for the identities of persons who post comments they find politically unacceptable.
But then again the NSA Knows All so What, Me Worry?
Very thoughtful and well written article.
I used to think Trump was a negative influence on the campaign, but I have changed my mind.
We have a political system run by a bunch of politicians pursuing policies of social anarchy.
I believe in a civil society built on a set of just laws which not only are the people expected to abide by but also the politicians and their mascots.
Paradoxically, those who support a civil society built on the rule of law can only further that goal by attempting to monkey-wrench the anarchists currently in power. Trump is in my view a very lousy vehicle for that, but he’s the only game in town, so as far as I’m concerned, more power to him.
Someone might argue that Sanders is a better vehicle for challenging the establishment. But he is too civil. He’s too well behaved to stand up to people like the Black Lives Matters goons.
I think Bernie Sanders is sufficiently smart to pick his battles. Standing up to the Black Lives Matter ruffians gives them stature they really don’t deserve. They are not worthy interlocutors; their approach to airing their grievances was inappropriate. I think Bernie handled the situation as a statesman should. He fundamentally agrees with their position, but he cannot agree with their methods.
Didn’t someone on this site last week predict that we would see an attempt to destroy Bernie by the establishment? We’re seeing it.
Their position is that only Black lives matter. Liberals need to allowed themselves to be offended and alienated by these creeps. Because if you accept their premise, you are in league with monsters.
Hello Isjogren,
re |”We have a political system run by a bunch of politicians pursuing policies of social anarchy.”-is.
I agree with you in principle, but I’d amend that statement:
In a post-Citizens United political arena we have a bunch of political prostitutes doing whatever their half-bright, inarticulate, nihilistic oligarch masters tell them to – which results in “social anarchy” (among other things).
Cheers!
I tend to agree.
I meant that as a reply to Isogen’s post about The Donald.
Just an apology? No, such apologies have become the equivalent of confessions. Once the person confesses, he is discredited and disappears from the job or public life – often permanently.
People enjoyed Hulk Hogan’s over the top lower class White energy for decades. He helped create the modern wrestling industry. But the executives wanted to retire him so they aired a tape of him using the word “nigger”. What did people think? He an over the top lower class White – of course he uses the word nigger now and then. What utter hypocrisy, vile beyond anything words can describe.
Why are the candidates such OBVIOUS shills? Because they don’t have to bother with concealment because most people won’t look at what’s right under their nose anyway.
But the presidential candidates aren’t the only shills. They’re just the most public. There’s LOTS of shills infesting society like ticks, in various academic or professional ‘ologies for example, that depend either on government or oligarch money.
Day-in and day-out these mostly behind the scenes shills churn out mis-information favorable to their various masters. They prey on young and impressionable minds that trust that what they’re being taught isn’t complete and utter bollocks. The shills teach world-views that protect the interests and support the power and influence of certain small and privileged segments.
Economics is the most obvious ‘ology full to the brim with liars. Not the only one by any means but one that uses shills in the role of glib media specialists to stridently defend the patently indefensible. You see their columns in “respectable” newspapers and on TV and on-line. And there’s the education racket, the inter-locking justice-criminology-prison racket, the medical racket. Many others.
Their job is variously to blow sunshine up your ass or spread fear and doubt. They’ll tell you all kinds of stories about the public good and safety and justice and growth and prosperity and all that. But in the end it’s all about money for them and those that hire them.
A lot of these shills do their shilling under the cover of time-honored occupations, one being the college professor. But there’s others that are paid to explicitly shill and we’re not talking about big time Washington lobbyists either. The USSR, er, Russia rather, uses paid writers to fill up on-line comment sections with swill favorable to the Putin regime. The US government is no different in its disruptive effect.
All this propagandizing is based on being able to fool enough of the people enough of the time. But, if you’ve been watching with eyes and mind open (and what is Kunstler’s blog about if not that), then you would know that the time of surplus is over and the era of shortage is at hand. Lies don’t fill empty stomachs. The shills don’t apparently know it yet but when the sinkholes open up and the shill gets sucked in, the oligarch-master won’t extend a hand. That will be the shill’s reward.
Hey Volodya…
re |”That will be the shill’s reward.”-v.
“Shill’s reward” has a nice ring to it. Of course (being the ‘socks and shills they are) they don’t see that they’re respected all the __less__ for being willing harlots, doxies & conspirators in their own enslaving.
After all, who actually thinks it’s ‘cool’ when some lick-spittle toady grovels up to his masters ring?
If you’re going to do business with these evil *ss-clowns you’re better off looking at them like you’re ready to put a hole through their face every time you see them [*]. It’s the only thing they respect… And… Your price goes up.
LOL!
;))
— — —
[*] And it’s _convincing_ if you actually _mean_ it.
“I’m with those who think that the 2016 election campaign is going to be a wild spectacle beyond the current imaginings of news media. I’m serenely convinced that, among other things, the banking system is going to implode so hard and fast well before the nominating conventions that the nation will be in a state of near chaos. What’s out there now is just a tired dumb-show replaying the shopworn themes of an era that is about to slam to a close.”
Your point is well summarized by this last paragraph. But I’m 61 and I’ve been watching this unfold since 1999 – and most especially since 2008. There have been many dire predictions since then of a sudden collapse none of which have happened despite plenty of triggers. My opinion is that the slow “screw job” has a ways to go. Maybe several more decades. Our world has changed a lot in the last 20+ years, but none of it was particularly fast. So slowly, in fact, that we only see it if we look back and carefully compare. That’s the way these engineers of extraction want it to be. A sudden drop kills the golden goose.
@ DumbedUp:
re |”Our world has changed a lot in the last 20+ years, but none of it was particularly fast.”-du.
I agree with the general direction of your post, but that’s not the nature of Collapse. Dmitri Orlov covers the math of collapse phenomenon succinctly on pgs. 8-9 of ‘Five Stages of Collapse’.
In a nutshell; just because it takes a long-steady climb to build something up, does not mean that there will be a slow, graceful decline on the way down – that expectation does not take into account depreciation of the _infrastructure_ underpinning the whole thing.
Consider a structural example: a home or a bridge will sustain decades of water, pest, rust, and other damage to the structural supports, then one day a small shock occurs and the whole thing is on the ground…
Or, consider a geo-political event during your lifetime: In 1988 US soldiers were patrolling a heavily militarized border between ‘Czechoslovakia’ and ‘West Germany’. Twenty-four months later, the names, the mission and ‘The Wall’ itself were gone.
As I recall, there were those who assumed a ‘long slow decline’ to that situation as well.
Cheers!
That’s pretty much my own take on it. Everything is standing until it isn’t.
And, when it isn’t standing anymore, people say they didn’t see it coming. It’s easy to not see something coming especially when you’re doing your damnedest to not see. That’s human nature.
The sagging porch? The peeling paint? The disheveled roof shingles? The crumbling brick-work? No problem, it needs work yeah, but it’s basically solid. And then boom, down it all comes.
They say the Black Sea was a fresh water lake at the bottom of the basin until about 5,000 BC. That’s when the trickle of water from the rising Mediterranean Sea turned into a torrent and burst the banks and filled in the basin to where it’s at now. And fast too. Some say the Black Sea expanded at a rate of a mile a day.
That’s my view of history. A trickle turns into a torrent. But nobody notices the trickle.
That’s the relationship between gradual and sudden Enlightenment in Zen. The pail fill drop by drop. When it gets to the top, the bottom drops out of the old pail. Was it gradual or sudden? Both.
And btw, the destruction of Europe and America by 3rd World Immigration is not gradual anymore, but a torrent of destruction.
Another excellent post by JHK. He’s one of a tiny minority of political commentators with a grasp of the nightmare we are facing in the Klown Konfederacy. Would love to know what he thinks of federal election going on to our north, where current PM Harper plays the role of Hilary Clinton, Justin Trudeau takes on the role of Jeb Bush and Tom Mulcair does his best to imitate Donald Trump. Paddy Chayefsky predicted the future back in 1976 when he wrote the brilliant satire Network. Donald Trump is the Howard Beale of 2015.
I’d had to spend a bit of time shopping in suburban-hell recently. I must say that JHK hits one nail very squarely here: the loss of any sense of decency or long-term concerns among US consumers. Our entertainment is so vulgar the barrel needs a new bottom.
That sounds like it’s coming from “Planet Old Guy” but so be it. Once upon a time there was a culture of intelligent upple-middle-class Americans who knew who Lewis Mumford was and could talk about Frank Lloyd Wright or Picasso. Now, when a fine film like “Mr. Holmes” gets dinged for “not all that much happening” that we know our populace, including film reviewers, are a bunch of fat, lazy, ADHD slobs who enjoy cussing and explosions.
It must have felt this way in Britannia in 400 a.d., not long before the Legions stopped getting paid. At Hadrian’s Wall a few years ago, I toured an exhibit about life by regional troops. When the payroll ceased, the Legionaries went home with their swords and helmets because they really had no allegiance to distant Rome. They had long ago stopped caring about the public good. For a century or more afterward, from what I gleaned in the museum in York, no one even made glassware or ceramics. They made do with what they had as everything crumbled. It took about 300 years for many buildings to collapse to the point of being unusable.
I think our citizens are that unskilled and uninformed and provincial now. We have FAR to fall. Our buildings would be wrecks in 30 years. Says something that we’d not even leave good ruins, beyond the stumps of skyscrapers and some impressive dams.
Not only did they not have allegiance to distant Rome but they had to eat. Without the monthly denarii coming in it had to be farm or starve.
When the Legions finally upped-sticks and went back to the mainland, old tribal rivalries bubbled up with those former Roman legionaries or auxiliary troops no doubt going back to their old tribes.
So intense were the rivalries that incoming Saxons ate Britain one county at a time over the next two centuries. The pre-existing people couldn’t unite long enough to take on the new foes.
Maybe the example of post-Roman Britain has some lessons to people in the soon-to-be former United States. As the Indians found out, the wide oceans on either side were no defense.
Maybe Manhattan sophisticates take a dim view of the shit-kickers down Texas way. Seems that the IRS official that got the boots for targeting conservative groups had it in for southerners, saying in emails that Lincoln should have let the South secede.
Well, maybe Lincoln should have. But that’s over and done. And if New York wine-sippers don’t much like Texans, they might find ranchers and oil-field types more agreeable once they’ve had a sniff at the alternatives. Because there’s worse out there.
If you want to see some good ruins before they’re gone, visit Schenectady’s Stockade neighborhood. Wear a hard hat. I’m not talking about the flood-prone houses down by the river, either.
Hello ‘Smokey Joe’!
re |”It must have felt this way in Britannia in 400 a.d., not long before the Legions stopped getting paid. At Hadrian’s Wall a few years ago, I toured an exhibit about life by regional troops. When the payroll ceased, the Legionaries went home with their swords and helmets because they really had no allegiance to distant Rome. They had long ago stopped caring about the public good. For a century or more afterward, from what I gleaned in the museum in York, no one even made glassware or ceramics. They made do with what they had as everything crumbled. It took about 300 years for many buildings to collapse to the point of being unusable.”-sm.
This example resonates with me. Thank you for using it.
I especially like the fact that you’re exposing the absurd assumption that ‘the troops’ are going to just stand still and ‘die in place’ when they stop getting paid.
One of the symptoms of an empire on it’s way out are wars that do nothing but enrich a few idiots at the top of trough. This is where they were in 400 AD and where we are now. It’s very stupid to think that ‘the troops’ don’t realize something’s amiss – even if they aren’t good at articulating it.
The problem for this empire is it has a lot more ‘Hadrian’s Wall’s and it’s woad-painted Picts are much (much!) better armed. Getting home from 11.5 time-zones away can be a real ‘bee-yotch’.
Cheers!
Some of the troops stayed and married local women. The old social contract where a Legionaire got a few acres had long since been abandoned. In the old days, a soldier could do his 20 plus years, come back and be somebody – not just be a bum with some good stories. But the rich gobbled everything up and the system ended.
You lost me a bit here Mister D. From where to where is it 11.5 time zones?
Hello Q,
re |”From where to where is it 11.5 time zones?”-q.
From the USA to Afghanistan/Pakistan border was & is “11.5” time-zones. Kabul was GMT “-4.5” for quite awhile (instead of harmonized with Tehran at -4).
The infrastructure in the Klown Konfederacy known as America is a perfect example of that parallel decline.
We should know who they are by their spokespersons.
A plethora of tattooed, vulgar, coarse NFL and NBA “stars” for starters.
Rory McIlroy too because Eldrick is not so good anymore.
Hello CFN et al.,
JHK makes some observations about the bacchanalia of BS coming at us in the American ‘political’ arena, the most interesting of which is his last:
“What’s out there now is just a tired dumb-show replaying the shopworn themes of an era that is about to slam to a close.”-J H K.
After reviewing the commentary up to now, I’m only going to add this link:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/08/07/trumps-triumph-billionaire-blowhard-exposes-fake-political-system/
Mike Whitney’s been calling ‘shenanigans’ on this goat-rodeo for at least the last three elections, so (in the words of Rick Sanchez) “this has been a l-o-n-g time coming”.
Cheers!
“The USSR, er, Russia rather, uses paid writers to fill up on-line comment sections” — Volodya
If you know a place were I could apply, I could certainly use some additional income.
So far, I am dumb enough to do it for free.
dannyboy August 10, 2015 at 12:10 pm #
“It takes an act of faith to “see” disaster.”
and CFN is the choir… Well said Danny Boy
Thank you for the information about Peter Russell’s website. He did write a book, The Global Brain Awakens. According to the lead in, in it, he posits that the human race is on the verge of an evolutionary leap in consciousness. I haven’t read it. Next on the list. My friend didn’t ever say too much about Russell, only that eventually he became a spiritual seeker, and had work to do. Perhaps I should go hear him speak at the Monroe Institute.
I read another book 2013 the end of days or a new beginning. In this book, the same theory was put forth. That if enough of humankind thinks about the same thing, problems can be circumvented. Y2K for example. Most people knew about it. But them, it never came to pass. The collective consciousness, then, I suppose. Very intriguing stuff. Although, I don’t know if the problems we’ve come up to can be circumvented as far as our current kettles of fish. Who knows.
I hope the human race is coming up to some sort of leap in consciousness.
I have a kidney with your name on it. Best.
But would he give you a kidney? Doubt it: he’s never praised you like you’ve praised him.
Doesn’t matter. The offer stands. Providing I was a match anyway.
No, the Aztec Culture is returning. They already behead people on a routine basis – but it’s hidden by the Media. One drug lord took off his rival’s face and stiched it to a basketball. Wonder if the guy was still alive?
Classic feminine illogic and obstinacy. Because you were challenged on it, you felt compelled to defend a flippant remark and now actually believe it – and would probably actually go thru with if he asked you.
The same type of “thinking” dominates the immigration debate. Because we have asked for limits, there therefore can be no limits.
This is the point salesmen strive to get to – where the mark sells herself on Tupperware, a Vacuum Cleaner she doesn’t need, etc.
What if he needs both your kidneys, say maybe the other one for his friend? Surely you can say no now…
I agree with your entire Comment.
That usually puts me at odds with Kunstler, but I’m here to learn.
Danny Boy. The Monroe Institute is an intriguing place too. Google it. Peter Russell speaks there from time to time. They have free 1 day courses about consciousness and such.
Googled it. Blue Ridge Mountains, Virginia are way out of my ‘hood. Although I am going to Nicaragua for holiday.
I’m serenely convinced that, among other things, the banking system is going to implode so hard and fast well before the nominating conventions that the nation will be in a state of near chaos. – JHK
===============
The two conventions will run, roughly, from July 18 thru 29 of 2016. We therefore have a very specific prediction from our host. So, at the most, there are 11 months to go during which our banking system needs to “implode” leaving the nation “in a state of near chaos.”
To judge Jim’s vision of the future we need two definitions:
. implode
. a state of near chaos
I would say there would need to be (with little or no warning) massive bank closings and an inability to get cash from ATMs. Also, a general cessation of businesses accepting plastic in payment for goods and services. (Add in here your own definition of what constitutes a banking system implosion.)
Frankly, I don’t see this happening between now and, let’s say, June 30, 2016.
I will be printing out Jim’s prediction and pinning it to 6/30/16 on my calendar. We will see if Jim makes these predictions because doom and gloom sell or because he is actually prescient.
He once posted ‘DOW 3000’, or something like that.
He forgot who ran the printing press.
The dollar is strong.
Heil Obama.
The media circus brought us the overcrowded clown car that is the Republican party. Led by the Trumpeter it was a childish lashing out at each other with not a word about the enormous challenges now facing the country. Nothing on Climate Change, which has a good chance of killing us all, nothing on Immigration wherein a virtually unlimited number of invaders seek to enter Europe and America legally or illegally. Nothing about the Caliphate that has declared war on the entire non-Muslim world and is now murdering our soldiers in their own country.
I guess a people who don’t demand a real discussion of such things, who accept an ever-increasing poverty and debasement (the minimum wage peaked at $8.64 per hour in 1968 and has been going down ever since) deserve what they are getting. As multimillionaire CEO’s argue against a living wage….
No, lead by Meaghan Kelly. Trump was asked these ridiculous gotcha questions in order to destroy him, but the polls show it didn’t work. People want a Strong Man who can stand up to Women, Non-Whites, Corporate Whores, etc.
Day 5 and counting of “Trump insulted Kelly” as the lead story on all the MSM outlets.
I for one, am loving this. Kelly is a detestable individual who has no right to call herself a journalist.
These predictions won’t pan out. But there is a great business in prediction-making (although Kunstler believes ‘business’ is really a Racket). Profit can be made in predicting doomsday. A great business/Racket, whatever.
Mr. K,
Thanks for yet another good blog posting here.
I’m a bit ambivalent about Mr. Trump. I don’t think it will matter who will be the executive too much at this point. Who ever it will be is going to simply be managing the entropic decline as the US spins itself around downward like a demonic game of Chutes & Ladders.
The Security State has evolved a life of its own to such a degree that another war(s) may be unevitable for the sake of justifying the existence of a national military machine which consumes 1/3 of the federal budget.
So, regardless of the executive branch, the US will see a general overall degradation of pretty much everything– particularly in infrastructure & basic services. Things we used to take for granted 30 years ago– like consistent mail delivery, as one simple example, will become more and more infrequent with less services offered or expected. Roads & bridges are going to see less maintenance as less money is available to keep our “autobahn on steroids” system of Happy Motoring alive and running. Another area are the “entitlements” and less service offered there with more restriction. We see pretty consistent calls for that already. Just an overall “cheapening” of everything– household goods becoming even more shoddily made (if that’s possible) with less durable and cheaper raw materials (what’s left of them, that is). Of course, there are a few ‘artisans’ here or there that the Big Boxes haven’t destroyed, but their goods are often out of a price range for the majority of Walmarters. Of course, the spectre of stagflation is a real threat at this point. The stores may become full with cheaply made goods, but even these crappy products are unaffordable to many people.
So, in a way, it’s becoming our own version of the late Roman Empire. We even have our own version of the Germanic tribes, in the way of the everybody South of the Rio Grande. The Romans became a little bit more German and German as time went on. We may follow suit (most likely) and become a bit more and more Spanish as time goes on. Much worse could happen, in that regard. We’re lucky their culture originates in Spain & Portugal, and not the Pakistani Tribal areas.
I appreciate the brightspot:
“Of course, there are a few ‘artisans’ here or there…”
See, life goes on.
“… all the way down to the Supreme Court”
———
The next president will appoint three, maybe four, Supreme Court justices. Some on CFN says it does not matter who is president. Really?
That begs the question, “would Hillary appoint justices who are any less biased toward the oligarchy than the present ones?”
I doubt the next president will get to replace any of the gang of four.
Sith lordsConservative justices rule until death and like to be kept alive by mechanical means for years.“Add in here your own definition of what constitutes a banking system implosion.)” –Q
Thanks, Q… Maybe bank closures covers this: I expect a 95% reduction in loan availability. The 5% with excellent credit (or collateral) will only be able to get loans at 15 to 20% interest rates. 95% will have no access to credit at all. I agree with your other criteria.
these criteria mean Kunstler’s Prediction is null and void. Bankers need to make loans. There’s the Commissions, Bonuses, Incentives, Stock Options, Deferred Income…
Dannyboy,
How are the Greek Bankers currently fairing?. Consider Greek banking an example of a Bank Failure in real time….
elysianfield,
i wrote a pretty succent Comment, less than an hour ago:
dannyboy
August 10, 2015 at 6:43 pm #
“you can’t argue with chaos…just get the hell out of the way…as did Sanders, and, years ago, our Host. Live by that example.” -elysianfield
=============================================
k
But now I need to disagree with your observation: “Consider Greek banking an example of a Bank Failure in real time….”
I spent 30 years banking on Wall Street. The Greek banks are not indicative of the major developed economies.
Dannyboy,
With your stated qualifications, I would certainly defer to your experience. However, the statement…”Bankers need to make loans” didn’t mention the qualifier “major developed economies”, and, if you had qualified your statement, I would not have considered Greek Banks as an object lesson.
What is your opinion on the Dodd-Frank/IMF provisions for a Bail-in (in the event of a failure of a “systemically important” bank)? Already used in Cypress. as I understand. I am beginning to think that the interest paid on a Certificate of Deposit or Money market fund does not equal the risk involved with keeping money in a large bank. I would like to read your opinion on this facet of current banking law.
elysianfield,
I do not keep much on deposit in Banks. Why be exposed to Bail-Ins (Deposit Confiscation)?
Hillary’s ambition is not personal but corporate. By which I mean she stands firmly with the so called permanent government, for want of a better term. The people who are connected via large corporations.
The Clinton’s went from possibly the poorest people ever to enter the White House, or the presidency pre White House, to a net worth deep in 8 figures. This has surely validated in her mind the rightness of neoliberalism, wherein everything is a market, and everyone is a product of their own making to sell into the market. This is the arrow of history and she is riding it and why not. She is a product of the times.
Yes, its astonishing how politicians can get so rich, so fast.
Our own Senator Richard Blumenthal D. CT (not a bad sort, really) somehow amassed a fortune of $150 million on his job as State Attorney General, which paid about $175,000 per year! Remarkable! He must be a financial genius, that’s all I can say.
brh
Do you know who Mister Blum is? Married to Boxer? feinstein?
Blumenthal is from CT, Malt, not married to Feintsien or Boxer.
i didn’t mean to single him out specifically; he’s a decent guy and a pretty good Senator.
But I think he’s a typical example of the money to be made once you reach high office. Senator Dodd became exceedingly wealthy too; he had some pretty good scams going as a ‘friend of Angelo’, also campaign finance swag from his bogus Presidential Campaign.
Money just pours into those guys. ‘Money for nothin’, chicks for free’.
brh
I am reminded of something I read many years ago: A North American political figure asked a prominent Latin American politician why it was that politicians in his country always seemed to leave office with vast fortunes. The fellow answered that if you didn’t leave office wealthy, then you were not a very good politician.
I guess I spoke too soon yesterday when I stated American cities remaining relatively peaceful this summer (no riots, but plenty of murder and mayhem) No sooner than I said that we find out more looting and gunfire in Ferguson, Mo, maybe a precursor to further rioting and looting in cities thru out the US before summer ends. It was in Ferguson only 1 year ago where it all started … could be starting all over again.
I await events.
Jim Webb for President!
Go Mets!
How do you like it now, Gentlemen?
BRH
Do any of you CFN “Dill Holes” recall the news report several years ago about the backwoods country morgue in the US State of Georgia that as a matter of convenience over several years had been dumping corpses out back of the mortuary into the forest? The county officials had to explain to the families affected that that isn’t Grandpa buried in the cemetery. This is a bit what the official US political system is like.
Which is the best pickup truck? The Dodge “RAM”?
The Coup D’état of 1963 by those that outgoing President Eisenhower warned us to beware of had many consequences. Some became immediately apparent like an economy based on the constant waging of war, and some have played out over time as the organized crimesters melded with corporate and Washington DC elite. A shame our government had to get into bed with them on that Castro deal don’t you think? This would explain how and why our government was transformed from the caring Uncle Sam that it used to be to the numbers running, break your legs Godfather that it is today. This is why thugs like the Clintons will always haunt the halls of power and why once the Kennedys were all whacked and out of the picture, the Bush Crime Family, (along with the partners the Bin Ladens), could waltz right in and set up the dynasty of succession that were are stuck in today. Of course the “election process” is a joke and a bad one – do you really think that these mobsters would let such lucrative choices up to a herd of tattooed, tribal dope addicted primitives? Would you? Of course not, neither would I. James calls it not only like he sees it, but like it is, week after week. That is why we hold him in such high esteem and rightly so. Well done again!
You’re forgetting about little Ted. No single man has done more to destroy the real America and transform it into a 3rd World Hellhole than Ted Kennedy.
You’re forgetting about [little] Ted.
================
A Google search says Ted was 6’2″ tall.
Little in character. Don’t be so literal. The best of literature is closed to you if persist in your folly.
LBJ. FDR. Colonel House. Javits.
Teddy was marginalized and relegated to obscurity. The damage he did was trite when compared to what Soros is doing now with his Mindless Minion.
Nixon is up there in my book. Ted did a lot of damage, particularly with his dieing act “no special interest left behind”, but it’s hard to top destroying the dollar, ending rule of law for the presidency and extending a war unnecessarily for 3 years just to get re-elected. It could even be said that he laid the foundations for the surveillance state and started the “war on drugs”.
Pretty good for only 6 years in the presidency.
https://heartiste.wordpress.com/2015/08/08/the-trumpening-puts-the-heads-of-his-enemies-on-pikes-and-shows-you-how-to-be-an-alpha-male/
Vintage Heartiste.
The weakness of Bernie Sanders. What should he have done? Obviously had security remove the she-boons. Logic is becoming too much for people now.
Trucks are coming into Britain with illegals on the roof. What do they do? Fine the trucking companies – anything to avoid solving the real problem.
I like Bernie for his National Socialism – but we can’t have such weakness in a president. We can only attain his vision through strength.
Bernie Sanders makes news for constantly playing in front of his crowd. Portland, Oregon drew 30k? No shit? As soon as he takes his box o’magic show out of the nursing homes and daycares… it’s over
“What should he have done? Obviously had security remove the she-boons…”
Janos,
I can only disagree. It was a no-win situation for Bernie, and he recognized that. He treated the situation like Dannyboy reacts to your comments, dismissively and/or with no comment.
Well both of their silences were strategic, I’ll give you that. But the quality is different in terms of emotional tone. Bernie seems to be sincere in his deep respect for these people – who obviously don’t deserve it. It’s just more of the Liberal Noblesse Oblige extended to Blacks – which they now take as their due and demand more. It’s fine for Bernie up in White Vermont but it’s tantamount to throwing the rest of us under the bus.
Danny has the classic Jewish contempt for his enemies. And anyone who disagrees is an enemy.
Janos,
Let’s be clear. I have personal contempt for you, because I find you contemptible. You are despicable, but rather than take responsibility, you deflect my contempt for you to “Jewish contempt”
May dislike you, but you hide, saying it’s the blacks who attack your group, or women who hate your group.
It’s plain simple: individual people dislike you. And for good reason.
You’re just saying that because I criticized the Jews. If any of your Non-Jewish friends starting criticizing Israel, you would probably disown them. And definitely if they started criticizing the Jews per se.
Cicero among others wrote about this back in Roman times. I could dig up some quotes for you if you like.The European peoples are capable of admiring their enemies. Jews are not.
Janos,
You are wrong again in your depiction of my hypothetical reactions.
You could help yourself by stopping from anticipating others’ reactions. These are just projections of your self.
It’s rather foolish to lament today’s society’s reluctancy to force change, or say, communicate their frustration superbly, when humanity on this planet has never lived this comfortably, this labor-free, and this inextricably intertwined. In the late 1700s, people still knew where their food was coming from (the back 40), where there earnings/paycheck was coming from (the back 40), where their fuel was coming from (the back 40), and where their medicine was coming from (the back 40). The wheel that was stopped didn’t have much grist to grind in its halt. The loyalists were those obviously getting fat from the crown; mercantile bourgeois dependent classes and the crown’s charter holders. Conveniently, they had Canada to escape to. Besides, back then the US had the means and the resources at hand and people earned through production and labor. Not so today, not by a long shot. Does anybody seriously expect a society that can and does count on the this elaborate system for an exceedingly dependable supply of food, energy, and in most cases, a paycheck to want to end it… for what, well, a return to some utopia agrarian barter village society. Take a break from the kool-aid peddled in this echo chamber for a minute. The majority of the colonists would survive their societal transition and come out ahead. The system we have now brings nothing but catastrophic failure for many its wake. Most people have a clue, difference is today we are all slaves to it, and there is NOTHING that the hoi polloi, the many, who make up the common classes can do about… because the many are the ones that will suffer the most as opposed to the late 18th century agrarian statesman.
Regarding reading, most would rather “gossip with the housemaid, or your stable-boy” than work at comprehending the writings of the lofty ones–or at least according to John Ruskin. And it has probably always been this way although Ruskin would no doubt be horrified by the current state of decadence:
“Now books of this kind have been written in all ages by their greatest men:- by great readers, great statesmen, and great thinkers. These are all at your choice; and Life is short. You have heard as much before;–yet have you measured and mapped out this short life and its possibilities? Do you know, if you read this, that you cannot read that–that what you lose to-day you cannot gain to-morrow? Will you go and gossip with your housemaid, or your stable-boy, when you may talk with queens and kings; or flatter yourself that it is with any worthy consciousness of your own claims to respect, that you jostle with the hungry and common crowd for ENTREE here, and audience there, when all the while this eternal court is open to you, with its society, wide as the world, multitudinous as its days, the chosen, and the mighty, of every place and time? Into that you may enter always; in that you may take fellowship and rank according to your wish; from that, once entered into it, you can never be outcast but by your own fault; by your aristocracy of companionship there, your own inherent aristocracy will be assuredly tested, and the motives with which you strive to take high place in the society of the living, measured, as to all the truth and sincerity that are in them, by the place you desire to take in this company of the Dead.”
http://www.readbookonline.net/read/18614/53996/
Ah, the Mighty Dead. Those who worship their ancestors are not wrong. They are the majority – and we must hold America for them as well as well as for the generations of Whites yet to come. Anything else is just the chaff which the wind blows away.
C.S Lewis spoke well of Ruskin, “There is no other writer who achieves so perfectly the synthesis of the scientific with the poetic or romantic. Some of his descriptions of nature are the most satisfying that I know.”
Interesting posts above about Hadrian’s Wall and Roman Soldiers left behind in Britain in the 4th century when the Legions pulled out and returned to Italy to defend the eternal city against invading Visigoths, Berserkers and Huns.
This is where the whole Arthurian legend and Camelot had its beginnings in England, Arthur being a Romanized Native Celt who tried to carry on Roman Civilization after the Roman govt., Roman Legions, Roman Law, and the Roman economy had departed. Its not really certain that Arthur really existed or was a compilization of 5th century Roman Celtic Kings conjured by Sir Thomas Mallory centuries later. No matter. One wonders, when American Culture, law, military and economy disappear in NAmerica, who will emerge to carry on the project of Western Civilization, and will be be as chivalrous as the great King Arthur?
brh
Chivalry indeed, I would make an argument that the idea died long ago and that the true heritage of the Globe Raping Romans was passed on to the British right there and then. The tactic was advanced and then passed on to Her wayward son, America who has developed Resource Robbing into a truly Global movement. Some legends do not die they just perfect themselves slowly over time.
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/fluoride-childrens-health-grandjean-choi/
It only causes a seven point loss in IQ. Catastrophic in other words. General Jack Ripper, we’re sorry. We should have listened, but instead we listened to the soft spoken serpent, Peter Sellers.
So, are y’all actually expecting and, indeed, predicting that another U.S. presidential election is going to take place?
Holy Crap! I hope not. I pray that all of us will be struggling for our very survival by then.
“hasten the collapse and mitigate its severity” while there is still a biosphere to embrace us.
http://realitysandwich.com/8855/money_and_crisis_civilization/
Continuing to entertain and to discuss this abomination “is a self-reinforcing circle of degradation that rots the collective ethos of the public while it destroys the vessel of the republic that contains it.” Turn away. Walk away. Focus on what might be not on the garbage that has been.
or not – whatever
~toktomi~
“It only causes a seven point loss in IQ” –Janos
———-
Of the many types of intelligences described by Gardner, the cognitive IQ you seem obsessed with, Janos, is not singularly important, and especially should not be used the way you wield cognitive IQ: as a weapon to denigrate, ridicule, classify, and discriminate.
How many eulogies have included this statement: “Think of what seven points higher IQ would have done for the deceased.”
A seven point higher cognitive IQ is just not that important in the complex overall scheme of a person’s life. Having a lower cognitive IQ does not mean a person cannot live a superior life through a synergistic use of the other types of intelligences.
Seven points higher might allow the masses to discern the difference between masterful verbal misdirection (such as yours above) and empirically valid argument: described by the Archdruid in his comments on the “simple” country and townsfolk who listened carefully as Lincoln and Douglas debated.
Seven points lower allow the likes of Hilary or Huckabee to substitute brand creation for rational argument. Or W and Obama. Note the introduction of the brand logo since W.
“Having a lower cognitive IQ does not mean a person cannot live a superior life through a synergistic use of the other types of intelligences.”
A cruel sophistry.
Quite, since g is the very thing that can meld the mind together, integrating the different faculties into coherence. It doesn’t do so automatically of course – not in the absence of good upbringing and character in a viable culture. We all know smart people who are all over the place.
Giving into bullies, be they White, Gay, or female Black Supremacists just encourages more of the same behavior. But of course Bernie has to kiss their posteriors – that’s what Democracy is. Lying to Liars, the War of All against All. So he stays silent. He stands up to other bad people but not to these bad people. The perversity of our system.
Danny dismisses me because he can’t debate me and he knows it. Instead he tried to mock me to scorn and got trounced instead.
Debate you?
And get in your mud? , your inhumanity?
So much for Civil Society and the First Amendment then.
We both see clearly. It’s the rest of these who don’t. Israel wont be Israel if a million Black refugees come in. And America wont be America if a hundred million Browns and Blacks do. You alright with the latter but not the former. As Adams said, the Constitution is for European Christians and no other. America is ours. It was up to you to fit in. You didn’t so now you’re changing everything. You’re winning to be sure. But it wont be America once your finished. And even the dullest will recognize it. Then things will get interesting, eh?
“So much for Civil Society and the First Amendment then.”
The First Amendment does not give you the right to debate me. If you are so caught up in the current Debates, just go outside and rant.
“You alright with the latter but not the former.”
wrong, yet again.
“America is ours. It was up to you to fit in. You didn’t so now you’re changing everything. You’re winning to be sure. But it wont be America once your finished.”
again, Janos, I have in fit quite well. It is you you appear maladjusted.
You are well adjusted to an evil system. So what does that say of you?
Bernie Madoff was right: he didn’t do anything that the Federal Government doesn’t do. But he screwed the rich and famous, including other Jews – and that was his undoing.
Janos,
Do you have any independent thoughts? Is everything about Jews, Blacks, Mexicans, rotten women, Immigrants, fucking governments to you?
You are an Inclusive Hater. Blaming all your shortcomings and failures on these conspiracies.
I think you were on a more productive track when you suggested that your father’s hatred of the family might have something to do with your Condition.
There is much to hate in the world, Dan. I don’t agree with the New Age Ideas you think you believe in or pretend to believe in. Real Spiritual Traditions teach that we are a fallen species.
An Algonquin Holy Man told us about the chief fault of each of the four races: the Black Men is arrogant, the White Man, greedy, the Yellow Man, cruel, and the Red Man, jealous. I haven’t had enough contact with Reds and Yellows to judge but I’d say he’s dead on about Blacks and Whites.
Glad you agree about Madoff. I’ve learned to interpret your silence as agreement – whether willing or not.
In case you haven’t noticed, all of America has turned into a verbal sewer
Fuckin’ A.
Speaker of Russian Parliament warns US against starting a major war
Article by Sergei Naryshkin in “Rossiyskaya Gazeta” – it’s not even a bomb, but simply something unprecedented in the recent history of relations between Russia and the West. In fact, this frank warning to Washington, the request not to start a major war. Russian speaker indicates even a time when the US is preparing a new provocation that could lead to this – up to a month.
“August is the traditional month of political holidays. The citizens of Europe also love to take holidays during this period. But not all Western politicians in those days rest – they are actively preparing for new provocations, not only in the fall … The history remembers how similar provocations ended for Europe and the world. A century ago, in August 1914, the First World War started, which was also triggered by someone … Now, with unrest in the world, you need to carefully watch for any political provocations, venturing on different sides of the Atlantic.”
After listing the old and the latest attempts of provocation in August Naryshkin passes to the main question – why do the United States need all that? And he answers very frankly for the official of one of the countries that are still not in open opposition with each other.
“You ask – what is US ultimate goal? The answer is the same: their external debt is huge, and the ruin of other countries – the usual method for them. Even possession of global printing press is not helping anymore. Neither does complete control over NATO and wiretapping and blackmail of the major political league of the European Union. The colonial model of the XXI century – all this is not enough. It is necessary not only to keep the dollar as the single global currency, but also get closer to the economic wealth of other major nations and regions of the world. “
“Well, August has just begun. But very first events have the smell of deep political fall. Apparently, the aggravation is being prepared, but it is not the first in a series of the same that happened before our eyes. They say, forewarned – forearmed. I am sure that we will not yield to these provocations”.
http://www.rg.ru/2015/08/09/naryshkin-site.html
Associated Press: Jeb Bush accused Hillary Clinton in the appearance of the “Islamic State”
That is directly linked to oil prices, which Clintonites manipulate with Erdogan and Islamic State, selling oil at fraction of the market price.
That Bush’s statement means that now it will be harder to do, which should inevitably affect the price of oil.
http://www.myfoxorlando.com/story/29757448/news-minute-here-is-the-latest-news-from-the-associated-press
Let’s see if I could make predictions as well
Floridapower, unless you use IQ as a weapon, as Janos does, you must know that all IQ tests show variation in scores even when the same person takes the same test over and over again. Such “scores” are really pretty meaningless.
There are other problems: IQ scores also differ for a test-taker taking tests from more than one publisher at the same age. The various test publishers do not use uniform names or definitions for IQ score classifications.
All these issues make IQ not so important, except as a pseudo-scientific support (red herring) on CFN to support statements denigrating any of the many groups regularly assailed: voters, bankers, gays, transgendered, politicians, Blacks, Women (especially feminists), immigrants, pointy-headed intellectuals, etc.
CFN is really quite the spectacle… one in which faulty and unreliable IQ scores are not important. Find another reason to blame Others for your situation. IQ ain’t it.
You sound like the Doctor in Idiocracy who said being a tard doesn’t have to ruin you life. “My sister’s a tard but now she’s a pilot.”
Find another reason to blame Others for your situation.
My situation? WTF?
OK, suspending disbelief, how about reading comprehension?
Or basic numeracy?
I wonder if, as the Roman empire’s dissolution was becoming obvious, everybody got a trophy.
Imagine that all the Sunday morning pundits are dead WRONG and The Donald gets the Republican nomination.
Imagine that Hillary the Oligarch Candidate loses. Imagine that Bernie gets the Democratic nod.
Impossible? I don’t know what impossible. Hillary got beat for the nomination by a nobody with a really thin resume who basically said nothing for the whole campaign. And this nobody went on to win the Presidency not once but twice.
They say that Hillary has the money and the organization. And so what? Bernie is packing them in wherever he goes. Everyone who knows much, much more than you and me has said multiple times that The Donald is done like dinner, stick a fork in him because THIS time he won’t recover, his numbers will crash.
Oops, as one other Republican hopeful once said, it appears that nothing of the sort happened. As for the life-form that’s growing on top of his head, well let’s say that the two of them have come to an accommodation, a symbiosis of sorts. Shouldn’t be a problem.
What if it’s the creaky, old hippie against the self-proclaimed real-estate billionaire with the life-form. How would you vote? Who would win?
V.,
Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished! Vote, schmote… I think that scenario (a ‘spectacle’ if you will) would be delicious, in and of itself. 🙂
Well, lessee, we got your guy who says that letting him loose to implement his ideas will ensure prosperity, and then we got your other guy who’s saying that there will be a lot of hard work to do and we’ll have to share in doing it.
Who do you imagine gets the nod from the [modern] American ‘citizens’/ballot-casters in such case?
Yes, devoutly indeed. Spectacle, yes, I can’t think of a better word.
Hmmm, yes, who gets the nod? Good question. Nobody talking sacrifice or self denial that’s for sure. Those terms are strictly forbidden under the unwritten Book of Rules for Getting Elected.
Hard work? Boy oh boy that’s dicey. Too close to the edge. Somebody nudge Bernie in the ribs. No talk about blood, toil, tears and sweat either.
Is there one promising bread and circuses?
Hard work and share. Does anybody see a problem with putting these two together? What if one person works harder than another? Do they get the same in return for their labor? And if someone does nothing, what do they get?
To listen to Zone, you’d think we were at the beginning of creation and this was the first time these things had been tried.
National Socialism rejects Communism. Private Property is sacred and hard work is rewarded.
If Zone is just using his terms carelessly, I urge to use greater care so as not be misunderstood.
vladdie just tried to leap the Grand Canyon on his unicycle. (Stunt sponsored by Non Sequitur mind-scrambling drinks. It was unsuccessful.)
I see only one purpose for his presence here: To sow division and discord. Also brings any discussion down to its lowest common denominator: fear. The fake boosterism of the Reich (v.3.5) serves this purpose well and that’s the only reason he employs it.
Pretending his posts don’t exist goes a long way toward finding some nuggets of import and genuinely thoughtful responses to JHK’s missives on this comment section. (Greatly reduces reading time too.)
Carry on; time is running short, and rigidity will be our undoing.
In other words, you have no answers to my questions except ad hominem attacks. Failed again Zone.
So….. having failed in the stunt the first time, vladdie repeats it. The level of either stupidity or paid-for bullshit is nearly astounding. (The only thing keeping it from attaining the level of ‘astounding’ is its ubiquity. By its omnipresence, it merely becomes a pestilential bore.)
BTW China devalued its currency. Trouble ahead…
We keep thinking the politicians or the academics are the ones we are looking for, when they’re just people like you and me! We are the ones who need to fix it.
JHK is absolutely right when he says the spectacle on Thursday night was not a debate. It was not. It was only an abysmal extension of Donald Trump’s reality show with Master deBaters on stage and the expected issues brought up including right to life, to whip up the evans., of course, etc. Nothing of importance was brought up, not the TPP, not income inequality, not citizens being brutalized in our streets by the police, not amending the constitution and reversing Citizens United. NOTHING!
And now the Colorado River!!! Not until every river is toxic, all air is polluted will the human species realize we can’t eat money. Sorry Dannyboy, two kidneys, no can do. Would if I could. Have a safe holiday to Nicaragua. I look forward to reading Russell’s The Global Brain Awakens. Should be a great read.
Trump knows that vaccines are dangerous. Who knows what else he knows? We’ll never find out with the likes of Megan Kelly and Eric Erickson running the narrative.
barbisbest,
Thanks for the good vacation wishes. Enjoy the read!
Your EPA polluted that river, Barbs.
Once again I find myself nodding along as I read your article, Jim. You’ve become the leading voice for the disenchanted independents whose politics and values aren’t always easy to predict.
SPECTACLE? Perhaps it is that exact time in the cycle of existence to reexamine the hallucinations of Guy Debord as presented in his “Society of the Spectacle”. He hypothesized a level of affluence at which all of existence becomes decadent and falsified…and governance spontaneously becomes OCCULT. This is as represented by the latest must have commodity travel experience (staying at the antarctic Marriott or getting a ride on the musk space tourism vehicle)…..or obtaining the latest techno trinket (apple mickey mouse watch) guaranteed to make your vacant existence livable for at least a few milliseconds longer. And because of the excessive wealth and lack of a need to work and earn your existence, governance becomes occult….. the masses of asses no longer accept just crooks as leaders…but demand insane deviants and monsters……… This is the true meaning of the SPECTACLE…….
” the masses of asses no longer accept just crooks as leaders…but demand insane deviants and monsters……… This is the true meaning of the SPECTACLE…….”
NSA,
Interesting concept tying decadence to the corruption of the political system and the ascendency of “spectacle”. It could be argued that this also happened in time of great want, in the 30’s, evinced by the rise of demagogues in Germany and Italy…spectacles, indeed. Human frailties at the core of the issue. Too much or too little evinces equal extremes in human nature.
It looks like the planets have finally aligned to create that perfect storm JHK has been warning us about. China devalued its’ currency today, a move Jim Rickards called a “currency Pearl Harbor.” This leaves the United States with two options: devalue the dollar or risk deflation, Good call JHK!
Hello Volodya & Hortonz, I see that you two aren’t going to get caught napping…
This:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-08-11/not-drill-india-russia-and-thailand-prepare-currency-war
Global currency devaluation, *in effect* because after all “…there really is no choice”.
[The yuan devaluation is] a move Jim Rickards called a “currency Pearl Harbor.”
yeah, guess no one saw it coming. wow.
so, when does the hyperinflation or dollar devaluation begin? can we get a date?
fodase
2015
In 1850, in the antebellum South, the most profitable investment was to sink every penny you had into land for planting cotton and into negro slaves. If you didn’t have a stud negro for breeding purposes, then you’d get your female slaves pregnant yourself. The negro kids would come out looking like their daddy who’d then sell them for profit.
A 19th Century take on Planned Parenthood.
Hey everyone, Civil war and Rothschilds,
http://tomatobubble.com/id866.html
I’ve seen one of the 3 US factories where they decontaminate all of US fast food hamburger meat with ammonia. It looks like a petrochemical processing facility. The hamburger meat comes out in frozen square blocks packed in cardboard boxes.
Soylent Pink?
@ CFN:
If you learn that the person(s) you are negotiating with have *no intention* of meeting you halfway – and couldn’t if they wanted to – that is not a bad thing. That is a break-through.
With that in mind:
https://represent.us/action/theproblem-4/
“Study: Congress Literally Doesn’t Care What You Think”
McDonald’s probably then unthaws the decontaminated hamburger meat and then puts the meat into a machine which forms it into mathematically precisely measured patties of exactly the same size, weight, texture, and appearance to be fried for exactly the same precise time by horny, white pimply teenage, minimum wage employees. Each burger is cooked in precisely the same way to the same McDonald’s prescribed standards, unless one of the horny, white, pimply-faced, minimum wage workers accidentally drops the meat patty on the floor.
“…unless one of the horny, white, pimply-faced, minimum wage workers accidentally drops the meat patty on the floor.”
In which case, the hamburger meat is no longer decontaminated.
McDonald’s business model is suffering, and perhaps not even robotics will save it from implosion. I don’t know if Burger King is enjoying the same steady decline, but the times they are a changin’ and whether from rational dietary choice or economic austerity fewer fast-food burgers are entering fewer hungry mouths.
Did anyone else notice that Google has reorganized as “Alphabet”:
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/aug/10/google-alphabet-parent-company
They’re optimizing their enterprise for acquisition… Because there’s going to be a lot of “low-hanging fruit”. Consolidation’s going to the order of the day.
Kudos to senior management at ‘GOOG’! They seem to be aware that they could lose – and (what’s more!) acting accordingly.
what will they buy? and when and why?
@ Malthus & Co.,
re | “what will they buy? and when and why?”-m.
First priority: Direct competitors.
Google, Microsoft and Apple Inc. are locked in a 3-way struggle over the smartphone market. Microsoft came late to the game but has enormous financial and market leverage, so they can acquire enough to stay in the game. Apple on the other hand is vulnerable.
Apple Inc. is vulnerable you ask? Yes.
Consider: Apple had to borrow $60B to buy-back its own stock to increase the stock-price to pay out a dividend and payoff Mr. Icahn (who’d been agitating strongly).
Why did they have to borrow the money to buyback their stock when they have (at least) $138B free-cash-flow? Because it’s stashed offshore and they’d have to pay taxes on it if they used it onshore.
Consider also that Apple had to buy their product sales. At first glance it seems like Apple has incredible iPhone sales. But where are the bulk of sales coming from? China. Why China? Because the Chinese government is subsidizing sales so that it can be sold at the teardown cost ($200).
So Apple had to buy stock and product sales to create demand to manufacture the appearance of health.
Does it sound like they’re in a strong position to you?
Next priority: Social-media ‘unicorns’ with assets that can be field-stripped for a quick buck, like Twitter.
Twitter? Why yes! Last quarter Twitter finally got called on the carpet by Wall Street to start showing an actual _profit_… And since that’s just never going to happen the news sent a chill, frosty wind across the ‘unicorn’ community of the Silicon Valley.
The best thing for Alphabet to do is monitor the death-spiral closely and harvest the unicorns before their assets depreciate unduly. I’m sure that there’s a price-point that’ll work for all parties concerned…
😉
The market is incredibly fake and the honchos at Google/Alphabet seem to be one of the few who know it and act accordingly. Denialism is a losing strategy at this point. We are way past the point of no return in the global market.
Let the Liquidation Commence!
China unexpectedly for the West devalued yuan, the largest since 1994, and thus put the US in an awkward position – the import of Chinese goods overnight becomes cheaper, and scheduled for September Fed rate hike, which was to strengthen the capital outflows from developing economies into US Markets, is in jeopardy. US analysts recognize that it is a game to weaken the dollar system, and US presidential candidate Donald Trump even calls Beijing’s decision a huge frame-up.
He was echoed by John Kerry, who admitted that China and Russia are working to change the dollar system, and if the US is to walk away from a nuclear deal with Iran, the dollar will start to lose weight.
What he said is actually confirms a recent article by speaker of Russian Parliament Naryshkin about the US goal to keep the world in dollar submission.
Politicians are becoming more frank, and it means that temperature behind the scenes is getting hot.
US urgently need new conflicts or expanding old ones. That’s why Kiev troops fiercely bombed Gorlovka playing on the nerves of the militia and Moscow, provoking Russia into breaking of Minsk-2 agreement. Donbass is suffering, but Moscow is not taking the bait, knowing that time plays against the United States and that Europe is frankly tired of Ukraine, which was confirmed by Kerry himself.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/08/11/kerry_if_congress_rejects_iran_deal_us_dollar_could_lose_world_reserve_status.html
Bushes strike at Clintonites
Today, hardly anyone could be surprised by the assertion that many relevant and significant events in the world are somehow connected with the election campaign in the US, as it determines which path of development the world is going to take. This does not mean that the US is leading the development of the entire world, but they certainly could arrange the World War III, and business people do calculate the probability of this event, and it somewhat affects their business planning. To put it mildly.
Different world States are associated with different political clans in the US, but there are those that are under direct governance by US political clans and essentially, are protectorates of these clans. For example, it is no big secret that the Kiev junta is led by Clintonite Biden. Accordingly, Ukraine is not a protectorate of the United States, but of the Clinton Clan. And the Clintons have a very good intelligence network, which is now working for the elections and spying primarily on the Bushes, and only then on Russia. As a result, the law of causality for outside observer gets all screwed up as a result of their investigation activities that are often ahead of the events, the cause of which they are.
For example, the day before yesterday the exacerbation of armed confrontation in the Ukraine was neither here nor there, but today everything fell into place. Clintonites have sent Ukrainian armed forces into fight because yesterday they learned that the campaign takes a new turn, and we learned about it only the next day.
Meanwhile, the day before Clintonites had to at any cost divert attention from next day sensational statement by Jeb Bush, in which he accused Hillary Clinton in the creation of an “Islamic state”.
And so far Jeb confines subtle hints to excessive independence of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in talks with Iraq to extend the US troops mandate there, which resulted in the mandate not being extended, and in 2011, Barack Obama began to withdraw from Iraq.
But Jeb Bush has not yet addressed the issue that ISIS is not a remnant of the Iraqi army of Saddam Hussein, as Hillary states with her usual arrogance, but the other name for “Syrian rebels” whom Clinton enthusiastically supported during her tenure as Secretary of State.
Moreover, he did not mention the fact that there had been more than 2,300 Hummers armed with latest American weaponry conveniently left in Mosul as if specially prepared for ISIS militants to bypass the ban by President Obama on arms supplies to the Syrian opposition.
Thus, the leader of the Democratic race, Hillary Clinton has already put into action all her reserves in the attacks on Bush, except perhaps accusing his brother President George W. Bush in organizing 911 attacks.
Despite the modesty of Jeb Bush, the above statement is indeed a very important event in international politics, and not just small maneuver in the election campaign. This statement means that the Republicans and the Bush clan are willing to submit to the court of public opinion all the activities of the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and not just the killing of the US ambassador in Benghazi and the related Servergate. And it inevitably drags a revision of the results of her activities as the First Lady of the United States, because if she was able to pursue her own foreign policy, being subordinate to President Obama, who hates her, even the silliest American now understands who led the US policy of 1990 s.
And their silliness this time will play against her, because all the good they will credit to Bill and everything bad to her, because, despite the fact that Americans are very fond of economic prosperity of the 1990s and “the only superpower in the world “, they do not want to pay for this prosperity today.
And for Hillary Clinton, the time when she was First Lady and Queen of medical reform, can also be cursed, because it is by virtue of her activities, not only as Secretary of State, but as the First Lady, now we have a possibility of armed confrontation between US and Russia.
And compared to that possibility even the official war with ISIS that is long sought by Obama, could seem unsubstantial from financial point of view, especially when in September-October, once again the time will come to raise the national debt ceiling.
Jeb Bush’s statement shows that it is ISIS, not Ebola or Russia is the “focus of evil” in the modern world. And to combat this evil requires the cooperation of the United States with other countries, and US foreign policy should be determined by precisely this factor, not bloodthirsty mania of “regime change” and “liberation” of the nations from the legally elected governments who for one reason or another are not liked by the former US Secretary of State and world’s forces of evil who are behind her.
http://regnum.ru/news/polit/1951130.html
We here in Ft. Meade are laughing our asses off. Our useful idiot, Comrade Bernie, gets shoved off his own podium at his own event by two fat afro cunts. So how does he react? At the next event in lib lala land, the silly trotskyite voluntarily lays down and spreads his legs, and turns the whole stage and forum over to the mindless afros directly…..a preemptive strike on being accused of “racism”. This proves again that jews and jigs are traditional enemies….and jews have a faggot gene that requires dna modification before they can rule the planet…..
Indeed. Mr Kunstler said Black misbehavior would not be tolerated during the Long Emergency, but evidently old Bernie didn’t get the memo. He’s not only tolerating it, he’s masochistically reveling in it. He’s obviously not fit to command during the Long Emergency.
He reminds me of the Jew who ran and was lambasted by the media as a queer little elf. Blanking on the name – former mayor of Cleveland. He wanted to create a new Federal Department of Peace. Obviously he wasn’t fit either, but at least he wasn’t a factotum of the system. It seems like the good Jews are all bleeding heart liberals. How different they are in the final analysis from the Schumers who use Liberalism to advance their agenda – but abandon it in a heartbeat when it comes to Israel or the supremacy of their people here in America.
Kucinich? He is Christian.
Bernie will defeat Hillary in Iowa and New Hampsire. Hillary is in a steady decline. Her money is powerless against Bernie.
Last weekend 75,000 showed up to hear Bernie. Black Lives Matter is now happy with Bernie’s policy on justice.
If there is no justice… there will be no peace. Bernie has ignited a movement uniting various communities of the 99%.
Let us not forget what happened to Howard Dean. One enthusiastic scream was used against him to assassinate his political ambitions. It’s a long time until November 2016. The pundits are watching. Closely.
Mister Darling and Hortonz
Bugger thy neighbor foreign exchange machinations won’t solve what’s ailing China and the US and much of the world.
The problem is what American oligarchs did in massively reducing US middle class buying power via offshoring. Buck an hour Chinese workers don’t earn enough to buy what they produce and pick up the slack in demand.
Add to that, as JHK says, an oil industry that can’t live with oil less than 70 bucks a barrel and a world economy that can’t live with oil over 70 bucks a barrel.
Messing with money supply and exchange rates is like Christ on the Cross who tries to get relief by pulling himself up by using his spiked arms and causes himself excruciating pain in his arms. Or tries to give his arms relief by trying to rest on his spiked feet and causes himself excruciating pain in his feet. There’s no relief from this mess the oligarchs created, no way off the cross.
For the longest time the Chinese economy was a bubble looking for a pin. It seems the pin has been found. And the Chinese have no fucking clue what to do. Neither does anyone else. It was always just a question of which one blew up first, the bubble or the debt bomb.
The energy problem is like walking on a bed of nails. On either side of the nails are more nails. The Saudis can pump to beat hell. So what. That just drains their reserves and puts the day of reckoning for themselves and millions of people around them that much closer on the calendar. When the oil is gone what are they going to do, eat sand?
If you think we have instability in the Middle East, just wait. This is nothing. ISIS is just the warm up to the main event.
The Romans sometimes cut things short by stabbing the crucified prisoner in the guts, which is apparently what happened to Christ, or breaking the prisoner’s legs.
So here we are doing this desperate dance on this custom-made, Oligarch-built crucifix. Pull ourselves up and cause ourselves distress or let ourselves down and get the same result. There’s no attending Roman to put us out of this misery. How do we get relief, how do we get off this cross?
Hello V!
re | “Bugger thy neighbor foreign exchange machinations won’t solve what’s ailing China and the US and much of the world.”-v.
Just to be very clear, I never said that devaluation would solve anything, and I don’t recall Hortonz doing that either. Devaluation is a symptom of systemic collapse.
re | “Add to that, as JHK says, an oil industry that can’t live with oil less than 70 bucks a barrel and a world economy that can’t live with oil over 70 bucks a barrel.”-v.
You need to look @ “Chart 4”:
http://blog-imfdirect.imf.org/2014/12/22/seven-questions-about-the-recent-oil-price-slump/
These are the (industry-friendly, very conservative) breakeven prices for different project types. Upshot is: at $44bbl there is no point in keeping a project going.
The Net Present Value tells you that you will not recoup the money sunk in the project. You have to shut down and layoff immediately. It’s not a matter of choice. You fire people or you get fired. Barring that, The Market fires the entire enterprise and rips the rug out from under you anyway.
It’s just that simple.
re |”For the longest time the Chinese economy was a bubble looking for a pin.”-v.
Absolutely! There is no way that any nation – no matter how special they think they are – can clock-in “7%+” annual GDP growth for 20 years. It’s absurd, but we all just went along with it because there was never enough transparency to call them on it.
Meanwhile, $4T fled China and got laundered into real estate all over the world (pretty much anywhere BUT China – that’s how much faith native-born mainlander Chinese had in their homeland). You see all those pretty, totally effing useless condo racks cluttering up downtown Toronto?
Yeah buddy! You like that dont’cha!? Say hello to floods of Central Committee scions getting their “pied-a-terre”…
We (meaning the USA and it’s close allies) are an Empire of Fake, but we certainly are not the only fakers on the field.
MD, Chart 4 is something I’ve been seeking for some time. Thank you!
A quibble: at $44, there is no chance of sustaining a global economy using more than 50,000,000 bbl / day. Since projections are for about double that, something must break; either we get (energy) poor very quickly (i.e. low price but no supply), or we pay more like $100 / bbl, in which case less and less is available to pay for other things.
A few years ago the IEA pointed out that a supply crunch / price spike would ensue if investment dropped below $1.5T in each of the next 20 years. The last year’s price drop has dramatically reduced investment, and because investment in exploration and drilling produces no production for some lag time (measured in years), soon the global economy will be in permanent high price oil crisis.
I suspected that this was the Saudi plan all along. Crippling Russia was the bait to tempt the short-term Washington “thinkers” into orchestrating low oil prices. For the Saudis, crushing the fracking crowd was just icing on the cake. Looks like we can already judge the winners and losers of the great commodities smash of 2014/15, and winners ain’t us.
When you play chess but act like you’re playing poker, you lose.
Final Post-Script to this line of inquiry: at the end of the day, the Chinese are still in a better strategic position than an empire of criminal merchants who’ve spent 40+ years in liquidation… It’s not pretty, but it’s a fact.
Not that anyone here but me would care………
http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2010/03/wait_whats_the_difference_betw.html
I care. Very helpful. Thanks Q!
-TNT
Janos and nsa, your machismo is not intelligent. Bernie’s response was perfect Taoism. You would intentionally alienate Blacks causing disunity, losing voter support.
Bernie now has Black support onboard and the movement grows. That is smart. That is why Bernie is a winner. You guys are not.
Remember Tom Wolfe’s “Radical Chic and Mau Mauing the Flak Catchers”.
… This little marxist worm, Sanders, got Mau Mau ‘ed up on that stage by 2 Sistas, any way you look at it. And the thing is, he liked it! He wishes it would happen again, to burnish his lefty ‘non racists’ bona fides, just the thing to elevate his status with his young sycophants, gazing up at him in rapture as he promises free tuition, free dope, free ass, eliminating student loan debt, in fact perpetual undergrad white utopia right here on earth.
brh
Has the thought crossed yr mind that it [maybe] was a setup?
So you admit the Blacks were acting swinish?
“as he promises free tuition, free dope, free ass, eliminating student loan debt, in fact perpetual undergrad white utopia right here on earth.” –brh
brh, he does not just promise. Bernie provides, in detail, exactly how everything will be paid for. You see it is not spending… It is investment in our future as a nation.
You are right that the young get it, which is one of the best aspects of Bernie’s movement for a stronger America.
Aha ha ha ha ha aha ha ha ha aha ha aha ha ha a a …!
And of course you’re employing Nagarjunian dialectic here: a Stronger America means a Weaker America and ultimately No America. One is reminded of G.I testifying that they had to destroy the village in order to save it.
you’re employing Nagarjunian dialectic here
=============
He was Armenian wasn’t he?
Hindu.
Hindu is a religion, not a nationality.
In any case I wasn’t being serious. Ever notice how every Armenian name ends with “ian?”
You’re getting like Janos. I have to explain all my posts.
ha ha ha ha aha ha ha ha aha ha aha ha ha…! — brh
—————————–
First they laugh at you (as they laughed at Obama in 2007)
Then they fight you (as the birthers and oathkeepers tried to do)
And then you win, as Barack Hussein won … in 2008 and in 2012.
Bernie Sanders 2016 ……. (your laughter is impotent…. see Lao Tzu)
No, Janos. No Nagarjuna, just Aristotelian logic. Bernie won over Black Lives Matter in less than 24 hours and gained strength. Win-win. Your way of attacking Blacks would not have worked.
He cowered and offered appeasement. Compare that to what Trump said.
http://www.amren.com/news/2015/08/trump-vows-to-never-give-up-a-microphone-to-blacklivesmatter-protesters/
Obviously Trump embodies the American character. Bernie embodies the PC Anti-American character.
“He cowered and offered appeasement”
…Did not Hitler appease Chamberlin? Stalin?
Whites have been bowing and crawling to Blacks for generations now. What has it gotten us? An ever growing insolence, rage, and violence from them. They can only see our behavior as weakness. That’s how they’re wired. And weakness brings out the worst in them as it does in any predator.
Read Anton LaVey’s (Levy) description of being a lion tamer for some insight. You don’t make a four hundred pound cat do anything. You see what it likes to do and then shape it. But along with the profound respect for them, you don’t take any shit. They can sense fear. You have to be ballsy as hell. If they get snappy, you snap the whip right on their nose. That’s the balance. And if you can’t do the balance, you don’t get in the cage. To paraphrase the quote from Seven Days in May, Burt Lancaster says to the President, “Mr Sanders, you are not a weak sister, you are a criminally weak sister.”
Chamberlain appeased Hitler as England built up its air force. He wasn’t the cowardly knave he’s been made out to be, at least not completely. He probably knew Hitler meant no harm to England, great Anglo-phile that he was. But just to be safe and to appease the hawks, he quietly began the war effort. And of course the War Hawks took over, dooming Western Civilization as is clear now.
Why settle for the shoddy imitation,Comrade Bernie, when you could have the real thing…..the furniture salesman from Philly with the dual nationality could run for US prez as an independent……could then be PM of our 51st state and prez of the other 50 lesser states. Should easily get 80% of the R vote and 40% of the D vote….enough to handily be elected to a dual presidency to go with the dual citizenship. Hell of an idea….we here in Ft. Meade wouldn’t even need to jigger the voting machines to get him elected. Maybe the USMC could be incorporated into the IDF and June 8 declared a national holiday celebrating the deadly attack on the USS Liberty…..?
Whatever happened to the white woman who became head of the local chapter of the NAACP by pretending to be a negro? She purposely tanned herself dark in a tanning salon.
The MSM conveniently “forgot” about her.
She was riding high with the whole Nation waiting on her every move. There was every possibility she could reinvent herself as the Matriarch of the Race is a Choice movement. But her momentum was squelched by the Dylan Roof shooting. Thank God some good came out of that.
There’s no barrier to Fasting, right? You just don’t eat, or eat very little, right?
“Another survey, conducted by the Mintel consumer research firm in 2013, asked participants to identify barriers to their healthy eating goals. Among them: availability of products, time constraints, taste concerns and confusion about what’s healthy.”
What would happen if Americans en masse stopped eating and fasted? They’d probably have to give up TV because of the constant bombardment of subliminal messages from the TV encouraging people to eat and to be afraid?
The American people have been bombed for so long with constant subliminal messages to be afraid that they’ll all naturally flock to a “STRONG” leader like Donald Trump.
Merriam-Webster
APPEASEMENT: pacify, conciliate; especially : to buy off (an aggressor) by concessions usually at the sacrifice of principles
—————
Bernie did not sacrifice any principles because he agrees with Black Lives Matter (and has for 50 years). Bernie made that perfectly clear. His whole life is evidence. Bernie made no concessions because he welcomes participation by Black Lives Matter and he earned their support by clarifying his position, not by changing any long held principles.
Hence “appeasement” did not happen because no principles were sacrificed. Bernie simply stepped aside, made his values explicit, and gained support of Black Lives Matter, Bernie’s campaign was made stronger by his Taoist non-aggression.
You would think Trump would learn from how Obama’s relaxed aloha spirit defeated Hillary in 2008. The effectiveness of non-aggressive wu wei is something Trump will not understand until he loses the general election … a loss that will be due to Trump’s aggressiveness and constant attacks/insults. What works for Trump among a subset (23%) of Republicans will not work nationally.
Why did Hilary have to walk back her comment that “All Lives Matter?”
According to a recent survey, the principal barrier to Americans eating better is that Healthy Food does not contain a lot of fat, salt, and sugar.
The gurus have been telling you to: Think positive! Believe in yourself! Work smarter, not harder! Wear a condom! Avoid Transfats!
Wear deodorant! Floss your teeth! Don’t drink and drive! Don’t be seen alone in a room with a child! Don’t use your real name on the Internet! Don’t commingle assets with your spouse, particularly in California! Don’t blow dry your hair while soaking in the bathtub! Don’t make a pass at your wife’s younger sister! Don’t order the chicken bucket party pack on Super Bowl Sunday! Don’t complain about your order to the fry cook! Black Lives Matter!
Don’t forget, “Climate change,Climate change.”
Glad to see you put “Climate Change” right up there with survival advice such as not using electrical appliances in the bathtub. Of course, you are absolutely right to do so, but nevertheless, I salute you.
Alexander Brodsky: The Norman ultimatum and a Negro child with two heads
Pregnant woman in a white suburban neighborhood for a month wakes her husband at night screaming, and then complains that she had a dream in which she gave birth to a little Negro with two heads. The poor husband is exhausted to the limit, and now comes the time of birth, the husband running from corner to corner in the hospital, and the nurse finally comes out with a strange expression on her face and says:
– Congratulations you have a son!
– Negro?
– Negro!
– With two heads?
– No one.
– Oh…. Thank God!
………………
The Norman Ultimatum is a threat of war in the event that Putin would invade Ukraine, which was allegedly brought to him by the collective West in Normandy, where he arrived for the celebration of D-Day.
Without realizing this fact, the reliability of which in my opinion is difficult to doubt looking at very costly military exercises of Russian troops in preparation for a nuclear war that Putin holds one after another after his return from Normandy, people find themselves in opposition to the reality and begin to be afraid of nuclear war only now, when news feeds are full with warnings about the nuclear threat precisely because its acute phase is safely behind us.
Instead of the Norman ultimatum we are invited to believe that Putin refuses to take Kharkov and Odessa because he’s gone mad, or was co-opted by CIA and MI-6.
Let me remind you that on the eve of Norman Ultimatum, Putin clearly promised to Kiev to break their legs in case if they begin to bombard the cities of Donbass in apparent genocide. Moreover, he even received the approval of the Federation Council for the use of the Russian military outside of Russia, which he asked to withdraw after a trip to Normandy. Then he began ostentatiously prepare for a nuclear war.
And just recently, the West realized that this war it will not win at least, but may be even lose if it wants to live. It retreated, especially since it had an enemy that poses a threat much greater than Russia that despite the existence of its nuclear weapons, threatens the West with nothing but its oil and gas.
But cries about the danger of a nuclear conflict in the Western media indicate the start of propaganda campaign to sell to electorate this retreat.
And in this regard, I always think of the nuclear submarine “Kursk” and how Putin was accused that he refused to interrupt his vacation because of the fact that “it drowned.” And today, I think that we know perfectly well that Putin was informed about the attack by USS “Memphis” on the Russian nuclear submarine on the orders of President Clinton in response to Yeltsin reminder of Russian nuclear triad, and the question of how this report corresponds to reality, is again a question of the Negro child with two heads.
And in fact, Putin sat in Sochi deep underground at the command post with his finger on the red button, listening to all these accusations and thought about how and when he is going to push it, and what it would mean that the time has come. And what is happening now, he thought through then, and only now, perhaps, he mentally stepped aside from the button and took a deep breath.
Jesus, I love this site….
Larry King: You tell me what happened to the submarine?
Putin: It drowned
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hq15cI77Cuw
Barbisbest,
A few weeks back you responded emotionally to the slaughter of Cecil the Lion in Rhodesia (as tens of thousands of people did around the world)
This appeared today in our local paper, just a small article in the international news recap.
‘Rhinos being wiped out by Poachers in SAfrica’
I guess the horn is coveted as an aphrodisiac in SEAsia and China; Poachers in the bush are hunting them down with AK47 rifles, sawing off the horns and leaving the carcasses to rot on the plain. So far this year 1250 Rhinos have been reported killed, with many hundreds more killed and unreported.
I doubt if Rhinos as a specie will survive very much longer into the 21st century, except in zoos, and when zoo budgets get tight, who knows?
ISIS has found a new way to kill people, you lock them in a cage, 20 or 30 at a time, and toss in a grenade or two. Very simple. Very effective. Not as dramatic as beheading or mass drowning but it gets the job done. Grenades are cheap and they’re very common, like pennies.
Let’s talk about Hillary’s E Mails, Trumps latest gaff, John Stewarts retirement, will Joe Biden get in the race.
How do you like it now, Gentlemen (and Ladies)?
brh
Graham Parker has a song about this.
Theyre ripping the horn oiff the Rhino tonite
Some some fat sheik —— [I wont finish the line].
Song Title: They Murdered the Clown.
If you’re a white hipster, how stupid do you have to be to drive down into the ghetto, at night, to score some dope? This is just what a couple from Coventry, CT, home of Revolutionary patriot Nathan Hale, did the other nite. Result: no dope scored, the man shot to death, the woman wounded severely. The twist here is that the gunshot wounds were to the ‘lower extremities, groin and legs, not the customary, familiar, tried & true ‘shot to the head’.
My God, what a civilization!
brh
And why do you call it ‘dope?’
article didn’t specify exactly what drug these people were in Hartford to buy — apparently nobody was talking, or in any condition to talk; as for the shooter he is nowhere to be found — one has to assume some form of heroin or cocaine.
“Known drug area”, which is essentially the whole city.
brh
…Did not Hitler appease Chamberlin? Stalin? – elysianfield
==============
No elysian, you got it exactly backwards.
The Allies fought so Europe could be taken over by Muslims and Black Africans. The Fascists fought to prevent this. They knew that the Capitalists were going to flood Europe with Non-Whites. It’s the insane logic of Capitalism which can only see profit and bottom lines.
You might enjoy some of these. The Spartans were the counter point to the Athenians – loving to use as few words as possible to convey meaning: “If”, “With it or on it”, “Come and take them”. They were famous for their retorts to other windy Greeks: Your speech was so long that we have forgotten the first half and without the first half, the second makes no sense.
Along with this, they practiced simplicity and poverty – finding in these freedom and strength. Also there was little incentive for invasion since they had so little.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laconic_phrase
Are there any Spartans left in Greece? They could use some now.
Just as the Nordic countries are in sore need of some Vikings. Where’d the Vikings go? Swedish women are being raped by Eritrean immigrants; the Swedish government is worried not about their women but if these rapes will cause a ‘backlash’ against 3rd world muslim immigrants from ‘native right wing groups’, and deploy police to protect muslim immigrant neighborhoods.
That’s the situation in Sweden as it stands right now. Does Sweden deserve to survive?
brh
That’s what your heroes fought for in WW2, unknowingly I admit. They were, in a word, dupes. But they can’t say they weren’t warned. Many did, even here at home.
Anyway, the Plan to miscegenate Europe was adopted in the early 1900’s. It is the brain child of a half European, half Japanese nobleman. The Jews backed it to the hilt from then until now.
http://www.westernspring.co.uk/the-coudenhove-kalergi-plan-the-genocide-of-the-peoples-of-europe/
The National Socialist knew that the Capitalists would start bringing in coloreds for the cheap labor. They had no idea that a blatant plan of replacement would be foisted on Europe – ostensibly driven by “charity”. In other words, the depths of Evil and human weakness to it were beyond even the power of their sharp intellects to forsee.
APPEASEMENT: pacify, conciliate; especially : to buy off (an aggressor) by concessions usually at the sacrifice of principles
Q,
Yes, that is the conventional wisdom, but considering both came away, at least temporarily, with “something of value”, I would expect that the above definition would pertain…Chamberlin received “peace in our time”, and Hitler received Lebensraum….or at least breathing space…No?
Mr. Darling, on exchange rate fiddling, my main point is that it wouldn’t work and there was no intention to imply that either you or Hortonz thought it would.
But you’re right, and I’ve written it myself, that for all its troubles, China comes out on top.
Empire of Fake, yes. As I think Scalia said, words have ceased to have meaning. Same with prices, rigged as they are by central banks.
Do interest rates or prices of debt or equities make any sense?
Is the disaster in Greece any surprise if their bonds sold for German prices? Buyers were apparently thinking that German taxpayers would be the backstop. Why? Because the Germans and the Euro-zoners would not contemplate a Grexit. But as one of the Euro-zone finance ministers just said, why can’t we just admit that this isn’t working?
Why was anyone fooled by Chinese government statistics? How many times have Chinese officials, under the cover of anonymity, said that their numbers were crap?
Reality is an uncompromising bitch that can be forestalled for a bit but not for long. Numerous fracture lines in the matrix tell us this.
“Reality is an uncompromising bitch that can be forestalled for a bit but not for long.”-v.
And Death & Depreciation are not just ‘pretty words’!
Cheers V!
@ Malthus & Co.,
re | “what will they buy? and when and why?”-m.
Quick Note: I answered this question up-thread.
Cheers!
One Last Thought about the Alphabet hit-list:
Tesla… It’s burning through cash at a furious pace – actually losing money on every car sold – and it has no near- or mid-term prospect of producing a net profit.
On the other hand… Tesla would make a very *f-I-n-e* addition to the Alphabet portfolio…
[sidelong mischievous glance, twirling the mustache]
…But that would require keeping Mr. Musk in the picture in a big way… Which probably means making him a high-profile member of the senior-management ‘family’.
It would not work to offer him a 2nd-echelon position. To paraphrase that Star Trek movie ‘First Contact’ Mr. Musk would *not* “make a fine drone”.
😉
What about that new battery factory Tesla is building out near Carson City? He promises a break thru in battery technology, which is sorely need because current technology doesn’t seem much different from the Pope Electrics built in Hartford between 1895 and 1920.
brh
BRH,
The battery plant is being built in Sparks Nevada, a “suburb”, albeit a seedy one, of Reno(which, itself, is a shadow of it’s former prosperity). Reno, and it’s casinos, have been on their last legs for the last five or six years… shabby, unkempt, rife with homeless, many shuttered casinos with little law enforcement in the core downtown…. With a 2 Billion dollar infusion into the area, Reno may have a lifeline to it’s former glory.
That really is funny. Who can afford a $100,000 car?
Reno will be saved by a lux auto?
Tesla is a welfare corporation, dependent on Gov, like Solendra?
Malthus,
The two billion dollars is the cost of the physical plant…it will pump a lot of money into the casinos. Sustainability, of course, is another matter.
Most people could only wish for a Tesla since the prices are so high. This is a car for the 1 % only.
And of course the War Hawks took over, dooming Western Civilization as is clear now. – Janos
=============
Thanks for summarizing the 1200 page Rise and Fall of the Third Reich in one sentence… cough cough.
Now that you have read the Mein Kampf of the Allies, you owe it to Athena, (the goddess of justice) to read the Book itself. In preparation, you could read Pat Buchanan’s book about WW2.
Here Q, just press play! Note the Title. Face it, you’ve been lied to over 1200 pages.
http://www.amazon.com/Churchill-Hitler-Unnecessary-War-Britain/dp/0307405168/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1439514435&sr=1-1&keywords=pat+buchanan+the+unnecessary+war
The Greek alphabet (1350 BC) actually predates Latin (750 BC). There was no word for ‘public’ in Greek, rather the word ‘people’ was the universal term. The Greek translation of ‘people’ is ‘demos’, which becomes the root term for democracy. It is ironic that what started out as a good thing has been subverted into an illusion of the real thing,
There is only one solution – JHK for President.
Exactly. There is no American People anymore – only a public. Thus since there is no People, there can be no Citizens but only consumers of political products (ads, campaigns, referendums, candidates, etc)
I think Plato and Socrates would have agreed with your logic.
It’s the insane logic of Capitalism which can only see profit and bottom lines. – Janos
=============
Just a small point here: profit and the bottom line are one and the same thing.
Yes ultimately. But doesn’t bottom line have a broader connotation, including every thing that leads to greater profit such as firing certain people, cutting costs, etc?
Making a particular popular economic activity illegal is just a back handed way of granting particular organized crime syndicates a monopoly, right?
Privatizing public services is also granting private companies a monopoly over government, right?
The government becomes hostage to private monopolies and organized crime—Everything becomes a racket.
I have often thought so.
Chinese money monster
Global (worldwide) money supply (M2) is estimated at 71.5 trillion dollars – that is among all the countries in the world. 50 major currency areas account for at least 70.4 trillion (representing over 98% of the global money supply). Since 2010 worldwide money supply increased by $20 trillion! More than half of the increase was provided by China. And with the pre-crisis period (May 2008) money supply increased by almost 25 trillion, where 60% of the increase was provided by China.
The expansion of the money supply in China is incredible. Back in 2009, China money supply was comparable to the United States. Now, it is almost twice as much. In the US it is at least $12 trillion; China is coming to $22 trillion in August 2015. In only 6 years, China has actually “created” another United States at home. This is the question about the “slowing of China” and the scale effect. So far, China has once again slowed down (according to the media), they still manage to create new Great Britain every year. The simple fact – for the last year Chinese money supply has increased by $2.4 trillion dollars.
Money supply of UK is at $2.4 trillion, and the country is highly monetized, the center of attraction of liquidity, the second financial center after the United States. Money supply of Germany is at $2.8 trillion, about $1.9 trillion France, Italy $1.4 trillion, Spain $1.1 trillion, Russia at the current exchange rate is at $580 billion.
Combined money supply of the United States and all the countries of the EU is at about $23 trillion at current exchange rates, that is, China at the end of the year can overtake the two most developed regions of the world (in terms of economy and finance) for the saturation level of liquidity. This can be interpreted in various ways, but in any case, a very dangerous trend.
Firstly, there will come a time when China will not be able to fit within its borders, and it will be forced to carry out a geopolitical expansion with all its consequences for the existing architecture of the world order with United States as an undisputed leader.
Secondly, the growth rate of money supply is so monstrous that provokes a series of intractable internal contradictions and imbalances in China.
Third, almost all generated liquidity in China is concentrated within China, but a breakout to the international markets is very likely to occur, which will lead to a radical reduction in weight of the dollar in the global arena, international reserves, and cross-border investment transactions.
It is a time bomb, which will be felt very soon. Those rates of expansion of China’s monetization cannot pass unnoticed and isolated from the rest of the world.
You write very well.
‘It is a time bomb, which will be felt very soon. Those rates of expansion of China’s monetization cannot pass unnoticed and isolated from the rest of the world.’
Then what? deflation? hyper inflation?
I hope that none of that awful scenarios. I hope it will be a “Global Currency Reset” – new Breton Wood agreement between the major world players and soft landing for US economy.
US will suffer, but not catastrophically.
I just spoke with the Aliens. They admit that Bernie Sanders was aboard their space ship. But they’re denying that Bernie was abducted, and they say that Bernie consented to everything.
Flamethrowers are on sale in the US
Buying a flamethrower does not require pre-screening by the FBI as a flamethrower – “it is not a firearm”.
NEW YORK, August 14. / Correspondent. Igor Borisenko TASS /. “Entertainment devices” – that is how the flamethrowers are classified in the United States.
As reported by CNN, the company Throwflame of Cleveland (Ohio) offers for just $1,599 model, capable to throw a tongue of flame at 50 feet and Ion Productions Team from Detroit for just $900 ready to send in the mail a flamethrower with active combat area of 25 feet.
http://photocdn1.itar-tass.com/width/744_b12f2926/tass/m2/uploads/i/20150814/4067892.jpg
Happy flame throwing, America!
Finc,
In the US, you can buy most anything, including field artillery, with the correct permits. The FBI has nothing to do with these weapons, as they are permitted through an agency known as the National Firearms Agency (NFA). The process is long, thorough, and expensive, with a flamethrower transfer to a qualified individual costing in the neighborhood of $2000 for the privilege. Machine guns are legally transferred through the same agency, at $200 per transfer…as in the case of destructive devices (flamethrower), the vetting process is extensive, taking several months. These transfer taxes are on top of the cost of the weapons, of course. I, at one time, collected machine guns as a hobby, and am well aware of the process.
Well, may be you’re a little behind the times. I went to the store website at http://store.xm42.com/
Here’s what I found:
FREE SHIPPING in the contiguous United States!
We are fulfilling our Indiegogo supporter pre-orders first. All orders taken through July will be delivered throughout August. The current lead time is estimated at 1 month. We will maintain a 1-week lead time from order to delivery for regular orders beginning in September once we’ve fulfilled the huge batch of pre-orders we received. Thank you for your strong support for our incredibly fun product!
Can’t find anything about NFA. Looks like they’re selling better than hot cakes, or should I say hot pirogkies…
Subtitle 5. Destructive Devices
4-501 Definitions
“Destructive device” includes a bomb, grenade,
mine, shell, missile, flamethrower, poison
gas, Molotov cocktail, pipe bomb, and petroleum-
soaked ammonium nitrate. ”
Finc,
I did check the website selling them and one of two scenarios are possible…the most probable is that the company has yet to actually produce or ship any, and the Government is unaware of the product… and the two “Students” that started the company are ignorant of the NFA laws. The second, and it is a stretch, is that the product the company is selling is considered a weed burner, and has gotten approval as a non-NFA weapon…in which case the company would be advertising the hell out of the fact. If, the company is selling them in ignorance, I would expect the owners of the company will soon be rooming with Butch McDick in a ClubFed somewhere in the sticks.
I find it hard to believe that the guys spent few million dollars on setting the shop up without consulting with attorney.
But it looks like they did – here is the quote from their FaceBook:
“The first civilian legal flame thrower is now on the market, and we are one of the first to get our hands on it”
https://www.facebook.com/ionproductionsteam?_rdr=p
May be it is like “define what the meaning of the word is is”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4XT-l-_3y0
Intelligence community wants Clinton’s security clearance suspended
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/aug/13/hillary-clinton-emails-intelligence-community-want/
Wouldn’t be a bit hard for Hillary to work as the President of the United States without a security clearance? She’d be probably excluded from 99.9% of the meetings.
Well, if elected and she has something important to say she can just publish it here. Then the resident sock puppets can then forward it on to the pentagon as fast as you can say ‘clusterfuck honeypot‘!
And if she puts too many ‘thens’ in a sentence ‘Q’ can correct her.
Hillary Clinton turns in ‘blank’ email server to investigators
Hillary Rodham Clinton complied with Justice Department requests for her server — by turning over a hunk of junk.
It’s unclear when the server was wiped clean when “migrated” to a different server, as Wells said, and where that information was transferred.
http://nypost.com/2015/08/13/hillary-clinton-turns-in-blank-email-server-to-investigators/
In general, the transfer of the empty server is certainly an extraordinary impudence. She behaves. as if she’s ready to give the order to bomb not Dallas, but Washington, White House! And it is interesting, does she have pilots who are ready to execute such an order?
Impudent if there was a warrant otherwise someone else is being impudent; not her. This is interesting, from some of her wag the dog comments over the last couple of years I thought she was with the program.
Or is it that the boys in the back room didn’t like what they heard over her smart phone with its big ear.
Our flag was raised at the renewed US Embassy in Cuba this morning. I will guesstimate that Cuba will be a raging, rabid hotbed of capitalism within 25 years. Why? Because capitalism is human nature.
Yes it’s human, all too human. That’s what brought on Castro’s bloody rise to power: unrestrained Capitalism, unrestrained lust and greed. The more the pendulum swings one way, the more it will swing the other. Wisdom dictates staying in the middle as much as possible. Don’t you agree? Not “you”, but your higher self?
Both I and my higher self believe that if you don’t mess with the pendulum the bob will settle into an optimum pattern of oscillations.
You evidently see human tragedy as optimum. Hey, it’s natural, the Law of the Jungle.
“You evidently see human tragedy as optimum.”
Janos,
Maybe as optimum, but certainly as a constant…
According to the WSJ, Fidel [who once was a movie extra in Hollywood] has millions in his Swiss Banc.
I wonder how much money he has.
Have you read of him and Che? [of course you have].
QShtik,
Raging? Yeah, maybe.
I’m betting that the nomenklatura, top Cuban communists, Cuban police officials and those well connected to the Castros will be the ones that benefit. These people will set the rules for Cuban-style capitalism to suit themselves. They saw how massively rich Chinese and Russian insiders got. They want to get rich too.
I am betting on scams galore where Cuban communists who have the inside track do what they did in former east-bloc European countries. They will be selling off former government owned enterprises.
But, of course, nobody in Cuba has any money. They are sure as hell not going to allow foreigners, especially Americans, get their noses in the trough.
So, to be “fair”, given that businesses were publicly owned, ordinary people will be given shares in these newly privatized companies.
Of course nobody in Cuba has a fucking clue what a share actually is or what it entitles the shareholder to. So the communist insiders will be borrowing money from state-owned Cuban banks to buy shares for next to nothing from ignorant campesinos.
Maybe this is too convoluted. But in any case just guess who ends up owning formerly state owned companies. No doubt in my mind it will be Cuban communist insiders. What will they do? They will do what they did in former communist Europe. They will plunder those companies. They will steal company cash, sell company assets out the back door and leave company workers and suppliers high and dry. And they will default on the loans to buy the shares.
Given that they are insiders, given that there is zero rule of law and given that they greased the right palms when they stole all that money, the thieves will be lining Swiss bank vaults.
Swiss bankers will be happy as they will no doubt be charging hefty fees for warehousing all that cash. And the Cubans will be laundering some of the loot by buying London mansions just like Russian oligarchs.
I’m also betting that the fairy-tale that they peddled about China, that China would democratize over time when it liberalized its economy, won’t happen in Cuba either.
I think that in Cuba there will be a bit of “free” enterprise, ie “free” if you grease the right palms to get the many permits, put up with mind-boggling bureaucratic snarls where the right hand has no idea what the left is doing and doesn’t care and will not bother to find out. And “free” if you put up with periodic official shakedowns. I can just imagine the Cuban tax regime and its crow-bar and brass-knuckle audits. You think the IRS is lousy?
Bet on rules to guarantee monopolistic power for a few chosen businesses. The justification will be to protect newly hatched Cuban companies from those dastardly Yanquis.
In short, you will have next to NO chance in this system UNLESS you are an insider.
There are probably other scenarios that could come about. Whatever pans out, you can bet that Cuban insiders will get really, really rich.
How many billions do you think the Castros already have stashed away? They’ve been stinking the place up after all for more than fifty years.
Am I too cynical?
“Cuba will be a raging, rabid hotbed of capitalism within 25 years” == Q
It will be a hotbed, alright, for cheap American sex tourists
“I thought she [Hillary] was with the program” — K-Dog
She is the program.
Actually that’s what I figure since the article would never have been posted otherwise. A bit of F-Flagging and misdirection to produce a knee-jerk reaction among the ill informed which includes just about everybody. If the empire is the emperor she is the new set of clothes. She will be the one to keep Guantanamo open another eight years. Bill will be able to once again eat at his favorite Mickey-Deez. That is once Hillary is thoroughly convinced that Bill has cleaned the Oval Office carpet with a toothbrush to her satisfaction. Monica should seriously consider going abroad for a few years. If she does not she may well experience the men in black.
For sure; I know that is no fun at all.
It’s time to reflect and ask ourselves: what, in fact, the Americans wanted to achieve with Cuba? What kind of objectives could they possibly have?
They are known: the overthrow of the government and to regain property acquired over the long years of pimping the local girls. The island’s population was literally begging on the background of prosperous American sex tourism. Cuba was a classic case of imperialist exploitation on the basis of a squeezed lemon. Practical Anglo-Saxons did not bother investing in the Cuban economy with the aim of creating “a market and democratic” society. Even the beach hotels and recreational areas for tourists, they did not build. What for?
Very close, in Florida, it’s all there in abundance and the sea no worse. But the money for cheap prostitution was to be made, and Cuba was transformed by them into one large brothel.
Yet if you asked him, Q would indignantly deny that he countenances the trafficking in human flesh. Just as you will deny that Eastern European women are lured to Israel (and other places) where instead of becoming models they become sex slaves.
You see instead of the moral struggle to be good, people take the easy way out and put their faith in a system like Libertarianism or Communism. Then you don’t have to be good since the perfect system will take care of that moral shit. Communists would even charge you with being reactionary if voice any moral concerns. All of that is automatically taken care by the Revolution. Likewise, the Market will always balance out – no matter how many people are crushed in the process. The Market may recover, but many such individuals wont. Rinse and repeat, the Big get stronger and the small get smaller or eaten. Soon the Big are big enough to play with the Market and to ruin not only individuals, but whole countries. Meanwhile the Qs, with their eyes wide shut, cling to their Faith. Libertarianism is a religion.
Don’t worry about the Castro Bros.
it estimated that they have about $3 billion socked away in banks in Switzerland, Spain and the Cayman Islands.
Revolution pays pretty good, it always has for those on top, which is the lesson of Orwells Animal Farm.
brh
WSJ wrote ‘millions’. Now its billions?
you talk Revolution and grab all you can, as fast as you can, as you never know when it might end.
The Castros, gangsters from day 1, kept the grift going for a long time.
Incidentally, I heard Comrade Bernie Sanders state he is not only running for president of the USA, but is fostering a revolution. Its 1967, the summer of love is right around the corner, everythings groovy, we’re storming the ramparts, gonna bring down this rotten capitalist system, dig?, “Power to the People!!”
brh
Does anybody still give a sh-t about Bruce Jenner? He was a topic here not long ago. I ran into one of his relatives at the post office recently, I hadn’t seen her in a long time. I asked, what’s the deal with Bruce?
She told me what the family thinks, his real family back here, not the TV family. He made the ’72 Olympic team and was at the games in Munich, but didn’t do to well. She asked me if I remembered how he was built then, like a major league 2nd baseman, graceful, not a lot of muscles, well toned. After that he went to one of these Olympic Villages and began training for the 76 Olympics, and physically, changed completely, all bulked up, really ripped (her words). The thought is they pumped him full of steroids and other unnamed drugs — remember this was right after the Ken Kesey, Tim Leary era, better living thru chemistry — which threw his natural physical equilibium out of balance. She said all the talk of feeling like a female as a boy is just TV bullsh-t. They believe the massive amount drugs and chemicals given to him to enhance his athletic performance then made him into the freak he is today.
That’s the word around town anyway. How valid it is I don’t know.
brh
Sounds like she is playing Psychiatrist.
Old men dont have too much Testosterone. Maybe he is senile.
and,
Didn’t do [toO well].
Don’t care. Never did.
“The Castros, gangsters from day 1, kept the grift going for a long time” — brh
You have to give Castros- they’ve got pretty good medical system going in Cuba, envy of other countries, including US. The Island I am on – you’ve got appendicitis, no money or insurance – you fucking die. And that suppose to be a flagship of American-style democracy and free-market for 3-d world countries.
Then why does Fidel go to Spain for medical treatment?
brh
Most likely due to lack of certain medical equipment due to the heartless American embargo.
Kind of like the way the Soviet Union treated the Baltic States, but a lot less bloodier.
Thats really a funny quip. One of yr best.
I knew a MIT trained lefty [high IQ, rich] who adored Castro and his
wonderful ‘system.’
Now yr posting Fidel avoids it.
‘Do as I say, not as I do.’
…Did not Hitler appease Chamberlin? Stalin? – elysianfield
==============
No elysian, you got it exactly backwards. – Q
==============
You both got it wrong. The whole Hitler appeasement story in Munich is just another Anglo Saxon urban legend (disinformation). There is no appeasement in politics.
Neville Chamberlain goal was not to appease Hitler, but to turn him East, against Stalin. He just fucked up, Brits do it from time to time(Islamic State, anybody?)
Good post this week, Mr. Kunstler. We are indeed witnessing a spectacle, on many fronts, with uncertain outcome… we live in truly interesting times.
“Kind of like the way the Soviet Union treated the Baltic States” == brh
Check your facts, brh. The Baltics were the Potemkin Village of the USSR – they enjoyed the highest level of living among 15 Union republics – I know, I’ve been there during the Soviet years.
Now they are dying off. Objective figures suggest that after leaving the Soviet Union Lithuania lost 28% and Latvia – 27% of the population. Moreover, it is only a trend in development: according to the report, by 2060 the number of inhabitants will fall by another 38% (Lithuania) and 31% (Latvia), dropping, so less than 50% of the population in 1991.
Sociological studies indicate that approximately 30% of Lithuanians and Latvians are determined to not just emigrate from their countries, but also to get a new nationality, completely severing ties with their homeland. They not just going to never come back, but do not want to be Lithuanians and Latvians. They set themselves the task of not only integrated and fully assimilate into the new country of residence. They give local names to their children and trying to speak only the local language at home.
Don’t believe me, read Michael Hudson, professor of economics at University of Missouri, Kansas City. He studied Baltics a lot.
http://michael-hudson.com/2014/05/stockholm-syndrome-in-the-baltics/
Water problem is getting worse on the Island. There were no rains to speak of for the last 3 months. The pipes that bring water to the house were dry like a bone for at least a month, I had to truck the water in. Now they do have water, very low pressure, and only 3 days a week. Also, you have to install a special pump to suck water from the city pipe, otherwise your neighbors will and you get nothing. They turn the city pump on only deep at night, so I have to wake at 2 in the morning to set the pump on.
My farm (40 miles from the town I live in) has access to the mountain river – very clean water and even drinkable. But I have to pump it up at least 120 feet with gasoline pump. To install something permanent and industrial is very expensive and will never pay off with the milk from the cows, so we run a low-cost solution and it works. Other farms in the area are not so lucky.
Finc,
Look this site over…the pump operates on water pressure.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Worlds-greenest-water-pump/?ALLSTEPS
Been there, done that….
Energy from sh*t by a teaspoon…. Before you get enough water to flush your toilet, the chance is you drown in it (not water)
In his “Reflections” 1968 Sakharov wrote: “… so you need to change the psychology of citizens of the United States so that they voluntarily and unselfishly in the name of higher and distant goals- to preserve civilization and humanity on our planet – will support their government and global efforts to change the economy, technology and living standards of millions of people (which, of course, require a serious economic slowdown in the US).”
Not any president is capable of solving this task now, even more urgent than it was back then, especially in a democracy, where voters are very selfish. It is possible to achieve only through a deep crisis.
In a meantime, the American elite prefer to act by inertia of militaristic thinking left over from the era of two superpowers. “The inertia of fear” was much more stable in its American version when anti-American activity was imagined among dunes of the Arabian Desert, behind every rock in Central Asia or the Caucasus. Although no terrorist can inflict more damage to the country than the leadership that has lost its waymarks.
The only reference point for the American elite today, as well as for the Soviet nomenklatura in the late ’80s – retaining the status quo at all costs. No one can calculate the consequences of any radical change, so all it remains is to apply the traditional schemes.
The main services that America has provided the world in the twentieth century – the stability of the international military-political, trade and financial systems, in the absence of a counterweight from the USSR, has gradually degenerated into selfish policy of instability export.
http://www.christianexaminer.com/article/farrakhan.calls.for.10000.volunteers.to.kill.whites/49329.htm
Major Black Leader calls for race war. Says to “stalk them and kill them” in regards to Whites. Yet Whites will keep supporting them because they’ve been taught that Blacks are victims, and victims are moral superiors just like Prisoners are heroes. Whites can’t think their way out of paper bag anymore.
Where is the article? I can see only the picture.
This is where I found the story originally. There may be a better link in there if you want to go deeper. I may have chosen a bad one.
http://www.wvwnews.net/content/index.php?/news_story/stalk_them_and_kill_them_farrakhan_sayscalling_for_10000_volunteers_to_kill_whites.html
In the event of alleged defeat of Global Party of War lead by Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton, in just a few months in fall the world will get back to the agenda of “Global Currency Reset”, which was agreed on by saner part of Global Elites in 2011. From political signs of that we should watch for inclusion of Chinese currency into the IMF SDR basket and termination of US blocking vote in IMF.
From pure economical stand point, the US citizens should watch for 25 – 30 % initial devaluation of US dollar and according raise in consumer prices.
Joe Biden strategy for White House run taking shape
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/biden-strategy-for-white-house-run-taking-shape-121377.html
Translation: Hillary is almost ready to give it up.
One can only rub one’s hands together and chortle with glee like any common super villain. Some even leap in the air and do the dance of Cossacks. The less athletic roll on their backs and kick their feet in the air. There is nothing a witch hates more than being exposed.
Sadly, if she bows out gracefully she’ll probably win herself another spot in the administration if Biden or Gore win.
Americans have no agenda with Cuba. Maybe Obama does, to shore up a legacy for his second term. Maybe Cuban expats in Florida have some issues. Or maybe it’ll be a sex tourist destination. But, if it’s the last, that’s a decision that Cubans themselves will make.
Cuba, by and large, is a distraction, an irrelevant piss-hole that is now and will be for the foreseeable future just like every other Latin American country: a lousy, impoverished, corrupt piss-hole.
Who did what to poor, miserable Cuba, oh lord, here we go again. How about this theory, Cubans were exploited since about day one by Cubans. No need to look too far afield, there’s enough home-grown bad guys. Imperial misrule? Yeah, from the Spanish home-country.
http://www.dailystormer.com/mike-judge-idiocracy-and-the-jewish-suppression-of-eugenics/
Very informative article. Link to President Camacho warning the past about the dangerous course we’re on. We’re running out of White people.
Cuba, by and large, is a distraction –volodya
Cuba received praise for its advanced biomedical teams intervening to stop ebola from wiping out North America.
for its advanced biomedical teams intervening to stop ebola from wiping out North America
America???? or Africa?
What has become of Cold N. Holfield and Prog (P4W)?
Prog’s aversion for the “new” format got better of him and he seldom posts here anymore. He plies his Anti-Immigration message on sites more conducive to discussion.
The famous jurist O.W. Holmes enshrined in law the legality of forced sterilization of mental defectives in the famous Buck vs Bell case, as summed up in the last sentence of his decision: “three generations of imbeciles is enough”. Now, Planned Parenthood is carrying on the great man’s work by inexpensively terminating low caste and unwanted fetuses….we all owe that fine organization an extreme debt of gratitude. Any organization reviled by both christians and republicans must be doing something right……..
Which is more tragic:?
A. Calling the Chinese fire department to come and hose down a stockpile of explosive sodium cyanide. (Sodium cyanide explodes on contact with water.), or
B. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton using her personal email server in her home in Chappaquah, New York for top secret correspondence, which was no doubt hacked into by the Russians and the Chinese?
BOOM!!!!!
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-08-14/10-disturbing-facts-most-americans-are-too-fearful-face
Number 11: The same group of Globalist Criminals is trying to genocide the White Race by mass 3rd World Immigration to White Countries and only White Countries.
“The same group of Globalist Criminals is trying to genocide the White Race” –Janos
Janos, doesn’t genocide mean a DECREASE in whites? The US census figures do not support your “genocide” claim.
…. White Population in 1990 = 190,484,355
…. White Population in 2000 = 194,462,537
Total INCREASE of white Americans: 3,978,182 from 1990-2000
Who are the “Globalist Criminals”? They are doing a lousy job.
Whites have decreased as a percentage of both the World and American populations. We are now less than 70% of America and 10% of the World. And all of our homelands are being invaded by alien races. This trend, unless stopped, spells the doom of our Race. It is obviously not a coincidence that it is happening to all of our Nations, but rather a well coordinated plan.
Profit and the bottom line are one and the same thing. –Q
Anyone familiar with accounting would not make this claim. A bottom line can indicate loss or profit. The bottom line is not synonomous with profit.
.
Loss: aka negative profit.
JHK termed this featured Eyesore of the Month building a “monstrosity”. But there are not a few people in America who will and do love this type of architecture–I’m not one of them:
http://kunstler.com/eyesore-of-the-month/december-2014/#more-5303‘
And yet, revealingly perhaps, isn’t there some Roger Dean in this “inspiration”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZcGc-nbLco
Finca’s ideas go mainstream
A surprising article in Huffingtonpost by Joseph E. Stiglitz:
How America’s Global Financial System Blocks Development
…developing countries and emerging markets have demonstrated their ability to absorb huge amounts of money productively. Indeed, the tasks that these countries are undertaking — investing in infrastructure (roads, electricity, ports and much else), building cities that will one day be home to billions and moving toward a green economy — are truly enormous.
Western financial institutions were thought to be wizards at managing risk and allocating capital; today, we see that they are wizards at market manipulation and other deceptive practices
Today, developing countries and emerging markets say to the U.S. and others: If you will not live up to your promises, at least get out of the way and let us create an international architecture for a global economy that works for the poor, too.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-e-stiglitz/america-financial-system-development_b_7965690.html
Softening of the public opinion in preparation for global financial system reset coming this fall? (given no more surprises from Global War Party)
“Then what? deflation? hyper inflation?” == malthuss
I hope that none of these awful scenarios. I hope it will be a “Global Currency Reset” – new Breton Wood agreement between the major world players and soft landing for US economy.
US will suffer, but not catastrophically.
At this time, I’d guess that global deflation is a greater threat than inflation.
The historic Chinese devaluation of about 5% is the shot heard around the world that Jim Sinclair and others have warned about.
Who will devalue next and will it be a “race to the bottom” similar to the early 1930’s??
I suspect the US will suffer along with the rest of the world if deflation takes hold.
Pentagon Fears It’s Not Ready for a War With Putin
The U.S. military has run the numbers on a sustained fight with Moscow, and they do not look good for the American side.
A series of classified exercises over the summer has raised concerns inside the Defense Department that its forces are not prepared for a sustained military campaign against Russia, two defense officials told The Daily Beast.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/08/14/pentagon-fears-it-s-not-ready-for-a-war-with-putin.html
Good. Let’s negotiate!
Americans over the past 25 years were led to believe that Russian missiles are obsolete, out of date and, in general terms Russia is hopelessly behind in military-technical competition from the US and it can simply be ignored. This thesis has become a sacred cow of American politics. And now it seems the time has come to slaughter that cow.
And these articles are the preparation of the recognition that Russia has a military-technical advantage over NATO.
And for Pentagon it is advantageous, because now is the only way to obtain additional funding to overcome this lag. And now when they are demanding money, they will be telling the truth for a change.
Crimea and Buyan-class corvettes of project 21631 have negated the threat of Aegis and air-carrier groups, and American stealth aircraft is perfectly visible from space, with now working GLONASS system.
It is necessary to re-equip the entire army or start Detente 2.0.
Americans have also believed that since the Soviet (and now Russian) military equipment was crude and we are superior due to our high tech stuff that we would prevail in any conflict that might occur.
I believe that being able to provide logistical support and rapid field repair was equally important…maybe more so.
Remember the problems with AR-15’s in Vietnam (and American boys dying because of some requirement that it use ball powder like other Army weapon) while the Kalashnikov was and still is a robust, easy to service weapon?
Remember when a Soviet pilot defected and flew his Mig-25 FoxBat to Japan? The US tore that sucker apart and were amazed at crude the technology was compared to our aircraft. It actually had some rust on the wings if my memory is still okay. The electronics used vacuum tubes. But it was a formidable aircraft that could be field serviced with less support that our planes. Could also land places that F-4’s, F-15’s etc could not if I recall.
If Soviet troops had ever rolled into West Germany, we would have had a rough time of it I think. The boys growing up in the USSR were probably tougher overall that US boys. We were already getting “fat around the middle”, metaphorically speaking.
But on the other hand, our Army had more than 2000 Davy Crockett missiles with nuclear warheads with a 0.25-kiloton yield. It could have been a real disaster. Thank God (or whoever) that it did not happen (then).
“I suspect the US will suffer along with the rest of the world if deflation takes hold.” –Pogo
For 35 years Conservatives have said the US will suffer inflation. The Conservatives have said printing money endlessly will cause inflation. Inflation has been the excuse to beat up on the Fed, to criticize quantitative easing (QE), to claim our money is “fiat.”
Fear of inflation, nay, hyperinflation, was the boogeyman used to scare us and convince us of the errors of Keynesian spending.
Now the boogeyman is deflation?
Conservatives, make up your mind… or at least stop making it up as you go along. It makes all conservatives look bad, like there are no conservative bedrock principles worth believing. Maybe that is why conservative frauds like Rush Limbaugh are being dropped from the airwaves in so many markets.
“Now that I’ve outgrown the 25-54 demographic, I’m no longer confident that the way I see the world is the way everybody else does.” –Rush Limbaugh
Amen.
I agree. Frankly, I’ve given up trying to guess if it will be deflation or inflation and dont’ really give a damn except I’m trying to preserve what little I have left in retirement funds and don’t know it I should buy Google, Amazon, Apple stock or gold/silver or leave it in money market funds (which are not FDIC insured…not that it will be worth anything in a real global meltdown).
FYI, even though I voted for Barry Goldwater (my first vote) I have reformed over the years and now see the wisdom of having WPA-CCC projects. I believe in the concept of “the commons” and the need to protect it (what’s left, that is).
“I suspect the US will suffer along with the rest of the world if deflation takes hold.” –Pogo
This weekend marks the forty-fourth anniversary of the deliberate destruction of the highly successful Bretton Woods System by Richard Nixon at Camp David, Maryland on August 15, 1971 – in many ways the worst thing Tricky Dick ever did.
Since then, we have lived in the era of floating rates for currencies – a synonym for chaos, in which nobody knows what money will be worth a few weeks or months into the future. This has slowed the growth of world trade, which must be financed one, two, or three months ahead at minimum.
http://tarpley.net/how-nixon-and-the-british-destroyed-the-best-monetary-system-the-world-has-ever-had/
What I understand by “Global Currency Reset” is a return in some way to that system, where world currencies are rigidly linked to each other, eliminating the ForEx speculation as in the word “forever”.
The relative values of the currencies should be regulated not by “Invisible Hand” (e.g. Soros and the likes), but by reputable International Institution, like IMF free of political pressures of US and the West in general, and calculated of the real purchasing power of corresponding currency based on the trade balance of the Nation and its tangible reserves.
We even do not need to invent anything new.
It seems that the US Dollar will lose its reserve currency status and be replaced by SDR’s controlled by the IMF. Maybe sometime soon. China wants to be dealt into the game and was going to be considered in Nov 2015 for a place at the table. But, alas, the financial meltdown in China caused the IMF to postpone the decision to admit them or not until Sep 2016. A week later, China devalued.
I don’t think the breakdown of Bretton Woods agreement was that simple. Nixon had a real mess dumped on him after Johnson’s “guns and butter” economy hit the wall. Then OPEC came along an took a few gut punches at us too. The Great Society bills were coming due. Problems actually started occurring in early 1960’s and got steadily worse until Nixon administration was forced to do something.
Sure, the Brits stirred the pot some but the whole mess was cooking and about to boil over. It wasn’t like the B-W fixed exchange rates were working just swell until evil Nixon demolished it all.
We in US could not own gold but anybody else in the world (including the Arabs with boat loads of bucks) could back their truck up to the NY Feb and demand one ounce of gold for $35. World price was much higher of course. Good deal for those who could do it.
Finally, I’ve heard, the Defense Department warned that the strategic importance of gold for defense meant we should shut the game down.
We always need to invent something new. The world is not static and there is no such thing as the status quo.
Pogo,
A few months back I read the entire transcript of the “Nixon Tapes”…the European nations were arbitraging gold from the Treasury at an alarming pace for almost a year. Nixon and Kissinger were concerned with France, and it’s intention to unload their entire portfolio of dollars…I can’t remember the numbers, but it was significant. The final decision to deny convertability was centered on France’s immanent move on the treasury….
Elysianfield (I like that handle, incidentally, name of place in Hoboken, across the East River from Manhattan, where organized baseball was first played around 1839-1840.)
speaking of gold, reading about the Spanish Civil War, Spain had been bringing shipments of gold from Latin america 1820-1830, tons of gold. When it was clear the (Communists) were going to lose, Stalin volunteered to take Spanish gold reserves into the Soviet Union for ‘safe keeping’. Tons of gold were shipped to Moscow on the last flights out. Of course it was never returned.
Gentlemen, what happened to that Gold?
I wonder if Finc is going to obsessively anticipate JHK’s Monday Morning post and then add a longer post than the host? I wouldn’t doubt it; it’s probably already typed.
Finc has told his detractors to just scroll by his posts. Well, that trip is getting longer and longer every week.
Too bad this blog doesn’t have an ignore feature, because this obsessive, ridiculous Ass Clown is getting harder and harder to stomach.
AT THE SEASIDE. FAUST AND MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
Demon, I’m bored.
MEPHISTOPHELES
What’s to be done,
Faust? Man’s not without limits, is he?
And to be bored, like it or not,
Is every rational being’s lot:
Some are too idle, some too busy,
Have too much or too little faith;
Some find no joy, while some are dizzy
With it, enjoying themselves to death.
You yawn your lives out, till you fall
Into the grave that yawns for all.
Why shouldn’t you yawn too?
SCENE FROM FAUST
by Alexander Pushkin
finca, where’s the Spanish Gold? Do you have any of it?
brh
Furthermore you write:
“speaking of gold, reading about the Spanish Civil War, Spain had been bringing shipments of gold from Latin america 1820-1830, tons of gold. When it was clear the (Communists) were going to lose, Stalin volunteered to take Spanish gold reserves into the Soviet Union for ‘safe keeping’. Tons of gold were shipped to Moscow on the last flights out. Of course it was never returned.”
So you”re concerned/wondering about the gold that the Soviet Union make have stole from Spain who stole it from Latin America?
Unwind the hypocrisy BRH.
Wait a minute, Buck.
Spain mined that gold fair and square, mostly in Peru. The silver they got in Mexico (a good account of how they did it is in B Traven’s ‘Treasure of the Sierra Madre’) all this took place c1520-1830.
I’m just wondering if Fincain, part of that psyc ops internet group based in a non descript office building in St Petersburg, knows anything about it.
Careful examination of Fincains posts reveal at least 4 different authors, working in shifts around the clock.
brh
Incidentally i got that story of the Spanish gold from a review of George Orwell’s ‘Catalonia’, his book about the Spanish Civil War.
brh
“the European nations were arbitraging gold from the Treasury at an alarming pace for almost a year.” == elysianfield
Arbitraging? You gota love Americans for their unshakable belief in the value of their green paper. How in the hell did Europeans came into possession of that much green paper? They sold a bunch of goods to US, getting nothing in return but green promissory notes.
And when they tried to cash those promissory notes according to contract, you call it arbitraging?
Finc,
Well, I am no economist, and I DID go to San Jose State, so I might have used the term incorrectly…Arbitraging is the, as I understand it, taking advantage of variables in the price of an item or commodity….not a moral equation, just taking advantage of a situation that presented itself.
Oh, and how did they come into so much possession of green paper?…the infamous PetroDollar.
“Careful examination of Fincains posts reveal at least 4 different authors, working in shifts around the clock.” == brh
Even more careful examination of my posts will “reveal” that most of them are translation into English of articles appearing in the Russian press, with hyperlink to the original article on the bottom. Some times, when CFN server chokes up on Russian hyperlink, I put name of the author on the top.
Happy Sherlock Holmesing, brh.
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