Greetings good citizen,
Good news, the weekend is here! But that doesn’t stop the bad news and, if we pause to consider that most of what they tell us serves to distract us from other issues, the bad news only becomes that much more poignant.
These are headlines drawn from the front page of today’s NY Times:
If you don’t go on a rampage, ‘the alternative’ is to destroy yourself.
Is this the kind of society we want to hand over to our children? Increasingly, Hollywood (or more correctly Bollywood) has focused on an endless stream of dystopian futures.
I watched Looper last night and I have to admit, it was beyond grim…although the ‘lynchpin’ of the story (by my way of thinking) will always be ‘impossible’ because the past doesn’t exist! We remember what happened but that doesn’t mean it’s still there. Same thing with the future, it doesn’t exist (yet) so it is impossible to ‘travel’ there because we live in the perpetual ‘now’. It was now a moment ago and it will still be now in a couple of seconds but you can’t rush it. Time (as mankind understands it) is a mental construct…that has some very detrimental side effects for the environment.
Man (read capitalists) foolishly believes that given enough time the environment will ‘repair’ itself…not true.
But, as usual, I digress.
Don’t believe in God, don’t believe in time and I definitely don’t believe in money so what DO I believe in?
I believe in YOU (and by extension, myself.) May not be much but it’s all we’ve got.
The keyword there, good citizen, is ‘we’.
Speaking of words we come upon this one often enough but it is so context sensitive and flexible that it’s hardly useful:
While not necessarily a ‘one time’ trick, the idea is to skin everybody in the economy via inflation. Last time they did this trick it cost me fifty percent of my purchasing power.
Purchasing power that I have never regained.
Now they are contemplating doing it again…and here we are on the cusp of an energy crisis.
Needless to say the death toll will be horrendous considering the unemployment situation. (40% + of the population on some type of ‘food assistance’ because their jobs pay poverty wages AND OUR POLITICIANS DON’T THINK THIS IS AN ISSUE!)
Once again I propose that we ‘string ‘em up’ but it seems nobody likes that idea…
Yet somehow just letting them walk away after what they’ve done just doesn’t seem proper.
Unless that walk leads them to a peaceful and contemplative place where they had all of the time in the world to weigh the impact of their bountiful deeds. (The one way walk nobody survives, a.k.a. ‘exile’.)
But I’m doing it again, ain’t I…
The thing is we have no way to stop them from ‘poisoning the well’, something they’ve already done. Thanks to the funniness of money they have been able to keep the economy ‘alive’ (on life support) which has the exact same effect as ‘inflating away’ our debts.
The problem here is the tens of millions of people who don’t have an income stream to tap.
Part of the ‘inflate away’ process is raising everybody’s pay (literally absorbing) a portion of the inflation while they raise prices.
Most people get fooked in this process, their paycheck doubles but their expenses quadruple.
And the bailed out bankers (the cause of this whole mess) happily hand out loans to the soon to be bankrupt workers.
Then the economy crashes (like it did on Carter) and another Reagan comes along with more ‘voodoo economics’ and things get better…for the one tenth of one percent.
Needless to say, given our starting point, this is how you wake up one morning to realize you’re living in a Banana Republic!
In fact, you’re three quarters of the way there already.
Understand good citizen, nobody is keeping the ‘tyrants’ in check. They’re going to run you down and you have no place to turn to but your neighbor.
How pathetic is it that there’s a fifty-fifty chance they are in ‘denial’ that anything’s even wrong (thus would they be disinclined to help you.)
United we stand but united we aren’t good citizen…
Thanks for letting me inside your head,
Gegner
Good news, the weekend is here! But that doesn’t stop the bad news and, if we pause to consider that most of what they tell us serves to distract us from other issues, the bad news only becomes that much more poignant.
These are headlines drawn from the front page of today’s NY Times:
As Suicides Rise in U.S., Veterans Are Less of TotalHow does this headline sit with you good citizen? I’d opine that my favorite hobby horse, ‘desperation’ is on the rise and this is proof.
By JAMES DAO
The convergence reflects the fact that suicide numbers are rising slightly among both veterans and everyone else, but has increased more in the general population.
If you don’t go on a rampage, ‘the alternative’ is to destroy yourself.
Is this the kind of society we want to hand over to our children? Increasingly, Hollywood (or more correctly Bollywood) has focused on an endless stream of dystopian futures.
I watched Looper last night and I have to admit, it was beyond grim…although the ‘lynchpin’ of the story (by my way of thinking) will always be ‘impossible’ because the past doesn’t exist! We remember what happened but that doesn’t mean it’s still there. Same thing with the future, it doesn’t exist (yet) so it is impossible to ‘travel’ there because we live in the perpetual ‘now’. It was now a moment ago and it will still be now in a couple of seconds but you can’t rush it. Time (as mankind understands it) is a mental construct…that has some very detrimental side effects for the environment.
Man (read capitalists) foolishly believes that given enough time the environment will ‘repair’ itself…not true.
But, as usual, I digress.
Don’t believe in God, don’t believe in time and I definitely don’t believe in money so what DO I believe in?
I believe in YOU (and by extension, myself.) May not be much but it’s all we’ve got.
The keyword there, good citizen, is ‘we’.
Speaking of words we come upon this one often enough but it is so context sensitive and flexible that it’s hardly useful:
BUSINESS
As U.S. Growth Lags, Some Press the Fed to Do Still More
By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM
Federal Reserve officials believe the bank could do more to increase the pace of inflation and aid growth. They simply are not persuaded that the benefits outweigh potential costs.
While not necessarily a ‘one time’ trick, the idea is to skin everybody in the economy via inflation. Last time they did this trick it cost me fifty percent of my purchasing power.
Purchasing power that I have never regained.
Now they are contemplating doing it again…and here we are on the cusp of an energy crisis.
Needless to say the death toll will be horrendous considering the unemployment situation. (40% + of the population on some type of ‘food assistance’ because their jobs pay poverty wages AND OUR POLITICIANS DON’T THINK THIS IS AN ISSUE!)
Once again I propose that we ‘string ‘em up’ but it seems nobody likes that idea…
Yet somehow just letting them walk away after what they’ve done just doesn’t seem proper.
Unless that walk leads them to a peaceful and contemplative place where they had all of the time in the world to weigh the impact of their bountiful deeds. (The one way walk nobody survives, a.k.a. ‘exile’.)
But I’m doing it again, ain’t I…
The thing is we have no way to stop them from ‘poisoning the well’, something they’ve already done. Thanks to the funniness of money they have been able to keep the economy ‘alive’ (on life support) which has the exact same effect as ‘inflating away’ our debts.
The problem here is the tens of millions of people who don’t have an income stream to tap.
Part of the ‘inflate away’ process is raising everybody’s pay (literally absorbing) a portion of the inflation while they raise prices.
Most people get fooked in this process, their paycheck doubles but their expenses quadruple.
And the bailed out bankers (the cause of this whole mess) happily hand out loans to the soon to be bankrupt workers.
Then the economy crashes (like it did on Carter) and another Reagan comes along with more ‘voodoo economics’ and things get better…for the one tenth of one percent.
Needless to say, given our starting point, this is how you wake up one morning to realize you’re living in a Banana Republic!
In fact, you’re three quarters of the way there already.
Understand good citizen, nobody is keeping the ‘tyrants’ in check. They’re going to run you down and you have no place to turn to but your neighbor.
How pathetic is it that there’s a fifty-fifty chance they are in ‘denial’ that anything’s even wrong (thus would they be disinclined to help you.)
United we stand but united we aren’t good citizen…
Thanks for letting me inside your head,
Gegner
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