Saturday, December 31, 2011

Interesting New Year!

Greetings good citizen,

Well, here we are again, another year older and not a single wit wiser (not to mention that most of us are a good deal poorer…)

The NY Times tells us that Wall Street finished the year pretty much in the same place it started yet Mr. Williams of Shadow stats fame provides us with this indisputable data

No. 410: Special Commentary, GAAP-Based 2011 U.S. Financial Data 
December 28th, 2011

Actual 2011 Federal Deficit Topped $5.0 Trillion

U.S. Government Debt and Obligations Top $80 Trillion

Long-Term U.S. Insolvency/Hyperinflation Remain Virtual Certainty

As usual, the, er, ‘disturbing’ portion of the commentary has been served up last.

Yes good citizen, despite strident claims to the contrary, the very real threat of ‘Hyper-inflation’ continues to haunts us.

Libertarians like Mish Shedlock still point to ‘deflation’ as the devil haunting our tracks yet there has NEVER, (like not even once) been an instance where prices dropped so low that commerce ceased to function.

But that’s a ‘misleading’ description of deflation…

What these ‘serious people’ are warning us of is the ‘drying up’ of credit!

The thinking here is you simply won’t have the money to purchase staples AT ANY PRICE.

This decidedly twisted way of viewing things ignores the same factor ‘gold bugs’ routinely ignore.

The ONLY reason people pay the ‘asking price’ for anything is because it is cheaper than the price of simply taking it.

Right now, as in at this very second, the blunted and stubby ‘arm of the law’ is likely to reach out and slap you should you decide to take the more ‘economical route’ while shopping.

But in the not too distant future you will become the law…more disturbingly, EVERYBODY will become their own personal ‘law enforcement’ unit.

And there will be no, er, ‘arbiters’ of right and wrong…the winners of these disputes will be the quickest on the draw (as well as the most ruthless in ‘target selection’.)

Did I mention ‘Happy New Year’ yet?

I didn’t think so, despite it already being declared that 2011 was a ‘bad year’…

Funny we are only hearing this now, at the end of the first year where they stopped claiming there was an (imaginary) recovery underway!

Oh, and that it was not merely ‘billions’ pumped into the fraudulent banking system but trillions!

Conservatives were upset enough over the 700 billion that their last sitting president tossed at the banks. Where is their outrage at this figure mushrooming by a factor of 35?

More disturbingly, this was done by a conservative central bank head!

(But, naturally, that has nothing to do with anything…)

Which draws us back to our original topic…which was the inevitable collapse of the global financial system.

What? You didn’t get that out of Mr. Williams brief commentary?

Like my humble self, Mr. Williams is unable to provide us with the ‘exact date’ (although I’ll stick my neck out and predict it will happen before next summer! A ‘prediction’ that has absolutely nothing to so with the Mayan long count calendar.)

Those bold enough to click through the ‘adult content’ firewall should hold few illusions about how the world operates and who is in charge of it.

But I’m ‘projecting’ again, am I not?

What I admire the most about you, gentle reader, is that you are no fool!

Thanks for keeping it real!

I’d like to take this opportunity to wish you an ‘interesting’ New Year…and it’s always interesting if you know what you’re looking at!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Thursday, December 29, 2011

There and back again...

Greetings good citizen,

Apparently the thinking is you have to be unemployed to even go looking for the ‘help wanted’ listings…and believe me when I tell you, you have to really ‘hunt’ for them in the only place they don’t ‘back up’ (in your local newspaper. Online job postings are eternal in our capitalist fuck you, pay me ethic.)

So a lower level of new claims tells us what?

Only that they are done throwing people out the nearest window…for now.

And, traditionally, it is considered ‘poor taste’ to jettison the baggage during the holiday season.

The only useful thing to come out of ‘A Christmas Carol’ is a palpable fear that the three ghosts wait to this day to ‘treat’ their next victim…

And at least some of these would be ‘Scrooges’ might be reluctant to relive the tyrannies of Christmas past…nor would they be eager to preview what the Spirit of Christmas yet to come may reveal!

So the answer is ‘no’, a reduction in lay-offs during the ‘Holiday Season’ is actually fairly ‘typical’.

Making it difficult to classify this offering. One thing is certain, it is definitely ‘Happy Talk’…

US unemployment claims rise after steady declines

December 29, 2011 — WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits rose last week after three weeks of declines to a level consistent with modest gains in hiring.

But broader trend over the past month suggests job growth could pick up in the new year. Weekly applications increased by 15,000 to a seasonally adjusted 381,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. Still, the four-week average, a less volatile measure, dropped for the fourth straight week to 375,000. That's the lowest level since June 2008.

Applications generally must fall below 375,000 — consistently — to signal that hiring is strong enough to reduce the unemployment rate. While layoffs have fallen sharply since the recession officially ended two and a half years ago, many companies have been slow to add jobs.

Still, hiring has improved in recent months. Employers have added an average of 143,000 net jobs a month from September through November. That's almost double the average for the previous three months.

There is NO CORRELATION between falling new claims and ‘rising’ anything!

Worse, they have the workforce figures so distorted that is masks 50% of the unemployed!

Why do they do this?

If the public were aware of how badly capitalism is failing they would DEMAND a replacement!

But the working public is, er, ‘unaware’ of their good fortune (and nobody dares to point it out.)

Sure, they hear how lucky they are to have a job all the time…what they don’t know is there are more than six workers for every job in global marketplace!

Only a handful of these jobs require prior experience in the given field. A couple of weeks of ‘hands on’ in most jobs is enough to fill 99% of ALL job requirements…kinda adding mightily to the ‘lucky’ factor. (In many cases you COULD be replaced by a chimp! The only thing saving your sorry ass is chimps can‘t talk.)

Naturally, there is another factor that doesn’t garner much attention in the press and oddly they aren’t trying to keep it secret and that’s the constant consolidation of market share around the globe.

That is how they keep their figures rising when every thing else is falling.

There’s a slightly larger overall market (driven solely by population growth) while there is a steady decline in the number of ‘competitors’ for what markets remain.

This is yet another way to disguise the corrosive effects of globalization and its perverted cousin, the global race to the bottom.

Sadly, if people were paying attention, they might have noticed that the one percent has stolen their children’s future (and left an economic wasteland in its place.)

Ironically, as we are soon to relearn, ‘redundancy is GOOD!’

In an energy scarce future 6,000 mile long supply chains will be unthinkable and sole sourcing will become a defacto crime!

Nobody can live in an ‘economic desert’ nor should anyone be forced to try…(IF they’re not a criminals!)

In a ‘sustainable’ future all supply lines will be as short as possible. If quality considerations dictate that only a certain type of resource is suitable, then those products will be produced as close as practical to that source.

Shipping stuff half way around the planet and back was never a ‘practical’ idea. The bastards who deliberately destroyed our economy (s) knew that (although China is notoriously ‘resource poor’…)

I’m guessing the plan is to secure sources closer to China as the pressure to shorten supply lines builds.

And that may well be the trigger we continue to squeeze, good citizen.

As the cost of shipping goods half-way around the planet and back again becomes prohibitive, the ‘problem’ of being unable to make it ourselves will truly become ‘our problem’…

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Cracked skulls

Greetings good citizen,

Markets are down…it appears they have run out of (fabricated) ‘good news’. Um despite markets being down oil is back over $100 a barrel and we can only wonder what this portends.

I’d opine this will be part of the ‘bag of tricks’ they’re holding in reserve for when the grand jury starts inquiring about, er, ‘irregularities’.

Which is to say we are NOT running out of oil (yet), we have merely exhausted the easy to reach and refine stuff.

The ‘problem’ we are facing is the exponentially increasing number of ‘end-users’, in that respect the oil that remains will not last long.

So the price increases we have seen are, at the moment, more indicative of the added expense to refine than of a supply shortage.

Shift mental gears with me as we explore the machinations of the guilty as they lose there struggle to avoid prosecution.

Often times I use the link provided by CKM but it was his commentary that inspired my selection of today’s piece. (The bullet titled ‘Borrowed’)

I wanted to provide credit where (to me) credit is truly due.

Borrowed: Here's a middle of the road set of predictions for 2012's economic, political and social adventures. Pessimism abounds. And that's among the optimists. I'd only add that things can appear deceptively close. Social upheaval may take some time. Wall Street bankers and their European cousins can kick the can a few more times before we all end up in the gutter. All the bad stuff will probably happen ,just not as quickly as some expect.

As you can observe, it is the last line that catches your attention.

Why haven’t half of the ‘bad things’ that are going to happen not happened yet?

In some cases the answer is they have…but the event was successfully camouflaged by the corporate owned media, in other cases we can only assume the public hasn’t gotten riled up enough to go head to head with the authorities.

But, as CK opines, the bad stuff WILL happen…just not as soon as you think…and by the time they ADMIT a majority of the general public no longer supports the current government…but the corporate owned media will continue to downplay this aspect of what, by then, will be open revolt.

Anyway, unmentioned by CKM is the ‘being held in reserve’ aspect of many of the trauma’s the criminals intend to inflict upon a stunned public.

Worse, if public outrage erupts in, er, ‘impromptu executions’ the criminals may ‘pull the trigger’ early to buy themselves more ‘run away time’.

Now, if you don’t think they have any ammo, think again!

These shiftless bastards have the power (and, in my opinion, the intent) to scuttle the entire global banking system on a moments notice.

Now turn your thoughts toward the dimwits YOU report to…

Not exactly your ’outside the box’ thinkers, are they?

Worse, they most often can be found clinging to the box, muttering the instructions to themselves like that alone would somehow correct the problem all by itself.

This is what dooms us good citizen, suffering the incompetent to maintain their grip on power.

Once these people find themselves on their own they will keep doing what they’ve always done, hoping against hope that it will (miraculously) work just one more time!

There’s a rather insidious reason why most command hierarchies are packed with incompetents, it is done to insure AGAINST ‘independent action’…

In fact they PREFER people who call to verify EVERYTHING before they commit to anything. It may be annoying BUT it dramatically reduces ‘unpleasant surprises’.

It also serves the useful purpose of guaranteeing total chaos once the information flow these ‘stuffed shirts’ are so reliant on ceases.

What’s that? You have a ‘competent boss’?

How much ‘latitude’ does he have in the decision-making process? Usually the competent are relegated to jobs where their latitude is very limited.

He may enjoy ‘total control’ over his immediate workforce and he also has the freedom to execute assignments as he sees fit…but he probably doesn’t have ‘budget autonomy’, he’s told what he can spend, when…and on what.

Likewise, he knows just how far he can fudge his expense report. It may ‘Look Like’ he’s running his own show but the reality is he’s on a ‘short leash’.

When the bastards ‘pull the trigger’ guys with enough moxie to make decisions on their own will be ‘dismissed’ without notice…or severance for that matter.

Which is to point out that the situation will be mighty desperate by then, almost every light post will have a criminal swinging from it.

And it won’t be a big stretch to connect the missing order givers from the resultant chaos…but it is a necessary evil, a purge that MUST happen.

Which only goes to show you that there ain’t no ‘peaceful’ (or easy) way to remake a civilization.

Shamefully, I have to admit that in order to remake the world, cracking a few skulls is unavoidable!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Clearance Sale!

Greetings good citizen,

It appears the market tickers are out of whack (but how do we tell?) They had the date right but the clock indicated it was already 2:35 in the afternoon! (and this was before the open!)

But that is not today’s topic, today’s offering comes to us straight from the headlines of today’s NY Times

Naturally, whenever you see a ‘this isn’t new or news’ item, we are compelled to ask why this and why now?

Largely insulated from the country’s economic downturn since 2008, members of Congress — many of them among the “1 percenters” denounced by Occupy Wall Street protesters — have gotten much richer even as most of the country has become much poorer in the last six years, according to an analysis by The New York Times based on data from the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit research group.

Congress has never been a place for paupers. From plantation owners in the pre-Civil War era to industrialists in the early 1900s to ex-Wall Street financiers and Internet executives today, it has long been populated with the rich, including scions of families like the Guggenheims, Hearsts, Kennedys and Rockefellers.

But rarely has the divide appeared so wide, or the public contrast so stark, between lawmakers and those they represent.

Well, ‘the divide‘, which has been growing steadily for the past few decades, has become more stark partly because the rich have indeed been getting richer and mostly because the poor have been getting considerably poorer.

Worse, the ‘bar’ for entry into the, er, ‘public arena’ has also risen at an alarming rate. The merely ‘well-to-do’ can no longer, er, ‘afford’ to mount a campaign, much less buy a seat on an influential committee if elected!

Politics have indeed long been the preserve of the ‘idle rich’.

Thus has ‘leadership’ been lacking for so long.

To give you an idea of how bad it has gotten good citizen, Connecticut has long enjoyed the status of having the highest per capita income of any state in the nation…but not anymore.

Recently it has come to light that there is a place where the per capita income dwarfs that of Connecticut…but it’s not a state!

So this, er, disparity may have existed for quite some time…

Can you guess which, er, ‘district’ has snatched the crown from Connecticut, home of hedge fund Billionaires and other Wall Street tycoons?

Correct good citizen, the enchanted district that contains ‘K Street’ has snatched the crown from the desert state of Connecticut.

What Connecticut isn’t in a desert?

The fuck it ain’t!

The biggest employer in the state is Stop & Shop!

Not that the rich give a shit about that! They don’t do their own grocery shopping…

Unlike the vast majority of us…although these days, more and more of us are purchasing our necessities from the local dollar store!

Makes you wonder what places like Stop & Shop are going to do when we are all reduced to buying pet food with our food stamps?

But it stands to reason that we’ll all have bigger things to worry about if it comes to that.

So, we have rich politicians AND a ‘leaderless’ world…how the fuck did that happen?

Aren’t the wealthy ‘natural leaders’?

Apparently not.

Doing what’s good for you often involves doing what’s not so good for a bunch of other people…but you aren’t gonna stay rich if you aren’t willing to, er, ‘crack a few skulls, I mean eggs!

So we return to the very limited pool our politicians are drawn from. Sure, on occasion some rich bastard will stake a poor man’s run for office but this is done as a ‘spoiler’, it is not done out of any sense of civic pride or a genuine desire for ‘honest government’ (despite robust claims to the contrary.)

It might fairly be said that the current incumbent is a fair example of this ‘spoiler’ in action. Give the public what they want but then tie his hands behind his back once he’s in office!

This tactic has made the public wary of what is now viewed as a ‘puppet government’, the ballot box has never been more suspect than it is today.

Which returns us to our original question…why point to corrupt politicians now?

Are they trying to focus our attention on the futility of changing anything while politicians and the system used to elect them are on sale cheap?

Or are they attempting to ‘deflect’ some of the hostility currently aimed at the financial community by pointing at their ‘enablers’?

There can be no doubt that our legislators are just as guilty as the finance boys…who are just as guilty as those who employ them!

Which only re-enforces my cry that we need to redefine the term criminal.

Justice disappears when criminals get to decide what is and what isn’t ‘just’.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Monday, December 26, 2011

Sameness

Greetings good citizen,

Despite my gloomiest prognostications it seems we have survived yet another year (with our communications grid intact, many will ‘survive’ the collapse of civilization brought on by the collapse of global banking.)

So when I say we survived, I mean our ability to personally share our observations survived.

When we are plunged into a world of rumors and hearsay we will long for the days when the Corporate media at least colluded regarding what the ‘official lie’ was. My first novel is centered on what living in this type of ‘informational void’ would be like.

(Jeez, take a day off and your focus goes straight to hell!)

Anyway, it is coming up on time to reflect on the year almost past, and what a year it has been.

Once again a war has ended (but a military ‘presence’ will likely persist for decades.)

It is perhaps more remarkable to comment on the multitude of things that DIDN’T happen.

Let’s start with after four years of political frustration, the alleged winners of the last presidential election have failed to recruit a stronger candidate…although, pathetically, the so-called ‘opposition’ continues to suffer from a curious mixture of schizophrenia and failure to launch…

Then there’s the ‘elephant in the room’ of a failed economy that nobody has done anything to correct…(except throw trillions in ‘free money’ at the banking system…which the shameless bastards turn around and use to award themselves billions in ‘bonuses’.)

Perhaps the root of this dilemma lies with the concept of when a bonus is due…someone needs to stand up and patiently explain to the bankers that it isn’t proper to reward failure/incompetence.

Naturally, it is difficult (if not impossible) to explain anything to the ‘Masters of the Universe’…

Sadly, this is a beast of the 1%’s making…

When ‘bonuses’ are in fact ‘hush money’ it certainly makes things look bad…but such is the level of decay in our society.

And speaking of which, nothing has been done to reverse the debilitating effects of globalization, a, er, ‘policy/methodology’ that ONLY BENEFIT’S THE OWNERS OF COMMERCE!

This variety of ‘stick ‘em up’ capitalism MUST stop or our civilization will be utterly destroyed!

And the above phrase is not intended to imply that a ‘benign’ form of capitalism even exists, all capitalism is predatory!

It is amazing to me that nobody acknowledges that the ‘true profit’ of commerce is life itself! Equating everything in dollars and cents is both meaningless as it is useless!

What needs to be done will still need to be done regardless of if anyone pays you to do it.

Worse, are those who use price as a barrier to responsible behavior!

We have no money to pay teachers but there is plenty of money to fight senseless, er, ‘police actions’ that cost the taxpayers trillions while not making us even a tiny bit ‘safer’.

There is no money to pay workers a living wage (which would boost the overall economy) but price is no object when it comes to a security apparatus that tracks our every move…

And this isn’t a problem that is ‘exclusive’ to the US…

The misappropriation of there being NO funds to improve society but unlimited funds to oppress it is a recipe for revolution…

And THAT good citizen is something else that HASN’T changed!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Saturday, December 24, 2011

Holiday mystery

Greetings good citizen,

The Dow tacked on more than 400 points this week as the collapse of the Euro-zone disappeared from public notice (thanks to the corporate owned media.)

(Advertising is supposed to HELP sales! So warnings of eminent financial collapse are somewhat counter-productive to that goal…)

How sad is it that the public consciousness resembles that of an infant in situations like this? To a baby, you literally ‘disappear’ whenever you leave their line of sight. You’d think we would outgrow this physics problem as we age but no. If a given topic drops out of the news cycle we have a disturbing tendency to ‘automatically assume’ the problem has, er, ‘disappeared’/gone away.

How, er, ‘shocked’ will people be when the Euro-crisis returns, still in full blossom after the beginning of the New Year?

More, er, ‘mystifying’ is the sudden reappearance of ‘Happy Talk’ as we close out the year just past.

We were headed for a face-plant just a month ago…now (and for no discernable reason) we are being bombarded with reports of ‘green shits shoots’ popping up economy wide.

Admittedly, many of these reports actually forewarn of ‘bad news’ but they are being reported in the best possible light!

Yes, the ship is still sinking…but the angle the ship is listing as it sinks provides for near perfect sun tanning!

Or the reports go to the other extreme as Mr. Williams so effectively debunks:

No. 409: Revised GDP, November Durable Goods, New Home Sales December 23rd, 2011

GDI Indicates No U.S. Economic Growth in Either Second- or Third-Quarter

2011 Durable Goods Orders and New Home Sales Show Stagnation

Treasury Releases 2011 GAAP-Based Financial Report on U.S. Government  More ...

No. 408: November Housing Starts and Existing Home Sales December 21st, 2011

3.5 Million Home Sales Just Disappeared
Housing Starts Still Bottom Bouncing More ...

No. 407: November CPI, PPI, Real Retail Sales Industrial Production December 16th, 2011

Consumer Financial Distress Hampered Retail Sales and Production

Nonsensical Hype Over Regularly Mis-Adjusted Jobless Claims

High Oil Prices Still Inflating Broad Economy November’s Annual Inflation: 3.4% (CPI-U), 3.8% (CPI-W), 11.0% (SGS)

Gold Remains the Ultimate Hedge

Um, considering how we are all prone to react to the last item we have read I will once again ’opine’ that gold isn’t worth the powder to blow it to kingdom come!

You can neither eat it, wear it (to keep you warm) nor fashion weapons from it. Besides being corrosion resistant (and relatively scarce) it is otherwise useless.

Guess what? Once the ‘paper currencies’ gold is valued in collapse, the value of gold itself essentially drops to zero!

What are you going to trade it for and more importantly, with whom?

Anybody (stupid enough) to actually want heavy yellow metal that needs 24/7 protection is likely just as inclined to kill you for it than to trade something of value for it…which is, sadly, how most gold changes hands.

One owner cheats/murders the other…over essentially useless yellow ore!

But I digress…save but to caution you that should you happen upon a cache of gold in your travels, you’re better off ignoring it…life is too precious!

Unless your hoard of followers wants to spend hours of their otherwise uneventful lives fighting off assorted pirates and sneaks, keeping the cache ‘safe’ until an overwhelming force arrives to relieve you of the responsibility…

Just saying, ya know?

It is amazing sometimes how deeply engrained certain myths become in a society.

Especially those surrounding wealth and power.

What a bonanza for a religion to brainwash the people into thinking it was ‘their’ god that chose/ ‘sent’ the people’s leader!

We can only wonder how many civilizations regretted accumulating large caches of gold that in turn , er, ‘lured’ large armies to lay waste to their cities?

The Roman Legions traveled (and conquered) the known world for ‘plunder’.

It is utterly ironic this was done over an essentially useless mineral.

‘Shiny’ isn’t something you want to die for but countless million have!

As we can see, the ‘statistics’ without the spin are pretty bleak.

Just because ‘new claims’ for unemployment are falling doesn’t by any stretch of the imagination mean that the job market is improving!

They are, in fact, two separate factors, totally unrelated to one another!

(And yes, I know you knew that but it makes me feel better belaboring the obvious, which I do constantly.)

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Er, Happy Holidays, folks!

Friday, December 23, 2011

In Your Best Interests...

Greetings good citizen,

As the end of the year looms larger we find ourselves stuck in an overly optimistic rut. Who want to contemplate the unraveling of civilization at this time of year?

Thus today’s narrative is pretty much the same as yesterday’s.

A spate of better-than-expected economic reports has spurred growing talk of a U.S. recovery. In fact, many observers are convinced that the post-crisis low is in, and that it's onward and upward from here. One problem with this view, however, is that some of the data we are getting is not all that accurate, as I noted in "More of Less." Perhaps more importantly, the headline statistics don't  necessarily tell the whole story (as I alluded to in "Thinking Like a Bull"). This seems particularly true when it comes to getting an accurate read on supply-and-demand, which ultimately determines future economic trends. In many areas of the economy, there is a large overhang of prospective supply that can quickly come to market if things suddenly perk up. Such a dynamic tends to keep a lid on prices and turnover, nipping nascent recoveries in the bud. The following reports highlight four markets in particular where growth-stumping supply lurks in the shadows:

I suspect most of us are inclined to chalk up investor’s ‘irrational exuberance’ as a ‘side-effect’ of Holiday merry-making.

Perhaps they honestly believe that driving the markets higher is the only thing needed to lift the sagging spirits of the outsourced, rousing them to go out and ‘spend like it was 1999 again!’

The gaping hole in the above line of, er, ‘fantasy’ is that investors are ‘rational’.

Anyone who thinks the investing community is ‘rational’ needs THEIR head examined!

Although I would stop just short of giving Wall Street a pass by reason of insanity…

Bump and Stump are totally aware of what they’re doing despite their whole-hearted belief in the War on Christmas.

Which is to point out that you can be ‘fully immersed’ in a fantasy and still behave rationally.

There are numerous historical precedents…

And Historians will point to the one that currently envelops Western society as one of the most glaring examples, driven by deep rooted denial.

Which brings us to another disturbing subject, the level of denial necessary to keep us functioning under the strains of a collapsing society.

You have to swallow all of your hopes and aspirations, accepting hopelessness in their place just for starters!

You have already accepted that YOU will NOT succeed, that the most you can hope for is to hold onto what you currently have.

Since few of us ever bother to perform a simple, honest inventory of our blessings, some of you have a rather inflated idea of what you currently possess.

All so someone else can be rich.

Sadly that is the part most people overlook, their efforts do the purchasers of their labor more good than they do for themselves.

And all your money won’t another second buy!

How stark a light does that cast upon the fragile web of lies that make up most of our existence?

Ironically, perfection is merely a matter of shifting the goalposts in the proper direction.

Something that a Simple Plan strives to do.

It just struck me that our collective ‘major malfunction’ is that YOU DON’T KNOW what is ‘good for you’, so you believe what someone else tells you! (regardless of how implausible it is!)

You ‘buy into the lie’ because your parents did, because it was ‘safer’ than the truth.

No irony should be lost on the fact that the worst offenders as far as this ‘collective ignorance’ goes are the followers of Adam Smith!

They are taught to believe that ‘accumulating money’ is THE ONLY THING NECESSARY to satisfy their ‘rational self-interests’…

But they don’t control money’s value nor do they control the value of what money will and won’t buy!!!

Only a few get to play at that level and those few have the rest of us ‘by the shorthairs!’

Just another little something to contemplate when your eggnog saturated noggin starts to spin out of control.

Oh, and in case you didn’t pick up on it back there, you (as well as the collective ‘we’) are so tantalizingly close to waking up and shifting the goalposts back towards the correct direction that it’s absolutely mind-boggling!

Understand good citizen, your ‘best interests’ lie in a world where all things ARE equal and ‘justice for all’ insures that nobody takes advantage of you because ‘the law’ permits it.

So good citizen, do you know what is in your best interests?

If you do then you know going along with the current bullshit isn’t it.

And if you’re honest you know it doesn’t lie some imaginary, non-existent, make-believe past that only exists in a conservative's imagination.

It lies in a future where a united humanity takes its rightful place among the stars!

None of us will ever see it if we can’t get beyond this ‘me first’ bullshit!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Chumped

Greetings good citizen,

Markets are up this morning in the usual game of ‘hot potato’ the media uses to keep track of the economy.

If you wonder ‘who is buying is this whacko market’ it is most likely YOU.

You are still contributing to your retirement account, aren’t you?

Could it be that only the top 5% is responsible for the erratic action in the stock markets over the past 5 years?

They’re probably the only ones (still) contributing to a retirement plan after everybody else got burned by the fraud that was Enron.

Speaking of fraud, what’s up with this bull shit?

Or more pointedly, what the fuck are these morons smoking?

At stake is about $150 billion, the bulk of which would go to middle-class families and the unemployed. If Congress does not pass the measures, economists say, it would significantly weaken growth from already-damped levels anticipated early in the new year.

“Unfortunately, I think we’re going to see a slowdown over the course of next year,” Ethan Harris, co-head of global economics research at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, told reporters last week. “Not only do we have the European crisis spilling over and hurting U.S. trade and confidence,” he said, but the United States economy also faces “homegrown shocks.”

There are two reasons for the renewed pessimism. First, economists say that temporary trends increased growth in the fourth quarter and may not continue into next year. Second, the economy faces significant headwinds in 2012: some from Europe’s long-lingering sovereign debt crisis, and some from domestic cutbacks beyond the control of President Obama, whose campaign would like to point to a brightening economic picture, not a darkening one. Even the Federal Reserve is predicting that the unemployment rate will remain around 8.6 percent by the time voters go to the polls in November.

Hard to say good citizen which ‘variety’ of happy talk I find more offensive, articles like this that admit up front the figures are ‘distorted’ (and therefore useless) or the type that is totally baseless (which is to say ‘an opinion’, at best.)

Just because YOU’RE, er, ‘Happy’ doesn’t mean it will make me happy too!

(This is even less likely if you were ‘paid’ to share your ‘happy thoughts’ and those happy thoughts first had to ‘pass muster’ with a clueless editor!)

We’re all supposed to be, er, ‘relieved’ that new claims for unemployment have finally stopped rising.

And most of us would agree ‘it’s about time!’

But if the last two ‘jobless recoveries’ are any indication it only means we have, for the moment, caught up with an ever descending ‘floor’.

Why do I say ‘ever descending’? Because they are still off-shoring jobs, that’s what happens when you keep writing new free trade agreements.

Which is to ask, ‘Why do YOU think the (so-called) experts believe the recent spate of economic ‘good news’ is a ‘false dawn’?

Little did Japan suspect when it opined the ‘Business is war’ that they’d end up losing to the capitalists (again.)

Once again the Corporate owned media ignores the FACT that the labor force today is smaller than it was in 2000.

But they probably don’t want to have to explain how THAT happened…

Remember, Globalization = Good (for the owners of product manufacturers, not for consumers!) The ‘cost savings’ come entirely from what they DON’T pay the employees!

Trade Protectionism = Bad (Because it frees up an otherwise captive audience!)

Which is to point out heaven help us all if we ever discover another planet capable of supporting our species or how the ‘expense’ of space travel will become trivial compared to the benefits ‘raped’ from a helpless consumer!

How useful is it to our oppressors that our media is subservient and our people are, er, ‘gullible’?

No irony should be lost on the fact that the so-called experts are the ones whose elevator doesn’t go all the way to the top!

Worse, most of them are told what to think/believe.

Which explains why most people’s eyes glaze over the moment they are told they are about to hear ‘expert testimony’.

There is only one ‘expert’ and even he is a work of ‘fiction’.

And the TV just confirmed the above statement, the Dow, as of noon-time, is up 41 points.

Although that certain fictions do have beneficial aspects to them…

So, good citizen…you KNOW this isn’t ‘over’ by a long shot, in that respect, the, er, ‘experts’ are right.

The latest batch of heavily massaged data is meaningless as far as what comes next is concerned.

And what IS coming next, good citizen as we pass the one year mark in the Mayan calendar countdown to destruction?

It’s still a little to ‘muddy’ to tell with any certainty if I’ll still be predicting the end this time next year.

So far the infamous ‘they’ have kept it glued together better than anyone would have thought. (extending unemployment for a record 99 weeks went a long ways towards making this possible!)

But we are approaching the fourth year of an economy almost entirely supported by the ‘public teat’…how much longer will we be able to ‘tread water’?

Ironically the answer is ‘infinitely’ if they can only dig up a justification to keep paying unemployment benefits forever!

(Remember, all money is, in the final analysis, ‘funny’!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

(Post script: Okay, I can’t leave you hanging with an ‘all money is funny’ but the system is going to collapse anyway without providing a reason.

Ironically, it all comes back to the ‘chump factor’. Why work if you can get the milk for free, right?

BUT, if nobody works there won’t be anything to ‘get’, so how do you, er, ‘justify’ an environment where only a few carry the rest of us?

Do we make ‘work’ the sole domain of criminals [meaning only lawbreakers are required to work?] That isn’t a good idea because most criminals turn outlaw for the reason that it is a lot less ‘work’ for a far greater ‘reward’.

Extending unemployment ‘indefinitely’ would create a logjam of people trying NOT to be ‘chumped’.

If MOST people got there’s for nothing, those who were constrained to putting up with the boss’s useless grief a dozen hours a day would cease putting in the necessary effort, causing production AND quality to fall precipitously.

This is why under A Simple Plan EVERYBODY is guaranteed a job, because we ALL bear the load, ‘equally’. [And if you don’t want to, you will be left ‘on the outside looking in’ which is another way of saying ‘exiled’.]

That said, we are only just beginning to see the effects of ultra-extended unemployment can have on those, er, ‘lucky’ enough to hold onto their jobs…

Or are they the chumps?

Time will tell.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Instant Recovery

Greetings good citizen,

As one might have expected, today’s markets aren’t anywhere near as ‘robust’ as yesterdays. Seems almost ALL of the ‘month over month’ gain in the housing market was ‘rentals’ (which aren’t the same kind of ‘economic driver’ that single family homes are.)

Silly (nearly 400 point) ‘mistake’, eh?

How sad is it that Wall Street is too chicken shit to come out and admit yesterday’s rally was purely a show of support for the Tea Party?

Because if the sleaze-balls DID admit that they drove up their personal wealth by 400 points over the scuttling of the middle class tax cut, Manhattan would be a cinder this morning.

Better the ‘fairy tale’ about housing…

But wait! Is that another ‘green shoot’ popping up over there?

Stock Buybacks Rise for 9th Consecutive Quarter



BOSTON (AP) — America's biggest corporations continued to spend more money on stock repurchases in the third quarter, with buybacks rising 49 percent compared with a year ago.

Standard & Poor's on Wednesday said stock repurchases by companies in the S&P 500 totaled $118 billion in the July-September period. That's up from nearly $80 billion in last year's third quarter. Buybacks also rose compared with this year's second quarter.

Exxon Mobil Corp. was the company that spent the most on buybacks at $5.5 billion.
Buybacks have increased each quarter since the second quarter of 2009, when the financial crisis sent buyback spending down to $24 billion.

Buybacks reward investors by increasing the value of remaining shares, and per-share earnings results. Shares are taken off the market, and earnings are divided among fewer shares.

How’s that for an ‘economic recovery’ without investing a cent or increasing the labor force? All you have to do is reduce the number of outstanding shares and you’re instantly ‘profitable’!

This tactic also produces marvelous CEO bonuses too!

I need not detail the ‘red flag danger’ this presents to our floundering civilization. It is exemplary of the False economy the ‘one percent’ has been passing off as ‘proof of prosperity’ for decades now.

An economy built on ‘creative accounting’ will collapse…eventually.

And the bad news is, we have arrived at that tipping point, the one where all of the lies become transparent.

Perhaps we can belabor the obvious and invoke that old ‘third time is the charm’ axiom as it appears the third consecutive ‘jobless recovery’ is trying to tell us something.

Which is to point out that after the bastards shrink government down to the size where it can be drown in a bathtub…there will be nobody around to defend you.

And guess who is the next one in line for the ‘bathtub treatment’?

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

It's A Miracle!

Greetings good citizen…

May I begin with a mighty WTF happened on Wall Street yesterday? Bad enough we all suspect these robbers of making it up as they go along without the they’re throwing it in our faces!

Although, I strongly suspect yesterday’s ‘inexplicable’ rally was Wall Street signaling their ‘approval’ of the House Tea Party Republican’s efforts to torpedo the so-called ‘middle class tax cut’.

I mean they really turned the old ‘excuse shirt’ inside out scrounging up rationalizations for the unimaginable.

Many analysts also noted that wild swings were a predictable feature of the end of the year as managers balanced under-performing elements in their portfolios at a time of low trading volume. And even after an impasse over extending a payroll tax cut was announced Tuesday in Washington, the markets held on to their gains.

“The market just seems to have no memory from one day to the next,” Mr. Flam said. “To drive a move of this magnitude, you would expect there to be some sort of resolution on the bigger-picture issues.”

Even more ‘humorous’ (with a ten year overhang in the housing market) was the, er, ‘assertion’ that the because ‘housing starts’ were ‘up’…

Naturally, building more houses in an environment where nobody is buying them is, er, sheer stupidity more commonly associated with being ‘optimistic beyond belief.’

This is ‘Flipper’ paying all outdoors for a foreclosed property only to find out nobody can afford to rent it off of him.

We have a name for idiots like that…we call them bankrupt.

BUT you’re supposed to believe these so-called investors are acting ‘rationally’!

Worse, you’re supposed to think the fucking economy is ‘on the mend’…

Don’t you wonder what happened to all of those ‘green shoots’ from three years ago?

When you know as well as I that absolutely nothing has been done to straighten out the economy.

Which is something else that was rolling around in the back of my mind today…

It’s been a while since I provided an outline of A Simple Plan.

In order to ‘fix’ the current predatory system we must first, er, ‘catalog’ what’s broken.

The biggest problem is the legal system, it is totally fubar BECAUSE it is ‘for profit’.

This is a glaring problem that nobody (in a position of power) acknowledges.

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

So if we are to achieve an approximation of equality the first thing to fix is the legal system and that entails everything from the courts to the government.

No more elections and by default, no more legislators (although we will still ‘vote’.) No more ‘judges’ as the laws will remain simple and few.

There’s more to it but you get the general idea and that is to place the laws we all must live under beyond the reach of the self-interested.

No legislators to be bought off means no more ‘self-exempting’ and no more bending the rules to fit the desired outcome.

Then there’s the, er, ‘purpose of civilization’ issue.

Did we band together to build a better life for ALL mankind or just the few greedy bastards that claim to ‘own’ what belongs to all of us?

What does the ‘one percent’ say? They say the US was founded on the principle of ‘the protection of property rights’.

This, unsurprisingly, is in direct conflict with the notion that this planet belongs to ALL of us.

Um, if we continue down this path then there are ‘owners’ and the rest of us, half ‘hired help and the rest are just useful idiots/squatters.

Um, NOBODY can produce a ‘genuine’ bill of sale from either ‘spirit in the sky’ or the next best thing, Mother Nature.

Ironically, ALL ‘bills of sale’ are traced back to this King or that Emperor, who had no more right to the land than the current, er, owners.

Isn’t it time we cut the bullshit and drop the ownership crap?

And why would we abandon ‘ownership?’

To straighten out the economy, of course!

End ‘private ownership’ and the resultant ‘income streams’ stop.

Which creates the ‘approximate equality’ we’re shooting for.

We all work and we all have the ability to support ourselves…which is more than we have now!

If you can’t make yourself ‘useful’ under ‘Fuck you, pay me’ capitalism it’s your problem!

Under A Simple Plan your ‘job’ is guaranteed. You’ll only work a few hours a day OR a few days a week as there are more workers than jobs, thus we will ‘share’ what labor there is while building a better life for us all.

Better, your ‘membership’ in society will be real (and valued!)

Since nobody can ‘line their pockets’ at your expense anymore, most of the necessities of life will be yours ‘free’.

Why won’t EVERYTHING be free?

Because there isn’t enough of EVERYTHING to go around (And not everybody WANTS the same things!)

You’ll be well paid for what you do BUT when you ‘spend’ your money, nobody gets it. It is simply erased.

Same thing happens when you die, you don’t ‘leave’ anything behind…your accumulated wealth is simply erased after you die.

Everybody makes their own way under A Simple Plan but under the plan EVERYBODY enjoys cradle to the grave security.

WITHOUT the ‘flim-flam fuckery’ like what happened in today’s stock markets!

A Simple Plan, an idea whose time has come!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

The Second Thing to Go...

Greetings good citizen,

I haven’t even looked at the stock markets this morning (and you know neither one of us is any worse the wear for it.) In fact, this is another one of those ‘once you find the right subject, the search stops…cold’ situations.

Er, the article itself only points to the topic I wish to discuss and most of the time ‘close enough’ is as good as it gets.

From fellow Doomsday author (yes good citizen, I have two [fiction] novels to my credit, both are themed on the collapse but I don’t use this site to promote them.) Mr. Panzer, we have this series of snippets:

"U.S. Economic Growth Seen Brighter into 2012" (Reuters)
The economy has probably picked up speed in the last few months and will grow moderately in 2012, staving off the need for additional stimulus from the Federal Reserve, a Reuters poll showed on Wednesday.

The euro zone's sovereign debt crisis is one of the biggest threats to growth next year as economists fear credit lines may freeze up. But the odds of the United States sliding into another recession were seen unchanged from last month.
Er, maybe not.

"UN Issues Dire Warning About World Economy" (Voice of America)
The U.N. Conference on Trade and Development says the outlook for the world economy is very bleak. UNCTAD warns Europe is facing a full-fledged recession next year, and the best the United States and Japan can look forward to is a period of stagnation.

"OECD Detects World Economy Slowing Down" (Agence France-Presse)
PARIS — Leading indicators all point to a slowdown in the world's major developed economies, the OECD said on Monday.

The composite index of leading indicators, designed to highlight turning points in performance, "point to a slowdown in economic activity in all major economies but with some variation" in individual countries, it said in a regular monthly report for December.

(Follow the link to read the rest…)


What we have here are a series of indicators that tell us the now 4 year old ‘economic downturn’ is getting worse instead of better.

Naturally, you already know this and you even have a good idea as to why…because nobody has done anything to correct the imbalances that brought the downturn upon us.
A few of you have even given the ‘why is this’ end of the puzzle a deal of consideration…but you didn’t like where it was going/taking you.

Worse, the ’justifications’ for this insane jihad against humanity is as simple as ‘maintaining power’.

No irony should be lost on the fact that the responsible party doesn’t need to personally ‘soil their hands’ with the defacto murder of millions, all they need to do is give their minions the nod and the ‘wannabes’ will take care of the rest.

But I digress.

What is the topic I’d like to bring to your attention today?

The ever popular LCD good citizen, the reason we do what we do (despite most of us taking it for granted…which isn’t necessarily ‘a bad thing’.)

Survival.

Some of you realize that the big guy down the street has ‘taken over’ the local watering hole and he’s started to put ‘the squeeze’ on some of the poorer, weaker users.

In some cases he just ‘turned his back’ (closed down the local plant) and walked away.

(No irony should be lost on the fact that this little act of treason was sanctioned by the US Supreme Court.)

It is situations like this that we are hit in the head with just how ‘delicate’ our link to survival really is.

You can’t just pick up your spear and head down to the local watering hole to wait for dinner to show up…because SOME IDIOT ‘owns’ the watering hole! (And he’ll have the cops throw your ass out!

Sadly, ‘the cops’ will likely grab you before you get there and grill you about being licensed (for the spear and to hunt…anything!)

Worse, heading for the ‘wilderness’ to take care of business won’t solve your problem either. As soon as some reports hearing shots fired, the cops in the boondocks will come sniffing around, asking the very same questions.

Ironically, the only ones who get a (semi) ‘free pass’ on the hunting thing are Native Americans. BUT they can only hunt ‘on the Reservation’ and wildlife isn’t stupid.

Which is to point out that it was only a brief period of time before there was NO game on the reservation.

Wildlife was ‘smart enough’ not to go there.

Well, you get the point. Besides, if it weren’t for the, er, ‘ranching’ of desirable species there wouldn’t be enough to go around.

Which should worry you all by itself.

Because the ‘end game’ will center on famine.

The first, er second thing to collapse will be the supply lines, the first thing to collapse will be the ‘value’ of money. (Which is to say the ‘value of money’ will fall into ‘doubt’, it is this ‘uncertainty’ that will cause supply lines to collapse.)

Understand good citizen, once the supply lines collapse the ONLY thing you will have to eat is whatever you can chase down and kill with a stick…as grim as that might seem.

To the ‘plus side’, this will more or less ‘instantly’ solve the problems our politicians are unable to address as Mr./Ms. ’Fuck you, pay me’ are told what they’ve been long overdue to hear…and that would be ‘go pound!’

Unfortunately, that will come as a small consolation when the worthless bastards are getting what they actually want, a vast reduction in the threat to their power.

When the biggest threat is due to their own mismanagement of the planet’s resources.

Ironically, you won’t be too keen to address this critical problem when your chasing down your next meal with a stick as you’ll be more than a little ‘pre-occupied’.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Monday, December 19, 2011

Season of Peace

Greetings good citizen,

Asian markets bled from the eye sockets overnight and their European counterparts followed suit…but (as usual) no sooner did the sun rise over Manhattan (to shine on ‘God’s country’) did the markets miraculously reverse direction.

For, once again, absolutely no reason.

But wait, the ‘investors’ among us march to the beat a ‘different drummer’; could this morning’s ‘rally’ be attributed to the joy they feel over there now being one less dictator on the payroll to worry about?

Since there truly is nothing for investors to take stock in, they are, by necessity, reduced to betting on the outcome of these ‘regime changes’.

But this is meaningless for the rest of us, back in the land of reality we have bigger problems to ponder.

There was an economic, er, ‘downturn’ after the US Civil war that lasted until the turn of the century.

While the parallels are ‘remarkable’, I personally ‘disagree’ with this, er, ‘rosy’ assessment that all will be well come 2031...

First, depressions can last a very long time, and when their origins are in a debt bubble they should be measured in decades not years. For a century or more, depressions have been relatively short, sharp episodes. They are like having a tooth pulled, rather than a chronic sickness — painful, but over quite quickly. But it doesn’t have to be that way. In the U.K., for example, this is already the longest recession since records began — in the sense that output is still below its 2008 peak. It is more enduring than the depression of the 1930s. That is true of many other countries, as well. If, as seems likely, Europe, and perhaps the U.S., slips back into recession in 2012, it will be clear to everyone we are witnessing something far longer than the conventional economic textbooks allow for.

Second, this depression is structural. The Long Depression of the 19th century had its roots in financial speculation, technological change, and the arrival of a massive new player in the global economy. Our current depression likewise has its roots in three huge crises coming together at the same time. We have a debt bubble that had been building up over three decade and which burst spectacularly in 2008. The dollar is in long-term decline as a reserve currency, and as the anchor for the global monetary system, but there is still not much sign of what will replace it. And in the euro, the biggest single economic bloc has created the most dysfunctional monetary system in human history, threatening financial collapses on an unprecedented scale. Think of it as the world economy’s suffering a heart attack, then a stroke, then getting picked up by an ambulance that crashes on the way to the hospital — it is hardly surprising the patient isn’t in good shape.

Three, it’s uneven. The Long Depression of the 19th century was a sustained period of lower growth compared with what came before and what came afterward. Germany, for example, grew 4.3% annually between 1850 and 1873 and then at 4.1% between 1896 and 1913. But in the Long Depression years, it only managed a growth rate of just over 2% a year. It was similar in other countries. The markets remained volatile, with repeated booms and busts, regularly collapsing back into recession. They did grow occasionally, just as Japan has sometimes grown in what is now its second decade of slump. But the growth is never sustained.

Yes good citizen, now Japan slips back into view. Two decades of economic stagnation and instead of pulling the number two economy in the world out of its funk, the rest of the world has slipped to join it in the economic quagmire of globalization.

Yet for some unknown reason…(like being instructed to specifically avoid mentioning it) both the (corporate owned) media and (corporate sanctioned) economists have failed to even nod in the general direction of the ‘Elephant in the room’.

Perhaps it is the Western predilection for ‘neat’ endings but you’ll note that the ‘end of the century’ has been reason enough to throw caution to the wind, creating monstrous economic cesspools that last until the middle of the next century…

But this time things have gone too far (and I’m pointing at ‘peak energy’!)

For many this would have been unthinkable only a few months ago. They had been cautioned and warned repeatedly, but chose to trust the financial system. And now they are suffering loss and anxiety, frozen assets, and the misappropriation of their wealth.

How more plainly can it be said? The US financial system as it now stands cannot be trusted to observe even the most basic property rights as it continues to unravel from a long standing culture of fraud.

Get your money as far away from Wall Street as is possible.  And if you want to own gold and silver, take delivery and store it in a secure private facility outside the fractional reserve system.

What does this brazen level of criminality have to do with ‘peak energy’?

Like all ‘end times’ scenarios, it fosters a WTF environment that is totally out of touch with, er, ’consequences’.

Worse, what do you do to someone that has come right out and told you, ’go ahead and kill me, we’re all gonna die anyway?’

Which, naturally, is one hundred percent incorrect.

In all scenarios (save the comet strike that brings on another ice age) there will be (human) ‘survivors’.

And it is likely there will be millions of survivors of an economic collapse despite the criminals worst efforts. (And you’d better believe they are trying to kill as many of us off as they can!)

Why people doubt this fact blows my mind.

Think about the current ‘deal’ these very same people, er, ‘offer’ you. You either accept their money and their shitty working conditions or you try to make it ‘on your own’. (But lately you are being told 'we don't need you' so you'd best not piss off mommy and daddy or you'll got straight to the following:)

This entails competing for scarce seats at soup kitchens, beds at shelters and (if your big enough,) first dibs on what gets tossed into the dumpsters of our wasteful ‘hospitality’ industry.

There simply isn’t enough ‘wildlife’ to live off of, nor could you effectively cook it without running afoul of local law enforcement on those occasions when you did ‘get lucky‘.

In fact, refusing to work for their money becomes a perpetual exercise in avoiding ‘run-ins’ with local law enforcement.

Now, consider these facts and tell me honestly that these people DON’T ‘want you dead’?

Here, in the ‘Season of Peace’, take some time to fully appreciate the predatory behavior of those who call themselves our ‘betters’…

Those who richly deserve to have their world brought crashing down around their ears!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Follow the Leader

Greetings good citizen,

Sort of on a deadline this morning with the Holiday season upon us and our social obligations piling up, I’ll be ‘partying’ most of the day.

So as I browsed this morning’s mail, a story about OWS caught my eye…

And it started me thinking just who are these people?

In an excellent article by Digby (of Hullabaloo fame) she notes that most US citizens are beyond ready to go ‘toe to toe’ with the One Percent (and their blue-uniformed minions)

Needless to say, the freedom part is literally compromised by decisions to legalize indefinite detention without trial, but for the purposes of this discussion, it's the groceries that are causing the problem --- or rather lack thereof. The Democrats are simply not responding to the immediate concerns of a majority of Americans. Even health care, which is a great anxiety producing issue, is still fraught with confusion (although its early benefits are beginning to register a bit.) The more immediate issues of a foreclosure fraud crisis and all the problems associated with it, unemployment and job insecurity and massive numbers falling into poverty while the wealthy pig out (and whine about it) is what has people up in arms. They need government to deliver some groceries and the government is instead putting them on a diet.

Conservatives don't believe in delivering groceries, of course. When they aren't stealing the milk money and handing it out to their rich friends to pay back their donations, they're indifferent at best. It's liberals who are supposed to deliver at times like this and instead of doing that they are cutting deals to shrink the existing, tattered safety net in the future in order to keep the economy from sinking further in the present. (It's not all their fault, but being ineffectual doesn't rally the troops.)

What Digby is trying to say here is our grandparents didn’t ‘negotiate’ the New Deal, they DEMANDED IT…

And if they DIDN’T get what they wanted, THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN ‘hell to pay’

Let’s turn the clock back 70 years and ask if the ‘Greatest Generation’ would have sat around twiddling their thumbs while the CRIMINALS in Congress colluded with one another to draft the heinous ‘arrest on suspicion and detain indefinitely without a trial’ legislation?

No, they’d have SHUT THIS NATION DOWN COLD!

FULL SCREECHING STOP!

So who are these namby-pamby milquetoasts that don’t dare stand up to obvious criminals?

(The OWS crew is obviously not included in that group, they’ve shown their courage, despite their, er, ‘caution’.)

I suspect the OWS movement has been ‘tolerated’ because the bulk of its constituents aren’t who we think they are…most of them are the children of the 20 percent…the top twenty percent.

Which also explains their, er, ‘soft-pedaling’. They don’t want to make trouble for their well-off parents.

In case any of you thought this ‘we are the 99%’ bullshit was actually going somewhere…

It’s not.

But not to worry, the ‘troops’ are coming home…to the land of the jobless.

How do you suppose THAT’S going to work out?

All things being even good citizen, civilization itself is only 9 meals deep…think about it?

3 days isn’t a long time.

Left for us to ponder is whether or not THEY are going to force a ‘stand-off’ or if we will?

Especially when the trick is not to be the first one to ‘blink’.

You can bet most of the 1 percent is already well provisioned for an extended stand off.

It is the vast majority of ‘the working poor’ that live hand to mouth, paycheck to paycheck.

The ‘strategy’, such as it is, is based on the ‘supposition’ that a majority of the poor will prey upon each other before they attempt to take on a hardened, well-defended bunker…more colloquially called a ‘compound’ these days.

Where leadership exists there will be less ‘internal predation’, A good leader will keep his troops focused on ’high value’ targets; this is the ‘weak link’ in the management’s planning.

And despite evidence to the contrary, there is no shortage of competent leadership among the rank and file…it is ironic that commerce has no use for such people!

It also provides proof to the contrary that commerce would ‘shut down’ without their, er, ‘expert guidance’ (when anyone will tell you the shop never runs smoother than when the owner is out of town!)

It truly is frightening how dramatic the improvement can be.

But that’s another subject altogether.

Where were we?

Oh yeah, who are these ‘wimps’ and why do they call themselves Democrats?

I’ve already opined on the topic so I will not bore you by repeating myself…

Which is to say I only bring it up because the subject is too important to be allowed to fade into the background.

Without competent leadership our civilization is doomed!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Criminals Escape Justice!

Greetings good citizen,

Apparently yesterday morning’s market rally ‘ran out of steam’ before the trading day ended.

For those of you who could, quite literally, ‘care less’, this bouncing around in the markets is nothing more than meaningless ‘eyewash’, intended to give the rubes a sense that the contrived valuations have SOME foundation in reality…

Let me assure you, good citizen, they do not.

But you knew that! A factor that places you on considerably more stable ground than the average conservative…although that’s not saying much, is it? (You could believe the Earth was flat and still be better ‘grounded’ than your typical conservative!)

Thus are we prone to wonder (once again) just who is the target of this exercise in belaboring the obvious

With its elegant marble floors, ornately carved wooden ceiling and flattering lighting, the central meeting point of Italy’s Lower House is arguably one of the most beautiful political arenas in the world.

But in recent weeks, Italians have come to view those who frequent the hall — known as the Transatlantico and modeled on the great room of an ocean liner — as a pampered elite, as sheltered from the global economic turbulence as the palazzo’s inner courtyard.

On Friday, the month-old government of Prime Minister Mario Monti easily won a confidence vote on a $40 billion set of austerity measures, including tax increases, changes to the pension system and some growth incentives, with 495 votes to 88. After the vote, the prime minister told lawmakers that Italy was at “maximum risk.” He added, “A lot is at stake; we cannot permit ourselves to live the way we did before.” He said that much would depend “on our capacity to present ourselves as united and credible before the markets.”

Don’t you love it when politicians vote for themselves/ideas? What the fuck does a show of hands by the same set of chiselers prove…consensus among thieves?

Does anyone else wonder if Mario has a mouse in his pocket? Who is this ‘we’ he refers to? He most definitely isn’t talking about himself!

Why is it that these ‘elected representatives’ consistently keep missing the main point?

What is that ‘main point’, you ask?

Naturally, the ‘main point’ is ‘the job they were elected to do’

No, not make new laws, ENFORCE THE ONES WE ALREADY HAVE!

But no…in an amazing demonstration of ‘myopia’, they apparently consider themselves ‘lawmakers’, enforcing the law is someone else’s job.

(Thus have the criminals gone ‘unprosecuted’, lo these many years/decades…globally.)

Perhaps more interest is the ‘universality’ of this particular article.

While Italy’s may be particularly nice, the ‘halls of power’ are ‘plush’ pretty much wherever you go.

Which brings us to the ‘disconnect’ most citizens (rightly) make between their pleading politicians and themselves.

“You aren’t gonna suffer even a little, I’m the one that’s fucked!”

Case in point is this proposed ‘lock ‘em up on a whim and let ‘em rot' legislation.

The only known ‘safeguard’ against this abominable legislation is to be a Congressman/Senator (who are automatically exempt from ALL of their own laws!)

Your ‘get out of detention free’ card remains your Senate/Congressional ID.

Don’t have one? Tough! Looks like you’re going ‘bye-bye’.

I’m going to guess an expired badge from either house will continue to function, if only out of ‘professional courtesy’.

Although the cops are keenly aware of who is and is not a ‘player’.

The only thing the ID protects you from is being randomly detained (forever.) If a warrant with your name on it is issued, then all bets are off.

Which is to acknowledge that our ‘posturing politicians’ are on an understandably ‘short leash’…which is why they behave as they do.

It may LOOK ‘illogical’ to you or me but it is perfectly ‘logical’ to them!

It is not the slightest bit ironic that the current landscape of governments around the globe EXACTLY RESEMBLES what it would look like if CRIMINALS hijacked the world’s governments!

Which is to point out that criminals have indeed been ‘in charge’ for a rather long time. Look at Bush’s highly illegal invasion of both Afghanistan and Iraq.

The public still marvels that ABSOLUTELY NOTHING was done after the pretenses used to justify the invasion of both were PROVEN FALSE!

Naturally, that was just a ‘warning shot’ good citizen.

It was the local bully whispering in your ear (as his Neanderthal buddies kept you pinned to the ground) ‘What are YOU gonna do about it, huh?’

Well, what ARE you gonna do about it?

The problem with ‘Lumpy’ is there are only a handful of them…and he knows it.

For the moment he’s moping the floors with you and yours.

What you don’t see is that nervous sweat on his lip, that tells you that he is frantically trying to figure out where he and his crew is going to go where nobody will ever find them.

And the answer is, ‘Criminal Island’ (Lumpy is not that smart, he got where he is today via brutality alone.)

Although he is smart enough to realize his second big problem is figuring out a way to prevent the people he has screwed over from nuking Criminal Island off the face of the earth.

Well, that’s where the ‘throwing civilization into its own cesspool' part comes in (a.k.a. the plan to collapse the global supply chain.)

MOST people will be too busy saving their own ass to be bothered with chasing criminals and their political minions around. Nothing like a little widespread chaos to keep you occupied while the bad guys make their escape!

It’s a disturbing little puzzle, good citizen and it’s just as ‘plausible’ (actually more so) than the ‘random incompetence’ explanation offered by the criminal owned media.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Friday, December 16, 2011

War Declared!

Greetings good citizen,

Every once in a while you end up doing a ‘me too’ story but, naturally, nobody will write this article from my ‘point of view’.

So buckle up good citizen We’re going in!

Indefinite detention will now be law, not some emergency measure that history will judge to have been a mistake made in a crisis. It is a well thought out codification of certain views that have become commonplace in American society --- that "terrorists" (to be defined by whomever sits in the White House) are not to be allowed the due process allowed to other human beings because our government just *knows* they are so dangerous we cannot even take the chance that they won't be found guilty. That turns the rule of law on its head.

Digby provides us with a rather poignant snapshot of the nearly ten years Jose Padilla has been, er, ‘entombed’ by an unaccountable military/government.

Left to our imagination is the question of ‘what if they decided to, er, exterminate you, would they need anyone’s approval?’

Hell, would they even be required to TELL anyone?

Understand good citizen, your so-called ‘representatives’ are going to vote on this ’bipartisan’ piece of garbage without ever consulting you…and the abomination currently occupying the White House has already refused to veto this vile legislation that will allow bureaucrats the power to instantly create ‘non-persons’.

Not only is this a clear ‘declaration of war’ against the citizens of the US, these idiots just declared war on the bulk of mankind!

We can only take comfort in the fact that the punishment will fit the crime…

But not until millions suffer ‘indeterminate detention’ without even know what they’ve been accused of or by whom.

No irony should be lost on the fact that this is how ‘ancient royalty’ conducted business.

Does this mean we will we soon be ‘treated’ to the return of ‘courtly behavior’ (at the behest of a few barely closeted ‘royal wannabes’?)

Narcissism IS a psychiatric condition good citizen, largely due to the destructive tendencies it fosters within its victims.

If only we were so lucky as to have that tendency confined to the victim pining away with a mirror in hand…but no! Often the opposite is true, it is the narcissist that wreaks revenge on those ‘not as beautiful’ as they are.

And how can we tell there’s a narcissist behind this plot? A Narcissist KNOWS they’re sick and that their ideas are not ‘socially acceptable’…thus do they cling to the ‘cloak of anonymity.’

So our last president was a ‘cheerleader’ and this one used to moonlight as a model…what does that say about either of them, psychologically speaking?

But that’s just the icing on the cake…the impetus behind this ‘imprison at will’ legislation is being driven by something even murkier, something that wants to break down the very foundations of society itself…

Mostly so they won’t be hunted down and exterminated themselves.

Which brings us full circle to the downside of playing with ‘Overton Windows’.

Are the criminals really trying to provoke an ‘overreaction’ in the public psyche with this kind of overreaching legislation?

More disturbingly, what ‘middle ground’ are they really shooting at?

Will it end up being a considerable lowering of the bar as far as who is or isn’t a ‘terrorist’ or are we more likely to end up with stiffer sentencing requirements for ‘terrorist linked’ activities?

Flipping this entire terrorist rock over good citizen we arrive face to face with the fact that our patriot forefathers were, in fact, ‘terrorists’ as far as the British monarchy was concerned.

Yez good citizen, one man’s ‘freedom fighter’ is another man’s terrorist!

Which rolls the clock back ten years when ‘the cheerleader’ started the ‘global war on terra’!

Which isn’t nearly as fucked up as our legislature voting (in our names) to go along with it!

More, er, ‘distressing’ is how, even with these facts in evidence, the so-called Democrats have not A.) withdrawn their endorsement from the incumbent or B.) chosen a challenger to run against him!

I mean WTF good citizen!

What the hell does it take?

They’ve already assaulted the citizens protesting government, er, ‘inaction’ against Wall Street across the nation.

How much you want to bet everybody ‘arrested’ in one of those protests will turn up on a list of terrorists once this evil legislation passes?

Our prisons are already overflowing….so much so that ‘real’ criminals are being released because the state (s) can’t ‘safely’ incarcerate them.

So where will they, er, ‘house’ these newly discovered ‘terrorists’?

Why in those brand, spankin’ new, ‘for profit’ Haliburton detention centers, of course!

Is it just me good citizen or is the Crazy Train starting to look downright ‘demented’?

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Slipping into darkness...

Greetings good citizen,

Needless to say, the destruction of our civilization proceeds apace. In a surprising display of ‘market panic‘, both gold and its liquid equivalent, oil dropped considerably yesterday. Jesse of Crossroads CafĂ© opines that the sell-off (in gold) is being driven by margin calls linked to the, er, ‘collapse’ of the Euro-zone.

So…what’s happening in the Western half of western civilization?

Do you really want to know? Sure looks like the same old, same old

Bat-shit whacko Republicans are holding our government hostage to their demands that programs intended to help the needy are ‘unfunded’ so they can pass even MORE tax breaks to the very people who need them least!:

The day began with Mr. Reid sparring with Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, on the Senate floor, with Mr. Reid expressing bafflement over Mr. McConnell’s refusal to let the Senate vote on the House payroll tax bill that passed earlier in the week.

Mr. Reid wants to quickly vote the bill down because while it would extend a cut in Social Security payroll taxes for 160 million workers, it also eases the way for an oil pipeline opposed by environmental groups, blocks certain air pollution rules, freezes the pay of many federal employees through 2013, increases some Medicare premiums, and greatly reduces unemployment benefits and adds a host of new rules for receiving them.

Mr. McConnell said he would not permit a quick vote on the measure until the spending agreement was passed in the Senate.

For their part, Senate Democratic leaders met with President Obama at the White House and resolved to prepare a new offer that would exclude their earlier plan to pay for the payroll tax holiday with a surcharge on incomes over $1 million, seeking savings instead from a variety of federal programs, with many of the cuts culled from the failed bipartisan committee’s list of things both sides agree upon.

What is becoming increasingly incredible to me is that anyone (in their right mind) actually votes Republican…

But your typical ‘dyed in the wool’ republican doesn’t follow the hi-jinx of the modern republican party. As far as they’re concerned, Ike is still a contender (and by extension, those running today hold Ike‘s ideals dear.)

Which is to belabor the obvious; ‘your typical’ republican is so ‘out of touch’ with reality that they are indeed a hazard to both themselves AND society!

Sadly, we know the ‘true story’, the Party of one-in-five is kept viable by the corporate owned media and the upper 20% of the pay distribution.

Understand good citizen, these are the same people that brought us this disaster

“We don’t put official paperwork in the trash,” said the commander, Maj. Gen. Thomas Richardson, at the meeting at the American Embassy in Baghdad.

The documents were piled in military trailers and hauled to the junkyard by an Iraqi contractor who was trying to sell off the surplus from American bases, the junkyard attendant said. The attendant said he had no idea what any of the documents were about, only that they were important to the Americans.

He said that over the course of several weeks he had burned dozens and dozens of binders, turning more untold stories about the war into ash.

“What can we do with them?” the attendant said. “These things are worthless to us, but we understand they are important and it is better to burn them to protect the Americans. If they are leaving, it must mean their work here is done.”

So good citizen, will the UN zip in there and scoop them up so they can conduct a formal investigation into ‘war crimes’ or has that ship already sailed?

Pardon my sarcasm good citizen but once again we are confronted with the ‘scale’ of the corrosion that is decimating our civilization.

The global justice system, like the global economy, is corrupt beyond salvation. Both must be scrapped entirely and replaced with a new, equitable system.

The ‘trick’ is making sure the, er, ‘usual suspects’ don’t become the arbiters of what is ‘equitable’.

Because they think the current arrangement is perfectly ‘equitable’…from a ‘who deserves what’ point of view…

Understand good citizen, a majority of Republicans BELIEVE the rest of us are a waste of perfectly good toilet paper!

What is wrong with this nation that one in five are STUPID enough to PUBLICLY admit this?

Hard to say, good citizen…but it looks like it might be contagious (from a political leadership point of view)

Last year, there were as many as 180,000 outbursts of what sociologists here describe as “mass incidents”: strikes, sit-ins, rallies and violent clashes that have mushroomed alongside China’s breakneck economic expansion. Government figures from the mid-1990s put the number of such episodes at fewer than 10,000.

“People don’t have sufficient faith in legal procedures or the media and feel they have no redress when bad things are done to them,” said Martin K. Whyte, a Harvard sociologist who studies Chinese social trends.

Some protests are prompted by worsening pollution, claims of unpaid wages or police brutality. A major source of unrest, including in Wukan, is the seizure of land by well-connected private developers or government officials, which involves forced evictions for meager compensation.

More than just unalloyed greed, these seizures are supported by local governments that have come to rely on proceeds of land sales and development to pay for day-to-day operations.

[In an effort to save your wrists from carpal tunnel and your poor eyes from screen glare I omitted yet another link to an article about the ‘one way street’ so-called ‘free trade agreements’ are.] (China has raised it’s tariff on US motor vehicles…)

Um, back to the last article…

Sort of looks familiar, doesn’t it?

You get shit on and there isn’t a fucking thing you can do about it.

Um, it’s time we turn that around, don’t you think, good citizen?

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Drowning in an Ocean of Debt

Greetings good citizen,

It was a toss up yesterday between this story and the one on politics I decided to run with.

It seems I do quite a few of these ‘what the fuck have you been smoking’ pieces, but the ‘headline’ caught my eye…

Retail sales rise for sixth straight month

Then there were the the two photographs that accompany the article…

Is it just me or is that a ‘genuine’ alligator bag by her feet?

More demand has helped boost hiring. Employers added a net total of 120,000 jobs last month. The economy has generated 100,000 or more jobs five months in a row — the first time that has happened since April 2006.

Still, many economists question how long consumers can continue increasing their spending without more jobs and higher pay. Unemployment remains high, and inflation-adjusted incomes shrank in the July-September quarter.

Consumers might also have to cut back on spending if Congress doesn't extend a Social Security tax cut or emergency federal unemployment benefits. Both expire at the end of this year. The Social Security tax this year boosted take-home pay for the average family by $1,000.

It is also interesting to note how the entire article seems to lose its ‘overly optimistic’ tone it starts off with by the end of the piece. (The above paragraphs are from the END of the article.)

So, retail sales are up for the past six straight months…hmmn…what do you suppose could be causing That?

Could it be the same thing that is holding the rest of this clusterfuck in place…‘creative accounting’? (Pumping up prices while denying inflation by calling the end result ‘growth’!)

No doubt about it good citizen, the upper 20% are doing just fine…the further up the ladder you go, the ‘finer’ it gets!

And yes good citizen, the top 20 percent IS large enough to show up on the economic scales. In fact they are driving what is being passed off as ‘growth’ (be it over last month or last year, the article doesn’t tell us.)

And many of these ‘what the fuck have you been smoking?’ articles are guilty of precisely this…er, ‘lie of omission’.

They fail to accurately answer the question: compared to what?

People are getting fatigued by the perpetual reports of green shoots that nobody else can see!

The labor force is smaller today than it was in 2001...but somehow our corrupt media doesn’t think that is, er, ‘newsworthy’.

More disturbing good citizen is how the stock market keeps rising while the overall situation continues to deteriorate.

This tells us what, precisely?

Not that stocks are getting ‘more valuable’, it tells us that our money is becoming ‘less valuable!’

And still nobody does anything to prosecute the fraudsters!

The question without answer is how long can you tread water?

You’re being drown in an ocean of debt, mostly for the privilege of staying alive…and that shouldn’t be!

Then there’s the case of doing what needs doing.

Currently the fraudsters are protected by the Blue Line, that one in a thousand that earns their paycheck from our taxes.

Now, they despise the fraudsters as much as we do…but how do you arrest the guy who cuts your paycheck?

Oh, they’ll do it all right…but not until they throw their shields on the ground and take the side of those they were originally sworn to protect.

Some of them anyway. Some of them are too far gone. They’ve been on the take for so long that they have come to believe it is the way things ought to be.

They KNOW it is not how things ‘should be’ but they like the lives they’re living just fine, thank you. And if being ‘flexible’ provides them and their families with a ‘better life’ then they won’t see the need to ‘do things differently’.

Even as their former ‘benefactors’ swing from the nearest light post alongside their immediate supervisor, they still believe the ‘Blue Wall’ will protect them.

But the Blue Wall is riddled with holes and the thirst for Justice will bring forth a zeal not seen since the last crusade!

Which is to point out it likely WON’T be your ‘brother officers’ that do you in…it will be your own relatives!

The same people you sneered at for slaving away at menial private sector jobs!

The very same people you suspected of laughing at you behind your back for taking a ‘joke job’ in the public sector.

You think people ‘didn’t notice’ when you looked the other way? They noticed…and they remember.

Did you ever consider the consequences of looking the other way?

Here’s a small sample of what went down while YOU were ‘twiddling your thumbs’!

Report: Child Homelessness Up 33% in 3 Years" (USA Today)

One in 45 children in the USA — 1.6 million children — were living on the street, in homeless shelters or motels, or doubled up with other families last year, according to the National Center on Family Homelessness.

The numbers represent a 33% increase from 2007, when there were 1.2 million homeless children, according to a report the center is releasing Tuesday.

"This is an absurdly high number," says Ellen Bassuk, president of the center. "What we have new in 2010 is the effects of a man-made disaster caused by the economic recession. … We are seeing extreme budget cuts, foreclosures and a lack of affordable housing."

Without equality there can be no justice, without justice there can be no peace and without peace there can be no prosperity.

Which is to remind you if you want justice it starts with equality and not with ‘turning a blind eye’.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

The Sad State of Modern Politics

Greetings good citizen,

As one might expect, the state of politics is no better than the state of the economy.

Yet some believe that with the ‘right’ (and I do mean RIGHT and not ‘synonymous with correct’) leadership this whole disaster can be, er, averted.

No irony should be lost on the fact that these people don’t appreciate the gravity of the situation. (They vote Republican solely because ‘that’s who they are’…)

Sadly, this is what happens when you apply a ‘Damn the torpedoes’ psychology to EVERYTHING, thereby eradicating the fine line between brave and STUPID!)

Yes, while there are those who naively believe the ‘right candidate’ is capable of ‘fixing’ everything, there exists an even, er, ‘dimmer’ subset of the electorate that has no idea anything is even amiss.

So much the better for the politicians/criminals…

Which brings us to today’s offering , an exercise in seeking an ‘elect-able’ candidate after the failure of both political parties.

The basic pitch of Americans Elect goes like this: We’ll go through the expensive and time-consuming process of getting ballot access in all 50 states. Then we’ll hold an online convention in June in which any registered voter can participate. Participants will nominate a presidential ticket including one Democrat and one Republican who will then enter the general election fray.

Here’s what the group is not so upfront about: It’s fueled by millions of dollars of secret money, there is a group of wealthy, well-connected board members who have control over Americans Elect’s nominating process, and the group has myriad links to Wall Street.

Americans Elect has been getting periodic bursts of support from prominent commentators.

We are ‘led to believe’ that this new variant on the now Libertarian dominated ‘sniff test’ is NOT led/funded by, er, ‘progressives’.

In fact the ‘strange’ part of the whole exercise is the, er, ‘focus’ on keeping the two party ‘charade’ intact! (If we’re all in this ‘together’ good citizen then WHO is ‘the opposition’?)

So WHO is behind this, er, ‘search for a suitable puppet?’

You don’t suppose it is the same people who hijacked the electoral process in the first place, do you?

I mean, who else could it be?

Then there’s the flipside of this coin, one that I have raised a few times before, the quandary of electing an honest player into an already corrupt game.

Without the, er, ‘support’ of the courts there is no way our ‘honest man’ can clean up, much less prosecute the corrupt.

This is similar to the bizarre Republican victory in the House, just in time to block legislation that would, er, punish the financial sector.

I mean Bubba, they’ve already ‘tipped their hand’, do they have to beat you over the head with it too?

So, what should the ‘winner’ of this popularity contest do?

If they had any ‘integrity’ at all, he/she would tell them to go fuck themselves!

Anyone with half a brain would!

Political puppets have extremely short life spans…it’s a ‘credibility thing’.

They run on promising to take this or that currently popular action, knowing their campaign contributors are paying him/her to DO precisely the opposite!

While those who ‘control’ electoral politics also control the media (which is how they ‘insure’ that the ‘right’ candidate, er, wins) people will stop believing the charade if a ‘spent’ candidate keeps winning re-election.

This is the downside of rigging the ballot box, if you don’t do it carefully, you WILL breed a revolt!

Case in point; here we are, less than a dozen election cycles since they started ‘fixing’ elections and they’ve succeeded in destroying the credibility of BOTH parties…so now they’re hunting for an ‘elect-able’ candidate…

WTF good citizen, WTF!

If we were to ‘assume the best’ and take it on faith that this is the efforts of a ‘concerned’ citizens group, interested in keeping our ‘two party system’ alive < sarcasm on >(Because it has ‘worked so well’ for the past two hundred years…)< sarcasm off > we’d still be faced with the ‘already corrupt system’ conundrum, making the whole exercise one in futility.

While this Alternet article also questions the ‘motives’ behind this sinister ploy it doesn’t take the extra step and ask ‘who wins if this succeeds?’

It sure as hell won’t be YOU!

Which is certainly a sign that it is once again time to embark on a, er, campaign for a New Deal.

Only this time we won’t stop until we get a total makeover…like the one laid out in A Simple Plan…

No, not the Movie or the Rock band…the PLAN that is posted here on this website!

It is our first best hope…to the point that we can’t afford to not make it a reality!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner