On Tuesday, when the Republican Party and its Tea Party chump-proxies re-conquer the sin-drenched bizarro universe of the US congress, they'll have to re-assume ownership of the stickiest web of frauds and swindles ever run in human history - and chances are the victory will blow up in their supernaturally suntanned, Botox-smoothed faces.
But don't cry for John Boehner, Barack Obama.
The President and his Democrats may have inherited this clusterfuck from the feckless George Bush but they flubbed every chance to mitigate any part of it, ranging from their failure to restore the rule of law in banking (by prosecuting the executives of major banks who oversaw the systematic swindle), to mis-directing our dwindling resources toward ends (such as "shovel-ready" new super-highways) that won't promote a credible future for this society, to misleading the public in the fantasy that alt-energy will offset the disruptions of peak oil (and allow us to keep running suburbia, the US Military, and WalMart by other means).
It's really too late for both parties. They're unreformable. They've squandered their legitimacy just as the US enters the fat heart of the long emergency. Neither of them have a plan, or even a single idea that isn't a dodge or a grift. Both parties tout a "recovery" that is just a cover story for accounting chicanery and statistical lies aimed at concealing the criminally-engineered national bankruptcy that they presided over in split shifts. Both parties are overwhelmingly made up of bagmen for the companies that looted America.
Alas, the damage is now so pervasive in money matters that the federal government could be toast as a viable enterprise, even if a new party or two spontaneously rose up out of the ruins of a plundered democracy. Anyway, one of them will not be the Tea Party, with its incoherent agenda and moron cadres who seek to put Jesus back in the US constitution, where he never was in the first place - though they don't know that.
Nor is there any party on the left or even in the center with a clue or a moral compass. Its just one of those tragic moments in history - like 1850s America, when a strange vacuum of thought occupied the heart of political life, and the scene was cluttered up with mere place-holders like Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan. (Can you state a single idea or position, these political ciphers advanced?)
Where we stand now is on the cusp of another giant step into the abyss, since the latest storm of Foreclosure-Gate suggests pretty strongly that mega-tons of mortgage-backed securities are assured of blowing up, as well as the sundry derivatives of these things (CDOs, CDOs-squared, plus the massive fetid matter infesting the alternative cosmos of credit default swaps). If you follow the media-of-record like The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, you would have to conclude that there is no extant plausible notion among financial leaders as to how the fiasco of botched mortgage-and-title documentation can be resolved. After three weeks of emerging events around this debacle, the consensus among the power brokers is to pretend that there's no problem, that the issue of missing, forged, post-dated, trashed, or non-existent paper related to claims on property can just be put aside, brushed under the rug, glossed over, ignored.
Let me tell you something: this problem is not going away. At the very least it is going to paralyze the real estate industry for as far ahead as anyone can see. For another thing, it could force the disclosure of what the banks are holding in their vaults in the way of worthless paper and expose their insolvency. For still another thing, it could lead to rafts of lawsuits that would additionally shove the banks toward collapse, demolish the claims that underlie our currency, call into question the meaning of property ownership per se that is the basis of Anglo-American law, and tie up the court system until kingdom come. In any case, every pension fund, state government, and insurance operation would be crippled. I could go on but you get the picture.... This might all sound extreme, but I repeat: nobody with any authority in this land has proposed a plausible way out.
By the way, I haven't even touched on the totally insane but now accepted practices of the Federal Reserve attempting to stage manage the velocity of money by so-called quantitative easing - a.k.a. the US writing checks to itself - because even that nonsense assumes that everything else remains more or less stable.
This is what the two major parties can look forward to as we swing around into the Yuletide season and then into 2011. The proud winners of seats in congress and the senate might as well put on clown suits and little pointed hats on Wednesday morning and drive around the Washington monument in toy cars. There will be a desperate need for a new politics in this country, for people unafraid to tell the truth and act in the genuine public interest. If we can't generate it from the saner quarters of this country where people think thoughts that comport with reality, I'm afraid we could see some generals step into the picture.
I write literally over the middle of the Pacific Ocean, en route from Australia where I spent the past week - not on vacation. It's a reminder that there are a lot of other players in the wide world - not all of them nations on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
___________________________________
The sequel to my 2008 novel of post-oil America, World Made By Hand, is available at all booksellers now.
First!
"Both parties are overwhelmingly made up of bagmen for the companies that looted America."
You are unnecessarily denigrating bagmen.
Both parties are looting the USA
Another excellent missive on our country's abominable political condition. At 8:30 this morning I have to report for jury duty after receiving a summons to do so. What an excellent way to also elect our politicians. Someone on CNBC maid that same point last week. One term and gone. Then bring another person in. Would probably put a lot more common sense into the decision making and minimize the corruption of the current "gang" .
So the U.S. is about to enter "the fat heart of the long emergency".
Well, maybe. But at the risk of being impolite, I'll take this Halloween opportunity to point out that on July 16 of this year Kunstler specifically predicted "the markets themselves will roll over and puke, as I rather imagine they will between now and Halloween, if not next week".
The S&P500 has risen 6.1% since Kunstler wrote that.
I regularly read Kunstler because he's a hell of a great writer, with a keen ear for the English language, a eye for the good opening, and an instinct for the razor-sharp phrase that puts him in the same league with Hunter Thompson at his gonzo prime.
But by perpetually predicting the End of the World as We Know It at least one decade ahead of schedule (the approximate timing of Peak Oil is likely to be around 2020, in my opinion ... and Peak Natural Gas and Peak Coal are considerably farther off on the horizon), people point at folks like Kunstler and dismiss the very crucial need for serious discussion of Peak Oil as an ongoing exercise in crying wolf.
Economically and socially, things are rarely as good as the the boosters will proclaim, but they are rarely are they as dire as the doomers warn, either.
The 21st century will be one long exercise in learning to get by with less abundance -- especially for those of us in the "developed" world used to squandering ridiculous amounts of cheap energy -- but it's more likely to be a long, hairy skid down a steep, slick road than a sudden plunge off of the cliff.
Or, we may end this year with a Dow Jones average of 4,000 -- as Kunstler has perpetually predicted since roughly 1812. Again, maybe. But let's just say I'm glad Kunstler ain't my economic advisor.
There is only one party. I think Jim has said it himself; it has two factions.
Somebody once said that it never pays to be more than ten minutes ahead of your time, and that's just the problem with Kunstler, James Michael Greer, and other Peak Resource prognosticators.
But then, their followers don't have to be quite so literal-minded and knee-jerk in their response. Greer suggested that it might be time to move back to the decimated Midwestern cities, like Detroit and St.Louis, that have taken such a beating in the cheap fuel era, while others have embraced the subsistence farming lifestyle. I don't think so- this is no time to forsake a decent livelihood in a walkable city with good transit to go back to a place where you still need a car to get to any job and where you take your life in your hands standing on a street corner to wait for a bus. These folks are a little ahead of schedule, and not only are they cutting themselves out of economic opportunities that might permit them to get themselves more favorably positioned, but might be moving in the exact opposite direction they need to go.
The best adaption is to play it as it lays, while practicing the virtues that have always stood people in good stead in weird times, such as frugality and cooperation, while cultivating extreme flexibility. It might be a good time to hone your gardening skills and it is surely a good idea to downscale your lifestyle in order to save money and acclimate yourself to a low-energy lifestyle, but you might have to hold on to your car for a little while longer if your job is located 20 miles from a bus line, and you might not have the physical strength and stamina to farm. It is surely no time for anyone with a solid job and minimal savings to head for the hills. It might not exactly make sense to ignore the skills you need to make a decent living now in order to learn old skills for which there is not yet a need.
It certainly will not pay to spurn advanced technologies that could mitigate our situation substantially, and embrace the wasteful technologies of the nineteenth century, and it surely will not help us to regress to the social arrangements of the past. Burning whale oil for light is out of the question, burning wood for heat will deforest the continent in 2 years, and long dresses on women are a prodigious waste of fabric and get in the way of doing work.
The ride down the slope will be very choppy and full of surprises no one could have predicted. All we can do is be alert to signs that what we are doing, as individuals, is not working, and position ourselves so that we can be flexible and resilient in the face of whatever comes.
Eighth!!!
A rather frighting Halloween post, that one, Jim. One does wonder when an adult will intervene, and declare the obvious for all to hear and see. Right now Bill Black has been shouting fraud pretty loudly, as well as a lot of other folks, Jim included.
I look for some interesting moments next week, after the Tuesday election and whatever has been holding the pipes from bursting lets go. Things are pretty messed up on all fronts. I can't see it all holding together until another election, not at this rate.
JHK said:
Jim, the military squandered their legitimacy long ago. The military is a dishonorable institution that is an unrepentant serial liar about the war crimes it is committing on a daily basis in violations of the Geneva Accords, the UCMJ, and standards of human decency.
The military also has no plan to solve problems of contract law, bad paper, etc. that you describe as a "web of frauds and swindles."
Indeed the military is part of the problem. Out of control military spending and outright corrupt use of allocated funds (billions of which cannot be accounted for by any means) does not indicate that the military would have a clue about addressing the economic and legal problems of civil society.
"frightening" spelled correctly as tenth!
CORRECTION
The USA military is a dishonorable institution that is an unrepentant serial liar about the war crimes it is committing on a daily basis in violation of the Geneva CONVENTIONS, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and standards of human decency expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
I don't believe that Kunstler is advocating for a military takeover, but expressing a fear that this could happen if this country should completely unravel politically and socially.
It's a fear I share, and there exists a military force,extremely wealthy and very well-supported, though covertly, by both major parties, that is fully capable and absolutely willing to affect a military takeover of this country and install a Christian Military Government with all the repression, systemic brutality, and mass deep impoverishment that a military dictatorship usually produces.
Xe Services, formerly known as Blackwater, is fully up to the job and its founder, Eric Prince, is a fundamentalist Christian and one of the wealthiest people in the country. He would very willingly step into the role of a religious dictator.
Dr. Doom said: "after the Tuesday election and whatever has been holding the pipes from bursting lets go."
It's serious duct tape holding the pipes. Duct tape won't let go and the ducts channeling money will be kept mended.
Laura said: "He would very willingly step into the role of a religious dictator. "
He should get his name on a ballot and then refuse to offer any solutions, answer any questions from journalists, or make any public appearances ... like the other successful candidates have done this election cycle.
"But by perpetually predicting the End of the World as We Know It at least one decade ahead of schedule (the approximate timing of Peak Oil is likely to be around 2020, in my opinion ... and Peak Natural Gas and Peak Coal are considerably farther off on the horizon)."
Conventional crude oil (plus condensate) peaked in 2005. "All liquids" has been on a plateau from roughly 2004 until present. Plateaus are a flat-topped form of peak, not a step or ledge. Several agencies and groups see us leaving the plateau beginning in 2012-2015. One group calls for global peak coal next year, in 2011. More optimistic estimates say 2020-2030 for global peak coal. Peak natural gas is likely by 2020, but it matters more if it peaks in your sector of the globe more than oil or coal, as natural gas is piped.
Laura said: "I don't believe that Kunstler is advocating for a military takeover, but expressing a fear that this could happen if this country should completely unravel politically and socially."
Yes, I recognize that. And my point was the clusterfuck would continue unabated with generals in charge, since they have amply demonstrated their incompetence and immorality over the past 40 years.
Uh, NO.
But You're Welcome to your opinion.(below)
Donny-Don said
"I regularly read Kunstler because he's a hell of a great writer, with a keen ear for the English language, a eye for the good opening, and an instinct for the razor-sharp phrase that puts him in the same league with Hunter Thompson at his gonzo prime."
Dear Jim,
I've been reading your comments for some years now, with increasing delight. Thankyou for them.
I see that you wrote this coming back from Australia, and I have one thing to ask you, Jim.
Please dont write a column on the happiness here. It would be too cruel. Here I am in Sydney, my vegetable garden planted, the year round lemon tree in fruit, the wistaria gone mad and every day, Jim, every single day, I thank that ancestor who stole horses in Ireland and rode it up to the local ( English ) squires manor and got the horse to kick the door in as a protest against the starvation of hundreds of people on his patch.
Transported as a convict to what turned out to be a paradise, (the irony of it) the line continued down to me, and here I am, where we've had our political nervous breakdowns, where no banks failed, where universal health care is superb and paid for by all Australians, without exception, taken out of my income at the rate of 1/5%, (I would happily pay more ) where I am mandatorily obliged to vote, (I love it ) where living in the hardest drought over the last 10 years, and having the rains come down has turned the whole big island into a golf course from Darwin to Hobart, from Byron Bay to Roebuck, well,.Jim... You get my drift. Please don't write about the fat cattle and the wheatfields, or the incredible beauty of Sydney. I'm just asking, Jim.
whoa. 1.5% !!....
The salient point here is that nature abhors a vacuum - and often the vacuum-filler is the crudest, roughest, Ving Rhames gettin' medieval on it's ass, shape-shifter.
When there's no choice, nature conspires to find one, and as JHK and others have pointed out, Nature always bats last. Thing is, nature didn't mention that in the 8th and 9th innings, Nature's prepared to execute triple-plays on us, so it's not a late-game-comeback scenario worth waiting on.
When will the strong, crystallizing person emerge - from some unlikely provenance - to focus our attention in a realistic, action-generating movement? I'm not holding my breath for anytime soon - there are miles to go of sleepwalking, and promises to keep - to ourselves for a wake-up.
Too many shiny, consumer-culture objects still spinning to jolt us out of the slumber of go-along-to-get-along bliss - to the Walmart tune of... "Save More. Live Better".
I posted last minute comments to Mika and Beantown on last week's thread.
Oh, and I've got a little piece about how we got here called "The Power of Horse" ready for anyone who might be interested, over at Small Batch.
http://smallbatchgarden.blogspot.com/
Cheers!
What JHK is saying - and I agree - is that a paradigm shift is coming. It's inexorable. When that happens we will be back to the basics and forced to live with obvious. Here's an example. Let's take the so-called "housing crisis." There is no housing crisis, per se. People need to have houses in which to live. There are plenty of people who need housing. Surprisingly, there are plenty of unoccupied swelling units out there. Solution: match up those looking for shelter with those unused dwellings! So here's the real problem: they can't "afford" those dwelling! Now I ask, just exactly what does "afford" mean when the Feds just created close to a trillion dollars out of thin air to keep the "system" from melting down? Truly, that is their explanation for why the bailout had to be done - to keep the "system" from failing, meaning that the whole financial system would have imploded. Well, guess what! It's imploding anyway! What are we going to have here - half the populace homeless while houses sit empty? That sounds like a broken system to me!
So, JHK readers, get ready for a monumental paradigm shift. Just imagine that much of what you worked for will be "worth" zilch and that many small people will seem to be getting something for nothing. If that bothers you, too bad. I see it coming. It's inevitable. Oh, and by the way, the system did not really fail. It's been failing all along and the drapes just came down so we will see it for its reality. That's what happens with all unsustainable systems.
Asoka, the generals have been incompetent and immoral for quite a bit longer than 40 years. Please check out the essay that Major General Smedley D. Butler, USMC, wrote in 1935 - "War is a Racket".
I would argue with you about the "incompetent" part of your statement, though. Immoral, for sure, incompetent, no. They have been very competent in the past several decades. Just look at the profits! Of course, there has been a bit of collateral damage, but hey, that's the price you pay for progress.
Whether or not we are on the verge of systemic collapse, the die is cast. We WILL be contracting, powering down, relocalizing, and all much more involved in the production of food, fiber, and fuel in the coming years. On average we already are. Like Richard Heinberg says, energy descent is already upon us, it's just not evenly distributed yet.
It's fun to read Jim's piece every week, and the idea that he cries for major cultural change while flying over the Pacific in a jet airliner, is amusing to me. (Am I creating enough positive response to justify the energy expense?) Kunstler sounds the alarm, prematurely or otherwise, it doesn't matter, because if first-world humans want to be a part of the distant future, the time to get serious about it is now.
We will not solve the problems of population and ever-increasing technology with more population and technology. That should be easy enough to see. Instead what's needed is a long hard look at every activity we engage in and why. Can we get away without bothering to do it at all?
There is an immense amount of conservation to be had from a concerted mental shift toward awareness. Toward behavioral innovation. Being aware that you left the tap running, or a light on in another room. Start there and see what presents itself. The government isn't going to help you with this, because the government is owned by the corporations, and they aren't interested in unprofitable solutions. Adaptation to energy descent is the epitome of unprofitable, but it is necessary, and the time to start making changes is now.
Doesn't make a bit of difference who gets elected tomorrow. We the People need to be the change we wish to see.
I suppose it just doesn't matter anymore - at least for me. Jim's comments no longer make me sad, and that there's the pity. Our sage voyager has taken us to the edge of the cliff, and there is no looking back.
Dear bloggers, last nite was my thirteenth anniversary...and I didn't even get laid. Oh well, what the heck. I'm trying to restore an old candlestick, a distant reminder of my former youth and "grandeur". It's not working out too well, just as this QE isn't going to save our sorry asses.
"All I have left is ruined finery." That line is from an old Bette Davis movie, "Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte". Jesus Christ. This Long Emergency is taking it's toll on me as I watch and see the last vestiges of "modern times fade from my memory. Society, as we know it, is slowly drifting away, and we sit back, complacently, waiting for the next shit storm. Heaven fucking help us.
Sorry, end of quote. Slow curtain, the end....also courtesy of Miss Davis, a most splendid woman whom I miss greatly.
Jimbo! You're right. Our plight is indeed desperate, but you missed the biggest news of last week.
It's here: http://www.thenothingstore.com
By knowing what is going to happen, one can act rationally and stay relatively safe.
Laura, you are the voice of reason. I hear people suggesting that we ditch all investments, no matter how humdrum and sensible they are. It's just sci-fi drama-seeking to fear that it's all going to come down around our ears in a matter of months. Myself I'm still practicing my not yet obsolete commercial art skills via the not yet obsolete internet. Just as our Mr. Kunstler is still practicing weekly his self-publishing and also taking advantage of the not-yet-defunct airline industry to extend the range of his notoriety. Of course, I'm also practicing living on a shoestring, eating cheap and vegetarian, growing and preserving food, making lots of friends out here in the sticks. I've got all my bases covered and am open to all the possibilities, including really strange weather that could mess up the food supply with little notice.
Lynn
http://www.10in10diet.com/
For a small footprint and a small grocery bill
And the worst part, at least for me, is that even the indominable Miss Davis can't save this motion picture from becoming the divine tragedy, for which the rest of us, most silently, are watching, as we careen down this most despicable slope.
"Let me tell you something: this problem is not going away."
That statement made me chuckle. No, I don't think it's going away either. Unless, by "away" you mean passed off on unborn generations in deferment. That's the basis of the American Dream -- if you can't make it in this day and time period, just fuck the next one. Hooray! Prosperity and GDP burritos for all my men!
Tommy Krenshaw
http://freedomguerrilla.com
Jim--
You are CORRECT, sir when it comes to third parties. I was a registered Green Party guy, but the last few years have seen the party subsumed with 9/11 conspiracy buffs and former Marxists who've been disowned by their Maoist friends (and believe me, it takes some doing to be too disagreeable to stay in the Workers World gang). When I've tried to broach the subject of Peak Oil, it all is instantly disparaged as another Big Business Conspiracy, there's plenty of oil but Exxon doesn't want to ship it, etc. Or worse, the EV morons come out and scream at me for sabotaging their vision of a plug-in Happy Motoring Nirvana (they believe almost to a man that power for their EV's will come from the Electricity Fairy).
IOW, the denial of peak oil is not an issue of party politics--it is buried so deeply in the American psyche that most people can't envision any future that doesn't involve cars, fast food and Disney World trips every two years.
Great post as usual.
"IOW, the denial of peak oil is not an issue of party politics--it is buried so deeply in the American psyche that most people can't envision any future that doesn't involve cars, fast food and Disney World trips every two years.
Great post as usual"
I can envision such a landscape. I existed, long ago and far away. It was a different world, my friend.
The financial morass makes Peak Oil look pretty benign. Hey, at least the nutjobs who make the USA into the Republic of Gilead won't have the fuel to invade Canada for those oil-sands.
I keep getting e-mail from Canadian friends asking "what is wrong with you people down there?"
My answer is some variation of "A wounded and dying lion is the most dangerous lion of all."
"IOW, the denial of peak oil is not an issue of party politics"
Absolutely. My fellow lefties think that we'll just invent new fuels so they can drive to Starbucks and the latest art-opening.
Peak Oil could have been a signature conservative issue, but the GOP has turned into a freak-show for Apocalyptic Christians and ecocidal weenies from suburbia.
On the other hand, I've met conservatives who are GOP heretics who "get it." They know that fossil fuels are finite (why else are we drilling in the deep oceans?) and that we need to be conservative in the old sense of the word: saving not squandering, making do with less, rediscovering old ways of living that were not based on debt and consumption.
There are simply not enough of these brave souls about. Where's Teddy Roosevelt when you need him?
Every election people are tricked into jumping back and forth between the two wings of the Republicrat party, as if their policies were any different from last time. They always have someone else to blame all their failures on, like China: http://news.lesswaiting.com/110110.shtml
I still read CFN weekly...
Keeping my head on straight one solar job after another though, not letting the DOOM AND GLOOM eat me yet...
I think PEAK OIL is the elephant in many of the rooms I'm attending lately...
Tripp Ticket and Lynn are my favorites...
Is it days, weeks, months or years left?
Live in the Moment, stay present.
I found myself worrying about future contact supplies this morning since my vision sucks...Should I get lasik?
And yea, voting, HA. Clown Suits, pointed hats, and Toy Cars was about right JHK...
What did we think End of Empire would look like?
JK, good story this week, but no one's talking about your "talking points."
Submitted for discussion:
1. Is it true that the documentation, or lack thereof will produce real estate industry paralysis? Or can it be ignored, as Jim suggests of the status quo?
2. Is there any way to investigate or understand the international perspective of the Federal Reserve's policy of (QE) aka, printing money out of nowhere? Is there anyway to forecast how this policy affects various sectors of the US population?
Since both of these topics involve the specific understanding of historical economic and social activities are there better website, blogs to find information relevant to these subjects?
Clearly these two subjects could have transpired regardless of Peak Oil, why are they being discussed here?
What becomes increasingly clear from all the credible news which is available (ie: anything ouside of Faux News and the Alphabet Soups) is that we're living through the collapse of American society, as well as possibly the wrold economy and so on. Yes, some things are still functioning -- but remember the lights on the Titanic stayed on for a while even as that mighty ship slowly sank. The next stop is going to be the new Dark Age as people's worlds extend to the edge of their village at most and places like Europe and China might as well be on the moon. America was Rome reborn and America is now living out Rome's death.
http://leibowitzsociety.blogspot.com/
Republicans, tea baggers, right wing christians, fuckin' dick armey, queen karl rove, bug juice tom delay, pay no attention the men behind the curtain Koch brothers, dead eye dick cheney heck of a job W, and all the rest of the vast texas,kansas, right wing conspiracy, are UN-DEMOCRATIC, that is they do not accept the results of an election unless they win. God help us all when they retake the House and cannot fix the leaks in the roof.
I think you freaking hit the nail on the head there, bud.
Why wait for government to save us? Or the banks or corporations? They're not in a position to, and not really interested anyway. Better to take matters into our own hands and do what we can locally. Every step in building local community will be helpful as we move into the "fat heart of the long emergency."
Some ideas and notice of a Local Futures conference here at www.RadicalRelocalization.com
From a recent column by Joe Stigtlitz in The Guardian:
The housing market is another US anomaly: there are hundreds of thousands of homeless people (more than 1.5 million Americans spent at least one night in a shelter in 2009), while hundreds of thousands of houses sit vacant.
Indeed, the foreclosure rate is increasing. Two million Americans lost their homes in 2008, and 2.8 million more in 2009, but the numbers are expected to be even higher in 2010. Financial markets performed dismally – well-performing, "rational" markets do not lend to people who cannot or will not repay – and yet those running these markets were rewarded as if they were financial geniuses
...And this is one of the world's most noted economists (and a Nobel laureate) saying this.
Amazing that we talk of Communism having failed, but we never talk about whether Capitalism has failed. What exactly would be the criteria? We already have one in seven living in poverty, and the highest number of incarcerated (not rate, abosolute numbers) in the world (surpassing both China and the old SU). While Communism had an opposing system waiting in the wings to step in, we have none, thus we never talk about failure the way we talked about Communism, but I would venture to say it has failed already.
"Nothing's impossible I have found, for when my chin is on the ground, I pick myself up, dust myself off, and start all over again. Don't lose your confidence, if you slip, be grateful for a pleasant trip, and pick yourself up, dust yourself off, start all over again. Work like a soul inspired, till the battle of the day is won. You may be sick and tired, but you'll be a man my son. Will you remember the famous men, who had to fall to rise again, so take a deep breath, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, start all over again!"
Thanks, Cole Porter. Does our national character even have this type of chutzpah anymore. Go to Youtube and enter "Swingtime" for this beauty. Guess ya can tell I like the ol movies!
I'm glad we seem to have a consensus that both parties are to blame and that nothing much is going to change after electing a bunch of new bosses ("same as the old bosses").
Outright military takeover is a likely possibility in the next few years. Actually, the military-industrial-congressional complex has been more or less in control since their minions assassinated John Kennedy to keep the military buildup happening. So we might as well face the facts of who's in control.
This morning I got a wake-up call about what the Long Emergency will be like when it finally arrives back here. A friend in India wrote a short story about his village life and it well expresses what it will be like to return to performing all our work without the aid of oil-fueled machines.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=984-v5Mtx5U
This 12-minute film will make you think about the fantastic quality of life we are being rapidly scammed out of. Is oil all there is that is keeping most of us from a life of hopeless poverty? Or, is there some other factor that can spare us from falling so hard?
The time to prepare is now.
p.s. They let me out of the asylum every other weekend. Don't be too scared. Halloween is over...sigh...
" It's really too late for both parties. They're unreformable. They've squandered their legitimacy just as the US enters the fat heart of the long emergency. Neither of them have a plan, or even a single idea that isn't a dodge or a grift. Both parties tout a "recovery" that is just a cover story for accounting chicanery and statistical lies aimed at concealing the criminally-engineered national bankruptcy that they presided over in split shifts. Both parties are overwhelmingly made up of bagmen for the companies that looted America." -JHK
Wonderful turns-of-phrase in incisive commentary, Mr. Kunstler!
These are the only aspects of the approaching shit-storm that give me some juicy schadenfruede moments. The vision of greasy politicos [quite purposely] maneuvering themselves into positions of irrelevancy and illegitimacy is truly amusing.
See ya in the funny-papers! (...in more ways than one.)
Ha! They should be letting you out more often; the supposedly "sane" people runnin' thangs 'round here have sure fucked things up good 'n' proper, and could use a different perspective! ;o)
Have some fun, whatever you do.
"we're living through the collapse of American society, as well as possibly the wrold economy and so on."
And so on? You mean the galactic economy is next? ;o)
Neckflame #1. what a winner! I'm only 51st. Loser And by the way help us with the discussion? This isn't just grade 3 here I hope.
This ain't no disco. Ain't no party, either....Sheryl Crowe,
Ain't no country club either...this is L.A.
File this under the "Who the fuck cares
category. JFK's speech writer (Sorenson) died. Loved JFK. I was horny constantly from '60-'63. And then, well, you know....bad shit started to happen, and, and.....Oh shit! Just lost my train of thought. FUCK!
10 years ago, today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average on the NYSE, was floating near the 10,000 point mark.
The DJIA today is barely above that point.
Factor in inflation, and the 40% loss in value that the US Dollar has seen in global currency markets since the year 2000, and it is clear that the Dow Jones is *already* at the 4,000 point mark.
And has been.
For years.
Which means that Kunstler's long standing prediction, (from the year 1812), was not so much a 'prediction' as it is an expression of current reality.
If you want to talk about the S&P 500, and its piddly 6.1% recent gain, since July 16th of this year, when it was all of a whopping 130 points higher than it is today...
Then fine, lets do that.
Today, as the US markets open, the S&P 500 is several *hundreds* of points *lower* than it was a decade ago.
Again, factor in a decade's worth of inflation, and the 40% loss in value that the US Dollar has seen since the year 2000, and it's clear that the S&P 500 is just as fucked as the DJIA is.
Now, from the day that President Clinton left office, had the DJIA lived up to its much touted 'Historically the Dow, like clockwork, sees an annual gain rate of 10%', (that every single Press Release that the NYSE has ever published says the DJIA has done since Day One), then today it'd be closing in at the 30,000 point mark.
Instead of it currently being @ ⅔rds of that mark, where it pathetically languishes today.
Happy All Saint's Day.
"All I wanna do is to have some fun before I die!"
Seriously, I want more. Way more. I've got chillens, and grand chillens. I worry a lot about what will happen when grammy is no longer around to protect/provide. JFC! :)
"Since both of these [financial/fraud related] topics involve the specific understanding of historical economic and social activities are there better website, blogs to find information relevant to these subjects?" -bud
Here's a good site that's clear-eyed about such things, and refreshingly lacking in the typical "happy-growth-talk" that seems to form the bulk of most economic punditry...
http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/
Always interesting and informative. (Some of it is a bit arcane for me, but they do try hard to explain for dunces like myself. ;o)
NYC,
Thanks for clearing that persistent delusion away!
'Bout fucking time a stake was driven through the heart of that blatant lie of "perpetually increasing value" and sumthin' fer nuthin bullshit.
Another nice piece of work this week, JHK.
"....the fat heart of the long emergency..."
Wow, that's a nice new metaphor!
It's funny how many people take Nostradamus and "Hister" seriously while giving Nostradamus wide leeway as to specifics and times - yet expect JHK to be dead on accurate as to timing week after week.
As to some specifics for the week, Budizwzer asks:
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1. Is it true that the documentation, or lack thereof will produce real estate industry paralysis?
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IMO, "paralysis" is a strong word. These guys who created this mess are "masters of paper," and a lot of the problems in RE will be "papered over," one way or another - though perhaps eventually for pennies on the dollar.
Owning real estate has real costs. We've got posters suggesting that empty McMansions be matched up with homeless people. Sorry, guys, but just paying the heat bill on an average McMansion is gonna break the budget of your average homeless panhandler - unless you know ahead of time that he's got permission to rip up the hardwood floors for fireplace wood. (Which I have seen happen in a rental house owned by a friend.)
===========
AND
"2. Is there any way to investigate or understand the international perspective of the Federal Reserve's policy of (QE) aka, printing money out of nowhere? Is there anyway to forecast how this policy affects various sectors of the US population?"
=============
I'd like to know a *real* answer - but, alas, this is a question for the "dismal scientists," AKA economists, who have brain chips that prevent *real* answers.
Intuitively, QE has to cause the value of the US$ to drop internationally. Done *"properly"* this makes our exports cheaper and our imports more expensive. Done "*improperly*" and we just fall off a cliff that ends in $20.00/gallon gas and the US as an overpopulated banana republic.
=================
AND
"Clearly these two subjects could have transpired regardless of Peak Oil, why are they being discussed here?"
================
IMO, the failure of the US to deal with PO under Reagan (and our quarter-witted invasions under BushII) are part and parcel of our problems - including our economic problems.
Both parties are wedded/grafted to the idea of cheap oil and economic growth.
And I'd TRULY like to meet the GOP'er, postulated upthread, who wants to "conserve," - energy or anything else - in the traditional sense of the word.
Good questions, Bud and others. Thanks for trying to keep JHK's discussion "on-track" with his comments for the week!!
Another site run by people keenly aware of both the true scope of the financial mess as well as the looming resource shortage issue is financialsense.com
The folks there lean to the right on economic issues so if you believe in the hyper-Keynesian views of Krugman that we can fix the economy by flooding it with money, you won't find it to your liking. Or if you are a political leftist, you will no doubt disapprove of their generally free-market orientation with regard to economic theory.
They do try to have guests on that provide differing opinions, as I recall they have had some stimulus advocates although not radical helicopter-drop types a la Krugman.
Prog,
Good points, as usual. Now forgive me, but it's grammy's nappy, nap nap time. :)
"We've got posters suggesting that empty McMansions be matched up with homeless people."
In the coming age of scarcity, I can easily picture that one way housing issues will be dealt with is that McMansions, which are way oversized for the new economic world we're in, may wind up being occupied by multiple families and/or individuals. That spreads the high utility costs among a number of people. And that's still not a bad living situation compared to what people in poor countries are stuck with. Also this will increase the population density in suburban areas, which will facilitate more public transportation.
On the other hand, there is liable to be some major social friction between the remaining affluent residents of those communities and the new low-income residents.
I am so very tired of hearing the storyline similar to "The President and his Democrats may have inherited this clusterfuck from the feckless George Bush..." I was no fan of Bush and I am no fan of Obama. But please remember that a president submits a budget to congress. The democrats controlled congress for two years prior to Obama's reign.
So if Obama inherited anything, it was a clusterfuck of the democrats doing. They approved the budgets that Bush put forth and Obama voted on those budgets, but I won't bother looking up how Obama voted on those budgets since both parties are at fault. Jim assigns blame to both parties, but that particular meme (about Obama inheriting Bush's mess) drive me up the wall.
I'm neither Republican nor Democrat, but Christie is looking pretty good to me. But I doubt he has the energy to try to clean up the mess in America.
Now that SCOTUS has provided constitutional protection for corporate purchase of elections, term limits have to come back into the picture as the only possible approach to alleviating the corrupting influence of money. If the swells don't have the opportunity to come back for more terms, it's within the realm of possibility that they might occasionally vote on behalf of the public interest, rather than the interests of their paymasters.
progressoconserve:
"And I'd TRULY like to meet the GOP'er, postulated upthread, who wants to "conserve," - energy or anything else - in the traditional sense of the word."
progresso, while not a GOPer I am a Republican-leaning independent. I gave up my car last year and rely on public transportation. I live in an apartment building in which my monthly electric bill (which includes heat) is $25 in the summer and $50 in mid-winter, so I am not burning much fossil fuel for heat.
As a Republican-leaning independent, I could be called a "GOP-er", and I do believe in conservation.
But I do agree that the prevailing energy attitude of most conservatives is a "don't worry be happy" outlook. I view those on the left as being just as delusional on energy, however, since they are absurdly optimistic about the potential for renewables to replace fossil fuels in the near term.
Housing stock of the type we have in America takes a middle class income to maintain, without which....well, just take a look at how neighborhoods throughout the "rust-belt" (uh, now elsewhere throughout America)quickly fell into disrepair following the de-industrialization and loss of middle class incomes. If your dwelling is stacked peat from the nearby bog you just patch it, but in suburbia you'd have to hope no one has beat you in scavenging nearby abandoned homes. More than that though, our infrastructure design has presumed extensive networks of continuous supply from distant sources. Compare that to small communities sustained by local sources -- there's much more recovery capability to disaster.
But really, this discourse is futile unless religious fundamentalist of all stripes and flavor can be persuaded to not follow edicts to have large families. To be honest, I cringe any time I see someone garbed in fundamentalist attire, taking that as clue that they probably subscribe to such edict -- which is really the "long emergency" terror.
LSJO,
We're already doing this to an increasing extent.
Two examples:
1. Section 8 housing subsidizes rents to low income families. Sometimes it works OK. Generally, it's a landlord's and a neighbor's nightmare - in the real world.
2. Shadow tenants who pass background checks and then sublet to friends and companions of various stripes. This generally results in a landlord who can't afford to operate his rental due to costs of maintenance and evictions.
My overriding point is that rentals and housesharing take deep pockets and careful management. It is FAR more than the average private property should take on.
Maybe the govt. can do it - they are handling everything else so well. :-)
You crack me up....you didn't get laid...sorry to hear that...join the club. Libido is a damnable thing.
You ever hear that thing about putting a penny in a jar in the first year of a relationship everytime you get it and then after that first year take a penny OUT of the jar every time you get it. They say you'll never empty the jar.
Happy 13th.
Thank you! You forced a smile out of an old girl today. For that, I shall send you a bright, shiny penny!
"This 12-minute film will make you think about the fantastic quality of life we are being rapidly scammed out of."
QUALITY of life? Things, gadgets, and geegaws do not remotely equate to quality of life.
Prelapsarian said:
"Now that SCOTUS has provided constitutional protection for corporate purchase of elections, term limits"
Well, the big money in this year's election is about equal between the right wing astroturf groups and the public employee unions, so there is sort of a balance of power between the two big pigs in our economy, corporate fatcats and public employee unions.
I'm not sure term limits are needed much. It appears we have entered an era where every election is going to be a "throw the bums out" election from here out, for two reasons:
1). Our problems are so severe that even competent leadership would be hard pressed to make headway in solving them.
2). Neither party has shown any competence in dealing with those problems.
(Another way of summing up 1) and 2) is: "We're Screwed".
There is no reason to believe anything will get better with either the Democrats or Republicans in power, so as the economy remains in the toilet the public will throw out whichever bums happen to be in office.
(Note that the more intelligent political analyses of the 2010 elections have pointed out that it is going to be an Anti-Democrat election, not a Pro-Republican election.
If things are as bad as I expect they will be I believe all elections for the forseeable future will be "Anti whoever is in power".
It is not clearcut how to apply the "throw the bums out" theory to 2012. Who will the public view as the bums, the Republican House or the Democratic President?
(I leave out the Senate because even though the Democrats look like they will hang onto control, a party switch by one or two conservative Democrats could reverse that. So I think it is really hard to judge which party is going to control the Senate)
@ Laura Louzader #7:
Excellent post, and one of the most intelligent things I've seen written in a long time. I agree with everything you said. It's true that we don't know when any such meltdown will occur, but I'm sure that it will occur financially before any kind of peak oil issues set in. Keep in mind, the Depression put one in four workers out of work and caused widespread poverty and indigence while the U.S. was the world's largest producer of oil. The financial system is the most fragile of all, based as it is on emotion coupled with exponential debt. A rational economic system would solve these problems, but that is synomomous with 'socialism' in the United States.
A crash would be the best thing that could happen to us, because then there would be a mass impetus for real, substantial change. Without that, nothing will happen, and things will just get progressively worse, as they have for the bottom ninety percent of Americans for, oh, the last thirty years or so. Much worse is a slow decline, where the (manufactured government) unemployment rate inches up a few pecentage points each year, and the plateau is declared 'the new normal', while the shrinking pool of gainfully employed keep their heads down and continue at their jobs as if nothing is happening. It's the 'frog in boing water' scenario. The employment situation will become a game of musical chairs; every time the music stops, there will be less people sitting, and more destitute people in the 'discard' pile who will become invisible. The media will continue to be one long production of Waiting for Godot, with Godot being economic prosperity. And you do remember how that one ends, don't you?
If you are one of those lucky enough to still have an income, best to stay put, learn new skills, and save every penny. The most important transition will be in your head. You will become a dissident, a refusenik, or the remnant, to use phrases from various authors. Anyone who tells you what is going to happen is a liar, because nobody knows. I find people who think buying this or that investment, or stockpiling supplies thinking this will save them amusing. What happens when stockpiles run out? Who cares if you have a piece of paper that says you may have some gold in a vault somehwere? It's typical American thinking that you can profit from a crash. In a crash, nobody profits. That's the definition of a crash. If you're so rich that a crash won't hurt you, you probably aren't worried, and thus you aren't reading this.
As someone who lives in one of those rust belt towns, I find Greer's suggestion fascinating. While we could use the help, there really is no safe haven inside U.S. borders. The best advice is to leave the United States if you can. We are the most oil-dependant nation, after all. We've had decades of cynical politicians playing divide and conquer with the electorate to remain in power, convincing heavily armed 'Real Americans' that the liberals and union members are Communists and lazy blacks and Mexicans want to steal all their money. Make no mistake, when the shit hits the fan, we Americans turn on each other in a heartbeat. We've been primed for it, and our trigger fingers are starting to itch. We blow each others' brains out even in good times. As we turn on each other, the elites will, of course, laugh themselves silly in safety and luxury, ready to emerge from their suburban enclaves and buy up whatever is left after the ethnic cleansing has occurred. No, other countries are installing solar panels and pulling together (like, I'm guessing, Austrailia). Things will be tough, but they will survive. Places in Europe, Asia, and the former Commonwealth will be like the Soviet collapse, tough yet orderly. The U.S. will be more like Sarajevo circa 1992, or possibly Rwanda 1994.
I wish someone would give some advice on emigrating. To me, it seems a dauning task. It seems like the utlimate Catch-22: you can't survive in a foreign country unless you have a job, but you can't get a job unless you have a work visa. You won't be given a work visa, however, unless you have a job. If you are independantly wealthy, it's not a problem, but if you're not in that category, what can you do?
You are or sound like, what we in our neighborhood referred to as a "wise broad"! Cheers!
"I view those on the left as being just as delusional on energy, however, since they are absurdly optimistic about the potential for renewables to replace fossil fuels in the near term."
So many amazingly insightful ideas being tossed around this morning! But to start with I agree that the mainstream left is indeed absurdly optimistic about renewables. They can help ease the transition...in limited capacities...but they will never replace oil. Sorry, but the bang for the buck just isn't there. Well said.
Finally some one else makes the obvious comparison:
"I regularly read Kunstler because he's a hell of a great writer, with a keen ear for the English language, a eye for the good opening, and an instinct for the razor-sharp phrase that puts him in the same league with Hunter Thompson at his gonzo prime."
Truly, these properties are what make JHK so readable. Great writing, big time insights.
Is this fun? Well, yes. He is so Damn CLEVER. But...we are talking about an epic collapse. Of the world we know and love. Will it be slow a la Peak Oil or will it be quick a la Enron which imploded when it was finally exposed? It seems that Bernanke will be a key player on part 2 - I mean WTF is quantitative easing anyway??
It is printing money we ain't got. How long can that go on?
Budizwiser sez:
Since both of these topics involve the specific understanding of historical economic and social activities are there better website, blogs to find information relevant to these subjects?
Clearly these two subjects could have transpired regardless of Peak Oil, why are they being discussed here?
What makes this blog so....uh, fun, is that JHK is one of the VERY few people that ties it all together. We use TOO MUCH energy. We are Addicted (capital A) to too much GROWTH. We are TOO hard on Natural Resources. And We are NOT HUNGRY ENOUGH YET to make any substantive changes. And human character being what it is, we WILL DO ANYTHING not to change our prostrate comfortable position.
Capitalism is currently eating itself.
We are using up our finite energy resources at obscene rates.
We are lying to ourselves every day about what is sustainable.
JHK is one of the few to get it. And can write like Hunter S. Thompson.
What's not to like???
The subject.
We are in deep, deep trouble.
I read this every Monday, whether I need it or not.
Rhino 149
"But really, this discourse is futile unless religious fundamentalist of all stripes and flavor can be persuaded to not follow edicts to have large families."
I like the permaculture spin on the biblical edict:
Go forth and mulch apply!
So much more useful in our times.
2. Is there any way to investigate or understand the international perspective of the Federal Reserve's policy of (QE) aka, printing money out of nowhere? Is there anyway to forecast how this policy affects various sectors of the US population? - Bud
I have no way to verify this but I've been hearing that a lot of the funny money the Fed is printing is going offshore and creating asset bubbles in developing countries like Brazil plus distortions in exchange rates for their currencies.
So in desperation some of these govts (also Korea, Indonesia) are creating controls on capital inflows.
"On the other hand, there is liable to be some major social friction between the remaining affluent residents of those communities and the new low-income residents."
And there's the rub...or we'd be doing it already.
"QUALITY of life? Things, gadgets, and geegaws do not remotely equate to quality of life."
Here here! Especially those dang geegaws...
I've been saying much the same thing about stock markets except that I ignore the change in exchange rates.
Everytime I go to a bank to roll over a term deposit the bank rep goes into the yack yack yack about mutual funds. So if I'm in patient mood that day I tell them that major stock indices haven't moved in nominal terms in ten years and after inflation they are DOWN 20 to 25% if you believe official inflation stats. So why on earth ould I throw away money in stocks or mutual funds?
Much the same story as 1966-1982 when the DOW went nowhere but when you figure the inflaton of the times it meant that your investments got crushed.
Plus the NASDAQ is down about 50% from the bubble highs of 1999/2000.
Colorful portrait of two party system futility, Jim.
To my fellow commentators and the blogger alike: please remember that, despite the apparent big picture futility, there are local and state races where the results could make or break the fulfillment of the sustainable community-level systems we need to survive the coming storm.
I am proudly voting tomorrow in the Maryland governors race. On the superficial partisan level I am supporting the Democrat. Beneath the surface, I am voting for a light rail project that will tie together and revive (really recycle) the pre-oil age systems of Baltimore rather than orienting the city toward suburban consumption of our precious remaining farmland. The republican (who is from a family of car dealers), who thinks that more buses on our crowded streets will achieve the same goals as light rail will, is meanwhile completely blind toward economic/ecologic reality!
If you are in Maryland, please consider the last paragraph. If you are not, remember there may be similar local races in your town. Even if it is as local and seemingly inconsequential as turning out for a village council candidate who wants to change zoning laws to make backyard gardening easier, PLEASE VOTE TOMORROW!!!
"Outright military takeover is a likely possibility in the next few years."
Riiiight. Our military is going to "take over." Every second home is armed to the teeth and a couple of million in uniform are going to "take over" 300 million people?
But even if they could why would enlisted people go along with it? "You want me to roll a tank through my old neighborhood and blow up mom and dad, Sarge? I don't fucking think so."
I've been wanting to say something like this, just understanding it intuitively, but I'm glad someone with more fiscal sense than I have beat me to it!
NYC Labrets, very well said!!
It isn't just the two political parties that are morally and intellectually bankrupt.
If you read the few left sources available, like CounterPunch, half the time they're as concerned with resurrecting consumer society as the right. Redistributing "wealth."
America worships "business" from top to bottom. We look around at our hollowed-out cities and blame our local leaders for corruption, mis-educating our kids for the "jobs of the future" and not kowtowing sufficiently to business to attract more jobs.
Yet every notion of modern business involves removing more and more jobs locally, as does every notion of comfort and "efficiency."
Bageant says it takes the equivalent energy of two men working two weeks to produce a loaf of bread.
"Real world"? My great aunt Fannie.
Aaaaand, right on cue. Time to get some real work done.
We have opened the door on a cold day in the hopes of warming the world with the heat of our house.
Now, we wonder why the house is cold.
"The republican (who is from a family of car dealers), who thinks that more buses on our crowded streets will achieve the same goals as light rail will, is meanwhile completely blind toward economic/ecologic reality!"
Please. The infrastructure for busses already exists. Light rail will involve tearing up existing neighborhoods (like, uhh there will be some homes and businesses in the way) and invariably bog down in unforeseen cost overruns involving monies that we do not have.
As for having more busses on the street, if you have lessened the number of cars (and as the cost of owning and operating a car increases you will have fewer drivers) having more busses is not necessarily a bad thing. Talk about being blind toward economic/ecologic reality.
Has anyone else noticed the increasing 'unreasonable searches and seizures.' I no longer travel by plane because of getting x-rayed and searched for no reason. And my metal water bottle was confiscated at the Cal Berkeley game last weekend. The noose is tightening via the new American KGB, oh excuse me, the 'patriot act.' The bars may be invisible but our panopticon corpament already has us under lock and key.
So your military is deplorable. Some guy said a while back that every country has an army on its soil, its own or someone else's. So you have a choice.
You don't like your army? Make the best of it, reform it, do something about it because you'd like other countries' armies even less. You don't like US hegemony? Do you think Chinese hegemony will be more to your taste?
I know what you're going to say. You always choose the way of peace? That's nice. So what.
Welcome to Hell, Honey. I'm Myrtle and I'll be your tour guide. Now, if you'll notice, off to the right..........no no, honey, don't look up there...Our next attraction will be....ummmm ya know what? Let's try out the rides in the rest if the parrrrk..........Ya know what, Honey, let's leave this gosh- darned park and find a new one. yes, that's what I said, a new park. Now if you'll just follow me.....oh shit.......where are we supposed to go again?
Actually something could be done about Foreclosuregate and the banking mess. Declare a bank holiday on Friday. ATMs would still work, and you could still write checks and make deposits, but cleaning out an account would be blocked. Then have a full audit of of all the banks, do the 10 biggest ones over the weekend.
All Credit Default Swaps are frozen. All CDS holders are ordered to net out their exposure and post cash margin against any underwater positions.
All banks that are insolvent are immediately resolved, yes this may well mean that B of A and Wells Fargo cease to exist. The super banks like B of A have their deposit bearing division broken off into each Federal Reserve region. The securities and other non commercial banking provisions are left to die. All share holders will eat it, and bond holders will be required to make good on deposits. If and only if that is insufficient, then FDIC insurance kicks in. The forensic auditors will stay on for months examining for fraud and referring any they find to prosecutors.
The solvent banks (and resolved banks) re-open over the space of the next two weeks, starting with the ones that were solvent.
What happens to everyone and their positions?
Common stockholders in resolved banks are wiped out. Bondholders become either stockholders or may be protected. The 4 biggest banks have about three trillion in bondholder equity between them, it might even be possible to resolve the big 4 without any FDIC insurance and still leave a little money left over.
The MBS holders who bought fraudulent securities are made whole, thereby saving the pension funds that invested in these securities.
There would be no collapse of the banking system, the payments system or the economy. Those who were foolish enough to write "fog a mirror" loans would be forced to eat them.
While unemployment would be higher initially as employees of defunct banks no longer have a job there, they would soon find new jobs as replacement banks run under sound management principles are formed.
Just sitting here writing out my mortgage check. Not underwater yet, but shipping water fast. Our biggest problem is the tax man who, against all logic, has decided that every house in our town-ship has increased 12% in value. This despite the fact that nothing has sold in 18 months. How do you fight the county government? One thing you don't want to do is go for a Sunday drive since "revenue enhancement" is steaming ahead full tilt. Doesn't matter if you're wearing a seat belt or not, it's your word against theirs. Ohio is known for this. I'd much rather be in Texas or heavenly Kansas, by the way.
Jim, why on earth would you diss John Boehner for plastic surgery and not single out Nancy Pelosi who looks like she was carved from hardened ear wax?
Nicely put! Class act. Now, forgive me, but grandma is seeking herbal therapy about right now.
The banks will be protected as usual and this will all go away... swept under the proverbial rug.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Aimlow Joe was here.
http://www.aimlow.com
She looks EXACTLY like that elf who wants to be a dentist in "Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer" classic that comes on each year. Come on! Ya know I'm right! Not as cute though, sort of on the creepy, old, sick side. YUCK! :(
The average man on the street has never heard of peak oil and most believe there is enough oil left to last decades if not centuries. I can't imagine the shock when the masses finally realize the party is over and we are going the way of the Roman Empire.
I can't blame the political parties which, after all, are just telling us what we want to hear and giving us what we want. To get beyond all that and have a viable democracy, or representative democracy, requires an informed electorate.
Our electorate has become more uninformed every decade.
To paraphrase Janice Ian, "...they only get what they deserve..." / Gotta stop smokin the weed during the day! SHIT!
I think the dealer fucked me on the quarter I bought last week. Bitch! Now I'm gonna have to reach for the dreaded pain pill- the kind you can't have a drink with-thank you so gosh darned fucking much! Oh yeah, Newfie...love ya! And you're right. It's going to shock the fucking living daylights out of them. I'm Myrtle, welcome to Hell. I'll be your tour guide.
How about this: let's say 10 years from now you have 50% unemployment, inflation is raging, interest is payable per week, Bernanke is talking about QE15, more massive bank bailouts are hours away, there are major breakdowns in food supply, hoarding has depleted store shelves and gas stations, local posses and militias are running rampant, and urban centres are ruined by rioting and gutted by fires.
So the generals might just respectfully suggest that congress and the presidency has lost legitimacy given the general state of affairs. Not that it's their fault. No, no it was a long train of unfortunate circumstances that brought us here.
Nonetheless it might be better for congressmen, senators and the president and his cabinet to "resign" for their own safety of course and for the good of the country. In fact there are suitable, secure facilities arranged for their accommodation.
And needless to say this is a temporary measure until some people on Wall Street are brought to account, civil order is re-established and food is making its way back to grocery stores.
And then democracy will be restored under the respectful, well meaning supervision of your servants and protectors in uniform.
In fact that would be a good title for the general in charge, a man who is wise, reassuring, older, avuncular, a calm presence who knows just what to do: Servant and Protector.
Well said.
Hey buddy can you spare a little salt and pepper for my shoelace soup.
Oh Tzatza, I think you are quite the romantic. You think that the enlisted soldiers won't send a tank shell through the houses in their old neighborhoods, huh? Well, that is easily handled. First, you send in troops from the East Coast into West Coast neighborhoods and vice versa, i.e. you make sure that the troops and the populace are strangers. Second, you propagandize the troops - and the populace - with how utterly bad the other is. Third, you punish those troops who won't follow the orders to fire. Perhaps with summary execution - after all, the rules of martial law provide for execution for a whole list of offenses. Believe it, in no time you will have almost complete compliance with the orders.
The French protests have died down and the government has won the first round in downsizing. Germany contin ues to prop up the Euro for a while and Australia, China's wheat and aluminum bitch basks at the feet of the master.
We know things are going to get worse here before they get better but we sit around and twiddle our thumbs arguing about how many dictators you can get on a seat in Congress.
I've stopped paying my mortgage. When Wells Fargo comes knocking I'm going to go head to head with them for a while and see if they really can enforce a foreclosure against me without the signed papers this foreclosure state requires. I expect The Law will be altered to give them the illegal right to get a "do over" on title transfers and I will be kicked out of "my" home. In the meantime I'm socking away $3,000 a month (two ounces of gold) and waiting to see where my civil disobedinece takes me.
It's a strangely liberating thing, taking a stand against the corporate kleptocracy that wrecked my American Dream. When you've finished kvetching with the excellent Kunstler I'd recommend joining the eminently American form of social protest called strategic deafult. We are driving the banks cr-a-A-a-a-zy.
A partially failed state: a state that neither has the will or power to aid its citizens but does retain the ability to enforce the will of its corporate masters. This is nirvana for the masters, something that they aren’t going to change anytime soon. But what if there are no more resources to continue the American game any longer?
Will America revert to something like the golden times of the Wild West, like turning back the clock to 1870? Self-sufficient pioneers living by their wits and talents in wild lands where government and technology have collapsed? I don’t think it will be like that.
America today is like a corporation loaded with assets but running at loss: ripe for buy-out and dismemberment. To enable the wholesale stripping of assets legal ownership is being transferred. The new owners will soon come to collect. These will be your new masters. Protest this? To who? Your discredited government will be too weak, maybe is already too weak, to make any difference.
Your new masters aren’t going to be happy with independent communes or communities. Strict laws will be passed curtailing many of the freedoms you now take for granted and freedoms you imagine will be yours in the future. To overpopulated nations this is still the land of open space, space they need. Even without oil and high technology, we can be policed by their millions, tens of millions if necessary. Sadly, with the near complete breakdown of authority which we are likely to soon face, most of us will welcome the return of any kind of order.
"If you are one of those lucky enough to still have an income, best to stay put, learn new skills, and save every penny."
I agree, but where do you put your pennies?
If you manage to save more than about 100,000 pennies ($1000.00) - it might be smart not to keep them in US dollars.
Think about things that WILL go up in US dollar terms and put your pennies there.
I can't tell you what that would be!
If I could, I'd be out investing in that - this lovely afternoon - not saving the world by blogging. tm Bageant
TzaTza,
I respect the logic and points you make against my argument. However, before we regress toward the continuation of York Road/Ritchie Highway Happy Motoring swag here in Maryland, I just want to make some things clear. I'd just like you, and the community here, to consider two points:
1) Eminent domain - It is now illegal here in Maryland to take private homes and businesses for the improvement of a transportation corridor.
2) More buses are a cheap and efficient solution for maximizing your bang for a buck use of oil in the exurban regions - as described by commentators before me. However, in dense, 19th century era cities like Baltimore, you only have the use of 2 to 4 lane highways and they simply (both logically and ethically) cannot be expanded for the sake of destroying row-homes. Putting buses into these limited lanes to compete with cars only encourages people to use their cars, as car drivers do not have to delay and stop at every corner to unload/load passengers. Therefore, in the constraints of tight traffic, drivers save TIME. Please remember, in an era of needing to budget, that TIME=MONEY.
Yeah, and those new massas ain't gonna look notin like we folk hear thank thay do. Cuz we ain't gonna know em...and they aint gonna know us...not really.........Just desserts for whites, or what?
I am afraid you and others have been played by the elite. Stocks (and most of the "risk assets" like commodities) do not represent economic values as they used to. They reflect the effects of the at whim fiat fiscal and monetary policies of our government. Specifically, risk assets like the SP500 move in opposite to the US Dollar(DX A0 - tick-by-tick most of the time). The recent rally of the SP500 since the Jackson Hole meeting in mid-August has been due to the market trying front-run Bernanke’s plan to debase the US Dollar again by printing trillions(?) more on November 3rd. I can assure you that if you measure the SP500 in Euro or gold, you will find instead of +6%, you have a negative number.
JHK's calls on the markets have been basically correct. I think the markets are about to unglue, may be as soon as this week.
For your reference, please read Bill Gross's November Investment Outlook.
http://www.pimco.com/Pages/RunTurkeyRun.aspx
Mr. Kunstler, I could have warned you exactly two years ago that your Democrats would prove no better able to manage affairs than the Republicans and that your partisan attacks of the time proclaiming the demise of the GOP were a complete waste of time, and as a matter of fact I did. Tomorrow's GOP House victory was sealed the moment Obama was elected President. I hate to say I told you so, but here we are.
I only wish you could take off those blue-colored glasses completely... do you really think if Gore had been elected the USA would be in any better shape now? He might not have messed things up any worse, but I don't think America would be in a fundamentally different spot today.
I read the stuff by Bill Gross.
Sounds like we're all scrambling up a greasy pole on a sinking ship. Gross might make it to the top of the pole but all he's doing is buying a few more gulps of air before the ship slips under the waves.
What Bernanke does not seem to grasp is that this problem will not be solved by printing more money. The underlying problem is offshoring American business. Like Greenspan before him Bernanke thought that printing money is the answer. All it did was to encourage reckless borrowing and speculation. The tragedy is that the problem we're in now was so foreseeable.
From Wikipedia
"By 1850, most of the easily accessible gold had been collected, and attention turned to extracting gold from more difficult locations. Faced with gold increasingly difficult to retrieve, Americans began to drive out foreigners to get at the most accessible gold that remained. The new California State Legislature passed a foreign miners tax of twenty dollars per month, and American prospectors began organized attacks on foreign miners, particularly Latin Americans and Chinese.[26] In addition, the huge numbers of newcomers were driving Native Americans out of their traditional hunting, fishing and food-gathering areas. To protect their homes and livelihood, some Native Americans responded by attacking the miners. This provoked counter-attacks on native villages. The Native Americans, out-gunned, were often slaughtered.[27] Those who escaped massacres were many times unable to survive without access to their food-gathering areas, and they starved to death. Novelist and poet Joaquin Miller vividly captured one such attack in his semi-autobiographical work, Life Amongst the Modocs.[28]"
also from Wikipedia:
"Mining in Australia is a significant primary industry and contributor to the Australian economy. Historically, mining booms have also encouraged immigration to Australia. Many different ores and minerals are mined throughout the country."
So, Austrailia is a better "Gold Rush"? Austrailia has its act together? So a nation built on abundant mineral turds is definitely better than say tired ole U.S.A? One part of the world full of European rejects is better than another part of the world with also said number of European rejects.
The clock is right twice in a 24 hour period....what hope/change is it that Jim seeks? I like to lay down a few Jim quotes..not this dire Jim but one who is part of the future galactic alliance of European rejects....if only the writings could have a more urgent sense of bouncy humour! After all we are just animals quickening the pace of Mother Earth's reset button...
From IMDB:
Capt. Kirk: All right, you mutinous, disloyal, computerized half-breed. We'll see about you deserting my ship.
Spock: The term "half-breed" is somewhat applicable, but "computerized" is inaccurate. A machine can be computerized, not a man.
Capt. Kirk: What makes you think you're a man? You're an overgrown jackrabbit. An elf with a hyperactive thyroid.
Spock: Jim, I don't understand...
Capt. Kirk: Of course you don't understand. You don't have the brains to understand. All you have is printed circuits.
Spock: Captain, if you will excuse me.
[Tries to activate the transporter]
Capt. Kirk: [blocks Spock's way and interupts] What can you expect from a simpering, devil-eared freak whose father was a computer and his mother an encyclopedia.
Spock: My mother was a teacher. My father an ambassador.
Capt. Kirk: Your father was a computer, like his son. An ambassador from a planet of traitors. The Vulcan never lived who had an ounce of integrity...
Spock: Captain, please don't...
Capt. Kirk: You're a traitor from a race of traitors. Disloyal to the core. Rotten! Like the rest of your subhuman race. And you've got the GALL... to make love to that girl!
Spock: That's enough.
Capt. Kirk: Does she know what she's getting, Spock? A carcass full of memory banks who should be squatting on a mushroom? Instead of passing himself off as a man? You belong in the circus, Spock, not a starship. Right next to the dog face boy!
[Spock begins beating the stew out of Kirk - he picks up a stool, ready to hit Kirk, then stops - the spore's influence is gone]
Capt. Kirk: Had enough? I never realized what it took to get under that thick hide of yours. Anyhow, I don't know what you're so mad about. It isn't every first officer who gets to belt his captain... several times.
Spock: You did that to me deliberately.
Capt. Kirk: Believe me, Mr. Spock. It was painful. In more ways than one.
[Grabs his hurting arm]
Spock: The spores. They're gone. I don't belong anymore.
Capt. Kirk: You said they were benevolent and peaceful. Violent emotions overwhelm them, destroy them. I had to make you angry enough to shake off their influence. That's the answer, Mr. Spock.
Spock: That may be correct, Captain, but trying to initiate a brawl with over 500 crewmen and colonists is hardly logical.
Capt. Kirk: I had something else in mind. Can you put together a subsonic transmitter? Something we can hook into the communication station and broadcast over the communicators?
Spock: It can be done.
Capt. Kirk: Good. Let's get to work.
Spock: Captain! Striking a fellow officer is a court-martial offense.
Capt. Kirk: Well, if we're both in the brig, who's gonna build the subsonic transmitter?
Spock: That is quite logical, Captain.
Gore was elected, the texas/oil/kansas vast right wing conspiracy stole the presidency. Yes we would be in a better place as we would not be in a quagmire in IRAQ w/thousands of american soldiers dead, and billions(stieglitz says trillions) of dollars wasted
"In the meantime I'm socking away $3,000 a month (two ounces of gold) and waiting to see where my civil disobedinece takes me."
Q's not here to yell at you for bringing down the country, and I say BRAVO! They deserve every empty envelope they get.
Now, if everyone else would be so kind as to join Scooter here in destroying what's left of the banks, that would be great. Thanks.
They deserve it, and you all know they do. But would someone, dear christ-almighty, someone who has plenty of land, please rescue me from my moral high-road in the ghetto??
There are lots of sources of information on affordably getting out of the U.S., for example the magazines International Living and Live and Invest Overseas. They will try to get a magazine subscription out of you, and they have other products to sell, but if you just get on their email list eventually you will acquire a lot of useful free information. There are many places in the world where the cost of living is quite low and the quality of life is reasonably high. It's doable for most anybody.
Well, you are absolutely correct. I can't stand Republicans or Democrats, I can't stand the liberal press. I don't trust Fox News, because I feel they are trying to tag onto the Tea Party. I just joined the Tea Party movement near my neighborhood. They are just beginning and I think since they are not part of the POLITICAl Elite, (the people who went to Ivy League Schools,) and think they are mandated by god to be in government and tell us, the electorate, how to live, think and be. Unfortunately, they have LOST touch with basic America. The Tea Pary people are basically good people who are sick and tired of having the Politcal Elite give to their friends (bailouts) and screw the average american who they perceive as stupid, pigs and who really don't know what is going on. Well, wake up. More and more people who HATE the Republicans and Democrats feel as though this may be the only way to get noticed and listened to. Tomorrow I am voting pure Republican, only because I hate the deomocrats for doing NOTHING to help us.
How is it that a nation of 300 milion can watch this orchestrated circus show go on and on and on, and do nothing about it. And the Red & Blue Circus Show has been going strong for over one hundred years now. I just don't get it.
Conchscooter _
There are other discussion threads where "upstanding?" citizens will castigate you for banking your mortgage money until eviction.
I won't do that and I doubt many people on CFN will.
If you're hopelessly upside down on your mortgage, it's the logical thing to do.
- Just be sure you factor some inflation and the intangibles of home ownership into your logic -
People who argue against it are (mostly) those who are (not yet?) upside down on their mortgages.
Lord only knows our CEO's and banksters freely walk away from their obligations when it's to their advantage.
Just be cautious, talk to a couple of lawyers, don't be adversarial, and don't tear the place up.
This is unsolicited *fatherly advice.* I've watched some of my sons friends "walk away" and there are some pitfalls.
Sorry, Rupert:
"I only wish you could take off those blue-colored glasses completely... do you really think if Gore had been elected the USA would be in any better shape now?"
=============
I think Gore had intelligence and independence that Bush lacked. He was visibly positioned to do something about energy. He probably wouldn't have kicked over the game board in Afghanistan. He certainly wouldn't have lost 5000 (and sadly counting) service men's lives because, (paraphrased) "Saddam been talkin' bad 'bout my Daddy!" OR maybe, "My Dick told me to!"
Maybe that's why Gore *lost?*
=============
Rupert, I'll bet you think the presidency of Ronald Reagan was a good thing, overall.
Which means one of your favorite things to say concerning Bush II is, "He kept us safe!"
And you will never believe both of those presidencies ineluctably led us to our present lack of good choices - Despite all logical argument to the contrary.
The Masters work the dialectic - they expand to contract; contract to expand. If chaos is allowed to errupt in the streets, the people will welcome a police state complete with curfews and showing your id upon request. Nay if it's bad eneough, the people will demand it. Most of the sheeple welcome taking off their shoes at airports. Can't have "Muslim Americans" given any special attention after all.
And never forget - even after Obama talked about creating a civil defence force just as strong as the US Military, the White Sheep still voted him in. You can't do anything with such low mensch material. They are doomed to be food for the wolves. Only the Mountain Sheep with their long legs and curved horns have any chance at all.
The idea of the US military being used against armed civilians is a moot point.
You let the food run out and then the power go out for 72 hours. Almost no citizen will be prepared to "shelter in place" for longer than that.
Out of his home, the citizen would be easily separated from his weapons and his dignity.
The average American in these circumstances would be BEGGING FOR A SAVIOR - any savior.
Think about Katrina.
I'm not trying to be a buzz kill, only a realist concerning all this "military" talk.
And I'm almost certain the power will stay on and the Cheeze Doodles will continue arriving in most areas well on through the fat heart of The Long Emergency.
Unless something REALLY screws up, somewhere.
I have to disagree with the central message of this posting. Yes, we are probably about to witness the rise(or continuation?)of an idiocracy with the election of tea baggers and wingnuts who want to put Jesus back in the constitution. And, Obama has fallen short of fulfilling some expectations - most notably as JHK mentions, his failure to prosecute the executives of the biggest systematic swindle in history.
But to claim that the parties are all the same - essentially a bunch of crooks out to pickpocket us while killing the environment - is to ignore the concrete and positive actions of Obama and his crew. For perspective (and a few reminders), read : http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/220013
Before you denounce me as a Democratic political lackey ... I'm not even American - and as a green card holder I get to pay taxes but not to vote. But to my very "Canadian progressive" sensibilities, it seems silly to throw out the baby with the bathwater - and end up with a Congress that will try to roll back his achievements and almost certainly block continued progress.
ANOTHERPLAYAGUY:
I haven't seen the youtube video yet, cuz reading these, but I already know whatcha mean.
Quality of Life ? All this Electronic shit.
Ruining Our Brains and Nervous systems if you ask me. Enough Already. Overload. Attention Will Rogers !
proc.....
itts been noted that the USA is one welfare check stoppage away from anarchy.
now if the gubment wants marshall law all 'they' have to do is stop the foodstamps [1 in 7 on foodstamps]...
i know an xmarine, bus driver. he thinks as the narco terror spreads thru the usa our troops will have to go fight in mexico and thatll be a 'perfect' time to merge the 2 countries!
What I wonder about is why we hear nothing about acts of rebellion in this country. I'm quite sure there is more than one person out of 300 million who has acted out but all is quiet. Are we that pathetic or is it being covered up?
Pepper Spray
michell and hubby took 800? parasite bees to india.
michelle will meet with the hookers, i mean that literally.
rather then stay here and see the carnage wrought by unhappy citizens voting [the dems are trying to let the felons and illegals vote].
did you know that monster, i mean senator kennedy had a bill to allow any caldean move to the usa?
one lives across the street from me...hes an unemployed slob who according to his roomate gets disability and stays at ucla hospital for a month at a time. even has a disabled parking sticker for his car!
I don't know about Canada, but our Founding Fathers felt a standing army was dangerous even if necessary. And they said categorically that America should avoid foreign wars and only fight to defend ourselves against foreign aggression. Do you really think that America has followed these wise dictates?
The Republicans can hoist the Flag all they want but they are warmongers totally out of touch with the Original Vision of the Founders. With your Neo Con mentality and desire to make the World safe for "Democracy", I don't know if you can understand this. But it's true. Do the research and you will find out that I'm correct.
A canny salesman gets his mark to sell the product to himself but finding common ground and getting to "yes". Similarly, once the ultimate sacrafice has been made, what brother, friend, or father is going to accept that their loved one died for nothing? The old Soldiers always say that no one understands but other soldiers. This may be true, but does it follow that the rest of us have no say? Or that the sacrafice sanctifies an unjust or unecessary war? Or since active soldiers cannot publicly criticize policy, many of them cannot comply without identifying with it and having it become their real attitude. In short, one way or another most veterans adopt the position of "my country right or wrong" - a completely idiotic and unworthy point of view.
according to radio the 'panics' starting in 'strong' markets like boston and frisco.
god i am starting to freak out from fear.
i can't stand the feeling of wanting to BE somewhere else and being unable to GET there.
Wanting to be in a safer place. Knowing this IS coming down. Just scared of the violence i imagine we will be having more and more of.
and i live in a beautiful place. with too too many gangsters. more and more and more.
and so much denial going on.
"What I wonder about is why we hear nothing about acts of rebellion in this country."
Timothy McVeigh
The IRS agent who crashed his plane into the IRS? building.
The guy who killed all those Unitarians
The muslim soldier who killed all those soldiers
Rebels (nuts) to the left and right?
This stuff hits the news, then gets ignored after a few days because it doesn't *increase ratings.*
Ratings are about Octomom, Jennifer Anniston's (fake?) boobs in her new movie, etc.
What the hell IS wrong with us?
Huh? parasite bees? I like the idea but I don't know what it means. What happened to the African Bees which were supposed to arrive here from South America and make life here impossible?
Esoterically, the bee is a symbol of higher evolution; at which point socialism will become possible because natural. For now, let's be content to be humble bumble bees who live in small communities and can sting and sting again to defend our community. Asoka may worship the noble self effacing honey bee who dies when it stings, but he himself in a carpenter bee without any sting at all. It lives by mimicing the industrious, self defending bumble bee, the White Yeomanry.
ive heard about all the iron etc going fron australia to china...
overall the ausies are smart..they should up the price.
look at what china did on rare earth exports!
pro..in usa 20,000 a year are murdered? yes?
theres the 'issue/attention cycle'..folks want happy news and happy problems.
yes?
i was joking..the terms 'worker bee' but since they work as aides to the white house i see them as parasites! hence parasite bees
Pepper spray and Asia - I crossed my responses to you two.
First one should have gone to pepperspray - so asia, here's your response:
"proc.....
itts been noted that the USA is one welfare check stoppage away from anarchy.
now if the gubment wants marshall law all 'they' have to do is stop the foodstamps [1 in 7 on foodstamps]..."
If the gub'ment wants anarchy it's a simpler process than what you suggest. They just have to - simply - turn off the power. Anarchy will follow - guaranteed.
Invading Mexico to control narcoterror is possible, I guess. Merging with Mexico is truly a terrifying idea, from where I sit.
Not even Bush III would do that - would he??
Israel is a de facto welfare state just like Puerto Rico. Unfortunately, the tail tends to wag the dog. Should we make them states? No, altho is would be nice to get some of our money back from the Jews in taxes. But the the other costs would be ruinous.
Why do Israelis vote such monsters into power? As for your other ideas, the Rothschilds controlled banking in America from a fairly early date. Certainly their agent Paul Warburg was instrumental in setting up the Federal Reserve - which put America on a count down to destruction. Jews are just as guilty as Gentiles in the destruction of America. They played the role of tempter (free money taken from the tax payers) and the Gentiles sucumbed. But the Gentiles are worse in a very real way since they betrayed their own people for gelt.
The only problem with your tale is the fact that the stock market is as fixed as the rest of this country. The only reason it is up this year, is due to the rise of a handful of currently popular stocks. Apple will be back under $100 in the near future. Perhaps "the near future" will be a Kunstler amount of time, in which case, my options (puts) will be worthless. Either way, good luck in the equities market, but I think the crash (DJIA at 1200) is near.
oh..at sites like fire andrea mitchell [greenspans wife] they note..LA Times notes immigrant rally 200 and ignore a tea party rally or whatever that gets 20,000 or so.
people are use to violence...killing unitarians doesnt shock them i guess.
Hope you had a nice nap and your husband showed up a day late with his "gift"!
Great article, unfortunately it's totally correct, reading some comments makes me wonder why some even take the time to read Kunstler's writing since they don't believe it. It is likely before this era of lunacy is over the political parties we have will have melted into the ground. The good thing is many people WILL be getting an education on how not to do things, and maybe they will hang Ben Bernanke and Company from a flagpole on Times Square.
No, no, no - you're not thinking outside the box here. We don't need eminent domain - we already have all those nice roadways that will be empty of everything, including diesel powered buses. The whole point of having trains and streetcars is that they run on electricity, not diesel. There won't be any fuel for buses when the military is confiscating it all. We have way too many lanes of highway for realistic future automobile use. Those lanes will be where trains run, not through anybody's houses. In fact, smart municipalities are already (quietly) considering the idea. Dumb ones, like yours apparently, think passing laws against eminent domain will keep car dealers and drive-through fast food joints in business because people won't be able to build rail lines - in other words, they're both wrong and stupid, not to mention endangering the future of the community because they think they can just march the military in and take oil from anywhere they want. That option vanishes as soon as Baby Boomers realize their taxes can pay for their retirement and healthcare or pay for foreign resource wars, but not both.
"And never forget - even after Obama talked about creating a civil defence force just as strong as the US Military, the White Sheep still voted him in"
==========
Vlad, I was gonna make fun of you concerning Obama's defense force - seeing as how they were not likely to be armed with artillery, fighter/bombers, or nuclear weapons. Also seeing as how the National Guard is deployed and/or worn out in Iraquistan.
============
But then you said this, "In short, one way or another most veterans adopt the position of "my country right or wrong" - a completely idiotic and unworthy point of view."
=============
And now I don't want to make fun of you because this is so damn true. Plus, the military carefully selects against "free-thinkers" and eliminates them from the ranks.
The Catch 22 is that no one in politics can be elected and criticize the military - unless they are ex-military. And no one who is ex-military in politics will criticize the military at all.
Maybe McCain could have done something. Wish he hadn't picked that MoonBat as his running mate.
Well said, RHINO 149.
If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?
If an entire hunter-gatherer tribe is wiped out in the jungle and no one reports it, did it happen?
If a politician runs on peak oil, sustainable living, and a peaceful future, and the corporate media doesn't report it, did it not happen?
I have linked to Green Party politicians running on sustainable living, taxing financial speculation, and establishing State Banks to get society off of private bank debt.
Apparently it didn't happen.
I guess it's more fun to bemoan the lack of quality people than it is to support them.
I know the way out of this morass, a way to throw of the yoke of the distracting and paralyzing gay marriage debate. This new Congress could be the Congress that enacts "The Egg and Sperm Civil Union Compromise" to end the wasteful, distracting debate about gay marriage and stop wasteful distracting research into genetic engineering and transhumanism.
Imagine the effect it would have to get beyond the endless argument about marriage and the environmental and economic rewards from stopping the research into same-sex procreation and genetic engineering of designer babies, which would become yet another boondoggle and historic misallocation of resources. Genetic engineering research already is a historic misallocation of resources, but it would just get worse if it actually succeeds in creating people for same-sex couples or with "better" genes.
And the marriage debate consumes so much energy, we need to pull the plug. Civil Unions that are defined as "marriage minus conception rights" would give all the rights of marriage and could be enacted quickly in all 50 states, and the word "marriage" would be preserved as meaning the couple is allowed and approved to conceive offspring together.
Hey Wage,
"If a politician runs on peak oil, sustainable living, and a peaceful future, and the corporate media doesn't report it, did it not happen?"
I feel your pain. However, I think the larger problem is the two party system.
I know plenty of people on the right who blame Ross Perot (insert giant sucking sound) for Clinton's win over Bush I.
I know plenty of people on the left who blame Ralph Nader for Bush II's win over Gore.
The fact that the country might have been better off with Nader OR Perot is immaterial to the arguments.
I'll happily vote for a Green party candidate if we ever manage to get one on the ballot in Georgia. But - but, if the race is close then I'll probably vote for the lesser of the two weevils representing one of the two major parties.
The two party system should catch a lot of blame for the CF status of our N. ;-)
"That option vanishes as soon as Baby Boomers realize their taxes can pay for their retirement and healthcare or pay for foreign resource wars, but not both."
I put this exact choice before my Boomer step-dad, and he being one of the ones who wants to put Christ back in the Constitution, put forth the standard welfare first argument. Will it matter which is first when millions of people already living on shoestring soup are cut to nothing?
Whoa, Jim. You were in Australia and "not on vacation" -- and you didn't let your Australian readers know? Also didn't see any mention of you in the media here.
I'll try to let this be my last word concerning the "moot point" of the US military firing on US neighborhoods.
http://www.policeone.com/news/2831629-Civilian-cop-shot-Fort-Hood-gunman-many-times/
Did anyone else not think it odd that most (all?) of the law enforcement and EMS response to the Fort Hood shooting was civilian?
I mean, WTF, it's a freakin' MILITARY BASE. Can they not afford their own MP's and ambulances anymore??
We're certainly paying enough in taxes and deficit spending to cover these two vital functions.
I missed a book-signing here in town as well a while back. You have to check the Schedule tab on the homepage...
It will matter because foreign policy will look completely different to every other nation, especially China, as soon as they realize that the US is no longer able (or willing) to throw its military weight around. The Boomers are the largest voting block this nation has seen, and even though they are mostly public school educated they can't fail to eventually realize every vote for a war anywhere is a death panel just waiting to happen - and it isn't young people who will go to the chopping blocks first.
Let's just hope the Mayans are correct. I have no doubt as they knew everything we do not know. Get off of my cloud, is what I'm saying. Let's end this. A grand misguided experiment in bullshit. Our society missed the one thing the so-called "bible" got right: the love of money is the root of all evil. If you think you can argue with that, then you sir or madame are a moron...
Rhino 149 said: "I mean WTF is quantitative easing anyway?? It is printing money we ain't got. How long can that go on?"
It can go on indefinitely. It has been going on for decades. Almost every country, including the United States, is on a system of fiat money, which the glossary defines as "money that is intrinsically useless; is used only as a medium of exchange".
Useless money as a medium of exchange has been working beautifully. Were you around in the 1950's and 1960's. We were on fiat money then. 1990's? Fiat money.
Sure there are ups and there are downs ... except this time CFNers want to say the down is "epic" and "catastrophic" and "apocalyptic".
The truth is: Things go up and things come down.
Relax and accept that. You can't change it by complaining that we are "printing money we ain't got." Besides, the funny money works. Just watch QE and you will see.
..the Rothschilds controlled banking in America from a fairly early date. Certainly their agent Paul Warburg was instrumental in setting up the Federal Reserve - which put America on a count down to destruction. Jews are just as guilty as Gentiles in the destruction of America..
==
The Rothschilds is not "da Joos". If anything, the Rothschilds are really the Catholic Church. Because the Rothschilds are nothing more than the money handlers for the Catholic Church.
Some say fiat money started under Roosevelt in 1933.
Others say fiat money started in 1971.
"The Bretton Woods system ended on August 15, 1971, when President Richard Nixon ended trading of gold at the fixed price of $35/ounce. At that point for the first time in history, formal links between the major world currencies and real commodities were severed".
http://economics.about.com/cs/money/a/gold_standard.htm
Regardless, fiat money based on the US dollar worked through the 60's and 70's because the US was the world's preeminent economy and a huge net exporter of tangible things.
Those conditions are no longer true.
Reagan's and Bush II's debt pipers must be paid.
One way or another, they will be.
Who's ready for another tax cut????
Great post this week
The avarice is so great the world is not enough!
Drunk on full spectrum dominance in finance and military the world over, our oligarchy considers nothing other than making the fastest buck under the most fraudulent schemes imaginable. And they have the government apparatus to make it all possible. They must have read Gogol's "Dead Souls" for inspiration --and that assumes they read anything.
One would think they'd wake up and change course in 2008, but not this bunch of ideologues. Our chance to get it right has come and gone.
Our duopoly does everything it can to keep plowing ahead with this scheme with some lip service to "We the people" and a few tweaks to warp things more than before.
All they know is that they've got to keep the gravy train running for a few, using the tax payers money to insulate them from the failures they are.
Happy election day tomorrow--we've got some really great statesmen (and women) to choose from.
I imagine I'll end up feeling as if I had food poisoning by tomorrow's end.
ProCon said: "Some say fiat money started under Roosevelt in 1933. Others say fiat money started in 1971."
The USA has had several bouts with fiat money and we've done fine through all of them (sure there have been downs... and ups, which is to be expected. Between 1931 and 1945 the USA had a floating fiat currency. That was a period of down, then up.
Then, in 1963, the New Federal Reserve notes with no promise to pay in "lawful money" were released. No guarantees, no value. (This is also the year of the disappearance of the $1 silver certificate.) Just fiat money that has served us since then, through all the ups and downs and ups and downs.
Ah Tzataza, Al Klein is right. The army boys will follow their sargents. There are still old timers here in Berkeley who remember when Reagan called out the national guard. There's nothing like a rifle in your face when you're trying to get home to make you wake up and smell the roses.
Thanks, I did! No takers, as yet. WTF, I'm an ol bitch. Cheers!
As an antipodean, I'd love to hear your take on where the Land Down Under is at right now.
We avoided much of the GFC because we are the world's quarry and everyone wants our minerals - especially China. But with US so in hock to China, it won't take much to knock us sideways once the dominoes begin to fall.
Ouch, honey! Don't bring on my hangover before it's freaking due! Kids, for sure, don't mix al hohol, pot, and pills. hell of a buzz, I will pay, but WTF! I am in my gosh darn 80Z ! Party on, dudes!
Dear Jim
dont let Australia fool you, its a mirage. we have debt to income levels 6:1 ..the highest in the world, all of our local industries have left for china without protest...if it wasn't for ore in the ground we would be broke...we are on the eve of a recession as retail margins are at breakpoint due to ever increasing cheaper Chinese imports...the depression starts now!
I mentioned peak oil in a round about way to someone and they immediately came back with some 'fact' about new German cars that got (insert semi plausible number here) fuel efficiency.
As if this made everything ok....
They didn't stop to think about how much it might cost to purchase one of these BMWs or whatnot, assuming they even exist.
Ah, ignorance.... and bliss....
Since the title of today's post is "Now What" and since one or more of you prolific commentors already tied into the protests in France, I point to the announcement of a planned run on European banks December 7th , 2010:
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&biw=1440&bih=719&q=bank+run+december+7&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&fp=72646b5a906e32dd
And, if you haven't already seen it, then the following contribution from thejuicemedia is a must see:
You shouldn't regret it.
Here's that thejuicemedia link:
http://www.youtube.com/user/thejuicemedia#p/u/12/NXbCwq4ewBU
Hey, just for the fun of it! Pull up on Youtube "smoke Get's In Your Eyes" with fred and ginger....a real treat for you old and not so old folks. Where TF is my scotch glass? G.D. I hate getting old.
.... fiat money based on the US dollar worked through the 60's and 70's because the US was the world's preeminent economy and a huge net exporter of tangible things.
Those conditions are no longer true.
The honest buying power of the US dollar and the working US middle class has been on a slow downward slide since the end of Bretton Woods in 1971. (By the way, one reason was so the debt of the VietNam war could be inflated away.)
JHK believes that slide is going to accelerate.
I see very little reality based evidence to the contrary.
http://www.imf.org/external/about/histend.htm
myrtlemay!! don't eeeeven get me going!!
"Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries!
Don't take it serious. It's too mysterious.
You work, you save, you worry so
But ya can't take your dough when ya go, go, go!
Keep repeating, "It's the berries!"
The strongest oak must fall!
The best things in life to you were just loaned.
So how can you lose what you never owned?
Life is just a bowl of cherries!
So live and laugh at it all!" --published 1931
I love ya! I FOUND MY mf scotch. Cheers to y'all. BTW, do check out Fred and Ginger on Youtube. Freaking riot! Talk about CLASS!
Please give it another chance, if it didn't make sense to you at first.
What now? The Egg and Sperm Civil Union Compromise Everything it does needs to be done, plus it will be a catalyst to taking action on other issues.
FYI pull up chris montez "let's dance" on Youtube. I dare you to remain seated!
The link didn't work for The Egg And Sperm Civil Union Compromise, but please Google it and learn what it is.
Jim, please help make it happen!
Whatever you say. I say it's Mashed Potato Time. Dee Dee Sharp, 1962. (It's okay, I'll be dead soon.):)
"The financial morass makes Peak Oil look pretty benign."
The financial morass IS Peak Oil. Did nobody notice that oil prices doubled from September 07 to September 08 ($74 in July 07 to $147 in Jul 08). Sure there was the occasional hurricane in the Gulf, but the real issue was the inability of global oil production to keep up with demand. Ever since demand crashed along with the banks and the stockmarkets in September of that year when business could not cope with doubled running costs, it has stayed below the critical level, occasionally rising enough to push oil prices into the $83 a barrel range. At that point a stockmarket correction invariably kicks in and reduces the amount of money available to spend on energy. This is the sawtooth plateau which preceeds the decline in both oil production and wealth.
IMHO it can go a number of ways from here - 1. The collective realisation that oil production cannot meet demand will surely push prices rapidly higher, resulting in a grander version of the 2008 GFC with disastrous consequences for western civilisation;
2. The current sawtooth plateau will give way to a sawtooth decline, which few people notice because they're too busy celebrating the upswings to notice their net wealth evaporating. This may burst the latest 'bubble', wherever that may be, and push global economies into a steeper decline;
3. Business and western society generally will adapt slowly to increasing energy costs and wealth decline to ride out the storm with a new focus on fairness and frugality (yeah, right!!)
4. The US military will be let off the leash to seize the remaining large reserves in Iran, under the pretext of preventing Iran from developing a nuclear capability (or to hold Israel and Iran apart as a peacekeeping force, with benefits..!). This is most likely to happen in response to scenario 1, and would happen as oil prices first take off in the type of exponential climb we saw in 2007-08.
5. Any combination of the above and/or other circumstances that I can't yet envisage.
Whatever, the firmly held belief among most folks that things will return to 2007 levels of growth and wealth over time is not going to be possible, so we must all prepare for the consequences of living in a civilisation which collectively refuses to accept that fact.
ProCon said:
The United States is a very good place to be in the world in terms of dollar purchasing power. The honest buying power of the very good fiat money we have in the USA is excellent.
ProCon said:
ProCon, do you think the people of the USA no longer make or export anything? A country’s GDP per capita, or the market value of all final goods and services produced per person, is one measure of the productive capacity available to meet the economic needs of the population.
http://www.bls.gov/fls/chartbook/section1.htm#chart1.1
Where else in the world would you rather live?
"We hear every damned day about how fragile our country is, on the brink of catastrophe, torn by polarizing hate, and how it's a shame that we can't work together to get things done. The truth is, we do! We work together to get things done every damned day! The only place we don't is here (in Washington) or on cable TV!
But Americans don't live here, or on cable TV. Where we live, our values and principles form the foundation that sustains us while we get things done--not the barriers that prevent us from getting things done."
--Jon Stewart, Oct. 31, 2010
I'm sorry, I ran all the way home, just to say i'm sorry, I ran all the way! Sometimes, when I close my eyes, it's 1960 again, just like in that movie, "Peggy Sue Got Married". Where did the last fifty fucking years go? "Pay attention!" "Listen, you're my girl, and you have to listen to me." "You're not getting any younger or prettier, Myrtle....just what exactly do you expect to do with the rest of your life?" Thanks, mom, dad, assorted husbands, boyfriends. You are now personally invited to kiss my ass. Yep, those were the days!
'the Rothschilds are really the Catholic Church. Because the Rothschilds are nothing more than the money handlers for the Catholic Church'
you make a case for the CC using the [jewish?] rothschilds...
and perhaps Vlad sayd the reverse is true..the banksters used churches! AND GOVERNMENTS.
It's my party, and I'll freaking cry if I want to. Thanks, Miss Gore!
Al Klein said: "I would argue with you about the "incompetent" part of your statement, though. Immoral, for sure, incompetent, no."
The military is supremely wasteful of fossil-fuel energy (I have training jets flying overhead wasting oil every day). The military is incompetent at energy conservation.
Even at what they are supposed to be competent at, which is fighting wars, the military failed in Vietnam after years of fighting. One measure of military incompetence is what is called "friendly fire" which is firing on your own troops. There were 8,000 incidents of friendly fire in Vietnam. Incompetence.
The military failed in Iraq, as measured by the stated goals of Bush. No stable democratic government was created.
The incompetent USA military has failed to defeat 100 Al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan. After years of fighting them, the Taliban is actually stronger.
Not that the USA military is incapable of winning. The military did handily defeat Grenada. Of course, the invasion was criticized by the United Kingdom, Canada and the United Nations General Assembly, which condemned it as "a flagrant violation of international law".
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1844547,00.html
Time Magazine 9/25/08
"America's No. 1 Export: Debt"
We also export a lot of scrap metal, and raw materials - along with coal and agricultural products.
And lots and lots of war materials to all sides of any conflict with money to spend.
And some insanely stupid percentage of US GDP is in the "*financial services??*" industry.
There is no place I'd rather live than the US.
There is no place I will ever live other than the US.
But that does not mean I cannot take a HONEST look at the government and economic underpinnings of my own country.
That's part of why I'm on CFN.
I'd rather not be impeded by optimism masquerading as *truth.*
==========
Speaking of which, AARP magazine just came out in their November issue detailing $60 BILLION worth of Medicare fraud yearly. That's OVER 10% of total spending.
And the problem has been ongoing for 10 years, according to AARP.
Chilling criminality - meet chilling malfeasance!
"Our society missed the one thing the so-called "bible" got right: the love of money is the root of all evil."
This is only one of the most obvious things. For example, chapter 28 of Deuteronomy, after verse 15, reads like {not literally - I'm talking content here} the blogs and their comments. I have heard verse 67 {paraphrased} come right out of people's mouths.
I am beginning to fully understand exactly where JHK is coming from because I work for a major retail grocery chain here in once-beautiful Detroit, Michigan that's in the process of reorganizing under a new name. For the past ten years my employer has been catering exclusively to price-conscious [i.e-broke ass] consumers without much luck. There are already too many grocery stores here in Motown going after the same frugal clientele according to the geniuses pay my wages, so let's go after all those Yuppies who are willing and able to pay a premium for brie and imported prosciutto. This would make perfect sense if we were living in 1985, when high school dropouts working in the auto industry could live like tenured college professors, but this is 2010 and all that's left of Motown's former prosperity are vacant lots where the auto plants and the houses of the folks who worked in them once stood. But the folks who call the shots up here, along with their sycophants in the local media, would have you believe that another golden age is just around the corner. Meanwhile, plans for a light-rail line down Woodward are stalled because nobody can agree where the money to build it is coming from and even once-prosperous suburbs are beginning to look like the inner city.
If you're in your 80z, then I salute you.
Are you saying Americans are Spock and TPTB are Kirk? And we're getting our butts handed to us. Is that what dumbing down means?
Salute! And thanks to Cash for turning me on to TAMI. y'ALL sweet men. Couldn't bear life without ya! Always!
ProCon said: "Time Magazine 9/25/08 "America's No. 1 Export: Debt"
ProCon, I hate to burst your anti-USA bubble and your ranting about debt, but you are citing an article from Time that is talking about the results of the Bush administration's incompetence.
We have a new President now, and Obama has been good for the USA. To update your pessimistic Time article, during the first half of 2010, United States exports were up 24.5% to US$481.8 billion from $387 billion for the 6 months of 2009. In spite of the economic disaster left by Bush, under Obama's excellent administration American export gains were broad-based. Of the 233 countries where the United States ships its exports, 146 trade partners increased their purchases of U.S. exports.
It does make a difference in international relations and trade when you have an intelligent President like Obama who is looking out for the country as a whole and not just trying to get tax breaks for rich friends like Bush did in trashing the USA.
ProCon, please stop saying the USA doesn't export anything. Please stop continuing the illusion that the USA is a poor debt-ridden country with nothing to offer the world. Please stop trashing the USA.
You're missing the point. The Rothschild's money was not theirs. And in those days, money was gold and silver. The gold and silver belonged to the Catholic Church. The Rothschilds are nothing more than a front for the Catholic Church. The Rothschilds allowed the Catholic Church to stay in the shadows while it manipulated the politics of Europe. The Rothschilds also served a diabolical double purpose, as they allowed the Catholic Church the aristocracy the criminal government mafias to scapegoat "da joos" for what was essentially their political and financial machinations.
The propaganda meisters like to always focus on the one or two token jews, but I can assure you, the token jews are just that. Behind every jew criminal there are a thousand and ten thousand non-jews criminals hiding and pointing the finger at da joo. The fact that all you ever hear in the news is Israel this and Israel that, and jew this and jew that, should tell who's really in control. Because you'll never hear about the real criminals, but you're constantly bombarded with propaganda about the token jew.
I guess not enough Americans have been personally hurt by unemployment, or the financial mess, so that still, the balance of the citizenry is still 'happy' when it comes right down to it. Sure, 75% don't like Congress, but watch: tomorrow the GOP will 'win' due to Democrats staying home from the polls, or Democrats punishing the party by voting Independent or for the GOP. We're playing air ball as a country now, economic terrorists -- known as bankers and Wall Street traders --have trashed the people and the economy, but Obama is worried about some printer cartridges and utters pronouncements that more of our freedoms must go to 'make us safe.' Economic terrorism and open borders are just fine, but watch out for those printer cartridges that just happened to come on the scene the weekend before the mid-terms.
I'm tired of living in this asylum. What about the rest of you? Had enough (yet) ?
And what about the Democrats---playing a game on us, with that same 2006 election stuff, then the 2008 election stuff: 'if you think WE'RE bad, well just look across the aisle.' So we get all scared and vote Democrats in and guess what? They continue W's policies, every single one of them, and Obama becomes more like W than W was in terms of domestic, economic, and international policies.
Fool me once.
I still remember telling a MSN political blog how Obama was a sure win, but he would be G. W. Bush on steroids. Lefties there just laughed or attacked me. Well here we are. Now well "show em" and vote in a bunch of Republicans that are no better. (Except for maybe Rand Paul).
Great post Jim. One of the best I think.
From the West Coast - Santa Cruz, Calif. The Giants just kicked the Texas Rangers collective ass in the World Series. Making the experience all the more richly satisfying were several shots of incurious George W. Bush with his wife Laura sitting right behind home plate. I'm so glad that shithead's team got their butts kicked. And by liberal San Francisco at that.
"We don't burn our draft cards down on Main St.
Like them hippy folks in San Francisco do."
-Merle Haggard
I was surprised at how strong of a visceral reaction I had to seeing that stupid bastard. I hadn't seen or heard anything about that guy since he left office - and there he was sitting in the best seats in the house. His life has been one long and very rigged game. Does he even have a triple digit IQ?
Obama is so much more intelligent and yet nothing has changed. WE are so freaking DOOMED!!! I've had too much Pinot. Time for tea and bed.
JHK,
You outdid yourself with terse, accurate
candor. I'm glad you have now joined
those of us that are disenfranchised from
both parties. You nailed it when you said
that the Democrats have flubbed EVERY chance
of undoing the Bush damage. They have.
Indeed, the public at this time next year
after another year of one percent GDP growth
(after a near-Depression) might become restive
enough to get a little bit violent. Also, the
disingenuous economic statisticians are NOT
taking into account that when a US multinational
sells a widget in China it is counted in US
GDP GROWTH. How is that sort of legerdemain
allowed?
Keep up your crotchety screeds. I like when
you give no quarter because none ought be
given.
E.
Though I'm dissatisfied with the nature of
life in California at this time, I, too,
reveled in seeing the Rangers get bombed
in a series where their collective run
total in three of the five games was ONE.
Only ONE team had more futility than that
in a World Series when, in 1966, the LA
Dodgers were shut out three times by the
Baltimore Orioles (under the immortal and
crabby-as-hell-but-hilarious Earl Weaver).
Go Giants!!!!
E.
You've got a point there, Mika, and that's
why the skeptics among us call the Catholic
Church by its "whisper" name ... THE WHORE
OF BABYLON.
E.
antimatter said: "Obama becomes more like W than W was in terms of domestic, economic, and international policies."
So does Bush criticizing Obama mean Bush is criticizing himself? Or is this really intricate kabuki theater?
"I know it's going to be the private sector that leads this country out of the current economic times we're in," the former president said during a speech to business leaders in Erie, Pennsylvania, according to the Washington Times. "You can spend your money better than the government can spend your money."
Asoka said:
And with Obama we have now had NINE CONSECUTIVE MONTHS OF POSITIVE JOB GROWTH IN THE PRIVATE SECTOR, something George W. Bush could not manage. They don't seem to have the same policies at all when it comes to private sector job creation. Obama's performance is clearly superior.
Good morning CFers! Today gramma gets out of the pen! My dealer has a new shipment for which I must drive about 20 miles. Today's golden oldie from youtube is "Please, Please Me", by the Beatles. Of course, this is what I HOPE will happen upon smoking some of this fantastic weed. Hate to have to crank up the old Honda, but it will be brief (not too fond of driving these days). Shake it up, baby! Fun house time on election day. Talk about a house of mirrors! These shitheels won't stop until they freaking bury this country and turn it into a third world fucking corn maze.
Oh, wait! They've already done that, haven't they?
BTW, While I'm gone, ya'll can play all my records and keep dancing all night!
200th! Can't hap it.
Well, CFN'ers, happy days have arrived.
A certain overly frequent poster, well known for his anti-American rantings, has apparently seen the light.
I offer in evidence the following prose:
"ProCon, please stop saying the USA doesn't export anything. Please stop continuing the illusion that the USA is a poor debt-ridden country with nothing to offer the world. Please stop trashing the USA"
Even though the sentiments attributed to me are out of context nearly to the point of insensibility, a breakthrough has been achieved.
I do believe a new convert to, "MY COUNTRY, RIGHT OR WRONG," has been created.
I'd like to leave it at that.
Now, where is the IGNORE button on this thing? ;-)
"You've got a point there, Mika..."
It's not limited to the skeptics.
"It's not limited to the skeptics."
And it's not limited to the catholic church heirarchy either.
"The military failed in Iraq, as measured by the stated goals of Bush. No stable democratic government was created."
I think it's telling that everyone expects TLE to "happen" suddenly, when 40 years after the fact we're still debating why the US didn't "win" in Vietnam...or Iraq...or Afghanistan.
We spend more on the military than the next 200 sovereign nations combined. If we were actually after "victory" it would come swiftly.
No prob.
What did you think of James? I thought he was on fire. I never get tired of that video. I've borrowed it from the library a couple of times. I think I'm going to shell out and buy it.
Loved him! Course, me and men...go figure. You can download parts of it from youtube. Just got back from the gym where I caught up with a friend (I think he's about 45 or so, and he shamed me into voting (just chose one candidate- fuck those other bitches!) Now I must go start the Honda to visit my other friend. (she's about 60- always sick- not that anyone freaking cares, hates her job...). I don't think I would want to live and always be sick, but then ya never know what to expect when you reach into a box of chocolates. She works in a call center - which is totally brutal- listening to people bitch all day. Pays the bills I guess. That and her side "business" seem to keep her in pin money. Just another day on the farm. ;)
Ah, a confessional: I accept the charge, I’m a racist. How could I not accept it when so charged by those who believe the will of the sovereign citizenry should subordinate to that of foreign nationals. Those leveling the charge base it upon my unwillingness to have our nation’s immigration laws default to however many foreign nationals choose to ignore those laws. OK, I’m a racist.
I take it too that my degree of racism is heightened since I also don’t believe that our immigration laws should be “flipped” (or default) to amnesty due to the weight in numbers of those foreign nationals who are here in violation of our immigration laws.
I’m a racist since I don’t believe that the United States suffers a skin tonality deficiency, thus should base immigration policy on goal of correcting such skin tone deficiency no matter how much it would result in immigration ceilings being set at level beyond our nation’s ability to absorb the influx without dire economic, societal, cultural, infrastructural and ecological consequences. OK, I’m a racist.
There again I’m racist because I don’t believe that all policy going forward should be shaped as act of penance for perceived “wrongs” of US policy in the past, amounting, essentially, to the US citizenry surrendering national self determination through democratic process to any group claiming grievance.
OK too to the charge that in addition to being racist I’m also a xenophobe, based upon my objection to notion that the United States must adopt immigration policies that will bring its population into closer proportionate balance to the racial, ethnic, cultural and religious diversity distribution across the world at large.
And yes, I do argue for basing all future immigration policy on goal of “0” population growth so that can be preserved for future generations of citizens the intrinsic qualities of life now taken for granted but which would cease to exist due to continued population growth.
Yeah, I’m a racist a xenophobe. Add to that charge of my being nationalistic too.
For a laugh, check out on Youtube" The Partisans: Is Obama A Keynesian? Rally For Sanity", 10/30/10. Ain' it great to be an edumacated american?
Thank You for the reminder. It probably IS the only truth in the Bible. I think of the Bible as and I shouldn't say this 'the holey dribble.'
I am entitled to my opinion.
Money isn't the Root of All Evil, the LOVE of Money is. I know people who think, as they say
"money is everything" and they have alot of it.
Don't help people tho. Not with their $$$.
I really love this page / site / blog. Some intelligent beings (i am not one of them) on here.
Lots of different opinions. Something for everyone.
Still scared Sh******.
Especially the way people drive so dangerously like they are out to kill ya. they are. some are anyway.
Speaking of the way people drive, I just got back from visiting my friend, and it amazes me to see people race up to red lights! Yikes, can't get to that stoplight fast enough. My old dad got on my case in a major way when I did this shit in his LaSalle (old car, btw, even then.)but I was only 16, twice dumber than I am now. My friend lives out in the sticks, so I can't walk around like I do in the city. Major clusterfuck. Tried to get in and out while minding my ps and qs (don't need granny to get arrested w/smokage. ) That would be a really nice item for the scandal sheet. Plus, having just parted with TWO presidents :), there will be more than a little belt tightening in our little corner of paradise.
Cave
Almost none of that makes you a racist or a xenophobe.
It may make you a nationalist, or maybe just a clear thinking person who understands population growth and its long term implications - for the planet and the US.
I still want someone to explain what's wrong with a "lifeboat" scenario for the US - if EVERYONE'S gonna die otherwise.
Through lending what they didn't really have, they got more than can ever be imagined. Kings and Presidents bowed to the Rothschilds to get money for war. In time, the Rothschilds learned to orchestrate wars to make money; certainly they were financing both sides in the Civil War. But whose side were they on? Their side. And they are ethnic Jews. Wasn't at least one of them very prominent in the founding of Israel? Perhaps pictured on the currency?
A few token Jews? Oh really. How many of the big bankers and hedge, stockbrokers, and hedge fund managers are Jewsish? More than just a token few. Far more. You are just repeating Mr Kunstler's mantra of Paulson, Paulson, Paulson... Admit the Truth that Jews are intimately involved in our downfall. And when it falls, they will tend to fare far better than Gentiles - they will just move somewhere else. They have no loyalty to America. John Stuart is neither American or Scottish. He's Jewish. End of story.
The Hierarchs of the Catholic Church up to and including the Pope regularly meet with the Anti Defamation League of Bnai Brith - and abase themselves. It is disgusting beyond all power of words to describe. The Jews, Protestants, and Masons subveted the Church at Vatican Two just as the Jews subverted American Protestantism through Darbyism and Dispensationalism early in the 20th century. Christian Zionists are a profound source of Israeli Power and a major thereat to world peace. Imagine belonging to a religion in which you are a second class citizen; which considers "Joos" to be the chosen people. Real Christians know that the Jews broke their Covenant with God and now Christians are the Chosen, the Apple of His Eye. A Covenant is more than a simple promise - it's more like a contract in which both parties are responsible. Contract is a little cold in connotation so the best metaphor is that of marriage. And both parties have obligations or the deal is off. Finally, any Jew who wants to can convert as Christianity is not a racial religion like Judaism or Hinduism. So no one is excluded per se - the Jews exclude themselves.
Why do the Jewish People let such an Evil Elite hide behind them? Because as Prof MacDonald points out, they benefit from the arrangement. So not all Jews are to be condemned but neither are they to be completely let off the hook either.
And yes, many Gentile Billionaires, both New Money and old Aristocrats, are in league with the Jewish Supremacists. Is not Gentile and Vandal equated in Masonic Ritual?
Allow me to share a gem going on in my little hamlet. Plans are in the mix to build (get ready, mix a drink, you ain't gonna believe this, but)an ice skating rink. BTW, I live in the South! City Council here was more than a little muddled when they read about it in the local fishwrap. They didn't even VOTE on it, indeed hadn't even HEARD about it. The PTB are once again playing their little charades games. Oh, and one more thing: nobody knows where the money to build (not to mention maintain, operate, etc.) is coming from. Betcha bottom dollar I know where it's coming from. Do ya like guessing games? I don't. Personally I like to be kissed after getting f_cked. But hey, that's just me.
Whoever "wins" this election is winning a booby prize. It's like that old joke about a game show. First prize was a week's vacation in Philadelphia. Second prize was two weeks in Philly. Kinda like Ford's experiment with the Edsel.
Look up the quote Prog. He said just as well funded and powerful. That's what he said. Sure it would have started small, like an Acorn. But it could well have grown into an Oak. It still might. Remember as Rahm said, never waste a crisis. Better yet, creat one and then just happen to have the solution. Remember, there are millions of unemployed minorities aching to get some payback agaisnt Whitey. Lead by by cool, dark skinned Whites, some bilingual, and of course some experienced Black and Hispanic military or police, a huge terror force could be created very quickly.
Would Obama like to do it? Of course. No question. He is not only a Communist, but an Anti-Western, Anti-American, and Anti-White Racist. This is clear from his own writings (actually written by Bill Ayers whom Obama denies knowing) And after all this, the White Sheep still put him in. They are hopeless degenerates completely unworthy of being Americans and having the right to vote. If America had stayed true to its principles, such inferior beings wouldn't be voting in the first place. Or teaching in Universities like the Terrorist Bill Ayers does. The corruption is beyond the power of the pen to describe. Only Divine Wrath can express it and only Divine Wrath can provide the cure at this late date.
All the media coverage of the elections was great. I liked the in-depth articles about how neither party was actually proposing any solution to the out-of-control campaign-contribution debacle.
And all the great commercials that presented critical analysis of today's pressing social and fiscal problems, all the while offering great insight as well.
It is really a sign of the "information age" that so much knowledge could be distributed to the electorate so successfully in such short shrift.
Now the ever so thoughtful "American People" - who politicians know are the true decision-makers of political and social progress have spoken clearly and succinctly.
"We want everything, and don't you fuckin' Congress people tell us we can't have it all."
And don't forget, the "other guy's" payin' for it.
Captain Jack, over n out -
Racist, Xenophobe, Nativist - these are words to be proud of. Put them together and you have a Patriot who is proud of his Nation and ready to defend it. People like Cash and Comrade Prog don't understand the difference between Nations and Counties. A Country is merely a political structure, typically a Nation degenerated by alien immigration. A Nation is a People who have coalesced from Tribes into Unity. But the emphasis must always remain on the Tribe which has both a Genotype and a corresponding Culture. Immigration from genetically similar Tribes/Nations is possible if done in a measured way. But immigration from Alien Nations and Cultures can only result in weakening and ultimately destruction if not stopped early on.
It is too late for the US. But like Mongrelized Rome or Ancient Egypt, our Elite will continue to whip up the beaten dogs with talk of past National Glory. We aren't a Nation anymore so let is pass over you like water off a duck's back. The only purpose for America now is as a breeding ground for New Nations to split off from. We have every right to make sure one or more of these is White and proud of its Western Heritage. The coming disasters - Natural, Divine, and Man Made spells Opportunity for US.
I doubt that the founding fathers foresaw the rise of nazi-ism or communism. Plus, the way I see you guys is that the US wasn't always the US you have now.
IMO a hundred years ago the US was a big country, but still hurt by the Civil War and internally divided. But a hundred years ago the big powers were European, a cluster of these powers were vying for supremacy. And still Britannia ruled the waves with Germany challenging it militarily.
So you may not like where the US is now with its military all over hell's half acre and places in between. But what got the US in this place was not all its own doing. Much of it (in my opinion most of it) was because of the actions of the old European powers plus rising Asian powers especially Japan to which the US had to react.
Could the rise of Nazi-ism be ignored? I know you have a different view of Hitler and Fascism/Nazi-ism than I do but I don't think so. You already know my thinking on this because we've discussed it so I won't belabour it. The way I see it Roosevelt was determined that the Nazis be put in the grave and he gave all aid short of help until Pearl Harbour when Japan came knocking and Hitler did the unbelievable and declared war on the US.
Similarly I don't think that communism could be ignored. Many will say that communism wasn't the issue, the issue was good old fashioned Russian imperialism. OK whatever you want to call it but the regime was bestial and brutal and murdered millions. And most important it vowed to spread its ideology/methodology/influence worldwide. That OK by you? It's not OK by me. And for a long time it looked like it had the upper hand and might win.
So what about the mess in the Middle East? Blame the Turks and blame the locals. They're all grown ups who are all more than capable of screwing up their own affairs. There's no need for the US bogeyman.
I don't see the US as all powerful and all controlling, I don't think there is just one monolithic Anglo American elite of greedy bankers controlling and scripting world events. I think the US got to this place as a result of "events dear boy, events" to paraphrase a British politician and these events were the doings of disparate groups, some elite and powerful and some not, some American but most not.
For instance, Hitler was a nobody and could have been stopped with a memorandum according to Churchill if Britain and France had acted early enough.
And while I agree the US is late in pulling back from the world militarily (a good ten years late IMO) I think we owe the good people of the US thanks for the millions of man years, trillions of dollars not to mention an ocean of American blood expended in facing down the Nazis and the Communists.
You may not like things the way things are and I'm not thrilled either but I think the alternatives are/were orders of magnitude worse.
BTW, this isn't important but you talk about my neo con thinking. That's an American term. My way of looking at things took shape in the years I spent in western Canada.
John Howard is a fucking idiot.
Check out a book titled The Imperial Cruise if you think the U.S. was merely reacting to Japanese aggression in the 1930s and '40s. Under Teddy Roosevelt, we created, encouraged and nurtured Japanese imperialism in Asia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
We've been an actively expansionist imperial power since at least the Mexican War. I suppose there are some historians who think the Revolutionary War was in some part caused by our desire to expand westward and take the Indians' land away from them, which the Brits didn't want us to do.
People seem to have misinterpreted my post to be some sort of endorsement of the DJIA as a proxy for the health of the economy (not my argument) or some attempt to cheerlead for the current economy (also not my argument).
My post was simply an attempt to hold Kunstler accountable for one of his wildly inaccurate but verifiably specific predictions. Wildly inaccurate seems to describe all of his specific predictions, as far as I can tell. If I were that wrong that often, I could only get a job as a weather forecaster.
"It's a reminder that there are a lot of other players in the wide world - not all of them nations on the verge of a nervous breakdown."
All it takes is for one super armed nation to have that nervous breakdown and the rest of the players are fucked.
i think that ben and goerge etc 'didnt have a crystal ball'...
and didnt see laws used for anchor babies, legal infanticide [all dem pres since carter are for ..2 of them if i remember right].
as far as mika [who accused ME of killing 6 million jews]:
'Behind every jew criminal there are a thousand and ten thousand non-jews criminals hiding and pointing the finger at da joo'
in other words every jew a saint and every non jew a heathen!
who reading this is in australia?
a daffy friend just returned and claims ' their economy is booming and the govt sends people to brazil to try to get young families to move down under'
are you aware of PROP 5 [2009] soros gave 1/2 million dollars to?
are you aware of monster ted kennedys bill to allow any caldean to move here as a refugee?
the usa didnt 'stand down communism'..read
'i saw poland betrayed' for craps sake,
r. gave half of europe to stalin!
we built the ussr via loans, trade,the UN etc.
it would have collapsed had it not been 'funded and respected'.
as far as mika [who accused ME of killing 6 million jews]:
'Behind every jew criminal there are a thousand and ten thousand non-jews criminals hiding and pointing the finger at da joo'
in other words every jew a saint and every non jew a heathen!
==
No. The words are very simple, and so is their meaning. I didn't talk about saints. I talked about jew criminals and non-jew criminals.
And I made it very clear that if you do a headcount of all the jew criminals at GS, JPMorgan, the various banks and hedge funds, the mortgage swindlers at Freddy & Fanny, the gov mafia in Washington, the CIA, the other gov mafia bureaucracies, the MSM, the oil/car/military corporate mafia, and on and on, you'll find that for every jew criminal there are in fact, not thousands or tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands, but millions of non-jew criminals. But they, of-course are anonymous. Whereas the jew criminals, you know by name and almost personally, because the media always focuses on them and points them out for you. Don't you think that's a little strange?
As far as accusing you of murder, I obviously did not. What I said (I'm paraphrasing, but pretty accurately) was: 'give back the 6 million jews that you helped murder'. The 'you' being the US government. Obviously, if you, Asia, had any integrity, you'd acknowledge that I don't for a second consider "the US electorate" as having any input in the decisions of the US government. The US government is a family run business, and I said as much many times. You, Asia, are not in that equation. And neither is "your money"; whatever welfare payments you receive from the US gov, that than gets circulated back to the US gov in the form of sales taxes.
However, I did make a strong assertion that related to you personally. And that assertion is that you are a shit head, that you always were a shit head, and that you'll always be a shit head. I stand by that statement, and will continue to stand by that statement, 'til the end of time.
They have no loyalty to America.
==
I'm curious, what loyalty and to what country do you have? How many such "loyalty" have you had, and to what countries, so far in your oh so short a life, Vlad?
Prelapse says:
"Check out a book titled The Imperial Cruise if you think the U.S. was merely reacting to Japanese aggression in the 1930s and '40s. Under Teddy Roosevelt, we created, encouraged and nurtured Japanese imperialism in Asia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries."
I wasn't aware of that, I'll check it out. That's an interesting piece of history and we finally had to demolish the Japanese to end it.
How is that any different in principal from Reagan and the gang backing the AFGHANISTAN FREEDOM FIGHTERS against the Russians - only to have them turn around and bite us in the ass 20 years later?
If we're ruled by an aristocratic elite - it is far and away the STUPIDEST bunch of sons of bitches that ever walked this tortured planet.
The difference is that unlike the defeat of Japan which is fixed in history - the outcome of the current Afghanistan excursion is still in doubt.
"We've been an actively expansionist imperial power since at least the Mexican War. I suppose there are some historians who think the Revolutionary War was in some part caused by our desire to expand westward and take the Indians' land away from them, which the Brits didn't want us to do."
It is fun to play "what ifs" with history.
You are probably correct about the Brits holding us in check. This is partially because they would have valued *peace* with the French. The French could have turned their interest onto the Louisiana Purchase - instead of onto Napoleon and his wars. France was debauched and ruined by Napoleon - leaving a vacuum into which the Germans oozed - creating WWI and WWII.
And don't forget the War for Southern Independence. There is no way the British Empire would have tolerated a thing like that in one of their colonies.
As Wage points out, every other country ON EARTH simply outlaws slavery and it goes away. Not us Americans - oh hell no!! - we have to fight a War and kill over a million men.
This leaves us with some sort of karmic guilt over slavery that seems destined to torment us forever - it is only getting worse and worse in many ways.
We've been CF'ing for a long, looong time.
Vlad, here's what Obama said:
"We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."
I believe Obama meant "just as strong" as the military in a metaphorical sense, not a literal sense.
Obama certainly did not mean "just as strong" in the sense that this force would be armed with artillery, fighter/bombers, and nuclear weapons - which was my original point to you.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/07/obamas_civilian_national_secur.html
This guy, on this right wing website, agrees with me about this. I actually like most of his analysis.
I am very pleased with the election results tonight.
The question this week is "Now What?"
Oh, JMFC! When will the sleeping pill kick in? I'm done with these "election" shenanigans for the night. Rest well, CFNers. You're going to need it.
I give JHK credit for CORRECTLY predicting the wonderful election outcomes... only days before the election:
Let it be noted that not all of JHK's predictions fail to come true, and not all of JHK's predictions are so far out as to be measured in Friedman units. JHK, I salute you!
I am giddy over the results. Oh, how sweet it is!
Yep, and "there ain't no hearsts with luggage racks." don henley sings.
it's all on loan. nothing is forever.
Yer my girl ! hey i wonder if we are neighbors.
if i was handing out drivers' licenses i tell ya what, probably be 70% less drivers. tailgaters, idiots. rude stupid careless everywhere.
it feels like 'we' ARE out to get eachother.
I do not drive that way. SO MANY do tho. pisses me off. and the CHP could care less. in most cases. we ARE on our own. i always watch out for myself AND others on the road. anyway, thanks for responding to me. that was exciting.
The USA has been going to war illegally for decades because the US Congress never officially declares war.
That could all change now with the new Republican Congress.
Well, come on all of you, big strong men,
Uncle Sam needs your help again.
He's got himself in a terrible jam
Way down yonder in Iran
So put down your books and pick up a gun,
We're gonna have a whole lotta fun.
And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is 'ol Iran;
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.
Come on Wall Street, don't be slow,
Why man, this is war au-go-go
There's plenty good money to be made
By supplying the Army with the tools of its trade,
But just hope and pray that if they drop the bomb,
They drop it on Ahmajinedad.
And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is in Iran.
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.
Well, come on generals, let's move fast;
Your big chance has come at last.
Now you can go out and get those reds
'Cause the only good Muslim is the one that's dead
And you know that peace can only be won
When we've blown 'em all to kingdom come.
And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is in Iran;
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.
Come on mothers throughout the land,
Pack your boys off to 'ol Iran.
Come on fathers, and don't hesitate
To send your sons off before it's too late.
And you can be the first ones in your block
To have your boy come home in a box.
And it's one, two, three
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is 'ol Iran.
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.
What the Fuck Has Obama Done So Far?
http://whatthefuckhasobamadonesofar.com/
Obama 2012!
Just had to tell ya, I downloaded the "Life is just a bowl of cherries" song on youtube. Lovely recording of Mr. Rudy Vallee- who knew? Wayy before my time. Certainly worth a listen on my parents' generation. "So live and laugh at it all!" Thanks!
For a good counter to the "Life is just a bowl of Cherries" tune, check out Jesse's Cafe' Americain (available this page under links)and play the "They Call Us the Working Class" song. Interesting!
"There is only one party. I think Jim has said it himself; it has two factions."
Hummm - maybe the party is over....
The national Democrats really fouled up the waters for most all of the state elections "down-ticket"
at least in my region.
What was such a great idea about this health care plan - bought and paid for by insurance companies - that the whole Democratic party dove over a cliff for it?
Let's get ready for two years of gridlock and noise, followed by a "*conservative*" majority CF.
Unless TSHTF first - sponsored inevitably by the people who brought us Ronald Reagan and the Bushes.
Have a great day of loving life and preparing for *change*!!
You say:
"Now you can go out and get those reds
'Cause the only good Muslim is the one that's dead"
A TINY bit of editing will make it more factually correct.
Change to:
"Now you can kill all those towel heads
'Cause the only good Muslim is the one that's dead"
A minor change I'll admit - one that does not change the overall sentiment you expressed.
=====================
On another note, even with a 24 and a 28 year old
son - I've slowly stopped worrying about a return to the draft.
War has now been turned into something the US public appears to regard as extreme sport - like football, except with mortal danger.
So "we" all just root, root, root! for the Home Team - and otherwise go on about our (insert adverb??) lives.
My life is filled with the things that make life worth living, thank God.
But goddamnit, I am angry about the course this country of ours has been on since about 1979 or thereabouts.
And I fear we just took another downward turn yesterday.
As always, I am open to suggestions! ;-)
Albert Einstein said "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results". So two years after voting the Republicans out en mass, we put 'em back in the saddle again. Bush did the same thing with the country that he did with all his businesses. He ran it into the ground. It's all problematic anyway, since both parties are hopelessly corrupted with corporate money and influence, nothing will be accomplished. Anybody who thinks differently is either a fool or hopelessly naive. Someone once said, "No matter how cynical I get, it's never enough", I concur.
ProCon said: "A TINY bit of editing will make it more factually correct.
Change to:
"Now you can kill all those towel heads
'Cause the only good Muslim is the one that's dead"
Excellent change, ProCon!
And yesterday was a big blessing in disguise. Mark my words: Obama's re-election is now assured.
Vlad, this will be my last time on CFN 'till Sunday, but I will look for your response.
You say:
"...is beyond the power of the pen to describe. Only Divine Wrath can express it and only Divine Wrath can provide the cure at this late date."
And I believe you're not an Atheist, so I assume you speak without sarcasm.
And sadly, I agree with you - though we'll certainly always argue over specifics.
The die was cast for US as a *"culture"* with the results of the American Revolution, or Pickett's charge, the death of Kennedy, or the election of RR, or BushII, or Obama - or something that God (god?) wanted.
I don't know what's gonna happen - Well, DUH!
But I'm certainly hearing your position loud and clear, and including some of it in my future as I think appropriate.
'Cause I'll give up my free will when it's pried out of my cold dead psyche.
Have a great week, CF'ers!!
OMG. I watched the video. Unbelievable. I know it's a movie, and i also get that people live that way NOW. Powerful Video. Thanks for posting.
Compare that to the complete WASTEFULLNESS of US, and other Modern Countries.
We live in Disneyland, the people in that movie live in HELL. Is that gonna be US someday, sooner or later...
SO SAD. and Scary.
reminds me of the lyrics to yet another song "EVERYBODY KNOWS"...that the good guys lost".
I have plenty to be thankful for, but this still really bothers me. this LIFE. The way people are treated, and have to live.
We don't see this on the news.
An Open Letter to the newly elected Senators and Representatives:
http://www.hamburgersstand.com/406/an-open-letter-to-the-newly-elected-senators-and-representatives/
Very apt. Should be America's national anthem.
Want to know how our [collective] "wealth" is waxing and compounding? Here ya be:
http://www.theburningplatform.com/?p=7028
Although I don't agree with some people's specifics on the holistic nature of the coming crash, I do agree that it will be due to the combination of the machinations of political, financial, and sociological forces, totaling an inexorable CF that will define TLE.
Soooo, lessee what we gots:
Financial collapse well underway;
Political tomfoolery well on the way to irrelevancy;
All that's needed now is the REAL pain of a desperate populace, and all bets are off.
Which direction? [More] outward projection of military insanity, or neo-feudalism, or something completely unforeseen?
Where'd I put that crystal ball??? ;o)
Vlad,
Jewish nationalism is not Jewish supremacy. Why do you always wish to victimize and enslave Jews? Jews want to be masters of their own destiny, just like any other people. Why do you seek to deny Jews that which you grant to others? Is it a religious thing for you?
Btw,
NOVEMBER 2, 2010 10:33 PM is still waiting for an answer.
Election results are in. Cali voters decided to keep marijuana very illegal. I dont get it myself
[nor do i smoke], voters want brown/boxer but put smokers in jail!
'They have no loyalty to America'
during operation desert storm congressman rahm went and did military service...in israel!
did you see what mika said about me? musta really ticked him off b
'I don't know what's gonna happen'
yes you do, you just dont know WHEN!
I for one welcome our new Tea Bagger overlords.
What's wrong with Boxer?
Electing Jerry Brown was basically just NOT electing Meg Whitman.
Damn, this is messed up. I actually agree with tzatza's posts.
Light rail is a goddamn boondoggle in the states. Just look at the California high speed rail proposal. I'm not sure it counts as "light" but the problems are the same. No one wants a train in their backyard, and in this case the right of way already exists. It is also really expensive to buy up all the land, to do the tunneling, etc.
And the other post too about a military takeover being unlikely...I agree with that. (Of course, the police state is already here.) Though it is kind of irrelevant if people own guns. A military takeover could just proceed from the top. The new regime wouldn't necessarily need to go go-to-door and confiscate all the guns, nor would they probably want to do this.
I guess a stopped clock is right twice a day.
JHK asks this week: "What Now?"
Here is the answer: continued recovery. The Fed has just announced that it will buy between $850 to $900 billion of U.S. government debt, also known as Treasuries, through June to spur the recovery.
They can print money forever. It may be called useless, fiat money by some but the reality is it serves as a legitimate and functional means of exchange, and has for decades.
This.
Turkle asks: "What's wrong with Boxer?"
What's wrong with Brown? He is fired-up, energized, full of desire to serve California. Brown has been called "fiscally incorruptible" ... which means he doesn't even know how to steal and is not in it for the money.
progressiveconservative,
Your name confuses me.
Turk..i see politicians as self promoters and BB just aint my type of gal!
this is from huffington post:
Virtually every incumbent who went down on Tuesday was a Democrat, from Blue Dog Reps. Baron Hill (Ind.) and Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin (S.D.) to progressive Sen. Russ Feingold (Wis.) and Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy (Ohio).
A rare Republican in this group was Rep. Joseph Cao.
Exit polls showed that voters were intensely worried about the state of the economy, frustrated with the federal government and didn't hold a favorable view of either party. As the party in power, however, Democrats faced the majority of voters' wrath
.......what americans worry??????????
asoka never ceases to amaze me....
politicians want to serve? baa
'full of desire to serve'
What economist has ever argued that capitalism would provide anything even close to full employment?
I'm gonna butcher the oft-maligned John Keynes: "Capitalism does not provide the goods."
Hell, if you total up everything the US government does, including direct employment, spending money on goods and services, pseudo-government organizations, public-private partnerships, Federal Reserve witchcraft, et al., it accounts for something like 50% of the country's entire GDP.
Then there's things like food stamps and social security that provide other people with resources to buy goods and services.
Not saying it is right or wrong. It is just a fact. Pure capitalism has never "worked" if you want it to provide jobs for everyone or even for most of the population.
Some people are just redundant.
Take tzatza for instance... :)
Maybe you read me wrong, or I wasn't being clear. I am not that familiar with Jerry Brown and don't really have much opinion of him one way or another. I was just saying that most people were really turned off by the kind of negative campaigning that Whitman ran (among other things) and so voted for "the other guy".
The Jews have never set their borders in Palestine as they have designs on much of the Middle East. They think God gave them all the land from the Nile to the Euphrates. Don't play the victim card with me - it's old and frayed. Much of the Old Testament is just the story of the Jews inflicting horror on other peoples. Once they got back to Palestine, they began the whole cycle again.
Look at the story of Joseph. He rose high in the Pharoah's sevice. The Egyptians were heavily taxed in grain against the seven years of famine to come. And then when the famine came, did Joseph and Pharoah simply feed the people? No they asked them to buy the grain - the grain which they already had given. And when they had no more to give, they had to sell themselves into slavery just to eat. Things were going so well for Joe that he invited his relatives to come on down and live off the Egyptians. Sounds like a classic Jewish takeover, complete with a corrupt gentile Elite benefiting from the deal. Luckily for the downtrodden Egyptians, that Pharaoh died and another arose, one who "knew not Joseph". He made the Jews pay back their debt that they had stolen from the Egyptian People. Justice at last.
The parallel to our own situation is obvious. We also need a new Elite, one that "knows not Joseph". The Jewish Dominance of our Press, Media, Culture and Banking must be broken if we are to regain our Freedom.
I disagree. We need to abolish the Fed like Ron Paul says. Then we can return to having thousands of different currencies (Bubba's Big Bank Notes anyone?), plus the added bonus of bank panics every other week. Who needs FDIC? Not knowing whether or not your bank would actually have enough money for you injects a little excitement into your day-to-day finances.
Things were better then in the hay-days of Social Darwinism. Pure capitalism is the bee's knees. I want to be a robber baron someday.
Your defence of the status quo is extreme as usual and increasingly outdated. Hitler posed no threat to the West. If we had united with him, we could have crushed Communism. The Jews would have had to leave - they already had Palestine lined up and they had also been offered Madagascar, part of East Africa, and a large chunk of Siberia. They made the worse choice as usual.
There are always reasons for war. But men of character would have made it a last option instead of the first. No one could have assailed us here. You dream if you think otherwise. WW1 got the ball rolling. Everyone now admits is was totally unnecessary. Of course the big money Jews wanted it - they and their despicable gentile allies get stronger with every war. They whispered in that poor fool Wilson's ear that he could be the first president of the World. He was seduced and then he broke his trust with the American People to keep us out of war. FDR broke his word a few years later, but with much more eagerness. He artfully maneuvered Japan into attacking us. More and more people are coming around to this point of view. You will be the last to know the Truth. You are addicted to the good guys/bad guys view of Life. Thus in your mind America had the right to make a defeated Germany over in her own image - putting to death men who never fired a rifle and keeping Ezra Pound in a cage because he told them what I'm telling you now.
That you believe in God Almighty is your saving grace. Like Cash you overestimate us but at least you know that we have fallen away from the Glory that was. Cash believes in our glorious past but sans the Divinity. I think you know that such a Nation never was and never can be.
I just don't fathom how you can look out upon our overpopulated, faith-based, drug addled, Global Warming, Peak Oiling, fractured, indebted, violence plagued, quickly desertifying, polluted, plastic-island-in-the-Pacific-the-size-of-Texas, every-other-third-worlder-with-an-AK, half-a-rotten-monkey-brain world and conclude that the Jews are the real problem behind everything.
The Jews so dominate in the area of foreign affairs that they are constantly in a state of war and insecurity to hold a piece of desert land the size of Delaware, of which they only have partial control.
They are so powerful and above it all that the entire Jewish population was nearly wiped out by an insane German man with a pencil mustache.
Riiiiight.
I mean seriously dude. Get a grip already. They are no worse than anyone else in this nut house.
"Hitler posed no threat to the West."
Germany declared war on the United States you fucking nabob.
Between the Hitler worship, the religious mumbo-jumbo / quackery, and the Jew hating, you are a seriously fucked up person...more than most people even.
The power and success of America from the late 1700's onward was due to its abundant resources: farmland, forests, oil, etc. America had them in abundance. Europe and Asia did not, or at least were far more picked over or spread between many different political entities in more hard-to-reach and exploit places. (See Catton's "Overshoot")
Secondarily, it being the new and undiscovered land, America tended to attract a certain type of ambitious and energetic person, mostly from among the Europeans, at least at first.
Religion was and is just a side show to the ecology and geography (haven't you read "Guns, Germs, and Steel"?).
Notice how American fortunes began to turn somewhat roughly coincident with domestic Peak Oil production.
A coincidence? I think not.
"WW1 got the ball rolling. Of course the big money Jews wanted it."
Exhibit #436 of why you are a complete moron.
Do you just make up this crap as you go along?
"Cheap oil allowed industrial humans to increasingly live on environmental credit for over a century. Now the bill is due and no amount of money can pay it. The calorie, pure heat expenditure as energy, is the only currency in which Mother Nature trades. Period." -Joe Bageant
Jeeeeebus, Joe; now what???
Guess them newly-minted Republocrats are gonna have to change the physical laws of the universe... Hey! That'll work; they're "lawmakers" after all, ain't they?
And then there's this:
"If there can be a solution at this late stage, and most thinking people seriously doubt there can be a “solution” in the way we have always thought of solutions, it begins with powering down everything we consider to be the economy and our survival. That and population reduction, which nobody wants to discuss in actionable terms. Worse yet, there is no state sanctioned, organized entry level for people who want to power down from the horrific machinery of money. There are too many financial, military and corporate and governmental forces that don’t want to see us power down (because it would spell their death), but rather power up even more. That’s called “a recovery.” -J.B.
Damnitall, Joe, you're startin' to sound like that nutjob Kunstler! No state-sanctioned power-down? NOW WHAT??
(Pssst... notice how the awake-and-aware writers on the inter-tubes are all reaching similar conclusions? Oooopsie. Now what?)
anyone here want to consider what would have happened if germany had won ww2 ?
i doubt we would be having this conversation .
Well, I'm barely old enough to remember much about the war. I remember sitting in our living room, hearing air raid sirens, black out curtains firmly in place....and hearing ...NOTHING. Felt mighty silly, but when you're being led like sheep by the PTB, you don't know any better.
I do think we wouldn't be speaking or communicating in English. Even though much of what we saw in the news reels of the day clearly had a propagandistic flair, I knew that Hitler was evil, Hell-bent on destruction and dominion of the world. I also imagine we would be a colonized, well-regimented, complacent country; segregated according to race, then skill, etc. In another words, we would have looked a lot like Auswitch looked in l945. Now, I was still just a teen queen in '45, I do remember the hot G.I.s in uniform. God, were they horny bastards! Oh well, I'm afraid I digress. Bottom line? The U.S. would have looked a lot like a colonized Haiti, IMO, of course.
MAO:
the krauts didnt act alone. wasnt it they+japan+italy and lots of supplies coming in from scandanavia [steel etc]? + portual and switzerland either helping them or trying to ignore them?
and bush doing their bidding on wall st?
had roosevelt given the usa to stalin maybe we wouldnt be having this conversation now.
File this under the "Not that Anyone Freaking Cares" file: During the war, my father's older sister married well, and later became a mistress of some NAZI soldier. She was a well known socialite at the time. Quite the alcoholic, as it was later revealed. Family kept those little secrets under the rug for years. Didn't learn about it until about fifteen years ago. Typical of that generation....don't ask, don't tell.
If Hitler had won, and Germany became a military empire with 700 military bases in 170 countries, they would be suffering from debt, inflation, pollution, and they would be facing running out of fossil fuels and the Long German Emergency and the German World Made By Hand, along with housing foreclosures, people thinking about overthrowing the German empire, clandestine German Tea Parties organizing resistance. China and India rising powers and Germans worried about the trade imbalance as more and more German stores fill up with cheap Chinese goods and China owns more and more of Germany's debt. Turks would be aligning with Al Qaeda to bring down German twin towers in spectacular terrorist attacks. Germany unable to maintain control because they have overspent, are in debt, and are despised by some many in so many parts of the world. Eventually Germany would become Muslim and Sharia law would be imposed and Germany would become a civilized country again with Germans bowing down five times a day facing Mecca and showing their submission to Allah. We would all be speaking Arabic if Hitler had won.
I had the opportunity to visit Germany shortly after the war. It was decimated. The Rhine was about the only region that was spared. Dust, debris, crumbling, bombed-out shells which formerly held shop keepers and other occupants. Such beauty destroyed by a mad man. Still makes me cry when I remember the suffering of those poor, misguided victims.
Did Germany really lose? AS I see it the fascists just changed venue and set up shop in the US. What do we have now? A permanent war and armaments driven economy. A nearly if not complete merging of government with the corporations. A police state all ready to impose lockdown. Germany the nation lost but the ideology lives on. USA uber alles.
The Jews have never set their borders in Palestine as they have designs on much of the Middle East.
==
1/ OMG, are you really that stupid? They did set up borders, it was called Palestine!
There's a signed treaty between Dr Haim Weizmann (the jewish representative, later to become Israel's first president) and King Feisal Hussein (the arab representative, King of Iraq, Syria, Al Hejaz, and Sherif of Mecca). The 1919 Faisal-Weizmann treaty provided the foundation for League of Nations' ratification of the Balfour Declaration and the San Remo resolution. What is Israel today is a carved out territory of less than a 1/4 of what was agreed upon. And the carving is still goes on.
2/ How is any of this, any of your business? What the fsck has Israel to do with you?
I've gotten so distracted around here lately, arguing about this or that with god-knows-who, that I've lost sight of the task at hand to some degree. Got back on track recently, and am sharing some update pics from Small Batch Garden. No theory, no philosophy, just photos of good work.
http://smallbatchgarden.blogspot.com
Hope you enjoy!
Tripp
LAST! (for now)
So weed is still technically illegal in CA. The dealers and dope growers must've voted in force.
What for now? You will still pay those inflated prices to get happy. Is Boone's Farm still $1.98 a bottle? Probably not.
David Wilkerson in his book "The Vision" written in 1972 predicted the legalization of dope. Maybe in 2012.
Luckily for the downtrodden Egyptians, that Pharaoh died and another arose, one who "knew not Joseph". He made the Jews pay back their debt that they had stolen from the Egyptian People. Justice at last.
==
1/ Where are you getting this nonsense from? Is this recorded in the Egyptian records? Are you just making this shit up?
2/ From what I remember, the Pharaoh, on learning of Joseph's interpretation of his dream, decided to tax the Egyptians in grain. According to Joseph's interpretation there were to be 7 years of plenty, and 7 years of famine. Now, let's assume that Pharaoh did not tax his Egyptian subjects prior to Joseph coming on the scene (a ridiculous assumption, but for the sake of entertaining your perverted script, we'll make that assumption), what we have is 7 years of taxation on account of Joseph's interpretation of Pharaoh's dream. Now let's assume it is a really heavy tax and that 50% of whatever grain was produced was taxed into the Pharaoh's granary. That will give 7/2 years or 3.5 years worth of grain from which the Egyptians who paid into the system can withdraw grain without the Social Security granary system going bust. Obviously, the Egyptians withdrew grain not for 3.5 years but for 7 years. The difference had to come from somewhere. Obviously, Egypt had to trade other goods for grain to make up the difference.
3/ Even if allow for your script and say the Egyptians got a "raw deal" by the Pharaoh's tax, the alternative without the system would have been certain starvation and death. Being poor and alive, is still better than being dead.
4/ So instituting slavery for a whole people for hundreds of years, and then instituting genocide, for the perceived "bad" advice or misdeed of one person is what you call justice. And let's not forget that Joseph did not force anybody to accept his interpretation of the dream. It was Pharaoh who was the final arbiter and decision maker. Joseph was just one of his many advisers. And yet is it interesting that Pharaoh and his clan get to escape your "justice".
It is also very telling, Vlad, that after you accused others of disloyalty, that you refuse to answer my simple question to you as to whom your national loyalty belongs. How many and which countries are you "loyal" to, Vlad? Answer!
It looks to be, more and more, that you are exactly what you accuse others of being. A hypocrite, a liar, a racist supremacist, a global imperialist, a faux nationalist, a multiple passports lowlife welfare creep, a genocidal parasite and a disgusting blood-vulture. You are without honor and without principles. Your pathetic projections onto others are the psychological symptom of the most feeble and degenerate of minds. But I’m glad we finally sorted this out. You can finally look in the mirror and really see the real you.
Halloween: my daughter was in Watertown NY on the weekend. She said that the good people of Watertown do not go door-to-door trick-or-treat'n but go to the malls where each store puts out a bowl of candy.
how bizarre!
now in Ottawa, Halloween is a more supervised affair than it was but kids still go door-to-door
can someone explain?
THE HORRIBLE MEANING OF QE2
***************************
It means that your (increasingly debased)
taxpayer dollars are being used to buy up
$600 billion MORE in toxic bank assets.
If the markets were even slightly rational,
they would realize that QE2 signals that
banks are in FAR, FAR worse shape than anyone
in the Obama Administration, his cabinet, or
the Fed are letting on.
Bernanke is following the Japanese model of
allowing zombie banks to persist for an eternity
instead of allowing markets to clear by allowing
insolvent companies to go into receivership.
This guy's claim to be a "... student of the
Great Depression" is the biggest hoax since
Bigfoot.
E.
Mika,
I related okay to Vlad some months ago when
I agreed with him that some ethnicities
(blacks, Hispanics) had way too much crime,
too little achievement, and bad representatives
who don't attempt to improve these numbers
by perpetuating their "victimhood".
However, now that I've seen him quote people
like Revilo Oliver (a stock-in-trade hater
of anything not crisply Teutonic) I knew that
his "sources" were revisionists who make up
facts on the fly. I'm sure that Vlad is
way booked up on the "Protocols of the Elders
of Zion" even though mainstream historians of
every political persuasion consider the
document a total fraud.
Vlad is a classic Stormfront.org guy who isn't
willing to admit that the WHITE race might very
well be going downhill faster than any race right
now since we're copying the WORST aspects of
ghetto/barrio/prison behavior, fashions, and
interpersonal mannerisms. I know this from
observational experience over the last decade
with Gen-Y students.
Sorry, Vlad, but sometimes people can appear
to be "correct" for a while for all the wrong
reasons. But when I saw references to guys
like Oliver, I knew that your sources were
intellectually disingenuous and cherrypicked
to back your point of view. You ceased to be
"special".
E.
It would be better for you guys if the British military (or maybe even New Zealand) took over your country.
The US military are just plain dumb. Did you hear they tried rescuing some hostage and wound up killing her? They threw a fragmentation grenade into the room. Dumbos. The British SAS should have done the job, because they're experts in that sort of thing. They use weapons with surgical precision and kill the captors ONLY.
Anyway, Howard, did you find Australia OK? (or not - too many people get drunk over here then complain about their $4000 mobile phone bill).
Did you visit New Zealand (main problem: the Leaky Homes Crisis costed at $23b)?
Are you going to write it up next week?
Look at the big picture:
1) Worldwide salaries are between 100 to 800 dollars a month, even for service, health care, doctors, engineers, scientists, etc. By worldwide I mean India, China, Indonesia, Mexico, Turkey, Brazil, Russia, and others. The USA, EU, JAPAN and west in general etc. can in no possible way compete against these salaries no matter what they do, think or think they deserve: the workers of the rich countries must understand that the inequality between the first world and second or third world is over. Now either accept low pay (by western standards) or remain unemployed. The USA is particularly very high paid even compared to EU and JAPAN, at least paid twice as much on average. This is in no way sustainable anymore, in fact the jobs are going out of the USA and to where workers cost little money.
2) Automation, technology and internet etc. have rendered the world both smaller and have streamlined and eliminated and will increasingly eliminate many jobs no matter what. The USA cannot fool themselves that just hiking up the cost of college and health care can create those high paying jobs, this will not last and cannot last: in most of the world college and health care are either free or cost anywhere from 1/3 to 1/10 the cost in the USA.
3) Small businesses and all this startup myth, innovation myth, etc. will in no way create millions of real jobs that are needed. Remember even the rest of the world is researching and trying to grab a piece of the market pie, look at South Korea, they are heading towards world dominance in consumer electronics, etc.
What is needed is a huge decline in costs of real estate, houses must cost no more than 100,000 dollars in all of the USA, and I mean high quality 3 bedroom house, or a rent of no more than 200 dollars a month. If not, the USA is no longer competitive worldwide as housing forces companies to pay huge salaries compared to the rest of the world to allow people to pay high prices of rents or mortgages. Health care must be single system, government managed, close all private health care crap, do like in Europe or Canada, if you have the cash and want the private thieves and doctors you are free to pay as much as you want to the private system, if you are a normal slob like 90% of us, than it must be free like in Europe or JAPAN. If not, the USA is no longer competitive worldwide as health care forces companies to pay huge insurance and salaries compared to the rest of the world.
This is how it stands, this is what Obama should tell the people, this is the truth. But since people are idiots and suck, etc. nothing will change and everything will simply go to hell.
EightM,
What really resonated with me was the stuff
you said about the "startup myth". Indeed,
I live in the heart of this myth ... Silicon
Valley.
Most startups have NOTHING to do with idealistic
people innovating for the human race. That ended
a long time ago. Now it's about riches for people
who create marginal benefit. Biotech is the most
evil in this regard. The market goes gaga for
stupid companies like Dendreon who, at tremendous
expense, created a prostate cancer drug that
prolongs life by FOUR MONTHS. No cure. No
five extra years. FOUR MONTHS.
Biotech soaks up most of the venture money now
and yet look at all of the unfulfilled promises
from the 1980s. It's all marginal benefit at
great, MALINVESTED cost. Compare this to simple
breakthroughs like the polio vaccine, diptheria
vaccine, smallpox vaccine, antibiotics which
instantly cure everything from bubonic plague
to strep throat. Not one biotech "miracle" has
approached these miracles and yet money that
could be going to fixing urban plumbing or
upgrading electric grids or feeding the poor
is, instead, enriching more DWEEBS in tiny
companies.
As to the rest of your post, I can't really
disagree. It's like we're determined to
pretend that we're still top dog while we're
23rd in infant mortality, 17th in life
expectancy, downwardly mobile in the global
IQ race, and with degraded public institutions
which rob from society. This game of "pretend",
to future historians, will just be shrugged off
as the complacent fatness of all dying empires.
C'est la vie.
E.
Can I take a stab at it? Sometimes old broads can make astute observations.
Halloween- no more going door to door.
We, as a country, no longer know our neighbors. Mother isn't setting out plates of cookies and glasses of milk for her kids and their friends after they play tag football in the yard.
The corporations (malls) own everything...even us. So logically, why wouldn't they inject their venomous selves into an otherwise kooky holiday.
As children, we were told EXACTLY which houses to visit (porch lights on, we knew them, etc. ) Some cranky (mostly old folks) frankly didn't want to be bothered and either didn't turn on front porch lights or left a dish of candy. An okay solution, except some of us got greedy (sound familiar?) and took ALL the candy, leaving nothing for the rest of the trick-or-treaters.
Sometimes the people we kids visited were weird, or just a little tipsy (cocktail hour starts around 5 doncha know).
Not the brightest idea, this Halloween business, except that the candy companies (yep, the corporations again, took it over). Remember the '70s? Supposed razor blades found in apples? Could it be, and I wonder, that Hershey or MARS planted that little item and leaked it to the press? I mean really. And everybody knows that candy is far better for children than apples (look what happened to Snow White, for chrisakes!)
Happy Thursday CFNers! I think I'll choose Bobby Darin's "Mack the Knife" as today's golden oldie. "Could it be our boy's done something rash?" Nearly emptied my purse full of coins into juke boxes over this delightful ditty.
Oh, and that shark BITES, with his TEETH, babe. Yeah, he sure as fxck does!
Yep, when it comes to mortgage bubbles, insider trading, CDOs/CDSs and all the other hubble-bubble-boil-n-troubles stirred up by Wall Street playa shenanigans...
(Trick or treat has this time really come home to roost)
Puts me in mind of this...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8ljgDgYsmQ
And that’s the beauty of film-clips - they say so much more - than you can with uber-paragraphs of know-it-all w#nker waffle...
Though I guess what many long and wish for when reading Jim’s healing words for the CFN’ers collective is okay, armageddon’s a coming - so contenders bring it on...
Let’s get this party cooking, and time for some savvy political leader no-nonsense b#llsh#t free clarity!!
And that’s just the problem folks... as we’re only, ever so gently into the beginnings of the descent downwards, as we fly off the cheap abundant energy curve - this will take at least another two decades or so to fully evolve...
Before its really crystal-clear that tis truly SHTF time. Till then its a ping-pong, wobbly drop of recession, blip stall, then another recession, blip stall (repeat as needed recipe) as we bounce ever lower on the ebbs and flows of central bankster QE’ing that will only benefit the city whiz few... with falls and rallies sucking up the cash of dazed and confused.
In fact what’s most likely to evolve (short-term) is more conflict betwixt the growing have-nots, increased economic volatility and disagreement about whom is really to blame?
And the godly like (give us a sign) US sheeple will wave in Sarah-drill baby drill-Palin, to cure there current bi-party flaccidity blues...
So while we all think on this, and then how this political move might go down in China, as we all globally realise that those royal uber-rich camel-f#ckers in the Middle-East have been lying for decades about the oil reserves held there, and that the real jokes on us, let’s just refresh ourselves with the coming timeline...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrrVpf45w5E
So what’s the best case scenario solution for readers here?
Well 10 years ago you moved to a low numbers, capable resilient community area. If you didn’t – you started your own. Then you built up your own farm, using a reduced energy spectrum, powered by water, wind, wood and sun. Installed the best-life photovoltaics you could muster, a heavy-duty battery bank for storage, and a heated greenhouse for extending the growing season if in northern climes. Since when you’ve been growing as many vegetables as you can, while raising some of your own meat and eggs, to trade as needed.
(And you're an able-bodied, blood thicker than water Husband/Wife team)
The clues to all this lurk within the Witch of Hebron. What do you mean.... you haven’t been doing this for the last decade or so?
Oh dear!
Be seeing you
*Sniggers*
I often check out the on-line real estate ads (habit I picked up from dad, riding around in the LaSalle Sundays after church) and see that people are STILL asking INCREDIBLE prices for their homes...worse, some poor fools are still BUYING these over priced, vinyl clad, ticky tacky craker boxes. I wonder when the general public will ever awaken from this dream and realize just how badly they've been FUCKED. (sorry- taken to the cleaners would be more polite, wouldn't it?)
I think that if and when they do wake up, in masses, THAT is when TSHTF, and you will see some not so pretty little dramas begin to pan out. Get good seats, CFNers. This is going to be good. Pass the popcorn and move over, would ya?
Spelling- Sister Anna Maria would be SO PISSED!
cracker boxes.
Flashback (happens to me all the time) to when I was a teen, riding on the old Paoli Local on the Main Line. Asked the man at the station about a train's arrival and he said, "I'm sorry, dear, but that train left the station over an hour ago." Could that perhaps serve as a metaphor for our little situation in this country?
Wow! That sounds like decent advice. And let me tell you that transition is indeed immensely easier with a dedicated partner. I couldn't do this without my wife.
Loved the Youtube clip: "Don't push your luck, kid. I've drowned bigger cats than you!" LOL!
And if I hear ONE more person say to me, "I want my country back!", I'm gonna have to try really hard not to bitch slap them and say, "NO, ya can't! Ya aren't EVER gonna get your country back. And ya aren't EVER gonna leave it, either! You work for THE MAN, bitch! So stop crying and get the fuck back to work! BTW, we're going to have to cut your hours, lower your wages. Times are tough, ya know. Get over it! Prosperity is just around the gosh darned corner, so shut the fuck up!"
""I'm sorry, dear, but that train left the station over an hour ago." Could that perhaps serve as a metaphor for our little situation in this country?"
I think so. Everyone keeps looking for a big shebang, some "first broken window" scenario, and then (and only then) will the shit hit the fan in earnest. But the plasticity of a planet-sized economy, coupled with a powerful elite well-versed in chaos and game theory, indicates to me a managed descent (to the extent possible) that preys on our life-long trend of landscape amnesia.
If the masses can be distracted by ever-faster shinier objects, and given just enough money to stay alive and redeposit into the formal economy, TPTB can probably continue their global resource rape for some time to come.
"Surely no one will notice that the labor kibble is worse than worthless to the human brain, and hey, that might actually work to our advantage!"
But our supposed advantage, as cluster-fuckers, is that we're supposed to have some sort of legitimate relationship with reality, and that it should inform the plans we're laying. As jibes with Alexandra's post, they say the best time to plant a fruit tree was 10 years ago.
Without that level of foresight, I'll just throw out that there's no time like the present, train previously departed or otherwise.
"Ya aren't EVER gonna get your country back."
No, you can't have your country back, whatever that means to whoever is crying these words into their beer. But for the first time in a long time (500 years?) we can get our humanity back. We can cooperate, and forge a new and informed populace, completely independent of the mass manipulation. I think that's even better than having my country back.
Or is that just too much to ask of first world humans?
The more plugged in one is, the more one plays the role intended for them by the information brokers.
Unplug and listen to what the wind has to say.
Sage advice.
"Or is that just too much to ask of first world humans?"
Reminds of Lloyd Price's gem, "Just Because". Gotta get to the gym. Yesterday was a "do nothing" day...sort of like Congress, Washington, etc. Except they do a good job of lying. Yep, that's about it.
from:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=173202
eran as right wing thug.
[quote="Eran"]
I think this is the wrong way to look at it. The US and the West in general was able to sustain high levels of pay because of its productivity. At the end of the day, the reason we want to be paid is so we can buy stuff. The stuff we buy has to be produced. A fair system allocates stuff based on contribution to its production. People in the US were highly paid, not because there was no competition, but because they are highly productive.
There is absolutely no reason why western levels of personal productivity cannot spread (as they are starting to) to the rest of the world. The result would be huge global productivity boom from which everybody will benefit. If the job of a Western health care professional, engineer or scientist can be done more cheaply by a colleague in India, that's a great gain to society. To see that, imagine a great technological advance in Artificial Intelligence that allows computers to replace doctors in reading radiograms. Would you oppose such an advance because of its impact on the salary of radiologists? If such attitudes were applied consistently through history, we would still be digging for roots with our fingernails. If not, what's the difference between being replaced by a machine, and being replaced by a cheaper foreign competitor? In either case, society as a whole benefits, because the same products and services can be provided more cheaply.[/quote]
check out:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=173035
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=172950
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=172704
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=172688
Define productivity in a service economy. It is undefined as 70% of the US economy is services meaning, doctors and hospitals, in