The beat goes on...

Greetings good citizen,

You don’t need me to tell you (again) that the destruction of our civilization proceeds apace. The disturbing part of this process is what those responsible for this disaster hope to gain?

Have they (like suicide bombers) been promised 72 virgins upon the successful completion of their, er, ‘mission’?

As it turns out we can only wonder what the idiot politicians have been offered to sell their nation’s future to the private sector?

Economists also expressed concern that the austerity program demanded by European and international lenders could end up pushing the Greek economy into a deeper slump, making its debt even harder to pay back. More broadly, critics said they doubted that Europe had done more than postpone a day of reckoning for the euro, with Ireland, Portugal and Spain, as well as Greece, all struggling with slow or negative growth and rising debts.

The passage of the measures, a difficult and possibly debilitating feat for a Socialist Party elected on a social welfare platform, ensures that Greece’s foreign lenders will unlock the next installment of $17 billion in aid that the country needs to meet its debt obligations through August. But analysts in Athens predicted that the existing government might not last much longer than that, suggesting that political and financial uncertainty could continue for some time.

“It’s a giant step in terms of conception,” said Theodore Couloumbis, a vice president of the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy, in Athens. “But it’s a baby step in terms of realization or implementation.”

Greece CANNOT pay which leads to the fact it WILL NOT pay, this circle jerk is being provided to prove that capitalism is not broken, that ‘extend and pretend’ will make it all work out in the end…

At least until the killing starts.

And from the looks of the picture that accompanies the article it’s not far off.

In keeping with yesterday’s established fact, (that the media IS THE PROBLEM), what do you suppose they were thinking when they cooked up this load of mularky?

Because we have two choices here good citizen, this article is either total bullshit OR the STUPID Brigade is much larger than originally suspected.

(Rush Limbaugh’s regular listeners only constitute a tiny percentage of the national audience, well in line with ‘the normal distribution’ of stupid throughout a society.)

Nearly nine in 10 Americans say homeownership is an important part of the American dream, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. And they are keen on making sure it stays that way, for themselves and everyone else.

Support for helping people in financial distress over housing is higher than support for helping those without a job for many months.

Forty-five percent of the respondents say the government should be doing more to improve the housing market, while 16 percent say it should be doing less. On the politically contentious issue of direct financial assistance to those having trouble paying their mortgages, slightly more than half of those polled, 53 percent, say the government should help. And almost no one favors discontinuing the mortgage tax deduction, a prized middle-class benefit that has been featured on some budget-cutting proposals.

The first thing to remember with polls is most of them are unreliable, (most of the time not enough people are polled.) I have been asked to participate in polls only to be told I was ‘ineligible’ after being asked a few demographic questions.

Most polls are reported as ‘All Americans’…although if the poll includes anything it is usually just the number of people asked.

But honestly good citizen, what are these people smoking? WHO do they think is going to buy their homes from them (even if they somehow manage to pay them off?)

Worse, there aren’t a lot of ‘smart people’ looking to turn their homes around for LESS than they paid for it.

We did have that…um, decidely misleading report the other day that home prices were ‘on the rise’…

What do you suppose caused that?

What we’re seeing there is the same thing that’s measured when the filthy rich go shopping at ‘high end’ retail outlets.

Who owns the most desirable property?

(The filthy rich)

And who buys property from the filthy rich?

(Other filthy rich bastards!)

So if housing prices are increasing (in Bel Aire) is it ‘safe to assume’ that downtown Detroit is ‘rebounding’ as well?

Only if you’re an idiot!

Soon good citizen we will have to adopt a ‘no news is good news’ policy and start, er, ‘punishing’ the corporate owned media for lying to us.

Despite their assertions to the contrary, it ISN’T ‘harmless’.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Unwelcome

Greetings good citizen,

You know as well as I do that nothing has been done to address our badly broken economy.

The current ‘kabuki dance’ over the inevitable Greek default makes you wonder just how far these manipulating assholes are willing to push things.

As it stands the ‘adjustments’ to the economy (they’re shrinking it a far below the current population level) promises there won’t be anything resembling a recovery now or ever.

But the rich won’t care, they’ll have theirs…for a while.

Which is to say nobody can deny that this nonsense is deliberate

As usual, the investors are ‘made whole’ while nothing is done for the people that got stuck with exploding mortgages

Bank of America is completing an agreement to pay $8.5 billion to settle claims by investors that purchased mortgage securities that soured when the housing bubble burst, according to people briefed on the deal. It represents what is likely to be the single biggest settlement tied to the subprime mortgage boom and the subsequent financial crisis of 2008.

The settlement would wipe out all of the company’s earnings in the first half of this year, and it could also provide a template for deals with other big banks that face tens of billions in similar claims.

How much do you want to bet the amount in the ‘bonus pool’ will be mysteriously ‘unavailable’ come the end of the year?

On a related note the stupidity market is on the rise again due to ‘irrational exuberance’ over the (they still can’t pay it) Greek debt.

PARIS — Stock prices were broadly higher in Europe but mixed in the United States on Wednesday as the Greek Parliament passed a vote on an austerity plan demanded by international lenders as a condition for providing more funds and preventing a default.

Concerns over the euro zone debt problems have been a focus of the financial markets for weeks. Investors had been bracing for the outcome of the Greek Parliament’s decision on Wednesday on the package, a set of unpopular measures that include wage cuts, tax increases and privatizations.

European shares were up about 2 percent as the voting was underway.

It’s a truly frightening thing to witness, the lockstep movements of the ‘stupidity markets’.

It is proof that the global economy is now one…so when it crashes it ALL goes down.

While I call this the ‘collapse of civilization’ I mean specifically it is Western civilization that is facing extinction.

More than a few twisted capitalists would say ‘good riddance’, which should really worry you.

Understand, these are the same assholes who think Americans would make good slaves!

(First thing to do with anybody who is ‘cool’ with slavery is to castrate ‘em because you definitely don’t want ‘em breeding!)

The only thing worse than a slaver is a preacher…and absolutely no irony should be lost on the fact that the preacher will not only tolerate but endorse slavery if it suits him!

But, and you know it will go this way, the fuckers who think the collapse of the USA is a good thing will be brought low not by a populace thirsting for justice but by the desperate who will seize the upper hand in a rapidly deteriorating situation.

Just like the ‘hard money’ nitwits, gold will be more dangerous than dynamite once the government collapses.

Did I mention that the collapse of the government is only a few months away?

Understand the Plan is for our democracy to fizzle, the right wing is standing ready to provide us with a new government, one that only a few will be offered the protection of.

Worse, one of the first things the ‘new government’ will do is start demonizing the, er, ‘surplus population.’

And that will be when the trouble will start…and a formerly disorganized populace starts to organize for its own defense.

Which is to ask how ‘surprised’ will you be to learn that the government no longer ‘has your back’?

Most will be shocked!

We already know ‘intellectually’ that the courts are beyond our reach. If you aren’t a millionaire then you can’t afford to seek justice.

But most of us ‘assume’ that we still enjoy ‘equal treatment under the law’ which is a big mistake!

This land is not ‘your’ land by any stretch of the imagination…and now that resources are running low, your presence is no longer welcome.

The landlords appreciate you are a ‘native’ without anywhere else to go and they regret they don’t have anything useful for you to do (something that is still put on YOU to fix…if only you had continued your education!)

Yup, they’ve got big things in store for us, their mismanagement of the economy and their manipulation of the data were just opening features…

The main show is about to begin!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Oh those wacky whackos!

Greetings good citizen,

If we were to look at ‘modern conservatism’ rationally we would see some pretty disturbing psychology at work.

Psychology that the opposition would defend as ‘hardball tactics’, necessitated by an overwhelming desire to ‘win’.

Worse good citizen calling them on their use of hardball tactics has proven ineffective.

They howl that exposing their lies is ‘unfair’ (but that doesn’t stop them from telling more lies!)

Um, had an incident yesterday that opened my eyes to just how serious the ‘legislative auto pilot’ situation has become.

Part of living in a democracy is ‘the process’ where legislation is debated before it is enacted.

I had to attend a mandatory meeting as a family member is in the process of getting a driver’s license.

What do you suppose the purpose of that meeting was?

Why, they are compelled to ‘update’ my knowledge of the motor vehicle laws as they apply to ‘Junior Operators’.

I had to attend this meeting BECAUSE ALL of this (decidedly draconian) legislation was enacted WITHOUT any public debate! (I suppose this is what we get for voting down the seat belt law 4 times by a better than 2 to 1 margin…and we got a seat belt law anyway!)

So, are the Nazis among us just flying under radar as Republicans or have their corporate overlords become increasingly intolerant of ‘dissent’?

The oddball part of the above question is how do you tell the difference between a Nazi and a Republican and the answer is ‘I don’t know!’

Worse, the two are creepily similar in ideology; both are rabid capitalist-corporatists.

But we digress…

As the article states, those ‘wacky whackos’ are alienating their base, so who are they ‘really’ and what are they up to?

Answer to the first question is they are ‘the media’ (the corporate owned media to be specific, which is not to say they don’t pay handsomely for their ‘web presence’.)

(They are nothing if not thorough!)

If the public doesn’t support the corpratist agenda then it is up to the media to ‘manufacture’ that support and ‘modern conservatism’ is the end result.

It doesn’t matter if there are any real people behind say The Tea Party; it is the perception that such foolishness enjoys widespread support that matters.

