Saturday, April 30, 2011

Salvation

Greetings good citizen,

Left to your personal political sensibilities is the proposition of whether or not we are being ‘subjugated’ by a league of our financial and commercial ‘betters’.

Today’s first offering even goes as far as to call our antagonist the Coporate State.

We live in a fragmented society. We are ignorant of what is being done to us. We are diverted by the absurd and political theater. We are afraid of terrorism, of losing our job and of carrying out acts of dissent. We are politically demobilized and paralyzed. We do not question the state religion of patriotic virtue, the war on terror or the military and security state. We are herded like sheep through airports by Homeland Security and, once we get through the metal detectors and body scanners, spontaneously applaud our men and women in uniform. As we become more insecure and afraid, we become more anxious. We are driven by fiercer and fiercer competition. We yearn for stability and protection. This is the genius of all systems of totalitarianism. The citizen’s highest hope finally becomes to be secure and left alone.

Or so they’d have us believe…

Honesty good citizen, would you trust any of these idiots to ‘protect’ you and yours from a threat greater than a rabid squirrel? (And even THAT might be too generous!)

Perhaps the question needs to be rephrased more along the lines of the Athiest’s Prayer, “Dear Jesus, please protect me from your followers!”

No irony should be lost of the fact that the biggest threat facing our species comes from those who profess the urgent desire to ‘save us’ from (thus far) non-existent enemies.

To make matters worse we have this article about the other ‘front’ the fucking conservatives are trying to ‘save’ their constituents from…

The warning is the result of the extraordinary measures to prop up the financial system, which have seen central banks resort to strategies such as buying up bonds to keep the flow of money circulating.

Fathom's economists are worried that last year may have marked the high point of the global recovery. "It remains unclear how much of the equity market rally has been 'genuine', rather than simply a 'mopping up' of that extraordinary injection of liquidity," they warned. "As that stimulus is gradually withdrawn, further gains in equity markets will be harder to achieve."

Indeed! Without taxpayer funds to sink into equities they wouldn’t ‘rise’ at all.

Understand that once the ‘pumping’ stops there is going to be a massive sell off as the, er, ‘less than scrupulous’ dump everything they can on ‘the greater fool’.

How sick is it to note that it’s already too late to ‘cash out’?

Understand good citizen the ‘next stop’ is the barter economy.

BUT! You scream, we aren’t set up to revert to a barter economy…

How sad is it that the ‘capitalist’ response to this is the ‘typical’ one…tough!

More the pity…

Naturally, this will (and is intended to) cause MASSIVE ‘civil unrest’.

Whiskey and gunpowder, good citizen, whiskey and gunpowder…

Naturally, those who profess the sincere desire to save the rest of us are indeed only trying to save their own worthless hydes.

AM doesn’t post often but when he does its usually a ‘gem’.

(And yes good citizen, I sometimes start filling in the commentary BEFORE the days search is complete.)

Since today’s topic is ‘salvation’ (for fun and profit) we would be remiss in not visiting the idea of whether or not salvation is even possible.

Then we get into a semantics battle over precisely who is being saved from what?

Because all salvation isn’t equal...and because of that, not all salvation is ‘worthy/worthwhile’.

So if you ‘qualify’ salvation with ‘only those worth saving’ the effort is condemned from the start as being not worth while. The very small group of (mostly) rich white guys is definitely not worth cashing in all of our chips over because, truth be told, they are the ones responsible for this train wreck.

So our qualifier is that we must be trying to save our entire species with a focus being on that significant portion of the population that is willing to endure the necessary sacrifices that will ensure success.

Which is to acknowledge that some people (and their selfish desires) are going to have to be ignored if we are to have any hope of success.

CAN this be done? Most certainly…WILL it be done? Not likely.

Perhaps the single most important aspect to be understood here is the necessity of the ‘greater good’ to prevail.

If the ‘selfish few’ continue to dominate then our species is doomed.

No irony should be lost on the fact that these people justify their selfishness with the Dawinesque argument of ‘Survival of the fittest’.

I guess only nature is capable of teaching that selfishness is NOT a virtue and it does nothing to ensure survival.

Sadly, if the selfish succeed then our species is doomed to extinction.

Just something else for you to think about, good citizen.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Friday, April 29, 2011

Listen to the bullshit fly!

Greetings good citizen,

While it might be said that every day here is an exercise in ‘debunking’ the flood of psychobabble dispensed by the corporate owned media, every once in a while it becomes the specific ‘theme’ of the piece at hand.

We begin with the headlines…while this was not today’s lead story, it made the top three which is close enough for our purposes.

[Caution: put on your ‘waders’ before reading any further as it gets pretty deep!]

When the year began, economists expected a more robust growth rate of about 4 percent, only to be barraged by bad report after bad report. Turmoil in the Middle East led to higher oil prices, which had already been climbing because of increased demand in emerging markets like China. Housing sales dropped sharply. Winter blizzards closed businesses and delayed construction, causing investments in nonresidential structures like office buildings to fall 21.7 percent from the previous quarter. Imports, which are subtracted from gross domestic product, surged. Military spending sank.

Economists say many of these problems will fade later in the year and economic growth will hasten through the spring. Last quarter’s dismal news was, fingers crossed, “a pause, not a trend,” said Kathy Bostjancic, director for macroeconomic analysis at the Conference Board.

The American public seems less certain.

Can we get a rousing ‘Ya Think?’ to that last observation?

Unemployment is back on the upswing but I don’t think Wall Street cares anymore as their boy ‘Barry’ has as much a chance of being re-elected as these bankers do of escaping with their lives.

Ain’t gonna happen.

Given the blogosphere has ‘torpedoed’ the GOP’s best hope (Ron Paul) this morning Wall Street must be confident that no matter who ‘wins’ election, nothing will change.

Switching back to the article good citizen we see that ‘real world’ does make its presence felt from time to time on that alien planet we call Washington.

What amazes me is the Dow’s steady rise despite what might charitably be called ‘anemic’ GDP growth.

Remind me, WHY is the Dow at 12, 500 again?

Could this be what basically amounts to ‘currency manipulation’?

I don’t know about you but it’s all looking mighty funny to me…

The next article is a real knee-slapper. After eating our lunch for THE PAST THIRTY YEARS, ‘suddenly’ China’s fleet of ‘independent’ truckers have become a ‘bottleneck’ in an otherwise perfect ‘model of efficiency’…

SHANGHAI — For years, China’s export juggernaut has been fed by highly efficient factories, low-cost labor and a fleet of container ships capable of transporting huge volumes of toys, textiles, electronics and other goods to every corner of the world.

But there is a surprisingly weak link in the Made in China chain. [Gasp!]

Moving those goods from the factory floor to one of China’s enormous seaports — often a drive of less than two hours — typically means relying on an independent trucking company. And as vital as trucking is to China’s mighty export machine, the government seems to be ignoring the drawbacks of what analysts say is an increasingly disorganized, inefficient and even costly way to transport factory goods to seaports.

Wait a minute Slim! Haven’t we seen this same song and dance routine before? If it looks familiar it is because the last time the ‘villians’ were our own truckers!

Putting two and two together with today’s ‘theme’ and we arrive at what might be best described as the obvious outcome of the global race to the bottom.

They’ve cut all there is and there ain’t no more to cut!

Naturally, inflation is ‘non-existent’ (according to the government) and the economy is doing ‘fine’ (depending on where you sit in the income distribution.)

Understand, we will be told as we always are, that increased ‘consumer spending’ is a surefire sign that the economy is headed in the ‘right direction’…

How unfortunate is it for the rest of us that our current direction lies parallel with the Poor Farm?

Traders took in another round of earnings on a day when the government reported that consumers spent more on gasoline and food in March:



Higher Food and Gas Prices Lift Consumer Spending in U.S.

Yes good citizen, expect the stock markets to rise ANOTHER hundred points on that ‘marvelous’ news.

Our civilization is being broken up the greedy bankers and nobody is doing anything about it.

Oh joy!

Finally we have this story, which is definitely not what it appears to be (and certainly not ‘as advertised’…)

The dollar fell below 6.50 renminbi to about 6.491. That marks a 5 percent gain for the renminbi since last June, when it traded around 6.827.

Are we REALLY seeing a ‘rising Yuan’ or is this evidence of a ‘falling dollar’?

If you haven’t been paying attention, the dollar is falling like a rock…and Wall Street doesn’t care…and neither does the Fed for that matter.

If you’re ‘mystified by my ‘oh joy’ comment above I’ll explain further.

After this coming debacle is over ‘banking’ as it has been sold to the rest of us will cease to exist.

Oh joy is in ‘anticipation’ of that (potentially) liberating event.

It depends on what banking is replaced with…

You know what I always say, stupid is as stupid does…

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Unplugged

Greetings good citizen,

In what might be considered ‘odd’ there are no links today becaue there were no particularly compelling articles in the few sources I peruse daily.

While the rising death toll in the south keeps me personally wondering about HAARP (a weather control technology designed by Tesla and built by Raytheon.) I am hesitant to draw unnecessary attention to something I have no proof of it being currently deployed.

Speculate is all I can do. Beyond that I can perhaps draw your attention to the importance of this region as far as the global food supply is concerned.

Tornadoes don’t just kill people.

Voilent storms centered in crop producing regions do ‘double duty’ when it comes to culling the ‘surplus population’.

It would be easy to go off on a tangent here but let it suffice to say the surprising uptick in cyclone related deaths (they have ‘reasonably effective’ early warning systems now) is, er, disconcerting.

It’s days like today that illustrate when the media doesn’t want to tell you anything they just dummy up.

You’d think the Royal Wedding was all that matters to a world ready to break apart due to irrational, reckless financial manipulation…but that’s always going on so it’s not ‘news’.

The fact that they continue to do nothing about it is also ‘non-news’.

Talk about your ‘dangerous games’, none of you realize just how dangerous the situation is and you won’t until it’s too late!

Then you’ll be ‘thunderstruck’.

Because, in your heart of hearts, you believe they ‘wouldn’t dare’ manipulate the value of the ‘be all, end all’!

On that score you’d be sadly, er, ‘mistaken’.

Since we’re headed in that direction I’m going to back up a few inches and recant stating that there was ‘no news’ today…with a link from a couple of days ago…

Soaring Costs Force Some Renters To Choose Between Shelter And Food

If only because it ties into the topic at hand, ‘manipulation of the ‘be all, end all’.

You work for pay, the whole ‘employer/employee relationship is predicated on an employer offering you enough pay so you would be willing to spend you time enriching him rather than yourself.

Not for nothing but employers seem to have ‘forgotten’ this part of the bargain, not that they needed to pay much attention to it because they have succeeded in limiting your ‘options’…significantly.

This is an even more disturbing conundrum when ‘energy’ costs are added in (although I believe the article does point to rising energy costs as being the primary driver of this renewed ‘squeeze’ on the ‘paycheck peasants’.

Is this where all of this is headed? ‘A Vast, Global Online Network of Homeless People’

We may not have anyplace to hang our hats and nuthin’ to eat but hot damn, we’re ‘wired’!

It is a truly sad fact good citizen that if you aren’t ‘plugged in’ you can’t participate.

How ‘astonishing’ is it that even the crappiest mobile phone is capable of both tracking and reporting your whereabouts, ‘on demand’ to the authorities?

Any of you getting creeped out about ‘Big Brother’ breathing down your neck yet?

Or are you already beyond that? Hell, they can’t come after us all at once and they don’t have the space to lock us all up, not yet anyway.

The ‘idea’ behind making the ‘electronic lifeline’ trackable is so after you have been driven to a life of crime, the cell phone/ I pad/tablet will make it ‘easier’ for the cops to find you.

Geez, good citizen, and to think that not so long ago this bullshit would all be the stuff of ‘paranoid delusions’.

You’d be called ‘crazy’ if you even speculated the ‘government’ was following you around via your cell phone…turns out this wasn’t exactly ‘crazy talk’ after all.

I don’t have a cell phone…got that ‘old fogey’ thing about not wanting people to “just reach out and touch me”…(anytime they fucking feel like it, because they can.)

But that’s okay, they can track my car’s whereabouts if they need to find me…which is to point out this is nothing ‘new’…making it, ironically, ‘not news’…

Naturally this leads us to the edge of the ‘slippery slope’ where it becomes of tantamount importance to have secure reins on the people who have access to this kind of information.

The unscrupulous bunch in power now would hang you with your own spit (and make sure you choked to death in the process!)

Never before has so much been placed in peril by so few.

How lucky is it they haven’t figured out how to use this secret data to blackmail us with…yet?

If you’ve got something to hide, I’d be very worried if I were you.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Still waiting...

Greetings good citizen,

Today’s first offering would be incomplete without prefacing the story with the fact that the crisis is going on its fourth birthday and there still hasn’t been been a single thing done to correct the problem

In fact, it has become a recurring theme throughout the blogosphere.

What are we doing wrong that we are unable to elect a single individual capable of standing up and jailing the criminals that are raping this country?

Are Mr. Prince’s forces so efective that the US military is no match for them?

We can only imagine it must be so. More the pity that they’re on the public payroll, isn’t it?

Anyway:

The first case study focuses on Washington Mutual (WaMu), the nation’s largest savings bank, and its overt strategic decision to go big into selling high risk, high profit mortgages. Here you will find a detailed description of every type of dangerous mortgage foisted onto the public. Your blood pressure also will climb when you read how the bank used focus groups to help its mortgage brokers find better ways to sucker customers into risky mortgages even though the applicants had qualified for and wanted safer fixed-rate mortgages. [criminal activity that went (naturally) unprosecuted]

The report also details outright fraud committed by brokers – forging documents, making phony loans, stealing money – who then got rewarded again and again by the bank for their high sales records, even after they were caught! Nobody cared because the loans quickly were sold to Wall Street – the riskier the loan, the higher the interest rates and the more Wall Street would pay.

The part that should disturb most of you is how this all occurred ‘eyes wide open’, the fuckheads KNEW what would happen and did it anyway!

And we STILL can’t find a blessed soul willing to prosecute these criminals?

Well, no matter…few will escape when the lynching starts.

And maybe that’s the only way anyone connected to this clusterfuck will pay the price.

But considering the consequences, it won’t be near harsh enough.

Our children have been deprived of the nation they were born into. It is up to us to give it back.

The Galts of the world need to pay for their ‘myopia’.

How ironic is it that those who believe the world wouldn’t survive without them completely miss how much better off the world would be without them?

Nobody needs a self-centered tyrant, nobody.

That said, nobody is well served following the advice of the clueless.

Why do foreigners come up with stupid ideas (and pretend they are life altering revealations?) Why does the MSM keep granting them column space?

If your experiencing problems with your budget knothead’s here to tell you that you’ve been doing it all wrong!

Forget Frugality: Focus on Earning More
By RAMIT SETHI

[Ramit Sethi runs the Web site I Will Teach You to Be Rich.]

Why is it that 99% of the time the ‘secret formula’ involves getting saps to send you money so you will ‘reveal’ to them the secret of success, (which is conning saps into sending you money so you will reveal the secret of success!)

Or worse, they make insipid suggestions like buying a gold mine, oil well (or other ‘capital intensive’ endeavors one would need to have a lot of money for in the first place…)

Don’t even get me started on the ‘your fortune in Real Estate’ scam…especially now.

Again, shifting mental gears we come to another disturbing revelation about the corporate owned media

If this shit is going on, just how ‘micro-managed’ is the BULLSHIT they fabricate for your consumption?

Sadly, this has been going on for decades…and like the criminal activity, NOBODY DOES ANYTHING about it!

Fuck up on your taxes and they’re on you like white on rice, do 70 in a 65 and expect to cough up big to both the State and the Insurance company, but fuck millions of people out of hundreds of thousands of dollars and you’ll walk away unmolested!

How sad is it that it is considered ‘business as usual?’

Broken record time (another way of acknowledging you’ve read this here before.)

If not YOU, WHO and if not NOW, WHEN?

Injustice serves nobody except the criminal who gets away with their crime.

It is time to restore ‘justice’ to our slender package of civil rights.

Fail this and civilization itself fails.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Not clear on the concept...

Greetings good citizen,

How does that old saying go, “there are none more enslaved than those who THINK they are ‘free’’…or something like that.

In retrospect, I am ‘down’ on a number of institutions in, er, ‘this society’ (since most of us are ‘victims’ of our rulers I hesitate to call this society ‘ours’.)

I am down on political parties (if we’re all in this together then who the hell is the ‘opposition’?) as I’m down on ‘voting’ (as it is currently practiced. Voting is a decision-making process so voting for who will make decisions for you without EVER consulting you is more than a bit illogical.)

I am also down on ‘protests’. While we see ‘high profile’ protests in other countries most of the time protests go without media coverage (unless hundreds of them are arrested for ‘civil disobedience’.)

Sadly, this ‘petitioning the government’ over (both) real and imagined grievances produces zero results.

So when I encountered this article in my morning reading I selected it as the subject for my own peculiar variety of ‘contrary’ reasoning.

The article ends thus:

Progressives need to offer an analysis that gives citizens the confidence to challenge the economic policy of Wall Street. At the same time, we need to provide an inspirational vision of the kind of society we are working to create. And we need to seriously plan how to achieve that vision by fighting for and winning transformative economic change that redistributes wealth and power. We can restore an arc of history that bends toward justice, equality and greater opportunity for us all, if we have the courage to challenge the most powerful and together take a step closer to the promised land. Otherwise, we may soon watch 100 years of victories disappear.

My readers are aware that recent events in the Middle East are NOT the ‘cry for democracy’ our bought and paid for corporate media would have you believe.

These mostly African nations are revolting against the corrupt governments they have no say in. While US supported ‘democracy movements’ are claiming responsibility, the ensuing riots have more to do with economic hardship and perceived government, er, ‘incompetence’ than the publicized desire to ‘imitate’ their Western oppressor.

While the writer is correct in stating we need to, er, ‘insist on’ our goal of a more equitable society, a protest is just as likely to get you shot as participating in a riot will.

In fact, the Sixties proved the only way to ‘get noticed’ was for ‘demonstrations’ to turn violent…much the same way our great grandparents did when protesting for fair wages and a more humane work week.

If it bleeds, it leads…which says something mighty pathetic about the people in charge of our ‘public information systems’.

In fact, information is, in my opinion, too precious to be ‘comodified’, especially by sensationalist hucksters.

But I digress.

Is the writer calling for ‘confrontation’ or is she merely seeking people willing to ‘peacefully’ rally around progressive causes?

Because even the suggestion that people unite less than peacefully is a crime.

How sad is it that only confrontation will draw the necessary attention to the issues at hand BUT advocating confrontation is a crime!

Not that it should matter, the way our affairs are being mis-managed is a crime too!

And it’s high time we start prosecuting those crimes.

Which is to belabor the obvious, we can hardly expect the criminals to prosecute themselves. They also have an annoying habit of ‘pardoning’ both the perp as well as those who ‘masterminded’ the crime.

Something that won’t stop until we put a stop to it.

Call it ‘blowback’ but some (relatively innocent) parties are going to suffer ‘retribution’ due to an ‘unfortunate choice of career paths.’

One would hope they’d all get a ‘fair trial’ but you know how ugly mobs can get…

Not to be mean but this sort of talk is already percolating through the affected industry.

Naturally, those who feel offended by being tarred with the same brush the ‘more guilty’ of their profession have attracted, scorn the ‘unfairness’ of such threats.

Sadly, protesting alone achieves nothing.

The unfairly judged will be compelled to fight fire with fire…if they can pull it off.

But I once again digress.

This is about the ‘effectiveness’ of protest. Due to the criminality of advocating violent protest, we can only ‘read between the lines’ and ‘fill in the blanks’ for ourselves.

I am down on protests, conversely, I am the first to endorse ‘confrontation’ as the only effective means of instituting ‘change’.

Even if those ‘changes’ are the ‘cleaning out’ of now corrupt regimes that infest public office.

As the Egyptians are learning, throwing out one despot and replacing him with his right hand man is, er, ‘beyond useless’.

Which is to say that a ‘clean sweep’ is useless if we fail to modify the process used to replace that which has been swept clean.

Again, not what to think but something to think about…

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Monday, April 25, 2011

Quick Quiz...

Greetings good citizen,

Even skipping a day, the situation remains ‘unchanged’; the collapse of our civilization proceeds ‘on schedule’. Thankfully nothing has (so far) popped up to prove my dire prediction of tragedy over the just past holiday weekend…but it’s still too soon to put that possibility to bed.

Some of you may catch the ‘typical’ reversal I put on many of the headlines I post and today the reversal is indeed the main point

For more than 50 years, Washington has been served well by a system of global power based on subordinate elites. That system once facilitated the extension of American influence worldwide with a surprising efficiency and (relatively speaking) an economy of force. Now, however, those loyal allies increasingly look like an empire of failed or insubordinate states. Make no mistake: the degradation of, or ending of, half a century of such ties is likely to leave Washington on the rocks.

As the article implies, ‘our’ (read the oligarch’s) ‘foreign policy’ reflects a certain, ‘disregard’ for the principles this nation was supposedly founded upon.

Although, truth be told, the actual ‘founding principles’ of this nation are those of ‘John Jay’.

Who is ‘John Jay’?

He ‘founded’ (read copied) our ‘legal system’ and more importantly, he 'framed' the premise it operates under.

All of the gobbledygook about ‘liberty’ only applies to the John Jay’s…a group that still exists to this day.

What was Mr. Jay’s rather controversial ‘basic assumption’?

It was NOT that ‘all men are created equal’ (every lawyer knows that ‘the ability to pay’ is an inverse function of a man’s propensity for criminal activity!)

So HIS ‘philosophy’/doctrine was “Let those who OWN the Land, RULE the Land!

Um, does this help explain why there aren’t any holidays celebrating America’s first jurist?

Also critical to the clusterfuck we find ourselves in today, it was Mr. Jay (who, despite not getting his own holiday, did get a University named after him) that determined the ‘primary function’ of our legal system.

Again, you’d be dead wrong if you opined that the founding principle of our legal system had anything whatsoever to do with either ‘equality’ or ‘justice’ (for anyone other than a bona fide elite/founder.)

The ‘primary objective’ of ‘our’ legal system isn’t justice; it is the protection of property rights. ABOVE ALL ELSE!

Does anybody see the problem with this?

I’m willing to bet that if you ‘polled’ your ‘familiars’ (friends and family) maybe one in a hundred would get this right.

Which brings us full circle to the ‘ignorance’ problem.

How sad is it to realize that not only do most people not know about the founding principles of this nation. (Although most drunks would gladly knock your block off in defense of ‘their interpretation’ of those principles!) But, other than defending their own mistaken notions of ‘national honor’, they don’t fucking care!

Baseball, hotdogs, apple pie and Mom are NOT ‘America’s founding principles, IT’S A FUCKING AD FOR GM!

Which, I guess, brings us to a more serious issue. One that has been used to drive a wedge so deep that we all ‘believe’ that most of the rest of this country is too stupid to vote in its own best interests.

Let’s have a closer look at that ‘divide’ once again.

You don’t suppose it is a ‘coincidence’ that the split keeps coming up 80-20?

Even if this particular poll shows the split to be closer to 75-25.

The fact remains, if not for ‘districting’ the ‘25’ would NEVER win!

Now we have the House ‘controlled’ by the improbable ‘25’!

You don’t suppose we are staring media manipulation right in the face?

Which brings us to a ‘peripheral’ issue, is it a ‘media’ problem or are we staring at or a ‘who owns the media’ problem?

I’d opine it is the latter…but that could just be me.

Well good citizen, it looks like my work here is done. I would like to add that today's 'point' is that certain 'disregard' for this nation's, er, 'founding principles/laws that resulted in a 'foreign aid' supported web of puppet governments around the globe casts our own government in a rather poor light.

What does it say about our politicians (never mind their owners) about their willingness to put their own greed ahead of the needs of society/civilization?

Show of hands now, how many of you were aware of this nation’s founding principles?

And if you think I made any of this up, just google John Jay!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Housing markets

Greetings good citizen,

Today’s top headline is The BIG rip off

Builders and analysts say a long-term shift in behavior seems to be under way. Instead of wanting the biggest and the newest, even if it requires a long commute, buyers now demand something smaller, cheaper and, thanks to $4-a-gallon gas, as close to their jobs as possible. That often means buying a home out of foreclosure from a bank.

Four out of 10 sales of existing homes are foreclosures or otherwise distressed properties. Builders like Mr. Meier who specialize in putting up entire neighborhoods on a city’s outskirts — Richmond is some 50 miles northwest of downtown Chicago — cannot compete despite chopping prices.

Shelter is the single largest ‘purchase’ a tad over half of us will ever make, although in the not too distant future, nobody will ‘own’ a home/moneypit.

Because the court system that upholds said ownership will cease to exist.

What an outrageous claim you must be thinking! The whole enchilada is held together by the ‘men with guns’, where does Gegner think they are going?

And the answer to that question is, ‘in business for themselves’. Funny thing about the ‘men with guns’ if you stop paying them they are pretty quick to adopt ‘independent contractor’ status.

That’s the ‘flipside’ to a civilization ruled by money. Once the money proves worthless, things revert to the ‘old order’…the only thing that still trumps ‘gold rules’ is ‘gun rules.’

Before guns it was bows and arrows, and spears and swords before that.

But I’m getting ahead of myself; there’s still one last stage left before the global real estate market ‘implodes’.

It is the last ‘variant’ on what has increasingly proven to be a ‘suckers bet’. In this ‘final stage’ of the ‘own your own home’ game. In the future you will find that the ONLY way you will be able to secure financing is through a ‘full recourse’ loan…an extremely hazardous proposition, as those who took out student loans already know.

So, is a ‘new car’ thrown in with a new house really a winning combination? Could be if you happen to have exceptionally deep pockets (and don’t mind driving a ‘base model’ Chevy/GM product…)

Oh, and make no mistake about it, YOU ARE paying for the car, it is just being ‘financed’ with the house!

This begs the other question…if you can’t secure financing for a car, is throwing a house into the bargain really a wise move?

Bizarrely, this strategy is ‘working’ but you can make a damn good bet that the whole scam relies heavily on ‘creative financing’ (which is another way of saying the customer takes it long and deep!)

But in the end we wouldn't be providing the level of service our readers expect if we failed to point out the REAL problem here is the rapidly diminishing pool of potential buyers.

If you view a home as an ‘investment’, you are making the ‘assumption’ that someone will someday come along and buy the property from you for more than you paid for it.

Maybe not as much as you’d like to get, but more than you paid!

That’s the ‘whole point’ of ‘real estate’, you buy it expecting to turn it around for a profit.

Have you spotted the ‘fly in the oinment’ yet?

What fly is that?

The big hairy one commonly called the ‘payroll distribution chart’.

With the demise of the Autoworkers the number of people pulling down a ‘living wage’ in this country shrunk radically.

This, in turn, diminishes the number of future homebuyers.

Want to throw some gasoline on that fire?

Factor in the 2 billion Indian and Chinese people who used to walk but now want to ‘cruise’.

Which is to say you can stop wondering ‘why’ the price of gasoline is headed for ‘boing’, the machinations of the greedy capitalists are biting the rest of us in the ass!

All racism aside, was exporting our, er, ‘lifestyle’ to the most populous place on Earth really a ‘wise’ move?

Which is to state that it won’t be long before the price of energy alone will make ‘homeownership’ cost prohibitive.

You think operating a motor vehicle is an expensive proposition? Try heating a home! (Especially in the frigid north…)

Not that energy is the only thing rising in price.

As retailers have been warning, their costs are rising as cotton and other materials get more expensive, laborers in China demand higher wages and fuel prices go up. By this fall, many have said, they must charge customers more. Because retailers pay for items about six months in advance, spring merchandise on the shelves for a few months was ordered and paid for in late summer, before costs soared. And when costs first started creeping up, clothing makers used an array of tactics to keep prices flat, whether by moving production to lower-cost countries like Bangladesh, using cheaper fabrics or ordering early to lock in prices.

Um, one is tempted to say ‘I told you so!’ here but that would be counterproductive.

What did I tell you?

A few of you might remember that I have in the past pointed out that once you give up the ability to produce your own (whatever) you instantly place yourself at the mercy of those who still can produce the item (pricewise, cheaper goes right out the window!)

How bizarre is it good citizen that this is precisely the type of ‘economic voodoo’ that crowned Ronnie Reagan as an economic genius and the savior/hero of capitalists everywhere!

But that isn’t the only incident of fiscal irresponsibility on display today.

And may I say that now is an especially peculiar time to think that taxes matter only if they reduce consumption. We have lots of excess capacity in the economy; the government can easily buy more goods and services without requiring that the private sector buy less. The only reason to raise taxes now, or promise future rises, is to address solvency concerns.

Discussions like this really disturb me; they indicate that there are a lot of people with Ph.D.s in economics who can throw around a lot of jargon, but when push comes to shove, have no coherent picture whatsoever of how the pieces fit together.

Not to put too fine a point on it good citizen but if the people with Ph.D’s can’t get it right, what chance do YOU have of making sense out of it?

But then we are falling right into their trap, aren’t we?
The main ‘excuse’ for most of the ‘excesses’ foisted upon us is ‘complexity’.

Which is more closely related to the ‘if we told you the real reason you’d say no!’ excuse…which is why ‘national security’ is so often invoked whenever somebody starts sniffing around a ‘sacred cow’ that is most likely an embarassing boondoggle.

ONLY (no exceptions): thieves and scoundrels require the ‘cloak of secrecy’ to hide behind.

Why politicians keep claiming the need sort of speaks for itself.

In a somewhat related story, More Drivers Running Out Of Gas

We have this observation from today’s Cryptogon:

Wow. Some people are in so much denial about gas prices, and not wanting to think about filling up, that they are simply driving until they run out of gas. This is a fantastic lesson in cognitive dissonance.

If you’re not familiar with the term ‘cognitave dissonance’ it is linked to the wikipedia in the actual article.

And, finally (a bit overlong today, but nowhere near the 9 pages they used to be…) we have this brilliant observation:

“If those in charge of our society - politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television - can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves.”

Howard Zinn

We are fed such an incredible, steaming heap of toxic bullshit it is a small wonder that a majority of us are indeed ‘psychotic’! (The airwaves are packed with ads for ‘mind/mood altering’ drugs for a reason.)

Ironically, the ‘crazier’ they make you, the easier it will be to exterminate you…

The sad part is they are more than a few fries shy of a Happy Meal too!

Have a nice day!

And thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Friday, April 22, 2011

Popularity contest...

Greetings good citizen,

I think most of us would agree that opinions are like assholes, everybody’s got one.

That not withstanding, we arrive at this Alternet article which begs the question, “How do you define ‘progressive’?

Why single out this particular article, there are ‘top ten lists’ on just about any given subject, compiled by every imaginable ‘interest group’.

I ‘take exception’ to this particular article because, in the opinion of the authors, the ‘progressive movement’ is largely populated with Libertarians, who commonly profess their belief out of complete ignorance of Libertarian principles.

‘Libertarian principles’ (and oxymorom in itself) can be more readily understood if their origins are clearly delineated. They are, with few exceptions, the psychopathic rantings of the sociopath Ayn Rand.

Just because she didn’t eat a live infant for breakfast every morning doesn’t mean she wouldn’t if given the chance!

Naturally, ignorance is a powerful tool. What the article fails to, er, ‘explore’ is the yawning chasm that divides the people who frequent Daily Kos from the people who RUN the site.

You wear your muzzle in silence on Kos, it is not a place that tolerates ‘dissent’. In this respect it is a dim echo of the force it attempts to ‘counter’, the RWNM.

So, if Daily Kos is ‘progressive’, I’m fucking Santa Claus!

[I just love this ‘opt in’ firewall!]

But chances are good citizen, if you’re reading me you already ‘know the score’ as far as the Daily Kos is concerned.

Although it is not a ‘frivolous issue’ to ponder what does or does not constitute a ‘progressive’.

Not for nothing the Nazi’s billed themselves as ‘progressives’ too…

So what’s in a label?

Not much when you consider that politically, the label has been effectively rendered meaningless. It no longer matters who you ‘vote’ for, the results are identical.

In retrospect, who you vote for probably hasn’t made a difference for quite some time, just saying, ya know?

Moving on, we have this headline story from today’s NY Times!

What a bummer!

With the caveat that it is never my intention to tell you ‘what to think’, why the hell do YOU think this story is today’s top headline?

Amid rising gas prices, stubborn unemployment and a cacophonous debate in Washington over the federal government’s ability to meet its future obligations, the poll presents stark evidence that the slow, if unsteady, gains in public confidence earlier this year that a recovery was under way are now all but gone.

This time the blogosphere provides a partial answer as to why ‘public sentiment’ is, er, ‘sagging’

As this article indicates we have been on a ‘down hill run’ for more than a decade, actually, for most of us, we’re going on two decades of what can be correctly called a ‘selected recovery’.

Which is to point out that the recovery was only enjoyed by certain segments of the economy, other sectors remained ‘depressed’.

No one should be shocked to learn the corporate owned media has purposefully ignored the ‘hollowing out’ of our economy and that the ‘Free Trade agreements’ (great for producers, suck for consumers) have cost us far more than they have yeilded in benefits.

Nor should anyone be astounded to hear that our politicians have been well paid to ignore the obvious consequences of their campaign donor’s desires.

The economic desert grows by the day and still our politicians both say and do nothing.

If numbnuts gets re-elected it will be like the irrational conservative victory in the mid-term elections, a ‘product’ of our bought and paid for media!

Well, no worries, good citizen,

It doesn’t matter if the elections are ‘fixed’; this form of corruption has run our civilization into a ditch.

The ‘debate’ isn’t over how we can ‘preserve’ (predatory) capitalism but over what will replace it…(and who will take the fall when the old system collapses.)

Until next time good citizen,

Gegner

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Doomsday Capitalism...

Greetings good citizen,

Not only does the collapse of our civilizaion proceed apace but some of the first ‘serious cracks’ have just made their appearance!

We can dive right in with this article titled, appropriately enough, Doomsday Capitalism

Doomsday Capitalism? Capitalism is killing America? Yes, that’s the message in my tenth book. “Doomsday Capitalism, 10 Self-Destructive Trends.” But you’ll never see it in print. No one, even book publishers want to read this truth: Capitalism is destroying America.

Why? Super-Rich Capitalists get rich off these macro trends. They want happy talk. Back in 2007 Vanguard founder Jack Bogle called my warnings “prescient.” But that didn’t stop the meltdown. Next time financial historians warn of a bigger meltdown; a total collapse has been the destiny of every nation for eight centuries. This time, capitalism is the saboteur.

What S&P U.S. credit warning means [Who listens to those assholes anymore?]

In the wake of Standard & Poor's warning that the U.S. AAA credit rating is at risk, former Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin explains to David Wessel why politicians are watching and what it might mean for a deal on the the deficit.

Yale scholar Immanuel Wallerstein warns that capitalism’s at the end of a 500-year cycle: The “political struggle is over what kind of system will replace capitalism, not whether it should survive.” We cannot stop this cycle.

Yes, Super-Rich Capitalists will fight to the death. But destiny is trapped in our DNA, historians warn, and will not change. America is run by these short-term thinkers. They never learn the lessons of history. They do not want you to know that their capitalism is self-destructive, that capitalism’s cycle is in a suicidal end game, that their “mutant capitalism,” as Bogle calls it, is destroying the very soul of America’s democracy.

The short term thinking as well as the perpetual ‘gaming’ of the system that has gone, er, ‘unprosecuted’ for far too long has brought a fundamentally bad idea to its logical conclusion, albeit, 500 years after it should have ended!

Did I mention that the first few attempts to institute capitalism failed miserably?

More importantly, what most of you DON’T understand is what the basic premise of capitalism really is?

Capitalism was established to free owners of the expense of caring for slaves.

The no longer had to ‘buy slaves’ and take the chance of spending a lot for one that ultimately needed to be put down because they destroyed everything they touched.

And if the slave got sick, it was their problem!

In many cases, paying a slave was cheaper (overall) than owning them.

Now automation has made slaves more or less obsolete.

Sort of a bad situation at a time when there are more available slaves than ever.

That whole ‘unemployment’ thing really makes them feel exploited.

And you don’t want to be the target of a large, angry mob…even if you are the one buying all of the robots!

Anyway…

Next up we have this OMG moment for those of you who still believe the ‘funny money’ is actually worth something.

U.S. DOLLAR INDEX: INTRADAY DOWNSIDE BREACH 74.170
April 21st, 2011

74.101.

It’s on.

For those of you who don’t follow the currencies markets the above means the US Dollar just broke through a ‘critical support’ level.

Like I said, some serious ‘cracks’ are appearing but the corporate owned media is more concerned with ‘maintaining order’ than they are with providing you ‘fair warning’.

Worse, how much of a ‘coincidence’ do you think it is that this shit is reaching ‘critical mass’ on Easter Weekend, the ‘anniversary’ of Christ’s ressurection?

Isn’t God supposed to be behind all of this (man-made) disaster?

Isn’t ‘God’s will’ the primary fallback position of the hateful right?

You heard it here first; this ISN’T a coincidence by any stretch of the imagination!

WHAT ‘isn’t a coincidence’ remains to be seen’; we haven’t crossed that particular bridge yet.

I’m sure we’ll all know come Monday.

I am doubtful we will see a ‘life altering event’ occur over the Holy weekend but we just might get a ‘sneak peak’ at some trouble that has been brewing on the back burner for quite a while.

We’ll probably be ‘gifted’ with $4 a gallon gasoline coupled with the announcement of ‘anticipated shortages’ of grain (with a corresponding price incease that will bust everybody’s budget!)

It will be one of those, “good thing summer is coming because we’d never be able to afford this and heating fuel too!”

Brace for impact good citizen!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

The Power of Gold!

Greetings good citizen,

There is a plethora of disturbing news this morning but that is to be expected, considering where all this is headed.

I’m going to ‘point to’ a disturbing truth so you will recognize it when you see it but guess what, you’re gonna panic anyway.

Maybe I’ll let the media break the ice for me

Gold breaks 1,500 dollars an ounce!

Guess what followed gold up almost 200 points?

Yup, the damnded Dow!

Understand, gold is rising due to what they are calling a ‘flight to safety’ but it isn’t our extremely mismanaged commercial sector they’re fleeing from (although they should be!) NO, investors are fleeing that bulwark of bulwarks, that safest of all safe havens, the US Dollar!

Now puzzle me this good citizen, if investors are ‘losing confidence’ in the (essentially worthless) US Dollar, shouldn't that loss also translate directly to ‘the generators of those dollars’, the US commercial sector?

How can the stocks of US companies rise while while their currency falls?

Short answer, IT CAN’T!

But the ‘stock market’ is nothing more than smoke and mirrors. It is worse than a crooked casino because all of the ‘games’ are ‘fixed’in the ‘houses’ favor.

And the bought and paid for corporate media has zero interest in telling you the truth, but that’s nothing new.

All of this should make you ask, “why do I live here?” Not that there’s a better place out there that will have you.

How do you like those apples, you’re stuck AND fucked!

How sad is it this isn’t the only, er, ‘nonsensical’ bit of fluff you are regularly expected to swallow?

The stock market makes much more ‘sense’ if you think of it simply as the yardstick that tells us how rich the already wealthy are making themselves.

That’s the ONLY reason stocks rise when the dollar falls.

Of course, this is the same ‘idiot logic’ used when the government measures unemployment. How moronic will it be when ALL jobs have been offshored that the unemployment level will finally reach zero?

Er, ‘calculating’ stocks to rise when the dollar falls is the same twisted logic, when the dollar becomes worthless, stocks will be ‘priceless’!

Doesn’t matter how many times you read it, it still doesn’t make sense…but that’s what they do!

But we digress (believe it or not!)

The real ‘shocker’ here is…

The price of damn gold!

Gold hovered around $200 an ounce for the first thirty years after the ‘gold standard’ was abandoned. (This is a reference point, not an endorsement!)

Then, in the depths of the second ‘jobless recovery’ gold suddenly and inexplicably doubled. Jumping from $200 to 400 an ounce virtually overnight in 2004.

Seven years (and another financial crisis) later and it more than ‘triples’? (almost quadruples!)

Um, does anyone else see a disturbing, er, ‘pattern’ developing here? (Because the corporate media has no interest in ‘investigating’ this ‘non-news’ story!

So, what’s the ‘price of gold’, good citizen?

Whatever they say it is! (And if you get fucked in the process, too bad! You should have been ‘more careful’…)

But more to the point good citizen, letting others decide what is and isn’t valuable (to them) has proven to be catastrophic in the past.

In fact, we’re headed for just such a catastrophy as we speak!

Oil is being ‘undervalued’ while alternatives are being discounted completely!

I read an article predicting $5 a gallon gasoline by the end of the summer. Since gasoline runs pretty much in line with heating oil there are going to be a lot of people freezing to death this coming winter…and there WILL BE RIOTS in anticipation of that event!

Are we ‘off the rails’ good citizen? Most definitely! The cause, which should surprise no one, is ‘mismanagement’.

You must be getting sick of my advocating for A Simple Plan in every piece but the plan was designed with the current situation in mind…and doesn’t depend/hinge on everybody suddenly wanting to join the peace corp or becoming missionaries for ‘spirit in the sky’…

You just keep doing what you do because that’s what you do…until you decide you want to do something else, then you transfer. (I suspect ‘gypsys’ will be fairly common.)

There’ll be plenty of time for ‘doing nothing’ during the regular day or after you turn fifty.

Gold is a soft yellow metal, pretty but otherwise worthless.

Life, on the other hand is ‘priceless!’

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Politics of a Banana Republic...

Greetings good citizen,

One of today’s lead stories on Alternet asks the question of whether or not the Republican’s are committing ‘political suicide’?

I think the answer to that question resides in the politics of a Banana Republic. How many political parties does one find in your typical ‘oligarchy’?

If ‘conservatism’ is destined to be the ‘last party standing’ (as it already appears to be) does it matter if they make fools of themselves by supporting ‘unpopular’ policies?

Perhaps this is where people need to wake up and smell the coffee, there is only ONE politial party in the country and they’re ‘owned’ by this nation’s oligarchs.

The ‘appearance’ of there being two political parties is just an illusion maintained by the all-powerful few.

So, is the GOP committing ‘political suicide?’ considering both the Democrats AND the Republicans take their marching orders from the same people, the 'short answer' applies…no.

The thing that has thinking people scratching their heads (besides lice) is the danger this presents to the oligarchy.

It has long been apparent that there is little difference between Republican and Democratic administrations, with the last ‘true’ Democratic administration being that of LBJ.

How sad is it that the last push for social justice is not almost fifty years in the rearview mirror?

Has to be something to it, almost every social commentator points to the same period in history as the point the USA suffered a ‘silent coup.’

A point where government of the people shrank down to a government ‘by a few (people), for the rest.’

If you like to quibble, it is merely a resurfacing of the now ancient argument about who, precisely, counts as ‘people’…a debate that ended with the ‘paycheck divide’.

In essence (and indeed in fact) if you work for a paycheck (regardless of how large) YOU ARE A PEASANT! Only the ‘owners’ of ‘income streams’ count as people!

I can appreciate that exposing many of these truths detracts from my popularity but what are you gonna do? Somebody has to stand up and point these things out.

If not me, who? If not now, when?

I guess you’re stuck with me, now.

For those of you not paying attention to the financial markets I suggest you visit our friend Jesse and watch the Youtube video the link deposits you at.

What is my most often repeated ‘catch phrase’, good citizen

Um, all right, bad question (there are many more than just one.)

The one I’m searching for is ‘the money is ALL ‘funny’.

Just watch the video and honestly ask yourself afterwards if there ISN’T a conspiracy against the vast majority of us?

Because if the answer isn’t ‘conspiracy’ then it must be lunacy because this shit don’t happen ‘by accident’ (no matter how earnestly they insist!)

And after viewing this particular piece of information (and by no means it it the only one) aren’t you left wondering A.) why isn’t this illegal? And B.) if a regular schmuck can dig this up, why isn’t anybody being prosecuted?

Which brings us full circle to ‘foundation’ of A Simple Plan. Nothing will get fixed until our legal system is (completely) overhauled.

The law must be placed beyond the reach of the ‘self-interested’.

Without equality there can be no justice and without justice there can be no peace! (And without peace there can be no prosperity.)

We are currently on ‘the path to destruction’; will enough of us survive to start again?

Time will tell, good citizen, time will tell.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Monday, April 18, 2011

What do you KNOW?

Greetings good citizen,

Today’s Alternet carried an interesting story questioning President Obama’s progressive credentials

Make no mistake about it good citizen, the regular people of this nation haven’t had a ‘friend’ in the Oval Office since LBJ refused a second term.

It’s interesting, in retrospect, to note that every Democratic president since LBJ has SUCKED! Perhaps it is more interesting to note WHY they sucked. They sucked because they were conservatives with a fucking D after their name!

No irony should be lost on the fact we are suffering the same problem today.

It is neither sour grapes nor racial resentment that inform us unequivocally that ‘Yes we can = more of the same!’

Which is to point out that it is NOT credible that we ‘misunderstood’ Mr. Obama or that he ‘failed to grasp’ the mandate he received when he was elected.

It’s ‘expected’ that Mr. Obama would run for re-election…but it is ‘unconscionable’ to actually re-elect him, given his performance to date.

A cartoon could beat him! Pick the most pathetic/hated democrat you can think of and they are a shoo-in to win the oval office in 2012…largely because the Republicans make no bones about being on the side of the corporate ‘enemy’. It is telling that there are no ‘real’ Republican candidates in the running as of this time.

Three jobless recoveries in succession is all the ‘evidence’ you need to know that the Republican worshipped commercial sector is NOT YOUR FRIEND!

Worse, the harder you ‘suck-up’, the worse your situation becomes. You know as well as I that the time has come to start hitting back!

It is the only ‘language’ they respect.

Fuel prices are expected to eclipse the $4 dollar a gallon mark this summer making anything even resembling an ‘economic recovery’ DOA.

Is $4 a gallon gasoline a ‘game changer’? It sure is when we’re dealing with a minimum wage that doesn’t come close to meeting and individual’s basic needs and the only sector of the economy showing any sign of life at all are minimum wage/part-time jobs.

What ‘economic recovery’ are these assholes talking about? Are they talking about the recent uptick in sales at ‘high end’ retailers?

The rich are getting richer (at our expense) and they’re spending it too…but you can’t be making economic projections by looking solely at the upper two percent of the income distribution because the picture your get is obviously ‘tainted’.

Speaking of ‘tainted data’ we have this more than somewhat ‘slanted’ piece coming out of China.

Inflation in China Poses Big Threat to Global Trade

Geez, Louise, you don’t suppose the threat to global purchasing power is being ‘manufactured’ (like the impossible ‘cheaper there’) by the lying, cheating financial sector, do you?

Which is to point out that the above question could be phrased differently. Are we really seeing ‘rising prices’ in China or are we seeing shrinking value being applied to our own currency because the end result is the same either way!

That said it’s time to shift mental gears once again as we return to the subject of politics as it relates to economics:

We’ve tried madness, and it hasn't worked.

Terms Of Engagement: Let's be clear, all the noise about budgets and debt and deficits and entitlements is not about the size of the government, nor about the role of the government in our lives. It is all about how much more money the rich are going to squeeze out of the rest of us. It is about redistributing the money upwards and the pain and suffering downward. And they will keep doing it until we the people stop them.

And just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, we get this which begs the question of when is martial law not martial law? When the Republicans tell us it isn’t.

Did I mention that the collapse of our civilization proceeds apace?

If you really want something to fret about, visit The Automatic Earth and view the video by Mr. Decarbonnel. I keep using the ‘fraud’ tag for good reason.

Cheating the system only proves the system is broken.

We could have engineered out the flaws that have caused so much misery long ago if the self-interested had been denied access to the process.

And don’t ask ‘how would we do that?’ The answer lies in the human anti-exploitation law, which makes it illegal for any human to earn their living off of the efforts of any other.

Yeah, that whole buying and selling bullshit goes right out the window! (And saves the planet in the process!)

Either we do this voluntarily or Mother Nature will make us do it…or (and there’s always another choice) we perish as a species. This is why I advocate exile, it’s the natural choice for those who ‘can’t conceive’ of a society without slaves! If you just can’t come to grips with the idea of cooperation then you would be free to enslave the like-minded!

Just understand that they, like you, think they are ‘too good’ to be the slave of another.

And an ‘employee’ is just another name for a slave.

There is another way; it has just never been tried.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Figure of Speech

Greetings good citizen,

The destruction of our civilization proceeds apace…which should surprise no one as the first thing thrown overboard during the 'Reagan Revolution' was justice.

That aside, I confess a ‘peculiar attraction’ to oxymorons such as the following article from the NY Times business section:

Distilling the Wisdom of C.E.O.’s

So what will determine who gets the next promotion, and the one after that? Which of them, when the time comes, will get that corner office?

In other words, what does it take to lead an organization — whether it’s a sports team, a nonprofit, a start-up or a multinational corporation? What are the X factors?

Interviews I conducted with more than 70 chief executives and other leaders for Corner Office in The New York Times point to five essentials for success — qualities that most of those C.E.O.’s share and look for in people they hire.

The good news: these traits are not genetic. It’s not as if you have to be tall or left-handed. These qualities are developed through attitude, habit and discipline — factors that are within your control. They will make you stand out. They will make you a better employee, manager and leader. They will lift the trajectory of your career and speed your progress.

Geez, does it look like the reporter missed a critical piece of the puzzle in his list of talents/attributes?

Isn’t it the single most important one too?

You can be a veritable Ghengis Khan, a leader among leaders but you won’t rise up through the ranks is you can’t convince your superiors that you aren’t a ‘threat’ to them.

How do you do this?

By sucking up, of course!

The ‘flaw’ in this particular mirror is it fails to take into account precisely who the CEO is expected to ‘perform’ for.

He/she is not there for the employees (who regularly get fucked over)

He/she is not there for the investors (who got fucked in the first place)

No, the only person who ‘matters’ in the whole ‘chain of command’ is the largest shareowner…who usually appoints themselves as the chairman/woman of the board.

So… how do you gain his/her, er, ‘trust’?

YOU SUCK UP! (In the ‘proper’ manner/degree)

No need to go into the wide variety of or to debate which type of ‘synchopant’ is more/most successful. Let it suffice to say if you aspire to be CEO (without building your own house, a damned difficult proposition; even in the best of times.) One has to master being a first class suck-up.

Not surprisingly, this causes many candidates with ‘the right stuff’ to eschew positions of authority.

So how ‘wise’ is the suck-up when doing a psychopaths bidding?

Stop and look around you for the answer.

Is the world ‘on fire’?

Why do you suppose that is?

Could it be due to spineless synchopants having their one and only defense against outright idiotic recklessness removed from their grasp?

The world didn’t fall apart prior to this because the bootlickers would fall back on the ‘it’s illegal’ defense in refusing to engage in this or that underhanded activity.

How unfortunate for the rest of us that the bootlickers can’t use that tool since the psychopaths bought the justice system?

Once we could speculate as to how long it would be before the proverbial ‘long arm of the law’ caught up to those who operated ‘above the law’.

Now I strongly suspect our civilization will collapse, ‘technically’ wiping the slate clean of crimes committed prior to the new regime taking control.

While there is a slim possibility that advocates of granting a ‘blanket amnesty’ to all crimes committed in the past will open themselves up for, er, ciminal action in the here and now, it is unlikely. Here we return to the ‘invitation only’ nature of the erection of a ‘new’ government.

Since the day when our ‘old’ government will be thrown under the bus is rapidly approaching I would advise you to be afraid, be very afraid!

And if you aren’t a total fool you will also be preparing to fight.

Make no mistake about it, fight now, fight later but fight you will…and if you suck at fighting, more the pity!

So, do CEO’s possess any ‘wisdom’ worth distilling? There’s hardly any evidence to back up that claim.

Now we return to another topic that has far reaching and increasingly disturbing implications

A media that has the average citizen so fucked up they don’t know what to think or why!

The ‘new’ healthcare plan (that has yet to be instituted) IS A CARBON COPY of the plan REPUBLICAN MITT ROMNEY saddled the Bay State with before departing for his presidential run! (And make no mistake about it it has been an unmitigated disaster!) Why IDIOT cowpokes (here’s another oxymoron) THINK democrats are responsible is just as moronic as blaming Clinton for Reagan’s NAFTA!

In fairness, the ‘fucking’ democrats have done next to nothing to impede the corporate takeover of our society.

Yeah, ‘brainwashed’ conservatives believe to this day that Bill Clinton (rather than Newt Gingrich and the first Rebublican controlled congress in over 40 years) was ‘responsible’ for NAFTA.

See what ‘owning’ the muzzle (by controlling the paychecks) of the media produces?

Which is to belabor the obvious, we don’t live in or enjoy ‘freedom’, we don’t deserve ‘freedom’, only ‘owners’ can enjoy freedom!

But I digress!

This particular article points to (of all places in the nation) Wyoming and none other than coal mining as the ‘source’ of the now two year old ‘economic boom’!

If you can’t see what’s WRONG with that picture you’re probably still scouring the first article for some ‘wisdom’ to take away…

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Friday, April 15, 2011

More valuable than gold!

Greetings good citizen,

For time out of mind (as far as the West is concerned) people didn’t bother to steal food as the punishment far outweighed the short-term benefit.

Although we can only speculate what would happen to a ‘first time’ offender if he were nabbed for, er, ‘hijacking’, that isn’t quite an accurate desciption of what took place here.


In late March, they contacted Allen Lund. The broker carried out a standard series of checks, including verifying the company’s federal registration and its insurance coverage. Then it assigned the company to pick up a load of tomatoes from a shipper in Miami on Monday, March 28.

Over the next four days, working through Lund and three other freight brokers, E&A Transport picked up four more loads of tomatoes, a load of cucumbers and a load of frozen meat from shippers across Florida, including in the Miami area, Palmetto and Punta Gorda.

At each pick-up, a driver working for E&A showed up at the wheel of a tractor with a refrigerated trailer. The shippers loaded the pallets of tomatoes or the other goods into the trucks and the driver drove off. None of the loads got to their destinations.

The load of frozen meat, worth about $48,000, was picked up from a meatpacker north of Miami. It was bound for Salem, Ore. It is missing, too.

“This was definitely a smart organization,” said Mr. Holland, who was the broker on the load of meat. “They were smooth as silk.”

The thieves sought out loads headed for Detroit, Hartford, the Hunts Point market in New York, Los Angeles and Sacramento. Mr. Holland said that gave them time to carry out multiple thefts before the alarm was sounded, since in each case it would be from two to four days before the loads were due at their destinations. Brokers and shippers suspect the thieves had a buyer for the produce.


In this case nobody got a gun stuck in their face. Contracts were drawn up and what appears to be a legitimate trucking company was contracted to pick up the goods and deliver them to their respective destinations.

So, in a case of what looks like fraud, what would a first time offender be facing, punishmentwise?

If he had a real good attorney, he could probably get away with probation and community service.

But that’s beside the point, isn’t it?

The point, the real story here is a combination of ‘who took the food’ and why?

The theory put forth here is the food was stolen for resale…although the dollar figures don’t seem to justify the risk involved.

You can indeed speculate that the loads were ‘insured’ (although for how much will remain unknown.) in the beginning insurance is ‘attractively priced’ something that changes quite quickly as the ‘risk’ (losses) mounts.

Why food and why now?

Should we be on the lookout for a big time pasta fest (with 4 truckloads of tomatos comprising the bulk of the missing cargo?)

Hard to say good citizen, you know the uprisings across the Middle East have more to do with food shortages than ‘freedom’ but the rat-bastard capitalists don’t want you even thinking about what they will soon inflict upon you in the not too distant future.

Yeah, there was a blurb in today’s paper about inflation being ‘up slightly’ due to the relentless increases in food and gasoline.

Using the ‘New (Republican) math’ inflation is only up a few hundredths of a percent. But measured the ‘traditional’ way, (without all of the fudge and bullshit) inflation is running around nine and a half percent.

Make no mistake about it good citizen, food (in times of scarcity, regardless of the cause) is more valuable than gold!

Something to keep in mind after the collapse of civilization, a hoard of food is just as likely to get you killed as quick as a pile of gold will. Maybe even quicker given that the only thing gold will be marginally good for after the collapse is buying food…but that ‘assumes’ a seller (stupid enough to take troublesome ‘yellow metal’ over any number of vastly more useful items.)

But we still drift off topic.

One can assume this story attracted media attention because of the ‘slickness’ of the crime, four or five truckloads of food that have ‘disappeared’ after being legitimately contacted for.

Left to our imaginations is how much more food and toher items are simply ‘never making it to its intended destination’ that doesn’t get reported (to anyone beyond the trucker’s insurance carrier?)

I’d posit this puzzle is much larger than it appears and could account for the absence of food riots that should have broken out among the tens of millions of newly homeless created by globalization.

Not that such an untoward occurance would be considered ‘newsworthy’ by the coporate owned media. Which is to say if there were food riots it is doubtful we’d see it on the six o’clock news, even as a sidebar.

Did I mention the rat-bastard capitalists?

Four truckloads of tomatos makes for a curious mystery…throw in a truck load of mystery meat and it sounds like you have a Roman festival in the works…the only thing missing is the truck load of pasta.

And that may have slipped through the net…probably on purpose.

Just as mercenaries make no sense in a ‘free’ society, neither does stealing food in a land where more than a third of the population is on some form of food assistance.

Again, the numbers are ‘households’ and not individuals.

If prices get much higher it is only going to make the ‘theft’ problem that much worse…a circle without end.

And speaking of ‘ends’, I leave you here to ponder the true nature of this story.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Unsettling...and then some.

Greetings good citizen,

Today’s collection of articles are in no particular order and therefore will conform to the willy-nilly format that you’ve become accustomed to here at ASP.

If we return to one of the core concepts of A Simple Plan, the axiom that it is impossible to make informed decisions without accurate information, we encounter our first offering that takes to task our purposefully destructive educational system.

[This article first appeared on TruthDig.]

A nation that destroys its systems of education, degrades its public information, guts its public libraries and turns its airwaves into vehicles for cheap, mindless amusement becomes deaf, dumb and blind. It prizes test scores above critical thinking and literacy. It celebrates rote vocational training and the singular, amoral skill of making money. It churns out stunted human products, lacking the capacity and vocabulary to challenge the assumptions and structures of the corporate state. It funnels them into a caste system of drones and systems managers. It transforms a democratic state into a feudal system of corporate masters and serfs. [snip]

We must fear, Arendt warned, those whose moral system is built around the flimsy structure of blind obedience. We must fear those who cannot think. Unconscious civilizations become totalitarian wastelands.

The slap in the face here good citizen is that it’s bad enough we suffer a ‘truth challenged’ media, it is worse that we suffer an education system which stresses blind acceptance over critical thinking!

Right and wrong are not ‘universally apparent’; right and wrong are whatEVER we tell you they are, whenever we tell you, subject to reversal without prior notice, as the circumstances demand!

If the above reads fucked up it’s because it IS fucked up!

It's like the statement ‘my words mean exactly what I want them to mean, nothing more and nothing less.’

Sadly, that limits the pool of people who ‘understand’ what you said to just you!

We are not a race of telepaths.

Much to our employers chagrin!

Moving along Today’s stock markets were “Markets Unsettled on Concerns About Jobs and Inflation

In the United States, the latest reports pointed to higher inflation and highlighted the continued weakness in the job market. The weekly unemployment claims rose back above the 400,000 level and the government said the core producer prices rose slightly faster than expected in March.[snip]

Investors are particularly concerned about Chinese inflation, fearing that government efforts to restrain it could prompt a “hard landing” for the economy.

“Inflation in emerging economies has become a serious issue, as the impact from high commodity prices is stronger for those countries,” Arnaud Scarpaci, fund manager at Agilis Gestion in Paris, said.

So don’t ‘confuse’ food riots with political unrest. The former are much more serious than the latter.

What’s the bottom line here good citizen? We can only wonder who they think they’re fooling with their ceaseless ‘Happy Talk’ about the state of the economy.

It’s fucked and they aren’t doing a damn thing to fix it (because they don’t give a fuck if you starve, in fact, they’re hoping you do!)

Which leads us to What I was saying Monday

HOLD EVERYTHING: There's No Budget Deal, And The Government May Still Shut Down

Like I warned earlier, this ‘budget deal’ is far from a ‘done deal’.

I've already expounded on what I think will happen if the federal government ‘shuts down’ and it’s a lot more serious than anything either the blogosphere or the corporate owned media will admit to, being the ‘reality based community’ that they think they are!

And just when you thought it couldn’t get worse we have this bullshit!

Seems as though there was something to those claims of fraud leveled against that private consortium of banks that call themselves The Fed.

Dunno how much more evidence you need that our ‘house’ is so far out of order as to be uninhabitable!

But, the disturbing part is how this is no accident!

The fuckers really are trying to kill a shitload of us off.

And the more you refuse to accept this, the closer it creeps.

It has probably already happened, somebody somewhere has ‘slipped’ likely when they, (being mentally unstable and all) flipped out and launched into a tirade about how they couldn’t wait for the day when most of us end up cutting one another’s throats for a crust of bread!

Because that’s exactly the direction this clusterfuck is headed…and there ain’t a frigging thing you can do about it, especially if you’ve already been pushed to the margins of our society.

So, some mighty ‘weighty’ reading here good citizen,

Consider it well and prepare accordingly!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Enough is enough!

Greetings good citizen,

Naturally yesterday’s disaster makes for today’s ‘bargains’ (or so goes conventional stock market theory.) let Japan sink into a radioactive hole, did you see the price of widgets amalgamated? Had to jump on that!

Or so the market hustlers would have you believe.

Honestly good citizen if it weren’t for automated payroll retirement fund contributions the stock markets would be ‘flatline’. NOBODY (in his or her right mind) would be buying stock in this economy! Our entire ‘economic model’ ceased working decades ago.

If it seems like there are ‘alternate realities’ out there it’s because there is two very distinct ‘economies’ out there.

And the dividing line between them is stark indeed!

Naturally, those in the infamous middle are confused as to which reality they belong to (as neither ‘belongs’ to them, despite their illusions they are still the ‘hired help’.)

So we are left with the inevitable question of when is enough, enough?

Understand that the morons who already have more than they can spend have no conception of the word except to reject the idea or even the notion that they might already be ‘there’.

Nor do these simpletons understand/care where theirs comes from (it comes from YOU, good citizen!) The math is really quite straightforward here; more for them equals less for you…and if you don’t like it, tough!

Which has increasingly become the standard response to any objections raised by those who must live with the consequences of these decisions.

And if you don’t think these decisions affect you, you are sadly mistaken.

I’m sure most of you don’t BUT if you WERE to stop and think about it for a moment, aren’t things getting more than a little ‘peculiar’?

I’m not talking ‘little green men’ peculiar either; the ‘antics’ of the uber-wealthy are far stranger than that!

Worse, the uber-wealthy pay to have their ‘weirdness’ invade your life! Don’t you have more important things to worry about than Larry wanting to marry Danny?

Same thing with that other lunatic fringe group, the 33,000 member Tea Party. There are other, larger ‘radical’ organizations…it is the bought and paid for corporate media that keeps inserting the teeny-tiny (but Billionaire backed) Tea Party into the national conversation.

Let us not overlook the most important factor here, that the Anti tax ‘Tea Party’ movement is supported by Billionaires! While the nation falls into its own cesspool!

This is hooray for me and fuck you writ large…with the uber rich flipping the rest of us the bird!

But it can’t be helped; it’s what they always do.

So I ask you again, when is enough, enough?

And, naturally, the answer I’m seeking isn’t related to the accumulation of riches but how much more can you stand?

And the answer to that is you (the average individual) is already well beyond ‘pissed off’. The one thing that keeps you ‘in check’ is the total lack of an avenue to even seek a remedy!

This is the downside of a ‘fuck you, pay me’ system, everything, including justice has a price tag!

Making a bad situation worse, the game is still ‘to the highest bidder’, if you want the local pols attention you had best have deep enough pockets to, er, ‘captivate’ it.

Which is to say you (via your PAC) make a six figure campaign contribution to Joe’s campaign fund, but when push comes to shove Joe votes against you because Sam gave him twice as much!

Joe will be quick to acknowledge that he ‘owes’ you, he’ll just try to pay you back some other way. Even if that means *sponsoring legislation that will get you what you want!

(*Not for nothing does a lot of this ‘legislation’ die in committee, never seeing the light of day.) Sort of redefines the old saying ‘you pays your money and you takes your chances…’

Besides being a perfect illustration of what’s wrong with our ‘justice for sale’ system it also shines a stark light upon a society we’d all be better off NOT belonging to.

Although by now we have all gotten used to being laughed at because we’re always getting fucked!

This, ironically, only makes the prospect of turning the tables that much sweeter.

Bringing us full circle to the when is enough, enough? Question.

Our little ‘mental exercise’ above where we ‘buy’ our own politician isn’t feasable, in fact the crooked bastards better watch their step because selling one’s vote to the highest bidder is indeed ‘treason’!

How sad is it that selling one’s vote is also the biggest ‘incentive’ to get into politics in the first place?

As we all know, it takes a ‘special’ kind of person to, er (not) do ‘the people’s work’.

To which I will add the ‘usual’ warning…if we are to survive as a species we MUST dismantle this corrupt edifice ASAP.

Although it does collapse all by itself with frightening regularity…dunno what that tells you!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Flying Wheels...

Greetings good citizen,

The ‘lead’ headline on today’s NY Times is about the unrest in Pakistan…but the REAL headline story (which apparently didn’t break until the markets opened, although markets around the world are bleeding from the eyesockets ‘in unison’.)

The exact time Japan raised the ‘threat level’ from its damaged nuclear reactor to 100% isn’t known at this moment. Although if market performance is anything to go by it must have been sometime last night (local.)

So we can only assume that this one caught the night editors napping.

OR we have another example of ‘if disaster were about to strike would they tell us?’

Given the ‘panic’ this would cause, I’d opine that they would…NOT!

Nice how this segues into today’s ‘topic du juor’ of “Are we witnessing the wheels flying off of our crippled civilization?”

Again we have a headline that didn’t make the cut

Worse is the ‘spin’…

Gas prices are approaching record highs, but so far most Americans do not appear to be drastically cutting back their driving or even their spending as they did in 2008.

Prices for a gallon of regular unleaded gas are topping $4 at more service stations nationwide, revisiting the bleak territory of three years ago, when the average price for a gallon of regular gas reached a peak of $4.11 on July 17, 2008, according to the Oil Price Information Service.

[The question below was originally between the other two paragraphs]

The question, economists agreed, is what happens if prices continue to go up and remain high.

Um, tell me true good citizen, is this really the most pressing issue on your mind?

Aren’t you just a bit more concerned about how much quicker this is going to bring on ‘collapse’?

The eight million jobs lost AFTER the economy tanked haven’t come back…are all of those unemployed people, driving around looking for work behind this…sustained usage level?

No good citizen, they aren’t.

The article tells us the answer, the date given for the previous high in fuel prices was THREE YEARS AGO, what we’re seeing is ‘The New Normal’.

People aren’t ‘cutting back’ because those people lost their damn jobs and haven’t found replacements yet.

And as the next article shows us those jobs aren’t coming back

The thing to remember good citizen is this ISN’T the first or the second ‘jobless recovery’ they’ve foisted off on us, it’s the THIRD!

If the other gloom and doom sites are to be believed, we are facing (or will face in short order) ANOTHER ‘financial crisis’ before the summer is over!

This should surprise no one as we all know NOTHING has been done to correct the causes of the LAST financial crisis!

Hell, our pal ‘Flipper’ is still able to take out a ‘liar’s loan’ to buy foreclosed property with!

But hey, no guts, no glory, right? Isn’t that the same reckless attitude that caused the last train wreck?

Which brings us back to my ‘favorite’ whipping boy…mismanagement.

Extend and pretend is a game you can play for just so long, it’s over when you run out of suckers.

Which begs a more pointed question…are you being played for a ‘sucker’?

If you haven’t gotten a pay increase in the last two years you are!

We have seen the news reports of US facilities shutting down because no alternative to parts ‘normally’ produced in Japan is available.

How far do you supposse that will ‘cascade’?

I think you will be amazed at just how far reaching this event will ultimately become.

You know how the parable ‘for want of a nail’ ends, don’t you?

'For want of a nail the war was lost…'

But the fucking ‘beancounters’ dismiss this wisdom as being ‘outdated’.

The evidence speaks for itself good citizen, civilization was built on ‘redundancy’, those who embraced it prospered, while those who didn’t perished.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Monday, April 11, 2011

A is for Angry...

Greetings good citizen,

What a lovely Spring morning we’re having! The stock market’s up (here in the US if nowhere else) the birds are chirping and the cats are purring.


The presidink has announced he’s going to embark on a new round of budget slashing
and guess what’s on the chopping block?

(Hint: Gitmo will still be in operation long after YOU get stuck for huge co-pays on your medicare!)

Oh, and that ‘plan’ to convert medicare to ‘vouchers for private insurance’ will never happen, the government will have been overthrown by then!

In fact, considering the epic failure of our deeply flawed, ancient form of government has been revealed to be, most citizens will be happy to see it go.

Naturally, this raises the question of what would replace the current inefficient (and tolerant to a fault) mess?

Yes, good citizen, the primary reason we DON’T clamor for the surrender of the current government is the very real prospect that our ‘sloppy, corrupt’ (but comfortable) government will be replaced by a zealous, super efficient one.

Here Bill Mahar hits one out of the park while pointing out an inceasingly common new meme…‘I already got your money dude!’

[You gotta see the video!]

This brings us back to the original question, is the nation really THAT divided?

Understand that if we were to form ‘income based’ teams (everybody who works for a paycheck on one team and everybody who doesn’t on another, the ‘divide’ would be far from ‘equal’.

98% OF PEOPLE WHO WORK get nothing more than their paycheck.

[Qualifier] Those not working would be classified as if they were…leaving the 98-2 split intact.

However, the REASON our current government is failing is because the 2% ‘dominate’ the process…and will, because of their ‘special status’ be inclined to foist off the most draconian and unbalanced replacement they can maneuver into place on short notice…

Hell, they’ve had it waiting in their hip pocket for quite some time now.

You’re gonna laugh when you hear what they intend to do.

The plan is to arm the ‘Jesus Freaks’…

It’s everybody’s worst nightmare and it has a major flaw…let’s start with the ‘Prince of Peace’ aspect that makes it pretty hard to justify killing in the name of mercy.

They’ll stop killing when everybody accepts Jesus as their personal savior!

How sad is it that this is only the first of many ‘conditions’. Once everybody accepts Jesus, they have to stop worshiping him the ‘wrong’ way!

It really gets hairy after this because there are HUGE gulfs between different sects of fundies…but if I’m right, things won’t get that far.

To a rational person this is insane but take a moment to examine what most of us swallow on a daily basis! Is it any less ‘insane?’

The other ‘drawback’ to this scheme is the fact that most ‘mainstream’ Christians aren’t militant, only the Fundies hold such radical views…and they are (fortunately) few in number.

Still, we will find ourselves, at least temporarily, more divided than is healthy during a critical phase of the battle for control of our civilization.

Ironically, the ‘hardcore’ Christians will force us to battle them ‘to extinction’, true believers will accept nothing less than complete victory!

I have zero use for a ‘god’ who would fail to put a stop to this. I have even less use for the people who would stoop so low as to send the gullible to certain death just to buy themselves a little more time!

Remember, our so-called ‘betters’ justify their, er, ‘superiority’ as ‘god’s will’.

Which is to point out that it wouldn’t be the first time the ‘godless’ global corporate interests hid behind their willing servant, the religions of the world.

Not that ‘global markets’ were the desired ‘end result’ of globalization, they weren’t.

The fuck heads in charge KNOW the end of cheap and abundant energy will turn back the social clock not a hundred years but a THOUSAND!

They’re clicking their heels with joy because this means they will all be ‘royalty’ once again.

How bizarre is it that most royals died ‘untimely’ deaths?

Guess you can file this under the ‘careful of what you wish for’ category.

If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a thousand times, Stupid is as stupid does!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner