Greetings good citizen,
You ought to know by now that I never run back to back scare the pants off of you offerings, so don’t be mislead by the title. We aren’t talking about ‘real’ zombies (although I suspect some of you would take that topic somewhat more seriously than the wholesale trashing of your constitutional rights come T.E.O.T.W.A.K.I.)
No, today’s examination of figurative zombies extends only as far as the financial system and their largest debtors…
Um, Ilargi rightly points to something we ‘Doomers’ have been saying all along. Our, er, ‘system of commerce’ is dead and desperately needs to be replaced, pronto!
Then we encounter this kind of dangerous speculation which assumes demand will somehow recover in the absence of customers…(apparently the few that remain employed will buy ‘more’, for some foolish reason. Perhaps the plan is to ‘gift’ their [surviving] unemployed relatives?)
YOU don’t realize anything is ‘amiss’ because life today carries on like it always has. You go to a place of business, tender payment and they accept it without question…for now, anyway.)
BUT (and it’s a mighty big but!) the banks that clear/collect what everybody owes everybody else are in fact ‘insolvent’.
Were this to become an issue (and in the real world it would be) banks would be ‘unable’ to foreclose on anyone because the bank would have gone out of business.
Naturally, the greed heads would have devised a way to get their hands on your property without having to pay for it…but since they ‘wished’ the money into existence in the first place, its sort of the same difference.
But that is neither here nor there. The real problem is the banks can NEVER recover the money they lent on these properties IF the current (nominal) owner DOESN’T pay off the balance.
And most people who bought at these sky-high prices never intended to be the ones who would ‘pay off’ the mortgage! (The next sucker would perpetually be the one who would be ‘on the hook’ for more than the property was worth.)
‘Cept they ran out of suckers…permanently.
Stop paying the suckers enough to afford/qualify for million dollar mortgages and you’d be amazed at how quick the ‘supply’ of buyers would outstrip the ‘demand’ for houses!
Fast forward to today.
Now we have a HUGE inventory of houses that the current owners owe more on than they anyone is willing to pay. Since most mortgages are ‘non-recourse’, this is not the owner’s problem but the banks.
Understand good citizen that this is only a single symptom of a much larger and more disturbing situation.
The home situation is eminently solvable. (Make the stack of lumber ‘free’.) The crisis of the ever-expanding economic desert is not as easily solved; ‘work share’ is only a partial solution.
As you know, ‘A’ is directly tied to ‘B’.
The ‘scary’ part of this zombie story is ‘why’?
Ignorance don’t fly. There is no way that these people can honestly claim they were ‘ignorant’ of the outcome.
So why did they do it?
And that’s the puzzle I’ll leave you with good citizen as I’ve already shared my theory as to ‘why’ they did what they did.
It’s odd how peak oil and peak population can be tied together in such a destructive fashion.
But we have already determined that we aren’t dealing with particularly ‘bright’ people here…
Thanks for letting me inside your head,
Gegner
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Monday, October 11, 2010
Where's your share?
Greetings good citizen,
There are a hundred ways to explain how the economy became ‘lopsided’…but nobody is doing a good job with ‘why’…
Although you do find a dandy explanation (again, ‘of mechanics’) here in an article that asks the question of what happened to “ The Peoples’ Slice of the Pie”? [emphasis mine.]
40 years ago the Dow was under 2,000 AND it had ‘real’ industrials listed! Today the economy SUCKS, the Dow is over 11,000 and nobody can tell us why…not without lying through their teeth, but hey, by now we’re sort of used to that.
How did you get 90 cents on the dollar picked from your pocket?
One would be tempted to point to mis-management but sadly the real reason is outright fraud.
This entire fiasco is due to ‘because I said so’. (Understand, I don’t mean ‘me’ in particular. We’re in this crisis because ‘the guardians of the law’ lacked the intestinal fortitude to utter the shortest statement in the English language…No!)
(You could argue that ‘I’ is shorter but it has no context. If you shouted ‘I’ it could be construed as a complaint there was something wrong with your optical sensory organ…which is to say it’s not really a ‘statement’…)
This [achievement] in itself boggles the mind, how somebody was able to subvert a thousand years of legal precedent (as well as legal ‘machinery’ that spans the globe) to enrich themselves while destroying the world’s economy.
Worse, this started forty years ago, back when the words ‘the population explosion’ first captured the public imagination…
What SHOULD really frighten the crap out of all of you is how our self-appointed ‘betters’ have proven repeatedly that they are not very ‘bright’…
BUT they have an extremely long and disturbing track record of putting their own self-interests first.
So…what do you suppose the ‘self-interested’ would do to preserve their grip on the world’s resources?
The first thing you need to understand is these fuckers know it won’t be their ‘finger on the trigger’ when it comes to murdering millions of innocent civilians.
They’ll just command their bought and paid for lapdogs to ‘make it so’.
Which brings us full circle to the ‘equality’ conundrum…how some of us are ‘more equal’ than the rest…
Strictly speaking, the rich shouldn’t exist.
Which begs the question of where the hell are the brave and the strong in a world where the rich have the upper hand?
Money is meaningless…just as those who worship money are worthless.
People who will do anything for money are MORONS…
But you know that!
Yet here we are! Sitting in a steaming pile of shit because those entrusted with upholding the law instead SOLD US OUT for a few crummy dollars!
If you don’t have a problem with that, hang on a while longer, you soon will!
Worse good citizen, all the money in the world will not buy your way out of the catastrophe that is headed our way.
A catastrophe that will be caused by (ironically enough) the value of money becoming ‘uncertain.’
What we haven’t explored yet good citizen is what might be called the ‘worst case scenario’…the government of the US ‘disappears’ and is replaced with…nothing.
Try to wrap your head around a ‘lawless’ land, a place where you are truly ‘on your own’…
It will literally be one hundred times worse than a dictatorship…the part that should frighten the fuck out of you is our ‘nuclear stockpile’ being turned over to whoever holds them at the time of the government, er, ‘dissolving’.
Now it would literally be true that the captain of a nuclear-armed submarine would be one of the most powerful men on the planet…a law unto himself.
Here’s something to make the nightmare even more frightening…imagine the corporate oligarchy ‘taking custody’ of the world’s biggest stockpile of nuclear weapons.
Would the corporate yahoo’s ‘make an example’ of North Korea? (To ‘prove’ their willingness to use nuclear weapons to advance their agenda…)
While a ‘conservative dictatorship’ is plenty frightening, it is even more disturbing to have no enemy at all!
And THAT good citizen, is precisely what we will be up against.
Bizarrely, this is not to say that those who take over will be disorganized or ‘independent’ of one another. Their leadership will remain ‘phantom’ so it cannot be held responsible for the atrocities they commit to, er, ‘restore order’.
[It goes without saying that the atrocities will ALL be pinned on the ‘rebels.’]
Yes, our ‘nightmare’ outcome will be made even worse by rival factions that will have the ‘support’ of the remaining ‘legitimate governments’ of the world.
Bizarrely, each of these factions will represent some sector of the economy…such as it is.
This will make for some very, er, ‘curious’ bedfellows but in the end it will all be, er, logical.
Worse, this ‘factionalization’ will get worse as the ‘legitimate governments’ of the world collapse due to the lack of support from the corporations.
We can only wonder what will become of the world’s Banana Republics without the support they receive from ‘sympathetic governments?
Um, it’s mighty damn spooky to imagine a world where nobody is held accountable and the powerful can do pretty much as they like…
Oh wait…it used to be like that in the crazy days before capitalism, they called it monarchy!
How much do you want to bet that the stupid bastards will try to bring it back?
I say ‘stupid’ because ‘faux democracy’ removed the bulls-eye from the monarch’s back. Bringing back monarchy will resurrect ‘regicide’ lickity split!
Apparently they think their bodyguards are up to the job…
Here’s to proving them wrong!
Now do you see the need to remove the decision making process beyond the reach of those who would turn it to their advantage?
Thanks for letting me inside your head…(as scary as that can sometimes be,)
Gegner
There are a hundred ways to explain how the economy became ‘lopsided’…but nobody is doing a good job with ‘why’…
Although you do find a dandy explanation (again, ‘of mechanics’) here in an article that asks the question of what happened to “ The Peoples’ Slice of the Pie”? [emphasis mine.]
40 years ago the Dow was under 2,000 AND it had ‘real’ industrials listed! Today the economy SUCKS, the Dow is over 11,000 and nobody can tell us why…not without lying through their teeth, but hey, by now we’re sort of used to that.
How did you get 90 cents on the dollar picked from your pocket?
One would be tempted to point to mis-management but sadly the real reason is outright fraud.
This entire fiasco is due to ‘because I said so’. (Understand, I don’t mean ‘me’ in particular. We’re in this crisis because ‘the guardians of the law’ lacked the intestinal fortitude to utter the shortest statement in the English language…No!)
(You could argue that ‘I’ is shorter but it has no context. If you shouted ‘I’ it could be construed as a complaint there was something wrong with your optical sensory organ…which is to say it’s not really a ‘statement’…)
This [achievement] in itself boggles the mind, how somebody was able to subvert a thousand years of legal precedent (as well as legal ‘machinery’ that spans the globe) to enrich themselves while destroying the world’s economy.
Worse, this started forty years ago, back when the words ‘the population explosion’ first captured the public imagination…
What SHOULD really frighten the crap out of all of you is how our self-appointed ‘betters’ have proven repeatedly that they are not very ‘bright’…
BUT they have an extremely long and disturbing track record of putting their own self-interests first.
So…what do you suppose the ‘self-interested’ would do to preserve their grip on the world’s resources?
The first thing you need to understand is these fuckers know it won’t be their ‘finger on the trigger’ when it comes to murdering millions of innocent civilians.
They’ll just command their bought and paid for lapdogs to ‘make it so’.
Which brings us full circle to the ‘equality’ conundrum…how some of us are ‘more equal’ than the rest…
Strictly speaking, the rich shouldn’t exist.
Which begs the question of where the hell are the brave and the strong in a world where the rich have the upper hand?
Money is meaningless…just as those who worship money are worthless.
People who will do anything for money are MORONS…
But you know that!
Yet here we are! Sitting in a steaming pile of shit because those entrusted with upholding the law instead SOLD US OUT for a few crummy dollars!
If you don’t have a problem with that, hang on a while longer, you soon will!
Worse good citizen, all the money in the world will not buy your way out of the catastrophe that is headed our way.
A catastrophe that will be caused by (ironically enough) the value of money becoming ‘uncertain.’
What we haven’t explored yet good citizen is what might be called the ‘worst case scenario’…the government of the US ‘disappears’ and is replaced with…nothing.
Try to wrap your head around a ‘lawless’ land, a place where you are truly ‘on your own’…
It will literally be one hundred times worse than a dictatorship…the part that should frighten the fuck out of you is our ‘nuclear stockpile’ being turned over to whoever holds them at the time of the government, er, ‘dissolving’.
Now it would literally be true that the captain of a nuclear-armed submarine would be one of the most powerful men on the planet…a law unto himself.
Here’s something to make the nightmare even more frightening…imagine the corporate oligarchy ‘taking custody’ of the world’s biggest stockpile of nuclear weapons.
Would the corporate yahoo’s ‘make an example’ of North Korea? (To ‘prove’ their willingness to use nuclear weapons to advance their agenda…)
While a ‘conservative dictatorship’ is plenty frightening, it is even more disturbing to have no enemy at all!
And THAT good citizen, is precisely what we will be up against.
Bizarrely, this is not to say that those who take over will be disorganized or ‘independent’ of one another. Their leadership will remain ‘phantom’ so it cannot be held responsible for the atrocities they commit to, er, ‘restore order’.
[It goes without saying that the atrocities will ALL be pinned on the ‘rebels.’]
Yes, our ‘nightmare’ outcome will be made even worse by rival factions that will have the ‘support’ of the remaining ‘legitimate governments’ of the world.
Bizarrely, each of these factions will represent some sector of the economy…such as it is.
This will make for some very, er, ‘curious’ bedfellows but in the end it will all be, er, logical.
Worse, this ‘factionalization’ will get worse as the ‘legitimate governments’ of the world collapse due to the lack of support from the corporations.
We can only wonder what will become of the world’s Banana Republics without the support they receive from ‘sympathetic governments?
Um, it’s mighty damn spooky to imagine a world where nobody is held accountable and the powerful can do pretty much as they like…
Oh wait…it used to be like that in the crazy days before capitalism, they called it monarchy!
How much do you want to bet that the stupid bastards will try to bring it back?
I say ‘stupid’ because ‘faux democracy’ removed the bulls-eye from the monarch’s back. Bringing back monarchy will resurrect ‘regicide’ lickity split!
Apparently they think their bodyguards are up to the job…
Here’s to proving them wrong!
Now do you see the need to remove the decision making process beyond the reach of those who would turn it to their advantage?
Thanks for letting me inside your head…(as scary as that can sometimes be,)
Gegner
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Kindergarten
Greetings good citizen,
On and on it goes…
No consensus, no meeting of the minds (as if such a thing were possible!) which is to point out that as long as we don’t have a reliable ‘feedback mechanism’ the ‘self-interested’ will continue to what seems ‘good’ to them and damn the consequences!
Baseline situation: millions of people have lost their jobs and are defaulting on their debt.
YET, nobody is ‘focusing’ on why these people were made ‘redundant’ NOR are they doing anything to put a stop to the carnage.
The (heavily massaged) employment data continues to sink through society’s molten core while the party of ‘the owners’ (also known as The Party of No) cries for their tax cuts to be made permanent!
Worse, these selfish pigs who persist in refusing to invest in the US economy (which is what they claim the tax cuts are for) have also succeeded in defeating the repeal of the subsidy for off-shoring US jobs!
Ignorance is a terrible thing but this is well beyond ‘stupid’.
How do you know when your government has been hijacked by criminals?
Take a good look at what has become of our electoral process. These fuckers should be executed at the polls! (Just a ‘suggestion’, I’m not telling anyone to do anything AND you did ‘opt in’ to read this so it’s ‘shame on you’!)
So we return to the topic of how you, er, ‘restore’ the rule of law to a nation gone berserk?
The media has usurped the ballot box so we can’t ‘vote’ the fuckers out. (The corporate owned media isn’t obliged to provide any news that disagrees with the ‘opinions’ of those who ‘own’ it.)
Just an opinion of my own here but ‘eradicating’ the lying media would be an excellent place to start the bid to return this nation to the rule of law. (It is a proven fact that you can’t make informed decisions without accurate information. 99% of what comes out of the ‘advertiser supported’ corporate media is, er, ‘questionable’, to put it kindly. In fairness, they point to blogs such as this one and level the same charges…so it really is up to you when it comes to deciding whom to believe.)
I think the ‘facts’ speak for themselves…
To have ‘accidentally’ arrived at where we are today beggars belief, what we are currently suffering is neither an accident nor a coincidence!
But you already know this argument so I’ll spare you a rehash.
Strange logic BUT if you don’t want to live a lie you can’t tolerate a ‘lie machine’ to operate in your presence.
Sadly good citizen, those who ‘own’ the media also ‘own’ free speech.
For truth to prevail it cannot suffer the ‘yoke’ of ‘ownership’. Think about that one for a minute because it is in no owner’s best interest to admit this is the truth!
And if owning a media outlet is what it takes to ‘enjoy’ free speech, then only the owners of the media can speak freely! (Worse, free speech is not necessarily ‘true speech’.)
While Mr. Rich rightly slams those who point to the Internet and claims that the ‘ultimate freedom’ now exists are lies because the ‘anonymity’ of the Internet hides the identity (as well as the agenda) of some powerful (and deceitful) players.
Which is to argue once again that the truth suffers mightily when it conflicts with the agenda of the self-interested.
Which brings us to an interesting argument, one regarding your own status as a ‘self-interested’ individual.
You are most definitely ‘self-interested’ when it comes to enjoying ‘equal footing’ in both the marketplace as well as in the eyes of the law.
Yet the ‘owners’ don’t see it that way. They believe ‘ownership’ has its privileges.
Ironically, they’ve always believed/espoused such doctrine; so if you find it offensive they will turn the tables on you and it becomes everybody’s favorite game…’I was here first’ (like that has anything to do with it!)
For all of its ‘complexity’ life really never really gets too far from the damn playground. The principle difference being the schoolyard bully has somehow become the Judge.
This somewhat explains the popularity of the recent book “Everything I needed to know I learned in kindergarten.”
But this ain’t kindergarten anymore and such simplistic reasoning can no longer be used to guide civilization.
It’s time to ‘grow up’ good citizen and spank the kids who grab whatever they want and scream ‘I had it first!’
It wasn’t a good reason then and it definitely didn’t become one after you put your hand picked puppet into the judge’s seat!
A stacked deck is still a stacked deck and there is too much at stake to ‘appease’ the spoiled and privileged among us…
Okay, time for a nap!
Thanks for letting me inside your head,
Gegner
On and on it goes…
No consensus, no meeting of the minds (as if such a thing were possible!) which is to point out that as long as we don’t have a reliable ‘feedback mechanism’ the ‘self-interested’ will continue to what seems ‘good’ to them and damn the consequences!
Baseline situation: millions of people have lost their jobs and are defaulting on their debt.
YET, nobody is ‘focusing’ on why these people were made ‘redundant’ NOR are they doing anything to put a stop to the carnage.
The (heavily massaged) employment data continues to sink through society’s molten core while the party of ‘the owners’ (also known as The Party of No) cries for their tax cuts to be made permanent!
Worse, these selfish pigs who persist in refusing to invest in the US economy (which is what they claim the tax cuts are for) have also succeeded in defeating the repeal of the subsidy for off-shoring US jobs!
Ignorance is a terrible thing but this is well beyond ‘stupid’.
How do you know when your government has been hijacked by criminals?
Take a good look at what has become of our electoral process. These fuckers should be executed at the polls! (Just a ‘suggestion’, I’m not telling anyone to do anything AND you did ‘opt in’ to read this so it’s ‘shame on you’!)
So we return to the topic of how you, er, ‘restore’ the rule of law to a nation gone berserk?
The media has usurped the ballot box so we can’t ‘vote’ the fuckers out. (The corporate owned media isn’t obliged to provide any news that disagrees with the ‘opinions’ of those who ‘own’ it.)
Just an opinion of my own here but ‘eradicating’ the lying media would be an excellent place to start the bid to return this nation to the rule of law. (It is a proven fact that you can’t make informed decisions without accurate information. 99% of what comes out of the ‘advertiser supported’ corporate media is, er, ‘questionable’, to put it kindly. In fairness, they point to blogs such as this one and level the same charges…so it really is up to you when it comes to deciding whom to believe.)
I think the ‘facts’ speak for themselves…
To have ‘accidentally’ arrived at where we are today beggars belief, what we are currently suffering is neither an accident nor a coincidence!
But you already know this argument so I’ll spare you a rehash.
Strange logic BUT if you don’t want to live a lie you can’t tolerate a ‘lie machine’ to operate in your presence.
Sadly good citizen, those who ‘own’ the media also ‘own’ free speech.
For truth to prevail it cannot suffer the ‘yoke’ of ‘ownership’. Think about that one for a minute because it is in no owner’s best interest to admit this is the truth!
And if owning a media outlet is what it takes to ‘enjoy’ free speech, then only the owners of the media can speak freely! (Worse, free speech is not necessarily ‘true speech’.)
While Mr. Rich rightly slams those who point to the Internet and claims that the ‘ultimate freedom’ now exists are lies because the ‘anonymity’ of the Internet hides the identity (as well as the agenda) of some powerful (and deceitful) players.
Which is to argue once again that the truth suffers mightily when it conflicts with the agenda of the self-interested.
Which brings us to an interesting argument, one regarding your own status as a ‘self-interested’ individual.
You are most definitely ‘self-interested’ when it comes to enjoying ‘equal footing’ in both the marketplace as well as in the eyes of the law.
Yet the ‘owners’ don’t see it that way. They believe ‘ownership’ has its privileges.
Ironically, they’ve always believed/espoused such doctrine; so if you find it offensive they will turn the tables on you and it becomes everybody’s favorite game…’I was here first’ (like that has anything to do with it!)
For all of its ‘complexity’ life really never really gets too far from the damn playground. The principle difference being the schoolyard bully has somehow become the Judge.
This somewhat explains the popularity of the recent book “Everything I needed to know I learned in kindergarten.”
But this ain’t kindergarten anymore and such simplistic reasoning can no longer be used to guide civilization.
It’s time to ‘grow up’ good citizen and spank the kids who grab whatever they want and scream ‘I had it first!’
It wasn’t a good reason then and it definitely didn’t become one after you put your hand picked puppet into the judge’s seat!
A stacked deck is still a stacked deck and there is too much at stake to ‘appease’ the spoiled and privileged among us…
Okay, time for a nap!
Thanks for letting me inside your head,
Gegner
Friday, October 8, 2010
Until the Fat Lady sings...
Greetings good citizen,
My hopes for our civilization grow dimmer with each passing day. It has become apparent that the quicksand of greed has consumed what little bedrock there was holding up the foundation of our society.
We are in ‘uncharted waters’ here, good citizen. By the ‘hard and fast’ rules of commerce, our civilization has already passed the ‘point of no return’.
Tonight’s offering is only true if ‘the rules’ are followed. (Our current financial system is ‘fried’, there’s no way to repair it without writing off huge amounts of debt.)
What should be obvious to us all is ‘the rules’ no longer apply. We’re currently skating along in a ‘nobody’s doing anything about anything’ mode where we all pretend there’s nothing wrong (mostly because we can’t fix the problem on our own!)
As the wiser heads among us opine, the banking sector is still strangling to death with the public sector close behind.
As he points out, the housing sector will not ‘recover’ in the former industrialized West, EVER! (Um, neither Mr. Whalen nor Mr. Panzer actually says this but it is ‘implied’.)
Since the banking system is supported by ‘perpetual’ mortgage payments on properties that are hundreds of years old…wages need to keep ‘pace’ or the whole artifice collapses, as we have so recently witnessed.
No buyers means no price support…lower prices equals less ‘income’ all the way down the line.
So, to paraphrase the title of the article: And You Thought Last Time Was Bad...
Like death itself, there is no way to avoid collapse---we have merely sidestepped the inevitable for the moment.
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this whole fiasco is the ‘too little too late’ part where absolutely NOTHING has been done to stop the ‘race to the bottom’.
Sadly, when the ‘cause’ of this fiasco is finally addressed, it will indeed be ‘too little, too late!
Naturally, I marvel over the fact that ‘Neutron Jack’ is still alive! (Perhaps we should be more amazed that he’s still ‘at large’…)
‘Turn the earth to glass and still commit no crime…’
Unfortunately, the print media isn’t the only source of global insanity. I apparently don’t have many readers in the UK or the BBC would have debunked (instead of reporting) how British schools are teaching pre-schoolers to be more ‘entrepreneurial’.
They are teaching these youngsters the mechanics of commerce in hopes that they will grow up to be more ‘self-reliant’.
Naturally, what these FUCKTARDS are missing is the principle reason why we don’t already live in ‘capitalist utopia’…
FUCKING MARKET SHARE!
What part of ‘there isn’t enough market share to go around’ don’t these idiots get?
Oh well, stupid is what stupid does…
Worse, ignorance can be fixed…stupid is permanent!
Again, we have to believe that the real problem here is the perpetuation of ignorance by those too stupid to know they are doing anything wrong.
Most of you have no idea how frightening it is to realize your entire world is held together by little more than ‘myth and superstition’ (enforced at the point of a gun.)
You’re actually supposed to buy into these little ‘fantasies’ (without the benefit of the fucking ‘ruby slippers’!)
It is important to understand good citizen that most of what you’ve been taught to believe is a self-serving LIE!
The other part that is paramount for you to understand is that the liars are in charge!
Nothing changes until you recognize this truth!
The mis-management that is bag and baggage with capitalism is not nor will it ever be sustainable. No system based on infinite resources is!
Perhaps more disturbing is the fact that if resources were indeed ‘infinite’ there would be no need to ‘buy’ them from anybody, would there?
We have to put an end to this vicious exploitation of our fellow humans if we are ever to advance beyond being our own worst enemy…
The reasons we DON’T kill one another on sight are getting fewer all the time…
Thanks for letting me inside your head,
Gegner
My hopes for our civilization grow dimmer with each passing day. It has become apparent that the quicksand of greed has consumed what little bedrock there was holding up the foundation of our society.
We are in ‘uncharted waters’ here, good citizen. By the ‘hard and fast’ rules of commerce, our civilization has already passed the ‘point of no return’.
Tonight’s offering is only true if ‘the rules’ are followed. (Our current financial system is ‘fried’, there’s no way to repair it without writing off huge amounts of debt.)
What should be obvious to us all is ‘the rules’ no longer apply. We’re currently skating along in a ‘nobody’s doing anything about anything’ mode where we all pretend there’s nothing wrong (mostly because we can’t fix the problem on our own!)
As the wiser heads among us opine, the banking sector is still strangling to death with the public sector close behind.
As he points out, the housing sector will not ‘recover’ in the former industrialized West, EVER! (Um, neither Mr. Whalen nor Mr. Panzer actually says this but it is ‘implied’.)
Since the banking system is supported by ‘perpetual’ mortgage payments on properties that are hundreds of years old…wages need to keep ‘pace’ or the whole artifice collapses, as we have so recently witnessed.
No buyers means no price support…lower prices equals less ‘income’ all the way down the line.
So, to paraphrase the title of the article: And You Thought Last Time Was Bad...
Like death itself, there is no way to avoid collapse---we have merely sidestepped the inevitable for the moment.
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this whole fiasco is the ‘too little too late’ part where absolutely NOTHING has been done to stop the ‘race to the bottom’.
Sadly, when the ‘cause’ of this fiasco is finally addressed, it will indeed be ‘too little, too late!
Naturally, I marvel over the fact that ‘Neutron Jack’ is still alive! (Perhaps we should be more amazed that he’s still ‘at large’…)
‘Turn the earth to glass and still commit no crime…’
Unfortunately, the print media isn’t the only source of global insanity. I apparently don’t have many readers in the UK or the BBC would have debunked (instead of reporting) how British schools are teaching pre-schoolers to be more ‘entrepreneurial’.
They are teaching these youngsters the mechanics of commerce in hopes that they will grow up to be more ‘self-reliant’.
Naturally, what these FUCKTARDS are missing is the principle reason why we don’t already live in ‘capitalist utopia’…
FUCKING MARKET SHARE!
What part of ‘there isn’t enough market share to go around’ don’t these idiots get?
Oh well, stupid is what stupid does…
Worse, ignorance can be fixed…stupid is permanent!
Again, we have to believe that the real problem here is the perpetuation of ignorance by those too stupid to know they are doing anything wrong.
Most of you have no idea how frightening it is to realize your entire world is held together by little more than ‘myth and superstition’ (enforced at the point of a gun.)
You’re actually supposed to buy into these little ‘fantasies’ (without the benefit of the fucking ‘ruby slippers’!)
It is important to understand good citizen that most of what you’ve been taught to believe is a self-serving LIE!
The other part that is paramount for you to understand is that the liars are in charge!
Nothing changes until you recognize this truth!
The mis-management that is bag and baggage with capitalism is not nor will it ever be sustainable. No system based on infinite resources is!
Perhaps more disturbing is the fact that if resources were indeed ‘infinite’ there would be no need to ‘buy’ them from anybody, would there?
We have to put an end to this vicious exploitation of our fellow humans if we are ever to advance beyond being our own worst enemy…
The reasons we DON’T kill one another on sight are getting fewer all the time…
Thanks for letting me inside your head,
Gegner
Thursday, October 7, 2010
'Stealing Home'
Greetings good citizen,
Although few would purposefully draw your attention to the relationships (government often being referred to as a ‘noble’ or ‘civic-minded’ calling rather than the ‘referee’ job it really is.)
If we are ever to see anything that even remotely resembles ‘prosperity’ again you have to get your head on straight.
So we start with ‘the rules’:
All economies are LOCAL, bar none!
Commerce exists to enrich society (not just the owners of commerce!)
Government exists to ensure things are properly managed.
3 basic principles; that’s all it takes to put civilization ‘back on track’.
Sadly, there are some ‘definition deficiencies’ that could be problematic.
Local means local…so being in the same ‘solar system’ doesn’t count.
Society means everybody; not the ‘Bill Gates walks into the room’ effect…so ‘on paper’ everybody is richer…
And ‘properly managed’ means ‘effective distribution’ and not ‘maximized profits’.
There are other ways to ‘twist’ the above definitions but neither of us has all day to bat this ball until it no longer bounces.
No, there is a much more disturbing ball to bounce around, it’s the ‘what kind of fuckhead do you take me for?’ ball.
Let’s shift our attention to the ‘storehouse of value’ for a moment, shall we?
The USA is the number 1 economy in the whole world (based on consumption.)
The media never tires of marveling over how much crap we ‘consume’ (although ‘waste’ is probably closer to the mark.)
I forget the actual statistics but you’ve heard it all before…we make up just two percent of the world’s population and we consume some twenty percent of the world’s output…something like that.
With that as a given, this fuckin’ shithole is along way from being El Dorado, baby!
Being the world’s ‘dumping ground’ makes this the world’s biggest DUMP!
You see, it really is all in how you look at it!
So the relentless cheerleaders of expansion without end want you to believe that we are ‘number one’; just don’t pay any attention to which finger they use to signify this exalted position…
Anyway, we’re ‘top of the heap’ and because of this our ‘storehouse of value’ is also, er, ‘top of the heap’ too.
But is it really?
Our money is (supposedly) worth the difference between what we produce and what we consume.
Well, we know we are the world’s most prodigious consumers but are we really the world’s most prodigious producers?
Hard to believe considering what the unemployment rate looks like, isn’t it?
Worse good citizen, 40% of all people counted as ‘employed’ only work part time…so we are not just ‘good’, we must be fucking ‘great!’
Or we are really, really, really gullible…
Which one do you think it is?
So, how much is the buck in your pocket worth now (considering we consume much more than we produce?)
Understand good citizen, this is the same worthless buck you’re being forced to jump through hoops for…which should make you ask ‘what the fuck am I doing?’
I’m an ‘older’ guy and I’ve seen a lot of changes in my time.
The ‘trend’ that started when I was just a kid has almost reached its final outcome the nation continues to be ‘gutted’ so the wealthy can enslave the net bunch of trusting saps with their credit cards!
This article is from today’s Alternet titled:
19 Mind-Blowing Facts About the Deindustrialization of America
Well, good citizen, you don’t need me to tell you that there is far more than 19 damning facts about how rapacious capitalism has scorched the earth beneath our children’s feet.
Death is too good for these selfish fucks, exile is the only fitting punishment.
Thanks for letting me inside your head,
Gegner
Although few would purposefully draw your attention to the relationships (government often being referred to as a ‘noble’ or ‘civic-minded’ calling rather than the ‘referee’ job it really is.)
If we are ever to see anything that even remotely resembles ‘prosperity’ again you have to get your head on straight.
So we start with ‘the rules’:
All economies are LOCAL, bar none!
Commerce exists to enrich society (not just the owners of commerce!)
Government exists to ensure things are properly managed.
3 basic principles; that’s all it takes to put civilization ‘back on track’.
Sadly, there are some ‘definition deficiencies’ that could be problematic.
Local means local…so being in the same ‘solar system’ doesn’t count.
Society means everybody; not the ‘Bill Gates walks into the room’ effect…so ‘on paper’ everybody is richer…
And ‘properly managed’ means ‘effective distribution’ and not ‘maximized profits’.
There are other ways to ‘twist’ the above definitions but neither of us has all day to bat this ball until it no longer bounces.
No, there is a much more disturbing ball to bounce around, it’s the ‘what kind of fuckhead do you take me for?’ ball.
Let’s shift our attention to the ‘storehouse of value’ for a moment, shall we?
The USA is the number 1 economy in the whole world (based on consumption.)
The media never tires of marveling over how much crap we ‘consume’ (although ‘waste’ is probably closer to the mark.)
I forget the actual statistics but you’ve heard it all before…we make up just two percent of the world’s population and we consume some twenty percent of the world’s output…something like that.
With that as a given, this fuckin’ shithole is along way from being El Dorado, baby!
Being the world’s ‘dumping ground’ makes this the world’s biggest DUMP!
You see, it really is all in how you look at it!
So the relentless cheerleaders of expansion without end want you to believe that we are ‘number one’; just don’t pay any attention to which finger they use to signify this exalted position…
Anyway, we’re ‘top of the heap’ and because of this our ‘storehouse of value’ is also, er, ‘top of the heap’ too.
But is it really?
Our money is (supposedly) worth the difference between what we produce and what we consume.
Well, we know we are the world’s most prodigious consumers but are we really the world’s most prodigious producers?
Hard to believe considering what the unemployment rate looks like, isn’t it?
Worse good citizen, 40% of all people counted as ‘employed’ only work part time…so we are not just ‘good’, we must be fucking ‘great!’
Or we are really, really, really gullible…
Which one do you think it is?
So, how much is the buck in your pocket worth now (considering we consume much more than we produce?)
Understand good citizen, this is the same worthless buck you’re being forced to jump through hoops for…which should make you ask ‘what the fuck am I doing?’
I’m an ‘older’ guy and I’ve seen a lot of changes in my time.
The ‘trend’ that started when I was just a kid has almost reached its final outcome the nation continues to be ‘gutted’ so the wealthy can enslave the net bunch of trusting saps with their credit cards!
This article is from today’s Alternet titled:
19 Mind-Blowing Facts About the Deindustrialization of America
Well, good citizen, you don’t need me to tell you that there is far more than 19 damning facts about how rapacious capitalism has scorched the earth beneath our children’s feet.
Death is too good for these selfish fucks, exile is the only fitting punishment.
Thanks for letting me inside your head,
Gegner
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Conservative Logic...
Greetings good citizen,
Let’s put ‘oblivion’ on hold for the time being (it will be here soon enough.)
Which is not to say we are going to put a stop to ‘crazy talk’ because there’s plenty of that masquerading as ‘sane commentary’ in the MSM.
Let’s start with our ‘usual’ dose of schizophrenia, shall we? As recently as Yesterday the markets tacked on almost 200 points. This was ‘attributed to’ the (barely perceptible) ‘uptick’ in service sector employment. A mere few hundredths of a single percent good citizen and our stock markets went absolutely NUTS!
So what’s the ‘buzz’ today? Retailers project that they won’t be hiring much seasonal help this year…somewhat reinforcing predictions of yet another ‘poor’ holiday season.
Needless to say the markets are ‘flat’ on this news…
So what the hell was yesterday all about?
Truth be told good citizen, if it weren’t for the activity of the big trading desks themselves, the stock market would be ‘flat-line’.
Moving on, I read some conservative pundit who was bemoaning the expiration of the Bush Tax Cuts, like making the rich even richer has done such wonders for the US economy! WTF is wrong with these people?
Don’t they understand that NO AMOUNT of money is going to make the US more attractive to invest in as long as the ‘cheaper elsewhere’ fiction persists?
Apparently, nothing goes up top…which is sort of a ‘hallmark’ of conservatism.
Well, here we have another fine example of bullet proof conservative logic…
Sadly good citizen, this brings us to the chicken or the egg conundrum.
What the fuck is the point of extending more credit when people can’t pay for what they’ve already borrowed?
You know what endless ‘rolling’ leads to don’t you? It leads to debt that will NEVER be repaid!
It turns the ‘fuck you, pay me’ scheme into just the ‘fuck you (stupid)’ part.
If you’re dumb enough to let me keep ‘rolling over’ my debt, I’m never going to pay you!
THAT’S what the ‘oughts’ were about!
Guess what the ‘only way out’ is?
That's right, Jubilee!
Cuz, bizarrely, if you ‘prosecuted’ all of the people who took advantage of the situation (a situation that shouldn’t have been created in the first place.) You would also be able to address your ‘surplus population problem at the same time…except who is going to build (never mind pay for) all of those prisons?
Are you beginning to see the ‘scope’ of the problem good citizen?
This is ‘mis-management’ writ large, nay ‘writ colossal’!
Who ever ‘approved’ this wanted, nay, WAS BEGGING FOR a crisis!
(One can only assume the ‘infamous they’ arrived at the same conclusion their ideological opponents reached long ago; there is no way to use capitalism to ‘save’ capitalism.)
So they faced their second choice, to serve in heaven or to rule over hell?
Sadly, they have chosen the latter.
I’ll stop here because I promised not to go there at the beginning of this piece…
It is curious how many of our thought experiments conclude in ‘oblivion’.
If you thought the ride had been ‘interesting’ up ‘til now, wait!
It’s going to get a lot more than ‘interesting’…trust me!
Some of these pieces are surprisingly short but there really isn’t anything else useful to say on the subject other than to point out the obvious, that ‘conservative logic’ is an oxymoron.
Thanks for letting me inside your head,
Gegner
Let’s put ‘oblivion’ on hold for the time being (it will be here soon enough.)
Which is not to say we are going to put a stop to ‘crazy talk’ because there’s plenty of that masquerading as ‘sane commentary’ in the MSM.
Let’s start with our ‘usual’ dose of schizophrenia, shall we? As recently as Yesterday the markets tacked on almost 200 points. This was ‘attributed to’ the (barely perceptible) ‘uptick’ in service sector employment. A mere few hundredths of a single percent good citizen and our stock markets went absolutely NUTS!
So what’s the ‘buzz’ today? Retailers project that they won’t be hiring much seasonal help this year…somewhat reinforcing predictions of yet another ‘poor’ holiday season.
Needless to say the markets are ‘flat’ on this news…
So what the hell was yesterday all about?
Truth be told good citizen, if it weren’t for the activity of the big trading desks themselves, the stock market would be ‘flat-line’.
Moving on, I read some conservative pundit who was bemoaning the expiration of the Bush Tax Cuts, like making the rich even richer has done such wonders for the US economy! WTF is wrong with these people?
Don’t they understand that NO AMOUNT of money is going to make the US more attractive to invest in as long as the ‘cheaper elsewhere’ fiction persists?
Apparently, nothing goes up top…which is sort of a ‘hallmark’ of conservatism.
Well, here we have another fine example of bullet proof conservative logic…
Sadly good citizen, this brings us to the chicken or the egg conundrum.
What the fuck is the point of extending more credit when people can’t pay for what they’ve already borrowed?
You know what endless ‘rolling’ leads to don’t you? It leads to debt that will NEVER be repaid!
It turns the ‘fuck you, pay me’ scheme into just the ‘fuck you (stupid)’ part.
If you’re dumb enough to let me keep ‘rolling over’ my debt, I’m never going to pay you!
THAT’S what the ‘oughts’ were about!
Guess what the ‘only way out’ is?
That's right, Jubilee!
Cuz, bizarrely, if you ‘prosecuted’ all of the people who took advantage of the situation (a situation that shouldn’t have been created in the first place.) You would also be able to address your ‘surplus population problem at the same time…except who is going to build (never mind pay for) all of those prisons?
Are you beginning to see the ‘scope’ of the problem good citizen?
This is ‘mis-management’ writ large, nay ‘writ colossal’!
Who ever ‘approved’ this wanted, nay, WAS BEGGING FOR a crisis!
(One can only assume the ‘infamous they’ arrived at the same conclusion their ideological opponents reached long ago; there is no way to use capitalism to ‘save’ capitalism.)
So they faced their second choice, to serve in heaven or to rule over hell?
Sadly, they have chosen the latter.
I’ll stop here because I promised not to go there at the beginning of this piece…
It is curious how many of our thought experiments conclude in ‘oblivion’.
If you thought the ride had been ‘interesting’ up ‘til now, wait!
It’s going to get a lot more than ‘interesting’…trust me!
Some of these pieces are surprisingly short but there really isn’t anything else useful to say on the subject other than to point out the obvious, that ‘conservative logic’ is an oxymoron.
Thanks for letting me inside your head,
Gegner
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Contradictions...
Greetings good citizen,
In an ‘unusual’ combination, both gold AND the stock market are rallying strongly today, leaving us to wonder what the fuck the ‘tiny’ uptick in service sector employment really means?
You know the service sector pays shit; these are menial jobs that are mostly part-time. Our economy is not ‘saved’ because the service sector expanded by a few hundredths of a percentage point, yet Wall Street is acting like we have just witnessed the ‘second coming’!
Worse, these assholes are supposed to be ‘on top of things’…why the fuck are they buying (probably their own) stocks when the private investor is headed for the exits?
Understand, gold is a ‘safe haven’ bet. You only ‘buy’ (nearly $1,400 an ounce) gold when you need to ‘park’ your money somewhere. Remember, gold shot up to $800 an ounce back in the 80’s…but it didn’t stay there.
Which is to point out that ‘parking’ your money in gold is still plenty risky but apparently less so than watching it erode to nothing while the stock markets climb irrationally.
Which is to ask whether or not the stock markets are rising or if we are really witnessing the ‘value’ of the dollar sinking like a rock?
Because that is the only ‘rational explanation’…stocks are rising because the dollar is falling. Worse, it also explains the sudden ‘surge’ in gold sales…
And there ain’t a fucking thing you can (legally) do about it!
It is during times like these that ‘hyper-inflation’ takes hold as people ‘race’ to trade their ‘trash’ (cash) for ‘treasure’ (useful items priced in dollars.)
The ‘squeeze’ I pointed to yesterday is ‘on’. Just in time for ‘the winter of our discontent’.
I predict right here and now that this will be a very different nation come Spring.
I will refrain from going into specifics at this time beyond saying it will start with a whimper and build to a roar.
There will be an ‘eye-opening’ event that will galvanize the public as to just how serious our situation has become…and it will be ‘game on’ from there.
You know I’m not ‘psychic’. I’ve made dire predictions in the past that didn’t happen so I’m just shooting my opinionated mouth off (again.)
My point is you can only juggle so many balls for so long before somebody somewhere ‘fucks up’ in a way that can’t be ‘spun’.
Worse, even the ‘spin’ looks bad.
Sure, you’ll convince those who don’t want to accept how rotten things are with barely credible ‘spin’ but their numbers are dwindling with each passing day. Give the public just one piece of concrete evidence that you can’t spin away and let the royal fuckaree begin!
You gotta give these guys credit though, so far they have managed to spin their way out of some pretty tight spots…but that was mostly because people weren’t as suspicious as they are today.
Pretty soon that ‘get out of jail free’ card is gonna expire and then the fun will begin.
Every act of ‘retaliation’ against the ‘insurgents’ will require increasing amounts of spin until public sympathy for the rebels overwhelms the ‘official government position’.
Which is to point out that there is a downside lying to the public. Do it often enough and you loose credibility.
So, how many of you believe the ‘Great Recession’ ended last summer?
Worse, how many of you believe the Great Recession started in 1980?
See what I mean? (If you were there you know this is true!)
Well, what goes around, come around good citizen and you don’t need me to tell you that.
The bad news is the damage is already done. It is not possible to ‘fix’ it without discarding the old, corrupt system and replacing it with a new one.
Thanks for letting me inside your head,
Gegner
In an ‘unusual’ combination, both gold AND the stock market are rallying strongly today, leaving us to wonder what the fuck the ‘tiny’ uptick in service sector employment really means?
You know the service sector pays shit; these are menial jobs that are mostly part-time. Our economy is not ‘saved’ because the service sector expanded by a few hundredths of a percentage point, yet Wall Street is acting like we have just witnessed the ‘second coming’!
Worse, these assholes are supposed to be ‘on top of things’…why the fuck are they buying (probably their own) stocks when the private investor is headed for the exits?
Understand, gold is a ‘safe haven’ bet. You only ‘buy’ (nearly $1,400 an ounce) gold when you need to ‘park’ your money somewhere. Remember, gold shot up to $800 an ounce back in the 80’s…but it didn’t stay there.
Which is to point out that ‘parking’ your money in gold is still plenty risky but apparently less so than watching it erode to nothing while the stock markets climb irrationally.
Which is to ask whether or not the stock markets are rising or if we are really witnessing the ‘value’ of the dollar sinking like a rock?
Because that is the only ‘rational explanation’…stocks are rising because the dollar is falling. Worse, it also explains the sudden ‘surge’ in gold sales…
And there ain’t a fucking thing you can (legally) do about it!
It is during times like these that ‘hyper-inflation’ takes hold as people ‘race’ to trade their ‘trash’ (cash) for ‘treasure’ (useful items priced in dollars.)
The ‘squeeze’ I pointed to yesterday is ‘on’. Just in time for ‘the winter of our discontent’.
I predict right here and now that this will be a very different nation come Spring.
I will refrain from going into specifics at this time beyond saying it will start with a whimper and build to a roar.
There will be an ‘eye-opening’ event that will galvanize the public as to just how serious our situation has become…and it will be ‘game on’ from there.
You know I’m not ‘psychic’. I’ve made dire predictions in the past that didn’t happen so I’m just shooting my opinionated mouth off (again.)
My point is you can only juggle so many balls for so long before somebody somewhere ‘fucks up’ in a way that can’t be ‘spun’.
Worse, even the ‘spin’ looks bad.
Sure, you’ll convince those who don’t want to accept how rotten things are with barely credible ‘spin’ but their numbers are dwindling with each passing day. Give the public just one piece of concrete evidence that you can’t spin away and let the royal fuckaree begin!
You gotta give these guys credit though, so far they have managed to spin their way out of some pretty tight spots…but that was mostly because people weren’t as suspicious as they are today.
Pretty soon that ‘get out of jail free’ card is gonna expire and then the fun will begin.
Every act of ‘retaliation’ against the ‘insurgents’ will require increasing amounts of spin until public sympathy for the rebels overwhelms the ‘official government position’.
Which is to point out that there is a downside lying to the public. Do it often enough and you loose credibility.
So, how many of you believe the ‘Great Recession’ ended last summer?
Worse, how many of you believe the Great Recession started in 1980?
See what I mean? (If you were there you know this is true!)
Well, what goes around, come around good citizen and you don’t need me to tell you that.
The bad news is the damage is already done. It is not possible to ‘fix’ it without discarding the old, corrupt system and replacing it with a new one.
Thanks for letting me inside your head,
Gegner
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