We all know the Emperor is naked but the Emperor’s publicist has turned a deaf ear. He pretends that we are buying the bullshit and the insanity keeps coming!

Understand what I’m saying. Under the current ‘puppet government’ arrangement we suffer, reality doesn’t matter, only perception.

If they can make YOU believe that half of the country is completely nuts then they win!

Worse, you hear this conservative bullcrap repeated everywhere (most of the time by people who are saying it just to see how other react!)

When people hear ‘ordinary people’ saying the same thing the media spews, it lends the idea credibility!

There are still people who are convinced that President Obama is a Muslim and he wasn’t born in the US…but they aren’t doing anything about it!

Which is to belabor the obvious, all of the urging in the world isn’t going to get you to take up arms against the criminals. It will be the threat to you and yours that drives you to fight.

But as long as you remain convinced that more than half of us are ‘whacko’ (Because ‘somebody’ is voting Republican!) you won’t step up and defend your rights.

Once you realize The Media ARE the Republicans, you’ll do the right thing.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Update: seems I'm not the only one pointing a finger at the media

Taking Sides

Greetings good citizen,

Reporters do us (another) disservice by alluding to the idea that the energy wars will be conducted solely on the National level when they will not; it will be much finer than that.

Worse, they often predict these conflicts will erupt in the murky future, instead of today. How they can ‘ignore’ the near tripling of energy prices over the past five years boggles the mind.

Except people don’t commonly connect the two. The sky-high price of energy is being viewed as the end result of manipulation by speculators (with nothing better to do with their money…how sad is THAT?)

If we are to consider that our ENTIRE SOCIAL STRUCTURE is based on CHEAP AND ABUNDANT energy, then the following is ‘Pollyannaish’ at best:

Were I to wager a guess, I might place my bet on energy systems that were decentralized, easy to make and install, and required relatively modest levels of up-front investment. For an analogy, think of the laptop computer of 2011 versus the giant mainframes of the 1960s and 1970s. The closer that an energy supplier gets to the laptop model (or so I suspect), the more success will follow.

From this perspective, giant nuclear reactors and coal-fired plants are, in the long run, less likely to thrive, except in places like China where authoritarian governments still call the shots. Far more promising, once the necessary breakthroughs come, will be renewable sources of energy and advanced biofuels that can be produced on a smaller scale with less up-front investment, and so possibly incorporated into daily life even at a community or neighborhood level.

Whichever countries move most swiftly to embrace these or similar energy possibilities will be the likeliest to emerge in 2041 with vibrant economies -- and given the state of the planet, if luck holds, just in the nick of time.

As the last line implies, the writer is throwing out the ‘technology will save us’ card when this, er, ‘problem’ has been on radar for the past 50 years and we got nuthin’!

Then there’s the ‘quaint’ anecdote in the close about ‘authoritarian governments’ like China being willing to, er, ‘abuse’ international environmental legislation because they are ‘authoritarian’.

If communist China is ‘authoritarian’ then what does that make us? (Considering the US is directly responsible for what has become ‘modern China’…)

But wait, there’s more misdirection from the corporate owned media

U.S. Markets Edge Ahead on Greek Optimism
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: June 27, 2011

Stocks on Wall Street rose in early trading after encouraging signs about Europe’s debt crisis overshadowed a dismal report about spending by American consumers.

Greece’s parliament was debating an austerity package that must pass for that nation to receive a second bailout and avoid defaulting on its debt. European markets rose Monday after French banks agreed to let Greece repay some of its debt more slowly.

The first thing to get straight here good citizen is that Greece is NOT capable of paying back the billions it owes ‘at all’.

It doesn’t have the money and it has no way of getting the money…

So why would idiotic US investors be ‘optimistic’ that Greece will be ‘bailed out’ with loans it CANNOT repay?

Sort of redefines the term ‘stupid’ but there it is.

How much ‘bullshit’ are you willing to swallow good citizen? (Because they sure are feeding it to you by the bucketful!)

Optimism is one thing but if you turn a nation into a desert expecting a garden to bloom, it takes more than a ‘positive outlook’.

But you’re supposed to think,’great, the French are willing to let the Greeks ‘float a little’ so they can pay back what they owe’ (when it is debatable that they actually ‘owe’ anything.)

In case you haven’t caught on good citizen, the, er, ‘turmoil’ being experienced by the world’s financial markets was created by the same people who ‘own’ those financial markets.

And they should all be told to ‘go pound’ but they have no problem getting their ‘pet politicians’ to pick the public’s pocket for them.

Understand good citizen our ENTIRE CIVILIZATION is going to collapse over some stupid banker trying to cover their ‘bad bets’ (with public funds.)

Left to our imagination is why NOBODY is lifting a finger to put a stop to this nonsense?

Totally fucked up is the idea that our politicians are powerless to stop the reckless bankers.

They have the power, they simply don’t have the necessary ‘backbone’ to use it!

Which brings us (once again) to the ‘hell of it all’.

Um, I was going to wrap this up but I noticed today’s
lead story in the NY Times has a direct relation to today’s Alternet story.

Likeminded cities welcome new shopping malls and apartment buildings but severely restrict the allowable number of parking spaces. On-street parking is vanishing. In recent years, even former car capitals like Munich have evolved into “walkers’ paradises,” said Lee Schipper, a senior research engineer at Stanford University who specializes in sustainable transportation.

“In the United States, there has been much more of a tendency to adapt cities to accommodate driving,” said Peder Jensen, head of the Energy and Transport Group at the European Environment Agency. “Here there has been more movement to make cities more livable for people, to get cities relatively free of cars.”

As I commented earlier, this is happening TODAY, so the ‘energy war’ is being fought…today too!

And again we see the ‘misdirection’ at work once again.

How much of our economy is dedicated to ‘personal transportation?’

Not as much as it used to be and that accounts for a big part of the most recent ‘dent’ put in our workforce.

It has become increasingly apparent that our politicians can’t be trusted and will soon need to be forcibly removed from office.

Which is to point out you don’t NEED a representative if you are capable of representing yourself.

And the ones who say it is ‘too messy’ are the ones who need to be lynched because they don’t want you capable of defending your rights!

So good citizen, whose ‘side’ are you on?

They’re ‘winning’ now but it is unlikely to be the case in the future.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

That's gonna leave a mark!

Greetings good citizen,

Lately it has been difficult to avoid ‘That sinking feeling’. We have all been aware of the direction of the economy but actually seeing the water start washing over the side railings is a bit of a wake up call.

Let’s begin with a look at the domestic situation

No. 375: GDP Revision, May Durables Goods Orders and Home Sales Subscription required June 24th, 2011
• Bernanke Befuddled by Weak Economy?
• Major Downside Revisions to GDP Revisions Loom As Economy Slowly Slides into a Double-Dip

Um, maybe it’s just me but Mr. Williams has been decidedly ‘tight-lipped’ of late. Could this be due to his hyper-inflation warnings being countered by ‘deflationista’s’ claims that differ from each other only in semantics?

Since the effects are identical, the label is meaningless.

So, the headline story in today’s NY Times is how civilization is marching forward with NY’s ‘approval’ of gay marriage.

A Simple Plan readers know that I’m down on the whole institution of marriage between ANYBODY, especially when it becomes a strategy for ‘financial betterment’ to one or more of the parties to the contract.

Which is to ask how much do you want to bet that old Whitey Bulger has terminal something or other that is going to end up being paid for by the taxpayer?

But since the wheels are starting to fly off of the ‘Crazy Train’ it is doubtful his surrender will do him much ‘good’.

Him, like us, are as good as dead.

Let us use that statement to segue into the the global situation (the lead story tells us what we want to know…)

"When in the Course of Human Events..." We are about to witness the collapse of the European Union. The collapse is avoidable – it would be far cheaper for Germany and France to pick up the tab, convene a grand constitutional assembly and start over, but emotion has overtaken reason. The needed steps are as clear – a single tax system, a unified banking system, and a directly elected federal system of law and government - as they are unlikely. The problem is, and always was, the failure to back the idea of a single currency with an economic and political union. The collapse is signaled not so much by the problems of Greece, Portugal and Spain as in the collapse of the Schengen treaty. Protectionism, nationalism and fear of the neighbors foreshadows a return to times of economic strife, political posturing and war between the insecure. There first victims will be the poor, the unemployed and the 'foreigners'. Inevitably poverty, suffering and political unrest will follow. It is not the euro that is doomed, it is the idea of the euro. Maastricht is a vague memory. What is needed is a new Treaty of Westphalia. But there will not be one. The nationalist right and the global bond markets have won. There will be no rapture – just an end of days.

Sometimes to see the whole picture it becomes necessary to step back to see the bigger picture.

The ‘Euro’ experiment was doomed from the beginning, something the idiots who went ahead with it anyway knew from the start.

Which is to point out that Euro experiment was just another strategy used by what are now global criminals to gain control of market share.

How do you spell ‘multinational?’

M-O-N-O-P-O-L-Y!

One stop shopping; turned on its head!

“I care not who prints the money so long as I have the ONLY store in town!”

The danger this presents to our civilization staggers the imagination (although the only way to prevent this outcome is to do the exact same thing with considerably different rules, starting with the Human Anti-exploitation Law!)

Buying and selling can no longer benefit individuals, they are too greedy.

Any questions?

Mother Nature don’t have no cash register, so why do we need one?

We need cash to regulate access.

Why not just hand people the cash they need?

Because too many would ‘opt out’ of their work requirement. (No system of ‘all out and no in’ can operate for long…and we’re talking the real long haul here.)

Shit needs doing and we ALL need to do it.

Without equality there can be no justice and without justice there can be no peace…and without peace there can be no prosperity!

It’s a pretty simple feedback loop yet our self-professed ‘betters’ continue to ignore it to this day.

Thus my repeated charges of ‘mismanagement’.

Above is the template for a sustainable society, there are no substitutes…yet you accept them all the time!

Naturally, it doesn’t help that you are repeatedly told that you live in the richest, bravest, free-est, and most noble nation on the planet.

(How sad is it that we have such poor ‘sister nations’ to compare ourselves to?)

Worse, it is sad indeed that much of what is claimed only exists in the ‘eye of the beholder/declarer’ (who doesn’t live as YOU live or suffer as YOU suffer!)

If I keep smacking you on the head like this it’s gonna leave a mark!

And it won’t be pretty…

Worse, the mark will be on the inside!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

The Usual Suspects

Greetings good citizen,

As you may have noticed the (who gives a fuck) markets recovered 150 points to close down fifty rather than the full 200 points they were off earlier.

Understand good citizen they closed down fifty on the decidely feeble release from the ‘strategic oil reserves’ and a piss poor employment report.

Which is to say the ‘who knows what they indicate markets’ climbed 150 points on absolutely hellacious data!

WTF!

As I mentioned yesterday, Saab being unable to meet its payroll obligations was totally ‘off radar’ in the US Business press. You can be sure the resulting bankruptcy filing will make headlines for…30 seconds or so.

Why so brief?

Now we’re back to the old ‘if the mushrooms were going to pop in fifteen minutes, would they tell us?’

They don’t run stories showing the failure of capitalism because too many of us already fear capitalism is on its last legs.

While this SHOULD BE reason to celebrate, we have nothing with which to replace capitalism with. (We should qualify that with “nothing that is acceptable to the ‘status quo.’” There are dozens of hare-brained schemes to choose from and most of them serve as nothing more than an example of the developer’s profound ignorance of economics!)

Which would be more accurately manifested as your own, er, ‘less than adequate’ understanding of matters economic…which is how we came to be sitting where we are in the first place.

A Simple Plan replaces the fuckaree that is curently collapsing around our ears with a safer, more controlable system.

A system that starts, includes and ends with YOU!

Understand good citizen, your ‘participation’ in the current system is ‘optional’ and reliant upon YOU making yourself USEFUL to somebody that doesn’t give a fuck about your well-being!

In fact, if we were to shine a spotlight on what is ‘wrong’ with the globalized economy Where Have All the Good Jobs Gone? this article would spell out the disastrous policies of the ‘more for me’ crowd.

From the beginning of the 1980s, the trend of rationalization, which is characterized by plant closings, tended to jettison the jobs of unionized blue-collar workers. And from the beginning of the 1990s, marketization, which brought the end of the one-company-career norm, has placed the job security of middle-aged and older white-collar workers in jeopardy. Finally, from the 2000s, globalization, which drove the offshoring of jobs, left all types of members of the US labor force — even those with advanced educational credentials and substantial work experience — vulnerable to displacement.

Most of us trace back the destruction of our civilization to the Reagan administration.

The fact that the rape of our nation has gone unchallenged for so many decades says much about the ‘duplicitous nature’ of our so-called ‘leaders’.

But I digress…I’m more than a little worked up about yesterday’s bizarre turn of events.

It doesn’t help matters to have articles like this one turning up almost ‘on cue’…

Budget Talks Near Collapse as G.O.P. Leader Quits

The breakdown was set off by the surprise decision of Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House majority leader and one of two Republicans participating in sessions led by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., to quit the negotiations.

This week’s talks were considered to be crucial as the Aug. 2 deadline for an increase in federal borrowing authority nears. [snip]

“As it stands, the Democrats continue to insist that any deal must include tax increases,” Mr. Cantor said in a statement. “There is not support in the House for a tax increase, and I don’t believe now is the time to raise taxes in light of our current economic situation. Regardless of the progress that has been made, the tax issue must be resolved before discussions can continue.”

My readers won’t be ‘shocked’ by the news that the government has been ‘brought to its knees’ by Republican obstructionism.

As far as these turds are concerned, it’s a ‘win-win’.

The article goes on to explain that Rep Cantor ‘quit’ so he wouldn’t have to listen to ‘logic’ (that his constituents pay him well to ignore.)

You see, numbnuts thinks we can only reduce spending, raising revenue is out of the question.

This is what you get when you let the corporate owned media elect morons to public office!

The ballot box only works in conjunction with a ‘free press’. I don’t need to explain to you that a ‘for profit’ press isn’t by any stretch of the imagination, ‘free’.

It only stands to reason that the same thing applies to a population held hostage by a ‘surplus’ workforce.

Um, again I am ‘slouching’ in the posting dept. Had the day from hell yesterday (with everybody else’s troubles superceding my own priorities) followed by by my son crashing my equipment and losing the (nearly completed) document on me for the second time in a row!

Anyway, this time I was able to find the ‘recovered document’ mostly intact and proceed from there.

So, where were we? The (now enormous) surplus labor force.

Rather than admit the problem the lying liars continue to camouflage the crisis by.

In it’s own myopic way the article highlights one of the other stunning facts of the ‘jobless recovery’.

If you click through to the article you might notice that ALL of the people profiled are YOUNG.

Yes, some of them are in their thirties but guess what chief, despite what the media tells you, the hardest hit segment of the workforce is pushing retirement age!

The ‘kids’ are, as we can see, fed up with long hours and low pay…

Still, is job-juggling really sustainable, particularly when the next stage of life hits and there may be a mortgage and children?

Ms. McCarty doesn’t think so. She is looking for an end to her 80-hour weeks and meager paychecks. “I don’t want to be 30 and working a bunch of small jobs so I can pay my bills,” she said.

What the article doesn’t ask is where is this leading?

The article really doesn’t want you going there. You will find out where this is headed all too soon as the ‘artificial’ energy crisis hits and and civilization literally collapses, killing off large swaths of the ‘surplus population’.

We are just months away from this cataclysmic event.

The ‘end’ of the Mayan calendar is just a coincidence, a handy albeit convenient excuse.

Worse, it will probably be all over but the shouting by Christmas 2012.

The extent of the carnage depends on the stupidty of the people.

Keep your head and you’ll come out on the other side relatively unscathed (IF you have highly honed survival skills or are fortunate enough to join up with those who do.)

Your primary mission is to survive, your secondary mission is to remain ‘free’, which is to point out that the ‘easy path’ carries a very hefty price.

Better late than never,

Gegner

Power Failure

Greetings good citizen,

Yesterday was the ‘last day of school’ in this neck of the woods (although my kid’s cousins have been out since last week!)

Not that I’m using THAT as an excuse for not posting yesterday. No, ironically it was a much more common ‘beastie’ that devoured last night’s post. We had a Power Failure when I was 90% done (and then I couldn’t find the ‘recovered’ document, just like I can’t find the recovered economy anywhere either!)

So much for yesterday…onward with today.

Okay good citizen, it’s 10:30 AM EST and the Dow is down a touch more than 200 points…(not that this has anything to do with reality.)

I didn’t find this telling bit of news in today’s NY Times, this link comes from the news feed tied to my browser’s Home Page.

Are the two news items related?

Without a doubt (even if you have to make the connection your self.)

The headline reads loosely as follows:

Saab runs out of cash to meet payroll.

Why do you suppose that is, good citizen?

Could it be ‘economics 101’? That unalterable fact of capitalism; businesses’ which fail to attract sufficient market share go bankrupt?

Let’s repeat the refrain, shall we?

The destruction of our civilization proceeds apace!

(Don’t forget the sub-refrain: Capitalism is Doomed!)

While it currently isn’t ‘on radar’, we will soon be asking ourselves why we are following the Lemmings off the cliff…and we won’t have a good answer.

It will resonate like those Scott trade commercials with the shifty, weasel broker (spending YOUR money like it was water) trying to justify his existance…

Understand good citizen when the few succeed in, well, ‘monopolizing’ the world’s markets, the know they won’t hold on to their bonanza via Democracy or anything resembling ‘free markets’.

So BOTH will have to go…and if you don’t like it, you can go pound sand!

Or hang these criminals! Really, the choice is yours.

Either YOU put up with it or you don’t.

Understand there’s more to it than just saying ‘no’. The criminals have made themselves the nominal superiors of 'the men with guns and badges.'

Theoretically, the men with the guns won’t fire upon ‘innocent civilians’ a distinction that is difficult to make while the civilians are trying to throw off the yoke of corruption the criminals have saddled them with!

Unsurprisingly, we have this disturbing story the ‘infamous they’ are pinning today’s market woes on.

Talk about your ‘short term solutions’, looks like the market is ‘pricing in’ the pending economic disaster brought on by rapidly escalating energy prices.

If you don’t live somewhere that you can walk around in shirt-sleeves all year long, move (cuz you’re gonna freeze to death if you don’t!)

Oh, PS by the way, you can still fall victim to hypothermia in places where the temperatures never go below freezing!

Talk about your ‘double whack’ you’ll be unable to afford the fuel to escape the cold nor the fuel to keep you warm.

Got your eye on that forest outside your window? Are you prepared to kill for it? That’s what it’s going to take…in case any of you thought there was ‘plenty to go around’.

Yep, it’s getting DAMN scary out there! Good thing it’s summer time!

Things are going to take a definite turn for the worse once cold weather threatens to return…

Not that things could get much worse than they already are

Which is to ask why do any of you still doubt that ALL money is ‘FUNNY’?

If we’ve got the money to pay for frisking the general population then we have the money to bail out (all of) the banks and fight a dozen wars at once!

Which is to say, the more removed money becomes from its intended purpose, the more ridiculous our reality becomes.

It’s outrageous that we have a handful of people with more money than they can spend and huge numbers that have all they can do to keep food on the table and a roof (of sorts) over their heads!

And NOTHING is done about it…

WTF, good citizen, WTF?

What’s happening right here and now has little to do with economics and everything to do with ‘power’.

The few are trying their damnedest to kill off as much of the ‘surplus population’ as they can without getting themselves killed.

Methinks they will succeed on one level but will fail to survive the other.

For some unfathomable reason the term ‘blowback’ is meaningless to them…

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Slick Willy

Greetings good citizen,

We’ve all had deep misgivings about the Roberts court but today’s top headline on the NY Times is being construed as ‘the end’ for class action lawsuits.

Not that this should surprise anybody who has been paying attention. If we admit we have a ‘captive government’ then it stands to reason the court is also ‘captive’ and neither is (or is expected to be) ‘responsive’ to the will of the governed.

Which brings us to the upcoming presidential election.

I’m still of a mind that we will witness something along the lines of a coup de tat stemming from the ‘impasse’ over the debt ceiling.

But supposing that doesn’t happen the ‘opposition’ as yet has no viable candidate to run against the incumbent.

What is disturbing about this is the conservatives, while continuing to ‘bash’ the sitting president, DON’T feel the need to run against him.

It doesn’t matter who you ‘elect’ to public office if that individual takes his/her marching orders from the same set of assholes who told the last guy what to do.

How sad is it good citizen that Obamarama is now being considered one of the best GOP presidents ever?

Slick Willy (the welfare slayer) still has my vote for Best GOP president ever, just as St. Ronnie is still holding on to his ‘first place’ as Worst President ever (as bad as W. was Reagan was worse!)

Sort of exemplifies the duration of our ‘crisis of leadership’ going back to the LBJ/Nixon years.

There hasn’t been a Democratic candidate worth voting for since LBJ refused re-election in 1968.

They’ve all sucked; the only saving grace has been that the Republican candidates sucked worse! (Something they promptly prove as soon as they win office.)

Step one was ‘rigged’ elections (via the media) step two will be the ‘default’ of our democracy, sparked in part by frustration caused by years of ‘ineffective’ government.

The battle cry will be ‘time for action’ by the very people responsible for thwarting democratic processes to resolve issues.

Understand that this will be the old ‘my way or the highway’ we have all grown accustomed to from our capitalist employers.

Their, er, ‘radical’ policies to liberate the markets and let them (finally) work their magic will, as you can imagine, result in multiple disasters.

Which is to admonish you that you CAN’T ALLOW people who honestly think ‘the one with the most toys in the end wins’ control the economy!

That sort of ‘non-thinking’ leads to this sort of bull shit!

Which, naturally, brings us full circle with the desperate acts of desperate people. And these are acts happening right here and now!

I acknowledge these are not ‘new’, there are whole swaths of the economic desert that have been ‘scrapped’ by the ‘opportunists’ among us. (Ironically, the same mindset that brought us ‘Flipper the Slumlord’!)

While the article doesn’t offer dates, I suspect most of these incidents are recent, indicative of an increasingly restless population, simmering in the jobless summer heat.

When I say ‘coup’ and ‘radical’ I mean we are talking the return of ‘debt slavery’.

The local pig farm can ‘buy’ you for pennies on the dollar and force you to work off the full face value of your debt for an unlivable wage.

There will be no ‘additional charge’ for beating you and if they beat you to death it won’t be their problem but yours!

And the loony-toon conservatives will call this ‘justice’.

How these idiots think society will remain cohesive once tyranny becomes omnipresent tends to strain the imagination.

Which is to remind you that time, like resources, cannot be set to ‘infinite’.

We don’t have ‘forever’ to work things out.

Nor will we be able to keep trying until we ‘get it right’ (resource limitations will enforce those restrictions…how sad is it that determining what limitations are genuine and which ones are imaginary/economically driven will become our greatest challenge?)

We really do need to alter how and why we do what we do…or this is going to end in tears as our situation becomes hopeless.

Um, we may not live to see that day personally but that doesn’t mean its not coming.

Apparently most of you are cool with the idea that your grandchildren will curse your name for not acting when you had the chance.

And believe it or not, chances have never been better!

YOU need to act NOW, before the simple-minded seize control and it’s too late!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

What do you suppose they're trying to tell us?

Greetings good citizen,

In a world literally falling apart due to diminished tax revenue What do you suppose they’re trying to tell us?

Some of the nation’s largest corporations have amassed vast profits outside the country and are pressing Congress and the Obama administration for a tax break to bring the money home.

Apple has $12 billion waiting offshore, Google has $17 billion and Microsoft, $29 billion.

Under the proposal, known as a repatriation holiday, the federal income tax owed on such profits returned to the United States would fall to 5.25 percent for one year, from 35 percent. In the short term, the measure could generate tens of billions in tax revenues as companies transfer money that would otherwise remain abroad, and it could help ease the huge budget deficit.

Are our politicians MORONS or (and more likely) SELLOUTS?

(A ‘rhetorical question’ indeed; since our politicians feel obliged to support capitalism and the subsequent global conquest [of markets] that result.)

Like these chiseling law firms on TV that offer to ‘help’ with your ‘tax difficulties’. Given that the income tax rate is 35% WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO WITH THE OTHER 65% OF THE MONEY?

WTF!

Read the end of the first page if you want a refresher on what you already know; that these ardent supporters of the 35,000 member ‘Tea Party’ are in fact greedy pricks!

Lower taxes for them and UNEMPLOYMENT for YOU!

There are those who count themselves as lucky we don’t live in the Eurozone, not that this will spare us…

Ilargi: First, any Greek bailout plan that will (may?!) be agreed on doesn't change anything about the country's financial reality. Greece is unable to pay down its debt. If an IMF/ECB/EU package deal is found, that debt will simply now be owed to the "Troika". And Greece will still not be able to pay it back.

You can find comments from those involved in the negotiations that suggest Athens will be "safe“ until 2014, or even for the next 5 years, but this is nonsense. The first aid package hasn't even been paid in full, and the deparate need for a second one has already led to the emergency talks we see now. The only thing that changes is that -much of- the debt is shifted from private investors to the public at large. An all too familiar pattern, and one that is really due for a change.

The situation at the talks, meanwhile, is becoming so opaque it's getting harder to belive there's not at least to some intent intentional. If Germany and France think they can get away with more procrastination, why wouldn't they go that route? They need the euro to weaken vs the UD dollar. These are not good times to have a string currency. But again, they fail to see what the overall perception is in the marketplace. Which is that no matter what they do from here on in, their credibility is shot. For good.

We here in the US are already throwing police and firefighters out the door wholesale because municipalities are cash strapped due largely to the decimation of their industrial base (which, naturally, provided [note the past tense] the bulk of their tax revenue [that goof-ball capitalism requires them to collect!])

Under A Simple Plan there are NO taxes, absolutely none and do you know why?

There are no taxes because nobody is sticking their hand out screaming ‘fuck you, pay me’.

Things that are ‘free from nature’ stay that way! Some asshole who never lifts a finger doesn’t make more on the first half day of work than you’ll make working for same said asshole all year long!

Because said asshole can’t sell anything to anybody…and that’s how it should be!

It is a violation of the human anti-exploitation law, which is an exile offense.

But we digress…

Taxes are often referrred to as ‘the price of civilization’ but the important caveat that is missing from that noble exclamation is that taxes are the curse of predatory capitalist civilization!

Taxes don’t exist to make life better, they exist as an additional revenue stream for the owners to exploit.

Literally, taxes exist so shit head can get paid for what is free to him.

Which is why this ‘bailout bullshit’ is so illogical!

Isn’t it time the victimized nations stand up and tell the bankers to go pound sand?

This is mismanagement AND fraud (nor do we have to go too far to find treason in there as well!)

As I have stated before (and I’m getting as sick of pointing it out as you are of hearing it) we are living under a scenario of how things would operate if organized crime took over the government!

Worse, we are looking at a more or less ‘global’ take over that will eventually devolve into planetary civil war.

Sooner rather than later.

In fact, the stage is set for the, er, abandonment of government pretty much around the globe…except for where the Western lifestyle was exported to [formerly communist China. Which is NOT to say things will remain stable for very long over there once their customer base has totally dried up.]

As I pointed out in yesterday’s post, there are certain ‘sacrifices’ associated with resorting to ‘LCD’ tactics, finesse is only a minor casualty in a much larger battle.

What we are headed for is indeed an example of ‘failure to plan becoming planning to fail.’

There’s a reason why the class war has been turned over to the ‘cruder’ elements of society.

What better way to insure the failure of civilization than by putting the clueless in charge?

And if you don’t think the current bunch is totally clueless then you aren’t paying attention!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Just like that!

Greetings good citizen,

The destruction of our civilization proceeds apace, while I’d like to provide you with an exact day when civil order will collapse I’m just not that well connected.

What should frighten you all is that somebody does indeed know precisely when the excrement is destined to hit the rotational device.

As I have asserted repeatedly, NONE of this is an ‘accident’.

Worse, the ‘stupid’ we see on display is being accompanied by a hearty ‘fuck ‘em if they don’t like it’…something that never bodes well for the soon to be ‘victims’.

While we can take comfort from the notion that those responsible for the destruction of our society would like to see more ‘finesse’ employed.

Unfortunately, there is a distinct correlation between how low you have to sink before you find somebody (stupid enough) to whack the wasp’s nest with a short stick.

Thus is 'finesse' MIA.

And, for the record, I will once again protest that not only is there nothing the average schmuck can do about this (thus will nothing be done.)

It is because we are powerless to defend ourselves against the machinations of those who control information flow that our, er, ‘doom’ is sealed.

Understand, this is not without risk (to the perps) from people such as myself, which is why it is dangerous to draw attention to yourself by pointing to their crimes…

Oh well.

I’m not going to live forever and neither will the perps…the problem is their crimes WILL live longer than either of us.

If we don’t destroy the tools of malfesance and mis-administration then both will continue to flourish.

As we see in today’s Pappy’s day offering

Big business has a long history of “crying wolf” to protect its own narrow interests at the expense of the wider public. Name a progressive achievement that seems sacrosanct today—clean air regulations, the minimum wage, child labor laws—and you’ll find that almost every attempt to achieve those goals was met by a storm of inflammatory and misleading rhetoric.

Today industry stakeholders and their political allies still capture the rhetorical high ground by alleging that progressive change will kill jobs or curtail economic growth. Every injustice and inefficiency that scars America’s policy landscape is guarded by powerful interests who profit from the status quo. They will not hesitate to employ underhanded tactics to preserve their domains. Anyone even passingly acquainted with the recent debate around health care reform should be familiar with this concept.

Um, this sort of brings us full circle to the issue of ‘if we’re all in this together, then who the hell is the ‘opposition’?’

We CAN’T be on the same team if we can’t cooperate in devising fair and just solutions.

Worse, this, er, ‘uncooperative’ segement of our now crumbling society is relatively tiny.

What isn’t tiny is the power these criminal/parasites weild.

Worse is the mayhem they will unleash once it becomes clear that their power is weakening (which will be right around the same time their money becomes no good!)

AND if you think that ‘Ain’t gonna happen’ just try to buy something with Confederate money (or one of the other long extinct varieties of ‘representative wealth’.)

Our next Pappy’s Day piece reflects the economic reality faced by most older citizens

Frank Ballesteros, is a 62-year-old desperate for work. Mr. Ballesteros, who is on his 78th week of unemployment, is one of those workers. He receives $240 a week in benefits, or about $5 an hour for a full-time worker.

“These politicians just don’t realize how important that one $240 check is,” he said.

When he worked at a nonprofit managing a microloan program, Mr. Ballesteros earned $73,000 annually; now, he says, he is getting rejected — or worse, ignored — by employers who pay minimum wage.

This, good citizen, is ‘over fifty disease’ up close and personal. How much do you want to bet Mr. Ballesteros NEVER works (at a job capable of supporting him) again?

And don’t shit yourself, if he finds one job it is doubtful he’ll find two or three, there are just too many unemployed out there…

It’s still in excess of six candidates for EVERY open position (including part time gigs that wouldn’t feed a cat! So even the 6 to 1 ratio is ‘skewed’…)

Moving along here we have another peek at an alternative economic yardstick.

No. 373: May Inflation, Retail Sales, Production
Subscription required June 15th, 2011

• Economy Falters as Inflation Surges
• May’s Annual Consumer Inflation: 3.6% (CPI-U), 4.1% (CPI-W), 11.2% (SGS)
• Real Retail Sales Contracted in Both April and May
• Stalled Industrial Production Continued

Inflation is running at over 11%, how about that?

Um, don’t look now good citizen but ‘manufacturing’ was supposed to be the ‘bright spot’ driving this recovery.

It could be that Industrial Production is no longer related to manufacturing in quibbler’s world.

Do you remember when the Shrub was president and he wanted to lump burger flipping into manufacturing (to mask the massive bleeding!)

As a 30 year (and currently unemployed) manufacturing man, I’d like to know what they are calling ‘manufacturing’. (Putting a Made in USA sticker on parts imported from elsewhere is not ‘manufacturing’. Although it does qualify as ‘fabricating’ if we use the word the same why it is used to indicate lying!

I admit to being ‘biased’ in this area and likely ‘prejudiced’ in my opinions, which I feel rather strongly about.

Happy Pappy’s Day god citizen, be good to your Dad!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Post # 650: Set them free!

Greetings good citizen,

After literally throwing trillions of dollars down the rabbit hole we are now faced (four years later) with Wall Street Braces for New Layoffs as Profits Wane

Worse, (or should we say more ‘in character’ with recent events) markets are, you guessed it, up!

Logical? Of course not! But when you’re a ‘Master of the Universe’ things don’t have to make sense…as long as they’re to your liking!

Wall Street plans to get smaller this summer. Faced with weak markets and uncertainty over regulations, many of the biggest firms are preparing for deep cuts in jobs and other costs.

The cutback plans are emerging even as Wall Street firms have mostly recovered from the financial crisis and are reporting substantial profits again. But those profits are not as big as they were before the crisis, and it is expected that in the coming months it will be even more difficult for firms to make money. Worries about debt in Europe and the shape that the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul rules will ultimately take, combined with the usual summer doldrums, are prompting banks to act.

“It’s a tense environment right now,” said Glenn Schorr, an analyst with the investment bank Nomura.

Had to get that last slam in there about the feeble attempt to even appear to be doing something about the Banker’s Bonanza that is a crisis to everyone else!

We really should hang the lot of ‘em, and that’s not off the table…just saying, ya know?

If we were to rewind a little we would find ourselves back at the beginning where I posited there wasn’t enough ‘valid economic activity’ to support the amount of indebtedness (read theft) in the system.

This has, as you may have observed, not changed.

Amazingly, it has only gotten worse (as more people try to borrow their way out of debt!)

So how is it good citizen that we find ourselves faced with yet another, er, not so much a ‘new’ banking crisis as we’re faced with a new phase of the original crisis?

Why isn’t this situation ‘going away’?

Bizarrely it is because the only way to make it ‘disappear’ is to first admit that the economic model we currently use is broken…and THAT ain’t happening!

Imagine the turmoil that would be created by declaring capitalism, er, ‘unworkable’…

It would (because of our general understanding of fraud) make all existing contracts null and void!

Our legal system would literally collapse under the rush to file suit by anyone with a now fraudulent contract on their hands.

And that’s only the tip of the iceberg!

And perhaps that’s the hell of it good citizen.

We know the system we’re using is broken but we can’t ‘swap it out’ because of the chaos it would cause!

We would have to have something like A Simple Plan in place and ready to go before we abandoned unworkable capitalism.

We COULD start ASP tomorrow, the only hitch would be the leadership piece of the puzzle, testing takes time BUT there are ‘interim provisions’ already in place.

The ‘beauty’ of A Simple Plan lies in the fact that life as we have come to know it changes very little from how it is today. The most important changes are, er, ‘transparent’ and only affect the criminal few.

Life for the average citizen ‘improves’ immediately because their pocket stops getting picked right away and all of their debt woes ‘vanish’.

Workers will phase into their reduced work day/week gradually as the unemployed are, er, ‘assimilated’ into the workforce.

Crime disappears, as there is no cash. You can’t be robbed nor can you, er, ‘sell’, well, anything because there is NO WAY to transfer funds between individuals.

Oh, did I mention you WILL be able to live on what you are paid because you won’t have to pay for much?

There are a great many benefits to A Simple Plan and it will take a heap of doing to fuck that up (not that the self-important won’t try…it’s what they do.)

ASP is ‘holistic’, its parts works in harmony. Disrupt the flow and you disable the protections it provides.

The biggest single danger to ASP is the prohibition against the individual buying and selling.

Violate that and the whole thing comes unraveled.

There ain’t a damn thing on this planet worth the consequences of allowing the transfer of funds between individuals.

If you love somebody, set them free!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Scary Stuff!

Greetings good citizen,

I’ve had an unusually busy day and am only now finishing up my morning reading, 10:00 at night.

Um, the markets have ‘reverted’ back to ‘bargain’ mode after yesterday’s massive sell-off.

Dunno what the US markets will have in store for us by tomorrow’s open but the Asian markets are currently bleeding from the eye-sockets (again) and that usually carries over.

Naturally, we are left to ask what does it all mean? Equity prices have no foundation in reality (yet the corporate owned media insists on equating market performance with economic well-being, regardless of how irrational such comparisons appear to be.

Taking this a step further we find this disturbing debate about the end of quantative easing and the ramifications it holds for the ‘real’ economy.

I believe Mr. Grant scores a major point when he opines that our current capital markets are suffering from a deficit of capitalism!

Or as other pundits have exclaimed, socialism for the rich and (fuck you, pay me) capitalism for the rest of us!

As you know, I think both 'expansionary austerity' and 'stimulative easing' are missing the point and ineffective, because the economic, financial, and global trade system is broken, corrupted, and badly in need of reform and structuring.

What the Fed is doing is keeping the zombie banks upright at the expense of the long suffering middle class and savers. The monied interests are gorging themselves on malinvestment, public policy failures, and a well financed campaign of economic propaganda such as that which led to the tragic lapses of regulation and the overturn of Glass-Steagall.

The effective tax rates of the super wealthy are less than 15 percent, because they draw a major portion of their annual increase in wealth from capital gains and dividends, and unrecognized entitlements. as well as a wide menu of tax avoiding schemes.

And while they moan about the nominal headline tax rates, paid only by the 'little people' even if they do not know they are little, corporations and the truly wealthy have not enjoyed just low effective tax rates in the post WW II era. And yet it is still not enough.

In light of the severe unemployment problems plaguing a large portion of families, austerity seems like a cruel joke, a coup de grâce delivered by the bankers to the income producing classes who depend on labor in the creation and delivery of real products, and not artificial arbitrage and gaming the system.

But on the other hand, stimulus seems just another excuse for the special interests to put on the feedbag once again to the detriment of the many of the next generation. There is no comparison between the Obama Administration and the New Deal in terms of real change and productive innovation.

There has been a very strong recovery in corporate profits in the non-financial sector, and the financiers barely missed a beat in distributing a healthy chunk of GDP to themselves in bonuses, while the ashes of the financial crises which they caused still glowing. And their behaviour in the mortgage and derivatives markets has been despicable. I am appalled that people put up with this sort of thing, much less defend it out of some mistaken belief in neoliberal 'free markets.'

The Automatic Earth is all over the pending Greek default, which highlights the fact that nothing has been done to correct the issues that caused the financial crisis in the first place.

I and others have asked repeatedly the question that is on everybody’s lips, “How much longer can we keep this up?” and the answer, good citizen, is not much longer.

Hard to say which is worse, knowing the system is FUBAR or waiting for it to collapse in a heap?

It’s only a matter of time.

I’m gonna cut this bad boy short cuz I don’t do myself any favors when I draw vivid images of the not too distant future.

Which is to point out that my normally grim outlook hasn’t improved.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Why can't we be friends?

Greetings good citizen,

It seems yesterday’s market rally has become today’s market rout as the Dow is off more than a hundred points in early trading.

As I have said before, the term ‘bargain’ is extremely relative.

Every once in a while you will come across an article that asks the question Why can’t we be friends? which takes the position of achieving ‘social justice’ through ‘negotiation’.

You have made many excellent analyses of the power of global capital and its capacity to undermine ordinary citizens’ efforts to transform the global reality toward a more humane and generous world. If there were a serious movement in the U.S. ready to challenge global capital, what should such a movement do? Or is it, as many believe, hopeless, given the power of capital to control the media, undermine democratic movements, and use the police/military power and the co-optive power of mass entertainment, endless spectacle, and financial compensations for many of the smartest people coming up through working-class and middle-income routes? What path is rational for a movement seeking to build a world of environmental sanity, social justice, and peace, yet facing such a sophisticated, powerful, and well-organized social order?

As we all know, global capital DOESN’T NEED TO NEGOTIATE! They do whatever the fuck they want and defy the government to ‘punish’ them (usually a fine) after the fact.

And we all know how THAT game is played out…the initial fine is the figure that gets published and it is usually a whopper…but Daddy deep pockets puts his lawyers on the job instructing them to appeal the fine. Usually with a ‘reverse incentive’, meaning the more they get the fine reduced, the larger the ‘bonus’ the firm will receive.

Didn’t that big judgement against the Tobacco companies end up being litigated to almost nothing?

While all ‘movements’ in this country know what they’re up against, they also know if they get too ‘hardcore’ their donations will ‘dry up’ and without donations they would have to support the ‘cause’ by getting a job!

Worse, an ‘alliance’ between individual movements would result in this same drying up of funds as the ‘mother movement’ was demonized by the media as an all powerful monolith, on par with the ‘special interest’ lobbyists of Washington, DC.

So now we know why seemingly related causes don’t, er, ‘team up’. They remain ‘independent’ to prevent being targeted/shunned by the very people they solicit funds from!

And like ‘charities’, it’s all a ‘racket’. A majority of the money donated is ‘tax deductable’ (and there’s probably a certain degree of you lie and I’ll swear to it going on, a ‘padding’ of donations/deductible amounts if you will…you know how the, er, shrewd can’t resist a ‘bargain’!)

Same thing for the people who run these organizations, it beats honest work and then there’s that abysmal 80 to 90 cents of every dollar donated going towards ‘administration’ thing to remember!

The number one beneficiary of any charity you can name is the idiot who runs it!

So you can imagine how successful we’d be trying to ‘unify’ the many different movements out there.

Then again, some of these movements exist to, er, ‘limit the funds available’ to broader based efforts.

You can hear it now: “ I’d love to help the Greenies but I just gave all of my money to the ‘Save the Snipe’ foundation, maybe next year, huh?”

Actually, the reality is even worse. Except the guy with $20 to donate to his favorite presidential campaign (usually his ‘beer money), grassroot funds are extremely limited.

Now, you’re gonna fight corporate power with corporate, tax deductible donations?

Ain’t happening.

While there are some ‘employee owned’ ventures out there, the pie usually isn’t big enough to meet their own funding needs AND give away a heap to a ‘less than neutral’ political movement (even if ‘the cause’ serves their interests!)

Ironically, this tiny segment of the economic pie is probably the ‘hope’ this article is referring to!

Chomsky says in the article that the US is ‘surprisingly free’ relative to other countries.

You don’t suppose this ‘illusion of freedom’ is what prevents us from rioting in the streets like the Europeans do?

We don’t have to stand up to the (corporate captive) government; we can use the ballot box to slap them down with!

And Santa Claus is going to bring us all baby Unicorns for Christmas!

WTF!

But I digress…

As usual just to give you an idea that these people are not on the same page the rest of us are.

Once again I didn’t excerpt the article because it is ‘petite’ and would likely alter the context.

So, that leadership we are all yearning for isn’t likely to be available for some time yet, but it’s coming, that I guarantee you!

The thing to watch for is what the new leader demonizes. It is the best indication of which way they’re bent and who they are really fighting for.

Which is to warn that not everyone who criticises the rich is your friend.

The ‘elite’ are quick to throw one another under the bus because less competition there is, the more they can scoop up for themselves!

Funny how myopic our ‘betters’ are, it also tends to give them away. They are really fond of the word ‘me’ (ceaselessly yapping about how selfless and humble they are) and seldom use the word ‘we’ unless they are defining a personal ambition they need YOUR help to achieve.

Pretty much the same goes for those who claim to ‘speak for god’, they really want to be the ones to tell you what ‘god’ expects from you…and if the bible doesn’t say anything like that it is because god is speaking to you through THEM…

If what god has to say works out surprising well for his messenger, it’s just because god likes him more than he likes you!

Danger is everywhere, good citizen. Look to your heart and decide wisely before ‘following’ anyone.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Market Madness!

Greetings good citizen,

After falling below the, er, ‘strategically important’ 12,000 mark a few days ago it seems the stock market is a ‘bargain’ once again.

Naturally, only an idiot would put actual money in the market (which is to speculate how much ‘leverage’ is in play?)

But let’s flip that rock over and ask where would you ‘park’ money in an economy like this?

It’s a problem nobody should have…but there it is!

In fact, the entire crisis in a nutshell is the inability to service the interest on the mountain of debt the reckless few have piled up.

(To clarify, I refer to loans that never should have been made in the first place and advances on what has proven to be non-existent ‘equity’ as the acts of the reckless few as opposed to the woes of the hoodwinked many.)

In light of the facts, how ‘genuine’ do you think this morning’s market action is?

Hell, stocks sold off by nearly 500 points over the past six weeks, should be some serious bargains out there (by conventional market thinking.)

So, were the markets due for a bounce or is this just more ‘presto-chango’ in an options settlement week?

Stocks on Wall Street rose almost 1 percent at the opening on Tuesday after American and Chinese economic data drew investors into an equities market that has been through six weeks of sharp declines.

In the United States, retail sales declined less than forecast, giving a boost to stocks and some respite to investors overwhelmed by recent weak economic data.

Despite the jump, some investors were still focused on a retreat in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index to its March low near the 1,250 level. The index closed at 1,271.83 on Monday.

“The consumer isn’t dead,” said Michael Farr, president of investment management firm Farr, Miller & Washington in Washington. “I question the sustainability, given the high levels of debt that consumers hold and the unemployment rate. But we don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth. It’s good news for the day.”

Um, the consumer isn’t dead? It certainly isn’t from lack of trying!
I have in the past addressed the topic of ‘cracking one’s nut’ and how we are approaching a time when it won’t be worth your while to go to work because your paycheck won’t ‘crack your nut’ (cover your expenses.)

Well good citizen, if it weren’t for food stamps a goodly portion of the low end of the income distribution would be ‘unable’ to perform their jobs (and live indoors.)

That’s a trade off many part-time, minimum-wage workers make. Their paychecks cover the rent but without food assistance they’d have to live in the streets! (Because when the choice comes down to live indoors or eat semi-regularly, eating wins!)

Would I be a ‘commie’ for pointing out that their capitalist employers KNOW their employees can’t survive on what they pay them?

Yet we are expected to sympathize with the businessman (who ‘provides’ the job) and pays as little as he does to ‘protect’ his customers. (Which is bullshit, you know he scopes the market regularly and charges every cent he can get away with!

It’s a bad day for Mr. Employer if he discovers HE has the lowest prices around!

The only thing worse than finding out your price is too low is learning that you pay your people higher than the regional average!

Is it any wonder the average business owner is psychotic?

On that note we have this article it’s a visual, you have to follow the link to see it.

A little dementia goes a long way, doesn’t it?

This is another reason I am firmly in the ‘collapse’ camp, there is no ‘rational’ way out of the morass they have created…and it’s idiotic to think people will tolerate that level of painful privation for an extended period.

Yet the dimwits who ‘didn’t see it coming’ consistently predict this is precisely what will happen.

Whereas I come from the ‘actions have consequences’ camp.

If you can’t find grunts willing to do the heavy lifting, the supply chain will break down and then you’ll be totally fucked!

Worse, if you can't find customers who will make it ‘worth your while’ to do what you do, then you won’t do it and neither will anyone else!

Weirdly, this is all looped into the pay scale issue.

If you don’t pay your workers, they can’t pay anyone either!

This is the ‘fundamental flaw’ of capitalism. It consistently overvalues goods while undervaluing labor.

That and the incentives are all wrong, but that topic has already been the theme of many past essays.

Naturally, the above phenomenon forms the basis for my consistent charges of ‘mis-management’ by people who should know better…but apparently don’t.

The question we must answer is how long will our civilization survive with privatized profits and socialized losses?

You should know the answer because it is obvious…not very long.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

One step closer...

Greetings good citizen,

Can you say ‘Police State’?

It was bad enough that we had cops that seemed indifferent to crime or couldn’t recognize criminal activity, but now they are being granted ‘expanded authority’!

Well, guess what’s being ‘sacrificed’ so they can exercise their expanded authority? YOUR civil rights!

WASHINGTON — The Federal Bureau of Investigation is giving significant new powers to its roughly 14,000 agents, allowing them more leeway to search databases, go through household trash or use surveillance teams to scrutinize the lives of people who have attracted their attention.

The F.B.I. soon plans to issue a new edition of its manual, called the Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide, according to an official who has worked on the draft document and several others who have been briefed on its contents. The new rules add to several measures taken over the past decade to give agents more latitude as they search for signs of criminal or terrorist activity.

The F.B.I. recently briefed several privacy advocates about the coming changes. Among them, Michael German, a former F.B.I. agent who is now a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, argued that it was unwise to further ease restrictions on agents’ power to use potentially intrusive techniques, especially if they lacked a firm reason to suspect someone of wrongdoing.

Just how far are you willing to push that ‘if you haven’t done anything wrong then you’ve got nothing to worry about’ meme?

Especially in the hands of the people who decide what is and isn’t, er, ‘wrong’.

There’s a reason why these idiots don’t prosecute bankers; but you aren’t quite so invulnerable, are you?

Most FBI agents are lawyers (so not busting bankers is sort of a ‘professional courtesy’ if any of these lawyers hope to have a second career with an, er, ‘influential law firm’ after departing Federal Service…)

There is a sort of weird disconnect here as TV portrays the FBI as ‘dedicated public servants’ rather than putting their more opportunistic traits on display.

How do you make partner in a large firm without years of ‘sweat equity’? You get some dirt on a major client of the firm…then, shazam, you’re a full equity partner!

But you won’t see that in the plot of you favorite cop show, will you?

But that’s propaganda for you…

I’m going to guess this new legislation will NOT make the hunt easier for those seeking a shortcut to future financial security. Their bosses will be on the alert to keep the field agents digging where they’re supposed to dig, in the trash of the malcontents, seeking the necessary evidence to brand them ‘insurgents’.

That’s why they want to go digging in YOUR trash! (Chances are good they’re already digging in mine!)

If there were a meme for the day it appears to be the growing disconnect between the people and the rulers.

They insist they are trying to make us ‘safe’ but it becomes evident that they are really only interested in their own safety, they are attempting to protect themselves from ‘retribution’…thus are YOUR rights being thrown out the window.

The old meme has a new caveat: ‘you have nothing to worry about if (you’re rich and) not doing anything wrong.’

If your disenfranchised and complain about it, you might find yourself branded a ‘terrorist’, even if you don’t have so much as a slingshot to execute your ‘reign of terror’ with!

Um, the ‘class war’ is turning ugly and it won’t be long before we witness open warfare in the streets of Europe. (IF they don’t ‘censor’ such broadcasts…)

We really are just inches away from martial law.

And nobody is doing a fucking thing about it…which should frighten you good citizen!

Where have all the ‘good men’ gone?

Apparently they were all bought off or fired!

Which leaves us where?

I guess it’s up to you and me.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Perception deception

Greetings good citizen,

Just in case you were wondering the collapse of our civilization doesn’t take weekends off (ironically, neither do the idiots responsible for it!)

(And while I’m here I may as well add that this in itself redefines ‘stupid’.)

If you want to witness stupid in action, I offer the following:

The drag on stocks is especially troubling because it suggests that one of the few bright spots for the United States economy may be starting to fade. Just six weeks ago, the Dow Jones industrial average seemed poised to break through the 13,000 mark, closing at 12,810 on April 29. But on Friday it fell 172.45 points, or 1.42 percent, to close at 11,951.91.

It had not been below 12,000 since March 18, and it has now suffered a loss for six consecutive weeks, its longest weekly slump since the fall of 2002.

“In general, we have had such a long string of disappointing economic data, not only domestically but to some extent globally as well, that people are perhaps at last shifting their outlook,” said Kathy Jones, fixed-income strategist at Charles Schwab.

What part of ‘the customer base is broke’ don’t these idiots get?

Worse, every so-called ‘recovery’ from here on in will be weaker than its predecessor.

Lest you think this is an isolated incident or a US problem, think again, markets around the globe have been bleeding from the eyesockets for the past six weeks.

The only market to end on a positive note this week was…wait for it…Japan!

The Japanese have taken a brutal beating for the past few months and ‘Mr. Market’ (Psycho that he is) must think Japan has been beaten enough (and is therefore now a ‘bargain’, thus the contrary trend in an otherwise barren investing landscape.)

Although it is hard to tell what is more feeble, using the stock market as a ‘yardstick of prosperity’ (when a fraction of a single percent of the population owns 99% of all stocks) Or pointing out that the end of ‘Quantitative easing’ means the end of the irrational rise in stock prices?

If not for the Fed, Wall Street would be ‘flatline’ by now because, despite being two years into the so-called recovery, NOTHING has been done to correct the imbalances created by the finance sector!

Our economy, on paper, is precisely that, PAPER! It’s not real! (Which is to say most of what passes for ‘wealth’ under our current set up is, er, ‘imaginary’…the product of ‘creative accounting.’

The question you need to be asking yourself is whether or not the people behind this fiasco would go as far as to destroy our civilization so they could avoid prosecution for their crimes?

I ‘opine’ they would. There’s some powerful ‘magical thinking’ going on in the upper reaches of our species, er, ‘brain trust’…and history has proven they aren’t big on foresight or the ‘consequences of their actions.’

They see a vast reduction in our numbers as a ‘net good’.

This is the danger of letting one group of humans (pretend to) ‘pay’ another. The first ‘bad example’ learned from this exercise is the paying group finds the fewer they have to pay, the more that is left over for them!

It never occurs to them that their ‘free money’ diminishes the value of all money.

Worse, these idiots have direct access to the printing press so there is zero control over how much they ‘pay themselves’.

Wouldn’t it be interesting to know how much ‘pilferage’ the Fed suffers?

On the other hand, if not for this pilferage there is a very good chance that our (fucked up) economy would have flatlined years ago!

Just saying, ya know?

How much is enough is the same as asking how high is up?

Um, it’s Sunday again and I just found out I didn’t post this yesterday…oops!

Better late than never…sometimes.

After crawling the web in search of insight (profound or otherwise) the only ‘new’ thing to hit my eye was a tortured look at how capitalists ‘might’ save themselves on ‘The Automatic Earth.’

Again, the failure/assumed portion of this argument hinges on time being set to ‘infinite’, that the capitalists are both interested AND capable of acting swiftly (and decisively) enough to head off what will be worse than ‘civil war’.

Sadly, in a sidebar ‘front page’ story on today’s NY Times we find that the ‘bunker mentality’ is gaining traction. The capitalists aren’t interested in saving anybody but themselves!

If a few of their number happen to get ‘massacred’ in the process then it’s more ‘market share’ for them!

Which is to point out that at least opportunists are ‘consistent’. They really do subscribe to the credo ‘Every man for himself and the Devil take the hindmost!’

Not exactly a sound prescription to base a civilization on, is it?

But most don’t think civilization will survive the end of cheap energy…which is absolute bullshit.

We will most definitely survive (and flourish), what won’t survive is predatory capitalism and the squandering of resources it fosters.

We aren’t facing an ‘energy crisis’; we are facing a (deadly serious) management crisis!

Put in perspective, our problems are minimal. It is the people whose power is derived from the control of energy that are experiencing a ‘crisis’ (and responsible for the mismanagement of efforts to deal with the problem!)

Murders one and all, willing to throw our whole species under the bus than relinquish power.

Until you wake up to that fact you’ll be fighting the wrong battle.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

False Flag...

Greetings good citizen,

There are more than one way of looking at things, there’s the rational way and then we have the goofy Republican way.

Which way do you think this story is being, er, ‘spun’?

The 18-day revolt stopped new foreign investment and decimated the pivotal tourist industry. The annual growth slowed to less than 2 percent from a projected 5 percent, and Egypt’s hard currency reserves plunged 25 percent.

In a region where economic woes enraged an entire generation, whether and how Egypt can fix its broken economy will be a crucial factor in determining the revolution’s success. It could also influence the outcome of the revolts across the Arab region, where economic troubles are stirring fears of continued instability, authoritarian crackdowns, or even a backlash against what had appeared to be a turn toward Western-style market reforms.

“People are angry,” said Hassan Mahmoud, a resident of a slum near Cairo. He expected a better life after the revolution, he said, but instead he was laid off from his $10-a-day job in a souvenir factory. “People in the neighborhood are talking about going back to the streets for another revolution — a hunger revolution,” he said.

The NY Times article, er, ‘suggests’ that the ‘revolt’ that resulted in the ouster of US puppet Hosni Mumbarak ‘caused’ the current damaging drop off in ‘tourism’. You don’t suppose the fact that all of the would-be tourists are too broke to go pyramid gazing has anything to do with it, do you?

Again I will accuse the nitwits in charge of mis-management, fully aware they aren’t very likely to cop to charges of mass genocide, which is what we are really seeing.

Readers of this blog aside, the ‘typical’ US news consumer is (and remains) totally ignorant of the fact that what’s happening in Egypt is also taking place around the globe, including their own backyard!

Ironically, the same publication provides us with the proof of this claim!

No, the only real beneficiaries of Pain Caucus policies (aside from the Chinese government) are the rentiers: bankers and wealthy individuals with lots of bonds in their portfolios.

And that explains why creditor interests bulk so large in policy; not only is this the class that makes big campaign contributions, it’s the class that has personal access to policy makers — many of whom go to work for these people when they exit government through the revolving door. The process of influence doesn’t have to involve raw corruption (although that happens, too). All it requires is the tendency to assume that what’s good for the people you hang out with, the people who seem so impressive in meetings — hey, they’re rich, they’re smart, and they have great tailors — must be good for the economy as a whole.

But the reality is just the opposite: creditor-friendly policies are crippling the economy. This is a negative-sum game, in which the attempt to protect the rentiers from any losses is inflicting much larger losses on everyone else. And the only way to get a real recovery is to stop playing that game.

Um, I’d quibble with Mr. Krugman about the ‘smart’ remark; they won’t consider themselves particularly clever when they’re standing on a scaffold with a rope around their neck, having been convicted of treason.

As matters currently stand, this isn’t going to happen, we won’t see justice until we have, er, ‘similarly removed' the corrupt judges who failed to prosecute these criminals.

But then as I stated in the opening, ‘criminal’ is a matter of perspective, isn’t it?

What I engage in here could be, if you twisted it hard enough, turned into a criminal enterprise. I’m certain I violate the Patriot Act regularly, they just aren’t ready to start prosecuting dissidents ‘openly’…yet.

Depending on how your bent, politically, my accusations could be boiled down to the pot calling the kettle black.

And that’s the hell of it, it never changes. There are only a few slender degrees of separation between ideologies, which makes choosing the right one damn near impossible.

In the end it comes down to the ‘greater good’. A distinction often made by just who benefits from this noble goal.

Regardless of party affiliation, the ‘political class’ has sold itself to the corporatists, which means only the corporations (Now new and improved with ‘limited liability’) will reap the benefits of ‘commercial activity’. (Bizarrely, regardless of where this leads.)

For some reason there appears to be a severe degree of ‘cognitive dissonance’ concerning what constitutes a ‘healthy economy’.

Worse, there also exists a ‘failure to recognize’ when business practices have become ‘predatory’. (Which has proven an extremely useful in a system that provides zero legal remedy without significant personal cost.)

But I belabor the obvious when I point out that this is not ‘democracy’ by any stretch of the imagination!

It isn’t meant to work for you unless you’re wealthy enough to buy your way!

And guess what good citizen, the asshole who ripped you off so they had the money to buy politicians (yes, that’s how the rich get rich!) doesn’t have the same ‘interests/concerns’ as you do.

Worse, as of late they are no longer even interested in ‘throwing you a bone’.

Which is okay because when the time comes we should not be interested in displaying any ‘mercy’.

Um, that is why we’re going off the rails on the Crazy Train.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Doom and Gloom

Greetings good citizen,

You will soon sicken of hearing that the collapse of our civilization proceeds apace. I have (in my opinion wisely) kept silent for the past two years because then, like now, there was no concrete evidence to point to.

Um, like the economy recovery nobody can find you have to know what you’re looking at to actually see the evidence of impending doom.

Ironically, the greatest evidence of collapse rests in what hasn’t been done.

They, the oligarchs, the puppetmasters who have ‘assumed control’ and taken our government capitve, haven’t done anything to restore economic vitality. Our economy continues to wither as the bought and paid for media proclaims ‘recovery’ that will usher in the return of prosperity…any day now.

Just don’t ask ‘when’ because the answer is you can’t hold your breath that long, you’ll die! Actually the real answer is never, the social contract has been re-written and all you’re gonna get is whatever you can salvage from the garbage disposal.

So I guess that's sort of a mission statement after all. And don't worry, I’m easily smart enough to understand that that will rub some people the wrong way. I just don't see another way out anymore, it’s all about analysis and pattern recognition from where I’m sitting. I’m temporarily lodged in France, to work on the new Automatic Earth website. People here say that if austerity measures like those in Greece and Spain and Portugal would ever reach here, you ain't seen nothing yet. The French know protest, and proudly so. Me, I’m wondering what's going to happen when police start shooting live ammo in the EU periphery. And how far away that moment could be.

We've handed the financial elites absolute powers over our economies, and thereby our lives and well being, as well as our childrens' futures. We’ll have to wrestle it back from their cold dead hands. And that's not going to be an easy one.

Illargi’s reluctance to grasp the ‘third rail’ of social engineering prevents him from providing any useful advice regarding the coming disaster.

That ‘third rail’ is money. For some bizarre reason people treat the subject like it is a non-issue, that money will ‘somehow’ take care of itself.

I’m telling you right here and now if you don’t ‘fix’ money, you won’t succeed in fixing anything!

Which is to say it is pointless to contribute to a cause that offers no viable solution; sort of brings us back to the ‘stupid’ thing I’ve been trying to avoid.

We are all still paying our taxes to people who are skinning us alive but hey, there are some things we don’t have a choice in and that’s one of them.

Maybe I should put a ‘tip can’ out there, just to see what happens.

(Thankfully blogger is free or you wouldn’t be seeing this period!)

I tax your time enough and that is all the ‘sacrifice’ I require.

Which brings us to a doubly depressing admission. Since I do provide a workable solution to the current (man-made and therefore ‘artificial’) crisis, there seems to be little or no appetite for ‘change’, which bodes poorly for our species.

A vast majority of you would be (significantly) better off under A Simple Plan yet neither the idea (nor echoes of the main concepts) appear anywhere on the net.

Which is to say you guys are doing a great job of keeping your mouths shut.

Not that there is a big audience for alternative social models out there.

Hell, most kids are still enamored with monarchy (as long as it is THEY who are King/Queen.) My son aspires to be a ‘system lord’. (And I’m not sure what this unhealthy attraction to the ‘dark side’ says about our society…) failing that he wants to be a Lawyer…so you can see why I worry.

Speaking of the dark side today’s headlines collected at Some Assembly Required today are downright dismal!

A veritable ‘litany of woe’ were you to ask me.

Did I mention the collapse of our civilization is proceeding apace?

And still you don’t believe me.

How sad is it that it will take a tank parked in your driveway to finally convince you there’s something radically wrong with this picture?

Sad beyond belief!

Sadder still is the notion that you still trust the corporate owned media more than what your own senses tell you!

YOU good citizen have a serious advantage over those who don’t read this column and don’t look beyond the MSM for answers.

What you know that most people don’t is that the rug will eventually be pulled out from under the charade we call civilization…

Yes, people will still be, I want to say ‘surprised’ but the actual reaction will be much closer to ‘shocked’ that they have been ‘wiped out’ without recourse.

As I have pointed out repeatedly, there’s no place to run and no place to hide, the ‘global economy’ is being held together with spit and baling wire, which won’t last long.

I’ll be surprised if we make it past mid-summer (given the situation in the EU.) but we, as a civilization, are definitely ‘toast’ shortly after cold weather returns.

There are going to be some mighty big ‘bonfires’ on the first night temperatures dip below freezing.

Speaking of fires, has anyone else noticed how the West keeps catching on fire every summer?

Well, before global warming this was blamed on ‘The War in the West’.

Is ‘A’ feeding ‘B’? I dunno but I suspect there’s more to it than just ‘abnormal dryness.’

Just as I have sworn off dwelling on the, er, ‘intelligence deficit’ I think it would be frugal to go back to the ‘silence is golden’ rule as far as the ongoing nature of the collapse of civilization.

It is a difficult subject to discuss rationally because people are unable to wrap their heads around the idea. They don’t understand that the ‘mundane, boob-proofed’ social functions will keep going long after there is a reason to keep doing those tasks.

And as long as they see those ‘familiar functions’ being performed, the collapse of civilization will remain ‘unreal’ to them.

Maybe it will take aliens parking their spaceships in the middle of the interstate to convince them that our social model is FUBAR!

Naturally, one must be careful what one wishes for…we just might get it!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner