Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Out of Commission

Greetings good citizen,

I'm experiencing computer troubles (again.) At first I thought I blew the power supply (again) but now I suspect it is the on/off switch itself.

Got to strip it down and have a look.

Thanks for your patience,

Gegner



Monday, October 29, 2012

Reverse Robin Hood

Greetings good citizen,

Little behind the eight-ball here tonight as my ‘puter inexplicably gave up the ghost this afternoon. I can likely repair it so it’s more annoying than anything else.

As you know, the markets were closed today in deference to the ‘superstorm’, which is still blowing outside.

Which is to say thus far the storm has been a ‘non-event’ locally, just a lot of blowing rain and the lights flickering on occasion. However, my kids had the day off from school and it looks like the NYSE will miss another day of trading:
U.S. Markets to Be Closed on Tuesday
By MICHAEL J. DE LA MERCED 7:55 PM ET
The New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq and BATS Global Markets said in separate statements that they have agreed to close, after consulting with other exchanges and clients.
So far it appears the kiddos will be back to the grind tomorrow.

But wait, it gets worse:
Political Memo
In Middle of a Messy Election, a Nightmare Makes Landfall
By PETER BAKER
Recounts, contested ballots, an Electoral College at odds with the popular vote: now adding to the campaigns' potential horrors, a freakish storm may warp an election two years in the making.
Um, why do you suppose they are pointing to the hated Electoral College BEFORE the elections? Worse, with early voting going on across the nation the contest may be decided already.

Or maybe it was decided long before now…as I have, er, ‘opined’ as early as last year.

Why would the corporate owned media being trying so hard to convince us that we are still, er, ‘deeply divided’ when the truth of the matter is that ‘deep divide’ is more economic than philosophical.

And so far the money is winning.

So we are left with the question of what we are going to do when the team of Romney and Ryan start dismantling what’s left of this nation’s safety net, all the while telling us about the ’urgent need for austerity’ (while they dole out more tax cuts for the super wealthy!)

It is laughable indeed to think nothing will happen when the sock puppets of the superrich continue to loot the nation while they slash programs intended to help the poor.

And I don’t need to remind you that the rich don’t need what they are being given.

The purpose of this ‘reverse Robin Hood’ in not to enrich them as much as it is to make you destitute…and the object of making you the victim of ‘grinding poverty’?

They want you DEAD!

I know most of you can’t bring yourselves to believe this dire prognosis but that doesn’t make it any less true.

And it won’t be until the streets run red that you will finally know their ‘true motive’.

Um, if the power give out I’m going to lose this…and if their power doesn’t give out, we’re all gonna lose!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner


Sunday, October 28, 2012

Soaked Rhubarb

Greetings good citizen,

While it’s too soon to tell yet the media has certainly turned the latest weather event into a three-ring circus…and it seems like everybody is getting in on the act!
DealBook
N.Y.S.E. Plans to Close Its Trading Floor
By MICHAEL J. DE LA MERCED

The New York Stock Exchange plans to close its trading floor on Monday as Hurricane Sandy approaches, in the first weather-related closure in 27 years.
Um, how much longer will it be before we start reading claims that this is ‘The Wrath of God’ personified?

But let’s not get started on our long absent omnipotent and omnipresent supreme being…remember our minds are too feeble to grasp his motivations. Which bizarrely serves as justification for the evil men commit, also ‘in his name’…he ‘lets it happen’ for his own reasons…

Speaking for myself good citizen I have zero use for a God who sits on his hands while we murder one another, or while the innocent starve for that matter. No use at all.

But I digress…where were we?

Oh yes, my kids don’t have school tomorrow thanks to ‘Superstorm’. The kids are plenty happy about it (especially considering my kids had a half-day on Friday, making the weekend that much longer!

With that said, we should be looking backwards at the last, er, ‘Super Storm’ to lay the US low, Hurricane Katrina.

What do we do if this (much less intense) Hurricane busts up a bunch of already fragile infrastructure and leaves large swaths of the East without power or communications?

Don’t look now but thanks to our anti-government ‘Republicants’ there are parts of Louisiana that STILL haven’t been rebuilt, seven long years later.

What are we going to do if they pull that shit on us?

Probably the same thing the folks down in New Orleans are doing about their neglected needs…nothin’.

Are you gonna sit there and accept the ‘we don’t have the money’ excuse? Because you KNOW whose fault that is, it’s the One Percent’s fault!

THEY exported our jobs (after their bought and paid for congressmen tore down all of the trade protections our workers USED TO enjoy!)

Sort of ironic to see the energy situation turning that whole equation on its head.

But that’s the real reason why we no longer have the tax base to rebuild after disaster strikes. Because the One Percent exported our jobs!

It’s also the reason Unions became a non-factor in the electoral process…because the one thing above all else that was exported were Union jobs.

Why do you suppose that was, good citizen?

Worse, why do you suppose the only remaining unions, the unions that represent civil servants, are being ‘demonized’ by the anti-government right?

It’s interesting to watch the politicians selling the people who work for them down the river, the same way the union bosses sold their people down the river for a ‘pocket full of mumbles’ that are ‘promises’…

Oh, verily good citizen do we need to put the brakes on corruption, especially the promise of ‘easy street’ dangled before the likes of simple men who don’t fully understand the true nature of money!

But how do we accomplish this lofty goal?

Well, we sure ain’t gonna get her done as long as we have ‘tangible’ currency.

Anything you can hold in your hand can be faked.

And guess where all of those ‘trillions’ came from?

You guessed it, they’re ALL ‘funny’!

Now how do we ‘arrest’ the fraud we know as ‘payola’?

Under A Simple Plan YOU (and EVERYBODY ELSE, NO EXCEPTIONS) only have ONE source of income, your job! It’s a pretty simple calculation to determine who much you should have vs. how much is in your account.

Oh, but wait, aren’t YOU the clever one…you’ll have another ID so you’ll have TWO paychecks and maybe that ‘alter ego’ is a high level executive!

Well, nice for you but you still have to show up for your real job or they’re be an investigation. And if you get caught with more than one ID on you, you will be summarily exiled. No trial, just a quick trip to the badlands for the rest of your natural days which we can guarantee will be brutal and few.

Now, if the bio-metrics on your Id match the bio-metrics on your REAL ID, you’re caught!

You’re gonna have to be super smart about this and demand to be paid in gold or some other precious metal…which will be totally worthless to you because there is no way for you to convert gold into money!

The ONLY way to get money is to work for it…period!

And the only way to spend money is via your biometric ID card. And you’ve already been told what happens after you ‘spend’ your money…it’s erased.

If you try to ‘hacky-hacky’ the system, you’ll get whacky-whackied by the enforcement division!

And yeah, in this context to ‘get whacked’ has the same meaning as if a mobster used it.

So, you think the rain will hurt the rhubarb?

Not if it’s in cans!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner


Saturday, October 27, 2012

Pig Lips

Greetings good citizen,

If you thought the wheels were ready to come flying off this rickety old broken down economy wouldn’t you step up the spending to prepare for a time when you couldn’t spend even if you wanted to?

Worse, wouldn’t the nincompoops who monitor and misdiagnose the economy all of the time say it was something stupid like the consumer is through deleveraging’…so now we can all take on more debt and everything will be just marvelous…(until we find ourselves overextended again!)
For the first time since the Great Recession hit, American households are taking on more debt than they are shedding, an epochal shift that might augur a more resilient recovery.

Many American households had cut back spending on cars, food and other goods.

For two of the last three quarters, American households’ total outstanding borrowing on things like credit cards, mortgages and auto loans has increased after falling for 14 consecutive quarters before then. Some economists even see an end to the long, hard process of deleveraging — as they refer to the cutting of debt relative to income or the nation’s economic output. That process, they say, has been a central reason for the extraordinary sluggishness of the recovery.

“We’re at an inflection point,” said Kevin Logan, the chief United States economist for HSBC. “Debt is less of a burden” for households, he said.

Closely watched economic figures released Friday underscore households’ nascent sense of strength. Despite tepid growth and still-high unemployment, consumer confidence has soared to a five-year high, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters and the University of Michigan. And economic growth numbers for the third quarter showed household spending picking up pace as well.

Let’s look at the facts for a moment good citizen, prices are rising and nobody is getting pay increases…add the push to the shove of a family has to live and you’ve got ‘increased debt!’.

Now wait a minute, numbnuts SAYS people are taking on debt to finance things they were doing without…like transportation.

You know ‘wheels under your ass’ is part of the equation that makes up the debt cycle, right?

You get a job so you can have the things you need to live. If you can’t get to the job you don’t get paid and a whole avalanche of bad things happen. So spending money on cars is considered a necessity (despite being charged an ‘excise tax’…which translates directly into a ‘luxury tax’ because the butt-head capitalist thinks you don’t NEED a car to get to work!

You COULD ride a horse!

Now, almost nobody rides horses as ‘basic transportation’ these days yet everybody gets charged excise tax on their automobile as if they did (or could if they wanted to.)

Just another example of the flawed thinking that has led to the mismanagement of our civilization.

You know, the capitalists do get ONE THING RIGHT…it is the assertion of ‘how can we expect you to do the big things right when you can’t manage to do the little things correctly?’

Which is to opine that we have overwhelming evidence of their incompetence…what’s taking so long putting corrective action in place?

And you’d (rightly) ask ‘What corrective action?’ Belaboring the obvious fact that nothing is being done to correct the imbalances throughout our civilization so nothing is ‘getting better’ regardless of what these scatter-brains say!

So what about you, good citizen? Do YOU think the tapped out US consumer is ‘on the mend?’

And would your belief do anything to affect reality?

Short answer, no.

How long would you continue to ‘believe’ while the situation continues to go ‘downhill’? As poverty rises and desperation becomes widespread would you allow yourself to be ‘deluded’ by those paid to lie to you?

As this train wreck progresses we are increasingly going to see pigs wearing so much lipstick you won’t be able to tell what the hell they are.

And THAT will be pointed to as more evidence of the non-existent recovery!

Um, enough is enough and it’s time to put this post to bed.

You deserve a break,

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner


Friday, October 26, 2012

Dueling Realities

Greetings good citizen,

Really should have had this done earlier but other matters pressed. In case you didn’t notice we had another ‘sideways’ day in the markets today, after they headed for the basement first thing.

Equally as disturbing is how Europe was having an absolutely horrible session…until (you guessed it) the NYSE opened!

Speaking of contradictions and other nonsensical happenings, the headlines say the Mittster is on the attack after the latest economic news broke…

Could numbnuts be talking about this headline?
U.S. Economy Grew at 2% Rate in 3rd Quarter
By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ

More positive consumer activity and a healthier housing sector outweighed the effects of the drought, caution on the part of businesses and weaker exports.
Maybe Mitt is championing those downtrodden exporters, you know the guys who send work overseas? (because besides raw materials and food, the same products third world countries export, we don’t export Jack…unless you count our fucking jobs, which are exported wholesale to the lowest bidder thanks to assholes like Romney!

But that’s not what the corporate owned media reports. No, instead we get stories like this:
Olympics and Asset Sales Help Lift Comcast Profits
By BRIAN STELTER

An increase in the average payment for a video subscription — to more than $150 month — helped the cable company offset a decline in the number of subscribers.
People cutting back on expenses because their bosses can’t find it in their hearts to give out raises will commonly cancel their cable service.

And nearly doubling their fee is how the cable company keeps their shareowners smiling!

Don’t you wish YOU could do that to your employer?

But if you tried it you probably end up like these guys:
Spain’s Economic Misery Hits New Threshold
By RAPHAEL MINDER 3:20 PM ET

Unemployment passed 25 percent, a picture so dark that it could help Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy in his case against more austerity.
Naturally good citizen, the problem isn’t high unemployment in Spain; it’s intolerably high unemployment across all of Western civilization!

But that isn’t a problem the further East you go:
Billions in Hidden Riches for Family of Chinese Leader
By DAVID BARBOZA

It is unclear how much Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, who has staked a position as a populist and a reformer, knows about the $2.7 billion in assets his family has amassed.
If that same story were unfolding here in the US the politician in question would remain adamant that they knew NOTHING about any, er, ‘self-enrichment’ and power brokering that is performed by relatives of the powerful around the world…because we don’t have laws that prevent it.

That is why the global economy is fucked too! The corruption is ‘universal’ and because of that the collapse will be total because the whole system needs to be replaced.

And of course we have the issue of what do we replace it with?

Should we try communism, maybe hoping to get it right this time?

Um, no…I’m pretty sure communism won’t work…because it fails to address the weakness inherent in money.

So, should we try capitalism again, honestly this time?

Fat fucking chance. Honest capitalist is the very definition of the term ‘oxymoron’.

Why don’t we try that anarcho-syndicalyism thingy?

Because they don’t do anything about the printing press either!

I know, let’s return to the ‘gold standard’!

Which way do you want to ‘dial it in’? Do we make gold worth a billion dollars an ounce or do we go back to $20 an ounce and start going in the other direction with fractional cents to make what we’ve got stretch far enough?

Naturally, this too will, er, ‘finance’ crime in all of its myriad forms. There is but ONE viable answer and that, good citizen is A Simple Plan which has NO ‘tangible’ currency.

It also makes it illegal to place anyone in debt…which is the primary basis for coercion. If somebody breaks your favorite toy, go get a new one…and maybe pick up a back up while you’re at it!

Shit happens and you can’t live life holding others responsible for every tiny thing that goes wrong!

Just like the idiot practice of awarding somebody money when they suffer a loss. Money doesn’t bring the lost item back and, if it can be replaced with money then it wasn’t ‘lost’ in the first place.

No cash is a small price to pay for a world free of crime and corruption, not that the chiselers among us won’t try to make you ‘pay’.

And that’s why YOU will be granted an avenue of recourse that has long been outlawed.

If you want to know what that avenue is you’ll have to look it up.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner


Thursday, October 25, 2012

Beneath it all...

Greetings good citizen,

Every few months I feel compelled to restate the mission of this blog, which, due to its subject matter, is widely considered a ‘Doom and Gloom’ site.

How sad is it that it isn’t my purpose to frighten anyone nor am I intent upon twisting your mind toward my way of seeing things. (Although part of my mission involves, er, ‘educating’ you in the finer points of my creation, A Simple Plan.)

That said, some of you might find that education bordering on ‘indoctrination’.

I can be rabid when the feeling moves me and I’m forever racing ‘off the reservation’, a fault I readily admit.

Um, to opine that my posts are, er, ‘unbiased’ would be exactly that, an opinion. We’re all biased and there’s no getting away from that fact.

The editor of the local rag was ‘editorializing’ on the subject of biased fact checkers just last night…and you know why the conservative liar was crying about that subject, don’t you?

Yes indeed good citizen, the closer we get to the election the more it looks as though Ol’ Mitt is gonna pull off an ‘upset victory’ much Like W. winning Florida due to ‘hanging chads’.

And they’ll pin it on ‘waitresses’!

But I digress.

We all know those waitresses are working in dives across the nation, just waiting for a One Percenter (like Mitt) to waltz in and sweep them away from the drudgery of being a working class drone.

Billionaire, Princess, same difference.

And, bizarrely, YOU are expected to BELIEVE that it was that sort of BULLSHIT that swung the election in favor of the man who gave HALF OF US the fucking MIDDLE FINGER less than a month ago!

I don’t know how they expect this to play in Peoria but I’m fairly certain it won’t go down well with the decidedly non-conservative 80% of the NATION!

Especially when we have seen first hand how the bullshit with the banks went down.

But again, I digress.

Let us return to the topic that underlies the foundation of modern civilization, a topic that will ultimately bring an end to life as we have come to know it, peak oil and those whose power derives from fossil fuel.
We seem to hear two versions of the story of limited oil supply:

1. The economists’ view, saying that the issue is a simple problem of supply and demand. Substitution, higher prices, demand destruction, greater efficiency, and increased production of oil at higher prices will save the day. [HA!]

2. A version of Hubbert’s peak oil theory, saying that world oil production will rise and at some point reach a plateau and begin to decline, because of geological depletion. The common belief is that the rate of decline will be determined by geological considerations, and will roughly match the rate at which production increased.

In my view, neither of these views is correct. My view is a third view:

3. An adequate supply of cheap ($20 or $30 barrel) oil is no longer available, because most of the “easy to extract” oil is gone. The cost of extracting oil keeps rising, but the ability of oil-importing economies to pay for this oil does not. There are no good low-cost substitutes for oil, so substitution is very limited and will continue to be very limited. The big oil-importing economies are already finding themselves in poor financial condition, as higher oil prices lead to cutbacks in discretionary spending and layoffs in discretionary industries.

The government is caught up in this, as layoffs lead to more need for stimulus funds and for payments to unemployed workers, at the same time that tax revenue is reduced. There can be a temporary drop in oil prices (as there was in late 2008), as recession worsens, but eventually demand rises again, oil prices rise again, and the pattern of layoffs and increased governments financial problems occurs again. [snip]

What the Economists’ View Misses

The economists’ view misses the fact that it is external energy that makes the economy operate the way it does. (See my earlier posts, here, here and here.) If energy products are higher priced, energy importers can afford less of them, and there is a tendency of their economies to shrink back to what their economies can afford—fewer employed workers and fewer government programs. I talk about the connection between employed workers and energy consumption in The Close Tie Between Energy Consumption, Employment and Recession.

Back to the beginning, where I was explaining the objective of this blog.

I can’t help it if the truth sucks…that said I am also not telling you that ‘all is lost’ (although it might be if we don’t, er, ‘rid’ ourselves of those who were born thinking they are the only ones who deserve to live here. The rest of us are ‘excess baggage’ to be disposed of however and whenever necessary.

Worse, the only thing saving our sorry asses in their indecision about how many of us to keep around!

Although there is a building consensus that they should exterminate us wholesale and then let the few that survive breed the ‘servant class’ back up to full strength.

Pretty gloomy, but it doesn’t have to turn out this way.

There are alternatives to the eminent return of a ‘slave economy’ and the bloodshed this will cause.

We just need to bring everyone associated with this ‘New World Order’ (more commonly known as ‘The One Percent’) to Justice…after we purge the now corrupt beyond belief justice system.

The situation IS salvageable…but you need to have faith.

It all starts with small steps and A Simple Plan points the way!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner


Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Web of Lies

Greetings good citizen,

Under the damn it, did it again! category, I just went to post this and found that I skipped the whole ‘intro’ portion of the post…

So now I have to duck back into my mail and check how the stock market did, and it was another weird one. Markets around the globe did, er, ‘okay’ today…except for the US which headed further into the basement.

Counterintuitively, yesterday’s dogs haven’t yet turned into tomorrow’s foxes…but you know its coming, especially for the ‘only game in town’.

But that is not the topic of tonight’s post, nope, tonight I use one of my precious 'ten clicks' to bring you this neglected topic from the corporate owned media which asks why neither candidate is addressing the issue of the West’s sinking standard of living.

Which should put tonight’s title into perspective for you…
What is the solution to this thicket of economic forces?

That question is the one that Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney are trying to convince voters that they can best answer. They both accept that the government and the market have a role, but they put a different emphasis on those roles.

It is hard to see how either globalization or automation can be stopped. The proposed solutions instead tends to involve managing them. [This is true. Even A Simple Plan uses automation for its ‘intended purpose’ of shortening the work week rather than trying to go back to the ‘old way’ of doing things…although the coming energy scarcity is going to force our hands in that department.]


If the economy can be made to grow fast enough, incomes can still rise across the board, as they did when the unemployment rate fell below 5 percent in the 1990s and briefly below 4 percent in 2000. If educational attainment rises, more people will be able to get jobs that benefit from technology and global trade, rather than suffer from it. [Huge pipe dream and fucking whopper of a lie!] And if inequality continues to soar, the government could choose to use the tax code to ameliorate it — a solution that Democrats favor and Republicans say will hurt economic growth. [Not that you didn’t notice but you know it was 'fucking around with the tax code' that got us here in the first place. Time to fix it for good and do away with taxes altogether…by eliminating the reason for taxes, ‘private ownership’.]

Maybe the biggest reason for optimism is that there is still a strong argument [by greedheads] that both globalization and automation help the economy in the long run. This argument remains popular with [improperly trained] economists: Trade allows countries to specialize in what they do best, while technology creates opportunities to extend and improve life that never before existed.

Let’s finish that last sentence because we all know it is incomplete…

The ONLY way technology ‘extends and improves life’ is IF you aren’t on the ‘wrong side of it’…and most of us ARE!

Read my lips: ALL ECONOMIES ARE LOCAL. No exceptions!

Need further clarification? Try living in an ‘economic desert’. (A place whose ‘economic engine’ has been exported.)

There is proof all around us the ‘myopia’ is often fatal, especially when that ‘tunnel vision’ afflicts the misguided and overly greedy decision-maker.

Whole regions of the US have been lain waste by the reckless decision of the greedy few.

Decisions that could have been prevented if those we elected to ride herd on the greed heads HAD DONE THEIR FUCKING JOBS!

But no, instead they are all guilty of treason and all need to be, er, ‘punished accordingly’.

And how many of our ‘One Percenter’ representatives…(now there’s a disturbing little factoid the corporate owned media often overlooks, that you can find a whole boatload of for real ‘one percenters’ wandering the corridors of Congress.)

Could THAT be the reason we can’t seem to alter our disastrous course?

Because we CAN’T elect people who actually have SOMETHING IN FUCKING COMMON WITH US?

This is the ‘ILLUSION OF PARTICIPATION coupled with the ILLUSION OF EQUALITY’.

Which brings us back to the decidedly disturbing reality of the political ‘sniff test’. Where those who, er, ‘oversee’ the ‘party apparatus’ get to decide who they will AND WON’T endorse.

The entire pool of political candidates comes from BEHIND CLOSED DOORS!

You get to choose from only a pre-selected pool, this keeps the riff-raff and the radical ‘non-capitalists’ off the ballot.

But it’s time to throw ALL of that nonsense on the scrap heap and cut to the chase.

From here on out we only vote DIRECTLY on the laws, which shall, by definition, be few. Fuck this bullshit of somebody deciding for you without ever asking you how you feel on the issue…or IF it is even an issue to you!

So where were we? Oh yeah, standing athwart the march of history screaming ‘halt!’ like a bunch of Luddites!

Or at least that’s what the conservo-loonies think.

This isn’t a contest between ‘personal prosperity’ versus the general welfare as the conservo-whackos have made it into.

This is about truly elevating the circumstance of ALL mankind, the ‘rich’ should be indistinguishable from the average individual, honestly.

If one is ‘truly exceptional’ they will ‘stand out’ in ways other than accumulating massive fortunes (that in turn ultimately decimate society.)

Money is a tool, not an end in itself.

How many of you are sighing right now and muttering ‘good luck with that’ under your breath?

Not that our salvation requires universal acceptance of this truth…but until we become hardcore about managing the use of money within our society, it will continue to do more harm than good.

This is why under A Simple Plan your money is for you. Only YOU can make it and only YOU can spend it…when you spend it, nobody gets it, it is simply erased. When you die your money dies with you. Everybody is on their own…in a society that meets your every need, from the cradle to the grave.

You no longer need to worry about your kids, they’re all set!

A Simple Plan, an idea whose time has come, and we could do it tomorrow (if the fucking greed-heads would roll over and play dead…)

Ironically, it IS ‘in their interest’ to do so!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner


Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Rumor has it...

Greetings good citizen,

Seems as though Mr. Market was unable to justify the gains claimed by Wal Street over the past couple of weeks so it handed them all back today.

The Dow dropped 240 points (still leaving the market above the magical 13,000 point range) and we can only wonder what it was doing up there in the first place?

The economy is sucking pond water (from the bottom of the damn barrel) so why are the, er, ‘financial markets’ doing so well?

You don’t suppose its ‘insider trading’, do you? (How about outright fraud then?)

Unsurprisingly, this is the ‘official story’:
U.S. Stocks Fall Sharply
By NATHANIEL POPPER 4:43 PM ET

Weak earnings from several large companies and a credit rating downgrade of several regions in Spain raised concerns about a slowing global economy.
Left to your imagination is the credibility of the recent rash of upbeat economic news stories run by the same ‘far from independent’ corporate owned media.

Everything from consumer spending reported as picking up while the housing market is building more new units (because the unsold ones have had birthdays…largely due to the builders unwillingness to sell them at a loss.

Now we must ask ourselves where does this variety of mis-guided ‘wishful thinking’ come from?

How about we Check this shit out
But that's not the point! The point is: They're the most oppressed people in the history of the world! What's happening to them in America today is reminiscent of Nazi Germany under Hitler!

Believe it or not, that's the message coming from a veritable parade of self-portrayed victims at the pinnacle of the 1 per cent of the 1 per cent, who are very angry at President Obama supposedly saying mean things about them. These men are so spectacularly wealthy that it's literally impossible to understand them in the context of other people's economic lives, to make sense of what they're saying. They're like elephants in the midst of a leper colony, complaining about a gnat bite in a dream they just remembered.

They've also been treated so well by Obama that it's likewise impossible to grasp. He could have gone after them immediately after taking office, breaking up the big banks and pursuing criminal charges against those responsible for destroying the economy based on multiple interlocking forms of fraud. Obama did none of that. There's simply no understanding their hatred of him in purely objective terms.

But their self-pitying portrayal as victims is another thing altogether. It's not just commonplace, it's virtually mandatory among the ranks of American conservatives today - particularly when there's little or no basis in fact. Indeed, it's sometimes even quantifiable, as I explained in a column occasioned by Herman Cain's slow, self-pitying exit from the presidential race.
Contrary to popular belief good citizen, the perilous shortage of hubris turns out to be greatly exaggerated.

These people aren’t conceited; they’re convinced!

Yet they moan bout being ‘mistreated’ by their very own bought and paid for media…

Yeah, HOW does THAT work?

Is this ‘fig leaf of credibility’ the only thing saving the worthless, fawning media sockpuppets from being burned along with the people who cut their paychecks?

Um, the short answer is no…we just haven’t crossed that bridge yet.

It’s going to be sort of an interesting sight to see when their masters are forced to choose between their mouthpieces and themselves.

Naturally, you already know who is holding the short straw and we haven’t even gone there yet!

Do you think the media darlings will be able to wriggle off the hook by throwing their former masters under the bus?

I don’t think any of them are talented enough to pull it off.

More interesting is whether or not their masters will ‘bunch up’ and provide them bunker space when their world catches fire?

The fortunate few don’t have enough room in their hearts to pity anyone but their own sorry selves…as evidenced by the faux ‘pity party’ they’re throwing themselves at the moment.

How about that Mittster, eh? Now they’re saying he LOST last night’s debate…how's that as a ‘face saver’ for a guy who flipped off over half the nation last month?

I mean he said 47 % but are we supposed to believe that the other 53% loves him?

Not what I’m hearing.

My grapevine (which has more than a few conservatives in it) says even the conservo-loonies aren’t too wild about Mitt and they are downright worried about the havoc Ryan might start with his undiluted Randian philosophy.

As is increasingly becoming a ‘meme’, it staggers the mind to consider just how much richer the one percent is when compared to the average worker, just as how bizarre the mind of a disciple of Ayn Rand is from that of a ‘normal person’.

It’s 'camel through the eye of a needle' time again, good citizen, that’s where we are by way of comparison. So much richer is the typical One Percenter than the average stiff that works for them.

Now we ask ourselves is this alone enough to forment the conditions necessary for a return of ‘The Terror’?

We’ll see…

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner


Monday, October 22, 2012

Our fates are intertwined

Greetings good citizen,

I am unsure how to present this one because it poses the same problems we face when we look at the issue of what to do about the criminals running our government.

We certainly aren’t going to successfully separate money from electoral politics, we would need to create a ‘not for profit’ media to even attempt that.

More curiously, how far do you think a truly independent media organization would get before the capitalists crushed it?

Our Oligarchs (a.k.a. the >One Percent) don’t want the public informed of who is really responsible for our myriad problems!

If our oligarchs fear one thing it is a recurrence of The Terror…

With that fact firmly in mind, what are we to make of this latest exercise in ‘mental masturbation’?
As the 2012 election crests with all its chaos—billionaire-driven TV ad wars, legal fights over voter suppression tactics, endless fundraising e-mails and worries about stealing the vote—progressives need to remember what’s been destroying our democracy and what solutions are needed to restore the balance of power in America.

Now is the time to note precisely what’s wrong, what’s gotten worse and what’s completely broken in key corners of the electoral process. That’s because once the dust settles after Election Day, the impetus to fix things will wane among the political victors, media and much of the public, as it does after every big election. The winners will say there is not a problem because they won. The press will start covering the new administration. And weary voters will want to look ahead to solutions, not back to old problems.

That’s how our dysfunctional democracy may limp along until the next major election (the 2016 midterms) or a national crisis. But the first year of a presidential term is the most likely time that Congress might do anything on a big enough scale to touch the underlying problems because it’s the ebb tide in the electoral cycle.
And once again I have to sit here and contemplate why it is so difficult for the average person to understand that NONE of this will change WITHOUT A FULL BORE, BLOOD IN THE STREETS REVOLUTION!

You aren’t going to see a ‘non-profit’ press as long as the capitalists have something to hide.

C.K. Michaelson reminded me this morning that capitalists don’t have a ‘lock’ on unemployment, poverty and homelessness. The dictatorial regimes that called themselves ‘Communist’ in both Russia and China had their share as well…although it is interesting to note that the problems have gotten worse since they, er, ‘converted’ to capitalism.

At least communism nods at the notion of a shared fate. Wonder how the Chinese party brass reconciles that one to their rebelling public?

This presents a mathematical conundrum to those of us awaiting a ‘tipping point’. China has a roughly twenty percent prosperity rate with the eighty percent scraping by as subsistence farmers.

Um, is the key here the self-reliance factor, that a significant portion of the country still grows its own food?

Because we have a similar split labor force wise (considering half of our labor force is part-time) but the percentage of US citizens who are food self-sufficient is infinitesimal.

Across our ‘for profit’ culture only a tiny percentage of the population grows 100% of the food.

(Let’s not visit the issue of how much of it is grown and how much is whipped up in ‘vats’ just now…)

But let’s rewind a couple of steps to the idea of a ‘shared fate’.

This is something that the Capitalist and the Conservative both abhor and that is how our fates are 'intertwined.'

Ironically, they will be the last to admit that it is you (mostly your stupidity) that is responsible for ‘their’ success.

Your belief in their lies makes them rich!

Without you, they are nothing but common peasants, the very thing they abhor about YOU!

Worse, it is this point that they mince as proof of their ‘superiority’! YOU work for THEM! (They totally leave out the part where they sold you out to the king to obtain this envious position…no need to go there, right?)

But I digress.

Worse, I fear that even these simple concepts sail right over your heads.

There is nothing ‘natural’ about ‘the natural order of things’.

The self-important slime makes no objections to the idea of intertwined fates…as long as it is YOUR fate to SERVE them!

YOU weren’t born to be somebody else’s jackass!

Wake the fuck up, will ya?

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner


Sunday, October 21, 2012

Trivia!

Greetings good citizen,

Okay, break time’s over. Everybody back your heads!

Taking a day off can be liberating, gives you time to put things into perspective…and a wandering mind like mine is always tilting at windmills…when it isn’t considering some mighty outrageous ‘whys’.

Like how our, er, ‘cleverly designed’ political system doesn’t permit us to alter anything about our life…and this is used to brew contempt, strong and hot, against the opposing political ideology.

When in fact it has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with the oligarchy, our supposedly long deposed Kings and Queens!

"What are our leaders doing?" Isn’t an unfair question. We are living in a world being devastated by climate change while our civilization’s ‘founding premise’ (cheap and abundant energy) races towards exhaustion.

And our politicians are locked in mortal ideological battle, will the Democrats and their wishful half-measures restore prosperity or will (more) Republican tax cuts (for those who need them least) do the job?

Because we all know the answer is neither.

The ONLY thing that will restore ‘viability’ to our civilization is a radical shift away from the predatory mis-management of what remains.

You had best believe good citizen that the clock is ticking
George Orwell argued that pessimism is reactionary because it makes the very idea of improving the world impossible. I found that whether or not we believe we can change the world, even in a small way, acting as if we can is the healthiest emotional stance to take in the face of injustice and destruction.

------

"He who fights the future has a dangerous enemy," said Søren Kierkegaard. Life is stressful. We think something is wrong with us, but the problems are endemic and systemic. As a people, we've lost our grounding in deep time and in our place. At root, our problems are relationship problems. We have a disordered relationship with the web of life.

Right now, the more we connect the dots between events, the more frightened we become. This reminds me of a night I slept in a tent with three of my grandchildren. Kate was 6, Aidan was 4, and Claire was 2. Claire and Aidan were blissfully happy. They snuggled and listened to the sounds of the cicadas and night birds. Meanwhile, Kate kept telling me she was scared and that she wanted to sleep in the house. Stupidly, I chided her for her fears. I asked, "Kate, you are the big sister and the oldest. Why can't you be as brave as your sister and brother?" She wailed, "Nonna, they're little. They don't know enough to be scared!"

These days, I often feel like Kate did that night. I know too much about deforestation, nuclear power plants, our tainted food supply, and our collapsing fisheries. Sometimes I wish I didn't know all these things. But if we adults don't face and come to grips with our current reality, who will?
Personally, this now ancient theme of ‘Grandma has a wake up call’ is getting more than a little thin.

But it does highlight an interesting point. Why do we ignore the obvious and not object when we are misdirected with the trivial?

Who gives a crap about gays marrying one another? Let ‘em, it’s not the sort of thing our legislators should be wasting their time on.

Except…the pinheaded ‘job creators’ don’t want to give these people the same ‘benefits’ that they increasingly aren’t giving their, er, ‘straight’ employees.

Remember good citizen, at the end of the day ALL MONEY IS FUNNY!

This screaming about ‘the cost’ is BULLSHIT! Just as it is proving out that austerity measures actually do more harm than good.

It is also becoming obvious that income inequality is caustic to civilization as well…as we watch whole segments of our society crumble.

Keep the, er, ‘uncertain’ value of money in mind good citizen as we take a moment to explore why the US has the LARGEST CRIMINAL POPULATION ON THE PLANET!

This is the sort of bullshit that happens when an entire civilization is ‘managed’ for the benefit of a few…

Most of you are aware that it cost a solid, er, ‘middle class income’ (twice as much as the average working class person earns per year) to incarcerate anyone, per year.

One percent of this nation’s population is behind bars and more than half of them are there on ‘drug related’ charges.

Wouldn’t it be ‘more intelligent’ to ‘manage’ this problem rather than foolishly pretending that prohibition works?

I am fully aware that the ‘for profit’ prison industry is a premier ‘conservo-whacko job creation program’ writ large…

And I have already pointed to the ‘correlation’ between conservatism and dope (which oddly, explains much!)

Don’t even get me started on the population explosion that the oligarchs like to pretend isn’t happening…because the more of us there are, the more likely it is that we will kill one another off.

That’s the ‘truth’ behind the push to reverse Roe v. Wade. ‘Let ‘em drown in their own cesspool’.

How retarded is it to think their mercenaries can/will protect them when that cesspool bursts…

It won’t be just OUR money that goes bad when the bottom drops out.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner


Friday, October 19, 2012

HSC

Greetings good citizen,

Um, markets ‘slid’ today giving back their inexplicable gains they made earlier this week.

Funny little game these Wall Streeters’ play but it has zero relationship to the ‘real’ economy.

Which brings us back to the basic Human social contract

What’s that you ask?

It is an important understanding between people that libertarians and the like say is a fairy tale.

Anyone who advocates ‘bootstrapping’ and YOYOism likes to pretend the human social contract doesn’t exist.

Ironically, it was the violating of this allegedly non-existent contract that resulted in ‘The Terror’ of the French Revolution.

Let us take a moment to lay down some background first:
Japan is quite different from the U.S. and Europe, with a homogeneous populace and a culture rooted in Confucian values and social hierarchies. Despite the many differences, including definitions of depression, I think it is self-evident that the rising insecurity and workplace changes in Japan result from long-term economic stagnation.

I suspect "new-type depression" may have some universal aspects, as rising insecurity and new demands in the workplace characterize Western economies as well.

New-type depression--NTD--(also called modern-type) is not a classic depression. It does not respond to anti-depressant medications, and it is triggered by events in the workplace--usually criticism from superiors. Those who exhibit the symptoms--difficulty focusing at work, physical symptoms of stress, etc.--tend to be in their 20s and 30s.

What we see here are the emerging effects of a people who tap dance on a landmine every day.

They don’t know from one day to the next if they will be able to support themselves.

Now our Libbies and their kissing cousins the Conservo-loonies, bootstrappers one and all, are calling the appearance of this malaise ‘a weakness’ in the individuals displaying the symptoms.

This would be incorrect. The reaction is caused by the violation of the human social contract, the REASON WHY we DON’T KILL ONE ANOTHER ON SIGHT!

Just stop for a second and let that sink in.

Why DON’T WE kill one another on sight? We are the ‘alpha predator’, it’s only natural that we ‘ought to’ eliminate competitors from our turf.

But wait, something’s wrong here. We are only top dog when we act ‘in concert’. All alone we are easily killed by goddamn viruses!

Hell, if it got the jump on you, a dog could kick your ass and kill you. In fact, on your own, there is a long list of wildlife that has the upper hand in a one on one encounter.

So we don’t dare to kill one another on sight. We only prevail in, er, ‘packs’.

But why do incidents like the terror occur?

Well, under those circumstances one ‘pack’ of humans oversteps it’s bounds and neglects its responsibility to the other…’packs’, if you will.

They take all of the ‘good stuff’ for themselves, leaving next to nothing for anyone else.

Now, the ‘unwritten contract’ states that we suffer or prosper TOGETHER.

But the greedheads don’t like that idea. They subscribe to the ‘I was here first’ principle.

If there is any suffering to be done it will fall upon those who didn’t grab what they could, when they could.

But that’s not the deal!

The deal is share and share alike!

So you can see how these little ‘impasses’ end up in the streets running in blood.

Because the people, looking for their share, now have to go out and take it from those who took it unjustly.

And yeah, it’s still ‘crowd vs. crowd.’

And my how that crowd has grown under the false prosperity sown to hide the theft.

Worse, it’s a not a question of ‘if’ we are about to hit the wall but ‘when’?

Again there will be cries of shock, ‘why is this happening’ when we saw it begin all of those years ago…and stood motionless as they whispered ‘it’s different this time’.

It’s NEVER different…and it’s not different this time.

What has to happen, since they pretty much walked away unscathed the last time, is they have to be, er, ‘taught’ not to violate the contract all over again.

Like they were taught in 1789…and why we are here again so soon after 1929 because we DIDN’T ‘make them pay’ then.

We won’t enjoy that luxury this time. Although that’s what they’re counting on, that we’re ‘too civilized’ to punish them…the way that they punish tin pot dictators who object to their ‘machinations’.

We are rapidly approaching a time when we can no longer tolerate the few to prey upon the rest of us.

Those who fail to appreciate the benefits of the human social contract will have those benefits (forcibly) withdrawn from them.

Like it or not, we are all in this together.

Thus do we need to decide, together, what we should do next.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner


Thursday, October 18, 2012

Hand Selected and Spoon Fed

Greetings good citizen,

Um, as disturbing as it is, I often complain about the STIFFS who ‘write for a paycheck’. Although half of the time I sympathize with them, they are no different than any other ‘paycheck hostage’.

I don’t care if your way is easier, I’m paying you to do it MY WAY!

And other nonsense we ‘non-stakeholders’ regularly put up with.

But…and some things are ‘unforgivable’, sometimes you just have to wonder how these fuckers sleep at night because NOT ONE ‘mainstream media outlet’ reported this story
Green Party presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein said Wednesday police handcuffed her to a chair during her eight-hour imprisonment following her arrest outside the second presidential debate.

“For most of the time it was just [running mate] Cheri Honkala and myself,” Stein told Democracy Now anchor Amy Goodman. “Yet they felt the need to keep us in tight plastic restraints tightly secured to metal chairs.”

Stein and Honkala were arrested Tuesday while sitting in the street to protest their exclusion from this year’s presidential debates between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney. They tried to enter the debate hall at the host site, Hofstra University, but were denied access because they lacked the necessary credentials

Raw Story (http://s.tt/1qjFK)

[Deep Sigh…]

Well good citizen, is this something you’d expect to find in the country you were raised to believe in freedom and equality…or is this the kind of BULLSHIT you’d expect to find in some tin pot DICTATORSHIP?

We aren’t talking some obscure demonstrators from OWS, we’re talking actual, on the ballot in all fifty states, presidential candidates!

What are the FUCKING >One Percent trying to hide (besides an alternative to two sides of the same coin?)

Um, should we be ‘surprised’ by this? Dennis Kucinich wasn’t invited to the presidential debates last time and despite some squawking from the alternative press, nothing was done about that either.

Which is to say it’s probably time for another piece on ‘fatal myopia’.

What is the sound of one hand clapping? If you want to know then all you have to do is look at the presidential race through the eyes of the corporate owned media…

Two guys who both answer to the same masters.

It has occurred to me that since Obama has become identified as a ‘do nothing’ president, The >One Percent are offering up the Romney-Ryan show to justify his second term.

Not that I’m voting for the worthless…(fill in your own blank.)

How sad is it that until this article I didn’t even know who the Greenies were running. (Never mind that they had been taken hostage by the >One Percent!)

While I am all for sustainability, my ‘greenness’ is tempered by practicality. I’m unwilling to sacrifice large numbers of humans on the alter of some ‘unachievable balance’ and carrying capacity estimates that are guesses at best.

Perhaps my biggest, er, ‘issue’ with the greens is their lack of awareness that economics is deeply tied to politics and their ‘values’ are predominantly capitalist.

I don’t know who it pisses off when I exclaim that predatory capitalism (and ALL Capitalism is predatory) must go, but that’s my position and I’m sticking with it.

The planet isn’t big enough for one capitalist and the rest of us.

Which is to express my support for the ‘Gone Galt’ project of transplanting this planets, er, assholes um, I mean ‘good people’/capitalists to their very own colony on the Moon!

Once there they can sort out who will do the heavy lifting for them…it won’t be our problem anymore.

And we MUST send them all, no matter how vigorously they protest that we NEED them to ‘take care of us’…

Since they are the self professed ‘best and brightest’ of us all they should easily overcome the, er, ‘oxygen deficit’ that will occur when we don’t send along any additional supplies.

This will also solve the problem of feeding them once they’re there too.

But let us not get too wrapped up in the details. They have long insisted they are better than the rest of us, maybe it’s time we put that claim to the test!

It was disturbing enough that the moderators basically ignored the one candidate who wasn’t a stooge for the One Percent…but at least they didn’t arrest him!

Although the War Criminal had ‘uninvited attendees’ to his campaign events arrested…which probably ‘set the precedent’ for this atrocity.

This tracks back to ‘authority’ good citizen, under whose authority did they arrest legitimate candidates for national office and detain them for 8 hours?

One would THINK there would be several job openings at THAT Police Department/Government agency by this time tomorrow!

Understand good citizen, a cop is YOU with a gun and a blue suit!

You can’t walk around and arrest anybody you like because you don’t agree with what they’re doing, can you?

Then why aren’t those security personnel under arrest awaiting charges of kidnapping and hostage taking?

Oh, wait…it’s because Obobo ignored his mandate and went for giving insurance companies a gift rather than prosecuting W, the war criminal!

Um, when it’s YOU being ‘illegally detained’ it will be far too late to do anything about it.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

PS: do not ignore the elephant in the room, you are also being deprived of hearing alternative voices, so blatant has the ‘pay to play’ atmosphere become!

The deplorable state of what passes for justice in our society is sadly secondary…although it is primary to our society's restoration.


Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Dog ; Barking (post 1111)

Greetings good citizen,

Um, haven’t heard the final analysis yet but it looks like last night’s debate might be called a ‘draw’.

Check out the top story in today’s NY Times:
TOP NEWS
Rivals Bring Bare Fists to Rematch

By JIM RUTENBERG and JEFF ZELENY

In a charged and clenched debate, President Obama portrayed Mitt Romney as a former corporate raider, while Mr. Romney kept bringing the discussion back to Mr. Obama's record.
For all of my complaints about the corporate owned media, you can’t come closer to the raw truth than the paragraph we see above.

This single statement perfectly illustrates our plight as voters.

Neither man is ‘fit’ to become the next president (and it’s a fairly popular sentiment that the incumbent gained office under false pretenses.)

If he had a ‘mandate’ at all, it was to prosecute the Bush Administration for War Crimes.

What did he do with that mandate?

We got a Republican designed ‘mandatory’ healthcare bill.

And despite all of their squirming and promises to ‘repeal’ the new law…the lying fucks passed it in the first place…and their Insurance company Masters aren’t going to let them repeal it.

(And, naturally, it will be made to appear that the Democrats ‘stonewalled’ the repeal process.)

Like there are still Democrats in public administration! Ha!

The rich squeezed them out long ago…weirdly around the same time their bought and paid for boys were showering them with tax cuts. (Totally shattering the dynamics of politics.)

So if we back track to the beginning of today’s post the point would be the observation that neither candidate is, er, ‘equipped’ to straighten out our warped and twisted economy, nor would you want either one of them presiding over the pushing of the ‘reset button’.

Which is what it will take to get the global economy rolling again.

How do we fix our current mess given that we have no control over what our politicians do after we elect them?

How do you ‘fix’ that?

The >One Percent have a rather effective method of ‘controlling’ their bought and paid for politicians. If they don’t do EXACTLY as they are told, they get assassinated, simple as that.

Sometimes this actually involves killing but most times they use leverage to assassinate the character of the, er, ‘rebel’…like Elliot Spitzer.

He ain’t dead…but he may as well be.

The Emperor’s club incident thoroughly trashed his reputation.

How do we combat that?

You can bet your bottom dollar that most campaign funding today is tied to providing the contributor with ‘usable dirt’ he can hold over the candidates head.

Just a business deal, right? Nothing wrong with that, a simple ‘understanding’ between the purchaser and the provider of a service, that’s all.

Except this asshole just bought YOUR right to protest your mistreatment!

And now forty percent of the workforce doesn’t have work and the scum-bucket >One Percent says it’s not their problem!

How do you overcome that?

Short answer, you don’t.

NOW ‘what are YOU going to do about it’ (besides starve?)

Freeze?

If you don’t ‘see the need’ to address these shortcoming in the design of our political system, you probably won’t live to see them either.

And just to reiterate, even the founders agreed that the original set up was ‘deeply flawed’.

Worse, most thought it was a ‘temporary’ set-up, that it would be fixed later…before corruption got ‘too bad’.

Did you know that A Simple Plan is bullet proof right out of the box?

It doesn’t need ‘fixing’, it meshes with itself perfectly…and the ONLY people who don’t like it are CRIMINALS!

Although I must confess, the world is righteously full of ‘suspicious’ people who believe A Simple Plan is ‘too utopian’ for their tastes.

They condemn it on the ‘too good to be true’ basis.

And there is some potential for social harm through ‘mal-administration’ (criminals pushing for exemptions to the human anti-exploitation law. Which outlaws the buying and selling of ANYTHING ‘for personal gain’.

And there are the facts good citizen, the only way for the global economy to ‘recover’ is by pushing the ‘reset button’.

However, if the current crew presides over this ‘reset’ then we will need to do it again in about five years while NOTHING improves (for the average individual.)

And only a few will know that the whole process is merely a smokescreen they are using to avoid prosecution (for crimes against humanity.)

Ironically yet another ‘illusion of doing something’ where nothing gets done and nothing changes.

If we are to stop them, we need to stop them cold with a clearly defined plan of action.

A Simple Plan is that plan of action.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner


Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Down Town Hallway

Greetings good citizen,

Um, the pattern established four years ago remains in place. Stock markets enjoyed another ‘up’ day today for no solid economic reason.

Perhaps more interesting is the other top news item for the day…and what we should make of it.

You can read the article but they studiously avoid mentioning how old Vikram ISN’T.

Of course, the ‘spin’ tells us he isn’t stepping down so he can retire, he’s (supposedly) leaving before he’s thrown out.

Personally (and this is pure speculation on my part) I think Vikram is joining the One Percent in going to ground, ‘taking cover’ if you will.

The shit’s about to hit the fan.
Pandit Steps Down as Chief of Citigroup
By JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG and MICHAEL J. DE LA MERCED 3:59 PM ET

Vikram S. Pandit stepped down after long-simmering tensions with the board. John P. Havens, the bank’s president and a longtime associate of Mr. Pandit, also resigned.

Vikram S. Pandit resigned from Citigroup on Tuesday. There were concerns he lacked the breadth of vision needed to turn the bank around. “He was considered more technically skilled,” one Citi executive said.

Meet Citi's New C.E.O.
By BEN PROTESS and PETER EAVIS 3:16 PM ET

Michael L. Corbat, 52, was an all-conference lineman on the Harvard football team and has been a Citigroup lifer.

A New Show of Power by Boards
By STEVEN M. DAVIDOFF 3:47 PM ET

The departure of Vikram S. Pandit shows clearly who is in charge of Citigroup: the directors. For good or for bad, boards are increasingly taking charge of corporate America.
So, after four years of mismanagement by incompetent CEO’s, the basically useless board of directors has suddenly decided to step up and ‘take charge’?

Worse, most of these boards are cross-populated AND most directors are the ‘cronies’ of the CEO’s they serve!

But you’re not supposed to know that.

So what does Vikram’s sudden exit look like now?

Because you don’t see Mr. Blankfein stepping down, nor does the Goldman board feel compelled to ‘flex their muscles’…
Goldman Sachs Swings to Profit as Revenue Surges
By SUSANNE CRAIG 12:41 PM ET

Helped by its powerful trading business, the firm's revenue more than doubled in the third quarter, to $8.35 billion, exceeding the estimates of Wall Street analysts.

Um, nobody is surprised when a bank ‘beats the estimate’ obviously made by a clueless insider…but this is ‘old news’.

The question you should be asking yourself, good citizen, is how GS makes 8.35 billion (this quarter!) in profits in a (global) economy that is foundering on the rocks?

It’s either magic or its theft…which one do YOU think it is?
A soup kitchen in Camden, New Jersey. Economists’ thinking on income inequality has changed sharply in recent years.

Income Inequality May Take Toll on Economic Growth
By ANNIE LOWREY 12:48 PM ET

The concentration of income in a few hands might mean not just a more unequal society, many economists say, but also a less vigorous economy.

And STILL they get it wrong! The main problem with income inequality is the tendency of money to ‘sit’ in the upper reaches of the economy.

The ‘uber wealthy’ already have everything they need so they don’t spend their money…worse, since the average consumer isn’t being given higher wages, and believe me, the cost of living continues to escalate. The ‘velocity of money’ has slowed considerably.

Because the cost of living has exceeded the rate at which pay has increased the general level of poverty is climbing…which is placing a strain on the nation’s safety net…(what’s left of it.)

Yeah, that ‘income inequality’ thing is screwing the whole economy up…and we will NEVER be given the opportunity to ‘vote’ on the issue because it takes billions of dollars to get an issue like that on the ballot.

And nobody really thinks those with money to burn are going to voluntarily raise taxes on themselves (although they would do just that if they believed it would save their ownership rights!)

As we tick closer to the bitter end of these posts and our civilization you can expect more concentration on A Simple Plan.

The better you understand it, the better off we all will be!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

PS, Don’t let the slavers win!


Monday, October 15, 2012

You or Them?

Greetings good citizen,

In yet another episode of ‘irrational exuberance’ markets enjoyed a rare ‘up’ day because, for the thousandth time, economic activity in the financial sector is being ‘misread’ as a consumer lead recovery.

The sad truth good citizen is not only is nobody hiring (although an amazing number of them are ‘interviewing’, again for reasons most likely political.) when you do talk money, they are all offering less than what I was making in the 1980’s.

But let’s have a look at the headlines:
Signs of Possible Recovery Buoy Chinese Exporters
By KEITH BRADSHER 6:58 PM ET

With few exceptions, exporters at the opening of the Canton Fair, China’s main export show, said demand from emerging markets and the United States was beginning to recover.

Signs of economic improvement are underpinned by investment spending, largely in the form of loans by state-owned banks to government construction projects.
Republicans are pointing to Obama’s ‘stimulus spending’ and belaboring the obvious, old time Keynesian spending doesn’t work in a global economy…

The money all ends up in the oligarchs hands via their Chinese manufacturing arms.

But hey, that didn’t stop the Dow from tacking on 95 points for absolutely NO reason!

Just as the Dow recently tacked on over 200 points on news that Spain was going to receive a bailout.

WTF!
Spain Waits, and Europe Frets
By LANDON THOMAS Jr.

Many economists and analysts are worried that Spain risks push the economy deeper into recession by waiting to take advantage of a bailout fund.
Naturally the Spanish are watching the Greek riot, wondering if they too aren’t making a mistake bailing out corrupt bankers with the taxpayers money.

Some Blame Germany for Spain's Delay 11:28 AM ET

But we shouldn’t be throwing stones, let’s take a look at whats going on in our own banking sector:
DealBook
Citigroup Earnings Plummeted in Quarter on Write-Down
By JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG 5:19 PM ET

The nation’s third-largest bank reported a decline in net income because of a $4.7 billion loss related to the joint venture brokerage business Morgan Stanley Smith Barney.
Tough to see a story like this and not be able to click through to find out what’s going on…but we already know what’s going on.

Our banking system along with the global banking network is bankrupt, because it’s customers are bankrupt.

Let’s backtrack a couple of stories to our alleged ‘recovery’. Banks making stupid loans to builders doesn’t mean anything in a world that can’t utilize the capacity it already has!

Don’t look now good citizen but guess who buys an I phone everytime a new one comes out?

The fucking One Percent! They are pretty much the only ones foolish enough to throw away a perfectly good phone just because a new model came out.

This disease/foolishness extends to technophiles who ‘have to have’ the latest, most up to the minute gadget of the moment.

But not all techies are models of frugality…

Under the just who the hell vets these people category we have:
2 From U.S. Win Nobel in Economics
By CATHERINE RAMPELL 5:14 PM ET

Alvin Roth and Lloyd Shapley were given the award for their work on market design and matching theory, and how to help make markets work better.
Seriously good citizen, with the exception of my humble self, is there any American that knows ANYTHING about ‘real economics’ out there?

I seriously doubt it…and if A Simple Plan is adopted there is going to be a whole boatload of economic degrees getting revoked wholesale! And more than a few Nobel prizes getting clawed back…for a variety of reasons.

And no I don’t want them, I’m gonna give ‘em back to the ‘Wegians!
DealBook
Book by Disgruntled Ex-Salesman Offers His Analysis of the Culture at Goldman
By SUSANNE CRAIG

In the first chapter of his book "Why I Left Goldman Sachs, A Wall Street Story," Greg Smith, a former salesman for the Wall Street firm, writes of interns who had to carry a stool with them.
Um, just a hint of how far gone things really are…in case you thought all of this collapse stuff was hogwash.
Retail Sales Point to Stronger Consumer Spending
By REUTERS

Americans bought more cars and gasoline in September, while a gauge of consumer spending pointed to stronger economic growth than expected in the third quarter.
It’s the price of fuel, stupid! Yet we have this…

Stocks Move Higher on Sales Data 4:07 PM ET
Our final snippet makes us ask, but will pinhead still be the Prime minister by this time next year?
Prime Minister Emphasizes His Belief That Greece Will Stay in European Union
By JACK EWING and LIZ ALDERMAN 2:54 PM ET

Antonis Samaras, Greece’s prime minister, says an agreement will be reached that will end speculation that the country will leave the euro. But business leaders say they have seen little progress.

Unemployment at record levels mostly due to ‘austerity measures’ that are actually hurting the economy.

In fact this whole housing boom and subsequent bust has been so badly bungled that you can’t help but wonder if it isn’t deliberate.

And guess what, the events unfolding over the past four years are precisely what I’d do if I were trying to KILL OFF a large portion of the ‘surplus population’.

But that’s just ‘crazy talk’, right? The One percent don’t Hate us that much, not enough that they want to kill us…although they might look the other way if some of us were starving to death (which is how it’s going to go down.)

After the optimists among us finish paying for shelter and heat they won’t have anything left for food.

Better to throw on an extra blanket and shiver a little than to not allow yourself enough to eat. Without energy you won’t be able to earn more money to pay for shelter and then where would you be?

Consider this as the icy grip of winter approaches…and wonder whether you are valuable enough to your employer to be ‘saved’…

Because in the end it is THEIR decision, not yours.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner


Sunday, October 14, 2012

Hail Anarchy!

Greetings good citizen,

For the longest time Anarchy has gotten a bad rap under our capitalist society…mostly because our leaders DON’T want YOU thinking and deciding for yourself!

How long would the thieves on Wall Street gone unprosecuted if YOU had something to say about it?

Wouldn’t YOU be screaming for the head of those supposed to be in charge of investigating this sort of thing?

Because under A Simple Plan you can (and will) institute action (that must be answered to!)

Not that the kind of fraud we are seeing today will even be possible under A Simple Plan but the fact that those in charge are answerable directly to ANY MEMBER of the public is a true game changer.

Um, like communism, there are many different ‘varieties’ of Anarchy, A Simple Plan is based on the ‘Rules without Rulers’ variety.

While I have been advised that my, er, ‘type’ of Anarchy is close to a variety championed by Bakunin (who was executed by the Bolsheviks) I am unfamiliar with the specifics of Kropotkinism…
It seems that everywhere, these days, people are talking about anarchism. Now Dmitry Orlov joins the discussion with a 3-part series, “In Praise of Anarchy.” Utilizing primarily the work of the 19th century Russian anarchist, Peter Kropotkin, Orlov argues that anarchy, rather than hierarchy, is the dominant pattern in nature, that hierarchical organizations ultimately end in collapse, and that the impending collapse of the capitalist industrial system presents an opportunity for the emergence of anarchism.

Orlov,(aka kollapsnik at Club Orlov), is probably best-known for his book, Reinventing Collapse, in which he compares the collapse of the Soviet Union with the imminent collapse of the United States. Russian-born Orlov is in a unique position to make such comparisons. He immigrated to the USA when he was twelve years old, and, as an adult, made numerous trips back to the former USSR in the years immediately following the collapse of its political and economic system.

With a wry Russian wit I find immensely attractive, Orlov describes in Reinventing Collapse how people in the USSR were better positioned than are Americans for economic collapse. For example, most Soviet citizens did not own their homes; instead they lived in state-owned dwellings. When the USSR collapsed, they simply remained where they were and nobody evicted them. Compare that with the United States, where people were seduced into signing questionable mortgage agreements for outrageously priced homes, and where, since the economic crisis of 2008, 3 million have been foreclosed upon.

Unhelpfully, this article goes on to compare life in ‘post-communist’ Russia with living conditions in the US just after the collapse of the financial markets.

What this has to do with Anarchy is unclear…although the writer points to Orlov’s background as a naturalist and his observations on nature to reinforce the concepts of Anarchy…

Much like this video explores Darwinism as a justification for the excesses of capitalism…

The video is an hour long and provides a curious window into the mindset that brought us the original Great Depression…

I have not visited ‘Club Orlov’ and it remains unclear whether or not Alternet will run the remainder of the series…I am assuming they skipped the first installment as this one seems to indicate it is the ‘middle’ piece.

I have to give Orlov credit though, he states the Darwin (actually Spencer’s) term ‘survival of the fittest’ is merely the fastest route to extinction…which is to point out that ‘fitness’ has many more aspects to it than the fitness of the individual.

Man’s success is predicated on his ability to pull together with other members of his species to achieve larger goals and to overcome other, more virulent competitors.

So this ‘survival of the fittest’ bullshit has actually had a dampening effect on our social development…so a few could be rich.

Which leaves us to ponder how we protect the bulk of our species from the few self-centered enough to betray the trust of the rest?

I posit that the best preventative here is to place the levers of power beyond the reach of the self-interested…which is what *A Simple Plan does.

[* Part of the testing feature that governs advancement also measures the candidate’s moral compass. You can ace the technical aspects but if your moral compass is broken, you will NOT advance.]

Most psycho paths believe others are ‘too stupid’ to know they are being played…this is a shortcoming in the psychopath…because everyone KNOWS who is a few fries shy of a Happy Meal and that they need to be watched.

The only ones the psycho is fooling is themselves. Everybody else has a ‘good idea’ something’s wrong with the clever guy who talks down to everyone…

But I digress…

This is supposed to be an opportunity to talk up anarchy, and idea whose time is long overdue!

I designed A Simple Plan with certain laws already in place so we could avoid having the ‘I didn’t vote for that’ bullshit that some people will engage in regardless.

The idea was to lay down a framework that enabled us to vote on the laws we want without having to hold critical ballots that preserve our freedoms…like the Human Anti-Exploitation Law.

It’s so basic you can only marvel why it isn’t already a law…but then you take a quick look around and you know the answer.

It’s a ‘choice’ those who are screwing you left and right DON’T want YOU to have.

With that one law as the cornerstone of our new civilization, everything else falls into place.

There is also a law about new proposed laws that forbids legislation that isn’t ‘universal’ in nature.

Which is to say it prevents stupid laws like ‘Only white people can vote’…

Or only the military can be armed…

Seriously good citizen, you have to be extremely careful with what you prohibit.

Protecting the few at the expense of the rest is a recipe for tyranny.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner


Saturday, October 13, 2012

Listen Carefully:

Greetings good citizen,

Happy Saturday! (The idiot stock markets are closed so we needn’t trouble ourselves with their irrational gyrations for a couple of days anyway.

Probably a good thing that we are spared this nonsense on the weekends or our heads might truly explode.

But that doesn’t apply to all of us. The ‘new economy’ (retail focused) is a 24/7 enterprise.

It is only a matter of time before the buying and selling of financial securities transitions to a 24/7 activity.

(How sad is it that the markets will crash if they even attempt it?)

But no matter; because we are racing towards a time when it will all be like it was for time out of mind and there won’t be ANY financial markets at all.

But I digress.

The topic of tonight’s post isn’t the financial markets but how those who own them benefit the most from them…and how one individual proposes that we change all that…
There are three categories of policy changes that we need: rules and policies that raise the floor, those that level the playing field, and those that break up over-concentrations of wealth and corporate power. These are not hard-and-fast categories, but a useful framework for grouping different rule changes.

1.Rule changes that raise the floor

• Ensure the minimum wage is a living wage
• Provide universal health care
• Enforce basic labor standards and protections

2. Rule changes that level the playing field

• Invest in education
• Reduce the influence of money in politics
• Implement fair trade rules

3. Rule changes that break up wealth and power

• Tax the 1 percent
• Rein in CEO pay
• Stop corporate tax dodging
• Reclaim our financial system
• Reengineer the corporation
• Redesign the tax revenue system

Um, I keep repeating this but apparently nobody listens (and why should they?)

THERE IS NO WAY TO FIX CAPITALISM USING CAPITALISM.

Error number one here is the word tax. If you need taxes to finance your society, YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG!

How does, er, ‘Zippy’ propose to insure that the minimum wage is (and remains) ‘a living wage’?

A Simple plan accomplishes this by making housing and utilities a ‘gimme’, they are both your ‘rights' as a citizen. You only need money for food and clothing and to compete for little ‘extras’ like seats at entertainment venues and for meals at a hospitality facility.

Um, then there’s the ‘traveling’ piece of the puzzle. Good shoe leather will command a premium because walking will be everybody’s primary mode of transportation.

Each region will deal with the transport issue in ways that make sense for that area (although I can GUARANTEE YOU that a 400 Hp 4X4 will NOT be one of them.)

Personal transportation will become a rarity reserved for ‘special needs/situations’.

Which, tangentially, will help to address the nation’s obesity epidemic (said the three hundred pound moose!)

Wanna ‘see the world?’ Join the fucking Navy! (Or at least the merchant Marine.)

Universal healthcare is also a ‘gimme’ under A Simple Plan…but Bobo doesn’t say how he proposes to enact and enforce ‘universal health and safety standards’…the lack of which accounts for much of the pretense of the cheaper there.

I’ll tell you how this happens under A Simple Plan, Bobo no longer ‘owns’ the company so he no longer gets to ‘dictate’ how it is run!

Then he goes on to repeat one of the oldest ‘talking points’ there is, the ‘invest in education’ bullshit.

Under A Simple plan you learn on the job, the way they used to do it!

Everybody will literally ‘apprentice’ in their given field of endeavor and you won’t have these disastrous ‘misunderstandings’ that are born of miscommunications in the educational process.

You will learn and you won’t advance until you can pass a test on the material!

Thinking about bribing the guy giving the test?

You can’t…your money is for you, and you don’t have any cash…nor is there any way to transfer funds between individuals.

So Bobo’s last proposal, stiff taxes on ‘inherited wealth’ is also a non-starter…

Because under A Simple Plan, when you die your money dies WITH YOU! Your account is erased, nobody gets it!

I’ll bet your thinking…hmmn. Shame that nobody gets that money…maybe if I worked in the book keeping end of the organization I could, er, ‘skim off’ a little bit of the money into an alias that I happen to have…who’d know?

Um the system is self-checking AND if you are caught ‘buttering your own bread’ it is ‘automatic exile’ for you!

Oh, and don’t get me wrong. I suspect there will be numerous ‘accountant types’ who will be convicted of stealing from society and will pay the price…but that’s only ‘human nature’.

Again, Bobo makes the mistake of treating a legal problem as if it were a tax problem and you can’t solve the problem if you don’t attack it at the root!

Here’s my ‘sales pitch’ one more time:

If you want YOUR KID to grow up free in a society where they will be equal to everyone else then A Simple Plan is for YOU!

Now, if you’re hopelessly stupid and think your kid is better than everyone else, knock yourself out and listen to idiots who can’t even get the problem right!

If you don’t start at the beginning you won’t end up in the right place.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner


Friday, October 12, 2012

Shoo-in

Greetings good citizen,

Markets around the globe tanked again today after starting the day in predominantly positive territory.

Um, they can make the numbers whatever they want them to be so I wouldn’t go reading too much into today’s negative close.

What makes your head explode is the irrational surges upward for no rhyme or reason.

It has become increasingly obvious that the markets exist to, er, ‘influence’ desired political outcomes…and I would once again opine that the guy who gave 47% of the electorate the finger a few weeks ago is still looking like he is going to ‘inexplicably’ ‘Win the White House’.

And maybe we should spend a few minutes reflecting on what we should do if that happens.

The, er, electoral thieves have it set up so the general public BELIEVES we are SO divided the election could go either way…when the truth is just the opposite, despite rising 'voter dissatisfaction’ there IS A CONSENSUS on what we collectively DON’T WANT.

And the would be another round of irresponsible Republican warmongering with their reckless ‘borrow and spend’ financing of tax cuts for people who need them the least!

And we all KNOW that is what we will get if the Mitten is declared the winner this November.

But hold the phone good citizen because the ‘incumbent’ is no better!

They bludgeoned Clinton into eliminating welfare and signing NAFTA during HIS second term…and they’ll do that and more during Bobo’s second term, especially if Willard proves too controversial to put in the oval office.

Which is to caution you that we, as a people, are ‘well and truly’ regardless of how this November turns out.

But lets suppose they stick to their original plan and install the double R team after going through the ‘pretense’ of holding an election.

Understand good citizen, the ‘one in five’ rule is still holding strong. You see conservative signage on the lawn of every twentyith house around here and I live in the conservative part of the state!

20% of the vote doesn’t elect the president…but that hasn’t mattered for a goodly number of years…because the corporate owned media has us all convinced that the split isn’t one fifth vs. four fifths.

No, our ‘can’t count and don’t care’ conservo-media has told the people of this republic that we are ‘evenly divided…so much so that only a handful of ‘undecided independents’ will elect the next president.

And nobody can gainsay them.

And this is the fifth consecutive election they’ve pulled this bullshit! (While each time they have installed their boy with impunity.)

Are you ready to be lied to again?

Because there isn’t anything you can do about it if they do.

Or is there?

Truth is not even Republicans want to see another Republican administration!

Despite the claims of the corporate owned media, even Republicans know who drove us to the poorhouse

It’s no secret.

The two top spending presidents of all time are Ronnie Reagan and G W. Bush.

While we have Nixon to thank for opening the doors to China, we have Saint Ronnie and the PATCO debacle to thank for the ‘global race to the bottom’.

So how do you think the, er, ‘final’ installation of faux Republican administration is going to sit when 95% of us KNOW we DIDN’T vote for ‘em?

How are they gonna pull this off?

They are HOPING most of you will believe that the majority of people dislike Obama enough to ‘risk’ giving the ‘do nothing’ former governor of Massachusetts a chance.

I mean hell, could a bonafide member of the >One Percent do worse than a community organizer?

I guess we arrive back at the start of this puzzle with the question of ‘whose government is it anyway?’

Governments are established to protect the ‘average citizen’ from the rapaciousness of the capitalists…

So what does it mean for the average citizen when the rapacious capitalist seizes control of the government that it is supposed to be ‘riding herd’ on?

Um, you’re about to find out.

Because this time they are risking a revolt…and they know it. It may not happen on Election Day and it may not happen that first week…but it will probably go sideways sometime before the inauguration.

We aren’t going to take it…the question without answer is whether or not they will, er, ‘retaliate’ with enough force to ferment a full bore response?

They will hunt down the rebels and possibly execute them on live television…as a warning to anyone else contemplating, er, ‘resistance’.

But that would be foolish.

Chances are they will simply ‘disappear’ the rebels as they find them, murdering them at their leisure.

But an invisible response will invite a stronger attack…so it’s difficult to say how they will react…which is to opine that they will be all over the board depending on what happens where.

When they close Wall Street, that’s gonna cause some backlash.

I’ll be watching that one with interest indeed!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner


Thursday, October 11, 2012

Sustainable

Greetings good citizen,

After a positive start and a generally positive performance put in by markets around the world, the Dow closed down 20 points today giving the NYSE a ‘mixed’ finish…the Nasdaq was also down but the S&P 500 was positive…

But this is trivia. None of it matters if we can’t feed ourselves or get what we need to where it needs to be, when it needs to be there.

Thus we will need to relearn the lessons of ‘redundancy’ and ‘backing things up’ when we implement our new, sustainable way of life.

And this is not a question of ‘if’, it is a question of ‘when’.

Because the day is (rapidly) coming when it will no longer be possible to pick up the phone and have a replacement what-have-you on your doorstep tomorrow.

The trains travel on a schedule and it won’t speed up just because YOU needed it yesterday.

While you’ll still be able to ‘occasionally’ catch the jet stream and cross the country in a couple of hours, it may take you more time than just riding the prevailing winds to get there.

Then there’s the altitude factor. A lot to be considered when you ‘ride’ the wind rather than just push your way through it.

If I’ve been on a kick lately, the ticking clock would be one of the mainstays. The days of society running on fossil fuels are coming to a close…quicker than you think.

Again, we are NOT ‘out’ but the ‘infamous they’ are going to start choking off the supply so people will, er, ‘get used to’ a future that has less available energy.

I can’t stress enough that the ‘transition’ from a fossil fuel driven society BACK to a more primitive way of life needs to be very carefully managed indeed.
As expected, the deficit and debt were both discussed in the first presidential debate on domestic policy. However, despite this year’s endless American summer and a devastating drought that won’t leave town , climate change wasn’t. What would you bet that it won’t be a significant topic in the final debate on foreign policy either? Only one conclusion seems reasonable: climate change has no place on this American planet.

So far, both presidential campaigns indicate as much. To a wave of laughter in the final moments of his acceptance speech at the Republican convention, Mitt Romney mocked the subject, linking it negatively to the president. (“President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet. My promise... is to help you and your family.”) Obama simply avoided the subject in his. And that pretty much sums up the situation to date.

Though opinion polls indicate that undecided voters want to hear the candidates’ thoughts on climate change, I’m hardly the first person to note that the subject has gone MIA in the campaign season. Noam Chomsky , the Nation magazine , Salon’s Andrew Leonard , and Joe Romm of Climate Progress , among others, have all commented strikingly on its disappearance. But here’s the curious thing: if American debt and deficit happen to be your worry, then climate change should be your subject.

In response to a question about the deficit in the first debate, Romney typically said , “I think it's, frankly, not moral for my generation to keep spending massively more than we take in, knowing those burdens are going to be passed on to the next generation and they're going to be paying the interest and the principal all their lives.” Not a bad point really. Who wants to pile an unbearable burden of debt on future generations who won’t be able to work their way out from under it?

Here would be my follow-up question, however: In that case, what’s “moral” about doing exactly that in terms of the planet -- ensuring the release of such quantities of greenhouse gasses that the global “debt” will increase staggeringly? And here’s the kicker: unlike a financial debt, the planet, the atmosphere, nature, physics will not, as Bill McKibben often points out , be prepared to negotiate a deal. If Argentina or even the U.S. goes bankrupt, there is always an imaginable path back. If humanity goes bankrupt on this planet, it’s another story entirely.

Maybe, in fact, the debates have it right: climate change isn’t either a domestic or a foreign policy issue. It’s the whole ball of wax. The total thing.

Um, don’t ask…yes I did steal the whole article…which I thought/hoped was longer.

Not that this isn’t important, it is!

Um, the climate is changing and we need to change with it.

That part that is debatable is whether or not WE CAN do anything about the sun burning hotter!

Ironically the only way to ‘temporarily’ fix that problem is ‘nuclear winter’ and we’ll have an extinction level event on our hands if we attempt that variety of ‘radical action’.

Green house gases are only part of the problem…and maybe the infamous they are focused on that aspect because it fits the ‘illusion’ we can do something about the problem.

Because the sun’s core getting hotter is just a fact of life and there ain’t a whole hell of a lot we can do make it ‘cool down’.

Worse, fixing our sun is a task so monumental in nature and we’d have to invent ALL of the technology to accomplish the task.

Because it doesn’t currently exist.

Not like we can call the next galaxy over and ask to borrow a couple of billion tons of anti-matter.

Fortunately I suspect our ‘immediate’ problem is the (artificial) end of fossil fuels and that the gradual (and largely unavoidable) warming of the sun itself can be adapted to.

It’s going to be fixing the global economy to accommodate the post peak oil world that we have to adjust to.

And sadly that requires ‘prying’ the levers of power away from those who wield power by virtue of their control over fossil fuels.

Which, ironically means the >One Percent…

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner