Morning in America

Greetings good citizen,

Still not up to regular posting but I thought you shouldn’t miss this excellent post by the incomparable Digby.

As many are noting of late, ‘the Reagan Revolution’ serves as a historical benchmark in the, er, ‘hi-jacking’ of the US government and its subsequent criminal takeover.

The ‘run it into the ground’ policy of the criminals (who disguised themselves as conservatives) becomes evident when we examine what they fondly refer to as “Morning in America.”

Tens of millions of US jobs flowed out of the country while imports flowed freely to hide the drop in GDP.

Our entire economy for the past 35 years has been an exercise in ‘creative accounting' (that has resulted in global bankruptcy.)

Which will soon manifest itself in the collapse of the global supply chain.

Sorry if I seem to be ‘cutting to the chase’ but my powers of concentration are greatly diminished by this disorienting shift change.

Shorter posts will likely be the rule until the situation stabilizes…or should I say ‘if the situation stabilizes.’

Time is running out.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Hell in a Bucket

Greetings good citizen,

Nothing is more poignant than the daily headlines for driving home the point that our civilization is scroomed!

We need look no further than the top story in the business section for proof:

DealBook
Obama’s Nominee for S.E.C. Tries to Allay Skepticism
By BEN PROTESS

Mary Jo White, President Obama’s choice to lead the agency, is telling Congress she can avoid conflicts of interest despite her Wall Street clients.

I’m not kicking the poor woman in the shins but who do you place in a sensitive position like that who ISN’T an ‘insider’?

My ‘problem’ with this choice is not the chosen but the chooser, who has proven to be Wall Street’s boy from day one.

We have already witnessed some well qualified appointees resign in frustration…and if this woman has integrity it is likely she too will go the way of her predecessors.

But it gets better:

The budget cuts scheduled to start taking effect on Friday would affect all facets of the federal budget, including aviation and military spending.
Austerity Kills Government Jobs as Cuts to Budgets Loom
By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM

The federal government is cutting back at a pace exceeded in the last half-century only by the military demobilizations after the Vietnam War and the cold war.

Graphic: Austerity Is Here

Um, that last headline is a bit deceptive considering the government has been spending at an ‘unprecedented clip’ since this whole ‘War on Terra’ thing got started.

How ironic is it that if they were serious about reducing ‘terrorism’ in the world they’d make their most promising progress by slashing their own budget?

Not only has the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan lasted TWICE AS LONG as WWII but it has also been TWICE AS COSTLY!

Yet you don’t hear the conservo-whackos screaming to cut the Pentagon’s budget, do ya?

No, instead we get headlines like this:

Durable Goods Orders Drop as Aircraft Demand Falls
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS 47 minutes ago

A sharp drop in demand for commercial aircraft caused overall durable goods orders to drop 5.2 percent last month, but orders for core capital goods like machinery, equipment and software rose 6.3 percent.

How ironic is it that the same sort of ‘phenomenon' accounts for the recent ‘surge’ in home prices (after years of flat lining.)

When the whole economy is deader than a door nail, a 5% reduction in orders for commercial aircraft really spanks you in the bottom (line that is.)

Housing prices are up ‘relative to what they were last year’ (and not 6 years ago when things were booming.

It may be ‘the biggest increase’ SINCE then but what are they really saying?

I saw some twit last night proclaim that if they could keep up the pace the current ‘inventory’ would be ‘sold out’ in just 4 months.

What a crock! Guess who’s buying all of the houses?

Why it’s our old pal Flipper, (betting he’s finally going to find renters at long last!)

Guess what?

Flipper is…WRONG AGAIN!

And like the last ‘bubble’, Flipper is going to ‘walk away’ when the renters fail to materialize.

But our next headline shines a light on the current state of economic affairs:

DealBook
Regulators Block Ryanair’s Latest Attempt to Buy Aer Lingus
By JAMES KANTER 19 minutes ago

As the European Commission blocked the attempt by Ryanair for competitive reasons, the Irish carrier reiterated that it would appeal the decision in court.

In a ‘saturated market place’ the most you can do to boost the bottom line is ‘buy market share’ (by buying our the ‘competition’…then sticking it to the customers!)

Turning down this merger is the right thing to do…however, it isn’t over yet.

If you can’t soak the public you can always take the sure route of soaking the government:

EADS Profit Soars 19 Percent
By NICOLA CLARK 7:28 AM ET

The company says it made about $1.56 billion in 2012 thanks to commercial aircraft sales, even though its military segment struggled amid budget troubles in the United States and Europe.

What’s the old saying, ‘war is good business.’

Wrecking stuff then getting paid to rebuild it…can’t beat that racket.

It’s a ‘self-reinforcing circle’.

Better shake a leg here, we’ve still got a lot of ground to cover.

Fed Defends Stimulus in Testimony to Senate
By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM

Ben S. Bernanke told senators that the central bank saw its campaign as necessary and effective, reassuring them that its benefits outweighed any risks.

Economix Blog: Does Bernanke Have the Best Inflation Record? | By Unemployment, Not So Good
Home Sales and Bernanke Calm Market

How does Helicopter Ben justify bailing out the world’s financial system (to the tune of 22, we don’t have ‘em, trillion) to a financially incompetent legislative body?

If there were a half a brain between the 500 plus of ‘em, they’d know the system was bankrupt without even asking ‘the Bernank’…

The only reason the home sales are calming the market is because they (the corporate owned media) believes the average citizen is too stupid to figure out there is no ‘recovery’ in the housing market (nor will there ever be!)

And again we are expected to be shocked by this latest revelation:

News Analysis
Italian Deadlock Rekindles Anxiety About Euro Zone
By LIZ ALDERMAN and JACK EWING

The apparent political gridlock signaled by its elections raises new fears that the euro crisis may be far from over.

European Markets Dip Amid Uncertainty
Italian Parties Maneuver After Electoral Split

Does ANYONE truly believe the Euro-zone crisis is over, seriously?

Then we have this ‘gem’:

Officials have recommended that nuclear plants like Nine Mile Point in New York install new safety equipment.
Post-Fukushima, Arguments for Nuclear Safety Bog Down
By ERIC LIPTON and MATTHEW L. WALD

A dispute is developing between the nuclear industry and regulators, and among the regulators themselves, about the necessity of more safeguards at power plants.

Graphic: Tasks Remain for the American Nuclear Industry

Let’s ‘cut to the chase’…the only ‘safe’ nuke is a cold one…but if you shut down the nukes without first installing adequate renewables the entire grid would shut down in less than a day.

Better to let the candle remain lit than to curse the darkness.

And finally:

DealBook
Wall Street Pay Rises, for Those Who Still Have a Job
By SUSANNE CRAIG 6:39 AM ET

The average cash bonus for people employed in New York City in the financial industry rose by roughly 9 percent, to $121,900, in 2012, the New York State comptroller said.

U.S. Banks in 2012 Posted Highest Profits Since 2006,

The Litany of Woe was quite detailed today, a rather good ‘capture’ if I must say so myself.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Amazing!

Greetings good citizen,

The Dow is regaining yesterday’s losses (if only because they can) which is to point out the obvious, that NOTHING has been done to ‘fix’ the economy…although (apparently) YOU aren’t supposed to be ‘concerned’ about that…

Like my ‘economic desert’ scenario, a ‘broken economy’ spells disaster for the residents thereof.

Currently the global financial system is on central bank life support and is (thanks to ‘creative accounting’) doing much better than the ‘real economy’ as this article demonstrates:

U.S. Banks in 2012 Post Highest Profits Since '06 – FDIC
By REUTERS
Published: February 26, 2013 at 11:54 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. banking industry in 2012 recorded its highest earnings since before the 2007-2009 financial crisis, according to data released on Tuesday by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

The FDIC said the industry's full-year earnings were the second-highest on record at $141.3 billion, an increase over 2011 of $22.9 billion, or 19.3 percent. But the head of the agency said growth would probably slow this year, and warned that bank profits could dive if Congress does not reach a federal budget agreement that prevents automatic cuts.

Bank earnings peaked in 2006 at $145.2 billion.

Much of the earnings growth in 2012 came from banks reducing the amount they set aside in case of losses on loans, the FDIC said. Banks also saw gains on loan sales and higher servicing income.

"While there is still room for further income growth, we don't expect the pace of earnings growth to continue at these levels," FDIC Chairman Martin Gruenberg said.

Um, se habla ‘creative accounting’?

Why does it look to me like the predatory banks are looting the public treasury?

Facts on the ground tell us that banks should be shedding people like mad, they don’t have the ‘income’ to support the people they have because a vast majority of their customer base is a serious credit risk.

Again we bash into the solid fact that fifty percent of US families are on some kind of food assistance program…why is that? Because cheapskate capitalist employers won’t pay their people enough to buy food AND keep a roof over their heads!

[Have to ‘stay competitive’ you know!]

Followed by, “What does how big a bonus I got have to do with anything?”

Same thing in the financial sector…how can these criminals reward themselves for screwing up the global financial system beyond repair?

We’re back to the need to re-define why you get a bonus!

(Because these guys clearly don’t understand the concept.)

Worse, they seem to think we don’t either…

The world clearly isn’t falling apart (Because all money is Funny) but that’s the ONLY reason. (Otherwise we’d be up to our buttocks in reptiles right now!)

Let me explain it a bit more clearly…because you won’t hear this from one of their stooges or anyone else who can get within a thousand miles of a major media outlet.

The banking ‘business model’ is broken!

There aren’t enough customers to keep these monsters afloat.

ALL of the banks (around the entire world) went bust in December 2007.

And until the global economy is re-balanced, they’re NEVER going to be profitable again!

It’s simply not there to be had!

Interest rates locked at Zero are ‘self-explanitory’. There is no money in banking…So, how did the banks have one of their best years since the crash?

Can you say ‘Loot’?

Not that this really matters…what you SHOULD be losing sleep over is that sudden stop that will occur when they decide to ‘derail’ our existing civilization.

(And they’ll do this to throw the law off of their trail.)

Do we have weeks or days remaining good citizen?

The nasty problem here is even they don’t know.

You have to keep your eyes on the exits and even then there will be about a jillion ‘false starts’.

Like the market going up and down for no discernable reason.

I preach to the choir when I point out that our civilization is already ruined.

I was watching the run up to WWII on the Military channel last night and experienced serious ‘déjà vu’.

Nobody dares prosecute the criminals for fear of what they’ll do…

Well good citizen, they’ve already bankrupted us…And A Simple Plan can stop that in its tracks (because it only deals in real assets in real time, none of this derivative nonsense.)

But the decision to change from today’s predatory system to tomorrows equitable one remains to be made…

And guess who gets to make that choice?

YOU!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

M & A

Greetings good citizen,

As it has for the past quarter century, the global marketplace continues to shrink and the capitalists continue to call this ‘progress’.

Now let’s conduct a thought experiment to see how many of you understand what’s happening.

You all know what the objective of the game of monopoly is, don’t you?

And nothing yet invented demonstrates capitalism in action better than this straight-forward board game!

The objective is to ‘bankrupt’ all of the other players.

Now marvel for a moment, once over the game’s popularity and marvel again that it is the WORLD’S primary operating principle!

NOT that you had any say in this…our self-professed ‘betters’ laid out the ground rules and have ‘gentlemen’s agreements’ regarding who gets what, when so nobody (except the hired help) really ‘loses their shirt’.

What do you make of this headline?

TOP NEWS
DealBook
With Confidence on an Upswing, Mergers Make a Comeback
By PETER LATTMAN

Merger activity has suddenly roared back to life, with the latest megadeal being the Berkshire-led acquisition of Heinz.

Berkshire and 3G Capital in a $23 Billion Deal for Heinz

Are you ‘happy’ that you are being pushed closer to insolvency by being denied yet another choice?

The Heinz ‘merger’ is bad enough but after losing Eastern and United now we see American Airlines ‘merging’ with US Air…and what do you suppose the first thing they’ll do will be?

Why it will be ‘eliminate redundancy’!

Tens of thousands will lose their jobs and my, oh my what a fine job market it is to be cutting thousands of ‘service industry’ jobs in!

What do you suppose corporate controlled Washington will do about this?

Same thing they’ve always done, of course…launch more drones and have the cops beat more protesters!

Here I am, protesting ‘monopolies’ when, under A Simple Plan there will only be one, er, ‘airline’ (But you can fly for free! Restrictions apply…) just as other public utilities will be operated ‘monolithically’ to better serve mankind.

The difference between monopolistic ownership and no ownership is the ‘profit’ angle.

Under A Simple Plan, public utilities (like Airlines) exist to ‘serve the public’, under capitalism they exist solely to enrich the capitalist.

The ‘affordability’ of airfare never even enters the calculation (under the current system.)

If you’ve gotta get there quick, they’re the only game in town and you’ll pay what they tell you to pay…until the pool of paying customers shrinks to the point where it can no longer support the industry, then the industry will collapse catastrophically!

But that’s capitalism for ya!

(Actually it isn’t ‘for you’; it’s for them!)

Back to the original question, does the sudden appearance of the Heinz merger mean the M&A drought has ended?

HA!

Seriously?

Well, you can believe what you like but Bubba, there isn’t enough ‘market share’ out there to fill a thimble, but knock yourself out…try to buy more!

We can only assume the ‘logic’ behind the take-over of Heinz is not only is it a condiment, it can double as a soup!

Heck, hit it with some Italian seasonings and you’ve got spaghetti sauce, who knew!

Which represents the ‘danger’ of capitalist tampering. The drive to maximize applications often ruins the product across the board.

Which is to say after ‘cost reducing’ the production process the product will taste like watery tomato juice and there will be no ‘going back…’

Am I belittling one of the fundamental processes of the free market? You bet I am!

If you’ll allow me the liberty I would backstep to yesterday where we discussed money’s one useful function.

And yet Heinz will be ruined in a futile attempt to squeeze more ‘money’ out of the basic set up.

If you like your ketchup, best to head out and buy a few cases now, before they wreck it chasing ‘imaginary’ gains.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Disgusted!

Greetings good citizen,

The destruction of our civilization proceeds apace but the top of my head exploded when I read this nonsense!

The New Tao of Trade: Don’t Just Import from China. Sell There.

Like many American businesses fighting to keep their prices competitive, Vision Quest Lighting turned to China about six years ago. It now imports about a sixth of the two dozen to three dozen parts required to make its lighting fixtures from there. Recently, however, the Long Island company began to see China in a different light: as a sales target. The growing economy of the world’s most populous nation made it ripe for Vision Quest’s architectural lighting fixtures, many custom-made for hotel and restaurant chains like Hilton and KFC.

When one such client, a clothing retailer, ordered 1,500 lights for five stores, Vision Quest’s chief executive, Larry Lieberman, decided it made sense to start manufacturing lights in China. Other American clients, he reasoned, would no doubt begin placing similar orders as their chains sought to capitalize on the world’s fastest-growing consumer market. And with high-quality products from the West coveted in China, Mr. Lieberman also imagined his products on display in Chinese showrooms.

And yet, selling goods in China is not easy. Mr. Lieberman made the 1,500 lights only to see them gather dust in a warehouse in Guangzhou for more than four weeks because he had not yet established a local enterprise approved to process sales.

Pssst! We wouldn’t need to listen to IDIOT SUGGESTIONS LIKE THIS if we castigated (as well as castrated) our legislators for letting work that was originally here to migrate there!

And guess what? Once energy becomes scarce, the ‘cheaper there’ vanishes…and the ‘silent majority’ will be standing here, holding on to an empty bag, unable to afford the goods we ‘used to make for ourselves’.

What seems to be the main problem here?

Looks to me the problem is men like Skippy, who the moment things get busy, the first thought that pops into his teeny little mind is “I could really rake it in if I could farm this out to China!”

Take it from a manufacturing man, 1,500 pieces ain’t nothin, most shops would turn the work away. You also aren’t going to see appreciable saving in those quantities. You aren’t buying enough material to take advantage of the volume discount.

How will Skippy ‘get lucky’? He’ll be directed to a manufacturer who is subsidized by the Chinese government to do work that originates in the US.

That’s where Skippy will reap his profits from and the Chinese shop owner will make his off of the government…and the government will get theirs by charging the Americans more interest as they subsidize predatory capitalism around the globe.

As our ‘standard of living’ descends into the basement and we start moving back towards the trees, the shrinking mindless and clueless ‘middle class’ will continue to wonder why their purchasing power keeps shrinking.

I must admit, I started this post in an ‘agitated’ state, marveling over how we have gotten this far with 20 CENTURIES OF FAIRY TALES being passed off as history.

We are either A.) incredibly STUPID or B.) unbelievably tolerant…(to the point of stupidity.)

I think we’d all be at least a little cranky when the only two possible answers arrive at the same conclusion.

I got started on this (what’s wrong with my species) jag considering the ‘gold paradox’.

True, the stuff is ‘rare’ but it is also ‘useless’ if we consider its electrical properties weren’t discovered until the advent of the electronics age in the 1950’s. It’s been considered ‘precious’ since pre-historic time, a fact that has given rise (and a degree of credibility) to ancient alien theorists.

And this preciousness is based solely on its resistance to oxidation! Shiny gold stays shiny! Whoop-de do!

Well, look at where this ‘silliness’ has landed us?

A global economy on the verge of cascading systemic collapse…because boneheads like Skippy think farming things out to China is a ‘good idea’!

FULL STOP!

What does Skippy’s desire to make pockets full of cash through outsourcing and the value of gold have to do with one another?

Our value system is bankrupt! We have been ‘hoodwinked’ into pursuing ‘representative wealth’ while others step in and simply take the stuff worth having from us.


This is like the people ‘upset’ by Russia’s sudden ban on the adoption of Russian children by US citizens…don’t they think there are enough kids right here in the US that need a good home?

[They’re going to Russia so they can adopt White kids, as sad as that is.]

Perhaps this would be a good time to bring up the issue of not knowing anybody who ISN’T in some kind of fertility program (because they squandered their prime reproductive years chasing their capitalist enforced goals?)

Why isn’t the media paying any attention to this crisis…or does the corporate owned media think (the rabble being unable to reproduce) is a ‘good thing’

I’m too disgusted to continue…

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Still here!

Greetings good citizen,

Aren’t you sick and tired of being treated like an idiot? And not just by everybody but by the one source you should be able to trust…the fucking media.

Gunplay aside, how do we deal with nonsense like this?

TOP NEWS
Obama Presses Stripped-Down Plan to Limit Tax Increase
By JACKIE CALMES and JONATHAN WEISMAN

President Obama, conceding that a "grand bargain" for deficit reduction with Speaker John A. Boehner is unlikely, called for Congress to approve a more modest measure by year's end.

Video: Fiscal Cliff Looms

Seriously good citizen, if there were any such thing as a ‘fiscal cliff’ we would have fallen off/over it five years ago when the financial markets seized solid!

As I have stated many times before, our global financial markets are bankrupt and nothing short of the ‘reset button’ can save them…

So what the fuck have the thieves been doing for the past five years?

(Actually they’ve been doing exactly what you suspect they’ve been doing, living good while the fraud lasts!)

It brings us full circle with the issue of, “If the >One Percent took over, would they tell us?”

Why many of you would opine the answer would be yes, they have no compelling reason to…just as Voldemort was perfectly content to let the rest of the world believe he didn’t exist, so it is with the One Percent.

I keep pointing to the ‘ease’ with which the ‘masters of all they surveyed’ stepped down from the throne (and locked themselves in their treasuries) without a fight.

The greatest gift they ever gave themselves is the illusion of someone else being ‘in charge’.

Think the ‘kings’ are gone? Think again.

Where has the law gone? It has gone to the men whose word IS law…a world we rebelled against long ago…but failed to extinguish the poisonous roots of a persistent and noxious weed.

Again, it was mistakenly ‘assumed’ that ‘dethroning’ them was all it took to remove them from power.

Not so because even ‘deposed’ royalty still has, er, ‘followers’ (mostly those who owe their positions to the royals.)

Odd how denouncing the old ways is enough to protect what loyalty gained for the shiftless…and being shiftless, they play both ends against the middle, switching allegiance as necessary.

Under A Simple Plan these ‘shifting allegiances’ won’t help because power will be in a constant state of flux.

Those who have it this year will be somewhere else next year…by design.

Naturally, only the mentally competent will be permitted to become citizens under A Simple Plan, it you test positive for the gene that causes ‘zero-empathy’ you will be, er, ‘isolated’ from society, placed where you can not harm others or yourself.

Sounds harsh but there is no cure…and no amount of ‘coaching’ can change that.

(If we fail to cull the predators from among us our civilization will be consumed…how’s that for your ‘dry, intellectual opinion’?)

How do I get you to respond to the gravity of the situation?

I can’t.

Are you scared?

You damn well better be!

The psychopaths in charge will soon run what passes for our civilization off a cliff and, as we have seen, it won’t be a financial one, per se.

News Analysis
Events Recall a More Bipartisan Era, and Highlight Gridlock of Today
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR

A political opposition that is still bitter about President Obama's victory remains unwilling to compromise on social policy, economics or foreign affairs.

So I ask you again, good citizen…

Are the >One Percent compelled to tell us that they have hijacked our government?

Obviously not (nor is it in their interest to do so.)

Instead you are expected to believe that we are suffering from the ‘side-effects’ of our ‘imperfect’ system of government. A system made more imperfect by those with a vested interest in convincing the pubic that ‘self rule’ is a ‘bad thing’.

(The alternative of voting for representation will be no representation at all.)

Look at all of the criminals the current system ignores! (Mind you, these criminals are the same people that don’t want you to have a say in your own affairs!)

They are, in fact, our politicians…corrupt to the core and criminals one and all.

But you didn’t need me to point that one out, did you?

Under A Simple Plan there are no more ‘politicians’ nor are there any ‘elections’. The only thing you’ll cast a ballot for is to weigh in on what should or should not become law of the land.

(And there is a very specific process to safeguard against ‘heads I win and tails you lose’ legislation from even getting proposed, much less put up for consideration. That’s what Leadership is about.)

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Flawed

Greetings good citizen,

Once again I belabor the obvious when I point out how deeply ‘flawed’ our current system of commerce is…and before you make any wise cracks I DO have a ‘better way’, it just won’t work too well for people who need to exploit other people for their living!

Worse, our ‘broken’ social model is about to get worse as capitalists wrestle with ‘mandated health insurance’ (Instead of ‘single payer’ which would wipe the health insurance industry out.)

But no! For some unfathomable reason, Mr. Obama thought we all WANTED ‘RomneyCare’ and derailed any debate over ‘socialized’ healthcare.

Now the rubber is meeting the road and look at how those stalwarts of ‘The American Way’ are dealing with it…

Like many franchisees, Robert U. Mayfield, who owns five Dairy Queens in and around Austin, Tex., is always eager to expand and — no surprise — has had his eyes on opening a sixth DQ. But he said concerns about the new federal health care law had persuaded him to hold off.

Bob Bellagamba, who runs Concorde Limousine in Freehold, N.J., says there is too much uncertainty about the new law.

“I’m scared to death of it,” he said. “I’m one of the ones sitting on the sidelines to see what’s really going to happen.”

Mr. Mayfield, who has 99 employees, said he was worried he would face penalties of $40,000 or more because he did not offer health insurance to many of his full-time workers — generally defined as those working an average of 30 hours a week or more. Ever since the law was enacted in 2010, opponents have argued that employers who were forced to offer health insurance would lay off workers or shift more people to part-time status to compensate for the additional cost. Those claims have drawn considerable attention — and considerable anger in response — in recent weeks.

John H. Schnatter, the chief executive of Papa John’s, the pizza chain, said some franchisees were likely to reduce their employees’ hours to avoid having to provide coverage. And an unhappy Denny’s franchise owner in Florida warned that he would raise prices 5 percent as a “surcharge,” adding that disgruntled customers could offset that by reducing their tips.

Two things jump out at you from this excerpt.

The first is how slender the profit margins are in much of the economy (especially in ‘hospitality’)

The second doesn’t really slap you in the face BUT our new ‘Service Economy’ is pretty much based on PART-TIME EMPLOYMENT!

No lie good citizen, 50% of the US workforce is ‘part-time, no benefits.’

So what is Mr. Employer going to do?

Which is really irrelevant because as I keep reminding you, IF YOU CAN’T LIVE ON WHAT YOUR EMPLOYER PAYS YOU ITS NOT THEIR PROBLEM, IT’S YOURS!

This, good citizen, is where ‘cascading systemic failure’ begins, with customers who can’t afford the goods.

No /(too few) customers and you can’t hand out pay increases so your people have to ‘cut back.’

Try to beef up your bottom line by raising prices and you start dropping customers…the same thing happens when you reduce the services provided/quantity vended, people start hunting for better value.

Remember this is all because if you can’t make a profit you can’t pay your creditors (and THEY will put you out of business, if only to staunch the bleeding…)

So how do these operations stay in business?

Short answer, THEY DON’T!

In a sight that should amaze everyone, you pass by strip mall that is wholly owned by those bastards at the mighty ‘For Lease’ corporation and some idiot is erecting a new one right next to it!

What (except the prospect of selling these ‘commercial condo’s’ to (beyond stupid) ‘entrepreneurs’) possesses these builders to behave so irrationally?

Well, dum-dum has to pay for his excavator somehow…how fucking sad is that?

But this is precisely the environment our debt-driven social model creates…one that squanders endless resources needlessly! (Worse, they are NOT endless, as we are rapidly finding out.)

Well, it’s December first, only twenty more days until 12/21/12…

Of course many of you thought it would be game over a dozen years ago when the glitch of computers being unable to detect the new millennium would shut Western civilization down; taking the world as we know it with them.

Well, we’re still here…I haven’t detected anything ‘unusual’ in the night sky nor have I witnessed any increased seismic or meteorological activity so forgive me for being doubtful of catastrophe striking three weeks from today.

Even the biblical ‘apocalypse’ will be preceeded by some pretty tough to miss ‘signs’.

Not that I have any truck with spirit in the sky (who is the ‘primary justification’ for allowing the One Percent to exist.)

Funny how one thing leads to another, thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Big Hole

Greetings good citizen,

There was no joy in Mudville today as all three major indexes bled profusely…although in a somewhat familiar move, the European exchanges shot up vertically just before the NYSE opened for business.

Um, ironically the news out of the Eurozone isn’t, er, ‘encouraging’, making the irrational upswing look that much more suspicious.

Protesters Encircle Spanish Parliament
By RAPHAEL MINDER 4:04 PM ET

As thousands besieged Parliament, Spain’s two largest regions took steps that underscored their deepening economic troubles and displeasure with the government’s austerity plans.

This, as we can see, was followed by a long cherished US tradition:

Spain Recoils as Its Hungry Forage Trash Bins for a Next Meal
By SUZANNE DALEY

As the economy worsens, some residents of Spain are turning to garbage bins in search of discarded food.

And some of you think capitalism is broken…where else do they throw away perfectly good food that you can take for free (if you can get into the dumpster…some capitalist bastards lock ‘em now. It’s THEIR trash until the garbage man hauls it away!)

Talk about ‘hard hearted’.

Wonder what would happen to the Spaniard who padlocked his garbage?

Probably don’t want to know…

And speaking of ‘not knowing’…what do you suppose ol’ clueless here is trying to accomplish?

Mayor of an Ailing Indiana Mill Town Turns to a Chicago Veteran for Advice
By MONICA DAVEY

Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson, struggling to revive Gary, Ind., has sought advice from many quarters, including from former Mayor Richard M. Daley of Chicago and his graduate students.

Gary Indiana was a big GM town…when GM went belly up, it shed it’s…er, ‘affluent’ workforce as GM folded up shop and headed East…(all the way to China.)

How many times do I need to explain the economic desert? If the douches in charge are ‘allowed’ to abandon ship for the cheaper there, there is NO HOPE.

You can’t punch holes in the bottom of your boat and expect it to still float.

But the greedy few don’t care. They plan on abandoning the boat and building themselves a new one once they get to China.

Because of THIS Bullshit:

Riot at Foxconn Factory Underscores Rift in China
By DAVID BARBOZA and KEITH BRADSHER

Analysts say the nation's workers have become more aware of their rights but have few outlets to challenge or negotiate with employers.

You know the old saying good citizen, scratch a communist and you’ll find an ‘aristocrat’ (a creature not too far removed from a bureaucrat.)

Aristocrats are the administrators of bureaucracy. The live to ensure the rules are followed, meticulously, in the way THEY see fit.

Even the communists divide themselves into the ‘good people’ and the unwashed riff-raff who need to be told ‘everything’ (because they aren’t smart enough to think for themselves…just like the paper pushers under capitalism. If not for them nothing would get done!

Which is how we end up with this nonsense:

I.M.F.'s Call for More Cuts Irks Greece
By LIZ ALDERMAN and LANDON THOMAS Jr.

Greeks are increasingly angry over the prospect that public salaries and pensions will be sharply cut again in a last-ditch bid to secure a 31.5-billion-euro loan installment.

Geez…you have to wonder, after all of this time, what CAN the Greeks cut back on that they haven’t cut back on already?

Worse, WHO is going to get that 31.5 billion euros and what are they going to do with it?

I mean is this still ‘bailing out’ the Greek banks?
Eventually they are going to go all ‘Iceland’ on ‘em and burn the fuckers down!

Just like QE3…who the hell does Bernanke think he’s fooling?

It certainly isn’t the general public. We all KNOW the banks are fried. They’re broke and they’re being kept open solely to collect what WE owe them!

We can only wonder who thinks this is a good idea?

Time for a change good citizen…

And neither Obama nor Romney can fix this…because they part of ‘the problem’.

How long are we going to let these thieves ‘extend and pretend’?

Just asking…because when they pull the rug out from under us we are going to find a huge hole.

But it will be rapidly dealt with.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Failure to plan = the plan to fail!

Greetings good citizen,

It sickens me to see our alleged ‘saviors’ pulling the same shit the capitalists pulled when they took over the ‘sustainable economy’.

We need to ‘build communities’. Isn’t that the SAME STUNT the capitalists pulled when they established industrial drudgery as a ‘way of life’ they were ‘building communities’…until they got their lapdog legislators to open the borders for them!

Then they forgot all about ‘community’ or the fact that ALL ECONOMIES ARE LOCAL!

Just look at how the scumbags dress up their new initiative!

In what has come to be called the Cleveland model, the goal is to leverage the city’s existing anchors—in this case, hospitals and universities—to provide a long-term market for new worker-owned cooperatives while providing living-wage jobs and access to business ownership to employee-owners situated in surrounding low-income, largely African American communities. The first point is to recycle purchasing power to achieve greater stability. The second—and critical—point is to target firms owned by people who live in the community and create an ongoing stabilizing effect.

The first of Cleveland’s planned network of cooperatives opened its doors for business in September 2009. The co-op industrial-scale laundry is a state-of-the-art, ecologically green commercial facility capable of handling ten million pounds of health-care linen a year. Its sophisticated business plan provides all employee-owners a living wage and health benefits. After seven years on the job, if current projections are realized, each employee will have a $65,000 equity stake in the enterprise.

Read my lips: THERE IS NO CAPITALIST SOLUTION TO OUR NOW DEFUNCT SOCIAL-ECONOMIC MODEL!

The ‘projected increase’ in ‘employee/stakeholder equity’ is based on the old, unsustainable idea of ‘perpetual expansion’ (which ties directly to ‘the greater fool dictum’.)

Second huge mistake is to continue believing the old model is still operating…it is NOT!

Um, the ‘anchors’ of our ‘new economy’ are oddly the same as the anchors of the old economy, the university/hospital system!

Tell THAT to all of the kids walking around with student debt larger than most people’s mortgages and NO FUCKING JOB!

In order to ‘fix’ our broken economy the ‘employer/employee relationship’ HAS TO GO!

A job ISN’T a ‘reward for being humble and hard-working’; IT’S YOUR FUCKING RIGHT! IT’S YOUR ABILITY TO SUPPORT YOURSELF AND YOUR FAMILY IN A CIVILIZED MANNER!

Being deprived of this right is where ‘outlaws’ come from.

Savvy?

Which, interestingly enough, makes those who deprive you of your ‘legal’ ability to support yourself, ‘criminals’.

Yes-siree Bob, creating criminals is (and should) be a crime!

So why do our self-professed ‘saviors’ persist in parroting known broken solutions as the answer to our dilemma?

‘More of the same’ is after all, no change whatsoever.

If we keep doing the same things the same way, we will solve nothing.

Did I mention that we are on the path that leads to extinction?

And believe you me, there are more than a few of our so-called leaders who think it is precisely the path we should be on!

Worse, they believe we don’t deserve better, partly for electing and following leaders like them!

Which is to predict that the new broom will sweep amazingly clean while merely restoring us to a state we should have already been in!

Which is to (again) opine that our current society is mismanaged to a stunning degree.

And now the Progressives are telling us that the same old, same old, disguised as new and innovative is going to be the ‘way to go’.

And it is…if you’re a FUCKING MORON!

This is the exact same tired bullshit that HASN’T WORKED for thirty years but if we call it ‘community development’ that will make somehow, magically everything all better…idiots!

Which is to point out that I don’t suffer fools gladly. I will also apologize to the majority of you who have not been ‘cozened’ into thinking the Progressives are our new champions.

The Progressives are Libertarians and Libbies are only a half a degree removed from the conservo-loonies.

So the above proposal is just one more version of the ‘tough luck’ plan we are currently suffering. It’s not the conservo-loonies fault YOU took the ‘wrong courses’ in college and can’t find a job.

And this supposedly ‘export-proof’ economy…(still owned by capitalist investors) is going to save us all from the ravages of the global race to the bottom!

Gotta have those ‘free markets’ to keep the competition razor sharp. Not that there’s a capitalist alive who likes competition, they prefer monopolies.

And that’s what they have today, funny how that anti-trust stuff all goes away once you buy the justice system of the world’s nuclear superpower…

Which is just one more thing to ponder as the walls come crashing down and your told, (for the umpteenth time) that if you don’t like it go suck a rock…

And you know what THAT rhymes with…(infantile bastards.)

Thanks for letting me inside your head.

Gegner

Bombshell!

Greetings good citizen,

Once again we see a major scandal being broken over the weekend so come Monday they can pretend it is ‘old news’.

This is one of those ‘why are they telling us this?’ kind of stories.

The implications here go deeper than just some ‘isolated criminal behavior’ at ‘some’ European banks. We’re talking the Fed here, that ‘private corporation’ that manages ALL of the United States money!

And those crooks were ‘wise’ to this criminal activity…and probably traded on the information as well!

You would imagine they would ‘dummy up’ and pretend the criminals were just ‘too slick’ for the remnants of the regulatory apparatus they have left…but no.

Instead we get a ‘confession’.

Yeah we knew and no we didn’t do anything about it.

You’d almost expect a statement like that to be followed with a gruff ‘not my job, man.’

Here’s the ‘reveal’:

The New York Fed learned about concerns over the integrity of Libor in summer 2007, when a Barclays employee e-mailed a New York Fed official, saying, “Draw your own conclusions about why people are going for unrealistically low” rates. Barclays wrote in a September report, “Our feeling is that Libors are again becoming rather unrealistic and do not reflect the true cost of borrowing.”

But the New York Fed thought the reports amounted to market chatter and did not provide definitive proof of widespread manipulation. “In the context of our market monitoring following the onset of the financial crisis in late 2007, involving thousands of calls and e-mails with market participants over a period of many months, we received occasional anecdotal reports from Barclays of problems with Libor,” the New York Fed statement said.

The regulator started to identify real problems with the interest rates several months later. In April 2008, the Barclays employee mentioned to a New York Fed official, “where I would be able to borrow” in the Libor market, “without question it would be higher than the rate that I’m actually putting in.”

That same day, New York Fed officials wrote in a weekly internal memo that banks appeared to be understating the interest rates they would pay.

Okay, if we hop back into our playback machine we’d find that the wheels had already come flying off the banking system by the Spring of 2008, the ‘gimmicked’ libor was done to protect the bankers from having to write down their shakier assets to a more realistic level.

Not that they would have anyway, the libor only served as ‘eyewash’.

Which is to point out the obvious, a small draft, a tiny one in fact would be all it would take to blow down the ‘house of cards’ the bankers built.

The Great Recession and the ongoing economic hardship…all caused by the bankers, who were in fact ‘covering’ for the capitalists who are using the crisis to cement their monopolies!

Which is to again, belabor the obvious. We need some Law and Order now!

And we won’t get any justice from the SAME ASSHOLES who looked the other way when all of this was going down…nope. We have to kick things off by ‘purging’ them first!

Make no mistake about it good citizen, we will not see either Law or Order as long as either of the two ‘lapdogs of the >One Percent’ hold the reins of power. [Conservative or Liberal, take your pick.]

While the dreamers among us pretend all we have to do is ‘roar’ loud enough, the more practical take a more pragmatic view.

Those reins won’t get surrendered without our pointing a gun at their head.

Anything less will be a charade.

Again, the results will speak for themselves.

Which is to ask, what do YOU think should be the ‘penalty’ for betraying the public trust? (Technically called Treason.)

The longstanding punishment for this crime is death by hanging…but the criminals running this pop stand have re-written a lot of the rules.

Which only strengthens the case for returning to the ‘old way’ of doing things.

Now, the question to ask yourself is whether or not this ‘admission’ by the Fed constitutes a violation of the ‘public trust’…

They KNEW there was criminal activity and they took no action…so the crime, as it stands, is one of ‘omission’. They didn’t act when they should have.

Treason is a real slippery slope, those guilty of it would like to make it a crime to accuse anyone of committing treason…that pretzel logic problem of being a traitor for turning a traitor in.

Which is to arrive full circle at a large question, good citizen.

We have definitely arrived at a time when we desperately need to discuss the kind of society we want to have…and the operative word here is WE!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Dogs and Foxes

Greetings good citizen,

Today’s Business headlines remind me of the old joke, ‘What’s the difference between a Dog and a Fox?’

The answer is another famous quip…Budweiser doesn’t brew enough to drink her pretty…by the time I get that drunk I pass out.

Which is to refer us to another tired cliché…the one about putting lipstick on a pig.

Let’s get parsing, shall we?

HSBC to Apologize at Senate Hearing
By MARK SCOTT and NEIL GOUGH 49 minutes ago

HSBC, Europe’s largest bank, will apologize to American authorities next week for failing to prevent potential money laundering activities from taking place at the bank, according to an internal memo.

Remorse somehow never quite goes far enough…and we can all appreciate that what they’re ‘sorry’ about is not what they did, but getting caught doing it.

So how much you want to bet the ‘usual outcome’ will be the end result?

If ANYTHING happens at all it will be a small fine and a slap on the wrist (with a wet noodle.)

Sidebar, I was bringing in the mail yesterday and I noticed the postage stamps now read ‘freedom’ or ‘justice’ with the added subtext ‘forever’ underneath and I couldn’t help but wonder if the stamps were foreign…

Euro Watch
Glimmers of Hope Fail to Lift European Markets
By STEPHEN CASTLE 9:27 AM ET

European industrial production rebounded unexpectedly and Italy's short-term borrowing costs dropped, but the mood remained fragile.

Spain’s Leader Plans New Austerity Steps as Miners Clash With Police
Italy’s Leader Calls Economic Efforts a ‘Very Tough War’
Weak U.S. and European Economies Weigh on Asia

Industrial production ‘rebounded unexpectedly’…once again we are faced with the question of ‘degrees’ or as they say ‘define rebound’?

Usually this ‘variation’ in the data turns out to be a math error but if the error is favorable they will run with it to see if they can’t improve ‘market psychology’.

I will once again remind you that facts don’t matter, it’s all about ‘perception’.

It’s the old ‘spoonful of sugar’ routine minus the Mary Poppins song and dance bit. As you will note, they’re ‘selling’ austerity over there.

Wall Street Opens Lower
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS 36 minutes ago

Shares fell despite better-than-expected data on unemployment claims.

U.S. Jobless Claims Plunge to Lowest in 4 Years 9:30 AM ET

If you keep making right turns you will eventually return to your original course…and yes good citizen, it was the fourth consecutive ‘down day’ for the NYSE that made the question of the difference between a dog and a fox pop into my head.

And the rest sort of followed that initial mental hiccup.

We all know that falling claims have nothing to do with the actual unemployment climate.

There are no jobs nor will there be any for as long as the global race to the bottom, driven by ‘more with less’, ends.

Fear of Year-End Fiscal Stalemate May Be Having Effect Now
By REBECCA BERG

Economists say uncertainty over tax increases and spending cuts set to take effect at the end of 2012 could be cutting into economic growth already.

Graphic: Measuring Uncertainty Over U.S. Policy

We all KNOW what’s going to happen after November and we’re ‘bracing for impact’.

After the elections oil/energy prices are going to climb through the roof and stay there. It’s happened every time right after the run up to the elections end.

How unfortunate is it that we elect our leaders just before Winter sets in?

The Fed’s chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, has said that additional action should not be taken lightly.
Fed Is Torn on Tipping Point for Action
By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM

An account of the June policy meeting shows concern over slow growth was weighed against uncertainty about the consequences of new intervention.

How many ways can you say, ‘We don’t have any ammo left?’

The question is how long can they keep up the charade and the answer is…not much longer.

U.S. Trade Deficit Declines in May
Funny how if you don’t sell the last load of imported bullshit you don’t need to import as much next time…and the ‘Trade deficit’ magically declines as a result! (fucktards)

Scott Zaremba, owner of Phillips 66 in Lawrence, Kan., which has begun offering regular cars fuel that is 15 percent ethanol.

In Kansas, Stronger Mix of Ethanol
By MATTHEW L. WALD

Ethanol makers want to offer a blend of fuel that is 15 percent ethanol rather than 10 percent. At a Phillips 66 station in Lawrence, Kan., E15 is catching on.

Perhaps more pointedly is how none of the farmers in Kansas own a fucking lawnmower (that ethanol is destroying!)

Great for corn farmers receiving huge subsidies…sucks for everyone else…besides the disturbing implications of stepping up the production of food into fuel, definitely not ‘sustainable’…not that the fucking capitalist cares.

So will tomorrow answer the question of ‘what’s the difference between a dog and a fox? When the stock market inexplicably rises…for no apparent reason except ripping the rest of us off?

When stocks appreciate for no apparent reason YOU lose. What you’re seeing is the ‘depreciation’ of your purchasing power. While the already wealthy unjustly enrich themselves further.

If we don’t put a stop to this blatant robbery we will all find ourselves well and truly.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Red Flag

Greetings good citizen,

Markets soared this morning, tacking on almost 2 percent on news that the Euro-crisis has finally been solved…for the 18th time.

I mean fool me once, shame on you! (Try to) fool me eighteen times and you’re flirting with being committed to an insane asylum.

Which is to ask, how sad is it that these 'fools' are the ones in charge of the bankrupt global economy?

Europeans Agree to Use Bailout Fund to Aid Banks
By STEVEN ERLANGER and PAUL GEITNER 7:49 AM ET

The agreement, reached early Friday after all-night talks, cheered financial markets, but analysts warned that crucial details needed to be worked out.

Global Markets Soar on European Breakthrough
By CHRISTINE HAUSER 35 minutes ago

Stocks on Wall Street surged after European leaders agreed to use bailout funds to recapitalize struggling banks directly.

What’s changed here, good citizen? This sudden deal to print their way out of bankruptcy has disaster written all over it.

What these banksters need is to be wiped out and shut down!

Paying for their ‘mistakes’ is counter-productive on all fronts. Paying for it with ‘funny money’ is even worse!

Then we have the downright freakish ‘stock market’, tacking on trillions of dollars of, er, ‘alleged value’ because of some disastrous decision-making.

So what are we ‘seeing’ here and now?

We may find ourselves looking back on this turning point as the day ‘hyper-inflation’ got its start.

Thus is this post titled ‘Red Flag’.

Remember this day for the ‘consequences’ it will trigger.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Oopsie!

Greetings good citizen,

Well, one thousand plus one and it’s still the same old, same old…although today’s ‘main distraction’ is ‘all of a sudden’ JP Morgan may have lost not 2 billion dollars but 9 billion!

Little ‘oopsie’ there with the decimal point apparently.

Sadly, push come to shove, it’s a ‘thousand trillion’ (a.k.a. a quadrillion) they’re trying to fill in with an eye-dropper, a few billion at a time.

Er, more pathetically, the fucktards were betting on the ‘soundness of the banking system’ (and they LOST, how fucking sad is THAT?)

Anyway, here is today’s first snippet:

Wall Street Stocks Drop
By REUTERS 26 minutes ago

Financial shares were in focus, with JPMorgan losing ground on a report that recent trading losses could reach $9 billion and with Barclays down after a probe into interbank lending rates.

So what are we looking at here? Are investors ‘suddenly’ worried about the ‘soundness’ of JP Morgan? Or is it those screwy ‘credit derivatives’ that nobody understands?

JPMorgan Trading Loss May Reach $9 Billion
By JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG and SUSANNE CRAIG

As JPMorgan has moved rapidly to unwind the position in credit derivatives, internal models at the bank have recently projected losses of as much as $9 billion.

Jeez, I don’t recall the corporate owned media mentioning that Sir Jamie told Congress last week they might be ‘a few BILLION off’ in their original projections when he testified before them last week… Maybe I missed it…(I’m going to bet that Congress did too!)

Again we are faced with the question of ‘what did they know and when did they know it?’

If you subscribe to my theory (and too few do) then NONE OF THIS is an ‘accident’.

Switch mental gears with me here as I explain yet another fundamental fact, every time you find yourself in 'Bizarro world' there is absolutely no guarantee that you’re going to find your way back.

And guess where you’re ‘stranded’ right now?

Let’s have a look at what’s going on ‘across the pond’:

European Summit to Test New Alliances Among Leaders
By STEPHEN CASTLE

As European Union leaders prepare for talks on Thursday, the traditional French-German power center is fraying, with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, more isolated than ever.

Er, speaking strictly from the ‘rules of evidence’ point of view, the arrow of guilt tends to point to the party that ‘benefits’ from a catastrophe.

Um, Germany’s market niche is luxury goods and it should surprise no one that since the ‘beneficiaries’ of the global race to the bottom are rabid consumers of luxury goods that the German economy has emerged relatively unscathed, comparatively speaking.

Whether or not this is a massive coincidence or not is another issue entirely.

A German’s company’s attempt to buy the NYSE casts a suspicious shadow but thanks to near impenetrable secrecy statutes surrounding the banking, er, ‘community’ we have no concrete evidence.

Our last tidbit is either the economy’s greatest conundrum or the umpteenth bottom call for the housing market (this month…pick one.)

After Years of False Hopes, Signs of a Turn in Housing
By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM

Roughly six years after the housing market began its longest and deepest slide since the Great Depression, home sales and an increase in sales prices indicate that the market is recovering.

Left to our confused minds is the contradiction of falling salaries and rising prices…it is ‘counter-intuitive’ to say the least.

But, if we look to our example (the Banana Republic model) we would see that they indeed have a ‘robust’ housing market (albeit it a tiny one, indicative of the size of the pool of ‘qualified buyers’.)

So is the ‘bottom’ in for a much-diminished US housing market?

I think we’re still a long way away from any ‘concrete’ settlement of the housing issue.

It is my feeling that the currency markets will have to collapse first, perhaps several times before it is determined how many Yuan you can get for your stack of lumber.

For those of you who are a little slow on the uptake, the center of Western Civilization has been moved to Beijing (where capitalism at the point of a gun reigns supreme.)

Not that we aren’t inches away from the same thing over here.

It only stands to reason since the first buds of an ‘economic renaissance’ are starting to blossom on the borders of the economic desert, in US factories staffed (with some) US workers.

Whether or not this will be enough to stave off a revolt is totally academic at this point, It is my personal opinion that they have let the economic desert grow too large.

Could we ‘rebuild’ our lost manufacturing capacity?

Of course we could…standing athwart that goal is the intrepid capitalist who wouldn’t tolerate the ‘competition’. Companies like Wal-Mart can’t ‘compete’ with a direct manufacturer, they have to pay a middle man to obtain their imported bullshit.

And there is NOTHING cheaper than buying direct!

This is why the cheaper there doesn’t exist…and why all of these capitalist wankers are guilty of treason for throwing tens of millions of US workers out of their jobs (and stuffing their pockets with their pension funds!)

But that’s like closing the barn door after the horse has run off…not that these cretins shouldn’t be tracked down and punished to the full extent of the law!

But naturally, I digress.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Mirror, mirror...

Greetings good citizen,

Sometimes your target for the day presents itself to you before you’ve had a chance to look at what else is happening in the world, not that I commonly choose the top headline to pontificate upon.

Most often my topics are subjects I’ve expounded on before like last week’s story about cops cuffing kindergarteners’

"She was kicking and screaming and fighting and in hysterics," Croft said. "At that point my daughter ran up to her against TSA's orders because she said, 'My daughter is terrified, I can't leave her.'"

The incident went on for maybe 10 minutes, until a manager came in and allowed agents to pat the girl down while she was screaming but being held by her mother. The family was then allowed to go to their next gate with a TSA agent following them.

Croft said that for the first few nights after coming home, Isabelle had nightmares and talked about kidnappers. She said TSA agents had shouted at the girl, telling her to calm down and saying the suspect wasn't cooperating.

"To a 4-year-old's perspective that's what it was to her because they didn't explain anything and she did not know what was going on," Croft said. "She saw people grabbing at her and raising their voices. To her, someone was trying to kidnap her or harm her in some way."

A buddy of mine has been urging me to apply to the TSA for work…and I’ve always ignored his suggestion…partly because I’ve worked ‘security’ before and it is full of no-minds like the ones portrayed here!

There’s ‘procedure’ and that’s that!

What kind of a nation terrorizes its own children in the name of safety…or is this really the ideal job for a closeted child molester?

Put a badge on ‘em and the pedophile part becomes academic?

Seriously good citizen, this is the price of sacrificing your freedom for safety.

It was just last week we had full grown policemen dragging kindergarteners out of pre-school in steel cuffs, I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised by the total lack of respect displayed by those too stupid to exercise common sense!

So ‘cowed’ by the dictates of intellectuals who don’t understand what they are asking their subordinates to do that they can’t figure out a four year old ISN’T a threat!

Sadly, this is just another example of what happens when you ‘fail to be specific’.

You shouldn’t HAVE to tell a full grown adult that small children are A.) terrified of strangers and B.) HIGHLY UNLIKELY to present a serious threat to air transportation.

But if you DON’T, this is what happens…and now that kid will be in therapy until she’s an adult…and then some considering how fucked up our ‘do as I say and not as I do’ criminals run things.

Of course, we could dismiss this as being signs of the ‘End Times’ but we still have a ways to go before the bottom drops out, end of the summer before trouble starts and the onset of cold weather before disaster strikes.

Um, and you KNOW neither will have anything to do with the Mayan Calendar!

No, the latest rumbling they’re all grumbling about is how our ‘stabilized’ financial system is going to fall apart…again.

What I find, er, ‘odd’ is that nobody is pointing to the obvious reason why the global financial network is going to ‘crash and burn’ in much the same way the energy situation will play out, too much demand and not enough supply.

TO the ‘odd’ part:

Banks make their money ‘lending’ to ‘borrowers’…the latest ‘credit event’ proved that 90 percent of the population is no longer ‘creditworthy’.

Which means the banks HAVE BEEN MAKING LOANS to, er, ‘less than creditworthy’ customers. (It’s that or starve! They have to make money somehow or the branches would all shut down.)

The latest ‘crack’ to appear in the global financial system is India’s inability to ‘afford’ energy to keep its power plants running.

What do you suppose is going to happen when the price of energy puts Joe the average guy in the position of having to choose between paying his loan or putting gas in his car? Will Joe keep going to his job that doesn’t pay him enough to pay all of his bills?

Now comes the interesting part. The ‘world as we know it is brought to you by…YOU!

It is YOU getting your sorry ass out of bed and going to do what YOU get paid for!

Because if YOU don’t, it doesn’t happen when it’s supposed to happen and the whole works gets fucked up.

Something you will eventually figure out for yourself when you hit the light switch on the wall and nothing happens one fine morning.

I know I (most of the time) belabor the obvious but you can appreciate what happens from our featured item for the day when you ‘fail to be specific’.

Which is why the lack of questions regarding A Simple Plan concerns me. If you don’t ask them now while I’m here to explain the intent behind the various clauses, what’s going to happen when somebody else decides to figure it out for you?

Like the idiots in charge of the TSA…or the child molesters over at Homeland Security.

Naturally, we also have other bad examples of what happens when there is a ‘difference of opinion’ over certain issues.

There are how many different denominations of Christianity out there…and if you pick the wrong one, you’re straight to hell!

So what do you say, good citizen, ready to ‘chat it up’ out there?

Thanks for letting me inside our head,

Gegner

No Pay!

Greetings good citizen,

I apologize for ‘slouching’ yesterday but it’s not like I charge for this, it’s a labor of love.

And speaking of love, yesterday was my wife’s twin, ‘twins’ birthday so I was out of pocket for their party.

Yes my wife is an identical twin and her twin had twins…but so did her baby sister…and the one thing my wife and I have in common is we both have twin sisters!

(So the answer to the question of “is her twin married to your twin?” is an emphatic no! despite such unions recently becoming legal here in Massachusetts, the issues of time travel and bigamy would still arise. Both of our twins were married to other people before my wife and I ever met.)

This can quickly get downright confusing so let’s abandon ‘Gegner trivia’ right here.

Um, let’s begin with Europe’s credit downgrades that happened late on Friday. Left to our already fried logic circuits is whether or not Mr. Market will interpret this as good news or bad?

The downgrades have already elicited the desired effect of renewed pledges of ‘austerity’ from the, er, ‘victims’…

But the question without answer here good citizen is How low can you go?

And we aren’t talking about the Limbo here, good citizen.

Strangle the government hard enough and, er, ‘essential services’ start falling off the table.

The title of this article is “Incredible teachers agree to keep teaching without pay.”

Naturally, it is the ‘bottom line’ that counts:

Not giving these students stability? Massive cuts in education funding by the state. Poverty—"More than 70 percent of its students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches." Crumbling school buildings. And with teachers facing their own economic struggles, it's unclear how long they will be able to keep showing up every day having lost their already below-average paychecks, no matter how dedicated to their students they are. When the state abandons students, there's only so much individuals can do to mitigate the damage.

As we can see here, the bottom line tells us that this effort is probably ‘doomed from the start.

Again, good citizen, this article stops short of even speculating as to what will become of these products of a bankrupt school system?

What do you suppose the job prospects will be for kids who couldn’t complete their elementary school education thanks to the off-shoring ‘tax rebels’?

THIS is the ‘bottom line’ of globalization!

THIS is the ugly face of the growing ‘economic desert’ that NO ONE can survive in!

All so A FEW can be ‘rich’.

You have been cheated out of your civilization…so a few could be rich.

And now you will be forced to accept abject destitution for the fleeting ‘benefit’ of low ‘falling prices’.

You know as well as I that prices (as well as wages) CAN’T drop indefinitely…but that’s not what our overpaid CEO's tell us!

Yes good citizen, we find ourselves in a perilous time were too few are paid way too much for what they have no right to…because they ‘bought’ our courts…(fair and square, or so they’ll insist!)

May they keep insisting right up until we open the trap door beneath their feet…because treason is still treason.

And enriching yourself at the public’s expense is nothing but pure treason!

Government, like commerce, is badly broken good citizen…and the people who broke it see no reason to reverse the damage they’ve done.

They are also, er, ‘disinclined’ to stand trial for their crimes (unless they can do so in courts THEY control.)

Of course there would always be the ‘fear’ that their innocence might be reversed by another, er, ‘less biased’ court.

Thus is it my, er, ‘opinion’ that the mission objective would be to make it so that possibility never happens.

Although it is unclear how they intend to ‘protect’ themselves after civilization has been replaced with widespread barbarism?

Perhaps they think they’re ‘up to the job’…

But we digress and there’s a bigger issue at stake here good citizen.

Today it’s some out of they way county in Pennsylvania, tomorrow it WILL BE YOUR local school district!

During the, er, ‘Great Depression’ there were school systems that ‘cancelled’ entire school years because the funds to pay for the schools weren’t there.

And you can bet your bottom dollar that this problem isn’t confined to Pennsylvania or Jefferson county, Alabama!

Not only have ‘fees’ risen steadily over the past 16 years of ‘Republican rule’…(only those who can afford to pay will ‘get’) but ‘fund raisers’ for every conceivable contingency have become the rule rather than the exception!

What are you gonna do when this sort of thing happens to the school district your kids attend?

Move?

Who are you gonna sell your house to…and how long will it be before the town you move to finds itself in the exact same pickle?

I keep screaming ‘mismanagement’ but nobody is paying attention.

I will say again that NONE of this ‘needs to happen’.

The whole crisis is ‘contrived’ intended to ‘loot’ the banking system while killing off as much of the ‘surplus population’ as possible.

I suspect those responsible for setting this juggernaut in motion will live just long enough to regret it.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner