Ballot Box

Greetings good citizen,

Markets opened ‘up’ but were heading back down as of mid-morning in fact it had the precise appearance of a ‘nosedive’…but you never know, those traders may pull out of it in time to save yesterdays record 293 point gain.

Again, for absolutely no apparent reason.

The global economy is still in operative and so is the global political system, as evidenced here

Before pressing on I would like to point out that the, er, ‘psychologist’ being quoted is a Brit and he provides us an example of what WE look like from across the pond.

Rest assured I will chime in with my ‘opinion’ as to why working people vote Republican.

Here's a more painful but ultimately constructive diagnosis, from the point of view of moral psychology: politics at the national level is more like religion than it is like shopping. It's more about a moral vision that unifies a nation and calls it to greatness than it is about self-interest or specific policies. In most countries, the right tends to see that more clearly than the left. In America the Republicans did the hard work of drafting their moral vision in the 1970s, and Ronald Reagan was their eloquent spokesman. Patriotism, social order, strong families, personal responsibility (not government safety nets) and free enterprise. Those are values, not government programs.

The Democrats, in contrast, have tried to win voters' hearts by promising to protect or expand programmes for elderly people, young people, students, poor people and the middle class. Vote for us and we'll use government to take care of everyone! But most Americans don't want to live in a nation based primarily on caring. That's what families are for.

One reason the left has such difficulty forging a lasting connection with voters is that the right has a built-in advantage – conservatives have a broader moral palate than the liberals (as we call leftists in the US). Think about it this way: our tongues have taste buds that are responsive to five classes of chemicals, which we perceive as sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and savoury. Sweetness is generally the most appealing of the five tastes, but when it comes to a serious meal, most people want more than that.

Right out of the box I’d opine that this is about as ‘Ivy Tower’ as you can get!

I would further ‘opine’ that comparing British conservatives to our own ‘neo-cons’ is like comparing apples to elephants!

The Brits actually HAVE a monarchy, here the pretentious assholes merely pretend to be ‘gods elect’.

Why do our ‘working people’ vote for obviously odious conservo-nazis?

The answer is as simple as the spineless Jellyfish the Libertarians run as democrats!

The obnoxious Republicans may be repugnant but at least they stick together!

The spineless democrats stood and watched while the conservo-nazis stripped the working class of union protection and off-shored 99% of our productive capacity.

THAT’S WHY THERE ARE SO MANY INDEPENDENTS!

You don’t need ‘psycho-babble’ to figure this one out.

Did I mention I suspect the wing-dings at AlterNet (who are supposedly ‘progressive’ are in fact Libertarians?)

That is why we see so many articles like this one.

The Brits would call it ‘rubbish’ (and we should too!)

Which brings us to the union busting conservo-nazi’s victory in Wisconsin yesterday.

It seems the mindless masses in Cheeseland think the only time a politician should be ‘rebuked’ is when he is guilty of mal-administration.

So it appears the ‘union busting’ falls right into the governor’s bailiwick as far as the people of Wisconsin are concerned.

Again, we only have the ‘pretend democratic’ view on this upset. My gut tells me the corporate owned media reported the outcome they desired and flipped the public the middle finger!

But we have no way to prove that…and there will be no such thing as an independent probe to examine the ballots, not going to happen.

Pseudo-democracy is already on mighty shaky ground as it is.

We don’t need ‘proof positive’ that the media has been ‘fixing’ elections for the past hundred years to surface just months before the next presidential bid.

Yeah, it is little ‘demonstrations’ like yesterday that make the working voter throw in their lot with those who would exploit them.

Because ‘choice’ has become an illusion, although I must admit, the ‘illusion’ is wearing thinner all of the time.

Look at the choices being presented to us this November…a ‘burn and churn capitalist’ and a make believe Democrat who doesn’t deserve a second term.

Yes, we need look no further than the current occupant of the White House to learn why ‘working people’ vote against their own interests…because voting their interests produced nothing…and that’s the hell of it good citizen.

We come full circle to the ‘what can we do about this’ problem?

They have already shown us the outcome of the November elections and sadly that outcome is ‘more of the same regardless of who they crown.

And most of us have had more of this than we can stand.

Will we make it to November?

We’ll see.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Intellectuals?

Greetings good citizen,

Markets around the world are rallying today, must be those ‘bargains’ because there isn’t a rational reason. Hell, despite their best efforts, the Euro-zone is still on course to crash and burn.

(It’s a damn good thing all money is funny or it would have happened already!) But (for reasons of their own) they’re waiting.

Which is to opine that the underlying plan, as it stands, appears to be to ultimately ‘pull the plug’…probably when they’re ready to ‘crackdown’.

Which is to say I still haven’t backed away from the idea of a ‘coup’ (this time in the open) where the ‘conservo-loonies’ will take charge from the currently paralyzed elected government.

How ironic is it good citizen that some people will welcome this, er, shift from participatory government and will hail the new ‘accountable’ take charge government.

Even if their first act is to ‘pardon/hold harmless’ the parties responsible for destroying the global economy.

Or, under the ‘never waste a perfectly good crisis’ meme, they start prosecuting the long-term unemployed for ‘theft’.

That should make ‘em real popular!

Not that they give a crap, heck, you know they’re doing this for their own good.

Er, YOUR own good!

Not that any of this shit is going to change:

More Young Americans Out of High School Are Also Out of Work
By CATHERINE RAMPELL

A new survey finds that those without a college degree have dismal job prospects and considerable obstacles blocking improvement.

Economix Blog: How Certificates Can Lift Income


European Central Bank Leaves Rate Unchanged at 1 Percent
By JACK EWING 32 minutes ago

The central bank also said it would maintain its program of low-interest lending to Euro-zone banks through the end of the year.

Stocks on Wall Street Jump 9:33 AM ET

Greece Warns of Going Broke as Tax Proceeds Dry Up
By LIZ ALDERMAN

Officials in Greece said that despite the latest bailout, the government faces a shortfall of 1.7 billion euros because tax revenue and other sources of income are rapidly disappearing.

Europe Is Ready With Aid for Spanish Banks, French Finance Minister Asserts

Tighter Banking Bond Is Proposed in Europe

See, hellacious news and the markets are climbing outrageously, WTF!

Isn’t it nice that they feel compelled to point out that they’re ‘ready’ to bail Spain out?

Again, damn good thing all money is funny or that would NOT be happening!

The part you should be wondering about is where are these fuckers guns and masks?

This whole ‘broken bank’ charade has ‘stick ‘em up’ written all over it!

The question without answer is how much money can they print before it all turns to confetti?

I’d opine there is already ‘too much’ after four years of global life support for a workforce that produces nothing!

Stocks are going up for a reason…just not a good one.

Companies are profitable, but again this is totally due to ‘funny money’.

And those of you who don’t’ think so don’t understand money!

(Ironic how circular logic actually applies here!)

How people can deny that all money starts and ends with a ‘Shazam’ boggles the mind!

It all starts with a piece of paper, damn it!

But we are up against ‘stupid is as stupid does’ once again.
And this is a case of ‘what stupid believes.’

I realize I did not close the loop in yesterday’s post were we asked ‘where are our intellectuals’?

The right certainly enjoys bashing them at every opportunity but they never identify them, which is beyond weird.

Once again we are left to ‘assume’ that they are referring to those who don’t agree with their ‘lofty ideals’ and their ‘chaste world-view’ (how fucking sad is it that their motto is ‘Kill ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out!’)

So, who are this generation’s ‘intellectuals’?

Looks like they’re MIA from here.

Has the media kept them from the spotlight while right wing blowhards hogged the stage?

Is El Rushbo supposed to be what passes for a modern day Aristotle?

Or has ‘the church of the poisoned (conservative) mind’ left us bereft of intellectual heroes due to their deep and abiding hatred of thinking altogether?

Which leads us to some final words of advice…

Don’t let the fuckers catch you thinking, they’ll probably kill you for it!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Paradise Lost

Greetings good citizen,

As most of you are aware, I don’t personally scour the web looking for topics to write about…mostly because I don’t see the need.

There are some very good ‘aggregators’ out there who provide some amazing insight on the big picture every day with pretty much ‘one stop shopping’.

Today’s offering is one I haven’t addressed before, it is something that has been conspicuous only by its absence

While most of you don’t have an hour and fifteen minutes to watch the accompanying video, part of the topic of Mr. Hedge’s talk is ‘where are the ‘intellectuals’?

Chris Hedges: Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt


The video starts after the introductions.

"Unfettered, unregulated capitalism...turns everything into a commodity, human beings become commodities, the natural world becomes a commodity, that it exploits until exhaustion or collapse. In essence it cannibalizes itself, and this is the process that we are undergoing."

Chris Hedges


The essence of statism, of the far left or the far right, is to objectify the individual and diminish their value to some measurement held by the state itself.

This is what can turn market capitalism into corporatism and then fascism, often in a reaction against the rising of the people against economic repression of crony capitalism and corruption.

Hedges helps to illustrate this. He is certainly further to the left of my own more centrist views, but I find his perspective interesting. And certainly a refreshing perspective given the corporatist and dehumanizing skew to most modern American dialogue where all creation is weighed in the balance of money.

I’ll synopsize as best I can for those of you who don’t have the hour plus to watch this most enlightening video. (Me, I’ve got nothing but time…sad, isn’t it?)

What I enjoyed most about this particular talk is hearing ideas I’ve been saying for years finally repeated by someone who matters!

What he does is walk the listener through the, er, ‘tearing down’ of the liberal establishment.

Most gratifyingly, he then agrees (with me) that there aren’t any liberals (of consequence) anymore.

He then goes on to point out another major problem I have yet to hear anyone with an audience announce, he goes on to say we DON’T HAVE THE TOOLS TO FIX OUR CURRENT MESS!

Those tools exist on the inside only! If our politicians refuse to clean their own house we can only look on in horror…or take matters into our own hands.

Those are our ‘choices’.

I strongly suggest we hang all of the sitting politicians before we even start to clean up the mess they made.

Troubleshooting 101, FIRST ‘eliminate the cause of the problem’, and THEN clean up the mess!

But I digress!

He goes on to explain how our pseudo-democracy was hijacked by the same people who want to erase ‘the New Deal’.

The most disturbing part of this is the hijackers disregard for the enmity they are creating among the portion of the population that does the heavy lifting.

Which is to ask if the ‘Jack ass Tea Partiers’ realize they are going to be the ‘ingrates’ new/replacement Jack ass?

But let’s back up a step and address the disturbing political meme of ‘those who want to erase the New Deal’.

Long deemed the political equivalent of the electoral ‘third rail’, most politicians have steered clear of the ‘self-funded’ social retirement system.

Now they have the chutzpah to call it an ‘entitlement program’!

(If YOU Paid for it baby, you bet your sweet backside YOU’RE ‘entitled’ to it!)

But NO! These mother-fuckers want to turn the public retirement system over to Wall Street (so the ONLY ones capable of retiring will be the fat cat bankers!)

[Can’t hammer a nail to save their worthless lives but you should see ‘em chisel!]

it should be lost on no one that the current president ‘endorses’ the idea of cutting ‘entitlement spending’ while believing in a ‘strong military’.

You don’t need me to tell you that WE (citizens of the US) have become the biggest ‘sponsors of terror’ on the freaking planet.

Something ‘everybody knows’…

The question following that one would be…what are we going to do about it?

I can always hope but I suspect those behind the destruction of our civilization already know when they squeeze the trigger it will trip a lot of other, er, booby traps.

Which is to opine that the wheels won’t come ‘flying’ off the wagon of civilization, they’re gonna get ‘blown off’.

If they’re not ready they’re gonna get crushed…

But so is everybody else.

Oh, one last tidbit, a nagging little thing Mr. Hedges said in citing an appearance on NPR concurrent with an interview of Paul Krugman.

A disturbing comment, made more disturbing by the notion of ‘if this is the ‘prevailing attitude’ of the so-called intelligensia, was how climate change was going to trump the financial crisis.

Could this be the thinking behind the ‘engineered collapse’ of Western civilization?

I sure as hell hope not.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Cyberwarfare Alert!

Greetings good citizen,

As you might expect, markets are down (for the moment…but you know those ‘silly’ traders, they are unable to resist a ‘bargain’ for very long…

So how sad is it that ‘equities’ are (still) overpriced by a factor of ten? (Which is to ask 'what bargain?)

Um, on a more ‘indicative’ note, oil is down to $80 a barrel and Gold is back over the $1,600 an ounce mark. (Just because I call it funny money doesn’t mean the people holding it ‘acknowledge their folly’. Their wealth is YOUR stupidity!)

Just another factor to ponder as our trip down the ‘rabbit hole’ proceeds.

Newspapers Cut Days From Publishing Week
By CHRISTINE HAUGHNEY

Some daily newspapers are cutting printing and delivery schedules and shifting their emphasis to the Web, but industry analysts warned that such moves might alienate once-loyal readers.

What’s wrong with THIS PICTURE, good citizen?

For those of you unfamiliar with newspaper industry, the subscription cost of having the paper delivered barely covers that expense, paying the reporters and the printing staff is totally reliant on ADVERTISING.

Which should pop the bubble of all of those ‘free press’ idiots!

THERE IS NO SUCH THING!

Worse, a press ‘reliant’ on advertising revenue is/becomes the ‘captive’ of the advertiser!

Guess where non-existent housing, auto and the whole spectrum of ‘personal advertising’ leaves the newspaper industry?

People who are living hand to mouth can’t afford the basic $30 it costs to run a ‘personal ad’ in the paper, especially when you can post it on Craig’s list for free!

Which is to say that ‘cascading systemic collapse I’ve been warning you about, well guess what? It’s begun!

But this is a ‘natural side effect’ of the mis-management that allows the wealth of a society to flow (unhindered) ‘to the top’.

Even more (I am torn between which Alice in Wonderland reference to use) ‘rabbit-holeish’ is the asshat running under the Republican banner is calling for even more tax breaks and ‘free-trade agreements’ to lube an already badly damaged chute!

We (the US Public) are ‘bleeding out’ and these assholes want to cut us again!

And, naturally, the corporate owned media remains mute while it cannibalizes itself.

(How much more ‘Wonderland-like’ does it need to get good citizen before you wake the fuck up?)

Um, now it’s time for a quick trip ‘off the reservation’ as we visit another ‘Doomsday scenario’:

Expert Issues a Cyberwar Warning
By ANDREW E. KRAMER and NICOLE PERLROTH

Eugene Kaspersky says his discovery of the Flame virus adds weight to his warnings of the grave dangers posed by governments that manufacture and release viruses on the Internet.

I won’t ‘candy coat’ it good citizen, if we ‘lose’ the web, life as we have come to know it literally vanishes.

You don’t believe that…everything is ‘backed up’ right?

Wrong. The people who believe funny money is real have drunk their own kool-aid and believe that ‘redundancy’ is expensive (and therefore unnecessary!)

Even worse, any virus worth its salt would take out the back-up systems too.

The destroyers of our society, in their haste to ‘reduce headcount’ have automated the infrastructure of all of western civilization.

Ironically, the only places that MAY escape (total) devastation are in remote Africa or Siberia.

Link time (since we’re going off the reservation, we may as well go ‘all the way’)

IF you were an ‘oligarch’ seeking to extend your control beyond ‘peak oil’, the only sure way to do this is to ‘kill-off’ the ‘surplus population’.

What would be the ‘most efficient’ way to achieve this goal?

By pushing the useless masses into their own cesspool.
[Turn off the lights and the phones, sit back and watch the ‘fun’!]

Totally ‘interconnected’ are the power and communications grids. Better yet, it’s 2012!

How ‘handy’ is that? The Ancient Mayans ‘predicted’ the end of the world…which, suspiciously, NOBODY has a handle on…

Which is not to opine that Mayan ‘end time’ prophecy is any more reliable than Christian end time prophecy!

But at least the Christians left the time factor open so it could be dragged out on an ‘as need’ basis. If the Mayan prophecy doesn’t come through, they have the Christian one in their back pocket as back-up!

Turn off the electricity and the phones for a single week and our civilization would be on the brink of collapse, two weeks and it would take years to rebuild.

Worse, some areas would have to be ‘re-conquered’ from the despots who seized power after the lights went out!

And some of them may not go ‘quietly’.

But the ‘aftertimes’ are a story for another day.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

I’m sure you can find your way back to the reservation from here…and nobody would blame you if you didn’t want to go back.

Money

Greetings good citizen,

Today’s offering is stunning example of ‘how sad is it’ when a 12 year old has to school us on what everybody should already know…but we dismiss it because that’s not how it works in ‘real life’.

Basically, her message was that banks create money “out of thin air” and lend it to people and governments at interest. If governments borrowed from their own banks, they could keep the interest and save a lot of money for the taxpayers.

She said her own country of Canada actually did this, from 1939 to 1974. During that time, the government’s debt was low and sustainable, and it funded all sorts of remarkable things. Only when the government switched to borrowing privately did it acquire a crippling national debt.

Borrowing privately means selling bonds at market rates of interest (which in Canada quickly shot up to 22%), and the money for these bonds is ultimately created by private banks.

Do you see the ‘missing piece’ of this puzzle?

It’s the piece where the corrupt get paid for that which is ‘free’ to them.

Then there’s the ‘lending money at interest’ part.

Considering how money is ‘conjured up out of thin air’ where the FUCK does ‘interest’ come in?

Because this youngster is correct, without ‘interest’ there wouldn’t BE a ‘Banking Industry’.

You know those chiseling fucks who keep putting the screws to you whenever you attempt to do something to make your life better.

Sometimes it’s an act of mercy, you really don’t know what you’re letting yourself in for, other times its malicious. Remember about there always being ‘room at the top’? Well what they don’t tell you is you have to commit a variety of class ‘A’ felonies to get there!
(If you’re not in line to inherit it from someone who got theirs ‘the hard way’.)

The thing to keep in mind is, at the end of the day; ALL money IS ‘funny’.

This ‘practice’ of clubbing/extorting others for what is free to you is what is destroying our civilization.

Don’t believe that, just take another look around you.

That grinding poverty you see? It is the ‘product’ of ‘insufficient interest’.

Just as those few oases of riches your eyes land on are due to a surplus of ‘interest’ (sadly it is mostly ‘self-interest’!)

Did I mention that all societies on this planet are run by criminals?

A pretty ‘reckless’ claim to make but, once again, the ‘truth’ is ‘self-evident’.

We all know it even if nobody dares to say it.

And the criminals don’t care if you know they are self-serving monsters…what they DO care about is anyone trying to stop them from behaving just the way they want to.

You and I can squawk all we want about how ‘unfair’ things are because you and I DON’T have the power to change things.

(Just because the ‘goon squad’ doesn’t pay you a midnight visit after you post a rant DOESN’T mean they don’t notice who is complaining and who isn’t…they know!)

The risk we ‘noisemakers’ take is when something DOES happen, depending on what it is and how it goes down, we might be pulled in for…er, ‘questioning’.

And in these sad days, questioning is just a half a step away from getting ‘disappeared’.

But anyway, once again I digress.

Back to ‘funny money’.

There is another ‘worse’ at play here. The infamous ‘they’ don’t care if you know the money is all funny so long as you keep ‘playing the game’.

What makes times like this ‘difficult’ is the inability of the average citizen to make ends meet on a paycheck that barely feeds them.

Which begs the other question, if all money is funny then why are the ‘rich’ so ‘stingy’?

Which isn’t the correct question, the rich are stingy because they are…wait for it…you know this one…I tell you all of the time!

STUPID!

The rich actually believe ‘money’ is ‘real’ (mostly because they can physically touch and hold ‘money’s placemarkers’.)

Which is to point out that, boy are the Goldbugs going to be surprised (actually shocked) when they learn their carefully guarded ‘precious metals’ are worthless!

Past performance DOES NOT guarantee future value!

And I’m going to tell you right here and now that gold WILL NOT be ‘monetized’ in the future if I have anything to say about it!

Yes, good citizen, look at how recklessly I keep sticking my neck out/shooting my mouth off about some mighty highly regarded ‘myths’.

And, in the words of a co-worker, who sagely opined that our civilization is just barely removed from a bunch of superstitious peasants’ They’re going to lynch you if you keep talking like that!

And he’s probably right. It also doesn’t matter that I didn’t coin the term Goldbug (which is interchangable with the term ‘Goldnut’!)

It is these myths that perpetuate our continued enslavement!

If we are to move forward we must shed these misguided beliefs!

(I sincerely hope that was not too much for some of you to wrap your heads around in one session.)

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Mis-directed

Greetings good citizen,

Needless to say the destruction of our civilization proceeds unhindered. In yet another demonstration of serious cognitive dissonance, the corporate owned media once again has the chutzpah to state that the ‘wizards of money’ [The Fed] will now be motivated ‘to Act’…whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean?

Which naturally begs the question of what the fuck they’ve been doing for THE PAST FOUR YEARS?

Anyway, on with this morning’s snapshot:

Jobs Report Makes Federal Reserve More Likely to Act
By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM

Federal Reserve officials are reluctant to provide further stimulus, but the slowing rate of job creation suggests they have not done enough.

Feeble U.S. Job Growth Stokes Fears of Global Slowdown
Economix Blog: Jobs Forecast Shifts the Electoral Outlook

President Obama, at a stop at Honeywell International on Friday said, “Our economy is still facing some serious headwinds.”
Slowdown in Growth Could Reshape Fight for Presidency
By JONATHAN WEISMAN and MARK LANDLER

Friday’s weak employment report was a potential turning point, focusing new attention on the economic implications of the partisan standoff over tax and spending policy.

Interactive Feature: Jobs Remarks: A Comparison
Wall Street Tumbles 2% on Jobs Data

Interest rates are already effectively zero so what CAN the Fed do besides print money?

And you know what happens when they start shoveling money out of the open doors of helicopters, don’t you?

We get Zimbabwe Time (featuring Zimbabwe prices like bottled spring water, only a billion dollars a bottle!)

Yes good citizen, the world becomes a very frightening place when we ALL become billionaires.

Hell, it would be a nightmare if we were all to become overnight millionaires thanks to the gross mismanagement of the people (nominally) ‘in charge’.

But don’t take my word for it, you’re going to find out for yourself, ‘firsthand’ because the fuckers still refuse to fix the economy they broke by exporting pretty much all of Western Civilization’s JOBS!

This brings us to the ‘second half’ of today’s ‘snapshot’.

What the fuck does ANYONE think ‘Willard’ Mitt is going to do differently?

I have heard an ‘empty-headed’ Republican vocally supporting the Romney presidency because he ‘believes’ the old Mittster ‘understands’ business.

I mean, maybe he’s right. He sure took enough of ‘em apart (not that any of them survived being ‘dissected’, after the ‘profitable pieces’ were sold off.)

This is Presidential choice number two…not that it has ever been the President’s job to create jobs.

And at the end of the day, this is what the corporate owned media will come out with.

It’s not the President’s job to create jobs!

But it IS his/her job to PROTECT jobs!

How is BOBO doing in the job protection department?

Federal payrolls are DOWN roughly a million head since he took office but you know conservatives, they HATE ‘big government’…

What’s that? He’s NOT a conservative? Oh, he’s a fucking whacko Libbie, that explains everything! The Tea Party will be rallying around him come November…

What’s that? Oh, the Tea Party thinks he’s ‘not an American’. Well, maybe they can convince Arnold to run now that he’s served his time running California into the ground!

WHAT! The Governator isn’t an AMERICAN Either!

What kind of party are these conservo-loonies running around here anyway?

[All joking aside good citizen, it is time to seriously ask ‘what the FUCK is going on around here?’]

Even more disturbing is how the whack-job conservatives are always blaming things on some imaginary people they call ‘liberuls’.
Seriously good citizen, can YOU point at a single ‘liberal’?

I’ll bet you can’t.

Just a hint but the D after the name no longer identifies ANYONE as being a ‘true liberal’.

Just as the only thing the R after someone’s name tells you today is they are:
A.) Old and
B.) Psychologically unbalanced.

The pop quiz for today is:

‘Would you vote for a political candidate who had signed a ‘no new tax’ pledge?’

If you would then you are demented and should be disqualified from voting because you obviously don’t understand what government is about.

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

We have too many voters who are clueless about the ‘purpose of government’, just as they are clueless about the purpose of commerce.

This will not stand.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

(Disclaimer: Under A Simple Plan there ARE NO TAXES…but there are also no candidates for ‘elected office’ so you’ll never be asked to vote for one!)

Depressing

Greetings good citizen,

What a lovely day in the neighborhood we’re enjoying, naturally we’re enjoying it for all of the wrong reasons. Stock markets around the globe are ‘cliff-diving’ for the third consecutive day but I don’t own any stock so, eh, who gives a shit?

But, weirdly, this doesn’t bode well for that fleeting thing we watch the stock market for…

And what IS that fleeting thing we try to track via shareowner prices?

A little thing we call ‘social stability’.

Why watch the stock markets as a monitor of social stability?

Because if ‘Richie Rich’ is doing poorly then the shit tends to run ‘downhill’ and your chances of getting a raise goes straight to hell with it.

That’s the trouble with a system that depends on wealthy ‘doing better’ so they may decide to ‘spread it around a little’, feeding the ‘prosperity cycle’.

Let’s have a little look at how our pal Richie is doing:

Weak U.S. Hiring Adds to Global Gloom
By SHAILA DEWAN 10:06 AM ET

The United States economy gained a net 69,000 jobs in May, the Labor Department said, a dismal showing as the unemployment rate rose to 8.2 percent.

Watch how quick the idiot Conservo-loonies are to pin this economic ‘bump in the road’ on the incumbent.

Ironically, they’d be correct (because he has done nothing to fix the irreparable financial sector that melted down four years ago.) But that’s not why the Conserv-tards will blame him, they will blame him for not giving people who already have more money than they know what to do with, MORE tax cuts!

Funny how insanity never corrects itself.

Worse is how the corporate owned media keeps repeating this same sad one note tune.

Economix: Reaction to May Jobs Report, in Tweets
More From Economix: | Spring Slowdown | The Fed | Lagging Recovery

Wall Street Falls on Jobs Data 10:16 AM ET

The immediate reaction from Congressional leaders to the grim jobs report signaled little movement toward breaking the long, partisan deadlock over fiscal policy.

Euro Zone Unemployment Rises to a Record 11%
By DAVID JOLLY 9:11 AM ET

Ireland on Friday appeared headed toward adoption of the European Union’s fiscal compact, but stocks fell in Europe after data showed rising joblessness in the euro zone.

Car Sales Keep Up Healthy Pace
By BILL VLASIC 16 minutes ago

Chrysler reported a 30 percent gain in new-vehicle sales for May, Ford said its sales climbed 13 percent and General Motors reported an 11 percent increase.

Apparently people who are not paying their mortgage have plenty of money to buy new cars, funny how one thing makes room for the other.

Because inflation is OOC and NOBODY (outside the ‘executive suite) is getting a raise…so that leaves ‘the homeless’ to support the auto industry!

It may also explain why, in a time of sky-high fuel prices that SUV’s are still as popular as ever.

How sad is it that ‘living space’ now trumps fuel economy?

Which is another ‘red flag’ signaling just how ‘unsustainable’ our current social model has become.

The thing YOU need to wrap your head around is just how far those currently on the top will go to retain their top dog status?

Would they go as far as to ‘exterminate’ you and yours?

Just an opinion here but I’m gonna ‘opine’ yup!

In a heart beat good citizen.

It’s this goofy kind of economic calculus that throws the ‘supply and demand’ theory right out the window.

A strange thing occurs when people start using murder to ‘re-balance’ the equations,once you cross that line,‘more’ is always ‘better’.

It brings us back to the basic question of whether or not a whole planet is enough for a single capitalist?

Ironically, it isn’t…because in order to be a ‘capitalist’ (and not just a monkey marooned on a planet by itself) the capitalist monkey needs slaves to harvest the planet’s resources for him.

Can’t be a capitalist without slaves.

Now there’s a thought to chew over in your mind!

Funny how that ‘freedom’ thing keeps biting us in the backside when we least expect it.

So as the week draws to a close and ‘Massa’ lets you have your ‘two whole days off’, (unpaid), sit back for a moment and contemplate just how ‘free’ you aren’t.

If you dare.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner