JHK’s Three-Act Play
It’s really something to live in a country that doesn’t know what it is doing in a world that doesn’t know where it is going in a time when anything can happen. I hope you can get comfortable with uncertainty.
If there’s one vibe emanating from this shadowy zeitgeist it’s a sense of the total exhaustion of culture, in particular the way the world does business. Everything looks tired, played out, and most of all false. Governments can’t really pay for what they do. Banks have no real money. Many households surely have no money. The human construct of money itself has become a shape-shifting phantom. Will it vanish into the vortex of unpaid debt until nobody has any? Or will there be plenty of worthless money that people can spend into futility? Either way they will be broke.
The looming fear whose name political leaders dare not speak is global depression, but that is not what we’re in for. The term suggests a temporary sidetrack from the smooth operation of integrated advanced economies. We’re heading into something quite different, a permanent departure from the standard conception of economic progress, the one in which there is always sure to be more comfort and convenience for everybody, the economy of automatic goodies.
A big part of the automatic economy was the idea of a “job.” In its journey to the present moment, the idea became crusted with barnacles of illusion, especially that a “job” was a sort of commodity “produced” by large corporate enterprises or governments and rationally distributed like any other commodity; that it came with a goodie bag filled with guaranteed pensions, medical care to remediate bad living habits, vacations to places of programmed entertainment, a warm, well-lighted dwelling, and a big steel machine to travel around in. Now we witness with helpless despair as these illusions dissolve.
The situation at hand is not a “depression,” though it may resemble the experience of the 1930s in the early going. It’s the permanent re-set and reorganization of everyday life amidst a desperate scramble for resources. It will go on and on until there are far fewer people competing for things while the ones who endure construct new systems for daily living based on fewer resources used differently.
In North America I believe this re-set will involve the re-establishment of an economy centered on agriculture, with a lot of other activities supporting it, all done on a fine-grained local and regional scale. It must be impossible for many of us to imagine such an outcome – hence the futility of our current politics, with its hollow promises, its laughable battles over sexual behavior, its pitiful religious boasting, its empty statistical blather, all in the service of wishing the disintegrating past back into existence.
This desperation may be why our recently-acquired traditions seem especially automatic this holiday season. Of course the “consumers” line up outside the big box stores the day after the automatic Thanksgiving exercise in gluttony. That is what they’re supposed to do this time of year. That is what has been on the cable TV news shows in recent years: see the crowds cheerfully huddled in their sleeping bags outside the Wal Mart… see them trample each other in the moment the doors open!
The biggest news story of a weekend stuporous from leftover turkey and ceremonial football was a $6.6 billion increase in “Black Friday” chain-store sales. All the attention to the numbers was a form of primitive augury to reassure superstitious economists – more than the catatonic public – that the automatic cargo cult would be operating normally at this crucial testing time. The larger objective is to get through the ordeal of Christmas.
I don’t see how Europe gets through it financially. The jig is up there. Lovely as Europe has become since the debacles of the last century – all those adorable cities with their treasures of deliberately-created beauty – the system running it all is bankrupt. Europe is on financial death-watch and when the money stops flowing between its major organs, the banks, the whole region must either go dark or combust. Nobody really knows what will happen there, except they know that something will happen – and whatever it is portends disruption and loss for the worlds largest collective economy. The historical record is not reassuring.
If Europe’s banks go down, many of America’s will, too, maybe all of them, maybe our whole money system. I’m not sure that we will see a normal election cycle here in 2012. A few bank runs, bank failures… gasoline shortages here and there… the failure of some food deliveries to supermarkets in some region… these are the kinds of things that can bring down a political system drained of once-ironclad legitimacy. All that is left now is the husk of ritual – witness the failure of the senate-house “super-committee.” The wash-out was so broadly anticipated that it was greeted with mere yawns of recognition. It would be like pointing at the sky and saying, “air there.”
This holiday season spend a little time musing on what the re-set economy will be like in your part of the country. Think of what you do in it as a “role,” or a “vocation,” or a “trade,” or a “calling,” or a “way of life,” rather than a “job.” Imagine that life will surely go on, even civilized life, though it will be organized differently. Add to this the notion that you are part of a larger group, a society, and that societies evolve emergently according to the circumstances that their time and place presents. Let that imagining be your new American Dream.
_____________________________
This blog is sponsored this week by Vaulted, an online mobile web app for investing in allocated and deliverable physical gold. To learn more visit:Kunstler.com/vaulted
New Paintings from the 2022 Season
Barrel Racers, Cambridge, NY
Just Out! The whole shootin’ match going back to 1987!
For autographed copies:
Battenkill Books, Cambridge, NY
Also at: Amazon, Barnes & Nobel
The Jeff Greenaway series of novellas. These rollicking, short books depict the misadventures of an eleven-year-old boy growing up in New York City in the early 1960s
Other Books by JHK
The World Made By Hand Series:
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Book 4: |
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Absalom/Asoka and other like minded people, I suggest if you want to clear your thoughts on this entire matter, read Peter Russel’s book
“Waking up in Time”
http://www.peterrussell.com/WUIT/Contents.php
Earlier I had the thought that Asoka, so concerned about specific timelines, is afflicted with that typical American symptom, he is an “Instant gratification” junkie.
If he can’t have his societal collapse right now, then he’s not interested (and disbelieving).
The “System of the World” is breaking down and falling apart. The only rational action at this point in time is to recognize the fact and make preparations, both for our own lives and for coming generations.
Visit the Leibowitz Society at http://leibowitzsociety.blogspot.com/2011/11/smoking-fires.html discussion and information about preparing ourselves and storing our valuable knowledge through the coming chaos.
James,
As the American hegemony continues its genocidal rampage across the globe, apparently preparing to launch an attack now on Syria, Dmitry Medvedev has put Russia’s missile attack early warning radar station in Kaliningrad on combat alert. But this is not the end of history we are considering here today.
http://kulturcritic.wordpress.com/posts/the-end-of-history-in-search-of-deep-temporality/
I’ve been reading The Archdruid Report lately and he’s telling very much the same story about the existential fear of the end of the civilization coming about. He, however, doesn’t seem to fear the reaper, but welcomes it. I guess having a magical orientation to the world and seeing a future where magic becomes important again makes him much more sanguine. It helps that he sees more of a decline than a collapse in store.
Over at Crazy Eddie’s Motie News, I haven’t been writing about what Greer the Archdruid has. Instead, I’ve been making some pointed observations about Black Friday (it set a record, both for sales and for headlines about violence–as a friend of mine on Facebook wrote, Wal-Mart and its customers were both giving out free samples of pepper spray), Buy Nothing Day, and other excesses of the holiday season, along with my usual sniping at Ayn Rand and Objectivism, one example of which is at the top of the recent entries right now.
http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/
Great and pertinent commentary as usual. Cue up the line of ‘chicken little’ ‘sky is falling’ clowns claiming Jim is simply distracting you from your God-earned right to infinite and bigger hot pockets and hummers.
“Let that imagining be your new American Dream.”
–JHK
yay!
I heard this weekend from a retired European executive that the Italians are in debt to the tune of $26,000 per capita.
Consider that for a moment: every man, woman & child in the sixth-largest economy in the world is in hock, in an amount that approaches a significant percentage of the per-capita annual income of an industrialized nation.
That’s a damn deep hole to climb out of.
On the other hand, what is debt, really? It’s money owed by one party to another. So we now live in a world in which hundreds of millions of people owe trillions of dollars (or Euros, or what-have-you), to various institutions, primarily banks.
And now, there is a growing movement, currently flying under the “Occupy” banner, to repudiate the banks, to trim back their power and influence.
Perhaps, if things grow sufficiently desperate, the movement will succeed, and the banks will have to re-set the amount of capital they can reasonably expect to collect, whether as student-loans, mortgages, or credit-card debt.
Consider the parallel scenario when the IRS accepts an “offer-in-compromise” from a tax debtor: they’d rather get something than nothing.
So, I propose that we, the debtors of America, make an offer-in-compromise to the banks: something in the range of 75¢ on the dollar, perhaps?
The moral of this study: Don’t be an ostrich!
Less people know, less they want to know
WATERLOO, Ontario, Nov. 23 (UPI) — The less people know about complex issues such as the economy, energy and the environment, the less they want to know, Canadian researchers found.
Study author Steven Shepherd, a graduate student with the University of Waterloo in Ontario, said researchers found the more urgent the issue, the more people want to remain unaware.
“These studies were designed to help understand the so-called ‘ignorance is bliss’ approach to social issues,” Shepherd said in a statement.
A series of five studies were conducted in 2010 and 2011 with 511 adults in the United States and Canada.
Participants who felt most affected by the economic recession avoided information challenging the government’s ability to manage the economy. However, they did not avoid positive information, the study said.
The study participants who received the complex description indicated higher levels of perceived helplessness in getting through the economic downturn, more dependence on and trust in the government to manage the economy and less desire to learn more about the issue, Shepherd said.
“People tend to respond by psychologically ‘outsourcing’ the issue to the government, which in turn causes them to trust and feel more dependent on the government,” said study co-author Aaron C. Kay of Duke University. “Ultimately, they avoid learning about the issue because that could shatter their faith in the government.”
The findings were published online in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
It looks like most of the eurobanks are fleeing to something more stable than the euro – back to the dollar. The failure to pay off credit default swaps on Greece’s bond defaults means that no one is willing to trust eurobonds any more. That’s why the German bond sales failed last week. “Flight to safety” is dooming Greece’s bonds, and the Italians are not far behind them.
I personally am undecided on just how bad the “everyone is a contractor” future is. Part of me thinks it is an excuse by the mismanagerial class not to hire workers. Part of me thinks it is a failure of the current economic system. And the cynic in me thinks it is one more excuse to squeeze benefits away from the workers. My parents’ generation was the last one that could depend on lifetime employment. Looking over my resume shows that I’ve had 20 different employers in my 32 years in the workforce. In software development, 2-3 month gigs are very common, while staying 5 years at a job is extremely rare.
I think that the big black Friday sales numbers are because folks are just saying fuck it and spending their cash before it is inflated out of existence, spending not because the economy is getting better but because it is getting worse.
Right On, Jim, the Dream is gone.
Why is it, when we hear the truth we actually thnk it’s funny? A defense mechanism? I’m sure we’re all laughing now…or soon will be…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q
Truth is, unless we all have a real good sense of humor going forward we’ll just become part of the insanity.
Short gigs common. True statement perhaps but might be somewhat specious to apply the phenomenon the way you do. It’s common because so many work on a contract basis. They are hired via a contracting firm and it is fully expected their term of employment with a particular client will be short.
In my past experience, non-contractual i.e. FTE’s whose duration was short was in most cases because they were found out to be inferior goods. Less often, they were types who were stair stepping to higher paying positions with other companies. A well known fact that to move up most quickly in most cases was to keep seeking higher paying jobs with other companies using self-promoting resumes to impress the next prospective employer.
Well written. Thanks for the gleam of hope in the last paragraph.
So Mr. Kunstler, what will your new role or calling be as things get local?
I feel confident in my relationships in the local community here. I’ve got almost all of my energy, heating, and transportation needs met. Now, just to get the agriculture together on the TrippTicket level… And hope that the relationships and status I’ve built will keep me and the family safe amongst the hungry gun owners to come…
I still can’t wrap my head around the money thing falling apart but do agree it’s going to be a mess. I do feel better about paper $20s over digital ones and zeros, for whatever that’s worth?
Cheers Clusterfuckers,
DO GOOD, PUSH ON, KEEP SMILING
INVEST IN SOLAR.
Absolutely correct. And add-on the phoney 40 cent gas price decrease manipulation of the last month. That “saved” money went to the retailers also. Boy are gas prices going to soar after the 23rd.
JK,
you often offer descriptions of world-views that are a result of your realizations regarding our empty-headed approach to managing our futures with respect to the earth’s finite resources and our ever-growing consumption. Usually, your prose predicts “new” social constructs and local business that is far removed from the current centrally managed, top-down society.
But how are we to actually get where you say we are going? Just when, where and how are any of these systems supposed to go down? Even you acknowledge the massive inertia of the status grow.
My own frustration with respect to preparing for or succeeding or prospering or surviving a world facing economic contraction results from the continuing charades of our elected, and more importantly our non-elected leaders.
All I want is for the leaders of our social institutions to acknowledge the realities of our special place in history. Perhaps you should spend more time on delineating the evidence for your thesis regarding our current doom.
Certainly, this week’s essay lacks any such evidence. And until you start revitalizing your compositions and lectures with facts regarding the nature of our future social-devolution you may find your audience growing tired of your musings.
Throughout history every prophet has been heckled by skeptic followers. Oh what pray tell – what sign can you give us Jim?
When will our prophet tell us a better story than the jackals in Washington or the hyenas on Wall Street? Certainly the Black Friday economic results are evidence that you must be a mad-man with a silly cause.
By growing most of our Thanksgiving menu, our holi-day was hardly automatic. It is my favorite celebration with food,friends and family. The winter squash ” pumpkin” pie was fab.
The other point is that if we go back to an pre oil agriculture society there will be a lot of hungry people around the world.
The Us is the bread basket to much of the world, and our agricultural out put will plummet. I doubt we will have enough food to feed our own population.
I doubt we will have the agricultural out put of even 1911, never mind 2011. The infrastructure is not there, we can not go back to horse drawn plows there are no more of those plows and not enough horses. Also the rain network that was built up over a period of a half century is not there to bring crops to market, and there is no industrial infrastructure or capital to rebuild that old train network.
Much of our current farm land is only sustainable with vast amounts of fertilizer made from petro chemicals, so even if the transportation network could be reestablished to the mid west farm belt, the crop loads of these farms that have been used for monoculture for generations will not be sustainable.
As much of our best farm land has been turned into suburbs there is not enough farm land close enough to our large cities to provide food to those cities, and the lack of train transportation from the farm belt to our large cities means that most cities are unsustainable, even if there is a lot of gardening, there simply will not be enough food for our largest cities.
For home defense and occasional carry… which one? Sig Sauer 9mm auto or Taurus 38 sp revolver?
If you are not sure you may want to go with the 38. You do not have to worry about jamming, and you may find it easier to handle accurately.
Yes, here we are in a very crowded sardine can called society and told to adapt and seek higher ground. But what are we cave painter, hunter gatherer types to do when the greatest advice is to go into your back yards and plant a garden and set up solar panels and accept all that is coming down because our social and financial structure is so important that one must be willing to suck it up, go along and take it. Like hell.
Each year I support the Boy Scouts by purchasing popcorn from a friend’s son ($30 bucks for 3 medium sized bags no less!) Anyway, this young man is graduating this year and I asked him what his plans for the future will be. He told me that he is plans to major in computer engineering and had already been accepted at Drexel ( a school close to my alma mater). I then asked him what tuition was like at Drexel these days. He told me it costs $20K…a YEAR! I almost dropped my teeth.
Then I had to wonder, if this nice, smart young man (earned an Eagle Scout badge and all) graduates in four years (rare these days, he’ll be $80K in the hole and competing with Indian and Chinese computer engineers who will gladly work for $20K a year. And given the rate of change computers have taken over the last five years or so, will what he learns in school even be applicable once he graduates? Oh, and by the way, his dad’s drawing unemployment after having spent a career as an accountant. “Retired” at the age of 47.
Anyway, both this young man and his mom were out at midnight on Thanksgiving, fighting their ways through bargain hunting crowds, Christmas shopping. Wouldn’t NOW be the right time to start saving for college, instead of purchasing the latest piece of Chinese crap that increasingly turns into nothing but a worthless addition to our landfills in less than a year?
It is often said that when you look around you and decide everyone else is crazy, it’s really you who have lost your mind. And I’m not really going to dispute that. The whole thing adds up to nothing but absolute idiocy to me, but then again, I’m not so sure it’s not me who’s off balance and the rest of the world knows something that I’ve never heard tell of. Intelesting times, indeed.
The unravelling process has been underway for awhile now and debating its start point will be a task for some future historians. Our responses will be made on an individual basis but constrained by the “collective society” that surrounds us. Like a gopher popping its head out of its hole before emmerging take a look at what you see. If you don’t have a “move on” plan hope that our descent continues to be an unravelling and that geopolitical events in a plethora of places do not result in a fast crash.
****
“So Mr. Kunstler, what will your new role[s] or calling[s] be as things get local?”
Scribe, playwright, storyteller, author, entertainer, pamphleteer, social realist (scary, snarky life-coach ;o).
one consideration is that the nine mm is the only caliber that is effective in water…not even a high-power hunting rifle penetrates h2o w/ enough speed or power…according to mythbusters…they said it had to do with the ratio of power to size…so ha ha, if your home is underwater (no stretch given the housing bubble), the decision is made for you…
US consumes more oil than the next 16 countries combined and that includes China. US constitutes 5% of World population, it consumes 25% of World’s energy everyday. If a bird flies over the moon-like landscape of Canada’s Tar sands, it dies of toxic poisoning. It’s the last throw of the dice. It ain’t gonna work. Russia is sending Aircraft Carriers off the coast of Syria; bombing Iran spells catastrophe. Likewise any military involvement in the South China Sea.
POPEYE IS RUNNING OUT OF CHEAP SPINACH
the last time i bought someone a xmas present was in 1977 – lolol
Gosh, I find that whole “Black Friday” thing puzzling. Folks trampling each other, pepper spraying their way through the crowd…bizarre desperation. I’m not a survival freak-those folks have their own special set of issues, but as a family we’re re-learning how to do myriad things for ourselves (my first batch of pickles was recently banned by the UN as a WMD). Yet, with all the uncertainty and imploding economies, I find myself strangely optimistic. Yes, our societies are going to be tested hard, but I think we, as a species, will prevail, and I think we will come out stronger because of the challenges. Enough Pollyanna: I have to get back to the pickles! Merry Christmas everyone!
Just why the terms “moving forward” or “going forward” have become standard additions to almost any talking points heard or read in the media I can’t say, but it’s beginning to DRIVE ME CRAZY! The phrases add NOTHING to any discussion. PLEASE people out there, stop using these phrases!
Thank you.
Ruger SP-101. .357 holds 5 shots and is deadly. .38 P++ also packs a punch.
Charles Hugh Smith has a great guest post this week.
1) Debt that cannot (vs. “will not”) be practically paid is not a debt in its classical sense. It’s a default. Whether or not people want to recognize this reality is another issue. We recognize that a law that cannot be enforced is not really a law in any practical sense, so why are we dragging our feet with debt? Greece cannot pay its debt by any rational formula. It is already in default. Extending and pretending does not materially change this fact, it only delays recognition of the stark, enduring reality.
2) Debt based in fraudulent lending is also not true debt in any meaningful sense, since the loan along with its obligations originated from something (private fiat) that had no valid authority or exchange value to begin with….
“The automatic cargo cult” is just the term for what I saw today. Biking to work, I noted all of the cardboard boxes put out for recycling day: big-screen TVs, power tools, Small electronics in the bins.
Oh, magicians in China, shower us with the bounty of the good life!
Then we may recline, ever fatter with each stuffing, before the Big Screen that the Sky-Gods from beyond the seas wrought! We shall dine upon Cheez-Doodles as we watch the rituals of our great tribe’s warriors enact ceremonial violence in Bowl Games and Playoffs.
Then, we will need a new iPhone! Sky-Gods from beyond the seas, do not forsake us, your chosen people!
#@?!
With the inevitable contraction of the world economy due to peak oil, the elephant in the room is being ignored by by virtually everyone. It has to be obvious to anyone who considers the implications of a post carbon society that the earth will not be able to support the current 7 billion people. The number will have to move down to, at most, 3 billion, probably closer to 2 billion. The world wide chaos and turmoil that will accompany that die-off is going to be horrific. I can understand that Canadian study showing how people tried to avoid thinking about dire news and events. I get depressed when I think of the near future the world faces until things finally settle down in perhaps a circa 1800 lifestyle, or worse. No cell phones, tv, computers, fancy medical care, McMansions, big universities, skyscrapers, big cities, and yes Jim, no salad spinners or cheese doodles.
Forgot Charles Hugh Smith url
http://www.oftwominds.com/blog.html
i m not alone?! thankyou, tancred, for having one of my peeves: it s nice to have a little help carrying it; having grown so big recently…
..Hey pal, long time no see. Just after I finished those ‘knee braces’ on the tree house, the Court Bulldozed it. The judge had me arrested and jailed for refusing to put people on the street. Big deal. In the lock down, I found how far different the world has become since my days in boys homes and sheriff work camps. People are USED to the way things are. Waiting for a welfare check is a job in their eyes…Now have a new ranch in Tehachapi. Way back in a canyon. Have bears eating the wifes hummingbird feeders. So much has happened and is still going down. Check out my stories if you like…’Save Phonehenge West’, and….www.kimfahey.com…My second Hollywood phone man book will be out next year. Hope all is well with you and yours…still awaiting sentencing on tree house. Until they sentence me, I can’t file an appeal..Oh, for a tree house my bail is $75,000. A guy selling heroin was $40,000…How do you tell who the toughest guy in lockdown is? He’s the guy using the only roll of toilet paper for a pillow….
Certainly good to know, thanks.
I appreciate it.
Speaking of cheap, Chinese crap, “hubby” borrowed an electric drill from his dad’s old workshop a few weeks ago in an attempt to repair two dining room chairs that have weakened over the years. His mom will be 92 next year and his dad died about ten years ago. I picked up the drill and almost dropped it – it was so heavy. It went through the mahogany like a knife through butter and the chairs are almost as good as new. Mind you, we have our own drill, only it’s made in …you guessed it, China. When we tried to use that drill on the same chairs, it wheezed and sputtered, like a 3 pack a day smoker trying to climb three flights of stairs. The older drill was made of steel and despite having a somewhat frayed cord, looked like it might just last another 60 years or so. I just threw our piece of shit drill in the cabinet, hoping that the next time we need it, I’ll be pushing up daisies.
JHK sez:
” In North America I believe this re-set will involve the re-establishment of an economy centered on agriculture, with a lot of other activities supporting it, all done on a fine-grained local and regional scale. It must be impossible for many of us to imagine such an outcome – hence the futility of our current politics, with its hollow promises, its laughable battles over sexual behavior, its pitiful religious boasting, its empty statistical blather, all in the service of wishing the disintegrating past back into existence.”
Very pointed; ouch!
This is what is seen on this very comment board (any moment now; like clockwork). Must these fantasies be indulged? Apparently some can live, not just by bread alone, but by copious amounts of smoke blown up their backsides.
A lack of imagination has become integrated into the ‘Murkin way o’ life, so these useless themes of continuing dumb-fuckery will be fine distractionary fodder as the populace goes down to destitution.
At this point in time, ignorance is no longer bliss; it can be a major determining factor in an early shuffling-off of the mortal coil. Who’d like to internalize THAT?
(Sure, I have a hard time with it too, but I think trying to “get ones’ mind right” will be a big help when we have to face some urgent necessities.)
“The moral of this study: Don’t be an ostrich!” -OTG
Truly. (See above.)
third martini said:
“I propose that we, the debtors of America, make an offer-in-compromise to the banks: something in the range of 75¢ on the dollar, perhaps?”
That will happen by default without any explicit program. As hyperinflation of the US dollar occurs, debts will be paid back in new dollars that are worth a tiny fraction of the value of the dollars that were originally loaned out.
Unfortunately, the debt relief that borrowers get will only be a portion of the devaluation of the dollar.
How does that work? Well, let us say ten years from now a dollar at that time is worth 10 cents relative to a dollar today.
In other words, we will have had about 1000% inflation over a period of 10 years.
But wages will only perhaps have gone up 500%.
Since prices will have gone up ten fold and wages only five fold, it means the real income of people (not just Americans, this will happen roughly the same for nearly all countries of the world) will have dropped in half. This will be the 50% drop in the standard of living that adjust for the fact that as a society we are currently living far beyond our means.
Still, an effective debt reduction of 80% will nevertheless be a godsend to borrowers.
People will experiencing hard times from the standpoint they will be able to consume far less (less housing, less health care, etc.)
One of the few silver linings will be that debt will be much less of a problem than it is today.
Will do.
And don’t look back lest you become a pillar of salt.
Over and out!
Sorry. This issue has little to do with money as it does resources.
Doesn’t matter how much money/dollars/paper/digits you have or owe if there isn’t anything “worthwhile” to buy.
A better idea would be to have your dentist implant a suicide tooth in your mouth. That way you’ll have a quick escape from all the fear that haunts you when it becomes intolerable.
Just returned from Barcelona where the population density is beyond most murikan’s experience but the population civilized in ways beyond most murikan’s experience.
How ludicrous the notion of packing heat to have to feel safe over there.
One other point:
What about banks? They will take an 80% haircut.
And that’s not too bad since the alternative is for debt to go into default in which case they get nothing back.
Obviously, the exact percentages here are somewhat arbitrary, but I do think that the numbers I used do illustrate the way hyperinflation will play out. Maybe the dollar will be worth 5 cents 10 years from now, maybe 15 cents, but the fundamental trend will be that we will be undergoing severe inflation.
In the past many CFNers have complained that JHK offers continual critical observations, but no solutions. Well, his last paragraph this time should put an end to that complaint.
Somebody put these up for perusal last week.
Nice option to consider. Flexibility in all things, eh?
http://www.taurususa.com/gun-selector-results.cfm?series=41
We Are The Many
Ye come here, gather ’round the stage
The time has come for us to voice our rage
Against the ones who’ve trapped us in a cage
To steal from us the value of our wage
From underneath the vestiture of law
The lobbyists at Washington do gnaw
At liberty, the bureaucrats guffaw
And until they are purged, we won’t withdraw
We’ll occupy the streets
We’ll occupy the courts
We’ll occupy the offices of you
Till you do
The bidding of the many, not the few
Our nation was built upon the right
Of every person to improve their plight
But laws of this Republic they rewrite
And now a few own everything in sight
They own it free of liability
They own, but they are not like you and me
Their influence dictates legality
And until they are stopped we are not free
We’ll occupy the streets
We’ll occupy the courts
We’ll occupy the offices of you
Till you do
The bidding of the many, not the few
You enforce your monopolies with guns
While sacrificing our daughters and sons
But certain things belong to everyone
Your thievery has left the people none
So take heed of our notice to redress
We have little to lose, we must confess
Your empty words do leave us unimpressed
A growing number join us in protest
We occupy the streets
We occupy the courts
We occupy the offices of you
Till you do
The bidding of the many, not the few
You can’t divide us into sides
And from our gaze, you cannot hide
Denial serves to amplify
And our allegiance you can’t buy
Our government is not for sale
The banks do not deserve a bail
We will not reward those who fail
We will not move till we prevail
We’ll occupy the streets
We’ll occupy the courts
We’ll occupy the offices of you
Till you do
The bidding of the many, not the few
We’ll occupy the streets
We’ll occupy the courts
We’ll occupy the offices of you
Till you do
The bidding of the many, not the few
We are the many
You are the few
Lyrics and Music by Makana
Makana Music LLC © 2011
Write debt off, start all over again….
The system has failed, not the individual in it.
Write off all debt that does not finance real investment. Write off that borrowed to gamble on rising asset prices. So we have to write off all debt.
Banks are creating Ponzi schemes and thus driving up asset prices and then lending more to fund those.
Government created money is needed versus bank created debt money. Give money to the debtors not the creditors. The public gets the money and has to use it to pay off debts.
Debts that can’t be repaid, won’t be paid. It’s all just how you arrange the default.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/11/steve-keen-on-bbc-on-how-to-get-out-of-our-current-depression.html
Or this (not as flexible, but potent).
http://www.charterfirearms.com/products/Charter_Crimson_Bulldog_74424.html
OK, OK, CFT and Tancred I’ll edit my comment.
What I meant to say was as follows;
“Truth is unless we all have a real good sense of humor – as we proceed in the current continuity of space/time – we’ll become part of the insanity.”
Now it’s time to take your meds…or you can let insanity work toward your advantage…I know I have.
That last paragraph has been his mantra for many years, Al. It’s the first thing that drew me into the fold here in 2006. It’s been re-worded over and over but still says has the same thought.
Get small, get local, be valuable in your community. Do something that matters.
Stocks are up over 300 points this morning, largely due to the brouhaha of Black Friday shopping numbers. And that nasty little business in Europe might just turn out swell after all, especially if Angela Merkel loosens the grip of Germany’s purse strings. A haircut here, a tax increase there, a devaluation of the euro, and heck, before you know it, we’re all going to party like it’s l999.
Guess I can take that mid morning nap in peace now. Oh, damn! I’ve got to be up for the cable guy (supposed to be here between now and one).
For those who follow Paul Krugman at the NYTimes it seems the keepers of the Euro are deliberately leading it to destruction with enforced austerity. Krugman’s take is that they are mistaken, I don’t think so. The world’s wealthiest have accumulated tremendous piles of cash in the last few years, now it’s time for them to spend. But before they spend, the prices of all things must be beaten down. Hence the austerity.
When prices get cheap enough, the wealthy will swoop in and buy up vast quantities of things. Including land. I’m afraid that what the future world made by hand will be is a huge tenant farm run by a police state. The available jobs, which will just pay subsistence, will be with the security forces that pacify society and protect those who own you.
@ Tancred:
You wrote, “Just why the terms “moving forward” or “going forward” have become standard additions to almost any talking points heard or read in the media I can’t say, but it’s beginning to DRIVE ME CRAZY! The phrases add NOTHING to any discussion. PLEASE people out there, stop using these phrases!”
I AGREE! Can we add the phrase “On the Ground?” I am so sick of hearing every pundit, interviewer, and commenter use this stupid (and meaningless outside of a battlefield) term.
There is much good food for thought in this week’s blog entry, as usual, but not in the entire entry. Compared to Jim Kunstler’s hundreds of awesome favorite quips, this one is less than awesome:
“The human construct of money itself has become a shape-shifting phantom. Will it vanish into the vortex of unpaid debt until nobody has any? Or will there be plenty of worthless money that people can spend into futility? Either way they will be broke.”
It is not possible to go from a perilous proximity to one of those extremes, and over to the danger zone of the other, without at least briefly occupying the intermediate scenario where neither applies.
While I’m on this little bit of suggestion box constructive criticism, a related point (pertinent to other Kunstler blog remarks, though not especially so this week): There is an important distinction between capital and money that deserves to be properly respected whenever both are discussed in the same paragraph. In particular: it is entirely possible to have abundant of money AND a shortage of capital.
“Short gigs common. True statement perhaps but might be somewhat specious to apply the phenomenon the way you do. It’s common because so many work on a contract basis. They are hired via a contracting firm and it is fully expected their term of employment with a particular client will be short”
I think you miss the point: You have no option IF you want to work; either a contractor, or no job, period.
I think that most of us would prefer full time, permanent work. But that’s all been ‘outsourced’ to China & India.
‘Cept for the guy scrubbing toilets and taking out the trash in the evening, and working as a security guard till dawn, then off to job 3 at BK, then home for a few hours sleep till its time to take out the trash again….
Yep, life doesn’t get any better in the good ol USA.
Why I left it, IT job, wanted me to work eves & weekends without OT! No way. Told em to go screw them selves, so they got some kid outta college willing to do that shit, good for him.
:]
I am getting too old for this shyte. My grandparents were serfs and now I have to look forward to my grandchildren serfing in a few years?
Yes.
Will there be portable units set up for us oldies to opt out, humanely, thankfully and speedily? There would be a good business startup there if the religio-nuts allow a comfortable and comforting euthanasia for us Boomerz.
Meanwhile I grow a bit, solar and rainwater a bit and even installed a composting toilet for when the municipalities run out of money for maintenance of sewage and people start dropping of dysentry.
Not too bad out here at the edge of the Atlantic.
just remember how all your goodies get to you…the trucks..when this falls apart the truckers wont move a thing.everything moves by truck..hope you have a plan…..your 9mm wont be enough..it will take yours and your neighbors 9mm,38s,etc.-and there is always those pesky nukes overhead…
James, a significant error in your essay this morning.
You refer to “… a $6.6 billion increase in “Black Friday” chain-store sales.”
It was actually a 6.6% (percent) increase to a total of $11.4 billion.
But then I don’t read you weekly for facts; those I can get elsewhere. I come for the outrage and wordcraft. Thanks for that.
On economic re-set wrote Jim:
Think of what you do in it as a “role,” or a “vocation,” or a “trade,” or a “calling,” or a “way of life,” rather than a “job.” Imagine that life will surely go on, even civilized life, though it will be organized differently. Add to this the notion that you are part of a larger group, a society, and that societies evolve emergently according to the circumstances that their time and place presents. Let that imagining be your new American Dream.
==================================================
I know a lot accuse Jim of merely being a prophet of doom, but I see him differently. This little graph is exactly why I visit his thoughts. This has been the single minded, often painfully obsessive, focus for me the last year. No one in my immediate sphere even fathoms an inkling of what I feel rising in the near distant, and I’m once again a university student surrounded by “brights.” Stuck in a state of ambiversion, not knowing if I’m willfully striding toward further financial enslavement, or smartly pointing myself in a direction that will allow me to contribute to the new paradigm, to see my family enjoy a semblance of financial security. It’s at once a dream and a nightmare.
“Debt that cannot (vs. “will not”) be practically paid is not a debt in its classical sense. It’s a default. Whether or not people want to recognize this reality is another issue. We recognize that a law that cannot be enforced is not really a law in any practical sense, so why are we dragging our feet with debt?” -WC
Are you asking this rhetorically? Because I believe you already know the answer to that. If the “assets” are revealed to be the worthless crap that they actually are (not worth the paper the promises are printed on), what will happen to all that glorious “wealth”? You don’t really feel the Masters of the Universe would be willing to “take a haircut” do you?
Thus, everything that can possibly be done to disguise the extend and pretend turd-polishing WILL be done. Take a peek at this and try the theory on for size:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29823.htm
Greetings,
I would like to chime in for a bit as I have some thoughts on how all of this may begin.
As of last count, 48% of Americans were taking at least one prescription drug. More than 1 in 6 Americans take at least 3 different prescription drugs. 10% of the women over 18 take anti-depressants. A full 25% of the elderly now have diabetes with a full 11% of the population over the age of 20 now diagnosed with diabetes.
1. Those drugs are not made in the USA.
2. What do you think will happen when the supply of those drugs stops?
I’m going to go with a conservative estimate and say that 10% of the population is unable to survive without their drugs. That means we can probably expect 30+ million deaths in the 1st year of “No More Drugs”.
All those pesky infections that the doctors take care of by giving us very strong doses of anti-biotics will reap a large number of people as well given that we’ve created super bugs that are resistant to all but the most powerful of anti-biotics. Too bad we don’t make those here either.
Hey, how much fun will it be to watch 40+ million Americans go cold turkey on their anti-depressants? Wont that be a hoot?
some of em deserve a haircut down to the shoulders…the latest in french fashion…
You say your parents generation will be the last the can depend on lifetime employment. Well it seems to me that your parents generation was alo the first that could depend on lifetime employment. My grandparents didn’t have full-time, lifetime jobs with pension plans etc. Nor did their parents before them. My father did, but I don’t. I think maybe the concept of workingt your whole life for one employer and retiring with a good pension was a one-shot deal.
shudder…and jeezus, what about readily available beer?! how close is st louis again…?
i think it was the first generation to grow up entirely within the “free energy” paradigm of the industrial economy, which needed people to show up every day and pull the lever or push the button every time they re told, in order to exist and function…
Hey Ozone,
So is this article basically arguing that masters of the universe will EVENTUALLY or even INEVITABLY have to develop some sort of global currency to manage the untenable currency positions of these deeply debted sovereign countries?
Much of this is far over my head. But very interesting article!
ABSALOM
LOL, Wise,
My grandparents were farmers, thus, they made it through the depression in pretty good shape. I grow a bit, too, but my 23 year old son has no interest in such things, and for many reasons I do fear for the future for his generation. And, although the rightness of the composting toilet looms large, my own biggest fear is losing what’s left of my job, thus our benefits, falling catastrophically ill and then losing our paid for house due to no health insurance. Shouldn’t one’s biggest fear be starvation? Not in America. It is almost impossible to have any patriotism for such a place as this.
Good point. How much of that black friday swag is going right to craigslist and ebay?
http://alttransbikes.blogspot.com
I don’t think community cohesion and feeling less alienated (while certainly good)will make up for central heating and the oil powered medical industry. What the hell will people do for pain relief? (i mean strong pain relief for severe pain and cancer) without the oil intensive pharm industry?
Presumably we would need to grow opium – yet that might be a problem as I’m taking it as a given these quite a few of these small communities aren’t exactly going to be run by rational people, but most likely by bible thumping ideologues who will be even more restrictive regarding pain relief than the current lot now.
Maybe it was just a media trend. One news organization puts it out there and the rest just glom onto it. Subsequently, it becomes accepted truth.
That and ‘impact’ has become a verb. For language to mean nothing, it must first be debased.
Black Friday sales numbers are up because people are idiots. They neither know and or seemingly believe that the world as they collectively knew it is making it’s final swirl around the proverbial bowl. And to that, we have been raised to believe that consumer spending will save us all; remember Bush admonishing us to ‘go shopping’ after 911? Goofy fuck. But seriously…there is an enormous disconnect between consumerism, the economy, and certainly the stock market, in relation to good news or bad news regarding the non-existent recovery. The ‘system’ is so far gone, so depleted, so bent on collapsing inward upon itself that NO idicator, whether good or bad, means a GD thing to what is really happening. We are in compressive contraction, folks, from now on, or until, as Jim has pointed out, the human population is ‘corrected’ to a level that is more in line with available resources.
$50 billion spent on trinkets, googaws and doodads during so called “Black Friday”. All I’ve been hearing since ’08 is how stressed the American ‘consumer’ is. What percent of these purchases were made with plastic, adding to already existing debt, debt never to be paid?
I looked closely at a photograph taken Fri. morning of shoppers lined up at the ‘Mall of America”. Most were Asian and Hispanic, the new face of America.
What’s next for Barney Frank now that he’s retiring? Lucrative lobbying gig like his friend and fellow democrat Chris Dodd snagged for himself with the motion picture industry? ($2 million per annum). Or something more laid back, fat gut bellied up to the bar in P Town, wearing assless chaps, cruising for a date? Maybe both, why not?
–WSP7
He told me that he is plans to major in computer engineering and had already been accepted at Drexel ( a school close to my alma mater). I then asked him what tuition was like at Drexel these days. He told me it costs $20K…a YEAR!
you can learn for FREE on the internet, as i am doing with php/mysql/website creation. what the phuqq do people STILL think they need a university degree for (disregarding med/law/engineering [not computer engineering though).
I’ve worked in many software companies – mainly as a mainframe programmer – where, IF YOU KNOW HOW TO PROGRAM THEY WILL HIRE YOU, WITH NO DEGREE.
alternatively, you can take a hands-on course where you PROGRAM from day 1, instead of buying tons of books, studying english/women’s studies etc. while waiting to do your major courses. or you could do the SAME programming degree at a community college for 1/4 the price. ugh.
i cringe at the lack of awareness…..CRINGE
what a shyster-infested business ‘education’ is. kee-RYST.
peace peaceniks
It seems obvious that there is now so much global debt that it is unpayable and has become a circle jerk/hot potato/musical chairs game. Give me a lever(age) long enough and I will (re)move the world. Barring an extraterrestrial bailout (is that what those Chinese billboards in the desert are advertising for?)it looks like game over. The response to this is likely to be that of the arrogant and petulant child who then overturns the board and scatters the pieces – in other words World War 4 and counting.
I have never been to Europe, and I have a terrible feeling I never will go there. We’re in the final stages of musical chairs – we’re going to be stuck in wherever we are at the moment, and traveling – even real traveling, as opposed to mass tourism – will become a luxury too few of us can afford. As someone from New Jersey, I find that the choice is obvious – live in a Mad Max world or value our cities and strive to make Newark more like Milan. Meanwhile, cities in the heartland now make Newark look like Milan by comparison.
“…its laughable battles over sexual behavior…”
If you are talking about the distraction caused by the gay marriage debate, I agree! I’ve been trying to get you to be the catalyst to resolve the debate by supporting my Egg and Sperm Civil Union Compromise proposal.
It would federally recognize state Civil Unions defined as “marriage minus conception rights” and that would encourage most states to enact Civil Unions, which would give security and protections to thousands more families right now.
It would stop the crazy scientists from trying to make babies from two men or two women, and rule out the whole Transhumanism genetic engineering of human beings thing that is both demoralizing everyone and wasting tons of money and resources.
And it would preserve the right of everyone to marry and reproduce with their spouse using their unmodified genes, stopping the pressure to use “better” sperm and eggs.
It’s crazy for people to be insisting on having an equal right to reproduce with someone of the same sex, instead of insisting on getting security and protections to same-sex couples. Resolving the marriage debate by prohibiting same-sex reproduction using lab-created genetically modified gametes would be SO EASY TO DO IT IS RIDICULOUS that we are still stuck in this mire and wasting time.
Please Jim, just endorse the Egg and Sperm Civil Union Compromise and get us past this distraction, unite the country again!
Yes, JHK
Another good post today. What your first couple of sentences amount to is:
Help We’ve created a bogus fraudulent global finance system and nobody gets out alive!!!
All that’s left to do more of the same. That’s why there is not a real economy. This cancerous beast lives off the real economy so anything that’s done in the name of real labor and saving will be gobbled down.
This weekend I switched to CNN and saw our friend Suze Orman talking about the New American Dream–nothing like your idea of course, more like self-regulated austerity.
Well the xmas sales are up from the past two years because people are tired of self-imposed austerity. If saving is seen as useless and thankless, people will just let loose and spend.
Who knows when the tipping point will be reached in the macro sense.
James, I feel very much in tune with this week’s article–well said, Brother. Speaking about reset, the following is a letter I sent to the Bay Area News Group. It was published last month.
Economy
In an article I read, the author noted that the original meaning of the word “economy” was home management. Can you remember when Home Ec was taught in school?
Looking it up in the dictionary, I see “economic” means relating to the satisfaction of man’s material needs. “Economical” means operating with little waste or at a saving. And “economics” is a branch of knowledge dealing with the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.
It’s shocking how far afield our culture has gotten from these meanings and their significance.
Something seemingly as simple as striving to live in accord with the true meanings of this small group of words could transform humanity and solve many, if not all, of its problems.
Shall we be economical about this situation and quit wasting our time playing with the delusional paradigms we have taken up that replaced the ideals and principles of true economy?
Our home — this Earth, these nations, these communities — require radically different home management.
Ron Greenstein
El Cerrito
European Cities are White – though not as White as they used to be. Newark is no long White at all. It cannot ever be like a European City in other words. If you actually live there, you best get out now. Blacks areas are going to be extremely dangerous during the Long Emergency.
In my little corner of Paradise, our local rag (leans conservative, but doesn’t report the B.S. fluff of the regular paper and MSM do), it seems that this coming year is real estate tax re-evaluation time. Last time it was done was it ’04. Now hold on to your hats, CFN’ers! Property values have gone way down since then. And with all of the spending they’ve done (boondoggles galore) it appears that our county will receive LESS in revenue than it did in ’04 (before we built a hugely expensive amateur league baseball park, Natatorium (had to look that one up in the dictionary), and center city park. So we can pretty much be sure there will be a revenue shortage. So what are the solutions?
Why, raise taxes, of course. Jeez, everyone I know is swimming in cash, or acting like they are. We are talking $10k first class airline tickets to China, 2400 thread count sheets that retail in the thousands of dollars – for SHEETS! What’s that tuition bill, junior, $80K? No problem! We’ll just take out some loans from those nice, thoughtful bankers at some variable rate. Meanwhile this past weekend I had to haggle over the price of a Christmas tree (they wanted $20, I gave ’em $16). I probably over paid even at that price. That $4.00 savings might just go toward a brewskie at our local pub! Have to get into the spirit of the season, doncha know!
You probably stayed in the good part. There are gang wars now in many Spanish Cities – Latin Americans gangs vs Muslims and/or Black Africans. Spain is doomed unless it changes its suicidal immigration policy. And the people are unarmed! Freedom is meaningless without property and arms to defend it.
Goverment is always the enemy of these for the common man. Thus during the crisis in New Orleans, the Police took time to go door to door confiscating guns from citizens. And Liberal Gun Owners say it can’t happen here – it already did and will again.
Nicely said. One of your better offerings.
Ah, the klaxons sound. I knew it would not be long. (Visions of rocks and slithering things dance in our heads.)
It’s time to write off the Third World. There’s going to be a massive die off here never mind there. International Charity is just a waste of money now, basically a scam or a way for guilty liberals to justify their wealth.
It’s not totally bad – the United Nations considers all water belongs to them not citizens. So if things kept progressing as they have been, soon you might not be allowed to use the spring water on your own land. No, a massive shake up and die off is best. Obviously it’s easy to wish things had been different…And it going to very unpleasant. Soon no one will even spare a thought for all those people in Africa and Latin America. Focusing locally will be the new necessity not just another ideology.
You’re not against our new Americans now are you WSP7? And Barney is in a “relationship” isn’t he? Surely you are not suggesting he will be “unfaithful”? Not the purple dinosaur!
Snooze Ormond get guidance from above. About a year ago she started saying how owning your own home might not be the best choice after all. A major change of tune. She also dismissed gold. No serious financial adviser would do this. She’s a Goverment Shill.
One shudders at the kind of person who takes her seriously. An Oprah for a different kind of White Middle Class Sucker.
In the great full-length movie linked below, the visionary architect Mike Reynolds is seen working for thirty years to develop completely self-sufficient housing near Taos, NM. He spends years trying the convince the powers that be (who have revoked his license to practice architecture) of the need for a “test area” for energy-efficient housing similar to the test area set aside for the atomic bomb in the 40s.
After the 2005 tsunami, he and his crew are invited to a village in the the Andaman Islands, which lost 80% of its people, and all its housing and water wells in the tsunami. The difference in attitude toward Mike’s ideas between the New Mexico State legislature and the people of Andaman is telling. Do we have to lose 80% of our people before preparation for the Long Emergency can be taken seriously?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrMJwIedrWU
It is so close to Africa!
I read in ‘Epoch Times’ that Spain was so dumb as to allow immigration from Mexico..The pictures it printed of the Mexican Immigrant Gangsters were scary!
Most luxury goods in USA are sold to top 5[?]%
of the population.
USA is becoming very stratified.
Lest you think I was speaking about Orman seriously, I was drawing the parallel of the use of American Dream with very different meanings.
I have never actually listened to her, but my impression is she is middle of the road propaganda for the elite to make things seem normal for the folks.
And on the theme of American’s dreaming, I spotted this letter in the SF Chronicle and sent a response, which follows, that they chose not to publish.
To today’s youth, I say:
Hold on to your dreams, your dreams for a decent job, a home, maybe a family, dreams of a secure and peaceful nation. Hold on to your dreams despite the economics you face.
Find a new way to make your dreams come true, with your own individual efforts and by uniting with others with similar needs.
It’s a whole new world.
Daniel Raskin, San Francisco
I have something radically different to say to youth and adults alike:
Quit dreaming and allowing your precious minds and hearts to be filled with the delusional values promoted by our consumerist, commercial culture. No one should be taught that they must dream for the necessities of life. We all need to acknowledge the greatest need, to come together and create the means for all to obtain the real needs of life. Please stop trying to convince your brothers and sisters that competition, control, and cronyism are the keys to peace and happiness. You can hardly get any further from the truth.
Cash was King.
Now plastic is bling!
What % of BF was on Credit Cards?
Do you too get offers to get ‘5% back if you use yr card’?
I got a call at 8am Sunday…a Philippines bill collector looking FOR MY EX NEIGHBOR.
I have a landline so I think thats why they are harassing me, BUT SINCE ITS OVERSEAS THERES LITTLE I CAN DO.I WAS ON THE PHONE WEEKS AGO FOR SOME TIME TRYING TO SORT IT OUT.
THEY KEEP ASSURING ME THEY WONT CALL AGAIN BUT I KEEP GETTING ‘HANG UPS’ AND ‘WEIRD CALLS’.
Nickel –
40 million suffering from the DTs as their access to anti-depressants is cut off sounds like a hoot to me. Especially when you figure that here in America, probably around 20 million of them will be armed.
I disagree. Hold them to their damn capitalist blatherings.
They took risk. They lost. Too bad, so sad. They are out of business.
The US government then issues money for socially useful work and production.
People are paid to rebuild our cities, trolley and rail lines, and to produce food in a sustainable way.
Teachers and medical workers are paid to teach and heal.
Water and sewer workers are paid to keep us safe.
Oh, yeah, that’s right. I said keep us safe.
Because water without pathogens does more to keep us safe than any TSA worker. By far.
Parks, recreation, libraries, theaters, radio stations, all the joys of civilization could be provided for with government issued, non-borrowed money.
We could have a decent society if we could get past the idea that banker-created money is real wealth, and must be paid for, with interest, by real labor.
P2C:
Yr figures, ‘USA is adding 3 million a year by
2 million babies + a Million immigrants’ seems off:
USA figures:
20,000 flee this once great place
3 [?]million die
If we are adding 3 million that means 6 million new people..
maybe :
2 million babies
1 million immigrants
3 million wetbacks
You are better with the numbers than me, so what is it? Do you see my line of thought?
ALSO I HEAR THAT MEXICANS HERE HAVE LARGER FAMILIES THAN THE MEXICANS THAT REMAIN IN THEIR
COUNTRY.
Well, Dimitry Orlov talked about the massive die-off in the USSR after they were overthrown by the bankers.
He said that it wasn’t that noticable. People always die and are born. You just hear of more people dying and fewer being born.
Ripped and I can testify that there are a lot of people who will die, and nobody will think it’s weird.
Diabetics on dialysis, with no legs and 7 stents in their hearts. When they go, it’ll be thought natural.
It’s already starting. Haven’t you noticed? Just like 7 million dead Russians was called “a sudden drop in life expectancy”, it was reported that life expectancy has dropped for the first time in certain groups in a certain part of the US.
Horrific? Maybe, but it hasn’t been noticeable to me. I don’t live there.
What about growing our way out of recession?
That’s the one that drives me crazy. We need to “grow our economy”.
I’ve NEVER heard a talking head say anything different.
That’s why I like JHK. Besides his way with words, of course.
Maybe Comrade Dimitri was lying?
‘Well, Dimitry Orlov talked about the massive die-off in the USSR after they were overthrown by the bankers’
If Russia is 100-200 million with a life expectancy of 60[?] A MASSIVE DIE OFF IS LIKE 20% IN A YEAR..YES?
‘what a shyster-infested business ‘education’ is’
‘For Profits’ or all Institutes of Higher Learning?
Shysters are lawyers?
Yeah, my son won a scholarship to University of Illinois in computer engineering, and promptly flunked out his first semester.
I was so upset at the time, but he told me he didn’t want to spend his life writing code in a cubicle, to which I had to agree.
Here’s the joke. He got a job doing computer stuff afterall. His co-worker has two degrees, and tens of thousands of dollars of student debt.
Now my son got promoted and his co-worker did, also, working under my son.
So my son is making more money, with no debt. Well. Funny how things turn out.
But when he wanted to buy a car, he told me that he was going to put a down payment on it, and then get a loan.
I said, why? He said because he needed to get a credit history.
??? Where did he learn that? Not from me. I always save and pay cash. Screw the credit history.
So, for the first time, he listened to me and paid cash. Because I pointed out that he would pay a lot more if he borrowed the money. And he’s pretty thrifty.
AMR / Eleuthero
‘The thing is, the political and philosophical chasm that supposedly exists between Ashland ..’
I thought Bend was the Ultimate Growth Nitemare for Oregon, no?
You remind me of the Great Poet Rod McKuen. This is vintage McKuen.
My other ignored advice was not to get a car, of course.
I told him to get an apartment close to his worksite.
There are none. The industrial “park” is nowhere near living quarters.
In the future, I think that we should require company housing, for at least a percentage of the employees.
That would save a lot of oil.
Yes they made the same mistake as Quebec: focusing on Language instead of Race and Culture. The Spainaird is far closer to the Frenchman or German culturally and genetically than He is to a Mexican Mestizo.
It used to be said that Europe ended at the Pyrenees. Soon it will be said that Europe ends at the Alps.
Our Medical Industrial Complexes along with the
Educational industrial complexes will all dry up with the loss of industrial funds. Large medical schools & university medical research –gone with the money. Safe childbirth, childhood diseases,immunizations, operations, anasthesia — back to the 19th and 18th century The die-offs don’t have to be massive, just ongoing.
The problem with this outcome is for those of us who have through careful living and sacrifice been able to save a small amount of money to live on in old age (which in my case is here, now). If this is diminished or withdrawn from us by the Fed we will be left virually unable to care for ourselves at a time when we are no longer welcomed in the work place even if our health would permit such a thing. Right now even the supplementary income from the interest I’d counted on has been denied me and is changing my life completely. I find it odd that there isn’t more of an outcry over this but can only conclude that this is because there are so few savers that no one even notices. I would think this would create a problem for Obama’s re-election though when he throws his seniors under the bus so callously without a word or a peep, deferring to whatever Bernanke, Geithner and Paulson dictate.
That isn’t the president I voted for.
They say that up to two million union workers are set to walk out this Wednesday in England:
*Nine out of 10 schools will be closed.
*40,000 outpatient appointments will be rescheduled, 500 non-urgent operations postponed and 12,000 patients will have diagnostic tests rearranged.
*Heathrow Airport has warned passengers face 12-hour queues if, as predicted, 18,000 border staff join the walk-out.
*In Northern Ireland, the industrial action will mean the public transport network will be shut down.
*With thousands of workers set to strike, cases may be postponed and courthouses closed for the day. Any one expecting to take part in a court case would be advised to check locally.
Any comparative analysis from you CFNerz? US/UK?
Jim,
I entirely agree with your “reset” idea. A friend of mine the other day ago said that we’re heading toward an economy where the GDP is based on doing each other’s laundry, lawn mowing, etc.. Of course, my friend used exaggeration to highlight the surreal nature of the decay of a manufacturing power into a “power” whose leading hirer of the year is MCDONALD’S.
Then there’s the hilarious TECH sector where dozens of start-ups exist here in Silicon Valley to create “electronic coupons” and “customer loyalty points” which are like electronic versions of the defunct old S&H “green stamps”. Question is … why did these stamps basically go defunct after the 1980s? Because you had to save a LOT of stamps to get very LITTLE benefit. Now, we have hundreds of BRILLIANT programmers working for these places like GroupOn so that you can get a free bottle of baby shampoo after several hundred dollars of other purchases. The marginal utility for the culture asymptotically approaches ZERO but, WOW, is there a lot of manpower tied up creating this near-zero.
The problem is that China and some other Asian countries, have created tremendous overproduction of ALL kinds of stuff, especially electronic gadgets and their adapters and peripherals and wires and so on. Clothing has been vastly overproduced and the QUALITY is going way down. When, for example, Mervyn’s died in California, I noticed that the Kohl’s store which took its place had an ENORMOUS men’s clothing section but I had to return two items immediately because a seam went in ONE wearing. OTOH, I’ve got Mervyn’s shirts still going strong after six years of weekly wear.
China recently announced a PMI of 48, indicating CONTRACTION. Maybe the world’s dumb consumers and their mindless buying is running up against the brick wall of lack of CASH. Who knows? All I know is that the world now has 7 billion people and a lot of stuff that isn’t “produced” by anything but Mother Earth (better known as INELASTIC goods) are disappearing more quickly than the language skills of the “Millenial” generation.
E.
Again, Reasons To Be Cheerful, #4,673:
Every Monday morning, like clockwork, Jimmy The Kunt predicts immanent doom.
And, every Tuesday morning, like clockwork, we’re all somehow still here in our fragile Bubbleworld held together by smartphones and duct tape.
Three cheers for Jimmy The Kunt, World’s Worst Prognosticator – he keeps The Gods themselves tuning in each week to laugh at the zany exploits of The Wizard Whose Crystal Ball Is Always Wrong.
Jimmy The K has been predicting the end of the world for so long – since at least Y2K – that his very existence on the stage is re-assuring, like knowing Letterman will be doing his schtick again tonight. That JHK has carved out a career for himself with nothing but chutzpah and a doom & gloom seltzer-down-the-pants routine is testament to the Greatness That Is America.
As long as Jimmy the K is spewing Collapse© on Monday mornings, I’ll know everything is basically alright and can smear another bagel with cream cheese, unfold the Times, pour myself another cup of coffee, and enjoy the gaudy pageant unfolding itself, even now, just beyond my burning castle gates.
Americans talk a lot about McDonald’s and Starbucks being the main employers, but what about the multi-billion dollar industry created 10 years ago?
I know more people who now work for Homeland Security than I do for McDonald’s.
Jay Gould said over a century ago that he could hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.
It seems that if you add up police, soldiers, private security guards, prison guards, TSA gropers (soon to be at Amtrak) and various other spies and thugs, it should be close to half by now.
The US had backed off threatening Pakistan for a while. China announced that a war on Pakistan would be a war on them.
So the US turned back to the Middle East, destroyed Libya, and was working on Syria.
But, apparently, according to Webster Tarpley, Russia is signaling that it will back Syria.
What to do? Back to bombing Somalia and Yemen, I guess.
Unless they are crazy enough to start WW3.
Which is not unbelievable.
So we’ll see if the killing of 24 Pakistani soldiers, and the final outrage of the government (after thousands of civilians have been killed by drones, and the US let towns drown to save their base) has any lasting effects on US policy.
If the US stops murdering Pakistanis from the skies, we’ll know that they backed down.
We’ll see.
And I wonder if in JHK’s new “World Made by Hand” he plans to maintain this site. He both seems to hate and depend on technological innovation.
I guess Russia is signalling pretty strongly, Sandy. Thanks for the info.
Interesting post, Wage. Also an interesting quote from Gould about half the working class being hired to kill the other half.
Right now, I’d swear that the American “economy” that’s not the 13% that is manufacturing is mostly useless high tech crap, fast food joints, trading of financial assets whose “worth” is somewhere between zero and 50% of the quoted value, and the “security” people you mentioned.
While you’ve got me on the subject of “security”, you know that our population’s level of CIVILITY is in sharp decline when 70% of the bars and discos have an ARMY of security goons … often 350-pound guys from God-knows-where. In 1985-1990 I noticed the sudden appearance of establishments with all these guys wearing black shirts with SECURITY emblazoned on the shirt in white letters. I said to myself that I’d never go in a joint that needed such people.
Well … now it’s almost 2012 and if you avoid such places you’re eliminating about three-quarters of the total number of “public houses” in existence!! So, like most slow degradations, you just learn to put up with it with a certain shrugging acceptance.
E.
Just why the terms “moving forward” or “going forward” have become standard additions to almost any talking points heard or read in the media I can’t say, but it’s beginning to DRIVE ME CRAZY! The phrases add NOTHING to any discussion. PLEASE people out there, stop using these phrases!
Spot on! I must add the following: “AT THE END OF THE DAY,” “BOOTS ON THE GROUND,” “TASK FORCE” and “ABSOLUTELY!”
“Let me be perfectly clear” a phrase that Nixon was ridiculed for, is Obama’s stockphrase. And I still think that “growing the economy” should be added.
Yeah, and if you comment on the security, people will shake their heads and tell you “Isn’t it a shame that they are needed”.
No. They’re not needed. Maybe one bouncer in the rowdier bars, but the ones who stand outside and check IDs on people who clearly turned 21 sometime in the last millenium? Not needed.
They’re just there to teach us to submit to any goon asking for our papers, please.
i friggin’ can’t stand suzie orman.
Yikes !
great thread we have here.
excellent writing on jhk’s
part. and the responses enlightening.
thanks.
yes that will really be something to witness,
for those of us who live thru it !
we have to learn to not rely on drugs anymore,
that is for sure.
pharmaceuticals that is.
i might go off the deep end and take a few with
me if i have to go off the hormones !
i hope not tho !
good stuff MMay. love what you have to say.
Spot on! I must add the following: “AT THE END OF THE DAY,” “BOOTS ON THE GROUND,” “TASK FORCE” and “ABSOLUTELY!”
=============
And the current mother of all cliches: “KICK THE CAN DOWN THE ROAD.”
Yeah, it’s true that medical research funds are already drying up, but that doesn’t mean we can’t prioritize the remaining resources on safe childbirth, childhood diseases, immunizations, operations, anasthesia. It won’t be back to the 19th and 18th century, it will will just be giving up on creating genetically engineered perfect babies and ruling out the ridiculous “hope of two genetic dads”
http://upload.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=221×16134
That kind of research is getting too much money, we should instead be figuring out how to make our existing level of care cheaper and more efficient and sustainable. Give up on Transhumanism, prohibit it with a federal law prohibiting making people from genetic engineering, and it will force a change in the whole medical establishment into supporting actual medicine to help actual people.
One of my personal favorites that has cropped up within the past few years is “Actually”, which preceeds almost every other sentence in casual conversation. Gotta love those multi-syllabic words…makes one sound sooo intelligent.
A close second, heard from football and basketball players from here to Timbucktoo has to be “Ya know what I’m sayin?” Well, it’s fairly standard in the English language in such cases for me to ask you, “Just what did you mean when you said that?” if I don’t understand you. You don’t have to constantly verify that I’m following your statements, unless you’re a complete and utter moron, in which case you mindlessly blather on, “Ya know what I’m sayin?” Ya know what I’m sayin?
A perfect example of upside down “thinking”.
They spent more because they HAVE more…out of savings.
“…to live in a country that doesn’t know what it is doing in a world that doesn’t know where it is going in a time when anything can happen.” I think Milton’s phrase for this was “chaos and old night,” written during a very dark period in London, although I haven’t actually gone back and looked it up. Maybe I will.
-Phut
This comment resonates with the way that I have been seeing things going over the long run:
The world’s wealthiest have accumulated tremendous piles of cash in the last few years, now it’s time for them to spend. But before they spend, the prices of all things must be beaten down. Hence the austerity.
When prices get cheap enough, the wealthy will swoop in and buy up vast quantities of things. Including land. I’m afraid that what the future world made by hand will be is a huge tenant farm run by a police state. The available jobs, which will just pay subsistence, will be with the security forces that pacify society and protect those who own you.
Refer to George Carlins dark stand up routines when he lays down the truth.
Things are going to continue to get worse before they get better. I take solace in seeing how common people rally to help their neighbors in a crisis, and have great hope when I see how selfless and sharing our fellow human beings can be in the toughest times. As for arming yourself with a gun, forgetaboutit.
When the scum come for you, they will overrun your compound like army ants. No weapon will stop the hungry hordes. Don’t let it come to that. Keep love alive.
“Wouldn’t NOW be the right time to start saving for college, instead of purchasing the latest piece of Chinese crap…”
another example of people who just post for the sake of posting. Excuse me, but you stated at the beginning of your post that the young man is JUST GRADUATING! So duh, NOW is NOT the time to start saving for college! LOL
Seriously, folks…….read what you write before hitting that submit button.
“When prices get cheap enough, the wealthy will swoop in and buy up vast quantities of things. Including land…”
First off, the Rich already own everthing they want. They are the 1%.
So what is left when you have everything materially?
What is left to take?
Power.
Control. Absolute Power and Control.
This is where we are headed, to a controled fascist world, with workers the serfs. Perfect set up for the Antichrist figure.
well well well:
Fewer people of all backgrounds are having babies because of economic concerns but the sharpest drop is among Hispanics, a booming population that contributes almost a quarter of all U.S. births and half of its population growth.
“Hispanic fertility is dropping like a stone,” says Kenneth Johnson, demographer for the University of New Hampshire’s Carsey Institute.
[yes BUT is mexican immigration also droppin like a stone?]
STORY: Hispanic growth outpaced estimates
Hispanic birthrates tumbled 17.6% in three years — from 97.4 births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44 to 80.3 last year, according to preliminary 2010 data released this month by the National Center for Health Statistics.
Non-Hispanic whites still deliver most U.S. births. Their birthrates fell too, but at a much slower pace — down 3.7% to 58.7 per 1,000 women in 2010.
The dramatic decline in births to Hispanics, who still have the highest fertility rates, raises the specter of a long-term drop in the nation’s overall fertility — now higher than that of most other developed nations. It also crystallizes the impact of the economic downturn on Hispanics.
“It’s hard to ignore that Hispanics have been one of the hardest-hit groups,” says Gretchen Livingston, senior researcher at the Pew Research Center and author of a recent report on declining birthrates in…………..
And OEO is back, so be forewarned!
Nice one, JHK. You particularly nail it in the 4-6 paragraphs and I enjoyed the vague optimism at the end. Life and society will go on, but in a highly reorganized and significantly downscaled manner. I can’t say I don’t anticipate it.
It’s kind of interesting to see just how long the EU can keep stumbling along, zombie-ing around just outside the clutches of collapse. Then again, kind of interesting to see just how long we (America) can, as well.
Joel
There may be a new savior coming round to help us out and have nothing to do with heaven or hell, good or bad. Imagine that in the new dream of the future. As for guns and food, the soldiers have been trained to run to the flash and bang of the gunfire, so if you are defending your compound, what will happen to you? Better to melt into the background, go underground, fade into the woodwork, blend into the wallpaper, etc. Live to fight another day. Occupy wall street is doomed to fail, but the message may help us occupy our imagination.
If I were to kick your can down the road, would it be more palatable to you?
How about, “It’s been put off until a later date, for lack of political will or a viable solution”.
What would be a more useful image for doing nothing, hands-in-pockets, sauntering nonchalance than “kicking the can down the road”?
C’mon, c’mon. Hurry up! Is there no recourse; no respite; no PERFECTLY FORMED SCAT? :o)
My husband and I say that to each other, in homage, only we pronounce it properly –
“Noam sayin’?, noam sayin’?”
This article could be huge. Not just amazing for its content but who is printing it. Bloomberg isn’t exactly the Guardian.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-28/secret-fed-loans-undisclosed-to-congress-gave-banks-13-billion-in-income.html
Absalom,
As to “universal currencies”?
They’re exactly what you’d expect them to be.
Arable land, water, energy.
If you collapse a countries sovereignty and internal economy, and then turn them into debt-slaves by “binding contract”, you’ve realized the ultimate end-game. You’d OWN them; they work for your benefit, and yours alone. Enforcing that contract with soldier-slaves is also a helpful incentive.
It’s my belief that the Goldman “people” (and the further shades they represent) are after [the control of] the very essentials of life on the Planet.
Bye the bye, none of it is over your head; it’s only made to look that way so you won’t start questioning the mechanics. ;o)
(I’m much slooooower than you are, IMO.)
Leibowitz, Kulturkritic, CrazyEddie, get a life please. JHK, thanks for much needed last paragraph.
Ah, NOW I recognize the phrase referred to! ;o)
Another good article, right in ‘ol JHK’s sweet spot. (that is, an area he really DOES know something about)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/26/opinion/the-death-of-the-fringe-suburb.html?_r=1&source=patrick.net
Yeah the closet lesbo vibe cum middle class anxiety is stifling. You just want open all the windows to purify your TV.
Should have stayed in East Podunk and been the Head of her local Daughter of Bilitis chapter. Bet her cookies suck.
Thank you for that. I was at an Occupy meeting on Sat, and I mentioned that hoarding guns, food and ammo was not a long term effective thing, and that we should work together to make a decent society instead.
A young man took offense and asked me if I had ever been in a place where there was no government and neighbors shot each other for food.
I said no. He said that he had – Iraq.
Then I told him that the reason Iraq had no government is because the US went in and destroyed it, and they might do the same thing here.
Which kind of made his point, I guess, but it also made mine. We need to form alternative organizations to provide for our common needs.
Shhhhh! Don’t let that get out; you’ll upset the shoppers! Geeeeeez.
(That is an important exposure, and isn’t it interesting that Bloomberg would print such whistle-blowing dynamite? Lest we forget, European banks also got in on the Great Filching as well.)
@ cheesemoose… your piece I actually thought was very funny…
*sniggers*
@ Tancred… the UK public sector workers strike fest (civil servants) this week is due to the fact that our HM Govt’ has twigged that paying them inflation proof index linked fees monthly till they (govt based baby-boomers) collectively pop there clogs is a no go, no brainer if we wish to ever balance the UK budget books again. So the gloves are coming off to wrestle this privilege away from them.
The private sector classes here are against ‘them’ with this hot potato issue as most have pensions dying with the stock markets, so no long-term protection there by comparison… but rather ironic that not one whimper of protest is/was vented re the money poured into the banksters TBTF over-blotted gullets and/or that Northern Rock has been given away to Branson…
Moving on….
One of the frightening parallels of this current time v the 1930s right now is looking back Hitler rose to national domination power on the wave of disillusionment and loss of lifestyle felt by most of the Deutsch mensch/volk due to the crushingly high unemployment and runaway inflation caused by both the end of american loans and a defeated country encumbered by the treaty of Versailles.
And as they so rightly say… the rest is history.
Fast forward to today and here we have an interesting review of the godly touched and self-appointed charismatic one Mrs Sarah Palin… you betcha!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-Lxq0EM0oM
And the moral of this tale will be if you’re not an ultra-christian thinking right wing, mixed with gay tendencies person, and are not into semi-automatic weapons at all and are dare I say pro abortion… be afraid… BE VERY AFRAID.
Toodle-pip y’all, and have a nice day.
We keep insisting on the necessity of surrounding the Soviet Union with NATO (North Atlantic? In the Ukraine?) missile bases and anti missile systems. And when they ask why we say because we’re afraid of Iran – which has not one warhead much less an ICBM. It defies all commonsense and decency. The current crop of dual Israeli/American citizens are crazier than their WASP prececessors. They had their Kissingers, but this is ridiculous.
Russia, China and now Pakistan are all going to ally against us for WW3. Or in Orwellian terms: East Asian and Eurasia against Oceania.
BTW, its occurred to me that some of you might not have been around for Mario Savio. Here is your 1.5 minute introduction.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcx9BJRadfw
Still think Islam is a Religion of Peace and that Norway is doing great?
Cat Stephens aka Yusuf Islam is looking for a 2nd wife in case you’re interested. Snickers – that’s how we say it Limey.
After our hurricane, when the electricity was off for days, my neighbor ran a noisy generator to keep their security light on!
I thought that was hilarious. It was the only light for miles around.
If anyone was criminally minded, and wanted something of value (a generator), that light was a beacon.
At first glance, debt forgiveness makes sense. If all debt holders were to take a collective haircut, it might work and keep them intact for a while, preventing an immediate run on deposits.
Using a small economy as an example – in 1983, the Israeli banking system, on the brink of collapse following hyper-inflation and a run on their stocks (which they had heavily ‘invested’ in themselves), was temporarily nationalized and restored to stability and private ownership over the following decade.
But – considering the dynamics of how a global financial collapse might play out, a central issue is that both the public and other still-liquid banks lose faith in any institution that has its debt reduced by fiat. I believe that’s why the USA elected to bail out its large banks rather than legislate debt forgiveness. Of course, you can’t trick reality and this bailout has bitten us in the ass in a myriad of other ways.
I think Jim’s point is really that last one – however hard we try, we can’t get around the fact that the true value of our collective goods and services can no longer support our collective lifestyle – hence the pressures on the banking system, which if shifted elsewhere will continue to bear down on the global economy.
As a last note, I’m not sure I share Jim’s sense of timing around this. Surely the Europeans are at a critical juncture but they may devise a way to kick the can down the road a bit further as we have in the US. Never under-estimate the ability of bankers and politicians to devise new ways of keeping them in their positions of power.
I think definitely a good time to invest in solar. I’m in the process of buying several pallets of panels, true they may come down even further however at current prices approaching 1$/watt it makes sense to me. Also some very exciting r&d on lithium air batteries which if they really become commercially viable will be a real game changer.
Long-term? I’d agree.
But short-term, I think we all know the results of the efficacious use of carrot (food) and stick (weapons).
Against gov’t. black/brownshirts, paid in “job security” and rations? Not so effective, although it might make ’em a bit more cautious? I dunno; probably not.
Glensufi,
Ya, definitely debating how low it will go per watt. Thought the last couple pallets were at an unbeatable price. Almost stocked up again here but since not as much installing will be done over winter, we’ll still probably wait til Spring or buy at the first hint of prices rising again? Your thoughts?
Cheers.
Excuse me, but you stated at the beginning of your post that the young man is JUST GRADUATING! So duh, NOW is NOT the time to start saving for college! LOL
================
I interpret the excerpt below from Myrtle’s comment to mean the young man just graduated from high school.
Anyway, this young man is graduating this year and I asked him what his plans for the future will be. He told me that he is plans to major in computer engineering and had already been accepted at Drexel
Seriously, Tootsie…….read what you write before hitting that submit button.
Three cheers for Jimmy The Kunt, World’s Worst Prognosticator – he keeps The Gods themselves tuning in each week to laugh at the zany exploits of The Wizard Whose Crystal Ball Is Always Wrong.
============
If this whole comment wasn’t so damned clever I’d swear Asoka had written it.
Is this a second Tootsie in one day per chance?
Get a grip Vlad. You apparently thrive on fear. What the hell do you know about Spain? Some cockamamie story written by a fiction writer who sensationalizes tidbits of news. I’d suggest you have your dentist build you an entire set of suicide false choppers.
3rd Martini said, “Italians are in debt to the tune of $26,000 per capita…. Consider that for a moment.”
I’d like to but currently my family’s share of the US national debt is $122,000 and my towns and cities are less walkable or aesthetic.
How about “Make a difference” !! Nothing drives me nuts more than this expression. It should be a capital offense.
First time commenting, I have been an avid follower of JHK for a long time, in fact it’s almost the first thing I do on the computer Monday morning. Jim I think your instincts are right on the money and I was inspired to comment after reading the end of your column today urging people to reflect this Holiday Season on how we would/should change our collective circumstances for the better.
Excellent suggestion, we would all be better off if we did that. By the way, I am in Toronto, Canada but we are facing many of the same stresses courtesy of our various governments.
We are also collectively going to have to figure out how we are going to defeat the wishes of the now media popular 1% who seem willing to pursue the equivalent of a scorched-earth policy with the other 99% of the population of the planet.
If the low hanging fruit has been now picked and from here on things get…well let’s just say interesting. We better figure out a way to convince the foot-soldiers for the psychopathic 1% that they are much better off with the 99% in the longish term.
Why is this the curse of mankind since virtually the beginning of time that we seem destined to be nothing more than a slave-labour prison planet?
Excellent song. You can hear it on Youtube.
Nice week’s work, JHK. Thanks, as always.
Here are my two favorite parts:
“If there’s one vibe emanating from this shadowy zeitgeist it’s a sense of the total exhaustion of culture, in particular the way the world does business.” -jhk-
Yeah, no kidding. American style capitalism was doing OK – in those days when it was held in check by the USSR and the other “worker’s paradises” around the Globe. And when the USSR collapsed in 1991 – it did look as though American Capitalism might triumph, and give the real workers a real paradise.
But, of course 10 years later – those 19 verdamned Muslims hijacked 4 airplanes with 19 boxcutters – and America took capitalism careening into a rat hole, with no chance of escape.
=======================
Here’s another great JHK’ism for the week:
“The situation at hand is not a “depression,” though it may resemble the experience of the 1930s in the early going. It’s the permanent re-set and reorganization of everyday life amidst a desperate scramble for resources. It will go on and on until there are far fewer people competing for things while the ones who endure construct new systems for daily living based on fewer resources used differently.” -jhk-
Yeah, again, no doubt. “…far fewer people competing for things….
Now – If someone on this CFN thread will explain to us why allowing the population of the United States to expand at the rate of 3,000,000 souls per year – driven by 1,000,000 LEGAL immigrants per year –
If someone can explain why this is a GOOD idea – in the face of “peak everything,” and Global population collapse – then, just maybe, I can find another important issue over which to obsess.
vlad, I have to say that your racist comments get very tiresome week after week.
“Ah, the klaxons sound. I knew it would not be long.” -ozone-
That’s very funny, O3. And, Vlad my lad, I do believe that Ozone is talking about you.
Which raises the question, Vlad –
Out of all the possible topics this week-
Why do you always have to lead with a divisive and hateful one, Vlad.
You’re not doing your cause a bit of good, by doing this. You know?
Right on, Welles. I have been saying for years that the higher education system in America is a total scam. It is an elitist racket which continuously cranks out sausages nobody will eat. But the sausage makers keep getting fat from the totally corrupt, rigged system of patronage between the banks, government, career education bureaucrats, and sports and media investors, all bowing to the new god of political correctness.
Anti S –
You are correct. There were 2,436,682 deaths in the United States in 2009.
That’s a precise number.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr59/nvsr59_04.pdf
For some reason, population INCREASE numbers – are never so precise.
So – when “they” say that the US population INCREASED by 1%, or 3,000,000 people, in 2009, that does raise some interesting questions, that become frightening in their implications.
==============
BUT – these numbers show how quickly the US could drop to a more “sustainable” population number, a smaller number which would benefit US residents AND all of mankind.
All we’ve got to do is reduce our rate of LEGAL immigration – and people might have a better chance for a better future – here AND around the World.
And, as always – someone needs to show me where I’m wrong about this.
Just do it without recourse to:
1. We need economic GROWTH in the US
2. It’s the right thing to do, even if it destroys us – AND the planet with us.
3. We need more ethnic food choices in the US.
Because 1,2,or3 – are all I’ve ever heard –
As excuses for our presently high LEGAL immigration rates.
Which can easily be reduced, by legislative action.
“POPEYE IS RUNNING OUT OF CHEAP SPINACH”
Read The Protocols. The Elders are not steering us toward a pastoral, agricultural paradise of peace.
Read the Bible. It tells in perfect detail everything the leaders of this age would do and how it would end up. No detail is left out, other than the day and the hour it will all happen.
It’s hard to grow (and eat) rutabaga’s grown in Fukushima/Chernobyl soil.
From WaPo:
So how many people went shopping the last weekend?
The above would indicate that if there were 50m shoppers, each would spend $1k. 100m would spend $500 each. Is it possible?
-AK
If I were young and couldn’t go to college absolutely free (or close to it–lots of scholarships at older, private schools), I’d experiment with internships with any career I thought might make it the future: plumber, farmer, butcher, etc. Experiment while mom and dad can provide room and board; maybe the company you intern for will provide lunch or a bus pass. Learn which jobs you like (and can handle physically), then work for someone in that field, save every dime until you can invest in your own business. (I’d vote for farming of high value specialty crops like sprouts or producing something like yogurt/kefir/cheese, but that’s what my 48 year old body can handle.) When graduates tell Muhammad Yunus “Banker to the Poor” (of Grameen Bank) that they can’t find jobs, he tells them their job is not to look for jobs, but to create them, because their poor peasant mothers already own a bank and with a better start, they should be able to do much better.
One can get really educated by borrowing books and audiobooks for free at the library and attending adult ed. cheap at the local schools.
Also, with most investments ready to take another major haircut, I’d put a substantial amount of savings into things that cut monthly bills: water saving devices, insulation, etc.
Not much left over from the digital turkey except a few gig a bytes.
Don’t believe the published figures – they lie. How can they really tally up all retail figures from thousands of stores in a matter of a few hours? What they do is a sampling and extrapolate from there, using a mathematical model. And we know how models can be manipulated to say whatever anyone wants. Is there a detailed published description of how total sales figures are determined? Has the media double-checked the raw data?
Hi Jim
Sorry so late this week, but things to do, people to see. Really Jim such a disapointment this week, when such really perilous events were in the works. One such event was NASA’s planned launch of the “Curiousity” spacecraft, this spacecraft is nuclear powered and was noted to be carrying many tons of plutonium. Well this craft was launched on November 26th 2011. Everyone now really has a reason to be thankful, this spacecraft cleared Earth’s atmosphere without mishap. That’s right, the gibbering idiots over at NASA launched a volatile vehicle loaded with nuclear material into our atmosphere, what a bunch of morons.
The second very perilous event was the announcement of the research done that has produced a strain of bird flu that can be very easily transmitted person to person. This flu has been reported to have a 50% fatality rate. The authors of this research want to publish this reasearch to the general public. Yup those morons want everyone to know how to produce this deadly flu. Needless to say if the research is published we can all just climb into bed and wait for the last gasp. So yes Jim your post was a little tame compared with those pieces of news.
Add to both of those that there seems to be a vigorous effort underway to reignite the Cold War with Russia. Also the report that China isn’t happy about the US latest moves in the Pacific. Jim, sorry old boy but your post was a big yawn this week.
Ah well there’s always next week, right?
take care
loveday
Like Procon harps on the immigration issue, I harp on not being able to read the future. I say that we are at a crossroads and our civiliation’s fate is yet to be determined. If anyone here does know the future, please let me have a peek at your crystal ball. I do follow the trend and it’s not looking too good, so I try to prepare, but we are not yet doomed. Get a grip people.
Really,Loveday. Don’t call NASA idiots when you, yourself, make such comments. It is inconceivable that a payload would contain “many tons” of plutonium. What would they need it for? NASA has used plutonium in their probes before, but only small amounts, so small that even if a launch failed, there would be no health hazard. Please learn a little science before you comment
You’re right about Bend. That’s why the unemployment rate in Deschutes County surged to #1 in the state at the very beginning of the 2008 crash. The basis of the local economy was construction, and when the market for building dumb shit on the remains of hardscrabble lodgepole pine forest collapsed, so did the economy. At least Bend and Sunriver still have a fairly vigorous tourist industry, especially in the winter.
One thing that I’ll say in defense of building mindless sprawl in Deschutes County is that it has some of the most agriculturally worthless land in the state. Even at its lower elevations it is frost-prone well into the spring and starting again in the late summer, and most of its soils are terrible. Sprawl there is a lot less destructive on a per-acre basis than it is around the other Oregon cities where it has been allowed, because Bend is by far the largest city in Oregon that wasn’t built in the middle of productive farmland.
Until recently Bend-Redmond was the largest metropolitan area in the United States without any sort of post-secondary educational institution. That was before the founding of Central Oregon Community College, whose acronym causes much tittering. (Heehee, I said tit!)
If you want to see a truly God-awful shithole, go to Chemult. The only other places I’ve visited in Oregon that are remotely as awful are Tigard and the Burns-Hines-Wagontire corridor.
DOW WAY UP TODAY!
Thanks P2C, so who are these 5 or 6 million new folks a year?
1 million legals
3 million babies
1 or 2 million illegals?
Walmart has been partnered in India for years but I see in the paper it was greenlighted for superstores there.
‘WM will bring Jobs’
The TSA got into hot water with the Amtrak Police chief a year or so ago after its pseudocops set up shop in a number of major Amtrak stations without permission. He told them to get lost, and if memory serves they did after a few weeks.
In another case, some TSA officers who set up shop at the exit from Customs into the unsecured portion of the Cincinnati airport annoyed the hell out of two airport police officers when they ambiguously threatened to have an arriving passenger arrested for refusing to submit to their screening.
Generally speaking, I think a lot of cops are none too impressed by overbearing TSA personnel and Paul Blart rent-a-cops. What’s particularly laughable about faux police uniforms is that many cops spend their entire careers trying to get out of uniform and into either a plainclothes assignment or an elite unit where the uniform is a polo shirt (e.g., LAPD’s Metropolitan Division). Personally, as a former applicant for sworn employment with the San Diego Police Department, I find such people pathetic at best and reprehensible at worst. As an unsuccessful police applicant, I don’t go around dressed up like a fucking Pennsylvania State Trooper in order to falsely imply that I have police powers, and neither should those officious losers. A hugely disproportionate percent of rent-a-cops are police academy rejects and flunkouts. And even though I’ve dealt with quite a few TSA personnel who have behaved exactly as well-disciplined cops would, I consider it appropriate for TSA screeners to wear uniforms that purposely mimic police uniforms. Their uniforms really muddy the waters about the scope of their duties and authority.
The situation at O’Hare is particularly bizarre. The TSA agents there are dressed like cops while the Chicago Police patrol officers monitoring their posts, viewed from the righthand side, look like rent-a-cops from Four Star Security. The Chicago cops give away their real occupation not only by their sidearms, but also by being physically fit, alert, courteous, nondelusional, well-behaved and law-abiding.
What bothers me about situations like that is that many Americans can’t tell the difference between real cops and knuckledragging idiots who impersonate cops but are too out of shape to pass the physical abilities test batteries, too officious to pass a properly assessed psychological exam, and too illiterate and generally stupid to pass a written exam (i.e., the one that needs to be passed in order to be invited to fill out SDPD’s sixty-page pre-invesigative questionnaire and attempt to run its obstacle course). This near-total lack of perceptiveness goes hand-in-hand with a general ignorance of civil rights and liberties, i.e., a failure to understand that cops can go to jail for just doing whatever the hell they want instead of abiding by the law. It’s amazing what sworn peace officers routinely get away with on TV shows like “Cops.” “Cops” should be an evidentiary goldmine for internal affairs officers, commanders and civil rights attorneys, but evidently it is not. Even more amazing is the Mall of America terrorism fusion center, where a bunch of non-sworn goons impersonating police officers who fancied themselves Colombo interrogated mall customers at length about alleged “suspicious behavior” in a manner that demonstrated a complete ignorance and contempt for the law.
It’s bad news that so many Americans live in the Land of Make-Believe.
As a follow-up, the prospect of being able to arrest asshats like the Colombo wannabes at the Mall of America is enough to make me want to become a cop. On the other hand, it isn’t quite enough to make me want to fill out another PIQ. Lordy, was it grueling and disconcerting.
I would, however, love to see an officious rent-a-cop go through that wringer. I don’t feel an ounce of Schadenfreude for decent people who put themselves through that experience or, worse, for my acquaintance who spent seven hours completing back-to-back oral and written psychological exams during his application to the Washington Metropolitan Police (“It was the most grueling experience of my life”), but when it comes to thugs who like to lord it over the innocent, I’m a lot less magnanimous.
Americans are very bad at looking at the negative. Always bright siding. Like bad puppies, they have to have their noses pushed into their own mess.
It’s working: you are begining to sound more like me all the time. People vary tremendously in their ability to recognize and/or acknowledge being influenced. It’s happening whether you see it or not.
If I speak the Truth, would you deny it just to spite me? Or because you don’t like the style in which it is given? Some would.
The White Race is threatened with extinction. Everything else “pales” into insignificance except a few things like the end of Western Civilization or the end of all Civilization and civic order at least for at time. Notice I don’t include the end of America per se. I’m sure you’re amazed when Wage or someone asks why you harp on the immigrant question. You know that it’s not just another issue but in fact, a core issue that is more basic to most other things. If it is not solved, nothing else will either. Energy is important, therefore solve immigration. Resources – immigration. Social disorder – immigration. And so on. Well I think the same way about the White Race – but on a higher level above mere physical survival of America. Without the White Race, America is just another Brazil, a squalling, sprawling third world mess.
A breakthrough in Cold Fusion technology?
http://pesn.com/2011/10/28/9501940_1_MW_E-Cat_Test_Successful/
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-10/29/rossi-success
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“A comforting and comfortable euthanasia for us Boomerz?”
That sounds an awful lot like hospice. My parents had to repeatedly instruct hospice nurses not to snow my grandmother on opiates despite her not being in chronic pain for the last two and a half weeks of her life. My parents couldn’t even consistently bully the hospice staff into abiding by their instructions to administer pain meds solely on a PRN basis.
After that experience, I’m convinced that euthanasia is a lot more common than is publicly reported. Snowing the Bejesus out of dying patients who aren’t in pain isn’t palliative care; it’s slow-motion homicide, and unlike Jack Kevorkian, hospice nurses seem to offer up that “final solution” whether the patients or their next-of-kin ask for it or not.
Its all a joke its all a scam there is nothing worthy left to do, except maybe your family and your garden.
The show Cops also routinely changes the race of the perps from Black to White. Just part of the universal effort to underplay the extent of Black criminality.
Angels of Mercy transformed into Angels of Death! They used to refuse pain killers to dying patients becuase they didn’t want them to get addicted!
People without centers are incapable of commonsense. Do not revive is commonsense – and a little to much painkiller might help hurry a dying person’s progresss. Like all things, wisdom and compassion go hand in hand.
That feeling of discomfort is you begining to think. It takes alot with someone like you, and your brain isn’t used to it.
Clusterfuck is a site that challenges – not a place to get one’s prejudices catered to.
Hear, hear!
Bravo, VK.
New World Survival Tip numero uno… Learn to be a peasant farmer, learn energy mastery by practicing Tai Chi, meditation and yoga. I am 62 and I can dance. No pills. I am a human rototiller. No doctors in 30 years now.
Wage said this and AMR continued by discussing TSA:
Yeah, and if you comment on the security, people will shake their heads and tell you “Isn’t it a shame that they are needed”.
No. They’re not needed. Maybe one bouncer in the rowdier bars, but the ones who stand outside and check IDs on people who clearly turned 21 sometime in the last millenium? Not needed.
They’re just there to teach us to submit to any goon asking for our papers, please.
****************************************************************
EGG ZACTLY!!!! Everything, when it comes to instilling FEAR in ordinary people is considered a rational response. Five years ago Palo Alto had an Anarchist’s demonstration. The PA police called up police from Cupertino, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Monte Sereno, and Los Gatos. On the day of the demo, there were about THIRTY police on horses, 100 jackboots in riot gear, and two police helicopters overhead.
How many people were in this demonstration? About 60 … they marched down three blocks of Palo Alto chanting something and it was over. Make no mistake about it, way, way, WAAAAAAY before the shit hits the fan, every municipal, state, and Federal agency is figuring out a way to KICK YOUR ASS for doing NOTHING. Like the UC Davis cops who double-sprayed a couple dozen kids with pepper spray for doing … NOTHING. And that NOTHING was done with unarmed kids ALREADY ON THEIR KNEES.
It won’t be long now before these fuckers actually are given a reason to kick our asses because the number of new people moving below the poverty line every year in America is astonishing. There is no magic bell that will go off. But I would suggest it’s tinkling already with a huge generation of new college grads with $50,000 of college debt working as baristas. At some point, the downscaling of lifestyle WILL result in civil disorder. OWS is a measly little thing compared to what’s coming in a few years.
E.
Great screed about “content”, AMR. McLuhan in the 1960s said “Art is anything you can get away with”. Unfortunately, the Internet has proven this axiom, if one can believe it, even more than the big media conglomerates. Bad as THEY are, you usually have to have some creds (not just local “street” cred) to write for them and some polish in the presentation.
We live in the Age of the Artiste, NOT the artist. The ability to contact Blogger, Inc. has its plusses and minuses. Everybody is a “poet”, a “pundit”, anyone with a camera is a “photographer”, and anyone with a canvas and paints is a “painter”.
The Internet is also NOT a “free” medium … as you point out. Ever notice that when you’re on the DailyMotion/YouTube types or Yahoo Sports that before you get to see a 3-minute opinion piece from a nobody, you’ve got to wait for a 30-second ad to finish first.
Alas, and contrary to what the Electronic Frontier Foundation would have you believe, the Internet is now curiously divided into sites dominated by large media or NOBODIES with the FIAT of their personality as their “bully pulpit”. There’s not much in between.
Probably the best the Internet has to offer is a few erudite writers like John Talton of the Seattle Times who writes good opinion pieces at roguecolumnist.com. He’s a “rogue” with real creds from working as a liberal writer at the Arizona Republic (not a joyous or easy task) and then the Seattle Times.
Since discriminatory intelligence seems to be on the wane and opinions are like assholes i.e., everybody has one, it takes a truly trained wordsmith and a seasoned critical thinker to separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to the Internet … and its “content” … a word which has been abused by the techno-babble crowd so much that it means everything from the “art work” on a site to the actual writing and layout. Words which start to mean EVERYTHING actually start to mean NOTHING.
E.
I would add to my last post that the “Anybody can create content” myth is almost living proof that those buggy-whip credentialing agencies like SCHOOLS are not as meaningless as many claim they are. They are flawed, they’re much worse than they were even 20 years ago, but when it comes to having SOME erudition I’ll take a college grad over most “free agents” any day.
When you talk to some of these self-anointed “wags” in goofy Internet “content” companies with a high school diploma and two courses in HTML and Front Page from the local JC, you discover the “arrogance of ignorance” so forcefully thrust at you that you recoil with embarrassment.
E.
Well, as I told my Russian girlfriend who is from the era of the Brezhnev Soviet Union, the ingenious wags on Wall Street and the heads of the EU states would find SOME way to kite up the stock market again with “good news” (IMF loan) which, in fact, changes NOTHING. It just transfers debt from one “backer” to another while the EU moguls think of yet another way to use cardboard boxes to defend themselves against a tsunami.
Since April, the market has gone between 12,800 and 10,600 with no less than SEVEN “round trips” of at least 1,000 points in BOTH directions. Now, it’s sitting about 40% off the trading range top and 60% from its bottom. Why would any sane being put their savings in this garbage?? China’s PMI was at 48 … FORTY FREAKING EIGHT. That’s the ONLY number you need to know about. China having a manufacturing CONTRACTION???
We live in a world with too many consumer electronics, too many fast food alternatives, too many cheap clothes in too many cheap stores, too many supermarkets (my Dad lives within two miles of FOUR gigantic supermarkets), too many restaurants, and too many financial service companies. Too many. With wages going DOWN and college kids with enormous debt and no job and the Boomers slowly retiring and leaving the “risk” markets, in what nutty scenario do the wags on TV come up with anything like a future BULL MARKET in stocks??
The best case scenario, despite what the pollyannas say, is ALREADY playing out, i.e., a slow, grinding mess with lots of needless resource utilization in markets that are going to get tighter and tighter. The stuff you really, really NEED (gasoline, heating oil, natural gas, healthcare) are problematic. All you need to witness is that with the S&P going nowhere with IMMENSE volatility, oil just WILL NOT stay down.
When the markets hit 10,800 some weeks back and then went to 12,200 and then back to 11,200 and now in the 11,500 range, who noticed that oil BOINGED off of that $75 low at Dow 10.8K like a freaking SUPER BALL and now sits at $98 … up about 31% while the Dow is only up 6% from its recent low.
The shit is ALREADY hitting the fan but everybody is mesmerized by getting cheap Xboxes on Black Friday, the Penn State scandal, and whether Ndamukong Suh should be suspended for stomping a guy’s arm in an NFL game. Where’s Franz Kafka?? I’ve got to have a SEANCE and get in touch with this dude!!! He needs to see this shit!!! Too bad that good writing now gets lost in the sea of “content” on the Internet and the other media. Kafka didn’t have ten percent of the material that a modern day surrealist would have.
The EU, the Fed, and the IMF are going to have probably another six or eight false flag “optimism” attacks via press releases about more can-kicking. The bread and circuses like the NFL will continue unabated, and oil and your healthcare bill will continue their stealth rise, eventually crippling the G-20. Russia, right now, yes, mafia-run Russia is GLEEFUL because they’re going to have a balanced budget with oil near $100 because $70 is their break-even point and that price just isn’t going to be breached even if the Dow goes back to 7K.
Chinese PMI at 48, oil near $100, healthcare still having double-digit inflation. Those are the ONLY numbers out of a sea of nutty “technical indicators” that you need to keep your eyes on.
E.
@ Vlad
You well know that I’m not a fan of religious symbol thinking people… those of an ‘ism/cist’ bent are much to be avoided – much like yourself dear.
And thanks to emancipation, and a diligent brain, and a successful career so far I’ve managed to safely avoid a lacklustre marriage, so no need to fret on my limey behalf mate…
And Muslims are not running amok in the land of Trolls either, where do you get this low-grade misinformation from??
It was an insane home-grown white supremacist racist that wreaked havoc over there, dressed as an authority figure policeman, doing that mentally distorted ‘warrior’ manly thing of shooting dozens of leftists liberal thinking children with a semi-automatic army style rifle.
(To any NRA members lurking here, now’s the time to bow your heads in shame)
@ Glensufi… indeed I know of many Devonian based Brits now who have made full use of UK govt subsidies to rack on the roof arrays on their homes, most produce daily more electricity than they need so sell it back to the national grid. The math as you Yanks say works out at panels have a working life of 20-25 years, after you deduct the install/purchase costs you get about 10-15 years worth of uber-cheap PC/house gadget green light power…
But back to what this site, at its best is really about underlying geopolitics. The most eye brow lifting stories for me this week have been the almighty drone air strike cock-ups which resulted in the killings on Saturday of 24 Pakistani soldiers, the result is a crippled NATO supply chain. So its only a matter of time now before there will be some ISI levered tit-for-tat Taliban executed counter killings… though after that and mutual hand-wringing and the usual ‘lessons learned’ comments, business as usual for managing Afghanistan and the drugs trade will commence once again.
The other story I find interesting is Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin going for the high profile commander-in-chief role once more, its quite possible if he wins through… and the money, media and muscle will be there to see that he does, so in theory he could iron grip lead the great bear from the front through till 2024. Much as in the style of soviet leaders of old did, a job for life and all that.
I bet Obama would love to have that kinda leeway when it comes to managing the great eagle… for more than a his 4 few wee years, and defo just as he’s getting his hand in.
And finally for Eleuthero…
I fear you might be right, I’m a fan of Steve Keen’s… here he is on the Beebs HARDtalk.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkesgECRXtM
Be seeing you…
The first reading can not help but
first first first impulse to steal
first kiss
first
the first time when the first model
wanted to be a hero and stunt training hard the first time drunk
first because of who
first McDonald’s first stay in the guesthouse on
first
so cool the first time and so many beasts are alone
first met the first female rogue
travel first to do body painting
first off electricity and unconscious for the first time housework
first open Party for the first time I recall the first time a child
efforts
when the singer first to wear their own clothes for the lovelorn
‘d rather die first
first boss the first time when depressed , because Taiwan does not return … …
There probably is a connection between bouncer thugs and efforts to acclimate the public to a police state, but I’d say that it’s an indirect, probably inadvertent one.
My first line of reasoning is that bar owners are a pretty independent-minded, customer-oriented bunch. I doubt that many of them give a damn about underage drinking; for the most part, they check IDs only in order to cover their asses, and many of them only do so when they have reason to believe that cops or liquor control agents might be looking to cause them trouble.
The rationale that I see for having big, menacing bouncers at the entrance is that it contributes to the atmosphere of overall thuggery and caprice, which is exactly the atmosphere that many shallow youngsters want. This twisted desire is due in large part to idiotic and pernicious media influences, but I don’t blame the bar owners for these. They’re just responding to market demands.
There’s this bizarre dynamic, which I’ve described before, of young women who are often otherwise normal but clearly have fantasies of being raped by thugs. I say this because the guys they dance with are almost always the ones who, if they’re black, pander to racist stereotypes about ghetto life or, if they’re white, dress and comport themselves in exactly the fashion of the roughest sort of Hemet trailer trash. I’m pretty street-smart, and I can honestly say that the roughest character I’ve ever noticed in the Sidelines, Arcata’s main meat market, was a shirtless white dude who was grinding on two women at once, one of whom was completely engaged with her surroundings yet in an otherworldly state of serenity. It was mindboggling to see one of the prettiest and most well-adjusted women in the bar dancing with such a straight-up nasty-ass Ed Hardy honky. I have no doubt that black guys at Sidelines have such an easy time picking up girls in large part because the women there have racist tendencies that make them interpret practically anything done by a black man as that sweetest of aphrodisiacs, thuggery.
My sense of Hollywood’s motives for producing the music and other entertainment that abets this pathos is, again, less than conspiratorial. The music industry gives every appearance of being run by the crassest sort of mercenaries. They’ll sell anything at all to any market segment that produces positive cash flow. The record industry simultaneously hawks Daughtry and Eminem, Lady Antebellum and Toby Keith, Sara Bareilles and the Insane Clown Posse. The only thing that the albums making up any record label’s holdings seem to have in common is lucrativeness. The messages of their lyrics are all over the place.
That said, I will grant that kids these days listen to a lot of garbage, especially the popular kids. The record industry produces garbage because it sells. Another, related reason that it produces garbage is that it’s cheaper, easier and less financially risky to appeal to the lowest common denominator than to fund anything edifying. That’s why media companies keep harkening back to 400-year-old racial bigotries, needless and exaggerated problems with relations between the sexes, and other destructive, hackneyed stereotypes. It’s cheaper to beat old, popular themes like a dead horse than to explore new ones that may or may not prove lucrative.
The high mucky-mucks, living on Mulholland Drive, in the horse country south of Nashville, or in the Hamptons, don’t have to personally reap the division that they sow. They seem utterly amoral. They do not, however, readily kowtow to Washington; instead, they either bribe it or challenge it in the courts. These are the people that Lewis Lapham described as a major part of the “permanent government,” in contrast to presidents and congressmen, whom he described as the “provisional government.” I wouldn’t put it in such stark terms, but he had a point.
All the same, I don’t see this as evidence of anything like a “New World Order.” It’s more like a slimy combination of a high-power prostitute-client relationship and an ad hoc symbiosis. They use each other because they use everybody they can, especially the influential.
From:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=177438
Why USA Housing May Never Recover
Contrary to most of the rest of the world, the USA has pretty big homes: average is about 1,000 square feet (90 square meters), the rest of the world is much lower, often only half. And then a lot of the USA homes have basements and garages that can make up for some extra room. Along with backyards and front lawns and wide streets, large retail spaces and other signs of REAL WEALTH, most of the world is a tight crowded high density environment, (ask some Mexican immigrants how their homes are). This is a real sign of how much richer the USA really is compared to most of the world included countries that make believe they are rich like JAPAN, South Korea, and most of Europe. Tight spaces, puny homes, no parking, no retail and such, crowded, very high cost of homes either to rent or buy (look at LONDON, insanely high prices for mostly shithole homes), etc.
So if the USA middle class is destined to contract, because the present mode of capitalism is in filter mode, meaning filtering out as many people from the middle class as possible by not giving them jobs, hiking up the prices of necessities, public debts and such we can whip up a quick calculation: if the USA middle class is made up of about 200 million people, with about 3 people per home, then you get about 70 million occupied homes. But as the middle class shrinks to maybe a target of 150 million people, you free up about 20 million homes since alot of families will double up, you can imagine 2 people extra for each home, like a garage turned into a room, and a basement turned into another.
So, how long will it take for the market to absorb 20 million extra empty homes that people left because they couldn’t afford the rent or mortgage, and bills like heating and electricity and such since they can’t get a decent paying job ?
Quite a long time, maybe forever, since the filter mode will keep on operating, since only the best, the most connected, or luckiest or whatever will land jobs and a lifestyle that will allow them to live in their own home (let alone grow a family).
The rest of the world will be much worse off: in their puny, super expensive homes (like the shithole of LONDON), they will have to deal with 6 people living in a couple of rooms, real poverty level, that is because the governments of relatively rich countries like Europe and JAPAN don’t give two c*cks and a d*ck for the real living conditions of the future once was middle class, they don’t build decent sized homes for their contracting population anyways at a decent price since property must always be used as a weapon, as a proxy of human conflict for a fake and imposed resource scarcity on something that should have been free for all a long time ago given that housing is a standard technology, a commodity that costs little and could easily be organized to satisfy all needs, only then you couldn’t create the inequality of having or not the house that is the engine of a conflict based economy.
At least from this point of view, the USA is way richer and did all the right things by building large homes and a lot of them. This also explains why the USA prices are much more variable, the market is much more real compared to other countries where an Iron Clad Status Quo keeps prices high and forces them to remain high even when there are few buyers, especially in the cities where all the jobs are like London, Paris, Moscow, Rome etc. Of course New York City and San Francisco also come to mind…
Oh but all the governments and economists are always talking about the need for the economies to “Grow”, the economies must grow to pay back the debts. But at the same time they chant that housing prices going up “is good”, is a good sign of a “recovery”. How about making housing cost a lot less for a start ? Jackasses.
TOBOR ATE MAN
JHK wrote: “It’s really something to live in a country that doesn’t know what it is doing in a world that doesn’t know where it is going in a time when anything can happen.”
It reminds of time when in the thick of heavy fighting against the Chinese Red Army during the Korean War a nincumpoop U.S. Army supply officer actually thought that U.S. Marines were in desperate need of “Tootsie Rolls”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tootsie_Roll
“During the Battle of Chosin Reservoir in 1950, Mortar (weapon) sections under the US Marine Corps started to run out of mortar rounds. The radio men of these sections started requesting more rounds. There were too many nearby enemy anti air emplacements however, and the risk that they might lose any airlifted supplies was too great, so they had to wait. After 2 days of waiting all the mortar sections ran out of rounds. At this point the risk was taken and supplies were dropped anyway. When the troops found the crates of mortar rounds, they found the crates were instead filled with tootsie rolls. The cause of this error was that a supply specialist did not know that the codename for mortar rounds was “Tootsie Rolls”, and instead ordered hundreds of crates of tootsie roll candies instead of mortar rounds. [3]”
Instructive post, E.
These indicators are part of the reason I believe the LE to be truly in “second gear” with the RPMs climbing. As JHK implies, there really isn’t any going back to the style to which we’ve become [too comfortably] accustomed.
No one (or very, very few) in gum’mint is going to tell us the truth about CONTRACTION, if they’ve even entertained the notion, so…
Stay loose; be imaginative; be of value; make your own luck, as best you can.
(Oh, and: “Don’t follow leaders; watch the parking meters.” ;o)
E:It won’t be long now before these fuckers actually are given a reason to kick our asses because the number of new people moving below the poverty line every year in America is astonishing.
But, of course. In a country that worships money being poor is illegal.
____________________________
Alexandra,
Thanks for the link. I like Keen and have heard him numerous times on Max Keiser.
Dylan Ratigan says pretty much the same thing about writing off the debt, he says that world wars have been waged mainly because of global depressions.
Only after the WWII was over, they wrote off the debt. Ratigan asks why we can’t excuse the debt before destruction occurs. Of course the banks won’t let that happen–that’s how they generate wealth for themselves. The last 40 years represents an off-balance system with the banks generating debt, not through investment and loans, but through the casino.
AMR: like your last comment about the New World Order and the amorality of the wealthy in the US.
I would posit that the two things work together, given a common ideological bent. The rich have embraced the neoliberal screed and the world leadership is going full tilt toward the centralization of the seamless banking system and the rise of privatization.
This is the rise of power of global corporations while governments are losing theirs. Sovereignty vs global trade zones, where the people have no say in how they are governed. Wages will keep going down to the lowest common denominator.
This is a move away from democracy and national identity, that’s why as I pointed out during the BP Gulf disaster, BP had more say than the government in how this would be handled and what kind of safety equipment the people who cleaned up the mess would be given. Due to PR issues they were not allowed to wear face masks. We saw that we are merely a colony of the transnationals.
Because our revenues are down, our public infrastructure is being sold off internationally through the banks in the form of Sovereign Wealth funds (owned mainly by wealth Arabs in Abu Dhabi) with guaranteed returns. That, my friend is what globalism is all about–it is a new world order.
anyone heard from tripp lately?
Here’s what may happen: some unemployed PhD Chemist with good synthesis skills will learn to synthesize SSRIs; he will then work out underground distribution networks to sell the ilicit SSRIs on the street. The morons in law enforcement will see yet another opportunity to profit from the insane war on drugs and make SSRIs like prozac and lexapro scheduled and thus highly illegal. There will then be raids on homes looking for SSRIs. I can see it now; the headline reads, “Local cops net 1000 pills of deadly prozac.” THe adjacent photo shows a crew cut pig grinning and hold his gun in the air with his foot on the case of ilicit prozac, protectin and servin 🙂
Don’t forget, we live in Idiocracy (btw: its not a movie about the future its about the present)
wardoc
check this out:
from ilovephly atoms are little galaxies
rasava wrote:Felix:
Science aims to be the “view from nowhere” but even it can’t escape at least a smidgeon of social influence. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, because it’s often our experience which helps us model facts better.
But science is being viewed through us, through a totally arbitrarily designed machine with totally arbitrarily sense organs, and thought processes and circuits and pain/pleasure circuits, etc. We are not some objective reference system measuring the world objectively, we are a slab of quirky Mass Enerrgy interacting in a quirky manner with another slab of quirky Mass Energy and measuring the events and cataloging and memorizing them as repetitive patterns in our “memory”.
We are not “nowhere”, we are a very specifically defined design, one very particular and quirky random design out of trillions of other possible designs (new designs that you can achieve by sticking wild chemicals, wild symbols and wild signals in the ball of meat that is the brain, as in Instant Singularity) interacting with itself, talking to itself basically since the slab of Matter that is outside or inside the other slab is arbitrarily defined, it is just matter talking to itself.
For a hammer, everything is a nail. Thought is like a hammer, for thought everything is just a thought itself, or another thought, or a logical sequence, or a sequence of symbols, or a logical entity or logical event. Everything is decomposed into the identity principle, to distinguish an item from another, same or different, interacting items, something exists as opposed to something different from itself, logic generates logic, a never ending recursion, tied into sensations, events, slabs of Mass Energy colliding with other slabs and creating language, thoughts and meanings all associated with memories, pain/pleasure circuits, past memories defining the present state of reality etc. Thought is our measuring device, we measure everything with our thought – logic – language, and measure our own thought constantly with the only measuring device we have. Any event and interaction is translated in a denotation, a symbol, a thought event, a sequence and process.
Anything can relate to anything, decompose thought itself, outside of your mind, external matter is crystallized thoughts, but thought is just a word anyways, another sequence of symbols, never ending, connections, interactions, events. The rock on the floor is the real mind and thought, your thought is simply a piece of trash on the sidewalk for the rock…
Another glaring indicator/warning sign on the road of devolution: Only the “information” that will be disseminated, will be what your gum’mint WISHES to be disseminated. Want to keep your gum’mint job? (Or, pretty soon, ANY job.) Shaddup then.
SECRECY indicates, (yes, Virginia) there’s something to hide. Duh. What you don’t know can’t hurt you? Right?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29828.htm
^The only^
Sheesh; very little mind left over h’yar.
Oh well, it was fun losing it. ;o)
@ Dale,
Thanks for the tap-on-the-shoulder from Mario Savio.
What goes around comes around. Here we go again; but maybe the last carousel spin.
Right on, Welles. I have been saying for years that the higher education system in America is a total scam. It is an elitist racket which continuously cranks out sausages nobody will eat.
right on brother. but how can you make it PAINFUL ENUF to the 19-year old so that he VISCERALLY FEELS how stupid it is to WASTE money, and DESISTS???
that’s some elusive magic, worth its weight in gold…
peace peaceniks
Welles,
That’s why it’s SOLD to 18/19 yr. olds; they aren’t yet properly anxious about the future (and future debt). (Does the word “recruitment” ring any bells in this arena?)
2012 shakedown: Unscientific, or Premonitory?
I don’t ‘believe’ in anthropogenic climate change, there is enough scientific evidence to just prove it. And strictly from an ecological perspective, I don’t think business-as-usual is possible.
But this forum seems to ‘believe’ quite strongly that 2012 will be ‘the end of the world as we know it’, there is a ‘coming shakedown of the old paradigms’, and that we should prepare..
Nostradamus, or Falun Gong, both strong supporters of 2012 doomsday, is not really evidence. Bubbles and crashes within the capitalist system is not something new and was recognized as an intrinsic part of capitalism by Marx.
So what’s new? May I ask, what is the scientific evidence?
so the udall family continues the tradition of trying to do good for america and ‘her’ citizens…kinda doubt we ll get THAT ammendment passed: waaaay too much power at stake…and that is, after all what is at the crux of most of our problems as a people of this planet: the exercise of power- the power of money(wal-street), entrenched interests(lobbyist-owned congress), and military industries- versus the regulation of these blocs of power-mad sociopaths in the interests of our common good as humans, and as stewards of this increasingly fragile home…i can t believe there was no outcry about executive overreach for alawlaki (whether he deserved it or not is moot, since there WAS NO TRIAL- oh wait, that was the point…) now they can come for you if your name is bob, or joe, or tom…problem is, by then it ll be too late- if anyone even knows you are crying, that is…the time is now, People, to stand up for what little is left of democracy: “They” won t just decide to “give it all back; just kidding about shredding your constitution and rights…”
The attachment below is an interview with an economist by the BBC show Hardtalk. It’s the kind of well reasoned discussion that simply won’t fly in the U.S. media because no one’s head is exploding. What I call the “Jerry Sprigerizing” of discourse. Good stuff, if you actually want information, and well reasoned opinion, without the hysterics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGkmgnprrIU&feature=player_embedded
A breakthrough in Cold Fusion technology?
———————————–
Thanks for the link. I’ve been seeing this sort of thing forecasted for two or three years now. Unfortunately, I don’t have the scientific knowledge to evaluate the article, but it seems to bring forward the possibility at some point in the future of something I do think is both possible and revolutionary…..electricity too cheap to meter.
I heard from Tripp via email, a couple of days ago.
They’re doing fine – working on the property acquisition and (hopefully?) their move to northern Georgia.
@ Dale,
Thanks for the tap-on-the-shoulder from Mario Savio.
—————————–
Your welcome, I’ve always considered the last thirty seconds of that speech to be right up there with MLK and his “I have a dream” speech. More passionate, but just as eloquent. Here’s the last 30 seconds again, for good measure.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJKbDz4EZio&feature=related
“cold fusion…..possible and revolutionary…..electricity too cheap to meter”
-dale-
Possible, dale, but I’m not holding my breath.
I’ve been poking around the internet – trying to find those PV solar panels that SolarGuy was talking about – for $1.00/watt.
But everything I’m finding is in the $2-3/watt range. SolarGuy – any advice or websites to suggest?
———————–
Oh yeah, dale – BP, as in British-Oil-Volcano-in-the-Gulf-Petroleum – that BP.
BP is already marketing (manufacturing?) solar panels in the $3.00/watt range.
So – the major energy companies are likely to always be the major energy companies. And they are likely to be opposed to “to cheap to meter.”
The Wizard Whose Crystal Ball Is Always Wrong.
————————————-
Yes, Jim is an excellent architectural critic, who fortunately is in way over his head when he tries to apply the same mental horsepower to economics and larger social issues. Fun reading however!
Hey what’s going on with the Chevy Volt, beside the fact nobody wants to buy one even with a $7000 govt. subsidy?
Pope Electric, 1900-1915, Hartford, CT
Miles you could drive on one charge: 40 miles.
Reason for demise: tendency to burst into flames.
Chevy Volt, 2010-2011, Detroit, Michigan
Mile you could drive on one charge: 40 miles
Reason for demise: tendency to burst into flames.
Who said history doesn’t repeat itself.
–WSP7
JHK writes:
“Think of what you do in it as a “role,” or a “vocation,” or a “trade,” or a “calling,” or a “way of life,” rather than a “job.” Imagine that life will surely go on, even civilized life, though it will be organized differently.”
That’s a beautiful sentiment and I presume it is directed at those who chose occupations based solely on earning potential. And yet, even on this blog the utilitarians and pragmatists denounce areas of study not deemed practical in today’s current economic climate.
There are many of us who did indeed choose occupations as a “calling” or “way of life”. And while it may be romantic to think of getting paid in bushels of corn in exchange for carving a family farm sign in the new paradigm, the old paradigm will still be nipping at my heels demanding cash. Call it the trauma of transition if you will, but I call it getting fucked coming and going.
Fucked in the upcoming new paradigm for the aforementioned reasons, and aesthetically fucked in the current paradigm because of mass ignorance. Nine times out of ten, a client judges a carving by running their hands over the wood to feel for smoothness. If the hand feels smoothness, and the process of carving obliterated by abrasive sandpaper, the philistines are satisfied in a tactile sense. Never mind looking with eyes at the form itself, it must feel like a formica counter top.
The faceted, masculine magnificence of an Omar Eldarov bust carved in wood, sigh…look at those beautiful tool marks proudly displayed:
http://www.ilovefiguresculpture.com/masters/russian/eldarov/eld3.jpg
The faceted, masculine magnificence of an Omar Eldarov bust carved in wood, sigh…look at those beautiful tool marks proudly displayed:
—————————————
I donno….maybe it helps if you are a carver yourself, to see the beauty in the tool marks. I remember a marble torso of a Roman leader, Marius maybe, that almost came alive it was so real and vibrant. Eldarov’s bust will never do that for me.
Shaka, are you talking about “THE PROTOCOLS OF THE LEARNERD ELDERS OF ZION ?”
I read that stuff back in the 70’s. Way out there even for me.
When it does hit the fan things will become stressful for sure. Like someone mentioned earlier, just think how it will be when the Behavioral’s can’t get their Prozac or Adderal ?
Lock & Load !
And they are likely to be opposed to “to cheap to meter.”
———————————-
The truly revolutionary stuff always comes as a surprise, and it’s also too overwelming to be resisted or covered up.
Several interesting posts, amr – and a nice analysis of the music business and Big Burly Bar Bouncers. (BBBB?)
And as regarding:
“After that experience, I’m convinced that euthanasia is a lot more common than is publicly reported.” -amr-
Yeah, maybe – – I think the Lethal Dose for some of the old line opium derivatives, is closer to the Effective Dose than is true of more modern painkillers.
But then again, Lortab etc. have so much Tylenol in them that death due to liver damage may be waiting in the wings, anyway. Especially if the patient chooses to mix in a little ethanol for psychic pain relief.
And I’ve said it before on here. All my family and all my doctors are on notice from me that if they let me die in pain that can be avoided with drugs – that I will come back and I will haunt them. IOW – if I end my last days under medical care – my every intention is to float out in a fog of “snow,” as you call it.
And if I’m the least bit conscious – I think I’d like to be happy and laughing with visitors about my impending “crossing over.”
Of course, I’ve also told my boys to have me cremated and spend the money that would have gone for a casket on a keg of good beer for a funeral party.
Different strokes/different folks.
Wait! What’s that about bird flu?
I have been torn about the ruling class’ plans for a while.
World War 3? Or a pandemic? Or both?
http://wagelaborer.blogspot.com/2007/10/biological-warfare.html
Remember that even in the industrial slaughter of WW1, it was the flu (then called swine flu) that killed many millions more than the actual war.
In 2001, after the anthrax attacks, everyone at my work (and every other hospital in the US) was approached about whether I would take a smallpox vaccination.
“Smallpox? Smallpox? The disease that was declared eradicated on Earth in 1979? And only the US and the USSR have stores of it? And when Gorbachev proposed to Reagan that they both destroy their stocks, Reagan said NO? If you want to protect me from smallpox, destroy the virus, which is stored in Atlanta!!”
So she looked at me, and said, “I’m marking you down as a no.”
The interesting thing is that half of us said no. No one else had my reasons, but they said no anyway, and the idea was dropped.
Interesting post back to me, Vlad.
But you missed my main point – in my original short post to you.
So – here it is again –
===============
Out of all the possible topics this week-
Why did you lead with a divisive and hateful one, Vlad.
You’re not doing your -self declared- cause a bit of good, by doing this. Are you aware that there might be better approaches.
For a while, they were hyping new pandemics regularly.
Remember the one from China? And the one from Mexico?
http://wagelaborer.blogspot.com/2009/05/when-pigs-fly.html
As I pointed out at the time, they said it was from Mexico, and was composed of a swine and bird flu mixture. But no pigs or birds were sick in Mexico.
And they didn’t close the border.
It’s not just bars, it’s airports, buildings and trains.
Now they can stop people walking on the street and ask for their papers, and arrest them if they don’t have any.
Did you see the guy who was tasered in the library because he didn’t have ID?
Now they want to make you show ID to vote and to go to school.
I agree, and so do most people.
Why live for a couple more weeks in excruciating pain?
It’s true that they used to withhold painkillers from the terminally ill, so that they wouldn’t get “addicted”, and get up off their deathbed and start mugging people, or something.
If I’m dying, give me the damn morphine.
We could have a decent society if we could get past the idea that banker-created money is real wealth, and must be paid for, with interest, by real labor.
==
Banker created or gov mafia created money is a way to create and maintain monopolies. There is no difference between the two. What you want to do is move away from centralized currency and move towards pear-to-pear exchange. This is what made Europe prosperous in the middle ages, before the Vatican (bankers) and the aristocracy (government mafia) killed this pear-to-pear exchange by way of force, statist propaganda, and the corporations.
I highly recommend Douglas Rushkoff’s books, particularly Life Inc., as a good introduction to this subject.
What if you don’t have any pears?
Also, I wouldn’t want to buy a new Lexus with pears. Presumably I’d need a couple dump trucks full.
You may want to read “Science is Arbitrary”, “The Myth of Science” and “Instant Singularity – part 3” under the Natural Sciences forum of ilovephilosophy (you may google it) if you like science fiction philosophy.
TOBOR THE EIGHT MAN
Cold fusion has already been done, i.e. for short periods and releasing a relatively small amount of energy. The trick is to get more energy out than gets put in and to make the whole contraption sustain the reaction. In terms of complication, these things make nuclear power plants seem simple. The ones I’ve read about use multiple neutron beams fired into a plasma that is contained in a super powerful magnetic field. The plasma can’t be allowed to touch anything, being that is it in the solar temperature range. The differential between the hot and cold parts of the plasma is used to drive the power output. One of the (many) problems is containing this chaotic plasma, which is prone to strange non-linear effects, inside a B-field without letting it touch and vaporize the surrounding vessel.
Or some such. Really, I think it will never work.
I like the idea of an economic “reset” but how do ya get the powers that be to go along with that? The banksters just cannot steal enough money. Too much is just not enough for them. Maybe billionaires like the Koch Brothers will continue to sink their money into candidates like Herman Cain, the serial harasser, who now has a girlfriend come forward to discuss their 13 yr. long affair. Apparently the Koch Brothers don’t vet their Tea Party candidates at all. How many millions did they sink into that smuck? Apparently for billionaires, they aren’t actually that smart after all. I can only hope their own greed and stupidity will do them in.
Yeah, the secret, mysterious cold fusion test in which the reactor was still connected to an external power supply was carried out at the University of Bologna. LOL. You can’t make this stuff up!
Great link, Ozone.
So many people are carefully documenting the advent of totalitarianism in the US. There goes the Bill of Rights, there goes habeus corpus, there goes the bans on torture, murder and assassination.
Tomorrow the Senate is voting to allow the military to arrest anyone anywhere on the planet (or as our ruling elite call it – the battlefield) and throw them in prison forever, without charges or trials, based on secret “evidence”, that can’t be challenged.
“Science is Arbitrary”
You’re a bozo.
Hehehe
Where you going all dressed up with a new Lexus? Why do you feel you need a new Lexus to go shopping for pears? If you don’t have any pears, get some bananas! 😀
Wage, would you please pass the mashed potatoes and the IV drip.
They won’t go along with it. It just has to be done. FDR refused to submit to the economic royalists. He ridiculed them for wanting more credit after the massive failure of credit.
Our leaders give them more credit.
Some have pointed out that even Reagan sent over one thousand banksters to prison.
Not Obama. He wants to look forward, not backward.
If a woman can get 3 years for fraud, netting her $4,000, the banksters should get multiple life sentences.
http://4closurefraud.org/2011/11/18/matt-taibbi-woman-gets-jail-for-food-stamp-fraud-wall-street-fraudsters-get-bailouts/
Hi Turk, if COLD fusion requires a plasma heated to solar temperatures what would HOT fusion be like? Just askin’ ;o)
the sun…?
That Americans’ Thanksgiving weekend consumption of billions of dollars of Asian manufactured, petroleum based junk is considered a “good news” story says it all. Bend over.
Pat Condell: The gathering storm
– http://goo.gl/7Sd2R
What about “public health” – a real concept despite its many abuses. Have vaccines ever been mandatory? I know they have been and are for many jobs. A significant number of parents are now declining to get their children vaccinated. Does this put the public in danger? Or just them?
ID’s should be required to vote. We wouldn’t want any illegals voting now would we?
The nature of the material comes into consideration. Marble is ideal for high finish/polish; wood, not as much, especially on a bust. This is due to the grain patterns becoming more prominent the more it is sanded, which detracts from the face/features itself. Location is an issue, too. Pieces a long distance from the viewer should be carved exceedingly rough. Paradoxically, this results in a very soft finished appearance from a distance. Traditionally, many master carvers asserted that walnut, oak, cherry and many other hardwoods should never be sanded. But this doesn’t mean one can’t achieve a very smooth, polished surface with just hand chisels; it just takes a lot of skill and extremely sharp, high quality tools. And Gothic ecclesiastical carving in oak is never sanded, ever. The finish is straight off he chisel and the resultant facets shimmer like diamonds in the cathedral light.
Contrast comes into play as well. Rodin would juxtapose a rough, unfinished area against smooth, polished surface. Nicholai Fechin did the same with his small wood carvings. The effect is extraordinarily beautiful. But it is done with a purpose and not for the sake of a Greta Van Susteren or Wayne Newton facelift equivalent.
Gerald Celente on Alex Jones’ Infowars
– http://youtu.be/ZTs8Rqiwqzo
Fascism: judges are in cahoots with the crooks
Why is “hate” bad Prog? It’s natural to hate criminals, traitors, or ignornance, stupidity, and want. Why have you let yourself be turned into a eunuch by the media? Learn to hate again – and rediscover your zest for life and love.
Real Love is beyond the pairs of opposites such as love/hate. It is equally beyond both. If you would find it, learn to love and hate the right things, in the right way, at the right time, and in the right proportion. Too much hate is bad for meditation so one cultives indifference to the evil ones.
As Confucius said, if you love the evil, how do you treat the good? Rather treat the evil with justice.
As for your “concept” (programming) of “divisivness” – there are no words. All real life is divisive. If you are good at something, you will be envied. If you are the best, hated. If you a Good (in the real sense) you will be persecuted by the good/bad people. Of course, you could hire a Public Relations Agency to make your message smooth – and meaningless. The Masses need to be told what’s good for them. Worry about where you stand on the divides. Are you a sheep or goat? Or a Shepherd? Or a Goatherd?
Keep reading my words. You are growing. You shall be the Plato to my Socrates. Btw, I know that you are ahead of me in other areas – such as math, science, family life, etc. I am not incapable of humility. I am in fact the most humble.
Oh but they are. The Norwegains have had to hire 1500 more police to combat the rape epidemic. They admit the Muslims are to blame but nothing must change. The dispossesion of Whites IS the sacred work. In Sweden, it’s a crime to state the obvious, that Muslims are the cause of the Rape/Assault epidemic. But after a lifetime of watching the BBC, you are comfortable with all manner of Stalinsit lies and tricks, aren’t you? You are incapable of Truth.
Wait till your alone. Go into the closet. Close the door. Turn off the light. Now whisper softly, “It’s the Jews”. Yes, the old men before Vatican Two were right: they’re trying to wreck our civilization. This is all exactly why they never given a free hand. Look what they’ve done to Banking too.
I like busts that are like unto marble. But simultaneously as soft as heaven to the touch.
Teddy Bears smell blue, do they not?
“I am in fact the most humble.”
Good work with the irony there, Vladdy. *golf clap*
Try it out, don’t give up, open your skull and stick stuff in it, it works, do it fast and be crazy.
TOBOR THE EIGHTH MAN
Thoughtful article on the Titanic disaster – with statistics showing the great disproportinate loss of life among men and what this means for us now.
http://www.everyman.ca/2011/04/28/has-time-changed-the-meaning-of-self-sacrifice/
One can get the clap from playing golf? I didn’t know! I do know that a girl can get “preggers” (for Alex) if she sees a man’s ankles. Monty Python said as much.
JHK said:
Excellent lead in, JHK! Becoming comfortable with uncertainty is our task. You nailed it!
There are so many things to feel uncertain about as we (the USA) go tumbling headlong into energy descent in a world where China is challenging us (surpassing us in infrastructure investment).
I am wondering if China might not be looking to invest directly in the USA for projects related to things like energy, water, transport, digital communications and waste disposal, since China already holds over a TRILLION dollars of our debt and the Chinese probably don’t like the looks of our paper as our creditworthiness fails. Why not go for asset ownership instead of buying our bonds?
We benefit, too, since our Congress is not willing to spend our own money on infrastructure development. They just want to cut spending.
China has over $3 TRILLION in foreign reserves. They might as well put the money to work here in the USA.
That idea might take your breath away. But becoming comfortable with uncertainty, with not knowing how many breaths we have left. That is indeed a worthy project.
Thanks, JHK!
Hey Vlad, Question, out there in Idaho is anybody doing any prospecting anymore, I mean simple placer mining in streams with a pan or maybe a small sluice? I don’t mean mines with heavy equipment and explosives. I mean the guy with a pickup truck with a pickaxe in the back.
–WSP7
Yesterday I joined a group of people shouting in unison, entered the side door of the state capitol building, forcing our way into a wall-to-wall hallway of marble. We filled a corridor 100 feet long with about as many people. At the end, locked doors with State troopers blocked the legislative assembly. Legislators and other lawyer-cunt types made their way through the hallway to a meeting room on one side of the hallway, to a set of double doors with no doorknobs. Upon knocking, the doors were opened by state patrol officers. Inside, a group of lawyer-cunt looking suits sat staring at the doorway, illuminated in the glow of a Powerpoint presentation. Seizing the moment, several of us attempted to force our way into the room.
Protesters are of average height and build; State Patrol officers are far above median height and weight, at least on this duty. The officers lunged forward using a blocking shove anyone familiar with the techniques of a defensive line in American football would recognize, flinging the interlopers back into the crowd, which began began chanting louder and louder. Hands grabbed at the door as they attempted to close it, and people began banging on the walls. The kids flung off by the officers had huge grins plastered on their faces. We began chanting at a deafening volume and began banging on the door. The crowd had filled this blind-end hallway and, having stopped, was almost paralyzed in fear and adrenaline. People looked about from face to face looking for something- direction or indication- to fight or flight, the urgency of emotion making staying in place difficult. The feeling was akin to what one might imagine having when one has entered a bear’s den without knowing when it would return.
The psychological effect of being in an enclosed space with the threat of pepper spray, arrest, confrontation, and hundreds of voices shouting in unison was disorienting. Photographers were trying to figure out who to photograph, who to interview, and sheepish looking suits with forced smiles made their way past a crowd who ignored them, as cops stared across the sea of heads and fists with a studious expression of feigned disinterest.
How was your Monday?
Hardtalk is just one of many excellent programs where people actually discuss things intelligently. I gave up on almost AL media except for BBC. Radio Australia is good too. Ever look at a Google “news” page lately? All the headlines are trying to titilate and grab your attention. I remember one day it was all about a “nip slip” of Nancy Grace on some dancing show. WTF?
And that Hardtalk guy is relentless. He confronts the interviewee and cut through obfuscation disembling.
That said, I like watching Rifleman and Police Story on the RTV and the MeTV broadcast sub-channels…not all US TV was/is bad.
BustinJ;
What’s the point?
–WSP7
China Inc wants to own US Infrastructure:
China’s sovereign wealth fund ‘keen’ to invest in West’s infrastructure …
http://www.newser.com/…/chinas-sovereign-wealth-fund-keen-to-invest-in-...
1 day ago – China’s sovereign wealth fund wants to invest in improving neglected U.S. and European roads and other infrastructure to spur global growth, the … Markets still buoyed by hopes Europe will come up with euro rescue plan …
China ‘keen’ to invest in West’s infrastructure
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/11/27/…DTL
16 hours ago – China’s sovereign wealth fund wants to invest
Ozone said:
Instructive post, E.
These indicators are part of the reason I believe the LE to be truly in “second gear” with the RPMs climbing. As JHK implies, there really isn’t any going back to the style to which we’ve become [too comfortably] accustomed.
************************************************************
Firstly, thanks for the kudos. I think we’re actually IN a “Greater Depression”. Thanks to ALEXANDRA for the Steve Keen interview on BBC News about that very subject. Keen says that they didn’t even label the 1930s Depression as being such until 1939. You only know how bad things are when they are over and then you can see the carnage because hindsight is always 20-20.
What makes this economic mess just a little bit different are the gyrations of the world’s central bankers to paper it over or, as we say, “kick the can down the road”. However, the WAY in which they’re papering it over is almost identical … i.e., more loans, more debt, socializing losses. This solution is like trying to “cure” a junkie by giving him a syringe of heroin.
Keen’s solution is radical: 1) Declaring insolvent banks to be insolvent, 2) Temporarily taking them into receivership, and 3) Writing off bad debts through debt forgiveness. He says #3 will never happen but it’s the only way to hit the “reset” button. He says that doing #3 can be done in a way which does NOT punish savers but I didn’t quite get how that happens. I’ll have to view the video again.
E.
Oh … an addendum to my previous post about something Keen said which is obvious yet not repeated very much by “pundits” i.e., You cannot have a healthy economy unless debt is taken on to engage in INVESTMENT in plants and equipment. Most of the G-8 debt has been taken on to SPECULATE e.g., buying a house during the housing bubble to speculate on further prices increases.
Keen said nothing about high tech but it’s my opinion that 99% of the considerable brainpower being soaked up by companies like GroupON, Zynga, Shopkick, etc. in the Valley produce “products” with a true human utility close to zero.
The USA, even after the 1990s, is actually INCREASING its investment in BOONDOGGLES while the utility grids, urban plumbing, and the rail system fall even deeper into decrepitude.
What happened to American common sense … which was the sort of thing that put paid to “European superiority”. Now, it’s hard to tell which side of the big pond is operating under the greater set of delusions.
E.
Or some such. Really, I think it will never work.
——————————————-
Maybe, maybe not…..I’m not qualified to say, and I seriously doubt anyone else here is either.
That being said, one thing I am an expert on is being surprised. Once you have been surprised enough times, you become humble regarding what is possible and what is not. I predict with near certainty that you will experience this effect as well…..if you live long enough.
Alexandra … in case you didn’t see my post a few posts above … thanks for the Steve Keen video on YouTube. It was excellent. What I like about the guy is that he’s NOT a “firebrand”. He’s a calm, sublimely rational guy who doesn’t raise his voice or do anything “theatrical”. Also, he cites historical precedent to back the truth of his suggestions.
But, above all, I think he is absolutely right i.e., that we have been in a depression for years and will only know that it is so when it’s nearly over. If I were to add anything to what he said, I said it in my post immediately above about TECH … so many people making so many products with ZERO human utility. Yet this “production” adds to GDP.
So my theory is that if you strip away the fluff businesses from the GDP you’re mired in a very deep and sustained downturn. The GDP, like so many statistics, has been so jury-rigged that it is almost meaningless.
E.
“Science is Arbitrary”
You’re a bozo.
——————————
You just can’t mess with Turkle’s religion, can you?
out there in Idaho is anybody doing any prospecting anymore
———————————-
out after a rain, you’ll see more panners than fisherman.
“I like busts that are like unto marble. But simultaneously as soft as heaven to the touch.
Teddy Bears smell blue, do they not?”
OKEY….. Looks like Vlad is off his meds again, or self medicating.
But this is better than his usual racist crap.
🙂
Couple of things: Big Bad Bouncers – perhaps they are there BECAUSE of the gangsta clientele. I know someone who works bars. They don’t have bouncers unless they are really, really needed. Think about it, in some of those places the clientele would probably start shooting each other unless frisked for guns on the way in. I think those BBB’s are there for a reason.
TWO: Anybody watching whats going on with Syria & Iran? Wonder just how quick this is going to go down? Are the Neocons dreaming of a White Phosphorus Xmass?
:O
I don’t know what is going to happen with Syria and Iran. But I do know the bellicose Israeli-Palestinian nonsense in the Middle East is eventually going to have to end. Global warming will eventually produce a sea level rise that will cause the loss of a sixth to a third of the world’s land mass (and Tel Aviv is only 20 meters above sea level.) All the political bickering over patriotic attachment to that land, and the myths and tribalism related to that land, will have to end, because that land is going to be underwater.
“The only statement I care to make about the Protocols is that they fit in with what is going on. They are sixteen years old, and they have fitted the world situation up to this time. They fit it now.” –Henry Ford, 2-17-1921
“The same could be said for the Book of Revelation.” –Me, now (only this book is 2000 years old)
Hey Bean
WAKE UP. Nukes have been used in spacecraft since the 1960’s. Check things out before you get verbal diarhhrea ok. Seriously this info is out there easily acessible, just look. And yes, accidents have occurred before with spacecraft being launched unsuccessfully or unintentionally falling back into orbit. The most notable was in 1964 when a US sattelite re-entered orbit and broke up spreading PU- 238 globally leading to a “mysterious” spike in lung cancer. Whatever, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, so go back to sleep and quit bothering me.
Hey, Asoka!
Here is a video showing Tel Aviv going under water.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7KlafzNxt4
Al Gore was right.
Vote Jill Stein 2012 for President.
http://www.jillstein.org/look_out_golden_state_here_comes_green_party_presidential_candidate_jill_stein
It is our chance to reverse global warming.
Hansen and Sato 2011, in press
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/ha05510d.html
Hansen, J.E., and Mki. Sato, 2011: Paleoclimate implications for human-made climate change. In Climate Change: Inferences from Paleoclimate and Regional Aspects. A. Berger, F. Mesinger, and D. Šija?i, Eds. Springer, in press.
Paleoclimate data help us assess climate sensitivity and potential human-made climate effects. We conclude that Earth in the warmest interglacial periods of the past million years was less than 1°C warmer than in the Holocene. Polar warmth in these interglacials and in the Pliocene does not imply that a substantial cushion remains between today’s climate and dangerous warming, but rather that Earth is poised to experience strong amplifying polar feedbacks in response to moderate global warming. Thus goals to limit human-made warming to 2°C are not sufficient — they are prescriptions for disaster. Ice sheet disintegration is nonlinear, spurred by amplifying feedbacks. We suggest that ice sheet mass loss, if warming continues unabated, will be characterized better by a doubling time for mass loss rate than by a linear trend. Satellite gravity data, though too brief to be conclusive, are consistent with a doubling time of 10 years or less, implying the possibility of multi-meter sea level rise this century. Observed accelerating ice sheet mass loss supports our conclusion that Earth’s temperature now exceeds the mean Holocene value. Rapid reduction of fossil fuel emissions is required for humanity to succeed in preserving a planet resembling the one on which civilization developed.
“Why is “hate” bad” -vlad-
Whoa, there big fellow. I was simply making an observation that you are damaging the cause of White Nationalism by vectoring in on “hate” and “divisiveness” at the beginning of every single CFN week, as you tend to do.
But you went all Karmic Golden Buddha* on me – so I will try to reply in kind.
*great restaurant, BTW, I used to know the owners.
http://www.goldenbuddhaga.com/gh/main.aspx
But, proceeding on –
“Real Love is beyond the pairs of opposites such as love/hate. It is equally beyond both. If you would find it, learn to love and hate the right things, in the right way, at the right time, and in the right proportion.” -vlad-
All certainly true, Vlad. But – – what if now is the wrong time for hate? And what if you’re hating the wrong things in the right way?
Or what if you’re hating the write things in the wrong way?
==================
Seriously, vlad – I had plenty of experience with hate, growing up in the South during the hot days of desegregation. (my boots were on the ground, you might say) I’m sure I could teach you a thing or two about visceral hate, Mr. Plato.
I’ve lived it – and it doesn’t end well.
And that hate – of whites for blacks – is a recent historical factor. So, when you couple that to the fact that Whites in the US still control most of the valuable assets, and by a huge margin.
It might lead you conclude that always making yourself and your movement visible purveyors of “White Hate” – just might be – nearly 100 % – counterproductive to the genuine long-term good of the “White Race.”
Or not.
*this post is on a serious subject, but written with an attempt at humor.
=====================
Oh yeah, BTW – was this for me?
“Teddy Bears smell blue, do they not?” -vlad-
– if that’s a message, I reply –
“The whitest skin is dark in the driven snow.”
-p2c-
So, alrighty then, Vlad – we’ve apparently authenticated each other using the prearranged code. Now, do you remember how to do the secret handshake?
Asoka, you are busted! You love play the gadfly and to tell CFN about new seemingly large discoveries of oil, as if they are the solution to our crisis.
J’accuse, Asoka! In the past on CFN you have pointed to the Tupi field off Brazil which is purported to have 8 billion barrels of oil in it. And, you have pointed to discoveries in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico thought to contain between 3 and 15 billion barrels. And, you have pointed to the 4 billion barrels in the Bakken Shale in North Dakota. It all sounds like a lot.
Asoka, how long do you think a billion barrels of oil will last the world at current rates of consumption? Wait for it … The correct answer is 12 days. Just multiply these multi-billion-barrel discoveries by 12, and you’ll realize right away that they are a techno-miracle answer to our disappearing oil supplies. Whether you like it or not Asoka, peak oil is really here.
Since you seem mathematics (and physics) challenged, I’ll do the arithmetic for you Asoka — assuming the numbers are correct about the discoveries that is 27 billion barrels. You mutiply that by 12 and you see it represents 324 days of world oil consumption. Since the numbers are probably all high, it’s probably more like a six month supply.
That means TSHTF this year, Asoka, so stop being such a Pollyanna and such an idiot… we are in deep shit, Asoka. You make fun of CFN scientists, but they know the truth behind the CFN mantra. We are so fucked.
CORRECTION
Damn it, Asoka. Get it right!
Just multiply these multi-billion-barrel discoveries by 12, and you’ll realize right away that they are NOT a techno-miracle answer to our disappearing oil supplies.
Asoka, before you come back with some bullshit economic “free market” explanation to try to explain away peak oil, let me explain one more thing to you that you won’t hear from the politicians or from CNBC: At $90 a barrel we have seen at best anemic economic growth. Any thing above $90 will result in stagnation or negative growth. Since there will never be a return to low oil prices during periods of sustained economic growth, the chance of there ever being sustained economic growth is approaching zero. You won’t hear this from the politicians … not because it’s not true, but it’s not what the voters want to hear. Some of the politicians are in denial, but many know what we face. The smarter ones also know there is little we can do about it. So, all we get from the politicians are attempts to blame the other tribe. I repeat: WE ARE SO FUCKED!
The point is don’t exaggerate to the extreme. No way did the probe lift off with many tons of plutonium, a significant fraction of the militant US’s supply, and for what, a probe to Mars? Maybe to defend itself against any hostile intent by martians? Logic indicates this couldn’t be true.
I may have been harsh with you, but one of my pet peeves is someone sending a wrong message about my favorite topic, space exploration.
“WE ARE SO FUCKED!”
LOL, Soker, you are sooo off the deep end, arguing with yourself sarcastically (ironically?)! I’d suggest a sock-puppet next time. And, I had to giggle a lil’ bit inside, from this one of yours. Good thing your cardboard boxes full of master-debate material have supporting data from each side…
Raygl00 bleated:
“What the hell will people do for pain relief? (i mean strong pain relief for severe pain and cancer) without the oil intensive pharm industry?
Presumably we would need to grow opium”
There were plenty of Asians out here growing poppies, in the WA/OR northwest – so many, that they were getting arrested hand over foot about 5 years ago. So, you don’t need the Afghan/Pakistan (Taliban-less) desert to get this crop to grow.
Yet, I’d recommend marijuana (if you can actually get seeds now – LOL, ain’t it all cloned GMO seedless crap now?). This crop is a weed – it needs little to no fertilizer, pesticide, or herbicide. It will literally grow out of concrete without water. Just kill off all the male plants, and stress the female plants hardcore (12 hour flowering cycle for 6-9+ months) until they fertilize themselves (hermaphrodite).
Great crop – excellent for rope and paper, and the greens are awesome for vita-rich salads. The seeds are an awesome source of nutrients, protein and beneficial vegetable oil (Ooo! Ethanol anyone?). What can’t be used for paper/rope/salad/seed(/fuel/*smoke*), can be composted (LOL – I’m not seeing any leftovers).
Agreed. These threads are fun until the Jew haters and other assorted nutbags descend on them. By Monday evening they’re usually no longer worth it.
And, I had to giggle a lil’ bit inside, from this one of yours.
====================
We have six months of oil left before TSHTF … and you are giggling? This is serious, man. There is probably nothing more serious than peak oil (except maybe illegal immigrants entering the USA). The lights are about to go out, my friend. No more internet. No more 3,000 mile salads. No more food on grocery store shelves as truckers park their trucks for good. No more heat in winter or air-conditioning in summer. People are going to be dying like flies. It is really nothing to giggle about. And it is on schedule for 2012. How the Mayans did it, I don’t know … but 2012 is the year of the Apocalypse, the year our lives change forever, the year the planetary mass extinction event begins. We are so fucked.
Further info on the Mars probe: It contains 10 pounds of plutonium, not “many tons”. However, on further thought, there is some health hazard, as we all know plutonium is very deadly. NASA estimates there’s a 1 in 420 chance of a possible release in the event of an accident. That is a very small risk, with very limited exposure.
and that’s if an accident occurs.
In a poem Seng-ts’an writes: “Do not seek the truth; only cease to cherish opinions.”
http://www.beyond-karma.com/awakening/rely-on-direct-experience-only-cease-to-cherish-opinion/
Lol. Sarcasm can be funny.
It is the return of eigthm (I think), so, yes, dale, he is a bozo.
That said, how in hell could science be my religion? The two are diametrically opposed philosophies. Makes no sense. That’s like saying that a banana is my steak dinner. They don’t provide the same things.
One posits proof of theories by repeatable experiment, and the other asserts that we can known the truth through blind faith and ancient hogwash printed in sacrosanct holy books. They couldn’t be any different, really.
Religion actually has (the wrong) answers to questions like…
What is the meaning of life?
Where do we go when we die?
Science, not so much on the first one, and no comforting answer on the second. (When you die, you’re dead, like the ant you just stepped on.)
Shit, do we need to have this lame discussion every week about how religion is completely bogus crap and science is the only effective way the human race has found of arriving at the truth? 😉
Then what’s left is the truth.
We wouldn’t have to … if we defined our terms. I have tried to do this in the past, pointing out there are seven different definitions of the word “religion” (chapter 5 of Wilber’s Sociable God on the sociology of religion.
In one sense science and religion are nothing alike. In another sense they have commonalities. In a third sense, blah, blah, blah.
I think what people are pointing out about you, Turkle, is that your relationship to science, your rabid defense of science, blah, blah, blah, is similar to the attachment some have to a particular set of religious beliefs. The attachment to the phenomenon is the same, even though the phenomena may differ completely.
Yes, asoka, and your posts and mine are the same in that they both use the ASCII character set and appear on kunstler.com. 🙂
See, there begins the problem. You are making an assumption.
You think that because you are using ASCII that I am using ASCII.
I am using UTF-8. So, I can type words like güey with the umlaut over the u.
But you are displaying another religious characteristic besides prejudging character sets: close-mindedness.
🙂
The findings of science and “a particular set of religious beliefs” are not even close to equivalent. The first is based upon evidence/observation whereas the second is arbitrary. You probably can’t even get two religious types belonging to the same sect to agree on the specifics, because everyone has their own interpretation and takes/leaves whatever they want from the holy books, like a big religious buffet. (I’ll have Jesus is the Son of God but not going to eat the 7000 year-old earth.) Whereas the boiling point of water here on planet earth at a particular pressure is something that can’t be disputed, even if the Bible gives a different figure for it.
The scientific method helps people arrive at an approximation of reality through careful experiment and instigation. That’s really what science is: a method, not a belief system in and of itself. Scientific theories derived from experiment can then be used to make actual predictions that turn out to be correct and to provide technology like the computer you are using right now. People “believe” science (and I even hesitate to use that mostly religious term) because it works, not because they think it is the end-all, be-all truth handed down from God. And theories are always provisional, as in “This is the best we can do right now.” When better theories arrive that better explain the data, the old ones are set aside. The age of the universe changed recently, due to new data from the Hubble telescope. You think the “theory” of the 7000 year old earth is going to be revised anytime soon by the Bible thumpers?
On the other hand, religious people start by declaring that they know the truth, a priori, and then interpret the world from that standpoint, i.e. you are wrong because they sez so, not because they actually have any evidence to disprove your position. Nifty, eh? A real surefire way to win an argument or at last frustrate your opponent. I’m right, you’re wrong. God sez so. The end. No this is not up for revision when better data arrives!
The two systems are diametrically opposed and, really, cannot be reconciled.
So I don’t understand how it makes any sense at all to say that me defending a well-established scientific theory like evolution, backed by voluminous evidence, or the scientific method itself, is at all equivalent to arguing that Jesus is the Son of God because the priest says so, except that I am arguing for/against some position. That’s a purely trivial likeness, in the same sense that bananas and steak are both foods, or that me and Vlad are both making posts here on kunstler.com.
And I dunno why I’m even replying to you, either, cuz you’re one of the atheists anyways! 🙂
Hahahaha, yeah, you know I’m probably using UTF-8, too, asoka. My bad. (But you get my point, don’t you?)
See there, I just changed my position as new information came to light. That’s science.
asoka,
Do you really think open mindedness is always a virtue? I’m far more enamored of skepticism and critical thinking. You know, I like to be careful about what goes into my noggin.
Or let’s put it this way, as an analogy. Are you open-minded about Vlad’s ideas on race? Or prog’s ideas about immigration?
That’s kinda how I feel about being “open-minded” on religious topics. I’m not willing to open my mind just so that someone can shovel a big load of shit in there. 😉
Turkle, I’ve had a long day and really don’t want to get into this tonight. I will just repeat that you are using the word “religion” in the sense of received truth, or doctrine, or dogma, or belief (something in the mind). If I were using religion in that sense, I would agree with you completely: it is hogwash, it the a way to control the masses, it is pie-in-the-sky to provide answers to questions people have no answers for. I am an atheist, you are correct in asserting I am an atheist.
But there is another sense which is more along the lines of spiritual exploration based 100% on pure observation. And it involves 1) instrumental injunction, 2) data collection, and 3) communal confirmation. There is no conflict whatsoever with the scientific method. I know I cannot convince you of this… especially not in two paragraphs. And I am too tired to continue writing. Hasta mañana.
“like electronic versions of the defunct old S&H “green stamps”.”
OMFG, my parents (MOM mainly) had books full of those stamps, back in the late 60’s/early 70’s – and even then they were almost completely worthless.
Groupon, indeed. FacePlant is going public – w00t!!! It’s like the internet bubble of ’99 all over again. ‘Cept, it’s really the tuition bubble, that can’t be reset by bankruptcy now (thx DUMBYA ~2005!)
As to WageLaborer’s son flunking out first semester at U of I Champaign/Urbana – WTF!!! He actually got hired after that? I remember going there (2nd in the nation at that time for EE, circa ’85) and dealing with all the “weeder” courses freshman/sophomore year. They were huge auditorium classes (60-300 students a class), in chemistry, physics and math. I made it a point to be in the top 1-3 students for each (my best was 2nd out of 300 in chemistry). I had already taken calculus 1/2/3 in high school (at ISU), and earned a 5/5 on the AP math placement exam (so first college math course was differential equations, which I ended up 1st in a class of 40 juniors).
I can understand a dropout that does mediocre the first couple semesters, them bombs when the degree-centrist courses eat them alive. But, WTF – I still can’t understand bombing out the very first semester…
“I like busts that are like unto marble. But simultaneously as soft as heaven to the touch.
Teddy Bears smell blue, do they not?”
OKEY….. Looks like Vlad is off his meds again, or self medicating.
———————
Perhaps you haven’t known Vlad as long as some of us on this site, so please allow me to visually translate what Vlad was referring to:
http://images.artnet.com/images_US/magazine/features/cone/cone7-31-4.jpg
Not quite what I was talkinga about. But that is a fine image of me.
Let us add to that:
“Really?”
“Seriously”
“Right, right” (Even the MD says that!)
“You know what I mean?” –a minor variation on “you know what I am saying?”
“That being said..”
You must love your people with a savage love. And you must hate your enemies with a savage hate. Two four letter words – get them tatooed on your knuckles and become a preacher. They are the Law of Amity and Enmity – the way of Life. If we walk that road, we will live. If we continue to walk the road of loving our enemies and hating ourselves, we will die.
Political Correctness is not a philosophy of peace any more than Islam is. It just changes who the Enemy is. It is the philosophy of a traitor. That is has become the curriculum in our schools and goverment just shows that we are not long for this world. Hopefully some of us healthy ones will survive what is coming and will be able to get something going again.
Of course. PC is Whites (like Alexandria) and Jews hating and oppressing other Whites. Blacks are just the tool, the weapon. Do I really have to harp on it Prog? I do talk about it a bit since alot of the Liberals here don’t get it and really believe that Blacks are divine or something. Making them believe so has been the greatest victory of the Enemy.
Now the Titanic Titania!
Many say we might want to visit the definition of wealth.
The US has, and will always have unlimited wealth and natural resources. These
treasures have not vanished in the ether. The land, cities, and the blood,
sweat and tears of generations remain. Our nation has not diminished one iota …
the only thing morphed is the corporate entity which controls this innate
wealth.
The thousands of new (and unoccupied homes) in California
and Nevada haven’t been moved to a Steven King alternate universe, they are
still with us; in all their abundance.
No, the only thing to be resolved is he who controls these
tangible resources…our nation’s real wealth. So…many say it may be time to
separate the sharks from the minnows, i.e., the Banks and their lackeys, the
U.S. Congress. Some say it is time to take back our nation.
January 1st, everybody should move to The Mall; The heart and soul of the nation. The nexus of American political identity – the sacred place where history has been made – and will be made.If we Americans stand silent, then the bad guys win – the sharks will win…along with the loss of your children’s futures.
According to the WSj, IBD, Financial Times, and the talking heads on CNBC, brace yourself for this was going to be the week of nemesis for the Euro, Europe, and the entire banking system of the western world. So yesterday we called my wife’s relatives in the north of Spain, brought up the subject of economic collapse. They didn’t know what the hell I was talking about. They asked me if we were all nuts here in he USA. When I called they were all about to go out for drinks at a bar owned by another relative. No worries whatsoever.
Anybody else here getting tired of the paradigm, whereas every other week we are told by the Government, via Big Media, that we were right on the brink of total economic collapse, or a devastating terrorist attack, or a catastrophic bank meltdown, but they, the Federal Reserve, the Justice Dept., the US Treasury, whoever, saved us just in the nick of time? Whoo, it was a close one!! Lucky for you we were on top of it!
How prescient was George Orwell’s 1984.
Now it is 1984
‘Knock, knock
On your front door
Its the secret hate crime police
they have come for your uncool niece
Something she thought last week in the park
walking home from work in the dark …
(more later)
–WSP7
“You must love your people with a savage love. And you must hate your enemies with a savage hate.”
-vlad k-
That first part is easy, vk, and does not generally lead to trouble. Certainly, one should love his immediate family – and it is possible that the Gods bless those who love savagely.
But, even the most savage of loves, spreads out into the family of brothers, cousins, nephews, inlaws, and finally outlaws. And savage love finally becomes indistinct – and then becomes undetectable.
(Analogy for you space and science lovers – Love at the far edge of your family vanishes, in much the same way that Earth’s atmosphere finally vanishes into the solar wind.)
Ah, but hate, Vlad – savage hate never vanishes. Rather, it finds a target, and the target returns hate for hate – and this attracts other hate from other places.
=======================
Vlad – you guys in the White Separatist movement are going to have to find a way to retain the beauty of savage love. I wish you every success in this, and it is a goal for me as well – as a Brother White Man, and as a fellow human being.
But you’re going to have to lose the savage hate. Because visible, divisive hate is gnawing the White Separatist movement from the inside – while allowing other implacable forces a wedge – to attack from the outside.
We see this happen every week – in a tiny microcosm – on the CFN discussion thread.
Shit, do we need to have this lame discussion every week about how religion is completely bogus crap and science is the only effective way the human race has found of arriving at the truth? 😉
————————————
Guess so……
The problem with, science, is the same problem “truth” has in politics and religion. PEOPLE ARE INVOLVED!
People determine the truth, more often then not, by an emotional reaction, not deductive logic. (listen closely here, it took me decades to figure that one out!) Anyone reading this blog for long should know that by now.
Unfortunately, that sad fact is often true of scientists as well, they tweak the data (or shit can the data that doesn’t fit) until they get the answer they are looking for. Sorry, that’s just the way people are!
Mostly, science works…..that’s right mostly. When it is at its worst it violates its own rules, and demands impunity for it. On those occasions (which happen more frequently than you imagine) science becomes no better than Galileo’s prosecutors, defining itself as the owners of the truth (they are the “church”) and insisting that anything that they don’t “own” (or can’t access) doesn’t exist.
Turkle, you also should note that you SOUND like a religious person when you talk about science. You express a kind of absolute faith, and proudly proclaim your intolerance for anything else.
Shout that shit in the mirror of your mind some time and see what you hear. It’s no different, you see?, intolerance in science breeds the same result that one gets with intolerance in religion……bias and distortion.
Science is totally Arbitrary as expressed in http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=176423 and Norway has 300 billion dollars in sovereign funds, they should lend all that money to Southern Europe, they shouldn’t be hogs. Give the money out free, it is free anways, the System creates free wealth and free lunches all the time.
While I generally agree with you on your view of science vs. religion, I am sometimes glad for some of the codes of conduct that religions gave us. If some ignorant person thinks the earth is 7k years old it is ok with me as long as he knows it is not alright to kill, steal. covet, lie etc. Science did not give us a code to modify the behavior of those who would otherwise be savage. It doesn’t work perfectly, but nothing does.
You may also want to check out http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=176611 The Myth of Science under the Natural Sciences forum of ilvphilosphy. Also, the USA has the best infrastructure worldwide, way better than most nations if measured in wide roads, large spaces, malls, homes (built cheaply though) etc. So why should the Chinese build the USA infrastructure ? They should just hire millions of Americans to do nothing at all and watch TV all day long, but give them a salary so they can consume the crap they build in all of those factories in China.
I am Tobor the 8 Man , and I am telling you to open your skull and through stuff in it. change how your brain works. How does the world look if your brain is an Atomic bomb that is exploding ? That is what I mean as in http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=172275 you get the drift, please billions of people open your skulls tear it all apart and do wild experiments, put car engines in brains, step on the gas, put skyscrapers in giant brains…
BTW Turkle, there is a standard used in science, which you violated a couple of times in your statements yesterday; “the absence of evidence, is not the evidence of absence”
“Science did not give us a code to modify the behavior of those who would otherwise be savage.”
-bossier, to turkle-
Well said, boss. I’m sure that some of the secular humanist/faith in science/Atheist folks on CFN are reading my exchange with Vlad with something approaching disgust.
“Savage love?” HAH!
Don’t those rubes, p2c and vk, know that love is just a human emotion, like hate, lust, or hunger.
And don’t they know that the g(G)ods bless no one.
====================
Sorry, atheists, you’re not necessarily wrong – but your faith (Faith?) is misplaced.
Secular humanism and faith in science – or whatever we decide to call it – is a product of well fed prosperous thinkers, generally with access to electricity and 24/7 police protection.
Point being – a little bit of stress and hunger will bring out the primitive caveman – in the most enlightened Secular Humanist.
The genes that encode our emotions and drives are NO DIFFERENT from those of our ancestors who lived in the 1860’s, or the 1950’s.
If “science” and Atheism is going to provide guidance to humanity in stressful times – then some public pre-planning needs to be occurring now.
Now it is 1984
‘Knock, knock’ on your front door
4am its the Secret Federal Hate Crime Police
They have come for your uncool niece
Forbidden thoughts detected in Central Park
Walking thru late in the hoary dark.
The Door bursts open, police rush in!
“On the floor, on the floor”!
You hear through the shouting and din
Theres your niece up against the wall, held without pity …
Looking manic
Throughout the Frozen City
Its WideSpreadPanic.
–WSP7
Well, did I call what happened to the world’s financial markets today, or what?? As I suspected the EU’s “happy talk” as of a week ago was regarded as bullshit … even by themselves. The comedy of what is now in progress is that they have to LEVERAGE the EFSF fund AND get Germany to agree to “Eurobonds” AND get some help from the IMF.
Of course, in exchange for ALL of this, there are all these loose proclamations that the PIIGS must pass rigid internal laws about their FUTURE budget deficits. The problem is that, like the USA, labor has moved OUT of the EU because the euro has made it too expensive for greedy multi-national businesses to fund even Italian workers.
I predicted yet another gigantic “kick the can” scenario and, folks, this one is a DOOZY!!! As with the USA, the primary problems lie in the lack of BUSINESS INVESTMENT, debt-financed SPECULATION, and resource inflation because Thomas Malthus is now correct. Europe, like America’s Fed, is pretending that it is going to get blood for all kinds of turnips. Market optimism, as usual, is predicated on just that belief.
E.
Old69, Tegmark, Tobor, 8m, etc –
If you are going to argue with yourself OR agree with yourselves – would you please have the courtesy of doing it under one common screenname?
CSI FAIL: tracy lawrence, robosigning whistleblower, found dead in her home when she did not appear for sentencing for guilty plea in LV court…THERE WILL BE NO HOMICIDE INVESTIGATION according to LV police…big brother? more like big, bad daddy…daddy warbucks, that is…
The genes that encode are our emotions probably not far removed from 10,000bc either.
sorry for the typo
In a related post to my one above, the USA median home price fell to $212,000. Here’s a snipped from 10/20/11’s Huffington Post:
“The median income fell in 2010 for the second year in a row to $26,364, a 1.2 percent drop from 2009, and the lowest level since 1999, according to David Cay Johnston at Reuters.”
At the US Census Bureau’s site, median HOUSEHOLD income is at around $48,000 … an estimate from the $49,000 from 2010 given the known 2.2% drop from 2010 data. By the way, the $51K number which many sites give you is NOT TRUE since they usually use data 2 or 3 years out-of-date.
Thus, an average house after the enormous national plunge in home prices since 2006, is 4.42 times income and even this is a CONSERVATIVE estimate since this presumes that the $48K of “median household income” is FULLY available to fund a home purchase. In reality, with Junior often living at home into his 30’s now and wanting in the worst way to get his own pad, it’s very statistically disingenuous to think that ALL of this median household income is fully available.
Thus, if we presume that the average home is 5X “available” household income, this is still EXTREMELY unaffordable. Remember that in 1960, the average home was selling right about 2X household income. In fact, it was a bit LESS but let’s use the round numbers. FIVE versus TWO and in the TWO era, Mom was staying at home.
This analysis has been provided for CFN’s pollyanna’s who insist that everything is just peachy economically. Even with Mom in the workforce, which was predominantly UNTRUE in 1960, the median home is 2.5X more expensive. If this isn’t a decline in standard of living, then, frankly, I don’t know what is.
E.
‘predicated on’?! more like ‘manipulated by’…good call, nonetheless i still think ALL debts that are incurred by usury should be erased- credit cards, student loan interest, mortgage interest, etc…and in future, taxes should only accrue on money that is made from money, not on that which is “earned”, either through goods or services sold BY AN IDIVIDUAL…surely if we reduced the defense budget and eliminated the offense budget entirely, along with reducing elected official s salaries to minimum wage (that should guarantee a meaningful cost of living increase!), these steps would combine to reign in a sizable chunk of bullshitin’ while starting to rescucitate (Q-check?) our image around the globe- thereby allowing us to eliminate the DHS boondoggle; advancing our actual security AND our treasury at the same time…2%, anyone?
OK, Vlad – you see how it goes now – and speaking of CFN as a microcosm of Life:
You and I have become linked in the “Brain of Turk.”
“Or let’s put it this way, as an analogy. Are you open-minded about Vlad’s ideas on race? Or prog’s ideas about immigration?
That’s kinda how I feel about being “open-minded” on religious topics. I’m not willing to open my mind just so that someone can shovel a big load of shit in there.”
-turkle, to asoka.-
Thus does Turkle encourage and abet “close- mindedness,” on topics of Turkle’s choosing.
Weird thing is, though – Turkle has expressed some willingness to see immigration numbers into the US reduced – as I recall.
==================
And I’m just messing with you with the third person address, Turk. You’re one of those whose ideas have internal logic, making them worthy of consideration – even if I may, sometimes, violently disagree.
OMFG, my parents (MOM mainly) had books full of those stamps, back in the late 60’s/early 70’s – and even then they were almost completely worthless.
=================
IxNo and Eleuthero,
On the subject of S&H Green Stamps you have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about. But I do.
I worked 13.5 years for S&H. It was my first job after discharge from the Air Force in 1965. I was a traveling auditor for 4 years and a District Operations Manager for 9.5 years. At one point I was managing 27 redemption centers across NY, NJ and CT.
S&H was an excellent and honorable company and a wonderful employer. (They paid my tuition for the 4 years of night school it took to get my MBA at Rutgers.) Technology made the physical glue-backed stamps obsolete but the company lives on as S&H Greenpoints.
I have heard every half-baked misconception in the book as to why green stamps were “a worthless rip-off” so start firing away and I will respond to all your silly notions.
The company began in 1896 and its peak annual sales occurred in the late 1960s at around $750 million.
The Bienecke (Sp?) family who owned the company (until it went public under stock symbol SNH) used a portion of their wealth for philanthropy. At Yale Univ in New Haven, CT is an unusual building – the Beinecke Library (rare books) whose “windows” are shear white marble that the light passes through.
A book of 1200 green stamps had an average retail value of $3.00 and a $2.00 cash value. It took expenditures of $120 to fill a book. Effectively, you were getting a 2.5% discount (3/120 = .025) on your purchases in exchange for your loyalty.
Now, when you get all outraged and want to scream and tell me why the whole thing was just a big scam I will be here ready to explain why you are wrong.
OK, Q., I will accept your challenge.
In June 1968 the Federal Trade Commission held that Sperry & Hutchinson (S&H), was violating 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, 38 Stat. 719, as amended, 15 U.S.C. 45 (a) (1)
The Commission found that:
1) S&H improperly regulated the maximum rate at which trading stamps were dispensed by its retail licensees;
2) that it combined with others to regulate the rate of stamp dispensation throughout the industry;
The Commission entered cease-and-desist orders accordingly. [405 U.S. 233, 235]
S&H did not appeal either of the above FTC findings, a tacit admission of guilt.
1968 …. hmmm … Q, that is when you were working for S&H, wasn’t it?
I’m not 39, Q, I’m 59. Just because you worked for S&H only means that your view of Green Stamps is BIASED, not objective. My parents saved those things and, like such instruments nowadays, you had to save stamps REALLY DILIGENTLY … like it was a HOBBY
or something to get more than the paltriest of final freebies.
You, yourself, cite a 2.5% loyalty discount as the final result. And you claim that *I* don’t know what I’m talking about?? And that 2.5% is after diligent, constant green stamp accumulation. If you aren’t aware that a 2.5% reward for relentless diligent ISN’T WORTH THE EFFORT then you’re arithmetically challenged. You gotta be shittin’ me. Most people will NEVER go to the trouble for such a paltry outcome.
For God’s sake … even CVS Pharmacy will occasionally give me a $4 E-coupon based on maybe only $50 in purchases over a few months. That’s 8% and all I have to do is hit the PRINT button my computer. Your own numeric calculations, far from proving how terrific S&H was, just showed EXACTLY what I claimed from the beginning … it tortures people for incredibly marginal outcomes.
Gee, Q, maybe you should get a job at GroupOn. You’ll be in the company of people as deluded as yourself about their net contribution to society.
E.
“it tortures people for incredibly marginal outcomes. ”
===================
LOL!
I was around during the S&H furor. I licked more stamps than I care to remember. Maybe I have S&H PTSD?
Yeah Q I’m with E&A, Eleutherio and Asoka. I’m a good Rat and will press the bar to get my pellet. But 2.5 is barely a pellet at all. I want my 12% or no deal.
Well of course, personal love is different than national or racial love. In terms of duty and intensity, it trumps them. But in terms of loyalty, during times of crisis one may have to choose the Nation first. All seven of Guru Gobind’s (the last Sikh Guru) sons died in a battle against the Muslims. His wife screamed at him what have you done. He calmly stated that he had sacraficed the seven sons for all these other sons – as he waved his hand towards the multitude on the battlefield. A high state, no? Obviously our Elite cannot be the Fathers of our Nation since they don’t risk their sons anymore.
Check out this from England. This woman is a real patriot and has been jailed for racism for speaking out. Her son in now in “the system” and may well suffer the tortures of the damned. And compare this Joan of Arc, this Marrianne, with a traitor like Alexandria.
http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2011/11/woman_34_charge.php
Yeah who knows what chemicals they put in the adhesive! Look at what they’ve done with the water: introduced a heavy metal called flouride that weakens the will. And why? To prevent carries!
One is reminded of how they seek to surround Russia with missile bases? Why? To protect against Iran’s no existent missiles.
God really is Merciful. Here we are in a crumbling Nation with WW3 in the offing and we are arguing about green stamps. He knows we can’t deal with it and aren’t going to, so He provides peaceful soporofics to pass our time until the Hour arrives.
Lord Shiva is infinitely tender with each soul as He lifts them out of its dying body. Nothing is more frightening to the incarnate soul than death. Therefore the Lord floods the brain with chemicals that ease the transition. These help the soul begin to exteriorize – even though in a coyote’s jaws (my missing cat I fear) the soul begins to view the scene as a third person from above.
Could a rational adult response to the issues soften the landing? Would any lesser effort lead to a Solyent Green scenario of total resource depletion with the earth as sterile to human civilization as an autoclaved petri dish?
Is the American System of Democracy even capable of responding to the challenge?
Your Thoughts?
I still have a tent and a sleeping bag that my parents bought with S+H stamps.
My son doesn’t like school. What can I say? I didn’t either. I rarely went to school my last year of high school.
He went, but his grades slipped. He only got into U of I with a scholarship because he tested so high.
Every time I hassled him about his grades, he pointed to his brilliant best friend, whose grades were also slipping.
Then his best friend straightened up his act, increased his grades and got into Yale.
I asked him how he did it, and he said “I just did my homework.”
I’m not going to hassle my son for taking after me. It’s genetic, just ask Vlad.
Black Santas are wrong – not morally but archetypically. To send a kid to a Black Santa is to wrong him or her in a deep sense. And that’s not amore, but immoral. Kwanza is the Black Holiday or let them celebrate Christmas in the Voodoo way.
S&H improperly regulated the maximum rate at which trading stamps were dispensed
=============
The standard rate of issuance was one stamp per 10 cents. The fact that you have raised this as an issue just shows how effective “trading stamps” (that’s what they were called in the industry) were. A gas station sees their effectiveness and puts up a sign saying “Double stamps on Wednesday.”
Actually, I was unaware that this ever became a court issue. I expected to hear from you naysayers that half the stamps issued wound up in the back of a drawer and were never redeemed.
And the outcome of this case was:
The Commission entered cease-and-desist orders accordingly. [405 U.S. 233, 235]
Woo Boy … if you don’t cease and desist we’re going to become really cross. No multi-million dollar fines?
I don’t know how the argumentation ran in this case but I imagine it went something like this: S&H claimed they had a right to set the rate of distribution in order to protect all users of the incentive system. Remember, S&H would be giving up stamp sales if they were successful in putting a halt to “double stamping.” What other reason would their be than the greater overriding issue concerning the integrity of the system for all users.
As to the second point – that it combined with others to regulate the rate of stamp dispensation throughout the industry – The success of trading stamps as a promotional tool was so great that competitors emerged out of the woodwork: Gold Bond, Blue Chip, Plaid, etc. I am unaware of all their business practices including rate of distribution but I notice that the court used the word “combined” not “colluded.” If these other companies issued 1 stamp per 10 cents (and I don’t know that this was the case) I would guess it was because there was a decades-long tradition established by S&H.
The cynical part of me says our society doesn’t have the capacity for a rational adult response. Look at how we, as a people, handle the issues that we have presently. What we do have is a high capacity for survivability. Humans are very adaptable. I remember my anthropology professor in college telling us that the human body is very unspecialized except for the soles of our feet.
The more specialized a species is with regard to their environment, the more subject it is to extinction.
My thoughts are in the direction that if things further deteriorate, they will do so gradually; then humans will adapt to having less, even if that means a severe drop in population. Of course, I’m not sold on the idea of any kind of collapse. The only sure thing to me is that the world will be different in the future – a lot different. As the I Ching says, the only thing that never changes is change itself.
“Turkle, you also should note that you SOUND like a religious person when you talk about science. You express a kind of absolute faith, and proudly proclaim your intolerance for anything else”
Turkle, just let me say that that statement is bullshit.
You explain the difference between science and religion very well.
Only the willfully ignorant could equate your rational statements with religious beliefs.
Sure, if it worked.
The US is the most religious country among the developed countries.
Yet we kill more people than anyone else and our economy is based on stealing and coveting.
To paraphrase Ghandi, I think that it would be a very good idea if professed Christians in this country actually refused to lie, cheat, steal or kill.
Hey, prog, I didn’t mean to suggest that your ideas on immigration are wrong, just that I notice you clash with asoka a lot. Since he was asking me (kinda) to be more open-minded, I was just posing the question as to whether or not he is open-minded to ideas that don’t jibe with his “open the borders and let them all in” word view. 🙂
Most people will NEVER go to the trouble for such a paltry outcome.
=====================
The proof of the pudding …. etc etc.
Think for a minute E before you write such nonsense. The fact is people in droves DID go to the trouble … and they didn’t think the outcome was paltry. You are disparaging the common sense of the entire population if you think people were so stupid as to save these stamps and were doing it for longer than Ford and GM had been in existence. The year I joined the company (1965) S&H had been growing continuously for 69 years. “Oh those stupid fucking Americans!!” declares E.
E, you make a big issue out of comparing a 2.5% incentive with an 8% discount at CVS. I’ll go you one better. I have my eye on a particular desk chair at Office Depot. It lists for $299.95 but everyone except children and idiots knows that you don’t pay full retail for almost anything in Office Depot (or Staples or OfficeMax). What you do is you Google “Office Depot Coupons” or “Office Depot Desk Chair Deals” and you will eventually, if not this week next week, find that chair for $199.95. Discounts of 1/3rd to 1/2 are common. All this means is that the true price for the chair is $199.95 and the $299.95 price is for people too lazy and or stupid to do their homework. The world has changed since the 1960s.
Hey you CFNers out there, don’t listen to Q, he’s biased by having 13.5 years experience in the business. Listen instead to E who is unbiased because he has NO experience and NO knowledge of the business.
So you claim that belief in scientific principles can lead to bias and distortion. Well, bias and distortion from what benchmark? If you’re not going to use science itself to determine what does and does not exist and how reality functions, what will you use then? Astrology? Voodoo? Your feelings? You’re kind of painting yourself into a corner here. You want to question science writ large, but then you’re going to use science as a baseline (I presume?).
I agree that humans have a tendency to forcefully argue the absolute truth of whatever position they are taking, as a debate tactic. But this is not science, per se. That’s just people being pig-headed, and yes, I agree it happens across the board. Why does this say anything about science? People on the internet do this on ALL topics, from cooking to auto repair. I don’t see how it means anything about science as a system of knowledge, just that people will be people.
I simply don’t agree that belief in the 21st century equivalent of witches and fairies is at all equivalent to strongly defending a logical position based on deduction, experiment, and observation. They are entirely two separate modes of thinking, one based in fantasy and the other firmly grounded in reality.
Your constant attempts to force an equivalence between all modes of thought smacks of a kind of post-modern relativism (but what CAN we know REALLY?). I think it is sophomoric myself. You don’t live your life that way, because it is just intellectual masturbation, rather than anything which provides you real utilitarian benefits (other than annoying people on the internet haha). In other words, that tree out there might not actually exist and it might appear totally differently to me, but in practice you and I both steer our cars around it.
Also, you mistake vigorous intellectual debate, which is crucial for science, with dogmatic religious thinking. They are completely different. Sometimes, in a scientific debate, one side will say, “By jove, you’re right” and change their mind, based on new information. I’ve actually seen it happen. Name me one time that has EVER happened when you’ve been speaking with a religious type. It doesn’t because their mind is made up (brainwashed) from the minute you start talking to them.
The controversies in science also tend to happen at the margins, e.g. where the data is inconclusive or our knowledge incomplete. And when someone does disagree, if they can provide adequate argument for their position, they are generally not called nasty names like unbeliever or heathen. Maybe they get the “crackpot” label, at worst, but scientists don’t suggest, like GW Bush, that those outside the fold don’t belong in their America, which is the kind of hysteria that religious types just love to promulgate.
Again, there is a trivial likeness between me and a religious person in an argument, in that we’re both arguing some point, perhaps forcefully. But religious opinion, time and time again, has been proven wrong on pretty much every topic it broaches. Why, at this point in time, do I owe religious thought the time of day, much less any real consideration? All it is left with is the fuzzy non-answerable questions like “But why are we here?” God did not make the earth in 7000 years. We have geology and cosmology to explain its existence. He didn’t make Eve from Adam’s rib. Evolution explains the emergence of life on earth. etc. On every topic it has ever tried to explain, religion has been proven WRONG.
How many times must the religious thinkers be proved wrong before you stop this false equivalence canard? At least when science is wrong, it changes its mind. Christianity is still stuck in the 1st century AD. Get with the program!
Hey, dale, reread your post. You have some interesting points. It is true that human psychology is a big determinant in what people end up believing. I’d like to do some more research myself on the concept of belief. The big difference I see between science and religion is that the former actually acknowledges that bias can exist and tries its hardest to eliminate the human foibles from its conclusions. In other words, there are things like blind data analysis, peer review, reproducibility, etc. There is actually a whole set of tools for making sure that a result is not arrived at mostly based on how someone felt about it. Religious belief, on the other hand, seems to be mostly based upon the dogmatic pronouncements of religious blowhards rather than any objective assessment of reality.
Here we are in a crumbling Nation with WW3 in the offing and we are arguing about green stamps.
==============
Oh, the absurdity of it is not lost on me Vlad. But think about what I’m really trying to do here. The issue is NOT green stamps. The issue is listening to what passes as obvious and common wisdom from those with an ax to grind but no knowledge to grind it with.
In other words, stop worrying about fucking Groupon. If it’s a bad idea it’ll fade like the proverbial fart in a windstorm.
JHK’s theme this week is Your New American Dream.
I would like to report on one aspect of my new American dream, the one I have constructed over the past few years, partially in response to being a card-carrying member of CFN.
As many of you know, several years ago I began to learn adobe construction so as to build my own small house in the Southwest, utilizing passive solar. (what Q pejoratively calls my “mud hut”)
Today I received my gas heating bill for November: 66 cents ($0.66), less than one dollar for the gas and a $9.60 “access fee” (I suppose to pay the guy who comes out and reads the meter). I used 1.35 Therms @ 0.49 per Therm. Anyway it comes out to just over $10.00 for my winter home heating/gas cooking/gas water heating bill.
If you are paying over $10 (ten dollars) for your winter home heating/cooking/water heating bill, perhaps you should reconsider your lifestyle choices. Or not. It’s up to you.
I just wanted to let others know that all this hippie “energy efficiency” stuff works. I am very happy with my New American Dream for $10 a month.
In the summer my bill is even less because I don’t use an air conditioner. I use a super-efficient evaporative cooler that refreshingly humidifies the air indoors.
My new American dream is a dream come true. Of course, for some of you (Tripp, Vlad, etc.) my choice is not available to you. Tripp has written off the southwest. As for Vlad: I live near the Mexican border and love all my Hispanic neighbors. Good, hardworking, family-oriented people.
My “mud hut” is comfortable, winter and summer, for $10 a month. There is something to be said for hippie values and for adobe “mud huts” …
WSP7 asked, “what is the point?” RE: occupy protesting.
Well, WSP7, the point was to remind the lawyer-cunts and assorted Public savants that there are people behind the policies, that the fancy marble buildings they inhabit have a purpose, which is to serve those people. It is a symbolic effort, mostly, to communicate the reality of life “on the ground” to people whose lives are lived without exposure to to those realities, on behalf of not only ourselves, but everyone who is subject to the ruling class and their policies.
In the same way you and everyone benefited from the countless demonstrations that swept the country for hundreds of years. We are the beneficiaries of countless demonstrations, revolutions, insurrections, throughout our history. All of our rights, many of our benefits, much of what is positive and progressive about America and its policies can be traced to direct action of some kind. You can point to any one of them and ask, “What was the point?”
“I would like to report on one aspect of my new American dream, the one I have constructed over the past few years, partially in response to being a card-carrying member of CFN.” A
WTF? We were supposed to get cards! I want my freaking card! Jeez, two years and counting and no freaking card! (does the card get you discounts at restaurants/shops…the mall?)
Well, asoka, I want you to know that you inspired me to recently resume work on my cob horse shelter.
Two days of hauling buckets of water, clay and sand out to the site reminded me why I quit 9 years ago.
Good for you for finishing your project.
Well, BustinJ, pretty good answer to my pithy, somewhat irreverant inquiry.
Taking on the State Police, fighting your way into the State Capitol … alls I can say is you got more you-know-whats that me …
How did you get the day off from work? Call in sick?
–WSP7
These help the soul begin to exteriorize – even though in a coyote’s jaws (my missing cat I fear) the soul begins to view the scene as a third person from above.
===============
On Thursday 11/17, after they’d eaten, we opened the back door and the 3 cats (the litter we’d rescued a couple of years earlier) dashed out onto our deck as though to say “FREE, FREE AT LAST.” By noon and by dinnertime the two boys had strolled back of their own accord but no sign of Milli.
This wasn’t entirely unusual. On the rare occasion, she’d stay out all night and we’d be grumbling “Where is that little slut.” But the next morning the sounds emanating from the kitchen would draw her to the backdoor.
But the morning, and noon and dinnertime of Friday 11/18 came and went and still no Milli. And then Friday became Saturday and Sunday and Monday and still no Milli.
We started to think of all the things that might have happened. Did she wander to a neighbor’s house, get fed and taken in? Did she get trapped in Joe’s garage next door? Did she go into the woods out back and run into some other, nasty, critter. We’ve got raccoons coming out our ears here.
We printed out some fliers including a picture and nailed it to telephone poles up and down the block and then we dropped them into neighbors’ mailboxes on our block and the next. The mail drop took place on Thanksgiving morning.
We notified family by email and West Philly son Thom’s girlfriend replied she would bring her cat-finding-Mojo when she came for T-day dinner. She and Thom were out for hours searching the area, shaking a little bag of cat treats with its distinctive sound and calling out her name. They dropped off more fliers at neighbors on the next block and then resumed their search in the wooded area across the street.
I was watching football when Alexandra came through the door and said “we found her” and I blurted out “your kidding!?” before I even noticed her wiping away tears. Milli was just 50 yards away, dead in the grass next to River Road. She had been hit by a car.
Vlad, I warned you about allowing a cat into your life. You fall in love with them and this is what happens … sometimes.
Interesting story about asylum in Sweden – who gets it, and who doesn’t.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Investigative-Journalist-W-by-Joan-Brunwasser-111127-971.html
We’ll see what happens to Julian Assange when England ships him Sweden.
Will he be renditioned to the home-of-the-free to be tortured? I’m guessing yes.
Sorry about your cat, Q. That is sad.
It is estimated that one million animals are killed by cars each year. And over 40,000 humans.
Very sorry to hear about your kitty. I’ve got 4 rescue cats (all female) and they’re strictly indoor cats (all raised as kittens). They’re all declawed on the front two paws. Heaven help me (or them) if one manages to get loose. One major drawback to indoor cats is that I spend a fortune in cat litter. I get plenty of excercise scooping out the boxes, though.
Speaking of West Philly, my family once lived on Woodbine Avenue (#6484) in Overbrook Park. It was a nice neighborhood at the time. Q’s son Thom probably knows what’s happened to it in the last 30 – 40 years. sigh….
MM, I designed my own and had it printed and paid for it with the money I get for posting to CFN. 🙂
Q said:
Hey you CFNers out there, don’t listen to Q, he’s biased by having 13.5 years experience in the business. Listen instead to E who is unbiased because he has NO experience and NO knowledge of the business.
*************************************************************
Yeah. Ooh baby … those 13.5 years of experience at S&H give you the “bully pulpit” and allow you to magnify the significance of the figure 2.5%. After all, those of us without experience at S&H wouldn’t know the meaning of the very idea of 2.5%. Yup. Ya had to work at S&H and ONLY at S&H to know the meaning and magnitude of 2.5%.
Gawd. I’m glad we rarely cross paths on this site. Usually I just slide over your tiresome spelling-quibble posts without a moment’s pause of my mouse. You act like you are the sine qua non of erudition and literacy. Yawn.
E.
With that and the money you’re saving from your utilities maybe you can re-create it on a web page so that we may all copy it and have one 😉
Of all sad things, the saddest has to be an indoor cat sitting on a window sill yearning to be free. And if let out, they would cower in terror for their hearts have been enslaved, an evil spell put on them by countless evil childless witches across the Western World. For all these cats, I offer up a silent Meow.
You must have know Abbey Cohen who used to post here. She’s very well educated, and likes Blacks more than Whites. In short, a well brought up Lady! She settled in the Ozarks so she could meet real Americans and show them what she thinks of them.
Turkle said:
Do you really think open mindedness is always a virtue? I’m far more enamored of skepticism and critical thinking. You know, I like to be careful about what goes into my noggin.
***************************************************************
Some wag, I forget who, once said: “If you’re too open minded, your brains will fall out”.
Like many tiresome, hackneyed cliches in English, the idea of “open mindedness” is one of the worst. When used, it almost always implies that the person against whom the term is aimed hasn’t investigated a certain issue or thought about it thoroughly. How would they know?
Thus, the very use of the diatribe “You aren’t open minded” means that the user of the term fancies that they know your entire intellectual history and even that they have nearly psychic levels of ability to read who you are through a computer screen.
Your main point, Turkle, makes OBVIOUS sense to 95% of the people on this site i.e., that it is DISCERNING INTELLIGENCE and CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS that are most absent in our culture, not OPEN MINDEDNESS. Open mindedness is often just ignorance and unawareness dressed up and sent to college.
E.
Thank you for your condolences, and mine to you. It must be incredible living with Cats who sing Negro Spirituals. Mine wasn’t all that nice, but she was a person to me and we did have a relationship.
But who knows? Maybe we’ll meet them again. If Dale’s Tibetan Buddhism is correct, next time around we might be the cats and they the humans. Hope they give us half/half and not skim milk.
Jim,
Today is felt you wrote from your heart, which is full of sadness. I have to say your words were eloquently assembled into a crafted jewel.
I have to agree with all you said. Europe is going to go down as we did in 2008. The EU Central Bank is liquifying their banksta pals, and the people will be taking the smackdown. The Banksta’s bond holders will get bailed out for their risk taking.
The union itself is headed toward being told that they will have to pool their debt. Will that fly in Germany?
A reset is a great viewpoint. #OWS protesters are feeling that this is what is happening, since they cannot find work that is what they were educated to do.
Those who are resourceful, and adaptable will survive the best. So, let’s begin to look at those seed catalogues as the cold winter begins to blow in.
Thanks Jim. I don’t always agree with you, but I respect your opinions 100%.
Your admirer in Pittsburgh, Jerry
Perhaps your cat will return to you. My cats have a tiny balcony where they can visit the great outdoors, for what it’s worth. I’m just afraid that a squirrel will crawl up and get into a fight with one of them. Needless to say, I keep a pretty close eye on them.
Don’t know the lady of whom you speak. It appears to me that there are more white girls going with black men than white men going with black girls. At least that’s what I observe.
Quite so. And the height of open mindedness is open borders in a welfare state. The same unknown wag said that a liberal is one who can’t take his own side in an arguemnt. Alas not entirely true: the tribe benefits from mass immigration – more clients! A bigger power base to raise the pyramid ever higher – until it crumbles as all ponzi schemes must.
In the ancient Pythagorean Schools, the student was forbidden to speak for five years, focusing on listening and moral development. I concur with this. Many people who can think refuse to when their pet issues come up. Your equating a few guys wearing leather jackets at a Tea Party with mass rioting in Oakland is an example of this. You are rational and reasonable, but your paradigm often isn’t.
She’s from Philie and maybe a bit younger than you. I suppose it’s not as bad if a cat has never gone outside. Once they do, keeping them in would be torture. They seem to need to hear and smell the world as it arises moment to moment.
I fear our Race is doomed. It amazes me that no one cares – even though they care about particular types of car or varieties of apple. Once our numbers have fallen much more, there is no way we can ever come back. Except if the new powers gave us some land – and they wont. Black Comic Chris Rock did make a joke about keeping some White Men alive as breeding stock though. Ah, White Liberals will be the last to know what’s going on. The very last.
I will try to end my life in peace if needs be. But the bitterness will be very great. I pray for a great and sudden collapse to give the Free Whites a chance at life. Or I suppose we could convert to Islam and fight that way. Islam is trans racial but not overtly hostile to Whites. The Bosnians and Circassians are still White after centuries. The White North Americans may well end up fleeing across the Bering Strait to become pioneers in Siberia. We could become the sword arm of Russia in the East as the Cossacks are in the Southwest.
Cats are bird killers. They shouldn’t be let outside.
WSP7 said, “How did you get the day off from work? Call in sick?”
Actually, WSP7, I live off the residuals of investments made by people I didn’t know on my behalf. These investments are in the broad economy, so basically, everything that happens- outsourcing, the latest gadgets, globalisation- all put money in my pocket. Not a lot of money- in fact, the residuals add up to an amount significantly below the poverty line. I have chosen to not contribute to the economy as a matter of individual participation, adopting a personal lifestyle of austerity. People like you work to allow people like me to protest on behalf of people like you. Its an absurd situation, but, at least I am not idle, and I am under no illusion that this enchanted state will last forever. These are stock market assets, after all.
Everything is absurd in my world: I agitate to reduce the effects of the economy which feeds me. People who learn of my situation implore me to contribute to the economy which creates the damage I work to prevent.
But when I look out into the society, all I see are a cascade of absurdities. People vote for politicians that act against their self-interest. Corporations use up nonrenewable resources to make temporary profits. Free people assent to tyranny in order to advance themselves within its power structure. People without possession of any original thought or truth-values exhort others to adopt their false premises. People act as if there is a bottomless well of free self-esteem available like a pot of gold at the end of the capitalism rainbow. Hardly anything anyone believes is real. No one seems to understand that the nature of disaster implies an inability to prepare for the moment of truth.
Essentially, though, an absurd life is a uncomfortable one, whether you are viewing the destruction from a safety net or ground zero.
As much as my daily food ration comes from residuals of globalisation, I agitate against it. America needs to get together as Americans, as people, sans jobs and social caste, and determine what is good for the Earth, and then align themselves with a new social contract. Austerity isn’t bad, its necessary.
America can go one of two ways in the future- continual recidivism where the abominations of the past are recast and replayed, with the destruction of the natural world as a side-effect, or, become a force for renewal in the world.
I don’t think the Europeans are doomed, although it will be a long and difficult fight. It took Spain six or seven hundred years to expell all of the Moors from their homeland, but they did it, eventually, more or less. And I don’t really want to become a Muslim or a Russian.
To me open-mindedness means the willingness to consider a hypothesis and test it. That is my idea of open-mindedness … in theory.
In practice I do the same as Turkle. I reject hypotheses a priori and proceed from theoretical deduction rather than from observation or experience. Time is limited. I can’t test every notion (especially New Age or religious ones) that someone presents to me, especially when the instrumental injunction requires a great time commitment.
Even in the sciences we must have faith. I am not going to spend ten years studying nuclear physics to be able to repeat an experiment for myself and confirm the results. Mostly I trust the “experts” who have credentials, those who have shown themselves dedicated to a field of study.
I only test those hypotheses of interest that seem most logical and most doable, based on my own previous experience.
Since we all have different experience, YMMV.
Turkle, I agree with you about your viewpoint on science vs. religion. However, I think it might be helpful to remember that the human mind seems to be hard-wired to believe in the supernatural. While I would like to see religion go the way of the dinosaurs for all the reasons you are probably aware, I have to cut the believers some slack (unless they do bad things in the name of religion). Not everyone can overcome their upbringing and genetic heritage. Trying to change a person’s strongly held beliefs is a waste of time and energy.
Exactly – Atheism is a Religion. And any attempt to equate Atheism and Buddhism be it by Atheists or “Buddhists” is sinister.
Trading cat stories
Sorry to Q. and Vlad for your feline losses.
As you know we lost our 15.5 yr old to a stroke in Sept. Our 4.5 yr. old female needs a companion so we picked up a young male makereral tabby with a siamese-like face yesterday from a cat foster care home.
He is sequestered in our kitchen until we find out his test results for FIV and FelV which we should get tomorrow. We are a bit nervous, but hopeful he will be a great companion to Kayla.
He is affectionate and of course playful, so we call him Moxi (prefer this spelling, Q).
___________
On a strange note, speaking of pets and my favorite topic: globalism, many of you might have heard about dog chicken jerky treats that have been responsible for 70 cases of fatal kidney damage to dogs in this country.
I looked up the info on the FDA site and they will not discuss what companies are involved, only that they were produced in China.
This black-out of company names is the worst case I’ve seen yet. A few years ago with the melamine cases at least you got specific names.
My sister says our global corportists are fighting now not to let us know country of origin on labels.
Here we go again with this model of capitalism. No concern for our well-being. Profit is the only value of consequence.
Buying pet food is like playing Russian Roulette.
But your grandma’s 14 abortions were hunky dory? Or was that a joke? Either way, it’s Satanism.
Cats need to be free. Babies need to be born. People need to abjure Satan – unlike Alinsky who dedicated “Rules for Radicals” to Lucifer.
You act like you are the sine qua non of erudition and literacy. Yawn.
=================
When you are denigrating erudition and those who pretend to possess it it is wise to avoid the use of Latin expressions like sine qua non.
The forces against us are greater now and in the strength of youth. We are old, divided, and sick. Pat Buchanon had a chance when he ran for president, but stupidly chose a Black Women as his running mate. We may have to put the mantle of Islam, a Fighting Faith. We share a common enemies in the NWO and the Jews.
The Conquistadores knew they were fighting the Muslims and the Jews when they reconquered Andalusia. After all, that’s how it was conquered: Muslims would take a town, and then a Jewish garrison would hold it and administer it.
Anders Brevik will not stand trial because of “insanity” – he is an avowed Zionist and they don’t want that coming out.
Cats need to be free.
Apparently, not all cats wanna be free.
My sister took in a stray female cat years ago, who surprisingly, never went near the door.
She was more than happy to have a warm home and steady eats–and of course, quality company of two other cats and my sister.
Atheism is the one true religion. 😉
Your tin foil hat is on too tight today, Vlad.
Vlad, Rules for Radicals is dedicated to people who apparently helped Alinsky to put the book together and “To Irene” (presumably his wife)
I had to check the original text. What you may be referring to is the page of quotations, at the beginning of the book, in which Alinsky references Lucifer.
But the book is not dedicated to Lucifer. On the dedications page Lucifer’s name does not appear.
Alinsky references Lucifer (on the quotations page) as a radical that won his own kingdom (apparently, Hell), but doesn’t dedicate his book to the Devil.
But atheism is not the only world religion which is a-theistic. God is a completely unnecessary hypothesis and god is absent from many religions in the world.
And, Vlad, I am not “equating” atheism and Buddhism, just pointing out that one of the features of Buddhism is that it is atheistic.
As Turkle points out, Atheism is the only true religion. 🙂
Concerning our animals –
Lbend, Vlad, and Q –
Wow – it’s been a bad quarter for cats. I’m really sorry for your losses, guys. (generic guys, Lbend)
I got my first dog when I was 7 years old. I lost her to an unfortunate set of misunderstandings related to a family move – about one year later.
Every dog or cat that I have ever had – since that very first one – I have said LOUDLY, to myself and sometimes to others, “I will not get overly attached to you, you new dog or cat.”
But, before God and everybody – I always get attached to the creatures in my life, despite my best efforts and mental discipline.
I’ve noticed that a lot of older people that I have known – tend to try to “swear off” animals in their later years. I’m not sure why that would be.
Some of it is the “fear?” of responsibility. If you have a dog/cat/most anything else – then you can’t travel freely, and you have to worry in the back of you mind what will happen to the critter should you pass away before it does.
But some of it may be a stronger feeling that’s related to fear of loss, also. Dogs are gonna die before us – as a rule. And cats, and almost all other creatures are GONNA die before us as well. I’ve known some older people who have dealt with so MUCH loss – that they finally refuse to get another dog/cat, I think – because they don’t want to voluntarily bring another living THING into their lives – knowing they will have to eventually lose it, ALSO, in the fullness of time.
This post is getting maudlin. I’m sorry – that’s not where I was going when I started out.
Let me try later.
You especially, myrtle may.
You wanna split a J
And take a roll in the hay
At least in a “cyber” way?
It’s all gonna be OK.
CORRECTION
… as a radical who won his own kingdom …
Back to animals –
Now comfortably middle aged at 56
(yeah, middle aged if I live to 112 – hahohe!)
But – I have already had more than my share of critters in my life. And I plan to have many more.
And I’ve gotten to a physical location
(backed up against National Forest in the N. GA Mountains, for any CFN rookies)
But in this location – my animals are essential partners. The large outside dog keeps the deer and the bears out of the garden and off of the fruit trees and grapes. The medium bodied male cat keeps the smaller creatures (rabbits, squirrels, and the occasional small ‘possum) out of the garden and away from the chicken coop.
It’s a natural partnership.
And it’s interesting that the dog and the cat evidence more “happiness,?” to put it anthropomorphically – than any two creatures I have ever “owned.”
They both stay outside, mostly 24/7.
They both work in partnership with me.
They both get generally left alone to do their jobs – although both seem always glad to see me, for a walk in the woods or a roughhouse in the yard. (the dog roughhouses – the cat watches with that amused feline look)
My point – if I have one, here –
Is that the cat and dog are “happy” because they are following their genes and their instincts to live in a genuine partnership with a human family – as cats and, especially, dogs – have done in partnership with certain human groups, for 1000’s and 1000’s of years.
But I still worry about them – when they are out day and night and dealing with the local wildlife.
I wonder when our caveman ancestors began to “worry” about each other – and then about their canine companions. (This is obviously one of those areas where human genetics and human emotions interact with other species and with the physical world.)
Personally, though, I’ve got to discipline myself not to worry too much about the cat. He’s one independent SOB.
“Thank you for your condolences, and mine to you. It must be incredible living with Cats who sing Negro Spirituals. Mine wasn’t all that nice, but she was a person to me and we did have a relationship.”
OKEY…..So your cat sang Negro Spirituals to you.
Thats nice…
But you know, you really are a much nicer person when you are off your meds. Perhaps you should stay off them. Take vitamins instead.
🙂
Oh, meanwhile, while we are all distracted with discussions about S&H stamps & cats that sing, has anybody noticed whats happening in the Mid East?
Looks like Syria is next to follow the path of Libya. With Syria out of the way, Israel is wide open for a first strike against Iran sometime next year.
:O
America has always been a dog eat dog society to a certain extent. The last forty years has been a climax of this aspect of our culture. It has occurred concomitantly with a decline in the percent of Christian church goers along with decline in support of Christian culture from the secular institutions.
I’m just saying that things could be even worse without the behavioral code that is the bedrock western civilization rests on. In my little backward corner of the world, I find that most people generally follow that code. Not perfectly, not all the time. But they do try.
“All it is left with is the fuzzy non-answerable questions like “But why are we here?” God did not make the earth in 7000 years. We have geology and cosmology to explain its existence. He didn’t make Eve from Adam’s rib. Evolution explains the emergence of life on earth. etc. On every topic it has ever tried to explain, religion has been proven WRONG.”
Turkle, if we were to use the analogy of a movie, my understanding of your view is that the story exists as the emulsion on the film stock. But isn’t there a lot deeper level of importance behind that reel. Isn’t it really essential that there exists a writer, producer, director, production crew, actors, projectionists, theater operators, and people to view the story unfolding on the screen?
Maybe consciousness is the essence of our being as mystic claim. Maybe you would consider the possibility that both our mental and our energy are causal to the physical universe rather than the other way around. One would have to attain to that level to observe it, but intuitively there are some people who have had glimpses of this esoteric reality.
You can flipantly call this esoteric cosmology a fantasy, but since it did not orginate as a fantasy of yours, you really have no authority to make this claim.
Why are we here? Who am I? These are worthy questions. When one pursues the answers in spite of the world thinking they’re foolish or unscientific (conventionally-speaking), I can say from experience that you will “see”, understand the un-understandable, and open other ways of knowing beyond the intellectual. Intellectual learning is not real learning. Every soul (can I use that term?) is destined for seeking Truth at some point. Not too many do because it is the beginning of the end (of the separate ego-self), the final portion of a LONG journey. Striking out on this inner path has nothing to do with religion, ceremonies, dogmas, rituals, and even transcends things like morality.
Cats are very small on the physical plane but veritable Lions on the astral. It’s good to sleep near one so it can protect you there.
“In my little backward corner of the world, I find that most people generally follow that code. Not perfectly, not all the time. But they do try.”
-bossier-
Yeah, bossier – I think this is worth elaboration, myself.
Some of this is generational, probably.
There has been such a rapid drop-off in faith.
And so many societal changes.
Thinking about S&H Green Stamps.
They were a big deal to my grandparent’s generation – but so were flour sacks with printed patterns for making dresses and quilts.
And I glued a bunch of GreenStamps – to makemy own momma happy, cause that was reason enough.
But we’ve raised up a couple of generations in the United States who have:
1. no conception of the sort of hard times that make Greenstamps worthwhile
2. No tie to older generations, or the land, or the Nation – in case of those “hard times”
So – – we’ve got this experiment going here.
We are betting that the innate goodness of human beings – who are “lucky” enough to live in the US – will triumph over:
1. Hard times
2. Overpopulation
3. Divergent cultures
4. Innate human tendencies.
If I were a betting man –
I’d be betting against this ending well for us.
And you can argue that I’m making that same bet – with my gardens and my large outside dog, etc.
But – a decline to 1930’s standards of living still scares the Hell out of me – for what it would do to the modern US.
And we might fall much lower still.
You can flippantly call this esoteric cosmology a fantasy…
=========
Ront, scientists come up with claims equally as fantastic.
For example, Stephen Hawking publicly declared his support for the existence of trillions upon trillions of other universes. (And Hawking was not reading Tegmark’s CFN posts before making that statement)
Hawking is a scientist, but he is making a fantastic claim. None of these alternate universes have ever been seen or proven. So, science can entertain fantasy …
And I’m not even going to mention the fantastic world of quantum particles I have read about.
And as JHK says, in the 1930’s there was plenty of resources to help with recovery. Now as we both agree , overpopulation, Balkanization , and lack of resources may make for a bad ending.
I hope some of the other cfn folks don’t misunderstand me. I think our societal decisions should be based in science and pragmatism. Some of the core values of Judeo/Christian Culture are pragmatic. A code most can agree on is a start on rebuilding a successful society. It will probably happen regionally after some sort of collapse. And by collapse I don’t mean back to the stone age.
A question for Solar Guy and Glensufi,
It came to my attention today that First Solar is the most heavily shorted stock in the S&P 500 Index (i.e. people betting the stock will go down). I have been aware of the pounding all the solar stocks are taking because I own some JA Solar (a Chinese Solar company, symbol JASO) at a price of $4.67/share. I bought it in June 2010 and it more than doubled in 4 months. It has been sliding ever since. It hit a closing low of $1.54 yesterday (and of course I’m kicking myself in the ass) and then it had a nice bounce today, along with the market in general, to $1.83.
The conversation you two guys were having was about whether now is a good time to be buying solar panels themselves while my interest is in the stocks of solar panel companies.
The low price per watt of panels may explain the drastic decline in solar stock prices since maybe their profit margins are disappearing due to competition and possibly anticipation of elimination or reduction of government subsidies.
What are your thoughts on this?
First Solar being the most heavily shorted stock MAY be a hopeful sign on a contrarian basis since, as the theory goes, once everyone has sold there’s no one left to sell.
SMOG U SOBs R discussing S&H While the IMF,ESB,FRB,and the TBTF banks,BOAF,GS,JPM ahahahahahhahahahahaha the acronyms are driving me crazy!!!!!!!!!! SCUBA was the last one I really needed to know! I’M MEEEEEELLLTING!
Sorry ECB, haha ;0)
Do you understand nothing? Q’s cats sing Negro spirituals, not mine. After all, cats do have some Negro features, like the flat nose, low (no?) cheekbones, etc.
Your obsession with me continues. But you’re going to have to play your cards alot better if you hope to get anywhere with me.
How do cats fare with racoons? They would seem to large for them to handle.
Do you hunt coons? And make pie?
That was the most sensible post I’ve made all day. You are an anti-nominalist. To you, all the cops are criminals and all the criminals, saints.
‘Coons are tough critters, They will easily hold off a mid-size dog twice their size. A cat would not be a match for a racoon. I grew up eating squirrel,rabbit,frog-legs, and wild mushrooms. Oh well, I was in the woods with my Nonno for hours. Good times
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Most intelligent comment I’ve seen yet.
“God really is Merciful. Here we are in a crumbling Nation with WW3 in the offing and we are arguing about green stamps. He knows we can’t deal with it and aren’t going to, so He provides peaceful soporofics to pass our time until the Hour arrives.”
Lyndon LaRouche and Jerome Corsi both agree
–we are definitely headed towards WW three
http://tinyurl.com/7bodplb
http://tinyurl.com/77ssr87
But I do like green stamps; only because they remind me of my gramma.
Ok you’re right. But isn’t even this much horrific?
I’ve heard that they can lure a hunting dog into the water and kind of tread water. When the unwary dog charges in after they can grab his head and hold it under till he drowns.
That’s what Herbert Spencer called “an ugly fact”. That destroys my theory. All it takes is onc exception. I hate that cat.
I have seen the results of a coon killing a dog in the water in canal at my former beach house. A dog doesn’t have a chance against a coon in the water.
Cats are very small on the physical plane but veritable Lions on the astral. It’s good to sleep near one
==============
For me, sleeping with a cat takes away the cares of the world.
Procon, my cat will be 20 in April. Both my wife and I have decided this will be our last pet (at least that’s how we feel now). Our only issue is that it’s difficult to get away. Our cat won’t travel by car or any other conveyance; and we can’t leave him alone more than a day.
Right now we are in Orlando for a week. In order for us to go, we had to pay someone $50/day to stay at our house 24-7 with the cat. He’s an outdoor cat who spends the day, well, outside. My trip cost me nothing for airfare (free airline miles) and nothing for the room (timeshare), but it costs me $300 for the cat. We’d like to stay down south for the winter and get out of the cold, but that’s impossible beause of the cat .
But you know what? I hope he lives another 10 years.
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A dog doesn’t have a chance against a coon in the water.
===============
I am truly surprised to read this^. I had always heard that blacks were afraid of both water and dogs far more so than other folks.
🙂
Sorry Boss, you tee’d this one up so perfectly I just couldn’t pass it up.
I just looked up the largest US raccoon – 63 pounds
I had no idea. Most ‘coons are in the range 15-25 pounds full grown, around here.
I did a little ‘coon hunting, as a kid. I’ve still got a pelt and tail around here somewhere – that my dad helped me skin out in when I was 13.
That was in 1968.
That ‘coon wasn’t the only thing in the US that took a skinnin’ that year.
My large outside dog killed a ‘coon on the back deck the first week I had him. (the dog, not the ‘coon.)
He was a medium sized first year male, of about 15 pounds. (the ‘coon, not the dog)
====================
And Vlad, I don’t know if you intended “coon hunting,” as a double entendre-type racial slur, or not.
But no, I never went on that sort of “coon hunting.” Although I did know some of the older kids who bragged about it. Mostly talk – just boys trash talking to each other.
But there were always a few older men – rougher meaner, the sort that you best stay away from.
But there were always a few who talked about going “coon huntin'” – in a way that would send a chill down your spine.
Probably – especially – if you were black.
==========================
Yeah – hate is not an emotion to be messed with.
It doesn’t end well when you do.
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==================
F**k You Mao. THAT^ is total horse shit!!
Great kick through the uprights Q.
The CNBC “Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge” stock contest ends this Friday at 4PM. It started on Sep 19th. This will be my last chance to brag about how well I’m doing because today is the last day the “Leader Board” is being published until they tally up the numbers after its all over.
Today, as you are probably aware, the market was up gangbusters. As luck would have it, my #1 portfolio was bullishly aligned heading into the 9:30 AM open and, in fact, was levered to the hilt with 2X and 3X ETFs.
As it turns out I am in 410th position out of approximately 683,000 contestants. Expressed as a percentage I’m at 99.94%.
It would take a major miracle to come in first (first prize is $1M) or second (a $200,000 Maserati + $30K to pay the taxes on it) but I actually have a shot at winning “an Exotic Vacation for two” that goes to the person who has the largest weekly percentage gain. In the 3 days so far this week my portfolio is up more than 32%.
I just love assholes who brag about market gains as if they had ESP coupled with savant-like extrapolation skills. How about a nice cup of SHUT THE FUCK UP? It’s like a compulsive gambler claiming that gambling is good BECAUSE he rolled eight sevens in a row at the craps table. In your own totally unique way, you are coming across as being as big a dickhead as the other self-anointed “genii” on CFN. That’s the uniting thread … self-anointing.
E.
SHAME ON THE UNITED STATES FEDERAL RESERVE BANK
*********************************************************
Where in the Federal Reserve’s charter does it say that they are allowed to APPROPRIATE money to save FOREIGN countries? We have 16% of AMERICANS who are “food insecure” right now. One person in six has no clear way to their next meal.
So, after we “serve and protect” the most incompetent stewards of capital in the history of earth on THIS side of the Atlantic AND allow them to keep their jobs and perks on the taxpayer’s dime, now we are PRINTING MONEY so that we allow the jerks at BNP Paribas, Credit Lyonnais, and dozens of other stumblebum claques of CEOs and Boards to keep THEIR jobs.
I am absolutely STUNNED that we live in times when American college grads with degrees in Mechanical Engineering have to work at Peet’s Coffee to pay off their $50K of loan debt, we live in times when 28.6% of US home loans are UNDER WATER, we live in times when nominal US wages have dropped 2.2% y-o-y and 5% inflation adjusted, and we live in times when average installment credit debt is $7394 per household (and the average household only TAKES HOME about $35K of their $48K median salary), and we are bailing out THESE EUROPEAN FUCKERS who detest us soooo much that if you go to the Continent you have to pretend to be a CANADIAN to avoid being lectured???????????
All of this suffering and angst right here in our own back yard and we’re going to bail out ANOTHER CONTINENT? And you just KNOW that the excuse will be IDENTICAL to the excuse for TARP and the QE’s … the financial system would COLLAPSE if we didn’t do it.
Well, I call BULLSHIT on this one. It’s GOT to be a direct legal violation of the Fed’s Charter. They did something that only CONGRESS is allowed to do. I guess we really only have the Executive and Judicial branches of government any more in the United States. President’s can engage in wars without congressional pre-approval. Non-government entities entrusted with a sacred mission to keep OUR economy safe are tending to others while we’re BROKE!? Is the House Appropriations Committee now a DEFUNCT AGENCY?
What you saw today on Wall Street was the result of another HEINOUS and CRIMINAL ACT. If our banking system was TRULY endangered by Europe’s problems then it only reinforces an idea that should have been implemented before TARP: Fire ALL of the CEOs and corporate boards of ALL failed banks, take them into receivership, recapitalize and restaff them, and start ’em up again. You cannot go anywhere but UP when you’re starting with the most inept group of financiers since the Mississippi Company.
Today was an INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL ACT.
E.
Eleuthero,
Have you seen the building for Palantir on University in Palo Alto?
I read a recent profile of the company at the Business Week site. Apparently the technology was initially part of PayPal in order to cut down on fraud. Now it’s a creepy technology favored by the NSA, banks, and other organizations.
In the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, Palantirs were magical seeing stones used by the dark lord Sauron to spy and corrupt the minds of men.
Say goodbye to civil liberties.
SJmom
I just love assholes – E
===========
You didn’t use to coach at Penn State did you?
Take it easy cowboy, it’s just a game. No need to get testy just because you don’t understand how green stamps work.
Well, if you understand what the Fed’s charter is and you have any empathy for the suffering of millions of Americans right now, you’d understand that I feel that your boasted gains are the FILTHY LUCRE of yet another monumentally corrupt action by the Federal Reserve.
I sure as hell wouldn’t go around publicly bloviating about how you capitalized on it like Goldman Sachs will. I don’t begrudge you your gains, Q., but your lack of circumspection here about what went down is not only bad timing but shows a tad bit of narcissism that is most unbecoming.
Why don’t you ask a “downsized” neighbor, a college kid with unrepayable loans, or a person who owes $400K on a $200K house if THEY think it’s “just a game”? Sore losers are bad but sore WINNERS are like sports guys who do the Watusi over a quarterback’s head after they give him a concussion.
I’ve also learned over the last 35 years that guys only brag about their gains but when they revert to the mean and get their asses rightfully handed to them by GAMBLING with their money, then suddenly THEY “don’t want to talk about it”. Saw the same damned thing after the crashes of 1987, 2000, and 2008/09. Are you guys actual individuals or have they been stamping you out in castings in China and then shipping you here?
E.
What you saw today on Wall Street was the result of another HEINOUS and CRIMINAL ACT.
=================
I’m surprised that what you saw the Fed do today seems to surprise you.
Take a Prozac and go to bed with a pet cat … Asoka assures us it’s all good.
You might enjoy:
Zombie-time site
esp the ‘Diversity cupcake sale’ pix
I found this there, a sign from Occupy Oakland:
Lovelle Mixon as a hero
Remember Lovelle Mixon, the serial rapist, child molester and murderer who single-handedly committed one of the worst mass killings of police officers in American history? Yeah, that guy. Well, the anti-police sentiment at Occupy Oakland is so intense that they regard Lovelle Mixon as a hero!! Whatever other crimes he may have committed, if he offed some pigs, then all is forgiven. Fuck the Po-lice! Power to the people!
SJM,
Could you give me the ADDRESS of that building? I want to inspect it, personally. We already have JP Morgan right on University Avenue right now. I wish some organization would take a bazooka to yet another accursed monument to Mammon in Palo Alto. Does the outfit you’re referring to have a NAME or is it an unnamed building? I *will* investigate.
Palo Alto is becoming a REALLY creepy town. There’s only 58,000 residents yet there must be thirty distinct and separate banks (in other words, not counting multiple branches of ONE bank). The vibe in town over the last few years reflects the encroachment of these financial predators … impersonal, cold, and lacking in any feeling of community. It’s a town for tourists and the residents feel like they’re “in the way”.
E.
Prof E, what happened to you?
You were a voice of sanity here.
Have you lost yr sanity?
No yours still is.
AG63 said, “the implications of a post carbon society that the earth will not be able to support the current 7 billion people. The number will have to move down to, at most, 3 billion, probably closer to 2 billion. The world wide chaos and turmoil that will accompany that die-off is going to be horrific.”
It might not be for the survivors. Think about it. People die all the time, all over the place. Do you notice it?
I don’t begrudge you your gains, Q
==========
I’m not quite sure you actually GET IT. I haven’t gained a penny and it is more than likely I won’t. This is a contest and we’re all playing with Monopoly money. I do it to amuse myself and in the process learn a lot about the workings of the market while staying on top of world events that affect it.
And BTW, I have a son who will probably never pay off his school loans … and a brother-in-law whose house is under water, his business is in the toilet, and his wife is dying. But NONE of this has ANYTHING to do with me being in a stock picking contest.
“Pucker —
If you win a seat at the next dinner with three other supporters and me, you’ll get to bring a guest.
I thought I’d bring one, too — so I invited Michelle.
She’s in.
Donate $3 or whatever you can to be automatically entered to sit down for a meal with Michelle and me.
Michelle and I don’t get to spend as much time as we’d like with the people who are building the 2012 campaign.
But we are incredibly grateful for all you’re doing, whether it’s volunteering and having one-on-one conversations in your communities or chipping in what you can to help build the organization.
We’re looking forward to the chance to thank you in person, so I hope you’ll take us up on it.
Make a donation today to be automatically entered for the chance to join us at the table:
https://donate.barackobama.com/Me-and-Michelle
Thanks,
Barack”
That’s very unfortunate. Middle Americans will turn away from this Movement out of disgust. And that means turning away from its Truth as well. Same as the 60’s but much faster this time.
Eleuthero is in a state of righteous wrath. Few are capapable of such feeling anymore. Too dead inside. I applaud him.
“Cats are bird killers. They shouldn’t be let outside.”
Indeed. But they are also chicken, fish, and soybean killers. Mice, snails, bugs.
And not only that, they carry zoonotic diseases like influenza variants and toxoplasma.
They have razor sharp claws which are typically infected with salmonella, staphylococcus, and rabies.
A cat bites one in every 170 people in the U.S. each year. This includes children and people who don’t even own a cat.
And of course, 80 percent of all cat bites get infected.
My remedy is simple: pay per hide.
This innovate, crowd-sourcing approach recruits the existing class of people who own 9mm’s, Taurus Judges, .44, .38, etc. and delivers a cash bounty.
Then, no one will be able to put up “MISSING” flyers unless they let their cat run outside; eg. they deserve it.
No I don’t like red neck racism if it goes too far. Hanging rapists is not the same as killing innocent Blacks.
I got interested in racoons when I caught a gang of them eating some of my corn one night. I was amazed at their joyful, curious, fearless approach to life. Wild animals? But one of them seemed willing to come into my house. I refrained! But I’ve also heard they are tough customers.
Cat haters: the night of the Long Claws is coming.
AS said:
Prof E, what happened to you?
You were a voice of sanity here.
Have you lost yr sanity?
******************************************************
No, I’m quite sane. However, there come times in a year and in the history of a falling empire, when one’s voice must be more strident than others. This is such a time. The Federal Reserve bank usurped the powers of the Congress in unilaterally deciding to help bail out another CONTINENT while millions here in the USA are waiting for the slightest sign that this government is EVER going to require that banks do something with money given them besides HOARDING it.
We still have consumers’ feet held to the fires of foreclosure, we’ve eroded personal bankruptcy protections, and in an era when irresponsible banks can get ZERO INTEREST loans from the Fed, they ask 16% interest on credit cards held by people with 780 FICO scores.
If this is not the time to express extreme umbrage, I’d wonder if you feel ANY time is the time to raise one’s voice?
E.
You’d be happy to know that Palantir was a creation of Peter Thiel, who gave Facebook its first round of funding. Theil is an avowed libertarian who believes that technology will make politics obsolete. Theil is a gay Christian Republican libertarian who is one of the richest men in the world. He resides in Silicon Valley. He eats celery dipped in the blood of human babies.
Okay, but this is a blog to discuss culture-wide issues, Q.. Why is your entry in some contest of the slightest interest to anyone but yourself? What possible motive for the original post of yours could there be except to boast that you LUCKED OUT thus far in your contest while somehow, in a sly, indirect way, imply that it was prescience? Why do we care how you do in a contest unless it’s “show and tell” to show us how smart u izz?! It’s like me discussing my goal in an afternoon soccer match in the middle of a political/environmental blog? It’s like a … non sequitur.
Shit happened today and it’s quite amazing how the most amazing violation of the Fed’s mandate since TARP in 2008 has been virtually UNCOMMENTED upon in this entire day’s posts. Maybe I gave this blog too much credit when I told Absalom that outside of a few pains in the ass, the blog was mostly pretty good … given that time tends to erode most blogs. Who recognizes what went down today? Who realizes that your Federal government essentially gave an ascent to bailing out European bankers while they’re still kicking consumer creditors’ asses into the poorhouse?
Y’all here on CFN may have noticed that I can disappear for WEEKS at a time but I’ve gotten more active in the last few days. It’s because IT IS CRUNCH TIME and once again, your government is showing that it cares about its crony’s failing Eurobank investments while it is jackbooting YOU. If you can’t give a shit now, then WHEN?
E.
“Pucker —
I’d like to ask for your opinion.
Last month, we launched a contest called Art Works, where we asked artists and designers around the country to pitch in their talents and create a poster to promote President Obama’s jobs plan.
Artists could design their poster in support of the whole plan or choose just one piece to illustrate, like creating jobs for veterans or helping small businesses grow.
Submissions are in, and I have to say — we’re all really impressed. It’s incredible to see how many folks were inspired to take the time to bring this plan to life and show what it would actually mean for our country.
And as always, it shows we have the most creative, thoughtful, and talented supporters in America on our side.
We have it narrowed down to 12 finalists. Now we need to pick the winners.
So take a look for yourself, and vote for your favorite three.
We have four criteria to judge designs: adherence to the theme, tone, creativity and aesthetics, and quality of workmanship.
Voting runs from now to December 9th. Then we’ll announce three winners who will get a framed print of their design signed by President Obama. Their posters also will run as limited-edition items in our Obama 2012 store.
Every day, people find all kinds of ways to lend their talents to help this campaign. Sometimes that means supporters baking a casserole for volunteers, or musicians writing a song and posting it online to show their support. Often it’s just the ability to connect with a neighbor and motivate someone who’s never been involved in politics before to step up and volunteer. They all help build this movement.
In this contest, folks used their creative talents to spread the word about the President’s plan to create jobs and put Americans back to work.
Now we want to hear from you — choose your three favorite posters and stay tuned for when we announce the winners:
http://my.barackobama.com/Art-Works-Vote
Thanks,
Jeremy
Jeremy Bird
National Field Director
Obama for America”
Bustin,
Got to congratulate you for the line that “He eats celery dipped in the blood of human babies”. I love great metaphors and this one is going to get filed in my “All Time Bests” list.
I didn’t know about Thiel or his politics but it seems to fit into the overall DARKNESS surrounding Facebook. One thing I most assuredly DO know from my old contacts at SRI (ones with crypto level security clearances) is that Facebook is the NUMBER ONE data source for the NSA to spy on American citizens.
Facebook creeps me out on a social level, too. They stick to each other like glue in public venues and avoid other “earthlings”. It completely torches the vibe of a neighborhood bar to see 30-35 of these Borg come in and take over the joint. I wonder if they have a “hive mind” and where Unimatrix Zero is.
🙂 🙂 🙂
E.
E., Peter Thiel is not on Facebook.
His comments were something along the lines of a general objection to the “commercialization of friendship”. But he believes in it for business. as for his acumen on that subject, consider that his hedge fund bet and lost over $6 billion after the ’08 crash.
Now he’s long in biotech. I would be too, alas, I have no cloaca that lays golden eggs, or I would invest.
Keiser Report: Überdebten (E217)
– http://goo.gl/UUeRL
Yes, what we’re talking about is another manifestation of the Vatican fascist Reich. And a sprinkling of imperialist nazi financial eugenics as the cherry on the top.
Q said: “Take a Prozac and go to bed with a pet cat … Asoka assures us it’s all good.”
=================
Q, please don’t use me as a human shield.
I am just as guilty.
E.’s criticism applies to me as well, because I have publicly bragged on CFN about my no-risk portfolio with 12.25% gains (in the real world, not in a game). I now better understand E.’s low opinion of me.
I have also bragged about my life decisions (refusing to participate in the military-industrial complex, refusing to increase the world’s population, embracing simplicity, building with adobe, etc.) so even though I never earned more than $30,000 a year, and even though I am on a fixed income of $1,000 a month, I am living like a king, with a clear conscience, because I shunned FILTHY LUCRE.
Most of my 45 years of my work life happened in the 20th century. I recognize times are different now. For example, people fighting in Iraq have had their homes illegally foreclosed by Bank of America. Many people are hurting through no fault of their own.
Nonetheless, I still think my values (pacifism, voluntary simplicity, loving the planet by saying NO to reproduction, meditation, permaculture, etc.) and my politics (Green Party) are applicable in the 21st century, if anyone wants to adopt them. Five decades ago I decided they were more interesting than chasing after getting more and more money.
As I have said many times, money is not what is most important in life. Money is just a medium of exchange. There are many things in life more important than money. One can live comfortably, and thrive, on a minimum amount of money … without obsessing about getting more and more and more. And, yes, in the end it’s all good.
“No I don’t like red neck racism if it goes too far. Hanging rapists is not the same as killing innocent Blacks.”
-vlad-
Well, on this statement we could more or less agree. Except, “goes to far” is hard to define and even harder to control.
Look – I don’t have a problem with “Whites” or “Blacks” or any other “Racial Groups” living peacefully on private property.
I do it now. I call it “my house” and “my property” where you will find “my family” and “my invited guests.”
But – if hate spills out of my Family, and attracts the attention or “hate?” of the world at large – then I’ll expect repercussions. And I know that enough hate, or hateful speech – can result in bad things, including arrest and death.
And the rules that apply to one man’s family – also apply by extension to larger groups or “families.” White Separatists or AmRen need to make that connection.
They can try to move ahead in peace, speaking in the rhetoric of peace.
Or they can wither and die in hate.
I don’t see a whole lot of middle ground, here.
E.
You’re so right about the lack of concern about more money going through the back channels to hold up Europe’s central banks cuz, you know the tsunami will hit here next–at least that’s the same old tired line they’ve been giving us since the first TARP bailout.
Oh, yes and the stock market shot way up there–its the only game in town and the banks infused the market with lots ‘o dough. It was around $13 Trillion, I wonder what it is now!
Of course, we’re not allowed to know how much–its all a black box. Like the Patriot act it’s nailing the coffin of democracy and any semblance of capitalism. Both of which will be a fond memory for anyone who cares about being under surveillance 24/7.
It’s very important for marketers to know your every purchase. You know you can’t have an opinion that counters the narrative you are given. Someday a meglomaniac can incarcerate you for thinking differently–a terrorist they will say. Don’t say it can’t happen here because it can happen anywhere where the system breaks down.
Your money can be taken at whim, which is the lesson of MF Global. (now $3 billion and counting)
We are in a frightening moment and many can’t see that. No salvos will help. There is so much connection among the top 1% that at this point there is nothing left, but a conflict of interest.
Howdy, E.,
Just finished with catch-up, finding a large portion of it to be “catsup” or “ketchup” instead!
I’m gobsmacked that nobody seemed to notice what happened with the magical money creation machine. I think we’ll have to start calling all these financial institutions the Greatest Organized Crime Syndicate ever! It’s truly amazing.
The justification is exactly the same as the last picking of pockets (present and future): Credit is freezing up, the banks are unable to lend! We’re sorry, but we have to make your children (and their progeny, ad. infinitum) debt-slaves to the Parasitic Class. Without ANY oversight or recourse, to boot!
This shit is not going to cease until the leveraging scam (that is the uber-wealthy’s LEGAL vampirism) is exposed. We must remember that they own all the levers of law and power, so we’d better start looking into the legitimacy of our legislative/governmental institution.
What was JHK’s theme for this week? Jesus, People, focus! This is fucking ROBBERY on an unimaginable scale, your New ‘Murkin Dream is a worldwide, unregulated, totalitarian nightmare. A corrupt, absolutely ruthless conspiracy.
Wake the fuck up, and stop being distracted by paid bullshitters, fascists, and deluded pollyannas. The Griftocracy has been turned loose to feed, and its’ appetite is insatiable.
It’s just quantitative easing on a global scale and it could keep the game going for decades.
Of course it it illegal, but who is going to put the bell on the cat?
http://www.jillstein.org/
Jill Stein 2012
E and Lbend –
If your only tool is a hammer – every problem looks like a nail.
That’s the problem the US Fed has.
Now – I’m not arguing that this problem was not “contrived” into existence – by powerful financial interests, because it was.
Most voters in the US have learned (been brainwashed) to associate the US stock market with their own personal financial fortunes. And this link has gotten tighter over time – even government pension funds are hopelessly dependent on stock market gains to pay their pensioners.
=================
As far as you homeowners, upsidedown by $200K, or whatever.
The only solution the Fed has is to create inflation. They are hammering away with their only tool, as we speak.
They will succeed, eventually.
And then things will go way to far.
Unfortunately – It’s the American Way.
E: i wholeheartedly agree…and just want to add about the stock market that it has become a bullshit game, that is rigged in favor of the house: while it may have started as a way for many to “invest” in the few, now it seems to be only an instrument for some insiders to clean up- how often do you hear: “nasdaq is up/down today, following news that __________ was higher/lower than expected(previously reported)”…short selling, huh? i ve personally long thought that taxes should be collected from only that money which is generated BY money- “filthy lucre”- and not from working folk’s wages, or from things which are produced and sold…and i ve also wondered why people who profess to be christians “forget” that jesus threw the money changers off the temple steps…as i understand the story, he was mad that folks were being charged for prayers, and were borrowing said shekels at usurious prices…seems the underlying message has been lost, there…on a somewhat unrelated note, Q: shear means cut, sheer means translucent- while the marble had to be sheared to be sheer, you still owe me $1.67…i ll take it in trade…
Palantir
156 University Avenue and 100 Hamilton Avenue
i know at first glance taxes may seem to have little to do with the world s financial skullfucking, but think about it- we have to pay them in order for the govt to fuck us all over with the cash…i think prog is right about people equating the market with their own, personal financial state…it s how corporations get to do so much harm in the name of profits- if BP was a privately owned and operated entity, or a govt- run operation, the outcry would have been deafening, and from all corners instead of a whimper from the fringe…
“…short selling, huh? i ve personally long thought that taxes should be collected from only that money which is generated BY money- “filthy lucre”- and not from working folk’s wages, or from things which are produced and sold…” -CFT
Charlie,
Yes, a good (and viable) idea. But guess whose profits that would cut into? *sigh*
The rotten edifice appears to have been completed. I’m afraid its going to have to collapse under its’ own weight; the destruction tools that the 99% have at their disposal are inadequate for the job.
Not to take Q’s side in an argument –
But there is some validity in examining what’s going on in US/Global stock markets – for a window into what lies beneath, anyway.
For example – Q’s report that solar stocks are the most “shorted,” has meaning. But what is that meaning? Beats the hell out of me.
I bought some shares of Cameco (CCJ) about a year ago, now. I announced on CFN that I expected to at least double my money. And CCJ was actually doing quite well – until Fukushima Daiichi. That took CCJ down about 50% from where I bought in. I didn’t sell.
Then yesterday, CCJ went up almost 9% – double the overall market.
Hmmm- solar down, uranium flying up – I think TPTB can see which way the wind is about to blow.
—————————-
BTW, I don’t invest for an ideal world, I invest for reality. In my ideal world, solar equipment would be flying off the shelves and nuclear plants would be phasing out. Also, peace would guide the planets, and love would steer the stars.
Fred gives an answer to why the US can no longer do innovative things in energy – or anything else.
I wish he was wrong.
http://www.fredoneverything.net/Clot.shtml
“See, societies are like people in that they get old, clot, lose flexibility, and then croak. They can’t get better. Like most things, they just get worse. A rule of thermodynamics says that rivers don’t flow backwards, plaque does not voluntarily leave arteries, and governments do not become more reasonable, efficient, or interested in the well-being of their populations.”
-fred-
the first step to getting the money out of politics might be to get the POLITICS out of politics: in the age of instant communication and long distance travel, why do we still have a representative government? wasn t that the story we were given in history class, that it took six months to get a letter to california and back? what would a straight democracy look like? if We The People voted on issues instead of personality, at least we d get what we ask for; instead of empty promises…THAT seems like change we could hope for, mr obama (sorry, my disappointment is showing!) 2%, anyone?
LB,
I’d guess that only the pain of privation will lead to the revelations necessary for a “reset” of priorities.
P2C,
Glad I introduced you to Fred. Always good to have the perspective of someone who’s seen a LOT of shit from the back-alleys where the “real folks” live (or strive to), all the world ’round.
CFT said:
E: i wholeheartedly agree…and just want to add about the stock market that it has become a bullshit game, that is rigged in favor of the house: while it may have started as a way for many to “invest” in the few, now it seems to be only an instrument for some insiders to clean up-
***************************************************************
They’re hoping, MIGHTILY, like a few CFN’ers have tried to do to discredit JHK, that the masses will confuse the STOCK MARKET with the ECONOMY. Those who follow market economies know that trading volumes, especially compared to the halcyon days of 1999, are way down and brokers need to “simulate” market vitality and movement. Anybody can do some Google research and find out that the vast majority of daily trading now consists of computer programs hitting the “buy” and “sell” buttons based on “news” items which, if scrutinized by the Bambis out there running stock mutual funds and the hapless retail investor, aren’t even analyzed by these financiers for their long term effects. “Oh, someone in Absurdistan farted. Better sell.”
Thus, we are now on our EIGHTH round trip in a yo-yo game between Dow 10.6K and 12.8K since April. The average swing in this yo-yo game has been around 1400 points in EACH direction. It’s an absolute TRAVESTY to call this “investment” since, net-net, the major indices have done NOTHING this year with TREMENDOUS volatility … indeed, the up and down movement of the money of the players in this game is basically a round trip of 2800 points or 27% in an average time of about a month for each round trip. Yet the brokers still have the retail investors and their 401Ks believing in that stupid “average return of 9% idea” that I discredited a couple weeks ago.
It IS a rigged game because the major investment banks CREATE the market momentum and they move billions of shares without any rational thought by setting off their computer programs. They, and only they, know when they’re clicking the “buy” or “sell” programs in any given time period. Meanwhile, they still have a hypnotic spell cast over the retail investor and mutual fund managers that no portfolio should have under 60-70% stocks.
The demographics, also rarely mentioned, are disquieting. Boomers are now starting to retire en masse. Richer people are retiring and tending to move money OUT of risk assets while the next generation is smaller and POORER. Anyone who thinks this is a long term plus for stocks believes in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. In Japan, Europe, and America where average ages are moving higher and birthrates lower, simple math dictates that money is going to “leak” out of stocks for a very, very long time no matter what the “news genie” drums up to influence very short term performance.
The financial services industry is a lot like Christian depictions of LUCIFER … a wily, crafty, alluring guy who plays a confidence game on you to believe a masterfully crafted crock of bull before he takes your soul and grinds it up.
E.
Thank you, SJM, for Palantir’s address. I’m sure that in the next few business days I will be booted out of their “business” digs for merely trying to find out what they DO. They’ve just GOT to have a security crew on hand preventing any meaningful entry by info seekers. Thanks again, SJM.
E.
E,
I’ve been paying close attention. Thanks for the sharp insight. Please don’t disappear for weeks.
E,
I’ve been paying close attention. Thanks for the sharp insight. Please don’t disappear for weeks.
ABSALOM
P2C said:
Most voters in the US have learned (been brainwashed) to associate the US stock market with their own personal financial fortunes. And this link has gotten tighter over time – even government pension funds are hopelessly dependent on stock market gains to pay their pensioners.
***************************************************************
See my post above. You state the matter very concisely. City, state, and county pension funds are hopelessly locked into the stock market and individuals have been mesmerized into the idea that 60% of money in stocks is a “conservative” portfolio.
This may very well become a self-fulfilling prophecy i.e., that the market does BECOME the economy. However, it’s only an indication that the REAL economy is so decimated by bad demographics and worse individual/city/state/federal debt stats that the perception is created that the stock market is the only game in town.
Market movers hope like hell that there’s not a mass awakening among pension funds and retail investors who are keeping brokers employed via the myth of the “average” 9% return.
E.
Debt forgiveness?
Not bloody likely, as it is anathema to vampires, but here’s a good analysis (part 1) of the predicament:
http://www.oftwominds.com/blognov11/Zeus-unleashing-future3-11-11.html
Ha!
Good on yer, E.
Increasing the paranoia of these “institutions beyond reproach” tends to make them tip their hands; always a good thing.
Ozone said:
I’m gobsmacked that nobody seemed to notice what happened with the magical money creation machine. I think we’ll have to start calling all these financial institutions the Greatest Organized Crime Syndicate ever! It’s truly amazing.
The justification is exactly the same as the last picking of pockets (present and future): Credit is freezing up, the banks are unable to lend! We’re sorry, but we have to make your children (and their progeny, ad. infinitum) debt-slaves to the Parasitic Class. Without ANY oversight or recourse, to boot!
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They’ve legitimized culture-wide grifting. And, yes, they wave the FEAR flag to pretend that unless all TBTF entities are PERPETUALLY bailed out, the economy will collapse. Nobody has the job security of an incompetent, bailed out financier. No fuck up is too big. Every speculation is “backstopped”.
It’s just like the constant waving of the “terror” flag to coninue groping granny at the airport. With little fanfare we’ve moved into a “soft”, “antiseptic”, totalitarianistic griftopia with financial resources in an “inverse virtuous cycle” where the money is funneling from the virtuous to the sociopathic through news releases that have less truth in them than a Pravda anti-West article in 1964.
E.
The big difference I see between science and religion is that the former actually acknowledges that bias can exist and tries its hardest to eliminate the human foibles from its conclusions.
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That’s true…..at its best, science (itself, rather than the people who practice it) is objective, to the extent that observation is objective. Once you wrap your mind around that limitation you live in a richer world.
My Buddhist teacher graduated cum laude from Amherst with a degree in physics, while a Buddhist monk. He has access to some of the world’s greatest physicists through his work with the Dalai Lama’s Mind Life Conferences, where he frequently serves as the big guy’s interpreter. I find his discussions about physics as interesting as his discussions about Buddhism.
Below is a link to one of his talks (defintely NOT religion) about the nature of information. cutting edge physics. The Link is only to the page and you have to scan down to: “The Nature of Information, Mind and Matter etc.”
A different view of reality, one I find much more expanding than either the materialism of faux science or the dogmatism of much of religion.
Hope you listen to it;
http://www.sbinstitute.com/node/775/podcast?page=4
Question:
If someone farts in a howling shit-storm, is it heard or smelled?
Alrighty then; enough farting outta me for now. See yez in the funny papers! ;o)
OZONE,
Another very good article to help bring dolts like me to speed.
So what does this mean in terms of brick wall scenarios? In other words, is the late round of bailouts for Europe via our Fed. Reserve going to project collapse farther into the future, or does it loom nearer?
I’m guessing that it will stave off impending doom. Confused.
Thanks,
ABSALOM
For days, it is enough…
Here’s you a new goal {dream}. See if you can get your head around this: It’ll all be gone someday, without comment or complaint. No one will wonder why.
“So I begin by asking what is the truth that the divine apostle intends to convey in this passage? It is this. In due course evil will pass over into non-existence; it will disappear utterly from the realm of existence. Divine and uncompounded goodness will encompass within itself every rational nature; no single being created by God will fail to achieve the kingdom of God. The evil that is now present in everything will be consumed like a base metal melted by the purifying fire. Then everything which derives from God will be as it was in the beginning before it had ever received an admixture of evil.”
If its not purifying you, its not the Word of God.
“Of the three Cappadocian Fathers, Gregory of Nyassa is the one closest to us, the least proud, the most subtle, the one most committed to the magnificence of man. That strange, simple, happy, unhappy, intelligent, and God-tormented man was possessed by angels…. It was left to Gregory of Nyassa to be the man enchanted with Christ.”
“We say that the fire purifies not the flesh but sinful souls, not an all-devouring vulgar fire, but the ‘wise fire,’ as we call it, the fire that ‘pierces the soul’ which passes through it.” [Stromata, VII, vi]
“Punishment is, in its operation, like medicine; it dissolves the hard heart, purges away the filth of uncleanness, and reduces the swellings of pride and haughtiness; thus restoring its subject to a sound and healthful state.” [The Instructor, Vol. 1]
“Wherefore also all men are His; some through knowledge, and others NOT YET SO…. For He is the Saviour; not the Saviour of some, and of others not… And how is He Saviour and Lord, if not the Saviour and Lord of ALL? But He is the Saviour of those who have believed, and the Lord of those who have NOT believed, till, being enabled to confess Him, they obtain the peculiar and appropriate boon [blessing] which comes by Him. The First Administrator of the Universe, who by the will of the Father, directs the salvation of all… for all things are arranged with a view to the salvation of the Universe by the Lord of the Universe, both generally and particularly… But necessary corrections, through the goodness of the great overseeing Judge, both by attendant angels and through various preliminary judgments, or through the great and final Judgment, compel egregious sinners to repent.” [Stromata, VII, vi]
Say Saviour, and be saved.
“And He Himself is the propitiation [expiation] for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.”
We are not saved by believing, we realize we are saved by believing.
“And not only for our sins, that is, for those of the faithful, is the Lord the Propitiator does he say, but also for the whole world. He, indeed, saves all; but some He saves converting them by punishments; others, however, who follow voluntarily He saves with dignity and honour; so that every knee should bow to Him, of things in heaven, of things on earth, and things under the earth–that is, angels and men.”
The Law of God is therefore a curse and then a blessing, turning us from our sin {law – less – ness 1 John 3:4}.
Many Christians follow the Israelite example. They are afraid of the fiery law. They often repudiate it outright. They think the fire is “hell,” not realizing that it is the awesome character of the God of Love. Pentecost is our Sinai experience. The only difference between us and the ancient Israelites is that we are able to approach God and enter the fire even as Moses did. The Israelites refused to go into the fire, thinking that they would die (Ex. 20:18-21).
Deut. 4:12 says, “Then the Lord spoke to you from the midst of the fire; you heard the sound of words, but you saw no form–only a voice.”
The Law of God does not pronounce endless judgment upon anyone. It is olam, “indefinite, hidden, obscure” in length, because everyone is different. The judgment always fits the crime, and it is limited by the law of Jubilee when all men are set free to return to their lost inheritance (Lev. 25:10, 13). Men must be judged to learn obedience, but that judgment is limited by the grace in the law of Jubilee.
A redonkulously long exposition that provides no useful information.
SNORE
Thank you, dale.
I have listened to it once, and I will listen to it again. I have another free hour and two listens should do it, since it seems he is basically riffing off the Heart Sutra … and I love this paradox of the Heart Sutra.
Form is no different from emptiness
Emptiness is no different from form
That which is form is emptiness
That which is emptiness is form
http://www.thebigview.com/buddhism/emptiness.html
I like the part where he says: “They [the reductionists] have made the brain primary and assume information is in there … and lo and behold they have a mind-body problem.”
There is no god. There is only idiotic programming for idiots willing to submit to that idiotic programming. But you don’t even qualify for that, because you can’t even understand the language the original programming was written in. So what you follow is a derivative of a program that was dis-assembled and then mis-assembled into a mambo-jumbo pagan nonsense of the worst kind. You are so screwed up that I feel as much pity for you as I feel anger at your idiocy.
Btw,
olam = world
adon olam = lord of the world
“He” is your lord because idiots like you allow “him” to mold your world. Your Operating System is that of a child imbecile.
The Biz Week articles reads: “Palantir’s engineers fill the former headquarters of Facebook along University Avenue…..It’s security people–who wear black gloves and secret service style earpieces– often pop out of the office for lunch…making downtown Palo Alto feel at times, a bit like Langley.”
Let me know what you observe.
SJmom
OK, So a Muslim in Germany goes to the hospital.
She weighs 1/4 ton. Her 14th child weighs
as much as twins.
She names him JIHAD!
A 13-pound baby named Jihad was born in Berlin early on Friday to a 528-pound unidentified mother at Berlin’s Charité hospital, according to Germany’s English news site, the Local.
Baby Jihad, who joins 13 siblings, is reportedly the largest baby born naturally in Germany. Doctors said his 40-year-old mother suffered from gestational diabetes and likely a metabolic disorder, as well. While the woman reportedly said she did not know she had diabetes, doctors said she in fact was aware of her condition, but ate too many sweet foods……………
Cast NOT pearls before TURKEYS.
ji·had …. /ji?häd/
Noun
The spiritual struggle within oneself against sin.
This information is some of the best I have found on this topic for me, I really appreciate this point of view and I’ve found it to be more reliable then some, I will be recommending it to others.
The 1% of the US is inexorably linked with the 1% elsewhere. They have houses all over the world, they travel all over the world, and they own businesses all over the world.
To get upset with the 1% because they feel more loyalty to the ruling classes of Europe than they do to the working class of America would be to believe that being born on the same patch of Earth gives you some sort of eternal bond, that money doesn’t.
Wall Street ripped off pension funds AND European countries. Of course they care more about appeasing angry European bankers than they do angry US workers.
What the hell can angry Americans do? Demonstrate? Let them. For a while. Then bring the jackboots in to clear them out.
Pass a law to call them terrorists and throw them into military prisons.
Use Fox News to spread disinformation about riots and rapes in Occupation camps.
I have read that some villagers can catch monkeys by putting a treat into a cage. The monkey reaches in to grab it, and won’t let go, even as the villagers come and grab and eat him.
This reminds me of Americans and their 401Ks.
Sure, the nice cheerleader assures you that you will be a millionaire when you retire, as long as you put 20% of your income-tax free!!- into the 401K.
Why do you need 401Ks? Because the banksters in the 80s leveraged your corporation, and used the pension funds to pay it off. But no matter. Grab that banana!
Look at all the Wall Street banksters getting rich! That’s going to be you when you hit 65!
Don’t listen to Max Keiser telling you that the reason the brokers are rich is that they are ripping off the pension funds!! (This isn’t covered by corporate media, so you have to disregard alternative media).
All that the deal shows is who has the power to make the Federal Reserve back the fraud and larceny of Wall Street, and who doesn’t.
It’s a club, and you’re not in it. As George Carlin pointed out years ago.
And the info about Facebook is disturbing. I do hang out on Facebook, and learn a lot from my friends. Bummer.
Yeah! what he said!
When Orange County lost their pension funds in the 90s, it was a major scandal.
Now, it’s expected. Our public pension funds are in the stock market, and the inevitable, (but always unexpected!) losses are expected to be made up by taxpayers.
You got that right, CFT!
Mike Gravel has been trying to get his democratic reform passed into law for a while.
Other countries have referendums on important national issues, but the US doesn’t. The only thing that we vote on nationally is which corporate stooge will live in the White House for four year segments.
This is ridiculous. There is no reason, as you point out, in the age of instant communication and computers, that we cannot directly vote on items of interest to our lives.
http://www.mikegravel.us/
The problem with debt forgiveness is that so many people are so hateful..
If they don’t owe $250,000, they don’t see any reason that someone who does shouldn’t be thrown out onto the street.
It’s like Ralph Nader says, when everyone does better, society does better.
If you are responsible and didn’t run up debts, good for you. But the breakdown of society and the social unrest caused by unemployment, poverty and homelessness is going to affect you anyway!
I like that CHS addresses this issue.
Personally, I’d rather see deadbeats rewarded than to see my country deteriorate into third world conditions.
When I was a kid, we were taught that it would be better that 10 guilty men went free, than one innocent man punished.
Has that ever changed! Now the Supreme Court announces that it doesn’t matter if someone can prove their innocence. They don’t get a chance. Just kill them.
Unbelievable.
Wage, your 12:47 post is so masterful, I wish I had written it myself.
I was listening to Gerald Celente with Alex Jones this morning and what an earful–his experience says it all and I hope you all listen to a victim of the destruction of people’s investments. Also listen to Max Keiser’s interview of Karl Denniger today.
I looked up more info on where some of the billions turned up from MF Global—Morgan Stanley Great Britain!!
You can’t make this stuff up. There is not a single fictional entity that would describe the total FUBAR state this world economy is in.
That’s what happens when you impose supply side, “free market” (which is anything but) no regulations on the global economic system and then get rid of you economic base. Your economy becomes fiction and a lie and it keeps getting bigger and bigger. It is now untenable and getting worse with each passing day.
Oh, and as Wage says they really don’t give a rat’s ass what you think and how obvious it is.
Welcome to Reality – the Reality that Real Conservatives have lived with for generations. You’re very late, but welcome anyway. Just don’t start talking about more big goverment or federal banks.
So the stock market is effectively rigged. So what? Anyone stupid enough to invest when the most likely outcome is a loss or a return below the real inflation rate only has themself to blame. I do feel bad to see people lose their wealth, homes, jobs and happiness, but they ought to take at least some responsibility for their lives. So change the way you live, learn from your experiences, vow to never give up, and return to fight another day.
Yes, predatory lenders took advantage of unsophisticated mortgage applicants. But many applicants knowingly lied on their applications; this is immoral. One doesn’t have to be sophisticated to know right from wrong. Yes, I truly feel badly to see these homeowners’ lives wrecked, but they must share responsibility. Even if a homeowner did nothing wrong and got screwed, they’re still responsible for their lives. And, yes, WE are responsible for helping those who truly can’t help themselves.
My little rant is my reaction to some commenters on this blog who, from their lofty position of higher knowledge, endlessly complain about what’s really happening in the world. Then, when someone else chimes in with their own story or opinion, these selfsame commentors either chastize, ridicule or dismiss them.
Instead of telling us what’s wrong,why don’t you tell us what you think we should do about the issues?
Because of lack of space, I’ll single out one person (out of several) now: Eleuthero. Stop fucking complaining so much; stop hiding behind the veil of erudition; stop knocking others when their interests and opinions don’t jibe with yours. Do tell CFN what can be done about the things you complain about. You’re coming across as a bitter, aging misanthrope who has trouble with relationships. Your handling of Q’s comment about his stock-picking contest was cruel. The guy was obviously very happy about his results, and wanted to share them with us. So you felt it was a waste of time, BFD. MaoMao’s foreign language postings take up a lot more bandwidth.
Yet you go ahead and waste more bandwidth complaining about Q.
The word from streets paved with skulls:
http://www.newnation.org/MichaelX/ToDoInjustice1.html
S1867 – secret legislation coming up for a vote that will turn America into part of the battleground on terror – championed by Mad Dog McCain of course. Part of the gear up for WW3 no doubt. Having more than 7 days of food stored up is a sign of being a terrorist.
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=10689
Go Bean Go!
Celente has been talking about the coming disater for years – and how close it is. Yet the guy was playing “futures”. He couldn’t just get out. Addicted just like everyone else.
If things are as bad as he says, he should be holed up away from New York City. I don’t dismiss him – he just can’t walk his talk. Too passionate – exactly what got us into this to begin with. That’s how it starts. Then making money becomes the only thing – so rules and morality cease to exist. I don’t think Celente is like that, but the first step? Too passionate and acquisitive? Sure.
So the revered former county sheriff – and I do mean revered, the county detention center was named after him – stands in an orange jump suit with shackled hands. Allegedly, his retirement hobby was trading meth in exchange for man-on man sex. But, according to prosecutors, he may not be able to serve in prison if convicted: Perhaps he has the HIV virus.
Fedwill Bail out Euroland????????????????????????
and file this in ‘so what else is new’ file:
More Human trafficking courtesy of Immigration laws:
NEW YORK (AP) — A mob-run ring that lured women from Russia and other Eastern European countries with the promise of waitressing jobs — only to send them to dance at New York strip clubs — was shut down Wednesday after 20 people were charged, including seven purported members of organized crime families, authorities said.
Prosecutors said members of the Gambino and Bonnano organized crime families were swept up in arrests aimed at closing an operation that recruited the women and then arranged for many of them to enter into sham marriages with U.S. citizens so they could stay in the country and continue to work as exotic dancers at adult entertainment clubs.
[I hear the Russian Mafia is doin lotsa murdas and trafficking.]
I went to a middle school awards ceremony yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed the spirit and energy of those insolent, awkward, confused youths. Their bodies so lithe and springy, their minds so innocent and unsure. Cynthia Rodriguez, what a beautiful smile this beautiful blonde girl shined to her proud Mexican/white parents. Jacob Jarmillio, golden brown hair and green eyes – his parents were no less proud.
The future of America doesn’t look so bad to me; it just needs to be nurtured with love.
We don’t hate all Blacks all the time by any means. They can be fun and very, very funny. When was the last time you let yourself just roll around on the floor laughing at Blacks? Here you go, enjoy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6KC2UNawYY&feature=related
The Mexican Elite are White for the most part. That’s what you saw. If a blonde marries an ordinary Mexican, the blonde hair is gone forever since the ordinary Mexican has no genes for this in their Indian ancestry. Most of the ones coming here are mixed, or Mestizo. But the real White characteristics are already long gone since they are recessive to begin with.
We are the youngest and highest race, Buck. Thus the most fragile genetically. We must nuture our evolutionary endowment and separate from these other breeds – worthy as they may be in their own way. Else we risk becomeing nothing…. except mutts. Which goes for more on the market, mutts or pure breeds? White babies or Black?
As Da said, All there is is is. Bill Clinton was a piker next to Da. He could have been our first Hindu president.
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Hear! Hear!
E. is getting much too excited about electronic ones and zeros on computer screen that supposedly represent TRILLIONS of dollars, yen, euros, etc. of debt.
So the bank computers here want to help out the bank computers in the Eurozone. As anti soak says: what else is new?
“He” is your lord because idiots like you allow “him” to mold your world.”
Its not my world. Ownership rests in creating the thing owned. You are owned, you are just not allowed to realize it because of your gift, your wonderful intellect.
As for the rest, we shall see.
“”Punishment is, in its operation, like medicine; it dissolves the hard heart, purges away the filth of uncleanness, and reduces the swellings of pride and haughtiness; thus restoring its subject to a sound and healthful state.” [The Instructor, Vol. 1]”
Case in Point: Jack Abramoff.
http://youtu.be/CHiicN0Kg10
It is true that nothing changes a person like the vagaries of punishment. This was a premise of “Fight Club”. The assorted shocks of the next decade are certainly going to put a hot pepper up a lot of people’s asses.
“ji·had …. /ji?häd/
Noun
The spiritual struggle within oneself against sin.”
And… a horrible name for a child. & Etc.
Pretty disgusting, no matter how you look at it. Having 13 children is psychotic and should be illegal.
You think Jack Abramoff is humbled? You think he has been “reformed” by his punishment?
I have seen his performances in front of the media and what I see is a con man busy working on his next con.
Disgusting is culturally relative. A name like Mercy or LadyDi might seem disgusting to some.
So, you want big government to come down on the breeders?
Politicians are bought and sold. Abramoff has the spotlight, and, despite interviewers’ focus on his motives or feelings, he is doing solid service in talking about it, whether it is penance, authentic contrition, or otherwise. He served 3 and a half years in federal prison, so ostensibly he has paid his debt to society. The pols are still in office.
As for Baby Jihad- his mother’s dangerous and stupid decisions will reverberate for the rest of his natural life. Likely side effects of his mother’s stupidity will be congenital ugliness, obesity, diabetes, a shortened lifespan, and low I.Q., along with getting his ass kicked on the playground on a daily basis.
Cultures need to get real about children. Every pregnancy in the U.S. is treated as God’s extra special act- conception, even, for the leading edge of the Religious’ Right’s efforts to jam God and religion down everyone’s throats.
We are far too timid and accepting a society to stand up and tell the unfit mothers of the world to stop getting knocked up. A cash and/or drugs payment for sterilization would help immensely.
Lets not leave the “fathers” out of it. Low-life sperm donors should receive a lifetime supply of male contraceptive pills or sterilization.
soak, the outrage is that those trillions of ones and zeros represent widely disparate to different people: literally tens of thousands of square feet of living space; the finest clothes, food, toys, education etc for their children; the best healthcare; the list goes on and on…all in return for lying and pushing a goddamn button- worse yet, just for TELLING SOMEONE ELSE TO PUSH THAT BUTTON- while those of us who do the ACTUAL WORK- which fucking hurts, by the way- are lucky to have a place to live, and chances at the rest of “the dream” are disappearing before our eyes like a bad magic trick…yeah, more of the same, and i for one am glad to see the anger put into words, and i hope ad hominem attacks from hoser and such ilk (how do YOU like it soak?!) do nothing to discourage eluethero and the other voices of rightous anger…the more discussion we can have, the better i say; we might be able to find our way as human beings out of the shithole we have allowed to exist for too long…
Buck, More and more children in USA are in poverty.
The future may be worse that even I imagine it to be!
Yr heartwarming anecdote is just that, an Incident
not a rational predictor of the future.
40% of young black males are unemployed, for instance.
Chilling.
Mr Druid, you’re one of the few people on here who’s views I really respect, you trying to explain God to these creeps is like trying to describe trigonometry to a two year old. They aren’t going to understand it.
I’ve tried myself and often give up.
In the first place most of them have nothing but contempt for the basic tenents of western civilization anyway, and their hostility towards religion is basically a resentment against anything that puts a brake on whatever the hell it is they think they’re entitled to. And like nost people in modern society that’s anything and everything and immediately.
I’ve seen it written on here that God is man made, this from people who think they can make up any rules to suit themelves, and jam it down everybody else’s throat.
It boils down to no religion, no morality, and they don’t have to think about anyone but themselves.
question: if the guy was given million$ in return for criminal activity, shouldn t a life sentence without parole just about take care of the interest (compounded daily, as i m sure his cash was), leaving the principal unpaid? an argument can be made that he played a part in fucking up all of our lives and freedoms; why does he get his back? not that i would exclude any of the thousands like him, or the boughten politicians from culpability…i m bitter; and just sayin’…
I’d happily pay the marginal amount in taxes to prevent the massive incurred costs of deferred disability payments and medical costs further down the road.
The willful act of conception and birth of a child with congenital disabilities should be seen as child abuse. Fetal screening for congenital defects should be mandatory, as well as case-by-case analysis of fitness for motherhood. Why shouldn’t women have to qualify to give birth to their 13th child? Without the assistance of modern technology and social services, what are the chances this bitch would be stone dead by the 7th or 8th child? Germany’s technocracy made possible this monstrosity. “God” would have killed her ass with complications and poverty a long time ago.
I dont disagree but Big 13 pound Jihad was born
in Eurabia, Germany.
dunno if moms on welfare, Maybe dad works.
At 540 pounds with 14 children maybe shes just ‘workin the system’.
ask the literally countless millions who have been killed, raped, and dispossesed in the name of religion how moral they think they were treated? you call US creeps?! you puke, i wasn t raised by idiot religious fanatics, but if i had been, it still wouldn t have passed the “does this really make sense how you explain it to me” test…ask yourself what it says about you and all those people who have to have the idea of an invisible man watching to behave…WHEN you behave…i ll just tell you what we think- whether the others will admit it or not: anyone who is a part of organized religion is tacitly a part of murder, molestation, lying to, cheating and stealing from the weak and gullible, and a host of other misdeeds…so shut the fuck up already about morals an ethics- you don t recognize the lack in yourself to be able to point to it in someone else! oh, and when you re not around, we refer to you as ‘goddies’ …fucking moron…
…and please, no more religion today; i don t know if i can hold back and control my temper that well again…
Well, thank you, Beantown, for your timely exhibition of my point about hateful Americans.
Someone who loses their wealth, home, job and happiness pretty much is going to change the way they live, by definition, right? So your unkindly advice is unnecessary.
Lying on an application is immoral. Horribly immoral. Anyone who does that certainly deserves to lose their happiness, job, wealth and home.
But what about the banks who encouraged it? The bankers whose job it is to investigate the truth of applications, but instead encouraged liars loans, and then turned them over to be packaged, sliced, diced and sold to pension funds and European bankers?
You left them out of your rant about accountability, saving your wrath for home buyers and investors.
Anyone who invests is a fool and deserves the loss of their wealth and happiness, just like poor people who wanted homes that they didn’t deserve.
Get over your superiority complex. Just because you aren’t in debt doesn’t mean Boston didn’t invest pension funds in the stock market. How will your quality of life be when the homeless population soars, and desperate people turn to crime? A life lived in fear is unpleasant, even if you personally aren’t going hungry.
I, for one, constantly offer a solution to our economical, social and environmental problems.
I advocate becoming a truly democratic society, and deciding as a people what we need to live a decent, sustainable life, and then dividing up the work among all available workers.
You don’t like that solution?
The Green Party supports monetary reform. Dennis Kucinich has introduced a bill calling for the nationalization of the Federal Reserve, and giving the Congress the power to issue currency. You know, the power given to them in the Constitution. HR 2990. If you’re interested in solutions, here’ one you can support, I assume.
I left out the link. It has information on monetary reform, the Kuchinich bill and the Green Party platform. Lbendet, I think you’ll find this interesting, also.
http://www.monetary.org/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=be5kLq4lLqc
Oh, George, what are you up to, Brother?
When was the last time you let yourself just roll around on the floor laughing at Blacks?
————————————
What your missing Vlad, is how many people here are “rolling around on the floor”, laughing at YOU. I’m trying my best not to be one of them BTW. I know a pathetic sad little man, when I “see” one.
BuckStud, your comment on the JHS awards ceremony, beautiful sentiment, nicely said!
So 2 days ago, in a lengthy front page article, the WSJ claims that the USA, for the 1st time in 62 years, will become a net exporter of refined petroleum products, with almost 800,000 million barrels of gasoline, kerosene, jet fuel, diesel etc. shipped out. Doesn’t sound like an energy starved nation to me. Peak oil is still an open question. I’ve read about a dozen books on the subject, most of them written between 1999-2006. Maybe it was just another intellectual fad, I don’t know? I can clearly remember “by the year 2000” half the human population would be wiped out by AIDS, New York, Boston and Charleston would be underwater from melting sea ice, and the Y2K virus would shut down the developed west. None of that happened.
Another article in the Journal states the “uber Rich”, billionaires, are still living large but laying low for the time being, until the Owser movement blows over. (although both factions are similar in that they both believe in big government. Turns out the Fed gave out $16 trillion to various banks and institutions since 2008.)
–WSP7
You can’t give government the right to decide who can and cannot reproduce Bustin. That leads to abuse of power.
Although, the fluff news on my computer opening screen had an article about forced sterilization in the USA. They said that the laws were on the books until the 70s, which I didn’t know.
They were, of course, used mainly against the poor and the non-white.
But they were showcasing some woman who got knocked up at age 16, and was sterilized after the birth of her son, for being promiscuous. According to her, she didn’t know she was sterilized until she got married at 18, and couldn’t get pregnant.
So she only has the one kid, who turned out pretty well, according to the article. She went to college and got a good job, and has led an upstanding life, by US standards.
So the article postulated about how much better her life would have been if she hadn’t been sterilized. WTF?
She’s trying at age 18, with a 2 year old, to get pregnant again. How many kids would she have had? How could she have gone to college, with all those kids?
Although I don’t think the government